Subject: H4A News Clips 7.18.15
From: Alexandria Phillips <[email-masked]>
To: Alexandria Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 09:03:23 -0400
List-Id: <HRCRapid.hillaryclinton.com>

*H4A News Clips*

*July 18, 2015*

*TODAY’S KEY
STORIES.....................................................................................
**8*

Clinton Campaign Spending: Big, and Different // NYT // Derek Willis – July
17, 2015.............. 8

In Iowa, the first faceoff between Clinton, Sanders and other rivals //
WaPo // Philip Rucker – July 17,
2015.............................................................................................................................................
9

*SOCIAL
MEDIA.................................................................................................
**11*

Mark Murray (7/17/15, 6:10 AM) - Yes, Hillary camp spent $18.7M in her 1st
Q, but Obama camp spent $11M in his 1st Q in '11 - and that was w/o single
event by the principal........................................... 11

Jon Ralson (7/17/15, 2:08 PM) - Jeb also, even when I pressed, left no
daylight possible on a path to citizenship. No way. No
how..................................................................................................
11

Dave Wasserman‏ (7/17/15, 1:34) - Basic math: if the GOP nominee simply did
3% better than Romney with ALL groups (30% w/ Latinos vs. 27%, for
example), he/she would win.................................... 11

Dave Wasserman‏ (7/17/15, 1:39) - In addition, Electoral College is biased
against Latinos. They made up 10% of national '12 vote, but averaged just
6.9% in key swing states............................................... 11

Dave Wasserman‏ (7/17/15, 1:40) - In fact, even if ZERO Latinos had voted
in 2012, Obama would have won the Electoral College with 283 votes (while
losing popular vote)............................................. 12

*HRC NATIONAL
COVERAGE............................................................................
**12*

Job at Hillary Clinton’s ‘Super PAC’ Didn’t Assure a Campaign Post // NYT
// Maggie Haberman – July 17,
2015.....................................................................................................................................
12

David Brock, Key Hillary Clinton Ally, to Work More Closely With Her
Campaign // NYT // Maggie Haberman – July 17,
2015......................................................................................................................
13

Top Hillary Clinton Fundraisers Also Big Donors to Foundation // WaPo //
Rebecca Ballhaus – July 17,
2015............................................................................................................................................
14

David Axelrod: Hillary Clinton and Democrats can win the Iran debate //
WaPo // Greg Sargent – July 17,
2015............................................................................................................................................
15

Clinton reserves nearly $8 million in TV time for fall advertising blitz //
WaPo // Dan Balz – July 17,
2015............................................................................................................................................
17

In Clinton’s shadow, Democrats meet for first 2016 face-off // AP // Lisa
Lerer – July 17, 2015.. 18

Clinton Focuses on GOP at First Primary Face-off of 2016 // AP // Lisa
Lerer – July 17, 2015..... 19

Clinton campaign touts endorsements ahead of Iowa cattle call // Politico
// Nick Gass – July 17, 2015      21

Hillary Clinton bundlers get inside look at campaign workings // Politico
// Annie Karni – July 17, 2015   21

Clinton campaign mocks press coverage // Politico // Nick Gass – July 17,
2015....................... 22

Exclusive: Hillary’s first ad buy // Politico // Glenn Thrush – July 17,
2015............................. 23

The Next Phase of Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign Has Begun //
Bloomberg // Jennifer Epstein – July 17,
2015................................................................................................................................
23

Hedge Fund Titans Choosing Hillary Clinton Over Top Republicans //
Bloomberg // Saijel Kishan and Rebecca Spalding – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................
25

Hillary Clinton's Biggest Campaign Bundlers Are Fossil Fuel Lobbyists //
HuffPo // Paul Blumenthal and Kate Sheppard – July 17,
2015......................................................................................................
26

Bill Clinton Is Sorry For A Lot Of Things // HuffPo // Marina Fang and
Amber Ferguson – July 17, 2015     28

Here Are The Celebrities Contributing To Hillary Clinton's Campaign //
HuffPo // Paul Blumenthal – July 17,
2015.....................................................................................................................................
31

Hillary Clinton Has An Office // HuffPo // Jason Linkins – July 17,
2015................................. 33

When Donald Trump Praised Hillary Clinton // TIME // Zeke J. Miller – July
17, 2015............ 37

Would Hillary Clinton’s Profit-Sharing Plan Put More Money in Your Pocket?
// TIME // Pat Regnier – July 17,
2015....................................................................................................................................
38

Elizabeth Warren Sends Hillary Clinton a Message // TIME // Sam Frizell –
July 17, 2015....... 39

Hillary Clinton’s Digital Team Likes Barack Obama’s Style // TIME // Sam
Frizell – July 17, 2015 41

Hillary Clinton 1, Protesters 0? Climate hecklers may have a point // MSNBC
// Tony Dokoupil – July 17,
2015............................................................................................................................................
42

Hillary Clinton's campaign wrote a sarcastic blog post mocking reporters
critical of her poll numbers // Business Insider // Colin Campbell – July
17, 2015................................................................ 43

“Act on climate!”: Hillary Clinton gets heckled by protestors who want her
to crack down on fossil fuels // Salon // Lindsay Abrams – July 17,
2015.........................................................................................
45

Hillary Clinton Thinks Telemarketers Are 'Really Annoying,' Too // ABC //
Liz Kreutz – July 17, 2015         46

Democrats eager to exploit contrast between Trump, Clinton // Boston Globe
// Sean Sullivan – July 17,
2015............................................................................................................................................
46

8 things to watch for at Iowa Dems’ Hall of Fame dinner // Des Moines
Register // Jennifer Jacobs – July 17,
2015....................................................................................................................................
48

Tom Miller, Michael Fitzgerald endorse Clinton // Des Moines Register //
Tony Leys – July 17, 2015          52

Clinton says U.S. can't afford GOP's economics // Des Moines Register //
Tony Leys – July 17, 2015            53

Clinton aims most of her fire at Republicans  // Des Moines Register //
Tony Leys – July 17, 2015                54

California donors have given more to Clinton than all other presidential
hopefuls combined // LA Times // Kurtis Lee and Sahil Chinoy – July 17,
2015...........................................................................
55

Clinton campaign rebuilds from a digital meltdown // LA Times // Michael A.
Memoli – July 17, 2015       56

Hillary Clinton visits home in Windham // Eagle-Tribune // Breanna
Edelstein – July 17, 2015 58

How Clinton and Bush Agree and Diverge on Workplace Discrimination //
National Journal // Ronald Brownstein – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................
60

Can Hillary Clinton Really Get Away With Skipping Netroots? // National
Journal // S.V. Dáte – July 17,
2015............................................................................................................................................
61

Iowa Democrats throw support behind Hillary Clinton as she prepares to meet
rivals on stage // NY Daily News // Cameron Joseph – July 17,
2015...............................................................................
63

Hillary Clinton Returns To A Very Different Arkansas // NPR // Lauren
Leatherby - July 18, 2015                64

Hillary Clinton happy to hear Jeb Bush's Uber driver would vote for her //
NY Daily News // Celeste Katz – July 17,
2015........................................................................................................................
67

Hillary Clinton ignores Democratic primary opponents in first onstage
appearance with them, slamming the GOP instead // NY Daily News // Cameron
Joseph – July 17, 2015.......................................... 67

Doting Grandpa Bill! Former President Clinton Takes Baby Charlotte to an
N.Y.C. Kids Concert // People // Kathy Ehrich Dowd – July 17,
2015........................................................................................
69

Hillary Clinton’s New York State of Mind // NY Observer // Will Bredderman
and Jillian Jorgensen – July 17,
2015....................................................................................................................................
70

Hillary Clinton’s ‘natural instincts’ lean toward ‘hiding the truth,’ six
in 10 voters say // Washington Times // David Sherfinski – July 17,
2015............................................................................................
71

Hillary Clinton's plan for the minimum wage: low on details, big on going
local // The Guardian // Jana Kasperkevic – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................
72

Elizabeth Warren Challenges Hillary Clinton to Stop the Revolving Door //
National Journal // David Dayen – July 17,
2015........................................................................................................................
74

Planned Parenthood Pours Cash to Clinton // Free Beacon // Bill McMorris –
July 17, 2015...... 76

Clintons Facilitated Donor’s Haiti Project that Defrauded U.S. Out of
Millions // Free Beacon // Alana Goodman – July 17,
2015......................................................................................................
77

Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Even Maintain an Office at Brooklyn Headquarters //
Free Beacon // Morgan Chalfant – July 17,
2015.....................................................................................................................
80

Clinton campaign fails to disclose bundler actively lobbying for Morocco //
Free Beacon // Brent Scher – July 17,
2015................................................................................................................................
81

PolitiFact: Hillary Clinton addressed financial regulations early in crisis
// Tampa Bay Times // Lauren Carroll – July 17,
2015.....................................................................................................................
83

Clinton's campaign claims to be small donor driven; facts show otherwise //
Daily Caller // Derek Hunter – July 17,
2015........................................................................................................................
84

17 Things Hillary Says She Will Change About the Economy // Newsweek // Ken
McIntyre – July 17,
2015...........................................................................................................................................
86

Nah-nah: For Clinton, 'It's easy to get attention in mainstream media' //
Washington Examiner // Paul Bedard – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................
87

How often do Clinton campaign staffers really ride the bus? // Washington
Examiner // Ariel Cohen – July 17,
2015....................................................................................................................................
88

Bill Clinton to attend Starkey gala in St. Paul honoring George W. Bush //
MinnPost // Joe Kimball – July 17,
2015....................................................................................................................................
89

New institute to carry on work of HIV pioneer and MH17 victim Joep Lange //
Science Magazine // Martin Enserink – July 17,
2015.......................................................................................................
90

*OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL
COVERAGE.................................................. **91*

*DECLARED..................................................................................................
**91*

*O’MALLEY...............................................................................................
**91*

O’Malley-aligned super PAC hiring dozens of organizers in Iowa // WaPo //
John Wagner - July 17, 2015  91

Martin O'Malley finances: Solid pensions, modest assets // AP // Jeff
Horwitz - July 17, 2015.. 92

Super Pac backing Democrat Martin O'Malley could have 150 staffers in Iowa
// The Guardian // Ben Jacobs – July 17,
2015........................................................................................................................
93

Martin O'Malley: US should 'probably' arm Kurdish forces against Isis //
The Guardian // Ben Jacobs - July 17,
2015.....................................................................................................................................
94

Fact Checker: Was O'Malley on the money for wind jobs? // The Gazette -
July 17, 2015........... 95

O'Malley vows to lead on immigration // Washington Examiner // Ariel Cohen
- July 17, 2015. 97

Cronyism in Maryland // CATO Institute // David Boaz - July 17,
2015.................................... 97

Martin O’Malley Trails Rivals in Fundraising with $2 Million Haul // PPP
Focus // River Gaines - July 17,
2015...........................................................................................................................................
98

*SANDERS.................................................................................................
**99*

Bernie Sanders and Third Parties // NYT // Oliver B. Hall - July 17,
2015................................ 99

Bernie Sanders Presses Hillary Clinton on Her Views on Banks // NYT //
Jonathan Martin – July 17,
2015............................................................................................................................................
99

Bernie Sanders isn’t Barack Obama, and 2016 isn’t 2008 // WaPo // Dan
Pfeiffer – July 17, 2015 101

Bernie Sanders says July 29 is the most important day of his campaign //
WaPo // Aaron C. Davis - July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
104

Warren inspires Netroots Nation — even those wearing Sanders T-shirts //
WaPo // John Wagner – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
106

In This Money Race, Bernie Sanders Wins // WSJ // Peter Nicholas – July 17,
2015............... 108

Socialist Sanders on low end of earners among candidates // AP - July 17,
2015..................... 110

Bernie Sanders backs big bank breakups, in contrast with Hillary Clinton //
Politico // Burgess Everett - July 17,
2015..............................................................................................................................
110

14 things Bernie Sanders has said about socialism // Politico // Michael
Kruse - July 17, 2015. 111

Bernie Sanders Says Goldman Wants 'Undue Influence' // Bloomberg // Arit
John – July 17, 2015               114

Why Rapper Killer Mike's Endorsement of Bernie Sanders Spells Trouble for
Hillary Clinton // HuffPo // H. A. Goodman  - July, 17
2015.....................................................................................................
115

Here's Some Real Talk From Bernie Sanders // HuffPo // Dhyana Taylor and
Jacob Kerr........ 118

Sanders makes play for black vote // The Hill // Niall Stanage  - July 17,
2015....................... 120

How Bernie Sanders can hammer Hillary Clinton on the Democrats' top issue
// The Week // Ryan Cooper - July 17,
2015.......................................................................................................................
122

Sanders’ “small donor” base: How the fundraising numbers break down //
Salon // Zaid Jilani - July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
124

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump: Straight Talk on Steroids // U.S. News &
World Report // David Catanese - July 17,
2015.......................................................................................................................
125

Bernie Sanders Is Turning Crowds Into Volunteers in Iowa // National
Journal // Emily Schultheis – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
128

Support for Sanders Grows in Unions // Labor Notes // Dan DiMaggio - July
17, 2015............. 132

Bernie Sanders is the future of the Democratic Party // The Detroit News //
David Harsanyi - July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
136

Liberals Roar As Bernie Sanders Joins Elizabeth Warren On Bill To Reinstate
Glass-Steagall // Politicus USA // Jason Easley - July 17,
2015.............................................................................................
137

Republicans Terrified As Texas Demand For Bernie Sanders Forces Rally To A
Bigger Venue // Politicus USA // Jason Easley - July 17,
2015.............................................................................................
138

*UNDECLARED...........................................................................................
**139*

*OTHER...................................................................................................
**139*

In Iowa, the first face-off between Clinton, Sanders and other rivals //
WaPo // Phillip Rucker – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
139

Democratic presidential hopefuls to share a stage in Iowa // Miami Herald
// Anita Kumar - July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
141

Big stakes for 2016 Democrats as they meet together for first time // MSNBC
// Alex Seitz-Wald – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
141

Democrats showcase all 5 candidates in their field // Des Moines Register
// Jennifer Jacobs – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
143

Clinton, Democratic rivals share a stage in Iowa for 1st time // McClatchy
DC // Anita Kumar – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
144

*GOP...............................................................................................................
**146*

*DECLARED................................................................................................
**146*

*BUSH......................................................................................................
**146*

Jeb Bush’s father and brother have a security detail. Now he does too. //
WaPo // Ed O’Keefe – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
146

Jeb Bush: I wouldn't roll back Obama's Iran deal on Day One // Politico //
Eli Stokols – July 17, 2015        148

Jeb Bush Says Laws on the Books Already Ensure Equal Pay // TIME // Zeke J.
Miller – July 17, 2015       150

Bush ‘woefully misinformed’ on overtime policy // MSNBC // Steve Benen –
July 17, 2015..... 151

Jeb Bush: Hillary Clinton’s good intentions aren’t enough to fix the
economy // Yahoo News // Jon Ward – July 17,
2015.......................................................................................................................
152

Jeb Bush Says LGBT Non-Discrimination Should Be A States’ Rights Issue //
Think Progress // Josh Israel – July 17,
2015.......................................................................................................................
156

Jeb Bush 'should be embarrassed' by his overtime pay claims, economists say
// The Guardian // Steven Greenhouse – July 17,
2015.................................................................................................
157

Jeb Bush Is Beating Hillary Clinton in the Goldman Sachs Primary // Mother
Jones // Russ Choma -  July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
159

*RUBIO....................................................................................................
**160*

Pro-Rubio PAC Reserves South Carolina Airtime in Primary Lead-Up //
Bloomberg // Ben Brody – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
160

Rubio: Iran deal without release of Americans 'unacceptable' // The Hill //
Jordain Carney – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
161

Cuba celebrating reopening of D.C. embassy; Marco Rubio shouldn't wait for
invite // Fox News Latino – July 17,
2015..............................................................................................................................
162

Marco Rubio to John Kerry: ‘Unacceptable’ that Iran deal reached with
Americans still in jail // Washington Times // David Sherfinski - July 17,
2o15..............................................................................
163

Rubio calls for more intelligence efforts // Des Moines Register //
Mackenzie Ryan – July 17, 2015              163

*PAUL......................................................................................................
**165*

Signs of Stress Build for Rand Paul Campaign // WSJ // Reid J. Epstein -
July 17, 2015.......... 165

Rand Paul may hold up highway bill over Planned Parenthood // Politico //
Heather Caygle - July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
167

Rand Paul Campaign: Christie’s Chattanooga Shooting Comments “False,”
“Shameful” // Buzzfeed // Christopher Massie – July 17,
2015......................................................................................
167

Paul vows push to defund Planned Parenthood next week // The Hill // Peter
Sullivan - July 17, 2015        168

‘What the hell happened to Rand Paul?’ // MSNBC // Anthony Terrell and Mark
Murray - July 17, 2015     169

Rand Paul — Missing in Action? // NBC // Anthony Terrell and Mark Murray –
July 17, 2015.. 170

Rand Paul: “We Have Had No Shortage Of Money” // Buzzfeed // Rosie Gray –
July 17, 2015.. 172

In wake of video, Paul renews call to cut off Planned Parenthood funding //
USA Today // Tom Loftus - July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
173

After sagging in fundraising, Rand Paul 2.0 reboots campaign // Los Angeles
Times // Lisa Mascaro - July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
174

Paul to host Houston rally, book signing today // Chron // Rebecca Elliott
-  July 17, 2015...... 176

Rand Paul Bringing Abortion Politics to Highway Bill Debate // Roll Call //
Niels Lesniewski - July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
177

Rand Paul to mount fight to defund Planned Parenthood // Washington Times
// David Sherfinski* -* July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
178

Rand Paul: Cut funding for Planned Parenthood // The Courier Journal // Tom
Loftus - July 17, 2015         178

Rand Paul: Defund Planned Parenthood // Washington Examiner // Paige
Winfield Cunningham - July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
179

*CRUZ......................................................................................................
**180*

Ted Cruz’s second quarter donors had some loyalty issues // WaPo // Philip
Bump - July 17, 2015               180

Super PACs to Cruz: Focus on ‘wedge issues’ // WaPo // Patrick Svitek -
July 17, 2015............ 181

Insiders: Ted Cruz hurt most by Trump candidacy // Politico // Katie Glueck
- July 17, 2015.. 182

Ted Cruz Is Vowing To Block A Bunch Of Obama's Nominees ... Again // HuffPo
// Jennifer Bendery – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
184

Ted Cruz Has Money to Burn the GOP // Bloomberg // Francis Wilkinson - July
17, 2015....... 185

Cruz: Chattanooga shooting 'an act of war’ // The Hill // Mark Hensch -
July 17, 2015............ 186

Ted Cruz: Chattanooga Shooting Shows Need for Immigration Overhaul, Arming
Military on Bases // National Review // Alexis Levinson - July 17,
2015.............................................................................
187

Cruz-backing super PAC reveals victory plan; the dangers of Donald Trump //
The Dallas Morning News // Sylvan Lane - July 17,
2015..................................................................................................
189

Ted Cruz Sets Hearing on 'Supreme Court Activism’ // National Law Journal
// Mike Sacks - July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
190

Upset with #IranDeal, Ted Cruz Vows for the Fourth Time to Block Obama
Nominees // Politicus USA // Hrafnkell Haraldsson - July 17,
2015....................................................................................
191

Ted Cruz: Tennessee shootings ‘an act of war’ // Washington Times // David
Sherfinski* - *July 17, 2015      192

Ted Cruz’s book cracks New York Times’ bestseller list // PPP Focus //
River Gaines - July 17, 2015              193

Ted Cruz emerges as hero as Gawker is blasted for article that outs Condé
Nast executive // Chron // John-Henry Perera - July 17,
2015................................................................................................
194

New York Times Finally Adds Ted Cruz Book to Bestsellers List // iFree
Press - July 17, 2015. 195

*CHRISTIE..............................................................................................
**196*

Chris Christie stands by path to citizenship for immigrants // CNN // Tom
LoBianco – July 17, 2015           196

Chris Christie: Bill Cosby situation ‘is just sickening’ // Washington
Times // Jessica Chasmar – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
198

Chris Christie: Donald Trump would be ‘frustrated’ as president // Market
Watch // Robert Schroeder – July 17,
2015..............................................................................................................................
199

*PERRY...................................................................................................
**199*

Why the Rick Perry Super PAC Is Spending $1 Million to Get Their Candidate
Into a Debate // ABC // Louise Simpson – July 17,
2015......................................................................................................
199

Rick Perry is the only GOP candidate brave enough to call out Donald Trump
(and that’s terrifying) // Salon // Heather Digby Parton – July 17,
2015..................................................................................
200

Donald Trump tweeted at Rick Perry again and hilarity ensued // Houston
Press // Dianna Wray– July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
203

Rep. Joe Barton endorses Rick Perry for president, spearheads Congressional
outreach // The Dallas Morning News // Sylvan Lane – July 17,
2015....................................................................................
204

*HUCKABEE...........................................................................................
**205*

Huckabee's $8M pile only goes so far, observers say // Arkansas Online //
Sarah D. Wire – July 17, 2015  205

Quote of the Day: Mike Huckabee Wants American Wars to Last Ten Days Max //
Mother Jones // Kevin Drum – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................
208

Road to White House Paved on Path of Smoothies, Mattress Stores, and
Outside Spending // NY Mag // Jaime Fuller – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................
208

*CARSON.................................................................................................
**209*

*FIORINA................................................................................................
**209*

Fiorina: Obama 'pallid' on Chattanooga shooting // The Hill // Mark Hensch
- July 17, 2015.. 209

Carly Fiorina records ‘If men were treated like women in the office’ video
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski – July 17,
2015....................................................................................................
210

With Buzzfeed video, Carly Fiorina continues her millennial outreach //
Washington Examiner – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
211

*JINDAL..................................................................................................
**214*

Bobby Jindal should just shut up: His simple-minded, dishonest Chattanooga
comments make things worse // Salon // Sean Illing – July 17,
2015...................................................................................
214

*TRUMP...................................................................................................
**215*

Trump’s Appeal? G.O.P. Is Puzzled, but His Fans Aren’t // NYT // Jeremy W.
Peters – July 17, 2015           215

A lot of Republican voters agree with Donald Trump. What does that mean? //
WaPo // Greg Sargent – July 17,
2015..............................................................................................................................
218

Donald Trump says he’s 10 times as popular as anyone else on Google. Nope.
// WaPo // Philip Bump – July 17,
2015..............................................................................................................................
219

Donald Trump is now essentially guaranteed a spot on the debate stage //
WaPo // Philip Bump – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
220

Trump says building a U.S.-Mexico wall is ‘easy.’ But is it really? // WaPo
// Jerry Markon – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
221

Donald Trump seizes on Chattanooga shooting // Politico // Nick Gass – July
17, 2015........... 224

Donald Trump: My supporters aren't 'crazies' // Politico // Nick Gass –
July 17, 2015............. 225

The mystery of the Trump coalition // Politico // Ben Schreckinger and Cate
Martel – July 17, 2015             225

Trump brings his bluster to Bill Clinton's hometown // Politico // Annie
Karni – July 17, 2015 228

Huffington Post Can't Make Trump Go Away by Ignoring Him // Bloomberg //
Will Leitch – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
230

A Note About Our Coverage Of Donald Trump's 'Campaign' // HuffPo // Ryan
Grim and Danny Shea – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
231

Why Donald Trump is surging in the polls // CNN // Sara Murray – July 17,
2015................... 231

Donald Trump is Dominating Facebook Chatter in Iowa // TIME // Charlotte
Adler – July 17, 2015             234

Trump and the myth of a Mexican crime wave // The Hill // Raoul Lowery
Contreras – July 17, 2015          234

Trump calls off his bet with MSNBC host // The Hill // Mark Hensch – July
17, 2015.............. 236

Donald Trump making biggest splash on Facebook in Iowa // The Hill // David
McCabe – July 17, 2015    237

Fox News Poll: Reshuffling of GOP field, many agree with Trump on
immigration // Fox News // Dana Blanton – July 17,
2015....................................................................................................................
237

Donald Trump has rocketed to the top of another new poll // Business
Insider // Brett Logiurato – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
240

The Trump Bump Will Fade // U.S. News & World Report // Jean Card – July
17, 2015.......... 241

Donald Trump says a U.S.-Mexico border wall is 'not even a difficult
project' // The Week // Sarah Eberspacher – July 17,
2015................................................................................................
242

Who, exactly, is voting for Donald Trump? // The Week // Becca Stanek –
July 17, 2015........ 243

Donald Trump: ‘John McCain was very disloyal to me,’ ‘made a big mistake’
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski – July 17,
2015....................................................................................................
243

Inside the Mind of a Trump Donor: ‘I Was Probably Drunk’ // The Daily Beast
// Olivia Nuzzi – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
245

Donald Trump Campaign Headquarters Illustrates Complicated Campaign Finance
Rules // IB Times // Ginger Gibson – July 17,
2015..............................................................................................
248

Donald Trump Tops Third GOP Poll This Month // Slate // Josh Voorhees –
July 17, 2015...... 249

The Case for Covering Trump // Slate // Josh Voorhees – July 17,
2015................................. 250

*WALKER...............................................................................................
**253*

Republican Doublethink on Mass Shootings: Scott Walker Edition // NYT //
Andrew Rosenthal – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
253

One Subject Scott Walker Won’t Talk About: Donald Trump // WSJ // Reid J.
Epstein – July 17, 2015        254

Donald Trump continues rise, Scott Walker gets bump // CNN // Tom LoBianco
and Jennifer Agiesta – July 17,
2015..............................................................................................................................
255

Walker Expectations High as He Tours Iowa This Weekend // Bloomberg // John
McCormick – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
256

Scott Walker Inquiry Shows the Danger of Secrecy // Bloomberg // Megan
McArdle – July 17, 2015             257

Donald Trump continues rise, Scott Walker gets bump // CNN // Tom LoBianco
and Jennifer Agiesta – July 17,
2015..............................................................................................................................
259

Scott Walker tries to prove he's a national contender for president // LA
Times // Noah Bierman - July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
260

Liberals Lose to Scott Walker in Wisconsin Again // The Daily Beast //
Betsy Woodruff – July 17, 2015      262

Scott Walker: All You Need To Know // Newsweek // James M. Lindsay – July
17, 2015......... 264

Scott Walker Push For Milwaukee Bucks Arena Subsidy Could Benefit His
Fundraising Chief // IB Times // David Sirota and Andrew Perez – July 17,
2015.....................................................................
272

As Scott Walker takes national stage, some home-state constituents cry foul
// Christian Science Monitor // Sarah Caspari – July 17,
2015...............................................................................................
274

Now On The National Stage, Scott Walker Is Still A Guy From Delavan // NPR
// Don Goneya – July 17,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
275

Can Walker Hit South Carolina's Sweet Spot? // NPR // Jessica Taylor – July
17, 2015............ 277

*UNDECLARED..........................................................................................
**280*

*OTHER..................................................................................................
**280*

The GOP field is set; here’s how they rank // McClatchy DC // David
Lightman – July 17, 2015 280

New data suggest GOP 2016 nominee will need to win nearly half of Latino
vote // LA Times // Lisa Mascaro – July 17,
2015......................................................................................................................
283

Republicans' crush on Silicon Valley not returned // Politico // Tony Romm
– July 17, 2015... 285

*OTHER 2016
NEWS.......................................................................................
**287*

Today in Politics: Organizers Build Up Events in Iowa, and the Candidates
Come // NYT // Alan Rappeport – July 17,
2015......................................................................................................................
287

Obama's Donors Flocking To Sanders, Romney's Going To Rubio // U.S. News &
World Report – July 17,
2015.........................................................................................................................................
288

*OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS...................................................................
**289*

Capitalism for the Rest of Us // NYT // Joseph R. Blasi, Richard B. Freeman
and Douglas I. Kruse – July 17,
2015...................................................................................................................................
289

As Clinton Moves Further Left on Regulations, Jobs Go Away // The Fiscal
Times // Diana Furchtgott-Roth – July 17,
2015.......................................................................................................................
291

How Bernie Sanders can hammer Hillary Clinton on the Democrats' top issue
// The Week // Ryan Cooper – July 17,
2015.......................................................................................................................
293

*TOP
NEWS.....................................................................................................
**295*

*DOMESTIC................................................................................................
**295*

Chattanooga Gunman Spent Time in Jordan, Official Says // NYT // Richard
Fausset, Eric Schmitt and Richard Pére – July 17,
2015............................................................................................................
295

3 states launch investigations of Planned Parenthood, which says senior
official reprimanded // AP // David Crary – July 17,
2015...........................................................................................................
299

Dems float compromise linking Confederate flag to voting rights // The Hill
// Mike Lillis – July 27, 2015 300

To Avoid Another Crash, Hillary Clinton Should Reinstate Glass-Steagall //
Newsweek // Robert Reich – July 17,
2015..............................................................................................................................
302

Chattanooga shooting renews debate over military gun-free zones // NY Daily
News – July 17, 2015           304

*INTERNATIONAL.....................................................................................
**306*

ISIS Has Fired Chemical Mortar Shells, Evidence Indicates // NYT // C. J.
Chivers – July 17, 2015                306

U.S. Sought ‘El Chapo’ Extradition Before Escape // NYT // Azam Ahmed –
July 17, 2015...... 309

*TODAY’S KEY STORIES*

*Clinton Campaign Spending: Big, and Different
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/upshot/clinton-campaign-spending-big-and-different.html>
// NYT // Derek Willis – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s initial primary campaign spending total, $18.7
million, is a lot of money. And she is using it very differently from her
rivals.

While others spend their money to raise more money, she has built a
campaign organization with an eye toward the general election. Her
campaign’s “burn rate,” the amount spent divided by what is raised, was
just a little less than 40 percent through June 30. That’s only a bit
higher than the campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney at the same point
four years ago, and very close to the 38 percent burn rate of Mr. Obama’s
campaign in the first half of 2007. But comparing Mrs. Clinton’s spending
with those of her rivals is complicated, because she is running a different
campaign so far.

Most of the presidential candidates have emphasized spending money to raise
more money, whether online or through direct mail, over other kinds of
spending. Ted Cruz, a Republican, reported spending $835,798 on postage and
an additional $678,730 on fund-raising phone calls. Ben Carson, another
Republican hopeful, spent $1.47 million on his digital efforts and $788,114
on printing and postage. Still, Mrs. Clinton isn’t ignoring fund-raising;
she spent more than $2.5 million on “direct marketing” and additional
amounts on events and catering.

She has spent millions of dollars on staff, advertising and polling,
establishing a much broader campaign at this point than any other 2016
presidential candidate. Much of the money has gone toward mounting an
effective operation in the early primary and caucus states, and for
building the foundation for a broad general election campaign should she
become the Democratic nominee. Her $3.7 million in staff salary expenses
(not including payroll taxes and service fees) is more than 10 times the
amount of Mr. Cruz, who has the next-largest campaign in terms of staff
payments.

The 20 percent Mrs. Clinton spent on staff dwarfs that of all but the
campaigns of the Republican Mike Huckabee (21 percent) and the Democrat
Martin O’Malley (20 percent). Mrs. Clinton’s campaign employed 343 people,
according to Federal Election Commission data. The address of nearly all
campaign workers listed in F.E.C. records is the New York campaign
headquarters, which is a tactic that Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican
nominee, used. That makes it harder to tell exactly how much of a footprint
the campaign has in say, Iowa, where it has paid $64,369 in rent.

As of June 30, the Clinton campaign paid at least 58 field organizers, had
spent more than $1 million on online advertising and paid a total of
$370,000 to state parties in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina
for voter data.

Jeb Bush, who spent just more than $3 million, devoted much of it to travel
and other expenses related to “testing the waters” for his candidacy. He
did spend $372,647 on IT equipment and consulting services.

The campaign of Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who is also seeking the
Democratic nomination, put its largest investment into digital advertising
and consulting, spending $1.3 million. Its payroll expenses were just
$61,045, although Mr. Sanders’s campaign has not been operating as long as
Mrs. Clinton’s. Overall, the Sanders campaign spent 20 percent of the money
it raised through June 30.

*In Iowa, the first faceoff between Clinton, Sanders and other rivals
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-iowa-the-first-face-off-between-clinton-sanders-and-other-rivals/2015/07/17/8fcd7b1e-2c9b-11e5-a5ea-cf74396e59ec_story.html>
// WaPo // Philip Rucker – July 17, 2015*

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The full field of candidates for the Democratic
presidential nomination assembled for the first time here Friday night,
with a trio of them giving fiery speeches sounding populist economic themes.

Much of the focus was on Hillary Rodham Clinton, the dominant front-runner
for the Democratic nomination, and two underdog candidates challenging her
from the left, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland governor
Martin O’Malley.

One by one, they vowed to fight income inequality, take on the big banks
and institute a progressive agenda on a range of issues including the
minimum wage, climate change and gay rights. They were joined onstage by
two other candidates, with all five getting equal billing to give
back-to-back speeches before about 1,200 Democratic activists at a dinner
hosted by the state party.

In a tough, partisan speech, Clinton looked past her primary opponents to
go after the leading Republican candidates and brought Democrats to their
feet.

“I’m never going to let the Republicans rip away the progress we have
made,” she vowed. “Trickle-down economics has to be one of the worst ideas
of the 1980s. It is right up there with New Coke, shoulder pads and big
hair. I lived through it — there are photographs — and we’re not going
back.”

Friday night’s Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame celebration dinner, which
drew about 1,200 party activists, amounted to the first faceoff between
Clinton — who leads in fundraising, polling and establishment backing — and
Sanders, the self-described independent socialist who has drawn thousands
of people to his rallies by leading the fight against big banks and rich
corporations.

Polling shows Clinton and Sanders as the two leading candidates, but
O’Malley made a case for his own stock to rise here with a commanding and
well-received speech that focused on his record of executive achievements
in Maryland. He also laid out an ambitious platform of progressive ideas
that drew sustained applause across the ballroom.

“We didn’t just talk about it,” O’Malley said of same-sex marriage, a state
Dream Act for immigrants, a minimum-wage increase and expanded family
leave. “We got it done.”

Each of the candidates is trying to seize the role of the party’s standard
bearer in the post-Obama era, and Friday night’s Iowa Democratic Party
dinner was one of the first opportunities for activists to compare the
rivals.

When all five candidates walked onto the stage, some people in the crowd
chanted “Bernie! Bernie!” When Clinton took the lectern to give her speech,
her supporters chanted, “Hill-a-ry! Hill-a-ry!” And O’Malley had a loud and
enthusiastic cheering squad as well.

In her remarks, Clinton ticked through a string of recent Democratic
victories, including the Supreme Court’s rulings to legalize same-sex
marriage nationwide and to uphold President Obama’s signature Affordable
Care Act.

She took aim at Republicans, attacking by name three leading GOP
candidates: former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
and businessman Donald Trump.

“We’ve heard a lot recently from the new Republican front-runner, Donald
Trump — finally a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine,”
Clinton said, drawing laughter from the crowd. “But there’s nothing funny
about the hate he is spewing about immigrants and their families. It really
is shameful.”

She said some critics ask why she talks about such issues as paid sick
days, the minimum wage and child care. “There she goes again with the
women’s issues,” Clinton said, mocking her critics.

“Well, I’m not going to stop,” Clinton said. “So get ready for a long
campaign.”

Sanders delivered an impassioned call for a “political revolution” that he
said would shake up “the billionaire class.”

“Enough is enough,” Sanders thundered. “The greed of the billionaire class
has got to end — and we are going to end it for them.”

Repeating a theme that has resonated with liberal activists across the
country, Sanders said, “The issue of wealth and income inequality is the
great moral issue of the time, the great economic issue of our time, the
great political issue of our time.”

At that, one man in crowd yelled out, “Preach!”

Sanders notably included in his speech more messages aimed at blacks,
Latinos and other minority groups that make up the Democratic coalition
than he has had in the early months of his campaign. He drew applause, for
instance, when he said he envisioned an America in which young black men
can walk in the streets without fear of being shot.

Former Virginia senator Jim Webb and former Rhode Island governor Lincoln
Chafee also spoke at the dinner.

Chafee highlighted his executive experience, as a former mayor and
governor, as well as legislative experience in the Senate.

“I have tried to earn a reputation for courage and honesty,” Chafee said.
“I also have shown strong convictions, sometimes under enormous political
pressure.”

Webb, who spoke last and joked that he was “here to turn the lights out,”
highlighted his work on criminal justice, his extensive military experience
and his foreign-policy vision.

Had he been president at the time, Webb said, he would not have invaded
Iraq. But Webb also said he had “grave concern” about the nuclear agreement
that the United States and five other nations reached with Iran this week.

*SOCIAL MEDIA*

*Mark Murray (7/17/15, 6:10 AM)*
<https://twitter.com/mmurraypolitics/status/622030707234349057>* - Yes,
Hillary camp spent $18.7M in her 1st Q, but Obama camp spent $11M in his
1st Q in '11 - and that was w/o single event by the principal*

*Jon Ralson (7/17/15, 2:08 PM)*
<https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/622103805618880517>* - Jeb also,
even when I pressed, left no daylight possible on a path to citizenship. No
way. No how.*

*Dave Wasserman**‏** (7/17/15, 1:34)*
<https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/622142357576785920>* - Basic math:
if the GOP nominee simply did 3% better than Romney with ALL groups (30% w/
Latinos vs. 27%, for example), he/she would win.*

*Dave Wasserman**‏** (7/17/15, 1:39)*
<https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/622143547580485632>* - In addition,
Electoral College is biased against Latinos. They made up 10% of national
'12 vote, but averaged just 6.9% in key swing states.*

*Dave Wasserman**‏** (7/17/15, 1:40)*
<https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/622143795627433989>* - In fact, even
if ZERO Latinos had voted in 2012, Obama would have won the Electoral
College with 283 votes (while losing popular vote).*

*HRC** NATIONAL COVERAGE*

*Job at Hillary Clinton’s ‘Super PAC’ Didn’t Assure a Campaign Post
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/17/job-at-hillary-clintons-super-pac-didnt-assure-a-campaign-post/?smid=tw-share>
// NYT // Maggie Haberman – July 17, 2015*

In Hillary Rodham Clinton’s thick campaign finance report for the first
three months of her 2016 race, more than 300 people were paid for work on
her second national run.

Fewer than 15 of them appear to have come from the ranks of Ready for
Hillary, the “super PAC” that tried to harness early energy behind Mrs.
Clinton and develop a list of supporters in the two years before she became
a candidate and which dominated much of the early chatter after she left
the State Department.

The group has been a source of mixed emotions with Mrs. Clinton’s circle of
advisers. Several people close to Mrs. Clinton were chagrined when the
group came into existence, believing that, among other concerns, it would
only make people view her through a political lens well before she was
ready to announce a decision about a 2016 bid.

But others, including people like the long-serving Clinton adviser Minyon
Moore, saw value in the group’s work, and Mrs. Clinton came to embrace it.
The group’s supporter list was acquired by the campaign six weeks after
Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy.

In the spring, the campaign brought on Adam Parkhomenko, the Ready for
Hillary co-founder and a former aide from Mrs. Clinton’s Senate office, to
work on a grass-roots job. Another handful of people were hired at that
time as well.

At the time, a campaign aide made clear that some people from the political
action committee would be interviewed, but not all could expect jobs.
Still, several people involved with the super PAC, which wound down its
work once her campaign began, had hoped to work on the race in some
capacity. At the time, the expectation among Ready for Hillary supporters
was that most of them would play a role.

The number of Ready for Hillary staff members who tried to get jobs and
didn’t is unclear.

Among those who interviewed early for a job was Seth Bringman, who handled
day-to-day press for Ready for Hillary. After waiting for many weeks to
hear back, Mr. Bringman ultimately moved back to Ohio, where he had worked
before, and is now a public relations consultant there. Mr. Bringman
declined to comment but confirmed he had moved.

Mrs. Clinton’s aides declined to comment.

Also absent from the filings is Craig Smith, a former political director
from Bill Clinton’s White House who joined Ready for Hillary as a senior
adviser in the first half of 2013, and who was seen as lending a more
senior voice to the group early. Mr. Smith declined comment, but is said to
be in discussions with the campaign about a role of some kind.

Another senior adviser to Ready for Hillary, Tracy Sefl, has been a
surrogate for the campaign and currently lives in Chicago, advising other
clients.

The group played a role in lining up support from elected officials behind
Mrs. Clinton, including in Iowa, where she received two endorsements on
Friday.

Jerry Crawford, an Iowa operative who worked with Ready for Hillary and has
informally helped the current campaign, said the group was “phenomenal.”

“If there are people who worked for Ready for Hillary who can help her
become president, they’ll be hired,” Mr. Crawford said.

*David Brock, Key Hillary Clinton Ally, to Work More Closely With Her
Campaign
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/17/david-brock-key-hillary-clinton-ally-to-work-more-closely-with-her-campaign/>
// NYT // Maggie Haberman – July 17, 2015*

In the world of outside supporters to Hillary Rodham Clinton, no one has a
more visible, and singular, role than David Brock, her former
critic-turned-guardian.

Mr. Brock created the opposition research-focused “super PAC” American
Bridge, the liberal watchdog group Media Matters, and the pro-Clinton group
Correct the Record, which is now coordinating with Mrs. Clinton’s
presidential campaign. He is also on the board of Priorities USA, the super
PAC that hopes to raise large sums of money in support of Mrs. Clinton.

The question of how Mr. Brock would carry out roles with groups that have
different legal definitions has come into clearer focus this week, as he is
moving to the so-called coordinated side, working with Correct the Record
alongside Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

Mr. Brock confirmed the move, saying that the legal restrictions on his
activities if he had remained on the so-called independent expenditure side
of the groups were “impractical.” Such groups are forbidden from
coordinating their work with the campaign.

He declined to get into specifics as to why, but people who have spoken
with him say he was focused on paying attention to the activities of
Correct the Record and Media Matters, which will play the biggest role in
defending Mrs. Clinton throughout the campaign. Media Matters and another
outlet that Mr. Brock is involved with, Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics in Washington, are nonpolitical 501c3 groups, which don’t make
independent expenditures.

What he will be missing out on is directing the opposition research
functions at American Bridge, which will be training its army of staff
members on mining the speeches and activities of the Republican candidates.
Correct the Record can have access to the research that American Bridge
produces, but Mr. Brock can’t lead that group’s efforts.

Still, had he remained on the independent expenditure side of the aisle, he
would have been prohibited from working with any federal campaign or party
committee.

As for Priorities USA, which Mr. Brock left and then returned to amid a
shakeup in leadership, he will be able to serve on the board but has to be
walled off from being involved in programmatic decisions by the group. His
role is now basically limited to fund-raising.

Mr. Brock, who was a critic of Mrs. Clinton in the 1990s, has become one of
her favorite defenders in the last 10 years. She is said to put a premium
on loyalty, but his abilities as a fund-raiser have also become a valued
asset.

*Top Hillary Clinton Fundraisers Also Big Donors to Foundation
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/top-hillary-clinton-fundraisers-also-big-donors-to-foundation-1437146386>
// WaPo // Rebecca Ballhaus – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton has turned to a familiar source to find supporters willing
to raise more than $100,000 each for her presidential campaign: major
donors to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Twenty of the campaign’s so-called Hillblazers, or supporters who promise
to raise $100,000 each for her campaign, have also given a total of at
least $54 million to her family’s charitable foundation, according to a
Wall Street Journal review of disclosures by the campaign and the
foundation.

Media billionaires Haim Saban and Fred Eychaner, venture-capitalist Jay
Robert Pritzkerand Esprit founder Susie Tompkins Buell were among the list
of more than 150 “bundlers” Mrs. Clinton identified on Wednesday as having
raised more than $100,000 in contributions for her primary election since
she launched her campaign in April. They are also among some of the largest
donors to her family’s foundation, illustrating the overlap between Mrs.
Clinton’s charitable and political interests.

Among these 20 bundlers examined by the Journal, Mr. Eychaner has given
more than $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to its
disclosures. Mr. Saban’s family foundation has given between $10 million
and $25 million, and foundations linked to Mr. Pritzker and Ms. Buell have
each given between $5 million and $10 million. All of these 20 bundlers who
were also large donors to the Clinton Foundation donated some portion of
their funds in 2014.

“It shouldn’t come as a surprise that people who care about making the
world a better place and support philanthropic work, including the Clinton
Foundation’s programs, also think Hillary Clinton would be a great
President,” said Josh Schwerin, a spokesman for her campaign. An official
with the foundation also noted that it has more than 300,000 donors.

At least two dozen other Hillblazer bundlers also gave to the Clinton
Foundation, but the Journal analysis focused on these 20 large donors.

Mrs. Clinton has faced criticism in recent months from Republicans and from
members of her own party who have suggested that the foundation offered
wealthy donors an avenue to curry favor with a former secretary of state
and a possible future president. Her husband, former President Bill
Clinton, created the foundation after leaving the White House, and in 2013,
when Mrs. Clinton left the State Department, she added her name to the
organization.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called the
foundation’s fundraising “shady” in a recent statement and said Americans
think Mrs. Clinton is “untrustworthy and dishonest.”

Mrs. Clinton has said she is proud of the charitable work the foundation
does, and the Clintons have said their political activities are separate
from the foundation’s work. “Nobody even suggested it or talked about it or
thought about it until the political season began and somebody said, well,
what about this?” Mr. Clinton said in a recent CNN interview, referring to
suggestions that donors received special favor from Mrs. Clinton at the
State Department.

Among the parties who are major bundlers and large donors to Clinton
Foundation, the Wasserman Foundation, run by Clinton bundler Casey
Wasserman, gave between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton
Foundation. Elizabeth Bagley, an attorney and former ambassador, has given
between $1 million and $5 million. Nassau County, N.Y., Democratic Chairman
Jay Jacobs, another bundler, gave between $500,000 and $1 million to the
foundation, as did Gerald and Elaine Schuster, a longtime Democratic donor
and philanthropist.

*David Axelrod: Hillary Clinton and Democrats can win the Iran debate
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/07/17/david-axelrod-hillary-clinton-and-democrats-can-win-the-iran-debate/>
// WaPo // Greg Sargent – July 17, 2015*

Ever since the Iran deal was announced, it has been widely presumed — by
Republicans, and some neutral observers — that the battle over it in
Congress will inevitably be a political winner for the GOP. The Iran debate
just seems risky for Democrats — it involves negotiating with the enemy! —
and Beltway punditry often assumes that debates over national security
always favor Republicans, because, well, partly because Republicans are
very good at saying so.

But in an interview with me, David Axelrod — the chief strategist of Barack
Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns — made the opposite case. He
said the Iran debate actually could favor Hillary Clinton and Democrats,
and put the GOP presidential nominee in a politically untenable spot. That
is, if Democrats prosecute it correctly.

“Broadly, I don’t think it’s at all clear that Americans are opposed to
this,” Axelrod said. “Americans recognize that a verifiable agreement is a
better option than war.”

“The key question here is, If you walk away from this, then what?” Axelrod
continued. “It’s the responsibility of every single politician, Republican
and Democrat, to answer the what’s-the-alternative question. And ‘let’s go
to tougher sanctions’ is not a real answer.”

As many Democrats remain undecided about the substance of the deal, some
also appear skittish about the politics of backing it. One exception has
been Clinton, who spoke positively about the deal after it was announced.
In so doing, she may have offered a template for how Dems should talk about
it, hailing it as an “important first step” while stressing that “the
agreement will have to be enforced vigorously, relentlessly,” an apparent
nod to worries that Iran might try to cheat.

Nobody knows how the debate over the deal will play throughout the hot
month of August, and both sides are gearing up to spend huge sums to
pressure lawmakers back at home. It will also come up repeatedly for the
presidential candidates. Asked whether it was reasonable for some Dems to
be skittish about the politics of the deal, Axelrod said he thought Dem
lawmakers were mostly worried about offending donors, not voters. And he
suggested — perhaps counterintuitively — that its very riskiness could play
Clinton’s favor.

“For her it’s very advantageous to stand by this agreement,” Axelrod said.
“There is a perception of risk associated with that position. Her standing
strong for it will strengthen her with the Democratic base. And I think it
will strengthen her generally, because the picture of her taking on an
issue that may have some risk, and standing by her principles on it, will
help dispel some of the attacks on her.”

In the 2012 presidential race, Mitt Romney seemed to appreciate the
public’s war-weariness, sometimes downplaying GOP hawkishness. But since
then, the international outlook has changed, and Republicans won in 2014
partly by attacking Dems as weak on ISIS and Russia, which suggests perhaps
they could win the argument over foreign policy in 2016, too.

Axelrod acknowledged the changed environment, but still said Americans
would ultimately support diplomacy with Iran.

“In 2012 you didn’t have ISIS, Russia was more cooperative, it was a
different environment,” Axelrod said. “But I still don’t think this means
people are eager for military engagement with Iran. I think that the logic
of a tough, verifiable agreement, as opposed to military action, is going
to be the majority opinion in this country.”

Axelrod added that the Iran debate could end up hurting the eventual GOP
nominee, who will be required by the base to promise to undo the deal
during the primary — and then struggle to explain that position in the
general.

“Iran is like the health care debate for Republicans,” Axelrod continued.
“They’re filled with rage but not with ideas. There hasn’t been anyone who
has articulated a generally viable alternative. They can get away with
thundering outrage in the primary, but when you get to the general, you’re
going to get scrutinized more closely.”

“The Republican nominee is going to be faced with, ‘okay, what are you
going to do?'” Axelrod also said. “There is no surgical way to take out the
Iran nuclear program. You’re talking about a major military commitment. So
I think it becomes a risky proposition for the Republican nominee.”

But it’s not inevitable that the American mainstream will see the situation
as nothing more than a choice between the Iran deal and war. Couldn’t
Republicans muddy those waters and create the impression that there’s a
third way?

“That is the challenge for Democrats — to expose the fact that there is no
third way,” Axelrod said. “If Republicans muddy the waters, that’s a
dereliction on the part of Democrats. There is no third way. The emptiness
of that argument needs to be exposed repeatedly and aggressively.”

*Clinton reserves nearly $8 million in TV time for fall advertising blitz
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/17/clinton-reserves-nearly-8-million-in-tv-time-for-fall-advertising-blitz/>
// WaPo // Dan Balz – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a move that suggests she is taking little for
granted in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, has reserved nearly
$8 million in television time for a fall advertising blitz, a campaign
official confirmed Friday.

The advertising could begin as early as the first week of November.

Once on the air in those states, Clinton is prepared to stay on almost
continually through the first votes of the 2016 primary-caucus season.

Iowa’s caucuses are scheduled for Feb. 1, 2016, and the New Hampshire
primary is likely to be held eight days later, on Feb 9.

Politico first reported the news of the ad buy.

Despite a hefty lead in national polls, Clinton has seen her margins in
Iowa and New Hampshire beginning to shrink somewhat, with Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) rising. The advertising buy sends a signal that Clinton
will be prepared to wage a costly campaign to fend off her rivals.

The campaign has reserved about $3.6 million in television time across
eight Iowa media markets. The remainder of the $7.7 million expenditure is
devoted to a statewide buy in New Hampshire. Most of the money aimed at
Granite State voters will be spent in markets that blanket the southern
part of the state, where the population is concentrated.

The ad buy is the latest major expenditure of the Clinton campaign, which
raised more than $45 million in the second quarter of the year.

The June 30 financial report filed by the campaign revealed that she also
had spent $19 million in that period.

Television advertising time, especially in New Hampshire, can be costly,
and ad rates rise as the primary nears. With 16 or 17 Republican
candidates, five Democratic candidates and an abundance of super PACs, the
airwaves will become extremely crowded later this year and in January and
early February.

Iowa and New Hampshire are potential stumbling blocks even for a candidate
who starts with the financial and political advantages of Clinton. Eight
years ago, her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses launched
then-senator Barack Obama toward his eventual victory in the Democratic
nomination contest.

Though Clinton won a comeback victory in New Hampshire, she was not able to
prevail despite the advantages with which she started that campaign. This
time, she enjoys even more advantages. But campaign officials have said
from the beginning that they expect a competitive contest again, and they
are prepared to spend more on TV ads in those states, if they are deemed
necessary.

*In Clinton’s shadow, Democrats meet for first 2016 face-off
<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEM_2016_IOWA_FACE_OFF?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT>
// AP // Lisa Lerer – July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidates are descending on
Iowa for the first face-off of their 2016 primary, a contest that remains
dominated by the outsized political influence of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

All five Democratic primary candidates are on the program for a dinnertime
fundraiser sponsored by the state party in Cedar Rapids, creating an
opportunity for her challengers to confront Clinton before more than 1,200
influential party activists in the crucial caucus state.

Three months into what seems like an all-but-inexorable march to the
nomination, Clinton has already built a vast campaign infrastructure,
establishing a multistory headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, and placing
hundreds of staffers across the country.

But her first joint event with her primary rivals comes amid signs that she
has yet to win over her party's most passionate supporters, the activists
and small-dollar donors that will form the base of her support in the
general election.

At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Thursday, liberal environmental
protestors broke out into chants after Clinton refused to promise an
immediate halt to all fossil-fuel development.

"I totally respect the passion and the urgency," she said, attempting to
calm the crowd. "I understand it."

An Associated Press-GfK poll released this week found her standing falling
among Democrats, with about 70 percent of Democrats giving Clinton positive
marks, an 11-point drop from an April survey. Nearly a quarter of Democrats
now say they see Clinton in an unfavorable light.

"I don't like seeing that, obviously," Clinton said of the poll, speaking
to reporters on Thursday. "But I think people know that I will fight for
them. I'll fight for their jobs, I'll fight for their families, I'll fight
on behalf of better education and health care."

She added: "I'm very pleased with the support I have."

Just 17 percent of the $47 million that Clinton raised since announcing her
campaign came from contributions of $200 or less. In comparison, Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders has fueled his insurgent challenge to Clinton with
small donations, pulling in three-quarters of his more than $15.2 million
haul from smaller amounts.

In recent weeks, Sanders has packed arenas with voters eager to hear the
message of the self-described socialist, who's become Clinton's chief
rival. So far, he's refused to directly criticize Clinton, though he's
questioned her positions on issues like trade, Wall Street regulations and
the Keystone XL pipeline.

"I like her. I respect her," Sanders said on Tuesday, after joining his
fellow Senate Democrats at a luncheon with Clinton on Capitol Hill. "It is
not necessary for people to dislike each other or attack each other just
because they're running for office."

Besides Sanders and Clinton, the forum includes former Maryland Gov. Martin
O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov.
Lincoln Chafee. Each candidate will deliver 15 minutes of remarks.

*Clinton Focuses on GOP at First Primary Face-off of 2016
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/clintons-shadow-democrats-meet-2016-face-off-32510655>**
// AP // Lisa Lerer – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton avoided any mention of her primary opponents in the
first Democratic face-off of the 2016 presidential campaign, opting instead
to focus her fire on an expanding field of would-be Republican contenders.

All five Democratic primary candidates were on the program for the Friday
fundraiser for the Iowa state party, creating an opportunity for Clinton to
confront her challengers before more than 1,300 influential party activists
in the crucial caucus state.

Instead, she explained her White House bid as a "deeply personal" quest,
vowing she would never let Republicans "rip away the progress" made during
the Obama administration. In a fiery address, she slammed the economic
policy of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, joked that Donald Trump is
"finally a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine," and
attacked Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for targeting union power.

"Trickle-down economics has to be one of the worst ideas of the 1980s,"
Clinton said, evoking Republican policy from the Reagan era. "It is right
up there with New Coke, shoulder pads and big hair. ... We are not going
back to that."

The dinnertime event came as the Democratic primary fight — long assumed to
be little more than a coronation of Clinton — appeared to be heating up
into a slightly more serious contest.

In recent weeks, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has risen in the polls and
packed arenas with voters eager to hear the message of the self-described
socialist who's become Clinton's chief rival. So far, he's refused to
criticize Clinton directly, though he edged closer to an attack Friday,
questioning whether she would back the kind of tough regulation on Wall
Street that's becoming a rallying call for liberals.

"You'll have to ask Hillary Clinton her views on whether we should break up
these large financial institutions," he said, during an afternoon
appearance in Cedar Rapids. "I do."

The Clinton campaign has signaled that it considers Sanders to be a
legitimate challenger who will be running for the long haul, noting the
$15.2 million he's raised, largely from small donors, in the first three
months of the race. They believe he will find a measure of support in Iowa,
where the caucus system typically turns out the most passionate voters, and
New Hampshire, given Sanders' many years representing neighboring Vermont
in Congress.

On Friday, Clinton's campaign said it bought $7.7 million worth of
television advertising time in early voting states, its first ad buy for
the 2016 contest. In Iowa, the campaign paid $3.6 million for time in all
eight media markets that serve the state. An additional $4.1 million of
airtime was purchased in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary.

But so far the Clinton team has resisted any direct engagement with
Sanders, fearing such an exchange might alienate the activists and
small-dollar donors who will form the base of support in the general
election if Clinton should win the nomination.

"You can see that Democrats are united, we are energized, and we are ready
to win this election," Clinton said, opening her remarks before a cheering
audience.

Besides Sanders and Clinton, the forum featured former Maryland Gov. Martin
O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov.
Lincoln Chafee.

Clinton wasn't the only candidate who shied away from attacks on fellow
members of the Democratic party.

Even Chafee, who opened his quixotic self-fueled bid for the White House
with attacks on Clinton's support for the war in Iraq, now opted against
targeting the frontrunner.

"We have a choice in 2016, prosperity through peace or endless war," he
said. "We need to reject once and for all the belligerent advocates of
conflict."

Unlike her rivals, Clinton has already built a vast campaign
infrastructure, run from a multistory headquarters in New York City, with
hundreds of staffers across the country.

Sanders said he has "no illusions" about her political clout.

"We are going to be outspent in this campaign, but I think people all over
this country are responding to a very simple message and that is that it is
not acceptable that the middle class is continuing to disappear," he said.

*Clinton campaign touts endorsements ahead of Iowa cattle call
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-iowa-endorsements-tom-miller-michael-fitzgerald-120282.html#ixzz3g9Xb4pvE>**
// Politico // Nick Gass – July 17, 2015*

Two top Iowa officials announced their support for Democratic presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton ahead of the first major cattle call of the
Democratic primary in the state.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and state Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald
endorsed Clinton, according to a press release from the campaign, as
Clinton goes before heavy establishment crowds in the Hawkeye State on
Friday. The endorsements also come amid signs of surprising strength for
Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, in both Iowa and New
Hampshire.

“Hillary Clinton will build an economy for tomorrow that raises incomes for
working Americans, ensures that students don’t graduate with crushing debts
and provides affordable childcare options for working families. She’ll
strengthen our families by fighting for commonsense policies like
comprehensive immigration reform, equal pay for women and criminal justice
reform,” said Miller said in a statement.

In his endorsement, Fitzgerald praised Clinton for her “commitment to
growing our economy so that everyday Iowans can get ahead and stay ahead is
what Iowa Democrats believe to our core.”

“I’m proud to support Hillary Clinton and look forward to working with her
to organize and win in Iowa and next November,” he said.

Clinton will meet with Iowa campaign organizers in Cedar Rapids later
Friday before attending a kickoff party and the state Democratic Party’s
Hall of Fame Dinner.

*Hillary Clinton bundlers get inside look at campaign workings
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/clinton-bundlers-get-inside-look-at-campaign-workings-120274.html>
// Politico // Annie Karni – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton’s bundlers — individuals who raised at least $100,000 in
primary dollars since April — were treated to four hours of face time with
top campaign officials Thursday in Brooklyn, sources told POLITICO.

The meeting, at the Marriott hotel in downtown Brooklyn, marked the first
meeting for bundlers, known as “Hillblazers,” and was designed to give them
a sense of the state of the race, as well as a peek at the inner workings
of the campaign. About 70 people attended, a source said.

Speakers at the meeting included vice chairman Huma Abedin, campaign
chairman John Podesta, and campaign manager Robby Mook, who all
participated in a “wrap-up” panel discussing the state of play.
Communications director Jennifer Palmieri also spoke, along with top policy
gurus Jake Sullivan and Maya Harris, and national political director Amanda
Renteria, among others.

The first campaign filings released Wednesday evening showed Clinton
struggled to attract small donors. Less than 20 percent of the $47.5
million Clinton raised between April and July was from individuals
contributing $200 or less. A source said engaging small donors was part of
a bigger conversation at Thursday’s meeting about grassroots engagement,
including how to reach out to millennial voters.

The Clinton camp released the names Wednesday night of over 100 bundlers
who together make up the campaign’s finance committee, which included
longtime Clinton donors, Obama allies, and some elected officials

Included in the roster are former Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh; Rep. Joaquin
Castro; Rep. Grace Meng; Rep. Jim Hime; longtime supporter and Clinton
Foundation donor Lynn Forester de Rothschild; Sean Eldridge and New
Republic owner Chris Hughes; media mogul Fred Eychaner; billionaire venture
capitalist J. B. Pritzker; Morgan Stanley executive Tom Nides, who served
as part of Clinton’s brain trust at the State Department; megadonor and
Univision owner Haim Saban; Steve Rattner; and Democratic National
Committee member Robert Zimmerman, among others.

A Clinton campaign spokesman declined to comment about the meeting.

*Clinton campaign mocks press coverage
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-campaign-mocks-press-coverage-120280.html>
// Politico // Nick Gass – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is deploying a new weapon in its running battle
with the press: withering sarcasm.

“If you believe the mood and headlines from some of the press, it’s been a
pretty rough week for Hillary Clinton,” wrote campaign communications
director Jennifer Palmieri in a Medium post published Friday. “While there
was widespread and substantive coverage of the rollout of her economic
agenda, politically, it’s a different story,”

Clinton has so much trouble, a decidedly tongue-in-cheek Palmieri wrote,
that one poll showed that “she only had a higher favorability number than
any other candidate it tested.” In fact, she added, Clinton is polling a
“disastrous” 68 percent in approval among Hispanic voters (according to a
Univision poll out Thursday), and “only leads her closest competition,” Jeb
Bush, by a mere 37 points in that survey.

The post also touted Clinton’s record fundraising and cash on hand.

“It’s true,” Palmieri wrote. “Hillary is left in the terrible position of
having the most resources of any candidate and being voters’ top choice to
be the next President of the United States.”

*Exclusive: Hillary’s first ad buy
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-first-ad-buy-2016-120295.html>
// Politico // Glenn Thrush – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton is reserving time for her first major ad buys of the 2016
campaign — shelling out $7.7 million of TV spots in Iowa and New Hampshire
for the fall, a campaign official told POLITICO.

The ad buys would allow Clinton to go on the air as early as the first week
in November and stretches through Election Day in each state — Feb. 1 for
the Iowa caucuses, Feb. 9 for the New Hampshire primary.

It’s possible Clinton could buy additional time in either state sooner, the
official emphasized, but she wanted to lock down the dates before the
corroded GOP field and related super PACs drove up advertising rates.

“It’s smart to do now,” the official said.

In Iowa, the campaign is cutting checks worth $3.6 million to reserve space
in eight media markets statewide; In New Hampshire, they are buying several
slots with a high percentage of the cash going to the expensive
Manchester/Boston market in the southern part of the state, and neighboring
Burlington, Vt.

Clinton raised $45 million for the Democratic primary as of June 30, and
the Brooklyn-based campaign burnt through $18.7 million during its first
quarter, much of the cash going to polling, salaries and ramping up
operations in early primary states.

*The Next Phase of Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign Has Begun
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-17/the-next-phase-of-hillary-clinton-s-presidential-campaign-has-begun>
// Bloomberg // Jennifer Epstein – July 17, 2015*

The relaunch of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign wasn’t on Roosevelt
Island in June, or when she sat down for her first nationally televised
interview last week.

It happened on Thursday in New Hampshire, in the auditorium of a municipal
building and the backyard of an old house, as she threw what others might
call caution—and her advisers have insisted was intentional planning—to the
wind.

After months of limited questioning from screened panelists or a handful of
reporters on a pre-written list, she just started calling on people.

She called on 36 people in all over the course of the day, including nine
members of the media.

In a steamy, cavernous room at the Dover Municipal Building, she spent
close to 70 minutes answering questions. Though she began with a short
version of her stump speech and tacked on a proposal to offer tax credits
to companies that share profits with their employees that her campaign
announced Thursday, she let the conversation go where the voters in the
room wanted it to go, which didn’t include profit sharing.

Instead, she fielded questions on the Iran deal, climate change, student
debt, the criminal justice system and federally funded space exploration.
It might be a typical range for Bernie Sanders or Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio
but for Clinton, who spent the beginning of her campaign staying
self-consciously on message, it was something new and marked the dawn of a
new more open phase of her 2016 White House bid.

Asked about banning the extraction of fossil fuels from public lands by a
young woman who demanded a yes-or-no answer, Clinton struck her own
course."The answer is no until we get alternatives into place," she said,
acknowledging that her response might not satisfy the questioner but was
the only realistic way for her to respond.

Later, Clinton called on another young woman, who posed the same question.
"I'm going to be honest, I was disappointed by the answer that you gave
before about climate change," the woman said, adding that she wondered if
Clinton’s unwillingness to act was influenced by her campaign donors from
the fossil fuel industry. “No. No it is not,” Clinton said, offering up a
similar response to her first one until the woman, a few dozen yards away
from Clinton, shouted “act on climate” and a handful of others, including
the first woman, joined in. Two men unfurled a banner reading “ban
extraction on public lands.”

“You know what, I have said in this campaign I am going to tell you what I
believe. Some people may like it and some people may not like it,” Clinton
said. “I totally respect the passion and urgency,” she added, and “I would
urge you to run for office and have your voices heard.”

Others had more personal—and unexpected—concerns.

One woman launched into an extended plea for help stopping the flood of
telemarketer calls to her without changing her number and Clinton took it
in stride.

“I have to tell you that’s the first time I’ve been asked that. And I don’t
know the answer but I will try to find out if there is an answer,” she
said, before promising that a campaign staffer would reach out to the woman
and try to help.

Aides say this is where they had planned to be at this point in the
campaign, past the initial listening-heavy phase of the campaign and onto
the next step, sharing her views while still engaged in a back-and-forth
with voters.

Still, there was a clear shift even from early last week, when Clinton took
questions from several audience members at the Iowa City Public Library. In
all, she took 16 questions at the Dover event, the first that her
campaign’s billed as a town hall.

Later, after working her way through the crowd and posing for a long line
of photos, Clinton spoke to the press. Traveling press secretary Nick
Merrill was the traffic cop, calling on reporters as some tried to shout
over others, but unlike at other recent press availabilities, he wasn’t
calling on people based on a pre-written list of names. cut off the
back-and-forth while some reporters were still clamoring for their own shot
at her. But Merrill and Clinton did cut off the back-and-forth while some
reporters were still clamoring for their own shot at her.

Just before sunset, an organizing house party held in the buggy backyard of
an old home in Windham, Clinton spent more than half an hour calling on
people in the crowd, touching on many of the same issues as she had earlier
in the day.

After finishing her response to the tenth questioner and with it clear that
she was running out of time, she struggled for a moment before passing
along the responsibility of calling on the final questioner to someone
else, her Midwestern-polite roots showing through.

Earlier in the day, though, she’d shown that she could be more casual.

“How do I address you? As ambassador or secretary or just Hillary?" one man
asked her in Dover.

"Hillary is fine with me,” she said.

*Hedge Fund Titans Choosing Hillary Clinton Over Top Republicans
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-17/clinton-donations-from-hedge-fund-titans-top-republicans>
// Bloomberg // Saijel Kishan and Rebecca Spalding – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton received donations from some of the biggest names in the
hedge fund industry, including Paul Tudor Jones, even as the presidential
candidate wants to boost their tax rate.

Jones, the billionaire founder of Tudor Investment Corp., Jamie Dinan, who
started York Capital, and Neil Chriss, who runs Hutchin Hill Capital, each
contributed the maximum $2,700 to Clinton’s bid for the White House,
according to Federal Election Commission filings for the second quarter.

Clinton, who’s made closing the wealth gap the centerpiece of her campaign,
lured more donations from boldface industry names than Republican
candidates 16 months before the election. Hedge fund managers, their
employees and family members donated at least $54,000 to Clinton, a
Democrat, according to the FEC. Republicans Jeb Bush got at least $27,000,
Marco Rubio took in at least $10,800 while Carly Fiorina received at least
$4,200.

“Something is wrong when CEOs earn more than 300 times than what the
typical American worker earns and when hedge fund managers pay a lower tax
rate than truck drivers or nurses,” Clinton said in May.

The candidate’s populist rhetoric didn’t dissuade many managers from
supporting her. They include Frank Brosens, co-founder of Taconic Capital
Advisors, Mitchell Julis, co-founder Canyon Partners, David Shaw, the
billionaire founder of D.E. Shaw & Co., BlueMountain Capital Management
Managing Partner James Staley, Jake Gottlieb, who runs Visum Asset
Management, and Richard Perry, who heads Perry Capital.

Bush, Rubio and Fiorina drew a smaller cohort of top hedge fund managers.

Bush drew support from Dan Loeb, the billionaire founder of Third Point,
Scott Kapnick, who runs Highbridge Capital Management, and Robert Pohly,
founder of Samlyn Capital. Hudson Bay’s Sander Gerber and Bracebridge
Young, chief executive officer of Mariner Investment Group, also donated to
the candidate.

Rubio got contributions from Paul Singer, the billionaire investor who runs
Elliott Management, and Greg Jensen, co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates.
Fiorina won the backing of billionaire John Paulson of Paulson & Co.

Julis of Canyon Capital donated to both Clinton and Fiorina, while Omega
Advisors’ Steve Einhorn gave money to Bush, Rubio and Fiorina.

Jonathan Soros, the son of billionaire George Soros who runs his own firm,
JS Capital, also gave money to Clinton.

*Hillary Clinton's Biggest Campaign Bundlers Are Fossil Fuel Lobbyists
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-bundlers-fossil-fuel_55a8335ee4b04740a3df86c5?ts4f5hfr>
// HuffPo // Paul Blumenthal and Kate Sheppard – July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON -- Nearly all of the lobbyists bundling contributions for
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign have at one
time or another worked for the fossil fuel industry.

A list of 40 registered lobbyists that the Clinton camp disclosed to the
Federal Election Commission on Wednesday revealed a number of Democratic
Party lobbyists who have worked against regulations to curb climate change,
advocated for offshore drilling, or sought government approval for natural
gas exports.

Clinton, the former secretary of state, has called climate change the most
“consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a
nation and a world” and says it would be a major focus of her
administration if she wins the White House. But having so many supporters
who have sold their services to fossil fuel companies may complicate her
emphasis on pro-environment policies.

Scott Parven and Brian Pomper, lobbyists at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld,
have been registered to lobby for the Southern California-based oil giant
Chevron since 2006, with contracts totaling more than $3 million. The two
bundled Clinton contributions of $24,700 and $29,700, respectively. They
have helped Chevron over the years resist efforts to eliminate oil and gas
tax breaks and to impose regulations to reduce carbon emissions.

The two Clinton bundlers also were part of a much-criticized campaign by
Chevron to manipulate Congress into inserting language into the Andean
Trade Preferences Act that would require Ecuador to dismiss a longstanding
lawsuit against the company for polluting the Amazon jungle. Democratic
lawmakers pushed back against the campaign and the lawsuit is continuing.

One prominent lobbying topic embraced by Clinton bundlers is the expansion
of liquefied natural gas exports and federal approval of new LNG terminals.

Ankit Desai, vice president for government relations at top LNG exporter
Cheniere Energy, bundled $82,000 to the Clinton camp, with much of it
coming from Cheniere Energy executives. Cheniere executives, including
Desai, have donated $38,800 to Clinton’s campaign.

The company has lobbied hard in Washington and maintains close ties to the
Obama administration. The company won the first approval to export gas to
countries outside of U.S. free-trade agreements. The company is seeking
approval to open additional terminals to export LNG, and will likely need a
friend in the White House come 2017.

ML Strategies’ David Leiter lobbied in 2014 on behalf of Sempra Energy when
the company received approval for its LNG export facility in Hackberry,
Louisiana. Leiter, who bundled $36,550 for Clinton’s campaign, also is a
lobbyist for ExxonMobil. Steve Coll noted in a New Yorker article derived
from his book on the oil giant, Private Empire, that Leiter, an ex-staffer
to former Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), was retained, along with a host of
others, to increase the company’s reach into the Democratic Party it had
ignored for years.

ExxonMobil’s top lobbyist in Washington, Theresa Fariello, may not be a
bundler for Clinton’s campaign, but she is a donor. Fariello, who was a
Department of Energy official in President Bill Clinton’s administration,
gave $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign. Another Washington-based Exxon lawyer,
Judith Batty, donated $2,700.

Clinton also got contributions from others involved in the fossil fuel
business. Her campaign received $2,700 from BP America’s Mary Streett,
formerly the top lobbyist for the nuclear power utility Exelon. Anadarko
Petroleum lawyers Amanda McMillan and Richard Lapin each gave $2,700. Sarah
Venuto and Martin Durbin, both lobbyists for America’s Natural Gas
Alliance, the top gas industry lobbying group, gave $2,910 and $1,000,
respectively. Celia Fischer, an America’s Natural Gas Alliance
representative who is not a lobbyist, gave $2,700.

Aside from lobbyists currently working to advance fossil fuel interests,
there is one Hillblazer bundler -- the name for Clinton boosters raising
more than $100,000 -- who stands out.

Bundler Gordon Giffin is a former lobbyist for TransCanada, the company
working to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Giffin sits on the
board of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, an investor in the pipeline.
The Canadian bank paid Clinton $990,000 for speeches in the months leading
up to her presidential announcement. Another Canadian financial institution
with an interest in Keystone XL, TD Bank, paid her $651,000 for speaking
engagements.

Clinton’s position on Keystone XL -- or lack thereof -- may prove the
biggest challenge for her in gaining support from progressive activists.
Whether to grant a permit for the leg of the pipeline that crosses the
Canadian border into the U.S. is up to the State Department, which has been
considering it since Clinton’s time as secretary of state. In October 2010
remarks, Clinton said the department was “inclined” to sign off on the
pipeline, a statement that enraged environmental groups working to stop it.
On the campaign trail, Clinton has largely evaded questions about the
pipeline.

But the issue has dogged Clinton. The speaking fees from Canadian banks
came to light in May. In June, Clinton's campaign announced the hiring of
former TransCanada lobbyist Jeff Berman as a consultant.

The issue of campaign donations from fossil fuel interests has become a
topic in the Democratic Party primary, as both Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley have pledged they will not accept
contributions from oil, gas or coal companies. Clinton has not signed that
pledge.

Fossil fuel campaign contributions came up at a town hall event Clinton
hosted in New Hampshire on Thursday.

“I’m disappointed about the answer you gave to climate change,” Giselle
Hart, an activist with 350 Action, told Clinton.  I’m wondering if your
answer ... is due to contributions from the fossil fuel industry to your
campaign."

Activists unfurled banners and demanded that Clinton support a ban on
fossil fuel extraction on public lands. Clinton responded that she would
phase out extraction over time, though not immediately. "We still have to
run our economy, we still have to turn on the lights," she said.

Reached for comment, a representative for the campaign simply pointed
HuffPost to Clinton's remarks at the Thursday's town hall.

*Bill Clinton Is Sorry For A Lot Of Things
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-clinton-is-sorry_55a83397e4b0896514d0e220>
// HuffPo // Marina Fang and Amber Ferguson – July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON -- As president, Bill Clinton was wrong about Wall Street
deregulation and various elements of his foreign policy, pushed trade
policies that painfully drove up drug prices around the world, sowed chaos
in Mexico through his prosecution of the drug war and exacerbated the
problem of mass incarceration through an overly punitive approach to
sentencing.

It may be a harsh judgment, but it's one that carries weight considering
the source: former President Bill Clinton.

Unlike a lot of politicians, Clinton has shown a willingness to own up to
his mistakes. Earlier this week, he offered a mea culpa around sentencing
at the NAACP convention. Here's an incomplete list of policies he pursued
as president that he has since acknowledged were not the best choices.

Criminal justice

Clinton’s 1994 omnibus crime bill included mandatory minimum sentences,
even for minor offenses such as drug crimes. It also contained a federal
"three strikes" provision, which imposed life sentences for anyone
convicted of a violent felony after two or more previous convictions.

Addressing the NAACP convention on Wednesday, Clinton admitted that his
tough crime laws led to swelling prison populations.

“I signed a bill that made the problem worse,” he said. “And I want to
admit it.”

In April, Clinton acknowledged in an introduction to a book of essays about
criminal justice that these policies were "overly broad instead of
appropriately tailored."

"Some are in prison who shouldn't be, others are in for too long, and
without a plan to educate, train, and reintegrate them into our
communities, we all suffer," he wrote.

He again referenced his mistake in May, telling CNN that “we had too many
people in prison” and that criminal justice policies did not place enough
emphasis on rehabilitating criminals and supporting them once they were out
of prison.

“We wound up ... putting so many people in prison that there wasn't enough
money left to educate them, train them for new jobs and increase the
chances when they came out so they could live productive lives,” he said.

Financial deregulation

As president, Clinton turned a blind eye to big banks when he repealed
FDR’s Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment
banking. This allowed big banks to merge, becoming “too big to fail.”
Clinton also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which
prevented derivatives from being regulated, opening the door for risky
business on the part of banks. Finally, he passed policies that made it
easier for banks to practice predatory lending and give risky mortgages to
low-income homebuyers. All of these policies eventually wrecked havoc on
the global economy in the form of the 2007-08 financial crisis.

In 2010, Clinton said his decision to exempt derivatives from regulation
was shortsighted and that he should not have listened to his economic
advisers, who urged him to do it.

"On derivatives, yeah, I think they were wrong, and I think I was wrong to
take [their advice],” he said. "Now, I think if I had tried to regulate
them, because the Republicans were the majority in the Congress, they would
have stopped it. But I wish I should have been caught trying. I mean, that
was a mistake I made."

The drug war

While speaking in Mexico in February, Clinton apologized for the U.S. war
on drugs that led to drug smuggling, which led to corruption, crime and
violence across Central America. Though it began under President Ronald
Reagan, the drug war escalated as a result of the NAFTA treaty championed
by Clinton. Free trade benefitted drug cartels and enabled more drug
trafficking.

“I wish you had no narco-trafficking, but it’s not really your fault,”
Clinton said. “Basically, we did too good of a job of taking the
transportation out of the air and water, and so we ran it over land. I
apologize for that.”

Marriage equality

In 1996, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage to
be between a man and a woman. Though he had reservations about the bill and
understood its impact on LGBT couples, he feared that not signing it would
cost him the 1996 election.

In the years since, his public stance has evolved on marriage equality.
When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case to overturn DOMA in
2013, Clinton admitted the law was a mistake and urged the court to rule
against it.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

A political compromise was the reason Clinton signed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,
which required LGBT military members to keep their sexual orientation a
secret. The House had voted for an outright ban on gays in the military,
while Clinton supported completely allowing gays to serve.

When asked in 2010 if he regretted the policy, he said: “Oh yeah, but keep
in mind, I didn’t choose this policy. The reason I accepted it was because
I thought it was better than an absolute ban.”

Rwandan genocide

Clinton has said that one of his biggest regrets as president was not
intervening in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Administration officials knew of
the potential magnitude of the genocide but chose not to send troops to
support the relatively small and ineffective United Nations peacekeeping
force.

In 2006 while on a trip to Rwanda, he was blunt in his assessment of how he
handled the situation. “The United States just blew it in Rwanda,” he said.

"If we'd gone in sooner, I believe we could have saved at least a third of
the lives that were lost,” he told CNBC in 2013. “It had an enduring impact
on me."

Haitian rice tariffs

As president, Clinton called for Haiti to eliminate tariffs on imported,
subsidized U.S. rice, which crippled Haiti’s rice farmers, a major
contributor to the country’s economy. He became a UN special envoy to Haiti
in 2009, and after the devastating earthquake in 2010, Clinton called the
tariff decision “a devil’s bargain.”

“It was a mistake. It was a mistake that I was a party to. I am not
pointing the finger at anybody. I did that,” he said. “I have to live every
day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in
Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did. Nobody else.”

HIV/AIDS & drug prices

HIV/AIDS experts have criticized Clinton for not doing enough to fight the
global AIDS epidemic as it grew in the 1990s. Worse than what he didn't do
was what his trade office did do: fought hard for trade policies that
strengthened and extended pharmaceutical patents, driving up prices
worldwide, making not just HIV medications unaffordable. "It was wrong,"
Clinton later said of the patent push. In the 15 years since his
presidency, he has committed himself to the AIDS cause through the Clinton
Foundation, working to undo the damage.

Monica

Yeah, that famous apology.

*Here Are The Celebrities Contributing To Hillary Clinton's Campaign
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-gets-support-from-hollywood-heres-whos-backing-her_55a926ace4b0896514d1202f>
// HuffPo // Paul Blumenthal – July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic Party and Hollywood have a long history
together, and former secretary of state and Democratic presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton is making the most of it. She has already
received financial backing from celebrities big and small.

In May, Clinton swung through southern California to attend fundraisers
hosted by entertainment industry producers Haim Saban and Steven Boccho.
Those events were populated with a raft of celebrities who cut maximum
$2,700 checks to the Democratic front-runner's campaign account. Actor
Tobey Maguire later hosted Clinton for a fundraiser at his Los Angeles home
in June.

Celebrity money did not just come from the West Coast, but also from New
York. Clinton attended a fundraiser hosted by music producer L.A. Reid in
May that made news when a photo of pop star Beyoncé Knowles with the
candidate showed up online.

Contributions from celebrities aren't just fodder for entertainment. These
donors work in industries that have very particular interests that a
president (or any other politician) could influence.

Hollywood and the music industry were the primary supporters of anti-piracy
legislation variously known as the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect
IP Act. These bills would have clamped down on online piracy of movies,
music, television and many other files, but in an incredibly broad manner
that brought intense opposition from Silicon Valley companies and open
Internet activists. The bills stalled in Congress after a grassroots
campaign against them combined with a blackout of some of the largest
websites, including Facebook and Wikipedia.

Musicians have personally battled Silicon Valley on another front --
royalty payments from streaming services and online music stores. Music
streaming sites like Spotify and Pandora pay artists infinitesimal amounts
per stream and have cut deeply into the amounts artists can earn. This
affects big-name acts like Taylor Swift, who famously pulled her music from
Spotify and fought Apple for royalty payments from their streaming service
and won, as well as smaller indie acts trying to make a living. The
streaming sites and tech companies that own them have lobbied Congress to
help them reduce royalty payments to artists.

Clinton donor Beyoncé and her husband, rapper and businessman Jay-Z, were
among a list of music stars, including Madonna and Daft Punk, who launched
a streaming service called Tidal to provide better royalty payments to
artists.

Celebrities also use the free media they get to promote policy issues they
want to see action on. Singer John Legend, who donated to Clinton's
campaign, launched a campaign in April to support criminal justice reform
and an end to the era of mass incarceration.

And then there are the policy priorities of the increasingly influential
Hollywood executives and producers. Take Haim Saban, a $100,000-plus
bundler to Clinton's campaign. The Israeli-American television producer is
a major Israel booster and promotes the policies of the Middle Eastern
country.

Recently, Saban has joined forces with right-wing casino billionaire
Sheldon Adelson in an effort to stamp out a boycott, divestment and
sanction campaign (known as BDS) seeking to use economic pressure to end
Israel's occupation of and control over the 4.4 million Palestinians living
in the West Bank and Gaza.

After Saban hosted Clinton for a fundraiser at his home in May, the former
secretary of state penned a letter to the billionaire Hollywood producer
detailing her opposition to BDS.

*Hillary Clinton Has An Office
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-campaign-office_55a95963e4b0caf721b2ca4f>
// HuffPo // Jason Linkins – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton's campaign has an office. It's in Brooklyn, a New York City
borough famed for its high rents, like all New York City boroughs. People
work in that office, at desks, with laptops, doing campaign stuff. When
asked, those people all express a willingness to be there.

That's basically the "too long; didn't read" version of this week's
important race to chase the big story, in which Bloomberg and Politico
competed to be the first organization to get "exclusive" access to
Clinton's campaign digs. The race ended in a draw. Why was the existence of
a campaign office, and the need to be temporarily embedded within its
prosaic confines, of such importance to these institutions? Therein hangs a
semi-boring story!

See, a few weeks ago, a great hue and cry was raised after a reporter at a
Clinton campaign event in New Hampshire were corralled by Clinton campaign
staff in an actual rope, held by those staffers for the purpose of keeping
the press at arm's length from the campaign. This was, justly, a moment of
marginal embarrassment for the Clinton campaign, as it reinforced an
already existing meme about Clinton as a politician: that she is
press-averse, and that this aversion has led to a toxic relationship with
the media.

All of this happened over the Independence Day holiday weekend. Also
happening that weekend: Hillary Clinton was meeting with the New York Times
reporter and This Town author Mark Leibovich, a gifted profiler of public
figures and media professionals. Leibovich's piece, which was published in
the New York Times Magazine less than two weeks later, specifically
burrowed into this meme, capturing Clinton as a veteran politician striving
for a fresh start both with voters and with the media.

I think that part of the fun of being Mark Leibovich is getting to see what
part of his article becomes the thing that everyone decides is "the big
takeaway" and being amused by this decision. This time out, he was surely
not disappointed. Upon the profile's publication, the hive mind of the
political media, which broadcasts its collective unconsciousness on
Twitter, decided there were two things worth remembering about Leibovich's
story. The first thing was that Hillary Clinton had once eaten moose stew.
And then there was this part:

In June, I visited Clinton’s Brooklyn Heights headquarters to interview
Robby Mook, her 35-year-old campaign manager. The meeting had been arranged
through Jesse Ferguson, a campaign press minder, who in advance of my
arrival sent me an email that said the following: "The ground rules we’ve
had with others in our office is that the office itself is OTR," meaning
off the record. "I don’t want to get into a contest of people tweeting pic
from our office to show they were there."

I wrote back that I was not abiding by any "office is off the record"
provisions and that it was not clear to me how you could declare a
40,000-square-foot space off the record. I did agree not to tweet.

Ferguson came back asking me if I would "embargo" anything that I saw in
the office until the time my article was published. He made it sound as if
I were gaining access to the Situation Room. "Regardless when the story
runs," he wrote, it "still means you’re the first reporter who can report
anything from the office."

And that's how "visiting Hillary Clinton's Brooklyn campaign office"
suddenly took on paramount importance with some campaign journalists. Which
is weird! As Leibovich warned in his piece, "the office ... basically
resembled a large insurance company." There's a great irony there, because
political reporters could probably learn a lot more about contemporary
American life and the people living it if they actually did visit the
offices of a large insurance company.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Bloomberg and Politico visited the
Clinton campaign office instead, where they learned that "campaign offices"
are full of eager people who come ready to dispense pleasing bromides about
civic duty and the importance of playing a part in a big presidential
campaign. Or, as Bloomberg's Mark Halperin enthused as he began a broadcast
of his show "With All Due Respect" live and exclusive from Clinton HQ,
"They've got it all ... computers, telephones, partial wall dividers."

Maybe I'm wrong to say that this battle of who could care the most about
something insignificant ended in a draw, because I suppose that it is
objectively "cooler" to get to broadcast your Internet television show from
a previously well-guarded aerie than it is to merely tour the office and
shoot still photographs, as Politico did. On the other hand, no one at
Politico has to work for Michael Bloomberg, who is rumored to have taken a
very dim view of Halperin's antics. So I guess it's a wash either way you
look at it.

Politico's Annie Karni, who drew the assignment of wandering through
Clinton's office, looking for meaning, comes home with a slideshow of
images, documenting the existence of several offices and three sets of
cubicles into which varying "teams" of the Clinton campaign have settled
themselves. Clinton's communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, tells
Karni that everyone who heard that reporters were not welcome at the office
just got the wrong idea:

“We want to make sure people can do their work, but otherwise we’re happy
to have people come check it out,” Palmieri said.

