Subject: H4A News Clips 6.13.14
From: Alexandria Phillips <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2015 04:33:41 -0400
List-Id: <HRCRapid.hillaryclinton.com>

*H4A News Clips*

*June 13, 2015*

*TODAY’S KEY
STORIES.....................................................................................
**4*

*Roosevelt Island to Shine Under the Hillary Clinton Spotlight* // NYT //
Joshua Jamerson – June 12, 2015     4

*While GOP fixates on foreign policy, Hillary Clinton goes domestic* //
WaPo // Anne Gearan & Dan Balz – June 12,
2015...........................................................................................................................................
5

*Hillary Clinton portrayed as ‘a fighter’ in new campaign video* // WaPo //
Jose DelReal – June 12, 2015           9

*Wonk Warrior* // Politico // Glenn Thrush – June 12,
2015............................................................. 9

*SOCIAL
MEDIA................................................................................................
**16*

*Adam Smith (6/12/15, 7:08 am)* – Jeb "plans to say that people inside DC
can't fix DC" politico.com/playbook/0615/…, will raise money in DC a few
days later blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/…      16

*Jennifer Jacobs (6/12/15, 10:19 am)* – JUST IN: The Iowa Straw Poll is
dead................................. 16

By unanimous vote, the Iowa GOP board just voted to kill
it........................................................ 16

*Alex Seitz-Wald (6/12/15, 1:33 pm)* - Sanders to @mitchellreports: "It is
hard for me to understand how you can run for president of the U.S. and not
take questions [from
press]"................................................ 16

*Annie Karni (6/12/15, 3:29 pm)* - 07 story on Clinton reintroing herself
through mom and Midwest roots does read like it cld be written today:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/02/AR2007060201257_pf.html
…................................................. 16

*CNBC (6/12/15, 5:34 pm)* - MORE: Dow Jones reports State Dept. unable to
issue passports & visas due to tech issue; officials haven't ruled out hack
as source of
issue............................................................... 16

*John Roberts (6/12/15, 6:52 pm)* - Gov. Walker told me off camera that his
presidential announcement would likely be around the 2nd week of
July.........................................................................................
16

*HRC NATIONAL
COVERAGE............................................................................
**16*

*For Hillary Rodham Clinton, her mother will loom large in campaign* //
WaPo // David Fahrenthold – June 12,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
17

*Could a skywriter crash Hillary Clinton’s campaign launch?* // WaPo //
Philip Bump – June 12, 2015 19

*Bill Clinton Is Attending Hillary Clinton’s Campaign-Policy Meetings* //
WSJ // Erica Orden – June 12, 2015 20

*Bill Clinton on donor flap: 'No one has ever asked me for anything'* //
Politico // Nick Gass – June 12, 2015     21

*Kickoff rally logistical risks* // Politico // Daniel Lippman – June 12,
2015.................................... 22

*Campaign manager Robby Mook contrasts Hillary Clinton, Obama on
immigration* // Politico // Annie Karni – June 12,
2015............................................................................................................................
23

*Progressives lash out at Clinton on trade* // Politico // Jonathan Topaz
and Ben Schreckinger – June 12,
2015................................................................................................................................................
24

*How Would Hillary Clinton 'Reshuffle' Economic Inequality?* // NPR // Mara
Liasson – June 12, 2015              27

*Hillary's star-studded bash replaced Rangel's party at the Plaza Hotel* //
Crains New York // Eric Engquist – June 12,
2015....................................................................................................................................
29

*Answering the 'Why' : Previewing Hillary Clinton's Launch Speech* // NBC
// Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann – June 12,
2015......................................................................................................
30

*Hillary Clinton is not on Snapchat, but we just found some compelling
evidence that it’s coming soon* // Business Insider // Will Haskell – June
12,
2015.......................................................................................
31

*Bill Clinton opens up about his relationship with Hillary* // CNN // Dan
Merica – June 12, 2015... 33

*One Tough Mother* // Slate // John Dickerson – June 12,
2015..................................................... 35

*What It Means for Hillary Clinton's Campaign to Get Real Tomorrow* // ABC
News // Liz Kreutz – June 12,
2015................................................................................................................................................
36

*Ragin Cajun: 'Put your pantsuit on and let's go!'* // The Washington
Examiner // Paul Bedard – June 12,
2015................................................................................................................................................
38

*No-Fly Zone Ordered For Hillary Clinton’s New York City Kickoff Rally* //
ABC News // Josh Margolin, David Kerley and Matt Hosford – June 12,
2015....................................................................................
39

*Clinton's Grassroots Army* // The Sun Sentinel // Anthony Man – June 12,
2015........................... 40

*Hillary Clinton headed to Charleston area for 2nd SC stop* // The State //
Jamie Self – June 12, 2015 43

*Hillary Clinton: "The History Of Women Has Been A History Of Silence"* //
Elle // Megan Friedman – June 12,
2015.........................................................................................................................................
44

*Hillary Clinton's 'talking points' for 'friends and allies' just leaked*
// Business Insider // Hunter Walker – June 12,
2015....................................................................................................................................
44

*Meet the political operative trying to make Hillary Clinton popular* //
Fortune // Nina Easton – June 12,
2015................................................................................................................................................
45

*New York Times fund keeps donors anonymous* // Politico // Dylan Byers –
June 12, 2015........... 47

*OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL
COVERAGE................................................. **48*

*O’MALLEY..................................................................................................
**48*

*Martin O’Malley hires digital director* // MSNBC // Nisha Chittal – June
12, 2015........................ 48

*SANDERS....................................................................................................
**49*

*The war on the middle class* // The Boston Globe // Bernie Sanders – June
12, 2015..................... 49

*OTHER........................................................................................................
**50*

*Pelosi to oppose Obama on trade* // The Hill // Christina Marcos – June
12, 2015......................... 50

*GOP..................................................................................................................
**51*

*BUSH...........................................................................................................
**51*

*Longtime Bush Adviser Focuses On Jeb’s Messaging* // NYT // Maggie
Haberman – June 12, 2015 51

*Jeb Bush’s Family Values* // NYT // Andrew Rosenthal – June 12,
2015....................................... 52

*Jeb Bush plans a ‘hopeful, optimistic’ speech to kick off campaign* //
WaPo // Karen Tumulty & Ed O’Keefe – June 12,
2015............................................................................................................................
53

*Jeb Bush Faulted Over Use of Florida Tax Money* // WSJ // Beth Reinhard –
June 12, 2015.......... 55

*Here’s Jeb Bush Talking In 1995 About Restoring Shame To Society* //
Buzzfeed // Andrew Kaczynski & Megan Apper – June 12,
2015...............................................................................................................
57

*How a silent FEC lets Jeb Bush play by his own fundraising rules* // CNN
// Karl Sandstorm – June 12, 2015 59

*Bush book from 1995 becomes 2016 issue* // USA Today // David Jackson –
June 12, 2015............ 60

*Jeb Bush to women on welfare in 1994: 'Get a husband’* // CNN // Eric
Bradner – June 12, 2015.... 61

*Jeb Bush's 2016 launch strategy: Be the tortoise, not the hare* // CNN //
Dana Bash – June 12, 2015 63

*RUBIO.........................................................................................................
**66*

*Marco Rubio is now at the top of the Republican presidential field* //
WaPo // Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake – June 12,
2015............................................................................................................................
66

*Who's Laughing Now? Marco Rubio Mocks New York Times Article on His
Finances* // Bloomberg // Sahil Kapur – June 12,
2015............................................................................................................................
69

*Everybody is flipping out over The New York Times' 'attacks' on Marco
Rubio* // Business Insider // Colin Campbell – June 12,
2015..........................................................................................................
70

*PAUL............................................................................................................
**71*

*Rand Paul doesn’t run with the herd* // Politico // Kyle Cheney – June 12,
2015............................ 71

*Rand Paul returns to California's conservative corridors to court donors*
// LA Times // Kurtis Lee – June 12,
2015................................................................................................................................................
74

*WALKER.....................................................................................................
**75*

*Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union* // NYT // Dan Kaufman – June 12,
2015.......................... 75

*Scott Walker hardens abortion stance ahead of his likely White House bid*
// WaPo // Jenna Johnson – June 12,
2015.........................................................................................................................................
85

*Citing collective bargaining law, Scott Walker says Wisconsin's rank on
ACT test has risen to second* // Politifact // Tom Kertscher – June 12,
2015...............................................................................................
89

*Scott Walker, Professors Clash Over Tenure in Wisconsin* // US News //
Allie Bidwell – June 12, 2015               91

*The Koch Brothers Usually Have Scott Walker's Back. Not This Time.* //
Mother Jones // Russ Choma – June 12,
2015.........................................................................................................................................
93

*CRUZ...........................................................................................................
**95*

*Ted Cruz Cherry-Picks Terrorism Comments* // HuffPo // D’Angelo Gore –
June 12, 2015.............. 95

*Cruz, Paul push for ban on indefinite detention of US citizens* // The
Hill // Jordain Carney – June 12, 2015   98

*CHRISTIE....................................................................................................
**99*

*Chris Christie's Foreign Trips Cost Taxpayers $120,000* // AP // Jill
Colvin – June 12, 2015........... 99

*Chris Christie takes a veiled swipe at Rand Paul over Patriot Act* //
MSNBC // Aliyah Frumin – June 12,
2015..............................................................................................................................................
100

*Chris Christie hits Ted Cruz for 'hypocrisy' on disaster aid* // CNN //
Ashley Killough – June 12, 2015 102

*Christie attended NBA Finals on PAC's dime* // The Hill // Mark Hensch –
June 12, 2015........... 103

*GRAHAM...................................................................................................
**104*

*Lindsey Graham Challenges Republican Rivals on Debt Ceiling* // TIME //
Zeke Miller – June 12, 2015           104

*Presidential Candidate Lindsey Graham Introduces 20-Week 'Pain-Capable'
Late-Term Abortion Ban in Senate; Promises Vote in 2015 // The Christian
Post* // Sam Smith – June 12, 2015................................. 105

*SANTORUM...............................................................................................
**107*

*For Candidates Like Rick Santorum, the Line Can Be Long to Take Flight* //
NYT // Ashley Parker – June 12,
2015...............................................................................................................................................
107

*Rick Santorum says he'd welcome an endorsement from Caitlyn Jenner* // NY
Daily News // Aliza Chasan – June 12,
2015..................................................................................................................................
108

*HUCKABEE...............................................................................................
**108*

*Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee making weekend campaign swing through
South Carolina* // AP – June 12,
2015.......................................................................................................................................
108

*Anti-Huckabee super PAC formed* // Arkansas News // John Lyon – June 12,
2015..................... 109

*KASICH......................................................................................................
**110*

*Kasich: Trade Is Critical to National Security* // Fox News // Matthew
Kazin – June 12, 2015....... 110

*John Kasich Strives for Self-Control* // Bloomberg News // Ben Brody –
June 12, 2015................ 110

*Kasich inches 'closer and closer' to 2016 decision* // The Hill // Rebecca
Shabad – June 12, 2015. 112

*CARSON.....................................................................................................
**112*

*Ben Carson polling well among millennials* // Politico // Christina
Animashaun – June 12, 2015. 112

*Ben Carson: “What You See In Communist Countries” Is “What We’ve Got Now”
In America* // Buzzfeed // Christopher Massie – June 12,
2015..........................................................................................
114

*Ben Carson in Cleveland: Health care not a right, but a 'responsibility
for a compassionate society'* // Cleveland News // Henry J. Gomez – June
12,
2015...................................................................................
115

*FIORINA....................................................................................................
**116*

*Carly Fiorina Shows Us Just How Weird America’s Tax System Is* // NYT //
Josh Barro – June 12, 2015            116

*Carly Fiorina Blames Unions, Dodd Frank And Democrats For Gender
Inequality* // Think Progress // Alice Ollstein – June 12,
2015...........................................................................................................
118

*OTHER......................................................................................................
**120*

*Two-year sentence for GOP operative convicted of illegal coordination* //
WaPo // Matt Zapotosky & Matea
Gold...............................................................................................................................................
120

*Christie, Walker, Rubio are unsparing in blunt pitches to 2016 donors at
Romney retreat* // AP // Steve Peoples and Julie
Bykowicz..................................................................................................................
122

*Sisterhood Is Sour: How Republican Women Are Going After Hillary Clinton*
// Bloomberg News // Emily Greenhouse – June 12,
2015.....................................................................................................
124

*Mitt Romney And Republican Presidential Hopefuls: All One And The Same!**
// *Correct The Record – June 12,
2015........................................................................................................................................
128

*TOP
NEWS.....................................................................................................
**128*

*DOMESTIC................................................................................................
**128*

*Chinese hack compromised security-clearance database* // WaPo // Ellen
Nakashima – June 12, 2015             128

*House Deals Blow to Obama’s Bid for Trade Deal, Rejects Worker-Aid Program*
// WSJ // Siobhan Hughes, Kristina Peterson & William Mauldin – June 12,
2015................................................................ 131

*White House trade push not getting help from DNC* // Politico //
Edward-Isaac Dovere – June 12, 2015          134

*INTERNATIONAL......................................................................................
**137*

*ISIS Is Winning the Social Media War, U.S. Concludes* // NYT // Mark
Mazzetti & Michael Gordon – June 12,
2015...............................................................................................................................................
137

*U.S., Europe ready new sanctions to deter Putin on Ukraine* // CNN //
Elise Labott – June 12, 2015 139

*MISCELLANEOUS ADDED BY
STAFF............................................................. **141*

*Shut Up About the Clinton Foundation's Problems for a Minute to Look at
Its Programs* // Inside Philanthropy // Kiersten Marek and David Callahan –
June 12,
2015.................................................................. 141

*TODAY’S KEY STORIES*

*Roosevelt Island to Shine Under the Hillary Clinton Spotlight
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/12/longtime-bush-adviser-focuses-on-jebs-messaging/>
// NYT // Joshua Jamerson – June 12, 2015 *

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s decision to use Roosevelt Island, the two-mile
sliver of land mashed between Queens and Manhattan, as the backdrop
Saturday for her first major stump speech sent a small but noticeable
ripple through the island’s previously scheduled weekend plans.

For example, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, where Mrs.
Clinton will speak, rescheduled a children’s event that had been set to
take place there to accommodate the Clinton team.

“We made the date available by moving one event,” said Sally Minard,
president of the park, adding that the Clinton campaign did not request the
rescheduling of the children’s event. “Obviously, you can’t do anything in
New York City without making someone unhappy.”

Mrs. Clinton’s speech also happens to land on the same weekend as Roosevelt
Island Day, an annual block party-type event intended to celebrate the
island and its residents.

“They scheduled it when they scheduled it, it happens to be the same day as
Roosevelt Island Day, we’ve done this for 18 years, and it is what it is,”
said Sherie Helstien, vice president of the Roosevelt Island Residents
Association.

Ms. Helstien was recently quoted in The New York Post as saying the Clinton
event would be “horrendous logistically” for the community, which has one
subway stop, the famed Roosevelt Island Tramway, and one road for vehicular
traffic for people to come onto and leave the island.

She suggested a large number of vehicles could be cause for concern.

“We’re going to do what we do and she’s going to do what she does, and
we’ll see what happens,” Ms. Helstien said.

Janet Falk, a member of the residents association, said she couldn’t
predict if attendance would take a hit at the Roosevelt Island celebration
because of the Clinton rally. “Residents of Roosevelt Island and of New
York will vote with their feet,” she said.

Still, several community leaders, including Ms. Helstien, say the events
have about a mile of distance between them, and there should be enough room
for both Roosevelt Island Day and the Clinton speech, which is expected to
draw a fair share of news media.

Jeffrey Escobar, the residents association president, said Mrs. Clinton’s
event should be good for the island’s reputation to fellow New Yorkers and
to tourists.

“If you talk to some people around the city, they might only know Roosevelt
Island for the Tramway,” Mr. Escobar said. “Any exposure for us is always
good.”

With regard to transportation, the F train will not see a change in
service, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman said.

But the Tramway, which usually runs every 15 minutes during off-peak hours,
will run about every seven minutes on this particular Saturday. It can
carry up to 110 people per ride.

Samir Dagher, 41, moved to Roosevelt Island in September. Though he said
the expected influx of people on the island probably won’t affect him, he
said he did not understand why Mrs. Clinton’s campaign picked the small
island to officially kick off her candidacy.

“Certainly, it’d be nice to do it in a place that doesn’t have only one
road in,” Mr. Dagher said, comparing the access with “a big farm in Iowa.”

*While GOP fixates on foreign policy, Hillary Clinton goes domestic
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/while-gop-fixates-on-foreign-policy-hillary-clinton-goes-domestic/2015/06/12/f2f9c664-0ee8-11e5-a0dc-2b6f404ff5cf_story.html>
// WaPo // Anne Gearan & Dan Balz – June 12, 2015 *

While Republican presidential hopefuls warn of Iranian duplicity and
Russian aggression and accuse President Obama of allowing the rise of
Islamic State militants, the most experienced foreign-policy hand in the
2016 race says almost nothing about events beyond U.S. shores.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who served four years as secretary of state and was
known as a national security hawk in the Senate before that, is preparing
for a campaign in which economic and kitchen-table issues are at the
forefront.

The disconnect says much about the nature of the crowded Republican primary
contest, in which conservative-leaning voters hold sway, and the different
landscape that Clinton is navigating as she makes her second run for the
Democratic nomination.

Republican primary voters tend to care about foreign policy at higher rates
anyway, but this year overseas issues present opportunities for candidates
to distinguish themselves from one another and paint Obama as weak.

Obama is as much or more of a foil for Republicans at this stage of the
race, and the improving economy may leave less room to attack the president
on domestic issues.

Clinton — who headed the State Department during Obama’s first term — is
also a frequent target for Republican foreign-policy criticism, but she is
confining her own critiques of GOP policies to domestic issues such as
voting rights.

[Will Hillary Clinton’s State Department experience be a liability?]

In her calculation, foreign policy will not be a central question during a
primary contest against far-lesser-known Democratic rivals, and far less
important than in past elections when it comes to the general election.

There is not a word about foreign policy in a memo that Clinton campaign
manager Robby Mook sent to key supporters this week. The memo is a primer
for a speech Clinton will deliver Saturday to lay out a campaign agenda
focused squarely on those in, or aspiring to, the American middle class. A
preview video released by the campaign Friday made only a brief reference
to her time as secretary of state, and foreign policy will probably get
only a few lines in her speech.

“She will outline her vision for America’s future and her roadmap to help
everyday American families get ahead and stay ahead,” Mook wrote.

Since entering the race on April 12, Clinton has addressed social and
economic issues such as same-sex marriage, the crush of college debt and
paid family leave. She has called for overhauls of the nation’s
immigration, criminal justice and voting systems.

Her only public remarks about foreign policy have come in response to news
media questions about her tenure as secretary of state — she said she’s
proud of it — and the changing nature of the conflict in Iraq.

She also has brusquely said she will let voters decide what they think
about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, while she was the
country’s top diplomat. She said she wants the State Department to release
her e-mail correspondence about the Libyan terrorist attacks as quickly as
possible.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said he’s not positive Clinton will
do an overseas swing ahead of the first primary contests early next year.

“I’m not sure she needs to,” Podesta said in an interview. “She doesn’t
need to go to England to prove she knows the difference between the queen
and the prime minister.”

Meanwhile former Florida governor Jeb Bush is in Europe this week on a tour
intended to look presidential. He arrived in Germany mere hours after Obama
had left the annual summit of the Group of Seven wealthy nations, and
finishes the visit Friday in Estonia.

Fellow Republican hopefuls Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Gov. Scott
Walker of Wisconsin have taken similar trips of late, all seeking a measure
of commander-in-chief gravitas and a means to attack the sitting Democratic
president. Walker arrives in Canada for a six-day trip on Friday.

The passport parade to Europe, Israel and other strategic places is sure to
continue as Republicans vie for the 2016 nomination.

At candidate forums in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina and in
television interviews, the GOP prospects focus on foreign crises such as
the advance of the Islamic State terrorist group as threats to American
security and leadership.

This is the first election cycle since 2000 in which foreign wars or the
threat of terrorism have not been dominant issues for Democrats. Although
the next president is likely to inherit problems including the ongoing
Syrian civil war and the precarious future of the U.S.-backed government in
Iraq, Clinton’s Democratic challengers aren’t saying much more about
foreign policy than she is.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is running as an economic populist to Clinton’s
left. Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley is also trying to appeal to
far-left ambivalence about Clinton, mostly on social and economic issues.

“He has talked about how he voted against the first Gulf War back in ’91,
and he led opposition to the Iraq war,” Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs
said. “But his basic concern is the 40-year decline of the American middle
class.”

Former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee has been the toughest on
Clinton over her 2003 Senate vote in favor of the Iraq war. Chafee said
Clinton “didn’t do her homework” ahead of that vote, which would become one
of the main reasons she lost the 2008 nomination to Obama.

Former Virginia senator Jim Webb, a former Navy secretary, speaks
frequently about American leadership and takes some indirect shots at
Clinton. Webb has said he is considering a candidacy but has not made it
official.

At least one of the six planned Democratic debates is likely to focus on
foreign policy, which could give long shots like Chafee a chance to show up
Clinton. But Clinton does not appear concerned either about that risk or
about a Republican focus on foreign policy that Democratic strategists
contend is less about public opinion and more about opportunism.

When former Texas governor Rick Perry announced his candidacy last week, he
put it this way, using a common acronym for Islamic State: “The world has
descended into a chaos of this president’s own making, while his White
House loyalists construct an alternative universe where ISIS is contained.”

On Saturday in Boone, Iowa, at a gathering hosted by Sen. Joni Ernst
(R-Iowa), one after another of the candidates talked about threats overseas.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he would be prepared to send U.S.
troops back into Iraq to fight Islamic State forces and said the lack of
leadership has been crippling to this country.

“I’m weary of being walked over,” he said. “I’m weary of being disrespected
as a nation. I’m weary of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. I’m weary of
China taking advantage of us. I’m weary of terrorists growing in strength. .
. . I’m tired of leading from behind. I want to lead from the front. I want
America to come back.”

Walker described Islamic State as a virus. “I, on behalf of your children
and mine, would rather take the fight to them instead of waiting until they
bring the fight to us,” he said. “We need to lead from the front again in
America.”

Businesswoman Carly Fiorina challenged the administration for trying to
negotiate a deal with Iran to contain its nuclear ambitions. On her first
day in office, she said, she would send a message to the supreme leader of
Iran, warning that unless the Iranians opened up all their nuclear
facilities, the United States would enact “the most punishing economic
sanctions” yet.

Clinton advisers are braced for constant attacks on Obama’s record as a way
to get to Clinton but see the GOP candidates as hamstrung when it comes to
alternative policies, particularly the issue of sending in ground troops to
try to destroy Islamic State. They believe Clinton’s experience in foreign
policy will outweigh the Republican criticisms and are confident that many
voters see her as prepared to take strong action herself as president.

They say they are content for Republicans to try to make the general
election about foreign policy, arguing that she would be able to counter
their criticisms with relative ease. They believe that those who care most
about making the election about foreign policy are largely Republicans who
vote in the primaries and caucuses.

One Clinton adviser literally broke into laughter when asked whether the
team anticipated that foreign policy would be the central issue of the
campaign.

“If it were a foreign policy election, we would feel great about our
chances,” the adviser said. “But we don’t see it as a foreign policy
election.”

*Hillary Clinton portrayed as ‘a fighter’ in new campaign video
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/06/12/hillary-clinton-portrayed-as-a-fighter-in-new-campaign-video/>
// WaPo // Jose DelReal – June 12, 2015 *

Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign on Friday released a video
touting the Democratic candidate's four decades in public service, part of
an effort to emphasize her personal biography ahead of her much-anticipated
campaign launch rally Saturday.

"Everyone deserves a chance to live up to his or her god given potential,"
Clinton says in the video. "That's the dream we share. That's the fight we
must wage."

As the Clinton campaign readies for its formal launch on Roosevelt Island
in New York City Saturday, she and her team are turning their attention to
communicating a strong rationale for her candidacy. The video paints
Clinton as a "fighter" -- the name of the video -- whose presidential
ambitions are an extension of her lifelong commitment to public service.
The theme is perhaps also an attempt to re-frame Clinton's divisive public
persona into a strength, meant to evoke loyalty among her base.

The five-minute video features pictures and clips from Clinton's days at a
student to her tenure as secretary of state, underscoring her campaign's
push to emphasize her biography in a more personal way than she did in the
2008 election. Key moments from Clinton's career are highlighted throughout
the video, including her famous 1995 speech on women's rights in Beijing,
her time in the Senate, and even her tumultuous -- and failed -- attempt to
reform health care during former president Bill Clinton's administration.

"It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food or drowned
or suffocated simply because they are born girls," Clinton is shown saying
in a video excerpt from her Beijing speech. "Human rights are women's
rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all."

*Wonk Warrior
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/hillary-clinton-2016-wonk-warrior-118910.html#.VXrOyflViko>
// Politico // Glenn Thrush – June 12, 2015 *

Hillary Clinton hasn’t always been a profile in political courage, but
she’s had her moments. One of them came in late December 2006, a month
before Clinton announced her first run for the presidency, as she huddled
with her team to discuss policy proposals to differentiate her from two
rivals flanking her on the left, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The conversation, which included former Clinton White House aides like Gene
Sperling and Neera Tanden, who still have the candidate’s ear today, bogged
down on the biggest, nastiest policy fight of her life, health care.
Several of Clinton’s top advisers, the ’90s debacle fresh in everyone’s
mind, counseled her to avoid proposing an individual mandate, the
politically unpopular requirement that the uninsured buy insurance or face
penalties.

When it came to the widely unpopular individual mandate, however, she was
adamant about plowing ahead, according to a former aide who related the
story.

“If I run for president, I’m going to run on universal health care,”
Clinton told the group—and authorized attacks on her Democratic opponent
Obama for opposing a mandate (he would eventually embrace it as president,
much to Clinton’s amusement).

“What’s the point of running if I’m not going to run on universal health
care?” she asked her team.

Eight years later, on the eve of Clinton’s formal campaign kickoff in New
York this weekend, the “what’s the point of running?” question looms over
the presumptive Democratic front-runner and her campaign. Over the past few
months, even some of Clinton’s most fervent and loyal supporters have
fretted to me, over and over, that she hasn’t yet articulated a compelling
rationale for her second race for the White House beyond the sense that
it’s finally her turn and her political view that she’s facing a relatively
weak Republican field.

Clinton is no Teddy Kennedy, who suffered the most infamous case of lockjaw
in political history when asked why he wanted to be president during the
1980 campaign; Her problem is that she’s far more interested in the how
than the why of the presidency, and views her greatest assets as a
willingness to engage all participants in a debate and a workmanlike
capacity to hammer out policy solutions.

Clinton’s big speech will be a rare opportunity to change that narrative.
It will be held at New York’s Roosevelt Island—a none-to-subtle signal that
she’s aligning herself with FDR, the boldest of Democratic presidents and
the one who established the deepest personal connection with
voters—something Clinton has struggled to do throughout her three-decade
career. And she’ll do so with a broad progressive agenda, her advisers told
me, studded with policy proposals to be unveiled in greater depth in a
series of speeches this summer, starting with an ambitious plan to cut
student debt and lower tuition and a program to coax corporations into
paying their workers more. Clinton’s staff believes this is where the
campaign will be won or lost—it will signal to voters, and to ideologically
driven Obama donors, that she’s every bit as committed to their cause as
Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders—or the Hillary Clinton of 1993 for that
matter.

This isn’t some pro forma exercise for Clinton, who started her
professional career working on child welfare programs and sits, poolside,
with briefing books when she’s on vacation. Policy is what Hillary Clinton
lives for, and her team is committed to portray her as a wonk warrior,
which has the added virtue of being true. In 2008, the candidate emphasized
her inevitability and her toughness (she was obsessed with the idea that
male voters would view a woman as a weak potential commander-in-chief), but
for 2016, she’s building her strategy around a series of domestic policy
rollouts.

How she’s doing this is equally telling: Advisers told me it was an
elaborate, even West Wing-style policy process, with concentric circles of
advisers and pollsters who are cooking up a comprehensive economic policy,
some of which will be for public consumption, some of which will be
employed if she’s elected. Over the past year, Clinton has quietly met with
a rotating—and sharp-elbowed—cast of Democratic economic experts,
pollsters, staffers and advocates to craft a just-so economic program to
attack wage stagnation and economic inequality. The very explicit goal has
been political: to invent a program for Clinton that captures the popular
imagination—and, to no small extent, redefines a candidate with a
trustworthiness problem.

“We’re talking about three- and four-hour meetings, briefing papers, weeks
of back-and-forth,” says Clinton’s communications director Jennifer
Palmieri, who says the candidate will unveil pieces of her agenda, one by
one, in a series of events starting in July and stretching to the fall.
“This is the foundational work of the election. She’s a wonk. This is stuff
she loves to do.”

What’s emerging—and her staff maintains she’s made no big decisions on the
stickiest subjects, such as whether to propose tax increases and Wall
Street regulation—are classic Clinton thread-the-needle proposals, albeit
with a slightly sharper needle, pointing unmistakably to the left.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz had a one-on-one meeting with Clinton last
December to discuss his aggressive progressive agenda, pushing for deep tax
cuts against the wealthy and pay cuts for CEOs. She already knew the
subject inside out, he told me, and probed him for details on how some of
his proposals could be implemented. Like most of the economists and
advocates she’s met with recently, Stiglitz left satisfied he’d gotten a
fair hearing, but with no concrete commitment.

“I would be surprised at this point that she would want to make it clear
where she is going on the specifics, so I wouldn’t expect to hear that from
her anytime soon,” said Stiglitz, who worked on Bill Clinton’s economic
team—then went on to become one of the country’s most influential champions
of economic equality. “My sense was that she was very responsive to the
overall agenda. … It’s important for her to get elected, but we want to
make sure that she understands that we have to deal with the failure of the
system overall, and not just make small changes.”

The goal, according to a dozen people close to the process who spoke to
POLITICO, is to find the “sweet spot”—bold solutions that aren’t too bold.
She has tasked her small in-house policy team led by former State
Department aide Jake Sullivan with a pragmatic mission: Attack the biggest
problems—higher education debt, a tax system that encourages short-term
gain over long-tern investments, out-of-control CEO pay, crumbling
infrastructure, the non-job-security “gig” economy, women’s pay equity—in a
way that satisfies a restive left wing of the party. But do it without
needlessly alienating general election voters, or potential donors.

“She wants to do just enough,” is how one New York-based Clinton donor who
speaks to both Clintons regularly put it.

***

As important—and complex—as the health care debate was seven years ago when
Clinton last ran for president, it’s dwarfed today by the sheer magnitude
of the structural problems in the American economy, a sapping of dynamism
and middle-income purchasing power that has given consumers (and voters) a
permanent sense of the blahs, even as big banks and corporations book
record profits.

Two years ago, Tanden, now the head of the Clinton-friendly Center for
American Progress—who is still in frequent contact with Clinton and CAP
founder John Podesta who is the campaign’s chairman—embarked on an
ambitious effort to create a comprehensive Democratic blueprint for tacking
these problems. The effort didn’t have Clinton’s official sanction, but she
was kept in the loop and its mission statement fits Clinton’s own private
assessment of the problem. Middle-income wage stagnation and growth that
benefits only the wealthiest “is an economic problem that threatens to
become a problem for [the] political system—and for the idea of democracy
itself,” the report found.

The report, co-authored by Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary for
Clinton’s husband who later emerged as a contentious leader of Obama’s
initial economic team in the White House and whose mere presence in
Clinton’s camp makes Warren and other liberals nervous, but he too was an
enthusiastic backer of the campaign’s pragmatic progressive approach. Many
of the positions that will form the core of Clinton’s platform are in it,
I’m told—from phased-in minimum wage hikes pegged to local market
conditions to the elimination of “carried interest” tax breaks for hedge
funds to the extension of the Earned Income Tax Credit to encompass a
greater number of working-class Americans.

But progressives, and many in Clinton’s camp, don’t merely want a carefully
wrought, rational program—they crave a crusade against inequality that will
unify the party and rebrand a high-odometer candidate. And they wonder if
she can ever really be the apostle the party faithful crave.

Clinton can match Sanders on the finer points of policy (her college
affordability plan is geared, in part, to outflank him on the left) but
she’s too much of an establishment figure—and maybe too rich—to
authentically approximate his blue tea party populist rage. “People are
just profoundly disgusted with an economy in which the rich and the
corporations are doing fundamentally well and they are struggling,” Sanders
told me, when I asked what the crowds have been telling him at recent,
well-attended campaign events.

“People don't want this system to continue, period,” added Sanders who said
he plans to unveil a comprehensive tax plan in the not-too-distant future.
“They want the right to pay their fair share of taxes. People do want the
Wall Street banks broken up… I don’t want to talk about any other
candidates but I’ve been talking about this my entire career.”

Every campaign puts out some kind of big economic plan—almost all of them
are pieced together, Frankenstein-like compendiums of previous programs and
poll-tested formulations geared at wooing a particular voter group, and
most of course have little chance of passing. Some, like Steve Forbes’
“flat tax” plan in 1996, are designed to provoke a national argument, and
only the rarest of them all—like Ronald Reagan’s 1980 tax-cut
crusade—represent the core of a campaign’s actual thinking or the
rebranding of a movement. A lot of Democrats think the party’s 2016
platform needs to fit into that last category if Clinton is to inspire her
base and reach out to disaffected working-class whites.

“I think there’s an effort to create post-Obama economic agenda,” says
Felicia Wong, CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank—and
one of the dozens of outside economic advisers Clinton and her small policy
staff have consulted in recent weeks. “We are talking eight years after the
financial crisis—we have had sluggish growth for the majority of Americans.
These are structural problems, and I have to believe … Mrs. Clinton will
recognize this.”

Clinton, in a speech last month, channeled liberal economists like Thomas
Picketty and Stiglitz—not to mention Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and
Martin O’Malley, who are waging long-shot campaigns against Clinton from
the left. “Where is it all going?” asked Clinton, referring to the
sputtering recovery from the Great Recession. “Economists have documented
how the share of income and wealth going to those at the very top, not just
the top 1 percent but the top 0.1 percent, the 0.01 percent of the
population, has risen sharply.”

Still her first big progressive test so far in this campaign ended in an
incomplete: She has flatly refused to take a side in the fight over the
controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement she touted as Obama’s
secretary of state, and the raging intraparty debate over whether to fast
track the agreement.

The dodge confirmed longheld suspicions about Clinton on the left.
Warren—who has opted for a gadfly role rather than challenging Clinton in
the primary—recently told a TV interviewer, “It's up to others to say
whether they stand there as well, or if they stand in some different
place,” a clear allusion to Clinton. In an email to supporters in late
April, O’Malley, once a Clinton ally and now her sharpest critic, tweaked
Clinton for not making a “hard choice” on the pact—a play on Clinton’s
recent memoir Hard Choices. Echoing Warren, he added that “American
workers… deserve to know where their leaders stand.”

Clinton’s aides are confident she can weather the storm, and quietly
applauded President Obama’s recent declaration that Warren “was a
politician like everybody else.”

But Warren’s ascendance is clearly a sore point with the candidate herself.
Nothing annoys Clinton quite so much as hearing someone giving the upstart
Massachusetts senator credit for a policy stance Clinton herself espoused
years earlier.

Recently, when an adviser mentioned Warren was receiving plaudits for a
mortgage relief proposal, an exasperated Clinton asked a staffer to “dig up
my 2007 [housing] plan”—and distribute it to reporters.

***

For the most part, however, Clinton has courted, not confronted, the left.
Her policy shop has already laid out a series of proposals geared toward
energizing the party’s base (and denying the progressive high ground to
Sangers and O’Malley), mostly by doubling down on many of the measures
already adopted by the Obama administration: Last week, for example, she
unveiled a plan for automatic voting registration and blasted states, like
Ohio, which have restricted ballot access. She also came out early in favor
of same-sex marriage and LGBT rights—renouncing her husband’s Defense of
Marriage Act, and vowed to expand Obama’s immigration reform executive
order if she inherits a recalcitrant GOP Congress.

She has also surrounded herself with leading progressive theorists and
researchers. Arguably, the most influential thinker Clinton’s orbit these
days is Harvard professor and political scientist Robert Putnam, whose
recent work on the lack of social mobility in underprivileged communities
has captured her imagination and influenced her approach to policy
prescriptions.

Clinton—who devoured his most recent book Our Kids: The American Dream in
Crisis, met with Putnam for several hours in May and peppered him with
questions about his research, which have centered on the structure of
families and the role of a parents’ educational attainment in determining
the economic mobility of their children. She has also rekindled a
relationship with Harvard economist Lawrence Katz, who was the chief
economist at her husband’s labor department and has also studied the link
between economic opportunity and mobility. Another economist Clinton is
close to: CAP’s Heather Boushey, who has studied the impact of economic
inequality and families.

But tougher issues lie just ahead—especially for a candidate who’s going to
run on her wonk credentials. Stiglitz, with the support of Warren and New
York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, put out his own report on how to tackle
inequality. It covered much of the same territory as the CAP report—but
featured more radical solutions. Clinton’s team took it seriously, and have
grilled Stiglitz and his team repeatedly on the proposals. One advocate
told me they have been especially intrigued by his criticism of
intellectual property rights protections in international trade agreements,
which Stiglitz believes constrain innovation and investment.

But the team is less enamored with provocative Stiglitz proposals like
breaking up big banks, as Sanders proposed, or jacking up corporate tax
rates on companies that pay their executives too much. The emphasis, people
close to the process say, is on a slightly less nasty-sounding campaign for
“corporate responsibility,” using leverage in the tax code to level the
playing field to bend Wall Street toward economic justice.

Clinton and her small team are gaming out dozens of ideas in a series of
conference calls and memos, but a few a have emerged as favorites,
including a proposal floated by Maryland Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen
to strip tax deductions from companies who don’t provide reasonable raises
for workers. Clinton’s team is also looking into various permutations of a
tax on stock trades, as a way to incentivize longer-term capital investment
over quick-turn profit taking in the market and buy-backs.

It’s a complex undertaking, and Clinton’s policy chief Jake Sullivan has
organized the effort to resemble a through-appropriate-channels paper trail
that resembles the process Clinton used as first lady and in her Senate
office.

There has been the usual jockeying for position in Clinton’s circle, a
practice campaign chairman John Podesta recently told a friend was
equivalent to the “junior high school lunchroom stuff.” But so far, it’s
been a pretty no-drama operation, especially compared with the relative
free-for-all of the 2008 campaign.

The policy process Clinton had developed is modeled on the way her husband
and his White House staff ran the National Economic Council, which in turn,
had been borrowed from the process used by the National Security Council.
It’s no accident that Sullivan, the hyper-organized aide tasked with
running the policy operation in Brooklyn, was often Clinton’s proxy at
Situation Room meetings when he was at the State Department.

Sullivan may be a fast study but he is relatively inexperienced in domestic
policy, so he’s being assisted by two trusted outsiders who serve as
standby advisers for the staff and Clinton herself—CAP’s Tanden and Gene
Sperling, who recently left the Obama administration where he served as
head of the NEC.

An occasional adviser is Larry Summers, but his role has largely been
confined to offering his expertise to staffers who requiring on-the-fly
macro economics seminars, according to people familiar with the situation.

Summers, whose bid to become Fed chairman was derailed by Warren, is
anathema to the left who sees him as a protector of the Wall Street status
quo—but Clinton has pointedly told critics that she won’t allow outside
opinions to limit the people she talks to. Nonetheless, Summers, back at
Harvard, is not considered particularly influential at the moment, even
though both Clintons respect his counsel.

“Larry is trying to elbow his way in,” is how one senior Democrat described
the situation.

If there’s a tug-of-war inside Clinton’s campaign, it’s over just how far
she can afford to go. Clinton, as she did in 2008, is often the one who
pumps the brakes; people close to her say she often asks aides to game out
the backlash against any given proposal, and sends their memos back with a
raft of questions and information requests.

But many on Clinton’s team believe she has wide latitude for action,
especially when it comes for taxing the super-rich in new and creative
ways, citing public and private poll data; indeed, chief pollster Joel
Benenson’s last presidential campaign, Obama’s victorious 2012 reelection,
was rooted in a pledge to raise high-end taxes, and he’s told his new
colleagues that the environment is even more favorable now.

Yet there are obvious political reasons for Clinton not to rush out a
detailed set of proposals that might stoke rather than settle intraparty
tensions, at least on such lightning-rod subjects as inequality-busting tax
policy or cracking down on over-the-top CEO pay.

