Just published: Politics in America 2014 from CQ Roll Call.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“There’s no reason to be threatening to bring down the government, lets make this work get spending cuts we need but the American people get turned off with the threat of terror politics.”
— Rep. Peter King (R-NY), on CNN, rejecting the GOP plan to shutdown the government over Obamacare funding.
Quote of the Day
“I’ll worry about my legacy later, or I’ll let historians worry about my legacy.”
— President Obama, in an interview with the New York Times.
Top Down
Coming soon: Top Down: A Novel of the Kennedy Assassination by Jim Lehrer.
“As Air Force One touches down in Dallas, ambitious young newspaper reporter Jack Gilmore races to get the scoop on preparations for President Kennedy’s motorcade. Will the bubble top on the presidential limousine be up or down? Down, according to veteran Secret Service agent Van Walters. The decision to leave the top down and expose JFK to fire from above will weigh on Van’s conscience for decades.”
An interesting side note: As a young reporter in Texas, Lehrer actually witnessed the decision to keep the Kennedy car’s top down.
‘Hillary’ the Miniseries
NBC Entertainment announced it is working on a miniseries about Hillary Clinton, played by Diane Lane, “which will follow her from the 1998 period of the Monica Lewinsky scandal through the present day,” Variety reports.
“The role of Bill Clinton has not yet been cast, nor is there a completed script yet… He said the mini would likely air before Hillary Clinton formally declares herself to be a presidential candidate in 2016.”
Gays Arrested in Louisiana Under Invalid Sodomy Law
The Baton Rouge Advocate has found at least a dozen cases where gay men “who merely discussed or agreed to have consensual sex with an undercover agent” have been arrested “based on a part of Louisiana’s anti-sodomy law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court a decade ago.”
Why Americans Still Reject the GOP
Ross Douthat says many Americans may agree with the GOP’s critique of President Obama but still reject the Republican alternative for two key reasons.
“First, while Republicans claim to oppose the ruling class on behalf of the country as a whole, they often seem to be representing an equally narrow set of interest groups — mostly elderly, rural… and well-off. A party that cuts food stamps while voting for farm subsidies or fixates on upper-bracket tax cuts while wages are stagnating isn’t actually offering a libertarian populist alternative to the court party’s corrupt bargains. It’s just offering a different, more Republican-friendly set of buy-offs.”
“Second, as much as Americans may distrust a cronyist liberalism, they prefer it to a conservatism that doesn’t seem interested in governing at all. This explains why Republicans could win the battle for public opinion on President Obama’s first-term agenda without persuading the public to actually vote him out of office. The sense that Obama was at least trying to solve problems, whereas the right offered only opposition, was powerful enough to overcome disappointment with the actual results.”
Weiner’s Campaign Manager Quits
“In a new sign of tumult within Anthony Weiner’s embattled political operation, his campaign manager has quit, leaving his already skeletal team without a day-to-day leader,” the New York Times reports.
“The move suggests that even as Mr. Weiner vows to press ahead with his candidacy, there are mounting doubts about its political viability within his own campaign.”
McDonnell’s Wife Used PAC Money for Clothes
Virginia first lady Maureen McDonnell “bought nearly $9,800 in clothing with money from her husband’s political action committee and tapped into his campaign and inaugural funds to buy $7,600 in mostly unspecified items, according to records and a representative for the PAC,” the Washington Post reports.
“The spending is legal under Virginia’s lax campaign finance laws, which prohibit the conversion of political funds for private use only when a PAC or campaign committee disbands — not while it is operating.”
GOP Senators Seek to Force Abortion Vote
Several Republican senators are “talking discreetly about how to advance a bill in the Senate to ban abortion at 20 weeks after fertilization,” the New York Times reports.
“A similar ban passed the House last month, and Senate Democrats quickly pronounced it doomed to fail in their chamber. It is almost certain to be defeated there, and even if it were not, President Obama would veto it. But backers of the ban are eager to bring to the floor of the Senate the same impassioned debate over abortion that has been taking place in state legislatures around the country.”
“Plans under discussion among the staff members of a handful of Republican senators and anti-abortion groups would involve bringing the measure up for a vote, probably as part of debate over a spending measure, sometime after Congress returns from its August recess. Because of the Senate’s porous rules for introducing amendments, people on both sides of the issue say they believe a vote is more than likely if the legislation comes together.”
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Bonus Quote of the Day
“My colleagues are standing by me. They come up to me constantly.”
— Rep. Steve King (R-IA), in an interview on Fox News, saying lawmakers agree “privately” with his controversial comments on the children of undocumented workers.
Ohio Couple Had Marriage Recognized Despite Ban
“Two gay men who successfully sued to get their out-of-state marriage recognized in Ohio despite a state ban are at the forefront of what supporters and experts believe will be a rush of similar lawsuits aiming to take advantage of an apparent legal loophole,” the AP reports.
Of course, the “apparent legal loophole” is actually the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Obama Says Income Gap Is Fraying Social Fabric
President Obama told the New York Times that “he was worried that years of widening income inequality and the lingering effects of the financial crisis had frayed the country’s social fabric and undermined Americans’ belief in opportunity.”
Upward mobility “was part and parcel of who we were as Americans. And that’s what’s been eroding over the last 20, 30 years, well before the financial crisis.”
He added: “If we don’t do anything, then growth will be slower than it should be. Unemployment will not go down as fast as it should. Income inequality will continue to rise,” he said. “That’s not a future that we should accept.”
Quote of the Day
“I wasn’t allowed to talk about things like that because those elitist, those who are the brainics in the GOP machine running John McCain’s campaign at the time said that the media would eat us alive if we brought up these things.”
— Sarah Palin, on Fox News, saying she was banned by the McCain campaign from talking about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright during the 2008 presidential election.
Filner’s Old Boss Let Scandal Drag on for Two Years
San Diego Union Tribune: “In the 1980s, Bob Filner worked for a congressman from San Diego who had his own sexual harassment scandal. And if the case of Rep. Jim Bates offers a road map, any end game for Filner could play out for months or more.”
“Even after allegations surfaced in 1988 that Bates had sexually harassed multiple women in his office, patting their buttocks and commenting on their breasts, it took more than two years — and two more elections — for Bates to leave office.”
This Town
Christopher Buckley: “Not to ruin it for you, but: if you already hate Washington, you’re going to hate it a whole lot more after reading Mark Leibovich’s takedown of the creatures who infest our nation’s capital and rule our destinies. And in case you are deluded enough as to think they care, you’ll learn that they already hate you.”
Obama To Meet with Democrats Next Week
President Obama “will make a rare trip to Capitol Hill to meet with House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday,” Politico reports.
“Topics for discussion are expected to include the economy and job growth, especially the president’s proposals to address both issues.”
