“So I’m at a wedding at one of my clubs, and I always try to go by and say what a beautiful bride, and they’re happy as they pay me $600 or $700 a head, and after about two minutes I’m bored stiff.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Bloomberg.
Archives for June 2015
Have Democrats Lost Wedge Issues to Use Against GOP?
“A cascade of events suggests that 2015 could be remembered as a Liberal Spring: the moment when deeply divisive and consuming questions of race, sexuality and broadened access to health care were settled in quick succession, and social tolerance was cemented as a cornerstone of American public life,” the New York Times reports.
“Yet what appears, in headlines and celebrations across the country, to represent an unalloyed victory for Democrats, in which lawmakers and judges alike seemed to give in to the leftward shift of public opinion, may contain an opening for the Republican Party to move beyond losing battles and seemingly lost causes.”
Washington Post: “This uneven terrain is now a key battlefield in the 2016 campaign, unnerving red America and fueling intense debate within the Republican Party about how to navigate such changes — or whether to adapt to the mainstream at all.”
The Urban-Rural Divide Just Got Wider
“There are many divides in American politics. There’s red and blue and black and white. But some of the starkest differences exist between rural and urban America. And events in the news this past week only highlighted the size of those divides,” NBC News reports.
“On trade, the Affordable Care Act and same-sex marriage, rural America has different opinions than those who live in urban and suburban areas, according to polling data. And on each of those issues, the news out of Washington over the past few days has signaled a negative shift.”
Obama Sets Sizzling Pace for Climate Actions
“The White House has churned out about 40 new measures to fight carbon pollution just since the start of 2015, stepping up the pace ahead of critical talks for a global climate change deal,” the Guardian reports.
“Two years after Barack Obama’s sweeping promise to fight climate change on 25 June 2013, the president has used his executive powers to spit out new climate events or announcements at a dizzying rate of one every 4.5 days this year, according to the running tally kept by the White House.”
The United States of Corruption
Gary Hart: “Can anyone seriously doubt that our republic, our government, is corrupt? There have been Teapot Domes and financial scandals of one kind or another throughout our nation’s history. There has never been a time, however, when the government of the United States was so perversely and systematically dedicated to special interests, earmarks, side deals, log-rolling, vote-trading, and sweetheart deals of one kind or another.”
“What brought us to this? A sinister system combining staggering campaign costs, political contributions, political action committees, special interest payments for access, and, most of all, the rise of the lobbying class.”
Christie Thinks Big Field Requires Less Money
Newark Star Ledger: “The fact that the GOP field is the largest since Abraham Lincoln may have changed the monetary calculus for Christie, according to some of the donors supporting his run. They say rather than taking on one big-money candidate such as Bush, Christie will simply need enough to compete with the crowd of over a dozen, at least for now.”
“Christie’s campaign, which went live on Saturday ahead of an formal announcement Tuesday, won’t say officially just how much cash is needed But top Christie donor Al Hill, Jr. – the Texas oilman who’s the grandson of billionaire H. L. Hunt – told NJ Advance Media: ‘My understanding is $20 million needs to be raised between now and the first of December.'”
Cruz Wants ‘Retention Elections’ for Supreme Court
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “has proposed a constitutional amendment that would subject Supreme Court justices to periodic judicial elections in the wake of rulings that upheld a key portion of the Affordable Care Act and affirmed gay couples’ right to marriage,” the Washington Post reports.
Gay Rights Leaders Move to Next Battle
“Exhilarated by the Supreme Court’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, gay rights leaders have turned their sights to what they see as the next big battle: obtaining federal, state and local legal protections in employment, housing, commerce and other arenas, just like those barring discrimination based on race, religion, sex and national origin,” the New York Times reports.
“The proposals pit advocates against many of the same religious conservatives who opposed legalizing same-sex marriage, and who now see the protection of what they call religious liberty as their most urgent task.”
