Subject: H4A News Clips 5.31.15
From: Alexandria Phillips <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 09:03:37 -0400
List-Id: <HRCRapid.hillaryclinton.com>

*H4A Press Clips*

*May 31, 2015*

SUMMARY OF TODAY’S NEWS

Vice President Biden’s son Beau Biden passed away yesterday after battling
brain cancer, he was 46 years old.

In political news, Martin O’Malley announced his candidacy for the 2016
presidential race.

Politico released a piece about Hillary Clinton’s campaign obtaining access
to the full Ready for Hillary email list late last week. And said the list
is a data gold mine that will immediately bolster the Democratic
front-runner’s fundraising and organizing efforts.

SUMMARY OF TODAY’S
NEWS.......................................................................
1

TODAY’S KEY
STORIES...................................................................................
2

*Hillary Clinton campaign scores Ready for Hillary email list* // Politico
// Annie Karni - May 30, 2015               2

*People are going to be just as excited': Clinton courts Obama's black
southern stronghold* // Guardian // Sabrina Siddiqui - May 30,
2015...............................................................................................................
3

HRC NATIONAL
COVERAGE..........................................................................
8

*Who are the 1 percent who've never heard of Hillary?* // Politico // Ben
Schreckinger - May 30, 2015 9

*Can 2016 Republicans top Hillary on issue No. 1 — the economy?* // NY Post
// Editorial Board - May 29,
2015..................................................................................................................................................
9

*Hillary’s Libya Emails* // The Weekly Standard // Stephen F. Hayes  - May
30, 2015.................... 10

*That day should come sooner rather than later. Hillary’s Libya Emails* //
The Weekly Standard // Stephen F. Hayes  - May 30,
2015................................................................................................................
13

OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL
COVERAGE............................................. 16

*Analysis: Martin O'Malley Is Hillary Clinton's Strongest Rival, But He's
Still Behind Her* // NBC News // PERRY BACON JR – May 31,
2015..........................................................................................................
16

*Former Md. Gov. O'Malley jumps into 2016 Democratic race* // AP // Ken
Thomas and Catherine Lucey - May 30,
2015.........................................................................................................................................
18

*O’Malley announces presidential bid, visits Davenport* // Quad City Times
// Jeff Cook - May 30, 2015            20

*O' Malley Makes Iowa First Stop in 2016 Kick Off* // AP // May 30,
2015....................................... 22

*O’Malley’s challenge to Clinton: Ideological or generational? Or both?* //
WaPo // Dan Balz - May 29, 2015     22

*O'Malley announcement remarks as prepared for delivery* // WaPo // Martin
O'Malley - May 29, 2015             23

*Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley Announces 2016 White House Bid* //
WSJ // Scott Calvert - May 30,
2015................................................................................................................................................
30

*Martin O’Malley Phoned Hillary Clinton Ahead of His Presidential Launch*
// TIME // Kathleen Lange - May 30,
2015.........................................................................................................................................
33

*O'Malley's long-shot bid gets complicated start* // Politico // Ben
Schreckinger - May 30, 2015..... 34

*Martin O'Malley Delivers Powerful Campaign Kickoff Speech* // Bloomberg //
Mark Halperin - May 29, 2015 34

*Baltimore’s blight puts O’Malley on defensive in bid for presidency* //
WaPo // Robert McCartney - May 30,
2015................................................................................................................................................
35

*Martin O’Malley Announces Presidential Campaign, Pushing Image of Vitality*
// NYT // Maggie Haberman  - May 30,
2015.............................................................................................................................
39

*Think big, make political revolution* // Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier //
James Lynch - May 30, 2015 42

*Bernie Sanders in Iowa City: Think big, make political* // The Gazette //
James Q. Lynch - May 30, 2015         43

*Lincoln Chafee to announce presidential run on June 3* // Politico // Ben
Schreckinger and Jonathan Topaz - May 30,
2015....................................................................................................................................
45

*Democrats Seek a Richer Roster to Match G.O.P.* // NYT // Eric Lichtblau
and Nicholas Confessore - May 30,
2015................................................................................................................................................
46

GOP................................................................................................................
50

*Sen. Rand Paul: Tomorrow I Will Stop the Illegal NSA Spying* // TIME //
Sen. Rand Paul - May 30, 3015          50

*Sen. Rand Paul Vows to Prevent Senate From Extending Patriot Act* // WSJ
// Kristina Peterson and Carole E. Lee - May 30,
2015...........................................................................................................................
52

*Walker maintains popularity with 7-point lead* // Des Moines Register //
Jennifer Jacob - May 30, 2015         55

*Fiorina gains in favorability* // Des Moines Register // Jennifer Jacobs -
May 30, 2015................. 58

*Christie to pull New Jersey from Common Core* // The Hill // Jonathan
Easley - May 30, 2015...... 58

TOP
NEWS.....................................................................................................
60

DOMESTIC..................................................................................................
60

*Joe Biden's son, Beau, dies of brain cancer* // Reuters // May 30,
2015........................................ 60

*Patriot Act Deadline Forces Rare Sunday Senate Session* // RCP // James
Arkin - May 30, 2015.... 61

*Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert accused of hiding sex abuse of former
student* // Richard A. Serrano and Katherine Skiba -  LAT // May 30,
2015......................................................................................
63

*U.S. judge grills lawyer defending Obama's healthcare law changes* //
Reuters // Lindsay Dunsmuir - May 28,
2015.........................................................................................................................................
65

*U.S. Economy Contracted 0.7% in First Quarter* // NYT // Nelson D.
Schwartz - May 29, 2015....... 66

INTERNATIONAL.......................................................................................
69

*U.S. Says China has Artillery on Artificial Islands* // AP // Lolita
Baldor - May 29, 2015................. 69

*Chinese Security Laws Elevate the Party and Stifle Dissent. Mao Would
Approve* // NYT // Edward Wong - May 30,
2015....................................................................................................................................
71

*Islamic State claims militants carried out twin blasts at Baghdad hotels*
// WaPo // Mustafa Salim and Loveday Morris - May 30,
2015................................................................................................................
74

OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS..................................................................
76

*Why Baltimore Blew Up* // Rolling Stone // Matt Taibbi - May 26,
2015....................................... 76

*It's Not Closing Time on American Exceptionalism* // RCP // Jay Timmons -
May 30, 2015........... 88

TODAY’S KEY STORIES

Hillary Clinton campaign scores Ready for Hillary email list
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/hillary-clinton-campaign-scores-ready-for-hillary-email-list-118446.html#ixzz3bdqZhVt4>
// Politico // Annie Karni - May 30, 2015

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign late last week obtained access to
the full Ready for Hillary email list, a data gold mine that will
immediately bolster the Democratic front-runner’s fundraising and
organizing efforts.

The campaign gained entry to the independent super PAC’s list through a
swap with another independent group, a Democrat with knowledge of the list
told POLITICO, and is expected to begin emailing it immediately. The source
declined to identify the other group.

Access to the list of close to 4 million names came after senior campaign
officials admitted they were relying in part on an outdated supporter list
from 2008. For two years, Ready for Hillary’s primary purpose was to create
a plug-and-play list of supporter names, with contact information, that
represented an energized base of people who could be tapped for money or
volunteering.

People are going to be just as excited': Clinton courts Obama's black
southern stronghold
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/30/hillary-clinton-southern-black-voters-south-carolina>
// Guardian // Sabrina Siddiqui - May 30, 2015

On and off the campaign trail in the Carolinas, voters say they have ‘no
hard feelings’ toward Hillary Clinton. They say the opposite about
Republicans

Bryan Burns could not make up his mind. Here was this African-American
voter in khaki shorts, a v-neck T-shirt and black-rimmed eyeglasses,
browsing shops at the Crabtree Valley Mall, on a swelteringly hot Friday in
the not-yet summer of the American south.

And there was Hillary Clinton, who needs to win the minds of exactly this
kind of southerner, a 30-year-old Virginia native who has spent the last
decade living in North Carolina, a state that all but ended Clinton’s 2008
presidential run against Barack Obama. Although he follows politics
closely, Burns is not yet fully engaged in the next – the current – contest
for the American presidency, despite around-the-clock election coverage by
the media, despite Clinton already courting people like him around the
country.

As he juggled several shopping bags on his way toward another department
store, Burns was unsure but knew this: Clinton’s ultimate image – that of a
strong woman – should resonate with the crucial black vote in the
Carolinas, potentially helping her to secure enough early momentum in the
critical primary state of South Carolina to make the old battleground of
North Carolina competitive again.

Not that Republicans stand much of a chance with people like Bryan Burns to
begin with.

“She has a history of advocating on behalf of what she believes in and,
from a pure historic standpoint, it’d be great if she won,” Burns told the
Guardian of Clinton, insisting that Republicans had made few inroads with
black voters since Obama took office. “I still see them as catering to
their base. Some of the candidates that have come out – Ben Carson, Ted
Cruz and Marco Rubio – they can branch out into those demographics that
[Republicans] haven’t tried to before, but I don’t know if it’ll stick.”

On a swing back to South Carolina on Wednesday, Clinton set out to
recapture the support of black female voters – a coalition that twice
helped propel Obama to the White House – by sticking to her message with a
touch of Southern drawl. Eight years ago, Clinton developed a thorny
relationship with black voters her amid a grueling and bitterly contested
primary with Obama that was roiled by racial tensions. This time around,
the Clinton camp is acting aggressively fast to make sure things turn out
differently.

From the moment Clinton declared her second presidential bid last month,
the question of whether black voters would re-embrace her has loomed well
beyond her small campaign gatherings with mostly white and Hispanic
business leaders. But her activities in South Carolina, in many ways,
served as a microcosm for how Clinton plans to woo African Americans –
especially those who are women.

Before opening up her frontrunner campaign next month with rallies in New
York and policy speeches across more swing states, Clinton continued her
around-the-table sit-down style with minority women small-business owners
and a keynote speech before a group of roughly 200 Democrats, most of them
African-American women, in which she spotlighted women’s economic issues
such as equal pay for equal work and pay transparency.

Later, at a local bakery, the former secretary of state stumbled upon a
pastor, Frederick Donnie Hunt, who was reviewing Corinthians 13 for Bible
study. Clinton, a devout Methodist, talked scripture. She spoke of a
preacher friend who sends mini-sermons almost daily, leaving Hunt impressed
in. “You have my vote,” he told Clinton as she got up to leave, after a
conversation that lasted just a couple of minutes.

In interviews in parallel with the highly orchestrated campaign on a road
trip through parts of the south – from strip malls and shopping centers
along Interstate-85 to a famed chicken-and-waffle joint visited by Clinton
herself – dozens more black voters told the Guardian that while they may
still be making up their minds about converting from Obama to Clinton, one
thing was for sure: African Americans do not see their priorities reflected
in the platform of her conservative rivals.

Black voters make up for more than 50% of primary voters in South Carolina,
the last of four critical early voting states that Clinton has visited in
phase one of her campaign. And while this time she is the clear frontrunner
for the Democratic nomination, Clinton’s return to the state – and emphasis
on her southern roots – offered a clear sense that this time, she is taking
nothing for granted.

Clinton already has a built-in edge with black voters due in no
insignificant part to the lingering problems Republicans face with
minorities.

There are now eight declared Republican presidential candidates and
counting – the number could very well double in the coming month – yet few
have made early moves to reach out to a demographic that has no favorite.

Kentucky senator Rand Paul is the only candidate who has made criminal
justice reform a key tenet of his campaign, telling Republican primary
voters during his own swing through South Carolina on Friday that the party
needed to do a better job of standing up for minorities. Others have spoken
more broadly about the need to reduce income inequality, but at the same
time have continued to scorn anti-poverty programs such as food stamps and
Medicaid.

“They’re not reaching out. They’re not showing they want to do something
for the everyday American,” said Eugene Phillips, 68, a meat cutter at the
discount grocery store Save-A-Lot in Columbia. “There’s people out there
who are making $13,000 or $14,000 a year – they’re struggling, and they’re
on food stamps. Republicans don’t want to give those people a break. They
want to cut everything. They want to take money away from the weakest
people.”

Sean S, a 25-year-old truck driver, had a similar view of the Grand Old
Party. Sitting at the food court inside Columbiana Center, a shopping mall
about 10 minutes from where Clinton held her events on Wednesday, the
father of two said it was too early for him to decide how he would vote
next year.

Most Republicans believe, ‘I make my money so I should keep my money’

Sean S, truck driver, 25

“I’m concerned about health care and trying to help the person that doesn’t
have the opportunity to help themselves. But I know that most Republicans
believe, ‘I make my money so I should keep my money,’” Sean said. “The
Democrats, they do a better job being about helping people.”

Jonita I, a sales associate at a clothing boutique back at the same mall,
invoked recent riots in Baltimore over the police killing of Freddie Gray,
an unarmed black man, and said the demonstrations had just as much to do
with inner-city poverty.

“People are mad, especially minorities and people on welfare that may not
have the opportunities that more wealthy individuals do,” said Jonita, 24,
who voted for Obama and is leaning toward supporting Clinton. “Republicans
should put emphasis on their needs. ... The rich or even the middle class
are not struggling the same way or wondering where their next meal is going
to come from.”

Such comments serve as a sobering reality for the Republican party’s
future, even two years after a scathing autopsy of the 2012 election
commissioned by the Republican National Committee called for greater
inclusion of minorities. Among the recommendations in the 97-page report
were for Republicans to establish a presence in African-American
communities, historically black colleges and universities, and at black
organizations such as the NAACP.

“We are never going to win over voters who are not asked for their support.
Too many African-American voters have gotten in the habit of supporting
Democrats without hearing anyone in their community making a case to the
contrary,” the report said.

Despite gains in the 2014 midterm elections that helped Republicans regain
control of Congress, roughly 90% of African Americans voted Democratic last
November. And there is little evidence thus far that the population will be
within the GOP’s reach in 2016 – a handicap that could haunt the party even
in their southern stronghold.

In North Carolina, the left-leaning Center for American Progress projected
that the black population will move from 22% to 22.7% of the vote. If
racial and ethnic groups turn out at the same levels they did in 2012, the
odds are once again stacked against Republicans.

There’s a lot of racism that people don’t believe is going on – it’s been
going on, but now you can see it

Anthony Jefferson, 29, electronics retailer

It will be at least a year before states like North Carolina come into
play, as candidates invest both their time and resources on the early
voting states that will decide the primaries. But prospective black voters
in the Durham-Raleigh area – many of whom voted for Obama twice – are
already warming up to the idea of supporting Clinton.

Anthony Jefferson, a 29-year-old from a neighboring suburb who works at an
electronics kiosk in the same mall, said conversations with his peers have
led him to believe that voters remain enthusiastic about Clinton’s
candidacy.

“I feel like people are probably going to be just as excited, because it’s
a big step for women,” Jefferson said.

While he ranked the economy as a top priority, Jefferson added that it
would be imperative for any major candidate to address issues such as
criminal justice and police brutality.

“There’s a lot of racism that people don’t believe is going on – it’s been
going on, but now you can see it on social media,” he said. “It’s
definitely a problem.”

‘Nothing that happened in ’08 would keep me from supporting her now,’ said
a local city councilwoman.

Even though Clinton’s reputation among black voters appears to be on solid
ground, her campaign has already made a number of aggressive moves to lock
in early support within the African-American community.

The campaign on Thursday tapped a former executive director to the
influential Congressional Black Caucus to lead its African-American
outreach. And just last month, Clinton focused the first major speech of
her campaign, at Columbia University in New York, on criminal justice
reform amid the riots in Baltimore.

The moment could have proved awkward for Clinton, given former president
Bill Clinton’s enactment of tough-on-crime policies that saw the black
prison population grow by more than 50 percent on his watch. While she did
not specifically mention her husband in the address, Clinton said it was
time to end “the era of mass incarceration”, drew a direct link between
prison sentencing reform and reducing income inequality, called for body
cameras for police, and pledged federal funds that would enable state and
local law enforcement to adopt better practices.

She even alluded to the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed
black teenager killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer whose acquittal the
following year sparked nationwide protests.

“You don’t have to look too far from this magnificent hall to find children
still living in poverty or trapped in failing schools,” Clinton said,
before referencing the fateful night when Martin went out to buy candy and
an iced tea. “Mothers and fathers who fear for their sons’ safety when they
go off to school – or just to go buy a pack of Skittles.”

Clinton spokesman Tyrone Gayle said outreach to black voters will continue
to be an integral part of her campaign.

“Hillary Clinton is committed to issues important to African-American
voters and earning the support of the African-American community,” Gayle
told the Guardian. “That’s why the first major speech of her campaign laid
out a broader vision for criminal justice reform, why she’s appointed
African Americans to senior leadership positions in her campaign, and why
she’ll continue outlining proposals that strengthen their families and
communities.”

Speaking behind a podium again on the trail in South Carolina, Clinton did
not emphasize race – even though last month, another outcry surfaced when
Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, was shot in the back and killed by a
police officer less than two hours away in North Charleston.

Instead, her pitch was decidedly focused on economic issues such as equal
pay, paid family leave and raising the minimum wage, although Clinton
pointed out such matters disproportionately affected minority women. The
speech was well-received by the majority African-American crowd.

Tameika Isaac Devine, a city councilwoman representing Columbia, said
Wednesday’s address resonated with people like herself who are faced with a
large number of constituents living in poverty.

“There are a lot of people who just can’t seem to make ends meet,” said
Devine, who supported Obama in 2008 but said there are “no hard feelings”
for Clinton at this stage.

“Honestly to me, it was just politics. Nothing that happened in ’08 would
keep me from supporting her now,” Devine said.

Even so, Clinton used her speech this week – ahead of a more openly public
schedule beginning in June, with her husband in tow – to highlight the
relationship she developed with Obama after their contentious primary eight
years ago.

The Clintons had always shared a positive relationship with African
Americans, to the extent that Bill Clinton was even referred to as “the
first black president”. But he came under fire while campaigning for his
wife in 2008 for appearing dismissive of Obama’s candidacy.

“Give me a break. This whole thing’s the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever
seen,” Bill Clinton said at the time, angering leaders in the African
American community even as he insisted the remark had only to do with
Obama’s stance on the Iraq war.

On Wednesday, Clinton raised the issue indirectly herself – with a laugh.

“Some of you may remember we had a pretty vigorous campaign in 2008,”
Clinton said, before recounting the story of how she initially declined
Obama’s offer to serve as his secretary of state.

“I say to my husband, ‘Can you believe this? I mean, the president-elect
has asked me to be secretary of state. I told him no twice, and he said
he’s not going to give up until I say yes’,” Clinton said. “And Bill said,
‘Well, as I remember, I asked you to marry me twice.’”

She brought the house down.

Don Fowler,  former Democratic National Committee chairman who is close to
the Clintons, said the crowd’s response to the Obama anecdote was a clear
indication that any battle scars of the past have since healed. He said
Clinton’s attentiveness toward African Americans during her South Carolina
swing was nothing short of rational, since their votes are mostly up for
grabs in the primary as opposed to the general election, when black voters
will overwhelmingly swing for the Democratic nominee, who is overwhelmingly
assumed to be Clinton – unless someone like Martin O’Malley, declaring his
candidacy on Saturday, gets in the way.

“What she did was not, in my judgement, framed against some sort of wall of
disapproval by African Americans,” Fowler told the Guardian in a phone
interview. “It just doesn’t exist. She is very popular among African
American people.”

Phillips, the meat-cutter, agreed, pointing out that he, his wife, and
“everyone they know” plans to vote for Clinton.

“A lot of people liked Hillary and Obama – it wasn’t good that we had to
choose between them,” he said. “Most people went for Obama, but this time
he’s not running. Hillary is.”

HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE

Who are the 1 percent who've never heard of Hillary?
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/hillary-clinton-campaign-scores-ready-for-hillary-email-list-118446.html#ixzz3bdqZhVt4>
// Politico // Ben Schreckinger - May 30, 2015

But for the first six weeks of Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, that
data trove was unavailable and tied up with lawyers reviewing the options
available to the campaign: they could trade an old list for the new list,
or rent “a la carte” pieces of the list – like, for example, names of
volunteers in Iowa they would need before a campaign stop there.
Eventually, however, the campaign decided it was easier to have access to
the entire list.

“I could offer about 4 million reasons why the Ready for Hillary list is an
important resource,” said Tracy Sefl, a Democratic strategist who served as
a senior adviser to the independent super PAC before it shut down.

To understand why access to the list is so important, consider the recent
experience of Lynette Hull, a 17-year-old high school student from Las
Vegas who was one of the first interns to sign up with the campaign after
Clinton announced she was running.

A national honors society student at Liberty High School, Hull was quickly
put to work phone-banking — working through an old database of Clinton
supporters to sign up new volunteers.

Can 2016 Republicans top Hillary on issue No. 1 — the economy?
<http://nypost.com/2015/05/29/can-2016-republicans-top-hillary-on-issue-no-1-the-economy/>
// NY Post // Editorial Board - May 29, 2015

Friday’s rotten news guaranteed that the top issue of the 2016 race for the
White House will be the economy. The question is whether the Republicans
can come up with a prescription that beats Hillary Clinton’s message of
Obamanomics Lite.

We yield to no one in our contempt for President Obama’s (mis)management of
foreign policy, a litany of woes in which Clinton is fully complicit. But
that’s not going to be front-and-center in voters’ minds.

Friday’s numbers show that the US economy contracted in the year’s first
quarter. If the second quarter winds up a bit worse than early estimates
put it, then the nation’s officially back in recession.

Either way, America’s still stuck in the “new normal” of an economy that’s
essentially treading water.

The rich are doing OK, thanks in good part to Federal Reserve policies that
keep Wall Street humming, even as Main Street drags. But the non-rich know
they’re losing ground.

To be fair, the Fed’s just trying to keep everything from falling apart. It
doesn’t have the tools to truly goose the economy. In the end, that’s up to
the collective will of millions of private-sector decision-makers.

And the private sector’s just too nervous — about the direction of the
world economy; about trends at home; about the likelihood that any big news
out of Washington will be bad for business.

Hillary’s basic argument: The economy did great when her husband was
president — and never mind that she’s already abandoned every position that
made him a “New Democrat.” Toss in few hundred million bucks’ worth of
negative ads, and it might be enough.

What Republicans need to demand of their candidates is a clear, credible
explanation of why the nation’s on the wrong track, and how to fix it.

That means talking about what Washington’s done wrong — on taxes,
regulation and just plain honest leadership. And what Washington’s failed
to do — from really fixing the banks to truly caring about the regular
Americans out there striving every day.

“Hope and change” beat Hillary once. It’s the way to beat her again.

Hillary’s Libya Emails
<http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/hillary-s-libya-emails_958456.html>
// The Weekly Standard // Stephen F. Hayes  - May 30, 2015

A little more than three hours after the State Department released 848
pages of Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Daily Beast had seen enough to
render its judgment: “Sorry GOP. There’s No Smoking Gun In Hillary
Clinton’s Benghazi Emails.” The subhead: “Conspiracy-minded conservatives,
be warned: The trove of Clinton emails doesn’t prove much about her
culpability for the infamous 9/11 anniversary attacks.”

t’s the media version of Frank Drebin: Please disperse, there’s nothing to
see here. Trey Gowdy, pack your bags and go home.

Of course, no one actually believed that this batch of emails would produce
a smoking gun on Benghazi. Hillary Clinton has sought to avoid public
scrutiny of her emails since before she was sworn in as secretary of state.
When she did turn over some of her emails to the State Department, it was
Clinton and her lawyers who decided which ones they would make available
and which they would withhold. While it might be useful for Clinton
defenders to pretend otherwise, there was no expectation that Clinton would
voluntarily share incriminating emails, especially now, in the first weeks
of her presidential campaign.

Yet for journalists interested in reporting on Clinton’s emails rather than
hastily exonerating their author, the hundreds of pages released last week
included a number of disclosures, some of them inadvertent, that raise new
questions about Hillary Clinton, the State Department, Libya, the Benghazi
attacks, and presidential politics. The good news: Some journalists are
looking for answers. And so are the investigators who work for the House
Select Committee on Benghazi.

