Daily Political Wire

George Wenschhof


Kerry Appeals To Russia to uphold "The Rule of Law" - Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday urged Russia to "uphold rule of law" and aid the U.S. in its mission to apprehend Edward Snowden, the former defense contractor wanted on espionage charges.

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Obama To Outline 3 Objectives in Climate Change Speech - When President Barack Obama details his national strategy to combat climate change in a major speech Tuesday at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., he will outline a plan comprised of "three main objectives," a White House official said.
 
The official said that the objectives of Obama's plan are "to prevent the worst effects of climate change by reducing our carbon pollution," "to prepare this country for the impacts of climate change we can’t avoid" and "to lead the rest of the world around combating changing climate."  TPM.com has more here.

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Senate Immigration Bill Going Nowhere in House - House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) had told his Republican colleagues that no immigration legislation would be brought the floor if a majority of the GOP majority didn’t support it. And, anyone who has spent any time around the current Republican majority in the House — or watched as the farm bill failed last week – recognizes that the Senate immigration bill (and, perhaps, any bipartisan immigration bill) isn’t going to be backed by a majority of the Republican majority in that chamber.
 
How the Senate voted on Monday also affirms that the immigration legislation could well be dead on arrival in the House. Not a single member of the Senate GOP leadership voted for cloture. The Washington Post has more here.

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Supreme Court Punts on Affirmative Action - The court voted 7 to 1 to send the University of Texas’s race-conscious admissions plan back for further judicial view and told the lower court to apply the kind of rigorous evaluation that must accompany any government action that considers race.

But the ruling, one of the most anticipated of the term, was notable for what it did not do. It did not forbid the consideration of race, significantly alter the court’s prescription of how such programs should operate or even pass judgment on the UT program at issue.

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Issa Subpoenas State Department Officials in Benghazi Probe - House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Tuesday subpoenaed four State Department officials as part of his investigation into the administration's response to the Benghazi mission attack.

The newly deposed individuals are Eric Boswell, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's former assistant secretary and its former principal deputy assistant secretary; Scott Bultrowicz, the director of the Diplomatic Security Service; and Elizabeth Dibble and Elizabeth Jones, the former principal deputy assistant secretary and the acting assistant secretary at the Bureau Near Eastern Affairs, respectively.  TheHill.com has more here.

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Massachusetts Voters To Choose Kerry Replacement Today - Massachusetts voters go to the polls on Tuesday to choose between a Republican newcomer and a veteran Democratic Congressman hoping to preserve the majority his party holds in the U.S. Senate.

Representative Edward Markey has enjoyed a strong lead in polls since launching his campaign six months ago to succeed fellow Democrat John Kerry, now U.S. Secretary of State. Markey's opponent is private equity executive and former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez, whose solid support among Republicans looks to be not enough to prevail in the liberal-leaning state.  Reuters.com has more here.

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Race for Majority in Senate Promises to be Intense in 2014 - There are 21 Democratic seats up, but only 14 GOP seats in 2014 (two of those seats, South Carolina and Hawaii, are special elections).

Republicans seem almost guaranteed to net additional Senate seats in the 2014 midterms. With two highly vulnerable Democratic open Senate seats already on the books (West Virginia and South Dakota) and at least five other Democratic seats at greater risk than even the most vulnerable GOP seat, Democratic Senate losses are virtually assured.

But, of course, there is a big difference between a Republican gain of two Senate seats, versus netting six or seven seats.  RollCall.com has more here.

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Daily Political Wire

George Wenschhof

Obama To Unveil Plans for Climate Change - President Barack Obama will unveil his plan to combat climate change in a speech Tuesday, detailing what's expected to be a proposal relying on executive actions, including the regulation of carbon emissions from existing power plants.
 
In a web video released by the White House on Saturday, Obama says he will use the speech to "lay out my vision for where I believe we need to go – a national plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare our country for the impacts of climate change, and lead global efforts to fight it." It's scheduled for 1:35 p.m. Tuesday on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington.

The president doesn't get into specifics in his video, though he's expected to propose a series of executive actions that environmental groups have long called for, most of which would come out of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department.  Politico.com has more here.
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Where is Snowden? - Aeroflot says a Cuba-bound flight for which National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was registered has departed from Moscow, but he has not been seen on board.
 
An airline representative told The Associated Press that the Havana-bound flight has left Moscow. The representative, who wouldn’t give her name as she wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, said Snowden wasn’t on the flight.

AP reporters on the flight couldn’t see Snowden in the seat he booked or anywhere else on the plane.

The airline said earlier Snowden registered for the flight using his U.S. passport, which American officials say has been annulled.