Trump Escalates Feud with Univision
Donald Trump’s “fight with Univision is heating up. On Friday he published an anchor’s personal phone number, called for the resignation of a top executive and banned all of the channel’s executives from using Trump’s golf course in Miami,” CNN reports.
Wrote Trump in a letter: “Under no circumstances is any officer or representative of Univision allowed to use Trump National Doral, Miami.”
He added a P.S.: “Please congratulate your Mexican Government officials for having made such outstanding trade deals with the United States. However, inform them that should I become President, those days are over.”
Gore Says It’s Too Early to Endorse Clinton
Al Gore declined to endorse Hillary Clinton for president when asked about her prospects, the New York Post reports.
Said Gore: “I wouldn’t refuse to answer that question, I would try to cleverly dodge that question. I would say it’s actually too early.”
Conservative Pundit Tears Up Over Gay Marriage Decision
Conservative pundit S.E. Cupp: “It’s hard not to watch that and get emotional. Those people there are not pariahs, they’re patriots.”
She added: “And so for my party — which I deeply, deeply love — my party really has to reconcile with the fact that we are going to become relics if we don’t get to where these people are.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“The Supreme Court is completely out of control, making laws on their own, and has become a public opinion poll instead of a judicial body. If we want to save some money lets just get rid of the court.”
— Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), quoted by the Baton Rouge Advocate, in response to the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage across the country.
Quote of the Day
“Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.”
— Justice Clarence Thomas, in his dissenting opinion on same-sex marriage.
Photo of the Day
GOP Hopefuls Denounce Gay Marriage Ruling
“Across the country, among people of all ages and religions, the acceptance of same-sex marriage has grown with stunning speed. But not in the leadership of the Republican Party,” the New York Times reports.
“There is a striking unanimity among the candidates who are running for the party’s presidential nomination in 2016: Not one supports allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. And after the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to marriage for all couples, regardless of their sexual orientation, the degree of difference among the candidates was largely a matter of how aggressively they would continue to resist.”
Obama Won’t Be a Lame Duck
With the amazing events of the last 10 days, David Remnick says the idea that President Obama “would play out his Presidency, after the political defeat of the midterm elections, as a professorial lame duck turns out to be without basis. And that gives a certain weight to his remarks in early 2014.”
Said Obama: “We’re on this planet a pretty short time, so that we cannot remake the world entirely during this little stretch that we have. … But I think our decisions matter. And I think America was very lucky that Abraham Lincoln was President when he was President. If he hadn’t been, the course of history would be very different. But I also think that, despite being the greatest President, in my mind, in our history, it took another hundred and fifty years before African-Americans had anything approaching formal equality, much less real equality. I think that doesn’t diminish Lincoln’s achievements, but it acknowledges that, at the end of the day, we’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.”
“It turns out that this was not, for Barack Obama, a rhetoric of resignation at all, but a kind of resolve.”
Two States Still Resisting Gay Marriage Ruling
“Within hours of the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, gay couples were exercising what the justices said is their constitutional right to marry in states that have long denied them. Of the 14 states where such unions were illegal prior to the ruling, all but two have allowed marriages to proceed,” the Washington Post reports.
“In Louisiana, the attorney general’s office said in a statement that it found ‘nothing in today’s decision that makes the Court’s order effective immediately.’ There have not yet been reports that same-sex marriage licenses have been granted anywhere in the state. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood instructed residents that the Supreme Court decision doesn’t yet apply to the state because Mississippi is entangled in a legal order from an ongoing gay marriage lawsuit.”
Sanders Pulls In $8.3 Million Online
Sen. Bernie Sanders “has raised at least $8.3 million online through June 17,” the New York Times reports.
“His campaign won’t file its initial report until July 15, but filings by ActBlue, the online fund-raising committee that serves as a conduit for Democratic campaigns, show that Mr. Sanders has brought in more money in May and the first half of June than any other Democratic candidate using ActBlue.”
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