Sidney Blumenthal is at the heart of those new questions. A noted
conspiracy monger and longtime Clinton confidant, Blumenthal provided
Clinton a steady stream of outside intelligence on Libya while she was
secretary of state. Some of his information was accurate and some of it was
not, but Clinton thought enough of Blumenthal to circulate his reports to
top State Department advisers, sometimes with notes ordering them to take
some kind of action in response. Clinton downplayed the Blumenthal emails
as “unsolicited” thoughts from an old friend. That doesn’t quite capture
the dynamic.

For Blumenthal, friendship with the Clintons came with considerable
benefits. Blumenthal had been banned from State Department employment by
the Obama administration, and it appears that if he couldn’t collect a
government check for advising the Clintons, he would collect one from the
Clintons directly. Politico’s Ken Vogel reports that Blumenthal was paid
$10,000 a month as an employee of the Clinton Foundation from 2009 to 2013
and the same sum as a consultant after he left the payroll in 2013 through
March 2015. According to the New York Times, Blumenthal had access to
private intelligence on Libya because he was advising “business associates .
. . as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional
government.”

The deteriorating security situation in Libya generally, and Benghazi
specifically, was a dominant theme in the emails. Clinton defenders have
sought to insulate her from criticism of inadequate security before the
attacks by suggesting that decisions about security for U.S. diplomatic
personnel were made well below her level. There are many reasons to be
skeptical of those claims. The emails make clear that Clinton was deeply
involved in virtually every aspect of Libya policy; one internal State
Department email lays out the many ways she drove administration
decision-making on Libya. Was Clinton a deeply engaged, hands-on manager of
every aspect of Libya policy other than security?

If Clinton wasn’t involved in security decisions, the emails make clear
that she should have been. Reports that Clinton received and circulated,
from both official and unofficial channels, demonstrate the dire security
challenges for Americans in Libya.

It’s not just Blumenthal’s emails that raise additional questions. An email
sent at 9:17 a.m. on September 15, 2012—four days after the fatal attack in
Benghazi—by an aide advises Clinton that Dan Pfeiffer, the director of
communications at the White House, “has some sensitive items that he would
like to personally show you when he arrives.” Clinton slept in and missed
the meeting and wrote back later in the morning to request that Pfeiffer
return to brief her. It’s possible that these “sensitive items” had nothing
to do with Benghazi. But the request for a meeting came after a flurry of
emails the previous evening between officials from the White House, the
State Department, and various national security agencies. Those emails
concerned edits to the administration’s much-discussed Benghazi “talking
points” and included strong objections from the State Department’s
“building leadership” to some of the language. White House officials
emailed the group to assure everyone that the objections would be addressed
the following morning at a meeting of the Deputies Committee.

An email sent to several top administration officials, including top
Clinton aide Jake Sullivan, at 11:08 that same morning is introduced this
way: “Per the discussion at Deputies, here are the revised TPs for HPSCI
[talking points for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence].
Let me know what you think.” The language in the revised talking points is
redacted in its entirety.

Given what we know about the various iterations of the talking points, it’s
unlikely that these redactions conceal anything not already known. But as
that example suggests, what’s missing from the emails is often as
provocative as the content. On April 8, 2011, Clinton forwarded a
Blumenthal email to Sullivan. In the version of that email released by the
State Department, most of Clinton’s note is redacted. It reads: “FYI.
[Redacted].” But the same email was obtained and published by the New York
Times before the State Department release, and in that version, the
sentence is unredacted. It reads: “FYI. The idea of using private security
experts to arm the opposition should be considered.”

Why did the State Department—or Clinton herself—want that sentence
redacted? That’s unclear. And there may well be an innocent explanation.
But the note raises additional questions. Did the idea of supplying arms to
the Libyan opposition through private security experts receive the
consideration Clinton wanted? Did it happen? Was Blumenthal involved?

Beyond these questions, the Select Committee on Benghazi notes several
“inexplicable gaps” in Clinton’s email records “during key times of her
involvement with Libyan policy.” There are no emails between September 14
and October 21, 2011, five weeks surrounding Clinton’s trip to Libya. (The
committee notes that this was when a “now-famous picture of Clinton on her
BlackBerry was taken.”) There is another gap between October 21, 2011, and
January 5, 2012, “when the State Department was extending the Benghazi
mission for another year.” And a third major gap occurs between April 27
and July 4, 2012, a period of “increased security” when the U.S. compound
and the British ambassador were both attacked.

It’s hardly necessary to be a conspiracy-minded conserv-ative to be
skeptical of the claim that Clinton—who, by the State Department’s own
account, drove Libya policy—neither sent nor received any Libya-related
emails during these long stretches of heavy Libya-related policy-making.

Perhaps the most important effect of these latest emails is the simplest
one. They demolish the claim that we already know the answers to the
important questions about the attacks and the administration’s response.

There is much more to learn. The Obama administration only recently turned
over related emails to the Accountability Review Board, the State
Department’s internal and highly politicized investigation of Benghazi. And
the State Department started to provide the Select Committee on Benghazi
with emails from Clinton’s top advisers just last week.

This belated, halfhearted cooperation is hardly an indication that the
Obama administration is prepared to assist the investigation going forward.
The committee continues to press Clinton and the State Department to turn
her email server over to a neutral third-party for a thorough examination.
Lanny Davis, a most ardent Clinton defender, originally said she would have
no problem providing it. But Clinton has since made clear she has no
intention of doing so voluntarily.

That doesn’t sit well with the Benghazi committee or House speaker John
Boehner. And while sources in both offices caution that no final decisions
have been made, every day that passes increases the likelihood that the
House will subpoena the server.

That day should come sooner rather than later. Hillary’s Libya Emails
<http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/hillary-s-libya-emails_958456.html?page=3>
// The Weekly Standard // Stephen F. Hayes  - May 30, 2015

A little more than three hours after the State Department released 848
pages of Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Daily Beast had seen enough to
render its judgment: “Sorry GOP. There’s No Smoking Gun In Hillary
Clinton’s Benghazi Emails.” The subhead: “Conspiracy-minded conservatives,
be warned: The trove of Clinton emails doesn’t prove much about her
culpability for the infamous 9/11 anniversary attacks.”

t’s the media version of Frank Drebin: Please disperse, there’s nothing to
see here. Trey Gowdy, pack your bags and go home.

Of course, no one actually believed that this batch of emails would produce
a smoking gun on Benghazi. Hillary Clinton has sought to avoid public
scrutiny of her emails since before she was sworn in as secretary of state.
When she did turn over some of her emails to the State Department, it was
Clinton and her lawyers who decided which ones they would make available
and which they would withhold. While it might be useful for Clinton
defenders to pretend otherwise, there was no expectation that Clinton would
voluntarily share incriminating emails, especially now, in the first weeks
of her presidential campaign.

Yet for journalists interested in reporting on Clinton’s emails rather than
hastily exonerating their author, the hundreds of pages released last week
included a number of disclosures, some of them inadvertent, that raise new
questions about Hillary Clinton, the State Department, Libya, the Benghazi
attacks, and presidential politics. The good news: Some journalists are
looking for answers. And so are the investigators who work for the House
Select Committee on Benghazi.

Sidney Blumenthal is at the heart of those new questions. A noted
conspiracy monger and longtime Clinton confidant, Blumenthal provided
Clinton a steady stream of outside intelligence on Libya while she was
secretary of state. Some of his information was accurate and some of it was
not, but Clinton thought enough of Blumenthal to circulate his reports to
top State Department advisers, sometimes with notes ordering them to take
some kind of action in response. Clinton downplayed the Blumenthal emails
as “unsolicited” thoughts from an old friend. That doesn’t quite capture
the dynamic.

For Blumenthal, friendship with the Clintons came with considerable
benefits. Blumenthal had been banned from State Department employment by
the Obama administration, and it appears that if he couldn’t collect a
government check for advising the Clintons, he would collect one from the
Clintons directly. Politico’s Ken Vogel reports that Blumenthal was paid
$10,000 a month as an employee of the Clinton Foundation from 2009 to 2013
and the same sum as a consultant after he left the payroll in 2013 through
March 2015. According to the New York Times, Blumenthal had access to
private intelligence on Libya because he was advising “business associates .
. . as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional
government.”

The deteriorating security situation in Libya generally, and Benghazi
specifically, was a dominant theme in the emails. Clinton defenders have
sought to insulate her from criticism of inadequate security before the
attacks by suggesting that decisions about security for U.S. diplomatic
personnel were made well below her level. There are many reasons to be
skeptical of those claims. The emails make clear that Clinton was deeply
involved in virtually every aspect of Libya policy; one internal State
Department email lays out the many ways she drove administration
decision-making on Libya. Was Clinton a deeply engaged, hands-on manager of
every aspect of Libya policy other than security?

If Clinton wasn’t involved in security decisions, the emails make clear
that she should have been. Reports that Clinton received and circulated,
from both official and unofficial channels, demonstrate the dire security
challenges for Americans in Libya.

It’s not just Blumenthal’s emails that raise additional questions. An email
sent at 9:17 a.m. on September 15, 2012—four days after the fatal attack in
Benghazi—by an aide advises Clinton that Dan Pfeiffer, the director of
communications at the White House, “has some sensitive items that he would
like to personally show you when he arrives.” Clinton slept in and missed
the meeting and wrote back later in the morning to request that Pfeiffer
return to brief her. It’s possible that these “sensitive items” had nothing
to do with Benghazi. But the request for a meeting came after a flurry of
emails the previous evening between officials from the White House, the
State Department, and various national security agencies. Those emails
concerned edits to the administration’s much-discussed Benghazi “talking
points” and included strong objections from the State Department’s
“building leadership” to some of the language. White House officials
emailed the group to assure everyone that the objections would be addressed
the following morning at a meeting of the Deputies Committee.

An email sent to several top administration officials, including top
Clinton aide Jake Sullivan, at 11:08 that same morning is introduced this
way: “Per the discussion at Deputies, here are the revised TPs for HPSCI
[talking points for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence].
Let me know what you think.” The language in the revised talking points is
redacted in its entirety.

Given what we know about the various iterations of the talking points, it’s
unlikely that these redactions conceal anything not already known. But as
that example suggests, what’s missing from the emails is often as
provocative as the content. On April 8, 2011, Clinton forwarded a
Blumenthal email to Sullivan. In the version of that email released by the
State Department, most of Clinton’s note is redacted. It reads: “FYI.
[Redacted].” But the same email was obtained and published by the New York
Times before the State Department release, and in that version, the
sentence is unredacted. It reads: “FYI. The idea of using private security
experts to arm the opposition should be considered.”

Why did the State Department—or Clinton herself—want that sentence
redacted? That’s unclear. And there may well be an innocent explanation.
But the note raises additional questions. Did the idea of supplying arms to
the Libyan opposition through private security experts receive the
consideration Clinton wanted? Did it happen? Was Blumenthal involved?

Beyond these questions, the Select Committee on Benghazi notes several
“inexplicable gaps” in Clinton’s email records “during key times of her
involvement with Libyan policy.” There are no emails between September 14
and October 21, 2011, five weeks surrounding Clinton’s trip to Libya. (The
committee notes that this was when a “now-famous picture of Clinton on her
BlackBerry was taken.”) There is another gap between October 21, 2011, and
January 5, 2012, “when the State Department was extending the Benghazi
mission for another year.” And a third major gap occurs between April 27
and July 4, 2012, a period of “increased security” when the U.S. compound
and the British ambassador were both attacked.

It’s hardly necessary to be a conspiracy-minded conserv-ative to be
skeptical of the claim that Clinton—who, by the State Department’s own
account, drove Libya policy—neither sent nor received any Libya-related
emails during these long stretches of heavy Libya-related policy-making.

Perhaps the most important effect of these latest emails is the simplest
one. They demolish the claim that we already know the answers to the
important questions about the attacks and the administration’s response.

There is much more to learn. The Obama administration only recently turned
over related emails to the Accountability Review Board, the State
Department’s internal and highly politicized investigation of Benghazi. And
the State Department started to provide the Select Committee on Benghazi
with emails from Clinton’s top advisers just last week.

This belated, halfhearted cooperation is hardly an indication that the
Obama administration is prepared to assist the investigation going forward.
The committee continues to press Clinton and the State Department to turn
her email server over to a neutral third-party for a thorough examination.
Lanny Davis, a most ardent Clinton defender, originally said she would have
no problem providing it. But Clinton has since made clear she has no
intention of doing so voluntarily.

That doesn’t sit well with the Benghazi committee or House speaker John
Boehner. And while sources in both offices caution that no final decisions
have been made, every day that passes increases the likelihood that the
House will subpoena the server.

That day should come sooner rather than later.

OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE

Analysis: Martin O'Malley Is Hillary Clinton's Strongest Rival, But He's
Still Behind Her
<http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/martin-omalley-clintons-strongest-rival-hes-still-way-behind-her-n366046>
// NBC News // PERRY BACON JR – May 31, 2015

Throughout last year, then-Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was making
appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire and giving speeches around the
country to tout himself as a potential Democratic presidential candidate.
At the same time, a group of liberal activists were organizing a campaign
called "Ready for Warren," urging Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to
get into the presidential race.

These two developments were related. O'Malley, who was governor of Maryland
from 2007 until earlier this year, has been trying to cast himself as the
alternative to Hillary Clinton for Democrats who either are tired of the
Clinton family or prefer a more liberal candidate. And Democratic activists
have essentially ignored O'Malley raising his hand in favor of begging
Warren to run, even as the senator keeps insisting she will not.

O'Malley is probably the strongest candidate in the Democratic field to
take on Clinton. (Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and ex-Virginia Sen. Jim Webb
are also seeking the nomination, and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln
Chafee is expected to jump in the race as well.)

But O'Malley, like the other three men, is ill-positioned to defeat Clinton.

In 2007, she was the front-runner, but many key party activists and donors
were not behind her. A huge bloc instead supported Barack Obama, another
group was with ex-North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. And Clinton's vote to
back the Iraq War loomed as a divide between herself and Democratic
activists, particularly in Iowa.

There remains some tension between liberals and Clinton now. They are
worried she is too centrist, unwilling to adopt views like calling for the
break-up of large Wall Street banks, as Warren advocates.

O'Malley has sought to court the Warren crowd by adopting liberal policy
views, like calling for debt-free college and tougher regulations on banks
that were weakened during Bill Clinton's administration.

But it's not clear that Warren herself could defeat Clinton, and O'Malley's
campaigning over the last year has not made him the champion of the left so
far. Many prominent liberals have either endorsed Clinton, are still
waiting for Warren to run or are backing Sanders.

And powerful figures in the party, even in O'Malley's home state of
Maryland, have signaled they are not excited about his candidacy. U.S. Sen.
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland has endorsed Clinton, even though O'Malley's
mother (also named Barbara) has worked in Mikulski's Senate office since
1987.

So Clinton is an overwhelming favorite to defeat O'Malley. But if one of
her rivals is somehow able to win a few primaries and make Clinton work
hard in the Democratic nomination process, it is likely to be O'Malley.

Why? First, Chafee, Sanders and Webb lack the political skills of O'Malley.
Chafee and Sanders both won statewide office in tiny states, with Chafee
having the advantage of his father, Richard, being his predecessor in the
U.S. Senate. Webb has only won one election — to the U.S. Senate in 2006.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley announces his intention to seek the
Democratic presidential nomination in Baltimore on May 30. JIM BOURG /
Reuters

O'Malley has managed to reach the top of politics in a large, complicated
state where a Democrat has to navigate both a large black electorate and a
bloc of white Democrats who occasionally vote Republican. He was elected
twice to be mayor of Baltimore. O'Malley then won by comfortable margins in
the 2006 and 2010 gubernatorial races. (Democratic candidates lost the
governorship in the elections that preceded O'Malley (2002) and followed
him (2014).

O'Malley was praised for reducing crime in Baltimore as mayor, but there is
now much debate over his record there. Violent crime was dropping in nearly
every city in America during O'Malley's tenure (2000-2006). And the death
of Freddie Gray, the unarmed black man who died in the custody of the
Baltimore police in April, brought to national attention both the pockets
of deep poverty in the city and its police force's reputation for using
excessive force.

As governor though, O'Malley has the kind of record of liberal
accomplishments even Clinton would dream of. He signed a repeal of
Maryland's death penalty, an increase in the state's minimum wage, a
provision that essentially eliminated prison sentences for marijuana users
and laws that allowed some undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses
and in-state tuition at Maryland's public colleges. He was also a key
driver in the state legalizing same-sex marriage and adopting some of the
toughest gun control laws in the country.

O'Malley has also drawn some top political operatives to work on his
campaign, most notably Bill Hyers, who managed Bill de Blasio's successful
dark horse campaign to become mayor of New York City in 2013.

O'Malley, if he is able to position himself as the leading Clinton
alternative, could truly challenge her in Iowa, which has a history of
rejecting front-runners from both parties. He is likely to have a moment in
the campaign where he is polling close to Clinton, at least in the early
states, particularly if he performs well in the candidate debates.

That said, even if O'Malley were to defeat Clinton in Iowa, she would
remain the favorite for the Democratic nomination. Both Bill and Hillary
Clinton performed well in their presidential races in New Hampshire, which
votes second. And polls suggest Clinton has huge edges among the black and
Hispanic voters who will be a large part of the electorate in South
Carolina and Nevada, respectively.

Former Md. Gov. O'Malley jumps into 2016 Democratic race
<http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:a289a4ecc6be4973ac5b05de634e4eb9>
// AP // Ken Thomas and Catherine Lucey - May 30, 2015

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley entered the
Democratic presidential race on Saturday in a longshot challenge to Hillary
Rodham Clinton for the 2016 nomination, casting himself as a new generation
leader who would rebuild the economy and reform Wall Street.

"I'm running for you," he told a crowd of about 1,000 people in a populist
message at Federal Hill Park in Baltimore, where he served as mayor before
two terms as governor. O'Malley said was drawn into the campaign "to
rebuild the truth of the American dream for all Americans."

Following his announcement, O'Malley promptly headed to Iowa, where he is
seeking to become the primary alternative to Clinton in the leadoff caucus
state. Before more than fifty people at a union hall in Davenport, he
touted his executive experience and called for economic reforms, drawing
enthusiastic applause.

"We are still in just as grave a danger of having Wall Street excesses
wreck our economy again and there's not a need for it. When wealth
concentrates as it has, it also concentrates and collects power and we have
to retake control of our own government," said O'Malley, who has made
frequent visits to Iowa in recent months.

O'Malley, who will appear in New Hampshire Sunday, remains largely unknown
in a field dominated by Clinton. Already in the race is Vermont Sen. Bernie
Sanders, who could be O'Malley's main rival for the support of the
Democratic left.

An ally of former President Bill Clinton, O'Malley was the second governor
to endorse Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2007. But he made
clear that he thinks Democrats deserve a choice in the 2016 primary.

"The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth ... between two
royal families," O'Malley said. "It is a sacred trust to be earned from the
people of the United States, and exercised on behalf of the people of the
United States."

He pointed to recent news reports that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
would be "fine" with either Clinton or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a
leading Republican contender and the son and brother of presidents, in the
White House.

It was a forceful message that O'Malley will focus on overhauling the
financial system, a priority for liberals opposed to the bailouts of Wall
Street banks.

"Tell me how it is, that not a single Wall Street CEO was convicted of a
crime related to the 2008 economic meltdown? Not a single one," O'Malley
said. "Tell me how it is, that you can get pulled over for a broken tail
light, but if you wreck the nation's economy you are untouchable?"

Aides said O'Malley called Hillary Clinton on Friday to tell her he was
running. By Saturday afternoon, Clinton had tweeted, "Welcome to the race,
Gov. O'Malley. Looking forward to discussing strong families and
communities."

The 52-year-old O'Malley has spoken often about the economic challenges
facing the nation and said he would bring new leadership, progressive
values and the ability to accomplish things.

"We are allowing our land of opportunity to be turned into a land of
inequality," he told the crowd.

O'Malley has presented himself to voters as a next-generation figure in the
party, pointing to his record as governor on issues such as gay marriage,
immigration, economic issues and the death penalty.

His tenure was marked by financial challenges posed by the recession, but
O'Malley pushed through an increase in the state's minimum wage while
keeping record amounts of money flowing into the state's education system.
He backed a bill to allow same-sex marriage, which lawmakers passed and
voters approved in 2012. He oversaw a sweeping gun-control measure and a
repeal of the death penalty.

He also raised taxes on multiple occasions — on higher earners, sales of
goods, vehicle titles, gasoline, cigarettes, sewer services and more.
Republican critics branded him as a tax-and-spend liberal and the GOP
defeated O'Malley's hand-picked successor in 2014.

But his record on criminal justice has been scrutinized in recent weeks
after riots in Baltimore broke out following the death of Freddie Gray, an
African-American man who died in police custody following his arrest last
month.

O'Malley was known for his tough-on-crime, "zero tolerance" policies that
led to large numbers of arrests for minor offenses. Critics say it sowed
distrust between police and the black community. Supporters note the
overall decrease in violent crime during his tenure. O'Malley has defended
his work to curb crime, saying he helped address rampant violence and drug
abuse.

A few demonstrators gathered near the park to protest O'Malley's criminal
justice policies as mayor, an office he held from 1999 until his election
as governor in 2006. During O'Malley's speech, there was sporadic shouting
from protesters, including one who blew a whistle.

O'Malley called the unrest "heartbreaking" but said "there is something to
be learned from that night, and there is something to be offered to our
country from those flames. For what took place here was not only about
race, not only about policing in America. It's about everything it is
supposed to mean to be an American."

Megan Kenny, 38, of Baltimore, who held a sign that said "stop killer cops"
and yelled "black lives matter," said she thought O'Malley's decision to
run was "a strange choice," especially because of the recent rioting. She
attributed the unrest to his "ineffective zero-tolerance policy."

O'Malley could soon be joined in the Democratic field by former Rhode
Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who plans to make an announcement next week,
and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, who is exploring a potential campaign.

Sanders has raised more than $4 million since opening his campaign in late
April and sought to build support among liberals in the party who are
disillusioned with Clinton.

In a sign of his daunting task, Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski, his former
boss and mentor, is supporting Clinton. She said in a statement that
O'Malley "should follow his dreams. And while I've already announced my
support for Hillary Clinton, I know that competition is good for democracy."

O’Malley announces presidential bid, visits Davenport
<http://qctimes.com/news/local/government-and-politics/elections/o-malley-announces-presidential-bid-visits-davenport/article_9b50ac65-bbc2-5301-8deb-4da8e880b13b.html>
// Quad City Times // Jeff Cook - May 30, 2015

Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor who got his first taste of
the Iowa caucuses while working in Davenport for Gary Hart in the early
1980s, brought his own campaign for president here Saturday.

He pledged to fight income inequality, warned Wall Street could still wreck
the economy and vowed to work the first-in-the nation caucus state
aggressively.

O’Malley, 52, announced his candidacy Saturday morning in Baltimore, where
he was the mayor from 1999 to 2007. And he made the first two stops of his
campaign in Davenport and, later, Des Moines.

“Over the course of the last 30 years, we have seen in our great nation a
growing gap of injustice,” O’Malley said at the United Food and Commercial
Workers, Local 431, union hall in Davenport.

He blamed “failed trickle down economic policies” for the concentration of
wealth, and he warned there is a need for rebalancing, lest there be
“pitchforks” brandished in urban and rural areas.

O’Malley argued for greater regulation of banks, against the Trans-Pacific
Trade Partnership trade deal and pushed for comprehensive immigration
reform.

“We are still in just as grave a danger of having Wall Street excesses
wreck our economy again,” he said.

O’Malley enters the presidential race far down in the polls. Former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had the support of 60 percent of likely
Iowa caucus-goers, according to a Quinnipiac University poll earlier this
month.

O’Malley came in at 3 percent, behind Sen. Bernie Sanders and Vice
President Joe Biden.

Still, the ex-governor didn’t seem bothered by the gap.

“I believe, and I’ve seen this happen before, and you guys have, too, that
the inevitable front runner’s inevitable right up until he or she is no
longer inevitable,” he told reporters.

