Obama’s ‘Worst Day’ as President, Bachmann’s Surprising Honor, and More

A Very Dark Day:

President Obama says Dec. 14, the day of the Newtown, Conn., shooting, was the worst day of his presidency. During an interview on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, the president pledged to support legislation that would attempt to curb mass shootings like the one that claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “I think there are a vast majority of responsible gun owners out there who recognize that we can’t have a situation in which somebody with severe psychological problems is able to get the kind of high capacity weapons that this individual in Newtown obtained and gun down our kids. And, yes, it’s going to be hard,” he said on the program. (Read more)

Prairie State Push: The president this weekend also continued his efforts to have same-sex marriage legalized, this time urging the state of Illinois to allow gay couples to wed. The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act could come up for a vote as early as this week in the state’s legislature, where the president began his political career. “Were the president still in the Illinois state legislature, he would support this measure that would treat all Illinois couples equally,” a White House spokesman said. (Read more)

‘Woman of the Year’? WorldNetDaily, a conservative news website and not a news parody outlet like The Onion, has selected Michele Bachmann as its 2012 “Woman of the Year.” Ignoring all the facts about Bachmann’s year — she bowed out of the presidential race before the two Ricks (Perry and Santorum) and Newt “Let’s Colonize the Moon” Gingrich, and also was heavily criticized for making the outrageous and unfounded claim that personnel within the Obama administration had “nefarious” ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — the website chose the Minnesota congresswoman for being a “gutsy, pro-life fiscal conservative who dared to vote against raising the debt ceiling.” Bachmann beat out the likes of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly, which pretty much tells you all you need to know about this supposed “honor.” (Read more)

Paying the Price: Craft store chain Hobby Lobby would rather pay a daily $1.3 million fine than comply with the Obama administration’s so-called birth control mandate. The company, a for-profit organization that opposes covering birth control for religious reasons, sued the federal government to avoid the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provision. That legal challenge was denied by the Supreme Court. As a result, Hobby Lobby will incur a massive daily noncompliance fine beginning Jan. 1. (Read more)

Big Oops: Contrary to reports in Germany’s Der Spiegel, President George H.W. Bush is still alive. The news weekly mistakenly ran the former president’s obituary Sunday just hours after a spokesman said Bush’s health was improving. Bush, who has been in a Houston-area hospital since last month, was moved out of intensive care and back into a regular hospital room over the weekend. The unfinished obit appeared on Der Spiegel’s website for a short time before it was taken down. (Read more)

Video of the Day: A C-SPAN caller is so angry with Republicans that he wants to amend the U.S. Constitution so that President Obama could be elected to a third term.