The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe talks with U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake about the Gang of Eight's immigration bill. An excerpt:

What will be the hardest part of this agreement to sell or explain back home in Arizona?

I think there is a segment of the electorate who just do not believe that anyone here illegally now should ever be able to access a path to citizenship. I don’t think that’s a majority position, but it is a deeply held position by a lot of people.”

And how do you talk to them about that?

We say that it is a long and arduous path, but it is possible. I’ve always felt, even when we weren’t under the gun like this with the Gang of Eight bill, the legislation I introduced before had a path to citizenship.

I’ve always felt that if you’re going to be here for 20 or 30 years in a legal status, why not have the possibility and the opportunity and the rights and responsibilities that come with citizenship? That’s what sets us apart from other countries, it’s a good thing. For me, that’s the way I put it.

I think we ought to value citizenship, we ought to value the rule of law. There’s a way to do both. We think we’ve done it in this bill. The vast majority of Americans out there believe that citizenship ought to be earned and valued and that’s what we’ve tried to respect in this bill.

So you’re hearing these concerns about the pathway to citizenship on one end. You heard at various points late last month and this month from the other end of the political spectrum upset with your votes on guns. How tricky is it to be Jeff Flake these days? You have five and a half years before you have to worry about reelection, but clearly you’ve upset parts of your state.

Yeah, in the end — well, let me back up. In the House early on, I went after earmarks and took some positions that were vehemently disagreed with. I had the Arizona Republic writing editorials and cartoons lampooning my position and it was not popular. I had a primary race and had four of the five mayors in my district coming out against me. So being lonely isn’t a foreign concept.

But in the end, if you stick it out and keep explaining — particularly when you don’t have to run every two years — then people understand. And when they understand the principles that you work on, they give you the benefit of the doubt sometimes if they don’t understand the specific vote.

Cyndi Lauper brought her She's So Unusual tour to the Fox Tucson Theatre on Sunday, June 23. You can read Mari Herreras' review in the June 27 dead tree Weekly ...

• C. Elliott
• Cyndi Lauper at the Fox Tucson Theatre

Yesterday, USA Today released a Zagat-created list of the 20 best Mexican food restaurants in the country.

Astoundingly, there were zero restaurants from Arizona on their list.

Sure, there were mentions of restaurants from price ranges all over the scale, $9 to $70 for a meal with a drink and a tip, from states around the country — but none from the Old Pueblo...or Phoenix, for that matter.

Apparently, New Orleans has better Mexican food. As does Honolulu, Baltimore, Atlanta, Washington and Orlando.

You know — hotbeds of Mexican culture and cuisine.

Now, if you're so inclined, you can check out the list over at azcentral.com — but personally, I'd recommend that you check out our Best of Tucson winner for the past 7 years, Cafe Poca Cosa; the long-time favorite, El Charro Cafe; Mi Nidito, which played host to President Bill Clinton; nationally-renowned purveyors of Sonoran Hot Dogs, BK and/or El Guero Canelo; the beloved Taqueria Pico de Gallo; one of the numerous delicious taco carts around town; or one of my favorites, Guadalajara Grill.

We've all got our preferences in this town, sure. But one thing's for certain: Zagat ain't got nothin' on us, Tucson.

Yesterday, Texas Senator and Goddamn Hero Wendy Davis intended to stand for 13 hours, filibustering before her fellow state senators to block abortion-restricting legislation known as Senate Bill 5 from being passed on to Governor Rick Perry's desk, where he would have signed it into law.

Her filibuster was cut short, after ten hours, when the Texas Senate President and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst determined that she had gone off topic too many times.

What followed was incredible, as Texas showed Davis that they had her back — literally, in the case of the back brace offered to her midway through her filibuster.

Her fellow senators raised parliamentary inquiries, questioning the rulings of Dewhurst, clarifying the nature of various violations of decorum — basically, stalling.

With fifteen minutes to go, the members of the gallery began cheering, raising a raucous din that interrupted the Senate roll call, and stopped any potential vote for SB 5 in its tracks.

And they won.

Not without controversy though, as the Texas Senate claimed to have passed the measure just before the deadline.

However, as the Daily Dot notes, that's not quite what happened:

In a desperate effort to pass a controversial bill that would shutter abortion clinics in Texas, a slew of Twitter sleuths, including Circa's Anthony De Rosa and former Reuters social media editor Matthew Keys, discovered that the state legislature altered official state documents to show that the vote was passed before the midnight deadline.

In actuality, the Texas state senate did not pass the bill, SB 5, in time—thanks to defeaning cheers from the gallery from supporters of State Senator Wendy Davis, who spent more than 10 hours filibustering a vote.