He said a challenger emerges by going “county to county, town square to
town square,” talking about ideas.

“That’s what I intend to do, and I think the people of Iowa will respond,”
he said.

Tom Engelmann, a longtime Democratic activist and treasurer of the county
party, said he thinks that Clinton’s strength in the polls is deceiving and
that times have changed for her.

In 2008, he said, “I wouldn’t have had a whole lot of problem with Hillary
as president. But now I do.”

Engelmann said he’s considering O’Malley or Sanders and thinks both can
still tap into a late-deciding electorate.

Ed Brown, a former Davenport alderman and Democratic activist, said he’s
already on board with O’Malley.

“He’s a new face, and that’s what we need in the United States of America,”
Brown said. "And I think he’s sincere."

O’Malley, who was Maryland’s governor for two terms, endorsed Clinton for
president in 2007, and the two exchanged pleasantries via Twitter after his
announcement Saturday.

But the former governor said that times have changed. He said the CEO of
Goldman Sachs recently told employees he would be fine with Clinton or Jeb
Bush as president. To that, O’Malley said, “the presidency is not a crown
to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families.”

Much of O’Malley’s remarks had to do with what he called the inequities in
American life.

“Tell me how it is, that you can get pulled over for a broken tail light,
but if you wreck the nation’s economy, you are untouachable?” he asked in
Baltimore.

He also told of steps he took there to diminish that, including pushing
through an increase in the minimum wage and backing a proposal, eventually
approved, to legalize same-sex marriage.

Republicans have criticized his economic policies in Maryland, including
some tax increases. And the violence in Baltimore in the aftermath of the
shooting of Freddie Gray has drawn attention to his “zero tolerance”
policies.

Critics said that it led to mistrust between police and the black community
in the city.

O’Malley has defended those policies. Asked in Davenport on Saturday if he
had any regrets as mayor or governor, he said he wished the state had moved
faster to implement having police wear body cameras.

O' Malley Makes Iowa First Stop in 2016 Kick Off
<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEM_2016_OMALLEY_IOWA_MDOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT>
// AP // May 30, 2015

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) -- Martin O'Malley promptly brought his Democratic
presidential campaign to Iowa, offering himself to voters in the leadoff
caucus state as a leader who will create jobs and opportunity. He announced
his bid for the presidency earlier in the day in Baltimore.

O'Malley spoke to more than 50 people crowded into a union hall in
Davenport Saturday afternoon. He touted his record as governor of Maryland
and mayor of Baltimore, talking about raising the minimum wage and
investing in education.

O'Malley has made several appearances in Iowa this year, has two paid
staffers in the state and plans to add more. He made four trips last year
and dispatched 14 staffers to work on state campaigns. He was scheduled to
speak in Des Moines later in the day.

O'Malley supporters hope Iowa can help him become the main alternative to
front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

O’Malley’s challenge to Clinton: Ideological or generational? Or both?
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/omalleys-challenge-to-clinton-ideological-or-generational-or-both/2015/05/30/95513534-06e5-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html>
// WaPo // Dan Balz - May 29, 2015

“I’m drawn to tough challenges,” Martin O’Malley said, “and this one is
certainly a tough challenge.”

Unruffled in a crisp white shirt and necktie, O’Malley sat in a windowless
conference room in his bustling campaign office on Friday afternoon. He was
less than 24 hours away from formally launching his candidacy for president
in 2016. If anything, he understated the obstacles on the road ahead.

O’Malley is running against the most formidable front-runner the Democrats
have seen in many years. Hillary Rodham Clinton currently towers over the
field of candidates for her party’s nomination, able to amass resources,
talent, political support, volunteers and attention (for good or ill)
unmatched by any of her challengers.

O’Malley, among others, will test whether Democrats who say they want a
competitive contest for the nomination really mean it. At Clinton’s
headquarters in Brooklyn, her senior advisers anticipate and are preparing
for that possibility. But in the face of daunting odds, O’Malley must find
the ground on which to fight.

Will he try to make the contest primarily an ideological battle, tapping
progressive unrest with the state of the Democratic Party and possibly
Clinton to frame a left vs. centrist contest? Will he, as his mentor Gary
Hart did when the former senator from Colorado nearly upset Walter F.
Mondale in the 1984 Democratic contest, seek to draw a sharp generational
contrast, of future versus past, new ideas against a tired Democratic
status quo? Or can he make it a combination of the two?

O’Malley said his travels around the country over the past 18 months have
led him to conclude that there is “a tremendous hunger . . . for leaders
who are willing to embrace new approaches, to break with the orthodoxy of
some of the worn out thinking of our past.”

But exactly what is that orthodoxy with which he seeks to break? How much
is it the policies of the current Democratic administration, rather than
just the Republican economic policies that he and all other Democrats
attack? And how explicitly will he be able to show that Clinton embodies
that orthodoxy and that he does not?

O'Malley announcement remarks as prepared for delivery
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/05/30/heres-what-martin-omalley-said-when-he-launched-his-campaign/>
// WaPo // Martin O'Malley - May 29, 2015

My fellow Americans.

I want to talk with you today about The American Dream we share…

its powerful history,

its current condition, and most importantly,

its urgent need for rebuilding.

Our nation was founded on two self-evident truths...

That All of us are created equal.

And that we are endowed by our Creator with the rights to Life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.

With these words, the American dream began.

No fine print. No expiration date.

All of us are included.

Women and men.

Black and white people.

Irish Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans.
Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Americans.

Young and old. Rich and poor. Workers and Business owners. Gay, Lesbian,
Transgender and straight Americans.

Every person is important, each of us is needed.

In our idea of country, there is no such thing as a spare American.

There is, however, a growing injustice in our country today.

It is the gap between the strong and just country our children need for us
to be ... and the country we are in danger of becoming.

For today in America, 70 percent of us are earning the same or less than
they were 12 years ago. This is the first time that has happened this side
of World War II.

Today in America, family owned businesses and farms are struggling to
compete with ever larger concentrations of corporate power,...

Fifty years ago, the nation’s largest employer was GM. An average GM
employee could pay for a year’s tuition at a state university with two
weeks’ wages.

Today in America, with dreams of college, a decent paying job, and a secure
retirement slipping beyond the reach of so very many,... the American Dream
seems to be hanging by a thread.

And yet, for America there is always a yet.

The final thread that holds us just might be the strongest.

It is the thread of the generosity, the compassion, and the love of one
another that brings us together as One American People.

For over 200 years we’ve been the architects of our own future. And now we
must build anew today.

My father and mother, Tom and Barbara O'Malley, were born to the Great
Depression and grew up as part of that great generation that won the Second
World War.  My dad flew 33 missions over Japan in a B-24 Liberator, and
went on to college only because of the GI Bill.

My mom, herself, flew in the Civil Air Patrol at the age of seventeen.

They raised their children -- the six of us -- to a middle class future
secured largely by the sacrifices and better choices of their generation.

But they would never accept the notion that somehow theirs was the
"greatest generation." For they believed and they taught us that every
generation of Americans has the ability -- and the sacred responsibility --
to become great.

And so we must. No matter how long the odds, no matter how large the
challenge, and no matter how tough the fight.

This is the urgent work calling us forward today: to rebuild the truth of
the American Dream for ALL Americans. And to begin right now!

Baltimore/Economy

Last month, television sets around the world were filled with the anger and
the rage, and the flames of some of the humblest and hardest hit
neighborhoods of Baltimore.

For all of us who have given so much of our energies to making our city a
safer, fairer, more just and more prosperous place, it was a heartbreaking
night in the life of our City.

But there is something to be learned from that night, and there is
something to be offered to our country from those flames.

For what took place here was not only about race…not only about policing in
America.

It’s about everything it is supposed to mean to be an American.

The scourge of hopelessness that happened to ignite here that evening,
transcends race or geography.

Witness the record numbers of young white kids killing themselves with
heroin in suburbs and small towns across America.

The hard truth of our shared reality is this: Unemployment in many American
cities and in many small towns across the United States is higher now than
it was eight years ago.

Conditions of extreme and growing poverty, create conditions for extreme
violence.

We have work to do…

Our economic and political system is upside down and backwards and it is
time to turn it around.

What happened to our economy -- what happened to the American Dream -- did
not happen by chance.

Nor was it merely the result of global forces somehow beyond our control.

Powerful, wealthy special interests here at home have used our government
to create -- in our own country -- an economy that is leaving a majority of
our people behind.

An economy that has so concentrated wealth in the hands of the very few
that it has taken opportunity from the homes of the many.

An economy where a majority of our people are unheard, unseen, un-needed,
and left to conclude that their lives and labors are literally worth less
today than they were yesterday,... And will be worth less still tomorrow...

We are allowing our land of opportunity to be turned into a land of
inequality.

Main Street struggles, while Wall Street soars.

Tell me how it is, that not a single Wall Street CEO was convicted of a
crime related to the 2008 economic meltdown. Not. A. Single. One.

Tell me how it is, that you can get pulled over for a broken tail light in
our country, but if you wreck the nation’s economy you are untouchable.

This is not how our economy is supposed to work!

This is not how our country is supposed to work!

This is not the American Dream!

And it does not have to be this way!

This generation still has time to become great.

We have saved the world before and we must save our country now – and we
will do that by rebuilding the American Dream!

The Agenda

As I look out here this morning over the original "land of the free and the
home of the brave," I see the faces of people who have done so much for so
many in our City and our State.

Together, we made our City a safer, healthier and better place for kids.

Together, we made our city believe again. We invented a new and better way
of governing called CitiStat, and we got things done.

Together, we made our State's public schools the best in the United States.
We made college more affordable for more families.

We led our people forward through a devastating national recession. We took
greater care to protect our land, our air, and the waters of the Chesapeake
Bay.

We passed Marriage Equality and we passed the DREAM Act.

Together, we raised the minimum wage and we sustained the highest median
income in America. We achieved top rankings for innovation,
entrepreneurship, and minority and women's business development.

Yes, understanding precedes action.

And it took new leadership. New perspectives. And new approaches.

But we believed in the dream,...together we took action to make it real,...
and that is exactly what we must do as a nation today.

Our economy isn't money, our economy is people—all of our people.

We measure success by the growing prosperity and security of our people–all
of our people.

A stronger middle class is not the consequence of economic growth -- a
stronger middle class is the cause of economic growth.

Together, as one nation we must build an American economy that works again
for all of us.

That means good jobs and wage policies that allow hardworking families to
actually get ahead.  That means a higher minimum wage, overtime pay for
overtime work, and respect for the rights of all workers to organize and
collectively bargain for better wages.

If we take these actions…the dream will live again.

Climate change is real. We must create an American jobs agenda to build a
new renewable energy future.

We must launch a new agenda to rebuild America's cities as places of
Justice and Opportunity for all.

And if we take these actions… the dream will live again.

For the sake of our country's security, and our country's well-being, and
our country's economic growth, we must also bring 11 million of our
neighbors out of the shadows by passing comprehensive immigration reform.

Because the enduring symbol of our nation is not the barbed wire fence,...
it is the Statue of Liberty.

We are a nation of immigrants. We are a compassionate and generous people.
And if we act according to our principles--and the better angels of our
nature—if we return to our true selves, the dream will live again.

Make no mistake about it -- our ability to lead the world and be safe in
this world depends on the strength of the American Dream here at home. The
challenges we face in the world today are different from the challenges we
faced in the 1990s.

Together, we must construct a New National Security Strategy and build new
alliances that are forward-seeing and forward-acting.

The center of this new strategy must be the reduction of threats.
Fast-evolving threats -- from violent extremism, pandemic, cyber attacks,
nuclear proliferation, nation-state failures, to the drought, famine, and
floods of climate change.

Together, we must craft a New Foreign Policy of Engagement and
Collaboration. We must join with like-minded people around the world --
especially with nations here in our own hemisphere -- for the cause we
share of a rising global middle class.

We must put our national interest first, we must put America first.

But we cannot rebuild the American Dream here at home by catering to the
voices of the privileged and the powerful.

Let’s be honest. They were the ones who turned our economy upside-down in
the first place. And they are the only ones who are benefiting from it.

We need to prosecute cheats, we need to reinstate Glass-Steagall, and if a
bank is too big to fail without wrecking our nation’s economy…then it needs
to be broken up before it breaks us…again.

Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest repeat-offending investment banks in
America.  Recently, the CEO of Goldman Sachs let his employees know that
he’d be just fine with either Bush or Clinton.

I bet he would...

Well, I've got news for the bullies of Wall Street --

The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between
two royal families.

It is a sacred trust to be earned from the people of the United States, and
exercised on behalf of the people of the United States.

The only way we are going to rebuild the American Dream is if we re-take
control of our own American government!

Conclusion

The poet laureate of the American Dream, Bruce Springsteen, once asked:

Is a dream a lie, if it don’t come true?…

Or is it something worse?

Whether the American dream becomes a lie, or becomes an ongoing truth that
our children can enjoy, can build upon, can live, is really up to you and
me.

It is up to all of us.

It's not about Wall Street, not about the big five banks, it's not even
about big money trying to buy our elections.

It's about U.S.

It is about whether, together, We the People still have the will to become
great Americans.

I believe we do.

My decision is made.

Now you will all have a vital choice to make next year, for the good of
your families, and for the good of the country you love and carry in your
hearts.

It is a choice that people will ask you about for years to come.

And so, when a child with a world of learning ahead asks who you voted for,
I want you to be able to tell that child, “I voted for you.”

When you see a dad sweating through another long shift in order to give his
daughter a better future, I want you to be able to tell him, “I voted for
you.”

When you see a mom working long hours at two jobs for the dream of sending
her son to college, I want you to be able to tell her, “I voted for you.”

When you see a young father who hungers for a decent job to support his
family, I want you to be able to tell him, “I voted for you.”

The story of our country’s best days is not found in a history book,
because this generation of Americans is about to write it!

And that is why today, to you -- and to all who can hear my voice -- I
declare that I am a candidate for President of the United States….and I’m
running for YOU.

May God Bless you and may God Bless the United States of America.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley Announces 2016 White House Bid
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/former-maryland-gov-martin-omalley-announces-2016-white-house-bid-1432997947?mod=rss_US_News>
// WSJ // Scott Calvert - May 30, 2015

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley launched an underdog presidential bid
Saturday morning based on the proposition that his brand of liberal
politics is what the Democratic Party and the country need now.

“The story of our country’s best days is not found in a history book,
because this generation of Americans is about to write it,” he said before
declaring his candidacy in front of several hundred people.

Mr. O’Malley made his announcement at a rally on Federal Hill, overlooking
this city where he began his political career as a councilman and was twice
elected mayor. Later Saturday, he is scheduled to fly to Iowa—his seventh
trip to the early voting state since last June. He plans to attend events
in New Hampshire on Sunday.

The 52-year-old Mr. O’Malley faces steep odds against the party’s
presumptive favorite, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but says
he isn’t deterred by her aura of inevitability or his low standing in polls.

“The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth…between two
royal families,” he said in his speech Saturday, referring to Mrs. Clinton,
wife of former President Bill Clinton, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a
likely Republican presidential candidate whose father and brother were both
presidents.

Mr. O’Malley has tried to position himself to Mrs. Clinton’s left. He
opposes a pending Pacific Rim trade deal and the Keystone XL pipeline and
favors expanding Social Security benefits. Mrs. Clinton has either
sidestepped these issues or remained silent.

“Powerful, wealthy special interests here at home have used our government
to create, in our own country, an economy that is leaving a majority of our
people behind,” Mr. O’Malley said, flanked by his wife Katie and their four
children, with dozens of supporters on stage behind him. “We are allowing
our land of opportunity to become a land of inequality,” he said.

Mr. O’Malley is the third candidate to officially declare a bid for the
Democratic presidential nomination, along with Mrs. Clinton and Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I., Vt.). Other possible Democratic contenders include former
Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

A tweet Saturday afternoon from Mrs. Clinton’s Twitter account said,
“Welcome to the race, Gov. O’Malley. Looking forward to discussing strong
families and communities. -H.”

Mr. O’Malley is barely registering in polls, averaging just 0.8% in the
Real Clear Politics website’s aggregation of voter surveys—dead last among
seven Democrats.

But marketing agency owner Jonathan Oleisky, who joined hundreds of others
for the announcement event on a sunny, muggy morning, said he thinks Mr.
O’Malley has a shot at winning the Democratic nomination.

“Stranger things have happened in American politics,” said Mr. Oleisky, 49
years old and from Owings Mills, Md. “Just look at Jimmy Carter. Who’d have
thought we would elect a peanut farmer from Georgia?”

Mr. Oleisky said he backs Mr. O’Malley for his “progressive outlook” and
record in office. “I think Hillary Clinton is incredibly accomplished, but
we need new leadership in the country,” he said.

Susan Rohrer, who is in her 60s and traveled to the event from the
Washington suburbs, said she likes both Mr. O’Malley and Mrs. Clinton.
“It’s going to be hard” choosing between them, said Ms. Rohrer, an English
teacher. She said she considers Mr. O’Malley “more progressive” and might
support him for that reason. But her “dream” scenario is a Clinton-O’Malley
ticket, she said.

Though Mr. O’Malley supported Mrs. Clinton when she ran for president in
2008, he said times have changed and that he represents a “new candidate
with a clear voice.” He sometimes plays a borrowed guitar after speeches, a
reminder of his days fronting a Celtic rock band called O’Malley’s March.

On the campaign trail, Mr. O’Malley has touted his record as governor in a
bid to woo liberal voters. During an eight-year tenure that ended in
January, he helped pass legislation to abolish the death penalty, tighten
gun restrictions, raise the minimum wage and grant in-state college tuition
to some immigrants in the country illegally.

Another part of Mr. O’Malley’s gubernatorial record—tax and fee increases
that he said were necessary to maintain services during the
recession—proved to be a liability for his preferred successor, Lt. Gov.
Anthony Brown, who lost the governor’s race last fall in a major upset to
Republican Larry Hogan.

Since his days as mayor, Mr. O’Malley has emphasized the use of data to
monitor and improve the delivery of government services, and he says he has
more executive experience than Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Sanders.

But his management of state government suffered two major blemishes. In
early 2013, federal investigators found that a violent gang held sway over
the state-run jail in Baltimore. Later, Maryland’s rollout of its
health-care exchange website under the Affordable Care Act was badly
plagued by glitches.

Mr. O’Malley grew up in Montgomery County, Md., in a family steeped in
Democratic politics. After law school, he married into a prominent
Baltimore Democratic family. His wife, Katie, is a state judge. They have
four children and live in Baltimore.

Mr. O’Malley has spent much of his adult life in politics. In his early 20s
he volunteered for Colorado Sen. Gary Hart’s presidential campaign. In his
late 20s he won a seat on Baltimore’s city council.

At age 36, he was elected mayor after campaigning on a “zero-tolerance”
platform that held that cracking down on minor offenses can help prevent
serious crime. The city’s violent crime rate fell sharply in his seven
years as mayor. But critics said too many young African-Americans were
arrested for low-level offenses, fueling anger toward police and making it
harder for many to get jobs.

Ricky Johnson, a 61-year-old Baltimore resident who attended the
announcement, said zero tolerance was a misguided strategy. “That was the
only thing I had a gripe with him about,” Mr. Johnson said, praising his
tenures as mayor and governor, along with his executive skills. “When he’s
in charge, he’s in command,” Mr. Johnson said.

Last month, Mr. O’Malley cut short an overseas trip and returned to
Baltimore after parts of the city erupted in riots following the funeral of
25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died of severe spinal injuries sustained in
police custody. Mr. O’Malley endured some heckling when he visited the West
Baltimore neighborhood where much of the looting and arson occurred.

Mr. O’Malley said he doesn’t think his policing policies planted the seeds
for the recent unrest, noting that many of the protesters were just
children when he was mayor. Instead, he pointed to societal inequality and
a national economy that he says doesn’t work for poor inner-city Americans.

“When we create conditions and allow conditions of extreme poverty to
continue and to expand and in a lot of places to worsen and deepen, then
that can give rise to extreme violence,” he said in a recent interview.
“That was the eruption you saw the other night.”

Several protesters walked through the crowd as Mr. O’Malley spoke. One
woman chanted “Black lives matter” and held a sign saying, “Stop killer
cops.” Others blew whistles.

Martin O’Malley Phoned Hillary Clinton Ahead of His Presidential Launch
<http://time.com/3902421/martin-omalley-hillary-clinton/?xid=tcoshare> //
TIME // Kathleen Lange - May 30, 2015

The call was brief and cordial

Barely 24 hours before launching his campaign to challenge Hillary Clinton,
former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley phoned the Democratic presidential
front-runner to personally inform her of his plans.

The call between the two Democratic rivals was brief and cordial, and came
on the same day that O’Malley filed his candidacy papers with the Federal
Election Commission, according to two sources familiar with the
conversation.

O’Malley, the two-term governor of Maryland who left office in January, is
launching his presidential campaign Saturday morning in Baltimore, the city
where he spent seven years as mayor.

Clinton and O’Malley have a complicated relationship as fellow Democratic
party notables. O’Malley was one of the first Democratic governors to
endorse Clinton’s candidacy for president in the 2008 election, and was a
major fundraiser for the then-Senator. Last year, former president Bill
Clinton strongly praised O’Malley’s time as governor.

But as he has prepared to run for the White House, O’Malley has staked out
a position to Hillary Clinton’s left on an array of policies, including
trade, Wall Street reform and immigration. While he has largely refrained
from directly attacking her, he has made a point of emphasizing their
disagreements at every juncture.

On the call, O’Malley told Clinton that he is running because he believes
it’s time for “new leadership” of the country. Not coincidentally, the
phrase is the slogan for his nascent presidential campaign, visible on half
a dozen campaign signs around the stage at his launch event on Baltimore’s
Federal Hill.

The 52-year-old plans to emphasize his youthfulness in comparison with
Clinton, who is 67 and one of the oldest candidates to ever seek the
presidency.

Friday’s call is not the first time Clinton’s campaign has communicated
with O’Malley. Around St. Patrick’s Day, Clinton’s campaign chair John
Podesta held a private meeting with O’Malley and told the former governor
that they were going to take any possible campaign seriously.

A spokesman for the Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.

O’Malley is a longshot candidate for the Democratic nomination, especially
when compared to the Clinton juggernaut. Despite frequent trips to Iowa and
New Hampshire with all the accompanying press coverage, O’Malley is polling
at 1% among Democrats nationally compared with Hillary Clinton’s 57%,
according to a May 28 Quinnipiac survey.

O'Malley's long-shot bid gets complicated start
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/omalleys-long-shot-bid-gets-complicated-start-118442.html#ixzz3beWisNc9>
// Politico // Ben Schreckinger - May 30, 2015

Martin O’Malley’s presidential bid has always been a long-shot, but the
odds looked even longer Saturday as he officially kicked off his campaign
from Federal Hill Park.

The run-up to his launch here could hardly have been worse, complicated in
recent weeks by unrest in the city where he served as mayor and the
unexpected early momentum of another Hillary Clinton challenger: Bernie
Sanders.

At one time, O’Malley figured to be Clinton’s default rival for the
Democratic nomination. He won two terms as governor of Maryland, winning by
wide margins, and honed his national fundraising chops as chairman of the
Democratic Governors Association. At 52, he was positioned to make the case
that he represents a generational step forward. Yet it’s Sanders — a
disheveled, 73-year-old socialist — who so far has captured the imagination
of progressives looking for a Clinton alternative.

O’Malley’s camp maintains that the enthusiasm generated by the Vermont
senator — who drew overflow crowds at campaign events in Iowa and New
Hampshire this week after kicking off his campaign in front of 6,000
supporters in Burlington on Tuesday — is a sign that Democratic voters are
hungry for excitement and augurs well for the former Maryland governor.

Martin O'Malley Delivers Powerful Campaign Kickoff Speech
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-30/martin-o-malley-delivers-powerful-campaign-kickoff-speech>
// Bloomberg // Mark Halperin - May 29, 2015

Style: Easy on the eyes and ears, optimistic, conversational, and focused.
Powered throughout by compelling American dream/working class themes.
Tableau of touching introducers and faces on the stage was carefully and
well chosen.

