Getty Images

In March and April, there was a flurry of activity in the Senate, with nearly a dozen members announcing their support for marriage equality over the course of a few weeks. It's been a little quiet since then, though there was a bit of a breakthrough this morning.

Today, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) announced that she supports marriage equality. Murkowski joins two of her Republican colleagues -- Senator Rob Portman of Ohio and Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois -- in endorsing the right of committed and loving gay and lesbian couples to marry.

Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Chad Griffin released the following statement in response to the news: "Senator Murkowski's courageous and principled announcement today sends a clear message that marriage equality must come to all 50 states in this country. As the Supreme Court prepares to rule in two landmark marriage cases this month, a growing bipartisan coalition is standing up for the right of all couples to marry -- and there is no turning back that tide."

Overall, if my count is right, there are now 54 sitting U.S. senators who support equal-marriage rights (it would be 55, but Frank Lautenberg's recent passing lowers the total by one), and 51 of the 54 are Democrats.

But that in turn is what makes Murkowski's announcement especially noteworthy: she's a red-state Republican. The more bipartisan support marriage equality has, the faster the arc of history will continue to bend towards justice. [Update: the Alaska senator explains her position in a statement released this morning, which is well worth reading.]

In related news, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) announced his support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) late yesterday, bringing the total of co-sponsors to 52. All but four Senate Democrats have now signed on to the legislation.

The fact that the bill has majority support in the Senate is heartening, though it's worth noting that under current norms in the chamber, ENDA would be subject to a Republican filibuster, which the bill cannot yet overcome.

Associated Press

Yesterday, much to the chagrin of House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) decided it was time for some sunlight in the IRS investigation. Committee investigators conducted lengthy interviews with IRS officials in Ohio, and while Issa was content to release cherry-picked excerpts from those interviews, Cummings released all 205 pages, letting everyone -- voters, reporters, and policymakers -- get the full picture.

And while I'll confess reading the transcripts last night was remarkably dull, I continue to believe they should effectively end the controversy.

Republican and Democratic committee staffers interviewed IRS official John Shafer on June 6 about the agency's decision to scrutinize a tea party group's application for tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status. Shafer, who identified himself as "a conservative Republican" and said he'd worked for the IRS since 1992, said that he and a fellow screener initially flagged a tea party group and continued to do so with subsequent applications in order to maintain consistency in the process.

Throughout much of the interview, Shafer describes the mundane bureaucratic challenges of dealing with incoming applications for nonprofit status. He said his team flagged the first tea party application because it appeared to be a high-profile case, and he wanted to make sure all high-profile cases received similar attention.

Was the White House involved? "I have no reason to believe that," Shafer said. Did he communicate the then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman about the screening of Tea Party cases? "I have not," Shafer added.

I imagine there will be additional hearings and debate, but I'm not altogether sure what more there is to talk about. Every claim Republicans have made, and every effort to create a conspiracy theory involving the White House, appears to have been completely discredited.

Indeed, at this point, I'd like to see Darrell Issa stop asking questions and start answering them.

Associated Press

By all indications, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is serious about pursuing the so-called "nuclear option," ending filibusters of administration nominees in the upper chamber.

To pull off the procedural tactic, Reid would need near-unanimous support from his fellow Senate Democrats, and at this point, he doesn't have it. Just yesterday, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who is retiring next year, reiterated his opposition to the "nuclear option," telling TPM his position "won't change."

But Reid doesn't just have his own members to worry about; he's also hearing from Senate Republicans, who've begun making threats in the hopes of forcing Democrats to back down.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a former member of the GOP leadership close to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), has assembled an agenda Republicans would pursue with the nuclear option if they retake control of the upper chamber.

It includes repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, converting all federal education spending into school vouchers and scholarships to middle-income and low-income children, opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling and repealing the estate tax.

"Sen. Reid is an able and experienced leader. He knows that if Democrats figure out a way to do anything they want with 51 votes, Republicans can figure that out too. And if we're in charge, we'll do it.

