Subject: H4A News Clips 7.25.15
From: Alexandria Phillips <[email-masked]>
To: Alexandria Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 08:31:11 -0400
List-Id: <HRCRapid.hillaryclinton.com>

*H4A News Clips*

*July 25, 2015*

*TODAY’S KEY
STORIES.................................................................................................................
**7*

*Hillary Clinton Eyes Corporations in Proposals for Economy* // NYT //
Maggie Haberman - July 24, 2015  7

*Hillary Clinton on e-mail controversy: ‘Maybe the heat is getting to
everybody’* // WaPo // Jose A. DelReal - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................
9

*New York Times issues correction on Clinton email story* // CNN // Tom
LoBianco - July 24, 2015 10

*Clinton: The tyranny of quarterly earnings hurts innovation* // Wired //
Issie Lapowsky - July 24, 2015      11

*HRC NATIONAL
COVERAGE.......................................................................................................
**13*

*Hillary Clinton Email Said to Contain Classified Information* // NYT //
Michael S. Schmidt and Matt Apuzzo - July 24,
2015........................................................................................................................
13

*Hillary Clinton to Back $15 Fast-Food Minimum Wage in New York* // NYT //
Maggie Haberman - July 24,
2015.....................................................................................................................................
15

*1993 Video Reveals a More Impassioned and Direct Hillary Clinton* // NYT
// Amy Chozick - July 24,
2015............................................................................................................................................
15

*Ranking Hillary Clinton’s e-mail problems* // WaPo // Amber Phillips -
July 24, 2015.............. 16

*Hillary Clinton is playing (home state) favorites on the minimum wage* //
WaPo // Jim Tankersley and Lydia DePillis - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................
18

*New York Times says there was ‘no factual error’ in Hillary Clinton e-mail
referral story* // WaPo // Erik Wemple - July 24,
2015........................................................................................................
20

*Justice: Probe sought in Clinton e-mails, but no ‘criminal’ focus* // WaPo
// Fred Barbash - July 24, 2015  21

*This is Hillary Clinton’s Elizabeth Warren moment* // WaPo // Max
Ehrenfreud - July 24, 2015 22

*Hillary Clinton Sent Classified Information Over Email While at State
Department, Review Finds* // WSJ // Bryon Tau - July 24,
2015......................................................................................................
24

*Hillary Clinton Proposes Sharp Rise in Some Capital-Gains Tax Rates* //
WSJ // Laura Meckler - July 24,
2015............................................................................................................................................
26

*Hillary Clinton to Propose Doubling Capital Gains Tax Rate on Short-Term
Investments* // WSJ // Laura Meckler - July 24,
2015.........................................................................................................
27

*Clinton says nation's companies need to think long-term* // AP // Ken
Thomas - July 24, 2015. 29

*In new White House bid, Clinton embraces race as a top issue* // AP //
Bill Barrow - July 24, 2015               31

*Hillary Clinton’s plan for corporate America* // Politico // Annie Karni -
July 24, 2015.............. 32

*GOP says Clinton must turn over server after news of probe* // Politico //
Rachael Bade - July 24, 2015       34

*Hillary Clinton on email scandal: Everybody calm down* // Politico // Josh
Gerstein and Hanna Trudo - July 24,
2015...............................................................................................................................
37

*Hillary Clinton Faults ‘Hit-and-Run’ Activist Investors* // Bloomberg //
Brandon Kochkodin and Caleb Melby - July 24,
2015........................................................................................................................
40

*Hillary Clinton's Fix for Short-Termism? They Tried It in 1934* //
Bloomberg // Peter Coy - July 24, 2015    41

*Hillary Clinton Adds Capital Gains Complexity With Tax Rise, 6-Year Wait*
// Bloomberg // Richard Rubin - July 24,
2015........................................................................................................................
43

*Hillary Clinton Calls for Investors to Escape 'Tyranny' of 'Short Termism'*
// Bloomberg // Jennifer Epstein - July 24,
2015........................................................................................................................
45

*Clinton emails contained classified material: U.S. inspector* // Reuters
// Jonathan Allen - July 24, 2015  47

*Clinton proposes tax, buyback changes to encourage long-term growth* //
Reuters // Jonathan Allen and Luciana Lopez - July 24,
2015...............................................................................................
48

*Justice Department: No criminal referral over Clinton emails* // Reuters
// Susan Heavey - July 24, 2015 49

*Hillary's emails touched off debate about classified documents* //
Politico // Josh Gerstein - July 24,
2015...........................................................................................................................................
50

*Hillary Clinton slogs through another email frenzy* // CNN // Stephen
Collinson and Tom LoBianco - July 24,
2015.....................................................................................................................................
53

*Official: Clinton emails included classified information* // CNN // Elise
Labott - July 24, 2015.. 56

*Clinton focuses on economy amid email controversy* // CNN // Dan Merica
and Eric Brader - July 24,
2015............................................................................................................................................
59

*How Hillary Clinton plans to ‘save capitalism’* // MSNBC // Alex
Seitz-Wald - July 24, 2015..... 62

*New allegations on Clinton emails start to unravel* // MSNBC // Steve
Benen  - July 24, 2015... 64

*Hillary Clinton proposes sharp increase in short-term capital gains taxes*
// NBC // Everett Rosenfeld - July 24,
2015...............................................................................................................................
65

*Hillary Clinton: Report of Email Probe Has 'a Lot of Inaccuracies'* // NBC
// Kristen Welker - July 24,
2015............................................................................................................................................
66

*Will Hillary's econ speech bring together Democrats?* // NBC // Ben White
- July 24, 2015...... 68

*What the Clinton Email Story Might — or Might Not — Mean* // NBC // Chuck
Tod, Mark Murray, and Carrie Dann - July 24,
2015.............................................................................................................
69

*Hillary Clinton Isn’t Going As Far As Her Democratic Rivals on Minimum
Wage* // ABC // MaryAlice Parks and Liz Kreutz - July 24,
2015......................................................................................................
70

*Hillary Clinton: IG's Urge Justice Department to Probe Her Emails* // ABC
// Justin Fishel and Mike Levine - July 24,
2015........................................................................................................................
71

*Hillary Clinton defends Planned Parenthood amid video controversy* // CBS
// Reena Flores - July 24,
2015............................................................................................................................................
72

*No criminal probe requested into Hillary Clinton's email, DOJ clarifies*
// CBS // Paula Reid - July 24,
2015............................................................................................................................................
73

*Hillary Clinton Would Double Taxes on Short-Term Capital Gains* // Fox //
Dunstan Prial - July 24, 2015 75

*New York Times Corrects Explosive Hillary Clinton Email Story Amid
Campaign Pushback* // HuffPo // Michael Calderone and Sam Stein - July 24,
2015................................................................... 76

*Hillary Clinton's Economic Speech A Total Letdown* // HuffPo // Zach
Carter - July 24, 2015... 78

*Hillary Clinton Pushes Back On Report Of Email Investigation* // HuffPo //
Sam Levine - July 24, 2015     80

*Classified Emails Were Sent Through Clinton's Private Network, Watchdog
Says* // NPR // Eyder Peralta - July 24,
2015...............................................................................................................................
81

*How The New York Times Bungled the Hillary Clinton Emails Story* //
Newsweek // Kurt Eichenwald - July 24,
2015...............................................................................................................................
83

*What Hillary Can Learn From Amy Schumer* // Daily Beast // Keli Goff -
July 24, 2015............ 88

*Hillary Clinton wants to take on "quarterly capitalism" — here's what that
means* // Vox // Matthew Yglesias - July 24,
2015........................................................................................................................
90

*Hillary Clinton's capital gains tax reform, explained* // Vox // Matthew
Yglesias - July 24, 2015 93

*How the old rules apply to the new Hillary Clinton email scoop* // Vox //
Jonathan Allen - July 24, 2015   96

*Clinton responds to reports of possible email investigation* // LA Times
// Michael Memoli - July 24,
2015............................................................................................................................................
97

*Clinton calls on corporations to shift focus to longer-term growth* // LA
Times // Michael Memoli - July 24,
2015.....................................................................................................................................
97

*Federal investigators want Justice Department probe of Hillary Clinton
emails* // LA Times // Evan Halper - July 24,
2015........................................................................................................................
99

*Inspector General Says Hillary Clinton Emails Contained Classified
Information* // TIME // Zeke J. Miller - July 24,
2015.......................................................................................................................
101

*Officials: Classified Emails ‘Should Never’ Have Been On Hillary Clinton
Server* // TIME // Zeke J. Miller - July 24,
2015......................................................................................................................
104

*What Hillary Clinton’s New Tax Proposal Would Mean* // TIME // Ian
Salisbury - July 24, 2015 105

*Hillary Clinton Courts Both Liberals and Wall Street with Tax Plan* //
TIME // Sam Frizell - July 24, 2015 106

*Hillary Clinton: Capitalism is out of balance, needs a reset* // Fortune
// Tory Newmyer - July 24, 2015     108

*New York Times corrects bombshell email-scandal story after Hillary
Clinton blasts it* // Business Insider // Brett Logiurato - July 24,
2015.............................................................................................
110

*Call for DoJ probe into Clinton emails* // FT // Demetri Sevastopulo and
Gina Chon - July 24, 2015              112

*Clinton: Focus more on workers than on profits* // The Hill // Ben Kamisar
- July 24, 2015...... 113

*Top Dem denies criminal probe of Clinton’s emails* // The Hill // Martin
Matishak - July 24, 2015                114

*Hillary Clinton email inquiry not linked to criminal wrongdoing, official
says* // Guardian // July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
115

*Hillary Clinton decries Wall Street's 'quarterly capitalism' in tax reform
pitch* // Guardian // Ben Jacobs - July 24,
2015..............................................................................................................................
116

*Hillary Clinton likely 'mishandled' secrets because too much is classified*
// Guardian // Trevor Timm - July 24,
2015..............................................................................................................................
117

*Hillary Clinton calls for shift in corporate priorities to help workers*
// Newsday // James T. Madore - July 24,
2015...................................................................................................................................
119

*What’s in those classified Clinton emails?* // McClatchy // Corrine
Kennedy - July 24, 2015.... 120

*Hillary Clinton Email Scandal Could Turn into Criminal Investigation* //
Gawker // Sam Biddle - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
121

*Hillary Clinton Alleges ‘Inaccuracies’ in Reports of Inquiries Into Her
Emails* // NY Observer // Jillian Jorgensen - July 24,
2015....................................................................................................
123

*Hillary Clinton resurrects ‘90s tax policy* // Washington Times // S.A.
Miller - July 24, 2015... 123

*Hillary Clinton’s private email account triggers criminal inquiry request*
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski and Maggie Ybara - July 24,
2015.........................................................................
124

*DOJ: No, We Weren't Asked To Launch A Criminal Probe Into Clinton's Emails*
// TPM // Catherine Thompson - July 24,
2015.....................................................................................................................
126

*Justice Dept. May Probe 'Compromise' of Classified Info In Hillary
Clinton's Email* // National Journal // Ben Geman - July 24,
2015.........................................................................................................
127

*False reports of Hillary Clinton investigation just keep falling apart* //
Daily Kos // Laura Clawson - July 24,
2015...................................................................................................................................
130

*New York Times presents another Clinton bombshell ... and again, it bombs*
// Daily Kos // Laura Clawson - July 24,
2015.......................................................................................................................
131

*Capital Gains Tax And Long-Term Growth Topics At NYU Speech By
Presidential Candidate* // IB Times // Jess McHugh - July 24,
2015................................................................................................
132

*Sanders Surges, Hillary Drops in New Gallup Poll* // Newsmax // Jason
Devaney - July 24, 2015 133

*Hillary Clinton Puts Fashion Bloggers to Shame* // W Magazine // Sarah
Leon - July 24, 2015. 133

*Hillary Clinton E-mails May Prompt Further Inquiry (Updated)* // Vanity
Fair // Kia Makarechi - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
134

*Hillary Clinton: Capitalism Needs to Be ‘Reinvented’ and ‘Put Back into
Balance’* // The Blaze // Fred Lucas - July 24,
2015.......................................................................................................................
135

*New York Times Writes Badass Slash Fiction About Hillary Clinton Criminal
Investigation* // Wonkette // Kaili Joy Gray - July 24,
2015.......................................................................................................
136

*Criminal Probe Sought Over Hillary Clinton's Private Emails: Reports* //
People // Maria Coder - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
138

*OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL
COVERAGE.........................................................................
**138*

*O’MALLEY.............................................................................................
**138*

*A pro-O’Malley super PAC raises $289,000. That’s not all that super.* //
WaPo // John Wagner - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
139

*On banks, O’Malley is both prosecutor and policy wonk* // WaPo // Aaron C.
Davis - July 24, 2015                140

*Congress needs to act on gun reform* // Boston Globe // Martin O’Malley -
July 24, 2015......... 141

*O'Malley gets early backing from a California lawmaker* // LA Times //
Michael Memoli - July 24, 2015     143

*Martin O’Malley sides with illegal immigrants in lawsuit against Texas* //
Washington Times // S.A. Miller - July 24,
2015.......................................................................................................................
143

*O’Malley nets first congressional endorsement* // The Hill / Jonathan
Easley - July 24, 2015.. 144

*Our generation needs Martin O'Malley in the White House* // Des Moines
Register // Rep. Eric Swalwell - July 24,
2015..............................................................................................................................
145

*Report: Two Inspectors General Seek Criminal Probe Of Hillary Clinton
Email Use* // The Daily Caller // Chuck Ross - July 24,
2015.............................................................................................................
146

*Intelligence Expert Nails Reasons For Investigation Into Hillary Emails*
// The Daily Caller // Casey Harper - July 24,
2015.......................................................................................................................
147

*SANDERS...............................................................................................
**148*

*Bernie Sanders’s ‘100% Brooklyn’ Roots Show Beyond His Accent* // NYT //
Jason Horowitz - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
148

*Bernie Sanders' spokesman holds down two jobs* // Politico // Gabriel
Debenedetti - July 24, 2015              151

*What Do Anthem, Aetna, and Bernie Sanders Have in Common?* // Bloomberg //
John Tozzi - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
154

*Reason #1 to Vote Bernie: Sanders Does 'Better Than Clinton' Against GOP
in Swing States* // HuffPo // H.A. Goodman - July 24,
2015.....................................................................................................
155

*Bernie Sanders' Appeal Has Doubled Among Americans Since March* // HuffPo
// Janie Velencia - July 24,
2015...................................................................................................................................
158

*De Blasio gushes about 'democratic socialist' Bernie Sanders, says Donald
Trump rallies people to 'blame immigrants'* // NY Daily News // John Spina
and Jennifer Fermino - July 24, 2015................ 158

*A closer look at an old Bernie Sanders talking point* // PolitiFact //
Louis Jacobson - July 24, 2015               160

*OTHER...................................................................................................
**163*

*Draft Biden campaign ramps up* // LA Times // Michael Memoli - July 24,
2015.................... 163

*Draft Biden group ramps up outreach* // The Hill // Jonathan Easley - July
24, 2015.............. 163

*Rival bets Biden will run for president* // The Hill // Jesse Byrnes -
July 24, 2015.................. 164

*GOP..............................................................................................................................................
**165*

*BUSH......................................................................................................
**165*

*Jeb Bush wants to ‘phase out’ Medicare. Here’s what he meant.* // WaPo //
Max Ehrenfreund - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
165

*Jeb Bush now says he wouldn’t ‘phase out’ Medicare. What he would do is
just as wrong.* // WaPo // Paul Waldman - July 24,
2015.....................................................................................................
166

*Bush’s strategy: Run as the un-Trump* // WaPo // Ben Terris - July 24,
2015.......................... 169

*Jeb Bush Learns Perils of Medicare Overhaul Proposal* // WSJ // Beth
Reinhard - July 24, 2015 170

*Florida poll: Jeb Bush takes big lead over Marco Rubio //* Politico //
Marc Caputo - July 24, 2015 171

*Jeb Bush's Struggle to Say What He Means Continues* // Bloomberg //
Michael C. Bender - July 24, 2015 173

*Bush but no Trump expected at Aug. 3 Republican forum* // Reuters // Steve
Holland - July 24, 2015        176

*Jeb Bush’s family values man* // MSNBC // Irin Carmon - July 24,
2015................................. 176

*Jeb Bush doubles down on far-right Medicare ‘reform’* // MSNBC // Steve
Benen - July 24, 2015 177

*Jeb Bush Says No Need to Apologize for 'All Lives Matter'* // ABC //
Candace Smith - July 24, 2015              179

*Here’s Jeb Bush’s Underwhelming Review of Sharknado 3* // TIME // Sarah
Begley - July 24, 2015              180

*RUBIO....................................................................................................
**180*

*Marco Rubio Has a New Answer For His Inexperience Problem* // Bloomberg //
Sahil Kapur - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
180

*The radicalism of Rubio’s foreign policy* // MSNBC // Steve Benen - July
24, 2015.................. 181

*Marco Rubio: Donald Trump’s not going to be the Republican nominee* //
Washington Times // David Sherfinski - July 24,
2015.....................................................................................................
183

*WALKER................................................................................................
**183*

*Top Scott Walker Fundraiser Calls Donald Trump ‘DumbDumb’* // WSJ // Reid
J. Epstein - July 24, 2015 183

*PAUL......................................................................................................
**184*

*‘Super Pac’ Backing Rand Paul Raised Far Less Than Rivals, Report Shows*
// NYT // Nick Confessore - July 24,
2015...................................................................................................................................
184

*Rand Paul super PAC brings in less money than Bobby Jindal’s or Carly
Fiorina’s* // WaPo // Tom Hamburger and Anu Narayanswamy - July 24,
2015...............................................................................
185

*Rand Paul Super PAC Raised $3.1 Million in First Half of 2015* // WSJ //
Rebecca Ballhaus - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
185

*Rand Paul super PACs raise $5 million* // Politico // Daniel Strauss -
July 24, 2015................ 187

*Why Isn't Rand Paul Making a Data Deal With the GOP?* // Bloomberg //
Sasha Issenberg - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
187

*Rand Paul super PACs raise paltry $5 million* // CNN // Theodore Schleifer
- July 24, 2015..... 190

*Rand Paul Launches Snapchat Ads* // TIME // Zeke J. Miller - July 24,
2015.......................... 191

*Rand Paul Destroys the Tax Code? Donald Trump Is Contagious!* // Forbes //
Christopher Bergin - July 24,
2015...................................................................................................................................
192

*CRUZ......................................................................................................
**193*

*Ted Cruz Accuses Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Lying* // NYT //
Jonathan Weisman - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
193

*Ted Cruz Breaks Vow to Not Criticize Other Republicans* // NYT // Alan
Rappeport - July 24, 2015               195

*Ted Cruz to GOP leader: You lied.* // WaPo // Mike DeBonis - July 24,
2015........................... 196

*Cruz to McConnell: You’re a liar* // WaPo // Elise Viebeck - July 24,
2015............................... 198

*Ted Cruz debated Code Pink protesters for 24 minutes* // WaPo // David
Weigel - July 24, 2015 199

*Ted Cruz to GOP leader: You lied.* // WaPo // Mike DeBonis - July 24,
2015........................... 200

*Ted Cruz Says GOP Leader McConnell Told ‘Flat-Out Lie’* // WSJ // Isaac
Stanley-Becker - July 24, 2015   203

*Ted Cruz accuses Mitch McConnell of telling a 'flat-out lie'* // Politico
// Manu Raju - July 24, 2015              205

