Sarah Kiff at the Washington Post’s Wonkblog:

A majority of Catholics — 52 percent — … agree with the Obama administration’s decision to not exempt religious hospitals and universities from the provision. “Outside the political punditry, most Catholics agree with the administration on the issue,” says one Obama campaign official, explaining the view that this could be a political win.

And a lot of this likely isn’t about Catholic voters at all.

Rather, it may well be about the demographics that are most supportive of this particular health reform provision: young voters and women. In the PRRI poll, both groups register support above 60 percent for the provision.

No one but a cruel idiot or a heartless cyborg would force a dog to ride in kennel strapped to the top of a car for 12 hours, as Mitt Romney famously did in 1983. But a new report suggests that Mitt’s wife Ann may have lied to reporters about the ultimate fate of Seamus, the Irish Setter — reportedly according to her own sons:

Mitt Romney may not have told the whole truth about the scandalous tale of his Irish Setter, Seamus, being strapped to the roof of his car during a 12-hour family road trip to Canada. According to a trusted Politicker tipster, two of Mr. Romney’s sons had an off-record conversation with reporters where they revealed the dog ran away when they reached their destination on that infamous journey in 1983.

Mr. Romney’s wife, Ann, has previously said Seamus survived the trip and went on to live to a “ripe old age.” As of this writing, Mr. Romney’s campaign has not responded to multiple requests for comment on this story.

Last month, another aspect of this story came to light when it was reported that Seamus had violent attack of diarrhea while he was in the kennel. Romney’s response was to haul the dog down off the roof, hose him off and then, despite the fact that the dog was obviously terrified, sick and suffering, put him back in the kennel on the roof for the rest of the trip.

If Seamus really did run away from his captors when they finally let him out in Canada, it was a perfectly rational response.

Here’s coverage of the announcement by the Los Angeles Times:

A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down California’s ban on same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage as early as next year.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that limited marriage to one man and one woman, violated the U.S. Constitution. The architects of Prop. 8 have vowed to appeal.

The ruling was narrow and likely to be limited to California…

“Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,” the court said.

The ruling upheld a decision by retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who struck down the ballot measure in 2010 after holding an unprecedented trial on the nature of sexual orientation and the history of marriage.

In a separate decision, the appeals court refused to invalidate Walker’s ruling on the grounds that he should have disclosed he was in a long term same-sex relationship. Walker, a Republican appointee who is openly gay, said after his ruling that he had been in a relationship with another man for 10 years. He has never said whether he and partner wished to marry.

ProtectMarriage, the backers of Proposition 8, can appeal Tuesday’s decision to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit or go directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court is expected to be divided on the issue, and many legal scholars believe Justice Anthony Kennedy will be the deciding vote.

In his campaign for the presidency, Rep. Ron Paul insists that nothing is more important than reducing the size of government and making government less intrusive — except when it comes to the reproductive systems of American women.

When it comes to women’s bodies, Rep. Paul is all for big government. After all, somebody has to be in charge of ensuring that none of the 4 million pregnancies that occur each year in the United States are terminated illegally. There is no small-government solution for that.

Yesterday, Paul made his already contradictory position even more illogical by dividing pregnancies resulting from rapes into two categories — “honest” and, I guess, “bogus” rapes:

MORGAN: But it’s a dilemma that I am going to put to you. You have two daughters. You have many granddaughters. If one of them was raped — and I accept it’s a very unlikely thing to happen. But if they were, would you honestly look at them in the eye and say they had to have that child if they were impregnated?

PAUL: No. If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room. I would give them a shot of estrogen or give them –

MORGAN: You would allow them to abort the baby?

PAUL: It is absolutely in limbo, because an hour after intercourse or a day afterwards, there is no legal or medical problem. If you talk about somebody coming in and they say, well, I was raped and I’m seven months pregnant and I don’t want to have anything to do with it, it’s a little bit different story.

But somebody arriving in an emergency room saying, I have just been raped and there is no chemical — there’s no medical and there’s no legal evidence of a pregnancy –

Update: Here is the link to the original source.

- White House spox Jay Carney, declining to respond after a reporter asked if Pres. Obama had sought Donald Trump’s endorsement.