For his part, McConnell added on the Senate floor, "There's not a doubt in my mind that if the majority breaks the rules of the Senate to change the rules of the Senate with regard to nominations, the next majority will do it for everything."

Got that? Democrats are considering a plan to allow majority rule on judicial nominees and Senate-confirmed administration positions, including the cabinet. Republicans are now arguing that if Dems pursue this, when the GOP is in the majority, they'll allow majority rule on literally everything, including taking affordable health care coverage away from tens of millions of Americans.

As threats go, McConnell's efforts at intimidation fall short for a few specific reasons.

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto

It's never been entirely clear to me whether the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto believes everything he says, or whether he occasionally publishes needlessly provocative arguments to get attention, along the lines of a Coulter or a Limbaugh.

But while we'll probably never know for sure whether Taranto is entirely sincere, columns like these, first flagged by Hannah Groch-Begley, are unsettling. Apparently, the Wall Street Journal opinion writer, who's also a member of the paper's editorial board, believes there's a "war on men" underway, coinciding with an "effort to criminalize male sexuality."

Taranto brought up the case of Capt. Matthew Herrera, an Air Force officer accused of sexual assault by a fellow servicewoman, in a column as an example of Congress' "effort to criminalize male sexuality." Capt. Herrera was ultimately not convicted of sexual assault by his commander, Lt. Gen. Susan Helms -- but as a consequence, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) put a "permanent hold" on Helms' nomination to serve as vice commander of the Air Force Space Command, a career setback Taranto laments.

Capt. Herrera had testified before Helms that his accuser "flirted" with him, and a lieutenant who was present at the time of the alleged assault agreed. Therefore, Taranto reasons, Herrera's accuser was equally at fault.

Indeed, Taranto complained in his piece, "The presumption that reckless men are criminals while reckless women are victims makes a mockery of any notion that the sexes are equal."

In this case, the "reckless" woman is a female lieutenant who got into a car with her accused assailant.

Later in the day, Taranto had an opportunity to walk back his argument, but instead did the opposite, complaining about the costs of "female sexual freedom."

A recent Pentagon survey found that an estimated 26,000 sexual assaults took place within the military last year, up from 19,000 the year before. Some respond to this epidemic by looking for a solution; others respond by chastising "reckless" women and whining about imaginary efforts to "criminalize male sexuality."

Getty Images

When the Heritage Foundation launched an offensive against comprehensive immigration reform in early May, it focused its attention almost exclusively on one area: the legislation's price tag. After all, one of the first questions lawmakers ask in response to any proposal is, "What does it cost?" and if the bipartisan reform bill is too pricey, Congress will have a good excuse to reject it.

With that in mind, Heritage, relying on numbers that no one could take seriously, said immigration reform would cost taxpayers over $6 trillion. Yesterday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office -- the official score-keepers for federal lawmakers -- published a very different figure.

A long-awaited analysis by the Congressional Budget Office found that the benefits of an increase in legal residents from immigration legislation currently being debated in the Senate -- which includes a pathway to citizenship -- would outweigh the costs. [...]

The report estimates that in the first decade after the immigration bill is carried out, the net effect of adding millions of additional taxpayers would decrease the federal budget deficit by $197 billion. Over the next decade, the report found, the deficit reduction would be even greater -- an estimated $700 billion, from 2024 to 2033.

The full report from the CBO is online here (pdf).

This is incredibly important, and puts conservatives in an exceedingly awkward position. According to the CBO's non-partisan analysis, the comprehensive immigration reform plan pending on Capitol Hill would be one of the biggest deficit-reduction bills in decades, reducing the deficit by nearly $200 billion in the next decade, and nearly $900 billion over the next 20 years.

In an amusing twist, the CBO does not ordinarily score bill bills beyond the first 10-year window, but in this case, the agency made an exception -- because Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a fierce opponent of reform, asked it to, assuming it would help bolster his case. Oops.

This is simply devastating for Republican opponents of reform. Indeed, one of the pillars of the right's argument has suddenly been shattered.

