John Boehner has dispatched his deputies to collect NRCC dues, so if you see Tom Cole dangling Louie Gohmert from the House Rotunda, just let them be. Hill staffers are editing the Wikipedia entry for "Step Up," likely in response to the pernicious lies being spread by the other party in the "Stomp the Yard" article. And Dick and Liz Cheney published an article headlined, "The Truth About Iraq," which isn't nearly as compelling as its original title, "If I Did It." This is HUFFPOST HILL for Friday, July 11th, 2014:
Dude: @SenatorEnzi: pic.twitter.com/EkNSbwBuqF
DARRELL ISSA HUNGRY, DARRELL ISSA WANT SUBPOENA, FEEEEEED ISSA!!!! - Jen Bendery: "Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) announced Friday that he is subpoenaing another top administration official, meaning he has now issued nearly 100 subpoenas since becoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee -- more than all three previous committee chairmen combined. Former Democratic and Republican chairmen issued a total of 78 subpoenas between 2003 and 2010, according to materials provided by Rep. Eljiah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the committee. In almost every instance, those chairmen issued those subpoenas with the concurrence of the ranking member or a vote of the committee. In contrast, Issa has issued 96 subpoenas since 2011, without any debate or committee vote. Issa's latest target is David Simas, director of the White House Office of Political Outreach and Strategy. Issa wants Simas to testify in a hearing next Wednesday on the Hatch Act, a law that restricts political activity by membfers of the executive branch. Neither the White House nor Cummings could point to a reason why Simas should be forced to testify, as there have not been any signs of wrongdoing within his office." [HuffPost]
HuffPost's Sophia Jones is on the ground in Gaza, where children are being maimed and orphaned.
GOP REVERTS TO GEORGE W. BUSH ECONOMICS - We're sure there's a Haliburton carveout in here somewhere. Mike McAuliff: "The GOP-led House of Representatives embraced a former stimulus measure Friday, voting to make it and another related tax cut permanent, adding $287 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years. The largest part of the cut, worth more than $263 billion, is making permanent so-called bonus depreciation, which allows businesses to write off the cost of capital investments and improvements much more quickly. It was enacted twice during the administration of President George W. Bush, and the most recent version expired last year. The idea behind it is that if lawmakers give businesses a break during tough economic times, they will speed up major equipment purchases and stimulate economic activity. Those who support making such a stimulus measure permanent argue that it would give businesses the certainty to be able to plan their investments. But opponents -- primarily Democrats -- mocked the idea, pointing to Congressional Research Service reports that found the break was a weak stimulus to begin with, and that the stimulative effect is likely to fall even further if the break becomes permanent." [HuffPost]
Back in 2010, John Kasich issued a proclamation congratulating the Dallas Mavericks on defeating LeBron James' Heat. Now he's celebrating James' return. #KasichsKatrina.
Your weekend hate read, courtesy of Liz and Dick Cheney: "The Truth About Iraq"
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - "A transient woman was killed Tuesday night after she fell asleep in a parking space and was run over by a car, St. Petersburg police said….According to police, Henrietta Regina Dickson, 55, had either passed out or fallen asleep in an assigned parking space between two carport support pillars. At about 11:30 p.m., a woman pulled into her assigned parking space. Police said the front of her vehicle drove over Dickson's body, pinning the woman between the concrete parking spot and the undercarriage of the vehicle, police said." [BayNews9.com]
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JOHN BOEHNER WANTS HIS MONEY - Politico: "House Republicans, so worried that a swelling cash deficit will keep them from making big gains this November, have begun cracking down on dozens of lawmakers who haven’t paid dues crucial to the party’s campaign accounts. It’s reached the point that Speaker John Boehner has dispatched his own team to twist some of the stragglers’ arms. The National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s House campaign arm, is well behind its Democratic counterpart in fundraising, to the tune of $22 million so far. And many GOP outside groups, who could in theory compensate for the deficit, are more interested in channeling their resources toward retaking the Senate than defending the House. That’s put increased pressure on Republicans to get dues from lawmakers. The NRCC had earlier announced the formation of a task force geared toward getting members to pay up. But behind the scenes, Boehner has launched his own effort — sending a trio of members close to him to press the procrastinators to fork over cash. They’ve been poring over NRCC dues sheets, calling truant members, tracking them down in hallways and otherwise pressuring them to open their wallets. Boehner himself has wrangled more than $1 million from his colleagues in the Ohio delegation. An official familiar with the overall push said about 120 of the 234 members of the GOP Conference paid their dues in full by the end of June, supplying the NRCC with more than $12 million. But there are about 100 members who have paid only part of what they owe, or nothing at all — leaving potentially millions of dollars still on the table." [Politico]