*Republican White House hopeful Cruz calls McConnell a liar* // Reuters //
David Morgan and Richard Cowan - July 24,
2015......................................................................................................................
207

*William Shatner: Ted Cruz calling Kirk a Republican is ‘silly’* // MSNBC
// Benjamin Landy - July 24,
2015.........................................................................................................................................
208

*Brent Bozell endorses Ted Cruz for president* // MSNBC // Kelly O’Donnell
- July 24, 2015.... 209

*Cruz says he won't speak ill of Republicans, bashes McConnell* // LA Times
// Kathleen Hennessey - July 24,
2015...................................................................................................................................
210

*Ted Cruz Blasts Big Money In Politics* // HuffPo // Paul Blumenthal - July
24, 2015............... 211

*Ted Cruz Is Really Fed Up With Mitch McConnell* // HuffPo // Sam Levine -
July 24, 2015...... 212

*Mitch McConnell's Move Leaves Ted Cruz Out In The Hallway* // HuffPo //
Ali Watkins and Akbar Shahid Ahmed - July 24,
2015.........................................................................................................
213

*Ted Cruz Exploits Americans Trapped In Iran To Score Political Points
Against Obama* // HuffPo // Akbar Shahid Ahmed - July 24,
2015..............................................................................................
214

*CHRISTIE...............................................................................................
**217*

*Chris Christie Makes Big Advertising Splash on Fox News* // NYT // Jeremy
W. Peters - July 24, 2015         217

*New Jersey Gov. Christie blames Amtrak for nightmarish commutes* //
Reuters // Hilary Russ - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
218

*Christie forgets: some Reagan references don’t work* // MSNBC // Steve
Benen - July 24, 2015 219

*Time for some traffic problems under the Hudson River* // MSNBC // Steve
Benen - July 24, 2015                220

*PERRY...................................................................................................
**221*

*One of Two Charges Against Rick Perry Is Dismissed* // NYT // Alan
Rappeport - July 24, 2015 221

*Texas Court Dismisses One Charge Against Perry While Upholding Another* //
WSJ // Nathan Koppel - July 24,
2015..............................................................................................................................
222

*Appeals court drops one felony charge against Rick Perry* // Politico //
Adam B. Lerner - July 24, 2015       223

*Texas appeals court tosses one count against former Governor Perry* //
Reuters // Jim Forsyth - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
224

*Court dismisses one criminal charge against Perry* // CNN // Eugene Scott
- July 24, 2015..... 225

*Rick Perry Now Has One Less Problem In His Run For President* // HuffPo //
Jacob Kerr - July 24, 2015    226

*SANTORUM...........................................................................................
**226*

*Rick Santorum joins fray in N.H.* // Boston Globe // Akilah Johnson - July
24, 2015............... 226

*Santorum Walks Away From Porn-Busting Promise* // US News // Steven Nelson
- July 24, 2015 228

*HUCKABEE...........................................................................................
**229*

*Graham's fundraising puts him in middle of GOP pack* // USA Today // Mary
Troyan - July 24, 2015            229

*JINDAL..................................................................................................
**230*

*Bobby Jindal on theater shooting: 'We will get through this'* // CNN //
Jedd Rosche - July 24, 2015             230

*Every Interview Bobby Jindal Gives Is The Same* // BuzzFeed // Christopher
Massie - July 24, 2015           231

*TRUMP..................................................................................................
**232*

*Donald Trump Is With the GOP, for Now* // WSJ // Reid J. Epstein - July
24, 2015................. 232

*For Donald Trump, Being His Own Super PAC Has Its Advantages* // WSJ //
Rebecca Ballhaus - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
233

*Donald Trump loved and hated by Hispanics in border city* // AP // Jill
Colvin - July 24, 2015 235

*Debating The Donald: GOP rivals preparing with caution* // AP // Jill
Colvin - July 24, 2015... 237

*Donald Trump bans Des Moines Register from Iowa campaign event* //
Politico // Eliza Collins - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
239

*Trump dominates GOP field in name ID* // Politico // Nick Gass - July 24,
2015..................... 240

*Donald Trump county chair not 'a 100 percent fan' of Donald Trump* //
Politico // Cate Martel - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
241

*Donald Trump: 'Maybe people will get tired of me'* // Politico // Nick
Gass - July 24, 2015...... 242

*Insiders: Donald Trump has peaked* // Politico // Katie Glueck - July 24,
2015....................... 243

*Dennis Rodman endorses Donald Trump for president* // Politico // Adam B.
Lerner - July 24, 2015           247

*The State That Facebooks About Donald Trump the Most* // Bloomberg // A.J.
Feather - July 24, 2015      248

*GOP's nightmare: An Independent Donald Trump* // CNN // MJ Lee - July 24,
2015.............. 249

*Rep. Joaquín Castro blasts Laredo’s ‘bizarre’ welcome for Trump* // MSNBC
// John O’Brien - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
252

*How Donald Trump Could Fall Into the Ross Perot Trap* // Daily Beast //
Eleanor Clift - July 24, 2015        252

*Stay Classy: Trump Used To Test His Dates For AIDS* // Daily Beast //
Asawin Suebsaeng - July 24, 2015 255

*Trump barring Des Moines Register from campaign event* // Des Moines
Register // Jason Noble - July 24,
2015...................................................................................................................................
256

*Priebus: Trump won't run as third-party candidate* // The Hill // Kevin
Cirilli - July 24, 2015. 257

*KASICH.................................................................................................
**258*

*Stalking Jeb Bush in New Hampshire* // Politico // Eli Stokols - July 24,
2015....................... 258

*John Kasich Is the Real Deal: Pay Attention To Him* // Forbes // John
Zogby - July 24, 2015.. 262

*OTHER..................................................................................................
**263*

*Bush leads Rubio in Sunshine State battle* // CNN // Theodore Schleifer -
July 24, 2015......... 263

*OTHER 2016
NEWS....................................................................................................................
**264*

*Presidential Candidates Denounce Violence, but Avoid Talk of Policy* //
NYT // Jonathan Martin - July 24,
2015...................................................................................................................................
264

*Tom Steyer: Candidates Who Want My Support Must Be Aggressive on Clean
Energy* // WSJ // Colleen McCain Nelson - July 24,
2015.............................................................................................
267

*Red-state Democrats fret about leftward shift* // Politico // Kyle Cheney
- July 24, 2015........ 268

*Ways of seeing* // Economist // July 24,
2015.......................................................................
270

*Why Bernie Sanders & Donald Trump represent a perfect storm for American
politics* // Salon // Matthew Pulver - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................
272

*OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS..............................................................................................
**274*

*Hillary Clinton Classified* // WSJ // July 24,
2015................................................................. 274

*Hillary Clinton Rebuffs Liberals’ Push to Break Up Banks* // WSJ // Laura
Meckler - July 24, 2015               276

*Here Are Hillary Clinton’s Proposed Capital-Gains Tax Rates* // WSJ //
July 24, 2015............ 277

*In Clinton email inquiry, a changing story* // Politico // Dylan Byers -
July 24, 2015............... 277

*Hillary Clinton’s latest e-mail mess* // NY Post // Editorial Board - July
24, 2015................... 279

*Uber Shows That 20th-Century Policies Aren't Right For A 21st-Century
Economy* // Forbes // Andrew Clark - July 24,
2015......................................................................................................................
280

*Hillary Unveils Her Wonky Plan to Jack Up Taxes on Rich Investors* //
Slate // Jordan Weissman - July 24,
2015...................................................................................................................................
282

*Tom Steyer Just Gave Hillary Millions of Reasons to Get Specific on
Climate* // Slate // Josh Voorhees - July 24,
2015.............................................................................................................................
283

*Review of Hillary Clinton's Capital Gains Tax Proposal* // Forbes //
Bernie Kent - July 24, 2015 284

*Hillary's wrong about 'quarterly capitalism'* // NY Daily News // Mark
Zandi - July 24, 2015.. 287

*TOP
NEWS..................................................................................................................................
**288*

*DOMESTIC................................................................................................
**288*

*Louisiana theater gunman described as a ‘drifter’ with mental illness
history* // WaPo // Ashley Cusick, Sarah Kaplan, J. Freedom du Lac - July
24,
2015...........................................................................
288

*Texas Supreme Court Orders Houston LGBT Ordinance To Be Repealed Or Put On
Ballot* // BuzzFeed // Chris Geidner - July 24,
2015........................................................................................................
292

*INTERNATIONAL.....................................................................................
**293*

*U.S. Preparing to Release Convicted Israeli Spy Jonathan Pollard,
Officials Say* // WSJ // Devlin Barrett - July 24,
2015..............................................................................................................................
293

*Top CIA Official Says Nuke Deal Makes It Hard for Iran to Cheat* // WSJ //
Damian Paletta - July 24,
2015..........................................................................................................................................
295

*TODAY’S KEY STORIES*

*Hillary Clinton Eyes Corporations in Proposals for Economy
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/politics/hillary-clinton-offers-plans-for-changes-on-wall-street.html?ref=politics>
// NYT // Maggie Haberman - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton made a case on Friday for weaning Wall Street from
an addiction to profits, calling for a change to capital gains taxes for
the highest earners and a string of measures to adjust the balance of power
between corporate titans and their employees.

She also supported raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 an
hour in New York, where a wage board this week suggested such an increase,
but she also insisted that such a rise was not a one-size-fits-all approach
for the whole country.

Amid pressure from the left to take a more aggressive approach toward the
financial industry, Mrs. Clinton presented her proposals in a speech at New
York University, the second major address of her campaign that focused on
economic issues. The approach — suggesting, among other things, increasing
transparency involving stock buybacks and executive compensation — is her
first effort to take on Wall Street, without the gate-rattling that some
more liberal elements of the Democratic Party have called for.

While the speech had a Wall Street overlay, it was more broadly about
changes to corporate culture. Mrs. Clinton’s aides say she plans to give a
speech specific to Wall Street in the coming weeks.

Her plans won praise from a key centrist think tank but came under
criticism from anti-tax groups and some liberal analysts, who were
skeptical about how much change would result.

Among the splashiest ideas was a call to overhaul capital gains taxes
imposed on those in the highest income bracket, families making more than
$465,000 a year, so that people would hold on to stocks for longer,
reducing corporate obsession with quarterly profits. That would encourage
companies to focus more on investing in long-term growth and their work
forces.

The new rate, along a sliding scale over six years of holding an equity,
would increase from 20 percent to nearly 40 percent for investments that
taxpayers maintain for one to two years, and would gradually decrease after
that, back to 20 percent. The top rate would be the same as the highest tax
rate for normal income.

“The current definition of a long-term holding period, just one year, is
woefully inadequate,” Mrs. Clinton said in the speech, without mentioning
the specifics of the plan. “That may count as long-term for my baby
granddaughter, but not for the American economy.”

She added that businesses needed “to break free from the tyranny of today’s
earnings report so they can do what they do best: innovate, invest and
build tomorrow’s prosperity.”

Mrs. Clinton’s proposal to change capital gains rates for the highest
earners is a plan that many of her Wall Street supporters endorse.

But at least some critics on the left raised questions about her overall
approach. Len Berman of the Tax Policy Center described himself as
“skeptical” about whether it would encourage companies to do more to treat
workers as assets.

“The purpose seems to be to encourage companies to make longer-term
investments,” he said. “I don’t know that it’ll really accomplish that
goal.”

Others praised the plan.

“It was a thoughtful approach to reform that would actually help people,
help the middle class, instead of a symbolic thing that might make people
feel better but wouldn’t have any impact on people’s lives,” said Matt
Bennett, head of the center-left think tank Third Way.

“I think this is a very good-faith effort to find every possible
opportunity for government to improve the system, and sometimes that’s
going to be marginal, sometimes that’s going to be substantial, but they’re
doing their best.”

Mrs. Clinton strongly criticized “quarterly capitalism” and the focus on
generating profits for short-term earnings reports.

“A survey of corporate executives found that more than half would hold off
making a successful long-term investment if it meant missing a target in
the next quarterly earnings report,” Mrs. Clinton said.

“Large public companies now return eight or nine out of every 10 dollars
they earn directly back to shareholders, either in the form of dividends or
stock buybacks, which can temporarily boost share prices,” she said. “Last
year, the total reached a record $900 billion. That doesn’t leave much
money to build a new factory or a research lab, or to train workers, or to
give them a raise.”

She cited a report that said some Standard & Poor’s companies in the last
decade had doubled “the share of cash flow they spent on dividends and
stock buybacks” and “actually cut capital expenditures on things like new
plants and equipment.”

Dominic Barton, the global managing director of McKinsey & Company, who
coined the term “quarterly capitalism,” praised Mrs. Clinton for focusing
on “more long-term capitalism, more investment.” But he did not endorse any
of her specific prescriptions, and suggested that caution was important in
terms of how changes to buybacks and dividends would be addressed.

*Hillary Clinton on e-mail controversy: ‘Maybe the heat is getting to
everybody’
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/24/hillary-clinton-on-e-mail-controversy-maybe-the-heat-is-getting-to-everybody/>
// WaPo // Jose A. DelReal - July 24, 2015*

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday criticized a
news report that indicated the Department of Justice had opened a criminal
investigation into whether she "mishandled" and distributed classified
information via her private email address while serving as secretary of
state.

“I want to say a word about what's in the news today. And it's because
there have been a lot of inaccuracies as Congressman Cummings made clear
this morning,” Clinton said at the beginning of a speech on the economy in
New York. “Maybe the heat is getting to everybody. We all have a
responsibility to get this right.”

The New York Times on Thursday published a story indicating that the
Justice Department was investigating Clinton herself. On Friday, as more
information became available, the Times issued a correction on the story
noting that “the referral addressed the potential compromise of classified
information in connection with that personal email account. It did not
specifically request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton.”

The former secretary of state’s campaign forcefully pushed back,
criticizing the reporting in the Times story and insinuating that the
“inaccurate leaks” were politically motivated.

“It is now more clear than ever that the New York Times report claiming
there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton's use of email is
false. It has now been discredited both by the Justice Department and the
Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee,” said Clinton spokesman
Nick Merrill in a statement. “This indecent shows the danger of relying on
reckless, inaccurate leaks from partisan sources.”

“I have released 55,000 pages of emails. I have said repeatedly that I will
answer questions before the House committee. We are all accountable to the
American people to get the facts right and I will do my part,” Clinton said
Friday. “But I’m also going to stay focused on the issues, particularly the
big issues that really matter to American families.”

*New York Times issues correction on Clinton email story
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/new-york-times-clinton-email-correction/index.html>
// CNN // Tom LoBianco - July 24, 2015*

The New York Times on Friday afternoon issued a correction to a
high-profile story that suggested Hillary Clinton was the focus of a
federal criminal investigation surrounding her use of private email --
potentially including classified information -- while leading the State
Department.

The decision capped an earlier choice by the Times to walk back a tough
lead on the story posted late Thursday -- which said a pair of inspectors
general requested a criminal probe into Clinton's alleged sending of
classified emails from her personal server. But the paper later
backtracked, saying the probe was instead suggested for emails related to
Clinton, though it didn't issue a correction until mid-Friday afternoon.

The Times amended its story to read:

"An earlier version of this article and an earlier headline, ​using
information from senior government officials, misstated the nature of the
referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary Clinton's personal
email account while she was secretary of state. The referral addressed the
potential compromise of classified information in connection with that
personal email account. It did not specifically request an investigation
into Mrs. Clinton."

The Times' correction capped a day of confusion and some back-and-forth as
reporters scrambled to find out precisely what type of probe was requested
and whether Clinton had emailed any classified information using her
unsecured, personal email server.

On Friday, CNN reported that the inspector general for the intelligence
community had informed members of Congress that some material Clinton
emailed from her private server contained classified information, but it
was not identified that way.

Because it was not identified, it is unclear whether Clinton realized she
was potentially compromising classified information.

The move on such a high-profile scoop was immediately panned by critics and
the Clinton campaign. Clinton supporters sent around a tweet from former
Nevada political writer Jon Ralston saying "This is just so, so dumb."

Friday evening, Eileen M. Murphy, the paper's vice president for corporate
communications, told CNN that the paper did not plan to comment beyond the
correction.

But one of the reporters, Michael Schmidt, defended the first version of
the story on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Friday morning.

"We made a minor change to the story shortly after it went online that said
the investigation was in connection with her email use," Schmidt said. "It
didn't really deviate our story much from where we were before."

Schmidt said the Clinton campaign on Thursday, shortly before the story was
published, "came at us very strong, and very late, and very forcefully."

Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill issued a statement on Friday that
"It is now more clear than ever that The New York Times report claiming
there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton's use of email is
false."

He added, "This incident shows the danger of relying on reckless,
inaccurate leaks from partisan sources."

Clinton on Friday afternoon addressed the controversy before a speech at
New York University that focused on the economy.

"First, I want to say a word about what's in the news today. It's because
there have been a lot of inaccuracies -- as Congressman (Elijah) Cummings
made clear his morning. Maybe the heat is getting to everybody. We all have
responsibility to get this right," Clinton said.

"We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right and I
will do my part," Clinton added.

*Clinton: The tyranny of quarterly earnings hurts innovation
<http://www.wired.com/2015/07/clinton-wall-street-crackdown/> // Wired //
Issie Lapowsky - July 24, 2015*

HILLARY CLINTON WANTS Wall Street to prize long-term success over
short-term gains. And so, during a campaign stop at New York University’s
Stern School of Business today, the Democratic presidential candidate laid
out a series of policy proposals that would encourage businesses to invest
in the future.

The first of these changes would be an increase on capital gains taxes on
wealthy investors who hold stock for just one or two years. Clinton also
vowed to review regulations related to shareholder activity, in an effort
to reign in activist investors, who Clinton says place undue pressure on
public companies to boost their stock prices. These “hit and run” investors
encourage companies to keep employee wages low and only make investments
that will yield an immediate return for the next earnings report, Clinton
said.

“It is clear the system is out of balance. The deck is stacked in too many
ways, and powerful pressures and incentives are pushing it even further out
of balance,” Clinton said, adding that these policies are “bad for
business, bad for wages, and bad for our economy, and fixing it will be
good for everyone.”

Clinton’s criticisms will likely resonate with tech industry executives and
venture capitalists within the tech industry who say businesses are facing
mounting pressure from large investors seeking quick returns. Silicon
Valley companies have faced pressure from activist investors like Carl
Icahn, who has pushed Apple take short-term action to boost its stock
price. Just this week, chip-maker Qualcomm responded to pressure from
investor Jana Partners, announcing it would cut up to 4,500 jobs by the end
of 2016. And Icahn was a key instigator of the recent split between eBay
and Paypal.

The Problem of “Short-termism”

This “short-termism,” as Clinton calls it, is a mindset that tech leaders
find tough to grapple with and often blame for their post-IPO struggles.
Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo recently pointed to this practice as one of
his chief challenges at Twitter. Meanwhile, prominent venture capitalists
like Marc Andreessen have denounced activist investors publicly, saying at
a recent Fortune conference, “We’re in this kind of mode where public
companies are being basically forced by pressure from activists and their
investors to give back huge amounts of cash instead of investing it in
their business.”

This is the type of behavior Clinton hopes to dissuade by instituting
policies that would help companies break free of the “tyranny of today’s
earnings report.” That’s the thinking behind Clinton’s proposal of a
capital gains tax increase on families earning $465,000 or more. The hike
would tax any gains on stocks sold within the first two years as ordinary
income tax. The tax rate would then decrease every year for six years until
it returns to the current capital gains rate.

