The Daily Fix: Cantor’s Ouster, Boko Haram Kidnaps Again, and School Shooting in Oregon
Wed, 11 Jun 2014 11:03:57 PDT
Political novice Dave Brat defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor by 11 percentage points in Virginia's primary on Tuesday, in an upset win—a stunning outcome that historians said was unprecedented because no leader of Cantor's rank had ever been defeated in a primary.
But the real loser may be immigration policy affecting millions who were hoping long-awaited reforms would provide a roadmap to legal status for immigrants brought to America illegally as children, according to an analysis from the Associated Press.
In true Washington fashion, there's disagreement there—a Politico poll finds that 72 percent of voters in Cantor's district either "strongly" or "somewhat" support a series of immigration reforms, including a path to legal status. Supporters of immigration reform are saying they have no love for Cantor or his stance on immigration, and his failure is the result of a lax campaign and low approval ratings.
But polls can be tricky. Cantor's own polls had shown him comfortably ahead, and as GOP pollster David Winston said to the AP about immigration, "Was that the key issue? We don't know because the candidate never thought he was in a race."
Yet there's little doubt that Brat, a Randolph-Macon College economist, took down the second-ranking Republican in the house with an anti-immigrant campaign bolstered by talk radio's Laura Ingraham and conservative columnist Ann Coulter.
In other news...
Boko Haram's New Kidnapping: At least 20 women have been kidnapped from a remote nomadic settlement near where Islamic militants abducted more than 300 schoolgirls on April 15, and Nigeria's Boko Haram are the leading suspects. (via Mail & Guardian)
Oregon High School Shooting: A shooter killed a 14-year-old at a suburban Portland high school Tuesday before dying under circumstances that remain under investigation. That's the 74th time gunshots have rung out on school property since the Newtown, Conn., shooting in 2012. (via The Washington Post)
Woman Trapped in Home for 700 Days: In war-torn Homs, Syria, 65-year-old Zeinat Akhras has lived in her living room and her kitchen during the city's siege, surviving by eating plants and reading books. (via the Associated Press)
The Fall of Mosul: Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an al-Qaida faction, have seized the northern Iraqi city overnight in a surprise onslaught. (via The Washington Post)
American Prisons: For every 100,000 residents, Louisiana has 1,000 prisoners, giving it the highest prison population per capita in the U.S. and the entire world. Stunning. (via Prison Policy)
Like, Totally: Don't be quick to judge people who say "like," "you know," and "I mean" a lot during conversation. New research says Valley Girl speech is, like, totally conscientious and thoughtful. (via New York)
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