A few updates:
Last week, InsideSources New Hampshire correspondent Dante Vitagliano reported on Rand Paul’s visit to the Granite State. Paul had some confusion over Common Core policy. More problems continued for Paul yesterday as he tried to attack Jeb Bush for supporting the education standards, but misspelled part of the critique. Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell suggested: “Maybe there is something to be said for higher standards?”
Just last week, Health Care News managing editor Sean Parnell wrote for InsideSources that attempts to pass a single-payer health care system in New York would invite corruption. It is now increasingly clear that New York faces challenges with corruption in Albany. Federal prosecutors yesterday brought bribery charges against New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Today’s Must Reads
Energy
Death of King Unlikely to Alter Saudi Oil Policy
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Russell Gold, Nicole Friedman and Lynn Cook
Saudi Arabia has charted a long-term course to drive down oil prices and maintain its major share of the global market—and a change of who is on the throne in Riyadh won’t likely alter this course, energy experts said. Even after the death of King Abdullah, announced early Friday, the kingdom is likely to continue to pump crude in the face of a global glut, which has helped push prices down by more than 55% since last June.
Steyer passes on California Senate run
THE HILL
Laura Barron-Lopez
Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer said Thursday he would not be running for a California Senate seat in 2016. … “I believe my work right now should not be in our nation’s capital but here at home in California, and in states around the country where we can make a difference,” Steyer wrote Thursday in The Huffington Post.
Democrats Divided on Climate Change
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Clare Foran
Amid debate on the Keystone XL pipeline Thursday, Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, and Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat hailing from coal-rich West Virginia, offered up nearly identical amendments declaring that man-made climate change exists and “has already caused devastating problems in the U.S. and around the world.” But one major difference demonstrated the ideological divide among Democrats: the future of coal and other fossil fuels.
Mitt Romney: Washington fails to tackle big challenges
POLITICO
Kendall Breitman
Climate change is one issue that Romney noted he would like to see tackled by the federal government. “I’m one of those Republicans who thinks we are getting warmer and that we contribute to that,” Romney told the audience of about 3,000 gathered for an investment management conference. The former Massachusetts governor has held this stance in the past, stating in his 2010 book, “No Apology” that “human activity is a contributing factor” to the changing climate.
Senate’s marathon Keystone debate ends in anger
POLITICO
Elana Schor
The Senate is set to finish work on six remaining amendments to the Keystone bill starting on Monday, with a final passage vote on the legislation before the end of next week. It’s all but certain to draw a veto from Obama that Republicans right now lack the votes to override.
Gas tax push on fumes, House chairman says
THE HILL
Keith Laing
Congress is unlikely to pass an increase in the federal gas tax this year, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee said Thursday. Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) said a deal to boost U.S. infrastructure funding will likely have to find an alternative source of revenue, potentially as part of a broader tax reform package, because the tax hike won’t pass muster with members of Congress.
Iowa ethanol lobby starts 2016 campaign to regain influence
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Renewable-fuels advocates are promising to spend millions putting ethanol back in the debate for Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus next year as cheap oil and setbacks in biofuels policy make the additive less central to voters. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, backed by state corn-grower and renewable-fuels associations and the Washington-based biofuels lobby Growth Energy, on Thursday formed America’s Renewable Future, to make the Renewable Fuels Standard an issue in the 2016 race.
Move over IRS. The EPA is now the most polarizing government agency.
WASHINGTON POST
Nia-Malika Henderson
Democrats love the EPA and Republicans hate it, according to a new Pew poll. “Hate” might seem too strong a word, perhaps reserved for the Internal Revenue Service. But as it turns out, the EPA is held in pretty similar regard.
Who Is the Next Al Gore?
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Ben Geman
The lawmakers and advocates who are raising their profiles on climate change.
Technology
America’s right to forget the EU
USA TODAY
Editorial
Free expression — including repellent speech — is a bedrock American value. It comes with a cost, as Americans have learned painfully in the more than 200 years since the Constitution was written. If Americans ever want to trade this for a different set of values, it must be up to them, not a court on another continent.
Comcast’s Lobbying Machine Faces Test in Washington
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Shalini Ramachandran, Gautham Nagesh and Brody Mullins
Comcast boasts one of the biggest corporate lobbying operations in Washington, spending $17 million in 2014, second only to Google Inc. That presence is being tested now like never before. In addition to the threat of new Internet restrictions, Comcast is facing intense scrutiny from regulators on its merger.
Obama Nominee Stays Mum on Fighting Patent Trolls
NATIONAL JOURNAL
Dustin Volz
If President Obama’s pick to head the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has an opinion on how Congress should move forward on patent reform, she’s not sharing it. Michelle Lee has repeatedly stated this week that lawmakers have a role to play in curbing so-called patent trolling—the act of filing frivolous patent-infringement lawsuits against others in the hope of reaping a cash-infused settlement. But Lee, the current acting director of the office, is staying mum on just what any legislation should look like—or precisely when it should move.
How to Avoid Spectrum Crunch
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Jason Furman and Megan Smith
America has enormous infrastructure needs that will require the federal government, together with local governments, to make significant, high-value investments. In one critical area—the revolution in mobile broadband communications—the government doesn’t need to invest its own money, but instead can encourage private investment and make a profit for taxpayers along the way. That is exactly what is happening now at the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 spectrum auction, as the agency is facilitating the sale of spectrum that will be repurposed for mobile broadband use.
