Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/p>\n
* I might have a little more confidence in the Iraqi prime minister if he didn’t seem to hate being the Iraqi prime minister<\/a>. From a recent interview: “I wish I could be done with it even before the end of this term. I didn’t want to take this position.”<\/p>\n * Following up on a report that found capital punishment is costly to taxpayers and serves “no legitimate intent,” New Jersey state lawmakers are moving forward<\/a> with a plan to abolish the practice. A 13-member commission, which has spent a year researching the issue, has recommended that the death penalty be replaced with life in prison without parole. If the legislature agrees with the commission’s recommendations, New Jersey will be the first state to end capitol punishment through lawmaking instead of judicial order.<\/p>\n * Willard Scott suggested<\/a> snow storms in Colorado should cast doubt on global warming. He didn’t appear to be kidding.<\/p>\n * I don’t want to get my hopes up, but if Bill O’Reilly appeared<\/a> on The Colbert Report, it would have<\/i> to be entertaining.<\/p>\n * If you watch tonight’s Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, and happen to catch the ads from Allstate, the game’s corporate sponsor, you might want to keep in mind that Allstate hasn’t exactly been helpful<\/a> to the people of the city still struggling to recover from Katrina.<\/p>\n * I’m sure the ads will no doubt draw massive complaints from the right, but I like the new MasterCard signs<\/a> in the Washington subway system.<\/p>\n * Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the new House Democratic Caucus chairman, tried to host a press conference on ethics reform today, but couldn’t<\/a> — anti-war protestors lead by Cindy Sheehan interrupted the event, refused to let the Dems speak, and eventually forced lawmakers to give up. Welcome to the majority. * Kevin Drum has a painful item<\/a> today on CEO salaries. In this case, Home Depot Chief Executive Robert L. Nardelli resigned suddenly, but will walk away with a severance package of $210 million, on top of the $240 million Nardelli received in salary, bonuses and stock options over the last six years. For those keeping score at home, that’s $450 million for a guy who led a company that led a company that lost value and market share on his watch.<\/p>\n * MSNBC reporter Alex Johnson argued this week that Democrats “just squeaked through<\/a>” the midterm elections. Considering that Dems exceeded expectations, gained 30 House seats and six Senate seats, and will now hold a larger majority in the House than Republicans had in any Congress since they gained control in 1994, what, exactly, is the standard for “squeaking through”?<\/p>\n * Thanks to a gracious offer<\/a> from the Bush White House, Senate Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Dick Durbin will fly on a White House-provided military plane to Gerald Ford’s funeral in Grand Rapids, Michigan, this afternoon, then fly back for a presidential reception for the new Congress. Good for Bush. A little good will goes a long way.<\/p>\n * We can add former Defense Secretary (and former Republican senator) William Cohen<\/a> to the list of those who no longer support the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”<\/p>\n * And, finally, Morbo’s distaste<\/a> for comic books not withstanding, I was pleased to see the writers of the Spider-man comic book subtly go after<\/a> Bush administration policy in its new issue. Apparently, in the story, Spider-man initially approves of her national security measures imposed by the government, but changes his mind after detainees are held without civil rights at an off-shore prison.<\/p>\n If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s edition of quick hits. * I might have a little more confidence in the Iraqi prime minister if he didn’t seem to hate being the Iraqi prime minister. From a recent interview: “I wish I could be done with it even before the end of this term. I didn’t want to take this position.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n* I get the distinct impression that Fox News personalities aren’t supposed to talk about<\/a> the president’s youthful experimentation with drugs.<\/p>\n