podesta_email_00578.txt

podesta-emails 92,472 words email

D6 P19 V16 V11 P22

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*­H4A News Clips* *July 11, 2015* *TODAY’S KEY STORIES..................................................................................... **6* Trusted Hillary Clinton Aide Has a Full Plate // WSJ // Laura Meckler – July 10, 2015.............. 6 George W. Bush Hopes Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton ‘Elevate the Discourse’ // NYT // Amy Chozick – July 10, 2015...................................................................................................................................... 8 Clinton plans Tuesday meetings with all Hill Democrats // Politico // Lauren French – July 10, 2015 8 *SOCIAL MEDIA................................................................................................. **9* Josh Kraushaar (7/10/15, 5:01 PM) – Rick Perry super PACs raise $16.8M. Strong tally for a candidate having a solid week.............................................................................................................................. 9 Jennifer Jacobs (7/10/15, 5:41 PM) – Bernie Sanders’ Iowa operation is growing FAST: 29 organizers; 7 field offices open now and 3 more open by Monday, aides tell me. #iacaucus.................................... 9 Teddy Schleifer (7/10/15, 6:16 PM) – Rand Paul raised more than $7 million in second quarter through his campaign and a joint committee, a spokesman says, confirming Breitbart................................ 9 *HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE............................................................................. **9* Hillary Clinton makes Bob McDonnel look like a chump // WaPo // Jennifer Rubin – July 10, 2015 9 Hillary Clinton probably can’t get gun control passed. But she should talk about it, anyway. // WaPo // Paul Waldman – July 10, 2015...................................................................................................... 10 Jacob Lew: Americans Will Work Hard if Jobs Pay Decent Wages // WSJ // Nick Timiraos – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 12 Hillary Clinton bucks trend, confronts NRA // MSNBC // Steve Benen – July 10, 2015............. 13 Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sander’s awkward lunch // Politico // Gabriel Debenedetti and Jonathan Topaz – July 10, 2015........................................................................................................................ 14 Jeb Bush: Hillary Clinton ‘can’t be trusted’ // Politico // Nick Gass – July 10, 2015.................. 16 Hillary Clinton’s union problem // Reuters // Luciana Lopez – July 10, 2015........................... 16 Modern campaigning: The Hillary Quilt Project // CNN // Betsy Klein – July 10, 2015............. 17 Gowdy: ‘Pulling teeth’ to get info for Benghazi investigation // CNN // Daniella Diaz – July 10, 2015 20 Hillary Clinton directs support for One Direction // CNN // Deena Zaru – July 10, 2015........... 21 House Of Cards Creator: Hillary Clinton Is The Real Claire Underwood // BuzzFeed // Jim Waterson and Lynzy Billing – July 10, 2015................................................................................................. 21 Beghazi Committee Chairman: Clinton’s Made “Maybe Half Dozen Demonstrably False Statements” // BuzzFeed // Andrew Kaczynski – July 10, 2015...................................................................... 23 Clinton Foundation Donor Violated Iran Sanctions, Tried to Sells 747s to Tehran // Daily Beast // Michael Weiss and Alex Shirazi – July 10, 2015................................................................................... 24 Hillary’s Strategy Is Actually Brilliant // Daily Beast // Nick Gillespie – July 10, 2015.............. 27 Clinton camp on Bush’s fundraising: It should scare you // MSNBC // Alex Seitz-Wald – July 10, 2015 30 Medical Bill: Mystery donor picked up $150G tab for 2010 Clinton speech // Fox // Malia Zimmerman – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................... 32 Kudos To Sanders, With A Wink To Clinton, Too // NPR // Ron Elving – July 10, 2015............. 33 Hillary Clinton to Visit Senate Democrats at Lunch // Roll Call // Niels Lesniewski – July 10, 2015 35 Another Questionable Donor to the Clinton Foundation Emerges, and This One Could Tie in With the Pending Iran Deal // The Blaze // Fred Lucas – July 10, 2015.............................................................. 35 ‘House of Cards’ creator thinks Hillary Clinton is closest to a real life Claire Underwood // Business Insider // Jethro Nededog – July 10, 2015............................................................................................. 37 Don’t believe Hillary Clinton’s campaign – here’s why they’re not ‘worried’ about Bernie Sanders // Business Insider // Maxwell Tani – July 10, 2015................................................................................. 37 No, Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Need a Plan For Passing Gun Control Legislation // Mother Jones // Kevin Drum – July 10, 2015........................................................................................................................ 39 Ariana Grande’s Manager Is Throwing a Big Fundraiser for Hillary Clinton // Mediaite // Jamie Frevele – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................... 40 Hillary Clinton aligns herself with a surprising party // Elle // Alyssa Bailey – July 10, 2015.... 40 Bill and Hillary Clinton ordered to give depositions about emails in civil case // Washington Times // Kellan Howell – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................... 40 Chelsea Clinton to speak at World Food Prize // Des Moines Register // Donnelle Eller – July 10, 2015 41 Hillary Clinton campaign releases video about Confederate flag // Post and Courier // July 10, 2015 43 Hillary Clinton to make first Utah trip of 2016 race // Salt Lake Tribune // Robert Gehrke – July 9, 2015 43 *OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE................................................. **44* *DECLARED................................................................................................. **44* *O’MALLEY............................................................................................... **45* Martin O’Malley Takes a Shot at Hillary Clinton Over ‘Sanctuary Cities’ Policy // WSJ // Peter Nicholas – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................... 45 On student loans, do as O’Malley says, not as he does // WaPo // Michelle Singletary – July 10, 2015 45 Martin O’Malley’s comeback plot // Politico // Jonathan Topaz and Gabriel Debenedetti – July 10, 2015 47 How O’Malley Would Let Private Lenders Back Into Federal Student Loans // Forbes // Jason Delisle – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................... 50 O’Malley to speak at candidate forum in Des Moines // Des Moines Register // Jason Noble – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 51 *SANDERS................................................................................................. **51* Bernie Sander’s misleading characterization of a controversial gun law // WaPo // Michelle Ye Hee Lee – July 10, 2015................................................................................................................................ 51 Sanders Makes Play for Caucus States // WSJ // Peter Nicholas – July 10, 2015....................... 54 Bernie defends Jeb’s ‘longer hours’ comment // Politico // Nick Gass—July 10, 2015............... 56 The One Point on Which Bernie Sanders Agrees With Jeb Bush // Bloomberg // Arit John – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 57 Sanders dings Bush on work, ducks personal questions // CNN // Tom LoBianco – July 10, 2015 58 Bernie Sanders: The Cable Bill Is Too Damn High // HuffPo // Zach Carter – July 10, 2015...... 59 Bernie Sanders: Income Tax Proposal To Come “In Two Or Three Weeks” // BuzzFeed // Christopher Massie – July 10, 2015........................................................................................................................ 60 Bernie Sanders Is The Left’s Trump // Daily Beast // Ana Marie Cox – July 10, 2015................ 60 Bernie Sanders is the Ron Paul of 2016 // The Hill // Eddie Zipperer – July 10, 2015............... 65 Sanders: ‘We have got to apologize for slavery’ // Washington Examiner // Barbara Boland – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 67 Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders defends past votes on gun control measures // NY Daily News // Cameron Joseph – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................... 68 Bernie’s Big Break With the Left on Guns // US News and World Report // David Catanese – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 69 Did Bernie Sanders vote against background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases? // PolitiFact // Linda Qiu – July 10, 2015..................................................................................................... 70 GOP Officials Publicly Denounce Bernie Sanders’ Obamacare Expansion, Quietly Request Funding // The Intercept // Lee Fang – July 10, 2015.................................................................................... 73 *WEBB....................................................................................................... **76* Jim Webb arrives in the age of Sanders and Trump // The Hill // Bernie Quigley – July 10, 2015 76 *OTHER.................................................................................................... **78* Bill Clinton’s Candid Views of the Political Press // NYT // Amy Chozick – July 10, 2015.......... 78 Latinos Gather For NCLR Conference Amid Political Spotlight // // NYT – Upshot // Griselda Nevarez – July 11, 2015................................................................................................................................ 79 DNC Chair Says Candidates Must Meet ‘Threshold’ For Debates, Though Criteria And Dates Still Unclear // HuffPo // Michael Calderone – July 10, 2015......................................................................... 80 Hillary and her rivals to meet with union leaders // Washington Examiner // Sean Higgins – July 10, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 81 *GOP................................................................................................................. **82* *DECLARED................................................................................................. **82* *BUSH....................................................................................................... **82* Jeb Bush Draws on Family Dynasty for Fund-Raising Efforts // NYT // Nicholas Confessore – July 10, 2015........................................................................................................................................... 83 That time Jeb Bush invited 300 top donors to his parents’ house // WaPo // Ed O’Keefe – July 10, 2015 85 Jeb Bush and Allies Raise More Than $114 Million in 2016 Race // WSJ // Rebecca Ballhaus – July 10, 2015........................................................................................................................................... 87 ‘Space Guy’ Jeb Bush’s Donor Categories: ‘Voyager,’ ‘Endeavor,’ ‘Apollo’ // WSJ // Beth Reinhard – July 10, 2015.................................................................................................................................... 89 Jeb to donors: You’re not done // Politico // Eli Stokols and Anna Palmer – July 10, 2015........ 90 Is Donald Trump Helping the Bush Brand? // Bloomberg // Michael C. Bender – July 10, 2015 92 Bush raises over $100 million to help his campaign // CNN // Theodore Schleifer – July 10, 2015 94 Bush rips Obama over OPM hack, but had data issues of own in Florida // CNN // Chris Frates – July 9, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 96 Jeb Bush’s $114 million haul: By the numbers // MSNBC // Aliyah Frumin – July 10, 2015...... 98 Jeb Bush ‘did it on his own’? // MSNBC // Steve Benen – July 10, 2015................................... 99 Paul Ryan Explains What Jeb Bush meant When He Said Americans Should Work Longer Hours // HuffPo // Michael McAuliff – July 10, 2015......................................................................................... 100 Does Jeb Bush Understand Economics? // Newsweek // Kurt Eichenwald – July 10, 2015..... 101 *RUBIO.................................................................................................... **104* Marco Rubio Calls Abortion Rights ‘Indefensible’ – and Knocks Down ‘Pro-Abortion’ Straw Man // Bloomberg // Sahil Kapur – July 10, 2015.............................................................................................. 104 Marco Rubio: Roe v. Wade Was ‘Egregiously Flawed Decision’ // HuffPo // Laura Bassett – July 10, 2015 105 Rubio: Confederate Flag A “Deeply Painful Symbol” For Millions, Shouldn’t Be On Government Buildings // BuzzFeed // Andrew Kaczynski – July 10, 2015.................................................................... 106 As Donald Trump Riles GOP Race, Marco Rubio Begins to Connect With Voters In Spanish // ABC // Ines de la Cuetara – July 10, 2015....................................................................................................... 106 Marco Rubio: I will absolutely roll back Obama Cuba policy // Guardian // Sabrina Siddiqui – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 108 Marco Rubio: The American Dream Is Really A Universal Dream? // Breitbart // Michelle Moons – July 10, 2015................................................................................................................................... 112 *PAUL....................................................................................................... **113* Rand Paul’s Fake Flat Tax // NYT // Editorial Board – July 10, 2015...................................... 113 Rand Paul’s presidential campaign raises $7 million // WaPo // Katie Zezima – July 10, 2015 114 Rand Paul pulls in $7 million for presidential run // Politico // Daniel Strauss – July 10, 2015 115 Rand Paul takes in $7 million in second quarter // CNN // Theodore Schleifer – July 10, 2015. 115 Rand Paul Raises $7 Million in Second Quarter with Overwhelming Grassroots Support // Breitbart // Matthew Boyle – July 10, 2015............................................................................................. 116 *CRUZ...................................................................................................... **118* Ted Cruz hits the jackpot: A book war with the New York Times // WaPo // Philip Bump – July 10, 2015 118 The Daily Cruz // Politico // Hadas Gold, Katie Glueck, and Kenneth P. Vogel – July 10, 2015. 119 Ted Cruz feuds with the New York Times – and loves it // Politico // Dylan Byers – July 10, 2015 122 HarperCollins disputes N.Y. Times on Ted Cruz book: ‘No evidence of bulk sales’ // Politico // Dylan Byers – July 10, 2015....................................................................................................................... 125 Ted Cruz is “proud to stand with Donald Trump” // Reuters // Alana Wise – July 10, 2015..... 125 Presidential hopeful Cruz blasts N.Y. Times book off bestseller list // Reuters // Fiona Ortiz – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 126 HarperCollins Refutes New York Times Claim That Ted Cruz Tried To Game Bestseller List // BuzzFeed // McKay Coppins – July 10, 2015............................................................................................ 127 Is Ted Cruz A Bestselling Author Or Isn’t He? // Daily Beast // Malcolm Jones – July 10, 2015 127 NTU: Cruz tried to reduce federal spending by $169 billion per year, while Hillary Clinton proposes $226 billion in new spending // Breitbart // Alex Swoyer – July 10, 2015....................................... 129 *CHRISTIE.............................................................................................. **130* Christie’s First Television Ad Goes Up for New Hampshire Viewers // NYT // Nick Corasaniti – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 130 Chris Christie releases first TV spot // Politico // Ryan Hutchins – July 10, 2015.................... 131 Christie Pushes Tough-Talking Image With Ads in New Hampshire // Bloomberg // Terrence Dopp – July 10, 2015................................................................................................................................... 131 3 Questions African Americans Should Ask Chris Christie // NBC // Jason Johnson – July 10, 2015 132 Chris Christie releases first campaign ad for 2016 nomination: ‘I mean what I say, and I say what I mean’ // NY Daily News // Celeste Katz – July 10, 2015........................................................................... 133 *PERRY................................................................................................... **134* Rick Perry’s super PAC haul: $16.8 million // Politico // Katie Glueck – July 10, 2015............. 134 Rick Perry super PACs raise nearly $17M // CNN // Sara Murray – July 10, 2015..................... 135 New Super PAC Ad for Rick Perry Touts His Pro-Life, Gun Rights Record // Breitbart // Sarah Rumpf – July 10, 2015................................................................................................................................... 136 *GRAHAM................................................................................................ **137* Lindsey Graham: Trump’s comments are going to ‘kill the party’ // Politico // Nick Gass – July 10, 2015 137 *SANTORUM........................................................................................... **139* Rick Santorum Wants to Be More Than Just a Pro-Life Candidate // National Journal // Emma Roller – July 10, 2015.............................................................................................................................. 139 Rick Santorum: The Supreme Court Doesn’t Have the Final Say on Everything // The Blaze // Fred Lucas – July 10, 2015...................................................................................................................... 140 *HUCKABEE............................................................................................ **141* Mike Huckabee cites infamous ‘Daisy’ ad for Iran nuclear deal // CNN // Jeremy Diamond – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 141 Huckabee: Trump can say what he thinks // Washington Examiner // Emilie Padgett – July 10, 2015 141 *CARSON................................................................................................. **143* N.H. fans feel the passion for Ben Carson // Boston Globe // Akilah Johnson – July 11, 2015.. 143 Carson: ‘Baby killers’ capitalize ‘on people’s lack of knowledge’ // Washington Examiner // Ariel Cohen – July 10, 2015.............................................................................................................................. 145 *JINDAL.................................................................................................. **146* Bobby Jindal’s obsession with “colorblindness” is everything wrong with the GOP’s racial politics // Salon // Eesha Pandit – July 10, 2015............................................................................................... 146 *TRUMP................................................................................................... **148* Event for Donald Trump in Phoenix Will Draw Thousands // NYT // Nicholas Fandos – July 10, 2015 148 Donald Trump Lied to Us // Politico // Antonio Rijerino – July 10, 2015................................ 149 Trump: I’m still a birther // Politico // Nick Gass – July 10, 2015........................................... 150 Donald Trump’s immigration stance dividing GOP in Arizona // AP // Bob Christie - July 11, 2015 151 In Phoenix Speech, Donald Trump Won’t Back Down On Immigration Comments // Bloomberg // Emily Greenhouse – July 10, 2015................................................................................................. 152 Trump’s Arizona Speech on Illegal Immigration Could Attract Thousands // Bloomberg // Ben Brody – July 10, 2015.............................................................................................................................. 154 Don’t Cry for the Trump Brand // Bloomberg // Caleb Melby – July 10, 2015......................... 155 Donald Trump moves immigration rally to larger venue // CNN // Tom LoBianco – July 10, 2015 156 D.C.-Area Lawmakers Call For Boycott Of Donald Trump’s Businesses // HuffPo // Christine Conetta – July 10, 2015................................................................................................................................... 157 Donald Trump: Narcissist in Chief // HuffPo // Jim Wallis – July 10, 2015............................. 158 Donald Trump Could Seriously Damage The Real Republican Efforts To Reach Latinos // BuzzFeed // Adrian Carrasquillo – July 10, 2015................................................................................................. 161 Donald Trump Wanted To Make Charlie Rangel HUD Secretary In 1999 // BuzzFeed // Christopher Massie – July 10, 2015....................................................................................................................... 163 Trump’s Got the GOP by the Balls // Daily Beast // Michael Tomasky – July 10, 2015............ 164 Donald Trump, immigration and the GOP // Chicago Tribune // Editorial Board – July 10, 2015 165 Trump ups the ante on immigration, unfazed by criticism and protests // LA Times // Katie Linthicum, Richard Winton and Kurtis Lee – July 10, 2015..................................................................... 167 *UNDECLARED........................................................................................... **170* *WALKER................................................................................................ **170* Did Scott Walker’s Twitter Account Get Ahead of His Campaign? // NYT // Patrick Healy – July 10, 2015 170 Is Scott Walker’s Crossover Appeal Real? Turnout Data Raises Questions // WSJ // Dante Chinni – July 10, 2015................................................................................................................................... 170 Scott Walker tweets his presidential run // Politico // Katie Glueck – July 10, 2015................ 171 Scott Walker’s timely abortion victory // Politico // Kyle Cheney – July 10, 2015.................... 172 Oops: Scott Walker Scoops Himself Via Twitter // Bloomberg // John McCormick – July 10, 2015 174 Republican Scott Walker tweets that he is running for president // Reuters // Steve Holland – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 174 Scott Walker spars with GOP ahead of 2016 launch // CNN // Tom LoBianco – July 10, 2015... 175 Twitter: Scott Walker Presidential Announcement Tweet Wasn’t His Fault // BuzzFeed // Katherine Miller – July 10, 2015....................................................................................................................... 177 Scott Walker On Hillary Clinton: “What Has She Accomplished?” // BuzzFeed // Andrew Kaczynski – July 10, 2015................................................................................................................................... 177 Scott Walker Gets Schooled by His Neighbor // Daily Beast // Eleanor Clift – July 10, 2015.... 178 *KASICH.................................................................................................. **180* Pro-John Kasich group raises $11.5 million // Politico // Adam B. Lerner – July 10, 2015....... 180 Kasich’s Early 527 Haul: $11.5 Million In Just Two Months // Bloomberg // Mark Halperin – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 181 Kasich groups announce $11.5 million haul // CNN // Tom LoBianco – July 10, 2015............. 182 *OTHER................................................................................................... **182* Republican Candidates Appeal to Anti-Abortion Groups // NYT // Jeremy W. Peters – July 10, 2015 182 Could a 2012 Rule Change Upend the GOP’s 2016 Nomination Process? // WSJ // Patrick O’Connor – July 10, 2015................................................................................................................................... 184 Once allies, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in battle for Florida // Boston Globe // Matt Viser – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 185 *OTHER 2016 NEWS....................................................................................... **189* Presidential Race Takes Shape and Offers Hints of Things to Come // NYT // Maggie Haberman – July 10, 2015................................................................................................................................... 189 The Insiders: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are experts at manipulating the media // WaPo // Ed Rogers – July 10, 2015.................................................................................................................... 190 The Truth Behind Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton’s Twitter Spat // Bloomberg // Victoria Stilwell – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 190 Republicans rename the GOP the ‘Retrumplican Party’ // Reuters // Lena Masri – July 10, 2015 192 ‘War horses’ Bush, Clinton lay ground for 2016 race // USA Today // Susan Page – July 10, 2015 193 *OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS................................................................... **195* The Gloria Borger – Hillary Clinton Watch: Waiting for Insight // HuffPo // Kathleen Reardon – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 195 Hillary Clinton’s fibs // Chicago Tribune // Jonah Goldberg – July 10, 2015........................... 197 Not Feeling the Bern // US News and World Report // Matthew Dickinson – July 10, 2015..... 199 *TOP NEWS..................................................................................................... **201* *DOMESTIC................................................................................................ **201* Barack Obama to make historic visit to federal prison // Politico // Nick Gass – July 10, 2015. 201 Confederate flag comes down for good at S.C. Statehouse // Politico // Ben Schreckinger – July 10, 2015 202 OPM director resigns amid data breach scandal // Politico // Sarah Wheaton and Tal Kopan – July 10, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 203 *INTERNATIONAL..................................................................................... **204* Greece’s Parliament Approves Prime Minister’s Bailout Plan // NYT // Liz Alderman and Andrew Higgins – July 10, 2015...................................................................................................................... 204 Turkey Arrests 21 Suspected of Ties to ISIS // NYT // Ceylan Yeginsu – July 10, 2015............. 207 *TODAY’S KEY STORIES* *Trusted Hillary Clinton Aide Has a Full Plate <http://www.wsj.com/articles/trusted-hillary-clinton-aide-has-a-full-plate-1436570808> // WSJ // Laura Meckler – July 10, 2015 * There are legions of economists who have worked for the Clintons over the years, and more than 200 have helped develop the current campaign’s economics platform. The inner circle is much smaller, however. And at the center of it is a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton who has no particular background in economics. Jake Sullivan, a 38-year-old who rose to prominence in Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, now has the challenge of distilling advice from across the Democratic Party. The resulting plan will be the foundation of a Monday policy speech in which Mrs. Clinton intends to lay out her vision. His challenge is evident in how the campaign has been buffeted by a surprising challenge from the left in the form of independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Part of the party’s base wants to hear about government solutions for problems such as income inequality and wage stagnation, while its more centrist members emphasize prescriptions to stimulate economic growth. While the subject material is new for Mr. Sullivan, colleagues say the process is familiar from his four years at Mrs. Clinton’s side when she was secretary of state. Those who know Mr. Sullivan, from both sides of the aisle, commend his intelligence and his ability to pull ideas from across a wide universe while shaping a policy that suits his boss. “He uses his access with her to be an honest broker with no preconceived agenda other than ensuring she has the best set of policy options to choose from,” said Gene Sperling, a longtime economic adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton who remains in her tight inner circle. Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a sharp critic of the Obama administration’s nuclear talks with Iran, in which Mr. Sullivan played a big role, commends him for reaching out to those who dislike the direction of the negotiations. “He engages with his critics, and that’s rare,” said Mr. Dubowitz, who added the administration should have done more to set a tough tone at the start of the talks, to allow for more concessions later. Mrs. Clinton in 2012 sent Mr. Sullivan and another aide to Oman to meet secretly with Iran officials to gauge whether they were serious about potential compromises with the West. He concluded they were, setting the stage for the current talks. On the economy, Mrs. Clinton has met with scores of experts on big issues such as income inequality and discrete topics including why states should publicize licensing rules for cosmetologists. But the core brain trust is smaller. Besides Mr. Sullivan, who declined to comment through a campaign spokesman, prominent Clinton staffers include Ann O’Leary, who is developing proposals on education, health care and family issues, and Gary Gensler, a former Wall Street regulator who is the campaign’s chief financial officer and who participates in economic-policy discussions as well. Maya Harris is charged with social policy such as immigration. Outside the campaign’s Brooklyn headquarters, two longtime Clinton aides are her most important economic advisers: Mr. Sperling and Neera Tanden, policy chief of the 2008 presidential campaign who is now president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. Just a handful of other outsiders hold sway, according to people close to the process, including David Kamin, an expert on the federal budget and tax law at New York University’s law school; Alan Krueger, a Princeton University economist who served as chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers; Jacob Hacker, an expert on the politics of health and social policy at Yale University; Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University; and Heather Boushey, chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a liberal think tank. Mr. Sullivan, who also oversees foreign policy for the campaign, is hunting for someone to later handle economic policy, a campaign official said. Few can match the level of trust he enjoys with the candidate. In her book “Hard Choices,” Mrs. Clinton called him “earnest and brilliant,” with credentials including a Rhodes scholarship, Yale law degree and Supreme Court clerkship. In 2008, he was a policy aide and ran debate preparation for Mrs. Clinton. He joined the Obama campaign for the general election. Mr. Sullivan had planned to return to his Minnesota home to practice law and prepare for a likely run for Congress, but he was persuaded to join Mrs. Clinton at State, first as deputy chief of staff and then the youngest-ever director of policy planning. If Mrs. Clinton is elected president, Mr. Sullivan is seen as a potential national security adviser. *George W. Bush Hopes Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton ‘Elevate the Discourse’ <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/10/republican-candidates-appeal-to-anti-abortion-groups/> // NYT // Amy Chozick – July 10, 2015 * In his appearance in Texas with Bill Clinton on Thursday, George W. Bush called for an elevated political discourse in the 2016 presidential campaign, defended his difficult wartime decisions, and said he did not plan to campaign for his brother Jeb Bush. Mr. Bush, speaking at an event with Mr. Clinton in Dallas, complained that the Internet “is a brutal place these days for political figures” and said it made the campaign discourse particularly nasty. But he attributed that to surrogates and not to the candidates themselves. “I know Jeb and I’m confident Secretary Hillary will elevate the discourse,” Mr. Bush said of his brother, a Republican, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat. “I can’t attest to their surrogates. I can attest to this surrogate: I’m not gonna be a surrogate.” Before announcing his presidential bid, Jeb Bush declared, “I love my father and my brother, but I am my own man,” and much has been made about how much (or how little) he would rely on his brother as a campaigner, particularly given how George W. Bush is still very popular in pockets of the Republican Party, but remains a divisive figure to others. The two former presidents, speaking to graduates of a jointly sponsored scholarship program at George W. Bush’s presidential library, were both asked about their decision-making process. Mr. Clinton talked about the importance of postponing some critical decisions. “I’d say: ‘Can I kill them tomorrow? Because I can’t bring them back to life tomorrow.'” Without directly commenting on the war in Iraq, Mr. Bush said the turbulent circumstances during his presidency (unlike the comparatively peaceful years in Mr. Clinton’s two terms) “made it really imperative that you decide and decide decisively.” He said he “had to make decisions that protected the homeland — that was my goal and some of the decisions I had to make needed to be made pretty quickly because the enemy, that sadly still exists, doesn’t really care whether a president agonizes over a decision or not.” *Clinton plans Tuesday meetings with all Hill Democrats <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/clinton-plans-tuesday-meetings-with-all-hill-democrats-119973.html?ml=tl_11> // Politico // Lauren French – July 10, 2015 * Hillary Clinton will meet with the entire House Democratic caucus on Tuesday. The former secretary of state was slated to meet with minority lawmakers from the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Asian Pacific caucus but added another stop at the party’s weekly caucus meeting to her Washington swing. Developing a strong relationship with House members will be key for Clinton’s campaign. Lawmakers have often felt ignored by the White House during President Barack Obama’s tenure and Clinton is already making an effort to help Democratic lawmakers feel like they have a stake in her presidential bid. She is also slated to meet with Senate Democrats, many of whom she knows from her tenure as a senator from New York before her 2008 presidential bid against Obama. Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley tours a section of Baltimore on Thursday, May 21, 2015. O'Malley is considering a run for President of the United States. The Capitol Hill meetings are the most direct engagement from the Clinton campaign since she announced earlier this year. Her senior aides held a series of meet and greets but Clinton has yet to engage with the entire congressional Democratic caucus personally. The meetings are being billed as policy discussions. *SOCIAL MEDIA* *Josh Kraushaar (7/10/15, 5:01 PM)* <https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/619597216672575488>* – Rick Perry super PACs raise $16.8M. Strong tally for a candidate having a solid week.* *Jennifer Jacobs (7/10/15, 5:41 PM)* <https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/619607390837567488>* – Bernie Sanders’ Iowa operation is growing FAST: 29 organizers; 7 field offices open now and 3 more open by Monday, aides tell me. #iacaucus* *Teddy Schleifer (7/10/15, 6:16 PM)* <https://twitter.com/teddyschleifer/status/619616095117418498>* – Rand Paul raised more than $7 million in second quarter through his campaign and a joint committee, a spokesman says, confirming Breitbart.* *HRC** NATIONAL COVERAGE* *Hillary Clinton makes Bob McDonnel look like a chump <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/07/10/hillary-clinton-makes-bob-mcdonnell-look-like-a-chump/> // WaPo // Jennifer Rubin – July 10, 2015 * The Post reports, “A federal appeals panel court on Thursday unanimously affirmed the public corruption convictions against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, writing in an 89-page opinion that the onetime Republican rising star ‘received a fair trial and was duly convicted by a jury of his fellow Virginians.'” Of most relevance and interest to other pols, McDonnell’s attorneys argued he had not performed any “official acts” in exchange for bribes. The court nixed that complaint: The appeals court panel disagreed, asserting that the government had “exceeded its burden” of proof on the topic of official acts. The opinion cited three particular ways in which McDonnell tried to use his office to help Williams: trying to get researchers to study Williams’s product, Anatabloc; trying to the state tobacco commission to fund studies of an ingredient in his product; and trying to get Anatabloc included in the health insurance plan for state employees. So a mere favor for a donor, even to move along the bureaucracy, can be an official act. In that case, Hillary Clinton’s e-mails — both the destroyed ones and the ones turned over — raise the question: Why is McDonnell going to jail and Clinton going on the presidential trail? One answer is that with McDonnell, the prominence of a single donor and the proximity of communications to the minor official acts made the case easier to prove. Clinton benefits from taking so much money for so many over such a long time. This, mind you, does not mean she did not do official acts for donors or that there was an implicit back-scratching arrangement; it means only that it is hard to prove. And second, Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton. She can lie about a subpoena, destroy potentially incriminating evidence, violate the terms of her disclosure agreement and take money for her family’s foundation from an “Iranian businessman accused by the U.S. government of violating sanctions” as well as woman-abusing Arab regimes and Donald Trump. Democrats yawn. The media cover it for a day or two and then move on. I’m not suggesting Hillary Clinton has committed a crime and should take the cell next to McDonnell. For one thing, no one has bothered to investigate her as McDonnell was when gift revelations came to light. (Imagine if a Republican had been in the White House and no Justice Department investigation of McDonnell took place.) I am saying without knowing anything more that it is hard to argue based on what we have already seen that Clinton meets the character test for the presidency. But that is for the voters to decide. Other pols should be wary, however. They are far more likely to be held to the McDonnell standard than the Clinton standard. *Hillary Clinton probably can’t get gun control passed. But she should talk about it, anyway. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/07/10/hillary-clinton-probably-cant-get-gun-control-passed-but-she-should-talk-about-it-anyway/> // WaPo // Paul Waldman – July 10, 2015 * Hillary Clinton is talking about guns, and everyone seems surprised. After all, doesn’t she know the issue is a sure loser for Democrats? The truth is quite a bit more complicated than that — in fact, pushing for measures like expanded background checks is likely to help Clinton in the 2016 election. But if she’s going to promise to make headway on this issue, she needs to offer some plausible account of how as president she could make real progress where Barack Obama couldn’t. Let’s address the matter of the gun issue’s political potency first. As is the case on so many issues, the Republican position is more popular when the questions are vague, while the Democratic position is more popular when the questions are specific. If you look at polling on guns, what you see is that the country is split pretty evenly on the broad question of whether gun laws should be more strict or less strict. But particular measures to regulate guns get much more support, especially universal background checks, which as many as nine out of ten Americans endorse. At some point in this discussion, someone will always say: “But what about the NRA? They’re so powerful!” The NRA’s power is real in some ways and illusory in others, and it’s important to understand which is which. When it comes to lobbying, the NRA is indeed hugely powerful. It has the ability to stop any legislation on guns, often before it even gets written. But elections are an entirely different story. Almost all the congressional candidates who win the NRA’s supposedly coveted endorsement are Republican incumbents from conservative districts who win their elections by huge margins. When Republicans have a good election, as they did in 2014 and 2010, the NRA rushes to reporters to claim credit, saying the election proves that voters will punish any candidate who isn’t pro-gun. But when Democrats have a good election, as they did in 2012 and 2008, the NRA is strangely silent. Gun ownership has been steadily declining since the 1970’s, and guns are more concentrated among voters that Democrats already won’t win and don’t need. For instance, according to the Pew Research Center, whites are twice as likely as Hispanics to own guns. If winning over Hispanic voters is the sine qua non of a Republican victory, advocacy for loosening gun laws isn’t exactly going to be part of a winning formula for the GOP. The person most likely to be a gun owner is a married white man from the South — in other words, probably a Republican. When people argue that Hillary Clinton shouldn’t touch the gun issue, watch out for comparisons to how Bill Clinton did in the Electoral College, because America’s political geography is very different than it was two decades ago. For instance, I guarantee you that Senator Joe Manchin will at some point loudly advise that Clinton needs to tread carefully on guns if she’s to win his home state of West Virginia like her husband did twice. But the truth is that Clinton is probably not going to win West Virginia no matter what she does, and she doesn’t need to. Barack Obama’s two comfortable Electoral College victories were built on combining Democratic strongholds in the Northeast and West with the more liberal states in the Midwest and the fast-changing Southwest, where Hispanic votes are key. Clinton will almost certainly seek to assemble the same map — and it’s one where advocacy for the more popular gun restrictions will help her, not hurt her. Still: if Clinton says it’s vital to enact universal background checks and other “common-sense” gun laws, she has to explain how she’s going to do it. Let’s not forget that in the wake of the horrific Newtown massacre, a bipartisan measure to expand background checks failed to overcome a Republican filibuster in the Senate, falling six votes short of the 60 it needed. If a bill that had the support of 90 percent of the public couldn’t make it past congressional Republicans just after 20 elementary school students had been murdered, how is Clinton going to convince them to vote for whatever she proposes? But talking about gun measures in the presidential campaign could still have a practical impact, by elevating the issue and thereby making it more likely that more gun laws might be passed on the state level. And that’s where all the action has been of late: since the Newtown shooting, there have been dozens of laws passed at the state level on the subject of guns, and they tell a story of red and blue America moving farther apart. In Red America, one state after another has passed laws to expand who can get a gun and where you can take it. Last year Georgia passed a law allowing people to take guns into churches, government buildings, and bars. “Stand your ground” laws have proliferated in Republican-run states (despite the fact that research indicates that they increase the number of homicides). Meanwhile in Blue America, dozens of laws have been passed to rein in guns. Legislatures in states like California, Maryland, and Connecticut expanded background checks, restricted access for those with mental illness or domestic abuse convictions, and made it harder to get assault weapons. In 2014, voters in Washington state passed a ballot initiative mandating universal background checks by a wide margin. So when we talk about the gun issue, we have to keep three things in mind. First, the kind of restrictions Clinton is proposing are hugely popular. Second, there really are two Americas when it comes to guns. And third, one of those Americas has the ability and the desire to stop any gun legislation in Congress. If Hillary Clinton has a plan to deal with that last reality, it would be interesting to hear. *Jacob Lew: Americans Will Work Hard if Jobs Pay Decent Wages <http://on.wsj.com/1SdSABs> // WSJ // Nick Timiraos – July 10, 2015 * Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew waded into a political spat over the economy sparked Wednesday when Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush said Americans needed to work longer hours to boost economic growth. Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, said the comment referred to the elevated level of workers—some 6.5 million Americans—who have part-time jobs but desire full-time work. Democrats jumped on the comment earlier this week to portray Mr. Bush’s comment in an unflattering light. “It is a challenge for a lot of families to make ends meet. I don’t think the problem is that Americans aren’t willing to work hard,” said Mr. Lew in response to a question Friday at an event in New York sponsored by Politico. “Americans are willing to work hard if there’s work available to them and if they are paid a decent wage for that.” Mr. Lew said the government’s job should be to provide anyone who is able and interested in working with the ability to get a job that can support a middle-class standard of living. He pointed to the White House’s push to boost the federal minimum wage. “If you work full time, you should not be below the poverty line in this country,” he said. *Hillary Clinton bucks trend, confronts NRA <http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/hillary-clinton-bucks-trend-confronts-nra> // MSNBC // Steve Benen – July 10, 2015 * In the three weeks since the mass shooting in Charleston, two notable statewide gun measures have been signed into law. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R) scrapped his state’s 48-hour waiting period, and this week in Maine, Gov. Paul LePage (R) got rid of his state’s concealed gun permit requirement. The developments are a striking reminder about the politics of the gun issue. No matter how high-profile the shootings, and no matter how severe the public revulsion, proposals to scale back restrictions keep advancing. At the national level, meanwhile, the massive Republican presidential field is largely unified on all gun-related questions, and recent history suggests the Democratic candidates will generally avoid the issue. But the Washington Post had an interesting piece overnight highlighting the degree to which Hillary Clinton is pursuing her own course. [I]n a sign that the political environment on guns has shifted in the wake of recent mass shootings – and of Clinton’s determination to stake out liberal ground in her primary race against insurgent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) – Clinton is not only initiating a debate about gun control but also vowing to fight the National Rifle Association. “I’m going to speak out against the uncontrollable use of guns in our country because I believe we can do better,” Clinton said Tuesday in Iowa City. A few days earlier, she said in Hanover, N.H.: “We have to take on the gun lobby…. This is a controversial issue. I am well aware of that. But I think it is the height of irresponsibility not to talk about it.” The Post piece makes the case, persuasively, that this isn’t the norm for recent Democratic candidates. None of the party’s recent nominees in “several decades,” including President Obama, emphasized the issue at all while on the campaign trail. Clinton, however, is trying something different. It’s worth appreciating why. Some of this may be the result of a unique primary rival – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is running to Clinton’s left on some issues, but guns are a notable exception. The Independent senator describes himself as aiming for “the middle” on the issue and he has a voting record that arguably puts him well to the right of many Democratic activists. It’s possible, in other words, that Clinton is stressing the issue at this point to help exploit a gap between Sanders and the Democrats’ progressive base. But chances are, there’s even more to it than this. Practically all of the leading Democratic presidential candidates have shied away from the issue, for over a generation, fearing a fierce backlash from far-right groups like the NRA. Clinton no doubt realizes, however, that as the NRA becomes more extreme, there’s no placating the group – it goes after Democrats whether they try to make the group happy or not. Just ask former Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who eagerly tried to keep the NRA happy, but who found that the NRA targeted him with a vengeance anyway. To this extent, the NRA has given up its credibility. The group’s message used to effectively be, “Play ball with us and we’ll leave you alone.” That’s transformed into, “We’re coming after you, whether you try to work with us or not.” Given those incentives, Clinton might as well speak her mind, confident that the attacks are inevitable either way. *Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sander’s awkward lunch <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders-awkward-lunch-119974.html> // Politico // Gabriel Debenedetti and Jonathan Topaz – July 10, 2015 * When Hillary Clinton travels to Capitol Hill on Tuesday as part of her lawmaker charm offensive, she could be in for a slightly awkward encounter. Bernie Sanders — the Independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats — will be sitting there at the weekly lunchtime meeting, as he always does, while the front-runner talks to her former colleagues. It’s hardly unusual for rival presidential candidates to gather together on the Hill — four Republican senators are currently running against each other, and other candidates occasionally visit — but in Clinton and Sanders’ situation, the tension is a tad thicker. That’s because Clinton has the support of 30 Democratic senators already — including Sanders’ Vermont colleague, Patrick Leahy — in her latest White House bid, while her opponent has the backing of none. Clinton has yet to even acknowledge her main rival by name on the campaign trail — despite recent polling that shows Sanders nipping at her heels in Iowa and New Hampshire, and despite being asked about him directly twice in a CNN interview this week. “As far as Senate caucus politics go, this is probably as awkward as it’s going to get. There’s nothing he can do about it. It is what it is,” said Jim Manley, a former veteran aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy. Beyond Sanders, however, the room Clinton addresses will also likely contain a handful of influential unaffiliated liberal senators — including progressive icon Elizabeth Warren and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. Sanders recently said that he’d “love to have” Warren campaign with him, while the Massachusetts senator has said multiple times that it’s premature to say whether she will. But the meeting will also provide another reminder that, despite Sanders’ huge crowds and scores of small-dollar donations, his candidacy remains mostly an afterthought at his place of business. Twenty-one members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — Congress’ leading caucus on liberal issues, in which Sanders is the lone senator — have endorsed Clinton, while none has endorsed Sanders. And Clinton’s Tuesday swing across the Hill will include a meeting with that very group. Sanders has had a similarly awkward reception with the party establishment back home in Vermont. In addition to Leahy, Gov. Peter Shumlin and Miro Weinberger, the mayor of Burlington — the city where Sanders served four terms as mayor and held his campaign kickoff — have also endorsed Clinton. Clinton and Sanders have rarely crossed paths since they each announced their candidacies in April, save a chance run-in at New York’s Penn Station last month. But Tuesday’s encounter in Washington will likely be the second of at least three next week: they’ll both appear in Kansas City at the National Council of La Raza conference on Monday, and they’re both scheduled to speak at the Democrats’ first cattle call of the cycle on Friday, the Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame ceremony. Clinton and Sanders overlapped for two years in the Senate before she left the Hill for Foggy Bottom, and they have a cordial relationship. But as the pair has emerged as the two leading candidates in the Democratic field, the apparent distance between them has grown: Sanders does not shy away from implicitly criticizing the front-runner on the stump, though he rarely goes after her by name. Clinton, meanwhile, has started pressing harder on issues where Sanders is perceived as weak by the liberal base, such as gun control. Nonetheless, tensions between the two aren’t anything like the strained relations between Republican candidates, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul, who frequently clash. Sanders sat in on a meeting of the Senate Democrats with Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta and political director Amanda Renteria in late April, and his spokesman told POLITICO that the candidate “of course” planned to attend the event with Clinton herself. Clinton’s campaign declined to comment for this story. (Two other Democrats running for president — Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb — are former senators, but they are not expected to attend the Senate caucus meeting.) The former New York senator’s Capitol Hill trip will also include meetings with the House Democrats and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. And while the meeting will come days after Sanders attends a weekend retreat with Senate Democrats in Martha’s Vineyard, the timing is unlikely to soften the impact of Clinton’s appearance. “She’s going to be walking down that hallway with her vast entourage, people are going to be screaming out questions, and she’s going to walk into that room to a rock star reception,” Manley said. *Jeb Bush: Hillary Clinton ‘can’t be trusted’ <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/jeb-bush-criticize-hillary-clinton-no-trust-119943.html?ml=tl_24> // Politico // Nick Gass – July 10, 2015 * Hillary Clinton’s greatest vulnerability? According to Jeb Bush, it’s Hillary Clinton. Asked the question in a preview of an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Bush responded: “It’s her — just this protective shield she wants to create around her candidacy. I just don’t think it’s going to work.” Clinton “can’t be trusted,” Bush continued. “There is never a straight answer. Whether it’s the server, the emails, Benghazi, [she] just constantly validates this notion that there are two sets of rules.” The former Florida governor rejected the notion that a potential general election match-up of a Bush against a Clinton would deter voter turnout. “I’m going to win the nomination, and I’m going to run a campaign that will inspire people that their lives can get better,” he said. “And that’ll drive turnout, particularly among people who are conservative and they just don’t know it yet.” Clinton’s ability to be trusted has been the subject of scrutiny in the polls. Quinnipiac University surveys conducted last month in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania found wide skepticism of her trustworthiness. But in an interview with CNN earlier this week, Clinton dismissed the idea that Americans have trust issues with her. “People should and do trust me,” she said, blaming a “barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the right” for any perceptions to the contrary. *Hillary Clinton’s union problem <http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/2015/07/10/hillary-clintons-union-problem/> // Reuters // Luciana Lopez – July 10, 2015 * Hillary Clinton’s meeting with AFL-CIO leaders later this month will underscore just how much ground she has to make up with unions that are flatly angry at the presidential candidate over her recent policy stances (or lack thereof). Clinton can “absolutely not” take unions’ backing for granted, said RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of National Nurses United, the largest U.S. organization of registered nurses. “I think that there was an assumption that whoever was anointed by the Democratic Party would be the candidate of organized labor. And I think that’s proven to be false,” she said. In fact, DeMoro noted, “our values as a labor movement line up pretty clearly with the program of (Bernie) Sanders, the nurses’ values.” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has drawn crowds of thousands to recent events, surprising many political observers and suggesting a stronger than expected challenge to Clinton. Sanders, along with former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, will also speak to the AFL-CIO executive council at the July 29-30 meeting as part of the union’s endorsement process. All three candidates are Democrats; an endorsement is not necessarily expected this early in the road to the November 2016 election. DeMoro also criticized Clinton and the Democratic Party on the Pacific Rim trade deal that the Obama administration is working on. Clinton has called for worker protections in any deal but has said little otherwise. “It’s the elephant in the room,” DeMoro said. Thomas Buffenbarger, president of The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, also called for greater regulation of the financial industry. “The re-imposition of Glass-Steagall legislation would kind of break up the big banks and put some sanity into the thing,” he said. The Glass-Steagall Act of the last century separated investment banks and commercial banks in an effort to reduce risk in the banking system. Buffenbarger also noted that his union is worried about the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which was forced to halt business after its charter expired on June 30. The bank helps finance purchases by foreign companies of U.S. exports. The three Democrats all returned questionnaires to the AFL-CIO as part of the endorsement process. But they’re not the only ones, said Buffenbarger: “The surprise was Mike Huckabee,” who Buffenbarger said also returned a questionnaire. *Modern campaigning: The Hillary Quilt Project <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/hillary-clinton-iowa-quilts-2016-election/index.html> // CNN // Betsy Klein – July 10, 2015 * The group assembles every Tuesday, toting fabric, needles, the occasional rhubarb pie and their "Iowans Ready for Hillary" pins. For two hours, they talk 2016 while stitching a very political quilt. "This is a supporter quilt. It's kind of a way to say to Hillary, 'We've got your back,'" Iowan Clara Oleson said. For Clinton supporters, this quilt has special significance: It's a sign of organization and momentum for a campaign that needs to ignite enthusiasm for Clinton during her second race in the Hawkeye State. In 2008, Clinton's bid for the presidency faltered here and never recovered. Many Iowans said in interviews they had felt ignored by Clinton's campaign the last time around. Connecting supporters over shared interests such as quilting offers one way to excite and engage them. Clinton's campaign in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state, has 27 organizers who have held over 2,500 meetings with Iowans. In addition to the Hillary Quilt Project, they've launched a morning swim group in Cedar Rapids, a Kayaking group in Benton County, and a group that is working on a community garden in Eastern Iowa. It's a strategy, much like church small groups, that draws in supporters to connect beyond the more broadly labeled coalition-building of campaigns past (for example, "Teachers for Hillary"). "It used to be just strictly coalition-building. You'd get this wide swath of teachers for whoever your candidate was, or farmers, or business owners," said Iowa Republican strategist Tim Albrecht. "But now, you're really seeing this organizing at the micro level. If you can attract people around something they are already doing ... that's priceless." With these grassroots common interest groups, the Clinton campaign is harnessing micro-organization at a level unmatched by her competitors in Iowa and around the country. There's a long history of quilting in American politics: Women gathered to stitch during the Civil War, supporters of the late 19th century temperance movement created quilts as fundraisers, and more recently, the AIDS Memorial Quilt has been growing since 1987 with more than 48,000 individual memorial panels. In a state where the presidential campaign process is revered, quilts are also engrained in Iowa culture, Oleson explained. Quilts are made for momentous occasions: new babies, graduations, anniversaries, and now, a new presidential campaign. When the Clinton campaign unveiled its H logo this spring, Oleson saw an opportunity. "Boy, this would make a great quilt," Oleson wrote of the logo on Facebook. Clinton campaign organizer Sarah Andrews also saw an opportunity -- and hours later, was in Oleson's living room. The "Hillary Quilt Project" was born. "If there's a common touch in democracy," Oleson said, "My God, it's a quilt." Oleson, 73, is a retired lawyer and a prolific quilter -- just don't ask her how long she's been working on any particular quilt. On one week this summer, she led the men and women in the group as they went around the quilt circle, introducing themselves and choosing the color in the rainbow "H" logo of the quilt that they found most meaningful. Ellen Heywood chose purple, the color of women's suffrage. Janean Arnold chose green for her concerns about climate change. Colleen Picek chose yellow, supporting the troops and hoping for an end to war. Cameron Macaw-Hennick chose all of the colors together. "All of the colors in the center are important to me because of the rainbow. Something that really stands out to me about Hillary, from the very get-go, is her unequivocal support of the LGBT community, which she didn't have several years ago. But just like everyday citizens, she grows and changes," he said as he stitched. Macaw-Hennick is a campaign volunteer from Cedar Rapids who also happens to be a skilled quilter. He and his husband are ardent Hillary Clinton supporters. "The day she announced, I was jumping up and down. My husband is super excited, as well... I said I have to be involved in this campaign." Later, the group continued to stitch while supporter Julie Kline read aloud from the Gaza chapter of Clinton's 2014 memoir, "Hard Choices." Participants in the Hillary Quilt Project range from veteran quilters to a few who had never even picked up a needle. The quilt, Oleson said, exists in two worlds: physically in West Branch, and in "virtual reality," with its own Facebook page. Recently it was even featured on Clinton's official campaign Twitter account, which has nearly four million followers. "It's good for quilting and it's good for Hillary," she said of the project. "The dance of democracy in Iowa is a privilege and an honor," Oleson, who supported President Barack Obama in 2008, said. "I've done it for 50 years and this is one of the most fun dances I've done. People working together, doing something they'd never do, and this campaign is open to that kind of an idea." Once the quilt is done, the quilters and other Clinton supporters will sign their names on it. Oleson hopes the quilt will be signed and seen by many people, including Clinton herself. "I want to see her standing in front of the quilt and giving a speech," she said. "You also make a quilt for the future, and sometimes you think about where is the quilt going to end up. It's not going to end up in somebody's closet -- it's going to hang on somebody's wall or in a presidential library." CNN caught up with Oleson at Clinton's Monday town hall event in nearby Iowa City. Olseon had the opportunity to speak with Clinton following her speech. "She knows about the quilt," Oleson said proudly. "And she says it's beautiful." *Gowdy: ‘Pulling teeth’ to get info for Benghazi investigation <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/trey-gowdy-hillary-clinton/> // CNN // Daniella Diaz – July 10, 2015 * House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy said Friday that the Obama administration could speed up the Benghazi investigation if they turned over the requested relevant documents, but they haven't cooperated. Gowdy told CNN's Brianna Keilar that his panel has been specific with the administration about the documents needed to be turned over for the investigation. "They begged us to narrow it so we narrowed it," he said. "It's still like pulling teeth to get the information." Gowdy told CNN that so far, the documents that have been turned over haven't been helpful toward their investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack. "You know what we got last week? We got 3,600 pages, half of which were press clippings, including articles about Richard Gere," he said. "So if that is their idea of complying with a congressional investigation, then we are going to be at this for a long time." He also told CNN that Hillary Clinton was wrong when she said that she'd never had a subpoena in her interview with CNN. "That is demonstrably false," Gowdy told CNN. "You have an obligation to preserve the public record." Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told CNN that the former Secretary of State understood the question to be if she was under subpoena when the emails were deleted, this past December. Gowdy said there were other subpoenas prior the one he issued to Clinton in March 2015 and that she has a "statutory obligation" to preserve public records. "There are at least three separate legal obligations that should have informed and instructed her not to delete emails or wipe her server clean," he told CNN. *Hillary Clinton directs support for One Direction <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/hillary-clinton-one-direction-charity-action-climate-change/index.html> // CNN // Deena Zaru – July 10, 2015 * British boy band sensation One Direction teamed up with charity Action2015 and asked their millions of fans or "Directioners" to share videos and pictures that reflect issues that are important to them, ahead of the United Nation's climate change summit in Paris this September. Among the many fans who answered the foursome's call is Democratic presidential candidate and possible Directioner Hillary Clinton. Clinton tweeted her support for the boy band's cause Friday, saying "the boys are right." In a video released Wednesday, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne called for action on "extreme poverty, inequality and climate change" — all of which are key focuses of the Clinton campaign. This is not the first time that Clinton was linked to the young foursome. In March, former One Direction member Zayn Malik's departure from the band devastated fans and erupted shock waves on social media. There was speculation over a possible fifth member of One Direction. While hosting the MTV Movie Awards the same day that Clinton announced her presidential bid, comedian and actress Amy Schumer joked about the "big news" and announced that "after months of speculation, Hillary Clinton finally announced she's taking Zayn's spot in One Direction." *House Of Cards Creator: Hillary Clinton Is The Real Claire Underwood <http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/you-might-think-that-but-we-couldnt-possibly-comment#.sqp1M7Jvm> // BuzzFeed // Jim Waterson and Lynzy Billing – July 10, 2015* Lord Dobbs, the creator of House of Cards, is considering which real-life individual is closest to Claire Underwood, the ice-cold political wife played by Robin Wright in the Netflix series. “Hillary [Clinton],” Dobbs says after a moment’s thought. “She is a political figure in her own right – behind the scenes, but now increasingly in front of the scenes. That is much more of a Claire character than, for instance, Cherie [Blair], who as far as I’m aware didn’t become actively aware in politics as such.” It’s not necessarily the endorsement the US presidential candidate would be after but Dobbs is obsessed with the character of the former first lady and how it’ll affect her run for the top job. “I’m fascinated by Hillary of course, because she comes with so much baggage,” he tells BuzzFeed News, sitting on a bench outside parliament, dressed in a crisp white shirt and cufflinks. “That baggage is her strength but also her vulnerability. We just have to wait and see where the balance lies on that. Though it is bizarre that the system that was bred out of [rejection of a King] has produced the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Roosevelts….” What about the real-life President Underwood? “More Tony Blair than Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher left behind something called Thatcherism, we all know what we stood for and I’m buggered if I know what Tony Blair stood for other than being in office.” And troubled political aide Doug Stamper? “In terms of focus and loyalty, apart from myself of course, it’d be Alastair [Campbell] in the UK.” Dobbs knows what he’s talking about when it comes to political narratives. He first created House of Cards as a novel in the late 1980s. A former assistant to Thatcher, he was the first person to tell her that she had won the 1979 general election but was later sacked by his political idol, “She attacked me horribly and grossly unfairly”. He turned to writing and watched as his creation became a BBC TV series, followed by a highly successful American reboot for Netflix in 2013. He’s stayed actively involved all the way, offering advice to the production team and is currently promoting the DVD release of series three. He’s also a rare beast: a writer and an active parliamentarian – a believer in small government, he enjoys a “hugely disruptive and distracting” three days a week as a Conservative member of the House of Lords where he helped to lay the ground for the forthcoming referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. However, Dobbs keeps his personal politics out of his writing because it bores the audience: “Once people start writing through political prejudice then it’s not likely to be very successful. In House of Cards, for instance, I defy you to remember a single bit of the actual politics that was written about. It’s about the people in politics.” The first three series dealt with Underwood’s rise from Congress to the top job, but despite the show currently at the end of Francis’ first term as president, Dobbs dismisses suggestions the show necessarily has to come to an end any time soon. That’s for the simple reason that there’s always something else for the characters to do: “Some programmes have the ability to go on and on forever – those are the ones that are based around relationships. How long can a show go on that is focused on a relationship between two people – Francis and Claire – I don’t know. But it’s not just about power, it’s also about their relationship which gives [the show] legs. It has is a global audience, there are more watchers in China than in America.” He talks with pride about the quality of the set and the people involved: “People have come from the White House to inspect the set and their jaws have dropped. Even the doors of the Oval Office close with the same quiet thud as they do. It’s actually a third larger than the real Oval Office but everything is sourced to be just right in meticulous detail; even light switches and door knobs.” He’s planning to keep working on the show as well as a new project with Adam Price, the creator of Borgen and a proposed work about Winston Churchill. He says he wouldn’t ever write a character based on Ed Miliband (“certainly not as a lead figure”) but he’s optimistic about a political culture that is more engaged and less dependent on traditional sources of information: “People are beginning to bother again now and make up their own minds – The Sun Wot Won It? Not any more. It never did in the first place but certainly not any more. There are no secrets anymore, everything you do or say will come out eventually – the question is when and does it matter?” At the same time, he wants to take an active role in the negotiations over a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union, touring the country and speaking to the public. But if he’s willing to make that commitment, surely he already knows which way he’ll campaign in the referendum? “It depends! I will wait to see what the prime minister comes back with [from negotiations with EU leaders]. It would require returning some important powers, not just a standstill. Everyone in Europe knows the system is screwed and could be screwed magnificently over Greece. It is madness to put institutions before the people they are meant to serve. 