"He went out of his way to attack New York on the bill,” King, R-N.Y., added, the New York Daily News reports. "It's a little early to forgive and forget."

“It’s life and death,” King continued. “There were really false and phony charges made against the Sandy aid, and if Ted Cruz had prevailed, my constituents would be homeless."

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Of course right-wing bloggers hailed King as the winner in the debate – he wasn’t – and one sad sack even called Ellison “the jihadi Democrat.”

The fact is, we need more Keith Ellisons in Congress. Not just because he’s a great progressive voice, supporting the president but challenging him strongly on his questionable austerity politics, but also because he’s a patriotic American who’s also a Muslim. He's crucial right now.

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"Most Muslims are outstanding people, but the threat is coming from the Muslim community," said King, who was behind the House hearings on Muslim radicalization.

He continued: "And in previous times, when certain elements in a community are the ones responsible for crime, the police focus on it. For instance, in Boston, the F.B.I. never spoke to the Boston police about the older brother. And afterwards, there were no intelligence files in Boston on these type of people, these people inclined to terrorism. The F.B.I. never even got to examining him."

"I think it's ineffective law enforcement to go after a particular community," said Ellison, who is Muslim. "Once you start saying, "We're going to dragnet or surveil a community," what you do is you ignore dangerous threats that are not in that community and you go after people who don't have anything to do with it."

Watch:

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“I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important,” Paul declared. “That your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.”

Even though I disagree with Paul on virtually every other issue and generally consider him to be kind of a joke, I’d have been happy to be proven wrong. Maybe he had a conscience. Maybe he would become a much needed civil liberties leader on the right.

Alas, I haven’t been proven wrong. Mr. Filibuster, the tribune of civil liberties, now says that drones should have been used against the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston – not only that, he told Fox’s Neal Cavuto they should even be used against someone robbing a liquor store.

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“Police have to be in the community, they have to build up as many sources as they can, and they have to realize that the threat is coming from the Muslim community and increase surveillance there,” King, a New York Republican, told the National Review.

“We can’t be bound by political correctness,” he continued. “I think we need more police and more surveillance in the communities where the threat is coming from, whether it’s the Irish community with the Westies [an Irish-American gang in New York City], or the Italian community with the mafia, or the Muslim community with the Islamic terrorists.”

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Most recently, Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said he thinks there should be a “vote up or down."

“I’ll speak for myself on that question,” he said on CBS’s “This Morning.” “There’s no ambivalence on the gun issue, I think everyone knows what the issues are. We have not seen the final draft of the legislation that was produced, I understand, last night, but I think it deserves a vote up or down.”

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"I don't think we have to wait until Americans are killed or wounded or injured in any way," King continued. "I'm not saying we should be rushing into war, don't get me wrong, but if we have solid evidence that North Korea's going to take action, then I think we have a moral obligation and an absolute right to defend ourselves."

Watch, via The Hill:

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The 68-year-old Republican is known more for his bare-knuckle politics than his pugilistic skills. He said Wednesday he plans to step into the ring Saturday for a two-round exhibition bout against a New York state kickboxing champion, "Irish" Josh Foley, at a pub in Wantagh, N.Y.

"Some people have been comparing my bout with Foley to Tiger Woods playing golf with President Obama," King said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "If Foley goes all out, it will be a very quick fight."

The congressman said he weighs in at about 230 pounds and has been training for about nine years. The bout isn't for charity, he said.

"We'll be sparring," King said. "If anyone is going to get knocked out, it will be me. I can tell you that much."

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"Being from New York we’re not supposed to be suckers,” King told the New York Observer's Politicker blog. “It’s bad enough that these guys voted against it, that’s inexcusable enough. But to have the balls to come in and say, ‘We screwed you, now make us president'?"

King said that New York donors should cut off Rubio and any other Republicans who “threw a knife in the back in New York” by opposing the bill. “[Republicans] are more and more taking on this anti-Northeast attitude,” he said. “We say fine, if you want to be anti-Northeast, then the Northeast is going to be anti-them."

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On Thursday, FEMA said that barring congressional action to raise the agency's borrowing limit, "funds available to pay claims will be exhausted sometime around the week of January 7, 2013."

Reuters reports:

The FEMA program is essentially the only U.S. flood insurer for residences. It has a $20.8 billion ceiling for borrowing authority.

FEMA estimated Sandy-related flood losses of $6 billion to $12 billion in November, far beyond its cash and $3 billion in untapped borrowing authority.

Friday's vote will be on a $9.7 billion spending package for the National Flood Insurance Program, with another vote scheduled for January 15 on the other $51 billion of the Senate's Hurricane Sandy package.

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According to the AP, DeGette introduced the bill with Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., whose husband was killed in a 1993 mass shooting on the Long Island Rail Road in New York. From the AP:

[DeGette]'s district includes the site of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. It is also adjacent to last year's Aurora movie theater shooting site. In both of those attacks, the shooters' rifles were modified with high-capacity magazines. Those devices allow attackers to fire dozens of bullets without pausing to reload.

