President Obama “is preparing regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants… The move would be the most consequential climate policy step he could take and one likely to provoke legal challenges from Republicans and some industries,” the New York Times reports.
The Big Accomplishment of the Do-Nothing Congress
Molly Ball: “Perhaps, like approximately 80 percent of Americans, you disapprove of Congress. Beholding the nation’s capital, you are apt to see a sleazy, gridlocked mess, a Boschian hellscape of partisan acrimony and special-interest greed. Ever since Republicans won the House of Representatives in 2010, President Obama’s policy agenda has ground to a halt, and hopes of addressing the nation’s pressing issues through federal legislation have been dashed.”
“But the ironic thing is that, by virtue of its very do-nothingness, the do-nothing Congress got a big thing done. First, in the fiscal-cliff deal struck around the new year, wealthy Americans’ income-tax rates went up, a policy change long sought by the president and his party. Then, in March, the budget ax known as sequestration fell, chopping $1 trillion from federal spending over the next decade–a cherished goal for fiscal conservatives.”
“More revenue plus less spending equals a lower deficit. A much lower one.”
Ministry Apologizes to Gay Community and Shuts Down
Exodus International, the Christian ministry known for its “pray away the gay” therapy for homosexuals, issued an apology “for years of undue judgment by the organization and the Christian Church as a whole.”
The group also announced it was closing down after 37 years.
Said President Alan Chambers: “Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism. For quite some time we’ve been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical.”
The Week: Is this the end of “ex-gay” conversion therapy?
Border Activist Arrested for Child Molestation
Christopher Allen Simcox, a former border activist who ran for U.S. Senate, was arrested by police and accused of sexual conduct involving three girls younger than 10 years old, the Arizona Republic reports.
“Simcox was a lightning-rod leader in Arizona’s immigration debate, founding the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and organizing members to conduct civilian border patrols.”
North Carolina Seeks to Restart Executions
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) “signed the repeal of a law that has allowed death row inmates to seek a reduced sentence if they could prove racial bias affected their punishment,” Reuters reports.
“The Racial Justice Act, the only law of its kind in the United States, had led to four inmates getting their sentences changed to life in prison without parole after taking effect in 2009. Supporters said the historic measure addressed the state’s long record of racial injustice in its capital punishment system, while critics said it caused unnecessary costs and delays after nearly all death-row inmates, including whites, sought relief under the act.”
Jackson Says Government Hurt Black Families More Than Slavery
Virginia Lt. Gov candidate E.W. Jackson (R) said that Americans “should remember” the country’s history of slavery, but “not wallow in it,” the Hampton Roads Daily Press reports.
He stressed that it was “not slavery that eroded the black family but government policies in the 1960s.”
Said Jackson: “In 1960 most black children were raised in two parent monogamous families. By now, by this time, we only have 20 percent of black children being raised in two parent monogamous families with a married man and woman raising those children. It wasn’t slavery that did that. It was government that did that trying to solve problems that only God can solve, and that only we as human beings can solve.”
The Quick Fall of Bob McDonnell
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s (R) “evolution from Republican up-and-comer to the center of an FBI and grand jury investigation is bewildering to political observers and a potentially significant loss for his party,” Jill Lawrence reports.
“As recently as March, McDonnell was seen as so likely to run for the Republican presidential nomination that an anti-tax group ran an ad against him in Iowa, where caucuses launch the primary season every four years. But the investigations into an unreported $15,000 gift from a major donor, along with reports of improper billing and staff use at the executive mansion in Richmond, are a serious, possibly insurmountable obstacle to being on a national ticket.”
GOP Invisible Primary Begins
National Journal: “They swear they’re focused on more-immediate projects. They insist a White House campaign is the furthest thing from their minds. But with the 2016 invisible primary well under way, some Republican candidates are already lining up the campaign managers they will turn to if and when they decide to run for president.”
Schweitzer Reaches Out to Team Baucus
Brian Schweitzer (D) won a second term as Montana governor in 2008 “with nearly two-thirds of the vote, and he remained popular as he moved out of the governor’s mansion in January. But his style and perceived not-a-team-player attitude after eight years in Helena has rubbed numerous people in both parties the wrong way,” Roll Call reports.
“That includes — but is hardly limited to — the inner circle of retiring Democratic Sen. Max Baucus. According to several Montana Democrats — who all hope he runs and wins — Schweitzer’s campaign planning has included extending olive branches to a Baucus political apparatus he’ll likely need.”
Newspaper Takes ‘Democrat’ Out of Name
The Faquier Times-Democrat announced in an editorial that it would no longer use the word “Democrat” in its name.
“In an age which is, perhaps, more shaped and informed by political identity than any other in our history, having a word in our banner that is so associated with a political party is no longer a very astute business decision. The same could be said if, for the last 24-plus years, we had been the Fauquier Times-Republican.”
One More Quote of the Day
“Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”
— Michigan state Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons (R), quoted by the Detroit News, voicing opposition to a proposal that would offer employment assistance to staff members of closed schools.
GOP Official Launches Racist Attack on Black GOP Candidate
Illinois GOP county chairman Jim Allen called a black female congressional candidate the “love child” of the Democratic party; a “street walker” whose “pimps” are party leaders; and suggested that after the election, she will be “working for some law firm that needs to meet their quota for minority hires,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
The candidate is Erika Harold, the former Miss America and Harvard Law grad who is seeking the Republican nomination for the 13th congressional district.
Roosevelt’s Second Act
Coming soon: Roosevelt’s Second Act: The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War by Richard Moe.
Alabama Politician May Launch Congressional Bid from Jail
Stephen Nodine (R), currently serving a two-year jail term on perjury and harassment charges, announced via email that he is considering a bid for Alabama’s 1st congressional district seat, the Birmingham News reports.
Nodine “resigned from the county commission in 2010 following his indictment for murder in the death of Angel Downs, his longtime mistress. He pled guilty to felony perjury in 2012 as part of a deal in which prosecutors dropped the murder charge.”
“Nodine said he is eligible to serve in Congress despite his status as a convicted felon. The Constitution allows felons to hold office in the House of Representatives – even while incarcerated.”
Obama Approval Holds Steady
In contrast to a CNN poll released earlier this week, a new Pew Research poll finds President Obama’s job approval rating has nonetheless remained fairly steady despite a series of controversies. Currently, 49% approve of the way Obama is handling his new1job as president while 43% disapprove.
Quinn’s Book Goes Largely Unsold
In its first week on sale, New York mayoral candidate Christine Quinn’s 240-page memoir, With Patience and Fortitude, has sold only about 100 print copies, the New York Times reports
Poll Suggests Corbett Attack Teachers Union
An internal poll conducted by a prominent Republican polling firm proposes that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) attack the Philadelphia teachers union to overcome widespread
opposition to his education policies and bolster his faltering
re-election prospects, the Philadelphia City Paper reports.
Democrats Like ‘Obamacare’ Better Than ‘Health Care Reform’
A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that nearly a quarter of Americans say they don’t know their view on the “health reform law” but when it’s called “Obamacare” the share offering no opinion drops to just 11%.
Democrats show the biggest change in favorability with the alternate question wording — 73% have a favorable opinion of “Obamacare” compared to 58% who say the same for the “health reform law.” Likewise, 76% of Republicans have an unfavorable view of the “health reform law” but 86% don’t like it when it’s called “Obamacare.”