She also wants to quantify the threat posed by the left wing of the
party—to see how much enthusiasm Sanders and O’Malley generate. As
importantly, she needs to see how the Republican field shakes out—and which
issues emerge from the GOP debates, which begin in late summer.

Yet, by the same token, many liberal Democrats, including Warren and de
Blasio—and potential big-money donors to Clinton-allied super PACs—are also
adopting a wait-and-see approach about her.

Earlier this week de Blasio praised Sanders and said he was impressed by
Clinton’s initial campaigning—but told the city press corps he won’t attend
her campaign kickoff on Roosevelt Island.

When will de Blasio, campaign manager of Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign in
New York, endorse her? When she offers a “larger vision for addressing
income inequality,” he said.

*SOCIAL MEDIA*

*Adam Smith (6/12/15, 7:08 am)*
<https://twitter.com/asmith83/status/609316443901964288?refsrc=email&s=11>*
– Jeb "plans to say that people inside DC can't fix DC"
politico.com/playbook/0615/ <http://politico.com/playbook/0615/>…, will
raise money in DC a few days later blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/>…*

*Jennifer Jacobs (6/12/15, 10:19 am)*
<https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/609364417373962241>* – JUST IN:
The Iowa Straw Poll is dead*

*By unanimous vote, the Iowa GOP board just voted to kill it.*

*Alex Seitz-Wald (6/12/15, 1:33 pm)*
<https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/609413301039169537>* - Sanders to
@mitchellreports: "It is hard for me to understand how you can run for
president of the U.S. and not take questions [from press]"*

*Annie Karni (6/12/15, 3:29 pm)*
<https://twitter.com/anniekarni/status/609449892583444480>* - 07 story on
Clinton reintroing herself through mom and Midwest roots does read like it
cld be written today:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/02/AR2007060201257_pf.html
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/02/AR2007060201257_pf.html>
…*

*CNBC (6/12/15, 5:34 pm)*
<https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/609473800296615936>* - MORE: Dow Jones
reports State Dept. unable to issue passports & visas due to tech issue;
officials haven't ruled out hack as source of issue*

*John Roberts (6/12/15, 6:52 pm)*
<https://twitter.com/johnrobertsFox/status/609493159521816576>* - Gov.
Walker told me off camera that his presidential announcement would likely
be around the 2nd week of July*

*HRC** NATIONAL COVERAGE*

*For Hillary Rodham Clinton, her mother will loom large in campaign
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-hillary-rodham-clinton-her-mother-will-loom-large-in-campaign/2015/06/12/48e1daf0-110d-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html?postshare=4301434137795538>
// WaPo // David Fahrenthold – June 12, 2015 *

She was given up by her father at age 8, sent across the country alone on a
train with her 3-year-old sister. Later, living with strict grandparents in
California, she was confined to her room for a year — leaving only for
school — for the offense of trick-or-treating.

Dorothy Rodham, the late mother of Hillary Rodham Clinton, will play a
major role in her daughter’s formal campaign kickoff speech Saturday in New
York City.

Clinton will cast her mother as symbolic of the “everyday Americans” that
she wants the power to help, aides say.

But that is under-selling her story. Rodham — who died in 2011 at age 92 —
lived an extraordinary life, which began with abandonment and loneliness,
moved through the stifling comfort of mid-century suburbia, and ended with
her daughter as the most prominent woman in American politics.

Along the way, Rodham gave her daughter things that had been missing from
her own childhood: a stable family, a college education.

And one thing that Rodham’s own childhood had been full of: toughness.

“We moved into this new house, new neighborhood, and she would come in
crying and screaming about the fact that she’d been set upon by a group of
children, mostly her age, and this one girl who was exactly her age, Suzy,
across the street,” Rodham recounted on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show in 2004.

This was an often-told story of Clinton’s childhood: Her mother told her to
go back out and confront the bully. “She came in one day, and I said, ‘You
know, this is just about enough, Hillary. You have to face things and show
them you’re not afraid.’ ”

Rodham was born Dorothy Howell in 1919 in Chicago, the daughter of a
firefighter. But her parents fought violently, according to press reports,
and then divorced. When her father could not care for them, Rodham and her
sister were sent to live with his parents in Alhambra, Calif., near Los
Angeles.

But her grandparents were dour and strict, and Rodham moved out at age 14.
In the grip of the Depression, she worked as a housekeeper while attending
high school.

After graduation, Rodham made a last attempt to reconnect with her parents.
She went back to Chicago, where her mother and her mother’s new husband had
promised to pay for her college education.

But when she got there, they reneged. No college. They asked Rodham instead
to work as their housekeeper.

In her 2003 memoir, “Living History,” Clinton wrote: “Once I asked my
mother why she went back to Chicago. ‘I’d hoped so hard that my mother
would love me that I had to take the chance and find out,’ she told me.
‘When she didn’t, I had nowhere else to go.’ ”

In 1937, Rodham met her future husband when she applied for a job as a
secretary at the Columbia Lace Co. Hugh Rodham worked as a curtain salesman
there.

They married in 1942 and moved to suburban Park Ridge. Hugh Rodham ran a
business, and his wife stayed at home and raised three children: Hillary,
the oldest (Dorothy Rodham liked the name because it sounded exotic and
unusual), and two younger brothers.

Hugh was a conservative Republican and would often talk about how Americans
ought to be self-reliant and the government shouldn’t give handouts. But
his wife often debated him at dinner. “Now, wait a minute,” she would say,
according to a 2007 profile in The Washington Post. “Sometimes things
happen to people that they have no control over.”

Their daughter listened and sometimes sought to play peacemaker — an early
exposure to the two warring camps of American politics.

“I think it was part of the balance I created in my own life, it became a
balancing of all my different influences and values,” Clinton once told The
Post. “A lot was worth admiring in the sense of rugged individualism. But
it didn’t explain enough for me about the world, or the world as I would
want it to be.”

Rodham encouraged her daughter to go to college, and Clinton eventually
chose Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Her daughter was going off into
the world much better-armed than Rodham herself had been: older, better
educated, headed to a college where she would achieve even more.

“Aside from a few trips away with girlfriends,” she says, “Hillary hadn’t
really been away from home. I loved having my kids around, and when she
went to Wellesley, well, it was really, really hard to leave her. After we
dropped her off, I just crawled in the back seat,” Rodham told The Post
later, “and cried for 800 miles.”

Hugh Rodham died in 1993, just after his daughter had moved into the White
House as first lady. Dorothy Rodham later moved to New York, after her
daughter became a senator from that state, and then to Washington.

Rodham largely avoided the public spotlight. But when her daughter ran for
president the first time, in 2008, Rodham appeared at some campaign events.
She appeared again at the announcement that her daughter had fallen short
of the presidency and was ending her run.

“I ran as a daughter who benefited from opportunities my mother never
dreamed of,” Clinton said then. It is a theme she will pick up again on
Saturday, as the next campaign formally begins.

*Could a skywriter crash Hillary Clinton’s campaign launch?
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/06/12/could-a-skywriter-crash-hillary-clintons-campaign-launch/?wprss=rss_the-fix&tid=sm_tw_pp>
// WaPo // Philip Bump – June 12, 2015 *

On Saturday, from the southern tip of New York City's Roosevelt Island,
Hillary Clinton will wholeheartedly launch her campaign to be president of
the United States.

Intentionally or not, Roosevelt Island has the distinct advantage of being
small, with limited points of entry, meaning that the risk of disruption
from Clinton's opponents should be minimal.

The park will offer beautiful vistas of the city around Clinton, as she
speaks. Imagine a raised platform down at the end of these rows of trees,
an adoring crowd waving "Hillary 2016" signs over their heads as they cheer.

And then imagine a plane flying by in the clear blue sky overhead, writing
the word "BENGHAZI."

New York City is a very good place for aerial advertising. A lot of people
in not-a-lot of space. Airplane-based advertising is not uncommon at all. A
Geico banner regularly patrols up and down the Hudson River behind a small
prop plane. A few weeks ago a plane wrote out "NERO" over a luxurious party
on a yacht. (It was supposed to write "ZERO." Oops.)

So why wouldn't some of the more clever people at the RNC or on Rand Paul's
team figure out that they should hire an airplane, too? What better way to
get some headlines?

There are different ways of doing both banners and skywriting, Ted de
Reeder of National Sky Ads explained when I spoke with him by phone. His
company does the sorts of banners that are composed of a series of tall red
letters strung out behind the plane, and the skywriting that is five planes
flying in formation. "They do it digitally, like the old dot-matrix
printers," he explained, with planes turning the writing on and off, sort
of like below.

The white parts are when the planes create smoke, working from right to
left.

Of course, the planes aren't fighter jets. They're what de Reeder referred
to as "two-sixes," with 650 horsepower. "It sounds like Hell's Angels," he
said. (All of the pilots his company uses are American Airlines captains
working on their day off.) The letters the planes write are the size of the
Empire State Building and stretch for miles.

Now, you may notice a problem above: The skywriting only works on clear
days (which Saturday in New York is not expected to be). The planes burn a
mix of biodegradable oil ("it's a lot like K-Y,' de Reeder said) and water.
"It goes in the exhaust chamber and it comes out as smoke."

Joel (who declined to offer a last name), who works for AirAds, said that
using color in the smoke requires a different sort of plane. The plane
"burns it off pretty hot, so any coloring burns off, too." The only group
equipped to do it effectively, he said, was the French Air Team, which
probably wouldn't rent itself out for the Ted Cruz campaign.

Skywriting, he said, is visible for an "eight-to-10-mile radius" -- but the
duration for which they can be read varies depending on wind. Wind
dissipates the smoke.

Joel's planes also fly printed banners, which they make in-house. Those can
only be seen for a few blocks, which would certainly be enough for viewers
(and cameras) on Roosevelt Island. But there's a catch: You can't fly a
banner there. Since planes dragging banners fly lower (given that the
banner needs to be small enough to get aloft but large enough to be able to
be read), those planes aren't allowed to fly over the city. They are only
allowed to go up the Hudson, over the George Washington Bridge ("Having
traffic problems?") and back down the river to New York Harbor. Roosevelt
Island, situated in the East River between Queens and Manhattan, isn't
accessible.

In other words, it would have required a lot of luck for skywriting to
interfere with Clinton tomorrow, based largely on the weather. (It's
supposed to bepartly cloudy, but de Reeder said that wasn't good enough.)

For what it's worth, neither of the companies I spoke with indicated that
they'd been hired to do so anyway -- though neither seemed to have many
concerns about doing so. "I do a lot of controversial stuff," de Reeder
told me. "I don't discriminate. 'Vote for Change,' and then the next one up
is, 'Impeach Obama.' Whatever."

An if you're thinking that this article might inspire someone to get a
plane up tomorrow: Nope. It takes a few weeks to bring a project together.
But there is more than enough time to contact Joel or de Reeder for all of
your "Impeach Clinton" needs.

*Bill Clinton Is Attending Hillary Clinton’s Campaign-Policy Meetings
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/06/12/bill-clinton-is-attending-hillary-clintons-campaign-policy-meetings/>
// WSJ // Erica Orden – June 12, 2015 *

Hillary Clinton‘s campaign on Friday gave some clues to how it would use
one of its biggest potential assets: former President Bill Clinton.

“We’re going to be leaning on him for fundraising. We’re going to be
leaning on him for retail campaigning,” Mrs. Clinton’s communications
director, Jennifer Palmieri, said at a panel discussion in Manhattan. “We
will lean on him all the time for strategic advice.”

Mr. Clinton has already been attending some of Mrs. Clinton’s policy
meetings, according to Ms. Palmieri, who said such meetings are regularly
scheduled for between three and four hours.

“He doesn’t come to every meeting that we have, but he does join his wife
often in our discussions, and it’s always fascinating…. because it’s always
something no one else said,” Ms. Palmieri said.

Ms. Palmieri waved off the notion that Mr. Clinton has been kept out of the
campaign limelight, saying, “I don’t think he’s in the background now. He’s
not a background kind of guy.”

Mr. Clinton has given a number of recent interviews, most of them focused
on questions surrounding donations by foreign governments to the Bill,
Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. But until now he hasn’t hit the
campaign trail with his wife.

On Saturday, however, at Mrs. Clinton’s rally on New York City’s Roosevelt
Island, Mr. Clinton will make his first public campaign appearance, along
with the couple’s daughter, Chelsea. They aren’t scheduled to have speaking
roles, however.

In the final moments of Friday’s panel, Mr. Clinton received another dose
of attention, when Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, was asked
to perform his impersonation of the former president.

“I may lose my job over this,” Mr. Mook said, before complying with the
request. “I’m so glad to be here today,” Mr. Mook said in a drawl, while
displaying Mr. Clinton’s signature thumb-over-fist hand gesture. “Great
program.”

*Bill Clinton on donor flap: 'No one has ever asked me for anything'
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bill-clinton-responds-foundation-donors-special-treatmen-118918.html#ixzz3crCSKOju>
// Politico // Nick Gass – June 12, 2015 *

Bill Clinton rejected the idea that donors to his family’s foundation
received special treatment while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state,
suggesting that any allegations that have arisen over the last few months
are purely political in nature.

“Nobody even suggested it or thought about it or talked about it until the
political season began, and somebody said, ‘Well, what about this?’,”
Clinton said during an interview taped this week in Denver during a Clinton
Global Initiative event.

No one has ever asked him for anything, Clinton said, adding that he does
not know if those companies were seeking favor from his wife’s position as
secretary of state. Political partisans and investigative journalists have
not found anything particularly odious, apart from what “Clinton Cash”
author Peter Schweizer deemed as a “smoking gun” in the pattern of behavior.

“I don’t know. You never know what people’s motives are, but in this case,
I’m pretty sure that everybody that gave to Haiti in the aftermath of the
earthquake saw what they saw on television, were horrified and wanted to
make a difference,” he said, adding that he did not “think Hillary would
know either.”

For example, Clinton said, the United States has always had to lobby for
American-made airplanes, noting that Boeing had worked with the State
Department while also donating to the foundation’s relief efforts following
the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

“She was pretty busy those years, and I don’t — I never saw her study a
list of my contributors,” he went on to say. “No one has ever asked me for
anything or any of that.”

The interview is set to air in full this Sunday on CNN’s inaugural episode
of “State of the Union with Jake Tapper.”

*Kickoff rally logistical risks
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/hillary-clinton-nyc-rally-logistics-118943.html>
// Politico // Daniel Lippman – June 12, 2015 *

Hillary Clinton’s long-awaited and once delayed kickoff rally on Saturday
is being billed as poignant and celebratory re-introduction of the dynastic
political figure, but it holds no shortage of potential logistical
headaches and things that could just go plain wrong.

The setting is a memorial park at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island,
Four Freedoms Park, which channels the values Franklin D. Roosevelt
outlined in his 1941 State of the Union address — freedom of speech,
religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

The park is full of symbolism, but it’s not all that convenient to get to.

“We’ve got one skinny street running down the length of the island … [and]
we have no idea how the Clinton campaign is coming here, either a caravan
of Escalades or helicopter or what,” said Matthew Katz, the former
president of the Roosevelt Island Residents Association.

Since parking on the island is very limited, most people are expected to
get to the island either on NYC’s Subway’s F Train or the tram from
Manhattan’s 59th Street, which will be running tomorrow on weekday
schedules.

“How people will get on and off the island is a question that I’m not
prepared to answer,” said Katz. “I don’t know how they’ll do that,
especially given that the northern part of the island where we live will be
rather congested with tons of people out on the street celebrating us.”

Then there’s the weather.

Clinton’s campaign kickoff rally has doors open at 9:30 am with Clinton
expected to speak late morning. According to an email to attendees, “there
will be airport style security” and prohibited items include umbrellas.

There’s a forecast of scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon with a 40
percent chance of rain, according to Weather.com. As long as the event
proceeds on time, never a sure bet in political rallies, Clinton’s rally
could dodge the storms, although the forecast says it’ll be cloudy in the
morning, not ideal for all the images coming out of the event.

And Clinton has already caught some bad headlines for bumping a planned
event for kids in the park called “Imagination Playground” to play with
blue “oversized, architectural blocks.”

While that event was postponed, residents are moving forward with the other
activities associated with the 18th annual Roosevelt Island Day.

Even though he’s a Hillary supporter and said he looked forward to knocking
on doors for her in Pennsylvania, Katz said the campaign was “tone deaf” to
have their rally on the same day as Roosevelt Island Day.

“[It’s] the one day that we celebrate ourselves, [and] they are coming here
and as far as we know, are going to be at the southern tip of the island
and not mix with us,” he said. “We will be out in the street planting
flowers, clearing up the debris from the winter, giving kids pony rides,
hotdogs” and holding a blood drive.

Still, residents say they’re excited and honored that Clinton chose their
island to hold her inaugural rally in their often-forgotten part of New
York and hope it gets their island, situated in the East River between
Manhattan and Queens, a burst of positive publicity.

Katz’s wife, Sherie Helstein, currently the vice president of the
association, said “it’s a good thing for us. It’s putting us in the news.
Roosevelt Island is being recognized as a place.”

“A lot of people still don’t know where we are or that we exist,” she said,
adding that residents often feel they don’t have much say in governing
themselves given that the 147-acre island is formally governed by a public
benefit corporation run by the state.

Current Residents Association president Jeffrey Escobar said in a statement
that “the coming of the Campaign to the South of the Island will be a great
opportunity to introduce both Secretary Clinton and those visiting the
heart of the Island to our great community.”

*Campaign manager Robby Mook contrasts Hillary Clinton, Obama on
immigration
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/campaign-manager-robby-mook-contrasts-hillary-clinton-obama-on-immigration-118958.html>
// Politico // Annie Karni – June 12, 2015 *

Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook for the first time on Friday
positioned her stance on immigration directly in relation to President
Barack Obama, saying she “is advocating for going even further than
President Obama on immigration, to stop deporting the parents of these
DREAMers who are contributing to our economy, and are valuable members of
our society.”

Clinton has advocated expanding Obama’s executive actions to allow millions
or more undocumented immigrants to obtain legal protection and work
permits. But campaign officials in the past have used the issue to draw a
distinction with the Republican field, not the president.

“Specifically in the policy that she was proposing, she wanted to make it
easier for families to appeal some of these deportation decisions, parents
of DREAMers who might be facing deportation,” Mook explained of the policy
differences between Obama and the former Secretary of State.

In a panel discussion hosted by POLITICO Playbook Friday night, Mook was
joined by communications director Jennifer Palmieri at New York University
in Manhattan, in advance of Clinton’s much-anticipated kickoff rally
Saturday morning on Roosevelt Island. The speech is expected to be light on
policy details, but beginning this summer, Palmieri said, Clinton will
begin rolling out one policy proposal each week.

The roll of former President Bill Clinton, they said, will be visible, even
though he does not have a speaking roll at the kickoff event and so far has
not appeared with Clinton on the trail. “We’re going to be leaning on him
for fundraising,” Palmieri said, calling him a huge asset to the campaign.
“We’re going to be leaning on him for retail campaigning.”

The top campaign officials were diplomatic when asked about New York City
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who served as Clinton’s campaign manager in her 2000
Senate race but who so far has refused to endorse her and has declined to
attend her kickoff.

While de Blasio’s connection to Clinton is well known, Mook revealed he
also has a personal bond with the mayor. “Bill de Blasio is a very good
friend,” Mook said. “I remember bringing up a whole caravan of cars to help
volunteer on his Public Advocate race.”

But he seemed to gently push back against de Blasio’s attempts to build for
himself a national profile as a progressive leader by refusing to back
Clinton. “He has got a lot going on running New York City,” Mook said.
“He’s busy with that. He’s been a strong advocate on a lot of issues,
that’s great. We all have the same goal here and that is to get this deck
unstacked against the middle class.”

Mook also downplayed the influence of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
on moving Clinton to the left. “There have been a lot of folks out there
weighing in,” he said. “She’s one of many voices.”

Palmieri also said the campaign was open to an appearance by Clinton on
“Saturday Night Live,” where she is mocked as maniacally power-hungry and
unrelatable by comedian Kate McKinnon. Clinton resisted such a move in 2008.

“The idea has merit,” Palmieri said, admitting the entire team found the
Clinton impersonation hilarious. “SNL has been a great platform for her,
it’s been a great platform for President Obama.”

*Progressives lash out at Clinton on trade
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/hillary-clinton-trade-criticized-progressives-118945.html?hp=r2_4>
// Politico // Jonathan Topaz and Ben Schreckinger – June 12, 2015 *

Liberals have a message for Hillary Clinton in the wake of Friday’s House
vote on trade: Refusing to take a stand is worse than standing against us.

Anti-trade Democrats, including influential activists in early primary
states, say that Clinton’s vague comments on the campaign trail about
fast-track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a measure put in
grave danger on Friday by a revolt among House Democrats — signal her
silent support for the ambitious free trade expansion. What’s worse, they
say, is that her strategic silence renews suspicions about her authenticity.

“If you really want to be a leader, you really ought to say where you are
on an issue,” said Ken Sagar, president of the Iowa AFL -CIO.

“It was a missed opportunity,” said New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, the
progressive leader who has declined to endorse Clinton several times
despite running her 2000 Senate campaign.

Even as organized labor and progressives prevailed on Friday with House
Democrats holding firm against pressure from the White House to approve a
measure needed to seal the larger trade deal, condemnation of Clinton was
still swift and sharp.

“No one’s surprised. No one. No one. No one,” said New Hampshire liberal
activist and radio host Arnie Arnesen. “The fact that she took no position
is exactly what we expected … If you’re running only to be safe, then how
can you lead? How can you lead? I don’t see leadership. I see fear.”

No wonder, said Arneson, that “progressives don’t trust her.”

Clinton has been in a tight position on the trade deal, a centerpiece of
the administration’s pivot to Asia, which began during Clinton’s tenure as
secretary of state. She risks being portrayed as a flip-flopper and
alienating business interests if she comes out strongly against the
negotiations for the 12-nation trade pact, while voicing support would
alienate the progressive base she’s been eagerly courting.

“In some ways, for her, this was a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t,”
said Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic strategist with ties to organized labor,
adding that Clinton has “a lot to prove” to unions on fighting for the
middle class.

Labor leaders in Iowa said they reached out to the Clinton campaign as late
as Tuesday to urge the candidate to oppose the trade promotion authority
for the TPP, which unions maintain will harm American workers. Though
Clinton has said in the past that “the TPP needs to include strong
protections for workers, the environment, intellectual property, and
innovation,” she has not weighed in on fast-track authority. The Clinton
campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I think by her sitting it out, it says she’s supported the president on
this … I’m taking her lack of an answer as an answer,” said Steve Abbott,
president of the Communications Workers of America Iowa State Council, who
spoke to Clinton campaign officials this week.

Several progressives said Clinton’s silence was more alarming than vocal
support of TPA and TPP would have been. “It’s almost worse to not take a
stand either way,” said Christopher Schwartz, head of the Iowa chapter of
the Americans for Democratic Action. “Even though we’re completely opposed
to trade promotion authority and TPP, I’d much prefer to know where a
candidate stands.”

It’s another indication that Democratic primary voters have concerns about
whether Clinton is being straight with voters. A quarter of Democrats in a
recent CNN poll said they wouldn’t describe Clinton as honest or
trustworthy.

The contrast is particularly glaring in her contest against Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders, who vocally opposed the North American Free Trade agreement
signed by Clinton’s husband and has been very specific on policy on the
stump.

Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, another rival for the
Democratic nomination who also opposes fast-track authority, have both
taken shots at Hillary for her mushy stance.

“If she’s against this, we need her to speak out right now,” Sanders told
reporters in Washington on Thursday. In a subsequent interview, Sanders
agreed with the suggestion that her silence amounts to a “cop-out.”

US President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi walk
through a hallway after meeting with House Democrats at the US Capitol on
June 12, 2015 in Washington, DC. President Barack Obama Friday went to
Congress Friday for a frantic round of lobbying ahead of a crucial vote on
his sweeping trans-Pacific trade agenda. The House of Representatives is
expected to vote mid-day Friday on final passage of so-called Trade
Promotion Authority, and while Republican leaders are confident they have
the momentum to get it across the finish line, the vote remains a toss-up.

Clinton remains the overwhelming favorite to win her party’s nomination,
and miffed progressives say she still has time to weigh in.

Larry Cohen, who served as president of the Communications Workers of
America until this week and continues to spearhead anti-TPP efforts, called
Clinton’s approach to the deal a “major disappointment,” but said, “It’s
not too late. We expect and hope that Secretary Clinton will speak out.”

Ilya Sheyman, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, called it
“disappointing” that Clinton hadn’t yet joined other Democratic
presidential hopefuls on the issue, but said “she still has time to do so”
with House Republicans looking at more votes next week.

Economist Robert Reich, who served as Bill Clinton’s labor secretary, said
he too was disappointed with Clinton’s silence, but that ample opportunity
remains to embrace a progressive economic agenda — possibly even during her
much-hyped kickoff rally on Saturday.

“She is playing it very cautiously,” said Reich. “The issues she’s taken a
position on — immigration, voting rights and criminal justice — are all
commendable but they’re not especially risky. They appeal to important
constituents whose turnout on Election Day is critical. On the other hand,
she hasn’t yet taken on the structure of the economy. She may Saturday. I’m
hoping she does.”

*How Would Hillary Clinton 'Reshuffle' Economic Inequality?
<http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/12/413964447/how-would-hillary-clinton-reshuffle-economic-inequality>
// NPR // Mara Liasson – June 12, 2015 *

Hillary Clinton's campaign for president is about to enter a new phase. At
her first big rally this Saturday in New York City, she will make an
unusually personal speech about how her upbringing forged her commitment to
helping others.

Soon after, Clinton will begin laying out her positions on a broad range of
economic policy questions. In the past few months, we've learned her
positions on immigration, campaign finance reform, voting rights, and gay
marriage. But we don't know yet what she wants to do about the number one
economic issue of the 2016 campaign — stagnating middle class incomes.

Clinton does talk about the economy a lot on the campaign trail, but so far
only in broad strokes. She says she wants everyone to have the same chances
she had — and that, as she said visiting a brewery in May, "here in
Washington we know that unfortunately the deck is still being stacked for
those at the top."

She says that her job is to take that deck and "reshuffle the cards" but
what does that mean?

"Paramount is how we're going to have an economy that grows for everyone,
that's inclusive, in which middle class families and people struggling to
get into the middle class can get ahead as the economy grows," said Neera
Tanden, an informal advisor to Clinton and president of the left-leaning
Center for American Progress.

So would she address economic inequality the way Elizabeth Warren and
Bernie Sanders propose by breaking up the big banks,or increasing Social
Security Benefits?

Right now, said former Clinton White House aide Bill Galston, it's really
not clear.

"Clinton has very deliberately appropriated progressive populist phrases
from the Warren wing of the Democratic party. That leaves entirely
unanswered the question of what the full economic narrative would be when
she spells it out," he said.

She'll start spelling it all out Saturday in her big kick off speech.
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said that's when Clinton will talk
about the conditions of the country and "why people haven't seen their
wages rise even as we've seen private sector job growth come back in this
country."

He says she'll also talk about "what she wants to do to make sure that
people get ahead and stay ahead. She'll lay out a template for that, and
then through the course of the Summer and into the Fall she'll get specific
about what policies she thinks she' can achieve to help people succeed in
life," he said.

In those Summer and Fall speeches, Clinton will lay out her plans for
college affordability, early childhood education, Wall Street reform and
paid family leave. At some point she will say exactly how high she wants
the minimum wage to be, and how she'd finance big investments in
infrastructure. And, her aides say, she'll also eventually explain how she
plans to solve one part of the income inequality puzzle — that even when
profits and productivity go up, wages do not follow.

"The hard work, the productivity that you contribute to the the
profitability and the success of the businesses that you work for should be
reflected in those paychecks so that people feel that the work ethic is
really paying off for them," she said last month.

Exactly how Clinton proposes to get productivity and wage growth back in
sync will depend on why she thinks the middle class is struggling. Theres a
big debate about this going on inside the Democratic Party. The Elizabeth
Warren wing thinks the middle class is suffering because the top 1 percent
grabbed more than their share. On the other side are Democrats who believes
the deck is not just stacked, its been transformed — by the big forces of
global competition and technology.

Clinton doesn't believe those dueling narratives are mutually exclusive,
according to Podesta, and he said she will make that very clear.

"By the time people are going to the polls and voting, people will know
exactly what she wants to do. And I think offer a vision that will be
appealing to a broad section of Americans," he said.

Many of her supporters say the sooner she lays out that vision the better.
Her unfavorable ratings have been growing, and majorities of voters tell
pollsters that she is not honest and trustworthy. Neera Tanden thinks the
best way to address those political problems is with a robust policy
agenda. And it has the added benefit of playing to Clinton's authentic
political strengths. As Tanden points out, Clinton is first and foremost a
workhorse and a policy wonk.

"That's always been an asset for her," she said. "In a campaign in which
you are continually discussing the way you want to solve people's problems
is another way to communicate how you're on their side and care about their
concerns."

So the question the Clinton campaign would like to ask is not whether she
is honest and trustworthy but whether voters can trust her to fight for
them and their families.

*Hillary's star-studded bash replaced Rangel's party at the Plaza Hotel
<http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20150612/BLOGS04/150619966/hillarys-star-studded-bash-replaced-rangels-party-at-the-plaza-hotel>
// Crains New York // Eric Engquist – June 12, 2015 *

It would be understandable if Rep. Charles Rangel feels a bit peeved that
Hillary Clinton is throwing a star-studded fundraiser for her presidential
campaign June 27 at the Plaza Hotel.

It was supposed to be Mr. Rangel’s party.

According to an insider, the longtime Harlem congressman had planned to
throw his annual birthday fundraiser at the same venue, on the same night,
with the same stars—Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett, and, yes, Hillary Clinton.

But somehow it became a Hillary for America event. Tickets start at $2,700.

“They’re doing the Charlie Rangel birthday gala,” said the source, “without
Charlie Rangel.”

Two spokesmen for Ms. Clinton’s campaign did not respond to an inquiry
yesterday about the alleged turn of events.

For Mr. Rangel, his displacement is not just a personal slight but a
significant financial setback. The veteran Democrat is desperately trying
to retire the campaign debt from his 2014 re-election bid, which now stands
at about $140,000.

At one time, Mr. Rangel’s birthday event alone would have raised that
amount several times over. When he chaired the House Ways and Means
Committee, his gala took in $500,000 or $600,000. In other years, $200,000
or more would pour in.

But since then, Mr. Rangel, who was serenaded by colleagues on his 85th
birthday yesterday in Washington, has been tarred by an ethics scandal,
lost his committee chairmanship, been relegated to minority status in the
House and announced that he will not seek re-election in 2016. Other than
nostalgia, there is little reason for donors who transact in political
currency to write Mr. Rangel a check anymore.

Mr. Rangel’s fundraising prowess did recover as the toxicity he took on
from his ethics problems abated. But anyone who has contributed the maximum
allowed by law to his 2014 campaign can no longer give. Because donations
are being used to pay expenses from that race, the contribution limits
still apply.

It could not be determined yesterday whether Ms. Clinton is distancing
herself from Mr. Rangel to avoid any risk to her White House bid. The
congressman became a lightning rod for criticism by the Republican
establishment when details of his transgressions emerged from 2007 through
2009, notably his failure to report $75,000 in rental income from his
Dominican Republic beach condo on his tax returns.

It was also revealed that Mr. Rangel’s campaign was housed in a
rent-stabilized apartment, separate from the two combined apartments in
which he resides and a fourth rent-stabilized unit. Rent-regulated housing
may only be used as a primary residence.

Mr. Rangel was even derided for storing an old Mercedes in a congressional
garage that was supposed to be used only for active vehicles.

“There’s genuine affection for Charlie, especially in the New York
delegation,” the insider said. “I think they know that the mistakes he
made, the mistakes his staff made, were not raw corruption and greed. There
were no bags of cash. They were mistakes and errors, and he admitted to all
of them.”

Even if Ms. Clinton decides to steer clear of Mr. Rangel, according to the
source, his camp is hoping Ms. Clinton will make up for the fundraiser
switch by dispatching her husband, Bill Clinton, to the rescheduled Rangel
birthday bash, now slated for August. The former president is still as much
of a draw as his wife, who is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination
in 2016.

In the meantime, City Councilwoman Inez Dickens is hosting a $1,000-a-head
fundraiser for Mr. Rangel in her Manhattan home Thursday. Ms. Dickens is an
influential council member and an expected candidate for the Assembly seat
that Keith Wright would vacate if he wins the Democratic primary for Mr.
Rangel’s House seat next year.

*Answering the 'Why' : Previewing Hillary Clinton's Launch Speech
<http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/answering-why-previewing-hillary-clintons-launch-speech-n374306>
// NBC // Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann – June 12, 2015 *

As Hillary Clinton is set to appear at her first big campaign-style event
on Saturday, it's worth remembering that she never gave a
why-I'm-running-for-president speech at the beginning of her campaign in
2007. Her launch was a video of her speaking to the camera that she wanted
a conversation with American voters. "Let's talk, let's chat, let's start a
dialogue about your ideas and mine." But there was nothing about WHY she
was the best person to lead the country over the next four to eight years,
or even WHY she wanted the job. By contrast, Obama answered the WHY in his
Feb. 10, 2007 kickoff, using Abraham Lincoln's Springfield, IL as the
backdrop:

By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail.
But the life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that
a different future is possible. He tells us that there is power in words.
He tells us that there is power in conviction… That's why I'm in this race.
Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation."
Obama's WHY: He was the only presidential candidate who could truly
transform the country.

Here was even Mitt Romney's WHY at his presidential announcement in June
2011: "All of these experiences -- starting and running businesses for 25
years, turning around the Olympics, governing a state -- have helped shape
who I am and how I lead... Turning around a crisis takes experienced
leadership and bold action." Translation: I'm the businessman and
turnaround artist this country's economy needs!

A sneak peak at part of the "why" Hillary will lay out on Saturday

The Clinton campaign insists we'll hear the WHY from her on Saturday. And
we're already getting some clues about what it will be. First is the
location -- Roosevelt Island in New York City -- as a way to invoke both
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. "Clinton chose a park honoring FDR in the
state where she served as senator for eight years, a choice campaign
officials say is meant to invoke Roosevelt's legacy," MSNBC's Alex
Seitz-Wald reports. "'She could have chosen anywhere to make her
announcement,' said Felicia Wong, the President of the Roosevelt Institute,
a progressive think tank dedicated to carrying on the legacy of Franklin
and Eleanor Roosevelt. 'By choosing this venue, she and her team have put
themselves squarely in the legacy and the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt, who
re-wrote the rules of the 20th century.'" Another clue is Hillary's
expected focus on her mother. "As a child, Dorothy Rodham was abandoned by
her parents and sent to live with strict relatives. Not able to bare it
anymore, she ran away at 14 and worked as a housekeeper for a kind-hearted
woman who took her in and showed her what parenting should look like. That
trauma and resilience, Clinton has said, taught her and how to be tough and
made her want to help people in difficult circumstances," Seitz-Wald adds.
So, to put Saturday another way, it's fair to call it the first-EVER
Hillary Clinton presidential announcement address

Changes of conviction? Or changes of convenience?

In her speech tomorrow, Hillary is also expected to embrace being a
progressive -- more than she ever did at this point in 2007. Yet don't
forget that she has made quite a few position changes to get her:
supporting gay marriage, backing immigration-reform changes beyond
President Obama's executive actions, favoring drivers' licenses for
undocumented immigrants, supporting normalization with Cuba. It will be
interesting to see if these changes tomorrow come across as changes of
conviction or changes of convenience/ One other thing to keep in mind about
tomorrow: Delivering big speeches at rallies has never been one of
Hillary's strengths.

*Hillary Clinton is not on Snapchat, but we just found some compelling
evidence that it’s coming soon
<http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clintons-snapchat-names-have-all-been-reserved-2015-6#ixzz3ctqnfmdI>
// Business Insider // Will Haskell – June 12, 2015 *

It looks like Hillary Clinton is going to start campaigning on Snapchat any
day now.

The presidential hopeful is already popular on Instagram after only two
days on the service. So I tried to see if I could find Clinton on Snapchat
— and it turns out, every name she could possibly use has already been
reserved.

This means that either someone's planning a fake account, or the Clinton
campaign is stockpiling the names themselves.

A Snapchat spokesperson wouldn't speak on the record about Clinton's
possible involvement with Snapchat, and Clinton's press team has not
responded to a request for comment.

If Clinton is planning a Snapchat effort, she won't be the first.
Presidential contenders Martin O'Malley, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio already
use Snapchat to share information about their campaigns.

I did some digging on Snapchat in an effort to figure out how and when
Secretary Clinton will engage with the photo sharing platform.

I found that the following usernames are currently taken:

The "pending" message usually shows up when a user hasn't added you back
yet because they've set their account to private. It also appeared when we
tried to send a snapchat to Senator Rubio's account, which is already in
action:

Excitement about Clinton's Snapchat plans exploded on Twitter shortly after
she posted her first Instagram.

The photo and video sharing app is used by 50 million people, the median
age of whom is 18, according to Forbes. Snapchat offers a valuable platform
for candidates to engage young voters.

“There is no harder riddle to solve in politics than reaching young
Americans who are very interested in the future of their country but don’t
engage with traditional news,” Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior advisor to
President Obama, told the New York Times. “Snapchat may have just made it a
whole lot easier to solve this riddle.”

Snapchat has been staffing up in preparation for the 2016 election. In May,
Dylan Byers at Politico reported that Snapchat was seeking "content
analysts" to assist with 2016 election coverage. "We're looking for
political junkies and news aficionados to join our team in NYC to help
review Snaps that are submitted to Our Story events, and cover the 2016
presidential race and other news events for Snapchat," a job posting read.

Many have predicted that Snapchat will shape the 2016 election in the same
way that Facebook and Twitter shaped the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

The former Secretary of State should have no difficulty attracting
attention when she does begin to use Snapchat. She cannonballed into the
world of Instagram this week and already made a big splash.

In just two days, she's acquired 121,000 followers. That number blows Marco
Rubio (with 13,000) Rand Paul (with 27,200) and Jeb Bush (with 11,900) out
of the water.

Candidates Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders and Lincoln Chafee have a
combined number of 11,358 followers. Clinton outpaces each of these
Democratic opponents by over 100,000 followers.

Clinton's posts are also popular. This video, which rapidly summarizes
Secretary Clinton's career in public service, received 10,400 likes.

This #tbt that she posted yesterday received over 13,000 likes.

That's more than twice the combined number of likes that Bush, Rubio and
Paul received on their last Instagram.

Clinton, who's spent much of the last two months traveling New Hampshire
and Iowa to speak about her accomplishments as a champion and leader of the
American people, follows no one.

*Bill Clinton opens up about his relationship with Hillary
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/12/politics/bill-clinton-hillary-2016-relationship/>
// CNN // Dan Merica – June 12, 2015 *

Bill and Hillary Clinton rarely talk about their relationship with one
another. But in an interview set to air Sunday on CNN's "State of the
Union," the former president opened up about the woman he said he trusts
with his life.

"Whenever I had trouble, she was a rock in our family," Clinton said during
an emotional interview with CNN's Jake Tapper in Denver.

"I trust her with my life, and have on more than one occasion," he said,
describing his wife as someone who helped him through some of the most
trying times of his life.

Bill Clinton described how his wife helped him through years "plagued with
self-doubt" in his late 20s and offered him someone to not only lean on,
but to help guide him through perilous moments in his career.

"I was the youngest former governor in American history in 1980 on election
night. I got killed in the Reagan landslide," Clinton remembered. "People I
had appointed to office would walk across the street, they were so afraid
of the new regime in Arkansas, and would not shake hands with me. My career
prospects were not particularly bright."

"And she never blinked. She just said, 'Hey. It'll turn around. I believe
in you. You've got this,'" he said.

Close friends and aides of the Clintons regularly tell reporters about how
close the couple, is despite operating on largely different schedules.

"I talk to him on the phone a lot," Hillary Clinton said in May when a
voter asked where her husband was.

Bill and Hillary Clinton were married in 1975 after meeting at Yale
University. Their relationship has been publicly tested a number of times,
including during Bill Clinton's public impeachment trial and his affair
with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

"The most difficult decisions I have made in my life were to stay married
to Bill and to run for the Senate from New York,'' Clinton wrote about the
Lewinsky affair in "Living History," her first memoir.

