Wyoming is considering reinstituting firing squads, though we just think it'd be cooler if they installed a moon door in the grand tetons. Lindsey Graham wants to deploy ground troops against ISIS, but we're pretty sure he said the same thing about people who boycotted Chick-fil-A. And Kirsten GIllibrand says a union leader once told her 'You're too fat to be elected statewide,' raising the question: can Kirsten Gillibrand have kids, a career, be subject to the putdowns of chauvinistic pigs and still have it all? This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, September 15th, 2014:
CONGRESS MOVING FORWARD ON CR - Roll Call: "After postponing consideration last week of a stop-gap spending measure to fund the government past Sept. 30, House GOP leaders are poised in the days ahead to bring that same piece of legislation to the floor. That vote, however, will now likely be coupled with consideration of an amendment to the underlying bill that would authorize the Obama administration to train and arm Syrian rebels against the insurgent terrorist organization known as the Islamic State or ISIS. This bifurcated approach would make it considerably easier for members — on both sides of the aisle — to vote against the ISIS language but not the continuing resolution, taking off the table the threat of a revolt large enough to risk another government shutdown. GOP leaders had been hoping late last week to include President Barack Obama’s eleventh-hour request for the Title 10 authority within the text of the CR, but many Republicans said that request didn’t go far enough to combat an overseas terrorist threat that could one day threaten the U.S. if not sufficiently addressed. Some Democrats, meanwhile, said they didn’t want to vote for Title 10 authority unless they had a chance to also vote to authorize the use of military force, a politically loaded and time-consuming exercise that leaders from both parties don’t want to have until after the midterm elections." [Roll Call]
DEM PUSHING FOR USE-OF-FORCE VOTE - In 5,000 years when we're still citing the 2001 authorization to validate our battle with the Xybots from the Zyr Galaxy, Adam Schiff will feel really stupid for challenging the president on this. The Hill: "Even as President Obama is claiming he has the unilateral authority to go after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a senior member of the Intelligence Committee, argues that the White House needs the explicit approval of Congress to launch what 'amounts to war.' ...Schiff's proposal, to be introduced Tuesday, would authorize military operations against ISIS for 18 months, while sunsetting a 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force over the same span. It would also immediately sunset the authorization for force in Iraq that Congress passed in 2002. Speaker John Boehner has also avoided calls for a vote on use-of-force authority. Although the Ohio Republican said last week that such a vote "would be in the nation's interest," he suggested a specific request would have to come from the White House before he'd act on it." [The Hill]
Lobbyists for Syrian rebels will be pleading their case on the Hill tomorrow morning, Zach Carter reports.
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has come out in favor of making poor people prove they're not on drugs if they want food stamps or unemployment insurance -- even if it means a showdown with the federal government. Walker's drug test pitch comes as the Wisconsin Republican is in a close campaign for re-election against Democrat Mary Burke. National polls consistently show that requiring welfare recipients to prove they're not on drugs is an overwhelmingly popular idea. Popular as it is, federal law doesn't allow states to require drug tests for food stamps or unemployment insurance. (States have more leeway to test beneficiaries of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.) Walker told the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel that he would welcome a fight with the feds. "We believe that there will potentially be a fight with the federal government and in court," Walker told the paper on Sunday. [HuffPost]
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WHITE HOUSE DENIES SYRIA-ISIS CEASEFIRE - Further complicating history's most complicated "enemy of my enemy is my friend" dynamic. Jen Bendery and Sam Stein: "The White House on Monday disputed reports that a group of moderate Syrian rebels -- part of the larger coalition that President Barack Obama wants to help fight the Islamic State -- struck a non-aggression pact with the Islamic State. Those reports, which emerged late Friday night, sent shocks through some corners of the foreign policy community, where skepticism has been high over the president's plan to aid rebel factions. According to the stories, one of the main rebel groups, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, had agreed with the Islamic State that the two groups would not attack each other and would instead focus their efforts on unseating their mutual enemy, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday during his daily briefing that SRF had issued a statement "indicating they have never ceased hostilities" with the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL. To supplement his point that SRF and the Islamic State were still in conflict, Earnest added a real-time war dispatch." [HuffPost]
