A brief new thread for you early risers:

• Nothing terribly new from overnight in regards to medical condition.  Latest from Arizona Republic is as follows: “As of 4:30 a.m. Sunday, Giffords remained in critical condition at University Medical Center in Tucson, according to hospital spokeswoman Darcy Slaten.”
• The idea that Rep. Gabby Giffords may survive is tempered by the thought that the bullet that entered her head, and exited, naturally did some damage.  Permanent, irreparable damage is, I think, a safe presumption; guesses as to the extent of it (cognitive or otherwise) are not.  None of this lessens the horror at all.  On that point: total death toll still stands at 6.
• John Boehner to speak at or around 0830 ET.  My guess is that the Sunday chatshows (Face the Nation, Meet the Press, etc.) are going to flood the zone.  Whether or not anybody wants to say anything provocative (for example: “this is what happens when you rile people up,” “how dare you,” and the cream-pie tossing that would naturally follow) is a big question.  I think that a Dem or two might hint at Going There, but not actually do it.
• Word is that there will be no business done in the House this week, at all.  Whether or not they actually gavel in is up in the air, but I think at some point they probably will, at least in a pro forma, “the government continues to function” sort of way.  HCR repeal vote is certainly off.
• Nothing further on the possibility of an accomplice that was raised last night.  Speculation on Loughner’s motivation and level of mental illness continues, shedding more heat than light as you would expect. [ADD: Fearless Leader posted comments by Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, speaking to Olbermann last night.  That comes as close to “informed analysis” as we have seen thus far.

Stinque Book Club will appear at its regularly scheduled time, I am reliably informed.  Further updates as warranted.

OK, Stinquers — a quick contest for big money AND fabulous prizes:

Tomorrow, as Nancy Pelosi hands off the gavel to John Boehner, Agent Orange will give a speech outlining what he intends to do with the next two years.  We all know what he’s going to say, sort of.  But the big question is…

AT WHAT POINT WILL HE LOSE CONTROL OF HIMSELF AND START WEEPING?

Rules are simple.  When the handoff happens, invariably there will be a standing ovation.  As soon as that standing-o stops and he starts flapping his gums, the clock starts.  “Weeping” defined as (a) actual tears or (b) unplanned stoppage in speech for more than two seconds as he tries to collect himself COMBINED WITH acts incidental to weeping (deep breath, sniffling, etc.).

Put your predictions — quoted in minutes and seconds — in the comments.  The Price Is Right scoring rules are in effect: closest to the actual weeping time, without going over, will win.  (Addendum: taking a competitor’s time and adding one second would be frowned upon, yet be totes hilarious at the same time.)  Example:

A — 4:30 // B — 5:30 // C — 5:31

Actual weeping time 5:15 — A wins… and gets to play PLINKO!

(No actual prizes, of course.  So there.)

As I will be judging, I will throw out an obviously wrong answer and declare that he gets through the speech without shedding a single tear.  Not even so much as a manly sniffle.  The rest of you: put some real responses in there.  Bonne chance!

As we now embark upon, well, whatever the hell it is that John Boehner is planning, it is time to introduce a new feature: The Psychometer.  It is intended to serve as a chronicle of the House’s descent into The Crazy.

The concept, in its purest form, is simple.  Every time somebody in the GOP Caucus in the House of Representatives says something stupid, or insane, or wildly false, it gets logged on a purpose-built Twitter account.  With a running count, we can track how crazy things are getting, from day to day — thus educating the world as to where things stand.

But, almost instantaneously, the concept runs full-speed into the brick wall of reality.  The latest example of the problem came this morning, with Michelle Bachmann’s performance on Face The Nation.  Bob Schieffer (probably nursing a huge hangover after TCU’s win in the Rose Bowl yesterday) picked a good day to be away, as Michelle was dropping one bomb after another.  So, how does one score that?  Does the appearance count as one event, or does each wild-eyed statement?

Statements on the House floor pose similar problems.  There are one-minute speeches at the beginning of the day, and special order speeches at the end.  In the official record, this is where nutjobs come to party — the province of the Steve Kings of the world.  Do those count once, or many times?  And what about statements on actual legislation?  A floor manager can speak many times over during the course of debate, giving him or her a fresh opportunity to become totally unglued every few minutes.