Though the two rarely speak about their relationship, they have opened up
in the past.

During Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential run, Bill Clinton told voters in
Ames, Iowa, that early in their relationship he told Hillary Clinton to
dump him so she could focus on her own political career.

He said he thought she was "the most gifted person I'd ever met" and that
it "would be wrong for me to rob her of the chance to be what I thought she
should be."

Bill Clinton said she responded with a laugh and the now false response:
"I'm not going to run for anything, I'm too hardheaded."

The former president said in 2014 that their relationship was, in a way, a
52-year pact.

"We were married a very long time when she was always, in effect, deferring
to my political career," he said. "I told her when she got elected to the
Senate from New York that she'd given me 26 years, and so I intended to
give her 26 years. Whatever she wanted to do was fine with me. If she
wanted to know my opinion, I would tell her, but she had carte blanche to
make whatever decisions she wanted, and tell me what I was supposed to do
about it."

So far, Bill Clinton hasn't played any role in his wife's presidential
campaign. Although the former commander-in-chief will be with Hillary
Clinton when she holds the first rally of her campaign on Saturday, he has
yet to travel or raise money for her, something the regularly did in 2008.

Instead, Bill Clinton has been focused on his $2 billion philanthropic
enterprise: The Clinton Foundation. His interview with CNN came during the
annual meeting of Clinton Global Initiative America in Denver, where
foundation supporters made nearly 80 pledges to address a wide array of
domestic issues.

Bill Clinton reflected on their 40 years of marriage in his interview with
Tapper.

"We built a life together based on the things we cared about, the things
that we loved," he said. "We were blessed with a daughter who turned out
pretty well I would say. We have been very blessed."

The entire Bill Clinton interview will air on Sunday at 9 a.m. on CNN's
"State of the Union" with Jake Tapper.

*One Tough Mother
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/hillary_clinton_s_first_big_campaign_speech_a_tough_mother_is_the_democratic.html>
// Slate // John Dickerson – June 12, 2015 *

Tough mother. That’s both the theme of Hillary Clinton’s big speech on
Saturday and the emerging theme of her campaign. According to a preview of
her remarks, Clinton will talk about her mother’s struggles and how they
guide her and her campaign, which the candidate has fashioned around four
tough fights. Since announcing her campaign in April, at every stop Clinton
has said she will advocate for families, remove money from politics,
increase wages for the middle class, and protect America. How is she going
to do these things? She’s going to fight.

The speech, like all campaign speeches, is an attempt to define the terms
of the election in a way that highlights the candidate’s attributes. (My
presidential campaign, for example, would be founded on the obvious truth
that the American dream can only be restored through asides and rejoinders
made by blond, middle-aged fathers.) If Clinton is a scrappy fighter, why
not define the election that way? It’s not a stretch. This is what voters
talk about when they describe what they want in a candidate. Does the
candidate get my life and will she go to bat for me? Does she have my back?
Political scientists will tell you that if voters forge that kind of
connection with a candidate, they will then project all kinds of other
favorable qualities on that person.

Clinton’s strategy is one her husband often employed. No matter what
personal or political troubles Bill Clinton found himself in, he always
presented himself as a tireless fighter, someone who’d go into pitched
battle for voters. The blunt political calculation is that even if voters
don’t find Hillary Clinton trustworthy—and only 42 percent do in a recent
CNN poll—they will support the person who they think will fight for their
interests. As Ron Brownstein has argued, Hillary Clinton doesn’t need
Americans to trust her.

Fight, fight, fight. Clinton rarely misses an opportunity to raise her
gloves, even when she is making a joke about something else. “I’m aware I
may not be the youngest candidate in this race,” Clinton told Democrats in
South Carolina in May. “But I have one big advantage: I’ve been coloring my
hair for years. You’re not going to see me turn white in the White House.
And you’re also not going to see me shrink from a fight.” Friday the
campaign released a Web video titled “Fighter.” (If by now you haven’t
gotten the message, the candidate may have to come over and beat you up.)

There are other reasons the tough-mother pitch makes sense for Clinton. It
establishes her genuine roots, which shows voters she is not distant from
their concerns despite her newfound wealth. Bill Clinton did a version of
this at the 1992 Democratic convention when the film The Man from Hope (a
story also centered around a mother) helped upend the idea some voters had
that he was a child of privilege. The message also allows Clinton to talk
about her start in politics, which was founded around the kinds of fights
she says she will wage now. She is not a newcomer to the fight for programs
that help children and families. That display of continuity will help a
candidate whose positions on aspects of immigration reform and same-sex
marriage have changed since the last time she ran.

Clinton’s framing speech comes after a week of conversation—kicked off by a
New York Times analysis—about whether Clinton is going to run to the left
at the expense of voters in the middle or run a more centrist campaign. The
Clinton team argues it’s a false choice. She can appeal to Democrats by
talking about immigration reform, campaign finance reform, and same-sex
marriage while appealing to the majority of independent and swing voters
who hold those views, too. “It is a uniquely Acela corridor analysis to
assume issues like paid medical leave or addressing corporate excess are
‘base’ issues,” says David Axelrod, who is not associated with the Clinton
campaign. “The economic pressures people feel are real and broad.”

On an issue like immigration, for example, a recent Pew poll showed that 72
percent of the public favors some legal status for undocumented workers, a
position that is closer to Clinton’s than the one held by the majority of
GOP candidates.

The Clinton team also argues that swing states like Ohio, Florida, and Iowa
can’t be won simply by turning out the Democratic base. Clinton is pushing
for criminal justice reform, and so are several Republican candidates. She
talks about the economic tilt toward Wall Street, and so does Rick Perry.
Americans supported more government action to address the country’s growing
income gap by 57 percent to 39 percent in a recent CBS/New York Times poll.
When she talks about portability of health care across state lines, she is
consciously echoing a Republican position. If she were making a big pitch
for the party’s liberal wing, she would be advocating for a single-payer
health care system as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sander is.

If anyone would like a preview of Clinton’s mother-based speech, watch this
recording of her appearance before thousands of camp counselors in March.
At roughly the 52-minute mark, she gives a long answer about her mother’s
qualities. One story she tells is of her mother’s advice after Clinton came
home crying after being bullied: “There’s no room for cowards in this
house.” That’s one tough mother.

*What It Means for Hillary Clinton's Campaign to Get Real Tomorrow
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/means-hillary-clintons-campaign-real-tomorrow/story?id=31720885>
// ABC News // Liz Kreutz – June 12, 2015 *

Saturday marks an unofficial, official turning point in Hillary Clinton's
campaign.

The "ramp up phase" -- a term used by Clinton's campaign to describe the
first two months of Clinton's candidacy -- will come to an end and her
"official" campaign will kick-off.

This transition will be marked by Clinton's first big campaign rally at
Roosevelt Island in New York City on Saturday, where Clinton will deliver a
speech laying out her vision for her campaign, followed by a 5-day swing
through all four early voting states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina
and Nevada.

So, what’s really the difference between Part 1 and Part 2?

Here’s how the new era of Clinton’s campaign might differ, if really much
at all, from the first one.

Growing Bigger

Part 1: In the ramp-up phase, Clinton has kept it small. Most of her
campaign events have been low-key, intimate round-tables at local
businesses, such as bike shops, craft breweries and coffee houses.

Part 2: Beginning Saturday, things are about to get bigger. In this next
phase, Clinton will start hosting more large rallies and town halls. But,
aides said, round-tables will still be part of the mix, too.

Getting Personal

Part 1: During campaign events so far, Clinton has spoken generally about
policy and made mentions of her mother, father and granddaughter, Charlotte.

Part 2: Clinton’s now about to get even more personal. Clinton's campaign
released a video today about Clinton's life ahead of Saturday's rally. And
on Saturday, Clinton is set to focus her remarks around the story of her
late-mother, Dorothy Rodham, whose early life was full of trauma and
abandonment. Clinton is expected to use her mother’s story, and the lessons
of resilience she learned from her, as a running motif out on the trail.

Expanding Access

Part 1: As has been widely documented, Clinton has been criticized for
keeping the media at arm’s length during her ramp-up period.

Part 2: In this next era, Clinton is expected to have a much more open
relationship with the press, or so we're told. Clinton's aides say she’ll
host more press gaggles, answer more questions, and even begin making big
television appearances, too.

Getting Wonkier

Part 1: Clinton has delivered a few policy-oriented speeches over the past
two months, but overall her campaign has been relatively light on proposing
policies so far.

Part 2: We're now entering the wonky phase. Aides said Clinton is ready to
roll out a number of specific policy proposals in a series of speeches over
the coming months.

Changing Travel

Part 1: Clinton’s early part of the campaign has brought us scenes of an
“everyday” Clinton road-tripping to Iowa in her Scooby van and flying
around the country on commercial flights.

Part 2: Clinton will likely continue to fly on commercial planes as much as
possible, but as her travel schedule gets busier, it could prove to be a
logistical challenge. Don’t be surprised if Clinton also begins opting for
private plane travel instead.

Increasing Family

Part 1: Clinton has traveled solo to all of her campaign events so far.
Although she talks about her family on the trail –- namely her mother,
father and new granddaughter –- Bill and Chelsea Clinton have been notably
absent from the road.

Part 2: Bill and Chelsea Clinton will both make their first official
campaign appearance at Hillary Clinton’s rally on Saturday. But while their
role on the trail will continue to pick-up throughout the next part of her
campaign, neither are expected to do much campaigning any time soon.

Raising Money

Part 1: In this initial part of the campaign, Clinton has spent almost an
equal amount of time campaigning as she has spent raising money for her
campaign.

Part 2: Don’t expect much difference here. So long as Clinton’s campaign
needs money, Clinton will keep up –- and probably ramp up -– her
fundraising efforts.

*Ragin Cajun: 'Put your pantsuit on and let's go!'
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-gangs-back-carville-leads-hillarys-charge-in-virginia-put-your-pantsuit-on/article/2566136>
// The Washington Examiner // Paul Bedard – June 12, 2015 *

The old Clinton team is saddling up for their last roundup, this time for
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, set to
re-announce her bid Saturday in New York City.

Longtime Clinton advisor James Carville is heading up her effort to win
Virginia, which the GOP has declared a must win if they are to beat the
former first lady and secretary of state.

Presumably in association of former Clinton aide and current Gov. Terry
McAuliffe, Carville and Team Hillary plan to mount an aggressive fight to
keep Virginia blue and in her column.

Carville, the Louisiana native known as the "Ragin Cajun," on Friday sent
supporters an invitation to "let your hair down" and "put your pantsuit on"
at a Clinton rally at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., June 26.

He called her the "right person" to be president and he tied the expected
popularity of the event to the GOP, writing, "Tickets are selling faster
than Republicans deciding they're running for president."

Carville has been part of the Clinton family for years and is credited with
helping Bill Clinton win his first election.

His full note is below:

You are invited to let your hair down (I would but I don't have any!) and
join us for what is bound to be one fantastic evening.

On June 26th, Democrats from across the commonwealth are coming together to
hear Hillary Clinton speak in Fairfax. And, you can join us too.

I have been a longtime friend and supporter of Hillary Clinton. There is no
doubt in my mind that she is the right person to serve as president of the
United States.

Hillary has bold ideas, but you won't hear what she has to say if you don't
grab a ticket soon. These tickets are selling faster than Republicans
deciding they're running for president.

Trust me, you won't want to miss this event. So, put your pantsuit on and
let's go!

I hope you can join us to watch my friend Hillary on June 26.

Thanks,

James Carville

*No-Fly Zone Ordered For Hillary Clinton’s New York City Kickoff Rally
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fly-zone-ordered-hillary-clintons-york-city-kickoff/story?id=31733120>
// ABC News // Josh Margolin, David Kerley and Matt Hosford – June 12, 2015
*

Federal officials today took the rare step of creating a "no-fly zone"
around the site of Hillary Clinton’s campaign kickoff rally in New York
City on Saturday.

The Federal Aviation Administration established the protective zone in the
form of a so-called "Notice to Airmen" announcing that a section along
Manhattan’s East Side will be temporarily transformed into "national
defense airspace."

The FAA website lists the reason as "Temporary flight restrictions for VIP
Movement" and cites the federal law that the FAA employs to ban flights
over events attended by the president, vice president or other key
dignitaries.

"The United States government may use deadly force against the airborne
aircraft if it is determined that the aircraft poses an imminent security
threat," according to the notice.

Clinton’s rally -- planned as the largest event of her presidential
campaign so far -- will take place on Roosevelt Island, a narrow sliver of
land in the East River located between Manhattan and Queens.

As the wife of former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton is still
guarded by a Secret Service detail. The former president is expected to
attend tomorrow’s event.

"This is highly unusual," a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association, told ABC News. The "no fly zones," also known as "Temporary
Flight Restrictions" are issued about 1,000 times a year, according to the
association. But they usually are not issued for candidates for president.

In a statement to ABC News, the United State Secret Service said it
"establishes temporary flight restrictions in advance of protective visits"
but did not elaborate.

The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment nor did a
spokesman for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

City officials objected to the restriction because of the effect it is
expected to have on popular sightseeing helicopters. The no-fly zone will
not have any impact on commercial jets landing and taking off from nearby
LaGuardia Airport.

When Clinton was first lady, such a no-fly zone was not established for
appearances she made. And even now, the FAA typically does not put such
restrictions in place for the current first lady, Michelle Obama, for
events she attends unless her husband, the president, is there as well.

*Clinton's Grassroots Army
<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-hillary-clinton-mobilize-20150611-story.html#page=1>
// The Sun Sentinel // Anthony Man – June 12, 2015 *

As she prepares to launch the second phase of her presidential candidacy
Saturday, her campaign has been pursuing a less-noticed, but intense effort
aimed at recruiting the army of grass-roots volunteers that could secure a
victory in the 2016 election.

Her campaign has sponsored a series of gatherings throughout Florida to
sign up supporters who will spend the coming months spreading the word at
festivals, parades and other community events; invite people into their
homes for house parties; and attempt to recruit friends, family and
neighbors into the Clinton fold.

Much of the focus in the two months between the April 12 video in which
Clinton announced her candidacy and Saturday's "official campaign launch"
has been on Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, the four states
whose early primaries and caucuses give them outsized roles in deciding the
presidential nominee.

Clinton's only Florida visit since entering the race was a May 28-29
fundraising tour that took her to Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, Parkland and
Heathrow in the Orlando area.

The grass-roots organizing activity in Florida underscores lessons learned
from Barack Obama's successful 2008 campaign, when early mobilizing helped
produce legions of loyal activists who proved critical to his defeating
Clinton for the Democratic nomination and winning the presidency. The
Clinton campaign "really did get out-organized by Obama," said Kevin Hill,
a political scientist at Florida International University.

"We learned from the Obama campaign," said Terrie Rizzo, who is officially
neutral as chairwoman of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party. "Early
organizing pays dividends."

Sandy Ducane, the Clinton campaign's Florida grass roots organizer — the
only paid staffer in the state right now — told an early June gathering of
volunteers in Pompano Beach why they're important.

"It's volunteer groups, it is the grass roots organizing that really is the
engine that allows the candidate to move forward," Ducane said. "Debates
and advertising and yard signs only take you so far in an election. And we
all know that it's those sporadic voters, the occasional voters, [and]
getting them out to vote is really what pushes a candidate over the finish
line."

Even though it's nine months before the Florida presidential primary and 17
months until the general election, state Rep. Lori Berman, D-Lantana, a
Clinton supporter, said it's not too early to start mobilizing. "When the
time comes, you have your whole system in place and you're able to activate
it and get everybody out there doing what they need to be doing," she said.
"I hate to be trite and use cliches, but the early bird gets the worm."

Cynthia Busch, also neutral because she's vice chairwoman of the Broward
Democratic Party, said starting now allows a campaign to make sure key
volunteers are well trained, teams work well together, and existing
volunteers can bring in new faces. "The sooner the better," she said.

Republicans said it's a good strategy. "I would say that's very smart for
them," said Daniel Ruoss of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, chairman of the Florida
Federation of Young Republicans. "You can never start too early, certainly
in Florida."

The Clinton campaign said efforts are under way in all 46 states that
aren't part of the early four. But there's no place it's more important
than Florida. Having won the Sunshine State's primary in 2008, Clinton
can't afford the kind of embarrassment that would stem from anything less
than a stellar performance in the state's March 16, 2016, primary.

And the Florida is critical to each party's hopes of winning the White
House, given the Sunshine State's status as the largest swing state in the
country — awarding more than 10 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed
to win the presidency. The benefits of organized, well trained and loyal
supporters could prove critically important in Florida if one of the
state's Republican favorite sons, former Gov. Jeb Bush or U.S. Sen. Marco
Rubio is the Republican nominee.

Hill said parts of Florida — "Broward and Palm Beach [counties] especially"
— are Clinton territory. But that doesn't mean sufficient votes will come
automatically in either the primary or the general election; Clinton needs
to make sure her supporters are energized and turn out to vote.

And that's where people like Veronica Block come in.

Block, 44, who lives west of Boca Raton, said she's a regular voter, but
has never been involved in any kind of political activity — until she she
attended the organizing meeting in Pompano Beach.

Afterward, the recently widowed stay-at-home mother and part-time
photographer did exactly what strategists want from all their volunteers:
took to social media, telling friends why she likes Clinton and asking them
to join her helping the campaign.

Block also signed up to join a volunteer team that plans to work the crowd
on Clinton's behalf at the Kikin' It Country Music Festival on June 27.
Block said she's ready to do "anything that I can do to help."

"I have never been as excited about anything like this," she said.

Most of the people, based on a show of hands, are veteran campaign
volunteers. Carol Osno, a Democratic activist from Pompano Beach who has
been involved in many campaigns, showed up wearing a Clinton button from
2008.

But there were other newcomers, like Block. Kathy Sklare of Deerfield Beach
said the prospect of a Clinton presidency has her so excited that she's
going to volunteer on behalf of the campaign.

"I've never liked politics. [But] I said to myself a while back, if Hillary
runs again, I'm going to help her win," she said. "It's in my heart and my
soul. I need to do it, and accomplish this. It's my goal. And Hillary, I
love her and want to see her win."

The campaign has held 51 organizing meetings and house parties in Florida
as part of the "Ramp Up Grassroots Organizing Program."

Other elements:

•Volunteers are hosting events in their homes Saturday, bringing together
people to watch when Clinton delivers her launch speech from the Four
Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in New York City before heading to Iowa.
Florida supporters have 19 watch parties planned throughout the state.

•The campaign is holding small-scale fundraisers, such as a June 18 event
headlined by former Florida Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston. It
costs $25, far less than the $2,700 required to attend one of the May
fundraisers that featured Clinton in person.

Lisa Lickstein, a Democratic donor and activist in Palm Beach County, said
small fundraisers do more than bring in money. "We know that people who
give a small amount at the beginning of campaigns can be counted on to talk
to their friends about why."

All the events are aimed at an exponential growth in numbers of people and
excitement.

One thing missing from the events is Clinton herself.

Unlike larger donors and voters in early states who get to see and hear the
candidate in person, people who come to the organizing events have to make
due with a life-sized, cardboard, cutout photograph of the former secretary
of state, former U.S. senator and former first lady.

Cutouts are popular with Clinton supporters, with many taking pictures with
their phones — and, like Block, sharing them on Facebook and Instagram.

When Lickstein organized a group that rented a booth at the SunFest music
festival in West Palm Beach, she campaign got sign-up information from
about 590 people willing to volunteer.

With an estimated attendance of 175,000 attending SunFest from April 29 to
May 3, Lickstein said there was a constant stream of people who stopped to
take selfies with "cardboard Hillary."

"There was just tremendous enthusiasm, really a great deal of emotion," she
said. "People really wanted to connect with her."

Anita Mitchell, former chairwoman of the Palm Beach County Republican
Party, said the South Florida reaction doesn't mean Clinton will prevail in
Florida. The region, Mitchell said, is "progressive. It's liberal. It's her
backyard. Low fruit for her."

*Hillary Clinton headed to Charleston area for 2nd SC stop
<http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article23877601.html#storylink=cpy>
// The State // Jamie Self – June 12, 2015 *

Hillary Clinton is heading to the Lowcountry on Wednesday for her second
visit to South Carolina since announcing her White House bid.

The 2016 Democratic frontrunner will hold a forum in the Charleston area
focused on youth job training and apprenticeship programs, a campaign aide
said, adding that more details about the stop will be released later.

The campaign has set up more than two dozen watch parties and launch-day
house parties in the Palmetto State timed with Clinton’s official campaign
launch event Saturday in New York City.

The former first lady and secretary of state announced her campaign on
April 12 and has been campaigning in early primary states in small,
controlled events and roundtable discussions with students, educators and
small-business owners.

Clinton made a one-day stop in Columbia last month, meeting with minority
women business owners and speaking to a group of Democratic women gathered
for a conference at the State House.

*Hillary Clinton: "The History Of Women Has Been A History Of Silence"
<http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/news/a28846/hillary-clinton-campaign-ad-fighter/>
// Elle // Megan Friedman – June 12, 2015 *

A day before her official campaign kickoff, Hillary Clinton released a new
ad on YouTube that highlights her 40 years in public service.

The clip, called "Fighter," shows photos and footage from her entire
career, from law student to Secretary of State. She talks about her work
with children, and doesn't shy away from her failed attempt at healthcare
reform while serving as First Lady. "You have to get up off the floor and
you keep fighting," she says, a theme that she echoes throughout the ad.

The campaign video also talks about her historic speech in Beijing, where
she declared, "human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are
human rights," and her time as Senator from New York during the September
11 attacks. Whether or not you support her for president, nobody can deny
she's had an incredible career.

*Hillary Clinton's 'talking points' for 'friends and allies' just leaked
<http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clintons-talking-points-for-friends-and-allies-just-leaked-2015-6>
// Business Insider // Hunter Walker – June 12, 2015 *

Hillary Clinton's campaign spokeswoman Adrienne Elrod sent out a memo
containing "talking points" for "friends and allies" on Friday afternoon.

Business Insider obtained a copy of the memo, which includes a preview of
Clinton's speech Saturday and details of the campaign's early efforts in
primary states.

There has been much speculation about the role Clinton's husband, former
President Bill Clinton, will play in his wife's campaign. The memo notes
Clinton is "expected" to attend the speech, but will not be speaking.

"President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton are expected to attend, but the
speaking program will feature Hillary Clinton exclusively," the memo said.

The memo, which was designed to help Clinton's supporters and campaign
surrogates stay on message, also credits Clinton with taking "bold
progressive stands on key issues" including "criminal justice reform,"
"immigration reform," and "voting rights," and "equal pay." The preview of
Clinton's Saturday speech echoes what a Clinton campaign official told
Business Insider about the remarks on Thursday.

Clinton announced her presidential campaign in April. So far, she has been
in what her team has described as a "ramp up" phase with relatively
small-scale events in early primary states. Saturday's speech will be the
kickoff of a new phase of Clinton's campaign. The "talking points" memo
sent out by Elrod included a segment on what "comes next" for Clinton's
campaign including her plan to detail more specific policies "in the coming
weeks and months."

"Hillary Clinton will lay out her vision on a range of economic issues that
are key to helping everyday Americans get ahead and stay ahead," the memo
said.

The memo also details Clinton's plans for the days immediately after the
launch including events in Iowa and New Hampshire.

"The campaign has said we expect a competitive primary, and we’ve taken
nothing for granted since the start of the campaign. This trip is the
latest example that our focus is on the early four primary states and
winning the nomination," the memo said.

The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment
from Business Insider about the memo.

Read the full memo below (linked to)

*Meet the political operative trying to make Hillary Clinton popular
<https://fortune.com/2015/06/12/kristina-schake-hillary-clinton/> //
Fortune // Nina Easton – June 12, 2015 *

Michelle Obama is a hugely popular First Lady. But it wasn’t always that
way. As a candidate’s wife in 2008, she stirred widespread indignation for
suggesting that her husband’s political rise was “the first time in my
adult life I am really proud of my country.”

Aides jumped to her rescue and started softening her image, granting
interviews to women’s magazines and steering clear of hot-button issues.
But when Kristina Schake, 45, arrived in 2010 as the First Lady’s
communications director, she amped those efforts into overdrive. Remember
the self-parodying “mom dance” with Jimmy Fallon? Schake’s fingerprints
were all over that one. Potato sack races across the East Room with the
Late Night host (captured, of course, on Pinterest)? Schake. The supposed
“undercover” shopping trip to Target? Schake again.

A master of political optics, Schake’s job deputy communications director
is to accomplish the same for former First Lady Hillary Clinton as the
candidate tries to layer a warmer image on top of her leadership
experience. Schake is also known as a stern enforcer of her boss’ image,
often to the consternation of many around her, including the press. But
even her critics are in awe of her handiwork. On Obama’s staff, Kristina
was also credited with having helped recruit corporate partners to leverage
thinly-resourced initiatives (think Disney  DIS -0.61%  and Walmart  WMT
-0.70%  signing on to Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to fight childhood
obesity.)

When Schake first approaches a mission, she does so with consideration and
caution. “We both like lots of preparation, lots of reading, lots of wading
around waist-deep in water before making a decision,” says her big sister
Kori Schake. In the case of Michelle Obama, she adds, “Kris watched her
carefully, [studying] how to draw out what already exists—that warmth and
caring. My sister found ways for her to express those traits in ways that
would be comfortable for her in a public space.”

Kristina Schake, the daughter of a Pan Am pilot, grew up traveling the
world. Her sister Kori was eight years older, so Kristina and Kori were
often wandering through cities by themselves. And invariably, they would
land in art galleries and museums, roaming through some of the world’s
great collections of paintings and sculptures. “Her fascination with art is
the key to why she is so great at her work,” Kori Schake tells me. “She is
incredibly good at seeing patterns on big canvases. She has a love for
looking at art and understanding how it reflects underlying culture.”

Kori—a scholar at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution—is a Republican
who served with George W. Bush’s National Security Council and later as
foreign policy and defense adviser to GOP presidential candidate John
McCain. But that hasn’t stopped her from being her sister’s biggest
fan—offering up what she considers to be the highest compliment available
in national politics: “She is a ruthless political operative, and she’d be
insulted if I didn’t say anything else.”

When the Schake girls and their brother were growing up in Sonoma,
California (with two high school years in Berlin for Kristina), the
politics they saw mostly consisted of their mother carrying a placard in
favor of a school bond initiative. Kristina was a cheerleader and student
council president before heading east to attend Johns Hopkins University.

Back in California after college, her career centered on helping the causes
of liberal celebrities, such as actor/director Rob Reiner’s push for a
50-cent cigarette tax to fund early childhood education. Schake also helped
Maria Shriver, then California’s first lady, to expand her star-studded
women’s conference. She worked with Al Gore’s Live Earth concerts.

And with her public affairs partner, Chad Griffin, now president of the
Human Rights Campaign, Kristina Schake fought Proposition 8, the California
initiative to ban same-sex marriage. In what was to become a trademark
Schake touch, she was able to humanize the gay plaintiffs in a court
challenge to Prop. 8 that also brought together the legal dream team of
conservative Ted Olson and liberal David Bois. In addition to her passion
for gay rights, Schake was involved in a 2004 campaign supporting stem-cell
research.

She took on a high-glam corporate job with L’Oreal in 2013, and later took
leave in Germany, where she and her uber-patient boyfriend arrived and had
to turn around within days when the Clinton camp came calling.

Watch for those Schake fingerprints all over the humanize-Hillary crusade.
Clinton launched her campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire traveling in a
“Scooby Doo” van named for the 1960s cartoon. Aides insisted it was
Clinton’s idea because the van reminded her of the characters’ Mystery
Machine.

But I suspect another source.

Schake.

*New York Times fund keeps donors anonymous
<http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/06/new-york-times-fund-keeps-donors-anonymous-208654.html>
// Politico // Dylan Byers – June 12, 2015*

The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, a charity run by members of the
Times Company’s board of directors and senior executives, received more
than $29 million in charitable contributions over the last five years from
mostly anonymous donors, tax records obtained by the On Media blog show.

The Neediest Cases Fund's 990s show a total of $29,310,945 in donations
between 2010 and 2014, but the Times does not provide a list of the donors.
Eileen Murphy, the Times' Vice President of Corporate Communications, said
"donations from trusts and estates of amounts more than $100,000 are
generally invested in an endowment and are acknowledged or disclosed
publicly," while "other donations (many thousands of them) are applied to
the current year's campaign and are sent directly to seven social services
agencies who work with the City's neediest."

"Our policy not to publicly acknowledge donors to the Neediest Cases Fund
is in keeping with the common practice of the vast majority of charities
and respectful of each individual donor's expectation of privacy," Murphy
said. (Other newspaper funds, including those of The Los Angeles Times and
The Chicago Tribune, do provide a list of donors, though those donors are
asked to decide whether or not they would like to have their names listed.)

The Times' policy meant that the company did not disclose a $100,000
donation in 2008 from Bill and Hillary's Clinton Family Foundation,
recently reported by the Washington Free Beacon. The Times has said that
the CFF originally sent a $100,000 check to the fund in 2007, months before
the paper endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential
primary, then sent a replacement check in 2008 after the original went
missing. Murphy has said that "this donation and our editorial board’s
endorsement of a candidate in the 2008 Democratic primary have absolutely
no connection to one another.”

In recent months, the Times has been a leading critic of the secrecy
surrounding donations to the Clinton Foundation, the global philanthropic
initiative that has been at the center of controversy following reports
that donations to the foundation may have influenced Hillary Clinton's
actions as Secretary of State. (The Clinton Foundation is separate from the
CFF.)

In April, the Times editorial board called on Clinton to provide a "full
and complete disclosure of all sources of money going to the foundation" in
order to lay such suspicions to rest. "It’s an axiom in politics that money
always creates important friendships, influence and special consideration,"
the editorial board wrote. "Wise politicians recognize this danger and work
to keep it at bay."

The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund received $5,952,238 in donations in
2010, $5,543,976 in 2011, $5,906,280 in 2012, $6,535,759 in 2013 and
$5,372,692 2014, for a total of $29,310,945 over the five-year period.
These donations are administered by the New York Times Company and go
directly to seven social services agencies in New York, including Brooklyn
Community Services, the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York,
and the Children's Aid Society.

*OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE*

*O’MALLEY*

*Martin O’Malley hires digital director
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/martin-omalley-hires-digital-director> // MSNBC
// Nisha Chittal – June 12, 2015 *

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s presidential campaign has made two
key new hires, bringing on two veteran digital strategists into high-level
roles in the campaign, a spokeswoman confirmed exclusively to msnbc.

Madeleine Perry is joining the O’Malley campaign as digital director. Perry
was formerly the digital director for Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard
Blumenthal, where she managed the senator’s digital and social media
strategy. She is a veteran in the digital political space, and her résumé
includes work for the Democratic National Committee and Ohio Sen. Sherrod
Brown’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Additionally, the O’Malley campaign has also hired Ian Ferguson to serve as
director of data and analytics. Ferguson served as national regional data
director for the Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast for President
Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, and also has worked on data and
analytics for a number of private firms.

O’Malley’s digital team has a battle ahead of them to generate more buzz
about their candidate on social media than his Democratic opponents,
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. According to data provided by Facebook,
84,000 people on Facebook generated 120,000 interactions related to
O’Malley on the day of his announcement. Compare that to Clinton, who had
4.7 million people generating over 10.1 million interactions related to her
on the day of her April 13 announcement — and even Bernie Sanders, who had
592,000 people generating over 1.2 million interactions related to him on
the day of his April 30 announcement.

But the campaign has already been finding ways to set themselves apart in
the digital space — O’Malley is one of the few 2016 candidates actively
using Snapchat, the messaging platform popular with millennials and
teenagers. The campaign used the app to tease O’Malley’s May 30 campaign
announcement in Baltimore and has continued to use it to share
behind-the-scenes moments on the campaign trail with Snapchat users.  It’s
an early indicator that the O’Malley campaign seems willing to experiment
with new platforms, and Perry’s hiring will likely help shape a stronger
digital strategy going forward.

*SANDERS*

*The war on the middle class
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/06/12/bernie-sanders-the-war-middle-class/hAJUTAjWgupBLx4zAMh7nN/story.html?hootPostID=932abaf0e7def55e4bea95b77a4d4763>
// The Boston Globe // Bernie Sanders – June 12, 2015 *

HERE IS THE reality of the American economy. Despite an explosion in
technology and a huge increase in worker productivity, the middle class
continues its 40-year decline. Today, millions of Americans are working
longer hours for lower wages and median family income is almost $5,000 less
than it was in 1999.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing
phenomenally well. Today, 99 percent of all new income is going to the top
1 percent, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent own almost as much wealth
as the bottom 90 percent. In the last two years, the wealthiest 14 people
in this country increased their wealth by $157 billion. That increase is
more than is owned by the bottom 130 million Americans – combined.

Over the last 40 years, the largest corporations in this country have
closed thousands of factories in the United States and outsourced millions
of American jobs to low-wage countries overseas. That is why we need a new
trade policy and why I am opposed to the 12-nation Trans-Pacific
Partnership now before Congress.

Large corporations and their lobbyists have created loopholes enabling
corporations to avoid an estimated $100 billion a year in taxes by shifting
profits to the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens. That is why we
need real tax reform which demands that the very wealthy and large
corporations start paying their fair share of taxes.

Corporate America has mounted vigorous anti-union campaigns, making it
harder for workers to collectively bargain for decent wages and benefits.
That is why we must make certain that workers are given a fair chance to
join a union.

Meanwhile, US companies are buying back billions of dollars of their own
stock in a way that manipulates stock prices, hurts the economy and, by the
way, used to be against the law.

Instead of putting resources into innovative ways to build their businesses
or hire new employees, corporations are pumping their record-breaking
profits into buying back their own stock and increasing dividends to
benefit their executives and wealthy shareholders at the expense of their
workers. It is a major reason why CEOs are now making nearly 300 times what
the typical worker makes. We must demand an end too stock buybacks.

We also must do a lot more to rebuild the middle class, check corporate
greed, and make our economy work again for working families.

We need to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next several
years. With 70 percent of the economy dependent on consumers buying goods
and services, the best way to expand the economy is to raise wages and
create good jobs to increase the purchasing power of the American people.

We need to pass pay equity for women workers. It is not acceptable that
women receive 78 cents on the dollar compared to male workers doing the
same job.

We need to make certain that every worker in this country receives
guaranteed paid sick leave and vacation time.

We need to encourage business models that provide employees the tools to
purchase their own businesses through Employee Stock Ownership Plans and
worker-owned cooperatives. Workers at employer-owned companies are more
motivated, productive, and satisfied with their jobs.

It is time to say loudly and clearly that corporate greed and the war
against the American middle class must end. Enough is enough!

*OTHER*

*Pelosi to oppose Obama on trade*
<http://thehill.com/policy/finance/244833-pelosi-to-oppose-obama-on-trade>*
// The Hill // Christina Marcos – June 12, 2015*

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a meandering but dramatic
floor speech on Friday announced her vote against a measure providing
assistance to workers displaced by trade.

“If TAA slows down the fast-track, I’m prepared to vote against TAA,"
Pelosi said.

Pelosi announced her opposition to the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)
program just before it went down in the House, with 302 lawmakers voting
against it.

The failure of TAA could sink a broader trade package that includes
President Obama's request for fast-track trade authority.

Pelosi's move is a rare split with Obama, who visited Capitol Hill on
Friday morning and pleaded with Democrats to back the measure.

The California Democrat had been under pressure from liberal groups to
oppose the trade package. While many had expected Pelosi to vote against
fast-track, also known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), her opposition
to TAA took many by surprise.

Pelosi argued that opposing TAA now would give Democrats leverage for a
trade package they view as more favorable.

“We want a better deal for American workers,” Pelosi said.

A group of liberal House Democrats opposed to the trade package, including
Reps. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) and Brad Sherman (Calif.), applauded when Pelosi
announced her opposition to TAA.

Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO who has been aggressively
lobbying Democrats to vote against the fast-track deal, praised Pelosi in a
statement just minutes after the TAA bill failed on the House floor.

"Nancy Pelosi has always fought for working families and today her
leadership on the trade package vote was instrumental in the House voting
against another bad trade deal," he said.

"She stood up against corporate interests and as always put first the
people who are too often left out of trade agreement discussions. I applaud
Rep. Pelosi’s bravery and leadership on this and look forward to working
with her on good trade bills."

Trumka had previously threatened that Democratic senators who backed
fast-track during a May vote will be held accountable, and warned that
labor could sit out the 2016 elections over trade.

*GOP*

*BUSH*

*Longtime Bush Adviser Focuses On Jeb’s Messaging
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/12/longtime-bush-adviser-focuses-on-jebs-messaging/>
// NYT // Maggie Haberman – June 12, 2015 *

In the last week, there have been numerous news accounts about
reassignments and changes in the political team being put together by Jeb
Bush.

But when the former Florida governor’s advisers rolled out a list of staff
appointments and titles this week, one name that was not on it was Chris
Mottola. A veteran political advertising strategist who worked on George W.
Bush’s 2004 presidential re-election campaign, Mr. Mottola is said to be an
old friend of Jeb Bush’s longtime adviser, Mike Murphy.

Mr. Mottola’s eventual role in the campaign once it begins next week is
unclear, and a spokesman for Mr. Bush, Tim Miller, declined to comment. But
two people familiar with Mr. Mottola’s current role said that he had been
advising the team on messaging and strategy related to Monday’s planned
campaign kickoff.

If Mr. Mottola does take an official role with the campaign, among the open
questions is whether he would contribute on television ads. That role is
currently expected to go to Jon Downs, of FP1 Strategies. Mr. Downs’s
colleague, Danny Diaz, was named campaign manager this week. Mr. Mottola
did not respond to an email for comment.

Mr. Bush is not expected to actually begin airing television commercials
until later in the Republican contest, but his aides confirm that he will
spend money on a digital ad purchase pegged to his announcement tour next
week. The purchase is aimed at building his list of both grass-roots
supporters and small-dollar donors.

“We want to collect as much data and information as possible,” Mr. Miller
said.

*Jeb Bush’s Family Values
<http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/jeb-bushs-family-values/>
// NYT // Andrew Rosenthal – June 12, 2015 *

In many campaigns, one candidate or another is asked to answer for comments
he or she made in the past. The answer is usually gibberish – that was a
long time ago, or I was trying to say something else. This week’s entry is
– not shockingly given how many times he has tripped over his own tongue
lately – Jeb Bush.

The former Florida governor made some achingly stupid comments about
welfare in the early ’90s, when he was running (unsuccessfully) for that
post for the first time, and in a subsequent book. The general strain of
these comments is that women on welfare should quit whining and find a man.

“If people are mentally and physically able to work, they should be able to
do so within a two-year period,” he said in 1994 while running for
governor. “They should be able to get their life together and find a
husband, find a job, find other alternatives in terms of private charity or
a combination of all three.”

Mr. Bush also said: “How you get on welfare is by not having a husband in
the house – let’s be honest here.” He added: “Men are not on welfare.
That’s the point.”

The reason that more women were on Aid to Families with Dependent Children,
a program that has changed its name since and its benefits, is relatively
plain. The fathers of their children abandoned them. The program was
designed for that purpose. There are not a lot of men on the Women, Infants
and Children nutrition program either, Mr. Bush.

On Tuesday, there was some attention in the press to Mr. Bush’s 1995 book
“Profiles in Character” (as opposed, of course, to Courage).

Here are some particularly insightful quotes:

“One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and
more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that
there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel
shame.”

“There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on
out-of-wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus
for one to be careful.”

So what does Mr. Bush think now? Don’t ask him, because you won’t get a
real answer. On Thursday, traveling in Europe to pretend he has foreign
policy experience, Mr. Bush said he was trying to focus on missing fathers
and to say that single parents face a “huge challenge.”

“From the perspective of children it’s a huge challenge for single moms and
it hurts the prospects, it limits the ability of children to live lives
with purpose and meaning,” Bush said. Talk about profiles in character.

*Jeb Bush plans a ‘hopeful, optimistic’ speech to kick off campaign
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/06/12/jeb-bush-plans-a-hopeful-optimistic-speech-to-kick-off-campaign/?wprss=rss_politics>
// WaPo // Karen Tumulty & Ed O’Keefe – June 12, 2015 *

For six months, former Florida governor Jeb Bush has been running for
president while demurring that he is not an official candidate. With the
fan-dance phase of the campaign about to end, he offered a peek Friday at
the "hopeful, optimistic" themes he plans to sound when he makes his formal
announcement Monday.

