You may have seen but the Canadian Senate’s finance committee has recommended eliminating the penny.

The committee has been investigating their worthlessness and taking testimony from various parties, from large financial institutions to charities. Nobody seemed to embrace the penny, which takes 1.5 cents to mint and distribute.

Click here to read about it in the Montreal Gazette.

Click here to read about it in the Winnipeg Free Press (pennies are minted in Winnipeg, and this paper looked at whether the mint would fight the effort to kill the penny; no big push back there, the paper reported).

A columnist wrote in the Calgary Herald that the effort to kill the copper coin is pointless, because new electronic payment technologies are slowly making the coin - and others - irrelevent anyway. Click here to read the column.

Other counties have already eliminated their pennies (or equivalent): New Zealand, France, Australia, Spain and Sweden. New Zealand even eliminated its five-cent coin.

Oh when oh when are we going to get rid of the U.S. penny?

Click here to learn about the history of the Canadian penny. Actually, I called it a copper coin, but here’s what’s really been in the Canadian penny since 2000:

94% steel
1.5% nickel
4.5% copper plating or copper plated zinc

The era of large year-over-year increases in the amount of gasoline Americans burn is over.

Click here to see my post at Traffic Talk. I can’t see any reason why this is a bad thing. What do you think?

From Jared Paben

You probably just saw that John Stark posted that Washington is getting a 10th congressional seat, after we gained population and other states lost since the 2000 census.

Around the county, the biggest winners were:
Texas: Four seats
Florida: Two seats

The biggest losers were:
New York: Two seats
Ohio: Two seats

It appears that, generally speaking, states that gained seats are right leaning, according to this post in The Washington Post:

Five of the eight states that are gaining seats were won by McCain in the 2008 presidential race. Eight of the 10 that are losing seats went to Obama.

North Carolina just missed picking up another seat by 15,000 people. It wouldn’t have been hard to crank out 15,000 babies in one decade. We’ll expect them to step up their game over the next decade.

Oh, and in case you’re interested in larger numbers, the United States of America on April 1 had 308,745,538 people, a 9.7 percent increase since 2000.

Bellingham’s Gene Marx had a captive audience with Daniel Ellsburg yesterday.

After all, they were both in the same jail cell for a brief period of time.

The two men were part of a group of 131 arrested for protesting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq outside of the White House yesterday.

Ellsburg is known for having leaked the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret document recounting the U.S.’s involvement in the Vietnam War, which demonstrated that President Lyndon Johnson’s administration has deliberately lied to the public and Congress about various aspects of the war (and the county’s significance to the U.S. in terms of its fight against Communism).

Ellsburg is now a peace activist.

The Huffington Post had a brief write-up of the anti-war event, including this video, which shows Ellsburg and a leader of the event being arrested:

U.S. Park Police confirmed today that Marx was part of the group arrested. He pleaded guilty to disobeying a police order, paid a $100 fine and that’s the end of that.

Because there are so many various demonstrations around the White House, the process for being arrested there, pleading guilty, and paying a fine, has been simplified so as to prevent the justice system there from being bogged down.

Marx, a member of the local Veterans For Peace Chapter 111, said via a Whatcom Peace & Justice Center press release he climbed barricades and chained himself to the White House fence to send a message to the president.

“We went in with the idea that we needed to be as close to Obama as possible,” Marx said.

From the press release:

Marx, who served in the Vietnam War and later in the Federal Aviation Administration, and whose son Benjamin served as an Army officer in Iraq, said that the reason he decided to be arrested was his opposition to the killing of the children in Afghanistan. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” he said. “I’ll do it for my grandkids.”

Via John Stark, we learn this (sorry for no photos or video, shockingly the White House has neither available yet, though Cultee appears to have posted some photos on a private Facebook page, which is why I’m not including them):

Lummi Indian Business Council Chairman Cliff Cultee and Nooksack Indian Tribe Chairman Bob Kelly were among the tribal leaders in attendance at the White House Thursday, Dec. 16 when President Barack Obama addressed the White House Tribal Nations Conference.

Cultee posted photos of the event on his Facebook page.

In a 15-minute speech, the president promised to give full attention to tribal concerns, and promised a federal partnership in helping tribes improve education and transportation systems. He also promised more federal help on health care and crime issues.

Via Politico.com:

Most voters don’t believe President Barack Obama will win reelection, or that he deserves to, according to a new poll released Thursday.

Just 29 percent of the registered voters surveyed by Fox News and Opinion Dynamics said they believed Obama would win in 2012; 64 percent said they expected him to lose.

Views of Obama’s ability to get reelected broke down along party lines, with 49 percent of Democrats and 10 percent of Republicans saying Obama would win.

Full story, over here.

Q: What do you think it would take for President Obama to lose election for a second term?

Via the Wall Street Journal:

According to the WSJ/NBC News poll out later today, only 42% said they’d probably vote for the president if he runs again; 39% said they’d probably vote for a Republican.

… On the other hand, Mr. Obama leads former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by 22 points, 55% to 33%, an indication that the former Republican vice presidential nominee remains a polarizing figure who actually wins support for Mr. Obama.

The full story, including info on how the president would fare against other GOP potentials, over here.

Rep. Larsen

In fact, the Democratic legislator from Everett has his communications staff let you know in no uncertain terms that he’s angry and agrees with those calling him up in arms about the compromise, too.

Except, well, he’s going to vote for the package, and that’s no joke from the man voted second-funniest celebrity in Washington, D.C.