In a speech later this morning, President Obama will call for the U.S. and Russia to cut nuclear arsenals by an additional one-third.

House Republicans hold the first of four Hispanic outreach meetings today.

The body of Ibragim Todashev was flown home to Russia yesterday.

The NY Times looks at how internal FBI investigations found its agents faultless in 150 shootings.

The Texas Senate passes new abortion restrictions during a special legislative session, but not a 20-week ban.

The New York State legislature will vote this week on a women's rights package, including a bill expanding access to abortion.

Meet the bird that may be the harbinger of climate change.

Tuesday night's citations are listed after the jump.

Tonight's guests include:

Adele Stan, senior Washington correspondent for RH Reality Check

Sister Helen Prejean, anti-death penalty advocate and author of “Dead Man Walking”

And here is executive producer Bill Wolff with a preview of tonight's show:

Associated Press

Congress' most restrictive anti-abortion bill in a decade easily passed the Republican-led House of Representatives late this afternoon, with a 228-196 vote. The outcome, which was not a surprise, largely fell along party lines -- all but six Republicans voted for it, all but six Democrats voted against it.

Rachel will have plenty more on this on tonight's show.

In the meantime, it's worth noting that the bill, a legally-dubious proposal to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, led to a lively debate on the House floor.

Debate on the bill was tense on the House floor from the start, when Democrats asked why Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) -- who does not sit on the bill's committe of jurisdiction -- was managing the bill. Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said it is acceptable under the rules of the House to allow "appropriate" people to manage the bill.

But several Democrats suggested it's because the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), made the controversial comment last week that rape usually doesn't result in pregnancy. Franks is on the Judiciary Committee, but he never spoke about his own bill during the hour-long debate.

They also said it was because Republicans have no women on the committee of jurisdiction and wanted to put a woman's face on the bill; Republicans never answered that charge.

Democrats said the lack of any input from women on the committee showed in the final product, and argued that the final bill is based on faulty science.

In the end, it didn't matter that the bill is unconstitutional; it didn't matter that its supporters' talking points were inconsistent with the available science; and it didn't matter that the bill has no chance of becoming law.

What mattered is that House Republican leaders felt the need "to satisfy vocal elements of their base."

BuzzFeed's Ben Smith made a heartbreaking announcement this afternoon: Michael Hastings died earlier today in a car accident in Los Angeles. He was just 33 years old.

"We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone. Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians. He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are great stories that will go untold. Michael was also a wonderful, generous colleague and a joy to work with. Our thoughts are with Elise and the rest of his family and we are going to miss him."

I only knew Michael a little, but I knew his work very well. He was a brilliant, consequential journalist -- he's perhaps best known for his work at Rolling Stone, and his piece that ended Gen. Stanley McChrystal's tenure as the commander of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan -- and the author of an exceptional book, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan."

He was also a great guy who will be sorely missed.

Update: Tim Dickinson's obituary for Hastings is well worth your time.

Today's edition of quick hits:

* Afghanistan: "U.S.-led troops handed complete control of security to Afghanistan authorities Tuesday -- an act of faith in country's fledgling police and army in the face of near-constant insurgent attacks."

* Great potential: "The Taliban signaled a breakthrough in efforts to open Afghan peace negotiations on Tuesday, announcing the opening of a political office in Qatar and new readiness to talk with American and Afghan officials, who said in turn that they would travel to meet insurgent negotiators there within days."

* Is the White House moving past efforts to reduce gun violence? According to Vice President Biden, the exact opposite is true.

* Ted Cruz hopes to make sure Latino voters never back GOP candidates again: "The 7-2 ruling written by Justice Antonin Scalia prompted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to announce an amendment to the Senate bill that would permit states to require people to prove their citizenship before registering to vote."

* Gitmo: "The Obama administration Monday lifted a veil of secrecy surrounding the status of the detainees at Guantánamo, for the first time publicly naming the four dozen captives it defined as indefinite detainees -- men too dangerous to transfer but who cannot be tried in a court of law."