Bush is spending the final days of his pseudo-candidacy on a swing through
Germany, Poland and Estonia, part of an effort to burnish his credentials
as a potential commander-in-chief.

“I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to say, for sure, and prior to
this trip," he told reporters. "I hope that the message will be a hopeful,
optimistic one. It won't dwell too much on the past. I will talk about why
it is important to change directions. I will talk a little bit about,
hopefully, the leadership skills that are necessary to solve problems."

He also indicated, however, that he will offer his two terms of governor of
Florida as evidence of how he would run the country.

"I had the opportunity as governor of a state where a lot of things
happened. Some people liked them. Some people didn’t. But there’s no
question, you ask friend and foe alike, that Florida was changed by my
leadership, and I think it changed for the better," Bush said. "And so I’ll
talk about that. And there will be some lines of good humor as well, I
hope."

When Bush first announced his interest last year, surprising many
Republicans, he had seem poised to move to the head of the field as the
favorite of the GOP establishment. But despite the advantages of his
pedigree, his family's political network and fundraising capabilities, he
has yet to break out in the early polls. One obstacle is the perception
that he is too moderate for a party that has swung to the right.

Two days before Bush officially joins the crowded field of candidates
running to be the 2016 standard-bearer, Democratic front-runner Hillary
Clinton will hold a major rally in New York City. Asked about her
candidacy, Bush demurred for now, saying that domestic political battles
should not be waged by candidates when they are overseas.

"Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state for four years under President Obama.
She has a record. It is a record she will have to defend, and I believe
that this is not an appropriate place to be talking about American
politics," he said. "There will be ample chances to show the differences
between myself and Hillary."

One challenge for Bush on that score will be navigating around his own last
name, and the memories it invokes of the foreign policies of the last two
Republican presidents, who happened to be his brother and father.

As he traveled through Europe this week, Bush often invoked the deft,
widely admired manner in which the 41st president, George H.W. Bush,
operated as the Cold War ended. He has not mentioned the more unpopular,
unilateralist approach of his brother, George W. Bush, who was the 43rd
president.

His itinerary reinforced those themes. On Friday, he was briefed by
officials at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence here,
which functions as a sort of think tank for the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization and is run by some of the member nations of that Western
alliance. He also met with Estonian Foreign Minister Keit Pentus-
Rosimannus, and was scheduled to dine with Estonian President Toomas Ilves
at the presidential palace.

"If you think about it in terms of history, my dad’s managing of the
cooperation with great leaders of his time, managing the fall of the Soviet
Union, it has been talked about at every stop that we’ve made," Bush said.

He said that when he was in Poland on Wednesday and Thursday, he was often
reminded of the 1987 speech that his father gave in Krakow, which the elder
Bush insisted be carried uncensored on national television there.

"It was a spark," Jeb Bush said. "It was something that was so breathtaking
for Poles who could never believe anything that they saw on television.
Think about how much change has taken place in these years. It’s a good
reminder that we're a lot freer now than we were, and we need to protect
that freedom. And that’s why the United States needs to be engaged."

With Bush in Europe, aides at his campaign headquarters in Miami have spent
the past few days putting the finishing touches on what's promised to be a
dramatic and social media-driven launch.

Bush will launch his bid Monday afternoon at Miami Dade College with an
announcement speech expected to last about 15 minutes. His remarks will
touch on three general themes, according to aides familiar with the plans.

First, Bush will embrace the atmospherics of the campus, part of a public
university system with more than 10 locations across South Florida that
boasts the nation's largest Hispanic student body. Bush has spoken at the
college several times, and his brother, George W. Bush, delivered a
commencement address there in 2007. Aides said Bush considers the venue an
ideal place to launch a campaign expected to make aggressive overtures to
the country's expanding Latino voting population and other groups less
prone to support GOP candidates.

Bush also plans to cast himself as a proven "fix it" agent, who revamped
Florida's economy and government over eight years while enacting a
conservative governing agenda. The defense of his record will serve as a
direct contrast with the four presidential candidates serving in Congress:
Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.), Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco
Rubio (Fla.).

Over the course of his early travels, Bush has often used the phrase "Right
to Rise" — a moniker that is also the name of his leadership PAC and a
super PAC poised to support his candidacy. Bush and his campaign are
expected to provide a fuller definition of the phrase in the coming days,
starting with testimonials from people who say they were helped by his work
as governor or as an education reform advocate in the years since.

Once Bush launches his campaign, he's planning a whirlwind, three-day tour
of New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, with several public events and
private meetings scheduled. Aides said that Bush is likely to continue the
format of the public appearances he's held during his exploratory phase,
which generally include a brief opening speech followed by roughly 45
minutes of questions from attendees.

On Friday, he also got an early boost of support from several senior
Florida Republicans —  a blow to Rubio, another popular statewide elected
official.

Among those pledging to back Bush are Pamela Bondi, the state attorney
general; Jeff Atwater, the state's chief financial officer; and Adam
Putnam, the state agriculture commissioner. Eleven of Florida's 17
Republican congressmen are also backing him, including Miami's three Cuban
American lawmakers: Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos
Curbelo. Several others, including Reps. Dennis Ross and Gus Bilirakis,
have long ties to Bush, dating back to before he won the governor's office
in 1998.

*Jeb Bush Faulted Over Use of Florida Tax Money
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/jeb-bush-faulted-over-use-of-florida-tax-money-1434150351>
// WSJ // Beth Reinhard – June 12, 2015 *

The Republican governors who are weighing presidential campaigns often talk
about the jobs they have created in their states, drawing a contrast to
potential rivals who serve in a gridlocked Congress.

But one facet of the economic plans adopted by many GOP governors is coming
under criticism from conservatives within the party—their use of taxpayer
money to encourage businesses to expand or relocate across state lines.

Tax incentives and financial awards to businesses are increasingly out of
favor in a party that sees corporate subsidies and the Export-Import Bank,
which helps support U.S. exports, as examples of "crony capitalism.’’

The latest example of the rising opposition comes from the Club for Growth,
a free-market advocacy group, which is criticizing former Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush for overseeing state spending increases that included $310 million to
lure a biomedical research institute to Florida.

The Club’s appraisal of Mr. Bush’s economic record, reviewed by The Wall
Street Journal ahead of its release, says the effort to spur the biotech
industry didn’t generate as many jobs as promised.

“We want to frame what we think the right agenda should be for the
Republican nominee, and when we see a candidate whose record shows they
have used tax dollars to pick winner and losers, we are going to point it
out as bad policy,” said David McIntosh, the Club for Growth president and
a former Indiana congressman.

“What was a standard approach for Republican governors for a while, we’re
now seeing a growing movement against,” he said.

A spokesman for Mr. Bush, Tim Miller, said the state’s investment in
research institutes “diversified the economy, created high-wage jobs and
contributed to significant scientific research advances.”

At least three other active or likely candidates—Wisconsin Gov. Scott
Walker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry—are
expected to face similar criticism from the Club for using tax dollars to
promote economic development.

In 2012, the libertarian Cato Institute criticized Mr. Walker for tax
breaks intended to draw business to the state, which the group said
"clutter the tax code.’’ In Texas, the Legislature has moved to curtail
incentive programs touted by Mr. Perry.

The Club for Growth’s report on Mr. Bush praises the former two-term
governor as an aggressive tax cutter who vetoed $2 billion in spending and
pioneered a Medicaid privatization program.

But it criticizes Mr. Bush for a $310 million package to persuade
California-based Scripps Research Institute to build a research center in
Palm Beach County. One state economic analysis said the deal could lead to
50,000 new jobs, but the Club’s analysis says “the expansion of the biotech
industry never materialized.”

Mr. Miller, the Bush spokesman, said the Scripps money came from a
temporary increase in the federal matching funds for Medicaid.

“Rather than increasing entitlement spending, Gov. Bush made a strategic
one-time investment in a sector that is integral to economic growth,” Mr.
Miller said. He said 1.3 million jobs were created while Mr. Bush was
governor.

Mr. Walker has defended state incentives to the Kohl’s department store
chain and is currently lobbying state and local lawmakers for a plan to
spend $250 million in public money for an arena for Milwaukee’s pro
basketball team.

Mr. Christie awarded more than $5 billion in tax incentives since he took
office in 2010, at a rate outpacing his Democratic predecessors. Critics
have said that too many of the awards have gone to existing New Jersey
companies moving within the state, rather than attracting new businesses.
Mr. Christie’s administration has said the incentives are essential to
keeping companies in the high-cost state.

The Club, which is known for running attack ads against centrist
Republicans, isn’t planning to endorse a candidate in the GOP presidential
primary. However, Mr. McIntosh said the group may run negative ads against
Republican candidates who have raised taxes, and it already aired one such
spot about former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Along with corporate subsidies by state governments, the Export-Import Bank
has become a top target of the Club for Growth. It is running ads against
Ex-Im supporters in Congress noting that several GOP presidential
candidates oppose the federal agency.

*Here’s Jeb Bush Talking In 1995 About Restoring Shame To Society
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/heres-jeb-bush-talking-about-restoring-shame-to-society?utm_term=.jdBYKGQVa#.xiV7EZ8e2>
// Buzzfeed // Andrew Kaczynski <http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski> &
Megan Apper – June 12, 2015*

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s push to restore shame to society appears to
have been a part of his regular stump speech as head of the Foundation for
Florida’s Future, an organization he founded to stay publicly active during
the time between his first, failed run for governor and his second
successful run.

In a chapter “The Restoration of Shame” of his 1995 book, Profiles in
Character Bush bemoaned the loss of the stigmatization of having children
outside marriage and the need to restore shame to society for having kids
out of wedlock, taking public assistance, and in schools. He fondly cited
the use of corporal punishment in one school district to institute shame
noting the school district had never had a school shooting.

In an October 1995 speech on public policy in Georgia, Bush made similar
remarks on the need to restore shame to society. Bush singled out public
assistance and the lack of the “shotgun wedding” as key areas where there
was less shame than the 1960s.

“First, we need to restore shame,” Bush said. “There is no shameful
behavior anymore in America. You can do just about anything you want to do,
and no one minds. In fact, we are so numbed by what’s happened around us
that we’ve turned it off.

Bush described a conversation about a young student killing a each shrugged
off by a bystander as an ordinary event.

“As I’ve described, my disgust and sadness for a teacher getting killed by
a 10 year old, how troubling that is — I was in an elevator and the person
next to me kind of shrugged it off and said, ‘Well, it happens all the
time.’ And I can understand how people respond to this, because, if you
don’t, you can go crazy. If you saw the things that are going on it would
be very difficult to do it. So the natural response is to say, ‘Well,
that’s just the way it is.’ I don’t think so.”

Bush said the “sense of shame” needs to be restored to society so certain
attitudes become perverse in your family, neighborhood, and community.

“I believe that we need to restore a sense of shame, so that certain
behavior makes you blush. Certain behavior becomes such that you don’t
accept it. And little by little perhaps that type of attitude becomes
perverse not just in your family, but in your neighborhood, and perhaps in
your community. And over time begin to restore a sense of shame for
behavior that is outrageous.”

Bush said such shame existed in the 1960s saying in that decade many people
declined public assistance and adoption was a more accepted option for
newly born children than abortion.

“It is the type of shame that existed for example in the 1960s, when half
of the people who were qualified to accept public assistance didn’t take it
because they thought it was shameful. It’s the type of activity that made
adoption a much better option than bringing a child to term without the
ability to take care of that child or abortion. It’s sense of shame that
created the shotgun wedding. Does anybody hear about the shotgun wedding
anymore? It’s the sense that used to exist about people who were very
talented or intelligent cheating in school. It’s the sense we don’t have
that makes our culture so debased and so appreciated over time.”

On Thursday, Bush spoke about the book with reporters during his European
trip.

“As it relates to the book, the book was written in 1995,” he said. “My
views have evolved over time, but my views about the importance of dads
being involved in the lives of their children hasn’t changed at all. In
fact, since 1995, if you look at the — I spoke in the book about cultural
indicators — the country has moved in the wrong direction, the 40-plus
percent out-of-wedlock birth rate and you think about this from the
perspective of children, it puts a huge, it’s a huge challenge for single
moms to raise children in the world that we’re in today. And it hurts the
prospects, it limits the possibilities of young people being able to lives
of purpose and meaning.”

*How a silent FEC lets Jeb Bush play by his own fundraising rules
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/12/opinions/sandstrom-fec/> // CNN // Karl
Sandstorm – June 12, 2015 *

No one would dispute that competitors, regardless of their sport, are
entitled to know what the rules are. Basic notions of fair play require
that the rules be known and enforced even-handedly. Yet when it comes to
elections, there appears to be no rule book, and the umpires seem reluctant
to make any politically tough calls.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's long-standing claim of non-candidacy --
expected to finally end in coming days -- has highlighted the complete
inattention to basic fairness in campaign financing by the very regulatory
agency responsible for its oversight.

For months now, Bush has avoided actually saying he is a candidate, while
fully acting as if he is one. Bush's campaign claims he is not breaking any
rules by raising unlimited funds -- tens of millions of dollars -- from
individuals, corporations and trade groups that would be illegal and
subject to possible criminal prosecution if he indeed were a candidate.
Federal law prohibits corporations, trade groups and labor unions from
contributing directly to candidates, and limits an individual's donations
to $2,700 per candidate in an election.

Is the Bush "non-campaign" evidence that the law can be easily evaded?

Whether the answer is yes or no, someone needs to make the call. The key
decision maker in this case is the Federal Election Commission, a
six-member panel (three Republicans and three Democrats) that has -- on
this issue and on a host of others -- failed in its most basic
responsibility to tell the public what the law is. Just a few recent
examples demonstrate the agency's failure to make timely critical decisions.

For one, federal law prohibits foreign nationals from making contributions
and expenditures in any election. Does this broad prohibition cover money
spent to influence the outcome of a ballot measure? Or can a foreign
government spend unlimited sums seeking to influence a state or local
referendum? Commission regulations simply do not provide an answer.

There was however, a complaint on which the Commission deadlocked in April.
The staff's legal analysis in that case suggests that foreign nationals and
governments may spend unlimited funds to influence state and local ballot
measures. If the Commission indeed believes that this spending is lawful,
it should act and propose a rule allowing foreign governments and
corporations to influence ballot measures rather than not making a call at
all, which is what it chose to do. The public and Congress would then have
the opportunity to weigh in on the proposal as well.

Another example is the provision of federal election law that prohibits
government contractors from making contributions in federal elections. Can
that law be easily circumvented by having the parent company of a
government contractor make the contribution? Or, if the parent is the
government contractor, could a wholly-owned subsidiary company make the
contribution?

Despite recent enforcement matters that have raised these questions, the
Commission has failed to produce a regulation that provides an answer. This
leaves open the possibility that major federal contractors may find an easy
-- and profitable -- avenue around the prohibition.

A last example of a major question of federal election law that the
Commission is leaving unanswered is whether the dozens of organizations
that are spending tens of millions of dollars to influence our federal
elections must disclose their donors to the public. The Commission has
provided little useful guidance.

As a consequence, the public is being left in the dark not only about
hundreds of millions of dollars that will be spent in the coming year to
influence who will be our next President, but also about whether the law
allows these vast sums of money to go unreported. Again, whatever the
answer may be, it should not be a matter of private thinking among the
Commissioners. The public is entitled to know the rules and expect that
they will be enforced.

It should come then as no surprise that a "non-candidate" such as former
Gov. Bush believes the continuing silence of the umpires is license to play
ball by his own rules. As the players take the field for next year's
elections, they should all have the same rule book and have confidence that
the Commission will ignore the booing and make the tough calls. If you get
paid to be an umpire, you need to do your job.

*Bush book from 1995 becomes 2016 issue
<http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/06/12/bush-book-from-1995-becomes-2016-issue/>
// USA Today // David Jackson – June 12, 2015 *

A book on character co-written by Jeb Bush in 1995  had been all but
forgotten — until he decided to explore a White House bid in 2016.

Now Democrats are spotlighting passages of the book Profiles in Character
in which Bush called for “the restoration of shame” to help combat
out-of-wedlock births, youth crime and destructive behavior in general.

“It seems that any life decision that diverges from Jeb Bush’s carefully
curated life is deserving of shame,” says a Medium post by Lauren Dillon,
research director for the Democratic National Committee. “Anyone who is
struggling to make the best of a difficult situation should be ridiculed.”

Asked about the book during this week’s trip to Europe, Bush said many of
his views have “evolved” since its publication in 1995, “but my views about
the importance of dads being involved in the lives of children hasn’t
changed at all.”

Most of the criticism surrounds the comments about single motherhood and
parenting.

The Bush book says that “one of the reasons more young women are giving
birth out-of-wedlock” is that “there is no longer a stigma attached to this
behavior.”

Bush told reporters that his ire is not directed at women, but at men who
abandon their  responsibilities as fathers.

The nation continues to move in “the wrong direction” on the out-of-wedlock
birth rate, Bush said, and “it’s a huge challenge for single moms to raise
children in the world that we’re in today … It hurts the prospects, it
limits the possibilities of young people being able to live lives of
purpose and meaning.”

Bush and aides said he tried to combat these challenges as governor of
Florida by stepping up enforcement of child support payments and increasing
punishments for domestic violence.

With the women’s vote a crucial part of the 2016, look for Democrats and
perhaps other critics to cite passages from Bush’s 1995 book on character.

Wrote Dillon of the DNC: “So now that we’ve had a lesson in Jeb Bush’s
“character,” let’s not forget how he really feels about you, your family,
and your friends when he launches his campaign to be our next President.”

*Jeb Bush to women on welfare in 1994: 'Get a husband’
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/11/politics/jeb-bush-to-women-on-welfare-in-1994-get-a-husband/index.html>
// CNN // Eric Bradner – June 12, 2015 *

Jeb Bush insisted during his unsuccessful first run for the Florida
governor's office that an alternative to welfare for women is to "find a
husband."

The Republican 2016 presidential contender's comments came in the heat of a
1994 campaign that has come back to haunt him -- particularly as he seeks
to run an inclusive campaign aimed at broadening the GOP's appeal.

That year, Bush, with a more strident style and in a different era in the
debate over welfare reform, saw a controversial remark he made in July
seized on by reporters and by his opponent. Bush said that marriage is one
of three options for women to get off welfare assistance.

"If people are mentally and physically able to work, they should be able to
do so within a two-year period. They should be able to get their life
together and find a husband, find a job, find other alternatives in terms
of private charity or a combination of all three," Bush said.

Bush's comments were well-publicized at the time, and have occasionally
popped up in coverage of his presidential campaign since then. But they've
taken on new importance in the wake of reports this week of similarly
controversial social commentary in a 1995 book.

Bush sought to explain his book's commentary that single parents face less
public shaming during a press conference in Europe on Thursday, saying he
meant to focus on missing fathers and that children born to single parents
face "huge challenges."

"From the perspective of children it's a huge challenge for single moms and
it hurts the prospects, it limits the ability of children to live lives
with purpose and meaning," Bush said.

In 1994, when Republican primary opponent Jim Smith hit Bush for those
comments in a television commercial, Bush didn't back away in a September
news conference.

"How you get on welfare is by not having a husband in the house -- let's be
honest here," he said.

"Men are not on welfare, that's the point," Bush said. "That's the point --
men are not on AFDC."

It was a reference to Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a federal
welfare program that was ended in 1996 and replaced by the more restrictive
program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Bush's refusal at the time to back away from his comments were interpreted
by Florida media as a signal he expected his stance to assist him in the
GOP primary.

Bush's comment that men don't receive Aid to Families with Dependent
Children benefits wasn't quite right, a state Health and Rehabilitative
Services Department official told The Palm Beach Post at the time.

A "small percentage" of the program's support goes to men, the official
said, and about 5,000 of the families that received benefits were headed by
a male and a female, compared to 250,000 families total collecting benefits.

Bush's social commentary on marriage from the 1990s has caused his campaign
headaches in recent days.

An excerpt from his 1995 book "Profiles in Character" was published in news
reports Tuesday. In it, Bush asserted that out-of-wedlock births were
caused by single parents no longer being shamed and ridiculed.

"One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and
more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that
there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel
shame," he wrote. "Many of these young women and young men look around and
see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents
and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule
to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would
frown on out-of-wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a
stimulus for one to be careful."

In another section, Bush wrote that a lack of a father is a good indication
of who will ultimately contribute to "social ills" and have children out of
wedlock in the future.

"For young girls, there is a correlate effect of fatherlessness that can be
measured by sexual activity and the rate of out-of-wedlock childbearing.
Studies have shown that girls who grow up without fathers run a greater
risk not only of adolescent childbearing but of divorce as well," he wrote.

*Jeb Bush's 2016 launch strategy: Be the tortoise, not the hare
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/12/politics/jeb-bush-2016-election-announcement-strategy/>
// CNN // Dana Bash – June 12, 2015 *

If the 2016 presidential campaign was boiled down to a fable, Jeb Bush's
would be the one about the tortoise and the hare, and he would be the
tortoise -- slow, steady and ultimately, the winner.

In conversations with multiple Bush advisers and confidantes in the run up
to his official White House launch Monday, a singular theme emerges from
inside his close-knit world: Patience.

Team Bush seems to say it as much to remind themselves, as they do the
pundit and donor classes. They know patience is not an easy watch-word when
today's politics moves at warp speed.

"It doesn't happen in a day," said Al Cardenas, Bush's long time friend who
will serve as a senior adviser on his presidential campaign.

Perhaps pleading for patience is a sign that Bush is too old school to
succeed in this insta-world of immediate gratification and results. Or, as
his advisers insist, it's proof that he's the adult in the room who can see
beyond the here and the now -- not just for his own fate, but for the
country.

"We all cover this kind of in the here and now, and who's winning and who's
losing is important, and I respect that," Bush told reporters in Germany
this week.

"But if you have a strategy, and you think about it over the long haul, is
the better approach at least for me," he said.

Regardless, being the tortoise not the hare reveals a reality inside Bush
world as he prepares to make his candidacy official: he's not going to run
away with a quick and easy path to the Republican presidential nomination.
Not even close.

His failure to pull ahead in the polls, much less scare any of his more
than dozen potential competitors away from running makes that fact
painfully obvious.

And then, there's the calendar. Bush aides are not playing the typical
lowering expectations game when warning they might not win in early contest
states. It's not being coy -- it's a real challenge.

The first caucus state of Iowa is more obvious fertile ground for a
Midwestern governor, like Scott Walker, or another candidate running as a
social conservative who can also appeal to the desire for an outsider.

Advisers say they see their best first shot at winning in New Hampshire,
but the Bush family -- both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush - had
mixed results in that primary over the years.

They feel their best bet is on the long game, gobbling up delegates during
big multi-state contest days later in 2016.

The only way to test that premise is to be prepared to settle in for the
long haul with money and manpower -- which Bush advisers say they have done.

"Since Eisenhower, every single nominee that the party has come up with is
the nominee who has had the best resources and the best organization and so
far that's Jeb Bush," Cardenas said.

"I consider Jeb Bush the favorite to win this thing just because we hit
every mark that every other successful nominee has hit, and in a more
significant way than any other candidate," he added.

To bolster that -- especially the fundraising part of the equation -- not
only will the Bush team release record money totals for his Super Pac and
pac in the coming weeks -- they are also working to raise big dollars for
his actual presidential campaign as soon as it starts Monday-- which is
much harder to do because of limits.

Bush's finance director has already asked bundlers -- donors who help
coordinate and raise money from other donors -- to raise $27,000 between
Monday and the end of the month.

Bush advisers say to expect an announcement speech Monday that reflects the
only kind of campaign he said he would run when launching his exploratory
phase in December, and that is an optimistic one.

Those close to the former Florida Governor say he has made clear internally
that he will play hardball politics when necessary, but he won't set a
scare tactic tone from the stump, even though he admits it may make it
easier to get some GOP votes.

"I kind of know what my job is, it's to develop a message that's hopeful
and optimistic about the future of the country, to develop ideas that will
give people a sense that they can lift up, and to tell them about my
leadership skills to make it so," Bush told reporters here in Europe.

Bush aides privately admit that, after being out of politics and public
office for 9 years, it has taken some time for him to shake off the rust.
Several days of stumbles last month on what should have been a
well-rehearsed answer on the Iraq war his brother started, was the starkest
example.

But getting polished again politically has been a work in progress in less
extreme ways as well -- like finding his own patience with voters in town
hall settings asking him off the wall questions - the kind candidates who
slog through Iowa and New Hampshire either become so used to it helps them
succeed, or disdain so much it comes through and makes it hard to connect.

Still, Bush confidantes insist many of those "what are they talking about"
moments on the trail are actually an intellectual rush for Bush, a
self-described policy wonk who likes a good chance to spar about ideas.

On this five-day trip to Europe, Bush -- who is known for flashes of
impatience and being stubborn, has shown he is getting more practiced at
the happy warrior thing.

Through three countries in five days, meetings with world leaders and
interactions with the American press traveling with him, he has been
staying on message -- seeming to enjoy not only private discussions, but
also playing tourist (something his brother, George W. Bush, famously had
little patience for and did not do much when traveling as president).

Inside his Florida headquarters, they know one of the biggest challenges
Jeb Bush still faces is his last name. Sources admit one of his biggest
hurdles will be making voters see him as Jeb, not just another Bush.

"It's going to take a while for voters to get beyond the Bush identity to a
Jeb identity," admits Cardenas, not just a close friend of Jeb's, but the
entire Bush clan.

In fact, Bush advisers say he hasn't been able to pull ahead of the pack
because of his name, not despite of it.

They insist comparisons to George W. Bush in 2000, when he was able to
clear the field by building a big war chest and locking up talented staff
early, are unfair -- because the Bush name was a plus back then. At that
time there was a bit of GOP nostalgia for his father, George H. W. Bush,
who was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992.

Now, in the 2016 election cycle, the Bush name for many Republicans means
big spending and government bailouts. Nevermind that it is the ultimate
establishment dynasty -- at a time when even unaffiliated GOP strategists
say there is a clear yearning for an outsider.

What staff shakeup?

Bush confidantes both inside and outside the campaign insist the buzz about
internal turmoil and squabbling -- prompted largely by his sudden decision
to replace his campaign manager and move him into a senior adviser role --
is way overblown.

They argue that what Bush said publicly isn't spin, it's actually true --
now that as he got to know these men and what their strengths are, he
realized they would be better off moved around.

But that does speak to another Bush challenge unique among most other top
tier candidates. Despite being an established political presence, he has
been out of the game for nearly a decade and is forming a campaign team
from scratch.

Unlike most of his competitors who are currently in office and have
political operatives and policy aides around they know and feel comfortable
with, Bush only has a small but fiercely loyal kitchen cabinet led by long
time aide Sally Bradshaw, and includes GOP consultant Mike Murphy, who will
run Bush's Super Pac, which means, by law, as of Monday the two will not be
able to talk political strategy.

A challenge for Bush going forward is expanding his circle and extending
trust and confidence in new people.

Al Cardenas is in that small circle of old friends. He says he has wanted
Bush to run president for years, and that Monday will be emotional for him,
and for Jeb Bush himself.

"He's spent a lot of time thinking about this -- a good chunk of 2014. --
He's been traveling the country and making sure if he did this he could do
it in a positive way and that he could find a structure where his message
can get across, and I believe he's confident he has done that and can do
that," Cardenas said.

*RUBIO*

*Marco Rubio is now at the top of the Republican presidential field
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/06/12/marco-rubio-is-at-the-top-of-the-republican-presidential-field/>
// WaPo // Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake – June 12, 2015 *

Look at any national poll on the 2016 Republican presidential race and you
will see somewhere between three and five candidates clumped at the "top"
of the field — all winning somewhere between 9 and 14 percent. It's fair,
given that clumping, to conclude that the race lacks a front-runner.

But there's a difference between a race without a clear front-runner and a
race in which there's no discernible momentum among the top tier of
candidates. And what we currently have is the latter, not the former.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is the candidate trending upward in that top pack.
It's a trajectory he's been on since he announced his candidacy almost two
months ago. Rubio's charisma, personal story and youth have combined to
make him the "it" candidate for the GOP at the moment.

Rubio has also been helped by the slippage of his two main rivals for the
nomination: Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. Bush weathered a very difficult last
week — shaking up a campaign that he hasn't even announced yet amid
faltering poll numbers and whispers that his fundraising might fall short
of its goals for the first six months of the year. Walker has largely
stayed out of the glare of the national media over the past six weeks or
so, but his brief foray on the big stage earlier this year — think "I don't
know" if President Obama is a Christian — weren't exactly
confidence-inspiring for Republicans looking to see if he is ready to take
the helm.

Beyond that top three, most unaligned Republican strategists we talk to —
and there aren't many since roughly 200 people are running for the GOP
nomination — see a significant drop-off in the likelihood of any of the
remaining candidates winning the nomination. The most common name we hear
as an alternative to the Big Three is Ohio Gov. John Kasich. And it's
possible, but he remains in the very early stages of a candidacy (he's not
announced yet) so we'll play a bit of wait-and-see for him.

Add it all up and you get Rubio, the youngest member of this massive GOP
field, as a first among equals. For now.

Below are the 10 candidates seen as having the best chance of winding up as
the nominee. The rankings are determined by polling, conversations with
various Republican strategists and a pinch of our own sense of things.

To the line!

10. Bobby Jindal: The governor of Louisiana is running: That we (almost)
know for sure. The formal announcement is set for June 24 in downtown New
Orleans. But Jindal's standing is his home state is dismal, and there's
very little excitement about him in national GOP circles. His best hope is
to hang around the race long enough that voters tire of a lot of their
other options. (Previous ranking: 9)

9. Rick Perry: The former Texas governor seems genuinely excited about his
second run for president. He even ran onstage at an event in Iowa last
weekend. It's somewhat surprising for a guy who once didn't really seem
that interested in running for president and then, when he did run in 2012,
ran a disastrous campaign. But Perry is the longtime governor of a huge
state. And American politics loves a reclamation project, right? (Previous
ranking: 10)

8. Chris Christie: Christie and his team insist they are taking the long
view on 2016. No, he isn't where they want him to be today, but regular
people still aren't paying any attention and won't be for some time.
Christie got some good news this week when the New Jersey state Supreme
Court affirmed the legality of his cuts to the state's public employee
pension fund. He's also staffing up. (Previous ranking: 8)

7. Mike Huckabee: The former Arkansas governor and 2008 Iowa caucus winner
keeps litigating the culture wars — something the larger GOP probably
doesn't want but still speaks to a key audience in the party, particularly
in Iowa and South Carolina. Huckabee is the top claimant to the social
conservative mantle in the field, and he's broadly popular in the larger
GOP, but we're still waiting for him to show he's running the caliber of
campaign that can actually win the nomination — in large part the
fundraising aspect. (Previous ranking: 4)

6. Rand Paul: The conventional wisdom among the GOP smart set about the
Kentucky senator has changed completely since the start of 2015. At that
time, there was a sense that Paul had a real chance at being the nominee
based on his strong base among libertarian-leaning Republicans and his
appeal to other, less-vocal GOP constituencies. But the heightened concern
within the Republican rank and file about national security and terrorism
badly complicates Paul's noninterventionist views. Even if Paul wins every
libertarian vote in the primary, if he can't expand beyond that bloc, it
won't be nearly enough. (Previous ranking: 5)

5. John Kasich: Nobody benefits from Bush's stumbles as much as the Ohio
governor. Both are pretty clearly running for GOP establishment support,
and Kasich recently suggested his window is larger if Bush doesn't run
strong. That's totally accurate. But we also have yet to see Kasich really
debut on the national scene. And his 2000 presidential campaign was hardly
a tour de force, ending shortly after it began. He moves up because it
looks like he's going to run and Bush looks weakened. (Previous ranking: 7)

4. Ted Cruz: Here's what the Texas senator has going for him: (1)
unquestioned dominance in the tea party lane of the primary, (2) deeply
committed supporters and (3) a group of well-funded super PACs backing him.
In a very crowded field, that likely means Cruz will be able to stick
around for a very long time. But if he ever makes it into a one-on-one
fight with any of the people rated higher than him here (Nos. 1-3), it's
still very hard to see him winning that battle. (Previous ranking: 6)

3. Scott Walker: Walker, as we mentioned above, has kept a low profile
these last few months. What Walker does have is momentum in Iowa where he
and his team are — smartly — lavishing time and money. Iowa is a state that
Walker probably has to win given that neither New Hampshire nor South
Carolina seems like a place where he is a natural fit. At the moment, he's
probably the favorite to do just that. (Previous ranking: 3)

2. Jeb Bush: Bush's struggles mask the fact that he's still very likely to
be the best-funded candidate in the field, and he's broadly liked within
the GOP establishment. Put plainly: Republican power brokers aren't going
to desert him until it's clear that his goose is cooked (or close to it).
And there is so, so much time left in the primary. At this time in 2008,
after all, we were talking about whether John McCain was done for.
(Previous ranking: 1)

1. Marco Rubio: See above. (Previous ranking: 2)

*Who's Laughing Now? Marco Rubio Mocks New York Times Article on His
Finances
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-12/who-s-laughing-now-marco-rubio-mocks-new-york-times-article-on-his-finances>
// Bloomberg // Sahil Kapur – June 12, 2015 *

Florida Senator Marco Rubio joked with Republican bigwigs Friday about a
recent New York Times article about his past financial struggles, which
mentioned that he once spent $80,000 dollars on a "luxury speedboat."

Rubio has disputed that description and he turned it into a joke into
before a Utah gathering hosted by Mitt Romney. "My wife and I have been
blessed," Rubio deadpanned. "We've even been able to buy a luxury
speedboat, cleverly disguised as a family fishing boat." The wisecrack won
applause and laughter from the crowd.

"The latest attack by the New York Times and others," Rubio contended, "is
that I'm not rich enough to be president."

That story—along with another article the Times ran several days earlier
about traffic tickets accrued by Rubio and his wife—has been a boon to the
senator's presidential bid, people close to him say. His campaign has been
fundraising off the news pieces, and he even gained some sympathy from
comedian Jon Stewart.

In Utah, the Floridian took a swipe at Democratic presidential front-runner
Hillary Clinton over her own finances: "I do not have a family foundation
that has raised $2 billion, some of it from foreign entities."

In a half-hour speech speech followed by a question-and-answer session,
Rubio spoke of everything from the economy and domestic politics to foreign
policy. He called Vladimir Putin "evil." And in a signature line, the
44-year-old lawmaker lamented that the United States remains "plagued by
leaders who are trapped in the past."

The son of Cuban immigrants also reiterated his position to reform
immigration sequentially, starting with tougher enforcement and bringing
illegal immigration "under control." More broadly, he said his party cannot
be seen as antagonistic toward Hispanics when asked about immigration and
the Latino vote.

"When you think someone doesn't care about people like you it's hard to
listen to anything else they're saying," he said. "So we have to confront
that."

Rubio said Republicans should have a plan for the millions of
Americans—including in his home state of Florida—who might lose health
insurance subsidies if the Supreme Court invalidates that portion of
President Barack Obama's signature health care law later this month. "I'm
not sure we've arrived at a consensus yet," he said, stopping short of
endorsing specific proposals for those affected. Republican leaders insist
they're prepared to act.

A Senate colleague and presidential rival, Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina, talking to reporters at the Utah event, made a similar point. "We
have an obligation as a party to not just complain but to work with the
president if he'll work with us," Graham said. "What do you do with people
with subsidies?

"I want to make sure there's a meaningful transition here so they're not
left out in the cold," he added.

*Everybody is flipping out over The New York Times' 'attacks' on Marco
Rubio
<http://www.businessinsider.com/everybody-is-flipping-out-over-nyts-attacks-on-marco-rubio-2015-6#ixzz3cu4UGgDM>
// Business Insider // Colin Campbell – June 12, 2015 *

The New York Times' scrutiny of Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-Florida) past is
stirring up controversy on the presidential campaign trail.

Fox News and the conservative-leaning media have been covering the paper's
stories on Rubio relentlessly. Other GOP presidential candidates have been
pressed to weigh in. And Rubio himself appears to be milking the issue for
all its worth.

Many of these conservatives criticized The Times for allegedly being too
aggressive in two recent stories examining Rubio's record. One report last
week revealed the traffic violations he and his wife received. Earlier this
week, the other report documented his risky personal-finance decisions,
including the purchase of three homes and an $80,000 boat while reportedly
not having enough cash to balance the liabilities.

Fox's Sean Hannity devoted two segments of his Thursday night show to
skewering the articles — with the full participation of Rubio's
presidential campaign.

"We take these attacks very seriously — as we need to. Clearly, The New
York Times has an agenda here," Rubio's communications director, Alex
Conant, declared on the show.

Conant also fired off a press release on Tuesday slamming the "elitist"
newspaper and arguing that the senator's finances are actually quite sound.

Hannity's other segment on the topic featured Robin Leach, the former host
of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," doing a dramatic reading of the
second Times article in order to mock the idea that Rubio lives a luxurious
life.

Of course, Republicans slamming The Times is nothing new. Its left-leaning
editorial board and headquarters in heavily Democratic New York City have
long made it a favorite target for GOP presidential candidates, some of
whom have questionably claimed they don't even read the prominent paper.

However, the backlash over the Rubio articles has been notably intense.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania), a rival presidential candidate,
called the stories "petty." Storms of critics have blasted the newspaper on
social media and right-leaning news outlets have run story after story
questioning the reporting. Even "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, who
leans left, torched the reports this week.

As many observers have noted, all the attention benefits Rubio's White
House ambitions by rallying conservatives around his cause and advertising
his relatively relatable background.

Rubio's campaign clearly agrees. His team has released multiple fundraising
messages about The Times' stories and claimed earlier this week that they
raised $100,000 in five days because of the reports. Two of the fundraising
emails featured "#RubioCrimeSpree" in their subject lines in order to make
fun of Rubio's four traffic violations since 1997.

Rubio himself signed an email Friday morning continuing to raise money off
The Times.

"Like millions of Americans, I had to take out student loans to pay for
college and law school, and only paid them off recently. But the biggest
debt I have is to America," he wrote. "Look, I know these attacks are part
of running for president, but the fact remains that we can’t rely on the
media to tell our campaign’s story. And that’s why I need your help."

For its part, The Times' Washington bureau chief, Carolyn Ryan, previously
defended the paper's scrutiny of Rubio as part of how it approaches all
presidential candidates.

"The vote for president is the most personal vote that Americans cast," she
told The Washington Post after the traffic-ticket story. "Voters want to
know about these candidates — not just as policy-makers, but as people. It
is not at all unusual or unexpected for us to scrutinize candidates'
backgrounds and their lives through public records."

Robin Leach's segment on Hannity's show can be viewed below:

*PAUL*

*Rand Paul doesn’t run with the herd
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/rand-paul-doesnt-run-with-the-herd-118951.html>
// Politico // Kyle Cheney – June 12, 2015 *

It’s practically a campaign-trail cliché: An Iowa interest group or
deep-pocketed donor demands an audience of presidential contenders, and the
candidates dutifully answer the call, flocking to assorted pig roasts or
single-issue summits to test their messages and shake hands with potential
supporters.

But not Rand Paul.

The Kentucky Republican was noticeably absent from last week’s so-called
Roast and Ride, a rollicking get-together hosted by Paul’s colleague, Sen.
Joni Ernst, in Iowa. He turned down an invitation to former Gov. Mitt
Romney’s gathering of presidential candidates in Utah this weekend in favor
of a swing through Southern California. He skipped last month’s Southern
Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma City (and his PATRIOT Act
filibuster kept several other senators from attending as well). Earlier
this year, he also took a pass on a prominent Iowa agriculture summit and a
gathering of White House wannabes hosted by Iowa Rep. Steve King.

While Paul’s rivals for the Republican nomination have ricocheted from one
high-profile Iowa gathering to the next, Paul’s been mounting a quieter
series of solo events, skipping the impersonal cattle calls to burnish his
image as a man untethered from conventional campaigning.

To his critics, it’s a risky strategy that could turn off activists he’ll
need in January.

“Sen. Paul needs to do something his dad never could, and that’s grow his
base of support,” said Tim Albrecht, a Republican strategist and former
aide to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, referencing former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s
three presidential bids. “Ignoring traditional Republicans is not a
particularly effective tactic in Iowa, and if he hopes to be successful
here, he’s got to engage the grass roots beyond his father’s loyal
sycophants.”

