June 26, 2014

Out of touch? Hillary Clinton hits back after wealth gaffe

By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, June 26, 2014 9:19 EDT

Hillary Clinton sought to nuance her remark that she and ex-president husband Bill were “dead broke” when they left the White House, insisting she was not out of touch.

The widely-anticipated 2016 Democratic presidential candidate earlier this month kicked off her book tour telling ABC television the Clintons left the White House “not only dead broke, but in debt.”

“We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for (daughter) Chelsea’s education. You know, it was not easy,” said Clinton, a Yale-educated lawyer herself before entering public service.


Republicans jumped on her comments. Even some supporters cringed at what sounded like elitism and insensitivity to the plight of ordinary Americans, at a time when the US economy is still suffering.

“Well, I shouldn’t have said the five or so words that I said, but my inartful use of those few words doesn’t change who I am, what I’ve stood for my entire life, what I stand for today,” the former top US diplomat and former first lady told “PBS NewsHour.”

more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/26/out-of-touch-hillary-clinton-hits-back-after-wealth-gaffe/

June 26, 2014

Boehner scratches GOP base’s impeachment itch

BY GREG SARGENT June 26 at 9:34 AM

So House Republicans will introduce legislation next month paving the way for a lawsuit designed to declare President Obama’s executive actions as an unconstitutional power grab. Speaker John Boehner’s memo says the lawsuit will “compel the president to follow his oath of office and faithfully execute the laws of our country.”

Jonathan Capehart explains the legal argument that would give the House standing to sue, and argues that this is a prelude to impeachment. Dana Milbank notes that the accumulation of executive power is a real and long running problem, but suggests that Obama’s actions in particular come in response to the House GOP refusal, or inability, to participate in the basic give and take of governing.

Indeed, at a certain point, Boehner’s own lawsuit — putting its legal merits aside — will neatly reveal that to be the real problem here. Paul Kane puts his finger on the nub of the matter: “Boehner declined to spell out which specific actions would be addressed in the suit.”

The lawsuit, Kane suggests, will at some point have to specify which executive actions by the president constitute a failure to “faithfully execute the laws of our country,” justifying this dramatic step by Republicans. Yet the raising of any specifics will only serve as a reminder of the fronts on which Republicans have refused to legislate.

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/06/26/morning-plum-john-boehner-scratches-gop-bases-impeachment-itch/

June 26, 2014

Obama backs U.S. military training for Syrian rebels

Source: Washington Post

The Obama administration has asked Congress to authorize direct U.S. military training and equipment for Syrian opposition fighters, a move that could significantly escalate U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war.

Money for the program, which would expand a current CIA covert training program, is included in a $65.8 billion request for Overseas Contingency Operations, or OCO, added to the fiscal year 2015 Defense Department budget. Details of the OCO budget had been withheld from the budget request that Congress has been considering.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-backs-us-military-training-for-syrian-rebels/2014/06/26/ead59104-fd62-11e3-932c-0a55b81f48ce_story.html

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Obama to Request $500 Million to Aid Syrian Opposition

President Obama on Thursday requested $500 million from Congress to train and equip what the White House is calling “appropriately vetted” members of the Syrian opposition. The request comes as the administration is trying to put some form to the president’s surprise announcement last month of plans for a $5 billion counterterrorism fund to provide training for operations in vulnerable countries in the Middle East.

The training program would be the most significant action yet by the United States in the conflict in Syria, which has spilled over the border now to Iraq, where a Qaeda-inspired insurgency is threatening the American-backed government.

READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/world/middleeast/obama-seeks-500-million-to-train-and-equip-syrian-opposition.html?emc=edit_na_20140626

June 26, 2014

Boulder Clerk Defies State, Issues Same-Sex Marriage Licenses

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

AP – JUNE 26, 2014, 3:14 PM EDT

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — More same-sex couples are obtaining marriage licenses and getting married in Boulder County even though gay marriage remains illegal in Colorado.

Clerk Hillary Hall began issuing licenses Wednesday after a federal appeals court ruled that Utah's same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional. More couples showed up Thursday to get licenses and some were quickly married by simply signing their certificates, a process allowed under Colorado law.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver put the ruling on hold in case of a possible appeal, so Utah's ban is still in place. Colorado also has such a ban.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and legal analysts say the decision has no legal impact until the case is settled.