Snowden arrived in Moscow on Sunday from Hong Kong, where he had been hiding for several weeks to evade U.S. justice. Ecuador is considering Snowden’s asylum application. TPM.com has more here.

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Mandela in Critical Condition - Nelson Mandela’s condition has deteriorated to “critical,” the South African government said Sunday night, nearly three weeks after the former South African leader and anti-apartheid icon was hospitalized with a recurring lung infection.

The office of South African President Jacob Zuma said that he and ruling African National Congress deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa visited Mandela, 94, on Sunday evening and that doctors informed them that Mandela’s condition had turned critical in the past 24 hours. The Washington Post has more here.

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70 Votes in Senate Possible for Immigration Bill - Immigration reform has gotten a new burst of life as a growing number of Senate Republicans have embraced the 1,000-page-plus legislation, setting up President Obama for a big victory this week.

The sudden surge in Republican support has been a pleasant surprise for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who urged the bill’s authors to focus on winning 60 votes — the minimum for passing it.

The House is the X factor. The lower chamber is expected to pass narrow immigration bills that do not include a path to citizenship, which is a staple of the Senate legislation. Conservatives in the House, including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), strongly oppose the Senate bill.  TheHill.com has more here.

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50% Want Publicly Funded Campaigns - The Gallup poll shows half of Americans say they would personally vote for a law that establishes government funding of federal campaigns, while 44% would vote against it.

Americans are much more likely to support limiting the amount of money that U.S. House and Senate candidates can raise and spend for their campaigns. Nearly eight in 10 say they would vote for such a limit, whereas 19% would oppose it.  Gallup.com has more here. 

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Israel Launches Airstrikes Against Gaza - The fragile six-month cease-fire between Israel and Gaza was shaken overnight Monday as militants from the Palestinian coastal enclave fired at least six rockets against southern Israel and the Israeli military responded with airstrikes against what it said were weapons storage facilities and a rocket launch site in the southern Gaza Strip. The NY Times has more here.

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Daily Political Wire

George Wenschhof



Jason Furman

Obama to Nominate Furman for Top Economic Post -President Barack Obama will announce Monday that he intends to nominate Jason Furman as the new Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, a White House official said.
 
Obama will make the personnel announcement at 2:10 p.m. ET at the White House. Furman will succeed Alan Krueger, who is stepping down from the post to return to Princeton University in the fall.  TPM.com has more here.

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Snowden Reveals He is Source of NSA Leaks - A 29-year-old man who says he is a former undercover CIA employee said Sunday that he was the principal source of recent disclosures about ­top-secret National Security Agency programs, exposing himself to possible prosecution in an acknowledgment that had little if any precedent in the long history of U.S. intelligence leaks.

Edward Snowden, a tech specialist who has contracted for the NSA and works for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, unmasked himself as a source after a string of stories in The Washington Post and the Guardian that detailed previously unknown U.S. surveillance programs. He said he disclosed secret documents in response to what he described as the systematic surveillance of innocent citizens. The Washington Post has more here.

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Turkey Prime Minister Erdogan Warns Protestors - Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan warned protesters who have taken to the streets across Turkey demanding his resignation that his patience has its limits and compared the unrest with an army attempt six years ago to curb his power.

Riot police used teargas and water cannon to disperse anti-government protesters from a square in the capital, Ankara, just a few kilometers from where Erdogan spoke.

He held six rallies on Sunday, a measure of tensions after a week of the biggest demonstrations and worst rioting of his decade in power. Thousands waved red Turkish flags and shouted Allahu Akbar (God Is Greatest) as he accused protesters of attacking women wearing headscarves and desecrating mosques by taking beer bottles into them.  Reuters.com has more here.

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Taliban Attack Kabul Airport - Insurgents attacked Kabul International Airport early Monday and battled Afghan security forces for four hours, officials said.
 
The assault occurred on the military side of the airport and included large explosions and machine-gun fire.

The attackers took up positions inside a partially constructed building next to airport, interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said, and fought Afghan security forces for about four hours before the raid ended.  NBC News has more here.

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Mandela in Intensive Care - Former South African leader Nelson Mandela remained in intensive care Monday, two days after he was hospitalized with a recurring lung infection.

The increasingly frail Mandela was rushed to a hospital in Pretoria on Saturday. Later in the day, the South African president's office said the 94-year-old former leader was in a "serious but stable condition."

He was breathing on his own own and his wife was by his side, the office said at the time.

After offering no updates for 48 hours, the government said Monday that Mandela's condition was "unchanged."  CNN.com has more here. 

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