FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* More details emerge in the Fort Hood massacre.

* Sgt. Kimberly Munley, who took down Nidal Malik Hasan, is being hailed as a hero.

* The gunman in Orlando was apprehended this afternoon.

* Afghanistan: "More than 25 international and Afghan troops were wounded Friday in western Afghanistan -- possibly by friendly fire -- during a search operation for two U.S. Army paratroopers who had gone missing, according to the military."

* The White House issued an SAP (statement of administration policy) in support of the House health care reform bill.

* Despite earlier assurances, the House will not vote on a single-payer amendment as part of the health care reform debate. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who championed the measure, said today, "I didn't want the legacy of single-payer to be that it jeopardized passage of healthcare reform this year."

* To help make passage more likely this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today that senators should expect to work Saturdays in December.

* Several House Republicans blew off important votes on national security policy to tell some right-wing activists yesterday how much they hate health care reform. Priorities, people.

* On a related note, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) had so much fun yesterday, he wants another right-wing rally in opposition to health care reform tomorrow.

* You may not be aware of this, but 4 gajillion people attended the right-wing rally yesterday. The media wants you to think it was only 3 gajillion, but that's not true at all.

* Media Matters has a good-but-scary video with some of the highlights from yesterday. It makes one thing perfectly clear: a lot of those folks are stark raving mad.

* Interesting fight at UC Berkeley over subsidizing of college sports.

* Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) refuses to let the Senate vote on a major veterans' benefits bill. So much for supporting the troops.

* Speaking of Republican obstructionism, the White House made some concessions and convinced Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) to let the Senate vote on a pair of key State Department nominees.

* Also, Coburn's effort to remove political science funding from the National Science Foundation's budget failed. Good.

* House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) mildly criticized Rush Limbaugh's Nazi rhetoric today. Start the countdown for the apology.

* And if you saw President Obama talk about the tragedy at Fort Wood yesterday, and it made you long for George W. Bush's presidency, there's something horribly wrong.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

DON'T FOLLOW TEXAS' LEAD.... The Washington Post ran an op-ed today on health care policy co-written by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas). That, in and of itself, is a little odd -- when I think of conservatives with credibility on health care, Gingrich (a disgraced former Speaker who shut down the government 14 years ago, in part over cutting Medicare) and Perry (a Glenn-Beck-loving right-winger who recently raised the prospect of secession) aren't the first names that come to mind.

Nevertheless, they have a case to make.

Congress seems intent on forcing a one-size-fits-all mandate on states, some of which actually have solutions to repair their health-care systems that Washington is preventing them from trying.

Texas, for example, has adopted approaches to controlling health-care costs while improving choice, advancing quality of care and expanding coverage. Consider the successful 2003 tort reform. Fewer frivolous lawsuits have attracted record numbers of doctors to the state as medical malpractice insurance premiums dropped by half. Christus Health, a large Catholic nonprofit system with a significant presence in Texas, spent about $100 million on liability defense payments in 2003. Last year, Christus spent $2.3 million on such payments. Much of that savings has gone into expanding health-care services in low-income neighborhoods.

What Gingrich and Perry neglected to mention is that Texas is a disaster for the uninsured: "Texas currently leads the nation in the rate of uninsured, with more than 25 percent of the state's residents lacking health-care coverage. If you limit the analysis to residents under age 65, which takes seniors covered by the national Medicare program out of the data, 28 percent of Texans are uninsured.... Letting Perry serve as the spokesman for a federalist solution to the health-care system is a bit like letting Dick Fuld testify on the adequacy of self-regulation on Wall Street, or Donald Rumsfeld explain that occupations are easy."

For that matter, the vaunted "tort reform" measure in Texas, passed six years ago, has screwed over a few too many Texans.

As for Texas investing "savings" in "health-care services in low-income neighborhoods," I can think of several thousand Texans who'd love to hear all about it.

It's these pesky details that get Gingrich and Perry every time.

GERSON'S SENSE OF THE 'CENTER'.... Michael Gerson, reflecting on this week's elections, believes "it was a center-right victory in a center-right country." He was referring, of course, to Republican gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia. Gerson largely overlooked the Democratic congressional victories in California and New York. It is odd when the center-right country gives Democrats the biggest congressional majority in decades, and then adds more, isn't it?

