WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday called Republican outrage over last year’s attack in Benghazi a political “sideshow.”

“We’ve got a whole bunch of people in the State Department who consistently say, ‘You know what, I’m willing to step up, I’m willing to put myself in harm’s way because I think that this mission is important in terms of serving the United States and advancing our interests around the globe.’ And so we dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus,” Obama said.

Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of covering up the aftermath of the attack last year that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

During a House committee hearing last week, internal e-mails showed that top officials scrubbed any mention of al-Qa’ida from talking points given to members of Congress, including United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice. 

These talking points are the crux of the ongoing battle between the administration and Republicans, who say that officials knew the attacks were terrorism-related, and not related to a documentary on Islam, as Rice initially reported.

Obama made the remarks in a White House news conference alongside British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is visiting the U.S.

-Mariam Khan, Medill News Service

WASHINGTON — South Korea President Park Geun-hye brought her tough talk to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, declaring her nation would not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Any violent intent from her northern neighbor would be “met decisively,” Park said.

She took efforts, though, to note that her nation wants peaceful resolution to the current tensions.  “I will remain steadfast in pushing forward a process of trust-building on the Korean Peninsula,” Park told House and Senate lawmakers.

It’s the second day of Park’s visit to the United States. On Tuesday, she met with President Barack Obama and the two stood strongly together in the face of new threats from North Korea.

“Following on our meeting yesterday, President Obama and I adopted a joint declaration,” said Park. “We are determined to embark on another shared journey toward peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

Park said she believes trust will win out.

“And with the trust that gradually builds up, through exchange, through cooperation, we will cement the grounds for durable peace and eventually peaceful reunification,” said Park.

Park went on to say that Korea’s economy is stable and Asia suffers from disconnect between growing economic interdependence and national security cooperation.

The alliance between South Korea and the U.S. will help face these challenges, she said. 

“We are expanding cooperation on global issues like counter-terrorism, nuclear non-proliferation and the global financial crisis,” Park said. 

The U.S. trade deficit to South Korea in March was $1.3 billion, compared to $551 million a year earlier, according to Bloomberg analysis. Also, the value of U.S. exports to South Korea declined to $3.85 billion from $4.2 billion last year.

The U.S. and South Korea have a free trade agreement that went into effect just 14 months ago.

“Our economic partnership must also aim higher and reach further into the future,” said Park. “Our chorus of freedom and peace, of future and hope, has not ceased to resonate over the last 60 years and will not cease to go on.” 

— John Burfisher, Medill News Service

Delaware legalized same-sex marriage Tuesday. Rhode Island did the same late last week. That brings the total number of states permitting such partnerships to 11.

Just under a decade ago, in the 2004 elections, 11 states put gay marriage ban propositions on the ballot. All 11 of them passed. But, oh, how times change.

Maryland, Minnesota and Maine all passed ballot propositions allowing gay marriage in the last year. Minnesota rejected a ban on gay marriage.

At the federal level, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases regarding the wedge issue — one on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and the other a challenge to California’s ban on gay marriage — in what already promises to be a blockbuster Supreme Court session.

The sitting president supports marriage equality, and filed a brief with the Supreme Court calling for the nine justices to rule California’s law unconstitutional, but stopped short of asking the court to declare same-sex marriage a constitutional right.

The about-face of public opinion on this issue has been almost overnight. In looking for empirical data, we need to look no further than Gallup. The polling firm keeps a list of all the questions it has asked regarding marriage over the years. Interracial marriage and the social taboos that once surrounded it are somewhat akin to the controversy surrounding gay marriage.

The numbers show that when asked about marriage between a black person and a white person, it took until the early 1990s to get even a simple plurality and until 1997 to get a majority. (Note: Several years lapsed between the asking of these questions.)

What’s more, this social issue that was once a core conservative cause has almost faded from view; this is rooted in one simple reason: younger voters overwhelming support the right to marriage, regardless of sexual orientation.

If the Republican Party cares to evolve with the electorate, gay marriage needs to become a non-issue with their base, as 18- to 29-year-old voters constituted for 19 percent in November’s election, meaning this age group had a larger turnout than the 65-and-over age group.

A poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News showed that 70 percent of 18- to 39-year-olds favors legalizing same-sex marriage. This is the precise group that Republicans need to win over to avoid future losses.

- By Andrew Hedlund, Medill News Service

In this morning’s The Washington Post’s Morning Fix, Chris Cillizza penned an insightful analysis of immigration reform vs. a grand bargain on the nation’s debt. To sum up his argument, immigration reform is much easier to find common ground on because it isn’t the Republican Party’s signature issue and changing demographics make inaction on something this significant politically perilous for the GOP. More than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote went for President Barack Obama in last November’s election, a potential harbinger for Republicans. 

As recently as 2004, then-President George W. Bush garnering 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. Despite conservative tendencies in many areas, Bush actually had a moderate immigration reform plan he pushed. But amid Hurricane Katrina, a slowing economy, and a war of which the public grew weary, it got lost in the shuffle. And that brings us to where we are today. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney talked about “self-deportation ” last year or, more bluntly put, making life so difficult for undocumented immigrants that they voluntarily leave.

