September 26, 2014

This will kill the GOP in ’16: Romney buzz and GOP’s immigration meltdown

Talk of (another) Romney presidential run highlights how badly the GOP will struggle with immigration in 2016

SIMON MALOY

The piping hot news out coming out of the mercifully still distant 2016 presidential campaign is that a third stab at the White House by one Willard Mitt “Mitt” Romney is a “real possibility.” That’s the word from the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, who talked with a number of people plugged into Romney’s inner circle of advisers, sycophants, and former campaign personnel who “developed an extraordinary loyalty to Romney.” Those people are apparently urging Mitt to dust off the old awkward charm and ask some more confused Americans whether they’re French Canadian.

My initial reaction to this news was “Hah. Terrific!” But after getting over that burst of ironic enthusiasm, my thoughts turned, as they so often do, to immigration reform. The big lesson of Mitt’s 2012 loss, for Republicans anyway, was that lurching to the right on immigration issues was no longer an option at the national level. Romney took up “self-deportation” as his immigration policy to ingratiate himself to skeptical conservatives, and he paid for it with drubbings in the Spanish-speaking press and an absurdly low share of the Latino vote.

Gaming out what a third Romney candidacy might look like, Hot Air’s Allahpundit wrote: “His donor-class supporters were willing to tolerate ‘self-deportation’ in 2012 because they thought he needed to pander to righties more than he did to Latinos, but that equation has now reversed. As someone said last night on Twitter, you’ll know Romney’s seriously thinking of getting in when he starts calling for comprehensive immigration reform.” But here’s the thing: Romney’s already done that. Sort of.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/26/this_will_kill_the_gop_in_16_romney_buzz_and_gops_immigration_meltdown/

September 26, 2014

Here Are All the Rumored Potential Replacements for Eric Holder

By Ben Mathis-Lilley

-snip-

Preet Bharara, the Wall-Street-fightin' United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Jenny Durkan, who was the first openly gay U.S. attorney and is leaving her position in the Western District of Washington next week.
Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, who's an adjunct professor of public policy at Berkeley.
Kamala Harris, California's attorney general, who is both the first woman, the first black person, and the first person with Indian ancestry to serve in that role.
Loretta Lynch, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, who prosecuted the Abner Louima police brutality case.
Janet Napolitano, the former head of Homeland Security, who's now the president of the University of California system.
Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts.
Kathryn Ruemmler, the former White House counsel, who is working in private practice.
Donald Verrilli Jr., the solicitor general.
Tony West, who just stepped down from his job as U.S. associate attorney general to work for Pepsico, and who happens to be married to Kamala Harris's sister Maya, who is a vice president at the Ford Foundation. Hell of a family!
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Senator from Rhode Island, who is a former prosecutor.
Jeter*

* A joke, obviously, since it's long been known that Obama considers Jeter to be more of a fit for the Supreme Court.

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http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/09/26/eric_holder_replacements_listing_the_candidates.html?

September 26, 2014

GOP Rep: Homeless People Moving To Colorado Because Of Legal Weed

By DANIEL STRAUSS Published SEPTEMBER 26, 2014, 4:10 PM EDT

Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) warned about the dangers of marijuana, arguing that weed is worse than cigarettes and has caused an increase in the number of homeless people moving to Colorado.

Fleming's comments came during a speech at the Values Voter Summit on Friday.

Fleming said that the social experiment of Colorado allowing recreational pot sales has not "brought an avalanche of revenue." Instead, Fleming said, it's caused an increase in "the number of homeless people" moving to Colorado.

In the same speech Fleming argued that marijuana is not, in fact, harmless by saying that marijuana contains qualities that are "four times more potent than tobacco, which is known to cause" cancer.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/john-fleming-marijuana-colorado-cigarettes

September 26, 2014

PA Gov. Rocked By News Of Ex-Staffers' Hardcore Porn Email Trove

Source: TPM

By AHIZA GARCIA Published SEPTEMBER 26, 2014, 2:55 PM EDT

Pennsylvania's Democratic attorney general made a seriously NSFW accusation on Thursday about some staffers who worked for Gov. Tom Corbett (R).

Attorney General Kathleen Kane reportedly gave local journalists a look at a series of sexually explicit emails, videos and photos that she said were circulated on state computers by staffers who worked for Corbett during his time as the state's attorney general.

Among the content, according to the Philadelphia Daily News, was a video of a woman masturbating with a lit cigar. Another video reportedly showed a man dressed as a race-car driver uncorking a bottle of champagne and inserting it into a woman's vagina.

Some of those who allegedly sent and received the content, according to the newspaper, have gone on to high-ranking jobs in Corbett's gubernatorial administration, including the state's police commissioner and its secretary of environmental protection.

-snip-

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tom-corbett-staffers-sexual-emails

September 26, 2014

Warrant Issued For Cliven Bundy Jr.'s Arrest (Again)

By DYLAN SCOTT Published SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

A bench warrant has been issued for Cliven 'Lance' Bundy Jr., the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, the second time in the last few months that a warrant has been put out for him.

KTNV reported Thursday that the warrant resulted from Bundy's failure to appear in Clark County drug court on Tuesday.

