On Monday, just one day after President Obama delivered a speech at a vigil in Newton, Connecticut calling the nation to action against gun violence, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney wouldn’t say if gun safety legislation was a top priority for the administration in the second term.

Carney reiterated Obama’s support for banning assault weapons and called gun control “extremely important,” but didn’t elaborate on what the president would do moving forward:

CARNEY: We have a lot of priorities as a nation. And this president will work on a series of issues that he considers priorities for the nation. And I think that we all as a country need to have the bandwidth to move forward on all of them. He certainly will do that.

Q: But Jay, as legislative items go, is this now a priority?

CARNEY: I’m not going to rank priorities. This is clearly extremely important.

Q: He made it sound like this was the most important thing on the nation’s agenda.

CARNEY: I’m not going to rank priorities. The president just met with the Speaker of the House and to continue discussions on the fiscal cliff and efforts to get our deficits under control. We have the priority of immigration reform. We have a further steps we need to enhance economic growth and job creation — and we need to take meaningful action when it comes to the problem and surge of gun violence in America. We need to do all of it. And this president is committed to just that.

Asked by ABC’s Jack Tapper what the administration has done to get guns off the streets, Carney simply reiterated that Obama backs the assault weapons ban. “He supports legislation that is designed to ban some weapons. But as you know, this is a complex issue and it requires complex solutions,” he said.

In a little-noticed September speech at the Cherish Life Ministries Christian Life Summit, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), the state Republican Party’s apparent choice for governor in 2013, took aim at the Catholic Church for its advocacy on behalf of the poor, immigrants, and the uninsured. Because the Church’s leadership has advocated for the government to provide a social safety net, a role he believes is the responsibility of the Catholic Church itself, Cuccinelli said, “they have made themselves out to be nothing but the largest special interest group in America.”

Though the gathering was titled “Defending the ‘Least of These,’” Cuccinelli, a devout Catholic, blasted his church for attempting to do just that:

I’m probably not the guy most Catholic bishops care to see anymore because I zero-in on them every time I spot them in the room and they get sort of the three-minute version of the church piece of this. They’ve helped create a culture of dependency on government, not God. And rarely do you see the two – once churches get out of the business of serving the poor, or not get out of the business but hand over and argue that they shouldn’t be the primary institution in a society that is responsible for service to the poor.

Watch the video:

The comments convey his extreme view that the government should not provide services to those with the least. But when he claims that churches are asking the government “to step up and take on their role,” Cuccinelli unfairly suggests the Catholic Church has abdicated its own role in helping the poor. Through Catholic Charities USA, the Catholic Church supports a wide array of programs aimed at reducing poverty in America. These include programs providing housing for the homeless, helping formerly homeless people rebuild their lives, and distributing food to the hungry. Both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney praised their vital work in serving the nation’s poor. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development also gives millions of dollars in grants annually to programs that work to address the root causes of poverty in America.

A spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told ThinkProgress that in 2010, Catholic Charities USA provided food services to more than 7 million people, housing services to almost 500,000, and emergency services including assistance with clothing and prescription drug purchases to nearly 2 million.
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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) turned heads last month when he told GQ Magazine that he didn’t know the age of the earth and sparked speculation that he is laying a foundation for a 2016 presidential run. “I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries,” he insisted.

But on Wednesday Rubio walked back his remarks, telling Politico’s Mike Allen that he could have given a “better answer, a more succinct answer.” The Florida senator said he recognized that scientists agree that the earth is at least 4.5 billion years old and explained that this belief is not inconsistent with his faith. He also claimed that his answer is similar to how then-presidential candidate Barack Obama replied to the question in 2007. Here is Rubio:

RUBIO: There is no scientific debate on the age of the earth. I mean, it’s established pretty definitively, it’s at least 4.5 billion years old. I was referring to a theological debate, which is a pretty health debate. And the theological debate is … how do you reconcile with what science has definitively established with what you may think your faith teaches. Now for me, actually, when it comes to the age of the earth, there is no conflict. I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And I think that scientific advances have given us insight into when he did it and how he did it, but I still believe God did it…. I just think in America we should have the freedom to teach our children whatever it is we believe. And that means teaching them science, they have to know the science, but also parents have the right to teach them the theology and to reconcile the two things.

Watch it:

“My faith teaches that [the earth being 4.5 billion years old] is not inconsistant. God created the universe. In the beginning, out of nothing, God created heavens and the earth,” he said. “The more science learns, the more I’m convinced that God is real.”

Former House Republican Leader Richard “Dick” Armey (R-TX) confirmed Monday that he has left his position as chairman of FreedomWorks in what appears to be an acrimonious break from the right-wing group he has lead for nearly a decade. Mother Jones reports he told the Tea Party-linked astroturfing group, in a letter, “I expect that Freedom Works shall remove my name, image, and signature from all its letters, print media, postings, web sites, videos, testimonials, endorsements, fund raising materials, and social media, including but not limited to Facebook and Twitter.” An AP report Tuesday noted that Armey will receive $8 million in severance pay, over 20 years, from a wealthy board member.

