podesta_email_01364.txt

podesta-emails 56,311 words email

P17 D6 P22 V11 V16

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News Clips* *June 6, 2015* *TODAY’S KEY STORIES..................................................................................... **4* *Hillary Clinton, Voting Rights and the 2016 Election* // NYT // Editorial Board – June 5, 2015........ 4 *Is Hillary Clinton becoming the candidate of big ideas?* // WaPo // Paul Waldman – June 5 2015... 6 *Hillary Clinton to Las Vegas Latino community: You can count on me* // Politico // Adam Lerner – June 5, 2015.................................................................................................................................................. 7 *SOCIAL MEDIA................................................................................................. **8* *Elise Gould (6/5/2015, 10:20 am)* - Jobs moving in the right direction, but the recovery is far from over (see colorful chart, thanks to @alyssalynn7)........................................................................................ 8 *Tim Hogan (6/5/2015, 12:33 pm)* - Pick up a copy of @elmundolv today and check out @HillaryClinton's op-ed on #immigrationreform! #Hillary2016.............................................................................................. 8 *Frank Thorp V (6/5/2015, 2:49 pm)* - The House #Benghazi Cmte will depose @HillaryClinton ally Sidney Blumenthal behind closed doors on June 16th at 10am................................................................ 8 *Alex Leary (6/5/2015, 3:36 pm)* - .@JebBush in a new race for cash: http://bit.ly/1JsdQE0............ 8 *Alex Hanson (6/5/2015, 5:35 pm)* – .@BernieSanders returning to Iowa next week. Fri. June 12 in DSM; Sat in Marshalltown, CR; Sun in Waterloo, IA Falls & Indianola. #IAcaucus............................................ 8 *Gabriel Debenedetti (6/5/2015, 5:28 pm)* - Martin O'Malley will sit for an interview with @MariaESalinas on Univision on Sunday, shortly after Hillary penned a Spanish op-ed in Vegas................................. 8 *HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE............................................................................. **8* *Clinton accuses GOP rivals of making it difficult to vote* // AP – June 5, 2015................................. 8 *Why Voting Rights Reforms Aren’t a Silver Bullet for Hillary Clinton* // WSJ // Linda Killian – June 6, 2015 10 *Democrats fret over recent Hillary Clinton polling* // Politico //Katie Glueck – June 5, 2015.......... 11 *De Blasio ally to hold Clinton fundraiser* // Politico // Annie Karni – June 5, 2015........................ 13 *House Sets Date for Grilling of Hillary Clinton Aide* // Bloomberg // Billy House – June 5, 2015.... 14 *Hillary Clinton's Grand Strategy to Beat the GOP: Take Bold Positions Early and Often* // The New Republic // Brian Beutler – June 5, 2015...................................................................................................... 14 *Hillary Clinton Hits the GOP on Voter Suppression* // Slate // Jamelle Bouie – June 5, 2015......... 16 *Clintons to attend Beau Biden's funeral* // The Hill // Ben Kamisar – June 5, 2015....................... 18 *Hillary Clinton Wants To Make It Easy For You To Vote* // Refinery 29 // Meredith Clark – June 5, 2015 19 *Another Controversy Over Hillary Clinton’s Time at the State Department* // The Blaze // Fred Lucas – June 5, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 20 *Hillary Clinton's Top Twitter Fan* // The National Journal // Emily Schultheis – June 5, 2015....... 21 *Longtime Clinton Insider Says Hillary Hasn’t Given ‘Convincing Explanation’ For Email, Donation Scandals* // The Daily Caller // Chuck Ross – June 5, 2015............................................................................. 22 *Commentary: Hillary Clinton's Bold Move on Voting Rights* // BET // Keith Boykin – June 5, 2015 23 *Hillary Clinton Calls the Republican Bluff on Voting Rights* // NY Mag // Jonathan Chait – June 5, 2015 25 *Hillary Clinton's Campaign Goes Even Gayer* // OUT Magazine // James McDonald – June 5, 2015 27 *Hillary goes ugly early with racism claims* // Fox News // Chris Stirewalt – June 5, 2015.............. 27 *House Benghazi committee calls Clinton friend to testify* // McClatchy // Anita Kumar – June 5, 2015 28 *Sale of Michigan company to China may haunt Clinton* // Detroit Free Press // Todd Spangler – June 5, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 28 *On Hillary Clinton's income inequality plan, de Blasio pauses -- and GOPers pounce* // NY Daily News // Celeste Katz – June 5, 2015.................................................................................................................... 31 *Clinton calls for universal, automatic voter registration; GOP not happy* // Daily Kos // Kerry Eleveld – June 5, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 32 *Meet the 30-year-old woman running Hillary Clinton's field operations* // Fortune // Nina Easton – June 5, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 33 *Hillary Clinton rakes in $200K in Greenwich* // CT Post // Neil Vigdor – June 5, 2015................... 35 *OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE................................................. **35* *O’MALLEY................................................................................................... **35* *O’Malley’s efforts on immigration reflect complex political realities* // WaPo // John Wagner & Arelis Hernandez – June 5, 2015........................................................................................................................... 35 *SANDERS.................................................................................................... **38* *Sanders wants privacy panel in defense bill* // The Hill // Jordain Carney – June 5, 2015............. 38 *Hawking shirts, buttons, Sanders opens shop* // Burlington Free Press // Adam Silverman – June 5, 2015 39 *How Bernie Sanders Will Change Your Mind About The Label ‘Socialist’* // The Elite Daily // Lani Seelinger – June 5, 2015............................................................................................................................. 40 *CHAFEE...................................................................................................... **42* *Lincoln Chafee May Be Hillary's Biggest Problem* // The Atlantic // Peter Beinart – June 4, 2015. 42 *WEBB.......................................................................................................... **44* *Former U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) has a seven-point plan to save American foreign policy.* // The National Interest Evan Gottesman – June 5, 2015.................................................................................... 44 *OTHER........................................................................................................ **46* *Bankroller of Democratic Voting Rights Cases? George Soros* // NYT // Maggie Haberman – June 5, 2015 46 *The voting conversation has shifted. That’s good news for Dems.* //MSNBC // Zachary Roth – June 5, 2015 48 *Things are looking up for President Obama* // VOX // Jonathan Allen – June 5, 2015................... 49 *Pataki, Chafee, and O’Malley: No Chance In Hell* // Town Hall // Matt Vespa – June 5, 2015........ 52 *In two minds* // The Economist – June 5, 2015........................................................................... 56 *Iowans Always Complain The Caucuses Are Getting Less Important. This Time They Have a Point.* // Slate // Josh Voorhees – June 5, 2015.................................................................................................... 58 *GOP................................................................................................................. **59* *BUSH........................................................................................................... **59* *Jeb readies for upcoming road trips* // Politico // Eli Stokols – June 5, 2015................................. 59 *Memo to Jeb Bush: Avoid foreign quagmires* // CNN // Stephen Collinson – June 5, 2015............ 60 *Jeb Bush’s struggle with conservatives* // MSNBC // Chuck Todd & Mark Murray – June 5, 2015... 61 *Jeb Bush Facing Crucial Two-Week Stretch* // Bloomberg News // Michael Bender – June 5, 2015 61 *RUBIO......................................................................................................... **64* *Rubios on the Road Have Drawn Unwanted Attention* // NYT // Alan Rappeport & Steve Eder – June 5, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 64 *Marco Rubio’s Iraq quagmire deepens: This is what a foreign policy wonk looks like?* // Salon // Simon Maloy – June 5, 2015.............................................................................................................................. 66 *Ted Cruz Labels Walker, Rubio And Jeb As ‘Moderate’* // The Daily Caller // Alex Pappas – June 5, 2015 67 *Same-sex marriage advocates pose 'real and present danger' to Christianity, Sen. Marco Rubio warns* // Christian Today // Marvie Basilan – June 5, 2015...................................................................................... 68 *PAUL........................................................................................................... **69* *Rand Paul: "We Shouldn't Do Things to Prevent People from Voting"* // Bloomberg News // David Wiegel – June 5, 2015...................................................................................................................................... 69 *WALKER..................................................................................................... **70* *Is Gov. Scott Walker putting the University of Wisconsin system in jeopardy?* // WaPo // Valerie Strauss – June 5, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 70 *Walker would sign budget with no borrowing for roads* // AP // Scott Bauer – June 5, 2015........... 72 *Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker fires up NC GOP* //The News & Observer //Taylor Knopf – June 5, 2015 73 *CRUZ........................................................................................................... **75* *Ted Cruz Wonders About Jeb Bush’s Viability* // NYT // Maggie Haberman & Kitty Bennett – June 5, 2015 76 *Ted Cruz's problems with Latinos run deeper than his policy positions* // Reuters – June 5, 2015. 76 *Ted Cruz: Campaign and super PAC have raised more than $40 million* // The Washington Times // David Sherfinski – June 5, 2015........................................................................................................... 79 *CHRISTIE................................................................................................... **80* *Chris Christie: Hillary Clinton is clueless on voter fraud* // CBS News // Jake Miller – June 5, 2015 80 *Gov. Christie attacks Hillary Clinton on voter registration* // The Record // Salvador Rizzo – June 5, 2015 81 *Chris Christie rips Rand Paul, critics of Patriot Act* // The Boston Herald // Chris Cassidy – June 5, 2015 81 *PERRY........................................................................................................ **82* *Rick Perry promises to ‘do something’ about student debt. But what did he do in Texas?* // WaPo // Danielle Douglas-Gabriel........................................................................................................................ 82 *Rick Perry Borrows Elizabeth Warren's Message, but Does It Fit?* // Bloomberg News // David Weigel – June 5, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 84 *Rick Perry hits back at Hillary Clinton over voter ID* // The Washington Times // David Sherfinski – June 5, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 86 *Perry Kickoff Generates Buzz, But Not in Key States* // Real Clear Politics // Matthew Disler – June 5, 2015 86 *Welcome Back, Rick Perry: Will 2016 Be Different Than 2012?* // Forbes // Neil Assur – June 5, 2015 87 *GRAHAM.................................................................................................... **89* *Ronald Perelman Puts Financial Clout Behind Lindsey Graham* // NYT // Maggie Haberman – June 5, 2015 89 *Lindsey Graham Offers Straight Talk With a Southern Twang* // TIME // Phillip Elliott – June 5, 2015 90 *Why Lindsey Graham matters* // The Economist – June 6, 2015.................................................. 91 *Iowans question Graham's gun rights history* // The Des Moines Register // Linh Ta – June 5, 2015 93 *Presidential candidate compares Hillary to Kim Jong Un* // NY Post // Marisa Schultz – June 4, 2015 94 *HUCKABEE................................................................................................. **94* *Huckabee: Hack exposes Obama’s weakness on China* // The Hill // Cory Bennett – June 5, 2015 94 *Duggars' Endorsements Go Missing From Mike Huckabee's Website* // ABC News // Ben Gittleson – June 5, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 95 *KASICH....................................................................................................... **96* *John Kasich blasts Clinton on voting ‘demagoguery’: ‘Come on, Hillary, you know better than that’* // The Washington Times // David Sherfinski – June 5, 2015................................................................. 96 *Kasich Sees Presidential Pathway After Jeb Bush Doesn’t Dominate* // Bloomberg News // Mark Niquette – June 5, 2015...................................................................................................................................... 97 *CARSON...................................................................................................... **99* *Ben Carson’s Speaking Career Turned Lucrative Fast, Filing Shows* // NYT // Trip Gabriel – June 5, 2015 99 *Ben Carson’s campaign faces turmoil after staff exits and super PAC chaos* // WaPo // Robert Costa & Philip Rucker – June 5, 2015.............................................................................................................. 100 *JINDAL...................................................................................................... **102* *Jindal Slams GOP-Led Congress For Waving ‘White Flag Of Surrender’ On Amnesty, Broken Promises* // The Daily Caller // Al Weaver – June 5, 2015................................................................................... 102 *Bobby Jindal Keeps Heat on '16 Hopefuls - Lincoln Chafee This Time* // Newsweek // Melissa Clyne - June 5, 2015........................................................................................................................................ 103 *OTHER...................................................................................................... **104* *Republican Candidates Assail Hillary Clinton on Voting Rights* // NYT // Maggie Haberman – June 5, 2015 104 *GOP says Clinton dividing Americans over voting rights* // AP // Ken Thomas – June 5, 2015...... 105 *Going Negative* // US News // Kenneth Walsh – June 5, 2015.................................................... 107 *TOP NEWS..................................................................................................... **108* *DOMESTIC................................................................................................ **109* *U.S. Economy Added 280,000 Jobs in May; Unemployment Rate 5.5%* // NYT // Patricia Cohen –June 5, 2015............................................................................................................................................... 109 *Pressure Rises for Higher Taxes* // NYT // John Harwood – June 5, 2015.................................... 110 *Senate Rejects Extending Veterans Benefits To Married Gay Couples And Their Kids* // HuffPo // Jennifer Bendery – June 4, 2015............................................................................................................ 112 *INTERNATIONAL...................................................................................... **113* *U.S. Was Warned of System Open to Cyberattacks* // NYT // David e. Sanger, Julie Hirschfeld Davis & Nicole Perlroth – June 5, 2015............................................................................................................. 113 *U.S. Airstrikes Whack One Thousand Islamic State Fighters a Month, Air Force General Says* // Foreign Policy // Paul MCleary – June 5, 2015..................................................................................................... 116 *OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS.................................................................... **117* *Jeb Bush and the campaign money fountain* // CNN // Errol Louis – June 5, 2015...................... 117 *Clinton goes bold on voting rights* // MSNBC // Steve Benen – June 5, 2015............................... 119 *Hillary Sides With Democracy* // Bloomberg News // Jonathan Bernstein – June 5, 2015............ 121 *Why Hillary Clinton Must Back a LGBT Full Civil Rights Law for Her Own Sake* // HuffPo // Michelangelo Signorile – June 5, 2015........................................................................................................... 122 *Republicans' revisionist history on Iraq* // The Hill // Diana Ohlbaum – June 5, 2015................. 124 *Hillary Clinton's call for easier voting is self-serving, but so what?* // LA Times // Michael Mcgough – June 5, 2015............................................................................................................................................... 125 *TODAY’S KEY STORIES* *Hillary Clinton, Voting Rights and the 2016 Election <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/hillary-clinton-voting-rights-and-the-2016-election.html> // NYT // Editorial Board – June 5, 2015* A basic fact often gets lost in the propaganda that swirls around voting laws in this country: between one-quarter and one-third of all eligible voters — more than 50 million Americans — are not registered. That alarming statistic is the backdrop to efforts by Republicans in recent years to pass state laws that restrict ballot access, a recent Democratic campaign to push back against those laws, and a bold set of proposals that Hillary Rodham Clinton laid out Thursday afternoon in a speech at Texas Southern University, a historically black college in Houston. In addition to pushing needed and long-overdue reforms, the speech highlighted the yawning gulf on voting rights between Mrs. Clinton and the Republican candidates for the White House, many of whom have been cynically committed to making voting harder for the most vulnerable citizens. “What part of democracy are they afraid of?” Mrs. Clinton asked. Most significantly, Mrs. Clinton called for universal and automatic voter registration, which would register every American citizen at 18. This would be a transformative step toward modernizing the nation’s archaic, error-filled approach to registering voters. No state currently has such inclusive registration, although Oregon came closest in March when it passed a law automatically registering eligible citizens with a driver’s license — instantly adding 300,000 voters to the rolls. Since then, 14 states have considered similar proposals to put the burden of registration on the government, where it belongs, and not on individuals. Mrs. Clinton also called for at least 20 days of early voting nationwide, including evenings and weekends. This is a proven way of reducing long lines on Election Day and making voting possible for people whose work or other commitments prevent them from getting to the polls during regular business hours. More than one-third of all votes in the 2012 election were cast early — and yet 14 states still do not offer it, and crucial swing states like Ohio and Florida have actually cut it back. Finally, Mrs. Clinton pushed to repeal punitive state laws that ban people with criminal records from voting, sometimes for life — a population that approaches six million nationwide. These are hardly new issues for the country, and the Republican Party as it now is constituted in Congress is not going to enact the laws to expand voter registration. Still, it is very encouraging to see Mrs. Clinton championing this central democratic principle so early in the campaign. President Obama said very little on voting rights until deep into his second term, even after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, freeing up Republican-dominated state governments to enact dozens of new voting restrictions that previously would have been blocked by federal law. Voter ID laws have been a particular favorite, even though their backers know full well that impersonation fraud is essentially nonexistent. In her speech Mrs. Clinton rebuked Republican presidential contenders who have signed such laws — including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Rick Perry, former governor of Texas. She called on Republicans “at all levels of government, with all manner of ambition, to stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud.” Making voting easier for all eligible voters should be the epitome of a nonpartisan issue. Unfortunately, stopping people from voting has become a key part of the modern Republican playbook. The 2016 election will be about many important issues, from income inequality to immigration to health care to education, but at its core it will be a test of two ideas of what it means to be a democracy. One is currently embodied by what Mrs. Clinton called “a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other.” The other, as Mrs. Clinton put it, is that, “We should do everything we can to make it easier for every citizen to vote.” *Is Hillary Clinton becoming the candidate of big ideas? <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/06/05/is-hillary-clinton-becoming-the-candidate-of-big-ideas/> // WaPo // Paul Waldman – June 5 2015* Hillary Clinton has long been known as a cautious politician who leaned more toward methodical plodding than grand gestures. She launched her 2000 campaign for the Senate with a purposely low-key “listening tour.” As a senator, she cultivated a reputation as a workhorse who eschewed high-profile media appearances for the mundane work of writing legislation. Throughout, she staked out a place as a familiar kind of Democrat — a little more liberal on social issues, a little more conservative on foreign policy and national security — but nobody’s idea of an ideologically transformative figure. But now that she’s making her second run for the White House, is Hillary Clinton becoming the Candidate of Big Ideas? It’s starting to look that way. When yesterday she proposed national automatic voter registration — registering all Americans to vote when they turn 18 unless they opt out — it surprised everyone. While universal registration isn’t an idea no one had thought of before, Clinton took a Democratic priority (expanding voting rights and boosting turnout) and advanced it with an ambitious, national plan that went beyond what most prominent Democrats had advocated before. We saw something similar on immigration, where Clinton didn’t just support the Obama administration’s position on immigration but went beyond it,proposing that the parents of “DREAMers” be allowed to stay in the country legally. She also called for an end to the “era of mass incarceration,” an era her husband had no small part in creating. She has signaled an intention to go bold in the area of campaign finance, floating the idea of a Constitutional amendment to get so-called “dark money” out of politics (though she has not gone so far as to make formal proposal). This kind of thing is surprising coming from Clinton, given that she’s the likely nominee of the incumbent party. Usually, a candidate in that position will propose a program that sounds like, “Let’s continue what we’ve been doing, but a little better.” Generally it’s the opposition party, which has had eight years to contemplate everything they dislike about current government policy, that’s more prone to come up with dramatic ideas for change. Not only that, the candidate pushing Big Ideas is often one struggling in the polls who is looking for a way to distinguish himself from the pack. You might expect some dramatic policy proposals from some of the lower-tiered Republican candidates. Clinton, on the other hand, could easily ride to the Democratic nomination without putting out a single policy paper. But for now she’s taking a very different course. As a media strategy, it’s very effective: the less-than-threatening nature of her primary opposition gives her the freedom to put out big ideas and get attention for them; after a temporary drought of campaign activity, she can get plenty of coverage for a speech that includes a significant policy proposal. To be sure, we shouldn’t exaggerate the extent to which the Clinton campaign is focused on big ideas. We’re only talking about a few so far, and there are other topics like the Trans-Pacific Partnership on which she’s been vague. Part of the explanation for Clinton’s previous cautious approach lies in the failure of Bill Clinton’s health care overhaul, which she ran during the early days of his presidency — and which would have been a much more radical change than the Affordable Care Act. Supposedly, the lesson she learned from that experience was that people fear change, and when you propose something too sweeping it’s difficult to succeed and easy to get burned. But it’s starting to look as if Clinton has decided that being the candidate of big ideas might be a pretty good plan. Particularly when the ideas themselves are likely to be popular. *Hillary Clinton to Las Vegas Latino community: You can count on me <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/hillary-clinton-el-mundo-op-ed-las-vegas-118685.html#ixzz3cE6g4PlJ> // Politico // Adam Lerner – June 5, 2015 * Hillary Clinton published an op-ed Friday in a small Las Vegas-based Spanish-language newspaper about immigration, reassuring the Spanish-speaking Hispanic community in Nevada that they “can count on [her].” Beginning with the stories of three young immigrants she met in North Las Vegas, one who started a business, one who wants to become a doctor, and one who wants to go to law school, Hillary articulated her support for comprehensive immigration reform and attacked unnamed Republican candidates for their stances. “As a mother, grandmother, and American, I don’t know how a person can meet these young people that have contributed so much to their communities and represent so much potential for the future, and think of threatening them and their families with deportation,” Clinton wrote. “And still that is precisely what almost every Republican candidate would do.” The article goes on to boast of Clinton’s senate record on immigration and to express support for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants as well as deferred action for the families of so-called dreamers. “Don’t deceive yourselves: when they speak of ‘legal status,’ it’s a code for ‘second class status’,” Clinton wrote of Republican immigration proposals that do not provide a pathway to citizenship. Though the former secretary of state doesn’t speak Spanish, the article begins by saying that it was written by Hillary R. Clinton and translated by her campaign team. “It’s the first article of its type written by the ex-secretary of state,” the preamble reads. “I will continue fighting for immigration reform,” Clinton said in the headline. The article was published Friday in El Mundo Las Vegas, a local Spanish-language paper that has not yet posted it online. According to the paper’s Twitter, it has existed in the area for 35 years and reported on Hillary Clinton’s visit to Rancho High School in Las Vegas on May 5. *SOCIAL MEDIA* *Elise Gould (6/5/2015, 10:20 am) <https://twitter.com/eliselgould/status/606827882590142465/photo/1> - Jobs moving in the right direction, but the recovery is far from over (see colorful chart, thanks to @alyssalynn7)* *Tim Hogan (6/5/2015, 12:33 pm) <https://twitter.com/timjhogan/status/606866920994828289> - Pick up a copy of @elmundolv today and check out @HillaryClinton's op-ed on #immigrationreform! #Hillary2016 * *Frank Thorp V (6/5/2015, 2:49 pm)* <https://twitter.com/frankthorpNBC/status/606895610822840321>* -** The House #Benghazi Cmte will depose @HillaryClinton ally Sidney Blumenthal behind closed doors on June 16th at 10am* *Alex Leary (6/5/2015, 3:36 pm)* <https://twitter.com/learyreports/status/606892254503026689>* - .@JebBush in a new race for cash: http://bit.ly/1JsdQE0 <http://bit.ly/1JsdQE0>* *Alex Hanson (6/5/2015, 5:35 pm)* <https://twitter.com/theAlexHanson/status/606937517846347777>* – .@BernieSanders returning to Iowa next week. Fri. June 12 in DSM; Sat in Marshalltown, CR; Sun in Waterloo, IA Falls & Indianola. #IAcaucus* *Gabriel Debenedetti (6/5/2015, 5:28 pm)* <https://twitter.com/gdebenedetti/status/606935954369179648>* - Martin O'Malley will sit for an interview with @MariaESalinas on Univision on Sunday, shortly after Hillary penned a Spanish op-ed in Vegas.* *HRC** NATIONAL COVERAGE* *Clinton accuses GOP rivals of making it difficult to vote <http://nypost.com/2015/06/05/clinton-accuses-gop-rivals-of-making-it-difficult-to-vote/> // AP – June 5, 2015 * Hillary Rodham Clinton accused potential Republican presidential rivals such as Jeb Bush of Florida and Scott Walker of Wisconsin on Thursday of trying to make it more difficult for millions of Americans to vote, laying down an early marker on voting rights in her Democratic presidential campaign. Clinton, in one of her most partisan speeches as a presidential candidate, directly criticized Walker, Bush and two other Republican presidential hopefuls, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. She described those current or former governors as members of a GOP vanguard that has made it more difficult for students to vote, cut the numbers of days set aside for early voting and demanded voter ID provisions. “Today Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting,” Clinton said at historically black Texas Southern University. “What part of democracy are they afraid of? I believe every citizen has the right to vote and I believe we should do everything we can to make it easier for every citizen to vote.” The issue is closely watched by black voters, who supported President Barack Obama by sweeping margins in 2008 and 2012 and will be an important constituency for Clinton to mobilize in next year’s election. She received an award named after Barbara Jordan, the late Texas congresswoman and civil rights leader, and the event came a little more than a week before Clinton is scheduled to deliver a major speech in New York that aides are billing as a formal campaign kickoff. Directly challenging Republicans by name, which Clinton has largely avoided, she plunged into a partisan debate over voting rights that has roiled statehouses across the country. Democrats contend restricting voter access and registration purposely aims to suppress turnout among minority and low-income voters. Republicans say the voting changes are crucial to guard against voter fraud. Under Walker, for example, Wisconsin requires proof of residency except for overseas and military voters. The state shortened the early voting period and increased residency requirements. In a statement, Walker responded to the criticism leveled by the Democratic candidate: “Hillary Clinton’s rejection of efforts to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat not only defies logic, but the will of the majority of Americans. Once again, Hillary Clinton’s extreme views are far outside the mainstream.” Clinton said that in New Jersey, Christie had vetoed a bill to extend early voting. She said as Florida’s governor, Bush had conducted a “deeply flawed” purge of eligible voters, by having the names of people who were mistakenly thought to be felons removed from voting rolls. Perry, who announced his presidential campaign earlier Thursday, approved laws in Texas that discriminated against minority voters, Clinton said. Republicans, Clinton said, should “stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud and start explaining why they’re so scared of letting citizens have their say.” Clinton said the US should take dramatic steps to expand the right to vote, with universal, automatic voter registration for young people, and a new national standard of no fewer than 20 days of early, in-person voting, including weekend and evening voting. In the home state of President Lyndon Johnson, architect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Clinton said the Supreme Court ruling had “eviscerated” the law, making it more likely that minority voters, the elderly and others would face consequences. Democrats have signaled plans for a large-scale legal fight against new voter ID laws and efforts to curtail voting access. Party attorneys recently filed legal challenges to voting changes made by GOP lawmakers in the presidential battleground states of Ohio and Wisconsin. One of the attorneys involved in the lawsuits is Marc Elias, a top elections lawyer for Democrats who is also serving as the Clinton campaign’s general counsel. The campaign is not officially involved in the lawsuits. *Why Voting Rights Reforms Aren’t a Silver Bullet for Hillary Clinton <http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/06/06/why-voting-rights-reforms-arent-a-silver-bullet-for-hillary-clinton/> // WSJ // Linda Killian – June 6, 2015* In her speech Thursday on voting rights, Hillary Clinton suggested automatically registering all citizens to vote when they turn 18 as well as expanding early voting and online registration. Measures by Republican-controlled state legislatures to tighten voter ID laws and limit early and weekend voting hurt minority, poor, and young voters the most, she said. As many have noted, the support of those groups is seen as crucial for Mrs. Clinton to win the White House. But the struggle between Republicans and Democrats over voting administration isn’t at the core of what’s causing voters to disengage from the political process. There are benefits to making it easier for people to register, but it would take a lot more to energize potential voters who have been sitting out. A recent New York Times-CBS News poll found that Democrats, Republicans, and independents say, by overwhelming margins, that the wealthy have more influence on elections than most Americans. Eighty-four percent said they believe money has too much influence on political campaigns, and 85% said this country’s system for funding campaigns needs fundamental changes or to be completely rebuilt. Seventy-seven percent of respondents favored limiting the amount individuals can contribute to political campaigns. About the same share (78%) said that spending by outside groups should be limited. Fifty-four percent said they do not believe that money given to campaigns equals free speech, as the Supreme Court ruled in the 2010 Citizens United case that cleared the way for unlimited political spending. Who Isn't Running for President -- and Why It Matters Another Look at That IMF Paper on Debt--and What It Means for the U.S. The pervasive belief that money controls the political system and the outcome of decisions by lawmakers is almost certainly linked to widespread sentiments, reported by the Times, that the U.S. economic system in inherently unfair. Republicans and Democrats believe that income inequality is a problem and that the power and voices of the wealthy are drowning out those of most other Americans and that, as a result, government policies skew toward helping the rich get richer at the expense of most Americans. These feelings that the political and economic systems are rigged and that our political leaders aren’t paying attention to the concerns of most Americans are at the heart of why voter turnout last year was the lowest in a mid-term election since 1942. These are issues that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (D.) has made a focal point of his campaign–and they are unlikely to go away. News accounts of the millions of dollars that Mrs. Clinton and her husband have earned giving speeches and about the access to the Clintons accorded to wealthy donors to their foundation reinforce the idea that Mrs. Clinton is part of a ruling elite that is out of touch with the problems of most Americans. This is the biggest challenge for her campaign. Reforms to voting laws are important. But no matter how much easier it is for people to vote, if they don’t think their vote matters voter participation won’t increase. *Democrats fret over recent Hillary Clinton polling <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/hillary-clinton-2016-polling-concern-democrats-insiders-caucus-118667.html> // Politico //Katie Glueck – June 5, 2015 * Early-state Democrats are evenly divided over whether Hillary Clinton’s campaign should be worried about recent polls showing her highest unfavorability ratings in years. Exactly 50 percent say there’s cause for concern while the other 50 percent saw no reason for alarm. That’s the assessment of this week’s survey of the POLITICO Caucus — a bipartisan group of influential activists, operatives and elected officials in Iowa and New Hampshire. “Twenty-plus Republicans beating her up, Elizabeth Warren talking about the working man issues that terrify her, a couple of candidates like Bernie [Sanders] and Martin [O’Malley] to fill in her policy blanks and a media that feels stiffed by her lack of access, so all we can focus on is emails and the notorious Clinton Foundation and newly acquired wealth that suggests, at a minimum, the appearance of impropriety,” one Granite State Democrat said, offering an explanation for her sinking favorability. “Frankly if Hillary could step back at look at herself she would rate herself unfavorably as well.” That remark comes during a week in which two major national polls delivered troubling results, including a CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday that showed Clinton with her highest unfavorability ratings of the past 14 years. A separate poll released Tuesday by The Washington Post and ABC News found that Clinton’s favorability was just 45 percent — her lowest in that survey since April 2008, when she was in the middle of a nomination battle with Barack Obama. Caucus participants largely chalked those numbers up to a spate of unflattering stories about donations made to the Clinton Foundation, as well as scrutiny of Clinton’s email practices when she was at the State Department. Some blamed the media — the “drumbeat” of negative headlines was a common explanation for her slide in popularity. But others argued that she should engage more with the press about those subjects. “She is not proactively addressing the issues of concern to Americans,” said an Iowa Democrat who, like everyone in the POLITICO Caucus, was granted anonymity in order to speak freely. “Her refusal to take questions is taking a toll. These polls indicate that she needs to take a more proactive role. Not that she needs to be completely responsive to the media, but she can’t ignore them.” “Emails, Clinton Foundation, etc,” one New Hampshire Democrat responded. “She is taking the initial barrage from the punditocracy trying to frame the narrative of the race — which is largely about process and character, not very much about issues — and because she is not taking the bait she’s in a little bit of a roper-doper strategy right now. I think she needs to go on offense.” But many Democrats also attributed falling poll numbers to the fact that she is now a partisan candidate for political office, rather than secretary of state, and noted that she still outpaces the Republican candidates in polls. And several who responded that the Clinton campaign should be concerned by those surveys said the information should be used only to make minor adjustments. “Any candidate facing waves of partisan attacks for weeks on end sees the impact in their numbers, but the list of folks capable of sustaining this kind of a barrage and still looking this good is very small,” said a Granite Stater. Another New Hampshire Democrat, who believes the Clinton campaign should be concerned about the polls, explained, “Hillary Clinton generates extremely strong passions, both positive and negative. She needs to be completely candid and transparent about the [Clinton] Foundation’s dealings and accomplishments and cannot engage in either spin or obfuscation. As long as she is straight, truthful and credible, she will be fine.” Despite the rising negative ratings and polling suggesting high numbers of voters question her trustworthiness, three-quarters of early-state Democrats say Clinton is generating sufficient excitement about her presidential bid — especially among women. “Regular people, particularly women of all age groups are beyond excited about this candidacy,” a New Hampshire Democrat said. “Sufficient is the right choice of words,” said another New Hampshire Democrat. “Hillary is, and remains, solid in the eyes of Democrats.” Some respondents, however, wondered whether there’s enough energy and enthusiasm for the long haul. “There is almost “forced” excitement from establishment types trying to sell the Clinton brand as the perfect standard bearer for rank and file Democrats,” said one New Hampshire Democrat. “In New Hampshire, there does not appear to be a barrage of new Clinton supporters; rather, just the usual Clinton supporters.” An Iowa Democrat cautioned, “Sufficient to win a primary yes, a general election right now — we aren’t there.” On the Republican side, unsurprisingly, 94 percent of insiders said her campaign should be concerned by the polls, and 91 percent said they’re not seeing much enthusiasm about her candidacy. Several insiders likened Clinton to former Sen. Bob Dole, who won the 1996 GOP nomination but lost to Bill Clinton. “Hillary Clinton is this cycle’s version of Bob Dole. It’s her turn but holy sh**!” one Granite State Republican said. *De Blasio ally to hold Clinton fundraiser <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/de-blasio-ally-to-hold-clinton-fundraiser-118694.html> // Politico // Annie Karni – June 5, 2015 * One of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s most loyal and fiercest supporters is throwing a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. Clinton will attend a fundraiser on June 29 in Manhattan hosted by public relations executive Ken Sunshine and his wife, Nancy Hollander. The couple is co-hosting the event with Janet and Marvin Rosen, the former finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee who in 1996 was at the center of a fundraising controversy for helping to arrange sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom for wealthy Bill Clinton donors. Story Continued Below Sunshine has also been a longtime friend of the Clintons, but his strongest political tie is to de Blasio, who worked under him when he served as chief of staff to former Mayor David Dinkins. The two have remained close ever since. De Blasio served as Clinton’s campaign manager when she ran for Senate, but so far has publicly refused to endorse her, instead using the 2016 election to position himself as a national leader on progressive issues. That has made some longtime supporters of both politicians, like Sunshine, feel awkwardly caught in the middle. Sunshine, whose firm is Sunshine Sachs, hosted the first fundraiser de Blasio ever held, when he was running for a seat on the New York City Council after managing Clinton’s Senate campaign. During the 2013 mayoral race, many of de Blasio’s fundraising committee meetings were held in Sunshine’s conference room, and as Mayor, de Blasio has on occasion continued to use Sunshine’s office when he needs meeting space away from City Hall. “I love Bill, and if I’m not the first, I’ll be among the first to contribute to his reelection campaign,” Sunshine said. “That doesn’t meant I’m not going to be an early supporter and fundraiser for another friend, whose name happens to be Hillary Clinton. I assume Bill will eventually endorse her, but a lot of his friends like me are going to do it before him.” The Sunshine and Rosen fundraiser could end up being a star-studded affair. Some of Sunshine’s longtime clients include Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, Jon Bon Jovi and Leonardo DiCaprio. *House Sets Date for Grilling of Hillary Clinton Aide <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-05/house-panel-to-grill-hillary-clinton-aide-sidney-blumenthal> // Bloomberg // Billy House – June 5, 2015* Sidney Blumenthal to answer questions behind closed doors Long-time