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/boulder-clerk-issues-marriage-licenses

June 26, 2014

Fox Panelist: World Cup Is A Way For Obama To 'Distract People'

CATHERINE THOMPSON – JUNE 26, 2014, 2:34 PM EDT

It was only a matter of time before a Fox News panelist suggested the FIFA World Cup presented a convenient distraction from the problems facing President Barack Obama.

"I'm suspect," Dr. Keith Ablow said Thursday on "Outnumbered" as the US men's national team faced off against Germany. "I am suspect because, here's the thing. Why, at a time when there are so many national and international issues of such prominence -- I'm a little suspicious of yet another bread-and-circus routine. Let's roll out the marijuana, pull back the laws, and get people even more crazy about yet another entertainment event."

Ablow's four female co-hosts weren't buying it, interrupting him with protests of "what?" and "what's wrong with you?"

"This is a way to distract people," Ablow continued. "This is like Rome. I can see why Obama would love the World Cup --"

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-panelist-obama-world-cup-distraction

June 26, 2014

SCOTUS’ meaningless ruling: Why its limit on recess appointment powers doesn’t really matter anymore

SCOTUS’ meaningless ruling: Why its limit on recess appointment powers doesn’t really matter anymore

The Court ruled that President Obama's recess appointments were illegal. Here's why they're too late

JIM NEWELL

This morning the Supreme Court ruled to limit the president’s recess appointment powers — but not eliminate them. It upholds a lower court ruling that several recess appointments President Obama made in early 2012 to the National Labor Relations Board were illegal. It does not, however, conclude that the recess appointment power is a thing of the past and should mostly be discarded, as the lower court previously had.

The good thing for the Obama administration, at least, is that in practical terms, today’s ruling no longer really matters. That’s because the Senate majority has since eliminated the filibuster on executive and judicial appointments that was the cause of this whole mess to begin with.

The ruling — in which the Court considered the recess appointments clause for the “first time” — held that “The Recess Appointments Clause empowers the President to fill any existing vacancy during any recess—intra-session or intersession—of sufficient length.” It defines “intra-session” recess as “breaks in the midst of a formal session” and “intersession” as “breaks between formal sessions of the Senate.” So the president, according to the majority opinion, still holds the power to make recess appointments to vacancies when the Senate is either taking a break between sessions or taking time off during a session.

Where the court found issue with President Obama’s 2012 appointments was the lack of “sufficient length,” (three days, in this case) of the intra-session recess in which the appointments were made. The period in question — January 3-6, 2012 — came between so-called pro forma sessions of the Senate. Most senators were away on holiday break, but someone stuck around to gavel the Senate into session. The Obama administration argued that those pro forma sessions didn’t really count as the Senate being in session, since they effectively only existed to prevent Obama from making recess appointments. The majority opinion, written by Justice Breyer, doesn’t buy that argument. “The Senate is in session when it says that it is,” Breyer writes, “provided that, under its own rules, it retains the capacity to transact Senate business.” And so:

Because the Senate was in session during its pro forma sessions, the President made the recess appointments at issue during a 3-day recess. Three days is too short a time to bring a recess within the scope of the Clause, so the President lacked the authority to make those appointments.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/26/scotus_meaningless_ruling_why_its_limit_on_recess_appointment_powers_doesnt_really_matter_anymore/

June 26, 2014

Rise of a right-wing quack: Faux-historian David Barton’s shocking new influence

David Barton -- Glenn Beck's favorite "historian" -- is a discredited fraud. Which makes his new ascent terrifying

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

Back when Glenn Beck was one of the most admired men in America and Fox News’ No. 1 celebrity, he introduced to the nation at large a “historian,” well known among the Christian right, by the name of David Barton, who claims to have documentary evidence that the founders based the Constitution explicitly on the Bible. Beck often referred to a group known as the “black-robed regiment,” which was composed of priests and clergy who were revolutionary sympathizers, comparing today’s conservative preachers to what he implied were clergymen-soldiers in the secular liberal war on the Constitution.

Beck called upon David Barton to head what he called Beck University, an online course for those who wanted to educate themselves in the Beck school of thought. Let’s just say it wasn’t the curriculum you’d find at most schools of higher learning. (You can hear one of David Barton’s “lectures” here, where he tells the Beck U students that American exceptionalism springs from its Christian theocratic principles.)

