Hasta La Gadget!

A longtime New Jersey Republican stalwart and confidante to two former GOP governors is now pushing Gov. Chris Christie (R) to end his opposition to same sex marriage in the state.

Hazel Gluck, a former state transportation and insurance commissioner who was also a top lobbyist, told NorthJersey.com on Sunday that she has joined forces with same sex marriage advocates to press Christie to sign marriage equality legislation. Christie has vetoed the state’s gay marriage bill, saying that he believes the public should vote on the issue. The move pits Gluck, a moderate Republican who recently came out, against a Republican governor who is leading his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono (Metuchen), by over 30 points in recent polls.

Gluck said that while it would be tough to get Christie to reverse himself on the issue, she believes that a dialogue must start. While she is retired as a lobbyist, she expected to use her former skills.

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Steve King thinks most young undocumented immigrants haul “75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” though he might be confusing them with Coachella attendees. Anthony Weiner sexted through 2012, begging the question: What the hell has to happen for someone to finally switch to Snapchat? And if the last two days have taught us anything about media strategy, it’s that Syria’s rebels need to start giving birth to royals and/or snapping photos of their man parts ASAP. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013:

HOUSE REPUBLICANS COALESCING AROUND DREAMER REFORMS – Elise Foley: “House Republicans made clear on Tuesday that some are open to allowing Dreamers, the young undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children, to become citizens. Their parents, though, may be left out in the cold. ‘I do not believe that parents who made the decision to illegally enter the U.S. while forcing their children to join them should be afforded the same treatment as these kids,’ Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said at an immigration subcommittee hearing. ‘Because let’s be clear — parents bringing their young children to the U.S. illegally is not something we want to encourage.’ The hearing comes after Goodlatte and Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) announced they are working on a bill, tentatively named the KIDS Act, to offer Dreamers a path to citizenship. The legislators haven’t yet released any details of their bill, including the cutoff age for Dreamers and what would be required for children to secure citizenship. While the bill is still just a concept, it’s already receiving praise and criticism from both sides — particularly from Democrats who say the piecemeal approach is unfair and calling it a smokescreen for Republicans’ refusal to address the broader undocumented population.” [HuffPost]

John Boehner says no one has worked as hard on immigration reform as he has. Chris Frates asked whether the speaker would continue his “hands off” approach this fall. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop. Let’s get back to the premise of the question. Nobody spent more time trying to fix a broken immigration system than I have,” Boehner said. “I talked about it the day after the election, and I’ve talked about it a hundred times since. And while some may disagree about how we’re going about fixing the broken immigration system, it’s been a big goal of mine.” [National Journal]

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Via: Ameblo (Blog of Mobile)

Source: Fujitsu

The federal government has opened an investigation into how Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., handles sexual misconduct. But unlike other recent investigations of how colleges respond to sexual misconduct and assault, this investigation was not directly spurred by a student complaint.

A number of prominent colleges and universities are currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, responding to complaints filed by students who allege failures to adjudicate sexual violence on campus.

A group of students and recent alumni filed a complaint against Dartmouth in May, claiming the school violated the Clery Act, a federal law requiring accurate tracking and disclosure of campus crime. Those students also planned to file a Title IX complaint with the Office of Civil Rights, but now they will not have to, since department spokesman Stephen Spector confirmed Tuesday that the agency has launched an investigation on its own.

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WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved Samantha Power, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, clearing the way for a vote in the full 100-member Senate.

All but two of the panel’s 18 members voted in favor of Power, who was expected to win confirmation easily by the full Senate.

Venezuela said last week it was ending efforts to improve ties with the United States after Power vowed during her confirmation hearing to oppose what she called a crackdown on civil society in the “repressive” OPEC nation.

In an echo of the many bust-ups between the two countries during the late Hugo Chavez’s 14-year rule, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro demanded an apology and said the United States had no moral right to criticize his government.

The issue did not come up during Tuesday’s committee meeting.

Power had been criticized by some conservatives for seeming to suggest, in a 2002 interview, that the U.S. Army might be needed to police the Middle East conflict if either Israel or the Palestinians move toward genocide. Power, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her study of U.S. failures to prevent genocide, has disassociated herself many times from that comment.

There was some pointed questioning about past statements during her confirmation hearings, but Power was praised by many Republicans, as well as by Obama’s fellow Democrats. Several senators said they looked forward to her U.N. tenure.

The committee also overwhelmingly approved Victoria Nuland, a U.S. foreign policy official in both Democratic and Republican administrations, as an assistant secretary of state.

Nuland had faced questions over her role in State Department communications after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on American diplomatic outposts in Benghazi, Libya, in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed.

The Benghazi incident became a focus of Republican criticism of Obama administration foreign policy. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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