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OBAMA: 'WE'RE NOT DOING ENOUGH' -- Daniela Altimari writes on A1 of the Hartford Courant from Newtown, Conn.: "A somber President Obama told a shattered community that the nation has let its children down. 'We're not doing enough,' Obama said during an interfaith service at Newtown High School on Sunday night. And we will have to change. Since I've been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shootings, [the] fourth time we've hugged survivors, the fourth time we've consoled the families of victims.' The president's 18-minute speech was more about providing comfort to the emotionally fragile citizens of
Newtown than about laying out his legislative agenda on gun control. However, he made clear his intentions to seek a new path to end gun violence. Obama pledged to 'use whatever power this office holds' to engage law enforcement, mental health professionals, parents and teachers in an effort to reduce gun violence.

--"'We can't accept events like this as routine,'' Obama said. 'Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?' Obama spoke to about 800 people in an auditorium located less than a half-mile from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where six adults and 20 children were killed in one of the worst mass shootings in the nation's history. Another 1,200 or so gathered in the high school gymnasium to watch a video feed of the service."
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W.H., LAWMAKERS EYE GUN LIMITS - Laura Meckler and Gary Fields report on A1 of the Wall Street Journal: "Several lawmakers Sunday called for reintroducing a ban on assault weapons in the wake of Friday's deadly school rampage. President Barack Obama is also likely to propose gun-policy changes, according to two administration officials. ... The White House is looking at various options, and the scope and details of the president's approach aren't clear. One possibility likely to be considered is a ban on high-capacity magazines, the devices attached to firearms that store large numbers of bullets and reload them rapidly. A 1994 ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004
included a ban on ammunition magazines that held more than 10 rounds. Recent shootings, including the one Friday, have involved firearms with much more capacity, allowing a shooter to fire many more shots before having to reload, which could allow someone to intervene. ... No White House proposal is imminent, and it remains to be seen whether it would be legislative or administrative and how hard the president would push for any legislative initiative."
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-- "Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she plans to reintroduce the federal assault weapons ban in the Senate, and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for specific restrictions on bullet clips and increased help for mentally ill citizens," POLITICO's Emily Schultheis and Byron Tau report."Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), meanwhile, advocated a national commission on mass violence. Other Washington lawmakers discussed the school massacre without suggesting any policy changes. Feinstein was both emphatic and specific. 'I can tell you that [Obama] is going to have a bill to lead on because as a first-day bill I'm going to introduce in the Senate and the same bill will be introduced in the House
- a bill to ban assault weapons,' Feinstein said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'It will ban the sale, the transfer, the importation and the possession. Not retroactively but prospectively. And it will ban the same for big clips, drums or strips of more than 10 bullets.'"
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PRO-GUN MANCHIN: TIME TO ACT - Kevin Robillard writes for POLITICO: "West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin - who has an 'A' rating from the NRA and is a lifetime member of the pro-gun rights group - said Monday that it was time to 'move beyond rhetoric' on gun control. 'I just came with my family from deer hunting,' Manchin said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." 'I've never had more than three shells in a clip. Sometimes you don't get more than one shot anyway. It's common sense. It's time to move beyond rhetoric. We need to sit down and have a common sense discussion and move in a reasonable way.'" Manchin famously shot a bullet through the cap-and-trade bill during a 2010 campaign ad.
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GOHMERT WISHES PRINCIPAL HAD A GUN - "I wish to God she had an M-4 in her office locked up so when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn't have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids," Gohmert said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."
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Here are the names of the 26 victims from Sandy Hook Elementary: Charlotte Bacon, 6; Daniel Barden, 7; Rachel Davino, 29; Olivia Rose Engel, 6; Josephine Gay, 7; Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, 6; Dylan Hockley, 6; Dawn Hocksprung, 47; Madeleine F Hsu, 6; Catherine V Hubbard, 6; Chase Kowalski, 7; Jesse Lewis, 6; James Mattioli, 6; Grace McDonnell, 7; Anne Marie Murphy, 52; Emilie Parker, 6; Jack Pinto, 6; Noah Pozner, 6; Caroline Previdi, 6; Jessica Rekos, 6; Avielle Richman, 6; Lauren Rousseau, 30; Mary Sherlach, 56; Victoria Soto, 27; Benjamin Wheeler, 6; Allison N Wyatt,6.