More to the point, Gerson believes Republicans going two-for-four in these closely-watched elections is evidence of President Obama "ceding the center" to the GOP.

Politicians who have run for governor -- say, Bill Clinton -- had a good feel for the politics of the center. Obama has yet to demonstrate it. According to the White House, on election night he was "not watching returns" -- displaying a French monarch's indifference to America's shifting middle.

Now comes Obama's largest test, which will determine the ideological atmosphere for the 2010 election. If the president -- opposed by a majority of Americans, with almost no support from the other party -- imposes an ideologically divisive health reform, it will smack of radicalism, reinforce polarization and may cede the ideological center to Republicans for years to come.

A couple of thoughts here. First, according to the Bush White House, George W. Bush was also not watching election returns in November 2006. Does Gerson believe his Christian de Neuvillette also demonstrated a French monarch's indifference to America's shifting middle?

Second, Gerson is convinced that the electorally smart thing for Democrats to do is to fail at reforming the health care system. I might suggest the governing majority ignore the advice.

But most importantly, Gerson believes President Obama's efforts to rescue the country from the fiasco left by Gerson's former boss are somehow beyond the pale of the American mainstream. Gerson writes of "radicalism," "polarization," and Republicans seizing the center.

My questions for Gerson are straightforward enough: has he seen the Republican Party lately? Is he aware of the Tea Partiers, Birthers, Deathers, "Freedom Fighters" and assorted revolutionaries who dominate the Republican Party in 2009? Has Gerson noticed that the GOP is led, in large part, by a ridiculous combination of confused ideologues (Palin, Bachmann, Pence) and deranged media personalities (Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity)?

Gerson believes Republicans are poised to represent the center a day after the chairman of the Republican National Committee publicly declared to GOP moderates, "We'll come after you."

Republicans may or may not do well in next year's elections; time will tell. But the notion that it's the White House engaging in "radicalism" suggests Michael Gerson is still part of a team creating its own reality.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR SOUTHERN WHITE MALES.... Curt Levey of the far-right Committee for Justice doesn't approve of President Obama's judicial nominees. Sure, there are the usual conservative reasons -- the president, for some reason, refuses to nominate right-wing jurists for lifetime positions on the federal bench -- but Levey is especially incensed that there's a lack of southern white guys among Obama's selections.

[O]nce again we have to wonder whether a Democratic bias against southern white men serving on the federal appeals courts is at work. [...]

Does President Obama or his advisors believe that southern white men are likely to be bigoted, making them unfit to serve on the second most powerful court in the land? We hope not and readily concede that it is difficult to know if any such stereotype lurks in the White House. The absence of southern white male circuit nominees could, instead, be an innocent coincidence or the not-so-innocent byproduct of a judicial selection process dominated by racial and gender preferences.

But regardless of the reason for the pattern we noted in 2007 and again now, even the appearance that Democrats are biased against southern white men is a potential problem for the party generally, and for President Obama's goal of transcending old racial divisions. At the very least, the pattern merits further thought and discussion, both outside and inside the White House.

Levey specifically points to the southern circuits -- the Fourth, Fifth, and Eleventh -- where President Obama has neglected to nominate southern white guys.

Kyle at Right Wing Watch reminds us of some of the relevant numbers here. Of the 37 seats in these circuits, 20 are already filled by white guys. Of the 157 circuit court seats nationwide, 95 are filled by white guys. It's awfully difficult to make the case that the president is neglecting an unrepresented "minority" -- white guys -- when they already represent a majority.

Adam Serwer added, "Just to put this in perspective, a whopping 18 percent of judges on the federal bench are people of color. But in the eyes of this conservative group, assigning more white men to the federal bench 'transcends racial divisions,' and that doing otherwise reflects a selection process 'dominated by racial and gender preferences.' Conservatives regularly try to cast affirmative action as racially discriminatory, but rarely does someone openly admit that their only issue with the process is simply who is being discriminated against."

BRINGING OUT THE WORST IN SMALL, SAD MINDS.... On "Fox & Friends" this morning, the hosts speculated about the need for "special screenings" of Muslim officers in the U.S. military. It follows a certain child-like reasoning -- Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan went on a deadly rampage yesterday, shooting 43 people. Hasan is Muslim. Therefore, Muslims in uniform may be untrustworthy.