The original policy of prohibiting journalists from reporting on the
campaign headquarters, she said, was misinterpreted as overly controlling.
“When people come in for meetings, you want the operation to continue to
function and that if something is overheard, or a memo is seen, it’s not
going to get reported on,” Palmieri said. “It seems like that was received
the wrong way.”

There is very little of interest that Politico discovers in the Clinton
campaign office. Maybe the only interesting thing is that in campaign
chairman John Podesta's office, there is "a dark painting of two suited men
holding plates and silverware in preparation to eat another man, who
appears to be dead."

"POLITICO was not allowed to document the memos and papers on his desk,"
Politico reports, in case anyone out there thought that this sort of thing
would ever be tacitly allowed by anyone working in any office, anywhere.

Karni describes this visit as "part of a new effort [from the Clinton
campaign] to engage with the national media that follows on the heels of
Clinton’s first national television interview last week." Considering that
this was just a guided tour of an office, conducted by Clinton's
communications director -- the only person quoted in the piece -- this
would seem to be an exercise in low-bar clearance.

Halperin seems to fare better in his foray into the Clinton office, as he
and his cohost Margaret Talev at least get to speak to a number of
fresh-faced Clinton campaign workers (including former Winter Olympian
Michelle Kwan), all of whom seem to be well-prepared (probably because they
were specifically prepped) to offer cheerful homilies about working on the
Clinton campaign.

The centerpiece of the "With All Due Respect" broadcast is a sit-down
interview in which Halperin and Talev talk shop with Clinton political
director Amanda Renteria and campaign "director of states" Marlon Marshall,
each of whom capably responds to each question with an array of safe
platitudes. Asked about the "ethos of this particular campaign," Renteria
offers, "It's interesting, it's creative, we really are trying to push the
envelope of 'give us your ideas and let's try it out.'" They "work
together, not in silos." They are "very deliberate about culture."

I'll say! When Halperin asks if they require the younger members of the
campaign team to follow any specific "political rules," Renteria says that
everyone is told, "Don't forget why you're here" and "Look around and
breathe in and enjoy it." This probably goes without saying, but these
aren't "political rules" -- they're "stuff people put on motivational
posters."

Halperin asks about the success Sen. Bernie Sanders has had, making headway
in the primary race while Clinton's other Democratic rivals haven't. "Can
he beat Clinton in either Iowa or New Hampshire or both?"

Clinton campaign states' director Marlon Marshall responds: "First of all,
we always expected a competitive primary --"

Halperin cuts him off: "I've heard that line."

"I'm repeating it," said Marshall. "It's a true line."

OK, well, we're really making headway now.

Here are other things I learned, thanks to Bloomberg and Politico:

The Clinton volunteers "work hard."

They have a board that lists who rode around on the campaign bus.

"Each team has come up with its own slogan, which flies above the team’s
seating area. The communications team, for instance, calls itself 'sources
close to the campaign.' The policy team is known as 'wonks for the win.'"

They have an old, brown refrigerator.

When asked, the people who work on the Clinton campaign can briefly
summarize their particular jobs.

Campaign manager Robby Mook's office has a "standing desk" and a "cheerful
flowering plant," in case you thought he maybe had a really sulky flowering
plant.

That brown refrigerator is apparently "infamous."

There is one "off-message" moment, in which Renteria seems to imply to
Halperin that she'd punch Donald Trump if she ran up on him in the streets.
Should that happen, The Huffington Post will cover it in our Entertainment
section.

This one guy made an edible arrangement with berries that looked like the
Clinton campaign logo and put it on Instagram, and this is "social media."

Halperin works really hard to get to the bottom of the whole berry thing.
Where did they come from? Why berries? A dogged pursuit of the truth, about
berries.

The brown refrigerator was donated, maybe?

"It's like a family."

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the "Brooklyn of the Midwest."

Per Politico, this is the most important thing I learned:

Clinton herself does not keep an office at the Brooklyn HQ -- she typically
works out of a separate Midtown office and so far has visited the Brooklyn
office just once.

So, that brown refrigerator has actually been a greater presence in this
office than the candidate. Good thing all this effort was made to gain
access to it. And yes, we have to thank Mark Leibovich for all of this:

Anyway, this was a nice trick. Candidate wants a fresh start with the
press. The press sets terms: Let us into your office. This turns out to be
the easiest, no-risk thing in the world for the candidate. So after a bit
of prep and spit-shining (but not too much spit-shining -- that old brown
refrigerator stands in testament to the campaign's middle-class frugality,
after all!), the reporters enter, gather their quotes and depart, firm in
the knowledge that they have done something special.

So what if the reader is left with no insight into the candidate or her
policy preferences? So what if the content generated from these escapades
ranges from poll-tested platitudes to annotated interior decoration? The
point of this exercise is that the campaign press believes that they have a
sacred role to play and that the Clinton campaign had sinned by not
honoring that role with sufficient solemnity.

In the end, everyone got what they wanted. Quite cheaply, at that.

*When Donald Trump Praised Hillary Clinton
<http://time.com/3962799/donald-trump-hillary-clinton/> // TIME // Zeke J.
Miller – July 17, 2015*

Republican presidential candidate and reality television star Donald Trump
has been deeply critical of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as he
has embarked on his campaign, but it wasn’t always so.

The real estate magnate has a long history of delivering admiring comments
about the woman he now calls the “worst Secretary of State in the history
of the United States,” and a “desperate” and “sad” candidate.

When Clinton last ran for office, Trump was torn between supporting her and
former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. ” They’re both terrific people,
and I hope they both get the nomination,” he told CNN in 2007, adding that
he thought Clinton would surround herself with good people to negotiate a
deal with Iran. A year later, Trump wondered publicly why Clinton wasn’t
chosen as President Obama’s running-mate.

In 2012, as Obama was running for re-election, Trump called Clinton
“terrific” again in an interview with Fox News, saying she performed well
as Secretary of State.

“Hillary Clinton I think is a terrific woman,” he told Greta Van Susteren.
“I am biased because I have known her for years. I live in New York. She
lives in New York. I really like her and her husband both a lot. I think
she really works hard. And I think, again, she’s given an agenda, it is not
all of her, but I think she really works hard and I think she does a good
job. I like her.

And on Fox and Friends on Wednesday, Trump explained why he donated to
Clinton’s campaigns.

“I’m a businessman. I contribute to everybody,” Trump said. “When I needed
Hillary, she was there. If I say ‘go to my wedding,’ they go to my wedding.”

*Would Hillary Clinton’s Profit-Sharing Plan Put More Money in Your Pocket?
<http://time.com/money/3962424/hillary-clinton-profit-sharing-plan/> //
TIME // Pat Regnier – July 17, 2015*

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Thursday outlined a
plan to encourage companies to share more of their earnings with workers.
It’s a tax credit companies could get for two years if they set up a
profit-sharing plan tilted toward the lower- and middle-income employees on
the payroll. (The tax credit would phase out for higher-paid workers.) In
an example used by the campaign, if an employee was paid $5,000 in a
profit-sharing bonus, the company would get a tax break of up to $750.

At least at first, the plan has generally been interpreted as part of
Clinton’s tilt toward the progressive side of the economic debate. “Veering
left…” is how the insider political paper The Hill put it.

Clinton herself has fit profit sharing into her broader message about
fixing economic inequality. Here’s a graphic from the campaign website that
illustrates the story Clinton is telling about what’s driving inequality.
Companies are doing great and getting more productive, but they haven’t
haven’t been sharing those gains with workers:

But even though profit sharing has the word “sharing” in it, it’s a pretty
business-friendly solution. Lots of companies like the idea of paying their
people more only when the business is doing well; the flip side is they can
pay less in fallow years. In the jargon of human resources, other names for
profit sharing are the much less warm and fuzzy sounding “pay-at-risk” and
“variable pay.” Wal-Mart, a company that’s famously tough about holding
down its labor costs, used to be well-known for profit sharing.

At qz.com, writer Alison Shrager worries that more profit-sharing would
just shift more pay out of steady wages and into up-and-down bonuses,
adding another source of instability to the finacial lives of low-and
middle-income workers. The Clinton campaign told Vox.com that companies
would only be able to get the credit for profit sharing above regualr
wages—presumably meaning they couldn’t cut salaries and then get a credit
for adding a profit-sharing plan. But over time, as companies gave out
regular raises and made new hires, or as new firms started up, the mix of
pay might still shift toward variable bonuses. (Profit sharing eligible for
the credit would be capped at 10% of salary.)

If Clinton’s proposal became law, it would really be just one more of
several tax policies that shape how companies structure their pay. If you
get health insurance at work or a 401(k) match, that’s because the tax code
makes it appealing for companies to pay you that way. You pay less tax on
$1 of health insurance or $1 of a 401(k) match than you do on $1 of
straight cash pay, so companies like to offer those benefits; similarly, it
would be slightly cheaper for a company to give you $1 of profit sharing
than to give you $1 of a raise. As an economist will tell you, the health
insurance you get at work isn’t a free gift on top of your pay. It’s part
of your overall compensation. If companies didn’t offer health coverage,
they’d have to pay us more. (Of course, then we’d still have use that money
to buy insurance.)

So perhaps Clinton’s plan would largely move money from one line in your
pay stub to another. But it might be better than a zero-sum game. For one
thing, it’s effectively a tax cut on pay, which the Clinton campaign says
is worth $10 billion to $20 billion over ten years (not huge as these
things go.) Though companies would get the credit directly, to the extent
that it encouraged companies to make more money available for profit-based
bonuses, the tax break should flow through to workers.

And there’s at least some evidence that companies with profit sharing
actually do pay more overall. An influential think-tank policy paper on
“inclusive prosperity,” which the Clinton campaign is reported to be be
drawing from, points to a study of the effects of profit sharing by the
economists Joseph Blasi, Richard Freeman, and Douglas Kruse. Drawing on
surveys of workers, it found that pay was generally as high or higher among
companies that gave workers some kind of stake in company performance.
(That includes not just profit-sharing bonuses but employee stock options
and other programs.)

Why? Partly it may be because you have to give people a shot at higher
total pay to compensate for the risk that they might not do as well in some
years. Or, the economists write, it could be that people are getting paid
more because profit sharing spurs them to be more productive. That looks
like a win-win, but its not exactly money for nothing. Maybe profit sharing
works because it improve morale and gives people an incentive to worker
smarter and more creatively. Or perhaps anxiety over losing a bonus scares
people into working harder and faster.

But the wage stagnation of the past several decades isn’t mainly a
productivity problem—just look at the Clinton campaign’s own graphic above.
People with jobs these days are already working smart and working hard.

Profit-sharing tax credits might nudge some companies to share more of the
gains from that productivity with people outside the C-suites. But the
story of the last several years is that it’s taken employment a long time
to climb back from the hit it took in 2008. One thing that really helps
people get more pay—whether it’s in cash, bonuses, stock option, pensions,
or insurance—is full employment and a hot labor market, where companies
have to do everything they can to get the workers they need. That’s
something Washington has had a hard time delivering.

*Elizabeth Warren Sends Hillary Clinton a Message
<http://time.com/3963149/elizabeth-warren-hillary-clinton-wall-street/?xid=tcoshare>
// TIME // Sam Frizell – July 17, 2015*

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren drew a bright red line on Friday for
2016 presidential candidates, calling for them to commit to end the
so-called “revolving door” between Wall Street and the Cabinet.

The firebrand populist said specifically that all the presidential
candidates should support Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s bill introduced
this week that would prohibit bonuses for Wall Street executives who take
government jobs.

“Anyone who wants to be President should appoint only people who have
already demonstrated they are independent, who have already demonstrated
that they can hold giant banks accountable,” said Warren, speaking in
Phoenix at Netroots Nation, a convention of liberal activists.

While the call to action was aimed at everyone running in 2016, its
clearest target was Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who is courting
the very types of progressive activists in the audience in both the primary
and general election.

While Warren declined to run for president, her supporters give her credit
for pushing Clinton to the left and setting the liberal standard on a host
of issues.

Clinton has already gone at least part of the way to satisfying Warren’s
demands. During a speech Monday on her vision for the American economy,
Clinton called for greater regulation of financial institutions.

“I will appoint and empower regulators who understand that Too Big To Fail
is still too big a problem,” Clinton said on Monday. She outlined plans to
rein in Wall Street and “go beyond Dodd-Frank.”

Baldwin’s bill is aimed at addressing what progressives see as a profound
governmental problem: that government finance appointees often have close
ties to Wall Street. In her speech, Warren pointed out that three of the
last four Treasury Secretaries, the vice chair of the Federal Reserve and
other key government officials have had close ties with Citigroup, a major
Wall Street bank.

“Elizabeth Warren offered a framework for how Democratic presidential
candidates can reduce Wall Street influence in key appointments,” said
Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee
after Warren’s speech.

Unhappy with President Obama’s less aggressive approach to Wall Street, the
Democratic left has searched for a liberal champion who can address issues
like income inequality and campaign finance reforms and found some of its
voice in Warren, a former Harvard law professor and consumer protection
advocate.

While Clinton has rhetorically embraced much of Warren’s logic, she has not
gone as far as her fellow Democratic presidential candidates, Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

In her speech Friday, Warren spoke about a surging progressive movement
across the country, calling Washington, D.C., out of touch with the rest of
America.

She ticked off a litany of issues that she said Americans are further to
the left on than elected officials, including raising the minimum wage,
reducing the cost of college, requiring paid sick leave, increasing social
security benefits, and enacting campaign finance reform.

“I’m here to make an announcement to insider Washington: America is far
more progressive than you are,” Warren said.

It’s a message Warren is counting on resonating in the 2016 election.
Warren added that the economic crisis in 2008 would have been different if
there had been left-leaning economists in high governmental positions
instead of Wall Street alums.

“How would the world be different today if, when the economic crisis hit
[in 2008], Joe Stiglitz had been Secretary of the Treasury?” Warren said.

Stiglitz is now advising Hillary Clinton.

*Hillary Clinton’s Digital Team Likes Barack Obama’s Style
<http://time.com/3963440/hillary-clintons-digital-team-likes-barack-obamas-style/?xid=tcoshare>
// TIME // Sam Frizell – July 17, 2015*

Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful and former U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton speaks to members of the media July 14, 2015 on Capitol
Hill in Washington, DC.

Hillary Clinton campaign’s deputy digital director said Friday that the
White House’s online outreach is a model for how public figures can connect
with voters, offering a hint into how the Democratic frontrunner will
Instagram, Tweet, and email during the 2016 race.

Speaking during a panel at Netroots Nation, a convention of liberal
activists in Phoenix, Jenna Lowenstein pointed to the increasing importance
of using the web to create a feeling of intimacy with voters.

“You can have a candidate who everyone loves and wants to sit down and have
a drink with them, 99% of people aren’t going to be able to do that.
Digital is an opportunity,” Lowenstein said “to be a proxy of that.”

Lowenstein said the White House has been notably effective at different
kinds of digital outreach, pointing to Obama’s hour-long interview with
Marc Maron, and the president unveiling his proposal for free community
college in a nine-second Vine.

“When the president rolled out free community college, they did it in this
Vine and it was the perfect delivery mechanism,” said Lowenstein. “It was
kind of this badass moment where the president was sitting on Air Force One
and in 9 seconds explained the policy.”

The Clinton campaign has projected its candidates’ persona online as
personable, funny, and approachable. Clinton’s first Instagram was a photo
of pantsuits with a tongue-in-cheek hashtag of the title of her book, “Hard
Choices,” and the campaign has frequently posted childhood pictures of
Clinton.

*Hillary Clinton 1, Protesters 0? Climate hecklers may have a point
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-1-protesters-0-climate-hecklers-may-have-point>
// MSNBC // Tony Dokoupil – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton delivered a dose of self-styled climate change real talk to
some silly college kids on Thursday. But the content doesn’t hold up well
against the facts. And it certainly won’t silence the likes of Bernie
Sanders and Martin O’Malley, Clinton’s fellow presidential hopefuls and her
two most potent critics on the left.

The confrontation occurred during open questions at Clinton’s first New
Hampshire town hall appearance. A young woman asked the former secretary of
state if, as president, she’d ban fossil fuel extraction on public lands.
Clinton said no: “The answer is not until we’ve got the alternatives in
place. That may not be a satisfactory answer to you but I think I have to
take the responsible answer.”

Then a second young woman stood up, and said she was “disappointed” in the
first answer. She wondered if Clinton’s “refusal to take leadership on
climate change” was because of big campaign donations from the fossil fuel
industry. “No. No, it is not,” Clinton said, adding that the feel good
response — “you bet I will ban extraction on public lands” — would have
also been a reckless one. “We still have to run our economy, we still have
to turn on the lights.”

You can expect this to be a popular line in 2016. With a sigh and shrug, it
allows politicians to distance themselves from fossil fuels without
actually curbing them in the slightest. But while it used to have the added
virtue of being true, we don’t really need fossil fuels to keep the lights
on and run the economy.

Not anymore.

The alternatives are in place. They’ve won the sprint against fossil fuels,
according to data presented this spring at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance
annual summit in New York.

The world is adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal,
natural gas, and oil combined. And there’s no going back. The age of fossil
fuel is ending.

This wasn’t the case just a few years ago.

And there remain’s a lot that’s right about Clinton’s answer. We get about
30% of our energy from fossil fuel extracted from federal land and waters,
according to an analysis this year by the Center for American Progress and
The Wilderness Society. The Powder River Basin of southeast Montana and
northeast Wyoming alone supplies coal for some 200 power plants.

That’s about 40% of the market. And it’s lashed together and superglued by
leases and contracts, courts and lawyers. It obeys the natural law of
profits and loss: if billions are invested, billions must be made.

But this is a slow motion scandal for environmentalists. The single biggest
source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U. S. isn’t planes or cars. It
isn’t fracking or meat farming. It’s coal harvested from that federally
owned land—land that belongs to everyone.

The extraction of fossil fuels from taxpayer owned land is responsible for
a quarter of national carbon emissions, the stuff that scientists say warms
the atmosphere and harms the planet. That’s why many people see this as an
an issue worthy of heckling the former first lady. It’s an extension of the
divestment movement, a push for intellectual honesty by people who support
action on climate change.

It’s also more than a protest position. Increasingly, scientific research
and real world examples show that the next president could responsibly ban
this extraction on federal land. In other words, counter to her answer
Thursday, Clinton could deliver the applause line. And she could do it
without the layoffs, recessions, and blackouts she suggested.

Here’s the math behind it: renewable sources of energy account for about
10% of total U.S. energy consumption and 13% of electricity generation,
according to federal data. We’d need to just about triple our use to offset
the 30% of our energy currently generated off federal lands. Impossible?
Hardly. Unheard of? Not at all.

More than a dozen countries get more than 30% of their electricity from
renewable sources, according to the Paris-based International Energy
Agency. Most of that would need to be solar, which President Obama will
happily tell you is already adding jobs at 10 times the rate of the rest of
the economy. Thanks to Elon Musk, the world even has a way to store solar
and wind. We can now save it up for when the sun don’t shine and the wind
doesn’t blow.

What we need now is the infrastructure to actually tap all this renewable
potential. Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental
engineering at Stanford University, has been saying it for years: “You
could power America with renewables from a technical and economic
standpoint.”

What we need is the will to do it. So the question remains: does Hillary
Clinton have it?

*Hillary Clinton's campaign wrote a sarcastic blog post mocking reporters
critical of her poll numbers
<http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clinton-campaign-poll-numbers-2015-7#ixzz3gACbXogH>
// Business Insider // Colin Campbell – July 17, 2015*

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign publicly
rolled its eyes at the media this week.

Clinton's communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, wrote a sarcastic
blog post mocking reporters for trying to draw a narrative that Clinton is
sinking in recent polls.

In the Thursday piece — titled, "Hillary Clinton’s No Good,
(Record-Breaking, Poll-Winning), Very Bad Week" — Palmieri argued that the
latest polls actually were full of good news for Clinton.

"If you believe the mood and headlines from some of the press, it's been a
pretty rough week for Hillary Clinton. While there was widespread and
substantive coverage of the rollout of her economic agenda, politically,
it's a different story. One poll showed so much trouble for Hillary that
she only had a higher favorability number than any other candidate it
tested," she wrote.

Though Palmieri didn't name the media outlets she was criticizing, she
linked to several polls that were widely covered in the press. On Thursday,
The Associated Press covered its own AP-GfK survey by focusing on Clinton's
drop among Democratic voters, for example.

"Clinton's standing is falling among Democrats, and voters view her as less
decisive and inspiring than when she launched her presidential campaign
just three months ago," the AP reported. "The survey offers a series of
warning signs for the leading Democratic candidate. Most troubling,
perhaps, for her prospects are questions about her compassion for average
Americans, a quality that fueled President Barack Obama's two White House
victories."

However, Palmieri was clearly not convinced. Her blog post went on to
sarcastically lament "even worse" polls showing Clinton leading potential
Republican opponents in key demographics.

"Even worse, multiple polls released this week show that she leads every
candidate running in head-to-head matchups," she continued. "While it is
widely known that the growing Hispanic electorate is critical in deciding
the election, new polling shows that Hillary Clinton has a disastrous 68
percent approval rating among Hispanic voters and only leads her closest
Republican competition (Bush) by 37 points, 64% to 27%."

Palmieri also took shots at the media for focusing on the Clinton
campaign's burn rate in its Wednesday finance report. The AP and other
outlets led their stories by noting she "spent more than $18 million hiring
hundreds of employees in the first three months of her presidential
campaign."

Palmieri fired back by pointing to the size of the campaign's overall
fundraising haul.

"Not only that, she raised a record amount of primary money for a candidate
in their first quarter, with only $8 million (a sum larger than most
Republican campaigns raised in total) in donations of less than $200.
Hillary also spent too much money building her organization and was only
left with more cash on hand than any other campaign raised and more in the
bank than the top three Republican campaigns combined," she wrote.

"It's true," Palmieri concluded. "Hillary is left in the terrible position
of having the most resources of any candidate and being voters' top choice
to be the next President of the United States."

*“Act on climate!”: Hillary Clinton gets heckled by protestors who want her
to crack down on fossil fuels
<http://www.salon.com/2015/07/17/act_on_climate_hillary_clinton_gets_heckled_by_protestors_who_want_her_to_crack_down_on_fossil_fuels/>
// Salon // Lindsay Abrams – July 17, 2015*

Calling climate change “the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection
of challenges we face as a nation and a world” may not be enough for
Hillary Clinton to convince climate hawks she’s ready to rise to challenge.

The Democratic presidential candidate temporarily lost control of the crowd
at a New Hampshire town hall event Thursday after an audience member called
her out for not giving a satisfactory answer to an earlier question about
fossil fuel extraction.

“I know what the right answer, in terms of getting votes, would have been,”
Clinton responded. “The right answer would have been, ‘You bet I will ban
extraction on public lands.’”

“We have to change our energy policy,” Clinton continued. “I have been
clear about that; I will continue to be clear about that.” But she went on
to explain why she’s not willing to give the answer the audience member
wanted to hear, explaining, “we also have to do it in a way that doesn’t
disrupt our economy.”

The question of how committed Clinton is to fighting climate change is a
major one: President Obama set the stage for (mostly) strong executive
action on the issue, and the platforms of fellow candidates Bernie Sanders
and Martin O’Malley are to her left on most climate issues. In her formal
campaign launch speech, Clinton did propose “using additional fees and
royalties from fossil fuel extraction to protect the environment.” But
Sanders co-sponsored a bill this spring that would end tax breaks and other
subsidies for the oil, gas and coal industries, while O’Malley’s called for
an end to all fossil fuels by 2050. If that’s perhaps not as politically
feasible as Clinton’s proposals, it at least demonstrates what it looks
like for a candidate to recognize the necessity of “substantial and
sustained” reductions in emissions.

Clinton’s town hall questioner also brought up the contributions made to
her campaign by the fossil fuel industry, suggesting that may be the reason
why the candidate is unwilling to commit to stronger climate action.
Sanders and O’Malley both signed a pledge promising to “neither solicit nor
accept campaign contributions from any oil, gas, or coal company;” Hillary
has not. And all 40 of the registered lobbyists bundling contributions for
her campaign, the Huffington Post reported, have in the past worked to
advance the interests of the fossil fuel industry.

Clinton dismissed the implication that fossil fuel backing influenced her
refusal to say she’d ban oil and gas extraction on public lands. But she
lost the crowd as a group of protestors began loudly chanting, “Act on
climate! Act on climate!”

“That’s okay, that’s okay, that’s okay,” Clinton shouted over them. “I am
all in favor of acting on climate.”

*Hillary Clinton Thinks Telemarketers Are 'Really Annoying,' Too
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-thinks-telemarketers-annoying/story?id=32513050>
// ABC // Liz Kreutz – July 17, 2015*

Apparently, even Hillary Clinton gets calls from telemarketers. (And yes,
just like the rest of us, she can’t stand them).

During a town hall at the Dover City Hall on Thursday, Clinton commiserated
about telemarketing scams with a voter who stood up to ask what the
Democratic presidential candidate could do to stop them.

“It’s really annoying. It's really annoying. I know,” Clinton said. “I
mean, we have the same issue at home. It's really so annoying when you've
told somebody ‘I'm not interested, please don't call me,’ and they just
kind of go through the cycle and they call you again and call you again,
and all the rest of it.”

The voter told Clinton that she was getting robocalls up to 20 times a day,
despite putting her number on the national “Do Not Call” list, and was
desperate for some help.

“I've tried everything,” the woman said. “Short of me changing my phone
number that everybody knows. I really don't want to do that. We have
elderly, we have sick relatives, we have children that need to reach us,
and this phone is constantly bouncing across the country.”

Clinton, who said she had never before been asked about telemarketing,
assured the woman she would look into it.

“I don’t know the answer, but I will try to find out if there is an
answer,” Clinton said.

Even so, the image of Clinton answering a telemarketing call over and over
in her Chappaqua, New York, apparently left an impression.

*Democrats eager to exploit contrast between Trump, Clinton
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/07/17/democrats-eager-exploit-contrast-styles-between-trump-and-clinton/NCXLpNklFCbOlBiPiSUCEK/story.html>
// Boston Globe // Sean Sullivan – July 17, 2015*

DOVER, N.H. — Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton
spent 15 minutes here Thursday calmly unveiling a corporate profit-sharing
plan as part of her proposal to grow middle class incomes and rein in the
power of Wall Street banks.

Later in the afternoon, about an hour’s drive up State Highway 11, Donald
Trump held a rowdy campaign rally where he lashed out at opponents in both
parties and stressed his controversial immigration positions. There were no
concrete policy ideas.

The contrast highlighted a development that thrills Democratic operatives
even as it unsettles their Republican counterparts: Trump, long seen as a
political sideshow, is surging in the polls — offering Clinton a plum
chance to boost her preferred image as a serious, seasoned alternative to a
chaotic field of Republican presidential hopefuls now headlined by the
brash billionaire.

‘‘The juxtaposition of the two — your head may explode,’’ said Kathy
Sullivan, a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair, who is backing
Clinton.

Holding her first town hall meeting of the campaign, Clinton made a
detailed pitch for her plan to spur more companies to share their profits
with employees by offering a two-year tax credit as an incentive. The
credit would be equal to at least 15 percent of profit sharing
distributions and the profit sharing would be capped at 10 percent on top
of current employee wages.

‘‘Everybody running on the other side has a different economic
philosophy,’’ Clinton said at the town hall, which came the same week she
gave a speech laying out her economic message. ‘‘They really still believe
if you cut taxes on the wealthy, if you lift regulations on corporations,
that somehow economic activity will trickle down to all the rest of us.’’

Trump’s explosion onto the Republican campaign has complicated the
Republican effort to counterpunch. It’s hard to get people to focus on
middle class pocketbook issues when the headline-grabbing mogul is on the
trail boasting of his vast wealth, offending neighboring nations and
tangling with critics in both parties.

In a sweltering room in Laconia, Trump took swipes at a laundry list of
foes, from Clinton and President Barack Obama to GOP rival Jeb Bush, as
supporters cheered him on. He stood by his recent remarks that illegal
immigrants from Mexico are ‘‘rapists’’ who are bringing ‘‘drugs’’ and
‘‘crime’’ into the country.

‘‘It turns out I was right,’’ Trump said, citing an illegal immigrant who
allegedly killed a woman in California, and a Mexican drug kingpin who
escaped from prison.

Later in his remarks, Trump summed up his candidacy: ‘‘The American dream
is dead, but I’m going to make it bigger and better and stronger than ever
before.’’

While Trump’s Republican primary opponents were initially slow to critique
him, some have recently become more forceful.

‘‘I have a message for my fellow Republicans and the independents who will
be voting in the primary process: what Mr. Trump is offering is not
conservatism, it is Trump-ism - a toxic mix of demagoguery and nonsense,’’
said former Texas governor Rick Perry, a Republican, in a Thursday
statement.

Still, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who huddled with Trump on Wednesday, has
praised his blunt tone. Other presidential contenders have shown reluctance
to openly bash him.

‘‘Donald Trump can speak for himself, and I’m not going to put words in the
mouth of any candidate, him or anybody else out there,’’ said Wisconsin
Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican who also campaigned in New Hampshire on
Thursday.

Trump, who has flirted with running for president in past elections, is
diving deeper into the race with each passing day. He has launched an
full-fledged campaign, hired early state staff and on Wednesday said he
filed a financial disclosure with the Federal Election Commission, though
he did not release a copy of that disclosure.

National polls show him to be a top-tier candidate. But many Republicans
remain unconvinced he is committed for the long haul.

‘‘I don’t think he is looking at all like serious candidate,’’ said former
New Hampshire Republican Party chairman Fergus Cullen. ‘‘There are some
trappings of a serious campaign, but this is a Potemkin effort at best.’’

His effort may not be built for the long haul — his campaign’s burn rate, a
comparison of money raised with money spent, was an astounding 74 percent,
highest in the Republican field. But some Republicans worry that even a
primary season Trump candidacy may cost them next year, as a new Univision
News Poll shows that 70 percent of Hispanic voters say they have an
unfavorable impression of him.

The Clinton-Trump roadshow isn’t over yet: Trump is the feature speaker at
a Republican dinner on Friday in Arkansas, where Clinton — whose husband,
Bill Clinton, was the state’s governor — will speak Saturday at a
Democratic dinner.

*8 things to watch for at Iowa Dems’ Hall of Fame dinner
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/07/16/clinton-sanders-headline-iowa-democratic-partys-hall-fame-celebration/30230685/>
// Des Moines Register // Jennifer Jacobs – July 17, 2015*

1. Friday night’s Hall of Fame Celebration in Iowa will be the first time
the cast of five current Democratic presidential hopefuls has shared a
stage.

The audience will be most interested in Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders,
predicted Bret Niles, chairman of the Linn County Democrats.

“The crowd reaction will be a big thing: How are people going to react to
Bernie with Hillary there as well?” Niles said.

Niles speculated that ticket holders at the state party fundraiser would be
a more monied, moderate crowd that might not be as receptive to Sanders as
crowds at his solo events.

A strong performance by Sanders, a Vermont U.S. senator who is calling for
a progressive people’s revolution, would go a long way to impress upon
politics watchers that he’s not a flash in the pan but a real contender,
said Democratic operative Grant Woodard.

2. Who will deliver the best-received anti-Republican line?

The Democratic candidates are unlikely to go after each other explicitly —
it would be notable if they did — but will likely hit the Republicans hard.

Political operatives said they expect to see jabs toward: 1. Donald Trump.
2. Ted Cruz. 3. Steve King.

Those three Republicans have given the Democrats plenty of material.

Trump has taken heat since saying in his June 16 presidential announcement
speech that Mexico is deliberately sending drug smugglers, rapists and
other criminals illegally into the United States.

Cruz, the only presidential candidate to send a news release saying he was
“pleased to welcome Donald Trump into the race,” later saluted Trump “for
focusing on the need to address illegal immigration.”

And King, an Iowa congressman famous for his own remarks about
canteloupe-calved Mexican drug smugglers, told the National Journal this
week that Trump is “riding a good wave and right now if the caucus were
held today, he’d probably come out on top.”

Trump topped the GOP field in a recent USA Today/Suffolk University poll of
national primary voters, but fared the worst against Clinton among seven
GOP competitors tested in a survey of adults nationwide last Thursday
through Sunday.

3. Can Clinton’s pre-event rally match the crowd size and energy that
Sanders has been seeing?

Sanders has been making headlines nationally for attracting audiences of
thousands, including a raucous crowd of 2,500 in Council Bluffs in early
July.

The most Clinton has drawn so far was about 700 to her debut Iowa rally,
held June 14, the same day as Iowa’s biggest gay pride parade.

For the Hall of Fame dinner, party officials capped the number of tickets
each campaign could purchase at 200 to prevent any single camp from
dominating the 1,200-seat room.

All the tickets sold out in less than three weeks, which left some
activists locked out.

Clinton’s Iowa staff decided to do a free pre-rally, set for 3:45 p.m.
Friday in the armory at the nearby Veterans Memorial Building, which can
accommodate about 600.

“Hillary Clinton has some great supporters in Cedar Rapids, and we wanted
to make sure they all got a chance to see her during Friday’s visit,
regardless of whether they were able to buy a ticket to the dinner,” Iowa
spokeswoman Lily Adams said.

Expectations are high for Clinton to have a packed house bursting with
energy, since she’s the undisputed frontrunner in Iowa and has the largest
campaign staff here. She has amassed more than 60 paid staff and a phalanx
of volunteers.

4. Will either Jim Webb or newcomer Lincoln Chafee make a dent?

This is the first Iowa visit for Lincoln Chafee, a longtime Republican who
served as a Rhode Island U.S. senator, then led the state as an
independent-turned-Democratic governor.

Webb, a former U.S. senator from Virginia and secretary of the U.S. Navy
under President Ronald Reagan, has done 25 events in Iowa this presidential
election cycle, but remains little known.

Iowa Democrats, if they’ve even heard of them, said they’re mystified about
why they’re running.

Cedar Rapids Democrat Linda Langston, a county supervisor, said she
mentioned during a conference in Washington, D.C., that Iowa would feature
all five candidates on one stage.

“People said, ‘Five? Five Democrats? Who else is in?’ And these are people
in D.C.,” she said.

Webb, who was a Republican for most of his political career, said on “Fox
News Sunday” last weekend that the Democratic party “has moved way far to
the left. That’s not my Democratic party in and of itself.” And he made
headlines recently for urging thoughtfulness during the emotional debate
over Confederate flag symbolism, saying the Civil War had a “complicated
history.”

“Webb’s comments regarding the Confederate flag are beyond odd coming from
someone that showed so much promise in the party at one time,” Woodard said.

5. Will Martin O’Malley break through?

O’Malley, a former Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor, will also have a
pre-rally, at 5:15 p.m. at White Star Ale House in Cedar Rapids.

Webb and Chafee are “fringe characters who I don’t think will gain much
traction — I just don’t think there’s a lane for them,” said Douglas Burns,
an opinion columnist at the Carroll Daily Times Herald who frequently
attends Iowa campaign events.

But O’Malley checks all the boxes: He’s viewed as less radical than
Sanders, he appeals to populists and progressives, and he has some of
Clinton’s establishment appeal, Burns said.

His organizers filled all of their 200 seats, an effort that could signal a
foothold, Iowa insiders said.

6. Will the messages motivate Iowa activists worried about boredom?

Iowa activists said Clinton and the other contenders need to show they can
overcome frustration with Democratic losses in 2014 and general boredom on
the Democratic side in 2016.

“All of the candidates on the same stage? I want to say what’s on my mind
and that’s: ‘So what?’” Steven Lynch, chairman of the Chickasaw County
Democrats told the Register. “I mean, the caucuses are Feb. 1.”

Lynch said he doesn’t want to hear crowd-pleasing quips from the Democratic
contenders; he wants them to reassure him they know how to fix the economy.

“The Republicans clobbered us statewide and nationally in 2014. I’m
concerned that we have the right message on the economic growth of our
nation,” he said.

7. Will the party chairwoman make inroads with activists looking for
governor candidates?

The presidential candidate appearances will follow introduction of seven
Hall of Fame inductees and other speeches, one of them from Iowa Democratic
Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire.

McGuire is considered a possible candidate for governor in 2018, and this
will be her first time publicly handling the reins of the party. If
activists believe she’s organizing properly for the caucuses, it could
boost her stature.

8. How will national and world news outlets showcase post-flood Cedar
Rapids?

When the Cedar River swamped 10 square miles of the city in June 2008, it
forced 22,000 people from their homes, and walloped about 1,100 businesses
and 300 governmental facilities, causing more than $7 billion in damage.

The flooded convention center was replaced with the $76 million Convention
Complex, where the Hall of Fame dinner is being staged.

“It’s a monument to coming back from the flood,” said Cedar Rapids Democrat
Monica Vernon, who is making her second bid for Congress and is seeing key
Democrats coalescing behind her.

A massive infusion of state and federal grants and disaster relief funding
also gave Cedar Rapids a new $50 million library, two new fire stations for
$35 million, a $36 million public works building, a $44.5 million school
district headquarters, a $7.5 million riverside amphitheater and other
projects.

Altogether, Iowa was awarded or eligible for more than $4.7 billion in
flood recovery money.

Cedar Rapids’ Czech Village and the New Bohemia district, reached by going
south on Third Street from the convention center, are areas that tell the
post-flood victory story, said state Sen. Rob Hogg, a Cedar Rapids Democrat
exploring a bid for U.S. Senate.

=====

About the event

What: Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame Celebration

Who: Five Democratic presidential candidates — former Rhode Island Gov.
Lincoln Chafee, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and former
Virginia U.S. Sen. Jim Webb — will speak in that order, alphabetically by
last name. Each has been told they get 15 minutes. Iowa Democrats will also
induct seven activists into their Hall of Fame.

When: 7 p.m. — 10 p.m. Friday. Party leaders are encouraging guests to
arrive as soon as the doors open at 5 p.m. because they’ll need to pass
through Secret Service security checkpoints. Clinton, as a former first
lady, is the only candidate with this high-level protection at this stage
of the race.

Where: Cedar Rapids Convention Center, 350 First Ave. NE, Cedar Rapids

Tickets: Sold out

News reporters expected: More than 100

*Tom Miller, Michael Fitzgerald endorse Clinton
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/07/16/tom-miller-michael-fitzgerald-endorse-hillary-clinton/30264041/>
// Des Moines Register // Tony Leys – July 17, 2015*

Two of Iowa’s top elected Democrats are endorsing Hillary Clinton for
president.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald
have both decided to back the front-runner over her challengers.

Both men supported then-Sen. Barack Obama over Clinton early in the Iowa
campaign in 2007. Their endorsements in February of that year helped Obama
gain a foothold among Iowa Democrats and upset Clinton in the 2008 caucuses.

Miller said in an interview Thursday that he always admired Clinton.
“Barack was just an exceptional candidate. … Had he not been in the race, I
would have been for Hillary all the way.”

He said Clinton has continued to grow in the past eight years, including
during her service as Obama’s secretary of state. He said she has the
intelligence, experience and judgment to be a good president. He also is
impressed with the formidable organization her campaign has already built
in the state.

Miller said he likes Clinton’s Democratic rivals, including the surging
populist Bernie Sanders, “but I think she’s the strongest candidate in the
field.”

Fitzgerald echoed Miller’s thoughts in a prepared statement Thursday.

“Hillary Clinton is the candidate that is boldly speaking out on the
fundamental issues facing our country, and her progressive vision for our
country is exactly what we need to keep our country moving forward,”
Fitzgerald wrote. “Hillary Clinton’s commitment to growing our economy so
that everyday Iowans can get ahead and stay ahead is what Iowa Democrats
believe to our core.”

*Clinton says U.S. can't afford GOP's economics
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/07/17/hillary-clinton-cedar-rapids/30327377/>
// Des Moines Register // Tony Leys – July 17, 2015*

CEDAR RAPIDS, Ia. – Hillary Clinton fired up supporters here Friday by
vowing that her Democratic presidential campaign would highlight the stark
differences she has with Republicans, especially on the economy.

"We already know what the Republicans stand for, because we have seen it,
we understand it," she told about 500 cheering voters at Cedar Rapids'
Veterans Memorial Building. "We know they still believe in what they call
trickle-down economics. We have been trickled-down enough. And it's time to
say we're not going back there."

Clinton stressed that she would push to raise incomes of everyone, not just
wealthy people who have benefited in the past from Republicans' tax cuts.

She said her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and President Barack
Obama both were left with economies that had been crippled by Republican
policies. Both Democratic presidents managed to turn the economy around,
she said. "President Obama deserves more credit than he's been given for
saving us from a Great Depression," she said to applause. She added that
she would build on Obama's progress to bring stronger growth for everyone.

The afternoon rally was designed to energize Clinton's troops before she
took the stage with her Democratic challengers at the Iowa Democratic Party
Hall of Fame Celebration on Friday evening. The room was only about
three-quarters full for the rally, but participants gave Clinton an
enthusiastic reception.

Tom Hennessey, a retired union construction worker who attended the rally,
said he was impressed by Clinton's performance. He backed her when she ran
in 2008, and he's glad she's running again. "My opinion has not changed one
bit — she's still the same strong-willed woman," said Hennessey, 72, of
Cedar Rapids.

Hennessey said he's not bothered by the surge of support liberal challenger
Bernie Sanders is seeing among Democrats in Iowa and elsewhere. Competition
should sharpen Clinton, he said, and help draw off some conservative fire.
"At least she's not the only target on the target range," he said,
chuckling.

Earlier Friday afternoon, Clinton greeted several dozen young staffers and
volunteers at the "Need Pizza" restaurant in downtown Cedar Rapids.

Clinton recalled how much she learned by volunteering to sign up Democratic
voters in Texas in 1972. She urged her young supporters to embrace the
voters and other volunteers they meet.

"I can't tell you how pleased I am that not only are you working for me
here in Iowa, but that you're having these experiences," she said. "And I
hope you really cherish that. I mean, people that I met in Texas are still
the closest of friends, and now we're exchanging pictures of our
grandchildren, that's how long it's been. … I am thrilled that you have
chosen to come work for me, but also that you're part of this process."

*Clinton aims most of her fire at Republicans
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/07/17/clinton-aims-fire-republicans/30331945/>
//
Des Moines Register // Tony Leys – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton struck back at Republican ideas and candidates Friday in
her speech at the Iowa Democratic Party's Hall of Fame dinner.

The former senator and secretary of state chided Republican candidate Jeb
Bush for saying that Americans need to work more hours. "Americans don't
need lectures. They need raises," she said to applause.

She also hit Donald Trump, first with a joke: "Finally, a candidate whose
hair gets more attention than mine!" Then she called Trump out for
suggesting immigrants are criminals. "There's nothing funny about the hate
he's spewing toward immigrants and their families. It really is shameful,"
she said. "And so is the fact that it took weeks for most of his fellow
Republican candidates to stand up to him."

Clinton mocked Republicans for claiming they can't take a stand on climate
change because they're not scientists. "I'm not a scientist either," she
said. "I'm just a grandmother with two eyes and a brain."

She drew some of her strongest applause for calling out Iowa Gov. Terry
Branstad, a Republican, for recently vetoing millions of dollars for
schools and a plan to keep open two mental hospitals he had decided to
close. "Iowa families don't need a standoff. They need solutions," she said.

AT THE EVENT

QUOTE: "Trickle-down economics has to be one of the worst ideas of the
1980s. It is right up there with New Coke, shoulder pads and big hair."

BEST MOMENT: Clinton closed by talking about her vision for a strong, safe
country and world for her granddaughter to grow up in. "I'm running to make
our country work for you and for every American, the struggling, the
striving and the successful. … I am running for everyone who has been
knocked down but refused to be knocked out."

AUDIENCE REACTION: As she took the stage, Clinton was greeted by chants of
"Hillary, Hillary, Hillary," from her many fans in the crowd. She drew
several standing ovations from large portions of the crowd.

*California donors have given more to Clinton than all other presidential
hopefuls combined
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-california-campaign-money-20150717-story.html>
// LA Times // Kurtis Lee and Sahil Chinoy – July 17, 2015*

California donors have provided strong backing to several candidates in the
crowded field of Republican presidential hopefuls, although none have come
close to the cash pile amassed here by Democratic front-runner Hillary
Rodham Clinton.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former
Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina raised significant chunks of
their fundraising totals from donors dotting Orange County, the Central
Valley and other traditionally Republican areas, according to fundraising
reports the campaigns released this week.

California has long bankrolled presidential campaigns, and 2016 is shaping
up to be no different.

The state's money has constituted 16% of all itemized contributions so far
in the 2016 presidential race. That's more than any other state – followed
by New York and Texas at 13% each, based on a Times analysis of fundraising
reports.

The totals reflect only money given directly to candidates’ campaigns –
contributions that are limited to no more than $2,700 from each donor for
the primary races. The really big contributions – to the "super PACs" that
are theoretically independent from the campaigns, but in practice closely
allied with them – won't be publicly disclosed until the end of the month.

Dollars given directly to a campaign can stretch farther than money raised
by super PACs, in part because campaigns get a preferential rate for
television advertising and in part because the money is directly controlled
by the candidates, making it easier for them to focus their message and
marshal get-out-the-vote efforts.

“The state is critical in presidential elections and will continue to be
critical," said Paul Seamus Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal
Center, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign finance and laws that
regulate it. "California and New York are where the money is ... no
question when it comes to national politics."

Both Rubio and Perry got 22% of their itemized contributions from
California, $1.5 million in Rubio’s case and just short of $219,000 for
Perry.

Clinton has raised more than $8 million for her campaign committee in
California so far, just over 20% of her total. Her campaign took in more
from California than all the other presidential candidates combined.

Her strongest challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described
socialist, raised $806,000 from the state – about 25% of his itemized haul.

Fiorina, a former California resident who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S.
Senate in 2010, is most dependent on California. More than 40% of her
contributions came from the state.

By contrast, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has raised more than any of
the GOP hopefuls, received less than 7% of his contributions from
California. He has been in the state for several days this week raising
money in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.

Of Southern California's donations, 65% went to Clinton.

More than 40% of the money donated from California came from Los Angeles,
and about 33% from the Bay Area, according to finance reports.

Among Republicans, Los Angeles and Bay Area donors supported Rubio the
most, doling out $664,000 and $280,000 respectively to his campaign.

On the Democratic side, Clinton dominated both portions of the state,
raking in $3.8 million in itemized contributions from Los Angeles and $3.1
million from the Bay Area.

Ryan, who works for the Campaign Legal Center, notes that the super PAC
filings will be when many of the big-money donors are revealed, since these
committees can receive unlimited contributions.

"A lot of campaign fundraising is being outsourced to super PACs because
that's really where the money is raised," he said.

*Clinton campaign rebuilds from a digital meltdown
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-hillary-clinton-digital-20150715-story.html>
// LA Times // Michael A. Memoli – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton wound down her political operation in 2008 with 2.5
million email addresses in her campaign database. Seven years later, when
campaign officials turned on the lights in April, they were stunned to find
fewer than 100,000 still worked.

Campaign aides learned the bad news in much the same way a reunion
organizer trying to reconnect with old friends might, albeit on a much
larger scale: an in-box clogged with bounce-back messages on the day
Clinton announced her campaign and sent messages to supporters.

The savvy tech strategy fueling Bernie Sanders' upstart 2016 campaign

The huge attrition of valuable data is not unique to Clinton -- a typical
email list will lose 1 in 5 subscribers each year, said Jordan Cohen, chief
marketing officer for Fluent, which specializes in email list acquisition.
But it created one of the first big challenges for the campaign’s growing
digital team and sparked a response that illustrates the high priority
campaigns now place on acquiring digital data.

“It wasn’t like we all had time to retreat to a local bar and drown our
sorrows,” said Teddy Goff, the Clinton campaign’s digital director – a role
he also filled for President Obama’s reelection campaign. “It was an
instantaneous recognition on the part of a lot of us that we had a bigger
challenge ahead of us than we realized.”

Rebuilding that digital infrastructure became one of the most critical
goals that campaign officials set this year, prompting what became known as
the “Hillbuilder” program.

During the campaign’s first all-staff meeting, on the day before Clinton’s
public campaign launch on Roosevelt Island in June, campaign manager Robby
Mook identified building the email list as one of the top three goals in
the year’s third quarter. On the cubicle walls of the offices used by the
digital staff, a sign asks: “What are you doing to grow the list today?”

In 2012, Obama’s reelection campaign, which boasted 30 million addresses at
its peak, raised $485 million – more than 40% of its total haul – through
its endless, and often parodied, email appeals, according to a former
campaign official who provided the internal fundraising data on condition
of anonymity. The rest of the fundraising total was split equally between
major donors and direct marketing through traditional mail and phone
contacts.

Clinton and Bush lead in early campaign fundraising

Increasingly sophisticated methods for analyzing large amounts of data have
made emails more and more valuable to campaigns, and not just as a vehicle
for direct communication. The ability to track a user’s online experience
helps the campaign develop a profile that is then used to send
more-targeted communications.

“The campaigns are looking at not just ‘are they going to contribute $1,
$10 when I send them an email,’ but ‘are they opening, are they clicking,
are they forwarding this email to their friends. Are they taking the email
and posting it onto social,’” Cohen said. “There is just inherent value in
having engagement that will lead, hopefully, into votes.”

The Clinton campaign’s digital handicap wasn’t limited to its email lists.
The former secretary of State had no Facebook page, no Instagram account
and only 3.3 million Twitter followers at her launch date (President
Obama’s campaign-run account has more than 60 million today, by comparison).

The campaign would not disclose how much its list has grown since April.
But it has reached 5 million followers across its accounts on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Spotify and Pinterest, officials said.

The campaign launched each of those platforms over the last few months,
with a goal of reaching would-be supporters where they normally spend time
online and creating a ripple effect that would expand their contact lists.

One early, successful tactic was to create a daily, rapid-response-style
newsletter that supporters could subscribe to called “The Briefing,”
launched to coincide with a new book critical of the Clinton Foundation.

The campaign also sought to build suspense around the Roosevelt Island
rally by promising exclusive details about the event to those who signed up
on Clinton’s website. And last week, Clinton emailed supporters inviting
them to tell her when their birthdays are, so she – or her digital avatar,
at least -- can send a note when the day arrives.

“We're part of a team together,” the email read. “We're going to work hard
and have a lot of fun through it all. Part of that is taking some time to
celebrate and appreciate each other, and that’s what I’d like to do on your
birthday.”

The idea, Goff said, grew out of the fact – attested to by her own, now
public, emails – that Clinton has always gone out of her way to offer
birthday wishes to those around her. A successful digital effort, he noted,
depends on the authenticity of each communication.

“That’s a true thing about her that reflects something that we think people
are going to enjoy that can also be turned into an online program that’s
going to help us build our community,” he said.

Expanding the digital infrastructure isn’t just happening organically, of
course. The campaign also engaged in more transactional efforts, including
exchanging active contacts with the Ready for Hillary organization. They
have also already spent $2 million on an online advertising campaign that
has helped add names to the list.

“The core of what we’re trying to do is serve people with an experience
that they’re going to enjoy, that’s going to enlighten them and hopefully
inspire them to get more deeply involved in the campaign,” Goff said.

*Hillary Clinton visits home in Windham
<http://www.eagletribune.com/news/new_hampshire/hillary-clinton-visits-home-in-windham/article_ecff512c-9dca-55bb-850f-c23ff3104338.html>//
Eagle-Tribune // Breanna Edelstein – July 17, 2015*

WINDHAM — Last night, Hillary Clinton brought her campaign to the Windham
home of Susan and Henri Azibert. Several hundred locals gathered in the
backyard of the 240 year old house in support of the presidential hopeful.

“This house was built the same year that the Declaration of Independence
was signed,” Henri Azibert said. “And we are honored to be hosting this
event here tonight.”

Clinton was introduced to the crowd by Laura Aguilar, the campaign’s
Salem-area organizer. She shared the story of her immigrant parents, their
hard work and her resulting graduation from Harvard University two months
ago.

“Secretary Clinton is fighting for the idea of getting ahead and staying
ahead,” Aguilar said.

Drawing on the theme of Aguilar’s personal story, Clinton began the night
by discussing, “the creation of a ladder that every American should have.”

“The center of my economic plan would be raising incomes for the middle
class,” Clinton said. “Paychecks should reflect the hard work and
productivity of Americans.”

The crowd’s applause was continuous as Clinton worked her way through a
range of topics, from the heroin problem plaguing the Granite State, to
worldwide climate change.

Michelle Hare and her daughter, Amanda Hare, who live two doors down from
where the event was hosted on Lowell Road, went to show their support.

“This is the first time I’ll be voting,” said the 16-year-old. “And I’m
very excited about that.”

Her mother said, “tonight is a chance to show my daughter a good example of
a strong woman.”

Also in the crowd was State Rep. Benjamin Baroody, D-Hillsborough.

“She certainly knows how to campaign,” he said. “I think she will follow in
her husband’s footsteps in that he didn’t forget the people who got him
places.”

When Clinton wrapped up her speech and asked for any questions, almost
every hand was raised. Clinton answered several questions about caring for
veterans and seniors.

Tom Thibeault of Manchester has been one of Clinton’s volunteers on the
campaign trail.

“I’m a Vietnam veteran,” he said. “So these issues hit close to my heart.
New Hampshire is one of the only states without a VA hospital.”

Thibeault was among many who got to express their concerns and pose
questions to Clinton directly.

“Thank you for coming out here and talking to us like this,” a spectator
yelled.

Earlier in the day, Clinton’s campaign hosted a similar event in Dover.

*How Clinton and Bush Agree and Diverge on Workplace Discrimination
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/newsdesk/clinton-bush-ENDA-workplace-discrimination-20150717>
// National Journal // Ronald Brownstein – July 17, 2015*

As Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush took voters' questions on opposite coasts
on Thursday, they sharpened a key difference between them in the next front
of the gay-rights debate.

In a New Hampshire town hall, Clinton pledged that as president she would
seek to pass federal legislation barring workplace discrimination based on
sexual orientation and gender identity; such legislation died in Congress
two years ago. In a meeting with employees at a technology company in San
Francisco, Bush declared flatly that he opposed such discrimination but
then said the issue should be left to the states.

In November 2013, the Senate, then controlled by Democrats, passed the
Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that barred workplace discrimination
against homosexual or transgender workers across the nation. But the
legislation failed when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives
refused to consider it.

Without a national standard on the issue, states have divided.

Currently, 22 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws barring
workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation; 18 of those states
and D.C. have mandated equal rights based on gender identity. The remaining
states without laws ensuring equal workplace treatment include almost all
of the Republican-leaning red states across the South, the Plains, and the
Mountain West.

The sharp difference between Clinton and Bush over federal action makes
clear that the recent Supreme Court ruling establishing a nationwide right
to same-sex marriage is not likely to eliminate debate on issues relating
to the rights of gay and transgender Americans in the 2016 general
election. More broadly, it shows how Democrats, confident that they now
command majority support, have taken the offense on most cultural
differences between the parties.

Bush has generally sought to mute contrasts on questions relating to gay
rights in the campaign's early stages. While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
reacted to the Supreme Court decision by calling for a constitutional
amendment that would allow states to ban gay marriage, Bush said he would
not support an effort to overturn the decision (although he criticized the
Court for reaching it).

Speaking Thursday in San Francisco at Thumbtack, a firm that helps
consumers find services, Bush said flatly: "I don't think you should be
discriminated because of your sexual orientation. Period. Over and out," as
Time magazine reported. But when pressed by an employee who identified
himself as gay about whether he would support legislation barring such
discrimination in employment and housing, Bush said: "I think this should
be done state by state, I totally agree with that."

Asked if that response meant Bush opposed federal legislation to provide
workplace protections for gays and transgender workers, a campaign
spokesperson said, "Governor Bush's answer speaks for itself. He believes
this issue should be left to states."

By contrast, Clinton, at a town-hall meeting in Dover, New Hampshire,
pledged to revive the federal legislation ensuring workplace protection for
gay and transgender workers if elected. When a questioner who identified
herself as a high school student asked Clinton what she would "do about
anti-discrimination laws in the workplace," Clinton responded: "You put
your finger on what the next big challenge is, and that is discrimination.
And when I was in the Senate, I supported the ENDA law to end
discrimination against people based in—those days, we used to say in sexual
orientation. And I think we do have to do more to make sure we end
discrimination in the workplace in particular."

Clinton continued: "So I am committed to that. I will work for that. And as
president, I will do everything I can to get that enacted into law."

The Senate passed the ENDA law in 2013 with support from all 52 Democrats
who voted, independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine,
and 10 Republicans, including Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Mark Kirk of
Illinois, Rob Portman of Ohio, and Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania—four
incumbents in blue or swing states who are seeking reelection in 2016.

*Can Hillary Clinton Really Get Away With Skipping Netroots?
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/can-hillary-clinton-really-get-away-with-skipping-netroots-20150717>**
// National Journal // S.V. Dáte – July 17, 2015*

PHOENIX, Arizona – The annual Netroots Nation conference has attracted
thousands of liberal activists, the core of the Democratic Party's base, to
the 100-degree-plus desert heat. It attracted its latest hero, Elizabeth
Warren. It has attracted two Democratic presidential candidates.

But someone it could not attract: Hillary Clinton, the person most likely
to need its attendees' help at the top of next November's ballot.

"Major unforced error. Showing up is important," said Adam Green,
co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which three years
ago raised more than $1 million to help Warren win a Republican-held Senate
seat in Massachusetts. "It's important that people address those whom they
expect a lot from. So, it's unfortunate."

The Democratic presidential frontrunner is instead speaking at a state
party dinner in Arkansas, where she was once first lady, but which is
unlikely to go her way in 2016. "It wasn't working with her schedule," said
Clinton's communications director Jennifer Palmieri. "There are lots of
opportunities that we aren't able to do, but that (the Arkansas dinner) had
already been locked in."

It's unclear what will be the long-term consequences, if any, of Clinton's
choice. As the most dedicated of the party's activists, participants here
are highly unlikely to support a Republican over Clinton, should she wind
up the nominee. Yet her absence, and the hard feelings it is causing, once
more point to Clinton's difficult relationship with her party's base.

Her last appearance at a Netroots conference was 2007. She was booed, in
part over her vote supporting the Iraq war. Her problems with progressives
that year created room for fellow Sen. Barack Obama to overcome her
enormous advantages and win the nomination in 2008.

Eight years later, in her second run, a continued lack of enthusiasm for
Clinton first led to an effort to persuade Warren to run for the White
House, and is now fueling much of the excitement behind the huge crowds and
impressive small-donor fundraising for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

"I love Bernie because he's a man of integrity," said Elizabeth Cloud, a
68-year-old retired schoolteacher who wore a Sanders button. She and the
other 3,000 participants have shelled out an average $300 in registration
fees, on top of travel expenses. "Hillary is a political animal," Cloud
said. "I think she's a bit of a political opportunist."

Both Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley are scheduled to
attend a Saturday morning "presidential town hall." Sanders added to his
trip a campaign rally Saturday evening at the same Phoenix Convention
Center venue, except, his campaign says, in a larger room to accommodate
the expected crowd.

And Warren's appearance Friday morning had conference goers lining up for a
half hour prior to her speech to get close-in seats, even though she has
unequivocally said she is not running. When in her remarks she noted: "We
have a presidential election coming up," a voice in the cavernous hall
shouted "Run!" which brought prolonged applause.

The Clinton campaign has so far declined to discuss any of her Democratic
opponents, other than to say it has always assumed it would face a
competitive primary. Campaign officials also argue that Clinton is getting
somewhat of a bum rap when it comes to her record.

They point out that in 2007, even before the financial crisis, Clinton
pushed for a crackdown on the trade of subprime mortgages, favored
regulating derivatives, and even introduced legislation on executive
compensation.

"She has a long track record as a senator from New York," said Jake
Sullivan, a senior policy adviser to Clinton's campaign and a former top
aide to her when she was secretary of state. "I think there is a sort of
general misunderstanding that somehow Sec. Clinton was silent on these
issues in 2008 and now she's speaking about them."

Palmieri said Clinton also bears the burden of her husband's record. Many
liberals believe former President Bill Clinton frequently abandoned the
party's principles in order to gain and hold power, and Palmieri said
people assume Hillary Clinton always shared his views.

"I think it's understandable why there's a tendency to go compare back to
her husband's administration, but -- this is part of the point she's trying
to make -- that was 20 years ago," Palmieri said. "A lot of the things that
she advocates for, child care, paid leave, et cetera, the sort of workforce
issues, are things that she's advocated for a long time."

As to the timing of Clinton's recent calls for changes to the tax code,
criminal prosecution of Wall Street bankers who engage in fraud, or profit
sharing, Palmieri said the speeches rolling out these ideas are part of a
long-term plan, not a reaction to Sanders and Warren.

The Progressive Change Campaign's Green said he has been heartened to hear
Clinton's new ideas, but is convinced the change in the Democratic Party
was the main factor driving it. "That might be something that she genuinely
believes, but it took shifts in the environment for her to get to that
place," he said. "And that's why the activism that we're doing both on
Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail as well as voices like Bernie
Sanders are playing a critical role in moving the Democratic Party in an
economic populist direction."

In any event, Green said, if Clinton can continue filling in the details on
her new ideas, she will find a party base eager to listen. "I don't think
people dislike her. People want to believe in someone, and are looking for
her to embrace this economic populist moment in a real way," he said.

And many in attendance, while wishing Clinton had made an appearance and
could be as full-throated a liberal as Sanders, allowed that they will
enthusiastically support her when the time comes.

"I wish she was here, but I can kind of understand why she isn't," said Dee
Austin, a Democratic researcher from Omaha, Nebraska. "To us, this is a
really big deal. But she's a really big deal, too, and has got a lot of
things to do…. I think we will support whoever the nominee is. If we're
smart we will."

*Iowa Democrats throw support behind Hillary Clinton as she prepares to
meet rivals on stage
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/iowa-democrats-throw-support-behind-hillary-clinton-article-1.2295390>
// NY Daily News // Cameron Joseph – July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton rolled out endorsements from Iowa's only two
statewide elected Democrats Friday morning, a show of strength in the
Hawkeye State just hours ahead of the first time she'll share the stage
with her primary rivals.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald threw
their support behind Clinton, a boost in her quest to win the
first-in-the-nation caucuses.

"Hillary Clinton is the candidate that is boldly speaking out on the
fundamental issues facing our country and her progressive vision for our
country is exactly what we need to keep our country moving forward,"
Fitzgerald said in a statement.

Miller said Clinton "will build an economy for tomorrow that raises incomes
for working Americans."

The former secretary of State has held wide leads in recent polling of the
state and nationally, though Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been gaining
hard on her in the last month.

The two will meet onstage Friday night in Cedar Rapids at the Iowa
Democratic Party Hall of Fame celebration, the first time they've appeared
publicly together since the campaign began.

Clinton is building a huge campaign team in Iowa, eager to avoid a repeat
of her 2008 fate, when she was out-organized on the ground and finished a
disappointing third place behind President Obama and then-Sen. John Edwards
(D-N.C.).

*Hillary Clinton Returns To A Very Different Arkansas
<http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/18/423890622/hillary-clinton-returns-to-a-very-different-arkansas>
// NPR // Lauren Leatherby - July 18, 2015*

Hillary Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton, celebrate his victory in the
Democratic runoff for Arkansas Governor on June 8, 1982 in Little Rock,
Ark. Clinton defeated former Lt. Gov. Joe Purcell.

Hillary Clinton may find you can't go home again when she returns to
Arkansas Saturday night.

The 2016 hopeful returns to Razorback State for the first time since she
announced her second bid for president, keynoting the Arkansas Democratic
Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Little Rock.

But the state is hardly politically recognizable to the one that first
launched the Clinton name to national political prominence and where she
served as first lady for 12 years.

After serving as the state's governor for a decade, Bill Clinton carried
the state by wide margins in both the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections.

But that Arkansas is gone. As recently as 2008, the state had a Democratic
governor, both senators were Democrats and so were three of the four House
members. Today, in a total sweep, Republicans control the governor's
mansion, the state legislature and every Senate and congressional seat.

"Just compare 2008 to 2012, and you'll leave the room with a windswept
look," said Janine Parry, a political science professor at the University
of Arkansas and director of the Arkansas Poll. "It's pretty wild. I keep
wanting to measure it, but I'm 99 percent sure that no state at any time in
history has made a transformation this dramatic this swiftly."

Unfortunately for Clinton, this change means if she wins the nomination, a
general election win is likely out of reach in the place she called home
for nearly two decades.

When matched up against a generic Republican presidential candidate in
Arkansas, Hillary Clinton would only take home 33 percent of the vote,
compared to 50 percent for the Republican nominee, according to a June 2015
poll.

Those numbers are a far cry from her well-loved husband's performance.

"[Bill Clinton] sits well within a long line of Arkansas politicians who
are affable, accessible, smart, and they have extraordinary charisma,"
Parry said.

Though Hillary Clinton certainly still enjoys residual goodwill in the
state, she had to work harder to enjoy the support that seemed to come
naturally for her husband, a magnetic Arkansas native.

"I think it took some time for her to adjust to Arkansas and for Arkansas
to adjust to her, but I think eventually that did happen to a considerable
extent," said Hoyt Purvis, founder of the Fulbright Institute for
International Relations at the University of Arkansas, who first met Bill
Clinton when Clinton worked for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a
Georgetown undergraduate.

More important, though, than the personality difference between Clinton and
her husband is the wider political shift that has swept the South in the
last few decades.

The South used to be home to the "yellow-dog Democrats" — voters who
claimed they would rather vote for a canine than a Republican. Arkansas and
the states of the Deep South went nearly a century without electing a
Republican governor, and only nine of the 115 Senators who served in those
states during the 20th century were Republicans.

Near the turn of the century, a new breed of Southern Democrats had emerged
— Blue Dog Democrats who embraced more centrist positions on fiscal and
social issues, often bridging the gap between the two parties.

But in 2014, Georgia Rep. John Barrow's loss marked the last of the
once-powerful bloc of white Democrats representing the Deep South in the
House. Republicans now control every governor's mansion and Senate seat
from Texas to the Atlantic Coast, with the exception of Senator Bill Nelson
from Florida.

For some time, even as its neighbors shifted to the right, Arkansas still
clung to its Democratic roots. It was still represented by Democratic Sen.
Mark Pryor and Gov. Mike Beebe until this year.

The state's eventual shift to the right may have been a long time coming,
but Parry attributes the swiftness of its switch to two main factors: the
effect of President Obama's presidency and the massive amounts of money in
elections all the way down to the county level.

"Arkansas is overwhelmingly white and rural, and Barack Obama is neither of
those things," Parry said. "He's just foreign to folks here, and they just
can't identify. And that's particularly in a state where people are used to
being able to identify with candidates."

Additionally, the increasing amount of money in politics has meant that
elections that were once largely protected from fierce partisanship are now
much more influenced by national politics.

For decades, Arkansas Democrats touted themselves as different from
national Democrats, speaking a language that Arkansans understood. But the
influx of national money into state politics in the past few years
nationalized races in a way they could no longer overcome.

"Parties have become much more important," Purvis said. "I think what we've
seen is that candidates in some cases got elected almost exclusively on the
basis of if they had an 'R' after their name. It has just been a tidal wave
of Republican support that has really taken hold in the last four or five
years."

Despite the legacy of Arkansas Democrats setting their own course, the
increased money flowing into the state has finally brought the national
polarization to a state that had, for the most part, avoided it.

"Post-Citizens United, there has been really strategic investment by
Republican allies," Parry said. "It's just completely changed the game so
that Arkansas can't be the holdout that it was, and charisma and contact
with the candidates just matters much less than it did now that you can
have all these high-dollar advertisements and glossy flyers arriving in
people's mail in Piggott, Ark."

A prime example of this is Republican Sen. Tom Cotton's overwhelming defeat
of Pryor. The Democrat and his family had been longtime fixtures of the
Arkansas political scene, and the Pryor name had been on Arkansas ballots
for nearly 50 years. Even as recently as 2012, only 20 percent of Arkansans
disapproved of his record.

An Arkansas native, Cotton had lived outside Arkansas — attending law
school, working for law firms, management consulting, and serving in the
military — for the majority of the years that Pryor was in the Senate.

As a House freshman, Cotton upset many Arkansans when he voted against
federal funding for the Arkansas Children's Hospital and voted twice
against the farm bill. It also ruffled feathers when Cotton skipped events
like the Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival, often considered the
unofficial kickoff of the Arkansas general election season.

Still, Cotton thumped Pryor in 2014 by 17 points.

"He was such a packaged, glossy campaign by the Republicans and by the
well-endowed Republican allies that they could run someone who doesn't do
all the things that Arkansans have demanded for 100 years from their
candidates," Parry said. "And it wasn't even close. I think he's a really
emblematic case of how much the state has changed and how quickly that's
happened."

And it doesn't seem like the trend of Arkansas going red will reverse
itself any time soon.

In addition to the changing party landscape of Arkansas, it doesn't help
that many of Hillary Clinton's policy positions conflict with Arkansas
residents' viewpoints. For instance, while Clinton embraced the Supreme
Court's same-sex marriage decision, only 21 percent of Arkansans believe
same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, according to 2014 polls.

Clinton still has plenty of friends in her former dwellings of Fayetteville
and Little Rock, Ark., but don't count on her making many stops to see them
on her campaign trail. Arkansas and its neighbors don't look to turn back
to their blue roots anytime soon.

*Hillary Clinton happy to hear Jeb Bush's Uber driver would vote for her
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/jeb-bush-uber-driver-vote-hillary-clinton-article-1.2295899>
// NY Daily News // Celeste Katz – July 17, 2015*

Hillary uber Jeb.

Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton cheered Friday after
learning she’s likely to score the vote of an Uber driver who chauffeured
rival Jeb Bush in California.

“Thanks for the support, Munir!” the ex-secretary of state tweeted over a
link to a story about Bush’s Thursday journey to visit a startup company in
one of the ride-hail hawker’s cars.

Bush tweeted a photo of himself in San Francisco with Munir Algazaly at the
wheel, reporting, “Rode shotgun in @Uber this morning to @Thumbtack here in
SF. 5 stars for Munir.”

Algazaly told reporters he hadn’t realized the tall passenger who sat up
front with him was the former Florida governor and 2016 GOP presidential
hopeful.

The driver, who described himself as a 35-year-old Yemeni immigrant, said
he doesn’t usually vote, but would probably support Clinton, according to
Time.

*Hillary Clinton ignores Democratic primary opponents in first onstage
appearance with them, slamming the GOP instead
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-clinton-boost-iowa-democrats-article-1.2296150>
// NY Daily News // Cameron Joseph – July 17, 2015*

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA - Hillary Clinton ignored her Democratic opponents in
her first time sharing the stage with them Friday, focusing her ire on the
GOP in a fiery speech aimed at showing she's ready to take the fight to the
other side.

"I'm never going to let the Republicans rip away the progress we have
made," she said to cheers from the 1,300 Democratic activists in the key
early-voting state.

She made a point to call out her GOP opponents by name, with Donald Trump
high on her hit list.

"Finally a candidate whose hair gets more attention than mine," she said to
laughs. "But there is nothing funny about the hate he's spewing towards
immigrants and their families."

Clinton, speaking alongside Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and their three
other primary opponents, repeatedly sought to portray herself as the
candidate of the future, pushing back on concerns that she's been around
too long.

"We Democrats are in the future business… They may have some fresh faces
but they are the party of the past," she said before accusing Republicans
of sticking to economic policies that haven't worked since they were first
introduced.

"Trickle down economics has to be one of the worst ideas of the '80s. It is
right up there with New Coke, shoulder pads and big hair," she said to big
cheers and laughs.

Clinton also slammed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott
Walker on economic issues before hitting the GOP field for using the excuse
that they're not scientists for refusing to say climate change is real.

"I'm not a scientist either. I'm just a grandmother with two eyes and a
brain, and I'm not going to let them take us backwards," she thundered,
drawing a standing ovation.

While Clinton ignored her opponents, some of them made some clear contrasts
with her in a state where she finished a damaging third place three years
ago. Iowa Democrats have long been more economically populist and dovish
than the party as a whole, two areas where Clinton has at times struggled
with the base.

Many of the others highlighted votes or early opposition to the Iraq War,
an issue that was her undoing last time around, as well as their fights
against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement hated by unions
that Clinton has avoided taking a firm stand on.

Sanders has been coalescing liberal voters who aren't crazy about Clinton,
and delivered a stem-winder that got strong applause.

"The greed of the billionaire class has got to end, and we're going to end
it for them," he said to roars from his backers, some of whom clinked
silverware against their glasses at every applause line to deafening effect.

But while his calls for a "political revolution" drew loud cheers from his
supporters in the audience, many gave a more tepid response to some of his
zingers, a sign of his appeal likely has a ceiling in the party.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley got a big response from his speech as well a
sign that he shouldn't be written off as a player down the line despite his
poor standing in the polls and weak fundraising. He drew strong contrasts
with Clinton, getting big applause.

"We didn't just talk about it, we got it done," he said before rattling off
his accomplishments including raising the minimum wage, legalizing gay
marriage and implementing gun control.

*Doting Grandpa Bill! Former President Clinton Takes Baby Charlotte to an
N.Y.C. Kids Concert
<http://www.people.com/article/bill-clinton-granddaughter-charlotte-kids-concert-nyc>
// People // Kathy Ehrich Dowd – July 17, 2015*

He might be busy campaigning for his wife and making public appearances as
a former President of the United States of America, but that doesn't mean
Bill Clinton is too busy to squeeze in some granddaughter bonding time.

The former Leader of the Free World was spotted taking granddaughter
Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky to a children's concert in Manhattan's Madison
Square Park Thursday morning.

Clinton, 68, could be seen holding on to baby Charlotte, 9 ½ months, as the
duo bopped along to the music of Songs for Seeds, a music class put on by
Apple Seeds, an indoor play space mom Chelsea Clinton and daughter
Charlotte enjoy.

"They were dancing along to the music, moving to the beat," says an
observer. "He has the most present, positive energy and he was exuding that
to her. He seemed like a very, very happy grandfather."

The sweet outing comes just after Clinton gushed about his role as grandpa
during a Texas event alongside another former president and current
grandfather: George W. Bush.

"When we started this program, he said to me that when you becomes a
grandfather, you fall in love all over again," Clinton said while sitting
next to Bush at the graduation of the inaugural class of the Presidential
Leadership Scholars program in Dallas last week. "And that's what
happened."

He also got giddy talking about how Charlotte reached a milestone that lit
up his life.

"[Last night] my granddaughter – 9 ½ months – for the first time when I
walked to her room, [Hillary] said "Oh, there’s your granddad," and she
turned around and pointed at me," said Clinton. "That was worth more than
anything anybody has said or done."

*Hillary Clinton’s New York State of Mind
<http://observer.com/2015/07/hillary-clintons-new-york-state-of-mind/> //
NY Observer // Will Bredderman and Jillian Jorgensen – July 17, 2015*

Out-of-town reporters whined in advance about Roosevelt Island’s supposed
inaccessibility, but it might have been the ideal location for Hillary
Clinton to launch her presidential campaign.

Four Freedoms Park offered the kind of green space typical of a more Middle
American city as well as a plum view of  Manhattan’s skyline. More
importantly, it gave Ms. Clinton ample opportunity to compare herself to
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the last president from New York.

In her speech, Ms. Clinton seemed at pains to evoke F.D.R.: from the
location to her “Four Fights,” which paralleled one of Roosevelt’s most
famous speeches.

The Broadway-worthy production raised questions that the Illinois-born Ms.
Clinton has faced since she moved to Chappaqua in 1999: is she a New
Yorker—and what does that mean for her candidacy?

“Of course she’s a New Yorker,” said attorney and Clinton fundraiser Jerry
Goldfeder. “She lives here, she votes here.”

But when she first arrived here to run for Senate, her presumptive
opponent, Rudolph Giuliani, answered unequivocally “no.” To underscore the
point, Mr. Giuliani scheduled a fundraiser in Arkansas and asked locals
whether they considered him an authentic Arkansan. But 16 years later, the
architect of that stunt, former Giuliani aide Bruce Teitelbaum, has come
around.

“Back then, I think people raised questions about her connections to New
York, and about her reasons for moving to New York. Those were legitimate
questions,” he said. “Anyone who would raise those same questions today
would be unfair and unreasonable. She’s a New Yorker at this point in her
life.”

Political hands, including officials in early voting states, doubt whether
Ms. Clinton’s affiliation with New York will matter much to voters.

Tom Henderson, chairman of the Polk County Democrats, recalled watching Ms.
Clinton declare Chicago her hometown when the Windy City hosted the
Democratic convention in 1996. He argued that Ms. Clinton is not a product
of New York or Illinois or Arkansas—or any state. “She’s more cosmopolitan
than that,” he told the Observer, suggesting that Ms. Clinton’s roles as
first lady and secretary of state have elevated her above any one region.

Some experts said New York roots could prove a problem in New Hampshire—if
you’re a Republican. GOP candidates from our area run muscular state
governments—causing them to struggle when wooing primary voters in
libertarian New Hampshire.

But Democrats in New York aren’t much different than Democrats in New
Hampshire, said Dante Scala, author of Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire
Primary and Presidential Politics. And if you asked a New Hampshire voter
to list characteristics about Ms. Clinton, he thought New Yorker would be
low on the list.

“She’s much more of a national politician than a regional politician hoping
to step up,” Mr. Scala said, adding she’s also a well-known entity to
locals. “We’ve had Clintons up here campaigning for president for two
decades, not just Hillary but Bill as well.”

Ms. Clinton’s persona, noted prominent Democratic pollster Mark Mellman,
“transcends any one place.”

Part of that transcendence might be her lack of a strong regional
accent—something that distinguished her from Sen. Bernie Sanders, the
Brooklyn native whose decades in Vermont have not dulled his Kings Highway
inflections.

“This might be a problem for some politicians, who sound like a New Yorker
… She doesn’t,” said Larry Sabato, founder of the University of Virginia’s
Center for Politics.

In this way, she again echoes Roosevelt, whose voice conveyed to a troubled
nation a patrician paternalism—in contrast to the previous New Yorker to
seek the White House, Gov. Al Smith. His accent, wrote Herbert Mitgang in
the Times, “was no asset when he talked about ‘woik’ on the ‘raddio.’”

“He was thought the embodiment of New York, and the campaign was something
of a referendum on the city,” historian Michael Wallace said by email of
Smith. “His enemies saw Gotham as the anti-U.S.: an offshoot of Europe,
home to Catholics, communists, Tammanyites, anti-prohibitionists,
gangsters, blacks, Jews, a plethora of immigrants, religious liberals,
feminists, antiracists.”

New York’s image is now rosier in the rest of the country. In fact, New
York City repeatedly ranks atop the Harris’ annual poll of cities Americans
want to live in. But the city’s toned-down image is also a less forceful
presence on the national scene.

As Mr. Wallace pointed out, “I don’t think [Ms. Clinton’s] identification
with New York, if she chooses to stress that—which I doubt she would—would
make a great deal of difference one way or the other.”

*Hillary Clinton’s ‘natural instincts’ lean toward ‘hiding the truth,’ six
in 10 voters say
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/17/hillary-clintons-natural-instincts-lean-toward-hid/>
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski – July 17, 2015*

Nearly six in 10 voters say former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton’s natural instincts lean more toward hiding the truth, and a third
say they lean more toward telling the truth, a new poll said.

Fifty-eight percent of voters said they believe Mrs. Clinton’s “natural
instincts lean toward hiding the truth,” and 33 percent said they believe
her natural instincts lean toward telling the truth, said a Fox News poll
released Thursday.

Among Democratic primary voters, 61 percent said her natural instincts lean
toward telling the truth, while 29 percent of Democrats said she’s more
prone to hide the truth.

Forty-seven percent of voters overall said Congress should continue to
investigate her handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on a U.S.
consulate in Benghazi that claimed the lives of four Americans, while 49
percent said Congress should move on.

Mrs. Clinton, a 2016 presidential candidate, was still the first choice of
59 percent of Democratic primary voters, with Sen. Bernie Sanders of
Vermont in second at 19 percent and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who
has not yet indicated his plans, in third at 8 percent.

Last month, Mrs. Clinton was at 61 percent to Mr. Sanders’ 15 percent and
Mr. Biden’s 11 percent.

The survey of 1,019 registered voters was taken from July 13-15 and has a
margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, with a margin of
error of plus or minus 5 percent for the smaller subset of Democratic
primary voters.

*Hillary Clinton's plan for the minimum wage: low on details, big on going
local
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/17/hillary-clinton-minimum-wage-cities-states-small-businesses>
// The Guardian // Jana Kasperkevic – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton might have rolled out her economic policy on Monday, but
many specifics of what she intends to do as president of the United States
remain unclear. Among them: the federal minimum wage.

The former secretary of state and current frontrunner for the Democratic
party’s presidential nomination has so far declined to say what she thinks
would be the ideal national minimum wage. While campaigning in New
Hampshire this week, she implied that the ideal wage might differ depending
on location.

“I support the local efforts that are going on that are making it possible
for people working in certain localities to actually earn $15,” Clinton
said in a response to a question from a BuzzFeed News reporter on Thursday
while campaigning in New Hampshire.

“I think part of the reason that the Congress and very strong Democratic
supporters of increasing the minimum wage are trying to debate and
determine what’s the national floor is because there are different economic
environments. And what you can do in Los Angeles or in New York may not
work in other places.”

Democrats in Congress have put forward proposals in the House and the
Senate to raise the federally mandated minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since July 2009. While she has
previously said that US wages need to be higher, Clinton has not yet
revealed whether she is more inclined to support a national minimum wage of
$12 an hour that of $15 an hour.

Among those opposing raising the federal minimum wage are businesses big
and large. As she has campaigned the past few months, more than once
Clinton has said she wants to be a small-business president, and referring
the issue of minimum wage increases to local government could be just the
way to win them over.

Other Democratic presidential candidates have a different approach.

“I strongly support the national movement to raise the minimum wage to $15
an hour, because it will lift millions of families out of poverty and
create better customers for American businesses,” said former Maryland
governor Martin O’Malley. “Some people will say this is hard to do. And it
will be. But leadership is about forging public consensus – not following
it. On this issue, we must lead with our progressive values to rebuild the
American Dream.”

Earlier this week, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders pointed out that he, too,
supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour – an issue that he
says Clinton “has not been quite so clear on”.

And while Clinton might be taking heat from her own party, those on the
other side share a similar sentiment – that the minimum wage should be left
to the individual states. In March, while speaking at a campaign stop in
South Carolina, Jeb Bush said that the raising of wages should be left to
the private sector and local governments.

“We need to leave it to the private sector. I think state minimum wages are
fine; the federal government shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.

“I’m sure, on the surface, without any conversation, without any digging
into it, people say: ‘Yeah, everyone’s wages should be up.’ But the federal
government doing this will make it harder for the first rung of the ladder
to be reached, particularly for young people. Particularly for people that
have less education.”

At that time, the Democratic National Committee criticized Bush for siding
with big corporations instead of working families.

Berlin Rosen, a public relations consulting firm that represents the Fight
for $15 movement and many of the working families that would be affected,
declined to comment on Clinton’s remarks when reached by the Guardian.

Shortly after, however, the agency issued a statement on a Thursday vote by
the Kansas City council to raise the city’s minimum wage to $13 an hour by
2020. The press release said that such an increase would not have happened
without the Fight for $15 movement and added that $13 an hour did not go
far enough.

“Even though $13 is a decent start, it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Workers in Kansas City need $15 to support our families and we can’t wait,”
Osmara Ortiz, who works at Burger King and earns $8.30 an hour, said in the
press release. “Across the country, $15 is fast becoming the new baseline
minimum wage.”

*Elizabeth Warren Challenges Hillary Clinton to Stop the Revolving Door
<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122324/elizabeth-warren-challenges-hillary-clinton-end-revolving-door>
// National Journal // David Dayen – July 17, 2015*

At the Netroots Nation convention on Friday, Senator Elizabeth Warren
delivered a direct challenge to Hillary Clinton and all Democratic
presidential campaigns to support legislation that would end the “revolving
door” between top government positions and corporate America.

“Anyone who wants to be president should appoint only people who have
already demonstrated they are independent,” Warren said to the progressive
convention-goers, “who have already demonstrated that they can hold giant
banks accountable, who have already demonstrated that they embrace the kind
of ambitious economic policies that we need to rebuild opportunity and a
strong middle class in this country.”

This is the first time Warren has decided to engage in the presidential
election, which activists tried for months to get her to enter. Instead of
asking candidates to endorse one of her particular policies on bank reform
or student loans, Warren is focusing on the personnel who will implement
those policies. It’s a notable choice that dovetails with Warren’s interest
in ensuring that executive branch appointments will not tip the scales in
favor of Wall Street or private industry, seen most directly in the fight
to block Antonio Weiss from the No. 3 position in the Treasury Department.
Warren raised the profile of Weiss, a longtime bank executive, enough for
the administration to revoke his nomination.

“Sure, laws matter. But it also matters who interprets those laws, who
enforces those laws,” Warren said. “Think of it this way: How would the
world be different today if, when the economic crisis hit, Joe Stiglitz had
been secretary of the Treasury and Simon Johnson and Robert Reich had been
key economic advisers?”

Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, has
struggled with a perception from the liberal wing of the party that she has
close ties to Wall Street, fueled by big bank donations to the Clinton
family foundation and speeches she's made at places like Goldman Sachs.
While Warren doesn’t mention Clinton by name, the implication is clearly to
force her to embrace ending the revolving door.

Specifically, Warren challenged all presidential candidates to endorse a
bill introduced this week by Senator Tammy Baldwin and Representative
Elijah Cummings called the Financial Services Conflict of Interest Act,
which would change a variety of ethics laws around presidential
appointments. The bill would ban the golden parachutes for government
service given by financial services firms to executives who leave for jobs
in the White House or regulatory agencies. Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and
other firms have handed out these bonuses, which provide incentives for
bank executives to get hired for positions regulating the industries they
came from.

The Baldwin-Cummings bill would also increase prohibitions on former
executive branch officials from lobbying the government, from one to two
years. It expands “lobbying contact” to close loopholes and cover any
lobbying activities. Finally, the bill requires executive branch personnel
to recuse themselves from any official activities that would directly
benefit their former employers, or clients they might have worked for as a
lobbyist. “Wall Street insiders have enough influence in Washington already
without locking up one powerful job after another in the executive branch
of our government,” Warren said.

While the Baldwin-Cummings legislation faces long odds of passage in a
Republican Congress, they can serve as a model for an incoming Democratic
President. Warren is trying to use those new rules as a benchmark of
conduct, and signaling that she would work just as hard to torpedo any
nominations that diverged from this standard.

Most recently, Warren has helped to stop the nomination of Keir Gumbs, a
lawyer with corporate law firm Covington and Burling, whom the Obama
administration sought to install on the five-member panel of the Securities
and Exchange Commission. Gumbs ran a seminar for corporate clients on how
to dodge taxes, in particular through shifting their headquarters overseas
in a corporate “inversion.”

The Obama White House has plucked many of its top regulatory officers from
the corporate world, or from the Robert Rubin wing of the Clinton
administration. It has been difficult for progressives and financial
reformers to build an experienced bench, and often people like Warren have
to play defense. But these anti-revolving door principles would provide a
forcing mechanism for future presidents to look elsewhere to fill their
administrations, such as academia or progressive advocacy organizations.

These issues aren’t always a major focus of progressive activists, and
Warren wants to change that. “The only way that candidates for president—or
for any office—will slow down the revolving door, the only way candidates
will say 'enough is enough' is if you—YOU—demand that they say it.”

Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee responded to
Warren’s remarks by saying they “offered a framework for how Democratic
presidential candidates can promise to reduce Wall Street influence in key
appointments.” The PCCC added that they would “ask all Democratic
presidential candidates to make specific commitments—and to make down
payments on that promise by ensuring progressive economic thinkers are on
their campaign policy teams.”

