The Violence Against Women Act reauthorization was held up earlier this year, after the House passed a more limited bill . On Wednesday, a web-based campaign will urge lame-duck movement on the Senate's more broad bill, which includes protections for LGBT and undocumented people.
Supporters of the would-be House GOP conference chair say her “profile as a young woman” will give her an edge.
Image by Mark Wilson / Getty Images
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On the eve of the House Republican leadership elections, supporters of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers are attempting to shore up support for her bid for Republican conference chair by touting, among other qualities, her gender.
A Republican leadership aide said McMorris Rodgers has been reminding colleagues about "her achievements with women's outreach and new media, her conservative credentials, [and] her profile as a young woman" in a last-minute pitch before the leadership elections tomorrow.
McMorris Rodgers has received an unexpectedly vigorous and public challenge from Rep. Tom Price, even as some within the House Republican leadership have attempted to persuade Price to drop his bid.
"There was talk for awhile that Price was looking for a soft landing, especially budget chair, but with Paul Ryan coming back, it didn't work out for him," the aide said. "We're surprised Price is going to go through with the election."
Last week, House Speaker John Boehner, who is backing McMorris Rodgers, offered Price a spot as chairman of the Elected Leadership Council in hopes of avoiding a contested race for conference chair. Price declined.
In general, intraparty battles for leadership positions are not viewed as ideal, and efforts are often made to avoid them.
With the race for conference chair clearly going unresolved heading into the election, Rep. Paul Ryan sent a letter to his House colleagues Tuesday backing Price, who has styled himself as the more conservative option for Republicans in the contest. Ryan previously expressed support for Price over the summer.
Meanwhile, McMorris Rodgers' supporters, who say she has the support of 15 committee chairs, have balked at the suggestion that she is not conservative enough.
"To throw her out essentially for a perception, not a reality, that she's not conservative enough, I think would play into negative feedback the Republican Party is already getting, that it's not a friendly place for women," the aide said.
The race for conference chair has been of particular interest on the Republican side of the aisle, but the Democratic caucus has not been without its own intrigue: Rumors have swirled that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi might step down from her position, a move that would set off a major shuffle within the party's House leadership.
The president still has confidence in General Allen.
Source: youtube.com
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reported President Barack Obama's displeasure at the sex scandal that brought down CIA director David Petraeus and threatens to do the same to pick to lead NATO troops, Gen. John Allen.
Carney told reporters he would "certainly not suggest [Obama] is pleased,” emphasizing that “there are protocols in place” to deal with both investigations.
"I wouldn't call it welcome," he said of the news, which followed days after Obama's reelection.
But Carney emphasized that Obama still has confidence in Allen, who leads U.S. troops in Afghanistan, in that position.
Ten-day delay is the second time the justices have put off deciding whether they will hear cases challenging DOMA, Proposition 8 in the coming year.
People line up for admission at the U.S. Supreme Court on October 1, 2012.
Image by Gary Cameron / Reuters
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court will not be considering until Nov. 30 — a 10-day delay — whether and which cases it will be hearing relating to same-sex couples' marriage rights and relationship recognition.
The court was scheduled to consider on Nov. 20 whether it would hear any of four cases challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and a case each challenging California's Proposition 8 and the attempt to rescind state employees' same-sex domestic partner benefits in Arizona.
The Washington Post's Robert Barnes, however, reported on Nov. 11, "They will soon sort through a half-dozen cases that raise the issue of same-sex relationships; the date for their private conference on whether to accept any has been rescheduled for Nov. 30."
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Supreme Court's docket was updated to reflect the rescheduled conference date.
Although the brief delay won't make any major distinction in the way any accepted cases are handled at the Supreme Court in the coming months, the delay is significant for couples in California. If the Supreme Court decides not to hear an appeal of the challenge to Proposition 8 brought by the American Foundation for Equal Rights, then the Ninth Circuit ruling striking down Proposition 8 as unconstitutional will stand. In that situation, the appeals court would then issue a mandate to the district court, allowing it to put into effect its order stopping the enforcement of Proposition 8 — and, hence, returning to same-sex couples in the state the right to marry.
“I love you all very dearly, but I thought I'd tell my caucus first,” the House minority leader tells reporters. She promises to announce her plans Wednesday.
Image by Eric Thayer / Reuters
WASHINGTON, DC — Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will announce tomorrow whether she intends to step down or stay on for another term as the top Democrat in the House.
"I love you all very dearly, but I thought I'd tell my caucus first," Pelosi told reporters Tuesday.
Pelosi has held the top slot among Democrats in the House for 10 years, a decade that saw her lead her party to control of the House, only to lose it again in 2010, and that turned her into one of the most famous women in the history of American politics.
Although Democrats will remain in the minority after this election, Pelosi was upbeat as she trotted out the new members of her party's caucus at a press conference Tuesday.
“We may not have the majority. We may not have the gavel. But we have unity,” she said.
Pelosi was joined by Rep. Steve Israel, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who touted the demographic makeup of House Democrats — the most female- and minority-rich in the history of the caucus.
