By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 at 3:00 PM ET
The final BCS standings for the college football season are out and it’s official: LSU will play Alabama to make the national championship game an all-SEC affair. Click through to find out more about how it all shook out. [LA Times]
When did Devin Hester become a hater? When asked about the possibility of the Bears going after Donovan McNabb he called it “a waste of time.” [ESPN]
This week’s MMQB talks about more Tebow, more Manning, and icing your own kicker. King also breaks down the current state of the Offensive Rookie of the Year race. [Sports Illustrated]
TJ Yates is doing just what he needs to in order to keep the Texans winning. Not bad for a no. 3 QB going into the season. [CBS Sports]
MORE Tebow. Also, some of the winners and losers following the games on Sunday. [Yahoo! Sports]
By Sandra Moon, RP Staff, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 at 1:30 PM ET
Moral America, an extremist religious group, has asked followers to pray for the death of singer George Michael. [Advocate.com]
Would the world be better without religion? Watch this debate to hear opinions on this matter. [Intelligence Squared]
A church in Pike County, Kentucky bans interracial couples from church membership. [Huffington Post]
Adam, Eve, and Genetics: Conservative Christians tend to read the Bible literally, yet with the advances in the understanding of the human genome, some conservative scholars are saying publicly that they can no longer believe the Genesis creation account. [NPR]
By Patrick Derocher, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 at 12:30 PM ET The New York State Legislature will be returning to chambers later this week, though no one seems to know why, or even if there will be any Republicans present. Following up on a previous Recovering Politician blog post, the New York State Legislature will indeed be returning to chambers this week, though nobody seems quite certain what they’ll be doing. Moreover, only Democrats have promised to come back for further legislative sessions, while no Republicans have said whether they plan on working out the numerous budget issues that continue to face New York State. [NY Daily News]
In the story of partisan politics that just wouldn’t die, Wisconsin Republicans are refusing to pay legal expenses incurred by their Democratic colleagues during that state’s public sector union battle. Bob Jambois, a lawyer who represented Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, a Kenosha Democrat, says he is owed $15,155 in legal fees, which the State Assembly is obligated to pay. “If we have to pay it, we’ll probably pay it,” Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, a Republican representing rural Horicon, was quoted as saying, while not commenting on whether the assembly would pay the fees otherwise. Thus far, the Assembly has paid $294,094 to Michael Best, a lawyer who represented Republicans in that body, in addition to $27,706 to lawyers representing Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller and Secretary of State Douglas LaFollette, both Democrats. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
In the interest of full disclosure, this is where the redistricting stories begin. Feel free to stop reading if you wish, but at least the first item should be of interest.
Following a court-drawn Congressional District map, Texas Secretary of State Greg Abbott has asked the Supreme Court of the United States to block that map from being implemented, calling it “legally flawed” and “likely to be overturned on further review.” The map was drawn after an earlier, heavily gerrymandered map was rejected by federal courts. Texas gained four new Congressional seats in the latest round of redistricting, after Census data showed the state had gained 4 million residents, growth that was driven almost exclusively by minorities and largely by Hispanics. Republican-drawn maps gave that party a massive advantage in the new seats, while the court-drawn map includes three minority-majority districts. [CNN]
A GOP-backed group has filed suit against newly-drawn State Senate maps, asking that they be shelved if and when the group receives the requisite 504,760 valid signatures to put the maps on statewide ballot. Fairness and Accountability in Redistricting (FAIR) argues that maps drawn by the state’s Citizens Redistricting Commission are unfair to California Republicans, and that the state should either revert to old maps, combine two adjacent Assembly districts to create each Senate district, or some combination of the above. This is not the first time Republicans have taken legal action against California’s new legislative districts; its new United States House districts have also been challenged in court. [Sacramento Bee]
Florida’s new State Senate maps were drawn without political data, but they nevertheless appear to benefit Republicans, who control the state legislature and the governor’s office. Although a handful of incumbents are squeezed in the new districts, Florida’s minorities and Democrats find themselves compressed into fewer districts than before in not one but two proposed State Senate maps, a state of affairs that is drawing some criticism in the Sunshine State. [St. Petersburg Times]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET  In politics as in life, money can fix all sorts of problems. And in both politics and life, Mitt Romney has taken advantage of that fact.