Barton quickly became the toast of Wingnuttia. He was invited to participate in Tea Party events all over the country and even held a constitutional seminar for the 2010 incoming freshman class at the invitation of congresswoman Michele Bachmann. The New York Times featured him in a glowing profile that only mentioned in passing that his alleged scholarship was, shall we say, controversial:

Many professional historians dismiss Mr. Barton, whose academic degree is in Christian education from Oral Roberts University, as a biased amateur who cherry-picks quotes from history and the Bible.

“The problem with David Barton is that there’s a lot of truth in what he says,” said Derek H. Davis, director of church-state studies at Baylor University, a Baptist institution in Waco, Tex. “But the end product is a lot of distortions, half-truths and twisted history.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/26/rise_of_a_right_wing_quack_faux_historian_david_bartons_shocking_new_influence/

June 26, 2014

WI GOP Candidate Warns Gay Marriage Means 'Two Sisters' Could Marry

DANIEL STRAUSS – JUNE 26, 2014, 12:58 PM EDT

A Wisconsin Republican running in the race for the state's third Congressional district warned that the recent ruling striking down the state's same-sex marriage ban might lead to marriages between siblings.

"We've got, for instance, two sisters, and these two sisters want to get married. They love each other. They are committed to each other. They want to spend the rest of their life together," attorney Karen Mueller, the candidate, said according to The Tomah Journal.

Mueller made the comments at a "Meet the Candidates" event. The event in Tomah was sponsored by the Monroe County Republican Party.

Their lawyers, Mueller continued, could argue that "'We can just do away with that state law the same way we did away with sodomy laws.' Once you do away with that, you reveal what is going on here."

-snip-

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/karen-mueller-same-sex-marriage-wisconsin

June 26, 2014

Coulter Trolls US Soccer Fans: Growing Interest Shows 'National Decay'

CATHERINE THOMPSON – JUNE 26, 2014, 10:33 AM EDT

-snip-

After cautioning that she'd held off from writing about the beautiful game so as "not to offend anyone," the conservative pundit dedicated her syndicated column to a rambling, point-by-point explanation of how "any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay."

Coulter cited some predictable criticisms, arguing that "individual achievement" is barely a factor in the sport and that "it's foreign." But she also laid out a few wackier gripes. Coulter took issue with the fact that a soccer player can't use his or her hands in play, then made a bizarre comparison between the sport and the metric system that invoked the French Revolution and the guillotine. Basically, she argued that liberals' adoration for soccer and the metric system runs deep because they're both "European."

Not one to leave any box unticked, Coulter even touched on immigration in the column's kicker:

If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.

It's worth noting that aside from the Olympics, the World Cup is really the only occasion when an American audience gets a chance to cheer on a national -- rather than a regional -- sports team. But apparently that doesn't jibe with Coulter's vision of patriotism.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ann-coulter-trolls-usa-soccer-fans

June 26, 2014

Group Asks Americans To Send Dirty Underwear To Undocumented Immigrants

Source: ThinkProgress

BY ESTHER YU-HSI LEE JUNE 26, 2014 AT 9:00 AM UPDATED: JUNE 26, 2014 AT 9:07 AM

One anti-immigrant group has started an “Underwear for Illegals” campaign that asks Americans to send dirty underwear to undocumented immigrants and top politicians in order to stop the “new surge of illegal immigrants crossing America’s borders, enticed by promises of immigration reform amnesty.”

In a message board thread posted on Wednesday, William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), wrote that Americans should mail more than 10,000 pairs of used underwear that range anywhere from “gently used” to those in “bad shape” to President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and undocumented immigrants in detention facilities.

“Obama and Boehner have proven once and for all that their talk of passing immigration reform amnesty, instead of enforcing America’s existing border and immigration laws, only brings more unwanted and destructive illegal immigration!” said Gheen in his post. “Instead of using our tax money to buy illegals 42,000 pairs of new underwear, we would like to send the illegals and DC politicians a message by mailing them our used underwear, and some of our pairs are in really bad shape due to the bad economy and all of the jobs illegal immigrants are taking from Americans.”

Gheen’s message comes in response to a Department of Homeland Security bid solicitation to secure at least 42,000 pairs of underwear for undocumented immigrants put in detention facilities across the United States. The big clothing order comes at a time when the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency is quickly replenishing necessary resources like clothing and diapers to accomodate unaccompanied children streaming across the border.

more
http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2014/06/26/3453174/alipac-dirty-underwear-to-undocumented/

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2014/06/26/3453174/alipac-dirty-underwear-to-undocumented/