“The Republican caucus looks like a rerun of Mad Men," Israel said. "Our caucus looks like America.”
“With these new members, the Tea Party starts to roll back, and we can begin to move forward," he added.
In meeting with progressive leaders, Obama doubles down on vow to end tax cuts for the wealthy.
Image by Jacquelyn Martin / AP
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama promised liberal groups on Tuesday that the Bush tax cuts will end for the nation's wealthiest, according to a statement from the progressive group MoveOn.
"MoveOn’s 7 million members will be pleased to know that President Obama today strongly reiterated his steadfast commitment to ensuring that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent finally end December 31—and to protecting the middle class in the process," said the group's political action executive director Justin Ruben after meeting with Obama at the White House.
In his daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney rejected the GOP's approach to raise revenues by cutting loopholes and deductions from the tax code, saying raising taxes on the rich was non-negotiable for Obama.
But Carney did not say whether Obama would stand by his "wealthy" cutoff line at $200,000 for individuals or $250,000 for families — a response to disagreement among Democrats over where to raise taxes and where to keep the rates the same or lower. Sen. Chuck Schumer has proposed raising the threshold to $500,000 or even $1 million.
The president "is not wedded to every detail of that plan," Carney said, when asked about the income levels. "I'm not going to negotiate hypothetical details."
But talking to reporters Carney once again claimed a mandate for the administration after last week's election to raise taxes on the wealthy.
"One of the useful things about this past year and the election is that these matters that the president and congress will be deciding in the coming days and months were front and center during the campaign season," he said. "In many ways, they've been front and center."
The next Nancy Pelosi? With an eye on his future, Van Hollen hopes to protect Democrats from the fiscal cliff.
WASHINGTON, DC — The House Democrats’ lead budget negotiator has little formal clout under a wide Republican majority, but with a high profile and the enthusiastic backing of his party, Rep. Chris Van Hollen has a clear strategy on the eve of high-stakes budget talks: to call House Republicans' bluff.
As the sides posture around early talks to forestall the “fiscal cliff” of mandatory spending cuts, Van Hollen, 53, dismisses Republicans’ hard-line stance that revenue can come solely from entitlement reforms and closing loopholes.
“The question will be, how long will it take for House Republicans to recognize that revenue has to be part of a balanced approach to a solution?” Van Hollen said. “Will they recognize that during the lame duck session? Will they recognize it in the first week of January? Will they recognize it by the end of January? Will they recognize it by the end of February?”
“I just think that at some point, their position is politically unsustainable,” he added.
When Congress returns to Washington this month to commence its high-stakes fiscal-cliff discussions, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee will reprise a role he mastered during the debt-ceiling debate last year: that of the House Democrats’ chief budget negotiator and communicator.
Meanwhile, the debate could act as a convenient, if particularly chaotic, segue into Van Hollen’s next career step — whatever that might be.
In the near term, Van Hollen is focused on the tricky deficit-reduction negotiations that lie ahead: Congress will need to reach an agreement prior to Jan. 1 to splice the federal deficit and address a host of expiring tax provisions. Were a deal not struck and the automatic measures allowed to take effect, the Congressional Budget Office has predicted the country would be thrown into another recession.
Van Hollen predicts that Congress will not devise a long-term plan for deficit reduction or reform the tax code in any meaningful way by the end of the year.
“It’s hard to see how you could negotiate a comprehensive agreement that deals with all the issues in the lame duck session,” he said in an interview last week with BuzzFeed.
But he nevertheless sees the opportunity to erect the framework for ongoing discussions and to reach bipartisan consensus about the ratio of spending cuts to revenue.
“There are two approaches to this discussion,” Van Hollen said. “One approach is, you begin by discussing the furniture before you’ve designed the room. My view is that you should figure out what the design of the room is, or the design of the house. Let’s design the house before we decide what color the furniture should be.”
Most lawmakers have agreed that the sequester, $110 billion in automatic cuts to defense spending, will be addressed in some form by the year’s end; Van Hollen has suggested that lawmakers might approve $55 billion in cuts during the lame duck session, allowing for six more months to brainstorm the remaining $55 billion in cuts.
The most difficult negotiations are expected to center on sources of revenue, and on tax cuts in particular. Republicans have argued that sufficient revenue can be drawn from reforms to entitlement programs such as Medicare and by closing tax loopholes; meanwhile, Democrats contend that some tax cuts must be allowed to expire.
Specifically, Democrats, Van Hollen among them, are pushing for the tax cut on income exceeding $250,000 to expire.
Van Hollen will not be entering these negotiations as a novice. During the debt-ceiling talks last year, Van Hollen established himself as one of House Democrats’ chief negotiators; he participated in Vice President Joe Biden’s debt talks with members of Congress, and he sat on the Congressional super committee.
"People see him as a partisan and a devotee to his caucus and party, but there’s also room for negotiation," said one consultant with ties to the Democratic House leadership. "It’s pretty clear that the caucus is showing him deference on this, and he’ll take it."
"He’s a tactician," the consultant added. "He’s no dummy, and people know that."
