Update: Via Politico: Holder's hanging tough. He issued this statement (video here):

[The vote to hold him in contempt] "may make for good political theater in the minds of some, but it is - at base - both a crass effort and a grave disservice to the American people."

"Whatever the path that this matter will now follow, it will not distract me or the men and women of the Department of Justice from the important tasks that are our responsibility," Holder said. "A great deal of work for the American people remains to be done - I'm getting back to it. I suggest that those who orchestrated today's vote do the same."

The House has approved a civil contempt of Congress resolution against Holder. The vote was 258-95. Earlier, via Politico:

The House has voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, the latest fallout from the "Fast and Furious" scandal. The vote was 255-67, with 17 Democrats joining the majority Republicans in voting yes.

[More...]

Update: Holder was held in contempt. It's meaningless:

The contempt resolution will have little practical effect on Holder or the Obama administration. The Democratic-controlled Senate will not take action on a contempt resolution.

Here's part of Holder's statement calling Issa's action political "election-year tactic intended to distract attention": [More...]

Obama weighs in on HookerGate, in which some secret service agents may have retained the services of prostitutes in Colombia, before Obama arrived.

I hope it doesn't get buried that Obama also ramped up the war on drugs while there:

He announced an increase to more than $130 million of funds dedicated to bolstering security and going after narco-traffickers and "gangs" in the region.

Here are his comments from the summit addressing drug legalization. Not surprisingly, his view is "Just say no" to legalization:

"I personally, and my administration's position is, that legalization is not the answer." He reiterated that position while talking at the summit itself, saying "the United States will not be going in this direction."

President Obama held an online forum last night organized by You Tube and Google+. Readers submitted questions via You Tube and text. They also voted on the questions submitted by others. Obama took questions from five people via You Tube.

Those were five lucky people: According to the White House' YouTube channel, almost 230,000 people submitted 133,183 questions, and 1.6 million people gave those questions an up or down vote.

Here's how it worked: [More...}

Leon Pannetta outlined the new Pentagon cuts today. Fewer troops, increased use of drones, and a bigger role for Secret Ops.

US special forces that were previously committed to Iraq will now be used around the globe, Mr Panetta said.

...Mr Panetta said there would be funding for a floating base that would serve special operations forces as well as drone units.

President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address tonight. It's theme is Economic Unfairness . (Update: Transcript here.)

"We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by,” he will continue. “Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.

He'll remind us once again that in his view, this is not a Republican or a Democratic issue, but a U.S. issue. I hated that line in his 2008 campaign (no red states or blue states) and I doubt I'll like it much more tonight.

What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.”

The New York Times has excerpts from the the book, "The Obamas." The book, which will be published Tuesday, devotes many pages to the role of Michelle Obama. Shorter version: She gets frustrated with her husband's staff at times and she is Obama's biggest supporter. So what else is new?

Glenn Greenwald's takeaway:

Reading this Jodi Kantor excerpt makes one think things may have been better if Michelle Obama had been Chief of Staff:

Geithner!

It’s housing, stupid. More precisely, it’s housing finance. As the Obama administration seeks ways to revive the economy, not to mention win an election, it is becoming clear that the biggest mistake officials made when they took office nearly three years ago was to underestimate the continuing damage to the economy from the mortgage crisis.

No sh*t.

Krugman:

What’s unforgivable is the way policymakers, both at the Fed and elsewhere, basically declared Mission Accomplished as soon as the panic in financial markets subsided and stocks were up again. When spring rolls around, we’ll reach the third anniversary of Ben Bernanke’s declaration that “green shoots” were making an appearance — and there will still be 4 million Americans who have been out of work for more than a year. Yet there has been no sense of urgency about dealing with unemployment; indeed, most of the elite conversation has been about stuff like cutting Social Security payments a decade or two from now.

As Drum says, that’s the true radicalizing experience.

I'm curious to know how Drum, and Krugman for that matter, have been "radicalized." I mean, we all know Tim Geithner was the person who fought hard for the approach the Obama Administration has taken. Shouldn't someone "radicalized" be asking why Geithner is still the Treasury Secretary? Sure, the GOP won't let you name a Treasury Secretary afterwards, but wouldn't the removal of Geithner be a positive in and of itself? If not, why not?

Speaking for me only

President Obama has decided to pardon more than a White House turkey this Thanksgiving. Yesterday, he issued 5 pardons and commuted one sentence.

The pardons are unimpressive. Three of the pardons were issued to people who had received probation more than a decade ago. The other two pardons were issued to people who finished serving their sentences 20 years ago.

On the other hand, the commutation deserves praise: Obama commuted the sentence of a woman named Eugenia Jennings, who was sentenced in 2001 to 22 years (262 months) for distributing crack cocaine in the Southern District of Illinois. It was her third felony crack conviction. Under Obama's order, she'll be released next week, after serving 10 years. She'll still have to serve 8 years of supervised release.

I just finished reading her 2001 sentencing transcript and her rejected 2008 motion to reduce her sentence under the Sentencing Commission's two level reduction in crack cocaine guidelines that year. Both are available on PACER. It's a very interesting story, one the sentencing judge, G. Patrick Murphy, called a tragedy.

Here's the tragedy of Eugenia Jennings:[More...]

Jon Chait regurgitates his article on "why liberals should not be disappointed in Obama" (in other news, Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen regurgitate their "Obama should not run for reelection" article.) I scanned the first two pages and saw nothing new, so I stopped reading.

I'll regurgitate my old line on why there is seemingly a significant amount of disappointment on the Left in President Obama -- his supporters believed he was really a progressive, unlike that Third Way/DLC Hillary Clinton. You read it here a lot - "not a dime's worth of difference" on policy. Obama supporters (I mean emotional supporters, I supported Obama because I thought he was the most electable of 2 candidates who were basically the same on policy) wanted and did believe otherwise. They were wrong. Now they are disappointed. Not surprising really.

There, I saved you the 10 minutes you would have taken to reread Chait's lecture on why you should not be disappointed in President Obama.

Busy again. But read John Judis' review of the Ron Susskind book.

And yes, Geithner should have been fired.

Open Thread.