Hillary Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal is set to be interviewed on June 16 by the House committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The House Select Committee on Benghazi, in announcing Blumenthal's appearance Friday, said his deposition will be conducted in a closed session without media coverage. The move is part of the panel's investigation of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on two U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya, that led to the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Blumenthal has become a focus of the House Select Committee on Benghazi since revelations he had been sending Clinton what she called "unsolicited" memos about Libya, where he was trying to arrange business deal, while she was secretary of state. Those memos included early suggestions that terrorists were responsible for Benghazi attacks. Blumenthal did not work for the State Department but from 2009 to 2013 was employed full-time by the Clinton Foundation, founded by Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton. After 2013, Blumenthal became a consultant. His correspondence with the former secretary of state, who is now running for president, became public as a result of a batch of emails turned over to the committee after revelations that Clinton had been using a private email address and home server to conduct business while she worked for the government. Congressional Republicans have been trying for more than two years to show that Clinton failed to bolster security before the Benghazi attack and should share blame for the administration's initial, erroneous account that the attacks were not related to terrorism. The Benghazi panel's chairman, Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, has said he plans to issue a final report next year, just months before the presidential election. Democrats have accused the House Republicans of stringing out its investigation of the Benghazi attacks to undercut Hillary Clinton's campaign. *Hillary Clinton's Grand Strategy to Beat the GOP: Take Bold Positions Early and Often <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121979/clinton-automatic-voter-registration-plan-puts-gop-defensive> // The New Republic // Brian Beutler – June 5, 2015 * or the better part of 20 years now, Bill Clinton’s presidency has been almost synonymous with a hazy political concept called triangulation. Since his advisers made the term famous, it has been used to describe everything from standard-issue compromise to the willingness to confront reactionary elements in one’s own party (thinkSister Souljah) to the appropriation of another party’s ideas. The latter is as close to a proper definition as there is. One big concern bedeviling progressives is that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy will mark the return of triangulation—the preemptive ceding of ideological turf, at a time when, thanks to partisan polarization, such concessions amount to outright victories for the Republican Party. But the early days of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy suggest these fears are overblown—that she is engaged in an entirely different kind of political positioning, one that carries the promise of significant progressive victories or at least of clarifying the terms of key policy debates dividing the parties. The nature of the strategy involves staking out a variety of progressive issue positions that enjoy broad support, but it’s not as straightforward as simply identifying the public sentiment and riding it to victory. The key is to embrace these ideas in a way that makes standard Republican counterspin completely unresponsive, and thus airs out the substantive core of their agenda: Rather than vie for conservative support by inching rightward, Clinton is instead reorienting liberal ideas in a way that makes the Republican agenda come into greater focus. Most recently, Clinton has endorsed an aggressive position in support of expanded voting rights. “We have a responsibility to say clearly and directly what’s really going on in our country,” she said in her latest campaign speech Thursday, “because what is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the other.” This is standard Democratic boilerplate, but in service of something new. Most Democrats have been engaged for some time now in rearguard actions to protect voters from disenfranchisement efforts, and promote a remedy to the damage the Supreme Court did to the Voting Rights Act. These are important efforts, but easily countered. It isn’t unpopular to argue that voters should have to show ID, for instance, and it's easy to gloss over the complex nature of the Voting Rights Act in ways that obscure the real goal of these policies, which is to systemically reduce turnout among disproportionately Democratic constituencies—the poor, the young, and ethnic minorities. Clinton’s plan, by contrast, demands clarity from her opponents. She has proposed that every American, except those who opt out, be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18, and that every state offer at least 20 days' worth of early voting. Republicans can’t easily oppose this—and oppose it they must—without being explicit about the fact that they want to keep the voting rolls as trim as possible. Most Democrats likewise support President Barack Obama’s administrative efforts to liberalize immigration enforcement, and want to create a citizenship track for unauthorized immigrants. Republicans oppose both aims, but have been able to muddle that fact using vague procedural language. Generally speaking, it’s not the liberalization of immigration law they oppose, but the unilateral nature of Obama’s actions. They oppose amnesty, but keep the door to a nebulous “legal status” ajar. Both positions are malleable enough to allow the Republican presidential nominee to tack dramatically left in the general election, and gloss over the hostility the GOP has shown to immigrants since promising to liberalize after Obama’s reelection. For over a year, Democrats humored the GOP’s wordplay in order to preserve the possibility of striking a legislative compromise that includes something Republicans could call “legal status.” Now that the immigration reform process has collapsed, Clinton has dispensed with the niceties. In promising to preserve Obama’s immigration policies, she called out “legal status” as a ruse. “When [Republicans] talk about legal status,” she said, ’“that is code for second-class status.” She has taken the standard Democratic position and weaponized it. Republicans can’t pretend there’s no daylight between their views and Democrats’ views, because Clinton has defined the Republican position for them, by contrast. Because this kind of obscurantism pervades the GOP’s substantive agenda—tax policy, social insurance reforms, workplace regulation—Clinton should be able to deploy the tactic across a wide array of issues. Seizing the first-mover advantage is one of the undiscussed upsides of Clinton’s dominance in the Democratic primary field. It doesn’t guarantee her victory over a Republican opponent, but it will assure that the debate between the two of them occurs mostly above board. *Hillary Clinton Hits the GOP on Voter Suppression <http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/hillary_clinton_speaks_out_on_voting_rights_the_democratic_frontrunner_condemns.html> // Slate // Jamelle Bouie – June 5, 2015 * On Thursday, Hillary Clinton received the Barbara Jordan Public-Private Leadership Award at the historically black Texas Southern University in Houston. A former member of the House of Representatives, Jordan was the first black congresswoman elected from the South, the first black American to represent Texas in Congress, and a fierce advocate for the Voting Rights Act, fighting to extend its protections to minorities. It’s on that latter point that Clinton, speaking in acceptance of the award, made her remarks. “Forty years after Barbara Jordan fought to extend the Voting Rights Act, its heart has been ripped out,” she said. “What is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the other.” She continued: “Since the Supreme Court eviscerated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, many of the states that previously faced special scrutiny because of a history of racial discrimination have proposed and passed new laws that make it harder than ever to vote.” She’s not exaggerating. Republicans pitch their voter identification and “ballot integrity” laws as efforts to protect the voting process. But even a quick glance shows them as transparent efforts at voter suppression. In North Carolina, for example, Republicans drastically reduced early voting, ended same-day voter registration, repealed a mandate for high school voter-registration drives, eliminated flexibility in early-voting hours, reinstated felon disenfranchisement measures, authorized vigilante poll observers, and imposed an ID requirement that excluded municipal government IDs, photo IDs issued by public assistant agencies, and student IDs. At the time, the state itself estimated that as many as 318,000 voters would lack identification to vote on Election Day. Despite this, Gov. Pat McCrory described the measures as “common sense” designed to “ensure the integrity” of the ballot box and “provide greater equality in access to voting to North Carolinians,” which would be accurate, if words were meaningless. On voting rights, Clinton is calm, comfortable with the details, and eager to argue her vision. Likewise, in Wisconsin, Republicans passed a strict voter-identification law that also slashed early-voting hours, a twin move that would—noted one federal judge—“deter or prevent a substantial number of the 300,000–plus registered voters who lack ID from voting” and would disproportionately harm minority voters. And beyond laws, there are the shenanigans of local officials who implement voting rules with little oversight. “Many of the worst offenses against the right to vote happen below the radar,” explained Clinton, “like when authorities shift poll locations and election dates, or scrap language assistance for non-English speaking citizens. Without the pre-clearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, no one outside the local community is likely to ever hear about these abuses, let alone have a chance to challenge them and end them.” Overall, 21 states have put voting restrictions in place since the 2010 elections, including swing states like Florida, New Hampshire, and Virginia. Next year, in 14 of these states, those laws will be in effect for the first time. And tellingly, the prevalence of those laws has a lot to do with the demographics of the state. “Of the 11 states with the highest African American turnout in 2008, 7 have new restrictions,” notes the Brennan Center for Justice. “Of the 12 states with the largest Hispanic population growth between 2000 and 2010, 9 passed laws making it harder to vote.” Clinton didn’t shy away from that connection. “It is a cruel irony, but no coincidence, that millennials—the most diverse, tolerant, and inclusive generation in American history—are now facing exclusion,” she said, in reference to restrictions on student voting. Likewise, she explained, “Minority voters are more likely than white voters to wait in long lines at polling places. They are also far more likely to vote in polling places with insufficient numbers of voting machines … This kind of disparity doesn’t happen by accident.” To solve these problems and make an affirmative push for voting equality, Clinton wants to take two ambitious steps. First, she wants universal and automatic voter registration, with an opt-out for voters who don’t want to register. This wouldn’t be difficult. As the Center for Voting and Democracy notes, a combination of federal standards and broader registration rules would quickly increase total registration. More importantly, it solves the problems we saw in the 2014 election cycle, when mass registration efforts ran into partisan opposition from state officials. Facilitated by federal, state, and local officials, universal registration would go miles toward improving civic engagement. For the second step—actual voting—Clinton wants new federal guidelines for early voting, and national opportunities for weekend and evening voting. The goal, again, is to make it as easy as possible to join the process and participate. Indeed, by just announcing her support for these measures, Clinton helps reformers in states where change is possible. These are good ideas on the merits. They’re also great politics. Voting is one of the few issues where the partisan and ideological differences are easy to understand. Democrats want to expand access to the ballot, Republicans want to restrict it. It’s an excellent issue for activism—look at the high number of voters who went to the polls in 2012 in defiance of voter-suppression measures—and a sturdy cudgel against your political opponents, who will have to take a stand and risk a mistake or worse. Voter registration is a weird hurdle that serves no purpose. It's annoying, it takes time, and it might lead to some legitimate voters being unable to vote. What's the benefit? More to that point, Clinton attacked Gov. Scott Walker, Rick Perry, and Jeb Bush by name—blasting each for their voter ID laws—and asked Republicans to “stop fear-mongering” about a “phantom epidemic of election fraud.” Condemning Republican voter suppression, Clinton said, “It is just wrong … to try to prevent, undermine, and inhibit Americans’ right to vote. And at a time when so many Americans have lost trust in our political system, it’s the opposite of what we should be doing in our country.” Invested in voter suppression—Walker touts his ID bill to GOP audiences—Republicans will push back, attacking Clinton’s plan for its size and wide federal role. But it’s clear she’s ready for the fight. With this issue, she’s in her element: Calm, comfortable with details, and eager to argue her vision. This, in a sense, was the real beginning of the Clinton campaign, and it was effective. *Clintons to attend Beau Biden's funeral <http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/244170-clintons-to-attend-beau-bidens-funeral> // The Hill // Ben Kamisar – June 5, 2015 * Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton will attend the Saturday funeral mass for Vice President Biden’s son, Beau Biden, an aide confirmed to The Hill. Hillary Clinton and Biden are old friends, having served together in the Senate and briefly battled for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. The two often rode Amtrak together during Clinton’s Senate tenure, and Biden sometimes ended his phone calls to Clinton by saying “I love you, darling,” according to a New York Times profile from 2013. She briefly addressed Beau’s death in a tweet last Saturday night, hours after he succumbed to brain cancer. “My heart is broken for the family of Beau Biden—a wonderful man who served his country with devotion and lived his life with courage,” she said. President Obama will also attend and give a eulogy for Beau. White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Obama has spent part of Friday working on the eulogy and that he had a “personal relationship” with Beau. “The president is feeling, in a very personal way, this loss,” Earnest told reporters Friday. “While he is and his family are of course saddened by Beau’s death, I know he’s also looking forward to spending some time tomorrow celebrating Beau’s life — that he was a remarkable individual, a remarkable public servant — and talking in a personal way about his character, about the way that he felt about his family, about the way he felt about his country." The former Delaware attorney general is survived by his wife, Hallie, and his children, Natalie and Hunter. *Hillary Clinton Wants To Make It Easy For You To Vote <http://www.refinery29.com/2015/06/88691/hillary-clinton-voting-rights-millennials> // Refinery 29 // Meredith Clark – June 5, 2015 * Hillary Clinton laid out the boldest policy plan of her campaign so far — to expand and protect voting rights — and attacked a number of Republicans, by name, for their opposition to it. In a major speech at Texas Southern University on Thursday, Clinton unveiled her ambitious vision, based on a simple idea: Everyone should vote. “Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting,” Clinton said. “What part of democracy are they afraid of?” Many states controlled by Republican legislatures have passed restrictions on voting rights since 2010, and young and minority voters — who tend to vote for Democrats — have been disproportionately affected by these new laws. Now that courts have upheld the new regulations, this will be the first presidential election where millions of voters will face stringent new ID requirements, registration requirements, and drastically fewer opportunities to vote early. Clinton called on Congress to pass legislation that revitalizes the Voting Rights Act, and to implement recommendations from a bipartisan presidential commission to make voting more accessible, recommendations that include expanding absentee and early voting, making registration easier, and reducing wait times. She also voiced her support for creating a standard for early voting — advocating for an early-voting period of at least 20 days, with times that include evenings and weekends — as well as for automatic registration for all citizens when they turn 18. Clinton singled out North and South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida, and New Jersey for their voting cuts. In Texas, a gun permit is an acceptable form of ID at the polls, but student IDs are not. And Hillary’s potential campaign rival Scott Walker has slashed weekend and evening voting hours in Wisconsin, and out-of-state students at Wisconsin universities now have to get Wisconsin ID cards in order to be eligible to vote there. “We have a responsibility to say clearly and directly what’s really going on in our country — because what is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the other,” Clinton said. While universal registration for 18-year-olds is a bold proposal, Clinton didn’t specify how she would achieve it. There are different ways to make it happen, but she’ll have to win before any of her proposals stand a chance. President Obama won both his elections thanks to heavy turnout from young voters, minority voters, and first-time voters from every demographic in the country. With so many hurdles in place for those same people to get to the polls next year, the 2016 election could end up being decided by a much older, whiter, and richer subset of the country. *Another Controversy Over Hillary Clinton’s Time at the State Department <http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/06/05/another-controversy-over-hillary-clintons-time-at-the-state-department/> // The Blaze // Fred Lucas – June 5, 2015 * Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did nothing to stop the sale of a Michigan battery company to a Chinese firm, despite making complaints about it on the campaign trail last month, the Detroit Free Press reported. A123 Systems was sold to Wanxiang in early 2013. During a campaign stop in New Hampshire last month, Clinton raised concerns about the sale during a town hall meeting. “That does concern me, because a lot of foreign companies, particularly Chinese companies … are looking to buy American companies,” said Clinton, the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told the Free Press that Clinton was just paying “lip service,” since the State Department had a “role in signing off on these sales.” “She is not being honest with the American people about her record in this critical area of national security and economic policy,” Priebus said. The RNC filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department asking for all records on the A123 Systems sale to Wanxiang Group. Wanxiang, the Chinese company, bought A123 for $257 million after A123 went bankrupt when its biggest customer Fisker, an electric car company, had financial troubles. In January 2013, the government approved the sale. Clinton’s campaign told the newspaper she didn’t play any role in the review of the sale and referred questions to the State Department. The campaign said that Clinton “wants us to be the clean energy superpower for the 21st century, and that means out-competing countries like China so we can keep those jobs and companies here.” The Free Press reported that a review was never taken, and that when such reviews occur, about half of the sales do not take place, according to the Congressional Research Service. Several members of Michigan’s congressional delegation asked for a review. *Hillary Clinton's Top Twitter Fan <http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/hillary-clinton-s-top-twitter-fan-20150605> // The National Journal // Emily Schultheis – June 5, 2015 * Every time Hillary Clinton tweets, a maelstrom of replies greets her across the Twitterverse. Some commenters answer excitedly with "Hillary for president!" or "you go girl!" Many implore her to visit their states or to follow them back on Twitter. And there's no shortage of vitriol, of course: People call her a liar; they insist she's corrupt; they dismiss her as part of the 1 percent. There are tweets about Benghazi; others ask what she's hiding in her deleted emails; still more bring up foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. But the first response to many of Clinton's tweets, her campaign has noticed with amusement, comes from a user with more than 3,600 followers who goes by the Twitter handle "Monique's Mother." The reply to a tweet about Clinton holding "fireside chats" in Mason City, Iowa? "YESSS! SLAY THAT FIRESIDE, QUEEN OF POP!" To one welcoming two new staffers to the Clinton team, Monique's Mother had this to say: "YASSSS QUEENS! Like a Destiny's Child reunion! Queen of pop!" A photo of the Hillary "H" logo a campaign volunteer made out of berries garnered this response: "SLAY US WITH THOSE BERRIES!!! YASSSSS! QUEEN OF POP." "I can only hope he replies to @Beyonce with PRESIDENT! and a praise hands emoji," says Ian Sams, a Clinton spokesman. "It's only fair." The mind behind "Monique's Mother" (a reference to the movie The First Wives Club) is Nick Walsh, a 30-year-old social-media manager at an entertainment marketing firm in Los Angeles. His other pastimes include selling mounted Beanie Baby heads and clocks made of old Hardy Boys hardcovers on Etsy. When I talk to him over FaceTime, the New Jersey native tells me that his online pop-star treatment of Clinton is an ironic hobby—something he does because he "likes the absurdity" of treating Clinton the way many online fans treat mega-stars such as Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. He's also a real-life fan of Clinton's, he tells me, and has been since before her 2008 campaign. It's less about the specifics of her record than about what he calls "the female aspect": "I would love to have a female president," he says. "I think that's awesome." The impetus for Walsh's Twitter campaign was finding out that Clinton, in her own way, really did have something in common with those pop stars: She won a Grammy in 1997 for the audio version of her book It Takes a Village. Walsh tweeted about the Grammy in early May, complete with a photo of Clinton accepting the award, and said he was surprised by the positive response he got. Since then, Walsh has gone all in on his new hobby, and, despite his distaste for politics more generally, Clinton is now a regular part of his day. He has his phone set to get notifications each time she tweets, and, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. Pacific time, he'll try to reply. He does it when he wakes up in the morning, when he's sitting in a meeting at work, when he's going about his day. (When he's busy, he keeps it to a quick, standard "QUEEN OF POP"; if he has more time on his hands, he'll get more creative, and perhaps even dip into the stock of Clinton photos and gifs he has amassed.) His primary motive seems to be getting noticed—by Clinton's Twitter haters, by her campaign, and by others on the social-media site. "I want them to look forward to my tweets," he says of Clinton's team. "I want them to be like, 'The "Queen of Pop" guy is tweeting again.' " When I ask how long he'll keep it up, he replies: "Until I win a meet and greet with her." Walsh is hardly the first to find Clinton a figure ripe for ironic idolization (and Internet fun). Most famously, in 2012, the Tumblr blog Texts From Hillary used a now-iconic photo of Clinton wearing sunglasses while gazing down at her Blackberry to create a character who gives stone-cold replies to various celebrities and politicians. And that Hillary—rather than the one in the headband—left an imprint on a new generation of American voters. "Texts From Hillary was a turning point in that it kind of gave people a different way of looking at her," says Laura Olin, who ran social-media strategy for President Obama's 2012 campaign and now works with other Obama alums at the firm Precision Strategies. That image is one Clinton has been eager to embrace. When she joined Twitter back in 2013, she made the Texts From Hillary photo her avatar. And since she declared her presidential candidacy in April, her campaign has sometimes struck a playfully self-referential tone that's a notable departure from the tenor of 2008: In announcing its online store last week, for example, Clinton's campaign included what it called an "Everyday Pantsuit Tee"—an allusion to Clinton's oft-mocked signature style. Indeed, you could argue that Walsh's stunt works precisely because it contains a bit of truth: To some extent, the idea of Hillary Clinton—like the idea of, say, Oprah Winfrey—has taken on a life of its own. The Clintons have been in the public eye for so long that, beyond being a person and a politician, "Hillary Clinton" is also a persona, a character with cultural meaning. Or, as Walsh puts it, the Clintons "are almost like America's royal family—aside from the Kardashians." *Longtime Clinton Insider Says Hillary Hasn’t Given ‘Convincing Explanation’ For Email, Donation Scandals <http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/05/longtime-clinton-insider-says-hillary-hasnt-given-convincing-explanation-for-email-donation-scandals/> // The Daily Caller // Chuck Ross – June 5, 2015 * The former Clinton White House secretary of labor Robert Reich is throwing Hillary under the scooby bus. Reich says that Hillary Clinton needs to be more transparent and that she has more yet to explain concerning her use of a private email account as secretary of state and the millions of dollars she and Bill have been paid for speeches. “She hasn’t yet given a convincing explanation for why she used a private email account when she was secretary of state, and why she and her husband have made so many speeches for hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop from special interests that presumably want something in return,” the former Clinton confidant told ABC News. “In other words, she needs to be more open and transparent about everything.” Reich, who now teaches at Berkeley, also appeared to back away from his past support of Clinton, whose Democratic challengers include former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. “I’ve known Hillary Clinton since she was 19, and have a great deal of confidence in her,” said Reich, a staunch progressive. “At the same time, I agree with Bernie Sanders on much of what he says.” “As chairman of Common Cause, a nonpartisan national citizen’s group dedicated to getting big money out of politics, I don’t feel free to endorse either one of them.” Reich has not let his position at Common Cause deter him from endorsing Clinton in the past, however. He was chairman of the organization’s national board when he said he would back her in 2013. He joined the organization in 2010. *Commentary: Hillary Clinton's Bold Move on Voting Rights <http://www.bet.com/news/national/2015/06/05/commentary-hillary-clinton-s-bold-move-on-voting-rights.html> // BET // Keith Boykin – June 5, 2015 * Krystal Watson grew up in Louisiana but left after high school to attend Wiley College, a historically Black college in Marshall, Texas. There she registered to vote and signed up to help other people vote as well. But when Krystal showed up at her local polling place with a Wiley College ID, she was turned away. That's because Texas governor Rick Perry signed a law in 2011 that allows polling places to accept a concealed weapon permit for voter identification but does not accept student IDs. It's pretty clear who the Republican-controlled Texas state government wants to vote. In state after state, GOP legislatures and governors have been passing new and restrictive voting laws ever since President Obama came into office to make it harder for people of color, poor people and young people to vote. That's the message that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took to Texas Southern University on Thursday. In a speech to 2,000 people at the historically Black college in Houston, Clinton told Watson's story and proposed dramatic steps to make it easier for people like Krystal to vote. Clinton's boldest proposal is a plan for universal, automatic voter registration for every citizen in every state in the union. "Everyone, every young man or young woman, should be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 — unless they actively choose to opt out," she said. That makes a lot of sense. The United States is one of only a few democratic nations that place the entire burden of registering to vote on individual citizens, according to a study from the Brennan Center for Justice. That helps explain why 93 percent of eligible voters are registered to vote in Canada, for example, while only 68 percent of Americans are registered. "Making voting easier for all eligible voters should be the epitome of a nonpartisan issue," the New York Times wrote Friday. "Unfortunately, stopping people from voting has become a key part of the modern Republican playbook," they concluded. From Texas to Wisconsin, and all parts in between, Republicans are racing to beat the clock on voting rights. They know that America's changing demographics make it harder for Republicans to win elections when young people and people of color turn up at the polls. So rather than crafting policies to appeal to these voters, Republicans have created laws to block them from voting. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a likely Republican presidential candidate, recently signed a bill to limit the number of early voting days and prohibit it altogether on weekends. Similarly in New Jersey, governor Chris Christie, another GOP presidential hopeful, vetoed a bill that would have allowed early voting in his state. In Florida, after helping his brother win the disputed 2000 presidential election, governor Jeb Bush created a list of 48,000 Florida residents to be purged from the voting rolls. Nearly half of those purged were African-American, but only 61 people were Hispanic, in a state where Hispanics make up a significant part of the population and often vote Republican. Even in mostly Democratic Maryland, the state's new Republican governor, Larry Hogan, vetoed a bill last month that would have restored voting rights to 40,000 former felons who had completed their sentences. As Hillary Clinton said on Thursday, "Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting. What part of democracy are they afraid of?" Answer: They're afraid of Black people, young people and progressive Latinos voting in large numbers. Nearly 90 percent of Mitt Romney voters in 2012 were white, a troubling number considering the share of white voters in presidential elections is steadily declining. That's why Republicans are passing these new laws. It's not about voter fraud. The Bush administration conducted a five-year study and found virtually no evidence of voter fraud. Subsequent studies and bookshave confirmed these results. It's about rigging elections. This is America. We can't go around lecturing the world about democracy if we don't practice it here at home. We have little credibility to push for electoral reform in Africa, Latin America or the Middle East when we've made it so difficult to vote in the U.S. that 50 million of our own citizens aren't even registered. Maybe it's a self-serving political move that Hillary Clinton is calling for 20 days of early voting nationwide and asking Congress to pass legislation to fix the damage to the Voting Rights Act done by the Supreme Court in 2013. She's also calling for online voter registration and establishing the principle that no one should ever have to wait more than 30 minutes to vote. But Clinton's interest in these issues is not new. She co-sponsored the Count Every Vote Act, a bill in 2005 that the New York Times called "the gold standard of election reform." That bill would have made election day a federal holiday and restored voting rights to ex-felons. Whatever the motivation for Clinton's latest proposal, she's right on the mark. Voting is the bedrock of democracy. African-Americans died for the right to vote. *Hillary Clinton Calls the Republican Bluff on Voting Rights <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/06/clinton-calls-the-gop-bluff-on-voting-rights.html> // NY Mag // Jonathan Chait – June 5, 2015 * Yesterday, Hillary Clinton endorsed automatic voter registration for all 18-year-olds. Expanding access to voting rights is a civil-rights issue that can be justified entirely in good-government terms. At the same time, it is also a completely partisan issue. The Republican Party is in favor of making voting more inconvenient in the correct belief that winnowing the electorate operates to its partisan advantage. The Republican Party prefers to frame its stance on voting rights as a deep concern for preventing voter fraud. The most common response to this is to point out that voter impersonation is vanishingly rare — since 2000, 31 instances of it have been found, out of a billion ballots cast. But the true nature of its concern reveals itself most clearly when the party’s mania for suppression can be detached from its professed concern for preventing voter fraud and examined in naked isolation. In theory, there are a number of ways one might make voting more convenient without enabling fraud. One of them is to expand early voting. A bipartisan commission, co-chaired by Democratic campaign lawyer Robert Bauer and Republican campaign lawyer Ben Ginsburg studied voting extensively and issued a 2014 report that, among other recommendations, endorsed more early voting. The authors, who engaged in months of public hearings and consultations with officials, found that voters are willing to tolerate waits to vote if they can pick a convenient day. “What does emerge from evidence about the experience of voters is that their tolerance for wait times is considerably higher with early voting,” the report found, “Having chosen the day and time for voting that is convenient for them, early voters are described as being in a more 'celebratory' frame of mind than under the often rushed circumstances they face on Election Day when they must vote at a specific location on a specific day.” This makes perfect sense — if you can pick a day when you’re not too busy, you can stand a longer wait than having to queue up on a day you don’t pick when you might not have time to spare. The official Republican response rejected the endorsement of early voting. Letting people vote early, the Republicans reply, “diminishes the importance of Election Day.” While the bipartisan commission found that Americans enjoy the freedom to pick a convenient time to vote, the Republican Party declared that this is not the case — “Most Americans continue to prefer to vote alongside their neighbors and fellow citizens at the polls on Election Day so reform needs to start there.” This is a bit like saying most Americans prefer vanilla, therefore chocolate should not be allowed. If people prefer to vote on Election Day, they can. Now, perhaps the Republicans are simply moved by a sentimental attachment to Election Day, and they don’t want it to get less special-feeling by giving people the choice to exercise their rights at a more convenient time. In that case, there is also a solution that meets the party’s concern: make Election Day a national holiday. Clinton has endorsed that idea, too, and it’s a long-standing liberal standby. But Republicans also oppose making Election Day a national holiday. As the conservative pundit John Fund has explained, making elections a national holiday might lead to people skipping work the preceding Monday. Also, Fund argued, “There’s no doubt that many people in our increasingly mobile and hectic society want voting to be as easy and convenient as buying fast food. But too much of anything can be bad — just ask someone who has gorged on drive-thru burgers and fries.” So since convenient fast food can be bad for you, convenient voting must be bad, too. Automatic voter registration, which anybody could choose to opt out of, is another idea that would reduce bureaucratic impediments to voting without enabling fraud. It will be fascinating to watch the party generate arguments against this. The current official party response amounts to simple ad hominum criticism of Clinton (Republican spokesman: “Her exploitation of this issue only underscores why voters find her dishonest and untrustworthy,” etc.). In the meantime, conservatives bothering to express their knee-jerk hostility have fallen back on actual conviction, which is that voting should be restricted to a better class of people. An additional registration requirement, writes National Review’s Daniel Foster, “improves democratic hygiene because the people who can’t be bothered to register (as opposed to those who refuse to vote as a means of protest) are, except in unusual cases, civic idiots.” People who don’t have the flexibility to take extra time away from work to jump through whatever bureaucratic hurdles the Republicans throw in their path, or the familiarity with local agencies to navigate them smoothly, are too shiftless and ignorant to be trusted with the franchise. And so Clinton’s embrace of voting rights may not have any plausible near-term prospects for enactment. But it serves to demonstrate to the party’s core constituents something elemental, and true: At the current moment, there is only one party that respects their rights as citizens. *Hillary Clinton's Campaign Goes Even Gayer <https://mail.google.com/mail/#label/Clips/14dc47c248133c75> // OUT Magazine // James McDonald – June 5, 2015* From the get-go, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has worked to frame her as the candidate for LGBT Americans. From the inclusion of gay couples in early campaign videos, to changing her logo in support of the Supreme Court oral arguments for marriage equality, and tweeting her hopes for a 'historic' Pride month, she's certainly living up to that image. Now, she's making it easy for LGBTs to show their support for her in return, with a collection of Pride merchandise. Yaaas, Hillary! *Hillary goes ugly early with racism claims <http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/06/05/hillary-goes-ugly-early-with-racism-claims/> // Fox News // Chris Stirewalt – June 5, 2015 * If Hillary Clinton is concerned enough about her candidacy to already be making accusation of racism against her potential Republican rivals, this is going to be a long election cycle for her and for the rest of the country. Down in Texas for a campaign event aimed at restoring her relationship with black Democrats who rejected her 2008 candidacy, Clinton said that laws requiring voters to show identification at polls were part of “a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other.” Note the language here. It’s not a misguided effort with an unfortunate result, it is a deliberate effort to prevent minorities from voting. That’s not just racist, that’s evil. Clinton even made it personal, saying potential general election foes Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Rick Perry were “deliberately trying to stop” minority voters from participating. It’s language that might even give voter-ID opponent President Obama some pause, but Clinton tore into her topic with evident relish. In this candidacy, Clinton has seemed at times uncertain and usually vague. When it came to racially charged, partisan attacks, however, she was imbued with a new vitality and was nothing if not direct. In an ironic turn, Clinton accused Republicans of “fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic” as she intoned against urgent dangers to civil rights. Why would a politician go so bananas over policies that are supported by something like seven out of 10 Americans? The standard media take on Clinton’s overheated rhetoric is that she is still determined to avoid her 2008 fate by pandering to, one by one, each of the parts of the Democratic coalition. It’s been rolling out at the rate of about one group and one policy reversal or expansion a week. And that is surely the biggest part of this. But when a candidate, especially a person of pallor such as Clinton, is out making over-the-top charges of racism at this point in an election cycle it certainly does not suggest a confident candidate or campaign. While Republicans might take heart that the woman who remains ahead in hypothetical matchups against anyone in their field is throwing haymakers 17 months before Election Day, they also ought to remember what else this gambit says about Clinton: She will do whatever it takes to win. *House Benghazi committee calls Clinton friend to testify <http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/06/05/269045/house-benghazi-committee-calls.html> // McClatchy // Anita Kumar – June 5, 2015 * The House committee investigating the fatal attacks in Benghazi, Libya in 2012 announced Friday it will interview Sidney Blumenthal, a friend and sometime adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The June 16 session will be held behind closed doors. The committee grew interested in Blumenthal after it received thousands of pages of documents from the State Department that showed he and she traded emails on the security in Libya before and after the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks. Blumenthal, an adviser to former President Bill Clinton, was employed by the Clinton Foundation when he wrote the emails. “He sent me unsolicited emails which I passed on in some instances and I say that that’s just part of the give and take,” Clinton told reporters recently at a campaign event in Cedar Falls, Iowa. “I have many, many old friends and I always think that it’s important when you get into politics to have friends you had before you were in politics and to understand what’s on their minds,” Clinton said Tuesday. “And he’s been a friend of mine for a long time.” *Sale of Michigan company to China may haunt Clinton <http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/06/05/clinton-sale-michigan-china-gop/28525387/> // Detroit Free Press // Todd Spangler – June 5, 2015 * Despite expressing her concerns on the campaign trail now, national Republican party officials are questioning why Hillary Rodham Clinton did not intervene in the controversial 2013 sale of high-tech battery plants in Michigan to a Chinese firm when she was secretary of state and could have done so. At a campaign stop in New Hampshire last month, Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president, decried the sale of A123 Systems — built with millions in government aid — along with those of other new energy firms, to Chinese investors, calling them "unfortunate" and a "serious" problem for high-tech industries in the U.S. "That does concern me, because a lot of foreign companies, particularly Chinese companies ... are looking to buy American companies," she said in response to an entrepreneur who mentioned A123's sale while commenting that venture capital for new energy technology has largely fled overseas. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, in a statement to the Free Press, called Clinton's remarks "lip service" considering that as the former secretary of state, her department had a "role in signing off on these sales," including A123's to Wanxiang in early 2013. "She is not being honest with the American people about her record in this critical area of national security and economic policy," Priebus said, suggesting it may not be the last time the bankruptcy sale of A123 and its facilities in Livonia and Romulus come up in the GOP's campaign against her. Clinton's campaign said she had no role in the review of the sale and referred questions to the State Department, saying only that she "wants us to be the clean energy superpower for the 21st Century, and that means out-competing countries like China so we can keep those jobs and companies here." Review not taken It does appear, however, that if Clinton had security concerns about Wanxiang gaining A123's technology, she and the agency she led could have moved to investigate it, which, at least according to congressional researchers, typically leads to about half of all transactions being abandoned. Several members of Congress, including both of Michigan's U.S. Democratic senators and a bipartisan group of congressmen, urged such a review; as did the Strategic Materials Advisory Council, a group that noted that though Wanxiang had excluded A123's defense contracts from its purchase, it was still obtaining "91 patents for sensitive military and space battery technology." Only the president can officially block such transactions on national security grounds. But the State Department holds a seat on the nine-member Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. — CFIUS — which reviews sales of American assets to foreign investors for any impact on national security. Hillary Clinton: Give immigrants path to citizenship A State Department spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that the agency is represented on CFIUS by an undersecretary — not the secretary — and its cases seldom if ever reach the secretary's office. But agency procedures reviewed by the Free Press and published in the Federal Register also indicate that the "Secretary ... may at any time" fill that role, if he or she so chooses. The campaign did not respond to a question as to why Clinton didn't play a role in the deliberations, despite her noting as a presidential candidate in 2008, CFIUS's role in "ensuring that technologies ... critical to U.S. national security are not sold off and outsourced to foreign governments." In 2008, Clinton was critical of the Bush administration for not blocking foreign investors from moving jobs from a former General Motors-subsidiary in Indiana, which made magnets for bombs, to China, saying "not only did the jobs go to China but so did ... the technological know-how." The back-and-forth is the latest chapter in the continuing political fallout from massive government investments in new energy technologies in Michigan and across the nation beginning around 2009 that promised thousands of jobs but which, in many instances, failed to materialize. It also continues a line of attack against Clinton by her critics regarding her level of involvement — or lack thereof — in foreign purchases of American assets. In "Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich," Peter Schweizer wrote she had "veto power" over the sale of uranium assets to Russia, though that claim — that she could have stopped it alone — has been debunked. In her remarks at a Hampton, N.H., brewery on May 22, Clinton clearly was referring to economic competition, not national security concerns, in discussing the sale of A123 and other American businesses. CFIUS does not get involved in cases only related to economic considerations. State Dept. releases hundreds of Clinton Benghazi e-mails But any of CFIUS's member agencies — Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security and the others — can request a deeper review to determine if there are national security implications. A 2014 report by the Congressional Research Service found nearly half of those investigated "were terminated ... because the firms decided to withdraw from the transactions rather than face a negative determination." If Clinton, who resigned as secretary in 2013, wanted to raise concerns about the national security implications of the sale, there was plenty of support for her to do so: In their letter to then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who served as CFIUS's chair, members of Michigan's delegation said the sale "might constitute a potential threat" to security since the company's "core" lithium-ion battery technology was being transferred. They also suggested the sale might not be appropriate given that A123, which was based in Massachusetts, had received $133 million in stimulus funds and was granted more than $125 million in state tax incentives and credits to build advanced lithium-ion batteries for its clients. Other members of Congress raised concerns with CFIUS as well. Expansion in Michigan A123 went bankrupt after its biggest customer, electric car maker Fisker, fell on hard times. After a battle for control between Johnson Controls and Wanxiang, the Chinese company won the bidding, paying $257 million. In January 2013, CFIUS approved A123's sale without comment. Treasury, CFIUS's lead agency, declined to comment on the case, citing confidentiality requirements. Despite the confidentiality rule, the Republican National Committee has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department asking for "any and all records ... that mention, reference or relate to the sale of A123 Systems to Wanxiang Group." Under CFIUS's regulations, parties to a sale typically file notice with the committee, which then has 30 days to "identify and address" any national security concerns. If it chooses, the committee may initiate a subsequent 45-day investigation or refer the sale to the president's office for a decision. It is rare for foreign transaction to be blocked, but it does happen: President Barack Obama blocked a sale to Chinese investors in September 2012 of four Oregon wind farm companies located near a site where the military tests aircraft and unmanned drones. Meanwhile, the Free Press reported earlier this week that Wanxiang and A123 plan to invest more than $200 million to add capacity in Livonia and Romulus, as well as at plants in China, 21/2 years after exiting bankruptcy. The company, having largely switched over to smaller batteries for hybrid vehicle systems, continues to employ several hundred workers in Michigan. Having trouble keeping track? Here's the complete look at who's officially running for president in 2016. *On Hillary Clinton's income inequality plan, de Blasio pauses -- and GOPers pounce <http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/de-blasio-details-clinton-income-inequality-plan-blog-entry-1.2248398> // NY Daily News // Celeste Katz – June 5, 2015 * When it comes to how Hillary Clinton will address income inequality as a presidential hopeful, Mayor de Blasio says he's (still) all ears. In a radio interview Friday, de Blasio seemed comfortable continuing to reserve judgment on the former Secretary of State's plans for closing the gap between rich and poor. "People recognize that wealth is getting concentrated in very few hands, and political power is increasingly getting concentrated in the hands of the wealthy and it's unacceptable," de Blasio -- who's tried to stake a claim as a national progressive voice on the issue -- told WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer during a live exchange. "I've been very impressed so far by some of the things that Secretary Clinton has said on areas like immigration reform, criminal justice reform. Very promising concepts," said de Blasio, a top campaign official in Clinton's 2000 Senate run. De Blasio has raised some eyebrows with his unwilllingness to issue a full-tilt endorsement of Clinton, who's considered overwhelmingly likely to win the 2016 Democratic nomination. By comparison, during an appearance in Washington last month, de Blasio hailed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as a "powerful voice" on income inequality and called her leadership "extraordinary." Speaking to Lehrer Friday, he said he felt progressive taxation and "ways that we can raise wages and benefits for people all over the country" were musts for any substantial blueprint. "These are the kinds of things that have to happen to change the country," de Blasio said, "and I look forward to hearing [Clinton's] vision of how she'll address these issues." While de Blasio offered effusive praise for Clinton's speech this week on attacking voter disenfranchisement -- "I think it was an inspired proposal; I give her a lot of credit" -- in the selfsame radio interview, Republicans have widely retorted that her comments were divisive and purely partisan. A Clinton spokesman declined comment, but the America Rising PAC, which plugs itself as dedicated to "exposing the truth about Democrats" through tracking and research, had no such reservations. “Based on his recent words and actions, Bill de Blasio seems as unimpressed with Hillary Clinton’s campaign as everyone else in America. It doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry to lend his former boss a hand, which is highly ironic given their long and close history," said PAC spokesman Jeff Bechdel. "While Clinton struggles to connect with so-called ‘everyday Americans’ because of her ongoing scandals, vast wealth, and insulated campaign, de Blasio is standing idly by as Clinton watches her poll numbers continue to plummet," Bechdel said. Alluding to Clinton's upcoming June 13 kickoff, he added, "No wonder her campaign has decided they need to officially hit the ‘reset’ button at Roosevelt Island – less than two months in, they haven’t even convinced their close allies that Hillary Clinton should be president.” *Clinton calls for universal, automatic voter registration; GOP not happy <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/05/1390699/-Clinton-calls-for-universal-automatic-voter-registration-GOP-not-happy> // Daily Kos // Kerry Eleveld – June 5, 2015 * Hillary Clinton did more than just call for 20 days of early voting Thursday in her address to Texas Southern University, a historically black college in Houston. She threw down. “Today Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting,” Clinton said during a speech at Texas Southern University. “What part of democracy are they afraid of?” That was one of the best lines of the speech, second only to this one: "We need a Supreme Court that cares more about protecting the right to vote of a person than the right to buy an election of a corporation." In short, Clinton called for a sweeping expansion of voting access for every citizen. Along with adding 20 days of early, in-person voting, she called on Congress to "restore the full protections" that the Supreme Court ripped from the Voting Rights Act. She called for "expanding early, absentee, and mail voting; providing online voter registration; establishing the principle that no one should ever have to wait more than 30 minutes to cast your vote." And she called for universal, automatic voter registration. Everyone, every young man or young woman, in every state in the union should be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18—unless they actively choose to opt out. But I believe this would have a profound impact on our elections and our democracy. Between a quarter and a third of all eligible Americans remain unregistered and therefore unable to vote. None of this made Republicans happy. The Republican National Committee accused Clinton of being “misleading and divisive,” and noted that her home state of New York does not provide early voting. “Her exploitation of this issue only underscores why voters find her dishonest and untrustworthy,” RNC spokesman Orlando Watson said in a statement. Testy, testy. *Meet the 30-year-old woman running Hillary Clinton's field operations <https://fortune.com/2015/06/05/meet-the-30-year-old-woman-running-hillary-clintons-field-operations/> // Fortune // Nina Easton – June 5, 2015 * With many of the power players from Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run sitting this one out, the big question is: Who’s in? What follows is the latest installment of a Fortune series looking at the the most influential women on Clinton’s 2016 team. When this series wraps, we’ll turn our attention to the most powerful women on the GOP side of the race. Brynne Craig, 30, Deputy National Political Director By the time Brynne Craig started her career, the Rolodex was as much of a relic as those pink “while you were out” message slips. But if Craig, 30, did have an old-style Rolodex sitting on her desk, it would be fat—bulging with names of Democratic foot soldiers all over the country, from phone bank volunteers to precinct captains. Craig does field operations. She’s done that job for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2008, for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee—charged with electing House members—in 2012, and for victorious Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe in 2013. She also picked up some useful organizing skills working for Democratic nominee Barack Obama after Clinton dropped out in 2008, but the former First Lady is clearly her first political love. Craig’s adoration of Hillary Clinton dates back to her Arizona childhood, when her music-industry father was rooting for Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory, voraciously reading newspapers and sharing his opinions with his 8-year-old daughter. “That was the first time I was really aware of politics,” she recalls. “We would talk a lot about [the campaign].” Her Republican mother, however, had different ideas: “George [H.W.] Bush was her guy.” Craig liked Bill Clinton, but she really liked his wife. “When I was little, I thought if Hillary ever ran for President I wanted to work for her,” she recalls. That moment finally came in 2007, after she graduated from Smith College and joined her campaign in Nevada. It turned to be a high-wire act: With Obama’s win in Iowa, and Clinton’s dramatic comeback in New Hampshire, the early Nevada caucus—considered a bellwether for western states—was billed as a tie-breaker. Like Iowa, Nevada runs a caucus rather than a primary, and in 2008 this in-person process was a strange new system to state voters, unlike in Iowa. So a lot of what Craig did was education–Caucus-101 meetings and simulations of caucus days. She oversaw 43 precincts. On election day, Clinton was the top-vote getter (though a complicated process gave Obama more delegates)—making Nevada the only caucus state to fall into her 2008 column during that grueling primary battle. After Clinton conceded and dropped out, Craig was off to the swing state of Ohio for the general election, where Obama would beat GOP nominee John McCain—and show off an awe-inspiring grass roots operation. “We built a neighborhood team model all across Ohio, voters talking to their neighbors and friends, block by block,” Craig recalls. “The lady who was the cashier in the grocery store was the one knocking on your door.” Craig took away from that experience a lesson that holds true even in an age of social media and online communication. “We used to say people will come to a campaign because they believe in the candidates,” says Craig. “But the reason they stay is the relationships we have. I still talk to my precinct captains. Social media engages people, but you have to take that second step of going off line and continuing the relationship.” That will come in handy in her current job as part of the “Mook Mafia” –named for her mentor, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook—where she will need to secure endorsements from local and state officials and keep the campaign’s relations with grass-roots groups warm and fuzzy, even when times get tough. *Hillary Clinton rakes in $200K in Greenwich <http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Hillary-Clinton-rakes-in-200K-in-Greenwich-6310350.php> // CT Post // Neil Vigdor – June 5, 2015 * Hillary Clinton covered the waterfront Friday in Greenwich -- not just rhetorically. Heavy on domestic and foreign policy talking points -- some aligning her with President Barack Obama (the Affordable Care Act) and others distancing her (the Middle East) -- Clinton huddled with an elite network of contributors to her presidential campaign at the bygone yachting retreat of Boss Tweed. The 13-mile trip from Chappaqua, N.Y., paid handsome dividends for Democratic contender, who netted $200,000 for her White House bid from about 85 supporters that included the Empire State Building's controlling partner and a retired hedge fund manager as the event host, Hearst Connecticut Media has learned. The reception, held at the $29.7 million Roman villa of Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener, was closed to the media. Clinton then added to her haul in New Haven, returning to the city where she met Bill Clinton as Yale Law students. Her visit came less than 24 hours after U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a potential rival for the Oval Office, raked in $50,000 in Stamford and bashed Clinton over foreign money raised by her family foundation. "Presidential races are all bruising, and this one will probably involve more spending than any in history, unfortunately," said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who went to school with the Clintons at Yale. Clinton's campaign declined to comment her fundraising trip to Connecticut. Blumenthal, who was in attendance at both the Greenwich and New Haven fundraisers, said Clinton is tough enough to withstand all that will be thrown at her. "If you looked at her resume without knowing her name, and saw someone who has been a U.S. senator, secretary of state and a close adviser and confidante to at least two presidents and now brings the unique perspectives and life experience of a woman at a historic turning point for our country, that is a powerfully impressive candidate," Blumenthal said. "That persona, plus her dedication to the country and her grasp of the issues will be important to her winning." *OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE* *O’MALLEY* *O’Malley’s efforts on immigration reflect complex political realities <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/omalleys-efforts-on-immigration-reflect-complex-political-realities/2015/06/05/842bad96-0ba1-11e5-95fd-d580f1c5d44e_story.html> // WaPo // John Wagner & Arelis Hernandez – June 5, 2015 * Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley stepped up his efforts to court Latino voters this week, appearing before a Hispanic business group and on Spanish-language television. The former Maryland governor pledged to tackle comprehensive immigration reform during his first 100 days if he makes it to the White House, and he touted his record in Annapolis, which includes signing legislation that allows undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses and in-state college tuition rates. While those and other measures have drawn applause from national immigrant rights advocates — with some declaring O’Malley’s record the strongest in the Democratic field — Maryland lawmakers present a more nuanced view. Latino legislators and other advocates credit O’Malley with providing help at key junctures but add that on some issues, he wasn’t doing the heavy lifting. And at some points, particularly during the long, thorny debate over driver’s licenses, O’Malley was at odds with the advocates. As he has positioned himself to run in a Democratic field dominated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, O’Malley has made frequent mention of his record on immigration. He often recounts a battle last summer with the White House, when he denounced the administration’s efforts to return migrant children to their home countries after they illegally crossed the border from Central America. And O’Malley has emphasized his decision to limit Maryland’s cooperation with federal officials on deportations from a state-run jail. Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (D-Montgomery), a native of El Salvador and the first Latina elected to state office in Maryland, was not always pleased with O’Malley on immigration issues. But on balance, she said, “he really has shown leadership.” Others are less charitable, among them former delegate Luiz R.S. Simmons, another Democrat from Montgomery. O’Malley, Simmons said, “has a tendency to jump on the caboose of the train as it’s pulling out of the station and put on a conductor’s hat and walk to the front.” Haley Morris, an O’Malley spokeswoman, said the candidate has “one of the most progressive track records in the country on issues facing new Americans,” noting that Maryland housed more refugee children per capita than other states during the border crisis. As a 2006 gubernatorial candidate, O’Malley did not focus heavily on immigration. But he supported making driver’s licenses available to undocumented immigrants, a position for which his GOP opponent attacked him in television ads, and for granting in-state tuition rates to college students. A version of the latter legislation, known as the Dream Act, had been vetoed by O’Malley’s Republican predecessor in 2003. O’Malley signaled support for the legislation when it was proposed again in 2007, his first year in office. But the bill stalled in the Democratic-led legislature amid concerns over whether it would reduce slots available for students with legal status. Although O’Malley made clear that he would sign the bill, he did not make it part of his legislative package, a level of priority that he later gave to bills legalizing same-sex marriage and repealing the death penalty. Advocates tried again in 2011, bringing waves of “Dreamers” to Annapolis to testify and lobby lawmakers. State Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery) said it was widely known that O’Malley wanted the bill to succeed, which helped secure votes. The measure passed, and Maryland joined nearly a dozen states with similar measures. Conservative activists petitioned to have the law put to a voter referendum. During the campaign that ensued, O’Malley provided fundraising and other political support. Voters approved the measure by a wide margin, 59 percent to 41 percent. O’Malley “spoke out on the bill and threw down for the campaign,” said Kim Propeack, director of CASA in Action, the political arm of the immigrant advocacy group. The path to Maryland’s current policy on driver’s licenses had far more twists. When O’Malley took office, Maryland was among just five states where someone could get a license without having to prove they were in this country legally. Critics charged that the program was open to fraud and that it drew illegal immigrants to Maryland. Moreover, the federal government was clamping down on driver’s licenses after the 2001 terrorist attacks. In 2005, Congress passed the REAL ID Act, which sought to curb state-issued driver’s licenses for those in the country illegally. States were given several years to implement the law, and the exact rules and how they would be enforced changed on multiple occasions, O’Malley aides said. O’Malley, concerned about threats by the federal government not to allow anyone with a Maryland driver’s license to board an airplane, announced in 2009 that he would support a halt in issuing full-fledged licenses to undocumented immigrants. Lawmakers passed a bill that discontinued new licenses but allowed those who already had licenses to keep a restricted version of them through 2015. The licenses could not be used as identification to enter federal buildings or board airplanes. Gutierrez and others argued that Maryland should leave its earlier policy in place, in effect daring the federal government — with Democrat Barack Obama in the White House — to enforce the law. But other Democrats, including O’Malley, were loath to take the risk. “The collective wisdom at the time was we shouldn’t roll the dice on it,” said Brian E. Frosh, then a state senator chairing the Judicial Proceedings Committee and now Maryland’s attorney general. Four years later, advocates made a renewed push to overhaul the law, and lawmakers approved a bill to issue licenses — with restrictions — to new applicants and renew existing ones beyond 2015. O’Malley signed the bill. The political climate had changed considerably by then, several lawmakers said, making them more comfortable with the new approach. It seemed clear that the Obama administration wasn’t going to impose punitive measures, and passage of the Dream Act in Maryland in 2011 showed public support for helping immigrants. Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s) said it took some persuasion to get O’Malley to support the 2013 bill. “We showed him the numbers, arguing that immigrants are driving to work and taking kids to school and that it was better for them to have insurance and drive legally than to drive without one,” she said. Gutierrez credited O’Malley with being “helpful the second time around.” Since then, O’Malley has spoken out more forcefully on immigration, and he has held up his record as evidence of his commitment to issues of importance to the fastest-growing demographic group in the country. “One of the greatest indicators of a person’s future actions will be how they acted in the past when they had the power,” O’Malley told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. *SANDERS* *Sanders wants privacy panel in defense bill <http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/244169-sanders-wants-privacy-panel-in-defense-bill> // The Hill // Jordain Carney – June 5, 2015 * Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants to create a panel to investigate the impact of modern technology on privacy as part of an annual defense bill. Sanders, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, has filed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to establish a "commission on privacy rights in the digital age." The panel would study how the government, as well as private companies, collect data on Americans and how the data is used, and make recommendations on any changes needed to protect privacy. "Innovations in technology have led to the exponential expansion of data collection by both the public and private sectors," according to the amendment. Sanders voted against the USA Freedom Act, which reforms the National Security Agency's collection of bulk phone metadata. He suggested at the time the legislation doesn't go far enough to protect Americans' privacy. “Technology has significantly outpaced public policy," he said in a statement earlier this week. "There is a huge amount of information being collected on our individual lives ranging from where we go to the books we buy and the magazines we read. We need to have a discussion about that.” The two-year panel, which would have subpoena power, would also investigate how data collection has changed and any implications on areas including surveillance and hiring practices. *Hawking shirts, buttons, Sanders opens shop <http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2015/06/04/sanders-opens-online-store/28496505/> // Burlington Free Press // Adam Silverman – June 5, 2015 * The "For Sale" sign is out at the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. An online merchandise store opened this week, offering a range of products from T-shirts and coffee mugs to bulk packs of yard signs. "Made and printed in the USA," boasts the product description on each of the two shirts for sale — one light blue, the other white. "Union-printed in the USA. Car safe! Outdoor durable for 3-5 years," reads the description on the bumper stickers. Sanders, Vermont's independent U.S. senator who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, joins a narrow slice of the already packed 2016 presidential field by jumping into merchandising. Only six of the 14 declared candidates on the Democratic and Republican sides are hawking buttons and hats through official online outlets as of Thursday afternoon. There are plenty of unofficial vendors on the Web and at campaign events. When Sanders held his kickoff last week at Burlington's Waterfront Park, one man drove from Florida to sell buttons to the crowd of 5,000 to 6,000 supporters. Another came from Montpelier with a rack of hand-screened T-shirts. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has a comprehensive official online shop, where supporters can select from 32 products, starting at $5. There are traditional items such as shirts and stickers, along with a number of unique offerings that include a onesie for those who haven't quite reached voting age, and a throw pillow for $55 that proclaims, "A woman's place is in the White House." A section of merchandise is geared toward "Pride" and features shirts, stickers and buttons in rainbow colors. Like Sanders' site, Clinton's also proclaims a made-in-America and union pedigree for much of the merchandise. On the Republican side, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., might have the most extensive and elaborate online store of all. His site sells dozens of items across a host of categories — "fun stuff," "car decor" and "Hillary" sections join the more traditional categories of apparel and signs. Among the highlights from the ophthalmologist's campaign: an autographed eye chart for a $500 campaign contribution, and a signed copy of the Constitution for a cool $1,000. Paul also offers some novelties including an "NSA Spy Cam Blocker" — a $15 cover for webcams on laptop computers — and "Hillary's Hard Drive," a computer drive for $99.95 that represents a swipe at the former secretary of state's use of a private email server to conduct government business. Supporters of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee can browse 27 offerings, while Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has 23 items in his online store. Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, just jumped into the race Thursday and promptly unveiled a bare-bones shop with four products. As with the Democrats, the Republican stores also promote Made in the USA — but there's hardly a mention of the word "union." The candidates without stores are Democrats Lincoln Chafee and Martin O'Malley, and Republicans Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum. Back at the virtual Sanders storefront, shoppers can choose from 18 items. The least expensive is $5, which can score a button, a bumper sticker or a rally sign. T-shirts go for $15 to $21. The scale tops out at $225, which gets buyers a pack of 25 white or blue "Bernie 2016" yard signs. A Sanders campaign spokesman did not respond to an email this week asking about the store. *How Bernie Sanders Will Change Your Mind About The Label ‘Socialist’ <http://elitedaily.com/news/politics/bernie-sanders-change-mind-label-socialist/1054723/> // The Elite Daily // Lani Seelinger – June 5, 2015 * Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist. Before your mind goes straight to Stalin’s Gulag and Iron Curtains, though, let’s talk about what that means. In a number of different outlets, Bernie Sanders has come upon the suggestion — which in many other cases would be more of an accusation — that he is a democratic socialist. Instead of renaming his views, dancing around the subject or flat out denying it, he embraces it. It is, quite frankly, refreshing. Before we get to him, though, let’s talk about the idea itself. Thanks to the Cold War, Socialism has been a dirty word in American politics for about 70 years now, and Sanders will be fighting an uphill battle to try to change that. In Sweden, though, the state just proposed extending paid paternity leave to three months. In the Czech Republic, parents can take up to three years of paid parental leave. In many European countries, both health care and education all the way up through graduate degrees are entirely free. In Finland, every family receives a special “baby box” for the birth of each child, equipped with everything a parent could need for those first few months — condoms included. If they already had a child and don’t need the box, they can opt instead for financial compensation to the tune of 140 euro. Seriously. I could go on, but you probably get the idea. Democratic socialism, which these countries’ governments all practice to some extent, isn’t what we’ve gotten to know from Soviet spy movies. It isn’t a nanny state that tries to police your every move. It isn’t even an arrangement in which the country’s citizens have no personal responsibility, as so many Republican candidates have claimed over the years. It’s about support. It’s about equality. The idea behind the Finnish baby box is that every child should have an equal starting point, but it doesn’t stop there. The Nordic countries, which includes Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland, are at the top of scores of desirable measures. Why wouldn’t we want that for our own country? Why wouldn’t we want to do away with nasty things like student loan payments, short (and not always paid) maternity leave time and a lack of helpful boxes for our newborn children? Bernie Sanders is here to tell us we could have all those things for our country and much more… Except for the baby box — as far as I know, he hasn’t said anything about that yet. Perhaps the most surprising thing about all of this is, well, that he’s serious. Just when the Democrats were settling into the idea that Hillary is who they’d be supporting for better or worse, just when they accepted that Elizabeth Warren will not — and I repeat, NOT — be running for president, in steps an old white guy with the same fire that Warren has and the same drive to change American politics as we know them. Or, as Daenerys Targaryen would say, Bernie Sanders wants to break the wheel. It’s a shame he doesn’t have any dragons to back his cause. Instead, he has the examples of successful countries that have put his policies into action, to great success. On “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” he outlined his views more specifically, particularly about why “socialism” isn’t a dirty word to him. Using one example, he explained, In most countries, health care is a right of all people. I don’t see that as a problem. And the thing is, his form of democratic socialism isn’t actually extreme, even in America. In fact, it aligns directly with a lot more of the country than many people seem to have noticed. His view that the increasing wealth gap is a huge problem in America is one that 63 percent of Americans share. A majority of Americans, like Sanders, believe money in politics is hurting the system. Sizeable majorities believe higher education is too expensive and that student loan debt is a big issue. Sixty-nine percent of people believe global warming is happening at least partly because of human activity. He’s got a lot going for him: passion, early support and ideas for policies most of the country supports (even if some of those people would normally vote Republican). For all the Democrats who would have supported Warren’s fire over Clinton’s centrism, this is the guy. His challenge will be fighting with the buzzwords — in other words, changing the public’s view on the word “socialist.” Is it possible? Yes, definitely. Will it be difficult? Even more so. We may not have seen this coming, but it’s about time we took note. Bernie’s in it to win it. *CHAFEE* *Lincoln Chafee May Be Hillary's Biggest Problem <http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/lincoln-chaffee-iraq-war/394871/> // The Atlantic // Peter Beinart – June 4, 2015 * In a field of Democratic presidential long shots, former Rhode Island senator and governor Lincoln Chafee, who announced his candidacy on Wednesday, may be the longest shot of all. As an authentic, uncompromising progressive, Bernie Sanders is poised to grab the bulk of those Elizabeth Warren enthusiasts who can’t reconcile themselves to Hillary Clinton. As the handsome, articulate, two-term governor of a mid-size state, Martin O’Malley at least looks like a plausible contender one day. Chafee, by contrast, in the words of Quinnipiac University’s Monica Bauer, “has the charisma of Walter Mondale wrapped in the political instincts of a small town city councilman, which he once was, and perhaps would have remained, if he hadn’t been the son of a famous political dynasty. He is George W. Bush with more intelligence but far less political talent.” And like Bush, Chafee was, until very recently, a Republican. But Chafee could prove Hillary’s most intriguing challenger. It’s not because he’ll garner enough support to give her a scare. If anyone does that, it will likely be Sanders, who according to the New York Times is already “gain[ing] momentum in Iowa.” What makes Chafee’s candidacy intriguing is that he’s attacking Hillary on the issue on which she may be most vulnerable: her vote to authorize war with Iraq. “I don’t think anybody should be president of the United States that made that mistake,” Chafee told The Washington Post in April. “It’s a huge mistake, and we live with broad, broad ramifications today—of instability not only in the Middle East but far beyond and the loss of American credibility.” A version of this attack helped Barack Obama topple Hillary in 2008. That’s not likely to happen again, since Democrats care far less about Iraq this time. But Republicans do. While foreign policy has been largely absent from the Democratic presidential campaign thus far, it’s been central to the Republican debate. And this reflects a divide in the country as a whole. A May Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that “national security/terrorism,” which was the top concern of only eight percent of likely GOP primary voters three years ago, now ranks first, at 27 percent. Among likely Democratic primary voters, by contrast, it’s less than half that. Iraq sits near the center of that concern. Every Republican presidential candidate except Rand Paul is telling the same story: By 2008, as a result of George W. Bush’s surge, America had won the Iraq War. But then Barack Obama snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by recklessly withdrawing US troops. Since then, the Middle East has descended into the depths of hell, and become a petri dish breeding ISIS barbarians eager to strike the United States. The best answer to this line of attack is the one Hillary can’t give: that America should never have invaded Iraq in the first place. After all, it wouldn’t have been necessary to stitch the Iraqi state back together between 2006 and 2008, at a vast cost in money and blood, had the United States not shattered it in the first place. But Hillary can’t give that answer because she voted to authorize the war. That’s what makes Chafee’s attack intriguing. He was the only Republican senator who voted against authorizing war. Now, as a Democratic candidate for president, he will talk about the collapse of Iraq and the rise of ISIS in a way she can’t. And the way Hillary responds to him will preview her response to the Republicans next fall. Finding a good answer won’t be easy. On domestic issues like gay marriage, mass incarceration, immigration, and campaign finance, Hillary has shifted left in the primary, confident that she’s keeping pace not only with Democratic primary voters but with the country as a whole. But on foreign policy, the public isn’t moving left; it’s moving right. And Hillary cannot as easily adapt her views to match that shift because until two years ago, she was secretary of state. Hillary’s greatest challenges may not be policy-based at all. They’ll likely stem from questions about her honesty, and the sense that she represents not the future but the past. But if there’s one policy question that could prove dangerous, it’s Iraq. On that subject, Lincoln Chafee is the canary in the coal mine. If Hillary can’t find an effective answer to his attacks, it may be a sign of trouble ahead. *WEBB* *Former U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) has a seven-point plan to save American foreign policy. <http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/jim-webbs-seven-point-plan-save-us-foreign-policy-13054?page=2> // The National Interest Evan Gottesman – June 5, 2015 * “Our country is in need of a clearly articulated foreign policy statement,” Webb boldly declared to an audience at George Mason University. Senator Webb, who also served as Secretary of the Navy and Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration, characterized current U.S. foreign policy as reactive and unstructured. Given this state of affairs, Webb intimated his own platform aimed at grounding America’s approach to the world in seven key principles. 1. The United States should be able to identify its national security objectives and value systems. “I like to see myself as a realist,” Webb told audience members, contrasting himself with those “who see war at every corner.” Senator Webb affirmed his opposition to foreign interventions that did not serve any discernable national interest or worse, undermined America’s global position. “I was one of the first people to warn of the strategic blunder of going into Iraq,” Webb recalled. Indeed, he penned an op-ed in The Washington Post in September 2002 in which he asked readers, “Is there an absolutely vital national interest that should lead us from containment to unilateral war and long-term occupation of Iraq?” Throughout the years, Senator Webb has maintained a consistent position on foreign interventions. The Obama administration justified the 2011 War in Libya in humanitarian terms via the responsibility to protect, a pretext Webb criticized as “vague.” 2. The United States should be able to develop partnerships with trustworthy actors. Senator Webb posited three criteria when considering aligning with a foreign nation: the country’s stability, whether it engages in aggressive expansionism, and how its government treats the citizenry. Despite listing human rights as an area of interest in fostering overseas partnerships, Webb challenged inconsistent approaches to democracy overseas, citing American engagement with China as a standard. When he returned from a trip to Myanmar, a reporter questioned how he could visit an authoritarian state in good conscience. Webb pushed back: “When was the last time China had an election?” The senator also recalled a hearing just prior to the Libya intervention. Then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta charged, “Any government that kills its own people in nonviolent protests does not deserve to be in power.” Webb challenged Panetta: “What is your comment on the Tiananmen Square incident?” 3. The United States should honor treaty obligations. Here, Senator Webb stressed that Japan and the Philippines, two nations tied to American defense pacts, should be a “preeminent concern.” Senator Webb articulated his view that China’s behavior in East and Southeast Asia warrants a robust American presence in the region. He noted the area’s uniquely precarious position, describing it as “the only place where the interests of China, Russia, and Japan intersect.” Here, Webb believes the United States can be a stabilizing influence while supporting a friendly Tokyo. Senator Webb is particularly alarmed over China’s aspirations in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims in nearly its entirety. “It is vitally in our national interest to communicate strongly with China when it takes expansionist moves in the South China Sea.” The dispute in the area could draw the Philippines, a treaty-ally, and other states like Taiwan and Vietnam into conflict with China. 4. The United States should support its non-treaty allies. Not all American allies are bound to Washington by formal agreements. Senator Webb affirmed that these non-treaty partners should receive attention too, particularly in the Middle East, a region that hosts many U.S. aligned governments few of whom have formal defense arrangements with the United States. 5. The United States should maintain its superiority in strategic systems. The United States maintains a qualitative technological edge over a range of potential adversaries. This is visible in weapons systems, nuclear capacity, and space capabilities. Senator Webb affirmed that these technological advantages should not be traded away, even for economic reasons. 6. The United States should preserve and recognize the right of national self-defense. Senator Webb closely linked this point to issues of terrorism. The United States should be able to strike back against such attacks. This view, Senator Webb explained, is consistent with the United Nations Charter, particularly Article 51, which reads: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations.” 