Internal links, defunct video & graphic removed.
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama blasted congressional Republicans Friday for failing to craft a workable response to the border crisis before leaving Washington for their summer recess, setting the stage for executive actions to address the surge in child migrants from central America. 'House Republicans as we speak are trying to pass the most extreme and unworkable version of a bill that they already know is going nowhere, that can't pass the Senate,' Obama said in a hastily-announced afternoon appearance in the White House press briefing room. 'They're not even trying to to solve the problem,' the president complained. 'This is a message bill ... just so they can check a box before leaving town tomorrow'":
... This Is Getting Hilarious. Mike Lillis, et al., of the Hill: "House GOP leaders are expected to bring a new border package to the floor on Friday that even some of the staunchest opponents of immigration reform said they would support." CW: Do they know the Congress is bicameral? ...
... Ramsey Cox of the Hill: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said even if House Republicans get the votes necessary to pass its emergency border spending bill, there isn't enough support in the Senate for the 'wrong-headed' measure." ...
... Jake Sherman, et al., of Politico: "After a day of embarrassing failures, House Republican leadership inched toward bringing a new border security bill to the floor Friday."
David Rogers of Politico: "Immigrant rights attorneys on the West Coast are seeking a preliminary injunction to block the Justice Department from expediting the deportation of children fleeing Central America without first ensuring they have legal counsel. Filed late Thursday night in federal court in Seattle, the papers build on a suit initiated July 9 arguing that the children can't get a fair hearing unless given legal representation."
Steve Kenny of the New York Times: "Representative Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican whose last day as House majority leader was Thursday, said on Friday that he would resign his seat effective Aug. 18 in hopes that his successor will be able to participate in the lame-duck session after the November elections. Mr. Cantor, 51, made the announcement in an op-ed article published on The Richmond Times-Dispatch website.... Mr. Cantor, who has served in Congress for 14 years, said that he would ask Virginia's Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, to call a special election for his seat on Nov. 4 -- the same day as the general election -- a move that would allow the winner to take Mr. Cantor's seat immediately rather than wait for the next Congress to be seated in January. He would also enjoy the perks of Mr. Cantor's seniority.... There was no indication whether [McAuliffe] would honor the request for a special election." ...
... The Richmond Times-Dispatch story, by Markus Schmidt, is here. ...
... Boo-Fucking-Hoo. Paul Kane & Sebastian Payne of the Washington Post: "As Cantor said farewell [in a speech to the House] Thursday, the always emotional Boehner dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief." ...
... In today's Comments, Akhilleus likens Boehner to Al Capone, as depicted in this scene from Brian De Palma's "The Untouchables." Read the whole comment. CW: Seems just right to me:
Josh Hicks & Ashley Halsey of the Washington Post: "In a sprint to the finish line before a five-week break, the Senate on Thursday night approved bills to aid the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs and to extend federal highway funding through May. On veterans affairs, senators voted 91 to 3 to approve legislation injecting more than $16 billion into VA to help deal with extensive treatment delays and a recent record-keeping scandal.... On transportation, the Senate voted 81 to 13 in favor of an $11 billion stopgap highway measure after weeks of squabbling with the House over the scope of the legislation. The bill, which replenishes the Highway Trust Fund, will keep about 6,000 state highway and transit projects rolling through next spring. Both measures now go to President Obama for his signature."
Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Facing a rebellion among their most conservative ranks, House Republicans were forced on Thursday to withdraw an emergency spending measure to address the surge of young Central American migrants at the southern border, in a major embarrassment to the new leadership team. House Republican leaders are expected to hold another meeting with their members on Friday morning to decide how to move forward, though many lawmakers said they would stay in Washington as long as necessary to put the bill on the floor. Some lawmakers had already departed on Thursday for the five-week summer break, and were summoned back to the Capitol." ...
... Jake Sherman & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "The turmoil is stunning considering how far to the right the GOP leadership pulled this bill. Boehner, [new Majority Leader Kevin] McCarthy and [Steve] Scalise, the new GOP whip, crafted a process that would have given the House a vote on legislation to stop the Obama administration from expanding its deferred deportation program. But even that wasn't enough. The episode is most embarrassing for Scalise, whose allies crowed this week about running a more effective whip organization than McCarthy, the longtime Republican vote counter who will now be th majority leader." ...