50% youth unemployment in Greece is not their fault – that is the madness, Brussels thinks there is a way to make the Greeks to pay their debts back. There’s no way of paying it back! They are bankrupt!” So is he a libertarian? “Well, I’m not a great believer in big government: the more government promises, the less it delivers, that’s been my entire experience. It’d be wonderful if we could find a way for people to say ‘I want government less in my life and for me to get on with it more’. There are plenty of people who need government, it has got to a point where the system isn’t working anymore.” Ultimately Dobbs credits his sacking from the 1980s Conservative government by Britain’s first female prime minister as the moment that gave the world one of the greatest ever political dramas: “Politics is cruel. If you go into politics to be cuddled and be hugged the whole time then you’re in the wrong business. That was the start of House of Cards.” “To that extent, I owe it all to Maggie.” *Beghazi Committee Chairman: Clinton’s Made “Maybe Half Dozen Demonstrably False Statements” <http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/benghazi-committee-chairman-clintons-made-maybe-half-dozen-d#.yo3BAOVLP> // BuzzFeed // Andrew Kaczynski – July 10, 2015 * Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Benghazi Committee, said Hillary Clinton has made “maybe” a “half dozen” false statements about her compliance with the committee’s requests and her exclusive use of a private email server during her time at the State Department. “We’re getting up near maybe half dozen demonstrably false statements,” the South Carolina congressman said on the Mike Gallagher Show Thursday. Gowdy said Clinton should turn her private email server over to the State Department’s inspector general for review. “Let the inspector general make sure that the public record was intact and not your own lawyers,” said Gowdy. Clinton turned over about 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department last December. Clinton’s team decided which emails were personal and which were official government records that needed to be turned over to the State Department. Her lawyer told the Benghazi Committee in March that her server was wiped and the emails were deleted after they were turned over. Clinton said in an interview with CNN she hadn’t received a subpoena for emails from her time as secretary of state. A spokesperson for Clinton told CNN after the interview that Clinton was responding to the suggestion that she was under subpoena when her emails were deleted in December. Clinton was subpoenaed by the Benghazi Committee in March. *Clinton Foundation Donor Violated Iran Sanctions, Tried to Sells 747s to Tehran <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/10/iranian-moneyman-gave-to-clinton-foundation.html?via=desktop&source=twitter> // Daily Beast // Michael Weiss and Alex Shirazi – July 10, 2015 * An Iranian businessman accused by the U.S. government of violating sanctions on Tehran donated money to the Clinton Foundation, The Daily Beast has confirmed. Vahid Alaghband’s Balli Aviation Ltd., a London-based subsidiary of the commodities trading firm Balli Group PLC, tried to sell 747 airplanes to Iran, despite a federal ban on such sales. The company pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal information in 2010. In its plea agreement with the Department of Justice, Balli Aviation agreed to pay a $2 million criminal fine, serve five years corporate probation, and pay an additional $15 million in civil fines. The hefty sum was “a direct consequence of the level of deception used to mislead investigators," Thomas Madigan, a top Justice Department official, said at the time. Alaghband is one of an array of questionable actors who’ve been found in recent months to give to the Clinton Foundation. The gifts – from foreign governments with human rights violations like Qatar, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and China as well as FIFA, soccer’s corrupt governing body – have complicated Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president and raised questions as to whether these entities were trying to curry favor with the former Secretary of State. But Alaghband stands out from the rest, because the beneficiary of his firm’s deals with Tehran was an Iranian airline accused by the U.S. government of working with the regime’s foreign intelligence operatives and shipping arms and troops to Syria. Plus, if an agreement between Iran and the world’s major powers is concluded in the coming days – as is widely expected – operators like Alaghband could stand to benefit. Hillary Clinton will be put in the awkward position of either defending the act of the Obama administration in which she once served or criticizing the culmination of a U.S.-Iran rapprochement effort, which her State Department began. One of the two counts against Balli Aviation was that it “conspired to export three Boeing 747 aircraft from the United States to Iran,” according to a Justice Department statement, without first obtaining the necessary export licenses from the U.S. government. The company then used its Armenian airline subsidiary to buy the 747s with financing obtained from Mahan Air, Iran’s largest private airline, which is thought by the State Department to be controlled by former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. In 2011, the Treasury Department sanctioned the airline for “providing financial, material and technological support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF),” or the expeditionary arm of the Islamic Republic's praetorian military division, now heavily active in both Syria and Iraq. At the time, the Treasury Department accused the Qods Force of “secretly ferrying operatives, weapons and funds” on Mahan flights. On the Clinton Foundation website, Alaghband’s company is listed as a donor in the $10,001 to $25,000 bracket. Moreover, on the website for Balli Real Estate, a property investment and development subsidiary also based in the UK, his personal bio describes him as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. This affiliation, along with his donation to the Foundation, came as a surprise to Alaghband. “I am not a member of the Clinton Global Initiative,” he told The Daily Beast from London. “I attended a few meetings. The last meeting was 10 years ago. I don’t recall having ever made a contribution.” Asked why he was listed as a member of the CGI on his own corporate website, he said: “I haven’t seen this website recently. If attending a few meetings makes you a member, I don’t know.” A source familiar with the Clinton Foundation told The Daily Beast that “Vahid Alaghband was never a member of CGI in a personal capacity.” However, the source added, “In 2007, Balli Group paid a onetime CGI membership fee and they designated him as their delegate to the meeting.” Alaghband did recall giving money to another influential organization — the Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Brookings Institution. The donation he gave was to Brookings’ former Middle East policy shop, the Saban Center, which had been named for its major benefactor, the Israeli billionaire Haim Saban. (Staunchly pro-Israel, Saban is also, coincidentally, an avowed supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions.) In 2007, Alaghband offered to give a $900,000 donation to run for three years to Brookings via the U.S.-based PARSA Foundation, “the first Persian community foundation in the U.S. and the leading Persian philanthropic institution practicing strategic philanthropy and promoting social entrepreneurship around the globe,” as the foundation’s website describes it. Emails obtained in the discovery process of a separate libel case show that Alaghband, who had already donated at least $50,000 to PARSA, initially intended to make a pass-through donation via the foundation to Brookings. But Alaghband says that he never ultimately used PARSA as a conduit for his donation; instead made his contribution directly to the Saban Center. He claims that the amount given was “far less” than $900,000 but declined to specify how much. Furthermore, he insisted, the money wasn’t ear-marked for any specific project or research use. “Our donation went to the Saban Center and they had full discretion as to what to do with it,” Alaghband said. “Martin Indyk had discretion over the use of the funds.” Indyk, who headed the Saban Center from 2002 to 2013, is today the Vice President and Director for Foreign Policy at Brookings. He also served— twice—as U.S. ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration. In 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry named Indyk the U.S. envoy to the Middle East. “When we took the donation nobody knew there were any problems with Alaghband,” David Nassar, the Vice President of Communications for Brookings, told The Daily Beast, speaking on behalf of the think tank. Nassar also specified that the donation came from Balli Group bank accounts, not from Alaghband’s personal accounts. (Full disclosure: Daily Beast executive editor Noah Shachtman previously did work as a non-resident fellow in Brookings’ foreign policy division.) Asked why he was listed as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative on his own corporate website, he said: “I haven’t seen this website recently.” A former Brookings staffer with direct knowledge of the donation told The Daily Beast said that, on the contrary, Alaghband’s problems with the U.S. government were known to the think tank at the time and that the money helped finance the work of Suzanne Maloney, a former State Department policy advisor and Republican advocate of U.S.-Iranian rapprochement. Nassar told The Daily Beast that the suggestion that Alaghband’s donation was intended to bolster Maloney’s pro-rapprochement research was false. “The money was general funding for the Persian Gulf Initiative and not directed at any particular issue or any particular scholar,” he said. Nevertheless, the Persian Gulf Initiative was a program run by the Saban Center and Maloney worked on it. Maloney is married to Ray Takeyh, an Iran scholar who served in the Obama White House in 2009 and who, during that period, was one of the lead advocates of engagement with Tehran. Since leaving the administration, Takeyh has emerged as a scathing critic of his former employer’s nuclear diplomacy. But in 2008, Maloney and Takeyh jointly published a 34-page white paper with the Saban Center titled, “Pathway to Coexistence: A New U.S. Policy toward Iran.” Arguing that the longstanding U.S. policy of containment “is actually obsolete because Iran is no longer an expansionist power,” they called not for a mere “policy shift but for a paradigm change” in Washington. In many ways, the paper essentially forecasted what Obama administration’s approach to dealing with Iran, from the largely hands-off approach to Iran’s bloody 2009 Green Revolution to the present-day compromises on its nuclear program. Alaghband’s legal troubles did not appear to affect his relationship with Brookings a year after Balli Aviation was hit by the U.S. Commerce Department with a temporary ban on his Iranian export business. In February 2009, he spoke at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, where Brookings has another Middle East center, this one bankrolled by the Qatari government. The forum, in fact, was organized by the Saban Center on behalf of that government. Alaghband, for his part, insists that he did nothing wrong, despite his company’s guilty plea. “The settlement [with the Justice Department] was one under which we did not have to accept liability. We just agreed to make a payment and settle out of court,” he told The Daily Beast. “We had to establish a compliance program and do all of those things. The transactions we were engaged in was reviewed by and subject to a legal to a legal opinion both in the UK and U.S. about the compliance of with sanctions. We proceeded on this basis.” The settlement also represented the largest civil penalty ever imposed by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. PARSA’s second largest recipient of grants is the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a Washington, D.C.-based lobby group close to the Iranian regime, which advocates an end to all U.S. sanctions on Iran. It received a total received a total of $591,500 from the foundation. Alaghband’s brother, Hassan Alaghband, who is also the CEO of the Balli Group, spoke at a organized conference in Tehran by one of NIAC's founders in June 2007, at which he spoke about Western companies doing business in Iran and cited Balli’s client, Caterpillar, as a case study. The Balli Group PLC had once been the world’s second-largest steel trader but it declared bankruptcy in 2013. A major reason for its folding? U.S. sanctions on Iran. *Hillary’s Strategy Is Actually Brilliant <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/10/hillary-s-strategy-is-actually-brilliant.html> // Daily Beast // Nick Gillespie – July 10, 2015 * Has any future president been more misunderstood than Hillary Clinton? As someone who cannot imagine any possible scenario in which I would cast a ballot for the former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, First Lady, and Goldwater Girl, I note this with a heavy heart. But Clinton’s deafening and widely criticized silence since announcing her candidacy isn’t a weakness or a failing on her part. It underscores exactly the professionalism, strategizing, and discipline that explain why she is atop the polls. She has nothing to gain and everything to lose from shooting off her mouth for at least the rest of the year. Like an aging boxer who survives more by smarts than by slugging, Clinton knows that the fight for the White House is a 15-round bout that will certainly go the distance. Only a showboating chump would punch themselves out in the early rounds. Sure, over the past few weeks, she’s lost some ground among Democratic voters to socialist Bernie Sanders. But she’s still ahead of him, not to mention the ever-growing gaggle of Republican rivals. Sure, ever since announcing she was running for president, Clinton has stayed awfully quiet, popping up in Chipotle surveillance camera footage like Patty Hearst on the lam and eschewing actual public events for “intimate” meetings with vetted, handpicked supporters. On the rare occasions when she does step out of her bubble, things have gotten hinky, like when she literally roped off the press during a Fourth of July parade in New Hampshire. The optics of that scene—photogs and journos being physically restrained from getting close enough to her highness to take good pics or ask embarrassing queries—would be shame-inducing if not suicide-inducing to most candidates. But do we need to spell it out, really? Hillary Clinton is not most candidates. Hillary is turning into a defensive master, but on her own terms. She’s learned from the acknowledged master—husband Bill, who can’t even be bothered to flatly promise not to give paid speeches if he becomes First Dude—that there’s never a reason to give in to common decency and slink off into the dark night of political oblivion. Hillary Clinton hasn’t driven a car since 1996 and it’s a safe bet that she hasn’t felt shame for even longer. Since announcing for president, Clinton has granted exactly one televsion interview, with CNN’s Brianna Keilar, and smartly used the occasion to attack the Republican field for their weak-tea responses to Donald Trump’s muy stupido assertion that Mexican immigrants are mostly rapists. Indicating that she was “disappointed” (read: elated) “in those comments,” Clinton went on to note that her Republican rivals “are all in the same general area on immigration.” The worst part of that? She’s absolutely right. Once the party of near-open borders (watch this video from 1980 in which Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush one up each other on praising the contributions of illegal immigrants), today’s GOP, with minor exceptions, vilifies the wretched yearning to breathe free, at least when they come from Latin America. In 2004, George Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. Eight years later, Mitt Romney—who counseled that illegal immigrants should practice “self-deportation”—pulled just 27 percent. In the GOP “autopsy” of Romney’s failure in 2012, the authors wrote, “If Hispanic Americans hear that the GOP doesn’t want them in the United States, they won’t pay attention to our next sentence.” Given the way that the current candidates have been non-reacting to Trump, that might be the best outcome the Republican Party could hope for. Against such a backdrop, Clinton is right to keep mum, except when making easy layups against her opponents. Let Bernie Sanders whip Democrats into a progressive frenzy and then step in with vague nods toward equality and growth for all. She knows full well that Sanders is not her real rival—that will be the GOP nominee, not a frothing-at-the-mouth socialist from a state with a population smaller than Washington, D.C. She also knows as well as anyone that her toughest challenge will be sweetening the air of inevitability that surrounds her like noxious second-hand smoke. No one outside of their immediate families wants to see a Clinton-Bush contest, but such a showdown is more likely than not. She may indeed be as “arrogant” as Commentary and a thousand other similar publications contend, but she’s likely smart enough to realize that nothing humanizes her more than right-wing outlets foaming at the mouth about everything from blowjobs to Benghazi. This is not to say that she’s a perfect candidate. In fact, the roping off of journalists—on a day celebrating indepence, no less!—suggests Hillary Clinton is in many ways singularly off-putting. Her feminist bona fides were rightly called into question during her time as First Lady, her time as senator from New York was unmemorable, and her tenure as secretary of state nothing short of disastrous. When under attack, she’s capable of mind-bogglingly stupid comments, like when she started talking about Bobby Kennedy’s assassination during the end days of her 2008 run for the Democratic nomination. This is why she is smart to be running rope-a-dope strategy, essentially letting her opponents (Democratic and Republican) punch themselves out in the early rounds. When they’ve taken their best shots and mostly exhausted themselves, she can come off the ropes and throw a haymaker or two. Along with forgoing shame, this is another great tactical advantage she’s learned from her husband. Bill Clinton outlasted his opponents—think Newt Gingrich and a gaggle of moralistic congressmen, many of whom had skeletons of their own to hide. Bill was like Muhammad Ali taking on George Foreman in the jungle heat, a personable motormouth who loved to talk and press the flesh (sometimes a bit too much, to be sure). Hillary is turning into a defensive master, but on her own terms. She’s more like Floyd Mayweather, nobody’s idea of a fun person to hang out with, but capable of taking huge amounts of punishment and coming off the ropes in the late rounds to secure victory. If the eventual Republican nominee—whether it’s Jeb Bush or Rand Paul or god help us all Donald Trump—wants a real chance at the crown, they’d do best to back away from Hillary and the anger-bear rhetoric that only makes her more sympathetic. The nominee would do well to outline an actually positive and inclusive message about how they plan to guide the country into the 21st century rather than constantly harp on last century’s scandals, the need for even newer and bigger wars, and protecting us from the scourge of immigrants so desperate for a better life that they’re willing to risk arrest to come to America. A Republican employing positive rhetoric—which is exactly how Barack Obama toppled Clinton in 2008—would pull her out of her crouch and cause her to swing recklessly and wildly. In all that lunging, she’d be likely to knock herself out. But so long as the Republicans keep smacking themselves in the face, she’s smart to hold her punches. *Clinton camp on Bush’s fundraising: It should scare you <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-camp-jeb-bush-fundraising-it-should-scare-you> // MSNBC // Alex Seitz-Wald – July 10, 2015 * Hillary Clinton’s campaign is looking to turn Jeb Bush’s money into her own. The Republican presidential candidate’s super PAC announced Thursday a record-shattering $103 million fundraising haul, an astonishing number even in the post-Citizens United era. That’s almost quadruple the amount of money every super PAC had raised by this point in the 2012 election cycle combined, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and more than the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA, which is now backing Clinton, raised in two years during the last presidential election. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is sounding the alarm, even as allies see a potential silver lining in Bush’s haul. On Friday, Clinton finance director Dennis Cheng sent an email to supporters pleading for contributions with the subject line: “Hillary needs you.” In the email, Cheng said he had “bad news” and noted that Bush’s campaign and super PAC had raised a combined $114 million. “If that number scares you, good. It should,” Cheng warned. “[T]here’s a point at which it may be too much – when we can’t make up for it by organizing better and spending our resources more wisely,” Cheng continued. “We cannot hit that point, especially this early in the campaign.” But the Clinton campaign is hardly broke. Last week, her campaign announced that it had raised $45 million since it launched – the most any primary candidate had raised in history. Priorities USA, that super PAC supporting Clinton, announced that it raised $15.6 millions so far this year, almost all of it coming in the previous four weeks. Clinton has been on a break-neck fundraising spree since announcing her campaign in April, hopscotching across the country to attend dozens of $2,700 per head fundraises. Aware of Team Bush’s goal of raising more than $100 million, Clinton’s campaign pushed back her big kick-off rally in part to give her more time to fundraise. Donors reported intense pressure to get checks in early, and Clinton has gone hardly more than a few days between fundraisers. Bush’s haul is daunting, but not surprising since his campaign telegraphed their goal. And some Clinton allies insist it could actually help encourage their donors to pony up. “It’s obviously an impressive number. But it could be good for us, it’s not easy to raise money against nothing. We now have a real threat that should motivate our prospective donors to step up in a way most haven’t yet,” said one source in the pro-Clinton super PAC world, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. There are also downsides to Bush in raising most of his money via super PACs instead of campaigns. Super PACs are legally prohibited from coordinating with campaigns, so the candidate has little say in how the money is spent or what the super PAC does. For instance, Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley was recently forced to publicly denounce an ad made by the super PAC supporting him attacking Bernie Sanders on gun control. And campaigns get a discounted rate not available to super PACs when it comes to purchasing TV ads, the main expenditure of super PACs. That means campaigns can run more ads for less money than super PACs, potentially paying huge dividends. Mitt Romney learned this the hard way when he and his super PAC outspent Obama by almost a third, but ended up running 50,000 fewer ads nonetheless. “Hillary’s $45m in campaign money is much more valuable to her campaign than Jeb’s $100m in Super Pac money is to his,” former Obama official Dan Pfeiffer said on twitter. And Clinton allies note that Bush’s super PAC may not be able to repeat its massive haul again. Bush himself led the PAC and made personal appeals to donors on its behalf, something he is now prohibited from doing since he’s an official candidate. Enthusiasm could drop off if Bush is no longer involved. But even setting aside the super PAC, Clinton could fall behind Bush. Bush’s official campaign managed to out-compete Clinton’s record-breaking haul in one key measure. Bush’s campaign raised $11.4 million to Clinton’s $45 million, but he did it just 16 days compared to Clinton’s 81. That breaks down to $555,555 a day for Clinton, but $712,500 per day for Bush. Bush’s sprint could just capture the boost of enthusiasm any candidate receives after they announce, and his numbers could drop off afterwards. Meanwhile, he’ll be preoccupied with the Republican presidential primary and will have to spend most of money bashing Republicans before he even makes it to the general election – if he makes it at all. But it could also spell trouble for Clinton is she continues to be out-raised among both Bush’s campaign and super PAC. *Medical Bill: Mystery donor picked up $150G tab for 2010 Clinton speech <http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/10/medical-bill-mystery-donor-picked-up-150g-tab-for-2010-clinton-speech/> // Fox // Malia Zimmerman – July 10, 2015 * It was a big coup when a nonprofit medical trade group landed Bill Clinton as a speaker at its 2010 annual conference in Chicago -- so big that some members wondered how the former president was being paid. Not to worry, members of the Radiological Society of North America were told: An anonymous donor footed his bill. The $150,000 fee was a mere fraction of the $48 million Clinton took in from 215 speeches between 2009 and 2013, while his wife was secretary of state. Who paid Clinton and why they thought it was a fair bargain may never be known — but government watchdogs say it is a prime example of how elusive accounting can be for the ex-president's eye-popping earnings. It was clear, however, that the husband of America's top diplomat was not chosen for his medical expertise. “I think this is interesting that you would ask me to come and speak today to a group of people from all over the world, and everyone of you knows more about the subject than I do,” Clinton said at the beginning of his 45-minute address to an audience of 4,250. Dr. Sam Friedman, a radiologist from Columbia, SC., said at first he was “peeved” when he heard Clinton was paid $150,000 for the “rambling” speech, during which Clinton took several “gratuitous shots” at Republicans and blamed U.S. doctors for many of the healthcare problems in third world countries. When he and like-minded members made their objections known to the organization, they were told the fee was paid by an “anonymous” donor. Radiological Society of North America spokesman Marijo Millette told FoxNews.com the group “strives to provide compelling speakers that will satisfy the educational needs and special interests of a diverse audience.” Millette would not comment on Friedman's claim, which was also reported by trade media, but said Clinton's fee and travel expenses were paid to the Harry Walker Agency, which represents Clinton. The organization’s 990 forms, filed with the Internal Revenue Service and required to maintain its 501(c)3 status, do not list any payment to Clinton or his representative. Neither the executive director nor three executive board members contacted by FoxNews.com would divulge who paid Clinton's fee. Matthew Whitaker, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability & Civic Trust, a Washington-based, non-partisan campaign and ethics watchdog group, said the anonymous donation “opens up a Pandora’s box of questions including who funded this speech and what their motivations were.” “This issue has to be resolved," Whitaker told FoxNews.com. "There has to be an answer as to who gave the money. “It has the smell of someone trying to move money through an organization to curry favor with the former president. It also calls into question almost every speech Bill Clinton as made and who the ultimate funder is.” Neither Clinton's representatives at Harry Walker nor at the Clinton Foundation responded to a request for the name of the mystery sponsor. It was not clear if other speeches by Clinton were similarly funded by anonymous third parties. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a Washington D.C.-based government watchdog foundation, said much of the $48 million Bill Clinton made from 215 speeches during the time Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State went to the Clintons' personal coffers, not to the foundation. Federal disclosure forms filed by Hillary Clinton for 2010 record her husband’s compensation as $150,000 from the Oak Brook, Ill.-based group, but critics say the lack of transparency about where the money really came from raises serious questions. “Bill and Hillary Clinton are married, so under the law, paying him for a speech is like giving money directly to her – to the Secretary of State,” Fitton said. “I cannot think of a comparable ‘pay to play’ scandal.” Clinton gave 542 speeches around the world between 2001 and 2013, earning $104.9 million, and delivered another 53 speeches between January 2014 and May 2015, earning an additional $13.5 million, according to reports by Fox News and the Washington Post. The former president's speaking fees have ranged from $28,100 for a 2001 talk at the London School of Economics to $750,000 for a 2011 appearance at an event for Swedish communications company Ericsson. While Clinton's knowledge of world events and charm as a raconteur is well-documented, critics doubt the sky-high fees are doled out by anonymous parties for sheer entertainment value. "These donors don't cut checks because they want to hear a brief speech," said Sean Davis, co- founder of The Federalist, a conservative online magazine. "They do it to gain access or favors from the Clintons. The Clintons owe voters a clear explanation of who is funneling them this money and why.” *Kudos To Sanders, With A Wink To Clinton, Too <http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/10/421566327/kudos-to-sanders-with-a-wink-to-clinton-too> // NPR // Ron Elving – July 10, 2015 * These are palmy days for Sen. Bernie Sanders and his improbable campaign for president. Thousands throng his events in Maine, Iowa and Wisconsin. He has raised $15 million in just a few months, and he polls better among Democrats than any one Republican is polling among Republicans. At a minimum, the "independent socialist" senator has established himself as the insurgent to watch among Democrats in this cycle. So, we should salute the man. But we should also cast a smiling glance toward the other, possibly ultimate, beneficiary of his early success. That would be Hillary Clinton. Why? Because in the long run, "the Sanders summer" is likely to boost her bid for the White House. Indeed, from her perspective, Sanders may be the ideal rival en route to the nomination. He's a man, he's 73, and he's well to her left on most issues. Moreover, he starts from a low base of national recognition, lacks conventional media appeal and hails from a tiny northeastern state that is totally lopsided politically. Did we mention he calls himself a socialist? Clinton would have had far more to fear from the candidate dynamics had another senator, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, made the race. Even if Clinton prevailed, the inevitable wounds would be felt in the fall campaign. Warren would have equal claim to Clinton's magic demographic wand: the prospect of being the nation's first female president. Warren is also eight years younger than Sanders, and two years younger than Clinton. She has heartland roots in Oklahoma, and the momentum from a late-blooming career and a scrappy battle to the top of Bay State politics. Her issue profile would match the economic equality mood of the moment without stretching the point. Sanders, of course, goes further. He pleases crowds with full-throated proclamations about universal health care and Wall Street reform. He quickens the pulse of liberals and populists alike, including many who, like Sanders, have not been card-carrying Democrats. Beyond that, he has earned his moment with his own brand of vitality and political punch. Brooklyn born and raised, Sanders is far more New York than Clinton will ever be, but even his combative nature carries a certain charm. All this helps explain Sanders' rise to the level of respectable in national polls, including strong numbers in tuned-in Iowa and New Hampshire. But those polls also bespeak the hunger many Democrats feel for a choice in 2016. They may be "ready for Hillary," or resigned to her, but they feel entitled to a little competition first. It's just part of being a Democrat. Sanders should benefit from this, tapping into the nostalgia of boomers who rebelled against the Democratic establishment decades ago, backing Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and George McGovern in 1972. Some also remember their enthusiasm for Howard Dean a dozen years ago. Those upstart candidates, too, made a virtue of lacking conventional charisma. Taken together, these threads of political sentiment weave a ready-to-wear mantle for some Democrat plucky enough to put it on. Naturally, the Clinton camp has been watching keenly for years now to see who it would be. Now, halfway through the critical pre-election year, the Democratic field consists of Clinton, Sanders and three other white males who have failed to make much of a dent. It is possible one of them will catch fire, but Sanders is in their way. It is also possible other candidates will emerge, but Sanders is in their way, too. And that helps Clinton. Ultimately, though, Sanders' greatest boon to Clinton may be in making her work harder to connect — both with the party's activist left and with its traditional lunch-bucket issues. Rooting her in what Dean liked to call "the democratic wing of the Democratic Party." We always knew that Clinton could not be crowned the nominee in the presumptive manner of an incumbent president, or even an incumbent vice president. We always knew there needed to be, and would inevitably be, someone who mounted a challenge from within Democratic ranks. Now that someone has emerged. He's Bernie Sanders, and he's doing very well, thank you. Clinton should be grateful. *Hillary Clinton to Visit Senate Democrats at Lunch <http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/hillary-clinton-to-visit-senate-democrats-at-lunch/> // Roll Call // Niels Lesniewski – July 10, 2015 * Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is scheduled to attend the July 14 Senate Democratic caucus lunch, a senior Democratic aide told CQ Roll Call. It is one of several meetings with congressional Democrats Clinton is expected to hold while in Washington, D.C., next week. But the visit with her former Senate colleagues, a good number of whom have already endorsed her presidential bid, is interesting because another person seeking the Democratic nomination in 2016, Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., caucuses with the Democrats and serves as their ranking member on the Budget Committee. *Another Questionable Donor to the Clinton Foundation Emerges, and This One Could Tie in With the Pending Iran Deal <http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/10/another-questionable-donor-to-the-clinton-foundation-emerges-and-this-one-could-tie-in-with-the-pending-iran-deal/> // The Blaze // Fred Lucas – July 10, 2015 * Additionally, the website for Balli Real Estate, a property investment and development subsidiary based in Britain, says that Alaghband is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. From the Daily Beast: The company pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal information in 2010. In its plea agreement with the Department of Justice, Balli Aviation agreed to pay a $2 million criminal fine, serve five years corporate probation, and pay an additional $15 million in civil fines. The hefty sum was “a direct consequence of the level of deception used to mislead investigators,” Thomas Madigan, a top Justice Department official, said at the time. Alaghband is one of an array of questionable actors who’ve been found in recent months to give to the Clinton Foundation. The gifts – from foreign governments with human rights violations like Qatar, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and China as well as FIFA, soccer’s corrupt governing body – have complicated Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president and raised questions as to whether these entities were trying to curry favor with the former Secretary of State. But Alaghband stands out from the rest, because the beneficiary of his firm’s deals with Tehran was an Iranian airline accused by the U.S. government of working with the regime’s foreign intelligence operatives and shipping arms and troops to Syria. Plus, if an agreement between Iran and the world’s major powers is concluded in the coming days – as is widely expected – operators like Alaghband could stand to benefit. Hillary Clinton will be put in the awkward position of either defending the act of the Obama administration in which she once served or criticizing the culmination of a U.S.-Iran rapprochement effort, which her State Department began. Interestingly, Alaghband, told the Daily Beast, “I am not a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.” “I attended a few meetings. The last meeting was 10 years ago,” he said. “I don’t recall having ever made a contribution.” As to why his own corporate website listed him as a member, he said: “I haven’t seen this website recently. If attending a few meetings makes you a member, I don’t know.” A source close to the Clinton Foundation told the Daily Beast that Alaghband “was never a member of CGI in a personal capacity,” but added, “In 2007, Balli Group paid a onetime CGI membership fee and they designated him as their delegate to the meeting.” One of the charges against Balli Aviation was that it “conspired to export three Boeing 747 aircraft from the United States to Iran,” without obtaining the necessary export licenses from the U.S. government, according to a Justice Department statement reported by the Daily Beast. It further used an U.S. airline subsidiary to buy 747s with financing from the Iranian-based Mahan Air – a company the State Department sais is controlled by former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Mahan was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2011 for “providing financial, material and technological support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF).” *‘House of Cards’ creator thinks Hillary Clinton is closest to a real life Claire Underwood <http://www.businessinsider.com/house-of-cards-creator-lord-dobbs-hillary-clinton-is-claire-underwood-2015-7> // Business Insider // Jethro Nededog – July 10, 2015 * It doesn't seem likely that Hillary Clinton would have gotten UK's "House of Cards" creator Lord Michael Dobbs' vote if her were able to cast a ballot in US elections. Dobbs believes Clinton most resembles a real life Claire Underwood (Robyn Wright), the conniving and politically ambitious wife of president Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) on Netflix's adaptation of Dobbs' "House of Cards." “[Hillary Clinton] is a political figure in her own right – behind the scenes, but now increasingly in front of the scenes." Dobbs told Buzzfeed of the similarities to Claire. "That is much more of a Claire character than, for instance, Cherie [Blair], who as far as I’m aware didn’t become actively aware in politics as such.” Dobbs, who wrote the novel "House of Cards" after serving as an advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has a healthy obsession of Clinton. “I’m fascinated by Hillary, of course, because she comes with so much baggage,” he told the online site. “That baggage is her strength but also her vulnerability. We just have to wait and see where the balance lies on that. Though it is bizarre that the system that was bred out of [rejection of a King] has produced the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Roosevelts….” Dobbs' TV version of "House of Cards" ended after just four one-hour episodes aired on BBC in 1990. Netflix's adaptation will return with its fourth season next year.s *Don’t believe Hillary Clinton’s campaign – here’s why they’re not ‘worried’ about Bernie Sanders <http://www.businessinsider.com/does-bernie-sanders-worry-hillary-clinton-2015-7#ixzz3fUhc01lb> // Business Insider // Maxwell Tani – July 10, 2015 * Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is gaining momentum as a Democratic presidential rival to Hillary Clinton. But he's no threat just yet. On Monday, The New York Times reported that Clinton staffers are becoming increasingly concerned that the Vermont senator is a serious threat to Clinton's campaign. They point to his rising poll numbers and his large event turnouts — according to The Washington Post, Sanders drew 7,500 at a Maine event on Monday, a week after drawing a 10,000-person crowd in Wisconsin. But Sanders' first problem is that, as political strategists and analysts told Business Insider, his candidacy at this point is more resembling that of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) in 2004 than Barack Obama in 2008. His momentum is concentrated in the first two early-voting states, Iowa and New Hampshire. The general consensus among many left-leaning strategists and pollsters is that Sanders is best suited to win in those two states, where there are a sizeable portion of white, liberal voters. "Sanders is certainly doing a lot better in Iowa and New Hampshire where voters are playing close attention than he is anywhere else," Tom Jensen, the director of Public Policy Polling, told Business Insider. "I don't think that [Clinton campaign strategists] think that Sanders is going to win the nomination, but they probably take it seriously that he could win a state or two early," added John Hagner, a campaign strategist at Clarity Campaign Labs. Hagner, a veteran of the former Democratic National Committee chairman Dean's 2004 presidential campaign team in New Hampshire, pointed to similarities between Sanders and Dean's momentous starts — and not just the fact that they're both from Vermont. Hagner noted that Dean's team also garnered lots of liberal enthusiasm early on, raising millions in small donations from passionate primary voters. And he said Dean wasn't the only upstart to mount a challenge in New Hampshire. Former Vice President Al Gore almost lost the state to former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-New Jersey) in 2000. "The similarities [between Dean and Sanders] is in the fan base and in the intensity. And there really are, particularly in New Hampshire, a lot of very progressive voters who enjoy uncertain candidates," Hagner said. Analysts also told Business Insider that Sanders is benefiting from the disproportionate share of white voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. Though he's tried to outflank Clinton to the left on a number of issues like income inequality and taxes, Sanders has been less decidedly liberal on topics like immigration reform and gun control. In 2007, he voted against an immigration-reform package in the Senate, teaming up with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to add restrictive amendments to the bill. Many Latino lawmakers don't believe that Sanders has immigration reform at the top of his agenda in the same way that Clinton does. "It is not his priority," Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected Office, told CNN last month. "I think that is one of the challenges his campaign is going to have to confront." Sanders also hasn't made many inroads with African-American voters. Jensen, the director of Public Policy Polling, told Business Insider that most recent polls put the former Secretary of State's support among African-American voters at around 70-80%. "If Sanders wins Iowa or New Hampshire it will build a lot of momentum for him that will help in the states that follow, but he's still going to struggle in places like South Carolina with large black populations and Nevada with large Hispanic populations unless he improves his appeal to nonwhite voters," Jensen said. Hagner said that if the Clinton campaign becomes legitimately nervous, they may start putting issues in the spotlight that historically resonate with black and Hispanic voters. "Immigration and gun rights are going to be problems for him. If you start to see stories pop up that have some finger prints, we'll know they're taking it seriously," Hagner said. hillary clintonL.E. BaskowPresidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives at the Aria and greets workers before speaking at a conference in Las Vegas. For its part, the Clinton campaign could also see the benefit in a strengthened Sanders. Republicans have repeatedly slammed national Democrats for running a campaign that much more resembles an incumbent's. Clinton has long sought to avoid looking like she's taking her party's nomination for granted. And campaigns always like to lower expectations in the early-voting states. And every candidate wants to be able to claim momentum, regardless of the reality on the ground. Said Bill Burton, a former top adviser to Obama's 2008 campaign: "Hillary Clinton tried out inevitability as a message, and it was not successful." *No, Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Need a Plan For Passing Gun Control Legislation <http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/07/no-hillary-clinton-doesnt-need-plan-passing-gun-control-legislation> // Mother Jones // Kevin Drum – July 10, 2015 * Lots of political observers are surprised that Hillary Clinton is talking about guns. That's a loser for Democrats, isn't it? Paul Waldman isn't so sure: The truth is quite a bit more complicated than that — in fact, pushing for measures like expanded background checks is likely to help Clinton in the 2016 election. But if she’s going to promise to make headway on this issue, she needs to offer some plausible account of how as president she could make real progress where Barack Obama couldn’t. Allow me to impolitely disagree. Presidential campaigns are extended exercises in affinity marketing. No presidential candidate ever has to explain how they're going to enact legislation. The most they have to do is offer a bit of breezy blather about crossing the aisle and focusing on areas of agreement and Americans not really being as polarized as the media makes them out to be. That's plenty. Oh sure, there are a few thousand annoying know-it-alls like Waldman and me who are going to write blog posts about how this or that promise ain't gonna happen because the politics are impossible. But hell, even we don't care. We're still going to vote for whoever we planned to vote for anyway. It's not as if any of the other candidates are going to work miracles either. Now, it's true that some candidates run on a theme of competence, of "getting things done." Scott Walker is doing it this year. Michael Dukakis did it. But I don't think there's any evidence that even this pale shadow of "how I'm going to get things done" has much effect on voters. They just vote for the candidate who seems to be generally on their side, or generally most reasonable, or generally good to have a beer with. The details can be left to the wonks. *Ariana Grande’s Manager Is Throwing a Big Fundraiser for Hillary Clinton <http://www.mediaite.com/online/ariana-grandes-manager-is-throwing-a-big-fundraiser-for-hillary-clinton/> // Mediaite // Jamie Frevele – July 10, 2015 * It looks like Hillary Clinton definitely has the Canadian teenybopper vote, if they’re old enough and not all Canadian! Scooter Braun, who manages musical acts including Justin Bieber and donut-licking America-hater Ariana Grande, announced that he and his wife Yael will host a fundraiser for the Democratic candidate in Los Angeles. Billed as a “conversation” with Clinton, the event will take place at the Brauns’ home on August 6 and will cost $2,700 to get in. A fundraiser for Clinton at the Brauns’ abode could be pretty fun, considering how Braun does pretty wicked impressions of Clinton’s former boss, President Obama, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. So that’ll be a neat little party trick. Just maybe don’t talk about the clients until this donut thing blows over. And let’s not forget Bieber’s previous run-in with a Clinton. *Hillary Clinton aligns herself with a surprising party* <http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/news/a29264/hillary-clinton-one-direction-tweet/>* // Elle // Alyssa Bailey – July 10, 2015* Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made a very strategic move last night, aligning herself with a party whose fan base is among the most active in the U.S. (and really world). Clinton casually tweeted this: Throwing her support behind One Direction and its activism efforts: Genius. No word yet on her favorite member or song, but the campaign just started—and she's clearly courting the Directioner endorsement. Expect that Harry Styles-Hillary Clinton photo in the months to come. *Bill and Hillary Clinton ordered to give depositions about emails in civil case <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/10/bill-and-hillary-clinton-ordered-give-depositions-/> // Washington Times // Kellan Howell – July 10, 2015 * Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have been ordered to give depositions in a civil case investigating the pair’s growing email scandal. Mrs. Clinton will giver her deposition on the morning of July 28 in Washington, and Mr. Clinton will give his the following morning, according to copies of the notices of deposition reviewed by The Washington Times. The case, filed by Freedom Watch founder and former federal prosecutor Larry Klayman, alleges the couple committed criminal violations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). According to a statement from Freedom Watch, the suit alleges Mrs. Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination, covered up these crimes by destroying her personal emails sent during her time as Secretary of State. Mr. Klayman alleges in his lawsuit that the Clintons — through mail and wire fraud, and various false statements — misappropriated documents that he requested under the Freedom of Information concerning the Mrs. Clinton’s involvement in releasing Israeli war and cyber-warfare plans and practices. The lawsuit, filed in March, claims that Mrs. Clinton orchestrated the release to thwart Israeli plans to preemptively attack Iranian nuclear sites. Mr. Klayman also requested Mrs. Clinton’s and other State Department records pertaining to waivers that were granted for persons, companies, countries and other interests that do business with Iran, undermining economic sanctions. “This is the first and only hard-hitting case to address the growing email scandal,” Mr. Klayman said in a statement. “What Hillary Clinton, her husband, and their foundation have done is nothing new. It is simply part of a criminal enterprise which dates back at least 10 years, all designed to enrich themselves personally at the expense of the American people and our nation. It’s time, however, that they finally be held legally accountable.” *Chelsea Clinton to speak at World Food Prize <http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2015/07/10/chelsea-clinton-world-food-prize/29994749/> // Des Moines Register // Donnelle Eller – July 10, 2015 * Chelsea Clinton will speak at the World Food Prize symposium this fall about encouraging girls in the U.S. and developing countries to pursue math, science and technology educations as way to escape poverty. Clinton is vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, the New York-based nonprofit focused on improving global health, creating economic opportunity, and increasing opportunities for women and girls. The group’s founder is former President Bill Clinton. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s entry into the presidential race has prompted questions about the foundation, including foreign donations to it and potential conflicts of interest. The campaign has rejected those criticisms. Ken Quinn, president of the World Food Prize, said he doesn’t intend for the event to become political. But Timothy Hagle, a University of Iowa political science professor, said that might be hard to avoid. “That might be difficult in Iowa, in the middle of a presidential cycle,” Hagle said. “Even with an important issue, politics may intrude.” Quinn said he reached out to invite Chelsea Clinton months before her mother decided to take another run at the White House. “I’ve worked very hard to never have the World Food Prize seen as anyway involved in politics,” said Quinn, a former ambassador. Chelsea Clinton will receive no fee for speaking at the event, scheduled for Oct. 14-16. The World Food Prize will provide airfare and lodging, he said. Encouraging the education of women and girls is a big push for the World Food Prize. This year’s prize winner, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, is being honored for his work creating the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, focused on giving women the social and economic tools to help themselves and their communities. Quinn said women play key roles in attacking hunger, improving health and incomes in developing countries. As small-holder farmers, they make many of the decisions about growing but often have limited access to education. “Chelsea Clinton has been speaking a great deal, and the Clinton Global Initiative is focused on, girls’ education and empowering women around the world,” Quinn said. Quinn said he also invited Lauren Bush Lauren, founder of FEED, a nonprofit that uses part of the sale of bags and accessories to help address hunger. Lauren, granddaughter of president George H.W. Bush and niece of president George W. Bush, was unable to attend the Des Moines event. Chelsea Clinton will speak about the foundation’s work, not politics, Quinn said. “I stressed that we are nonpartisan.” Hagle said even talking issues like STEM — science, technology, engineering and math training that many political leaders favor — could be viewed as Chelsea Clinton subtly pushing for her mother. “She will bring attention to the issue, but she could get some eyebrows raised and criticism,” he said. Quinn said other political figures have been honored and spoken at the World Food Prize in the past, without being political, including current Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and former President Jimmy Carter, who is an honorary member of the council of advisers. Quinn said it’s unclear whether Chelsea Clinton will take the opportunity to be in Iowa to campaign for her mother. Campaign and foundation officials could not immediately say what her plans are while in Iowa. Quinn said Chelsea Clinton’s staff has indicated she wants to meet with young people to talk about the importance of education. In addition to Clinton, Sheryl WuDunn, an author and Pulitzer Prize winner, also will speak about empowering women. She wrote her most recent book, “A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity,” with her husband, Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist. *Hillary Clinton campaign releases video about Confederate flag <http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150710/PC1603/150719930/hillary-clinton-campaign-releases-video-about-confederate-flag-has-video> // Post and Courier // July 10, 2015 * About an hour after the Confederate flag was removed from the Statehouse grounds today, the Hillary Clinton for South Carolina staff released a campaign video about the flag’s removal being a good first step. The video features interviews with South Carolinians discussing the historic significance of removing the flag as well as offering their views on the next steps that need to take place, such as action on issues like wages, prison reform, education, gun control, and poverty. Clinton has commended state leaders for their action, a Clinton staffer said in a news release. “Removing this symbol of our nation’s racist past is an important step towards equality and civil rights in America,” Clinton said. “There is still unfinished business in confronting and acting on the inequalities that still exist in our country. We can’t hide from the hard truths about race and justice. We must do everything in our power to have the courage to name them and change them.” *Hillary Clinton to make first Utah trip of 2016 race <http://www.sltrib.com/home/2715067-155/hillary-clinton-to-make-first-utah> // Salt Lake Tribune // Robert Gehrke – July 9, 2015 * Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, will make her first visit to Utah during her 2016 campaign next month, holding a fundraiser at a posh Park City home. "I think it's always exciting to have a presidential candidate come to Utah and, of course, from my perspective, it's great to have a Democrat coming to Utah this early in the campaign," said Utah Democratic Party Chairman Peter Corroon. "I think it shows Utah is playing a more prominent role in politics." The event, billed as a "Conversation with Hillary," is available to those who give between $500 and $2,700. It is being held at the home of Barry and Amy Baker, who have hosted the Clintons before. Barry Baker is the former president of USA Networks and is a senior adviser to Lee Equity Partners, LLC, a private equity and venture-capital firm. Amy Baker spent 20 years at NBC News. Clinton, the former secretary of state, U.S. senator from New York and first lady, holds a wide lead over the Democratic field and all of the Republican contenders in head-to-head polling. But she is a polarizing figure reviled among Republicans. "I'm sure she'll get a very positive reaction from most of the Democratic faithful. I'm not so sure the feelings will be the same on the Republican side," Corroon said. Utah Republican Party Chairman James Evans said he isn't surprised Clinton is coming to Utah — the Democratic candidates have in the past — and he doesn't expect her visit to stir up protests. "They come to Park City several times and I would expect her to visit with the liberal elite, as she certainly is not connected to the everyday American," Evans said. "I don't think people are going to go out of their way to protest her. We'll be respectful because everybody knows who she is and what she's about. So there's nothing else to really say other than certainly she will be a disaster as president. I think people already know that." Evans said he expects prominent Republican candidates to visit the state for fundraisers, possibly as early as next month. Six of the Republican contenders already visited Utah last month — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. Jon Kasich, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and businesswoman Carly Fiorina — for an annual Deer Valley retreat with donors and politicos hosted by Mitt Romney. In April, Clinton became the first presidential hopeful to hire staff in Utah, engaging Ben Haynes, an American Fork native who worked to re-elect Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill and on the Count My Vote initiative, to lead the Clinton campaign efforts in Utah. In 2008, Clinton lost the Democratic presidential primary in Utah to then-Sen. Barack Obama, 57 percent to 39 percent, as Obama went on to win the nomination and the White House. *OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE* *DECLARED* *O’MALLEY* *Martin O’Malley Takes a Shot at Hillary Clinton Over ‘Sanctuary Cities’ Policy <http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/10/martin-omalley-takes-a-shot-at-hillary-clinton-over-sanctuary-cities-policy/> // WSJ // Peter Nicholas – July 10, 2015 * Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley took a veiled swipe at front runner Hillary Clinton on Friday, over the case of a convicted felon who had been deported multiple times and who has been charged with murdering a woman in San Francisco on July 1. In an interview this week on CNN, Mrs. Clinton was asked about the San Francisco sheriff’s office decision in April to release the suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, even though federal authorities had wanted him held with a view toward deporting him again. The sheriff’s office has said it was following procedures in keeping with San Francisco’s status as a “sanctuary city” that provides protections for certain undocumented immigrants. In the CNN interview, Mrs. Clinton said: “Well, what should be done is any city should listen to the Department of Homeland Security, which as I understand it, urged them to deport this man again after he got out of prison another time. You know, here’s a case where we’ve deported, we’ve deported, we’ve deported. He ends back up in our country and I think the city made a mistake. The city made a mistake not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported” Mr. O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, weighed in with a statement that defended the sanctuary cities policy. He did not mention Mrs. Clinton by name, but said: “It’s lamentable that the senseless and tragic act of violence that occurred in San Francisco is prompting a rush to judgment and finger pointing: we can and should do better. Local governments should not be blamed for the federal government’s inability to fix our broken immigration system nor should they be held responsible for doing the federal government’s job.” Mr. O’Malley is competing for Hispanic voters as part of a larger strategy of appealing to liberal Democrats who might see Mrs. Clinton as too centrist for their taste. Thus far, though, he has lost ground to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been gaining on Mrs. Clinton in surveys of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. *On student loans, do as O’Malley says, not as he does <http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/get-there/on-student-loans-do-as-omalley-says-not-as-he-does/2015/07/10/91ee4212-23f8-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html> // WaPo // Michelle Singletary – July 10, 2015 * Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley surrendered — just like many other parents. When his daughters were choosing their colleges, he let them have their way. He didn’t want to crush their dreams, and he ended up with crushing debt. Last week, O’Malley spelled out a proposal to help students graduate debt-free from public colleges and universities by increasing Pell Grants and automatically enrolling borrowers in income-based repayment plans. One key part of his plan calls for helping students and parents refinance their debt at lower interest rates. O’Malley knows of what he speaks. In announcing his proposals, he revealed that his family has accumulated more than $339,200 in student loans, the bulk of which are parent PLUS loans. He and his wife borrowed to educate their daughters, Grace, 24, who attended Georgetown University and is a public school teacher in Baltimore, and Tara, 23, who attended the College of Charleston in South Carolina and is now an administrative assistant for the United Nations Foundation in the District. The couple still has two sons to get through college, William 17, and Jack, 12. When O’Malley was governor of Maryland, he fought to have the state universities freeze tuition. Even with his vast political and legal experience, O’Malley couldn’t win a key argument with his daughters that state schools were a good bargain. “I’m blessed with strong-willed women in my life,” he gently laughed during a phone interview while campaigning in New Hampshire. “I wanted them to go in-state. But I lost the vote.” I can empathize with O’Malley’s dilemma. His father, a World War II veteran, graduated from Georgetown. His daughter pleaded to have the same opportunity, although his father went on the G.I. Bill. And once you allow the first child to go out-of-state, it’s hard to deny the second. We can second-guess the wisdom of the O’Malleys’ decision, and I do. But now that they’ve made it, I hope the family — given their public platform — will use their experience as a cautionary tale that, for most families, it’s not okay to cave to an 18-year-old whose dreams of a particular college will create decades of debt. “I don’t want to hold us up as a metaphor of every family,” O’Malley said. “We are very lucky in that both of us are working and hopefully will continue to work. I think one thing that is true for all of us as Americans, it’s not good for our country or our economy to saddle [families] with the sort of debt that we have. A lot of families don’t have the ability to go into that sort of debt.” Total outstanding student loan debt has reached $1.3 trillion. When we talk about the student-loan crisis, we mostly focus on the amount of debt being accumulated by students. But there’s not enough emphasis on the amount parents are borrowing. PLUS loans for parents have reached almost $69 billion, according to Department of Education data. “Better we have the debt than [our children] have the debt,” O’Malley said. That’s a sentiment many parents hold. And even as public servants, the O’Malleys (Katie O’Malley is a Baltimore District Court judge) may be able to manage the debt load. But are other families really thinking through whether they can? As Consumers Union points out, PLUS loans, which are also available for graduate students, have much higher borrowing limits. The organization, in a letter urging the Department of Education not to lower borrowing standards for PLUS loans, made some important observations. “Loans to graduate students are made on the promise that they will see an increase in salary from their educational attainment that enables them to repay the loans they borrowed,” wrote Suzanne Martindale, a staff attorney for Consumers Union. “Parents, on the other hand, do not see an increase in their incomes from their children’s education. . . . They have no guarantee that their children will help pay the loans back, or will even finish school. For these reasons, allowing parents to borrow many thousands of dollars in PLUS loans raises unique concerns.” We’ve heard promises on the campaign trail this year about helping families afford college. And we do need some legislative intervention so that many people won’t be priced out of a college education. But we also need to press upon parents and their children that dreams can come true without going to colleges that result in a heavy debt load. As we wrapped up our conversation, I asked O’Malley an obvious question. What’s the plan for their sons? “I hope to make a compelling argument with them to choose more affordable options for their parents,” he said. “I may put your column under their pillows.” Hey, governor, I’m willing to do an in-person intervention. *Martin O’Malley’s comeback plot <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/martin-omalley-2016-strategy-policy-119963.html?ml=tl_1> // Politico // Jonathan Topaz and Gabriel Debenedetti – July 10, 2015 * Martin O’Malley, stuck in low single digits in national and early-state polls, has embarked on an aggressive strategy to out-wonk his rivals, sending out a flood of super-specific policy proposals on Wall Street and climate change and more. But fellow Democrats who themselves have slogged through long-shot campaigns aren’t sold. “It’s not going to grab voters’ attentions,” said 2008 presidential candidate and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, of O’Malley’s policy proposals. “Martin O’Malley’s challenge is this: why him and not Hillary Clinton? There’s no good reason,” said Steve Murphy, who was Dick Gephardt’s campaign manager in 2004. The contrast between O’Malley and his rivals can be jarring. On the same day that Bernie Sanders rallied nearly 8,000 raucous supporters in Portland, Maine, O’Malley was on Haitian radio discussing the humanitarian crisis in the Dominican Republic. And while the political world had its eyes fixed on Hillary Clinton’s first nationally televised interview this week, O’Malley was readying to detail policy proposals on debt-free college and financial regulation. Running a distant third behind a popular, entrenched front-runner in Clinton and a surging liberal firebrand in Sanders, O’Malley — whose camp always assumed he would be the progressive alternative in the race — is hoping that he can grab voters’ attention by staking out deeply specific and deeply liberal positions on issues other candidates have yet to weigh in on. Last month, O’Malley released a white paper on climate change that vowed to transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2050 — a bold plan that earned the praise of billionaire Democratic donor and environmentalist Tom Steyer (who has longstanding ties to Clinton and already hosted a fundraiser for her). On Wednesday, he put forth a plan to increase Pell Grants and offer debt-free public higher education within five years. A day later, he released a set of financial regulatory proposals that would, in part, put a greater emphasis on criminal prosecution on Wall Street and institute a three-year revolving door ban on regulators and Wall Street firms. And early next week, the campaign — which has placed significant emphasis on immigration early in the campaign — will release a similarly detailed policy rollout on that issue. Meanwhile, he has also pushed hard on a series of issues that are far from the front of Clinton’s and Sanders’ minds. His statement on providing some relief for Puerto Rico’s debt crisis came days before Clinton or Sanders weighed in, and he remains the only candidate to talk about the crisis in the Dominican Republic. To his team, such issues are moral ones that distinguish O’Malley from his supposedly more poll-driven competitors. O’Malley’s advisers say his attempt to dig in on progressive policy will put him in a strong position in the early-voting states when it comes time for caucus- and primary-goers to actually make up their mind. “We’re going to be policy-heavy,” said top O’Malley strategist Bill Hyers. “Our plan is to do a bunch of policy and have him in Iowa rolling out his plans — talking about them in Iowa and New Hampshire. That’s where we’ll grind it out.” Hyers concedes that the candidate is a virtual unknown — 70 percent of Iowa Democrats in a recent Quinnipiac survey said they didn’t know enough about him to make an opinion. The idea, then, is to continue to introduce the candidate to voters by staying the course and being specific on policy, especially as Clinton draws flak for her vague stances on issues like trade and the Iran deal. The campaign is also presenting O’Malley as more of a heavyweight than Sanders, who harbors a radical past. “I lived through Howard Dean. Al Cranston won the Wisconsin straw poll in 84,” added Hyers — an implicit jab at Sanders, whom several Democrats have compared to Dean and Cranston, who ultimately flamed out after hot starts. “Bruce Babbitt was hot in Iowa. It was Joe Biden at some point. That’s the fun of it.” But Sanders has hardly been vague himself. Forcing specificity from Clinton was a core plank of his strategy from the start, as he — like O’Malley — has refused to go after the front-runner by name with attack ads. Sanders, for example, has said that he wants to raise top marginal tax rates to above 50 percent. He was one of the leaders in Congress leading against fast-track authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has released a proposal on paid sick leave and a 40-hour work week. And since launching his candidacy, he’s introduced legislation to break up so-called Too Big to Fail banks and provide tuition-free college at four-year public colleges. Staking out his own position, O’Malley offered some criticism for the latter plan on Wednesday, saying — again without naming Sanders — that addressing tuition alone wasn’t enough. But the liberal former governor is hardly a red-in-the-face anti-establishment crusader like the Vermont legislator, despite his penchant for railing against Wall Street. Having developed a name for himself back in Maryland as a data-driven executive, the policy roll-outs fit his style better than the massive rallies Sanders has been headlining across the country. “Sanders is basically seen as the anti-establishment candidate,” explained Richardson, who found himself far behind Clinton and Obama — not to mention John Edwards — early in the 2008 race. The New Mexican said he had reviewed O’Malley’s climate plan, and that he has discussed foreign policy with the Marylander as recently as a month ago. “O’Malley is seen as the progressive establishment candidate,” he said. Unaffiliated Democratic strategists who’ve run previous long-shot campaigns aren’t convinced that O’Malley’s in a position to catch up to Clinton, or even Sanders. No number of wonky or lefty policy roll-outs can make up for his name recognition or polling deficits, they say — not to mention the fact that there’s little room on the left as the front-runner continues to work to win over the liberal base. And O’Malley’s organization in Iowa, where caucus mechanisms must be built months in advance, lags as well. “Let’s put it this way, this strategy would not get him a spot on the Republican debate stage,” said Gina Glantz, who ran Bill Bradley’s 2000 long-shot campaign against Al Gore. “She’s doing exactly the same thing,” added Murphy, referring to Clinton. “She’s addressing one issue after the other in comprehensive fashion.” Nonetheless, while many Democrats are skeptical of O’Malley’s ability to pass Sanders anytime soon, Richardson counseled patience. “Let the Bernie Sanders boomlet develop,” he advised. “He can’t stop it anyway, for now.” *How O’Malley Would Let Private Lenders Back Into Federal Student Loans <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasondelisle/2015/07/10/how-omalley-would-let-private-lenders-back-into-federal-student-loans/> // Forbes // Jason Delisle – July 10, 2015 * President Obama won a major victory by kicking banks out of the federal student loan program in 2010. It was no-brainer good policy. Now Governor Martin O’Malley is proposing to let the same banks into the program through the back door. And expensive colleges are likely to pick up a little cash as part of the deal. O’Malley wants to let people with private student loans convert them to federal student loans. The plan is a little light on details (there’s only one sentence on his campaign webpage) but we can assume it works like this. You have a private student loan. You file an application with the U.S. Department of Education to “refinance” your private loan into a federal loan. The federal government pays off your lender and issues you a new loan with the same balance. This loan now has a lower interest rate and you can repay it through income-based repayment or any other repayment plan the government offers. Here is why expensive colleges will like the plan. It makes the limits lawmakers placed on the amount undergraduates can borrow each year in federal loans moot. The federal loan program doesn’t let undergraduates borrow an unlimited amount of money for a variety of good reasons (Parent PLUS loans not withstanding). But under Governor O’Malley’s plan students would max out federal loans and then take out even more private loans. Then they would promptly convert the private loans to federal student loans. That would allow them to enroll in income-based repayment and make progress toward having their erstwhile private student loan forgiven at the expense of taxpayers. Few policies would drive tuition up more. Private lenders are big winners, too. Private lenders do not make loans to anyone at any school. They underwrite, trying to gauge who is likely to repay, who is a good bet, etc. But under Governor O’Malley’s plan they can safely get out of the underwriting business and make loans to everyone. If a borrower gets behind on payments the lender can inform him of the wonderful benefits of refinancing his loan into the federal loan program. Heck, they might even pay him to do so. The federal student loan program can provide him no-questions-asked forbearance or loan forgiveness through income-based repayment. In finance lingo, O’Malley is selling private lenders a put option on every loan they make — taxpayers bear 100 percent of the risk on each and every loan. Make a bad loan; put it to the government at face value. In fact, that’s a lot like how the federal loan program used to work when banks made loans with full government guarantees. Governor O’Malley may be the only progressive who wants taxpayers guaranteeing student loans again. Sadly, some Republican candidates might actually get behind this idea. *O’Malley to speak at candidate forum in Des Moines <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#label/Clips/14e7962bc5f3e3e8> // Des Moines Register // Jason Noble – July 10, 2015 * Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley will speak in Des Moines on July 24 as part of a bipartisan series of candidate forums. O’Malley is the former governor of Maryland and one of several declared candidates for the Democratic nomination. He’ll appear at 11:30 on July 24 at the State Historical Building in downtown Des Moines. He’ll speak and take questions. Attendees may RSVP ahead of the event, but are not required to do so. The candidate forum series is organized by the Iowa Caucus Consortium, an initiative of several Des Moines area organizations — including the Des Moines Register — to provide educational and informational resources on the caucuses. The consortium aims to bring Democratic and Republican candidates alike to Des Moines for free and open-to-the-public events in the months leading up to the Feb. 1 caucuses. *SANDERS* *Bernie Sander’s misleading characterization of a controversial gun law <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/10/bernie-sanders-misleading-characterization-of-a-controversial-gun-law/> // WaPo // Michelle Ye Hee Lee – July 10, 2015 * Jake Tapper: “One issue where your Democratic rivals are starting to hit you is the fact that you have, in the past, sided with the NRA on some gun issues. Earlier this year, the parents of one of the 12 innocent people killed during the Aurora movie theater shooting, they saw their lawsuit to hold ammunition sellers liable for the attack, they saw that dismissed. And one of the reasons was a law that you voted for, which protects manufacturers of firearms and ammunition from being sued. Why did you vote that way?” