On June 25, President Obama gave a speech outdoors at Georgetown University, on the subject of climate change. Near the end of the speech, at 52 minutes and 44 seconds, he said he is “willing to work with anybody, Democrats, Republicans, independents, Greens, Libertarians, anybody.” As far as is known, this is the first time President Obama, since he has been president or even since he first became a presidential candidate, has publicly mentioned those political parties. Thanks to David Curtis for this news. Curtis watched the speech live on-line and wrote down that sentence. It takes a few days for presidential speech texts to appear on the whitehouse.gov web page.

The Tampa Bay Times has this interesting PolitiFact analysis of Stephen Nodine’s chances of getting on the Republican primary ballot, in the upcoming special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat in Alabama’s First District. Nodine is a Republican who has been elected to city and county office in Mobile County. He is serving a two-year term in prison, and he wants to run in the special election as a Republican. The party’s state chair says Nodine can’t meet the party’s qualifications.

On June 21, a Washington state court ordered the Washington State Campaign Finance Commission not to take legal action against a committee that backed a recall, at least for the time being. The recall committee had been the beneficiary of pro bono legal assistance, when it sued the state over donation limits to recall committees. Even though the recall committee won that federal case in U.S. District Court, the Commission now argues that the free legal assistance to the committee was an illegal campaign contribution. The state court recent order tells the Commission to cease its enforcement, at least until the 9th circuit weighs in on the general issue of whether contributions to recall committees can be limited. See this story.