Soon after, Allen West, a top recruit of the National Republican Congressional Committee in Florida, announced his belief that, in light of the Fort Hood tragedy, the "enemy is infiltrating our military." West, one of 32 new members of the NRCC "Young Guns" program a congressional candidate in the Miami area next year, added, "Our soldiers are being brainwashed."

Now, at this point, we have no idea what led a 14-veteran of the U.S. Army to commit such a heinous crime, but there's a frightening ease with which too many conservatives embrace bigotry like this.

Spencer Ackerman gets this exactly right.

To make a point no one should have to make: earlier this year, a deranged Army sergeant named John Russell opened fire near a combat stress clinic -- sound familiar? -- at Baghdad's Camp Liberty and killed five of his fellow soldiers. No one speculated about any religious motivations. No one suggested he was part of an enemy "infiltration," or suggested that U.S. troops have been "brainwashed." Everyone understood that Russell was a deranged lunatic, not an advance scout for a conspiracy to subvert the military internally. It's funny how double standards work.

Actually, no. It's disgusting.

A tragic part of American life is that, from time to time, we learn of horrific shootings like the one at Fort Hood yesterday. There was, apparently, another shooting this morning, this time in Orlando, in which one was killed and seven were critically wounded. The gunman wasn't a Muslim.

Likewise, last year, 32 people were shot down in Virginia Tech. In March, 10 were killed in a shooting rampage in Alabama. In April, 13 were killed in upstate New York. In each instance, the gunmen weren't Muslim.

It's been 24 hours since the violence began at Fort Hood. Can we wait just a little while before jumping to conclusions and making baseless allegations about Americans who haven't done anything wrong?

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE NEED FOR FILIBUSTER REFORM.... Matt Yglesias flags this item, which is a reminder as to why conservative Democrats so often stand in the way of effective policymaking.

Democrat Ben Nelson, a Senator from Nebraska, said the slumping economy and rising joblessness will be factors as Congress considers climate change and health care legislation. They are also driving concerns about the budget deficit, which widened to a record $1.42 trillion in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, he said.

"When the economy's not strong there's a lot of interest in controlling spending," Nelson said.

Everything about this is ridiculous. Nelson isn't some rookie; he's been a senator long enough to understand public policy basics, and his remarks are substantively gibberish.

Cutting back on federal spending in a weak economy is crazy. When there's a hole in the economy, it makes sense to fill it -- not make it bigger by taking capital out of the system.

Even conservatives should be able to understand this. As Matt explained, "With the economy weak Nelson wants to do ... what? Lay off teachers? Halt infrastructure projects? Make sure that kids whose parents are unemployed end up malnourished? The economy is suffering from a catastrophic collapse in overall spending with households, businesses, states, and municipalities all pulling back. If the federal government pulls back too we're going to go down the drain."

It's a reminder that Ben Nelson, like too many conservatives, simply doesn't approach public policy in a serious way. Indeed, back in February, when policymakers needed to make the recovery efforts bigger and more ambitious, they couldn't -- Nelson wouldn't let them. He said at the time that an $800 billion stimulus, regardless of whether it would help or not, shouldn't pass. "At some point it's just too big," Nelson argued, with the intellectual seriousness of a house plant.

Even the points about health care reform and climate change are nonsensical. Neither increase the deficit, both improve the long-term finances of the country, and both take effect in the future. Nelson's argument is, in effect, that policymakers should scale back their efforts because it just "feels better."

And all of this underscores the larger point about the systemic flaws of Senate lawmaking. Ideally, one conservative Democrat, confused about effective public policy, wouldn't make any difference. There are 60 members of the Democratic caucus, and if Nelson and a couple of others prefer to vote with Republicans on the major issues of the day, so be it.

But the structures of the existing system make that impossible -- every vote requires a supermajority. And Nelson's Hoover-like attitudes -- "When the economy's not strong there's a lot of interest in controlling spending" -- have to be taken seriously to the extent that the majority can't govern without him.

BIG VOTE TOMORROW NIGHT -- MAYBE.... The stage is set for a historic vote tomorrow night in the U.S. House on health care reform. This morning, however, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) conceded that it's not definitely going to happen tomorrow night, and it might even be delayed until next week.

There are some lingering problems getting Democratic holdouts on board...