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.): “Now, the issues that you’re talking about is, if somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer, and that murderer kills somebody with the gun, do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible? Not anymore than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beat somebody over the head with a hammer. That is not what a lawsuit should be about.” — exchange during a CNN interview, July 5, 2015 Sanders’s answer, which came after an aside about the low grade the National Rifle Association gave him and the need for a sensible debate on gun control, was circulated online amid growing attention to his record on gun issues. His vote on the 2005 law is one of the key criticisms from Democrats about his record. Sanders, an Independent running for the Democratic presidential nomination, characterized the law as providing immunity for gun manufacturers from being sued when a gun is misused by a third party. It’s as if a hammer manufacturer were to be held responsible if someone used the hammer to beat someone else, he said. Clearly, there is a difference between using a gun and using a hammer as a weapon. Our goal is not to nitpick or play gotcha, but rather explore the types of protection a gun manufacturer has under this law that would not apply to other consumer-goods manufacturers — hammer or otherwise. How accurate is Sanders’s characterization? The Facts Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005 after a wave of lawsuits filed against gun manufacturers by municipalities and gun-control advocates. Some of this can get technical, so bear with us. Victims accused manufacturers of creating “public nuisance” and not doing enough to ensure safe distribution of guns or prevent the flow of guns into illegal markets. They alleged that manufacturers were oversupplying the industry (and therefore knew that some of the guns would end up on the black market) and that they marketed the guns by promoting attributes that could be associated with criminal activities. Advocates for gunmakers argued that these lawsuits threatened Second Amendment rights and that law-abiding manufacturers should not be held liable for criminal actions of individuals. They pushed for the 2005 law, which generally shielded manufacturers and sellers of firearms and ammunition from civil lawsuits “resulting from criminal or unlawful misuse” of their product by a third party. The law’s proponents, including the NRA, argued it was necessary to block baseless lawsuits that threatened to bankrupt the firearms industry. Opponents said it gave unprecedented blanket immunity and took away consumer rights. The Fact Checker takes no position on the law. The bill passed the House (where Sanders was at the time) 223 to 140, with 59 Democrats voting with the majority. Interestingly, just five years earlier, the Clinton administration had reached an unprecedented deal with a major gun manufacturer, Smith & Wesson, to adopt safety measures. The agreement nearly ruined the company, as revenues declined 40 percent within a year amid an NRA boycott and criticism from gun advocates. The 2005 law does not guarantee blanket immunity, and it has some exceptions. Manufacturers or dealers can be sued if they knowingly sold a product that would be used to commit a crime. They can be sued if they were negligent in selling the product to someone they knew was unfit (i.e., a child or someone who was drunk). They can be sued for another technical negligence claim (“negligence per se”) that relates to the violation of a safety statute. The law bars any other type of negligence claims against a gun manufacturer. Still, it provides a unique federal legal shield that most consumer goods manufacturers do not have. Negligence claims in tort law allow consumers to sue for negligence caused by carelessness, which doesn’t always involve a violation of the law or knowingly entrusting someone unfit to handle the product, said Timothy Lytton, a Georgia State University law professor who specializes in tort law and gun policies. (For example, doctors can be sued for carelessness and negligence in medical malpractice. You can sue a supermarket if you slip and are injured, and the market did not display a “wet floor” sign.) While the law allows victims to sue if there was a design defect or a malfunction with the gun, there have been exceptions. For example, the Illinois Supreme Court in 2009 cited the law in dismissing a case where a young boy playing with his father’s gun accidentally shot and killed his friend. The victim’s family sued the gun manufacturer, saying the gun did not have proper safety features or proper warnings. The court found the plaintiffs did not fit the technical definition in the exception. “If the gun is defectively designed so that when fired it explodes and injures the shooter’s hand, they can sue for that. The suit that’s barred is by a crime victim who wants to say that a different design could have prevented or mitigated the crime,” said Kermit Roosevelt III, a University of Pennsylvania constitutional law professor specializing in Second Amendment and gun-control laws. Few industries have federal liability immunity. Vaccine manufacturers have limited protection from lawsuits if their vaccine led to an injury. The federal government enacted this immunity to encourage companies to produce more vaccines without the fear of lawsuits, for their benefit to public health. Another example is federal protection for the airline industry from lawsuits arising from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But unlike the gun law, both cases established a compensation scheme for victims to recover money for damages. While the law provides protections that no other industry has, courts have been reluctant to impose liability on manufacturers for third-party misuse of the product, said John Goldberg, Harvard Law School professor who specializes in product liability. So the types of lawsuits that Sanders mentioned (for hammers or guns) didn’t have a slam-dunk chance in court before this law came about. Instead, this law ensures that those types of lawsuits can’t be brought against gun manufacturers. Sanders’s spokesman, Michael Briggs, said in a statement: “Bernie’s position is that a manufacturer should not be held liable for the illegal and unintended use of its product.” The Pinocchio Test As Sanders says, under the 2005 law, gun manufacturers are not held responsible if a murderer uses their gun to kill someone. But it does more than that. It gives broad protections to gun manufacturers, including for negligence, and can protect them from being sued in certain types of claims relating to the gun’s design. The Illinois case is one example where this immunity was cited to dismiss a lawsuit over the safety features of a gun that was accidentally fired by a boy. That type of technical protection would not apply to someone using a hammer. Further, Sanders’s comparison makes it seem as if this lawsuit came about solely because people were suing gun manufacturers for making guns that somehow fell in the hands of criminals. But that is not exactly the case. Advocates and cities were suing manufacturers alleging their actions were increasing the risk that guns would fall into criminal hands. The gun industry then responded with legislation to shut down those lawsuits. Sanders’s statement is misleading and a simplification of this complex case. Two Pinocchios *Sanders Makes Play for Caucus States <http://www.wsj.com/articles/sanders-makes-play-for-caucus-states-1436550252> // WSJ // Peter Nicholas – July 10, 2015 * Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been showing up in unexpected places: Colorado, Maine and Minnesota, states that seldom see a candidate at this early point in a presidential-primary campaign. Drawing large, boisterous crowds, Mr. Sanders’s travel itinerary may seem a quixotic hunt for the most liberal pockets of the Democratic Party that relish his anti-Wall Street, pro-tax-and-spend messages. It isn’t. Mr. Sanders is making a play for caucus states rather than traditional primaries. His goal is to mobilize his passionate, grass-roots backers and rack up enough delegates to pose a real challenge to Hillary Clinton. It is a tactic President Barack Obama successfully used against Mrs. Clinton in 2008, which raises the bar for Mr. Sanders. Can he pull off a repeat? “It’s something we’ve thought about for a while,” said Tad Devine, an adviser to the Sanders campaign. “A few thousand people can make a big difference in those early caucus states, so that’s a big part of the strategy.” Of the 57 states and territories that will hold contests in the Democratic primary, about one-third use caucuses to determine the winner. Last month, Mr. Sanders spoke to almost 5,000 people in Colorado, a state tentatively set to hold its caucus on March 1. He addressed more than 7,500 people earlier this week in Maine, where a caucus is now set for March 6. Craig Hughes, a Democratic strategist who served as a Colorado senior adviser to Mr. Obama’s two presidential bids, said the Sanders strategy makes sense, though it isn’t at all certain he can parlay the early enthusiasm into concrete support in the caucuses. “What you saw in Denver was a very large crowd for Sanders, but I don’t see much ability to grow that for him as I see the potential for Hillary here,” Mr. Hughes said. Iowa, the state that kicks off the nomination contests, is also a caucus state, and Mr. Sanders is spending ample time and money there, too. After collecting $15 million in campaign donations in the last quarter, he has hired 27 people in Iowa, compared with five in New Hampshire, which holds a traditional primary election. Mrs. Clinton, who raised three times as much as Mr. Sanders in that same time frame, has 47 organizers on the ground in Iowa. In his book about the 2008 campaign, “The Audacity to Win,” former Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe wrote that “the Clinton campaign was essentially ceding caucus states.” Not this time, her advisers said. One of her most important hires may turn out to be Jeff Berman, who helped execute the 2008 Obama campaign’s strategy of capitalizing on the often arcane caucus rules to maximize his delegate take. Asked to contrast the present-day Clinton campaign with the 2008 model, one senior campaign manager ruefully made the point that this time around, Team Clinton grasps that caucus states can’t be ignored because—no less than states that hold primaries—they help candidates amass the delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist who is now part of the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA Action, recalled Mrs. Clinton’s decision to fly around Iowa in a helicopter at one point in the 2008 race. “You couldn’t have had a worse way to approach Iowans than flying around in a helicopter like the Queen of England,” Mr. Begala said. In April, after announcing her candidacy, Mrs. Clinton visited Iowa before any other state, eschewing a chartered helicopter and opting for a road trip from her New York home in a van she dubbed “Scooby-Doo.” In an interview with CNN this week, Mrs. Clinton said: “One of the things that I learned last time is it’s organize, organize, organize.” She now has a supporter in each of Iowa’s 1,682 election precincts, the campaign said. Still, Mr. Sanders’s large crowds have raised worries inside the Clinton camp. Rightly so, said Troy Jackson, a Maine Democrat. In 2008, he backed Mrs. Clinton; now he supports Mr. Sanders. “Obama never had crowds like that,” he said. *Bernie defends Jeb’s ‘longer hours’ comment <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-jeb-bush-longer-hours-comment-react-119948.html?hp=l3_4> // Politico // Nick Gass—July 10, 2015 * Bernie Sanders on Friday defended Jeb Bush’s remarks that Americans need to work longer hours, acknowledging that Bush was “absolutely correct” if he was referring to the need for more full-time jobs than part-time jobs. “Well, of course we need full-time jobs rather than part-time jobs, but to suggest that people have got to work harder —Chris, here’s the fact: People in the United States of America today are working the longest hours of a people of any major industrialized countries,” Sanders said in an interview on CNN’s “New Day” with Chris Cuomo. Bush came under fire from his presidential race rivals, including Hillary Clinton and Sanders, for his comments late Wednesday, which reminded some of Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” moment. But Bush quickly clarified that he was referring the millions of people who want full-time employment and can’t find it, and has found some success in defusing the situation. In the interview on Friday morning, Sanders also acknowledged that he will not be able to avoid having every part of his personal life scrutinized as he runs for the Democratic presidential nomination. But politicians and the media should not turn it into a soap opera, he said. The self-described democratic socialist candidate addressed a POLITICO Magazine article in which Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs confirmed that Sanders had his only son Levi in a relationship outside of his first marriage. The United States, Sanders said, “faces enormous problems, and I think it’s incumbent upon political leaders and the media to focus on those issues and not make politics into a soap opera.” He also partially defended Democratic rival Hillary Clinton against what he called “unjustified attacks,” urging a focus on the issues rather than the people. At the same time, Sanders noted his policy differences with the former secretary of state and his former Senate colleague. “I am prepared to break up the large financial institutions because I feel that Wall Street has too much power. She has not been clear on that. So you know, I’m not going to be beating her up and attacking her in personal ways,” he said. “I like her.” *The One Point on Which Bernie Sanders Agrees With Jeb Bush <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/the-one-point-on-which-bernie-sanders-agrees-with-jeb-bush> // Bloomberg // Arit John – July 10, 2015 * News flash: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders just said Republican presidential rival Jeb Bush is right about something. Sort of. One day after saying Bush "does not seem to understand what is happening in our economy today," Sanders, Vermont's democratic socialist senator, grudgingly acknowledged Friday that he may actually agree on at least one aspect of the former Florida governor's views. At issue: Bush's much-discussed interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader editorial board on Wednesday in which Bush said that improving the economy means "that people need to work longer hours and through their productivity gain more income for their families." On Friday, CNN's "New Day" host Chris Cuomo asked Sanders if he'd been unfair, given that Bush seemed to be talking about the need for more full-time jobs, as opposed to part-time work. "Of course we need full time jobs rather than part time jobs, but to suggest that people have gotta work harder..." Sanders said, adding that Americans work some of the longest hours of any major industrialized country. "So what we need to do is raise wages and income not force our people, who are already stressed out by long hours, to work even more hours." Cuomo pushed him, and said that Sanders needed to be "consistent" if he wanted to stay above the board of dirty politics. "Well if he is talking about the need for more full-time jobs rather than part-time jobs he's absolutely correct. That's what we have to do," Sanders said. In an earlier statement released after Bush's comment, Sanders said that "[u]nfortunately ... Gov. Bush does not seem to understand what is happening in our economy today." Hillary Clinton also criticized Bush in a tweet: Bush pushed back on Thursday. "You can take it out of context all you want, but high sustained growth means people work 40 hours rather than 30 hours and that by our success they have disposable income for their families to decide how they want to spend it rather than standing in line and being dependent upon government," he said. Sanders was less willing to go after Hillary Clinton. Cuomo mentioned that Clinton has "trust issues"—specifically, a June CNN poll found that 57 percent of Americans don't consider her to be honest and trustworthy. "Look, I have known Hillary Clinton for 25 years. I respect her. I like her," Sanders said. His criticism of her lies with her stances, or lack of stances, on issues like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and breaking up large financial institutions. The interview also touched on a new Politico profile, which reports that Sanders has a son born out of wedlock. Cuomo asked Sanders if he thinks he can continue to run his campaign without opening up more about his personal life. Sanders said he couldn't avoid it, but would rather focus on the issues, given the problems the country is facing. "I think it's incumbent on political leaders and media to focus on those issues and not make politics into a soap opera," he said. *Sanders dings Bush on work, ducks personal questions <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/bernie-sanders-jeb-bush-work-hours/index.html> // CNN // Tom LoBianco – July 10, 2015 * Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders hit Republican contender Jeb Bush for his comments on the productivity of American workers and said he was best positioned to take on the nation's "billionaire class" if elected president. The Vermont senator, who identifies as a Democratic socialist, said that 85 percent of men and 65 percent of women are working more than 40 hours a week. "So what we need to do is raise wages and income, not force more people, who are already stressed out by long hours, to work even more hours," Sanders said on CNN's "New Day". Jeb Bush told The Union Leader in New Hampshire Wednesday that "people need to work longer hours", which quickly drew a blast from frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who accused Bush of not understanding how hard Americans already work. The Bush team explained his comments were taken out of context and said he meant that more part-time workers need full time jobs. When pressed on if he was twisting Bush's comments, which Bush has said were about the availability of good full time jobs an not about American work ethic, Sanders relented. "If he is talking about the need for more full time jobs than part time jobs he is absolutely correct," Sanders said. Sanders has been gaining ground on frontrunner Hillary Clinton steadily, as the liberal wing of the Democratic party has coalesced behind him. As he has inched forward, personal questions from his past have bubbled up in media. Asked about a Politico story on the child he had out of wedlock almost 40 years ago, Sanders deflected, saying he wanted to focus instead on issues. CNN's Chris Cuomo asked Sanders if he believed he could avoid personal scrutiny while running for president. "I'm not being naïve, I understand it, yes," Sanders said. "No, no, I don't think I can avoid it. But this this country faces enormous problems and I think it's incumbent upon political leaders and the media to focus on those issues and not make politics into a soap opera." *Bernie Sanders: The Cable Bill Is Too Damn High <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/10/bernie-sanders-cable_n_7772806.html> // HuffPo // Zach Carter – July 10, 2015 * Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter on Friday accusing big cable companies of using monopoly powers to muscle consumers into paying higher prices. In the letter, addressed to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, Sanders and Warren wrote that mega-mergers have left over 60 percent of Americans with no choice whatsoever when it comes to their cable and Internet providers. This state of things, they wrote, makes it possible for companies to jack up prices without losing customers to competition. Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) also signed the letter. "As the telecommunications industry becomes increasingly concentrated, this lack of choice has resulted in huge price increases and often poor service for consumers," the senators wrote. "There are now de facto telecommunications monopolies throughout the United States." The letter noted that a new merger between Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications would only exacerbate the problem, saying that recent Time Warner price increases suggest the cable giant is already insulated from normal market pressures. Modem rental charges for Time Warner have jumped 203 percent since they were introduced in 2012, according to the letter. The FCC has the power to block the TWC-Charter deal. "Given the lack of incentive for companies to provide better quality service and competitive prices, it is no surprise that individuals rank cable and Internet providers last in customer satisfaction when compared to other companies in other industries," the senators wrote. Sanders and his colleagues asked for the FCC to publish a host of cable and broadband pricing data, so consumers could see how much they pay compared to customers in other areas. They asked the FCC to provide average prices for each state and each cable provider, and also asked the agency to publicize the average prices in urban areas compared to those in rural markets. *Bernie Sanders: Income Tax Proposal To Come “In Two Or Three Weeks” <http://www.buzzfeed.com/christophermassie/sanders-says-income-tax-proposal-to-come-in-two-three-weeks#.tc3Pav34Y> // BuzzFeed // Christopher Massie – July 10, 2015 * Bernie Sanders said on Friday that he would have a concrete proposal for an income tax rate on the highest earners “in two or three weeks.” The Democratic presidential candidate was discussing legislation he has introduced as a senator from Vermont that he says “would end this business of companies being able to store their profits in the Cayman Islands” and tax “Wall Street speculation,” when he was asked to name his preferred tax rate on the upper echelon of individual incomes. “We’re working on that,” Sanders said on a New Hampshire radio station. “Ask me that question in two or three weeks, I will give you a definitive answer. How’s that?” In late May, Sanders said that, under the Eisenhower administration, the top tax rate “was something like 90 percent,” and said he didn’t think that was necessarily too high a rate to reinstate. In June, Sanders alluded to “a comprehensive tax package” his team was working on and said he suspected that it would, “for the top marginal rates, go over 50 percent.” In the interview on Friday, Sanders said that the plan to be released in the coming weeks would “ask the rich to pay a higher tax rate.” “In general, what I can tell you is that when Warren Buffett tells us that he pays an effective tax rate lower than his secretaries or lower than nurses, there’s something wrong with our tax system,” he said, after again refusing to give a specific number. “So yes, my proposal will ask the wealthiest people in this country, who, by and large, are doing phenomenally well right now, while the middle class is disappearing, yes, I will ask the rich to pay a higher tax rate.” *Bernie Sanders Is The Left’s Trump <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/11/bernie-sanders-is-the-left-s-trump.html> // Daily Beast // Ana Marie Cox – July 10, 2015 * Bernie Sanders is the Left’s Donald Trump. Bear with me here. There is a lot they don’t have in common, including where they stand in their respective party’s polls—though Sanders’ slow creep into a distant second is likely to be more sustainable. Still, they have both managed to disrupt their respective nomination races, and they’ve done that because they both have a similar appeal: They’ve tapped into anti-establishment passions with rhetoric that is a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy for some voters. “He has the guts to say what others won’t” could be the slogan for either of them. I don’t want to gloss over the content of that gut-driven bluntness. In Trump’s case, just because he’s saying what others won’t doesn’t mean what he’s saying is true. And it’s fair to point out that Trump’s lowest-common-denominator xenophobia is a sugar high kind populism: it’s cheap and easily reproduced but difficult to sustain. Sanders, on the other hand, offers a chewier and less visceral version of “us-versus-them”: discussions about income inequality and financial regulatory policy don’t create the same kind of direct line to voters’ emotions that Trump’s talk of rapists and thieves travels on. The media is covering them in a similar fashion, too, though that’s mainly a function of how the political media cover campaigns in general. The story is the process, not the messages or ideas. “Analysis” consists of asking, “What this will do the race?” and not, “What does it mean for voters?” Granted, only one of the candidates in question has ideas to cover. Indeed, Sanders reliance on a few big ideas—not personality, not easy outrage—is one of the reasons coverage of Sanders’ rise has an element of arch bemusement. Note The New York Times: “Somehow, Bernie Sanders, the 73-year-old senator from Vermont, has emerged as a king of social media.” Somehow! “I think we need to just cut to the chase and have a real libertarian/conservative go up against Elizabeth Warren or avowed socialist Bernie Sanders.” Trump coverage, of course, is more straightforwardly mocking (I highly recommend the Trump Chrome extension). While everyone wonders what Trump’s rise might do to the GOP race, no one is wondering how it is he got as far as he did. Just ask any of the other, “more serious” candidates, whose reluctance to criticize Trump proves that his only real divergence from the Republican mainstream is stylistic, not substantive. On the other hand, there are real policy differences between Sanders and the Democratic leadership—that’s why he wasn’t a Democrat until recently, after all. Moderate Democrats have been denouncing Sanders with a vigor conspicuously absent from the intraparty Trump conversation: Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill complained, “I very rarely read in any coverage of Bernie that he’s a socialist” and declared him “too liberal” to be president. Put it another way: When Democratic base voters flock to Sanders, they are expressing dissatisfaction what current Democratic policies. When Republican base voters flock to Trump, they are expressing dissatisfaction with Republican rhetoric. But I said I was going to talk about what they had in common, and that’s easy enough here: whether its rhetorically or policy-wise, Trump and Sanders supporters are asking their parties to move away from the center—or, perhaps more clearly stated, away from each other. Indeed, there are those on both sides who long for a Trump-Sanders match-up. It would, on some level, be a battle of caricatures—as defined by the opposing side. And what about the Democrats who would love to see Trump get the nomination? And Republicans who’d like to see Sanders? They envision that contest as referendum more than an election, a chance to finally and fatally eject the other side from the political spectrum. As Glenn Beck put it recently: “I think we need to just cut to the chase and have a real libertarian/conservative go up against Elizabeth Warren or avowed socialist Bernie Sanders. This country could finally make up its mind based on two honest and completely different visions of the future of this country.” A nation born of revolution is given to absolutes, of course. (“Give me liberty or give me death,” no middle ground, etc.) But the Founders never thought we’d be using those words against each other. Beck and others frame the prospect of two extremists as a contest of “visions” but both sides are actually color blind: Everything is black and white. One side is totally wrong; one side is totally right. This zero-sum mentality and vengeful nihilism threaten to turn government into just another WWE show, a cage match of ideologies. Left unspoken in these hyperbolic hypotheticals is what happens if the other guy’s caricature wins. That 50-50 chance of total validation is just too blinding, I guess. But what happens if their own caricature wins, more often than not, is just as vague. It’s standard practice to snigger when asking a supporter of a fringe candidate (though neither Trump nor Sanders are really fringe) what will happen were their dream president actually to sit down in the Oval Office. The objectively ridiculous proposition of a President Sanders or a President Trump actually trying to govern is supposed to destabilize the fantasy. But the attraction of a Sanders or Trump presidency for true believers isn’t the opportunity to govern all of us, but the chance to punish the rest of us. In June, the South Carolina Highway Patrol honor guard carried the mortal remains of the murdered Sen. Clementa Pinckney up the State House steps and into the rotunda. Members of the honor guard flanked the open coffin, spit polished and erect, eyes straight ahead in a silent show of respect as thousands of mourners filed past. A black cloth had been draped over one of the windows to spare anyone who might be offended by the Confederate battle flag flying out front. A bill called the Heritage Act passed in this very building prevented the flag from being lowered even to half-staff, much less taken down without a two-thirds vote of the legislature. But on Thursday, the legislature voted to do just that and set a 24-hour deadline on having it done. On Friday, the honor guard returned, this this time to lower the Confederate battle flag, which had been designed by William Porcher Miles, a onetime mayor of Charleston who had been a prominent “fire-eater,” as the most ardent proponents of slavery and secession leading up to the Civil War were called. The honor guard had performed countless other ceremonies, but this one was a little different. And they had not been given much time to work out exactly how it should go. The flag was being taken down in the first place because it was seen by many people—African-Americans in particular—as a hateful symbol of slavery and oppression. Some rightly view it as a shameful banner of treason. “Nothing was said. I felt like that was appropriate.” But it had been hoisted there in the first place because it is viewed by others—none of them African-Americans—as a symbol of an idealized heritage and history. And the very fact that the honor guard had been chosen to lower it was an implicit nod to those people. At the appointed time on Friday morning, the guard went about lowering the flag with the same ritualistic respect as it would with the Stars and Stripes. Two of the officers took the lowered banner in their white gloved hands. And for a moment, it seemed as if they might fold it as they would an American flag that had covered the coffin of a fellow cop or a U.S. solider who had made the supreme sacrifice. Instead, they rolled it, presumably an echo of the way Confederate regiments furled their battle flags in surrender at the end of the Civil War. A black sergeant was the one who then took the furled banner. He had done this at American flag ceremonies where race was not issue, but it was hard to believe that he had been chosen by chance in this instance. He seemed to be an attempt to compensate for the bigotry associated with what he now carried so solemnly over to the State House steps. The director of the South Carolina Relic Room and Military Museum waited to receive it. For a second, truly terrible moment, the ritual was too much like that performed when the flag from a hero’s coffin is presented to a grieving loved one along with the words, “On behalf of a grateful nation.…” Thankfully, the sergeant uttered not a word. The director, Allen Roberson, was also silent as he took the furled flag. “Nothing was said,” Roberson later told The Daily Beast. “I felt like that was appropriate.” Roberson was escorted up into the State House. “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t trip when I was carrying the flag,” he recalled. He then descended to the basement, where an armored car was waiting to transport the flag to the museum. Upon arriving, Robeson brought the flag in through a back door. The flag was unrolled, smoothed and carefully folded. “So it wouldn’t crease,” Roberson said. The museum’s registrar, Rachel Cockrell, and an intern named John Faulkenberry placed it in an “acid-free textile storage box, padded with acid-free tissue.” The box was stored in the museum’s “secure, climate-controlled Artifact Storage area.” “Locked and alarmed,” Roberson said. 150710-daly-confederate-embed Courtesy of the SC Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum Roberson dismissed as not entirely accurate reports that there had been a tacit agreement as part of a legislative compromise to store the flag in a multimillion-dollar facility funded by the taxpayers—which would include, necessarily, the descendants of slaves. He allowed that there had been some brainstorming with various architects and planners, but nothing had been decided and whatever was ultimately done would not likely be so grand. He noted that he has not been able to get added funding for anything in recent years. “Our budget has not increased at all,” he said. Back at the State House, the flagpole where the banner had flown was now bare, but a monument to the Confederate dead remained. The inscription on the north side reads: “This monument perpetuates the memory, of those who true to the instincts of their birth, faithful to the teachings of their fathers, constant in their love for the State, died in the performance of their duty: Who have glorified a fallen cause by the simple manhood of their lives, the patient endurance of suffering, and the heroism of death, and who, in the dark house of imprisonment, in the hopelessness of the hospital, in the short, sharp agony of the field found support and consolation in the belief that at home they would not be forgotten. Unveiled May 13, 1879” The fallen cause they glorified included sedition and slavery. The people at home included slaves who had suffered horrors that outdid even war. There is also an inscription on the north side: “Let the stranger, who may in the future times read this inscription, recognize that these were men whom power could not corrupt, whom death could not terrify, whom defeat could not dishonor and let their virtues plead for just judgment of the cause in which they perished. Let the South Carolinian of another generation remember that the State taught them how to live and how to die. And that from her broken fortunes she has preserved for her children the priceless treasure of their memories, teaching all who may claim the same birthright that truth, courage and patriotism endure forever.” The truth is they died fighting to deny fellow human beings the right to life and liberty. Their legacy is racism and hate. The flowery falsehoods on the monument remain, now that the flag has been taken down in somber ceremony with white gloved hands and tucked safely away by a very nice museum director in an acid-free box, locked and alarmed. *Bernie Sanders is the Ron Paul of 2016 <http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/247470-bernie-sanders-is-the-ron-paul-of-2016> // The Hill // Eddie Zipperer – July 10, 2015 * Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the Ron Paul of the 2016 election — with his enormous crowds, a network of hardcore supporters and an iconoclasm that seems to transcend the politics-as-usual establishment. But none of that will be enough to carry him to victory. The fringe candidate drawing huge crowds and surging in the polls because he appeals to the party base is nothing new. He'll strut and fret his hour upon the stage and then be heard no more — just like then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) in 2012. Here's how Nina Malika Henderson summed up the state of the Paul campaign in The Washington Post on April 1, 2012: "[E]nthusiastic crowds who love Paul's fierce independence but fail to carry him to victory at the polls. After running in 30 states and gaining a scant 50 delegates, according to the Associated Press, Paul has learned a hard lesson: Crowds don't vote." Sanders is going to learn the same lesson in a few months. Geoffrey Skelley, associate editor of Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, had this to say about Sanders's crowds: Most of the places we've seen him draw huge crowds are exactly the kinds of spots where we might expect it: whiter urban areas like Denver and Minneapolis (compared to most big cities), liberal college towns like Madison, Wis., and now most recently in very white Portland, Maine, the most liberal part of the Pine Tree State. National polling hasn't shown Sanders making in-roads with nonwhite voters, and much of his support is coming from whites who are particularly liberal. Progressive media outlets will continue to cite enormous crowds, cherry-picked state polls and a general feeling of Bernie-mania in order to push the narrative that Hillary Clinton is being seriously challenged. In late 2011 to early 2012, Paul had a media surge very similar to what Sanders is experiencing now. When Paul spoke at UCLA to a crowd of 6,000 to 7,000 people jammed into an over-capacity stadium, one wire service reported that Paul fans who couldn't get in were "climbing nearby trees to see the speech." Stories of Paul's rise in the Iowa polls were ubiquitous for weeks. But you know how the story ends: with former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) coasting over the finish line and beating Paul by a count of nearly 1,400 delegates. Paul had niche appeal, but not mass appeal. Any argument that Sanders will be different — that he'll score the mass appeal that Paul lacked — is two parts hope and zero parts reality. Sanders's power to rise in the polls is going to slam headfirst into the socialist ceiling. It makes no difference what the word "socialism" means to Sanders or his supporters. A Gallup poll from June 22 showed that while 74 percent of Americans would vote for a gay or lesbian presidential candidate, 73 percent would vote for an evangelical Christian and 60 percent would vote for a Muslim, only 47 percent of Americans would vote for a socialist presidential candidate. Then, there's money. If the rest of Sanders's problems don't shut his campaign down, the money problem will. Michael Hagen, associate professor of political science at Temple University, points out that "Sanders's funding situation will make it difficult for him to let Democrats know who he is and what he stands for." The largest differences between Paul and Sanders are the advantages Paul enjoyed, which Sanders does not. In order for Sanders — a candidate on the party's fringe — to win, he would need serious challengers to divide and conquer the Clinton coalition. Former Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-Md.), former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and former Gov. Lincoln Chaffee (D-R.I.) are practically nonexistent. Vice President Biden puts a small dent in Clinton's lead (as we've seen when his name is removed from polls). But Sanders fanatics need Biden and a second establishment challenger to step in. Preferably a big-name Democrat who is within an ideological arm's length of Clinton. My goal is not to pour cold water on the hopes of Sanders fans. It is simply to hold a mirror up to nature and present the reality of his situation — a reality being ignored by the left-wing media where many Sanders fans turn to for their news. Partisan news sources are food for intellectual dishonesty. The real story about candidates like Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders is the same every four years: big crowds, big hype, big loss. *Sanders: ‘We have got to apologize for slavery’ <http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sanders-we-have-got-to-apologize-for-slavery/article/2568017> // Washington Examiner // Barbara Boland – July 10, 2015 * "As a nation, we have got to apologize for slavery" Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said during a recent Sirius XM interview. Host Joe Madison of Sirius XM's "The Black Eagle" asked Sanders, "If elected president of the United States, would you apologize for slavery?" "You know, obviously, nobody in this generation is involved in slavery," replied Sanders. "But as a nation, slavery is one of the abominations that our country has experienced. There is no excuse. What can we say about it? It was horrific, it killed millions of people who never made it even across the oceans, and it destroyed just the lives of so many people." "So as a nation – and I don't think as a president, but as a nation – we have got to apologize for slavery, of course," Sanders said. "So is that a yes or a no?" asked Madison. "Well, it's … I mean … I'm not exactly sure what it means," replied Sanders haltingly. "As a nation, we have got to apologize for slavery; and of course, the president is the leader of the nation." While a recent poll found that Sanders trailed Democrat rival Hillary Clinton by only 12 points in New Hampshire, Sanders garners the support of only 5 percent of black Democrats according to a poll by Fox News. The latest RealClearPolitics poll shows Clinton leading Sanders in the Democrat nomination by 48 points. *Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders defends past votes on gun control measures <http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/bernie-sanders-defends-votes-gun-control-measures-article-1.2287649> // NY Daily News // Cameron Joseph – July 10, 2015 * Bernie Sanders defended his past opposition to some gun control measures in a testy exchange Thursday night. The Vermont senator and fast-rising progressive primary challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination doubled down on his past votes to block people from suing gun manufacturers and allow people to check guns in their baggage on Amtrak trains. Sanders was confronted at an appearance by Honora Laszlo, the local chairwoman of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, who criticized him for his votes and statements opposing some gun control measures. “If somebody has a gun and somebody steals that gun and shoots somebody, do you really think it makes sense to blame the manufacturer of that weapon?” Sanders said, before he and Laszlo began talking over one another. “If somebody assaults you with a baseball bat, you hit somebody over the head, you’re not going to sue the baseball bat manufacturer,” Sanders continued. “There’s going to have to be some compromises on both sides. So I don’t apologize for that vote." Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, is a hardline liberal on most issues. His economic populism has been earning him plaudits from progressives, generating enthusiasm with the liberal Democratic base and pumping up his poll numbers in early voting states. But he has a mixed record on gun control, and Clinton is to his left on an issue that’s crucial to many progressives. The senator touted his votes to ban assault weapons, create instant background checks and close the gun show loophole, arguing that Democrats need to end the culture wars over guns to get “common-sense solutions” through. “We can argue all that we want between Vermont and Montana and urban America about guns. We are not going to succeed,” he said. Laszlo said she’d been a longtime Sanders fan and told the Daily News afterward that she arrived hoping he would walk away from his past positions because she’s not crazy about Clinton. “He was dishonest in the way he talked about it. He is using this language that the NRA and their supporters use to polarize people,” she said. “I really hoped that if I gave him the chance to walk those statements back that he would, and instead he just really threw a bunch of smoke out.” *Bernie’s Big Break With the Left on Guns <http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2015/07/10/bernies-big-break-with-the-left-on-guns> // US News and World Report // David Catanese – July 10, 2015 * As a lifelong Bernie Sanders fan, Honora Laszlo was hoping for the best when she came to a forum here Thursday night to challenge the Vermont senator and presidential candidate on his gun control position. The avowed socialist Sanders voted in 2005 to prohibit lawsuits against gun manufacturers when crimes are committed with their weapons. In the wake of the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, he told a home-state media outlet that stronger gun control legislation wouldn't have prevented the shootings. This bothered Laszlo, a member of the local chapter for Gun Sense In America, who agrees with Sanders on virtually every other issue. So she stood up to pointedly pin him down on the matter, seeking a conversion or at least a concession. Instead, she got a confrontation – which illuminated Sanders' weakest spot with liberals in his long-shot quest for the Democratic Party nomination. Laszlo first wanted to know how Sanders could claim that further gun control measures wouldn't prevent future mass casualty tragedies. She then pressed for an explanation on his 2005 vote. A defender of the Second Amendment from a rural state, Sanders explained he knows tens of thousands of his constituents who hunt and target practice safely and lawfully. He stressed he has voted for a ban on assault weapons, in favor of instant background checks and to close the gun-show loophole covering private sales. But not unlike many conservatives from the heartland of America, Sanders asserted that it would be folly to make Burlington and Boston live under the same gun laws. "The overwhelming majority of people who hunt know about guns and respect guns and are law-abiding people. That's the truth," he said. "We will not succeed on this terribly important issue if we continue the cultural warfare between urban America and rural America." But his answer on why gun manufacturers should be shielded from civil lawsuits is what really irked Laszlo. "If somebody sells you a baseball bat and you hit somebody over the head, you're not going to sue the baseball bat manufacturer," Sanders said, to a smattering of applause among a mostly liberal audience. "I don't apologize for that vote." Afterward, Laszlo called that analogy "ridiculous" and felt Sanders was employing language that mimicked the "dog-whistling" of the National Rifle Association. (The lawmaker's current grade from the NRA is still an F.) "[Baseball bats] have other uses. The guns we're talking about only are designed to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time," she says. "It's not about whether people like guns or don't. This honest conversation he's talking about is not at all rural versus urban because there's a lot of people that are killed in rural communities all the time." Whereas Sanders posited that he had a balanced record on gun control that heeds to his state's culture but acknowledges the nationwide problem, Laszlo found his language as polarizing as some on the right. "He reinforces the idea in people on the other side of the divide that this is about people hating them and about people hating guns. This is not. This is about safety," she says. A super PAC supporting former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has also identified gun control as Sanders' weak spot, running an ad targeting the very issue concerning Laszlo. "Bernie Sanders is no progressive when it comes to guns," it blares. Additionally, Hillary Clinton has been more vocal on gun violence in recent weeks, promising to speak out against the "gun lobby" and "uncontrollable use of guns in our country." She has yet to directly frame a contrast with Sanders. But the line of attack hasn't gained serious traction yet, mostly because liberals have prioritized Sanders' withering message of economic inequality over all else. "These Vermonters like their guns, but ya know, we go along with that," says Madi Green, a Sanders fan in the audience who also disagrees with his gun control stand. "You just say, 'OK, they're hunters,' you pardon them.' But Laszlo isn't giving him a pass. She was yearning for him to change her mind: "He absolutely could've, if he had talked about it in a different way." Instead, she walked out of Thursday's forum unable to support him. "A lot of us were super Bernie Sanders supporters before," she says. "We were all really disappointed to hear him talk about it in this way that is boilerplate NRA language." *Did Bernie Sanders vote against background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases? <http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/10/generation-forward-pac/did-bernie-sanders-vote-against-background-checks-/> // PolitiFact // Linda Qiu – July 10, 2015 * As hype around Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders grows, political opponents and media reporters are once again suggesting the socialist Vermont senator is a gun nut. "One issue your Democratic rivals are starting to hit you with is the fact that you have, in the past, sided with the NRA on some gun issues," CNN’s Jake Tapper said in a July 5 interview with Sanders, alluding to an attack ad paid for by a pro-Martin O’Malley group. "Bernie Sanders voted against the Brady Bill -- background checks and waiting periods," said the attack, which first aired June 25. "Bernie Sanders is no progressive when it comes to guns." Sanders’ record on guns has been the subject of liberal ire ("Bernie Sanders, gun nut") as well as conservative glee ("Sorry liberals, Bernie Sanders is a gun nut"). So we wanted to take a look at his vote on the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, a landmark piece of gun control legislation. The Brady Act mandated that everyone who wanted to buy a handgun had to wait five days while local law enforcement ran criminal background checks. (After 1998, the firearm dealers became responsible for conducting the checks.) But before Brady became law, it underwent many transformations. Sanders, elected to the House of Representatives in 1990, voted on it numerous times, virtually almost always in opposition: • In May 1991, Sanders voted against a version that mandated a seven-day waiting period for background checks, but the bill passed in the House. • The Senate decreased the waiting period to five days and the bill returned to the House. In Nov. 1991, Sanders voted against that version. Though it passed in the House, the Senate didn’t muster enough votes. The Brady bill and its gun control stance remained in limbo during 1992. • After some back and forth, a version of the bill resurfaced that reinstated the five day waiting period. In November 1993, Sanders voted against that version but for an amendment imposing an instant background check instead (seen by some as pointless, as the technology for instant checks didn’t exist at the time). • He also voted against an amendment that would have ended state waiting periods, and for an amendment giving those denied a gun the right to know why. • The final compromise version of the Brady bill -- an interim five-day waiting period while installing an instant background check system -- was passed and signed into law on Nov. 30, 1993. Sanders voted against it. According to Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ reason for opposing the Brady bill was two-fold. First, he believed implementing a national waiting period was federal overreach. And second, he was doing his job. "He wasn't opposed to states having (waiting periods) if they wanted to. The Republicans wanted to repeal waiting periods in states that had them, and Bernie voted that down," Weaver said. "He said he would be against waiting periods, and he kept his word to the people of Vermont." In April 1991, Sanders’ then-chief of staff Anthony Pollina echoed the idea that Sanders was simply representing the will of his constituents. "Bernie’s response is that he doesn’t just represent liberals and progressives. He was sent to Washington to present all of Vermont," Pollina said. "It’s not inappropriate for a congressman to support a majority position, particularly on something Vermonters have been very clear about." The Green Mountain State, though left-leaning, has a high gun ownership rate and lax gun control laws (as well as a low homicide rate). That and Sanders’ own personal views are reflected in his overall voting record, experts told us. "As a rural state with a large number of hunters and other gun owners, Vermont has been less liberal on guns than on most other issues, historically," explained Bertram Johnson, a professor of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont. "He seems to support more regulation of guns than the U.S. presently has, but he recognizes his constituents’ preferences so does not make gun control a priority." "I think he has disappointed many progressives in Vermont with his gun positions, which sort of walk a middle line – and angering both sides through the years," said Chris Graff, the former Vermont Associated Press bureau chief. "Gun control is a tough issue in Vermont for all politicians." Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, whose 2004 presidential bid is often compared to Sanders’ 2016 run, received high marks from the National Rifle Association. Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy also voted against the Brady bill. For his part, Sanders has voted to tighten gun control about half the time, and to protect Second Amendment rights the other half. Here are his votes on key gun bills in his 25 years in Congress (bold reflects a pro-gun control position): Sanders’ moderate stance is noted by firearm enthusiasts and gun control advocates alike. Former NRA research coordinator Paul Blackman says the group doesn’t consider Sanders "an anti-gunner," and he’s received mixed marks from NRA ranging from a C- to F. Brady Campaign president Dan Gross says Sanders has shown suppleness and evolution since those first Brady votes and added he isn’t a "gun lobby lapdog." Experts agreed that on guns, Sanders’ views are to the right of his Democratic rivals. "When it comes to guns, he’s not Ted Cruz, but he believes federal policy should be less intrusive than Martin O’Malley or Hillary Clinton," said Eric Davis, who studies Vermont politics at Middlebury College. "Guns are not an important issue for him, because they don’t fit into the class-based framework that Bernie looks at politics through." Our ruling An attack ad said, "Bernie Sanders voted against the Brady Bill -- background checks and waiting periods." The Brady bill imposed a five-day waiting period for would-be purchasers of handguns. Between 1991 and 1993, Sanders voted against it five times. He did, however, vote for a version of the bill that imposed instant background checks, and against an amendment that repealed state background checks. Experts noted Sanders’ votes were representative of Vermont’s gun owners and gun laws. Since the 1990s, his record on gun control is mixed. We rate the ad’s claim Mostly True. *GOP Officials Publicly Denounce Bernie Sanders’ Obamacare Expansion, Quietly Request Funding <https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/06/gop-senators-support-sanders-obamacare-expansion/> // The Intercept // Lee Fang – July 10, 2015 * he conventional wisdom on Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is that he’s a charming if impractical dreamer, a pie-in-the-sky socialist who’s good at inspiring young people and aging hippies, but hopeless at the knife fighting that real-life politics requires. Despite the inherent limitations of a self-described democratic socialist who eschews the norms of Beltway fundraising, the Democratic presidential candidate from Vermont has won legislative victory after victory on an issue that has been dear to him since his days as Burlington’s mayor. That issue is the simultaneously benign and revolutionary expansion of federally qualified community health clinics. Over the years, Sanders has tucked away funding for health centers in appropriation bills signed by George W. Bush, into Barack Obama’s stimulus program, and through the earmarking process. But his biggest achievement came in 2010 through the Affordable Care Act. In a series of high-stakes legislative maneuvers, Sanders struck a deal to include $11 billion for health clinics in the law. The result has made an indelible mark on American health care, extending the number of people served by clinics from 18 million before the ACA to an expected 28 million next year. As one would expect, the program was largely met with plaudits from patients and public health experts, but it has also won praise from even the biggest Obamacare critics on Capitol Hill. In letters I obtained through multiple record requests, dozens of Republican lawmakers, including members of the House and Senate leadership, have privately praised the ACA clinic funding, calling health centers a vital provider in both rural and urban communities. To Sanders, the clinics have served as an alternative to his preferred single-payer system. Community health centers accept anyone regardless of health, insurance status or ability to pay. They are founded and managed by a board composed of patients and local residents, so each center is customized to fit the needs of a community. No two health centers are alike. In rural North Carolina, ACA-backed health centers now provide dental and nutrition services, while in San Francisco, the clinics provide translation services and outreach for immigrant families. In other areas, they provide mental health counseling, low-cost prescription drugs, and serve as the primary care doctors for entire counties. They have also served as a platform for innovation, introducing electronic medical record systems and paving the way with new methods for tracking those most susceptible for heart disease and diabetes. Author John Dittmer, in The Good Doctors, traces the history of the modern health center to the civil rights activists who ventured into the South during the early 1960s. The activists were seen as outside agitators, and local doctors refused to treat them. As a solution, volunteer bands of physicians were organized by a group called the Medical Committee for Human Rights. Beyond treating the civil rights workers, the MCHR physicians were struck by the stark disparity in health services, encountering many African-Americans who had never seen a doctor before in their lives. The activist physicians returned to the South after the “Freedom Rides” to found a small clinic in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, and by doing so, began a movement to launch health clinics across the country in underserved areas. Winning support from President Lyndon Johnson’s Office of Economic Opportunity, the clinics became part of Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” Over the years, health centers have gained support on a bipartisan basis. Health centers secured critical funding from the efforts of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and both George W. Bush and John McCain campaigned on pledges to expand them. Sanders’s place in health clinic history will be remembered for his forceful role in the winter of the health reform debate. In December 2009, tensions ran high as Congress inched closer to a final health reform deal. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., tapped Sanders to help win support from liberals who thought the bill was too weak as well as from Democrats from rural states who were facing mounting pressure. More funding for community health centers, Sanders argued, was a win-win solution for both camps, since the program would ensure access to health care for even the most remote areas of the country while also helping those without insurance. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., among others, held out to the very last moment. Two days before the Senate voted to break a Republican filibuster of the bill, Reid called on Sanders to make his case on the Senate floor. Sanders, in typical fashion, said the legislation was far from perfect, but thundered about the common-sense need for health centers, citing the acute demand for more primary care doctors, the cost-savings from patients who would otherwise use the emergency room for the common cold, the patient-centered model of clinics, and so on. Senate Democrats rallied and overcame the Republican filibuster. Another turning point came several weeks later, when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won a special election in an upset victory, ending the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority. Brown’s election brought Democrats close to despair, because lawmakers could only use a procedure called reconciliation to pass the law. Such a move would keep chances for passage alive while foreclosing any chance of enacting the much stronger legislation that originated in the House of Representatives through a conference committee. For progressives, it was a painful blow that not only sealed the defeat of the Public Option insurance program but also removed many robust provisions they had worked hard to include. Again called upon to work out a solution with House liberals, with whom Sanders enjoys a strong working relationship, the Vermont senator forged a deal to build support for the bill by focusing on health clinics. Daniel Hawkins, vice president of the National Association of Community Health Centers, recalls that in the end Sanders was able to negotiate with Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., to increase health clinic funding through a special technical amendment that could modify the reconciliation Senate bill through a simple majority vote. The technical amendment passed, with $9.5 billion targeted for health center operations and $1.5 billion for construction and renovation projects. The House passed the final Senate bill, and President Obama signed the legislation with $11 billion in health clinic funding into law on March 23, 2010. “There was no one who played a more important role than Senator Sanders,” Hawkins says, remembering Sanders’s constant lobbying of other lawmakers to support the funding. Although the health reform has transformed the funding of local health clinics, few patients even realize that the changes have occurred as a result of the law, because few aspects of the health reform are explicitly branded as being part of the ACA. That relative invisibility has shielded health clinic funding from the hyper-partisan attacks faced by other provisions of the law. But it has also allowed Republican opponents of Obamacare to play a two-faced game. Every single congressional Republican has voted to repeal the entire bill, health center funding included. But many have taken credit for popular local health clinic programs funded by the ACA, without disclosing the source of the funds. Others have written letters expressing their support for the money. As I reported previously for The Nation, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., among other Republicans, authored letters to the Obama administration to recommend ACA funding for local health clinics. Now, a new batch of letters, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows other requests by GOP leaders. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the House Republican whip, for instance, signed onto a letter with other members of the Louisiana congressional delegation to ask the Obama administration for health center funding in New Orleans. The proposed clinic, the letter noted, would build a graduate medical training program, a proposal that “will attract not only more citizens back to our community but provide critical training opportunities for our region’s future healthcare workforce.” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the number two leader in the Senate, wrote at least 17 letters to the administration asking for funding, in cities such as Lubbock and Houston, for a wide range of programs, including clinics devoted to low-income rural residents and Asian-Americans in Texas. Senators Mark Kirk, R-Ill., Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., David Vitter, R-La., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., made similar requests. It’s no wonder that politicians from rural states such as Texas would seek community health centers to better serve their constituents. A recent report from the Texas A&M School of Public Health found that only 9 percent of physicians practice in rural areas. Many rural Texans live in areas that are more than 30 minutes from the nearest hospital, which dramatically raises mortality rates in cases of medical emergencies. Still, press releases from GOP officials have lashed out at the Affordable Care Act’s health center funding as some sort of “slush fund.” Regardless of the politics, the success of health centers has been particularly satisfying for Sanders, who can simply point to his own state as a reminder of its impact. One in four Vermonters are now served by more than 50 health centers throughout the state, according to the senator’s office. Just last month, a new federally qualified health clinic opened in Shoreham, Vermont, to provide dental care, physicals and medication for common diseases. Though his own role in securing the funds for the ACA is barely mentioned on his Senate website, the image gallery is adorned with pictures of Sanders beaming a smile as he breaks ground and cuts ribbons for various health clinic openings in Vermont. *WEBB* *Jim Webb arrives in the age of Sanders and Trump <http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/247489-jim-webb-arrives-in-the-age-of-sanders-and-trump> // The Hill // Bernie Quigley – July 10, 2015 * Years ago, when I went to the Baptist South to work at a college, the country women who came down from the hills to work in our offices offered life advice as I, coming into the country from New York City, seemed likely to need it. Which I did. Like when our last child was about to be born, they would ask, "Did you get your girl yet?" Actually, no. All boys so far. "She'll come on the moon," they would say. And as I recall, she did come on the full moon. They would often advise, "When God closes a door, he opens a window," which was pretty metaphysical stuff but might be as accurate as any historical hypothesis: Things begin again where they end, and the world starts again right there as if from scratch. It came to mind yesterday afternoon, when South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) announced that the Confederate battle flag would be removed from the State House. Fifty years ago it went up, not so much to respect the tradition of honor and bravery in America's most difficult and important moment, but to repudiate congressional passage of the civil rights efforts. The Confederate flag, shorn of original intent, symbolically represented that counterforce and yesterday it ended. So it was an auspicious day for Jim Webb (D), former Virginia senator and secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, who announced last week that he will run for president, to make his public debut in a morning interview on "CBS This Morning." The battle flag has "long been due to come down," he said. Webb had been criticized on comments recently on the history of the South and the Confederate flag. And it was a good interview. It slowed things down. Webb explained his thinking as the interviewers egged him on to speed it up and get to it: How you gonna beat Hillary, that's what we're talking about. But that was not what Webb was talking about. When Webb cited statistics about slave ownership and participation of the Civil War, he explained himself, citing the master historian John Hope Franklin, bringing his own tempo to the discussion. It may have been one of those days yesterday when the South awakened as if from a great sleep, or another day, possibly beginning a new era in which the South will fight for its life and our own. As oddly enough, history has turned in the last few weeks and Webb comes to us in that turning. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and celebrity entrepreneur and politico Donald Trump enter fate virtually at the same moment. The mainstream media tell us not to worry — they will soon go away (it is their job to say so) — but one can look with some disgust today at former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush on stage together, Bush declaring that former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, both candidates for president, will "elevate the discourse." It is, as might be heard in the hills, "enough to gag a horse." Instead, for whatever else might be said about these two, Sanders and Trump, they transcend the painful banality of Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush and awaken new energies. Energies, however, which suggest or approximate the formulation of the the last world more than a hundred years ago, when Leon Trotsky was writing his first dramatic prose in Russia and Gabriele D'Annunzio rode bareback on the beach to the rise of fascism in Italy. Sanders has hundreds of thousands of Facebook followers and has commandeered the millennials. Trump comes at a time when at least two dozen American states in the middle and north of Texas are looking for a dramatic, public figure to oppose the federal government on a garden variety of issues. They will not go away. It is Jeb Bush will go away. Hillary Clinton will go away. Like Haile Selassie, god king of Ethiopia, an old antique lost in the attic of history, they are suddenly caught in history's cross fires and will remain mystified to the very end about their sudden irrelevance. Said here in The Hill recently, as the Confederate flag comes down, the Gadsden flag goes up. We face a coming era of civil disobedience, commentator Pat Buchanan writes this week, but this time it will be conservatives. Indeed, it is well underway as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) brings an impressive posse of heartland governors to challenge the president's executive order on immigration. The idea has caught on. As The Hill reports, "State legislators around the country have introduced more than 200 bills aiming to nullify regulations and laws coming out of Washington, D.C., as they look to rein in the federal government." This movement needs a dramatic (flamboyant) public spokesperson and it will be Trump. And New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) today rallies the major cities against the governors, in coordination with the president and the federal government. He likewise needs a dramatic, charismatic public figure as spokesperson and that surely is to be Sanders. This is where Webb enters history, and he arrives with a sterling endorsement by one of the most respected scholars and commentators today, Andrew Bacevich. Of all proposed candidates, writes Bacevich, "Only Webb has the bona fides to promote a serious debate that looks beyond bogus issues such as Benghazi." Possibly it is nature that sends the single indispensable warrior to us at times like this, as the women of Appalachian hills will say, to open a window. That warrior is Jim Webb. *OTHER* *Bill Clinton’s Candid Views of the Political Press <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/10/bill-clintons-candid-views-of-the-political-press/> // NYT // Amy Chozick – July 10, 2015 * Hillary Rodham Clinton’s relations with the political news media had been tense long before she declared her candidacy in April, and her campaign’s efforts to try and improve those relations have backfired at times. On Thursday, Bill Clinton provided a candid look at how the former first couple felt about the role the news media played in the presidential campaign. At a joint event in Dallas alongside George W. Bush, Mr. Clinton said that part of the nation’s problem was a news media driven by the belief that “conflict is better than concord.” Mr. Bush blamed the political divisiveness on candidates’ impassioned surrogates and the Internet granting them a veil of anonymity to hurl nasty attacks. But Mr. Clinton ultimately put the blame squarely on the political press. “Let’s suppose we were in a campaign against each other,” he said to his predecessor. “He would have his narrative and I would have mine and each of us would try to convince you that our narrative was better than the other. That’s O.K. “But the people covering the campaign, they develop a narrative, too, a storyline, and it’s almost impossible for the real story to be the same as the storyline,” Mr. Clinton said. “It’s very hard for the American people to be well informed if the storyline swamps the real story.” Mr. Clinton did not specifically mention Mrs. Clinton’s campaign (except for saying “I know who I want to win”) and he did not discuss recent articles about her use of private email at the State Department and foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. His comments come just days after Mrs. Clinton tried to begin a more accessible phase in the campaign, by sitting down on Tuesday with CNN’s Brianna Keilar in her first national interview. In his remarks, Mr. Clinton also echoed a frequent and widely held complaint that the political press is too focused on the horse race of who is ahead in the campaign rather than policy and issues. *Latinos Gather For NCLR Conference Amid Political Spotlight <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/upshot/class-or-ideology-my-conversation-with-bernie-sanders.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0> // // NYT – Upshot // Griselda Nevarez – July 11, 2015* An estimated 2,000 Latinos are expected to attend the National Council of La Raza's annual conference, which kicks off Saturday in Kansas City, Missouri. NCLR prides itself as the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. The four-day conference is garnering the national political spotlight - the top three Democratic presidential candidates will address the Latino advocates and leaders gathered at the event. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is scheduled to speak Monday morning at a town hall forum. Also speaking Monday during a luncheon are former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is considered the Democratic front-runner in the race for president, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley. The candidates are "expected to address issues vital to Latinos and all Americans: jobs and the economy, civil rights, immigration, education and more," according to NCLR. Republican presidential candidates were invited to attend but none are scheduled to speak. The conference comes several weeks after Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, was the only Republican to speak at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials' annual conference in Las Vegas. Sanders and Clinton also spoke at the NALEO conference. It also comes as at a time when Latino leaders are urging Republican presidential candidates to counter remarks surrounding Donald Trump after his controversial comments that Mexico is sending "rapists" and "criminals" to the U.S. The conference takes place in Missouri, a state which has experienced strong Latino growth over the last few years. Currently, Latinos make up nearly 4 percent of the state's population and 10 percent of Kansas City residents. Between 2000 and 2010, Missouri's Latino population grew by 79.2 percent, according to the U.S. Census. *DNC Chair Says Candidates Must Meet ‘Threshold’ For Debates, Though Criteria And Dates Still Unclear <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/10/democratic-debate-criteria_n_7772156.html?1436561457> // HuffPo // Michael Calderone – July 10, 2015 * Democratic presidential candidates will have to meet a certain “threshold” to participate in the party’s six scheduled primary debates, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Thursday, though she did not specify which criteria, such as state or national polling, will be used to determine who qualifies. “It’ll be a threshold that’ll be expansive and allows for the maximum inclusion of our major party candidates," Wasserman Schultz told MSNBC’s Ari Melber. She said the DNC hasn’t “quite finished formulating the details” for the debates, including specific dates, locations and media sponsors. The lack of clarity has been frustrating to both campaigns and major TV networks, the latter of which produce the debates and need to book venues and handle logistical details well in advance. In May, the DNC announced plans to hold six primary debates, four of which would be held in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The DNC said debates would begin in "the fall of 2015," though didn't specify when. The first Republican debate, sponsored by Fox News, is scheduled to take place less than four weeks from now, with the second and third GOP contests planned for September (CNN) and October (CNBC). The DNC’s plan drew criticism from Democratic presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who urged Wasserman Schultz to accelerate the schedule and start debates during the summer, as well as to consider including Republican contenders. “I believe we need to go beyond the bounds of traditional party debates,” Sanders wrote in a letter. It's understandable Sanders would want more debates given that national media exposure likely benefits him and any candidates not named Hillary Clinton. She already has worldwide name recognition, is a clear front-runner in the polls, and presumably has the most to lose by getting on the debate stage. Some Democrats have suggested the DNC is protecting Clinton by sanctioning only six debates. In response to Sanders' request, a DNC spokeswoman reiterated on June 1 that the committee would continue with the six-debate framework and said more details would be provided "in the coming weeks.” The Republican schedule, meanwhile, has been settled since January. The Republican National Committee announced plans to hold nine debates, along with their locations, media sponsors and each month they’d take place. The RNC also announced that three additional debates could be sanctioned depending on the circumstances next year. Though the Republicans' schedule was rolled out smoothly, the debates haven't been without controversy. Fox News' decision to limit its primetime debate to only candidates ranking in the top 10 in national polls has drawn criticism from campaigns arguing that the barrier for entry is placing too much emphasis on national name recognition rather than early state campaigning. Both the RNC and DNC are taking a firmer hand with the debate process by penalizing candidates who participate in non-sanctioned debates by not allowing them in sanctioned events. Candidates may attend forums in which they don't directly engage with one another. Democratic candidates appeared in over two dozen debates in 2008, which included repeated verbal slugfests between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Republican candidates debated 20 times in 2012, a grueling process that party leaders want to avoid this cycle. *Hillary and her rivals to meet with union leaders <http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hillary-and-her-rivals-to-meet-with-union-leaders/article/2568030> // Washington Examiner // Sean Higgins – July 10, 2015 * Front-running Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her top challengers, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, will meet privately with the AFL-CIO's executive council at the end of July. Union leaders will press the candidates on their stances, particularly on international trade, at the meeting in Silver Spring, Md., Reuters reported. That will be a tricky issue for Clinton, who has tried to stay above both the recent congressional fight over Trade Promotion Authority legislation and the looming one over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal. Clinton has not taken definitive positions on either. Labor leaders strongly oppose both, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has said trade will be crucial to 12 million-member labor federation's presidential endorsement. Sanders, I-Vt., has consistently and loudly opposed President Obama's trade agenda. O'Malley opposes both as well. "There is no middle ground, and the time for deliberations is drawing to a close. In the 2016 campaign, there will be no place to hide for those who aspire to lead America," Trumka said in an April speech at the AFL-CIO's Washington headquarters on trade and the election. Asked after the speech if he was calling on Clinton to issue a clear statement on Trade Promotion Authority, Trumka told the Washington Examiner, he was referring to "all candidates." He added later that Clinton "would have to respond like every candidate." Clinton, nevertheless, did not issue a clear statement. Her status as the front-runner far ahead of all other Democratic candidates in the polls has made liberal groups reluctant to criticize her. Sanders has gained in recent polls, though, and the prospect of Vice President Joe Biden entering the race means she may not be able to count on that advantage forever. Trade is treacherous territory for Clinton. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, used a version of Trade Promotion Authority to help secure passage of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement in 1994, but she voted against renewing the authority in 2002 when she was a New York senator. Coming out in opposition of the Trans-Pacific Partnership would put Clinton at odds with the administration where she served as the top official on international relations and took part in the deal's negotiations. Supporting it would put her at odds with much of the party's base as she tries to lock down the party's presidential nomination with a minimum of drama. She has tried to adopt a more skeptical position on trade in recent months, but has left open the possibility that she could support the administration's agenda. *GOP* *DECLARED* *BUSH* *Jeb Bush Draws on Family Dynasty for Fund-Raising Efforts <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/us/politics/jeb-bush-draws-on-family-dynasty-for-fund-raising-efforts.html?ref=politics> // NYT // Nicholas Confessore – July 10, 2015 * The Bush people arrived by private plane, black car and finally old-fashioned trolley, shuttled in by the hundreds for a bonding ritual unlike anything else in contemporary politics. They posed on the lawn for pictures with Barbara Bush, the former first lady. They dined on lobster rolls and burgers, traded business cards with eminent executives and former ambassadors, and basked in the inner sanctum of the most successful political dynasty in history. “This is to the Bushes what Hyannis Port is to the Kennedys,” said Dirk Van Dongen, a lobbyist in Washington, making his first journey to the Bush family compound. In his early months as a candidate, Jeb Bush seemed unsure of how tightly to embrace the family mantle, dodging questions about the record of his older brother, George W. Bush, as president, eschewing his surname on bumper stickers and declaring at his campaign kickoff that “not a one of us deserves the job by right of résumé, party, seniority, family or family narrative.” But Jeb Bush is now seeking both advantage and refuge in the trappings of a dynasty, eagerly deploying the unique political assets of a family that has already supplied two United States presidents and that hopes to produce a third. His father, his mother, his wife and even his son have raised money for the campaign or for his “super PAC,” tapping into a vast network of donors that began with the Bush family’s Christmas card mailing list. And the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport — for decades the ultimate V.I.P. room in Republican politics — is now Mr. Bush’s reward to bestow. On Monday, the last Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, dined there with Mr. Bush, hoping to soothe lingering hurt over what Mr. Romney’s supporters considered a desultory endorsement of their nominee in 2012. And as the donors arrived here on Thursday for two days of cocktails and strategy briefings, Mr. Bush’s campaign and super PAC announced that they had amassed more money, and more quickly, than any presidential effort in history, easily outpacing his rivals for the Republican nomination. Continue reading the main story Money Raised So Far The first Federal Election Commission filing deadline for presidential candidates is Wednesday, but some organizations have released their totals early. Below, the announced money raised by the campaigns, “super PACs” and nonprofits supporting each candidate. “I think Jeb’s made clear that he’s not going to run away from his family,” said Eric J. Tanenblatt, who led the Georgia campaign efforts of George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign. Donor retreats have become a routine feature of presidential campaigns, all the more important as the price tag for a major-party candidacy breaches the $1 billion mark. They are curated to reflect some actual or projected essence of the candidate: Hillary Rodham Clinton gathered her top fund-raisers in May at a Brooklyn warehouse, for example, while Mr. Romney invited top donors for annual hikes and foreign policy lectures at the Stein Eriksen ski resort in Utah, a favorite destination of his family. George W. Bush, a Texan who styled himself as a political outsider, pointedly eschewed the establishment trappings of Maine: Many of the donors in Kennebunkport recalled, with something less than fondness, their frequent meetings at Mr. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Tex., huddled under a tent in 100-degree heat. But few candidates, they said, could compete with the Bush family seat, a compound of a half-dozen homes on a rocky spit jutting into the Atlantic, one of them recently built for Jeb Bush and his family. The guests were greeted by Mr. Bush’s mother and ushered into the main house for drinks, where the elder George Bush made a brief appearance. The veteran Bush donors had chosen their socks carefully, in tribute to the elder Mr. Bush, known for his taste in brightly colored ones. Later, they dined at a nearby luxury hotel, where Jeb Bush promised his guests that he would not let their hard work go for naught. “You leave saying: Not only was the next president of the United States, but the most important American of my lifetime, George H. W. Bush, sitting at my table, making me feel comfortable,” said Ron Kaufman, who served as political director for the elder Mr. Bush. Another top fund-raiser for Jeb Bush, who spoke on the condition of anonymity lest the Bush family think him crass, said, “For fund-raising, it is gold.” “It’s not hauling these guys into a two-week rental in Martha’s Vineyard,” the fund-raiser said, adding that Kennebunkport was “a little bit more special than what Hillary can offer.” The guests who trickled onto the compound were a microcosm of the financial operation that Mr. Bush is hoping will overwhelm his rivals. Robert M. Duncan, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets, are among the party’s leading fund-raisers. There was also new blood: a contingent in their 30s and 40s who one donor referred to as “P’s crowd,” referring to one of Jeb Bush’s sons, George P. Bush. Some had served under, or raised money for, the last two Presidents Bush and fondly recalled their past visits to Maine. One guest, trying to convey the simplicity of the Bush home, described arriving on a past Kennebunkport visit and being offered a bowl of Fritos. “All of you who are playing shrink to the Bushes these days overstate a lot of things,” Mr. Kaufman said. “The truth is, Jeb has always summered in Kennebunkport. This is his place. He loves it in his blood. This is him.” *That time Jeb Bush invited 300 top donors to his parents’ house <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/10/when-jeb-bush-invited-300-top-donors-to-his-parents-house/> // WaPo // Ed O’Keefe – July 10, 2015 * One by one, nearly 300 of Jeb Bush's top donors, from New York, Washington, Miami — even Americans living abroad in China and Germany — climbed aboard a trolley here for a trip a mile and a half down Ocean Avenue. There was Dina Powell, a Goldman Sachs executive and a former assistant secretary of state under George W. Bush. And Mike Duncan, the former Republican National Committee chairman. Several Floridians — including Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, former Republican Sen. George Lemieux and former Republican Gov. Bob Martinez. Younger faces like Jay Zeidman, a close friend of George P. Bush, were among a few dozen notably youthful benefactors. Woody Johnson, Bush's national finance chairman, was one of the last people to board a trolley Thursday evening as the crowd traveled to the nearby Bush family estate. The owner of the NFL's New York Jets was carrying a white visor with the team's green logo. Admiring a green sweater slung over the shoulders of a fellow donor, Johnson commented: "You can never have too much green." The confab for some of the GOP's wealthiest donors came just hours after Bush's campaign and an allied super PAC announced that they'd donated more than $114 million to support the former governor — an unprecedented sum in American politics that gives him a sizable financial advantage over more than a dozen GOP rivals. Bush had announced plans for the Kennebunkport donor retreat at the start of his campaign, dangling one of the most cherished chits in Republican politics -- a visit to his family's storied beachfront estate -- as an incentive to entice benefactors to deliver. Supporters who gave the maximum $2,700 to Bush's primary campaign, and were able to find at least 10 other people also willing to do so, were invited to attend. Bush was asked by reporters on Wednesday night why he had decided to hold the retreat at his parents' estate, known as Walker's Point. He deflected the question by clarifying that "It's at the Colony, it's not at my parents' home, that would be a little overwhelming for them." That was kind of correct. The Colony Hotel is where most guests stayed and where closed-door briefings will be held with top campaign officials on Friday. But on Thursday evening, the family compound at Walker's Point was the main venue. The gathering began at the hotel around 5 p.m., as attendees gathered at the Carriage House, with about a half dozen Secret Service agents looking on. Some in the crowd said that they'd just learned about Bush's fundraising total. Once on the grounds of the estate, the crowd was split up in groups of 40 or 50 for a quick tour. Former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, were the main tour guides, leading people across the compound to their home on the southern tip. Elated at the invitation, some attendees quickly posted photos on social media. "Incredible night in Kennebunkport! #allinforjeb," Fritz Brogan, a Washington-based donor and former aide to Jeb Bush when he was Florida governor, wrote on Facebook as he posted a photo of him alongside George H.W. Bush. Reporters were not allowed to attend the dinner, but could easily watch the proceedings from a public overlook about 1,200 yards to the west, where tourists and locals often gawk at the property. Around 5:30 p.m., Jeb Bush was spotted entering his parents' home and came out a few minutes later, dressed in a dark blue sweater, to greet his donors. The entire party posed for a photo on the western lawn of the home around 6 p.m. Several attendees held campaign signs aloft as a photographer took shots of the crowd. Barbara Bush — with her infamous locks of white hair — was easily spotted from a distance standing in the front wearing a bright coral sweater. After the photo and more mingling, the crowd was transported to the nearby Hidden Pond luxury resort. The mood was celebratory, as donors dined on lobster rolls and hamburgers and Bush touted their record-breaking fundraising effort. His wife, Columba, was on hand, smiling proudly. "Money is great but votes matter a lot more. I will outwork everybody," Bush said, according to attendees, who asked to remain anonymous because guests were asked not to discuss details. Already, the campaign is plotting ahead: Donors said there's talk of plans to have top donors help raise another $20,000 over the next 20 days in order to win an invitation to a campaign-sponsored party in Cleveland on Aug. 6 — the date of the first Republican presidential debate. As the crowd mingled on the lawn of Bush home, tourists at the lookout watched unaware of why such a large crowd had gathered. "They didn't invite us," quipped a woman who said she grew up in Kennebunkport and was visiting from Seattle, but declined to give her name. As trolleys full of donors kept driving past, she turned to her daughter-in-law and said, "Those are trolleys full of Republicans. Because usually they never let trolleys in there." Another man watching the reception unfold marveled at the scene: "Every time I come here I think: There's two people who spend time over there who know the contents of what's in Area 51." *Jeb Bush and Allies Raise More Than $114 Million in 2016 Race <http://stream.wsj.com/story/election-2016/SS-2-738144/> // WSJ // Rebecca Ballhaus – July 10, 2015 * Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush’s campaign and his allies have raised more than $114 million to back him in the 2016 race, surpassing expectations. Jeb Bush’s campaign and its allied super PAC raised more than $114 million in the first half of the year, surpassing expectations and far outstripping his Democratic and Republican rivals for the White House. The Republican presidential hopeful’s super PAC, called Right to Rise USA, said Thursday that it had received $103 million from more than 9,900 donors—a broad pool of supporters he could tap for yet more money for the super PAC and for donations to his campaign, which are capped at $2,700 per person for the primary. The campaign, meanwhile, took in $11.4 million in the two weeks between its launch and the end of June. The only candidate positioned to keep up with Mr. Bush’s fundraising is the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, who launched her campaign two months before he did. She has raised $45 million for her campaign and three groups backing her raised about $24 million, for a total of $69 million. Mr. Bush’s campaign fundraising also outpaced many GOP rivals who started raising money earlier in the year. The rise of the super PACs and their expanding roles in presidential campaigns means any candidate with a wealthy backer, or a collection of them, can spend exponentially more on his or her candidacy and stay in the race longer than in prior presidential contests. There is a cost, though: The candidates can’t control their friendly super PACs by directing where they spend their money and what messages they send to try to motivate voters. Only one-tenth of Mr. Bush’s haul went to his Miami-based campaign, with the rest going to the technically independent super PAC, which is based in California and is legally barred from coordinating its activities with his team. The imbalance exists partly because the super PAC has been raising money since January, while Mr. Bush didn’t launch his campaign until mid-June, only two weeks ahead of the second-quarter fundraising deadline. But since the super PAC can raise money without contribution caps, it is expected to continue to overpower the campaign. In the 2016 presidential race, the balance of cash increasingly favors outside groups over campaigns, a shift political strategists say threatens to reduce the effectiveness of their political operations—or to turn some voters away. “Candidates are going to have less control over the resources in their campaigns than ever before,” said Tony Corrado, a professor of government at Colby College and a campaign-finance expert. Super PACs first began backing individual candidates in the 2012 election, following a 2010 Supreme Court decision that led to their creation. They are poised to play a much bigger role in the current election cycle. Mr. Bush’s super PAC smashed all previous fundraising records set by such groups. In the 2012 election, the super PAC backing GOP nominee Mitt Romney raised just $12 million in the first half of 2011, and brought in $153 million over the course of the race. Priorities USA Action, the super PAC backing President Barack Obama, raised less than $80 million for the entire cycle. As super PACs’ roles grows, campaigns and super PACs supporting the same candidate risk duplicating their activities, particularly voter mobilization and grass roots organizing. “The question will be whether you will reach the point where voters are tired of having people at their door or picking up the phone,” Mr. Corrado said. Kevin Madden, a GOP strategist who advised Mr. Romney, said there is a “strong advantage” to keeping field work under the campaign’s supervision. “I’d want to have as robust a field operation under the auspices of my campaign as possible,” he said. “It’s the difference between losing and winning sometimes.” Barred from coordinating with campaign leadership, super PACs also risk veering away from the candidate’s central message, even though many—including Mr. Bush’s—are being run by former top aides to the candidates themselves. Mr. Madden recalls a moment when the Romney campaign was focused on neutralizing former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum while the super PAC was running ads attacking Newt Gingrich. “We were like, ‘What are they doing?’” he said. In the current election cycle, super PACs have outraised the campaigns of at least three out of the four Republicans who have disclosed their fundraising totals so far. The super PAC backing the fourth, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, hasn’t yet released its fundraising haul. Four super PACs backing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have raised nearly $38 million, almost four times as much as the amount raised in the second quarter by his campaign, which launched in March. Unlike many candidates, Mr. Bush and his supporters haven’t touted grass roots support from small donors. Mr. Bush’s campaign didn’t provide an average donation size, while his super PAC disclosed that about 95% of its donors had given $25,000 or less. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, by contrast, stressed that about 90% of its donations were for $100 or less. As their share of funds grows, super PACs are expanding their roles to include tasks traditionally reserved for a campaign, such as compiling voter data and running field operations. That marks a contrast from 2012, when super PACs were new to the scene and mostly focused on running advertisements. The super PAC backing former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive Carly Fiorina has taken on some press operations and helped set up candidate events. Her super PAC said this week it raised $3.4 million, more than twice as much as her campaign. Over the next month, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is slated to hold at least seven town hall events in Iowa, where he will speak about the “most important issues of the day,” according to the organizers. The events have the trappings of a traditional campaign event, but their host is Mr. Jindal’s super PAC, called Believe Again. Neither the campaign nor the super PAC has yet released fundraising details, but the totals for the super PAC that launched in January are virtually certain to be higher than those of the campaign, which began in late June. On the Democratic side, super PACs seem to be operating more like they did in the 2012 election. Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC backing Mrs. Clinton, plans to limit its efforts to paid advertising on television and the Internet, according to people close to the group. It won’t do any organizing or field work, they say. *‘Space Guy’ Jeb Bush’s Donor Categories: ‘Voyager,’ ‘Endeavor,’ ‘Apollo’ <http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/10/space-guy-jeb-bushs-donor-categories-voyager-endeavor-apollo/> // WSJ // Beth Reinhard – July 10, 2015 * Going where no candidate has gone before, presidential fundraising leader Jeb Bush is naming donor levels after the great NASA space missions of the past. “The Mission Jeb 2016” levels: Voyager, for donors who raise $250,000; Endeavor for $150,000, and Apollo for $75,000. Mr. Bush’s team announced the categories Friday to the roughly 250 donors gathered for a two-day retreat at Kennebunkport, Maine. Donors are expected to hit up their business associates, friends and family members for maximum contributions of $2,700 to the campaign in order to reach the different levels. Mr. Bush, a self-proclaimed “space guy” and the former governor of Florida, which hosts the Kennedy Space Center, has said he would increase funding for space exploration if elected president. The retreat for donors who raised at least $27,000 in the first two weeks of Mr. Bush’s campaign amounts to a victory party for a record-setting fundraising team. Mr. Bush’s campaign and super PAC announced Friday they had raised more than $114 million since January. On Friday night, the donors dined on burgers and lobster rolls at Walker’s Point, where the Bush family has long vacationed. Former President George H.W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush offered tours of the family compound, where they are building a new home for their son as well as an artist’s studio for his brother, former President George W. Bush. George W. Bush was the candidate who pioneered the system of encouraging donors to bundle campaign contributions. Texans for Public Justice, a non-partisan non-profit, lists 940 people who achieved the status of Ranger (raising at least $200,000) or Pioneer (at least $100,000) in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns. When Mr. Bush first began raising money earlier this year for his Right to Rise super PAC – which unlike the campaign can collect unlimited donations — he was encouraging donors to write checks or raise as much as $500,000. The campaign is required to disclose the names of its donors and the size of their contributions next week, while the super PAC’s disclosure is due at the end of July. According to donors who attended the dinner Friday, Mr. Bush told them that he planned to outwork all of his rivals. *Jeb to donors: You’re not done <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/jeb-to-donors-youre-not-done-119975.html?ml=tl_1> // Politico // Eli Stokols and Anna Palmer – July 10, 2015 * Less than 24 hours after Jeb Bush revealed an unprecedented war chest, he and his top campaign staffers gathered donors at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, to let them know that $114 million is not enough. This weekend’s invitation wasn’t just a reward for the roughly 200 major donors who helped Bush amass a just-announced record fundraising haul — although, as one attendee said, “there was lots of high-fiving.” It was a reminder that, with the Iowa caucuses still seven months away, this is just the beginning. Bush’s operation doesn’t plan to sit on its massive cash pile, but to keep adding to it. According to sources who attended two days of meetings at the Bush family’s picturesque seaside compound, the Bush team outlined a number of ambitious new incentives for donors including one called “Eight for Eight,” tasking major bundlers with signing up eight new supporters to make a maximum $2,700 contribution by Aug. 8. Donors learned Friday morning that the Right to Rise leadership PAC, a third fundraising entity,has hauled in $5 million, bringing the total combined war chest of Bush’s campaign and supporting super PAC, which both announced their fundraising hauls Thursday, to $119 million. Even though that’s more than twice the total haul of any other presidential candidates (Ted Cruz sits in second place with a combined $51 million), Bush’s team reminded donors that there’s more work to be done, and laid out a near-term schedule of fundraisers and future meetings. One highlight: cocktails with Columba. According to a one source, Bush’s wife is scheduled to host a cocktail fundraiser in Washington, DC on July 22 with a minimum required contribution of $500. The next gathering of Bush donors is likely to take place just days before the first GOP primary debate, scheduled for Aug. 6 in Cleveland; and the group is planning another get-together in Miami, where the campaign is headquartered, in the fall. Even as his campaign is focused on introducing him apart from his presidential father and brother, Jeb Bush’s robust fundraising machine is built in large part on the strength of his family’s network, which started as his mother’s Christmas card list and has been growing for more than 50 years. While Jeb Bush will continue to assume the posture of a humble, hard-working candidate, careful to avoid giving off even a whiff of entitlement, his campaign’s fundraising prowess is a signal of strength to undecided donors that should grease the skids for even more contributions. Former president George H.W. Bush made a brief appearance Friday night during a welcome reception at Hunter’s Point, the home he shares with his wife, Barbara Bush, who greeted donors as they arrived. Among those attending: Ron Kaufman, Woody Johnson, Brian McCormack, Kimberly Fritts, Reg Brown, Al Cardenas, Jamie Wareham and Dirk Van Dongen. Presentations from Jeb Bush, finance director Heather Larrison and campaign manager Danny Diaz took place Friday morning. Bush, according to sources, told donors that he is enjoying the campaign and sticking to his plan — and he promised not to squander their overwhelming financial support. All of them were careful, sources said, not to talk about the Right to Rise super PAC, which Bush spent the first six months of the year raising money for but is now, as an official candidate, prohibited from coordinating or communicating with in any way. Bush’s fundraising numbers aren’t just staggering for the amount of money raised but the breadth of his donor list. Nearly 10,000 individuals gave money to his super PAC; of those, 500 gave $25,000 or more. Such a diversified portfolio of donors allows Bush a huge cash advantage and the ability to compete in every state; and it helps establish his independence from any individual billionaire. “It means he won’t have any one person you can characterize as a co-investor,” said Charlie Black, a GOP lobbyist who advised George W. Bush and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns. “I think these others that have big super PAC donors are honest, sincere people, but it’s a better perception for Jeb that he doesn’t have one big sugar daddy.” Mike Murphy, who is running Bush’s media operation through the super PAC, “has told donors a number he wants to hit by end of the year,” a source said, without divulging what that number is. For the last few weeks, even before the fundraising numbers were released Thursday, donors headed to Kennebunkport knew the initial effort had hit the mark, that the two days of meetings would be a chance to celebrate the early success and to lay out a path that will sustain it. “If they hadn’t hit their numbers, they’d have been on everyone’s ass for the last several weeks,” one donor said. “But that dog didn’t bark, so we could all tell they’d gotten what they wanted.” *Is Donald Trump Helping the Bush Brand? <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/is-donald-trump-helping-the-bush-brand-> // Bloomberg // Michael C. Bender – July 10, 2015 * While Republican Party mandarins wring their hands over Donald Trump's presidential bid, the celebrity real estate mogul's untethered political approach may actually be buoying Jeb Bush, the target of his most frequent attacks, and making the former Florida governor’s moderate approach to immigration more palatable in the process. That's the case for a least some New Hampshire voters who were impressed by Bush's performance at a town hall meeting this week and offered favorable — and unprompted — comparisons to Trump. "He seemed to really get into the weeds talking about issues," Dennis Hogan, the Hillsborough County Attorney, said after listening to Bush. "And he says it in a sellable way. Not like Trump, where you’re saying something and you're losing as many people as you're gaining. We don’t need that in a nominee." Trump announced his presidential campaign on June 16 by saying the country needs "somebody that can take the brand of the United States and make it great again." But following that speech and a series of interviews, Republican donors and elected leaders have worried about what damage he's doing to the party's brand. NBC, Univision, Macy's and other companies cut ties with Trump as he defended his comments that many immigrants in the country illegally are rapists. Republican donor John Jordan told the Associated Press on Monday that GOP leaders should take steps to block Trump's access to the first presidential debate next month. Trump told CNN that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus asked him to "tone it down a little bit." Much of Trump's invective has been targeted at Bush. Trump briefly posted on his Twitter page, followed by 3.14 million people, another person's comment that Bush "has to like the Mexican Illegals" (sic) because his wife is from Mexico. Trump called Bush's position on education standards "pathetic" and ridiculed the former governor for saying many immigrants illegally cross the border as "an act of love. "I mean what kind of stuff is that?" Trump said on Fox News this week. "It's baby stuff." The comments have earned him media attention, and now the top spot in the Republican field, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll. The poll showed Trump with support of 15 percent of respondents, 4 percentage points ahead of Bush and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. A plurality of respondents, 29 percent, said they believed Jeb Bush would ultimately win the party's nomination. Trump, who lives part-time in Palm Beach, Florida, has a long and complicated history with Bush, whose home is about 90 minutes south in Miami. The two helped raise money in 1990 for a Nicaraguan presidential candidate. Trump gave $50,000 to the Florida Republican Party while Bush was governor as he unsuccessfully pushed for Bush to expand gambling in the state. Trump has called Bush's brother, George W. Bush, "probably the worst president in the history of the United States," and repeatedly says that the "last thing we need is another Bush." Just a few weeks ago, Bush was chuckling at criticisms from Trump. Now, he's taking it personally. "His views are way out of the mainstream of what Republicans think," Bush told reporters after marching in a pair of Fourth of July parades in New Hampshire. On immigration, it can be difficult to define the mainstream of the party. Two of the four U.S. senators running for president backed a bipartisan bill that included a path to citizenship for many of the country'a 12 million undocumented immigrants. But House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, couldn't get enough support for even a watered-down version in his chamber. "This has become the biggest political football I've seen in my congressional career, this whole issue of illegal immigration and what to do about it," Boehner told reporters on Thursday. Bush has thrown himself into the immigration issue, and is attempting to persuade his party to take a more moderate position on immigration, arguing that legalizing undocumented workers will boost the economy and help the party. "I want to win elections," Bush said while answering an immigration question on Wednesday at the New Hampshire town hall meeting. "And to win we better start figuring out ways to message our beliefs in a way that gives people hope that everybody will be included in the progress that comes with this." Bush added a dose of humor. When one man started his question about border control by saying, "Me gusta Latinos y Mexicanos," Bush laughed. "Maybe you could talk to Donald Trump about that," Bush said. "I don't have his number, but I can find it for you. Give him a call." Bush, who has led in most recent president polls of New Hampshire, is also figuring out ways to connect with Republican crowds as he pushes a plan legalize undocumented immigrants. He earned applause from the audience when he said he'd campaign "in Spanish and English," and again for tough talk about the death of Kathryn Steinle, who prosecutors say was killed in San Francisco by a Mexican man who had already been deported five times. "We ought to eliminate sanctuary cities," Bush said. "We shouldn't provide law enforcement monies for cities like San Francisco until they change their policies." On the border, Bush talked about stationing agents closer to the U.S.-Mexico line, building a "virtual wall," and using drones to patrol the area and "send a signal." "Donald Trump is colorful, but Bush is trying to think of a solution," Valerie Morelli, a 69-year-old from Amherst said when asked why she was impressed with Bush's performance. "One thing I wish is that he (Bush) would still build a wall, even though he said there’s other way to do it." "I was impressed," said Ed Gorman, a 66-year-old from Londonderry who has concerns about illegal immigration. "He's the first candidate that I’ve heard actually say that we have a situation with illegal immigrants, that if you’re not going to deport them wholesale, you’ve got to deal with them here. And it sounded like he’s going to do that." Gorman isn't totally sold yet. He brought up Trump's comments on immigration, saying "there's a smidgeon of truth there." "The best people are not always coming over, but I’m not going to support anything he said," Gorman said of Trump. Gorman said he was looking forward to seeing other Republican presidential candidates speak in New Hampshire before making his decision, mentioning U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. "I don’t want to see Trump," he offered. "That’s a waste of my time." *Bush raises over $100 million to help his campaign <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/09/politics/bush-fundraising-second-quarter/index.html> // CNN // Theodore Schleifer – July 10, 2015* Jeb Bush and his allied super PAC raised $114 million to support his campaign, a massive fundraising haul made possible in part by rewriting the rules of how presidential campaigns raise money. Bush's super PAC, Right to Rise USA, said Thursday it collected $103 million since January, money that it must spend independently to back Bush's presidential bid. Together, Bush's super PAC and campaign came close to raising as much money in the first half of 2015 -- a year before a general election -- as American Crossroads, the second biggest super PAC in 2012, did during the entire two-year cycle. All groups will be required to file detailed reports by the end of the month, but the Bush super PAC raised two and a half times as much as its current closest competitor. What enabled its size was an innovative strategy that some of Bush's GOP rivals chose to emulate: By not formally running for President, Bush could keep the independent group close by and help it grow into a political and financial juggernaut. Fundraisers and strategists had questioned aloud whether or not Bush would succeed in raising the $100 million, a benchmark repeatedly swatted away by campaign aides looking to measure expectations. But it was never in doubt that the former Florida governor would lead the pack by a significant margin. Though campaign-finance reformers scoffed at what they saw as Bush's feigned indecision, he was able to hire staff, travel the country and share strategy with advisers who soon would be off limits. And most critically of all, he was able to headline high-dollar fundraisers for the super PAC for six months, delaying his own campaign launch in order to ask donors for unlimited cash that gives him an unparalleled bank account entering the summer. Bush eventually formally launched his campaign in mid-June, and the campaign itself said it raised $11.4 million in the 16 days between the launch and the end of the fundraising quarter in June. That haul -- at a clip of $710,000 a day -- is all eligible for spending in the primary, his campaign said. "Jeb is encouraged and grateful for the tremendous early support and enthusiasm his candidacy has generated since he launched his campaign," New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, national finance chairman of Bush's campaign, said in a statement. Yet it is the Los Angeles-based super PAC that will likely play the heavy in the Bush political shop. The Right to Rise super PAC made its first independent expenditures on Wednesday to bolster the campaign, releasing an advertisement that compared Bush's record on transparency with Clinton's. The group, led by longtime Bush senior aide Mike Murphy, had over $98 million cash on hand and raked in contributions from 9,900 donors. Five hundred of those contributors gave in excess of $25,000. Some campaign reformers reflected on the past six months by charging that Bush had made a mockery of the super PAC system. David Donnelly, the head of the advocacy organization Every Voice, said in a statement "that Bush attended dozens of fundraisers to help raise that cash while claiming he wasn't running for president is the political lie of the year so far." Super PACs directly linked to candidates are playing a more central part in 2016 than the outside groups ever have before. And Bush's super PAC in particular is reported to be playing an even greater role than is traditionally done by outside groups, taking on more of the day-to-day functions typically run out of a campaign headquarters. "We are grateful for the overwhelming response from the thousands of donors who have been drawn to Jeb's optimistic message of conservative renewal and reform," said Charlie Spies, the election lawyer who is advising Bush and helped Mitt Romney raise more than $150 million for Romney's super PAC in 2012. The cash announced by Bush Thursday also does not include any money raised by an allied nonprofit group, Right to Rise Policy Solutions. That group won't be required to disclose its contributors. Drawing on his family's vast network of experienced bundlers and deep-pocketed donors, the Bush fundraising operation is likely to well outperform its nearest competitors. But despite the campaign's opening attempt to convince rival Republicans to pass on the race by exclusively securing major donors -- a "shock and awe" salvo, as some allies described it -- Bush will be joined by 16 other Republicans in the race for the White House. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz posted a greater second-quarter fundraising total than Bush's campaign did, collecting $14.2 million, though he had much more time to raise the cash and that sum includes a small amount of money earmarked for the general election. His four linked super PACs claim together claim to have raised just under $38 million, putting Cruz likely in second place in the fundraising competition. And on the Democratic side, a set of groups backing Hillary Clinton say they have raised $24 million and her campaign has raised $45 million. Other top raisers include Florida senator Marco Rubio, who has a nonprofit group and a super PAC that raised $16 million each. His official campaign has not yet said how much it raised in the second quarter. Bush is currently in Kennebunkport, Maine, huddling with these top donors and bundlers. *Bush rips Obama over OPM hack, but had data issues of own in Florida <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/09/politics/jeb-bush-florida-data-breach/index.html> // CNN // Chris Frates – July 9, 2015 * After news broke last month that suspected Chinese hackers stole the sensitive personal data of millions of Americans from the federal government's human resources department, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called for the agency's director to be fired. But when a human resources company Florida hired compromised the personal information of an estimated 100,000 state employees, then-Gov. Bush didn't fire the contractor. In fact, the state official who managed the contract, Bill Simon, is now helping Bush build his presidential campaign's policy team. In 2006, the Florida Department of Management Services estimated that 108,000 then-current and former state employees may have been affected when their personal data, managed by Convergys Corporation, was improperly sent to India by a subcontractor, Computerworld reported at the time. Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said Thursday night that Bush's administration acted quickly to address the issue, including strengthening security measures, providing protection for potentially affected employees and tightening oversight of the program. But Bush didn't cancel the company's $350 million contract. Campbell argued that the recent Office of Personnel Management case and the Florida incident are not comparable. "This was not a national security breach or threat," she said. "The OPM breach was just another example of President Obama's failed and flawed leadership." When it comes to the federal government's data breach, the Republican presidential contender has had tough words for OPM Director Katherine Archuleta. On Thursday, the agency announced the breach compromised the data of 21.5 million Americans, about five times more people than originally estimated. "The Office of Personnel Management head, a woman who was the political director of the Obama re-election campaign, a political hack, in charge of something of that responsibility, said 'No one was responsible at OPM for this. The Chinese government was responsible,'" Bush told a crowded VFW hall in New Hampshire Wednesday night. "No ma'am, you're responsible for it, and you ought to be fired for incompetence." Asked by reporters Wednesday if it was appropriate to compare the OPM breach to the data compromise that occurred during Bush's governorship, he strongly pushed back. "I'd say its a slight difference when you have up to 18 million records that are stolen by a foreign government where security clearances are jeopardized, where people are filling out 100-page forms sharing their whole life history to find out if they are qualified for a security clearance controlled by a foreign government," Bush said. *Jeb Bush’s $114 million haul: By the numbers <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/jeb-bushs-114-million-haul-the-numbers> // MSNBC // Aliyah Frumin – July 10, 2015 * When it comes to fundraising, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has blown his GOP and Democratic competition out of the water. His campaign and its allied super political action committee announced on Thursday that they had, combined, brought in $114 million in the first half of the year. Sure, the former Florida governor had a network of donors (via his brother and father, both former presidents) to tap into – and he essentially exploited a campaign finance loophole to raise such massive funds. Nonetheless, the haul is impressive. To put into perspective just how big that sum is, let’s take a look at what else the man who wants to be America’s third President Bush could buy with that $114 million. 28.5: The approximate number of 30-second Super Bowl commercials Team Bush could buy with its $114 million haul. 207,273: The approximate number of round-trip plane tickets the Republican could buy from his home state of Florida to the early voting state of New Hampshire. 28.5 million: The number of deep-fried Twinkies Bush could buy at next month’s Iowa State Fair. 57: The number of months of television ads Bush could buy in the battleground state of Nevada. 9.5 million: The number of Jeb 2016 coffee mugs he could buy to hand out to his supporters RELATED: The 2016 money race: What we know now and what to look out for And more seriously, here is where Bush’s money comes from, and how it stacks up to the competition: $103 million: The amount Right to Rise, the super political action committee backing Bush, said it raised in the first half of the year. $11.4 million: The amount Bush’s campaign said it brought in between when Bush announced his White House bid on June 15 and the end of the second quarter on June 30. $710,000: The amount Bush’s campaign raised on average per day since he announced his candidacy. 1:9: The ratio of campaign money Bush’s campaign brought in compared to his super PAC, which is supposed to be independent of any campaign but can accept unlimited funds in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. $98 million: The amount of cash Right to Rise now has on hand. 9,900: The approximate number of donors who contributed to the super PAC in the first half of the year. 9,400: The approximate number of donors who gave $25,000 or less to the super PAC. $45 million: How much more cash Bush’s campaign and his allied super PAC raised in comparison to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the allied groups backing her. $109.2 million: How much more cash Bush’s campaign and his allied super PAC raised in comparison to GOP competitor Carly Fiorina’s campaign and her super PAC. Fiorina has been struggling with fundraising. $7 million: How much more Bush raised in the first half of this year than Mitt Romney managed in his total haul during his 2008 presidential primary effort. $91 million—How much more Bush’s super PAC raised in the first half of this year compared to the amount the super PAC allied with Mitt Romney raised in the first half of 2011. $23 million– How much more Bush’s super PAC raised in the first half of this year compared to the amount the super PAC supporting President Obama raked in during the entire election cycle four years ago. *Jeb Bush ‘did it on his own’? <http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/jeb-bush-did-it-his-own> // MSNBC // Steve Benen – July 10, 2015 * Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign operation has a variety of key goals, but as the cycle gets underway in earnest, the Florida Republican’s first priority was simple: raise a ridiculous amount of money. As of yesterday, it’s mission accomplished. MSNBC’s Aliyah Frumin reported that the former governor’s super PAC has raised a staggering $114.4 million, on top of the $11.4 million Bush’s campaign itself raised in the 16 days following his formal launch. To put this in perspective, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, raised $45 million in the second quarter, on top of the $15.6 million haul for the pro-Clinton super PAC. Those totals were widely seen as pretty impressive – initially the best of any candidate in either party – though they pale in comparison to the Bush fundraising juggernaut. The former governor’s fundraising prowess is all the more impressive in light of the enormous field of Republican candidates – with 17 candidates vying for contributions from GOP donors, it’s that much more difficult for one contender to dominate. Bush nevertheless has more than doubled the money raised by his next closest Republican rival. But what struck me as funny about all of this was a quote in the Associated Press report about Bush’s fundraising success. …Bill Kunkler, a Chicago private equity executive and Bush donor, said that while the Bush name may have opened some doors, it’s Jeb Bush who closed the deal. “People have been willing to take a look, and he’s overcome the people who have said, ‘Not another Bush,’” Kunkler said Thursday. “People are looking at him as a guy who did it on his own, and who stands on his own.” What’s amusing about this is how wrong it is. I’m not trying to take away anything from Bush’s fundraising totals – they’re genuinely impressive – but by no fair measure is he someone who succeeded and stands “on his own.” As regular readers may recall, the New York Times reported earlier in the year that Jeb Bush spent much of his adult life taking advantage of his family connections to advance his interests and ambitions. In Florida, people went out of their way to get close to Bush in the hopes that he’d relay messages and suggestions to his powerful relatives – which he routinely did. When Bush decided to run for president, he quickly exploited a “wide network of donors who supported his father and brother.” Indeed, when fundraising appeals started reaching GOP donors, they were sent directly from his father, mother, brother, and even his son (an elected official in Texas). It’s consistent with a life filled with unique opportunities made available to Jeb because of his powerful last name and political legacy. Maybe the voting public will care about this, maybe not. But either way, if “people are looking at him as a guy who did it on his own, and who stands on his own,” those people are mistaken. *Paul Ryan Explains What Jeb Bush meant When He Said Americans Should Work Longer Hours <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/10/jeb-bush-paul-ryan_n_7772234.html> // HuffPo // Michael McAuliff – July 10, 2015 * Rep. Paul Ryan, who was Mitt Romney's vice presidential nominee in 2012, declined Friday to say whether 2016 contender Jeb Bush's recent declaration that "Americans need to work longer hours" was as damaging as Romney's infamous "47 percent" remarks. "You're Huffington Post aren't you? What the hell?" the Wisconsin Republican joked at first. But Ryan, a notorious data geek, did offer his interpretation of what Bush meant to say. "I think what he’s talking about is the fact that there are too many people in America who have part-time jobs who want full-time jobs. That’s a problem; that's what he’s talking about," Ryan said. "If you get into the labor force participation rates, inside of that, there’s a lot of part-time workers who don’t want to be part-time workers, who want to be full-time workers.” Bush was hammered over the remark by commentators and the campaign of Hillary Clinton, which noted that Americans are the most productive workers in the world, and that while productivity has kept on rising, it is pay that has lagged. On top of that, Gallup reports that American workers already average nearly 47 hours per week. Still, part-time workers' share of the workforce has been slowly falling since it peaked at 20 percent after the recession. It still stands at 18.6 percent, a couple of points higher than before the recession. Asked how many times Bush would now have to say it Ryan’s way, Ryan said, "Welcome to politics." *Does Jeb Bush Understand Economics? <http://www.newsweek.com/jeb-bush-its-stupid-economy-352232> // Newsweek // Kurt Eichenwald – July 10, 2015 * Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush set off a firestorm this week by appearing to say in a newspaper interview that Americans should work longer hours. Democrats pounced, even as the Bush campaign said his comments were taken out of context. But everyone is missing the real story. Whether Bush’s comment was a criticism of American workers or a lament about a weakened job market, his words demonstrated such a lack of knowledge of economics that it’s virtually impossible to understand what was the context of his words. Bush’s full statement was: “My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is 4% growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families.” This word salad mixes together different economic terms as if they mean the same thing and reaches for statistics that are, quite simply, ridiculous. Perhaps Bush was just sloppy in his language, but whatever aide is prepping him on economics needs to do a better job–maybe by working longer hours. The key terms in his statement are growth, workforce participation, productivity and income. His campaign insisted that when he said “people need to work longer hours,” he was referring to them being able to obtain jobs that are full-time or offer close to full-time hours. Bush speaks of these economic concepts as if they are all interlinked; some are, some aren’t. Start with 4% growth “as far as the eye can see.” Lots of problems there. Constant growth at that rate has never been achieved in the history of the United States. In fact, the average from the boom of 1947 to this year is 3.26%. Even the Republican saint, Ronald Reagan, only achieved an average of 3.5%. The longest period during which the United States achieved 4% or greater growth was four years, under President Bill Clinton. So essentially, Bush has as his aspiration something that has no precedent in history. But this part of Bush’s comment has both a logical flaw and a sign he hasn’t been paying much attention to political language over the years. As should be obvious, no one can see growth rates into the future, so the idea of growth “as far as the eye can see” is the kind of clumsy infelicity that should raise an eyebrow. “As far as the eye can see,” though, is a common term used by politicians in reference to one element of economics: deficits. The phrase was first popularized during the Reagan administration by David Stockman, then the director of the Office of Management and Budget. In a 1981 interview with the journalist William Grieder, Stockman let slip the dirty secret of the Reagan budgets: that there would be $200 billion deficits “as far as the eye can see.” (Just $200 billion? Ah, those were the days.) Since then, politicians on both sides have used the term endlessly to refer to deficits. (John Boehner, the speaker of the House, said it just a few months ago.) Given that rapid deficit growth started under Reagan, reversed under Clinton and then exploded to astronomical heights under Bush’s brother, using phrases that make no logical sense and are connected to huge economic blunders isn’t smart. Just as with the growth rates, Bush’s original–and revised–statements about employees working more hours is statistical hooey. The average annual hours per worker has essentially been unchanged for many, many years. Let’s take the best full economic year during the George W. Bush presidency–2005–and compare it to the worst under President Barack Obama–2011. Under Bush, American workers put in an average of 34.6 hours of work a week. Under Obama, they worked an average of 34.3 hours a week. That’s a difference of 3 minutes and 36 seconds a day, which translates for the median worker salary to $1.62 (for minimum wage workers, it’s 39 cents). The problem is that American business believes–unwisely–that using contractors and part-timers boosts profits. How does Bush plan to make economic growth rates translate into longer hours when that hasn’t happened in the past 15 years? He doesn’t–he’s just saying things. Bush’s statement about workforce participation is correct–sort of. No doubt the low workforce participation rate signals a weak recovery. But unlike the unemployment rate, the participation rate is a complex amalgam of issues. According to a just-released report by the American Enterprise Institute–a respected center-right think tank in Washington–the meaning behind the statistics is much more complex than Bush implies. AEI says workforce participation has shrunk 3% since the Great Recession, but it cites a report from Barclay’s attributing two points of that drop to the aging population. The report also notes that women have been dropping out of the workforce in a constant pattern since the mid-1990s. Still, there is no doubt that there are plenty of chronically unemployed people who have dropped out of the job market, so Bush gets a point. But the rest of his comment makes him a loser in this game. He says, “We have to be a lot more productive,” and then later refers to productivity. This clearly demonstrates he has no idea what has been going on in the economy. Productivity means something in economics. As a comparison, it would be like saying the word “inflation” in an economic statement but then arguing you were referring to the expanding American waistline. When it comes to productivity, American workers have been doing a great job. Productivity, which is the economic output per worker, has grown relentlessly since 1947 in almost a straight upward line. Implying that Americans aren’t being productive enough is about the same as saying McDonald’s doesn’t sell enough hamburgers. How much is enough to Bush? If record productivity–with a cumulative growth of almost 300% since 1947–doesn’t cut it, what does? There is no context where “we have to be more productive” means anything other than “push yourselves past record levels, workers!” That is, unless Bush doesn’t know what the word means. But with this full statement, he has also demonstrated that he has no idea of the real problem facing American workers. No doubt, he is blaming them for their stagnant wages–all that’s needed is more hours of work, and wages will improve significantly. As history proves, that’s hokum. America went through nearly a century where the profits generated by growth in worker productivity was shared–the more they produced, the more money everyone made. What Bush and far too many Republicans refuse to acknowledge is that wages and productivity became uncoupled around 1973: Productivity goes up, corporate profits go up, the rich get wealthier, but the financial benefits don’t trickle down to workers. Since the great uncoupling, the only times there was significant percentage wage growth that even vaguely mimicked productivity growth were in the Carter and Clinton administrations. (Both George W. Bush and Obama had short periods of wage growth, but nothing to brag about.) American history’s most productive workers are not responsible for the fact that they aren’t paid enough. Do Bush and his GOP cohorts really believe that the wealthy are sitting in their offices, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for workers to demand more money that will then be handed over gladly? Wages are growing at their lowest level since World War II. In fact, income inequality is worse today than it was in 1774, even when slavery is included in the numbers, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The bottom line: Folks are missing the real news in Bush’s jumble of economic words. He doesn’t know what is happening in the economy, he doesn’t know what economic terms mean and he is willing to blame workers for their own stagnant wages by proclaiming all that is needed is for them to get more hours a week at the job. And what he leaves off the table? That the problem is his friends in corporate America, whose wages keep skyrocketing because of growing productivity per worker, which allows the companies to shed workers, creating a larger pool of labor going after a shrinking number of jobs, putting more downward pressure on wages–an unbreakable cycle that will continue as far as the eye can see. Add to that corporate outsourcing of jobs overseas, and Bush’s simplistic “work more hours” blather–regardless of whether he meant what the Democrats says or his campaign says–is shown up for the nonsense it is. Bush needs to–but certainly won’t–take a new approach. Rather than telling employees that record workforce productivity needs to be even higher, he needs to let his wealthy friends know that record-high income is enough. Already, several of the super-rich have warned their compatriots that the type of massive economic inequality being experienced in the United States has never ended well throughout global history, and that policy changes are needed before mobs start slamming heads on pikes. Unfortunately, with his recent comment proving his feeble understanding of economics and his willingness to attribute low wages to largely irrelevant issues, Jeb Bush has proved he does not have the courage or the knowledge to lead that policy transformation. *RUBIO* *Marco Rubio Calls Abortion Rights ‘Indefensible’ – and Knocks Down ‘Pro-Abortion’ Straw Man <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/marco-rubio-calls-abortion-rights-indefensible-and-knocks-down-pro-abortion-straw-man> // Bloomberg // Sahil Kapur – July 10, 2015 * At the National Right to Life Convention on Friday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio touted his opposition to abortion rights, long a prerequisite for being a viable Republican presidential candidate. Speaking to the crowd in New Orleans, he hit all the necessary notes — legal abortion is "the taking of innocent life on a massive scale"; Roe v. Wade was an "egregiously flawed Supreme Court decision"; the case for abortion rights is "indefensible." If an embryo is "not a person, what is it? Because if you left it alone, that's the only thing it can become," he said. "It can’t develop into a pony!" Though he didn't mention it in his speech, Rubio has supported three exceptions to making abortion illegal—in cases of rape, incest and if the mother's life is at stake. Also notable was his message of respect for proponents of legal abortion, uncommon for a cause that has sparked ugly clashes and divisive rhetoric between the opposing sides for generations. He knocked down a straw man by some of the more aggressive opponents of the cause, namely the notion that its supporters want more abortions. "You can judge a cause by the arguments made on both sides. For example, I rarely meet anyone who's willing to say they're pro-abortion," Rubio said. "They'll say they're pro-choice, but almost everyone I've met says that they personally disagree with abortion. That alone tells us a little about the basic common sense the issue is built on." Rubio's appearance at the National Right to Life Convention came fresh off a three-day swing in Iowa packed with speeches, during which he didn't mention abortion. On Friday, he connected his abortion message to his overall pitch for the presidency—about reviving a disappearing American Dream. "And it is fundamentally impossible," he said, "for America to reach her destiny as a nation founded on the equal rights of all if our government believes an entire segment of the human population doesn’t have a right to exist." *Marco Rubio: Roe v. Wade Was ‘Egregiously Flawed Decision’ <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/10/marco-rubio-abortion_n_7772510.html?1436557719> // HuffPo // Laura Bassett – July 10, 2015 * Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) laid out his strong anti-abortion views in a speech on Friday, calling the Supreme Court's landmark abortion rights decision in Roe v. Wade a "historically, egregiously flawed decision" that "has condoned the taking of innocent life on a massive scale." “It is fundamentally impossible for America to reach her destiny as a nation founded on the equal rights of all if our government believes an entire segment of the human population doesn’t have a right to exist," the 2016 presidential candidate said at the National Right to Life Convention in New Orleans. The Supreme Court legalized abortion in the 1973 decision, ruling that states cannot prevent women from obtaining the procedure up until the fetus would be viable outside the womb, around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. In the years before abortion was legal, it was common for women to land in the hospital after seeking illegal, "back-alley" abortions or attempting to self-induce. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade, 130,000 women obtained illegal or self-induced procedures, and 39 of them died. Republicans in Congress are currently trying to chip away at Roe v. Wade by banning abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy. Rubio and nearly every other Republican presidential candidate has endorsed the legislation. Ten states have enacted similar abortion limits, and anti-abortion advocates hope one of the laws eventually makes its way to the Supreme Court and overturns Roe. Rubio said Friday that the issue of abortion is "more than political or policy-related. It is a definitional issue about the kind of country we want to be." According to a recent Gallup poll, half of Americans consider themselves "pro-choice," while 44 percent identify as "pro-life." But Rubio said he believes that nearly every American is personally opposed to the procedure, regardless of whether they think it should be legal. “You can judge a cause by the arguments made on both sides. For example, I rarely meet anyone who’s willing to say they’re pro-abortion,” he said. “They’ll say they’re pro-choice, but almost everyone I’ve met says that they personally disagree with abortion. That alone tells us a little about the basic common sense the issue is built on.” *Rubio: Confederate Flag A “Deeply Painful Symbol” For Millions, Shouldn’t Be On Government Buildings <http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/rubio-confederate-flag-a-deeply-painful-symbol-for-millions#.mbRoP2Qvg> // BuzzFeed // Andrew Kaczynski – July 10, 2015 * Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on the Michael Medved Show Thursday said that although for some the Confederate Flag is a symbol of heritage, “we have to recognize that for millions of Americans, it is a deeply painful symbol and that’s why it shouldn’t be over government buildings, as it is not in Florida and it will now not be over in South Carolina.” Here’s the full quote: It was the right decision for South Carolina to make. I knew they would make the decision that was best for them. I had trust and faith in their process and in their leadership. And I felt strongly that outsiders should not be coming in and telling them what to do. That they knew what to do and they would do it. And I thought it would be counterproductive. Look, I know people who see the confederate flag as a symbol of their heritage, not as a symbol of racism. But I also know people, many people, who see it as a symbol of pain. For them, it’s a reminder of an era in which in this country human beings were enslaved. And so, that’s why in Florida and in many parts of the country, people have decided that the time has come for that flag not to be displayed in government buildings. And I think it’s, it’s, you’re — it is possible to say you agree with that decision, as I do, and also say that we recognize, that, for many people, the flag — the reason that they’re tied to it is not because of racism. They’re not racist, it’s a cultural attachment. But we have to recognize that for millions of Americans, it is a deeply painful symbol and that’s why it shouldn’t be over government buildings, as it is not in Florida and it will now not be over in South Carolina. *As Donald Trump Riles GOP Race, Marco Rubio Begins to Connect With Voters In Spanish <http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-riles-gop-race-marco-rubio-begins/story?id=32357758> // ABC // Ines de la Cuetara – July 10, 2015 * On the campaign trail this week, Marco Rubio chatted with a woman from San Salvador. Claudia Steele, who is now an American citizen and a voter, eagerly told him she would do everything she could to support his presidential bid. Rubio thanked her, and the two discussed politics and family — all in Spanish. When Steele told Rubio she was the only Latina member of her local Republican organization, Rubio answered, smiling, "Hay que cambiar eso.” (Translation: “We need to change that.”) But this wasn’t downtown Miami. It was a western suburb of Des Moines, Iowa. While Republicans worry recent comments by Donald Trump comparing illegal immigrants to rapists and drug dealers may harm the party’s chances with Hispanic voters during the 2016 election cycle, the 44 year-old Senator from Florida was welcomed with open arms — quite literally — by the Spanish speakers who came to meet him over the course of his three-day swing in Iowa. According to 2003 U.S. Census bureau, just 5.5 percent of the population of the Hawkeye State identifies as Hispanic or Latino, but more than a few found Rubio this week. Steele said she thinks it’s important Rubio speaks Spanish. "It helps him communicate and connect with the community," she said in an interview with ABC News. (Fellow GOP candidate Jeb Bush is also a fluent Spanish speaker). At the same event Steele attended, held by the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale, a waitress originally from Barcelona happily conversed with Rubio in Spanish, and later hugged him goodbye. In Cedar Rapids, Sydney Speltz, whose mother is a Colombian immigrant, said she would definitely be voting for Rubio. "It's just really inspiring to see a fellow Hispanic be so successful," said Speltz, who works at the Cedar Rapids Country Club, where Rubio hosted the Linn Eagles Lunch. In Davenport, Morena Gonzales-Castro Hausuer, originally from El Salvador, showed up to hear the Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants. "I do believe that he is the one who has the right ideas, the right points about what is going to happen to our youth if we don't change our policies," she said. This week — like many of his fellow candidates — Rubio was asked to address whether Trump’s recent comments were hurting the Republican Party. He said he thinks voters are “capable of distinguishing between Donald Trump and the Republican Party.” “I obviously strongly disagree with him,” Rubio told reporters at a campaign stop, reiterating that Trump’s comments were "inaccurate, they’re offensive, and they’re divisive.” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, argued that all of the GOP candidates are “in the same general area on immigration.” (Rubio dismissed Clinton’s comments as “silly talk”). "We have a right to enforce our immigration laws,” Rubio told reporters. “That’s not hostility, that’s sovereignty.” Gonzalez-Castro Hausuer agreed. “I believe if someone wants to be in this country, they can come to this country, but they have to do it legally," she said, detailing the lengthy and costly immigration process she had to navigate in order to move to Iowa with her U.S.-born husband. "But that is the way it should be," she added. Steele, Gonzalez-Castro Hausuer, and Speltz all said what they liked most about Rubio were his ideas for higher education reform. Neither cited immigration as a top priority, but Speltz acknowledged she saw it as a kind of litmus test for candidates' general opinion of Hispanics. “I feel that some Republicans are too tough on immigration, and don’t show a lot of respect for people from Mexico and South America,” she said, referring to Trump. "But I definitely don’t think Republicans as a whole are anti-Hispanic.” *Marco Rubio: I will absolutely roll back Obama Cuba policy <http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/10/marco-rubio-cuba-obama-policy-roll-back> // Guardian // Sabrina Siddiqui – July 10, 2015 * Barack Obama’s historic policy shift toward Cuba would be short-lived under a Marco Rubio presidency, the Florida senator has told the Guardian, one week after the White House made the final major step in renewing diplomatic ties with the Castro regime. Rubio, a top contender for the Republican nomination for president, said he would “absolutely” reverse the unilateral steps Obama has taken thus far to normalize relations between the two countries – including closing down the embassies that are slated to open on 20 July – if he is elected to the White House in 2016. “In fact, I think they’re in violation of the law,” Rubio said during an interview at the tail end of a three-day campaign swing through Iowa. “The statute passed by Congress specifically prohibits many of the things he [Obama]’s now undertaking. It says those things can only happen after certain conditions have been met, none of which have been met. As president, I will follow the law.” Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has been the leading opponent in the US Congress of Obama’s overtures to the island nation. Ever since the president announced in December that the US would end a half-century diplomatic freeze with Cuba, Rubio has publicly castigated the administration at every turn – be it the lifting of certain commercial and travel sanctions, the removal of Cuba from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, and Obama’s announcement last week on the reopening of embassies between Washington and Havana. In addition to saying he would reverse those steps, Rubio also defended his steadfast opposition to lifting the 50-year-old US trade embargo on Cuba – which critics argue has taken a significant humanitarian toll on the Cuban people while doing little to deter the grip on power of the Castro brothers. Opponents of the embargo, Rubio said, “fundamentally misunderstand” its purpose. “The purpose of the embargo was not to overthrow Fidel Castro – that’s what the Bay of Pigs was about, that’s what Operation Mongoose was about, but not the embargo,” Rubio said, referring to the failed missions under President John F Kennedy in the early 1960s to help the Cuban people overthrow the communist regime. The intent of the sanctions, Rubio argued, was to protect the property of Americans and other private owners and prevent stolen goods from being trafficked into the United States as well as to serve as leverage against the Castros. “We could have used, and can use, economic sanctions through the embargo as a leverage to gain democratic concessions and openings for the Cuban people in exchange for alleviating some of these conditions, especially the diplomatic recognition and the removal of Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list,” Rubio said. “The Cubans have basically achieved all of those concessions and in return have done nothing to change … The only thing that will change is the amount of money the regime will have access to.” Jeb Bush, regarded as one of Rubio’s main rivals in a crowded pathway to the Republican nomination for president, has similarly opposed the Obama administration’s Cuba policy but offered a less definitive response when asked if he would allow a US embassy in Havana to remain open. “Probably not,” Bush, a former governor of Florida, told the editorial board of the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper this week. “I haven’t given thought about undoing a work in progress.” Rubio has pledged to oppose whoever Obama nominates as ambassador to Cuba – a post that must be confirmed by the US Senate, where he sits on the influential foreign relations committee. Republican lawmakers in Washington have also refused to take up Obama’s request to lift the trade embargo, which requires an act of Congress. Rubio’s unwavering position on US policy toward Cuba is a point of contrast in a presidential campaign built on the notion that he is a next-generation leader with fresh ideas to usher in what he has dubbed “a new American century”. In seven stops this week through different parts of the early battleground state of Iowa, the earliest-voting state in the primaries, the 44-year-old senator sought to convince voters that he is the candidate of the future while declaring that “yesterday is over” – an implicit dig both a Bush and at Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. But those in favor of rapprochement in US-Cuba relations see the 50-year policy upheld until Obama’s reversal late last year as decidedly antiquated, and at odds with recent decades of bipartisan support for liberalizing international trade with the express purpose of expanding political and economic opportunity around the world. Rubio himself referred to two such examples – China and Vietnam – in a Wednesday op-ed in the New York Times, but to make a counterpoint: that despite the opening up of economic pathways, both China and Vietnam remain notorious violators of basic human rights. Asked if he believed the US should then no longer engage in trade with China or Vietnam, Rubio conceded there was a “geopolitical reality” that set the two apart from Cuba – especially with respect to China. “It’s the second largest economy in the world, it has nuclear weapons, it’s the second largest military or the third largest on the planet,” he said. “There’s a reality there that doesn’t exist with Cuba that we have to address. It just is what it is – we have to balance geopolitical reality.” Rubio added that concessions to China had nonetheless forced the US to go silent on human rights abuses there, and his broader point was that China, Vietnam and Burma disproved the argument that economic engagement will pave the way for a political transformation. “It is proof that economic engagement alone does not lead a reluctant tyranny to open up democratically,” Rubio said, before identifying the biggest difference, in his view, in the analogy. “China’s half a world away, Vietnam is half a world away – Cuba is 90 miles from our shores. It is not in the national security interest of the United States to have a communist, anti-American tyranny 90 miles from our shores.” He said prerequisites necessary for him to consider engagement with Cuba would be free and fair elections, independence of the media, the right to organize political parties, freedom of assembly, and the release of political prisoners. Rubio further referenced reports of a crackdown last weekend in which nearly a hundred peaceful activists were detained by Cuban authorities, and prominent activist Antonio G Rodiles was beaten, to underscore his point that engagement at this juncture was futile. The reports of the arrests were confirmed by the State Department earlier this week. A spokesman expressed concern, but argued that such behavior further reinforced “the need to move forward” with restoring diplomatic relations. Obama acknowledged in his own remarks last week that “very serious differences” will continue between the two countries on freedom of speech and assembly, and access to information, while proposing engagement as the means through which change can occur. “Nobody expects Cuba to be transformed overnight,” Obama said in his speech on the reopening of embassies. “But I believe that American engagement through our embassy, our businesses and most of all through our people, is our best way to advance our interests and support for democracy and human rights.” Although the president did not mention Rubio by name, he criticized Republicans who have rejected his approach. Obama cited public opinion in both the US and Cuba showing a majority support for re-establishing ties, and urged Republicans to “listen to the Cuban people, the American people”. Asked for his response to polling putting the public at odds with his view – which includes a majority of Americans, as well as Cuban Americans, and residents of Cuba – Rubio was unfazed. “I don’t ever believe a president should conduct foreign policy on the basis of polls,” he said. “A president’s supposed to lead. A president’s supposed to do what’s right for the country even if it isn’t popular, particularly when it comes to national security issues. A president needs to view things with a 20-, a 10- and a 5-year outlook, not what’s immediately gratifying. One of the biggest failures of this administration is that it’s tried to use foreign policy for domestic political considerations.” Rubio added that the opinion of Americans would shift if they were more informed on the implications of opening up ties with Cuba, which he said would be an “economic opening to the Cuban regime [that] controls the entire economy”. Although Rubio did not raise in detail his stance on Cuba while courting several packed rooms across Iowa this week, he drew heavily on his personal story, as he has since declaring his candidacy for the White House. He recounted how his parents left Cuba in the 1956 in search of a better future. Their realization of the American Dream – Rubio’s father worked as a bartender and his mother a maid – is what set the United States apart from the place his parents once called home he said. The senator launched his presidential campaign in April from the Freedom Tower in Miami, Florida, which served for more than a decade starting in the early 1960s as the first stop for Cuban exiles seeking asylum in the United States. Cuban Americans living in Florida who are registered Republicans continue to overwhelmingly oppose Obama’s new Cuba policy. “That combination has been steadfastly anti-Castro and pro-embargo,” said Dr. Gregory Weeks, an expert on Latin America who heads the political science department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “This is how Cuban-American Republicans have been for many, many years and something that is very only slowly changing. That’s how [Rubio has] developed politically. He also sees that as part of a package that includes relations with Iran, Russia and dealing with Isis, indicative of what he believes is a broader weakness of Obama’s foreign policy.” But unravelling the steps the administration has already taken would be politically risky, according to Richard Feinberg, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an architect of the first Summit of the Americas. “Latin America as a whole would be outraged. It would be incredibly costly for Rubio’s US policies throughout the region,” Feinberg said. “Two years from now it’s going to be difficult for any Republican to completely reverse the initiative of this administration.” *Marco Rubio: The American Dream Is Really A Universal Dream? <http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/10/marco-rubio-the-american-dream-is-really-a-universal-dream/> // Breitbart // Michelle Moons – July 10, 2015 * Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) addressed Freedom Fest attendees Friday night with a message centered around the idea of the American Dream, the story of his parents’ immigration, and his own success. Rubio is one of two presidential candidates reaching out to a mix of about 2,000 conservative and libertarian-leaning conference goers. The other attendee is the new Republican frontrunner, real estate mogul Donald Trump. Rubio recalled the story of his hard-working Cuban parents who immigrated to the United States in 1956. His father worked as a bartender, his mother mainly as a maid. He made it a point that he lived in Las Vegas for six years as a kid. The story, which he has told during many a speech, contrasts his father’s work at the back of a room to propel Rubio’s later ascension to a podium at the front of the room. “We call it the American dream, but it really is a universal dream,” Rubio declared. “People all over the world have this dream, they’ve had it for millennia, the desire not just to be better off and to earn a better life, but to leave their kids better off than themselves. Why they call it the American dream is because so many millions of people have been able to achieve it here and not enough places. That’s the real American Dream. “Here’s the spiritual principal. Every human being, not every human being born in North America, every human being is born with certain rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. “The road to the American Dream has gotten narrower” because of two things, Rubio said. He listed the globalization of the economy and advances in technology as those two obstacles. “We now compete with people half way around the world for the best ideas, the best talent, the best innovations, the best jobs, the best companies.” It’s the relaxing of protections for American workers that has been criticized, as American workers have been replaced by foreign H1B visa workers in instances such as the Disney layoffs. Rubio has come under continual criticism for lax stances on immigration, including his role in the “Gang of 8” immigration reform bill. He went on to note that today, even bartender and maid positions require more advanced training and technology in the 21st century. He seemed to pick up Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)96%’s “cartel” terminology, calling the traditional higher education system an “existing and stagnant cartel.” Cruz has been emphasizing the idea of the “Washington Cartel” in his speeches and new book. Rubio touched on a complicated, burdensome tax system and regulatory system. He closed with “I have a debt to America I will never repay,” and that the journey from the back of the room to the front of the room was the American Dream. “Whether we remain a special country or not will be determined by whether that journey is still possible for the people trying to make that journey now.” *PAUL* *Rand Paul’s Fake Flat Tax <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/opinion/rand-pauls-fake-flat-tax.html> // NYT // Editorial Board – July 10, 2015 * Every four years, Republican candidates for the White House denounce the federal tax system — often advocating replacing it with a supposedly more equitable single tax rate — and this year is no exception. Senator Rand Paul has already come up with a flat-tax reform plan, and it shows clearly, once again, that this is a fundamentally flawed idea. Mr. Paul has pledged to “blow up the tax code” by replacing all federal taxes with a flat 14.5 percent tax on personal and corporate income — except, that is, when his plan exempts income from taxation altogether by retaining popular write-offs. Mr. Paul proposes to continue deductions for mortgage interest and charitable donations, which would gut the supposed simplicity of a flat tax. The Paul plan, like the flat-tax plans from previous campaigns, would fail to raise enough revenue to finance a modern government. Estimates by the conservative Tax Foundation found that it would reduce revenue to the Treasury by $1 trillion to $3 trillion over a decade. Citizens for Tax Justice, a more liberal advocacy group, estimates a 10-year loss of $15 trillion. Arguments about the proper role of government aside, a population and an economy that are growing in size and complexity cannot thrive with a shrinking government. Rand Paul in Las Vegas last month, flanked by more than 74,000 pieces of paper meant to represent the size of the United States tax code. Credit Ethan Miller/Getty Images The Paul plan also fails the basic test of progressivity. It promises a big tax cut for everyone, but analyses show it would be a big tax cut for high earners and businesses and basically a wash for everyone else. And that’s being generous. If Mr. Paul were to cut federal spending to offset the plan’s revenue loss, as he has promised to do, middle-class and lower-income Americans would be much worse off, because programs that benefit them would have to be reduced or ended. Contenders for the chopping block would include Social Security, health care, education and environmental protection. Mr. Paul might be on to something if he were willing to acknowledge that his flat tax is essentially a value-added tax similar to those used in all market-oriented democracies except the United States. (With both a flat tax and a VAT, businesses deduct nonlabor expenses from gross receipts and pay taxes on the difference — the value added.) Mr. Paul doesn’t call his flat tax a VAT because anti-tax conservatives are opposed to VATs. So he has taken a baffling approach that would be prone to evasion. But a carefully conceived VAT could be exactly what the United States needs. Experience and research show that it can raise substantial revenue, is relatively easy to administer and is minimally harmful to economic growth. In fact, the reason it is loathed by anti-tax conservatives is that their real agenda is to hobble government. The problem with a VAT is that it falls more heavily on lower-income taxpayers, who spend all of or most of their earnings, than on higher-income people, who can afford to save some or most of what they make. To offset that disadvantage, a VAT must be part of a progressive fiscal system that includes a graduated income tax; adequate spending on Social Security, Medicare and other government insurance programs; and ample government investment in education, roads, scientific research and other public goods and services. Mr. Paul’s plan heads the wrong way on all those fronts, providing less progressivity and more cuts to spending and investment. It is bad policy, and it does nothing to foster a meaningful debate about the economy or taxes. *Rand Paul’s presidential campaign raises $7 million <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/10/rand-pauls-presidential-campaign-raises-7-million/> // WaPo // Katie Zezima – July 10, 2015 * Sen. Rand Paul's presidential campaign has raised $7 million since its launch in April. The overwhelming majority of Paul's contributions came through small-dollar donations. Eighty-five percent of Paul's haul came from contributions of $50 or less, and 96 percent from people who gave $100 or less. Paul's fundraising totals were first reported by Breitbart.com and confirmed by his presidential campaign. More than 108,205 people gave to Paul's campaign, with the average donation coming in at $65. Super PACs supporting Paul have not released their fundraising totals. The money was raised through the presidential campaign and a joint fundraising committee where a portion of the money goes toward Paul's presidential campaign. Paul, who has positioned himself as a grass-roots fundraiser, lags in the Republican money race. Jeb Bush's campaign raised $11.4 million; his allied super PAC raised more than $103 million between January and June. Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential campaign raised $14.2 million since Cruz announced in March; combined with his super PAC total, Cruz has raised more than $51 million. Paul's campaign has raised, on average, $83,333.33 a day, putting him behind the campaigns of Ben Carson and ahead of Carly Fiorina. Bush's campaign has raised an average of $760,000 a day. Paul's campaign attempted to capitalize monetarily on a nearly 11-hour speech he gave about surveillance on the Senate floor in May, peppering inboxes with fundraising pitches, and tried to focus his fundraising pitch on small-dollar, grassroots donations. "When the media pores through my financial reports next week, they'll be scrutinizing every little detail. And that doesn't include just fundraising totals. They'll also be looking to see how far and wide my base of grass-roots support extends. If they discover my campaign has a grassroots army of supporters in every state and every city across the country, it's sure to make their heads spin," Paul's campaign wrote in a fundraising e-mail days before the end of the June 30 reporting quarter. *Rand Paul pulls in $7 million for presidential run <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/rand-paul-rakes-in-7-million-for-presidential-run-119978.html?ml=tl_7> // Politico // Daniel Strauss – July 10, 2015 * Sen. Rand Paul pulled in $7 million for his presidential run during the last fundraising quarter, his campaign reported on Friday. Included in that number are receipts from Paul’s joint fundraising committee, and his campaign is able to point to a decently large number of contributors (108,205) with an average donation of $65. The $7 million figure doesn’t, however, include the money raised by the libertarian-ish candidate’s super PAC, which is expected to significantly up his total haul. While that makes comparisons tough, the initial figure pales in comparison to the eye-popping numbers trotted out by his Republican rivals in recent days. On Thursday, Jeb Bush’s super PAC that it had exceeded its fundraising target, and had brought in $103 million. On top of that, Bush’s campaign reported it had raised $11.4 million. And Sen. Ted Cruz announced last week that his campaign and super PACs had brought in a total $51 million haul for the second quarter. During the same fundraising period in the 2012 cycle, Sen. Paul’s father, Ron Paul, raised $4.5 million. Paul’s overall fundraising numbers are expected to put him very much in the game, and his polling numbers have him in the upper middle of the field. A recent CNN poll found Paul with 8 percent support, tied with Ben Carson and trailing Bush and Donald Trump. Breitbart.com first reported Paul’s haul. *Rand Paul takes in $7 million in second quarter <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/rand-paul-fundraising-numbers/> // CNN // Theodore Schleifer – July 10, 2015 * Rand Paul raised $7 million in the opening months of his presidential campaign, sitting in the middle of the pack of Republicans who have so far released their fundraising numbers, his campaign said Friday. Paul, powered by low-dollar "moneybombs" that catapulted him to the Senate in 2010 and helped his father win delegates in his 2012 presidential campaign, raised the millions from 108,000 donors who gave an average of $65. The figures were first reported late Friday afternoon by Breitbart. Paul is also considering running for re-election to the Senate, and the $7 million haul is split between the presidential bank account and a joint fundraising committee, which dedicates the first $2,700 of each donation to his presidential run and the next $2,700 to a potential Senate run. A Paul spokesman, Sergio Gor, declined Friday to say how much of the $7 million was raised by each committee. The Kentucky senator's numbers show that he raised money at a slower clip than his competitors, raising about $85,000 a day. Paul also has two major super PAC's backing him, one of which is led by several former Paul aides. But he reportedly has struggled to woo the big moneymen who are choosing instead to line up behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The Kentucky senator has placed a particular emphasis on courting wealthy donors in Silicon Valley. Unlike some of his competitors, Paul has had almost the full quarter, which began April 1, to raise money for his official campaign. Bush, who officially announced his candidacy about two weeks before the fundraising quarter closed, currently leads the Republican field in those hauls, gathering about $11 million. Cruz raised $10 million in the second quarter, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson cashed in $8.3 million and businesswoman Carly Fiorina and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry trailed the field with between $1 and $2 million. *Rand Paul Raises $7 Million in Second Quarter with Overwhelming Grassroots Support <http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/10/exclusive-rand-paul-raises-7-million-in-second-quarter-with-overwhelming-grassroots-support/> // Breitbart // Matthew Boyle – July 10, 2015 * Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)93% raked in an impressive more than $7 million in the last Federal Election Commission (FEC) fundraising quarter which includes receipts through the joint fundraising committee, his campaign told Breitbart News exclusively. What’s perhaps more impressive than the dollar amount, however, is just how successful Paul has been with grassroots supporters: the total number of donations is comprised of 108,205 individual donors with an average of $65. What’s more, a whopping 85 percent of all donations were for either $50 or less, and 96 percent of all donations were for $100 or less. Those numbers prove that Paul has raw grassroots support nationwide, and hardworking people who aren’t part of the permanent political class—the folks who can’t max out in thousands of dollars of donations to various political candidates—are doing whatever they can to help him out. The numbers Paul’s campaign released to Breitbart News exclusively also show he is outpacing the contributions of almost every 2012 Republican campaign and has the resources to build a national campaign capable of competing through the convention. The last quarter’s $7 million of receipts come from the time frame of between April and June of this year. Paul announced he’s running for president in April. At this point in the 2012 Republican primary, Paul’s father former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) raised only $4.5 million, and only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney raised more. Paul is on pace to raise almost double what his father and almost every other candidate garnered during the 2012 primary. Additionally, Paul’s campaign’s announcement of high levels of small dollar donors means he has strong support from real primary voters, not political insiders. His donors are activists who will continue to donate and, as engaged activists, they will drive others to give to and vote for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)93%. Polls continue to show Paul is the best-suited GOP candidate at this time when it comes to facing off against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical general election. He leads the field against Hillary Clinton nationally, according to Real Clear Politics’ average of polls. Also, he is the only candidate who polls ahead of Clinton in polls from key states Republicans need to win the White House, including Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Paul is running a grassroots campaign, unlike other candidates who must raise higher amount of funds to overcome monumental negatives. While donor class candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)80% or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will pump millions into efforts to assuage Republican voters they’ve infuriated, grassroots insurgent candidates like Paul will continue outside efforts like he’s been doing. In the past two months, Paul has rolled out countless local and national endorsements, opened offices in New Hampshire and Iowa, and focused on campaigning in areas where other Republicans dare not show up, such as liberal college campuses, minority areas throughout the nation, and Silicon Valley. There’s also hardly any other candidates as good as Paul at gaining earned media and driving the political narrative—so he’s able to, without having to purchase advertising, push the conversation he wants to talk about. One of the first real tests of any presidential campaign is building an organization that is deep enough in the early states to build momentum and wide enough around the country to sustain the long slog that is a national campaign. Paul has surpassed such expectations as, in addition to his energized and large grassroots following of liberty supporters, his early state operation has been flexing its muscle since the senator went on his five state announcement tour, packing the house at each spot. Since then, the Senator has announced 125 members to his New Hampshire leadership team, including 25 state representatives and two state senators. He’s been lauded for operational efficiency in Iowa and amassed hundreds of volunteers in South Carolina. And that’s not to mention all the endorsements he’s pulled together, from people like Congressman Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI)95% of Michigan or Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)92% of his home state of Kentucky. Paul also has the endorsement of Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)52%, even though the two have been somewhat at loggerheads with each other since earlier this year on issues like Obamatrade and government surveillance. *CRUZ* *Ted Cruz hits the jackpot: A book war with the New York Times <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/07/10/ted-cruz-hits-the-jackpot-a-book-war-with-the-new-york-times/> // WaPo // Philip Bump – July 10, 2015 * Perhaps the only thing better for Sen. Ted Cruz's 2016 candidacy than seeing his book on the New York Times bestseller list is seeing the New York Times refuse to include it. Politico reported Thursday night that Cruz's (R-Tex.) new book, "A Time for Truth," would be left off of the paper's bestsellers list. It does appear on the Publisher's Weekly list for the week, identifying that 11,853 copies were sold, landing it in fourth place between books from former Playboy bunny Holly Madison and enthusiastic facial-expression-maker Aziz Ansari. At first, the reason that Cruz wasn't being included weren't clear. A spokesperson for the Times simply told Politico that the paper has "uniform standards that we apply to our best seller list, which includes an analysis of book sales that goes beyond simply the number of books sold. This book didn't meet that standard this week." Eventually, though, the Times told Politico that "the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases" -- in other words, someone bought a lot of copies of the book so that Cruz would make it onto the bestseller list. Or, to put it more bluntly: Someone gamed the system. Cruz's publisher denies that. In a statement to Buzzfeed, HarperCollins said that it had "investigated the sales pattern for Ted Cruz’s book" and "found no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization." It went on to note that Nielsen Bookscan excludes bulk sales from its figures, which resulted in the 11,800 number above. You will not be surprised to learn that the news of Cruz's omission was met with either gloating or fury directed at the liberal media, depending on observers' political leanings. For example: Update, 4:00 p.m.: Cruz joins the fight. In a statement to Politico, spokesman Rick Tyler said, "The Times is presumably embarrassed by having their obvious partisan bias called out. But their response — alleging 'strategic bulk purchases' — is a blatant falsehood. The evidence is directly to the contrary. In leveling this false charge, the Times has tried to impugn the integrity of Senator Cruz and of his publisher Harper Collins." If you're curious, that 11,800 in sales is substantially lower than the 86,000 first-week sales of Hillary Clinton's "Hard Choices" -- though that was backed up with a healthy public relations blitz. (It's closer to Clinton's fourth week, when she sold 17,000 copies.) It's also lower than the sales of Mitt Romney's 2012 book, "No Apology," which did 42,000 in sales in its first week. Here is a prediction! The Times will soon include Cruz's book on its list, in part because the negative (or, depending on how you look at it, positive) publicity will help goose sales. When Costco axed Dinesh D'Souza's book from its shelves last summer for poor sales, the resulting outcry ensured so much demand that Costco quickly restocked it. In which case Cruz gets the conservative cred of being blackballed by the Times and the PR bonus of being a Times bestseller. Win-win. *The Daily Cruz <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/ted-cruzs-secret-weapon-breitbartcom-119935.html?ml=tl_27> // Politico // Hadas Gold, Katie Glueck, and Kenneth P. Vogel – July 10, 2015 * Ted Cruz has a media strategy. It’s called Breitbart.com. The Texas senator is firmly ensconced in the middle of the Republican presidential primary pack. But you wouldn’t be able to tell from Breitbart.com. From reader polls and the conservative website’s near cheerleading coverage of the Texas Senator, to donor connections behind the scenes, Cruz likely has the Republican presidential field’s deepest relationship with the Breitbart machine — a relationship he’s seeking to parlay into more energized grassroots support. Breitbart.com, which boasts of having 18.7 million unique users per month — almost all of them conservative firebrands — is funded in part by New York hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, whose family is bankrolling a pro-Cruz super PAC as well as a political data company called Cambridge Analytica that is working with Cruz’s presidential campaign. Breitbart.com insists it’s independent, though proudly conservative, and attributes its often-favorable assessments of Cruz to the fact that his independent brand of conservatism is appealing to its readers. But no one disputes the site’s enthusiasm for Cruz. The night before his campaign announcement, Cruz invited a Breitbart reporter to spend one-on-one time with him and his family — an item deemed an “exclusive” with photos of the “potential first family” as they got ready for bed. A recent story about an AP photo that appeared to position a gun at the senator’s head stated that while a Democrat would be incredibly offended by the image, Cruz’s “feelings won’t get hurt. He’s a big boy.” And another blasted former President George W. Bush’s senior aide Karl Rove for what the site characterized as “lying” over an exchange Cruz and Rove had during Cruz’s run for Texas Attorney General. “Karl Rove should probably read what he wrote in his own emails before he attacks the integrity of a U.S. Senator and presidential candidate again,” the story’s lead sentence reads. The site, founded in 2007 by the now-iconic conservative journalist and activist Andrew Breitbart, can be an important starting ground for driving the conversation on the right — even if its reporting is not always on entirely solid ground. (The site has been known to misquote officials and misidentify others.) In June, the site’s editors said their 18.7 million unique users represented a 56 percent increase over the year before. And nearly all of the Republican presidential candidates regularly post op-eds and grant the site interviews or certain “exclusives,” which can range from interviews to excerpts of their forthcoming books. Cruz’s distaste for the mainstream media is well known. Last week, the Texas senator told conservative host Glenn Beck that he once rebuked a young staffer for calling one member of the mainstream media “nice,” telling the staffer all the media want to do is “filet” him across the front page. He once told a New York Times reporter he was going to kick around the publication and never give the reporter access. But conservative media is a different story. He has long used that avenue as a tool to engage conservative audiences. He even broke the news, in 2011, that he was planning to run for Senate in a conference call with conservative bloggers. Just weeks after Andrew Breitbart died at the age of 43 in 2012, a story on Breitbart.com said “The late Andrew Breitbart saw in Sen. Ted Cruz the future of the conservative movement,” alongside a photo of Breitbart holding a Ted Cruz for Senate sticker. And Cruz has gone to bat for Breitbart.com in the Senate. Cruz sent a letter to the IRS commissioner on Breitbart’s behalf about the “highly questionable” audit of the company the agency was undertaking last September. Meanwhile, he has offered toasts and remembrances to Andrew Breitbart and is a frequent guest at Breitbart.com events. He nodded to Andrew Breitbart’s legacy again when he endorsed Mike Flynn, a former editor at Breitbart.com who was running in a GOP congressional primary in Illinois (a race he lost on Tuesday), prompting puzzlement among observers for the spending of political capital on a candidate that was far from viable. “When Andrew Breitbart launched BigGovernment.com to expose ACORN and fight back against the institutional left and the political class, he chose Mike Flynn as his lieutenant,” Cruz said in a statement. “For six years, Flynn helped expose the media’s lies and led many fights against the Obama administration.” Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler said that the senator considers Breitbart.com a source of “fair” coverage, its “center-right” perspective a corrective for the mainstream media’s “center-left” bias. “While most of the media covers the news from a center-left perspective, they cover from a center-right perspective, and their readers have been very supportive of Cruz,” Tyler said of Breitbart.com. “It can be a vehicle to get covered fairly from a center-right perspective, to an audience that enjoys hearing from Sen. Cruz.” The love runs both ways. For the first time, the site is hosting its own regular online poll of its readers, and Cruz is far and away the favorite candidate. Of the approximately 55,000 responses from June, Breitbart said 33 percent voted in favor of Cruz, putting him in first place ahead of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who garnered 23 percent, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul who brought in 10 percent. It’s hardly a scientific poll — anyone can vote as often as they’d like — but the results match up with the site’s favorable coverage of particular candidates. “I don’t think this is a surprise, the result that we have, based on sort of the voice of our site. It tends to favor the tea party grassroots type of conservatives, the independent-minded conservatives, people who don’t identify with the Republican establishment,” Alex Marlow, the site’s editor-in-chief, said in an interview. Behind the scenes there is perhaps an even more important connection between Cruz and Breitbart. Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon has worked with Mercer on political projects including Cambridge Analytica, according to conservative finance operatives. They describe Bannon as something of a gatekeeper for Mercer, a New York hedge fund magnate who keeps a close circle of associates and has not publicly advocated for Cruz. According to the New York Times, Mercer is the main donor behind a network of four super PACs supporting Cruz’s bid for president. Mercer’s daughter Rebekah Mercer, who has helped steer the family’s increasingly public investment in conservative politics, was an early Cruz supporter, hosting a fundraiser in April for the Texas Senator. A spokesman for the Mercers decline to comment on their involvement in Breitbart.com or whether they have sought to shape the outlet’s coverage of Cruz. Breitbart editors refused to comment on the Mercer connection saying they’re a “private company and we don’t comment on who our investors or backers are.” “Breitbart is perfectly content letting these nameless/faceless ‘multiple places’ as you put it speculate, gossip and exhaust their imaginations telling reporters tales of what they think they know,” a Breitbart spokesperson said in a statement. And Tyler, Cruz’s spokesman, said that Mercer’s involvement in Breitbart also had no effect on the Cruz campaign’s dealings with the outlet. “I answered the phone for you just like I would answer for Breitbart,” he told a POLITICO reporter. “I don’t stop and look at who POLITICO’s investors are. I think we have open access to all the media outlets except the ones that have an agenda,” which aren’t real outlets, he said. Marlow said Cruz’s views often align well with those of the site’s editors and readers, but that Breitbart.com been critical of him in the past. “[Cruz] tends to have a lot of ideas that are supported by a lot of our readers … but we’ve been critical of him in the past particularly when he went down to the border with Glenn Beck and brought soccer balls — we were pretty brutal there,” Marlow said. Breitbart has published articles about how Cruz is “poorly matched to defeat Hillary.” The site also hammered Cruz over his initial support for fast-track authority on the trade deal, a position he later reversed — through an op-ed posted at Breitbart.com. And, to be sure, Breitbart has also showered favorable coverage on the likes of Walker, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and, in the past couple of weeks, Donald Trump. For Breitbart, the attention from candidates like Cruz is nothing but positive. “There’s a huge field in terms of Republican candidates who are vying for to become the nominee and this huge field has generated an intensity of interest,” Breitbart News CEO Larry Solov said in an interview. “I think a lot of candidates realize our audience is the one that they will have to be capture in order to win the nomination. That’s why they’re paying attention.” *Ted Cruz feuds with the New York Times – and loves it <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/ted-cruz-feud-new-york-times-119981.html?ml=tl_5> // Politico // Dylan Byers – July 10, 2015 * The campaign gods are smiling down on Ted Cruz, gifting him a feud with conservatives’ most despised news outlet at a time when most 2016 campaigns are gasping for Trump-free air. At issue: The New York Times refuses to grant the Texas senator’s memoir, “A Time for Truth,” a place on its powerful list of bestselling books, despite his publisher’s insistence that his numbers should vault him well ahead of other titles in the top 10. News of Cruz’s exclusion broke this week after HarperCollins, the book’s publisher, sent a letter to the Times inquiring about its omission from the list, sources with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO, which first reported the story. The Times responded by telling HarperCollins that the book did not meet their criteria for inclusion. On Thursday, a Times spokesperson said that the book was excluded because the paper had found its sales to be mostly “strategic bulk purchases” — a common practice among political authors, but a claim hotly disputed by Cruz’s campaign. “The Times is presumably embarrassed by having their obvious partisan bias called out. But their response — alleging ‘strategic bulk purchases’ — is a blatant falsehood,” Cruz campaign spokesperson Rick Tyler said in a statement Friday. “The evidence is directly to the contrary. In leveling this false charge, the Times has tried to impugn the integrity of Senator Cruz and of his publisher Harper Collins.” “We call on the Times, release your so-called ‘evidence.’ Demonstrate that your charge isn’t simply a naked fabrication, designed to cover up your own partisan agenda,” Tyler continued. “And, if you cannot do so, then issue a public apology to Senator Cruz and Harper Collins editor Adam Bellow for making false charges against them.” Tyler’s blast came just minutes after HarperCollins announced it had found “no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization” — a statement that all but accused the Times of lying. The publisher also pointed out that ‘A Time For Truth’ “ranked high on other publishing industry bestseller lists including Nielsen Bookscan (#4) … The Wall Street Journal (#4) and Barnes and Noble (#7),” all of which “omit bulk orders books from their rankings.” Cruz’s camp is clearly relishing the controversy, which has been good for business. “It’s been a good week and a half with wall-to-wall coverage of the book, and yes, this latest unfortunate news courtesy of the New York Times is a chance to get yet more attention and drive readers to Senator Cruz’s book,” said Keith Urbahn, co-founder of Javelin, a D.C.-based literary agency and communications firm that represented Cruz on the deal and helped with his book rollout. “This controversy is already helping sales.” Several Cruz-linked Twitter accounts, including @TedCruz, also retweeted a Washington Post blog post with the headline, “Ted Cruz hits the jackpot: A book war with the New York Times.” Cruz is somewhat better positioned than many of his fellow 2016 rivals, who have struggled to get attention since real estate mogul Donald Trump entered the race. Not Cruz. Not only is his book a success, giving him a second round of publicity after his May 23 launch, he also appears to be having little trouble raising funds. His campaign announced this week that he had raised at least $51 million split between the official campaign and four super PACs, putting him in second place in the money race behind former Florida governor Jeb Bush and well ahead of Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. In that sense, Cruz’s feud with the Times is a happy bonus. Eileen Murphy, the Times spokesperson, said Friday that the paper was standing by her initial claim that the “overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales [of Cruz’s book] were limited to strategic bulk purchases.” Murphy did not respond to a request for comment regarding the Cruz campaign’s statement. In her initial response, Murphy said the Times had “uniform standards that we apply to our best seller list, which includes an analysis of book sales that goes beyond simply the number of books sold.” She later added, “Our goal is that the list reflect authentic best sellers, so we look at and analyze not just numbers, but patterns of sales for every book.” The Cruz campaign called Murphy’s initial explanation “cryptic,” and her later claims about bulk purchases “false.” “Their decision to blackball Cruz’s book suggests that the Times very much does not want people to read the book,” the campaign said. “There were no ‘strategic bulk purchases.’ Cruz spent last week on a nationwide book tour, signing copies of his book at multiple locations. Booksellers at each event had long lines — sometimes over 400 people per event.” “A Time For Truth” was published on June 30 and sold 11,854 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen Bookscan’s hardcover sale numbers. That’s more than 18 of the 20 titles that will appear on the bestseller list for the week ending July 4, including Aziz Ansari’s “Modern Romance,” which is #2 on the list, and Ann Coulter’s “Adios America,” which is #11. Cruz’s memoir has also sold more copies in a single week than Rand Paul’s “Taking a Stand,” which has been out for more than a month, and more than Marco Rubio’s “American Dreams,” which has been out for six months. That may partly be the result of much more aggressive promotion, and partly because Cruz’s book is simply more interesting, with revealing anecdotes about his half-sister’s drug overdose, his time looking at pornography while clerking on the Supreme Court, and his blistering attacks on his fellow Republicans. “What will really make this book a long-term success is that Senator Cruz deliberately decided not to craft a boilerplate book of safe bromides, like most politicians do,” Urbahn said. A public brawl with The New York Times won’t hurt, either. As the Post’s Philip Bump noted, “When Costco axed Dinesh D’Souza’s book from its shelves last summer for poor sales, the resulting outcry ensured so much demand that Costco quickly restocked it.” “It’s important to look at a book like a campaign, setting the groundwork early and then seizing opportunities,” noted Urbahn. “The New York Times, ironically, offered us exactly that.” *HarperCollins disputes N.Y. Times on Ted Cruz book: ‘No evidence of bulk sales’ <http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/07/harpercollins-disputes-ny-times-no-evidence-of-bulk-210314.html?ml=tl_3> // Politico // Dylan Byers – July 10, 2015 * The publisher HarperCollins is disputing the New York Times' claim that Ted Cruz’s new book was disqualified from its bestseller list because its sales had been driven by "strategic bulk purchases." The On Media blog reported Thursday that the Times was keeping Cruz's "A Time For Truth" off of its forthcoming bestsellers list, despite the fact that the book has sold more copies in its first week than all but two of the Times' bestselling titles. In an email, Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy attributed that decision to an "overwhelming preponderance of evidence... that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases." But on Friday, HarperCollins issued a statement declaring that it had found "no evidence" of bulk purchases. "HarperCollins Publishers has investigated the sales pattern for Ted Cruz’s book 'A Time For Truth' and has found no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization," the publisher said in a statement, first reported by BuzzFeed. The statement also cited Murphy's quote about "strategic bulk purchases," then went on to note that "A Time For Truth" "ranked high on other publishing industry bestseller lists including Nielsen Bookscan (#4), a subscription service that tracks the vast majority of book sales in America, The Wall Street Journal (#4) and Barnes and Noble (#7). All these outlets omit bulk orders books from their rankings." Reached by email on Friday, Murphy said the Times would continue to stand by her previous statement. "Time For Truth" was published on June 30 and sold 11,854 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen Bookscan's hardcover sale numbers -- more than 18 of the 20 titles that will appear on the bestseller list for the week ending July 4, including Aziz Ansari's "Modern Romance," which is #2 on the list, and Ann Coulter's "Adios America," which is #11. *Ted Cruz is “proud to stand with Donald Trump” <http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/2015/07/10/ted-cruz-is-proud-to-stand-with-donald-trump/> // Reuters // Alana Wise – July 10, 2015 * Two of the Republican Party’s most controversial figures have struck up an unlikely alliance as they both vie for the 2016 Republican Party nomination. Despite faring fairly well in the polls, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are still considered long shots for the GOP vote. Both candidates have made enemies within their own party. In Cruz’s case, he angered many of his Senate colleagues when he pushed a fight over Obamcare that led to a 16-day shutdown of the federal government. Republicans such as 2016 White House rival Jeb Bush have distanced themselves from Trump, who described illegal immigrants from Mexico as “rapists” and criminals when he launched his presidential race last month. Trump promised if elected to erect a “great wall” between the U.S. and Mexico. In the weeks since, Trump’s comments cost him business partners and friends from every direction including ties with Macy’s, NBC and NASCAR, in the past two weeks alone. All the while, fellow outsider Cruz has yet to jump ship. “I’m pleased to welcome [Donald Trump] into the race for the 2016 GOP nomination for President of the United States…” Cruz tweeted after Trump’s contentious announcement. On a later interview on “Fox and Friends,” Cruz said he liked Trump and described the former “Celebrity Apprentice” host as “terrific.” Throughout the losses a growing number of professional relationships, Trump has maintained a poker face, writing them off as minor and took shots at Democrats and fellow Republicans alike, accusing them of taking his comments out of context. But Cruz told Fox Business Network: “I am proud to stand with Donald Trump.” *Presidential hopeful Cruz blasts N.Y. Times book off bestseller list <http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/11/us-usa-election-cruz-idUSKCN0PL00V20150711> // Reuters // Fiona Ortiz – July 10, 2015 * Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz says his book "A Time for Truth" is a legitimate bestseller and on Friday challenged the New York Times to prove its contention that the tome's high sales were due to bulk buying. In a statement on his campaign website, the Texas senator said the New York Times should apologize or release evidence of its analysis. He said he was being kept off the bestseller list because the newspaper is politically biased against him. HarperCollins Publishers said in a statement that it investigated sales of the book and "found no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization." New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said the company stands by its statement on Thursday that Cruz's book did not meet the standards for its bestseller list, "which includes an analysis of book sales that goes beyond simply the number of books sold." "In the case of this book, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases," the statement said. The book does not appear at all in the Times' top-20 non-fiction books. Cruz's campaign denied there were any strategic bulk purchases and said booksellers at events on his campaign tour had long lines for people buying "A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America" and getting it autographed by the candidate. HarperCollins said the book ranked high on other bestseller lists that omit bulk orders from their rankings, noting it was No. 4 on Nielsen BookScan's hardover nonfiction list, which is published on the Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly websites. Barnes and Noble's website showed the book at No. 10 on its list of current affairs and politics bestsellers on Friday evening, but it was not in its overall top 100. *HarperCollins Refutes New York Times Claim That Ted Cruz Tried To Game Bestseller List <http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/harpercollins-refutes-new-york-times-claim-that-ted-cruz-tri#.kky3wkaz2> // BuzzFeed // McKay Coppins – July 10, 2015 * Publishing giant HarperCollins is publicly pushing back against the New York Times’ claim that Ted Cruz’s new book, A Time For Truth, was disqualified from its bestseller list because sales were limited to “strategic bulk purchases.” In a statement provided to BuzzFeed News, HarperCollins publicity director Tina Andreadis said the company looked into the matter and “found no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization.” It is common practice for politicians to try to game the Times’ prestigious bestseller list by having their campaigns or political action committees buy up thousands of copies of their books. When Cruz’s book was left off the list this week despite outselling many of the entries that did make it, the paper’s spokesperson justified the omission by telling Politico they found an “overwhelming preponderance of evidence” that the sales numbers were being padded by bulk purchases. By publicly refuting the Times’ claim , HarperCollins is taking on one of the most influential forces in the publishing industry — an exceedingly rare move for any large publisher. Here is Andreadis’ complete statement: HarperCollins Publishers has investigated the sales pattern for Ted Cruz’s book A TIME FOR TRUTH and has found no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization. When questioned about the omission of A TIME FOR TRUTH from its bestseller list, the New York Times told Politico, “In the case of this book, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases.” A TIME FOR TRUTH ranked high on other publishing industry bestseller lists including Nielsen Bookscan (#4), a subscription service that tracks the vast majority of book sales in America, The Wall Street Journal (#4) and Barnes and Noble (#7). All these outlets omit bulk orders books from their rankings. *Is Ted Cruz A Bestselling Author Or Isn’t He? <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/10/is-ted-cruz-a-bestselling-author-or-isn-t-he.html> // Daily Beast // Malcolm Jones – July 10, 2015 * Ted Cruz’s new book, A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America, is not on the New York Times bestseller list. It is on other lists, such as the Wall Street Journal’s and USA Today’s. Cruz partisans have been quick to assume that the liberal Times is smothering the news that Cruz’s book is selling well. Trust me, it’s much, much weirder than that. Nearly every news outlet that maintains a bestseller list uses a different methodology. Some rely on Nielsen BookScan for their sales information. Some collect their own data. Some, like USA Today, mush everything into one list, so hardcovers and paperbacks and e-books all jostle for the same rankings. Others segregate their lists according to format (one for hardcovers, one for paperback, etc.). The Times slices and dices its list about as finely as anyone. There’s a hardcover fiction list, an e-book fiction list, a paperback fiction list, a how-to list, and on and on. After J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books took over the number one fiction spot for months on end, the Times created a separate list for children’s fiction. The kids’ book list was in response, it was said at the time, to complaints from publishers that they couldn’t compete with Rowling’s success. As long as she dominated the fiction list, no one else was ever going to have a number one adult bestseller again. And number-one bestsellers are important to publishers. A number-one bestseller gets pride of place in bookstores, and it gets better positioned on Amazon. Just the name of a book on a bestseller list is that much more free advertising. And down the road, a hardback’s bestselling status means more will be spent to promote the paperback edition when it comes out, and of course the paperback is bedecked with type proclaiming it a Times bestseller. When the author’s agent tries to sell the author’s next book, the bestselling status of the author’s previous book completely changes the conversation. The Times takes its role in all this very seriously, which is to say, it knows how important the list is to publishers, and it doesn’t like being gamed. If you’ve got deep pockets and want to make your book a best seller, you can do that. You can buy up books in bulk and make the list. To counter this, the Times weights the results of its tabulations from stores around the country. It also does this to keep, say, New York City or other big book markets from controlling the contents of the lists. So, for example, if the Times sees that a significant number of the 11,854 copies of Cruz’s book sold so far this week come from one place or a handful of places, the newspaper does not give those sales the same weight it gives sales from other stores and online outlets. Which is admirable, and also worrisome. Admirable because the Times wants its list to reflect what books readers actually bought, not what was snapped up in bulk by some company in the employ of a conservative interest group (some other day we’ll undertake an examination of the closed circle in which conservative writers publish books with conservative publishing imprints, which are then promoted by conservative Fox News commentators to conservative viewers who loyally buy the books—if you doubt the effectiveness of such a loop, consider that nearly every mainstream publishing conglomerate has an imprint dedicated exclusively to books by and about conservatives). Worrisome because who ultimately decides what constitutes a legitimate sale? And a sale is a sale is sale, or isn’t it? Well, no, clearly at the Times it is not. Of course, however they are compiled, the nation’s various bestseller lists do roughly reflect reality. John Grisham and James Patterson and Doris Kearns Goodwin really do sell a lot of books. Day in and day out, the books on various lists are largely the same and in more or less the same order from list to list. But if a publisher or an author or an author’s rich associates want to “create” a bestseller, they can do that, too. So take what you see not as hard fact but as an approximation of fact. Every few years some enterprising reporter exposes all the contradictions and problems associated with bestseller lists. And maybe there’s some handwringing, and maybe someone comes along with a new innovation that will set everything right. USA Today’s one-size-fits-all list was supposed to resolve disparities and let you see what was really the most popular book in a given week. BookScan was supposed to make everything about sales transparent. The changes get made, and yet essentially everything remains the same, because all the players have too much invested in the status quo. They know it’s flawed. And yet … It’s like the joke Woody Allen tells in Annie Hall: “A guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, hey doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken. Then the doc says, why don't you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs.” *NTU: Cruz tried to reduce federal spending by $169 billion per year, while Hillary Clinton proposes $226 billion in new spending <http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/10/ntu-cruz-tried-to-reduce-federal-spending-by-169-billion-per-year-while-hillary-clinton-proposes-226-billion-in-new-spending/> // Breitbart // Alex Swoyer – July 10, 2015 * The National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) reports that GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)96% has supported measures to reduce federal spending by $169.4 billion a year during his time in Congress. “Cruz’s average tallies $10 billion more in spending cuts than his Republican colleagues. For every dollar of new spending, Cruz’s agenda would cut $8.47 billion in spending,” the press release states. “Senator Cruz supported significant spending reductions like repeal of the Affordable Care Act and abolishing the IRS and income tax in favor of a sales tax,” said Demian Brady, NTUF Director of Research. “Combined with very minimal spending increases, these make for a legislative slate big on savings.” NTUF’s BillTally examined and analyzed the cost impact of Cruz’s legislation he sponsored during the first session of the 113th Congress and found not only would it reduce federal spending by $169.4 billion each year, but also his repeal of Obamacare would cut federal spending by close to 64 billion dollars per year. Cruz’s plea to abolish the IRS and the federal income tax and replace it with a national sales tax would save 96.9 billion dollars over five years. Brady added, “NTUF’s data continues to provide a clear picture of the fiscal history of Members of Congress, helping to enlighten on the costs of the policies politicians support.” In contrast, the NTUF analysis found Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) pushed more than a one trillion dollar annual spending during his time in the Senate, and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton proposed 226 billion dollars in new spending. Cruz’s fellow GOP presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)80% proposed $330 billion in cuts while Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)93% proposed on average a $484 billion spending reduction. *CHRISTIE* *Christie’s First Television Ad Goes Up for New Hampshire Viewers <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/10/christies-first-television-ad-goes-up-for-new-hampshire-viewers/> // NYT // Nick Corasaniti – July 10, 2015 * Gov. Chris Christie will be showing his first television ad of the cycle in the same place he spent his first week as a candidate: New Hampshire. The nearly $500,000 ad purchase will run in the Boston and Manchester, N.H., television markets, as well on cable, satellite and digital, over a four-week period. With splices of Mr. Christie’s announcement speech in New Jersey tracking under footage of people working in plants and hugging on doorsteps, the ad further builds on his campaign’s central message: the Republican candidate’s persona. “I am not looking to be the most popular guy, who looks in your eyes everyday and tries to figure out what you want to hear, say it, and then turn around and do something else,” Mr. Christie says in the ad. The ad purchase in New Hampshire is yet another example of Mr. Christie’s campaign staking its 2016 hopes on the Granite State. *Chris Christie releases first TV spot <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/chris-christie-releases-first-tv-spot-119957.html?ml=ri> // Politico // Ryan Hutchins – July 10, 2015 * Governor Chris Christie on Friday released the first television ad of his presidential campaign, drawing on his unscripted announcement speech and his new slogan, “tell it like it is.” The 30-second spot uses a clip from Christie’s campaign launch, held last month at his former high school in Livingston, and attempts to sell the candidate himself—rather than an ideology—by declaring that “leadership matters.” “It matters for our country. And American leadership matters for the world,” Christie says as the ad. “But if we’re going to lead, we have to stop worrying about being loved and start caring about being respected again. I am not looking to be the most popular guy, who looks in your eyes everyday and tries to figure out what you want to hear, say it, and then turn around and do something else. I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. And that’s what America needs right now.” The ad was first reported in POLITICO Playbook this morning. It is expected to run for one month on broadcast and cable stations in New Hampshire, where Christie has focused most of his efforts in hopes of turning his candidacy into a viable run for the presidency. *Christie Pushes Tough-Talking Image With Ads in New Hampshire <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/christie-pushes-tough-talking-image-with-ads-in-new-hampshire> // Bloomberg // Terrence Dopp – July 10, 2015 * New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is taking out his first television ads in New Hampshire as he targets the state with the first primary to build momentum in a crowded Republican field. The $500,000 ad buy, produced by Strategic Media Partners, will air over four weeks across broadcast channels in Boston and Manchester, as well as cable, radio and digital across the Granite State, said Samantha Smith, a spokeswoman for Christie. Footage was taken from Christie’s June 30 presidential announcement in his hometown of Livingston, New Jersey. The two-term governor is pushing his tough-talking image as he fights for one of the 10 slots at the first Republican primary debate in August. He’s currently near the bottom of the list of those who will make the cutoff, which will be based on the candidates' national poll rankings. “If we’re going to lead we have to stop worrying about being loved and start caring about being respected again,” Christie says in the 30-second spot. “I’m not looking to be the most popular guy who looks in your eyes every day and tries to figure out what you want to hear; say it and turn around and do something else.” Christie is betting that New Hampshire holds the key to jump-starting an electoral effort that hasn’t ignited the same kind of popularity that four years ago prompted business and political leaders to urge him to enter the race. He declined in 2012, saying he wasn’t ready. *3 Questions African Americans Should Ask Chris Christie <http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/3-questions-african-americans-should-ask-chris-christie-n389766> // NBC // Jason Johnson – July 10, 2015 * As the number of candidates has grown from a group to a sports to team to what now resembles the crowd during the closing credits of SNL, it's getting harder and harder to distinguish which candidates really warrant much scrutiny. Chris Christie became the 14th Republican candidate to declare and we can expect at least two more (John Kasich and Scott Walker) to announce this month. If there's anyone in the GOP who should feel accountable to African American primary voters it's Christie. This is a particularly important constituency for him because unlike every other Republican contender, he boasts bringing in about 21 percent of the African American vote in his last re-election in 2014, a jump from only 9 percent in his first race in 2010. African Americans, a key constituency for any contender in 2016, have a special set of concerns and asks for anyone running for president that are seldom directly addressed. Throughout the 2016 campaign season NBCBLK will examine the candidates' statements, campaigns, and policies to find out what they have to offer the black community. Hopefully their campaigns will feel compelled to respond. 