Once again our country prepares to celebrate America’s first welfare queens, the pilgrims who couldn’t start small business and create jobs without handouts from the native population. One of Donald Trump’s resorts wins this year’s Paul Revere Ringing Those Bells Award for Flagrant Inaccuracy in American History. And while many of you will be observing this holiday by trampling people to death at a Walmart to get your dirty paws on a $150 Acer laptop, we’ll be giving thanks by taking the rest of the week off. See you Monday and have a Happy Thanksgiving! This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, November 24th, 2015:
PRESIDENT: BONJOUR, EVERYONE! WE'LL KILL THE TERRORISTS - Remember when France wouldn't join the war that partially led to all of this! LOL! Axis of Weasel, amirite? Ali Weinberg: "President Obama and French President Francois Hollande recommitted their nations to the global fight against ISIS, but both also set clear limits on how far their military engagement would go. Obama told Hollande the United States stands united in 'total solidarity' with France against the terrorist organization, which he called 'a scourge that threatens all of us.' But beyond some changes on the margins of the United States' participation in the fight against ISIS extremists, the president did not announce any major shifts in strategy in light of the deadly terrorist attack in Paris...His statements, at the beginning of a press conference with Hollande in the East Room of the White House, came after the two leaders met privately in the Oval Office for the first time since the Nov. 13 terrorist attack in Paris that left 130 people dead." [ABC News]
Also, y'know, World War III: "President Obama on Tuesday affirmed Turkey’s right to defends itself after it shot down a Russian warplane that reportedly entered its airspace near Syria. 'Turkey, like every country, has the right to defend its territory and its airspace,' Obama said during a press conference with French President François Hollande." [The Hill's ]
What the hell, is Jeb Bush talking about defense policy or asking to super size it? "Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush urged President Barack Obama to take a more aggressive approach in the fight against the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the deadly Paris terror attacks earlier this month. 'Are we fighting a war or is this a law enforcement exercise? Make it a war,' Bush said during a Tuesday campaign stop in South Carolina." [HuffPost's Igor Bobic]
GOP GOVERNOR, INBOUND! - Steve Beshear is also furiously drawing lines across every "Merry Christmas" he can find and scribbling "MAY OUR EARTH MOTHER BRING YOU NIRVANA THIS MOONTURN." Eli Yokely: "As Kentucky Gov. Steven L. Beshear, a Democrat, prepares to leave office, he is attempting to leave his mark on an issue that has made his state an outlier. On Tuesday, he issued an executive order that put in place an automatic process to restore voting rights to nonviolent, ex-felons once they have completed their sentence -- a move that might allow 170,000 more Kentuckians the right to register to vote. Kentucky is one of four states -- along with Iowa, Florida and Virginia – in which people with felony convictions are permanently disenfranchised in their state constitutions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Last year, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe took a similar action to the one taken Tuesday by Beshear." [Roll Call]
DELANEY DOWNER - The District of Columbia has had enough of homeless people camping in tents pitched behind the Watergate Hotel. Over the weekend, calling the encampment unsafe, the city began clearing the tents after having spent months connecting a dozen tent city denizens with other forms of shelter. The city also erected a fence around the space that had just been vacated. Not everybody left. On Monday, several tents remained beneath a Whitehurst Freeway overpass. James Bannister, 38, said he'd been there for a month and three weeks since finishing a prison sentence for drug charges and isn't ready to leave without knowing where he'll stay. He refuses to go to a shelter. "When the city came to move people, the ones that got up and moved -- they got moved," Bannister said, standing next to his tent, which had been donated by a good samaritan. "The ones that stood their ground is the ones you see out here."