Substance: Clarion calls for comprehensive immigration reform and new
banking rules. Vague on foreign policy. But suggested additional national
goals by talking about his Maryland record.

Best moment: Garnered event's biggest applause with a frontal shot at the
royal Clintons and Bushes, a well-crafted and necessary riff to send the
message (including and especially to the media) that he knows he has to
topple giants to win.

Worst moment: Confusing “I voted for you” closing refrain.

Overall: Smartly written speech powerfully delivered by one of the best
orators in American politics. Far from running from his Baltimore record,
he embraced it, along with what he did as Maryland's governor. Contrasted
himself with Hillary Clinton as more left, more populist, and more of a
leader. Saturday morning might not be the best time to make an introduction
to America, but O'Malley demonstrated why Bill Clinton tagged him long ago
as one of the Democratic Party's biggest stars. If the nomination fight
didn't have an overwhelming frontrunner, O'Malley's performance would have
been a game changer; instead, it is ringing calling card.

Baltimore’s blight puts O’Malley on defensive in bid for presidency
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baltimores-blight-puts-omalley-on-defensive-in-bid-for-presidency/2015/05/29/9dffe1d0-0541-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html?postshare=9211432955470416>
// WaPo // Robert McCartney - May 30, 2015

When Martin O’Malley announces his bid for the presidency Saturday in
Baltimore, he is hoping that backdrop will strengthen his effort to become
the leading candidate for progressives.

But the backdrop also could be his albatross.

In preparing to seek the Democratic nomination, he has cast himself as the
only candidate with the vision, record and hands-on experience to attack
urban problems such as poverty and crime.

But the stubborn urban decay that continues to afflict sizable swaths of
Baltimore threatens O’Malley’s pitch. The city drew international attention
in April when riots erupted in the same troubled neighborhoods where
O’Malley had said conditions were “so much better.”

A challenge for O’Malley, analysts say, is that his numerous initiatives
for the city — as mayor for seven years and governor for eight — have
yielded mixed results.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is a possible Democratic contender for
the White House in 2016. Here's his take on gay marriage, income inequality
and more, in his own words. (Julie Percha/The Washington Post)

The gleaming offices, restaurants and new housing in the Inner Harbor area
are a stark contrast to the boarded-up businesses and homes the world saw
on television when Baltimore exploded. The sharp reduction in violent crime
is offset by the tension with police that was exposed by last month’s
looting.

Given his desire to run as an urban champion, it’s no wonder that O’Malley
is quick to object when anyone criticizes Baltimore.

At a public meeting in December, a month before his last day as Maryland’s
governor, O’Malley interrupted a fellow Democrat who faulted the city for
the thousands of vacant, abandoned buildings that fill its poorest
neighborhoods.

“You drive up the streets of Baltimore City, as I do often, and it is just
indescribable what we, I guess collectively, have allowed that to become,”
Comptroller Peter Franchot said at a Board of Public Works session in
Annapolis.

Before Franchot could continue, O’Malley jumped in: “And yet so much better
than it was 15 years ago. . . . A lot of people gave their lives [at work]
to make it better.” He said Franchot was “30 years late” in sounding an
alarm over urban blight.

The mixed results of O’Malley’s tenure can be seen in the frustration he
experienced in trying to reclaim the city’s uninhabitable buildings. The
city drew applause for acquiring thousands of lots in the hope of promoting
their redevelopment.

But the number of vacant and abandoned residential properties increased by
2,570, to more than 15,700, between 2002, when O’Malley’s program began,
and 2007, the year he stepped down as mayor to become governor, according
to statistics from the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance.

View Graphic

Baltimore’s recovery slower than most cities

The alliance said the gain was partly attributable to the city’s success in
identifying vacant buildings that it hadn’t known about before. But housing
specialists said legal complexities and high costs also stymied efforts by
O’Malley and his two successors to fix the problem.

On the plus side, O’Malley won national plaudits for innovative leadership
as both mayor and governor, such as for his early adoption of data-driven
management. He points to accomplishments such as slashing violent crime,
reducing children’s exposure to lead paint, increasing spending on drug
treatment and drawing young people back to redeveloped neighborhoods
downtown.

But the renaissance of prosperity in some Baltimore communities,
principally around the harbor, has not spread to many of the city’s poorer
sections. The city’s overall poverty and unemployment rates have remained
high — not nearly as bad as in Detroit, but worse than in the District,
Pittsburgh, Boston and New York.

A survey released this month by two Harvard economists found that among the
nation’s 100 largest cities and counties, Baltimore ranked at the bottom as
the jurisdiction where children face the worst odds of escaping poverty.

“Any city has pockets of poverty; it’s really a matter of the depth and
scale,” said Jennifer S. Vey, a fellow at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy
Program. “The lows are low in Baltimore. . . . You have deep distress in
certain pockets.”

O’Malley contends that Baltimore was making better progress than most
comparable cities until the 2008 recession.

But his defense of his urban record also poses some political risks. He
says the shortcomings arise not from his programs but from national
economic policies that foster inequality and from a lack of support from
the federal government.

“We haven’t had an agenda for America’s cities for at least two decades . . .
probably since Jimmy Carter,” O’Malley said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on
May 3.

Taking a robust liberal position, O’Malley has urged increased spending on
cities. He wants to raise the minimum wage, as Maryland did with his
encouragement as governor.

“We need big investments in affordable housing,” O’Malley said at a forum
May 5 in Redlands, Calif. “We need investments in infrastructure,
especially mass transit. We also need to target job training.”

That approach could help O’Malley in the Democratic primaries, where he has
positioned himself to the left of front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.
O’Malley is competing with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a socialist, for
support from liberal activists who see Clinton as too moderate.

But it would face a more skeptical audience in the general election.

“The problem is that it is politically unsalable,” said Donald F. Norris,
director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland
Baltimore County. “We are a nation of suburbs, and suburban residents and
elected officials do not care a whit about declining central cities.”

O’Malley hasn’t said how much he thinks his proposed investments would cost
or where he would find the money. Haley Morris, an O’Malley spokeswoman,
said this week that such questions are premature because O’Malley won’t
unveil a comprehensive agenda for cities until several weeks from now.

Since the riots, O’Malley’s record has drawn attention mainly for the
aggressive police policies he implemented as mayor. They led to a
substantial decline in homicides and other violent crime, but also resulted
in a sharp increase in arrests for minor offenses, which alienated poor
communities.

O’Malley’s successor as mayor, Sheila Dixon (D), abandoned the “zero
tolerance” arrests, and critics noted that homicides continued to decline.
Still, O’Malley’s defenders credit him with helping to start the trend,
especially by shutting down many of the city’s open-air drug markets

“On one hand, more people got arrest records; on the other hand, murders
went down,” said Robert C. Embry, president of the Abell Foundation, which
works to reduce Baltimore poverty.

O’Malley also drew mixed reviews for his economic development strategy. As
mayor, he directed money and government support toward middle-tier
neighborhoods, which he thought offered the best chance of recovery, or
toward ones that had access to job centers.

Many urban experts praised the approach as a smart use of scarce resources.
But critics said it diverted aid from communities most in need of help.

O’Malley played a key role in pushing forward the redevelopment of a poor
neighborhood near the Johns Hopkins medical complex in East Baltimore. He
did so partly to keep Hopkins, the city’s largest private employer, from
taking its expansion plans outside the city. He also targeted that
community because it had a relatively good chance to prosper, owing to its
proximity to hospital jobs.

O’Malley also supported Healthy Neighborhoods, a community development
effort sponsored by financial and philanthropic organizations that has been
credited with helping to stabilize middle- and working-class neighborhoods
that were at risk of declining.

“O’Malley recognized that improving neighborhoods is about finding their
assets,” said Mark Sissman, president of Healthy Neighborhoods Inc. “He and
others at the same time said, ‘Let’s figure out what works and build from
those strengths.’ . . . Is there a college that’s important? Is there good
public transportation? Are there historic buildings?”

But that progress came with a cost, according to some community activists
and business people in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

“O’Malley did well by the harbor, but my community didn’t benefit,” said
Doni Glover, a community activist and journalist who lives in
Sandtown-Winchester. “My understanding is that for poor, inner-city black
neighborhoods in West Baltimore and East Baltimore, his method, his
strategy, was just let them rot.”

Sandtown-Winchester was the center of the April protests in Baltimore,
which were triggered by the death of Sandtown resident Freddie Gray a week
after he suffered a severe spinal injury in police custody.

Perhaps the biggest problem for poor neighborhoods in Baltimore and
comparable cities is the shortage of jobs for low-skill workers.

Here, O’Malley drew praise for good management of federal job programs and
for protecting funding for public schools. But Baltimore schools remain the
worst in the state, by most measures, and it’s still a challenge for
job-seekers without automobiles to get to jobs in upscale parts of the city
or the suburbs.

“He did a good job of managing the agencies,” said Peter Beilenson, chief
executive of the Evergreen Health Cooperative, who served as O’Malley’s
city health commissioner. “I don’t think a huge amount was done to make
jobs accessible in the neighborhoods, which is truly essential if you’re
going to deal with the Sandtown-Winchesters of the world.”

O’Malley strongly backed building the light-rail Red Line, which would
improve transit for residents of poor neighborhoods in West Baltimore. But
Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who succeeded O’Malley in Annapolis, is considering
killing the Red Line on grounds that its price tag of at least $2.6 billion
is too high.

In his Project 5000 effort to reduce urban blight as mayor, O’Malley sought
for the city to take over 5,000 abandoned properties and prepare to donate
or sell them so they could be redeveloped.

The city exceeded the target in gaining control of buildings but then had
difficulties disposing of them.

Dixon proposed instead to create a quasi-governmental “land bank” to deal
with the issue, but it never got off the ground. The current mayor,
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D), has embraced a third approach, called
“Vacants to Value.” It uses a broad array of methods, including increased
demolition funding, infrastructure repairs and housing reinvestment.

None of the efforts have reduced the backlog. The reported total of vacant
and abandoned residential properties has continued to creep up and was
above 16,100 in 2013.

At the December hearing, Franchot said it was “utterly, totally
unacceptable” for Baltimore to have “block after block after block” of
homes shuttered with boards or cinder blocks.

O’Malley instead stressed the “great opportunities . . . to repopulate the
City of Baltimore.” He added: “It could happen even more quickly with some
more capital dollars.”

Martin O’Malley Announces Presidential Campaign, Pushing Image of Vitality
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/us/politics/martin-omalley-presidential-campaign-2016.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>
// NYT // Maggie Haberman  - May 30, 2015

In another campaign year, Martin O’Malley’s résumé and good looks might be
irresistible to Democratic primary voters. He is a former big-city mayor
whose story of renewal in Baltimore seemed well tailored to an increasingly
urban and minority party. He is a former two-term governor of Maryland —
and the lead singer and guitarist in a rock ’n’ roll band.

But Mr. O’Malley is running in an election cycle in which Democratic
elected officials and donors have overwhelmingly focused attention
onHillary Rodham Clinton. And he already faces competition from
SenatorBernie Sanders of Vermont for the support of liberals who dislike
Mrs. Clinton or merely want to see her pushed further to the left.

After a two-year exploratory phase, Mr. O’Malley, 52, on Saturday began to
make a case for why Democrats should bet on him instead of on Mrs. Clinton
or Mr. Sanders. His argument was both economic and, in a clear contrast
with his significantly older Democratic rivals, generational.

“Today, the American dream seems for so many of us to be hanging by a
thread,” he said, announcing his candidacy before hundreds of supporters
under a baking sun in Federal Hill Park in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, with
the towers of the city’s downtown behind him.

“This is not the American dream,” he added, as his notes flapped in the
breeze. “It does not have to be this way. This generation of Americans
still has time to become great. We must save our country now. And we will
do that by rebuilding the dream.”

In a speech that gave short shrift to foreign policy, Mr. O’Malley worked
hard to tap into resentments rooted in the 2008 financial collapse. “Tell
me how it is that you can get pulled over for a broken taillight in our
country,” he said, “but if you wreck the nation’s economy, you are
untouchable.”

His aides say Mr. O’Malley is a true progressive, one who became involved
early on the issue of same-sex marriage, and a scrappy underdog who takes
to tough political fights. He staked out early ground on an immigration
overhaul in 2014, accusing the Obama administration of heartlessness in
deporting children who had crossed the border from Mexico.

But Mr. O’Malley was also a staunch supporter of Mrs. Clinton in her 2008
presidential campaign — he called her ideas “new” then — and he rose to
prominence as a tough-on-crime mayor in Baltimore, a city scarred by drugs
and violence.

In two years of travels to Iowa and New Hampshire, he has frequently been
reluctant to discuss Mrs. Clinton or to draw a pointed contrast with her,
doing so only obliquely. He has faulted unnamed politicians for
“triangulation,” for example, a word associated with the Clintons’
up-the-middle political calculations since the 1990s.

Who Is Running for President (and Who’s Not)?

It is also unclear whether Mr. O’Malley can aggressively raise funds
without a devoted base of support, which Mr. Sanders can draw on, or a raft
of major donors, which Mrs. Clinton enjoys.

In his remarks on Saturday, Mr. O’Malley seemed to have made peace with
that, as he repeatedly portrayed the financial industry in a harsh light.

“Recently the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs let his employees know that he’d be
just fine with either Bush or Clinton,” Mr. O’Malley said, referring to Jeb
Bush, a likely Republican candidate, and Mrs. Clinton. “I bet he would!”

“Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street,” Mr. O’Malley added as
the crowd cheered. “The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and
forth, by you, between two royal families. It is a sacred trust to be
earned from the American people and exercised on behalf of the people of
these United States.”

The announcement did not go off without a hitch: Mr. O’Malley’s sound
system conked out in the middle of a video made for the occasion, just
before he took the stage.

His admirers believe he fills a natural void in the Democratic primary.

“Here you’ve got a clear generational divide, and a lot of Americans think
about that,” said Gary Hart, a former Colorado senator and Democratic
presidential candidate. “They are less inclined to divide themselves in the
world between liberals and conservatives, and more between the past and the
future.”

It was Mr. Hart’s come-from-behind candidacy in the 1984 Democratic
primaries, which ultimately fell short, that helped inform Mr. O’Malley’s
thinking about his own race. He often peppers his remarks with variants of
Mr. Hart’s campaign mantra: “New ideas, new generation.”

Mr. O’Malley, who grew up in the Washington suburbs, took time off from
Catholic University to work on Mr. Hart’s campaign that year. He later
moved to Baltimore, married into a political family, became a city
councilman and won the first of two terms as mayor in 1999 in a crowded
field. He was credited with a crackdown on crime and on drugs.

He went on to win two terms as governor of Maryland. His star still rising,
he was often described as a results-oriented policy expert, who signed into
law bills allowing same-sex marriage and raising the minimum wage.

But he also presided over a disastrous rollout of a health care exchange
under the Affordable Care Act. And his legacy as mayor and then governor
was called into question only last month when an unarmed black man, Freddie
Gray, died of injuries sustained while he was in police custody here,
sparking days of unrest.

Mr. O’Malley returned to the city to walk its streets even as critics of
his tough-minded approach to policing — a few of whom protested his
announcement — said his policies had created the climate for racial
tensions that led to Mr. Gray’s death.

Mr. O’Malley acknowledged Saturday that the episode was “heartbreaking,”
but said, “There is something to be offered to our country from those
flames.”

“The scourge of hopelessness that happened to ignite here that evening
transcends race. It transcends geography,” he said. He argued that poverty
and drug addiction were killing young white people, not just blacks, in
small towns and in cities, but that politicians had failed to respond.

“We have work to do,” Mr. O’Malley said. “Our economic and political system
is upside down and backwards, and it is time to turn it around.”

Think big, make political revolution
<http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/sanders-think-big-make-political-revolution/article_088fa005-ac6b-574d-b1cd-e47ea24b93d6.html>
// Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier // James Lynch - May 30, 2015

Think big, Bernie Sanders told an overflow crowd that clapped, cheered and
gave him standing ovations for his call for campaign finance reform, a
single-payer Medicare-for-all health care system, free college tuition,
universal preschool and paid paternity leave.

Please don’t think small,” said the Vermont senator who is seeking the 2016
Democratic presidential nomination.

“Think be big. Be involved. Let’s make a political revolution,” Sanders
said Saturday morning at the Robert A. Lee Community Center in Iowa City.
More than 300 people filled the room and more than 200 listened outside.

Mary Pat Cavanaugh of Iowa City was ready to enlist after listening to
Sanders speak and answer questions for more than an hour.

“I’m signing up,” she said, explaining “I can’t live with the way the
country is going anymore.”

Her biggest issues – and one of Sanders’ – is income inequality.

“It’s the most immoral. It infuriates me that we let it happen,” Cavanaugh
said.

It can be undone, according to Sanders, an independent who self-identifies
as a Democratic socialist. It must be undone if the nation is going to
address a multitude of issues.

“It’s our job to transfers that wealth back down to the middle class and
working families,” he said. “We have to deal with this issues of
distribution of wealth, and when we begin to do that we will have the
resources to deal with paternity leave, to deal with the mental health care
needs of our kids, to make sure that every veteran who comes back from a
war gets the health care he or she needs.”

It won’t happen when the top one-tenth of the 1 percent control almost as
much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of Americans and is using its wealth
to buy the political process in Washington and state capitols. So he called
for a constitutional amendment to turn back the U.S. Supreme Court decision
in Citizens United.

Noting that he was speaking in a university community, Sanders called for
free tuition at public colleges and universities.

One of great crises facing this country is the fact that we live in a very
competitive global economy. If we are going to compete effectively … we
need the best-educated workforce in the world.

Hundreds of thousands of young people can’t afford to go to college and
those who graduate often have tens of thousands of dollars of debt, Sanders
said.

“What kind of stupidity is it?” he asked.

That touched Connor McPartland, a recent University of Iowa graduate from
Missouri, who sported a “Bernie” sticker.

“I have lots of loans and his plan to let me refinance that hits close to
home,” he said.

Sanders, who called for an investment in infrastructure to create as many
as 13 million good-paying jobs, will need to knit together the Cavanaughs
and McPartlands along with those whose priorities include expanding Social
Security benefits, raising the minimum wage and opposing the Trans-Pacific
Partnership and increased spending on the military.

“I can’t do this alone,” he said. “I can’t win the election by myself. I
can’t governor by myself. The political revolution means that each and
every person here and in America in his or her own way has got to take a
stand.

“You are not wasting your time,” he concluded. “What you’re doing what is
the most patriotic. You are standing up for America and standing up for
democracy. That’s what we’ve all got to do.”

Bernie Sanders in Iowa City: Think big, make political
<http://thegazette.com/subject/news/bernie-sanders-in-iowa-city-think-big-make-political-revolution-20150530>
// The Gazette // James Q. Lynch - May 30, 2015

Think big, Sen. Bernie Sanders told an overflow crowd that clapped, cheered
and gave him standing ovations Saturday for his call for campaign finance
reform, a single-payer Medicare-for-all health care system, free college
tuition, universal preschool and paid paternity leave.

“Please don’t think small,” said the Vermont senator, who is seeking the
2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

“Think big. Be involved. Let’s make a political revolution,” Sanders said
at the Robert A. Lee Community Center in Iowa City. More than 300 people
filled the room, and more than 200 listened outside.

Mary Pat Cavanaugh of Iowa City was ready to enlist after listening to
Sanders speak and answer questions for more than an hour. “I’m signing up,”
she said. “I can’t live with the way the country is going anymore.”

Her biggest issues — and one of Sanders’ — is income inequality.

“It’s the most immoral. It infuriates me that we let it happen,” Cavanaugh
said.

It can be undone, according to Sanders, an independent who self-identifies
as a Democratic socialist. It must be undone if the nation is going to
address a multitude of issues, he said.

“It’s our job to transfer that wealth back down to the middle class and
working families,” he said. “We have to deal with this issue of
distribution of wealth. And when we begin to do that, we will have the
resources to deal with paternity leave, to deal with the mental health care
needs of our kids, to make sure that every veteran who comes back from a
war gets the health care he or she needs.”

It won’t happen when the top one-tenth of the 1 percent control almost as
much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of Americans and is using its wealth
to buy the political process in Washington and state capitols. So he called
for a constitutional amendment to turn back the U.S. Supreme Court decision
in Citizens United.

Noting that he was speaking in a university community, Sanders called for
free tuition at public colleges and universities.

“One of great crises facing this country is the fact that we live in a very
competitive global economy. If we are going to compete effectively … we
need the best-educated workforce in the world,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of young people can’t afford to go to college, and
those who graduate often have tens of thousands of dollars of debt, Sanders
said.

More stories from James Q. Lynch

Former Iowa GOP chair downplays concerns with straw poll

Five tied for national lead in GOP nomination race

“What kind of stupidity is it?” he asked.

That touched Connor McPartland, a recent University of Iowa graduate from
Missouri., who sported a “Bernie” sticker.

“I have lots of loans, and his plan to let me refinance that hits close to
home,” he said.

Sanders, who called for an investment in infrastructure to create as many
as 13 million good-paying jobs, will need to knit together the Cavanaughs
and McPartlands along with those whose priorities include expanding Social
Security benefits, raising the minimum wage and opposing the Trans-Pacific
Partnership and increased spending on the military.

“I can’t do this alone,” he said. “I can’t win the election by myself,”
Sanders said. “I can’t govern by myself. The political revolution means
that each and every person here and in America in his or her own way has
got to take a stand.

“You are not wasting your time,” he concluded. “What you’re doing is the
most patriotic. You are standing up for America and standing up for
democracy. That’s what we’ve all got to do.”

Lincoln Chafee to announce presidential run on June 3
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/omalleys-long-shot-bid-gets-complicated-start-118442.html#ixzz3beWisNc9>
// Politico // Ben Schreckinger and Jonathan Topaz - May 30, 2015

With no mega-donor waiting in the wings, the super PAC will also be banking
on small contributions from younger donors. “When you spend your entire
career fighting … for the most disadvantaged, it is unlikely that a
candidate or a super PAC is going to have any cozy relationship with
billionaires or Wall Street executives.”

The event itself had the feel of a preppy 4th of July barbecue, with
supporters in Ray-Bans waving American flags passed out by organizers – an
appropriate prop for any political rally but especially so for O’Malley,
who often cloaks himself in Baltimore’s ties to the War of 1812 and the
composition of the Star-Spangled Banner after the bombing of Fort McHenry
in Baltimore Harbor. Indeed, he delivered his announcement directly beneath
a massive American flag perched above the city’s Inner Harbor.

With sweat glistening on his brow, O’Malley pledged to “rebuild the
American dream now in our time” and laid out a progressive agenda of
restoring the middle class, creating a massive jobs program for renewable
energy, and tightening financial industry regulation.

He drew his biggest applause for a triple shot at the biggest names in both
parties and on Wall Street.

“Recently, the CEO of Goldman Sachs let his employees know that he’d be
just fine with either Bush or Clinton. I bet he would,” said O’Malley.
“Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street — the presidency is not
a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families.”

O’Malley also directly addressed the unrest in Baltimore, saying it pointed
to larger issues than policing and was the result of the systematic
economic problems he intended to address as president.

In January, O’Malley left the governor’s office on a down note. Despite
unseating incumbent Republican Bob Ehrlich in 2006 and cruising to an easy
reelection four years later in a rematch, his lieutenant governor and
anointed successor Anthony Brown lost election to an unknown Republican, a
stunning upset chalked up to a combination of inept campaigning and
O’Malley fatigue after he introduced a series of tax hikes.

Whatever roadblocks O’Malley faces, his camp makes the case that Democratic
voters will recognize him as a true progressive who is also electable as a
nominee. As Clinton wages a stage-managed campaign and avoids contact with
the press, O’Malley’s camp is betting that his knack for hands-on retail
politicking will give him an advantage in early states like Iowa and New
Hampshire where voters have to come to expect exactly that. “The
early-state process really suits the governor,” said one O’Malley insider.

