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“The Republican Party of Virginia has sent letters to circuit courts across the Commonwealth asking for the personal information of concealed weapons permit holders,” WWBT-TV reports.
“The party wants the information in order to send campaign materials to like-minded voters.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he would examine ways to block the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs before the Supreme Court, The Hill reports.
Said Paul: “I’m going to be seeing if I can challenge this at the Supreme Court level. I’m going to be asking all the internet providers and all of the phone companies: Ask your customers to join me in a class action lawsuit. If we get 10 million Americans saying we don’t want our phone records looked at then maybe someone will wake up and something will change in Washington.”
BuzzFeed: “Cory Booker may be a Democratic Party star; he may have a 40-point lead over rivals in the polls; he may have 1.4 million followers on Twitter and a name familiar to every voter up and down the Garden State and across much of the country — but the special election for U.S. Senate this fall isn’t his for the taking.”
“New Jersey Democrats involved in and following the race to fill the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg say the Newark mayor is the clear favorite, but that his opponents will work to expose a number of weak points in his narrative to take down the national political celebrity.”
Steve Kornacki reports Vice President Joe Biden is headlining Virginia’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on June 29. This is his third Jefferson-Jackson keynote of the year, after South Carolina on May 3 and Michigan on April 20.
“I can be really brief tonight and just say Mitch McConnell sucks.”
— Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), quoted by WHAS-TV, at a fundraising dinner for Kentucky Democrats.
Federal prosecutors are seeking a four-year prison sentence for former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), who has pleaded guilty to illegally diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds to personal use, Politico reports.
“Under the Justice Department recommendations, Jackson would have to forfeit the $750,000 he stole from his campaign, and pay back another $750,000 to his reelection committee.”
The Chicago Tribune notes Jackson’s wife Sandi would be sentenced to 18 months in prison and that she would serve her sentence first to spare their children having both parents in prison at the same time.
“I can tell you the hurricane didn’t come at the right time.”
— Mitt Romney, quoted by the Huffington Post, on the impact of Hurricane Sandy on last year’s presidential election.
“After two years of harrowing confrontations in Washington, the national debt is no longer growing out of control and policymakers from President Obama to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) have rushed to take credit.”
“But nearly half the improvement forecast for the coming decade is due to factors unrelated to the budget battles, including lower-than-expected health-care costs and a recovering economy, according to a Washington Post analysis of congressional budget data.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told Bloomberg that Attorney General Eric Holder’s ability to perform his duties has been hurt by recent scandals and that he should consider resigning.
Said Manchin: “Whenever you feel that you have lost your effectiveness or may be losing your effectiveness to the detriment of the job that you do. You have to evaluate that and make a decision. And I think we’re at the time now where decisions have to be made.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Massachusetts finds Rep. Ed Markey (D) leading Gabriel Gomez (R) by eight points in their special U.S. Senate race, 47% to 39%.
A new University of Massachusetts at Amherst poll finds Markey with an 11-point lead, 51% to 40%.
A new Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania finds Sen. Pat Toomey (R) leading possible rival Joe Sestak (D) by five points, 42% to 37%, in a possible 2016 rematch.
President Obama “offered a robust defense of the government surveillance programs revealed this week, and sought to reassure the public that his administration has not become a Big Brother with eyes and ears throughout the world of online communications,” the New York Times reports.
Obama “acknowledged that the public may be uncomfortable with the broad reach of the formerly secret programs, but he said he believed the government had struck the right balance between the need to fight terrorism and the need to protect privacy.”
National Journal: “The latest surveillance program in the news is the most intrusive, and investigating who leaked it will be a stiff test of administration restraint.”
“Were you raising your hand or flirting with me?”
— Anthony Weiner, quoted by Politicker, noting the “off-the-cuff comment drew laughter — if slightly uncomfortable — from the largely positive crowd.”
First Read: “Make no mistake: Appointing a caretaker like Chiesa wasn’t Christie’s first choice, but he had no choice after announcing that the Senate election would take place in October. (If you’re a Republican, you’d rather want to run alongside Christie in November, or wait until 2014.) But here’s perhaps the biggest story out New Jersey this week: No one has been more helped by this entire process than Cory Booker. Quick Democratic primary? Check. Two Democratic congressmen who are also running (Pallone and Holt) that might split the anti-Booker vote? Check. October general election? Check. On paper, Booker’s election is starting to look like a slam dunk.”
New York Times: “Whatever his ambivalence about what President George W. Bush called a global war, Mr. Obama has used some of the same aggressive powers in the name of guarding national security even, in the view of critics, at the expense of civil liberties. Rather than dismantling Mr. Bush’s approach to national security, Mr. Obama has to some extent validated it and put it on a more sustainable footing.”
Ron Fournier: “Welcome to the era of Bush-Obama, a
16-year span of U.S. history that will be remembered for an
unprecedented erosion of civil liberties and a disregard for
transparency.”
Wall Street Journal: “The U.S. economy added 175,000 jobs in May, signaling the economic recovery remains broadly on track. The Labor Department said the unemployment rate rose slightly to 7.6% from 7.5% in April.”
A Smart Politics analysis finds “Smith” is the most popular surname in U.S. House history with 115 Representatives, and, with the addition of Missouri’s Jason Smith to its rolls, the name now extends its lead to 50 over “Johnson” which comes in second with 65.
Coming this fall: Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation by John Ferling.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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