THE FISCAL CLIFF NEGOTIATIONS NEED C-SPAN: Want to force a compromise? Negotiate in public. “Few things are more characteristic of business as usual in Washington, D.C., than closed doors. Nothing will do more to end business as usual than opening them to C-SPAN cameras. With the ‘fiscal cliff’ of sequestration approaching, now is the perfect time to establish a precedent: The bigger the deal, the more important it is that negotiations be done in public.”

I’M NOT SURE, BUT THIS DOESN’T SOUND LIKE A POSITIVE ECONOMIC INDICATOR: McDonald’s Suffers First Monthly Sales Drop In 9 Years.

Also, more trouble in Europe.

NITA GHEI: An End To European Bailouts.

The desire to keep on spending in the face of economic crisis is universal. In Greece, parliament voted Wednesday to implement $17 billion in spending cuts, and the reaction was swift and violent. Public-service employees and others affected by the proposal erupted in riots on the streets of Athens.

The move to trim the indebted nation’s outlays cleared the way for the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund to send a check for $40 billion. This bailout cash will give Greece some breathing space and enable government employees to cash their paychecks. It also leaves unresolved the cause of Greece’s vast debt, currently estimated at 175 percent of gross domestic product. That’s particularly troubling because it appears there will be no country left in the European Union (EU) able to bail out Greece — or any other ailing nation — the next time bills come due.

Sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money. Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be.

LISA DE PASQUALE: Occupy The Media: If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them. This is good advice. And in particular, we need more reporters and investigators, not more pundits.

READER PAUL FONTAINE WRITES:

Glenn, I’ve been thinking about this. I’m a libertarian who mainly votes Republican because fiscal conservatism comes first and freedom, to me, means more than just the freedom to f*ck who I want and kill fetuses.

Anyway, I just read this article: Obama Wins 8 of 10 Wealthiest Counties in US.

And I’m saying to myself, why am I going to war for these people? All this effort to try to protect the “job creators” and they’re voting for Obama and ever larger government and more taxes. I think it’s time to give them what they want! I would love to see a Republican bring forth a bill to tax the sh*t out of those making over $500k (the 1%). These are the people who live in these enclaves. Let’s do comprehensive tax reform, eliminate most or all deductions and lower rates for everyone…except them. Let their rates go back to the Clinton era rates AND eliminate their deductions. This goes hand in hand with your “eliminate the Hollywood Tax Cuts” proposal. Now granted, this would not do a whole lot to address the budget deficit. Anyone who is good at math knows that. However, it completely cuts the legs out from the Democrats, gives these rich jerks their just desserts for voting for Obama and supporting him financially, and will help insulate the married working professionals who Obama and the Dems REALLY want to soak. You can even defend it in public to your base by telling them “Look at the stats, these people vote in DROVES for Obama. They want this. They deserve this”. Once you’ve passed this bill to raise taxes on these liberal elite, when the Dems come back to try to get the rest of us, they will no longer be able to demonize R’s for protecting “the rich”. The Republicans are now protecting working families who are just trying to finance their own retirements, their kids’ college educations and pay their mortgages. They could KILL the Dems in ads and they would have nothing to fall back on. Am I crazy? I think this is the way to go.

Well, this class-warfare stuff seems to work. Maybe Republicans should give it a try. As Joel Kotkin notes: Despite the Great Recession, Obama’s New Coalition of Elites Has Thrived.

THAT DIDN’T TAKE LONG: Rick Perry Keeps 2016 Door Open, Offers Advice to GOP. I was a fan of Perry’s, but his back surgery basically killed the candidacy this time. Maybe he’ll be better.

Meanwhile, I hear Marco Rubio is heading to Iowa. Well, who doesn’t want to visit Iowa this time of year?

Hey, how does a Perry/Rubio ticket sound?

HOPEY-CHANGEY: The Next Four Years Won’t Be As Good As The Last. Which were so freakin’ great. “The amount of debt required today to create a single dollars’ worth of GDP today is clearly unsustainable.”

WELL, IT SEEMS TO BE ANOTHER OF THOSE EXPANDING DEMOGRAPHICS WE’RE HEARING ABOUT: The Slut Vote?