*Planned Parenthood Pours Cash to Clinton
<http://freebeacon.com/politics/planned-parenthood-pours-cash-to-clinton/>
// Free Beacon // Bill McMorris – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton is the presidential candidate of choice for Planned
Parenthood employees, according to campaign financial records released
Wednesday.

The former secretary of state collected nearly $10,000 from nine
individuals who work for the country’s largest abortion provider, including
from several high ranking executives at the billion-dollar operation. The
first quarter fundraising total nearly matches the amount Clinton received
over the course of her previous three political runs.

She received far more from Planned Parenthood employees than her Democratic
rivals, the former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I., VT), the former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee, and the former
Virginia senator Jim Webb. Webb, O’Malley, and Sanders have perfect
pro-abortion voting records, while Chafee scored a 90, according to NARAL
rankings. But Clinton raised 20 times as much money from Planned Parenthood
employees. Sanders was the only other candidate to receive money from the
abortion provider, garnering two donations totaling $500.

Vicki Cowart, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains, Melissa
Flournoy, the state director of Louisiana Planned Parenthood, and Catherine
Valentine, general counsel for the San Jose-based Planned Parenthood Mar
Monte, all contributed the primary maximum of $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign.
Clinton led the entire presidential field with more than $46 million in
total fundraising.

The FEC disclosures were released one day after video emerged of a top
doctor from Planned Parenthood discussing the harvesting of organs from
aborted babies. The non-profit Center for Medical Progress released footage
of a nearly three-hour lunch two activists had with Dr. Deborah Nucatola,
who ate salad and sipped wine during the conversation.

The organization’s president, Cecile Richards, apologized on Thursday for
Nucatola’s tone while defending the practice.

Nearly every Republican candidate, including the pro-choice former New York
governor George Pataki, condemned the video and Planned Parenthood
following the release. No Democratic candidate for president has publicly
addressed the controversy.

Planned Parenthood has supported the Democratic party in the past. It
poured $18 million into outside spending groups in 2014 and 2012, according
to the Center for Responsive Politics. Most of its nearly $6 million in
direct contributions since 1990 have gone to Democrats. Every Democratic
candidate except for Webb has benefitted from this cash influx at the
federal level. Sanders and Chafee have received nearly $25,000 combined
over the course of their careers.

The Washington Free Beacon reached out to the Clinton campaign asking
whether the cash-rich frontrunner planned on returning Planned Parenthood
donations, as she did contributions from the pornographer Larry Flynt. A
spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

*Clintons Facilitated Donor’s Haiti Project that Defrauded U.S. Out of
Millions
<http://freebeacon.com/politics/clintons-facilitated-donors-haiti-project-that-defrauded-u-s-out-of-millions/>
// Free Beacon // Alana Goodman – July 17, 2015*

A federal agency rushed to approve funding for a Clinton donor’s sham Haiti
recovery project that ended up defrauding the U.S. government out of
millions, according to court transcripts and internal government documents
obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Miami businessman Claudio Osorio, who is currently serving 12 years in
federal prison on fraud charges, leveraged his relationship with Bill and
Hillary Clinton to help his company InnoVida obtain a $10 million loan from
the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) for a Haiti housing
project in 2010.

OPIC is an independent government agency that submits its annual budget
requests through the State Department and works closely with the agency.

Bill Clinton helped arrange for a high-powered Florida law firm to
represent Osorio during loan negotiations with OPIC, according to court
testimony. An internal OPIC memo said Hillary Clinton was prepared to
marshal State Department resources to assist with the donor’s project.

InnoVida was supposed to use the funding to build houses in Haiti after the
earthquake, but it defaulted on the loan and the homes were never built.

After InnoVida went bankrupt in 2011, a court-appointed investigator said
it appeared that over $30 million of its funds had been diverted to foreign
bank accounts and were not retrievable.

Osorio was later accused of using the company to run a Ponzi-like scheme,
bilking government and private investors out of a collective $40 million
and using their money to fund his lavish lifestyle—making payments on his
Miami Beach mansion, buying a Maserati and maintaining his Colorado ski
chalet.

He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in 2013.

Much of the media coverage of InnoVida has focused on Jeb Bush’s
involvement as a consultant and board member. But previously unreported
government documents and testimony from the 2013 fraud trial of InnoVida’s
chief financial officer reveal that Osorio’s relationship with the Clintons
played a central role in InnoVida’s efforts to obtain OPIC funding for the
house-building scam.

The OPIC official who helped approve the InnoVida loan wrote in a 2010
internal memo that “secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has made available
State Department resources to assist with logistical arrangements” for the
project and “Former president Bill Clinton is personally in contact with
the company [InnoVida] to organize its logistical and support needs.”

The memo added that the Clinton Global Initiative had agreed to purchase
“6500 homes in Haiti from InnoVida within the next year.”

During the loan process, Osorio repeatedly emphasized his connections to
the Clintons during conversations with OPIC officials, boasting about
taking a trip to Haiti with the former president after the earthquake and
telling an OPIC manager that he had a direct line to Hillary Clinton.

He also brought members of the Clintons’ inner circle on board with the
project. InnoVida brought on Jonathan Mantz, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 finance
director and currently the senior financial adviser at the
Clinton-supporting Priorities USA PAC, to lobby OPIC for the loan. The
company’s board included Chris Korge, a top Clinton moneyman who has raised
millions for them, and close ally Gen. Wesley Clark.

InnoVida also retained top Florida law firm Shutts & Bowen to help
negotiate the loan agreement with OPIC.

An attorney at Shutts & Bowen testified that Bill Clinton asked the firm to
represent InnoVida in the negotiations. One of the Clintons’ top bundlers,
Alexander Heckler, was a partner at the law group.

A spokesperson for Hillary Clinton did not respond to request for comment.

OPIC officials denied in court testimony that they approved the loan under
political pressure. They also said they never tried to verify Osorio’s
claims that the Clintons were assisting him with the Haiti project, even
after OPIC used this information to justify the loan approval and began
dispensing millions of dollars to his company.

InnoVida’s loan request was approved by OPIC after just two weeks. The
process typically takes months or years, agency officials testified. The
loan was also approved before InnoVida had turned over its financial
statements.

In a rare move, OPIC waived a requirement that the company provide an
independently audited financial report up-front, even though Osorio had
previously run a company that was sued for manipulating its stock prices.

The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group that has
spent months investigating the documents related to this case, told the
Free Beacon that it was “a textbook example of a corrupt pay-to-play
scheme” and called for an investigation of OPIC.

“This case represents a new low in the misuse of public funds by Clinton
allies,” said NLPC chairman Ken Boehm. “There must be an investigation into
why this Clinton donor was using a law firm recommended by Bill Clinton and
one of Hillary Clinton’s top fund raisers to improperly obtain millions
from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.”

A spokesperson for OPIC did not respond to request for comment.

Osorio’s relationship with the Clintons dates back to at least 2007. That
fall, Osorio hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential
campaign at his Star Island mansion in Miami Beach. Bill Clinton gave a
speech at the event and “explain[ed] to an audience that Osorio planned to
build 10,000 houses at $5,000 apiece for impoverished Haitians,” according
to an NPR report.

Osorio contributed between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation in
2009. His company InnoVida followed up with another $10,000 to $25,000
donation. The foundation returned the money in 2013, after a
court-appointed receiver sued to recover funds for swindled investors.

InnoVida approached OPIC in late 2009 through its lobbyist Mantz, according
to an OPIC email. Initially the company said it wanted the loan to build a
panel manufacturing facility in Haiti. OPIC reportedly expressed interest
in the idea, but InnoVida allegedly neglected to pay a $20,000 retainer and
dropped out of contact that December.

On Jan. 13, 2010, the day after the earthquake in Haiti, Osorio reached out
again to OPIC’s renewable energy director Lynn Tabernacki, this time with a
proposal to build houses on the island.

After that discussion, Tabernacki said her team rushed to approve the
project, working “day and night and weekends to make sure that we followed
all of our credit policies and procedures to get it done as quickly as
possible.”

Tabernacki helped InnoVida’s chief finance officer write the loan
application, telling him in a Jan. 19 email to “[p]lease let me know when
you’ve finished so that I can immediately send it to our policy group.”

Two days later, Tabernacki and another OPIC official flew to Miami to visit
the InnoVida offices. During the meeting, Osorio reiterated to Tabernacki
he was in close contact with Bill Clinton and that he had Hillary Clinton’s
“ear” at the State Department.

Five days later, on Jan. 26, Tabernacki sent a memo to her supervisors at
OPIC requesting approval for the InnoVida loan.

She wrote that InnoVida was “well placed to support the recovery efforts in
Haiti,” noting its relationship with the Clinton Global Initiative and
“U.S. persons of political influence that are able to assist in advancing
the company’s plans.”

“Former president Bill Clinton is personally in contact with the company to
organize its logistical and support needs,” added Tabernacki. “[InnoVida
board member] Wesley Clark is arranging for military transport of the
initial structural panels. Steven Green (former CEO of Samsonite
Corporation and former ambassador to Singapore) will provide barge space on
ocean vessels, when necessary, to ship the factory components. And
secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has made available State Department
resources to assist with logistical arrangements.”

Tabernacki later testified that this memo was based on claims from Osorio,
and she did not take any steps to corroborate the information. However, she
said the part about Hillary Clinton was accurate.

“The Hillary Clinton aspect was true, because at that point, we had—not
myself, but there were others within OPIC that had been making arrangements
with the State Department for the activities that were going on the ground
[in Haiti],” said Tabernacki.

InnoVida was the only company to receive an OPIC loan for a Haiti-related
project in 2010, according to the agency’s annual report.

Senior OPIC officials green-lighted the InnoVida loan the same day
Tabernacki sent the approval request. At the time, the company had yet to
turn over any financial statements. Lawyers for OPIC and InnoVida had still
not negotiated certain contractual terms.

While OPIC typically requires companies to turn over audited financial
information before receiving a loan, it granted InnoVida a six-month
extension. The company turned over an unaudited financial
statement—reportedly based on questionable numbers—on January 28, two days
after the loan was approved.

Tabernacki testified that the agency expedited the approval process because
it was trying to expand relief efforts in Haiti after the earthquake.

The defense attorney who cross-examined Tabernacki was not available to
comment because he died shortly after the case ended. His client,
InnoVida’s CFO Craig Toll, was sentenced to four years in prison for his
role in the company.

The NLPC said an investigation into OPIC is necessary.

“When a criminal like Osorio steals money meant for earthquake victims, the
public is entitled to answers,” said Boehm.

*Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Even Maintain an Office at Brooklyn Headquarters
<http://freebeacon.com/politics/hillary-clinton-doesnt-even-maintain-an-office-at-brooklyn-headquarters/>
// Free Beacon // Morgan Chalfant – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton does not maintain an office at her campaign headquarters at
1 Pierrepont Plaza in Brooklyn, New York, electing instead to work
exclusively out of an upscale midtown Manhattan office when she visits the
state.

According to Politico, a recent tour of the two floors of office space
occupied by the Clinton campaign in Brooklyn revealed that Hillary has no
literal place in the headquarters despite the fact that the Democratic
presidential candidate has demonstrated her enthusiasm for the less pricey
New York neighborhood.

“Greetings from Brooklyn, USA!” Clinton tweeted in May, including a photo
of her posing with a New York license plate with the lettering “BKLYNUSA.”
The campaign has also released video of Clinton introducing herself to
Brooklyn residents as their “new neighbor.”

However, the Democratic presidential candidate has forgone an office in the
Brooklyn neighborhood for one in a Manhattan space near Times Square. The
seven offices on the 27th floor of an office building on West 45th Street
are paid for by the Clinton campaign, the rent for which amounts to about
$25,000 per month.

She has visited the Brooklyn space a single time.

The midtown office also houses 10 to 15 campaign staffers, though the
majority of individuals working on Hillary’s presidential campaign —
including chairman John Podesta and manager Robby Mook–hold offices and
work regularly out of the Brooklyn office space.

The Clinton campaign, known for its frugality, has spent $18.7 million
since its launch in April.

*Clinton campaign fails to disclose bundler actively lobbying for Morocco
<http://freebeacon.com/politics/clintons-man-from-morocco/> // Free Beacon
// Brent Scher – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign failed to list a registered
lobbyist for Morocco in its legally required disclosure of all bundled
fundraising done by lobbyists, according to a Washington Free Beacon
analysis.

Edward Gabriel, who was named U.S. Ambassador to Morocco by former
President Bill Clinton in 1997, now runs the Gabriel Company, a Washington,
D.C., lobbying firm that has had the government of Morocco as a client
since 2002 and has been paid more than $3.7 million by the nation since
that point.

Though Gabriel appeared on a list posted to the Clinton campaign website on
Wednesday afternoon of all the bundlers that have raised over $100,000, his
name is absent from documents filed to the Federal Election Commission
listing all the other registered lobbyists that have been fundraising for
the campaign.

All contributions bundled by registered lobbyists must be disclosed to the
FEC each quarter.

A search conducted on Friday afternoon using the Foreign Agents
Registration Act (FARA) database found that the Gabriel Company is still an
active registrant. Edward Gabriel signed its most recently filed
continuation. FARA requires all groups hired to lobby on behalf of a
foreign government to register with the Justice Department.

Gabriel was one of the many listed members of Clinton’s National Finance
Committee that had raised over $100,000 for the campaign. He also
contributed to the Clinton Foundation, to which he has contributed as
recently as 2014 and given between $100,001 and $250,000.

Although the fact that Gabriel has been fundraising for the campaign was
disclosed through her campaign website provided list, significantly less
information is made available on that list than would be made available
through the FEC filing.

The list of “Hillblazers,” as the campaign has dubbed them, only provides a
name and a city of residence without disclosing any information about how
much each has raised. Each entry on the FEC filing of lobbyist bundlers,
however, is required to include name, address, employer, and the exact
amount that has been raised.

Gabriel is not Clinton’s only bundler that is registered to lobby for
foreign governments.

It was reported on Thursday by Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski that two of
Clinton’s listed bundlers, Matthew Bernstein and John Merrigan of DLA
Piper, are also both registered to lobby for foreign governments. Bernstein
has lobbied for the United Arab Emirates and the German State of
Rheinland-Pfalz, while Merrigan is registered to lobby for the United Arab
Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Both Bernstein and Merrigan are listed on Clinton’s official FEC disclosure.

The Clinton-Gabriel relationship extends to before he was named ambassador
in 1997. Gabriel was a donor to Bill Clinton’s 1996 presidential campaign
and maxed out his contributions to Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential
campaign in 2008.

Money from Morocco has flowed toward the Clintons as well. On the day that
Clinton announced her current presidential campaign, it was reported that
the Clinton Foundation would be paid at least $1 million to hold a May
event in Marrakech.

The event was paid for by OCM, the state-owned energy company that is
despised by many in Morocco.

“Hillary Clinton sold her soul when they accepted that money,” a former
miner for the company told Politico‘s Ken Vogel in Morocco. “We are
concerned that if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency of the United States
of America, she will take the side of Moroccans even more.”

The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

*PolitiFact: Hillary Clinton addressed financial regulations early in
crisis
<http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/politifact-hillary-clinton-addressed-financial-regulations-early-in-crisis/2237738>
// Tampa Bay Times // Lauren Carroll – July 17, 2015*

The statement

Says she "called for addressing risks of derivatives, cracking down on
subprime mortgages and improving financial oversight" early on in the
financial crisis.

Hillary Clinton, July 13, in remarks in Manhattan

The ruling

Clinton used to be the senator from New York, the home of Wall Street. She
has a history of campaign backing from the finance industry and of
delivering high-priced speeches to finance firms, such as Goldman Sachs.
And her husband, former President Bill Clinton, signed the repeal of a bank
break-up bill, the Glass-Steagall Act — a deregulation that some critics
think contributed to the financial crisis.

So we questioned Hillary Clinton's record of addressing financial
regulations. Did she address derivatives, subprime mortgages and financial
oversight so early in the crisis?

While the financial crisis came to a head in summer 2008, problems with
housing started to bubble up in 2007 during Clinton's ill-fated
presidential primary campaign. On the trail, Clinton addressed these
nascent issues — particularly the mortgage crisis — as early as March of
that year.

Clinton, still a senator at the time, delivered a speech on the volatility
of the subprime mortgage market on March 15, 2007. She said too many people
were ignoring warning signs.

"The subprime problems are now creating massive issues on Wall Street,"
Clinton said. "It's a serious problem affecting our housing market and
millions of hard-working families."

She gave specific proposals for addressing subprime mortgages, including
expanding the role of the Federal Housing Administration, more borrowing
options for underprivileged and first-time home buyers, more safeguards
against predatory lending practices and policies intended to prevent
foreclosures.

In August 2007, she delivered a similar speech about dealing with problems
from subprime mortgages. There, she reiterated earlier proposals, and also
suggested laws establishing national standards and registration for loan
brokers, as well as regulations on lenders.

"I think the subprime market was sort of like the canary in the mine," she
said. "You know, it was telling us loudly and clearly, 'There are problems
here.' "

It didn't become law, but Clinton sponsored a bill to implement these
policies in September 2007.

The first time she mentioned derivatives was in a November 2007 speech in
Iowa. (A derivative is a financial product that allows investors to hedge
against price fluctuations in an underlying asset.)

"We need to start addressing the risks posed by derivatives and other
complex financial products," she said. "You can't let Wall Street send the
bill to your street with the bright ideas that just don't work out.
Derivatives and products like them are posing real risks to families, as
Wall Street writes down tens of billions of dollars in investments.
Companies are taking the loss of a billion here and a billion there simply
because the securities they own are worth less than they thought."

In the same speech, she spoke again of the risky lending that led to the
subprime mortgage crisis, adding that she called on then-President George
W. Bush to convene a conference to find a solution.

And she also pushed for more oversight of financial markets: "So as
president, I will move to establish the 21st century oversight we need in a
21st century global marketplace. I will call for an immediate review of
these new investment products and for plans to make them more transparent."

At the tail end of her campaign, in March 2008 — still before the financial
crisis hit a peak later that summer — Clinton released a six-point plan to
increase financial regulation. The plan included, in part, more oversight
of derivatives and other new financial products, establishment of mortgage
standards and strengthening of some consumer protections.

After becoming secretary of state in 2009, Clinton made noticeably fewer
comments on domestic policy and financial regulation. But the record shows
that establishing policies to address the then-nascent financial crisis was
a key point of her campaign platform in 2007 and 2008.

We rate her claim True.

*Clinton's campaign claims to be small donor driven; facts show otherwise
<http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/17/clintons-campaign-claims-to-be-small-donor-driven-facts-show-otherwise/>
// Daily Caller // Derek Hunter – July 17, 2015*

In an email to supporters, John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign
chairman and founder of the pro-Clinton Center for American Progress,
warned Republicans were out-fundraising the former secretary of state.

Podesta also declared the campaign to be under “a ferocious onslaught of
dark money” from Republicans, but that Hillary is funded by grassroots
Americans who’ve “chipped in $1, $5, or $10.” An examination of the facts
shows something different.

The email, under the subject line: “A ferocious onslaught of dark money,”
says, “Republicans are out-raising us 4 to 1. If we win the Democratic
nomination for president and this pace keeps up, we are in for a ferocious
onslaught of dark money, regardless of who the nominee is on the other
side.” But what does that “4 to 1″ margin mean?

The Clinton campaign took in $46.7 million in its first quarter of
existence, no small sum. Even NBC News called it a “Huge Fundraising Haul.”
The next highest total for a campaign was another Democrat, Vermont Sen.
Bernie Sanders raised $15 million. Sen. Marco Rubio came in third with $12
million. So where does the “4 to 1″ come from? Turns out it’s creative math.

The Clinton campaign combined the totals each of the current top-tier
Republican campaign raised, $53 million, with the money raised by Super
PACs associated with them, $203 million, for a total of $256 million for
the GOP. Clinton’s super PACs raised $24.3 million. If you add that to her
total, as she does with the GOP, her total is $71 million. That’s roughly 3
to 1, not 4 to 1, but it’s still a false number.

The Clinton camp combines all the money raised by GOP candidates, but
ignores the money raised by Sanders.

If you add in the money Sanders raised, the Democrats’ total increases to
$86 million, closer to 2.5 to one. But Clinton’s team created a false
equivalence — one against all. Clinton’s campaign, by itself, has raised
more than the top four GOP candidates combined — $46 million to $43 million.

The Clinton email also attempts to give the impression of a grassroots
movement. It reads, in part:

We’re running a different kind of race. More than 250,000 people have
chipped in $1, $5, or $10 because they care enough about this election to
have a financial stake in it.

The wording is a deliberate attempt to mislead the reader into thinking the
Clinton campaign is funded by small dollar donors, average Americans simply
“chipping in” what they can. But again, math tells a different story.

If each of Clinton’s 250,000 donors “chipped in” all the low dollar amounts
listed in the email — $1, $5, $10, for a total of $16 each — that would
total $4 million. That leaves $42 million unaccounted for.

The Washington Post reports only 17 percent of Clinton’s haul, or $7
million, came from donations of $200 or less, which leaves $39 million from
high dollar donors. Not exactly the grassroots “different kind of campaign”
Podesta is telling supporters.

Add further fudging to the numbers, the New York Post reported the Clinton
campaign made concerted effort to attract $1 donations from as many people
as possible to dilute the high dollar donor numbers.

*17 Things Hillary Says She Will Change About the Economy
<http://www.newsweek.com/17-things-hillary-says-she-will-change-about-economy-354702>
// Newsweek // Ken McIntyre – July 17, 2015*

In a speech designed to float ideas for raising incomes for “hardworking
Americans,” Hillary Clinton says she’d make some changes if elected
president.

Clinton, considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, used
her appearance July 13 at the New School in New York’s Greenwich Village to
outline an economic message organized by what she called “strong growth,”
“fair growth” and “long-term growth.”

“We can’t create enough jobs and new businesses without more growth, and we
can’t build strong families and support our consumer economy without more
fairness,” she said, adding:

The defining economic challenge of our time is clear: We must raise incomes
for hardworking Americans so they can afford a middle-class life. We must
drive strong and steady income growth that lifts up families and lifts up
our country.

Much of what Clinton advocated—from family-friendly leave to equal pay for
women—reflected familiar liberal or progressive goals, including tweaks of
programs installed by President Barack Obama.

Here are 17 specific things the former first lady and secretary of state
said she would do if she returns to the White House as president:

1         Achieve “comprehensive immigration reform” as an engine of
growth. “Bringing millions of hardworking people into the formal economy,”
she said, “would increase our gross domestic product by an estimated $700
billion over 10 years.”

2        Set up an “infrastructure bank” that channels public and private
funds to finance “world-class airports, railways, roads, bridges and ports.”

3        Spend more on “scientific and medical research that spawns
innovative companies and creates entire new industries.”

4        Provide “quality, affordable child care” as a “growth strategy.”
Clinton said it could be done “in a way that doesn’t impose unfair burdens
on businesses—especially small businesses.”

5        Change “the current rules for our economy” so that jobs such as
“actually building and selling things” don’t pay so much less than work
such as financial trading. She would not only raise the minimum wage but
“go further,” Clinton said. “I’ll crack down on bosses who exploit
employees by misclassifying them as contractors or even steal their wages.”

6        Propose ways to “encourage companies to share profits with their
employees.”

7        Ensure that tax reforms target “hugely successful companies,”
which “should not be able to game the system and avoid paying their fair
share.” She decried the fact that “companies who can’t afford high-price
lawyers and lobbyists end up paying more.”

8       To reverse the decline of unions in the private sector, “stand up
to efforts across our country to undermine worker bargaining power.”

9        Ensure that, in the next 10 years, every 4-year-old has access to
“high-quality preschool.” She added, “I want to call for a great outpouring
of support from our faith community, our business community, our academic
institutions, from philanthropy and civic groups and concerned citizens, to
really help parents, particularly parents who are facing a lot of
obstacles.”

10    To revitalize poor neighborhoods, embrace conservative ideas such as
“reviving the New Markets Tax Credit and Empowerment Zones” to create
greater incentives for private investors.

11     Promote “clear-eyed capitalism,” which she said is not charity.
“Many companies have prospered by improving wages and training their
workers that then yield higher productivity, better service and larger
profits.” One proposal: a $1,500 apprenticeship tax credit for every worker
trained and hired by an employer.

12    Change capital gains taxes “to reward longer-term investments that
create jobs more than just quick trades” and propose other ways “to help
CEOs and shareholders alike focus on the next decade rather than just the
next day.”

13    Impose regulations on financial institutions that “go beyond
Dodd-Frank” and “rein in excessive risks” identified by the government.
“Too many of our major financial institutions are still too complex and too
risky,” she said.

14    Appoint regulators “who understand that [the philosophy of] ‘too big
to fail’ is still too big a problem” and who will “ensure that no firm is
too complex to manage or oversee.”

15     Prosecute individuals and companies suspected of fraud or “other
criminal wrongdoing” and funnel any recovered damages into a trust fund “to
benefit the public.”

16    “Make sure Washington learns from how well local governments,
business and non-profits are working together in successful cities and
towns across America.”

17     “Drive progress” without passing bills and making rules. “As
president, I’ll use the power to convene, connect and collaborate to build
partnerships that actually get things done.”

*Nah-nah: For Clinton, 'It's easy to get attention in mainstream media' //
Washington Examiner
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/team-clinton-its-easy-to-get-attention-in-mainstream-media/article/2568468>
// Paul Bedard – July 17, 2015*

Not that they're bragging or anything, but Hillary Clinton's campaign team
says it's so easy to get the attention of the mainstream media that they
are also focusing now on getting the eyeballs of the rest of America that
doesn't follow the general press.

While most other candidates are media-starved, Clinton's campaign spends
much of its time fielding questions from big city newspapers and network
TV. The coverage was so heavy during July 4, for example, that a rope was
used near the candidate to prod reporters along.

At a media breakfast this week hosted by the Christian Science Monitor,
campaign communications boss Jennifer Palmieri said with such a wealth of
mainstream media coverage, the challenge is getting others not plugged in
to pay attention.

"The folks around this table are particularly focused on our campaign,
there's a lot of interest, so it's easy to get attention in the mainstream
media world and that's a big part, a majority of what we do," she told the
reporters.

"But you can't just talk to audiences following mainstream media and think
you've done your job, so I don't look at as going around the media, you
just can't talk to just the media and not utilize these other platforms,"
namely social media, she added.

Not so for so many other candidates, especially among the second tier of 15
GOP candidates.

Take former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum for example. He won the 2012
Iowa straw poll and was among the last to challenge Mitt Romney for the
Republican nomination.

When he did the same breakfast this week, he arrived on foot with just one
aide, no ropes. And about a third of the number of reporters showed up to
hear the presidential candidate than Clinton's aides.

Santorum said he is confident, but wouldn't mind a little more press
coverage. He spoke the truth about the impact of the media:

"What's driving national [poll] numbers is news coverage, that's what
drives national numbers. If you folks had written as many stories about Jeb
Bush as you have Lindsey Graham, my guess is that Bush's numbers wouldn't
be anywhere near what they are today," he said.

*How often do Clinton campaign staffers really ride the bus?
<HTTP://WWW.WASHINGTONEXAMINER.COM/HOW-OFTEN-DO-CLINTON-CAMPAIGN-STAFFERS-REALLY-RIDE-THE-BUS/ARTICLE/2568487?CUSTOM_CLICK=RSS>
// Washington Examiner // Ariel Cohen – July 17, 2015*

Despite reports that Hillary Clinton's campaign is skimping on
transportation costs by relying on buses, Federal Elections Committee
reports show that the Democratic front-runner's campaign spent more money
on train rides and air travel.

In this first quarter of the election cycle, the Clinton campaign spent
$42,397.98 on Delta airline trips, $8713.10 on Amtrak rides, but only $661
on bus rides from Best Bus and BoltBus. The FEC fact sheet showed no
Greyhound trips, MegaBus rides or jaunts on the Vamoose Bus.

In early June, the Washington Post published a story reporting the Clinton
campaign was making an effort to cut costs by sending stafferson buses
between their New York City and Washington, D.C., offices. The piece was
headlined "How Cheap is Hillary Clinton's campaign? This cheap." Reporter
Anne Gearan rode the Vamoose bus from NYC to D.C. with Clinton campaign
Chairman John Podesta, as he spoke of how "staffer must schlep on the bus."

"The expectation is that if you're going to D.C., you're supposed to take
the bus," press secretary Brian Fallon said in the article.

But the average bus ticket from D.C. to NYC is $30, so at $661, the Clinton
campaign appears to have only paid for about 11 bus tickets over the past
two and a half months.

The Clinton campaign says these numbers don't tell the whole story, however.

"The low cost of a bus ticket is both the reason we encourage staff to take
it and the reason it doesn't add up as quickly as significantly more
expensive train tickets.," Hillary for America spokesman Josh Schwerin told
the Washington Examiner. "Bus tickets are so cheap they don't always meet
the threshold of being itemized expenses on a report and staffers can also
be reimbursed for their travel rather than the campaign paying the vendor
up front."

In 2008, Clinton's campaign was criticized being too flashy, using devices
such as the "Hill-a-copter" to transport the candidate between events. This
time around, the campaign chose a black van, fondly referred to as "the
Scooby Van," to transport Clinton around states.

This time around, the campaign has boasted a more tight-fisted image. A
late June New York Times article described lower level staffers having
trouble finding an apartment and paying rent in New York City, where
Clinton's headquarters are located. A recent email to donors begged
supporters to open up their homes to staffers with "a spare room — or just
a spare couch!" as they struggle to find affordable housing on the Clinton
payroll.

*Bill Clinton to attend Starkey gala in St. Paul honoring George W. Bush
<https://www.minnpost.com/political-agenda/2015/07/bill-clinton-attend-starkey-gala-st-paul-honoring-george-w-bush>
// MinnPost // Joe Kimball – July 17, 2015*

President Bill Clinton is now on the guest list for the July 26 Starkey
Hearing Foundation Gala in St. Paul. He joins President George W. Bush, who
is being honored at the annual event this year for his contributions to the
foundation's charitable work.

Katy Perry is the headline entertainer at the event at St. Paul's
RiverCentre, which always features many celebrities. Last year, it raised
nearly $9 million.

Foundation officials say Bush helped provide customized hearing devices to
222 people in Tanzania.

In announcing that Clinton will attend next week's gala as a special guest,
officials said he'd been honored by the foundation in 2011 and that he has
joined many global hearing missions, including work in Zambia, Rwanda and
Kenya.

*New institute to carry on work of HIV pioneer and MH17 victim Joep Lange
<http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2015/07/new-institute-carry-work-hiv-pioneer-and-mh17-victim-joep-lange>
// Science Magazine // Martin Enserink – July 17, 2015*

AMSTERDAM—One year ago today, the missile attack on Malaysia Airlines
flight 17 (MH17) ended the life of Joep Lange, a towering figure in the
world of HIV/AIDS and global health. But Lange's work will live on in a new
institute that aims to bring his characteristic combination of research and
on-the-ground action to bear on health problems in developing countries.

The Joep Lange Institute was formally announced on Wednesday, along with a
new, rotating chair and fellowship program at the Academic Medical Center,
where Lange was a professor and founded the Amsterdam Institute for Global
Health and Development. The new institute will open its doors in Amsterdam
later this year, supported by some $20 million from various private sources
in the United States. A spokesperson declined to name these benefactors but
says they will be announced later this year. The Joep Lange Chair and
Fellows program will be partly funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.

Lange died while traveling to an international AIDS conference in
Melbourne, Australia, along with his partner and co-worker Jacqueline van
Tongeren and 296 other people on board MH17. Their plane was shot down in
eastern Ukraine while en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

In the global health community, Lange is remembered as a scientist who
didn't just study problems but also tried to solve them. For instance, he
was instrumental in convincing pharmaceutical companies in the mid-1990s
that a cocktail of drugs was the best way to fight HIV, said David Cooper,
the head of the Kirby Institute for infection and immunity in society in
Sydney, Australia, in an interview last year with ScienceInsider.

Once those cocktails had proven successful and had been widely introduced
in Western countries, Lange became a passionate and effective advocate for
bringing them to the millions of HIV-infected people in developing
countries, which many at the time deemed impractical or impossible. In a
video tribute released on Wednesday, former U.S. President Bill Clinton
recalled that Lange was one of the first partners of the Clinton Health
Access Initiative, with programs to dramatically increase access to HIV
medication in South Africa and Tanzania.

In the last decade of his life, Lange became interested in increasing
access to health care in general—by setting up health insurance plans in
Africa, for instance—and driving down poverty. "Joep was a true hero in the
world of health and development. Always ahead of this time, always a
driving force for innovation and inclusive economics," Clinton said. "I am
very grateful for the creation of the Joep Lange Institute so that his
legacy will live on."

Four others involved in the fight against HIV, all headed for the Melbourne
meeting, died a year ago: Glenn Thomas, a spokesman for the World Health
Organization; Pim de Kuijer and Martine de Schutter, who both worked for
STOP AIDS NOW!, a Dutch advocacy group; and Lucie van Mens, an advocate for
the use of female condoms at the Female Health Company.

*OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE*

*DECLARED*

*O’MALLEY*

*O’Malley-aligned super PAC hiring dozens of organizers in Iowa
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/17/omalley-aligned-super-pac-hiring-dozens-of-organizers-in-iowa/>
// WaPo // John Wagner - July 17, 2015 *

Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley is joined by his wife Katie
O'Malley as he announces his intention to seek the Democratic presidential
nomination during a speech in Federal Hill Park in Baltimore on Saturday,
May 30. (Jim Bourg/Reuters )

A super PAC backing Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley says it
has hired nearly 50 staffers so far to do on-the-ground organizing in Iowa
and could add as many as 100 more in advance of the state’s
first-in-the-nation caucuses.

Ron Boehmer, a spokesman for the Generation Forward PAC, said the effort
will include knocking on doors, phone banking and holding events to promote
O’Malley’s candidacy -- functions typically taken on by a campaign itself.

By law, the super PAC can’t coordinate with O’Malley’s campaign, so there
is bound to be some overlap as the group’s activities get underway later
this month, Boehmer said.

“Our view is that if people get touched by both us and the campaign, that’s
positive,” he said.”Every campaign in Iowa will be working to find caucus
voters, build a relationship with them and get them to caucus for their
candidate. O'Malley will have two organizations working to do that.”

Iowa is crucial to the fate of the former Maryland governor, who in early
state polls is lagging far behind Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.). O’Malley’s campaign is counting on a much
stronger-than-anticipated showing in Iowa to propel his candidacy forward
early next year.

In a memo to "interested parties" released Friday, Jake Oeth, O'Malley's
Iowa director, argued that his candidate would be well-positioned in the
state because of the amount of time O'Malley is spending on "retail
politics, where a hand-shake and an honest conversation matter far more
than even the largest rally." Oeth said that by the end of summer,
O'Malley's campaign will have "hired staff across the state, who call
thousands of Iowans and meet one-on-one with caucus goers every day."

Generation Forward is led by several relatively young supporters and former
staffers of O’Malley. The group has not disclosed how much it has raised so
far. O’Malley’s campaign reported taking in a relatively modest $2 million
during the first month after formally declaring his candidacy.

Unlike campaign organizations, super PACs can accept unlimited
contributions from donors.

Boehmer, a former O’Malley press aide, said the PAC has already opened an
office in Des Moines and is planning to open at least two additional
offices, in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

O’Malley was in Iowa on Thursday promoting a plan on immigration that he
released earlier this week in New York. On Friday night, he plans to speak
at a Democratic dinner in Cedar Rapids along with four others seeking the
party’s nomination: Clinton; Sanders; former Virginia senator Jim Webb; and
former Rhode Island governor and senator Lincoln Chafee.

Generation Forward plans a late-night social gathering nearby that will
include live music, an open bar and desserts, Boehmer said.

*Martin O'Malley finances: Solid pensions, modest assets
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/blog/bal-martin-omalley-finances-solid-pensions-modest-assets-20150717-story.html>
// AP // Jeff Horwitz - July 17, 2015 *

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley's time in public office
in Baltimore and Maryland has left him with limited assets but valuable
public pensions, according to new financial and tax records O'Malley
released Wednesday.

O'Malley and his wife, Catherine Curran O'Malley, a district court judge in
Baltimore, have earned solid salaries in recent years as public officials,
together bringing in nearly $270,000 in wages last year, supplemented by an
additional $61,000 in pension payments stemming from O'Malley's sixteen
years as a Baltimore mayor and councilman.

O'Malley will begin collecting in 2018 an additional pension from his time
as governor — which will be $90,000 a year based on the current governor's
salary. As a state judge, his wife is also in line to eventually receive a
pension as well. O'Malley's pensions alone, converted into the form of an
annuity, would be worth well over a million dollars.

But the O'Malleys have little savings aside from their pensions, a
circumstance that his campaign said reflects the cost of Catholic school
for the couple's four children and college tuition for two of them so far.
O'Malley's financial disclosure lists at least $300,000 in student loan
from the children's education.

"They made sacrifices and took on debt to invest in something they really
believe in - the best education possible for their daughters," spokeswoman
Haley Morris wrote in an e-mail.

In addition to the educational debt, the O'Malleys list a personal line of
credit between $100,000 and $250,000, and a mortgage of undisclosed size.
Other public records indicate O'Malley took out a 30-year mortgage for
$494,100 in December 2014 for the family's Baltimore home, which they
purchased for $549,000.

By law, presidential candidates must file a statement of their finances
with the Federal Election Commission — but O'Malley additionally released
the last five years of tax returns. Both the relatively straightforward
nature of the O'Malley's finances and the release of the tax returns
contrast with the disclosures by Hillary Rodham Clinton, the heavily
favored contender for the Democratic nomination.

Since leaving office, O'Malley has more than replaced his salary as
governor with fees from speaking engagements, a salary for a visiting
professorship at John Hopkins and a seat on the board of directors of
Barcoding Inc., a Baltimore-based technology company. Speaking fees account
for the majority of that income, with fees ranging from $5,000 for an event
hosted by JetBlue to $147,000 for a series of speeches delivered to
Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc., a California-based
geo-location and data company. During his time as Baltimore's mayor,
O'Malley championed the increasing use of such data to guide government
services and policy decisions.

O'Malley's speaking-fee income — while lavish by most Americans' standards
— pales next to that of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton's
financial disclosure form, released in May, showed that the Clintons earned
more than $25 million in speaking fees since the beginning of 2014.

*Super Pac backing Democrat Martin O'Malley could have 150 staffers in Iowa
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/17/super-pac-backing-democrat-martin-omalley-could-have-150-staffers-in-iowa?CMP=edit_2221>
// The Guardian // Ben Jacobs – July 17, 2015*

A Super Pac supporting former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley’s campaign
for the Democratic party presidential nomination could have more than 150
staffers on the ground in Iowa.

Ron Boehmer, a spokesman for Generation Forward, a pro-O’Malley Super Pac
confirmed to the Guardian that his organization had already hired 45
staffers to do on-the-ground organizing for the Iowa caucuses and was
planning on hiring between 50-100 more staffers in the state.

The group has already opened an office in Des Moines and is planning to
open at least two more offices in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City on behalf of
the underdog Democrat.

Boehmer told the Guardian that while they can not legally coordinate with
the O’Malley campaign, they are not worried about duplicating efforts. He
thought it wouldn’t be a problem “if we [contact] people two or three times
and not just once.”. Boehmer maintained “we’re not doing robo calls, we’re
going up and having conversations” which will not hassle or bother Iowa
Democrats.

The question is how that interaction between the campaign and the Super Pac
will work. O’Malley has already built a strong and well-respected campaign
apparatus in Iowa and led by experienced operatives and there are major two
parallel campaigns supporting the same candidate to work in tandem without
legally being allowed to communicate. An O’Malley spokesperson said the
campaign was not affiliated with the outside group and declined to comment
further.

In an op-ed in Thursday’s Des Moines Register, Generation Forward’s chief
executive Damian O’Doherty described the group as one that “won’t be
focused on the Super Pac politics of the past”. Instead, he pledged that
“rather than thinking about what a Super Pac can do, we want to show what a
Super Pac should do”.

Generation Forward would not disclose how much money it had raised in
advance of the 15 July deadline for campaigns to disclose money. This was a
step taken by the Super Pac’s affiliated with a number of other
presidential campaigns. O’Malley had a relatively disappointing fundraising
quarter, raising just over $2m, $13m less than Bernie Sanders and $43m less
than Hillary Clinton. Only 4% of O’Malley’s donations came from small
donors.

The Iowa caucuses are currently scheduled to be held on 1 February 2016 and
O’Malley currently polls at around 3% among likely Democratic caucus-goers.

*Martin O'Malley: US should 'probably' arm Kurdish forces against Isis
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/17/martin-omalley-kurdish-forces-isis-iraq>
// The Guardian // Ben Jacobs - July 17, 2015 *

Martin O’Malley on Thursday appeared to differ from the Obama administration
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/obama-administration> on a key question
of Middle East policy.

In Iowa on Thursday, in response to a question from the Guardian about
whether the White House should take further steps towards arming Kurdish
forces fighting Islamic State <http://www.theguardian.com/world/isis>
militants in Syria and Iraq, the former Maryland governor and 2016
Democratic candidate said: “Probably, yes.”

The Obama administration has long hesitated over directly arming Kurdish
militias in the north of Iraq, for fear of further aggravating sectarian
tensions.

In testimony to Congress earlier this month, the secretary of defense,
Ashton Carter, said: “When we provide arms to the Kurds we do it with the
consent of the Iraqi government in order to indicate that we support the
idea of a single Iraqi government in Baghdad.”

Turkey, a significant regional partner of the US, has long been wary of any
effort to arm Kurdish militias.

Doug Wilson, a top foreign policy adviser to O’Malley, made clear that the
candidate “was not unilaterally proposing that we step up additional arms
to the Kurds”. Instead, Wilson said, O’Malley would only do so “if it was
determined by the US military that it was appropriate to up the arms to the
Kurds”.

O’Malley, who in polls of the Democratic field for 2016 is some way behind
frontrunner Hillary Clinton and second-place Bernie Sanders, has rarely
deviated significantly from the Obama administration on foreign policy. His
initial reaction to the Iran nuclear deal
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/14/iran-nuclear-deal-moves-to-battleground-of-us-congress>,
for example, was relatively positive.

O’Malley told reporters on Tuesday: “I still haven’t reviewed the
agreement, but I am of the belief that a negotiated agreement, provided
it’s verifiable and enforceable, is the best path to a nuclear-free Iran.
So I think that the initial news is promising.”

In response to a question from the Guardian on Thursday, O’Malley refused
to follow some opponents of the deal and criticize the White House for
leaving four Americans held captive in Iran.

“I understand why the president and his negotiating team in their judgment
would want to have their negotiations concluded which were complicated
enough in a siloed basis,” O’Malley said.

He added: “I think all of us are right to demand that our government
continue to advocate for the release of those Americans in Iran.”

*Fact Checker: Was O'Malley on the money for wind jobs?
<http://thegazette.com/subject/news/government/fact-check/fact-checker-was-omalley-on-the-money-for-wind-jobs-20150717>
// The Gazette - July 17, 2015 *

“Clean energy is a job creator, pure and simple. Iowa and Maryland prove
it. Both of our states set standards and targets to encourage investment in
renewable fuels. Iowa did this first among states, and now is a leader in
biofuel production and wind generation. Last year, the number of Iowans
working in the wind industry increased by 50 percent.”

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a 2016 Democratic presidential
candidate, in a guest opinion in The Des Moines Register

A representative with O’Malley’s campaign named an April Register article
citing a 2014 American Wind Energy Association report as the original
source for O’Malley’s statement.

A quick look at the numbers shows O’Malley’s claim actually understates
last year’s growth in Iowa wind-power jobs, which roughly doubled from the
3,001-to-4,000 range in 2013 to the 6,001-to-7,000 range last year,
according to figures provided by AWEA. This could have been as simple as a
math error when looking at job growth.

However, looking back a few years further shows the number of wind jobs in
Iowa has merely returned to similar levels present in 2011 and 2012, when
jobs first reached that 6,001-to-7,000 range.

Mike Prior, executive director of the Iowa Wind Energy Association, said
the roughly 7,000 jobs counted are directly related to the industry,
specifically in operation and maintenance. Indirect jobs in education,
development or construction would push that number higher, he added.

Jobs in the wind industry dropped significantly in 2013 due to layoffs
following the expiration of the Federal Production Tax Credit
<http://energy.gov/savings/renewable-electricity-production-tax-credit-ptc>
for wind energy — an inflation-adjusted per-kilowatt-hour tax credit that
was ultimately renewed at the close of 2012.

“There was quite a bit of uncertainty in that time frame,” Prior said.

A December 2014 Iowa Advanced Energy Employment Survey
<http://info.aee.net/hs-fs/hub/211732/file-2192542771-pdf/PDF/aeei-iowa-advanced-energy-employment-survey.pdf?t=1436376624503>
indicated Iowa’s wind-power workforce in 2014 represented a decline of as
much as 50 percent of jobs achieved in 2011 and 2012.

“This decline occurred during a sharp downturn in the U.S. wind industry
associated with the expiration, followed by renewal, of the federal
production tax credit (PTC), which resulted in a 90 percent drop in wind
industry revenue in 2013,” according to the survey.

Enacted in 1992, the PTC has traditionally been renewed every one or two
years, but the extended delay in its 2012 renewal caused manufacturing jobs
for wind power to drop nationwide, said David Ward, deputy director in
strategic communications for AWEA.

“New orders that would have started but didn’t because of the uncertainty,
a lot of those jobs would have been lost at some point,” Ward said. “Once
the PTC was extended and new orders could start coming in 2013 ... they
kind of restarted the industry in a way.”

However, the lull in production carried down the pipeline, affecting jobs
in development, operation and maintenance across the industry. Wind power
jobs are coming back, but the industry itself still hasn’t reached the
levels of 2012, Ward said.

Nationwide, there were 73,000 wind jobs last year, compared to 85,000 in
2012, according to AWEA.

While specific data was unavailable, Ward and Prior said it is safe to say
a portion of the jobs added last year represented investors from previous
years returning to the industry following the PTC’s renewal.

Wind energy jobs are again in a state of flux, as the PTC expired at the
end of last year, which means manufacturing jobs are projected to again see
a lull in production, with the bigger effects more noticeable next year.

“There will be more installation at the end of this year, but then you’ll
start to see kind of a leveling off if there’s no extension,” Ward said.

While added context in Iowa’s wind industry trends better explain the large
increase in jobs last year, O’Malley’s claim on job growth remains
accurate, albeit a little off on the numbers, according to data.

The background helps us see that many of those jobs are likely investors
returning to the market following the PTC renewal, and not entirely new
growth.

O’Malley may have made a simple math error when looking at Iowa’s
wind-power growth, but we give his comment an A.

*O'Malley vows to lead on immigration
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/omalley-vows-to-lead-on-immigration/article/2568463>
// Washington Examiner // Ariel Cohen - July 17, 2015*

DES MOINES, Iowa — Sitting in a crowded church basement, Democratic
presidential candidate Martin O'Malley touted his recently released
immigration platform, calling for amnesty and healthcare for all illegal
immigrants as well as a new White House agency to handle immigration.

Asked about Hillary Clinton's recent push on immigration, the former
Maryland governor stated that he hadn't seen enough of the other
candidates' plans on the issue to pass judgment but left no doubt that he
believed he was at the forefront.

"I haven't seen her plan or any of the other candidates' plans," O'Malley
said. "I can tell you from my part I intend to lead with policy initiatives
and ideas that serve our national good … and I believe that immigration
reform is one of those things we must do to get wages to go up again. One
of the biggest drags you can have on wages is having an underground
economy."

In Maryland, O'Malley made it easier for illegal immigrants to attend
college, along with other legislation. Today he argues that by bringing 11
million people out of the shadows, American wages will go up. He often
calls illegal immigrants "New Americans.”

"This is a political challenge. In the past we doomed ourselves to failure
by treating immigration as if it is some political check-off," O'Malley
said.

Only two dozen people, not including media and those running the event,
came out to see O'Malley Thursday, but those who did attend could be seen
clapping and nodding in agreement throughout the 50-minute discussion.

"I think he's pretty darned with this assessment and ways of dealing with
it," Iowa resident Tom Leffler said. "I think the other candidates haven't
addressed it as fully as Governor O'Malley, but we'll see.”

*Cronyism in Maryland <http://www.cato.org/blog/cronyism-maryland> // CATO
Institute // David Boaz - July 17, 2015*

Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland and Democratic
presidential candidate, is no Bill and Hillary Clinton, who have made more
than $100 million from speeches
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-clintons-speech-income-shows-how-their-wealth-is-intertwined-with-charity/2015/04/22/12709ec0-dc8d-11e4-a500-1c5bb1d8ff6a_story.html>,
much of it from companies and governments who just might like to have a
friend in the White House or the State Department. But consider these
paragraphs deep in a Washington Post story
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/16/omalley-discloses-heavy-debt-paid-speeches-as-he-runs-for-president/>
today about O’Malley’s financial disclosure form:

While O’Malley commanded far smaller fees than the former secretary of
state – and gave only a handful of speeches – he also seemed to benefit
from government and political connections forged during his time in public
service.

Among his most lucrative speeches was a $50,000 appearance at a conference
in Baltimore sponsored by Center Maryland, an organization whose leaders
include a former O’Malley communications director, the finance director of
his presidential campaign and the director of a super PAC formed to support
O’Malley’s presidential bid.

O’Malley also lists $147,812 for a series of speeches to Environmental
Systems Research Institute, a company that makes mapping software that
O’Malley heavily employed as governor as part of an initiative to use data
and technology to guide policy decisions.

I scratch your back, you scratch mine. That’s the sort of insider dealing
that sends voters fleeing to such unlikely candidates as Donald Trump and
Bernie Sanders.

These sorts of lucrative “public service” arrangements are nothing new in
Maryland (or elsewhere). In *The Libertarian Mind*
<http://www.cato.org/libertarianmind> I retell the story of how Gov. Parris
Glendening and his aides scammed the state pension system and hired one
another’s relatives.

In some countries governors still get suitcases full of cash
<http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/mexican-governor-implicated-in-cash-stuffed-suitcase-incident/14065/>.
Speaking fees are much more modern.

*Martin O’Malley Trails Rivals in Fundraising with $2 Million Haul
<http://www.pppfocus.com/martin-o-malley-trails-rivals-in-fundraising-with-2-million-haul-1718/>
// PPP Focus // River Gaines - July 17, 2015 *

O’Malley, who said he purposefully chose New York, the home of the Statue
of Liberty, for this particular announcement, is expected to talk more
about his immigration plan later this week in early-voting Iowa.

Presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley told Fusion’s Jorge Ramos today that
Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric had risen to the level of “hate
speech”.

Immigration is a hot button issue for the 2016 presidential campaign and
Martin O’Malley is trying to play it to his advantage.

“Now, to continue to attract the next generation of strivers, dreamers and
risk-takers and to be true to the values we hold dear, we must pursue a
dynamic, modern approach to immigration policy as a nation”, he wrote.

In the latest of a series of detailed policy papers from his campaign, the
former Maryland governor said he would expand President Barack Obama’s
controversial deferred action program to “all individuals” covered by a
sweeping and bipartisan immigration bill approved by the Senate in 2013.

“Comprehensive immigration reform will help all families – by lifting
wages, creating new jobs, growing our economy, expanding our tax base and
improving standards for all workers”, according to O’Malley. “We are moving
toward a more connected, compassionate, and generous place”.

“Unlike other candidates of both parties, Governor O’Malley’s immigration
platform is bold and has concrete details, particularly that he will commit
to executive action first year of office”, the Dream Action Coalition said
in a statement.

“What the hell kind of sense does that make?” to ban undocumented people
from buying health insurance even if they can afford it, O’Malley asked.
Clinton is far and away the leader, while O’Malley’s campaign has been
overshadowed in recent weeks by the growing popularity of Vermont Senator
Bernie Sanders.

O’Malley is now behind in the Democratic primary, getting only one to two
percent in the most recent polls.

In the interview, O’Malley stressed his executive experience and said his
accomplishments set him apart from his opponents. He helped push
legislation through Annapolis in 2011 that provides in-state tuition at
state universities for young immigrants brought to the country illegally,
and he also ushered in a system that allowed undocumented immigrants to
obtain drivers licenses.

*SANDERS*

*Bernie Sanders and Third Parties
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/opinion/bernie-sanders-and-third-parties.html>
// NYT // Oliver B. Hall - July 17, 2015 *

Todd Gitlin’s vivid account of Bernie Sanders’s campaign for the Democratic
presidential nomination in 2016 conveys the impression that 1960s-style
“radical politics” is now — or at least should be — practiced only within
the Democratic Party. Except for Senator Sanders, the only radicals Mr.
Gitlin cites with approval are Democrats. He broadly dismisses third-party
politics as not “popular on the left” since Ralph Nader ran for president
as the Green Party candidate in 2000.

But if “radical politics” signifies anything, apart from the
“countercultural baggage” to which Mr. Gitlin alludes, surely it includes a
willingness to challenge existing power structures, including the two major
political parties.

That’s what the progressives thought who first championed the abolition of
slavery, women’s suffrage, the minimum wage, a progressive income tax, the
40-hour workweek and many other reforms that originated with third parties.

Mr. Nader’s presidential campaigns carried on that tradition by advancing a
platform that Democrats wouldn’t touch. It included, for example, cracking
down on corporate crime, supporting single-payer health care and opposing
the war in Iraq.

*Bernie Sanders Presses Hillary Clinton on Her Views on Banks
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/us/politics/bernie-sanders-presses-hillary-clinton-on-her-views-on-banks.html?_r=0>
// NYT // Jonathan Martin – July 17, 2015*

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont edged closer on
Friday to directly attacking Hillary Rodham Clinton, pointedly asking
whether the Democratic presidential front-runner would support measures to
break up the country’s largest financial institutions and reinstate a
firewall between commercial and investment banking.

Mr. Sanders, whose campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination has
galvanized liberal activists driven by questions of economic fairness,
highlighted his efforts to cut down the so-called too big to fail banks and
restore Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era banking law repealed under
President Bill Clinton. “You’ll have to ask Hillary Clinton about her views
on whether she thinks we should break up these large financial
institutions. I do,” Mr. Sanders, an independent, said at a news conference
here. “You will have to ask her views on whether we should re-establish
Glass-Steagall.”

He boasted that he had not received financial contributions from Goldman
Sachs, which he said sought “undue influence” in American politics, but
stopped short of calling on Mrs. Clinton to reject the nearly $50,000 in
donations she has received from employees of the Wall Street firm. “That’s
her decision,” Mr. Sanders said, after pausing for a moment to consider the
question.

Mr. Sanders spoke the afternoon before the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual
fund-raising dinner, the first event this year at which all of the party’s
five presidential candidates appeared together. Mrs. Clinton addressed her
supporters at an early evening rally before the banquet, but trained her
fire entirely on Republicans, making no mention, direct or implied, of Mr.
Sanders.

The banquet illustrated the populist fervor coursing through the Democratic
base, offering an explanation for Mr. Sanders’ early success. Mrs. Clinton
received ovations for her attacks on some of the Republican presidential
hopefuls and gender-oriented appeals, but Mr. Sanders and Martin O’Malley,
a former Maryland governor, found booming applause for their full-throated
attacks on Wall Street and free-trade deals.

Asked whether Mrs. Clinton would seek to break up the country’s largest
banks or reinstate Glass-Steagall, an aide to Mrs. Clinton said she would
speak in more detail about both issues in the coming weeks. (Alan Blinder,
an economist who is advising Mrs. Clinton, said this week that she would
not attempt to revive Glass-Steagall.)

While some leading Iowa Democrats believe that Mr. Sanders’s rise will
ultimately help Mrs. Clinton restrain expectations here, where she was
defeated by Barack Obama in the 2008 caucuses, Mr. Sanders’s growing
support in the polls, vast base of small-dollar contributors and sizable
crowds have prompted some of Mrs. Clinton’s backers to make not-so-subtle
comments about the importance of nominating a candidate who can capture the
White House.

“We’ve got to nominate somebody that can win and Hillary is a winner,”
Michael Fitzgerald, Iowa’s state treasurer, said at the Clinton rally.

“I don’t have a lot of time to mess around like I used to, I want to win,”
said Dale Todd, a Democratic activist from Cedar Rapids, who also spoke
before Mrs. Clinton took the stage.

Privately, Mrs. Clinton’s backers are blunter, dismissing the possibility
that Mr. Sanders, a 73-year-old self-declared socialist, would be a viable
general election candidate. Yet the sheer size of his crowds, in Iowa and
beyond, is creating awkwardness for Mrs. Clinton.

She added the rally to her schedule, her campaign said, to give local
supporters who had not purchased a ticket for the dinner a chance to see
the former secretary of state. She has been doing more such large-scale
events in part because they are crucial to organizing. To that end, every
attendee was asked to sign a caucus commitment card upon entering the
basement hall, one side of which was lined with a surefire crowd builder:
boxes of free pizza.

These gatherings also, though, represent an effort to show that Mrs.
Clinton is herself capable of luring big audiences. But the rally served to
highlight her inability for now to attract crowds on the same scale as Mr.
Sanders, whose Iowa events have drawn more people than any other
presidential candidate has in either party. Mrs. Clinton drew a few hundred
people to her event here — her campaign pegged it at 500 — while Mr.
Sanders was met by about 2,500 at an event in Council Bluffs this month.
The Vermont senator did not seek to compete with a head-to-head rally, but
he joined a group of veterans Friday afternoon upstairs in the same
building where Mrs. Clinton spoke.

Standing beneath a giant, Grant Wood-designed stained glass window honoring
three centuries of American soldiers, Mr. Sanders recounted his work as
chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, solemnly recounting
“the cost of war.” But he turned notably more energetic when he took
questions about his campaign.

“I think that there is a growing frustration all over this country for
establishment politics, for establishment economics,” he said before
inveighing against what he called “a corrupt system.”

*Bernie Sanders isn’t Barack Obama, and 2016 isn’t 2008
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bernie-sanders-isnt-barack-obama-and-2016-isnt-2008/2015/07/17/5d85377e-2b37-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html?postshare=8621437142600800>
// WaPo // Dan Pfeiffer – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton is once again campaigning for president as the prohibitive
front-runner, and once again, she faces a challenge from an insurgent
progressive outsider with grass-roots support. And once again, while
Clinton (re)introduces herself to voters in a low-key listening tour of
sorts, her challenger is drawing huge audiences — 10,000 in Madison, Wis.,
8,000 in Portland, Maine, 5,000 in Denver and overflow crowds in Iowa’s
small towns and elsewhere.

Eight years ago, Clinton led in the polls for most of 2007, only to lose
the Iowa caucuses — and, eventually, the Democratic nomination — to a
favorite of the party’s progressive base. It’s feeling a bit like deja vu.
“If she doesn’t change the terms of the race, she’s going to lose. Again,”
former Mitt Romney strategist Stuart Stevens warned in the Daily Beast this
month.

It may be tempting to compare the race between Clinton and Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) to the epic race between Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama:
Sanders, like Obama, has consolidated a good portion of the liberal wing of
the Democratic Party. Sanders, like Obama, is raising millions from
small-dollar donors on the Internet. Sanders, like Obama, is channeling the
anger and frustration of some in the party; then, it was about the Iraq
war, now, it’s about Wall Street.

But that’s where the similarities end. From the perspective of someone who
worked on his campaign and in his White House, it’s clear that Obama’s race
against Clinton is not a useful example. Understanding the dynamics at play
in the 2016 primaries requires looking further back at history. And
unfortunately for Sanders, history shows that there are only two types of
Democratic insurgent candidates: Barack Obama and everyone else.

The current system for selecting nominees in the Democratic Party is less
than 50 years old. After the disastrous 1968 campaign and nominating
convention in Chicago, the party abandoned the smoke-filled rooms of yore
and shifted to a series of primaries and caucuses. The 1972 nomination went
to the grass-roots favorite, Sen. George McGovern (S.D.), who used the new
rules to edge out establishment picks Hubert Humphrey and Henry “Scoop”
Jackson. (McGovern won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia in
the general election against Richard Nixon.) In nearly every election since
then, an anti-establishment figure has sought the nomination.

Sanders is merely the latest such challenger to make some early noise in a
Democratic primary race. He’s not even the first one from Vermont: In 2004,
former governor Howard Dean rode his opposition to the Iraq war to the top
of the field before eventually finishing a distant third in Iowa. That,
combined with his famous caucus-night scream, was effectively the end of
his candidacy. Dean followed in the footsteps of others, such as then-Sen.
Gary Hart (Colo.) in 1984 (and briefly in 1988), California Gov. Jerry
Brown in 1976 and again in 1992, and former senator Bill Bradley (N.J.) in
2000. Obama played this role in 2008. The most famous and most successful
post-McGovern, pre-Obama challenge came from Sen. Ted Kennedy (Mass.) in
1980, when he almost defeated Jimmy Carter, the incumbent president of his
own party.

All of these challengers had their moments, rising in the polls, firing up
the grass roots and going from unknown underdogs to legitimate contenders.
But every one of them, except Obama, ultimately came up short. Their early
successes all had some similar explanations. First, the most liberal voters
tend to tune in sooner and engage more actively, giving an initial boost to
progressive candidates. Second, the overriding bias in political press
coverage is toward a competitive race, which means that challengers often
receive media attention that exceeds their chances of winning. Finally and
perhaps most important, skepticism of the establishment is woven into the
fabric of the Democratic Party — if the party leadership, the donors and
the pundits are all for one person, many in the rank and file start to
explore other options.

Of course, every election is different, and every historical parallel is
imperfect. Each of these candidates did things right and wrong in their
races; some made gaffes, and others ran out of money. But ultimately,
similar factors played into their defeats.

Presidential campaigns are massively sophisticated, expensive operations.
Insurgent challenges all start as underfunded, fly-by-night operations,
with just enough resources to gain attention in the early days. But when it
comes to actually turning out voters, particularly in the very complex Iowa
caucus system — which requires a candidate to have at least 15 percent
support to get any delegates and gives no extra points for winning by big
margins in liberal precincts — you need a campaign organization worthy of
that task.

Even if organizers manage to set up a strong operation, many challengers
still falter under the intense klieg lights that are attracted to a viable
contender for the United States presidency. Lifelong politicians who are
first-time presidential candidates think they are ready for the scrutiny,
and they are almost all wrong. Finally, every anti-establishment challenger
except Obama failed to expand his base beyond the left wing of the party.
Bradley and Dean, for instance, did very well with liberal, white
Democrats. That can be enough to win key states such as Iowa and New
Hampshire, especially in a multi-candidate field, where you may only need a
third of the electorate to come out on top. But getting sufficient
delegates to win the nomination requires a very broad base of support. It
means building a wide coalition of voters, including moderate Democrats and
even independents, as well as African Americans and the growing number of
Latinos in the party.

Obama’s campaign succeeded where everyone else’s failed for two main
reasons. His tremendous popularity with African American voters was
critical. Although Obama won the black vote by margins as high as 9 to 1 in
some states, this was not preordained. Clinton led Obama among African
American voters in most polls until after he won Iowa. Obama also found a
way to hold his liberal base while simultaneously attracting the
enthusiastic support of self-identified independents and moderates. In
2008, we did best in open contests, which allowed anyone to participate
regardless of party registration.

Essentially, Obama benefitted from two separate phenomena: liberal
frustration with the Democratic Party establishment for supporting the Iraq
war and moderate disenchantment with President George W. Bush over Iraq,
Hurricane Katrina and a host of other issues. Getting the support of those
independents and Republicans was key for us in a number of caucus states,
including Iowa.

So far, at least, there’s little reason to think Sanders can duplicate what
led Obama to victory. Yes, he’s surged in the polls to be the clear
challenger to Clinton, a remarkably rapid and impressive feat for a senator
from a small state who has never run for national office before in order to
seek the nomination. If his momentum continues, and if former Maryland
governor Martin O’Malley and others can take chunks of the vote, Sanders
could win Iowa and even New Hampshire.

But Sanders still looks likely to follow in the tradition of Bradley and
Dean. Polls show that he’s doing well with liberal voters and struggling
everywhere else, and he has negligible support and limited name
identification among black and Latino voters. There is no doubt that
Sanders has lit the progressive wing of the Democratic Party on fire by
speaking out boldly against inequality and excess on Wall Street. But he
faces real challenges that Obama did not in expanding his base of support.
Sanders is from a small state with very few minority voters, while Obama
had deeper relationships to build on, especially with the African American
community.

Sanders’s campaign is growing rapidly, but even with new field offices
opening fast, it is still less than half the size of Obama’s organization
at a similar juncture in our race: In July 2007, Obama had 80 paid staffers
working in 25 offices in Iowa. Obama was able raise more early money for
his campaign; that, coupled with his potential to make history as the
nation’s first black president, attracted a very experienced set of
political operatives with deep knowledge of how to run a sophisticated
campaign. While Sanders has decided to play the role of the liberal
challenger to Clinton, pushing her to the left at every opportunity, Obama
ran a much less ideological campaign, which allowed him to build a broader
base of support from the outset.

If 2008 is not the best parallel for Sanders vs. Clinton, what is? Probably
the 2000 contest between Vice President Al Gore and Bill Bradley. That
contest, like this one, was about who would get a chance to succeed a
two-term Democratic president. That contest, like this one, was essentially
a two-person race (though this could change in the coming months). And in
that contest, like this one, the Democratic Party was looking to redefine
itself for a new era. Bradley made a surprisingly strong challenge to a
sitting vice president, forcing Gore to shake up his campaign, move his
headquarters from D.C. to Nashville and retool his entire effort.
Ultimately, though, Bradley could not broaden his base of support, and he
ended up losing all 50 states to Gore.

History says that Clinton is likely to be our nominee and that Sanders is
doomed to repeat the fate of Bradley and the rest. Of course, history said
the same thing about Obama, and there’s a reason that people say “anything
is possible in politics.” But the odds are that by this time next year, the
2008 campaign will remain the exception, not the rule.

*Bernie Sanders says July 29 is the most important day of his campaign
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-says-july-29-is-the-most-important-day-of-his-campaign/2015/07/17/b20680e6-2c9f-11e5-a5ea-cf74396e59ec_story.html>
// WaPo // Aaron C. Davis - July 17, 2015 *

As a crush of millennials crowded into a brewery near Nationals Park on
Thursday night, a young man setting up a loudspeaker for Sen. Bernie
Sanders took the microphone. “Testing. One. Two. Three. The political
revolution is here.”

The septuagenarian socialist who is disrupting the Democratic presidential
race soon arrived and refined the message. The revolution is still coming,
Sanders (I-Vt.) said. Hopefully on July 29.

On that Wednesday night, six months before the Iowa caucus, Sanders will
livestream his case for the presidency to more than 1,500 simultaneous
gatherings planned in bars, coffee shops and living rooms nationwide. The
candidate’s address will be followed by an organizational meeting for
anyone who wants to stay online and discuss joining his campaign.

In only his third fundraiser since announcing his candidacy in April,
Sanders on Thursday night cast his campaign to a room full of 20-somethings
in D.C. as a proxy for registering deep dissatisfaction with the state of
American politics and the nation’s growing income inequality.

“Our job is to ask why,” Sanders said. “Why are we living in a society in
which for the last 40 years the middle class in this country has been
disappearing and almost all of the wealth and income are going to the
people on top?”

Win or lose, Sanders said, “that’s the question we have to ask, that’s what
this campaign is about.”

Whether Sanders can use the Internet to build an effective campaign remains
to be seen, and the effort will not come without stiff competition. Hillary
Rodham Clinton has hired a Google executive to lead her digital campaign,
and in many ways she is building on the extraordinary success of President
Obama’s online organization.

But there are signs Sanders has a base online to work from. In the first 24
hours of his campaign, 35,000 people donated an average of less than $44
apiece through his campaign Web site. After less than three months, he
raised a total of $15 million, mostly from online donors who gave less than
$200.

And the bulk of expenses for Sanders campaign so far have been to build up
his online presence. He’s spent $1.3 million on digital consulting and
online advertisements.

Sanders aides say that it’s all been building up to an event like the one
on July 29 — something the Vermont Independent has long dreamed of.

Sanders has more than once paced his Senate office muttering to staffers
that the only way a long-shot candidate like himself could reach enough
people to be taken seriously would be to “beam himself into every living
room” through the Internet, said Kenneth Pennington, a Senate aide who is
now Sanders’s digital director.

For a candidate who has called for a $1 trillion public works plan and
eliminating college tuition, he cast his campaign’s digital ambitions in no
smaller terms, either. He said July 29 could be the country’s biggest
online political event and his message could transcend political parties

“What we are trying, as part of creating a political revolution, is
creating a grass-roots movement of millions and millions of people,”
Sanders said. “On July 29 of this month, we will be holding what we believe
will be the largest digital organizing event in the history of this country.

“We hope to have tens of thousands of people coming together to determine
how they can develop movements in their local community,” he said.

“This campaign is not simply about electing me, I hope we accomplish that,
but that ain’t the most important thing,” Sanders said. “The most important
thing is building a political movement in which millions of people who have
given up on the political process, including a lot of young people, get
involved?”

*Warren inspires Netroots Nation — even those wearing Sanders T-shirts
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/warren-inspires-netroots-nation--even-those-wearing-sanders-t-shirts/2015/07/17/d8d4b1e6-2cc4-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html>
// WaPo // John Wagner – July 17, 2015*

PHOENIX — There were plenty of reminders here Friday of why progressive
Democrats have been pining for Elizabeth Warren to run for president.

In a fiery speech at Netroots Nation, the country’s largest gathering of
progressive activists, the senator from Massachusetts railed against Wall
Street “banksters” who deserve to be in jail. She decried an economic
system “rigged for the rich and powerful.” And she vowed to fight an
“insider Washington” that doesn’t realize how progressive the country
really is.

Tucson software engineer Dirk Arnold responded with a standing ovation,
joined by most of the 3,000 others in attendance.

Arnold, who wore a Warren T-shirt, said he was mindful of what could have
been if his hero had acquiesced to those trying to draft her to run for
president. But, he added, he’s moved on.

“My switch has flipped over to Bernie,” Arnold said, referring to Sen.
Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist from Vermont who
has emerged as the leading alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the
Democratic presidential nomination.

That seemed to be the sentiment of many former Warren boosters here for a
four-day gathering that Sanders and fellow Democratic candidate Martin
O’Malley, a former Maryland governor, are scheduled to address Saturday.
(Clinton is skipping the conference).

While Warren won’t be on the debate stage, her influence on the race is
still being felt, leading progressive activists here argued.

“Progressives are looking for a candidate speaking Elizabeth Warren’s
rhetoric and embracing her policies,” said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of
the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a Washington-based group whose
agenda overlaps with Warren’s on issues such as debt-free college,
expansion of Social Security benefits and Wall Street reform.

Taylor said that Warren’s “role right now is agenda-setting,
policy-setting. When she picks a fight, it’s a signal it will be a major
one, not only for her but for the party.”

In recent months, Clinton — the overwhelming Democratic favorite — has
borrowed some Warren catchphrases, including her declaration that the
economic system is “rigged” against working families.

But Adam Green, the other co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign
Committee, said it remains to be seen whether Clinton will move beyond
slogans to champion bold policies.

Warren made no mention of specific presidential candidates during her
speech Friday. But she issued them all a challenge.

“I think anyone running for that job . . . should say loud and clear that
they agree: We don’t run this country for Wall Street and
mega-corporations,” she said. “We run it for people.”

More specifically, Warren said, the candidates should be asked if they
support a bill introduced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) that would prevent
Wall Street banks from giving multimillion-dollar bonuses to executives who
are departing for government jobs.

Within the hour, O’Malley’s campaign released a statement pointing out that
he had already issued a comprehensive plan to crack down on Wall Street
that includes his own ideas on “closing the revolving door.”

A spokesman for Sanders said that he “of course” supports Baldwin’s
legislation and added that Sanders is co-sponsoring a Warren bill in the
Senate that would reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act. The legislation aims to
prevent commercial banks from engaging in risky investment schemes.

While many former Warren boosters at the conference said they had found a
suitable alternative in Sanders, others were less certain. Several
suggested that they’d prefer a female nominee, and some said Warren’s age —
she’s 66 — would be less of an issue than Sanders’s age, 73.

But a noticeable number of people wore Sanders T-shirts, and several groups
handed out Sanders stickers.

“I think [Warren] would have been an amazing first woman president instead
of Hillary,” said Belen Sisa, a 21-year-old activist from Gilbert, Ariz.
But Sisa said that she would be happy with either Warren or Sanders as the
nominee — and that pairing them on the same ticket would be ideal. “I guess
that would be la-la land,” she added with a sigh.

Austen Levihn-Coon, a Washington-based political consultant, said he feels
a kinship with Sanders on most issues. But, he said, it remains to be seen
whether Sanders can “pull together the machinery to run on a national stage
and present himself as a serious candidate.”

As for Warren: “Maybe we’ll see her next time around,” said Levihn-Coon,
30, whose consulting firm specializes in issue-oriented campaigns.

Even as she has passed on a White House bid, Warren has become increasingly
influential in the Senate, said Jim Dean, chairman of Democracy for
America, a group that was part of the unsuccessful “Run Warren Run”
recruitment effort.

“She was, frankly, the go-to person for raising money in the last cycle,”
he said. “She’s built power that way.”

Former congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who did not attend the
conference, said Warren would have had little to gain by running for
president in a field that includes Clinton.

“If Senator Warren had run for president, she would almost certainly not
have got the nomination,” Frank said in a phone interview. “Had she got it,
it would not have been worth much after all that bloodshed.”

As things stand, Frank continued, Warren “is now in an extraordinary
situation. She’s one of the most influential junior members of Congress,
and she can make these critiques that get national attention. . . . People
listen to her. She’s an enormously influential person.”

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who attended the conference, said both
Sanders and Warren stood to benefit from their respective decisions about
entering the race.

“Their role is to articulate the frustrations and the hopes of the vast
majority of the American people,” Ellison said in an interview. “Their role
is to speak to people’s pain and what they’re hoping for.”

*In This Money Race, Bernie Sanders Wins
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/17/in-this-money-race-bernie-sanders-wins/>
// WSJ // Peter Nicholas – July 17, 2015*

Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton won the fundraising
competition, but rival Bernie Sanders snagged the award for running the
more frugal operation, campaign finance reports filed this week show.

Sen. Sanders of Vermont has been waging a campaign with a fraction of Mrs.
Clinton’s overhead.

The Clinton campaign payroll dwarfed that of Mr. Sanders, who is running
second in the Democratic field. Mrs. Clinton spent nearly $3.7 million on
campaign salaries; Mr. Sanders, $112,000.

Her campaign spent more than $900,000 on polling in the quarter that ended
June 30th; Mr. Sanders, $0.

And on it goes.

The Clinton campaign, headquartered in Brooklyn, N.Y., spent about $464,000
on rent – more than 10 times what the Burlington, Vt.-based Sanders
campaign laid out in rent payments.

Mr. Sanders, who has been seen traveling through Iowa in a rented Chevy,
spent $47,000 on campaign travel; Mrs. Clinton, nearly 10 times that sum.

The Clinton campaign is managed by Robby Mook, who prides himself on being
something of a skinflint. Campaign aides have been taking the bus between
New York and Washington, D.C., rather than spring for the pricier Amtrak
ticket.

Still, a Clinton campaign was bound to be a more expensive proposition than
that of a self-described Democratic socialist from Vermont whose speeches
are laced with unsparing attacks on billionaires and wealthy corporations.

She is a former first lady, secretary of state and U.S. senator who travels
in motorcades complete with Secret Service protection. Her payroll includes
the digital wizards needed to run a sophisticated, data-driven race, along
with a phalanx of loyal advisers who’ve been by her side for years.

“Hillary Clinton’s first quarter in the race was defined by early, smart
investments aimed at building a strong foundation for our campaign,” said a
spokesman, Josh Schwerin. “Those investments include essentially rebuilding
email lists, hiring organizing staff, and key investments in our digital
capabilities.”

By contrast, the Sanders campaign is a seat-of-the-pants affair. Mr.
Sanders’s aides estimate they spent a few thousand dollars on office
furniture, compared with about $43,000 laid out by the Clinton campaign.

Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, said when it came time to outfit the
Burlington office, a few people drove a U-Haul to a Vermont store that
sells government surplus.

The campaign used Craigslist to find office furniture for Mr. Sanders’s
campaign office in Washington D.C.

“It’s a shoestring operation,” Mr. Briggs said.

The Sanders campaign has been adding staff, though, as the senator draws
large crowds at rallies across the country and tries to capitalize on what
supporters call “Bernie-mentum.”

National surveys show Mrs. Clinton enjoys a large lead over the best of the
Democratic field. Of late Mr. Sanders is gaining ground, notably in New
Hampshire where a recent poll showed him trailing Mrs. Clinton by just 8
points.

Mrs. Clinton, a proven fundraiser, has outraised Mr. Sanders in the last
quarter by about $47 million to $15 million.

But Mr. Sanders has one advantage: If he can continue to keep costs down,
he won’t need as much money.

*Socialist Sanders on low end of earners among candidates
<http://www.wcax.com/story/29572068/socialist-sanders-on-low-end-of-earners-among-candidates>
// AP - July 17, 2015 *

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - As you might expect of a candidate who labels
himself a Democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders is at the low end of earners
among candidates for president in 2016.

But the Vermont independent, a candidate for the Democratic nomination,
earns a $174,000 Senate salary that puts him among the top 5 percent of
Americans in income.

A new financial disclosure form indicates that Sanders got less than $2,000
total for three speaking appearances since last fall, including $850 for
appearing on the HBO talk show "Real Time With Bill Maher." He reported
donating his speaking fees to Vermont charities.

Sanders also got a $5,000-a-year pension from the city of Burlington for
his time as mayor.

His wife, Jane O'Meara Sanders, holds retirement fund accounts worth
between $194,000 and $735,000.

*Bernie Sanders backs big bank breakups, in contrast with Hillary Clinton
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-big-ban-break-ups-glass-steagall-120287.html>
// Politico // Burgess Everett - July 17, 2015 *

Bernie Sanders is backing a bill to break up big banks after advisers to
presidential rival Hillary Clinton made clear earlier this week she will
not support reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act.

Noting that he’s long supported reimposing a firewall between investment
and commercial banks, the Vermont senator said he’s officially rejoining an
effort led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) to
break up the big banks, saying, “If we are truly serious about ending too
big to fail, we have got to break up the largest financial institutions in
this country.”

“Allowing commercial banks to merge with investment banks and insurance
companies in 1999 was a huge mistake. It precipitated the largest taxpayer
bailout in the history of the world. It caused millions of Americans to
lose their jobs, homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to
college,” said Sanders, who said that change in the financial world
“substantially increased wealth and income inequality.”

Earlier this week, a Clinton campaign adviser told
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/13/usa-election-clinton-banks-idUSL2N0ZT17R20150713>Reuters
that “you’re not going to see Glass-Steagall.” Clinton was also interrupted
<http://www.businessinsider.com/heckler-ejected-from-hillary-clinton-event-2015-7>by
a heckler on Monday who challenged her to revive the depression-era policy,
though she did not answer the question.

By moving quickly to reassert his support for a proposal from liberal
superstar Warren, Sanders is highlighting the differences between his
platform and Clinton’s more centrist positions on financial regulations, a
major issue among progressives. Sanders actually cosponsored a version of
the bill in 2013, well before he began challenging Clinton for the
Democratic nomination, and in a press release reminded reporters of a
speech he gave in 1999 as a House member.

“Sixteen years ago, I predicted that such a massive deregulation of the
financial services industry would seriously harm the economy. I would give
anything to have been proven wrong about this, but unfortunately, what
happened seven years ago was even worse than I predicted,” Sanders said.

In 1999, Congress passed legislation rewriting the financial rule book for
banks, and it was signed <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkG4iXiZCQE>by
President Bill Clinton.

*14 things Bernie Sanders has said about socialism
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/14-things-bernie-sanders-has-said-about-socialism-120265.html>
// Politico // Michael Kruse - July 17, 2015*

Socialist has never been a complimentary term in American political
discourse, but it has reached a particularly high level of toxicity during
the past six years of President Barack Obama’s administration.

While the president and his defenders have spent a great deal of time
parrying that attack, Bernie Sanders is using the socialist label to his
advantage, packing venues around the country and establishing himself as
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s leading challenger for the 2016 Democratic
presidential nomination.

Sanders, 73, has been preaching socialism for nearly half a century, and he
cites Eugene Debs, the five-time presidential candidate of the Socialist
Party of America, as his hero. But he hasn’t always embraced the label.

“I myself don’t use the word socialism,” he said in 1976 in the Vermont
Cynic, a student publication at the University of Vermont, “because people
have been brainwashed into thinking socialism automatically means
slave-labor camps, dictatorship and lack of freedom of speech.”

Even when Sanders ran for mayor of Burlington in 1981, “Bernie never
mentioned the word ‘socialist’ in his campaign,” according to Greg Guma, a
longtime Sanders watcher and the author of “The People’s Republic: Vermont
and the Sanders Revolution.”

When he won, though, it wasn’t Sanders’ choice anymore.

“The media probably made that label stick,” said Alan Abbey, who covered
Sanders at the time for the *B*urlington Free Press. “It makes for good
headlines.”

“I’ve stayed away from calling myself a socialist,” Sanders said in the
Boston Globe in the aftermath of his win in ‘81, “because I did not want to
spend half my life explaining that I did not believe in the Soviet Union or
in concentration camps.”

Two months later, in the Boston Phoenix, he said he didn’t want to be “a
spokesman for socialism.”

It’s what he’s become. And even though less than half of Americans say they
would vote for a socialist for president (47 percent, fewer than would vote
for an atheist or a Muslim), Sanders is sticking with it.

Here, then, are 14 things Sanders has said about socialism since the ‘80s:

1. In the summer 1986 issue of a now-defunct magazine called Vermont
Affairs: “All that socialism means to me, to be very frank with you, is
democracy with a small ‘d.’ I believe in democracy, and by democracy I mean
that, to as great an extent as possible, human beings have the right to
control their own lives. And that means that you cannot separate the
political structure from the economic structure. One has to be an idiot to
believe that the average working person who’s making $10,000 or $12,000 a
year is equal in political power to somebody who is the head of a large
bank or corporation. So if you believe in political democracy, if you
believe in equality, you have to believe in economic democracy as well.”

2. In Vermont Affairs: “… I certainly did not know what the word socialism
meant growing up, because I was brought up in a very nonpolitical family.
My brother was somewhat active, but my parents were not. But I think some
people tend not to accept what almost everybody has accepted as true. Many
people go to school, but most of them don’t challenge the basic assumptions
of their teachers or of the system. And I always have. You reach a certain
age when you start reading reasonably widely, and you find ideas that
reflect your gut feeling about something. I think that’s usually the
process — you find what you’re looking for. I had that feeling when I first
read Eugene Debs, for example. If you read what Debs said about the goals
of socialism, it’s no different from what I’ve been saying — that all
socialism is about is democracy.”

3. From the 1988 dissertation of Steven Soifer, a professor of social work
at the University of Memphis, who wrote about Sanders’ time as mayor of
Burlington: “What being a socialist means is … that you hold out … a vision
of society where poverty is absolutely unnecessary, where international
relations are not based on greed … but on cooperation … where human beings
can own the means of production and work together rather than having to
work as semi-slaves to other people who can hire and fire.”

4. In an interview with Catherine Alison Hill for a master’s thesis she
wrote at Cornell in 1989: “Socialism has a lot of different messages to
different people. I think the issue of socialist ideology and what that
meant or means is not terribly important. I think the positive of it is
that it indicates to people that I am not a conventional politician. If
they are not happy with the status quo, then that is a positive thing. The
negative of it obviously is that there are people who equate it with
totalitarianism and the Soviet Union.”

5. In a speech he gave at the National Committee for Independent Political
Action in New York City on June 22, 1989, reprinted in the December 1989
issue of the socialist publication Monthly Review: “In Vermont, everybody
knows that I am a socialist and that many people in our movement, not all,
are socialists. And as often as not — and this is an interesting point that
is the honest-to-God truth — what people will say is, ‘I don’t really know
what socialism is, but if you’re not a Democrat or a Republican, you’re OK
with me.’ That’s true. And I think there has been too much of a reluctance
on the part of progressives and radicals to use the word ‘socialism.’”

6. In his NCIPA speech: “Yes, it is true that a result of the tremendous
political ignorance in this country created by the schools and the media,
there are many people who do not know the difference between ‘socialism’
and ‘communism.’ Yes, on more than one occasion, I have been told to ‘go
back to Russia.’ But, if we maintain a strong position on civil liberties,
express our continued opposition to authoritarianism and the concept of the
one-party state, I am confident that the vast majority of the people will
understand that there is nothing incompatible between socialism and
democracy. That has been the case in Vermont and I believe, with proper
effort, that it can be the case nationally. Further, given the fact that in
Burlington we have almost doubled voter turnout and have significantly
increased citizen participation, it is very hard for our opponents to argue
that we are not ‘democratic.’”

7. In an interview with The Associated Press in November 1990: “To me,
socialism doesn’t mean state ownership of everything, by any means, it
means creating a nation, and a world, in which all human beings have a
decent standard of living.”

8. In the book he wrote with Huck Gutman, Outsider in the House, published
in 1997: “Bill Clinton is a moderate Democrat. I’m a democratic socialist.”

9. In an interview with the Guardian in November 2006: “Twenty years ago,
when people here thought about socialism they were thinking about the
Soviet Union, about Albania. Now they think about Scandinavia. In Vermont
people understand I’m talking about democratic socialism.”

10. In an interview with The Washington Post in November 2006. “I wouldn’t
deny it. Not for one second. I’m a democratic socialist. … In Norway,
parents get a paid year to care for infants. Finland and Sweden have
national health care, free college, affordable housing and a higher
standard of living. … . Why shouldn’t that appeal to our disappearing
middle class?”

11. In an interview with Democracy Now in November 2006: “In terms of
socialism, I think there is a lot to be learned from Scandinavia and from
some of the work, very good work that people have done in Europe. In
countries like Finland, Norway, Denmark, poverty has almost been
eliminated. All people have health care as a right of citizenship. College
education is available to all people, regardless of income, virtually free.
I have been very aggressive in trying to move to sustainable energy. They
have a lot of political participation, high voter turnouts. I think there
is a lot to be learned from countries that have created more egalitarian
societies than has the United States of America.”

12. To Democracy Now: “I think it means the government has got to play a
very important role in making sure that as a right of citizenship, all of
our people have health care; that as a right, all of our kids, regardless
of income, have quality childcare, are able to go to college without going
deeply into debt; that it means we do not allow large corporations and
moneyed interests to destroy our environment; that we create a government
in which it is not dominated by big money interest. I mean, to me, it means
democracy, frankly. That’s all it means. And we are living in an
increasingly undemocratic society in which decisions are made by people who
have huge sums of money. And that’s the goal that we have to achieve.”

13. In an interview with the Des Moines Register this month: “If you look
at the issues — you don’t have to worry about the word ‘socialist’ — just
look at what I’m talking about. If you go out and ask the American people:
Is it right that the middle class continues to disappear while there has
been a massive transfer of wealth from working families to the top
one-tenth of 1 percent? Trillions of dollars in the last 30 years have
flowed from the middle class to the top one-tenth of 1 percent. And the
American people say, ‘No, that’s not right.’ And if you ask the American
people: Do you think it’s right that despite an explosion of technology and
an increase in worker productivity, the average worker is working longer
hours for low wages? They say no. And what the American people are saying
pretty loudly and clearly is they want an economy that works for ordinary
Americans. For working people. Not an economy where almost all of the
income and all of the wealth is going to the top 1 percent. That’s what we
have now.”