"Over 170,000 of us watched the Texas GOP [on YouTube] *Break the Senate rules*, and mainstream media is ignoring that fact," writer Wil Wheaton tweeted.

So, SB 5 died. Wendy Davis has become a folk hero in the minds of abortion rights advocates. And certain members of the Texas legislature are, uh, a bit unhappy.

We had terrorist in the Texas State Senate opposing SB 5
— Bill Zedler (@Bill_Zedler) June 26, 2013

Sorry, Bill. It appears that political gamesmanship won the night in Texas.

The truest sign that your athletic program has reached the pinnacle of college sports has nothing to do with trophies, bowl victories, Final Fours or even flashy uniform combinations. Instead, it seems, it's all about the penal system.

Welcome to the club, University of Oregon football.

The Ducks and their 8,675,309 different ways to wear its highlighter yellow, green, black, white, silver and (eventually) full-color-spectrum unis, were issued a relatively harmless punishment by the NCAA on Wednesday for football recruiting violations from a few years back that more or less revolved around the use of a recruiting service. And for a player that never came to Eugene.

The nuts and bolts of the penalties: Oregon gets three years of 'probation,' which essentially means nothing in the eyes of high school juniors and seniors, who really only care about the street cred they'll get for having a helmet with wings on it; the reduction of one scholarship each of the next three years, which means that they'll be short a third-stringer for a few seasons; and some individual penalties assessed on coaches who aren't there anymore (how's the weather in Philly, Chip Kelly?) and who likely won't be in the college game again anytime soon.

What the penalty does not include, though, is any ban on the postseason, or the ultimate NCAA 'death penalty,' that being a ban on TV appearances.

That said, what really will come of this? Not much, it seems. It's not like USC, which couldn't participate in a bowl game two years ago, and as a result (along with an overall mismanagement of a gold mine of talent and recruiting base by coach Lane Kiffin) is suddenly a middle-of-the-pack program. That's not happened to Oregon, and as long as they continue to get a steady stream of Nike money and advanced Nike equipment and gear, expect the Ducks to shake off this 'punishment' with barely a few lost feathers.

Sadly, it appears that getting wrapped up in such a recruiting scandal, if you want to call it that, is par for the course in college sports. Arizona's closest brush with this came in basketball at the tail end of the Lute Olson era, when his signature on a letter sent out to prospective recruits who would be playing in an amateur hoops tourney at McKale violated some rule or another, but the extent of that situation was 'don't do that again.'

Nothing remotely like Oregon's situation has occurred with UA football, which might explain why the Wildcats have never been considered an elite program. Instead, Arizona football's history includes getting put on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1994 as a projected No. 1 team (insert SI Jinx conspiracy theories here) and not much else, other than some farcical sideline video of Mike Stoops losing his sh*t or John Mackovic famously saying 'at least they can't say I was a cheat' as he packed up his desk following a woeful 2 1/2-year stint running the program into the ground 10 years ago.

A big victory was scored by proponents of same-sex marriage across the country, as the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act that refuses federal benefits for same-sex couples.

From The Hill:

“DOMA undermines both the public and private significance of state-sanctioned same-sex marriages; for it tells these couples, and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.

The court's liberal wing joined Kennedy's opinion, which was full of rhetoric attacking DOMA as a law that aims to “disparage” and “humiliate” same-sex couples.

“DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others,” Kennedy wrote.

...

The Obama administration will have to hammer out some details of how to apply the ruling, but overall it means federal benefits are now available to same-sex couples in states that recognize their marriages.

The court also issued a separate ruling, sidestepping a judgement on California's Proposition 8 ban of same-sex marriages and deferring to a lower court ruling that named Prop. 8 unconstitutional.

From the L.A. Times:

Chief Justice John Roberts, speaking for the 5-4 majority, said the private sponsors of Prop. 8 did not have legal standing to appeal after the ballot measure was struck down by a federal judge in San Francisco.

"We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to," he said. "We decline to do so for the first time here."

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Antonin Scalia and Elena Kagan joined to form the majority.

The court’s action, while not a sweeping ruling, sends the case back to California, where state and federal judges and the state’s top officials have said same-sex marriage is a matter of equal rights.

Today's shaping up to be an interesting day in American legal history, folks.

As of this writing, (10:21 p.m. Arizona time, 12:21 p.m. in Texas,) we still have no clear, firm idea of what's going on — allegedly, the Texas Senate vote on Senate Bill 5, which would place such numerous restrictions on Texas abortion providers that nearly all providers in the state would have to close their doors, took place after the session's midnight deadline.