It was Senator Cruz calling the shots, and that's why people around here are calling him 'Speaker Cruz' today. It means when Speaker Boehner says he's going to get something done from now on, he'd better be checking with Senator Cruz to see if he's gonna get the votes because clearly the new leadership team isn't up to the task. -- Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), on MSNBC Thursday ...
... The Party of Cruz. Paul Waldman: "Among the people Boehner can thank for this debacle is Sen. Ted Cruz, who encouraged House Republicans not to go along with Boehner's bill unless it blocked expansion of the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy giving the DREAMers deportation relief.... When Obama takes some kind of executive action to address the broader immigration problem, Republican complaints that he's being tyrannical will be undermined by the GOP's abysmal failure to offer an alternative.... All they've got to show for the end of the session is a lawsuit -- one that will probably offer their own right wing nothing but frustration and disappointment, and will validate everything Obama is saying abou them." ...
One of the unfortunate things in Washington is how little communication there is between members of House and Senate. For many months, I've been periodically hosting gatherings with House members to discuss issues and challenges of the day and our gathering last night was scheduled several weeks ago. -- Ted Cruz, to Robert Costa, Thursday
Sittin' at my desk, watchin' the news, rest of the day is up to Ted Cruz. -- Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), via Twitter, Thursday
... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Cruz's tight embrace of House conservatives also has given him a powerful network inside and outside of Congress, even as he has been marginalized by Democrats and many of his fellow Republicans in the Senate. Ignoring them, Cruz has turned friendly news media outlets, conservative advocacy groups and House backbenchers into his base." ...
... Jonathan Chait: "In Boehner's House, failure is always an option." ...
We will look back on this moment in Washington as The Week That Irony Died. -- Gail Collins, yesterday
There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries. -- John Boehner, after pulling the House's limited border-funding bill
... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "On Wednesday, House Republicans sued President Obama for acting on his own without approval from Congress. On Thursday, House Republicans told President Obama he should act on his own to fix the border crisis. The messaging whiplash resulted from Speaker John Boehner's failure -- so far -- to pass a Republican spending bill that would provide $659 million to help stem the child migrant crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border. In a statement following the decision to abruptly scrap a vote on the measure, Boehner and his fellow GOP leaders tried to put the onus back on Obama, saying the president had the power to act unilaterally, 'without the need for congressional action,' to respond to the crisis." ...
... Flashback to Earlier That Same Day: Mark Felsenthall of Reuters: "House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Thursday that any unilateral steps by President Barack Obama on immigration would make matters worse and add to a 'legacy of lawlessness. No more unilateral action by the president," Boehner said at a news conference. 'If the president takes these actions, he'll be sealing the deal on his legacy of lawlessness,' he said. 'He'll be violating the solemn oath he made to the American people on the day of his inauguration.'" ...
... CW: Got that? Early Thursday morning Boehner said it was illegal/unconstitutional for the President to act unilaterally ("lawless") on the border situation, & a few hours later he said it was legal/within his constitutional powers for the President to act unilaterally on the border situation ("without the need for congressional action"). ...
... Charles Pierce: "Holy mother of god, what a eunuch." ...
... Of course, as Steve M. points out in posts here and here, the House debacle won't make a whit of difference to the electorate. As far as most voters know, there's a border crisis of some kind & Obama hasn't fixed it. ...
... Just as a reminder that not all the Democrats on the Hill are bright lights, either -- Chris Moody of Yahoo! News: "During a floor speech on Wednesday night, Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee voiced her opposition to the House Republican lawsuit against President Barack Obama.... 'We did not seek an impeachment of President Bush, because as an executive, he had his authority. President Obama has the authority.' It's an odd thing for Jackson Lee to say, because it was just six years ago that she helped lead a movement to impeach Bush by co-sponsoring a bill accusing him of high crimes and misdemeanors."
Charlies Pierce on Tyranny: "Jefferson was willing to break with a king he called a tyrant even if it meant facing down the British army. John Boehner is not willing to risk impeaching a president his House called a tyrant if it means a four-point drop in a CNN poll."