“This means that when investors buy into a company, they’ll be more focused
on its future growth strategy than its immediate profits,” Clinton said.

While this type of urgency in investing is pervasive on the public market,
Clinton did point to both Google and SpaceX as examples of companies that
still manage to “invest in research that does little for today’s bottom
line, but may yield transformational benefits down the line.”

Throughout, the former Secretary of State pushed for a return to the kind
of long-term strategic thinking that yielded breakthrough technologies like
the transistor and the PC. “What if Xerox had decided its Palo Alto
research park wasn’t doing enough to boost share prices in the short term?”
Clinton asked. “A young Steve Jobs would never have visited, and the
personal computer revolution might not have happened.”

*HRC** NATIONAL COVERAGE*

*Hillary Clinton Email Said to Contain Classified Information
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/politics/hillary-clinton-email-classified-information-inspector-general-intelligence-community.html?ref=politics>
// NYT // Michael S. Schmidt and Matt Apuzzo - July 24, 2015*

Government investigators have discovered four emails containing what they
say is classified information on the personal email account that Hillary
Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, the investigators said in a
letter to Congress released on Friday.

Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, said Friday that she would stay focused on the
issues at the heart of her presidential campaign, and that she was
concerned about “a lot of inaccuracies’’ in the reporting of her personal
email account.

“Maybe the heat is getting to everybody,’’ she said at a campaign event at
New York University.

“We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right, and
I will do my part,” Mrs. Clinton added. “But I’m also going to stay focused
on the issues, particularly the big issues, that really matter to American
families.”

The government investigators discovered the four emails while reviewing a
sampling of 40 emails from Ms. Clinton’s account. Of those, four contained
information that should have been marked classified and should have been
sent and stored on a secure computer system, I. Charles McCullough III, the
inspector general of the intelligence community, the internal watchdog for
the nation’s intelligence agencies, said in the letter to Congress.

Hillary Rodham Clinton responded to new accusations involving the private
email account she used when she was secretary of state. By Reuters on
Publish Date July 24, 2015. Photo by Michael Appleton for The New York
Times. Watch in Times Video »

The emails were routed through a private email server that Mrs. Clinton set
up in her home. Critics and security experts have questioned whether the
practice made government secrets more vulnerable to security risks and
hacking.

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign released a brief statement on
Twitter, saying, “Any released emails deemed classified by the
administration have been done so after the fact, and not at the time they
were transmitted.”

The discovery of the four emails has prompted the inspector general to
refer the matter to F.B.I. counterintelligence agents, who investigate
crimes related to mishandling classified information. On Thursday night and
again Friday morning, the Justice Department referred to the matter as a
“criminal referral” but later on Friday dropped the word “criminal.”

Regardless of the terminology, the referral raises the possibility of a
Justice Department criminal investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails as she
campaigns for president. Polls show she is the front-runner for the
Democratic nomination by a wide margin.

Justice Department officials said no decision had been made about whether
to investigate.

Since Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email account for official State
Department business was revealed in March, she has repeatedly said she had
no classified information on the account.

State Department officials, however, told the inspector general that the
account potentially contained hundreds of classified emails. When Mr.
McCullough’s investigators performed the spot check of 40 emails, he said,
10 percent contained classified information, he said.

A second inspector general, this one for the State Department, is also
investigating the department’s handling of Mrs. Clinton’s emails. The two
inspectors general have sent Congress a series of memos, including one
dated June 29 that said Mrs. Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds
of potentially classified emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F.
Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management.

At issue are thousands of pages of State Department emails from Mrs.
Clinton’s private account. Mrs. Clinton has said she used the account
because it was more convenient, but it also shielded her correspondence
from congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests.

She faced sharp criticism after her use of the account became public, and
subsequently said she would ask the State Department to release her emails.

The department is now reviewing some 55,000 pages of emails. A first batch
of 3,000 pages was made public on June 30.

In the course of the email review, State Department officials determined
that some information in the messages should be retroactively classified.
In the 3,000 pages that were released, for example, portions of two dozen
emails were redacted because they were upgraded to “classified status.” But
none of those were marked as classified at the time Mrs. Clinton handled
them.

In a second memo to Mr. Kennedy, sent on July 17, the inspectors general
said that at least one email made public by the State Department contained
classified information. The inspectors general did not identify the email
or reveal its substance.

*Hillary Clinton to Back $15 Fast-Food Minimum Wage in New York
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/24/hillary-clinton-to-back-15-fast-food-minimum-wage-in-new-york/>
// NYT // Maggie Haberman - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday will use a speech focused on growing the
economy to endorse a $15-an-hour minimum wage proposal for fast-food
workers recommended by a New York panel, a person briefed on her plans said.

The remarks from Mrs. Clinton will come in the city where the fast-food
workers’ labor effort first started several years ago. A panel created by
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday recommended the change; the increase will
occur faster in New York City than other parts of the state because of the
higher cost of living there.

Some Democrats are pushing for the federal minimum wage to be raised to $15
an hour, including two other candidates for the party’s presidential
nomination: Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator, and Martin O’Malley, the
former Maryland governor.

Mrs. Clinton has argued that the national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour
needs to be increased, but she has not gone so far as to endorse an
increase to $15. Her embrace of the New York recommendation for fast-food
workers will be her first endorsement of a $15-per-hour minimum in any
context.

In a town hall in New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton suggested a nuanced view of
the national minimum-wage debate, one that is more localized than a uniform
change in federal policy.

“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,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And what you can do in L.A. or in New
York may not work in other places.”

*1993 Video Reveals a More Impassioned and Direct Hillary Clinton
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/24/1993-video-reveals-a-more-impassioned-and-direct-hillary-clinton/>
// NYT // Amy Chozick - July 24, 2015*

In 1993, with her father on his deathbed, Hillary Rodham Clinton was not
yet a two-time presidential candidate. She was not a New York senator or
the secretary of state. She was the president’s wife — a first lady who
hosted the Easter egg roll and Christmas tree lighting at the White House,
in addition to trying to overhaul the health care system.

But a speech Mrs. Clinton gave at the request of Liz Carpenter, the
legendary (and legendarily pushy) press secretary of Lady Bird Johnson in
Austin, Tex., showed the intellectual and philosophical worldview of a
first lady who, for better or worse, was unlike any the country had seen
before.

The doctors in Little Rock, Ark., had just taken her father, Hugh Rodham,
82, off life support after he had a stroke weeks earlier. Mrs. Clinton,
then 44 years old, traveled to Austin and delivered an unscripted,
stream-of-consciousness address about the meaning of life, death and the
need to remake civil society.

She does not mention her father by name, but she does quote, at length, Lee
Atwater, the Republican strategist who died of cancer at age 40 in 1990. It
is one of Mrs. Clinton’s most revealing and existential addresses. An aide,
Lisa Caputo, called the speech “cathartic.”

Twenty-two years later, as I cover Hillary Clinton’s second presidential
bid, I see her approach each speech with the caution of a seasoned
political candidate under the constant microscope of intense media
coverage. I asked the University of Texas at Austin to find this
never-before-seen video of her 1993 speech from its archives, and when the
old VHS footage arrived, I was struck at how uncensored and direct she was
then.

*Ranking Hillary Clinton’s e-mail problems
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/07/24/ranking-hillary-clintons-e-mail-problems/?postshare=9981437759475948>
// WaPo // Amber Phillips - July 24, 2015*

There's a full-blown battle in Washington as to whether the personal e-mail
account Hillary Clinton used while she was Secretary of State contained
classified material -- and whether the government is asking for a criminal
probe into that information being mishandled.

Here's the bullet-point details (we'll get into more later on):

Inspectors general for the State Department and intelligence agencies like
the CIA and FBI sent a letter to Congress on Thursday analyzing whether
Clinton sent or received classified information on her private e-mail
account.

It's not clear whether she did. The Wall Street Journal says the inspectors
general found four cases among 40 e-mails where she sent clearly classified
information, despite denying ever having done so.

Congressional Democrats are coming to her rescue, saying the information
was classified retroactively after she stepped down as secretary of state.

The New York Times reported the letter also referred to a criminal
investigation into the classified information being mishandled. At least
one Justice Department official is denying there was ever a referral for
such an investigation.

Clinton released a statement Friday afternoon. "Maybe the heat is getting
to every body," she said, adding she has released 55,000 pages of e-mails
and offered to answer questions about them.

Clinton herself is not implicated in any wrongdoing in any of this,
according to the Associated Press.

But headlines with the words "Clinton" "e-mails" and "investigation" are
the last thing she needs right now. There's actually a lot going on with
regard to her e-mails. Here's a ranking of the probes, possible
investigations and reviews of the Clinton e-mails that her campaign is
keeping an eye on, ranked in order of from "Keeping them up at night" to
"Mildly annoying."

Keeping them up at night

A possible Department of Justice investigation

The New York Times reported Friday that inspectors general for the State
Department and intelligence agencies like CIA and FBI have asked the
Justice Department to open a criminal probe into whether sensitive
information in connection to Clinton's private e-mail account was
mishandled.

A Justice Department official is denying officials asked for a criminal
probe.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.),the ranking Democrat on the congressional
committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks while Clinton
was secretary of state, says the inspectors general were merely pointing
out that some information in her released e-mails was retroactively
considered classified and should be adjusted accordingly.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal obtained a copy of the letter the
inspector general of intelligence agencies sent to Congress on Thursday.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the inspector general concluded
Clinton did send e-mails on her private account that were considered
classified at the time -- at least four in the batch of 40 e-mails the
investigators reviewed. (That's 10 percent for you math majors out there.)

All along, Clinton has maintained she did nothing wrong -- she's not the
only agency head to use a personal e-mail address solely although she is
the first Secretary of State to do it  -- and she says she never talked
about classified information on her personal account. And, of course, the
news of an inspector general request for a criminal investigation could be
wrong.

Here's her full statement Friday:

It's clear her team is incredibly frustrated that this is even news --
especially if the New York Times report of a potential investigation turns
out to be false. To them, the damage has already been done.

Giving them indigestion

The State Department review -- and steady release -- of 55,000 pages of her
e-mails

First, a reminder of how Clinton's use of a private e-mail account and
server came to light, summarized by our friends at the Post's Fact Checker,
who put together a helpful timeline:

In 2013, a hacker revealed Clinton had used a private e-mail account to
conduct at least some official secretary of state business.

In 2014, a congressional investigation into Benghazi asked the State
Department to hand over official documents, including Clinton's e-mails,
relating to the deadly 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic compounds in Libya.
The State Department realized there were no records of e-mails sent or
received on an official State Department e-mail account for Clinton.

In December, Clinton gave the State Department 55,000 pages of printed
e-mails, and in March tweeted: "I want the public to see my e-mail. I have
asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as
soon as possible.”

In a March press conference, she told reporters she turned over 30,490
work-related e-mails to the State Department and deleted 31,830 e-mails she
deemed to be personal.

The State Department is currently reviewing those 30,000+ e-mails and, in
accordance with a federal judge's ruling, will release batches of them in
monthly increments.

The first batch were released in July. They were kind of boring.

But what's giving the Clinton camp heartburn is the judge's ruling that the
e-mails have to be released monthly. Clinton would rather have all 30,000+
released at at once, like ripping off a Band-aid. Now, her team must deal
with a steady drip drip of monthly headlines, likely right up until the
Feb. 1 Iowa caucus -- reminding voters she used a private e-mail account
while secretary of state.

Mildly annoying

The (8th) Benghazi investigation in Congress

Yes, you read that right. House Republicans recently set up their eighth
special committee to investigate what went wrong -- and whether Clinton did
anything wrong -- in the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed four Americans,
including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

A June 2014 Gallup Poll found most voters aren't paying attention to this
latest investigation (previous investigations found Obama officials,
including Clinton, did nothing wrong.)

But Clinton's team can't brush this off as a political sideshow just yet.
She has agreed to testify at least once to the committee (date still
pending) and a June Washington Post/ABC News poll found 51 percent of
Democrats say Benghazi is a legitimate issue for Clinton in 2016.

And the longer news of her e-mails stay in the headlines, it's a safe bet
the more scrutiny Republicans and America will give to Clinton.

*Hillary Clinton is playing (home state) favorites on the minimum wage
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/24/hillary-clinton-is-playing-home-state-favorites-on-the-minimum-wage/>
// WaPo // Jim Tankersley and Lydia DePillis - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton said a few words about the minimum wage in a wonky economic
speech on Friday, and she ended up endorsing a potentially huge disparity
in worker pay across state lines.

It just so happens that her new position favors fast-food employees in New
York, where she resides, over comparable employees anywhere else in the
country - and it could increase the pressure from liberal activists for her
to endorse a $15-an-hour minimum wage nationwide.

Here's the rub Clinton walked into: Workers at the Taco Bell in Binghamton,
N.Y., are in line for a big raise in the next few years. The crew at the
McDonald's in Hallstead, Penn., just 14 miles away, are not. That's because
New York appears set to mandate a $15-an-hour minimum wage for fast food
workers by 2021. In Pennsylvania, for now at least, similar workers can be
paid as little as $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage.

If those figures hold, a full-time chalupa-maker in Binghampton would earn
more than $31,000 a year -- in a county where the per-capita income is
currently less than $25,000 a year. The burger flipper in Pennsylvania
would earn about $15,000 a year, in a county with per-capita income just
above $24,000 a year. That's a potentially massive difference in earning
power.

Clinton wants to raise the federal minimum wage, but she hasn't specified
by how much.

At an SEIU-sponsored convention of fast food workers in early June, Clinton
called in with a message of strong support, saying that more cities need to
follow the lead of Los Angeles -- which had only weeks before voted to
raise its minimum wage to $15. Some of the workers present took that as an
indication that she supported a nationwide $15 wage, too. But in the
following days, her campaign walked back those remarks, saying that
specific plans would be forthcoming. And last week, she declined to support
a $15 wage nationwide.

On Friday, though, she told an audience at NYU that “I agree with New
York’s proposal this week to raise fast food workers’ wages to $15 an
hour." She described the federal minimum wage as a floor and said cities
such as Los Angeles - which recently voted to adopt a $15-an-hour minimum -
should be free to set higher ones. In backing New York's move, she cited
the high cost of living in Manhattan.

New York's fast-food wage hike, however, won't just apply to expensive
cities. It will apply statewide.

So the question for Clinton now is whether low-income workers in low-cost
parts of New York should get a larger raise than similar workers in other
states -- and why? Put another way, if Clinton is willing to endorse a
uniform $15 minimum wage across a diverse state like New York -- where
average annual incomes range from $24,835 in Broome County to $62,498 in
Manhattan -- why isn't she willing to support it across the country?

Campaign officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on
Friday afternoon. Representatives from the SEIU-backed Fight for $15
declined to comment.

*New York Times says there was ‘no factual error’ in Hillary Clinton e-mail
referral story
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/07/24/new-york-times-says-there-was-no-factual-error-in-hillary-clinton-e-mail-referral-story/>
// WaPo // Erik Wemple - July 24, 2015*

Current New York Times lead: “Two inspectors general have asked the Justice
Department to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive
government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email
account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, senior
government officials said Thursday.”

Bold text added to highlight passive voice.

The original lead for the story was much the same, but with a key
difference. The requests for a criminal investigation “into whether Hillary
Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private
email account she used as secretary of state,” as reported by Politico’s
Dylan Byers.

Bold text added to highlight active voice.

One of the story’s reporters, Michael Schmidt, told Politico, “It was a
response to complaints we received from the Clinton camp that we thought
were reasonable, and we made them.”

In an e-mail to the Erik Wemple Blog, New York Times spokeswoman Eileen
Murphy notes, “As often happens, editors continued to revise this story
after initial publication to make it as clear and precise as possible.
There was no factual error, so there was no reason for a correction.”

NBC News also appears to have experimented a bit with its wording. Here’s a
tweet from early in the morning:

And here’s the headline currently on the NBC News site:

Criminal Probe Sought Over Hillary Clinton’s Email Account

Brian Fallon, press secretary for the Clinton campaign, has been vocal on
Twitter today about the sourcing attached to the early accounts:

An Associated Press story this morning, meanwhile, confirms the requests
from the Justice Department but notes, “One U.S. official said it was
unclear whether classified information was mishandled and the referral
doesn’t suggest wrongdoing by Clinton herself.”

These developments are just the latest step in Clinton’s e-mail crisis,
which started in March with revelations in the New York Times that she’d
used a private e-mail server throughout her time as secretary of state. She
said she didn’t send classified information on those e-mails and the
campaign has insisted that she complied with “appropriate practices.”
Campaign spokesman Nick Merrill told the AP that e-mails “deemed classified
by the administration were done so after the fact, not when they were sent.”

UPDATE: We asked Fallon whether he took issue with the New York Times’s
explanation that there was no factual error to correct. He responded,
“Their lede last night has so far been directly contradicted by the
Associated Press and via an on-the-record statement from the Ranking Member
of the House Oversight Committee.” That statement comes from Rep. Elijah
Cummings (D-Md.), who has issued a statement saying that the State
Department’s inspector general “never asked the Justice Department to
launch a criminal investigation of Secretary Clinton’s email usage,” reads
the statement. “Instead, he told me the Intelligence Community IG notified
the Justice Department and Congress that they identified classified
information in a few emails that were part of the FOIA review, and that
none of those emails had been previously marked as classified.”

“This is the latest example in a series of inaccurate leaks to generate
false front-page headlines — only to be corrected later,” said Cummings.

*Justice: Probe sought in Clinton e-mails, but no ‘criminal’ focus
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/24/report-officials-seek-criminal-probe-of-hillary-clinton-email-account/>
// WaPo // Fred Barbash - July 24, 2015*

The Justice Department said Friday that it has been asked to probe the
“potential compromise of classified information” in connection with the
private e-mail account Hillary Rodham Clinton used while serving as
secretary of state.

The statement did not say who sought the investigation but noted that it
was “not a criminal referral.” Separately, Justice officials said no
decision has been made on whether to move forward with the examination of
the e-mails — which are already being reviewed by teams led by the State
Department.

The comments sought to clarify the status of the request following a series
of accounts. The New York Times first reported Thursday that the inspectors
general of the State Department and the intelligence agencies had asked for
a criminal investigation related to Clinton’s e-mail account. Justice
officials later confirmed to The Washington Post that a criminal probe was
under consideration.

Then the Justice Department statement answered one question, but left
another open. It said a “referral” was made, although it did not say who
originated it. “It is not a criminal referral,” the statement said.

Clinton’s use of a private e-mail account was revealed in March. She set up
an exclusive and private e-mail server for all of her departmental
communications, but she has said she did not use it for classified
information.

The State Department is currently reviewing some 55,000 pages of e-mails.
About 3,000 have been made public so far, many of them with redactions that
might indicate the presence of sensitive, if not classified, information.

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign did not offer any comment Thursday
night on the Times report.

*This is Hillary Clinton’s Elizabeth Warren moment
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/24/this-is-hillary-clintons-elizabeth-warren-moment/>
// WaPo // Max Ehrenfreud - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton will voice a far-reaching critique of the financial
sector in a speech Friday, a major victory for Wall Street's critics.

The stock market, she will say, has become short-sighted, focused on
measures of quarterly performance rather than the future viability of
American corporations, according to aides. She'll describe worrisome
consequences for investors, employees and the economy as a whole.

"Everything’s focused on the next earnings report or the short-term share
price. The result is too little attention on the sources of long-term
growth: research and development, physical capital, and talent," the former
secretary of state said last week, previewing the theme of Friday's speech.