And he lets you know about it all the way down at the end of the fifth paragraph of this press release:

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Representative Rick Larsen (WA-02), released the following statement about his position on the tax cut compromise.

“I am mad at the President. In fact his tax cut compromise has me livid. I am as mad as those who have called me in the last week arguing against the deal. They say the President has caved in, has given too much to the wealthiest, and has broken his promises. I couldn’t agree more.

“If this choice was about politics, my decision would be easy: take my anger out on the President, feel better and please the progressive base in the district. And if this was a decision between voting for the extension of middle class tax cuts and stopping the extension of the high end cuts, that would also be an easy decision. In fact, I have already taken that vote.

“But the choice I have to make now is about the economy. I have to decide if there is enough in the proposed package to help grow our economy to outweigh the inclusion of tax cut extensions for the wealthiest Americans and impact this will have on the debt.

“I have concluded that the needs of the unemployed and the potential for economic growth do outweigh the costs associated with the package. That is why I will vote to support this package.

(more…)

Via PubliCola:

Rep. Larsen

As the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal that’s part of the stalled defense budget languishes in the senate, the hous introduced a stand-alone repeal bill today.

The bill, similar to the stand-alone repeal that U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) introduced last week, is co-sponsored by house armed services committee member U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA, 2). Larsen, ironically, just beat conservative opponent John Koster, a social conservative whose campaign was run by virulent gay-marriage opponent, Larry Stickney (campaign manager for Protect Marriage Washington, which fought 2009′s domestic-partnership initiative).

Go to PubliCola, right here, to read more, including to see Rep. Larsen’s statement on the matter.

Via CNN.com:

Final Senate approval could come as early as Tuesday on the hotly contested tax deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Republican leaders.

The deal cleared a key procedural hurdle Monday, with an 83-15 vote to end Senate debate on the measure, which includes a two-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts set to expire December 31.

The plan would also extend unemployment benefits for 13 months, cut the payroll tax by 2 percentage points for a year and continue a series of other tax breaks.

The full story, over here.

Kahn

Be that as it may, refudiate is the perfect word of the year given the country’s condition, where what you oppose is as important as what you support, and where people agree that things are bad but disagree mightily about how to make them right.

With that in mind, here’s a handful of other new words appropriate for the political season:

Blame duck session: Traditionally, a lame duck session in Congress is the quiet period after an election and before the new crop of lawmakers are sworn into office. These days, with big decisions being ducked, with Republicans feeling their oats, and with liberal Democrats at odds with President Obama, blame seems a better name for the game.

Congressional sinquiry: When a party controls one chamber of Congress but not the White House, you can bet the committee charged with conducting investigations will try its darndest to find some dirt on the ruling party. —- Dean Kahn/The Bellingham Herald

Read the full column, over here.

Q: Already Politics Blog readers, time to make up your own words you think fit well with the current political landscape. Let’s try for funny here, eh?

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Virginia has declared the Obama administration’s health care reform law unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson is the first judge to rule against the law, which has been upheld by two others in Virginia and Michigan.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed the lawsuit challenging the law’s requirement that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014.

The full MSNBC story, over here.

*UPDATE* - The Wall Street Journal has a PDF of the decision, right here.

The long and short of it is that the judge ruled that the law’s measure basically requiring a tax wasn’t legitimate, and the judge considered a penalty, and not a tax. Courts have ruled that the two words are not interchangeable.

Because of that, the General Welfare Clause of the U.S. Constitution didn’t apply based on past case law.

Interestingly enough, even the judge at hand admits he used a “dormant” batch of case laws to make his case for declaring this constitutional, and said he recognizes that constitutional scholars have criticized those rulings.

But, states the judge, he believes those cases weren’t ignored in recent cases because they weren’t valid, but only because no legislation like the new healthcare has been brought in front of the courts in recent memory.

Meanwhile, the judge also states that the Commerce Clause doesn’t apply because he believes the Constitution does not allow the government to compel an individual to engage in a private commercial transaction, such as buying health insurance.

Said the judge:

“At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance — or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage — it’s about an individuals right to choose to participate.“

Whoa.

Defying President Obama, House Democrats voted Thursday not to bring up the tax package that he negotiated with Republicans in its current form.
“This message today is very simple: That in the form that it was negotiated, it is not acceptable to the House Democratic caucus. It’s as simple as that,” said Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen.

“We will continue to try and work with the White House and our Republican colleagues to try and make sure we do something right for the economy and right for jobs, and a balanced package as we go forward,” he said.

Read CNN’s full story, over here.

Via Politico.com:

The House narrowly approved a stripped-down budget bill Wednesday evening, cutting nearly $46 billion from President Barack Obama’s requests in order to hold total governmentwide appropriations to no more than the current $1.09 trillion level.

Unprecedented in its scope, the measure barely survived a 207-206 procedural vote when senior Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee suddenly broke ranks to protest Guantanamo-related language in the package. Party leaders, caught off-guard, seemed shaken but then steadied themselves, prevailing 212-206 with no Republican help and 35 Democratic defections.

Read the full story, over here.

Via Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist at The Washington Post (a hat tip to AFY for the link):

There really is no other way to say it: the Republicans won, the liberal Democrats lost, and the president sided with the Republicans. The subject, of course, is an agreement to extend all the Bust tax cuts. The president tonight announced a “bipartisan framework” for agreement on, among other things, to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years. A Republican House aide tells me tonight it is “a damn good deal.” And so it is, from the perspective of conservatives.

The full column, over here.

Q: By only extending the Bush tax cuts for two years, did President Obama just provide the GOP with more ammunition for the 2012 campaign?