Though it's still unclear whether a ban can pass the Republican-controlled House, there were some promising signs from at least one Republican earlier today.

Rep. Peter King, also from New York, said on "Morning Joe": "I voted for the assault weapon ban back in 1994. My father was a police officer. I really don't know why people need assault weapons."

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Republican Rep. Peter King says the speaker will schedule a vote Friday for $9 billion in flood insurance and another on Jan. 15 for a remaining $51 billion in the package. The votes will be taken by the new Congress that will be sworn in Thursday.

Boehner's decision to cancel an expected vote Tuesday night had outraged lawmakers from New York, New Jersey and elsewhere, including many in his own party.

King said Boehner made the promise in a private meeting with lawmakers from affected states. King and others said they were now satisfied that the aid will be forthcoming.

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On Wednesday, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., excoriated John Boehner and House Republicans, calling it "absolutely disgraceful" and saying that "my world turned upside down last night."

"People in my party, they wonder why they're becoming a minority party," King said on CNN. "They're writing off New York, they're writing off New Jersey. Well, they've written me off, and they're gonna have a hard time getting my vote, I can tell you that."

King added that "anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee should have their head examined."

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., said he was "utterly devastated" by the decision, and called it "beyond surprising" that the House adjourned without a vote. He said it was ultimately House Speaker John Boehner's call to adjourn without a vote, and that he had received signals from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that the vote would happen.

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These fear-mongers won’t be able to spread their hysteria from the bully pulpit of a House seat any longer. But that doesn’t mean that the House Republican caucus has rid themselves of the scourge of anti-Muslim politicians who stoke that sentiment for political gain. On the contrary, the House Republican caucus remains the place where the ugly head of Islamophobia rests comfortably.

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Texas Republican Rep. Mike McCaul edged out Michigan Rep. Candice Miller -- who was the GOP’s best hope of getting a female major committee head -- and Mike Rodgers in a close private vote this week. King’s tenure as chairman drew controversy for the series of hearings he held on the radicalization of Muslims in America. Critics didn’t discount the threat of homegrown terror but said King should have expanded the hearings to include all kinds of violent radicalism, including right-wing extremism.

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To judge by what representatives of each party told the press after the hearing, you’d think they attended entirely different meetings. Republicans seem to think that Petraeus completely undercut the Obama administration’s account of the attacks on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, while Democrats insist he backed up that account.

"The fact is, the reference to al-Qaida was taken out somewhere along the line by someone outside the intelligence community ... We need to find out who did it and why,” said Republican Rep. Peter King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who attended the first of two back-to-back hearings with Petraeus. (The second was with senators.) "The general was adamant there was no politicization of the process, no White House interference or political agenda ... He completely debunked that idea," said Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of the very same meeting.

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On Petraeus:

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., was confused as to why the the FBI didn't alert President Obama to the affair until just last week. “The FBI should have had an obligation to tell the president,” King said on CNN's "State of the Union." “It just doesn’t add up.”

But Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., also on CNN, said everything about the FBI's handling of the revelations appears proper: “I don’t see a conspiracy behind every curtain as some of my colleagues do."

On the budget negotiations in Congress:

Bill Kristol argued that the GOP should not "fall on its sword" defending lower taxes for millionaires. "Don't scream and yell when one person says, 'you know what, it won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires.' It really won't, I don't think," he said on Fox News Sunday.

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The New York Times reports that the FBI came across information about the affair after the woman, who knows Petraeus and Broadwell, complained:

"When F.B.I. agents following up on the complaint began to examine Ms. Broadwell’s e-mails, they discovered exchanges between her and Mr. Petraeus that revealed that they were having an affair, said several officials who spoke of the investigation on the condition of anonymity. They also discovered that Ms. Broadwell possessed certain classified information, one official said, but apparently concluded that it was probably not Mr. Petraeus who had given it to her and that there had been no major breach of security. No leak charges are expected to be filed as a result of the investigation."

A Congressional official who was briefed on the affair told the Times that the FBI said the investigation  “started with two women," but “it didn't start with Petraeus, but in the course of the investigation they stumbled across him."

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In the face of the retorts, though, King pressed on, musing, "Is breast cancer the only charity NFL should support?" To the person who asked, "What if each team could pick one week in October where they wear the pink?" he retorted, "Perfect. That'd be ideal." But over at ESPN's radio 104.5, Jay Sanin was appalled. "ARE YOU SERIOUS?" he demanded, suggesting, "Maybe instead of being an ignorant idiot about life-threatening diseases, Peter King should stick to being an ignorant idiot about the NFL."

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"No," King stated plainly. "Obviously, we always have to be looking out at all times that the police maintain their proper role. But I think the Department of Homeland Security, and the police I deal with -- whether it's the FBI or the New York City Police Department -- no, I think civil liberties are being protected. Privacy is being protected. And considering the nature of the threat against us, I would say the police are remarkably restrained."

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