Everything should be clearer in the morning (ideally), but for now, we have the image of Leticia Van de Putte asking a particularly relevant question on a night when a woman's right to choose whether or not she wishes to continue a pregnancy hung in the balance:

"At what point must a female senator raise her hand and her voice to be heard over her male colleagues?" - Texas State Senator Leticia Van de Putte

Update: This Vine from the Texas Legislature is insane:

Today, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis will attempt to spend 13 hours filibustering a generally senseless state law that would, effectively, ban abortion within the state of Texas.

As of this writing, she has spent more than nine hours holding the floor of the Texas Legislature, with as little assistance as possible.

A bit of background, from the Texas Tribune (emphasis ours):

During a filibuster, a senator is limited to topics relevant to the bill being discussed and cannot eat, drink or use the restroom during the speech. The rules also prohibit sitting or leaning on a desk or chair under any circumstances when the senator has the floor and is speaking on the bill or resolution.

Filibusters end either when the senator voluntarily yields the floor or after three violations of the rules for decorum and debate. After the third violation, the Senate can vote on a point of order, which if sustained would force the senator to yield the floor, according to the Legislative Reference Library of Texas website.

The Senate might be able to force a vote on Senate Bill 5, the abortion restriction measure Davis is seeking to kill, if she yields the floor. That means that if she hopes to delay action on SB 5 — for now, anyway — Davis must speak continuously until midnight, when the session ends.

Filibustering senators are allowed to pause to take questions while on the floor. If someone asks Davis a question, it gives her a chance to stop speaking.

To clarify here, Davis will have to (and, again, has for nine hours) refrain from eating, drinking, going to the bathroom, sitting, or leaning for thirteen continual hours.

This is impressive in itself, but what's more amazing is that Davis is doing so in order to block the aforementioned SB 5, which would practically ban abortion in the state of Texas by enforcing a tremendous amount of restrictive rules:

[SB 5] would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and force many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities and be classified as ambulatory surgical centers. Also, doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles — a tall order in rural communities.

Small government!

Now, you might disagree with Davis's politics, or the manner in which she's gaming the system to kill SB 5.

But at the very least you have to respect that fact that this woman is doing her outright damnedest to challenge a law that she feels is unjust, one which even puts a control on the abortion rights of women who suffered rape or incest because hospital rape kits "clean them out" of all the pregnancy-inducing sperm cells.

Obviously.

Davis is having her very own Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment, defending the rights of people who might not even need to ever have an abortion, but feel safer having the option — and isn't having options what we all really want?

Good luck, Wendy Davis. We're standing with you.

Congressman Raul Grijalva likes what he heard today from President Barack Obama on climate change. Grijalva's press release:

Washington, D.C. — Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva today called President Obama’s newly announced climate change prevention plan “a good first step” and said he was encouraged by the president proactively addressing the issue. Grijalva, the top Democrat on the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulations and a leading environmental voice in Congress, saluted the president for taking the initiative and presenting a clear agenda to the nation.

In the speech, President Obama said the Keystone XL pipeline proposal should be blocked if it adds significant greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Grijalva said he hopes that in making a final decision, the president carefully considers the Environmental Protection Agency’s public comments on the project, released in April, suggesting that the State Department’s controversial draft environmental impact statement had not fully accounted for the pipeline’s likely atmospheric impacts.

“This decision will set a tone on environmental policy in Washington for years to come,” Grijalva said. “The fate of this project will define much of the legacy of this administration and others to follow. I’m encouraged by the president’s clear and genuine interest in preventing more damage to our atmosphere, and I hope that consideration is foremost in his mind when the final decision is made.”

Everyone knows the story of Monica Lewinsky, President Bill Clinton's then-23-year-old intern with whom he had an "improper relationship." But, Clinton wasn't the only married man stepping out with Lewinsky.

Her high school drama instructor, Andy Bleiler, admitted to starting an affair with Lewinsky in 1992 (after she started college, which makes it a little bit better, I guess?), continuing partway through her affair with the president.

Letters, clothes, autographed pictures of the Clintons and other gifts from Lewinsky (or, as she signed her name, "Monstreeka") to Bleiler and his family were reviewed during the investigation about the affair with Clinton. Now, Kate Nason (Bleiler's now ex-wife), has offered up the goodies for history nerds and Clinton fangirls to fight over in an online auction For just a little bit more than $3,000, it can all be yours.

The auction ends at 5 p.m. on Thursday. If you win, I'm willing to buy one of the letters off you.