Money can produce lovely television ads and glossy mailers, but the beauty of presidential campaigns, as Richard Ben Cramer showed us in “What it Takes,” is that they penetrate the veneer and expose candidates for who they are, good and bad. And no amount of money can make Republican primary voters like Mitt Romney.
(Cross-posted, with author’s permission, from Politico’s Arena)
By Stephanie Doctrow, RP Staff, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 at 9:15 AM ET Adweek’s 2011 Hot List was announced this morning. How did your favorite publications stack up? [Adweek]
By Artur Davis, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET  Harry Truman is the one president widely admired today who was generally reviled in his own times. There was no cult of personality around Truman while he was in the White House; to the contrary, he eventually logged the lowest approval ratings in Gallup’s history, just nudging out Richard Nixon on the eve of resignation. His legislative record was anemic. He failed to curb the anti-communist fervor known as McCarthyism, and the carnage of the Korean War is part of his resume.
The fact Truman endures is a testament to two factors: the first, his exemplary decision to assert American leadership on behalf of democratic elements under siege, from Greece to Israel, denied the Soviet Union ownership of the second half of the 20th Century. Second, he won a campaign, improbably, heroically, and defiantly in the face of outlandish odds.
 Click on picture above to purchase book That second event is the subject of David Pietrusza’s latest presidential campaign history, “1948”, a worthy successor to “1920: The Year of the Six Presidents”, a superb recounting of a largely forgotten political season, and “1960: JFK v. LBJ v. Nixon”, which manages to shed fresh details on that year’s epic. Pietrusza opts for the brisk narrative/character sketch (think “The Making of the President”, but with no pretense of grandeur), over the minute retelling of every seminal event that weighs down Edmund Morris’ series on Teddy Roosevelt or John Milton Cooper’s well regarded 2008 biography of Woodrow Wilson. It is less grand history than a jaunty, essayist’s rendition—imminently readable and revealing.
The best recalled aspect of “1948” is the seemingly helpless state Truman found himself in at the outset of the race: his Democratic Party was deeply split, with a sizable number of liberals regarding Truman as simultaneously too adventurous with his foreign policy and too feckless on the domestic side. The southern wing of the party was equally disgruntled, and a portion of it was intent on generating an electoral college deadlock that would make the preservation of segregation for another generation the ticket for a deal. The country seemed fatigued with Rooseveltian liberalism, and the Republican front-runner, New York Governor Tom Dewey, seemed inoffensive and competent enough to win easily.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: David Pietrusza’s “1948”
By Grant Smith, RP Staff, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 at 3:00 PM ET
Where the Democrats and the Republicans stand on the extension of the payroll tax cut. [CNBC]
Why Microsoft will not be buying RIMM, the maker of Blackberry. [Forbes]
Who will be the next CEO of Ford Motor Company? [Fortune]
By Chris Schulz, RP Staff, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 at 1:30 PM ET Which “going green” home improvement projects are really worth your time and money? [latimes.com]
Scientists look to identify how animals can predict earthquakes. [bbc.co.uk]
Here are some of the top unique winter destinations in the world. [cnn.com]
A more in depth look at the “pizza as a vegetable” controversy. [latimes.com]
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 at 9:15 AM ET The Eagles are bad. They lost last night versus the Seahawks and looked very poor throughout. Andy Reid has taken a lot of criticism in recent years, but I do not see how he retains his head coaching job after this season. For such a talented team to produce such a bad on-field product is more than disappointing. [ESPN]
By Artur Davis, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET I would guess that Barney Frank’s retirement is fifty percent disgust at the rancor of modern campaigns – his 2010 win was brutal and expensive – and fifty percent a recognition that whether Barack Obama wins or loses, there is virtually no chance of a winning liberal legislative agenda in the near future.
And yes, Frank and Charlie Gonzalez are signs of a trend that will sweep in another five to ten senior Democrats in the next sixty days.
 There is no serious Democrat in Washington who expects the House majority to change hands, and while they expect Obama to win, Hill Democrats are no fans of this White House. They see a second term of small bore initiatives, deficit reduction, jockeying over the successors to Obama and Pelosi, and retrenchment on healthcare and financial reform.
It’s not what they signed up for and a lot of them are heading for home, or “up or out” statewide races.
(Cross-posted, with permission of the author, from Politico’s Arena)
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