1. How will you implement criminal justice reform ? Chris Christie has already been at the forefront of some criminal just reform measures in New Jersey. He fought for expanding drug courts that put offenders into treatment instead of prison (and this was over Democrats who actually wanted to delay the program). Governor Christie also dedicated a large part of his second inaugural address to criminal justice reform and pledged to make that a key part of his second term. However, as president he faces significant obstacles to such reform. African American voters should ask Christie how he would plan to improve or change criminal justice practices in the DOJ or the DEA if he were elected with likely are Republican Congress. This is especially important as Christie has remained silent on cases like the Zimmerman trial, he deferred on the Eric Garner case, and he pretty much gave a "no comment" on Ferguson. 2. What is the Chris Christie version of Washington bipartisanship ? In his announcement speech yesterday Christie was in full 2012 mode, by chastising both political parties and decrying the lack of leadership in the Obama administration in foreign affairs. But within minutes he was back to talking about how he'd reach across the aisle to work on ideas that he and Democrats could agree upon. All of this sounds nice until you think of "Bridgegate." While the scandal didn't result in the kind of major charges against Christie that some expected African American voters should be wary of any candidate who has a reputation for being particularly punitive to those he disagrees with politically. Bridgegate not only damages Christie's reputation as a straight shooter, but also labels him as a bully who will punish opponents regardless of how that may impact innocent citizen bystanders. Black folks are often collateral damage in battles between political elites and Christie should explain to voters how he won't let that happen under his presidency. 3. What about the Jobs? During the last several years of the Great Recession, African American unemployment rates have slowly gone down to about 10 percent. (This is still worse than the 8.7 percent it was before Obama took office.) African American voters should ask Christie how effective he will be at helping to lift black voters out of poverty. New Jersey has the fourth highest rate of long-term unemployment African Americans in the nation at 48.7 percent. (Mind you, New Jersey also led the nation in White long term unemployed people at 41 percent for 2013-2014, so Christie doesn't seem to be doing a good job of lifting anyone's status in the Garden State.) An effective long term plan for getting America back to work would go a long way in establishing Christie not only as a legitimate contender for 2016 but also a viable competitor for African American voters. *Chris Christie releases first campaign ad for 2016 nomination: ‘I mean what I say, and I say what I mean’ <http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/chris-christie-releases-campaign-ad-article-1.2288008> // NY Daily News // Celeste Katz – July 10, 2015 * New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie rolled out his first ad of the fight for the 2016 Republican nomination for President on Friday — a mashup of his teleprompter-free kickoff speech in his hometown. “Leadership matters. It matters for our country. And American leadership matters for the world,” Christie says in the 30-second spot, which uses footage from his June 30 launch event. “But if we’re going to lead, we have to stop worrying about being loved and start caring about being respected again.” Team Christie says it is investing nearly $500,000 to air the inaugural spot in early-voting New Hampshire — the focal point of Christie’s campaigning — for a month in broadcast TV, cable, radio and digital formats. That timeline would bring Christie up to the first televised debate between the GOP candidates, which is scheduled for Aug. 6 in the battleground state of Ohio. The “Leadership” ad captures Christie in one of his favorite campaign modes, one on which he’s relied heavily both as governor and White House hopeful: addressing supporters directly on all sides in a town hall-style setup. Footage and sound from Christie’s launch speech is interspersed with images of a variety of people filmed working or gazing into the camera — including a one man who prominently wears both American and Mexican flag patches on his coat. Christie, who’s framing himself as the straight talker in the jammed Republican field with a “Telling It Like It Is” slogan, wraps with a signature line from his kickoff at his alma mater, Livingston High School. “I am not looking to be the most popular guy, who looks in your eyes everyday and tries to figure out what you want to hear, say it, and then turn around and do something else,” Christie says. “I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. And that’s what America needs right now.” Christie was once regarded as a major rising star in the GOP, with a featured speaking spot at the 2012 national convention and a 2014 turn as head of the Republican Governors Association. But his image and popularity took a turn for the worse as he battled the fallout of the Bridgegate lane closure scandal, and voters in his own state have given him low marks for addressing unemployment and high taxes. *PERRY* *Rick Perry’s super PAC haul: $16.8 million <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/rick-perrys-2016-fundraising-super-pac-16-million-119969.html?ml=tl_17> // Politico // Katie Glueck – July 10, 2015 * Three affiliated super PACs supporting Rick Perry’s presidential bid have raised nearly $17 million, a PAC official confirmed Friday, while his campaign announced a $1 million fundraising haul. Jordan Russell, a spokesman for the Opportunity and Freedom PAC, confirmed that the organization and its two affiliated groups, all under the leadership of prominent Mississippi operative Austin Barbour, among others, had raised $16.8 million for the former Texas governor. “It looks like we’re going to have the resources to help Gov. Perry compete in the early states and beyond, so we feel good about it,” Russell said. His official campaign said Friday afternoon that it had raised $1.07 million since announcing last month, but in a statement noted the independent super PAC figure, claiming close to $18 million in pro-Perry money. Unlike some campaigns, where nearly the entire brain trust is housed under the super PAC, Perry has a robust campaign staff. But Opportunity and Freedom, led by Barbour and several longtime Perry advisers, has already bought up airtime in Iowa to run ads on behalf of the former governor and, as the better-funded arm, looks poised to play an active role in the race. Perry is a longshot for the GOP nomination after his disastrous 2012 presidential run. Last time, he entered the race as a presumptive front-runner but quickly flamed out amid a series of embarrassing missteps, including major fumbles on the debate stage. This time around, he lags enough in the polls that it’s unlikely he’ll qualify for the first debate. But he has spent the past year and a half seeking to rebrand himself, studying up on policy issues and spending significant time in the early states, particularly Iowa. The super PAC haul, while far behind that of Jeb Bush’s and Ted Cruz’s, is in line with other candidates’ totals. The news of the super PAC haul was first reported by CNN. *Rick Perry super PACs raise nearly $17M <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/rick-perry-super-pac-fundraising-17-million/index.html> // CNN // Sara Murray – July 10, 2015 * A trio of super PACs supporting former Texas Gov. Rick Perry has raised neared $17 million, according to a senior adviser for the groups. Two pro-Perry groups -- Opportunity and Freedom PAC and Opportunity and Freedom PAC I -- raised $12.8 million in the first half of the year. A third super PAC, which was created Thursday, collected a $4 million check from a single donor, bringing the full tally for the three groups to $16.8 million as of July 10, said Austin Barbour, the senior adviser to all three affiliated entities. The total falls far short of the $103 million Jeb Bush's super PAC has raised, but it is competitive with others in the GOP field. That's a promising sign for Perry who has faced questions from GOP voters and donors alike about whether he can mount a comeback after his embarrassing 2012 presidential bid. "Look nobody's going to compete with Jeb Bush, it's impossible. Congratulations to them," Barbour said. But, "we have enough money now to keep us competitive in this process for a long time." Barbour said their robust fundraising lends his candidate additional credibility. It also gives bundlers an opening to circle back with hesitant donors and pitch them on supporting Perry or writing larger checks. Wealthy Texas donors helped fuel the fundraising for the pro-Perry groups. Kelcy Warren, a Dallas billionaire and chief executive of an energy company whose board of directors includes Perry, gave a $6 million contribution. Warren is also the finance chairman for Perry's presidential campaign. Darwin Deason, another Dallas billionaire who founded an information technology company that was later acquired by Xerox Corporation, gave $5 million. Brint Ryan, chief executive of tax services firm Ryan LLC, is serving as the finance chairman for all three groups, which have collected donations from dozens of contributors. Barbour said he and other Perry allies organized three super PACs because high-dollars donors want to have more input in the process this election cycle than they did in 2012. For instance, many of his biggest contributors are eager to tout Perry's record of job creation in Texas. "If they were going to give a million dollars or $5 million they really want to be able to participate," Barbour said. "They know that the final decisions on strategy and execution still lie with me and our team." The super PACs still have most of their cash on hand, Barbour said, although they have spent more than $1 million already in paid television and digital advertising in Iowa. "We made this decision a long time ago that we were going to go early in Iowa," Barbour said. "We feel like we have clean air," giving them an edge to reintroduce voters to the governor before the airwaves become too crowded. The Perry campaign and super PACs are all betting heavily on a strong showing in Iowa and on the debate stage to carry the candidate further along in the process. That's why the super PACs have also spent a "significant amount" to reach a large conservative audience nationally to try to boost Perry's polling and ensure he makes the debate stage, Barbour said. Perry comes in eighth place with 4% support among Republicans in the latest CNN/ORC poll. Averages of recent national polls indicate he will likely qualify for the first debate. As for the recent Donald Trump mania, Barbour said Perry's exchanges with the brash businessman over immigration policies are a welcome fight. "If the conversation is about border security, nobody knows it better than Rick Perry," Barbour said. *New Super PAC Ad for Rick Perry Touts His Pro-Life, Gun Rights Record <http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/10/new-super-pac-ad-for-rick-perry-touts-his-pro-life-gun-rights-record/> // Breitbart // Sarah Rumpf – July 10, 2015 * The Super PAC supporting former Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination has released a new television ad, titled “Values,” and Breitbart News has an exclusive first look. The 30-second spot begins mentioning how Rick Perry “learned life’s important values” growing up in the small town of Paint Creek, Texas, and “as Governor, he put those values to work,” supporting pro-life and Second Amendment causes. As Governor of Texas in 2013, Perry signed into law a ban on abortions after 20 weeks. He backed the bill after former State Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered it by calling the legislature back for a special session to pass the bill. During a previous session, he signed a bill requiring parental consent for abortions. Regarding gun rights, Perry is well-known as a Second Amendment advocate, and has an A+ rating with the National Rifle Association. The ad touts his support for a “castle law,” protecting the right to defend yourself at your home. “You can talk about your values, or you can live them,” says the ad’s narrator, as the video shows scenes from Perry’s campaign launch in Addison last month. “As Governor Perry says, this is a show me don’t tell me election,” said Jordan Russell, spokesman for Opportunity and Freedom PAC. “Governor Perry has the best pro-life record of any governor in Texas history and is an unwavering defender of the people’s right to keep and bear arms. His strong record on these issues is an important part of what makes Rick Perry the right choice for for president, and we want to make sure the people of Iowa know about it.” Russell told Breitbart News that this was a “significant buy,” to be run on broadcast for major media markets and statewide cable. This is the fourth ad that Opportunity and Freedom PAC will run in Iowa. The PAC has not yet released their fundraising numbers for the second quarter, but sources close to the PAC told Breitbart News they will release their numbers next week and are confident they will have the resources to help Perry be competitive in this race. *GRAHAM* *Lindsey Graham: Trump’s comments are going to ‘kill the party’ <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/lindsey-graham-gop-debate-fox-rnc-119956.html?ml=tl_19> // Politico // Nick Gass – July 10, 2015 * Donald Trump’s statements on immigrants are going to kill the Republican Party, fellow candidate Lindsey Graham says. “Well, I think he said something that has brought people who are frustrated about our immigration system to light, but he also said it in a way that’s going to kill my party,” Graham said in an interview with CNN on Friday. “I would prefer that Donald Trump bring his economic genius and his talents to the table in a more constructive way,” he added, noting the billionaire’s charity efforts with military veterans and their families. Trump’s comments, Graham said, reinforce a narrative between the GOP and Hispanics that will “destroy” any chance the party has of winning the 2016 presidential election. “I think he should do better, because I think he’s a better man than that,” he said. Graham is not the only candidate in the crowded Republican field to condemn Trump’s comments that many immigrants from Mexico are “rapists” and “criminals.” A number of other candidates, especially those ranking low in the national polls, have turned to Trump-bashing as they seek to boost their poll numbers ahead of the first debate on Aug. 6 in Cleveland. If the first GOP debate were held today, Graham would not be on the stage, and two people who have never held elected office—Trump and Ben Carson—would be in. And Graham has a beef about that, making sure to tell the network televising the first event just how he felt during an interview on Fox News on Friday, calling the top 10 format “a dumb way” to pare down the crowded GOP field. It’s all about money and celebrity he said, blasting the use of national polling averages to determine the 10 candidates who will appear on the debate stage. Recent polling has Graham in the low single digits; his Real Clear Politics polling average sits at 1.3 percent. Trump’s average is 6.5 percent, though he polled better in recent polls from CNN/ORC (12 percent) and Fox News (11 percent). Brad Pitt would have a better chance getting in the debate at this point, Graham said. “Anybody with any celebrity would be in the debate. I think this is a dumb way to weed out the field. I don’t mind weeding out the field over time, but a national poll tests celebrity, big states have an advantage versus small states,” the South Carolina senator and presidential candidate said. “People who have run before have an advantage over those who haven’t.” “It’s July, for god sakes. So a national poll is a lousy way, in my view, to determine who should be on the stage, and I quite frankly resent it,” he said. Graham placed the blame on the Republican National Committee and Fox News for the format, declining to name any other names. “I would find a way for everybody who’s filed and has got a viable campaign to be on the stage, and after a couple of debates, you could start weeding people out. It’s not about me. It’s about destroying the early primary process of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina,” he said. “At the end of the day, you’re rewarding money and celebrity over the hard work in the early states.” Graham said he would decide later whether he would participate in the earlier afternoon forum of candidates who don’t make the cut. *SANTORUM* *Rick Santorum Wants to Be More Than Just a Pro-Life Candidate <http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/rick-santorum-wants-to-be-more-than-just-a-pro-life-candidate-20150710> // National Journal // Emma Roller – July 10, 2015 * Rick Santorum is tired of being pigeonholed. At least, that's the message the two-time Republican presidential candidate gave to the attendees at an antiabortion conference on Friday. Santorum, along with at least three other GOP presidential contenders, addressed the National Right to Life Conference on Friday. In his speech, he said that people who claim "the science is settled" on climate change but don't agree that life begins at conception are hypocrites. (For the record, Santorum called climate change "junk science" in 2011.) "I do not believe life begins at conception. I know life begins at conception. This is not a matter of debate. It's not a matter of faith," Santorum told the crowd. "Every child at the moment of conception is both living—that embryo is metabolizing—and it is a genetically completely human." He went on to complain that as soon as he started advocating against abortion, media outlets began labeling him as "ultraconservative," and reporters stopped caring about his stances on the economy or foreign policy. "Because I led on this, and very few do, you get labeled, and you get put over there at the kids' table," he paused. "By the media." This is part of a larger strategy for Santorum's campaign to rebrand its candidate as a populist reformer—whom his allies say is the "real Santorum." When Santorum was first elected to the Senate, it was as a candidate who appealed to Pennsylvania's blue-collar workers. But once he entered Congress, he began cementing his position as his party's champion against abortion and gay marriage. In 2003, he famously compared same-sex marriage to "man-on-dog" relationships, and forever earned the ire (and digital backlash) of gay-rights activist Dan Savage. Santorum has been out of political office for more than eight years, and during that time, public opinion on social issues, particularly gay marriage, has shifted substantially. The more Santorum is painted as a social-issues candidate, the more he risks being depicted as a relic of the past compared with his Republican competitors. There is some dramatic irony to Santorum's insisting that he is not a social-issues candidate at a gathering of pro-life activists. If he were speaking to the Atlantic Council or the American Enterprise Institute, his actions would reinforce his message. But so long as he continues to play to his base's social activists, all the while insisting that he is more than just a social crusader, his message will continue to get muddled. *Rick Santorum: The Supreme Court Doesn’t Have the Final Say on Everything <http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/10/rick-santorum-the-supreme-court-doesnt-have-the-final-say-on-everything/> // The Blaze // Fred Lucas – July 10, 2015 * Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum reminded abortion opponents of two separate Supreme Court cases on partial-birth abortion bans as he talked about the high court’s recent decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide. In 2000, the justice struck down a Nebraska ban on partial birth abortion. Then a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, Santorum said he fought efforts within the Republican Party to move on. “We crafted a law and said the Supreme Court was wrong,” Santorum said to applause Friday at the National Right to Life Convention in New Orleans. A federal ban that Santorum led the way on was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003 and then upheld by the high court in 2007. “When did it become the law of the land because the Supreme Court had the final say on everything?” Santorum said. “The Supreme Court doesn’t have the final say on everything. The American people have the final say on everything,” he added to a rousing ovation. Santorum was the runner-up to eventual Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, winning 11 states. However, in this election cycle, he is not performing strongly in most polls ahead of the early-voting states. Santorum told the crowd that 2016 “is not a time for the faint of heart” because the nation is undergoing sweeping social change. Santorum admitted that in his early years in Congress, he never talked about abortion, until finding out about the so-called partial birth abortion issue in the late 1990s. He became a leader on the issue, sponsoring a bill to overturn President Bill Clinton’s veto of the federal ban. After he became a leader on the front lines of the abortion debate, he said, he was labeled by the media. “My kids thought my first name was ‘ultra’,” he said, referring to “ultra-conservative” label. “It’s one thing to be pro-life – being a governor and signing bills, being a senator and voting,” Santorum said. “If you stand up and fight, if you are identified as a leader on the issue, you pay a price.” *HUCKABEE* *Mike Huckabee cites infamous ‘Daisy’ ad for Iran nuclear deal <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/mike-huckabee-daisy-ad-nuclear-iran/index.html> // CNN // Jeremy Diamond – July 10, 2015 * Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Friday repurposed the controversial "Daisy" ad from 1964 that ominously raised the specter of a nuclear bomb explosion to warn about the dangers of the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. The Republican presidential candidate's campaign released his version of the ad on Friday, playing the ad almost in its entirety in a web video. A little girl slowly picks petals off a daisy, counting as she goes, but once she picks all of the petals, a nuclear bomb explodes on screen. In Huckabee's version, a message about the Iranian nuclear threat rolls on screen following the explosion "A threat to Israel is a threat to America. Stand with Israel. Reject a nuclear Iran," reads the ad. Huckabee posted the video as negotiators once again extended a deadline on Friday to continue working toward a final deal that aims to cut off Iran's path to a nuclear bomb through restrictions on its nuclear activity and thorough inspections, in exchange for relief from international economic sanctions. Huckabee's ad is drawn from a campaign spot the Democratic National Committee ran in support of President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. The ad only ran once because it was so controversial and it was widely panned as a prime example of fear-mongering. But many credit the ad with helping Johnson win that election. Even Huckabee's campaign acknowledged in a press release that the ad is "controversial," but it noted that "the video highlights the threat posed by a nuclear Iran." The video also urges supporters to sign Huckabee's letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, urging him to "reject a deal with Iran that will spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, threaten Israel's existence and unleash a wave of terrorism around the world." Kerry, President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials have insisted this week that the U.S. will "walk away" from the negotiating table if Iran cannot meet the U.S.'s demands for a good deal that would cut off Iran's pathways to a nuclear bomb. *Huckabee: Trump can say what he thinks <http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/huckabee-trump-can-say-what-he-thinks/article/2568055> // Washington Examiner // Emilie Padgett – July 10, 2015 * At least one GOP candidate has no qualms about Donald Trump airing his opinions. Mike Huckabee, a fellow Republican 2016 presidential candidate, made clear on Friday that Trump should be able to say whatever he wants, despite the backlash against Trump for his controversial comments about Hispanic immigrants during his campaign kickoff speech. Huckabee called the real estate mogul "unique," but when asked whether he was "hurting" the Republican name, he said, "I don't think so." The Arkansas governor said the attention Trump has received could be a good thing. "He's capturing a lot of this space. My gosh, I wish I was getting as much attention as he is, because anybody getting that much attention certainly is going to soar in the polls," Huckabee said on Fox News Radio. According to a recent poll taken by Economist/YouGov, Trump is leading the GOP field. Fifteen percent of respondents preferred Trump, which puts him four percentage points ahead of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Rand Paul, who are tied for second. Huckabee added that no one need worry about what Trump will say as the race for the White House continues. "I don't think that people ought to wring their hands that Donald Trump is in there," he said. "He'll say things differently than most of us, he'll say things that maybe some of us wouldn't say, but he has as much right to be on the stage and speak his message as any of us." The former Arkansas governor said that allowing candidates to speak their minds enables voters to reach their own conclusions, saying, "That's how the process works." Huckabee emphasized that whether or not he agreed with Trump's rhetoric, getting the billionaire to change his ways would be difficult. "This notion that we need to ask him to tone it down, well, first of all, he's Donald Trump. He'll say what he wishes," Huckabee said. "And second of all, I think it's important for people to say what they really think. The voters then get a chance to decide. 'Is that who I want to support?'" Despite the attention, the Economist/YouGov poll found that registered Republican voters believe Trump has a small chance of keeping his top spot as the race continues. "I hope when [the voters] hear me say what I want to say, they'll like it. They'll want to support me," Huckabee said. Huckabee has been ranking fifth in most national polls. That support should qualify both candidates for a place among the 10 allowed to participate in the first Republican debate next month. *CARSON* *N.H. fans feel the passion for Ben Carson <https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/10/ben-carson-brings-uncanny-appeal-campaign-trail/pnCWdgy6wArheCYG19DINK/story.html> // Boston Globe // Akilah Johnson – July 11, 2015 * There’s just something about Dr. Ben Carson, some Republican voters here say. They line up to buy copies of his books. They chase him down streets for photos. Sometimes, they just continue to stare with awe after he speaks. “I’m just kind of overwhelmed,” said Peter Rice, a retired volunteer firefighter, his newly acquired “I’m with Ben” button in hand. “This guy is a breath of fresh air.” There’s liking a candidate — and then there’s the particular passion that Carson seems to incite, despite the sometimes unusual statements that make him stand out among 2016’s Republican White House hopefuls. So what is it about the 63-year-old political neophyte, who often refers to himself in the third person as “Carson” during stump speeches, advocates for tax rates based on tithing, and compares the life-or-death plight of Revolutionary figures to today’s politics? He speaks with the aplomb of a superstar neurosurgeon and a highbrow history buff — yet also the raw candor overheard in a coffee klatch. While describing detractors’ efforts to bring him down — including a reference to a years-old paternity suit — Carson revealed to a packed town hall Tuesday that, “I knew something they didn’t know. I knew that the only woman I’d ever slept with in my life was my wife.” Supporters gush over what they call his “compelling personal story” and “common sense.” He is the only African-American candidate – Democrat or Republican – and his resume is unlike the others. It includes his tenure as director of neurosurgery at John Hopkins University but no elected offices or previous flirtations with running for president. ‘So far, he hits the nerve in my body that says treat people fairly, be respectable, do the right thing, love your country.’ There are pundits who say Carson’s brand of religious conservatism will not win in New Hampshire, which polls show is one of the least religious states in the country. A recent poll by the University of New Hampshire showed Carson barely registered when voters were asked who had the best chance of winning, which candidate best represented Republicans like themselves, and who would be the strongest leader. Still, the university poll did show Carson had a high net favorability ranking, coming in second after US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. And according to national polls, he would make the 10-candidate cut to be onstage if the first televised national debate were held today. So the retired doctor and his supporters aren’t worried about the naysayers. “I’m in love with him,” said Dianne Durkin, president and founder of an employment loyalty company. “His entire thing about . . . leadership is spot on.” Ben Carson greeted passersby as he campaigned in Portsmouth, N.H. earlier this week. “So far, he hits the nerve in my body that says treat people fairly, be respectable, do the right thing, love your country,” said Doug Bates, president of the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce. Bates estimates he has heard eight candidates speak but only wanted his picture taken with one – Carson. In a speech Tuesday morning to about 50 business leaders at Pease International Tradeport, Carson called for “stopping all this silly divisiveness” and class, race, gender, and age “warfare” — all distractions, he said, from the “radical Islamic jihadists” targeting America. “We are falling for garbage. We are allowing ourselves to be colluded. You can’t just go through life worried about who’s on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ ” Carson said. “What are you willing to fight for? What are you willing to die for?” Carson spent three days campaigning in New Hampshire, with its first-in-the-nation primary. Last month, Carson grabbed national attention by calling out some of the other candidates who, he said, were slow to criticize the massacre at the Charleston, S.C., church as rooted in racism. “But there are people who are claiming that they can lead this country who dare not call this tragedy an act of racism, a hate crime, for fear of offending a particular segment of the electorate,” he wrote in an op-ed piece. It was just two years ago that Carson burst into the political arena at the National Prayer Breakfast. He used humor and his personal story of growing up in an impoverished Detroit home to give a conservative critique on the country’s state of affairs as President Obama sat nearby. Some of his most scathing remarks focused on the Affordable Care Act, which he wants to replace with a health care system that gives people transferable health savings accounts. Carson’s single mother was determined her two sons would rise above their station in life, he said. She refused to accept public assistance and required regular book reports when he began doing poorly in school, even though she couldn’t read them. He would earn a scholarship to Yale University, where he met his wife, Candy, and continue to the University of Michigan’s medical school. Echoes of that speech come through when Carson addresses a crowd from the campaign trail — but not when he engages in retail politics. As he shook hands and greeted voters one-on-one along the streets of downtown Portsmouth with his wife of 40 years, she was talkative and personable while he was awkward and reserved. Onstage, though, he seems to capture voters. In Bedford, after one of the must-stop “Politics & Eggs” forums, a woman murmured, “Love his message. He says it just right.” At a town hall in Barrington, he concluded his speech by invoking Nathan Hale, famous for saying “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” “The baton of freedom is in the hands of we the people,” Carson told the crowd of about 150. It was a speech that might have earned Donna Callmeyer’s support. The 72-year-old Milford resident said she, like so many Republicans, was looking “for one of the bazillion candidates that we can support.” Carson’s intellect “totally impressed,” her, as did “the fact that he answers questions so thoroughly,” she said. “He wasn’t, like, in your face about it,” interjected her 14-year-old granddaughter Asia Hanson. “I won’t walk away wondering what he thinks about immigration or the economy,” Callmeyer continued. “I felt a genuine honesty. This is the first candidate I’m excited about.” *Carson: ‘Baby killers’ capitalize ‘on people’s lack of knowledge’ // Washington Examiner <http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/carson-baby-killers-capitalize-on-peoples-lack-of-knowledge/article/2568035> // Ariel Cohen – July 10, 2015 * Ben Carson warned against the growing power of the federal government and "baby killers" denying the humanity of fetuses during his keynote speech at the 2015 National Right to Life Conference in New Orleans. "When I look there in particular out to the next generations. As we destroy them economically as we destroy them morally as we weaken our defenses as we do all the things that are necessary to bring down our nation," Carson said. Carson's comments about government overreach came in reaction to the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding Obamacare subsidies for federal exchange customers. Carson said "the Affordable Care Act is the government saying we don't care what we the people think." But Carson, a famed pediatric neurosurgeon, reserved his harshest criticism for people who support legal abortion. He said there are people who go to "great lengths to save spiders" but not fetuses between six and 10 weeks old. "The baby killers, that's what they do, manipulate you into thinking this is not a human being," Carson said, adding they "capitalize on people's lack of knowledge." He added that technology was making more people pro-life, because ultrasounds showed them the truth about fetal development. Many people in attendance at the National Right to Life Conference were evangelicals, a large bloc of voters to which Carson appeals. Carson called on them to speak up for their values. "I think it's us the American people who will make the difference," Carson said. "It was Thomas Jefferson said this would happen. That we would become relaxed, and that the government would grow and it would infiltrate every aspect of our lives. But just before we turn into another form of government he said the people would waken and reassert themselves. I think now is the time we must do that if we are to save our nation." In the last election, 30 million evangelicals did not vote, Carson claimed. He urged attendees to encourage their friends to go to the poll, saying "our strength is in unity and belief system." *JINDAL* *Bobby Jindal’s obsession with “colorblindness” is everything wrong with the GOP’s racial politics <http://www.salon.com/2015/07/10/bobby_jindals_obsession_with_colorblindness_is_everything_wrong_with_the_gops_racial_politics/> // Salon // Eesha Pandit – July 10, 2015 * A few years ago, the members of the Republican National Committee gathered for a retreat after the 2012 election, in which the Democrats held onto the White House and gained seats in both chambers of Congress. At that meeting in the winter of 2012, Bobby Jindal offered up some fiery words about what his party needed to do to win, including a rejection of its obsession with “identity politics,” which he deemed “corrosive to the great American melting pot.” “We must reject the notion that demography is destiny, the pathetic and simplistic notion that skin pigmentation dictates voter behavior,” Jindal said to applause. To milder applause that night, Jindal called on Republicans to “stop being the stupid party” and to “stop insulting the intelligence of voters.” And yet, just a few years hence we find Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, a Rhodes scholar who once led his state’s university system, engaging in the most regressive of politics as he begins his bid for the presidency. Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected bans on gay marriage, Jindal’s spokesman Mike Reed said, “We believe the U.S. Constitution, Louisiana Constitution, Louisiana’s Preservation of Religious Freedom Act, as well as our Executive Order prevents government from compelling individuals to violate sincerely held religious beliefs. We will continue to fight to protect religious liberty.” In practice, this means that the governor’s administration issued an executive order to protect clerks and state employees who have moral objections to gay marriage and don’t feel comfortable handing out licenses to same-sex couples. As Jindal runs for president in the Republican primary, he is resorting to those very same regressive and divisive tactics that only a few short years ago he inveighed against — so much so, in fact, that many observers were taken in by a satirical article that quoted Jindal as saying, “the Confederate Flag is part of my heritage.” (In fact, the governor has skirted the issue of the flag altogether, telling reporters that “now’s the time for mourning.”) Given Jindal’s penchant for refusing to identify as an Indian American, saying that he’s “just American,” while hanging a portrait of himself in his office looking remarkably white, and raging against the need for hyphenated identities, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine Gov. Jindal actually claiming the Confederate flag. (And that’s before we even consider his new campaign slogan — “Tanned. Rested. Ready.” — which has been met with hostility in recent days by many in the Indian American community.) In an Op-Ed in February, Gov. Jindal called for “The End of Race,” going “all-in” on the melting pot idea of America and beseeching us all to give up on our racial identities for the sake of a singular American one. This is a very convenient solution for a party that refuses to address racial inequity and injustice, which are, in fact, bedrock values in America. We haven’t ended up with a racialized system where black and brown residents and citizens of the U.S. suffer greater levels of violence, discrimination and institutionalized inequity simply by chance. Our country was founded on, and is grounded in, the belief of a racialized American exceptionalism. It’s a deeply rooted racism that allowed the founders to displace and murder so many of the Native and First Nations people here before them, and to uphold and entrench a system of chattel slavery while talking about American freedom and independence. Today, Jindal’s statements about colorblindness are a disavowal of that legacy and its ongoing aftermath. We are a country in which your race, and gender, are key determinants in whether you’re paid fairly, whether you are likely to be unjustly incarcerated, whether you are likely to be killed by police officers, whether your children will get a good education, whether you will get care when you get sick, whether your babies will be born healthy, and how long you will live. We do not live in a “colorblind” country, no matter how much Gov. Jindal wishes it were so, nor how much many of us would like to. We live in a hyper-racialized one. Calling for “colorblindness” is a ridiculous solution to a centuries-old racial hierarchy that has devastating results for communities of color. Colorblindness is anti-blackness. Colorblindness is racism. The solutions we need involve looking that truth in the eye and changing racist systems and structures, not turning away and deriding the question itself. *TRUMP* *Event for Donald Trump in Phoenix Will Draw Thousands <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/10/republican-candidates-appeal-to-anti-abortion-groups/> // NYT // Nicholas Fandos – July 10, 2015 * Donald J. Trump, the real estate mogul who has tied Republicans in knots in recent weeks with his comments on immigration, will roll into Phoenix on Saturday to address the issue again, just after the head of the Republican Party supposedly asked him to tone down his words on the issue. The planned speech is already attracting a storm of attention. Even as city leaders have asked Mr. Trump “to stage his hate-filled circus” elsewhere, ticket requests have been so high the campaign has moved the speech from the swank Arizona Biltmore hotel to the convention center downtown. “Mr. Trump certainly has a First Amendment right to bluster as much as he wants, and even to pander to our worst instincts in a sad attempt to win votes at the expense of hard-working, honorable, law-abiding Latinos,” Daniel Valenzuela, a Democratic councilman and the city’s vice mayor, said on Thursday. “However, we should draw the line at allowing him to use the Phoenix Convention Center — a public building funded by all of our taxpayers’ dollars.” Mayor Greg Stanton, also a Democrat, issued a similar statement condemning Mr. Trump and his remarks, but assured that the city would not try to prevent the candidate from speaking. Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said on Friday that 4,500 tickets had already been reserved for the speech, 3,500 more than initially expected. Mr. Trump will appear onstage with Joe Arpaio, the long-serving sheriff of surrounding Maricopa County, whose tactics to track down and deport illegal immigrants have drawn national attention and a federal conviction for racial profiling in 2013. Mr. Trump has attracted sharp criticism from business and political leaders since asserting in his campaign announcement that those crossing the United States-Mexico border illegally include rapists and criminals. The remarks led several businesses, including Macy’s, Univision and NBC, to cut their ties with the developer. Republicans will be watching the weekend swing through the desert closely to see if Mr. Trump tempers his language on the issue. This week, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, was said to have urged Mr. Trump in a phone call on Wednesday to soften his tone on immigration. Mr. Trump is expected to start the day on Saturday in Las Vegas, where he will speak at FreedomFest, an annual libertarian-leaning gathering that bills itself as the “world’s largest gathering of free minds.” Ms. Hicks said he will also hold a press conference after the event. *Donald Trump Lied to Us <http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/donald-trump-lied-to-us-119929.html?ml=tl_6#.VaAM6BNViko> // Politico // Antonio Rijerino – July 10, 2015 * As I protested Thursday afternoon in front of the Old Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Ave in Washington D.C.—the building Donald Trump is turning into a hotel a few blocks away from another historical building he wants to take over, the White House—I thought about a meeting I had with Trump at his headquarters in New York two years ago to discuss my organization’s programs, including the Hispanic Heritage Awards. Once the meeting was set, I called immigration activists Estuardo Rodriguez and Gaby Pacheco to gather some young DREAMers to crash the meeting and try and change The Donald’s mind on immigration reform and the DREAM Act. I didn’t mention the tactic to his assistant coordinating the meeting, and figured I’d simply sneak the DREAMers in as my associates. We were met with bewildered and not-so-happy faces at the top floor of Trump Tower, but to his credit, Trump waved off his concerned staff and graciously got up from his desk, welcomed us individually, and proceeded to have a civil dialogue about immigration reform and the important role immigrants have historically played in the United States. For over an hour, Trump listened intently, asked thoughtful questions, and gave us examples of Latino employees he held in high regard. He then asked each of the DREAMers to describe their journeys, which were compelling and mirrored every value each American shares: education, work ethic, community, faith and family. After I summed up the conversation with “immigrants are a value proposition to America,” he stood up, waved his hands in dramatic Donald fashion and exclaimed, “You’ve convinced me!” It was a great moment, but that’s what entertainers do. They know their audience and give them what they want. And now, this shameless opportunist is giving a very different audience what they want to hear—hate speech. An audience that has made him a cultural icon, a viable candidate for president and what is most worrisome, an audience that is responding favorably to his message. The no-filter, in-your-face, celebrity billionaire is now in second place behind Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in Iowa according to a Quinnipiac University survey and in New Hampshire according to a CNN-WMUR poll. Apology from Trump? No way. Yesterday, in defense of his now-infamous statement on Mexicans, Trump said he was simply “defending the people of the United States.” I applaud Univision for being the first to send a message to Trump by breaking off their relationship with the Miss Universe Organization. Then NBC, Macy’s, NASCAR and others including this afternoon my friend Chef Jose Andres sent a message. But the loudest message is being sent by many Americans who have supported Trump’s xenophobic diatribe. And that’s my biggest concern - he continues to pander to an audience that can potentially take his hateful words and turn them into hateful action. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” That was Trump talking about Mexicans (let’s face it, Latinos) taking over the country. “You are raping our women and taking over the country.” That was Dylann Storm Roof, the 21 year-old racist who murdered nine worshippers in cold blood at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Sound familiar? Hate speech is the gateway to hate action and at some point in his life, Roof heard hate talk. Did he take it seriously? Sounds like he did. His words nourish myths of brown invaders crossing the border with hopes of ruining America like an updated Orson Wells prank. Or in Roof’s case, Black villains. This isn’t simply a case of the PC police attacking a spirited American as Trump-backers Sen. Ted Cruz , R-Texas, and, yes, Rep. Steve King of Iowa say. (Let’s not forget that King was the reigning champion of ludicrous remarks about immigrants way before Trump when in 2013 he blustered, “They weigh 130 pounds and with calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.” King is still a Congressman representing a district in America where the majority supports his stances about immigrants.) Attacks against Hispanics have more than tripled in a year, according to an official report released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, The Hate Crime Victimization report. The Census-driven study shows an alarming rise in violent anti-Hispanic crime with anti-Hispanic crimes more likely in regions with higher immigration populations and new arrivals. Trump’s words are dangerous not simply offensive and should be treated that way. *Trump: I’m still a birther <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-birther-obama-119945.html?ml=tl_20> // Politico // Nick Gass – July 10, 2015 * Donald Trump is still not sure whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that aired Thursday night, the Republican presidential candidate said he was not that interested in talking about the issue, compared to other ones. “Honestly, I don’t want to get into it,” Trump said. Asked whether he thought Obama was born in the U.S., Trump responded: “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know why he wouldn’t release his records.” In the interview, Trump also claimed that Hillary Clinton and John McCain were both birthers, and mentioned how he got Obama to release “something.” Obama released his long-form birth certificate in April 2011 after speculation from Trump and others that he might have been born elsewhere. “Do you know that Hillary Clinton was a birther? She wanted those records and fought like hell. People forgot. You know that John McCain was a birther, wanted those records. They couldn’t get the records. Hillary failed. John McCain failed,” he said. “Trump was able to get something. I don’t know what the hell it was, but it doesn’t matter. Because I’m off that subject. I’m about jobs, I’m about the military, I’m about doing the right thing for this country,” he added. Meanwhile, Trump signaled that his beef with the GOP establishment is far from over. In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night, he speculated that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus might have leaked details of their call to The Washington Post. “I just don’t know how the story got out. Nobody called us for verification, and honestly, I can’t blame him, unless he gave out the story, which is possible. Probably, he did,” Trump said. Trump also again declined to rule out a third-party bid on Thursday, telling the Post that he “would have to see who the nominee is” should he fail in his quest for the Republican nomination. *Donald Trump’s immigration stance dividing GOP in Arizona <http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/donald-trumps-immigration-stance-dividing-gop-arizona-32377961> // AP // Bob Christie - July 11, 2015* PHOENIX (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is drawing larger crowds as he continues to criticize immigration policies in stark language that has revealed a deep divide between immigration hawks and moderates who are trying to avoid alienating Hispanic voters. On Saturday, Trump was scheduled to campaign in Nevada and then in Arizona, a hub of immigrant and drug smuggling where the real estate developer and reality TV star has developed a large following. A rally in Phoenix was first planned at a posh resort that could handle about 1,000 guests, but organizers moved it to the city’s convention center. Trump’s descriptions of Mexican immigrants bringing drugs and crime to the U.S. and being rapists have been roundly denounced as offensive. But his message about the broken border has resonated with many in the GOP, especially after an immigrant who was deported multiple times was accused of killing a woman on a San Francisco pier. In Los Angeles for a rally Friday evening, Trump brought together people who said their relatives had been killed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally. “The illegals come in and the illegals killed their children,” he said. “And we better get smart in the United States.” Arizona’s major Chamber of Commerce group, both U.S. senators and a host of other GOP backers heaped their ire on Trump as the visit to Phoenix drew near. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who met presidential hopefuls Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker when they were in the state, is snubbing Trump. Protesters like the ones who greeted Trump in Los Angeles were expected. Maricopa County’s tough-on-immigration sheriff, Joe Arpaio, is set to speak before Trump at the convention center event. Sen. Jeff Flake, who with Sen. John McCain sponsored a 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill that stalled when it reached the House, said Trump’s views “are coarse, ill-informed and inaccurate, and they are not representative of the Republican Party. As an elected Republican official, I’m disappointed the county party would host a speaker that so damages the party’s image.” McCain, in a statement issued Friday, said, “If the Republican nominee for president does not support comprehensive immigration reform and border security policy, we have no chance of defeating Hillary Clinton and winning the White House in 2016.” But A.J. LaFaro, former head of the Maricopa County Republican Party, rejected those views. “With regards to McCain, Flake and the chambers, I don’t respect any of those people anyway, so why would I care?” Lafaro said. “They’re not representative of my conservative Christian values. I understand that Mr. Trump is saying what a lot of people here in the United States, I would like to think a majority of the people here in the Unites States, are thinking.” Trump’s comments after a June 16 campaign kickoff speech helped revive immigration as a campaign issue but also prompted a series of cancellations from companies that do business with him or his companies. Trump begins Saturday speaking in Las Vegas at the libertarian-minded gathering Freedom Fest. Nevada is 27 percent Hispanic and a key state for Republican candidates. His appearance at the conference, which bills itself as an egalitarian event for free-thinkers to discuss and celebrate liberty, was a recent addition to a lineup that includes Rubio on Friday night. *In Phoenix Speech, Donald Trump Won’t Back Down On Immigration Comments <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/donald-trump-won-t-back-down-on-immigration-comments-in-phoenix-speech> // Bloomberg // Emily Greenhouse – July 10, 2015 * On the eve of a Phoenix rally that he predicts will draw 5,000 people to hear him speak about illegal immigration, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect" that he has no intention of backing off the stands that have drawn him rebukes from some top-ranking political figures. "We have to stop illegal immigration," the billionaire businessman told interviewer Mark Halperin on Friday. "The country is being decimated by it. Speaking about the wave of criticism he has received this week, he did not back down. “All I can do is talk the truth,” Trump said. He declined to say that he has made any mistakes, or that anything had hurt his feelings. “No,” Trump said, “because I’m a big boy.” Shortly after Trump made his comments, the senior senator of the state that he will be visiting for his Saturday rally issued a statement that, without naming the real estate mogul, clearly took issue with his rhetoric. "The circus currently surrounding the debate over illegal immigration sows division within our country and damages the Republican Party," said Arizona Senator John McCain, the Republican Party's 2008 presidential nominee. "If the Republican nominee for president does not support comprehensive immigration reform and border security policy, we have no chance of defeating Hillary Clinton and winning the White House in 2016." Donald Trump on Campaign: It Really Is Intense In his interview with Halperin, Trump acknowledged that the intensity of the presidential campaign had surprised him. When asked to name competitors in the Republican field whom he respects, he pointed to Texas Senator Ted Cruz and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who have come out in defense of his comments. At one point, Trump said that he felt the week, in which he has been a major focus of national political coverage, had improved his chances of winning, though later stated that he wasn’t entirely sure. He made much of an Economist/YouGov poll that placed him Thursday in the lead of the presidential field. Trump has received a spate of negative attention since his remarks on immigrants coming from Mexico at his official presidential campaign announcement on June 16th. Businesses including Univision, NBC, Macy’s, plus a number of golf tournaments and celebrity chefs have moved to distance themselves from him. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, called Trump that day to encourage him to tamp down inflammatory comments on immigration. Trump has characterized the call differently. Trump stressed his maverick status, twice telling Halperin, “I’m not a politician.” He said, “The politicians will never take us to the promised land,” whereas he alone has the capacity to win the general election. “I am the only one that can beat Hillary Clinton,” he said, “I will win the Hispanic vote.” He said that he will speak without a prepared text in his Arizona speech Saturday—“I have a very great memory”—and stressed how high the attendance will be in Phoenix, and at an event Friday evening in California. “I believe in winning,” Trump said. *Trump’s Arizona Speech on Illegal Immigration Could Attract Thousands <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/the-one-point-on-which-bernie-sanders-agrees-with-jeb-bush> // Bloomberg // Ben Brody – July 10, 2015 * Donald Trump is still talking immigration. And, unlike some in the Republican establishment, Arizona supporters seem to love it. A speech "on illegal immigration and numerous other topics" by the real estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate had to be moved from a hotel to the Phoenix convention center "to accommodate the thousands of people expected to attend" the Saturday event. The rally, which will also feature the city's anti-immigration Sheriff Joe Arpaio, already had 3,500 committed attendees Thursday evening when the campaign announced the venue change, according to the Arizona Republic newspaper. Arpaio has faced condemnation for his hard-line rhetoric on immigration and has been found by a federal judge to have violated the civil rights of Latinos. Trump has faced weeks of fallout since he said in his presidential campaign announcement that some Mexican immigrants are "rapists." He has repeatedly doubled down on the assertion since then—and seen his polling numbers rise to top positions—even as he has lost business contracts and faced denunciations from both Democrats and Republicans. The possibility of a Republican presidential candidate continuing to attack immigrants and stoking backlash among the large group of Latino voters angered Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, who said Trump's views don't reflect those of his party, according to the Washington Post. An immigration-reform supporter, Flake also asked the Republican Party of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, to withdraw its sponsorship of Trump's event, the Post said, but the party told the paper it is "thrilled" about the speech. Arizona, a border state with a large immigrant population, has become an evolving case study on the subject. Arpaio's actions, along with those of former Governor Jan Brewer, who pushed through a tough anti-immigration law in 2010 only to have it struck down by the Supreme Court, have garnered nationwide attention. At the same time, the state's senators, Flake and John McCain, have supported immigration reform as Republican leaders worry about alienating Latino voters whom they hope to court, especially in 2016. Trump's rhetoric was "offensive to not only Hispanic citizenry but other citizenry," McCain told MSNBC Thursday. "I guarantee you the overwhelming majority do not agree with his attitude that he has displayed towards our Hispanic citizens. We love them." A spokesman for McCain also told Bloomberg that the senator and former Republican presidential nominee agreed with Flake's stance on the rally. *Don’t Cry for the Trump Brand <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/don-t-cry-for-the-trump-brand> // Bloomberg // Caleb Melby – July 10, 2015 * Judging by discounts on Donald Trump-labeled mattresses on Amazon.com, the billionaire’s brand is hurting. But his overseas business partners don’t seem to have noticed. Trump's Macy’s deal, and others, are gone after his incendiary remarks about Mexican immigrants. Still, selling shirts and ties was “a small business in terms of dollar volume,” the real-estate mogul, reality TV star and Republican presidential contender said in a press release last week. His partners in international property licensing deals, a more lucrative business line, haven’t joined in on the dog pile. “So far as the Trump-Panchshil association is concerned, this stands unaffected and we will continue our association with the Trump Organization,” Surbhi Gupta, a spokeswoman for Panchshil Realty, Trump’s development partner in two condominium towers in Pune, India, said in an e-mail. The company declined to comment on Trump’s remarks, “since we are unaware of the ground situation there, from a social and political context,” the e-mail said. Developers in the Philippines, Turkey, Panama, Canada, India, and Uruguay pay Trump millions in licensing fees to put his name on buildings he neither built nor owns, with an aim to sell condominiums and hotel rooms at higher prices. These deals provide nearly risk-less revenue streams for Trump, which, along with income from properties he owns, helps pay down existing debts and fund new projects. “Mr. Trump is successful and wealthy and one of the great things about the empire he’s built is that it’s diverse—both geographically and across numerous business lines,” said Alan Garten, general counsel for Trump. “It can withstand situations like this.” Construction cranes stand above Trump Towers Istanbul in Istanbul, Turkey. In the United States, Trump's presidential campaign has so far prompted a stampede of disassociation: ESPN, NBCUniversal, NASCAR, Univision Holdings Inc. and Serta Inc. have cut ties with Trump after he described Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists. A television company controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the world’s second richest man, announced Monday it would cancel a project with Trump. Chef José Andrés said Wednesday that he’d be backing out of a deal to open the flagship restaurant at an upcoming Trump hotel in Washington. And even the Federal Aviation Administration got in on the act, announcing Thursday that its renaming three aerial navigation posts that had Trump-related monickers. That Trump’s remarks aren’t registering outside of North America doesn’t surprise Nick Andrews, a London-based senior partner and crisis management expert at public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard Inc. “He’s better-known as a celebrity than as a businessman outside of the U.S.,” Andrews said. “And outrageous things are exactly what celebrities often say. Most people don’t follow U.S. politics that closely anyway.” The billionaire told Bloomberg his net worth was $10 billion on June 3. A document disclosed to reporters on June 16 put the number at $8.7 billion. The biggest line item, in his own estimation, is $3.3 billion for “real estate licensing deals, brand and branded developments.” A Bloomberg assessment found Trump’s largest assets, including the commercial spaces at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York, the leaseholds to 40 Wall Street and Manhattan’s Niketown, a partnership with Vornado Realty Trust in two office buildings, and his collection of golf courses and resorts, to be worth at least $2.4 billion. The Trump fallout closely resembles one experienced by cooking personality Paula Deen, said Melissa Agnes, cofounder and crisis management consultant at Agnes & Day. Deen’s contract with The Food Network wasn’t renewed in 2013 after revelations that she’d used racial slurs. “She’ll never be back to the same degree, but she did come back in some form,” Day said. “Donald Trump has proven to be extremely resilient over the years.” *Donald Trump moves immigration rally to larger venue <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/donald-trump-immigration-rally-moved/index.html> // CNN // Tom LoBianco – July 10, 2015 * Donald Trump's divisive comments about immigration have drawn a crowd, one bigger than even the blustery billionaire expected. Trump announced late Thursday that his weekend rally in Phoenix, Arizona had been moved to the Phoenix Convention Center. "Due to the overwhelming response for Saturday's Rally in Phoenix, Arizona the venue has been changed to accommodate the thousands of people expected to attend and the event will now take place at the Phoenix Convention Center," Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement. The former reality TV star's theatrics have helped vault him near the front of the pack of a wide field of big name Republican candidates. But they have also cost him a seemingly endless string of business relationships, as major brands like Macy's, NBC and others have broken off ties with him. Speaking with CNN Wednesday, Trump could not say whether any illegal immigrants were working on his new Trump Hotel being constructed just blocks from The White House. The Washington Post reported that many illegal immigrants, as well as legal ones, were working on the project. Arizona has been a hotbed for conservative anger over illegal immigration for years, making political stars out of figures like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Republican Party of Maricopa County and Arpaio are hosting Trump on Saturday. But the state's Republican establishment is largely snubbing him. Sen. John McCain, the party's 2008 nominee, Sen. Jeff Flake and Gov. Doug Ducey are all skipping Trump's rally. Flake told The Arizona Republic that Trump's views are "coarse, ill-informed, inaccurate, and they are not representative of The Republican Party." The Republican Party, meanwhile, has struggled with the issue. Trump and Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus spoke on the phone Wednesday and walked away with very different versions of what was actually said. *D.C.