In July, a warrant was issued because Bundy had failed to show up to a drug diversion program stemming from his 2012 felony conviction on burglary and weapons charges. Bundy later said he was having a surgery performed for nerve pain on the day of the earlier hearing.

He was arrested in August and subsequently released.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cliven-bundy-jr-arrest-warrant-again

September 26, 2014

Eric Holder Exit Interview: Why He'll Always Be an African American Icon

Joshua DuBois

The outgoing attorney general talks to The Daily Beast about his ‘signature achievement,’ his vicious opponents, and why he isn’t done yet: ‘I don’t just want to give speeches.’

In an exit interview today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder looked back at his tenure as the nation’s top law-enforcement officer and saw a lot of to be proud of. And if the reaction from community leaders around the country is any indicator, others are proud as well.

“Holder is up there with the greats—including Bobby Kennedy,” said Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr. “I don’t know anyone who has been more diligent and thoughtful on matters of civil rights.”

The attorney general announced that he would step down from his post as soon as his successor is confirmed. I spoke with Holder about his legacy, what’s next for him, and how he dealt with often-intense criticism from the House GOP.

Holder called his work on criminal-justice reform his “signature achievement,” telling me, “After years of over-reliance on incarceration as a criminal-justice strategy, we finally started to turn this aircraft carrier around.” The attorney general pointed to a decline in the federal prison population this year by more than 4,800 inmates—projected to reach 10,000 inmates by 2016, or the equivalent of five newly empty federal prisons—as evidence of reform, following changes last year that reduced prison terms for nonviolent drug offenders.

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/25/eric-holder-we-finally-started-to-turn-this-aircraft-carrier-around.html

September 26, 2014

U.S. Economy Grows Most Since 2011

Source: The Daily Beast

The U.S. economy grew at a revised 4.6 percent annualized rate in the second quarter of 2014, the Commerce Department announced Friday. That is up from the previous estimate of 4.2 percent. The increase follows a 2.1 percent decline in the first quarter of the year, which economists are now viewing as an aberration. The spring growth rate is the highest since the final quarter of 2011. The increase was largely triggered by increased corporate spending on equipment and properties, as well as investments in nonresidential properties.

Read it at Bloomberg News

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Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/09/26/u-s-economy-grows-most-since-2011.html

September 26, 2014

FBI: 12 Americans in ISIS, Not 100

Source: The Daily Beast

FBI Director James Comey declared Thursday that there are not more than 100 Americans fighting alongside extremists in Syria—there are roughly 12. The 100 number, Comey explained, included the 88 or so Americans who have been killed or arrested, or traveled or attempted to travel to join the militants. While Comey has clarified his remarks, other administration officials’ numbers have not come with that clarification, even in recent weeks.

Read it at ABC News

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Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/09/26/12-americans-in-isis-not-100.html

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September 26, 2014

Eric Holder’s complex legacy: A civil rights hero who defended the national security state

He fought police abuse and voter suppression, while prosecuting leakers. But even liberal critics will miss him

JOAN WALSH

Eric Holder’s legacy is going to be as complicated as that of the man he served, and perhaps more so, because personally, he has always seemed to stand to President Obama’s left. Or at least to stand for a more aggressive approach to the social justice issues he cared about.

He was brash when Obama was circumspect, calling us (correctly) “a nation of cowards” when it comes to race, and shooting back at his rabid right-wing critics, who treated the attorney general as a stand-in for our first black president and kicked him more viciously, since they didn’t even have to pretend to respect the office of the presidency when they faced him.

The first Cabinet member in history to be held in contempt by the House of Representatives, Holder was unbowed. He modeled backbone for frequently spineless Democrats, telling House oversight bully Darrell Issa that his behavior was “unacceptable … and shameful,” and warning Louie Gohmert, “You don’t want to go there, buddy,” when Gohmert mocked him about being found in contempt.

His courage wasn’t just rhetoric: He took the lead (with Obama’s blessing) on issues of crucial importance to African-Americans, and to everyone concerned about civil rights: the long-festering problem of police violence, lately an epidemic, and the erosion of voting rights in the wake of Obama’s 2008 election.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/25/eric_holder%E2%80%99s_complex_legacy_a_civil_rights_hero_who_defended_the_national_security_state/

September 26, 2014

Libertarian Think Tank Removes Piece Comparing Eric Holder To George Wallace

By CAITLIN MACNEAL Published SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

The Cato Institute on Thursday published and quickly removed a piece comparing Attorney General Eric Holder to segregationist George Wallace.

In the column, senior fellow Ilya Shapiro said that Holder had the "most divisive tenure of any attorney general I can recall, tearing the country apart on racial and partisan lines," according to a cached version of the piece.

After arguing that Holder was the worst attorney general ever, Shapiro jumped into the George Wallace comparison.

"Like a modern-day George Wallace, Holder has called for racial preference now, racial preferences tomorrow, racial preferences forever," he wrote.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cato-institute-holder-george-wallace

Here's a link to the cached version of the article:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.cato.org/blog/eric-holder-worst-attorney-general-ever