Then there is the more practical matter of actually doing this.  I, like many of you, have a real job.  Spending two hours every night logging every instance of insanity would be simply exhausting.

It was suggested that the Psychometer start off with no rules, with the standards evolving as things go along.  But, as just shown, that is unrealistic.  And, since I’m going to need a lot of help from all of you, some guidelines are necessary.  So, if you want to play, follow me post-jump for The [proposed, provisional] Rules.  Suggestions are most welcome, also.

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Well, as Mr. Bono would advise, nothing changes on New Year’s Day.  And, thus: Sport.  It begins with outdoor hockey in Pittsburgh at — oh, no, wait.  The NHL pushed the start of the Winter Classic from 1300 (ET) to 2000, on account of rain.  (See: you can play hockey outdoors when its, oh, 50 degrees or colder.  But rain is a killer.  Showers this afternoon give way to plain old dreariness tonight, so the start is pushed later.)

This is unintentional genius by the NHL.  See, they now get a prime-time slot.  The counterprogramming is… Oklahoma v. Connecticut in a Fiesta Bowl that precisely NOBODY wanted to set up, and NOBODY will watch.  Putting two of their top marketable stars — Sidney Crosby (Pgh.) and Alex Ovechkin (Wash.) against the slaughter of UConn will work quite nicely for the League.

Preceding that, it’s Cheeseheads and Frogs as the Rose Bowl features Wisconsin and Texas Christian.  Should have been Stanford in this game against the Badgers, of course, but it spares me (Tree B.A. ’00, Madison J.D. ’03) a bit of a quandry.  Again, unintentional genius.

Open thread of Sport for you, for the New Year.  Enjoy.

ADD: post-jump, a newish find on the music front.  Just got around to buying Florence + The Machine’s album, “Lungs.”  Holy shit.  I SAY AGAIN: HOLY SHIT.

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So, here it is.  Senate votes on DREAM, and then on DADT, are set to roll at 1030 Eastern War Time. 

The rules are simple.  A majority vote is required to pass legislation in any parliamentary system.  So if 51 Senators out of a hundred vote —

Oh, screw it.  You know something? If the Founding Fathers knew that the “saucer to cool the tea” crap that they were pushing, in order to head off the possibility of mob rule, would lead to this 60% majority to do anything, they would have said “forget it — let’s just have a unicameral legislature.”  Seriously.

But: play it as it lies.  Scott Brown, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe hold the keys to the kingdom today.  And who said the GOP was dead in New England?

It’s an open thread, y’all.  GO!

Word now comes that the Big Munnie Bill ($1.1tn, give or take a few billion) is dead over in The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body — thanks to GOP senators’ objections to it. 

And thus the Grand Plan (“pass the tax-cut extension and the Omnibus to Hell, and then we might let you vote on DADT, DREAM and START… mebbie”) comes crashing apart.  At least on the Senate side.  There may be a DADT vote this weekend, but Snowe, Brown et al may jump ship again, because of the failure of the bill relating to munnie.

Meanwhile, the House is now set to vote on the tax cut side of things at around 2300 Eastern War Time.  Debate/grandstanding happening now, LIVE, on C-SPAN.  (“Live” is, naturally, a loaded term.)  Dems, in debate I’ve seen in the last few minutes, seem spoiling for a fight. 

God only knows what will happen.  One thing seems clear, though.  Black Eagle’s attempt to bring peace to the valley by ditching the dirty hippies to appease people who hate him?  FAIL.

The coast is clear, folks!  The Bush tax cuts are safe for another two years!  And unemployment insurance is good to go until January 2012.  Hooray!

And there’s an ironclad guarantee that the GOP will not, in any way, put the whole tax cut issue out front when the expiration date comes around again just before the 2012 elections.  No ads that suggest, for example, that if Obama gets a second term, taxes will go up.  No way that happens.  The Republicans will have no ability to beat Obama up on this issue again.

Like they just did.

Jesus Christ.  Does anybody in the White House know how to play this game?