Any path to the nomination would likely have to run through Iowa, a state
that historically has been less kind to the Clintons than New Hampshire.
O’Malley invested heavily there in the last election cycle, sending 14
staffers from his O’Say Can You See PAC to aid Iowa Democrats in what
turned out to be a disastrous midterm election for the state party.
O’Malley attended more than 20 events in Iowa last year and has visited the
state several times this year.

Following the announcement, O’Malley has events scheduled in Iowa on
Saturday and in New Hampshire on Sunday.

Even Clinton’s camp has conceded the nominating contest will become more
heated than many people expect — and O’Malley has nowhere to go but up as
the primary electorate tunes into the race and gets acquainted with a
youthful-looking politician who fronts his own Irish rock band and used
Snapchat to announce the location of his announcement.

“No matter what we think right now, there’s going to be intense focus on
this as we get close to the Iowa caucuses,” said Bill Carrick, who managed
Richard Gephardt’s 1988 presidential campaign. “It almost inevitably is
forced to become a competition.”

Democrats Seek a Richer Roster to Match G.O.P.
<http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/us/politics/democrats-seek-a-richer-roster-to-match-gop-in-2016-election.html?referrer=>
// NYT // Eric Lichtblau and Nicholas Confessore - May 30, 2015

Over the last few months, Harold M. Ickes, a longtime ally ofHillary Rodham
Clinton, has helped organize private meetings around the country with union
leaders, Clinton backers and Democratic strategists. The pressing topic:
Who will step up to be the Democrats’ megadonors in the 2016 presidential
race?

Republican contenders have already secured hundreds of millions of dollars
in commitments from a stable of billionaires, including a Wall Street hedge
fund executive, a Las Vegas casino magnate, a Florida auto dealer, a
Wyoming investor and, of course, the Kansas-born billionaires David H. and
Charles G. Koch. But none of the biggest Democratic donors from past
elections — for example, the Chicago investor Fred Eychaner, the
climate-change activist Tom Steyer and the entertainment mogul Jeffrey
Katzenberg — have committed to supporting Mrs. Clinton on nearly the same
scale.

“No one has stepped forward as the savior,” said Matt Bennett, a longtime
Democratic consultant in Washington.

The leading super PAC backing Mrs. Clinton, Priorities USA Action, has won
commitments of only about $15 million so far, Democrats involved with the
group’s fund-raising said. And while the absence of a competitive race for
the Democratic nomination gives Mrs. Clinton more time to catch up with
Republican rivals, her allies are planning to push the party’s wealthiest
donors for more money than most of them have ever given.

Interactive Feature | What Hillary Clinton Would Need to Do to Win Mrs.
Clinton can expect little if any opposition in the Democratic primaries.
But she was similarly well positioned when she declared her candidacy in
2007.

In planning sessions and one-on-one meetings with donors, Mr. Ickes, who is
a Priorities USA board member, and other Clinton supporters are discussing
how to raise as much as $300 million for Democratic outside groups. That is
almost twice as much as Democratic super PACs and other outside groups
spent to help re-elect President Obama in 2012, when conservative super
PACs far outspent liberal ones.

This ambitious goal will require the emergence of a new class of at least
20 Democratic donors who can give $5 million or even $10 million each. Mr.
Ickes said recruiting them would not be easy.

“Our side isn’t used to being asked for that kind of money,” Mr. Ickes
said. “If you asked them to put up $100 million for a hospital wing, they’d
be the first in line.”

The hurdles begin with the candidate. While Mrs. Clinton has committed to
meeting personally with potential super PAC donors, people close to her say
she has not yet grappled with the kind of big-donor courting that has
framed the early months of the Republican race.

Interactive Feature | Who Is Running for President (and Who’s Not)? At
least a dozen Republicans and a handful of Democrats have expressed an
interest in running for their party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

She is also navigating the intricate rules on what a candidate may do to
help super PACs, which, since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision
in 2010, can raise unlimited funds from individuals and corporations but
may not “coordinate” with candidates. Fearful of violating the rules, Mrs.
Clinton plans to limit her direct appeals to donors.

Those appeals also threaten to undercut her message on the corrupting
influence of unchecked money in politics: She has called for repealing
Citizens United and hassaid that changing the country’s campaign finance
system to “get unaccountable money out of it once and for all” would be
among her top priorities as president.

Mrs. Clinton also faces a perception that neither she nor her husband,
former President Bill Clinton, is exactly lacking cash. Together, they
earned at least $30 million in the last 16 months. And Mr. Clinton’s
aggressive courting of donors, in the White House and now as head of the
Clinton Foundation, has been an enduring source of controversy.

Inflated estimates of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign budget — a figure of $2.5
billion was widely circulated — have also been a headache for her campaign
and for Priorities USA. A more realistic fund-raising target for her
campaign, they say, is around $1 billion.

One challenge for Mr. Ickes and other fund-raisers is convincing potential
donors, large and small, of the importance of super PACs to Mrs. Clinton’s
chances. In part to convey that message, Priorities USA recently brought in
Guy Cecil, a well-known Democratic operative with close ties to Mrs.
Clinton’s campaign, to lead the organization.

In an interview, Mr. Cecil acknowledged the need for a cultural shift among
Democratic givers. “People are starting to understand that Priorities’ work
is critical and not just a luxury,” he said. “If we are going to be
successful in 2016, it will require more from everyone, at every level.”

Mrs. Clinton will have little difficulty mustering a large network of
so-called bundlers, the donors at the heart of a presidential campaign’s
fund-raising operation, who solicit contributions limited to a few thousand
dollars from their friends and business associates. But the pool of
Democratic super PAC donors is smaller and more specialized: The checks
they write are far larger, and the money would go not to Mrs. Clinton’s
campaign but to outside groups like Priorities USA.

Some of those donors have poured substantial sums into Democratic super
PACs in past election cycles: Mr. Steyer, a retired California hedge fund
founder, invested $74 million in 2014 to pressure candidates to back
policies to combat climate change, becoming the Democratic Party’s leading
donor. Mr. Eychaner, a press-shy Chicago media investor active in gay
rights issues, gave at least $22 million to Democratic super PACs in 2012
and 2014.

Other potential super PAC donors, like the Walmart heiress Alice Walton,
the Los Angeles investor Ron Burkle and the media investor Haim Saban, are
believed to be prospects this year because of their longstanding ties to
the Clinton family. Another possibility, and one of the wealthiest, is
former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, though most of the millions
of dollars he has donated in recent years have gone to his own super PAC,
which has backed Republicans as well as Democrats.

Other potential donors of $10 million or more, fearful of being targeted
for attacks by Republicans, want to write the biggest checks only when
their peers do, forcing Democratic fund-raisers to devise what are in
effect donor buddy systems, matching up would-be givers who can synchronize
their check-writing.

For those still nervous, Priorities USA is also considering resurrecting an
affiliated nonprofit group that could accept secret donations. Such
fund-raising has been roundly denounced by watchdog groups — and, recently,
by Mrs. Clinton herself.

A bigger problem, Democratic fund-raisers and super PAC officials
acknowledge, is that they are out of practice. The peak for donations to
Democratic outside groups was 2004, when the hedge fund billionaire George
Soros and the insurance executive Peter B. Lewis poured close to $40
million into groups opposing President George W. Bush. The groups collected
almost $200 million, largely on the strength of liberal donors’ dislike of
Mr. Bush.

“There will definitely be some sticker shock,” said Michael Vachon, a
political adviser to Mr. Soros. “The money game has changed even since the
last election.”

“Ted Cruz’s super PAC raised $30 million in a few weeks,” Mr. Vachon added,
“and he has no more chance of being president than I have.”

He said Mr. Soros had not yet decided how much he would give during the
2016 cycle.

Mel Heifetz, a Philadelphia real estate investor who gave $1 million in
2012 to Priorities USA, plans to contribute roughly the same amount for
this campaign. But he worries about how much his fellow donors will give.
“Even the wealthy Democrats I know have limitations as to what they’ll
contribute,” he said.

In each of the last two election cycles, 14 of the top 20 donors gave their
money to conservative organizations and Republican campaigns, according to
data from the Center for Responsive Politics. That does not include most
donations to the conservative network overseen by the Kochs, composed
largely of nonprofit groups that do not reveal their donors. The network is
planning to raise $889 million for its political and philanthropic efforts
through 2016.

Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino developer who spent $93 million in
2012 to support Republican candidates, is likely to invest a similar sum
this time. Robert Mercer, a hedge fund executive, has helped bankroll super
PACs supporting Mr. Cruz, a United States senator from Texas. Norman
Braman, a billionaire Miami auto dealer, plans to spend $10 million or more
to support the campaign of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. And Foster
Friess, a mutual-fund investor in Wyoming who spent more than $2 million in
2012 on Rick Santorum’s bid for the White House, is supporting him again
this time.

Democrats concede that they may simply be outgunned in the battle for
wealthy donors.

“It’s really David versus Goliath,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic
strategist and adviser to Mr. Steyer. They hosted a fund-raiser for Mrs.
Clinton at Mr. Steyer’s San Francisco home this month, with donations
capped at $2,700.

Mr. Steyer has not said how much he plans to spend in the 2016 elections,
but Mr. Lehane said his contributions would be “a drop in the bucket
compared to what the Koch brothers and Big Oil are spending to push their
agenda.”

GOP

Sen. Rand Paul: Tomorrow I Will Stop the Illegal NSA Spying
<http://time.com/3902561/sen-rand-paul-tomorrow-i-will-stop-the-illegal-nsa-spying/>
// TIME // Sen. Rand Paul - May 30, 3015

"We have all the tools we need to preserve both security and liberty"

Sunday, I will continue my fight to end the illegal collection of American
phone records. The Second Appeals court has ruled the NSA’s bulk collection
of phone records illegal. We should not be debating modifying an illegal
program. We should simply end this illegal program.

I have fought for several years now to end the invasive and illegal spying
of the NSA on ordinary Americans. I am ready to debate how we fight
terrorism without giving up our liberty.

Let me be clear: I acknowledge the need for a robust intelligence agency
and for a vigilant national security. I believe we must fight terrorism,
and I believe we must stand strong against our enemies.

Yet the expiration of the NSA’s sweeping, all-encompassing and ineffectual
powers will not relinquish functions necessary for protecting national
security but will instead do what we should have done all along—rely on the
Constitution for these powers.

Of particular concern is allowing law enforcement to continue surveillance
on suspected terrorists. This tool will still be available but through
constitutionally sound warrants permitted by the Fourth Amendment. The only
change is that the FBI must obtain a specific warrant for each device used
by the suspect under surveillance through individualized warrants granted
by the courts.

Bulk collection of phone records didn’t find or stop the Tsarnaev brothers
from the massacre in Boston. In fact, one might argue that all of the money
spent on bulk collection takes money away from human analysts that might
have noticed the older brother’s trip to become radicalized in Chechnya.
Just this week the FBI opined that they don’t have enough resources to
monitor jihadists suspects in the U.S.

I would take the billions spent on collecting records of suspicionless
Americans and spend it instead on FBI agents to monitor suspects who have
given probable cause that they are a danger to us. In the recent jihadist
attack in Texas, one of the terrorists was well known to authorities. He
had already been convicted of a terrorism charge. I would spend more money
and more time developing probable cause warrants to delve deeply and
effectively into individuals like this.

Individual warrants every day are used to arrest dangerous people. I see no
reason we can’t defend ourselves using the same Constitutional processes
we’ve used for over two centuries.

Our country was founded on the principle of individual—not general—warrants.

After the current illegal powers end Sunday night the government could
still get a warrant. It will just have to say on it Mr. John Smith, not Mr.
Verizon.

One suspect, one warrant. Not hundreds of millions of records swept up in
one illegal order.

I would argue this will make us more safe, not less. It has been said that
finding a terrorist is like finding a needle in a haystack. Well, for
years, your government’s answer has been to make the haystack bigger by
gobbling up every American’s information.

That must end.

The Second Circuit recently ruled that Section 215 of the Patriot Act does
not authorize bulk collection of phone records, and an alternative
collection mechanism is unnecessary. In fact, the recent Department of
Justice Inspector General report showed that the government is using broad
terms in these letters to receive mass electronic transactional records.

The Inspector General report also concluded Section 215 was not responsible
for preventing any terrorist plots because agents queried “did not identify
any major case developments that resulted from use of the records obtained
in response to Section 215 orders.”

Opponents of civil liberties cite the expiration of the “lone wolf”
provision as dangerous, but this provision allowing law enforcement to
track suspects who are unaffiliated with a formal terror network has never
been used in a single investigation during the 14 years of the Patriot
Act’s existence. Again, even when this provision expires, law enforcement
will still be able to track foreign individuals who are suspected of
engaging in terrorism through courts empowered to grant warrants if there
is probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

The vast expansion of the spy state and the corresponding erosion of our
Constitutional rights has not made America safer. Even the most vocal
defenders of the program have failed to identify a single thwarted plot as
a result of the government’s sweeping, undefined, and illegal war on civil
liberties.

The Obama presidency will be recalled as the era when most Democrats, with
the notable exception of the principled Senator Ron Wyden, abandoned civil
liberties for the tyranny of power—a far cry from then-Senator Obama’s
stirring defense of liberty in 2007. “Our Constitution works,” Obama said.
“We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to
the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.”

It was a danger that Democratic Senator Frank Church presciently foresaw,
warning that a dictator through the N.S.A. “could enable it to impose total
tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.”

Our government is not comprised of angels, and we must have rules in place
that acknowledge that, and protect our rights while protecting our national
security.

Now, it’s time for Republicans to lead when it comes to protecting the
liberty of all Americans from the whims of stubborn rulers.

This president could fix the problem by himself but he hasn’t done so. I
stand ready to help lead the way on this important matter. On Sunday I will
stop the illegal NSA spying.

Sen. Rand Paul Vows to Prevent Senate From Extending Patriot Act
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/sen-rand-paul-vows-to-prevent-senate-from-extending-patriot-act-1433016247>
// WSJ // Kristina Peterson and Carole E. Lee - May 30, 2015

WASHINGTON—Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky
vowed Saturday to prevent the Senate from extending the Patriot Act, all
but ensuring that some U.S. government surveillance activities will lapse
Sunday at midnight.

The Senate will meet for what’s expected to be a tumultuous debate on the
legislation at 4 p.m. Sunday, one minute after the White House will begin
the process of shutting down the National Security Agency’s bulk collection
of phone records. The bulk-data collection program is just one of a host of
surveillance programs set to expire at midnight, although administration
officials said authorization would begin to lapse at 8 p.m. if Congress
doesn’t act.

Senate Republicans are split over whether to overhaul the NSA program. But
Mr. Paul’s resistance will trump any compromises in a chamber that can only
move swiftly when all lawmakers consent. Even if senators were to strike a
deal Sunday easing sticking points over the 2001 national security law
known as the Patriot Act, Mr. Paul’s objections would prevent the chamber
from skipping time-consuming procedural steps ahead of the midnight
deadline.

“Tomorrow, I will force the expiration of the NSA illegal spy program,” Mr.
Paul said in a statement Saturday. “I believe we must fight terrorism, and
I believe we must stand strong against our enemies. But we do not need to
give up who we are to defeat them. In fact, we must not.”

The House has already passed a bipartisan bill, known as the U.S.A. Freedom
Act, which would end the NSA’s collection of bulk phone information,
requiring the government instead to obtain court approval to request phone
records from telephone companies on a case-by-case basis. The White House
supports that measure, too. But in the Senate last week it fell three votes
short of the 60 needed to clear a procedural hurdle on the bill.

Although aides said support for the House measure is growing in the Senate,
it could only pass before the midnight deadline if all 100 senators agreed
to speed up debate on the measure. Mr. Paul made clear he wouldn’t permit
that. He is also expected to block any short-term extensions of the current
law. Mr. Paul has made his opposition to the government surveillance laws a
centerpiece of his presidential campaign, criticizing the program for more
than 10 hours on the Senate floor earlier this month.

President Barack Obama warned Friday that any lapse in the surveillance
programs puts the U.S. at risk of missing a terrorism threat and called on
the Senate to act by Sunday’s deadline.

“We’ve only got a few days,” Mr. Obama said in the Oval Office after
meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “I don’t want us to be in a
situation in which for a certain period of time those authorities go away,
where suddenly we’re dark, and heaven forbid we have a problem where we
could have prevented a terrorist attack or apprehended someone who engaged
in dangerous activity, but we didn’t do so simply because of inaction in
the Senate.”

Mr. Paul’s plans were set to thwart a strategy put in place by his fellow
Kentucky GOP senator, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has used looming
deadlines to try to force the chamber to move quickly. Mr. McConnell has
challenged the House measure, saying its constraints could harm national
security. But his efforts to convince lawmakers that a short-term extension
of current law was the only way to prevent a lapse backfired, when Mr. Paul
and some Democrats appeared ready to let the law expire.

“Senator Paul is only in a position to force the Patriot Act to expire
because of Senator McConnell’s reckless, irresponsible tactics and
inability to communicate with his fellow Republicans,” said Adam Jentleson,
spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.)

The Senate may vote again Sunday on the House bill, which the White House
and senior House Republicans have been urging them to pass to avoid any
lapses in the law.

“Because opponents of reform have run out the clock and jammed the Senate,
we are not left with much time,” Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top
Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in remarks prepared for
the Senate floor on Sunday. “If we pass the U.S.A. Freedom Act, the
president can sign it tonight. And the intelligence community can move
forward with the certainty it needs to protect the American people.”

Among their biggest opponents has been Mr. McConnell, who has raised
concerns that the House bill wouldn’t require phone companies to retain the
phone records information that could help authorities spot terrorist
activity. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R., N.C.)
also has suggested extending the House bill’s six-month transition for
telephone companies to take over the data collection to two years.

Even if the Senate were to strike a deal on those two issues, it isn’t
clear that the House would accept the changes to the bill it passed easily
in a 338-88 vote. The House Judiciary Committee voted down an amendment
from Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa) that would have added a data retention
mandate.

“There’s a real risk if they start to tamper with the U.S.A. Freedom Act
that they produce something that may get through the Senate, but won’t get
through the House,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat
on the House Intelligence Committee. For instance, lengthening the bill’s
transition period could cost it support in the House, he said. “That kind
of delay I don’t think people are going to support.”

The Senate’s actions may also be constrained again by 2016 presidential
candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) Last week, objections primarily from Mr.
Paul and some liberal Democrats, blocked the Senate from passing a
short-term extension of the Patriot Act provisions that needed the support
of all 100 senators to skip time-consuming procedural steps.

Mr. Paul has made his opposition to the government surveillance laws a
centerpiece of his presidential campaign and is expected to block
short-term extensions on Sunday.

“On Sunday, I’m going to fight to end the NSA’s illegal spying program with
everything I’ve got,” Mr. Paul tweeted this week.

“If he wants to wreck this thing for whatever reasons, he potentially
could,” said Sen. Dan Coats (R., Ind.).

Groups as disparate as the liberal American Civil Liberties Union and
conservative Tea Party Patriots agree that the bulk-collection program
should expire. The two groups said Friday the fact that they find common
ground should lead Congress to take seriously arguments against the
government’s surveillance tactics.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, and Jenny Beth Martin,
co-founder and president of the Tea Party Patriots, hailed the robust
public debate surrounding surveillance on a call with reporters. Mr. Romero
urged the Senate not to short-circuit the conversation by approving the
House measure.

Ms. Martin targeted phone records in particular, saying the Tea Party
Patriots would be satisfied with the expiration of that provision alone or
with its modification under the U.S.A. Freedom Act. However, the ACLU is
seeking broader changes to the national security law passed in the wake of
the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“Neither the Tea Party or the ACLU has any issue with the need of the
government to prosecute individuals who do harm to our nation,” Mr. Romero
said. “The question is how.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday that the only way to
avoid that is for Congress to reach an agreement on Sunday.

“There is no plan B,” Mr. Earnest said. “There is no executive action that
the president can take to give our law enforcement and national security
professionals the tools they need, all of the tools that they need,
including the tools that are included in the U.S.A. Freedom Act.”

However, he said, “if faced with a scenario in which they have some of
these tools taken out of their toolbox, they will try to use all of the
tools that they currently have to do what’s necessary to keep us safe.”

Lawmakers said efforts to reauthorize the surveillance program—if it is
allowed to lapse—would be complicated by a recent court challenge.

“It becomes more difficult to pass a bill later if the authorities are
allowed to completely expire,” Mr. Schiff said.

Walker maintains popularity with 7-point lead
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/05/30/iowa-poll-scott-walker-seven-point-lead/28230505/?hootPostID=96f283218aed5c4e54ad03d14858c3fb>
// Des Moines Register // Jennifer Jacob - May 30, 2015

Scott Walker's popularity streak in Iowa is real: He's seven percentage
points ahead of his nearest competition in the presidential horse race
here, chased by a tight pack of four in a clear top tier: Ben Carson, Rand
Paul, Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee.

Marco Rubio lags in a single-digit scrum, but a deeper look into the
numbers shows that if Walker is the hare in Iowa, Rubio may be the
tortoise, potentially positioned to pull ahead if he campaigns hard, a new
Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll finds.

Walker, a Wisconsin governor known for imposing restrictions on labor
unions, hasn't officially announced he's running for the White House in
2016, but he's the first choice for 17 percent of likely GOP caucusgoers in
Iowa, making him the one to beat in an oversized field of 16 Republicans
tested.

"He's fearless," said poll respondent Suzanne Sawyer, a 53-year-old Fort
Dodge small-business owner who considers herself very conservative. "He
will do what's right for the people that he was elected by. He has proven
that in Wisconsin — he went to bat on collective bargaining to get things
back in line financially. He's out to do what's best for the state, not
what's best for him politically."

Two-thirds of likely Republican caucusgoers view Walker favorably, the
highest in the poll, including nearly a third of respondents who view him
very favorably.

Walker is now more solidly the front-runner than in a January Iowa Poll,
when he had 15 percent and was a lone percentage point ahead of Rand Paul,
a Kentucky U.S. senator who agitates against government snooping and
warmongering. Paul remains in second place, tied at 10 percent with Ben
Carson, a retired brain surgeon who leads with women who plan to attend the
GOP caucuses.

Paul bests the field in attracting moderate Republicans, independents who
intend to attend the Republican caucuses (21 percent, all but double any
other contender), and likely GOP caucusgoers who are under 45. Paul, who
has said the GOP "can have people on both sides" of the same-sex marriage
issue, has inherited many of the liberty movement conservatives who
supported his father, then-Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, in his Iowa caucus
races in 2008 and 2012.

But Rand Paul has seen his favorability rating in the poll drop by 9
percentage points since January, more than for any other GOP contender.

"Paul is slightly worse off, which tells me that his efforts to woo his
father's supporters have hurt him with typical GOP voters," said Katie
Packer, a Washington, D.C.-based GOP strategist who worked for Mitt
Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.

She said of Ben Carson: "People should not underestimate him. He is not
going to be the nominee, but he will have influence on who is. Someone will
have to go after him soon."

Next in the horse race are Bush, a former governor of Florida, and Mike
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses.
They're tied with 9 percent, the new poll shows.

In the last four months, Bush and Carson have each gained 1 percentage
point. Paul lost four points, and Huckabee lost one.

Data show Rubio has easier path than Bush

The numbers drop off after the top five contenders, leaving a lagging pack
with eight months to go before Iowa fires the starting gun on presidential
voting.

Tied in sixth place with 6 percent are Rubio, a Florida U.S. senator who
has set foot in Iowa only twice this year, and former Pennsylvania U.S.
Sen. Rick Santorum, a religious conservative who won the 2012 caucuses.

Although Rubio doesn't show up in the upper tier, he tops the list of
contenders whom likely caucusgoers say is their second choice. Beyond that,
49 percent say they're willing to consider him. Rubio, who would become the
nation's first Latino president if he wins the White House, also ranks
third highest in favorability — 60 percent view him positively, and just 17
percent unfavorably.

"It really does suggest he's poised to break," pollster J. Ann Selzer said.

The underlying numbers show Bush, a relative of two previous U.S.
presidents, has a tougher path in Iowa than Rubio. Bush is viewed
unfavorably by more likely caucusgoers (45 percent) than anyone else except
for Donald Trump, a Manhattan businessman turned reality TV personality (63
percent) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (58 percent), who is known for
his occasionally bellicose East Coast behavior.