"It's easy to try to cut costs by holding down or decreasing pay and other
investments to inflate quarterly stock prices, but I would argue that’s bad
for business in the long run."

For decades, some economists and experts on the stock market have been
saying that corporations place too much emphasis on generating cash in the
short term for shareholders. These critics have warned that firms are
passing up opportunities to train their employees, conduct research, or
build new factories -- investments that would benefit shareholders and
workers alike, but only over the long term.

It's easy to miss how radical this argument is, since many wealthy
investors are making it, too. Yet this reasoning implies that some of Wall
Street's basic assumptions are mistaken.

The financial sector operates on the principle that stock prices accurately
reflect how much a company is worth, and that if share prices increase,
then chief executive officers are doing their job well.

In an ideally functioning stock market, investors would buy up shares in
the companies that were making wise investments for the long term,
increasing share prices and rewarding more farseeing corporate leaders.
They wouldn't have any reason to focus on the short term.

Yet critics say that in practice, investors are far from infallible, and
they often can't distinguish between temporary factors and a stock's
enduring, fundamental value.

"There is a growing consensus that at least for some firms, this is a
problem," said Joan Farre-Mensa, an economist at Harvard Business School
and part of a group that has studied decisions about investment in public
firms.

He and his colleagues found that privately held firms invested at more than
twice the rate of publicly traded companies, suggesting that pressure from
Wall Street restrains investment.

The critique is a familiar one. Politicians such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) have aired these concerns before. Yet now Clinton is making what
she calls "quarterly capitalism" part of the presidential campaign, nailing
down the issue as a central plank in her economic platform.

Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Biden, argues
that short-termism isn't just a problem for the financial industry. He and
others believe that greater corporate investment could improve the economy
as a whole and reduce inequalities of income.

Companies that spend money on training their workers improve those workers'
wages over the long term. If they buy new equipment, they create
opportunities for their suppliers and, in turn, their suppliers' employees.
Dividends and share repurchases, by contrast, mainly benefit the wealthy
investors who own stock.

"We're arguing about the game being rigged on behalf of the wealthy," said
Bernstein, who wrote about Clinton's proposals on his blog.

Among them is a plan to alter the taxation of capital gains in ways that
she hopes will encourage investors and corporate managers to take a longer
view.

Currently, gains on investments held for less than a year are taxed as
ordinary income, and at a lower rate if they're held for a longer period.
Clinton is expected to propose raising the rate on taxes held for an
intermediate period, from one year to a few years.

It's an idea that dates at least to an Aspen Institute committee, which
issued a statement on the subject in 2009.

"The short-termers can come in and take a position that harms the company
in the long term but produces short term benefits," said Lynn Stout, a law
professor at Cornell University and a member of that committee. "If the
market were perfectly efficient these short term tricks wouldn’t work, but
nobody thinks the market is perfectly efficient any more."

Yet she said that changing the capital gains tax would have a limited
effect on many of the most influential investors on Wall Street -- the big
players that critics blame for the financial sector's focus on the short
term.

Consider a hedge fund that takes a large position in a firm and then
lobbies its leaders to sell assets and buy back shares, raising the price
of the stock. The fund is likely managing the money for major investors
such as university endowments and pension funds that are exempt from
taxation.

"For most of the big companies, the big shareholders are institutions, who
as far as I know are unaffected by this proposal," said Steven Balsam, an
accounting professor at Temple University.

The same could be true of mutual funds if their customers are largely
small-time investors saving for retirement in a 401(k) account.

Short-termism is a problem, Balsam said, but he added, "We're not in a
perfect world, and I don’t know that any of the proposed cures won't make
the problem worse."

Harvard's Farre-Mensa worried that by increasing taxes on capital gains in
the medium term, Clinton's proposal would discourage investment overall as
well as investment for the short-term.

"You might be ending up with a bunch of unintended consequences," he said.

There is some debate among economists about the relationship between
capital gains taxation and investment. Bernstein does not believe that
capital gains taxation has much effect on what people do with their money,
and he doesn't think Clinton's proposal would drive people out of the stock
market. Yet for the same reason, he said the plan might not discourage
short-term bets, either.

"Certainly she's creating incentives that nudge things in the right
direction, but I don't think I'd expect a big change in the investment
outlook," Bernstein said. "More needs to be done."

*Hillary Clinton Sent Classified Information Over Email While at State
Department, Review Finds
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/investigation-sought-into-hillary-clintons-emails-1437714369>
// WSJ // Bryon Tau - July 24, 2015*

An internal government review found that former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton sent at least four emails from her personal account containing
classified information during her time heading the State Department.

In a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, the inspector general of
the intelligence community concluded that Mrs. Clinton’s email contains
material from the intelligence community that should have been considered
“secret”—the second-highest level of classification—at the time it was
sent. A copy of the letter to Congress was provided to The Wall Street
Journal by a spokeswoman for the inspector general.

As a result of the findings, the inspector general referred the matter to
the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterintelligence division. An
official with the Department of Justice said Friday that it had received a
referral to open an investigation into the potential mishandling of
classified information. Initially, a Justice Department official said
Friday morning the investigation was criminal in nature, but the department
reversed course hours later without explanation.

“The department has received a referral related to the potential compromise
of classified information. It is not a criminal referral,” an official said.

The four emails in question “were classified when they were sent and are
classified now,” said Andrea Williams, a spokeswoman for the inspector
general. The inspector general reviewed just a small sample totaling about
40 emails in Mrs. Clinton’s inbox—meaning that many more in the trove of
more than 30,000 may contain potentially confidential, secret or top-secret
information.

The inspector general’s office concluded that Mrs. Clinton should have used
a secure network to transmit the emails in question—rather than her
personal email account run off a home server.

“None of the emails we reviewed had classification or dissemination
markings, but some included IC-derived classified information and should
have been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via
a secure network,” wrote Inspector General I. Charles McCullough in the
letter to Congress.

The emails in question left government custody and are on both Mrs.
Clinton’s personal home email sever as well as a thumb drive of David
Kendall, Mrs. Clinton’s personal attorney.

Mrs. Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination,
said on Friday in New York that there were “inaccuracies” in reports about
her email usage, but didn’t offer specifics. She noted that she has
voluntarily released 55,000 pages of email and offered to testify before a
congressional committee.

“Maybe the heat is getting to everybody,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding: “We
are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right, and I
will do my part. But I’m also going to stay focused on the issues,
particularly the big issues that really matter to American families.”

The State Department said on Friday that it didn’t believe any of the
emails Mrs. Clinton sent during her time in office contained any classified
material.

“To our knowledge, none of them needed to be classified at the time,” said
Mark Toner, a department spokesman. Mr. Toner acknowledged that the
department had determined that many of her emails now contained classified
information but believed it was unclassified at the time.

The State Department has downplayed concerns about the classified material
found in Mrs. Clinton’s 55,000 pages of email—saying that email is often
classified after it has been sent.

“It’s not uncommon that something that you’re sending now on an
unclassified network could in later years or later months be deemed to be
classified either because the passage of time made it so or because events
on the ground have borne out,” a State Department spokesman said earlier
this month.

Those 55,000 pages are being reviewed for public release. In one instance,
classified information has already been released to the public, the
inspector general found.

*Hillary Clinton Proposes Sharp Rise in Some Capital-Gains Tax Rates
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-to-propose-rise-in-capital-gains-taxes-on-short-term-investments-1437747732>
// WSJ // Laura Meckler - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton on Friday proposed a sharp increase in the capital-gains
tax rate for the highest earners on investments held only a few years, part
of a broader effort to shift corporate America’s focus from short-term gain
to long-term investment.

“American business needs to break free from the tyranny of today’s earning
report so they can do what they do best: innovate, invest and build
tomorrow’s prosperity,” the Democratic presidential front-runner said in a
speech in New York. “It’s time to start measuring value in terms of
years—or the next decade—not just next quarter.”

Under the Clinton plan, investments held between one and two years would be
taxed at the normal income-tax rate of 39.6%, nearly double the existing
20% capital-gains rate. Neither figure counts an extra 3.8% tax on net
investment income included as part of the health-care law, a campaign
official said.

The campaign’s proposal would affect only the top 0.5% of taxpayers. In
2015, the top bracket takes effect above $464,850 of taxable income for
married couples filing jointly and $411,500 for single filers.

The rate for top-bracket taxpayers would be set on a sliding scale, with
the lowest rate applied to investments held the longest. To qualify for the
current 20% rate, one would have to hold an investment for at least six
years.

Mrs. Clinton, a former secretary of state and U.S. senator from New York,
laid out in her speech what she sees as unhealthy corporate efforts to
boost stock prices. She argued that a focus on short-term results undercuts
longer-term economic growth and hurts American workers.

“Most CEOs are simply responding to very real pressures from shareholders
and the market to turn in good quarterly numbers,” she said. “It is clear
that the system is out of balance.”

She called for greater disclosure of stock buybacks by companies, saying
that while they may give a quick lift to stock prices, they often come at
the expense of research-and-development spending. She also called for a
review of securities rules related to shareholder activism and rules
governing tax treatment of executive compensation.

Some shareholder activists press for positive changes in management or for
social responsibility, she said, but others are “hit-and-run” bullies who
only want a quick payout.

To boost workers and their pay, she said she would fight for worker rights
and encourage companies to invest in training, such as with an
apprenticeship tax credit she already put forward. Mrs. Clinton also
endorsed a proposed $15-an-hour minimum wage for fast-food workers in New
York, saying the cost of living in a place like Manhattan is higher than
elsewhere.

She added that politicians in Washington shouldn’t make the problems worse
with budget showdowns and government shutdowns, and said what companies
want most from the government is predictability.

The capital-gains tax changes are the centerpiece of her proposal. Campaign
advisers say their goal is chiefly to change investor behavior, not to
address income inequality or to raise money for the federal Treasury. One
adviser said the campaign has no estimate as to how much money the changes
would generate for federal coffers.

Under existing law, investments held for less than a year are already taxed
at normal income-tax rates, and that wouldn’t change under the Clinton plan.

But her plan would affect taxes for the top-tier taxpayers who hold
investments for anywhere between two and six years. For instance,
investments held for two to three years would be taxed at 36%; those held
three to four years would face a tax of 32%. The sliding scale ends at six
years.

Some economists and many Republicans argue there is little the government
can do to change corporate behavior. Republican presidential contenders by
and large want to go in the opposite direction by eliminating taxes on
investment income or at least reducing them.

*Hillary Clinton to Propose Doubling Capital Gains Tax Rate on Short-Term
Investments
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-to-propose-rise-in-capital-gains-taxes-on-short-term-investments-1437747732?tesla=y>
// WSJ // Laura Meckler - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton will propose a sharp increase in the capital-gains tax rate
for the highest earners for investments held only a few years, a campaign
official said Friday.

Under the Clinton plan, investments held between one and two years would be
taxed at the normal income-tax rate of 39.6%, nearly double the existing
20% capital gains rate. Neither figure counts an extra 3.8% tax on net
investment income included as part of the health-care law, a campaign
official said.

The campaign’s proposal would affect only the top 0.5% of taxpayers,
hitting top-bracket single filers with taxable income above $413,201 and
married couples filing jointly with taxable income above $484,850.

The rate for top-bracket taxpayers would be set on a sliding scale, with
the lowest rate applied to investments held the longest. To qualify for the
existing 20% rate, one would have to hold an investment for at least six
years.

Mrs. Clinton will lay out the plan in a speech Friday in New York City,
where she plans to spotlight what she sees as unhealthy corporate efforts
to boost stock prices. She will argue that a focus on short-term results is
undercutting longer-term economic growth and hurting American workers.

Mrs. Clinton will also endorse a $15 per hour minimum wage proposal for
fast-food workers in New York, a campaign official said. Asked about this
on Thursday, she hedged as to whether the minimum wage should be that high
nationally but said certain cities can justify higher minimums. “I do
recognize that the cost of living in Little Rock is different than the cost
of living in Manhattan,” she told reporters. Asked if $15 per hour is
justified in New York, she said, “That’s up to local leaders in New York.
They certainly believe it is.”

The campaign said she would also call for greater disclosure of stock
buybacks by companies, saying that while they may give a quick lift to
stock prices, they often come at the expense of research and development
spending. She will also call for a review of securities rules related to
shareholder activism and rules governing tax treatment of executive
compensation.

The capital-gains tax changes are the centerpiece of her proposal. Campaign
officials have said that their goal is not to address income inequality or
to raise money for the federal treasury, but to change investor behavior.

Under existing law, investments held for less than a year are already taxed
at normal income-tax rates, and that wouldn't change under the Clinton plan.

But her plan would affect taxes for the top-tier taxpayers who hold
investments for anywhere between two and six years. For instance,
investments held for two to three years would be taxed at 36%; those held
three to four years would face a tax of 32%. The sliding scale ends at six
years.

Her campaign labeled the short-term focus “the tyranny of today’s earnings
report” in its preview of the speech. The change in the capital-gains tax
rates are meant to focus investors and corporations for the long term.

“Clinton will acknowledge that these changes to the tax code alone will not
shift investors’ focus from short-term to long-term overnight,” the
campaign said in previewing the speech. “But she believes this reform is a
strong first step toward removing some of the incentives pushing us toward
short-termism, and aligning investment toward long-term value.”

Some economists and many Republicans argue there is little the government
can do to change corporate behavior. Republican presidential contenders by
and large want to go in the opposite direction by eliminating taxes on
investment income or at least reducing them.

Campaigning in Greenville, S.C., on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton was asked how
she thought her ideas on corporate America will be received. She declined
to speculate but said: “I’m proposing policies that will make our economy
stronger, that will promote both strong growth and fair growth but will do
so with a longer-term perspective. That’s what I think is best for the
country. I think it’s also best for business whether they agree with it or
not.”

Her speech Friday is meant to explain how short-term outlooks helped
produce near-record high profits but stagnant wages. The campaign cited
studies showing that companies that increase spending on stock buybacks,
sometimes in an effort to boost the share price, also cut spending on
things such as new plants and equipment.

Mrs. Clinton plans to extol both the virtues and risks of shareholder
activism, but it was unclear if her speech would ask for anything beyond a
review of securities rules. The campaign said shareholder activists can
often push a company to improve its operations, but can also pressure
management to embrace measures that boost short-term stock performance at
the expense of long-term growth.

On stock buybacks, the campaign noted that some countries require daily
disclosures, whereas the U.S. mandates it only on a quarterly basis. She
will call for greater disclosure in the U.S.

*Clinton says nation's companies need to think long-term
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/969e1e698f2d4e51bb8bc54e8a854a2e/clinton-says-nations-companies-need-think-long-term>
// AP // Ken Thomas - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that businesses need to "break free from
the tyranny" of focusing too closely on quarterly earnings reports and take
a longer view of the economy to boost wages.

The Democratic presidential frontrunner said she would seek to change the
tax structure by raising capital gains taxes while also reviewing executive
compensation rules and addressing shareholder activism that often
encourages companies to focus on short-term profits.

"It is clear that the system is out of balance," Clinton said at New York
University's Stern School of Business. "The deck is stacked in too many
ways and powerful pressures and incentives are pushing it even further out
of balance,"

Clinton's speech on economic growth and fairness offered some of her most
detailed prescriptions for the economy as a presidential candidate. But
much of it was overshadowed by fresh reports that federal investigators had
asked the Justice Department to look into whether classified or sensitive
government information had been transmitted from Clinton's personal email
server while she served as secretary of state.

Clinton said at the outset that there had been "a lot of inaccuracies" in
the reports and reiterated that she had released 55,000 pages of emails and
would answer questions from congressional investigators.

On the economy, she said part of her agenda is meant to help young workers
who have struggled in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Corporate
America would need to take the lead in focusing on long-term growth, she
said, but she aimed to help with that realignment.

"American business needs to break free from the tyranny of today's earnings
report so they can do what they do best: innovate, invest and build
tomorrow's prosperity," she said.

The centerpiece would be her plan to raise capital gains taxes for wealthy
investors — couples earning more than $465,000 a year — through the
creation of a six-year sliding scale. Under her plan, the capital gains
rate for the top income bracket would be 39.6 percent if the shares were
sold within a year, matching the top rate for ordinary income levels. After
two years, the rates would decline, reaching 20 percent after six years.

Republicans and conservative-aligned groups panned the approach, saying it
would create new complications for business and wouldn't help the economy.

Americans for Tax Reform, a group founded by conservative activist Grover
Norquist, said in a statement the plan would "only serve to distort capital
markets" as investors buy and sell based on taxation considerations instead
of "rational market signals."

Clinton would also offer tax incentives for small businesses, offering zero
capital gains taxes on certain small business stock held for more than five
years. And she would offer to eliminate capital gains taxes for certain
long-term investments in hard-hit areas like inner cities, the Rust Belt,
coal country and Indian country.

On executive compensation, Clinton said the tax code created incentives for
CEOs and others to sacrifice long-term value in exchange for short-term
boosts to the company's stock price. She urged a reexamination of that
approach.

"There is something wrong when senior executives get rich while companies
stutter and employees struggle," she said.

Clinton said she would seek a review of shareholder activism, arguing that
some "hit and run" activists can have an unhealthy influence on corporate
decision-making. And she outlined plans to seek a review of stock buybacks,
which she said are often used by companies to boost share prices at the
expense of long-term investment like research and development.

*In new White House bid, Clinton embraces race as a top issue
<http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:d467bb73dddc41178cfd62ae09603ceb>
// AP // Bill Barrow - July 24, 2015*

In her second bid for the presidency, Hillary Rodham Clinton is discussing
"systemic racism" and making the issue a hallmark of her campaign as she
looks to connect with the black voters who supported rival Barack Obama in
2008.

At multiple stops in South Carolina, Clinton on Thursday bemoaned "mass
incarceration," an uneven economy, increasingly segregated public schools
and poisoned relations between law enforcement and the black community. She
praised South Carolina leaders, including Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, for
removing the Confederate battle flag from statehouse grounds after a white
gunman's massacre of nine people at a historic black church in Charleston,
but she warned that the act is only symbolic.

"America's long struggle with racism is far from finished," the former
secretary of state said before a mostly white audience at a Greenville
technical college. Hours earlier, with a majority black audience at a West
Columbia church, she declared, "Anybody who says we don't have more
progress to make is blind."

At both stops, she added some symbolism of her own, trumpeting the mantra
"Black Lives Matter," which has become a rallying cry of and name for the
activists who have organized protests in several cities amid several
high-profile cases of black citizens being killed during encounters with
police.

"This is not just a slogan," Clinton said. "This should be a guiding
principle."

The bold approach is a contrast to her 2008 campaign. That year, she didn't
talk so directly about race as she faced off against Obama, who would go on
to become the nation's first black president. Instead, she ran as the
battle-tested, experienced counter to the first-term U.S. senator from
Illinois.

Clinton doesn't frame her unabashed commentary on race in a political
context; aides repeatedly explain her strategy as "working to win every
vote" and nothing more. Yet it's clear that Clinton feels no constraints
going into 2016, as perhaps she did eight years ago. It's also no surprise
that her newfound freedom is on display in South Carolina.
African-Americans make up about 28 percent of the population and a majority
of the Democratic primary electorate, the first of the early-voting states
to feature a significant bloc of black voters.

Obama trounced Clinton here in 2008, 56 percent to 27 percent, as many
black voters flocked to his candidacy once he demonstrated white support in
the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. That leaves Clinton both to
reverse a bitter primary defeat, while using South Carolina as a test run
for a potential general election in which she would need strong black
support to reassemble Obama's winning coalition in swing states like
Virginia, Florida and Ohio.