AMERICANS TOO STUPID FOR GMO LABELING: CONGRESSIONAL PANEL - So just to be clear, Americans are smart enough to spend their own money, but are too stupid to successfully eat. Mike McAuliff: "It's pretty rare that members of Congress and all the witnesses they've called will declare out loud that Americans are just too ignorant to be given a piece of information, but that was a key conclusion of a session of the House Agriculture Committee this week. The issue was genetically modified organisms, or GMOs as they're often known in the food industry. And members of the subcommittee on Horticulture, Research, Biotechnology, and Foreign Agriculture, as well as their four experts, agreed that the genetic engineering of food crops has been a thorough success responsible for feeding the hungry, improving nutrition and reducing the use of pesticides. People who oppose GMOs or want them labeled so that consumers can know what they're eating are alarmists who thrive on fear and ignorance, the panel agreed. Labeling GMO foods would only stoke those fears, and harm a beneficial thing, so it should not be allowed, the lawmakers and witnesses agreed. 'I really worry that labeling does more harm than good, that it leads too many people away from it and it diminishes the market for GMOs that are the solution to a lot of the problems we face,' said David Just, a professor at Cornell University and co-director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs." [HuffPost]
@JakeSherman: Gary Ackerman, who retired in 2012, spent 699.60 on his campaign’s AmEx.http://t.co/RobmohXpEz
Womp womp: "Disgraced former U.S. Rep. David Rivera (R) announced Friday he was suspending his bid for the congressional district he once represented. Rivera, who lost to Democrat Joe Garcia in 2012, cited a Thursday court ruling holding that the Florida Legislature illegally redrew boundaries defining congressional districts to benefit the GOP in 2012. It requires the state's 5th Congressional District, held by Rep. Corrine Brown (D), and 10th Congressional District, held by Dan Webster (R), to be redrawn. Districts affected by the subsequent adjustments also will need to be redrawn. 'As a congressional candidate affected by this decision, I will not be held hostage by Florida’s liberal activist judges,' Rivera said in a statement, according to The Miami Herald." [HuffPost's Igor Bobic]
SCIENTISTS STILL REELING FROM SEQUESTRATION - And it's really going to burn now that the ape planet is dawning. Sam Stein: "At a roundtable conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, senior officials at some of the nation’s top universities said that their biomedical research projects are either in financial limbo or completely stalled. And some of the brightest young scientists are either leaving academia for private enterprise, looking to other industries, or getting poached by foreign governments more willing to invest in their careers. This is the case at both top state universities and prestigious private ones with large endowments, they said...Other attendees at the event, called 'All Things Research 2014' and hosted by the Association of American Universities and The Science Coalition, echoed McCullough's fears. Robert Clark, the senior vice president for research at The University of Rochester, said faculty members have started splitting their time and doing work for international institutions, which have swooped to help with money woes...Robert Bernhard, the vice president for research at The University of Notre Dame, said that his school had had to put the brakes on a promising, multi-university physics project as funds dried up, after which it risked losing the researchers to another country." [HuffPost]
Important @Congressedits update: "A new Twitter account is keeping track of all the Capitol Hill staffers -- or members -- who are anonymously making changes to Wikipedia pages. Whether it's a change to the page on a congressman or that of a new movie, the @congressedits bot is letting people know of the edits. Since the account started on July 8, there have been anonymous edits from the Hill to the Wikipedia pages of the horse head mask, Rep. Robert Hurt (R-Va.) and even the movie "Step Up 3D." Someone also changed the page of Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Brian Darling, noting that the conservative scholar was involved in breeding rare long-haired cats in his younger years." [HuffPost's Amanda Terkel]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here are animals not giving a damn about yoga.
COMFORT FOOD
- Guitarist perfectly recreates the sounds of a Japanese politician's sobs. [http://bit.ly/1oKutfW]
- Imagine a glorious world where pizza is currency. [http://huff.to/1jkeZ4J]
- If real life were more like soccer. [http://huff.to/1m1aMO0]
- If Google Was a Guy, part three. [http://bit.ly/1oLGzWj]
- Hightlights of the Brazil - Germany match without the Brazilians on the pitch. [http://bit.ly/1s46iOI]
- Satirical directions on how to eat sushi in Japan -- an interesting look into satire in the country. [http://bit.ly/1moKavf]
- Platypus wants to platyplay. [http://bit.ly/1sHQTBh]
TWITTERAMA
@hunterw: I just received what might be the best gchat from a political operative ever: "OTR hahahahahahaha"
@1PatriciaMurphy: MSNBC, did you just cut off @RepSteveIsrael to talk to someone named "Munch" about basketball?
@ProffJeffJarvis: Thinking of starting a paleocon diet.
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