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Norquist

NORQUIST: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach.

ThinkProgess suggests impeaching Pres. Obama because Congress let tax cuts expire would be tough sledding:

Norquist certainly revels in his power, but suggesting Republicans impeach the president over tax cuts is wildly outlandish. According to the Constitution, the president, vice president, or public officials can only be impeached for “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Preserving a tax cut that gives more to the top 1 percent than the average income of the 99 percent hardly qualifies.

On the other hand, in 1998, under the leadership of GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich, Republicans impeached Pres. Bill Clinton because he lied in a deposition for civil lawsuit unrelated to his presidency about an extramarital affair.

By contrast, in 2007, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi preemptively took impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney off the table, despite evidence that they and other top administration officials had lied to the public about their reasons for invading Iraq and then had engaged in war crimes by ordering the CIA and others to torture terror suspects.

While the impeachment of Clinton failed, it eventually produced a political success for Republicans in that it softened support for Clinton’s would-be successor, Vice President Al Gore. As a result, the vote in Florida in the 2000 election was so close that it enabled Bush, Gore’s opponent, to launch a legal challenge to the Florida count that ultimately led to his being appointed to the presidency by the Republican-controlled U.S. Supreme Court.

It is telling that, nine months out from the 2012 presidential election, that Norquist, one of the top tier of GOP power brokers, is already planning ahead in order to set up a a similar gambit for the second of half of Pres. Obama’s second term.

Unpopular: Issa, left, and Lungren

The best known California Republicans are also the state’s least-popular politicians, including former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete Wilson and current House members, Rep. Darrell Issa, the wealthiest House member, an accused car thief and arsonist who chairs the House committee that investigates the Obama administration, and Rep. “Styrofoam Dan” Lungren, the former state attorney general and current chairman of the House Administration Committee, who made news recently for rescinding Democrats’ efforts to “green” the Capitol Building.

Earlier this year, the California GOP took another hit when the state’s new redistricting plan created districts that more accurately reflect the GOP’s dwindling presence. Political analysts of all stripes predict that the redrawn districts could result in a veto-proof majority for Democrats in at least one house of the legislature as well as the loss of at least five Republican seats in the U.S. House. One seat on the chopping block is likely that of Rep. David Drier, chairman of the House Rules Committee, and perhaps the most powerful closeted gay Republican in Congress.

If the party loses five House seats, it would reduce the Republican delegation from 19 out of 53 seats now to 14 seats. It would also put the Democrats five seats closer to the 25 seats they need to take control of the House next year.

In a desperate attempt to stop the redistricting plan, the California GOP sued the state. This would have made sense if the new maps had been drawn in secret in Sacramento for the purpose of protecting Democratic incumbents. But the new maps were drawn by an independent citizens commission that was created by voter referendum, which — and you had to know this was coming — the California GOP promoted in not one but two separate elections.

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court, which is made up of six Republicans and one Democrat, rejected the state GOP lawsuit, in a 7-0 decision. Here is reaction from the Los Angeles Times political columnist George Skelton:

Republicans had argued for decades that the Legislature — perpetually ruled by Democrats — should be stripped of its corrupting power to draw districts to the majority party’s advantage. Of course, Republicans thought it was OK 10 years ago when they and Democrats conspired to gerrymander districts to protect incumbents of both parties.

But finally, California voters agreed with the GOP and placed the drawing of legislative and congressional seats in the hands of a 14-member independent commission, consisting of five Democrats, five Republicans and four independents.

And wouldn’t you know? The GOP squawked at the first set of state Senate maps and sued. The state’s highest court dismissed the suit on a 7-0 vote…

But the California GOP’s problem is not the shape of districts, it’s the size of a shrinking membership. Republicans continue to hemorrhage voters. New registration figures released Tuesday by the secretary of state show the bleeding.

The Republicans’ share of registered voters is down to 30.4%, a fall of roughly three points in the last four years. Democrats are 43.6% of the electorate, up about one point.

Independents, who don’t state any party preference, are 21.2% of the registration, up nearly two points.

In essence, the GOP has become a third party in the San Francisco Bay Area. Independents outnumber Republicans in five counties surrounding the bay, plus a sixth county, Santa Cruz.