... and their faces:
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THE NATION HEADS BACK TO SCHOOL - The New York Times' Motoko Rich reports on A1: "In Boston, the public schools have asked the police to step up visits to elementary schools throughout the day on Monday.In Denver, psychologists and social workers were prepared to visit students.Schools in New York City were encouraged to review safety measures, which include posting security officers in lobbies and requiring identification from all visitors. And the Chicago school district urged principals to conduct lockdown drills, with reminders to stay low, keep quiet and turn off classroom lights.Parents, teachers and school administrators in Newtown, Conn., confront the most immediate and raw tasks of
helping children respond to the horrifying killings of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School.But across the nation, as schools prepared to resume on Monday, officials and parents spent the weekend worrying about not only how to talk to students about what happened, but also how best to discourage its happening again.

-- "Tom Boasberg, the superintendent of schools in Denver, said he had not yet determined whether to ramp up drills. "When you read the story of what happened at Sandy Hook, you realize, 'Holy cow, they did a lot of things right,' " he said."
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BREAKING: HALEY TO ANNOUNCE DeMINT SUCCESSOR AT NOON - The AP writes from Columbia, S.C.: "South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is announcing a replacement for U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint. Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey says Haley will make the announcement at noon Monday at the Statehouse. State law gives the Republican governor the authority to pick DeMint's successor. DeMint announced less than two weeks ago that he would resign Jan. 1 to take the helm of a national conservative think tank. Haley's appointee will fill the seat until 2014, when voters will choose who will fill the remaining two years of DeMint's term. Haley's five finalists are reportedly former first lady Jenny Sanford,
U.S. Reps. Tim Scott and Trey Gowdy, former Attorney General Henry McMaster and state health agency director Catherine Templeton."
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GOOD MONDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 17, 2012, and welcome to the Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day's congressional news. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to
mailto:swong@politico.com
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My new followers include but are not limited to @tinatrenkner and @plazarow.

TODAY IN CONGRESS - The Senate is in at 2 p.m. and will vote at 5:30 p.m. on the nominations of Fernando Olguin to be U. S. District Judge for the Central District of California) and Thomas Durkin to be U. S. District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois. The House is in at noon with votes expected at 6:30 p.m. on legislation considered under suspension of the rules: a bill dealing with right-of-way permits for natural gas pipelines in Glacier National Park and the Barona Band of Mission Indians Land Transfer Clarification Act.

ON THE HILL - Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton speaks about flags for Washington D.C. and the territories at 10 a.m. in HVC Studio A.

SPOTTED: U.N. AMBASSADOR SUSAN RICE browsing the Bose Bluetooth mobile speakers in Nordstrom at the Pentagon City mall yesterday. She declined to be interviewed, saying "I'm behind on my Christmas shopping."

HILLARY CLINTON WON'T TESTIFY on Benghazi this week after she fainted from dehydration and suffered a concussion. "Appearing in Clinton's place will be William Burns, the deputy secretary of state, and Thomas Nides, the deputy secretary of state for management and resources," report my colleagues Reid Epstein and Seung Min Kim.
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FISCAL CLIFF COUNTDOWN: 15 DAYS

BOEHNER CONCEDES ON TAXES, BUT 'CLIFF' DEAL STILL FACES HURDLES - Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan write: "House Speaker John Boehner jump-started the budget talks by offering to raise tax rates, but major differences on entitlements and revenue could prove difficult to bridge with only two weeks until the fiscal cliff deadline. The Ohio Republican's concession to boost marginal tax rates on income over $1 million - and his request for $1 trillion in spending cuts and a hike in the Medicare eligibility age - show simultaneously the peril and promise of the still unfolding budget negotiations between Congress and the White House. Boehner is moving toward Obama's position on tax rates, but the
speaker's offer is still nowhere close to what the president or Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill can ultimately accept. The two sides also remain far apart on the extent and source of cuts to entitlement programs.