If Clinton's approach is born of necessity, it also comes with potential
pitfalls.

Last month, she angered some activists by using the phrase "all lives
matter" during a speech a few miles from Ferguson, Missouri, where Michael
Brown died at the hands of a white police officer. Clinton used those words
as part of an anecdote about her mother, whom she said taught her that "all
lives matter," but some activists thought it demeaned the significance of
the "Black Lives Matter" effort.

Her Democratic rivals Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders drew similar
outrage last week at the liberal Netroots Nation convention. O'Malley, the
former Maryland governor, ended up apologizing after snapping at hecklers:
"Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter."

Clinton said Thursday that she won't "comment on what anybody else said."

She also faces questions about her advocacy for tougher sentencing laws
that her husband signed as president. Bill Clinton recently expressed
regret over the laws, but his wife stopped short of calling the laws a
mistake.

"We were facing different problems in the '80s and '90s," she told
reporters, saying crime in cities "was causing an outcry across the
nation," including in poor and minority neighborhoods. "I think now, 20
years on, we can say some things worked and some things didn't work," she
continued. "One of the big problems that didn't work is that we had too
many people, particularly African-American men, who were being incarcerated
for minor offenses."

Clinton also must avoid any residue from Bill Clinton's remarks during and
after the South Carolina primary in 2008. Clinton, who was extremely
popular among black voters when he was president, expressed open
frustration at Obama's rise. After Obama won South Carolina, the former
president dismissed the victory as akin to Rev. Jesse Jackson's victory in
1988. A black South Carolina native, Jackson won the state's caucus that
year, but he was never a serious contender for the nomination.

Meanwhile, Clinton says she will continue declaring that "black lives
matter."

"I think this has become an important statement of a movement," she said,
"to try to raise difficult issues about race and justice that the country
needs to address."

*Hillary Clinton’s plan for corporate America
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clintons-plan-for-wall-street-120598.html?ml=tl_2>
// Politico // Annie Karni - July 24, 2015*

In her first big address detailing her approach to reforming Wall Street
and corporate America, Hillary Clinton laid out a plan that would increase
taxes on short-term investors. She also voiced support for more
transparency when it comes to executive compensation and stock buyback
transactions, and said she supports raising the minimum wage to $15-an-hour
— at least in expensive cities like New York and Los Angeles.

Clinton’s campaign has presented her proposals as more realistic than the
progressive ideals touted by her Democratic opponents in the presidential
race — with the benefit of even being palatable to many top corporate
executives. But her speech still managed to find critics on both sides.

Clinton said she would reform capital gains taxes by moving to a six-year
sliding scale to incentivize top earners to hold onto their stocks for
longer. “The current definition of a long term holding period, just one
year, is woefully inadequate,” Clinton said during a 30-minute speech at
New York University’s Stern School of Business. “That may count as
long-term for my baby granddaughter, but not for the American economy.”

For taxpayers in the top income bracket — families earning more than
$465,000 a year — any gains from selling stock in the first two years would
be taxed at the higher ordinary income rate, Clinton said. The rate would
decrease from there. Clinton did not provide specific numbers for the taxes
in her speech. Those numbers were detailed only on her website: investments
held between one and two years would be taxed just like regular income — at
39.6 percent, up from the current 20 percent capital gains tax rate. That
rate would fall by four points every year after that, until it reached the
current 20 percent rate after six years.

“The truth is her plan just makes more losers by crushing investors with
higher taxes,” said David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for
Growth activist group. “The fact is Hillary wants to punish success in
order to grow government, and that means the biggest loser will be our
economy. We need a capital gains rate that is consistent across the board —
consistently zero.”

On the left, some thought she did not go far enough. “We look forward to
the Clinton campaign’s big speech on systemic reforms,” said Adam Green,
co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “The American
public will look to see if she is willing to challenge Wall Street power.”

Her goal, Clinton said, was to foster long-term economic growth and
ultimately raise incomes of the middle class. Clinton said real value comes
from companies making long-term investments, including in their workforce.
“You may have heard that I am a fan of Chipotle, and it’s not just because
of their burrito bowl,” Clinton said, lauding the company for a new policy
that provides paid sick days, paid vacation time and tuition reimbursements
to its part-time employees.

As president, Clinton said she would look for ways to eliminate capital
gains taxes all together for “certain long term investments in small
businesses including innovative start-ups, and hard hit communities, from
inner cities, to the rust belt, to coal country.”

Clinton also called for more transparency in stock buyback transactions
through more frequent reporting, and more information about executive
compensation.

“Thirty years ago, top CEOs made 50 times what a typical worker did,” she
said. “Today they make 300 times more. That just doesn’t make sense.” She
said there is no excuse for a five-year delay in implementing a statute of
the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act that requires companies to publish
the ratio between CEO pay and the pay of regular employees. “Workers have a
right to know whether executive pay has gotten out of balance and so does
the public,” she said.

She also expressed support for a $15-an-hour minimum wage proposal for fast
food workers in New York, recommended earlier this week by a state panel.
But she stopped short of endorsing a national $15 minimum wage, which her
Democratic opponents Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley support.

“The national minimum wage is a floor and it needs to be raised,” she said.
But she warned, “the cost of living in Manhattan is different Little Rock
and many other places.” On the campaign trail in South Carolina Thursday,
Clinton said a $10.10 national minimum wage would be a “good starting
place.”

Clinton’s speech had been previewed by her top aides in the days leading up
to her address as an important piece of her economic policy to ensure
long-term growth. But on Friday, it was overshadowed by news that the
Justice Department had been asked by two inspectors general to open a
criminal investigation into whether classified information had potentially
been sent from Clinton’s personal email account during her tenure at the
State Department. She briefly addressed the controversy before launching
into her speech and vowing not to be distracted.

“I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions before the House
Committee,” she said. “We are all accountable to get the facts right. I
will do my part. but I’m also going to stay focused on the issues,
particularly the big issues that really matter to American families.”

*GOP says Clinton must turn over server after news of probe
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/republicans-hillary-clinton-turn-over-server-120581.html?ml=tl_4>
// Politico // Rachael Bade - July 24, 2015 *

Revelations that Hillary Clinton received classified emails on her
unsecured personal server set off partisan warfare on Friday as both
parties argued over whether it could lead to a criminal investigation of
the 2016 presidential front-runner.

Republicans and Democrats sharply differed in their interpretations of news
that at least one inspector general asked the Justice Department to probe
the matter, and whether it would implicate the former Secretary of State.

House Republicans say it seems suspicious, with House Speaker John Boehner
(R-Ohio) demanding that Clinton turn over her server.

“Two inspectors generals appointed by President Obama have now called on
the Justice Department to investigate Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of
classified email,” the Ohio Republican said. “If Secretary Clinton truly
has nothing to hide, she can prove it by immediately turning over her
server to the proper authorities and allowing them to examine the complete
record.”

But Democrats say a letter to Congress from one of the inspectors general
includes details that absolve Clinton: According to the letter from the
intelligence committee IG, the classified emails found by the watchdog were
not marked as such, suggesting Clinton did not knowingly break the law,
Democrats argue.

Knowing that something is classified, experts say, makes all the difference
when accusing someone of leaking classified intel.

The New York Times first reported the news in a blockbuster story Thursday,
writing that Obama Administration inspectors generals for the State
Department and intelligence community asked the Justice Department to
launch a criminal probe into “whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled
sensitive government information on a private email account she used as
secretary of state.”

But the authors later revised the story — which had suggested Clinton was
personally under investigation — following pushback from Clinton’s
campaign. The inspectors general were instead looking generally “into
whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with”
Clinton’s emails.

And Democrats are now arguing that, technically, only one inspector general
made a “referral”: the intelligence watchdog.

The left jumped on the story, calling it inaccurate and irresponsible, with
Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) saying Friday he “spoke personally with the State
Department Inspector General and the Intelligence Community Inspector
General together, and they both confirmed directly to me that they never
asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation of
Secretary Clinton’s email usage.” According to Cummings, they said the
referral was a “routine’ referral,” and “they have no idea how the New York
Times got this so wrong.”

“This is the latest example in a series of inaccurate leaks to generate
false front-page headlines — only to be corrected later — and they have
absolutely nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi or protecting our
diplomatic corps overseas,” he said.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the Ranking Member of the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, in a statement called the whole mix-up
“deeply irresponsible.”

Democrats also pushed heavily back on the notion that anything was marked
classified, pointing to an intelligence community inspector general letter
to Congress that said they were not.

But “marked” turned out to be the key word — because they were indeed
classified, even if they weren’t identified as such.

The intelligence community watchdog found at least four emails, out of a
small sample of 40, where “secret” classified information was shared
between Clinton and the other parities, according to the letter sent to the
Hill.

It’s unclear why the emails were not encrypted with classification
identifiers. Though one explanation could be that Clinton and her
correspondents were simply talking about a classified topic, not passing an
official documents.

It’s also unclear whether Clinton or individuals on the chain knew the
information was classified.

“We note that none of the emails we reviewed has classification or
dissemination markings, but some included IC-derived classified information
and should have been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and
transmitted via a secure network,” the letter reads.

Clinton, of course, used her own personal email account rather than an
official State address as is required under government record-keeping
rules. And she’d previously said she did not send or receive classified
information on the server.

At the very least, the letter significantly undermines the claim that
Clinton did not send classified emails, but whether criminal charges may
follow is a different question.

Criminal probe or not, Republicans pounced and are likely to ask for an
inspector general to review the matter independent of the Obama
Administration-controlled Justice Department.

They also want her server — or, to have her hand it over to the inspector
general.

“Hillary Clinton’s desire to play by her own rules may have further exposed
classified information,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus in a statement.
“While a full investigation by the Justice Department is not just needed,
but required, Hillary Clinton must also hand her entire secret server over
to an independent third party for further review.”

Despite the disagreement about the severity of the inquiry, the news
offered some vindication for the House Select Committee on Benghazi
Republicans, who for months have been trying to ward of accusations that
they’re on a witch-hunt aimed at making the 2016 democratic front-runner
look bad.

Benghazi panel Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) in a statement said he
“appreciates” that the IGs have “confirmed this is a serious and
nonpartisan national security matter by any objective measure.”

Gowdy, who has also called on Clinton to turn over her server, welcomed a
Justice probe.

“This certainly merits further review by the Executive Branch to determine
the legal and national security implications posed by the former
Secretary’s unusual email arrangement in order to mitigate any potential
counterintelligence risks and minimize the damage caused by this scheme,”
he said. “These issues should be evaluated under the same strict standards
that would apply to anyone found to be in possession of classified
information outside of an approved system.”

*Hillary Clinton on email scandal: Everybody calm down
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/report-hillary-clinton-criminal-probe-urged-by-inspectors-general-over-email-use-at-state-120571.html#ixzz3gpTB3z2g>
// Politico // Josh Gerstein and Hanna Trudo - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton on Friday sought to downplay the latest twist in the
long-running scandal over her use of a private email server while she was
secretary of state, saying reports of a possible criminal probe are full of
inaccuracies.

News emerged on Thursday evening that at least one inspector general passed
to the Justice Department evidence of potential mishandling of classified
information, a referral that could lead to a criminal investigation.

Clinton on Friday said people are getting worked up over not much. “Maybe
the heat is getting to everybody,” she said, in remarks before a policy
speech in New York on Wall Street.

She went on to express frustration over what she called erroneous
reporting. “We all have a responsibility to get this right. I have released
55,000 pages of emails. I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions
before the House committee. We are all accountable to get the facts right.
I will do my part. But I’m also going to stay focused on the issues,
particularly the big issues that really matter to American families.”

Clinton appeared to be loose with her phrasing, however. She has not
personally released any emails to the public — only to the State
Department, which is reviewing them for release in monthly batches.

The controversy has dogged Clinton for five months, at times overshadowing
her on the campaign trail, and presenting one of the biggest outstanding
risks to her bid for the presidency. The revelation that she used a private
account, which represented a break from State Department protocol, has
reinforced the reputation that the Clintons are secretive and operate by a
different set of rules.

The scandal could get more serious if a criminal probe is initiated, but
it’s not clear when or if that will happen, and there have been evolving
reports in the past 24 hours.

The New York Times first reported the referral, and ended up making subtle,
but significant alterations to its story late Thursday night, apparently in
response to criticism from the Clinton campaign. The paper later attached a
correction to the online story, saying a prior version misstated the nature
of the referral to the Justice Department due to misinformation from senior
government officials.

Clinton spokesperson Nick Merrill said about the New York Times story,
“Contrary to the initial story, which has already been significantly
revised, she followed appropriate practices in dealing with classified
materials. As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails
deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact,
and not at the time they were transmitted.”

Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said the campaign is pleased about the New
York Times’ correction but said the situation should have never happened.

“I think they got taken for a ride here by partisan sources,” Fallon said
on MSNBC’s “Now with Alex Wagner” Friday.

He also criticized House Speaker John Boehner renewed demand that Clinton
turn over her server immediately. He cited two inspectors general calling
on the Justice Department to probe Clinton’s mishandling of classified
email.

“These statements that you’ve seen today from Speaker Boehner have
deliberately mischaracterized” the situation, Fallon said.

In an attempt to clarify reports, a Justice Department official said on
Friday, “The Department has received a referral related to the potential
compromise of classified information. It is not a criminal referral.”

A spokeswoman for I. Charles McCullough III, the intelligence community’s
inspector general, confirmed that MCullough had contacted the FBI about a
“potential compromise of classified information” regarding Clinton’s email.

“It was a counterintelligence referral to the proper office at the FBI.
It’s up to them how to proceed,” said the spokeswoman, Andrea Williams. “We
also referred it to the appropriate security officials within the
Intelligence Community. Our office is statutorily required to refer
compromises of national security information. IG’s don’t work compromise
cases.”

In a letter sent to Congress late Thursday, McCullough said the State
Department’s recent releases of some of Clinton’s emails — disclosures
prompted by Freedom of Information Act requests and a court order for
monthly posting of the emails online — had already led to “an inadvertent
release of classified national security information.” The State Department
disputes that the information was classified, McCullough said.

McCullough also said he was concerned that Clinton’s private attorney,
David Kendall, reportedly continues to have copies on a thumb drive of the
roughly 30,000 emails the former secretary returned to State in December at
the agency’s request.

Clinton campaign spokesmen had no immediate comment on the claim about the
thumb drive. The campaign has rebuffed prior questions about what was done
with the contents of about 26 emails State has deemed classified in the
past two months.

The overall impact of the scandal so far is hard to determine, but polling
numbers show worrying signs. A Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll found
last month that a majority of voters in three key swing states view Hillary
Clinton as not honest and trustworthy.

Much of the dispute has revolved around the question of whether Clinton
inappropriately was using her personal server to communicate about
classified information.

Clinton has denied anything inappropriate.

“I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email,” she said
in March. “There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well aware of
the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”

But some of the emails have been deemed classified at later dates, muddling
the issue.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the lead Democrat on the House Select Committee on
Benghazi, which is probing Clinton’s email use, rose to her defense on
Friday.

“The Benghazi Select Committee has obtained zero evidence that any emails
to or from Secretary Clinton were marked as classified at the time they
were transmitted, although some have been retroactively classified since
then,” Cummings said. “This is the latest example in a series of inaccurate
leaks to generate false front-page headlines — only to be corrected later —
and they have absolutely nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi or
protecting our diplomatic corps overseas.”

Meanwhile, Republicans pounced on the latest revelation.

“Now we learn that Hillary Clinton’s desire to play by her own rules may
have further exposed classified information,” Republican National Committee
Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. “While a full investigation by
the Justice Department is not just needed, but required, Hillary Clinton
must also hand her entire secret server over to an independent third party
for further review.”

The State Department is looking over more than 55,000 pages of
correspondence provided by Clinton after her private email practices were
made public. So far, 3,000 pages have been released, including some emails
with redactions.

State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach said in a statement: “We are
working with both the State IG and the Intelligence Community’s inspector
general to ensure that our review of former Secretary Clinton’s emails is
completed in a manner that protects sensitive and potentially classified
information.”

The dispute over Clinton’s emails is playing out in multiple arenas,
including federal court. Last week, State Department lawyers came under
questioning by a federal judge regarding multiple pending Freedom of
Information Act request from The Associated Press.

POLITICO obtained a transcript of remarks by U.S. District Court Judge
Richard J. Leon, who initiated the questioning.

“I want to find out what’s been going on over there — I should say, what’s
not been going on over there,” he said, adding that the State Department
“has been, to say the least, recalcitrant in responding.”

*Hillary Clinton Faults ‘Hit-and-Run’ Activist Investors
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-24/hillary-clinton-faults-activist-investors-hit-and-run-tactics>
// Bloomberg // Brandon Kochkodin and Caleb Melby - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton sharpened her criticism against what she sees as Wall
Street excess by targeting investors who demand short-term corporate
measures like share buybacks and dividends to pump up a company’s stock
price.

“We need a new generation of committed, long-term investors to provide a
counter-weight to the hit-and-run activists,” the Democratic presidential
candidate said Friday in a speech at New York University’s Stern School of
Business. She contrasted her favored approach with investors who agitate
for immediate change “no matter how much it discourages and distracts
management from pursuing strategies that would add the most long-term
value.”

Clinton has made economic inequality a centerpiece of her campaign, and has
previously said that the nation’s top 25 hedge fund managers earn more than
all of U.S. kindergarten teachers combined. Still, she’s received donations
from big-name fund managers such as Paul Tudor Jones, the billionaire
founder of Tudor Investment Corp., and Jamie Dinan, who started York
Capital.

The former secretary of state and U.S. senator didn’t single out any fund
managers for criticism by name, nor did she cite specific confrontations
that hurt companies’ prospects. She did say that businesses and the economy
would have more sustainable growth if the focus turned to reinvesting
capital.

“Real value comes from long-term growth, not short-term profits,” said
Clinton, 67. “It comes from building companies, not stripping them; from
creating good jobs, not eliminating them; from seeing workers as assets to
cultivate, not costs to be cut.”

‘Quarterly Capitalism’

Third Point’s Dan Loeb and Paul Singer, who runs Elliott Management, are
among money managers who pursue activist tactics and have donated to
Republicans seeking that party’s presidential nomination. Loeb supported
former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Singer has hosted events for Bush,
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Governors John Kasich of Ohio, Scott
Walker of Wisconsin and New Jersey’s Chris Christie.

Clinton is proposing that the top 43.4 percent tax rate on short-term
capital gains be extended to apply to assets held for less than two years,
compared with the current one-year threshold. Beyond that, she would
implement a sliding scale of long-term capital gains rates, and taxpayers
in the top bracket would have to keep holdings for at least six years to
get today’s rate of 23.8 percent, which would remain the lowest available.

She also faulted executive pay packages containing options and restricted
shares, which she said contribute to “quarterly capitalism.”

Many stock-heavy pay packages “have created a perverse incentive for
executives to seek the big payouts that could come from a temporary rise in
share prices,” she said.

*Hillary Clinton's Fix for Short-Termism? They Tried It in 1934
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-24/hillary-clinton-s-fix-for-short-termism-they-tried-it-in-1934>
// Bloomberg // Peter Coy - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton didn't mention 1934 in her speech today about fighting
short-termism, but she could have. The last time the U.S. taxed capital
gains roughly the way she wants to was from 1934 to 1941, from the depths
of the Great Depression to the eve of World War II.