READER MIKE HARWOOD WRITES:

In keeping with Professor Jacobson’s warning concerning the media’s “Operation Demoralize” campaign, already in full swing, have you noticed how the role of “Superstorm Sandy” in Obama’s win has now largely been buried by the mainstream media? Other than Chris Matthews’ now infamous praising of God for the political gift the storm provided to Obama, and some mention of the AP’s exit poll data showing 42% of those polled reported being positively influenced to vote for Obama based on his purported stellar handling of the emergency response to the storm, Superstorm Sandy has not found its way into many MSM election post mortems. The reason for that should be readily apparent. The mainstream media’s preferred narrative has predictably changed. Now, the Obama victory is being depicted as the result of America’s widespread disapproval and rejection of Republicans and their extremist, white-focused policies and ideology.

A week before the election, the in-the-tank-for-Obama MSM was deeply worried that Romney was going to beat their guy, so they played up Superstorm Sandy and the game-changing effect it was having on the election for all it was worth. Suddenly, Chris Christie was someone to be listened to, ad nauseum, rather than being dismissed as a partisan Republican attack dog. However, with Obama’s re-election now safely in the bag, the MSM would prefer that Americans forget that a freak storm probably averted an Obama loss. Obviously, such a loss would entirely preempt “Operation Demoralize,” and the only thing the MSM enjoys more than helping elect Democrats is predicting doom and despair for Republicans.

“Operation Demoralize” completely falls apart if one considers just how close the margin of victory was for Obama in the four swing states that decided the election, and how Superstorm Sandy almost certainly moved enough votes from Romney to Obama to provide the election of victory. In Florida, with nearly 8.3 million ballots cast, the margin of victory was a mere 52,000 votes. Because this U.S. presidential election was a two person race, a takeaway by one candidate from another represents a two vote swing. Accordingly, if somewhere in the order of 26,000 Floridians, out of 8.3 million, decided that they were changing their vote from Romney to Obama based on his supposed “heckuva job” in relation to the storm response, those voters alone decided Florida’s 29 electoral votes. Given the AP exit poll and its 42% figure for those who claimed the storm influenced their decision to vote for Obama, it’s safe to say that Superstorm Sandy threw far more than 26,000 voters into Obama’s column and out of Romney’s.

The same argument can be made in Ohio. 5.3 million votes cast, margin of victory: 103,000. If the storm flipped about 52,000 votes or more from Romney to Obama, then no storm meant Ohio would have been a Romney win on election day.

In Virginia, 3.7 million votes cast, margin of victory: 107,000. If the storm influenced 54,000 voters or more to abandon Romney for Obama, the storm was decisive in converting a Romney win in Virginia to an Obama win.

In Colorado, nearly 2.4 million votes cast, margin of victory: 113,000. If 57,000 voters or more moved from the Romney camp to the Obama camp based on the storm, then Obama doesn’t win the state if the storm never happens.

A Romney win in these four states would have given him the election.

I want to emphasize that these are very small numbers of voters in relation to the overall number of votes cast in these states, and with such a high percentage of voters in the AP poll attributing their vote in large measure to Obama’s positive media coverage from the storm, I don’t think there’s much doubt that Obama loses the election, albeit narrowly, if Superstorm Sandy never happened. But for our illustrious media elites, the truth won’t do, not when such a grand opportunity for another anti-Republican hatchet job has presented itself…

So cynical.

PUT THIS IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT: Marijuana More Popular Than Barack Obama In Colorado. Well, one of them just gives you a brief good feeling and then leaves you poorer, depressed, and unable to make anything of yourself. And the other is a psychoactive drug.

TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT:

SOME ADVICE FOR BUSH: Jonah Goldberg warns that the Republicans need to avoid overreaching, as Republicans have done in the past when things went unexpectedly well. (I linked to a similar warning from John Ellis earlier today). Democrats and their friends in the media, after all, will be waiting to pounce on anything that will let them paint the Republicans as corrupt pawns of greedy big business.

I think he’s right, and in particular I think that the Bush Administration needs to do something dramatic that will position it on the side of consumers against Evil Big Business. And I have just the thing: The Bush Administration should take on the crooks and thugs of the recording and movie industries. And it should do so on the side of artists and consumers.

It’s widely believed that the recording industry shafts its artists. As Ken Layne has pointed out, when 9,000 artist accounts were audited, 8,999 were found to have involved underpayments to the artists. Artist retirement funds have been underfunded, too — sometimes to ridiculous levels. And the record companies recently settled a price-fixing suit brought by state attorneys general.