* Nice gig: "Secretary of State John Kerry announced Tuesday he is appointing former Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to be the new special envoy to the African Great Lakes region."

* If the White House is listening, I'm hoping Christina Romer fills the looming vacancy: "President Obama suggested that he was likely to nominate a new Federal Reserve chairman later this year, saying in a television interview aired late Monday that the current chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, had 'already stayed a lot longer than he wanted or he was supposed to.'"

* What's worse than former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) trying to work on national security issues? Scott Brown trying to work on national security issues with former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn).

* The mayor of a major Canadian city resigned today, but it wasn't Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

Associated Press

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, has seen the same interview transcripts as Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), documenting the interviews investigators conducted with IRS officials in Cincinnati. And with that in mind, Cummings was getting a little tired of Issa playing partisan games, releasing carefully edited, cherry-picked quotes from the transcripts in the hopes of keeping a "scandal" alive.

Indeed, Cummings has declared publicly, more than once, than if Issa didn't provide the public with all of the information -- rather than the portions Republicans found convenient -- than Cummings would feel compelled to make the disclosures himself.

Today, the Maryland Democrat and his colleagues apparently got tired of waiting. Greg Sargent has the story:

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have just released a full transcript of testimony from a key witness in the investigation of IRS targeting of conservatives -- and it appears to confirm that the initial targeting did originate with a low-level employee in the Cincinnati office.

It also shows a key witness and IRS screening manager – a self-described conservative Republican -- denying any communication with the White House or senior IRS officials about the targeting.

Imagine that. Issa didn't want the public to see all of the relevant information, because the truth interfered with the preferred Republican narrative.

The documents are now online for public review. Part I (pdf) is 103 pages, Part II (pdf) is 102 pages, and both feature some redactions to protect the identities of specific individuals whose names are not relevant to the testimony.

Of particular interest were the remarks of one particular IRS official, whose interview led Cummings to argue that the entire controversy has been "solved" and it's time for the political world to "move on."

For nearly two weeks, officials defending NSA surveillance have stressed two main points: (1) it's legal; and (2) it's life-saving. The House Intelligence Committee heard quite a bit about the latter this morning.

The National Security Agency surveillance programs made public this month have helped foil more than 50 terrorist plots since Sept. 11, including one to blow up the New York Stock Exchange, top intelligence officials told Congress on Tuesday.

The officials appeared before the House Intelligence Committee and answered mostly friendly questions to defend the programs, which collect phone records inside the United States and monitor Internet communications overseas.

"I would much rather be here today debating this point than trying to explain how we failed to prevent another 9/11," said Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director.

Though Alexander and the FBI's deputy director, Sean Joyce, avoided details, they insisted that NSA surveillance not only prevented more than 50 post-9/11 terrorist "events," but also thwarted at least 10 "homeland-based threats."

Joyce specifically referenced a Kansas City man who intended to attack the New York Stock Exchange and a San Diego man who intended to finance terrorism in Somalia, both of whom saw their plans derailed thanks to NSA surveillance.

The problem, of course, is that all of the obvious questions are legitimate, but the answers are classified. Could these plots have been thwarted without the controversial surveillance programs? Were the threats aspirational or near execution? Without more information, those of us without access to classified materials just don't know -- and we probably never will.

The Alabama Republican Party posted the photo above a few hours ago, with this caption: "ALGOP welcomes Republican state party Chairmen from across the nation to Birmingham to discuss how to take back the US Senate in 2014!" To which commenter Edward Kimmel applied this sardonic annotation: "Spanning the entire range of Alabama Republicans from Lutheran to Methodist."

And yes, if you're wondering, those are hoop skirts, more commonly used in the South for remembering the past than ginning up the future. (H/t my aunt CeeJay Garrett.)

Below, you can see how the Wisconsin Republican Party is getting ready to take back the Senate in 2014. Lefty blog RootRiverSiren spots the following photo on the Wisconsin GOP website and on iStock Photo as "Diverse Group of People Showing Community."