In other words, when it comes to tax policy, everything old is new again.
In a speech at New York University's Stern School of Business, the
Democratic presidential candidate said that giving preferential tax
treatment to investments that are held longer would give investors an
incentive to be more patient so companies could embark on projects with big
upfront costs and long-term payoffs. "We need a new generation of
committed, long-term investors to provide a counterweight to the
hit-and-run activists," Clinton said.

Will it work? It's hard to say. Economists have found little to no linkage
between capital gains tax rates and growth rates of the U.S. economy over
the years, says Len Burman, an expert on the topic who is director of the
centrist Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington. "I'm sympathetic
with the goal of encouraging long-term investment," Burman said, but added,
"I don't think it's really going to do what she thinks it's going to do.
... I don't think this is a particularly well-designed instrument."

Capital gains taxes have fluctuated drastically along with changes in who
runs Washington and also changing advice from the economics professoriate.
From the start of the income tax in 1913 until 1921, capital gains were
taxed the same as ordinary income, such as wages. Taxes on investments held
for a longer period have been taxed lower most of the time since, with one
year being the most common cutoff for short- vs. long-term. But from 1934
to 1941, taxation was graduated a bit like the way Clinton is proposing.
Instead of having a lower rate on longer-held investments, the Internal
Revenue Service excluded part of capital gains from taxation.

"For example, in 1934 and 1935, 20, 40, 60, and 70 percent of gains were
excluded on assets held 1, 2, 5, and 10 years, respectively," according to
an article by a Treasury Dept. staffer that was published in an
encyclopedia. That changed in 1942, as the U.S. ramped up involvement in
World War II and the tax system changed abruptly. There don't seem to have
been any authoritative studies showing positive or negative effects of the
Depression-era system—a difficult task considering everything else that was
going on at the time.

Changing the tax code to combat short-term thinking is hardly a lefty
fringe idea. Among the people who has been warning against short-termism in
recent speeches is Laurence Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world's biggest
money manager, with more than $4 trillion in assets. "Even our tax code
seems designed to encourage short-term strategies," Fink wrote in April in
an essay on the website of McKinsey & Co., the blue-chip management
consulting firm. "Paying significantly lower taxes for capital gains, a
major component of tax policy, is predicated on one-year holding periods,"
Fink wrote. "Who really believes a one-year commitment is long term?"

McKinsey has also been warning that short-term thinking is harmful to
long-term growth. "I don't think this alone will solve it but we've got to
jolt the system out of its short-term mindset," Dominic Barton, the global
managing director, said in an interview.

Capital gains are profits earned by selling investments for more than you
bought them for. Clinton is proposing that the top 43.4 percent tax rate on
short-term capital gains be extended to apply to assets held for less than
two years, vs. the current one-year threshold. For two years and beyond,
the tax rate would decline until reaching today's long-term rate of 23.8
percent for assets held six years or more. Those rates would apply to
people in the highest tax bracket, those earning over $400,000 a year.

The trade group for private-equity investors is interested in what Clinton
has to say. Private-equity investors usually invest for five to seven
years, which would qualify them for low capital gains taxes under the
proposal. "It seems like she wants to encourage investing for the long
term, which is directly in line with the private equity model," says James
Maloney, spokesman for the Private Equity Growth Capital Council.

But Clinton's plan also got some pushback. Alan Viard, an economist at the
American Enterprise Institute, said it would "increase the tax system's
bias against investment" by raising capital gains-taxes on investments held
between one year and six years. He said it also worsens the lock-in
effect—that is, it gives people a tax incentive to hold onto investments
they would rather get rid of. That could involve keeping money in an old,
tired company rather than investing in a promising start-up. Viard said
that executive compensation might be a better avenue for addressing
short-termism. (Clinton also said she wanted to do something about
executive pay, including changing tax deductions on performance based pay,
such as stock options.)

Burman, the tax scholar at the Tax Policy Center, said Clinton's implicit
argument is that some activist investors force companies to abandon
promising projects and return cash to shareholders, which the shareholders
end up deploying in less worthwhile ways, Burman said. That may be true
sometimes, he said, but if the activists did that routinely they would end
up losing money. "Probably a lot of companies have cash on hand they don't
have good prospects for. Activists are getting them to disgorge it. Unless
they're systematically making misjudgments that's what you want  them to
do."

Clinton's proposal was surprisingly specific—surprising because the detail
gives her opponents something to shoot at. "I like when people are putting
stuff out in the open," said Robert Wolf, founder and CEO of 32Advisors, a
New York-based advisory firm, and a supporter of Democratic candidates. "It
allows us to have a real debate. I'd rather have this debate on tax reform
and how to get middle income wages moving again than the debate the
Republicans are having , which is just kind of hard to follow."

*Hillary Clinton Adds Capital Gains Complexity With Tax Rise, 6-Year Wait
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-24/clinton-adds-capital-gains-complexity-with-tax-rise-6-year-wait>
// Bloomberg // Richard Rubin - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton wants to raise capital gains taxes to encourage long-term
investment, making it more expensive to sell stocks held for less than six
years and adding complexity to the U.S. tax system.

Compared with today’s two-tier system -- a 43.4 percent top rate for assets
held less than a year and 23.8 percent beyond that -- the proposal by
Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, would create a six-rate
structure for capital gains for high-income households.

For Americans in the top tax bracket, assets held for less than two years
would be taxed at the top ordinary-income tax rate of 43.4 percent,
according to the campaign.

The rate would drop to 39.8 percent after two years, 35.8 percent after
three years, 31.8 percent after four years and 27.8 percent after five
years. Taxpayers would have to hold onto assets for at least six years to
get the 23.8 percent rate, which would remain the lowest available.

Clinton wants to push capital gains taxes higher than the 28 percent
proposed earlier this year by President Barack Obama -- and higher than the
20 percent maximum Clinton advocated in her 2008 campaign for president.
The former U.S. senator and secretary of state attributes her shift to an
urgent need to address short-term thinking by investors and corporations.

Clinton’s proposal would raise taxes for the nation’s wealthiest households
while encouraging buy-and-hold investing. Her plan would apply only in the
top tax bracket -- currently taxable income exceeding $413,200 for
individuals and $464,850 for married couples.

Top 1 Percent

Those levels are where capital gains are concentrated. The top 1 percent of
U.S. households -- those with incomes exceeding $641,000 -- receive 75
percent of the benefits of today’s preferential rates for long-term capital
gains and dividends, according to the Tax Policy Center. Almost half of the
benefits go to the top 0.1 percent, those with incomes exceeding $3.3
million.

Clinton’s plan would have significant costs, tying up capital in
investments that taxpayers would exit but for the tax cost.

And it’s far from clear how well it would combat what Clinton and her
allies see as a plague of short-term thinking in corporate America. Clinton
is giving a speech Friday criticizing capitalism that’s overly focused on
the next earnings report, and she’ll say that capital-gains tax changes
alone won’t alter that mindset.

“It’s just very hard to make a connection between capital gains tax rates
through the cost of capital to investment and then growth,” said Joel
Slemrod, a University of Michigan tax economist. “I see the point. It’s a
plausible point, but I just don’t have any evidence to look at to judge
whether this is going to have a big effect or small effect.”

Third Proposal

The capital gains plan is Clinton’s third major tax proposal of the
campaign, along with tax credits for apprenticeships and profit sharing
with employees.

In all of the plans, she’s aiming to reshape corporate incentives beyond
the near term to encourage sustained investment.

Clinton’s proposal draws on work from the Democratic-aligned Center for
American Progress and the Aspen Institute. Aspen proposed sliding-scale
capital gains tax rates as part of an agenda against short-term thinking in
a 2009 paper endorsed by billionaire Warren Buffett and John Bogle, founder
of the Vanguard Group.

‘Naturally Short-Term’

“What you’re talking about is a natural human nature problem, the way our
brains are wired to be naturally short-term,” said Miguel Padro, senior
program manager at the Aspen Institute. “The tax code is a potential tool
to help combat that.”

Two of Clinton’s Democratic presidential rivals -- Martin O’Malley and
Bernie Sanders -- have gone further in trying to end super-short-term
thinking. They’ve endorsed a tax on financial transactions, which would
reduce high-frequency trading.

The top capital gains rate has fluctuated over time, with a preference
often included to encourage investing, limit double taxation of corporate
income and counter the effects of inflation in a tax system that uses
nominal dollars. The 1986 revamp of the tax code signed by Ronald Reagan
set it at 28 percent, applying the same rate as ordinary income.

The rates diverged in the 1990s under Bill Clinton, with the capital gains
rate hitting 20 percent, about half of the top rate on wages. President
George W. Bush drove the capital gains rate to 15 percent before Obama and
the Democratic Congress raised it to 23.8 percent.

Tax-Rate Sensitivity

Some investors -- particularly those who can wait to time their asset sales
for tax purposes -- are highly sensitive to tax rates.

In 2012, U.S. taxpayers claimed 60.4 percent more in capital gains than
they did in 2011, locking in lower rates before the 2013 tax increase took
effect.

After an initial boost, higher tax rates discourage selling. This would be
especially so in Clinton’s proposed system, which dangles a lower rate for
those who hold on longer.

“You’re locked into BlackBerry, when all of a sudden there’s Apple,” said
Mark Bloomfield, president of the American Council on Capital Formation, a
Washington group that advocates lower investment taxes. “That’s sort of the
biggest problem with it.”

The proposal stands little chance of success if Republicans continue to
control Congress. That party’s candidates are racing to reduce capital
gains taxes -- and Senator Marco Rubio wants to eliminate them entirely.

Alvin Rabushka, co-author of flat-tax proposals that don’t tax capital
gains, said Clinton is taking the wrong approach.

“She couldn’t be more wrong if she tried in raising capital gains rates,”
he said this week at a Heritage Foundation event. In Silicon Valley, where
he’s a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Rabushka said, “we’re not
interested in long-term preferences.”

*Hillary Clinton Calls for Investors to Escape 'Tyranny' of 'Short Termism'
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-24/hillary-clinton-calls-for-investors-to-escape-tyranny-of-short-termism->
// Bloomberg // Jennifer Epstein - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton will on Friday unveil a set of proposals aimed at
encouraging companies and investors to favor long-term growth over the
“tyranny of today’s earnings report.”

In the second economic policy speech of her campaign, to be delivered
Friday afternoon at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Clinton
plans to offer up proposals aimed squarely at the nation's investor class.
They range from overhauling capital gains rates and the taxation of
executive compensation, to better policing of shareholder activism and
stock buybacks.

The proposals appear calibrated to hit a sweet spot that will satisfy
progressive Democrats while not angering Clinton's Wall Street donors.

The speech elaborates the bigger-picture economic address Clinton gave on
July 13, in which she lamented that “today’s marketplace focuses too much
on the short term, like second to second financial trading, and quarterly
earnings reports, and too little on long-term investments.”

On Friday, a campaign official said, Clinton will argue that “short
termism” is harming the economy and suggest that companies be incentivized
by the federal government to make longer term investments in plants,
equipment and people.

According to the campaign official, the ideas Clinton will present include:

1. Overhauling capital gains taxes

For the top income tax bracket, capital gains taxes would be determined
using a sliding scale, in which shorter-duration trades and gains would be
taxed at a higher rate than longer term ones. Unlike the current tax code,
which provides a preferential rate for all investments held more than a
year, Clinton wants to make tax benefits greater the longer the investment
is held. Clinton will acknowledge that changes to the tax code won’t
immediately change investors’ behavior but believes it’s a first step in
realigning incentives.

The sliding-scale capital gains tax is an idea about which some Clinton
allies have been publicly supportive. Last month, Neera Tanden, the
president Center for American Progress and a longtime Clinton policy
adviser, and Blair Effron, a co-founder of Centerview Partners who hosted a
Clinton fundraiser in May, published a policy paper backing this approach.

2. Changing taxation on executive compensation

Clinton believes the tax code can be used to better align executives’
financial interests with boosting long-term value. The former New York
senator will say that the current tax code can create circumstances in
which executives choose short-term bumps in share prices over long-term
value and recommend re-examining the tax code to change those incentives.

3. Reining in activist shareholders

When shareholder watchdogs hold corporate management accountable, their
activism can be a good thing, Clinton will say. But it can also go too far,
and the “hit-and-run” approach of some can be detrimental to a company’s
long-term interest.

4. Disclosing of stock buybacks

Clinton will note that such buybacks are often used to boost short-term
share prices at the expense of long-term investment, and will call for more
transparency. Clinton will note that the United States only requires that
companies disclose buybacks on a quarterly basis, while buybacks in the
United Kingdom and Hong Kong must be disclosed with a day.

*Clinton emails contained classified material: U.S. inspector
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/24/us-usa-election-clinton-emails-idUSKCN0PY0DH20150724>
// Reuters // Jonathan Allen - July 24, 2015*

At least four emails from the private email account that former U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used while in office contained
classified information, according to a government inspector's letter that
deepened the email controversy dogging Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

The inspector general of the intelligence community wrote in a letter to
members of Congress on Thursday that a sampling of 40 of 30,000 Clinton
emails found at least four that should have been classified as secret.

The information in the emails was derived from the U.S. intelligence
community "and should have been handled as classified, appropriately marked
and transmitted via a secure network," the inspector general, Charles
McCullough, wrote. His letter was made available on Friday on a House of
Representatives website.

Clinton's use of her private email account for her work as America's top
diplomat came to light in March and drew fire from political opponents who
accused her of sidestepping transparency and record-keeping laws.

The former first lady has said she sent no classified information on her
private email account. The inspector general's comments left open the
possibility that Clinton sent or received emails with classified material
that she was not aware of.

The front-runner to represent the Democratic Party in the November 2016
election, Clinton has repeatedly said she broke no laws or rules by
eschewing a standard government email account.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement she "followed
appropriate practices in dealing with classified materials."

Clinton handed over some 30,000 emails from the private account to the
State Department after she quit in 2013, but many thousands of others that
she says are not related to her work were deleted.

"We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right, and
I will do my part," Clinton said at a speech in New York, noting she had
handed over tens of thousands of pages of emails.

McCullough said State Department officials had told his office "that there
are potentially hundreds of classified emails within the approximately
30,000 provided by former Secretary Clinton."

Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail have seized
on the email scandal to portray Clinton as continuing secretive practices
they say they also characterized President Bill Clinton's eight years in
office.

While Clinton faces little competition for the Democratic Party's
nomination, several recent polls have found a majority of voters find her
untrustworthy, a perception exacerbated by controversy over her emails. The
U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it is weighing a request by two
government inspectors to look into the possible mishandling of classified
information from Clinton's private email account.

The department said earlier in the day it had been asked to treat the issue
as a potential criminal matter, but later backtracked to drop a reference
to any criminal investigation.

*Clinton proposes tax, buyback changes to encourage long-term growth
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/24/us-usa-election-clinton-idUSKCN0PY26N20150724?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter>
// Reuters // Jonathan Allen and Luciana Lopez - July 24, 2015*

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton proposed U.S. corporate
tax reforms on Friday including a sliding scale for capital gains taxes,
greater transparency for stock buybacks and changes in executive
compensation to encourage long-term economic growth.

Clinton, in a speech in New York, said institutional investors have an
obligation to counter "hit and run" activist shareholders. She also said
the U.S. government needs to "stop pouring subsidies into industries that
are already thriving," such as the oil industry.

Clinton, front-runner in the race for the Democratic Party's nomination, is
working to draw in progressive voters in her party while not alienating
big-money donors from Wall Street as she seeks to build a broad coalition
going into the general election in November 2016.

But Clinton was criticized by Republicans, who generally prefer less
regulation of capital markets.

A spokesman for Republican candidate and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said in a
statement that Clinton's tax policy was outdated.

"Hillary Clinton’s tax proposal picks winners and losers," said the
spokesman, Alex Conant, "and ultimately leaves behind the working class."

Clinton called for government and private companies to join in the fight
against "quarterly capitalism."

"It's bad for business, it’s bad for wages and it’s bad for our economy,"
she said of short-term thinking at the expense of long-term growth.

Clinton argued that the tax code and U.S. laws currently allow or even
encourage companies to focus on short-term gains in stock prices in a way
that undercuts the economy's long-term growth and harms middle-class
incomes.

The former U.S. senator and secretary of state also said "there is
something wrong when senior executives get rich" while companies and
workers suffer.

"How do we define shareholder value in the 21st century?" Clinton asked.
"Is it maximizing immediate returns or delivering long-term growth?"

Companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock market index spent $566
billion buying back their shares in 2014, up from $480 billion in 2013 and
the highest amount since 2007, according to research firm FactSet.

She pointed to other countries that require companies to disclose buybacks
daily, giving regulators and outside investors more information about the
transactions and causes of share price changes. "Here in the U.S. you can
go an entire quarter without disclosing," she said. "Let's change that."

Clinton's main rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Vermont Senator
Bernie Sanders, has drawn crowds of thousands by appealing to progressives,
despite being far less well-known than Clinton.

He has, for example, endorsed their call for increasing the federal minimum
wage to $15. Clinton suggested on Friday that while this might make sense
in New York City, where the cost of living is high, it made less sense in
cheaper parts of the country.

Executive pay, padded out with stocks and options, has become increasingly
structured with "perverse incentives" to inflate payouts by focusing on
short-term rises in share prices, she said. Companies should accept legal
provisions yet to be fully enacted that require them to say, in a ratio,
how much more executives are paid than other employees, a disparity that
has widened in recent decades.

She was also critical of generous executive pay packages during her last
attempt to win the presidency in 2008, when she also ran on a platform seen
to be to the left of the more centrist economic policies of her husband,
Bill Clinton, when he was president.

Her speech on Friday added to downward pressure on U.S. stocks, which were
falling in afternoon trading.

*Justice Department: No criminal referral over Clinton emails
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/24/us-usa-election-clinton-idUSKCN0PY1RU20150724?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter>
// Reuters // Susan Heavey - July 24, 2015*

The Justice Department said Friday it has received a request to examine the
handling of classified information related to the private emails from
Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, but it is not a
criminal referral.

The department's statement followed a report by the New York Times that
Justice Department officials had received a request to open a criminal
investigation into the Clinton emails.

A separate memo disclosed Friday from government inspector generals
expressed concern about how the emails were being handled as they were
prepared for release to the public.

*Hillary's emails touched off debate about classified documents
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/hillary-clinton-email-inspector-general-120585.html>
// Politico // Josh Gerstein - July 24, 2015*

At least four emails Hillary Clinton kept on a private server during her
years as Secretary of State were classified “secret” at the time, according
to an inspector general review — a finding that calls into question her
assertion in March that she took care to avoid sending classified materials.

However, suggestions from Clinton aides that she didn’t knowingly keep
classified information on the private account still have some life. So far,
it appears none of the information was marked as classified before it moved
into or out of her home-cooked email system, but that caveat has not
stemmed Republican complaints that it was reckless for her to handle her
sensitive work on a private system.

“None of the emails we reviewed had classification or dissemination
markings, but some included [Intelligence Community]-derived classified
information and should have been handled and transmitted via a secure
network,” Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough
III said in a letter to congressional committee leaders Thursday.

McCullough said a limited sample of just 40 emails “revealed four contained
classified IC information that should have been marked and handled at the
SECRET level” — the middle of three broad tiers of classification. The
claim became public as McCullough disclosed to Congress that he had advised
the FBI of a potential “compromise” of classified information in the
Clinton email episode —a referral that could lead to a criminal
investigation.

It’s a violation of federal law for a government official to “knowingly”
move “materials containing classified information” to “an unauthorized
location.”