House Democrats acknowledged they don't yet have the votes to pass a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health care system, and signaled they may push back the vote until Sunday or early next week. [...]

The apparent problem: Democrats have yet to resolve intraparty disputes over abortion funding and illegal immigrants' access to health care.

...and House Republicans may use various parliamentary tactics to stall, pushing off the vote.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is warning action on a health care overhaul could slip past a planned Saturday evening vote into Sunday -- or even Monday or Tuesday -- if House Republicans employ delaying tactics.

"I have not said the bill might get pushed back. But clearly, things happen," Hoyer said on a Friday morning conference call with reporters.

Hoyer added, "We're very close." It's his "expectation" that a vote on final passage will occur between 7 and 8 p.m. eastern.

A total of 218 votes will constitute a majority and pass the bill, which means, with no GOP votes, the leadership can withstand 40 Dems breaking ranks. By most counts, there are 25 "firm" votes from Democrats opposed to the bill, and a couple of dozen -- some on the left, some on the right -- that are in play.

President Obama was scheduled to make a personal appeal to House Dems on the Hill today, but the meeting was rescheduled for tomorrow in light of the Fort Hood shootings.

FRIDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP....Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* MoveOn.org and Democracy for America announced yesterday that they've secured $3.5 million in commitments to support primary challenges against Senate Democrats who side with Republicans on a filibuster of health care reform. (That, alas, won't work against Lieberman.)

* The far-right Club for Growth has released a new television ad attacking Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for supporting President Obama's stimulus package. The group has not yet formally endorsed Marco Rubio, but that's only a matter of time.

* New York Gov. David Paterson (D) has very low approval ratings, and polls show voters don't want him to seek a full term, but he seems to be moving forward anyway. Paterson has reportedly hired Harold Ickes, former President Bill Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff, as a member of his team. The governor has also unveiled two new television ads.

* Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak (D) announced yesterday that he's running for governor in Minnesota next year. The office is currently held by Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R), who is not seeking another term.

* The GOP's far-right base isn't impressed with Carly Fiorina's (R) Senate campaign in California, but that didn't stop eight Republican Senators -- McConnell, Kyl, Murkowski, McCain, Coburn, Collins, Graham, and Snowe -- from throwing their support to the first-time candidate.

* Speaking of California, Meg Whitman's (R) gubernatorial campaign is off to a rough start, but a Capitol Weekly still shows her leading among Republican primary voters. Though most are still undecided, Whitman currently leads former Rep. Tom Campbell, 34% to 13%.

* And in still more California-related news, might Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) run for governor? She seemed to be strongly leaning against the idea a few months ago, but yesterday, Feinstein said she hasn't ruled out the possibility.

* And while the National Republican Senatorial Committee assured right-wing activists that it would not offer financial support to GOP candidates in primary fights, hosting fundraisers for favored candidates apparently doesn't count.

NO, HASAN DID NOT ADVISE THE TRANSITION.... I guess this was bound to happen, but it doesn't make it any less annoying.

WorldNetDaily falsely claimed that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan "advised Obama transition" in the headline of an article by Jerome Corsi highlighting his listing as a "participant" in a report for the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University's Presidential Transition Task Force.

However, Corsi himself acknowledges that there is no evidence that "the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition" - indeed, the Task Force was initiated in April 2008; moreover, while Hasan was listed as one of approximately 300 "Task Force Event Participants" in the report's appendix, HSPI has reportedly said he was not a "member" of the Task Force, and was listed because he RSVP'd for several of the group's events."

Spencer Ackerman, calling the claim "thoroughly, thoroughly wrong," added, "That GWU document no more 'advised' the Obama transition as did the flurry of think-tank documents and advisory strategies put out by endless interest groups. It had, and therefore Hasan had, absolutely no connection to the Obama administration.... Hasan attended a meeting of a private organization that gave the transition some unsolicited advice. To a group of conspiracy theorists, this is the 'connection.' How long before Fox News picks up the story?"

I can only assume by this evening, Hasan will be considered the secret author of "Dreams From My Father."

THANK GOODNESS FOR GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE ON CAPITOL HILL.... About 20 minutes into yesterday's right-wing rally on the Hill in opposition to health care reform, one of the protestors suffered a heart attack. Fortunately, as Dana Milbank reported, medical professionals were able to respond quickly.

