A 2016 Preview? Bill, Hillary, Chelsea, and Chris
IN THE NEWS: FBI's Mueller defends surveillance, decries leaks … Reid kills immigration 'poison pill' … SCOTUS rules against gene patents … Chinese dissident leaves NYU … Inside House Armed Services Committee … The 50 Worst Charities in the U.S.
THE TAKE
A 2016 Preview? Bill, Hillary, Chelsea, and Chris
For political junkies, it's never too early to kick off 2016, and two of the leading putative contenders for the next presidential race offered addicts a big fix by scheduling appearances at the same venue.
The Clinton Global Initiative's "America Meeting" in Chicago featured Hillary Rodham Clinton, offering her supporters some hope in a speech today. Hillary Clinton opened a path to expanding on the "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" from 2008—her vote total in the primaries—by focusing anew on women at the renamed the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. "Women are the world's most underused resource," she said. Especially, perhaps, as voters.
On Friday, Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is set to appear at the Chicago conference. Following his decision to set an early special election—most of which favor Democrats—to fill the seat of the late Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Christie's willingness to appear at such an ideologically moderate event only continued his defiant habit toward the GOP base. Maybe Christie thinks he's popular enough that he doesn't need them.
Michael Hirsh
mhirsh@nationaljournal.com
TOP NEWS
MUELLER: INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES' ACTIVITIES LAWFUL, LEAKS CAUSE 'SIGNIFICANT HARM.' FBI Director Robert Mueller told members of the House Judiciary Committee today that the nation's intelligence agencies, whose domestic surveillance programs were disclosed last week, are "in full compliance with the law," The Wall Street Journal reports. Mueller also discussed former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who is credited with leaking information on the agency's surveillance programs, telling the committee that the disclosures have caused "significant harm to our nation and our safety." "He is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation. These disclosures have caused significant harm to our nation, and our safety," Mueller said. "We are taking all necessary steps to hold the person responsible for these disclosures." Read more
Snowden has said that he will remain in Hong Kong, which has a bilateral extradition treaty with the United States, The New York Times reports. Read more
REID KILLS GRASSLEY AMENDMENT TO IMMIGRATION BILL. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., moved this morning to table a Republican amendment to the comprehensive immigration-reform bill, which would have imposed such stringent border-security requirements as to be a "poison pill" for the broader legislation, Roll Call reports. Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who authored the tabled amendment, objected to Reid's action. "This so-called open and fair process is a farce," Grassley said prior to roll call. "This is a very provocative act." Reid's action gained 57 supporting votes, and the majority leader advised senators to remain in Washington during the weekend of June 22-23 for votes on the immigration measure. Read more
NYU DENIES OUSTING CHINESE DISSIDENT. New York University is challenging claims in a New York Post story that Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who has served as a visiting scholar at NYU's School of Law since last year, has been ousted, Talking Points Memo reports. "The story's claims of 'outside pressure' are fanciful and false," NYU Vice President for Public Affairs John Beckman said in a statement. "We indicated that beyond this academic year he would need to make a transition to a more self-supporting life." Read more
NYU law professor Jerome Cohen, who brokered the deal to bring Chen to the university, toldThe Washington Post, "No political refugee, even Albert Einstein, has received better treatment by an American academic institution than that received by Chen from NYU."
SO LONG, PRIVACY. Big Brother is watching. And listening, and reading. And using your purchasing and communications history to hone algorithms that predict what you will buy and click on next. Most Americans fear their privacy is eroding in all of those ways and more, the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll has found, Ronald Brownstein reports. Read more
OFA TO PUSH HEALTH CARE, IMMIGRATION WITH ADS, INTERN MUSCLE. Organizing for America is poised to make a hard sell of the Affordable Care Act through a national ad buy next week, Politico reports. The advocacy group, which grew out of President Obama's election campaign and is buoyed by the addition of 800 summer volunteers, is also targeting 75 unspecified congressional districts with "persuadable Members of Congress" to push immigration reform this summer, especially during the August congressional recess, OFA Executive Director Jon Carson wrote in a memo to supporters. Carson said the summer interns will increase OFA's organizing capacity by 500 percent in key states and districts. Read more
SCOTUS RULES AGAINST HUMAN-GENES PATENTING. Isolated human genes are not patent-eligible, the Supreme Court declared today in a unanimous decision. Scientists and doctors had taken issue with the patents, claiming they interfered with their research and care of patients by contributing to the high prices of gene testing, The New York Times reports. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his decision that a DNA segment is "a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated." Thomas noted, however, that manipulating a gene to invent something not naturally occurring may still be patent-eligible. Read more
The case involved patents held by Utah-based Myriad Genetics of particular genes that gained attention after Angelina Jolie revealed in May that she had a double mastectomy due to inheriting a faulty copy of the gene.