-- "The Ohio Republican purportedly tried to sweeten the proposal with an offer to delay a fight over the U.S. debt limit for another year, multiple news outlets reported Sunday night. Such a move would postpone another major budgetary and political battle looming early next year. But Boehner aides pushed back on the media reports on the debt-limit delay, calling them 'highly misleading.' ... Boehner's latest offer, made in a call to Obama on Friday, entails roughly $440 billion in new revenue over the next decade by allowing tax rates to increase to 39.6 percent on $1 million-plus annual incomes. A further $500 billion would come from tax reform implemented by Congress next year, including
limiting deductions for the wealthy and closing loopholes. An additional $60 billion would come from a change in how entitlement benefits are calculated.

-- "But proposed cuts to Medicare are now the key to any fiscal cliff deal. Boehner needs robust changes to the hugely popular seniors health program to sell any kind of tax-rate increase to his conservative-dominated Republican Conference. Yet top Democrats in both the House and Senate have said that increasing the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 simply isn't an option. Given that mounting Democratic opposition, Obama may need tax rates on families with annual income over $250,000 to increase to 39.6 percent before he could make Medicare changes that cut deeply into benefits."
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POLITICO eBOOK OUT TODAY: "The End of the Line," by Glenn Thrush & Jonathan Martin. Only $2.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Politics and Prose and the iBookstore: "President Barack Obama's stunningly bad performance at the first debate was no surprise to his closest advisers - Obama had stormed out of a debate prep session just days before the disaster in Denver. Before he flopped, Obama's team pressured their distracted boss to take Mitt Romney more seriously and bear down during debate practice - and he shot back, accusing them of sending him into battle with a mushy, ill-defined plan of attack. 'This is all great,' he told the team during one of 11 prep sessions he attended, most of them
at Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. 'But what am I actually supposed to do when I get onto the stage? You are telling me what not to do. I feel like I'm getting a lot of contradictory advice, guys.' If Obama's crisis of confidence flared at a particularly inopportune time, the never fully resolved problem of how to present Romney to the public was foreshadowed in a dispute between the Republican's family and his advisers two years before the campaign even began.

-- "A behind-the-scenes documentary on Romney from the 2008 campaign made by a filmmaker friend of the candidate's sons aimed to show the warm and decent man behind the awkward politician prone to reinforcing his own rich-guy caricature. But the film was spiked by the advisers and has never aired. The problem, in the eyes of the candidate's high command: The film was too heavy on Romney's Mormonism. Campaign 2012 played against type. Romney, the self-professed master manager, the man who wanted to be the CEO of the USA, couldn't even manage his own delusional campaign or find a formula to sell his own brand. Obama, presumed to be the greatest political performer of his generation, couldn't
- or simply wouldn't - perform at one of the most crucial moments of the campaign to the bafflement and frustration of his own staff, who were left to try to buck up a dispirited president in the wake of the first debate catastrophe."
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SENATOR DUKAKIS? - Alex Bolton writes for The Hill: "Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, may be headed back to the political spotlight as he's considered a likely interim replacement for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). President Obama is set to tap Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of State, according to media reports. This means Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) needs to find someone to fill Kerry's seat until a special election can be held in the late spring or early summer. Dukakis, who is 79, has remained politically active. He campaigned for Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) this fall and teaches at Northeastern University.
The Democratic primary for Kerry's seat will be intense and Patrick is expected to tap someone as an interim replacement who would promise not to run in the special election."
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INOUYE REMAINS IN HOSPITAL - "Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel K. Inouye remains hospitalized in Bethesda, Md., with his office reporting in a Sunday night statement that the Hawaii Democrat is experiencing 'respiratory complications.' There is no timetable for Inouye's return," reports Roll Call's Niels Lesniewski. 'Sen. Inouye remains hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He is stable and communicating with his doctors and family,' said spokesman Peter Boylan. 'Unfortunately, he is fighting respiratory complications as work is being done to stabilize his supplemental oxygen requirements. At this time, there is no time table for his release.' Inouye has been at
the military facility since Dec. 9, when he was moved there from George Washington University Hospital, which he arrived at on Dec. 6."
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FRIDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - David Heymsfeld was first to correctly answer that Sen. Rebecca Felton of Georgia set three records in just one day: She was the first female senator, oldest freshmen senator and served the shortest term ever: one day.

TODAY'S TRIVIA: Huddle trivia is taking a short vacation through the end of the year. But please send your trivia question submissions to
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