Medical personnel from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care -- rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip.

This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to the microphone. [...]

By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care.

As far as I can tell, neither the conservative lawmakers or the far-right protestors actually voiced opposition to the government health care services, or called on the elimination of the Capitol physician's office. Government-run health care -- the scourge the Republicans assembled to denounce -- may be poised to contribute to the end of Western civilization, but it can also apparently be pretty helpful and effective.

On a related note, I can't help but wonder how many of the lawmakers who spoke at yesterday's rally also like to stop by the Office of the Attending Physician -- the elaborate, government-run health care office conveniently located between the House and Senate chambers, staffed with a team of medical professionals who are "standing by, on-call and ready to provide Congress with some of the country's best and most efficient government-run health care."

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), for example, hates government-run, taxpayer-subsidized health care, but he just loves the Office of the Attending Physician on the Hill.

I don't imagine this came up during yesterday's speeches. I wonder why.

WHAT IT TAKES TO EXTEND UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS.... The good news is, President Obama will sign a measure today to extend unemployment benefits for at least 14 weeks for people out of work. It's money well spent -- it helps struggling people, and the investment tends to be stimulative -- and with new, discouraging job numbers, the timing is right.

"Given the employment situation and the general bang for the buck you get from unemployment insurance, that's probably the most sensible of the stimulative policies to extend," Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said.

The bad news is, it took far too long to get the common-sense bill through Congress. The measure stalled in the Senate for weeks, and while GOP lawmakers dithered, about 200,000 people who are looking for work lost their benefits.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about why Republicans were forcing delays, and Kevin Drum summarized what transpired on the Senate floor yesterday.

...Democrats only had to break three separate filibusters in the Senate to get this passed! The first filibuster was broken by a vote of 87-13, the second by a vote of 85-2, and the third by a vote of 97-1. The fourth and final vote, the one to actually pass the bill, was 98-0. Elapsed time: five weeks for a bill that everyone ended up voting for.

Why? Because even though Republicans were allowed to tack on a tax cut to the bill as the price of getting it passed, they decided to filibuster anyway unless they were also allowed to include an anti-ACORN amendment. Seriously. A bit of ACORN blustering to satisfy the Palin-Beck crowd is the reason they held up a bill designed to help people who are out of work in the deepest recession since World War II.... That's called taking governing seriously, my friends.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wondered yesterday why any lawmaker would deliberately hold up unemployment benefits during a recession. "Who are they representing?" she wondered.

I wonder the same thing all the time.

BEST. PARODY. EVER.... There's not a whole lot to be cheery about this morning, so perhaps a little laughter is in order.

Jon Stewart did a parody of Glenn Beck on last night's "The Daily Show" that may be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Stewart is known for being a quick-witted interviewer, and an underrated stand-up comedian, but let's not overlook his acting chops. This was truly brilliant.

OCTOBER SLOWS SLIGHT JOB IMPROVEMENT, BUT RATE HITS 10.2%.... The monthly job losses were better in October than September, but that didn't stop the overall unemployment rate from increasing to double digits for the first time since 1983.

The United States economy shed 190,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent, up from 9.8 percent in September, the Department of Labor said Friday in its monthly economic appraisal.

While the pace of the job losses has slowed significantly since the peak of the recession last winter, the unemployment rate, which measures the number of people actively seeking work, continues to climb, and economists do not foresee relief until well into next year.

"There's no doubt that the slashing and burning of jobs has abated quite a lot," said Allen L. Sinai, the founder of Decision Economics, a research firm. "The economy is recovering, but it is a very soft recovery."

It's little solace, but the numbers for August and September were adjusted in a better direction.

Here's the homemade chart, showing job losses by month, starting in January 2008, a month after the recession began.

If we include those who are working part-time but want full-time employment, or those who've simply given up -- the U6 measure -- the overall rate hit 17.5%. It is, not surprisingly, the highest it's been since the government began keeping track in 1994.

All told, nearly 16 million are now out of work.

THE MASSACRE AT FORT HOOD.... In the immediate aftermath of the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, there were a variety of reports that proved to be inaccurate. Here's what we know, as of this morning.

An Army psychiatrist facing deployment to one of America's war zones killed 13 people and wounded 30 others on Thursday in a shooting rampage with two handguns at the sprawling Fort Hood Army post in central Texas, military officials said.

