Justin's Political Corner

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a comprehensive immigration reform bill that will provide a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11.1 million undocumented immigrants, passing the measure in a vote of 13 to 5. Three Republicans — Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — joined the Democrats on the panel to support the legislation after considering 200 amendments over five days.

The vote came following an emotional debate over a pro-LGBT provision that would have recognized, for purposes of immigration, married same-sex couples. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) withdrew the amendement after Republican senators, including members of the so-called Gang of 8, signaled that they would abandon the underlining bill if it was included. “If you redefine marriage for immigration purposes [by the amendment], the bill would fall apart because the coalition would fall apart,” Graham said. “It would be a bridge too far.”

The full Senate is expected to debate the bill on the floor next month. Earlier on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pledged to “vote for the motion to proceed so we can get on the bill and see if it we’re able to pass a bill that actually moves the ball in the right direction.”

h/t: Igor Volsky at Think Progress Immigration

A parcel addressed to President Obama containing a suspicious substance was intercepted Tuesday by authorities at a remote White House mail screening facility, the Secret Service confirmed Wednesday.

The confirmation came an hour after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed in a floor speech that “justice will be delivered” when it comes to this week’s Boston Marathon bombing and attempt to send a potentially-poisonous letter to a Senate office.

“We have faith that the men and women charged to protect the American people will find those responsible for the attack in Boston, and for the letter here,” McConnell said.“The truth will eventually come out. And justice will be delivered.”

In the case of the letter addressed to Sen. Roger Wicker’s (R-Miss.) office laced with Ricin, McConnell noted, authorities were able to foil the plot because of precautions they had adopted in the wake of the anthrax attacks launched after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

h/t: Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) likely has the votes on gun control legislation to clear its first procedural hurdle — a victory for the gun control community, though one that hardly guarantees the bill’s passage.

The majority leader announced on Tuesday evening he would submit for a vote the bill to expand background checks, implement a federal trafficking statute and enhance school safety measures. That would set up a Senate vote on Thursday. To help push matters along, President Barack Obama was spending Tuesday calling senators to lobby them on the gun measures, a White House official confirmed. The official did not reveal which senators would be receiving calls.

At least eight Republican senators said that they would support bringing the measures to the Senate floor for amendment and debate. A number of others said they had not ruled out voting to clear that first procedural hurdle.

Should those numbers hold, Reid will have the 60 votes needed to move forward on gun policy reform. Two members of his own caucus said they were noncommittal on the first procedural vote, but their defections (should they happen) would be insufficient to sustain a filibuster.

The procedural victory would give gun control advocates much-needed time to alter the language of the bill. Reid announced that negotiations over the bill were still ongoing between the two parties. But it won’t resolve the bill’s fate: Reid will have to secure 60 votes once more to end the debate and amendment period. And none of the Republican senators who said they’d support the first procedural vote would go as far as to say they’d sign off on the second.

In the high-stakes debate over gun policy, however, procedural victories are nothing to scoff at, especially with 14 Republican senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) threatening a filibuster of all measures.

Among the GOP congressmen set to buck their own leadership on the vote is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who called a filibuster “incomprehensible.” McCain was joined by Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who told CBS’ “This Morning” that the legislation “deserves an vote up or down.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who has negotiated background check legislation, has said he would not support an initial filibuster. “Absolutely,” his spokesman John Hart replied, when asked if that position still stood. “Eschewing this debate is a ‘stupid party’ strategy.”

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) announced on Wednesday that he won’t back a filibuster, stating that “the discussion needs to be had” on gun legislation.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said it was her “hope” that the Senate “can have a fully open debate, and if that occurs, I will certainly vote to proceed to the bill.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) offered similar conditions for his support on the first cloture vote.

“As long as we get amendments, no, I want to proceed to the bill,” he said, when asked about a filibuster. “I think we should be allowed to amend it. I’m not afraid of this debate, I welcome this debate.”

Even if Graham were to vote to sustain a filibuster, Reid could still have enough Republican support to overcome it. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) would be a likely “yes” on both the cloture vote and final passage of the bill, having been supportive of background check legislation in the past. His office, however, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Other Republicans left the door open to backing the first cloture vote on gun legislation. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was noncommittal when asked by reporters on Tuesday. Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) both said they would look at the legislation before deciding whether to support a filibuster. But each said they would filibuster a measure that infringes on Second Amendment rights.

H/T: Huffington Post

The Huffington Post is now reporting that actress Ashley Judd is now taking steps to enter the race for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky currently held by Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Judd, even though she has not actually entered the race as of yet, has already been targeted by conservative front groups, who are trying to paint her as a hard-line liberal and a carpetbagger, which is very easy for them to do, since she is an opponent of mountaintop removal coal-mining and was one of President Barack Obama’s most vocal supporters during his 2012 presidential campaign, additionally, she currently resides in Tennessee and would need to move to Kentucky in order to run for a U.S. Senate seat there.