And asked if they could ever support Bush for president, a third said no,
never.

"I was looking real hard at Jeb Bush," said poll respondent Judy Heath, a
63-year-old hair stylist and artist from Bettendorf, "and then he opened
his mouth and started talking. Time magazine had a great article on him and
I thought, 'Maybe,' but then, 'No, no, no, not this again.' "

But Bush, who has logged just two Iowa visits this year and has yet to
formally launch his presidential campaign, is considered the first or
second choice for president by 16 percent of likely GOP caucusgoers, which
ranks him in fourth place in the combined tally. By that measure, Walker
stays firmly in first, (27 percent), Rubio is next (18 percent) and
Huckabee is third (17 percent).

Bush ranks first with no demographic group, but he comes in second after
Walker with GOP likely caucusgoers in four categories: those who are age 65
and over, college graduates, Catholics and those who describe themselves as
"conservative," as opposed to "very conservative."

"Jeb Bush and (campaign-manager-to-be) David Kochel should be pleased,"
said Iowa politics expert Kedron Bardwell, a professor at Simpson College.

Nine contenders come in at 5 percent or less

Five percent of likely caucusgoers say Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is their
current first choice for president. That ranks him in eighth place in the
overall horse race. Cruz, the first in the field to announce his candidacy,
casts himself as a religious conservative and uncompromising fighter for
the Constitution.

"I'm surprised that Cruz has not capitalized more on his announcement,"
Packer said. "I'm beginning to think that opinions are pretty solid and
aren't likely to shift — either you like him or you don't."

Christie and Trump are tied for ninth place. In 11th place is former Texas
Gov. Rick Perry, with 3 percent, followed by former tech company CEO Carly
Fiorina and Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 2 percent.

Rounding out the bottom are South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who are tied for 14th place with 1 percent
each, while former New York Gov. George Pataki is at less than 1 percent.

The Iowa Poll of 402 likely Republican caucusgoers was conducted May 25-29
by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9
percentage points.

— Register staff writer Jason Noble contributed to this report.

Few qualms about senators

Although it was a running GOP theme in the 2008 election that Barack Obama
shouldn't be elected president because he was a first-term U.S. senator
with no executive experience, the same resume isn't a problem for
Republicans in the 2016 race.

There are three first-term senators (Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of
Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida) in the GOP nomination race. More than
70 percent of Iowa's likely GOP caucusgoers say it makes no difference in
their support of any of them, the new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg
Politics Iowa Poll shows.

Fiorina gains in favorability
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/05/30/iowa-poll-scott-walker-seven-point-lead/28230505/?hootPostID=96f283218aed5c4e54ad03d14858c3fb>
// Des Moines Register // Jennifer Jacobs - May 30, 2015

Even though Carly Fiorina is doing very poorly in the presidential horse
race, esteem for the former tech company CEO has surged among GOP likely
caucusgoers in the last four months.

Just 15 percent viewed her favorably in the last Des Moines
Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll, in January. That has jumped to 41
percent in the May 25-29 poll.

None of the other 15 contenders tested saw their favorability rating climb
as much since January. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and retired doctor Ben
Carson saw the next biggest increases, up 6 points each.

Another finding: Pieces of Fiorina's resume that her rivals use to
criticize her don't matter much to Republican caucusgoers. Most say it's
not important that she was fired by Hewlett-Packard (70 percent), that she
has never held elected office (59 percent), or that she laid off 30,000
employees as CEO (52 percent).

Seventy-one percent say it's not important that she's the only woman in the
GOP field. But 72 percent say it's important that she has aggressively
taken on Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.

"It's interesting that Carly is getting a lot of credit for aggressively
going after Hillary, but not much credit for being a woman," said GOP
consultant Katie Packer. "This tells me that the other candidates need to
not be afraid and tentative about going after Hillary. They can't be a
woman, but they can take on Hillary."

Christie to pull New Jersey from Common Core
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/243368-christie-to-pull-new-jersey-from-common-core>
// The Hill // Jonathan Easley - May 30, 2015

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced Thursday he will pull his state
out of Common Core, a move that could bolster his standing with grassroots
Republican primary voters opposed to the education standards.

In an afternoon speech at Burlington County College in New Jersey, Christie
said the program, which was implemented under his predecessor, former New
Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), has “brought only confusion and
frustration.”

“It’s now been five years since Common Core was adopted and the truth is
that it’s simply not working,” he said, according to remarks provided by
his office. “It has brought only confusion and frustration to our parents
and has brought distance between our teachers and the communities where
they work. Instead of solving problems in our classrooms, it is creating
new ones. And when we aren’t getting the job done for our children, we need
to do something different.”

Christie’s decision will be viewed in light of his political ambitions.
He’s considering running for president but trails badly in the polls as he
seeks to recover from the scandal surrounding lane closures on the George
Washington Bridge.

Common Core has become toxic on the right, with virtually every Republican
presidential candidate except for Jeb Bush vowing to kill the standards if
elected president.

Christie set up a panel last year to investigate the program’s
implementation. In recent months, he’s become increasingly vocal about his
misgivings, saying he had “real concerns” about “how it’s being rolled out”
during a November appearance on a New Jersey radio show.

On Thursday he argued that federal meddling has spoiled the education
standards, which have become a symbol of government overreach among many on
the right.

“I have heard far too many people – teachers and parents from across the
state – that the Common Core standards were not developed by New Jersey
educators and parents,” he said. “As a result, the buy in from both
communities has not been what we need for maximum achievements.

“I agree. It is time to have standards that are even higher and come
directly from our communities,” Christie said. “And, in my view, this new
era can be even greater by adopting new standards right here in New Jersey
– not 200 miles away on the banks of the Potomac River.”

Christie said he will task David Hespe, the commissioner of New Jersey’s
Department of Education, with assembling a panel of teachers, educators and
parents to develop new standards.

Many believe Bush's past embrace of the standards could doom his candidacy.
He did not implement them as governor, but embraced them since leaving
office through his education foundation.

Bush has fought back by seeking to highlight Florida's education turnaround
under his watch. Bush has argued that he supports high standards in
general, whether those come through Common Core or not, and that he opposes
the federal overreach that many argue have corrupted Common Core.

TOP NEWS

DOMESTIC

Joe Biden's son, Beau, dies of brain cancer
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/31/us-usa-biden-son-idUSKBN0OG01120150531>
// Reuters // May 30, 2015

Beau Biden, son of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, has died after battling
brain cancer, the vice president said on Saturday.

"The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau's
spirit will live on in all of us, especially through his brave wife,
Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter," said a statement
released by the White House.

Biden was 46 and a former Delaware attorney general. He had been
hospitalized this month for treatment at the Walter Reed Army Medical
Center outside Washington.

After eight years as attorney general, Beau Biden joined the investor law
firm Grant & Eisenhofer in 2015.

He served a yearlong tour in Iraq as a captain in the Delaware Army
National Guard and underwent surgery at a cancer center in Texas last year.
He suffered a mild stroke in 2010.

President Barack Obama paid warm tribute to Beau Biden, saying he took
after his father.

"He studied the law, like his dad, even choosing the same law school. He
chased a life of public service, like his dad, serving in Iraq and as
Delaware’s Attorney General," Obama said in a statement.

"Like his dad, Beau was a good, big-hearted, devoutly Catholic and deeply
faithful man, who made a difference in the lives of all he touched, and he
lives on in their hearts."

The vice president has faced family tragedy before. Shortly after winning
election to the U.S. Senate in 1972, his wife Neilia and three children
were in a car crash. Neilia and their daughter were killed, while their two
sons, Beau and Hunter, were injured.

Joe Biden has been Obama's vice president since the president first took
office in January 2009. He has a deep knowledge of Washington politics
after decades in the U.S. Senate, and a folksy, avuncular style that
contrasts with Obama's more aloof manner.

Patriot Act Deadline Forces Rare Sunday Senate Session
<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/30/patriot_act_deadline_forces_rare_sunday_senate_session_126792.html>
// RCP // James Arkin - May 30, 2015

The Senate will gavel in a rare weekend session Sunday afternoon, just
hours ahead of the midnight expiration of controversial Patriot Act
provisions, but the path to a solution remains very much unclear.

At issue is Section 215 of the 2001 Patriot Act, which is used as legal
justification for the National Security Agency’s bulk telephone data
collection, the program revealed two years ago by leaker Edward Snowden.
For the most part, lawmakers currently fall into three camps: those who
would like to see the law reauthorized and the program continue unchanged;
those who support a reform measure that would end the bulk data collection;
and those who would prefer to see the entire Patriot Act expire.

The Sunday session is a direct result of the Senate’s failure to find a
solution during a Friday night session last week that carried into the
early hours of Saturday, with lawmakers equally eager to solve the problem
and make it home for the Memorial Day recess. Two attempts to clear the
60-vote threshold failed: one involved reform legislation that passed
overwhelmingly in the House, and the other was to extend the program for
two months, thus allowing time for the debate to continue.

After those two votes failed, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to
extend the program for one week, then four days, then two days and finally
a single day, but opponents objected each time, after which McConnell
announced the session this Sunday.

“One more opportunity to act responsibly to not allow this program to
expire,” McConnell said. “This is a high-threat period and we know what’s
going on overseas, we know what’s been tried here at home. My colleagues,
do we really want this law to expire? We’ve got a week to discuss it; we’ll
have one day to do it. So we better be ready next Sunday afternoon to
prevent the country from being endangered by the total expiration of the
program.”

It remains unclear, however, what direction the session will take.
McConnell entered motions to recommit for both the House-passed USA Freedom
Act and the short-term, two-month extension, which means he can bring both
of those up for a vote again. He has not indicated, however, whether either
will get another vote Sunday.

Proponents of the USA Freedom Act – which passed the House before recess by
a 338-88 margin – argue that it is the only way forward, particularly just
hours before the deadline. The House isn’t scheduled to return until Monday
afternoon, after the program expires, thus making any short-term fix
extremely unlikely. Though the Senate failed to move the House bill by a
57-42 margin last week, there is some confidence that three or more votes
could be picked up with the deadline imminent.

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, one of the co-sponsors and most vocal
supporters of the USA Freedom Act, said he thinks there is a “good chance”
it would pass if brought back up for a vote Sunday. Lee said he’s been
“working the phones aggressively” during the recess with colleagues who are
on the fence.

“There were several people who voted against it Friday night who I know
felt that they’d rather have something pass rather than nothing,” he told
RealClearPolitics in an interview. “I really think they would have voted
for it and I’m even more confident that we’ll have several who voted
against it who would vote for it now.”

Part of the problem for McConnell, who preferred a clean reauthorization of
the Patriot Act provisions without any changes, as well as supporters of
the USA Freedom Act, is Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a 2016 presidential
candidate and extremely vocal critic of the NSA’s domestic surveillance
practices. Paul staged a filibuster last week, delaying consideration of
the Patriot Act provisions, and later blocked multiple attempts by
McConnell to renew the program for even as little as one day. He does not
support the House bill and voted against it last Friday.

Paul has been forcefully fundraising off his recent Senate action, sending
out a slew of emails to supporters during the recess talking about his
stance against the NSA and asking for donations. In a lengthy email Friday
morning, the libertarian-leaning senator said his 10-½ hour filibuster “has
thrown Washington, D.C. into turmoil.”

“When the Senate comes back into session on May 31st, there will be just
eight hours for spy state apologists to reach a deal to keep these programs
going,” Paul wrote in the email. “Eight hours! I'm determined to do
whatever I can to stop them – regardless of the ugly smears I face by both
the press and surveillance state backers.”

A super PAC supporting Paul also released a Wrestlemania-style video Friday
in anticipation of the special session. It featured Paul’s face
Photoshopped onto a buff wrestler’s body and alluded to a showdown between
him and President Obama – with the Kentucky senator labeled “The Rand Man”
and an announcer calling him a “defender of freedom.” The ad highlighted
how important the NSA fight is for Paul’s White House aspirations.

McConnell, who supports his fellow home state senator’s presidential run,
has said that he and Paul simply have a difference of opinion on the issue,
and that it’s not personal, according to the Associated Press. The majority
leader also said that the wide margin of support in the House for the USA
Freedom Act “makes it pretty challenging to extend the law as it is."

Lee said the choice is simply to pass the House-passed bill or let the
surveillance authorities expire, and that he believes there is no
alternative path forward because of the serious time constraints.

The pressure on McConnell to halt his opposition to the House bill has come
from all sides. Obama supports the House measure and the White House has
increasingly called this week for the Senate to pass it. Democrats have
also applied pressure after nearly unanimously supporting the legislation
last week – with independent Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with the
Democrats, the only one voting against cloture. Democratic leadership –
Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sens. Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer and Patty
Murray – released a joint statement Thursday pushing McConnell to pass the
House bill.

“It's been five days since we adjourned while punting this issue until the
11th hour,” the senators said. “In that time, we have not moved any closer
towards a solution but we have moved closer to the expiration of these
authorities that you insist must not occur. It is time to abandon your
opposition to the USA Freedom Act, and pass this bill.”

Lee said he could have potentially supported a short-term extension last
week with the goal being to debate amendments to the USA Freedom Act on the
Senate floor, but the window for that option has passed.

“I’ve been telling my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, if you want
the provisions at issue to expire Sunday night, do nothing,” Lee said. “If
you want them not to expire, I think we’ve got exactly one option to do
that, which is passing exactly what the House passed by an overwhelming
margin.”

Sunday sessions in the Senate are extremely rare, with the last one coming
Dec. 15, 2013 and lasting just 20 minutes, with no votes. The last time the
Senate voted on a Sunday was during the fiscal cliff showdown in late
December 2012. There have been only eight Sunday sessions for the Senate
during Obama’s presidency.

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert accused of hiding sex abuse of former
student
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-hastert-misconduct-20150529-story.html>
// Richard A. Serrano and Katherine Skiba -  LAT // May 30, 2015

Dennis Hastert stumbled into political power amid a Republican sex scandal
in 1998 that unexpectedly elevated the husky Illinoisan to a position just
two heartbeats away from the presidency.

He became the longest-serving Republican House speaker in U.S. history, but
remained so proud of his days as a small-town high school teacher and
wrestling coach that he relished the Capitol Hill nickname “Coach.”

But this week those once-idolized small-town roots caught up with the
73-year-old Hastert, who in recent years has worked behind the scenes as a
Washington power broker.

On Friday, federal law enforcement officials said Hastert had paid $1.7
million over the last four years to conceal sexual abuse against a former
male student he knew during his days as a teacher in Yorkville, Ill., where
Hastert worked until 1981.

A top federal law enforcement official, who would not be identified
speaking about the ongoing federal case, said investigators also spoke with
a second man who raised similar allegations that corroborated what the
former student said. The second person was not being paid by Hastert, the
official said.

The disclosures followed Thursday's federal indictment against Hastert on
charges of lying to the FBI about the reasons for large cash withdrawals he
is accused of making to buy the man's silence.

“It goes back a long way, back to then,” a second official said. “It has
nothing to do with public corruption or a corruption scandal. Or to his
time in office.”

Hastert allegedly began by withdrawing $50,000 at a time, but when the

activity was questioned by banking officials, he reduced the withdrawals to
under $10,000, the indictment said.

That caught the attention of financial regulators, who suspected Hastert
was trying to evade federal reporting requirements.

Concerned that Hastert might be the victim of criminal extortion arising
from his government work or involved in some illegal activity, FBI agents
asked the former speaker about the withdrawals. Hastert told the agents
that he distrusted banks and still had the cash in his possession,
according to the indictment.

Former colleagues expressed surprise at the charges. “Anyone who knows
Denny is shocked and confused by the recent news,” Sen. Mark Steven Kirk
(R-Ill.) said Friday. “The former speaker should be afforded, like any
other American, his day in court to address these very serious accusations.”

It was another sex scandal that led to Hastert's improbable rise to become
House speaker.

He was plucked from a junior GOP leadership position in December 1998 after
Republicans ousted former Speaker Newt Gingrich following a poor midterm
election showing and then Gingrich's presumed successor, Rep. Bob
Livingston of Louisiana, admitted to an extramarital affair and turned down
the post.

In chaos and division, the party turned to a pragmatic, no-drama
Midwesterner who was believed to have nothing to hide: J. Dennis Hastert.

Dubbed the “Accidental Speaker,” he dealt with the passage of President
George W. Bush's tax cuts and the expansion of Medicare to include
prescription drugs. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, he oversaw efforts to get
money to New York and negotiate the Patriot Act.

Hastert left Congress in 2007, after Democrats had assumed the majority in
the 2006 midterm election. Six months later, Dickstein Shapiro announced he
was joining its team as a senior advisor, though he had to wait to become a
lobbyist because of a federally mandated cooling-off period.

On Thursday, there were signs that Hastert's world had been turned upside
down.

A spokesman for the CME Group confirmed that Hastert had resigned from the
board of directors of the Chicago-based futures market operator.

Hastert also resigned his position as co-leader of Dickstein Shapiro's
Public Policy and Political Law practice, a spokesman for the firm
confirmed late Thursday.

Illinois legislators put on hold a proposal to spend $500,000 to put a
statue in the state Capitol honoring Hastert. He had declined the offer
about a month ago, a spokesman for state House Speaker Michael Madigan said.

On Friday, Hastert resigned from the board of the J. Dennis Hastert Center
for Economics, Government and Public Policy at his alma mater, Wheaton
College, a small, evangelical Christian college in the Chicago suburbs.

“The college respects Mr. Hastert's distinguished public service record and
the due process being afforded him pursuant to the charges that have been
filed against him,” Wheaton officials said in a statement announcing his
resignation.

Thursday's indictment described misconduct against a person identified only
as “Individual A,” noting that Hastert had known the person “most of
Individual A's life.”

When asked about the nature of the alleged misconduct, the second official
said, “It was sex.”

Hastert has not responded to requests for comment. A representative of the
lobbying and law firm where he had worked, Dickstein Shapiro, declined to
comment.

The indictment alleged Hastert had agreed to pay a total of $3.5 million to
“compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct.”

He made several cash payments beginning in 2010, after being contacted by
the individual, the indictment said.

U.S. judge grills lawyer defending Obama's healthcare law changes
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/28/us-usa-healthcare-court-idUSKBN0OD29V20150528>
// Reuters // Lindsay Dunsmuir - May 28, 2015

A U.S. judge on Thursday blasted the Obama administration's motion to
dismiss a lawsuit brought by Republicans in the U.S. House of
Representatives over the implementation of the Democratic president's
signature healthcare law.

Republicans in the House filed a lawsuit in November, saying administration
officials unlawfully bypassed Congress.

At issue are executive changes authorizing Treasury payments to healthcare
insurers without the funding being agreed by Congress and delaying
implementation of the law's employer mandate, which required employers with
more than 50 employees to provide healthcare coverage.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, appointed by Obama's predecessor,
Republican George W. Bush, repeatedly interrupted U.S. Justice Department
lawyer Joel McElvain during the hearing in the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia.

Justice Department lawyers argue that the House lacks standing to sue,
citing a section of U.S. law that means the House would have to prove it
has been directly harmed.

"So it is your position that if the House of Representatives affirmatively
voted not to fund something ... then that vote can be ignored by the
administration, because after all, no one can sue them?" she asked.

McElvain argued that the merits of the case were not being discussed at the
hearing, and that any perceived injury was "abstract."

"I'm not asking you to give me your brief. I want you to explain ... why
it's not an insult to the Constitution?" Collyer said.

McElvain argued that the House could pass new legislation if it disagreed
with the administration's changes, which he said were legal under
"pre-existing permanent appropriation."

At another point, Collyer admonished McElvain: "You can't just shake your
head and not deal with the question."

The lawsuit is one of a flurry filed against the Obama administration in
the past few months challenging executive actions on healthcare and
immigration as Republicans seek to amp up pressure on the president.

Jonathan Turley, a lawyer for the House Republicans, said the lawsuit
should go forward to show the power of the purse "should not be decorative."

The judge, while appearing sympathetic to the Republicans' decision to
bring the lawsuit, said she had not yet decided on the standing issue
before her.

The case is United States House of Representatives v. Burwell et al, U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia, No 14-1967

U.S. Economy Contracted 0.7% in First Quarter
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/business/economy/us-economy-gdp-q1-revision.html>
// NYT // Nelson D. Schwartz - May 29, 2015

The United States economy got off to an even weaker start this year than
first thought, the government reported Friday, as economic activity
contracted because of a more dismal trade performance and continued caution
by businesses and consumers alike.

The 0.7 percent annual rate of decline in economic output in the first
quarter of 2015 was a reversal of the initial 0.2 percent advance for the
period reported last month by the Commerce Department.

Although statistical quirks and one-time factors like wintry weather in
some parts of the country played a role, as did a work slowdown at West
Coast ports, the lackluster report for January, February and March
underscores the American economy’s continuing inability to generate much
momentum.

APRIL 29, 2015

It was unusually cold and snowy in late January and February in the
Northeast. A scene from a grocery store parking lot in Cranberry, Pa., on
Jan. 26.Economic Trends: How to Make Sense of Weak Economic Growth in
2015APRIL 29, 2015

On the site of a new building in Philadelphia last month. Construction
typically slows in winter, one of the seasonal differences that economists
are supposed to take into account.

Statistical Puzzle: Dueling Views on the First-Quarter SlumpMAY 19, 2015

The pullback was the third time that economic activity had posted a
quarterly contraction since the current recovery began in mid-2009, with
declines in output in the first quarters of 2011 and 2014. Even
acknowledging flaws in the way the government takes account of expected
seasonal variations, that on-again, off-again pattern helps explain why
annual growth rates in recent years have been well below the pace of gains
recorded in the 1990s and mid-2000s.

Much of the revision reported Friday was spurred by new data showing that
exports fell more than first thought and imports rose higher. Economists at
Goldman Sachs noted that the change in the trade balance shaved 1.9
percentage points off overall growth last quarter, the largest quarterly
drag from net exports in three decades.

Volatile even in the best of times, the trade balance is especially hard to
gauge in the wake of a labor dispute and slowdown at West Coast ports.
Although the balance was negative in the first quarter, some experts like
Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics say a return to normal trade
patterns could propel a healthy rebound in the second quarter.

But he cautioned that the data remained in flux and warned that even his
own estimate could end up being wide of the mark.

“Anybody estimating gross domestic product for the second quarter is
kidding themselves, because the trade data is so unpredictable at the
moment, and we have no hard numbers yet,” Mr. Shepherdson said. “I’m
guessing there will be a reversal in trade flows, and we’ll see 3 percent
growth in the second quarter. But it could be anywhere between 1 percent
and 5 percent.”

Exports had been a particularly bright spot for the American economy in the
first years of the recovery, as world trade rebounded from the plunge that
followed the financial crisis in late 2008 and early 2009. Those gains have
moderated more recently, and are likely to remain under pressure as the
stronger dollar makes American goods more expensive for overseas buyers.

Most experts had expected the data released on Friday to show a contraction
in the first quarter, and virtually no mainstream economists are predicting
that the economy is about to fall into a recession. Still, the weak start
for the year is a crucial reason that the Federal Reserve has pulled back
from any plans to raise short-term interest rates in June, with officials
now suggesting that the first rate increase from near zero is not likely to
come until September or even later this year.

Although Wall Street and the Fed are already looking ahead to the June 5
report on employment gains in May and other more recent data, the rearview
mirror take on economic activity discouraged buying on the stock market. At
the end of trading on Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average, the
Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Nasdaq were all off 0.6 percent.
Bond yields also crept lower.

After the economy grew at an annual rate of nearly 5 percent in the spring
and summer of 2014, some experts concluded that the economy had found its
footing and predicted that a healthier, sustained growth rate of near 3
percent was finally at hand.

The new data for the first quarter of 2015, and signs of only a tepid
rebound in the current quarter, are forcing some economists to rethink
earlier assumptions.