NEW. CW: Read the Headline & Lede. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Senate Blocks Aid to Israel. In the end, the Senate couldn't even agree to deliver emergency aid to one of the United States' closest allies. A last-ditch effort to deliver aid to Israel during its war with Hamas died on the Senate floor, as Republicans blocked the proposal over concerns that it would increase the debt. After Senate Republicans blocked Democrats' $2.7 billion border aid package, which also included $225 million for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system and $615 million to fight Western wildfires, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to split off the Israel and wildfire money as a standalone bill, hoping to put aside the dispute over border funding and appeal to Republicans' deep ties to Israel.... It didn't work.... First Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) objected to Reid's request for a straight emergency cash infusion for firefighting and Israel. Then Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) offered an alternative that would deliver money to Israel and the West and offer commensurate spending cuts to international organizations like the United Nations; Reid blocked that. 'Our number one ally -- at least in my mind -- is under attack. If this isn't an emergency I don't know anything that is,' Reid said." ...
... CW: The story is accompanied by a huge photo of Harry Reid. Anybody who reads only the headline & lede graf wlll assume Reid is at fault. It isn't that the Senate couldn't agree; Republicans couldn't agree; at best, they might have agreed to blackmail Reid with U.N. funding cuts. Because freeeedom.
Keith Laing of the Hill: "The House on Thursday shot down legislation from the Senate that would have extended federal transportation funding until December. The 272-150 vote puts pressure on Senate Democrats to accept the House-passed transportation bill, which would provide funding until next spring and avert a late summer shutdown of construction projects. Republicans said their $10.9 billion measure is now the only viable path for lawmakers to prevent a bankruptcy in infrastructure spending that has been predicted to occur in August." ...
... Keith Laing: "Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that the House's plan to strip changes from a Senate bill to extend federal transportation funding and send it back to the upper chamber 'dishonors the rules of the House.' ... Pelosi said Thursday that GOP leaders were blocking Democrats in the lower chamber from bringing up the Senate's version of the highway bill.... 'You may recall that the rules of the House say that if ... the House and the Senate are in true disagreement on legislation, then any member of the House can call for the Senate bill to be brought up on the floor,' she said during a news conference. 'The rule that coming to the floor dishonors the rules of the House that gives that privilege to any member and says only the Majority Leader will have the right to bring it up, which means of course that it will not be brought up, Pelosi continued."
James Downie of the Washington Post: President Obama should fire CIA Director John Brennan for his serial lapses. ...
... New York Times Editors: "One of those heads [that should roll] may need to be Mr. Brennan's. If he knew about the break-in, then he blatantly lied. If he did not, then apparently he was unaware of the lawless culture that has festered within the C.I.A. since the moment it was encouraged by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to torture suspects and then lie about it. That recklessness extended to the point where agency officials thought nothing of burglarizing their own overseer. Senator Mark Udall of Colorado [D] said the action was illegal and required the resignation of Mr. Brennan." ...
... digby: "And it really is very bad that the CIA hacked into the Senate computers, thus violating the separation of powers. Very bad. But it's not as bad as torturing people and getting away with it!! Jesus H. Christ, Brennan was right in the middle of that whole thing and has been complicit in the cover-up. But the straw that broke the camel's back was leaking and hacking the Senate investigation? ... Whatever. Just as long as they don't do something personally to Dianne Feinstein. That's a bridge too far." ...
... Here's the underlying New York Times story, by Mark Mazzetti & Carl Hulse: "An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has found that its officers improperly penetrated a computer network used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to prepare its damning report on the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program.... When the C.I.A.'s monitoring of the committee became public in March, Mr. Brennan said, 'When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.' Days earlier, he said that lawmakers were making spurious allegations about C.I.A. actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts.'"
Paul Krugman: Even when experts are generally in agreement, "politicians pick and choose which experts -- or, in many cases, 'experts' -- to believe, [and] the odds are that they will choose badly."
Gene Robinson: "The real objection of those who ridicule [Secretary of State John Kerry's] efforts [in the Israel-Gaza conflict] seems to be that he came up with a plan that Hamas and its key remaining allies -- the Islamist governments of Qatar and Turkey -- could actually accept.
Fareed Zakaria on "the rise of Putinism." Exhibit No. 1: Hungary, where "Prime Minister Viktor Orban explained that his country is determined to build a new political model -- illiberal democracy." So much for the end of history.
Joseph Marks of Politico: "U.S. allies Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, along with Syria, are using malicious email and Facebook messages to track and entrap journalists, dissidents and campaigners, who face jail and torture if identified and arrested, according to a new study. The cyberattacks are often very simple -- just a plausible email, Twitter or Facebook message with a malicious link. Clicking that link reveals the IP address of the user, linking a particular computer or home network to targeted email or other account, according to the study from The Citizen Lab, run by the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto."