But Paul’s campaign is emphatic: Paul’s not against cattle calls — he
attended New Hampshire’s First in the Nation Summit in April and is still
considering attending the Family Leader’s July 18 summit in Iowa — but the
less he shares a stage with his rivals, the more it bolsters his image as
an atypical Republican who’s ready to engage segments of the GOP electorate
that have long been overlooked.

“While some candidates are limited to group-style events, Sen. Paul is able
to engage communities outside of traditional Republican comfort zones,”
said campaign spokesman Sergio Gor. “He’s in early states on a weekly
basis, but he’s also working on expanding the GOP by showing up in places
like UC Berkeley, Detroit and Silicon Valley.”

To some operatives, Paul’s decision to skip big gatherings suggests he’s
posturing like a front-runner. “Candidates that consider themselves as
front-runners often do that because they don’t want to share the stage with
candidates of a lesser stature,” said one veteran New Hampshire operative.
“In a state like Iowa — Iowa has a lot of cattle calls. In a state like New
Hampshire, we don’t have many … It’s always good to make your own news but
at the same time, you need to pay respect to the activists.”

In fact, during Ernst’s event, Paul was traveling in New Hampshire, a
three-day swing that followed his efforts in the Senate to block the
reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. But much of his travel has taken him to
states that play a minimal role in selecting the Republican nominee.

While his opponents have congregated at large events, Paul has opted to
parachute into often-ignored communities like Irvine, California, and
Windsor Mill, Maryland, where Republican audiences are unaccustomed to the
presidential campaign treatment.

Paul hinted at his calculus on Tuesday, when he addressed the Baltimore
County Republican Party — a group that readily admitted being overlooked by
other Republican candidates. “You showed me you can win in Maryland,” Paul
said, referencing last year’s election of Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. “I
think we can win across the country when we become a bigger, more diverse,
more inclusive party.”

His gesture was clearly reciprocated by an enthusiastic crowd. “He’s
showing up in places where the Republican Party, let’s be honest, we
haven’t done a very good job,” said Dan Bongino, who introduced Paul at the
event.

It’s not that Paul isn’t deeply aware of the importance of the early states
— in fact he may need strong finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire to justify
a continued campaign. But appealing to Republicans in blue states and
forgotten corners is about a larger strategy of proving his electability in
the general election, supporters say, a trait that could influence Iowans.

Steve Sukup, a prominent Iowa supporter of Paul, guessed that a third of
Iowa voters will pick a candidate based on electability. “For the third of
the Republicans that want somebody who can win in November ’16, showing
that you’re willing to get the independent votes and a portion of the swing
Democrats — he could do well,” Sukup said.

Sukup said the senator has made up for skipping the big Republican cattle
calls with a frenetic schedule of solo events, like an appearance in
Davenport with Sen. Chuck Grassley earlier this month.

”The philosophy is to target your audiences, and ones that want to come
hear you, those are the ones who you want to solidify for the caucus,” he
said. “I think he has a very specific message, and I think it’s going to
resonate with enough Iowans that he can bring them to his events instead of
doing the mix and match.”

Even Paul’s critics aren’t sure his unorthodox campaign hurts him among
Iowans. “Sen. Paul is one of the most interesting creatures in the world,”
said Joni Scotter, a Republican activist who said she won’t be with Paul in
the primary but would support him in a general election. “Iowa’s so used to
him doing that. But his supporters are the ones that count. They go along
with that 100 percent. I think they find it quite intriguing.”

Scotter said she suspected Paul skipped the Ernst event because it would’ve
been awkward to come face to face with her so soon after he riled his
Senate colleagues by blocking their version of a PATRIOT Act
reauthorization.

For now, Paul’s unusual schedule doesn’t appear to be costing him. He still
clocks in near the top of the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s got a
built-in base of libertarian-tinged support loyal to his father and has
spent much of his time trying to reach young minority voters who he’s
argued have largely been poorly served by Democrats and overlooked by
Republicans.

But the early-state power brokers are watching. Branstad, through a
spokesman, hinted that candidates who eschew prominent gatherings in his
state do so at their own peril.

“When meeting with candidates, the governor and [lieutenant] governor
encourage them to attend as many of the major Iowa gatherings as possible,”
said Branstad spokesman Jimmy Centers. “We’ve seen from events like the
Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Dinner or U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst’s Roast
and Ride that these gatherings afford candidates the opportunity to meet
with hundreds of Iowans in one place.”

*Rand Paul returns to California's conservative corridors to court donors
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-pn-rand-paul-southern-california-20150612-story.html>
// LA Times // Kurtis Lee – June 12, 2015 *

Often, presidential candidates venture to California for a single purpose:
to raise campaign cash.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is no exception. He traveled immediately in the
days after his April campaign kickoff to a state that serves primarily as
the ATM for national political campaigns, and he returned Friday both for
fundraisers and to deliver the keynote address at an annual gathering of
Orange County Republicans in Irvine.

He then travels to San Diego on Saturday to speak at a Lincoln Day Dinner.

"He’s the kind of person whose message resonates with the entire state,"
Eric Beach, Paul's campaign finance chairman, told The Times in April.

Both stops this weekend are set before friendly audiences in some of the
most conservative parts of the state and will give Paul opportunities to
try to attract more donors.

Erik Weigand, executive director of the Orange County Republican Party,
said Friday's event will be attended by state and federal GOP lawmakers,
such as Reps. Darrell Issa of Vista and Mimi Walters of Laguna Niguel.

"We reached out several months ago to all of the likely presidential
candidates and Sen. Paul got back to us right away," Weigand said. "I think
it shows his interest in Orange County and Republicans across the state."

Paul, who has tapped himself as a "different kind of Republican," has also
forged into California's Democratic strongholds more than any of the nearly
dozen GOP presidential hopefuls.

In the past year, he's delivered a speech at UC Berkeley and held
discussions in Silicon Valley with executives from Facebook and eBay. Last
month he opened an office in San Francisco in an effort to tap into the
tech field and court donors who might find appeal in his libertarian
leanings.

In a California centric op-ed essay Paul wrote in the Washington Times two
years ago, he argued that for his party to have success it must "broaden
and sharpen" its message so that it "can compete everywhere, every time,
for every vote — coast to coast."

"Republicans reaching out to new audiences doesn’t mean being less
conservative, but applying libertarian and constitutional principles where
they are sorely needed on multiple issues," wrote Paul.

Paul has himself looked to appeal to a wider base of voters. He's visited
inner cities and college campuses, talking about issues such as reducing
penalties for drug use and policing practices as he courts young and
minority voters.

*WALKER*

*Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/magazine/scott-walker-and-the-fate-of-the-union.html?partner=rss&emc=rss>
// NYT // Dan Kaufman – June 12, 2015 *

On his first day of work in three months, Randy Bryce asked his foreman for
the next day off. He wanted to go to the Capitol in Madison, Wis., and
testify against a proposed law. Bryce, a member of Milwaukee Ironworkers
Local 8, was unloading truckloads of steel beams to build a warehouse near
Kenosha, and he needed the job. He has an 8-year-old son, his debts were
piling up and a 10-hour shift paid more than $300. But the legislation,
which Republicans were rushing through the State Senate, angered him enough
to sacrifice the hours. Supporters called it a “right to work” bill,
because it prohibited unions from requiring employees to pay dues. But to
Bryce, that appealing name hid the true purpose of the bill, which was to
destroy unions.

The next morning, Bryce, who is 50 and has close-cropped black hair and a
horseshoe mustache, woke up at 5:30, got dressed in his usual jeans, hoodie
and Local 8 varsity jacket with an I-beam and an American flag stitched on
the back and drove 90 miles to Madison in his gray Mustang. Despite the
February chill, crowds had begun to gather in the square outside the
Capitol. The scene was reminiscent of a similar one that played out four
years earlier, in 2011, when thousands of people occupied the Capitol’s
rotunda for more than two weeks to protest Act 10, a law that demolished
collective-bargaining rights for nearly all public employees. The protests
in Madison were the first significant resistance to the ascendant Tea Party
and helped set the stage for Occupy Wall Street. For Wisconsin’s governor,
Scott Walker, it was the moment that started his conservative ascent. “The
Republican Party has a demonstrated, genuine hero and potential star in its
ranks, and he is the governor of Wisconsin,” Rush Limbaugh said last year.
The unions, Democrats and other perceived enemies, he continued, had
“thrown everything they’ve got at Scott Walker, and he has beat them back
without one syllable of complaint, without one ounce of whining. All he has
done is win.” Walker is expected to announce in the next few weeks that he
is entering the 2016 presidential race.

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It is particularly bitter for Walker’s opponents that his rise has taken
place in Wisconsin, a blue state with a long history of labor activism; it
was the first state in the nation to grant collective-bargaining rights to
public employees, in 1959. Walker, who declined to be interviewed for this
article, has won three races for governor, one a recall effort, and each
time he took more than a third of the votes from union households. He was
able to do this by making “labor” seem like someone else — even to union
members — and pitting one faction against another. Four years ago, in a
private exchange captured by a documentary filmmaker, he revealed his
successful strategy to a billionaire supporter who asked him if Wisconsin
would ever become a right-to-work state. Walker responded enthusiastically,
explaining that Act 10 was just the beginning of a larger effort. “The
first step is, we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all
public-employee unions,” he said, “because you use divide-and-conquer.”

At the Capitol, dozens of state troopers (who kept their bargaining rights)
and Capitol police officers (who lost theirs) were now patrolling the
rotunda to prevent it from being occupied again. The Senate hearing room
was already packed, so Bryce watched the hearing on monitors outside while
he waited for his turn to speak. First came the expert witnesses. James
Sherk, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that
unions operate as cartels: “They try to control the supply of labor in an
industry so as to drive up its price, namely wages. But like all cartels,
these gains come at the cost of greater losses to the rest of society.”
Greg Mourad, a spokesman for a lobbying organization called the National
Right to Work Committee, which has received significant funding from the
conservative billionaire Koch brothers, compared the experience of being
made to pay union dues to being kidnapped and extorted. Gordon Lafer, a
political scientist at the University of Oregon, noted on the other hand
that while right-to-work laws in other states had generated no identifiable
economic gains, they did drive down wages for union and nonunion workers
alike.

Ordinary citizens got their chance to speak in the afternoon. Nearly all of
them opposed the bill. A crane operator cited statistics showing that
workers in right-to-work states are killed on the job more frequently. “Are
you prepared to be accountable for the deaths that being a right-to-work
state can create?” he asked. Anthony Anastasi, the president of Ironworkers
Local 383, broke down in tears as he pleaded to the legislators, “Please
think about the families that will be impacted by this.”

At 6 p.m., Bryce’s name finally appeared on the list of coming speakers. He
paced the hallway outside the hearing room in anticipation. But 20 minutes
later, Stephen Nass, the Republican senator who is the chairman of the
Labor and Government Reform Committee, announced that there was a “credible
threat of disruption” and that the hearing would be adjourned so the
committee could vote to move the bill forward (it passed). A labor
organizer, it turned out, had told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that
some people planned to stand up in protest at 7 p.m., when testimony was to
be cut off. (“I went through Act 10 — it was ugly,” Nass said earlier in
the hearing, referring to the difficulty some senators experienced reaching
various parts of the Capitol after the rotunda was occupied. “We had to go
through a tunnel like rats. We don’t want to go through that again.”) About
a hundred people were still in line to testify. A chant of “Let us speak”
erupted. But Nass quickly took the committee members’ votes and was then
escorted out, with his two Republican colleagues, by a phalanx of state
troopers.

Bryce still wanted to speak. He had lost a day’s wages, and the committee’s
two Democratic senators had remained to hear more testimony. State troopers
were now blocking the door to the hearing room, though, so he decided to
address a group of protesters in the hallway outside instead.

“My name is Randy Bryce,” he began in a loud voice. “I’ve been a member of
Ironworkers Local 8 since 1997. I’ve had the privilege in that time to work
on many of Wisconsin’s landmarks, private businesses and numerous other
parts of our infrastructure.” As he spoke, the protesters began to quiet.
Bryce described how he had wandered from job to job after he left the Army,
how Local 8’s apprenticeship program had given him direction, a real
career. Finally, he presented the case against what he called “a blatant
political attack” on his union. “All of our representatives are elected,”
he said. “All of the decisions that we make are voted on. The general
membership is given monthly reports on how every dime is spent. Every dime
spent is voted on. Unlike what is taking place this week, Ironworkers Local
8 is pure democracy. I am disappointed beyond words at not just what this
bill contains, but how it is being passed.”

Two days later, just after the full Senate approved the bill that would
make Wisconsin the 25th right-to-work state, Scott Walker was in Maryland,
attending the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual showcase
for conservative activists and Republican presidential hopefuls. At a
question-and-answer session, one attendee asked Walker how he, as
president, would confront the threat from radical Islamist groups like
ISIS. Walker’s answer was simple, and may in the end define his candidacy.
“If I can take on 100,000 protesters,” he said, “I can do the same across
the world.”

At the foot of a hill in Bay View, a quiet Milwaukee neighborhood near Lake
Michigan, stand seven pear trees. In front of them is a small wooden plaque
that recounts the events of May 5, 1886, when some 1,500 workers, most of
them Polish immigrants, marched on the Rolling Mills iron plant. The
Milwaukee Iron Company built the plant and the neighborhood where its
employees lived, and it demanded in return that they work as many as 16
hours a day, six days a week. A citywide strike for an eight-hour day and
better working conditions had shut down every large factory in Milwaukee
except Rolling Mills, and as the marchers began climbing the hill toward
this last holdout, members of the Wisconsin National Guard fired down on
them. They killed seven people, including a 13-year-old boy. Jeremiah Rusk,
the governor of Wisconsin, had given the order. “I seen my duty, and I done
it,” he later said. At the time he thought he might become president, but
in the end he never ran. Until 1986, when the Wisconsin Labor History
Society began holding an annual commemoration, the Bay View Massacre was
largely forgotten. In 1996, the society planted the pear trees, one for
each person killed.

Many of the great labor battles that followed the Bay View Massacre —
Pittsburgh’s Homestead Strike of 1892; Colorado’s Ludlow Massacre of 1914 —
also ended in violent defeat for the workers. Yet the defeats, in their
very brutality, also forged a sense of solidarity that eventually produced
great labor victories, including the eight-hour workday, enshrined into
federal law during the Depression, and the passage of the 1935 Wagner Act,
which guaranteed the right to strike and remains labor’s greatest means of
leverage. That same year, the American Federation of Labor fully chartered
A. Philip Randolph’s Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a black union.
From 1935 to 1947, union membership in the United States quadrupled, from
3.5 million workers to nearly 15 million workers, fueled by the pro-union
policies of the New Deal and a labor shortage during World War II. By the
mid-’50s, more than a third of American workers belonged to a union.

In 1941, when the movement was still ascending, William Ruggles, a
40-year-old editorial writer for The Dallas Morning News, coined the slogan
“right to work.” Ruggles was alarmed by the growing strength of the labor
movement, which in his view was intent on forcing all workers into unions.
He proposed a constitutional amendment that would prohibit workers from
having to pay dues to a union in order to hold a job in a “union shop.” “If
the country does not want it, let us say so,” he wrote. “If we do want it,
adopt it and maintain forever the right to work of every American.”

The day after the editorial was printed, a Houston political activist named
Vance Muse called Ruggles to ask permission for his organization, the
Christian American Association, to pursue the proposal. Ruggles agreed and
suggested to Muse that he call it a “Right to Work Amendment.” Muse, an
avowed racist — he told a United States Senate committee in 1936, “I am a
Southerner and for white supremacy” — held a special animus toward unions,
which he believed fostered race-mixing. In “Southern Exposure,” a 1946
book about racism in the South, the muckraking journalist Stetson Kennedy
quoted Muse’s pitch on the need for right-to-work, in which he said: “White
women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African
apes, whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.”

But Muse was also an effective fund-raiser — he received support from
General Motors and the du Pont family, among others — and lobbyist. In
1944, the Christian American Association sponsored the amendment that made
Arkansas one of the country’s first right-to-work states. By 1947, 10 more
states, most of them in the South, had become right-to-work, embodying the
growing national backlash against labor brought on by the Red Scare. That
same year, over President Harry Truman’s veto, Congress passed the
Taft-Hartley Act, which undercut the Wagner Act by placing numerous
restrictions on unions, among them a clause granting states the power to
become right-to-work. Muse died in 1950, but his campaign had already been
taken over by more mainstream proponents. In 1955, Fred Hartley, the former
congressman from New Jersey who helped draft Taft-Hartley, founded the
National Right to Work Committee. Three years later, Kansas legislators,
with the enthusiastic support of the oil magnate Fred Koch, David and
Charles Koch’s father, adopted a right-to-work amendment. By 1963, 19
states were right-to-work. Since then, six more have adopted the measure,
including, in the past three years, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.

As state legislatures chipped away at unions, other forces were also at
work. Some union bosses turned corrupt. Manufacturers began pursuing
cheaper labor overseas. Automated systems replaced skilled workers in
industry after industry. And some politicians saw a chance to show that
they were not beholden to “special interests.”

In the fall of 1980, Ronald Reagan, then a Republican presidential
candidate, sent a letter to Robert Poli, the president of the Professional
Air Traffic Controllers Organization, seeking the endorsement of the union,
many of whose members were military veterans and socially conservative.
“You can rest assured,” Reagan wrote, “that if I am elected president, I
will take whatever steps are necessary to provide our air traffic
controllers with the most modern equipment available and to adjust staff
levels and workdays so that they are commensurate with achieving a maximum
degree of public safety.” The union gave Reagan its endorsement.

Eight months later, after contract negotiations with the Federal Aviation
Administration failed, the members of the union voted to strike, violating
an oath signed by federal employees. Reagan was unsympathetic. After 48
hours, he invoked a provision of Taft-Hartley and not only fired more than
11,000 air traffic controllers, but also had them permanently replaced. The
union’s strike fund was frozen, many of its local leaders were imprisoned
and, until 1993, the former strikers were banned from the Civil Service.
Since Reagan broke that union, the number of large-scale strikes begun in a
given year in the United States has fallen to 11 (last year) from 145 (in
1981). In 2014, only 11 percent of all American workers and 7 percent of
private-sector workers belonged to a union.

The night before Walker announced his plans for Act 10 to the public, he
gathered his cabinet in the governor’s mansion for a private dinner and a
pep talk. During the dinner, Walker stood up and held aloft a picture of
Reagan. He singled out the firing of the air traffic controllers as “one of
the most defining moments” of Reagan’s political career — a moment, he
said, that “was the first crack in the Berlin Wall.”

Randy Bryce wasn’t always a labor activist. He grew up in Milwaukee’s
“policeman’s ghetto,” a working-class neighborhood on the city’s
southwestern edge. His father was a beat cop, his mother a doctor’s
secretary. In 1983, Bryce enlisted in the Army so he could pay for college
and was stationed for a year at Soto Cano air base in Honduras, then a
launching point for American covert operations in Nicaragua and El
Salvador. “My dad was conservative,” Bryce said. “When I was in the Army, I
was, too. I was into Reagan, but it was more America first, U.S.A., U.S.A.”

After his discharge, Bryce briefly attended the University of Wisconsin,
Milwaukee, but was found to have testicular cancer and dropped out to
receive treatment. He lucked into an experimental trial at a medical
college that cured him and eventually landed a job assisting homeless
veterans. “I remember talking to a vet,” he said. “He was an atomic warrior
in the Cold War, and he showed me his back. It looked like someone poured
acid on it.” The government wouldn’t help the man, Bryce said, because he
was unable to prove that the injury was caused by exposure to an atomic
test. “It couldn’t have been made more clear to me that vets were
disposable resources,” he said. Bryce heard about Local 8’s apprenticeship
program from a patient in his mother’s office. After completing his
four-year ironworker’s apprenticeship, he became more involved in the
union. Since Act 10 passed in 2011, he has run unsuccessfully for State
Senate and State Assembly and now serves as Local 8’s political
coordinator. After protesting the passage of right-to-work laws in Indiana
and Michigan, Bryce began a grass-roots organizing campaign against the
bill in Wisconsin.

In southeastern Wisconsin, union ironworkers earn $55 an hour and receive
$33 of that in pretax income. (The difference goes to funding their
pensions, health care and training.) The pretax pay for a unionized
ironworker in Iowa, a right-to-work state since 1947, tops out at $26 an
hour. In Texas, also a right-to-work state since 1947, the sole
ironworkers’ local offers pretax wages of $18 an hour. Nonunion workers in
the state doing the same job make about $8 an hour. “A mile of U.S. highway
in Texas costs close to the same as it does in Wisconsin, certainly not
less than half,” Colin Millard, an organizer for the Iron Workers
International Union, told me. “So it is only a question of who makes the
money — the workers or the owners.”

Ironwork is a dangerous job. It has the sixth-highest fatality rate in the
country, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of Bureau of Labor
Statistics data. A 2011 University of Michigan study concluded that the
fatality rate in construction trades was 40 percent higher in right-to-work
states. Local 8 offers a four-year training program that requires more than
7,000 hours of combined classroom and on-the-job study. Even many
right-to-work proponents single out the building trades’ training programs,
like Local 8’s, as exemplary.

That is one reason many Wisconsin business owners, who might be expected to
cheer the demise of unions and welcome cheaper labor costs, have not done
so. Contractors rely on the unions to certify and drug-test workers and
keep their workers current on new technologies and job skills.
Collectively, Wisconsin’s trade unions contributed more than $30 million
last year to training programs.

Bill Kennedy, the president of Rock Road Companies, a family-owned
asphalt-paving operation with headquarters in Janesville, Wis., flew back
early from a Florida business trip to testify against the right-to-work
bill at the same Senate hearing where Bryce tried to speak. Kennedy also
helps run the Wisconsin Contractors Coalition, an organization of business
owners whose positions on labor issues counter those of Wisconsin
Manufacturers & Commerce, the most powerful statewide business lobby, which
has pushed hard for right-to-work. Within a few months of its founding in
2014, Kennedy’s coalition attracted nearly 450 like-minded businesses that
collectively employ some 120,000 people. Like many of the group’s members,
Kennedy voted for Walker and contributed to each of his campaigns.

“There’s this misguided myth that unions and management don’t get along,”
Kennedy told me the day after the hearing. Rock Road was founded in 1913 by
Kennedy’s grandfather. It was a hauling business until the Depression, when
it began bidding on government-funded projects like railroad beds and town
roads. At its summertime peak, Kennedy’s company employs about 150 workers.
His opposition to right-to-work is rooted in pragmatism. “It’s a business
bottom-line issue,” he said. “Right-to-work is going to compromise my
quality, my competitiveness. The unions are my partner. They’re almost like
a screening agency.” Kennedy’s greatest fear is that right-to-work will
undermine the unions’ contribution, and eventually the quality and skills
of his employees. “This is a working system,” he said. “I have never
understood this right-to-work agenda.”

Even when he was attacking public unions for robbing the taxpayers of
Wisconsin, Walker consistently praised private-sector unions, particularly
those in the construction trades, calling them “my partners in economic
development.” During his first term, many of those unions, including Local
8, backed Walker’s effort to rewrite the state’s environmental law so that
an enormous iron-ore mine could be built in a pristine section of northern
Wisconsin, a few miles from a Chippewa Indian reservation. The mine, which
was never built, was fiercely opposed by Native American tribes and
conservationists, but the mining company promised to deliver hundreds of
union jobs, creating a split in Walker’s broad-based opposition.

In 2010, Terry McGowan, the president of Local 139, a statewide union of
9,000 heavy-machinery operators, endorsed Walker, because he had promised
to increase highway funding and build more roads. McGowan supported him
again last year, but since then, he has come to reconsider. Testifying at a
right-to-work State Assembly hearing in February, McGowan’s voice cracked
as he described the death, three days earlier, of Ryan Calkins, a
33-year-old union operating engineer who got caught in a drilling rig while
working on a highway interchange in Milwaukee. “Remember that name — Ryan
Calkins — because he will just be a little blurb in the newspaper,” McGowan
told the legislators. Five hours after Calkins was killed, McGowan said, he
received a call from a lawyer for Calkins’s employer; it needed someone who
knew how to operate the specialized drill to help remove the mutilated
body. McGowan sent one of his union members, who had trained at Local 139’s
facility in central Wisconsin. “Now we’re talking about possibly taking
training and safety away from our industry?” McGowan asked in disbelief.

A few days after McGowan testified, I went to see him at Local 139’s
impressive new glass-and-steel union hall in wealthy suburban Waukesha
County, a stronghold of support for Walker. McGowan greeted me warmly, but
I could see he was still shaken by Calkins’s death. “I gained a lot of
respect for the guy that I called, because he made it very obvious he
didn’t want to do it,” McGowan said. “But he said he was not going to allow
a fellow operating engineer to sit wrapped around that drill bit in that
weather and freeze solid. You could hear his family in the background. I’m
sure he was looking at his wife and kids while I was talking to him.”

In his testimony, McGowan described his members as “beer-drinking,
gun-toting, pickup-driving rednecks” and reminded legislators that many
of his workers are politically conservative and usually vote Republican.
Local 139’s special relationship to Republican politicians was made clear
when Scott Fitzgerald, the State Senate majority leader and the sponsor of
the right-to-work bill, floated the idea of exempting McGowan’s union,
along with a few others.

“One side of the aisle likes the work we do, but not our organization,
while the other side likes our organization, but not what we do,” McGowan
told me. He had lobbied heavily on behalf of the iron-ore mine. “I was
surprised that the United Steelworkers fought the mine so hard, when the
mine would have used their equipment. The mine became political, and a lot
of the unions that opposed it; they did it so that Walker couldn’t get a
victory out of it. My thinking was: jobs.”

Fidgeting behind his desk, McGowan rubbed his bald scalp and half-smiled.
“I sort of trusted the guy,” he said, recalling his 2010 endorsement of
Walker. “I took some bullets at the time from the other unions.” When
Walker’s “divide and conquer” video was released in 2012, The Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel asked McGowan about the governor’s remarks. McGowan told
the paper that the phrase “divide and conquer” troubled him. “It means
turning worker against worker,” he said.

Last fall, McGowan met with Walker, who was seeking a contribution and
another endorsement for governor, at a small campaign office in Wauwatosa,
outside Milwaukee. “I looked across the table at him, and I said, ‘We are
both God-fearing men,’ ” McGowan told me. “ ‘If you can tell me that
right-to-work will not come on your desk, then I will take you for your
word.’ He looked me in the eyes, and he said, ‘It will not make it to my
desk.’ He was looking for a contribution, and I was looking for a
commitment. We both got what we came for. He kept his, and I lost mine.”

In 1956, the Republican Party platform declared: “The protection of the
right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the
firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower administration.” President
Richard Nixon enthusiastically courted the white “hard-hat vote,” winning a
majority of union households in the 1972 election. During a news conference
announcing the replacement of the air traffic controllers, Reagan boasted
of his union bona fides as a lifelong member of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. who led
the Screen Actors Guild in its first-ever strike. Walker’s own consistent
praise for private unions appears, with the passage of right-to-work, to
have come to an end, and with it any sense that his party must even pretend
to support labor.

Many union leaders worry that if Walker is elected president, Congress
could pass a national right-to-work bill. In January, Representative Steve
King, Republican of Iowa, introduced such a bill in the House; it now has
98 co-sponsors. In February, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky,
sponsored a similar bill, which now has co-sponsors in Mitch McConnell,
the majority leader, and 15 other Republicans.

In this sense, passing Act 10 was a kind of audition for Walker. “If we can
do it in Wisconsin, we can do it anywhere — even in our nation’s capital,”
he wrote in his 2013 book, “Unintimidated.” The origins of Wisconsin’s
right-to-work bill, meanwhile, showed whom he might have been trying to
impress. As revealed by the Center for Media and Democracy, a watchdog
organization based in Madison, Wisconsin’s law was a virtual copy of a 1995
model bill promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, an
organization based in Arlington, Va., that disseminates model legislation
for a consortium of corporations and conservative private backers,
including the Koch brothers.

A law with language that closely tracks that model bill was enacted in
Michigan in 2012. Similarly worded proposals were introduced this year in
Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico and West Virginia, but they
failed to advance. Missouri’s right-to-work bill, which was also more or
less identical to the model bill, passed both houses this year, only to be
vetoed by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, early this month. A few weeks after
signing the right-to-work bill, Walker gave a private talk in New York to a
group of powerful Republican donors that included David Koch. Koch later
told reporters that he believes that Walker will be the eventual Republican
presidential nominee. “I thought he had a great message,” Koch said after
the meeting to a reporter for The New York Observer. “Scott Walker is a
tremendous candidate.”

But if Wisconsin is a model for what Walker might achieve nationally, it is
worth examining his results so far. Walker credits Act 10 in part for the
decline in Wisconsin’s unemployment rate since he took office in 2011 and
has said he considers right-to-work “one more arrow in that quiver” for the
creation of jobs. But since 2011, the state has fallen to 40th out of the
50 states in job growth and 42nd in wage growth, according to an analysis
of Bureau of Labor Statistics dataconducted by The Capital Times of
Wisconsin. Act 10, officially called the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, was
supposed to fix persistent budget shortfalls by lowering labor costs and
eliminating union rules. But Wisconsin’s two-year projected budget deficit
has actually increased; in May, the Legislature approved a $250 million cut
to the state’s prized university system to help close the gap. Wisconsin is
now among the top 10 states people move out of.

Right-to-work bills like Walker’s have also had negative consequences. When
Michigan implemented a similar law in 2013, 16.3 percent of its workers
belonged to a union; within a year, the percentage dropped to 14.5. That
may not seem like a precipitous decline, but the loss erodes the
collective-bargaining power of the unions and will almost certainly be
reflected in lower wages across the board, as it has been in other states
that have passed similar laws. In a New York Times Op-Ed article, Lawrence
Mishel, the president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, called
the decline of union bargaining power in the United States “the single
largest factor suppressing wage growth for middle-wage workers over the
last few decades.” And a recent study by two economists for the
International Monetary Fund connected the decline in union membership in
advanced economies to the overall rise of income inequality. It is not just
pushing down the wages of the working class, they wrote; it is also
increasing the incomes of the wealthiest 10 percent.

Wisconsin legislators are now considering repealing the state’s
prevailing-wage law, a Depression-era law requiring public construction
projects to pay the going wage in a given area as determined by a survey of
local employers. In places with high union membership, the union wage
becomes the standard, which then raises the scale for nonunion workers.
Like right-to-work, the prevailing-wage bill is being promoted by the
American Legislative Exchange Council in states across the country;
measures rolling it back recently passed in West Virginia and Nevada.
Walker has said that repealing the prevailing-wage law is not “a priority”
— a phrase he also used about the right-to-work bill — but in May, he
promised to sign such a bill if it reached his desk.

In early March, I visited Dave Poklinkoski, the president of Local 2304, an
electricians’ union, at his office in Madison, where he was drawing up a
right-to-work-compliant union contract. “Divide and conquer, it works,”
Poklinkoski said. “It works real well.” He dug out his iPad from under a
pile of papers and pulled up an editorial cartoon by Mike Konopacki that
showed a bloodied Terry McGowan, the Local 139 president, with a sword in
his back, the hilt and handle in the shape of Walker’s head, labeled
“R-T-W.”

It didn’t matter if everyone knew that Walker had broken a promise to a
union leader, because now it was clear, at least in Wisconsin, that Walker
no longer needed labor. “Wisconsin has become a kind of laboratory for
oligarchs to implement their political and economic agenda,” Poklinkoski
said. “We’re small enough that they can carry it out. Can they carry it out
on the national level? We’ll find out.”

Two weeks after Walker signed the right-to-work bill, Local 8 held a
monthly meeting in its union hall just outside Milwaukee. On the way there,
I drove past Miller Park, the Milwaukee Brewers’ stadium, which Bryce
worked on in 2000, during the final phase of its construction. It was the
project he was most proud of. From the Interstate, I could see the
elaborate arched ironwork crowning the stadium’s top. It reminded me of a
photograph I had glimpsed on the wall of Bryce’s home showing him and two
other ironworkers decking the top of the stadium. They looked tiny in the
far distance, but you could tell how strong the wind was from the way a
tarp was blowing.

Bryce’s grandfather, Eugene, had taken the photo. He used to drive by the
stadium several times a week, because he loved watching Bryce work. It was
difficult to see Bryce and his co-workers, 350 feet in the air and bracing
against the wind, as members of a cartel, as the Heritage Foundation
economist had described unions in his Senate testimony. Miller Park had
claimed the lives of three Local 8 ironworkers, who fell 300 feet to their
deaths when a giant crane collapsed into the stadium on a fiercely windy
day.

Bryce arrived at the Local 8 meeting straight from work, wearing mud-caked
overalls. He walked into the office to pay his $53 in monthly dues and then
chatted with a few other ironworkers before wandering into the meeting
hall. After the men recited the Pledge of Allegiance and the recording
secretary read the minutes from the previous month’s meeting, the executive
board began a series of briefings: the prospects for building a new arena
for the Milwaukee Bucks, the restructuring of the local’s dental plans,
what happened at the annual conference of the international union in Las
Vegas.

Last on the agenda was Bryce’s political report. He stood up and started
talking. He told the union workers about being locked out of the Senate
hearing. He told them about the next day, when he went back to protest and
was thrown out of the Senate debate for shouting, “This bill is turning
Wisconsin into a banana republic.” He talked about his organizing trips in
anticipation of right-to-work and the dispiritingly small crowds at the
rallies. He implored Local 8’s members to become more active and not to
think of themselves as elite tradesmen whose concerns were distinct from
those of other workers and other movements. “Unions are not separate from
the community,” he said. “We build the community. Yet you’re seen as the
enemy, the reason people are broke. We have to stop this
union-versus-nonunion mentality.”

After the meeting, Bryce headed out to the parking lot. There had been some
defeats, he acknowledged, but he still saw the attacks on unions as an
opportunity to build solidarity. “At last month’s meeting, I talked about
how the only way to fight back is to stage a massive general strike,” he
said. “It doesn’t need to be that, but we do need to build ourselves up to
a strength where theyfear that. Now they’re not afraid of anything, because
we haven’t done anything to fight back.”

Bryce blamed the timidity of both union leaders and the rank-and-file, as
much as the Republicans, for allowing Act 10 and right-to-work to become
law. “People think that unions are useless today, that we’re dinosaurs,” he
said. “Well, how did that happen? We let it happen. The labor movement has
become lazy, because it’s something that’s been handed to us.” He leaned
against his Mustang and stared out into the industrial landscape
surrounding the parking lot.

“A lot of guys in our local didn’t see Act 10 as being important for
ironworkers,” Bryce said, because it targeted public employees. “I would
ask them, how can you say there are good unions and bad unions? It’s an
idea that they’re trying to kill — it’s not the union itself. This is the
strategy they’re using to do it. They’re splitting everything up. They’re
going after them first, then it’s going to be somebody else. Then they’re
going to get to us too.”

*Scott Walker hardens abortion stance ahead of his likely White House bid
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ahead-of-2016-bid-scott-walker-pushes-abortion-restrictions/2015/06/11/098c6512-0f84-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html>
// WaPo // Jenna Johnson – June 12, 2015 *

It came out of nowhere: an open letter from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
declaring his support for a ban on abortions once pregnancies reach 20
weeks.

The missive delighted antiabortion activists in the state — and set off a
scramble in the State Capitol here because no such legislation had actually
been introduced.

The restrictions, approved this week by the state Senate and likely to be
passed by the Republican-dominated state Assembly, underscore the extent to
which Walker — who has not yet announced his candidacy — is positioning
himself to be the most fervent antiabortion candidate in the Republican
field of presidential hopefuls.

The stance could help Walker win votes in conservative early-voting states,
especially those with large numbers of evangelical Christian voters. But
others are competing for those voters as well, including his main rivals of
the moment, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Walker is opposed to abortion in all cases — including when a pregnancy is
the result of rape or incest — and he has received near-perfect ratings
from antiabortion activist groups. As governor, Walker forced five
health-care centers to close after stripping Planned Parenthood of funding,
and he signed a law that required ultrasounds for women before they have an
abortion.

Proponents of abortion rights have declared Walker’s record on the issue
one of the most “dangerous” and “extreme” they have seen.

But Walker has an unexpected problem: Despite his record, he seemed to
soften his rhetoric on abortion during his run for reelection last year,
raising suspicions among some antiabortion activists that he wasn’t
necessarily with them.

“I take him at his word, but it’s even more compelling to take him at his
word when it’s coupled with action in his state,” said Marjorie
Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a national group
opposed to abortion.

Dannenfelser said that for the past year she has pressured potential 2016
contenders to publicly support a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, and
shetracks their positions on her group’s Web site. Former Texas governor
Rick Perry (R) signed a 20-week abortion ban into law in 2013, while Sen.
Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) introduced federal legislation that attracted
statements of support from Bush, Rubio and five other Republicans who are
declared or likely 2016 candidates.

Earlier this year, Dannenfelser criticized Walker for not joining in. In
early March, Walker issued the “open letter on life” posted on the Susan B.
Anthony List’s Web site; the declaration came two days after he struggled
to answer questions about his abortion positions clearly on “Fox News
Sunday.”

“I will sign that bill when it gets to my desk and support similar
legislation on the federal level,” Walker wrote in the letter. “I was
raised to believe in the sanctity of life and I will always fight to
protect it.”

As written, the Wisconsin legislation would ban abortions after 20 weeks
unless a “medical emergency” occurred. Doctors who performed abortions
after that point could be charged with a felony, facing up to $10,000 in
fines or 3 1/2 years in prison. The parents, including the father, could
also sue for damages. There are no exceptions for pregnancies resulting
from rape or incest.

Walker told local reporters last week that he would sign the legislation
into law with or without that exception.

“I think for most people who are concerned about that, it’s in the initial
months where they’re most concerned about it,” Walker said of pregnancies
related to rape and incest.

That comment quickly prompted criticism.

“Really?” said state Sen. Lena C. Taylor, a Democrat from Milwaukee. “How
does he know what goes on in the minds of pregnant women who have been
raped or who have experienced incest, who are survivors? How does he know?”

Democrats have also criticized Walker for defending his state’s mandated
ultrasounds by gushing about seeing his son’s first ultrasounds years ago.
“It’s just a cool thing out there,” he said of such photos.

As a young lawmaker in the Wisconsin Assembly in the 1990s, Walker helped
write and pass legislation that requires women seeking an abortion to wait
24 hours and that bans a seldom-used procedure known by opponents as
“partial-birth abortion.” Walker unsuccessfully tried three times to pass
legislation that would protect doctors, pharmacists and other health-care
workers who refuse to engage in procedures that conflict with their
religious beliefs, including performing an abortion, using stem cells or
dispensing some birth-control drugs. He also tried unsuccessfully to
require minors to obtain parental consent before having an abortion.

In campaign-style appearances in Iowa and South Carolina, Walker has
bragged about stripping Planned Parenthood of state funding while governor.
Planned Parenthood officials say the funding went to non-abortion services
such as cancer screenings and providing birth control and that the cut
forced them to close five health centers in rural areas that do not perform
abortions.

When Walker ran for reelection last year, Democratic opponent Mary Burke
slammed his record on women’s health issues. Walker avoided discussing
abortion and declined to complete a Pro-Life Wisconsin survey, forfeiting
the group’s endorsement. As he lagged in the polls, his campaign released
an ad that defended the ultrasound law but also gave some the impression
that he supported leaving abortion decisions to women and their doctors.

“He sees the polling that we see, and he knows that it’s not popular to say
you want to ban abortion in Wisconsin,” said Nicole Safar, Planned
Parenthood of Wisconsin’s policy director.

Now that Walker might compete for the Republican nomination, he is touting
his record. A clear majority of Republicans are opposed to abortion in most
cases and express support for a variety of restrictions, including bans
after 20 weeks into a pregnancy. Evangelical Christians are among the most
opposed, and they made up 57 percent of GOP caucus-goers in Iowa in 2012
and half of all GOP primary voters in states where exit polls are available.

Walker steps into less popular territory in espousing absolute opposition
to abortion. For example, a large majority of Americans say a woman should
be able to get an abortion if the pregnancy is a result of rape.

When asked last weekend why he opposes abortion in all cases, Walker simply
stated that he’s pro-life — and then went after Democratic front-runner
Hillary Rodham Clinton for favoring fewer restrictions on abortion.

“Which I think,” he said, “puts her squarely out of touch of where most
Americans are at.”

Scott Walker: 'I Ran Against a Woman' and Won - Bloomberg Politics //
Bloomberg //

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Friday offered up a not-so-subtle
suggestion that he has what it takes to beat Hillary Clinton, recalling the
time he "ran against a woman."