INSIDE THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE. The House Armed Services Committee is responsible for authorizing an annual Defense Department budget of more than half a trillion dollars at a time when defense spending, for the first time in perhaps decades, is not treated across the political spectrum as sacrosanct. The result is that committee Chairman Buck McKeon and his defense-conscious colleagues are left to fend off—or at least try to mitigate and manage—what looks to be inevitable: a Pentagon budget spiraling downward. Add to that the declining power of Armed Services and other committees in an era when the House leadership is firmly in charge of fiscal matters, and it's not easy being a defense hawk these days. National Journal Daily's special issue goes inside the committee to profile the major players and examine the issues at stake.
UPCOMING OBAMA TRIP TO AFRICA PRESENTS UNIQUE CHALLENGES, BIG COSTS. Obama is bringing a large security entourage along for his first extended trip to sub-Saharan Africa later this month, a three-country tour that totals in the tens of millions of dollars, according to an internal document obtained by The Washington Post. Among the amenities included: Hundreds of Secret Service agents stationed in facilities in Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania, an offshore ship with a fully staffed trauma center, and 56 support vehicles. All overseas presidential trips are costly and complicated, but the Africa trip could be one of the most expensive of Obama's tenure—even without the planned Tanzanian safari that was scrapped following inquiries made by The Post. Read more
TOMORROW
CHRISTIE AT CLINTON INITIATIVE. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will join former President Clinton in Chicago on Friday for "Cooperation and Collaboration: A Conversation on Leadership," the closing event at the Clinton Global Initiative's third annual CGI America meeting.
BLOOMBERG GROUP STARTS ANTIGUN BUS TOUR. Mayors Against Illegal Guns will launch a 25-state bus tour from Newtown, Conn., on Friday, the six-month anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. Read more
QUOTABLE
"If this bill has something in it that gives gay couples immigration rights and so forth, it kills the bill. I'm done." --Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. (Yahoo News)
BEDTIME READING
CHARITIES AS MONEY MACHINES. The Cancer Fund for America puts less than 2 cents of every dollar toward direct money for the cancer patients it touts during its fundraising, The Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Journalism report, which documents one recipient getting a box "filled with paper plates, cups, napkins and kids' toys." The series looks into America's worst charities. Meanwhile, the Reynolds family, which is behind the Cancer Fund, has spawned five other companies. One, Breast Cancer Society, said it exported $36 million in medical supplies, but two companies named as suppliers said they had no records that backed up the claim. Click here for a list of the 50 worst charities. Read more
REALITY CHECK
THREE SIGNS REPUBLICANS HAVE LEARNED NOTHING FROM 2012.To much acclaim, the Republican National Committee released its road map for reform in March, emphasizing that the path to success called for moderating the party's position on immigration, courting a more diverse set of officeholders, and building the GOP around pragmatic governors rather than polarizing members of Congress. Three months later, those recommendations seem to have already been forgotten, National Journal's Josh Kraushaar reports. Read more
TOP TWEETS
@brianbeutler: Mary Landrieu notes "the Senator from South Dakota" doesn't share a border with Mexico, only with Canada… hrm.
@ryanbeckwith: Everyone's yawning, but when Khan is killing us all with his synthetic DNA-enhanced powers, we'll look back at this #SCOTUS ruling.
@jbendery: Harry Reid motioning to Rep. Ron Barber: "He's got this beautiful dimple on his face, but that because he was shot in the face."
@sppeoples: I just asked Marco Rubio about Trent Franks' abortion comment. "I don't know who that is," Rubio said.
@mikememoli: Out of context Jeb quote: "By the way, did I mention my lover was my wife?"