14. In an interview with The Nation this month: “Do they think I’m afraid
of the word? I’m not afraid of the word.”

*Bernie Sanders Says Goldman Wants 'Undue Influence'
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-17/bernie-sanders-says-goldman-wants-undue-influence->
// Bloomberg // Arit John – July 17, 2015*

As all five Democratic presidential candidates descended on Cedar Rapids,
Iowa to share a stage for the first time, Senator Bernie Sanders cited his
rival Hillary Clinton's support from Goldman Sachs as one of the factors
that distinguish them.

In the city's Veterans Memorial building where he held a press conference
the senator, who is the top-ranking Democrat on the Veterans Affairs
committee, talked about care for retired members of the military. But
reporters focused on Clinton.

Asked about the $50,000 Clinton received from Goldman Sachs employees.
“Obviously I didn’t get any money from Goldman Sachs," said the Vermont
socialist, who has been campaigning against the "billionaire class."

"I don’t take corporate PAC money, never have, don’t want it," Sanders
added.

Asked what he thought Goldman Sachs expected to gain by donating to
Clinton, Sanders said:  “Obviously what Goldman Sachs wants, what corporate
America wants, what the Koch brothers want, is undue influence over the
political process.”

Question: should she give the money back?

“You ask her.”

Shortly afterwards, in an interview with Bloomberg outside the hall where
Cedar Rapids Democrats are hosting the presidential candidates for a
dinner, where each will get to deliver a 15-minute speech, Sanders faulted
presidents of both parties for their "heavy reliance on Wall Street" and
said heads of investment firms would be barred from a Sanders Cabinet.
Asked whether he'd consider a Treasury Secretary like Robert Rubin, who
served in the job for President Bill Clinton, Sanders said, "he would be
the last person" he would pick. "He was one of the architects of the
deregulation of Wall Street," he added.

At his press conference, Sanders said people are working longer hours for
lower wages, and the U.S. has higher levels of childhood poverty and income
inequality than in past decades. “One of the reasons has to do with the
greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior of the people on Wall
Street,” he said.

The senator noted that he had just co-sponsored support a measure to
reinstate the Glass Steagall Act, which kept commercial and investment
banks separate and was repealed by a bipartisan vote of Congress and
President Bill Clinton.

“Now you’ll have to ask Hillary Clinton about her view of whether she
thinks we should break up these large financial institutions,” he said.
“And you’ll have to ask for her views about whether we should re-establish
Glass Steagall.” Earlier this week, Alan Binder, an economist advising her
campaign, told reporters that a new Glass Steagall act would not be part of
her economic platform.

But at both the press conference and later, Sanders steadfastly refused to
attack Clinton personally. "I like her and respect her," he told
Bloomberg's Mark Halperin. "We just disagree on a whole lot of issues."

*Why Rapper Killer Mike's Endorsement of Bernie Sanders Spells Trouble for
Hillary Clinton
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/why-rapper-killer-mikes-endorsement-of-bernie-sanders-spells-trouble-for-hillary-clinton_b_7816280.html>
// HuffPo // H. A. Goodman <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/>  -
July, 17 2015*

Polls are ever-changing, but Americans will never long for a king or queen.
When Run the Jewels rapper Killer Mike tweeted
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/29/killer-mike-bernie-sanders-president-run-the-jewels>
"I cannot support another Clinton or bush ever," he echoed the sentiments
of Americans throughout the country tired of entrenched political factions
in Washington. As for why political dynasties are ruinous to any democracy,
the Atlanta rapper says
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/29/killer-mike-bernie-sanders-president-run-the-jewels>,
"I am beginning to see American political families like monarchs and I have
no affection for monarchs." This sentiment, in addition to the reasons
Killer Mike has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president
<https://twitter.com/KillerMikeGTO/status/615581596633186304>, can't be
accurately assessed by opinion polls or political wonks.

In fact, it could spell trouble for the Clinton campaign and Democratic
strategists enamored with poll driven forecasts. When a recent analysis
<http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-could-win-iowa-and-new-hampshire-then-lose-everywhere-else/>says
that Bernie Sanders is popular primarily among "white liberals," the
aggregate data used to make such a claim ignores the fact that black
children face a 38% poverty rate
<http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/14/black-child-poverty-rate-holds-steady-even-as-other-groups-see-declines/>
and African-Americans as a group face a 27% poverty rate
<http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/>. This
analysis questioning Sanders's appeal to minority voters also ignores a
finding from Pew Research that states
<http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/08/22/chapter-3-demographic-economic-data-by-race/>,
"In 2011, the typical white household had a net worth of $91,405, compared
with $6,446 for black households."

In terms of wealth inequality, one candidate in 2016 has been referred to
by *POLITICO*
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/wall-street-republicans-hillary-clinton-2016-106070.html>as
"Wall Street Republicans' dark secret," while the other "Goes Biblical"
<http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/bernie-sanders-inequality-president-interview>on
income inequality. As for tackling Wall Street and income equality, Hillary
Clinton for some reason hasn't endorsed
<http://billmoyers.com/2015/07/16/hillary-clintons-mistake-on-glass-steagall/>
a renewed Glass-Steagall Act, while Bernie Sanders has long supported
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/01/bernie-sanders-signals-aggressive-challenge-to-hillary-clinton/>a
reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. Therefore, it's safe to say that voters
experiencing the injustice of economic disenfranchisement might side with
Killer Mike's choice of candidates in the long run; especially when more
people become aware of the differences in economic policy
<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/why-wall-street-loves-hillary-112782.html#.Vai28flViko>between
Clinton and Sanders.

Also, the fact that an artist known not only for his music (he's been on *Real
Time with Bill Maher* <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuntEJl8okY>, CNN,
and has been vocal about politics
<http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/16/killer-mike-rapper-politician-georgia>)
but also for his stances on Baltimore, Ferguson and racial injustice in
America has endorsed Bernie Sanders illustrates an awakening in American
politics that numbers can't accurately assess. The fact that Killer Mike
posted a photo on Instagram <https://instagram.com/p/4i5LZgS1Nr/> of
Sanders and Clinton (one was a civil rights advocate and the other was a
Young Republican and "Goldwater Girl,"
<http://www.factcheck.org/2008/03/hillary-worked-for-goldwater/> but
eventually a supporter of Eugene McCarthy) in the 1960's highlights a
willingness to dig deeper into the true nature of opposing politicians. It
also illustrates a growing discontent among many Americans about a
political class that shrugs its shoulders regarding Ferguson, yet expects 45
million <http://blackdemographics.com/>Americans to still vote Democrat.

First, Killer Mike's statements about dynasties aren't a fringe viewpoint.
Martin O'Malley recently declared
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/martin-omalley-2016-jeb-bush-hillary-clinton-116489.html>,
"Let's be honest here, the presidency of the United States is not some
crown to be passed between two families." In addition, Gary Hart agrees
with this assessment and in a *Time* article
<http://time.com/3826278/gary-hart-dare-we-call-it-oligarchy/> titled* Dare
We Call it Oligarchy?*, the former Colorado Senator explains how electing
political families could be viewed as detrimental to democracy:

If the presidency were to pass back and forth between two or three families
in any Latin American nation we would call it an oligarchy...

Our Founders created a republic and, being keen students of the history of
republics beginning with Athens, they knew that placing special and narrow
interests ahead of the common good and the commonwealth was the corruption
that destroyed republics. They feared this kind of corruption as the
greatest danger to America's success and survival...

By this standard, today's American Republic is massively corrupt. Every
interest group in our nation has staff lobbyists and hires lobbying firms...

The net affect of the money machine -- lobbyists, fund raisers, and
campaign consultants -- is to severely narrow the field of those who can
compete for office, especially national office. If the national presidency
were to pass back and forth between two or three families in any Latin
American nation we would call it an oligarchy.

When political power in America is seen as a monolith that functions under
the guise of a two party system, observers like Gary Hart, Killer Mike, and
people weary of dynastic control of politics begin to wonder if America
could lead one day to oligarchy. Symbolizing a counterforce to the
entrenched political establishment in both parties, Bernie Sanders's ascent
during this recent election cycle now has cultural voices like Killer Mike
singing his praises -- a phenomenon that jaded political strategists could
never imagine might influence an election.

So what, you might say?

Well, when Hillary Clinton waits nearly three weeks
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/hillary-clinton-ferguson-remarks-110424.html>after
the Ferguson protests, long after the flames had subsided, to issue a
statement on this polarizing moment in U.S. history (causing a *POLITICO*
reporter to tweet
<https://twitter.com/gdebenedetti/status/505066616762011650>, "Notable that
after weeks of rest in the Hamptons, Clinton's come out swinging. The
#Ferguson comment was prepared"), many onlookers see such hesitancy as
political opportunism. Clinton might very well have been the political
equivalent of Iggy Azalea
<http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/iggy-azalea-azealia-banks-feud-on-twitter-over-eric-garner-ferguson-2014412>;
eager to benefit from the support of African-Americans, but not so eager to
risk sacrificing a carefully crafted image in the quest for such support.
This lack of loyalty to a group that votes consistently over 90%
<http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-2012/>
for Democratic presidential nominees, also comes years after a
controversial "3 AM commercial"
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yr7odFUARg>(Harvard sociologist Orlando
Patterson wrote <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/opinion/11patterson.html>in
*The New York Times* that after watching the commercial, "I couldn't help
but think of D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation") and Bill Clinton
responding
<http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/bill-clinton-i-am-not-a-racist/>
"I am not a racist" after comments on the 2008 campaign trail.

In America, political wonks and number crunchers fuel the soap opera of
elections, but rarely provide an accurate forecast for when the first
African-American president will be elected, or when millions of voters have
grown weary of political dynasties. It's difficult to place too much faith
in opinion polls when a 2007 Quinnipiac
<http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/05/lots_to_digest_new_ohio_poll_f.html>poll
showed Hillary Clinton far ahead of any challenger and Barrack Obama
battling Rudy Giuliani in approval rating. Fast forward to 2014 and a poll
from NBC News/*Wall Street Journal*
<http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-hillary-clinton-early-2016-frontrunner-barely-n269601>
noted that Hillary Clinton was the early 2016 frontrunner with 50% of
Americans willing to vote for the former Secretary of State.

Now in 2015, questions about trust have begun to affect the Clinton
campaign and another Quinnipiac
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-clinton-a-trust-deficit-to-surmount/2015/05/03/fbd201ba-f19d-11e4-b2f3-af5479e6bbdd_story.html>
poll shows that while 6 in 10 voters felt Clinton had "strong leadership
qualities," a majority of those same voters (53%) according
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-clinton-a-trust-deficit-to-surmount/2015/05/03/fbd201ba-f19d-11e4-b2f3-af5479e6bbdd_story.html>
to *The Washington Post *believed "she was *not* honest and trustworthy."
Also, CNN revealed
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/17/politics/poll-2016-elections-hillary-clinton-trustworthy/>that
a Quinnipiac Swing State Poll
<http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/2016-presidential-swing-state-polls/release-detail?ReleaseID=2234>finds
that "voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania are skeptical of Clinton's
trustworthiness." Recent findings in the erosion of Clinton's image as the
clear-cut Democratic nominee also relate to other surveys.

A July 16th AP-GfK Poll
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-gfk-poll-americans-view-clinton-republicans-unfavorably-32484867?page=2>states,
"Americans View Clinton, Republicans Unfavorably" and a July 15th GOP poll
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/248096-gop-poll-clinton-trails-in-battleground-states>
finds that "Clinton trails in battleground states." Within this same time
period, a Monmouth University poll explains that Bernie Sanders continues
to narrow the gap and Salon noted that, "Bernie Sanders narrows the gap as
Hillary Clinton's lead declines by double digits."
<http://www.salon.com/2015/07/15/bernie_sanders_narrows_the_gap_as_hillary_clintons_lead_declines_by_double_digits/>What
was once thought of as an impossibility is taking place, even as naysayers
say it might be short-lived, and Bernie Sanders can't possibly continue to
stun the experts.

Furthermore, some things can't be forecasted by number crunchers, political
strategists, and pundits eager to jump on the bandwagon of political power.
When grass roots organizations supporting Bernie Sanders in 2016 have names
like Limbaugh's Hometown <https://twitter.com/RushCity4Bernie> ("if we can
organize in hometown of Rush Limbaugh nothing can stop us"), support for
the Vermont Senator is coming from politically astute voters cognizant of
the partisan divides in American politics. It says something about the
upcoming election that Bernie Sanders has raised $15 million in just two
months
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/02/bernie-sanders-fundraising_n_7715180.html>,
without the help of billionaires or a super PAC, and primarily from people
who contributed $250 or less
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/02/bernie-sanders-fundraising_n_7715180.html>
.

As a result of a groundswell of enthusiasm that money can't buy, Sanders
has surged in both Iowa and New Hampshire
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/poll-bernie-sanders-iowa-new-hampshire-119414.html>,
cut into Clinton's lead
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/poll-hillary-clinton-lead-shrinking-democrats-120140.html>(something
unimaginable even several months ago), and can realistically win both the
Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary, as well as the presidency. Killer
Mike's endorsement of Sanders might not be part of any aggregate data and
number crunching used to forecast election results, but it represents
something far more relevant. Many voters are tired of Republicans and
Democrats who vote for the same wars, support the same drones that often
times kill innocent people, and look the other way when it comes to income
inequality. These people will be searching for alternatives to political
dynasties and vapid, carefully crafted promises in 2016. They might
eventually be searching for the same candidate endorsed by Killer Mike and
Americans filling arenas
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton_b_7761072.html>
and venues throughout the nation: Senator Bernie Sanders.

*Here's Some Real Talk From Bernie Sanders
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-quotes_55a909f1e4b0c5f0322d0a59>
// HuffPo // Dhyana Taylor and Jacob Kerr *

Between his large crowds
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/big-arenas-plenty-of-bottled-water--the-lifeblood-of-the-sanders-campaign/2015/07/16/cbb070da-2739-11e5-b72c-2b7d516e1e0e_story.html>
at
campaign events and surging poll numbers
<http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary>,
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has so far been the biggest surprise in the
race for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. In the past few
months, Sanders has gone from "virtually having no chance"
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/us/politics/a-socialist-in-2016-for-bernie-sanders-at-least-its-a-question-worth-asking-.html?_r=0>
to
causing concern
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/07/us/politics/hillary-clintons-team-is-wary-as-bernie-sanders-finds-footing-in-iowa.html>
for
frontrunner Hillary Clinton's campaign.

A self-described democratic socialist who has a lot of ideas and a brash
demeanor, Sanders can make some interesting statements. We've collected a
few of his most intriguing and most provocative words on a wide range of
issues, including marijuana and income inequality.

Here are some of the most notable things Sanders has said since announcing
his White House run:

On Youth Unemployment

"We got to put young people to work, we got to give them an education,
rather than putting them in jail," Sanders said in an interview on MSNBC's
"The Ed Show <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SmD1RG7u_g>.

On The Middle Class

"Ordinary people are profoundly disgusted with the fact that the middle
class is being destroyed and income going to the top 1 percent," Sanders
tweeted <https://twitter.com/berniesanders?lang=en>.

On Gun Control

"Folks who do not like guns [are] fine. But we have millions of people who
are gun owners in this country -- 99.9 percent of those people obey the
law. I want to see real, serious debate and action on guns, but it is not
going to take place if we simply have extreme positions on both sides. I
think I can bring us to the middle," Sanders said in a CNN interview
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/05/politics/bernie-sanders-gun-control/>.

On Free Tuition

"It is insane and counter-productive to the best interests of our country,
that hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to
college, and that millions of others leave school with a mountain of debt
that burdens them for decades. That must end," Sanders said during his campaign
announcement <https://berniesanders.com/bernies-announcement/>.

On Wanting Top Marginal Tax Rate Over 50 Percent

"In the last 30 years there has been a massive -- we’re talking about many
trillions of dollars being redistributed from the middle class to the top
one-tenth of 1 percent. It is time to redistribute money back to the
working families of this country from the top one-tenth of 1 percent,"
Sanders said on PBS's "Charlie Rose
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-11/bernie-sanders-eyes-top-tax-rate-of-more-than-50-percent>
."

On Marijuana

“I coughed a lot, I don’t know. I smoked marijuana twice -- didn’t quite
work for me,” Sanders told Yahoo
<https://www.yahoo.com/politics/bernie-sanders-talks-to-katie-couric-bernie-120458581061.html>
.

On Universal Health Care

"So I do believe that we have to move toward a Medicare-for-all,
single-payer system. I think it's not going to happen tomorrow, but that
certainly should be the goal," Sanders said on ABC’s "This Week.
<http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/sen-bernie-sanders-thinks-hell-win-white-house-32083348>
”

On Police Reform

"We’ve got to demilitarize the police -- we don’t need tanks, you don’t
need heavy military equipment in the communities of the United States. We
gotta pay attention to the African-American communities, to poverty so
these kids get the education and job training they need," Sanders told Yahoo
<https://www.yahoo.com/politics/bernie-sanders-talks-to-katie-couric-bernie-120458581061.html>.

On His American Citizenship

"Well, no, I do not have dual citizenship with Israel. I'm an American. I
don't know where that question came from. I am an American citizen, and I
have visited Israel on a couple of occasions. No, I'm an American citizen,
period,” Sanders said in an interview with a D.C. NPR affiliate
<http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/06/diane-rehm-asks-bernie-sanders-about-alleged-israeli-208583.html>
.

On Health Care And Education

"Please don't tell me that the United States of America, our great country,
cannot guarantee health care to all people. Don't tell me that every person
in this country should not be able to get all the education that they need
regardless of their income," Sanders said in Portland, Maine
<https://bangordailynews.com/2015/07/06/politics/elections/bernie-sanders-urges-political-revolution-in-portland/>
.

On Campaign Finance Reform

"A major problem of our campaign finance system is that anybody can start a
super PAC on behalf of anybody and can say anything. And this is what makes
our current campaign finance situation totally absurd," Sanders said
to the Burlington
Free Press
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.burlingtonfreepress.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2F2015%2F05%2F30%2Fsanders-unable-superpacs%2F28184005%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFZakd5ulP0Hy6nzwFq06bIh_AVHA>
.

On Undocumented Immigrants

"Despite the central role that undocumented workers play in our economy and
in our daily lives, these workers are too often reviled by many for
political gain and shunted into the shadows," Sanders said at the National
Association of Latino Elected Officials conference
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/19/bernie-sanders-immigration_n_7624086.html>
.

On Bank Bailouts

"If a bank is too big to fail, that bank is too big to exist," Sanders said
in Denver, Colorado
<http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4541740/sen-bernie-sanders-denver-campaign-speech>
.

On Raising The Minimum Wage

“Our goal as a nation is that if somebody works 40 hours a week, that
person will not be living in poverty," Sanders said in Iowa
<http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2015/05/28/bernie-sanders-iowa/28075607/>
.

On The War On Drugs

"What I can tell you is this: We have far, far, far too many people in jail
for nonviolent crimes, and I think in many ways, the war against drugs has
not been successful, and I think we've got to rethink that," Sanders told Yahoo
News' Katie Couric
<https://www.yahoo.com/politics/bernie-sanders-talks-to-katie-couric-bernie-120458581061.html>
.

*Sanders makes play for black vote
<http://thehill.com/campaign-issues/248284-sanders-seeks-to-make-inroads-with-african-americans>
// The Hill // Niall Stanage <http://thehill.com/author/niall-stanage>  -
July 17, 2015*

Bernie Sanders is making a push for support from black and Hispanic voters
as he seeks to intensify his challenge to Hillary Clinton for the
Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, has made a number of
comments recently aimed at rebutting the suggestion that his backing will
be limited to white progressives.

“As a nation, we have got to apologize for slavery,” he said
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/247257-sanders-we-have-got-to-apologize-for-slavery>
during an appearance on a black-oriented Sirius XM radio show hosted by Joe
Madison last week. In an interview published this month in *The Nation*, he
described police brutality against African Americans as “a huge issue,”
adding, “How do you have police departments in this country that are part
of their communities, not oppressors in their communities?”

Speaking to the Hispanic organization La Raza on Monday, he noted that
“racism has plagued this country for centuries” and drew on his own
experiences as the child of an immigrant who “came to this country from
Poland at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket.”

Sanders’ embrace of minority concerns and sensibilities can hardly be
called opportunistic. His involvement with civil rights stretches back to
his youth, when he attended the 1963 March on Washington where Martin
Luther King gave his most famous speech, organized financial support for
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was arrested for
protesting segregation.

But the Vermonter’s recent statements come against a mixed backdrop for his
campaign. Even as he performs better than many expected in terms of poll
ratings and the size of the crowds he attracts, he lags badly in the battle
for non-white support.

A CNN/ORC poll released in June showed Sanders’ support among non-whites to
be about half the level of his backing among the nation as a whole. *The
New York Times* noted that another survey, from NBC and the *Wall Street
Journal,* found that 95 percent of non-white Democrats said they could see
themselves backing Clinton for the nomination whereas only around
one-quarter said the same about Sanders.

The lack of significant support from the African-American community, which
is so vital in a Democratic primary, complicates the story Sanders would
prefer to tell about how he is the candidate of the liberal grassroots
seeking to oust the establishment choice, Clinton.

Goldie Taylor, a commentator and former election strategist who is
African-American, said that current chatter among progressives included
both admiration for the issues that Sanders is raising and concerns “about
the homogenous nature of the crowds” at his rallies.

Many, including Taylor, do not doubt Sanders’ bona fides. Instead, they
suggest that his long history in the politics of Vermont — one of the
whitest states in the union — has shaped his priorities in terms of the
topics he most frequently raises.

“You have to be intentional about building a diverse coalition of support,”
she said, “and that is not something Bernie-Sanders-the-candidate has had
to do during his political career.”

Sanders aides don’t entirely dismiss that critique, even as they emphasize
his long history of engagement with civil rights issues.

“He doesn’t come from a state with a large African-American population, he
doesn’t come from a party of the country where African-American politics
are a daily part of political life,” said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to
the Sanders campaign. “But he understands it is a very important part of
pulling together a campaign for the nomination of the Democratic Party.”

Sanders’ history also has an interesting footnote in terms of race and the
politics of Vermont. In 1988, Sanders, then mayor of Burlington, endorsed
Jesse Jackson for president. Jackson went on to win the state’s Democratic
caucuses, despite the demographic challenges he faced.

Devine noted that Sanders intended to soon tour parts of the United States
afflicted by poverty and alienation, including inner cities, and that he
was still in the process of being introduced to significant parts of the
electorate that knew little, if anything, about him.

“A very important part of that introduction is his commitment to civil
rights activism. To Latinos, [an important part is] that he is the son of
an immigrant, who grew up in an immigrant-rich community, in Brooklyn.
These things allow people to see him in a different light,” the aide said.

Even so, however, Clinton has longstanding connections with black elected
officials. Despite the tensions that came to the surface during her epic
2008 struggle for the Democratic nomination with President Obama, she is
also popular among the African-American community writ large.

In a Pew Research Center poll conducted this spring, a striking 74 percent
of Democratic or Democratic-leaning black voters said there was “a good
chance” that they would support Clinton for the nomination — a
significantly stronger showing for the former secretary of State than the
54 percent of whites who said the same thing.

Strategists who are skeptical that Sanders can even make the nomination
battle competitive note just how arduous Obama’s path to victory was in
2008, despite his status as the most credible black presidential candidate
ever, and the overwhelming African-American support that he received.

“Anyone would have a tough row to hoe to make inroads with African-American
voters vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, an activist,
broadcaster and the author of several books about the black American
experience.

Sanders, he added, “has got a great track record, historically on civil
rights, protest, support — we can’t take that away. But the problem is he’s
still coming up against those connections, the ties, that Hillary has,
which makes it hard.”

Goldie Taylor acknowledged that the 2008 campaign threw up some painful
moments between Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton on one side, and President
Obama and his supporters in the black community on the other.

“But I think the Clintons will recover from that,” she said, “and I don’t
think there is a candidate standing in their way.”

*How Bernie Sanders can hammer Hillary Clinton on the Democrats' top issue
<http://theweek.com/articles/566910/how-bernie-sanders-hammer-hillary-clinton-democrats-issue>
// The Week // Ryan Cooper - July 17, 2015 *

Over the past year or so, the Democratic Party has begun settling on a big
new policy goal: beefing up family support programs. Now that ObamaCare has
started the work of making health care available for all, support for
children and parents is the major remaining hole
<http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/15/422957640/lots-of-other-countries-mandate-paid-leave-why-not-the-us>
in the U.S. safety net.

Though she has not yet released a formal proposal, Hillary Clinton has made
family policy a centerpiece of her campaign, consistently positioning
herself as a pro-family candidate. She focused sharply on the subject
during her recent policy address
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/13/hillary-clinton-transcript-building-the-growth-and-fairness-economy/>,
touting the benefits of sick leave and maternity leave, and the economic
benefits of women in the workforce.

Bernie Sanders, her strongest challenger in the Democratic primary, can do
her one better, however. In keeping with his blunt, forthright campaign, he
can challenge Clinton where her orthodoxy makes her policy weaker — in
particular, her mindless valorization of work.

As I said, we don't know exactly what Clinton will advocate yet, but it's
likely that her campaign will roughly follow the proposals coming out of
the Center for American Progress (closely tied to both Clinton and the
Democratic Party). In a recent paper
<https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/FMLA-reportv2.pdf>,
CAP analysts Heather Boushey and Alexandra Mitukiewicz outlined a maternity
leave policy taken from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's FAMILY Act
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3712>. It would
create a new branch of the Social Security Administration and a small
payroll tax increase to provide up to 60 days of paid family leave for
parents.

A second plank of the policy is likely to be some kind of sick leave
mandate in line with the proposed Healthy Families Act
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/1286>, which would
require employers with more than 15 employees to provide one hour of sick
leave for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum requirement of seven full
days per year. (Employers can always go higher if they want, of course!)

A third plank is likely to be some sort of quasi-universal pre-K program in
line with Sen. Bob Casey's recent proposal
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/14/is-oklahoma-the-right-model-for-universal-pre-k/>
.

All this is a good start, particularly in the design of the family leave
program. Paid family leave should definitely be a social insurance benefit
rather than an employer mandate. As Matt Yglesias explains
<http://www.vox.com/2015/2/6/7991505/parental-leave-mandate>, opting for
the latter design (which resembles what the U.S. did with health insurance
before ObamaCare) inevitably leaves out a great many workers, and then
becomes nearly impossible to overhaul. It's critical to get the initial
policy right, so further expansions are built on a sound foundation.

Sanders can provide three valuable additions (on top of what he's already
proposed
<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122027/bernie-sanderss-family-friendly-agenda-crushes-competition>).
First, he can simply aim higher. Sixty days of family leave isn't bad
compared to the current zero, but it's pitiful compared to Sweden's 480 days
<https://sweden.se/quickfact/parental-leave/> (split between both parents,
mostly as they like). America can easily afford 120 days or more, and
Sanders ought to be planting his flag in aggressive territory. Instead of
seven days of sick leave, 14. Instead of the smallbore pre-K program, a robust
and fully universal one
<http://theweek.com/articles/564964/how-democrats-are-already-precompromising-postobama-political-goals>
.

Second, he can add a universal child allowance. This can be achieved by
folding all the various bizarre child tax credits and so forth into a single
monthly allowance
<http://www.demos.org/blog/5/5/15/developments-child-benefit-idea>,
distributed on a per-child basis until age 16. By scrapping parts of the
welfare state that only benefit reach people, such as the mortgage interest
deduction, it can be strengthened further. A $300 per month allowance, for
example, would cut child poverty in half
<http://www.demos.org/blog/7/21/14/one-weird-trick-actually-cuts-child-poverty-half>
at a stroke.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Sanders can challenge Clinton's
overall framework. Though she explicitly disavowed Jeb Bush's idea that
Americans simply need to work more, she consistently valorized work
throughout her recent address
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/13/hillary-clinton-transcript-building-the-growth-and-fairness-economy/>.
She presented family programs as a way to keep women in the labor force, so
as to produce more growth and economic output. She generally presented
work, which appeared 57 times in the speech, as a major good in itself.

But while more jobs are surely a good goal in the short term, there are
reasons to think that Americans actually work way too much. Matt Bruenig
recently came up with a clever way to visualize this
<http://www.demos.org/blog/7/13/15/why-jeb-bush-wrong-focus-growth-alone>.
As nations become richer, they generally choose to work less, since they
can produce more with the same amount of work. In other words, most nations
take some of the fruits of productivity growth in the form of leisure — but the
U.S. has not
<http://www.demos.org/blog/7/16/15/should-americans-work-more-absolutely-not>
.

Since 1970, America's GDP produced per hour has doubled, but we have cut
average hours worked by only 6 percent. Compared to peer nations on the
economic productivity ladder (like France, which cut its hours by 26
percent over that period), America does more unnecessary work
<http://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/imce/diff.png> than any other
nation on Earth.

Just as Sanders challenged the primacy of economic growth
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/13/what-bernie-sanders-is-willing-to-sacrifice-for-a-more-equal-society/>,
when all income gains are immediately sucked up by the 1 percent, he could
challenge the idea of work as always and everywhere good.

This raises a deep question: What is the economy *for*? Not, one would
hope, simply ratcheting up total GDP to make the number go higher. It turns
out America is a very rich nation still flogging itself to work like a
middle-income one. We can easily afford a great many more days off — all we
need to do is make that choice.

*Sanders’ “small donor” base: How the fundraising numbers break down
<http://www.salon.com/2015/07/17/bernie_sanders_partner/> // Salon // Zaid
Jilani - July 17, 2015 *

Last night was the deadline for the Federal Election Commission’s
requirements that presidential candidates report how much they raised in
the second quarter of 2015. On the Republican side, this includes sizable
hauls that were matched by much larger super PAC fundraising that acts
as a sort
of loophole
<http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-out-raises-all-republicans-except-one-disgusting-loophole>
to
allow billionaires to give whatever they want to the political process.

For the Democrats, the two leading candidates
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/election-2016-campaign-money-race.html?smid=nytpolitics&_r=0>
are
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Sanders raised about $13.7 million.
When added to money from his last Senate campaign, this brings him to over
$15 million. Clinton raised almost $48 million.

But it is the nature of that fundraising that is perhaps most interesting.
The FEC segregates donations into two levels that can be easily deciphered:
under $200, typically referred to as “small donors,” and over $200. Nearly
81 percent of Sanders’ donors fit into this small donor category, making
him the candidate who has raised the most from these donors on either side
(Ben Carson comes in second at around 80.2 percent).

*Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump: Straight Talk on Steroids
<http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/07/17/donald-trump-and-bernie-sanders-straight-talk-on-steroids>
// U.S. News & World Report // David Catanese - July 17, 2015 *

The most meaningful moment of Donald Trump's
<http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2015/06/16/donald-trump-is-a-candidate-for-president>
spectacle of a presidential campaign thus far may have come during a solemn
evening news conference last Friday in Los Angeles, when he stood silently
behind the family members of crime victims.

One after another, a father or mother or aunt spoke emotionally about the
death of a son or nephew at the hands of someone who was in the country
illegally.

"Nobody wants to hear from us," lamented Don Rosenberg, whose 25-year-old
son was struck and then run over three times by a car driven by an
unlicensed man from Honduras. "We get ignored constantly."

Lupe Moreno, a Hispanic woman who wore a button with a photograph of her
deceased nephew, Ruben Morfin, fought back tears while describing his
death: Gunned down at age 13 in Salinas, California, by an immigrant
without the proper legal documents.

"Our children are dying every day. They're being raped. They're being
brutalized," Moreno said in raw remarks that echoed Trump's controversial
missive about Mexican immigrants last month. Her sister had gone to Capitol
Hill 20 years ago to deliver congressional testimony she hoped would spur
action to move against those who broke the law to get to the U.S. They're
still grieving, and still waiting.

Moreno thanked Trump for speaking hard truths. Then, with a pained look on
her face, she scolded the reporters in the room for failing to adequately
cover the deaths or describe the perpetrators' legal status: "You're not
helping at all; those other candidates aren't helping, either. I wish they
had the cojones of our forefathers.”

Whatever one thinks of the cannon of vitriol The Donald has spewed at his
rivals, the media and his former business partners during the past four
weeks, the stories of these families were not only heartbreakingly moving,
they helped explain Trump's expeditious rise in the Republican race for
president.

His direct, brash and unfiltered rhetoric may seem more suited for a pro
wrestling ring than a presidential debate stage, but to party members
filled with angst and disillusionment about career politicians and empty
promises, he simply sounds real and ready to act.

"In our community, we love Mr. Trump," said Althea Shaw, whose nephew was
murdered in 2008 by an immigrant in the country illegally who mistook him
for a rival gang member. "We're happy. Because we know he spoke up and said
something."

With Trump, there's no convoluted nuance, parsing of words or adhering to
politically correct norms. There's definitely no filter. Call it a
"Straight Talk Express" on steroids.

And while a gulf separates the two ideologically, the same could be said of
Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist who's attracting a similar intensity
level in the Democratic presidential primary.

Like Trump, Sanders' potential candidacy was once dismissed as negligible,
even laughable.

But this summer, the two are drawing the largest, most passionate crowds of
anyone in the 2016 fold. Sanders drew nearly 10,000 supporters in Madison,
Wisconsin, and 7,500 in Portland, Maine, while Trump pulled in more than
4,000 for a wild rally in Phoenix.

What's more, their poll numbers are swelling: While he still trails Hillary
Clinton by double digits nationally, Sanders has come within 8 points of
her in New Hampshire and has solidified himself as her chief rival. Trump,
meanwhile, has completely consumed the last month of the GOP race, riding
his wave over Jeb Bush and to the top of the heap in the latest Suffolk
University <https://www.suffolk.edu/documents/SUPRC/7_15_2015_marginals.pdf>
national survey of support for the Republican candidates.

"They are both mavericks who play to different drummers than the others,"
says Ed Rollins, a former presidential campaign chief for Republicans
Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee. "Free media helps their cause along."

Sanders describes the nation as swerving dangerously toward oligarchy. He
says college tuition should be free and two weeks of vacation should be
mandatory, and offers a straightforward plan to close the deficit: Boost
taxes on the wealthy and large corporations.

Compare that with Clinton, who when asked by CNN whether she'd be willing
to raise taxes, deflected and then punted down the road to another day.

Sanders doesn't couch his language – and the most fervent liberals love it.

When he told a gathering of about 500 at a recent town hall meeting in
Arlington, Virginia, that he would pay for college students' tuition with a
"tax on Wall Street speculation," the crowd erupted with 15 seconds of
sustained applause.

When he declared that "the Republican Party is literally a fringe party,"
conservatives blew their tops, but it was music to the ears of the diehard
left.

"It's always nice to have an avowed social Democrat out actually talking to
people and not hiding under and peeking out," says Madi Green, an attendee
who put her hands over her head and tucked it into her shoulder to visually
demonstrate the timidity of traditional Democrats.

Pat Mulloy, a local Democratic committeeman in Alexandria, Virginia, says
he sensed a pent-up demand among people he knew who were starving for
someone to articulate their economic frustration without caveat or
equivocation.

"Here's a guy that talks straight with the people. He doesn't have all
these people taking polls on what to say. He's telling you what he really
thinks is going on. And I think that's very refreshing for the country,"
Mulloy says of Sanders.

For Marion Stillson of Reston, Virginia, Sanders makes her feel proud to be
a liberal again.

"It's nice to attend an event where you know the views aren't mainstream
and everybody who's in here agrees with you," she says.

Of course, it's this irrepressible, unguarded approach that will likely
disqualify both Sanders and Trump from having a true shot at becoming their
respective party's nominee. (Even Sen. John McCain's milder version of the
"Straight Talk Express" didn't prove successful in his 2000 White House
run.)

What Trump and Sanders do represent, though, is an outlet for the
super-engaged, highly ideological party factions who rarely find a way to
get inspired by conventional politicians.

And their ascent is validation for a sliver of the populace (Sanders and
Trump are capturing between 15 and 17 percent of their party's national
electorates) that often feels maligned – or even worse, ignored – by
mainstream forces.

At the Sanders event, Jane Touchet had already signed on to organize for
the candidate in her county because of the "ridiculous salaries and
ridiculous benefits" being accumulated on Wall Street.

She shakes her head unenthusiastically when prompted about Clinton. "I
dunno. She's Bernie light," Touchet says.

When Trump said Mexican immigrants are "bringing crime" and are "rapists"
in his June 16 announcement, that didn't even go far enough for Jamil Shaw,
whose son was slain by the gang member in California.

"To me, he was being nice," Shaw said at last week's news conference. "I
would've said they're murderers. My son was murdered. So what he said was
really going easy."

Mickey Kaus, an outspoken activist against illegal immigration, says
Trump's "willingness to offend comes to be seen as a marker for 'he won't
sell out like the others have.'"

That seemed to be Shaw's line of thinking as he watched the pile-on of
Trump metastasize.

Other Republicans began to carve out distance from Trump, repudiating his
comments and referring to "political optics" as the next general election
approaches.

To Shaw, that just meant "they weren't going to do nothing."

"The only person I can see [taking action] is Mr. Trump," he said.

*Bernie Sanders Is Turning Crowds Into Volunteers in Iowa
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/bernie-sanders-is-turning-crowds-into-volunteers-in-iowa-20150717>
// National Journal // Emily Schultheis – July 17, 2015*

DES MOINES—The walls in Bernie Sanders's brand-new Des Moines
headquarters—nestled between a Hy-Vee supermarket, a liquor store, and a
Vietnamese restaurant—are full of the standard field-office fare: district
maps of the state, quotes from the candidate, and campaign signs in the
window.

But when it comes to Sanders's chances here in Iowa, it's the details that
are important: posters on the wall implore supporters to "Sign up to host
an organizer," "Sign up to phone bank," and "sign up to canvass."

At an office-opening event Thursday night, the space was humming with
activity as about 100 supporters filed into the room, grabbing snacks from
a table of hodgepodge items and sitting down in chairs arranged in a circle
in the center of the room. Each supporter was asked to fill out a small
card with his or her name and contact information and to check boxes about
how to "take action" ("Support Bernie," "Recruit 5 Friends to Caucus for
Bernie," "Be a Precinct Captain for Bernie … let's meet!"). Around the
walls were the names of neighborhoods or towns—Urbandale ("Bernie-dale," as
it was dubbed), Altoona, Waukee—and activists were encouraged to sit near
their hometown. Staffers in light blue "Bernie" shirts walked around with
clipboards, making sure everyone's information was taken down.

"Bernie's drawing big crowds," Sanders's Iowa director, Robert Becker, told
the crowd to applause. "Now it's time to organize … this is about building
an army."

Sanders, the self-described socialist in the Democratic race, may be the
last person national political observers expected to emerge as the chief
Democratic challenger to Hillary Clinton. But even still, he's drawing
massive crowds to rallies across the country and has seen his standing rise
rapidly in the polls. To capitalize on the enthusiasm surrounding his
campaign, he'll need to do more than just draw crowds—and his team is
quickly putting an operation in place in Iowa to take advantage of the
people coming out to support him.

In mid-May, shortly after Sanders launched his campaign, Iowa coordinator
Pete D'Alessandro was the lone staffer in Iowa, tasked with putting
together a team that could give Sanders a shot at winning next February's
caucuses. Now, D'Alessandro is just one of 31 staffers—including 24 field
organizers—who are on the ground here. That number is expected to rise to
40 by the end of the month, the campaign says.

And as of mid-July, the campaign has 10 field offices across the state,
including in all the major cities—the same number as Hillary Clinton's
campaign.

"Sanders is impressing everybody with the crowds he's had … but the next
step is actually mobilizing them into real assets for the campaign instead
of just chairs," said Grant Woodard, an Iowa-based Democrat who worked for
Clinton in 2008 but is unaffiliated in the 2016 race. "Right now, a lot of
people are wondering whether this is just a flash in the pan—so I think
they need to start demonstrating that this is not a flash in the pan, it's
real, lasting power."

Sanders's team has been able to hit the ground running in part because
three of the campaign's regional field directors—and half a dozen Iowa
staffers overall—came over directly from "Run Warren Run," the effort to
draft Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren into the race that called it
quits earlier this summer. These organizers had spent months reaching out
to potential caucus-goers on Warren's behalf, and with the Warren draft
efforts endorsing Sanders his aides say they're a natural fit for his
campaign.

"If you meet a candidate in July or August but don't hear from [their]
people with a fair degree of frequency, what are the odds that you're going
to have your ardor drive you to a caucus site on a cold evening in
February?" said Kurt Meyer, the chairman of the Tri-County Democrats in
northern Iowa. "Without an organized effort, a lot of that enthusiasm
evaporates."

What Sanders is up against isn't just any well-organized opponent: Iowa
Democratic activists say it will be difficult for anyone to catch up to
Clinton's team, which has had field organizers in place since the campaign
launch in mid-April and now has a total staff of 60 in the state.

On Wednesday evening in Iowa City, a Democratic stronghold in the eastern
part of the state, Clinton's team held the 10th and last of its field
office "open house" events across the state.

When Clinton came to town last week to attend several organizing events,
her campaign touted its outreach metrics in Iowa—including the fact that it
has a committed supporter in each of the state's 1,682 precincts, and that
it has held more than 3,000 one-on-one meeting with voters—as proof that
they are taking the primary seriously. And on Friday morning, it announced
endorsements from two top statewide officials: Iowa Attorney General Tom
Miller and state Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald.

At the Iowa City office, the level of organization—and the extent to which
Clinton's team has set up shop across the state—was clear: four Iowa
City-based organizers spoke, introducing local elected officials and asking
their organizing fellows to raise their hands (there were at least a
half-dozen).

"We have the best staff," said state Rep. Mary Mascher. "With our help,
we're going to carry her past the finish line."

For former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, the challenge is quite different:
to build up name identification by talking to as many potential voters as
possible. The campaign's second-quarter filing with the Federal Election
Commission shows just four staffers paid in Iowa by the end of June. But
since then, the team has grown rapidly; though the O'Malley campaign would
not say how many staffers it has in Iowa, operatives close to the campaign
have pegged it at at least 30, with staffers in multiple cities across the
state.

Also working in O'Malley's favor is the super PAC supporting him,
Generation Forward. Unlike other pro-candidate super PACs on the Democratic
side, Generation Forward is planning to play an active role in the field
side of the O'Malley effort: The group has already opened a Des Moines
office, hired a field director and three full-time regional field
directors, and has brought on a total of 45 part- or full-time organizers
to bolster canvassing efforts, said Communications Director Ron Boehmer. It
plans to open additional offices in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, as well as
adding an additional 50-100 organizers.

Osceola County Chairwoman Kathy Winter referred to Clinton, Sanders and
O'Malley as the "big three" when it comes to organizing. By comparison,
activists around the state say they've heard less from former Sen. Jim Webb
of Virginia—and virtually nothing from former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln
Chafee. Webb has two staffers focused on Iowa, but at this point does not
have office space in the state.

For Sanders, the test now will be what those organizers do now that they're
in place.

*Conservative Media Erroneously Attribute Military Base Gun Policy To
Clinton Administration*
<http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/07/17/conservative-media-erroneously-attribute-milita/204465>*
// Media Matters // Timothy Johnson and Kate Sullivan – July 17, 2015*

Conservative media are claiming that President Bill Clinton enacted a
policy that bans guns at military bases in the wake of the mass shooting at
a military facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In fact, the policy was
enacted in 1992 during the administration of George H.W. Bush and does
allow guns to be carried on base under some circumstances.

Gunman Kills 4 Marines, Injures 3 Others In Attack On Chattanooga Military
Sites

Gunman Opens Fire On Two Military Sites, Killing Four. On July 16, a gunman
opened fire on a military recruiting center, then drove to a second
military site in Chattanooga, TN, where he killed four U.S. Marines and
injured three other people, according to The New York Times. [The New York
Times, 7/16/15]

Conservative Media Blame Military Base Gun Policy, Incorrectly Claiming It
Began Under President Bill Clinton

Fox Guest: Clinton Executive Order "Took Away The Rights For Service
Members To Carry Concealed [Weapons]." On the July 16 edition of Fox News'
Happening Now, guest Chad Jenkins stated, "Unfortunately the executive
order put in place by President Bill Clinton back in the '90s took away the
rights for service members to carry concealed and to protect themselves
here on the homeland." [Fox News, Happening Now, 7/16/15]

Fox's Doocy: Gun Free Zones "Started With Bill Clinton." On the July 17
edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, host Steve Doocy claimed that former
President Bill Clinton banned guns on military bases:

DOOCY: The recruiting facility behind you, on the door, next to the bullet
holes is a sign that says gun-free zones. The President of the United
States with an executive order could end that policy that started with Bill
Clinton. [Fox News, Fox & Friends 7/17/15]

Fox's John Roberts: Military Base Gun Policy "Was Enacted In 1993 When
President Clinton Took Office." On the July 16 edition of Hannity, Fox News
correspondent John Roberts falsely reported that the policy regulating guns
on military bases was not "enacted" until the Clinton administration:

ROBERTS: A 1992 directive from February of 1992 that was enacted in 1993
when President Clinton took office severely limits the presence of firearms
in military facilities, including recruiting centers. However, there are
some provisions in that directive that allow weapons to be held on military
facilities. [Fox News, Hannity, 7/16/15]

Washington Examiner: "Policy Implemented By" Clinton "Ma[de] Military Bases
'Gun-Free Zones'." The Washington Examiner wrote, "Pistol-packing GOP
presidential candidate Donald Trump ripped a policy implemented by former
President Bill Clinton making military bases "gun free zones," declaring
that as president bases would no longer be defenseless against terror
attacks." [The Washington Examiner, 7/16/15]

Breitbart's Pamela Geller: "Bill Clinton Instituted A Ban On Armed Military
Personnel." Pamela Geller, an anti-Muslim activist, claimed in a July 16
Breitbart post that, "Years ago, Bill Clinton instituted a ban on armed
military personnel." [Breitbart.com, 7/16/15]

Fox Host: "President Clinton Passed A Ban On Soldiers Being Able To Protect
Themselves." In a July 16 blog post, Outnumbered co-host Stacey Dash wrote:
"Well, apparently, we have Bill Clinton to blame. President Clinton passed
a ban on soldiers being able to protect themselves." [Patheos.com, 7/16/15]

Department Of Defense Policy, Which Allows Guns On Bases, Actually Dates To
The Administration Of George H.W. Bush

Policy Was Not "Enacted" Under Clinton, Instead It Was "Effective
Immediately" In 1992. From the February 25, 1992 directive:

This Directive is effective immediately. Forward one copy of implementing
documents to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control,
Communications and Intelligence) and the Inspector General, Department of
Defense within 120 days. [Department of Defense, 2/25/92]

Department Of Defense Policy: Guns May Be Carried On Military Bases "When
There Is A Reasonable Expectation That Life Or DoD Assets Will Be
Jeopardized If Firearms Are Not Carried." Rather than making military bases
"gun-free zones," the 1992 directive issued by the Department of Defense
instead describes the circumstances under which guns can be carried on
military bases:

To limit and control the carrying of firearms by DoD military and civilian
personnel. The authorization to carry firearms shall be issued only to
qualified personnel when there is a reasonable expectation that life or DoD
assets will be jeopardized if firearms are not carried. Evaluation of the
necessity to carry a firearm shall be made considering this expectation
weighed against the possible consequences of accidental or indiscriminate
use of firearms. DoD personnel regularly engaged in law enforcement or
security duties shall be armed. [Department of Defense, 2/25/92]

The New Republic: Directive "Was By No Means A 'Ban' On Firearms At
Military Installations." Following the 2013 mass shooting at Washington
D.C.'s Navy Yard facility, The New Republic debunked the claim that the
1992 directive made military bases "gun-free zones":

What's more, that directive--signed by Donald J. Atwood, George H. W.
Bush's deputy secretary of defense -- was by no means a "ban" on firearms
at military installations. It explicitly authorizes DOD personnel "to carry
firearms while engaged in law enforcement or security duties, protecting
personnel, vital Government assets, or guarding prisoners," and simply aims
to "limit and control the carrying of firearms by DoD military and civilian
personnel. The authorization to carry firearms shall be issued only to
qualified personnel when there is a reasonable expectation that life or DoD
assets will be jeopardized if firearms are not carried. Evaluation of the
necessity to carry a firearm shall be made considering this expectation
weighed against the possible consequences of accidental or indiscriminate
use of firearms." [The New Republic, 9/17/13]

*Support for Sanders Grows in Unions
<http://labornotes.org/2015/07/support-sanders-grows-unions> // Labor Notes
// Dan DiMaggio - July 17, 2015*

Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president is drawing impressive crowds to
rallies across the country—from 7,500 in Burlington, Vermont, to 300 in
Birmingham, Alabama.

And it’s no wonder that many union members are part of this groundswell of
support, or that he’s already won endorsements from a number of locals and
support resolutions from the Vermont and South Carolina AFL-CIOs.

“It would be hard to find many other elected leaders in state or national
office who have supported the issues of working families, working people,
the working poor, and workplace justice any more than Senator Sanders,”
said nurse Mari Cordes, a member of Vermont’s Teachers (AFT) local.

Sanders’ platform includes a $15-an-hour minimum wage, guaranteed vacations
and sick leave, lifting the payroll tax cap on Social Security, and
single-payer health care. He’s a vocal opponent of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, the latest corporate-friendly trade deal. He rails against
income inequality and how the “billionaire class” dominates politics.

“It’s clear that Bernie, like Elizabeth Warren, has been out there speaking
about the issues that are boiling up in union halls across the country,”
said Larry Hanley, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union.

While he and the ATU have backed Hillary Clinton for years, Hanley said,
“Hillary thus far has not offered us the path that Bernie has.”

So endorsements pose a strategic dilemma. “We don’t want to bruise Hillary
so much in the process that she can’t win. We don’t want to lead our
members down a dark alley,” he said.

“But at what point do we get our share? At what point do workers get what
we had 30 years ago? We don’t just get that by saluting the status quo.”

An invitation-only event in D.C. on July 13, hosted by leaders of Postal
Workers (APWU) and former CWA president Larry Cohen, drew presidents or
their designees from 22 international unions to hear the candidate speak.

A similar number showed up for a Clinton event the next night at the home
of her campaign manager, John Podesta.

“Bernie Sanders has been a champion of postal workers and consumers, and
raising the question of $15 for all as a minimum wage,” said APWU President
Mark Dimondstein. “On that basis our union will give him serious
consideration.”

Organizers of Labor for Bernie—a grassroots effort to build labor support
for the Sanders campaign—say one goal is to discourage the AFL-CIO from
making an early Clinton endorsement.

They argue labor has little to gain from an early endorsement. And they
want more time for pro-Sanders activism to raise union members’
expectations on the issues being highlighted in his campaign.

They want 5,000 signatures on their Labor for Bernie statement before the
AFL-CIO executive council meets July 29-30. As of July 15 they had 3,500.

Sanders, Clinton, Maryland ex-Gov. Martin O’Malley, and Arkansas ex-Gov.
Mike Huckabee are all expected to attend the meeting, where the council
could endorse a candidate or decide to hold off. Hanley said the ATU
opposes an early endorsement.

Presidential endorsements are the national AFL-CIO’s prerogative, as
President Richard Trumka reminded state and local bodies in a recent memo
after the Vermont and South Carolina federations passed resolutions backing
Sanders.

AFL-CIO bylaws stipulate that these bodies may not “introduce, consider,
debate, or pass resolutions or statements that indicate a preference for
one candidate over another.” The rule also applies to personal statements
by local and state officers.

But Labor for Bernie organizers hope that state and local fed bodies and
officers are willing to flout the rules.

So far Sanders has the backing of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 2222 in
Massachusetts, IBEW Local 159 in Madison, Wisconsin, the Vermont National
Education Association (NEA), and Lithographers Local One-L (a Teamsters’
affiliate), among others.

“We were really happy he decided to run, because it gave us an
alternative,” said Myles Calvey, Local 2222’s business manager. “Elected
Democratic officials have it in their minds that labor has no place to go.”

Calvey contrasts Sanders with Democrat John Kerry. Just a few weeks after
CWA and IBEW settled a hard-fought contract with Verizon in 2012, he said,
Kerry was sharing seats in the press box at a Patriots game with CEO Lowell
McAdam.

The Electrical Workers (UE) executive board has also issued a statement
supporting Sanders, urging “members and locals to take a serious look at
Bernie Sanders’s campaign and to consider their active participation in it.”

Clinton picked up a big endorsement July 11, when the executive council of
the 1.6 million-member Teachers (AFT) became the first major national union
to announce it would support her in the primaries.

President Randi Weingarten has close ties to Clinton, and serves on the
board of the pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA.

An AFT press release said members had supported Clinton 3 to 1 in a poll.
But many members condemned the endorsement on social media, calling the
process flawed and shallow.

“I was really flabbergasted. I think it seems so premature,” said Candi
Peterson, vice president of the Washington Teachers Union, Local 6. She’d
never heard about the union’s telephone town hall meetings or its “You
Decide” website.

“It was the best-kept secret in town,” said Peterson, whose local is based
in D.C., like the national union. “And that’s not typical of the AFT—we get
bombarded with information.”

“It feels like the leadership did a ‘we know what’s best,’ that their
influence with people in power is more important than the members,” said
Jia Lee, a chapter leader of the United Federation of Teachers in New York
City. “The top campaign contributors to Hillary Clinton are the same groups
that support privatization of public education.”

The other big teachers union, the NEA, opted not to endorse early at its
July convention. The Vermont chapter sent a delegation outfitted in Bernie
T-shirts, with a box full of placards and stickers.

“People came up to us as soon as they saw our shirts and signs,” said
President Martha Allen, “and they spread throughout the entire room. We ran
out of all our stuff.”

The NEA could still issue an early endorsement in October, through its
board and PAC council, or in February. Vermont NEA, meanwhile, will
encourage members to knock doors for Sanders in New Hampshire's early
primary.

Cohen, who stepped down as CWA president in June, is now working as an
unpaid Sanders volunteer.

The TPP is among the issues motivating him. Sanders has been a leading
opponent of the trade deal, while Clinton refuses to take a position.

“What we learned from the trade fight,” Cohen said, “is the gap between
what people say when they campaign for the Iowa caucuses and what they then
do. I don’t think anybody’s worried about any gap like that for Bernie
Sanders.”

For Donna Dewitt, former president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, the key
is for Sanders’ message to reach deeper into the Democratic party base and
non-voters.

A Sanders event in Columbia, South Carolina, last year drew local leaders
from CWA, the Auto Workers, and the Steelworkers. “But the majority [of
participants] were young Black workers with the Raise Up campaign, fighting
for $15 an hour,” Dewitt said.

“[Bernie] was most impressed with them. The Democratic Party is expanding
their base in the minority community, but nobody’s reaching these young
workers. None of these people have ever voted before.”

Teacher Susan Sadlowski Garza won a tight race for alderman this year in
Chicago’s 10th Ward, after Sanders came out to rally with her, mayoral
candidate Chuy Garcia, and Chicago Teachers President Karen Lewis.

“His message is basic things: people before money, working-class people are
getting the shaft,” Garza said. “He speaks exactly what we feel. I know
people that are staunch Republicans that are swinging toward Bernie,
conservatives. His message resonates and crosses party lines.”

Hanley said the ATU is figuring out a process to promote more member
involvement in deciding on the presidential endorsement.

“If you don’t do that, you’re just another logo put on somebody’s
campaign,” he said. “Our real leverage is in, first, organizing our members
around a set of beliefs—and then, through our members, organizing the
public around those beliefs.”

*Bernie Sanders is the future of the Democratic Party
<http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2015/07/17/bernie-sanders-dems-future/30251805/>
// The Detroit News // David Harsanyi - July 17, 2015*

“The rise of Bernie Sanders is proving awkward for the Democratic Party,”
contends Politico in a recent piece about the surprisingly popular
socialist presidential candidate.

Well, maybe it’s not that surprising. And it’s probably not that awkward.
Politico could have just as easily declared: The rise of Bernie Sanders is
a completely predictable outcome of the Democratic Party’s trajectory. Or,
maybe: The rise of Bernie Sanders portends a socialistic future for the
Democratic Party.

After all, while the press had fun detailing every rightward lurch of the
conservative movement, not only has the “socialist surge” been a restive
force within Democratic Party politics during the Obama Age, but it’s been
making tremendous policy progress.

Although we rarely frame politics in these terms, as a philosophical
matter, we’ve often been engaged in a debate that pits the theories of
18th-century liberalism — the kind that brought us the Constitution and
limited government — against ideas first embraced in 19th-century Marxism.
Is there any doubt the left’s grassroots is driven by the latter, whether
it’s intuitively or on purpose?

So Sanders is polling at 35 percent in one recent CNN poll of New
Hampshire, even though he is supposedly operating far outside the norms of
American political debate. Sanders can draw 10,000 fervent fans at a
campaign event in Wisconsin — a number that would be envied by most
presidential candidates this cycle. Sanders correctly points out that his
positions on higher minimum wage, pay equity and other state interference
in markets enjoy high approval ratings with most voters. “It is not a
radical agenda,” he says. “In virtually every instance, what I’m saying is
supported by a significant majority of the American people.”

This is almost true.

What is wholly true is that big majorities within the Democratic Party
support these policies, and they would probably go a lot further if they
could. Hillary Clinton is lucky there isn’t a more compelling and
charismatic candidate making a more comprehensive socialistic case to
Americans, as there was the last time around. The difference between her
adopted position and his real one is scope.

That’s not to say Democrats are unadulterated socialists sitting around
studying communist theorists in their spare time, any more than
small-government conservatives are opposed to every state-run program. But
today, many prefer policies that would be referred to as socialist anywhere
else in the world. And the stigma attached to the word is slowly, and
fittingly, disintegrating.

According to a YouGov poll, 52 percent of Americans hold favorable views of
capitalism, while only 26 percent have a favorable view of socialism. When
broken down further, 43 percent of Democrats hold sympathetic views toward
socialism. Democrats are just as likely to have a favorable view of
capitalism as they do collectivism. The future does not bode well for
free-market fans. According to a Pew poll, 49 percent of those between ages
18 and 29 say they have a positive view of socialism — with only 43 percent
having a negative view. Considering the history and connotation of the
word, that’s quite extraordinary.

Sanders will not win the Democratic Party nomination. I’m skeptical he’s
even as popular as polls claim. Still, he’s moved to the ideological center
of the Democratic Party without changing at all. So will his ideas.
Democrats will not pull back once they get their $10 minimum wage. They
will not be content once universal pre-K is passed. They will not be
satiated after the next round of unilateral Environmental Protection Agency
intrusions into the energy markets are instituted. And liberals will never
concede that health care is now working and so we won’t need any more
government involvement.

Sanders might be treated as an outlier. But really, it’s more likely he’s
the future.

*Liberals Roar As Bernie Sanders Joins Elizabeth Warren On Bill To
Reinstate Glass-Steagall
<http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/17/liberals-roar-bernie-sanders-joins-elizabeth-warren-bill-reinstate-glass-steagall.html>
// Politicus USA // Jason Easley - July 17, 2015 *

Two of the most prominent liberals in the Senate have joined forces to take
on the big banks as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has announced that he is
teaming up with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to co-sponsor her bill that
would reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act.

In a statement, Sanders said:

I strongly support Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s bill to reinstate the
Glass-Steagall Act.

On July 1, 1999, while Congress was voting on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to
permit commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies to merge,
then-Rep. Sanders said: “I believe this legislation, in its current form,
will do more harm than good. It will lead to fewer banks and financial
service providers; increased charges and fees for individual consumers and
small businesses; diminished credit for rural America; and taxpayer
exposure to potential losses should a financial conglomerate fail. It will
lead to more mega-mergers; a small number of corporations dominating the
financial service industry; and further concentration of economic power in
our country.”

Allowing commercial banks to merge with investment banks and insurance
companies in 1999 was a huge mistake. It precipitated the largest taxpayer
bailout in the history of the world. It caused millions of Americans to
lose their jobs, homes, life savings and ability to send their kids to
college. It substantially increased wealth and income inequality and it led
to the enormous concentration of economic power in this country.

I am proud to have led the fight in the House against repealing the
Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. Sixteen years ago, I predicted that such a
massive deregulation of the financial services industry would seriously
harm the economy. I would give anything to have been proven wrong about
this but unfortunately what happened seven years ago was even worse than I
predicted.

Today, not only must we reinstate this important law, but if we are truly
serious about ending too big to fail, we have got to break up the largest
financial institutions in this country. If an institution is too big to
fail, it is too big to exist.

The legislation to reinstate Glass-Steagall was introduced by Democratic
Senators Warren and Cantwell (D-WA) along with Republican John McCain
earlier this month. At the time, Warren said
<http://www.warren.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=872>, “Despite the
progress we’ve made since 2008, the biggest banks continue to threaten our
economy. The biggest banks are collectively much larger than they were
before the crisis, and they continue to engage in dangerous practices that
could once again crash our economy. The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act
will rebuild the wall between commercial and investment banking and make
our financial system more stable and secure.”

It is at this point that the obvious must be stated. Despite the support of
McCain, Senate Republicans are going to squash this bill. However, the
point of this legislation isn’t passage. Congressional liberals have
quickly become experts as using their minority status to introduce publicly
popular legislation that raises the profile of important issues while
putting Republicans on the hot seat by forcing them to defend positions
that place them in opposition to a majority of the public.

The judging of proposed legislation based on odds of passage promotes a
myopic view that ignores long-term goals and the big picture. Liberals are
trying to change the public discussion on issues like the big banks and
financial reform, but to begin that conversation the public must have the
opportunity to become aware and informed.

Republicans thrive when voters and constituents are uninformed.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall was signed into law by former President
Clinton, who has continued to defend his deregulation.
<http://thehill.com/policy/finance/206099-clinton-fires-back-at-critics-of-financial-regulatory-policies>
Glass-Steagall could be a thorny issue for Hillary Clinton on the
Democratic primary campaign trail. The post-Great Recession era is not the
go-go 90s. Senate liberals are fighting to keep the country from repeating
the economic mistakes of the recent past.

*Republicans Terrified As Texas Demand For Bernie Sanders Forces Rally To A
Bigger Venue
<http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/17/republicans-terrified-texas-demand-bernie-sanders-forces-rally-bigger-venue.html>
// Politicus USA // Jason Easley - July 17, 2015*

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has a message that is so
popular that he was forced to move a rally in Texas to a larger venue to
accommodate the growing crowd.

The Sanders campaign announced the change in venue for the Democratic
candidate’s Houston, TX rally on July 19, “With turnout projections
mounting, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign has shifted the location of
Sunday’s town meeting in Houston, Texas, to the Hofheinz Pavilion.”

These events were intended to be town hall meetings, but demand is so high
that format has been getting changed to a campaign rally. I anticipate that
the Houston event will also be more of a rally than a town hall.

Demand has also forced the campaign to move a Saturday rally in Phoenix to
a larger venue,
<http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/15/red-state-arizona-gaga-bernie-sanders-demand-forces-rally-bigger-arena.html>
as the big crowds are showing no signs of diminishing for Bernie Sanders.

Republicans should be terrified of Bernie Sanders’ popularity because Texas
is the heart of the Republican Party. The state is demographically
changing, but the reason Republicans should be worried about Sanders is
that he is demonstrating the power of a liberal populist economic message
in red states.

Bernie Sanders, the candidate, isn’t what Republicans should be concerned
about. The message that Sanders is bringing is what should strike fear into
the GOP. Sanders talks about creating jobs, repealing Citizens United,
raising wages for working people, equal pay for women. The Sanders message
is that it is time to stand up to the billionaires and corporations and
return the government back to the people.

If this message can find support in red states like Arizona and Texas, it
can be successful all across the country.

Bernie Sanders is demonstrating that there is and huge demand among red
state liberals for their candidates. Democrats and liberals in red states
are often unfairly forgotten and lumped in with Republicans. Sen. Sanders
is making an effort to campaign in front of these voters and ask for their
support.

Be afraid Republicans, because Bernie Sanders is showing the country the
potential power of liberal populist ideas in red states.

*UNDECLARED*

*OTHER*

*In Iowa, the first face-off between Clinton, Sanders and other rivals
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-iowa-the-first-face-off-between-clinton-sanders-and-other-rivals/2015/07/17/8fcd7b1e-2c9b-11e5-a5ea-cf74396e59ec_story.html>
// WaPo // Phillip Rucker – July 17, 2015*

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — The two leading candidates for the Democratic
presidential nomination came here Friday for their first face-off of the
2016 presidential race, sounding populist economic themes as they tried to
win over the liberal voters likely to sway the Iowa caucuses.

Front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and insurgent Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.) campaigned near each other — although they stopped short of
directly attacking one another — ahead of a dinner for hundreds of
Democratic activists at which all five candidates for the Democratic
nomination are to give keynote speeches.

At an afternoon rally to pump up a few hundred supporters, Clinton
sharpened her attack against Republicans. She decried decades of what she
called GOP “trickle-down” economics of tax cuts for wealthy people and
corporations.

“I love it when the Republicans attack me” over her economic proposals,
Clinton said. “I’m just sitting there thinking, ‘You have a lot of nerve.
We would never had been in that ditch if it had not been for those terrible
economic policies and that lack of accountability that you all promoted.’ ”

Clinton scored one of her biggest bursts of applause when she praised
President Obama as turning around the economy after the last recession.

“President Obama deserves more credit than he’s given for saving us from
the great depression,” Clinton said at the rally, held in the basement of
the historic Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Cedar Rapids.

Clinton was trying to gin up enthusiasm ahead of the Iowa Democratic
Party’s Hall of Fame celebration dinner, which will be one of the first
opportunities for activists here to compare her and Sanders. Her campaign
served pizza and opened a bar. One introductory speaker called it “Happy
Hour with Hillary.” A DJ played pulsating dance music, including “Let’s Get
Loud,” by Jennifer Lopez.

A couple hours earlier, in the grand lobby of the same building, Sanders
held a news conference in which he vowed to break up the country’s biggest
financial institutions and condemned the influence of corporate money,
especially contributions from banks such as Goldman Sachs, in politics.

Sanders refused to go after Clinton directly, even when prodded by
reporters, but the contrast he was making to her record and campaign was
clear nonetheless.

Sanders attributed what he described as the erosion of the middle class,
rising poverty and a growing divide between rich and poor to “the greed,
the recklessness and the illegal behavior of the people on Wall Street.”
When one reporter noted that the Clinton campaign had reported receiving at
least $50,000 from employees of Goldman Sachs, Sanders was quick to state,
“I didn’t get any money from Goldman Sachs.”

“I don’t want Wall Street’s money,” he added. “You have — and let me
underline the word — a corrupt campaign finance system. And obviously what
Goldman Sachs wants, what corporate America wants, what the Koch brothers
want, is undue influence over the political process.”

Sanders also told reporters that earlier in the week he had signed on as a
sponsor, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), of a bill to
reestablish the Glass-Steagall Act, a 1930s-era law restricting banking
activities that was repealed in 1999. Progressives have urged Clinton to
back such legislation, but despite toughening her rhetoric about taking on
big banks, she has not taken a position on Glass-Steagall.

Sanders told reporters that with the six largest banks having assets equal
to more than half of U.S. gross domestic product, “We have got to break
them up. They are too powerful, they have too much control over the
economy, and I fear very much another ‘too big to fail’ situation, that the
middle class will have to bail them out.”

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, former Virginia senator Jim Webb
and former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee also are expected to speak
at the Iowa Democratic dinner.

*Democratic presidential hopefuls to share a stage in Iowa
<http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article27477388.html>*
*//
Miami Herald // Anita Kumar - July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON - For the first time this campaign season, the five Democrats
vying for president will share the stage.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders,
former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb
and Lincoln Chafee, a former governor and senator from Rhode Island, will
speak at the sold-out Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame dinner Friday
night in Cedar Rapids.

Hundreds of Democrats will be listening to hear what the candidates talk
about and how they react to each other. O’Malley was the keynote speaker at
last year’s dinner, which is an annual fundraiser for the party. Clinton
and O’Malley are holding nearby pep rallies before the event.

Ahead of the dinner, two statewide Democrats announced their support for
Clinton: Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald.
Both were early supporters of Barack Obama in 2007.

“It takes grassroots organizing to be successful in Iowa,” Miller said.
“I’m proud to lend my support to Hillary Clinton’s Iowa organizing efforts.
Conversations happening in coffee shops, living rooms and field offices
about why Hillary Clinton is the champion working families need are going
to make the difference on caucus night and put us on the path to victory in
November.”

The campaigns of the 15 announced Republican candidates will participate in
a United Iowa rally Friday to show that they are united to work together to
elect a conservative to the White House.

“For the first time all campaigns are coming together to make it crystal
clear that we are ready for 2016 and will all work together to make sure
one of our candidates is elected to the White House,” said Jeff Kaufmann,
chairman of the Iowa Republican party. “There are 481 days until the
election, and we’re already laying the groundwork for success.”

On Saturday, 10 Republican candidates are expected to speak in Ames, Iowa
at an event sponsored by The Family Leader, a conservative Christian
organization.

*Big stakes for 2016 Democrats as they meet together for first time
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/big-stakes-democrats-they-meet-together-first-time>
// MSNBC // Alex Seitz-Wald – July 17, 2015*

For the first time, the entire 2016 Democratic presidential field will
gather together in one place Friday night in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. All five
candidates, from prohibitive frontrunner Hillary Clinton to self-funding
longshot Lincoln Chafee, will make their pitches at the Iowa Democratic
Party’s Hall of Fame dinner.

It will be first chance for committed activists in the key presidential
state to consider their options. And it will also be the first chance for
candidates themselves to size each other up, since they’re likely to meet
backstage and are expected to stick around and watch the other speeches.
Candidates will not debate each other, but instead give back-to-back
remarks.

Tickets are sold out and the stakes are high, though each candidate will
have a different to-do list going in to Friday’s dinner.

Clinton, whose strength belies questions about her supporters’ enthusiasm,
wants to demonstrate that she can captivate the Iowa grassroots and capture
widespread support from the party.

Iowa derailed Clinton’s presidential ambitions in 2008, and it’s the place
rivals think she is vulnerable again, though polls show she remains very
strong. Ahead of the dinner Friday morning, her campaign took the rare step
of announcing two big endorsements, from Iowa’s attorney general and
treasurer.

Meanwhile, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has emerged as Clinton’s top
rival, want to show that he’s more than just a passing fad with a low
ceiling of support, as rivals have contended. Sanders will need to pull
support from beyond his traditional base of educated liberals if he hopes
to the win the Democratic nomination.

Friday night, that means appealing winning over stalwart party activists,
who have dedicated years of their life to the Democratic Party and may not
take kindly to an independent who has criticized the party and done less
than most to help its candidates get elected.

But perhaps no one has more on the line than former Maryland Gov. Martin
O’Malley, who is going all-in on Iowa, even though his candidacy remains
mired in the single digit in polls.

O’Malley has positioned himself as more progressive than Clinton, more
electable than Sanders, and with more executive experience than anyone in
the race. So far, voters haven’t responded and he remains largely unknown,
but he’ll try to lay the groundwork for a turnaround Friday night.

Rounding out the field is former Sen. Jim Webb, who is more conservative
than the rest of the field and ha broken with President Obama and his party
on everything from the Iran nuclear deal to the Confederate flag.

Webb’s first Iowa director quit not long ago, and he has to hope his
idiosyncratic message resonates with some party activists if he hopes to be
seen as a serious contender.

That imperative is even truer for former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee,
who announced his long shot presidential bid by calling for a transition to
the metric system. Chafee has so far funded his campaign with his personal
wealth, raising only $29,000 from contributors since announcing in June.

He’s yet to identify a real constituency or rationale for running, so will
be looking to find supporters Friday. Like Sanders, Chafee may face
questions from the party faithful since he only became a Democrat in 2013.

The event also underscores the dramatic difference between the Republican
and Democratic sides of 2016. While the GOP has had numerous so-called
cattle calls, where candidates give back-to-back speeches, the Democratic
race has been off to a much slower start with a much smaller field.

*Democrats showcase all 5 candidates in their field
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/07/17/chafee-clinton-omalley-sanders-webb-take-stage-iowa/30327935/>
// Des Moines Register // Jennifer Jacobs – July 17, 2015*

CEDAR RAPIDS, Ia. – Friday night's big Democratic party fundraising dinner
was considered a bellwether for where the early energy might go in the
presidential race in Iowa.

Outside the 2015 Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame Celebration, there was
a showdown between just two camps — fans of Hillary Clinton and fans of
Martin O'Malley. The mostly youthful cheer squads stood on opposite sides
of the street, chanting slogans and jumping up and down with campaign
signs, trying to out-spirit each other.

The pack of cheerleaders for O'Malley, a former Maryland governor, was
slightly outnumbered by those for Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state.

"But we have more of the vibe," said Kyle Gradford, 16, of Des Moines, who
explained that he's a passionate O'Malley supporter "because he supports
things I was taught in my household — like nothing's wrong with gay
marriage. And he's really personable and everybody can connect with him."

None of the Clinton cheerleaders would speak to reporters, saying that they
"weren't allowed."

The five presidential candidates had yet to deliver their speeches by The
Des Moines Register's deadline. But all five candidates briefly took the
stage to wave at the audience at the start of the event, serenaded by a
soundtrack of "We Take Care of Our Own" by Bruce Springsteen.

It was the first time all five — Clinton; O'Malley; former Rhode Island
Gov. Lincoln Chafee; Bernie Sanders, an independent U.S. senator from
Vermont; and former Virginia U.S. Sen. Jim Webb — have spoken at a single
event. Noticeably absent was Vice President Joe Biden, who is still mulling
whether to run for president. He was last in Iowa in October 2014.

It was the hottest ticket in the state for Democratic Party faithful. The
seats, many priced at $50 each, sold out in less than three weeks.

The dinner was an opportunity for the four underdogs in the race to try to
gain an edge on Clinton, who is running for president for the second time
and is the strong front-runner in polling in Iowa.

Despite the cheer squads out front, the real showdown Friday night was
expected to be between Clinton and Sanders, who has been climbing in the
polls and attracting audiences far bigger than the former first lady's.

Sanders said in an interview with Bloomberg Politics before the dinner that
his goal was to win over every guest. "I want all 1,200 people, including
Hillary Clinton's supporters, to come out and put on my (campaign) pins,"
he said.

Sanders has resisted attacking Clinton personally, but said Friday that
they part ways on many issues.

"I've known Hillary Clinton for 25 years. I like her and respect her," he
said. "We disagree on a whole lot of issues, but we are going to have a
civil, intelligent campaign."

Republicans will take their turn in the Iowa spotlight Saturday when they
audition 10 presidential candidates — Scott Walker, Donald Trump, Rick
Santorum, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Lindsey
Graham, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson — during Christian conservative activist
Bob Vander Plaats' 8½-hour Family Leadership Summit in Ames.

*Clinton, Democratic rivals share a stage in Iowa for 1st time
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article27474967.html>
// McClatchy DC // Anita Kumar – July 17, 2015*

For the first time this campaign season, the five Democrats vying for
president shared the same stage.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont,
former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and
Lincoln Chafee, a former governor and senator from Rhode Island, spoke at
the sold-out Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame dinner Friday night in
Cedar Rapids.

Instead of attacking one another, they stuck to attacking Republican
candidates for president.

“I am never going to let the Republicans rip away the progress we have
made,” Clinton said. “They may have some fresh faces but they are the party
of the past.”

Clinton singled out three of the most prominent Republican candidates Jeb
Bush, Scott Walker and Donald Trump, for their views on U.S. workers,
abortion and immigration. “Finally someone whose hair is getting more
attention than mine,” she cracked about Trump.

Clinton’s speech was one of her most aggressive since she launched her
campaign, earning her a standing ovation, sustained applause and chants of
“Hill-a-ry.”

Sanders, too, was fiery. He started his speech with his voice raised,
denouncing the “disastrous” trade agreement pushed by Barack Obama and the
billionaire class.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “This country belongs to us and not a handful
of billionaires!”

His supporters repeatedly interrupt him to agree and bang on the tables.
“Yeah!”

“No president can bring about the changes that we need in this country
unless there is a political revolution,” he said.

Hundreds of Iowa Democrats crowded into the Cedar Rapids Convention Complex
to hear the candidates.

The lesser-known candidates were just trying to get noticed. None of them
were aggressive in the way Clinton and Sanders were but O’Malley did blast
Republicans and big business. “Main Street struggles while Wall Street
soars,” he said.

The rivals came on the stage together, introduced in alphabetical order, at
the start of the program. They sat at separate tables in the ballroom
during the dinner and spoke one at a time.

Before the event, large groups of Clinton and O’Malley supporters gathered
outside, chanting and holding signs. Some were paid by Clinton’s campaign
and by Generation Forward, a political action committee supporting
O’Malley. Many said they were not allowed to speak to the media.

Mama Lynne, a community activist from Des Moines who said she was being
paid by Generation Forward, a Super PAC supporting O’Malley, said she is
not worried about his low name recognition at this stage. “Others have been
down in the polls,” she said.

Clinton remains far ahead in Iowa Democratic polls, but Sanders is gaining.

A Quinnipiac University poll late last month put Clinton ahead, 52 percent
to 33 percent. A month earlier, Clinton had a 60-15 lead.

No one else came close last month. Vice President Joe Biden had 7 percent,
followed by O’Malley with 3 percent and Webb with 1 percent. Chafee had
less than 1 percent.

Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley have all begun organizing staff in Iowa, but
Clinton has far surpassed them with offices and staff across the state.
Inside, all five candidates except Chafee had tables to set up to sign up
volunteers.

Ahead of the dinner, two statewide Democrats announced their support for
Clinton: Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald.
Both were early supporters of Barack Obama in 2007.

“It takes grassroots organizing to be successful in Iowa,” Miller said.
“I’m proud to lend my support to Hillary Clinton’s Iowa organizing efforts.
Conversations happening in coffee shops, living rooms and field offices
about why Hillary Clinton is the champion working families need are going
to make the difference on caucus night and put us on the path to victory in
November.”

Eager to get their say, the campaigns of the 15 announced Republican
candidates held a rally Friday to show they are united to work together to
elect a conservative to the White House.

“Our message is clear to Democrats in Iowa and across the nation: The
Republican Party is unified and ready to put a Republican back in the White
House,” Jeff Kaufmann, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, said at the
rally. “These campaigns, which are all working to be the next Republican
nominee, took the time to be here today in unity. We are the party of
innovation and progress, and we will lift up all Americans with a victory
in 2016.”

On Saturday, 10 of the Republican candidates are expected to speak in Ames,
Iowa, at the 2015 Family Leadership Summit, designed to educate
conservatives about the most pressing issues facing America’s families.

*GOP*

*DECLARED*

*BUSH*

*Jeb Bush’s father and brother have a security detail. Now he does too.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/17/jeb-bushs-father-and-brother-have-a-security-detail-now-he-does-too/?postshare=9281437141840784>
// WaPo // Ed O’Keefe – July 17, 2015*

Out on the campaign trail, Jeb Bush eagerly engages voters looking for a
hug, a handshake or a photo. Usually he works a room with just one aide by
his side and travels with a team that can fit into one SUV.

At multiple stops in recent days, there's been a new member of Bush's
entourage: A bodyguard.

Being the son and brother of former presidents doesn't afford Bush U.S.
Secret Service protection -- but given his family ties, the desire for some
security perhaps isn't surprising.

According to campaign finance reports released this week, Bush's campaign
has paid $9,892.85 to U.S. Safety & Security LLC for security services.
Campaign aides confirmed that the money was spent on security, but declined
to say if there have been specific threats made against him.

In San Francisco on Thursday, a private security agent dressed in a suit
and tie kept his distance, but watched as Bush arrived and spoke at a
morning campaign event. Recently in New Hampshire while marching in two
Independence Day parades, a different man wearing dark sunglasses and a
black, short-sleeved, button-downed shirt kept just a few paces away from
Bush and at one point stepped in with other aides to keep a hectoring
climate change activist from blocking the candidate's path.

Bush's security firm of choice is based in Severna Park, Md. and provides
protection for corporate and political clients, including security at large
events, bodyguards for top executives, consulting for large hotels or
stadiums and disaster management. Guards employed by the firm provided
security for 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney before he
picked up U.S. Secret Service protection as the GOP nominee.

Company president Joseph Funk did not respond to a request for comment.

So far, Bush's security costs are significantly less than several other
candidates who travel with security details -- often at taxpayer expense.

Former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton remains
under the protection of Secret Service agents. She travels in armored
vehicles and is always flanked by agents. People attending Clinton campaign
events must undergo checks similar to airport security screening. When
Clinton marched in an Independence Day parade in New Hampshire, campaign
aides kept reporters behind a moving rope line, saying later that the
Secret Service had requested the move.

Four Republican governors running for president -- Chris Christie (N.J.),
Bobby Jindal (La.), John Kasich (Ohio) and Scott Walker (Wis.) -- also
travel with small teams of state police officers, whose services cost
taxpayers millions of dollars.

Christie has faced the most scrutiny for his security costs. Records
released last week show that travel expenses for his security detail cost
more than $184,000 in state funds over the first three months of the year.
Christie's out-of-state security bill in 2014 cost $492,420, according to
state records.

Christie has acknowledged the taxpayer costs, but so far has no plans to
reimburse the state. Aides have noted that there is no state law allowing
him to do so.

Walker usually travels with a team of two or three burly state troopers. In
several instances, the men quickly have formed a muscular wall between the
governor and reporters at campaign stops or if an attendee suddenly asked a
tough question. Earlier this year, Walker's political entity, Our American
Revival, started paying for Walker's political travel, including his
security team. But in 2014, Wisconsin taxpayers spent roughly $2.4 million
on security for Walker, his family and the lieutenant governor when they
traveled out of the state.

Aides to Kasich have refused to say who is paying for the highway patrol
officers that travel with him on political trips outside of Ohio.

"For the safety of the governor, his family and those with him, we simply
never discuss security procedures or resources," Kasich spokesman Rob
Nichols told the Northeast Ohio Media Group last week.

Jindal's security costs appear to be among the largest. In March, the head
of the Louisiana State Police said his agency had spent $2.2 million on
travel expenses for the security detail during the most recent fiscal year.
In January, it cost $73,000 for seven state troopers to protect Jindal and
his family during a 10-day trade mission to Europe.

Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, traveled with a state police detail
until he left office earlier this year. His campaign expense report showed
that four individuals were paid a total of $975. A campaign spokeswoman
said that the four guards only provided protection during Perry's campaign
launch at an airplane hanger outside Dallas in early June.

Besides Bush, at least one other Republican presidential candidate is also
employing private guards: Donald Trump.

The real estate magnate travels with several guards who wear dark suits and
radios and earpieces to communicate. On their lapels, the guards wear small
white buttons with "TRUMP" written in black letters.

Trump's campaign spending report shows two line items listed as "Security"
for $1,000 each. A campaign spokeswoman didn't return requests for comment
about the fees.

*Jeb Bush: I wouldn't roll back Obama's Iran deal on Day One
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/jeb-bush-new-hampshire-repeal-iran-deal-day-one-120301.html#ixzz3gCtLsR6p>
// Politico // Eli Stokols – July 17, 2015*

CARSON CITY, Nev. — Jeb Bush took a tough but nuanced foreign policy stance
during an appearance here Friday morning, calling for reversing the ban on
concealed weapons at military installations and calling out his Republican
rivals for hollow promises to repeal the Iran nuclear agreement on their
first day in office.

Bush, looking to position himself as an electable conservative in a
sprawling primary field thrown into turmoil by the unexpected rise of
Donald Trump, reiterated his opposition to the Iran agreement, which will
ease economic sanctions on the country in exchange for a decade of
limitations to its nuclear program.

But he stopped well short of promising he’d undo the deal and basically
dismissed other Republicans who’ve done so as panderers, telling reporters
that it’s unlikely he — any president, really — would take such a drastic
step immediately upon taking office.

“At 12:01 on January, whatever it is, 19th [2017], I will not probably have
a confirmed secretary of state; I will not have a confirmed national
security team in place; I will not have consulted with our allies. I will
not have had the intelligence briefings to have made a decision,” Bush
said. “If you’re running for president, I think it’s important to be mature
and thoughtful about this.”

That comment marked a subtle shot across the bow at Scott Walker, who said
in his announcement speech Monday, “We need to terminate the bad deal with
Iran on the very first day in office.”

Bush, who said he’d never have negotiated with Iran in the first place,
told the crowd of roughly 100 people at the town hall that he doesn’t
discredit President Barack Obama for doing so, but for not negotiating
harder.

“I’m deeply worried about this agreement because I think it’s going to
create the possibility of nuclear proliferation in the region and a much
more unstable Middle East that will impact us,” he said.

Bush opened his town hall Friday with a moment of silence for the Marines
killed in a shooting Thursday at a recruiting center in Chattanooga,
Tennessee, and then slammed Obama for a foreign policy approach that, he
argues, has left the Middle East in tatters, apparently linking the accused
24-year-old, Kuwaiti-born gunman with Islamic terrorism, even though FBI
officials have yet to confirm any ties to terrorist organizations.

“We’re living in times that are quite perilous,” Bush said. “Now we see
what happens when we pull back. These threats spread over the Internet all
around the world including our own country. I, for one, we believe we need
to reengage with the rest of the world, fight barbaric Islamic terrorism in
the Middle East and also do what we need to do to protect the homeland,
using all the tools available to make it so, protecting civil liberties
along the way but make sure, make sure that we keep this country safe.”

Bush then pivoted to another issue that’ll play well in this western,
largely libertarian state, arguing that members of the military should be
allowed to carry guns on their bases and at recruiting centers.

“These are symbols of American might — they’re targets,” Bush told
reporters after the town hall event that drew more than 100 people. “This
is how you garner attention, you go to places where there’s vulnerability;
and it’s a very powerful symbolic attack on our country and Marines lost
their lives. We should be saddened by it but also resolved to create better
security apparatus around our own country.

“If Marines were armed, I think other people would have known that and had
they known that, they might not have come in.”

Bush also took the opportunity to remind his audience of how he greatly
expanded gun rights during two terms as Florida governor and argued that
allowing more people to carry concealed weapons is connected to a drop in
his state’s violent crime rate.

“Law-abiding citizens that have the right to self-defense creates a safer
place as well,” Bush said, drawing loud applause.

A day after taking questions of a decidedly liberal bent from an audience
of young tech entrepreneurs in San Francisco, Bush was more at ease in a
room full of older, more conservative Nevadans. Before opening himself up
for questions on a range of topics, Bush made a direct appeal for their
support in next February’s caucuses.

“I think you’re looking at the next president of the United States,” he
told the crowd. “And I won’t let you down.”

He also offered a tongue-in-cheek update on the health of his father,
former President George H.W. Bush, who remains hospitalized after a fall
earlier this week that resulted in a broken bone in his neck.

“When he starts telling semi-dirty jokes to the nurses, you know he’s on
the rebound,” Bush quipped.

*Jeb Bush Says Laws on the Books Already Ensure Equal Pay
<http://time.com/3961603/jeb-bush-equal-pay-lgbt-discrimination/> // TIME
// Zeke J. Miller – July 17, 2015*

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush indicated Thursday that he thinks existing
laws sufficient to ensure men and women are paid equally for the same work,
but that he would back legislation in the states to prevent workplace and
housing discrimination against LGBT Americans.

Speaking to employees at San Francisco tech startup Thumbtack, Bush faced
questions from the audience about a range of issues where Republicans break
with the city’s largely liberal and libertarian ethos, including equal pay
legislation, LGBT issues and gun control.

The first question to Bush came from a former Floridian and gun owner who
praised Bush’s record on education, but said he disagreed with his position
on gun control legislation. “That should be driven by the states,” Bush
said in reply, adding that he and the questioner would likely have to agree
to disagree on the question.

“Wages should be equal, and there are laws to make it so, and they should
be enforced,” Bush said in response to a subsequent question from one
female employee, implying he thought that existing statutes were effective
at making it so. The employee cited the oft-used statistic that by some
measures women are paid 79 percent of what men make for the same work. Bush
interrupted her to ask whether that was the case at the startup.

She replied, “Not in this office,” prompting Bush to proclaim, “Thank
goodness.”