Speaking to donors at Mitt Romney's E2 Summit in Utah, Walker pointed to
his re-election victory in November 2014 against Democrat Mary Burke, and
suggested that it's "quite offensive" for Democrats to suggest that women
only care about abortion.

"The women I talk to care about a whole bunch of things," he said.

"I don't think the answer is to run away from your positions."

"They care about making sure our schools are living up to the expectations
of our children and our grandchildren. They care about making sure our sons
and daughters who go to college can graduate with a degree and actually
find a job," he said. "They care about being able to make decisions about
their health care, instead of having the government do it through
Obamacare."

The governor has drawn extra attention from Democrats and abortion-rights
groups this month, after saying that he'll sign legislation calling for a
20-week abortion ban in his state, even if it doesn't include an exemption
for rape or incest.

Walker, who is expected to join the race for the GOP nomination for
president, said Republicans shouldn't shy away from their views, but that
tone matters.

"I don't think the answer is to run away from your positions," he said.
"Just make it clear to the American people that this is where you stand."

In 2016, Walker said his party should "transfer that same strategy" in
trying to confront Democrats, "whether it's me or somebody else."

Recently, Republican women, including presidential candidate and former
Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, have also been asserting loudly that
their party holds the best ideas for women and that Democrats shouldn't
hold a near-monopoly on their vote because of social issues.

Walker, who has in recent months taken a tougher stance on immigration,
also celebrated the U.S. as a land of opportunity for immigrants, as he
criticized a government that he said fosters "dependency" instead of
providing opportunity.

"The reason they came here was because it was one of the few places left in
the world where it didn’t matter what class you were born in, it didn’t
matter what your parents did for a living," he said. "In America, you can
do and be anything you want."

Several Republican candidates have struggled to present themselves as
acceptable both to the party's primary voters, who often support
deportations of immigrants, and donors, who often favor a path to legal
status. Walker faced accusations of flip-flopping on immigration in March,
after he dropped his support of "amnesty" for the millions of immigrants
living in the country without authorization.

*Citing collective bargaining law, Scott Walker says Wisconsin's rank on
ACT test has risen to second
<http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2015/jun/12/scott-walker/citing-collective-bargaining-law-scott-walker-says/>
// Politifact // Tom Kertscher – June 12, 2015 *

Gov. Scott Walker is a contender for president largely because of the
collective bargaining reforms -- affecting teachers and most other public
employees -- that he signed into law following massive protests in Madison.

On June 2, 2015, at a Florida gathering of announced and likely Republican
candidates for the White House, Walker credited the March 2011 law for what
he said was Wisconsin's improved ranking on the ACT college preparation
test.

"A lot of protesters at the time claimed that public education was going to
fail," Walker said, then went on to list changes made by what is known as
Act 10.

"I’m proud to tell you that today, we no longer have seniority or tenure.
That means we can hire and fire based on merit, we can pay based on
performance. That means we can put the best and the brightest in our
classrooms and we can pay them to be there.

"I said the proof is in the pudding; the facts don’t lie. Four years later,
graduation rates are up, third-grade reading scores are up, ACT scores are
now second-best in the country for states where more than half the kids
take the exam."

Saying Wisconsin's ACT scores are now second-best suggests Wisconsin's
ranking on the test has improved since Act 10 and that the law played a
role.

Let's see.

Where we've been

Two previous fact checks help set the table for evaluating Walker's claim.

1. In February 2011, with the protests being carried out daily, the
Wisconsin Democratic Party claimed that the five states that outlaw
collective bargaining for teachers all ranked below 44th in the nation in
test scores, while Wisconsin ranked second. PolitiFact National rated the
claim False, partly because the data cited for both major college
preparation tests -- the ACT and the SAT -- was a decade old.

More importantly, in terms of evaluating Walker's claim, our colleagues
concluded after talking with experts that "it’s impossible to know whether
collective bargaining has any role in causing test scores to rise. That’s
because countless other demographic, economic and cultural factors play a
role in shaping a state’s test scores."

2. In June 2014, we rated Mostly True a Walker claim that graduation rates
and third-grade reading scores in Wisconsin were higher than when he took
office in January 2011. Both numbers were up compared with the year before
Walker took office. But we found that some credit may be owed to prior
elected officials, because the trend lines hadn’t really changed much going
back deeper into the pre-Walker era.

We also noted in that item that Wisconsin students’ longstanding
high-achievement scores on the ACT are well known.

But let's flesh them out.

Here are Wisconsin’s average composite scores on the ACT, and where
Wisconsin ranked among the states where more than half the students take
the exam. Those are the ones Walker specifically cited in making the claim.
We took a look at the three years before and the three years after 2011,
when Act 10 was adopted.

So, Wisconsin's rank moved from third to second in 2012, the year after Act
10 was adopted, and has remained there.

But that's not because Wisconsin's long-stable composite score has
improved. Indeed, the score is virtually unchanged since Act 10.

Moreover, as we noted previously, there is no evidence to show how any one
factor affects ACT scores -- particularly an indirect factor such as a
personnel policy like Act 10.

Matthew Di Carlo, senior research fellow at the Albert Shanker Institute,
which studies education policy, reiterated that it would be "enormously
complicated" to determine how any one factor  such as socioeconomic status
affects ACT scores. That's all the more true for changes in collective
bargaining -- a policy that affects personnel rather than one, such as
tutoring, that directly affects student learning, he said.

And while Act 10 could have some indirect effects on ACT scores -- such as
through the retention of teachers -- those effects couldn't be gauged for
some period of years, Di Carlo said.

*Our rating*

Walker said that four years after his collective bargaining law took
effect, ACT scores in Wisconsin "are now second-best in the country for
states where more than half the kids take the exam."

There is an element of truth in Walker’s statement, in that Wisconsin's
rank moved from third to second in 2012, the year after the Act 10
collective bargaining reforms were adopted. But the rank didn’t improve
because of an improvement in Wisconsin’s score. And there is no evidence
that Act 10 affected the ranking.

For a statement that has an element of truth but ignores critical facts
that would give a different impression, we rate the claim Mostly False.

*Scott Walker, Professors Clash Over Tenure in Wisconsin
<http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/06/12/scott-walker-gop-lawmakers-pitted-against-wisconsin-academics-in-tenure-battle>
// US News // Allie Bidwell – June 12, 2015 *

Tensions over tenure are running high in Wisconsin as part of a battle
between government and higher education that's providing a possible preview
of one White House hopeful's education platform.

Wisconsin is the only state in the country where academic tenure is
protected by law, but a budget plan approved by the GOP-controlled
legislature's Joint Finance Committee would remove that safeguard for
professors in the state university system and cut its budget by $250
million. The plan is backed by Gov. Scott Walker – who's expected to
announce in the coming weeks that he's running for the Republican
presidential nomination – and would shift control of the tenure policies to
the university system's board of regents.

Republican lawmakers have said the change is simply a shift in power, and
Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said the change was part of a larger plan
to give the university system more power over creating its own policies.
But the proposal would also greatly expand provisions for how and when
tenured faculty can be laid off or fired. Those provisions include
budgetary constraints and program changes, and the proposal has been met
with fierce opposition from professors in the state university system.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the faculty senate called an
emergency meeting this week and passed a resolution condemning the plan.

The budget proposal also changes state law regarding shared governance,
which gives faculty members deciding power on issues like curriculum,
instruction and personnel matters.  It instead would give faculty an
advisory responsibility on those issues.

Such language, the faculty members said in their resolution, "will lead to
the demoralization and/or departure of substantial numbers of faculty, will
have negative repercussions for recruiting outstanding new faculty, and
will seriously damage UW‐Madison's national competitiveness and the
faculty's ability to grow the economic future of the state and to serve its
students and its citizens."

"If we allow ourselves to be led down this path laid out before us, other
great universities will follow. Then there will be nobody left to 'follow
the indications of truth wherever they may lead,'" associate professor
David Vanness said during the Tuesday meeting, referring to a plaque
outside the campus' main administration building that commemorates the
academic pursuit of truth. "We will sift where it is safe to sift. We will
winnow where we are told to winnow. Our pace of discovery will slow and our
reputation will falter."

National organizations, too, have chimed in on the issue. In a letter to
the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents and University of
Wisconsin System President Ray Cross, the American Association of
University Professors said the changes in tenure and due process, combined
with the proposed budget cut, "amount to a direct attack on higher
education as a public good."

"Tenure and due process do not only protect individual faculty members in
their teaching, research, and publication efforts, as well as their right
to speak on matters of public concern," wrote Rudy Fichtenbaum, the
association's president. "They also protect the collective right of the
faculty to participate in the formulation of academic policy and budget
priorities and to use their professional expertise to recommend hiring and
retaining faculty and administrators so that the university system can best
serve the public interest and the citizens of the state."

Walker and the Republican-controlled state legislature have repeatedly been
at odds with the state's higher education community. The 2015-17 budget
originally proposed a $300 million cut to the university system, which has
since dropped to $250 million but is still opposed by faculty.

In an op-ed this week for the Quad-City Times, Walker touted his record on
education, saying "quality training and a solid education are vital
components of wage growth and economic mobility."

"And the affordability of that education is an important consideration,
especially for families whose children are heading to college," Walker
wrote. "That's why our last budget committed the highest level of
need-based financial aid in state history, and froze tuition at the
University of Wisconsin for two years. Our current budget continues the
tuition freeze for another two years."

When he first took office in 2011, Walker also passed a law – Act 10 – that
limited the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions, including
teachers unions. He has credited the changes with increasing student test
scores and graduation rates, and has since referred to the combined higher
education budget cuts and push to grant more flexibility to the university
system as "the Act 10 of higher education."

His moves involving unions and higher education, considered traditional
bastions of liberalism in conservative circles, have made Walker a GOP hero
and raised his national profile ahead of his likely 2016 run. But such
aggressiveness may not necessarily distinguish him from the rest of the
crowded Republican presidential field.

Barmak Nassirian, director of federal policy relations and policy analysis
for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, says that
based on his track record, Walker would take a "very instrumental view" of
higher education should he win the White House.

"That is not in itself, frankly, atypical for lots of policymakers,
Republican and Democrat, who view higher education in almost sort of
strictly competitiveness, jobs, economic development terms," Nassirian
says. "You take more of a rigid-like productivity perspective on how higher
education ought to be run and how it ought to be managed and funded. So you
look around on a fairly short horizon and attempt to identify those
programs that tend to be good vocational preparation venues and take a
kinder approach to them than you might to those things that might not be
able to demonstrate in concrete terms why they're worth funding."

In this Jan. 13, 2015, file photo, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker acknowledges
people in the gallery during Governor's State of the State address to a
joint session of the Legislature in the Assembly chambers at the state
Capitol in Madison, Wis. Walker has transformed Wisconsin politics, winning
three elections in four years and signing laws that weaken unions,
crippling a key component of the Democratic Party. But the likely
Republican presidential contender has had less success changing Wisconsin’s
economy and budget. The state lags in job growth and its budget faces a
shortfall. It’s a record that complicates Walker’s path in early primary
states as he sells himself as a reformer.

Ann Marcus, a professor of higher education at New York
University-Steinhardt, also says Walker "could do less damage" as president
than as a governor.

"The federal government doesn't have such a large role in higher education.
The key area for federal involvement is financial aid, including loans,"
Marcus says. "However, the federal government does not have a role in
faculty issues, nor in curriculum. Nor does it have a role in direct
funding of colleges and universities. States are the key player, and in the
U.S., there is great variation among the states in terms of priorities,
funding [and] controls."

She adds: "Walker may be experiencing a short-term benefit with his attacks
on higher education, but I believe … that he will experience some
significant pushback once the people of Wisconsin have had a chance to see
the consequences."

Walker's Our American Revival political committee did not respond to reque*sts
for comment from U.S. News.*

The governor – who is among the top contenders for the GOP nomination,
according to recent polling – has said he won't make an announcement on
entering the presidential race until after the state's budget business is
concluded at the end of June.

*The Koch Brothers Usually Have Scott Walker's Back. Not This Time.
<http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/scott-walker-stadium-bucks-afp-koch>
// Mother Jones // Russ Choma – June 12, 2015 *

The Koch brothers and their political machine have long been key allies of
Wisconsin governor and presumptive 2016 hopeful Scott Walker. With the GOP
presidential field getting more crowded by the day and political observers
wondering who will win the Koch Primary—and the financial backing of these
billionaires and their donor network—Walker has sparked a controversy in
his home state in which and he and Team Koch are on opposite sides.

When Walker announced a plan last week to spend $250 million in taxpayer
money for a proposed $500 million basketball arena in downtown Milwaukee,
the local chapter of the Koch-founded advocacy group Americans for
Prosperity joined the chorus of detractors who condemned the project. The
National Basketball Association is demanding the new venue and is
threatening that the Milwaukee Bucks franchise may have to move if the
arena isn't built by 2017. This has put Walker in a tough spot. The failure
to retain the team would be an ugly black eye for Walker, but the plan to
spend taxpayer funds propping up a highly lucrative private business is
irritating Wisconsin Republicans and Democrats alike.

While Walker's forays into union-busting had strong conservative backing,
the political dynamics involved in the public financing of sports arenas
and stadiums are much different. Across the nation in recent years,
conservatives and progressive groups and activists have questioned the
notion that financing arenas for sports franchises with taxpayer funds will
spur the local economy. And Walker is feeling the backlash.

Wisconsin Democrats predictably oppose Walker's plan, but few of his fellow
Republicans are rushing to join him in standing with the NBA. At the
moment, 12 of 19 GOP state senators are against the idea. In the state's
lower chamber, Walker's not faring much better. State representative David
Murphy (R), who recently called Walker's plan to slash $300 million from
the state university system "a bold vision for the future," declared, "I'm
not a believer in government supporting sports arenas for millionaire
players and billionaire owners."

Perhaps most mortifying for Walker is that the plan is being publicly
panned by the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity. It was AFP
that came to Walker's aid when his anti-union legislation sparked massive
rallies and protests in 2011 and again when Walker came close to being
ousted from office in a recall effort. But Wisconsin's AFP chapter is
vociferously dumping on the stadium deal.

"The current deal is based on fuzzy math, complicated accounting and
millions of taxpayer dollars," AFP state director David Fladeboe said last
week. "This proposal needs to be rejected and the people of Wisconsin need
to be protected."

"This proposal needs to be rejected and the people of Wisconsin need to be
protected," said AFP's state director last week.

The fuzzy math Fladeboe is referring to comes from Walker's sales pitch for
the arena proposal, which has the less-than-catchy tagline: "Cheaper to
Keep Them."

Walker contends that if the Bucks leave, the state will miss out on
millions in tax revenue, not the least of which will come from the wealthy
athletes who play at the new arena. And, Walker has argued, if the arena
isn't built, the lot it's slated to be constructed on will never generate
as much economic activity as a basketball arena would bring.

Critics of the proposal say that Walker's numbers, specifically the $250
million price tag, seem understated. One estimate is that the real price,
when the long-term interest costs are factored in, will be at least $320
million. Another estimate pegs the cost at $400 million. Either way, the
cost is greater than the savings of $300 million that are supposed to come
from Walker's proposed cuts in the University of Wisconsin system for the
next two years.

Walker's plan may be a very public air ball if he doesn't find a way to
devote serious time and political capital to selling the project. That may
be difficult, since Walker's focus increasingly seems to be on his possible
presidential bid. He is already spending a significant amount of time
out-of-state in places such as Iowa—trips that are irritating some
allies—and his attention will only grow more divided if he launches a
presidential campaign.

If the state Senate does not approve the inclusion of Walker's arena
project in the state's annual budget by the end of June, the debate will
drag on until the fall—prime campaigning time for Iowa's bellwether caucus.
At that point, in order to avoid the loss of one of the state's three
professional sports teams, Walker may have to shift his focus away from the
campaign trail to manage a contentious budget fight that his staunchest
allies have abandoned him on.

*CRUZ*

*Ted Cruz Cherry-Picks Terrorism Comments
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/12/ted-cruz-terrorism_n_7572440.html>
// HuffPo // D’Angelo Gore – June 12, 2015 *

The following post first appeared on FactCheck.org.

Sen. Ted Cruz has criticized President Obama and the White House for not
mentioning how religious discrimination fueled terrorist attacks in Paris
and Libya this year. But to make his point, Cruz focuses on certain remarks
and ignores others.

Discussing the killing of four people at a Jewish supermarket in Paris,
Cruz claimed Obama “described that attack as a, quote, ‘random act of
violence.’ ” Obama never said those words. He denounced “vicious zealots
who … randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli,” and the White House said
Obama meant the victims were random, not the attack. Obama previously had
described it as an act of anti-Semitism.

Cruz also claimed that “when ISIS beheaded 22 Coptic Christians, the White
House put out a statement saying they were killed because of their Egyptian
citizenship.” The White House statement referred to those killed as
“Egyptian citizens,” not Egyptian Christians. But it didn’t say they were
killed because of their nationality.

Cruz, a GOP presidential candidate, made his statements at a May 30 town
hall in New Hampshire hosted by radio host Jeff Kuhner. He had made the
same claims at a Family Research Council retreat for pastors in Washington,
D.C., on May 21.

Fellow Republican candidates Rick Perry and Mike Huckabee have made similar
statements in the past.

Let’s review what Obama and the White House said about those terrorist acts.

Not a Random Act

On Jan. 9, Amedy Coulibaly shot and killed four people, and held more than
a dozen others hostage, inside Hyper Cacher, a kosher grocery store in
Paris. Prior to the attack, Coulibaly, according to a Reuters report, had
called BFM-TV, a French TV station, “to claim allegiance to [the] Islamic
State, saying he wanted to defend Palestinians and target Jews.”

Cruz, during the town hall meeting, claimed that Obama, at the time,
suggested that Coulibaly’s actions were “random” and unrelated to religion.

Cruz, May 30: A few months ago, when we saw the horrific terrorist attack
in Paris, President Obama described that attack as a, quote, “random act of
violence.” When radical Islamists with butcher knives go into a kosher deli
to murder Jews because of their Jewish faith, there ain’t nothing random
about that at all.

Cruz is not the only Republican presidential contender to have criticized
Obama’s comments.

A Feb. 11, statement from former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that he was
“appalled that President Obama has chosen to deny the vicious anti-Semitic
motivation of the attack on a kosher Jewish grocery in Paris on January
9th.”

And former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, in a Feb. 11, Facebook post, wrote
that “Obama said it’s entirely legitimate ‘to be deeply concerned when
you’ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or
randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.’ ” Huckabee went on to
write, “But it wasn’t ‘random.’ It was a Jewish deli. One of the radical
Islamic ‘zealots’ even told French TV that they were singling out Jews.”

Here is Obama’s complete statement from the Vox interview, published Feb.
9, with Executive Editor Matthew Yglesias:

Obama, Feb. 9: Look, the point is this: my first job is to protect the
American people. It is entirely legitimate for the American people to be
deeply concerned when you’ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who
behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris. We
devote enormous resources to that, and it is right and appropriate for us
to be vigilant and aggressive in trying to deal with that — the same way a
big city mayor’s got to cut the crime rate down if he wants that city to
thrive. But we also have to attend to a lot of other issues, and we’ve got
to make sure we’re right-sizing our approach so that what we do isn’t
counterproductive.

The following day, in a press briefing, White House Press Secretary Josh
Earnest attempted to clarify Obama’s statement.

“I believe the point that the president was trying to make is that these
individuals were not specifically targeted. These were individuals who
happened to randomly be in this deli and were shot while they were there,”
Earnest told reporters. “So if you want to question the president’s
placement of the adverb in the sentence, the adverb in this case being
‘randomly,’ you can. But that’s the point the president was trying to make.”

When Jonathan Karl of ABC News asked if Obama had “any doubt that that deli
was attacked because it was a kosher deli,” Earnest said, “no.”

And Obama didn’t “deny the vicious anti-Semitic motivation of the attack,”
as Perry had claimed. Even before the Vox interview and Earnest’s
clarification, the president had said that the terrorist attack was
motivated by anti-Semitism.

In a Jan. 22, statement for a United Nations meeting on the rise of
anti-Semitism, Obama said: “Anti-Semitic attacks like the recent terrorist
attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris pose a threat that extends beyond
the Jewish community. They also threaten the values we hold dear —
pluralism, diversity, and the freedoms of religion and expression.”

And on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, another statement
from Obama said that “the recent terrorist attacks in Paris serve as a
painful reminder of our obligation to condemn and combat rising
anti-Semitism in all its forms.”

Egyptian Christians

Cruz also claimed that “when ISIS beheaded 22 Coptic Christians, the White
House put out a statement saying they were killed because of their Egyptian
citizenship.” He added, “That is not why they were killed.”

But that is not what the White House statement said.

On Feb. 15, an Islamic State faction in Libya released video of its mass
execution of 21, not 22, Coptic Christians from Egypt. According to a BBC
News report, “A caption made it clear the men were targeted because of
their faith.”

It’s true that a statement from Earnest, the White House press secretary,
referred to those killed as “Egyptian citizens” without mentioning that
they were also Christians. But the statement also made no mention of a
motive for the killings, as Cruz claimed it had.

Earnest, Feb. 15: The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly
murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated
terrorists. We offer our condolences to the families of the victims and our
support to the Egyptian government and people as they grieve for their
fellow citizens. ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by
faith, sect, or ethnicity. This wanton killing of innocents is just the
most recent of the many vicious acts perpetrated by ISIL-affiliated
terrorists against the people of the region, including the murders of
dozens of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai, which only further galvanizes the
international community to unite against ISIL.

This heinous act once again underscores the urgent need for a political
resolution to the conflict in Libya, the continuation of which only
benefits terrorist groups, including ISIL. We call on all Libyans to
strongly reject this and all acts of terrorism and to unite in the face of
this shared and growing threat. We continue to strongly support the efforts
of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General
Bernardino Leon to facilitate formation of a national unity government and
help foster a political solution in Libya.

The administration did mention that the victims were Christians after that.

This is what Secretary of State John Kerry said on Feb. 18 at a White House
summit on violent extremism:

Kerry, Feb. 18: Earlier this week, with the release of a video showing the
medieval murder of 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt on a beach in Libya, the
world has once again been reminded of the absolutely unspeakable and
undeniable evil of ISIL, which many of us prefer to call Daesh. Twenty-one
innocent people were violently executed en masse in the most grotesque way
simply because of their faith, and though Daesh has proven that it doesn’t
need any rationale to kill people.

And on Feb. 19, President Obama, during a speech at the same summit, said
that “ISIL-linked terrorists murdered Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula, and
their slaughter of Egyptian Christians in Libya has shocked the world.”

*Cruz, Paul push for ban on indefinite detention of US citizens
<http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/244847-cruz-paul-push-for-indefinite-detention-ban>
// The Hill // Jordain Carney – June 12, 2015 *

Two 2016 presidential competitors have joined forces to get a ban on the
indefinite detention of U.S. citizens included in an annual defense policy
bill.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), both of whom are running
for president, have joined up with other senators to introduce an amendment
to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), currently before the
Senate, that would ban indefinite detention of U.S. citizens or legal
permanent residents, without being charged or given a trial, unless
authorized by Congress.

Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Dianne Feinstein
(D-Calif.) also put their names on the provision.

"The Constitution does not allow President Obama, or any President, to
apprehend an American citizen, arrested on U.S. soil, and detain these
citizens indefinitely without a trial,” Cruz said in a statement. “While we
must vigorously protect national security by pursuing violent terrorists
and preventing acts of terror, we must also ensure our most basic rights as
American citizens are protected.”

The senators added that they hoped the amendment would clarify "ongoing
legal ambiguities," including that idea that Americans can be indefinitely
detained under the 2001 authorization for the use of military force, which
authorized military operations against al Qaeda.

The senators note that the 2001 authorization "cannot be construed as acts
of Congress that permit indefinite detention."

Paul added, "We can and will vigorously investigate and prosecute all who
seek to do us harm, and we can do so while respecting the constitutional
liberties of American citizens.”

Paul and Cruz have argued that previous NDAAs have given the administration
the ability to indefinitely detain Americans.

The senators got a similar amendment included in the Senate's NDAA in 2012,
but it wasn't in the final bill signed by President Obama.

*CHRISTIE*

*Chris Christie's Foreign Trips Cost Taxpayers $120,000
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/12/chris-christie-trips-taxpayers_n_7573828.html>
// AP // Jill Colvin – June 12, 2015 *

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's recent foreign trips to the United
Kingdom, Mexico and Canada cost New Jersey taxpayers nearly $124,000, his
office says.

The numbers, released by his office Friday evening, cover security and
security-related transportation expenses for each trip, as well as the
expenses incurred by Christie's official photographer.

While the trips have been billed as official trade missions to encourage
investment in the state, they also provided Christie, a governor with
little foreign policy experience, a chance to build his foreign policy
resume as he considers a run for the Republican nomination for president.
The trips included meetings and photo ops with world leaders as well as
speeches.

Christie's three-day trip to the United Kingdom in February was the most
expensive of the three, costing taxpayers $62,653.19, according to the
numbers provided by his office. A trip to Canada in early December 2014
cost taxpayers $29,800, while a trip to Mexico that September cost
$21,822.06.

In all, taxpayer dollars will cover $114,275 in security and transportation
costs, which includes state troopers' airfare and hotel costs, but not
their salaries. In addition, taxpayers will cover $9,617.79 in expenses
logged by Tim Larsen, Christie's chief of photography and visual
communications.

That brings the total bill incurred by taxpayers for the three trips to
$123,893.04.

Christie and his traveling delegations' other travel expenses were paid for
by Choose New Jersey, a non-profit state economic development group funded
by corporate donations, which aims to promote investment and job creation
in the state. The governor's office declined to provide those costs and the
group has not responded to numerous requests for comment in recent months.

Media outlets have been requesting the totals since Christie returned from
Mexico. A spokesman for the governor's office, Kevin Roberts, declined to
comment further.

Christie's trips included several foreign policy speeches, numerous
closed-door meetings with local officials and plenty of photo ops with
world leaders.

In Mexico last September, Christie delivered a speech criticizing President
Barack Obama for failing to approve construction of the Keystone XL oil
pipeline and called for stronger relations with Mexico and Canada. He also
traveled to the city of Puebla with President Enrique Peña Nieto, where he
received an enthusiastic welcome from students in an outdoor arena.

In the United Kingdom in February, Christie met behind closed doors with
British Prime Minister David Cameron and enjoyed a soccer match. He also
drew controversy when he said parents should have some measure of choice
when it comes to vaccinating their children. He later walked those comments
back.

The security costs from the three recent trips are similar to the nearly
$40,000 taxpayers paid for Christie's first trade mission to Israel and
Jordan in April 2012.

Christie told an audience in Washington recently that he's eying additional
travel — potentially to Latin America — later this year.

Christie says he'll make a decision about whether he's running for the
Republication presidential nomination later this month.

*Chris Christie takes a veiled swipe at Rand Paul over Patriot Act
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/christie-takes-veiled-swipe-paul-over-patriot-act>
// MSNBC // Aliyah Frumin – June 12, 2015 *

In an apparent swipe at Sen. Rand Paul, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on
Friday blasted politicians who have tried to raise money off of their
opposition to the Patriot Act – going as far as calling such actions  a
“disgrace.”

During his opening remarks at a town hall meeting in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
Christie told the crowd that the president’s No. 1 priority is to protect
Americans. “And yet, you’ve got folks—some of them running for
president—who stood on the floor of the United States Senate and weakened
our country and then sent out videos of it to try and raise money.”

“They bragged about how much money they raised … To me, that’s a disgrace,”
added the governor, who is expected to announce whether he will officially
run for president in the next few weeks. Christie has argued for the
re-authorization of the Patriot Act, arguing it’s an important tool to
combat terrorism.

It’s an issue that has divided Republicans, and Christie’s latest criticism
seems aimed at differentiating himself from the rest of the emerging GOP
field.

Paul, who has announced that he’ll seek the 2016 GOP nomination, held an
11-hour filibuster-like speech in May to argue against the government’s
surveillance of Americans’ phone records, insisting it tramples of civil
liberties and allows the government to spy on innocent people. Afterward,
he sent out emails to supporters asking for cash with subject lines like
“Last night I put NSA spying on life support.”

On May 31, some provisions of the Patriot Act – including a program
allowing the government to collect phone records of millions of Americans –
expired after the Senate was unable to pass legislation to extend them.
Most of those provisions were eventually restored through the USA Freedom
Act earlier this month. However, the law was changed to stop the NSA from
continuing its mass phone data collection, with phone companies retaining
the data. The NSA can get information about specific individuals if it is
approved by a federal court.

Similar to Paul, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has said he is against a clean
extension of the Patriot Act. After a recent federal appeals court ruling
that the government’s collection of millions of Americans’ phone records is
illegal, Cruz said the ruling confirmed what many Americans already
know—that the NSA “went too far in collecting phone records.”

Like Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
have argued in favor of the Patriot Act.

Christie has frequently butted heads with Paul over the issue of
surveillance. In May, the governor accused Paul of “siding with” NSA leaker
Edward Snowden (who the governor called a “criminal”) by opposing efforts
to extend the Patriot Act. At the town hall on Friday, Christie painted
himself as the only potential or declared candidate who has real world
experience fighting terrorism. He pointed to his nomination by
then-president George W. Bush to be U.S. Attorney in New Jersey right
before the 9/11 attacks and how he used tools, including the Patriot Act,
to go after terrorists.

The governor’s trip to the first-in-the-nation caucus state is his first
visit there in three months. By contrast, he has taken nine trips to the
early voting state of New Hampshire this year alone. Christie told the
crowd on Friday that there was a common misconception that his bold and
sometimes brash style would not go over well in Iowa. “I haven’t met one
person in Iowa who wasn’t direct,” said the governor. Such critics, he
insisted, “misunderstand me, and they misunderstand you.”

Surveys indicate Christie would have an uphill battle in the Hawkeye State.
According to an average of polling data compiled by RealClearPolitics
surrounding the Iowa Republican Presidential Caucus, Christie garners just
4.2% support and is eighth place behind Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
(18.2%), Rubio (11%), Paul (8.6%), former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
(9.4%), Bush (9.2%), Cruz (7.6%) and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson (8.4%).

*Chris Christie hits Ted Cruz for 'hypocrisy' on disaster aid
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/12/politics/christie-ted-cruz/> // CNN //
Ashley Killough – June 12, 2015 *

Chris Christie accused likely presidential rival Ted Cruz of "hypocrisy"
for supporting federal emergency aid after last month's devastating floods
in Texas but voting against government relief funding two years and a half
years ago after Superstorm Sandy wrecked the East Coast.

The New Jersey governor, who was holding a town hall Friday during the
final leg of his two-day trip to Iowa, was making the argument that the
next president needs to be someone who understands what it's like to
sustain a natural disaster -- unlike "some of our friends in Congress,
right?"

"We have Senator Cruz -- who voted against Sandy relief -- now he says he's
got floods in Texas. He says 'Hey, we need some help down here in Texas.'
It's great, right?" asked Christie, who is expected to announce his
presidential decision in the coming weeks.

He also referred to Colorado lawmakers who made similar protests to the
Sandy bill but supported federal relief when floods hit their state in 2013.

Cruz expressed support for federal funds for his state in late May despite
voting against a massive package in early 2013 dedicated to post-Sandy
recovery efforts. Standing on what he said was a matter of principle, he
and other conservatives argued that the bill contained too much extra money
for items unrelated to the storm.

At the time, Christie ripped into Congressional Republicans for delaying a
vote on the package. Congress ultimately passed a scaled-back version worth
$9.7 billion in early January 2013. Later that month, it approved a much
larger package worth $50 billion.

"People get religion real quick," Christie said Friday, before taking on a
tone of voice in an imitation of Cruz. "'All of the sudden the principled
vote that I'm making here on the floor of the United States Senate is I'm
not going to spend this kind of money on this kind of thing unless it
happens in my state. And then if it does, then it's an absolutely
appropriate expenditure of money.' I mean, come on. Come on."

Christie said Texas should still get the funds "because what's more
important is not his hypocrisy; it's the people of his state who are
suffering and there are communities that need to be rebuilt."

In a statement to CNN, Cruz said Christie is a "good man" and noted that he
has defended Christie amid the Bridgegate scandal. But he argued that his
view hasn't changed, saying he supports federal aid as long as it is
limited to recovery and relief efforts.

"I like and respect Chris Christie; indeed, I've been vocal defending him
from unfair charges that have been leveled his direction. Whatever insults
are launched, I'm not going to respond in kind. He's a good man. On the
merits, my view is exactly the same as it was before: of course, the
federal government should assist with disaster aid, whether for Hurricane
Sandy or for flooding in Texas. But politicians in Washington shouldn't
load up disaster relief with billions in unrelated pork-barrel spending."

*Christie attended NBA Finals on PAC's dime
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/244830-christie-attended-nba-finals-on-pacs-dime>
// The Hill // Mark Hensch – June 12, 2015 *

Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) attended Game 3 of the NBA Finals earlier this
week with a ticket paid for by his political action committee, a report
says.

Christie’s Leadership Matters for America PAC funded his travel to
Cleveland on Tuesday for the hotly anticipated basketball game, according
to the National Journal.

It also bought Christie’s near-courtside seat to the game between the
Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors.

Christie’s state spokesman told the National Journal on Thursday afternoon
that the governor’s appearance at the contest was “through the PAC,” it
said.

His spokesman added that Christie, a possible 2016 GOP presidential
candidate, was in Ohio attending private and fundraising meetings the day
of tipoff.

He declined to discuss any link those activities may have had with Tuesday
night’s NBA game.

The National Journal said on Thursday that Christie’s PAC had not filed any
receipts or disbursements with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over
his attendance at Tuesday night’s game.

The Columbus Dispatch posted Twitter photos on Wednesday showing Christie
sitting next to Urban Meyer, the head football coach for Ohio State
University, during Tuesday night’s game.

Christie has previously faced questions over his spending habits at other
sporting events.

An analysis released last month found that Christie had spent about
$300,000 in taxpayer funds on food and drinks during his five years in
office.

New Jersey Watchdog reported on May 11 that Christie had doled out more
than $82,000 at MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Giants and New York
Jets franchises in the National Football League (NFL).

The New Jersey Republican State Commission (NJRSC) later reimbursed the
state for the full $300,000, thus ensuring no cost to taxpayers.

Christie has additionally stopped using his office's expense account while
at sporting venues.

The New Jersey governor has said he is close to deciding whether he will
seek the White House next year.

Should he run, he would enter one of the most crowded GOP presidential
fields in history.

Republicans currently have nine official candidates on their ballots, with
more possible in the coming months.

*GRAHAM*

*Lindsey Graham Challenges Republican Rivals on Debt Ceiling
<http://time.com/3919067/lindsey-graham-debt-ceiling/> // TIME // Zeke
Miller – June 12, 2015 *

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is seeking to differentiate himself from
his GOP presidential rivals any way he can. On Friday he opens up a new
front—challenging his opponents to take a stance on raising the federal
debt limit.

Bitter internal divisions within the GOP aired in 2011 and 2013, bringing
the U.S. to the brink of defaulting on its obligations. A similar fight is
brewing for this fall, when the nation will once again hit its borrowing
cap, this time in the shadow of a presidential primary and for the first
time with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress.

“At the end of the day, something has to be done. We can’t default,” Graham
told reporters at the E2 Summit, organized by former Republican
presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “There will be a bunch of people in our
party and in theirs saying no, no, no. Somebody’s got to find a way to say
yes.”

“When you look at the number of Republicans who say we will never raise the
debt ceiling if you put a gun to their head, you’re going to have to get
Democrats to do this,” he added. “It’s going to be a challenge for our
party and I think people running to be president should speak about what
would you do as president, what would you do as a person wanting to be
president when it came time to lift the debt ceiling. Because it is about
leadership.”

In laying down the gauntlet, the South Carolina defense hawk is further
positioning himself as a contrarian on party orthodoxy, with his support
for immigration reform and efforts to combat climate change. Graham is also
attempting to force his Republican opponents, who are navigating between
the wishes of the business community to avoid more uncertainty and the
frustration among the conservative base with the growth of the federal
government, into a tougher spot.

*Presidential Candidate Lindsey Graham Introduces 20-Week 'Pain-Capable'
Late-Term Abortion Ban in Senate; Promises Vote in 2015 // The Christian
Post
<http://www.christianpost.com/news/presidential-candidate-lindsey-graham-introduces-20-week-pain-capable-late-term-abortion-ban-in-senate-promises-vote-in-2015-140299/>
// Sam Smith – June 12, 2015 *

Presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., reintroduced
legislation in the Senate Thursday that would ban abortions after 20 weeks
of pregnancy except in cases of rape and incest, a measure that passed the
House of Representatives by a 242-184 vote last month.

At a Capitol Hill news conference, Graham promised that the bill, titled
the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, would be debated and voted on
this year.

"This legislation is groundbreaking yet simple at the same time. What I
love most about this piece of legislation is how simple it is," Graham
said. "Do you believe that at 20 weeks in the pregnancy, five months, when
medical encyclopedias are encouraging young parents to sing to their child
because they can begin to recognize the voice, that this is a stage in
development where you should be very excited because your child is well on
their way? Does the government have a legitimate and compelling interest to
protect that baby? The answer, I believe, is yes."

Graham reasoned that since the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v.
Wade, medical sciences have advanced enough to acknowledge that unborn
children at 20 weeks of pregnancy are capable of feeling excruciating pain
and that there is a reasonable governmental interest in protecting those
unborn children.

"Roe v. Wade was about medical viability. Roe v. Wade acknowledges that
there is a compelling state interest in protecting the unborn child,"
Graham argued. "The standard of medical practice in America is that if you
operate on an unborn child at 20 weeks, which happens fairly often …, you
have to provide anesthesia to the baby because they are capable of feeling
extreme pain.

"Here is the choice for America — if a doctor is required to provide
anesthesia to the child to help save its life because they feel pain in the
process of being operated on, is it OK for society to say, 'Well, at that
stage in the pregnancy we don't want the operation to be an abortion?'"
Graham continued. "I believe that most Americans will say yes."

The United States is one of just seven countries in the world that doesn't
ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, putting the U.S. in the same
"club" as systemic human rights violators such as China and North Korea.

"This bill would put us out of a league of nations who have refrained from
protecting children after that point. We are one of only seven nations that
have refrained from protecting children after 20 weeks," Susan B. Anthony
List president Marjorie Dannenfelser said at the press conference. "We are
in the company of China, North Korea, Vietnam and others. That is not the
human rights club that we would like to be in and we need to be out."

Graham said that there are some exceptions in the legislation for
pregnancies that occur as a result of rape or incest and said that women
would need to report the claim of incest or rape to a counselor or medical
doctor at least 48 hours prior to the abortion.

When asked whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would
push this bill for debate, Graham explained that McConnell is one of the
co-sponsors of the bill and promised a vote by year's end.

"He is very favorable to this bill and I think he is a co-sponsor and we
will find time on the calendar," Graham asserted. "I can promise you a
debate in 2015 and a vote."

Graham's bill could force some of his Republican colleagues, who are
representing historically Democratic states, to take a position on this
legislation, which some pundits claim could hurt their reelection chances.
But the legislation could also force a few Democratic senators who
represent historically conservative states to do the same.

"Don't get into politics if you don't want to talk about things like this.
This is why you want to get elected, I think. Whether you are for or
against it, this is something worth talking about," Graham said. "I think
if you are in the House or the Senate, voting on this issue is required
because it is an important issue. What we are looking for is a debate with
those who oppose this. Tell me the upside of this. … What are we achieving
here? How are we a better nation? What is your theory of the case? Why do
we want to let this happen this late in the pregnancy?

"I am dying for that debate and I am going to insist that we have that
debate because we are a member of seven nations that I don't think
represent who we are as Americans," Graham added.

Should the measure pass in the Senate, it could be vetoed by President
Barack Obama, although he stated earlier this week that every child ought
to have the opportunity to reach their "God-given potential."

"And we agree with President Obama on what he said earlier this week, here
in Washington, D.C., when he spoke before the Catholic Health Association.
He said this: 'A shared belief that every human being made in the image of
God deserves to live in dignity. All children, no matter who they are or
where they come from or how much money they were born into, ought to have
the opportunity to achieve their God-given potential,'" Family Research
Council President Tony Perkins explained at the press conference.

"Well, that potential, that opportunity, it begins with life," Perkins
continued. "So I call upon President Obama and his party to withdraw their
opposition to this bill; and I call upon President Obama to pledge his
support for this measure that would help bring his administration's
policies in line with his political rhetoric."