Also, HuffPo has named Kentucky Secretary of State Allison Lundergan Grimes as a potential Democratic primary challenger to Judd. The possibility of a Judd-Lundergan Grimes primary, which is certainly not out of the question, would lead to an ideological fight within the Kentucky Democratic Party, as Judd is a progressive Democrat and Lundergan Grimes is a moderate Democrat. 

h/t: Downstate Democrat at Daily Kos

It’s a sign of how anxious the right wing is about the possibility that Ashley Judd might run for Senate against Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that the attacks on her have geared up before she’s even formally entered the race. There’s the American Crossroads ad trying to frame her as out of touch with a series of relatively anodyne and contextless quotations. And now, the Daily Caller, which has been trying to frame Judd’s feminist beliefs as fringe, has launched the stupidest salvo against her at all: arguing that Judd, because she has done nude scenes for her work as an actress, “has—literally—nothing left to show us.” In an exceptionally gross piece, Taylor Bigler, the Caller’s Entertainment Editor (Entertainment, in Caller parlance, apparently means surfing Mr. Skin and publishing clickbait trash gossip) writes:

We are used to knowing just about everything there is to know about serious political candidates. But will Judd be the first potential senator who has — literally — nothing left to show us? The actress has bared her breasts in several films and has had some raunchy sex scenes in others. According to MrSkin.com, which bills itself as “the largest free nude celebrity movie archive,” Judd has flashed just about everything on-screen. It seems like she was particularly liberal with nudity early on in her career…Judd did a lesbian sex scene in 2002′s Oscar-nominated “Frida” and has nine other films categorized as “sexy” by Mr. Skin, meaning that there is at least one racy scene in those films.

It may come as a surprise to the Daily Caller, but actresses don’t generally take their clothes off on-screen as an expression of some sort of groovy seventies lifestyle, or as a way to have sex with people who are not their spouses or partners. Rather, getting asked to take off some or all of your clothes is, for a lot of actors, a frequent requirement of the job, and something that until recently, tended to be asked of women more frequently than men. 

Attacking Judd for her nude scenes is part and parcel of the right’s current strategy to discredit promising female advocates. Like Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Sandra Fluke, the Caller’s attempts to impugn Judd as an exhibitionist are an attempt to make her seem less serious by impugning her sexual chastity (that this tactic remains in the playbook is a whole other world of crazy). But the evidence is even more specious and pathetic here. Fluke, who became engaged shortly after enduring nationally-broadcast attacks on her character, stumped for birth control access in the real world. Judd took her clothes off as part of fiction. The Daily Caller may not know the difference, but voters do. And Judd, who already knows a thing or two about the insanity of media scrutiny, is getting a real, and sadly valuable education in what you have to be willing to take if you want to be active in American public life as a woman.

H/T: Alyssa Rosenberg at Think Progress

Whether or not film star and progressive activist Ashley Judd decides to challenge Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for his seat in 2014, conservatives seem to be gearing up for a fight. On Tuesday morning, right-wing website The Daily Caller compared Judd’s unabashed feminism and environmentalism to former Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), whose campaign failed after he claimed women couldn’t get pregnant from“legitimate rape.” Akin’s comment was not only medically wrong, but also insulted and dismissed rape victims. Judd’s “most stunning comments,” according to the Daily Caller, range from harsh rhetoric against mountaintop removal to criticism of patriarchal institutions:

She has spoken out against having kids, saying it is “unconscionable to breed” while there are so many starving children in the world.

She has criticized the tradition of fathers “giving away” their daughters at weddings, calling that practice “a common vestige of male dominion over a woman’s reproductive status.”

She has even compared mountaintop removal mining to the Rwandan genocide, and has criticized Christianity as a religion that “legitimizes and seals male power.”

By getting in the race with this sort of baggage, Judd runs the risk of being portrayed as a Todd Akin-esque candidate – meaning voters simply decide she’s unqualified to serve as a senator, because her comments are so outrageous and extreme that people can’t bring themselves to vote for her.

The Daily Caller equates Judd’s and Akin’s comments as gaffes. But Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment cost him the election not because it was “outrageous” but because it shed light on his radical anti-choice voting record. 

h/t: Aviva Shen at Think Progress

Senate Republicans today chose to uphold a filibuster against Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel, despite many of them previously pledging that they would be willing to allow him to be confirmed.

Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and John Cornyn (R-TX) all voted against cloture, despite their pleas during the Bush administration that a president’s Cabinet nominees should receive an up-or-down vote.

Four Republicans, Sens. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mike Johanns (R-NE), voted to break the filibuster. The final vote was 58-40, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) voting present, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) not voting at all, and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) voting “no” as a procedural move so that he can bring another vote to the floor at a later date.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had originally scheduled the cloture vote for tomorrow morning, but surprised many by pushing it up to this afternoon. Earlier today, Reid took to the Senate floor to lambaste his Republican colleagues for delaying an up-or-down vote on Hagel, the first filibuster of a Secretary of Defense nominee.

Prior to the roll call’s beginning, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attempted to explain that the vote that was set to take place was the vote “to confirm Chuck Hagel,” rather than merely being a procedural vote. Inhofe also claimed that a 60-vote margin was common practice, rendering the actions of the Republicans not a filibuster. However, the motion was still filed by Reid as cloture — the ending of debate — rather than the actual confirmation of Hagel, as laid out be Levin before voting. This leaves the door open for Hagel’s nomination to remain on the Senate floor and renders the GOP’s actions a filibuster under the Senate’s rules.