A large obstacle stands in immigration reform’s way: the House of Representatives. Speaker John Boehner and the GOP leadership in the lower chamber often face a conservative revolt, something that Politico’s Jake Sherman outlined yesterday. Many blame Republican redistricting as the culprit of this. The argument says that redistricting essentially put the GOP House majority on lock for the next decade, meaning many districts are substantially more conservative than they would otherwise be.

There are competing views of this. Two prominent analyses were published in February examining this. Sam Wang, who runs the Princeton Election Consortium, argued in The New York Times, agreed with the redistricting argument while political scientists Danny Hayes and John Sides rebut this idea in The Washington Post’s Wonkblog. The idea bears a second look because the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is scheduled to begin hearings on immigration reform legislation next week. 

The unwritten Hastert Rule is essential for maintaining support among the House Republican caucus for Boehner. This idea says that any legislation a speaker brings to the floor should have a majority of the majority backing it. The conservative tendency of many House GOP lawmakers though might make this very difficult. Thus, the Ohio Republican may rely on Democratic votes to put a moderate immigration plan over the top — or at least an immigration plan that stands a chance of passing the Democratic Senate. 

Perhaps the easiest way to force House action on immigration legislation is to amass 70 votes or more in the Senate in favor of the Gang of Eight’s immigration plan. This would mean at least a majority of the minority caucus supported any overhaul that might hit the Senate floor. Such a bipartisan majority would alienate conservatives in the House, forcing them to either accept the blame for the plan’s failure or move to the center. Similar scenarios happened at the end of 2011 when Congress renewed the temporary payroll tax cut and on the fiscal cliff deal. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is normally in lockstep with Boehner, abandoned the speaker, leaving him between a rock and a hard place. 

Failure to pass an immigration reform plan leaves the House majority vulnerable on an important issue in next year’s midterm election. Last year, the Democrat’s new governing coalition, of which Hispanics make a substantial portion, proved 2008 was not a fluke. If the president can get these same voters fired up and convince them to turn out for a midterm election, which is more difficult than ratcheting up turnout in a presidential year, the Republicans might lose seats, particularly if approval ratings stay where they are. 

- Andrew Hedlund, Medill News Service

WASHINGTON – A government lawyer told the Supreme Court Tuesday that the federal government cannot be held liable for claims brought against military medical personnel, but the justices interrupted with frequent challenges.

The case, Levin v. United States, involves a military veteran who sued a naval surgeon in Guam for battery and negligent medical malpractice. It began in 2003, when Steven Levin gave written consent to a cataract surgery performed by Lt. Cmdr. Frank Bishop, but unsuccessfully tried to verbally withdraw before the procedure.  Subsequently, Levin suffered complications and sued the surgeon.

The United States government took on the role as sole defendant because the Gonzalez Act grants military medical personnel immunity from tort claims.

The U.S. District Court for Guam dismissed the case, saying that under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the government is not liable for tort claims involving battery.

In his appeal, Levin argued that another provision under the Gonzalez Act excludes FTCA’s protection of the government in battery claims brought against military medical personnel. However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Levin’s claim.

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WASHINGTON — Seven representatives from state and local environmental protection agencies stressed the need for cooperation with federal regulators during a House subcommittee hearing Thursday.

Panelists discussed what changes they’d like to see in the Clean Air Act—first passed in 1970 and updated in 1990—though they had generally positive sentiments regarding the law.

“The Clean Air Act is clearly a success, by any objective and every objective standard,” said Michael Krancer, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.  “We have cleaner air in America than we’ve ever had before, probably cleaner than anywhere else in the world.”

At the same time, panelists were frustrated by the sluggish pace at which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency often works and said they wanted the ability to adjust solutions to state-specific problems.

“Allow states to use their judgment,” said David L. Klemp, the air director for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.  “I really don’t want to sue my federal partners.”

In particular, the representatives were discouraged by the difficulty in getting State Implementation Plans (SIPs) approved and implemented in a timely manner.  The panelists were unanimous in calling for a deadline for the EPA to accept or reject SIP proposals, where missing the deadline would automatically mean approval.

“We often disagree [with federal regulators] over the process, and sometimes the outcome, but for the most part, we have a very open and constructive dialogue,” said Robert J. Martineau, Jr., the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

The most outspoken critic of the EPA was Seyed Sadredin, the air pollution control officer for San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.  Sadredin, whose central California jurisdiction is one of only a handful found in violation of the Clean Air Act, called the deadlines to come into compliance “unworkable.”

“We believe that state and local governments should not be penalized when there are delays by the EPA,” he said.  He complained that, although EPA delays are sometimes excusable, state and local governments are not able to take action in the absence of action at the federal level, leaving them likelier to be in violation of the Clean Air Act.

Sadredin cited an example when his agency turned in a SIP that was not approved for six years, by which time circumstances had changed and the plan was no longer viable.

The hearing was the third in a series hosted by the House Energy and Power Subcommittee devoted to discussing the Clean Air Act.

Other notes from the hearing:

• Krancer pushed for the EPA to refrain from using environmental regulations to initiate a national energy policy and called instead for Congress to pass a comprehensive “National Energy Act, which establishes our national energy policy.”
• Republican Rep. David McKinley of West Virginia suggested looking more closely at indoor air quality. McKinley said that people spend an average of 90 percent of their time indoors, and therefore was skeptical that outdoor air quality could be responsible for adverse health effects. McKinley mentioned he represents his state’s coal interests.

— Jacob Fischler, Medill News Service