Across the aisle, House Speaker John Boehner has already begun to exert pressure on the rank-and-file members of his party to defer to Republican leadership on the fiscal cliff, in contrast to the rebellion staged by the conservative contingent of the party during the debt-ceiling debate last year.
In Van Hollen’s mind, that’s an encouraging sign — if the Republican Party’s conservative wing is successfully held at bay.
“There seem to be people like John Boehner who at least are willing to contemplate a balanced approach, but by all accounts have been totally debauched from doing it by the rest of his leadership and the Tea Party caucus,” Van Hollen said. “Whether that changes or not, I don’t know.”
Although House Democrats are out of power, the Republican majority has been diminished to just 18 votes — meaning Boehner will likely need Democratic support on any final fiscal-cliff deal, as well as other major legislation he pursues during the next two years. That dynamic will leave House Democrats, including Van Hollen, with considerable influence on negotiations.
Nevertheless, Van Hollen underscored repeatedly in the interview that House Republicans will "hold the key" to the coming deficit-reduction talks — among them, Van Hollen’s Republican counterpart on the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan.
“Paul Ryan really has a fundamental decision to make: Is he going to be part of a solution, or is he going to carry the ideological flag for the House Tea Party caucus?” Van Hollen said. “Paul and I get along very well personally, but it’s important not to mistake congeniality for a willingness to compromise.”
Indeed, Van Hollen and Ryan have become well-known for their congenial interactions on the House Budget Committee, even as they’ve embraced their roles as foils and butted heads over policy matters: Van Hollen, for his part, is largely responsible for making Ryan’s budget infamous — and vilified — as a Democratic talking point.
Van Hollen and Ryan have been able to remain friendly in spite of their policy disagreements in part, perhaps, because they have much in common.
Just as Ryan began his career as a staffer on Capitol Hill, so, too, did Van Hollen, who worked as a legislative assistant to Maryland Sen. Charles Mathias, a Republican, and as a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But Van Hollen’s path to politics has been less analogous to Ryan’s, perhaps, than it has been to that of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s.
Pelosi, to whom Van Hollen has become very close during his time in Congress, is, like Van Hollen, from Maryland, where her father, Tommy D'Alesandro Jr., served as the mayor of Baltimore and a congressman.
Van Hollen, too, comes from a family committed to public service: His father served as an ambassador to Sri Lanka; his mother, for the State Department. Van Hollen himself was born abroad, in Karachi, Pakistan, and grew up in Turkey and India.
“Like Pelosi, who they are and what they do comes a little more naturally,” said another Democratic operative who knows Van Hollen. “Some people come to Washington never having served. ... It’s a different kind of training having grown up in an environment of service.”
“He’s lived it, he’s breathed it. It’s all he’s ever known.”
Aside from a stint as a lawyer, Van Hollen has only held or pursued jobs in government. Following his early positions as a political staffer, Van Hollen won his first seat in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1990, and he has served as an elected official since.
At two points in his career, Van Hollen made the risky political decision to take on established incumbents: first, for the State Senate against an early mentor, Patricia Sher, a Democrat, in 1994; then, versus Rep. Connie Morella, a Republican, for his current seat in Congress, in 2000. Both times, Van Hollen won.
These victories have played into a reputation that has snowballed since Van Hollen arrived on Capitol Hill as an elected official. He has come to be regarded as outstandingly ambitious and is unfailingly described as such by admirers and detractors alike — even in Washington, a town with such a high proportion of type A personalities per capita that ambition tends to go unnoticed, or unnoted.
His allies, at least, expect him to continue his climb.
“He is so talented and versatile that I could see Van Hollen doing everything from a top leadership position to senator one day, or serving in an important role in the Obama administration — like OMB head, or even chief of staff at some point,” said one Democratic strategist with ties to Van Hollen.
Depending upon what Pelosi decides her future will hold, that point could be now. The House minority leader plans to announce tomorrow whether she will stay on for another term; if she does not, her departure would initiate a shuffle within the Democratic caucus leadership.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, the minority whip who, like Van Hollen, hails from Maryland, is widely expected to make a bid for Pelosi's slot should she step aside, and many Democrats consider it unlikely that Van Hollen would launch a counteroffensive.
For his part, Van Hollen told BuzzFeed he will not be making any decisions until the minority leader makes her own — but he is leaving his options open.
"I think it's really important that we have leaders who are open to compromise but recognize the important principles at stake," Van Hollen said. "That's the best I can do right now. Let's just see what — because we don't know what decisions others will be making."
Were Van Hollen to become White House chief of staff, as some of his associates have suggested could be another option, he would be following once more in the footsteps of one of his early mentors in Congress: Rahm Emanuel, whom Van Hollen succeeded as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, after Emanuel tapped Van Hollen to head recruitment efforts for the committee.
But after a successful first term helming the DCCC, Van Hollen took on a second term — during the 2010 midterm election, which saw Democrats lose control of the House in a historic wave election. Van Hollen, whom close associates describe as studious, hardworking and even-keeled, was hardly fazed outwardly — but, as someone who places a premium on success, those who know him say he was likely deeply disappointed.