Finance
White House readies crackdown on financial advisers
THE HILL
Kevin Cirilli
The White House is preparing to unveil new rules meant to tighten restrictions on financial advisers offering guidance on Americans’ retirement savings accounts. The pitch, outlined in a White House memo obtained first by The Hill, comes after the financial industry has worked for years to delay a rule being pushed by the Department of Labor that would change how investment advisers are paid.
Mario Draghi Delivers
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
The likelier outcome is that to the extent quantitative easing drives down bond yields, it will reduce market pressure for reforms until another economic crisis or deflationary blip spurs calls for a QE expansion. Mr. Draghi should enjoy whatever respite he gets, since it’s only a matter of time before politicians begin knocking on his door again.
Stimulus for Eurozone, but It May Be Too Little or Too Late
NEW YORK TIMES
Neil Irwin
Mr. Draghi acknowledged that it would take more than an open spigot of money from the central bank to get Europe’s economy on track, and that political authorities across Europe must act as well. “What monetary policy can do is to create the basis for growth,” he said at a news conference in Frankfurt. “But for growth to pick up, you need investment. For investment, you need confidence. And for confidence, you need structural reforms.” “It’s now up to the governments to implement these structural reforms,” he said.
Disparate Scalia
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
To borrow one of Chief Justice John Roberts ’s formulations, the best way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
Politics
Saudi Arabia’s coming struggle
WASHINGTON POST
David Ignatius
Saudi Arabia’s opaque and often repressive political system mystifies outsiders, especially at times like this, when the leadership of the kingdom is a critical factor in the regional balance of power. Saudi Arabia is the heart, and the pocketbook, of the Sunni Arab world. A leadership vacuum in Riyadh echoes from Yemen to Syria, and all the places in between.
As Yemen Unravels, a Threat Rises
NEW YORK TIMES
Editorial
The United States is not known to have a direct, open line of dialogue with the Houthis, but it would be in Washington’s interest to start building a relationship, even through back channels. The tactics the Houthis have used to pressure Mr. Hadi, including surrounding his home and holding his chief of staff hostage, are deplorable. But some of their grievances about widespread corruption and poor governance are legitimate. And despite the group’s stated hostility toward the United States and Israel, it does not appear intent on attacking Western targets.
Yemen’s turmoil exposes Mr. Obama’s crumbling ‘partners’ strategy
WASHINGTON POST
Editorial
The Yemen mess reveals the weaknesses of Mr. Obama’s “partners” strategy, which has been too narrowly focused on drone strikes and training of specialized units, and not enough on providing security for the population, institution-building and support for moderate political forces. Unfortunately, the president’s cursory and formulaic description of his counterterrorism policies this week, following a year in which jihadist forces and terrorist attacks expanded across the world, suggested that he remains uninterested in correcting his mistakes.
Rand Paul Fails Spelling Test in Common Core Attack
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Natalie Andrews
First rule of calling someone out on Twitter: Make sure the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed — particularly if you are debating educational policy. Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) discovered that Thursday.
House Republicans pass watered-down antiabortion bill
WASHINGTON POST
Ed O’Keefe
An emboldened group of moderate House Republicans put their leaders on notice this week that they intend to steer a more pragmatic course on social issues — including abortion, same-sex marriage and immigration — as the party tries to position itself for the 2016 presidential election. About two dozen Republicans, led mostly by a small group of female lawmakers, forced the House leadership to pull an antiabortion bill from consideration and replace it with a less restrictive measure Thursday.
The First Family’s 529 Windfall
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Editorial
If there’s any silver lining in the President’s plan to end the major tax benefit of saving for college, it’s that at least he’s not talking about taxing money that’s already been saved. This aspect of the Obama plan is particularly valuable to people like, well, Barack Obama.
Obama Proposes Expansion of Program Providing Subsidies for Child Care
NEW YORK TIMES
Julie Hirschfeld Davis
President Obama on Thursday unveiled plans to greatly increase federal assistance to working Americans struggling to afford child care, choosing a Democratic pocket in a solidly Republican state to sharpen the contrast between the two parties’ economic visions. In an appearance at the University of Kansas — his second stop in a Republican state in two days of promoting his domestic initiatives — Mr. Obama called for an $80 billion expansion of a federal program that provides child care subsidies to low- and middle-income families with children ages 3 and under, nearly doubling the aid and offering it to more than one million additional children over the next decade.
Lawsuit Against McDonald’s To Test NLRB Decision on Franchisee Relationship
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Annie Gasparro and Melanie Trottman
Ten former restaurant workers sued McDonald’s Corp. along with one of its franchisees for alleged wrongful termination, in a move that tests the legal implications of a recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel to hold the fast-food giant accountable for franchisees’ actions.
In a Reversal, Argentine President Says Prosecutor’s Death Was Not a Suicide
NEW YORK TIMES
Jonathan Gilbert and Rick Gladstone
Confronted with a deepening scandal, the president of Argentina abruptly reversed herself on Thursday, saying that the death of the lead prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center was not a suicide as she and other government officials had suggested.