Currently, 13 states have laws banning abortions after 20 weeks.

*SANTORUM*

*For Candidates Like Rick Santorum, the Line Can Be Long to Take Flight
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/12/for-candidates-like-rick-santorum-the-line-can-be-long-to-take-flight/>
// NYT // Ashley Parker – June 12, 2015 *

The 2016 presidential season may have started early — but expect it to go
long.

At least that was the message from Spencer Zwick, who was the finance
chairman for former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, at the 2012
Republican presidential nominee’s annual donor retreat in Park City.

Speaking to reporters Thursday night, Mr. Zwick said he did not see the
Republican nominee race “as an early knockout.”

The reason? “If you’re at 1 percent in the polls, why would you get out?”
he said. “There is no downside to staying in the race. In the worst case,
you might get a TV show after it all.”

Look no farther, Mr. Zwick said, than Rick Santorum —a Republican
presidential candidate again in 2016 who, despite little campaign
infrastructure and money in 2012, forced Mr. Romney into a prolonged
primary fight.

Mr. Zwick recalled a moment during the 2012 campaign, when he was waiting
to catch a JetBlue red-eye back to Boston after a presidential debate in
Las Vegas. The Romney team, he said, was “in full swing” — with a private
charter plane and full campaign apparatus.

“And I was waiting in line at the JetBlue red-eye, and about 30 people
behind me was Rick Santorum, waiting to get on a middle seat to fly to
Boston to be able to go New Hampshire,” Mr. Zwick recalled, shaking his
head in mix of awe and admiration. “It dawned on me right there, wow, there
is no barrier to entry. As long as you can have enough money to buy a
commercial airline ticket to get to the next state, you’ve got a ticket,
you can go. It was like this surreal moment I had on the campaign. Here
were we, building this massive infrastructure and this political machine,
and you know, Senator Santorum is standing there with his carry-on bag,
getting in line.”

And, Mr. Zwick added, Mr. Santorum “wasn’t even Group 1. I was at least in
the even more space section.”

“This guy was on national TV, debating,” he added, and yet “there was no
campaign infrastructure.”

So, Mr. Zwick concluded, expect the JetBlue primary — where just about any
candidate, especially one with a wealthy donor and a “super PAC,” can stay
in the race — to go on, and on, and on.

*Rick Santorum says he'd welcome an endorsement from Caitlyn Jenner
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/rick-santorum-caitlyn-jenner-endorsement-article-1.2256536>
// NY Daily News // Aliza Chasan – June 12, 2015 *

Rick Santorum would welcome an endorsement from former Olympic gold
medalist Caitlyn Jenner if she offered one.

“You accept their vote, but do you accept her?” CNN’s Erin Burnett asked
him in an interview Thursday night.

“My job as a human being is to treat everybody with dignity and respect,
period, stop, full stop. No qualification to that,” the Republican
presidential contender said.

In the past Santorum has said he would refuse to attend same-sex weddings.
He’s also compared homosexuality to both incest and bestiality.

"Do I have to agree with their positions on issues or how they see America?
Of course not,” Santorum said Thursday.

But a vote is a vote to Santorum.

“Because people vote for you for all sorts of reasons, and that’s fine. And
I accept whatever reason anybody wants to vote for me, whoever they are,”
he said.

He may have to fight Lindsey Graham for a Jenner backing though.

“If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be a Republican, she is welcome in my party,”
Graham told CNN on Sunday.

*HUCKABEE*

*Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee making weekend campaign swing through
South Carolina
<http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/ddb3429ab5194a88866e6ef9c321e5bf/SC--Huckabee-South-Carolina>
// AP – June 12, 2015 *

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is returning to South Carolina.

The Republican presidential hopeful begins his trip on Friday with a meet
and greet at The Beacon Drive-In Restaurant in Spartanburg.

From there, he's holding a reception with the Spartanburg County GOP before
taking part in the Bridging the Gap Quarterly Leadership Series. Huckabee
is ending the day with an event with Benjamin House Ministry in Moore.

On Saturday, Huckabee is making stops in Gaffney and Indian Land before
taking a tour of Keer America Manufacturing. In the afternoon, he's
attending a barbecue hosted by the York County Republican Party in Rock
Hill.

*Anti-Huckabee super PAC formed
<http://arkansasnews.com/news/arkansas/anti-huckabee-super-pac-formed#sthash.JkZnPq5g.dpuf>
// Arkansas News // John Lyon – June 12, 2015 *

A former Republican presidential candidate has created a super PAC to
oppose Mike Huckabee’s second presidential bid, saying he wants to educate
voters about Huckabee’s “horrific record as governor of Arkansas.”

Truth Squad 2016 is the creation of Fred Karger of Los Angeles, who
unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
Karger is a political consultant, gay rights activist and former Hollywood
actor who appeared in “Airport 1975” and “Rich Man, Poor Man.”

The super PAC said in a news release Friday it is “the first super PAC
formed specifically to oppose a Republican candidate for president in 2016”
and pledged to “help those whose lives were forever changed by Governor
Huckabee’s actions tell their stories.”

The release includes excerpts from a Seattle Times interview with Kim
Renninger, widow of Sgt. Mark Renninger, one of four police officers killed
in Parkland, Wash., in 2009 by Maurice Clemmons, who had been paroled in
Arkansas. Clemmons had been sentenced to 108 years in prison in Arkansas,
but in 2000 Huckabee shortened his sentence, making him eligible for parole.

Renninger told the newspaper she wants to hold Huckabee accountable by
telling her story because, although he was not the only person involved in
Clemmons’ release — the state Parole Board had unanimously recommended that
Huckabee grant executive clemency, and it ultimately voted to release
Clemmons on parole — “the person who got this ball rolling was Huckabee.”

Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart responded in a statement, “SuperPACs are
typically funded by powerful Washington and Wall Street elites, and no one
is a bigger threat to them than Gov. Huckabee, an outsider fighting for
Main Street Americans. It’s heartbreaking that these widows are being
exploited for the political benefit of these secret-agenda-driven SuperPAC
donors. This is Washington-DC-style, gutter politics at its worst.”

Stewart said Huckabee’s heart grieves for the four slain police officers.
She also pointed out that the Parole Board members who voted to release
Clemmons were all appointed by former Democratic governors Bill Clinton and
Jim Guy Tucker.

Huckabee served as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. In 2008, he
finished second to Arizona Sen. John McCain in the Republican presidential
primary race.

A super PAC in support of Huckabee’s campaign, Pursuing America’s
Greatness, was created earlier this year.

*KASICH*

*Kasich: Trade Is Critical to National Security
<http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2015/06/12/kasich-trade-is-critical-to-national-security/>
// Fox News // Matthew Kazin – June 12, 2015 *

Prior to the House vote Friday on President Obama’s trade deal, Ohio Gov.
John Kasich told FBN’s Neil Cavuto that the legislation stands to impact
more than just the U.S. economy.

“It’s not just economic; it’s also a national security issue as well, where
we can have access and involvement in parts of the world where it’s vital,”
Kasich said.

The Republican governor added: “I believe that trade is a very important
part of national security, and to turn this deal down, I think, would be
bad.”

However, Kasich said the trade deal has pros and cons.

“It is best for our economy, and there are going to be workers who will be
hurt,” he said. “We have to make sure that they’re going to be retrained
and there’ll be opportunities for them.”

In addition to trade deal talk, Kasich also discussed the possibility of a
2016 bid for the White House.

“We’re getting closer and closer to making a decision,” he said. “I don’t
want to do this just for the sake of it. I need to know that I could win.”

*John Kasich Strives for Self-Control
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-12/john-kasich-strives-for-self-control>
// Bloomberg News // Ben Brody – June 12, 2015 *

John Kasich seems to know the rap against him: He's cranky, unfocused, and
impulsive. But ahead of the scrutiny of a possible presidential run, the
Republican governor of Ohio is testing out a new disciplined persona.

"Everything you say now is under a microscope so I've got to think more
like a scientist," he said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Politics'
Mark Halperin from Mitt Romney's E2 Summit in Utah.

That meant parrying when asked if he felt that he was competing with other
candidates and hopefuls at the event, including Wisconsin Governor Scott
Walker, who has cast himself as a proven conservative election-winner.

“How's this discipline going?”

"The minute I say something about him, then it’s like I’m going after him,"
Kasich said. Later, he asked: "How am I doing on this discipline?"

"I’ve got a lot of energy and I need to know how to dose it out," he added,
saying he'd learned that after a brief presidential run in 2000.

He likewise held back on policy prescriptions, saying a military commander
would have to say how many troops the U.S. should send to combat ISIS as
part of a coalition, not him.

During his address at the summit, he concentrated on his biography, touting
his meeting with Richard Nixon as a college freshman, his adherence to
Reagan's philosophy since before his 1982 election to the House, and his
work on balancing budgets. He joked about his time as a Fox News host,
saying he was a "giant television star."

He only returned to concrete policies only when outlining his fiscally
conservative policies as governor and his willingness to leave a pathway to
legal status for immigrants who are in the country illegally.

On taxes, too, he was firmer with Bloomberg. "The most important thing to
do" for growth, he said, is not reform of the income tax code for
individuals but  "to give these companies incentive to invest instead of
buying back stock and keeping their profits in Europe."

Despite making moves toward a run, Kasich also nearly shrugged off the
ambition.

"If I... get in, try my best, and I don’t win, you know, I would have tried
my best," he said.

And he couldn't resist making a comparison to state hero LeBron James, the
Cleveland Cavaliers superstar who led his team to the NBA finals.

Both Buckeye Staters "want to take it to the hole and make sure you score,"
Kasich said. "Very competitive. Have fun too."

*Kasich inches 'closer and closer' to 2016 decision
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/244841-gov-kasich-inches-closer-and-closer-to-2016-decision>
// The Hill // Rebecca Shabad – June 12, 2015 *

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) said Friday he’s getting “closer and closer” to
making a decision about whether to run for president.

“I wouldn’t be out here if I wasn’t interested, and we’re getting closer
and closer to making a decision. It’s a discipline process because I don’t
want to do this just for the sake of it. I need to know that I could win
and look at what I bring is a record that’s unique,” Kasich said in an
interview on Fox Business Network.

Kasich expressed confidence he has the necessary qualifications to lead the
White House by touting his records in Congress and as governor of Ohio on
both defense and fiscal issues.

“I served on the Defense Committee. I was Chairman of the Budget Committee
in Washington when we balanced the budget, and Ohio has had a massive
turnaround, and I was in the private sector for 10 years. No one has all of
that," he said.

Kasich predicted during the interview that critical votes on trade would
pass in the House on Friday.

The lower chamber, however, later rejected a vote on a bill that would
provide aid to workers who would be displaced by a future trade deal. A
subsequent vote on fast-track authority that allows Congress to take an up
or down vote on a trade deal, but not amend it, passed. It won’t go to the
president’s desk because of a procedural rule.

The Ohio governor is hinting further at a 2016 run with a June 24 trip to
the early-voting state of Iowa.

Kasich served in the House from 1983 until early 2001.

*CARSON*

*Ben Carson polling well among millennials
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/ben-carson-polling-well-among-millennials-118940.html#ixzz3cuCPKG6L>
// Politico // Christina Animashaun – June 12, 2015 *

The Republican Party’s most unlikely presidential candidate continues to
defy the odds on the road to the GOP primary. But Ben Carson’s campaign
hopes may not survive if he tries to appeal to grass roots conservatives
and tea partiers alone.

Carson’s presidential ambitions may compel him to ease the growing tension
with children in Baltimore, who grew up knowing him as the one of world's
greatest surgeons — or depending on the children, knowing very little about
him at all.

We’re talking about the millennials.

Last month, Carson topped the Harvard University’s Institute of Politics
millennial poll, a nationwide survey focused 18- to 29-year-olds. Though
the poll did not present a clear GOP front-runner among that age set, the
results showed Carson narrowly ahead of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

Millennials make up nearly a quarter of the U.S. population and currently
outnumber the baby boomers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And with
their voting participation on the rise, this group could become a crucial
element in the 2016 election season.

Doug Watts, the communications director for Carson’s 2016 presidential
campaign, credits name recognition as the foundation of any candidate
trying to win votes.

“The two sets of groups that seem to know Ben Carson really well [are]
people 45 and older and people 18- to 24-year-olds,” Watts said. “The
younger voters know [a] lot more about Ben Carson than the general public.
They were assigned [to] reading his books. They were aware of [his] story.”

The retired neurosurgeon’s first political splash came during his speech at
the National Prayer Breakfast two years ago, where he doggedly embraced not
being politically correct and criticized the Affordable Care Act as
President Barack Obama sat only one seat from him.

But for Wake Tech political student Markeece Young, Carson’s speech at the
National Prayer Breakfast served as another first.

“That was the first time I learned who Ben Carson was,” he said.

Known in the blogosphere as the Young Black Republican, Young is a
political junkie. Scrolling through his Twitter stream reveals an
unapologetic support for the GOP and pictures of him alongside Ted Cruz and
Donald Trump.

Young watched Carson stumble on the campaign with political gaffes on gay
rights issues. The 19-year-old activist attributes those blunders to
Carson’s political inexperience, but the candidate’s bold statements have
rubbed him and other millennial voters the wrong way by making light of
issues most important to them, Young says.

“When he says he thinks selfies are stupid,” Young said, ”That is not how
you start your youth outreach by downing something that is wildly popular
in our culture.”

Surprised that Carson is polling well among the millennial base, Young
argued that voters his age tend to support flashier and more inexperienced
candidates, such as Obama. Young, however, is not voting for Carson in the
Republican primary because he doesn’t believe Carson can resonate with
youth as well as Paul or Cruz can.

“He hasn’t been in any political or leadership positions already,” Young
said. “I think he needs more seasoning.”

Carson is known for pulling himself up from the bootstraps in the face of
heavy adversity growing up in Detroit. Last month, the retired neurosurgeon
visited with faith and community leaders in the wake of Freddie Gray’s
death in Baltimore, a city that is a marker of the Carson’s historical
success.

Ibrahim Auguste, a 21-year-old science major at the Community College of
Baltimore County, had seen Carson several times in Auguste’s years growing
up in Baltimore. He stood in the crowded conference room of the Bilingual
Christian Church, a 15-minute drive west of Johns Hopkins Hospital, where
Carson served as director until 2013. He thought Carson’s uplifting
messages for city residents glided over the hard realities.

“People, in general, have been victims of racial prejudice and police
brutality.” Auguste said. Harvard’s IOP poll shows that a large proportion
of millennial voters are focused on the U.S. justice system and the
#BlackLivesMatter movement. For Auguste, the GOP hopeful needs to identify
systemic issues affecting his adopted hometown.

“Ah, man,” Auguste said, recalling his thoughts when he listened to Carson
speak. “You’re really disconnected right now.”

Kory Boone, chairman of the Maryland Young Republicans, knew of the
neurosurgeon in the context of black history and his accomplishments in
education. However, with a crowded field of GOP candidates, Boone believes
Carson will have to step up even more if he hopes to improve his reach
among younger voters.

“We need to stop being on the defensive when it comes to these issues,
especially with millennials,” Said Boone who said Republican candidates
should campaign more on college campuses. “We need to articulate our
message better. I believe that’s what we need to do as a party.”

*Ben Carson: “What You See In Communist Countries” Is “What We’ve Got Now”
In America
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/christophermassie/ben-carson-what-you-see-in-communist-countries-is-what-weve#.uw13jMwla>
// Buzzfeed // Christopher Massie – June 12, 2015 *

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Wednesday that
regulations in the United States are akin to those in communist countries.

The retired neurosurgeon made the comments while answering a question by
Iowa conservative radio show host Jan Mickelson on “Section 8 housing
regulations” that allegedly stipulate that Eastern Iowans “have to recruit
from Chicago their poverty-afflicted individuals to bring them to Iowa in
order to qualify for Section 8 Housing.”

Carson said the regulations were indicative of “what you see in communist
countries.”

“This is just an example of what happens when we allow the government to
infiltrate every part of our lives,” Carson said. “This is what you see in
communist countries where they have so many regulations encircling every
aspect of your life that if you don’t agree with them, all they have to do
is pull the noose. And this is what we’ve got now.”

Carson argued that these “dozens of regulations” were part of a process
that proves “exactly what Thomas Jefferson predicted.”

“Every month dozens of regulations—business, industry, academia, every
aspect of our lives—so that they can control you,” Carson said. “And this
is exactly what Thomas Jefferson predicted. He said the people would become
lackadaisical, they would not be vigilant, the government would grow, it
will infiltrate every part of their lives, and it will take over.”

Carson finished his recounting of Jefferson’s predictions by saying that
“just before we become another type of government, the people would wake
up.”

“But just before—just before we become another type of government, the
people would wake up,” he said. “I’m hoping that this is the time when they
wake up.”

*Ben Carson in Cleveland: Health care not a right, but a 'responsibility
for a compassionate society'
<http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2015/06/ben_carson_in_cleveland_health.html>
// Cleveland News // Henry J. Gomez – June 12, 2015*

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate,
used a medical conference here Friday to deliver his latest critique of
President Barack Obama's signature health care program.

"The thing I really detested about the Affordable Care Act was you had
government saying, 'We don't care what you, the people think. This is what
you're going to do. End of story.' And that completely turns it on its
head," Carson told more than 100 attendees at Cleveland Clinic Children's
Pediatric Innovation Summit.

Carson, whose political identity soared after blasting Obamacare while the
president sat nearby at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, added that he
"very much wants people to have good health care." He also asserted that
the U.S. spends "almost twice as much as the next closest nation on health
care" -- a claim that the independent fact-checkers at PolitiFact found
flaws with earlier this year.

"Is health care a right in this country? I don't believe so," Carson said
at the close of his nearly 45-minute keynote speech, delivered at
downtown's Global Center for Health Innovation. "But I believe it is a
responsibility for a compassionate society. And we are a compassionate
society. Physicians need to get involved. Five physicians signed the
Declaration of Independence. ... We need to be the ones who drive this if
we're going to be successful as a society."

Carson's speech had been relatively light on the politics until that point.
For most of his time on stage he leaned comfortably on a lectern and
delivered a conversational version of his life story. He grew up in poverty
but went on to become a famed pediatric neurosurgeon at Baltimore's Johns
Hopkins Hospital, where he was known for leading the first successful
operation to separate twins joined at the head.

At times he sprinkled in pointed commentary.

"My mother worked extraordinarily hard, two three jobs at a time, getting
up and leaving at 5 in the morning and getting back after midnight," Carson
said. "The key thing for her is she never became a victim. She just didn't
want to be dependent. She occasionally accepted some aid, but for the most
part she stayed off of government aid. She didn't want us to feel like we
were victims, either.

"I find it amusing that some people like to criticize me," he continued.
"They say, 'Well, Carson grew up very poor, and he must have accepted
government aid, so why does he want to withdraw it from people now?' Which
is just total lies. I have no desire to withdraw aid from people who
actually need it."

The speech was Carson's second public appearance in Cleveland in three
months. He headlined the Cuyahoga County Republican Party's Lincoln Day
dinner in April.

Carson is likely to return here Aug. 6, for the first GOP presidential
debate, which Fox News will broadcast live from The Q. The cable network
only will invite candidates who have averaged in the top 10 of recent
national polls.

It's a threshold Carson should have little trouble meeting, based on his
recent standings in the top third of a crowded field. But he has expressed
concern about rules that could exclude Carly Fiorina, the only woman in the
race, and others polling in the low single digits. This week, Fox News
announced it will televise an afternoon forum for the candidates who don't
qualify for the prime time debate.

"I'm happier with it than what they were doing before," Carson told the
Northeast Ohio Media Group in an interview after his Friday speech. "I
actually do think Carly will get there. I've known Carly for a long time.
She's a smart cookie."

Cleveland also will host the 2016 Republican National Convention.

*FIORINA*

*Carly Fiorina Shows Us Just How Weird America’s Tax System Is
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/upshot/carly-fiorina-shows-us-just-how-weird-americas-tax-system-is.html?abt=0002&abg=1>
// NYT // Josh Barro – June 12, 2015 *

Last week, Carly Fiorina’s presidential campaign made an offer to reporters
that was tantalizing to me, but probably to few other people on the planet:
If we came in person to her campaign headquarters in Virginia, we could
review her state income tax returns.

Ms. Fiorina had already put her and her husband’s federal income taxes for
2012 and 2013 online, along with a disclosure of financial assets that is
much more detailed than required by law. (Ms. Fiorina, a former chief
executive of Hewlett-Packard, and her husband have a net worth of precisely
$58,954,494.88, according to her disclosure forms.) But I was mostly
interested in the Fiorinas’ state income tax returns because they
demonstrate a distinct — and distinctly annoying — feature of American
taxes: the way states clamber over one another, trying to tax the same
income, often generating a lot of paperwork but not much revenue.

Mr. and Ms. Fiorina had to file taxes in no fewer than 17 states in 2013,
many of them with only the most tenuous connection to the Fiorinas or their
financial interests. In 11 of those states, their tax bill was less than
$250.

Carly Fiorina at a campaign event in Iowa this month. Credit Dave
Kaup/Reuters

Of course, the Fiorinas make more money than most people, about $2.5
million in 2013, which is a major reason they were taxed in so many states.
But the tax rules that cause the Fiorinas to have around a 1,000-page stack
of state income tax returns also hit many Americans with more moderate
incomes, requiring them to file multiple state income tax returns.

In the Fiorinas’ case, consider Michigan. The Fiorinas do not live or work
in Michigan. They do not own a business or income-producing real estate
there. Ms. Fiorina did not collect speaking fees from Michigan in 2013. But
the Fiorinas do invest in a variety of funds, which generate income in a
variety of places, including $946 in 2013 that was attributable to
Michigan. So, the Fiorinas had to file a tax return there, which was 58
pages long, and reflects a liability of $40, which they paid.

And then they got the money back.

The Fiorinas’ home state of Virginia gave them a tax credit of $40, fully
offsetting the Michigan tax bill, because Virginia had already taxed the
same income Michigan taxed. That’s how the American system of state income
taxes generally works: Your home state taxes you on all your income; states
where you don’t live tax you on the income you earned in those states;
then, because some of your income has been taxed twice, your home state
credits you back — but only up to the amount of tax you paid on that income
in your home state.

You don’t have to pity the Fiorinas, who presumably did not sweat the cost
of getting 17 state income tax returns prepared. But you don’t have to be
an ex-C.E.O. to get hit with an interstate tax burden.

For example, you could be me. I filed 2014 taxes in two states: New York,
where I live and work; and California, where I once appeared on a
television show (Fun fact: with Carly Fiorina). I owed $67 to California,
and New York gave me back $55 as a credit. So nonresident income taxation
cost me $12 in actual taxes, far less than the $40 I paid TurboTax to
generate an additional state’s return.

The more common reason to end up in this situation is cross-border
commuting: If you live in one state and work in another, it’s likely you’re
stuck with the obligation to file tax returns in multiple states, with
little impact on your actual total tax payment.

There is not much justification for this complex structure, which is why
other advanced countries generally do not emulate it. Many other rich
countries do not have subnational income taxes at all. Those that do
generally have a much simpler rule: You pay income tax where you live.

If Carly Fiorina were running for prime minister of Canada, there would
have been no similar stack of provincial tax returns for me to page
through. In Canada, you pay tax on all your personal income to whatever
province you were a resident of on the last day of the year. Business
income is only a little more complicated: You pay tax on business income in
places where your business has a permanent establishment, not wherever you
give a speech or have a consulting client. Switzerland is a country that
prizes local government autonomy much as America does, but it also uses the
Canadian pay-where-you-live model.

Some American states have figured that our system is convoluted and have
established bilateral tax agreements to make it less so. Residents of
Virginia who earn income in Maryland pay tax just to Virginia, and vice
versa. But agreements like these don’t exist everywhere.

Sometimes that’s because there aren’t enough taxpayers to justify
negotiating the agreement: The Fiorinas’ situation of living in Virginia
and earning in Michigan is probably not very common. Sometimes it’s because
the fiscal benefits flow mostly in one direction: A lot more people live in
New Jersey and earn income in New York than vice versa, so New York would
lose revenue on a deal to simplify taxes for commuters.

Because of those parochial interests, tax harmonization tends to happen
when it’s enforced from above: Canada’s last-day-of-the-year residency rule
is imposed by its federal government. Do not hold your breath for a similar
assertion of federal power here.

*Carly Fiorina Blames Unions, Dodd Frank And Democrats For Gender
Inequality
<http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/06/12/3668767/carly-fiorina-blames-unions-dodd-frank-democrats-gender-inequality/>
// Think Progress // Alice Ollstein – June 12, 2015 *

On Thursday, former HP CEO and Republican presidential candidate Carly
Fiorina told the DC-based libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise
Institute her views on the “state of women in America.”

She spoke candidly about the sexism she has faced in her own career —
including being called a “bimbo” multiple times, being forced to attend a
corporate meeting held at a strip club, and being asked patronizing
questions on the campaign trail. But Fiorina also insisted that the U.S. is
the greatest country in the world for women.

“Women here have achieved more than anywhere else in the world,” she told
reporters on a conference call before the speech. She later told the
audience, “My story — from secretary to CEO to candidate for President — is
only possible in this country.”

The line won enthusiastic applause, but ignores the substantial list of
countries where women have already risen from middle class backgrounds to
running the country. Fiorina need only to look to Latin America to find,
right now, former guerrilla fighter Dilma Rousseff as President of Brazil,
former attorney Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as President of Argentina,
and former political prisoner Michelle Bachelet as President of Chile.
Decades ago, Margaret Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto and Indira Gandhi were
elected to lead England, Pakistan and India, respectively. In more recent
history, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf led Liberia and Han Myeong-sook led South
Korea.

Looking beyond just the presidency, 97 other countries in the world have a
higher percentage of women their national legislatures than the U.S. —
which sits just behind Kenya and Indonesia, and only slightly ahead of the
United Arab Emirates. At the pace the U.S. is going, researchers at the
organization FairVote estimate the nation won’t achieve gender equality in
elected office for another 500 years.

Still, Fiorina insisted in her speech, “Women have more opportunities
[here] than anywhere else on earth.”

Again, the data does not support this claim.

Other countries, mainly in Northern Europe and just over the border in
Canada, have much more equal representation in corporate boardrooms,
largely because of diversity quotas written into law. In overall workforce
participation, the U.S.’ international ranking has been on a downward slide
since 1999, mostly because they have not adopted the family leave and
work/life balance policies favored by most of the world. In fact, out of
185 countries, the U.S. is one of just three that doesn’t guarantee paid
maternity leave.

Last year, France passed a sweeping gender equality law that not only set
pay equality and provided both maternity and paternity leave, it fulls
covers the cost of first-trimester abortions.

Fiorina, though she defined feminism on the press call as believing “every
woman has the opportunity to choose their own life,” is an outspoken
opponent of abortion rights. She told reporters Thursday that if elected
president she would support a ban on all abortions after 20 weeks, a bill
pushed by Republicans in Congress many times, most recently this week.

While Fiorina did acknowledge the worsening gender pay gap in her speech,
she told reporters she does not support current proposals, like the
Paycheck Fairness Act, that would make it easier for women to discover and
challenge pay discrimination.

“A woman is protected today by law from gender discrimination in her
paycheck,” Fiorina said. “She should use the law to its fullest extent. I
think leading by example is far more important than imposing it on others,
so I would reform the civil service so it becomes a meritocracy.”

She also declined to support calls for better family leave policies,
saying, “We need to be very careful not to overreach. When well-meaning
legislation to help juggle work and family goes too far, it hurts women.”

Instead, Fiorina faulted unions, Dodd Frank Wall Street reform, and
economic policies from “the Left” for the current state of gender equality,
vowing as President to go after all three. Yet the wage gap for unionized
women is 40 percent smaller than that of non-unionized women. And while the
wage gap has been shrinking among unionized workers, while the overall gap
hasn’t budged in a decade.

Fiorina’s speech ended with a plea for the GOP to “reclaim” feminism,
saying progressives have turned it “a left-leaning political ideology where
women are pitted against men and used as a political weapon to win
elections.”

Yet she reminded the crowd: “If we as a party want to win, we have to win
with women.”

The RNC agrees, and after women helped propel President Obama to victory in
two elections, they wrote about the need to “improve our brand with women
throughout the country.”

Neither the RNC nor Fiorina has called for backing policies that women
overwhelmingly support, from raising the minimum wage to making all private
employers cover birth control in their health insurance to legislating
equal pay for equal work.

*OTHER*

*Two-year sentence for GOP operative convicted of illegal coordination
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/feds-want-nearly-4-year-sentence-for-republican-operative-convicted-of-illegal-coordination/2015/06/11/7ecbdc72-0ed0-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html?postshare=4161434121772434>
// WaPo // Matt Zapotosky & Matea Gold *

A former Republican political operative convicted in a first-ever federal
criminal case of illegal coordination between a campaign and a purportedly
independent ally was sentenced Friday to two years in prison — a lighter
punishment than prosecutors sought but one that still served as a sharp
warning.

Under questioning from U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady, 34-year-old Tyler
Harber said: “I’m guilty of this. I knew it was wrong when I did it.” But
Harber said he was not motivated by greed or a lust for power: he simply
wanted to win an election and believed what he was doing was a common — if
illegal — practice.

“I got caught up in what politics has become,” Harber said.

Harber — who managed the unsuccessful 2012 congressional campaign of
Virginia Republican Chris Perkins — admitted in February that he helped
create a super PAC and arranged for it to buy $325,000 in ads to help
Perkins’s campaign, then lied to the FBI about his misdeeds. Federal
prosecutors hailed Harber’s guilty plea and sentence as “an important step
forward in the criminal enforcement of federal campaign finance laws,” and
they indicated that they are ramping up scrutiny of the close ties between
political campaigns and their ostensibly independent supporters.

The watershed prosecution comes as super PACs are playing increasingly
prominent roles in national politics. Nearly all the 2016 White House
contenders are being helped by outside groups run by their friends or
former strategists — in many cases, operating in close proximity. But
complaints about potentially illegal coordination have stalled before the
Federal Election Commission, which is mired in partisan gridlock.

Top federal officials issued strong statements Friday warning that
candidates and consultants should tread carefully as the 2016 race heats up.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said political operatives
should “think twice about circumventing laws that promote transparency in
federal elections” and encouraged party and campaign insiders to act as
whistleblowers. In court, federal prosecutor Richard Pilger asked O’Grady
to send Harber to prison for three years and 10 months, saying such a term
would send a message to the campaign world that “how you win matters.”

Harber’s defense attorneys argued that a sentence of a year and eight
months was more appropriate. They asserted that Harber, a married father of
two, was already financially ruined and was unlikely to ever again work in
the field where he was once a rising star.

“The whole thing is foolish, given the consequences to himself,” defense
attorney Shannon Quill said.

Though O’Grady’s sentence was closer to defense attorneys’ request than
prosecutors’, top election law attorneys said the aggressive stance by the
Department of Justice should put donors and political consultants on guard.

“I think the department is trying to deliver a very clear message that it
affirmatively wants to bring criminal coordination cases, and it is simply
looking for the right opportunities to do so,” said Robert Kelner, who
heads the political law practice at Covington & Burling.

Kenneth Gross, a former associate general counsel at the FEC, called the
department’s posture “a shot across the bow.”

“This shows they are willing to venture into areas of criminal enforcement
in the 2016 election, beyond what they had done previously,” Gross said.

In court, O’Grady peppered all those involved with critical inquiries. He
asked Pilger detailed questions about the money involved in the scheme. He
told Harber he did not understand what could have possibly motivated his
crime, and wondered aloud why the operative did not simply have someone
else take over the super PAC.

For his part, Harber repeatedly took responsibility for his actions, though
he asserted he was motivated in-part by watching other people do the same
things and get away with them. He said he started the super PAC — which he
did not name, though federal records indicate was likely the National
Republican Victory Fund — as a legitimate operation, then began using it
nefariously to help Perkins campaign.

“It wasn’t for greed; it wasn’t for power,” Harber said. “It was money in
an attempt to win a race.”

Perkins ultimately lost by a sizeable margin to Democratic incumbent Gerald
E. Connolly to represent Virginia’s 11th District in 2012.

In addition to admitting illegal coordination, Harber conceded that his
super PAC — which was donor-funded — paid $138,000 to his mother’s company
for work that was never performed and used $118,000 of that cash for
personal expenses.

Harber’s sentencing comes as watchdog groups are appealing to the Justice
Department to investigate such cases. Last month, Democracy 21 and the
Campaign Legal Center called on the department to look into the ties
between former Florida governor Jeb Bush and his associated super PAC.

But campaign finance lawyers noted that the facts in Harber’s case were
unusually clear-cut, involving a scheme to enrich himself and then lying to
the FBI.

“It’s an extreme case,” said Anthony Herman, a former FEC general counsel.
“I think it’s quite possible that this may be unique, or one of a few we
will see.”

Still, Cleta Mitchell, a top Republican election law attorney, said that
Harber’s prosecution challenges the notion that there is no enforcement of
campaign finance rules.

“It may take a while, and I wish the FEC could figure out a way to move
things faster,” she said. “But the law is still there and anybody who
thinks it isn’t proceeds at their own peril.”

All those involved in Harber’s case seemed keenly aware of the political
climate. Prosecutors argued a significant punishment was necessary in-part
because of the surge in spending by outside groups since the Supreme
Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations and
unions to spend unlimited amounts independently on political activity.
Quill referenced news reports about candidates delaying the announcement of
their campaigns “so they don’t fall under these rules.”

O’Grady commented that he hoped conduct like Harber’s was “not as rampant”
as the former operative seemed to believe.

After the hearing, Harber declined to comment. He left the courtroom with
his family and will report to prison at a later date.

*Christie, Walker, Rubio are unsparing in blunt pitches to 2016 donors at
Romney retreat
<http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/06/12/scott-walker-gop-senators-have-yet-to-accomplish-anything>
// AP // Steve Peoples and Julie Bykowicz*

Govs. Scott Walker and Chris Christie said presidential rivals in the
Senate don't do anything. Sen. Marco Rubio denounced "old ways" in an
indirect slap at older contenders. Sen. Lindsey Graham said his party may
be going down a "death spiral" if it doesn't embrace minority and younger
voters.

In elbowing for attention Friday at a luxury mountainside donor retreat
convened by 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, several 2016 contenders
let loose some elbows at each other. Most did not name names, but Christie
did.

"If you want to know how little they know," he said of senators, "watch
what Rand Paul has done the last two weeks."

The existing and prospective presidential candidates employed some
unusually blunt rhetoric in drawing contrasts with each other as they
addressed the donors and activists.

Asked why senators seem to be popular as presidential candidates, Christie
said, "Because they don't have to do anything."

"If you don't have to do anything you can be as popular as you like because
you can say anything," the New Jersey governor went on. He then took his
swing at Paul, the Kentucky senator who did not attend, for his tactics in
the Senate that delayed and helped to reshape government surveillance
programs.

Both Graham and another potential candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, said
the eventual nominee must get on board with an immigration overhaul or risk
losing the presidency.

"Nobody is going to vote for a party that's going to break their family
apart," Graham said. The South Carolina senator said the party's lost
ground with minorities and younger voters means a "demographic death
spiral."

Kasich also urged Republicans to accommodate many of the immigrants who are
living in the country illegally. "They've been God-fearing, hard-working
people in many cases," he said.

They were among the 2016 contenders pitching for the support of about 300
top political donors and strategists connected to Romney. Former technology
executive Carly Fiorina is on Saturday's schedule — after a morning
skeet-shooting session led by Graham.

Even while calling for a civilized Republican debate, Walker charged that
GOP senators seeking the White House haven't accomplished anything in
Washington.

He said his party's 2016 presidential class should be divided into two
groups. "There are fighters and there are winners," the Wisconsin governor
said, describing the fighters as the senators in the race.

"They have yet to win anything and accomplish anything."

Rubio did not engage Walker but drew a sharp contrast between the older and
younger crop of candidates.

"Yesterday is over," the 44-year-old Florida senator declared, repeating a
common theme designed to distinguish himself from leading Democratic
candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Jeb Bush. "The old ways of
doing things aren't working anymore."

"Some have said I should have waited my turn," Rubio said. "I didn't know
there was a line."

Bush was invited to Romney's gathering, but was in Europe on Friday.

Romney's invitation-only event gave the Republican contenders an
opportunity to connect with 250 leading donors and political operatives.

Some attendees started their day hiking with Romney and his wife at 6 a.m.
Others played flag football with Rubio. Among other activities: a hot air
balloon ride, outdoor yoga and horseback riding with Ann Romney.

*Sisterhood Is Sour: How Republican Women Are Going After Hillary Clinton
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-12/sisterhood-is-sour-how-republican-women-are-taking-on-hillary-clinton>
// Bloomberg News // Emily Greenhouse – June 12, 2015 *

On Thursday night in Washington, Carly Fiorina, the only woman running for
the Republican nomination, delivered the keynote address at a
red-meat-themed event: the “Bourbon and BBQ Bash” held by the Competitive
Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit that celebrates limited government and
free markets. The tagline for the dinner read “Liberty served smooth and
smokin’.”

Fiorina spoke about the years she spent as CEO at Hewlett-Packard, but her
focus was not on business and the bottom line. It was on women: “a
conversation,” in her words, “about the state of women in America.”

Fiorina has never before held elected office, and she may not yet make it
into the prime time presidential debate.1 But by stressing her gender in
her presidential campaign, Fiorina communicates to voters that there's an
option beyond Hillary Clinton. “Fiorina has been trying to send a signal
that Clinton is not your only choice if you want to see a woman break the
highest, hardest glass ceiling,” observes Jennifer Lawless, the Director of
the Women & Politics Institute at American University’s School of Public
Affairs.

“Who else can take her on as a woman?”

Debbie Walsh, Center for American Women and Politics

This has become Fiorina's chief calling card at Republican candidate cattle
calls. By speaking as a woman about a woman—and by defining herself against
that woman—Fiorina finds, to the delight of her party, that she can
criticize Clinton like nobody else.

In February, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland,
Fiorina socked Clinton—who famously declared that “women's rights are human
rights” at a United Nations conference 20 years ago—on her record on
so-called women’s issues. “She tweets about women’s rights in this country
and takes money from governments that deny women the most basic human
rights,” Fiorina said of the former secretary of state, referring to
donations the Clinton Family Foundation took from foreign donors. “She
tweets about equal pay for women but won’t answer basic questions about her
own offices’ pay standards.” She went on to challenge Clinton's history and
her impressive résumé, booming on the CPAC stage, “Mrs. Clinton, name an
accomplishment!”

In Fiorina's stump speech, she speaks movingly of surviving breast cancer,
of losing her job, and of losing her stepdaughter—displays of vulnerability
that show strength, which some might call a historically female strategy.
(They certainly ring of a TED Talk by a woman who has read Brené Brown.)
But a remarkable amount of her discourse centers on gender. Fiorina's labor
to find her place within the GOP tent also means finding space for feminism
within the GOP. This is savvy as well as palatable. She uses her platform
to criticize the woman who has come closest to the American presidency,
opposing Clinton in ways and in terms that a man wouldn't dare.

Subtly and not-so-subtly, Fiorina is making the case that she's the
politician best positioned to confront the Democrat most likely to win her
party's nomination.  “Who else can take her on as a woman?” asked Debbie
Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers
University.

In Fiorina's speech Thursday, a personal reflection about being a woman in
America, Clinton's name went unuttered. But a day earlier, the super-PAC
Carly For America released a biting ad attacking Clinton. The title
employed one of Fiorina's favorite refrains: “Titles are not
accomplishments.”

Campaign trailing

Fiorina challenges Clinton inch by inch and step by step. Clinton
officially entered the presidential race, and all of a sudden came
Fiorina's antagonistic video in response. Fiorina goes after Clinton on
everything, as Bloomberg’s Melinda Henneberger has written, “from conflicts
of interest to wearing her sunglasses inside that Chipotle.” Fiorina even
launched a campaign website at Ready to Beat Hillary.com—a push to
undermine the 'Ready for Hillary' movement.

In late May, Fiorina held a news conference outside a Clinton event in
South Carolina. She listed scandal after scandal, then asked, “How can we
trust Clinton?”

It looked almost like stalking, then pouncing; that ugly word 'catfight'
enters the mind. Could this be anything but a transparent attempt to grab
the attention of the massive press entourage that accompanies Clinton
wherever she goes? Fiorina was absolute in her response. She told
reporters, “I planned this trip many, many weeks ago, so perhaps she’s
following me. I have never been following Mrs. Clinton.”