“This isn’t the off-to-the-races kind of expansion we envisioned six months
ago,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San
Francisco. “More and more folks are coming around to the view that the
long-term growth rate of the American economy is 2 percent, at best. We
can’t sustain 3 or 4 percent growth for very long, so it’s two steps
forward, one step back.”

Although cloudy, the economic outlook is not particularly dark.

Unemployment has been falling steadily, and experts think it could fall to
about 5 percent by the end of the year, from 5.4 percent now. The jobless
rate stood at 8 percent a little over two years ago.

The real estate market has also been robust as of late, with a measure of
pending home sales last month hitting a nine-year high, according to data
released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors. New-home sales
and construction were also strong in April.

Indeed, an upward revision in residential construction last quarter offset
some of the weakness elsewhere.

Despite the windfall provided by lower gasoline prices, consumer spending,
which accounts for roughly two-thirds of economic activity, was only
modest. Personal consumption rose by 1.8 percent last quarter, down from
4.4 percent in late 2014.

Experts say some of the weakness in the first quarter of the year reflects
how the numbers are analyzed by government statisticians to account for
seasonal variations, like the retail slowdown that follows the holiday
shopping season or business activity that is lowered as temperatures plunge.

That process, known as seasonal adjustment, may indeed have exaggerated the
underlying weakness last quarter, according to an analysis by private
economists at firms like Barclays and Macroeconomic Advisers, as well as at
the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Whatever role that seasonal adjustments did play, however, Mr. Anderson
cautioned against dismissing the first-quarter weakness as entirely a
statistical quirk.

“Some economists have been trying to explain away the negative numbers,” he
said. “I don’t think it’s so easily dismissed. We will get a modest bounce
back this quarter.”

In particular, he said, the dollar’s surge against foreign currencies like
the euro is hurting manufacturers and other exporters, a trend that is
likely to continue even with the resolution of the West Coast port slowdown.

Although Mr. Anderson expects the annual rate of growth to rebound to above
2 percent this quarter and to about 3 percent in the second half of 2015,
that still leaves his estimate at 2.2 percent for the annual growth rate
for the year. Last year, the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent.

“There’s some truth to the statistical issues and the one-time factors, but
we are still left with a real deceleration,” Mr. Anderson said. “Two
percent is probably where the economy will gravitate longer term.”

INTERNATIONAL

U.S. Says China has Artillery on Artificial Islands
<http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/05/29/us_says_china_has_artillery_on_artificial_islands_107987.html>
// AP // Lolita Baldor - May 29, 2015

SINGAPORE  -- Two large  artillery vehicles were detected on one of the
artificial islands that China is creating in the South China Sea, U.S.
officials said Friday, underscoring ongoing concerns that Beijing may try
to use the land reclamation projects for military purposes.

The discovery was made at least several weeks ago by the United States, but
it's not clear if the weapons are still there or if they have been moved or
hidden out of sight, officials said.

The revelation comes as Defense Secretary Ash Carter begins an 11-day trip,
including several stops in the Asia Pacific. He is slated to speak Saturday
at an international security summit here, and is expected to reassert
America's views that China and other nations must stop all land reclamation
projects in the region.

Pentagon spokesman Brent Colburn said the U.S. was aware of the  artillery
, but he declined to provide other details, saying it is an intelligence
matter. Defense officials described the weapons as self-propelled
artillery  vehicles, and said they posed no threat to the U.S. or American
territories. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter
publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The sighting was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

U.S. officials, however, have been watching the rapidly expanding land
reclamation by China, which, according to estimates, totals more than 2,000
acres in the South China Sea.

The U.S. has been flying surveillance aircraft in the region, prompting
China to file a formal protest after a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon recently
flew over one of the sites.

Carter on Wednesday made it clear that the U.S. will "fly, sail and operate
wherever international law allows." But so far he has said little about
what the U.S. is willing to do to get China to stop the island construction.

U.S. and other regional officials have expressed concerns about the island
building, including worries that it may be a prelude to navigation
restrictions or the enforcement of a possible air defense identification
zone over the South China Sea. China declared such a zone over disputed
Japanese-held islands in the East China Sea in 2013.

Asked about the latest imagery suggesting China had put weapons on one of
the land reclamation islands, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua
Chunying said she is "not aware of the situation you mention, but China has
clearly reiterated its position several times on the islands in the South
China Sea."

She also pushed back against Carter's criticism, saying that the U.S.
should be "rational and calm and stop making any provocative remarks,
because such remarks not only do not help ease the controversies in the
South China Sea, but they also will aggravate the regional peace and
stability."

Carter has been vocal about U.S. opposition to the China construction and
on Friday afternoon flew over the crowded Straits of Malacca and Singapore,
in part to emphasize the need for continued freedom of navigation in the
region.

On board two V-22 Ospreys, Carter and his staff and several members of the
media flew over the narrow shipping lanes, which were packed with massive
container ships and other vessels.

The busy waterway is "a very striking example of the link between security
and prosperity and the importance of having security and stability in the
Pacific," said Kelly Magsamen, the Pentagon's principle deputy assistant
secretary for Asia Pacific matters.

Colburn, the Pentagon spokesman, added that China's actions in the South
China Sea are examples of the types of things that could extend into
otherAsia Pacific areas and "could upset the order that has led to the
prosperity that the entire region benefits from today."

The Malacca Strait is 550 miles long, but just 1.7 miles wide at its
narrowest point. About a third of global shipping moves through the strait
-- or about 50,000 ships a year. Any accidental or deliberate blockage of
the strait would force ships to switch to longer and more expensive routes.

Chinese Security Laws Elevate the Party and Stifle Dissent. Mao Would
Approve
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/world/asia/chinese-national-security-law-aims-to-defend-party-grip-on-power.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>
// NYT // Edward Wong - May 30, 2015

BEIJING — China’s new national security law, released in draft form this
month, has little to say about such traditional security matters as
military power, counterespionage or defending the nation’s borders.

Instead, to the surprise and alarm of many people here, it reads more like
a Communist Party ideology paper and a call to arms aimed at defending the
party’s grip on power. The law, together with two other recently published
draft laws, constitutes the most expansive articulation yet of President Xi
Jinping’s vision of national security, and the widest interpretation of
threats to the Communist Party and the state since the Mao era.

Analysts say the laws are aimed at giving the security forces and courts
greater leeway in muzzling Chinese civil society and corralling the
influence of Western institutions and ideas, which Mr. Xi views as a threat.

Deploying the kind of retro-nationalist language that has become standard
fare under Mr. Xi, the national security law says security must be
maintained in all aspects of society, from culture to education to
technology, “to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

“This draft focuses on politics, ideology and culture,” said Zhang
Xuezhong, a civil rights lawyer and former law professor at East China
University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai.

The two other draft laws — also related to what might be described as
ideological security — are a so-called counterterrorism law and one aimed
at controlling the activities of foreign nongovernmental organizations and
their Chinese partners.

More than at any other time since the Communists seized power in 1949, some
scholars say, the law is being used in the service of ideology and
maintaining party survival.

The draft laws, Mr. Zhang said, “really look like an expression of the
conservative political thinking of some party leaders, and the legislative
organs are merely trying to realize their thoughts.”

Perhaps the most interesting question is why Mr. Xi thinks he needs such
laws. Existing laws already enshrine Communist Party power and criminalize
any act deemed to encourage “subversion of state power.”

But the new laws provide a firmer legal framework for controlling civil
society and Western organizations, scholars say.

The most ambitious of the three, the national security law, solidifies Mr.
Xi’s authority over national security by placing a central organ — likely
to be the National Security Commission that Mr. Xi founded — in charge of
all security matters. An April 23 article in People’s Daily, the official
party newspaper, said the new draft of the security law reflected “General
Secretary Xi Jinping’s spirit.”

Another reason Mr. Xi wants these laws is more abstract, scholars say.
Party ideology no longer plays a central role in the lives of ordinary
Chinese the way it did in the Mao era, so the party needs to promote and
institutionalize the ideology by whatever means it can, including by
writing it into law. That is especially true under Mr. Xi, who since the
day he took office in 2012 has promoted old-school party ideology in a way
not seen since the aftermath of the June 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy
protests around Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

“The ideology is far thinner and holds the attention of the populace far
less powerfully than before,” said Stanley B. Lubman, a scholar of Chinese
law at the University of California, Berkeley. “As a result, the Chinese
Communist Party needs more institutional support than before, and may need
even more. This helps to explain the attention that law has recently been
receiving since Xi came to power.”

The national security law explicitly mentions the need to teach China’s 1.3
billion people about the security and ideological needs of the state and
the party. One clause commands institutions to “strengthen guidance on
news, propaganda and public opinion about national security.”

“National security education will be included in the national education
system and the public-servant training system to strengthen awareness among
the entire populace,” the law says. “April 15 of each year will be set
aside as national security education day.”

Legal analysts say the law is expected to be passed no later than March,
when the National People’s Congress is to meet in Beijing. It could be
passed sooner by the legislature’s standing committee, which also has the
power to approve laws.

“I think the frame of the national security law fits the current needs of
the nation, since national security as a concept has expanded to more
areas,” said Tong Zhiwei, a professor at the East China University of
Political Science and Law. “But I don’t agree with some of the wordings in
the draft — for example the phrases ‘ideological security’ and ‘cultural
security.’ ”

Ideology and culture are not threats to national security, Mr. Tong added.

Mr. Zhang, the lawyer, said the law was “destined to be abused.” With its
sanction, he said, “law enforcement officials who want to suppress freedom
of speech or set limits on importing foreign publications will be more
confident in doing so.”

The two other draft laws have even more concrete provisions for controlling
civil society and Western institutions; both could be passed as early as
this summer. The foreign NGO law proposes that such organizations be
registered and regulated by the Public Security Ministry, a step that
William Nee, a China researcher with Amnesty International, equates to
treating them “as potential criminals.”

The law would apply to all nonprofit groups, including schools and artistic
organizations. Even those groups with no China operations but who want to
hold an event here would have to register with the police.

Before registering, foreign NGOs would have to find an official sponsor. To
get official backing and to win the approval of the security ministry, the
NGOs would have to drop or severely curtail activities that officials might
consider politically suspect, like those aimed at helping China build an
independent judicial system, for example.

In addition, funding given by foreign NGOs to “more outspoken” Chinese NGOs
would “rapidly dry up,” leading to the shutdown of many of those groups,
wrote Maya Wang, a researcher with Human Rights Watch. Ms. Wang said the
law would affect her group’s activities.

Continue reading the main story

The separate draft counterterrorism law calls for, among other things,
foreign technology and financial companies to hand over encryption keys to
Chinese agencies and install security back doors in technology. President
Obama and other American officials are pressing Chinese leaders to drop
those requirements.

During his tenure, Mr. Xi has repeatedly cited Han Feizi, a Legalist
philosopher from the Warring States period more than 23 centuries ago. The
Legalists said autocratic rule should be codified in law rather than having
law limit that rule.

A party conference in October laid the foundation for the party’s use of
the law to justify and reinforce its rule. The conference called for
policies promoting “the Socialist rule of law with Chinese
characteristics.” Legal scholars say the party is appropriating the term
“rule of law” for propaganda purposes with no intention of allowing the law
to circumscribe the party’s authority.

Jerome A. Cohen, a law professor at New York University, said Mr. Xi’s
“rule of law seems also a vehicle for strengthening the control of central
authority over the unruly lower levels of government and all the distorting
influences that impact local court decision-making.”

On a broader level, he said, “Xi has intensified the uses of legislation
and judicial practice as instruments of party ideology and policy in order
to impose a more repressive regime than China has witnessed since the June
4 era.”

Islamic State claims militants carried out twin blasts at Baghdad hotels
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/islamic-state-claims-militants-carried-out-twin-blasts-at-baghdad-hotels/2015/05/29/87f52cca-0603-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html>
// WaPo // Mustafa Salim and Loveday Morris - May 30, 2015

Islamic State militants asserted responsibility Friday for coordinated
attacks on two of the Iraqi capital’s most upscale hotels. The bombings
claimed at least 15 lives as lavish weekend wedding parties were in full
swing.

Two cars rigged with explosives blew up within minutes late Thursday night.
At least 15 people were killed and 42 wounded, said a security official who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give
out information.

The bombings are likely to shake a revival of Baghdad’s nightlife, which
followed Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s lifting of a decade-old midnight
curfew in February.

A statement from the Islamic State posted on the Internet claimed that it
carried out the attack, which would be one of the group’s most high-profile
in the capital since the militants took control of much of the country’s
north last summer.

The statement said an Iraqi operative for the Islamic State parked one car
at Baghdad’s Cristal Grand Ishtar hotel, then drove another to the
$250-a-night Babylon Hotel and blew himself up there.

The Islamic State’s frequent suicide bombings normally target Shiite
neighborhoods in the city, striking restaurants and busy shopping streets.

Iraqi security officials have linked an increasing pace of bombings in
Baghdad to rising pressure on Islamic State militants on the battlefield.
Iraq’s government security forces and Shiite militias launched an offensive
this week to retake the western city of Ramadi from the group.

The first explosion hit the Babylon Hotel in the Jadriya neighborhood,
where a bulldozer was scooping up rubble Friday below gaping windows and in
front of the destroyed lobby. The hotel, a prominent feature of Baghdad’s
skyline, faces the U.S. Embassy and Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone across
the Tigris River.

Security camera footage of the attack broadcast on Sumaria television shows
what the report claimed was the vehicle carrying the explosives entering
the hotel through its security gate — where it is waved on without being
checked. Another camera shows the car accelerating toward the hotel lobby.

Furqan Ali, 28, who works in a nearby restaurant, described scenes of chaos
as the explosion blew out the restaurant’s windows and workers fled the
area of the hotel. Security guards on the gate normally use sniffer dogs,
he said, speculating that the bomber had inside help to get through the
gate’s normally stringent checks.

The Babylon, run by Warwick International Hotels, had reopened this year
after a major refurbishment — including a new swimming pool and spa. It was
frequented by foreign businessmen.

The second blast hit near the Cristal Grand Ishtar, formerly the Sheraton.
After the blast, black smoke could be seen snaking into the night sky amid
the rattle of gunfire and the wailing of ambulance sirens.

The hotel’s manager, Faez al-Sufer, said that the driver had sneaked the
vehicle in with a wedding convoy while multiple celebrations crammed the
hotel’s function rooms on the first night of the weekend.

“On Thursday, there’s a lot of pressure because of visitors to the
nightclub and wedding parties,” he said. “The checking and security
procedures were thorough.”

The car with the explosives was left in the hotel’s parking lot, he said,
and parts of its engine were later found on the hotel’s sixth floor. At
least 30 cars were destroyed, he said. The twisted, blackened hulks
littered the parking lot Friday.

Ninety rooms were damaged, the manager said, putting the total cost at
about $4 million.

But he said the hotel would still open its doors to wedding parties Friday
night. “We will keep challenging the terrorists,” he said.

Sufer said that no one had died in the attack but that at least 10 security
guards were injured.

A third bomb was found and defused in the Babylon’s parking lot, said Saad
Maan, a spokesman for Iraq’s Interior Ministry.

“They are choosing famous hotels in Baghdad to get attention,” Maan said.
“This is part of their strategy.”

Sunni extremists have a history of attacking the Iraqi capital’s most
prominent hotels.

In 2010, the Babylon and the Sheraton were hit in a coordinated bombing
attack. The Hamra Hotel, often frequented by journalists, was also targeted
and never reopened. At least 36 people were killed in those attacks.

OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS

Why Baltimore Blew Up
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-baltimore-blew-up-20150526?page=12>
// Rolling Stone // Matt Taibbi - May 26, 2015

When Baltimore exploded in protests a few weeks ago following the
unexplained paddy-wagon death of a young African-American man named Freddie
Gray, America responded the way it usually does in a race crisis: It
changed the subject.

Instead of using the incident to talk about a campaign of hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of illegal searches and arrests across decades
of discriminatory policing policies, the debate revolved around whether or
not the teenagers who set fire to two West Baltimore CVS stores after
Gray's death were "thugs," or merely wrongheaded criminals.

From Eric Garner to Michael Brown to Akai Gurley to Tamir Rice to Walter
Scott and now Freddie Gray, there have now been so many police killings of
African-American men and boys in the past calendar year or so that it's
been easy for both the media and the political mainstream to sell us on the
idea that the killings are the whole story.

Fix that little in-custody death problem, we're told, perhaps with the aid
of "better training" or body cameras (which Baltimore has already promised
to install by the end of the year), and we can comfortably go back to
ignoring poverty, race, abuse, all that depressing inner-city stuff. But
body cameras won't fix it. You can't put body cameras on a system.

As a visit to post-uprising Baltimore confirms, high-profile police murders
are only part of the problem. An equally large issue is the obscene
quantity of smaller daily outrages and abuses that regularly go unpunished
by a complex network of local criminal-justice bureaucracies, many of which
are designed to cover up bad police work and keep all our worst behaviors
hidden, even from ourselves.

Go to any predominantly minority neighborhood in any major American city
and you'll hear the same stories: decades of being sworn at, thrown against
walls, kicked, searched without cause, stripped naked on busy city streets,
threatened with visits from child protective services, chased by dogs, and
arrested and jailed not merely on false pretenses, but for reasons that
often don't even rise to the level of being stupid.

"I can guarantee if you look up here and look down there, it might be five
people who ain't been fucked over by the police," says Baltimore resident
Shaun Young, waving a hand at a crowd of maybe a hundred people gathered at
Penn and North, site of the protests. "It's small shit — they get taken
advantage of."

A. Dwight Pettit, a legendary African-American civil rights lawyer in
Baltimore, says he and others in the city's legal community stopped
pursuing what he calls "simple civil rights violations" years ago: the
verbal-abuse cases, the humiliating cavity searches conducted in public,
the non-lethal beatings. "We were dumping them on each other," he says.
"But we had to stop. There were just too many."

Most Americans have never experienced this kind of policing. They haven't
had to stare down the barrel of a service revolver drawn for no reason at a
routine stop. They haven't had their wife and kids put on an ice-cold
sidewalk curb while cops ran their license plate. They haven't ever been
told to get the fuck back in their car right now, been accused of having
too prominent a "bulge," had their dog shot and their kids handcuffed near
its body during a wrong-door raid, watched their seven-year-old dragged to
jail for sitting on a dirt bike, or dealt with any of a thousand other
positively crazy things nonwhite America has come to expect from an
interaction with law enforcement. "It's everywhere," says Christen Brown,
who as a 24-year-old city parks employee was allegedly roughed up and
arrested just for filming police in a parking lot. "You can be somewhere
minding your business and they will find their best way to fuck with you,
point blank. It's blatant disrespect."

This system, now standard in almost all of urban America, is Mayberry on
one side and trending Moscow or 1980s South Africa on the other. Why?
Because America loves to lie to itself about race. It's able to do so for
many reasons, including the little-discussed fact that most white people
have literally no social interactions with black people, so they don't hear
about this every day.

Police brutality is tough to talk about because white and black America see
the issue so differently, with white Americans still overwhelmingly
supportive and trustful of law enforcement. But the current controversy is
as much about how modern law-enforcement practices have ruined the job of
policing as it is about racism. There are plenty of good cops out there,
but the way policing works in cities like Baltimore, the bad ones can
thrive. And disasters aren't just more likely, they're inevitable.

Baltimore is like a lot of American cities. It has a small, spiffy-looking
downtown with a couple of nice ballparks and some Zagat-listed restaurants
for the tourists to visit. But outside those few blocks, much of it is a
dead zone. Whole sections of town are packed with crumbling, trash-infested
row houses, and this pothole-strewn mess is where people are somehow
expected to live. The drug trade has historically dominated Baltimore's
ghettos. But the city is so screwed these days, jokes one African-American
resident, that "even the drug game is dead."

It's against the backdrop of abandoned cityscapes like this that the
current policing controversy rages. The king of modern enforcement
strategies, Broken Windows, isn't designed to promote economic growth in
these neighborhoods. It's designed to prevent the "bad" neighborhoods from
spilling into the "good" ones.

Broken Windows policing, which gained renown in the Nineties thanks to
politicians like former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is the mutant
offspring of our already infamous race history, a set of high-tech tricks
to disguise old-school discriminatory policing as cheery-sounding,
yuppie-approved, Malcolm Gladwell-endorsed pop sociology. The ideas grew
out of a theory advanced in 1982 by a pair of academics, James Q. Wilson of
Harvard and George Kelling of Rutgers. "If a window in a building is broken
and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken,"
the pair wrote in The Atlantic, arguing in "Broken Windows" that disorder
and crime were "inextricably linked" and that fixing the former would
impact the latter.

The practical application of these ideas was simple. In the interest of
public order, cops would stop people in troubled neighborhoods for any
infraction, no matter how minor — a broken taillight, a hopped turnstile,
an open beer — in hopes of deterring more-serious crimes.

Broken Windows was introduced in New York in 1990, when a Bostonian named
Bill Bratton was named the city's Transit Police chief. At the time, New
York was plagued by street crime, with a murder rate north of 2,000
killings a year. Any idea that seemed like it had half a chance of working
seemed like a good idea.

After Giuliani made Bratton his police commissioner in 1994, the two men
took the Broken Windows approach to the next level. New terms entered the
lexicon — "zero tolerance," "stop-and-frisk," "community policing" (an
Orwellian euphemism every bit as preposterous as the Clear Skies and
Healthy Forests initiatives dreamed up by the Bush administration). These
new, more interventionist strategies relied on endless streams of
adversarial interactions between police and the subject population,
stopping and sometimes searching people by the thousands.

Soon, the crime rate began to decline sharply, and the media rushed to laud
Giuliani and Bratton for slaying the criminal dragon. Time put Bratton on
its cover, dressed in a trench coat and standing at night on a New York
street conspicuously empty of anything but a squad car. The headline:
"Finally, We're Winning the War Against Crime." Of course, there would
later be a tremendous controversy over whether these new policing
strategies had anything to do with the drop in New York's crime rate. Other
cities that didn't use these programs saw similar declines, in a phenomenon
that criminologists are still at a loss to explain.

Bratton instituted a statistics-based system called CompStat, which
required precinct captains to give regular reports to their superiors about
numbers of arrests, stops and searches. As retired police Capt. Ernie
Naspretto explained in a piece for the Daily News years later, it wasn't
enough to merely say you were out there on the street, executing mass
numbers of field interrogations. "If it ain't on paper, it ain't," he
wrote. "Stop-and-frisk became a means for us to show we were still fighting
crime."

For the officer on the ground, stop-and-frisk meant a commitment to a new,
highly interventionist kind of policing, and one that was inherently
discriminatory. Sgt. Anthony Miranda is a retired New York police officer
and president of the National Latino Officers Association. He's a tall,
powerfully built man who has the air of someone whose sheer size makes
telling the blunt truth easier. He recalls a story from the early Eighties
about how New York developed its two-faced zero-tolerance enforcement
policy, one that would be imitated all over the country.

He walked a beat in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. During
the High Holidays, he explains, many residents in the area refrained from
using electricity or doing certain tasks, and police traditionally helped.
But he was with a group of younger cops who didn't want to just stand
around. "So we used to go out there, and if you were parked illegally,
bang, you summonsed them," Miranda says. "We were doing what cops were used
to doing — giving activity," he adds, referring to tickets and arrests.

After doing that a few times, all of the young cops got called in. "They
lined everybody up on the street, had commanding officers come down, and
they said, 'You're not out here to give summonses. You're not out here to
make arrests. You're out here for armed presence.' "

Miranda remembered that story later on when Broken Windows started under
Giuliani. Like a lot of police officers, Miranda liked the idea at first.
Broken Windows, he says, seemed like a good tool to bring a crisis
situation under control. But after a while, the emergency abated, crime
went down, and what he was left staring at as a police officer was a
discrepancy. In affluent neighborhoods, that is, generally, white
neighborhoods, police tended to show up only when they had no choice.
"Domestic violence, a guy firing a weapon, a car accident," he says. "Cases
where, if a cop ends up responding, he has to take some action." But,
Miranda says, you weren't supposed to go looking for reasons to arrest
people in those neighborhoods.

