Midday Open Thread

• The suspect in the murders of four police officers in Washington state has been shot and killed:

  Maurice Clemmons, the suspect wanted in the slaying of four Lakewood police officers, was shot and killed in South Seattle early this morning by a Seattle police officer making a routine check of a stolen car.

  The shooting occurred about the same time as Pierce County sheriff's detectives took into custody a man believed to have acted as a getaway driver in Sunday's slayings of the Lakewood officers. Police also booked four people into jail on suspicion of providing assistance to Clemmons, said sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer.

  Several other people also will be taken into custody for helping Clemmons, Troyer said.

  Clemmons, who was armed with a handgun taken from one of the officers he is accused of killing, was shot in the 4400 block of South Kenyon Street during a confrontation with a South Precinct patrol officer, police officials said. He refused commands to stop and was shot by the officer about 2:45 a.m., the officials said.

• And in related news:

  Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty became the first likely GOP presidential candidate to criticize Mike Huckabee's pardon of a suspected killer during his time as Arkansas's governor.

  Pawlenty said that he would not have granted clemency to Maurice Clemmons, who was suspected of fatally shooting four police officers in Washington state on Sunday before being shot and killed by police in Seattle Tuesday morning.

• What a shock -- Fox News distorts a report on health care reform:

  This morning, Fox News ran a chyron alleging that the new Congressional Budget Office report on premiums concluded that the Senate health care bill won’t lower health care premiums ... The report actually concluded the opposite — that, on average, premiums would substantially decrease for the majority of Americans purchasing coverage in the individual market and maintain or lower premiums in the small and large employer markets.

• Good news:

  Manufacturing in the U.S. expanded in November for a fourth consecutive month, putting factories at the forefront of the recovery.

• A permanent extension of the estate tax?

   U.S. House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer said the chamber will vote this week to permanently extend the estate tax rates scheduled to expire at the end of 2009.

  The House will take up a bill introduced by Democrat Earl Pomeroy last week to extend the current policy of taxing estates over a $3.5 million threshold at a rate of 45 percent.

  "We are going to permanently fix the estate tax," Steny Hoyer, the chamber's majority leader, told reporters. "We believe that a permanent extension of the existing law is the best policy."

• The Republican National Committee's new media director, claiming that he is only speaking for himself, is appalled at sexism directed at Sarah Palin. So appalled that he/they think it should be directed at Katie Couric instead, apparently because she dared to ask Palin that trick question, "what newspapers do you read?"
• The Harlem Gospel Choir has pulled out of a Glenn Beck event:

  The renowned Harlem Gospel Choir was scheduled to perform the opening act for the simulcast film of Glenn Beck’s novel "The Christmas Sweater — A Return to Redemption," which premiers Thursday in theaters nationwide. But the choir has pulled out of the event, citing financial reasons. However, the New York Daily News reports that the likely motivation for the choir’s decision has more to do with Beck’s hateful statements.

• Are higher gasoline taxes in our future?
• Little Green Footballs founder breaks with the right:

  Among his reasons: "Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide" and the mainstreaming of fringe attacks which he denotes as "witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source."

• The White House gate-crashers claim that they were invited guests. This story almost makes you miss "balloon boy's" fifteen minutes.