Meanwhile the entertainment industries are trying to take control of people’s computers, televisions, and stereos. Consumers are gouged for ticket prices, radio is ruined by payola and other shady practices, and pretty much everyone knows that the whole industry is rotten to the core. (Heck, it was the topic of the very first post on InstaPundit). And by siding with artists, the Administration will be able to split an industry that’s usually united against the Republicans right down the middle. And voters identify with actors and musicians much more than with the suits who run the record and movie industries.

By taking on this big business that everyone has come to hate, the Bush Administration can position itself as a tribune of the people against greedy corporate interests. (And make media assaults on the Administration easy to discount as a self-interested response to its efforts to enforce the law). That they happen to be greedy corporate interests that give generously to Democrats will only make it more appealing.

This was good advice ten years ago after an unexpectedly large GOP victory. It’s good advice today after a GOP defeat. But will it happen? Experience says not, because Republicans can’t seem to bring themselves to go after big business, even big business that hates them.

DEMOGRAPHICS: “Most importantly, the 2012 elections actually weren’t about a demographic explosion with non-white voters. Instead, they were about a large group of white voters not showing up.”

PROFESSOR JACOBSON: Learning lessons from a failed campaign does not a circular firing squad make. Play nice.

“THE PRESS CONFERENCE ALSO STARTED ABOUT 40 MINUTES LATE:” Awkward first press conference for senator-elect Warren.

RON RADOSH: It’s the Culture, Stupid: Facing the Long Road Ahead.

THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT: Philadelphia’s school commission borrows $300 million to pay its bills. When you have to borrow $300 million to cover operating expenses, you’ve failed.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Proteins Made To Order: Researchers design proteins from scratch with predictable structures. “What you have now is a flexible set of building blocks for nanoscale assembly.”

SOME MORE DISASTER-PREP ADVICE: Echoing an observation of Amy Langfield’s from the big New York blackout, have a stash of cash, including small bills (ones and fives). ATMs may not work; neither may credit or debit cards.

MEGAN MCARDLE: Is Demography Destiny? “It was a close election in which Obama lost states that he carried in 2012. The Democratic bench is very weak–the current leading candidates to succeed Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, will be 69 and 74 in 2016. And Obama is going to have to preside over some very, very tough choices. We can’t borrow a trillion dollars a year for another four years. Nor can we get all the money from Republican constituencies; they just don’t have enough of the stuff. Whoever’s ox Obama chooses to gore will probably be a considerably less enthusiastic coalition member come 2016.”

DUTY TO RESCUE: Turning Good Samaritans Into Bad Ones?

THE EVANESCENCE OF MAJORITIES: James Taranto writes:

Here’s a note of caution for President Obama and the Democrats: “Begin with the facts: A 51-48 percent victory is not a mandate.” Surprisingly enough, the source of this warning is E.J. Dionne, the Washington Post’s perennial liberal triumphalist.

It gets less surprising when you realize he wrote that in 2004: “Two nearly equal sides are engaged today, as they were on Tuesday, in a long-term struggle to make inroads into the other’s patch. . . . On Wednesday [George W.] Bush told those who voted against him: ‘I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.’ Mr. President, I truly hope you realize how much work you have to do.”

You won’t be surprised to learn that Dionne is taking the opposite tack today: “Now Obama will have the strongest argument a politician can offer. Repeatedly, he asked the voters to settle Washington’s squabbles in his favor. On Tuesday, they did. And so a president who took office four years ago on a wave of emotion may now have behind him something more valuable and durable: a majority that thought hard about his stewardship and decided to let him finish the job he had begun.”

But of course. Any time a Democrat wins the White House, he has a “mandate” from the MSM — even if he’s won over less than a majority of the voters.

THE CARTER-ERA RERUN CONTINUES: Odd-Even Gas Rationing in NYC, Long Island.

YEAH, THIS WILL REASSURE THE BASE: Christie Calls Obama To Congratulate Him, E-Mails Romney…

UPDATE: Reader Stuart Wagner writes: “I’m thinking the Republican Part needs to deliver a message to Chris Christie that any New Jersey native can understand: A dead fish wrapped in newspaper and a wish to enjoy being governor of New Jersey, because that’s going to be his swan song.” I’m sensing a lot of unhappiness from the grassroots.

THE SIX TYPES OF FRIENDS EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE.

AT AMAZON, gift cards galore.