But in poorer neighborhoods, cops weren't waiting for people to call 911 —
they were, in police parlance, "self-initiating" the action. "If it's
Bed-Stuy or some poor neighborhood in the middle of a ghetto," he says, "it
could be a Catholic church and they'll find the priest and bang the shit
out of him with summonses."

The sociological idea behind Broken Windows was pitched as something much
more benign, of course. It was supposed to be the government version of
tough love. And it was an easy sell politically, particularly to white and
upper-class New York. From the point of view of the uptown crowd, it was a
cheaper solution to urban decay than creating jobs. It also had the
advantage of blaming the subject population for the rot and destruction of
crime.

The legal precedent for these policies dates back to a 1968 Supreme Court
case called Terry v. Ohio, in which the high court ruled that police may
approach, search and demand to see the identification of any person the
officer has an "articulable" suspicion has committed, or is about to
commit, a crime. Although the court ruled that this "suspicion" needed to
be more than a mere policeman's hunch and must be based on "articulable
facts," the reality is that a) Sherlock Holmes, Thurgood Marshall and Miss
Cleo put together couldn't tell you what qualifies as the "articulable"
suspicion of a beat cop, and b) this decades-old precedent case essentially
transferred the power of the state into the minds of street-level patrol
officers.

Giuliani and Bratton, and later Bratton's successor, Howard Safir, made
themselves famous crime fighters by vastly increasing the scope and number
of such "Terry stops." Sweep up everyone, see what shakes out.

Community policing sounds harmless, like they were just sending patrolmen
out to chat with old ladies on stoops about which neighborhood trees were
most dangerous for cats. But in practice, it meant sending cops by the
thousands into tough neighborhoods to, as Miranda says, "bang the shit" out
of locals. Police braced people on sidewalks and in alleyways, asked for
IDs, executed pat-downs, turned pockets inside out and emptied pad after
pad of summonses.

A City University of New York professor eloquently described the mission
creep of Broken Windows last year. "If the problem is a broken window, they
should fix the window," professor Steve Zeidman told Reuters. "But somehow
we don't fix the window, we just arrest people who start hanging out by the
broken window."

At the policy's height, in 2011, New York cops were stopping more than
680,000 people a year (around 89 percent of whom were nonwhite, in a city
whose population is more than half white) and issuing upward of half a
million summonses a year. Though a landmark 2013 ruling by federal judge
Shira Scheindlin would ostensibly outlaw the stop-and-frisk policies, many
other cities — among them Philadelphia, Seattle, New Orleans and Boston —
would create their own aggressive policing policies. "What New York
developed," says Miranda, "was the blueprint other states followed."
Smaller towns also adopted it, some with especial verve. A Miami exurb
called Miami Gardens executed more than 99,000 stops in a five-year period,
and reportedly stopped the same black man 258 times — including dozens of
inexplicable arrests for trespassing at the convenience store where he
worked.

Bratton moved to Los Angeles in 2002 and promptly launched a similar
program there. By 2008, L.A. was making more than 870,000 stops a year, a
rate significantly higher than was ever seen in New York. Chicago, too, was
recently found to still be stopping people at a rate four times higher than
New York at its peak.

Then, of course, there is Baltimore. When onetime Mayor Martin O'Malley
launched his own zero-tolerance campaign in the early 2000s, he did so
under circumstances similar to those faced by Giuliani and Bratton in New
York in the early Nineties. Baltimore was, in O'Malley's words, the "most
violent, addicted and abandoned city in America," held back by an exploding
crime problem.

Though academics were already claiming that stop-and-frisk tactics didn't
work, those critiques didn't yet enjoy the consensus they do now. In fact,
stop-and-frisk wasn't just still hot at the time, it was intellectual chic.
In 2000, America's leading fast-food philosopher, Malcolm Gladwell, helped
launch his career on the back of a half-baked analysis of Broken Windows in
a book called The Tipping Point.

So when O'Malley started his version of Broken Windows, he had a mandate,
and it's not surprising that Baltimore's program was wildly aggressive. At
its peak, in 2005, an incredible 108,000 of the city's 600,000 residents
were arrested. Later on, critics like The Wire creator David Simon, would
describe O'Malley's police department as obsessed by statistics, determined
to produce crime-reduction rates that were "unsustainable without
manipulation." The emphasis on stats, Simon said, "destroyed police work,"
forcing cops into the roles not of investigators and protectors, but of
strong-armers bent on producing numbers above all else. Zero tolerance also
forced cops to behave in ways that were virtually guaranteed to piss people
off on a mass scale.

The policy was ostensibly dialed back in court thanks to a joint NAACP and
ACLU lawsuit filed in 2006. But Baltimore remains a place where police stop
pedestrians, ask them for ID and sometimes take them for rides if they give
the wrong answers. "First thing they say is, 'Gimme your ID,' " says Malik
Ansar, 44, who's standing on the corner of Penn and North in the days after
Freddie Gray's death. "They look and say, 'Oh, you live in ZIP code 21227.
What you doing way over here?' "

Ansar points at a run-down town house behind him. "You can tell him you
were born in this house right here. They don't care. They say, 'You live
here now?' And you say, 'No, man, I moved outta here 17 years ago.' And
they say, 'What the fuck you doing here now?' "

The way residents like Ansar describe it, if you're not at the address
listed on a photo ID, you go into the paddy wagon. But if you run, it's
worse. "Then, it's an ass-whipping," says a nearby bystander. "Believe me,
Freddie [Gray] knew he was gonna get an ass-whipping if he got caught.
. . . Everybody
knows that. It may not be a real bad one, but you gonna get one."

So most people go along, which at minimum is a huge waste of time. Ansar's
friend, who goes by the name of Big T, says if you get picked up at
lunchtime, you're lucky if you make it to central booking by five. You
spend the whole freaking day in that hot, cramped van.

And once you get to booking? "You're spending the night," says Big T. "It's
just them saying, 'We're gonna get you.' "

Many of these "cases" of loitering, or disorderly conduct, or whatever,
never amount to anything, and if they do, get dropped as soon as anyone
with half a brain and a law degree sees the charging papers. But the
endless regimen of street interrogations and "long rides" serves its own
moronic purpose, being a clumsy, bluntly illegal method of intimidating
residents and searching whole neighborhoods without probable cause.

"They hoping that a warrant pop," says Ansar of the trips to central
booking. "And then they hoping that your ass don't be coming around here no
more. Because the police be trying to build a reputation."

People are focused on how violative these policies are to the population,
but the flip side is that this high-volume, low-yield approach to
enforcement is a terrible policy for good cops, too. "Right now, it's like
they're saying, 'We have a robbery problem, and we fixed it,' " says
Miranda. "Actually, no, you didn't fix it, you just arrested everybody.
It's lazy policing."

As fig leaves go, articulable suspicion is a particularly skimpy one, as
multiple studies of these tactics have shown. In Newark, for instance, a
Department of Justice investigation found that more than 60 percent of
police stops failed to articulate reasonable suspicion. An ACLU study of
Chicago's stop-and-frisk program found officers routinely cited bogus
reasons like a prior arrest or an observable "bulge" as their articulable
suspicion.

You can do the math yourself. If cities like Chicago and Los Angeles and
New York were, or are, routinely stopping and questioning more than half a
million people a year, and if as many as half of those stops lack real
cause, then at minimum we're talking millions of potentially illegal
incidents.

Decades into this campaign of organized harassment, the worst thing that
happened to the cops who stopped thousands upon thousands of people with no
good reason was that they started to become the subject of academic
studies. In 2013, New York University examined the data relating to
CompStat and the Broken Windows arrests and concluded that they had little
to no impact on the crime rate.

Despite such conclusions and lawsuit rulings that declared these programs
discriminatory, nobody was ever punished. Giuliani didn't show up in
Bed-Stuy with a fruit basket. Malcolm Gladwell didn't have to give back his
Tipping Point royalties. And nobody had to apologize.

Lack of consequence rarely goes unnoticed in big bureaucracies. So it's
hardly surprising that police started crossing a new line: inventing
reasons not just for stops and searches but for arrests.

Twenty-year-old Jaleel Fields lives in an East New York project not far
from the one where Akai Gurley — if you're keeping score, he was the young
black man killed after Michael Brown and before Walter Scott — was shot in
a stairwell by a rookie officer last fall. Fields' case is typical in most
ways, which is why you didn't hear about it.

A thin young man with a quick sense of humor, Fields was heading to the
grocery store in February 2013 and made the mistake of getting into an
elevator with two police officers. A civil complaint he later filed
describes how the problem started when he laughed as the police argued with
another young man in the elevator.

Police claimed that Fields blocked the elevator door, then made things
worse after he left the elevator by elbowing a police officer, hiding his
hands and struggling. Fields' story is different. "He just came, pushed me
straight back to the corner," he says. "He's like, 'Oh, you think you could
bump a cop and get away with it?' I looked at him like, 'What? I ain't
touch no cop. I ain't touch no cop. What are you talking about?' "

Fields got charged for resisting arrest, attempted assault in the third
degree, disorderly conduct, and harassment in the second degree. He had to
spend a day in jail. No one outside his family and friends would ever know
a thing about this case, except for the atypical part of the narrative,
which was that the action in the elevator was captured on video. (The NYPD
says it can't comment on a sealed case.) The video clearly shows that
Jaleel Fields not only didn't block the elevator door, he expressly stepped
aside to let people on and off and stood in a corner for most of the ride.
Fields' real crime seems to have been laughing near a couple of cops.

f you live in the other America where this stuff doesn't go on, and you
didn't know the context of these "self-initiated contacts," you might look
at Jaleel Fields, and his arrest for resisting, and think he was a
criminal. You might especially think that if you didn't see the video.
"Most people think that there's a high burden for getting arrested, because
maybe for them, there is," says Martha Grieco, Fields' attorney. "But they
don't pick up kids in these neighborhoods because they do anything. They
pick them up as a form of social control. . . . We want your fingerprints
in the system. We want your iris scans in the system. We want to know your
tattoos."

You can walk into any public defender's office in the country and find
stacks of arrest reports in which police say they saw something that common
sense tells you almost certainly couldn't be. There is even a name for it:
"test-a-lying." One lawyer tells a story of police smelling weed in a
closed Ziploc bag from some 150 feet away. Another is representing the
estate of a man, ultimately shot by police, who authorities said marched
into a state police barracks reeking of marijuana ("Because everybody
smokes a huge joint before they go to the police station," the attorney
says, noting that no marijuana was found in the victim's system at
autopsy). A third has a handful of clients who all apparently made furtive
motions in the direction of an officer's gun. "It must be epidemic in New
York, these furtive movements for police guns," he says.

Against the Fieldses of the world, the lies of police officers generally
work as intended: as effective pretexts to get people searched or
fingerprinted and create real criminal records. But the lies almost never
cut the other way. In city after city, the laws are set up to make police
misconduct of any kind, from a lie in an arrest report all the way up to
outright brutality, disappear down a variety of bureaucratic rabbit holes.

Say you live in a large American city — Baltimore, for example. Police stop
and search you, something goes wrong and you end up getting your ass
kicked. You don't die, and more to the point, nobody films you not dying,
which means CNN doesn't show up the next day.

You're hauled off to jail. Sometime between a few hours and a few days
later, you learn the charges against you. It's usually a hell of a list,
which is part of the game. On what Ansar describes as "that motherfucking
paper they slide under the door," you might find yourself charged with
resisting arrest, assault against a police officer, criminal possession of
marijuana, criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment and
whatever else the on-scene officers can think of.

The case is weak, however, so a few days or weeks later a prosecutor tells
you charges will be dropped. In being processed, you sign a paper. It reads:

I, (name), hereby release and forever discharge (complainant) and (law
enforcement agency), all its officers, agents and employees, and any and
all other persons from any and all claims which I may have for wrongful
conduct by reason of my arrest, detention, or confinement on or about
(date).

This General Waiver and Release is conditioned upon the expungement of the
record of my arrest. . . .

You sign, and your "criminal record" disappears, which is great for you.
But so does the incident, which is expunged from the public record. And,
except in very rare cases, the same police go right back out on the street.
The only results of the entire episode are things that can hurt you: Your
prints might now be in the system, you might attract future attention by
the same police, and your employer might be upset by the whole situation.

This expungement trick is the way it works in Baltimore. To make the
charges go away, victims often end up overtly forfeiting a right to sue (by
signing a paper to that effect) or effectively doing so by pleading guilty
to lesser offenses (undercutting, say, any federal civil rights case they
might later want to bring).

If a Baltimore case is bad enough to warrant a financial settlement, the
gory details usually end up disappeared behind a nondisclosure agreement.
A. Dwight Pettit and Baltimore trial lawyer Larry Greenberg can't tell me
about most of their worst cases, because they're sealed. In other words, if
the victim takes the city's money after a beating or a false arrest, then
the city typically gets to dispose of the incident without apologizing or
even publicly acknowledging it.

It's the street-level equivalent of the "neither admit nor deny"
settlements that Wall Street offenders made infamous after 2008. A bad
thing happens, but somehow nobody is guilty of anything — money just
changes hands.

But here's the next catch: It's not much money. There's a liability cap in
place in the state of Maryland, limiting victims to $200,000 per person,
$500,000 per incident (though there are plans to roughly double those
amounts). Other states, like Pennsylvania, Illinois and Colorado, have
similar caps.

On the streets of Baltimore last week, African-American residents were
furiously repeating the statistic about the city paying out more than $6
million in abuse settlements since 2011. But that number is actually quite
small. In New York, which does not have a cap, abuse victims have received
more than $420 million since 2009.

But even getting to a settlement is contingent upon the victim acting
quickly. In the city of Baltimore, a victim has to file notice of a suit
within six months. There are plans to expand that limit to a year, but it's
still a tight window. If you don't hire a lawyer right away, you're
probably not going to make the deadline.

The game is set up so the only real end for the victim of police abuse to
pursue is a check from the government. This brings us to the most shocking
and probably most under-reported aspect of the police-abuse story: In most
cities it's close to impossible to get a police officer removed for lies,
abuse or other forms of misconduct.

A grotesque example is Chicago, where statistics about police abuse leaked
out via a civil lawsuit called Bond v. Utreras. In that case, it was
revealed that in a two-year period between 2002 and 2004, Chicago police
received 10,149 complaints of misconduct, which resulted in only 19 total
acts of meaningful discipline (defined as a suspension of seven days or
more).

A similar statistical pattern emerged in New York, where after last year's
Eric Garner case, the NYPD's Inspector General's office and its Civilian
Complaint Review Board both conducted evaluations of chokehold incidents.
The upshot of the reports is that between 2009 and the first half of 2014,
New Yorkers complained of 1,048 incidents involving chokeholds, which had
been banned by the NYPD for more than a decade. Of those complaints, the
CCRB "substantiated" only 10. And none of those offending officers saw
significant repercussions.

The reason for this is that unless a police officer is criminally indicted
after an abuse case, which very rarely happens, the discipline procedure at
big-city police departments is generally handled in-house. In New York, a
civilian complaint usually has to be substantiated by a review panel, which
will either suggest punishment itself or refer the case to a pseudo-court
at the police department. There, judges — who are employed by the
department — may recommend discipline. But many of these recommendations
can be overturned by the police commissioner.

What this means for the people on the streets of urban neighborhoods is
simple: For all the hundreds of millions of dollars paid out by cities to
abuse victims, very little is actually done to discipline rogue police
officers. Cops caught lying in court by judges are not fired. They're back
in court giving evidence the next day. "The downside [to lying] for the
police is just that the evidence gets tossed," says Pettit, who notes that
the problem is especially pronounced in civil courts. "There's no personal
accountability. There's no reason not to lie again."

This problem — of police almost never facing consequences — was the obvious
subtext of the Baltimore revolts. It's the reason the one thing that calmed
the city down was the curiously rapid decision by the new state's attorney,
Marilyn Mosby, to file sweeping charges, including manslaughter and murder,
against the six police, three white and three black, involved with Gray's
arrest.

Pettit notes that Mosby's decision was a rarity in that three of the
officers were also charged with false imprisonment. She essentially
described the entire arrest as improper and illegal, even going so far as
to assert publicly that the pocket knife Gray was carrying was legal. The
legal fight to come will therefore put the entire rationale behind Broken
Windows on trial, in the sense that prosecutors will argue — if the case
actually makes it to court — that the six officers never should have been
doing what police have been asked to do in mass numbers every day for 15
years now.

f an individual police officer does have a record of abuse or lies or some
other misconduct, most cities make it nearly impossible for anyone on the
wrong side of the blue wall to find it.

Every regional police force is governed by its own legal procedure, but New
York and California offer excellent examples of the uphill climb toward
transparency. In both of those states, a defense lawyer staring at what
looks like a bogus police statement has to file a motion to the court
asking for disclosure of a police officer's personnel file. In New York,
it's called a Gissendanner motion; in California, a Pitchess motion. But to
win these motions, you essentially need to have that information already.
It's yet another Catch-22. "In 99 percent of these cases, I get nothing,"
says Nikhil Ramnaney, a Los Angeles defense attorney, stressing that he
can't speak for others' experiences.

"Police are always complaining about the 'Don't snitch!' campaigns," says a
Baltimore resident named Kato Simeto, an aspiring clothes designer and
inventor. "But you almost never see police informing on each other. They're
more into 'Don't snitch' than people on the street."

Of course, where bureaucracy fails to cover things up, simple racism often
steps in. Just ask Makia Smith, a 33-year-old accountant who grew up not
far from where the Baltimore protests broke out. "I was on my way back from
Wendy's," she says, recounting an incident in East Baltimore from March
2012. "My two-year-old daughter was in the back, in a car seat."

Caught in traffic, Smith noticed a commotion, with a gang of police
officers surrounding a young suspect. As she later alleged in a civil
complaint, the boy was on the ground and one of the cops seemed to be
getting dangerously aggressive. Concerned, Smith opened the door of her car
and held up her phone as though filming the scene. "I was hoping that if
they saw me," she says, "then maybe they would stop doing what they were
doing."

Instead, she alleges, the following took place: An officer, later
identified as Nathan Church, rushed at her, screaming, she says, "You want
to film something, bitch? Film this!" Frightened, Smith tried to get back
in her car. Church took her phone, smashed it on the ground and kicked it
down the street. Then he dragged her out by her hair, at which point she
momentarily blacked out. Eventually, she claims, police threw her on the
hood of her Saturn, where she snapped awake and saw her two-year-old
wailing in the back seat. She began to panic: If she got arrested, who
would take care of the baby?

According to Smith's complaint, police told her, in about the least
reassuring manner possible, that child protective services was coming to
take her daughter. It's an example of how completely black America
distrusts the police and the government that Smith chose to allow a little
girl standing on the side of the road, a stranger, to take her baby for
her, rather than give the child to CPS. As she was dragged off to that
seemingly omnipresent paddy wagon, Smith called out her mother's cellphone
number, so that the little girl could get in touch with the baby's
grandmother.

Smith ended up in jail overnight and didn't reunite with her daughter until
24 hours later. Playing the usual game of police-abuse chicken, authorities
hit her with a list of charges, ranging from assault in the second degree
against a police officer ("They say I took on four healthy male officers,"
she says), to resisting, to a host of traffic offenses.

Smith, an educated young woman, did everything right after the incident,
hiring a lawyer and successfully navigating the traps and land mines
designed to make cases like hers go away. She never signed away her right
to sue, never allowed the case to be expunged, never took a
pennies-on-the-dollar deal that would have let the police off the hook.

And what happened? The police denied her allegations, claiming the arrest
was legitimate, and she watched her case implode in what's supposed to be
the corruption-proof stage of the process, a trial by a jury of her "peers."

"The cops' defense team struck every black witness," she says, and her case
was heard by an all-white jury, which ultimately found the police innocent
of misconduct.

Broken Windows has left a major footprint on modern American society,
primarily on the 65 million or so people who have criminal records in this
country. That's a population roughly the size of France.

You can easily find the collateral damage from this vast illegal war on
crime just by walking into certain neighborhoods and asking. From bad
arrests to beatings to broken bones, there are enough horror stories to
fill a thousand Ken Burns documentaries. But good luck finding any of that
misconduct and abuse on an official record. What you mostly find when you
search are a lot of convictions and a whole lot of statistical noise. The
dirt, as it often is in this country, is mostly hidden away.

The real problem with Broken Windows is that it brings the same attitude to
neighborhoods that corrections officers bring to prisons. "You have guys
locked up for serious crimes, you're supposed to be controlling them," says
Anthony Miranda. "But in neighborhoods, you're not supposed to be
controlling people. You're supposed to be working with them. You're
supposed to be serving them. And that attitude is what's missing."

As a former minority officer, Miranda says he and others like him are
especially motivated to find solutions: "We're on both sides. We're in the
force, but we also live in these neighborhoods. So we need to find an
answer."

But the numbers game has rotted the police system to the point where it
can't see the forest for the trees. "They don't see it," says Miranda.
"They're too ignorant, and it's a shame."

It's Not Closing Time on American Exceptionalism
<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/30/american_exceptionalism_126786.html>
// RCP // Jay Timmons - May 30, 2015

Today, manufacturing in the United States is experiencing a renaissance. It
remains an economic powerhouse, propelling prosperity and the American
dream forward.

Manufacturing contributes more than $2 trillion to the economy annually --
or 12 percent of the Gross Domestic Product -- and every manufacturing
dollar adds $1.37 to our economy.

Last year, U.S.-manufactured exports reached an all-time high. Exports now
support more than 6 million manufacturing jobs across the country, and
family-owned manufacturers account for more than 96 percent of all U.S.
exporters.

The good news is manufacturers in the United States make goods the rest of
the world wants. But with export growth slowing, sustaining our momentum
hinges upon expanding and strengthening our ability to compete in the
global marketplace.

That’s why the Export-Import Bank is so important.

The purpose of the bank is to provide loans, loan guarantees and insurance,
which are not provided by commercial banks, to thousands of small and
medium-sized companies that need this kind of targeted support the most.
Without the bank, many aspiring manufacturers in the United States would
find themselves excluded from a global economy where the odds are
increasingly stacked against them.

The level of support our international competitors receive dwarfs what the
Export-Import Bank gives U.S. manufacturers. Consider these facts: our
global competitors use more than 60 other export credit agencies. China
alone provides at least five times more support for its exporters than what
U.S. exporters get from the bank.

Meanwhile, the Export-Import Bank directly impacts just 2 percent of U. S.
imports – and still yields big dividends.

In just the past five years, the bank has supported 1.2 million jobs. And,
all the while, the bank has paid for itself by charging fees and interest.

The bank is a targeted tool -- a last resort to help businesses find a
foothold in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Unfortunately, the crucial role played by the Export-Import Bank is not as
well understood or appreciated, as it should be. As a result, the future of
the important jobs-creating tool is now a hostage to Washington beltway
politics.

Legislation to reauthorize the bank is stalled in Congress. The short-term
extension under which the bank has been operating expires June 20.

As Congress debates, manufacturers are suffering.

They plan months if not years ahead when it comes to bringing a new product
to market. They cannot commit to new product development if they have no
assurance the bank will still be here. And new business, critical to
American jobs, won’t materialize.

The question facing us is elementary.

Do we want U.S. manufacturers to win overseas, or do we want our foreign
competitors and their workers to swoop in and seize these opportunities?

Failing to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank is tantamount to unilateral
economic disarmament.

All manufacturers and all businesses must step up and educate our leaders
in Washington, who have an opportunity to lead us in the direction of more
jobs, more opportunity, more prosperity, and greater hope for all
Americans. They must not allow us to cede our mantle of economic leadership
to our competitors abroad.

Our manufacturing achievements today are dwarfed by tomorrow’s untapped
possibilities. To achieve those possibilities, we need better access to the
95 percent of the world’s population and the more than 70 percent of the
world’s purchasing power beyond our borders.

The Export-Import Bank can help us secure that great vision.

The bank is a small entity meeting its mission efficiently and effectively.
Only a long-term reauthorization will give manufacturers the boost they
need. The time for kicking the can down the road through patchwork
solutions is over.

Our leaders have a choice to make: Is the time of American exceptionalism
over, or do our nation’s best days still ahead of us?

It is past time to do the right thing.