-Area Lawmakers Call For Boycott Of Donald Trump’s Businesses <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/10/donald-trump-protest-hotel_n_7770496.html?utm_hp_ref=politics> // HuffPo // Christine Conetta – July 10, 2015 * Lawmakers and dozens of protesters came to the site of the future Trump International Hotel in the nation's capital Thursday to protest racist comments about the Latino community made by GOP presidential candidate and businessman Donald Trump and to call for a boycott of his businesses and products. “He has put everyone into the category of rapists and drug dealers,” Maryland state Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (D) said. “A position of hatred and xenophobia being expressed by a presidential candidate who wishes to lead this great nation in the future. How can that be tolerated?” Politicians were wearing buttons that read "Dump Trump." Protesters showed up with signs that read “Trump is morally bankrupt,” and “Stand with immigrant workers.” They chanted, "We are in the fight.” The backlash against the real estate mogul began after his presidential announcement speech last month, when Trump said Mexican immigration was bringing drugs, crime and "rapists" into the U.S. A slew of companies, including Macy's and NBC, cut corporate ties with Trump after the comments. Most recently, Spanish-born celebrity chef José Andrés announced he will no longer open a flagship restaurant in Trump’s Washington hotel. Some D.C.-area lawmakers believe that boycotting businesses and products tied to Trump is the best way to fight back. “We have huge economic power. Don’t go to his hotels. Don’t go to his restaurants. Boycott everything that’s even closely related to Trump,” Gutierrez said. She even called on the Latino construction workers who are currently renovating the space to find another job, saying they don’t need money that’s “tainted” with hatred. Another Democratic Maryland state delegate, Joseline Peña-Melnyk, echoed her fellow politician's sentiments. “A lot of the people who work on this building are Latinos," she said. "He should not be the benefit of our hard work.” D.C. Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss (D), who also spoke at the protest, called on the federal government to stop the renovation of the Old Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Avenue, the site of the future hotel. “This is not a hotel that Mr. Trump built, bought or land that he owns. This is public space, federal land that belongs to the people of the United States of America," Strauss said. “We would like the Department of the Interior, who controls this scaffolding and who controls this space, to remove this logo, so long as it continues to be a symbol of hate speech.” Meanwhile, across the street from the protest, a small group gathered in support of Trump. Alvin Whittaker, one of those present, admitted Trump “should’ve chosen his words differently,” but doesn’t think the comments will have “that much of an effect” in the long run. Strauss disagrees and said he thinks continuing construction on the hotel is an insult to the diverse community that makes up the nation’s capital. “It’s not just wrong and offensive, it’s not something that we the taxpayers should be subsidizing in public space,” Strauss said. *Donald Trump: Narcissist in Chief <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-wallis/donald-trump-narcissist-i_b_7770156.html?utm_hp_ref=politics> // HuffPo // Jim Wallis – July 10, 2015* Donald Trump is a real estate mogul for whom the word "egomaniac" is an understatement. But when America's narcissist in chief says he also wants to become commander in chief, the country pays attention. And that's what Trump wanted to have happen. Here is what Trump said in his announcement that he is running to add the presidency to his list of successes: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. ...They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." When challenged on the inaccuracy, outrageousness and viciousness of his remarks, "The Donald" characteristically doubled down and claimed to be the nation's only truth-teller, then attacked everyone who dared to challenge him. Nice of Trump to assume, I thought, that some of the 11 million undocumented immigrants who live such vulnerable lives in this country might be good people. But obviously Trump doesn't know any of them. Jesus talks about immigrants when he refers to welcoming "the stranger," and says that how we treat them is how we treat him (Matthew 25:31-46). But everything about Donald Trump's life indicates that Jesus is a stranger to him, too. (Parenthetically, could somebody ask why Liberty University, a Christian school, asked this lover of money, luxury, and power -- and hardly an exemplar of sexual morality -- to deliver a convocation address in 2012? I still can't understand that.) In a long and remarkable interview with Trump on Wednesday, NBC's Katy Tur pointed out some real truths -- including that undocumented immigrants in America actually have much lower crime rates that our natural born American citizens. Trump just insulted her, telling the journalist that she was "naïve" and didn't know what she was talking about. It was hard to keep count of the number of individual people Trump attacked during this insane interview, including the other Republican presidential candidates, conservative columnists who were embarrassed or dared to raise questions about the facts of all his "truth-telling," or the businesses that are severing ties with Trump one after another for his idiotic, vicious and divisive comments. Trump called all of his opponents "stupid" and kept saying that nobody else can compare to his astounding "success." Trump's ethics are very clear here -- or rather, his non-ethics. Trump's pride in his own success literally "trumps" everything else -- shutting out reason, respect, experience, maturity, truth, civility and certainly any sense of human compassion or empathy. While it is unlikely that Donald's favorite word ("TRUMP") will ultimately be painted on the side of Air Force One, there are some important political questions to raise about the "success" Trump is having in the Republican and primary state polls -- second only to Jeb Bush at the latest reading. Why did it take weeks for the other Republican presidential candidates to distance themselves from -- much less denounce -- Trump's ugly words about Mexicans? Late and tepid at first, Republican pushback is slowly growing stronger from some, while others like Ted Cruz are "saluting" Trump for focusing on "illegal immigration" and smiling over his "colorful language." Republican courage and conviction in response to Trump's clearly racial comments has been sadly lacking, as has the party's alleged concern to become a bigger tent that can reach out to racial minorities and American Hispanics in particular. Why? Because Donald Trump is a salesman. And that's really all he is. And the only product Trump really sells is the only thing he really believes in -- himself. He's made another calculation, another deal, that he can have success with a certain political segment of America. I think Trump has decided to reach down, and I do mean down, to the hard core of the Republican base, which is white, angry, and very right-wing -- a constituency that is especially active and indeed overrepresented in the primary phase of every presidential campaign. Trump reached out to that same group in the last presidential election campaign when he decided to lead the "birther" movement challenging whether Barack Obama was an American or was really an "other" and not one of "us." That racial appeal against a black president was the very worst of American sentiments -- and is consistent with Trump's latest attack on immigrants from Mexico and other "foreign" people not like "us." Trump certainly acts and sounds like a racial bigot. But whether he really is or not, there is a much deeper issue here -- Donald Trump is a salesman who sees that racial bigotry still works with a core base of the Republican Party. Ever since the Democrats lost the south to the Republicans because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Republican Party, which dominates the entire south, has faced a very deep ethical crisis and has some difficult choices to make. That hardcore white southern base of the Republican Party wants to be a white party, and the leadership of the Republican Party still panders to it. What's also clear is that Republican presidential candidates are afraid of that hardcore right-wing white base of their party--especially in the primary season. That is exactly what happened to immigration reform, which passed in a bi-partisan way in the Senate in 2013 but was vetoed in the House of Representatives by the many Republican districts that have now been "white-washed" -- meaning designed to have no significant minority voters. When members of the House Republican leadership met with several evangelical and Catholic leaders in 2014, they promised to our faces that they would bring serious immigration reform to the House floor for a vote. They failed to live up to that promise, deciding instead to cave to their white-washed right wing base. Some Republican members admitted to us that many of their constituents were expressing clear racial biases. I believe Donald Trump is deliberately and directly appealing to that white racist core of the Republican Party, and that's why he is currently number two in the Republican polls. He is selling racism and he is winning. I know and trust Republicans and conservative friends who reject such racism -- want to purge it from their party -- and long for a wider, more diverse Republican Party for the future. Indeed, the Republican votes, and even impassioned speeches, to take down the Confederate flag in South Carolina show a tale of two Republican parties -- and that is a hopeful contrast to the racist elements of the party to which Trump is selling himself. It is time for them to stand up to Donald Trump and what he is selling. They not only have my challenge -- they have my prayers. *Donald Trump Could Seriously Damage The Real Republican Efforts To Reach Latinos <http://www.buzzfeed.com/adriancarrasquillo/donald-trump-could-seriously-damage-the-real-republican-effo#.igNwEyr0M> // BuzzFeed // Adrian Carrasquillo – July 10, 2015 * No Democrats are quoted in this story. It’s not that they don’t want to be. There is no topic that fills them more with unbridled glee, outrage, or fake outrage than Donald Trump. His antics help Democrats who want the GOP to be seen as xenophobic and unable to discuss issues that deal with Hispanics, like immigration, in a respectful, measured manner. But for those who have worked to improve the GOP brand with Hispanics, the last month of the Trump comedy spectacular, in which he has called Mexicans criminals and rapists and doubled down on those comments, has been deeply unsettling. More importantly, they worry it risks further damaging the party with Latinos and eroding gains they’ve already made — even as candidates like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio put them in a potentially even better place. Republicans have made real and concerted efforts, over a period of time, to engage Hispanics after 2012. The Republican National Committee’s Growth and Opportunity project has been well-funded, successful in key 2014 races, and is ramping up for the presidential cycle, with the largest chunk of spending going toward Hispanic outreach. Latinos on the left worry about the LIBRE Initiative, a Koch-funded project that’s doing real on-the-ground work in Hispanic churches and communities, all while espousing conservative principles in literature and on Latino media. GROW Elect, an effort started in California and expanding to Southwest states, helped dozens of Latino Republicans get elected in 2014, often in Hispanic districts. The goal with these projects is clear: showing that the Republican Party is not the enemy. And Trump, these Republicans worry, is ruining that. “The greatest harm is to Trump himself — he says he can win the Latino vote, he’s kidding himself,” said Ruben Barrales, who leads GROW Elect and is the son of Mexican immigrants. “Now young Hispanics will be smashing Donald Trump piñatas at their birthday parties in celebration. He fails to recognize the harm on the Trump brand. But it’s damaging not just to Republican Latino efforts, but to Republican efforts as a whole.” Barrales pointed to the campaign for California’s Proposition 187, which took aim at undocumented immigrants and featured harsh ads about Latinos, as a moment when Latinos decided the GOP was against them. Trump hasn’t just dominated the mainstream media, but has been viewing nightly on Univision and Telemundo, the Spanish-language giants that reach Hispanic homes across the country. “Trump has turned out to be Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s replacement as the principal villain in what has practically become a new nightly telenovela on Univision and Telemundo,” said MRC Latino’s director, Ken Oliver-Méndez, whose organization monitors Spanish-language media’s inclusion of conservative viewpoints. Since his announcement, Oliver-Méndez said, Trump has been mentioned at least once or twice in practically every newscast with very few exceptions on the three major networks MRC Latino monitors: Univision, Telemundo, and MundoFox. “It’s a distraction, a major distraction,” said LIBRE’s executive director, Daniel Garza. “It’s not the narrative you want driving the national news.” But he said Trump has created a realignment within the immigration debate, where the bombastic businessman represents the extreme fringe and other presidential candidates are able to emerge as the adults in the room. Still, Republicans have not just had to comment on Trump, but some have had to do so repeatedly. When Trump retweeted a comment by someone saying that Jeb Bush has to like the “Mexican illegals” because of his wife, Bush was forced to say, “You can love the Mexican culture, you can love your Mexican-American wife and also believe that we need to control the border.” Izzy Santa, former director of Hispanic media at the RNC, said Trump is the only person who disregards that tone, and rhetoric matters. “Trump’s comments hurt the Republican field for the next cycle because it portrays Republicans as out of touch when it comes to understanding Hispanic culture and the immigration debate,” she said. Republican officials have also pushed back against Trump. RNC Chair Reince Priebus reportedly called Trump and told him to “tone it down.” House Speaker John Boehner condemned the use of immigration as a “political football.” Still, people maintain all’s not lost. A prominent Hispanic operative advising a Republican campaign called Trump irrelevant and said he doesn’t reflect the views of the party. A Latino at a different campaign said the good news for Republicans is that it’s 2015, not 2016. The operative said candidates who have had to engage Latinos in the past, like Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Rick Perry, and Chris Christie, know that they have to speak to Hispanic voters, who will be paying attention to how they respond to Trump and the immigration issue. “I think it’s a defining moment for the Republican candidates on where they stand in regards to these comments,” the strategist said, adding that Ted Cruz’s embrace of Trump “has disqualified him as a serious general election candidate.” Trump, relishing his role as presidential troll, has made it clear that he isn’t going anywhere. On Saturday, Trump will hold a “Stand Up To Illegal Immigration” joint event with Arpaio in Arizona. The question now for GOP presidential candidates is even if they come out stronger to repudiate him, how can they stop Trump from being Trump, all the while representing their party? Barrales said just as Republicans were leaders most recently in South Carolina to help take down the Confederate flag, they need to be here with Trump as well. One prominent Latino operative who advises campaigns laid out the stakes, saying continued comments and a focus on Trump only endangers the work Republicans have been putting in for the last few years. “Trump’s divisive rhetoric and harsh tone is undermining those efforts and could potentially block Republican’s path to the White House in 2016,” the operative said. *Donald Trump Wanted To Make Charlie Rangel HUD Secretary In 1999 <http://www.buzzfeed.com/christophermassie/donald-trump-wanted-to-make-charlie-rangel-hud-secretary#.wl8bo8Vyw> // BuzzFeed // Christopher Massie – July 10, 2015 * Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said in November 1999 that, if elected president, he wanted to make Charles Rangel, the Democratic Congressman from New York, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. At the time, real estate magnate was considering running for president as a member of the Reform Party. Asked by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer if he’d “given some thought to a potential Trump Cabinet,” Trump mentioned Rangel as his top choice to lead HUD. “Well, let’s go — like HUD,” Trump said. “I think Charlie Rangel is a terrific guy. He’s a congressman from New York. He has been a powerful guy. Now the Democrats are not in power, but I think he’d be terrific at HUD.” Rangel has been a member of the House since 1971 and is still in office. His website touts his record promoting affordable housing in New York’s 13th Congressional District. Other Trump Cabinet picks would have included Colin Powell as secretary of state and General Electric CEO Jack Welch as treasury secretary. Trump said that John McCain would be “a very interesting candidate” for secretary of defense. In the interview, Trump also predicted that, if he won the Reform Party’s nomination, he would “take more votes away from the Democrats” than the Republicans in the general election. He ended up withdrawing from the race in February 2000. *Trump’s Got the GOP by the Balls <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/10/trump-s-got-the-gop-by-the-balls.html> // Daily Beast // Michael Tomasky – July 10, 2015 * Deflating as it is, the likely Donald Trump scenario is this: He burns hot for a little while longer; he says something really out there in the first debate that roils up the base but makes Reince Priebus and Karl Rove break out in canker sores; but by the time of the baseball playoffs maybe, his act gets old, and somebody else becomes the Herman Cain of October. Then, next year, the primaries will start, and he’ll have to get votes. He’s not going to be all that competitive in Iowa, so it’s New Hampshire where he’ll need to deliver something. And if he doesn’t, he’ll just go away. That’s the pattern anyway. I seem to recall that at this point in 2011, Michele Bachmann had a pretty good head of steam going. So maybe we shouldn’t get too overheated about him. But Trump is different from Bachmann, and even from fellow entrepreneur Cain, in one major respect: He doesn’t give a crap about the Republican Party. He cares about Trump. And don’t forget he has the power singlehandedly to make Hillary Clinton president. He knows it, and you better believe Priebus knows it, and it is this fact that establishes a power dynamic between Trump and the GOP in which Trump totally has the upper hand and can make mischief in the party for months. How does he have the power to elect Clinton all by himself? By running as an independent. Two factors usually prevent candidates who lose nominations from running as independents. One, they lack the enormous amount of money needed to pursue that path (pay the lawyers to get them on 50 state ballots, etc.). Two, they have a sense of proportion and decency, and they figure that if primary voters rejected them, it’s time to go home. Well, Trump has the dough and lacks the decency. In an interview this week with Byron York, he left the door open a crack to such a candidacy. And that would be all it would take. Given his fame and name recognition, he’d likely hit the polling threshold needed to qualify for the fall debates. And with that kind of exposure, he’d do well—enough. All he needs to get is 5 percent of the vote in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Colorado, and the Republican, whoever it is, is sizzled. Another electoral landslide. How does he have the power to elect Clinton all by himself? By running as an independent. The question is would he, and the answer is who knows? To York, he expressed awareness of the obvious drawbacks, pointing to the spoiler role he says Ross Perot played in 1992: “I think every single vote that went to Ross Perot came from [George H.W.] Bush…Virtually every one of his 19 percentage points came from the Republicans. If Ross Perot didn’t run, you have never heard of Bill Clinton.” He is—shocker—wrong about this, but what matters for present purposes is that he believes it, so maybe that means he wouldn’t follow through. But he is an unpredictable fellow. Suppose Priebus and the GOP piss him off in some way, and he thinks the hell with these losers. Suppose he decides—and don’t doubt the importance of this—that an independent run would be good for the Trump brand in the long run. And suppose he doesn’t actually mind so much the idea of Hillary Clinton being president. We already know he retains a soft spot for old Bill. And he donated to Hillary Clinton’s senatorial campaign. All that’s speculative. But even in the here and now this dynamic has consequences. It means the GOP can’t afford to offend Trump. This is why Priebus’s spokesman characterized the chairman’s Wednesday evening phone chat with Trump as “very respectful.” And it’s why the other candidates’ criticisms of him have been a little, ah, restrained. Politicians aren’t always real smart about any number of things, but one thing in my experience that they almost always have a very keen sense of is risk. Members of Congress, for example, generally know exactly what percentage of their electorate they’re going to sacrifice by casting X vote. Jeb Bush’s Trump criticisms are muted because he has a lot to lose by offending Trump and his supporters. Chris Christie, who’s little more than an asterisk in the polls, has less to lose, so he’s willing to be a bit more blunt. Same goes for Rick Perry. We’ll see if Trump has developed that politician’s sense of risk. If he goes too far, one or certainly two more equivalents of “Mexican rapists,” it’ll be open season on him. He’s at a point of maximum leverage right now, and if he wants to stay there, he’s got to tuck it in about 10 or 15 percent and start employing the kind of racialized euphemisms that are not only tolerated but celebrated within the Republican Party—build the damn fence, no amnesty, Al Qaeda is storming the mainland through Obama’s porous border, etc. That way, he’ll hang around. And he’ll build enough of a following that the threat of a viable independent candidacy remains a real one. And that is Trump’s trump card. And it makes Reince Priebus a very nervous man. *Donald Trump, immigration and the GOP <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-trump-immigration-bush-rubio-gop-rapists-edit-0712-jm-20150710-story.html> // Chicago Tribune // Editorial Board – July 10, 2015 * Many of the candidates have been wary of staking out a position on an issue that has divided Americans for decades. Too bad. The trick for Republicans is to appeal to their conservative base in the primary season without alienating the Latinos who are increasingly important in November. In 2012, Barack Obama got more than 70 percent of the Latino vote. The takeaway from that election, supposedly, was that Republicans needed to get serious about immigration reform, including addressing the status of the 11 million — no, it's not 34 million, Mr. Trump — who are in the country illegally. But here we are at the dawn of another presidential election cycle with no solution in sight, and a lot of ducking and weaving from candidates who don't want to take a position now that could hurt them later. There's no ambiguity in Trump's stance, and so far it hasn't hurt him in the polls. (His business dealings are another matter.) On Thursday, for example, an Economist/YouGov poll had Trump first among 16 candidates, with 15 percent of the GOP vote nationwide. That emboldened the hardliners to chime in when Trump blamed lax border security for the murder of a San Francisco woman. The man accused of shooting her had slipped into the country from Mexico and had been sent back five times. To Trump, that's more evidence that the U.S. is a "dumping ground" for Mexico's most violent criminals. He's promised to build an "impenetrable" wall along the border, and send Mexico the bill. The candidates have been careful to distance themselves from Trump's inflammatory remarks — "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists"— while calling for more border security or stricter enforcement of existing laws. Some have focused on the role of "sanctuary cities," such as San Francisco (and Chicago), where local law enforcement officials do not routinely detain undocumented immigrants for the feds. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry both called for withholding federal funding from cities with sanctuary policies. You don't have to agree with Trump to welcome a discussion that will help sort the throw-them-all-out candidates from the ones who recognize that a broader fix is in order. The last thing Republicans need is a replay of the 2012 primaries, in which one candidate (Herman Cain) called for a 20-foot electrified border fence and another (Perry) was scorned for suggesting that kids who were brought to the U.S. by their parents ought to be allowed to stay and go to college. Mitt Romney, the eventual nominee, favored a policy harsh enough to encourage undocumented immigrants to "self-deport." Look what that got him. You need a score card to keep up with the shifting positions of this year's candidates. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was one of the authors of an excellent bipartisan measure that passed the Senate in 2013. The bill balanced border security with a more flexible visa system and a path to earned citizenship for most undocumented immigrants. But Rubio backed away from that approach, which got nowhere in the House. Bush proposed a legal status short of earned citizenship as part of a comprehensive fix in his 2013 book, "Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution." Before and after that, he favored a path to citizenship. It's frankly hard to tell where either of them stands at the moment, though we'd argue that they've both been in the ballpark most of the time. We'd also argue that flexibility isn't such a bad thing if it gets us to a solution. Compromise is one thing. Waffling is another. How are voters supposed to tell the difference? Republicans have to find a way forward on immigration reform. The candidate who can make that happen is the one who's willing to grab the megaphone from Trump, and lead. *Trump ups the ante on immigration, unfazed by criticism and protests <http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-donald-trump-immigration-20150710-story.html#page=1> // LA Times // Katie Linthicum, Richard Winton and Kurtis Lee – July 10, 2015 * Donald Trump brought his Republican presidential campaign to Los Angeles on Friday, unrepentant over his inflammatory comments about Latino immigrants that have drawn national ire and pushback from businesses, celebrities and fellow party members. In two appearances Friday, Trump drew praise from fellow opponents of illegal immigration and criticism from protesters angered by his comments that Mexican immigrants were drug dealers and rapists. The business mogul seemed unfazed, even predicting he would win the Latino vote. “When it’s all said and done, I will win the Hispanic vote,” Trump said at his first campaign stop at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. “I will win the Hispanic vote because I’m going to create jobs. I’m going to take them away from China.” Trump appeared with several opponents of illegal immigration, including those whose family members were killed in accidents and crimes by assailants alleged to be in the country illegally. One of them was Brenda Sparks, who said her son was killed in a traffic collision with an immigrant in the country illegally. She praised Trump for having “the guts to say what millions are thinking.” "My taxpayer dollars are paying for all these illegals and their children,” Sparks said. “I’ve lost my child; how much more do I have to give?” Don Rosenberg, whose son was killed in 2010 by an immigrant from Honduras who came to the country illegally but had been given temporary legal status, said his appearance at the event was not an endorsement of Trump's campaign. But he said he appreciated the candidate putting immigration at the center of the 2016 presidential race. "I think that what he said he could have articulated better, but the general premise of what he said is true," Rosenberg said. "I’m happy that he brought the subject up because it needs to be talked about. Every crime an immigrant commits is an additional crime. Every crime they commit is a crime they wouldn't have committed otherwise." Trump drew a decidedly different reaction in Brentwood, where he addressed a group of entertainment industry conservatives at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel. Hours before Trump’s arrival, protesters began packing the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Church Lane, holding American flags and “Dump Donald Trump” signs. They yelled anti-Trump chants through megaphones in Spanish and English as some drivers of passing cars honked in support. By 7 p.m., the crowd had swelled to more than 120. Organizers with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles brought Trump pinatas stuffed with trash -- symbolizing, they said, the mogul’s incendiary rhetoric. Hilda Ramirez, a West Los Angeles resident, said Trump should keep his mouth shut. “When you open your mouth, a mess spills out.... You talk nothing but trash. Don't back Donald Trump!" she yelled through a megaphone. Joshua Gonzalez, a 21-year-old Calabasas resident holding a sign depicting Trump in a pink wig, said he came to the protest to send a message that Californians won't put up with "his out-of-control antics." He said Trump was hurting the Republican Party, which might otherwise appeal to conservative Latinos who believe in education and hard work. "Donald Trump creates division among the races in California and across the nation," Gonzalez said. “He is trying to exploit divisions.” But about 20 feet away, about 40 Trump supporters gathered, many wearing red, white and blue and carrying signs reading, “Trump Tells the Truth.” A man in a megaphone yelled, “Viva Donald Trump!” At times protesters and supporters got in each other's faces. One man jabbed his “Trump for President” sign at protesters as a woman yelled back, “Racist!” and "Trump isn't welcome here!" Protest organizers and a security officer tried to keep the sides apart. By 7:55 p.m., the protesters had disbanded -- missing Trump by a few minutes, as he was driven to the hotel entrance in a black SUV with two bodyguards. He was to speak to the Friends of Abe group, founded a decade ago by Hollywood actors including Gary Sinise and Clint Eastwood, which holds monthly gatherings with Republican speakers. This election cycle the group has hosted several GOP presidential hopefuls such as Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee. The events are private and not publicly advertised. Even amid criticism from some party leaders and companies, such as NBC Universal and Macy's, that have cut business ties with him, Trump has escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric since his campaign announcement last month. In recent days, Trump has focused his criticism on San Francisco's sanctuary policies, under which a Mexican immigrant in the country illegally was released and subsequently charged with murder in a high-profile shooting July 1. Immigration agents had asked the San Francisco Sheriff's Department to hold Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, but the county's policies prohibit law enforcement officers from transferring immigrants to federal authorities without a criminal warrant. On Friday, Trump repeated his accusation that Mexico is sending “criminals” to the United States and pledged to build a wall along the southern U.S. border to keep them out. “People came into the country illegally and killed their children,” Trump said, referring to the families who stood alongside him at the Beverly Hills event. “The illegals come in and the illegals kill their children.” He acknowledged he has become a lightning rod, saying the head of the Republican National Committee called him recently and ask him to “tone it down.” “I don’t want to tone down important issues,” Trump said. “I’m so proud of myself for bringing this issue to bear, to the forefront. “I must be doing something right,” he added. “I’m No. 1 in the polls.” Indeed, several recent polls have showed Trump among the top GOP candidates. This week his campaign announced that an event Saturday in Phoenix with controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was being moved to a bigger location to accommodate more people. But not all Republicans have embraced Trump's appearance. U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) called on the Maricopa County Republican Party not to host Trump. "Donald Trump's views are coarse, ill-informed and inaccurate, and they are not representative of the Republican Party," Flake said in a statement. "As an elected Republican official, I'm disappointed the county party would host a speaker that so damages the party's image." Still, some leaders of the local GOP have said they will welcome the real-estate mogul. "In Maricopa County we believe deeply in Reagan's 11th commandment that 'Thou shall not speak ill of any other Republican,'" the party said in a statement. "It is disappointing when our Republican leaders do not share that same commitment to party unity and teamwork." *UNDECLARED* *WALKER* *Did Scott Walker’s Twitter Account Get Ahead of His Campaign? <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/10/did-scott-walkers-twitter-account-get-ahead-of-his-campaign/?ref=politics> // NYT // Patrick Healy – July 10, 2015 * In what appears to be either a premature presidential announcement or a tease of one to get attention, the Twitter account of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin sent word on Friday afternoon that he was seeking the 2016 Republican nomination for president. Mr. Walker, who has been all but officially running for president for months, is scheduled make “an announcement” on Monday afternoon in Wisconsin about whether he will seek the White House. Friday’s tweet said, “Scott is in. Are you? Join our team today” with a photo of Mr. Walker the features the words “SCOTT WALKER IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.” Mr. Walker usually signs his personal tweets with his initials, but “SKW” is not on this one. Scott is in. Are you? Join our team today. pic.twitter.com/JueJJKDdCt — Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) July 10, 2015 Asked if the tweet constituted an official announcement, a spokeswoman for Mr. Walker replied by e-mail, “Stay tuned for Governor Walker’s announcement on Monday at 5pm CT.” *Is Scott Walker’s Crossover Appeal Real? Turnout Data Raises Questions <http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/10/is-scott-walkers-crossover-appeal-real-turnout-data-raises-questions/> // WSJ // Dante Chinni – July 10, 2015 * A major part of Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s appeal, he reminds supporters in every stump speech, is his proven ability to win the governor’s mansion in a highly-contested, Democratic-leaning state. But with Mr. Walker set to launch his presidential candidacy on Monday, a closer look at the numbers shows a more complicated picture. Results from four recent elections in Wisconsin suggest that while Mr. Walker can win in a low-turnout, off-year election, he could have more trouble in a presidential year, when more voters — especially more minority and young voters — come to the polls. Since 2010, Mr. Walker has won three statewide elections, including the June 2012 recall, in a state that has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984. On the surface, that is an impressive accomplishment that Mr. Walker’s supporters say points to his ability to bring traditionally Democratic states into the Republican column in 2016. In fact, Mr. Walker’s performance in the state looks a great deal like Democratic President Barack Obama’s. But those percentages only tell part of the story. Mr. Walker has never been tested by an electorate as large and diverse as that which turns out for presidential elections. Compare the turnout in the races Mr. Walker won to the last two presidential races in the state. Those are big differences. The drop between 2012’s presidential race and the 2014 gubernatorial was more than 600,000 votes – about 20%. And there is more to the difference than simply the number of voters. Years of voter turnout data show Democrats are simply less likely than Republicans to vote in non-presidential elections, and that has been a big advantage for Mr. Walker. Look at Milwaukee County, the state’s biggest Democratic stronghold. In Milwaukee since 2008, the average decline in turnout from presidential to non-presidential years has been more than 115,000 votes – 24%. In the state’s biggest GOP stronghold, Waukesha County, the falloff has been far less dramatic – only about 37,000 votes, or 16%. That trend carries across the state. The counties that went for Mr. Obama in 2012 saw a drop of about 23% in the number of votes cast in the 2014 governor’s race. The counties that voted for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 saw a drop-off of just under 20%. In total, the 35 Wisconsin counties that voted for Mr. Obama in 2012 accounted for 57% of the vote drop-off between the presidential election and the 2014 gubernatorial campaign. And Mr. Walker won 20 of those counties in 2014. Taken together, these numbers suggest Mr. Walker’s appeal to Democratic voters may be overstated, and that his ability to win in a Democratic-leaning state may be more the result of his timing than his ability to reach swing voters. His biggest advantage may have been that he was facing a smaller electorate. Should he get the Republican nod in 2016, Mr. Walker would not have that off-year election advantage. He would be going against the bigger presidential voter pool, and his strength in Wisconsin and elsewhere could be very different. *Scott Walker tweets his presidential run <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/scott-walker-tweets-his-presidential-run-119972.html?ml=tl_12> // Politico // Katie Glueck – July 10, 2015 * Scott Walker is running for president, he announced in what appeared to be an unintentional tweet on Friday. The Wisconsin governor isn’t expected to formally announce until Monday, but on Friday afternoon, the Republican appeared to tweet a black-and-white image of himself waving onstage that read, “Scott Walker is running for president.” The tweet was not available on his timeline later in the afternoon, but was still viewable under his account. “Stay tuned for Governor Walker’s announcement on Monday at 5pm CT,” spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in an email, when asked for comment. Late Friday, a Twitter spokesperson said, "We're looking into today's issue, and we've determined the Walker team was not at fault." If the tweet was unintentional, Walker wouldn’t be the first candidate to scoop himself on his own announcement: Earlier this year, a video of Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson saying that he was announcing his candidacy aired the night before his announcement — something he wasn’t planning on, he said at the time. *Scott Walker’s timely abortion victory <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/scott-walker-abortion-20-week-ban-wisconsin-119960.html?ml=tl_4> // Politico // Kyle Cheney – July 10, 2015 * Wisconsin Republicans gift-wrapped an Iowa talking point for Gov. Scott Walker this week, sending abortion restrictions to his desk just days ahead of his presidential announcement. The legislation, which would ban nearly all abortions after 20 weeks, cleared the state Assembly Thursday on a party-line vote, four days before the governor intends to launch his presidential bid. Walker has indicated that he’ll sign the measure. Walker’s win on the issue comes as he’s introducing himself to Iowa Republicans, who tend to favor social conservative candidates in their first-in-the-nation caucuses. It also comes amid questions Walker has faced on the right about his commitment to conservative causes, like opposing same-sex marriage and limiting abortions. Prominent anti-abortion advocates and social conservatives signaled that Walker’s signature on the measure, which could come as early as Friday, would be a welcome gesture to kick off his campaign. “Those things will basically give him that Good Housekeeping Seal, so to speak,” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader, an influential conservative group in Iowa. “I think it’s great timing to benefit him,” added Marilyn Musgrave, a former congresswoman and a leader of the conservative Susan B. Anthony List. Twenty-week abortion bans have been enacted in 11 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, though in at least two — Arizona and Idaho — they’ve been struck down by courts. Proponents contend the bans are meant to prevent abortions after the point at which an unborn baby can feel pain. Abortion rights advocates – backed up by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists – contend that the science on pain doesn’t justify the 20-week cutoff. The bill awaiting Walker’s signature makes no exception for babies conceived by rape or incest, but it does allow doctors to act — while attempting to save the life of the baby — if any immediate health risks to the mother arise. Republican leaders in Madison insisted the bill’s timetable had nothing to do with Walker’s ambitions. Yet, after Walker first publicly supported a 20-week ban in March, the legislature raced the bill to the governor’s desk using a series of procedural shortcuts, from an expedited hearing process to an “extraordinary” July session of the Assembly to ensure the bill got to Walker ahead of his July 13 announcement. State Sen. Mary Lazich, a Republican who said she used to carpool with Walker in the 1990s when Walker was in the Assembly, told POLITICO she led the drive for the measure – knowing that Walker would support it but without explicitly coordinating with his office, though she said it did occasionally come up in conversation. “We’re on the same wavelength, the same plane,” she said. State Rep. Jesse Kremer, who sponsored an identical bill in the Assembly, acknowledged that legislative leaders may have sped up the timetable, though he said he wasn’t privy to any machinations on Walker’s behalf. He added, however, that Walker’s sudden interest in the legislation seemed like a shift. “A year ago, he actually wasn’t really interested in something like this and he changed his mind,” Kremer said. “We probably wouldn’t have brought it up if we knew he wouldn’t [sign it].” Walker has repeatedly pointed to his efforts to crack down on abortion — from defunding Planned Parenthood to requiring women to receive ultrasounds before undergoing the procedure to toughening requirements for doctors who perform abortions — as he inches closer to a presidential bid. But conservatives were angered last year when, in the midst of a tight re-election fight, Walker aired an ad calling a woman’s decision on abortion “agonizing. And he borrowed language from abortion rights advocates in his message: “The bill leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor.” “I didn’t like the ad. You’re using the other side’s garbage and it’s not helpful,” said Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative policy group. Yet Nance said Walker’s position on abortion was never in doubt. Though she and other conservatives still have issues with some of Walker’s advisers who don’t hail from the most conservative corners of the party, she says the governor has taken more steps to curb abortion than just about anyone else in the GOP field. The 20-week ban, Nance said, would just be additional confirmation. “We’re thrilled and happy that he’s going to do this,” she said. “This is policy whose time has come.” *Oops: Scott Walker Scoops Himself Via Twitter <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/scott-walker-tweets-that-he-s-running-for-president> // Bloomberg // John McCormick – July 10, 2015* The word broke late Friday afternoon on Scott Walker's official Twitter account: “Scott is in. Are you? Join our team today,” along with picture captioned, “Scott Walker is running for president.” While the news wasn't particularly surprising — the Wisconsin governor has begun raising money through an exploratory presidential campaign committee and has conducted an elaborate pre-announcement vamping via social media — it did seem strange that he would deliver such momentous news late on a Friday afternoon, just two days before the Republican hopeful is scheduled to make a formal announcement in Wisconsin Monday. Via e-mail, AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Walker's political operation, declined to say if the tweet, an be viewed in a web browse but it doesn't appear on his account's Twitter feed was intentional or accidental. "Stay tuned for Governor Walker's announcement Monday," she said. Several hours later, Twitter released a statement: "We're looking into today's issue and we've determined that the Walker team is not at fault," it said. *Republican Scott Walker tweets that he is running for president <http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/11/us-usa-election-walker-idUSKCN0PK2MU20150711> // Reuters // Steve Holland – July 10, 2015 * Republican Scott Walker tweeted the obvious on Friday, that he is running for president in 2016, days ahead of his official announcement in Wisconsin. "Scott is in. Are you? Join our team today," Walker said in a tweet accompanied by an image of him waving with the headline: "Scott Walker is running for president. Join the team." The tweet was later deleted. There was some question over whether Walker's tweet was inadvertently sent. A Twitter representative said in an emailed statement, "We're looking into today's issue, and we've determined the Walker team was not at fault." Walker, a two-term governor of Wisconsin, is to announce his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The Walker team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Walker's communications director, Kirsten Kukowski, tweeted what appeared to be a response to media questions about the Walker tweet. "Happy Friday everyone, stay tuned for @ScottWalker's announcement at 5 p.m. CT Monday in Waukesha, WI," she said. *Scott Walker spars with GOP ahead of 2016 launch <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/scott-walker-republicans-2016/index.html> // CNN // Tom LoBianco – July 10, 2015 * Gov. Scott Walker's famous brawls with Democrats and labor unions put him on the political map. But squabbles with fellow Republicans here at the Wisconsin Statehouse are tripping him up as he prepares to formally enter the 2016 presidential race on Monday. Republicans in Madison have worked overtime in recent weeks to find an elusive deal for the state's two-year, $73 billion budget. Just a few months ago, Walker optimistically said he would announce his White House plans after he finished all-important budget negotiations. But fights among Republicans over road funding, cuts in higher education spending and a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks delayed talks to a point where Walker had to tamp down that expectation a few weeks ago. With just five days left before the Walker announcement, the legislature inched toward a deal on Wednesday when the Senate narrowly backed the measure, sending it to the state Assembly for final approval. And in a rare move that has his fiscal conservative backers frustrated, Walker has been pushing hard to find $250 million for a new arena to keep the Milwaukee Bucks from moving. That effort to include the Bucks deal as part of the bigger budget was scrapped amid concerns that GOP leaders in the legislature would not be able to find enough support from their rank-and-file. For any governor running for president, it's a vexing problem. Walker's brand, like the other governors seeking the White House, is built on the promise that running their home state effectively makes them fit to lead the nation in a way that no senator ever could. But the national focus on Walker, who is scheduled to formally announce his White House bid Monday in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, has shifted recently from what he accomplished between 2011 and 2014 to the intraparty struggles he has faced more recently. Charles Franklin, a veteran Wisconsin pollster and director of the Marquette Law School Poll, said Walker might be a victim of his own success after clearing a litany of top conservative goals from the shelf in Wisconsin. The list includes starting a statewide school voucher program, privatizing the state's economic development arm (albeit one plagued questionable decisions currently) and making Wisconsin a concealed carry state. "If you listed all of the things that have passed during Walker's tenure it's a long and impressive list," Franklin said. "The big and bold thing was Act 10 (labor measures from 2011), but to me all of the small ball things matter." Walker still sits atop most polls of Iowa Republican caucus-goers, but that early lead has dwindled somewhat. The Koch brothers, who were among many billionaire donors to Walker's 2012 recall battle, meanwhile have indicated they will likely wait before throwing their resources behind a single candidate (if they select one at all, this cycle.) Walker's meeting with state lawmakers this year hasn't carried the gravitas of the 2011 national labor fight. But he has pushed for some equally heavy conservative policies, many top priorities for the funders who could carry him through a very crowded Republican field. In March, Walker signed a controversial "right to work" ban on mandatory union fees. In May, he announced he wanted to repeal the state's "prevailing wage," which establishes a minimum wage for construction workers on publicly financed projects. And a few days later, Walker said he would sign a new 20-week ban on abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. Democrats are quick to point out that during the 2014 election, which Walker won by roughly 6 points, the governor made no mention of his support for any of the explosive issues and was often obtuse, as in an ad where he said that abortion should be a decision between a "woman and her doctor." Walker's office points to myriad accomplishments he's had, both at the start of his first term and in his latest budget proposal offered this year. Spokeswoman Laurel Patrick pointed out a two-year freeze in student tuition at public universities, drug-testing for welfare recipients and other items this year. "Since taking office, Governor Walker has bucked the status quo in Wisconsin. His bold, common-sense reforms are about empowering taxpayers and putting them in control. Giving Wisconsinites the freedom to control their own lives creates prosperity for our people, as well as our state," Patrick wrote in an email. Behind the scenes at the Wisconsin Capitol, Walker has come under fire for spending too much time on the campaign trail, while major decisions linger. Walker's focus on the campaign trail, including high-profile trips abroad to Canada and Israel dubbed "trade missions," has left the state unattended, said the Wisconsin Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca, who has scrapped regularly with Walker throughout his five year's in the governor's office. "You just add up the time he's been away over the course of the past couple of months, on trade deals, not even to mention his political visits. I bet you he's been in 15-20 states in the last month alone," Barca said. "He's just obviously is not putting much attention here." It's a different governor, Barca said, than the man who pushed through "Act 10" and the major overhaul in labor laws that would eventually make him a national hero among conservatives and Republican donors. "He was very much hands on, he was here all the time and working it hard and talking to anyone he thought could help him have success," Barca said. "Wisconsin's in the rearview mirror, and it's getting more and more distant by the day." *Twitter: Scott Walker Presidential Announcement Tweet Wasn’t His Fault <http://www.buzzfeed.com/katherinemiller/scott-walker-tweets-that-he-is-running-for-president#.jtm1MNDek> // BuzzFeed // Katherine Miller – July 10, 2015 * On Friday, a photo with the words “Scott Walker Is Running For President” was tweeted from Walker’s account. On Friday, a photo with the words "Scott Walker Is Running For President" was tweeted from Walker's account. The tweet, which did not appear in Walker’s timeline for much of the day but was still visible for hours at its permalink, was a weirdly timed surprise: Walker wasn’t supposed to formally announce his candidacy until Monday in Wisconsin. A Twitter spokesman said Friday night that the tweet wasn’t the Walker campaign’s fault: “We’re looking into today’s issue, and we’ve determined the Walker team was not at fault,” the spokesman said in a statement. Twitter did not provide further information on what exactly happened. On Monday, Walker is expected to announce his candidacy, which will be the culmination of a lot of early pre-official campaigning for most of the year. Since Iowa Freedom Summit this winter, he has aggressively campaigned in early presidential primary states this year and is considered a top Republican contender for the nomination. The Wisconsin governor is best known for his battles with public unions. After he passed a budget that required public workers to contribute more money to their pension plans and limited collective bargaining in the public sector, unions protested for weeks, and ultimately helped force a recall election in 2013, which Walker won decisively. Because of the recall, the Republican has won three statewide elections in a blue state. Early on, Walker has focused on his conservative record and pitched himself as a slightly more populist alternative to many of the other prospective candidates. *Scott Walker On Hillary Clinton: “What Has She Accomplished?” <http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/scott-walker-on-hillary-clinton-what-has-she-accomplished#.jpQjRL4Qv> // BuzzFeed // Andrew Kaczynski – July 10, 2015 * Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says he’s the best person in the Republican presidential field to take on Hillary Clinton, who he says has no real accomplishments. “I do,” Walker said when asked if he thought Clinton was going to be the Democratic nominee on the Charlie Sykes Show Friday. Walker is set to officially launch his presidential campaign on Monday. “I think that provides a great contrast,” continued Walker. “I think it’s all the more reason why as Republicans we need to nominate a new fresh face. Someone definitely from outside of Washington with big bold ideas. I think most importantly someone who can more than talk who can actually deliver.” Walker said he is from “the future” but Clinton, who is from Washington D.C., is from “the past.” “Cause that’s the best contrast. Clinton’s obviously not a new face, someone from the past is best taken on with someone from the future. Certainly she’s someone from Washington, so someone from outside of Washington is helpful.” Walker added “for all her notoriety” Clinton has no accomplishments. “Most importantly, for all of her notoriety, what has she accomplished? And so having someone who has real accomplishment I think is a great contrast.” *Scott Walker Gets Schooled by His Neighbor <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/10/scott-walker-gets-schooled-by-his-neighbor.html> // Daily Beast // Eleanor Clift – July 10, 2015 * Wisconsin and Minnesota share a common cultural heritage that until recently included a healthy Midwestern strain of progressive politics. Elected in 2010, Governor Scott Walker upended a hundred years of liberal populism, charting a conservative path for Wisconsin that made him a darling of the Republican Right, but left his state with a serious budget shortfall and disappointing job growth. Meanwhile, across the border in neighboring Minnesota, Governor Mark Dayton has relentlessly pursued liberal policies, embodying the tax-and-spend Democrat that Republicans love to caricature. The result, surprising to many, is that the Minnesota economy is going gangbusters while Wisconsin’s job growth has fallen to 44th among the 50 states. Dayton’s success steering his state’s progressive course has been a surprise. He was a middling senator at best, serving a single term from 2001 to 2007 before returning to Minnesota disillusioned with the way Washington operated. Time named him one of America’s “Five Worst Senators” in 2006, and he was known mainly for his inherited fortune as the great-grandson of the founder of Dayton’s department store, which became Target. As senator, he donated his salary to underwrite bus trips to Canada for senior citizens buying low-cost prescription drugs. “Minnesota’s gains are not because Mark Dayton has overpowered the state with his political acumen,” says Lawrence Jacobs, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota. He describes the low-key Dayton as the “anti-politician,” someone the voters trust because he’s not smooth enough to fool them. “His skill is he has a clear agenda, and he’s unyielding. This is not pie-in-the-sky Great Society adventurism.” Dayton has a majority Democratic legislature just as Walker has a Republican controlled legislature, bolstering the ongoing policy experiment in their states. The two governors have pursued agendas that mirror their respective party’s core beliefs, and the results so far suggest that the starve-the-government, tax-cutting credo of conservative orthodoxy has run its course. Dayton has raised the minimum wage, and he’s significantly increased taxes on the top two percent of wage earners to close a budget shortfall and to raise money for investments in infrastructure and education. In the legislative session that just ended, some Democrats joined with Republicans to block his goal of expanding universal preschool. But he did get more scholarship money to educate four-year-olds. “This is the largest tax increase we’ve seen in Minnesota, over $2 billion,” says Jacobs. More than three-quarters of the new spending is on education, compared to Wisconsin, where education is on the chopping block, and Walker is at odds with professors and administrators alike at his state’s flagship university system. Minnesota has also passed the state’s version of the Affordable Care Act (MNsure), and while its implementation has been rocky, it is in place and serving tens of thousands of people. Dayton ran for governor in 2010 on an unapologetically liberal agenda, and won narrowly after a recount. He was reelected comfortably in 2014, and his approval rating in the latest Minneapolis Star Tribune poll is 54 percent. Contrast that with Walker’s 41 percent, and you’ve got a clear picture of how each is faring in the eyes of voters. Dayton’s idiosyncratic style is in tune with the times, and at 68, he has no ambition for national office. Walker is running for president and touting hard right policies that play well with Iowa caucus goers. He opposed raising the minimum wage, has significantly weakened unions, reduced spending for education, cut taxes on the wealthy, and increased taxes on the middle-class in part to pay for the tax cut. According to the non-partisan Wisconsin Budget Project, Walker gave tax breaks that disproportionally favored upper income earners while cutting $56 million in tax credits for working families. Faced with a budget shortfall and no way to plug it without additional revenue, Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature are rebelling against additional spending cuts. But Walker shows no sign of softening his stance against raising taxes or fees. Other Republican governors, notably Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, are in the same quandary. “It seems like they’ve been backed into a corner and are just going forward with pure ideology and discounting any contradictory evidence,” says David Madland, author of Hollowed Out: Why the Economy Doesn’t Work without a Strong Middle Class. As the Director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, Madland in his book takes on the premise that inequality is good in the sense that helping the rich get richer is going to help everybody else, that a rising tide lifts all boats. Trickle-down economics has gotten a bad rap and is rarely invoked as a phrase anymore, but the belief that tax cuts are the engine of economic growth remains the core of GOP ideology. The fact that Minnesota’s economy rallied under progressive policies while Wisconsin’s has struggled is “one more data point proving that trickle down is wrong,” says Madland. While it’s tricky to attribute the wellbeing of a state’s economy solely to its political leadership, Minnesota is experiencing much stronger growth than its neighbor. Dayton has also proved responsive to the business community, easing early fears that his liberalism might go unchecked. Walker, on the other hand, has doubled down to the detriment of his state on policies that are backfiring. And if voters in his home state aren’t buying what he’s selling anymore, that doesn’t bode well for his presidential campaign. *KASICH* *Pro-John Kasich group raises $11.5 million <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/john-kasich-fundraising-new-day-for-america-11-million-119966.html?ml=tl_16> // Politico // Adam B. Lerner – July 10, 2015 * New Day for America, an advocacy group supporting John Kasich’s presidential bid, announced Friday that it and allied organizations raised more than $11.5 million through the end of June. Though the Ohio Republican has not yet announced his candidacy, the group’s executive director, Matt Carle, said in a statement that “the response to Governor Kasich’s message has been strong.” “In over eight weeks, we’ve exceeded our initial fundraising goal by over a million dollars,” Carle said. “Supporters are looking for a record of accomplishment and someone who looks out for all Americans. That’s what they are seeing when they look at Governor Kasich and why we’ve already received millions in additional commitments already pledged.” The fundraising announcement comes a day after the group began airing its first ads on television stations around Manchester, New Hampshire, and Boston. The group has purchased approximately $1.7 million in air time through July 13. The Ohio governor plans to announce his candidacy for president on July 21. A former Republican congressman who is now serving in his second term as governor, Kasich plans to contest heavily in New Hampshire by highlighting his working-class background and work improving Ohio’s economy. *Kasich’s Early 527 Haul: $11.5 Million In Just Two Months <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/kasich-s-early-527-haul-11-5-million-in-just-two-months> // Bloomberg // Mark Halperin – July 10, 2015 * Two 527 committees supporting John Kasich's presidential bid will report raising around $11.5 million dollars in just two months, an encouraging sign for the Ohio Republican governor's late-starting effort. Part of that money is already being spent on a million-dollar television advertising buy that began this week, targeting New Hampshire voters, in advance of Kasich's expected formal announcement in Columbus on July 21. According to a source familiar with the two committees, which share a version of the same name (New Day for America), the effort has focused on major donors, rather than grassroots contributions. The total includes thirty checks of $100,000 or more. The source said millions in additional donations are already in the pipeline. Raising more than $10 million in eight weeks suggests that the Ohio Governor's backers can potentially compete on equal footing with the committees backing at least some of his rivals, which have raised more than Kasich, but over longer periods of time. A nonprofit backing Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Conservative Solutions Project (501(c)(4)), announced recently that it had raised $15.8 million to date since January. A group of Ted Cruz affiliated super-PACs said they raised a combined $37 million since early April. Yesterday, Jeb Bush's super-PAC, Right to Rise, announced it had raised a whopping $103 million since the beginning of the year. “In just over 10 weeks, we’ve exceeded our initial fundraising goal by over a million dollars,” said New Day for America Executive Director Matt Carle. “The response to Governor Kasich’s message has been strong. Supporters are looking for a record of accomplishment and someone who looks out for all Americans.” Among those major contributors who have raised money for the committees as well as contributed were Phil Geier, former chairman and CEO of the Interpublic Group of Companies, and Gay and Stanley Gaines, longtime active Republican donors from Florida. Kasich has long rubbed elbows with the kind of megarich donors who can kick in big checks to these types of organizations, first as a prominent member of Congress for many years, then as an investment banker, and in the last few years as the governor of one of the nation’s most politically important states. Since he began to seriously consider running for president several months ago, he has put a premium on determining if he could raise sufficient money to be competitive and has spent a good deal of time courting wealthy backers. Kasich’s operation will also have to prove it can also raise money for the campaign itself if he is going to thrive within the large field of Republican candidates. Raising campaign money, with a limit of $2,700 per person for the nomination fight, is an extraordinarily time-consuming effort, one which Kasich will have to engage in while continuing his day job as governor of Ohio and meeting voters around the country. Kasich and his supporters are eager to convince political elites and voters that he should be considered a top-tier candidate. With his meager poll standing, fundraising success is one of his best talking points to date to suggest the viability of his candidacy. In the 2000 presidential cycle, when Kasich made a previous run, he proved to be an anemic fundraiser and withdrew from the race. *Kasich groups announce $11.5 million haul <http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/10/politics/kasich-group-fundraising-total/index.html> // CNN // Tom LoBianco – July 10, 2015 * Two groups backing Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced Friday they had pulled in $11.5 million since May 1. "The response to Governor Kasich's message has been strong. Supporters are looking for a record of accomplishment and someone who looks out for all Americans," New Day Executive Director Matt Carle said in a statement Friday. New Day for America, Kasich's 527 group that can run political ads with unlimited individual and corporate contributions, as well as an affiliated organization, New Day for America Independent Media, touted the haul at a critical juncture for Kasich. The Ohio governor is not formally entering the race until July 21, but he faces the possibility he might not make it onto the stage for the first Republican debate next month. To forestall that possibility, Kasich supporters spent $1.7 million to go on air in New Hampshire with the first major ad buy of the 2016 cycle. Kasich's haul puts him near the middle of the Republican pack, based on announced fundraising tallies so far. The Jeb Bush apparatus leads the pack with an eye-popping $114 million and Sen. Ted Cruz drew in a surprising $51 million with the help of a string of super PACs. On the Democratic side, a set of groups backing Hillary Clinton say they have raised $24 million and her campaign has raised $45 million. *OTHER* *Republican Candidates Appeal to Anti-Abortion Groups <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/10/republican-candidates-appeal-to-anti-abortion-groups/> // NYT // Jeremy W. Peters – July 10, 2015 * A half dozen Republican candidates for president reassured members of one of the most influential anti-abortion groups on Friday that they favored further regulation and restriction of the procedure and, if elected, would be strong leaders on the issue. Some, like Jeb Bush of Florida and Rick Perry of Texas, both former governors, pointed to the various laws they signed when in office that made obtaining an abortion more difficult for women. Praising the “extraordinary work” of the National Right to Life Committee, Mr. Bush, speaking via a produced video that featured people testifying to his strong credentials on the issue, listed his work as governor. “I’m strongly pro-life,” he said. “I expanded adoption. We increased regulation over abortion clinics. We abolished this horrific procedure of partial-birth abortion. We limited late-term abortions. We required parental notification for teenage children.” Mr. Perry assured the crowd that no one has a better record than his. “That’s a fact,” he said. “We passed a parental notification law. I signed a parental consent law. I signed a sonogram law so mothers facing that agonizing choice can actually see.” One of those laws that Mr. Perry signed — it set a higher bar for standards that govern things like medical equipment and staffing and required that doctors have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital — has been put on hold while the Supreme Court decides whether to hear an appeal. While abortion is not likely to dominate the 2016 election, its potency as an issue that can stir passions and fears among both conservatives and liberals will no doubt be a factor. And wIth movement on several fronts, including in state legislatures and the courts, the fight over abortion policy is already something that candidates of both parties are being forced to confront in more real and urgent ways compared with other recent presidential elections. In Wisconsin this week, where Gov. Scott Walker is preparing to announce his campaign for the Republican nomination, lawmakers passed a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Mr. Walker plans to sign it. But his shifting public statements on abortion illustrate how fraught the issue is, and the differences in running for office in a swing state and in running for the nomination of a party that has shown little tolerance for ambiguous stances on social issues. When he was running for re-election last year, Mr. Walker insisted that making abortion illegal was out of his hands and a matter of settled Supreme Court precedent. He also produced an ad in which he said he supported legislation that “leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor.” Then early this year, as he was starting to more aggressively court the social conservatives he believes he needs to win the White House, he encouraged state legislators to send him a 20-week ban. Similar bans in several other states are now being challenged in the courts. Abortion rights advocates have pointed out that the bill Mr. Walker intends to sign in Wisconsin has no provisions exempting women who are victims of rape or incest. The possibility that the Supreme Court could take up a major abortion case next term forces the issue in another way that makes it very likely to persist well into 2016. The fact that the next president could appoint several new justices was never far from the minds of the speakers. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida alluded to this when he condemned the “egregiously flawed” Roe v. Wade decision and told the crowd, “The White House needs an occupant who values and prioritizes life. And so my pledge to you is this: if you help send me to that place, I will never forget this place. And i will bring advocacy to the White House, and we will get things done.” *Could a 2012 Rule Change Upend the GOP’s 2016 Nomination Process? <http://on.wsj.com/1grNIx0> // WSJ // Patrick O’Connor – July 10, 2015 * Close races can turn on small, often overlooked details. One detail getting some attention from Republican campaign strategists in the runup to 2016 is a rule requiring its presidential candidates to win more than half the delegates in eight states to qualify for the nomination. In a field as crowded as this one, that might prove trickier than usual. The Republican National Committee adopted the rule ahead of its convention in 2012 at the insistence of allies to the last GOP nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who wanted to insulate him from an insurgent challenge. The previous requirement was that a candidate win five states. Some have suggested this rule might help winnow the field, as a de facto shortcut to winning the nomination, if the delegate math becomes a little blurry. But critics have argued the rule might prevent some candidates with a sizable share of delegates from qualifying for the nomination. Some go a step further, suggesting the rule may upend the entire nominating process if no candidate claims more than half the delegates in eight states, or if multiple candidates clear that bar. The reality is that this rule, like just about every other rule in politics, can be changed. Members of the RNC rules committee can simply vote to change the number of states needed to qualify when they meet the week before next year’s convention in Cleveland. They can raise or lower the threshold of states in which the eventual nominee needs a majority of the delegates. Or, they can scrap the requirement entirely. The candidate with the most delegates will control this process. Of course, it may not be that simple. As anyone who has witnessed an RNC rules meeting can attest, even small tweaks can provoke a spirited backlash, especially if a presidential nomination is on the line. A small group of RNC agitators has been griping about this rule since the 2012 convention, with one committeeman vowing to use it to unravel the entire primary process no matter the results. And, a fight over arcane procedural rules is the last thing party leaders or the eventual nominee wants a week before the 2016 convention, especially if the nomination remains up in the air. These questions may seem a little silly and premature, but the smartest campaigns are already trying to game out scenarios like this one as they look for an edge in this historically crowded field that includes a half-dozen top-tier candidates but no obvious front-runner. Just as the Obama campaign corralled delegates in smaller states and caucuses, don’t be surprised if the savviest Republican campaigns start sending allies to Guam, Puerto Rico or the other territories that award delegates. For all the focus on Iowa and New Hampshire, the best-organized campaigns are already taking steps to collect the signatures necessary to qualify for contests in the 10 or so states that require them. This, of course, is all a byproduct of the size of the field and the caliber of the candidates. Despite the heartburn this process may cause the party if the contest stretches deep into next year and turns on RNC rules and delegate math, for many Republicans, it’s a welcome break from the last two GOP primaries in which no candidate generated significant early enthusiasm. “When this rule change was made in Tampa, there was no way to anticipate four years later that there would be the largest number of Republican presidential candidates running all being on the varsity team,” said Rick Hohlt, a prominent GOP fundraiser. “It is a serious problem, but a good one to have, if you are the RNC chairman.” *Once allies, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio in battle for Florida <https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/07/09/jeb-bush-and-marco-rubio-heading-for-florida-showdown-gop-primary-subplot/JhtrkpDuWJ62XDEXWXsAKL/story.html> // Boston Globe // Matt Viser – July 10, 2015 * With Florida’s political elite gathered in the state Capitol, Governor Jeb Bush welcomed the next House speaker with a flourish, presenting Marco Rubio with a gold sword and a legend dredged from the annals of the Bush family. The sword, Bush half-seriously explained to Rubio in the 2005 ceremony, once belonged to a mystical (and mythical) warrior named Chiang, “who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society.’’ The story was inspired by Bush’s father, who used to joke about unleashing the wrath of the former anticommunist Chinese political leader Chiang Kai-shek against his opponents on the tennis court. A decade after that humorous moment, the two Floridians, who have described their relationship as mentor and protege, are now rivals, locked in an intense battle for the Republican nomination for president. Both are near the top in national polls. The battle for Florida — which votes March 15 and awards all 99 delegates to the winner — is shaping up to be one of the juiciest subplots of the GOP primary. Both Bush, 62, and Rubio, 44, established their public identities in the state’s diverse and sprawling political culture and are now seeking to use their experience and records to catapult to the pinnacle of national power. But for Rubio to win the nomination, political observers say, he must develop a strategy to sabotage his onetime mentor, creating tensions that are beginning to seep into view. Bush supporters contend that Rubio should have been more deferential to Bush — waiting until he had more experience — while Rubio’s supporters say he is just the type of generational leader to challenge Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. And that sword that Bush gave Rubio so many years ago? In the minds of some Bush supporters, the senator might as well be using it to stab his mentor in the back. “Marco was supposed to be a good boy and wait his turn,” said one Florida Republican with ties to both. “Jeb people are not happy at all with Marco getting into this race.” “Marco is a wonderful politician. He could very well someday make a decent president. But I don’t know that time is now,’’ said Juan-Carlos Planas, a Bush supporter who has known Rubio for decades and served with him in the state Legislature. “Marco may be many great things. But he’s not Jeb.” Rubio is not-so-subtly suggesting the Bush name is a negative, talking up young new leadership and running against dynastic political families. In response, Bush allies are openly denigrating Rubio. “Marco’s four years into his first term in the Senate,” said Mac Stipanovich, an influential Florida lobbyist and longtime Bush supporter. “The biggest thing he’s ever managed is a 10-person House staff.” * * * It was 1998, and a 26-year-old Marco Rubio had just become the newest West Miami city commissioner. He was at City Hall celebrating when the phone rang. The man on the line had donated $50 to the campaign and wanted to share in the joy. It was Bush, the soon-to-be-governor. From the beginning of Rubio’s career in politics, Bush was there to help. Although one is the scion of a storied political family and the other the son of a bartender and a maid, the two developed a bond out of their experiences in Miami. “Did [Rubio] sit at Jeb’s knee as Jeb taught him the way of the world? No,” Stipanovich said. “But was he someone who liked and admired and aspired to be like Jeb, and probably learned a lot of his skills from watching Jeb? I think yes.’’ In an e-mail exchange with a supporter just after Rubio became speaker, Bush wrote, “I am so proud of Marco.” In another, Bush called Rubio “a fine leader.” “I feel that our party can renew itself, something that I fret about at the national level,” Bush wrote. In his memoir, Rubio called Bush “the man I most admired in Florida politics.” “I was most influenced by the creativity and daring of Governor Jeb Bush, who was a one-man idea factory,” Rubio wrote in the book, “An American Son: A Memoir.” * * * Six years ago, during a high-profile race in Florida, Rubio was happy to wait his turn. It happened two days before Christmas in 2008. News had just broken that Senator Mel Martinez was not going to run for reelection in 2010. Speculation was rampant that Bush would run, so Rubio drove to his business office at the Biltmore Hotel. Rubio, who was about to leave office because of term limits, wanted to run, too. But he wouldn’t think of challenging Bush. Jeb Bush was at the Biltmore Hotel when Marco Rubio won the US Senate seat. They sat for an hour, and Rubio left convinced that Bush was going to seek the seat, according to a recounting in Rubio’s memoir. But about two weeks later, Bush called Rubio to tell him, “I’m not going to do it.” Only then did Rubio begin planning to run himself in a race in which he started as the underdog. At one point, he was down by more than 50 points and contemplated getting out of the race. Jeb Bush encouraged him to stay in, according to a source familiar with their conversation. In the end, Rubio’s timing proved to be excellent. He burst onto the national scene with his Tea Party conservatism in 2010, when a health care backlash sweeping much of the country helped him pull an upset victory against Governor Charlie Crist, who ran as an independent, and Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek. And just as he had been there for him on an election night for Miami City Commission a decade earlier, Bush was at the Biltmore Hotel when Rubio won his US Senate seat. “I’m so proud of Marco,” Bush told the crowd. “I’m so proud of his high-voltage energy, I’m so proud of his enthusiasm. I’m so proud of his eloquence. And I’m so proud that he will be part of a next generation of leaders that will restore America. Marco Rubio is the right man at the right time.” * * * The Senate race placed Rubio’s name near the top of many lists for president — in 2012, Bush was publicly pushing Mitt Romney to tap Rubio as his running mate. Not only did Rubio hail from a big and important general election state, but his Hispanic heritage could help his party broaden its reach with a growing slice of the electorate. In 2012, Jeb Bush was publicly pushing Mitt Romney to tap Marco Rubio as his running mate. Rubio still feels like he is the right man at the right time. And this time, there was little deference paid to Bush. His career has been marked by underdog races in which he displays a willingness to take political risks. Like Obama, he also has shown that he’s willing to jump into a race when he thinks he’s ready — but when others say it’s not his turn. “It’s like, ‘I like Jeb. But not as much as I like the idea of being president of the United States,’ ” said Steven Geller, who overlapped with Rubio and Bush as the Democratic leader in the Senate. The strategy for Bush is to portray himself as an experienced manager who has a run the nation’s third most populous state. Rubio, on the other hand, is presenting himself as a fresh face who doesn’t hail from a dynastic political family. “Yesterday’s over,” he declared as he announced his campaign in April, a swipe he made at Clinton that could also be interpreted as aimed at Bush. * * * Although Bush currently leads in most national polls, Rubio is seen as a likely alternative. When asked whether they could vote for certain candidates, 75 percent of probable GOP primary voters said they could vote for Bush and 74 percent said the same for Rubio, according to a recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll. Those results were significantly higher than any other candidate in the race. In Florida, Bush leads with 20 percent of voters, followed by Rubio with 18 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released last month. A key battle will be waged over Florida’s Hispanic voters, not just in the fight to win the state but also to demonstrate who can best attract Latinos to the Republican Party nationally. Rubio often talks about his Cuban heritage, and he was the first to deliver the State of the Union response in Spanish. Bush had a Cuban band playing during his announcement speech. He toggles between English and Spanish, and his friends are quick to point out that he speaks Spanish at home. On some key issues, the two candidates offer a contrast. On immigration, Rubio initially pursued a comprehensive overhaul that would both strengthen border security and provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But under withering conservative criticism he backed away from that plan, saying changes should be done piecemeal. Bush favors a comprehensive approach that would solve both issues at once, a solution that immigration advocates support and consider more politically realistic but also one that causes heartburn among conservatives. Bush is also more steadfast in his support for Common Core and its national education standards. Rubio has talked about eliminating the Department of Education and in 2013 came out against Common Core. For some Republicans in Florida and across the country, seeing one of their brightest young stars and a scion of one of their party’s most enduring families compete is causing deep angst. “As a friend of both, I don’t like it. I wish it weren’t so,” said Ana Navarro, a Miami-based Republican who is supporting Bush. “But it is a fact, and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do to change it.” *OTHER 2016 NEWS* *Presidential Race Takes Shape and Offers Hints of Things to Come <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/10/today-in-politics-presidential-race-takes-shape-and-offers-hints-of-things-to-come/> // NYT // Maggie Haberman – July 10, 2015 * The presidential race, slow-forming for much of the year, sprang clearly to life this week with disparate events that could play a role in deciding the Republican nominee and the contours of the general election. In one sphere is Donald J. Trump, the bombastic real estate developer and television personality. Skepticism remains about whether he’ll stay in the presidential race through the fall, but he appears to be laser-focused on making it into the primary debates next month. And he is dominating the discussion in the Republican Party. The slow reaction from party figures to his caustic remarks about Mexicans has again highlighted divisions over an immigration overhaul, two years after Republicans criticized Mitt Romney‘s tone on the issue in 2012. Mr. Trump’s remarks are already being used by Hillary Rodham Clinton to tar the Republican field, including Jeb Bush, the one party candidate who has long made overhauling immigration a cause. Separately, Mrs. Clinton and her allies have pounced on a comment from Mr. Bush about people needing to “work longer hours” to improve the economy. The Clinton team has said the comment defines him as a clone of Mr. Romney, who was lampooned as out of touch by President Obama in the 2012 race. Mr. Bush is certain to hear about that statement for weeks, but Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is signaling clearly that they see him as the likeliest nominee. And he will be able to make that point to Republicans to try to galvanize support in a crowded field. Finally, the economic turbulence in Greece and in Puerto Rico is a familiar pocket of uncertainty as the United States recovers from the Great Recession and moves toward a national election. *The Insiders: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are experts at manipulating the media <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/07/10/the-insiders-donald-trump-and-hillary-clinton-are-experts-at-manipulating-the-media/> // WaPo // Ed Rogers – July 10, 2015 * Besides the fact that they are both running for president in 2016, what do Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have in common? They both play the media like a fiddle. They use the mainstream media in the same way: They say something outrageous, whether it’s an outright lie or a provocative statement, then wait for the media to come after them. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures and declares "You're fired!" at a campaign rally in Manchester, N.H., in this file photo taken June 17, 2015. (Dominick Reuter/Reuters) Donald Trump gestures and declares “You’re fired!” at a campaign rally last month in Manchester, N.H. (Dominick Reuter/Reuters) In Trump’s case, he throws down the gauntlet and goads the media into pursuing him relentlessly. Trump relishes the chase, and it draws needed attention to his campaign. He knows perfectly well how to garner as much attention as possible with his incendiary comments. Clinton throws down the gauntlet and intimidates the media into silence. She regularly stiff-arms the press but is available just enough to allow her apologists and her enablers to say she is not hiding from the media. She can say whatever she wants, true or not, and the media mostly go along with it or feign disappointment that there is not more to say. The media like to pretend they are forced to cover Trump; they act as though he has thrust himself upon them and they wish they didn’t have to talk about him. The media pretend they can’t cover Clinton because she won’t let them; they ask the obvious questions but rarely show any zeal for follow-up. So what are we left with? The Trump coverage is forced and phony, yet it’s exactly what he wants. Any substantive coverage of Clinton is practically nonexistent, which is exactly what she wants. The whole thing is a game, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Clinton and Trump are both manipulating the media, but the media are proving all too willing to be manipulated. Everyone seems perfectly willing to play his or her role and be compliant. As I have said before, the coverage of Campaign 2016 thus far has been a product of too much media chasing too little story. *The Truth Behind Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton’s Twitter Spat <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-10/the-truth-behind-jeb-bush-and-hillary-clinton-s-twitter-spat> // Bloomberg // Victoria Stilwell – July 10, 2015 * Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton got into an economic spat yesterday via the noblest form of debate: the Twitter argument. As Bush campaigned in New Hampshire Wednesday, he bemoaned the nation's low labor force participation rate, telling the New Hampshire Union Leader editorial board "that people need to work longer hours" to help propel U.S. growth. The Clinton campaign quickly capitalized on the comment, tweeting: A few hours later, Bush struck back: Naturally, the issue is much more nuanced than either candidate is making it out to be. And harder to fit into 140-character dispatches. Here's the context of Bush's now-infamous quote at the Union Leader editorial board. "My aspirations for the country, and I believe we can achieve it, is for 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive. Workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and through their productivity gain more income for their families. That's the only way we are going to get out of this rut that we’re in." While that may make the "longer hours" comment more palatable, a 4 percent growth rate is ambitious to say the least. The last time the nation saw economic growth rates at that level or higher: 2000. Bush is calculating that the growth rate can be goosed by upping labor force participation, the share of working-age people who are employed or actively looking for a job. In June, the share of Americans in that category was 62.6 percent, the lowest level since 1977. That compares with a peak of 67.3 percent in January 2000. What's debatable, however, is just how much participation can rise in the future. Much of the decline — about half by some estimates — has been driven by the mass exodus of retiring baby boomers from the labor force. There are also other long-term trends at play, such as more young people choosing not to work when they're in school. And while there is a significant share of people who were sidelined from work by the recession, it's unclear how many are left waiting in the wings. At 5.3 percent, the unemployment rate is bumping up against the Federal Reserve's estimates for what full employment looks like. The number of discouraged workers — those who say the dearth of job prospects has driven them to give up looking — has been coming down steadily. And jobless claims are trending at levels consistent with a booming economy. Still, most economists agree there's some amount of slack left. For one, wages have been slow to accelerate out of the 2 percent band they've tracked since the recovery started, which suggest employers aren't yet feeling the pressure to offer fatter paychecks to attract the best talent. And, as Bush correctly notes (and Democratic-socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders agrees), the number of part-time workers is still elevated compared to before the recession. While Americans worked 34.5 hours on average per week in June, right in line with the trend for the two years' worth of Labor Department data that pre-date the recession, there are 6.5 million people in part-time jobs for an economic reason, like having their hours cut or being unable to find full-time work. That compares with an average 4.62 million in the 20 years leading up to the recession. This is something that others are worried about too, such as Fed Chair Janet Yellen. She's pointed to this measure as one of several signs there's still room for the labor market to improve. Bush says that's what he meant when he remarked "people need to work longer hours." More people working more hours will boost productivity, he reasons, which will in turn help them make more money. While that may seem like okay logic on the surface, it's more involved than that. Productivity is measured by how much stuff a worker can churn out for every hour of labor. While it's fluctuated over the years, lately it's been pretty lousy since a decade-long boom ending in about 2004, according to Wells Fargo Securities LLC. So recent productivity trends haven't really looked as rosy as the chart that Clinton tweeted out, which dates to 1948 and ends around 2010. It's also worth noting that it was supplied by the Economic Policy Institute, which is partly funded by labor unions. In fact, the anemic productivity numbers have economists concerned, including Yellen, who served in President Bill Clinton's administration. High productivity is the key to creating growth that doesn't spur rampant inflation. It boosts living standards for U.S. workers. But simply having more people work more hours isn't enough to increase productivity. They've got to need to work more hours, for lack of a better word. If employees are working more hours, but there's not a commensurate increase in demand for their goods and services, their output will stay the same. That actually hurts productivity. Additionally, there are long-lasting factors at work that have pushed down productivity. Companies haven't been investing in new capital like they used to -- equipment that could help their workers do their jobs more efficiently. Some economists think the heydays of productivity are long gone because new technology has become less revolutionary. It's what they call "secular stagnation." So in summary, both Clinton and Bush left out really important details in this debate, cherry-picking data points that support their agenda. But I suppose we shouldn't be that surprised. That's politics, after all. *Republicans rename the GOP the ‘Retrumplican Party’ <http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/2015/07/10/democrats-rename-the-gop-the-retrumplican-party/> // Reuters // Lena Masri – July 10, 2015 * The national Democratic Party has found a new nickname for the GOP: “The Retrumplican Party” — after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. A video, released Thursday by the Democratic National Committee shows clips of Trump making defamatory statements about Mexican immigrants. The video connects his stands on immigration with Republican presidential hopefuls Rick Perry, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio. “Donald Trump may be running for president,” proclaims the video. “But his ideas are running the party.” In fact, most Republican presidential candidates — including those targeted by the DNC — have denounced Trump’s controversial statements. The head of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, spent nearly an hour Wednesday on the phone with Donald Trump, urging him to tone down his comments about immigrants, according a report from The Washington Post. *‘War horses’ Bush, Clinton lay ground for 2016 race <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2015/07/09/bill-clinton-george-w-bush-on-leadership/29921799/> // USA Today // Susan Page – July 10, 2015 * Bill Clinton and George W. Bush agree on this: Learning leadership skills is crucial in just about every worthwhile endeavor in American life, political and otherwise. That said, they couldn't disagree more on who, exactly, would have the right leadership skills in 2016 to warrant winning the White House job they both have held. In a rare joint interview, the two former presidents who share what may be the most complicated political relationship in modern times sat down with USA TODAY Thursday at the Bush Presidential Center. They were together for the graduation ceremony of the inaugural class of Presidential Leadership Scholars, a project sponsored by four presidential libraries that has offered leadership training for mid-career professionals who work for non-profit groups, private-sector firms, state and local agencies and in the military. The participants aren't really politicians. "People hear this and they say, 'You've got a Young Republicans Club' or 'Clinton's got a Young Democrats Club,' (but) that's not the intention at all," Bush said. "The intention is to take people who have shown good promise and let them learn some lessons about how decisions were made or how people collaborated." "There might be nothing we can do anymore about how fractured America is politically and ideologically," Clinton said. "But in the end, people have to get together and make decisions and do things — not just in Congress and the White House, but I mean all over the country." It was impossible to ignore the elephant in the room, or maybe the elephant and the donkey. That is: Clinton's wife, Hillary, is the clear front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. Bush's brother Jeb is in the top rank of contenders for the Republican nomination. Friends today, combatants tomorrow? "He loves his brother; I love Hillary," Clinton said. If they win their respective presidential nominations, "he's going to vote for his brother; I'm sure going to vote for Hillary, and something will happen. But we'll still be friends." "I know Jeb will treat Hillary with respect, and I'm confident Hillary will treat Jeb with respect," Bush said. "I'm not sure I can speak that highly of some of the surrogates they may have out there, but these two surrogates will" do that as well. The two men sat side by side on a couch in Bush's private office at his presidential center on the campus of Southern Methodist University. They had just finished having a class photo taken with the program's scholars, and in a few minutes, they would head to the auditorium for a joint address to the group. They seemed relaxed and at ease, friendly and deferential to one another. They discussed a challenge they had shared: how to raise confident daughters into adulthood. Bush reached over to touch Clinton's shoulder as he made a point; at another time, Clinton tapped Bush's arm. "Sometimes the decisions we make have bigger consequences," Clinton said, describing how presidential leadership is in some ways different from other top jobs. "No question," Bush chimed in. When Bush noted, "A president, it turns out, has to be prepared for the unexpected," Clinton nodded and said, "Yes," then enumerated the challenges Bush faced when the 9/11 attackers struck during the first year of his tenure. They said neither believes a 2016 Clinton-Bush campaign would be waged any differently because of their friendship and collaboration — nor do they think it should. "I don't think it's going to be different," Bush said flatly. "I think it's going to be a political campaign." "If they win the nominations, it's going to be a very hard-fought campaign, and if it's like any other campaign, it'll be somewhat bruising, and the surrogates will be really tough, and they'll have hard debates, and we'll just live with it," Clinton said. His advice to the prospective candidates: "Make the choice clear: 'This is where I am; this is where he is.' Be as accurate as you can, and let it rip." The two got to know each other under hostile circumstances, during what Bush called "the first Bush-Clinton race," which he wryly noted "didn't turn out that well" for his side. In 1992, Clinton defeated the elder George Bush in his bid for a second term. In 2000, the younger Bush defeated Clinton's vice president, Al Gore. Another contest between the families in 2016 would break new ground. Though they differ in party registration and many policy positions, they share some fundamental characteristics, Bush said. "First of all, we're Baby Boomers, and the only two Baby Boomer presidents. Secondly, we were both governors of Southern states, Arkansas and Texas." He said both were "affable people; we're not zero-sum thinkers." And at this point, he said, both were "like two old war horses, put out to pasture." Clinton became so close to the elder Bush over the years after their election showdown that the younger Bush jokes he is his "brother by another mother." Clinton made a similar reference when noting that Bush had turned 69 this week, a month ahead of Clinton. ("For one month a year, I'm the younger brother," Clinton said.) "I just wrote him a birthday note because he just had a birthday," Clinton said. "So I said, 'Now we have a genuine family feud, maybe we ought to go get that guitar player from Deliverance and get him to play for us.' Remember that movie? I mean, the banjo player, the dueling banjos." *OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS* *The Gloria Borger – Hillary Clinton Watch: Waiting for Insight <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-reardon/the-gloria-borger-hillary_b_7769486.html> // HuffPo // Kathleen Reardon – July 10, 2015 * I've written a number of times about journalists citing "some people say," "some people think" and "it's been said" as support for their supposedly objective reporting. What was once a desire to protect important sources has deteriorated into a sign of journalistic laziness. When reporters covering presidential politics employ words they fully know will disparage female candidates -- or when they purport to discern dishonesty by examining candidates' facial expressions -- they are taking journalistic prerogative another step too far. "Women are tested in ways that men are not," Senator Diane Feinstein recently observed about Hillary Clinton. It will be harder for a woman to win the presidency in 2016 than for a man and, Feinstein says, Secretary Clinton knows this. Clinton has been the target of facile, disparaging labels and categories -- ones that enter the general lexicon like lice on a host, becoming firmly attached to women unless people recognize and reject their misuse. In 2008 CNN's Gloria Borger wrote the following about then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. But there is no joy in Hillaryville. In its place are anger (at the press, for being soft on Barack Obama), angst (at losing 11 straight contests), and apoplexy (at Obama, for daring to challenge a nomination that was supposed to have been wrapped up by now). She added: And so there is frost, not sun, in the Clinton campaign The first line -- using the words "anger," "angst" and "apoplexy" -- is gratuitous, gender baiting alliteration. "Frost" used to describe Clinton's campaign was not idly chosen. We're all familiar with the ice queen image and other versions of coldness attributed to competent, assertive women. Then there are Borger's "multiple faces" insults fanning the flames of the distrust theme promulgated by Clinton's detractors: Multiple faces. But presidential choices are intensely personal. And so the Clinton campaign has decided to play a game of the blind man and the elephant: Present the multiple faces of Hillary, as if somehow each identity might attract a voter. Call it microtargeting her persona. Too bad the result of the groupthink often morphs into caricature. One moment, it's a scold ("Shame on you, Barack Obama"); the next, fuzzy praise ("honored to be here with Barack Obama"). And at the Ohio debate, Clinton seemed more whiny than presidential when she brought up a recent TV skit about journalists falling in love with Obama. "Well, can I just point out that in the last several debates I seem to get the first question," Clinton complained, wearing a false smile. A "false smile" can be a tight smile, an unfinished smile, a sign of politeness or simply a means of dealing with difficult situations without anger. "Scold" is another loaded word, to say nothing of "whiny." This is how Borger and others like her surreptitiously attempt to poison Hillary's well. In an April interview with former Commerce Secretary and White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, Borger did it again: "You know she comes with baggage. There are negative perceptions about the Clintons as paranoid, too protected, even arrogant." A woman who refrains from standing her ground on important issues is seen as lacking leadership potential. One who speaks affirmatively, risks being seen as difficult, arrogant -- a loose canon. Borger knows this. Such reliance on denigrating labels is cheap, shabby, sleight of hand "journalism." If we ever hope to see a female shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling of the U.S. presidency, and give our daughters the same chance as our sons have had to lead our country, we must reject efforts to slither into the "news" the easy, derogatory categories so often applied to women in the workplace. Hillary Clinton is not perfect. If there is a shield" around her, it's been constructed because any woman who gets ahead in her career knows that being one of the guys doesn't work. There is much about Secretary Clinton we don't know. Her communication style is occasionally stilted. But there is much we don't need to know of any candidate. Yet, Clinton will have to prove herself over and over and over because that is what's typically required of women who seek to break through professional barriers. I, for one, won't sit back and watch people like Gloria Borger try to shape Hillary Clinton into a bitch, a brassy, bossy, distant, elusive woman simply because Borger won't do the hard work of a real journalist. When was the last time Borger gave us actual new information or a unique new insight on any topic or person? C'mon Gloria. Is the title of "Chief Political Analyst" for Wolf Blitzer's CNN program a code word for someone who is entitled to cast personal aspersions without providing hard data or at least hard-won reporting? Is it a code word for someone who relies on readily available, gender-specific, disparaging labels to provide "analysis"? It's one way to make and keep a career going, but it isn't journalism. When Borger again dragged out the "Where's the real Hillary" theme in response to Clinton's recent interview with CNN correspondent Brianna Keilar, where was the "meat"? Nowhere to be found. We see gratuitous excuses for reporting so often that the public has become jaded. It's time to let the press know that a presidential election is deserving of the best information and insights available from qualified journalists -- of whom a fair number are sitting on their hands thanks to the personnel efficiencies of media oligarchy. Journalists come out of a proud tradition, and many of them place their lives on the line every day to bring insightful news and analysis. Certainly accurate, well-researched election coverage can't be all that hard. Kathleen also blogs about communication and politics here. More about communication that holds women back is in her re-release on Kindle of They Don't Get It, Do They? *Hillary Clinton’s fibs <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-hillary-clinton-lies-20150710-column.html> // Chicago Tribune // Jonah Goldberg – July 10, 2015 * Hillary Clinton lies. This is a widely acknowledged fact among people who pay attention and aren’t on her payroll. Nearly 20 years ago, New York Times columnist William Safire wrote: “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar.” Younger folks probably have little to no memory of the lies Safire had in mind, though some might have heard about Clinton’s infamously implausible explanation for how she managed to make a 10,000 percent profit in cattle futures simply by reading The Wall Street Journal. Suffice it to say that she’s been honing her craft for decades. And that’s turning into a problem for her, perhaps her biggest problem. After ducking the press for months, Clinton sat down for an interview with CNN’s Brianna Keilar. It was a savvy choice. Keilar covers the Clinton campaign and has every incentive not to offend her famously vindictive sources 16 months before the election. The most discussed deception came in an exchange about her emails. Clinton declared emphatically that, “You know, you’re starting with so many assumptions that are — I’ve never had a subpoena. ... Let’s take a deep breath here.” Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chair of the committee investigating the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attack, promptly produced a copy of the subpoena. Team Clinton says she was responding to a specific allegation that she deleted emails that were under subpoena. It’s a legalistically plausible defense given Keilar’s muddled question and Stakhanovite effort to avoid asking meaningful follow-ups. Still, it was a classically Clintonian way of lying: Make a sweeping, definitive-sounding statement, and then when called on it, release a fog of technicalities. Of course, the greatest example of this tactic was her husband’s parsing of the word “is” when called out for saying things like “there is no improper relationship” with a White House intern. Only under oath did he explain that it was technically true if you understand “is” to be a statement about the present moment, unlike “was.” The rest of the CNN interview was a farrago of misleading statements, blame-shifting and deceptions. Hillary insisted she had only used “one device” for email, when we now know that’s not true. Perhaps under oath she would clarify that she meant “one device at a time.” She proclaimed that she broke no rules by using a personal server and other email chicanery. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker column gave her “three Pinocchios” (out of a possible four) on those claims. Clinton even flatly denied that voters distrust her when polls clearly show Americans do, and — as usual — blamed all her problems on right-wing conspirators. Reacting to the interview, Carl Bernstein, of Woodward and Bernstein fame, offered an odd analysis of Clinton’s deceptions, conceding on CNN that Clinton has a “difficult relationship with the truth.” “We have to look at what politicians do generally in terms of fudging,” Bernstein added. “It’s endemic in the profession. She’s become a kind of specialist at it.” He went on to explain that Clinton had to become a specialist because she’s a victim of her husband’s peccadilloes — what Bernstein called the “peculiarity of the Clinton situation.” Because Bill catted around, “She’s been in a difficult position.” It was a strangely forgiving argument from a reporter who made his career by exposing presidential deceit. And while it’s certainly true Bill put Hillary in some awkward predicaments, his philandering doesn’t explain why she lied on issues ranging from her cattle futures windfall to her stealth server. But Bernstein is right about one thing: Hillary is a specialist at lying. And that’s a problem for her. Her husband was — and is — a prodigy at deceit, a renaissance man of lying. If football were a game of lies, he could play every position on offense and defense. Hillary Clinton, alas, is more like a veteran coach — she’s adept at telling others how to lie on her behalf. But she’s not a natural liar herself, and it shows. At a time when the Democratic base craves authenticity (hence the mobs at Bernie Sanders rallies), Clinton seems utterly fabricated (hence her inability to get a capacity crowd at her announcement speech last month in New York City). Her best hope now would be to stop pandering to Sanders’ fans and instead explain where she and Sanders differ on policy. But that would require a level of political authenticity she’s forgotten how to fake convincingly. *Not Feeling the Bern <http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/opinion-blog/2015/07/10/bernie-sanders-2016-surge-isnt-threatening-hillary-clinton> // US News and World Report // Matthew Dickinson – July 10, 2015 * Can you feel the Bern? Maybe not. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign is "surging", according to multiple media reports. His campaign events have been attracting huge crowds, including 10,000 – the largest of the campaign season so far – at a Bernie rally last week in Madison, Wisconsin, and another 7,500 this week ago in Portland, Maine. He has also been raking in the cash – some $15 million in the first three months of his candidacy – via small campaign donations, a testament to his broadening appeal. This surge has been reflected in his polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the sites of the presidential campaign's first caucus and primary, respectively. In Iowa, Sanders has closed to within 19 percent of the front runner Hillary Clinton in the latest poll, up from a 40 percent deficit to her in earlier surveys. He's even closer to Clinton in New Hampshire, with the most recent poll showing him trailing by 8 percent, prompting one enthusiastic headline writer to proclaim they were in a "dead heat" in the Granite state. Nationally, Sanders has consistently ranked second in polls, with only Vice President Joe Biden, who so far has shown no evidence that he is interested in running, challenging him for this spot. The combination of large crowds, more money and stronger polls has prompted the national media to give Sanders a second look. To their credit, this time they are focusing less on essays he wrote four decades ago or his aborted singing career and more on his stance on the issues. To be sure, they still seem skeptical that he can win, but they are now at least willing to acknowledge the possibility, however remote. In Sanders' home state, of course, belief that he is surging runs far deeper, with Vermont media outlets openly speculating whether (and no doubt secretly hoping) he can maintain his presidential momentum. Apropos that sentiment, a local reporter asked me today why, if Bernie wasn't a viable candidate, she couldn't find anyone in the state who wasn't supporting him! So should Hillary Clinton be worried? The short answer is no. To be sure, as Clinton learned in 2008, it is wise never to take one's front-runner status for granted. Accordingly, she and her aides are saying all the right things by publicly acknowledging that Sanders is a serious candidate who poses a potentially significant threat to her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. The reality, however, is that rather than exceed expectations, Sanders has done about as well as I expected he would to this point, given where he has positioned himself within the Democratic field. My expectations were predicated in part on the existing distribution of preferences among likely Democratic voters, and how they matched up with Sanders' ideological leanings, but also on previous efforts by progressives to win the Democratic nomination. As I wrote when Sanders first announced his candidacy three months ago, he is not the first Vermont favorite son to set his eyes on the White House in recent years. In 2004, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean threw his hat in the ring, positioning himself, much like Sanders, as the progressive Democrat amid a cast of more centrist opponents such as John Kerry and Richard Gephardt. In Dean's case, there was no Clinton-like political heavyweight standing in his path to the White House and he initially attracted strong support in the polls and in media coverage based in part on his imaginative use of the Internet to organize online meetups of "Deaniacs" and to solicit small-dollar donations, much as Bernie has done. And yet Dean was never able to attract much more than 30 percent support in national polls and his candidacy peaked shortly before the Iowa caucus, where he subsequently imploded. Despite the recent up swell in media coverage, the fact is that Sanders' road to the nomination is probably steeper than was Dean's. Keep in mind that, as of today, Sanders is still drawing less than 20 percent support nationally, compared to Clinton's almost 60 percent. So he has a way to go to even match Dean's showing, never mind threaten Clinton. To be sure, there are differences between Dean and Sanders. Although Dean attracted strong support among progressive Democrats based largely on his opposition to the Iraq war, on economic issues, such as income inequality, his liberalism was never truly as authentic or as deeply-rooted as Sanders'. But the reality is that for Bernie to win the Democratic nomination, he is going to need to expand his support beyond his natural constituency of aging Grateful Dead hipsters, environmentalists and professors. In particular, he has to demonstrate some appeal among moderate and conservative Democrats. This includes the racial and ethnic minorities of low-to-middle socioeconomic standing who proved so crucial to Obama's ability to defeat Clinton in 2008. Right now Sanders is trailing Clinton by 40 percent in the crucial state of South Carolina, which holds its primary directly after New Hampshire. Among African-Americans, who make up about a quarter of the registered Democratic vote there, he's polling at an anemic 3 percent, compared to Clinton's more than 50 percent support. He's not doing much better nationally among these key voting blocs, including racial minorities and older, more moderate Democrats. In the latest Economist/YouGov national survey of registered voters, Bernie receives only 10 percent support among African-Americans and 15 percent among Hispanics, compared to Hillary's 53 percent and 39 percent respectively. Keep in mind that in past elections racial minorities constituted more than a third of Democratic primary voters. Perhaps more worrisome is the fact that he trails Clinton among self-identified liberals by 44 percent to 32 percent. His strongest support comes from those earning more than $100,000 a year, where he ties Clinton in support at 25 percent in the Economist poll, and among the18-29 year-old crowd which, not incidentally, is the least likely to vote in national elections. These results are consistent with other national polls in the field at approximately the same time. And while it is true that Sanders is attracting his fair share of campaign contributions, the fact remains that Clinton is outraising him three-to-one. Perhaps most tellingly from the Democratic Party's perspective, Clinton has taken an early lead in endorsements, including backing from Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin and the state's senior Sen. Patrick Leahy. The bottom line is that Bernie's recent "surge" is largely a case of a candidate securing his natural coalition of support. But there's little evidence so far to suggest that he is going to expand his base beyond the Ben and Jerry's crowd and significantly cut into Clinton's larger and more diverse constituency. Of course, these facts won't stop pundits from engaging in the "what if" scenarios that are the staple of political talk shows, particularly if no other viable Democrat (Joe Biden, where are you?) arrives on the scene. The media loves a horserace, after all, even a lopsided one, and the thought of Clinton running roughshod across a weak Democratic field is not a particularly interesting narrative. So expect pundits to tout the Sanders' horse until a stronger ride appears. But the reality is that rather than exceeding expectations, Sanders, so far, is doing about as well as one would anticipate given his stance on the issues and the configuration of preferences among likely Democratic voters. And, barring an unexpected turn of events, that's probably not enough to secure the presidential nomination. *TOP NEWS* *DOMESTIC* *Barack Obama to make historic visit to federal prison <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/obama-to-visit-federal-prison-oklahoma-119962.html?ml=tl_1> // Politico // Nick Gass – July 10, 2015 * President Barack Obama will become the first sitting chief executive to visit a federal prison when he goes to El Reno, Oklahoma, next week to meet with law enforcement officials and inmates as part of the administration’s push for criminal-justice reform. “Next week the president will underscore the administration’s focus on the need to reform and improve America’s criminal justice system,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said during Friday’s news briefing. Obama will speak to that on Tuesday when he addresses the NAACP conference in Philadelphia before stopping at the medium-security federal facility in Oklahoma on Thursday. “While there, the president will meet with law enforcement officials and inmates and conduct an interview with Vice” for a documentary set to air later in the fall on HBO. Vice founder Shane Smith, who will host the special, said the documentary is “going to be fascinating.” “Visiting El Reno with President Obama — the first-ever visit to a federal prison by a sitting president — will give our viewers a firsthand look into how the president is thinking about this problem, from the policy level down to one on one conversations with the men and women living this reality,” Smith said in a statement. Obama is also expected to issue executive orders next week commuting the sentences of non-violent drug offenders. *Confederate flag comes down for good at S.C. Statehouse <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/south-carolina-confederate-flag-state-house-119950.html?ml=tl_1> // Politico // Ben Schreckinger – July 10, 2015 * With thousands looking on, the Confederate flag at the South Carolina Statehouse came down permanently on Friday morning. The flag was removed in a short ceremony by an honor guard of the South Carolina Highway Patrol as onlookers chanted “USA!” and “Take it down!” A small number of protesters were also present. Gov. Nikki Haley, civil rights activists, other state leaders and their families looked on from the Statehouse steps. Calls to remove the flag had mounted in the wake of the June 17 deaths of nine black churchgoers, including beloved state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, in Charleston, when pictures emerged of the alleged shooter posing with a Confederate flag license plate and other racist symbols. The lowering of the flag caps three weeks of soul-searching in the state that culminated with a dramatic early-morning vote in the South Carolina House on Thursday to pass a bill mandating the flag’s removal. Haley signed the bill in a joyous ceremony at the Statehouse on Thursday afternoon. Two other South Carolina governors, Republican David Beasley and Democrat Jim Hodges, have attempted to take down the flag, which was first flown from the top of the Statehouse dome in 1962 in defiance of federal desegregation efforts. Beasley failed to remove the flag after calling for it to come down in 1996, and lost his 1998 reelection as a result of backlash from white voters. Hodges helped broker a compromise that moved the flag from the dome to a pole in front of a Confederate war monument on the building’s north lawn, where it flew from 2000 until Friday morning. On Thursday, an ebullient Beasley, who had returned to Columbia for the bill signing, told POLITICO, “Love transcends division. It’s the most powerful weapon in the history of the world.” After it came down from the pole, the flag was carried in a side door of the Statehouse. It was to be placed in a van and moved to the Confederate Relic Room inside the nearby South Carolina State Museum. *OPM director resigns amid data breach scandal <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/opm-katherine-archuleta-resigns-119959.html?ml=tl_10> // Politico // Sarah Wheaton and Tal Kopan – July 10, 2015 * President Barack Obama accepted the resignation of OPM Director Katherine Archuleta on Friday amid widespread criticism of her office’s handling of a massive data breach that exposed the personnel records of more than 22 million people. The move was an abrupt reversal and a rare public punishment by a White House that has generally resisted political pressure the make speedy leadership shakeups. But as the official toll of the data breaches grew – up from around 4 million records in a single attack revealed last month to more than 22 million over two infiltrations — the bipartisan calls for Archuleta’s ouster became overwhelming. Archuleta resigned of her “own volition,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Friday. “She recognizes, as the White House does, that the urgent challenges currently facing the Office of Personnel Management require a manager with a specialized set of skills and experiences.” Members of Congress cheered the move – even as experts in government management and cybersecurity questioned whether removing Archuleta would actually help fix the problem, which originated well before her tenure began in 2013. “This is the right move for the agency and all those affected by the breach,” said Senator Mark Warner, who became the most prominent Democrat to call for her removal on Thursday, in a statement. “The focus now needs to be on fixing the problem and protecting those impacted.” Warner’s voice joined those of the top three Republicans in the House on Thursday, as well as Senator John McCain, in demanding that Archuleta step down after the administration revealed that hackers had gained access to background check information from almost everyone who has applied or taken a job with the federal government over the past 15 years. They joined a growing chorus of officials that began in June, after Archuleta deflected blame for the situation during a House Oversight Committee hearing in June, saying decades of neglecting government security systems was at fault. “I am as distressed as you are about how long these systems have gone neglected,” Archuleta said, adding that she had made upgrading the systems a priority and that the breaches were discovered as part of that upgrade process. “The whole of government is responsible and it will take all of us to solve the issue.” As late as Thursday night, the White House agreed with her, maintaining that the president still had confidence in her leadership. But on Friday morning, Archuleta announced that she had “conveyed to the president that I believe it is best for me to step aside and allow new leadership that will enable the agency to move beyond the current challenges and allow the employees at OPM to continue their important work.” Her interim replacement will be Beth Cobert, currently the chief performance officer and deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget. Archuleta had been popular with the bureaucratic rank and file, and the president of a top federal employees union predicted that the upheaval would make it more difficult to fix OPM’s IT issues. “Federal employees are kind of in a critical state of uncertainty,” said National Federation of Federal Employees President William Dougan in an interview. “The volatility of the situation has kind of been escalated.” Cobert will take over as acting director Saturday. *INTERNATIONAL* *Greece’s Parliament Approves Prime Minister’s Bailout Plan <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/world/europe/greece-struggles-to-rally-support-for-its-proposals.html?ref=world> // NYT // Liz Alderman and Andrew Higgins – July 10, 2015 * Setting the stage for a pivotal deal with Europe, the Greek Parliament early Saturday approved Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s proposal for a three-year, $59 billion rescue package with harsh austerity terms that was remarkably similar to the one Greek voters rejected in a referendum less than a week ago. With a Sunday deadline looming for a decision on the bailout, a crunch point that all sides see as Greece’s last chance to avoid bankruptcy and stay in the euro currency zone, the plan passed by an overwhelming margin. The final vote showed that 251 lawmakers voted for the plan, while the rest of the body’s 300 members opposed it, abstained or were absent. But because 17 lawmakers from Mr. Tsipras’s coalition did not support the plan — 2 voted no, 8 voted present and 7 were absent — a shuffling of the prime minister’s government seemed likely, and some analysts said that it was possible that Mr. Tsipras might resign. Fears persist that creditors will still doubt that a government with such internal rifts will be able to carry out the tough economic measures it has proposed. Mr. Tsipras had said that he would resign if he lost the vote in Parliament, which required the support of 151 lawmakers to pass. The proposal must now win approval from European officials and institutions before negotiations can finally go forward on a comprehensive bailout package. Alexis Tsipras. Credit Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Lawmakers took up the measure after Mr. Tsipras decided to give in to most of the demands of Greece’s creditors. In exchange, he won the chance to negotiate for the new bailout money, on top of about $270 billion Greece has received since 2010, and potential talks to reduce repayment terms on the debt. It might also allow Greece to avoid a catastrophic exit from the eurozone. Yet even as the vote was debated in the Greek Parliament, influential voices in Germany and Eastern Europe expressed skepticism about whether Greece would follow through on pledges to be more fiscally responsible. And crowds gathered outside the Parliament building in Athens on Friday evening to protest Mr. Tsipras’s abrupt U-turn, with many saying they felt betrayed after he had urged them to reject the bailout in the referendum last Sunday. Mr. Tsakalotos in Parliament on Friday. At least 250 of the 300 members approved a rescue plan. Credit Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images One of the demonstrators, John Papageorgiou, 45, a math teacher, said he wanted Greece to drop the euro currency because he believed the euro benefited certain countries, like Germany, while putting others, like Greece, at a disadvantage. Nonetheless, he said, he did not feel betrayed by Mr. Tsipras’s compromise efforts, and he thought that the European leaders would recognize that Greece’s debt was illegal. His friend Maria Antonopoulou, 44, who works for an electric company, interjected: “We love Tsipras. We needed him as Greeks. We have faith in him. Compared to what we had, he’s clean.” The new proposal was given a swift thumbs-up by France and lifted hopes in Brussels that, after months of ill-tempered arguments and fruitless crisis meetings, Greece and its creditors could reach a deal by midnight on Sunday to prevent a fracturing of Europe’s currency union. The goal is not to seal a deal that would immediately provide Greece with new funding, but simply to get a formal green light to start what could be lengthy talks on a new bailout to replace one that expired on June 30. Just the signal to start talks, though, could lift a dark cloud of uncertainty, at least temporarily, and give the European Central Bank cover to perhaps expand recently frozen emergency cash for Greek banks, which have been closed since June 29. The economy has been in disarray. People have been out of work for years. The banks have been running out of money. It sounds a lot like the Great Depression in the United States. But it is Greece – and in some ways, the situation is worse. A final agreement is still far from a sure thing. A raft of actors — 19 eurozone finance ministers; 28 European Union leaders, who have been called to Brussels to discuss the crisis on Sunday; and the bureaucracies in Brussels — need to examine the proposal before giving their approval. And there is so much bad blood after months of insults, frustration and failure, there is little faith in European circles in Greece’s pledges to carry out measures like tax increases and cuts in pension spending. Representatives of the main creditors — the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the other European nations that use the euro — were poring over the Greek proposal on Friday. Their assessments will play a critical role in any decisions by the Eurogroup, an assembly of finance ministers from euro countries, which is to meet in Brussels on Saturday. Even Mr. Tsipras’s party, Syriza, which drafted the proposals with help from French experts, seemed confused, with members voicing concern over measures that the culture minister, Nikos Xydakis, described on Friday as “very tough.” Many lawmakers from Syriza, a coalition of left-wing groups, had serious misgivings about the proposal. Mr. Xydakis said in an interview: “No, it’s not a better deal. It’s a tough deal and the only one we can get right now.” Speaking to members of Syriza on Friday, Mr. Tsipras said his government had a “mandate from the Greek people to bring a better agreement,” but “we do not have a mandate to take the country out of the eurozone,” an event that would follow a decisive rupture with creditors. “For six months we fought an uneven war. We suffered losses, but we gained ground, too,” he told lawmakers later. But, he conceded, “now a minefield lies ahead of us.” Mr. Tsipras, who last week vowed never to succumb to creditors’ terms that he had condemned as the work of “extreme conservative forces,” seems to have calculated that it was worth making concessions to secure the proposed three-year, $59 billion bailout loan and the possibility of negotiating easier terms for repayment of the nation’s debt. When Syriza began negotiations with creditors after it came to power in January, the objective was a more modest unblocking of about $8 billion from an existing bailout program that has since expired. “It is largely a capitulation on Tsipras’s part to what creditors have been asking for, but is that enough?” asked Raoul Ruparel, co-director of Open Europe, a research group in London. “Germany and some others are very skeptical about anything the Greeks produce, and this goes back to the main problem — a total lack of trust.” While President François Hollande of France welcomed the new proposals as “serious” and “credible,” Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and her key ministers kept silent on Friday, insisting that it was too soon to judge the suggestions now being reviewed by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the I.M.F. “We will wait until the institutions examine them and express their opinion,” said Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for the German government. But he repeated Germany’s longstanding insistence that all 19 countries that use the euro must follow the rules, a position that has made Berlin resistant in the past to pleas from Greece that demands for tight budgets must be relaxed and debts restructured to prevent the country from suffocating. Martin Jäger, spokesman for the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said the outcome of the Saturday gathering remained “completely open.” Both Mr. Schäuble and Ms. Merkel have ruled out writing off any of Greece’s debt under what Ms. Merkel has called “a classical haircut,” or debt write-down, but they have indicated they might be open to extending payment deadlines and reducing interest rates. Some of Ms. Merkel’s political allies and the governments of Eastern and Central European countries that have taken an even tougher line on Athens than Germany raised doubts on Friday about Greece’s readiness and ability to deliver on its new promises, delivered Thursday just before a deadline fixed by creditors expired. Hans-Peter Friedrich, a member of the Christian Social Union, which is part of Ms. Merkel’s conservative bloc, noted the similarities between the new proposal and the one rejected by the Greek people. “That means there are two possibilities: Either the Greek government is tricking its own people, or us yet again,” Mr. Friedrich told Deutschlandfunk radio on Friday. *Turkey Arrests 21 Suspected of Ties to ISIS <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/world/europe/turkey-arrests-21-suspected-of-ties-to-isis.html?ref=world> // NYT // Ceylan Yeginsu – July 10, 2015 * Under pressure from its Western allies to do more to combat Islamist extremists, the Turkish authorities arrested 21 suspected Islamic State members on Friday, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported. Among those arrested were three foreigners and two prominent Islamic State supporters known to have recruited fighters in Turkey, the local news media reported. In early-morning raids in Istanbul and Sanliurfa Province, which borders Syria, the Turkish police seized automatic rifles, large ammunition packs and military uniforms, the agency reported. Turkey is a NATO member and a longtime American ally, but it has been frequently criticized for its reluctance to play a more active role in combating the Islamic State. Western officials have accused Turkey of a degree of ambivalence toward the militant group, which now controls large parts of Syria and Iraq, and the Turks sometimes give the impression that they see Kurdish autonomy in Syria as a greater threat to their country than the extremists. “They have a strong stake in things, in stability to their south,” Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said on Tuesday in Washington. “I believe they could do more along the border.” Thousands of foreign fighters have joined the ranks of the Islamic State over the past year, many of them traveling through Turkey to reach the extremists’ self-declared caliphate in northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq. Pressed by the West to stem the flow, the Turks have detained and deported about 1,500 people trying to reach Syria and have barred more than 14,000 others from entering the country, according to Turkish Foreign Ministry figures. And there have been at least seven smaller police raids across the country in the past two weeks against suspected Islamic State fighters. Turkey has also stepped up its military presence along the porous Syrian border, deploying additional tanks and troops. But much of that was done after Kurdish forces took control of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad from the Islamic State in June. Mr. Carter’s critique aside, other senior American officials said on Friday that Turkey’s recent actions demonstrated the government’s new commitment to fighting the Islamic State, though they said it was too early to say whether the Friday arrests were a major turning point or a symbolic gesture to fend off the Western criticism. “The Turks are actually trying to do more, and our collective work with them would be vastly aided if we’d stop criticizing them in public,” said one senior Obama administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential assessments. “I don’t think this is a symbolic offering.” Analysts said that the large-scale raids and arrests on Friday were something new, and were probably based on intelligence obtained from the United States. A delegation of American counterterrorism experts met with Turkish officials in Ankara this week to discuss the fight against the Islamic State. “Turkey sees Daesh as a major threat, not just to our country but to the entire world,” a government official with knowledge of the issue said on Friday, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with government protocol. Addressing Western criticism that Turkey had been slow to act against the group, the official said, “Antiterrorist operations take time and require comprehensive intelligence gathering and logistics. This is why.” Aaron Stein, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based analytical institute, said Turkey might be stepping up its efforts now because it was worried about an Islamic State drive toward the border town of Azaz in northeast Syria. But he was skeptical that the arrests signaled a major, new antimilitant resolve in Turkey. “The Ebu Hanzala detentions tell us that we have to be cautious,” Mr. Stein said, referring a cleric considered to be the “spiritual leader” of the Islamic State within Turkey, who has repeatedly been arrested and released. “Much will be determined in the coming days, and whether those arrested face charges and are put behind bars,” Mr. Stein said of the latest raids. In the Hacibayram neighborhood of Ankara, a known Islamic State recruitment hub, a resident said on Friday that two suspects who were arrested there last week were freed the next day. The resident would not allow his name to be used because he feared reprisals. “They came back and celebrated the fact that they were only charged for drug abuse,” he said of the two freed suspects. “These arrests will only mean something if these men are locked up for good. They have gone and killed in Syria, then they come back and roam our streets. It’s terrifying.”