LINDSEY GRAHAM WANTS BOOTS ON THE GROUND - The question is now whether Kelly Ayotte will show her "Three Amigos" mettle and call for tactical nuclear strikes on Al-Hasakah. "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday called on President Barack Obama to consider putting boots on the ground in Syria to combat Islamic State militants, despite asserting three months ago that the idea wasn't even worth considering. 'This idea we'll never have any boots on the ground to defeat them in Syria is fantasy,' Graham said during an interview with 'Fox News Sunday,'...But as recently as June, Graham said that sending U.S. troops to Syria to fight on the ground was a bad idea. 'Mr. President, if you are willing to adjust your policies, we will stand with you. If you are willing to sit down with your generals and get some good sound military advice, we will stand with you, because what happens in Iraq and Syria does matter,' Graham said in a June 10 interview with Fox News. 'I don't think we need boots on the ground. I don't think that is an option worth consideration.'" [HuffPost]
Washington must feel like one giant construction site for Kirsten Gillibrand: "Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Monday that when a male labor leader harassed her about her weight several years ago after she'd had a baby, she had a few choice words she couldn't say at the time. 'I've just had a baby, I've just been appointed [to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate], I have a lot to learn, so much on my plate, and this man basically says to me, 'You're too fat to be elected statewide,' Gillibrand recalled on HuffPost Live Monday morning. 'At that moment, if I could have just disappeared, I would have. If I could have just melted in tears, I would have. But I had to just sit there and talk to him. ... I didn't hear a word he said, but I wasn't in a place where I could tell him to go fuck himself.'" [HuffPost's Laura Bassett]
THE ARC OF HISTORY IS LONG BUT IT BENDS TOWARD CONGRESSIONAL INACTION - Jen Bendery: "Debo Adegbile, President Barack Obama's beleaguered nominee to lead to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, has withdrawn his nomination and returned to private practice. The Senate blocked Adegbile's confirmation in March, not because of his credentials but because he was once an attorney for controversial death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted 30 years ago of murdering a Philadelphia police officer. As the former president and counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, he helped Abu-Jamal get his death sentence overturned. Adegbile was also most recently senior counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee." [HuffPost]
tl;dr: Free Mumia.
Super womp womp-y: "President Barack Obama's former nominee to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said Monday that he hopes young lawyers won’t stop getting involved in important civil rights cases, even though the Senate refused to confirm him due to his representation of a controversial client." [HuffPost's Ryan Reilly]
ARIZONA GOP OFFICIAL RESIGNS AFTER BIRTH CONTROL REMARKS - "Former Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce resigned as Arizona Republican Party's first vice chair late Sunday after receiving criticism over recent comments he made about women on Medicaid. Pearce made the controversial comments on his weekly radio show. 'You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I'd do is get [female recipients] Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations,' Pearce said, according to the Phoenix New Times. 'Then, we'll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.' Pearce said "people out there [who] need help" should get it from "family, church, and community," not the government." [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Here are a cat and owl being friends.
FIRING SQUAD EXECUTION BILL ADVANCES IN WYOMING LEGISLATURE - Goddamn America can be so American sometimes. Amanda Terkel: "A Wyoming legislative committee voted against a measure to abolish the death penalty last week, instead opting to endorse death by firing squad. The state's Joint Judiciary Legislative Committee voted to support a bill that would allow the the Wyoming Department of Corrections to use a firing squad to execute an inmate if the proper drugs can't be found for a lethal injection. States have been scrambling to procure drugs to execute inmates, as major drug companies have stopped selling certain lethal injection drugs in the U.S or objected to having their products used in executions. On Friday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) announced the state had to delay an execution because it didn't have the drugs it needed." [HuffPost]
COMFORT FOOD
- Dad shaves beard, daughter is really freaked out.
- The internet really doesn't like U2.
- Bro takes selfie in front of a bunch of brawling frat bros.
- Action hero kid is what John Wu wishes his childhood was like.
TWITTERAMA
@Pourmecoffee: I heard there was a secret hook that Bono played and it pleased Tim Cook but you don't really want his album do you?
@jeffyoung: Gather 'round the campfire, children, and I'll tell about the days when it was someone's special job to choose photographs for news stories.
@jorcohen: Just in time for Rosh Hashanah, Tim Cook debuted the Apple Watch Me Dip This In Honey
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