​As we noted last night, singer Whitney Houston died yesterday at the age of 48. She was found dead of unknown causes in her hotel room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen told the Associated Press that "there were no obvious signs of any criminal intent." The death of the woman with the unbelievable voice also rattled our area. Last night, the Apollo in Harlem saw mourning and memorials. The New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where Houston sang as a child, remembered Houston in a small early morning memorial service. Jennifer Hudson and Chaka Khan will perform in Houston's honor at tonight's Grammy ceremony. [AP, CBS, Star-Ledger, NBC NY]

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​New Yorkers think that Ray Kelly is just swell and really like to embarrass one another, according to a new poll.

Indeed, the stats suggest that many city-dwellers are a strange bunch.

Even though Kelly appeared in an Islamophobic vid used for cop training, most New Yorkers don't think the NYPD is anti-Muslim, according to a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute Survey.

Sixty percent say that the police have acted "appropriately" in dealing with Muslims.

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​Great timing, Mike.

On the same day that the United Federation of Teachers is unveiling a week's worth of primetime attack ads on Bloomberg, the mayor told Albany that he supports Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget plan -- including the metrics-minded school proposals that really piss off educators.

In what amounted to a fair amount of Cuomo cheerleading, Bloomberg told lawmakers that he went to Albany today to shout "strong support" for parts of the gov's 2012-2013 budget and reform plan.

After chatting about pensions a bit (the complete text of the speech can be found here), Bloomberg backed Cuomo's call for teacher evals -- and their link to school funding.

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​The GOP debates have essentially turned into a traveling theater production, and today's matinee in New Hampshire was surprisingly energetic given their late performance last night. After going easy on Romney yesterday, the other candidates tried to stick it to him during this morning's MSNBC debate. The barb that everyone will be talking about came from Newt Gingrich when he told Romney to "drop a little bit of the pious baloney" when talking about his career outside politics. Video after the jump.

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​Frequently bombastic New Jersey governor Chris Christie said on Fox News today that it would be "presumptuous" of him to say no to running on Mitt Romney's ticket for vice president if the opportunity was offered to him. Christie endorsed Romney last month. Early in the interview, Politico reports, Christie said that the idea of his running alongside Romney hadn't been brought up. But if it did:

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​Last night, Ron Paul was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno promoting his new romantic comedy Unfair Trade, in which he plays a Libertarian Congressman who won't settle for anyone less than Ayn Rand (played by Katherine Heigl). He's also running for president, so Leno decided to ask him some questions about his fellow GOP candidates. What ensued is a preview of your Christmas dinner: Your lovable curmudgeon of a great uncle loosens up and everyone starts to pepper him with questions just to hear the zany, off-the-cuff responses he comes up with. Before long, he's accusing Aunt Gwen of hating Muslims and dad has to drive him back to the home. Take a look after the jump.

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Newt's America.

​Earlier, we wrote about last night's GOP debate in Des Moines and Mitt Romney's proposed $10,000 bet with Rick Perry over claims that Romney's book was edited to change a portion about health care. This fleeting and insignificant moment overshadowed the real issues that were discussed by the candidates. That's right, we're talking about the moon and its precious moon minerals.

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​By now, you've probably seen Rick Perry's "Strong" ad, in which he opines, "There's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school." Not only are gays in our military, they're also composing music for our campaign ads. As the Harvard Political Review points out, the music that plays in the background of Perry's ad is inspired by or directly taken from Aaron Copland, a gay composer.

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​Earlier this week, a 1954 AP brief surfaced telling the story of an eleven-year-old Newt Gingrich walking into Harrisburg, PA's City Hall and offering to "round up" some animals and start a zoo in the town. He was denied, but Gingrich's love for zoos prevailed. In fact, according to the Washington Post, Newt Gingrich loves zoos more than you have ever loved anything in your entire life.

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courtesy of Sarah Baker

Lincoln Restler on the night of his election to the New York State Democratic Committee last year.

​Last year, Brooklyn politics-as-usual got a shakeup via the election of glasses-sporting 27-year-old Lincoln Restler to a State Committee seat as the District Leader for Williamsburg and the surrounding environs. Restler and the New Kings Democrats, a grassroots lefty organization in Brooklyn, took on crooked Brooklyn Democratic Party boss Vito Lopez and won, showing that with the right amount of effort and door-knocking, an upstart can get voted into local elected office.

The Voice wrote about NKD a bit last year during that election cycle. Recently we heard from Sarah Baker, a NKD organizer who's now involved in a new project down in D.C. with other young Brooklyn political minds. She and Carlos Odio, an Obama campaign veteran, are running the Candidate Project, whose goal is basically to replicate Lincoln Restler's success all over the country by recruiting progressives to run for local elected positions (the political establishment in Washington now being seen as something of a lost cause). Odio is the director of the project and Baker's title is digital director. Yesterday they launched the 2,012 for 2012 initiative, which will attempt to get 2,012 regular people elected to local offices in the 2012 cycle. Brooklyn hipster-pols are going national!

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