An employee who identified himself to Bush as being gay asked about Bush’s
position on legislation to ban discrimination of LGBT Americans. “I don’t
think you should be discriminated because of your sexual orientation.
Period. Over and out,” he replied.

Bush continued: “The fact that there wasn’t a law doesn’t necessarily mean
you would have been discriminated against.” He added that in the wake of
the Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, the
country must work to carefully balance the rights of those seeking to marry
and the religious beliefs of those who oppose those unions.

Citing the frequently-used example by religious freedom advocates, Bush
said that in the case of a florist approached by a gay couple, “you should
be obligated to sell them flowers, doing otherwise would be
discriminatory.” But he said that the objecting florist should not be
required to participate in the wedding, a fine line that he hopes will
appeal to all sides of the debate.

When the employee followed up to ask specifically whether he would support
anti-discrimination laws for LGBT Americans for their housing and
employment—the next target for gay rights marriage advocates—Bush said he
would at the state level.

“I think this should be done state-by-state, I totally agree with that,” he
said.

*Bush ‘woefully misinformed’ on overtime policy
<http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/bush-woefully-misinformed-overtime-policy>
// MSNBC // Steve Benen – July 17, 2015*

With Congress unwilling to pass meaningful economic measures, President
Obama’s recently unveiled overtime policy is one of the year’s biggest
stories on the domestic economy. Jeb Bush, not surprisingly, doesn’t like
it, but he may not fully understand it, either.

To briefly recap, under the status quo, there’s an annual income threshold
for mandatory overtime: $23,660. Those making more than that can be
classified by employers as “managers” who are exempt from overtime rules.
The Obama administration’s Labor Department has spent the last several
months working on the new plan, which raises the threshold to $50,440 –
more than double the current level.

The policy doesn’t just nibble around the edges; its scope includes roughly
5 million American workers. NBC’s Kristin Donnelly reported the
administration’s move constitutes “the most ambitious intervention in the
wage economy in at least a decade.”

Campaigning in Iowa this week, Jeb Bush said the policy would result in
“less overtime pay” and “less wages earned.” The Guardian did some
fact-checking.

Numerous economists attacked Bush’s statement, calling him woefully
misinformed. And several studies on the rule contradict Bush’s assertion
that the overtime rules would “lessen the number of people working”.

Daniel Hamermesh, a University of Texas labor economist, said: “He’s just
100% wrong,” adding that “there will be more overtime pay and more total
earnings” and “there’s a huge amount of evidence employers will use more
workers”.

Indeed, a Goldman Sachs study estimated that employers would hire 120,000
more workers in response to Obama’s overtime changes. And a similar study
commissioned by the National Retail Federation – a fierce opponent of the
proposed overtime rules – estimated that as a result of the new salary
threshold, employers in the restaurant and retail industries would hire
117,500 new part-time workers.

The Economic Policy Institute’s Ross Eisenbrey added that Bush “should be
embarrassed about how misinformed he was.” Noting that the Republican
presidential candidate also said Obama’s policy would also prohibit many
bonuses, Eisenbrey added, “All of that is exactly wrong – and pretty much
nonsense.”

On a surface level, it’s problematic that Bush would flub the issue so
poorly, but it’s even more significant in the context of related confusion
about economic policy.

Remember, the Florida Republican remains deeply committed to 4% GDP growth
– a target no president has reached in the post-WWII era – despite the fact
that the number was basically pulled out of thin air.

The former governor still sees himself as some kind of economic expert,
thanks to Florida’s growth in the 1990s, but as we’ve discussed before,
whether Bush is prepared to admit it or not, Florida’s economic growth
during his two terms was the result of a housing bubble. In fact, Paul
Krugman accurately described it as “the mother of all housing bubbles – and
when the bubble burst (luckily for Jeb! just after he left office) it
promptly wiped out 900,000” of the 1.3 million jobs created when Bush was
in the governor’s office.

The economy, in other words, is not Bush’s strong suit.

*Jeb Bush: Hillary Clinton’s good intentions aren’t enough to fix the
economy
<https://www.yahoo.com/politics/jeb-bush-hillary-clintons-good-intentions-arent-124288105561.html>
// Yahoo News // Jon Ward – July 17, 2015*

SAN FRANCISCO – Jeb Bush walked out of the offices of a tech firm here
Thursday surrounded by a crush of TV cameras and reporters, handed his
iPhone 6 to the young aide who travels with him, Raul Henriquez, and asked
him to call an Uber.

“You wanna turn this on and get our next car before it’s illegal?” Bush
said to Henriquez, a wry smirk on his face.

It was a crack meant to argue a larger point: that Hillary Clinton — if
elected president — would be bad for Silicon Valley and the new tech-based
economy.

Clinton doesn’t oppose services like Uber, but she did raise questions
about the nature of the “gig economy” in her first major policy speech
earlier this week. The Uberization of many industries is “raising hard
questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in
the future,” she said.

Clinton sought to position herself as the protector of the financially
stressed worker in the new economy, but Bush, in an interview with Yahoo
News, said that her approach would stifle innovation.

“Her approach and the approach of the progressive left in this country is
all top-down,” Bush said. “And if we’re going to empower anybody, it ought
to be the individuals that are striving for success.”

Bush spoke exclusively with Yahoo News after touring Thumbtack, a
5-year-old company that builds software to connect self-employed workers
and small businesses with customers who are looking for their services.
During a tour of the building with Thumbtack’s founders, he told them he
had looked at their website and saw that it “works spectacularly.” But he
joked that he might not sign up for it, “because I’ve got this unique life
I live now where I’m not sure I want a massage therapist coming to my
house.”

He later spoke to employees and answered questions from them on a range of
topics, from protections for LGBT Americans to net neutrality to his record
on gun laws while governor of Florida.

He dismissed Clinton’s argument that economic growth must be paired with an
emphasis on fairness for the greatest number of Americans to benefit.
Clinton’s speech was based on the idea that economic growth cannot happen
without a middle class that feels secure, and that stagnation in wages — as
well as the continued lack of family-friendly workplace policies such as
paid maternity and sick leave — have left too many Americans feeling like
they are one mishap away from falling into poverty.

She also has said she will crack down on companies that don’t treat their
employees fairly, and spoke in New Hampshire on Thursday about the need for
companies to do more to share profits with their employees, though she has
yet to give many specifics about how she would address the issues she has
flagged.

Bush applauded the emphasis on greater growth and prosperity but argued
that Clinton’s approach would be counterproductive.

“Look, the best of intentions aren’t going to be enough here. It’s OK to
say we want to fill the gaps, but every time you propose another rule,
another requirement, another way to protect people, you make it harder and
harder for people to rise up, you make it harder for the first rung of the
ladder to be reached,” he said.

Bush, like Clinton, has yet to go into great detail on how he would meet
his target of 4 percent economic growth as president or what he means when
he says that as president he would “start disrupting to create better
services and empowering people to make more decisions for themselves.” He
plans to offer some details in a speech Monday in Tallahassee.

Though it looks like the age-old disagreement between government-centric
liberals and free-market conservatives, their disagreement this week played
out against the fresh backdrop of the new economic realities. Both Bush and
Clinton are battling to seize the mantle of the forward-looking candidate
of the future, casting the other as a figure stuck in the past and using
the new language of the app-driven moment as they do it.

Clinton, during her speech on Monday, tagged Bush for supporting
“trickle-down” economics and a Wild West type of economy in which the rich
get richer and regular working-class Americans get left behind.

During his opening remarks to the employees at Thumbtack, Bush countered
that expecting government action to fix what ails the economy was going
about things backward.

“My personal belief is the interactions of all of us together in a fair and
just society with as few rules as possible — not more rules, but fewer
rules — will create more prosperity, more innovation, more benefits than
the command-and-control, old approach of hierarchical regulations and large
government trying to solve problems for us,” Bush told the 100 or so
Thumbtack employees.

Bush stood on the ground floor of the sleek, many-windowed Thumbtack
offices in the hip South of Market neighborhood, next to a large, open
kitchen, where a “culinary staff” fixes daily meals for employees. A few
feet to his right, a refrigerator housed health drinks and water, but also
bottles of craft beer such as Lagunitas IPA and Dogfish Head 90 Minute
Imperial IPA.

“The government today in Washington looks more like General Motors in 1975.
The government of the future needs to look more like Thumbtack, to be
honest with you: lower cost, higher quality, focused on outcomes, really
committed to the citizens — in your case the customers,” Bush said.

Democrats countered Thursday by hitting Bush on a series of social and
cultural issues. A group created to support Clinton, Correct the Record,
called him “stuck in the past” and “anti-Silicon Valley,” based on his
positions or past statements on Obamacare (Bush opposes it), equal pay for
women (he says he supports it but has shown a lack of familiarity with
legislation on the topic), climate change (Bush believes it exists but does
not think it is an imminent threat), gay marriage (he opposes it) and
immigration (Bush favors a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants
but not citizenship).

Asked about the support Uber’s founder, Travis Kalanick, has voiced for
President Obama’s health care law, Bush said, “If Mr. Kalanick looked, if
he was going to create the system that would be optimal for the people that
are taking advantage of his platform, it would be one where there’s
nonmandated exchanges, where you have the scale that comes from exchanges,
but portability is the driver of it.

“And you have low-premium catastrophic coverage being the norm, and it goes
with the person that has it,” Bush said.

Bush spoke forcefully against the deal struck between the U.S. government
and the Iranian government to halt its development of a nuclear weapons
program in exchange for lifting sanctions. He has already said this week
that Obama should have insisted that Iran abandon, not delay, its march
toward a bomb. But Obama has said that was not possible. Bush, however,
said the painful economic sanctions the Obama administration cobbled
together with international partners could have been sustained, despite the
argument that many nations in the coalition would not have continued to
hold off buying Iranian oil or trading with Tehran for much longer.

“You could have kept the pressure on through meaningful sanctions,” Bush
said. “The sanctions that have been in existence now for a pretty long time
were enhanced in the last five years, and had they been kept — with the
lower energy prices that we were seeing — I think Iran eventually would
have negotiated to where the United States wanted them to be,” he said.

“If they wanted to create a civilian nuclear program, fine. If they want to
build, if they want to become a nuclear threshold state, no. And now they
are, and we’ve legitimized them,” Bush said.

He added that he was outraged by the work of the Iranian government to arm
and fund attacks on American troops in Iraq.

“We also have a situation that is deeply troubling to me, which is there’s
blood on their hands with American military men and women in Iraq,” Bush
said. “And to legitimize a regime that killed hundreds of American soldiers
without any consequence, without any recognition that that’s something that
should be troubling, is deeply disturbing to me.”

Bush disputed reports that he has been focused on prepping to respond to
businessman Donald Trump in the primary debates that begin next month.

“I haven’t been preparing. But clearly he’s going to be in the debates. And
I’m going to have to deal with it for sure. My guess is I’ll be a target,
but it doesn’t bother me a bit,” Bush said.

Bush said that support for Trump is coming from Americans who are
“legitimately angry” about the lack of immigration enforcement in sanctuary
cities like San Francisco, where many local authorities do not turn over
undocumented immigrants to federal law enforcement. A 32-year-old woman was
shot to death last week in San Francisco by an immigrant who had already
been deported five times.

“I totally respect and get why people are upset about this, completely. My
heart goes out to the family of this precious, beautiful girl that was
killed,” Bush said. “But we should solve this problem. This has been
lingering now for how long? Immigration reform needs to start with border
control and move on beyond that. I have solutions for these things.

“And my campaign will be about leadership, not about trying to prey on
people’s fears, which I think is what Donald Trump is doing,” he said.

Bush also said he would support the Pentagon if it decides to allow
transgender Americans to serve in the military openly.

“The first priority ought to be the morale of the troops. So if you can
accommodate people who are transgendered and deal with making sure the
military is comfortable with this, and making sure that the overriding
principle ought to be, ‘How do we create the highest morale for the
greatest fighting force the world has ever seen?’ — if you can accommodate
those two concerns, then fine,” he said.

*Jeb Bush Says LGBT Non-Discrimination Should Be A States’ Rights Issue
<http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/07/17/3681732/jeb-bush-lgbt-states-rights/>
// Think Progress // Josh Israel – July 17, 2015*

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) no longer believes that it should be
legal to discriminate against LGBT people in employment and housing — but
he still does not back federal legislation to remedy the problem.

Bush was asked by a gay employee at a San Francisco tech startup he visited
on Thursday about his position on legislation to prohibit discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, Time reported. Bush
responded by denouncing discrimination in general, but also diminishing the
need for legal protections and saying they should be only enacted at the
state level.

“The fact that there wasn’t a law doesn’t necessarily mean you would have
been discriminated against,” Bush told the worker. Studies have shown that
between 15 percent and 43 percent of gay people have experienced some form
of discrimination and harassment in the workplace and 90 percent of
transgender workers reported experiencing some form of workplace harassment
or mistreatment.

Bush then invoked the “religious liberty” argument made by anti-LGBT
organizations, suggesting that while a florist should have to sell flowers
to everyone, they should not be obligated to do so for a same-sex wedding.

Pressed on whether he would back new legislation to address the fact that
28 states lack laws protecting against discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation and 31 lack laws protecting against discrimination on
the basis of gender identity and expression, Bush suggested that this issue
should not be a federal one. “I think this should be done state-by-state, I
totally agree with that,” the former governor responded. In January, he
made a similar “states rights” argument, suggesting that states should not
be obligated to allow same-sex marriages.

Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, of course, gives Congress
the power to pass laws that regulate interstate commerce precisely to
insure uniformity. The U.S. Senate passed an LGBT employment
non-discrimination law in 2013, but House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)
blocked it from getting a vote in the House of Representatives.

Over Bush’s eight years as governor of Florida, he consistently opposed
LGBT protections in his own state. In 1994, he wrote that “we have enough
special categories, enough victims, without creating even more,” and that
“sodomy” should not “be elevated to the same constitutional status as race
and religion,” comparing gay people with “polluters, pedophiles,
pornographers, drunk drivers, and developers without proper permits.”

Earlier this year, Bush’s spokeswoman told BuzzFeed that his sentiment
“from 20 years ago does not reflect Gov. Bush’s views now, nor would he use
this terminology today.”

*Jeb Bush 'should be embarrassed' by his overtime pay claims, economists
say
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/17/jeb-bush-obama-overtime-pay-changes-economy-jobs>
// The Guardian // Steven Greenhouse – July 17, 2015*

Jeb Bush has created a flap with another statement about American workers.
In an appearance in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Tuesday, he said Barack
Obama’s proposal to expand overtime pay to millions more managers and
white-collar workers would result in “less overtime pay” and “less wages
earned”.

Numerous economists attacked Bush’s statement, calling him woefully
misinformed. And several studies on the rule contradict Bush’s assertion
that the overtime rules would “lessen the number of people working”.

Daniel Hamermesh, a University of Texas labor economist, said: “He’s just
100% wrong,” adding that “there will be more overtime pay and more total
earnings” and “there’s a huge amount of evidence employers will use more
workers”.

Indeed, a Goldman Sachs study estimated that employers would hire 120,000
more workers in response to Obama’s overtime changes. And a similar study
commissioned by the National Retail Federation – a fierce opponent of the
proposed overtime rules – estimated that as a result of the new salary
threshold, employers in the restaurant and retail industries would hire
117,500 new part-time workers. The study also warned that the overtime
change could cost the increased US retail and restaurant industries $9.5bn
a year, unless those industries made money-saving changes in response.

During his remarks on Tuesday, Bush criticized Obama’s proposed overtime
rules, which would extend overtime coverage to managers earning below
$50,440 a year. Under current rules, employers can deny overtime pay to
“exempt” salaried managers earning more than $23,660 a year. This meant
that a $25,000-a-year fast-food assistant manager working 60 hours a week
might not receive any overtime pay. (US law generally requires
time-and-a-half pay for all hours worked above 40 per week.)

“It’s this prescribed top-down approach that is the wrong approach,” Bush
said. “The net effects of the overtime rule will be, if history is any
guide, there will be less overtime paid, less wages earned.”

Jared Bernstein, former chief economist for vice-president Joe Biden and a
senior economist with the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities,
said employers might reduce the number of hours many managers work to
minimize or avoid any overtime pay.

“If employers want to avoid overtime pay, they hire more workers on
straight time and that creates new jobs,” Bernstein said. “Even staunch
opponents agree with that and disagree with Mr Bush.”

In his Iowa remarks, Bush said the new rules would prohibit many bonuses.
“If you want to give a bonus to a manager in your store or in your company,
instead of requiring higher pay, this law won’t allow it,” he said.

Ross Eisenbrey, a vice-president of the Economic Policy Institute, a
left-of-center research group, said: “Bush should be embarrassed about how
misinformed he was.” Eisenbrey said the proposed rules do nothing
whatsoever to bar employers from paying bonuses. “All of that is exactly
wrong – and pretty much nonsense,” he said. Eisenbrey and Bernstein wrote a
seminal article that helped persuade the Obama administration to change
overtime rules.

Bush stumbled into hot water for another comment last week, when he said
American workers “need to work longer hours” to earn more. When that
statement was widely attacked by those pointing out that low-wage earners
already work quite a bit, Bush insisted he was referring to part-time
workers only. And many economists have said his statement that he could
achieve 4% annual economic growth by increasing hours worked is pie in the
sky.

According to the Labor Department, the new rules would expand overtime pay
to 5 million additional workers and increase pay nationwide by at least
$1.5bn a year.

Some conservative economists have argued, however, that the changes will
result in no overall increase in earnings. They say companies would cut the
salaries of exempt managers so that with their new overtime pay factored
in, their compensation would remain unchanged.

Bernstein acknowledged that employers might reduce the base pay of some
managers. But he added: “It’s wholly unrealistic to think companies will go
to 5 million managers and say ‘We’re cutting your pay.’

“There will definitely be more wages earned,” he continued, “some by
incumbent workers and some by new workers who will be working straight
time.”

Economists agree that many managers will be assigned less overtime because
companies dislike paying time-and-a-half. The result: many managers will
have more leisure time.

Michael Strain, a labor economist at the right-of-center American
Enterprise Institute, sympathized with Bush’s sentiments on the overtime
rule. “In general what he seems to be saying is that this will place
restrictions on firms, how they operate and how they structure their
compensation packages,” he said. “In some cases the impact will be
positive, and in some cases, negative.”

Strain acknowledged that the proposed changes could result in more
employment – fast-food managers might have their hours cut to 40 a week
from 60, and additional workers might be hired for 20 hours a week to
handle some of their responsibilities.

*Jeb Bush Is Beating Hillary Clinton in the Goldman Sachs Primary
<http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/jeb-bush-beating-hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs-primary>
// Mother Jones // Russ Choma -  July 17, 2015*

Over the past three months, Goldman Sachs employees have donated more than
$147,000 to Jeb Bush's presidential campaign, helping him to an early lead
in what might be called the Goldman Sachs primary. But winning the biggest
share of contributions from the controversial, economic-crash-enhancing
investment firm isn't going to be a cakewalk for Bush. At least three other
major presidential candidates—including Hillary Clinton, who has
longstanding ties to the Wall Street giant—have bagged money from Goldman,
with two of them using Goldman Sachs lobbyists to raise money for their
campaigns.

Bush's biggest rival in the Goldman money chase is his fellow Floridian,
Sen. Marco Rubio. Rubio's campaign snagged just over $60,000 from Goldman
Sachs. And Rubio has a Goldman insider hitting up his own network of
wealthy friends for contributions. One of the three registered lobbyists
bundling donations for Rubio is Joe Wall, a vice-president for government
affairs at Goldman Sachs. Wall has so far reported bundling more than
$90,000 for Rubio.

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, places third in in the Goldman
sweepstakes. Her campaign reported raising at least $49,000 from Goldman
Sachs donors. Like Rubio, she has a registered Goldman Sachs lobbyist
drumming up donations on her behalf. According to the campaign's filings,
Steve Elmendorf, a major name on K Street, has bundled more than $141,000
for Clinton. Elmendorf's many clients include Churchill Downs, the NFL, and
the Human Rights Campaign—and Goldman Sachs. Clinton also has a history of
raising big bucks from Goldman-ites. In 2008, her presidential campaign
brought in more than $407,000 from the firm.

At the back of this pack is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has raised a mere
$10,100 from Goldman Sachs employee. That's something of a surprise, given
that Cruz has a personal connection to the bank. His wife, Heidi Nelson
Cruz, is a managing director at Goldman Sachs, though she has taken unpaid
leave from the bank for the duration of her husband's campaign. Even so,
Cruz's senatorial campaign previously raised $69,000 from Goldman Sachs
employees, making the investment bank the fourth largest source of cash for
the campaign that brought him to Washington and the national stage.

Among the other top-tier candidates, neither Rand Paul nor Bernie Sanders
had any identifiable donations from a Goldman Sachs. (Scott Walker hasn't
filed any campaign disclosure forms yet.)

*RUBIO*

*Pro-Rubio PAC Reserves South Carolina Airtime in Primary Lead-Up
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-17/pro-rubio-pac-reserves-south-carolina-airtime-in-primary-lead-up>
// Bloomberg // Ben Brody – July 17, 2015*

A political action committee supporting Florida Senator Marco Rubio's
campaign for the Republican presidential nomination have bought nearly a
quarter-million dollars in ad time in South Carolina in the weeks preceding
its key 2016 primary, filings with the Federal Communications Commission
show.

Conservative Solutions PAC executed its buys between Tuesday and Thursday,
revealing part of the PAC's far-reaching media strategy even as the Rubio
campaign announced lackluster fundraising results.

That strategy, detailed in FCC filings aggregated by the transparency
project Political Ad Sleuth, show an aggressive push in South Carolina,
which traditionally hosts the nation's third nominating event, after the
Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. The primary, which is likely
to take place February 20, 2016, is considered a Republican bellwether. The
state's voters often have picked the party's eventual nominee.

The PAC executed the "significant pre-buy" to make sure it could get
airtime at the end of 2015 and "ensure efficient use of resources," said
Jeff Sadosky, an adviser to the PAC, in an email.

The group's ad buyer, Target Enterprises of California, reveals in
communications attached to the filings that it plans to target viewers over
age 55 in "all markets" in the three primary states, as well as some in
adjacent states, at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016.

Although Conservative Solutions is a super PAC that legally can't
coordinate with the Rubio campaign, shorthand used in some of the ad
paperwork refers to the group as as "Rubio PAC." Conservative Solutions PAC
has said it raised more than $16 million through June 30.

PACs and campaigns are generally not allowed to coordinate strategy or
spending, meaning a PAC, which can accept unlimited donations, can give a
bump to a candidate whose campaign is otherwise fundraising less
successfully. In 2012, a single mega-donor, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson,
largely propelled former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to a win in the South
Carolina primary through huge donations despite issues in the campaign.

The specific pro-Rubio ads that will appear don't appear to have been
determined, but the time has been paid for, with 286 spots for January and
February, mostly during news shows, costing $244,000.

Conservative Solutions is making reservations so far out that some stations
aren't ready to accept them yet. An worksheet for a 27-spot, $36,000 buy at
station WYFF an NBC affiliate in Greenville, South Carolina carries a
station employee's note that the "order has not been accepted at this time"
and will be reevaluated "at a date closer to the election."

*Rubio: Iran deal without release of Americans 'unacceptable'
<http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/248311-rubio-iran-deal-without-release-of-americans-unacceptable>
// The Hill // Jordain Carney – July 17, 2015*

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) slammed the administration on Friday for agreeing
to an Iran nuclear deal that didn't include the release of three Americans
currently held in the country, calling the agreement "unacceptable."

The Florida Republican and 2016 presidential contender sent a letter to
Secretary of State John Kerry that said he was "disturbed" their release
wasn't part of the agreement. He pressed Kerry to "use every tool at your
disposal to secure their freedom."

"It is unacceptable that the United States has reached a final agreement
with Iran while innocent Americans languish in the most brutal conditions
of Iranian jail cells," wrote Rubio, a member of the Foreign Relations
Committee. "I am disturbed by how the administration has missed an
opportunity to make the freedom of these Americans a priority in your
negotiations with Iran."

The administration has repeatedly argued that the release of Washington
Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Saeed Abedini and Amir Hekmati, as well as
getting the Iranian government to help locate former FBI agent Robert
Levinson, is an important but separate matter from the talks on Iran's
nuclear program.

But Rubio pointed to non-nuclear parts of the deal, which include the
ability to lift the arms embargo for conventional weapons after five years,
saying that Iran got "non-nuclear concessions... that will aid its efforts
to sow terror and instability throughout the Middle East."

Friday's letter is hardly the first time the Florida Republican has pressed
the administration about guaranteeing the release of the Americans
currently held in Iran.

In a letter to Kerry in March, Rubio and 18 other Senate Republicans pushed
Kerry to "demand their unconditional release as you engage in discussion
with Iranian officials."

Rubio, and other Republicans, tried to tie the release of the Americans to
the review legislation passed overwhelmingly earlier this year, but were
ultimately unsuccessful.

Democrats warned that if that or other "poison pill" amendments had been
successful, it could have either killed the legislation, or derailed the
nuclear talks.

*Cuba celebrating reopening of D.C. embassy; Marco Rubio shouldn't wait for
invite
<http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2015/07/17/cuba-celebrating-reopening-of-dc-embassy-marco-rubio-shouldnt/>
// Fox News Latino – July 17, 2015*

Havana –  Cuba announced details of the ceremony that will mark the
reopening of its embassy in Washington, D.C. after more than 50 years of
Cold War enmity.

The current Cuban Interests Section on 16th Street in the Adams Morgan
neighborhood will become the Cuban Embassy on July 20, an occasion for
which a delegation of some 30 people – headed by the island's foreign
minister, Bruno Rodríguez – are traveling from Havana.

"The reopening of the embassy,” Gustavo Machin, assistant director for
North America at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, told a group of reporters in
Havana on Thursday, “will be a significant event. After 54 years of broken
relations, the Cuban flag will be raised again."

The date of any similar celebration at the American Embassy in Havana is
still to be announced. Secretary of State John Kerry, who will meet with
Rodríguez during his trip, is expected to be on hand for the Havana event.

Machin said that Rodríguez and about 30 Cuban officials – which will
include former diplomats and representatives of sectors such as culture,
education, health care and science, along with other organizations and the
Cuban Council of Churches.

Also attending the ceremony will be around 500 people in the United States
– members of Congress, NGOs, businessmen, representatives of activist
groups with an interest in the island and members of various U.S. churches.

Asked whether Cuban-American lawmakers like Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who fervently oppose normalizing relations with Cuba,
were expected at Monday’s ceremony, he said, “No, they aren’t invited.”

“You don’t invite into your home people who want to harm you,” he added.

Machin said that the ceremony will begin at 10:30 a.m. and Rodríguez – the
first Cuban foreign minister to visit the United States in more than half a
century – will deliver the main speech.

With the re-establishment of diplomatic ties, the current heads of the
Cuban and U.S. Interests Sections, José Ramón Cabañas and Jeffrey
DeLaurentis, respectively, will become charges d'affaires until the two
countries name ambassadors.

*Marco Rubio to John Kerry: ‘Unacceptable’ that Iran deal reached with
Americans still in jail
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/17/marco-rubio-john-kerry-unacceptable-iran-deal-reac/#ixzz3gAKUpM2X>
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski - July 17, 2o15*

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has written a letter to Secretary of State John
Kerry saying it is “unacceptable” the United States has reached an
agreement on Iran’s nuclear program “while innocent Americans languish in
the most brutal conditions of Iranian jail cells.”

“I am profoundly disappointed that the agreement with Iran did not ensure
the unconditional release of American citizens: Jason Rezaian, Pastor Saeed
Abedini and Amir Hekmati, as well as any progress in obtaining information
about the fate of my constituent former FBI agent Robert Levinson,” wrote
Mr. Rubio, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, in a letter dated July 17.

Mr. Kerry said Friday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “there was not
a meeting that took place, not one meeting that took place — believe me,
that’s not an exaggeration — where we did not raise the issue of our
American citizens being held.”

“And in fact, it was the last conversation that I had with the foreign
minister at the Vienna center right before we went out publicly,” Mr. Kerry
said. “We remain very, very hopeful that Iran will make a decision to do
the right thing and to return those citizens to the United States, and we
are consistently, constantly even now continuing to work on that.”

*Rubio calls for more intelligence efforts
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/07/17/marco-rubio-chattanooga-intelligence/30326669/>
// Des Moines Register // Mackenzie Ryan – July 17, 2015*

SIOUX CITY, Ia. – A day after four Marines were gunned down in Tennessee,
Marco Rubio warned of the threats of radical jihadists — and called for
more intelligence measures to root out and stop domestic terrorism plots.

“This country has lost access to valuable intelligence at a time when we
can least afford it, and yesterday is an example of it,” the Florida
senator said Friday in Sioux City.

“There are people living inside the United States, some whom have never
even left this country, who are being radicalized online. Radicalized not
to crash a plane into a building. Radicalized to take a gun and kill four
Marines at a recruitment station,” Rubio said. “And that’s the one we know
about.”

Rubio warned that there are hundreds of such plots, and that probably not
all will be disrupted.

“This is a real risk,” he said. “Radical jihadists have reached our own
country, and they are reaching it online and they are radicalizing people
here. And we need to know as much about them as possible to prevent future
attacks, or we’re going to have more of them.”

Rubio said that concerns about domestic intelligence gathering — sometimes
criticized as an overreach and an invasion of privacy — are unfounded.

“When you hear of people out there telling you that the government is
spying and listening to your phone calls, No. 1, I promise you, that isn’t
true,” Rubio said. “I’m a member of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.
For the last four years I’ve had access to the most sensitive information
available to the government. I promise you, if someone is doing that, they
should be prosecuted.”

Rubio also said terrorists have been allowed to organize in Libya, Syria,
Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The more territory they control, the more money they will have. And the
more money they will have, the more they’ll be able to attack and the more
they’ll be able to crucify children and sell women into slavery and behead
Christians,” he said. “These are real risks, and that’s just one of the
risks we face.”

Rubio also cited threats posed by Russia, China and Iran — going so far as
saying that the United States is on the “verge of Cold War II.”

“The next president of the United States has to be someone that’s committed
to continuing to have the strongest military in the world, not one that’s
undertaking dramatic cuts,” Rubio said. “The next president of the United
States has to be committed to intelligence programs, to cyber defense
capabilities, someone that’s committed to a strong foreign policy in which
our allies trust us.”

Thursday’s attack “reminded us of how dangerous the world has become,”
Rubio said. But he also said the United States — with the right leaders and
right policies — can rise to the challenge.

“These are our challenges, and they are a lot,” Rubio said. “But here’s the
good news: There’s isn’t a country in the world that I would trade places
with.”

AT THE EVENT

SETTING: Lunch at Uncle Buck’s Grill in the Bass Pro Shops in Council
Bluffs, a town hall at McCarthy & Bailey’s in Sioux City and a visit to the
Decker Truck Line in Fort Dodge.

CROWD: About 60 people in Council Bluffs drew a mix of Iowa and Nebraska
residents, and more than 100 people attended in Sioux City, where it was
standing-room only.

REACTION: The audience was friendly in Sioux City, and applauded multiple
times, but asked pointed questioned about immigration, abortion and cyber
security.

WHAT’S NEXT: Rubio will speak at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames at
10:20 a.m. Saturday.

*PAUL*

*Signs of Stress Build for Rand Paul Campaign
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/signs-of-stress-build-for-rand-paul-campaign-1437127201>
// WSJ // Reid J. Epstein - July 17, 2015*

Sen. Rand Paul <http://topics.wsj.com/person/P/Rand-Paul/6142> had counted
on building from the grass-roots base of his father, former Rep. Ron Paul
<http://topics.wsj.com/person/P/Ron-Paul/6588>, and winning enough support
from the Republican mainstream to compete for the party’s 2016 presidential
nomination.

Instead, the Kentucky lawmaker is slipping in the polls, lagging in
fundraising and losing some of his father’s loyalists over foreign-policy
disagreements. Campaign metrics suggest he’s no longer a first-tier
candidate after falling behind the front-runners on all those measures.

The crowded Republican field—Ohio Gov. John Kasich will be the 16th major
candidate when he announces his campaign next week—and Donald Trump
<http://topics.wsj.com/person/T/Donald-Trump/159> ’s surge in recent polls
have made it tougher for Mr. Paul to win media attention. No billionaire
donor has emerged to singularly fund his super PAC, leaving Mr. Paul more
dependent than any other GOP candidate on small donors.

Paul campaign officials said they are meeting their fundraising goals and
are satisfied with their current standing in the polls because he is still
among the top candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire, home to the nation’s
first two nominating contests. Though Mr. Paul has lost ground in national
polling, he remains likely to qualify for the first two presidential
debates. Those platforms will give a broad audience of voters an unfiltered
look at their candidate. Mr. Paul’s aides declined to make him available
for an interview.

Like his father, Mr. Paul finds the sort of schmoozing required to court
big donors unpleasant. While his top rivals spent the past year making
inroads with wealthy Republicans who are now helping their campaigns, Mr.
Paul didn’t. “He finds the fundraising distasteful and hasn’t put in the
investment,” said a source familiar with Mr. Paul’s political operation.

The result was a second-quarter fundraising number that has Mr. Paul
looking more like his father’s idealistic-but-doomed-to-lose campaign than
a serious contender for the nomination.

He raised $2.1 million in this year’s second quarter from donors who gave
$200 or more, less than the $2.3 million his father received in same period
in 2012. Mr. Paul also transferred $1.6 million from his Senate campaign
accounts to boost his total fundraising to $6.9 million.

“Rand Paul should be doing much better,” conservative pundit Erick
Erickson wrote
Thursday
<http://www.erickontheradio.com/2015/07/what-the-hell-happened-to-rand-paul/>.
“He actually has positions that set him apart from the GOP field. He has a
built in base of support from his father. But remarkably it appears Rand
Paul will be less a factor on 2016 than his dad was in 2012.”

Mr. Paul’s campaign maintains it is less critical for him to match the
fundraising pace set by others because of his small-donor base. That was
the bright spot in his financial disclosure report that showed he received
$3.2 million from donors who gave less than $200. That is about $1 million
more than his father raised during the same period four years ago from an
army of small donors who ultimately generated $41 million for his 2012 race.

“Rand’s fundraising surged with grass-roots supporters because average
Americans know he’s the candidate who will stand up to the Washington
machine. His median donation was $25 because he’s funded by Main Street,
not the special interests,” said Chip Englander, Mr. Paul’s campaign
manager.

Still, with such a crowded field, competition for even the smallest checks
is fierce. Rand Paul’s take was $2.5 million less
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/15/small-donors-propel-rand-paul-as-big-donors-hold-off/>
than that of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who began his campaign a
month after Mr. Paul did.

Drew Ivers, who was the Iowa chairman for Ron Paul’s 2008 and 2012
presidential campaigns, is uncommitted so far in the 2016 race. He said
Rand Paul has lost a substantial portion of his father’s following because
he has deviated from his father’s isolationist foreign-policy view.

While Ron Paul backs the nuclear agreement with Iran
<http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/ron-paul-praise-iran-nuclear/2015/07/14/id/657071/>,
Rand Paul is opposed
<https://www.facebook.com/RandPaul/posts/10153203667966107>. Ron Paul
called for decreasing military spending; Rand Paul is for increasing the
military’s budget. Ron Paul blames the U.S. and European powers for the
troubles in Ukraine; Rand Paul last year wrote an op-ed in Time magazine
<http://time.com/17648/sen-rand-paul-u-s-must-take-strong-action-against-putins-aggression/>
saying “Putin must be punished.”

“Rand needs to be articulating the negatives of our foreign policy. But he
has chosen not to articulate that,” Mr. Ivers said. “These kinds of things
would energize his base but he has moved away from them.”

While other candidates saw their standings jump after formally entering the
campaign, Mr. Paul didn’t after his April announcement. The Wall Street
Journal/NBC News poll last month found 45% of Republican primary voters
couldn’t see themselves backing Mr. Paul, the third-most negative reading
in the survey behind Mr. Trump and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
<http://topics.wsj.com/person/C/Chris-Christie/5890>.

He’s also seen a steep drop in other polls. Mr. Paul was drawing support in
double figures throughout 2014. His support now is consistently below 10%,
and a USA Today poll
<https://www.suffolk.edu/documents/SUPRC/7_15_2015_marginals.pdf> released
this week showed him at just 4% among likely 2016 Republican primary voters

Mr. Paul is tied for second in Iowa with Mr. Bush in the Real Clear
Politics polling average. The same measure of New Hampshire polls shows Mr.
Paul in fourth place.

“He is going to have to change something in order to turn his campaign
around,” Mr. Ivers said. “Right now there doesn’t appear to be a
recognition by his national staff of the need to correct course.”

Paul campaign officials declined to respond to those comments.

*Rand Paul may hold up highway bill over Planned Parenthood
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/paul-hints-at-transportation-bill-hold-up-120294.html>
// Politico // Heather Caygle - July 17, 2015 *

Sen. Rand Paul is the latest lawmaker to throw a wrench into delicate
transportation bill negotiations, suggesting he might hold up the
legislation over the controversial Planned Parenthood video that surfaced
this week.

The Kentucky Republican and presidential candidate released multiple
statements Friday promising to use “all legislative vehicles” to “defeat
and defund Planned Parenthood” next week. The statements on his Senate and
campaign websites don’t directly mention the pending highway and transit
legislation, but it is the next big-ticket item on the Senate’s to-do list,
with a procedural vote set for Tuesday.

“The recent revelation that this taxpayer-funded organization is selling
body parts of the unborn further proves that this agency deserves our scorn
not our tax dollars,” he said in a statement. “I plan to do whatever I can
to stop them and will introduce an amendment to pending Senate legislation
to immediately strip every dollar of Planned Parenthood funding.”

Paul is just the latest Republican to weigh in on the controversy, which
has riled up the GOP base after abortion-rights opponents released an
undercover video that allegedly shows an executive of the health care
nonprofit talking about the sale of fetal tissue from terminated
pregnancies.

Planned Parenthood has denounced the video as “heavily edited” and says the
executive was talking about donations of fetal tissue for medical research,
and adds that the organization does not profit from the donations. But the
group has also apologized
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/planned-parenthood-apologizes-for-officials-tone-in-video-120245.html>
for the lack of “compassion” the executive showed in the video, in which
she’s shown eating salad and drinking wine while discussing dollar figures.

Other GOP lawmakers have threatened to hold up the infrastructure bill over
concerns that Democrats will use it as a vehicle to bring back the
Export-Import Bank.

*Rand Paul Campaign: Christie’s Chattanooga Shooting Comments “False,”
“Shameful”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/christophermassie/rand-pauls-chief-strategist-christie-disgusting-shameful-fal#.ewvGxGMda>
// Buzzfeed // Christopher Massie – July 17, 2015*

The chief strategist for Rand Paul’s presidential campaign told BuzzFeed
News on Friday that Chris Christie’s comments linking Paul’s position on
government surveillance to the shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee were
“disgusting,” “shameful”, and patently false.”

The New Jersey governor and Republican presidential candidate said
Thursday’s shooting in Tennessee that left four Marines dead was an example
of “why I’ve been arguing against the rollbacks in our intelligence
capability that Senator Paul has advocated for.”

Asked for comment, Doug Stafford of Paul’s campaign said it was
“disgusting” for Christie “to seek to use a tragedy like this.”

“From transportation to national security, Gov. Christie has a long record
of political stunts and cheap shots,” Stafford wrote in an e-mail. “It is
disgusting for him to seek to use a tragedy like this to launch a shameful
and patently false attack.”

*Paul vows push to defund Planned Parenthood next week
<http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/248307-paul-vows-to-defund-planned-parenthood-next-week>
// The Hill // Peter Sullivan <http://thehill.com/author/peter-sullivan> -
July 17, 2015*

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Friday that he will demand a vote next week on
defunding Planned Parenthood after a viral video, setting up a possible
fight on the issue.

A statement from Paul’s office says that he will “use all legislative
vehicles at his disposal” and the timeframe is the “coming week.”

That declaration raises the prospect that Paul, a presidential candidate,
could seek to attach the measure to must-pass legislation like an extension
of the federal highway program ahead of the July 31 deadline.

Democrats are sure to seek to block attempts to cut off federal funding for
Planned Parenthood.

However, Republicans think they have momentum after the release of the
video this week, which shows a Planned Parenthood executive candidly
discussing the donation of fetal organs.

The group’s president, Cecile Richards, apologized for
<http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/248204-planned-parenthood-president-apologizes-for-staffers-tone-in-video>
the official’s tone on Thursday, but defended the group’s actions. She said
the group helps with the donation of fetal tissue for medical research,
does not profit from it, and follows the law.

Republicans, though, have strongly denounced the video and are planning to move
up the
<http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/248210-senators-plan-post-recess-hearing-for-late-term-abortion-ban-bill>
timeline for a 20-week abortion ban in the Senate after the August recess.

“The continued disregard and disrespect for human life at Planned
Parenthood, a partially taxpayer-funded organization, is shocking and
appalling,” Paul said. “Recent video revelations, involving potentially
criminal activity, make it more obvious than ever that this organization
has absolutely zero respect for the sanctity of human life and is an
affront to the most basic human dignity enshrined in our founding
documents.”

He vowed to cut off federal funding.

“Not one more taxpayer dollar should go to Planned Parenthood and I intend
to make that goal a reality,” he said.

*‘What the hell happened to Rand Paul?’
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/what-happened-rand-paul> // MSNBC // Anthony
Terrell <http://www.msnbc.com/byline/anthony-terrell-0> and Mark Murray
<http://www.msnbc.com/person/mark-murray-0> - July 17, 2015 *

Just a year ago, if he wasn’t considered a leading prospective presidential
candidate, he certainly was an interesting one — given his libertarianism
and less-hawkish views on foreign policy. But now that the presidential
contest is well under way, Rand Pau <http://www.msnbc.com/topics/rand-paul>l
has gone missing — both figuratively and literally — from a big part of the
2016 conversation.

“What the hell happened to Rand Paul?” asked prominent conservative
writer Erick
Erickson
<http://www.erickontheradio.com/2015/07/what-the-hell-happened-to-rand-paul/>
.

But Paul’s campaign team argues that this absence from the campaign
conversation is by design — to play the long delegate game, and to avoid
sharing the crowded space with other Republican presidential candidates.

For Paul, there have been two kinds of absences. The first has been away
from the candidate “cattle calls” other presidential hopefuls have attended.

For instance, back in June, seven GOP hopefuls (Scott Walker, Marco Rubio,
Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham) were
in Iowa attending Senator Joni Ernst’s Roast and Ride
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/republicans-vy-votes-joni-ernsts-inaugural-roast-and-ride-fundraiser>,
but Paul ditched the event to be in New Hampshire to host four “Stand with
Rand
<http://blog.4president.org/2016/2015/06/rand-paul-to-open-new-hampshire-campaign-office-on-june-5-2015.html>”
meet and greets across the Granite State.

Later in the month, Walker, Perry, Huckabee, Carson, Santorum, Pataki were
in Colorado at the Western Conservative Summit
<http://centennial.ccu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/wcs15-tentative-program-062415.pdf>,
but Paul was fundraising and meeting with winners
<http://www.msnbc.com/jose-diaz-balart/watch/rand-paul-ramps-up-tech-savvy-campaign-473573443696>
of his campaign’s “Hackathon <https://randpaul.com/hackforrand>” in
Monterey, California.

And this Saturday, Paul will be a no-show — again — at the Family Leader
summit in Iowa, where Walker, Rubio, Carson, Ted Cruz, Huckabee and Donald
Trump will speak.  Instead, Paul will be attending a fundraiser in Houston.

Why the different campaign scheduling? According to multiple conversations
with the Paul campaign, the candidate is playing the long delegate game —
thus campaigning in states beyond the early contests of Iowa, New Hampshire
and South Carolina.

Indeed, advisers point to his non-traditional campaign stops in Michigan,
Colorado, Illinois and California.

The second absence for Paul has been away from the political conversation
of the day, especially on subjects tricky for the libertarian-leaning
candidate who wants to reach out to minorities, and who holds less hawkish
foreign-policy views in an increasingly hawkish Republican Party.

He was late to weigh in on removing the Confederate flag from South
Carolina’s statehouse grounds (he eventually said it should be removed
<http://www.kentucky.com/2015/06/23/3913888/rand-paul-says-south-carolina.html>);
on the Supreme Court’s opinion legalizing gay marriage (he eventually said
government shouldn’t be in the marriage business at all
<http://time.com/3939374/rand-paul-gay-marriage-supreme-court/>); and on
President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal (he eventually said he opposed it
<https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/621083160923783168>).

Yet Paul’s team says its strategy is standing apart from the pack.  While
the responses to various events from rival Republican candidates get lumped
together in articles and television segments, the campaign believes that
Paul’s responses (despite being delayed) get their own coverage — without
having to share the page or screen time with rivals.

It also stresses that there’s an advantage to taking time to respond to
complicated issues.

“No one takes bolder stands than Senator Rand Paul,” said Doug Stafford,
the Paul campaign’s chief strategist. “Whether it’s scrapping the entire
tax code, taking on the Washington machine, filibustering for his
principles, Sen. Rand Paul has led on issue after issue during his time in
DC.”

Stafford added, “He also believes in being thoughtful, reading bills or
decisions, and generally not reducing complicated policy matters to
knee-jerk reactions or bumper-sticker solutions. There’s something to be
said for making sure he has both the right diagnosis and prescription on an
issue, instead of racing to see who can tweet about it first.”

Still, maybe Paul’s biggest challenge in the GOP presidential field is
being considered a more dovish foreign-policy candidate in an increasingly
hawkish Republican Party.

In fact, an April NBC News/Wall Street Journal found that the top priority
for national GOP primary voters was national security and terrorism — ahead
of job creation and the deficit.

“The issue set for him hasn’t been good,” said a GOP operative from a rival
campaign. “More than health care, the president’s record on foreign policy
is one thing that really unifies Republicans.”

In other words, a Rand Paul in the Age of ISIS might not have the same
punch inside his party that Paul in the Age of Edward Snowden did back in
2013 and 2014.

*Rand Paul — Missing in Action?
<http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/rand-paul-missing-action-n393851> //
NBC // Anthony Terrell and Mark Murray – July 17, 2015*

Remember Rand Paul?

Just a year ago, if he wasn't considered a leading prospective presidential
candidate, he certainly was an interesting one -- given his libertarianism
and less-hawkish views on foreign policy.

But now that the presidential contest is well under way, Rand Paul has gone
missing -- both figuratively and literally -- from a big part of the 2016
conversation.

"What the hell happened to Rand Paul?" asked prominent conservative writer
Erick Erickson.

But Paul's campaign team argues that this absence from the campaign
conversation is by design -- to play the long delegate game, and to avoid
sharing the crowded space with other Republican presidential candidates.

For Paul, there have been two kinds of absences. The first has been away
from the candidate "cattle calls" other presidential hopefuls have attended.

For instance, back in June, seven GOP hopefuls (Scott Walker, Marco Rubio,
Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham) were
in Iowa attending Senator Joni Ernst's Roast and Ride, but Paul ditched the
event to be in New Hampshire to host four "Stand with Rand" meet and greets
across the Granite State.

Later in the month, Walker, Perry, Huckabee, Carson, Santorum, Pataki were
in Colorado at the Western Conservative Summit, but Paul was fundraising
and meeting with winners of his campaign's "Hackathon" in Monterey,
California.

And this Saturday, Paul will be a no-show -- again -- at the Family Leader
summit in Iowa, where Walker, Rubio, Carson, Ted Cruz, Huckabee and Donald
Trump will speak. Instead, Paul is campaigning Friday in Houston.

Why the different campaign scheduling? According to multiple conversations
with the Paul campaign, the candidate is playing the long delegate game --
thus campaigning in states beyond the early contests of Iowa, New Hampshire
and South Carolina.

Indeed, advisers point to his non-traditional campaign stops in Michigan,
Colorado, Illinois and California.

The second absence for Paul has been away from the political conversation
of the day, especially on subjects tricky for the libertarian-leaning
candidate who wants to reach out to minorities, and who holds less hawkish
foreign-policy views in an increasingly hawkish Republican Party.

He was late to weigh in on removing the Confederate flag from South
Carolina's statehouse grounds (he eventually said it should be removed); on
the Supreme Court's opinion legalizing gay marriage (he eventually said
government shouldn't be in the marriage business at all); and on President
Obama's Iran nuclear deal (he eventually said he opposed it).

Yet Paul's team says its strategy is standing apart from the pack. While
the responses to various events from rival Republican candidates get lumped
together in articles and television segments, the campaign believes that
Paul's responses (despite being delayed) get their own coverage -- without
having to share the page or screen time with rivals.

It also stresses that there's an advantage to taking time to respond to
complicated issues.

"No one takes bolder stands than Senator Rand Paul," said Doug Stafford,
the Paul campaign's chief strategist. "Whether it's scrapping the entire
tax code, taking on the Washington machine, filibustering for his
principles, Sen. Rand Paul has led on issue after issue during his time in
DC."

Stafford added, "He also believes in being thoughtful, reading bills or
decisions, and generally not reducing complicated policy matters to
knee-jerk reactions or bumper-sticker solutions. There's something to be
said for making sure he has both the right diagnosis and prescription on an
issue, instead of racing to see who can tweet about it first."

Still, maybe Paul's biggest challenge in the GOP presidential field is
being considered a more dovish foreign-policy candidate in an increasingly
hawkish Republican Party.

In fact, an April NBC News/Wall Street Journal found that the top priority
for national GOP primary voters was national security and terrorism --
ahead of job creation and the deficit.

"The issue set for him hasn't been good," said a GOP operative from a rival
campaign. "More than health care, the president's record on foreign policy
is one thing that really unifies Republicans."

In other words, a Rand Paul in the Age of ISIS might not have the same
punch inside his party that Paul in the Age of Edward Snowden did back in
2013 and 2014.

*Rand Paul: “We Have Had No Shortage Of Money”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/rand-paul-we-have-had-no-shortage-of-money#.tt7yxyOzg>
// Buzzfeed // Rosie Gray – July 17, 2015*

HOUSTON — Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul downplayed his
lackluster fundraising on Friday, arguing that he is polling well and that
his campaign has “plenty of money.”

“We’re raising plenty of money and I think there’ll be a crescendo as we
get into debates and can separate ourselves from the others,” Paul said in
an interview with BuzzFeed News after a campaign rally in downtown Houston.
“We have had no shortage of money.”

Paul’s campaign reported $6.9 million raised in the latest fundraising
totals released after the FEC’s second quarter deadline. The main super PAC
supporting his bid has not yet released its numbers. By contrast, rival
candidate Ted Cruz has raised $14 million and Marco Rubio $12 million.
While Jeb Bush raised just $11 million for his campaign itself, his super
PAC raised a staggering $100 million.

The disappointing haul has been taken as a sign that Paul’s iconoclastic
bid has stopped creating as much buzz as it once did. “What the hell
happened to Rand Paul?” conservative writer Erick Erickson wrote this week.
“Rand Paul should be doing much better. He actually has a good story. He
actually has positions that set him apart from the GOP field. He has a
built in base of support from his father. But remarkably it appears Rand
Paul will be less a factor on 2016 than his dad was in 2012.”

NBC News led with the following on a story about Paul on Friday: “Remember
Rand Paul?”

There are hopeful signs for Paul in the money race, particularly when it
comes to grassroots support. Nearly half of his total — $3.2 million — came
from small-dollar donors giving $200 or less.

“There’s something to be said for having hundreds of thousands of donors
that are small donors who can give again,” Paul told BuzzFeed News. “When I
ran for Senate I had someone who gave me thirteen dollars and 66 cents
every two weeks for two years. So I’ve had people who are working class,
making thirty, forty thousand dollars a year, become a maximum donor by
giving a little bit out of each check.

“We have a really committed crowd,” Paul said. “On a workday here, we have
800 people, which is pretty impressive.”

However, Paul hasn’t been able to bag a benevolent moneyman like the other
top tier candidates. His network has looked to Silicon Valley as a
potential fount of big money, but so far, key potential donors like Peter
Thiel and Sean Parker haven’t come through. And his positions on national
security alienate the pro-Israel donor class from considering him.

Paul believes he’s doing well regardless.

“We actually think we’re in a great place,” he said. “In poll after poll
after poll we’ve been in the top tier. We’ve led some national polls, they
go up and down, there’s a new leader each week.”

Paul is in Texas, his home state, this weekend for the rally in Houston and
fundraisers and private meetings.

*In wake of video, Paul renews call to cut off Planned Parenthood funding
<http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/07/17/rand-paul-planned-parenthood/>
// USA Today // Tom Loftus - July 17, 2015 *

Responding to a controversial video released by an anti-abortion group this
week, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Friday renewed his call to end federal
funding of Planned Parenthood.

“The recent revelation that this taxpayer-funded organization is selling
body parts of the unborn further proves that this agency deserves our
scorn, not our tax dollars,” Paul said in a news release from his
presidential campaign. His Senate office released a similar statement.

Paul’s statements refer to a video released by the California-based Center
for Medical Progress that show a Planned Parenthood official talking about
parts of aborted fetuses. The Center for Medical Progress says the video
documents that Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue for profit.

But Planned Parenthood says the charge is false. “The allegation that
Planned Parenthood profits in any way from tissue donation is not true. Our
donation programs, like any other high quality health care provider’s,
follow all laws and ethical guidelines,” said Cecile Richards, president
of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, says in statement posted on
the Planned Parenthood website.

Richards apologized for the tone of comments made in the video by a Planned
Parenthood official – a tone she said that does not reflect “the
compassionate care that we provide.”

Paul joins a chorus of conservative elected officials who have denounced
Planned Parenthood because of the controversial video. Paul said that next
week he will introduce an amendment to pending legislation “to immediately
strip every dollar of Planned Parenthood funding.” He said Planned
Parenthood received about $528 million in taxpayer funding in 2013-14.

*After sagging in fundraising, Rand Paul 2.0 reboots campaign
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-rand-paul-2016-reboot-campaign-20150717-story.html#page=1>
// Los Angeles Times // Lisa Mascaro - July 17, 2015*

When Rand Paul began charting his presidential run, the Ray-Ban-wearing
senator and heir apparent to a libertarian legacy rebranded himself to suit
more mainstream Republican tastes.

He rejected his famous father’s isolationist foreign policy, voted for more
military spending and even campaigned in front of an aircraft carrier. He
invited a Christian broadcasting network into his home and spoke against
gay marriage, famously pronouncing himself “libertarian-ish.”

But it turned out that Rand Paul 2.0 had a glitch: Appeal was limited.

After flatlining in the polls and lagging rivals in fundraising, Paul’s
campaign heeded a market lesson repeatedly applied in American politics.
They brought back the original.

The Kentucky senator has pivoted back to his familiar stomping grounds
among the outliers of Republican politics.

In May he infuriated some fellow Republicans by delivering a 10½-hour
speech to protest Patriot Act provisions on NSA domestic spying. Last month
he became the first presidential candidate to openly court money from the
legalized marijuana industry and shared a moment with Nevada rancher Cliven
Bundy, known for his standoff with federal agents in 2014 and for his
divisive comments about minorities.

“Out of necessity he’s moving back to his base, which is a sign the
strategy he adopted was the wrong strategy,” said Aaron Day, chairman of
the New Hampshire chapter of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a nationwide
libertarian-leaning organization within the GOP. “He needs the
grass-roots — and they know this now.”

Rand’s campaign denied any rebooting of his message or positions, and
insisted that he never intended to replicate the campaigns of his father,
the former Texas GOP congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.
“There has been no change, no pivot,” said campaign manager Chip Englander.
“He has the same view he’s always had.”

But as Paul tried to navigate a more crowd-pleasing course, he ended up in
no-man’s land, disappointing core activists while failing to generate
enthusiasm from the party’s mainstream.

The result left him “on an island,” said one strategist from a rival
Republican campaign who did not want to be identified speaking about Paul.
“He’s played this footsie game with … the establishment for so long and you
can see him make this pivot back.”

The challenge now facing Paul in the crowded GOP field is whether he can
reignite the spark among libertarians who feel betrayed by his shifts,
without alienating those Republicans potentially receptive to his call for
limited government.

“That’s the line he has to walk here,” said Tom Rath, a Republican
strategist in New Hampshire. “He strays too far and you get people saying,
‘Who are you?’”

The stakes are even higher as other candidates pile into the race, eager to
portray Paul’s libertarian-leaning views as extreme. New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie, in particular, is targeting Paul on the campaign trail, saying
the senator’s filibuster-like maneuver, which temporarily prevented the
National Security Agency from accessing Americans’ telephone records,
resulted in a dangerous surveillance lapse that put the country at risk.

Fundraising for Paul has been lackluster, especially because his team has
not lassoed a big-dollar donor like the billionaires bankrolling other
candidates.

The campaign reported $7 million for the quarter ended June 30, compared
with about $14 million for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), $12 million for Sen.
Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and $11 million for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. A
"super PAC" backing Paul had hoped that his marathon Patriot Act speech
would produce a high-value Silicon Valley donor, but one has failed to
materialize.

So, while outside groups for Bush pushed his overall second-quarter haul to
more than $114 million, followed by Cruz at $52 million and Rubio at $44
million, the main super PAC supporting Paul has not yet released its
fundraising totals.

Paul’s campaign acknowledges that his libertarian base is his top priority
even as he tries to build a new coalition, much the way President Obama
turned out first-time younger voters and minorities. That means that even
as Paul popped into a West Michigan happy hour with tea party Congressman
Justin Amash, he also spent time in Detroit with African American civic
leaders, “taking our message to places where the GOP usually doesn't go,”
said campaign spokesman Sergio Gor.

With 15 GOP candidates already in the race, Paul’s campaign is betting it’s
better to be loved by a few than liked by many, particularly in a fractured
field.

But recapturing the imagination of libertarian-leaning voters who have
grown skeptical of Paul is proving more difficult. In New Hampshire, a
state that Paul’s campaign hopes will catapult his bid, the liberty caucus
leaders are openly fretting that celebrity candidate Donald Trump has
emerged as a top of choice for many in their wing, a concern also raised by
some in Nevada, once prime Paul territory.

Paul’s May talk-a-thon against the government’s surveillance program went a
long way toward restoring his appeal and reenergize fans, and his new
flat-tax proposal could please both mainstream and tea party camps in the
GOP. But his June marijuana industry fundraiser in Denver, where  pot
entrepreneurs paid a minimum of $2,700 to hear him speak, may not go over
well with Republicans in Iowa, who tend to be more socially conservative.
His friendly rapport with rancher Bundy — who once speculated that “the
Negro” was better off under slavery — could give voters pause in other
states.

“There’s going to be some trickiness in satisfying everyone who was your
father’s supporter,” said Craig Robinson, a former Iowa Republican Party
political director who now runs a popular blog. “When you start going down
those libertarian rabbit trails too far, it’s going to be trouble.”

Polling shows that Paul still ranks in the top 10 among the Republican
presidential hopefuls; he tied for second behind Trump earlier this month
in an Economist/YouGov poll. His campaign points to other surveys showing
him competitive with Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton,
beating her in Iowa in a Quinnipiac University poll shortly after he
announced his candidacy in April.

Nick Gillespie, editor of the libertarian Reason.com, said Paul does best
when he stakes out classic libertarian positions to distinguish himself
from the other candidates.

“All of the moments where he stands out — where he captures not just the
political imagination, but the public American imagination — are the most
libertarian,” Gillespie said.

*Paul to host Houston rally, book signing today
<http://www.chron.com/news/politics/us/article/Rand-Paul-to-host-Houston-rally-book-signing-6390568.php>
// Chron // Rebecca Elliott -  July 17, 2015 *

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul is bringing his presidential campaign to Houston
Friday, where he's set to host a "Stand with Rand" rally and book signing.

According to his campaign, Paul will address "the importance of protecting
the entire Bill of Rights, and being boldly for conservative ideals that
limit the power of the Washington Machine."

The first-term senator from Kentucky, a Texas native , will also be
fundraising while in Houston.

Paul's rally begins at 2:45 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency, downtown.

*Rand Paul Bringing Abortion Politics to Highway Bill Debate
<http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/rand-paul-abortion-highway-bill/?dcz=> //
Roll Call // Niels Lesniewski - July 17, 2015*

Sen. Rand Paul <http://www.rollcall.com/members/31236.html> appears to be
plotting to bring the debate over abortion to the highway bill.

The Kentucky Republican’s presidential campaign said Friday he would be
seeking an amendment vote on blocking federal funding for Planned
Parenthood next week.

“The recent revelation that this taxpayer-funded organization is selling
body parts of the unborn further proves that this agency deserves our scorn
not our tax dollars. I plan to do whatever I can to stop them and will
introduce an amendment to pending Senate legislation to immediately strip
every dollar of Planned Parenthood funding,” Paul said in a campaign
statement.

The pending business before the Senate next week is a bipartisan surface
transportation bill, a measure expected to be open for amendment. And
unlike the House, the Senate has no general germaneness requirement, so
Paul should have the opportunity to at least make a stand to get his vote.

“The continued disregard and disrespect for human life at Planned
Parenthood, a partially taxpayer-funded organization, is shocking and
appalling,” Paul said through his Senate office. “Recent video revelations,
involving potentially criminal activity, make it more obvious than ever
that this organization has absolutely zero respect for the sanctity of
human life and is an affront to the most basic human dignity enshrined in
our founding documents. Not one more taxpayer dollar should go to Planned
Parenthood and I intend to make that goal a reality.”

Paul’s Senate office said the Kentuckian was prepared to use any available
procedural tools to ensure his measure gets a vote on the floor.

While Paul’s views are often described as libertarian, he has consistently
opposed abortion rights. The new push comes in response to a video from the
anti-abortion advocacy group Center for Medical Progress about what Planned
Parenthood has done with organs and tissue from aborted fetuses — something
that’s received a flurry of attention
<http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/interview-didnt-happen/> on Capitol Hill.

Another Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Lindsey Graham
<http://www.rollcall.com/members/438.html> of South Carolina, is the lead
sponsor of the Senate’s legislation to bar abortions after 20 weeks into a
pregnancy. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
<http://www.rollcall.com/members/202.html>, R-Ky., pledged in June
<http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/mcconnell-pledges-20-week-abortion-ban-vote/>
that the measure would get a vote before the Senate, but no action has been
scheduled.

*Rand Paul to mount fight to defund Planned Parenthood
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/17/rand-paul-mount-fight-defund-planned-parenthood/>
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/david-sherfinski/> - July 17, 2015 *

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is planning a push next week to fully ban
federal funding for Planned Parenthood, with his office saying the 2016 GOP
presidential contender will use “all legislative vehicles at his disposal”
to ensure immediate action.

“I am more appalled than ever by Planned Parenthood’s complete disregard
for the sanctity of human life,” Mr. Paul said. “The recent revelation that
this taxpayer-funded organization is selling body parts of the unborn
further proves that this agency deserves our scorn, not our tax dollars.

“I plan to do whatever I can to stop them and will introduce an amendment
to pending Senate legislation to immediately strip every dollar of Planned
Parenthood funding,” he said.

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has
apologized
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/16/planned-parenthood-defends-fetal-tissue-donations/>
after an undercover video was released earlier this week showing Dr.
Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at Planned
Parenthood, describe how she performs abortions to preserve fetal organs.

Ms. Richards also defended the practice of fetal tissue donation and said
the Center for Medical Progress, which released the video, made “outrageous
claims” about such practices.

Congressional Republicans have called for an investigation, and other
Republican presidential contenders have spoken out against Planned
Parenthood in the wake of the video.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, for example, said Congress should investigate and
renew its efforts to fully defund the group. And Louisiana Gov. Bobby
Jindal directed the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals to
investigate the group’s activities.

*Rand Paul: Cut funding for Planned Parenthood
<http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/rand-paul/2015/07/17/rand-paul-cut-funding-planned-parenthood/30308591/>
// The Courier Journal // Tom Loftus - July 17, 2015*

Sen. Rand Paul on Friday joined the chorus of conservative elected
officials blasting Planned Parenthood based on the comments of one of its
officials in a controversial video released this week by an anti-abortion
group.

“The recent revelation that this taxpayer-funded organization is selling
body parts of the unborn further proves that this agency deserves our
scorn, not our tax dollars,” Paul said in a statement released by his
campaign for the Republican nomination for president.

Paul was referring to a video released by the California-based Center for
Medical Progress that shows a Planned Parenthood official talking about
parts of aborted fetuses. The Center for Medical Progress says the video
documents that Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue for profit.

But Planned Parenthood says the charge is false. “The allegation that
Planned Parenthood profits in any way from tissue donation is not true. Our
donation programs, like any other high quality health care provider’s,
follow all laws and ethical guidelines,” Cecile Richards, president of
Planned Parenthood Federation of America, says in statement posted on the
Planned Parenthood website.

Richards does apologize in her statement for the tone of comments in the
video by a Planned Parenthood official — a tone that Richards said does not
reflect “the compassionate care that we provide.”

Paul said that next week he will use “all legislative vehicles at his
disposal” to force a Senate vote “to immediately strip every dollar of
Planned Parenthood funding.” He said Planned Parenthood received about $528
million in taxpayer funding in 2013-14.

On Thursday the controversial video prompted Indiana Republican Gov. Mike
Pence to direct Indiana’s Department of Health to investigate Planned
Parenthood in cooperation with the state attorney general. But Planned
Parenthood’s affiliate for Kentucky and Indiana does not participate in any
tissue donation program, said Betty Cockrum, chief executive of Planned
Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky.

*Rand Paul: Defund Planned Parenthood
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/rand-paul-defund-planned-parenthood/article/2568498>
// Washington Examiner // Paige Winfield Cunningham - July 17, 2015 *

Sen. Rand Paul has threatened to seek "legislative action" next week to
defund Planned Parenthood.

The Kentucky Republican and GOP presidential candidate didn't clarify his
exact plans, but the legislative action he referred to could involve an
attempt to attach a defunding bill to highway-funding legislation the
Senate is trying to pass before a July 31 deadline.

Paul said Planned Parenthood has "absolutely zero respect for the sanctity
of human life," referring to an undercover video released by an
anti-abortion group this week showing one of Planned Parenthood's top
directors discussing fetal organ donations.

He also called the group's participation in organ donations "potentially
criminal."

"Not one more taxpayer dollar should go to Planned Parenthood, and I intend
to make that goal a reality," Paul said in a statement released Friday by
his congressional office.

The footage, which shows Planned Parenthood Director of Medical Services
Deborah Nucatola describing how doctors obtain fetal organs during
abortions to donate them for medical research, has prompted House
Republicans to start an investigation into the group.

It's not illegal to donate the tissue of aborted fetuses for medical
research. But the video's makers say Planned Parenthood is performing
illegal partial-birth abortions to obtain the organs and is profiting from
their sale. Planned Parenthood has denied any wrongdoing and has apologized
for the seemingly crude way Nucatola discussed the sensitive topic.

*CRUZ*

*Ted Cruz’s second quarter donors had some loyalty issues
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/07/17/ted-cruzs-second-quarter-donors-had-some-loyalty-issues/>
// WaPo // Philip Bump - July 17, 2015 *

One of the more interesting aspects of campaign fundraising is how
frequently donors give to multiple candidates. Sometimes, it's because they
change their minds about who they're backing. Often, it's because they want
to establish a relationship with one or more of the candidates -- and a
large subset of those people are just hedging their bets.  (A large subset
of those people are also quite wealthy, making the process of cutting
multiple $2,700 checks not such a big deal.)

With second quarter numbers in hand, we thought we'd take a look at how
often double giving happened among 2016 contenders. Given that comparing
all 216 million candidates against one another seemed unfeasible, we
focused on the same candidates who we'd mapped
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/07/16/where-the-2016-candidates-raised-their-money-in-8-maps/>
on Thursday: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Marco
Rubio for Republicans and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for Democrats.
(A note: Jindal's figures don't include small donors -- under $200 -- who
don't legally have to be reported.)

It can be tricky to do this comparison. We're talking about a lot of
people, comparable on name, address and occupation. If names are spelled
differently or if the address is slightly different, it adds uncertainty.
So we looked at all the instances that the first name, last name and ZIP+4
matched for a person who gave to more than one of the aforementioned
candidates.

In our analysis, it was Ted Cruz whose donors were most likely to give to
other people; we tallied 370 who did so. Next was Ben Carson, who had 301
people give to other candidates, including 148 who gave to Cruz. In total,
nearly 700 people gave to more than one candidate. There were 51 who gave
to three, six who gave to four, and one enthusiastic South Carolina woman
who gave to five.

But that's not the weirdest one.

The weirdest is someone in St. Louis who gave $2,700 to Hillary Clinton --
and another $2,700 to Bobby Jindal.

Now *that* is hedging your bets.

*Super PACs to Cruz: Focus on ‘wedge issues’
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/17/super-pacs-to-cruz-focus-on-wedge-issues/>
// WaPo // Patrick Svitek - July 17, 2015 *

The super PACs supporting Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) believe he should focus on
so-called wedge issues as he carves an unflinchingly conservative path to
the White House, according to a presentation that surfaced late Thursday.

The strategy would not be a surprising approach for Cruz, who has made
clear he believes the way to win the presidency is by standing firm on a
host of issues that excite the GOP base. But the presentation, found on the
Web site of the Keep the Promise super PACs, offers the most revealing look
yet at how — and why — Cruz's supporters believe he can achieve that goal.

The 51-slide pitch — titled "Can He Win?" — is particularly harsh on 2012
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, whom it calls a "terrible
candidate with a terrible campaign." Part of Romney's problem, according to
the presentation, is that he had "NO WEDGE OR MAGNET ISSUE" to drive up
Republican turnout against President Obama.

Cruz, on the other hand, ranks as the Republican Party's best shot at
exploiting wedge issues against presumed Democratic nominee Hillary
Clinton, according to the super PACs. The presentation lists five issues on
which it suggests Cruz would be the most competitive GOP nominee in a
general-election matchup with Clinton: "Common Core," "Immigration,"
"Future Not Past," "National Security" and "Foreign Money."

In unambiguous terms, the presentation identifies former Florida governor
Jeb Bush as Clinton's weakest potential opponent on wedge issues. "The
Establishment Never Learns," reads the title of one slide, followed by text
that says, "For 2016 they have chosen, Jeb Bush."

A spokesman for the super PACs, treasurer Dathan Voelter, did not
immediately respond to a request for comment late Thursday. The
presentation, which was first reported by CNN then obtained by The Texas
Tribune, was last modified Sunday, according to information on the
PowerPoint file, which identified a "Chris Sipes" as the author.

One plausible explanation for the presentation is to telegraph strategy to
Cruz's official campaign, which cannot coordinate with the super PACs under
federal law. In recent election cycles, campaigns and super PACs have
gained notoriety for stretching the boundaries of that rule.

The presentation itself reads like an appeal to pro-Cruz donors, who have
already given just under $38 million to the four super PACs supporting him.
To that end, the presentation confirms what has long been rumored: Cruz is
receiving support from the three of the top 10 donors to conservative super
PACs in 2012. They are New York hedge-fund manager Robert Mercer, Boston
investor John Childs and Houston Texans owner Robert McNair.

While the presentation echoes many Cruz talking points -- evangelicals are
not turning out, for example — it does seem to prod Cruz to focus more on
Hispanic voters, something he and his campaign have not signaled is a top
priority. Under a slide titled "Republican Must Do's for 2016," the
presentation says the party must "perform better with Latino voters in
Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada."

The presentation also directs attention to the results of a May survey that
portray Cruz as a well-known candidate who ranks toward the top of the
field in "potential growth." The only two candidates ahead of him in that
category of the poll are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and U.S. Sen. Marco
Rubio of Florida.

The primary calendar, which is "really different," is also helping Cruz,
according to the presentation. The super PACs argue the calendar favors
Southern states and conservative voters more than usual, a perfect mix for
Cruz to capitalize on wedge issues.

His campaign's assets, meanwhile, are listed as "Small Dollar Donors,"
"Large Super PAC," "Social Media Followers," "Grassroots Support" and
"Sophisticated Data Analysis." Unsurprisingly, the presentation indicates
Cruz's campaign beats five other campaigns listed on one slide: those of
Bush, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky,
Rubio and Walker.

Despite the harsh words for Bush, the super PACs say they plan to roll out
a "positive campaign" around the first GOP presidential debate, which is
scheduled for Aug. 6 in Ohio. In the meantime, the presentation suggests
donors should do anything but retreat, saying "fundraising success breeds
fundraising success."

*Insiders: Ted Cruz hurt most by Trump candidacy
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/insiders-ted-cruz-hurt-most-by-trump-candidacy-120277.html>
// Politico // Katie Glueck - July 17, 2015*

Donald Trump’s turn in the national spotlight is mainly taking a toll on
Ted Cruz, the Texas firebrand running as an uncompromising,
anti-establishment conservative.

That’s the assessment of this week’s POLITICO Caucus, our weekly survey of
the leading strategists, activists and political operatives in Iowa and New
Hampshire.

Roughly a third of Iowa and New Hampshire Republican insiders pointed to
Cruz as the candidate who is damaged the most in their states by Trump’s
rise in the polls and emergence as a media-grabbing protest candidate.

“The Trump Circus is no doubt having the biggest impact on Ted Cruz. Cruz,
the incumbent proxy for the disaffected GOP “Hell No!” Caucus, has been
virtually starved of oxygen since Trump entered the race,” said an Iowa
Republican, who, like all POLITICO Caucus participants, was granted
anonymity in order to speak freely.

“Cruz needs to consolidate the rage-against-the-machine, anti-establishment
block of Caucus votes (both the harder-edged evangelicals and tea party
types) as his Iowa Caucus foundation upon which to build,” said another
Iowa Republican. “Trump is sucking all the oxygen out of the room. While I
seriously doubt most of those folks will ultimately caucus for Trump, his
message is scratching their anti-establishment itch at a time when Cruz
needs to start showing some momentum.”

In New Hampshire, where Chris Christie’s hopes are riding on a strong
finish, roughly a quarter of Republicans believe the brash and
straight-talking New Jersey governor is also put at risk by Trump’s
emergence in the field.

“Christie is the “tell it like it is” candidate, but he certainly can’t
hang with Trump in that regard,” a Granite State Republican said. “Without
the oxygen of a niche, Christie is rudderless and grasping at straws.”

“Christie has placed all his eggs in New Hampshire’s basket, but Trump is
right now occupying the “tell it like it is” lane with gusto,” added
another New Hampshire Republican. “Same thing with Ted Cruz. If you’re a
voter looking for the most conservative alternative, it’s hard to see you
landing anywhere but Trump.”

Republicans in both states are also fretting that the controversial real
estate mogul is tainting their party — and Democrats agree: more than
one-third of Democrats viewed Trump as a problem for the entire GOP field,
as opposed to a single candidate.

“He is damaging our brand,” said an Iowa Republican, who said Trump is
hurting all of the GOP candidates.

Yet it’s Cruz, the Texas senator, who is seen by insiders as particularly
damaged by Trump’s ascendancy because the real estate mogul has emerged as
a candidate who is equally steadfast on hot-button issues like immigration
— and he can deliver the message with more heated rhetoric. That gives him
an advantage with the hardest-right pockets of the GOP base, insiders said,
who might otherwise naturally align with Cruz.

Several Caucus participants expected that Trump will push the immigration
debate further to the right for those candidates who rely on the support of
the staunchest conservative activists. “Watch for other candidates to step
up their rhetoric or continue to be crushed by Trump in the polls,”
predicted one Iowa Republican.

So far, the Texas senator is the only candidate in the GOP field to make
overtures to Trump: the two had a meeting
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-grows-up-politico-interview-120196.html>
on Wednesday at Trump Tower, where they dished about other Republican
contenders. Cruz has also been by far Trump’s biggest defender among the
Republicans running for president, refusing to condemn several of Trump’s
more incendiary statements on immigration, and instead praising him more
broadly for raising the issue. That relationship could also come in handy
for Cruz in the event support for Trump’s bid collapses and his backers
look for another lightning rod conservative candidate to get behind.

A handful of participants noted that Trump distracted from Scott Walker,
the Wisconsin governor who announced his presidential bid this week and
leads in Iowa polls.

Walker is “barely registering in voters’ minds because The Donald is such a
compelling blend of hair, media catnip, and voter rage” even during his
announcement week, said one Iowa Republican.

*Ted Cruz Is Vowing To Block A Bunch Of Obama's Nominees ... Again
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-obama-nominees_55a936a0e4b04740a3dfd82a>
// HuffPo // Jennifer Bendery – July 17, 2015*

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has raised $3.7 million to kickoff his underdog
bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, including $1.5 million
he moved from his U.S. Senate campaign account.

But Graham, who proved an effective fundraiser in his 2014 U.S. Senate
re-election bid, lags far behind the fund-raising leaders in the
presidential nominating race.

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has raised more than $47 million
since entering the race for her party’s nomination. Republican U.S. Sen.
Ted Cruz of Texas leads the GOP, having raised $14.3 million for his
campaign.

However, Graham of Seneca led the pack in his home state, which holds a key
early primary next February.

Graham raised $858,080 – roughly $1 of every $4 that he brought in – from
S.C. donors, out-raising all other presidential hopefuls, Democrats and
Republicans combined, in the Palmetto State.

The campaign fund-raising totals are not the only measure of a candidate’s
potential for success, Citadel political scientist Scott Buchanan cautioned.

The “big money” goes to super political-action committees that can receive
unlimited cash from donors as long as the PAC does not coordinate its
activities with a candidate or a campaign.

Candidates are restricted to accepting $2,700 from a single donor during
the primary cycle, making it more difficult to raise cash quickly for their
campaigns.

Still, a candidate’s fund-raising successes are valuable, especially early
on in a race, Buchanan added.

Candidates use the amount that their campaigns raise as “a barometer for
the excitement for their campaign and their candidate.”

For example, a candidate who receives lots of small donations can tout
winning buy-in from regular people, he said.

Is U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham South Carolina’s ‘favorite son?’ A look at the
top 10 Republican and Democratic candidates ranked by the amount that they
have raised from S.C. donors through June:

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – $858,080

Former U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY) – $237,800

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) – $109,809

Ben Carson (R-Md.) – $78,265

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) – $62,660

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R_Texas) – $50,076

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) – $28,436

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) – $20,300

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) – $12,917

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) – $7,671

*Ted Cruz Has Money to Burn the GOP
<http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-17/ted-cruz-has-money-to-burn-the-gop>
// Bloomberg // Francis Wilkinson - July 17, 2015 *

Texas Senator Ted Cruz sure has a lot of money. Cruz's presidential
campaign raised $14.3 million in its first quarter. In addition, a network
of super-PACs allied with Cruz raised $38 million. That makes $52 million
in a matter of months. To put that in context, former Pennsylvania Senator
Rick Santorum dogged Mitt Romney in the 2012 Republican primaries, lasting all
the way until April
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/us/politics/rick-santorum-withdraws-from-republican-race.html?_r=0>,
on about $20 million less
<https://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/candidate.php?id=N00001380> than Team
Cruz has already collected.

CNN yesterday reported
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/16/politics/ted-cruz-super-pac-plan/> on a
leaked PowerPoint presentation on Cruz's path to the White House titled
"Can He Win?" Given the origin of the presentation, which was birthed by a
pro-Cruz super-PAC, the answer wasn't in doubt. Nor, really, was the
strategic path it envisions.

Cruz's advantage, according to the presentation, is his ability to exploit
"wedge" issues much more effectively than a wimpy GOP establishment
candidate such as Mitt Romney. The Texas Tribune, which also wrote about
the presentation, said
<http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/17/brief-july-17-2015/>:

The presentation lists five issues on which it suggests Cruz would be the
most competitive GOP nominee in a general-election matchup with Clinton:
"Common Core," "Immigration," "Future Not Past," "National Security" and
"Foreign Money."

The first two -- Common Core and immigration, just happen to be issues on
which Jeb Bush (did we mention that establishment candidates are wimpy?) is
crosswise
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/12/jeb-bush-holds-ground-on-common-core-immigration/>
with many Republican base voters. "Future Not Past" is already a theme
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/04/13/marco-rubio-2016-presidential-announcement/25706739/>
of Young Marco Rubio's regular digs at Bush. On national security, Cruz is
busy working to secure the far right of the Republican argument, more or
less promising
<http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-16/ted-cruz-is-no-fan-of-bush>
to bomb Iran at his earliest convenience. And while "Foreign Money"
presages attacks on contributions
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-gave-millions-to-foundation-while-clinton-was-at-state-dept/2015/02/25/31937c1e-bc3f-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html>
to Hillary Clinton's family foundation, it might also give pause to a
certain GOP candidate who began his international business career
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/20/politics/jeb-bush-venezuela/> in the
anti-American environs of Caracas. With his Mexican wife.

While Republican worthies fret about Donald Trump's tics, Cruz, who stands
to inherit many Trump supporters when Trump teeters, may be the more dire
threat. Since joining the Senate in 2013, Cruz has exhibited a steady
disregard
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/ted-cruz-spending-bill-immigration-113287.html>
for the broader interests of his party. Indeed, he seems not only willing
but even eager to damage his party in pursuit of personal advantage.

What does a man like that do with an opening bid of $52 million and the
support of both small donors and some fabulously rich men?

Bush probably won't be Cruz's first target. The most pressing business for
Cruz is to consolidate support on the party's right, which will require
reducing Scott Walker from Destroyer of Unions to just a guy who talks out
of both sides of his mouth. Walker's inconsistency on key issues -- darned
if we don't encounter immigration
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/06/forget-what-i-said-that-scott-walker-call-never-happened/?smid=tw-share&_r=0>
and Common Core <http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/312615621.html> again!
-- is the sort of story that can be easily explained in 29.5 seconds. And
Cruz's money will buy a lot of 29.5-second blocks to tell it.

If Cruz succeeds in dispatching the unreliable Walker, he can inherit some
of Walker's support and turn either to Marco Rubio, if Rubio has gained
traction, or to the main event: Bush.

The beauty of Cruz's positioning is that it insulates him from lesser
claims on his virtue -- such as calls for partisan loyalty or Senate
collegiality. If he annihilates Walker, Rubio and/or Bush -- any of whom is
likely to be more electable than Cruz -- they will only be incidental
casualties, the kind of sacrifices required of a true patriot. Some
Republicans might wish that Cruz loved his country, or himself, just a
little bit less.

*Cruz: Chattanooga shooting 'an act of war’
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/248335-cruz-chattanooga-shooting-an-act-of-war>
// The Hill // Mark Hensch - July 17, 2015 *

The mass shooting at military facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn. constitutes
an act of war by radical Islamists, Sen. Ted Cruz said Friday.

The Texas senator and Republican presidential candidate linked the massacre
to a broader extremist campaign against the United States

“Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez was there to carry out jihad, an act of
radical Islamic terrorism,” he said in a statement
<https://www.tedcruz.org/news/cruz-we-cannot-afford-wait-six-years-to-recognize-what-happened-yesterday-in-chattanooga-for-what-it-was/>
.

“An act of war, in which those four brave Marines lost their lives, while
at least two others were wounded.”

Four Marines died when Abdulazeez opened fire on Thursday morning at two
military facilities in Chattanooga. Abdulazeez, who was a naturalized
citizen from Kuwait, died in the second attack.

Cruz said the gunman was not a “lone wolf” attacking American troops at
random, and said the nations needs to rid itself of “two dangerous
delusions” about terrorist threats.

“First and foremost that a ‘lone gunman’ — as President Obama described the
shooter — is somehow isolated from the larger threat of radical Islamic
terrorism,” Cruz said.

“In the modern world, no one acts in isolation,” he added.

“Through social media ISIS, al Qaeda and other groups are infiltrating our
nation with impunity while our government will not even admit that radical
Islamic terrorism is a problem.”

Cruz also charged on Friday that the Chattanooga slayings are not
independent of earlier attacks on U.S. military installations.

“The second delusion is that this attack is somehow isolated from previous
episodes, notably those in Little Rock, Arkansas and Fort Hood, Texas, in
2009 – both of which were attacks on American military facilities,” he said.

“We need to see with clarity right now what has happened.”

Reports emerged on Thursday evening that Abdulazeez had blogged about Islam
before striking Chattanooga, though little is known about his motive for
the shooting.

He first opened fire at a recruitment center before driving to a U.S. Naval
and Marine Reserve Center. Investigators believe that Abdulazeez and all
four of his victims died during shooting at the Reserve Center.

*Ted Cruz: Chattanooga Shooting Shows Need for Immigration Overhaul, Arming
Military on Bases
<http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421325/chattanooga-shooting-ted-cruz-demands-immigration-overhaul-arming-military-members>
// National Review // Alexis Levinson - July 17, 2015 *

Ted Cruz on Friday called for congressional hearings toward allowing
members of the armed services to carry guns in military facilities, in the
wake of the shooting at a military recruitment center in Chattanooga,
Tenn., and said the shooting illustrated the need to fix the immigration
laws.

On Thursday, four Marines were killed and three other people were injured
when Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez opened fire on two military facilities in
Chattanooga.

In a statement, Cruz called Abdulazeez’s actions “an act of war,” and said
he “was there to carry out jihad, an act of radical Islamic terrorism.”

“While we might wish it otherwise, the forces of radical Islam are at war
with us — here and now,” Cruz said, faulting President Barack Obama for
describing the shooter as a “lone gunman.”

“In the modern world,” Cruz said, “no one acts in isolation. Through social
media ISIS, al Qaida and other groups are infiltrating our nation with
impunity while our government will not even admit that radical Islamic
terrorism is a problem.”

Cruz said the shooting needs to be acknowledged as a terrorist attack
immediately, and called for actions to be taken to allow members of the
armed forces to protect themselves against such situations.

“We need to see with clarity what has happened,” Cruz said. “We can
immediately call for Congressional hearings on the need for our enlisted
men and women to have the right to be armed in military facilities.”

What’s more, Cruz said, the shooting illustrated the need to tighten
immigration laws. According to CNN, Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/16/us/tennessee-naval-reserve-shooting/> and
had citizenship in Jordan, but had become a naturalized U.S. citizen.

In response, Cruz said, Congress should “pass the Expatriate Terrorist Act
that would allow our government to stop Americans who travel overseas to
train with terrorist groups from coming back to attack us at home. We can
thoroughly overhaul our broken immigration system that is allowing this
type of individual to gain citizenship.”

Read Cruz’s full statement below:

Yesterday, members of our armed services in Chattanooga, Tennessee, went to
work in the service of our nation. Some went to a recruiting center to
assist the young people who, like so many before them, would walk through
the door on any given Thursday morning and volunteer to defend the United
States of America. Four brave Marines went to a Naval Reserve Center to
perform their duties to the Tennessee National Guard.

But one of the young people who visited two of those facilities was not
like the others. He was there not to volunteer to serve America, but to
attack America. Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez was there to carry out jihad,
an act of radical Islamic terrorism. An act of war, in which those four
brave Marines lost their lives, while at least two others were wounded.

In the wake of this vicious attack on our nation we need to rid ourselves
of two dangerous delusions, first and foremost that a “lone gunman”–as
President Obama described the shooter–is somehow isolated from the larger
threat of radical Islamic terrorism. In the modern world, no one acts in
isolation. Through social media ISIS, al Qaida and other groups are
infiltrating our nation with impunity while our government will not even
admit that radical Islamic terrorism is a problem.

The second delusion is that this attack is somehow isolated from previous
episodes, notably those in Little Rock, Arkansas and Fort Hood, Texas, in
2009—both of which were attacks on American military facilities. The Obama
administration was woefully reluctant to call either an act of radical
Islamic terrorism, instead suggesting “workplace violence” as a
justification for the killings. Finally, after years of effort, the victims
of Fort Hood were properly recognized as victims of attacks by foreign
terrorists when they received Purple Hearts on April 15, 2015. Likewise,
the victim of the Little Rock attack received a Purple Heart on July 1,
2015.