“When you put your heart and soul into something — I’m sure it had an impact on him,” the Democratic strategist said of the election outcome and its effect on Van Hollen. “He never showed it, though. He didn’t have his head in his hands, like, ‘Woe is me.’ His reaction was, ‘We need to start thinking about how we climb back up the hill.’”
“You’re always going to have failures in politics,” the strategist added. “Chris Van Hollen has had very few.”
It was that defeat, in part, that led Van Hollen to accept the top Democratic slot on the House Budget Committee — where, associates say, Van Hollen identified an opportunity for Democrats to rebound by taking on Ryan’s budget proposal.
Jon Vogel, who worked as the executive director of the DCCC in 2010, recalled of Van Hollen, "He always told me, 'There are things you can't control and things you can control. In any situation, you should always focus on the things you can control.'"
In the coming weeks and months, Van Hollen will likely approach his role in the fiscal-cliff negotiations, and his larger personal aspirations, in just that way.
It’s not a far leap from 2003, the year that saw Van Hollen first arrive on Capitol Hill as an elected official and a member of the minority, and when The New Republic chronicled his then-futile in-the-trenches quest for influence.
The piece detailed his earnest, eager disposition — embodied in a black binder Van Hollen toted with him to every meeting, where he was inevitably ignored by those lawmakers in the Republican majority.
"You sort of know academically what it's like to live in the minority," he was quoted as saying in the article. "But it's another thing to live it."
Nearly one decade later, on the morning of our interview, Van Hollen, once again in the minority, but no longer quite so powerless, walked out of the Longworth House Office Building — bound for Maryland, a black binder in hand.
Paul Kranz was convicted of misdemeanor “menacing,” but the conviction was eventually thrown out. “A dispute with his then-wife or ex-wife and her boyfriend,” recalls the prosecutor.
Image by Handout / Reuters
Paula Broadwell's father, Paul Kranz, was convicted of a misdemeanor for threatening a female partner's boyfriend nearly 30 years ago, according to North Dakota court documents and a prosecutor who worked on the case.
The conviction was overturned after the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled the next year that Kranz had been denied his right to a jury trial.
Burleigh County, of which Bismarck is comprised, throws out its misdemeanor documents after seven years and its felonies after 21. But the North Dakota Supreme Court appeal that ordered a new trial still exists.
Patricia Burke, the prosecutor on the appeal, said the case involved "a dispute with his then-wife or ex-wife and her boyfriend." Burke couldn't remember the exact details of the 1983 case, she said.
The Daily Mail reported that Kranz still lives with Broadwell's mother Nadene, but according to Nadene's Facebook page, she lives in Boise, Idaho.
Details of the case are scant, and Kranz didn't respond to queries. The Supreme Court decision rules that "in trial to the court there was presented conflicting testimony concerning whether or not Kranz threatened the alleged victim with imminent serious bodily injury."
Broadwell is at the center of a scandal that brought down General David Petraeus; the biographer was found to have been carrying on an affair with the general. Both are married.
The evidence that led the FBI to Broadwell were threatening emails she had been sending to another woman who also knew Petraeus.
A better job market for Democrats — and a generous gesture from the former Republican nominee.
Image by Eric Gay, File / AP
WASHINGTON — Even as Mitt Romney's aides continue to receive paychecks — a gesture of generosity from the defunct campaign — Democrats at the Obama campaign and at the Democratic National Committee have begun packing their bags.
In Chicago and around the country, President Barack Obama's campaign staffers earned their last paycheck on Friday as much of the campaign closed down, aides said. And Just a week after Election Day, the Democratic National Committee is shedding staff, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.
"Nothing out of the ordinary — we bulk up in advance of elections and slim down for a time afterwards," said DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse, when asked about the departures.
The last paycheck Romney staffers will receive will be on November 30th, said one staffer.
The contrast is emblematic of how both campaigns spent its funds this cycle, with Democrats running a lean, data-driven, and dispassionate operation, while Romney paid out bonuses to senior staff and on balance compensated even junior staffers more than the Democratic side. Democrats also have better job prospects than Republicans in a town where their party controls the White House and the Senate.
The DNC's quick move may also be a reflection of its campaign-season debts. Two weeks before the polls closed, the DNC's FEC filing showed it had $10.3 million in cash on hand, but $20.9 million in outstanding debts and obligations — including a $15 million loan from Amalgamated Bank Of New York with a due date in 2014. It is not clear if any departments bore a disproportionate level of the reductions in the cash-starved committee.
The Romney aide, meanwhile, pointed to the ongoing payments as a sign of the Republican nominee's concern for those who worked for him.
Another sign of Romney's ongoing focus on his staff: On Wednesday, Romney used a good chunk of his meeting with top donors to pitch his "body-man" Garrett Jackson for jobs for their firms.
"I'm sure their donors won't be pissed at all," one former Obama staffer quipped.
Federal judge finds an order by the Ohio elections chief about provisional ballots to have violated Ohio law and the U.S. Constitution. Ohio's Jon Husted will appeal, says order could lead to “potentially fraudulent votes.”