Armey, who left Congress in 2003 and became a corporate lobbyist. He also joined the Koch-backed Citizens for a Sound Economy. In 2004, the group split into two: Armey’s FreedomWorks and David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Foundation. Armey served as chairman of FreedomWorks from 2004 to November 30, 2012, receiving a $500,000 annual salary from the group and its affiliates.

While Armey and FreedomWorks have received a great deal of credit of incubating the Tea Party movement, Armey’s tenure was largely defined by a series of failures:

1. Despite spending millions on independent expenditures, the group failed to elect almost any of its favored candidates in 2012. FreedomWorks and its related entities spent at least $19 million on the 2012 elections. They spent at least $500,000 per race to defeat Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Rep.-Elect Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), Sen.-Elect Tim Kaine (D-VA), and President Obama. All won. They spent more than $2.5 million in Indiana’s Senate race to replace conservative Republican Sen. Dick Lugar with an even more conservative Republican; while their favored candidate won the primary, he was defeated by Democrat Joe Donnelly by more than 5 points in the general. And a nearly $1 million effort to defeat not-conservative-enough Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch in Utah also proved a huge disappointment: Hatch won his primary with two-thirds of the vote. Among the group’s beefs with Hatch: he voted for many of the same-debt limit increases that Armey backed during his House tenure.

2. Armey unsuccessful pushed for an end to federal funding for higher education. FreedomWorks believes the “size and scope of government must be returned to a level that the nation can afford.” In 2010, Armey told CNN that that size and scope should not include any support for higher education. Asked if he would prefer wanted federal funding at all, he said, “No. I don’t think the federal government’s involvement in education has benefited the students of America.” The statement ignored the billions of dollars in federally subsidized loans and grants that enable tens of millions of Americans students to be able to afford to go to college — and the proposal was not embraced by Republicans or Democrats.

3. FreedomWorks unsuccessfully proposed eliminating Medicare and Social Security as we know them. On the FreedomWorks website, the group says the “only true path to reform” on Social Security, Medicare, and entitlements, “is to greatly increase recipients’ ownership and control.”
In a 2010 interview, Armey — who has called Social Security a “corrupt Ponzi scheme” — explained that this means we should make these programs “voluntary.” Such a move would undoubtedly destroy the nation’s vital social safety net. The vast majority of Americans support these programs and have rejected proposals to make less radical changes. Armey even failed in his own bizarre attempt to have federal courts to rule him ineligible for Medicare.

4. FreedomWorks unsuccessfully sought to block the Recovery Act. As part of its opposition to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the group joined with other conservative organizations to launch ReadTheStimulus.org. The site encouraged people to read the bill, saying “$850 Billion, 1588 pages, and counting… somebody needs to read it!” Armey later conceded that he never read the bill himself. But this wasn’t entirely a failure for Armey — while the bill became law and saved or created hundreds of thousands of jobs, he was able to make money as a lobbyist helping corporate clients seeking stimulus funds.

5. FreedomWorks unsuccessfully tried to protect the right of insurance companies to discriminate against patients based on preexisting conditions. FreedomWorks strongly opposed Obamacare and continues to call the law’s individual mandate unconstitutional even after the Supreme Court rejected that claim. But more surprising was Armey’s argument against the provisions in the bill banning discrimination by insurers against people with pre-existing medical conditions. In a 2009 interview, he said that if people have “diabetes because they eat like a pig,” the government should not force companies to insure them. The wildly popular pre-existing conditions ban is one of the few pieces of Obamacare that even House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (VA) wants to keep.

Explaining his departure, Armey told the AP his “differences with FreedomWorks are a matter of principle.”

Rick Santorum has joined WorldNetDaily, a conspiracy theory blog best known for its indefatigable work advancing the birther movement, as an exclusive columnist.

The former Pennsylvania senator, who was voted out of office in 2006, will use the perch to remain in the conservative consciousness as he eyes another presidential bid in 2016. His column will be featured on the site every Monday.

Santorum’s extreme views will fit in well at WorldNetDaily. In the past, he has compared homosexuality to bestiality, told rape victims they shouldn’t be permitted to get an abortion but rather should “make the best out of a bad situation,” and said food stamps are unnecessary because obesity rates are so high.

Culling WorldNetDaily’s conspiracy theories to a manageable list is a herculean task, but here are a few choice headlines:

• ARPAIO: ‘PROBABLE CAUSE’ OBAMA CERTIFICATE A FRAUD
• POSTMAN: AYERS FAMILY PUT ‘FOREIGNER’ OBAMA THROUGH SCHOOL
• MICHAEL SAVAGE: WAS BREITBART ASSASSINATED?
• OBAMA’S ‘MISSING YEAR’ AT COLUMBIA FOUND?