New York Times Editors: "McDonald's said it would contest the [NLRB] ruling [that determined that McDonald's is jointly responsible for treatment of workers at its franchises], a process that could end up in the Supreme Court. That would delay any final accord between executives and workers, but it will not change the basic facts. Fast-food companies like McDonald's and Yum Brands, which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, are profitable and lavishly reward their executives -- which means there is money available to raise wages. But those raises have not been forthcoming, forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab for food stamps, Medicaid and other public assistance that many McDonald's workers use to get by." ...
... CW: Yeah, and I can't imagine that the Supremes would rule in favor of the McDonald's corporation person & against the workers' right to unionize. (See Harris v. Quinn.)
Paul Waldman notes that the kindlier, gentler Paul Ryan 2.0 has disavowed Paul Ryan 1.0's "hammock" analogy: "Paul Ryan used to say we didn't want the safety net to become a 'hammock,' where lucky poor people lounge around drinking margaritas, living the high life on their $133 a month in food stamps." But kindly Paul Ryan 2.0 is not "worried government benefits are a hammock, it's just that he worries that they're a kind of netting thing strung loosely between two trees that you nap in."
** Rebecca Traister of the New Republic on reproductive justice: "... the strategy of erasing the female reproductive system from a larger definition of women's health is part of a long tradition in conservative politics and policy-making. It's been in place certainly since 1976, when the Hyde Amendment blocked Medicaid funds from being spent on abortion procedures.... These days, conservatives are busy applying the Hyde Amendment's logic, that reproductive healthcare is different from human health, to ever-broadening areas of reproductive health. The Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision extended it to birth control." ...
... Justice Ginsburg on her retirement:
CW: This post by elections expert Rick Hasan on the Wisconsin supreme court's upholding the state's voter ID law is interesting for two reasons: (1) the Wisconsin supremes cited as the only evidence of voter fraud -- & thus the "proof" of the need for voter IDs -- one guy who was (a) a Scott Walker supporter, & (b) was charged with 13 counts of voter fraud (absent the voter ID law, BTW). (2) In a update, Hasan notes that the fraud committed by the Walker supporter occurred after the case-in-chief, & therefore "was not in evidence before the lower court. I believe it has become increasingly common for appellate courts to cite matters not in the record which the judges or their clerks find from a little googling." A few days ago I noted that Jonathan Gruber's remarks about state exchanges, recorded in 2012, but not in evidence in the Halbig case, would not be part of the record when & if the case goes to the Supremes. But I also said the conservative Supremes would certainly know about Gruber's comments fron reading the Right Wing News & well might raise them during oral arguments. In light of Hasan's observation, I'd say Gruber will get his day in court. Unfortunately.
Alex Seitz-Wald of msnbc: "Ten hours before the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, Bill Clinton allegedly told a group of businessmen in Australia that he had a chance to kill Osama bin Laden, but passed because it would have meant killing hundreds of innocent civilians. That's according to never-before-released audio of remarks made public by Australian media on Wednesday." The tape is here. The audio clip is at about 5:30 min. in.
Josh Feldman of Mediaite: A Ku Klux Klan wizard has a plan to stop children from crossing into the U.S. via the U.S.-Mexican border: "shoot to kill.... If we can't turn 'em back, I think if we pop a couple of 'em off and leave the corpses laying on the border, maybe they'll see that we're serious about stopping immigration." CW: That should be "lying on the border, not "laying."
Beyond the Beltway
Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "The prosecution's star witness at the corruption trial of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell (R) and his wife told jurors Thursday he had a simple reason for lavishing gifts on the first family: 'Because they're helping me.' Jonnie R. Williams Sr. testified in his second day on the stand that he gave the McDonnells vacations, pricey clothes and more in the hopes his relationship with the couple would help him promote a supplement created by his company..." ...
... Update. Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors on Thursday unveiled what could be a critical new piece of evidence in their case against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen: a photograph of the governor, grinning and holding up his wrist to display a watch. Testifying during the McDonnells' federal corruption trial, businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. said he received the photo by text message in December 2012 in response to one he sent the governor. The watch on McDonnell's wrist appeared to be the Rolex that Williams had purchased for the governor at the first lady's request a year earlier. The picture could shatter any assertion that the governor was unaware that Williams ... had provided the expensive timepiece. McDonnell (R) has previously said the watch was a Christmas gift from his wife." ...
... The Post is liveblogging the trial.