“One thing that really stands out in this poll is the extent to which Obama has claimed the middle. He’s up 68-27 on Romney with moderates. He also leads by 20 points with voters under 45, a group there’s been some concern about slippage with, and he has a 66-30 advantage with Hispanics.” [Public Policy Polling]

Early Thursday:

“Political cartoons are a part of American culture. It’s hard to see how [Kansas legislator] Mike O’Neal poking fun at himself and forwarding a lighthearted political cartoon about the first lady’s extravagant spending of taxpayer funds during a time when many Americans are financially struggling is newsworthy,” [O’Neal spokesbot Alyson] Rodee said.

Later Thursday:

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With the rise of Tea Bagging and the madness of the Right, Dickens’s story, it seems to me, has taken on a new relevance.

His great theme, and the story he keeps coming back to in so many novels, is that of children being forced to pay the price of the older generation’s sins, its greed, its rapacity, its lack of human fellowship. In A Christmas Carol he set out to write a potboiler which grew beyond his wildest expectations into the story we know, that has become so encrusted with kitsch it’s hard to see past the bad wigs and terrible accents into the intensely imagined parable of greed and redemption he imagined. I adapted it as a chamber piece for five actors – no children – and brought into focus its sober underpinnings.

But as it’s for Christmas, there must be a happy ending, no matter how unlikely.

So this is how it ends.

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What’s this?

Militia supporter Darren Wesley Huff, of Dallas, Ga., stands by his pick-up truck during a lunch break Tuesday while being tried on federal gun charges. Huff allegedly traveled in April 2010 to the Monroe County Courthouse with a handgun and an AK-47 to serve a “citizens’ arrest warrant” on local judges and law officers. The Greek inscription means “come and take them,” reportedly spoken by the Spartans in response to a demand to surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae.

If you’re not up on your Ancient Greek History, don’t worry — neither is Mr. Huff. We’ll bet he doesn’t know shit about Thermopylae, but can recite the movie “300” start to finish.

Whereas the other end of the Protest Spectrum is all over “V for Vendetta”, since we’re equally confident that they don’t know shit about Guy Fawkes.

What is it with Angry People and comic-book movies these days? Why don’t they stick to the Classics, like Star Trek and Star Wars?

Man accused of courthouse takeover goes on trial [Knoxville News Sentinel, via jwmcsame]

The Onion:

Congress Takes Group Of Schoolchildren Hostage

Brandishing shotguns and semiautomatic pistols, members of the 112th U.S. Congress took a class of visiting schoolchildren hostage this morning, barricading themselves inside the Capitol rotunda, where they remain at press time.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who has emerged as spokesman for the bipartisan group, informed FBI negotiators that the legislative body’s demands would be issued within the next hour, and that if any attempt is made to stage a rescue “all the kids will die.”

The Reaction:

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The ten most popular items at the new White House petitions website.

• Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol. (19,901 signatures)
• Call an Investigation into Allegations of Prosecutorial & Judicial Misconduct in the Case of Sholom Rubashkin (12,739 signatures)
• Edit the Pledge of Allegiance to remove the phrase “Under God”. (7,917 signatures)

Read more »

A clever bit of street theater — we hope “tarp” is a deliberate visual pun — falls victim to decades-old satire:

Occupy Wall Street put up a tarp overnight. Using trees in the park, the occupation erected a structure, which inevitably meant the New York Police Department was going to tell them immediately this morning they had five minutes to take all tarps down. The protesters opted to hold an emergency assembly to discuss whether to cede to police orders or not. They democratically in the quickest way possible tried to arrive at a consensus. But, there was no consensus before police marched in and began to take control of the situation.

We hope to god we’re never stuck at a pizza parlor with these people. They’d never decide on a topping.

Live Blog for #OccupyWallStreet: Day Four, NYPD Attack Camp for Putting Up a Tarp [Firedoglake]