It being the day after Joe Biden's birthday, one imagines he spent it apologizing and making assurances that he'll never touch Wild Turkey again. John Boehner said the president "sabotaged" his relationship with Congress, though didn't add if any wells had been poisoned. And Al Franken is targeting Uber. We don't think a newly detailed Acura and complimentary water bottle will make him change his tune. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Friday, November 21st, 2014:
BENGHAZI ANSWERS! - But, but, but… AP: “A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees. Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found. That led Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to inaccurately assert that the attack had evolved from a protest, when in fact there had been no protest. But it was intelligence analysts, not political appointees, who made the wrong call, the committee found. The report did not conclude that Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people.” [AP]
OBAMA DEFENDS IMMIGRATION ACTION - Politico: “President Barack Obama on Friday kicked off his sales pitch for the executive actions he unveiled on Thursday night by traveling to the same high school where he began his push for immigration reform nearly two years ago. But even after introducing the most sweeping relief to undocumented immigrants in decades, Obama was briefly derailed by a protester arguing that the president had not gone far enough. ‘I’ve heard you and what I’m saying to you is, we’re still going to have to pass a bill,’ Obama said to a young man whose shouts were drowned out by supportive chants from the audience surrounding him at Del Sol High School. ‘This is just a first step.’ Yet he still painted his actions as dramatic. ‘Our immigration system has been broken for a very long time, and everybody knows it,’ he said. ‘For years we haven’t done much about it. Well, today, we’re doing something about it.’” [Politico]
BOEHNER WILL FIGHT YOUR IMMIGRANTS ON THE BEACHES, ON THE LANDING GROUNDS, IN THE HILLS AND IN THE STREETS - He’s not happy. Mike McAuliff: “House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed Friday to push back against President Barack Obama's executive action shielding up to 5 million unauthorized immigrants from deportation, accusing him of sabotaging any chances of comprehensive legislative action to reform the immigration system. The president announced Thursday his intentions to shield from deportation up to 4 million parents of American citizens and up to 1 million other people who live in the United States without proper documentation, prompting howls of rage from Republicans. Boehner said he would not stand by and let Obama accomplish his plan, but did not say how or when. ‘With this action, the president has chosen to deliberately sabotage any chance of enacting bipartisan reforms that he claims to seek. And as I told the president yesterday, he's damaging the presidency itself,’ Boehner said in a news conference outside his Capitol Hill office.” [HuffPost]
ENZI, SESSIONS FACING DOWN OVER BUDGET GAVEL - Fight! Fight! Fight! The Hill: “Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) will seek the Senate Budget gavel for the next Congress, his aide announced Friday, igniting a showdown with fellow Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). ‘Under the Republican Conference rules, he has seniority for the post and it is Senator Sessions that is challenging him, not the other way around,’ Enzi’s press secretary Daniel Head said in a statement. Enzi’s decision to throw himself into the budget race is bound to ignite a fierce battle over the gavel. Sessions had been positioning himself to be the panel’s chairman and delivered a keynote speech on his priorities at a budget conference the first day of the lame-duck session. A request for comment from Sessions’ office was not immediately returned. Enzi’s seniority could help him, however, during the committee elections that are expected to happen January.” [The Hill]
Tom Coburn said there would be riots if President Obama issued an executive order on immigration. There weren’t any.
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REPUBLICANS UNSURE HOW TO DEAL WITH FILIBUSTERS - Jen Bendery: “Some Republicans have strong feelings on the need to revert to the 60-vote threshold, in the name of fostering bipartisanship and restoring collegiality. ‘I've always been an advocate to go back to the way it was before,’ said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). ‘I'm going to be strongly backing [Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's] effort to return the Senate to regular order,’ said Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who complained about Democratic leaders preventing debate on legislation as well as nominees...others said Democrats should have to experience being in the minority under the rules change that they made. ‘Personally, I think we ought to stay right where we are,’ said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). ‘My view at the time they did it was, if this rule changes, it's likely never to revert back to where it was,’ said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). ‘We'll have to see.’” [HuffPost]
GOP FINALLY GETS AROUND TO OBAMACARE LAWSUIT - Roll Call: “Four months after the chamber authorized a lawsuit against President Barack Obama — and on the third try with an attorney after the first two lawyers bailed — the GOP-controlled House has formally filed its case, Speaker John A. Boehner announced Friday. ‘Time after time, the president has chosen to ignore the will of the American people and re-write federal law on his own without a vote of Congress,’ the Ohio Republican said in a statement. ‘That’s not the way our system of government was designed to work. ‘If this president can get away with making his own laws, future presidents will have the ability to as well. The House has an obligation to stand up for the Constitution, and that is exactly why we are pursuing this course of action,’ Boehner said.” [Roll Call]
AL FRANKEN TAKING ON UBER - Emil Michael is quickly becoming the Joe Francis of the tech world. Bloomberg: “Two weeks after he easily secured a second term, Minnesota Senator Al Franken is plunging into the scrum of journalists, investors, and technologists now questioning the ride-share company Uber. In a letter sent Wednesday to Uber's chief technological officer, Travis Kalanick, Franken asks about the news, broken by BuzzFeed's Ben Smith, that Uber senior vice president Emil Michael speculated about paying to dig up dirt on reporters covering the company. Franken pulls the same thread that BuzzFeed and the tech media have pulled all week, asking questions about Uber's omniscient data knowledge...Franken concludes by saying that he expects answers to his questions by Dec. 15. (In an email Thursday, Uber spokeswoman Natalia Montalvo said the company will “be responding to Sen. Franken's questions in the coming weeks.”) The timing underscores his problem: As a member of the expiring Democratic majority, Franken is losing his gavel in the Privacy, Technology and the Law subcommittee of Senate Judiciary.” [Bloomberg]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here are some goats standing on things .
YOUNG PEOPLE ARE IGNORANT: YOUNG PEOPLE - Ariel Edwards-Levy: “Young Americans aren't just less likely to vote than their older compatriots. They're also less likely to believe that everyone should cast a ballot, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll. Most Americans age 45 and over say everyone should vote, according to the survey. But people under 30 are more than twice as likely to say that only the well-informed should cast a ballot as they are to say that all eligible citizens should do so. ‘The results don't startle me,’ said Peter Levine, director of Tufts University's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. ‘I've often encountered young people who say that the reason they don't think they personally should vote is they're not well-informed, and they take that as kind of a moral position that they're not really qualified to vote.’ Exit polls show that those young Americans who did vote this year reported paying a significant amount of attention to the election.” [HuffPost]
COMFORT FOOD
- “The Big F*cking Joe Biden Calendar,” a calendar for all you Joe Biden fans.
- “Wet Hot American Summer” as a Scorsese film.
- Forgotify is a web app that only plays music from Spotify that’s never been played
- Fans of poop rejoice: there’s a website that geotags all of San Francisco’s waste complaints
TWITTERAMA
@LOLGOP: But remember, the guys who've never told the truth about Benghazi or anything are very upset about the ethics of how the ACA passed.
@SimonMaloy:
G
R
U
Because we can't do Benghazi anymore
E
R
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