Source: s3-ec.buzzfed.com
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted's last-minute order shifting the burden from the poll worker to a voter for marking what type of identification was used by a voter casting a provisional ballot violated a prior court order, Ohio law and the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge found Tuesday.
U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley's opinion will not be the last word, however, as Husted, a Republican, plans to appeal the ruling to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Secretary Husted will appeal today’s ruling because it allows potentially fraudulent votes to be counted," Matthew McClellan, a spokesman for Husted, told BuzzFeed on Tuesday evening. "By eliminating the ID requirement on provisional ballots, the ruling is contrary to Ohio law and undermines the integrity of the election."
Marbley's ruling, if it is upheld on appeal, will lead to more provisional ballots being found to be valid and counted in the Buckeye State. The ruling is an afterthought because of President Barack Obama's wide electoral college victory — but in a close election, the fate of the presidency could easily have hinged on the federal courts' rulings in this case.
As part of an ongoing court order, called a consent decree, in a case brought on behalf of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH) and following recent decisions relating to the state's provisional ballots, Husted issued a directive on the Friday before the election to county boards of elections on "Determining the Validity of Provisional Ballots and the Modified NEOCH Consent Decree."
In it, an earlier designed form (Form 12-B) — that purports, in Step 2, to shift the responsibility for noting the type of identification used by a provisional voter from the poll worker to the voter — was again utilized. Opponents of the move filed an emergency motion before Marbley, who ruled Tuesday.
Marbley wrote that "in shifting that duty to the voter, Step 2 of Form 12-B imposes an impermissible burden in violation of [Ohio law] and, therefore, the Consent Decree. By admission of counsel, the Secretary engaged in no fact-finding to determine that such a change would increase the integrity of the voting system."
After reviewing the law, Marbley concluded that the directive "violates the Consent Decree and the law of Ohio." Additionally, he found that the directive "violates substantive due process as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution.
In substantive part, Marbley ordered that:
an incomplete or improperly completed “Step 2” shall not cause any provisional ballot to be rejected, unless: (1) a poll-worker has recorded on the provisional ballot affirmation that the voter is required to return to the county board of elections with proper identification; (2) a poll worker has recorded what identification information the voter must bring; and (3) the voter did not return with the necessary identification within ten days of the election.
Marbley, who has shown his dissatisfaction with certain actions of Husted's office, also took a swipe at the timing and motives of Husted's action, writing:
The Court also notes, with grave misgivings, that the Secretary changed an election rule on a Friday evening for an election scheduled for the following Tuesday, after repeatedly asserting, to both this Court and the Sixth Circuit, that he could not comply with injunctive relief ordered by this Court because he lacked sufficient time prior to the election. The surreptitious manner in which the Secretary went about implementing this last minute change to the election rules casts serious doubt on his protestations of good faith.
In the absence of a successful appeal or a stay of his ruling, Marbley ordered Husted to issue a contrary directive, applying his ruling, by Nov. 16 — after the language is agreed to by the lawyers for the plaintiffs or, alternatively, the court.
How America got used to his religion, and mine.
Image by John Gara/Buzzfeed
On the night of the South Carolina Republican primary in January, I sat near the front of a dark campaign press bus and listened to reporters talk about Mitt Romney's underwear.
Earlier in the day, one of them had happened upon the candidate and his wife doing laundry in the basement of our Columbia, South Carolina, hotel, and a small cluster of colleagues had now gathered to listen to him relate the anecdote, lapping up every mundane detail of this rare interaction with the closed-off couple.
Finally, another reporter interrupted.
"Did you see their underwear?" she asked, grinning mischievously as though she had just said something naughty.
"What do you think it looks like?" inquired another.
"I think you can see pictures online," someone chimed in.
The exchange prompted giggles from the group — some nervous, others indulgent — as I slid down in my seat and pretended to look at my phone, hoping it wouldn't occur to any of them I might be wearing the strange, exotic garment they were all gossiping about. It wasn't that their tone was antagonistic or insensitive; just uncontrollably curious — like virginal adolescents talking about sex during a sleepover. And as a lifelong Mormon, I had grown fairly used to hearing my religion talked about that way.
This was how much of the political class was treating Romney's religion at the start of 2012: too awkward to discuss in an open forum, yet too tantalizing to ignore altogether. Questions permeated hushed conversations and private e-mail chains: Does Romney really believe he will get his own planet when he dies? Does he baptize dead Jews in his temples?
And as one prominent journalist at Newsweek quietly asked a colleague in the run-up to the Republican primaries, "Would he actually wear that Mormon underwear in the White House?"
If Mitt Romney has one lasting political legacy, I think it will be that next time a Mormon runs for president, that question likely won't be asked.
As Romney's expansive campaign headquarters collapses into a pile of cardboard boxes in Boston, his aides and supporters are beginning to mull what place their failed campaign will have in the history books. And many have determined that Romney's political career may be remembered most for the role it played in mainstreaming a large minority religion, despite a concerted, strategic effort to avoid the topic altogether — something I witnessed with a front-row seat.