It was one of the worst mass shootings ever at a military base in the United States.

The gunman, who was still alive after being shot four times, was identified by law enforcement authorities as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, who had been in the service since 1995. Major Hasan was about to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas.

Clad in a military uniform and firing an automatic pistol and another weapon, Major Hasan, a balding, chubby-faced man with heavy eyebrows, sprayed bullets inside a crowded medical processing center for soldiers returning from or about to be sent overseas, military officials said.

The victims, nearly all military personnel but including two civilians, were cut down in clusters, the officials said.

Hasan was shot by a first-responder, who was herself wounded in the exchange. While initial reports said both were killed, it now appears both Hasan and the first-responder who shot him survived.

Hasan was described as the sole gunman in the shooting rampage, and has been hospitalized off base, under around-the-clock guard.

While words like "al Qaeda" and "terrorism" were quickly thrown into the media mix, Army Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, who briefed reporters on the shooting, said the preliminary evidence did not suggest that the rampage had been an act of terrorism.

There were also reports about multiple shooters. It appears that three other soldiers were taken into custody, but their roles in the incident are unclear. While a local congressman said they were later released, the Army did not confirm this.

Attention now turns, of course, to Hasan, who he is, and what motivated him to attack. Based on what we've learned, Hasan is a Virginia-born doctor who once practiced at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He graduated from Virginia Tech in 1997 and earned a doctorate in psychiatry from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda.

There were some reports suggesting he is a recent convert to Islam, but additional reporting suggests he is a life-long Muslim, with no history of violence or radicalism. By one account, Hasan reconsidered a military career after having been "harassed" by other soldiers about his faith, though we don't know if that had anything to do with the shooting.

In terms of motivation, one of the common threads this morning points to Hasan's unwillingness to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan, after having counseled returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder.

There will be an extensive investigation and we'll no doubt know more in the coming days and weeks.

THURSDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* A stunning tragedy: "Eleven people plus an attacker were killed and 31 were wounded after a gunman opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday, a Fort Hood spokesman said. The gunman was a soldier, and two other soldiers have been detained as suspects, said the spokesman, Lt. Gen. Bob Cone. Officials said they believe three gunmen were involved. At least two of the gunmen wore military uniforms, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said. One of the shooters has been apprehended, Fort Hood spokesman Sgt. Maj. Jamie Posten told CNN."

* President Obama addressed the shooting this afternoon, calling the incident "a horrific outburst of violence." He added, "These are men and women who made the selfless and courageous decision" to risk their lives in the service of the nation. "It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."

* Congress approved an extension of unemployment benefits today, as well as the home-buyer tax credit. President Obama is expected to sign them into law tomorrow.

* A dozen right-wing protestors refused to leave Speaker Pelosi's congressional office and were arrested.

* The phrase of the day at the Tea Party rally at the Capitol seemed to be "Kill the bill." Even now, I'm still not quite sure what it is about health care reform these folks hate so much.

* Nice to see retail sales have a fairly strong month, posting the retailing industry's best performance in more than a year.

* Despite a ridiculous "boycott" of the proceedings, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved its climate bill today, on 10 to 1 vote.

* Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will apparently not seek another term in office, an announcement that will add additional disarray to the already chaotic Palestinian political system.

* House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) vowed unanimous opposition to health care reform from the House Republican caucus.

* The American Center Society joined the AMA and the AARP in endorsing the House health care reform bill.

* Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani's former police commissioner and George W. Bush's one-time choice to head the Department of Homeland Security, is headed for prison.

* President Obama hosted a White House Tribal Nations Conference today, which included leaders from 564 federally recognized tribes.

* It's not a good time to subsidize rich kids' educations.

* Immunity for prosecutors who frame innocent men for murder? I hope not.

* If Republicans were to reclaim the House majority, I suspect the calls for baseless presidential impeachment would get pretty loud.

* And Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) talks about how she starts her day: "The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning out of bed, I grab my cell phone and I look to RedState ... and I feel like I at least am kind of prepared to get out of bed, and then I go read the editorial page of Investors Business Daily or the Wall Street Journal for a wider background of knowledge for the day... I just find it is one of the most credible sources of information out there." I think she's serious.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.