7. Congress must step up and restore its relationship with the executive branch. Senator Webb identified a shift in war-making power from the Congress to the presidency. He drew on Libya and Iraq as examples of executive military maneuvers that bypassed legislative approval. In both cases, Webb felt that no vital national interest was at stake. Webb was similarly critical of President Bush’s unilateral negotiations with Iraq. Bush arranged a long-term strategic relationship with Baghdad that Congress never sanctioned. By contrast, the Iraqi parliament voted to approve agreements with Washington. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the substance of Senator Webb’s foreign policy platform, his positions are undeniably clear and well defined. As Webb explores a 2016 presidential bid, the seven points he articulated on Thursday could form the basis of a wider debate among the candidates on the future of America’s international role. *OTHER* *Bankroller of Democratic Voting Rights Cases? George Soros <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/05/bankroller-of-democratic-voting-rights-cases-george-soros/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Politics&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body> // NYT // Maggie Haberman – June 5, 2015 * The billionaire philanthropist George Soros, whose first major involvement in politics was with a large-scale voter mobilization effort in the 2004 presidential race, is funding a Democratic legal fight against restrictive voting laws. Mr. Soros became involved last year when Marc Elias, one of the top Democratic lawyers specializing in voter protection issues, began exploring a series of federal suits in advance of the 2016 election, according to Mr. Soros’s political adviser, Michael Vachon. Their goal is to try to influence voting rules in states where Republican governors and Republican-led legislatures have enacted new election laws since 2010, and to be ready to intervene when additional measures may be passed over the next 17 months. Mr. Soros is prepared to spend $5 million or more on the effort, Mr. Vachon said. Two suits that he is supporting were filed in Ohio and in Wisconsin last month, and he is also funding a case Mr. Elias is involved with in North Carolina. Mr. Vachon described the Democratic legal effort as an attempt to push back at Republicans who he said were “using the legislative process” for partisan purposes. “It is disingenuous to suggest that these laws are meant to protect against voter fraud, which is nearly nonexistent,” he said. “Clearly they are meant to give Republicans a political advantage on Election Day.” Mr. Elias’s clients include four major Democratic party committees as well as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign. “Clearly, fighting the Republican efforts to limit who can vote and when they can vote will benefit Democrats, and it will benefit whomever runs for president,” Mr. Vachon said. “But it also primarily benefits democracy with a small ‘d.’” In 2004, Mr. Soros invested millions of dollars into efforts to unseat President George W. Bush, including through a voter mobilization drive called America Coming Together. He has not yet taken up the question of whether he will give money to the “super PAC” supporting Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Vachon said. But the legal actions filed by Mr. Elias are in keeping with the type of advocacy that Mr. Soros has favored: the nexus of policy, politics and movement-building. Republicans have argued that the new laws are much-needed protections against election fraud and that the new round of lawsuits is little more than a publicity-seeking exercise intended to mobilize Democratic voters. But Democrats say the new laws disproportionately affect the poorest voters, minorities and young people. A Government Accountability Office study last October found that states with more stringent voter identification laws had a larger decline in voter turnout than states that did not have such new restrictions. Mr. Vachon said he was approached by Mr. Elias in January 2014 about supporting a voting rights lawsuit in North Carolina, where student identification cards are not considered acceptable forms of photo ID. The restrictions in North Carolina ended a program in which teenagers filled out a form and were then registered automatically to vote on their 18th birthday. Joining with the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund, the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union, Mr. Elias argued that the law was onerous for younger voters in violation of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 from 21. The North Carolina case is still pending. But Mr. Elias and Mr. Vachon have discussed filing others in some of the 21 states that have added voting restrictions since the 2010 Republican electoral wave, if those states seek to tighten voting access any further. “I expect there will be more,” Mr. Vachon said. *The voting conversation has shifted. That’s good news for Dems. <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-voting-conversation-has-shifted-thats-good-news-dems> //MSNBC // Zachary Roth – June 5, 2015 * Over the last year or so, the conversation on voting in America has been shifting. Now, Hillary Clinton’s major speech in Texas Thursday has massively accelerated that movement. By laying out a sweeping and positive vision for voting, Clinton smartly turned the debate away from the restrictive Republican-backed laws like voter ID that have made headlines in recent years, and toward the kind of expansive ideas that could usher millions of new voters into the process—chief among them, automatically registering everyone when they turn 18. That will lend crucial momentum to state-level proposals to increase access, which already have been gathering steam of late. And politically, it will force Republicans to explain why they oppose common-sense efforts to make voting easier. Democrats are already recognizing that they can take advantage of the broadening conversation to put Republicans in a deeply uncomfortable spot. Conservatives are noticing the shift, too. “[V]oter ID is yesterday’s battleground,” wrote Christian Adams, a former Justice Department lawyer and a leading supporter of restrictive voting policies, with a hint of trepidation. ”Sure, there are still court cases and bills, but the Left has moved on to bigger and better things.” But finally playing offense on voting isn’t just smart politics—though it certainly is that. It also has the potential to transform the electorate. The hot-button controversies over strict Republican voting laws have obscured a crucial reality: Far more Americans are kept from voting by what might be called softer barriers that have been in place so long that they generate less attention: an antiquated registration system that, among other problems, requires voters to re-register each time they move, leaving around 50 million people unregistered; poorly maintained voter rolls that cause confusion on Election Day; hours-long lines that drive some would-be voters away in frustration and are worst in minority neighborhoods. President Obama’s bipartisan panel on voting, convened in response to the massive lines in Florida in 2012, helped put these issues—as well as the importance of early voting to reduce lines on Election Day—on the agenda. And the record low turnout in last fall’s midterms has helped focus the conversation on how to get more voters to the polls. President Obama even mused recently about mandatory voting, which he called “transformative.” Since the start of the year, 464 bills to enhance voting access—many of them modernizing the registration system—have been introduced in state legislatures, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Democracy. Oregon recently passed a law to establish automatic voter registration, which could create as many as 800,000 new registered voters in that state alone. And other states, including California, are considering following suit. Clinton’s aggressive plan will push those efforts forward. Expect to see more universal voter registration measures introduced in states across the country. Of course, polls show ID is popular, so it’s no surprise that Clinton and her allies would want to focus elsewhere. And to be sure, she offered a full-throated condemnation of the wave of voting restrictions the GOP has imposed in state after state. But in calling out four of her potential 2016 rivals by name, it was noticeable that she focused not on voter ID but more broadly on their support for policies that restrict, rather than expand, the electorate, and that target particular groups. Clinton said Rick Perry had “signed a law that a federal court said was actually written with the purpose of discriminating against minority voters,” without noting that it was Texas’s strict ID law. And she slammed Scott Walker for cutting back early voting and signing “legislation that would make it harder for college students to vote,”—again without noting that she was referring to voter ID. In response, Perry sought to turn the focus back to the more familiar terrain of voter ID. “I think it makes sense to have a photo ID to be able to vote,” the former Texas governor said on Fox News Friday. “When I got on the airline to come up here yesterday, I had to show my photo ID.” And Walker fell back on an oft-used GOP talking point on the issue, asking why Clinton doesn’t support policies “to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” and calling her “far outside the mainstream.” (Asked which expansive voting policies Clinton doesn’t support, a spokeswoman for Walker’s PAC, Our American Revival, didn’t respond.) Ohio Gov. John Kasich, answering Clinton’s criticism of his state’s early voting cuts, noted that New York, the state Clinton represented in the Senate, doesn’t offer any early voting at all, and accused her of “demagoguery.” But those responses could be hard to sustain once more states move forward with expansive legislation and the conversation gets more specific. Ultimately, Republicans will need to explain why they don’t favor policies to bring more people into the political process. And answering honestly might not be an option. *Things are looking up for President Obama <http://www.vox.com/2015/6/5/8737319/economy-President-obama-improving> // VOX // Jonathan Allen – June 5, 2015 * President Obama's standing with the American public is improving as he nears the final 18 months of his presidency, and a combination of solid economic numbers, finding common ground with Republicans, and a diminished need to serve as the partisan leader of Democrats should augur well for the stretch run. The economy added 280,000 jobs in May, the largest spike this year, and unemployment remained stable at 5.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Jason Furman, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, pointed to the increase of 262,000 private sector jobs in May, and 12.6 million over the past 63 months, as an indication of the health of the economy. Bureau of Labor Statistics via the White House Council of Economic Advisers This graph shows how the economy went from hemorrhaging jobs during the financial crisis to adding them consistently over the past five-plus years. Obama still isn't getting as much credit for the improvement of the economy as he might, but his numbers have been better this year than they were last year. In late May, a CBS/New York Times poll of 1,022 adults found that 45 percent of Americans approved of the way he was handling the economy and 49 percent disapproved. The approval number was between 45 percent and 49 percent in four surveys taken this year by the two news organizations or CBS alone. Last year, his numbers ranged from 38 percent to 43 percent in CBS and CBS/New York Times polls. "The President has been clear that he believes there is a strong case for us to make, looking at the economic data, about the significant progress that our economy has made since the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression," White House spokesperson Jennifer Friedman said in an email to Vox. "That said, the president believes there is more work that needs to be done to strengthen our economy and further expand economic opportunity for middle-class families." Not surprisingly, the trends in Obama's overall approval ratings have improved as Americans' views of his handling of the economy have risen because jobs and the economy typically rank as the issues most important to them. Obama's approval numbers have risen and stabilized this year, compared with 2014, as the Gallup daily tracking polls show. But Alec Tyson, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, said that while a growing economy can improve Americans' view of the president, lingering worries about their own outlooks can limit that effect. "It's hard for people to rate the president overwhelmingly favorably when they're facing daily struggles," he said. No one expects Obama and his Republican adversaries in Congress to start clinking champagne glasses in the East Room anytime soon. But it's harder for Republican leaders to whack him consistently when they find themselves on the same side on headline-grabbing issues. And they've been working with Obama a lot more in the early months of what the White House calls the "fourth quarter" of his presidency. Speaker John Boehner pushed White House–backed revisions to the Patriot Act through the House last month, with 196 of the 338 overall votes for the bill (58 percent) coming from Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was critical of Obama and the bill — arguing it watered down essential national security protections — but shepherded it through a bumpy ride to enactment all the same. Of the 67 senators who voted for it, 23 were Republicans. Obama's biggest legislative push this year is on trade, an issue that unites Republicans and divides Democrats. It's got Paul Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee, praising the president. "I think the president on this particular issue is right, and therefore I think this is good for our country, good for the people I represent," Ryan, a House member from Wisconsin, told CNN's Dana Bash in an interview that aired Friday. Two tracks Obama seems to have found the formula he likes for policymaking: work with lawmakers when he can and go around them when he can't. Executive actions on climate change, immigration, Cuba policy, and the like have shown Democrats that he's willing to flex his muscle on behalf of their priorities. Indeed, there's no shortage of Democratic constituencies lining up for help with executive action right now. But the early legislative agenda, including a "fix" on Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors, trade deals, and the revision and extension of Patriot Act provisions, has lent itself to bipartisanship. There's little doubt that will break down at some point: Democratic leaders are promising to block all Republican spending bills over the GOP's effort to backfill Obama Pentagon cuts with emergency war-funding money. But for now, Obama's still looking to complement his use of executive power with legislative action. "He will continue to use each and every tool he has to pursue an aggressive agenda to deliver for working families across the country, both by taking action on his own and by working with Congress in a bipartisan fashion when possible," Friedman said. Tony Fratto, a Treasury and White House official in President George W. Bush's administration, said working across the aisle could help Obama with the public. "I see the president's approval ratings as mostly a function of the economic environment. As the economy improves and is seen as durable, his approval ratings will be bolstered," said Fratto, whose firm, Hamilton Place Strategies, is advocating for fast-track authority for the president. "A win on trade, which is generally popular, can be seen as a bipartisan win, and that would give a boost. Incidentally, a bipartisan win on trade would boost perceptions of Congress, too." The triangulation machine Beyond the allure of bipartisanship, trade has given Obama an opportunity to distance himself a bit from his party's base. It's been the centerpiece of an increasingly vitriolic war between Obama and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren's status as a heroine of the left naturally makes Obama look more centrist when he fights her, and that may be helpful for him going forward. Their first big row was over Antonio Weiss, the Obama treasury undersecretary nominee initially blocked by Warren. She wasn't pleased when Obama did an end-run around her by giving him a political appointment that didn't require Senate confirmation. Then came her criticism of Obama's trade agenda, to which he fired back last month by saying she is "absolutely wrong" on the merits. And just this week, Warren wrote a harsh letter to Obama's Securities and Exchange Commission chief, Mary Jo White, accusing her of leaving a trail of "broken promises" in not being a tougher Wall Street overseer. If Obama were looking for a way to show he's not beholden to his party's base, he could hardly find a better one than fighting with Warren. Handing over the reins Obama is fond of reminding people that he's not running for president again. It's not a completely liberating epiphany — the desire to protect and nurture his legacy is reason enough not to just follow every whim. But it's an important observation in this way: As the 2016 presidential race heats up, Obama will become more of a supporting actor for his party and less its leader. That role will fall to the Democratic nominee for president. That should free him from some of the overtly partisan work he's done in past election cycles — particularly from raising money for himself and hitting the stump as a candidate while he's running the country. He should benefit from that, too. *Pataki, Chafee, and O’Malley: No Chance In Hell <http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2015/06/05/pataki-chaffee-and-omalley-no-chance-in-hell-n2008177> // Town Hall // Matt Vespa – June 5, 2015 * What do Martin O’Malley, George Pataki, and Lincoln Chafee have in common? They don’t have a chance in hell in winning their party’s nomination for president. On the Democratic side, given that Hillary’s favorables have taken a plunge, it’s no surprise that Chafee and O’Malley decided to follow Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in challenging Clinton (via WaPo): A once-sleepy Democratic presidential primary contest is fast coming alive as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s poll numbers fall and a diverse array of long-shot opponents step forward to challenge her. The recent developments mark a dramatic evolution in the 2016 sweepstakes, which until now has been shaped by the large assortment of hopefuls on the Republican side, where there is no front-runner. The latest Democrat to enter the race is Lincoln Chafee, a onetime Republican and former Rhode Island governor and senator, who launched his campaign Wednesday in Northern Virginia. Though his candidacy is quixotic, Chafee’s sharp attacks on Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy record — and in particular her 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq — could nonetheless complicate her march to the nomination. Chafee joins an underfunded and jumbled field of Clinton rivals who see the favorite’s coziness with Wall Street and political longevity as weaknesses and who think she is vulnerable to a grass-roots contender who better captures the party’s liberal soul. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a fiery populist who identifies as a socialist, has been attracting some of the largest crowds of any candidate from either party as he summons supporters to join his “political revolution.” Truth be told, it’s probably going to remain sleepy. Clinton has the money, the organization, the endorsements, and the polling advantage–to the point where she could just ignore her opponents and deprive them of oxygen, especially when it comes to debates. With Pataki, well, he would have a chance at winning … if he were running to replace Richard Nixon (via FiveThirtyEight): Ideologically, he’s an old-school Republican (i.e., liberal) running in a modern GOP (i.e., very conservative). He is more moderate than any recent Republican nominee and is the most moderate candidate in the 2016 Republican field, according to our aggregated ideological scores. Pataki is, among other things, in favor of abortion rights and gay marriage. He’s somewhat of an environmentalist. (Barely) to the left of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose candidacy is all but dead, is not the place you want to be given that a plurality of Republicans believe Christie is not conservative enough. Pataki’s ideological score looks more like Richard Nixon’s, and Pataki would probably have had better luck running to replace Nixon rather than President Obama. According to the General Social Survey, 57 percent of Republicans identified as moderate or liberal in 1974. Since then, that figure has steadily declined to 43 percent in 1994 (when Pataki won the governorship of New York) to only 35 percent in 2014. That’s large enough to be part of a winning coalition in a primary, but not enough to win. But the wonks at Nate Silver’s data crunching site aren’t just hitting Pataki; they had noted that Chafee’s anti-war angle is stale, and that Maryland voters really don’t like O’Malley. On Chafee, they’re kind of brutal on his prospects: The problem for Chafee is that this is 2015, not 2007. Back then, the Iraq War was at the forefront of the public’s mind. An April 2007 Gallup survey found that 21 percent of Democrats said the Iraq War was the country’s most important problem,1 and an additional 13 percent said the “fear of war.” This gave then-Sen. Barack Obama, who spoke out against the Iraq War from the start, a wide opening in his run against Clinton. Among those voters who said the Iraq War was most important, Obama beat Clinton. Clinton beat Obama on the two other major issues (the economy and health care). Today, few Democratic voters are thinking about Iraq. In March 2015, just 3 percent of Democrats said the Iraq War was the most important problem in Gallup’s poll. Only 1 percent said the most important problem was the “fear of war.” Chafee is polling at 1 percent or less nationally and in Iowa and New Hampshire, and there is absolutely no reason to think he will ever be competitive in the Democratic primary. He also had what’s being called a disaster of a campaign rollout. As for O’Malley, Clinton sucks the oxygen out his home state numbers, but Bernie Sanders is doing a lot better in Vermont, meaning that while he also doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning the 2016 nomination–he could mount a decent challenge to Clinton. After all, there are enough far lefties in the Democratic base to mount such a campaign; they just don’t have enough voters to win an insurgent campaign yet: The people who know him best don’t like him. O’Malley is starting way down in the polls, and he’s not well known. And we have evidence that more O’Malley exposure doesn’t equal more O’Malley support. He earned just 3 percent (compared to Clinton’s 63 percent) in a poll of Democratic voters in Maryland conducted in October by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland. If this strikes you as a surprisingly low percentage for a two-term Maryland governor and former mayor of the state’s most populous city, it should. It speaks to the fact that O’Malley was unpopular enough in deep-blue Maryland that by the end of his second term, Republican Larry Hogan came out of nowhere to defeat O’Malley’s lieutenant governor in the 2014 governor’s race. Eventual nominees (excluding incumbent presidents) in the modern primary era have always led in early polling in their home states, even when they polled poorly nationally. O’Malley’s main competitor for second place in the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders, got 36 percent of the vote and even led Clinton in an October 2014 Castleton Polling Institute survey of Vermonters. That points to a base of support that should allow Sanders to do fairly decently in the primary, even if he has little chance of winning. There is one silver lining for Pataki, or candidates with his vein of politics; the conservative base of the GOP is shrinking. Only 42 percent of Republicans describe themselves as economically and socially conservative. It’s at its lowest level since Gallup began gauging the party’s base in 2005. Nevertheless, they’re still the largest group representing the Republican Party. The second largest group at 24 percent regard themselves as moderate or liberal on social and economic issues. So, theoretically, there may be some wiggle room for a Pataki candidacy, or one with a similar flavor in the future, but moderates shouldn’t be hoping for any success. With Pataki, besides his name recognition problem (Pataki left New York’s governor’s mansion in 2006), and the fact that he will probably have zero grassroots support–he’s pro-choice. The Republican base may have seen its conservative cohorts shrink in size, but there’s probably never going to be a presidential candidate from the right that will support abortion rights … ever. As Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg wrote, Gary Johnson, Arlen Specter, Pete Wilson, and Rudy Giuliani have all tried to win the GOP nomination with that position and failed. Moreover, there’s the well-known factor that the 2016 field is already diverse, stacked with solid conservatives (certainly better than 2012) for Republican voters to choose from, instead of wasting their time on a Rockefeller brand name that’s been damaged since the Goldwater campaign in 1964. With the Democrats, I would have to say they should hope that Vice President Biden enters the race. It provides the only avenue for them to attack Clinton effectively on a national stage on live television. Biden will probably poll low in the polls, but you really can’t deny debating the VP. And with candidates with similar strength in the polls, there’s no good argument for the networks to deny them a spot. After all, the motley crew that is the 2016 Democratic primary isn’t as large. This could all be pipe dreams though. I mean, even on a debate stage, they probably still don’t have a chance in hell since no one will abandon Hillary. She isn’t talking to the media, but even then; bank on pretty much everyone willing to follow her into the pits of Tartarus, despite the fact that her possible ethical and legal baggage would disqualify anyone running for president. For Democrats, it’s settled. For Republicans, the primary wars are revving up–and Pataki will probably fall mid-way through the first round. *In two minds <http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21653647-new-challengers-hillary-clinton-underline-partys-weaknesses-two-minds> // The Economist – June 5, 2015 * A CURIOUS mixture of cockiness and angst grips Democrats as they contemplate the next presidential election season, which—dreadful to relate—is now under way. For their party is at once in a strikingly strong position, and has not looked so weak in years. Start with the party’s strengths. Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, senator and first lady, announced that the first big rally of her campaign for the presidential nomination would take place on June 13th, on an island off Manhattan. The event is certain to be packed out. Mrs Clinton is not just very famous; she enjoys poll leads over every Republican thought to be running for the White House (a pack that looks like growing to 16 contenders). Democrats now also know that Mrs Clinton will face a contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, allowing her to hone her campaign skills and messages. On May 30th Martin O’Malley (above), a telegenic, guitar-playing former governor of Maryland, launched a challenge to her. He spoke at a sun-dappled event overlooking Baltimore harbour, flanked by artfully chosen representatives of fast-growing voter blocs that twice helped Barack Obama to win the White House, including Hispanics, urbanites and young women. Mr O’Malley was introduced by a young, gay Afro-Latino student without legal immigration status, who thanked him for supporting migrant rights and gay marriage in the state. Nor are fans of economic populism forgotten. Activists have reluctantly concluded that their heroine, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, is not running, suspending their “Run Warren Run” campaign. But they are rallying to Senator Bernie Sanders, a snowy-haired tribune of the left who began his campaign in earnest on May 26th, and who has been wowing meetings in Iowa. On paper, then, the party is well-placed to mobilise different elements of the Obama coalition. The so-far-declared Democratic candidates sound in near-lockstep on big progressive causes. All support gay marriage and the right to abortion. They believe that government must tackle climate change, and want millions of migrants currently in America without legal papers to be allowed to stay and eventually enjoy a path to citizenship. On one day every four years, when the presidency is at stake, the voter blocs of that Obama coalition pose a daunting challenge to Republicans. Whit Ayres, a pollster advising Senator Marco Rubio, a Floridian Republican running for president, summed up the problem in a recent book: “2016 and Beyond: How Republicans Can Elect a President in the New America”. Demographic groups that form the core of Republican support—older whites, blue-collar whites, married people and rural residents—are declining as a share of the electorate, Mr Ayres notes. In 2012 Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, picked up 59% of white votes. But he won just 17% of non-white votes. In 2016 America will be still less white, so that even if Republicans match Mr Romney’s performance among whites, they will need 30% of non-white votes to take the White House—a feat the party did not achieve in 2012, 2008 or even in 2004, when George W. Bush, trading on his popularity in Texas, enjoyed the backing of Hispanics in his re-election. Yet Democrats have serious weaknesses, too. Put bluntly, Mrs Clinton is their only serious candidate for the presidency. The crowd at Mr O’Malley’s launch was neither large nor confident that Maryland’s ex-governor has any chance of overtaking Mrs Clinton. Indeed, many in attendance did not want Mrs Clinton stopped, instead expressing hopes that Mr O’Malley’s entry into the race might simply tug the front-runner a bit to the left. Mr O’Malley drew most applause when he cited claims that big bank bosses would be happy to see Mrs Clinton or Jeb Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida (and a son and brother to presidents) win the White House. “Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street,” Mr O’Malley declared. “The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families.” The cheers were mostly venting: a CNN poll on June 2nd showed 60% of Democrats backing Mrs Clinton for the presidential nomination. Her nearest rival, Vice-President Joe Biden, was on 14%, though (especially since the death on May 30th of his son Beau) he shows no signs of running. Mr O’Malley was on 1%. The CNN poll gives Mr Sanders 10% of the Democratic vote. But activists at Sanders rallies are indulging in a holiday from political reality when they cheer his calls for state-run universal health care, free tuition at public universities and taxpayer-funded elections. That might be a fine platform in France. It is unserious in America (as is the proposal of Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican senator and independent governor of Rhode Island, who launched a Democratic presidential bid on June 3rd, to switch America to the metric system). Mrs Clinton’s dominance worries even supporters, who know they have few options if she stumbles, or is overtaken by scandals related to her family’s charitable foundation or her use of a private e-mail server as secretary of state, to name just two possibilities. Weeks of news reports probing the finances of Mrs Clinton and her husband, Bill, have already left a mark. Two new polls show sharp falls in the number of Americans who trust her. In part, Mrs Clinton’s stature explains the Democrats’ lack of a deep bench of swing-state governors or senators with eyes on the presidency. But in part their thin bench reflects a broader weakness in recent non-presidential elections. The reasons are complex. The Obama coalition includes many sporadic voters who skip state and local contests. Lots of Democratic votes are packed inefficiently into super-safe urban districts (many with gerrymandered boundaries). The results are simply brutal. In Washington Republicans enjoy their largest majority in the House of Representatives since 1946, while the elections of 2014 were a bloodbath for Democratic senators in conservative states. Republicans control 69 of 99 state legislature chambers, and 31 of 50 governors’ mansions. If Democrats are united by their strengths, and on how to woo the Obama coalition, they disagree about how to tackle their weaknesses and win back Middle America. Mr O’Malley and Mr Sanders propose a sharp left turn. Mrs Clinton, by contrast, has been cagey about her views on the policies that divide Democrats. She is right to be cautious. Many numbers favour her party; but many do not. *Iowans Always Complain The Caucuses Are Getting Less Important. This Time They Have a Point. <http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/05/_iowa_caucus_2016_the_real_reason_the_state_should_be_worried_that_it_s.html?wpsrc=fol_tw> // Slate // Josh Voorhees – June 5, 2015 * here’s handwringing in the heartland. Iowa’s political and chattering classes—and, to a lesser extent, its actual voters—are fretting that their first-in-the-nation nominating contest has lost its luster. Dave Price, the political director for NBC’s affiliate in Des Moines, is the latest to give voice to the angst, writing in this week’s Politico Magazine cover story that there’s a “palpable anxiety in political circles—and even rumblings that Iowa’s king-making days might be over, or at least that the national media, and the rest of the country, will pay less heed this cycle.” Iowa politicos—like their colleagues in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada—are a particularly nervous breed. They know better than anyone that their early-nominating status translates directly into political chits and campaign cash for themselves and their state party, and that every minute and dollar a presidential candidate spends elsewhere is one that they aren’t spending in the Hawkeye State. Still, their fears don’t need be altruistic to be accurate. For Iowans craving the type of caucus clashes that keep candidates and the political press corps camped out in their state for months, there really is reason to worry. Hillary Clinton’s continued polling dominance suggests the Democratic frontrunner will probably be able to keep playing things safe in Iowa, as well as everywhere else. Likewise, GOP establishment favorites like Jeb Bush may decide against slugging it out with more conservative candidates in a nominating contest that is dominated by values voters and tea partiers. As the first-in-the-nation nominating contest, Iowa will still matter, but not as much as it did in decades past. Such campaign cycle-specific headaches, though, are nothing new in Iowa, particularly among Republicans. “Politically speaking, this state is in something of an existential crisis,” the Washington Post declared at this point in the last presidential cycle, when it appeared as though Mitt Romney had forgotten where Iowa was on the map. Four years before that, the Hawkeye State’s harrumphing was directed at eventual GOP nominee John McCain and his decision to focus the lion’s share of his resources elsewhere, an Iowa-ignoring strategy he had deployed with even greater force in the 2000 cycle. Iowa’s real reasons to worry, though, go well beyond 2016. Two long-term game-changers loom large on the horizon. The first is the decision by the Republican and Democratic parties to rein in the number of primary debates. By allowing network execs to use national polls to decide who makes it onto the debate stage and who doesn’t, the national parties have effectively created a series of mini-national primaries that will winnow the field long before Iowans have a chance to. The second is the continued rise of super PACs and their dark-money brethren, which have the ability to keep otherwise doomed campaigns afloat far longer than they have any right to be. In primaries past, a poor performance in Iowa or one of the other early-nominating contests would make it mighty difficult for a candidate to raise the type of small-dollar donations he needed to soldier on. That’s no longer the case now that a single deep-pocketed patron can cut a seven- or eight-figure check. Iowa, then, might not have the chance to weed out the presidential pretenders in the field, nor the power to force any contenders from the race. Iowans, though, have little reason to complain. They might be watching their political influence wane, but they and their fellow early-nominating states are still showered with a disproportionate amount of attention and campaign cash. Clinton may be playing hard to get, but Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders have already made more than two dozen visits apiece. Meanwhile, the state still has enough of a Republican draw that Rand Paul—Rand Paul!—felt it necessary to find something to love about its government-subsidized ethanol industry. There is no divine right of kingmakers that will preserve the Iowa Caucus forever, but as long as it remains the first contest on the calendar, it will always get to hold court. *GOP* *BUSH* *Jeb readies for upcoming road trips <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/jeb-bush-road-trips-before-announcement-118681.html> // Politico // Eli Stokols – June 5, 2015* Jeb Bush’s coy game of pretending there’s still doubt as to whether or not he’ll run for president is ending with a bang — two weeks of aggressive travel and campaigning. After releasing a new website Thursday morning signaling a June 15 campaign launch, Bush will spend his final week as an unofficial candidate meeting with European leaders in Germany, Poland and Estonia in a trip designed to bolster his foreign policy credentials and give greater definition to his argument that the U.S. should be doing more to help its allies. The expected announcement would make Bush the 10th declared candidate in the Republican primary. From Miami, Bush will depart for what’s being billed as the “Jeb Announcement Tour.” He’ll spend the week cycling through the early voting states: Tuesday in Derry, New Hampshire; Wednesday in Pella, Iowa; and Thursday in Charleston, South Carolina. Bush’s oldest son, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, will hold an event Saturday in Henderson, Nevada; while Jeb Bush will not be there, he’ll make his first official campaign stop in the Silver State on June 27. The last time Bush visited Nevada, in mid-May, he accidentally stated during an interview with a local TV station that he’s running for president — before correcting himself. While national polls show Bush near the top of the deep GOP primary field, polls in the early states show that he has work to do, especially in Iowa, where he’s only made two trips so far this year and currently polls in seventh place. *Memo to Jeb Bush: Avoid foreign quagmires <http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/05/politics/jeb-bush-election-2016-travel/> // CNN // Stephen Collinson – June 5, 2015* Jeb Bush is Europe bound. High on the travel agenda: steering clear of the pesky foreign quagmires that have engulfed his GOP brethren on recent trips abroad. The former Florida governor will visit Germany and also tour Estonia and Poland -- two former Soviet states that offer an easy platform for criticism of the Obama administration's policy towards Russian President Vladimir Putin. It should be an easy mission for an accomplished politician -- a quick flit across the pond to bolster foreign policy credentials ahead of a likely presidential campaign. But Bush should choose his words with care if he is to avoid extending a dubious streak that has seen Republican candidates tumble into controversy overseas. Mitt Romney, the 2012 presidential nominee, endured a disastrous trip to Europe three years ago and committed a huge gaffe by questioning Britain's readiness to host the London Olympic Games on the eve of their taking place. Romney tried to roll back his criticism but was openly mocked in front of a huge crowd by London Mayor Boris Johnson in unflattering video footage that was beamed back to the United States. Romney also went to Poland and suffered the indignity of reporters yelling at him to answer for his missteps -- before a top campaign aide was caught on camera telling the press pack to "kiss my a**." Romney's disastrous sojourn earned him the unwelcome headline "Mitt the Twit" in the merciless British tabloid press. This election cycle has not been kind to potential presidential candidates who venture across the Atlantic either. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal also managed to irk Johnson when he claimed in January that some areas of Europe, including parts of Britain, had become Muslim "no-go zones." New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, meanwhile, found out earlier this year that answering questions abroad about boiling political issues back home can also get you into trouble. Christie said that parents should have a "measure of choice" about whether to vaccinate their kids, drawing charges that he was equivocating to appease evangelical conservatives. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made his own trip to London this year and dodged a question on whether he believed in evolution -- and managed to steer clear of deeper distractions by avoiding questions on pretty much everything else. Perhaps wisely, Bush is avoiding London, where journalists like nothing more than tripping up visiting American presidential candidates. Had he braved the wrath of the British media, Bush would likely have faced unwelcome questions about his brother, former president George W. Bush, and the Iraq war, both of which remain deeply unpopular in the U.K. His visit to Germany will recall then-Sen. Barack Obama's trip to Europe during the 2008 presidential campaign, which saw him deliver a soaring speech before a crowd of hundreds of thousands euphoric Germans in downtown Berlin. But even Obama, who was wildly popular in Europe, didn't escape controversy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was apparently annoyed at his campaign's request for him to speak before the iconic Brandenburg Gate, where President Ronald Reagan once cried, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Obama did not get that privilege until his second term, in 2013, by which time he was much less popular in Europe and, as a consequence, drew a much smaller crowd. *Jeb Bush’s struggle with conservatives <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/jeb-bush-struggle-conservatives> // MSNBC // Chuck Todd & Mark Murray – June 5, 2015 * Jeb is struggling with conservatives more than Romney did at this same point four years ago: Our colleague Dante Chinni notes in the Wall Street Journal that Jeb’s standing with conservatives is WORSE than Mitt Romney’s in the 2012 cycle. Consider: Jeb’s fav/unfav with conservatives: 33%-28% (April 2015 NBC/WSJ poll) Romney’s fav/unfav with conservatives: 40%-14% (June 2011 NBC/WSJ poll) Jeb’s poll position with conservatives: 3rd (April 2015 NBC/WSJ poll) Romney’s poll position with conservatives: 1st (June 2011 NBC/WSJ poll) *Jeb Bush Facing Crucial Two-Week Stretch <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-05/jeb-bush-facing-crucial-two-week-stretch> // Bloomberg News // Michael Bender – June 5, 2015 * When Jeb Bush returns next week from Estonia, the tiny, technologically advanced country that shares a border with Russia, he’ll have about 48 hours to shake off the jet lag before a June 15 rally in Miami, where he formally announces his decision to enter the race for the Republican presidential nomination. That will be the midpoint of a crucial two weeks in which Bush will first try to establish his foreign policy credentials, and then introduce himself to voters. The week before his campaign launch, the former Florida governor travels to Germany, Poland and Estonia; the week after, he will be stumping in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In case there's any doubt what Bush will be announcing later this month, his spokeswoman Kristy Campbell offered this Thursday: "Governor Bush is thankful for the support and encouragement he's received from so many Americans, and is excited to announce his decision." “The Bush kids have had a chance to have a front-row seat in history.” Bush's "decision" will come just two days after Hillary Clinton holds her much-ballyhooed first campaign rally in New York City. But if there were any concerns about sharing the spotlight with the other political dynasty in the race—or about the quick transition from Europe to a campaign announcement at Miami Dade College’s Theodore Gibson Health Center (a complex that includes a 3,200-seat gymnasium)—they may have been overridden by other scheduling issues. The fact is, Bush has waited so long to make it official that he's running into a bit of a calendar crunch: The last week of June is expected to bring highly anticipated U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Obamacare and gay marriage, both decisions that have the potential to dominate the political news cycle and force candidates off message as they respond. Then comes the long Independence Day holiday weekend and the start of family vacation season. And then, the first Republican presidential debate in Cleveland on August 6. To have any chance of getting a ticket to be on stage, a candidate has to be officially in the race. Before Bush becomes the 11th major Republican candidate in the race, he’ll have a chance to polish his foreign-policy résumé with a week in Berlin, Warsaw and Tallinn, Estonia. It’s the kind of opportunity that some of his potential Republican rivals haven’t been able to seize, especially the governors among them. