It’s one of the year’s slower news days, a perfect time for this rap from Hi Caliber. The best line, in my opinion:

The population of the march was over a million
and I have a new hero, his name is Joe Wilson.

Video after the jump.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after spending much of 2009 pushing against the Obama administration’s call for a settlement freeze, has proposed a 10-month settlement freeze in the interest of what he called “meaningful negotiations to reach a historic peace agreement that would finally end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” Here’s the official reaction from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton:

Today’s announcement by the Government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements. Let me say to all the people of the region and world: our commitment to achieving a solution with two states living side by side in peace and security is unwavering.

Clinton created a great deal of outrage in the Arab world after she called a previous offer from Netanyahu that came far short of a total freeze “unprecedented.” This reply is far more restrained.

Marcy Wheeler at Firedoglake has an interesting take today on the most recent summary of classified documents that the government turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union Friday, as part of its response to the organization’s Freedom of Information Act requests about the destruction of 92 videotapes of CIA interrogations. The documents reveal what Wheeler calls “a tension between the torturers in the field growing increasingly panicked about the torture tapes” and wanting the CIA to destroy them, and the reluctance, at first, of the CIA’s Office of General Counsel to do that.

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Here’s an interesting response from Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa), senior Republican on the Finance Committee, when asked by a reporter this morning whether Congress intends to pay for the wars its launched, or continue to borrow the money and pile onto federal deficits.

Defending America is a number one responsibility and money’s not the first consideration. The first consideration is winning….

But we have always, one way or the other, raised the money to defend America, and in this case to defend America from a different kind of war, the war on terrorism. And it will be done.

He’s right on one account. You fight a war because you must, and the budget concerns should be immaterial. But the original question was, effectively, “Why aren’t lawmakers willing to ask Americans to pay for the costs of protecting the homeland, either through tax hikes or spending cuts elsewhere in the government?”

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After years of slamming anyone who proposed any sort of “amnesty” for “illegal aliens,” former CNN host Lou Dobbs has apparently changed his tune. On Friday, he told the Spanish-language TV station: “We need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions.”

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Midday on Wednesday Nov. 25, one of the busiest travel times of the year, and journalists stuck in check-in lines at the airport frustratingly checking their mobile devices find this pre-Thanksgiving gift from the Department of Defense:

Today, prosecutors in the Office of Military Commissions announced they intend to ask the convening authority to refer new charges under the recently-enacted Military Commissions Act of 2009 against Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al Darbi, in connection with his alleged involvement in an al Qaeda conspiracy to attack military and commercial shipping in the Port of Aden and the Straits of Hormuz.

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Would the death penalty turn terror suspects into martyrs?

There’s “unrest” in the Dem caucus over Afghanistan.

Dobbs polls at six percent in the 2012 presidential race — so maybe he’ll run for Senate instead.

Jindal gives mixed messages on Landrieu’s “Louisiana Purchase.”

Obama’s headed to Copenhagen — for a day.

A majority — albeit a slim one — of Republicans believe in global warming.

Maybe Rudy’s not running for NY Senate.

But maybe Harold Ford is.

Is the RNC’s “purity test” actually pro-choice?

The finance industry, seeming to forget that it was responsible for the economic turmoil that’s pushed unemployment above 10 percent, is lobbying furiously (and successfully) against Democratic legislation designed to protect consumers and prevent a similar episode in the future.

Yesterday, industry representatives held a conference call with reporters boasting about just how effective they’re fight against the proposed reforms has been. Washington Post columnist Dan Milbank today captures the essence of the industry’s reasoning:

[T]he argument most likely to prevail for the financial firms on Capitol Hill was offered by Chris Stinebert, [head of the American Financial Services Association]. “Especially now, when we’re in a very, very sensitive time, when the capital markets are just starting to recover,” he said, “introducing a high level of uncertainty in the marketplace could be very detrimental.”

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President Obama will travel to Copenhagen next month to attend part of the international climate conference, The Washington Post reports.

The decision follows months of speculation over whether the president would make the trip. Obama has said for the past few weeks that he would only attend if his presence could be the impetus for a successful climate agreement.

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Equating today’s rising credit card rates to usury, several House Democrats today announced plans to introduce legislation capping credit card rates at 16 percent.

“Things were a lot better for the average person in this country when we had usury caps,” Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), head of the House Rules Committee, said in a statement announcing her bill. “Watching how credit card companies have exploited people by increasing rates up to 30 percent and more is criminal and this bill will allow us to put an end to this practice.”

Massachusetts Democratic Reps. John Tierney  and Michael Capuano will co-sponsor the bill.

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