Soon after it was revealed in March that Clinton used a private server to
handle her work-related email as secretary, she insisted at a press
conference that there was no need for concern about classified information.

“I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email,” she said.
“There is no classified material. So, I’m certainly well aware of the
classification requirements and did not send classified material.”

McCullough’s letter does not allege specifically that Clinton sent
classified information from her private account. While it is possible she
only received it, the inspector general said the State Department believes
“there are potentially hundreds of classified emails within the
approximately 30,000 provided by former Secretary Clinton.”

Clinton addressed the new reports briefly Friday, but she did not reiterate
her claim that nothing on her server was classified.

“I want to say a word about what’s in the news today. It’s because there
have been a lot of inaccuracies….Maybe the heat is getting to everybody,”
the Democratic presidential candidate said as she began a speech on
economic policy in New York City. “We all have a responsibility to get this
right. I have released 55,000 pages of emails. I have said repeatedly that
i will answer questions before the house [Benghazi] committee. We are all
accountable to get the facts right. I will do my part, but I’m also going
to stay focused on the issues, particularly the big issues that really
matter to American families.”

Clinton handed over a trove of business-related emails to the department in
December, generating controversy after she said she and her attorney had
destroyed any emails that they deemed personal in nature.

A lengthy review ensued to screen for classified material before public
release. In May, when the agency released the first batch of Clinton
emails, it said it had designated a portion of one email as secret at the
request of the FBI. When a second, larger batch was released last month,
State deemed 25 of the emails “confidential” — the lowest tier of
classification.

However, McCullough’s finding is notable because he is asserting that at
least some of the information was classified at the time it was sent,
although he did not say whether Clinton sent or only received such emails.
All of the emails released thus far are at least a couple of years old and
State officials had insisted that some of the materials could have become
more sensitive over time, resulting in a change to their classification.

McCullough spokeswoman Andrea Williams said Friday that was, in fact, not
the case. “To be clear – the four emails mentioned…were classified when
they were sent and are classified now,” she said.

However, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Friday his agency
remained unconvinced that any of Clinton’s emails should have been
considered classified when they were sent. “To our knowledge, none of them
needed to be classified at the time,” Toner told reporters at a daily
briefing.

Still, the question of what information on Clinton’s account is and isn’t
classified and what its status was at the time, remains a subject of some
dispute.

McCullough said in the letter that he found that one of State’s public
releases of emails in recent months under the Freedom of Information Act
resulted in disclosure of classified information. While the inspector
general said the intelligence community had made “a definitive
determination” that the information was classified, State has continued to
deny that any breaches occurred when the agency posted several thousand
pages of Clinton emails on its website in May and June.

Other documents made public Friday show the classification issue triggered
debate even within the agency. Some at State wanted to deem even more of
Clinton’s emails classified than the agency ultimately did, according to a
memo from McCullough’s office posted online by the department’s inspector
general.

In at least four instances, lawyers at Foggy Bottom headed off the
classifications by proposing another way to keep the information from the
public, the document said.

For Clinton, the previously-undisclosed changes minimized the public
relations hit she took with the May email release. Instead of stories
saying five emails in that Libya-related set were classified, news accounts
noted that a single email out of the 296 released was withheld on national
security grounds.

Clinton’s decision to use a private server for all of her government and
personal emails has been a continuing political controversy for her, seized
on by Republicans as evidence that she violated government guidelines.

However, the new disclosures also underscore the subjective nature of the
classification system and could be seen as supporting Clinton’s claim that
she had no reason to believe any of the information on her personal account
was classified.

“State Department FOIA personnel recommended five B1 (Classified National
Security Information) FOIA exemptions for proposed redactions in the first
set of 296 emails to protect classified information. According to State
FOIA personnel, during the State Department Legal Office’s review, four of
the Bl exemptions were removed and changed to B5 FOIA exemptions
(Privileged Communications),” a June 15 memo from the Intelligence
Community inspector general said.

The decision to deem the records legally privileged as internal government
communications, rather than classified, allowed the information to be
deleted from the FOIA records posted on State’s website. However, the move
also minimized the degree to which Clinton appeared to have mishandled the
records. In addition, the shift minimized the appearance that the State
Department itself did something wrong when it sent the 296 emails to the
House Benghazi Committee without designating any of them as classified.

Whatever public relations benefit Clinton or State got from the maneuver
was short-lived: when State released another batch of Clinton emails at the
end of June, 25 more were deemed classified.

With a criminal investigation into the presence of classified information
in the Clinton emails now potentially looming, the internal waffling at
State on the classification issue does offer another benefit for Clinton
and those who corresponded with her. It underscores why prosecutors so
rarely bring charges over mishandling of classified information—especially
when it is not explicitly marked as such.

Deeming emails classified years after they were sent creates due process
problems that could doom any such prosecution. However, to Republican
lawmakers and some voters, the episode could still reinforce the view that
Clinton showed poor judgment by relying on a private email account..

Since State first deemed some of the information classified two months ago,
her aides have said she had no reason to think the information was
classified at the time she received it. Indeed, some—but not all—of the
emails State deemed classified were explicitly marked as “sensitive but
unclassified.”

After the New York Times reported the criminal referral from the inspectors
generals, Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill issued a statement early
Friday that Clinton “followed appropriate practices in dealing with
classified materials.”

“As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails deemed
classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not
at the time they were transmitted,” Merrill added.

Asked Friday about the reason State backed off some of the proposed
classifications, a State spokesman pointed to a July 14 memo from
Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy. In it, he said that two of
the four emails were in relevant part duplicates and that the potential
classification was proposed by State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

“NEA consulted with the Office of the Legal Adviser regarding FOIA
exemptions that were potentially available,” Kennedy wrote. “NEA decided,
consistent with the Attorney General’s 2009 FOIA guidance, to redact
certain limited information under exemption 5 which reflected deliberations
among policy officials.”

Kennedy also disclosed that one email relating to the Department of Defense
was proposed for classification, but the Pentagon decided not to pursue it.
As a result the only email in the first, Libya-related batch to be deemed
classified dealt with the reported arrests of suspects in the Benghazi
attack, classified at the FBI’s request.

One prominent classification expert said the back-and-forth underscores the
arbitrariness and subjectivity of the classification system.

“Classification decisions are matters of judgment, not calculation,” said
Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. “It is entirely
possible for two senior officials to disagree about the need for
classifying a particular item of information.”

*Hillary Clinton slogs through another email frenzy
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/clinton-emails-frenzy-analysis/index.html>
// CNN // Stephen Collinson and Tom LoBianco - July 24, 2015*

It was just another frenzied Friday in Clinton World.

Two apparent blockbuster revelations emerged in the email controversy
hounding Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. But on later inspection, they
seemed to be much less damning than they first appeared.

The campaign's tortured relations with the press meanwhile took another
disastrous turn with spokesman Nick Merrill lashing reporters for using
"reckless, inaccurate leaks from partisan sources."

And through it all, the candidate herself sailed into a room at New York
University, in her customary spot in the eye of the political storm --
apparently unperturbed and ready to reel off a wonk-heavy speech on tax and
the economy.

"Maybe the heat is getting to everybody," Clinton said, with more than a
trace of contempt for the hysteria erupting around her at an unwelcome time
as polls suggest her trustworthiness is taking a fresh battering.

By the end of the day, the Clinton campaign appeared to have capitalized on
media missteps to limit immediate new damage to her presidential hopes. But
the dizzying catalog of revelations and campaign counter attacks was
another sign that the festering fight over the private email server she
used while running U.S. diplomacy will confound her presidential quest for
months to come.

It all started late on Thursday night with an apparent New York Times
bombshell.

The paper reported that independent inspectors general had asked the
Justice Department for a criminal probe of Clinton's email use while
secretary of state.

Hitting back

The Clinton campaign hit back hard, quickly getting the Times to soften the
lead of its story to make clear the requested probe was not of Clinton
herself, but into whether emails connected to her were mishandled. The
distinction was important because the latter formulation of any eventual
Justice Department inquiry could conceivably give Clinton personal distance
from any wrongdoing.

Throughout Friday morning, Clinton's press aides pushed back on the report,
shipping reporters a tweet by former Nevada political pundit Jon Ralston
that the Times failure to correct its story was "just so, so dumb."

When the Times did decide to correct its story later Friday, it offered
some critical vindication to Clinton, at least for the time being.

"Here we are yet again correcting a story," Clinton's senior spokeswoman
Karen Finney said on CNN.

Clinton got in her own dig Friday afternoon just before her speech on
middle class economics but did not take questions from reporters.

She complained about "a lot of inaccuracies" in reporting on the emails and
said she had repeatedly offered to testify before a congressional committee
on the private server she used as secretary of state.

As Washington digested the showdown with the Times, a rival paper, the Wall
Street Journal, busted out its own email expose.

The paper said that Clinton, despite her denials, had indeed emailed some
classified information from her private account while secretary of state --
a possibility that could land Clinton in legal as well as political
jeopardy.

But again, the revelation turned out to be less immediately damaging than
it had first seemed.

In a letter to Congress, the inspector general for the intelligence
community, Charles McCullough, said that some material Clinton sent from
her server was indeed classified -- but was not identified as such.

Because it was not identified, it is unclear whether Clinton realized she
was potentially compromising classified information -- again offering her a
possible defense.

Turf war

That opened the way for Finney to portray the whole affair as just a turf
war between intelligence and State Department officials about what
information should be kept secret.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, clarified that it was considering a
probe of Clinton's email practices, but not a "criminal" probe.

As is so often the case in the myriad scandals, controversies and
pseudo-scandals that have swirled around the Clintons for decades, the
disclosures left the situation murkier than it had been before and clouded
in a flurry of complicated details likely to confuse the average voter.

And while there did not appear to be sufficient material to seriously
damage or even doom Clinton's political career, there was just enough
confusion to offer fresh ammunition for her enemies. The Clinton email
episode also mirrors the 1990s Clinton scandals in the hyper partisan
emotions it stirs -- and the way it never really seems to go away, but also
never reaches a climax.

The latest cycle of allegations and counter attacks from the Clinton
campaign comes when there is an increasing focus on how the former
secretary of state's character could complicate her presidential efforts.

Three new opinion polls in swing states Iowa, Colorado and Virginia this
week showed that Clinton was trailing several leading Republican candidates
including Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker in a hypothetical match-up
for the White House. While the general election is 16 months away, the
polls pointed to a possible personal vulnerability for Clinton as
majorities of voters in all three states said she was not honest and
trustworthy.

And the media fixation on such episodes claimed another victim -- any
coverage Clinton could have expected for her big speech -- an economic
argument she is putting at the center of her campaign.

While most of her potential Republican rivals were content to let Clinton
stew in the spotlight, the Republican National Committee used the latest
spate of scandal fever to jab the Democratic front runner.

Clinton has struggled for decades to shake off political attacks painting
her as secretive, obstructive and dishonest -- and the email saga and rows
over the source of foreign donations to her family's philanthropic
organization have ensured a similar theme undercuts her 2016 presidential
campaign.

RNC chair Reince Priebus said that Clinton's "desire to play by her own
rules" may have exposed classified information -- adding "a full
investigation by the Justice Department is not just needed, but required."

Republican political consultant Katie Packer previewed the way Republican
candidates are likely to exploit Friday's drama as Clinton's email problem
lingers.

"In terms of the way the American people view her, they already have
questions about whether she can be trusted. She has shown a propensity to
lie when things get uncomfortable," Gage said.

*Official: Clinton emails included classified information
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/hillary-clinton-email-justice-department/index.html>
// CNN // Elise Labott - July 24, 2015*

The inspector general for the intelligence community has informed members
of Congress that some material Hillary Clinton emailed from her private
server contained classified information, but it was not identified that way.

Because it was not identified, it is unclear whether Clinton realized she
was potentially compromising classified information.

The IG reviewed a "limited sampling" of her emails and among those 40
reviewed found that "four contained classified [intelligence community]
information," wrote the IG Charles McCullough in a letter to Congress.

McCullough noted that "none of the emails we reviewed had classification or
dissemination markings" but that some "should have been handled as
classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via a secure network."

The four emails in question "were classified when they were sent and are
classified now," spokeswoman Andrea Williams told CNN.

McCullough said that State Department Freedom of Information Act officials
told the intelligence community IG that "there are potentially hundreds of
classified emails within the approximately 30,000 provided by former
Secretary Clinton."

Clinton knocks 'inaccuracies' in reports

Clinton on Friday criticized what she called "a lot of inaccuracies" in
brief remarks about the classified emails.

She added that she had released 500 pages of emails and that "I've said
repeatedly that I will answer questions" posed by a congressional panel.

"But I'm also going to stay focused on the issues, particularly the big
issues that really matter to American families," she said.

In the past, Clinton has denied sending classified information from her
personal sever.

"I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email," Clinton
said at a news conference in March. "I'm certainly well aware of the
classified requirements and did not send classified material."

The Journal story broke just as the Justice Department issued a statement
correcting earlier reports that the probe into email from Clinton's server
during her time as secretary of state was a criminal investigation.

Instead, a Justice Department official said that the agency had "received a
referral related to the potential compromise of classified information."

The New York Times first reported late Thursday that inspectors general for
the intelligence community and the State Department have asked the Justice
Department to launch a criminal investigation into Clinton's possible
mishandling of classified email. The Times significantly revised its story
Friday to say the matter was referred to Justice to examine whether
sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with
Clinton's account -- but not necessarily by Clinton.

Sources confirmed both inspectors general have asked DOJ to open an
investigation. The inspectors general are independent officials who conduct
audits, investigations and inspections in the agencies for which they're
responsible.

No decision yet to launch probe

There has not yet been a decision on whether to launch a criminal probe.

In response, Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill issued a statement
that "It is now more clear than ever that The New York Times report
claiming there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton's use of
email is false."

He added, "This incident shows the danger of relying on reckless,
inaccurate leaks from partisan sources."

The request for the Justice Department investigation came after a June 29
memo from the State Department's inspector general stating a review of
55,000 pages of Clinton e-mails found "hundreds of potentially classified
emails within the collection."

A follow-up memo from both the State Department and intelligence community
inspectors general to Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy on July 17
said they had received confirmation that "several of the emails contained
classified (Intelligence Community) information, though they were not
marked as classified. At least one of the emails has been released to the
public" by the State Department. Officials were additionally concerned that
possible classified material would be posted in future releases of
Clinton's emails.

Clinton's use of the personal account for official business instead of a
State Department one stirred up a political storm around the 2016
Democratic presidential contender after news of it emerged in March.

Republicans criticize Clinton

The reported request for an inquiry is likely to renew fierce Republican
criticism of Clinton's email practices.

Following the Times report this morning, GOP congressional leaders began
launching attacks.

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio released a statement calling on her to
relinquish her server and questioning her judgment.

"If Secretary Clinton truly has nothing to hide, she can prove it by
immediately turning over her server to the proper authorities and allowing
them to examine the complete record," he said.

"What these reports demonstrate is the inherent risk of conducting our
nation's diplomacy and foreign policy on your home email and personal
server," he continued. "Her poor judgment has undermined our national
security."

South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the Select Committee on
Benghazi, echoed Boehner.

"The best -- the only way -- to resolve these important factual questions
is for her to turn over her server to the proper authorities for
independent forensic evaluation," he said in a statement.

The top Democrat on the Benghazi Committee, however, pushed back on the
attacks.

"I spoke personally to the State Department Inspector General on Thursday,
and he said he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal
investigation of Secretary Clinton's email usage," said Maryland Rep.
Elijah Cummings. "Instead, he told me the Intelligence Community IG
notified the Justice Department and Congress that they identified
classified information in a few emails that were part of the FOIA review,
and that none of those emails had been previously marked as classified."

Kerry asked for recommendations from inspector

The State Department in May began publicly releasing some of the tens of
thousands of emails from the private account that Clinton handed over to it
in December.

Officials from the department have been reviewing and redacting the huge
collection of documents before putting them in the public domain.

Clinton has said she has nothing to hide and would like the process of
making the emails public to be expedited.

Clinton's successor as secretary of state, John Kerry, wrote to the State
Department inspector general in March asking for recommendations on the
department's practices on document retention and its freedom of information
process, a senior state department official told CNN.

"The Inspector General's assistance is welcomed as we take efforts to
improve our policies with respect to the preservation of records in a
digital environment," the official said.

*Clinton focuses on economy amid email controversy
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/hillary-clinton-economic-speech-2016-new-york/index.html>
// CNN // Dan Merica and Eric Brader - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton and her campaign aides on Friday tried to keep the focus of
her economic speech at New York University on corporate culture and "short
term speculation," but the latest chapter in the story of her private email
use at the State Department unfolded as the former secretary of state took
the stage.

The split-screen feeling of the event was palpable: As Clinton said it was
time for U.S. companies to "break free from the tyranny of today's earnings
report so they can do what they do best, innovate, invest and build
tomorrow's prosperity," her aides issued statements about the former first
lady's private server and said it contained classified information that was
not correctly identified.

Clinton opened her event with brief remarks about the email controversy --
saying she "will do my part" to cooperate with any inquiries into her email
use while leading the State Department -- but quickly and deliberately
turned to the economy. She told the audience of students, professors and
supporters that she was "going to stay focused on the issues, particularly
the big issues that really matter to American families."

"It is clear that the system is out of balance," Clinton said of a
corporate culture that stresses short-term gain over long term investment.

"It is time to start measuring value in terms of years," not days, Clinton
added.

Clinton's speech, however, was short on rhetoric aimed directly at Wall
Street and big banks, something progressives are hungry to see from the
former New York senator who has deep ties to the financial industry.
Clinton's aides set expectations early, telling reporters before the speech
that Friday's event would not be chock full of the Wall Street red meat
that liberals are pining for.

Instead, Clinton outlined a series of policy proposals that she hopes would
rebuild "a connection between companies and their workers, so that workers
are seen as assets rather than costs," her campaign aides said.

"It's time to return to an old-fashioned idea," Clinton said, "that
companies' responsibility to their shareholders also encompasses a
responsibility to employees, customers, communities and ultimately to our
country, and yes, our planet."

Clinton notably endorsed New York City's plan of raising the minimum wage
to $15 an hour for fast food workers, but did not go as far as endorsing a
$15 federal minimum wage.

"The national minimum wage is a floor, and it needs to be raised, but let's
also remember that the cost of living in Manhattan is different than in
Little Rock and in many other places, so New York or Los Angeles or Seattle
are right to go higher," Clinton said.

Clinton proposed reforming taxes on capital gains, the earnings people make
when they sell stock. Instead of the current system, which defines a
long-term investment as anything over a year, Clinton said as president she
would define a long-term investment as six years.

The former secretary of state said she would put capital gains tax on a
sliding scale: Long-term investments would be taxed at 24%, the current
rate. The rate would continue to slide up until short-term investments were
taxed at 39.6%, regular income to top earners.

The former secretary of state also called for reviewing securities rules to
hold management accountable, altering the tax codes so that executive
compensation focuses more on long-term investment and ending subsidies to
"industries that are already thriving" like oil companies.

"Thirty years ago top CEOs made 50 times what a typical worker did,"
Clinton said. "Today they make 300 times more. That just doesn't make
sense."

The campaign has been working with dozens of economists to sketch out
Clinton's economic platform. Outside advisers have included a host of
liberal economists, former government officials and more. Among them are
the Noble Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, top Obama economic
policy aides Gene Sperling, Christina Romer, David Kamin and Alan Krueger.

