“If he were a woman, they’d be calling him the weakest speaker in history.”
— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), quoted by the Huffington Post, on Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).
Scott Eyeing West as His Number Two?
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) hasn’t picked a new Lieutenant Governor — and it’s not yet clear he will — but he told WFLA-AM that former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) “would make a superb choice” and would be”a great Lieutenant Governor.”
“Scott has said he would wait until the end of the session before working on finding someone to replace Jennifer Carroll, who resigned earlier this year after being questioned about an indicted charity that ran internet cafes. Her resignation was soon followed by the passage of a law banning those businesses in Florida. ”
Crapo Campaign Cash Went to Las Vegas Company
Sen. Mike Crapo’s (R-ID) former campaign manager “blames his friend for investing $250,000 from donors in a Las Vegas company amid the 2008 global financial crisis, part of a scheme intended to pay off within two months,” the AP reports.
“Crapo’s former manager, Jake Ball, said in a sworn affidavit Crapo gave him the latitude to seek higher returns for campaign cash, though Crapo said he had no knowledge of this investment until the money was gone.”
24 Candidates Running for Boston Mayor
Boston Globe: “They are career politicians and neophytes, influential community organizers and persistent gadflies, radio station founders and a justice of the peace. They are almost entirely men and come disproportionately from a handful of neighborhoods, West Roxbury, Hyde Park, and Dorchester. The next mayor of Boston will be one of the two dozen people who signed up for nomination papers by the deadline Monday. Time has run out for any last-minute surprises.”
Detroit Six Weeks Away from Possible Bankruptcy
“Sounding at once hopeful and deadly serious about the city he’s trying to turn around, emergency manager Kevyn Orr said Monday he’ll know in as soon as six weeks — after good-faith talks with creditors, unions and others — whether Detroit’s financial meltdown can be resolved outside of a municipal bankruptcy,” the Detroit Free Press reports.
Said Orr: “We’ll get a gauge on whether we have a true partner for an out-of-court solution in that sort of time frame.”
Journalists Say Justice Department Intimidating Reporters
Journalists called the news the Justice Department seized records from phone lines assigned to Associated Press offices and its reporters over a two month period “chilling” and a “dragnet to intimidate the media,” Politico reports.
Chiefs at IRS Knew of Targeting
President Obama said “those responsible for any improper scrutiny of conservative groups’ tax status would be held ‘fully accountable,’ hours before it emerged that the current and former heads of the Internal Revenue Service were informed last May that tea-party groups had been targeted,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The IRS said in a statement that acting Commissioner Steven Miller was first told by the agency staff on May 3, 2012, that some specific groups’ applications for tax-exempt status were improperly selected for extra scrutiny based on their names.”
The Washington Post reports “officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear that the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed.”
The Week: 4 scandalous elements of the IRS debacle.
Targeted by Obama
Ben Smith: “President Obama, elected with the new technology of microtargeting, is now in danger of a new perception: That he’s the president of microtargeted drone warfare and government surveillance. This is a different critique from the loud and ultimately unpersuasive one Republicans have long made, that initiatives like a health care overhaul, tax increases, and background checks for gun buyers represent a broad, unprecedented, and out-of-control new assertion of power by the American government. The power Obama is now under fire for asserting isn’t broad: It is narrow, even personal. Specific groups and individual reporters were targeted by extremely powerful government agencies.”
RNC Hispanic Outreach Operative Becomes a Democrat
Pablo Pantoja, who was most recently the State Director of Florida Hispanic Outreach for the Republican National Committee, changed his voter registration to become a Democrat, according to Florida Nation.
Writes Pantoia: “It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them.”
Bringing Back Swagger to the GOP
Michelle Cottle says Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) “possess a key similarity: an abundance of old-school manliness. Sure, one is a twangy Texan with that shit-kicking, boot-wearing thing going on (despite being a double-ivied, cosmopolitan kind of guy). The other is a Jersey bruiser, with a (much-discussed) physique reminiscent of Tony Soprano after a doughnut bender. But both are delivering a booster shot of testosterone to the GOP in a way few have managed to pull off of late.”
“I’m not talking here about the complex embodiment of modern masculinity or what it means to be the platonic ideal of a man. Today’s politics have no place for such high-minded analysis. No, this is about which conservative leaders ooze a stereotypical, gut-level manliness. Swagger. That hard-to-define-but-easy-to-recognize machismo that no amount of therapy, media training, or psycho-pharmaceuticals can impart.”
Minnesota Will Soon Approve Same-Sex Marriage
“After about 4 hours of debate, the Minnesota Senate has voted 37-30 to approve a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the state,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
“The House approved the measure 75-59 last Thursday. The bill will now head to Gov. Mark Dayton (D), who is likely to sign it into law Tuesday. If he does, that would make Minnesota the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriage.”
Justice Department Obtained Phone Records for Reporters
The Justice Department “secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news,” the AP reports.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Democrats worship abortion with same fervor the Canaanites worshipped Molech.”
— Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), quoted by The Hill.
Capuano Mulls Bid for Governor
“Eager for substantive debates that he says are lacking on Capitol Hill, Congressman Michael Capuano said Monday he is closer to his own decision on whether to run for governor in 2014,” the Taunton Daily Gazette reports.
Said Capuano: “The clock is running, so I’m closer.”
Boehner Staff Was Briefed on Benghazi Talking Points
“News of the Obama Administration’s role in the extensive editing of CIA talking points on Benghazi rocked the political world last week and prompted a demand from Speaker of the House John Boehner for the release of all related White House emails, but it should not have been a revelation to the Speaker,” ABC News reports.
“The White House first briefed the House leadership on the talking point revisions on March 19. The briefing was given to the House Intelligence Committee, but the White House also invited Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to attend or to send a senior staff member.”
Greg Sargent notes other top GOP officials and their staffs were also briefed.
Did Obama Wait Too Long on the IRS Story?
After three days, President Obama strongly condemned the fact that IRS officials were targeting conservatives groups.
Washington Post: “The question being asked in the political world today is whether the condemnations are too little, too late. As in, did the Obama Administration — and other Democrats in the House and Senate — miss their chance to claim some sort of high(ish) message ground by largely taking a pass on the story when it broke on Friday morning?”
Voters Trust Clinton Over Republicans on Benghazi
A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that Republicans aren’t getting much traction with their focus on Benghazi over the last week. Voters trust Hillary Clinton over House Republicans on the issue of Benghazi by a 49% to 39% margin and Clinton’s 52% to 44% favorability rating is identical to what it was in late March.
Quote of the Day
“You don’t want the IRS ever being perceived to be biased and anything less than neutral in terms of how they operate. I’ve got no patience with it, I will not tolerate it and we will make sure we find out exactly what happened on this.”
— President Obama, quoted by NBC News.