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DONALD TRUMP'S TACKY GOLF COURSE AND THE WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION - "When Donald J. Trump bought a fixer-upper golf club on Lowes Island here for $13 million in 2009, he poured millions more into reconfiguring its two courses. He angered conservationists by chopping down more than 400 trees to open up views of the Potomac River. And he shocked no one by renaming the club after himself. But that wasn’t enough. Mr. Trump also gave its place in history an upgrade. Between the 14th hole and the 15th tee of one of the club’s two courses, Mr. Trump installed a flagpole on a stone pedestal overlooking the Potomac, to which he affixed a plaque purportedly designating 'The River of Blood.' 'Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot,' the inscription reads. 'The casualties were so great that the water would turn red and thus became known as ‘The River of Blood.' … 'No. Uh-uh. No way. Nothing like that ever happened there,' said Richard Gillespie, executive director of the Mosby Heritage Area Association, a historical preservation and education group devoted to an 1,800-square-mile section of the Northern Virginia Piedmont, including the Lowes Island site." [NYT]
Mah Dearest Irma,
I write thee with a weary heart. There's been hard fightin' at Trump Resort, but with God’s grace, and coupons for free shrimp cocktail in the presidential lounge, we will prevail. Give my love to the youngins. Tell them their pappy will come home soon.
*Ken Burns zoom on Donald Trump's hair*
IS IT GOOD FOR THE CRUZ? MARGIN OF ERROR EDITION - Great news for the future "Cruz News on Fox News" host. Sahil Kapur: "Ted Cruz's moment has arrived. Less than 10 weeks before Iowa voters cast the first votes of the presidential campaign season in Feb. 1 caucuses, a new Quinnipiac poll shows the Texas senator statistically tied with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump for the lead in the state. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Cruz is tentatively beginning to take on the brash New York billionaire after months of cozying up. Twice in recent days, the Texan has seized opportunities to distance himself from Trump's policies and rhetoric. First, Cruz disagreed with Trump after the New Yorker expressed openness to setting up a registry of Muslim Americans in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. 'I'm a big fan of Donald Trump's but I'm not a fan of government registries of American citizens,' Cruz told reporters in Iowa...Then over the weekend, he politely chided inflammatory rhetoric from fellow Republicans on immigration…" [Bloomberg]
Unarmed black teens being shot "in essence" - "The Guardian asked Rubio during an interview on the campaign trail in Iowa if the Justice Department should require police departments nationwide to report on excessive use of force and killings by law enforcement. Rubio did not call for a federal database of such incidents, but said they are reported 'in essence' by the media." [Guardian's Sabrina Siddiqui]
WHY NOT JUST THROW PLANNED PARENTHOOD INTO IT, TOO? - And Syrian refugees. Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan: "A new wrinkle is coming to the debate over the future of the Export-Import Bank: The politics of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Congress next month is expected to resuscitate the government credit agency that's been shuttered since July. But senators from both parties are pitching a condition: that applicants for loans essentially vouch support for the Israeli economy in order to be approved. The move, described by multiple sources, is meant to counter a pro-Palestinian campaign to undermine Israeli exports because of its occupation of the West Bank and blockade of the Gaza Strip." [Politico]
MASSACRE OF HUMANITARIAN AID WORKERS A TOTAL WHOOPSIE - Joseph Goldstein and Eric Schmitt: "The American airstrike that destroyed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz last month was the result of human errors, failures in procedure and technical malfunctions, according to military officials who have been briefed on the military’s internal investigation...Two other military officials briefed on the military’s investigation said the Special Operations AC-130 gunship that destroyed the hospital was intended to target an entirely different compound several hundred feet away that was believed to be a Taliban base of operations in the city." [NYT]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here's a cat stalking human prey.
COMFORT FOOD
- Dog films wedding video.
- King's College Chapel is a place we want to visit.
- How to cook a Thanksgiving meal.
TWITTERAMA
@JackShafer: Amnesty for the Millennials
@AdamSerwer: Here Are The Best Uppercuts, Dropkicks And Chokeholds You Can Use On Your Annoying Relatives This Thanksgiving
@froomkin: Obama cites Statue of Liberty, a known Democrat.
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