We cannot afford wait six years to recognize what happened yesterday in
Chattanooga for what it was. We need to see with clarity right now what has
happened. We can immediately hold hearings in the Senate Armed Services
Committee on the need for our enlisted men and women to have the right to
be armed in military facilities. Congress can pass the Expatriate Terrorist
Act that would allow our government to stop Americans who travel overseas
to train with terrorist groups from coming back to attack us at home. We
can thoroughly overhaul our broken immigration system that is allowing this
type of individual to gain citizenship. And we can accept the reality that
while we might wish it otherwise, the forces of radical Islam are at war
with us.

*Cruz-backing super PAC reveals victory plan; the dangers of Donald Trump
<http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/07/cruz-backing-super-pac-reveals-victory-plan-the-dangers-of-donald-trump.html/>
// The Dallas Morning News // Sylvan Lane - July 17, 2015 *

WASHINGTON–The super PAC backing Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential run released
a 51-slide victory plan
<https://www.keepthepromise.com/docs/CanHeWin7.12.pdf> that closely aligns
with the way he’s been pitching himself and his vision for the country.

First reported by CNN
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/16/politics/ted-cruz-super-pac-plan/index.html>,
Keep the Promise’s “Can he win?” presentation touts Cruz’s consistent and
rightward political stances and “the most complete portfolio of campaign
assets” of any 2016 Republican candidate.

Through charts, graphs and talking points, the victory plan underpins Cruz
go-to answer when he’s asked if he can win: Republicans fail when they
nominate moderates from the “mushy middle,” and only a true conservative
like himself can rally enough support to take back the White House.

Cruz has been critical of 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney–mainly of
his poor performance with Hispanics and “47 percent” comments–but still
called him an honorable and decent man. Keep the Promise, which cannot
coordinate with Cruz, isn’t as kind, calling Romney a “terrible candidate”
with a “terrible campaign” and no wedge issues to separate him from
President Barack Obama.

The report also highlights Cruz’s impressive fundraising haul and digital
team, arguing that the two put him in good position to win the primary and
general elections.

The trouble with Trump

Cruz and Donald Trump are close personally and politically–maybe too close.

About one-third of political insiders surveyed by Politico
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/insiders-ted-cruz-hurt-most-by-trump-candidacy-120277.html>
this week said that Trump’s candidacy poses the biggest threat to Cruz of
all 2016 Republican nominees. Both are running as blunt, unapologetic
conservatives committed to dismantling big government–even if only one has
a record of actually trying to do that.

“Trump is sucking all the oxygen out of the room,” one Iowa Republican told
Politico. “While I seriously doubt most of those folks will ultimately
caucus for Trump, his message is scratching their anti-establishment itch
at a time when Cruz needs to start showing some momentum.”

Trump has led most polls since he’s official campaign entrance, sucking
support from Cruz in some cases. Even so, Cruz is one of the best
positioned candidates to court Trumpites if the mogul’s campaign falls
apart.

*Ted Cruz Sets Hearing on 'Supreme Court Activism’
<http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/home/id=1202732460346/Ted-Cruz-Sets-Hearing-on-Supreme-Court-Activism?mcode=1202615432600&curindex=0&back=NLJ&slreturn=20150617141002>
// National Law Journal // Mike Sacks
<http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202619993678/Mike-Sacks> - July 17,
2015 *

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will preside over a Judiciary Committee hearing
next week to address what he has called
<http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420409/ted-cruz-supreme-court-constitutional-amendment>
the "judicial activism, plain and simple," of the U.S. Supreme Court after
its decisions this term in favor of the Affordable Care Act
<http://at.law.com/KqDpni> and same-sex marriage <http://at.law.com/QkqFvj>.

Cruz started the conversation late last month in the National Review, where
he proposed
<http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420409/ted-cruz-supreme-court-constitutional-amendment>
a constitutional amendment to force retention elections for Supreme Court
justices.

"Every justice, beginning with the second national election after his or
her appointment, will answer to the American people and the states in a
retention election every eight years. Those justices deemed unfit for
retention by both a majority of the American people as a whole and by
majorities of the electorates in at least half of the 50 states will be
removed from office and disqualified from future service on the court,"
Cruz wrote.

Next week's hearing
<http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/with-prejudice-supreme-court-activism-and-possible-solutions>,
titled "With Prejudice: Supreme Court Activism and Possible Solutions,"
will feature three panelists. The Republican invitees are Ed Whelan
<http://eppc.org/author/edward_whelan/>, president of the Ethics and Public
Policy Center, and John Eastman
<http://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/john-eastman>, the Henry Salvatori
Professor of Law and Community Service at Chapman University Dale E. Fowler
School of Law. Neil Siegel <https://law.duke.edu/fac/siegel/>, the David W.
Ichel Professor of Law at Duke Law School, accepted the Democrats'
invitation.

Whether any one of them agrees with the solution offered by Cruz, chairman
of the Judiciary Committee's 15-member subcommittee on oversight, agency
action, federal rights and federal courts, remains unclear.

"I support his call for doing something to restrain the judiciary," Eastman
said Friday. "I have not come down on the particular proposal he's got out
there for now."

Whelan and Siegel declined to comment before their testimony.

Cruz's call to action has gained little traction within the legal
community. Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of University of California-Irvine
School of Law and liberal commentator, wrote
<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122225/ted-cruz-right-supreme-court-needs-term-limits>
in The New Republic that Cruz "has the right intention." But elections are
not the right call, Chemerinsky said. Chemerinsky supports 18-year,
nonrenewable term limits that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry—Cruz's old boss
during his tenure as the Texas solicitor general— suggested
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/perry-wants-part-time-congress-and-judicial-term-limits-20111115>
during Perry's presidential campaign in 2011's Republican primaries.

Elections would "endanger the independence of the court, rather than
bolster it," Chemerinsky wrote.

Ted Olson <http://www.gibsondunn.com/lawyers/tolson>, a partner at Gibson,
Dunn & Crutcher and former U.S. solicitor general under George W.
Bush, was less
charitable
<http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202731734927/Ted-Olson-Critiques-Cruz-Scalia#ixzz3gAIM883a>
in his disagreement with Cruz's suggestion.

“A constitutional amendment to change Article III of the Constitution in
this fashion has virtually no chance of succeeding,” Olson told The
Washington Post in an e-mail
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-ted-cruzs-new-war-on-the-supreme-court/2015/07/06/efa8fb54-20bf-11e5-aeb9-a411a84c9d55_story.html>.
“I would think that most graduates of the Harvard Law School know that.”

*Upset with #IranDeal, Ted Cruz Vows for the Fourth Time to Block Obama
Nominees
<http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/17/upset-irandeal-ted-cruz-vows-fourth-time-block-obama-nominees.html>
// Politicus USA // Hrafnkell Haraldsson - July 17, 2015 *

Chad Pegram, who covers Capitol Hill for Fox News, tweeted yesterday
afternoon,

White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz immediately pointed
out <https://twitter.com/Schultz44/status/621818954898477056> that this is
not the first time Cruz has stomped his little feet and held his breath to
get what he wants:

Oops. Done this before, huh Ted? Maybe you should threaten to light
yourself on fire next time.

Schultz tweeted newspaper editorial after newspaper editorial yesterday,
all showing support of the president’s Iran deal, including a Haaretz op-ed
<https://twitter.com/Schultz44/status/621812269853224960> asking that the
nuclear agreement be given a chance. He pointed also to an article by Dafna
Linzer on MSNBC: On Iran, no need to speculate about the alternative. We’ve
already lived it
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/iran-no-need-speculate-about-the-alternative-weve-already-lived-it>
.

Though Jeb Bush condemns the Iran deal
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/14/jeb-bush-iran-nuclear-deal-appeasement>,
calling it “appeasement,” it was his own brother, as Alan Rappeport points
out
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/16/george-w-bush-helped-put-u-s-on-path-to-talks-with-iran/>
in The New York Times, who brought the United States to the negotiating
table nine years ago. Since Jeb says Dubya is his key advisor, there must
be a memory lapse going on there somewhere. Given the intellects involved
<http://www.politicususa.com/2015/07/12/trump-stupid-jeb-president-obama-big-words.html>,
that’s hardly a leap, however convenient for Jeb.

You would think this would all be self-evident. It’s all part of the
record. Furthermore, you would think it would be obvious to even
ideological hidebound Republicans in Congress that editorials aside,
polling shows the American people do not want to go to war over Iran. We
don’t even want to go back into Iraq to clean up the mess Bush left there,
a mess called the Islamic State.

To listen to Republicans, war is the only option:

Given widespread support for diplomacy, something that will neither kill a
lot of Americans or destroy our economy – AGAIN – it is difficult to see
what Republicans think they can get out of opposition to the nuclear deal,
but that is presuming that Republicans are thinking at all. After all, what
could be more amusing than listenig to the right wing media claim
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/a-war-of-obamas-making/article/2561269>
Obama’s actions will lead to war, when war is what the Republicans are
demanding? Can the GOP get more absurd?

We have to remember that it is not only the nuclear deal they are opposing
and Israel they are supporting: If Obama is for it, they are against it. In
fact, given the history of the past six-and-a-half years, it is difficult
to imagine they would support the Iran deal even if Israel did.

The Republican Party, when the results of Election night 2008 came in,
swore to do all in their power to nullify our first black president, to
oppose him at every turn, and they have done that. They have shut down the
government, they have refused to create a single job or to participate in
any meaningful way in the business of government. If anything, identical
election results in 2012 just made their reaction worse.

This is the party, after all, which, having lost the presidential election,
acted like the president now had to do exactly what the House of
Representatives said, as though the Executive Branch – the abode of the
“decider” when a Republican occupies it – was suddenly an adjunct to the
Legislative Branch. How much less significant a president when both houses
of Congress are Republican?

And no, they haven’t read the United States Constitution, or they would see
that is not how this works. It is not how any of this works. The
Republicans have all history back to the ratification of the Constitution
in 1789 to look for examples of how the government works – three
independent branches, executive, legislative, and judicial – balancing each
other out to prevent tyranny. But they are too busy listening to David
Barton and Fox News invent facts to actually figure out what their job is.

And it is not to nullify the presidency as a branch of government. While
Cruz claims the president is trying to circumvent Congress
<http://www.businessinsider.com/ted-cruz-congress-review-iran-nuclear-2015-7>,
Obama has the authority
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/03/11/president-obama-has-unilateral-authority-to-conclude-the-impending-iran-deal/>,
and what is actually happening is that Cruz is trying to circumvent the
executive branch.

Ted Cruz’s stunts are all part of their sworn opposition to all things
Obama, just another excuse to refuse to do his job as an elected official
and to put himself in the spotlight. The grandstanding Ted Cruz is a
disgrace to the United States Senate, and to the United States of America.

*Ted Cruz: Tennessee shootings ‘an act of war’
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/17/ted-cruz-tennessee-shootings-act-war/>
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/david-sherfinski/> - July 17, 2015 *

Sen. Ted Cruz <http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/ted-cruz/> of Texas on
Friday called the killings of four Marines in Tennessee “an act of war.”

Mr. Cruz <http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/ted-cruz/> said in a
statement that members of the armed services went to work Thursday,
including “four brave Marines” who went to a naval reserve center to
perform their duties.

“But one of the young people who visited two of those facilities was not
like the others,” said Mr. Cruz
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/ted-cruz/>, a 2016 GOP presidential
candidate. “He was there not to volunteer to serve America, but to attack
America. Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez was there to carry out jihad, an act
of radical Islamic terrorism. An act of war, in which those four brave
Marines lost their lives, while at least two others were wounded.”

Authorities are looking into possible ties to terrorist groups
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/17/federal-authorities-search-terror-ties-chattanooga/>
that Abdulazeez, reportedly born in Kuwait, might have had before he
attacked two Navy facilities Thursday, killing four Marines and injuring
several other people.

Mr. Cruz <http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/ted-cruz/> said the Obama
administration was “woefully reluctant” to label 2009 attacks on military
facilities in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Fort Hood, Texas, acts of radical
Islamic terrorism and noted that Purple Hearts were awarded to the victims
of the attacks this year.

“We cannot afford to wait six years to recognize what happened yesterday in
Chattanooga for what it was,” Mr. Cruz
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/ted-cruz/> said. “We need to see
with clarity right now what has happened.”

Mr. Cruz said hearings can be held on the need for enlisted men and women
to have the right be armed in military facilities — an idea top lawmakers
said
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/17/defense-policy-bill-address-letting-troops-use-gun/>
Friday they will address in this year’s defense policy bill — and said
Congress can pass legislation he’s pushed to strip U.S. citizenship from
Americans who travel overseas to train with terrorists.

“We can thoroughly overhaul our broken immigration system that is allowing
this type of individual to gain citizenship,” he said. “And we can accept
the reality that while we might wish it otherwise, the forces of radical
Islam are at war with us.”

*Ted Cruz’s book cracks New York Times’ bestseller list
<http://www.pppfocus.com/ted-cruz-s-book-cracks-new-york-times-bestseller-list-2079/>
// PPP Focus // River Gaines - July 17, 2015 *

Over the last week presidential candidate *Ted Cruz* has gleefully duked it
out with the New York Times, waging a very public battle against the paper
arguing that it purposely excluded his new memoir from its bestseller list.

Cruz’s campaign said that was “a blatant falsehood”, noting Cruz’s book had
sold more copies than 18 of the 20 books on the list at that time. “In
order to avoid compromising that process, we do not disclose who reports
sales to us”, she said.

Cruz’s publisher, HarperCollins, denied that there were bulk sales.

Barnes & Noble: Nope, no evidence of bulk sales. The decision led to
speculation about whether Cruz had tried to cheat the system and shed some
light on the *Times’* still-secretive criteria for their bestseller list.

The Times, though, defended the omission, claiming they saw evidence of
“bulk purchases” and suggesting the system was being manipulated.

Amazon: Nope, no bulk sales.

“As of yesterday, “*A Time for Truth*” was the number 13 best-selling book,
and there is no evidence of unusual bulk purchase activity in our sales
data”, Sarah Gelman, Amazon’s director of press relations, said in an
email. Forbes published an article two years ago called “How You Buy Your
Way Onto *The New York Times* Bestsellers List”, about a San Diego
marketing firm that guaranteed clients a place for a hefty fee.

“That process involves a careful analysis of data, and is not influenced in
any way by the content of a book, or by pressure from publishers or book
sellers”, alleged spokeswoman Eileen Murphy.

“We call on the Times, release your so-called ‘evidence, ‘” declared Cruz
campaign spokesperson Rick Tyler in a statement Friday.

The Times has resolutely stood by its claim, and has refused to reveal its
methodology on the grounds that doing so might threaten the integrity of
the process.

While Wilson must see some advantage for Cruz in polls that fit *all* his
categories, the fact that he’s protesting now about Fox’s standards would
also bolster a later argument that the whole process was illegitimate in
the event Cruz doesn’t make the cutoff. Talk about a fundraising and
bookselling boon!

“I’m sure you are aware, the standards set by Fox News for the first GOP
Presidential debate are unclear and, it would appear, undefined”, Wilson
writes in the memo.

I look forward to the answer.

*Ted Cruz emerges as hero as Gawker is blasted for article that outs Condé
Nast executive
<http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/Ted-Cruz-emerges-as-hero-in-bizarre-Gawker-6390692.php>
// Chron // John-Henry Perera
<http://www.chron.com/author/john-henry-perera/> - July 17, 2015 *

It's a bit of a doozy, but Gawker is catching enormous amounts of digital
flak for running a story that essentially outs the sexuality of a Condé
Nast executive who happens to be related to Tim Geithner, President Barack
Obama's former treasury secretary.

Writer Jordan Sargent received a series
<http://gawker.com/conde-nasts-cfo-tried-to-pay-2-500-for-a-night-with-a-1718364339>
of text messages and emails from a male escort named "Ryan." Those
documents detail a sexual rendezvous with Ryan and that business executive
and the following extortion attempt.

While initially a simple tryst, things escalated when Ryan figured out his
customer's identity and attempted to coerce him into helping out with a
housing dispute. Apparently Ryan is a war veteran who suffers from PTSD and
was allegedly kicked out of his Texas luxury apartment home due to owning a
service dog, according to legal documents, although Ryan claims it was
because his landlord learned he was a gay porn star.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was also involved in Ryan's housing dispute. Ryan
had sought the freshman senator's help earlier, and on April 7, 2015,
Cruz's told him they had begun discussions with the landlord on his behalf.
Unfortunately, nothing could be done but Cruz has maintained contact with
Ryan.

"He says that an employee of Cruz's called him this afternoon to say that
the senator had personally called the HUD director on his behalf," Sargent
writes. "It seems as if Cruz, in the midst of his Presidential campaign,
sees an opportunity to help a veteran with PTSD who has been crushed by
Washington bureaucracy."

Ryan's customer backed out of their arrangement when Ryan emailed him the
details of his situation. Feeling slighted, Ryan reached out to Gawker who
went ahead and published the story. For his part, Ryan claims he simply
wants to publicize his dispute with his landlord. The former customer says
he does not know who Ryan is, despite evidence to the contrary, and says
this is nothing more than a shakedown.

After publishing, Twitter outrage peaked all around because, in their
thinking, Gawker aided a person's blackmail attempt and they outed someone
who wouldn't otherwise be considered a public official or celebrity.
Gawker's editor-in-chief Max Read defended their story on Twitter.
<https://twitter.com/max_read/status/621855300509925376>

"[sic] given the chance gawker will always report on married c-suite
executives of major media companies ****** around on their wives."

There's no word yet if Cruz's office has severed ties with Ryan because of
last night's article. Still, it is funny to think Cruz has emerged a hero
in Gawker, which is typically left-leaning. Perhaps that should have been
Sargent's first warning that his article would bomb with everyone.

*New York Times Finally Adds Ted Cruz Book to Bestsellers List
<http://www.ifreepress.com/world/2392-new-york-times-finally-adds-ted-cruz-book-to-bestsellers-list>
// iFree Press - July 17, 2015 *

Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said the memoir, “A Time for Truth“, will
be listed as number seven on its non-fiction list.

Murphy said the Times made no changes to its selection process, Politico
reports, and its seventh-place spot most likely resulted from strong sales
since Cruz slammed the paper.

After a lengthy battle with the Ted Cruz campaign over whether or not his
book sales were boosted by bulk purchases, The New York Times will include
his newest book on their bestsellers list.

“That process involves a careful analysis of data, and is not influenced in
any way by the content of a book, or by pressure from publishers or book
sellers”, she continued.

Cruz acknowledged public attention had helped propel his book onto the
list. This despite the fact that A Time for Truth was among the top ten
best sellers on Amazon among all books, not just hardcover nonfiction.

The Texas senator, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination,
mounted a fierce campaign against the Times, which excluded his book
because of bulk sales that did not meet its standards.

Cruz’s campaign blasted the newspaper last week for the book not being
initially included on the list, describing the Times’ explanations for its
omission as “cryptic” and “false”. Last week’s list did feature
conservative authors like Ann Coulter, for “Adios America!” “If the Times
said that it didn’t list Cruz’s book because its ‘sales were limited to
strategic bulk purchases, ‘ while knowing that this statement was untrue or
having no grounds to believe it true, HarperCollins could very well have a
cause of action against the Times, should the publisher choose to pursue
it”.

“What’s transpired at The New York Times in the last two weeks raises
troubling questions that should concern any author”, he said.

Cruz’s campaign said that was “a blatant falsehood”, noting Cruz’s book had
sold more copies than 18 of the 20 books on the list at that time.

Essentially, that’s when a publisher or organization buys up copies of the
book in strategic locations in an attempt to artificially inflate sales
numbers. “If they want to be credible journalists, the public editor needs
to investigate their methodology and see if they are discriminating against
authors they have different political views from them”.

*CHRISTIE*

*Chris Christie stands by path to citizenship for immigrants
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/politics/chris-christie-illegal-immigration-employers/>
// CNN // Tom LoBianco – July 17, 2015*

Washington (CNN)New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is searching for some
footing in a wide-open field of Republican contenders, said he stands by
comments he made in 2010 that immigrants should have a path to citizenship.

"We have to have Congress come together and deal with this. They haven't
done that yet. The President has done it by executive order, he hasn't
brought people together on it yet," Christie told CNN's Alisyn Camerota in
an interview that aired Friday.

Christie said that illegal immigration should be curbed by hitting
employers who hire undocumented workers with fines.

"We've got to penalize employers who hire people who are here illegally,"
Christie said in the interview. "Because the fact is that that shouldn't
happen and it's exploiting American workers. But in addition to that, it's
exploiting many of those people who are here illegally because they're
being paid less money. So we need to make bigger fines to make sure that
those employers who violate the law are being held accountable."

Immigration has become a flashpoint in the race ever since Donald Trump
burst onto the field last month with his proclamation that Mexican
"rapists" were flooding the border.

Trump has won widespread attention for that and other wild remarks, but he
has also taken a major hit financially, as NBC, Univision, Macy's and many
other businesses have cut their ties with him.

The other Republican candidates, meanwhile, have walked carefully on the
issue, which has long become a wedge for the party as it looks to hold onto
conservative white voters angry over immigration while attracting Hispanic
voters, a growing demographic who helped carry President Barack Obama into
office twice.

*Congressman To Chris Christie: Stop Using My Intern's Murder For Political
Gain*
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jim-himes-chris-christie-kevin-sutherland_55a93901e4b0896514d1333c?&ncid=newsltushpmg00000003>*
// HuffPo // Amanda Terkel – July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) went after the failure of
"liberal policies" Thursday during a speech on criminal justice, saying
they failed to prevent the death of Kevin Sutherland, a 24-year-old who was
murdered on the Washington, D.C. metro on July 4.

The reference to Sutherland's death left Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.)
disgusted. Sutherland was an intern for Himes in late 2013, and the
congressman said in a statement Friday that he deserved better than to be
used for partisan shots.

"Kevin Sutherland was a friend of mine," said Himes. "He was an intern on
my campaign and in my Congressional office. I am friends with his parents.
By speaking about Kevin Sutherland and his family in this way, Christie has
once again shown himself nothing more than a pure opportunist with no sense
of decency and a severely distorted idea of right and wrong."

"To use Kevin's death to score political points is vile. Kevin was
empathetic, kind, and wanted to create a better America and world by
lifting up those around him," he added.

Christie, a 2016 presidential candidate, said in his remarks that it was
important to "focus on keeping dangerous and violent offenders behind bars"
in order to keep the streets of America safe, citing his time as a U.S.
attorney.

"And lately we've seen what happens instead when you don't have that
focus," said Christie.

"On July 4, Kevin Sutherland got on to a subway train in Washington, D.C.
Kevin was a bright young man with a promising future, a former
congressional intern," he said. "And now all his parents can do is mourn.
Because Kevin was stabbed to death on that train -- right in front of
people -- by a man who had been arrested just two days earlier for violent
robbery."

Jasper Spires, the suspected murderer, was freed after that arrest while
awaiting trial. He has now been charged with first-degree murder for
killing Sutherland.

"Well here's a question I want to ask all those mayors and defenders of a
broken system," said Christie. "How much compassion did liberal policies
show for the families of Kevin Sutherland and Kathryn Steinle?"

Steinle, 32, was fatally shot on July 1 in San Francisco, allegedly by an
undocumented immigrant with seven felony convictions who had been deported
five times. Her murder prompted both Republican and Democratic politicians
to question the policies of sanctuary cities, which limit their cooperation
with federal immigration officials.

"The fearmongering and thinly veiled racism evident in Christie's speech
reveal that he knew nothing about Kevin and his family or what they
believed in, and he should be ashamed. Although, at this point, I find
myself doubting if shame is something he’s capable of," said Himes in his
Friday statement.

The congressman also said Christie was being hypocritical in his criticism
of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., saying the governor has "slashed
state aid to cities, cut funding for neighborhood revitalization, called
for the elimination of Urban Enterprise Zones, and led a budget that has
caused police layoffs."

"If Christie wants to spout his particular brand of hate-filled nonsense to
whomever is unfortunate enough to be in earshot, that's his right," added
Himes. "But when he uses the memory of a beloved friend and son in such a
grossly disrespectful way, it's our duty to stop listening, move on to more
serious topics and people, and continue the work that Kevin believed in."

Christie's campaign did not return a request for additional comment.

On July 8, Himes paid his respects to Sutherland on the House floor.

UPDATE: 4:39p.m. -- Sutherland's parents also criticized Christie Friday.

"The fact that Gov. Chris Christie would invoke my son's name in a
politically motivated speech just three days after our family laid him to
rest shows that he cares little about the grief my family is feeling," said
Douglas and Terry Sutherland in a statement to Hearst Connecticut Media.

Devon Puglia, spokesman for Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy (D), said the
governor was "disappointed" with Christie's remarks as well.

"We’re very disappointed that Governor Christie would choose to politicize
the death of this young man -- to make an intellectually backwards point,
no less -- at a time when important conversations nationwide about criminal
justice reform are taking place," said Puglia.

*Chris Christie: Bill Cosby situation ‘is just sickening’
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/17/chris-christie-bill-cosby-situation-is-just-sicken/>
// Washington Times // Jessica Chasmar – July 17, 2015*

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said Friday that the wave
of sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby “is just sickening” and
that the disgraced comedian should be prosecuted if he’s guilty.

“Let’s focus on what’s really important here, which is the conduct. And the
conduct is reprehensible,” the New Jersey governor said on CNN. “As the
father of two daughters, it makes me sick.”

“You don’t want to always change laws just to deal with one circumstance,”
he continued. “But the fact is, if the law permits prosecution and the
evidence is there, he should be prosecuted. And if it doesn’t, then we need
to examine those laws on a going forward basis and see what we may need to
do.

“The thing that I focus on the most as a father is just how
incomprehensible it is to me that someone, if what he did and what’s
alleged is actually what he did, that someone in a position of authority
and influence and esteem in this country — I watched ‘The Cosby Show.’

“The fact that he would engage in that kind of conduct, if that’s what he
did, is just sickening,” Mr. Christie added.

*Chris Christie: Donald Trump would be ‘frustrated’ as president
<http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chris-christie-donald-trump-would-be-frustrated-as-president-2015-07-17>
// Market Watch // Robert Schroeder – July 17, 2015*

The president doesn’t get to say “You’re fired!”

That, writes Bloomberg, is Chris Christie’s message for Donald Trump as the
billionaire sees his standing grow in the 2016 Republican presidential
field. The New Jersey governor, himself a GOP White House aspirant, invoked
the line used by Trump on the show “The Apprentice” when speaking to a town
hall in New Hampshire on Thursday. “I know he says he tells it like it is,
too. I tell it like it is from the standpoint of having actually done these
jobs,” Christie said. “I think quite frankly Donald would be a little
frustrated if he became president of the United States.”

Trump leads another poll: There’s a reason Christie and other Republican
hopefuls are talking about Trump. Another poll, released Thursday night,
showed him leading the Republican field. This time, it was a Fox News
survey showing the billionaire with 18% support from GOP primary voters.
Earlier this week, a USA Today/Suffolk poll had Trump in the lead — though
he was the weakest against Democrat Hillary Clinton among the top seven GOP
candidates.

*PERRY*

*Why the Rick Perry Super PAC Is Spending $1 Million to Get Their Candidate
Into a Debate
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rick-perry-super-pac-spending-million-candidate-debate/story?id=32516948>
// ABC // Louise Simpson – July 17, 2015*

Backers of Rick Perry are strategizing to try to secure him a spot in the
first Republican presidential primary debate next month, and they are
spending some major cash to do it.

Only 10 GOP candidates will be allowed to participate in the Aug. 6 debate,
which will be hosted by Fox News. Right now there are 15 candidates
crowding the GOP field with two more on the way, and Perry may not make cut
based on the network’s polling criteria.

So, Perry’s sanctioned super PAC, Opportunity and Freedom, is stepping in,
unveiling a sweeping advertising campaign to target audiences across the
country, running ads on Fox News, conservative talk radio and the Web.

“Our goal is to make sure he’s standing on the debate stage,” said Austin
Barbour, senior adviser to the Opportunity and Freedom super PAC.

A spot in the August debate would give Perry a second chance of sorts after
suffering a famous memory lapse at a 2011 Republican primary debate, which
has become known as the former Texas governor’s “oops” moment.

Barbour said his group plans to spend just under $1 million on the
advertising campaign.

One of the television ads the group has produced shows photos of a
determined-looking Perry on a Texas Highway patrol boat as he talks about
deploying the Texas National Guard to secure the border. A radio ad makes a
similar point.

“When there was a crisis on our southern border, Rick Perry did more than
talk,” a narrator in the spot says. “He took action.”

Both use the sound bite of Perry saying, “Mr. President, if you do not
secure this border, Texas will.”

Barbour noted the radio advertisements will run on the conservative Salem
radio network, which boasts an estimated 10 million listeners a week and
includes talk shows hosted by Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt and Mike Gallagher.

He said the ads were aimed at reaching a “really dedicated, loyal group of
conservative activists, and it’s really important we reintroduce Perry to
them.”

*Rick Perry is the only GOP candidate brave enough to call out Donald Trump
(and that’s terrifying)
<http://www.salon.com/2015/07/17/rick_perry_is_the_only_gop_candidate_brave_enough_to_call_out_donald_trump_and_thats_terrifying/>
// Salon // Heather Digby Parton – July 17, 2015*

It was inevitable that among the huge field of Republican presidential
candidates, a second-tier contender would take advantage of the opening
provided by the Donald Trump phenomenon and position him- or herself as the
anti-Trump. It’s not easy to stand out in that huge crowd, and this might
just offer someone a chance to get some positive press and separate
themselves from the pack.

It’s obvious why the first tier sees no upside in angering the Donald. As
this article in the New York Times made clear, they need his fans to vote
for them:

Since the start of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, a vexing question has
hovered over his candidacy: Why have so many party leaders — privately
appalled by Mr. Trump’s remarks about immigrants from Mexico — not
renounced him?

It turns out, interviews show, that the mathematical delicacy of a
Republican victory in 2016 — and its dependence on aging, anxious white
voters — make it exceedingly perilous for the Republican Party to treat Mr.
Trump as the pariah many of its leaders now wish he would become.

[W]hat remains so appealing to many of the white voters who like Mr. Trump
is his perceived willingness to tell hard truths about delicate issues —
racial and otherwise — that, to their mind, the party establishment is too
timid to discuss.

“There are a lot of people who are very angry at the grass-roots level and
who are convinced the Republican leaders in Congress are not doing
everything for the conservative cause,” said Charlie Black, a former
adviser to John McCain in 2008 and Mr. Romney in 2012. Mr. Trump, he said,
holds undeniable appeal to such voters.

A poll released by the Pew Research Center in May found that 63 percent of
Republican voters view immigrants as a “burden” who compete for jobs,
housing, and health care compared with 32 percent of Democrats.

These top candidates — Bush, Walker, Rubio, Paul, Huckabee, etc. — are
undoubtedly being advised by their campaign strategists to tread very
softly, lest they alienate the xenophobic majority. But one of the current
also-rans, who just want a chance to get into the debates, might be able to
coax enough of the GOP minority who aren’t Trump followers to make the cut.
It looked for a while as if Lindsey Graham would be the one to seize the
day, with his strident declaration that Trump is a “wrecking ball” who is
going to “kill the party.” But his point wasn’t that Trump was wrong in
what he said, but that him saying it was making the GOP look bad, which
isn’t the same thing at all. One might have thought that Rick Santorum,
winner of the Iowa caucus in 2012 and the last man standing in the
primaries after Mitt Romney, would step up with a strong moral condemnation
of Trump’s degrading comments about Mexicans. But all Santorum could muster
was this tepid criticism:

“While I don’t like the verbiage he’s used, I like the fact that he is
focused on a very important issue for American workers and particularly,
legal immigrants in this country.”

Actually, Trump isn’t focused on American workers; he’s focused on
undocumented “rapists,” who he says the Mexican government is somehow
“sending” here as an act of aggression against the United States. And most
of the other second-tier candidates have good things to say about Trump,
which one can only assume means that they genuinely agree with him.

But this week one of the candidates did decide to take a courageous step of
wooing some of those non-bigoted Iowans by taking on Trump directly. It was
former Texas Governor Rick Perry who threw caution to the wind, saying:

“I have a message for my fellow Republicans and the independents who will
be voting in the primary process: what Mr. Trump is offering is not
conservatism, it is Trump-ism – a toxic mix of demagoguery and nonsense.”

Now it must be noted that he was actually punching back after being slammed
earlier by one of Trump’s roundhouse punches:

“When he was governor of Texas he could have done a lot better in terms of
securing the border. The job he did in terms of border security was
absolutely terrible.”

Them’s fighting words, for sure. But it doesn’t take away from the fact
that Perry addressed his comments explicitly to voters, which indicates
that he saw a strategic advantage. Needless to say, the billionaire
blowhard didn’t take Perry’s words lying down:

.@GovernorPerry failed on the border. He should be forced to take an IQ
test before being allowed to enter the GOP debate.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2015

He later tweeted that Perry doesn’t know what the word “demagoguery” means,
which is funny coming from Trump.

Now one might assume that Perry was just defending his honor, rather than
deciding there was something to be gained by sparring with Trump. After
all, the party as a whole is petrified to say anything too aggressive, lest
he decide to take his billions and run as a third party candidate —
something he refused to rule out. Perry is a Party Man. But there is more
to his strategy than just getting free press from the Trump show.

This has also been reported:

Unless candidates can raise their name identification and popularity in
national polls, they won’t make the cut for the first Republican debate,
scheduled for Aug. 6.

“We’ve made the decision to spend some serious money to reach a more
national audience to introduce the governor, because we want to see him on
that debate stage,” said Austin Barbour, adviser to a group of “super PACs”
backing former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas.

The super PACs, known as Opportunity and Freedom, are investing hundreds of
thousands of dollars in advertising on the Fox News Channel and other cable
channels to raise Mr. Perry’s profile.

This ad-buy gambit was predicted some time back when people realized that
there was a ton of money floating around along with a necessity to gain a
national profile in order to be allowed into the debate. Perry is simply
doing what Fox News demands — which is give lots of money to Fox News.
Funny how that worked out.

Whether this will work for him remains to be seen. He’s a much more
controlled and professional candidate than he was last time. Meanwhile, his
foreign policy agenda is downright bloodthirsty and he has a compelling
domestic record as Governor of Texas, both of which should be reasons for
Republican voters to find him very attractive if they have a chance to hear
about them.

It’s quite a comment on our time that a successful Texas Governor (by GOP
standards, at least) with plenty of money and establishment support has to
get into a public exchange of insults and give millions of dollars to Fox
News in order to even have a chance at standing on the debate stage — with
Donald Trump. It’s as if the Republican primaries have become a form of
crude hazing and rank blackmail rather than a democratic process.

In a sense, it’s actually more like “The Apprentice” isn’t it?

*Donald Trump tweeted at Rick Perry again and hilarity ensued
<http://www.houstonpress.com/news/donald-trump-tweeted-at-rick-perry-again-and-hilarity-ensued-7597976>
// Houston Press // Dianna Wray– July 17, 2015*

Donald Trump is running for the GOP nod for president. Somehow the rich guy
with the worst toupee/combover/what-the-hell-is-that-on-his-head has become
a "frontrunner" in the already crowded race. Meanwhile, former-Gov. Rick
Perry is also out in the field trying to finagle the Republican nomination
for himself. The two began clashing earlier this month as they traded digs
from TV, Twitter and online video.

That's all par for the course in this crowded field of Republican
presidential contenders, but somehow Perry has managed to get the best of
Trump in these exchanges as we've previously noted. The man who made that
infamous "Oops" in 2012 even managed to come off as presidential in a video
issued last week refuting all things Trump. But Trump — possibly emboldened
by his new best buddy-ship with fellow wanna-be Sen. Ted Cruz — wasn't
willing to let well enough alone. On Thursday he waded back into the snarky
fray of social media with this little gift horse of a Tweet:

Donald J. Trump  ✔@realDonaldTrump

.@GovernorPerry failed on the border. He should be forced to take an IQ
test before being allowed to enter the GOP debate.

The Twitter response to his social media bon mot was exactly what the rest
of us would expect from Twitter, i.e. the responding Tweets were soon
gloriously packed with snark. That's when things got good. There were those
who simply defended our longest serving governor, because he's from Texas,
and Trump is so not:

Michael Hagood @mlhagood

@realDonaldTrump @GovernorPerry I don't know about others from TX, but I
don't care much 4 some NYC jackass blowhard criticizing my state.

Meanwhile, some with the classic smarty pants response:

Pedro Angel @pangel1960

@realDonaldTrump @GovernorPerry whats your IQ, Donald? I bet both Obama and
Bill Clinton beat you.

This one just made us clap our hands with glee:

Simon Maloy @SimonMaloy

.@realDonaldTrump okay now do Rand Paul

And then there were people really making a point about how frightening the
prospect of President Trump actually is:

Kay Reindl @KayReindl

.@realDonaldTrump I don't know about anyone else, but I think it's time for
a President who spends his day fighting on Twitter.

End of the day, we get why Perry is replying and using this stuff to his
best advantage — Trump is truly the gift that keeps on giving as far as
Perry is concerned — but we're utterly stumped as to why Trump keeps trying
a tactic that only makes him look like an idiot, while simultaneously
bringing up lots of questions about whether the Trumpmeister himself has
ever had an IQ test. We're really curious about that one now.

*Rep. Joe Barton endorses Rick Perry for president, spearheads
Congressional outreach
<http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/07/rep-joe-barton-endorses-rick-perry-for-president-spearheads-congressional-outreach.html/>
// The Dallas Morning News // Sylvan Lane – July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON–Sometimes college buddies come in handy.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, will spearhead Congressional outreach for
former Gov. Rick Perry, according to a Friday morning statement from the
campaign

“I have known Rick Perry since we were classmates at Texas A&M University,
and he has always been a man of character,” said Barton in the release,
citing Perry’s economic record as governor. “Americans deserve the kind of
principled leadership he would bring to Washington.”

Barton, the longest-tenured current Texas congressman, is the former House
Energy and Commerce Committee chairman with ties to the tea party movement.
He has consistently supported oil and gas industry-friendly policies
throughout his Congressional career and apologized to BP after the 2010
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, accusing the White House of a “shakedown.”

Barton later walked back the apology.

“I think BP is responsible for this accident, should be held responsible
and should, in every way, do everything possible to make good on the
consequences that have resulted from this accident,” he said.

Perry called Barton a leading energy policy expert in Congress and a
faithful proponent of conservative principles.

“I am grateful to have Joe’s support and look forward to working with him
to help solve our country’s greatest challenges,” said Perry.

Barton is the first member of Congress to endorse Perry’s presidential
campaign.

Five other Texas congressmen have endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz: Reps. Louie
Gohmert of Tyler, John Culberson of Houston, John Ratcliffe of Heath,
Michael Burgess of Lewisville and Brian Babin of Woodville.

*HUCKABEE*

*Huckabee's $8M pile only goes so far, observers say
<http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2015/jul/17/huckabee-s-8-million-pile-only-goes-so-/>
// Arkansas Online // Sarah D. Wire – July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON -- The $8 million raised for former Arkansas Gov. Mike
Huckabee's 2016 campaign is more than he raised in the early stages of his
2008 bid, but it's dwarfed by his competitor's hauls.

His presidential campaign has raised $2 million, according to reports filed
this week with the Federal Election Commission. Coupled with $6 million
raised by pro-Huckabee political action committees and nonprofit groups,
Huckabee's initial funding notably exceeds that of his previous attempt,
but it may not be good enough, several Arkansas political experts said
Thursday.

Many candidates have announced the amounts raised by supportive groups such
as super political action committees, nonprofits and other groups that can
raise unlimited money but cannot coordinate with the campaigns.

With the inclusion of money raised by such groups, former Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush topped Republicans' fundraising with more than $114 million. Former
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her allied groups eclipsed
the other Democratic candidates, with more than $62 million.

"Certainly Mike Huckabee has raised a decent amount of money compared to
where he was in 2007, but when you compare him to Jeb Bush and Hillary
Clinton, they are just blowing him out of the water," said University of
Arkansas political science assistant professor Karen Sebold.

A half-dozen Republican candidates have more money when their allied
organizations are included in the fundraising totals. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of
Texas has more than $51 million, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has more
than $40 million, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has $9 million.

Huckabee's spokesman Alice Stewart pointed to how Huckabee did in in regard
to the 2008 campaign, when he raised less money.

"The nearly $8 million raised to date is well over three times as much as
Gov. Huckabee raised in the first three quarters combined of our 2008
campaign, when we were outspent 10-to-1. I'll remind you that Gov. Huckabee
won the Iowa caucuses and seven other states," she said.

Sebold also cautioned against writing Huckabee off, citing his 2008 wins.

"Huckabee is one of those candidates I wouldn't count out early in the
game. He is not at the front-runner status, but he does have enough to get
a ground game going in Iowa," she said. "A couple million dollars of hard
donations, $6 million in [unregulated] donations can float a candidacy in
Iowa, can help you get that very imperative ground game going where you get
people knocking on doors, you get signs out."

Hal Bass, a political science professor at Ouachita Baptist University in
Arkadelphia, said less money could mean a hard slog through the primaries,
with fewer television, radio and Internet ads than his competitors. The
Iowa caucuses are six months away.

"Huckabee has yet to demonstrate that he can raise the kind of money that's
necessary to compete on the national level," he said. "It's going to turn
on his own personal campaign skills, which are formidable, but it's
difficult to run a national campaign without sufficient financial
resources."

Bass said that how much money a candidate has doesn't determine success but
that it helps a candidate build credibility.

"It matters in the sense that it legitimates a candidacy. It shows that
serious financial resources are available for the campaign going forward,"
he said. "Those who can demonstrate their capacity to generate that
financial foundation are able to demonstrate their campaign credibility."

Gary Wekkin, a political science professor at the University of Central
Arkansas, said that with so many candidates in the race, donors have a lot
of Republicans to choose from.

"There are so many Republicans that the people who are bringing up the rear
are going to be getting in each other's way, especially when it comes to
fundraising and polling," he said.

Arkansas was the greatest source of Huckabee's contributions for the period
between April 1 and June 30, with $383,051 coming in.

He brought in $148,938 over three days in early June when he held
fundraisers in El Dorado, Jonesboro, Little Rock and Texarkana.

Among his notable early donations from Arkansans are:

• $2,700 from Craig Campbell, vice chairman of The Stephens Group LLC in
Little Rock.

• $2,000 from Southern Arkansas University President David Rankin. His
daughter, Beth Ann Rankin, who worked as a policy adviser when Huckabee was
governor, also gave $1,000.

• $1,000 from U.S. Rep. French Hill, a Republican from Little Rock. He is
the only donor from the state's congressional delegation. Hill was
Huckabee's 2008 national finance chairman.

• $1,000 from Assistant Director of the Arkansas Heritage Commission
Marynell Branch, who played keyboard in Huckabee's band Capitol Offense.

• $500 from state treasurer's office Chief of Staff Jim Harris, who is
Huckabee's brother-in-law and worked on his 2008 campaign.

• $500 from Land Commissioner John Thurston's campaign committee.

• $250 from Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. She was legal counsel on his
2008 campaign.

• $250 from Chief Deputy Attorney General Julie Benafield, who was a state
insurance commissioner under Huckabee.

Huckabee's campaign headquarters is in Little Rock, and he made his
official campaign announcement May 5 in his hometown of Hope.

His FEC report reflected payments made to several Arkansas businesses for
campaign services, such as $2,750 to the University of Arkansas Community
College at Hope, where he held his announcement, $1,072 to Doe's Eat Place
in Little Rock for a dinner with reporters and $297 to Whole Hog Cafe in
Little Rock for meals.

*Quote of the Day: Mike Huckabee Wants American Wars to Last Ten Days Max
<http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/07/quote-day-mike-huckabee-wants-american-wars-last-ten-days-max>
// Mother Jones // Kevin Drum – July 17, 2015*

From noted national security expert Mike Huckabee:

Here is what we have to do: America has to have the most formidable,
fierce, military in the history of mankind. So when we have a threat,
whether it is ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranians,
whatever it is, we make it very clear that we plan to push back and destroy
that threat to us. And we won’t take 10 years doing it, we hopefully won’t
even take 10 months, it will be like a 10 day exercise, because the
fierceness of our forces would mean that we can absolutely guarantee the
outcome of this film. That’s how America needs to operate in the world of
foreign affairs, and foreign policy.

Damn! If only we'd known this before. If we took this shit a little more
seriously, we could have wiped out all these guys in a short series of
ten-day bloodbaths. No more Al-Qaeda. No more ISIS. No more Hamas or
Hezbollah. Even the entire country of Iran would apparently have fallen to
our fierceness in ten days or so. Booyah!

Generally, speaking, I try not to obsess over each and every Idiocy of the
Day™, since they fly fast and furious during campaign season. But I have to
assume that Huckabee is being more than astonishingly ignorant here. He's
also channeling the beliefs of a lot of base conservatives, who figure if
we stopped pussyfooting around and spending all our time worrying about PC
crap like gay soldiers and whatnot, we could unleash the full might of
America and destroy our enemies in a matter of days or weeks. And that
would be that.

I wonder how many people are out there who believe this? More than we
think, probably. Maybe someone should take a poll.

*Road to White House Paved on Path of Smoothies, Mattress Stores, and
Outside Spending
<http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/07/2016-candidates-buy-some-weird-stuff.html>
// NY Mag // Jaime Fuller – July 17, 2015*

2016 presidential candidates have finally revealed how many people are
giving them money so far — and where they've decided to spend it. As you
might have expected, Hillary Clinton is in the lead, Senator Bernie Sanders
has raised more small donations than anyone else (and Jeb Bush raised
hardly any money from small donors), Republican candidates' super PACs are
significantly outpacing their traditional fund-raising, and hardly anyone
wanted to give Lincoln Chaffee or George Pataki any money.

Hillary Clinton received donations from a bunch of celebrities — Leonardo
DiCaprio, Reese Witherspoon, and Ben Affleck — and Chuck Norris managed to
find one Republican candidate he likes above all others: Mike Huckabee.
Danny DeVito gave money to Martin O'Malley, and Bobby Jindal received
financial support from Duck Dynasty stars. Sixty-three people actually gave
more than $250 to Donald Trump — who bragged earlier this week that he was
worth more than "TEN BILLION DOLLARS." One donor joked to the Daily Beast
that he "was probably drunk" when he made the donation.

And what have the candidates done with all that money? This early in the
race, money mostly goes into staffing up in the first primary states, an
endless number of meet-and-greets, and spending money to raise money.
Clinton has spent about 40 percent of her haul — and she still has more
money on hand than any other candidate.

Traveling around the country constantly for months leads to some
deliciously weird purchases, too. Listed out of context on a Federal
Election Commission form, this campaign spending would work well as a
writing prompt in a freshman writing seminar. Why did Mike Huckabee spend
$2,657.81 at Mattress Firm, and what did "Tim the Balloonman" do with the
$100 Ben Carson gave him? Why did Senator Marco Rubio list a 43-cent
expense? (And in 2015, what can you actually buy for 43 cents?) Was the $6
that the Donald Trump campaign spent at Beignet Done That in Davenport,
Iowa, well spent? What does $3,000 buy at Possum Holler Catering? Did the
Bernie Sanders campaign buy smoothies or more at Minnesota Smoothie & More
— and how nice is the office furniture his campaign bought on Craigslist?

*CARSON*

*FIORINA*

*Fiorina: Obama 'pallid' on Chattanooga shooting
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/248350-fiorina-obama-pallid-on-chattanooga-shooting>
// The Hill // Mark Hensch - July 17, 2015*

GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has been underwhelmed so far by
President Obama's response to Thursday’s mass shooting in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Fiorina argued Friday that Obama is not treating the attack with the
dignity it deserves.

“I think the president’s response, as usual, has been a bit pallid,”
Fiorina told host Dana Loesch on The Blaze’s “Dana.” “This is an
unbelievable tragedy.”

“Whether this guy turns out to be ISIS-inspired or not, it’s clearly an
attack on the homeland and an American military installation, and not the
first, as you point out,” she added.

Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, killed four Marines by opening fire on two
military facilities in Chattanooga on Thursday morning.

Police confirmed later that evening he also died during the attack.

Fiorina on Friday said arming personnel at U.S. military installations
would prevent future incidents from claiming innocent lives.

“Of course we need to permit these fighting men and women to defend
themselves,” she said.

“I mean, think about it — these are Marines, who stormed battlefields in
Ramadi and Afghanistan,” she said.

“And they’re killed by a coward driving by in his car and they have no way
of defending themselves,” Fiorina added. “It is outrageous.”

“I would change the policy immediately, and I am very disappointed from the
lack of action from this president.”

Fiorina said the ban on arming U.S. military facility personnel is outdated
because of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“Immediately this policy should have been changed when we learned that ISIS
was going to target military facilities, military men and women and their
families,” she said.

Reports emerged Thursday night that Abdulazeez had blogged about Islam
before striking two locations in Chattanooga.

He first targeted a recruitment center on Lee Highway before next setting
his sights on the U.S. Naval and Marine Reserve Center on Amnicola Highway.

Abdulazeez was a naturalized Kuwaiti who reportedly lived in Hixson, Tenn.,
mere miles from the scene of the crime.

*Carly Fiorina records ‘If men were treated like women in the office’ video
<file:///C:\Users\aphillips\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Outlook\K5560UZE\Carly%20Fiorina%20records%20%25E2%2580%2598If%20men%20were%20treated%20like%20women%20in%20the%20office%25E2%2580%2599%20video>
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski – July 17, 2015*

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO and GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina,
who has spoken about the sexism she’s faced in the corporate world, turned
the tables a bit in a new video she recorded with Buzzfeed.

“How do you walk in those shoes?” she asks a man wearing sneakers at the
beginning.

“You like to bake — how about you handle the cake for Gina’s birthday?” she
asks later.

Ms. Fiorina, who announced her candidacy in early May, has been an
aggressive critic of former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic
presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and gave a speech at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute last month about the state of women in
America.

“A feminist is a woman who lives the life she chooses,” Ms. Fiorina said.
“A woman may choose to have five children and home-school them. She may
choose to become a CEO or run for president.”

The only female candidate in the Republican presidential field, Ms. Fiorina
might not make it onto the stage at the first RNC-sanctioned GOP debate
Aug. 6. The debate is limited to the top 10 candidates in an average of
recent national polls. She was just outside the top 10 at 1 percent in a
Fox News poll released Thursday.

*With Buzzfeed video, Carly Fiorina continues her millennial outreach
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/with-buzzfeed-video-carly-fiorina-continues-her-millennial-outreach/article/2568482>
// Washington Examiner – July 17, 2015*

In a video for Buzzfeed, Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina took
on the differences between how men and women are treated in the workplace.

I'll admit that I laughed multiple times throughout the video. On the
surface, the lighthearted video is yet another example of Fiorina's grasp
of the importance of reaching people on different platforms. It also showed
Fiorina's willingness to address difficult topics that might appeal to a
broad spectrum of voters.

But after finishing the video, I concluded that it was just another attempt
to divide people. Amy Miller at Legal Insurrection said Fiorina's attempt
to connect was "pandering."

"Carly is funny, engaging, and smart — but she used that power for evil.
She walked into a young, modern, progressive venue, and threw her own
womanhood under the bus in an effort to pander to a base that will never
vote for her," Miller wrote. "Fiorina has defined herself as a
businesswoman, CEO, and force to be reckoned with; she should not have to —
and should never (NEVER) — have to play into the hands of liberals who work
every day to manufacture divides in our society."

Let's go point-by-point on each issue raised in the video:

1. "How do you walk in those shoes?"

I laughed out loud at this part. The idea of a man in sneakers being asked
this just tickled me.

I also don't find this question particularly sexist. High heels are
difficult to walk in for a lot of women and are very painful. Other women —
not men — are the ones who usually ask me if a shoe is difficult to walk
in. I have asked this question myself with the ultimate goal of hoping the
woman I'm asking has some simple secret to heel-wearing that makes them
comfortable that I don't know about. That's never the case. You're either
comfortable in heels or you're not.

On the flip side, I've also always wanted to ask people walking on stilts
how they do that, but they are too high up to hear me.

2. "Getting talked over"

This one I've experienced. Maybe it's sexism, maybe I didn't speak up
loudly enough. I've had people steal my ideas — and my jokes — because I
wasn't heard and they were. One example of this occurred at one of my
previous jobs — but I can't conclusively say that it was due to the fact
that I am woman and not, say, the fact that I was new to politics and knew
very little compared to the people around me (I definitely lacked
confidence due to that).

The video suggests that this is just the way women are treated in the
workplace, as if no woman has ever had her ideas heard because a man always
steps in to steal them. That happens; it also happens to men. Certain
bosses take credit for their subordinate's ideas, regardless of whether the
subordinate is a man or a woman.

3. "Being defined by family"

Fiorina asks a male "coworker" in the video how he handles the work-life
balance. I have no doubt that women with children get asked this question
more than men with children.

The difference here reflects poorly on both sexes. When women are asked
this, the implied question seems to be: "Why don't you spend more time with
your children?" At the same time, not asking this question of men comes
with the undertone that men don't need to be there for their children, or
simply don't need to care about them.

The best idea here would be not to ask this question, especially of an
acquaintance. I'm always amazed by people who are able to pack a lot of
activities into a single day or week — even if those activities don't
involve children. I don't think it is wrong to be curious about how they
are able to do this — I simply want to know how they do it so that maybe I
can be more active one day too (never going to happen, but I can dream).

4. "Getting assigned domestic tasks"

This one could be an error in the script, because Fiorina asks a male
coworker: "You like to bake, how about you handle the cake for Gina's
birthday?"

If she had said, "hey, you're a man, which means you must like baking,
right?" I would have thought it was sexist. But what's wrong with asking
someone who likes to do something if they would be willing to do that thing
for others?

"Hey, Ashe, you know how to ride horses, would you be willing to teach my
child to ride?" HOW DARE YOU ASK ME SUCH A QUESTION.

I don't see the harm in asking. If I were asked because it was assumed I
know how to horseback ride because of my sex, that would be another story.
But that's not how it was asked in the video.

The flip-side of this section of the video is the potential for hurt
feelings if you bought a cake when — ohmygod! — you knew your co-worker
Taylor loves to bake for everyone. What, you don't think Taylor's cakes are
good enough? The opportunities to offend are endless.

5. "Being defined by family (again)"

I'll again give Buzzfeed this one. Fiorina asks her male coworker if work
is less of a priority for him now that he has a family. Women could very
well be asked this more often than men are after a child is born — I don't
know, I've never heard of the question being asked at all. But it's
plausible that women are more likely to get that question.

6. "(And again)"

"Does your wife help with the kids?" Fiorina asks her male coworker. Again
I could see this question asked of either sex, but probably being asked
more of women. I also think this question is asked more of women who don't
work outside the home than of those who work in an office.

7. "Commenting on your food"

I actually have a big problem with this one. Not the problem brought up in
the video — that women apparently are questioned about their food choices.
Rather, my problem is that I ask people about their food. It's a personal
problem that stems from having the palate of a child. I tend to
inadvertently insult other's perfectly normal food choices. I'm working on
it. I simply say nothing now.

I also think the question Fiorina asks about portion is actually more
likely to be asked of men. I've never been asked this question and I'm
always the person who loads her plate up with food. But I have seen men
asked this question when they're embarking on what appears to be "Man
versus food"-worthy proportions.

Though just because it's never happened to me doesn't mean it doesn't
happen. I would venture to guess that it's women asking the question of
other women rather than men asking the question.

8. "Being talked down to"

Fiorina suggests not having "too many men" working on the same project
because they might get "catty." This is another one of those statements I
have never heard made about women. I've been working for only a decade, so
maybe I've just been lucky.

The main problem with the video is that it implies that all the issues
raised are commonplace. But that's simply not true. These things might
happen in certain divisions of certain companies, but it's wrong to suggest
that they're the norm.

The only people I hear suggesting otherwise are liberals.

9. "Being defined by your gender"

Fiorina tells her male coworker that she didn't know men could be funny. I
would buy this statement more than any other that's presented in the video.
Although I don't believe it's so much an issue in the workplace as in
society in general. Well, unless your workplace is a comedy club, perhaps.

*JINDAL*

*Bobby Jindal should just shut up: His simple-minded, dishonest Chattanooga
comments make things worse
<http://www.salon.com/2015/07/17/bobby_jindal_should_just_shut_up_his_simple_minded_dishonest_chattanooga_comments_make_things_worse/>
// Salon // Sean Illing – July 17, 2015*

Among the first GOP candidates to comment on the tragic shooting in
Chattanooga, Tennessee, was Bobby Jindal. His response was every bit as
trite and empty as you’d expect it to be. In an exclusive interview with
Breitbart.com, Jindal said:

“It’s time for the White House to wake up and tell the truth…and the truth
is that Radical Islam is at war with us, and we must start by being honest
about that. There have been many bad things that have happened under
President Obama. One that stands out to me was the horrible shooting at Ft.
Hood…which was clearly an act of terrorism by a Radical Islamist. Yet the
White House labeled that horrible act as ‘workplace violence.’ This is
grotesque. You cannot defeat evil until you admit that it exists.”

This statement is remarkably simpleminded and dishonest. In what sense has
the White House failed to “tell the truth” about terrorism? Like so many
Republicans, Jindal is obsessed with the superficial; he’s intentionally
oblivious to what Obama has actually done. Obama has made it fairly clear
that we’re at war with terrorists, especially Islamic terrorists. He’s been
far more effective, in fact, than the previous Republican administration at
finding and killing said terrorists (remember bin Laden?).

What’s dishonest about Jindal’s statement is the implication that what
happened in Chattanooga is a policy failure on the part of Obama. That’s
not at all the case. A man decided to sacrifice his life in order to kill
other people. Just as the officer at Fort Hood decided, on his own, to kill
innocent people. The truth is that there’s no real defense against that.
Life in a free society involves certain risks. All the armies in the world
can’t stop a lone gunman before he fires the first shot. This notion that
if we dropped more bombs abroad or tightened immigration standards, we’d
somehow be immune from attacks of this kind is a Republican fantasy, one no
thinking person believes.

When something like this happens, our response should be simple: deal with
it and carry on. Terrorism is a tactic — it’s not defeatable. The best we
can do is limit the conditions that breed terrorists while fighting them
when and where we must, which is what Obama has done since taking office.
Exaggerating every isolated attack into an apocalyptic threat plays
perfectly into the enemy’s narrative. Yet that’s exactly what Jindal does.
Indeed, he warned that yesterday’s shooting (again, perpetrated by one man)
is a reminder that we’re being colonized by Muslims.

“What’s not acceptable is people that want to come and conquer us. That’s
not immigration, by the way, that’s colonization,” Jindal said. This is
preposterously stupid on every level. Yes, we’re in a real war. Yes, there
are Muslim extremists that want to kill us. And yes, we have to take that
seriously. But America isn’t being colonized. Suggesting otherwise is
dangerous and needlessly alarmist.

The worst thing we can do, the thing Republicans often do, is blame a
single person or party for a terrible and ultimately unavoidable attack.
Republicans understand this when it’s the other way around. The logic
Jindal uses to pin this attack on Obama applies equally to Bush during
9/11. Indeed, by any measure, the Bush administration was infinitely more
responsible for that incident, as it involved dozens of people and months
of preparation to which they remained blind. Can you imagine the GOP’s
response if a Democratic candidate for president said, the day after 9/11,
that it was Bush’s fault, that 3,000 people died because he failed to take
terrorism seriously? True or not, they’d have considered that treasonous,
at the very least.

One of the luxuries of not being responsible for anything is that you can
propose to do everything without explaining how you’d do it. This is what
Jindal — and other Republican candidates — will likely do in the coming
days. They’ll talk about their plans to conquer terrorists and terrorism
without, you know, mentioning strategy or tactics or the complexities of
geopolitics. They can do this because they’re not president, because they
don’t have any actual ideas, and because they’re more interested in tossing
red meat at their base than in mitigating terrorism.

Which is why no one should give a damn what they have to say about it.

*TRUMP*

*Trump’s Appeal? G.O.P. Is Puzzled, but His Fans Aren’t
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/us/politics/donald-trumps-complicated-charisma-fills-void-in-republican-politics.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>
// NYT // Jeremy W. Peters – July 17, 2015*

LACONIA, N.H. — There are many, many things Donald Trump would like you to
know about how he would run the country. As he told a standing-room-only
crowd here the other night, turning America around would be a lot like
running the Trump National Doral golf club in Miami, which he bought when
it was in bankruptcy in 2012.

He is really smart. “I’m really smart,” he boasted in Phoenix last weekend
before rattling off his résumé highlights. “Went to the Wharton School of
Finance. Even then, a long time ago, like the hardest, or one of the
hardest, schools to get into.”

People like him, clamor for him, must see him. Describing for an audience
in Las Vegas how demand to see him at a recent event was so high, he said
the venue managers had panicked and called, “begging us not to be there.”

He is not wrong on this last point — even if he does sometimes embellish
the size of his following, as he did here in New Hampshire. He declared
that of the 300 or so people who packed a suffocatingly hot banquet hall,
there must have been three times as many outside. There were not. And by
the end of his speech, that estimate had ballooned to “thousands of people
outside.”

But the question that is giving so many Republicans heartburn today is how
a man so few took seriously is suddenly a leading presidential contender.

Listening to Mr. Trump as he campaigned across the country over the last
week, and talking to the people shouting “U.S.A! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” who
crammed into halls and ballrooms by the hundreds and sometimes thousands,
shed some perspective on his appeal, and on the void he is filling in
Republican politics.

Mr. Trump is not, as many Republicans have suggested, merely a renegade
agitator who sneaked up on the party establishment and threatens to spoil
its plans for a tidy, civil primary. Rather, Mr. Trump has become the new
starring attraction for the restless, conservative-minded voters who think
the political process is in need of disruption.

Some align themselves with the Tea Party movement. Others call themselves
independents or Republicans who are just fed up. The praise they heap on
Mr. Trump — “He speaks the truth,” “He’s fearless,” “He’s not politically
correct” — echoes the words conservatives have used to describe others,
like Sarah Palin and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who have stirred their
passions before.

“I think he means what he says,” said Kristi Eglody, 63, a retired school
counselor from Manchester. “He loves America, and he wants it to be better.
And that’s what I love about him.”

Jerry DeLemus, 60, of Rochester, N.H., said he liked the idea of voting for
a candidate who had not been in politics very long and found Mr. Trump’s
swagger inspiring. “You won’t leave confused about where he stands,” he
said. “And how fun would it be to watch him debate Hillary Clinton?”

“We need the truth,” Mr. DeLemus went on. “We don’t have to like the truth.
But we need it.”

The adulation that Mr. Trump is enjoying now can be a complicated,
paradoxical gift. Voters like Mr. DeLemus, who said he tended to vote
Republican and identifies with the Tea Party movement, often draw
motivation from outsize personalities like Mr. Trump. But they have also
generally rejected any singular figure as a leader. And in that sense, Mr.
Trump could find his moment fleeting, the latest showman to lead a movement
that has so far refused to be led.

Mr. Trump has found success by putting a sharper edge on a popular
conservative message: that the United States is an exceptional nation run
by unexceptional people who are fundamentally altering what it means to be
American.

In Las Vegas, he lamented: “We don’t have victories anymore. We used to
have victories. We used to be great.”

In Phoenix, he said: “We have stupid leaders. The American dream is dead.
But I’m going to make it bigger, better and stronger.” To chants of
“U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” he vowed: “Don’t worry, we’ll take our country
back. Very soon.”

The implication is that he will take the country back from incompetent
leaders and undocumented immigrants. And this is where there is a darker
side to his promises to make America great again, one that many critics,
including Republicans, say feeds on xenophobia and racist caricatures of
immigrants.

To reinforce his claims that Mexico is sending rapists and murderers across
the border in droves, he has been traveling the country with people whose
relatives were killed by immigrants who entered the country illegally. He
has them share their stories with his audiences.

“The illegals come in, and the illegals killed their children,” he said at
a news conference in California recently as he introduced the victims’
family members. One man talked about how his son had been crushed to death
under the car of an undocumented immigrant. A woman accused the news media
of hiding the nationalities of the people committing crimes like these.
“They never tell you what nationality they are,” she said. “Most of them
are Mexican.”

Mr. Trump’s attacks on Mexicans seems politically short-sighted, many
Republicans say. Every month for the next two decades, 50,000 Hispanics
turn 18 and will be eligible to vote.

And some of his supporters acknowledge that he has gone too far with some
of his comments, though they still believe he makes valid points about
illegal immigration. “He probably didn’t really think about how that was
going to come out,” said Paula Borbotsina, 69, of Manchester, who said she
liked Mr. Trump mostly because she believes he would not feel beholden to
anyone. “But a lot of bad people are coming over.”

But many of Mr. Trump’s followers acknowledged in interviews deep
suspicions about Mexico. Some said they doubted whether President Obama was
a citizen, a misrepresentation Mr. Trump himself has reinforced repeatedly.

“Finally here’s somebody who has some common sense and is not just
pandering to people,” said Tom Mosier, 77, of Bisbee, Ariz., which is along
the Mexican border. Both he and his wife, Ginger, drove up to hear Mr.
Trump in Phoenix and said they believed the president was a Muslim and was
not born in the United States.

Mr. Trump brushes off the charges that he is race-baiting and swears he has
nothing but respect for Mexico — mostly because, he often says, their
leaders are “much sharper, smarter and more cunning” than ours.

“I love Mexico!” he insists. Same for the Chinese. “I love China! I sell
apartments for $10 million, $15 million, $25 million to people from China,”
he said in Las Vegas.

Mr. Trump’s events are drawing the committed and the curious. And the large
crowds he attracts seem to be a mix of people who want to do more homework
for voting, and others who just want proximity to a celebrity and a
picture. While many say they are attracted to Mr. Trump’s candor and his
success, there are also many others who are not quite sure they can see
themselves voting for him.

Bill Davies, 53, was on vacation in New Hampshire this week and decided to
drive with his wife to Laconia because they were both intrigued by Mr.
Trump. Mr. Davies, from Boston, said he was impressed but not quite sold.

“No one else is that direct,” he said. “No one else is going to speak their
mind like that. But he’s a bit of a cartoon character, you have to admit.”

*A lot of Republican voters agree with Donald Trump. What does that mean?
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/07/17/morning-plum-a-lot-of-republican-voters-agree-with-donald-trump-what-does-that-mean/>
// WaPo // Greg Sargent – July 17, 2015*

Does the Donald Trump boomlet reflect widespread agreement among Republican
voters with his views on immigration in their rawest, ugliest form? Or does
it reflect something else that no one has been able to put a finger on yet?

At first glance, a new Fox News poll would seem to suggest the former:

Recently, presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a wall on the
U.S.-Mexico border. He said Mexico is quote, “sending people that have lots
of problems…they’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re
rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Setting aside how Trump
worded his comments, do you think he’s basically right on this or not?

Seventy percent of Republicans said Yes, versus only 27 percent who said
No. Americans overall said Trump is wrong by 53-44; independents said the
same by 61-36.

As I’ve argued, the GOP’s problem with Latino voters goes a lot deeper than
Trump’s rhetoric. That problem is rooted in the fundamental underlying
difference between the two parties’ views on immigration. Most Democrats
believe the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country have
something positive to contribute, while most Republican lawmakers either
don’t believe that or cannot accept legalization under any circumstances,
because it would reward lawbreaking.

The new Fox finding perhaps comports generally with that. But this
shouldn’t be taken too far. Other numbers from the Fox poll cast doubt on
the idea that GOP voters are in the grip of unrelenting xenophobia. Large
chunks of Republican voters agree that legal immigrants bring some
positives to the country, such as new ideas and entrepreneurial spirit.
This is in line with the view expressed by some GOP pollsters that
Republican primary voters can be won over on immigration: their initial
instinct is to lash out at the idea of legalization but they change their
views when they are led through the moral and practical complexities of the
problem. I like to think this is true. Indeed, I believe the instinct of
many conservatives against rewarding lawbreaking should be engaged
seriously, even if I disagree with it.

Still, how to explain the Trump boomlet? One GOP operative suggests an
explanation for what’s motivating Trump’s supporters. “They seem to be
galvanized by a notion that Washington is hopelessly corrupt – and you need
somebody who is completely outside of the process to go in there and shake
things up,” this operative says. “For a lot of these folks, I think
immigration speaks more broadly to a federal government that’s not doing
its job as effectively as they think it should be or could be.”

Perhaps. Alternatively, it could just be name-recognition, or something
else still. As it happens, there is one way this question might be settled.
Many Republicans expect an epic showdown between Trump and Jeb Bush on
immigration, perhaps at the coming GOP debate. It’s possible that Jeb, who
has challenged Republicans to accept that the 11 million are more than mere
criminals, may try to call out Trump’s views for what they are before a
high profile audience. If so, the reaction from GOP voters across the
country will tell us a lot.

*Donald Trump says he’s 10 times as popular as anyone else on Google. Nope.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/07/17/donald-trump-says-hes-10-times-as-popular-as-anyone-else-on-google-nope/>
// WaPo // Philip Bump – July 17, 2015*

If it's a day that ends in "y," it must be time to evaluate a hyperbolic
claim from Donald Trump!

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Trump responded to a claim that he'd
lied in his financial filing with the Federal Election Commission. (Which,
as we noted this week, he doesn't need to do anyway.) "Could you imagine me
signing a false document?" Trump told Bloomberg New's Mark Halperin. "Me?
Right now the most high-profile guy in the world. More Google hits than
anybody in the entire world by a factor of 10."

That, we can check! And, surprising no one, it's not true.

Google offers up a great deal of data on what people are searching for
through its "Trends" tool. It allows you to see the frequency with which
people are searching for particular terms, such as "Donald Trump."

Here's the last 90 days of searches for Trump. The scale at the left is
proprietary; "100" is the peak amount of search for whatever terms are
being considered.

The place where Trump has been searched the most? Mexico.

Notice that Trump is actually off his personal peak, which came at his
announcement. But, being generous, we'll peg the "more popular by a factor
of 10" to that peak. According to Trump, no one else should be getting
above about a four.

So let's compare him with President Obama.

Oops. Obama generally engenders more interest than Trump, and his speech in
Charleston put him well over Trump's maximum.

And that's just politics. If you throw in entertainers, who, we will note,
count as "anybody in the entire world," Trump seems downright pedestrian.

There's Justin Bieber…

… and, of course, the queen of the Internet, Kim Kardashian.

We had to check whether or not Kardashian met the famous John Lennon metric
of popularity: Was she more searched than Jesus? Yes.

(An aside: Google allows you to narrow your query to focus on a particular
topic. So if you were searching for "airplane," it might ask if you meant
the vehicle or the 1970s movie. The clarifying term to pick out the correct
Bieber is "singer-songwriter." For Kardashian, "television personality."
For Jesus? "God.")

There you have it. Trump is pretty popular on the Google. But he's nowhere
near 10 times as popular as everyone else.

Guys, we're starting to think that he exaggerates.

*Donald Trump is now essentially guaranteed a spot on the debate stage
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/07/17/donald-trump-is-now-essentially-guaranteed-a-spot-on-the-debate-stage/>
// WaPo // Philip Bump – July 17, 2015*

Donald Trump shouldn't be excoriating Univision on Twitter. He should be
thanking them.

On June 30, Trump was at 4.2 percent in the Real Clear Politics polling
average, good enough for eighth place. In our assessment of who would and
wouldn't make the stage at the upcoming Fox News debate -- calculated by
averaging the five most recent national polls -- Trump was on the bubble.
Maybe in, maybe out.

Then Univision called him out for his anti-immigrant comments about
Mexicans at his presidential announcement. In the new Fox poll released on
Thursday, the Trump surge that resulted continues. His RCP average is now
15 percent -- half a point shy of the leader, Jeb Bush. And given that
there have been only three polls taken this month and that the Fox debate
is on August 6, there's basically no chance that enough new polls can
emerge showing Trump doing badly enough that he won't make the top ten.

Here's our assessment, as it stands right now.

Alert! For the first time since we started doing this in late May, there's
a change in the top ten. Rick Perry has dropped out of the top ten, and
Rick Santorum has made the cut. (So zero net change on the first names on
the stage. (If this is what it looks like in August, with a candidate left
out because of a 0.1 percent difference, you can expect a lot of fury from
the left-out parties.)

But back to Trump, he said with a sigh.

Since Fox News' June survey, Trump and Scott Walker are the only leading
candidates to see an improvement. (On the chart below, anything outside of
the gray area is a net plus for the candidate.) Jeb Bush dropped; Ben
Carson dropped more.

So where did Trump's gains come from? All over the place. On the graphs
below, Trump's is the largest, hugest, classiest, most luxurious dot. He
picked up 15 points with people earning under $50,000 a year, 12 points
with men, 13 points with evangelicals. No doubt to the massive frustration
of Ted Cruz, Trump even gained 8 points with conservatives, despite holding
some ... not conservative views.

For Trump to not make the stage at this point, one of the following things
would have to happen.

1) Trump drops out.

2) Trump's poll numbers crumple and there are five new polls that reflect
it. (Even if Trump loses all support in the next four polls, his average
would be 3.6 points -- certainly enough to make the cut.)

3) Fox bars him on a technicality. Given that Fox is in the ratings
business, that seems unlikely.

So that's about it. Look forward to Donald Trump on your television next
month. Maybe he will say his catchphrase, "I suddenly appear to possibly be
a viable candidate for the presidency!" Everyone loves that line.

*Trump says building a U.S.-Mexico wall is ‘easy.’ But is it really?
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-on-the-us-mexico-border-building-a-wall-is-easy/2015/07/16/9a619668-2b0c-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html>
// WaPo // Jerry Markon – July 17, 2015*

For centuries, societies have erected walls and fences to separate
themselves from their neighbors, from the Great Wall of China through the
Berlin Wall right up to the barrier that today divides Israel from the
Palestinians on the West Bank.

The United States has debated putting up security barriers of its own along
the Southwest border and has spent billions of dollars in recent years
fencing one-third of it.

Now, Donald Trump is proposing to go even further, vowing to build a
massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S.-Mexico frontier to keep out
illegal Mexican migrants. “Building a wall is easy, and it can be done
inexpensively,” the Republican presidential candidate said in an interview.
“It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.’’

The wall has become the signature proposal of Trump’s campaign, which has
stirred widespread controversy over its focus on illegal immigration and
his comments about immigrants.

Any wall-building effort would cost billions of dollars and encounter a
variety of obstacles, according to experts, documents and federal
officials, including some of the same difficulties that bedeviled the
federal government as it spent more than $7 billion on border fencing. The
hurdles include environmental and engineering problems; fights with
ranchers and others who don’t want to give up their land; and the huge
topographical challenges of the border, which runs through remote desert in
Arizona to rugged mountains in New Mexico and, for two-thirds of its
length, along rivers.

“It’s extremely challenging to put a brick-and-mortar wall along the
Southwest border for any number of reasons,” said Richard Stana, who wrote
multiple reports on border security for the nonpartisan Government
Accountability Office before retiring in 2011. “It seems very simplistic.”

If such a barrier could be erected, experts and government officials agreed
that making it impenetrable would be virtually impossible, as is completely
securing the entire 1,954-mile border. The Department of Homeland Security
is already spending millions of dollars a year to maintain existing fences
and to repair breaches, according to government reports and officials,
while drug traffickers and smugglers are increasingly using tunnels to pass
underneath.

While a wall along much of the border might theoretically be possible, said
Thad Bingel, a former senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection official,
“is it desirable? At what cost, and what do you give up to pay for that?’’

Bingel — who was involved in border fence-building during the George W.
Bush administration and is now a partner at Command Consulting Group in
Washington — added: “Every wall can be circumvented. People can go under
it, they can go over it. . . . No one should go into this with the idea
that if you just build the right kind of wall, no one will get through.’’

Trump disputed that, saying that a wall “would be very effective” in
deterring illegal migrants and that seismic and other equipment could
detect and stop any underground tunnels. “A wall is better than fencing,
and it’s much more powerful,” he said. “It’s more secure. It’s taller.”

The veteran builder acknowledged that environmental impact studies would be
difficult but said he is the one person who can rise to the challenge. “I’m
considered a great builder, by everybody,” he said, adding that cost is
irrelevant because he would force Mexico to pay for the structure. Asked
whether that was realistic, Trump said: “It’s realistic if you know
something about the art of negotiating. If you have a bunch of clowns
negotiating, it’s not realistic.”

Trump’s vision

Trump has emerged as a leading GOP candidate partly because of his strong
statements about immigration, which have included describing Mexicans
entering the country illegally as “rapists” and “murderers.” He has
suggested at times that his proposed wall would be extensive and would
cover nearly the entire border, but said in the interview: “You don’t have
to build it in every location. There would be some locations where you
would have guards, where you don’t need it because the topography acts as
its own wall, whether that’s water or very rough terrain.”

The concept of a wall or fence along virtually the entire border has
bubbled up occasionally in the nation’s immigration debate, with some
Republicans supporting the idea. Today, there are more than 45 such walls
and border fences worldwide, perhaps most prominently Israel’s West Bank
barrier.

While Israeli officials say it has reduced attacks, security specialists
say that barrier, slated to be more than 400 miles long when finished, is
not comparable to what would be required along the far more extensive U.S.
Southwest border. The Israelis, they add, supplement the physical concrete
barrier with a mix of border police and technology, much as the Department
of Homeland Security does in the United States.

The U.S. government began building border fencing near San Diego in 1990.
As DHS cracked down on illegal immigration after the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks, President George W. Bush dramatically expanded the effort.
Spending on border fencing and related infrastructure such as lighting shot
up from $298 million in 2006 to $1.5 billion the following year, according
to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Overall, more than $7 billion has been spent to build what is now almost
653 miles of Southwest border fencing — costing nearly $5 million per mile
in some spots — nearly half in Arizona.

The costs could rise substantially if extensive new fencing was built,
since it would be in increasingly remote regions without roads and in
mountainous terrain, said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S.
immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute. Adding even
more to the expense, he said, would be acquiring private land near the
border and maintaining existing fencing.

Trump’s wall would probably cost far more than fencing, Stana said, given
the greater needs for construction materials and labor.

A broader strategy

While current and former DHS officials say the fencing has been effective
in deterring illegal immigration, they say it is only one part of a broader
border strategy that includes expanded sensors, drones and other
technology, along with growing numbers of Border Patrol officers.

“Our southern border is a mixture of winding river, desert and mountains.
Simply building more fences is not the answer,” DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson
said in an October speech.

The government’s difficulties in erecting fences highlight the challenges
of building a wall, experts said. The fencing mandated by Congress in 2006
was beset by delays, surging construction costs and disputes with private
property owners, mostly in Texas, DHS officials have said. The biggest
failure was the virtual fence, a Bush administration effort to cover the
border with a high-tech surveillance system.

“It’s a huge effort to construct anything at the border,” said one DHS
official, who has worked in Republican and Democratic administrations and
spoke on the condition of anonymity because Trump’s plan is part of a
political campaign. “You have lots of requirements to do construction: the
environmental piece, engineering assessments. And a private landowner might
not want fencing.”

Wayne Cornelius, director of the Mexican migration field research program
at the University of California at San Diego, called Trump’s proposal
“ludicrous. . . . Any physical barrier can be tunneled under or climbed
over or gotten around. There will always be gaps, and smugglers and
migrants will seek out those gaps and go through.”

*Donald Trump seizes on Chattanooga shooting
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-chattanooga-shooting-gun-free-zones-120281.html#ixzz3g9d3avgp>
// Politico // Nick Gass – July 17, 2015*

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is calling to eliminate
gun-free zones on military bases in the United States in the wake of
Thursday’s shooting attacks at two military centers in Chattanooga,
Tennessee.

Muhammad Youssuf Abdulazeez opened fire at two civilian military facilities
on Thursday, killing four Marines and injuring three others, according to
officials. Abdulazeez was killed in a subsequent gunfight with police,
reports said.

“Get rid of gun free zones. The four great marines who were just shot never
had a chance,” Trump tweeted Friday. “They were highly trained but helpless
without guns.”

In an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly on Thursday night, Trump also
decried President Barack Obama and others for not calling the shootings
acts of “Islamic terrorism.”

Terrorism is only going to get worse in the U.S., Trump told O’Reilly,
because “people don’t respect our law enforcement, and I think they don’t
respect our country and we’re taking power away from the police.”

“Whether it’s Islamic or anything else, it’s getting worse. We’re losing
law and order. They don’t respect — you look at what’s happening in
Detroit, you look at what’s happening in Baltimore or Chicago, it’s getting
worse all the time,” Trump said.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam said it’s ultimately up to the U.S. military to
decide on any new protection measures at civilian facilities, adding in an
interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that it’s still “awfully early to try to
come to a new conclusion about that.”

The Republican governor said he was not concerned about the potential for
reprisals against Muslims in Chattanooga and Tennessee, saying that people
in his state “are both sickened and saddened” by Thursday’s events.

*Donald Trump: My supporters aren't 'crazies'
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-supporters-not-crazies-120283.html>
// Politico // Nick Gass – July 17, 2015*

Donald Trump says the people who came out to see him last weekend in
Phoenix weren’t “crazies,” as Arizona Sen. John McCain claimed in a recent
interview.

In fact, Trump declared in a telephone interview with MSNBC’s “Morning
Joe,” the five-term senator will lose his primary next year “if the right
person runs against him.”

“They weren’t crazies. They were great Americans, and I know crazies,
believe me,” Trump said.

These people “wanted to know about illegal immigration. It’s killing them,”
he added.

“And when he called them crazies—I think he will lose in the primary,”
Trump predicted, with the caveat: “If the right person runs against him.”

McCain’s comments came in an interview with The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza
published Thursday, in which the Arizona senator said Trump “fired up the
crazies” with his rally.

*The mystery of the Trump coalition
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/the-mystery-of-the-trump-coalition-120269.html>
// Politico // Ben Schreckinger and Cate Martel – July 17, 2015*

Last weekend, Donald Trump added to his long list of bold claims by
declaring himself the champion of a new “silent majority” of Americans.

While 17 percent of Republican voters isn’t a majority, and the 4,000
raucous supporters cheering him in Arizona were anything but silent, Trump
has hurtled to the top of several recent GOP primary polls. Apparently, he
speaks for some Americans. So who are they and where did they come from?

As it turns out, the Trump coalition looks a lot like the rest of the
Republican Party. Other than a spike in support in the Northeast, there is
little in recent polling data to distinguish Trump’s supporters from the
heart of the GOP primary electorate. Even immigration hardliners support
him at the same rate as the rest of the Republican Party.

“It’s a strange coalition of people,” said Patrick Murray of Monmouth
University. “We can’t pin them down demographically. … It appears he’s
cherry-picked individual voters.”

Interviews with Trump supporters at a rally on Saturday in Phoenix and in
New Hampshire, where he was among the first candidates to hire staffers,
suggest he is attracting Republicans from many corners of the party who are
drawn to his image as a straight-talking businessman who would shake up
politics as usual.

“The issues that are driving the average Trump voter are, first and
foremost, that he’s not a politician. Secondly, he is self-funding his
campaign, so he can’t be bought,” said Steve Stepanek, Trump’s New
Hampshire co-chairman, who supported Newt Gingrich in 2012 and Rudy
Giuliani in 2008.

“People today are looking for plainspoken people who say what’s on their
mind,” said Lou Gargiulo, a New Hampshire activist and Trump’s Rockingham
County co-chair who supported Mitt Romney in the 2008 and 2012 Republican
primaries.

Trump voters skew older, whiter and more male, but no more so than the rest
of the Republican primary electorate.

In a Monmouth poll released on Monday that put Trump in second place and a
Suffolk University/USA Today poll released on Tuesday that put him in
first, the real estate mogul fared better among somewhat conservative
voters and very conservative secular voters than he did among moderates and
religious conservatives.

At least in that way, said Murray, they really are like Richard Nixon’s
silent majority of middle Americans. “They’re in the middle of the
Republican Party. They’re not evangelicals. They’re not hardline social or
fiscal conservatives. They’re also not on the liberal side of the party,”
he said.

Because Trump had flirted with running for president before without jumping
in, many observers doubted he would do so, and most polls before mid-May
did not include his name.

Trump’s rise came so suddenly and unexpectedly, and Republican voters are
divided among so many candidates, that the data to fully understand the
Trump coalition does not yet exist, said Quinnipiac University pollster
Peter Brown.

What Murray can say definitively about Trump is that he is an anomaly. In a
Monmouth poll released a month ago, Trump had the worst favorability rating
of any Republican candidate among Republican voters, 20 percent favorable
to 55 percent unfavorable, a fact cited by many political observers in
pooh-poohing his viability. In the poll out this week, Trump’s favorability
has pulled nearly even at 41-40. The swing was even more dramatic among
self-identified tea party voters, who went from viewing him unfavorably, 55
percent to 20 percent, to viewing him favorably 56 percent to 26 percent.

“I’ve never seen a candidate who’s so well known who was able to suddenly
turn around people’s opinions of him,” Murray said.

Even as Republican elites decried his claims about the alleged criminality
of undocumented Mexican immigrants (which defy all available evidence) and
brands cut ties with him, a large chunk of GOP primary voters were
evaluating him in a positive light.

Joan Riscki, 67, a Phoenix resident and retiree, is an independent who
voted for Mitt Romney in the general election in 2012. “I usually vote for
Democrats, but it’s a bad situation now,” she told POLITICO outside Trump’s
rally on Saturday. “They’re all liars anyways. I try not to listen to the
news. I listen to KFYI,” a local conservative talk radio station.

Matt Bates, 52, a property manager from Scottsdale, who remains uncommitted
to a presidential candidate, said he found out about the Trump event from
his in-laws, who had heard about it on Fox News. “He’s not a politician,
he’s a businessman,” Bates said of Trump’s appeal.

His wife, Stephanie, 52, a grocery store manager, said she supports Trump.
“His views are similar to the GOP, but he’s not in anybody’s pocket,” she
said. “You can’t trust the rest of them.”

Hazel Powell, 68, also of Phoenix, is a retired Peace Corps volunteer (she
felt the need to leave the country after Obama’s election) and a fan of
“The Apprentice,” Trump’s reality show on NBC. “I’ve always liked Donald
with his television shows, his aggressiveness. He just speaks the truth,”
she said.

The crowd in Phoenix was overwhelmingly white (as is the Republican primary
electorate), and Trump’s fellow Republicans have condemned his comments
about undocumented immigrants as racist, but Powell said he would
eventually win over Latinos. “The Latinos are going to support him because
they’re smart enough to know: He’s going to get them jobs.”

Trump has made the same claim, saying that “tens of thousands” of Latinos
have worked for him over the years and that they “love” him.

In New Hampshire, Trump is currently polling second to Bush.

Greg Moore, the state director for the Koch-backed group Americans for
Prosperity, which lost several staffers to Trump’s Granite State effort,
has gotten an up-close look at the mogul’s supporters. His offices share a
building with Trump’s campaign. He said he sees a lot of unfamiliar faces
coming and going from Trump’s New Hampshire headquarters — not the state’s
typical Republican activist crowd.

“They seem to be galvanized [by] a notion that Washington is hopelessly
corrupt – and you need somebody who is completely outside of the process to
go in there and shake things up,” he said. “Immigration really isn’t an
issue in New Hampshire, but for a lot of these folks, I think immigration
speaks more broadly to a federal government that’s not doing its job as
effectively as they think it should be or could be.”

Despite Trump’s recent success capitalizing on widespread discontent with
Washington, establishment Republicans say they aren’t worried his support
will make him a viable candidate.

“I don’t think in the end, people when they vote in the primary will throw
their vote away,” said Judd Gregg, a former senator and New Hampshire
governor. “They’re not going to vote for somebody who isn’t a legitimate
candidate for the nomination who can win the nomination and can govern.”

*Trump brings his bluster to Bill Clinton's hometown
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/trump-brings-his-bluster-to-bill-clintons-hometown-120313.html#ixzz3gDHlDJNX>
// Politico // Annie Karni – July 17, 2015*

Hot Springs, Ark. — A large highway sign on the drive to the Hot Springs
Convention Center advertises the town proudly as the “boyhood home of
President Bill Clinton.”

But Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was the big name in town
here Friday night, where he keynoted the state’s annual GOP dinner, and
reminded a crowd of about 1,000 attendees: “By the way, Hillary Clinton,
with her husband, deserted Arkansas.”

The state has changed politically since the Clintons were the stars of the
Democratic Party here. The state that was once reliably blue has turned red
— President Barack Obama lost Arkansas by 24 points in his 2012 reelection
campaign. The changing tide was on display in the large, enthusiastic crowd
that gave Trump a warm welcome.

Hillary Clinton, who is headlining a Democratic Party dinner in Little Rock
on Saturday evening, seemed to be worth no more than a few throw-away
insults for Trump, who lumped her together with former Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush as a politician beholden to donors and special interests. “I don’t
need money,” he said, “so the real thing is, I don’t owe anybody any
favors.”

Trump wasn’t even beholden to a teleprompter or any prepared notes.

In a 40-minute speech, the real-estate mogul and former television
personality rambled about his favorite subjects: his high poll numbers (“as
you know, I’ve been No.1 in all the polls”); the Iran deal (“disgusting,
done by rank amateurs”); the Mexican border (“people are just flowing in”);
China (“when was the last time you saw this country beat China in a trade
deal?”); and, of course, his personal wealth (over $10 billion!”).

Throughout his stream-of-consciousness remarks, he had one overarching
theme: all other nations have smart leaders, and America has inept leaders
— but he could change that.

“The Persians are great negotiators,” he said of the Iran deal. “I watched
this negotiator on television, after watching for about four minutes, I
said there’s no way that [Secretary of State John] Kerry and our people can
deal with this guy, he’s too smart.”

Closer to home, “the problem is the Mexican leaders are much sharper and
more cunning than our leaders,” he said. “They’re much more cunning!”

He dinged “the genius pundits, who are really dumb people,” for doubting he
would really run for president.

“We need smart people,” he said of the Republican Party. “We have to be
wise … People are tired of watching us get ripped off. They’re tired of
stupidity … I’m, like, this person who knows how the system works, and I
made lot of money.”

He criticized Kerry for not pushing harder to bring home the American
prisoners still held in Iran, while negotiating a nuclear deal.

“Complicate the deal?” he said, “Hey, we want four people, that’s
complicated?”

In Trump’s world view, all his competitors are too inept to “make this
country great again.”

“Bush will never have a clue, and Hillary will never have a clue, that I
can tell you,” he said. “Who would you rather have negotiating against
China or Mexico: Bush, Hillary, or Trump?”

Unlike most presidential candidates, who view the media as second to the
voters they are in town to meet, Trump held a 15-minute press availability
before his speech. There, he didn’t answer questions so much as use them as
prompts to launch into his talking points blasting Obamacare and illegal
immigration.

The convention center was teeming with a surprisingly diverse crowd for a
Trump dinner just before his arrival. But all of the African American
attendees, it became clear, were on site to attend a Jehovah’s Witness
conference taking place next door. Trump’s crowd, in the end, was almost
completely white.

And the attendees — some of whom paid $350 for dinner and a photo op with
Trump — were taken with him.

“I would vote for him today,” said Darich Nations, who works for Arkansas
State Parks, and bought a “Trump for President” t-shirt on her way out.
“He’s honest. He’s not afraid to say what he’s thinking. He’s not afraid of
big government, of foreign governments, of PACs, he’s not owned by anybody.”

Jane Phillips, who works for two local magazines, said she was impressed
with his record in New York City, “the hotels, the jobs, creating them in
New York,” she said, “It’s really quite amazing.”

*Huffington Post Can't Make Trump Go Away by Ignoring Him
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-17/huffington-post-can-t-make-trump-go-away-by-ignoring-him>
// Bloomberg // Will Leitch – July 17, 2015*

As of this precise second–and this might well change by the time I finish
this sentence–there are 21 people running for President. Twenty have
officially announced, and one (Gov. John Kasich) is expected to join the
race soon. Some of them will be weeded out by the first debate, some will
vanish by Iowa, all but two (probably) will be gone by next summer and
eventually one of them will actually become the 45th President of the
United States. Some of those 21 people are more likely to reach that level
than others, but no one has cast a single vote, and no one will for another
199 days. We’re all just guessing.

These things tend to go crazy. At this point four years ago, Michelle
Bachmann was rising in the polls and would end up winning the Iowa straw
poll, knocking out two candidates right then and there. Over the next few
months, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich would all
surge and fall in the polls; Cain, a man who was running for public office
for the first time, even reached the cover of Newsweek magazine. Cain never
ever had a realistic shot of becoming President, and it seems quite
possible, in retrospect, looking at that smoking ad, that he was maybe
insane.

This cycle, Donald Trump is the elephant in the room.

But you couldn’t wish away Herman Cain just because he made terrifying
campaign ads. You can’t ignore polls just because you want to.

Which brings us, as everything tends to do these days, to Donald Trump.
This morning, the Huffington Post announced that it will no longer cover
the “campaign”–those air quotes are theirs–of Trump, saying “Trump's
campaign is a sideshow. We won't take the bait. If you are interested in
what The Donald has to say, you'll find it next to our stories on the
Kardashians and The Bachelorette.” Now it’s worth noting that as I type
this, the Huffington Post politics page has this story placed directly
below one titled “Donald Trump's 1990 Nazi Nightstand,” one of four Trump
stories on the page. But those could just be grandfathered in. Let’s take
them at their word. Let’s assume they’re done.

I am sure everyone at Huffington Post Politics felt better about themselves
this morning when they posted that statement. People who cover politics
take a lot of pride in covering something of consequence. Reporting can be
a demoralizing job where you spend every day hounding people who don’t want
to talk to you, getting called horrible things by strangers, making less
money that your college friends who gave up and went to law school, and
watching your current colleagues lose their jobs all around you at an
increasingly alarming rate. The upside is the self-importance that comes
with covering Politics, capital P. You can tell yourself you are writing
the first draft of history. You’re not recapping reality television or
captioning celebrity sex tapes. You have prestige.

For some journalists, Donald Trump seems to trample this prestige. People
don’t go into covering politics to write about people like Trump; he’s what
they got into this to avoid. And I get it. It can be frustrating to do your
best to explain to your readers the complexities of the Iran deal and have
them care more about what Donald Trump’s favorite Vegas stage show is. (Not
Penn & Teller, in case you were wondering.) Donald Trump can make you feel
worse about your job.

But, you know, the job’s a job. Just because you believe Donald Trump
shouldn't be a legitimate candidate for President doesn’t mean he actually
isn’t. Wringing your hands about the fact that Trump is starting to
actually lead in national polls may make you feel better about yourself,
but for a political journalist, it's a questionable impulse. Imagine a
sports reporter not including Patriots’ scores because they don’t like Bill
Belichick, or an entertainment reporter refusing to mention Transformers
box office results because Michael Bay is destroying America. You can have
these thoughts–I might even agree with you–but that doesn’t mean you get to
cover your eyes and plug your ears and wish away facts, however
distasteful.

Well, Trump isn’t going to win, this is all a stunt, you say. Well, yeah,
probably not: I don’t think Donald Trump is going to be elected President
in November 2016 either. (I actually just shuddered typing that.) But what,
exactly, makes Trump a less viable candidate than George Pataki, or Bobby
Jindal? Sure, they’ve won elected office and he hasn’t … but, in the Fox
poll, they have zero percent of voters picking them as a first choice.
Surely being in first place in a poll gives one some legitimacy? And even
if Trump doesn’t win, it doesn’t mean he’s not going to matter. He has
clearly galvanized a certain percentage of the Republican electorate, and
other candidates are already strategizing as to how to respond to Trump,
and his voters. Those votes will count, even if other candidates are able
to pry them away from Trump; the section of the electorate that Trump has
worked up is a substantial, real one. They exist. Politicians will go after
them. That all looks a heckuva lot like politics to me. What is HuffPo
going to do when Trump is on stage at the debate? “Bush responded to [NAME
REDACTED] accusation that was a ‘loser’ with a frown.”

This campaign cycle, Trump is the elephant in the room. He's ridiculous,
sure. The only thing sillier is pretending he's not there.

*A Note About Our Coverage Of Donald Trump's 'Campaign'
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-note-about-our-coverage-of-donald-trumps-campaign_55a8fc9ce4b0896514d0fd66>
// HuffPo // Ryan Grim and Danny Shea – July 17, 2015*

After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his
candidacy for president, we have decided we won't report on Trump's
campaign as part of The Huffington Post's political coverage. Instead, we
will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is
simple: Trump's campaign is a sideshow. We won't take the bait. If you are
interested in what The Donald has to say, you'll find it next to our
stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.

*Why Donald Trump is surging in the polls
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/politics/donald-trump-summer-surge/> // CNN
// Sara Murray – July 17, 2015*

Laconia, New Hampshire (CNN)Donald Trump, surging in the polls, arrived at
this lakeside enclave and trained his ire on perhaps the only target that
aggravates his supporters as much as the Obama Administration: Republicans.

"They're all talk, they're no action," Trump said, revving up his fiery
takedown of politicians.

"I'm more disappointed in many ways with the Republicans," Trump said.
"They have this great indignation, whether it's Benghazi or the emails...
nothing ever happens."

Trump is enjoying a summer surge as takes the lead in a poll of Republican
presidential contenders released on Friday. The billionaire businessman is
offending Hispanics and irking his GOP competitors but it's clear that his
in-your-face demeanor and willingness to take on President Barack Obama --
then just as quickly turn his sharp tongue toward members of his own party
-- is winning over Republican voters.

"Even though I'm a Republican and I'm obviously voting that way, I'm very
disappointed in the Republicans in the House. There's weakness there," said
Julie Pagliarulo, a 56-year-old resident of Belmont, New Hampshire, who
arrived hours early to see Trump speak. "Donald just says it like it is. I
love it."

Friday's Fox News poll found Trump leading with support from 18% of
Republican primary voters nationwide, compared to 15% for Wisconsin Gov.
Scott Walker and 14% for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Statistically
speaking, the top three candidates are within the margin of error, and
therefore tied -- a point Trump tends to leave out of his speeches.

Belknap County, nestled in New Hampshire's picturesque southeastern lakes
region, is home to 60,000 predominantly white residents. They tend to be
middle class, with a median household income of nearly $59,000, according
to Census data. The unemployment rate in May stood at a modest 3.3%, well
below the 5.5% national rate that month.

Each summer, Laconia -- where Trump held his rally -- plays host to one of
the nation's largest gatherings of motorcyclists. The town is more than
2,000 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.

Grievances

On a recent muggy summer evening, residents here were angry about
everything from border security and the economy to Benghazi, Obamacare and
more. Trump was speaking to their grievances, an approach that helps
explain his rise in the polls.

Bert Hansen, 74 years old, joined hundreds of voters jammed into an
overheated community center in Laconia waiting to see Trump. The
soft-spoken veteran believes Obama is "incompetent" and bristles when
recalling a relative who once said he was racist because he doesn't like
the president. In fact, Hansen said, he's a big fan of GOP presidential
candidate Ben Carson, who is black.

"There's some pent up frustration in the population right now that's ready
to explode," Hansen said said. "That's why Trump's doing so well."

New Hampshire voters said Trump spoke to their broad range of concerns. But
his greatest appeal may be that they see him as authentic and unfiltered.
The opposite, voters said, of even the Republicans they elected to serve
them in Congress.

"When he talks, he talks like them. He has the same frustrations they do,"
said Craig Robinson, a GOP activist in Iowa and editor of The Iowa
Republican website. "They still want someone who's just going to turn
Washington on its head."

Brenda Connolly, a 73-year-old independent voter, said she's disillusioned
by politics these days.

"I don't think they're standing up to the president," she said of
Republicans in Washington. "I voted for them as an independent and I
expected them to do a lot more."

As for Trump, "I'm not even saying he's going to be the president, but I
think he makes Republicans aware of what middle America wants," she said.

It appears voters' views of Trump are not yet set in stone even though he's
well known. Some polls show his favorability numbers climbing among
Republicans. The majority of Republicans -- 57% -- had a favorable view of
Trump and 40% had an unfavorable view or him in the latest Washington
Post/ABC News poll. That's a big shift from late May, when the same poll
found 65% of Republicans had an unfavorable view of Trump.

Limits to Trump's appeal

There are limits to the billionaire's appeal in the context of a potential
general election. More than six in 10 Americans viewed Trump negatively in
the Post/ABC poll. And despite Trump's vow to win the Hispanic vote, his
controversial comments about illegal immigration and America's relationship
with Mexico are tarnishing him in the eyes of Latinos. More than seven out
of 10 registered Hispanic voters said they had an unfavorable view of
Trump, according to a Univision News poll. Univision recently cut ties with
Trump and abandoned plans to air his Miss Universe Pageant.

The former "Apprentice" star's media savvy has helped his bid as well.
Trump has pounced on a number of recent news events -- the San Francisco
killing of Kate Steinle by an undocumented immigrant and drug lord Joaquin
"El Chapo" Guzman's escape from the most secure prison in Mexico -- to
bolster his argument that the U.S. needs to secure the border and take a
tougher line in its relationship with Mexico.

Meanwhile, other GOP presidential contenders are trying to reclaim the
mantle of Beltway outsider. Bush plans to deliver a speech Monday on how to
reform Washington. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has tried to pitch
himself as the straight talker in the field.

Christie's performance so far hasn't impressed Bill Borrebach, a
68-year-old resident of Sandwich, New Hampshire, who makes it his business
to see as many candidates as he can in this first-in-the-nation primary
state.

"I don't know if he has the wherewithal to go to Mrs. Clinton and say we're
tired of all her stuff," he said of Christie.

Borrebach flashed a Trump bumper sticker he had tucked into the pocket of
his floral shirt. Breaking into a smile, he added, "it's going to drive my
neighbors nuts."

*Donald Trump is Dominating Facebook Chatter in Iowa
<http://time.com/3963030/donald-trump-facebook-iowa/> // TIME // Charlotte
Adler – July 17, 2015*

Donald Trump is monopolizing the conversation in Iowa, at least on social
media.

According to data from Facebook, Trump’s name has appeared in over 200,000
Facebook interactions between 66,000 people in the early-voting state in
the last week. That’s more than double the interactions of the
next-most-talked about candidate, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton,
who was the subject of 86,000 interactions between 31,000 people.

Trump also dominated the Facebook conversation compared to his Republican
rivals. The next-most-talked-about GOP hopeful is Wisconsin Governor Scott
Walker, with 37,000 interactions among 14,000 people. Former Florida
Governor Jeb Bush’s name came up 23,000 among 12,000 people. Facebook
measured the data between July 10 and July 16, just among Iowa voters.

Facebook has no way to know whether the mentions of Trump are positive or
negative, and social media buzz does not necessarily translate into votes.
And since computer algorithms are notoriously bad at distinguishing between
sarcasm and sincerity, it’s hard to know whether the flood of Facebook
mentions means Trump is being widely praised or widely mocked. As the 2016
presidential campaign swings into gear, campaigns and data analysis firms
are looking for ways to reliably interpret this flood of data and use it to
target potential voters, Reuters reports.

*Trump and the myth of a Mexican crime wave
<http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/248144-trump-and-the-myth-of-a-mexican-crime-wave>
// The Hill // Raoul Lowery Contreras – July 17, 2015*

We have seen how Donald Trump insults Mexicans by his tone and his
misstatement of facts on business and trade. He goes even further in
insulting Mexican immigrants by suggesting they are criminals and rapists.

Yes, some Mexicans are criminals but not, as he implies, all. One need not
believe Trump said that on June 16, but he did imply that; I watched him
live, I've read the transcript. He implied all or at best, most, because he
did say "some" Mexicans were nice people.

Also disagreeing with Trump's implication is former Texas Gov. Rick Perry
(R), who debunks Trump — and he should know. Perry declares that Trump knew
exactly what he was saying when he said it.

Trump's June 16 announcement about Mexicans, crime and building a "great
wall" on the Mexican border and having the Mexicans pay for it is pure
demagoguery said only to appeal to low-information voters.

Remember, Trump did not say "illegal alien Mexicans" in his June 16
statement. He said: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending
their best ... They're sending people that have lots of problems and
they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs, they're
bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people."

Let's prove Trump wrong. There is no crime wave by illegals from Mexico.
There is crime, yes, but not a crime wave and he has no authentic
statistics to support his claim. He has anecdotes. Even the San Francisco
story is an anecdote.

Where are official statistics from law enforcement agencies? They are not
produced because the Trumps of the world depend on anti-immigrant
nongovernmental organizations that puff up phony stats to suit their and
Trump's anti-Mexican-immigrant passion.

Let's look at real numbers. California has the largest number of illegal
aliens: 2.5 million, maybe more. It also has the second most prison inmates
(Texas is No. 1).

California's latest official prison numbers, from 2013, are 133,390
prisoners. Of the 133,390 prisoners, there were 13,010 Mexican-born
prisoners, less than 10 percent. And of those, 9,605 had actual or
potential "holds" assigned by the federal government for possibly being
illegal aliens.

Note: Being Mexican-born is not proof of illegal presence in the U.S. as
Mexico has been the largest source of legal immigration for decades.

Seven percent of the California prison population might be illegal aliens
from Mexico — some crime wave, Mr. Trump.

Trump and his supporters will point to the federal prison system, which has
33,000 Mexican-born inmates, 16 percent of the total population of 159,000.
Wow! That’s horrible — except that most are not there for violent crimes,
for murder, for rape, for aggravated assault; they are there mostly for
immigration violations and smuggling of cigarettes, marijuana and other
illicit substances. Trump won't say that, even if he knows it, because that
would derail his tirade.

Even the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) hasn't found
proof to support Trump. Jessica Vaughan, CIS director of policy studies,
has said that connections between illegal immigrants and crime are hard to
make. She studied crime and illegal immigrants and has said: "We didn't
find any evidence to support the idea that either immigrants are more prone
to crime or less prone to crime than ... legally resident Americans. ...
It's very tricky."

Not as tricky as Donald Trump, however.

*Trump calls off his bet with MSNBC host
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/248297-trump-calls-off-his-bet-with-msnbc-host>
// The Hill // Mark Hensch – July 17, 2015*

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is calling off his bet of one
year’s salary with MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell over the accuracy of
Trump’s financial disclosure forms.

“Well, I’m very disappointed because I was really all set to go after him
this morning,” Trump said Friday on “Morning Joe." “But it’s hard to do
that now. And now I feel guilty if I do that.”

Trump issued the bet on Thursday after O’Donnell accused him of lying about
profits he made making “The Apprentice,” his former NBC show.

The real estate mogul cemented his 2016 presidential bid Wednesday by
filing his personal financial disclosure paperwork with the government.

He told the Federal Election Commission that he made more than $200 million
for 14 seasons of work on his popular reality television series.

O’Donnell challenged that amount on Thursday, arguing that other shows were
more profitable than Trump’s.

“It’s a lie, Joe, a complete and total lie,” O’Donnell told host Joe
Scarborough on MSNBC that morning.“Let me explain something to you, Donald
Trump didn’t even make a million dollars in his first year.”

“Trump has been one of the lowest-paid people to have an hour-long show,”
he added.

Trump then bet O’Donnell a year of the MSNBC host’s salary over his
comments, but O’Donnell expressed remorse during Thursday evening’s
broadcast of “The Last Word” for doubting Trump’s sincerity about his
earnings.

“I don’t want the prize for the guy who uses the meanest words in the
debate,” O’Donnell said that night.

“So no, Donald, there won’t be any bet because I would never bet about
anything,” O’Donnell added. “And I might be wrong.”

“He is wrong. He is wrong,” Trump insisted Friday. “I mean, these are
certified numbers.”

“OK, I will not issue a challenge,” Trump told Scarborough and Mika
Brzezinski on “Morning Joe” after hearing O’Donnell had apologized. “Let’s
get on to more important things.”

*Donald Trump making biggest splash on Facebook in Iowa
<http://thehill.com/policy/technology/248351-donald-trump-making-biggest-splash-on-facebook-in-iowa>
// The Hill // David McCabe – July 17, 2015*

Donald Trump is dominating Facebook in Iowa, as many presidential
candidates travel to the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

He generated more interactions — which the company defines as shares,
likes, comments and posts — than any other candidate in the field in the
last week.

From Friday, July 10 until Thursday, July 16, 66,000 people generated
206,000 interactions about Trump. He was followed by former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton (D), who generated 86,000 interactions from 31,000
people.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rounded out the top three, with 17,000 people
generating 57,000 interactions.

Of the candidates who generated measurable data, businesswoman Carly
Fiorina (R) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) made the smallest impact
during the time period examined by Facebook. Both got only 3,000
interactions from 2,000 individuals.

The numbers may indicate who is attracting the public’s attention as the
presidential race heats up. But they do not show whether users are saying
positive or negative things about the candidates.

Fifteen presidential candidates will be in Iowa this weekend, according to
The Des Moines Register, thanks to two major events that gather the
contenders together.

Facebook has become a highly valued tool of campaigns in recent years. In
2012, President Obama’s reelection team accessed the Facebook profiles of
supporters — with their permission — to allow them to target their friends
who might also be supportive of the candidate.

*Fox News Poll: Reshuffling of GOP field, many agree with Trump on
immigration
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/17/fox-news-poll-reshuffling-gop-field-many-agree-with-trump-on-immigration/>
// Fox News // Dana Blanton – July 17, 2015*

The latest Fox News national poll finds another reshuffling in the race for
the 2016 Republican nomination, as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker gets a
post-announcement bump and businessman Donald Trump claims more of the
spotlight.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still dominates the Democratic
race.  Yet the poll also warns trouble may be ahead for her.

Among Republican primary voters, Trump captures 18 percent. He’s closely
followed by Walker at 15 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 14
percent. No one else reaches double-digits.

Support for Trump is up seven percentage points since last month and up 14
points since May.  He’s also the candidate GOP primary voters say they are
most interested in learning more about during the debates.

Walker’s up six points since he officially kicked off his campaign. That
bump gets him back to the support he was receiving earlier this year. In
March, he was also at 15 percent.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul gets eight percent, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio
receives seven percent, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson comes in at six
percent, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee get
four percent a piece.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie launched his campaign June 30.  Even so, he
comes in at three percent -- mostly unchanged from his two percent last
month (June 21-23).  Ohio Gov. John Kasich (who is announcing Tuesday) and
former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum each get two percent.  Businesswoman
Carly Fiorina, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey
Graham, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former New York Gov. George Pataki
each receive one percent or less.

On the Democratic side, Clinton captures 59 percent among Democratic
primary voters compared to 19 percent for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Last month, 61 percent backed Clinton and 15 percent Sanders (June 21-23).
Eight percent would like to see Vice President Joe Biden as the nominee
(he’s undeclared).  Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Rhode
Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb each get one
percent.

But here’s the possible trouble for Clinton in the general election: 70
percent of voters overall say that a candidate who is sometimes less than
honest is a “deal breaker” for their vote -- and a 58-percent majority
believes Clinton’s natural instincts lean more toward “hiding the truth”
than “telling the truth” (33 percent).  Democratic primary voters are more
likely to think her natural instincts lean toward telling the truth (61
percent) -- but even here, 29 percent say Clinton is more prone to hide the
truth.

The Fox poll also asks voters their second choice candidate, which allows
us to look at what happens to the lineup if someone were to drop out.  For
example, if Trump decides to get out, Bush moves to the top spot at 19
percent, followed by Walker at 16 percent, Paul at 9 percent, Rubio at 8
percent, Carson at 7 percent, Cruz at 6 percent, Huckabee at 5 percent,
Christie and Perry at 3 percent, and Fiorina, Kasich and Santorum get 2
percent.

Trump’s June 16 announcement speech included provocative comments on
illegal immigration that people are still talking about a month later,
including the suggestion that the Mexican government is sending criminals
and rapists to the United States.  Whatever the blowback, his views
resonate with many: 44 percent of voters think Trump is “basically right”
on the issue. A 53-percent majority disagrees.  Among Republican primary
voters, 68 percent say he is right.

Immigration

There’s been a major shift in the last five years in how voters want to
handle illegal immigrants currently working in the United States.  Today 64
percent favor setting up a system for them to become legal residents, up
from 49 percent in 2010.  And now 30 percent favor deportation, down from
45 percent five years ago.

Compared to 2010, support for setting up a system for legalization is up 21
points among Democrats, 11 points among independents and 8 points among
Republicans.

The top concerns about illegal immigration are strain on the government
and, increasingly, crime.  The poll shows 55 percent of voters are very
concerned about illegal immigrants overburdening government services.
That’s down from 61 percent who felt that way in 2006.

Fifty percent are very concerned about increased crime associated with
illegal immigration.  That’s up from 39 percent almost 10 years ago.  Views
are about the same when voters are asked about illegal immigration leading
to an increase in terrorism:  50 percent are very concerned, up from 34
percent in 2006.

People also see significant benefits to the country from legal immigration:
43 percent say adding needed skills is a major benefit and another 43
percent feel that way about immigration adding to the entrepreneurial
spirit of the U.S.  About a third thinks a major upside is that legal
immigrants perform jobs that Americans mostly don’t want (35 percent) and
bring new cultures (34 percent).

Pollpourri

Voters are divided over whether Congress should continue to investigate
then-Secretary of State Clinton’s handling of the attack on the U.S.
consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans.  Nearly half -- 47
percent -- want lawmakers to keep investigating Clinton.  A slightly larger
number -- 49 percent -- think it’s time for Congress to move on.

Most Republicans (74 percent) say continue investigating, while most
Democrats (74 percent) say move on. Views among independents split: 47
percent investigate vs. 48 percent move on.

After being on the campaign trail for about a month, how do voters feel
about the Donald?  Fifty-four percent dismiss him as “just a loud mouth.”
Yet just over a third -- 34 percent -- admire Trump because “he’s got
guts.” That jumps to 59 percent among GOP primary voters.

By a 15-point margin, Republican primary voters (82 percent) are more
likely to say they are extremely or very interested in the upcoming
election than Democratic primary voters (67 percent).

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,019
randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the
joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company
Research (R) from July 13-15, 2015. The full poll has a margin of sampling
error of plus or minus three percentage points. The margin of error is
higher among the subgroups of Democratic (+/-5%) and Republican primary
voters (+/-4.5%).

*Donald Trump has rocketed to the top of another new poll*
<http://www.businessinsider.com/poll-donald-trump-leads-gop-primary-2015-7#ixzz3gAA2B5xn>*
// Business Insider // Brett Logiurato – July 17, 2015*

Real-estate magnate Donald Trump is at the top of another new poll of
Republican primary voters nationally.

A Fox News poll released Thursday showed the Republican presidential
candidate Trump leading a crowded GOP primary field, with 18% of the vote.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who announced his entry into the race this
week, also saw a bump. He came in second behind Trump, with 15% of the
vote. Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida is third with 14%.

Trump and Walker made the biggest advances in the Fox poll over the past
month. In a June poll released just before Trump officially announced his
candidacy, he garnered 11% of the vote. Walker last month grabbed 9% of the
GOP vote.

Trump has been at the center of a media firestorm since announcing his
candidacy last month, when he commented that the Mexican government was
sending "rapists" and drug runners to the US. He has since doubled,
tripled, and quadrupled down on those comments — and more — even as several
businesses and organizations have severed ties with him.

But he has spent much of the past month rocketing up in both national and
key early-state polls, and he now finds himself at or near the top of
several of them.

"I am incredibly pleased that my message is resonating with people all over
the United States," Trump said of the Fox News poll in a statement. "There
are so many Americans that are ready to make our country great again, and I
am the only one who can make it happen. We will bring back the jobs, bring
back the money, and bring back the spirit!"

The Fox News poll also found that 44% of all voters — including 70% of
Republicans — said they thought Trump was "basically right" that Mexico was
sending "rapists" and other criminals to the US. And 59% of Republicans
said they admired Trump, compared with 28% who said he was "just a
loudmouth."

The new Fox News poll will most likely be the final one from the network
before it hosts the first Republican presidential debate on August 6. The
top 10 in an average of five recent national polls will make the debate
stage.

Rounding out the top 10 in the GOP primary field:

US Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky — 8%

US Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — 7%

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson — 6%

US Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — 4%

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas — 4%

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey — 3%

Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and former US Sen. Rick Santorum — 2%

*The Trump Bump Will Fade
<http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/opinion-blog/2015/07/17/donald-trumps-poll-bump-will-fade>
// U.S. News & World Report // Jean Card – July 17, 2015*

Prediction: By summer's end, Republican presidential candidate and real
estate mogul Donald Trump will be back where he belongs – at the bottom of
the polls. Bless his heart.

Perhaps more importantly, as the presidential race matures, so will voters’
tastes. A firebrand like Trump may seem delicious at first bite. There is a
frustration and anger among voters, a desire to speak truth to power, flout
the rules and get something done, and Trump has tapped into those emotions.

Indeed, it is always invigorating to hear someone say the things you've
been thinking or feeling, maybe just a little, but were too polite or shy
to say out loud. It's why comedians make us laugh: They say what many of us
have noted or thought, deep down. They allow us to release the thought or
observation, air it out and then move on. Perhaps move forward, to a better
or more grown-up place. Ahem.

Trump's intolerant words felt empowering to many people these last few
weeks. People want to throw a punch – at criminals, at China – but they
can't, so they thought that maybe Trump would do it for them.

But the moment is more likely to be looked back on as one that released
some pressure, allowing voters and commentators to move on to a more
productive dialogue or debate. Because here's the thing: In the real world,
people don't actually follow the guy who throws the punch. We don't think
the guy who escalates the bar fight is a leader. We prefer the guy or gal
who has the maturity and strength to step in and stop the bar fight. We
want to follow and support the person who convinces the brawlers to cool
off.

It's also worth reminding, for some perspective on the Trump Bump, that
this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Many is the
presidential season that has featured an inflammatory, outlier candidate or
two. They burn hot for moment, then fade away. Remember Gene McCarthy.
George Wallace. Pat Buchanan. Jesse Jackson. Howard Dean. Now add Donald
Trump to that list.

Each candidate offered at least one thing that made voters stand up and say
"Yeah!" for a moment. And it felt good. But it didn't last for any of those
guys, and it won't last for Trump.

It is now the challenge of the other Republican candidates to learn from
the Trump phenomenon. What does his moment of popularity say about what
Republican voters might want from a candidate? The great fear, stirred up
by some in the media, is that it means Republican voters might want an
intolerant firebrand. But I don't think that's right. I think Republicans
are interested in someone who doesn't play by the establishment's rules,
and there are plenty of ways to do so that aren't offensive. They may also
be interested in someone who speaks candidly, not in talking-point-ese, and
to that, I simply say hallelujah.

Republican voters also likely admire the way Trump shakes off media
scrutiny and politically-correct hand-wringing. The man doesn't care that
the media thinks he's a bigot, just as he doesn't care that they constantly
pick on his ridiculous hairstyle. In these ways, he embodies confidence.
And confidence – in moderation – is a leadership trait.

Smart, mature candidates will recognize that Trump hit a nerve, then figure
out a way to put that page in their own playbook. Over-eager candidates
will try to imitate Trump or disavow him too aggressively. Both tactics are
likely to fail or at least fall flat, which could narrow the field. And
wouldn't that be interesting?

*Donald Trump says a U.S.-Mexico border wall is 'not even a difficult
project'
<http://theweek.com/speedreads/567065/senator-wants-make-sure-kids-walk-school-alone-without-getting-picked-by-cops>
// The Week // Sarah Eberspacher – July 17, 2015*

Donald Trump says Donald Trump is "considered a great builder, by
everybody," and the GOP presidential hopeful does have a few towers to his
name. So why not add a comprehensive U.S.-Mexico border wall to the
portfolio?

"It's not even a difficult project if you know what you're doing," Trump
told The Washington Post in a Thursday interview. "And no one knows what
they're doing like I do."

Trump's calls for tighter border security have recently landed him in hot
water: During his campaign kickoff speech in June, Trump described Mexican
immigrants as "rapists,” and said they are responsible for rising drug and
crime rates in the United States. But Trump later told NBC News that
despite his rhetoric he has a "great relationship with the Mexican people"
— which should serve him well in his plan to pay for the proposed border
wall.

"[Convincing the Mexican government to pay for the wall] is realistic if
you know something about the art of negotiating," Trump told the Post. "If
you have a bunch of clowns negotiating, it's not realistic."

While a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border might be more, well, realistic,
Trump says a wall is better.

"It's much more powerful," he explained. "It's taller."

*Who, exactly, is voting for Donald Trump?
<http://theweek.com/speedreads/567065/senator-wants-make-sure-kids-walk-school-alone-without-getting-picked-by-cops>
// The Week // Becca Stanek – July 17, 2015*

Even pollsters are baffled by who, exactly, is supporting Donald Trump. The
real estate mogul has risen to the top of GOP polls in recent weeks,
earning the support of 17 percent of Republican voters. Thing is, while the
rise of Trump supporters is pretty clear, it's hazy where these supporters
are from and who they are. "It's a strange coalition of people," Patrick
Murray of Monmouth University told Politico. "We can't pin them down
demographically. ... It appears he's cherry-picked individual voters."

As Politico puts it, "The Trump coalition looks a lot like the rest of the
Republican Party." It might skew more white and more male, but not notably
so. A recent Monmouth University poll reveals, if anything, Trump
supporters tend to simply be "middle Americans." "They're in the middle of
the Republican Party. They're not evangelicals. They're not hardline social
or fiscal conservatives. They're also not on the liberal side of the
party," Murray explained.

So then, what's driving Trump's appeal? Trump's New Hampshire co-chairman,
Steve Stepanek, says it can be broken down into two things: "The issues
that are driving the average Trump voter are, first and foremost, that he's
not a politician. Secondly, he is self-funding his campaign, so he can't be
bought." For people tired of Washington spin, they like that Trump simply
says what's on his mind.

*Donald Trump: ‘John McCain was very disloyal to me,’ ‘made a big mistake’
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/17/donald-trump-john-mccain-was-very-disloyal-me-made/?>
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski – July 17, 2015*

Donald Trump on Friday said Sen. John McCain of Arizona was “very disloyal”
to him and predicted Mr. McCain would lose in a GOP primary if the right
challenger runs against him.

“Well first of all, let me tell you, I supported John McCain. He let us
down because he lost but, you know, it was a hard one after what had
happened with the economy,” Mr. Trump said via phone on MSNBC’s “Morning
Joe.” “But I supported him, raised a lot of money for him … and I’m a
loyalist. I’m a person that … if somebody is with me, I’m with that person.
And John McCain was very disloyal to me, number one, this is the first time
I’ve spoken to him in a long time.”

Mr. McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, spoke about Mr. Trump’s
recent rally in Arizona in a interview published in The New Yorker this
week.

“This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me,”
Mr. McCain said. “Because what he did was he fired up the crazies.”

Mr. Trump, who is leading the 2016 GOP presidential field in two recent
polls, said he had 15,000 people come to the recent rally in Arizona and
said that “they weren’t crazies — they were great Americans.”

Local reports pegged the crowd actually inside at the Phoenix Convention
Center at several thousand, but Mr. Trumptweeted July 12: “Convention
Center officials in Phoenix don’t want to admit that they broke the fire
code by allowing 12-15,000 people in 4,000 code room.”

“I know crazies, believe me — these were great Americans,”

Mr. Trump said Friday. “And they wanted to know about illegal immigration.
It’s killing them. Illegal immigration is really hurting these people,
especially when you’re talking about Arizona and Phoenix, and we had an
amazing group of people, and when he called them crazies, I think he will
lose in the primary.”

“If the right person runs against him, they’ll win. … He’s not very popular
there, anyway,” Mr. Trump continued.

GOP State Sen. Kelli Ward announced earlier this week she is challenging
Mr. McCain, who handily defeated former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth in a 2010
primary.

A McCain spokesman said in response to Ms. Ward’s announcement that
“Arizonans know that John McCain will never stop fighting for Arizona and
America, as he has his entire adult life, both in uniform and in Congress.”

“Senator McCain looks forward to this campaign, and to discussing his
strong record of protecting America’s national security, standing up for
veterans, and growing Arizona’s economy,” spokesman Brian Rogers said.

Mr. Trump also went after Mr. McCain’s academic record at the U.S. Naval
Academy, tweeting on Thursday: “@SenJohnMcCain should be defeated in the
primaries. Graduated last in his class at Annapolis — dummy!”

“We ended up with 15,000 people and they were great Americans, they were
great people, and John McCain calls them crazies. I think it’s
inappropriate,” Mr. Trump said.

“So, of course, I brought up a point that very few people know that he was
just about or last [in his class] at Annapolis, and why not? He was very
nasty to me,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump has also traded barbs recently with fellow presidential
contenders former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

“My attitude is this: if a person is nice to me, I will go out of my way to
be nice to that person,” he said, pointing to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, one
of his rivals in the presidential race who has backed him up on the issue
of illegal immigration, as an example.

“Ted Cruz came out totally and strongly in favor of me. I don’t forget
things like that. I think it was very nice,” Mr. Trump said.

“John McCain made a big mistake,” he said. “I think John McCain will lose
in the primary if somebody good runs against him.”

*Inside the Mind of a Trump Donor: ‘I Was Probably Drunk’
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/17/the-63-real-humans-who-donated-250-or-more-to-donald-trump.html>
// The Daily Beast // Olivia Nuzzi – July 17, 2015*

You learn a few things, calling the 63 individuals who donated more than
$250 to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign—helping him pull in a total of
$96,000 in the 29 days since his June 16 announcement, according to the
financial disclosure he released Wednesday evening.

You learn, for instance, that President Obama, who is an African-born
Muslim, wouldn’t help you if you were kidnapped in Iran, that not all
undocumented Mexican immigrants are rapists but many of them may be, that
it’s unfair to expect billionaires to use their own money to run for office
when less wealthy candidates aren’t expected to, and that the willingness
to file for bankruptcy multiple times is a sign of a great businessman. But
what you learn, most of all, is that the characters propelling America’s
greatest political curiosity upward in the polls are a lot like the man
himself.

The day started with Francine Aton, 62, Michigan, retired.

“You work for The Daily Beast—which is a more left-wing web-magazine,” she
began. “I don’t want something to come out that’s slanted.”

Aton, who said she has a degree in journalism, has little patience for
reporters and detects liberal bias in the most innocuous of statements.

Asked why she supports Trump (to the tune of $250), she said, “Because he
speaks the truth, he’s honest, and he can’t be bought.” So she likes him, I
said, because he’s wealthy and that means—“Listen to how you just slanted
that question!” she cut me off. “Is Hillary wealthy? Yes, she is!” Well,
what I meant was—“Just say what you mean! You’re slanting your story.”

I explained that all I was trying to do was figure out why she supports
Trump. “Why do you support him?” she asked. Uh, I don’t, I said. “Donald
speaks the truth. Thank you, goodbye.”

She hung up.

Next was Timothy Doody, 51, Colorado, real estate appraiser.

“I don’t know,” he said when I asked why he donated $500 to Trump. “I don’t
know why I do half the things I do. I was probably drunk.”

He laughed. “I’m just kidding. I just think it’s refreshing…I just wanted
to make a statement, that’s all.”

Doody explained that he’s a “conservative-leaning person” but a registered
Democrat. Mostly, he sighed, “I just am fed up with politicians. I do know
[Trump’s] negatives and I do know what he’s done as far as supporting
Democrats via his corporations and supporting both parties.” But at the end
of the day, Doody said, he liked that Trump could “rabble-rouse” and “make
waves.”

Trump’s position on immigration, Doody admitted, was the central reason he
made the donation, but he also believes Trump is the best person to repair
the economy and to change the course of American foreign policy for the
better.

And speaking of immigration, “The other candidates totally took his words
out of context,” Doody said, referring to Trump’s claim that undocumented
immigrants coming into America from Mexico are “rapists.” Doody said he
listened to Trump’s statement “probably 10 times” to see if he had missed
it, but in the end came to the conclusion that “he didn’t call all Mexicans
rapists.”

In Trump’s absence, Doody guessed he could find another candidate to
support. “Probably Ted Cruz, Governor Walker, maybe, and Rand Paul…I don’t
understand Jeb Bush.”

Then came Damien Drab, 41, New York City, CEO of Loughlin Management, a
company that “delivers a broad range of operational and financial
consulting services with a results-oriented approach,” as opposed to all
those consulting firms who strive for no results at all.

I told Drab I wanted to talk about his $500 donation to the Trump campaign.
He laughed. “Good, I hope that helps with my golf club membership.”

Is he a member of a Trump golf club? “Uh, I can’t comment on anything,
really,” he said. “I have one statement and that’s: Why should anyone use
their personal money for public affairs?”

Further, Drab went on, it is “unfair” and “ignorant” to tell Trump he needs
to use his personal wealth for his race when “everybody else who runs gets
contributions.” Because “there’s no inherent personal wealth risk for
people who run,” Drab said, there shouldn’t be one for a billionaire,
either. Whether he needs the money is irrelevant, Drab argued, because “if
you believe in Trump, you should contribute.”

Next was Mike McNerney, 73, California, funeral service provider.

“He’s the greatest thing running,” McNerney said when I asked about his
$500 donation to Trump, which he called “just a show of support.”

“I think he’s gonna win,” he told me. “I think he has a pretty good chance.
I mean, people are outraged at the way Obama Hussein has run this country.”

McNerney said he likes Trump “because he’s nonpolitical. He tells it like
it is. He’s truthful, and he has more experience than being a short-term
senator before he became president.” What kind of experience does Trump
have, I asked. “At life and management, and I’m sure he has more foreign
experience, which Obama Hussein has ruined.”

McNerney agrees with Trump on immigration “absolutely, 1,000 percent,” and
believes those expressing disapproval of his statements are “manipulating
the press for the benefit of opposition against any sensible immigration
policy that comes along.”

I asked McNerney, who repeatedly referred to the president as “Obama
Hussein,” if he thought Obama was Muslim. He said, “I know he is.” I asked
if he thought Obama was born in America. He replied, “No, I don’t. Probably
Africa.” Where in Africa, I wondered. “Wherever his father and his white
mother were living.” Kenya? “You got it,” he said.

And Dr. Dane Wallisch, 64, Pennsylvania, radiologist.

“Why did I do it?” Wallisch said when I asked about his $2,700 check to
Trump’s campaign. “I think he would be a very strong leader, and I think
that’s what we need now. I have very similar beliefs to Donald Trump. I
agree with him on just about everything.”

Wallisch agreed with Doody that “the immigration thing, I think, the media
took that way out of context.”

He explained that having lived in Mexico for a time, he knows that the
government there is corrupt. “Of course there’s good Mexican people, but
there’s bad with the good,” he said. And the unsecured border, he told me,
is “an open door for terrorists, as well.”

“Trump just speaks what’s on his mind and I like that,” he said. “I think
it’s refreshing. It’s time people say what they felt rather than just what
people want to hear.” Wallisch apologized for “getting on my soapbox here,”
but admitted it was hard to avoid when talking about Trump. “I like him and
I hope he becomes president.”

Why donate to a billionaire, though, I wondered. It’s not like he needs it.
“True, probably true,” Wallisch said. “But that was my way of saying, ‘I
support you.’”

Without Trump, Wallisch said he was sure he could find another candidate to
support. “I think there’s a lot of good people running this year. I like
Ben Carson—you know who Ben Carson is, right? I like Rand Paul, but he
won’t make it. Scott Walker. Bush is all right, but three Bushes? I don’t
know. Makes me a little leery.”

*Donald Trump Campaign Headquarters Illustrates Complicated Campaign
Finance Rules
<http://www.ibtimes.com/election-2016-donald-trump-campaign-headquarters-illustrates-complicated-campaign-2012657>
// IB Times // Ginger Gibson – July 17, 2015*

WASHINGTON -- There is really only one place that anyone could imagine
Donald Trump would headquarter his campaign: the Trump Tower on Fifth
Avenue in New York City. The 68-floor skyscraper bears his name in bold
letters. It’s the set of his reality television show. It’s where he rode
the escalator to deliver his announcement speech. And it’s one of the most
iconic -- or at least most emphatically branded -- buildings in the city.

But having Trump's small campaign staff working out of his building isn't
all that simple. Federal campaign finance laws don’t allow a candidate to
use office space without paying rent, even if they own the company that
owns the building. It's clear that Trump's campaign and company are closely
intertwined. The phone number to contact Trump's campaign is the same
number that has appeared on several of his real estate company's press
releases.

“It’s unusual in the sense in that you have a candidate who owns this much
property, but the law does deal with the issue of a candidate owning a
building and renting themselves office space,” said Lawrence Noble, a
former FEC general counsel who is now senior counsel at the nonpartisan
Campaign Legal Center. “The scope of this may be unusual."

The Trump campaign says they're following all the rules. “We pay fair
market value for our office space,” campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told
International Business Times.

That would appear to create an unusual circle of payments.

So far, Trump’s campaign has largely been dependent on his own money.
According to his FEC filings, Trump has loaned his campaign $1.8 million.
There is no limit on how much a candidate can donate or lend to his own
campaign. His campaign, in turn, is making monthly payments to Trump Tower
Commercial for an expense marked “rent” at a rate of $9,583.33 a month.
Trump’s company is a privately held operation, so after expenses and taxes,
presumably some of that rent goes back to Trump in the form of profits.

But if Trump’s campaign weren’t paying rent to his company, he would be in
violation of the rule. Simply allowing the campaign to use the office space
free of charge would be considered an in-kind contribution and violate
prohibitions on corporate donations.

(If Trump -- or any candidate -- used his own home for his campaign
headquarters, he wouldn't need to pay himself rent: That would be
considered a personal in-kind donation and subject to no limits under
campaign finance laws.)

“If a campaign uses the facilities of a corporation or labor organization,
the campaign must reimburse the organization within a commercially
reasonable time and at the usual and normal rental charge,” FEC spokeswoman
Judith Ingram explained. “Use of facilities may include, for example, the
use of telephones, typewriters or office furniture. It is also advisable
that payment be made to the corporation or organization in advance in order
to avoid a prohibited contribution from the organization.”

Trump's surge to the front of the polls has likely brought campaign
donations into his coffers. He could eventually pay rent to his own company
with donor money.

That's not unheard of. Congressional candidates frequently rent space that
their businesses own to their campaigns, said Noble. Candidates must simply
pay the market rate for the space. If the campaign pays too little, then
use of the space can be considered an in-kind donation. If the campaign
pays too much, the candidate could be accused of using donor money for
personal gain.

The going rate for commercial real estate in Trump Tower is between $75 and
$100 a square foot, according to Michael Cohen of the real estate company
Colliers International. Those rates can vary according to a number of
factors, including condition, views, floor level and length of the lease.
Trump's campaign HQ staff consists of only a couple of people so the space
involved may be relatively small.

Other candidates also have to deal with real estate issues and FEC
compliance, of course. Hillary Clinton's campaign is renting office space
in Brooklyn, opting not to add any additions to the shabby interior to keep
costs down. Jeb Bush's campaign headquarters is in Miami. With a much
larger staff than Trump, his campaign has made one rent payment for
$77,739.76. The campaign also made a $145,308 deposit for his rent.

But Trump is one of the few presidential candidates to still be actively
running a corporation. Mitt Romney had left business by the time he ran for
president. The last active business leader to run for president was Ross
Perot, who ran in 1992 and 1996 -- before the 2002 McCain-Feingold law
placed stricter limits on “soft money” in campaigns.

*Donald Trump Tops Third GOP Poll This Month
<http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/07/17/donald_trump_in_first_place_fox_news_poll_third_this_month_to_show_trump.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_bot>
// Slate // Josh Voorhees – July 17, 2015*

Another national poll, another pole position for Donald Trump. The
once-and-future reality television star is in first place in a new Fox News
survey that was released Friday. With the support of 17 percent of
Republican primary voters, Trump led Scott Walker by 3 points and Jeb Bush
by 4 in the survey. The poll's margin of error, though, was plus or minus
4.5 points, so the GOP establishment can take some solace in the fact that
all three men are in a statistical tie for the top spot. The full results:

1.) Donald Trump, 18 percent

2.) Scott Walker, 15 percent

3.) Jeb Bush, 14 percent

4.) Rand Paul, 8 percent

5.) Marco Rubio, 7 percent

6.) Ben Carson, 6 percent

7t.) Ted Cruz, 4 percent

7t.) Mike Huckabee, 4 percent

9.) Chris Christie, 3 percent

10t.) John Kasich, 2 percent

10t.) Rick Santorum, 2 percent

12.) Rick Perry, 1 percent

Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, and George Pataki were all shut out.

Trump’s up 7points from where he was in the same poll taken three weeks
earlier (in which he was second to Bush). His strong showing in the survey
comes on the heels of a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released earlier
this week that had him in first place with 17 percent support to Bush’s 14
percent, and a YouGov/Economist poll released last week that had him with a
4-point lead, 15 percent to 11 percent, on both Bush and Rand Paul. Trump’s
lead in both polls was also within the surveys’ respective margins of error.

In the current RealClearPolitics polling average (which does not include
the YouGov survey), Trump sits in second place with 15 percent, a
half-point behind Bush and 6 full points ahead of Walker. In the Huffington
Post’s rolling average, meanwhile, Trump sits in first place with 17.4
percent, 3.1 points ahead of Bush and 9.4 points ahead of Walker.

Outside of Internet comment sections, no one thinks The Donald’s lead will
last. But when combined with his required (although not necessarily
expected) release of his FEC financial disclosure this week, it does mean
he is now pretty much a lock to make it onstage at the first GOP
presidential debate, which will be hosted by Fox News in Cleveland on Aug.
6.

*The Case for Covering Trump
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/07/donald_trump_coverage_why_it_s_important_for_journalists_to_cover_his_bigoted.html>
// Slate // Josh Voorhees – July 17, 2015*

First things first: Donald Trump is a vitriol-spewing, media-manipulating,
self-aggrandizing, bigoted publicity hound who has no realistic chance of
winning the Republican nomination next summer or any other. While a growing
number of national polls currently have the once-and-future reality
television star atop a historically crowded GOP field, Trump’s candidacy is
destined to fade away just as countless other novelty candidates have in
primaries past.

None of that, however, is any reason for the media not to seriously cover
Trump’s campaign today. The Donald may be a Twitter troll in a $5,000
Brioni suit, but he’s also the avatar of choice for a significant subset of
the American electorate who sees themselves in his particular brand of
belligerence. That view and those voters won’t disappear when Trump does.
The press ignores that fact at its own peril—and at the public’s own loss.

Advertisement

On Friday, the Huffington Post announced that from this point forth it will
relegate its coverage of all things Trump to its entertainment section.
“Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the
bait,” editorial director Danny Shea and Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim
wrote in a note to readers of one of the largest news outlets in the
nation. “If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find
it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.”

The Huffington Post so far stands alone in officially declaring itself
above Trump as a news story, but it’s clear there are plenty of working
journalists who would be happy if their bosses made a similar decision.
Politico’s Ben White, to pick but one example, made his feelings known
Thursday. “Trump’s time in the lead will fade as the debates begin and the
Republican Party starts to get serious,” White argued. “And then all this
coverage of the big-mouth billionaire will be exposed as largely
ridiculous.” (As someone who is paid to write about the campaign every day,
I’ve been guilty of my own type of Trump dismissal; I began much of my
early coverage of Trump’s campaign with the word Ugh, a knowing wink meant
to make it clear that I, too, would prefer to be writing about more
traditional candidates.)

Such arguments against spilling digital ink on Trump are built on the idea
that he can’t win the nomination. That premise is correct, but the
conclusion that follows—The media shouldn’t waste its resources covering
him—is false. For evidence, we have to look no further than those very same
candidates that Trump dismissers rightly point to as proof that his time
leading the GOP field will be short lived: Herman Cain and Sarah Palin.

Both Cain and Palin spent time at or near the top of national polls four
years ago but flamed out soon after. Does the fact that the pair ended up
with zero primary or caucus victories between them mean the media should
have ignored them from the get-go? Hardly. Their rise was an important
story line in the 2012 election. They provided clear evidence of
conservative skepticism of Mitt Romney, while also reminding the GOP
establishment that primary voters crave simplicity in message. For Cain,
reforming the U.S. tax code was as simple as “9-9-9”; for Palin, addressing
the nation’s energy needs was as simple as “Drill, baby, drill.” Four years
later, Trump has surged past the establishment favorites by adding his own
simplistic policy plank to the conservative platform: the promise of
solving our immigration problems by building a fence along the Mexican
border that we won’t even have to pay for.

Cain, meanwhile, is a particularly helpful example of why these
flash-in-the-pan candidates require immediate coverage. It was the
increased scrutiny that the press provided that ultimately spelled his
downfall. (The same could be said for Palin’s disastrous vice presidential
run in 2008.) Without that all-in coverage, voters would have never known
that Cain was unable to answer basic foreign policy questions or that he
faced a series of troubling sexual harassment allegations. It was only by
treating the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO as a legitimate candidate that
the press was able to prove that he wasn’t one.

Similar vetting of Trump has yet to erode his support, but without it his
faulty and xenophobic claims about immigrants would have gone unrefuted,
and his hypocritical business dealings would have remained unrevealed. Yes,
the deluge of free press is responsible for some of Trump’s rise, but in
the long run it will also be what is responsible for his demise. Meanwhile,
intentionally ignoring Trump—who had the support to qualify for the Fox
News debate even before the current media storm—would risk having the
opposite of the intended effect: A lack of serious scrutiny from the
mainstream media wouldn’t cut short Trump’s ongoing infomercial—it would
prolong it.

If the media took as its mission the task of only covering candidates who
have a realistic shot at winning their party’s nomination, then countless
more legitimate candidates would also need to be ignored as well. Sorry,
Ted Cruz. See you later, John Kasich. This
if-they-can’t-win-we’re-not-covering-them logic doesn’t seem to have been
applied to conservative candidates in the past either and for good reason.
Ron Paul was never going to win the GOP nomination in 2008, yet his
campaign was one of the first clear signs of the emerging strength of the
libertarian wing of his party.

Likewise, a similar dynamic is playing out this year on the opposite end of
the spectrum: first with Elizabeth Warren and now with Bernie Sanders. The
former was adamant she was never going to run for the Democratic
nomination, and the latter has almost no shot of defeating Hillary Clinton
in the primary. Yet what they do and say on the stump clearly matters for
the future of the Democratic Party.

The press might not like it, but Trump, too, is already shaping the 2016
election. He’s now a lock to crash the first Republican presidential
debate, where he’ll force establishment favorites like Jeb Bush and Marco
Rubio outside of their comfort zones on immigration. Both men can still
play the grown-up card, but how they choose to interact with Trump will
help decide whether they ultimately win over the immigration hardliners in
their own party and if they’re even willing to try.

Trump’s current surge also raises interesting questions about what it is
the GOP base wants the face of its party to look like; his popular
retrograde rhetoric is a counterpoint to the argument that voters want
Republicans to rediscover their compassionate sides. And in the longer
term, his rise embodies the larger challenge facing the Republican Party:
Will it evolve in the face of inescapable demographic trends? Or will it
continue to ignore them? It stands to reason that those questions are ones
that campaign journalists would be interested in.

None of that is to say all Trump coverage is good Trump coverage. When TV
reporter after TV reporter after TV reporter asks Trump whether he wants to
apologize for branding Mexican immigrants as rapists and murderers, they’re
not hoping he backs down, and they aren’t setting him up for a fact-based
challenge either. They’re simply hoping he says something even more
jaw-dropping, handing them a viral video clip in the process. Of course the
media fails when it goes chasing clicks only for the sake of clicks. But we
can’t fix a series of smaller journalistic errors by committing a larger
one.

*WALKER*

*Republican Doublethink on Mass Shootings: Scott Walker Edition
<http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/republican-doublethink-on-mass-shootings-scott-walker-edition/>
// NYT // Andrew Rosenthal – July 17, 2015*

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who recently joined the Republican
primary carnival in an “official” way, says the government should
reauthorize the Patriot Act in response to the murder of four Marines in
Chattanooga, Tenn., by a 24-year-old gunman.

And he suggested that changing a policy that stops military personnel from
carrying weapons in certain civilian areas would have prevented the attack.
Those policies “are outdated,” Mr. Walker said on Fox News, because the
United States is “at war and radical Islamic terrorism is our enemy.”

After a career criminal who had illegally entered the United States killed
a San Francisco woman on July 1, Bill O’Reilly demanded that Congress pass
a law that would impose mandatory sentences on people who repeatedly enter
the country illegally and members of the right-wing Republican caucus in
the House eagerly responded.

The idea was that such a law, along with another proposal to strip cities
of federal funds if their police are not required to turn over all
undocumented people to the federal government, would prevent shootings like
the one in San Francisco.

This leaves me a little confused.

After any highly publicized killing – like the murders in Charleston, or
Newtown, or in any number of other places — advocates of gun control call
for greater restrictions on the sale and use of firearms. And people on the
right, like Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Walker, reliably respond by saying that no
law could have prevented those killings.

So, which is it? Can no law stop a determined person from killing another
human being? Or can laws do that? It would be inconsistent, if not
hypocritical, to take both positions, so there must be some logical
explanation.

Mr. Walker and the Fox host Megyn Kelly tut-tutted about the fact that
President Obama did not immediately call the Chattanooga killer a Muslim
terrorist. They had no idea at the time whether that was true, but the
point of the exchange was to attack Mr. Obama. They used it to revive
another favorite talking point – that the president did not quickly label
the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi as a terrorist
attack (even though he actually did).

Oddly enough – or maybe not oddly at all – Mr. Walker called the murder of
nine African Americans in a Charleston church a “racist” and “evil” act,
but neither he, nor any other Republican candidate or public figure that I
can find called it an act of terrorism, which is precisely what it was.

Senator Lindsey Graham, another Republican presidential poser, called it
“racial jihadism,” but that was mainly to deflect attention from the real
motivations for the murders and toss that “jihad” word out there.

I’m sure there is a logical explanation for that, too.

*One Subject Scott Walker Won’t Talk About: Donald Trump
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/17/one-subject-scott-walker-wont-talk-about-donald-trump/>
// WSJ // Reid J. Epstein – July 17, 2015*

DAVENPORT, Iowa – A lot of people are talking about Donald Trump, but Scott
Walker is determined not to be one of them.

The Wisconsin governor, kicking off a three-day tour of Iowa, continued to
parry questions about the billionaire New York developer’s strident
anti-illegal immigration rhetoric, which has propelled Mr. Trump to the top
of the 2016 Republican presidential polls. While attention-starved
lower-tier candidates like Rick Perry and Lindsey Graham – along with
former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is making a concerted appeal to Hispanic
voters — have condemned Mr. Trump’s remarks, Mr. Walker affirmed Friday
that he won’t take the bait.

“What I’ve said is that Donald Trump can speak for himself,” Mr. Walker
told reporters after addressing supporters at a minor league ballpark here.
“I’m going to answer questions about my positions, not about Donald Trump’s
or Jeb Bush’s or Marco Rubio or anybody else out there.”

Plenty of others are speaking about Mr. Trump. Facebook data released
Friday showed twice as many Iowans discussing Mr. Trump on the social
network than any other 2016 presidential candidate. Nearly five times as
many Iowans are talking about Mr. Trump on Facebook than Mr. Walker.

Mr. Walker made it clear he would not share his thoughts about Mr. Trump’s
rise.

“If you want to ask me again, I’ll give you the same answer 50 more times,”
Mr. Walker said. “So if you want to waste your time on that question, go
ahead.”

Earlier, during a brief interview at the nearby Quad City International
Airport across the Mississippi River in Moline, Ill., he expressed surprise
at recent polls.

“Who would have thought this week’s polls would be where they’re at a
couple months ago,” Mr. Walker said. “A lot of things are going to be
surprising throughout the next year. Our key is we just want to get our
message out. If we do that we’ll be in the thick of it no matter who else
is in it.”

*Donald Trump continues rise, Scott Walker gets bump
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/politics/donald-trump-poll-2016-elections/>
// CNN // Tom LoBianco and Jennifer Agiesta – July 17, 2015*

Washington (CNN)Republican voters' support for real estate mogul Donald
Trump continues to grow, according to a new national poll out Friday.

Trump led the pack of 16 major-name Republican candidates with 18 percent
of likely Republican primary voters saying they would vote for the blustery
billionaire and former reality TV star, up from 11% who supported him in a
June survey. The Fox News poll, conducted earlier this week, also saw
Wisconsin Gov. Scot Walker jump to second place in the field, following his
formal announcement this past Monday, with support from 15 percent of
likely voters.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush maintained a steady following, holding 14
percent of support from voters. While the rest of the candidates polled in
the single-digits, 9 percent of voters said they were still undecided and 4
percent chose none of the above.

Aside from simple jockeying, polling has a more immediate function in this
contest: it will decide which 10 candidates make it on stage for the first
Republican debate and which seven are shuffled off to a second-tier debate.

Fox News, which will host the first Republican debate next month in
Cleveland, has said it will pick the top 10 candidates based on an average
of the five most recent national polls. But it has not said precisely which
polls will be used.

Trump currently ranks among those who would most likely appear onstage if
the debate were held today, and the poll finds he's the candidate
Republicans are most likely to want to see on the stage. When asked which
of the GOP candidates they are most interested in learning about during the
debates, 18% chose trump, 12% Walker, 11% Bush and 8% Marco Rubio.

Among the field, Trump has been the most willing to blast fellow
Republicans, most vociferously Bush -- jabbing repeatedly, with assertions
like Bush "couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag."

In the Democratic primary, the Fox poll found Hillary Clinton continues to
hold a comfortable lead over liberal insurgent Bernie Sanders. Among likely
voters in the Democratic primary, 59 percent picked Clinton and 19 percent
backed Sanders. Other Democratic contenders, including former Maryland Gov.
Martin O'Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and former Sen.
Jim Webb, are still struggling to find any traction in the field.

The poll came from cell phone and landline telephone interviews with 389
likely Republican voters July 13-15. On the Democratic side, Fox News spoke
to 382 likely Democratic primary voters.

*Walker Expectations High as He Tours Iowa This Weekend
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-17/walker-expectations-high-as-he-tours-iowa-this-weekend>
// Bloomberg // John McCormick – July 17, 2015*

Near a mighty river that shares its banks with his neighboring state,
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker launched his first Iowa campaign swing as a
declared presidential candidate with a Winnebago and high expectations for
his performance there.

No state is more critical to Walker's future than Iowa, where strong early
polling has built expectations to the point that anything short of a win in
the state's lead-off Feb. 1 caucuses could be viewed as a loss.

Underscoring its importance, the Republican from the other bank of the
Mississippi River is spending three days in the state -- triple that of any
other he visited during his campaign rollout week. On Sunday, he plans to
visit his boyhood community of Plainfield, Iowa, a not-so-subtle reminder
to the state's Republicans that he considers himself one of them.

During a speech to about 200 people at a minor league baseball stadium in
Mississippi River town of Davenport, Walker showed he's learned some Iowa
political slang, while also demonstrating he has more to learn.

"We're going to do the Full Grassley," he said in a nod to his commitment
to visit all of the state's counties, something U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley
typically does every year.

"We're going to visit all 99 counties in this state between now and the
caucus next year," Walker added, using the singular instead of the plural
caucuses that locals typically use in describing the individual meetings in
more than 1,700 precincts.

Walker also retold an anecdote he first used in mid-May that now provides
him a first-class political pander to Iowans. It's about how the Plainfield
city hall lacked an Iowa flag when he was growing up in the mid 1970s,
prompting him and his brother to raise money for one. Walker's mother kept
the original flag and a photo of her boys with it.

"Aren't moms great?" Walker asked the audience.

Walker said his brother, David, plans to join him for part of the Iowa
tour. Also along for the ride, as they have been since his Monday
announcement in Wisconsin, are his wife, Tonette, and sons, Matt and Alex.

Asked if he has any concerns about expectations being too high for him in
Iowa, Walker brought up his experience as a high-school track runner.

"My coach used to say it’s a lot easier to win if you're ahead," he said.
"In the end, we know there's a lot of time, a lot can happen between now
and then. We're just going to stay focused, day by day, week by week,
getting our message out."

Walker said he hopes to "at least to be first, second or third" in all the
early states.

A Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll in May showed Walker
backed by 17 percent of likely Republican caucus participants, well ahead
all others in the field.

Beyond Iowa, Walker is also starting to build a plan for a Republican
primary that goes past February and the initial contests in Iowa, New
Hampshire and South Carolina. On Wednesday, he visited Georgia, a state
that will host a March 1 primary. Plans are also in the works for visits to
Tennessee and other states that hold contests on that date.

*Scott Walker Inquiry Shows the Danger of Secrecy
<http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-17/scott-walker-inquiry-shows-the-danger-of-secrecy>
// Bloomberg // Megan McArdle – July 17, 2015*

In 2010, Wisconsin convened a "John Doe" investigation into the misuse of
funds in the Milwaukee county executive's office. In the state, a judge can
allow prosecutors to carry out a John Doe investigation, requiring secrecy
from everyone involved. Stuart Taylor explains: "This 'gag order'
provision, almost unique in American law, effectively disables targets or
witnesses from publicly defending themselves or responding to damaging
leaks." In 2012, this somehow spawned a second John Doe probe of Wisconsin
conservative groups, who were accused of illegally coordinating with
Governor Scott Walker's campaign, as he tried to hold his office during the
recall election.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has finally ended that investigation, which has
been stalled for many long months as its targets sued their way through the
courts. The ruling mostly relied on technical legal questions: Was the
campaign finance statute upon which prosecutors relied unconstitutionally
vague? (Yes.) Did Judge Gregory Peterson, the second judge to supervise
this investigation, step outside of his remit when he quashed subpoenas and
effectively ended the investigation? (No.) Did the judges and prosecutor
act wrongly when they accepted their jobs running this investigation?
(Also, no.)

But the summation is brutal. It seems clear that the Wisconsin Supreme
Court would like to make a broader ruling targeting the behavior of the
prosecutors (which you can read about here), and the court's decision fires
a few well-placed shots in that direction:

It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of
law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly
innocent of any wrongdoing. In other words, the special prosecutor was the
instigator of a "perfect storm" of wrongs that was visited upon the
innocent Unnamed Movants and those who dared to associate with them. It is
fortunate, indeed, for every other citizen of this great State who is
interested in the protection of fundamental liberties that the special
prosecutor chose as his targets innocent citizens who had both the will and
the means to fight the unlimited resources of an unjust prosecution.
Further, these brave individuals played a crucial role in presenting this
court with an opportunity to re-endorse its commitment to upholding the
fundamental right of each and every citizen to engage in lawful political
activity and to do so free from the fear of the tyrannical retribution of
arbitrary or capricious governmental prosecution. Let one point be clear:
our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation.

I found myself nodding along at every word. This investigation never should
have taken place. This would be true if conservatives are correct that the
investigation's amoeboid spread and pattern of selective leaks indicate a
politically motivated prosecutor doing his best to take down a
controversial Republican governor. It would still be true if we are looking
at merely one more instance where a special prosecutor roamed out of
control, dizzy with a superheroic mandate to hunt down all malefactors
wherever they might be found. Either way, the fundamental problem is the
same: Government power gone wildly beyond the limits of common sense.

I am not quite libertarian enough to think that there is no place for
secret investigations in our legal system. Is the FBI investigating a
terrorist cell that is likely to steal softly and silently away into the
night if they are notified that their banker is onto them? Will publishing
the warrants in open court reveal intelligence "sources and methods" that
will degrade our ability to keep track of terrorists? OK, there is probably
a case for some sort of secrecy. Are you investigating a cartel that might
start shooting witnesses at any moment? I grant you the need for
discretion. Do you need a 48-hour gag order so that the very dangerous
people you are targeting will not be able to destroy all the evidence of
their wrongdoing? Fair enough.

But what possible reason can there be for be for slapping gag orders on
people who are accused of ... possibly coordinating their issue ads too
closely with a governor's office? And doing so after you have already
broken down the doors of their homes with battering rams to collect every
scrap of paper or electronics in sight? You can almost hear the
prosecutors' logic: "These suspects' dangerous allies must not be allowed
to find out about the case, lest they smite our great citizenry with white
papers and YouTube videos and strongly worded billboards!"

If prosecutors truly thought the investigation needed to be secret, they
would have kept it secret -- not allowed news of it to leak out.
Conveniently in time for Democrats to use it in their campaign materials.
This is one of the dangers of making investigations like this secret:
Individuals who know of the case have the power to hurt the targets by
leaking, but the targets have no ability to publicly defend themselves.
That gives prosecutors a perverse power, even when they have weak evidence
and a weak case, to elicit guilty pleas from innocent suspects or otherwise
do them harm.

But that's far from the only problem. As I've written before, when it comes
to criminal justice investigations, the process itself is a punishment.
That's why the process needs to be carefully scrutinized. Judicial
supervision is not sufficient, except possibly in some of those moments I
mentioned above. In almost every case, the public also has to have eyes on
the whole thing. Otherwise, investigations all too easily degenerate
into"general warrants," the legal instrument allowing officials to search
anywhere, for anything -- and quite properly forbidden by the Fourth
Amendment because no one wants to be at the mercy of the unchecked whims of
government investigators.

The real problem, in other words, is not the investigation, but the law.
And the judge who permitted this use of the law. I come very close to
thinking special prosecutors and similar roles should simply be abandoned,
given how frequently those appointed seem to get distracted from the crimes
they were asked to investigate. (Remember the Clintons? How exactly did an
investigation into Whitewater lead to Bill Clinton lying under oath about
his sexual relations with White House interns?) But if we do not abandon
the whole "special prosecutor" approach, we should be clear when they are
appointed: Secrecy is an option only when it's clear lives are at stake.

There are worse things than campaign finance violations. One of them is
living in a nation where law-abiding citizens don't know if they're safe
from ambitious prosecutors -- especially prosecutors who can silence their
targets at will.

*Donald Trump continues rise, Scott Walker gets bump
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/politics/donald-trump-poll-2016-elections/>
// CNN // Tom LoBianco and Jennifer Agiesta – July 17, 2015*

Washington (CNN)Republican voters' support for real estate mogul Donald
Trump continues to grow, according to a new national poll out Friday.

Trump led the pack of 16 major-name Republican candidates with 18 percent
of likely Republican primary voters saying they would vote for the blustery
billionaire and former reality TV star, up from 11% who supported him in a
June survey. The Fox News poll, conducted earlier this week, also saw
Wisconsin Gov. Scot Walker jump to second place in the field, following his
formal announcement this past Monday, with support from 15 percent of
likely voters.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush maintained a steady following, holding 14
percent of support from voters. While the rest of the candidates polled in
the single-digits, 9 percent of voters said they were still undecided and 4
percent chose none of the above.

Aside from simple jockeying, polling has a more immediate function in this
contest: it will decide which 10 candidates make it on stage for the first
Republican debate and which seven are shuffled off to a second-tier debate.

Fox News, which will host the first Republican debate next month in
Cleveland, has said it will pick the top 10 candidates based on an average
of the five most recent national polls. But it has not said precisely which
polls will be used.

Trump currently ranks among those who would most likely appear onstage if
the debate were held today, and the poll finds he's the candidate
Republicans are most likely to want to see on the stage. When asked which
of the GOP candidates they are most interested in learning about during the
debates, 18% chose trump, 12% Walker, 11% Bush and 8% Marco Rubio.

Among the field, Trump has been the most willing to blast fellow
Republicans, most vociferously Bush -- jabbing repeatedly, with assertions
like Bush "couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag."

In the Democratic primary, the Fox poll found Hillary Clinton continues to
hold a comfortable lead over liberal insurgent Bernie Sanders. Among likely
voters in the Democratic primary, 59 percent picked Clinton and 19 percent
backed Sanders. Other Democratic contenders, including former Maryland Gov.
Martin O'Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and former Sen.
Jim Webb, are still struggling to find any traction in the field.

The poll came from cell phone and landline telephone interviews with 389
likely Republican voters July 13-15. On the Democratic side, Fox News spoke
to 382 likely Democratic primary voters.

*Scott Walker tries to prove he's a national contender for president
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-scott-walker-trail-20150717-story.html#page=1>
// LA Times // Noah Bierman - July 17, 2015*

As he rumbled through South Carolina this week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
told his favorite story about shopping for clothes at Kohl’s department
store and cobbling together so many discounts that “they’re paying me to
buy the shirt.”

The tale drew chuckles from some of the 200 Republicans who came to see him
at a Harley-Davidson dealership in North Charleston. But the details,
including references to the “Kohl’s cash” coupons found in his wife’s
purse, did not spark the same knowing nods that they did during his
announcement speech in Wisconsin, where the chain is based and is a more
entrenched symbol of middle-class culture.

The stump-speech anecdote points to one of Walker’s challenges as he opened
his campaign for president by embarking on a whirlwind tour: proving he is
a national contender who can win states beyond his Midwestern base.

He is investing time, money and organizational resources in Iowa, which
holds the nation’s first presidential nominating contest and borders his
home state. But to rise above other leading Republican candidates, he needs
to show strength in other regions of the country that have early primaries,
including South Carolina.

“Fifty percent of the people in South Carolina, you show them a picture of
Scott Walker and they don’t know who he is,” said Moye Graham, chairman of
the Republican Party for a state district that covers 15 counties north of
Charleston. “He probably has the least face recognition of the major
candidates.”

Walker, hoping to remedy that problem, pursued an aggressive schedule in
early primary states for his first week, with stops in Nevada, South
Carolina, Georgia, New Hampshire and Iowa, followed next week by trips to
Tennessee, California and North Carolina, and a return trip to New
Hampshire for a motorcycle tour. Walker was hoarse during his first
appearance in South Carolina after going without a bed for more than 24
hours.

Trying to save money and reinforce his Everyman credentials, he and his
staff flew commercial but ran into delays caused by weather, including an
unexpected stop in Memphis, a missed connection in Atlanta and a 3 a.m.
ride in a rented van to South Carolina.

Polls have suggested Walker can compete in South Carolina and other early
states. And many GOP activists in South Carolina, where Republican primary
voters are especially conservative, also say he has a shot. But several
have said he will have to visit more often — something he pledged to do
this week — and distinguish himself from a crowded field that includes Sen.
Lindsey Graham, who represents South Carolina, and Sen. Marco Rubio of
Florida, who has a strong network in the state. Other very conservative
candidates, including Dr. Ben Carson, real estate magnate Donald Trump and
former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, are also mentioned favorably by activists
here.

“There’s just so many candidates,” said Brian Grant, a 47-year-old
pharmacist from Charleston who came to check Walker out at the
Harley-Davidson event. “Nobody’s narrowed it down.”

And South Carolina voters do not always honor the winners of other early
primaries with a bounce. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House,
won the primary here in 2012, stanching the momentum of Rick Santorum, the
former Pennsylvania senator, who won Iowa.

“He was completely reliant on the bump. It will help, but it never really
works,” said Brandon Newton, a party chairman from a district based along
the border with North Carolina. “It’s really who does the ground game in
South Carolina.”

That’s where money and organization help candidates like Jeb Bush, the
former Florida governor who has mainstream support and leads by a
substantial margin in fundraising through outside groups.

“Your biggest challenge is time,” said Rick Wiley, Walker’s campaign
manager, marking as the most difficult logistical hurdle a stretch of 26
contests in the first two weeks of March that will probably determine the
party’s nominee.

Walker tries to connect with crowds, and draw a contrast with Bush, by
emphasizing his humble roots, including a job at McDonald’s and his
grandparents’ lack of indoor plumbing for a time. He wore jeans, rolled-up
sleeves and motorcycle boots in South Carolina, one of three states where
he scheduled events at Harley-Davidson dealerships, a nod to another
Wisconsin-based company and to his hobby of motorcycle-riding that suggests
a renegade streak. In North Charleston he stood before a backdrop of
motorcycles stacked three stories high.

Many who took pictures and sought autographs from him after his speeches
were eager to talk about their Wisconsin ties -- a few wore Green Bay
Packers jerseys or carried the team’s mug.

Walker is one of the most polarizing candidates in the field, loathed by
Democrats and union activists and admired by conservatives for defeating a
recall effort after his rollback of collective bargaining rights for public
employees in Wisconsin. That fight is the centerpiece of Walker’s speeches
and the issue party activists know most about him.

“We took on the unions and we won,” Walker said in Lexington.

Walker has tried to move still further to the right to court social
conservatives. His work to curtail abortion rights drew some of his loudest
applause here, along with his boast of passing a voter-ID law and his fight
to require welfare recipients to take drug tests.

Walker has tiptoed around issues that could risk alienating conservative
voters, even if they are less controversial with moderates.

He has mostly sidestepped questions about whether South Carolina should
have removed the Confederate flag from the capitol, calling it a state
issue. That allowed him to avoid taking sides on a topic that remains
divisive among the state’s Republicans.

To reporters, he praised Republican Gov. Nikki Haley for “bringing together
a broad coalition to get the job done.”

Walker’s impulse to please cultural conservatives has prompted some awkward
moments. On Tuesday, he was quoted as saying that he believed gay people
should be barred from leading Boy Scout troops because the policy
“protected children and advanced Scout values.”

But speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Walker downplayed his comment.

“It’s up to the Boy Scouts,” he said. “All I pointed out was the policy was
perfectly fine when I was there and I thought they should be protected from
all the political and media controversy about it.”

*Liberals Lose to Scott Walker in Wisconsin Again
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/17/liberals-lose-to-walker-in-wisconsin-again-again.html>
// The Daily Beast // Betsy Woodruff – July 17, 2015*

The gods are smiling on Scott Walker.

And by the gods, I mean four of the six Badger State’s supreme court
justices, who just put the kibosh on a lengthy and secret “John Doe”
investigation that targeted some of the governor’s top allies and
like-minded groups.

The investigation was sparked over allegations that outside independent
groups who supported Walker secretly coordinated with Wisconsin Republicans
during the run-up to the 2012 recall vote.

John Doe refers to a Wisconsin law that lets prosecutors investigate
suspects to determine whether or not they have probable cause, according to
Marcus Berghahn, of Hurley, Burish, and Stanton Law Firm.

This particular John Doe proceeding—conducted in secret—investigated got
kicked off in 2012 because, as the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel notes,
prosecutors suspected that Walker’s gubernatorial campaign illegally
coordinated with the Wisconsin Club for Growth.

The special prosecutor referred to it as an “a criminal scheme” and to
prove it, investigators pointed to documents that seemed to show Walker
urging donors to contribute to the advocacy groups, according to the
Wisconsin State Journal.

The court’s decision—split 4-2 along ideological lines—ruled that the
state’s anti-coordination law is too broad and vague to comply with the
First Amendment.

But even though Team Walker won and progressives lost, Wisconsinites on
both sides are not ready to move on. And prosecutor Francis Schmitz has
indicated he may try to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Progressives say the justices should have recused themselves, because they
benefited from issue-advocacy ads.

“The four justices whose opinion halts an investigation and possible
prosecution of Walker’s campaign and allies and orders records to be
destroyed were the beneficiaries of at least $10 million in campaign
spending by parties named in the investigation,” said a statement from
progressive group One Wisconsin Now issued after the decision.

As you might expect, conservatives strongly back the state’s top court—and
are univocal in their support of the conservative justices who moved to
call off the secret investigation. Rick Esenberg, the president of the
Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said the four made the right call
by choosing not to recuse themselves. His group filed an amicus brief for
the side that ultimately won.

“I don’t think it can be the case that the mere fact that somebody has
spent money on issue advocacy means that you can never hear a case in which
they’re involved,” he said.

The John Doe investigators targeted a number of members from throughout
Wisconsin conservatives’ infrastructure in the state—an infrastructure
whose operations that has been remarkably efficient and effective.

“They issued subpoenas or search warrants to virtually every conservative
or libertarian 501(c)4 advocacy organization in the state,” he continued.
“So they were all involved, in a way, almost every one of them.”

To assert that investigating conservative advocacy organizations means
conservative justices can’t rule on the case, Esenberg argues, is unfair.

“It’s a little bit like the guy who kills his parents and then pleads for
clemency because he’s an orphan,” Esenberg said. “They don’t get to remove
one side of the political spectrum from the bench because they’ve attacked
the entire advocacy structure on that side of the political spectrum.”

And investigators’ use of SWAT teams and no-knock raids drew criticism from
both ends of the ideological spectrum. Salon’s Heather Digby Parton called
the no-knock raids “disturbing.”

Matt Kittle, the editor-in-chief of the conservative news site Wisconsin
Watchdog, characterized the investigation as Nixonian.

“This was, based on our investigation over the last few years, one of the
more abusive probes in our lifetimes in the state of Wisconsin, and I think
it goes up against any nationally,” he said. “This was politically
motivated, the court made that clear today.”

But Wisconsin progressives argue that that all misses the point.

State Senator Chris Larson said the ruling is “the definition of
corruption.”

“If you asked the average person on the street, ‘Draw me a picture of what
a corrupt system looks like,’ this would be too obvious to them,” he said.
“This is it. This is what they would draw.”

“This is our state,” he continued. “And hey, if Walker keeps going, this
will be the country.”

*Scott Walker: All You Need To Know
<http://www.newsweek.com/scott-walker-all-you-need-know-354724> // Newsweek
// James M. Lindsay – July 17, 2015*

Twelve Americans have become president without having earned a college
degree. (Two of them are on Mount Rushmore.) Wisconsin Governor Scott
Walker, who studied at Marquette University but left before graduating,
hopes to make that number thirteen—and the first since Harry Truman.

Walker announced on July 13 what has been long expected: he is running for
president. He is the fifteenth prominent Republican to declare for the
White House and the seventh governor. He won’t be the last one on either
score.

The Basics

Name: Scott Kevin Walker

Date of Birth: November 2, 1967

Place of Birth: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Religion: Evangelical Christian

Political Party: Republican Party

Marital Status: Married (Tonette)

Children: Matthew (20) and Alex (19)

Alma Mater: Marquette University (attended)

Career: Governor of Wisconsin (2011- present); Executive of Milwaukee
Country Executive (2002-2010) Wisconsin State Assembly (1993-2002);
Marketing and Fundraising, American Red Cross (1990-1994)

Twitter Handle: @ScottWalker

Campaign Announcement

Walker announced his run for the White House at the Waukesha County Expo
Center in Waukesha, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee.

He began his speech with a sure-fire winner of an opening line: “I Love
America.”

Like many presidential candidates before him, Walker used his announcement
to recount his biography and his accomplishments, and to mention people who
have inspired him along the way. When he turned to policy matters, he was
long on criticism and promises and short on specific policy measures. He
summarized his platform in three words: “I’m for Reform. Growth. Safety.”

The “safety” part of Walker’s platform deals with foreign policy. He argues
that President Obama has left Americans imperiled:

Today sadly, under the Obama/Clinton doctrine, America is leading from
behind and we’re headed toward a disaster.

We have a president who drew a line in the sand and allowed it to be
crossed. A president who call ISIS the JV squad, Yemen a success story and
Iran a place we can do business with. Iran…think about that.

Walker went on to vow that he would terminate the nuclear deal with Iran,
help “our Kurd and Sunni allies reclaim land taken by ISIS,” stand by
Israel, stand up to Putin, resist Chinese aggression, spend more on defense
and “fight to win.”

Walker’s Story

Walker was born in Colorado but moved to Plainfield, Iowa at age three when
his father became a pastor at a local Baptist Church. Seven years later the
Walkers relocated to Delavan, Wisconsin, a small town located roughly fifty
miles southwest of Milwaukee. As a teenager, Walker was an Eagle Scout, and
he occasionally gave sermons in his father’s church. But rather than
following his father into the ministry, he chose a career in politics.

Walker ran his first campaign for public office in 1990, but he lost his
bid for the State Assembly. He has been on a winning streak ever since. In
1993, he won a State Assembly seat in a more conservative district. He
stayed in the State Assembly until 2002, when he won a special election to
be Milwaukee County Executive. He subsequently won two regular elections.
He stood out during his time as county executive; most of the members of
the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors were Democrats.

Walker launched an ill-fated run for governor in 2005. After a year of
campaigning, he dropped out of the race before any votes were cast. He had
more success on his second try, winning the governorship in November 2010.

Shortly after taking office in 2011, he proposed legislation limiting
collective bargaining rights. That triggered an epic political donnybrook.
More than one hundred thousand protesters swarmed Madison, Wisconsin’s
capital city. Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate staged their own kind of
protest: they left Wisconsin in an effort to prevent the quorum needed to
act on the bill. Republicans legislators still managed to pass it. The move
made Walker a hero to conservatives and a villain to the labor movement.
Walker survived a bitterly fought recall election in 2012, and he was
reelected governor in 2014.

Walker’s Message

Walker admires Ronald Reagan. He often invokes the 40th president when
discussing issues, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. He also
likes to compare himself to Reagan, who was “a fellow governor who cut
taxes and as a leader who proved his mettle by staring down organized
labor.” He will likely continue to invoke Reagan’s name as he positions
himself in the 2016 campaign as an unabashed conservative who will stand by
his principles and “who will fight and win for America.”

Foreign Policy Views

As with most governors who seek the presidency, Walker has limited foreign
policy experience. As he puts it, foreign policy is “not an area that
governors typically look at.” He urges voters to worry less about specific
foreign policy experience and more about leadership abilities, because
foreign policy is:

Something that’s not just about having PhDs, or talking to PhDs—it’s about
leadership.

When Senator Marco Rubio, one of Walker’s rivals for the GOP nomination,
said that “there is no way” a governor can be ready “on Day One to manage
U.S. foreign policy,” Walker retorted: “I think he’s questioning how Ronald
Reagan was ready.”

General Foreign Policy Worldview

Walker’s general approach to foreign policy mirrors that of most other GOP
presidential candidates. (Rand Paul is the obvious exception.) He thinks
that President Obama has been weak in his handling of foreign policy and
unwilling to recognize threats like ISIS:

When you have an administration … who doesn’t take seriously the threats,
who doesn’t invest the resources needed to take those threats seriously,
you open the door to chaos.

He promises to provide strong, tough leadership that will deter America’s
adversaries and rally its friends and allies:

The world needs to know that there is no better friend and no worse enemy
than the United States of America.

Overall, however, Walker has tended to limit his public comments on foreign
policy. That reluctance to speak about foreign policy became an issue in
February when he spoke in London at Chatham House, Britain’s leading
international affairs think tank. The moderator not surprisingly asked him
several foreign policy questions, which Walker declined to answer. He
defended his reluctance to speak by saying:

I just think for me, commenting on foreign policy or, in this case,
economic policy in a country where you’re a visitor is not the politest of
things.

When Walker has waded into foreign policy discussions, the results haven’t
necessarily been what he wanted. Shortly after returning from London, he
answered a question at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference
about international terrorism by saying:

I want a commander-in-chief who will do everything in their power to ensure
that the threat from radical Islamic terrorists does not wash up on
American soil. We will have someone who leads and ultimately we’ll send a
message that not only will we protect American soil, but do not, do not
take this upon freedom-loving people anywhere else in the world. We need a
leader with that kind of confidence. If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I
can do the same across the world.

Critics complained that he had equated union members exercising their
constitutional right to protest with international terrorists. Former Texas
Governor Rick Perry, now Walker’s rival for the GOP presidential
nomination, called the remark “inappropriate” and “a mistake.” Walker
insisted that he was not equating protesters with terrorists, but rather
was offering up “the closest thing I have in terms of handling a difficult
situation, not that there’s any parallel between the two.”

Days later, Walker triggered criticism with a different set of remarks. At
the close of a speech for the Club of Growth, a conservative advocacy
group, a questioner said that many people viewed the Chatham House
performance as a sign Walker was “not prepared to speak about foreign
policy” and then asked what he was doing to prepare for the White House. In
his answer, Walker said Ronald Reagan’s decision to fire striking air
traffic controllers in 1981 was, “the most significant policy decision of
my lifetime.”

He added:

Years later, documents released from the Soviet Union showed that…The
Soviet Union started treating [Reagan] more seriously once he did something
like that. Ideas have to have consequences. And I think [President Barack
Obama] has failed mainly because he’s made threats and hasn’t followed
through on them.