A couple days after the election, I spoke to Robert O'Brien, a campaign foreign policy advisor and avowed Romney loyalist. We'd spoken several times over the course of the campaign, and his surrogacy had always been marked by a sort of religious devotion to the candidate, and an undying faith that he was the man meant to save America from ruin.
Suffice it to say, he was crushed by the loss.
"I couldn't sleep on Tuesday night, which is unusual because usually I can sleep through anything," he told me from his office in Los Angeles. "I stayed up late and made a to-do list with like 80 things. I figured that was the best therapy."
He also began considering his friend's legacy, and as a Mormon who converted from Catholicism in his early twenties, O'Brien saw historical parallels between his current and former churches.
"I always thought Mitt Romney would be Al Smith," O'Brien said, referring to the first Catholic presidential nominee, who lost in a landslide to Herbert Hoover. "Now I think he's going to be Al Smith and JFK rolled into one person. Even though we didn't win the way JFK did, to come within a couple points of the presidency, I think makes a lasting impact on the faith... It's going to be a non-event next time a Mormon runs."
For a Mormon journalist who'd spent much of the past year examining the religious life of a candidate and coreligionist, his assessment was vaguely troubling. Was he saying editors won't be knocking down my door when Mia Love throws her hat in the ring in 2024?
But after a year of crisscrossing the country with Romney — pestering his campaign for answers about his faith, and writing countless Mormonism-for-dummies primers along the way — I couldn't deny that Romney's career had provided a national education on his young, American-born faith.
And if my experience was any guide, it's an education the country won't be unlearning anytime soon.
Even as his campaign turned him into the world's most famous member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Romney spent much of 2012 publicly evading the subject of his faith.
In speeches, he conducted all manner of rhetorical gymnastics to avoid uttering the word "Mormon." In interviews, he quickly changed the subject every time the topic came up. And to his staff, his instruction was to dodge and deflect all questions regarding his religious beliefs.
He regularly employed variations of the declaration, "I'm not running for pastor-in-chief."
His reluctance to engage the Mormon question was rooted, his aides privately told me, in a bitter 2008 Republican primary. Back then, Romney was trying to outflank John McCain and Rudy Giuliani on the right by presenting himself as a sort of culture warrior — hoping his staunch, conservative values would attract the party's religious base.
But as his staff and family fanned out across Iowa to win over Evangelical voters in the fall of 2007, they were met with rank anti-Mormonism. Local ministers preached sermons against "the Mormon cult" on Sundays, Christian voters routinely confronted the Romneys with Bible verses during retail politics stops, and some people even refused to shake hands with Romney's former Lt. Governor Kerry Healey because they thought she was Mormon.
Romney's first instinct was to try to persuade the religious right that Mormonism was just another Christian sect. He answered complicated theological questions on local talk radio, and delivered a major address at the George Bush Presidential Library titled "Faith in America," designed to emphasize the "common creeds" his church shared with Protestants.
But the more he tried to educate conservative Christians about his religion, the more intense the pushback became. And for the candidate's family, the rejection was deeply disheartening.
On the day after Thanksgiving in 2007, Tagg Romney phoned a longtime family friend, who asked how the effort was going in Iowa.
"It's brutal," the friend recalled a dispirited Tagg responding. "It's just brutal."
When Romney eventually lost Iowa in 2008, many in the Romney clan took it as a repudiation of their religion. And when he gathered the family together in the living room a few years later to discuss the possibility of another run, the wound was still too fresh for some of them, according to a family friend. More than one of his sons raised the concern that another candidacy would result in their faith being dragged through the mud again.
Mitt took their worries seriously, but the team of political strategists he had assembled insisted they could pull off a win without talking religion. The 2012 battle plan would be to present Romney as a stalwart — if one-dimensional — figure who understood business and could fix the economy by sheer force of will. No culture war, no big religion speeches, and certainly no engaging the press as they pursued the inevitable "Mormon angle."
That's where I came in. I joined the campaign's traveling press corps for BuzzFeed just before the New Hampshire primary in January, and I quickly found that my expertise in Romney's religion posed a distinct advantage — not in access or sourcing, necessarily, but in understanding the elusive candidate as an actual person.
When the "mommy wars" of the early spring shone a spotlight on Ann Romney's decision to stay home and raise her kids, I saw classic Mormon gender roles at play. And when critics raised questions about Mitt's participation in a church that barred black men from the priesthood until 1978, I innately understood the conflicted, sometimes tortured, position many devout Mormons found themselves in at that time. As a lifelong Latter-day Saint who grew up in the relatively close-knit Massachusetts Mormon community that Romney once led, I felt I had a unique window into the beliefs and experiences that defined an almost undefinable man.
And that, apparently, left the campaign deeply unsettled.
Multiple people in Romney's orbit — both inside the campaign and out — would later tell me that Boston tried to keep me at arm's length for a long time because they worried my knowledge of the candidate's faith would bait them into a conversation they were dead set against having.