And yet it's not only in South Carolina that Fiorina's proximity with
Clinton has been noticeable, as Nia-Malika Henderson has pointed out in the
Washington Post. Just take a look at the women's book covers:

This is the new playbook for women in the GOP, and Fiorina's not the only
one to read it. Last weekend at the inaugural “Roast and Ride,” Iowa
Senator Joni Ernst played host to a slate of Republican presidential
candidates, and shepherded a parade of 300 motorcycles, in honor of
patriots and veterans. Revved up, roaring, and real down-home: here was a
new kind of political carnival. Then Dana Bash of CNN asked her about
Hillary.

“It's not enough to be a woman,” she said. If those words sounded familiar,
there was a reason.

Last fall, before the midterm elections, Clinton, not yet a presidential
candidate, went to Cedar Rapids to campaign on behalf of Ernst's Democratic
opponent, Bruce Braley. She took up women’s issues, which were getting an
unusual amount of play in the campaign. “It’s not enough to be a woman,”
Clinton said, behind the podium at a union hall. She spoke of birth
control, mammograms, health and reproductive justice. “You have to be
committed to expand rights and opportunities for all women.”

This weekend, Ernst mockingly echoed Clinton. “You have to care about
women's issues,” Ernst said. “Women's issues here in Iowa are that we have
a strong economy; we have jobs that our sons and daughters can go off to
someday; we have a great educational system. And women want strong national
defense. We want to know that our families are going to be safe.”

Diminished fraternity among the sorority

It wasn’t always this way. Walsh of the Center for American Women and
Politics recalls a period where “the women in the Senate had a kind of
agreement among themselves that they would not go in and campaign against
each other.” Barbara Mikulski, the first Democratic woman elected to the
Senate who wasn’t taking her father or husband’s seat, has long worked to
build relationships among women in the Senate, hosting dinners and “power
workshops” for female senators on both sides of the aisle. Mikulski and
Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a Republican, have worked together to
improve breast cancer research, mammogram standards, and the space program.
After the death of Geraldine Ferraro, the Democrat who in 1984 became first
woman to be placed on a major party’s national ticket, Hutchinson spoke in
universal terms, saying, “We’ve all faced the same obstacles. We’ve all
been turned down or trivialized.”

More recently, when Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the
House in 2007, under President George W. Bush, there was bipartisan praise
from female politicians.

When the Obama presidential campaign asked Hillary Clinton to go after
Sarah Palin in 2008, after the former governor of Alaska was tapped to be
Senator John McCain’s running mate, Clinton refused. “The day she was
nominated, the Obama campaign did contact me and asked me if I would attack
her," Clinton said last year on NBC. “I said, ‘Attack her for what—for
being a woman? Attack her for being on a ticket that's trying to draw
attention? There'll be plenty of time to do what I think you should do in
politics, which is draw distinctions.’”

It’s hard to imagine such a display of female solidarity now. Even Fiorina
herself has evinced a change in tone. In 2010, she told Amy Chozick, then
reporting for the Wall Street Journal, “Women are still held to a different
standard and scrutinized more than men are.” She said that it happened to
Sarah Palin. She said, “It happened to Hillary.” A kind of empathy, or even
sympathy.

And then this April, Fiorina said, “Hillary Clinton must not be president
of the United States—but not because she’s a woman.”

Some of this has to do with the success Democrats had using the 'war on
women' as a rallying cry against Republicans in 2012. In the run-up to the
2016 election, the GOP has caught on. Republicans are working to claim the
trope as its own, with the bellicose Fiorina in the front lines.

Ann Selzer, an Iowa pollster—who was assigned to a fellowship in Mikulski’s
congressional office in the early 1980s, before Mikulski began her many
terms in the Senate—speculates that Fiorina might have looked at poll
numbers for 2008, when Clinton opposed then-senator Barack Obama in the
primary, and saw that Clinton had captured the excitement of women who
wanted to have a female president. “The Republicans have a woman problem,”
Selzer put it. “So as a Republican, Fiorina says, maybe there’s some people
I can bring in. Because if Republicans deal with the woman problem—even a
bit—they win.”

Party before gender

Jennifer Lawless of American University's Women & Politics Institute chalks
it up to polarization. “I think that what we’ve seen, especially in the
last ten or fifteen years is that, with this increase in party
politicization, whether you have a D or R before your name is far more
important than whether you have an X or Y chromosome,” she said.

In the 1980s and 1990s, not only were there fewer women in Congress, but
there were significant number of moderate Republican women. After
redistricting, Lawless explained, moderate Republicans were replaced by
Democrats. “There used to be room for solidarity and working together on
what was traditionally seen as women’s issues – pay equity or reproductive
rights. But now, the Republican women in congress are indistinguishable
from men who are in Congress. There’s very little opportunity to work
across the aisle just because you’re a woman.”

There’s the added bonus, for Fiorina and Ernst, that criticism “is seen as
less gendered because it’s a woman saying it about another woman. If men
were saying it, it could be seen as gendered/sexist,” said Walsh.  (Recall
that Clinton’s team worked to portray her 2000 Senate rival Rick Lazio as a
sexist bully—with positive results for her.)

Walsh observed the play of gender among Republican women, the boasting of
behavior that's often seen as masculine—Ernst rides a motorcycle alongside
(and in front of) the guys, Fiorina trumpets her time riding on a John
Deere tractor (and questions whether Clinton's ever done the same). Walsh
wondered whether, in this climate of women-attacking-women, they would
still defend each other from blatant sexism.

“So sad to see women simply attack Clinton for running when we need more
women in the proverbial pipeline,” Donna Brazile, a Democratic political
strategist, lamented. “If they could just stop their attacks and start
recruiting more women to run for office, we could finally end up with more
women serving in office.”

A year ago this week, Palin tweeted a picture of an excerpt from Clinton’s
memoir, in which Clinton wrote, “I was not going to attack Palin just for
being a woman appealing for support from other women. I didn't think that
made political sense.”

Now that a woman is the frontrunner, maybe it does.

*Mitt Romney And Republican Presidential Hopefuls: All One And The Same!
<http://correctrecord.org/mitt-romney-and-republican-presidential-hopefuls-all-one-and-the-same/>
// Correct The Record – June 12, 2015 *

Today, Mitt Romney will welcome six Republican hopefuls including Marco
Rubio, Scott Walker and Lindsey Graham to his conclave in Utah to audition
for his support. One may ask – why are these potential Republican
candidates elbowing each other to win the backing of a failed presidential
candidate who purposefully sought to exclude 47% of America?

The truth is that this cycle’s Republican hopefuls are nearly
indistinguishable from Mitt Romney when it comes to their policies on
issues affecting women, LGBT rights, and how to grow the economy. Marco
Rubio, Scott Walker and Lindsey Graham have the same botched, cookie
cutter, last-century policy visions benefitting only the wealthiest of
Americans. These extremist positions haven’t worked for Americans in the
past and won’t work in the future.

If Mitt Romney and the Republican party failed in 2012, why is the GOP
chasing after Romney’s endorsement in 2016? Instead of adapting to advocate
for the interests of all Americans, Republicans are proud to show that
they’re still all one and the same.

*TOP NEWS*

*DOMESTIC*

*Chinese hack compromised security-clearance database
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chinese-hack-of-government-network-compromises-security-clearance-files/2015/06/12/9f91f146-1135-11e5-9726-49d6fa26a8c6_story.html>
// WaPo // Ellen Nakashima – June 12, 2015 *

The Chinese breach of the Office of Personnel Management network was wider
than first acknowledged, and officials said Friday that a database holding
sensitive security clearance information on millions of federal employees
and contractors also was compromised.

In an announcement, the OPM said that investigators concluded this week
with “a high degree of confidence” that the agency’s systems containing
information related to the background investigations of “current, former
and prospective” federal employees, and others for whom a background check
was conducted, were breached.

The OPM is assessing how many people were affected, spokesman Samuel
Schumach said. “Once we have conclusive information about the breach, we
will announce a notification plan for individuals whose information is
determined to have been compromised,” he said.

The announcement of the hack of the security-clearance database comes a
week after the OPM disclosed that another personnel system had been
compromised. The discovery of the first breach led investigators to find
the second — all part of one campaign by the Chinese, U.S. officials say,
evidently to obtain information valuable to counterespionage.

“This is potentially devastating from a counterintelligence point of
view,” said Joel Brenner, a former top counterintelligence official for
the U.S. government, speaking about the latest revelation. “These forums
contain decades of personal information about people with clearances . . .
which makes them easier to recruit for foreign espionage on behalf of a
foreign country.”

Last week, the OPM announced that a database containing the personal
information of about 4 million current and former federal employees was
hacked. Privately, U.S. officials said the Chinese government was behind
the breach. The administration has not publicly pointed a finger at Beijing.

The breach of that data system affected 4.1 million individuals — all 2.1
million current federal civilian employees and 2 million retired or former
employees. Information on officials as senior as Cabinet secretaries may
have been breached. The president’s and vice president’s data were not,
officials said.

China has dismissed the hacking allegations, with a Foreign Ministry
spokesman last week calling them “irresponsible and unscientific.”

The separate background-check database contains sensitive information —
called SF-86 data — that includes applicants’ financial histories and
investment records, children’s and relatives’ names, foreign trips taken
and contacts with foreign nationals, past residences, and names of
neighbors and close friends.

That database was also breached last year by the Chinese in a separate
incident, and the new intrusion underscores how persistent and determined
Beijing is in going after data valuable to counterespionage.

“The adversary is obviously very interested in that data,” said a U.S.
official, who, like several others who were interviewed, spoke on the
condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

The discovery of the second compromise was not exactly a surprise. “It’s
like cancer,” a second U.S. official said. “Once you start operating on the
cancer, you find it has spread to other areas of the body.”

Employees of intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, generally do not have
the records of their clearance checks held by the OPM, although some do,
officials said.

“That’s the open question — whether it’s going to hit CIA folks,” the
second official said. “It would be a huge deal. They could start unmasking
identities.”

Matthew Olsen, a former National Security Agency general counsel and former
head of the National Counterterrorism Center, said the breach is “truly
significant.” The data can be used in many different ways to target people,
“whether it’s blackmail, to recruit, to punish individuals in China who are
connected to people in the United States.”

In the past year or two, the Chinese government has begun building massive
databases of Americans’ personal information obtained through
cyberespionage. Besides the series of OPM intrusions, a federal government
contractor that conducted background investigations for the OPM and the
Department of Homeland Security was hacked last year by the Chinese. And
Beijing has been linked to penetrations of several health insurance
companies that hold personal data on tens of millions of Americans.

“Who can be surprised?” Brenner said. “They’re making a concerted effort to
gather vast quantities of information about Americans. This is perfectly
clear. That they have all this clearance information is a disaster.”

President Obama, as with previous high-profile breaches, has been briefed
on the investigation. What steps, if any, the administration can or should
take in response is a difficult discussion, current and former officials
said.

“There are a whole array of things we need to do across the board, from
raising our defenses to making sure that this stuff isn’t actually on the
criminal underground to understanding the full scope” of the breach, the
first official said. “We haven’t gotten there yet.”

What complicates this case is that unlike many other Chinese breaches of
U.S. networks, the OPM hacks do not involve theft of commercial secrets.
Last year, the United States indicted five Chinese military officials on
charges of commercial cyberespionage. With traditional espionage, the
options are fewer.

“You’re not going to start a shooting war over this,” a former intelligence
official said. “We need to improve our defenses. We also want to go on the
offense.”

Offensive actions might include directing a U.S. agency to locate the
servers holding the stolen data and deleting or altering the data, the
former official said.

The administration timed its announcement last week of the initial OPM
breach to comply with its own policy, as reflected in proposed legislation,
to notify individuals of a breach within 30 days of concluding that there
is a “reasonable basis to believe” that personal information has been
compromised, the first U.S. official said.

Although the breach was discovered in April, it was not until early May
that investigators determined that employees’ personal data probably was
taken. That led to the announcement last week even though, the official
said, the investigation was not complete.

During a briefing for congressional staff last week, Ann Barron-DiCamillo,
a senior DHS official, tried to explain the delay in alerting employees to
the breach. “It takes time to do the forensics and to understand what’s
happened, and even to understand what data, if any, has been exposed,” she
said, according to notes taken by a congressional aide.

The breach, she said, took place in December. “It took awhile to pinpoint
what actually went out the door because it happened six months ago,” she
said.

*House Deals Blow to Obama’s Bid for Trade Deal, Rejects Worker-Aid Program
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/house-deals-blow-to-obamas-bid-for-trade-deal-rejects-worker-aid-program-1434131589>
// WSJ // Siobhan Hughes, Kristina Peterson & William Mauldin – June 12,
2015 *

House Democrats dealt President Barack Obama a major setback in his bid for
expanded trade-negotiating powers, roundly rejecting on Friday a
workers-aid program that was a key component of the bill and leaving the
White House’s trade agenda in limbo.

While stinging, the vote was not the last word in the trade fight, as House
Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said there would be a re-vote by Tuesday on
extending the aid program, which is designed to help workers hurt by
international trade.

But Friday’s defeat showed the degree to which Mr. Obama’s trade agenda is
on shaky ground in Congress. The House voted against the workers-aid
program by 126-302. To improve those numbers, House Republican leaders, the
White House and pro-trade businesses will need to find ways to win over a
combination of Democrats who are skeptical of the overall trade push and
Republicans leery of supporting the aid package.

It also underscored the waning influence of a second-term president,
particularly on an issue many Democrats see as toxic to their re-election
prospects, given concerns in their districts that U.S. jobs are being sent
overseas.

Mr. Obama, who traveled to Capitol Hill on Friday morning, and to a charity
congressional baseball game the night before, made impassioned pleas to
members of his party to support “fast track,” which gives the president the
ability to submit trade deals to Congress for an up-or-down vote without
amending it.

Mr. Boehner said after the vote that the onus was on Democrats to devise a
way forward.

“Republicans did our part, and we remain committed to free trade because it
is critical to creating jobs and growing our economy. I’m pleased that a
bipartisan House majority supported trade promotion authority,” Mr. Boehner
said, referring to a separate vote on fast track on Friday.

Democrats’ ability to take down the trade bill was made possible by House
Republican leaders’ decision to hold two separate votes on the legislation
that was passed by the Senate last month. The calculus was that Democratic
votes on the first part, the workers-aid program, would compensate for
opposition from Republicans. GOP votes for fast track, meanwhile, would
offset Democratic opposition there.

Instead, Democrats abandoned the first part in droves, raising questions
about whether they would be any more supportive next week. While most of
them support the workers-aid measure, they knew its rejection would take
down the fast-track bill.

“Its defeat, sad to say, is the only way that we would be able to slow down
the fast track,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), who
ended months of neutrality to side with liberals who voted against the
worker-aid program as a way to sink Mr. Obama’s trade agenda.

Derailing fast track, even temporarily, further strains the negotiations
that the U.S. is trying to wrap up with 11 countries around the Pacific,
including Australia, Japan and Vietnam. Discernible progress on the
remaining difficult issues in the deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or
TPP, has all but halted recently as officials from U.S. trading partners
wait for Congress to act on fast-track legislation, which is also known as
trade promotion authority.

“Unless this is promptly remedied with an affirmative vote cast soon, it is
doubtful that TPP partners will be willing to seriously re-engage,” said
Daniel Price, former economic adviser to President George W. Bush and
managing director at Rock Creek Global Advisers, a consultancy.

The coming days are expected to include a new frenzy of lobbying by both
sides, as Mr. Obama and his allies on trade get a second chance. There were
signs on Friday of potential horse trades. Mrs. Pelosi said prospects for
passage of a fast-track bill would “greatly increase” if bolstered by
another Democratic priority, such as a “robust highway bill.”

Congress has for years been unable to pass a multiyear highway bill, and a
current short-term bill expires at the end of July. The White House and
Democrats have long pushed for a multiyear bill, which many see as
essential to completing long-term infrastructure projects that will also
boost jobs.

Pro-trade House lawmakers also have another key piece of ammunition as they
enter weekend negotiations: The House voted 219-211 on the second part of
the bill, granting Mr. Obama fast-track authority. It drew the support of
28 Democrats, more than expected. Pro-trade House lawmakers also secured
passage of a separate customs and enforcement measure that includes new
tools to combat unfair trade practices.

After the vote, Mr. Obama urged the House to act quickly.

“These kinds of agreements make sure that the global economy’s rules aren’t
written by countries like China; they’re written by the United States of
America,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “And to stand in their way is to
do nothing but preserve the long-term status quo for American workers, and
make it even harder for them to succeed.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest dismissed the defeat of the worker-aid
program as a “procedural snafu,” the same words he had used to describe an
earlier, temporary defeat in the Senate on the fast-track bill.

But the House has long been more suspicious of trade deals, and the stall
in the House represented a more personal blow because Mr. Obama had courted
Mrs. Pelosi assiduously, showing up at the congressional baseball game and
meeting with her personally on Friday morning before making a rare,
last-minute visit to the Capitol to urge Democrats to “play it straight”
and vote for the piece of the bill that would extend the workers-aid
program.

Mr. Obama has promised that he would support Democrats in the face of
expected attacks from labor unions opposed to fast-track legislation. Some
Democrats said that was not enough.

“I don’t know if it’s a matter of just hearing from the president,” said
Rep. Danny Davis (D., Ill). “I would need to hear from the people in the
Seventh Congressional District in Illinois.”

Mr. Obama’s call to “play it straight” was a bitter pill for House
liberals, who thought House leaders had already been devious by
establishing the two-step procedure.

As it became clear that House Republican leaders and Mr. Obama had lined up
enough support to win passage of the portion of the bill granting
fast-track negotiating power, liberals saw only one choice: to vote against
the worker-aid portion of the bill even though it helped many of their own
constituents, workers who lose jobs as a result of international trade.

“It was not the opponents who came up with this crazy procedure. If they
had played it straight, we could play it straight,” said Rep. Brad Sherman
(D., Calif.). “What’s the good of having a little bit of trade-adjustment
assistance if we lose millions of jobs because we put them on a fast track
to Asia?”

*White House trade push not getting help from DNC
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/dnc-white-house-trade-push-118931.html>
// Politico // Edward-Isaac Dovere – June 12, 2015 *

Texas Democratic Party chair Gilberto Hinojosa had just put out a statement
opposing President Barack Obama’s trade platform when his cell phone
starting flashing with a blocked number. He assumed White House political
director David Simas was calling to ask him to stop.

Hinojosa didn’t pick up.

“What was he going to do? We’re pretty firm on our opposition to this,”
Hinojosa recalled in an interview. “This is an issue very important to
labor and environmentalists, and the Texas Democratic Party has a very
strong connection to labor, as does the Democratic National Committee.”

As Obama and his aides make the final push for votes during a trade
showdown in the House, they are getting little help from the Democratic
party apparatus — the Democratic National Committee, state parties or even
smaller Democratic groups.

President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif.
leave meeting with House Democrats on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday,
June 12, 2015. The president made an 11th-hour appeal to dubious Democrats
on Friday in a tense run-up to a House showdown on legislation to
strengthen his hand in global trade talks. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez
Monsivais)

It’s not just that Democratic officials are sitting on their hands: 19
state parties are actively opposing the president’s trade package, passing
resolutions against fast-track authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership
agreement the president wants to finish negotiating once that’s in place.

White House officials argue that this is a case of Democratic institutions
— including Democratic lawmakers facing a make-or-break vote on the trade
agenda on Friday — being out of sync with actual Democratic voters.

“There’s a profound disconnect between where Democratic voters are today
versus where they were even five, six years ago—the most pro-trade voters
in the country are Democratic voters,” Simas said. Within the Democratic
coalition, he added, “there are large majorities that are now in favor of
trade.”

Recent polls back him up. A May poll by the non-partisan Pew Research
Center found that 58 percent of Democrats said free trade agreements are
good for the country, while just 33 percent described them as bad. Support
for trade deals has rebounded among Democrats since the 2008 recession,
when only 34 percent of Democrats described them as “a good thing” and 50
percent said they were bad.

But the White House hasn’t had much luck getting backing from party
organizations. Obama aides started out trying to make the progressive
argument for trade, then retrenched to trying to get Democratic groups to
at least stay neutral. That didn’t always work.

The DNC, which would normally provide support for a Democratic president,
hasn’t backed him up in any public way, choosing to stay out of the fight.
(DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) has yet to take a
position ahead of Friday’s vote.)

“We understand and the White House understands that there is and has been a
diversity of views within the party on this issue for a long time, which we
respect, and that is unlikely to change,” said DNC press secretary Holly
Shulman. “Our role has simply been to give the White House opportunities to
give information and answer questions from our members and state parties.”

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a rally
with local residents, Saturday, May 30, 2015, in Ames, Iowa. (AP
Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

That included a May call with state party chairs in which Simas presented
the pro-trade argument and answered questions. When word got out about that
call, labor representatives got the DNC to put together a separate call
with the same group to rebut the White House.

The White House argues that it wasn’t trying to get people to any set
position on trade, or under the impression that putting the information out
would directly influence votes on the Hill.

“There’s zero bank-shot,” Simas said. “This was about, and was executed as,
giving information to folks at the DNC and others who didn’t have the
information, or our perspective as to why the president was doing what he’s
doing, and why it’s so important.”

Being on the other side of the president, Hinojosa said, is painful. But
nothing Obama has said was enough to convince Democrats in Texas to trust
him on this.

“It’s not so much that we don’t trust him. We trust him with our lives.
What we don’t trust is some of the multinational corporations,” he
explained.

Party officials said that a major factor in their decision to not to
support the president on trade is organized labor, which has spent a lot of
time and money cultivating state-level Democratic officials.

“As goes organized labor in America, so does the Democratic Party —
especially state parties,” said Jason Perkey, the executive director of the
South Carolina Democrats and president of the Association of State
Democratic Party Executive Directors. “They are our strongest allies and
most steadfast supporters, year in and year out.”

In late April, the South Carolina Democratic Party nearly passed a
resolution strongly opposing the president’s trade agenda, before it was
stopped by a procedural maneuver initiated by former DNC chair Don Fowler,
who ran the national party during Bill Clinton’s first term. Fowler made
two arguments: the people pushing the resolution didn’t have all the
information, and the Democratic president deserved the support of the state
Democratic Party.

The “stand-with-the-president” argument hasn’t worked in other states. In
Maine, state Democratic chair Phil Bartlett said he made the case to the
executive committee himself, along with some of the arguments that he’d
heard from the White House. But they passed a resolution against fast-track
trade authority in mid-May anyway. Bartlett said he knows that the White
House would have preferred they hadn’t.

“I understand their position wanting us to sort of keep quiet. From our
perspective, once you have so many Democratic leaders from across the
country speaking out, including our elected leaders, it becomes much more
an issue of whether it’s appropriate for us to weigh in,” he said. “We
didn’t view it as being an effort to insult and push back against the
president.”

While mayors across the country have formed perhaps the strongest bloc of
support for Obama on fast track, a number of local Democratic organizations
and majority-Democratic city councils have passed their own anti-trade
resolutions, including in Seattle and San Francisco (where Democratic Mayor
Ed Lee supports fast-track).

Meanwhile, the president’s also getting limited support from what’s left of
his own Organizing for Action group, despite an impassioned speech to their
conference in Washington at the end of April, asking them and others to
trust him when he said the new trade deals would fit completely with his
record of watching out for working people.

A news release from OFA showed three women in a lobby holding signs,
waiting to see their local representatives and the lead volunteer in
Washington State at her computer, writing a letter to the editor.

“Trade policy is a hot topic on OFA’s digital organizing platform Connect,”
the release noted.

Some state officials insist that the polls don’t reflect Democratic opinion
in their states.

“It’s easy to characterize this as simply a labor issue, but this is deeper
for our state than one group of stakeholders,” said David Pepper, the chair
of the Ohio Democratic Party, which was the first to pass an anti-TPA
resolution.

Contrary to the numbers the White House cites, Pepper said he’d had
conversations with people all over the state still complaining about NAFTA
and worried about the secrecy surrounding the Pacific trade pact. In his
experience, there’s no disconnect between the Democratic organizations
opposed to TPA and the voters.

“In Ohio, you go town to town, and you will find deep concerns about the
negative consequences of past trade deals, lessons not learned, and real
concern about this as well,” Pepper said. “I have little doubt that in Ohio
at least, those speaking out against it are representing their districts
well.”

*INTERNATIONAL*

*ISIS Is Winning the Social Media War, U.S. Concludes
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/world/middleeast/isis-is-winning-message-war-us-concludes.html>
// NYT // Mark Mazzetti & Michael Gordon – June 12, 2015 *

An internal State Department assessment paints a dismal picture of the
efforts by the Obama administration and its foreign allies to combat the
Islamic State’s message machine, portraying a fractured coalition that
cannot get its own message straight.

The assessment comes months after the State Department signaled that it was
planning to energize its social media campaign against the militant group.
It concludes, however, that the Islamic State’s violent narrative —
promulgated through thousands of messages each day — has effectively
“trumped” the efforts of some of the world’s richest and most
technologically advanced nations.

It also casts an unflattering light on internal discussions between
American officials and some of their closest allies in the military
campaign against the militants. A “messaging working group” of officials
from the United States, Britain and the United Arab Emirates, the memo
says, “has not really come together.”

Document: State Department Memo on the Islamic State Group

The blunt assessment comes amid broader criticism that the military
campaign against the Islamic State is flagging. The group’s fighters
recently took over the city of Ramadi in western Iraq and have occupied
Falluja and Mosul for more than a year.

State Department officials have repeatedly said that “countermessaging” the
Islamic State is one of the pillars of the strategy to defeat the group.
But Obama administration officials have acknowledged in the past that the
group is far more nimble in spreading its message than the United States is
in blunting it.

The internal document — composed by Richard A. Stengel, the State
Department’s under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs and a
former managing editor of Time magazine — was written for Secretary of
State John Kerry after a conference of Western and Arab officials in Paris
this month on countering the Islamic State.

A communiqué issued at the meeting took note of the Islamic State’s gains
and expressed the coalition’s determination to remove the group from the
territory it held in Iraq and Syria. The document was issued in the name of
Mr. Kerry, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France and Prime Minister
Haider al-Abadi of Iraq. Mr. Kerry was in Boston recuperating from a broken
leg, but he spoke to the meeting by phone.

Mr. Stengel noted that the message from the conference — that a disparate
coalition of nations was resolute in destroying the Islamic State — fell
flat, with news media reports highlighting how little of substance seemed
to emerge from the meeting.

“From the outside, it mostly seemed exactly like business as usual,” he
wrote.

The memo, labeled “sensitive but unclassified,” was given to The New York
Times by an Obama administration official.

Mr. Stengel did not respond to a request for comment. John Kirby, the State
Department spokesman, said that the memo “acknowledges what we’ve made
clear in the past: We must do a better job at discrediting ISIL in the
information space.” Mr. Kirby was using an acronym for an alternate name
for the group, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

“The memo is an assessment not of the larger counter-ISIL messaging effort,
but how the small group of coalition members communicates internally and
externally,” Mr. Kirby said, adding that Mr. Kerry would “take into
consideration” Mr. Stengel’s ideas and recommendations.

Spokesmen for the British and Emirati Embassies in Washington declined to
comment.

This year, administration officials said they planned to expand the State
Department’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, a tiny
office created in 2011 to combat terrorist messages on the Internet in real
time. The center employs specialists fluent in Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi and
Somali to counter terrorist propaganda and misinformation, offering a
competing narrative that seeks to strike an emotional chord. The analysts
also post messages on English-language websites that jihadists use to
recruit, raise money and promote their cause.

Mr. Stengel has also sought to work with other coalition members,
particularly Arab ones, to discredit the Islamic State in the hope of
stemming the flow of foreign fighters to the group. Mr. Kerry has said that
the effort to “start drying up this pool” of potential volunteers may be
even more important than military efforts.

When Mr. Kerry traveled to the Middle East in September to start building a
coalition against the Islamic State, Mr. Stengel went with him to meet with
Arab officials and establish what he called “a communications coalition, a
messaging coalition, to complement what’s going on the ground.”

A crucial part of the public diplomacy has involved encouraging Arab
religious leaders, Muslim scholars and Arab news media organizations to
denounce the Islamic State as a distortion of Islam. State Department
officials have praised the United Arab Emirates for establishing its own
center to counter the Islamic State’s prodigious propaganda.

But Mr. Stengel’s assessment makes clear that American officials believe
that much more needs to be done.

In the memo, he proposes to Mr. Kerry that a “communications hub” be
created somewhere in the Middle East — staffed by representatives from the
various coalition members — that would perform “daily and weekly messaging
around coalition activities” to fight the Islamic State, and that would
have a spokesman in Baghdad.

But even this, he said, would face hurdles.

“This seems like an obvious and simple solution — but I am sure it is not
as easy as it sounds for a hundred different reasons,” he wrote.

Still, Mr. Stengel did have one piece of good news for Mr. Kerry from the
Paris conference. An event at the Louvre intended to focus on the Islamic
State’s destruction of antiquities in Syria and Iraq, Mr. Stengel said, was
a success and could be followed up with an entire conference on the issue.

The conference, he wrote, could bring together “dealers, auction houses,
collectors, scholars” and others to highlight that trafficking in
antiquities is a “war crime” and a “tool of terrorism,” and is financing
the Islamic State’s “dark game.”

*U.S., Europe ready new sanctions to deter Putin on Ukraine
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/12/politics/ukraine-russia-sanctions-us-eu/index.html>
// CNN // Elise Labott – June 12, 2015 *

he United States and the European Union are finalizing further sanctions
against Russia that could be imposed if Moscow takes additional military
action in Ukraine, senior U.S. administration officials and European
diplomats said Thursday.

The sources stressed that no decisions have been made yet to put additional
measures in place. This week's renewed fighting triggered a discussion of
additional sanctions, they said, but the fighting ended before a decision
to act was made.

The sources said the potential new measures to be presented to Western
leaders range from adding names and companies to the current sanctions to
imposing broader penalties on Russia's financial, energy and defense
sectors.

The point at which Russian military moves would prompt new sanctions is a
case of "you know it when you see it," a senior administration official
said. "It could be any major assault anywhere across the line of contact.
We all know what we are talking about, and we want to be prepared and have
stuff ready to go in case we need it."

"There is a whole range of different options leaders will have available to
respond to any renewed Russian aggression, to which we could respond pretty
quickly and vigorously. We are not talking about weeks," the official said.

Discussion of additional sanctions comes as the EU is widely expected to
renew trade and personal sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine
when they expire toward the end of the month.

Both the U.S. and EU have linked the lifting of sanctions to implementation
of a peace accord hammered out in February by Russia with the leaders of
Ukraine, France and Germany in the capital of Belarus.

The so-called Minsk Agreement has been repeatedly violated. The U.S. and EU
claim that most of those violations were by Russia and the separatists it
supports. Some of the fiercest fighting since the agreement came this week,
with heavy artillery fire reported near Donetsk.

The European parliament passed a resolution calling on EU governments to
keep the measures in place after Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled
to Italy Wednesday in what many in the West saw as a bid to break European
solidarity on the sanctions.

"Europe has acted with more unity than most people expected, including
Putin himself," one of the senior administration officials said.

A European diplomat briefing reporters Thursday noted that this week's
violence strengthened European resolve to maintain the current measures.

"The concerns that we all began to feel about additional violations and
suggestions there were troops and equipment coming across the border from
Russia ... all that in fact was quite useful in getting European nations
collectively to grasp that now is not the time to start softening the
position we are taking on sanctions," the European diplomat said.

President Barack Obama said in Austria on Monday that he'd convinced
European leaders to maintain the economic sanctions. The extension of
sanctions was one of his chief goals at this week's G7 meeting in the
Bavarian Alps. Obama said Europe and the United States stand ready to
impose new sanctions if violence increases.

The sources said that while they prefer not to impose the new sanctions,
they hope the knowledge that they are being prepared will deter Putin from
taking further action.

"It is both preparation and also a degree of credible messaging," the
European diplomat briefing reporters said. "One is to make very clear that
if there are further acts of aggression that we can move quickly. The other
is to let it be known we are serious about being ready to do that as a
deterrent."

The diplomat stressed, "We would rather not to have to do that, but it
needs to be clear that if that is the direction Putin's Russia goes in,
that we will react."

U.S. officials and European diplomats insist the sanctions are taking a
toll on the Russian economy, where the ruble has plummeted in value.

But they admit the sanctions have done little to prevent Putin from
continuing the campaign in Ukraine or curb aggression by separatists in
Eastern Ukraine.

In total, more than 6,000 people have died in the fighting in Eastern
Ukraine since the conflict began last year, according to the United Nations.

*MISCELLANEOUS ADDED BY STAFF*

*Shut Up About the Clinton Foundation's Problems for a Minute to Look at
Its Programs
<http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/6/12/shut-up-about-the-clinton-foundations-problems-for-a-minute.html>
// Inside Philanthropy // Kiersten Marek and David Callahan – June 12, 2015*

With all the hype in the media about the Clinton Foundation, we wonder how
many Americans actually know what the foundation does—or how many members
of the media, for that matter.

Listening to news reports, you'd think the sole purpose of this outfit is
to help the Clintons get rich and do favors for their shady friends. And
while, to be sure, some of the reports about specific donors have been
troubling—and suggest questionable judgment by the Clintons—what's missing
is a broader, more balanced look at how the foundation mobilizes money for
good causes and who, in reality, puts up most of that money. (Hint: It's
not dictators looking for favors from the State Department.) While people
shouldn't stop asking hard questions about the foundation, they should pay
more attention to its approach and programs.

In fact, the Clinton Foundation stands as one of the more successful
efforts of recent years to mobilize new resources for philanthropy. Since
its founding in 2001, it has raised nearly $2 billion, according an
independent review by the Washington Post. Yes, chunks of that money have
come from the Clintons' network of political donors and corporate friends,
which is how fundraising often works: You hit up the rich people you know
for your causes. And, sure, some of them may not have the purest motives
for ponying up, especially if you're someone who can return favors later,
but that's the nature of the game.

Philanthropic fundraising is more like political fundraising than many may
imagine. You think every hedge fund guy who gives big at the Robin Hood's
annual gala is solely focused on poor kids in East New York? Or that every
tech leader who recently listened to Marc Benioff's pleas and chipped in to
fight poverty in the Bay Area has a heart of gold? Or that everyone sitting
on MoMA's board is only there because they love art? Come on.

If you look too closely at how the sausage is made for any large
fundraising operation, you probably won't like what you see. And that's all
the more true if America's messiest power couple is making the sausage.

The other missing context here is this: Intermediaries like the Clinton
Foundation and donor networks play a growing role in philanthropy, which is
generally a good thing. In fact, some think that peer-driven and
collaborative efforts to mobilize money is one of the most exciting trends
in philanthropy. This approach is particularly popular among women donors,
who've built some of the stronger philanthropy networks of recent years.

Meanwhile, another exciting trend in philanthropy—also embodied by the
Clinton Foundation—is how funders are creating deeper partnerships with
government and business in order to leverage money and have bigger impact.

But a downside of these schmooze-and-fund models, which can have many
moving parts—both in terms of where money comes from and where it goes—is
that there's more room for conflicts of interest, or the appearance of
such, than with a traditional private foundation.

Overall, you can bash the Clintons for their well-known flaws; but you also
have to give them a lot credit for harnessing one of the top power networks
in U.S. society to a range of good causes and advancing the state of
philanthropy. Bill Clinton may be no saint like Jimmy Carter; but it's a
good thing that he didn't decide to focus on oil painting after leaving the
White House.

As for what the Clinton Foundation's causes are, you'd think we would all
know that by now, given the deluge of media attention around the
foundation. But most of us probably know more about Sidney Blumenthal's
consulting gig than, say, the foundation's work in Africa. Speaking of
which, it's not just places like Africa where the foundation works, it's
also in different parts of America.

The latest Clinton Global Initiatives (CGI) America conference, which was
just held in Denver, offers a good snapshot of this part of the
foundation's mission. It and involved a long list of sponsors including the
Kresge Foundation and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, as well as a number
of corporate sponsors including Toyota Motors North America, CH2M, Cheniere
Energy, the Coca-Cola Company, Freeport-McMoRan Inc., Noble Energy, APCO
Worldwide, and Diageo.

The conference convened more than 1000 leaders from business, foundation,
NGO, and government sectors to advance solutions that encourage economic
growth, support long-term competitiveness, and increase social mobility in
the United States.

As part of this conference, CGI America attendees made 79 new "Commitments
to Action"—specific and measurable plans for addressing significant
challenges. These 79 new actions cover a wide array of policy areas
including access to education and job training, financing for small
businesses, clean energy solutions, and more.

So what do some of these new commitments look like? Here's just a taste. A
more extensive list of the commitments is available here.

Economic Development/Financial Inclusion

Campaign for Every Kid’s Future

Commitment By: Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED)

Partners: National League of Cities, Senator Chris Coons, Utah Education
Savings Plan, I Have A Dream Foundation, Kansas University, Washington
University in St. Louis, the Harold Alfond Scholarship Fund, Office of
Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, Colorado Department of Human Services,
City of St. Louis, City of San Francisco

In 2015, CFED and its partners are launching the Campaign for Every Kid’s
Future, which will ensure that 1.4 million children have savings set aside
for college by the year 2020. CFED will assist local and state agencies in
advocating, designing, and raising matching dollars for CSA programs
through an online platform.

Unleashing the Power of One in Three

Commitment By: Association for Enterprise Opportunity; Daria Shehaan

Partners: American Dream Fund; Citi Foundation; Count Me In for Women's
Economic Independence; Grameen Foundation; Mary Reynolds Babcock
Foundation, Inc.; Mercy Corps; On Deck Capital; Oregon Microenterprise
Network (OMEN); Sam's Club; Wal-Mart Corporate Affairs

This partnership will continue building on a successful program started in
2011 that gives more loans to microbusiness owners and entrepreneurs. The
new goal is to deploy $10 million in microloans by the end of 2016 with the
help of the Sam’s Club Giving Program.

Environmental and Disaster Relief

Urban Watershed Protection & Restoration in Development

Commitment By: Vulcan Inc.

Partners: Salmon-Safe

This project aligns real estate development in the Puget Sound region with
water quality and ecosystem protection. Over the next three years, they are
committing to the goal of making all development projects in the Seattle
region have net zero impact on the Puget Sound watershed.

Improving Disaster Resilience & Recovery in the US

Commitment By: Toyota; St. Bernard Project (SBP)

Partners: Corporation for Community and National Service (CNCS)

Toyota and its partners are committing to train 140 Americorps members each
year in the "Toyota Production System philosophy." The project will also
provide post-disaster rebuilding training at no cost to grantees engaged in
disaster recovery work. The resulting commitment: 30 communities will be
trained to understand and mitigate risk, and a total of 420 AmeriCorps
members will receive training from Toyota over the course of this
commitment.

Education

Wash Time is Talk Time: Early Literacy Promotion in Laundromats

Commitment By: Coin Laundry Association (CLA); Too Small to Fail

Partners: Laundry Project; Jumpstart; University of Arkansas; First 5
Alameda County (F5AC); Encore.org

In 2015, this partnership is committing to help nearly 800 parents engage
in talk time with their children, at 5,000 laundromats in underserved
communities across the country. This project will create bilingual English
and Spanish toolkits and booklets with resources to help parents,
laundromat owners, and community volunteers use their time to teach
children through talkking, reading, and singing.

Play Time is Talk Time: Early Literacy in Playgrounds

Commitment By: Shane’s Inspiration

Partners: Landscape Structures, Inc. (LSI); Too Small to Fail (TSTF)

Similar to the laundromat idea, this program aims to reach families with
playgrounds that are enriched with talking, reading, and singing
educational signs and panels that incorporate visuals and messages designed
to boost a child’s early brain development by prompting fun,
vocabulary-rich conversations, stories, and songs while adults and children
play together.

Expanding the Reach of STEM and Creative Writing

Commitment By: YMCA

Partners: Time Warner Cable; 826 National

The goal here is to take 826 National's STEM and Creative Writing
curriculum and disseminate it to about 200,000 young people nationwide, for
the purpose of helping students become more aware of STEM careers and what
the field is really about.

These new commitments to action are great to see from many of the main
players in the philanthropic efforts for the U.S. To learn more about the
Clinton Foundation's work, check out its five main areas for grantmaking:

   1. Climate Change
   2. Economic Development
   3. Global Health
   4. Health and Wellness
   5. Women and Girls