Whether Reagan’s decision was the most significant act in recent history is
a matter of opinion and not fact. But there is no evidence that the
documents Walker referred to exist. Reagan’s own ambassador to the Soviet
Union dismissed the claim as “utter nonsense.”

The Middle East

How does Walker’s general foreign policy worldview translate into specific
steps to respond to specific challenges and opportunities? In terms of
radical Islamic terrorism, which Walker has identified as “the greatest
threat to future generations,” it means relying more on military power:

I think aggressively, we need to take the fight to ISIS and any other
radical Islamic terrorist in and around the world, because it’s not a
matter of when they attempt an attack on American soil, or not if I should
say, it’s when, and we need leadership that says clearly, not only amongst
the United States but amongst our allies, that we’re willing to take
appropriate action.

Walker believes that Obama withdrew U.S. troops too hastily from Iraq,
thereby sowing the seeds for the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
To deal with that threat, Walker says“I’d rather take the fight to them
than wait for them to bring the fight to us.” He would do so by going
beyond airstrikes and drone strikes:

We have to be—go beyond just aggressive air strikes. We have to look at
other surgical methods. And ultimately, we have to be prepared to put boots
on the ground if that’s what it takes.

When asked whether that means he favors ordering U.S. troops to return to
Iraq, as Senator Lindsey Graham has argued, Walker says he is “not arguing
that’s the first approach.” He thinks for now the United States can roll
back the ISIS threat with more modest steps:

We have a capacity to reclaim Iraq with the Iraqi forces that are there as
long as we unleash the power that’s already there by the American armed
forces.

To that end, he proposes “lifting the political restrictions on our
military personnel in Iraq” so that they can better help Iraqis defeat the
Islamic State.

Overall, Walker’s insistence on keeping all military options on the table
may have less to do with an enthusiasm for military action and more to do
with a conviction that it is a mistake to put limits on what the United
States might do:

Once we start saying how far we’re willing to go or how many troops we’re
willing to invest, we send a horrible message, particularly to foes in the
Middle East who are willing to wait us out.

The political risk in that position, of course, is that voters might see
only the prospect of new wars and not a broader deterrent tactic.

Iran

Walker wants a tougher U.S. policy on Iran. He responded to the news that a
nuclear deal had been struck with Iran by issuing a statement denouncing
the agreement:

President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran will be remembered as one of
America’s worst diplomatic failures. The deal allows Tehran to dismantle
U.S. and international sanctions without dismantling its illicit nuclear
infrastructure—giving Iran’s nuclear weapons capability an American stamp
of approval. In crafting this agreement, President Obama has abandoned the
bipartisan principles that have guided our nonproliferation policy and kept
the world safe from nuclear danger for decades. Instead of making the world
safer, this deal will likely lead to a nuclear arms race in the world’s
most dangerous region. What’s worse, the deal rewards the world’s leading
state sponsor of terrorism with a massive financial windfall, which Iran
will use to further threaten our interests and key allies, especially
Israel.

I call on all congressional leaders and presidential candidates, including
Secretary Clinton, to repudiate this agreement. Iran’s Supreme Leader
should know that a future American president will not be bound by this
diplomatic retreat. Undoing the damage caused by this deal won’t be easy.
But when the United States leads, and has a president who isn’t eager to
embrace Iran, the world will follow. In order to ensure the safety of
America and our allies, the next president must restore bipartisan and
international opposition to Iran’s nuclear program while standing with our
allies to roll back Iran’s destructive influence across the Middle East.

Before entering the race, Walker vowed to repudiate the deal if he made it
to the White House. When asked if he would do that even if it meant
breaking with U.S. allies, Walker’s answer was succinct: “Absolutely.” That
prompted Obama to say:

It would be a foolish approach to take, and perhaps Mr. Walker–after he’s
taken some time to bone up on foreign policy–will feel the same way.

Walker responded to Obama’s jab by reiterating his critique of the
president’s foreign policy:

President Obama’s failed leadership has put him at odds with many across
the country, including members of his own party, and key allies around the
world. Americans would be better served by a president who spent more time
working with governors and members of Congress rather than attacking them.

Walker’s criticism of the Iran deal is tied to his belief that “the current
administration is not giving Israel the support it needs…the president is
making bad deals with a country that wishes to wipe Israel off the map.”
Walker vows that during his presidency there will be “no daylight” between
the two countries. As Middle East hands like to point out, though,
political daylight between the United States and Israel is not unique to
Obama’s time in office; it happened, for instance, during the presidency of
Walker’s favorite politician, Ronald Reagan.

Russia and Ukraine

Walker wants to get tough with Vladimir Putin. He said in his campaign
announcement speech:

We need to stop the aggression of Russia into sovereign nations. Putin
bases his policies on Lenin’s old principle: probe with bayonets, if you
encounter mush, push; if you encounter steel, stop.

With Obama and Clinton, Putin has encountered years of mush. The United
States needs a foreign policy that puts steel in front of our enemies.

To that end, he favors intensified sanctions on Russia and the provision of
lethal military aid to Ukraine “so they can defend themselves against
Russian aggression.” He also wants the United States to provide more
support for Ukraine’s anti-corruption initiatives and to declare that NATO
will permanently station troops in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.

China

Walker visited China on a trade mission in 2013, but he hasn’t said much
about U.S. policy toward Beijing. He does want the United States to take a
tougher line against China, particularly with respect to its activities in
the South China Sea:

A serious American response is necessary. The most important step is to
reestablish U.S. military strength. We must increase the size of our Navy,
strengthen the self-defense capabilities of our regional partners, and
regularly engage in freedom-of-navigation patrols throughout the Pacific.
Boosting our trade relations with friendly Pacific nations will fortify our
economic presence in one of the world’s most consequential regions.

Increasing the size of the Navy is an expensive proposition; Walker hasn’t
identified what he would give up to accommodate the additional spending.
The other items on his to-do list are things the U.S. government is
currently doing.

Trade

Walker says he is “a strong advocate for free and open trade.” Like most
governors, he has participated in many overseas trade missions, in his case
trying to drum up business for Wisconsin’s exports and to encourage foreign
firms to invest in the state. He went to Europe twice in the first half of
2015, using it as an opportunity to flag the potential benefits of the
proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would create
free trade between the United States and Europe.

He also supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He urged Republican members
of Congress to pass trade promotion authority because it would “allow the
Republican-controlled Congress to hold this president accountable for
presenting a bad trade agreement” by giving them the chance to block it.

Immigration

Walker’s views on immigration have shifted. As Milwaukee county executive,
he signed resolutions applauding the contributions that undocumented
immigrants make and calling for federal action to grant them legal status.
As late as 2013, he argued that it “makes sense” to create a path to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants and to make it easier for people to
immigrate legally into the United States. He also argued that immigrants in
the United States legally should get “first preference” and doubted that
there would be a need for “border security and a wall and all that…if you
had a better, saner way to let people into the country in the first place.”

More recently, he has opposed a path to citizenship. For example, in March
he said publicly, “”I don’t believe in amnesty.” (Participants at a meeting
Walker held for business leaders a few weeks later reported that he told
them that undocumented immigrants should not be deported and that he would
support allowing some of them to become citizens. Walker’s spokesperson
disputed those claims.)

The shift in Walker’s public comments on immigration prompted Fox News’s
Chris Wallace to press him to admit he had changed his position. Walker did
just that:

And my view has changed. I’m flat out saying it.…

I look at the problems we’ve experienced for the last few years. I’ve
talked to governors on the border and others out there. I’ve talked to
people all across America.

And the concerns I have is that we need to secure the border. We ultimately
need to put in place a system that works. A legal immigration system that
works.

Walker now stresses that immigration reform should be “based on, first and
foremost, protecting American workers and American wages.” Some
conservative scholars and activists have criticized that claim, noting that
ample economic research shows that undocumented workers do not hurt the
economy or take jobs from native workers.

Climate Change

Walker has not said whether he thinks climate change is real and the result
of human activity. He has signed a pledge to oppose any tax or fee
increases intended to combat climate change.

More on Walker

Walker summarized his worldview in his 2013 book, co-authored with Marc
Thiessen, in Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge.

The New York Times has “Things You May Not Know About Scott Walker.” The
Washington Post has “Five Things You Might Not Know About Scott Walker” and
“Scott Walker on Issues of 2016 Campaign.” NPR has “5 Things You Should
Know About Scott Walker.” CBS News also has “Five Things to Know About
Scott Walker.” USA Today has “Six Things to Know About Scott Walker.” MSNBC
has “5 Things We Learned About Scott Walker in 2015.” MTV has “15 Things
You Should Know About Scott Walker, Who Just Announced He’s Running For
President.”

*Scott Walker Push For Milwaukee Bucks Arena Subsidy Could Benefit His
Fundraising Chief
<http://www.ibtimes.com/scott-walker-push-milwaukee-bucks-arena-subsidy-could-benefit-his-fundraising-chief-2012890>
// IB Times // David Sirota and Andrew Perez – July 17, 2015*

In the year leading up to the announcement of his presidential campaign,
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker championed a high-profile proposal to spend a
quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer money to help finance a new
Milwaukee Bucks arena -- all while pushing to slash roughly the same amount
from state funding for higher education. One of those who stands to benefit
from the controversial initiative is a longtime Walker donor and Republican
financier who has just been appointed by the governor to head his
presidential fundraising operation.

Real estate mogul Jon Hammes, who has donated hundreds of thousands of
dollars to Republican candidates and causes, is a prominent member of the
investor group that owns Milwaukee’s NBA team. Last week CNN reported that
he also will serve as the Walker campaign’s national finance co-chairman.
Days after that appointment, Walker’s Republican allies in the Wisconsin
state Senate backed the governor’s proposal to spend public funds on a new
arena for the Bucks.

In his speech announcing his presidential candidacy, Walker presented
himself as a free-market conservative and derided what he called a
“top-down, government-knows-best approach” to economic policymaking. Hammes
serves on the board of a conservative think tank called the Wisconsin
Policy Research Institute that says “competitive free markets, limited
government, private initiative and personal responsibility are essential to
our democratic way of life.”

But under Walker’s proposal, the government would redistribute taxpayer
money to a project benefiting Hammes and other Bucks investors.

A representative for Walker defended the proposal, saying in a statement:
“Governor Walker's focus is on protecting Wisconsin’s taxpayers from the
negative financial impact of losing the Bucks, while balancing state and
local support.”

A Walker campaign aide additionally asserted that it was “a dangerous leap”
for International Business Times to ask about the propriety of subsidizing
a deal in which Hammes could benefit. “The stadium deal has been in the
works much longer than he has been involved with the campaign,” the aide
said.

However, before Walker proposed the arena deal, Hammes had donated more
than $15,000 to his gubernatorial campaigns, according to state campaign
finance data. Federal records also show that over the last decade, Hammes
has donated almost $280,000 to Republican candidates and third-party groups
-- including more than $14,000 to the Wisconsin Republican Party. He also
contributed $500 to Walker while he was a Milwaukee county executive.

Hammes became one of the part owners of the Bucks in 2014. A little more
than three months later, Walker unveiled his proposal to spend a quarter of
a billion dollars on a new arena for the team. The team currently plays at
BMO Harris Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

A Hammes Company representative declined to say what percentage of the team
he owns.

Hammes’ financial interest in Walker’s arena subsidy package may not be
limited to just his stake in the team. According to local news reports, his
real estate firm also also bought parcels of downtown land near the
location of the proposed new arena. Hammes’ firm also was contracted by the
local chamber of commerce to evaluate new stadium proposals. The company
has expertise in that area, having been involved in the construction of the
New York Giants’ stadium and the renovation of the Green Bay Packers’ home
at Lambeau Field in Wisconsin.

Walker’s administration has justified the expenditure as a means of
safeguarding Wisconsin’s economy, which has seen the largest decline of its
middle class of any state in the country.

“This plan protects taxpayers from the loss of $299 million if a new
stadium is not built and the NBA moves the Milwaukee Bucks to another
state,” Walker’s spokeswoman, Laurel Patrick, told IBTimes.

The Bucks have claimed the new arena would be a boon for Wisconsin, saying
in an advertisement that the entire state would feel a “ripple effect.”

A widely cited 2008 study by Econ Journal Watch found an “overwhelming
preponderance of evidence that no tangible economic benefits are generated
by these heavily subsidized professional sports facilities.”

While Walker’s arena financing proposal passed the state Senate with
bipartisan support, some Republican and Democratic legislators decried the
initiative.

Democratic Sen. Tim Carpenter of Milwaukee said that "the burden of paying
for the construction of the new arena should fall on those who would
benefit from its construction." Republican Sen. Rob Cowles said, “I think
it is incredibly unfair that my constituents in northeastern Wisconsin are
being asked to pay for a sports arena in Milwaukee.”

*As Scott Walker takes national stage, some home-state constituents cry
foul
<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0717/As-Scott-Walker-takes-national-stage-some-home-state-constituents-cry-foul>
// Christian Science Monitor // Sarah Caspari – July 17, 2015*

If Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has been divisive among his constituents
in the past, his recent presidential candidacy announcement has drawn more
critical eyes.

Governor Walker has come under fire for neglecting his gubernatorial duties
in favor of the presidential campaign trail, as well as for his political
moves, which have always caused controversy.

“We don't blame him for running, but he still has to do his job as
governor,” said a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial published Tuesday.
“There were signs during the recent debate over the state budget that
Walker was AWOL at times.”

The Journal Sentinel criticized Walker for attempting to “win over”
Republicans by “bragging” about his legislation to slash collective
bargaining rights for public employee unions – an act that “cleaved the
state in two” and inspired “angry protests.”

Walker’s approval rating in Wisconsin is down to 41 percent as of an April
poll, though he is leading in all-important Iowa.

The Journal Sentinel editorial also criticized Walker’s delivery on
promises regarding job creation saying he has lagged behind other
Midwestern states and could not “come close” to the 250,000 jobs he vowed
to create in his first term.

The Journal Times of Racine also noted in an editorial Monday the role
Walker’s office played in the ill-received Republican attack on Wisconsin’s
open records law, as well as its subsequent haste to pass the buck onto
other Republicans:

A spokeswoman for Walker said on July 8 that legislative leaders notified
the governor's office they were interested in making changes to the state's
open records laws.

Then on Friday, Walker pointed the finger at Republican lawmakers directly
while speaking on a WTMJ talk-radio program: ‘I think it was a mistake to
even think about it in the budget, even though it didn't come from us.’
Walker's office earlier in the week acknowledged it helped draft the
changes.

The Wisconsin GOP as a whole is also drawing attention for its accusations
that the Government Accountability Board is biased against Republicans.

A Sunday Wisconsin State Journal editorial said there was “little evidence”
to support the claims and criticized Republicans for citing the board’s
secret investigation of Walker’s recall election campaign in 2012 as proof
of anti-Republican sentiment.

The Journal noted that two out of four attorneys who approved the
investigation were Republicans themselves, and the special prosecutor in
charge has said he voted for Walker.

*Now On The National Stage, Scott Walker Is Still A Guy From Delavan
<http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/17/423809006/now-on-the-national-stage-scott-walker-is-still-a-guy-from-delavan>
// NPR // Don Goneya – July 17, 2015*

Drive into Delavan, Wis., and you immediately notice the giant circus
animals downtown. A giraffe towering over a small grassy park, and an
elephant rearing up on its hindquarters. They're statues, actually — here
to commemorate the town's quirky history as home to circus companies that
needed a place to winter over.

They began arriving in the mid 1800s — P.T. Barnum's Greatest Show on Earth
was founded in Delavan. But the last of the circuses pulled out of the town
three decades ago.

You might also spot the small green road sign that reads: "Welcome to
Delavan. Population 8,463." And in script, "Hometown of Governor Scott
Walker."

As Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's presidential campaign officially begins,
he has something no other 2016 hopeful has — close personal ties to three
states Republicans would love to capture in the next presidential election.
Walker was born in Colorado, lived in Iowa, then moved to Wisconsin. And
that's where the young Walker got the political bug.

Here in solidly Republican Walworth County, Walker's backers look forward
to updating that sign to "Hometown of President Scott Walker."

"I call him Scott. I don't call him Gov. Walker. That's the way I look at
Gov. Walker — as a friend," said Mel Nieuwenhuis, who has been mayor of
Delavan for 14 years.

Walker hasn't lived here since he left to go to college in the mid-1980s,
but he gets back on occasion. These days, when local residents see him,
it's probably on television.

I asked the mayor whether, when he sees the governor and candidate now,
does he still see that guy from Delavan?

"I do, I think so," he said. "Because to me, Scott, he speaks at my level.
He doesn't talk down to you. He's just a regular guy."

Walker was 10 years old when his father became pastor at the First Baptist
Church in Delavan and moved his family from the even smaller town of
Plainfield, Iowa. You can still walk around the back of the church and see
the project Walker completed to earn Eagle Scout honors. There's a small
but steep hill there, and Walker and some fellow scouts built a retaining
wall using old telephone poles. It worked.

People who knew him back when say he was already developing leadership
qualities.

It's evident in the pages of his 1986 high school yearbook, which library
director Anita O'Brien opens to the index. There's a long list next to
Scott Walker's name: Foreign Language Club, the Library Club, Pep Club,
Student Council, Varsity Club, Basketball, Cross Country, Football, Track,
Swing Choir, Concert, Pep Band, String Ensemble.

One photo shows him with the choir performing songs from the musical Cats.
There's one of him playing drums in the high school band. In the varsity
football team photo, he sits front row to the left wearing the number 32.

In another photo, he sports the classic hairstyle of the day — a mullet.
The caption underneath reads: Scott K. Walker — the Desperado. There's no
further explanation.

Following Walker's junior year of high school he took part in a decades-old
Wisconsin tradition — an American Legion-sponsored program called Badger
Boys State, which brings together about 800-900 young men from across the
state of Wisconsin. Most high schools send one to three students, said
Thomas Skrenes, who has been a staffer at these annual gatherings for
decades. He also said Walker actually made it in as an alternate, when one
of those selected from Delavan couldn't make it.

But Skrenes says Walker stood out for being "very poised, very articulate,
very well-read ... and he was very interested in politics and history."

During the week at Badger Boys State, participants form a government, run
for office, debate issues. Then, at the end, two students are selected to
attend Boys Nation in Washington, D.C. Walker was chosen.

In a video on the American Legion website, Walker spoke about the program,
saying: "In and of itself, [it] just transformed me. I was totally taken,
not just by the politics and the running for office and the government, but
just about the public service."

Twenty-five years after attending Boys Nation, he was elected governor of
Wisconsin. In that job, Walker has had many battles — he took on the public
employee unions, including teachers, stripping them of most of their
collective bargaining rights. That led to a recall attempt two years into
his term. But he survived, and was re-elected in 2014.

His campaigns have been bruising affairs, and even in Delavan, you can feel
the aftereffects. Some around town can be reluctant to talk about him.

Nieuwenhuis, the Delavan mayor, had a theory on that: "I think either you
love Scott Walker or you hate Scott Walker — depending on which side you're
on."

It's a small town, he said, so why risk getting your neighbor mad at you?

As for Walker himself, these days when he talks about Delavan, he talks
about the conservative values he learned there.

"When I was growing up in Delavan, not a one of my classmates ever said to
me, 'Hey, Scott, someday when I grow up, I want to become dependent on the
government.' Right? Nobody every wrote in my yearbook, 'Scott, good luck
becoming dependent on the government,' " he said to laughs at a speech he
made in New Hampshire.

It isn't a laugh line for everyone, though.

One lifelong Delavan resident — and Democrat — says such comments are
divisive.

"It does kind of offend me a little bit," said Ryan Schroeder. "You know,
divide and conquer. I just don't agree with those statements. And
unfortunately we've seen that happen here in the state and I think it would
be very unfortunate to see it nationwide."

It may rub Schroeder the wrong way, but Walker's message has been welcomed
by conservatives across the country. Republicans have noticed that he has
won — repeatedly — in a state their party hasn't carried in a presidential
year since the 1980s.

As Walker himself often notes, the last Republican to win Wisconsin's
electoral votes was a guy who grew up just across the state line in another
small town called Dixon, Ill. He became a governor, too — and his name was
Ronald Reagan.

*Can Walker Hit South Carolina's Sweet Spot?
<http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/17/423631228/can-walker-hit-south-carolina-s-sweet-spot>
// NPR // Jessica Taylor – July 17, 2015*

Scorching temperatures near the triple digits weren't driving away the 325
people gathered to hear Scott Walker speak at a Lexington, S.C., barbecue
joint Wednesday.

Packed under an open-air porch with fans that were hardly helping, the heat
didn't seem to affect the enthusiasm for the Wisconsin governor on just his
second day as an announced presidential candidate — and it's the type of
excitement he'll need to generate to win the important South Carolina GOP
primary.

Clad in his Harley boots, jeans and a button-down shirt, Walker bounded
onto stage that afternoon to Dierks Bentley's "I Hold On."

That may have been the motto for the day for Walker, who was running on no
sleep since 4 a.m. the day before, thanks to flight snafus and
cancellations.

"Holding on" could also be the Wisconsin governor's maxim in the
traditionally rough-and-tumble Palmetto State politics. He's at the top of
very early polls there, but the Southern prize is wide open, even with one
of its sitting senators running.

With Iowa considered a must-win for Walker, and lesser hopes in moderate
New Hampshire, a victory in South Carolina in 2016 could secure Walker's
place atop the GOP field.

The state is looking to reclaim its streak of picking presidential
nominees, and Walker could be just the candidate who can bridge its divide
— appealing to both conservative and establishment coalitions across the
state's diverse Republican Party as a recipe for a win.

Running On Adrenaline

There was no weariness in Walker's stride, though, as he barreled from one
end of the Palmetto State to the other. The Republican was feeding on pure
adrenaline as he delivered his stump speech three times — and at the final
stop even had to do an abbreviated version in the parking lot (again, with
temperatures reaching into the 90s) to an overflow crowd of 500 at Mutt's
BBQ in Mauldin, S.C.

"In case you hadn't heard, I'm Scott Walker, I'm running for president, and
I'm asking for your vote," he said to roars at the trio of stops, starting
early that morning at 8 a.m. in North Charleston at a Harley-Davidson store.

"Americans want to vote for something and for someone, so give me a few
minutes and I'm going to tell you what I'm for."

He ticked off his own record, which most in the crowd are familiar with —
"we took on the unions, and we won," and his three victories in four years
in a blue-leaning state.

When asked what they know about Scott Walker or why they came out to see
him, most in the crowds said it's his fight with labor that impressed them
and left them wanting to know more.

"I know that he instituted some pretty major changes in Wisconsin, had a
lot of pushback from a lot of people but was able keep what I think were
positive changes in place," Nancy Nicodemus of nearby Summerville said at
his North Charleston event.

To fill out the rest for voters, Walker runs down his history of tax cuts
and social credentials. Another top reminder is that he worked to defund
Planned Parenthood — particularly resonant in this socially conservative
state a day after a controversial video that allegedly showed a top staffer
discussing the sale of parts of aborted fetuses to researchers.

He's against Common Core education standards — unpopular with conservatives
in South Carolina — and gets lots of cheers for his push to reform welfare
in Wisconsin, including mandatory job training enrollment and drug testing.

But the main crux of Walker's stump is his humble roots — a not-so-subtle
jab at wealthier, more privileged candidates in the race like former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and billionaire businessman Donald Trump. He's the
son of a Baptist minister and a part-time secretary, whose grandparents
didn't even have indoor plumbing while his mother was growing up. He talks
of how his first job was as a dishwasher but he later was hired to flip
burgers at McDonald's. He doesn't mention his own time in college, though,
and the fact that he never finished his degree at Marquette University.

"We did not inherit fame or fortune from our family," said Walker. "What we
got was the belief that if you work hard and you play by the rules you can
do and be anything. That's the American dream, and that is worth fighting
for."

Another anecdote he tells to drive that point home is of how his family
shops at Kohl's department store — but on the discount rack, and armed with
coupons and "Kohl's cash."

It's an illustration he ties into tax cuts and spending. Arguing that
Kohl's can afford such deep discounts because of the volume it produces,
Walker says the federal government should mimic that idea.

"The government could charge higher rates, and a few of you could afford
it. Or we can lower the rates, broaden the base and increase the value of
people participating in the economy," said Walker, renaming Ronald Reagan's
"Laffer curve" the "Kohl's curve."

Gaming A South Carolina Win

For Walker, he'll have to use a unique balancing act to win the Palmetto
State. Except for the state's wrong pick in 2012 of former Speaker Newt
Gingrich, South Carolina had a perfect streak of picking the eventual GOP
nominee since 1980.

Past nominees won by crafting winning coalitions across the state —
appealing to the Upstate's sizable evangelical population while also wooing
more "country club Republicans," military veterans and retirees in the
Lowcountry. That's how George W. Bush got a win in 2000, securing his
place. The foe he defeated, Arizona Sen. John McCain, was able to bridge
the divides and win in 2008, though.

South Carolina GOP consultant Chip Felkel says his then-college professor
Whit Ayres — now a national pollster for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's
campaign — summed up the state like this: "In the Upstate they want to know
where you go to church, in the Midlands they want to know where you work,
and in Charleston they want to know what you want to drink."

Felkel, who is unaligned in the 2016 race, says Walker could have the right
mix for South Carolina. After he jolted into the national conversation
after a fiery Iowa speech in January, his nascent campaign had some growing
pains and stumbles. On his announcement tour at least, those appeared to
have been fixed.

"He's got that blue collar appeal, and his messaging seems that he's going
to try to play to that hilt," said Felkel. "I think in certain parts of the
state he's got the potential to do pretty well, but he's got to prove he's
ready for prime time."

For John Borkowski of Mt. Pleasant, Walker might just be the sweet spot for
him and other South Carolinians — not too moderate, not too conservative,
but just right.

"I think a lot of folks around here are tired of the establishment, of the
Jeb Bushes of the world. We love [Texas Sen.] Ted Cruz, but sometimes he
just talks too much, he's just out there to be heard," Borkowski said at
the North Charleston stop. "Scott Walker, when he says something, he does
it. He took on the unions and he beat them. He took on the schools and the
teachers and beat them. He took on the recall and won. He's a worker — he
says what he does and does what he says."

*UNDECLARED*

*OTHER*

*The GOP field is set; here’s how they rank
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article27490585.html>
// McClatchy DC // David Lightman – July 17, 2015*

The Republican free-for-all is about to become a 17-candidate scrum.

Never in modern times has a major political party had so many prominent
candidates vying at once for its presidential nomination. The 2016 field is
all but set, as Ohio Gov. John Kasich will formally join the race Tuesday
morning and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore plans an early August
announcement.

So far, familiarity and intrigue with some new players have boosted a
handful of candidates to the top. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is the
brother and son of presidents. Real estate mogul Donald Trump is classic
Internet click bait. Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are younger upstarts whose success in swing
states rates them close looks from insiders.

As the race begins in earnest, here’s where the candidates stand:

TOP TIER: The Front-runners

JEB BUSH

Pros: The former Florida governor and his supporters have raised $114
million, more than double any other Republican. He can keep tapping the
loyal family network that’s won the White House three times.

Con: Too tight with big donors. Plodding campaign style. And that network
last won 11 years ago.

MARCO RUBIO

Pros: At 44, the senator from Florida has the look and vigor of a new
generation’s leader. Hispanic heritage is a big advantage. Stirs intrigue
among the party establishment.

Cons: Backed a bipartisan path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants
in 2013, then took a tougher stance. A first-term senator who could be seen
as too inexperienced to be commander in chief.

SCOTT WALKER

Pros: The Wisconsin governor successfully battled state public employee
unions. Won three statewide elections in four years. First governor in the
nation to survive a recall effort.

Cons: No foreign policy or Washington experience. Can be awkward in
unscripted settings. Hasn’t proven widespread appeal outside Midwest.

SECOND TIER: Potential, but . . .

DONALD TRUMP

Pros: The real estate billionaire’s stardom and bluster attract big,
adoring crowds and media attention. His demands that the U.S. get tougher
with illegal immigration is popular in conservative circles.

Cons: Unusually high negatives. Critics deride his immigration views as
intolerant. Alienates many in his own party.

TED CRUZ

Pros: The senator from Texas’ passionate style is a big hit with
conservative audiences, particularly evangelical voters. He and backers
raised $51 million this year, second only to Bush among Republican
presidential candidates.

Cons: Polarizing figure, disliked by many Republicans. Once called a “wacko
bird” by 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain.

RAND PAUL

Pros: The senator from Kentucky inherits his father’s libertarian
following. Has strong views on individual rights and a less intrusive
foreign policy. Has made efforts to reach out to minority voters.

Cons: His father’s libertarian following and those strong views.

BEN CARSON

Pros: The retired neurosurgeon has a strong grassroots network. His
low-key, thoughtful style plays well with conservative voters.

Cons: No government experience. Has made controversial statements. Gentle
style may be too gentle in a 17-person brawl.

TIER THREE: Struggling

RICK PERRY

Pros: The former Texas governor’s down-to-earth manner plays well with
voters. Strong on issues he’s familiar with, notably economics and border
security.

Cons: One of the 2012 presidential campaign’s biggest flops. Under
indictment for abuse of power. Not sharp when unfamiliar with issues.

JOHN KASICH

Pros: Popular governor in Ohio, the nation’s premier swing state.
Approachable and eager to talk issues at length. Carried 86 of Ohio’s 88
counties in November election.

Cons: Too moderate for national Republican electorate. Regular-guy demeanor
doesn’t seem presidential. Entering the race late.

CHRIS CHRISTIE

Pros: The New Jersey governor’s tough talking, brutally frank and popular
with audiences eager for an unscripted candidate. Won twice in a Democratic
state, did well with minority voters.

Cons: Hurt by George Washington Bridge scandal. Bombastic style gets
tiresome and is sometimes marred by flashes of temper. Too centrist and
culturally distant for Southern and Midwestern Republicans.

BOBBY JINDAL

Pros: The Louisiana governor won statewide office twice. Strong background
on health issues. Talks passionately about his deep religious beliefs.

Cons: Talks passionately about his deep religious beliefs, a turnoff for
mainstream voters. Highly unpopular back home, as fiscal policy has proven
shaky.

MIKE HUCKABEE

Pros: The former Arkansas governor is a vigorous, entertaining campaigner,
popular with Christian right audiences. A pastor with solid evangelical
credentials.

Cons: Views on moral issues such as same-sex marriage are toxic to many
Republican voters. Won the 2008 Iowa caucus, then fizzled fast.

TIER FOUR: The unpredictables

RICK SANTORUM

Pros: The former senator from Pennsylvania won the 2012 Iowa caucus. Strong
Christian right following. Tireless one-on-one campaigner.

Cons: Had his shot in 2012. Too many others vying for the same constituency
this time.

CARLY FIORINA

Pros: The retired business executive wows crowds with her energetic style
and pointed criticism of Hillary Clinton. Only woman in the Republican race.

Cons: Lost 2010 U.S. Senate race in California by 10 points. Opponents
raise questions about layoffs during her time at Hewlett-Packard.

TIER FIVE: Who?

LINDSEY GRAHAM

Pros: The senator from South Carolina is an expert on military and national
security matters. Strong one-on-one campaign skills.

Cons: Lagging in money, barely known. Unclear whether he can even win his
own state’s critical primary.

GEORGE PATAKI

Pros: The former New York governor won three terms in a Democratic state.
Helped lead state’s recovery from 9/11 attacks.

Cons: Too moderate for conservative electorate. Barely known outside New
York.

JAMES GILMORE

Pros: The former Virginia governor has a solid political resume. Former
Republican Party chairman. Headed terrorism policy advisory panel under two
presidents.

Cons: Last won political office in 1997. Crushed in 2008 Senate bid.

*New data suggest GOP 2016 nominee will need to win nearly half of Latino
vote <http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-latino-gop-20150717-story.html>
// LA Times // Lisa Mascaro – July 17, 2015*

New research out Friday shows that Republicans will need a larger slice of
Latino voters than previously thought if they hope to win the White House
in 2016, creating an even tougher hurdle for the eventual nominee.

Thanks to changing demographics, the conventional math that once said the
GOP would need to win a minimum of 40% of the Latino electorate no longer
holds.

Now, data suggests that Republicans will need as much as 47% of Latino
voters -- nearly twice the share that Mitt Romney is believed to have
captured in 2012.

Put another way: 47% is the new 40%. And it is a daunting number.

"It's very, very, very basic: Every single year, you need a little bit more
of the Latino vote," said Matt Barreto,  UCLA political science professor
and co-founder of the polling firm Latino Decisions. "It's just math."

The research is based on demographic changes and voter preferences emerging
at a time when older, white voters who have powered Republican nominees are
fading. The growing Latino electorate is expected to surpass 10% of all
voters in 2016, and younger white voters are trending toward Democrats.

The findings are likely to scramble Republican strategy circles, because
the top Republican candidates are currently performing no better than
Romney among Latinos -- a problem compounded by celebrity candidate Donald
Trump's disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants.

Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, does best with Latinos, at 27%,
according to a Univision poll this week, closely trailed by Sen. Marco
Rubio (R-Fla.) at 25%.

The new thinking unveiled Friday largely mirrors that of Republican
pollster Whit Ayres, who has argued that the party's 2016 nominee will need
more than 40% of the Latino vote. He has been tapped by Rubio's campaign.

A look at past elections shows the rough road ahead for the GOP amid the
demographic shift.

The last Republican nominee to hit the 40% threshold was George W. Bush in
2004, who was popular with Latino voters. He went on to win the White House
with 58% of the white vote, at a time when Latinos were 7% of overall
voters.

Romney and John McCain trailed in Latino support and lost the presidency.

Republicans could stem their reliance on Latino voters if the party's
nominee performed better among whites -- as some GOP strategists are hoping
to do.

But that strategy could force the candidate to favor more conservative
positions on immigration and other issues for little gain, as history also
shows that the party's attempt to grow its support among white voters has
its limits.

The party's high-water mark with white voters came when Ronald Reagan won
66% of the white electorate in the 1984 landslide.

By 2012, Romney won 59% of white voters against President Obama.

If the GOP nominee won 60% of the white electorate in 2016, the candidate
would need 42% of the Latino vote to win the White House, the research
shows.

But if the candidate again topped out at 59% of white voters in 2016, he or
she would need 47% of the Latino vote to make up the difference, the
research said.

Barreto, who conducted the research for America's Voice, a leading
immigration advocacy group, acknowledged he had been using the old thinking
until he ran the numbers.

"We were blind to this," he said at a briefing Friday in Washington. "We
shouldn't use the 40% anymore."

*Republicans' crush on Silicon Valley not returned
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/republican-silicon-valley-hillary-clinton-2016-donors-120304.html?hp=t1_r>
// Politico // Tony Romm – July 17, 2015*

SAN FRANCISCO — Jeb Bush this week gushed with love for Silicon Valley,
hanging in the offices of Thumbtack, causing a spectacle with his
pre-announced Uber hail, and flashing around his Apple Watch, as he talked
about how Washington needs to learn a few things from the Silicon Valley
way.

It’s not really a mutual relationship.

Despite Republican candidates’ high-profile outreach to the Bay Area, most
tech industry bigwigs are throwing cash at Democratic front-runner Hillary
Clinton.

Clinton’s campaign in the second quarter counted big checks from a variety
of tech executives, including Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl
Sandberg, Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, YouTube leader Susan
Wojcicki and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to a fundraising report filed
this week. Sandberg, Cerf and Wojcicki each gave $2,700, while Musk gave
$5,000.

By contrast, Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul collected just a handful of
donations from Valley elite. The Republicans did receive support from many
lower-level Silicon Valley employees, particularly Paul, who attracted a
large number of small dollar donations.

All three GOP candidates have sought to make inroads in the region with a
message of keeping government from getting in the way of innovation.

Paul, starved of Wall Street cash, has made a big effort to court Silicon
Valley and the larger tech community. He’s traveled regularly to
California, set up an office in San Francisco and previously made his case
to the industry at the annual South by Southwest summit in Texas, while
broadcasting his travels on Meerkat.

Bush also has been ratcheting up his pitch, telling employees at a town
hall on Thursday, “The government of the future needs to look more like
Thumbtack, to be honest with you: lower cost, higher quality, focused on
outcomes, really focused on citizens, or in your case, the customers.”
Rubio, for his part, traveled to a startup incubator in Chicago to talk
about innovation earlier this month.

It’s still early in the race for the White House, but as the latest filings
show, the GOP has plenty of ground to cover if it hopes to dislodge
Democrats’ firm grasp on the industry’s wealthiest donors.

“President Barack Obama set a record for level of engagement with the tech
community,” said Garrett Johnson, the co-founder of Lincoln Labs, a
Republican tech group which is holding its Reboot conference this weekend.
“We’ve been engaged by the Democratic Party for at least the past eight
years … whereas you don’t have that track record for anyone on the GOP
side.”

Tech executives showered Obama with support during both his 2008 and 2012
runs. By his re-election campaign, the incumbent even had in place a
campaign apparatus — Technology for Obama — that raised cash from
executives at Google, Salesforce and other Internet firms.

Of the $28 million contributed by the communications and electronics sector
during the 2012 presidential race, more than $18 million went to Obama,
according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

And while some love has been lost over the Edward Snowden revelations,
Democrats have only solidified their cultural advantage in Valley. For all
the region’s libertarian tendencies, it is resolutely socially liberal —
and on some of the most prominent national issues, such as same-sex
marriage, Bay Area donors find themselves in total alignment with Clinton.

The result is evident in the latest round of fundraising reports.

Clinton snagged checks from Lisa Jackson, the newly elevated policy chief
at Apple; Mark Pincus, the CEO of Zynga; Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox; and
Aaron Levie, the leader of Box. Each gave $2,700. The campaign also
received donations from a number of Facebook executives and two top venture
capitalists at Andreessen Horowitz.

Republicans, by contrast, had a more sparse showing from the tech industry.

Bush did snag checks from Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Goldman
($2,700), and Raj Shah of Palo Alto Networks ($2,700). Rubio saw support
from some Oracle executives, after former CEO Larry Ellison held a
fundraiser for him at his Woodside, Calif., home. Rubio also got a donation
from Cisco CEO John Chambers, another fixture in Republican fundraising.
Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO, attracted checks from more
old-school tech types, including Ann Livermore.

Paul, who famously set up an outpost in the Valley to help recruit tech
talent and support, didn’t attract donations from major industry
executives, although he was popular with many tech firm employees.

*OTHER 2016 NEWS*

*Today in Politics: Organizers Build Up Events in Iowa, and the Candidates
Come
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/17/today-in-politics-organizers-build-up-events-in-iowa-and-the-candidates-come/>
// NYT // Alan Rappeport – July 17, 2015*

The Iowa caucuses are more than six months away, but party activists in the
state will get the chance to size up several Republican presidential
candidates at one time this weekend.

Saturday brings the Family Leadership Summit meeting, the annual gathering
in Ames intended to “inspire, educate and motivate” conservatives.

The lineup will include Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Senator Ted Cruz of
Texas, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Rick
Perry, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson and Donald J. Trump.

Breaking from the traditional cattle call, organizers will do away with
speeches, and the candidates instead will each field about 20 minutes of
questions from Frank Lutz, a conservative pollster.

Drew Zahn, a spokesman for the gathering, said that the themes of the day
would include national security, economics and religious freedom.

There should be plenty to talk about after the recent Supreme Court
decisions regarding the Affordable Care Act and same-sex marriage that have
rankled many conservatives. The candidates will also have a better idea of
where they stand on the fund-raising front now that the campaigns have
released their latest financial disclosures.

Mr. Trump’s attendance at the event will most likely create additional
buzz, as the billionaire businessman’s contentious comments on immigration
have become a litmus test for his fellow Republicans and have brought a
sense of disorder to the process. For Mr. Trump, who has been married three
times and has liberal views on some policy issues, it will be a chance to
reintroduce himself to the religious conservative crowd at a time when he
has been at or near the lead in several opinion polls.

*Obama's Donors Flocking To Sanders, Romney's Going To Rubio
<http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2015/07/17/obamas-donors-flocking-to-sanders-romneys-going-to-rubio>
// U.S. News & World Report – July 17, 2015*

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to reporters after the Senate Democrats'
policy luncheon at the Capitol on Tuesday.

Bernie Sanders is drawing more of Barack Obama's 2012 campaign donors than
Hillary Clinton.

And Marco Rubio is scoring the biggest share of Mitt Romney's contributors
thus far.

These are the findings of Crowdpac, a San Francisco-based political
data-mining firm which analyzed the July presidential campaign finance
reports.

The Vermont senator has already received contributions from 24,582 of
Obama's donors; whereas Clinton has only tapped just over 9,000 of them.
Martin O'Malley, the former Maryland governor, has grabbed 383 Obama donors.

That means Sanders has nabbed 72 percent of the 34,340 Obama donors who
have given to a candidate in 2016, according to Crowdpac.

Ever since Mitt Romney dropped his flirtation with another White House bid
last winter, the rush has been on to court his moneymen and women.

Rubio's winning that charge.

Crowdpac found that the first-term Florida senator has nabbed the greatest
number of Romney donors so far – 2,891.

Perhaps more surprising. though, is that Ted Cruz is landing more of
Romney's donors (1,840) than Jeb Bush (1,562).

Ben Carson is fourth in the GOP chase for Romney's contributors with 1,285.

Overall, of the 9,302 Romney donors who have doled out money to a candidate
in 2016, Rubio has snagged about 31 percent of them.

Another instructive nugget inside the Crowdpac data is the slow crawl of
Ron Paul's donors to his son, Rand Paul.

Crowdpac found that just 816 of the father's donors have given to the son,
though just 1,133 of Ron Paul's donors have doled out money so far. (By
comparison, Rand has drawn 511 Romney donors.)

Cruz has picked off 316 of Rick Perry's 2012 donors in their budding
intrastate rivalry. Just over 1,000 of Perry's 2012 donors have engaged in
the 2016 race.

And then there's the surprising.

There's 276 Romney donors who have given to Sanders, and 280 who have given
to Clinton.

And just to show the dizzying breadth of some people's choices, Crowdpac
discovered that five contributors to Michele Bachmann – one of the most
conservative candidates in the 2012 GOP field – sent money to Sanders, the
self-avowed socialist.

*OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS*

*Capitalism for the Rest of Us
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/opinion/capitalism-for-the-rest-of-us.html>
// NYT // Joseph R. Blasi, Richard B. Freeman and Douglas I. Kruse – July
17, 2015*

IN her most detailed economic policy address so far, Hillary Rodham Clinton
said Monday that she wanted “to give workers the chance to share in the
profits they help produce” through a two-year tax credit that would
encourage profit-sharing. As social scientists who have studied the issue
for years, we were glad to see it get attention.

The stagnation of earnings for most Americans, despite rising productivity,
and the shrinkage of the middle class, because of soaring inequality, are
without precedent in our economic history.

Capital’s share of national income has risen, while labor’s share has
fallen — even though it includes lavish compensation of executives who are
paid disproportionately through stock grants, options and bonuses. To
restore prosperity for all, we need to spread the benefits of economic
growth to entrepreneurial citizens through profit-sharing and the ownership
of capital. This isn’t some radical notion; it has a long tradition in
America.

Many of the founders believed that the best economic plan for the republic
was for citizens to own land, which was then the main form of productive
capital.

Washington signed into law tax credits to help revive the cod fishery
destroyed by the British during the revolution, requiring that everyone had
a share in the profits, from the cabin boy to the captain. The Northwest
Ordinance of 1787 offered land cheaply to settlers. Jefferson concluded the
Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to help further the notion of “an empire of
liberty” through broad land ownership. Lincoln’s landmark Homestead Act of
1862 gave federal land grants to settlers. (As a result of the Civil War,
it was passed without representatives of the South, where land was
concentrated in the hands of slaveholders.)

As America industrialized in the late 19th century, the economy became
dominated by big corporations. And yet some family-run businesses, and
entrepreneurs who were concerned about the place of workers in an economy
dominated by gigantic enterprises, sought to extend the benefits of
capitalism to employees. Companies like Pillsbury, Kodak and Procter &
Gamble introduced widespread profit-sharing and employee stock ownership.

The economic boom after World War II solidified the view that regular
increases in fixed wages and benefits could carry the burden of “sharing
the wealth.” Sadly, since the 1970s, wages have stagnated, and the idea of
profit-sharing has been largely forgotten in public debates.

It’s time to revive it. The United States already has more extensive
profit-sharing and employee share ownership than many other advanced
economies. In the European Union in 2010, fewer than 10 percent of workers
own company stock and fewer than 30 percent have profit-sharing (except
Sweden, where the figure is 36 percent).

In the United States last year, close to 20 percent of private-sector
employees owned stock, and 7 percent held stock options, in the companies
where they worked, while about one-third participated in some kind of cash
profit-sharing and one-fourth in gain-sharing (when workers get additional
compensation based on improvement on a metric other than profits, like
sales or customer satisfaction). An exemplar was Southwest Airlines, which
paid $355 million of its more than $1 billion in corporate profits last
year to union and nonunion workers and managers, on top of salaries.

Our research found that these programs, when combined with worker
participation in solving problems, and increased training and job security,
raise productivity and benefit workers. In every year, about half the
winners in Fortune’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For have some type
of broad-based profit or gain-sharing or stock ownership for regular
workers. Google, Intel and Starbucks all have broad-based stock grants or
options for their employees. Wegmans has profit-sharing. W. L. Gore, the
maker of Gore-Tex, and Publix Super Markets, which operates in the
Southeast, are owned by employee stock ownership plans, wherein a workers’
trust typically borrows money to buy shares that are paid out of company
revenues.

Some scholars have worried that employee-share ownership is too risky when
workers buy the stock with their wages or 401(k) retirement savings; Enron
is the classic example. We agree. We favor only ownership policies that
emphasize grants of stock (as in the case of employee stock-ownership
plans), restricted stock (which has to be held on to for a certain period
of time, incentivizing workers to stay) or stock options.

How do we achieve this? First, the notion needs more powerful advocates
from business and politics, like Mrs. Clinton. In New Jersey, lawmakers are
finalizing legislation to expand tax incentives for small-business owners
to sell their businesses to their employees and managers; Iowa has adopted
similar legislation.

Second, we need to reform a little-known tax loophole, Section 162(m), of
the Internal Revenue Code. In the early 1990s, in an attempt to reform
executive pay, Congress changed that section to limit corporate income tax
deductions to $1 million for the top five executive salaries, but allowed
virtually unlimited deductions for a variety of top-executive
performance-based pay, including equity and profit-sharing. Corporations,
which have exploited this loophole to offer lavish compensation packages,
should get these deductions only if they offer a profit-sharing or
share-ownership plan to all employees.

Finally, all levels of government — federal, state and local — should offer
incentives to companies that implement profit-sharing and employee-share
ownership. Such incentives should include tax breaks, tax incentives and
preference in the awarding of government contracts.

Spreading around profit-sharing and the ownership of capital is not the
only answer to solving the challenge of soaring inequality in America, but
it’s a critical step that will help rather than hurt economic performance.
If the middle class is to survive, we must move toward a more inclusive
capitalism.

*As Clinton Moves Further Left on Regulations, Jobs Go Away
<http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2015/07/17/Clinton-Moves-Further-Left-Regulations-Jobs-Go-Away>
// The Fiscal Times // Diana Furchtgott-Roth – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton’s support for rules classifying workers can do harm to the
economic recovery.

It’s no coincidence that in the space of a month, California declares Uber
drivers to be employees, Hillary Clinton attacks the sharing economy, and
the Labor Department issues guidelines on when to classify workers as
employees, who are entitled to fringe benefits, or independent contractors,
who are not.

What all three have in common is this: They are trying to stem the growth
of independent contractors, the largest source of job growth in the United
States, according to the American Staffing Association. California, Clinton
and the Labor Department want companies to hire individuals as employees
rather than as independent contractors. Although those people would get
benefits as employees, their cash wages would decline.

According to the latest Employment Cost Index data published by the Labor
Department, benefits make up 30 percent of compensation costs, and wages
and salaries the remaining 70 percent. If independent contractors were
reclassified as employees, their cash wages would decline and they would
receive benefits such as health insurance, vacation, pension contributions
and sick leave.

Someone who is earning $50,000 as an independent contractor might be paid
about $35,000, plus fringe benefits, as an employee. Of course, as an
independent contractor, he would owe the employer’s share of Social
Security and Medicare, $3,750, as well as the employee’s share, the same
amount. But he would have more cash in hand.

Some might value those benefits, but many others prefer to get more cash
and to buy the benefits themselves. Alternatively, some might get benefits
through another working family member, and so cash might come in more
useful.

Both the new Labor Department guidance and the proposed overtime revisions
would reduce workplace flexibility, especially important to women and
millennials, who want the freedom to work flexible hours in locations of
their own choosing without having to punch a time clock.

The Obama administration wants to require employers to hire workers as
employees because they prefer to have workers in an employer-employee
relationship rather than in a contractor relationship. Forcing people into
an employer-employee relationship gives the government more control over
the workforce and more work to do, enforcing its regulations that apply to
employees.

Take the Affordable Care Act, for instance. The Internal Revenue Service
levies penalties on employers who do not offer the right kind of health
insurance to their employees. Penalties are severe — $2,000 per worker per
year for not offering the right kind of health insurance, $3,000 per worker
who gets subsidies on the health-care exchanges and $36,500 per worker per
year, effective this month, on employers who reimburse workers for their
health-insurance premiums. Those penalties are not levied on workers who
are independent contractors. More employees, more revenue for the IRS.

The new guidelines hit particularly hard those firms that contract out some
tasks — such as payroll or janitorial services — to avoid hitting the
50-person limit at which the Obamacare penalties apply.

Then, take the Family and Medical Leave Act. Employers are required to give
13 weeks of unpaid leave annually to employees for maternity and paternity
care, as well as for chronic illness. Independent contractors do not have
to receive this leave. Nor do they have to receive any other kind of leave.

When workers are employees, rather than independent contractors, it is
easier to force them to join unions against their will. The Supreme Court
has just agreed to take the case of Rebecca Friedrichs vs the California
Teachers Association, and decide whether Friedrichs has the right to opt
out of paying agency fees to the union. More employees broaden the
potential pool of union members, with higher potential revenue from dues.
Unions are major contributors to Democratic political causes, so just
follow the money.

The Labor Department ties itself up in knots with its new guidelines. It
opens by saying that “misclassification of employees as independent
contractors is found in an increasing number of workplaces in the United
States,” but offers no statistical evidence for the claim. Nowhere does the
department appear to be concerned with the reverse scenario — independent
contractors being misclassified as employees.

Then, the department lists factors to help courts make the distinction
between “whether the worker is economically dependent on the employer (and
thus its employee) or is really in business for him or herself (and thus
its independent contractor).” But this is a false distinction. Just because
you are in business for yourself does not meanA that you are not
economically dependent on your clients.

Lawyers, landscaping firms, defense contractors — they are all in business
for themselves, but they are economically dependent on their clients for
business.

The new guidelines add another layer of regulations to the enforcement pot.
Different government agencies have different criteria for whether workers
are independent contractors or employees. The Labor Department has a
six-pronged test, the Internal Revenue Service has a 20-factor test, and
antidiscrimination laws have their own common-law test. Plus, states have
different criteria for unemployment, workers compensation, wage and hour
rules, and state taxes. It is practically impossible for small businesses,
which rarely have legal departments, to stay out of trouble.

But wait ... there’s an app for that. The law firm Littler Mendelson,
working with Neota Logic, a technology company, has developed the
ComplianceHR Independent Contractor application. That enables employers to
enter data on characteristics of their workers and find out whether someone
is supposed to be classified as an employee or an independent contractor.
The app applies logic based on tests under federal and state law and
analysis of 1,500 independent-contractor cases. It produces an answer based
on questions from an online questionnaire.

Tammy McCutchen, a principal at Littler Mendelson, told me: “The
administration is locked in a 1930s-era industrial economy and simply
refuses to acknowledge that the 21st-century economy works differently. The
law needs to reflect the reality of how the modern economy works.”

The reality is that the sharing economy is growing, no matter how hard
Hillary Clinton, the state of California and the Labor Department try to
stand in the way.

*How Bernie Sanders can hammer Hillary Clinton on the Democrats' top issue
<http://theweek.com/articles/566910/how-bernie-sanders-hammer-hillary-clinton-democrats-issue>
// The Week // Ryan Cooper – July 17, 2015*

Over the past year or so, the Democratic Party has begun settling on a big
new policy goal: beefing up family support programs. Now that ObamaCare has
started the work of making health care available for all, support for
children and parents is the major remaining hole in the U.S. safety net.

Though she has not yet released a formal proposal, Hillary Clinton has made
family policy a centerpiece of her campaign, consistently positioning
herself as a pro-family candidate. She focused sharply on the subject
during her recent policy address, touting the benefits of sick leave and
maternity leave, and the economic benefits of women in the workforce.

Bernie Sanders, her strongest challenger in the Democratic primary, can do
her one better, however. In keeping with his blunt, forthright campaign, he
can challenge Clinton where her orthodoxy makes her policy weaker — in
particular, her mindless valorization of work.

As I said, we don't know exactly what Clinton will advocate yet, but it's
likely that her campaign will roughly follow the proposals coming out of
the Center for American Progress (closely tied to both Clinton and the
Democratic Party). In a recent paper, CAP analysts Heather Boushey and
Alexandra Mitukiewicz outlined a maternity leave policy taken from Sen.
Kirsten Gillibrand's FAMILY Act. It would create a new branch of the Social
Security Administration and a small payroll tax increase to provide up to
60 days of paid family leave for parents.

A second plank of the policy is likely to be some kind of sick leave
mandate in line with the proposed Healthy Families Act, which would require
employers with more than 15 employees to provide one hour of sick leave for
every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum requirement of seven full days per
year. (Employers can always go higher if they want, of course!)

A third plank is likely to be some sort of quasi-universal pre-K program in
line with Sen. Bob Casey's recent proposal.

All this is a good start, particularly in the design of the family leave
program. Paid family leave should definitely be a social insurance benefit
rather than an employer mandate. As Matt Yglesias explains, opting for the
latter design (which resembles what the U.S. did with health insurance
before ObamaCare) inevitably leaves out a great many workers, and then
becomes nearly impossible to overhaul. It's critical to get the initial
policy right, so further expansions are built on a sound foundation.

Sanders can provide three valuable additions (on top of what he's already
proposed). First, he can simply aim higher. Sixty days of family leave
isn't bad compared to the current zero, but it's pitiful compared to
Sweden's 480 days (split between both parents, mostly as they like).
America can easily afford 120 days or more, and Sanders ought to be
planting his flag in aggressive territory. Instead of seven days of sick
leave, 14. Instead of the smallbore pre-K program, a robust and fully
universal one.

Second, he can add a universal child allowance. This can be achieved by
folding all the various bizarre child tax credits and so forth into a
single monthly allowance, distributed on a per-child basis until age 16. By
scrapping parts of the welfare state that only benefit rich people, such as
the mortgage interest deduction, it can be strengthened further. A $300 per
month allowance, for example, would cut child poverty in half at a stroke.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Sanders can challenge Clinton's
overall framework. Though she explicitly disavowed Jeb Bush's idea that
Americans simply need to work more, she consistently valorized work
throughout her recent address. She presented family programs as a way to
keep women in the labor force, so as to produce more growth and economic
output. She generally presented work, which appeared 57 times in the
speech, as a major good in itself.

But while more jobs are surely a good goal in the short term, there are
reasons to think that Americans actually work way too much. Matt Bruenig
recently came up with a clever way to visualize this. As nations become
richer, they generally choose to work less, since they can produce more
with the same amount of work. In other words, most nations take some of the
fruits of productivity growth in the form of leisure — but the U.S. has not.

Since 1970, America's GDP produced per hour has doubled, but we have cut
average hours worked by only 6 percent. Compared to peer nations on the
economic productivity ladder (like France, which cut its hours by 26
percent over that period), America does more unnecessary work than any
other nation on Earth.

Just as Sanders challenged the primacy of economic growth, when all income
gains are immediately sucked up by the 1 percent, he could challenge the
idea of work as always and everywhere good.

This raises a deep question: What is the economy for? Not, one would hope,
simply ratcheting up total GDP to make the number go higher. It turns out
America is a very rich nation still flogging itself to work like a
middle-income one. We can easily afford a great many more days off — all we
need to do is make that choice.

*TOP NEWS*

*DOMESTIC*

*Chattanooga Gunman Spent Time in Jordan, Official Says
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/us/chattanooga-gunmans-past-scoured-for-extremist-ties.html?ref=us>
// NYT // Richard Fausset, Eric Schmitt and Richard Pére – July 17, 2015*

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Federal investigators on Friday began examining the
background of the 24-year-old gunman who killed four Marines in an attack
on two military sites here, going through his computer and cellphone and
focusing on a seven-month trip he made last year to Jordan.

A senior intelligence official said that investigators, led by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, were trying to determine whether the gunman in the
shooting rampage here Thursday, identified as Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez,
had been in touch with any extremist groups in Jordan before or during the
trip.

Edward W. Reinhold, the agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Knoxville division,
did not address specific trips abroad by Mr. Abdulazeez, but said at a news
conference on Friday, “We are exploring all travel he has done, and we have
asked our intelligence partners throughout the world to provide us with any
information they may have as to travel and activities.”

Before his stay in Jordan last year, Mr. Abdulazeez, who made the trip on
an American passport, had traveled at least four other times to the
country, said federal law enforcement officials, who were not authorized to
speak about the investigation. He was in Jordan in the last weeks of 2005,
in the summer of 2008, the summer of 2010 and the spring of 2013, officials
said. Those stays ranged from two weeks to two months.

In 2013, he also spent some time in Canada, returning to the United States
in May, these officials said. They offered no information about a reason
for the trips.

“This attack raises several questions about whether he was directed by
someone or whether there’s enough propaganda out there to motivate him to
do this,” said the senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity because the investigation was still underway.

Federal agents took Mr. Abdulazeez’s computer and cellphone back to
Washington, to comb through them for evidence about who he had been in
contact with, and about what.

Officials often look at international travel in terrorism cases because
training in terrorist camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan has been seen as a
crucial step in developing a plot. But a federal official said there was no
indication that Mr. Abdulazeez’s trips were connected with the plot, and
the attack in Tennessee would have required no specialized training, he
said.

“It would be premature to speculate on exactly why the shooter did what he
did,” Mr. Reinhold said. “However, we are conducting a thorough
investigation to determine whether this person acted alone, was inspired or
directed.”

Authorities in Jordan said Mr. Abdulazeez traveled there last year to visit
a maternal uncle, and the tiny, arid country — though squeezed into a
volatile region, bordering Syria, Israel, Iraq and Saudi Arabia — is not
considered a training ground for terrorism groups.

Jordan’s monarchy heads the Arab world’s most unflinchingly pro-American
government and one of two that have standing peace treaties with Israel.
Its security services are pervasive and their clampdowns on dissent played
a role in keeping the country stable through the Arab Spring uprisings and
the subsequent unrest that has rocked many Arab countries.

While Jordan has little internal militant activity, it is home to several
prominent Qaeda-linked ideologues, and parts of the country are bastions of
ultraconservative Islam. Abu Musbab Al-Zarqawi, who led Al Qaeda in Iraq
before being killed in an American airstrike in 2006, hailed from the town
of Zarqa, from which hundreds of young men have left more recently to join
jihadists factions in Syria and Iraq.

Born in Kuwait in 1990, Mr. Abdulazeez became an American citizen in 2003
through the naturalization of his mother, federal officials said. Because
he was a minor at the time, he did not have to apply separately for
citizenship. When they came to live in the United States, both his mother
and father were citizens of Jordan “of Palestinian descent,” a law
enforcement official said. His father is also a naturalized citizen.

Although counterterrorism officials had not been investigating Mr.
Abdulazeez before Thursday’s shooting, federal officials familiar with the
inquiry said that his father had been investigated years ago for giving
money to an organization with possible ties to terrorists.

Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, the chairman of the
House Homeland Security Committee, said the elder Mr. Abdulazeez had been
put on a watch list preventing him from flying. “I believe there was a
preliminary investigation,” Mr. McCaul said, “but there was no derogatory
information, and he was taken off the list.”

In fact, father and son were able to travel together to Jordan in recent
years, a law enforcement official said.

A United States official said that American intelligence officials were
contacting authorities in Kuwait and Jordan to see if they had any
information about the gunman, or whether he had been under surveillance or
came up in any investigations while he was there.

The Defense Department said Friday that the general security level had not
been raised at military installations around the country in the wake of the
shooting, but that individual station commanders might take added
precautions. In May, the military command raised the terrorism precaution
level at its domestic installations to “threat condition alpha,” the lowest
of four steps above normal, because of the general possibility of attacks
inspired by the group calling itself the Islamic State, also known as ISIS
or ISIL, and it has remained there.

Except for those assigned to police and security work, or engaged in
certain kinds of exercises, military personnel generally are not armed when
at military facilities. Reserve centers of the kind attacked Thursday,
which provide training and other services, are sometimes on bases, but
others, like the one in Chattanooga, stand alone, sometimes in places that
are fairly public.

In addition, there are thousands of military recruiting offices in shopping
centers and office parks, each staffed by only a handful of people, and
those are especially vulnerable, said Brian Michael Jenkins, a security
expert who is senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation.

“They’re supposed to be convenient; they’re supposed to be easily
accessible,” Mr. Jenkins said. “They’re virtually no more protected than a
shoe store in a shopping mall.”

“There have been continuing exhortations by both Al Qaeda and ISIL over the
years to attack American military personnel, so if you were determined that
that was your mission, then the most readily available, accessible,
unprotected target is going to be a recruiting office,” he said.

The gunman fired on an armed services recruiting center here, and then,
pursued by Chattanooga police officers, raced to a naval reserve facility
and opened fire there. It was at the second location, a fenced-in campus
with a building and a tree-lined parking lot, where the Marines and the
gunman died.

“All indications are that he was killed by fire from the Chattanooga police
officers,” Mr. Reinhold said of Mr. Abdulazeez.

“He did have at least two long guns,” meaning rifles or shotguns, “and he
did have one handgun that we’re aware of,” the agent said, but he declined
to be more specific. He said the gunman did not have body armor, but wore a
vest with multiple ammunition magazines.

Mr. McCaul said he had been told that the gunman’s main weapon was an
AK-47-style assault rifle.

Fred Fletcher, the Chattanooga police chief, said that when one of the
first officers on the scene was shot in the ankle, the others there “put
their hands on him, dragged him from the gunfire, and bravely returned
fire.”

The separate rampages here were together the highest profile episode of
violence at domestic military installations since April 2014, when three
people were killed and more than a dozen wounded at Fort Hood, Tex. And the
killings here came less than one month after another mass shooting, in
which nine people were killed inside a church in Charleston, S.C.

After the shootings here Wednesday, the police in New York City ratcheted
up security at military installations around the city. Officers with
special weapons and training were deployed to those and other sensitive
locations, said John J. Miller, the police department’s deputy commissioner
of intelligence and counterterrorism.

About a dozen uniformed police officers stood outside the famed armed
services recruitment center in the middle of Times Square on Friday,
several of them carrying semiautomatic rifles and wearing helmets, and some
with police dogs on leashes. These were members of “Hercules” teams, which
are dispatched around the city to exhibit a show of force, often near
landmarks or in busy commuter areas like Grand Central Terminal.

They were an incongruous presence on the busy pedestrian plaza, where
tourists rested at bright red public tables or pulled rolling suitcases
along the pavement. While some tourists stopped to have their pictures
taken with people dressed as Elsa and Olaf from the movie “Frozen,” a
steady stream of them also posed for photos showing them next to the
heavily armed police.

The only run-in Mr. Abdulazeez had with local law enforcement appears to
have been an April 20 arrest on a charge of driving while intoxicated, for
which he posted a $2,000 bond, and was due to appear in Hamilton County
court on July 30. The arrest record listed him as 6 feet tall and weighing
200 pounds.

According to a police affidavit filed in the case, officers spotted him
weaving through downtown Chattanooga after 2 a.m., in a gray 2001 Toyota
Camry, and when they pulled over, they smelled alcohol and marijuana, and
he failed a field sobriety test. They said his eyes were bloodshot, his
speech was slurred, he was “unsteady on his feet,” and he had “irritated
nostrils and a white powdery substance/residue” under his nose, which Mr.
Abdulazeez claimed came from snorting crushed caffeine pills.

*3 states launch investigations of Planned Parenthood, which says senior
official reprimanded
<http://www.startribune.com/more-investigations-target-planned-parenthood-policies/315993311/>
// AP // David Crary – July 17, 2015*

The governors of Georgia and Indiana and Ohio's attorney general on
Thursday ordered investigations of Planned Parenthood facilities in their
states to determine if organs from aborted fetuses were being sold.

The state investigations — as well as probes announced Wednesday by three
Republican-led congressional committees — come in response to the release
of an undercover video made by anti-abortion activists. The video shows Dr.
Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood's senior director of medical services,
discussing procedures for providing fetal body parts to researchers.

Planned Parenthood officials said Thursday that Nucatola has been
"reprimanded." They did not elaborate. The organization's president, Cecile
Richards, apologized for the tone of some of Nucatola's recorded statements.

Nucatola is heard in the video referring to fetal hearts, lungs and livers
and to efforts to retrieve these organs intact rather than crush them
during an abortion procedure. She also is heard giving a range of monetary
estimates for their procurement.

The commercial sale of fetal tissue is outlawed. Planned Parenthood, which
provides abortions and other reproductive health services, says it legally
helps women who want to make not-for-profit donations of their fetus'
organs for scientific research.

According to Planned Parenthood, the monetary sums mentioned by Nucatola
were for reimbursement of the clinics' costs in handling the tissue
donations. "Nobody should be 'selling' tissue. That's just not the goal
here," Nucatola says at one point.

The video, made covertly last year, was produced by the Irvine,
California-based Center for Medical Progress, which released it with the
support of several national anti-abortion organizations. It shows a
lunchtime conversation between Nucatola and anti-abortion activists posing
as potential buyers for a human biologics company.

On Thursday, GOP Govs. Nathan Deal in Georgia and Mike Pence in Indiana and
GOP Attorney General Mike DeWine in Ohio ordered probes of Planned
Parenthood clinics. DeWine said he'll investigate whether Planned
Parenthood may have violated its nonprofit status and made money from the
sale of fetal organs.

But in a video, Richards describes as "outrageous" the claims that Planned
Parenthood clinics were breaking the law by selling fetal tissue for
profit. "Our donation programs — like any other high-quality health care
providers — follow all laws and ethical guidelines," she said.

However, she said some of Nucatola's remarks heard on the undercover video
did not reflect Planned Parenthood's commitment to "compassionate care."

"This is unacceptable, and I personally apologize for the staff member's
tone and statements," Richards said. "If there is any aspect of our work
that can be strengthened, we want to know about it, and we take swift
action to address it."

In Congress, House Speaker John Boehner said Planned Parenthood has
embraced "gruesome practices" and he voiced skepticism at the suggestion
that its procedures were legitimate.

"If you saw the video, it certainly didn't strike me that way," he said. "I
could talk about the video, but I think I'd vomit ... It's disgusting."

Two Democratic congressmen, Reps. John Conyers of Michigan and Steve Cohen
of Tennessee, criticized the launching of congressional investigations.

"House Leadership is using a sensationalist and heavily edited video as an
opportunity to attack one of the nation's leading providers of high-quality
health care for women," they said in a joint statement.

*Dems float compromise linking Confederate flag to voting rights
<http://thehill.com/homenews/house/248222-dems-float-compromise-linking-confederate-flag-to-voting-rights>
// The Hill // Mike Lillis – July 27, 2015*

House Democrats are floating a legislative deal linking the thorny
Confederate flag debate with expanded voting rights.

Republican leaders last week were forced to scrap a vote on an Interior
Department spending bill — and suspend their appropriations schedule
indefinitely — over a partisan disagreement about displaying the
Confederate flag in national cemeteries.

Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, said Thursday
that Democratic leaders will drop their push to attach flag-related
amendments to appropriations bills, freeing Republicans to pursue their
spending agenda, if GOP leaders will agree to consider an update to the
1965 Voting Rights Act, a central part of which was gutted by the Supreme
Court in 2013.

"I'm here to say to you that the members of the Congressional Black Caucus
and the full Democratic Caucus are willing to sit down with the Speaker and
work out a way for us to allow the proper display and utilization of ...
the flag in certain instances if he would only sit down with us and work
out an appropriate addressing of the amendments to the Voting Rights Act,"
Clyburn said during a press briefing in the Capitol.

"We believe that there's a proper place for all of us to honor our
heritage, and nothing is more of a heritage to African-Americans than the
right to vote."

The Democrats have been pushing a VRA update unsuccessfully for two years.
With their new strategy, they're hoping the high-profile controversy
surrounding the Confederate flag — which has only deepened since last
month's racially charged killing of nine parishioners at an historic black
church in Charleston, S.C. — will give them leverage in that fight.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) alluded to the Charleston
massacre Thursday, suggesting that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and
other GOP leaders need to do more to address institutional racism than
attend funerals in the wake of tragedies.

"There has been an opportunity for the Republican majority not just to send
a condolence card or show up at a service but to translate that into
action," Pelosi said. "And we are now segueing from the conversation about
the flag to a conversation about voting rights now."

The voting rights issue has been under the spotlight since June of 2013,
when the Supreme Court struck down a VRA formula defining which states
required federal approval before changing their election procedures. The
law had applied on a blanket basis to nine states — most of them in the
South — with documented histories of racial discrimination.

Writing for the 5-4 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that, while
the federal government has the authority to monitor elections for fairness,
the coverage formula is outdated and therefore unconstitutional. He invited
Congress to update the parameters.

"Our country has changed," Roberts wrote, "and while any racial
discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the
legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions."

The ruling has had immediate practical implications, as a number of
conservative states — including Texas, North Carolina and Alabama — have
since adopted stricter voting requirements that had been on hold under the
old VRA.

Supporters of the tougher laws, which include new photo ID and
proof-of-citizenship requirements, say they're necessary to fight voter
fraud and ensure the integrity of the election process.

Critics counter that problems of fraud are exaggerated, and the tougher
rules are just a Republican gambit to discourage minority and other
vulnerable voters, who tend to side with the Democrats.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was savagely beaten during a landmark civil
rights march that led directly to the VRA's passage in 1965, said Thursday
that the tougher state requirements are a naked conspiracy to
disenfranchise certain groups.

"Across the country, there's a deliberate, systematic attempt to make it
harder and more difficult for the disabled, students, seniors, minorities,
the poor, and rural voters to participate in a democratic process," Lewis
said. "We must not let that happen."

In February, Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the former chairman of the
House Judiciary Committee, and John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking member
of the panel, introduced legislation to update the VRA's coverage formula.
Lewis and Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) have introduced similar bills.

GOP leaders have declined to move the legislation, arguing that the current
VRA offers sufficient voter protections — a message amplified by Judiciary
Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) in response to questions Thursday.

"While the Supreme Court struck down the old coverage formula that required
certain states to pre-clear their voting rule changes with the federal
government, the Court left in place other important tools in the Voting
Rights Act, including the section that allows federal judges to place
jurisdictions under a pre-clearance regime if those jurisdictions act in an
unconstitutional and discriminatory manner," Goodlatte said in an email.

"So, strong remedies against unconstitutional voting discrimination remain
in place today."

A GOP leadership aide noted only that, "Any action on the VRA would begin
at the Judiciary Committee."

*To Avoid Another Crash, Hillary Clinton Should Reinstate Glass-Steagall
<http://www.newsweek.com/avoid-another-crash-hillary-should-reinstate-glass-steagall-354994>
// Newsweek // Robert Reich – July 17, 2015*

Hillary Clinton won’t propose reinstating a bank breakup law known as the
Glass-Steagall Act—at least according to Alan Blinder, an economist who has
been advising Clinton’s campaign. “You’re not going to see Glass-Steagall,”
Blinder said after her economic speech on July 13 in which she failed to
mention it. Blinder said he had spoken to Clinton directly about
Glass-Steagall.

This is a big mistake.

It’s a mistake politically because people who believe Hillary Clinton is
still too close to Wall Street will not be reassured by her position on
Glass-Steagall. Many will recall that her husband led the way to repealing
Glass-Steagall in 1999 at the request of the big Wall Street banks.

It’s a big mistake economically because the repeal of Glass-Steagall led
directly to the 2008 Wall Street crash, and without it we’re in danger of
another one.

Some background: During the Roaring '20s, so much money could be made by
speculating on shares of stock that several big Wall Street banks began
selling stock alongside their traditional banking services—taking in
deposits and making loans.

Some banks went further, lending to pools of speculators that used the
money to pump up share prices. The banks sold the shares to their
customers, only to have the share prices collapse when the speculators
dumped them.

For the banks, it was an egregious but hugely profitable conflict of
interest.

After the entire stock market crashed in 1929, ushering in the Great
Depression, Washington needed to restore the public’s faith in the banking
system. One step was for Congress to enact legislation insuring commercial
deposits against bank losses.

Another was to prevent the kinds of conflicts of interest that resulted in
such losses, and which had fueled the boom and subsequent bust. Under the
Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, banks couldn’t both gamble in the market and
also take in deposits and make loans. They’d have to choose between the two.

“The idea is pretty simple behind this one,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said
a few days ago, explaining her bill to resurrect Glass-Steagall. “If banks
want to engage in high-risk trading, they can go for it, but they can’t get
access to ensured deposits and put the taxpayers on the hook for that
reason.”

For more than six decades after 1933, Glass-Steagall worked exactly as
intended. During that long interval, few banks failed and no financial
panic endangered the banking system.

But the big Wall Street banks weren’t content. They wanted bigger profits.
They thought they could make far more money by gambling with commercial
deposits. So they set out to whittle down Glass-Steagall.

Finally, in 1999, President Bill Clinton struck a deal with Republican
Senator Phil Gramm to do exactly what Wall Street wanted, and repeal
Glass-Steagall altogether.

What happened next? An almost exact replay of the Roaring '20s. Once again,
banks originated fraudulent loans and sold them to their customers in the
form of securities. Once again, there was a huge conflict of interest that
finally resulted in a banking crisis.

This time, the banks were bailed out, but millions of Americans lost their
savings, their jobs, even their homes.

A personal note. I worked for Bill Clinton as secretary of labor, and I
believe most of his economic policies were sound. But during those years, I
was in a fairly continuous battle with some other of his advisers who
seemed determined to do Wall Street’s bidding.

On Glass-Steagall, they clearly won.

To this day, some Wall Street apologists argue Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have
prevented the 2008 crisis because the real culprits were nonbanks like
Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.

Baloney. These non-banks got their funding from the big banks in the form
of lines of credit, mortgages and repurchase agreements. If the big banks
hadn’t provided them the money, the nonbanks wouldn’t have got into trouble.

And why were the banks able to give them easy credit on bad collateral?
Because Glass-Steagall was gone.

Other apologists for Wall Street blame the crisis on unscrupulous mortgage
brokers.

Surely mortgage brokers do share some of the responsibility. But here
again, the big banks were accessories and enablers.

The mortgage brokers couldn’t have funded the mortgage loans if the banks
hadn’t bought them. And the big banks couldn’t have bought them if
Glass-Steagall were still in place.

I’ve also heard bank executives claim there’s no reason to resurrect
Glass-Steagall because none of the big banks actually failed.

This is like arguing lifeguards are no longer necessary at beaches where no
one has drowned. It ignores the fact that the big banks were bailed out. If
the government hadn’t thrown them lifelines, many would have gone under.

Remember? Their balance sheets were full of junky paper, nonperforming
loans and worthless derivatives. They were bailed out because they were too
big to fail. And the reason for resurrecting Glass-Steagall is we don’t
want to go through that ever again.

As George Santayana famously quipped, those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it. In the Roaring 2000s, just as in the Roaring
'20s, America’s big banks used insured deposits to underwrite their
gambling in private securities and then dumped the securities on their
customers.

It ended badly.

This is precisely what the Glass-Steagall Act was designed to prevent—and
did prevent for over six decades.

Hillary Clinton, of all people, should remember.

*Chattanooga shooting renews debate over military gun-free zones
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/chattanooga-shooting-renews-debate-gun-free-zones-article-1.2295643>
// NY Daily News – July 17, 2015*

The image shows a stark contrast: the front window of a military recruiting
center riddled with bullet holes. Jutting out from behind the shattered
glass, a poster: Firearms prohibited in this facility.

That photograph from Chattanooga, Tenn., where four unarmed Marines were
gunned down, has launched a political debate over the merit of a federal
policy limiting guns at military facilities.

Since 1993, weapons have been banned at recruiting centers. Only military
police can carry weapons at military bases and reserves centers.

Gun-free zones were launched to reduce the use of deadly force unless
absolutely necessary at military facilities, according to the 1992
directive under President George H.W. Bush. The policy was modified under
President Bill Clinton a year later.

"We go by that policy. Right now it is a political discussion, but we don't
get into the political discussions," Kelli Bland, public affairs chief for
the U.S. Army Recruiting Command Center, told the Daily News Friday.

Gen. Ray Odierno, chief of staff of the Army, pledged to review security
procedures at military bases and recruiting centers Friday. He did not
detail what will happen to gun-free zones.

Gun-rights supporters argue lives could have been saved if soldiers were
permitted to have weapons.

Donald Trump was one of the first to ridicule the policy after the
shooting, calling for the end of gun-free zones.

"The four great marines who were just shot never had a chance," the
bombastic presidential candidate wrote on Twitter. "They were highly
trained but helpless without guns."

Trump's voice was one in a cacophony of gun-rights supporters claiming
soldiers could stop mass shooters in their tracks if they were allowed to
pack heat — a point debated after shootings at Fort Hood in 2009 and the
Washington Navy Yard in 2013.

Even if soldiers couldn't have ended Muhammed Youssef Abdulazeez's attack
as he ambushed them from a car, the sight of weapons could have deterred
him, John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center,
told The News.

"Even just the threat of somebody pointing a gun will get them to stop the
attacks," Lott said. "Without having to fire a gun, you could distract a
killer, who may have to go and look for cover himself."

Military police often can't respond to an attack instantly, and those few
minutes could mean the difference in how many people survive, Lott said.

The gun-free policy also makes military facilities bigger targets, he said.

"It's explicit these attackers go and pick places where victims aren't able
to go and defend themselves," Lott said.

Lott pointed to the notebooks of Aurora theater shooter James Holmes, which
showed he plotted his target after weeding through places with light
security.

Recruiting centers don't allow weapons because they need to be "welcoming,"
Bland said.

"They are in public spaces. Applicants need to feel comfortable," she said.
"They're not there to get a rehearsal to join the Army."

Bland noted soldiers are trained "when it comes to active shooter
scenarios," regularly receiving guidance on safety procedures. She declined
to detail what the specific protection measures are.

Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign against Gun Violence, said
the group "will leave it to the military to review their safety procedures
at bases and recruitment facilities in consultation with law enforcement."

"This is a very unsettling time for the brave men and women who serve in
the military and law enforcement, as well as their families," Gross said.

*INTERNATIONAL*

*ISIS Has Fired Chemical Mortar Shells, Evidence Indicates
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/world/middleeast/islamic-state-isis-chemical-weapons-iraq-syria.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>
// NYT // C. J. Chivers – July 17, 2015*

The Islamic State appears to have manufactured rudimentary chemical warfare
shells and attacked Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria with them as many
as three times in recent weeks, according to field investigators, Kurdish
officials and a Western ordnance disposal technician who examined the
incidents and recovered one of the shells.

The development, which the investigators said involved toxic industrial or
agricultural chemicals repurposed as weapons, signaled a potential
escalation of the group’s capabilities, though it was not entirely without
precedent.

Beginning more than a decade ago, Sunni militants in Iraq have occasionally
used chlorine or old chemical warfare shells in makeshift bombs against
American and Iraqi government forces. And Kurdish forces have claimed that
militants affiliated with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL,
used a chlorine-based chemical in at least one suicide truck bomb in Iraq
this year.

Firing chemical mortar shells across distances, however, as opposed to
dispersing toxic chemicals via truck bombs or stationary devices, would be
a new tactic for the group, and would require its munitions makers to
overcome a significantly more difficult technical challenge.

Chemical weapons, internationally condemned and banned in most of the
world, are often less lethal than conventional munitions, including when
used in improvised fashion. But they are indiscriminate by nature and
difficult to defend against without specialized equipment — traits that
lend them potent psychological and political effects.

In the clearest recent incident, a 120-millimeter chemical mortar shell
struck sandbag fortifications at a Kurdish military position near Mosul Dam
on June 21 or 22, the investigators said, and caused several Kurdish
fighters near where it landed to become ill.

The shell did not explode and was recovered nearly intact on June 29 by
Gregory Robin, a former French military ordnance disposal technician who
now works for Sahan Research, a think tank partnered with Conflict Armament
Research, a private organization that has been documenting and tracing
weapons used in the conflict. Both research groups are registered in
Britain.

The tail of the shell had been broken, Mr. Robin said by telephone on
Friday, and was leaking a liquid that emanated a powerful odor of chlorine
and caused irritation to the airways and eyes.

It was the first time, according to Mr. Robin and James Bevan, the director
of Conflict Armament Research, that such a shell had been found in the
conflict.

In an internal report to the Kurdish government in Iraq, the research
groups noted that the mortar shell appeared to have been manufactured in an
“ISIS workshop by casting iron into mold method. The mortar contains a
warhead filled with a chemical agent, most probably chlorine.”

Conflict Armament Research and Sahan Research often work with the Kurdistan
Region Security Council. Mr. Robin and Mr. Bevan said the council had
contracted a laboratory to analyze residue samples removed from the weapon.

“Soon we should have an exact composition of the chemical in this
projectile, but I am certain it is chlorine,” Mr. Robin said.

He added, “What I don’t know is what kind of burster charge it had,”
referring to the small explosive charge intended to break open the shell
and distribute its liquid contents. The shell had not exploded, he said,
because, inexplicably, it did not contain a fuse.

Whether any finding from tests underwritten by Kurdish authorities would be
internationally recognized is uncertain, as the Kurdish forces are party to
the conflict.

The week after Mr. Robin collected the shell, on July 6, another
investigator found evidence that the research groups said indicated two
separate attacks with chemical projectiles in Kurdish territory in the
northeastern corner of Syria.

Those attacks, at Tel Brak and Hasakah, occurred in late June and appeared
to involve shells or small rockets containing an industrial chemical
sometimes used as a pesticide, the investigators said.

In the incidents in Syria, Mr. Bevan said, multiple shells struck in
agricultural fields near three buildings used by Kurdish militia forces
known as the Y.P.G., or Peoples Protection Units, in Tel Brak. More shells,
he said, landed in civilian areas in Hasakah; at least one struck a
civilian home.

Late on Friday, the Y.P.G. released a statement denouncing what it called
“criminal actions” and said that in the last four weeks its forces had
captured gas masks from Islamic State fighters.

The attacks at Tel Brak sickened 12 Y.P.G. fighters, who suffered many
symptoms, including headaches, breathing difficulties, nausea, vomiting,
eye irritation, disorientation, temporary paralysis and, in some cases,
loss of consciousness, said a Western investigator for Conflict Armament
Research who asked that his name be withheld for security reasons.

The investigator said he examined two impact craters at Tel Brak and also a
hole in a reinforced concrete wall at Hasakah where the munitions had
landed. The odor, he said, was strong, unfamiliar and soon became a painful
irritant.

“It smelled like a spicy onion smell,” he said. “It was strange; it wasn’t
something I could put my finger on immediately.”

He added, “We were there for perhaps 30 seconds when it started burning the
nose; more than 90 seconds and the throat started to burn.”

Based on laboratory results provided by Kurdish medical officials in
Qamishli, where the afflicted fighters were treated and tested, the
research groups said they tentatively concluded that the shells contained
phosphine, a chemical sometimes used to fumigate stored grains.

A document from the medical authorities, translated by The New York Times,
referred to the laboratory tests but did not describe their methodology or
show specific results.

Mr. Bevan also noted that tests so far were not conclusive.

No direct samples of the substance in the shells had been independently
gathered, he said, in part because the field investigator, who did not have
chemical protective equipment, experienced the onset of symptoms while
working near the impact craters and had to leave the area.

Some of the shells’ characteristics from the incidents in Syria, based on
photographs of the fragments, did not appear consistent with chemical
weapons, including that the shell walls appeared to be thick; chemical
weapons often have thinner metal skins than weapons designed to fragment.

But both Mr. Robin and the field investigator said it was possible that the
attacks were tests of new weapons from the Islamic State’s makeshift
munitions production lines.

The field investigator noted that at Tel Brak, the Kurdish fighters pulled
back from the front-line positions after the attack, and that their former
squad-sized outpost was now an observation post with fewer fighters.

“My guess is that this is going to happen again,” he said, “because it was
effective.”

In an internal report provided to Kurdish officials in Syria, the two
research groups recommended that Kurdish forces improve their readiness for
chemical warfare incidents.

Kurdish forces “require immediate training and equipment to identify and
counter chemical IED threats,” the report noted, using the acronym for
improvised explosive device. It continued: “This capacity will be
fundamental in maintaining civilian confidence, given the enhanced
psychological impact of chemical weapon use.”

*U.S. Sought ‘El Chapo’ Extradition Before Escape
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/world/americas/joaquin-guzman-loera-extradition-request.html?ref=world>
// NYT // Azam Ahmed – July 17, 2015*

Less than three weeks before Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the infamous drug
kingpin known as El Chapo, escaped from Mexico’s highest security prison,
the United States issued a formal request for his extradition, according to
a statement by the Mexican attorney general late Thursday night.

The request, issued on June 25, was made public after testimony by the
attorney general, Arely Gómez González, before senators and representatives
of the country, raising fresh questions about the relationship between the
two nations.

The United States government has been frustrated by the Mexican
authorities, who have delayed a decision on whether to accept an American
offer of unconditional support to track down Mr. Guzmán — including the use
of drones, advanced intelligence equipment and a special task force.

Long before the escape, Mexican officials also appeared resistant to the
idea of extraditing Mr. Guzmán, who faces indictments in at least seven
American federal courts on charges that include narcotics trafficking and
murder. In October, a new indictment in Federal District Court in Brooklyn
linked him and his associates to hundreds of acts of murder, assault,
kidnapping and torture.

But the Mexican government indicated it would keep the prisoner in its
custody, wanting to prosecute and imprison Mr. Guzmán in what many viewed
as a show of sovereignty. In January, Mexico’s previous attorney general,
Jesús Murillo Karam, suggested that Mr. Guzmán would never serve time in
the United States.

“El Chapo must stay here to complete his sentence, and then I will
extradite him,” Mr. Murillo Karam was quoted as saying at the time. “So
about 300 or 400 years later — it will be a while.”

Mr. Guzmán escaped from prison on the night of July 11, using a mile-long
tunnel burrowed into the floor of his bathroom that experts says took more
than a year to dig.

The Mexican government has struggled to explain how Mr. Guzmán managed to
pull off such an elaborate prison break from what was meant to be the
country’s most secure facility. The Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto,
said last year following the drug lord’s arrest that losing him again — Mr.
Guzmán had escaped Mexican custody once before — would be unforgivable.

Whether Mr. Guzmán had been warned about the American extradition request,
or whether that had any influence on the timing of his escape, is unclear.
Extraditions can take years to occur.

The Americans did not formally request the extradition of Mr. Guzmán after
his arrest in February 2014, an operation conducted by Mexican forces with
American help.

It is unclear why, nearly a year and a half later, the American government
decided to formally request Mr. Guzmán’s extradition.

“It is the practice of the United States to seek extradition whenever
defendants subject to U.S. charges are apprehended in another country,”
said Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman.

The statement from the Mexican attorney general’s office indicated that Ms.
Gómez González gave orders for her office to review the extradition request
to ensure that it complied with all legal requirements and then submit them
to the nation’s Justice Department for consideration.