The House minority leader meets with her caucus and puts the rumors to rest.
Image by Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
WASHINGTON, D.C. — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told a packed Caucus meeting on Wednesday morning that, if Steve Israel is willing to head up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee again, then she will happily retain her spot as the leader of the Democratic caucus.
Israel is expected to renew his role as DCCC chair.
According to a Democratic aide, Leader Pelosi told members of her caucus, "They say a picture is worth a million words. Well, this picture is worth millions of aspirations of the American people. This new class makes our caucus historic. The first time in legislative history that a caucus will be a majority of women and minorities."
"The message is clear from the American people," she continued, echoing remarks she delivered at a press conference yesterday. "They want us to work together to get things done. And that's what these folks are here to do. Just like all of you."
The decision came one day after Pelosi teased reporters at a press conference, saying of her pending decision, "I love you all very dearly, but I thought I'd tell my caucus first."
In a press conference later Wednesday morning, Pelosi confirmed her choice. "I have submitted my name to colleagues to once again serve as the House Democratic leader," she said.
Pelosi told reporters that she reached her final decision yesterday, having weighed her options with her family, friends and colleagues. "Decisions are fabulous," she said. "They're liberating."
Speculation has abounded in recent weeks that Pelosi, who is in her tenth year as the top House Democrat, would step aside rather than spend another year in the minority party.
The prospect of a shuffle within the House Democratic leadership fueled rumors of who might step in to fill Pelosi's spot and, by extension, who would move up to fill the other positions.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, of Maryland, was widely handicapped as the immediate frontrunner to succeed Pelosi. He has served in Congress since 1981 and in the Democratic leadership since 2007; during that time, he has solidified his position within the party, and he would likely receive broad support were he to run for minority leader.
Rep. Jim Clyburn was broadly considered a shoe-in to succeed Hoyer should he leave his post as minority whip.
The chatter on Capitol Hill surrounding Pelosi's potential departure has been of particular intrigue due to Pelosi's unique legacy in the House.
During her tenure as a member of Congress, where she has served since 1993, Pelosi has emerged as a passionate defender of typically liberal causes, including health care reform.
In 2003, she shattered the glass ceiling in Congress as the first female minority leader in the House; and in 2007, she made history again when she became the first woman to serve as speaker.
Meanwhile, she has often been the target of attacks by the Republican Party, which has fashioned Pelosi as a "San Francisco liberal," the face of those Democratic causes most reviled by conservatives. Critics have panned her as disingenuous or out-of-touch.
With her broad smile and upbeat demeanor, Pelosi has also been subject to underestimation by friends and foes alike. If there was "a negative in her political career, it's that she's too attractive," Agar Jaicks, a Democratic activist and longtime acquaintance of Pelosi's, told the Los Angeles Times in 2003.
But Pelosi, in her actions and words, has scoffed at those who would undersell her. "Anybody who's ever dealt with me knows not to mess with me," she told TIME Magazine in 2006.
Indeed, Pelosi was conditioned from a young age to contend with the rough-scrabble world of politics: Her father, Tommy D'Alesandro Jr., served as the mayor of Baltimore and as a congressman.
Nevertheless, Pelosi did not run for elected office herself until she was well into her forties. "Nancy's life was a dress rehearsal for what she's doing now," Rep. Anna Eshoo told TIME Magazine in 2003.
And, as of Wednesday, what she will continue to do.
Pelosi says the Democratic Caucus' strength is in its unity, as she announces she will stay on as Leader.
Source: youtube.com
Democratic women boo and heckle reporter. “The answer is no,” Pelosi responds.
Source: youtube.com
Senate Republicans push for “select” committee to lead unified investigation into attack. “In Watergate, nobody died.”
Image by Joshua Lott / Reuters
WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain declared Wednesday that he and his Republican colleagues have trust in the Obama administration's investigation into the attack on the U.S.consulate in Benghazi.
"There is no credibility amongst most of us concerning the administration and the numerous controversies and contradictions that have been involved in their handling of this issue," McCain said at a Capitol Hill press conference. "It is essential for the Congress to conduct its own independent assessment."
McCain, flanked by Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Kelly Ayyotte, announced that the trio will introduce legislation this afternoon to create a temporary select committee in the Senate to independently investigate the attack that killed four Americans.
“In Watergate, nobody died. In Iran-Contra, nobody died,” McCain said, pointing to select committees after both as precent for one on Benghazi.
The Obama Administration has argued that the tragedy was the outcome of specific and largely local failures, and that contradictory early explanations reflected confusion, not a cover-up.
Graham said the select committee is necessary to prevent "stove-piping" of the congressional investigation, and to allow all those investigating the attack to hear testimony that otherwise would be spread across the Armed Services, Intelligence, and Foreign Relations committees.
“If you have these people in separate rooms telling separate stories trying to blame each other, it’s going to fall through the cracks," Graham said.
Not forever, at least. “I think that it’s a pretty natural complement to the type of work that Occupy has always done.”