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has curiously claimed that President Reagan’s firing of air-traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981 was the most important foreign policy event of the past five decades (and wrongly said the move influenced U.S.-Russian relations). New Jersey Governor Chris Christie refused to answer questions about foreign policy issues while traveling to England in February. Asked by a Washington Post reporter during the trip about the terrorist threat from Islamic State, Christie said, “Is there something you don’t understand about ‘no questions’?” Foreign policy prompted Bush’s one major gaffe in the seven months since he served notice in December that he was serious about running for president. In an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on May 9, Bush said he’d have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq even knowing the intelligence was faulty. Bush struggled for the next week to give a clear answer, finally saying on May 14 that he “would not have engaged” in Iraq, knowing what he knows now. “That’s one that shook a lot of people,” a Bush fundraiser who requested anonymity to speak about private conversations told Bloomberg. “That’s a question you know was coming. It should have been a slam dunk and gone, and it didn’t happen that way. But even the most professional of these guys stumble from time to time.” Bush has also incorrectly claimed that the Islamic state didn’t exist when his brother, George W. Bush, was president, and that al-Qaeda had been wiped out. But expectations for Bush should be high. A fluent Spanish speaker who lived in Venezuela before entering politics, Bush led trade and advocacy missions to at least 18 countries as governor, including Peru and Israel, as well as a six-day trip in 2005 that included stops in Dusseldorf and Munich, two of Germany’s largest cities. As a former senior advisor to London-based Barclays PLC, Bush says he traveled overseas 89 times to 29 countries in the eight years after leaving office. Last year, Bush started an investment fund with backing from a Chinese conglomerate. He has said he had been traveling about four times a year to China, where his father, George H.W. Bush, served as U.S. ambassador before being elected the nation's 41st president. "The Bush kids have had a chance to have a front-row seat in history,” Bush said at a Republican National Committee rally during his father’s 1992 re-election bid. “We’ve seen the tumbling of the Berlin Wall, the hammer and the sickle going down from the Kremlin on Christmas Day just a few years ago. We’ve seen so many incredible things happen.” In Berlin, Bush will participate in a question-and-answer session during an economic conference on June 9, where he'll have a prime speaking slot sandwiched between Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel supports the nuclear negotiations with Iran that Bush opposes, but Bush’s father remains very popular in the country because of the role he took promoting German reunification while he was in the White House. Outside the former president's library in College Station, Texas is a statue of horses leaping over pieces from the Berlin Wall, a Cold War relic that came down during his term in the White House. Germany unveiled its own monument in Berlin in 2010, known as the "Fathers of German Unity," that includes bronze busts of Bush, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. That legacy may help Bush counter the one left by his brother. The nation's 43rd president remains generally disliked in Europe because of his aggressive foreign policy and unpopular war in Iraq, said Alexander Privitera, a senior fellow at at the Johns Hopkins American Institute for Contemporary German Studies. While Europeans are "going to be looking for signs of whether he's similar to his brother," Privitera predicted that “there won’t be thousands protesting against Jeb Bush. A lot of people will associate him with memories that are overcharged with emotions." In Poland, Bush will participate in a roundtable with the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, a pro-democracy, free-market group, and meet with senior members of the Polish government about efforts to support Ukraine. In Estonia, where the Internet phone service Skype was born and where residents can vote and pay their taxes online, Bush will participate in a roundtable discussion about transatlantic security with the International Center for Defense and Security, a group focused on cyber attacks, social cohesion and energy policy in the Baltic-Nordic region. Bush will also tour NATO’s Cyber Defence Center of Excellence, and meet Estonians from the e-Estonia Showroom, a briefing center that highlights the country's digital successes. Bush called Estonia “this really cool, tiny country” during a speech in Florida on Wednesday. He held up the Baltic nation, population 1.3 million, as an example of a relatively simple tax code. “You can fill out your tax return in Estonia online in five minutes,” Bush said. “That should be a worthy aspiration for a great nation.” *RUBIO* *Rubios on the Road Have Drawn Unwanted Attention <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/05/marco-rubio-and-his-wife-cited-17-times-for-traffic-infractions-2/> // NYT // Alan Rappeport & Steve Eder – June 5, 2015* Senator Marco Rubio has been in a hurry to get to the top, rising from state legislator to United States senator in the span of a decade and now running for president at age 44. But politics is not the only area where Mr. Rubio, a Republican from Florida, has an affinity for the fast track. He and his wife, Jeanette, have also shown a tendency to be in a rush on the road. According to a search of the Miami-Dade and Duval County court dockets, the Rubios have been cited for numerous infractions over the years for incidents that included speeding, driving through red lights and careless driving. A review of records dating back to 1997 shows that the couple had a combined 17 citations: Mr. Rubio with four and his wife with 13. On four separate occasions they agreed to attend remedial driving school after a violation. Mr. Rubio’s troubles behind the wheel predate his days in politics. In 1997, when he was cited for careless driving by a Florida Highway Patrol officer, he was fined and took voluntary driving classes. A dozen years later, in 2009, he was ticketed for speeding on a highway in Duval County and found himself back in driver improvement school. Things got more complicated in 2011 when Mr. Rubio was alerted to the fact that his license was facing suspension after a traffic camera caught him failing to stop at a red light in his beige Buick. His lawyer, Alex Hanna, paid a $16 fee to delay the suspension and eventually it was dismissed. County records show Senator Marco Rubio and his wife, Jeanette, have been cited for numerous driving incidents over the years. “Senator Rubio’s license has always been in good standing,” Mr. Hanna said in a statement provided by Mr. Rubio’s campaign. “This matter was resolved by the court system and at no point was the license suspended by the D.M.V.” That was not the last time Mr. Rubio was ticketed. In 2012 he was caught failing to obey a stop sign, but the infraction was dismissed. Ms. Rubio’s driving record is even messier. According to the records, her driver’s license faced suspension on three occasions, including after a 2009 episode where she was driving a white Cadillac at 58 miles per hour on a road in West Miami with a speed limit of 35 m.p.h. She paid a $302 fine and agreed to attend a four-hour course at a local traffic school. However, Ms. Rubio, who also took a four-hour basic driver improvement course after a careless driving incident in 2000, failed to complete the class and had to pay another $34 penalty. The lessons apparently did not stick. A year later, in 2010, she was stopped for driving 23 m.p.h. in a school zone where the speed limit was 15 m.p.h. She was fined $185. It is not clear how the numerous infractions have affected the Rubios’ car insurance policy or premiums. On at least one occasion, Ms. Rubio was cited for lacking documentation that her car was insured. The Rubios have spent more than $1,000 paying traffic penalties over the years, but after Mr. Rubio was elected to the Senate in 2010 they took a different approach to handling their tickets. Mr. Rubio hired Mr. Hanna, a Miami-based lawyer and donor, whose website sales pitch says, “Have you received a traffic ticket? Don’t pay it.” With Mr. Hanna’s help, Mr. Rubio’s last two citations were dismissed and seven of Ms. Rubio’s last eight were cleared. Mr. Rubio’s campaign had no comment on the traffic violations or whether Ms. Rubio’s license was ever actually suspended. And not all accidents become police matters. Earlier this year, Ms. Rubio, a former cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins, sideswiped a Porsche Panamera while driving her husband’s Ford F-150 truck to a donor event at the Delano Hotel in Miami Beach. According to the Miami Herald, the police declined to take a report on the incident because it was a “minor” fender bender. If Mr. Rubio is fortunate to make it as far as the White House, there will be many perks that come with the job. Chief among them, however, might be having a driver. *Marco Rubio’s Iraq quagmire deepens: This is what a foreign policy wonk looks like? <http://www.salon.com/2015/06/05/marco_rubios_iraq_quagmire_deepens_this_is_what_a_foreign_policy_wonk_looks_like/> // Salon // Simon Maloy – June 5, 2015 * For someone who is running for the White House based on his supposedly sterling foreign policy credentials, Marco Rubio seems to have trouble forming coherent thoughts when it comes to Iraq. A few weeks ago, Rubio offered up a thoroughly nonsensical answer to whether he’d have supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, explaining that he would have done it, but also that he wouldn’t have done it, but also that the invasion was totally worth it. And just yesterday on Fox News, he served up this beautiful nugget of incoherence on what he’d like to see happen in Iraq (courtesy of Business Insider): Here’s the transcript: RUBIO: The most immediate responsibility we have is to help them build a functional government that can actually meet the needs of their people in the short and the long term. And then ultimately, from that we would hope it would spring— FOX NEWS HOST: That sounds like nation-building. RUBIO: Well, it’s not nation-building. We are assisting them in building their nation. We have a vested interest in doing that. The nice part about this is that you don’t have to go through the trouble of refuting it – Rubio did that himself. He wants the U.S. to help build a functional government in Iraq, but it’s not nation-building, it’s just helping them build a nation. That’s not his Iraq strategy, it’s just the strategy he’s formulated for Iraq. It’s brilliant. Rubio is a straight-up neocon, but usually he is a bit slippier when it comes to endorsing George W. Bush’s foreign policy without actually copping to its many, many failures. What he said on Fox News yesterday doesn’t make sense on any level, but it does undermine his foreign policy vision. By calling for a renewed commitment to nation-building (or whatever he wants to call it) he’s acknowledging that the many lives, years, and billions of dollars we devoted to our last nation-building effort didn’t work. But President Rubio will do it better this time because he’s not nation-building, he’s “assisting them in building their nation,” or whatever. So that was bad, but Rubio wasn’t quite done stomping all over his own foreign policy views. Like most Republicans, Rubio believes that we had actually “won” the war in Iraq by the time Bush left office, but then Barack Obama came in and withdrew all the troops and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. He tried making that argument yesterday on Fox News and said something dumb: RUBIO: What happened in Iraq under this administration is they rallied around Maliki. Maliki was the Shia leader who used his power to go after Sunnis. And that created the environment that was conducive for ISIS to come back in and create all these problems. It was actually the Bush administration that first “rallied around” Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister of Iraq and propped him up as the country spiraled out of control. The troop “surge” that Rubio and his allies are so enamored of was implemented so that Maliki would have political space to promote reconciliation between warring factions within the Iraqi government. Maliki squandered that opportunity and instead used it to consolidate his own power and crack down on his rivals. In the Rubio worldview, however, the fault for Maliki’s abuses lies solely with Obama. He argues that Obama should have left behind a small residual force of U.S. troops (that the Iraqi government refused to accommodate) to intimidate Maliki into not being the corrupt, petty despot that he was. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, given that Maliki wouldn’t be brought to heel even when U.S. troop presence in his country was at its height and he was under intense diplomatic pressure from the Bush White House. But that’s the heart of the Rubio foreign policy position: the neocon dream of nation-building works, just so long as you don’t call it nation-building and completely disregard all the very recent evidence of it not working. *Ted Cruz Labels Walker, Rubio And Jeb As ‘Moderate’ <http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/05/ted-cruz-labels-walker-rubio-and-jeb-as-moderate/> // The Daily Caller // Alex Pappas – June 5, 2015 * Ted Cruz, describing political strategy in a recent newspaper interview, labeled Republican presidential frontrunners Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush as “moderates” in the primary contest. Speaking to the Raleigh News & Observer ahead of a weekend visit to North Carolina, Cruz said: “I think Walker and Rubio will become the chief moderate rivals for Jeb Bush in that bracket.” Walker of Wisconsin and Rubio and Bush of Florida would all contest the characterization that they aren’t conservative. That’s the bracket the Texas senator says he best represents. “I think my natural bracket is the conservative/Tea Party bracket which is about 25 percent of the typical Republican primary,” Cruz said. Cruz also told the paper that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham also fit into the “moderate” bracket. *Same-sex marriage advocates pose 'real and present danger' to Christianity, Sen. Marco Rubio warns <http://www.christiantoday.com/article/same.sex.marriage.poses.real.and.present.danger.to.christianity.sen.marco.rubio.warns/55436.htm> // Christian Today // Marvie Basilan – June 5, 2015 * Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has denounced supporters of same sex-marriage, saying they pose a "real and present danger" to Christianity. In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network last week, Rubio said gay marriage advocates are bound to attack the tenets of the Christian faith to justify their cause. "Today we've reached the point in our society where if you do not support same-sex marriage you are labeled a homophobe and a hater," said Rubio, a Republican Party candidate for president in the 2016 election. "After they [same-sex marriage supporters] are done going after individuals, the next step is to argue that the teachings of mainstream Christianity, the catechism of the Catholic Church, is hate speech. That's a real and present danger," Rubio said. Rubio contended that his Catholic faith is the one driving his policy positions on social issues, including gay marriage. He said he and his family once dabbled in Mormonism and the Baptist church but later felt the call to revert back to Catholicism. Rubio's view on same-sex marriage appeared to be tied to his views on traditional families. "The family is the original cell of society," Rubio said. "It is the first and most important government. It is the first church. The family is the singular most important institution in society. It existed before government. It existed before laws." In a separate interview last month, Rubio said same-sex marriage has "no federal constitutional right." Nevertheless, he said he would be present at a gay wedding of someone dear to him. Much earlier, Rubio said during a CNN interview that if the Supreme Court grants same-sex marriage in all states, "that would be the law of the land that we would have to follow until it's somehow reversed." Since then, Rubio appeared to have sided more firmly with those opposed to same-sex marriage. Though his move may bring him closer to the evangelicals of Iowa and South Carolina, some political pundits said his apparent change of heart could have little effect on his candidacy as it came at a time when the Republicans appeared to be losing hope in winning the battle over gay marriage as more states in the US are joining the bandwagon to legalise same-sex marriages. Nevertheless, Rubio said he is ready to oppose same-sex marriage not only in the United States but worldwide. "If America doesn't lead, what happens? Well, what happens is chaos," he said. Regardless of his views on gay marriage and other issues, Rubio said he is leaving everything to God and the American people in choosing the next president of the United States. *PAUL* *Rand Paul: "We Shouldn't Do Things to Prevent People from Voting" <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-06/rand-paul-we-shouldn-t-do-things-to-prevent-people-from-voting-> // Bloomberg News // David Wiegel – June 5, 2015 * On Thursday, at a speech in Texas, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton made her first sustained attacks on her potential Republican opponents. She wanted to make voter registration basically automatic, to extend 20 days of early voting in all 50 states, and for Republicans to "stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud." Among others, she singled out Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush for, respectively, making registration harder and overseeing a flawed purge of voter rolls. On Friday, some of Clinton's targets swatted her right back. "I don't want to expand [registration] and increase the opportunities for fraud," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told CBS News during his latest New Hampshire trip. "Maybe that's what Mrs. Clinton wants to do." Yet hours later, also in New Hampshire, a Republican presidential candidate who rarely passes up a chance to scorch Hillary Clinton took a softer tone on her voting rights pitch. In a scrum with reporters after opening the first New Hampshire campaign office of any 2016 GOP candidate, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul said he had not seen Clinton's speech, but noted that he had "tried to make it more inclusive so more people can vote." Paul, who has co-sponsored legislation that would lower the bar for ex-felons who want to vote, recounted how he'd testified to restore some Kentuckians' rights. "I've actually lobbied for allowing people to get their right to vote back." Asked specifically about Clinton's early voting and automatic registration ideas, Paul did not push back. Rather, he suggested that the states need to lead the way. "I'm not against early voting," Paul told Bloomberg. "I grew up in Texas, where we have early voting, and we're a dominant Republican state -- so I don't think it necessarily favors one party over the other. Each state should decide that. The Constitution and the history of the legal cases has been pretty clear that each state gets to determine the time and manner of the elections. I wouldn't have the federal government interfere and tell any state how to do it. The Fourteenth Amendment, I think, allows the government to get involved if there is a racial bias. I am fine with the federal government intervening in those cases." Automatic registration, said Paul, was "sort of [up to] time and manner" of the states, as well. "I think each state has their own registration -- and I think Oregon just mails it to you, which I think is a bad idea," said Paul. "You ought to confirm who you are. I'm not against there being a little bit of effort, but we shouldn't make it hard. We shouldn't do things to prevent people from voting, but we shouldn't do things that encourage lapses in the system that allow people who aren't legitimate voters." Paul had been tripped up by this topic before. In 2014, he suggested that a Republican push for voter ID requirements was "offending" some non-white voters. He has not used that language since. In April, he told an interviewer that "motor voter" laws were problematic because they might let non-citizens get ID cards, usable at the polls. "People tell me that once you get a driver's license you can vote," he said. "That’s a problem. The federal government is funding some of this motor voter stuff, so we’re looking at ways that we could actually restrict federal funds and say you don’t get it unless you’re doing the cross tabs on this data." Pressed by NH1 reporter Paul Steinhauser at his Manchester campaign headquarters opening, Paul refused to say whether his party was making voting more difficult. "I don't know," he said. "All I know is what I'm trying to do, and I think it's a good idea for the Republicans to be a party that is for the vote, that is for allowing people to vote." *WALKER* *Is Gov. Scott Walker putting the University of Wisconsin system in jeopardy? <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/06/05/is-gov-scott-walker-putting-the-university-of-wisconsin-system-in-jeopardy/> // WaPo // Valerie Strauss – June 5, 2015 * Are Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin legislature on their way to doing serious harm to the respected University of Wisconsin system? Let’s review. Walker, who is expected to soon announce his candidacy for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has laid out a series of proposals for the system over the next two years, including budget cuts as well as changes to tenure and the governance structure. He calls the package of changes “the Act 10 of higher education,” a reference to a 2011 law that, among other things, slashed the power of public employee unions, cut the take-home pay for many public workers and eliminated tenure for teachers. The governor proposed slashing $300 million over the next two years from the University of Wisconsin system, which is comprised of 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year campuses. A legislative committee went along with his idea to cut higher education funding, but only by $250 million — not much of a reprieve. It is worth noting that Wisconsin is already spending less on higher education than all of its Midwestern neighbors and, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is one of only six states that have approved or are considering reducing higher education funding for the next fiscal year. Walker had also sought to create a new “quasi-governmental” body that would run the university system rather than have it under direct state control, but lawmakers nixed that. They are, however, supporting his proposed changes to tenure and the long-successful University of Wisconsin shared governance structure that critics say could turn the system into a pariah in academia. Specifically, the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee has approved a bill that would move tenure from state statute into the purview of the governing Board of Regents. University administration would be able to fire or lay off faculty or academic staff not only for financial emergencies and just cause, as it now the case, but also “when such an action is deemed necessary due to a budget or program decision regarding program discontinuance, curtailment, modification, or redirection.” Not only would it be much easier to lay off faculty but administrators would also have control over decisions involving academic programs and curricula that are now accorded to faculty. While members of the governing Board of Regents have said publicly that they would still “uphold tenure,” faculty say that the law would take precedence over any board policy. On Thursday night, a board panel voted to go along with the proposed tenure change, and it is likely to be approved by the full legislature in June, the Journal Sentinel reported. The newspaper quoted Tony Evers, a regent and State Superintendent of Public Instruction, saying that if the legislature approves the broad language in the proposed change, “Tenure will be gone as we know it and I think it’s a step backward for our relationship with faculty members.” Just like for K-12 teachers. A statement Tuesday issued by the Public Representation Organization of the University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate said: “If such language is passed by the full Wisconsin legislature, it will cripple the UW’s ability to attract and retain quality employees, devalue the educational credentials of future UW graduates, and create new financial challenges for the UW System.” The University of Wisconsin system has long enjoyed shared governance among faculty, students and administrators, a dynamic that these changes would shatter. The New York Times wrote in this story: Yet in academic circles nationwide, there was concern this week that the proposed changes in Wisconsin could bolster the forces pushing universities to operate more like businesses, eliminating departments or courses that do not attract many students or much research money. “Increasingly, the excuse of financial difficulty has been used as a reason to overpower the faculty, with a lot of people in administration saying we need to be flexible,” said Henry Reichman, vice president of the American Association of University Professors. “If you just took the Wisconsin language on eliminating tenure, and moved it from the statute into board policy, you could argue that there would be no problem. But the shared governance change seems to undermine the whole structure.” This Journal Sentinel story on the controversy quoted Rudy Fichtenbaum, president of the American Association of University Professors, as saying that many politicians don’t understand tenure: “Tenure is about protecting academic freedom, not a guaranteed job for life. Protecting academic freedom is important to protecting the public interest. … Without academic freedom, the university will be there to serve the interests of whichever political party is in power. The regents are appointed by the governor, and they determine priorities.” Earlier in the year Walker created a related controversy when he submitted a budget proposal that included language that would have changed the century-old mission of the University of Wisconsin system — known as the “Wisconsin Idea” and embedded in the state code — by removing words that commanded the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition” and replacing them with “meet the state’s workforce needs.” Walker was recently sued by a nonprofit watchdog group alleging that he is refusing to make public documents relating to the mission change effort. The fierce debate over Republican plans for higher education in Wisconsin dovetail with changes in K-12 education that the state superintendent said will decimate public schools by refusing to spend more money on public education for the first time in more than 20 years while giving millions of dollars more to expand a private voucher program, slashing higher education funding, and weakening licensing rules for teachers. *Walker would sign budget with no borrowing for roads <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/5/budget-committee-co-chair-calls-road-funding-stare/> // AP // Scott Bauer – June 5, 2015 * Gov. Scott Walker, who steadfastly opposes raising taxes or fees to pay for roads, would sign a state budget that includes no borrowing for highways and other transportation needs in Wisconsin, resulting in significant delays to ongoing and planned projects, his spokeswoman said Friday. While that is not his preferred option, Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said if the Legislature decides to remove $1.3 billion in borrowing the governor proposed, Walker would sign it. That’s a “pretty stark concept,” said Rep. John Nygren, co-chairman of the Legislature’s budget-writing committee. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos first publicly voiced the possibility of doing away with the borrowing on Wednesday, saying that would be an option since Walker refuses to consider raising the gas tax or vehicle registration fees. Vos offered the idea to Walker in a private meeting that day, which was also attended by Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. “When Speaker Vos floated the idea of the Legislature removing all bonding for transportation from the state budget, it was communicated that this would have a devastating impact on the transportation fund and transportation projects across the state as a ripple effect,” Patrick said in an email. Without the $1.3 billion, every road project would likely be affected: from megaprojects like the Zoo Interchange in Milwaukee, the Interstate 39/90 expansion from Madison south to Illinois, the I-94 expansion from Milwaukee south to Illinois, as well as other state highway work, bridge repairs and freight rail maintenance, according to information provided by Walker’s office. Nygren, a Republican from Marinette and co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, said he doesn’t want to delay roads projects because that will only put greater pressure on lawmakers in two years to figure out a way to deal with the pent-up demand. Nygren and other Republicans have talked about reducing the level of borrowing by between $300 million and $800 million. Republican lawmakers and Walker are at an impasse, and the budget remains stalled over it. Nygren described negotiations on transportation funding as “a little bit of a stare off at this time.” Another outstanding issue is whether to repeal of the state’s prevailing wage law - which sets salaries for workers on public works jobs - or just scale it back. And a financing deal to pay for a new Milwaukee Bucks arena reached with Walker, Milwaukee officials, Republican legislative leaders and team owners was just released Thursday. Both the prevailing wage and arena issue could be decided outside of the budget, but transportation funding must be included in the two-year spending plan. Regarding the Bucks deal, Nygren and other Republicans have said they want to give the public, and lawmakers who must approve it, time to understand it before rushing to a vote. “There’s no real big sense of urgency to get this to Joint Finance,” Nygren said. The Joint Finance Committee originally planned to complete its work last Friday, but the Republican-controlled panel did not meet this week and it has no meetings scheduled for next week. *Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker fires up NC GOP <http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article23251845.html> //The News & Observer //Taylor Knopf – June 5, 2015 * Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker kicked off the North Carolina GOP state convention Friday night in a packed Raleigh Convention Center ballroom. Walker spent most of the day in Raleigh, speaking to a Civitas Institute donor crowd, doing TV media interviews at the state legislative building and celebrating National Doughnut Day with Lt. Gov. Dan Forest at Raleigh’s downtown Krispy Kreme. During his speech at the convention, Walker gave his pitch for why he would be a good candidate for president. The governor said that of the large number of great Republican candidates there are two groups: fighters and winners. The fighters he defined as those in the U.S. Senate who fight hard but have yet to win anything. The winners he defined as current and former governors, who are good at winning elections but have not consistently fought the big fights. “If we were to get into this race, it would be because I think there is a yearning in America for someone who can fight and win for hardworking taxpayers,” Walker said. “We have fought the good fight and won those fights, not just at the ballot box three times in four years in a blue state, but more importantly we have won every single one of those fights we engaged in.” Walker has not formally declared his candidacy but said he would announce his intentions after Wisconsin passes its state budget. Walker hit on his usual three-point vision for the future of the United States – growth, reform and safety – while sharing some of his accomplishments as governor of the Badger State. Economic growth occurs when government steps aside and empowers the people, Walker said. “People like Hilary Clinton think the way you grow the economy is by growing Washington,” he said. “The rest of us in reality need to tell Washington that true growth happens in cities and towns and villages all across this great country. People create jobs, not the government.” Since Walker took office, he said unemployment went from 9.2 percent in 2010 to 4.6 percent this spring. He said reform should be measured by how many people are no longer dependent on the government. And safety is how Walker refers to issues of national security. “National security is something you read about in the newspaper, safety is something you feel,” he said. Walker said that the biggest safety threat is radical Islamic terrorists and that it is only a matter of time before there is another attack on American soil. The nation needs a leader who has the courage to take the fight to the enemy before it comes here, he said, receiving standing applause from the 600-plus members of the dinner crowd. With front-row seats, Alex Kehayes, a commissioner on the Chowan County Board, said he favors Walker because of “his record to get a lot done with massive opposition.” “It’s early in an open race, but the fact that someone shows up, looks me in the face and talks to me goes a long way,” Kehayes said, showing a picture of himself with Walker from earlier. Ed Higgins, from New Hanover County, said he hopes Walker becomes the Republican nominee. “Governorships better prepare individuals for the hard decisions presidents make, unlike being a senator,” Higgins said. “He stands up to unions and takes the hard fight to them, but at the same time he carries the favor of his constituents, as shown when he was re-elected after they recalled him.” An expected 1,800 to 2,000 Republicans from around the state traveled to the capital to hear the N.C. GOP’s speakers. Saturday will feature U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and a few Tar Heel speakers including Gov. Pat McCrory, Forest, House Speaker Tim Moore, Sen. Thom Tillis and Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry. The convention will wrap up Sunday morning with a prayer breakfast and Dr. Ben Carson. Carson and Cruz are officially running for president in 2016, and Walker is widely expected to run as well. Recent media reports suggest Trump may enter the crowded field for the GOP nomination. The N.C. GOP will also elect new state-level leadership, which occurs every odd year. The party will vote in a new state chairman who will represent the state at the Republican National Convention. At the state convention, candidates are nominated and voted on by county delegates, which will take place after the 2 p.m. speakers Saturday. The three candidates who ran campaigns for state chairman are Craig Collins, AJ Daoud and Hasan Harnett. *CRUZ* *Ted Cruz Wonders About Jeb Bush’s Viability <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/04/ted-cruz-wonders-about-jeb-bushs-viability/> // NYT // Maggie Haberman & Kitty Bennett – June 5, 2015 * Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has said he will not take shots at his Republican rivals for the presidency, but on Thursday he questioned descriptions of Jeb Bush as a “front-runner” and wondered whether Mr. Bush could win an early state in the nominating contests. Mr. Cruz, who declared his 2016 presidential candidacy in March, made the comments in an interview with the Fox News host Neil Cavuto. Mr. Cavuto asked if Mr. Cruz had to win one of the first three states — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — to be viable. “If you look historically since World War II, no one has ever won the nomination without winning at least one of those first three,” said Mr. Cruz, who was a policy adviser on George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign in 2000. “That has certainly been history. You know, I think it’s an interesting challenge for a number of other of these candidates.” He continued: “The media describes, for example, Jeb Bush, frequently, as the front-runner. It becomes an interesting question when you ask, which of those states does he win?” Mr. Cruz added that he would compete “vigorously” in all of those states. He did not directly answer a question about whether he would compete in Florida, home to both Mr. Bush and another contender, Senator Marco Rubio. But he said he was competing nationwide. The remarks about Mr. Bush come as he is on the cusp of becoming a formal candidate, after months of a sometimes-difficult exploratory phase. Mr. Cruz has raised large sums for the “super PAC” supporting him, but he has been standing in place in most of the polls. *Ted Cruz's problems with Latinos run deeper than his policy positions <http://www.businessinsider.com/r-why-ted-cruzs-candidacy-isnt-catching-fire-with-us-latinos-2015-6> // Reuters – June 5, 2015 * n a less diverse Republican presidential field, Ted Cruz, the make-good son of a Cuban immigrant, would be viewed more for what he is — a candidate with a legitimate shot at making U.S. history as the nation’s first Latino president in 2016. Instead, the senator from Texas finds himself in a strange position as he sees himself eclipsed both by Senator Marco Rubio, also a Cuban-American, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a fluent Spanish-speaker married to a Mexican-American, as early favorites among Hispanic Republicans who could play an increasingly influential role in the nomination process. To Latinos, Cruz often feels more like an afterthought. And while that’s largely attributed to his hard-right stance on immigration reform, prominent Hispanic conservatives offered insight as to why his problems with Latinos run deeper. Rubio, they said, has embraced his ethnic identity in a way that Cruz, who speaks little Spanish, has not or will not. “At times, Senator Cruz finds it difficult to identify or engage with his Latino heritage,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, a key conservative group that Bush addressed in April. "He does not elevate or magnify his Latino voice in the same way Marco Rubio does." Said Javier Palomarez, the CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, an organization of Hispanic business leaders. "Rubio speaks the language. Both are sons of immigrants, but one has held onto the culture and language.” A SHIFTING ELECTORATE Hispanic voters could matter in this year’s Republican presidential race like never before. Nevada, with a one-quarter Latino population, holds the third Republican primary on the calendar, with contests in Colorado and Texas not far behind. Because no clear front-runner has yet to emerge, the nominating process could stretch longer than usual and involve more states, meaning that the traditional early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, which largely have white Republican electorates, will hold less sway. More than that, it's critically important for the party to attract Hispanic voters, something it failed to do in 2012, when Mitt Romney garnered a meager 27 percent of the vote in the general election. Rubio's pollster, Whit Ayres, estimates the party will need to garner at least 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2016 to win, as the share of America's white electorate declines. That's one reason Cruz’s campaign insists it is not ceding any ground in the effort win over Latinos. “Hispanic outreach is going to be very important to him,” said Catherine Frazier, Cruz’s spokeswoman. Cruz, in fact, has released Spanish-language ads and has a Spanish-language website. He has said his message will be built around "faith, family, patriotism, and hard work." His campaign told Reuters that it has hired one staffer dedicated to Hispanic outreach and will be using Cruz's Cuban father, Rafael, as a surrogate to speak to Hispanic faith groups. CULTURAL CRITIQUE Cruz isn’t the first minority candidate to face questions from his community about his cultural bona fides. In 2007, at just this stage of the race, Barack Obama’s campaign endured a bevy of stories centered on the question of whether the Hawaii-born son of a Kenyan father and white American mother was “black enough” to be the first African-American president. Obama ultimately transcended those doubts and drove black voter turnout to record levels. Cruz may face a tougher road in garnering Hispanic support, not only because of the presence of Rubio and Bush in the field, but because of his arms-length approach to his cultural identity. While Rubio stayed in Miami immersed in the Spanish-speaking Cuban exile community, Cruz, born in Canada, settled in Houston with his father and mother of Irish-Italian descent, Eleanor, and quickly was assimilated into American culture. Rafael Cruz strongly believed his family should speak English. Cruz, whose first name is also Rafael, went by Ted, and attended evangelical schools. “I’m Cuban, Irish and Italian, and yet somehow I ended up Southern Baptist,” Cruz has joked. Unlike Rubio, who has made his Cuban-American heritage a centerpiece of his campaign, Cruz seems more comfortable presenting himself instead as a blunt-talking Texan — down to the cowboy boots he wears with his suits — than as a self-identified Hispanic. “When people in Texas think of Ted Cruz, they don’t immediately think Hispanic,” said Hector de Leon, a lawyer in Austin, Texas active in Republican politics. “When people in Texas think of Hispanic, they think south of the border, not someone with a Cuban father, an Anglo mother, who was born in Canada.” Despite the Spanish-language ads by Cruz's campaign, Hispanic activists say his inability to directly speak to the estimated 35 million U.S. Hispanics who speak primarily Spanish is a major disadvantage in this race. “Jeb Bush and Rubio — they can be on Univision one minute and CNN the next,” said Daniel Garza, executive director of the conservative LIBRE Initiative in Miami. Cruz’s campaign rejects the idea he is limited by language in connecting to Latino voters. “Many first and second-generation Hispanics grew up in similar households,” Frazier said. Mexican Illegal Immigrant Holding CellJohn Moore/Getty ImagesUndocumented immigrants wait in a holding cell at a U.S. Border Patrol processing center for people detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on September 8, 2014 in McAllen, Texas. The sign, written by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), reads 'Keep Calm and Wash Your Hands.' IMMIGRATION WORRIES Garza, like many Hispanic conservatives who spoke to Reuters, was quick to praise Cruz’s intellect, but it was clear that Rubio or Bush was their first choice. And, to be sure, the major reasons are political, not cultural. Cruz’s stance on immigration is viewed by many Hispanics across the political spectrum as unduly harsh and inflexible. “You get the sense that there is very little room for persuading Ted Cruz on anything,” Garza said. “There is some room where Ted could soften up a little and you get the sense that he won’t.” Cruz was an ardent opponent of the 2013 immigration bill co-sponsored by Rubio. And although Rubio, under pressure from conservatives, eventually turned against the bill as well, he appears to be getting credit from Latinos for trying to push toward a solution to the nation’s immigration crisis. As part of his outreach effort, Cruz addressed the U.S. Hispanic Chamber in April, arguing that the Republican Party is the natural home for voters who value entrepreneurship, family, and self-reliance. But that approach belies polls that show a majority of Hispanic voters favoring a path to legal status for illegal immigrants, support for Obama’s signature healthcare plan, and government social programs. That means that whoever the Republican nominee is, be it Cruz, Rubio, Bush, or someone else, they will face an uphill battle in convincing Hispanics to defect from the Democrats, who enjoy a large monopoly on their vote. The chamber’s Palomarez gives Cruz credit for coming before his group. But he adds, “I think he’s got a long way to go to convince people that he understands the Hispanic experience and that he understands the Hispanic voter.” *Ted Cruz: Campaign and super PAC have raised more than $40 million <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/5/ted-cruz-campaign-and-super-pac-have-raised-more-4/> // The Washington Times // David Sherfinski – June 5, 2015 * Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said this week there is now more than $40 million raised between his presidential campaign and a group of super PACs supporting his candidacy. Mr. Cruz, who became the first major Republican candidate to jump into the 2016 presidential race back in March, said candidates will need both grassroots support and money to win the nomination. “I think for anyone to be a serious candidate, he or she is going to need to raise at least $50 million between now and South Carolina, and I think there are only a handful of candidates who have a prayer of doing so,” he said on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” “Right now, between our campaign and the super PAC, we’ve raised over $40 million, we have shattered records.” He said in the first week of the campaign, the campaign itself raised $4.3 million with more than 50,000 contributions from all 50 states and said that the collection of super PACs supporting him have already raised more than $37 million. Mr. Cruz predicted former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has set a June 15 date for an announcement on his 2016 plans, is going to “shatter” fund-raising records and raise “way north” of $100 million. “Among the donors, he is Mick Jagger and the Beatles roiled into one,” Mr. Cruz said. “But you got to get actual, real [live] primary votes, and in my experience, grassroots plus money will beat a whole lot more money just about every day of the week.” “When you get beyond Jeb Bush, there are only a couple other candidates who I think have the potential to raise the funds it’s [going to] take to run a nationwide campaign — not a Hail Mary in one or two states — but a nationwide campaign,” Mr. Cruz said. “That’s what we’re doing, and that combination of grassroots plus donor support, small dollar, large dollar, the business community, all coming together fed up with the corruption in Washington and wanting to get back to basic free market principles and our constitutional liberties.” *CHRISTIE* *Chris Christie: Hillary Clinton is clueless on voter fraud <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chris-christie-hillary-clinton-is-clueless-on-voter-fraud/> // CBS News // Jake Miller – June 5, 2015 * New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie doesn't think much of Hillary Clinton's recent proposals to expand access to the ballot box. Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, accused Republicans in a speech on Thursday of trying to depress turnout among voting blocs that typically side with Democrats by passing restrictive voter identification laws and other measures. She singled out Christie for vetoing a bill that would have expanded early voting hours in his state. "She doesn't know what she's talking about," Christie told CBS News' "Face the Nation" in an interview that will air on Sunday. "In New Jersey, we have early voting that are available to people...I don't want to expand it and increase the opportunities for fraud. And maybe that's what Mrs. Clinton wants to do. I don't know. But the fact is that the folks in New Jersey have plenty of an opportunity to vote." Christie then pivoted to take a dig at Clinton for limiting her interactions with the media. "Maybe, you know, if she took some questions some places and learned some things, maybe she wouldn't make such ridiculous statements," he said. Clinton has argued that the "voter fraud" Republicans claim they're trying to prevent simply doesn't happen - that Republicans are proposing solutions in search of a problem. "She's never been to New Jersey, I guess," Christie said in the interview, which will air in full on Sunday. In her speech, Clinton said the recent push for voting restrictions is part of a "sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other." She called for automatic voter registration and at least 20 days of in-person early voting time in states across the country. Clinton declared her 2016 candidacy in April. Christie has said he'll make a final decision on a bid by the end of June. *Gov. Christie attacks Hillary Clinton on voter registration <http://www.northjersey.com/news/gov-christie-attacks-hillary-clinton-on-voter-registration-1.1350071> // The Record // Salvador Rizzo – June 5, 2015 * Governor Christie went on the attack against Hillary Clinton on Friday, saying the Democratic presidential candidate is calling for an expansion of voter registration because “she just wants an opportunity to commit greater acts of voter fraud.” Christie was responding to comments Clinton made Thursday in a speech in Houston. A Republican likely to announce a presidential run this month, Christie began the day greeting breakfast patrons at a New Hampshire diner and spoke briefly with reporters afterward, saying he “was not worried about her opinion.” Former Secretary of State Clinton called for same-day voter registration across the country and said Republican governors including Christie were on “a crusade against voting rights,” blocking minorities from being able to vote. She mentioned that the New Jersey governor had vetoed a bill to allow early voting 15 days before an election at designated polling places, and also criticized GOP officials in Florida, Texas and Wisconsin. “Secretary Clinton doesn't know the first thing about voting rights in New Jersey or in the other states that she attacked,” Christie said. “My sense is that she just wants an opportunity to commit greater acts of voter fraud around the country.” Christie will be in Franklin, N.H., later on Friday for a roundtable discussion about drug rehabilitiation with local officials. It is his seventh trip to New Hampshire this year. Christie told reporters he plans to announce whether he's running for president this month. *Chris Christie rips Rand Paul, critics of Patriot Act <http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/06/chris_christie_rips_rand_paul_critics_of_patriot_act> // The Boston Herald // Chris Cassidy – June 5, 2015 * New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ripped Sen. Rand Paul and other Patriot Act critics last night as self-serving, opportunistic grandstanders during a town hall here last night. “What you’re being told about these programs is flat out wrong, and they’re being told to you because the folks that are telling you have an agenda to promote themselves politically,” said Christie, who’s considering entering the crowded GOP presidential field. “If they had any experience, like I do, they’d know, we’re not violating anyone’s civil liberties.” Christie has frequently touted himself as the only potential candidate who has used the Patriot Act to prosecute and convict terrorists when he was U.S. attorney of New Jersey. “They’d make you believe there are people every day listening to your conversation between you and your mother. Unless your mother is a terrorist, I don’t care,” Christie said. He argued that Congress made America “weaker and more vulnerable” by passing the USA Freedom Act and ending the government’s bulk collection of data. After the town hall, Derry Republicans presented Christie with a commemorative plastic potato, in honor of the town’s claim to be the first place in North America the starchy crop was planted. Christie attempted to sign it but dropped it instead. “I can’t believe after all those questions, I fumbled the potato,” said Christie. Here on a two-day trip, Christie also spoke at a fundraiser for Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas. Today, he will greet patrons at the Corner View Restaurant in Concord followed by a roundtable at a recovery center in Franklin. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich are all due in New Hampshire today. Paul will continue with events all weekend, while Democratic contender Bernie Sanders will hold a town meeting Saturday, and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry — who just launched his campaign yesterday — will attend a series of cookouts on Sunday. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced yesterday he will make “an announcement” — likely a campaign launch — on June 15 in Miami. He will then set out on the “Jeb Bush Announcement Tour” with New Hampshire as his first stop the next day. *PERRY* *Rick Perry promises to ‘do something’ about student debt. But what did he do in Texas? <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/05/rick-perry-promises-to-do-something-about-student-debt-but-what-did-he-do-in-texas/> // WaPo // Danielle Douglas-Gabriel* In announcing his bid for president Thursday, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry made a play for the millions of Americans contending with the high cost of college. "I know you face rising health care costs, rising child care costs, skyrocketing tuition costs, and mounting student loan debt. I hear you, and I am going to do something about it," Perry told a crowd of supporters Thursday. Perry's record on this subject as governor was mixed. He called on colleges to set tuition caps, and broadened access to higher education for undocumented immigrants. But some education officials in Texas say Perry's policies did more to add to the burden of student debt than relieve it. As governor of the Lone Star state for 14 years, Perry supported hundreds of millions of dollars in spending cuts for public universities. To offset lower funding from the state, colleges in Texas raised tuition, leading more students to borrow to cover expenses. "His overall record on accessibility to higher education was poor," said Clay Robison, a spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association, which fought Perry's cuts to education budgets. "And primarily poor because of the cuts in funding and financial aid." When Perry became governor in 2000, Texas provided about $7,791 per college student, below the national average of $8,717 but largely in line with many other states, according to data from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. Three years later, state appropriations started to slip in Texas, just as college enrollment crept up. Rather than set aside more money for the universities, Perry opted to deregulate college tuition, taking away the legislature's power to set prices and giving it to the schools. The average cost of tuition and fees at Texas public universities increased by 90 percent within a decade of that decision, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. While other states slashed higher education budgets during the 2008 economic recession, Texas, buoyed by a strong energy sector, made marginal increases in student spending. That ended around 2011 as years of tax cuts caught up with state and led to an $18 billion deficit. Although the state had $6 billion in reserves to help plug that shortfall, Perry left the money untouched and imposed across the board cuts. He signed off on $1.2 billion in cuts to higher education in the 2012 budget. Still, the governor did call on universities to lock in tuition at a flat rate for four years and cap the cost of degrees at $10,000. Perry spokesman Travis Considine pointed out that 13 schools adopted the pricing cap. "Governor Perry led the charge in making higher education more accessible and affordable for more Texans," Considine said, in an e-mail. "During Gov. Perry's leadership, enrollment in Texas colleges and universities increased by 50 percent, with Hispanic enrollment increasing by 118 percent." Perry took a lot of heat from his party when he backed a law allowing undocumented college students in Texas to pay in-state tuition. The law still stands and has been credited with an increase in enrollment. While Robison of the teachers association applauds Perry for taking a stand on the issue, he said it does not negate the fact that under Perry, college in Texas has become less affordable. "Many of those Hispanic students who have enrolled in school are first-generation college students, who are heavily dependent on student aid. The cuts have really hurt their prospects," he said. Over the course of Perry's tenure, state higher education spending per student fell 11 percent, which is less than the national average drop of 24 percent during that time. Texas upped its spending by $350 per student before Perry left office, but critics say it was too late to reverse the pricing trends. Nearly two-thirds of Texas students in 2013 were borrowing to pay for school and graduating with an average $25,244 in debt, a little below the national average but much higher than the prior generation, according to data from the Institute for College Access & Success. It has become politically advantageous for presidential hopefuls to at least acknowledge the burden that $1.3 trillion in student debt has placed on millions of Americans. Republican contenders, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, have framed the issue as a barrier to economic mobility. And Democratic candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley are advocating for debt-free public college, a plan party front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton has yet to weigh in on. There are 40 million people with education debt in this country. Almost two-thirds of student loans are held by people younger than 39, while Americans age 40 to 59 hold another 30 percent, according to the New York Federal Reserve. That's a pretty significant part of the electorate. *Rick Perry Borrows Elizabeth Warren's Message, but Does It Fit? <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-05/rick-perry-borrows-elizabeth-warren-s-message-but-does-it-fit-> // Bloomberg News // David Weigel – June 5, 2015 * Toward the middle of former Texas Governor Rick Perry's presidential announcement speech, a listener could be forgiven for thinking the TelePrompTer had been switched out. All of a sudden, Perry was speaking the language of populist critics of Wall Street, people like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. "The American people see a rigged game, where insiders get rich, and the middle class pays the tab," said Perry. "There is something wrong when the Dow is near record highs, and businesses on Main Street can’t even get a loan. Since when did capitalism involve the elimination of risk for the biggest banks while regulations strangle our community banks? Capitalism is not corporatism. It is not a guarantee of reward without risk. It is not about Wall Street at the expense of Main Street." Just seconds later, Perry had moved on to the need for tax cuts–"we have the highest corporate tax rate in the western world"and the big guy/little guy paradigm was shunted aside. Yet it was not new. Perry had been grasping for a message like this since leaving the governor's office. In an April 6 speech at the Citadel, in South Carolina, Perry said cryptically that "we need to reduce taxes and regulations, and bring prosperity to Main Street and not just Wall Street." “When corporate leaders make bad mistakes, they need to be held accountable.” How far was he going to go? On Morning Joe Friday, co-host Mika Brzezinski tried to figure out Perry's message by starting with its political risk. (The green rooms of cable news are overflowing with wealthy people who will predict doom for anyone criticizing finance.) "You're not saying anything right now that is, you know, going to insult anybody that you need politically?" asked Brzezinski. "You're talking about, like Wall Street?" Perry asked. "I think–I don't think–I hope I don't insult anybody. I hope what I say is, here's what needs to change. If Wall Street–I don't believe there's anybody too big to fail. I think we made a huge mistake when we passed too big to fail. I said that with GM publicly back in–whenever that was like in 2009, when they were trying to get their deal through and I said I'm not for that. And GM's got a manufacturing facility in Texas. But use the bankruptcy laws. When corporate leaders make bad mistakes, they need to be held accountable, whether they're on Wall Street or whether they're on Main Street." Co-host Joe Scarborough gave that an approving "yeah." Yet Perry had criticized TARP -- what he appeared to be referring to as "too big to fail" -- before. And before, it had been pointed out that as co-chairman of the National Governors Association, Perry called on "Congress to leave partisanship at the door and pass an economic recovery package." Since then, he has insisted that this was not an endorsement of the bill before Congress, but a statement of support for doing something-or-other in a tough time. Since 2009, jujitsu-ing the TARP vote to portray Democrats as the party that does Wall Street's bidding has been a reliable Republican tactic. In the Tea Party wave of 2010, it helped tremendously that voters often confused the 2009 stimulus package with the 2008 TARP bill, thinking of them as one monstrous giveaway that did not benefit them personally. In 2015, Warren and Sanders et al argue that the largest banks should be broken up. Perry won't or can't go that far, so he ends up stuck in 2009. With one difference. Elsewhere in the launch speech, Perry made a short reference to reports that community banks were reeling under the regulations of the 2010 financial reform bill. "For small businesses on Main Street struggling to just get by, smothered by regulations, targeted by Dodd-Frank: I hear you, you’re not forgotten," said Perry. "Your time is coming." Not unlike Hillary Clinton, Perry was trying to speak the language of populism without saying anything that would convince a Wall Street donor that he was truly under threat. *Rick Perry hits back at Hillary Clinton over voter ID <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/5/rick-perry-hits-back-hillary-clinton-over-voter-id/> // The Washington Times // David Sherfinski – June 5, 2015* Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday hit back at former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who criticized Mr. Perry and several other of her potential 2016 GOP rivals on Thursday over the issue of voting rights. “I think it makes sense to have a photo ID to be able to vote,” Mr. Perry, who announced Thursday he is running for president in 2016, said on “Fox and Friends.” “When I got on the airline to come up here yesterday I had to show my photo ID.” In a speech at Texas Southern University, Mrs. Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner, had called Mr. Perry out by name on the issue, as well as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “Here in Texas, former Governor Rick Perry signed a law that a federal court said was actually written with the purpose of discriminating against minority voters,” she said. “He applauded when the Voting Rights Act was gutted and said the law’s protections were outdated and unnecessary.” Mr. Perry contended that Mrs. Clinton was taking on the people of the state of Texas with her remarks. Asked if he’s discriminatory, Mr. Perry said: “No, not at all.” “And actually, the people of the state of Texas is who she’s taking on, because that was a law that was passed by the people of the state of Texas,” he said. Mrs. Clinton went into his home state and “dissed every person who supports having identification to either get on an airplane or to vote,” he said. Mr. Perry also said any insinuation that he doesn’t want minorities to vote is untrue. “As a matter of fact, when you look across the state of Texas and you see what [we’ve] done in that state to really empower minorities — as a matter of fact, the highest high school graduation rate for African-Americans in America is in the state of Texas,” he said. “The highest Hispanic graduation rate is in Texas. Those are empowerments … and they want to be protected when they get on an airplane as well.” *Perry Kickoff Generates Buzz, But Not in Key States <http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/06/05/perry_kickoff_generates_buzz_but_not_in_key_states__126873.html> // Real Clear Politics // Matthew Disler – June 5, 2015 * During this period, 422,000 people generated 763,000 interactions, a term Facebook defines as likes, posts, comments, or shares. These numbers represent a substantial rise in interest for Perry; over the previous 90 days, an average of only 32,000 unique Facebook users have discussed the Texas governor each day. However, compared to other candidates, traffic for the former Texas governor is only in the middle of the pack (based on post-kickoff numbers). On the low end, in the day after their respective announcements, George Pataki drew 81,000 interactions from 59,000 unique users; Rick Santorum received 266,000 interactions from 169,000 unique users; and Carly Fiorina recorded 515,000 interactions from 304,000 unique users. Similarly to Perry, 458,000 people generated 814,000 interactions for Mike Huckabee. However, Perry created less social media buzz than Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and even Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who each enjoyed more than 1 million interactions in the 24 hours after they formally declared their candidacy. Ted Cruz had 5.5 million interactions, and Hillary Clinton had 10.1 million. The Facebook data also indicate that Perry may encounter some difficulty in early primary states, none of which were in the top five regarding interactions about the governor. Rather, the states with the most discussion of his candidacy were his home state, three bordering states (Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arkansas), and Washington, D.C. (which Facebook includes as a state in its measurements). Perry, like most other candidates, will likely need to perform well in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina if he hopes to stay in the race and ultimately secure the nomination. In his announcement speech, the Texan sought to highlight his economic and foreign policy goals, and social media users appear to have picked up on those priorities. Perry stated that he would freeze Obama-era regulations and lower corporate taxes to increase job creation, adding that in Texas, “we were the engine of growth because we had a simple formula: control taxes and spending, implement smart regulations, invest in an educated workforce, and stop frivolous lawsuits.” He also said he would pursue a more aggressive strategy against Iran and ISIS and declared that the president’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq was a mistake. In accordance with these emphases, the top two themes regarding Rick Perry mentioned by Facebook users in the past week were foreign policy and the state of the economy. The social media trends underscore the uphill battle Perry faces, as already evidenced by his poor showing in national polls: Not only did several of his opponents generate more interest when they announced, his national image still smarts from the gaffes that ended his 2012 campaign. His support among Republican primary voters currently stands at 2.7 percent in the RealClearPolitics average, placing him below most of his opponents but narrowly qualifying him – at this time – for the first GOP presidential debate on Aug. 6, which is only open to the top 10 candidates. *Welcome Back, Rick Perry: Will 2016 Be Different Than 2012? <http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilassur/2015/06/05/welcome-back-rick-perry-will-2016-be-different-than-2012/> // Forbes // Neil Assur – June 5, 2015* About four years ago, when Rick Perry initially declared himself a nominee for the United States presidency, he immediately vaulted onto the scene as a Republican front runner. Polls reflected Mr. Perry’s popularity: his favorability numbers surpassed that of his chief competitor, Mitt Romney, and by late August, Mr. Perry had taken a decisive lead in “vote share” (the share of the vote each candidate can expect to gain). This rapid success was to prove equally ephemeral, however. Within months, Mr. Perry’s vote share numbers had declined precipitously, and, by the time of the Iowa caucus, Mr. Perry was all but dead. He finished fifth in Iowa and last in New Hampshire before dropping out of the race entirely. Although that chapter may have closed, apparently the story is not yet over. Yesterday, Rick Perry officially declared himself, once again, a candidate for president. Although the move is not shocking, it nonetheless begets the question: can Mr. Perry actually win this time around? The consensus across the media seems to be one of skepticism. After all, the Perry campaign’s complete obliteration in 2012 was nothing short of historic: no other candidate has ever lost a lead the size of Mr. Perry’s in so short a period of time. Many, understandably so, have focused on Mr. Perry’s poor debate performance and gaffe-riddled campaign as the basis of this collapse. Indeed, a highlight reel of Mr. Perry’s campaign would be littered with cringe-worthy material, starting with a nonsensical, rambling criticism of Mitt Romney in a debate(Mr. Romney’s response: “Nice Try”) and ending with perhaps the most disliked YouTube video of all time in which Mr. Perry compared homosexuals serving in the military with children celebrating Christmas. Of course, in between would be the most famous, and perhaps most representative moment of Rick Perry’s campaign summed up in one word: Oops. Clearly, if Mr. Perry hopes to achieve any form of success in this campaign, he will have to be more savvy with the way he handles debates and public appearances. However, obscured by Mr. Perry’s solecisms is a more deep-seated, pressing issue: are Mr. Perry’s views compatible with America? Little attention has been paid to the fact that, last time around, Mr. Perry alienated voters with his beliefs as well as his blunders. By the end of his campaign, only 7% of voters identified Mr. Perry’s views as most similar to their own. When Mr. Perry proclaimed Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme,” almost three times as many people believed that view would hurt his chances of being elected president rather than help it. Among social issues, such as religion and abortion, Mr. Perry scored even worse: a woefully low 6% of voters thought Mr. Perry would do a good job reflecting their social views. By comparison, Mitt Romney, who many claimed lost the presidential election because of his stance on social issues, scored more than three times better. What does this mean for the Rick Perry of 2016? The good news is, voters can be fickle. As it stands right now, Mr. Perry trails only Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, and Jeb Bush in awareness among Republicans, and has cause for optimism with a relatively solid 0.73 Favorability-Awareness ratio. Mr. Perry, unlike his 2012 campaign, has also had a lot of time to prepare himself for this race. Finally, Mr, Perry has assembled an impressive staff, including Forbes opinion editor Avik Roy, that should prepare him for a deep run. That said, Mr. Perry does face a significant challenge in re-inventing himself. If he is to appeal to mainstream American voters, he must do more than avoid the gaffes: he must tone down his religious zeal and focus more on issues, such as health care, jobs, and entitlements, which moderate-conservative voters seem to care about. Although this will not be easy–especially given his very conservative, religious background–it is likely the only way Mr. Perry can reverse his fortunes from 2012. *GRAHAM* *Ronald Perelman Puts Financial Clout Behind Lindsey Graham <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/04/ted-cruz-wonders-about-jeb-bushs-viability/> // NYT // Maggie Haberman – June 5, 2015 * When Hillary Rodham Clinton left the State Department in 2013, one of the earliest meetings she held was with an old friend, Ronald O. Perelman, the cosmetics billionaire and a major political donor. Yet Mr. Perelman has emerged on the national finance committee list rolled out by Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator seeking the Republican nomination for president. Mr. Perelman, a frequent boldface name in gossip columns and philanthropy, was also a major supporter of Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham are close allies. “Lindsey Graham understands America’s leadership role in promoting an enduring peace on the global landscape,” Mr. Perelman said in a statement released by the senator’s campaign. “With conflicts raging in the Middle East and around the world that threaten the security of America and our allies, we need leaders with strategic purpose and moral clarity to confront these crises.” Mr. Perelman’s backing gives some noteworthy validity to the long-shot campaign of Mr. Graham, a party establishment figure who is also a foreign policy hawk. Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chairman and chief executive of General Electric, is also listed as a co-chairman of the Graham finance committee. Mr. Perelman has given to Mr. Graham in the past. But other potential candidates have been courting him over the last year. In August 2014, Mr. Perelman hosted Mr. McCain and Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey and a likely presidential candidate himself, at his home in Wainscott, N.Y., in the Hamptons. A person briefed on Mr. Perelman’s decision, who requested anonymity to speak about private discussions, said that Mr. Perelman wasn’t simply donating to Mr. Graham out of friendship. He wants to “ensure a robust discussion on critical foreign policy issues,” the person said, referring to negotiations with Iran on its nuclear energy program and to the United States’ relationship with Israel. *Lindsey Graham Offers Straight Talk With a Southern Twang <http://time.com/3911055/lindsey-graham-straight-talk/> // TIME // Phillip Elliott – June 5, 2015 * Sen. Lindsey Graham was a frequent travel buddy on John McCain’s Straight Talk Express. The South Carolina Republican hopped on and off buses, jumped into motorcades and was among the 2008 GOP nominee’s most trusted advisers on his plane. He was such a frequent voice inside the McCain inner-circle, he was endearingly lumped in with Sen. Joe Lieberman as one of the Three Amigos. As his own his White House hopeful now, it should come as no surprise that Graham sounds a bit like his pal McCain. The hawkish retired Air Force officer is cracking jokes, taking all unscripted questions from anyone who shows up and is challenging even his own party’s orthodoxy. The 59-year-old Republican is polling in single digits and is running as though he’s perfectly fine there, as long as he can run a campaign as his own man. He is trying to build support in the early-nominating states even though the first debate’s cast will be chosen by national polls. As one Republican who is not working for a White House bid brands it: “Straight Talk. With a Southern Twang.” Graham launched his campaign this week with a pitch to Republican voters that promises a strong military, defense of social safety nets and unflinching honesty. He is sharing the story about raising his teenaged sister after both parents died. He is running his campaign as a referendum on President Barack Obama’s tenure as the leader of the U.S. military. “They deserve a Commander in Chief better than they have today,” Graham said Friday as he met with GOP activists in West Des Moines, Iowa. But he has challenges far steeper than McCain. For one, no one knows Graham outside the cable networks’ booking departments. He is competing for the nomination against candidates who have run before, such as Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, or have dynastic help, such as Jeb Bush and Rand Paul. He struggled to attract national attention and he lacks a national fundraising machine. “Help me pay for it,” Graham joked after an audience watched a promotional video. And, like McCain, he backed overhauls to the nation’s immigration system that drew a backlash from conservatives in his party, earning him the name “Lindsey Grahamnesty,” as he relates, chuckling. On a personal level, there are also similarities. The same flashes of impatience break through, such as Friday when Iowa Gun Owners challenged him on his procedural vote on background checks and pressed him on a donation to his political machine from gun control advocate Mike Bloomberg. His acerbic one-liners mirror McCain, who repeatedly said in 2008 that he looked into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eyes and saw his former spy agency’s acronym: KGB. Graham tweaks that line: “I’ve been telling Putin ‘you’re a thug’ and he’s never let me down.” And he has unflinching faith in the military’s ability to crush the United States’ enemies: “I am going to unleash the American military and I am going to kick their ass.” Graham is betting his campaign can tap into the same constituencies that powered McCain to the nomination in 2008. He is campaigning with veterans groups this weekend and announced military advisers to a packed room in Iowa on Friday. He is hoping seniors turn out for him, based on promises to defend Social Security for older Americans. And he is casting himself as an everyman, the first in his family to graduate from college and the son of small business owners. “Please understand who you are voting for,” Graham says. Graham is even looking at McCain’s pals, turning to McCain’s new configuration of the Three Amigos. When Lieberman retired, McCain and Graham swapped him for Kelly Ayotte, a first-term Senator from New Hampshire. She, Graham is telling audiences, would be his Attorney General. *Why Lindsey Graham matters <http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21653629-long-shot-2016-shows-how-talk-about-immigration-why-lindsey-graham-matters> // The Economist – June 6, 2015 * THE really inspiring thing about Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who on June 1st announced a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, is “his message that the whole world is going down the tubes”. That was the slightly bleak endorsement offered by Stephen Young, a retired business-owner looking on when the senator launched his campaign in Central, the blink-and-you-miss-it country town where he grew up. Mr Graham’s ability to project gloom about American weakness in a nasty world resonates with a lot of folks, Mr Young and his wife Linda explained. More important, the couple hopes that the senator’s hawkish foreign-policy views rub off on Republican rivals, because they do not actually believe that their hero can win his party’s nomination. “We’re with him all the way,” Mr Young beamed, before adding: “It may be a very short run.” There was a lot of that sort of double-edged praise in Central. Mr Graham offered rhetorical red meat to fans gathered in front of the tiny former pool hall and bar where his parents brought him up. He thundered that “radical Islam is running wild”. He charged both President Barack Obama and some Republicans with wanting to disengage from the world, rather than heeding Ronald Reagan’s doctrine of “peace through strength”. His audience, full of snowy-haired pensioners and flag-clutching military veterans, cheered. Yet an unscientific straw poll found just one person who believed that the senator could win the Republican primary in South Carolina, let alone his party’s nomination. A broad consensus was that Mr Graham was a fine man doomed by his habit of working with Democrats on issues such as immigration. Many in Central placed themselves to the right of the senator on the subject of the 11m people thought to be in the country without legal papers. Since being elected to the Senate in 2002, Mr Graham has backed several immigration bills that would bring such migrants from the shadows and offer a path to citizenship. He was accused of proposing a “Grahamnesty” for illegal immigrants, and more than once hardliners mounted primary challenges for his seat. Each time Mr Graham survived, beating back Tea Party types who call him an establishment sell-out and libertarians who think him a war hawk (his best friend in the Senate is another interventionist, John McCain). On a national level Mr Graham barely registers in early presidential polling. Yet fans at the Graham launch were only half-right when they call him a long shot for the White House, whose distinctive role will involve speaking out on foreign policy. He is a long shot. But the Republican field is full of security hawks quoting Reagan. Though it might seem paradoxical, Mr Graham’s really distinctive contribution could involve teaching more timid rivals how to advance sensible views on immigration, without being driven from office by the far right. Mr Graham’s survival in South Carolina offers several lessons. The first is that even deeply conservative places are not monolithic. South Carolina peach-farmers, for instance, are both powerful and desperate for migrant labour, because their delicate fruit cannot be picked by machine (and locals dislike the work). In recent years some evangelical Christian pastors have joined business leaders in publicly backing immigration reform, citing biblical injunctions to welcome strangers and preserve families. Most voters in South Carolina hate the idea of rewarding law-breakers. But most also know that 11m people cannot be rounded up and deported without turning the country into a “concentration camp”, says Dale Sutton, a Southern Baptist pastor who has spoken out for reform. Thus they know that some sort of compromise is unavoidable. A second lesson is that Mr Graham has never run from his beliefs, being certain that voters hate hypocrisy more than a difference of opinion. That makes him both braver and cannier than such rivals as Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida who is also expected to run for the presidency. In 2012 Mr Bush supported a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants, then in 2013 called the granting of citizenship an undeserved “reward” for bad conduct. More recently Mr Bush has started saying that migrants need a path to some kind of legal status, “not necessarily” involving the status of citizen. Mr Graham shuns such flip-flopping. Without any chance of citizenship, millions would be left living out their lives as “the hired help”, he told USA Today in May. “That’s not who we are.” Bolder and blunter Mr Graham is more outspoken than another rival for the presidential nomination, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who was a Senate ally on immigration until he faced a conservative backlash. Now Mr Rubio says that voters cannot tolerate even a “conversation” about legalisation until they believe the border is impregnable. Mr Graham calls Mr Rubio’s “enforcement-first” stance impractical. Comprehensive immigration reform cannot be done by one party alone, he has told interviewers: and Republicans will struggle to win the White House if they continue to sound hostile to Hispanic voters. Yet in Mr Graham’s (persuasive) analysis, congressional Democrats will never give Republicans what they want on border security without knowing what is on offer for those 11m migrants in limbo. Mr Graham’s bluntness points to a final lesson. For a vocal minority of Republicans, his candour about immigration disqualifies him. But most voters weigh politicians in the round. Because they know the senator has very conservative views on foreign policy, gun rights, abortion and more, most Republicans in South Carolina forgive him when they disagree. That is probably not enough to sustain Mr Graham outside his home state, where he is more vulnerable to attacks based on sound-bites. But if he emboldens Mr Bush or Mr Rubio to face down the anti-immigrant hard right, he may yet do his party historic service. *Iowans question Graham's gun rights history <http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/candidates/2015/06/05/lindsey-graham-gun-rights-west-des-moines/28549999/> // The Des Moines Register // Linh Ta – June 5, 2015* At U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's first town hall meeting since announcing his run for president, Graham assured the audience he was in favor of gun rights, after Aaron Dorr, director of Iowa Gun Owners questioned his past votes. "Check me out. Check my rating with the NRA. Come to my house. I will show you my AR-15," Graham said. At the Sheraton Hotel in West Des Moines Friday, Graham was questioned about his vote approving Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch in April 2015 and confirming Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in August 2010. He was also questioned about confirming Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2009, as well as a $250,000 contribution from Michael Bloomberg in 2014, who has long been an advocate for gun control. "We have grave concern about his history of supporting and sponsoring gun control legislation," Dorr said. "He knows how to take a question and spin it. None of what he says changes what he did." Graham said he has a history of supporting gun rights, including a vote to continue allowing assault rifles and no magazine limits following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown in 2012. "If you think we can get all the people we want and we can't get any of their's, you're making a mistake," Graham said. "If you want a conservative judge, you better elect a conservative president." Graham also touched on his military background. Graham served active duty in the United States Air Force between 1982 and '88, and he said his experience makes him the best-suited Republican in the field to serve as commander-in-chief. He said the United States needs to invest more into its military and into combat groups like the Islamic State. "You may be tired of fighting radical Islam," Graham said. "They are not tired of fighting you." Graham also introduced the members of his veterans coalition for his campaign, including Lt. General Ron Dardis, Aviation Command Sgt. Major Chris Fox, Brigadier General J. Daniel McGowan, Brigadier General Steve Bogle, Col. Ron Randazzo and Lt. Col. Mike Olson. Bob Holliday, chairman of the board for the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum in Johnston, is also on the committee. *Presidential candidate compares Hillary to Kim Jong Un <http://nypost.com/2015/06/04/presidential-candidate-compares-hillary-to-kim-jong-un/> // NY Post // Marisa Schultz – June 4, 2015 * Hillary Clinton found herself compared Thursday to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, a despot who has never had to worry about an election result. Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham made the comparison during a Fox News Channel appearance, where he criticized Clinton for running a campaign where she routinely shuns questions from the press. “Well, it’s easier to talk to the North Korean guy than it is to her,” Graham said. “At the end of the day, when 57 percent of people don’t trust you, you’ve got a problem.” Clinton faces 10 official Republican challengers — and counting — who have wasted no time going after the Democratic front-runner. She hit back in Houston Thursday afternoon in a fiery speech calling for automatic universal voter registration at age 18, a 20-day window for early voting and restoration of Voting Rights Act protections to make it easier to vote. The former secretary of state also criticized Republican competitors for their “crusade against voting rights,” citing several by name, but not Graham. *HUCKABEE* *Huckabee: Hack exposes Obama’s weakness on China <http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/244151-huckabee-hack-exposes-obamas-weakness-on-china> // The Hill // Cory Bennett – June 5, 2015 * The pilfering of 4 million federal workers' personal data highlights President Obama’s inability to defend America from overseas powers, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Friday. "What will it take for the White House to do its job?” asked the former governor of Arkansas. “What will it take for the Obama administration to wake up and defend America?” Huckabee made his remarks the day after the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) revealed it had suffered a massive data breach, at least the second at the agency over the last year. U.S. officials have said they suspect China is involved, seeking information for a broad cyber espionage campaign targeting high-ranking officials. Huckabee thinks Obama’s inability to stand up to China has allowed the Asian power to assault the U.S. at will online. China is also widely believed to steal commercial secrets from U.S. businesses. "Enough is enough,” Huckabee said. “China cheats, rips off American products, abuses its people, taunts our allies, and now they're crawling through our federal government stealing sensitive personal information from millions of people.” Huckabee has also criticized Obama for seeking trade agreements with China, arguing that “we have surrendered to the Chinese market.” “The lack of common sense in this White House is beyond breathtaking,” he said Friday. “As president, I will stop Chinese cheating, hold China accountable, and never, ever apologize for protecting Americans." *Duggars' Endorsements Go Missing From Mike Huckabee's Website <http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/duggars-endorsements-missing-mike-huckabees-website/story?id=31556844> // ABC News // Ben Gittleson – June 5, 2015 * Endorsements of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee by members of the Duggar family disappeared from the former Arkansas governor's campaign website this week just prior to Josh Duggar’s parents’ revealing details of his sexual misconduct. But the Huckabee campaign said they were always meant to come down. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar's photographs and words of endorsement had appeared prominently on the homepage of Mike Huckabee's campaign website since the beginning of his run for president last month. The couple, who along with their 19 children starred in TLC's reality show "19 Kids and Counting," have defended themselves amid harsh criticism over allegations their eldest son, Josh Duggar, 27, molested five underage girls when he was a teenager. Their photos had been at the top of seven that appeared on the right side of Huckabee's homepage under the label, "I Like MIKE." "America needs Governor Huckabee for president!" Jim Bob Duggar was quoted as saying. "Governor Huckabee is a man of faith who is very wise, and will help get our nation back on track," read Michelle Duggar's endorsement. A campaign spokesperson told ABC News that the website's developers "always intended for the graphics to rotate out at the first of each month." The photos appeared on the site as recently as Monday, June 1, according to an archived version of the page on the Internet Archive. "The old ones were routed out on June 1," the spokesperson said. "That has always been the plan." The endorsement's disappearance was first reported by Talking Points Memo. When allegations of Josh Duggar's behavior first surfaced last month, Huckabee issued a statement expressing his full-throated support of the family, saying, "Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things." The Duggars endorsed Huckabee's first presidential run in 2008, and Rick Santorum's in 2012. But as more details have emerged, TLC pulled the Duggars' popular show, and Santorum, one of Huckabee's opponents for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, said he was "sickened" by the allegations. During an interview with Fox News this week, Jim Bob Duggar said Josh Duggar had fondled four of his sisters and a babysitter. Huckabee's campaign did not respond to questions today from ABC News about whether his view of the Duggar family had changed following this week's revelations, if he still accepted their endorsement, and if they would appear at his future campaign events. When asked on Wednesday by ABC affiliate KATV whether the Duggars would join him on the trail, Huckabee said, "I don't know. It will be up to them. Ask them, I don't know." *KASICH* *John Kasich blasts Clinton on voting ‘demagoguery’: ‘Come on, Hillary, you know better than that’ <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/5/john-kasich-blasts-hillary-clinton-voting-demagogu/> // The Washington Times // David Sherfinski – June 5, 2015 * Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Friday took former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to task for comments she made Thursday on voting rights, and also blasted legal action against his state’s voting laws her campaign lawyer has joined. “Today, Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting,” Mrs. Clinton, the frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, said Thursday at Texas Southern University. “First of all, I think it’s demagoguery, and secondly, if she wants to sue somebody, let her sue New York,” Mr. Kasich, who is weighing a run for president in 2016, said on Fox News. “In Ohio, we got like 27 days of early voting, OK? Twenty-seven days, a couple hundred hours, and in New York, the only early voting — there is none. The only voting that occurs is on election day — what is she talking about?” Mrs. Clinton’s campaign lawyer, Marc Elias, is part of lawsuits against voting laws in Ohio and Wisconsin. The Clinton camp itself is not a party two them, though aides have said her team supports them, according to The New York Times. “I like Hillary, but I got to tell you, the idea that we’re going to divide Americans and we’re going to use demagoguery, I don’t like it,” Mr. Kasich said. “Now I haven’t said a word about Hillary, but to come into the state of Ohio and say we’re repressing the vote when New York has only election day and we have 27 days … come on, that’s just silliness, you know? I’m disappointed in her, frankly.” Mr. Kasich said he likes Mrs. Clinton personally but obviously is not supporting her for president — and went on to addressed her directly. “Don’t be comin’ in and saying we are deliberately trying to keep people from voting when her own state has less opportunity for voting than my state, and she’s [going to] sue my state?” he said. “I mean, come on — that’s just silly … come on, Hillary, you know better than that.” In her speech on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton called out by name former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on the issue. Mr. Perry hit back on Friday, and Mr. Walker’s team released a statement from the governor late Thursday: “Hillary Clinton’s rejection of efforts to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat not only defies logic, but the will of the majority of Americans. Once again, Hillary Clinton’s extreme views are far outside the mainstream.” *Kasich Sees Presidential Pathway After Jeb Bush Doesn’t Dominate <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-05/kasich-sees-presidential-pathway-after-jeb-bush-doesn-t-dominate> // Bloomberg News // Mark Niquette – June 5, 2015* Jeb Bush has failed to lock in front-runner status for the Republican presidential nomination, opening a door for other candidates, Ohio Governor John Kasich said. That includes him. “I really thought that Jeb would blow it out, and he hasn’t,” Kasich said Friday during a luncheon at a Concord, New Hampshire, law office. “I look around and I say, ‘OK, I’ve got more experience than anybody, I’ve got a record, so why shouldn’t I get out there?’” Kasich, 63, a two-term governor and former congressman who also was a managing director for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and a Fox television host, said he is getting “closer and closer” to making a decision about running. While he’s optimistic about his efforts to raise money and to build an organization for 2016, he hasn’t made a final decision, he said. “Is there anything jumping out right now that says, ‘No’? No, nothing yet,” Kasich said in an interview. During stops in New Hampshire on Thursday and Friday, Kasich, who also briefly ran for president in 1999, said he never imagined he would consider another run. He thought Bush, a former Florida governor expected to announce his presidential plans June 15, would ‘just suck all of the air out of the room,’’ and that hasn’t happened. “This isn’t a criticism of Jeb; it’s just, I look at the facts,” Kasich said in the interview. “I may be the only one who says this, but look at everybody else’s actions -- they think it’s wide open.” Breakout Performance That’s true in New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first primary and where Kasich would need a strong performance if he ran. Typically, a candidate must finish in the top three in New Hampshire to have momentum heading into other contests, said Steve Duprey, a national Republican committeeman from the state and who was a senior adviser to Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid. With no clear front-runner, there could be five or six candidates bunched at the top, he said. Compared with other governors expected to run, Kasich has a record that would appeal to the state’s fiscally conservative voters and independents if he puts in the time to court them, Duprey said. “This is going to be one of those primaries where it’s one of those battles fought living room to living room and coffee shop to coffee shop,” Duprey said. “This will be the most hard-fought, grassroots primary that I’ve ever seen.” Kasich has created a so-called 527 organization, New Day For America, and a website to raise money for travel and other costs as he explores a bid. The officers include former U.S. Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire. Sour Grapes The Ohio governor has so far spent most of his time in New Hampshire and South Carolina, though he has scheduled his first Iowa trip June 24 after being frustrated by the caucus system there in the past. “The system was odd to me, and maybe a little of that was sour grapes, but they’ve changed the system,” he said. Kasich said no front-runner has emerged because voters are trying to determine who can win and has “real experience.” “It’s really interesting for a Republican Party and exciting for the Republican Party to kind of take its time,” Kasich said. “Normally, we play ‘Whose turn is it next,’ and I don’t think that’s what’s happening.” *CARSON* *Ben Carson’s Speaking Career Turned Lucrative Fast, Filing Shows <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/04/ben-carsons-speaking-career-turned-lucrative-fast-filing-shows/> // NYT // Trip Gabriel – June 5, 2015 * A speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013 that started rumblings about a Ben Carson presidential campaign also began a lucrative speaking career. Mr. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, earned $4.1 million from 141 speeches from early 2014 to last month, according to a personal financial disclosure he filed on Thursday afternoon with the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Carson planned to continue accepting speaking fees after he announced he was running on May 4, which risked putting him afoul of campaign finance laws. He said on Sunday he would give four more speeches, booked before he entered the Republican primary race. “When people have gone through a lot of trouble getting sponsors and selling tables, you don’t just walk,’’ Mr. Carson said on ABC’s “This Week.’’ Mr. Carson’s total reported income, along with his wife, Candy, was from $8.9 million to $27 million in the 16 months preceding his announcement, according to the disclosure. Beside speeches, he reported income from $1.1 million to $6 million from book royalties, and from $2 million to $10 million from serving on the boards of two corporations, Kellogg and Costco. He has since resigned those seats. He was also paid from $100,000 to $1 million by the Fox News Network. Mr. Carson, who in a Quinnipiac poll last week was in a five-way tie for first place for the Republican nomination, has captured voters’ attention with conservative views and a personal story of climbing from poverty to the heights of the medical field. After criticizing President Obama at the 2013 Prayer Breakfast, while the president sat nearby, Mr. Carson retired from Johns Hopkins and took advantage of the flood of speaking offers. He joined the Washington Speakers Bureau, where his fees ranged from $16,500 to address Dayspring Christian Academy in Lancaster County, Pa., to $44,500 for a speech at the University of the Southwest in Hobbs, N.M. Another prolific speaker, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who typically earned about $200,000 a speech, far more than Mr. Carson, delivered her last paid address on March 19, a month before announcing her candidacy. ​ *Ben Carson’s campaign faces turmoil after staff exits and super PAC chaos <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ben-carsons-campaign-faces-turmoil-after-staff-exits-and-super-pac-chaos/2015/06/05/ce08f9b2-0ba8-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html> // WaPo // Robert Costa & Philip Rucker – June 5, 2015* The presidential bid of Ben Carson, a tea party star who has catapulted into the top tier of Republican contenders, has been rocked by turmoil with the departures of four senior campaign officials and widespread disarray among his allied super PACs. Carson’s associates described a political network in tumult in interviews Friday, saying the retired neurosurgeon’s campaign chairman, national finance chairman, deputy campaign manager and general counsel have all resigned since Carson formally launched his bid last month in Detroit. They have not been replaced, campaign officials said. The moves gutted the core of Carson’s apparatus and left the 63-year-old first-time candidate with only a handful of experienced aides at his side as he navigates the fluid, crowded and high-stakes contest for the Republican nomination. Carson is a hot commodity on the right-wing speaking circuit and has fast become a leading candidate, winning straw votes at conservative gatherings and rising in public polls. But his campaign has been marked by signs of dysfunction and amateurism, alarming friends and supporters who privately worry that Carson’s sprawling circle of associates and boosters is fumbling his opportunity. And, they argue, the candidate has been nonchalant about the unrest. “Every campaign goes through growing pains as it puts together a leadership team that has to work together and live together through the trying times of a presidential election,” said Larry Levy, an attorney who has worked with Carson. Two independent super PACs designed to help Carson are instead competing directly with Carson’s campaign for donations and volunteers, while campaign chairman Terry Giles resigned last month with the intention of forming a third super PAC. Giles said he intends to try to convince the other two super PACs, called Run Ben Run and One Nation, to cease operations so that all outside efforts would be coordinated through the new group. But with Carson’s brand a galvanizing force on the right, there are potentially millions of dollars to be raised off his name and the other super PACs are said to be reluctant to shutter. “They are going after the same small donors and we’ve simply got to figure this out or else we are going up against each other the whole time,” Giles said. “I’m planning to sit down with them and explain that.” Before the exodus, Carson’s operation was mostly controlled by Giles and conservative commentator Armstrong Williams, who for decades has been Carson’s business manager, gatekeeper and friend. Giles’ exit to the super PAC side, where he will be prohibited from directly coordinating with Carson or his campaign, leaves Williams as the candidate’s chief confidant “Things happen, man,” Williams said of the changes. “That’s the way life works. You start out with one idea, hoping it all works out, and then you get a better understanding of what needs to happen. Remember, we’re not a necessarily a group of political people.” The overlapping super PACs have confused Carson supporters about where to give money. Doug Watts, a Carson campaign spokesman, described Run Ben Run as a rogue operation: “We spend a great deal of time explaining to our supporters, ‘They’re them, we’re us.’” Watts insisted that “there’s no dissatisfaction” with the group’s activities and he credited it with helping Carson win a Republican straw poll last month in Oklahoma City after Carson spoke to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. “We had Dr. Carson and two staff people,” Watts said. “We did not spend a dime on the straw poll. But Run Ben Run, unbeknownst to us, made organizational activity there.” Still, Watts said the “unofficially sanctioned” super PAC is One Nation and that Carson invites supporters to “make their excess contributions there.” Initially, Giles planned on joining One Nation, but Watts said he “abandoned that plan prior to his resignation and talked about the anticipation of a new organization.” Watts said that Carson gave Giles his blessing to leave the campaign, noting that Giles sat in the front row at Carson’s May 3 announcement event in Detroit and that the candidate publicly acknowledged his service as chairman. Federal election laws require a 120-day cooling off period between someone’s departure from an official campaign and involvement in any super PAC activities. Leaving with Giles last month were deputy campaign manager Stephen Rubino, a longtime Giles associate, as well as national finance chairman Jeff Reeter and general counsel Kathy Freberg. Rubino, a part-time lawyer and farmer, longed to return to his farm, Watts said. “He said to me many times personally, ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for this in Washington, D.C.,’” he said. As for Freberg, he said she grew tired of the political game. “She’s now in Africa on a safari,” Watts said. Giles said that Carson believes a lightly-staffed campaign would suffice through this summer and fall. “The Carson campaign, that’s now mostly about ballot access, communications, social media, and getting Dr. Carson around the country,” he said. “That’s about it. It’s all part of the plan.” But Kellyanne Conway, a GOP pollster who is friendly with Carson’s inner circle, said Carson would need “a strong, in-house campaign team. You can’t off-load everything to a super PAC or onto the shoulders of grassroots supporters and live off the land. Those are the fundamentals.” Giles and Rubino have not been replaced, Watts said, because “it seemed superfluous.” Asked whether there were other lawyers still advising the Carson operation in her absence, he said, “Give me a break. Yeah, there are campaign attorneys coming out of my ears.” Barry Bennett, a former strategist for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), will continue to serve as Carson’s campaign manager, largely taking up the duties once delegated to Giles and Rubino. Ed Brookover, a longtime GOP hand, runs the policy shop. Williams portrayed Carson as a candidate who is still learning the nuances of politics. He said Carson is studying up on policy issues and is uninterested in campaign mechanics. On the road, Carson receives hearty receptions, but his associates said he is most content after public events to retreat to a pool table, where he touts the hand-eye coordination that made him a renowned surgeon. He also likes to do brain teasers or play golf. Carson occasionally drops by his Alexandria campaign headquarters, but his main interaction with staff comes just once a week, at 10 a.m. on Sundays, when he participates in a conference call to go over his schedule for the coming week. “Dr. Carson doesn’t get involved in the minutia of things,” Williams said. “You have to understand his personality. He’s informed, but this whole process is new to him, and he’s relying on the judgment of others.” *JINDAL* *Jindal Slams GOP-Led Congress For Waving ‘White Flag Of Surrender’ On Amnesty, Broken Promises <http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/05/jindal-slams-gop-led-congress-for-waving-white-flag-of-surrender-on-amnesty-false-promises-audio/> // The Daily Caller // Al Weaver – June 5, 2015 * Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal took the GOP-controlled Congress to task Friday for their first five months in power, blasting them for their actions on President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration and Obamacare. In an interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, Jindal slammed GOP leadership in both chambers for waving the “white flag of surrender” on amnesty, adding that the Congressional GOP is “setting ourselves up for defeat again” by not offering up an alternative to Obamacare. Jindal made the comments on the heels of news that he will be announcing his 2016 intentions on June 24. “Here’s my concern and skepticism about just getting any Republican in there,” Jindal said when asked if Jeb Bush could make big changes if elected in 2016. “Look at what happened when we took the Senate back. I remember these great, soaring campaign promises last year, it wasn’t that long ago.” “‘Give us the Senate and we’ll repeal Obamacare. Give us the Senate we’ll stop illegal amnesty. Give us the Senate, we’ll reduce government spending and balance the budget,'” Jindal said imitating those promises. “You know, look what’s happened: White flag of surrender on amnesty. They passed a toothless bill on this Iran bill — actually makes it worse not better in terms of Congressional oversight. “When you look at Obamacare, they’ve not even passed, they’ve not even shown the American people how they would repeal and replace it, and I’m worried,” Jindal said. “I think the Supreme Court’s going to rule the way that it should. That these states — there there should not be mandates on these states that have a federal exchange, but what I worry about is Republicans in Congress are setting ourselves up for defeat again going out there again with a plan to repeal Obamacare and replace it, and they’re going to put themselves in a corner. That’s why you already hear Republicans saying ‘well, maybe we need to put a band-aid or a patch on it.” Jindal went on to liken the outset of the 114th Congress to when the GOP controlled the legislative branch during President George W. Bush’s tenure in office. “At the same time period, when we had a Republican president, a Republican Congress. Thats when we got No Child Left Behind. That’s when we got Part D in Medicare without Medicare reform, without premium support,” Jindal said. “It is absolutely right to criticize President Obama for $18 trillion of debt, but it didn’t just start under President Obama. I think, in part, we have Republicans in D.C. who have just become part of the problem. They want to go along to get along. Boy, I think that’s why we need conservatives.” *Bobby Jindal Keeps Heat on '16 Hopefuls - Lincoln Chafee This Time <http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/bobby-jindal-lincoln-chafee-rand-paul-twitter/2015/06/05/id/648949/> // Newsweek // Melissa Clyne - June 5, 2015 * Though admonished last month by the Louisiana Inspector General’s Office about using his office to launch attacks on presidential candidates, Gov. Bobby Jindal chided former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee on Thursday for advocating that America convert to the metric system, The Times-Picayune reports. "Typical Democrat — wants to make America more European," Jindal spokesman Mike Reed told a reporter who asked about Jindal’s thoughts on Chafee’s support for the metric system. "Gov. Jindal would rather make the world more American." Chafee, whose political affiliation has evolved from Republican to independent to Democrat, announced this week that he was running for president. His announcement included the championing of the metric system as a "bold embrace of internationalism" that would "help our economy," according to Politico. Jindal, who will announce June 24 whether he plans to seek the Republican nomination for the White House, has been an outspoken critic of the field of candidates. Last month, he fired off a series of attacks on Twitter against Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a declared GOP presidential candidate who had pointed his finger at Republican hawks for being behind the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) jihad group. "ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately," Paul said on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe." "They created these people. ISIS is all over Libya because these same hawks in my party loved — they loved Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya. They just wanted more of it." Jindal took Paul to task, posting on Twitter: In another, Jindal tweeted: According to a May 29 article in the Times-Picayune, the state Inspector General's office issued its report after receiving complaints alleging that Jindal’s criticisms of Paul had violated the state constitution. "The Governor's office could have easily avoided such questions by issuing the statement through means that did not involve the use of public funds or employees," the Inspector General's office wrote. Jindal told the newspaper that he spoke out against Paul’s comments because "national security matters are important to people of Louisiana, and I thought it was important for me to share my views on keeping our country safe from the threat of radical terrorists — Islamic terrorists." *OTHER* *Republican Candidates Assail Hillary Clinton on Voting Rights <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/05/republican-candidates-assail-hillary-clinton-on-voting-rights/> // NYT // Maggie Haberman – June 5, 2015 * In a speech Thursday, Mrs. Clinton said that some in the Republican field were “deliberately trying to stop” young people and minorities from exercising their right to vote. On Friday, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey seemed to relish the fight. “Secretary Clinton doesn’t know the first thing about voting rights in New Jersey or in the other states that she attacked,” Mr. Christie said, according toThe Record newspaper of New Jersey. “My sense is that she just wants an opportunity to commit greater acts of voter fraud around the country.” Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said in a statement: “Hillary Clinton’s rejection of efforts to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat not only defies logic, but the will of the majority of Americans. Once again, Hillary Clinton’s extreme views are far outside the mainstream.” His response represented one of the few times that any of the many Republican candidates in the 2016 field have described Mrs. Clinton’s views as so far left as to be outside mainstream politics. For Mrs. Clinton it is familiar territory: “Liberal” was a tag that was often affixed to her as a criticism in the 1990s and when she ran for the United States Senate from New York in 2000. Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who was also named by Mrs. Clinton, went on Fox News and suggested that being able to vote was no different than needing travel documents. “She just went into my home state and dissed every person who supports having an identification to either get on an airplane or vote,” Mr. Perry said on Friday. A spokesman for Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, did not respond to an email request for comment. Mrs. Clinton’s no-holds-barred speech on voting rights, calling for automatic registration and sweeping changes to early voting nationally, was a rare time she has invoked her potential rivals, especially by name. But, just as when she said she would go even further than President Obama has on executive changes to the immigration system, Mrs. Clinton could be putting Republicans in a politically delicate position, since their responses on both issues are unlikely to please Hispanic, African-American and younger voters. *GOP says Clinton dividing Americans over voting rights <http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268798/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=K7R8jEzy> // AP // Ken Thomas – June 5, 2015 * Republicans struck back Friday against Hillary Rodham Clinton's suggestions that they have attempted to disenfranchise voters systematically. They accused the Democratic presidential front-runner of running a divisive campaign and favoring lax controls on voting. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a potential GOP presidential candidate, said in Concord, New Hampshire, that Clinton didn't know "the first thing about voting rights in New Jersey," and simply wanted to have an opportunity to "commit greater acts of voter fraud" around the nation. Another potential Republican rival, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, told Fox News that Clinton was "dividing America" and overlooking the fact that Ohio has 28 days of early voting while her home state of New York doesn't have any. Ohio had 35 days of early voting until he signed a law last year lopping off a week. "What is she talking about?" Kasich asked. "Don't be running around the country dividing America." Clinton said Thursday in Houston that a group of current and former Republican governors pursuing the White House has "systematically and deliberately" tried to prevent millions of Americans from voting. Clinton said the changes were aimed at making it more difficult for minority and low-income voters to cast a ballot and outlined steps to expand access to early voting and allow universal, automatic voter registration for young people. It was the first time as a presidential candidate that Clinton singled out her potential Republican rivals by name, criticizing voting policies of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Christie. Clinton cited Christie for vetoing a bill in New Jersey to extend early voting. She said Bush had conducted a "deeply flawed" purge of eligible voters in Florida by having the names of people who were mistakenly thought to be felons removed from voting rolls. And she accused Walker of cutting early voting, making it harder for college students to vote, while she said Perry approved laws in Texas that discriminated against minority voters. Democratic attorneys recently filed legal challenges to voting changes in the presidential battleground states of Ohio and Wisconsin. One of the attorneys involved in the lawsuits is Marc Elias, who is also serving as the Clinton campaign's general counsel. Clinton's campaign is not officially involved in the lawsuits. Walker, whose state has passed voter ID laws, said in a statement late Thursday that Clinton's "rejection of efforts to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat not only defies logic, but the will of the majority of Americans." Christie vetoed legislation in 2013 that would have allowed in-person early voting at polling places and he's criticized same-day registration. New Jersey does have a mail-in early-voting system. Democrats contend that Republicans overstate the incidence of fraudulent voting to justify steps that depress turnout from minority and other hard-to-reach voters, many of whom would support Democratic candidates. Republicans say Democrats overlook fraud because they want those votes. Clinton will deliver what her team considers her first major speech next week, in New York, opening a new stage of her campaign. Clinton intends to paint the large Republican field as monolithic on policy in coming months. Her team bills the New York speech as a campaign kickoff, although she launched her candidacy in April. *Going Negative <http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/06/05/the-2016-presidential-race-is-going-negative> // US News // Kenneth Walsh – June 5, 2015 * The negative phase of the 2016 presidential race has begun. And with the first debates approaching, the contest is likely to turn even more harsh and sharp-edged as the candidates of each major party try to undermine each other and stand out on their own. On the Republican side, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is drawing increasing contrasts between himself and both of his dynastic rivals, Republican Jeb Bush and Democrat Hillary Clinton. "No one is entitled to the presidency, and no candidate has the right to skip the process of laying out a vision simply because he or she has the deepest connections in Washington or the most money in big-dollar donations," Rubio, an announced candidate, wrote recently on his campaign web site. "In this country, what your last name is, what life you were born into, and how much money you have does not determine who you can be, where you can go or what opportunities you can enjoy." In response, Bush says he is a pragmatic conservative with a strong record of accomplishment as former governor of Florida. Clinton also points to her record of achievement as former first lady, ex-U.S. senator from New York and former secretary of state. And Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is becoming a political piñata, regularly battered by his opponents, because he has criticized a central tenet of GOP orthodoxy – that the United States must be more interventionist abroad and willing to intervene militarily in other countries. Among Paul's critics is Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, who is considering a Republican presidential run and says Paul is weak on national defense. In fact, Jindal has hurled against Paul one of the worst epithets available within the GOP – that Paul is like Democratic President Barack Obama as an ambitious first-term senator seeking the White House but lacking the requisite toughness and understanding of America's adversaries to be an effective commander in chief. This criticism of Paul is echoed by newly announced GOP candidate Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the Senate's leading hawks. In fact, Graham and Paul are immersed in a feud over U.S. foreign policy. "Those who believe we can disengage from the world at large and stay safe by leading from behind, vote for someone else – I am not your man," Graham said during his announcement speech this week in a pointed reference to Paul. "Those who believe the best way to defend ourselves is to lead the world, to make history rather than be overwhelmed by it, I ask for your support." And former Gov. George Pataki of New York, another announced candidate, blasted Paul for forcing the temporary expiration of some government surveillance programs under the Patriot Act. Pataki said Paul engineered the expiration to impress libertarians and was "simply putting Americans at risk for political reasons." Paul's response is that his critics are on the wrong side of history and are advocating discredited policies of the past. On the Democratic side, former Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland is needling Clinton and Bush, sounding a theme similar to Rubio's. At the official announcement of his candidacy this week, O'Malley tried to stake out the left wing of his party, arguing that he is more progressive than Clinton, the front runner. O'Malley said he would be more confrontational with Wall Street. "Recently the CEO of Goldman Sachs let his employees know that he'd be just fine with either Bush or Clinton," O'Malley said. "I bet he would!" He told a rally: "Well, I've got news for the bullies of Wall Street. The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth, by you, between two royal families. It is a sacred trust to be earned from the American people and exercised on behalf of the people of these United States." O'Malley is adopting some of the rhetoric used by his mentor, former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., in Hart's future-vs.-past bid for the Democratic nomination in 1984. The Colorado senator nearly upset front runner and former Vice President Walter Mondale, and O'Malley says voters are eager for another insurgency today. O'Malley told the Washington Post, "I think in our own party there is a desire for a new generation of leadership that's more connected to the values of our country and where we're headed." O'Malley advisers also say he is more of a purist on liberal issues than Clinton is. The former governor supported same-sex marriage and comprehensive immigration reform earlier and more aggressively than Clinton did, and he demonstrated an ability to get things done as governor by signing into law bills allowing same-sex marriage and increasing the minimum wage. Also criticizing Clinton has been Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a socialist who is seeking the Democratic nomination. Sanders says the wealth accumulated by Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill Clinton makes it more difficult for her to understand the problems of everyday Americans. "That type of wealth has the potential to isolate you from the reality of the world," Sanders told CNBC. Both O'Malley and Sanders complain that Clinton has stayed mum on controversial legislation to give Obama fast-track authority to facilitate passage of a huge trade agreement with nations in the Asia-Pacific region. And O'Malley and Sanders say Clinton also should take a position on the trade deal itself, which both of them oppose. The first Republican presidential debate is scheduled for early August and is sponsored by Fox News. This encounter will give the candidates a high-visibility forum to hammer each other even more. The Democrats will probably hold their first debate in August or September, with the same likelihood of internecine warfare. *TOP NEWS* *DOMESTIC* *U.S. Economy Added 280,000 Jobs in May; Unemployment Rate 5.5% <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/business/economy/jobs-report-hiring-unemployment-may.html?smid=tw-nytimes> // NYT // Patricia Cohen –June 5, 2015 * Employers added 280,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department reported on Friday, blunting worries about the American economy’s momentum after a stretch of lackluster growth earlier this year. The official unemployment rate ticked up to 5.5 percent, while hourly wages rose 0.3 percent for private sector workers last month. Although the report provides just a snapshot of the economy and is subject to revision, analysts are looking at this freshest set of figures to help pierce the confusion over whether the economy’s contraction of 0.7 percent during the first quarter of 2015 was a blip, partly a casualty of the harsh winter, or evidence of a more fundamental slowdown. Part of the reason for the mixed assessments is that the recovery from the recession, now reaching its sixth anniversary, has been uneven, lifting the fortunes of some Americans while others languish. As a survey in October on families’ financial well-being by the Federal Reserve showed when it was released recently, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they were either “doing O.K.” or “living comfortably,” with the rest reporting they were “just getting by” or struggling. “It’s a tale of two economies, the economy of the unskilled, and the economy of the semiskilled and the skilled,” said Robert A. Funk, chairman and chief executive of Express Employment Professionals, a staffing agency based in Oklahoma City that operates in 49 states. There is pent-up demand for those with skills, like machinists, engineers and information and technology workers, he said, but those without that edge are continuing to have a tough time. “We’re out here on Main Street, not Wall Street,” said Mr. Funk, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. “We get a feel of medium and small companies and their attitudes. They are reticent to hire because they are not sure which way the economy is going to go.” For those looking for progress, this week brought evidence of modest, if plodding improvements. A roundup of reports compiled from each of the Federal Reserve’s 12 district banks suggested that the overall economy expanded over the previous two months. The survey, known as the Beige Book, found: “Employment levels were up slightly over the reporting period, with some reports of layoffs. Wages rose slightly.” The trade balance also improved in April. The deficit, though still sizable at $40.9 billion, shrank from $50.6 billion in the previous month. The number of people applying for unemployment insurance also dropped last week, the 13th week in a row that new claims have been below 300,000. Although the four-week moving average edged up slightly to 275,000, it is still near a 15-year low. Despite low gasoline prices, which leave more money in people’s wallets, consumers have remained guarded, choosing to bank their savings rather than spend them. The one exception seems to have been car sales. American automakers sold more than 1.6 million vehicles in May, or 17.8 million on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis. That is the largest single-month total in nearly 10 years. Wall Street was paying particular attention to the report on Friday because of its potential impact on the Fed’s decision about when to raise interest rates above their near-zero levels. This week, James B. Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, said that while he expected the economy to improve enough to justify a rate increase this year, the frail first quarter has made everyone doubly cautious. “We should be and are appropriately talking about how to normalize monetary policy,” Mr. Bullard said. “On the other hand, you’ve got near-term concerns — the first-quarter negative G.D.P. number and maybe some consumption numbers, including retail sales — that look weaker than we had anticipated. I think that will all be transient, and it will turn out that we’ll have stronger data later in the year, and that will enable us to get going on the normalization process.” On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund asked the Fed to hold off raising rates until the first half of 2016 because of disappointing growth and a lack of inflation. Most Americans are increasingly optimistic about their economic future, according to the Fed’s survey on economic well-being. Still, daily financial challenges manifest themselves in small ways and large. Nearly half of those surveyed, for example, said they lacked the resources to cover an unexpected emergency that cost $400. Nearly one-third said they had skipped some form of medical care because they could not afford it. And many would increase their incomes if they could: More than one-third of all workers and 49 percent of part-timers said they would prefer to work more hours at their current wage. Wage stagnation also remains a blot on the recovery’s record. “Even a slight increase in year-over-year wage growth would be new and something different,” helping to lure back people who had abandoned the work force, said Tara M. Sinclair, an associate professor of economics at George Washington University and an economist at Indeed.com. *Pressure Rises for Higher Taxes <https://myaccount.nytimes.com/mobile/wall/smart/index.html?campaignId=&EXIT_URI=http%3A%2F%2Fmobile.nytimes.com%2FloginReturn%3Furl%3D%2F2015%2F06%2F05%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fpressure-rises-for-higher-taxes.html> // NYT // John Harwood – June 5, 2015 * The Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley wants to raise capital gains taxes. His rival Bernie Sanders seeks to tax stock trades and increase personal income tax rates. Indeed, Mr. Sanders’s plan harks back to the Eisenhower-era top rate of over 90 percent — more than twice today’s level. Asked whether that rate is obviously too high, Mr. Sanders responded simply, “No.” Their stances partly reflect attempts to outflank Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination. Mrs. Clinton herself is considering a friendly think tank’s advice to raise taxes on inherited wealth and close loopholes to collect more from affluent Americans. But they also reflect a broader shift in tax politics that is rippling through the Republican world, too. Pressure to raise taxes, at least on the wealthy, is rising. Several developments are fueling that pressure. The Tea Party push to slash spending has lost steam and generated a backlash. Defense hawks want more money for the Pentagon, while other Republicans seek additional cash for highway projects. The largest potential targets for further cuts, Social Security and Medicare for the elderly, are hardly politically inviting. At the same time, Republicans’ growing emphasis on reducing debt and deficits has curbed the appeal of supply-side tax cuts. So has the decline in the top income tax rate to 39.6 percent, from the 70 percent level when Ronald Reagan won the presidency on a tax-cutting platform. Moreover, both parties, at least rhetorically, have embraced the need for Washington to address stagnant middle-class wages and rising income inequality. Enacting significant remedies — whether through new middle-class tax benefits or spending programs — requires cash Washington doesn’t have. “All those things point in the direction of revenues,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island. Mr. Whitehouse is a co-sponsor of “Fair Share” tax legislation that would collect an additional $70 billion from wealthy taxpayers by closing loopholes. He also backs a new tax on carbon emissions, though his motivation is environmental rather than budgetary; he would return tax proceeds to businesses through lower corporate rates and to individuals through tax rebates and other benefits. Recent history suggests the carbon tax faces a steep uphill fight, even as climate change assumes a larger role on the political stage. Nor is there much prospect of massive increases in marginal tax rates, though Thomas Piketty, the French economist whose recent book accelerated the income inequality debate, argues that top rates could reach 80 percent without harming the economy. Yet Mrs. Clinton has not ruled out an increase in the 39.6 percent rate that her husband and President Obama both signed into law. A recent economic report from the Center for American Progress, the think tank founded by her campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, lays out other options, like increasing “effective” tax rates by curbing tax shelters for the affluent. Antipathy toward taxes remains a core tenet of Republican economic policy. When Republican Senate candidates in last year’s midterm elections shied away from tax-cutting proposals, the conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist explained that they would revive the issue as “tax reform” after winning full control of Congress. But there's no sign of serious movement on the issue. Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, has cast deficit concerns aside by advocating tax cuts for average families and high earners alike — including the elimination of capital gains and estate taxes. But he has not yet attempted to enact his plan. Another Republican candidate, Lindsey Graham, says his party needs to back higher taxes as part of a budget deal with Democrats. A third, Jeb Bush, promises a tax reform plan but has drawn attention to the issue in a different way. Mr. Norquist has long goaded Republican politicians, including Mr. Bush's older brother George W. Bush, to formally “pledge” opposition to all tax increases. Jeb Bush refuses to sign the pledge. *Senate Rejects Extending Veterans Benefits To Married Gay Couples And Their Kids <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/04/veterans-benefits-gay-couples_n_7514584.html?1433454909> // HuffPo // Jennifer Bendery – June 4, 2015 * The Senate quietly rejected legislation Thursday that would have extended certain veterans' benefits to married same-sex couples and their children who live in states where their marriage isn't recognized. During debate on the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) proposed amending the federal statute that prevents the Department of Veterans Affairs from granting comprehensive benefits to same-sex couples in states that don't recognize a same-sex marriage that was legally performed in a different state. Her amendment failed 53-42, seven votes shy of the 60 votes needed to pass. None of the Senate Republicans running for president voted for it. Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) opposed it, while Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) did not vote. Shaheen called it "tremendously disappointing" that the Senate would deny benefits to people who put their lives on the line for their country. "Veterans served their country bravely, and yet some are deprived of the very rights they risked their lives to protect," she said in an email. "The impact of this discrimination is real. Monthly benefits are less; spouses and children are not eligible for medical care at the VA; and families are not eligible for the same death benefits." Because of restrictions in federal law, veterans in same-sex marriages who live in states that don't honor their marriage receive smaller monthly disability payments and aren't eligible to qualify for a VA home loan with their spouse. In some cases, these veterans' spouses and kids are also ineligible for VA medical care. It's not the first time the Senate has voted to change this law. Shaheen introduced the same amendment in March, during debate on the budget, and the amendment passed 57-43. Only 51 votes were required to attach amendments to that bill. But the budget resolution is non-binding, meaning those votes were about making a statement on an issue rather than affecting law. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a major decision later this month on whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. If they rule yes, then all states will be required to offer marriage licenses to gay couples and all states will have to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. *INTERNATIONAL* *U.S. Was Warned of System Open to Cyberattacks <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/us/chinese-hackers-may-be-behind-anthem-premera-attacks.html> // NYT // David e. Sanger, Julie Hirschfeld Davis & Nicole Perlroth – June 5, 2015 * The inspector general at the Office of Personnel Management, which keeps the records and security clearance information for millions of current and retired federal employees, issued a report in November that essentially described the agency’s computer security system as a Chinese hacker’s dream. But by the time the report was published, Chinese hackers had already cleaned out tens of thousands of files on sensitive security clearances, and were preparing for a much broader attack that ultimately obtained detailed personal information on at least four million current and former government employees. Even today, the agency is struggling to patch numerous vulnerabilities. A number of administration officials on Friday painted a picture of a government office struggling to catch up, with the Chinese ahead of them at every step. The agency did not possess an inventory of all the computer servers and devices with access to its networks, and did not require anyone gaining access to information from the outside to use the kind of basic authentication techniques that most Americans use for online banking. It did not regularly scan for vulnerabilities in the system, and found that 11 of the 47 computer systems that were supposed to be certified as safe for use last year were not “operating with a valid authorization.” Workers outside the Office of Personnel Management. Its computer system was hit by attackers. Credit James Lawler Duggan/Reuters The problems were so severe for two systems that hosted the databases used by the Federal Investigative Service, which is responsible for the background investigations for officials and contractors who are issued security clearances, that the inspector general argued for temporarily shutting them down because the security flaws “could potentially have national security implications.” Hackers in China apparently figured that out months before the report was published. Last summer a breach was detected that appeared aimed directly at the security clearance records — information that could help a determined hacker gain access to email or other accounts belonging to those entrusted with the nation’s secrets. While upgrades were underway, a much broader attack occurred, apparently starting in December. Before it was detected, personal information on at least four million people was apparently downloaded by a patient, well-equipped adversary — and the number is likely to grow. As one senior former government official who once handled cyberissues for the administration, who would not speak on the record because it could endanger the person’s role on key advisory committees, said on Friday, “The mystery here is not how they got cleaned out by the Chinese. The mystery is what took the Chinese so long.” Researchers and government officials have determined that the Chinese group that attacked the office was probably the same one that seized millions of records held by the health care firms Anthem and Primera. Based on the forensics, experts believe the attackers were not part of the People’s Liberation Army, whose Third Department oversees much of the military’s cyberintelligence gathering. Rather they believe the group is privately contracted, though the exact affiliation with the Chinese government is not known. For the Obama administration, which came to office holding East Room events on cybersecurity and pressing Congress, for years, to pass legislation that would allow the private sector to share information with the government, what has happened at the Office of Personnel Management can only be described as a case study in bureaucratic lethargy and poor security practices. In the most egregious case cited by the inspector general, outsiders entering the system were not subjected to “multifactor authentication” — the systems that, for example, require a code that is sent to a cellphone to be entered before giving access to a user. Asked about that in an interview, Donna Seymour, the chief information officer at the Office of Personnel Management, said that installing such gear in the government’s “antiquated environment” was difficult and very time consuming, and that her agency had to perform “triage” to determine how to close the worst vulnerabilities. The agency now plans to install two-step authentication across its network, Ms. Seymour said. A longtime data security official, she also defended the decision to ignore the inspector general’s advice to shut down two systems that contain the security clearance information. Ms. Seymour said that the investigators were using an outdated assessment of the security measures — and that the agency was in the process of getting tighter controls when the intrusion happened. Another senior official said that with the agency under pressure to clear a huge backlog of security clearances, halting the process was “a nonstarter” with Congress. During the installation of new security scanning software, officials said, they found evidence of the broad downloading of millions of files. But administration officials said a lack of management focus on the problems contributed to the slow response — combined with a lack of focus on protecting systems that are not part of the national security infrastructure but that contain large amounts of data. And a number of administration officials in interviews on Friday painted a picture of Chinese adversaries who appear to be building huge databases of information on American citizens, useful for intelligence gathering and other purposes. “They didn’t go to sell the data, which is what criminal groups usually do,” said James Lewis, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s biographic databases that really give an intelligence benefit — and that get into an opponent’s skin.” Such databases indicate where a government official was posted, and security clearance information would list their foreign contacts — useful if there was an effort to track down Chinese citizens in contact with Americans. The chronology of attacks against American targets matches China’s stated economic and strategic objectives, members of Congress were told in briefings held by the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. “I’m angry and frustrated that we are at a place where this kind of attack can be successful,” said Rep. Jim Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat who sits on both a subcommittee on cyberissues and the Armed Services Committee. The attackers, he said, “could have been inside the systems for weeks or months.” In fact, investigators believe they were there for at least three months, before being detected in April. Government officials in the United States have been tracking several such privately contracted Chinese groups since 2008 and believe they operate at the behest of the state. One, based out of Guangzhou in southern China, has been tied to thousands of attacks on victims in the United States, Britain, Canada, Europe, Russia and Africa that develop missile, satellite, space and nuclear propulsion technology. At the White House, officials were struggling to explain on Friday how the breach could have happened after warnings from the inspector general and others. Michael Daniel, the White House’s top cyberofficial, declined to speak on the record about the attack, and Lisa Monaco, who has been handling cyberissues as one of Mr. Obama’s top national security officials, declined to be interviewed. “The threat that we face is ever-evolving,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary. “We understand that there is this persistent risk out there. We take this very seriously.” Mr. Earnest said Mr. Obama’s efforts to push legislation would bolster the nation’s data. “We need the United States Congress to come out of the Dark Ages and actually join us here in the 21st century to make sure that we have the kinds of defenses that are necessary to protect a modern computer system,” he said. *U.S. Airstrikes Whack One Thousand Islamic State Fighters a Month, Air Force General Says <http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/05/u-s-airstrikes-whack-one-thousand-islamic-state-fighters-a-month-air-force-general-says/> // Foreign Policy // Paul MCleary – June 5, 2015 * The top U.S. air commander in the Middle East said Friday that the American-led coalition bombing Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria are “removing over 1,000 enemy fighters a month from the battlefield” — adding yet another voice to the string of military and civilian leaders who have put a body count on a war where body counts aren’t supposed to matter. “The number is significant, but it’s also only a single indicator,” Lt. Gen. John Hesterman told reporters by phone from his headquarters in Qatar. The number of dead extremists isn’t as important as reforming Iraqi governance or strangling the finances of the Islamic State, he said, falling more closely in line with the White House. “But we’re taking the enemy off the battlefield at a great rate, and you can count on that,” Hesterman said. Critics say one of the biggest failures of Washington’s war plan is the refusal to put U.S. forward air controllers on the ground with Iraqi troops to more effectively call in airstrikes on Islamic State positions. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain have made a cottage industry out of calling for the deployment of joint terminal attack controllers — or JTACs — to Iraq, and some retired military officials have also grumbled about the lack of eyes on the ground. JTACs are operating in air command centers spread throughout Iraq, Hesterman said, where they watch live feeds piped back from drones and fighter jets circling enemy positions instead of embedding with Iraqi troops. Speaking to CNN on Friday, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said while JTACs are most important in urban fights where more precise airstrikes are essential to avoid civilian casualties, persistent aerial surveillance coverage is effective in the more open areas of Iraq and Syria. Hesterman also downplayed reports of an air strike near the city of Kirkuk on Wednesday that flattened a jihadi car bomb-making factory. He said U.S. aircraft dropped a “fairly small weapon” on the building, located in an industrial area, which triggered a secondary explosion from the bomb-making material stored inside. While that second explosion essentially flattened the entire industrial area — and the boom was heard dozens of miles away — so far there is no evidence of civilian casualties, Hesterman said. Initial reports said dozens of civilians were killed and injured. And a U.S. Central Command spokesperson on Thursday told FP it had received reports of civilian casualties near the site and was prepared to investigate if they could be confirmed. The overall bombing campaign shows few signs of letting up anytime soon. After 10 months and $2.6 billion spent by Washington, Islamic State forces continue their ground war against Iraqi troops and Shiite militias in a bloody struggle around the edges of Anbar province, which the jihadis own almost completely. Hesterman and other U.S. officials insist the daily airstrikes are key to buying the Iraqi Army time to regain footing after a string of humiliating defeats in Mosul, Fallujah, and Ramadi. The strikes also create space for the estimated 3,000 U.S. troops on the ground to retrain demoralized Iraqi Army units they originally trained just a few years ago. But even a former fighter pilot like Hesterman admitted that “air power doesn’t hold and govern territory — Iraq will have to do that” with troops on the ground. “Some competent ground forces are going to have to go peel” the jihadis out of the towns and villages in which they’re hiding, he said. *OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS* *Jeb Bush and the campaign money fountain <http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/05/opinions/louis-campaign-spending/> // CNN // Errol Louis – June 5, 2015 * Just as reformers have often warned and long feared, money has swamped the American political system, placing a critical amount of the 2016 presidential campaign in the hands of private interests, outside of regulation and largely beyond accountability. More than a year away from the 2016 election, it seems clear the new cash-driven strategies are bad for democracy. The sums involved are staggering -- we'll look at some of the numbers in a minute -- but to understand the profound transformation of politics we're watching, consider the recent maneuvering of Republican ex-Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, who appears hell-bent on maximizing the amount of political money in his corner. For months, Bush has been holding political fundraisers, delivering speeches and hiring advisers, but also coyly denying he's made a decision about whether to seek the White House in 2016. In one case, he slipped up and acknowledged the ruse: "I'm running for president in 2016, and the focus is gonna be about how we — if I run — how do you create high, sustained economic growth, where more people have a chance at earned success?" he said on NBC. Note the way Bush immediately tried to clean up the gaffe -- "if I run" -- as if anybody seriously doubts that this son and brother of two presidents plans to make his own bid for the White House. The verbal contortions -- and the entire structure of Bush's nascent campaign -- are built around the new rules that allow candidates to raise unlimited funds for so-called super PACs, political action committees that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money supporting and attacking candidates without disclosing who's behind the activity. So we've seen Bush crisscrossing the country raising money for a super PAC called Right to Rise that's believed to have raised $100 million that will likely get spent helping likely candidate Bush and attacking his enemies. Bush isn't alone: Virtually every serious Republican candidate for office, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Rand Paul, ex-Sen. Rick Santorum and Dr. Ben Carson is affiliated with one super PAC or another. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has called for strong campaign finance limits, by constitutional amendment if necessary -- but then gave in to reality and is expected to connect with Priorities USA, a super PAC created by supporters of President Obama. There's a catch to these potentially bottomless money fountains. By law, they can't coordinate with campaigns after a candidate has officially declared he or she is running. There's also a convoluted restriction on what an official candidate can do for his or her super PAC: Candidates can meet with donors, but not ask for more than $5,000. Such pitches can be made to the donors, but not in the candidate's presence. The first problem with this system is that it encourages, and even rewards, a kind of dishonesty by candidates. "What we're seeing is effectively a farce being played out here, where each of these candidates — in every sense of the word — is avoiding the longstanding requirements of federal election law," is how Trevor Potter, who served as a high-ranking official in the two presidential campaigns of Sen. John McCain, put it to National Journal. "It's very much a wink and a nod, we all know this, this is a game." The game was created by a string of Supreme Court rulings that unraveled legal restrictions on political donors. Since the most important of these decisions, the 2007 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, money has gushed into American politics. In 2008, the year after Citizens United, more than $300 million from PACs and individual contributions was spent on the race for president. Four years later, that number more than tripled to over $1 billion and some predict spending for 2016 could edge toward $10 billion. The overwhelming majority of these new dollars will be from super PACs. The flood of money and wink-and-nod rules have led, predictably, to corruption. Some of it is old-fashioned and obvious: Earlier this year, the U.S. Justice Department announced its first criminal conviction of a political consultant for violating the rule requiring separation of PACs and official campaign activity. Tyler Harber, who was working for a congressional campaign in Virginia, created a super PAC, then directly coordinated its activities with the campaign. Harber also spent over $300,000 in PAC money with a printing firm that kicked a fat percentage back to him personally, and lied about the whole matter when the FBI came knocking. Harber, set to be sentenced this month, may be the first of many campaign operatives to abuse the money flood the Supreme Court set off. There's also a broader corruption taking place. The spectacle of candidates lining up to kiss the ring of Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson at an event earlier this year is being repeated by the Koch brothers, industrialists with a deep, vested interest in limiting taxes and regulation on their empire. The Kochs and some of their big-donor allies reportedly plan to spend $889 million on the 2016 election. In the Citizens United decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that "the appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy." Every indication suggests Kennedy's prediction has turned out to be dead wrong. Last fall, even as more money than ever poured into the political system, America saw the lowest voter turnout level in 72 years, and 84% of Americans say money has too much influence over politics, according to a recent CBS News-New York Times poll. And 85% say the campaign finance system needs a complete overhaul. Voters know, even if the Supreme Court doesn't, that we need to contain, control or scrap the current PAC-driven system. What should be a time for national debate about the pressing issues facing the country is turning into a kind of cattle auction. America deserves better. *Clinton goes bold on voting rights <http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/clinton-goes-bold-voting-rights> // MSNBC // Steve Benen – June 5, 2015* Before Hillary Clinton’s speech on voting rights yesterday, the political world already had some sense that she intended to endorse a pretty progressive vision. The Democratic campaign told reporters in advance, for example, that Clinton would back a 20-day early-voting window for every state in the nation. But as Rachel noted on the show last night, the Democratic frontrunner ended up going much further than expected. That’s true on policy grounds, where Clinton endorsed a plan for universal registration … “So today I am calling for universal, automatic voter registration. Everyone, every young man or young woman, in every state in the union should be automatically registered to vote when they turn eighteen – unless they actively choose to opt-out.” … and it’s true on political grounds, where Clinton blasted Republicans, by name, for their ugly national voter-suppression campaign. “Here in Texas, former Governor Rick Perry signed a law that a federal court said was actually written with the purpose of discriminating against minority voters. He applauded when the Voting Rights Act was gutted, and said the lost protections were ‘outdated and unnecessary.’ “But Governor Perry is hardly alone in his crusade against voting rights. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker cut back early voting and signed legislation that would make it harder for college students to vote. In New Jersey, Governor Christie vetoed legislation to extend early voting. And in Florida, when Jeb Bush was governor, state authorities conducted a deeply flawed purge of voters before the presidential election in 2000. […] “What part of democracy are they afraid of?” You could almost hear voting-rights advocates nationwide applauding in unison. Automatic, universal registration, for example, is seen as one of the most consequential of all possible reforms – and voting-rights opponents on the right have yet to come up with an argument against it. But stepping back and looking at this in the broader context, it’s worth appreciating just how often Clinton has exceeded expectations lately. In Houston yesterday, voting supporters expected Clinton to deliver encouraging remarks, but she went much further, throwing her support behind a bold national agenda. In Las Vegas last month, immigration-reform proponents expected Clinton to express support for reform, but she went beyond their expectations and endorsed a far more ambitious approach. As we talked about at the time, the fear among many on the left was that Clinton, without any real pressure from a primary challenger, would aim for the center and effectively run a general-election campaign for a year and a half. No one would pull the former Secretary of State to the left, so she simply wouldn’t bother. But as her candidacy takes shape, note how consistently she’s positioned herself as a progressive champion of late. Clinton delighted much of the left, for example, with her remarks on criminal-justice reform in April The Democratic base was equally pleased to hear about Clinton’s 50-state strategy, her willingness to buck Wall Street, and her consideration of a constitutional amendment on campaign financing. And now Clinton has done it again on voting rights. Some critics on the left will likely note, with cause, that she’s adopted a far more progressive vision than the one she used to espouse. There’s some truth to that, though where she is arguably matters more than where she was. President Obama has helped shift the national debate to the left a bit on many of these key issues; the Democratic coalition has become more unified around a progressive agenda; much of the American mainstream is far more likely to embrace the left’s proposals than it was eight years ago; and Clinton has clearly evolved on these issues, ending up right where most of her party – and much of her country – want her to be. *Hillary Sides With Democracy <http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-05/hillary-sides-with-democracy> // Bloomberg News // Jonathan Bernstein – June 5, 2015 * Hillary Clinton’s call for universal automatic voter registration is a major positive development in the voting wars. She puts the national Democratic Party squarely behind Oregon’s recent innovative registration law. As Cass Sunstein says at View, Americans don't need to register with the government to be entitled to other rights; voting shouldn't be any different. It’s pretty simple: If we want everyone to participate, then voting should be easy. Voter registration in the U.S. is a real, and unnecessary, hurdle. That’s no coincidence: Registration was originally set up around the turn of the previous century in part by those concerned that the wrong kinds of people (mostly recent immigrants from southern and eastern Europe) would vote. There are plenty of ideas to make voting easier, but removing registration as a hurdle is the big one, on both a practical and theoretical level. As a practical matter, political scientists have repeatedly found that making registration easy will increase turnout. Indeed, the evidence when it comes to some voting reforms (early and absentee voting, making Election Day a holiday) is mixed. Some political scientists find “substitution” effects -- in many cases, early voting just allows people who would vote anyway to do so at more convenient times, but it doesn’t encourage new voters to participate (for a review of the evidence, see this new paper). But automatic or simpler registration works. To me, however, the strongest arguments are based on democratic theory. Democracy, a system of government in which people rule themselves, is extremely difficult even with the best intentions. A core problem is that people have different resources -- money, of course, but also skills that are politically valuable, time available for political action, and even interest in government. Universal suffrage is a partial remedy, but that only works if voting is easily and equally accessible. That’s why registration is so corrosive. Even if it’s not much of a barrier, those who are deterred are almost certainly the same people who lose out in a system that cannot (and in my view should not) help but reward those with more resources. Voting itself should be easy for the same reasons, but registration holds a special status as the entryway to politics. Granted, there is a partisan component to voting as an issue. Democrats favor easier voting because they think it will help them, which is why Republicans oppose it. The evidence is that evencompulsory voting wouldn’t make much of a difference (see Jamelle Bouie and Greg Sargent for the politics of automatic registration as an election issue). Is fraud a concern? I don't think so. Yes, people could find ways to beat an automatic system, but they can find ways to beat the current system, too. Fraud is an unfortunate but unavoidable byproduct. If we want a bigger military, we're going to get more procurement fraud; if we want to make it easy to vote, some may try to abuse that. To me, it’s simple. Policies that make it easy to vote are good for democracy; policies that make it hard aren't. I’ll support anything, even selective measures, that make it easier to vote. After all, if both parties reduce voting barriers for their supporters, eventually we’ll get to the right place. Universal automatic registration has the virtue of not being selective. It’s the right reform, and kudos to Clinton for moving her once-indifferent party in that direction. *Why Hillary Clinton Must Back a LGBT Full Civil Rights Law for Her Own Sake <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/hillary-clinton-must-back-a-lgbt-full-civil-rights-law_b_7518610.html> // HuffPo // Michelangelo Signorile – June 5, 2015 * Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), running for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, wants to amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include gay and transgender people, assuring a federal law that would ban discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, education and all spheres of American life, with no broad religious exemption. In 1996, he was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which President Bill Clinton signed into law. Sanders' fellow Democratic presidential contender and former Maryland governor, Martin O'Malley, was at the vanguard of gubernatorial leadership on marriage equality, one of the few governors to spearhead and sign a marriage equality bill into law in 2012, and then fervently campaign in a statewide referendum to ratify it. Lincoln Chafee, the former U.S. senator and Rhode Island governor, who has now announced a run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, supported marriage equality as far back as 2004 -- when he was a Republican! -- and similarly pushed and signed a marriage bill into law in his state in 2013. Chafee also said this week that the Pentagon's ban on open transgender military service should be lifted. And what are we hearing from Hillary Clinton nowadays? Well, she finally said in her own words that marriage for gays and lesbians is a constitutional right -- just two months back -- having previously left that to a campaign spokesperson, while just last year she was still saying it was a state issue, in line with what many Republican candidates say now. And she issued a vague LGBT Pride Month proclamation that said that the work toward equality "is far from finished" without offering any specifics -- like amending the Civil Rights Act, or fully lifting the ban on trans service or creating a whole new civil rights law for LGBT people that does both and more. It's true that Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, gave an important, groundbreaking speech in Geneva in 2011, pronouncing that LGBT rights are human rights, taking on brutal anti-LGBT regimes abroad. But that was then, and while we all deeply care about our brothers and sisters overseas, there is so much that needs to be done in the U.S. for LGBT people that an American presidential candidate could promise right now. And at a time when Clinton's Democratic rivals are exploiting a dip in her approval numbers, Clinton should be going on the offensive as the candidate fighting for full equality during a civil rights movement of our time. That would not only energize progressives in the party, it would speak to younger voters, including independents, who she'll surely need. And it's in stark contrast to just about every GOP candidate, most of whom have supported discriminatory "religious freedom" laws and surely do not back anti-discrimination legislation for LGBT people. It's baffling that Clinton hasn't done this, considering the full force with which she's taken on the issue of immigration, promising to sign executive orders more far-reaching than even the controversial ones President Obama has signed, and the way she took on the voting rights issue yesterday, calling for 20 days of early voting nationwide. It's likely true that Clinton's slowness on LGBT rights in the past was because, as secretary of state, she couldn't get ahead of the president, who had to be pushed himself on the issue. But even long after President Obama decided not to defend DOMA in court and came out for marriage equality, and after she left the administration, Clinton was still late to the game on marriage. More than that, Hillary Clinton, rightly or wrongly, carries the baggage of her husband, Bill, who signed both "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and DOMA into law. She has to be twice as good on LGBT rights as everyone else just to counter that past, as unfair as that may seem. Instead, she has been defensive of Bill Clinton on the issue rather than distancing herself. While Hillary, like Bill, came to oppose DOMA and called on the Supreme Court to overturn it, for example, she, like Bill, has defended the signing of the bill into law in 1996, spinning out a narrative about how it was believed DOMA would satisfy the anti-gay crowd and blunt a possible constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. As I've pointed out before, this is false, as there was no talk of a constitutional amendment that early on. Certainly I don't expect Hillary Clinton to say, as I have, that DOMA was a stain on Bill Clinton's presidency. But surely she can be more forceful in being out front on LGBT rights now. And, again, that's doubly true if she wants to stand out from her opponents. It's likely that Clinton's campaign is taking advice from Beltway gay operatives. That's a mistake because many were wrong the last time around as well, only to see LGBT energy and support shift to Obama, because he spoke more forcefully on the issues. She needs a difference course this time. She could begin by giving a speech putting her full support behind a comprehensive federal LGBT civil rights bill, like the one that Sen. Merkley (D-Ore.) is set to introduce that would ban discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations, including in the 29 states that have no statewide protections without broad religious exemptions. She could explain how she's going to fight for it in a Republican-dominated Congress that will surely beat such a bill back for years to come. Or she can call for amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act as Sen. Sanders has, and a go a few steps better, calling for lifting the ban on transgender service, pushing for passage of anti-bullying legislation and getting a law passed that end "ex-gay" therapy. Most of all, Clinton has got to get away from empty platitudes. Things have moved at light speed, and we're way beyond the time when having a gay couple or two in your campaign video is enough, or where a vague Pride proclamation with no teeth suffices. We should be hearing concrete details from Hillary Clinton on how she is going to be a forceful champion of LGBT rights, both for the sake of equality and for the sake her own campaign. *Republicans' revisionist history on Iraq <http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/defense/244100-republicans-revisionist-history-on-iraq> // The Hill // Diana Ohlbaum – June 5, 2015* In the wake of former Gov. Jeb Bush's (R-Fla.) bungled responses to predictable questions about Iraq, Republican strategists are rolling out a specious new argument: In essence, that all was well in Iraq at the end of the George W. Bush administration, and President Obama messed it up. Charles Krauthammer calls it "the abandonment of 2011," blaming the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria's (ISIS) recent advances on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011. This argument flies so completely in the face of history and logic that it rivals the way Vice President Cheney intentionally misled Congress and the American public with false, exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Those misrepresentations led us into a war that 75 percent of the American public now says was not worth fighting. The hawks' new line is designed to get us back into it. Let's start by remembering that the 2007 surge was intended as a temporary build-up to buy time, not as a prelude to permanent occupation. It was President George W. Bush who signed the security agreement with Iraq that set a date of Dec. 31, 2011 for all U.S. forces to withdraw from the country. And despite the U.S. success in holding up its side of the bargain — reducing levels of violence in order to create space for political progress — the Iraqi government remained unwilling or unable to do its part. Second, we must acknowledge our own role in giving rise to ISIS. Almost all of its higher-ups were members of Hussein's security forces, disbanded under the de-Baathification policy of the Bush administration. Set loose in society with arms, training and grievances, but no jobs or income, these sacked officers formed the core of the Iraqi insurgency. And it was in U.S.-run detention camps that terrorist leaders like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, did their best recruiting. Third, it is clear that leaving U.S. troops in for longer, or returning them now, would not essentially change the fundamentals of the conflict. ISIS and other extremist forces are expanding, not for lack of powerful enemies, but because those enemies are themselves so abhorrent. The repressive, violent and corrupt regimes in Syria and Iran are the chief antagonists and targets of ISIS. By inserting ourselves into this fight, we unavoidably strengthen the very regimes we find so repugnant and so threatening to U.S. interests in the region. Strengthening Iran was, in fact, our principal achievement by invading Iraq in the first place. Before considering another ill-advised move in the region, we ought to consider the secondary and tertiary impacts of the application of military power. For instance, even if we had the ability to crush ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which is doubtful, it might only have the effect of splintering and scattering extremists across the globe, making a coordinated effort against them far more complicated. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said in his testimony before Congress last fall, "there is no military solution" to ISIS; they "will only be defeated or destroyed once they are rejected by the population in which they hide." It may be difficult for us to understand why, as Defense Secretary Ashton Carter admitted, the Iraqi army lacks the will to fight, but if $26 billion and nearly a decade of effort didn't work, then it's time to step back and reexamine our assumptions. The fact that the Iraqi army isn't standing up to ISIS doesn't mean that the United States can or should do the job for them. In fact, precisely the opposite: All we can reasonably do is help the Iraqis build a state worth fighting for. *Hillary Clinton's call for easier voting is self-serving, but so what? <http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-hillary-clinton-republicans-voting-20150605-story.html> // LA Times // Michael Mcgough – June 5, 2015 * Was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s call this week for radically more convenient voting self-serving? Yes, in two ways. If you believe that it should be easier to vote, the fact that Democrats would benefit is irrelevant. If Clinton’s proposals for expanded early voting, automatic voter registration for 18-year-olds and a return to preclearance were adopted, she and other Democrats likely would be the beneficiaries. But so what? If you believe that it should be easier to vote, the fact that Democrats would benefit is irrelevant. The challenge for Republicans is to try harder to court the young and minority voters who are disproportionately discouraged from voting by current election laws. Clinton’s speech was self-serving in another, subtler way. By accusing Republicans of “systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting,” Clinton arguably guaranteed that Republicans would react in an equally partisan way -- as they promptly did. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie suggested that Clinton “wants an opportunity to commit greater acts of voter fraud around the country." Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry suggested that, in criticizing his state’s requirement that voters show photo IDs, Clinton “dissed every person who supports having an identification to either get on an airplane or vote.” Portraying access to the ballot box as a partisan issue arguably undermines the effort to win bipartisan support for the measures Clinton proposed. It also could lead some independent voters to shrug cynically over what seems to be a battle between vested interests, not a matter of principle. But enactment of the reforms Clinton endorsed is unlikely in the near future, either in the Republican-controlled Congress or in states where the GOP holds sway. By picking a fight with Republicans, Clinton probably galvanized Democratic voters, including the “people of color, poor people and young people” she accused the Republicans of disenfranchising. Changes in the law can come later. *Alexandria Phillips* *Press Assistant | Communications* Hillary for America | www.hillaryclinton.com