CNN's GUT CHECK for May 9, 2013
CNN's GUT CHECK | for May 9, 2013 | 5 p.m.
– n. a pause to assess the state, progress or condition of the political news cycle
DEVELOPING: SPEAKER URGES WHITE HOUSE TO RELEASE BENGHAZI EMAILS... House Speaker John Boehner called on President Barack Obama today to release e-mails that he says show how the White House wanted to change the Benghazi attack “talking points.”
ANALYSIS: BENGHAZI INVESTIGATION BOTH LEGITIMATE AND PARTISAN… Tough legitimate congressional oversight or partisan politics? Leading Republicans say the former; most Democrats the latter. Truth is, it is both.– John King
Republican spotlight shifts from Obama to Clinton
Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama's been in the bull's eye of Republicans and conservatives since 2008, but after Wednesday's hearing on last September's terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, many on the right are shifting their aim at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Soon after the hearing by the GOP-led House Oversight Committee looking into the events surrounding the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, a recently formed pro-Republican opposition research group blasted out an e-mail with the headline "Benghazi Hearing Raises Serious Questions About Clinton."
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Blumenthal blocks abortion resolution
Washington (CNN) – Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal blocked a non-binding abortion resolution on Wednesday offered by Republican Senator Mike Lee saying, "This problem is broader than the issue cited in Senator Lee's resolution."
Introduced to the Senate on Monday, Lee said his resolution was in response to the trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, who is accused by authorities of killing four babies born-alive during botched abortions. The measure calls for a review of abortion policies to prevent these sorts of incidents from occurring again.
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John King: Benghazi investigation both legitimate and partisan
Washington (CNN) - It was late in the day with the House oversight hearing on Benghazi winding down. On social media and elsewhere, there was conservative grumbling that Hillary Clinton was getting off relatively unscathed.
Then came conservative Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina's second round of questions.
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Photo: Perry gives Obama a Lone Star welcome
(CNN) - Deplaning in Austin, Texas, Thursday, President Barack Obama was greeted by Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican who made a bid for last year's GOP presidential nomination.
The focus of Thursday's visit is job growth - something Perry has touted as a chief accomplishment of his time in office. Speaking after greeting Obama, the governor said the president was smart to visit Austin.
"We are doing things right in Texas and I think the president is wise to come here and take a look at it," he said, noting Obama had recently visited the Lone Star state to attend a memorial service for the first responders killed in the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion.
A vocal critic of Obama's, Perry most recently railed against the president's gun control proposals during last week's National Rifle Association annual meeting in Houston.
"I realize to those who don't understand the issue, gun laws may look like an easy fix, and might even make some of them feel like these laws do something to solve a problem. Except they don't fix anything. They may win a news cycle, or help our president score political points, but they do nothing but make it harder for law-abiding Americans to own guns," Perry said.
Boston's top cop asked if bombing was preventable
Washington (CNN) - Could the Boston Marathon bombing have been prevented?
That was the question legislators tried to answer at Thursday's House Committee on Homeland Security hearing, where the members of Congress asked a former senator, Boston's top cop and two experts on public safety about whether or not the intelligence community dropped the ball when they closed an investigation into one of the alleged Boston bombers before the marathon bombing in April.
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Boehner calls for White House to release Benghazi emails
(CNN) – House Speaker John Boehner called on President Obama to release emails that he says show how the White House wanted to change the Benghazi attack "talking points."
Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, vowed Thursday to "leave no stone unturned" in looking into the matter and answering questions about the attack.
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Biden wants immigration reform by end of summer
(CNN) – Vice President Joe Biden laid out a timetable for his hopes on immigration reform, saying he wants to see Congress pass a bill in the coming months.
"As my grandpop would say, with the grace of god and the good will of the neighbors, Congress will show the wisdom to pass the bipartisan immigration bill by the end of the summer. They must, and I'm optimistic," he said Wednesday at a Washington dinner for the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies.
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W.H. holds meeting on sexual assault in military
Washington (CNN) - About a dozen members of Congress were invited to meet at the White House Thursday with senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and the first lady's chief of staff Tina Tchen to address the issue of sexual assault in the military, a senior administration official said.
The official did not provide names of the lawmakers invited to the bicameral bipartisan meeting, but CNN confirmed three of the guests were Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York.
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Blacks outvoted whites in 2012, the first time on record
Washington (CNN) – A new Census Bureau report shows a higher percentage of African-Americans than whites voted in a presidential election for the first time in history last year during the matchup between President Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
The report, released Wednesday, found that more than 66% of eligible blacks voted in the presidential contest. Only 64.1% of whites turned out to vote.
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