While Senate Republicans are opposed to voting on Hagel today, they seem to believe that they’ll change their minds after the Senate returns from its President’s Day recess in 10 days. This morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that he expected to be willing to move Hagel forward at that time, “unless there’s some bombshell that he likes blood sucking vampires.” Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and John McCain (R-AZ) said roughly the same thing today, leaving their votes against Hagel today confusing.

h/t: Hayes Brown at Think Progress Security

The Huffington Post reports that Senate Leaders Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reached a deal today to support minor — and in some cases, temporary — changes to the Senate Rules,rather than push through the more robust reforms championed by many Democratic senators. The language of the deal, which is divided into two separate resolutions, is available here and here.

Sen. Mitch McConnell wants the Republican far-right base to like him so much that his campaign just sent out this completely irresponsible email, telling people that President Obama is about to come into their homes and confiscate their guns.

Here’s the text of the false and Alex Jones-esque email below:

Dear Patriot,

You and I are literally surrounded.

The gun-grabbers in the Senate are about to launch an all-out-assault on the Second Amendment. On your rights.

On your freedom.

Just the other night, President Obama urged them to act. And then he went one step further, spelling out the 23 different Executive Orders he will take to get your guns.

My friend, our freedom is under direct assault.

From those who want take your guns. From those who want to shred our Constitution, and as our good in friend Rand Paul from Kentucky says, from those who want to be King.

Let me tell you, Mitch McConnell is ready to lead the fight to protect your rights.

Will you stand with Mitch today?

Our Founders fought a revolution to secure our rights. They would have been appalled by what they heard from an American president the other day.

President Obama has the left wing media in a frenzy. And, like his old Chief of Staff, he is determined to not waste a crisis.

The gun-grabbers are in full battle mode. And they are serious.

What’s at stake?

There are almost too many schemes to list. But President Obama’s worst center around:

-The Feinstein Gun Ban, which will criminalize firearms by how they look.
-A thinly-veiled national gun registration scheme hidden under the guise of “background checks” to ensure federal government minders gain every bureaucratic tool they need for full-scale confiscation.
-An outright BAN on magazines holding more than 10 rounds.
-And that’s not even close to the end of it.

23 new Executive Orders.

It is almost hard to believe the sheer breadth and brazenness of this attempt to gut our Constitution.

Well, Mitch McConnell is not going to stand aside.

Mitch McConnell will stand and fight. He will lead the Senate Republicans against this unconstitutional agenda, and with your help, we will prevail.

But Mitch can’t do it alone.

That’s why I am asking you to sign the attached Defense of the Second Amendment pledge today to show that you stand with me in this vital fight.

Friend, from his very first run for office, Leader McConnell has always stood strong for your gun rights. Like you and me, he firmly believes that the Second Amendment protects YOU as an individual.

And, he absolutely will not let president Obama or the Senate Democrats take that right away from us.

So please help him fight back today.

For Freedom,

Jesse Benton
Campaign Manager
Sen. Mitch McConnell

P.S. President Obama and his allies are committed to eroding your Constitutional freedoms. Please sign your pledge TODAY to let him know that we stand with Mitch McConnell in opposing this gun grab.

h/t: leoweekly.com

Filibuster reform is in trouble, proponents warn, at the hands of a scaled-back proposal they say would enhance rather than diminish the Senate minority’s power to obstruct.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) says his proposal to force filibustering senators to occupy the floor and speak ceaselessly could be in jeopardy, thanks to a newbipartisan filibuster package that he and his ally Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) argue would do more harm than good to the cause.

“Normally the majority party has a right to determine the agenda of the Senate. They don’t have the right to pass bills. That’s up to the majority of the Senate,” Udall said on the floor Wednesday. “But then the majority leader should have the right to bring a bill to the floor of the Senate. And that has been denied over and over again by the minority party. That’s wrong.”

The dueling proposal, spearheaded by longtime Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI), would make it somewhat tougher for the minority to block debate on legislation but also guarantee them two amendments on bills — regardless of relevancy — which proponents of a weaker filibuster say defeats the purpose.

“It’s a step backward rather than a step forward,” a Merkley aide said. “It doesn’t attack the core of the matter. It doesn’t include a talking filibuster. And it allows the minority to kill legislation with poison pill amendments. It keeps all the tools minority has to obstruct and then gives them another tool.”

Early in December, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said filibuster reform will happen with or without Republican support, and Merkley-Udall was the plan on the table. But the unveiling of the McCain-Levin late December — and the optics of a partisan versus bipartisan solution — scrambled the game for reformers.

If Reid decides to pursue McCain-Levin instead of the talking filibuster plan, “Senator Merkley will encourage others to vote against the bill,” his aide said. It’s not yet clear that proposal has the super-majority of votes required to pass, but multiple Democratic senators have said there are at least 51 votes for reform.

h/t: Sahil Kapur at TPM