Via: facebook.com
The Occupy movement has rallied around its Occupy Sandy humanitarian efforts in parts of New York City devastated by the hurricane, becoming a key force in the city's decentralized relief operations.
But people who are part of the movement say that their revolutionary mission and the egalitarian values they stand for haven't changed. The relief efforts, organizers say, are simply an extension of what they've always been doing — and that they'll be back out on streets of the Financial District again someday.
Occupy experienced what looked to outsiders like both a transformation and a revival in the aftermath of Sandy, which left outlying and often poorer neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island decimated. The sometime protesters changed tactics, going directly into the neighborhoods and filling the gaps where the Red Cross and FEMA were coming up short, albeit in a ragtag fashion.
This led the Associated Press and this publication, among others, to proclaim that Occupy had found a new calling.
But organizers say that the relief effort is simply an extension of what they were doing before.
"I think that it’s a pretty natural complement to the type of work that occupy has always done," said Max Berger, a former Howard Dean campaign worker who's been involved with Occupy on and off since its beginning.
"I don’t think it’s fair to just call it humanitarian assistance. Occupy was born out of a crisis. Occupy has always been about responding to crisis and to empower people to organize themselves and their communities," Berger said.
History gives precedent for the kind of shift that the occupiers have made. After Hurricane Katrina, activists in New Orleans turned their energies to humanitarian works, forming the Common Ground Collective, which Mother Jones called "in-your-face" and which eventually grew into a national group. The difference is that they never transitioned back to protesting.
Occupy Wall Street activists in New York say that the new humanitarian face of the movement will just become another facet of its decentralized approach, which was characterized in their first year by street protests that became less and less vibrant as time dragged on. The movement seemed to lose its footing permanently after the eviction from New York's Zuccotti Park and other hubs like it across the country.
The media turned its attention away from the occupiers, except for brief cameos here and there at the political conventions, May 1st, and the movement's one-year anniversary. That's changed a bit since the storm.
"I think that being here for people in a time of crisis, you can’t cut that negatively," said Nicole Carty, an Occupy Sandy organizer who made headlines last year for her family story — her twin sister Jill, far from being a protester, works in financial services on Wall Street. "There’s no way you can talk about it that it’s bad work, it’s obviously good work," Carty said.
"I don’t think that we're going to turn into a humanitarian relief organization," Carty said, echoing Berger. She said that the occupiers were going into the neighborhoods with the goal of not just providing direct aid, but of community organizing, another difference between their approach and that of, say, the Red Cross, which Carty said occupiers were trying unsuccessfully to coordinate with.
"Well the idea is that we want to make ourselves not necessary," Carty said. "That’s the most sustainable model anyway, a community taking care of its own needs."
The goal of this is in some ways political, as well as humanitarian.
"In the Rockaways, Staten Island, Coney Island, Red Hook, people are getting politicized because they see that decisions that they had nothing do do with are having an impact on their communities," said Berger.
"What Occupy is bringing to those people is not just a spirit of we’re doing this for you but you’re doing this for yourself and for each other, and that’s an inherently political process," Berger said.
Some in Occupy dismiss the idea that what they're doing for Sandy victims is something new, and the glowing media coverage they've received as a result.
"I hate the stories that say 'Occupy has found a NEW calling! Helping people who need it for free!'" said Shawn Carrié, an Occupy organizer who's been deeply involved with the movement's initiative to help the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook.
"It completely ignores work that proto-Occupy groups like Food Not Bombs and In Our Hearts have been doing for years," Carrié said.
Damien Crisp, another Brooklyn organizer, agreed.
"Many of our work groups were already working with direct relief in a variety of instances," Crisp said in an email. "I think it is new for those who were unclear about Occupy and thought it is an aimless band of protesters."
As for the future, occupiers say they plan to stay in the communities as long as help is needed. But more traditional forms of protest will continue. Protesters have planned a "Rolling Jubilee," a program to buy back consumer debt, and are jumping in on a Walmart workers' strike.
"We're trying to pace ourselves," said Carty. "That's absolutely still happening, this more combative side of the movement."
McCain says he will do everything within his power to block her nomination. The U.N. ambassador gave bad facts on Benghazi.
Image by Bebeto Matthews / AP
WASHINGTON, DC — Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. John McCain said Wednesday that they are "dead set" against confirming U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice if President Barack Obama were to nominate her to be Secretary of State.
"I am dead set on making sure we don’t promote anybody who was a player in the Benghazi debacle," Graham said in reference to Rice's appearances on the five Sunday shows in which she blamed the Benghazi attack on a anti-Islamic video.
The administration has said Rice was relying on CIA assessments pointing to the video, one of which has leaked, supporting the White House argument.
"She is so disconnected from reality that I don’t trust her,” the South Carolina Republican told reporters.
McCain demurred when asked if he would filibuster the potential nomination of Rice to replace Hillary Clinton, but said, "we will do whatever to block the nomination that is within our power as far as Susan Rice is concerned."
Reporter asks if there is a greater national security threat in classified documents discovered leaked in the Petraeus threat than the Benghazi attack.
Source: youtube.com
A quick escalation in the Middle East.
