“Donald Trump: Mean-Spirited GOP Won’t Win Elections.” That was the priceless, Onion-worthy headline on the conservative Web site Newsmax yesterday. But it was a very serious interview with Donald Trump, the man who perpetuated the mean-spirited and racist birther lie against President Obama during and after his own flirtation with running for the Republican nomination for president.

“Republicans didn’t have anything going for them with respect to Latinos and with respect to Asians,” Trump told Ronald Kessler of Newsmax. “The Democrats didn’t have a policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, but what they did have going for them is they weren’t mean-spirited about it.” And then Trump told Kessler this about Mitt Romney and “self deportation.”

“He had a crazy policy of self deportation which was maniacal,” Trump says. “It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote,” Trump notes. “He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.”

Despite campaigning for him, Trump was never a big fan of Mitt Romney. That’s why his body slam of the Republican nominee didn’t surprise me. Still, after engaging in some of the most mean-spirited rhetoric of the campaign Trump certainly earned an arched eyebrow for this pot-and-kettle moment. John Sununu actually beat Trump for the gold star in mean-spiritedness, but the Donald showed for almost two years that he is well acquainted with this ugly art.

Okay, Republicans who want a majority party: Here’s your chance.

Today’s big political news is that Shelley Moore Capito is running for the Senate in West Virginia. She’s been passing on opportunities to run for some time now, as she's generally been considered the GOP's best potential candidate in that state, which has trended strongly Republican over the last two decades. Don’t forget that West Virginia was one of only five states (plus the District of Columbia) to stick with Jimmy Carter in 1980 and then one of ten (plus the District) to support Mike Dukakis in 1988. In 2012, it was the fifth strongest state for Mitt Romney. That’s about as big a movement as a state can make, and it makes the two West Virginia Democrats in the Senate something of an oddity – and it makes Jay Rockefeller (or an open seat if he retires) a huge target for the GOP.

There’s a crisis of federalism happening in Colorado and Washington state since both states voted this month for moving toward marijuana legalization. Possession of less than an ounce of marijuana in Denver would be legal at the state level but illegal at the federal level, and nobody is sure what exactly that means.

The Post, in an editorial today, quickly dismisses the options of nullifying the federal law and sending federal agencies after legal-in-that-state tokers. Instead, the editorial board proposes a plausible-deniability, unofficial sanction of the state regulations — no big rule change, just a shift of priorities, much like the Justice Department’s decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act while essentially waiting for the courts to strike it down.

As can be expected, most of our commenters find this essentially wussy, an unnecessary contortion on the way to fuller, national legalization that everyone sees coming in the years ahead.

FergusonFoont says the only legal problem with marijuana is where it’s illegal:

The reason that marijuana is illegal today is that it has been illegal for a while. There is no actual reason worthy of the name for its continued illegality. The laws against it damage more lives than its sale, possession and use ever could, even in theory, and they introduce into its market the aspect of violence, and its undeserved reputation as a “gateway drug,” that would be utterly eliminated by its legality.

aahpat sees marijuana legislation at the root of bigger political issues and says politicians need to pay attention because pot is more popular than they are, even when they win:

Keeping pot illegal keeps millions of poor and/or minority Americans in prison and out of the polling booth.

Keeping drugs illegal is a very effective act of economic warfare being waged by the Jim Crow conservative white population upon the poor and minorities of America. Richard Nixon and the Dixie-crats knew this when they colluded to create the Jim Crow Drug War in 1971. It siphons countless billions of dollars in economic vitality out of these communities while at the same time criminally disenfranchising enough members of the community to neutralize the electoral empowerment effects of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Consider, in 2008, Massachusetts gave more than 65% of its votes to a pot reform initiative while giving only Barack Obama 62%.

Also in 2008 there were more than 55 million pot smokers in America. More than 18% of the United States population.

In Colorado this year Obama received 50% of the vote. Pot legalization received 53.3%.

Jon Meacham, author of the new book “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power,” and I are on the same page when it comes to the use of soft executive power. In an opinion piece for the New York Times today, the historian argues that President Obama should emulate his 19th-century predecessor by socializing with Congress.

“Here is a modest proposal, one drawn from the presidency of another tall, cool, cerebral politician-writer: use the White House and the president’s personal company to attempt to weave attachments and increase a sense of common purpose in the capital,” Meacham writes. “Dinners with the president — or breakfast or lunch or coffee or drinks or golf — won’t create a glorious bipartisan Valhalla, but history suggests that at least one of our greatest presidents mastered the means of entertaining to political effect.”

Meacham is right. Obama needs to step up his game on this front. As I noted earlier this month, the president is not a fan of the theater of politics. He’s about getting things done. And there’s no better way to help move things along than sharing the trappings of power.

Nothing evokes the aura of authority than Morgan Freeman. His recognizable “voice of God” has been used to bring instant authority to the “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,” Visa’s Olympics commercials and the Obama reelection campaign.

Now, Freeman has lent his weighty voice to a pro-marriage equality ad for the Human Rights Campaign.

America stands at the dawn of a new day. Freedom, justice and human dignity have always guided our journey toward a more perfect union. Now across our country, we are standing together for the right of gay and lesbian Americans to marry the person they love. And with historic victories for marriage, we’ve delivered a mandate for full equality. The wind is at our back. But our journey has just begun. Join us.

The historic victories include three states — Maine, Maryland and Washington State — saying yes to same-sex marriage at the ballot box for the first time on Election Day. Also, Minnesota voters rejected a constitutional amendment to ban it. And with the Supreme Court meeting this week to decide what it might do on the question of marriage equality, the journey has just begun indeed.

Yes, the wind is at our back. And as HRC President Chad Griffin said, “[I]t is crystal clear that the prospect of an equal future is no longer up for debate; the question now is how soon it will arrive.” What the Supreme Court announces this week could clue us in on its ETA.