Austan Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and
a former economic advisor to President Barack Obama, heralded Clinton's
speech as "the start of an important conversation on how we can get our
economy -- private-sector businesses, investors and the government -- more
oriented toward growth."

"Her plans to reform the capital gains tax system to encourage longer-term
investment is designed to give incentives for investors and companies to
focus on long-lasting value rather than just near term benefits," he said.
"This one policy alone will not solve the problem of short-termism but
aligning our tax code toward long-term thinking is a worthy and important
goal and it is a beginning."

Progressive opponents take aim at Wall Street

Clinton's speech was intended to challenge corporate culture, but it didn't
offer the direct confrontation of Wall Street that many liberals say they
want.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has seized the progressive mantel, inching
closer to Clinton in polls from the key early-voting Democratic primary
states Iowa and New Hampshire in no small part through rhetorical swings at
monied interests.

And former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley on Thursday, speaking at an event
at the Center for National Policy, called for the reinstitution of the
Glass-Steagall Act -- which separated commercial and investment banks until
its repeal under President Bill Clinton.

O'Malley has also called for rules that designed stop regulators from
accepting jobs at top financial firms.

"We have come a long way since the financial crisis, but our economy is
still vulnerable to another collapse, and we haven't been able to rein in
Wall Street misconduct," O'Malley said Thursday. "That's why every Democrat
who is running for President needs to commit to finishing the job that
Dodd-Frank started."

Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green lauded O'Malley
in a statement Thursday, crediting the former Baltimore mayor and Maryland
governor for leading on economic issues -- even though he's struggled to
gain traction in polls of Democratic primary voters.

"Martin O'Malley was the first candidate to make criminal prosecution of
Wall Street bankers a 2016 issue -- and it's been great to see a race to
the top with Clinton and Sanders making bold statements in favor of
accountability for bankers who break the law," Green said.

In a speech this month, Clinton called for the prosecution of individuals
-- not just firms -- responsible for financial misdeeds.

Her campaign didn't say, though, whether she'll support the reinstitution
of the Glass-Steagall Act, which many liberals see as key to preventing a
repeat of the 2008 financial collapse.

Clinton did not mention the Depression Era law at all during her New York
speech and on Thursday in South Carolina said economic issue are "much more
complicated ... than pointing to any one piece of legislation and saying
well if we just pass that everything would be fine."

"If you go back and look at what happened in the great recession, it was
mortgage companies, it was insurance companies, it was non-commercial
banking entities, who were as big if not bigger contributors to the
collapse," Clinton said. "So I am not interested in just saying there is
one answer to the too-big-to-fail problem."

Clinton kept the press at arms length on Friday. After she finished
speaking, she worked the rope line and took selfies with supporters.
Clinton's advance staff deliberately kept the press their designated area,
not wanting them to approach the presidential candidate.

*How Hillary Clinton plans to ‘save capitalism’
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/how-hillary-clinton-plans-save-capitalism> //
MSNBC // Alex Seitz-Wald - July 24, 2015*

As she tried to look past the latest controversy over her private email
server, Hillary Clinton said in a speech Friday that she wants to “save
capitalism for the 21st century” by pushing investors and corporations to
focus more on long-term growth than making a quick buck.

Some activists had hoped and expected Clinton would present a more robust
plan on Wall Street, but instead she took on “quarterly capitalism” – the
obsession with share prices and quarterly earnings over real value
creation, which Clinton views as dangerous to the economy.

To change the incentives, Clinton proposed raising capital gains taxes on
investments held for only short periods of time. The tax on investment
earnings would nearly double from their current rate of 20% for investments
held less than two years. And the rate for those in the top tax bracket
would be set on a sliding scale, with incentives for people who hold their
investments longer.

Meanwhile, Clinton said she would change the tax code to eliminate
incentives for CEOs to be paid based on short-term bumps in share prices,
with the aim of encouraging leaders to plan more strategically for the
future.

Clinton also took on what she called “hit and run” shareholders – activist
investors who pressure corporations to jack up their share prices or pay
more dividends to investors, even if it doesn’t help the company in the
long run.

At the same time, Clinton addressed the union-backed push to raise the
minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Clinton said she that while she supports the effort in New York City, the
latest focal point in the movement, she’s unsure about making the federal
minimum wage $15. “I agree with New York’s proposal this week to raise
wages for fast food workers to $15 an hour,” she said. “The national
minimum wage is a floor and it needs to be raised, but let’s also remember
that the cost of living in Manhattan is different than in Little Rock and
many other places. So New York or Los Angles or Seattle are right to go
higher.”

Clinton spoke for about 35 minutes at New York University’s Stern School of
Business, in front of an audience of about 200 policy experts, members of
the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce and other friends of the campaign.

While Clinton called for “new, creative, disruptive ideas to save
capitalism,” it was not the speech some progressives had hoped for. Many
had anticipated that Clinton would use the speech to explain how she would
take on the financial sector. But Wall Street was hardly a factor in her
remarks. Her only direct mention of regulation was to warn that Republicans
would roll back Dodd-Frank, which was passed five years ago, if they
regained the White House.

Some liberals were disappointed. “Working to end short-termism on Wall
Street will definitely help working families in important way,” said
Democracy for America executive director Charles Chamberlain. “But let’s be
really clear: The Democratic Party doesn’t want, and the American people
don’t need, another Democratic President who tip-toes around Wall Street’s
insatiable greed.”

“Today’s speech hits those notes in some ways, but fails to do so in
others,” he added.

Clinton’s Democratic rivals Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley have been
much more outspoken on Wall Street reform, calling for criminal penalties
against executives who contributed to the Great Recession and demanding
that the largest banks be broken up. On Thursday, O’Malley gave a speech on
Wall Street reform that he hoped would contrast with Clinton’s and present
him as a leader on the issue.

Another liberal group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee,
essentially gave Clinton an incomplete. “We look forward to the Clinton
campaign’s big speech on systemic reforms, and the American public will
look to see if she is willing to challenge Wall Street power,” said Adam
Green, the group’s co-founder, suggesting Friday’s speech was not the one
he was looking for.

Many of the ideas Clinton did lay out Friday already have substantial
support in the financial world, as Politico reported, making them safer
territory for the former secretary of state to endorse.

Clinton’s campaign promises more ideas on Wall Street reform will come
later.

*New allegations on Clinton emails start to unravel
<http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/new-allegations-clinton-emails-start-unravel>
// MSNBC // Steve Benen  - July 24, 2015*

Last night, the New York Times ran an exclusive report that seemed quite
important, especially as it relates to the leading Democratic presidential
candidate.

Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal
investigation into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive
government information on a private email account she used as secretary of
state, senior government officials said Thursday.

Soon after, however, the story, the headline, and even the url changed
without explanation. Now, the article begins this way:

Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal
investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled
in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used
as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.

Politico noticed the “significant changes” to the Times’ original reporting
– the first report suggested Clinton could be the target of the potential
criminal probe, while the second, revised report did not.

A U.S. official, meanwhile, told the Associated Press that the referral
from the inspectors general “doesn’t necessarily suggest wrongdoing by
Clinton herself.”

Oh. Well, that’s pretty far afield from what the Times first reported last
night. In fact, what we appear to have are questions about whether the
State Department mis-classified some sensitive materials. That may be
fascinating to observers who study the executive bureaucracy at a granular
level, but for everyone else, there doesn’t appear to be much here. Indeed,
the original effort to suggest Clinton was personally facing a possible
criminal probe, at least given what we now know, seems quite irresponsible.

Nick Merrill, a Clinton spokesperson, added in an official statement,
“Contrary to the initial story, which has already been significantly
revised, she followed appropriate practices in dealing with classified
materials. As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails
deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact,
and not at the time they were transmitted.”

As for who fed the New York Times this story in the first place, Rep.
Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the Benghazi Select
Committee, issued a statement this morning that not only further disputes
the original allegations, but seems to point the finger in a specific
direction:

“I spoke personally to the State Department Inspector General on Thursday,
and he said he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal
investigation of Secretary Clinton’s email usage. Instead, he told me the
Intelligence Community IG notified the Justice Department and Congress that
they identified classified information in a few emails that were part of
the FOIA review, and that none of those emails had been previously marked
as classified.

“The Benghazi Select Committee has obtained zero evidence that any emails
to or from Secretary Clinton were marked as classified at the time they
were transmitted, although some have been retroactively classified since
then. This is the latest example in a series of inaccurate leaks to
generate false front-page headlines – only to be corrected later – and they
have absolutely nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi or protecting
our diplomatic corps overseas.”

Update: The Justice Department confirmed this morning that the referral in
this matter is unrelated to alleged criminal activity. The Times’ reference
to “criminal investigation” was incorrect.

*Hillary Clinton proposes sharp increase in short-term capital gains taxes
<http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/24/hillary-clinton-proposes-sharp-increase-in-short-term-capital-gains-taxes.html>
// NBC // Everett Rosenfeld - July 24, 2015*

Presidential contender Hillary Clinton announced a proposal Friday
afternoon to raise capital gains taxes for assets that are held for less
than six years by top-bracket payers as a way to try and encourage
long-term investing, and grow the economy. (Tweet This)

Clinton's plan specifically seeks to double the period of time for the 39.6
percent top capital gains rate (from up to a year to up to two years), and
then institute a sliding rate scale until assets are held for more than six
years.

"The current definition of a long-term holding period—just one year—is
woefully inadequate," Clinton said. "That may count as long term for my
baby granddaughter, but not for the American economy. It's no way to run a
tax system."

After that six-year point, those gains would face the current 20 percent
tax rate.

Clinton's proposal comes as part of her plan to fight what she sees as an
excessive focus on quick profits in capital markets.

Citing recent surveys of corporate executives, Clinton highlighted the
pressures of short-term targets over long term growth, saying that her plan
would help fix that problem.

Read MoreWill Hillary's econ speech bring together Democrats?

"It is clear that the system is out of balance, the deck is stacked in too
many ways, and powerful pressures and incentives are pushing it even
further out of balance," she said. "Quarterly capitalism as developed over
recent decades is neither legally required nor economically sound...and
fixing it will be good for everyone."

"Real value comes from long-term growth, not short-term profits," she
added. "American business needs to break from from the tyranny of today's
earning report."

Clinton said she would look to address "very short-term trading" conducted
over "days, hours, or even milliseconds."

The presidential contender also proposed eliminating capital gains taxes
for some long-term investments in innovative start ups and struggling
communities.

"Of course I understand that these changes to the tax code alone will not
shift investors' focus from short term to long term overnight, but I
believe this reform is an important first step toward removing some of the
incentives that push us toward quarterly capitalism," Clinton said,
explaining that she plans to propose more reforms later in her campaign.

Clinton's speech also featured an attack on "hit and run activists" who
focus on extracting as much value as quickly as possible from companies "no
matter how much it discourages and distracts management from pursuing
strategies that would add the most long-term value for the company."

She cited iconic companies like Apple and Dow Chemical that "have felt this
pressure." (Activists Carl Icahn and Dan Loeb have been involved in Apple
and Dow, respectively.)

"So we need a new generation of committed, long-term investors to provide a
counter-weight to the hit-and-run activists," Clinton said.

*Hillary Clinton: Report of Email Probe Has 'a Lot of Inaccuracies'
<http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/probe-sought-against-hillary-clinton-over-private-email-server-n397621>
// NBC // Kristen Welker - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton said Friday that a New York Times report of a potential
criminal probe related to a private email account she used as Secretary of
State contains "a lot of inaccuracies."

The newspaper has issued a correction to a piece published late Thursday
night alleging that Clinton's email practices were the subject of a
criminal investigation proposed by two inspectors general.

"Maybe the heat is getting to everybody," Clinton said before remarks on
the economy in New York City. "We all have a responsibility to get this
right."

"We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right and I
will do my part, but I'm also going to stay focused on the issues,
particularly the big issues that really matter to American families," she
added.

The comments come after the New York Times initially reported that the
Justice Department received a "criminal referral" to open an investigation
into whether Clinton mishandled government information with her personal
account.

The request was made by inspectors general for the State Department and the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the newspaper reported.

In its correction, the New York Times wrote that its initial report, "using
information from senior government officials, misstated the nature of the
referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary Clinton's personal
email account while she was secretary of state. The referral addressed the
potential compromise of classified information in connection with that
personal email account. It did not specifically request an investigation
into Mrs. Clinton."

The Justice Department initially confirmed the report of a "criminal
referral" to NBC News and other outlets. But a Justice Department official
said Friday afternoon that "The Department has received a referral related
to the potential compromise of classified information. It is not a CRIMINAL
referral."

Also on Friday, Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House
committee investigating the Benghazi attacks, said that the State
Department's inspector general told him that he did not ask the Justice
Department to launch a criminal investigation into Clinton's email.

"Instead, he told me the Intelligence Community IG notified the Justice
Department and Congress that they identified classified information in a
few emails that were part of the FOIA review, and that none of those emails
had been previously marked as classified," he said.

In a joint statement, the two inspectors general who made the referral said
that it was "a security referral made for counterintelligence purposes."
But, they added, they found that a sample of 40 of Clinton's emails from
Clinton's server contained four with classified information that should
"never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system."

Clinton said in March that "I did not email any classified material to
anyone on my email. There is no classified material."

Hillary Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill blasted the New York Times in a
statement.

"It is now more clear than ever that the New York Times report claiming
there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton's use of email is
false," he said. "It has now been discredited both by the Justice
Department and the Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee. This
incident shows the danger of relying on reckless, inaccurate leaks from
partisan sources."

*Will Hillary's econ speech bring together Democrats?
<http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/24/will-hillarys-econ-speech-bring-together-democrats.html>
// NBC // Ben White - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton will take a big step into the Wall Street policy world on
Friday with a speech at New York University in which she will suggest
raising capital gains taxes on investors who hold shares for less than a
couple of years.

Clinton also plans to criticize other elements of what she calls "quarterly
capitalism," including the current pace of corporate share buybacks and the
tactics of activists like Carl Icahn who pressure executives to return cash
to shareholders instead of invest it in new plants, equipment, research and
employees.

The NYU speech will not be Clinton's big "taking on Wall Street" moment,
aides tell me. That will come later with remarks on addressing so-called
"Too Big to Fail" banks and punishing corporate crime.

The Friday speech instead is intended, in part, to wed two wings of the
Democratic Party that are miles apart right now, the "growth" wing and the
"fairness" wing. Fairness Democrats, who thrill to the every word of
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, want higher taxes on the rich, strong
new Wall Street reform and a relentless focus on economic inequality.
Growth Democrats, who you don't hear much from anymore, want some of this,
too, but prefer a focus on economic policies aimed at growing the pie
rather than redistributing the slices.

Read MoreTrump won't win, but yes, he matters

The Friday speech will be remarkably wonky for a presidential candidate and
will reflect a policy approach favored for years by the likes of veteran
Democratic wonks Gene Sperling and Neera Tanden. It's not often you will
hear a major presidential candidate going into significant detail on share
buyback transparency. But I'm told Clinton began to focus on the problem of
slack corporate investment last fall and has been drilling deep into the
details for months.

The address is intended to focus on long-term growth by trying to encourage
buy-and-hold investing and taking pressure off corporate managements to
focus on quarterly earnings per share targets at all costs. And it is
intended to appeal to fairness Democrats by raising some capital gains
taxes paid by top earners while also taking some shots at CEO pay and
"hit-and-run" hedge funds.

The speech may fail to thrill the Warren crowd because Clinton is not
likely to pitch the approach as a way to raise significant new revenue for
the government. Instead she may suggest that increased revenues could be
used for other incentives in the tax code to encourage business investment
over buybacks and dividends.

Still, she won't suggest lowering capital gains for investors who hold for
very long periods, something many growth Democrats favor but the left would
sharply reject as a tax cut for the very wealthy.

Clinton's formal and informal advisers acknowledge that tinkering with
capital gains rates will not instantly solve the problem of "quarterly
capitalism" or the lack of significant business investment. But they view
it as a smart approach to take what is already a graduated scale for
capital gains and tilt it more toward long-term holdings. And it is just
the start of what will be a series of speeches aimed at using both
government levers and political persuasion to alter the focus of corporate
America.

"This is a theme she has identified and she clearly wants to orient the
economy toward long-term growth and investment," Austan Goolsbee, a
University of Chicago professor and former senior economic adviser to
President Barack Obama, told me this week. "and this is a solid,
market-based approach to doing that."

*What the Clinton Email Story Might — or Might Not — Mean
<http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/what-clinton-email-story-might-or-might-not-mean-n397746>
// NBC // Chuck Tod, Mark Murray, and Carrie Dann - July 24, 2015*

The Holy Grail or much ado about nothing? Late last night, the New York
Times released this bombshell report: "Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary
Clinton's Use of Email," and the story said that two inspectors general
asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether
Hillary Clinton herself mishandled sensitive government information
regarding her emails. But later, the Times made some small -- but
potentially significant -- changes to the story. The new headline:
"Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account," and the story said
the criminal investigation was about "whether sensitive government
information was mishandled in connection" with Clinton's email account.
Bottom line: We don't seem to know the target of this requested
investigation. Is it Clinton herself in dealing with classified information
over her private email server? Or is the target someone else (in the State
Department?) regarding the emails and their classification status?
Politically, the semantics might not matter. But legally and
journalistically, the semantics matter a great deal. Either this could be
the GOP's Holy Grail in reshuffling the entire Democratic race. Or it could
be much ado about nothing -- that is, a bureaucratic mistake. And there are
two people who can help answer this question: The inspector generals at the
State Department and the intelligence agencies. Note: There is no formal
investigation at this time.

NBC has updated our story, too

NBC News confirmed the original New York Times story, but we changed our
story, too, after doubts about the actual target of the requested probe.
That said, the Clinton campaign didn't respond to multiple requests for
comment until this morning. Here is our updated story.

Justice Department -- Under Pressure

If the target is Clinton herself -- and again there's a big IF there --
then that will put significant pressure on the Obama Justice Department.
Remember, the department has gone out of its way to open investigation into
its own officials (see: Petraeus, David). And even if the Justice
Department decides not to pursue a criminal investigation, Republicans can
say, "Well, Obama's Justice Department is trying to save the Democratic
Party's likely presidential nominee." All of that said, until we know the
actual target -- Hillary? Someone else in the State Department? -- we just
don't whether the story has legs.

On the trail

Hillary Clinton gives a speech on "reforming quarterly capitalism" in NYC
at 1:30 pm ET… Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Bernie Sanders, and Martin
O'Malley are in Iowa… Ted Cruz addresses the ALEC conference in San Diego,
CA… John Kasich stumps in South Carolina and Iowa… George Pataki also is in
South Carolina… And Rick Santorum campaigns in New Hampshire.

*Hillary Clinton Isn’t Going As Far As Her Democratic Rivals on Minimum
Wage
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-isnt-democratic-rivals-minimum-wage/story?id=32669536>
// ABC // MaryAlice Parks and Liz Kreutz - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton today came out in support of New York’s plan to increase
minimum wage for its fast-food workers to $15 an hour -- but the
endorsement still places Clinton well behind many of her Democratic
challengers on the issue.

"I agree with New York’s proposal this week to raise wages for fast food
workers to $15 an hour," Clinton said during a speech on corporate culture
at New York University.

Clinton said the “national minimum wage is a floor and it needs to be
raised,” but noted that it can vary based on cost of living in different
cities.

"The cost of living in Manhattan is different than Little Rock and many
other places, so New York and Los Angeles or Seattle are right to go
higher," Clinton added.

While Clinton’s support of the $15 minimum wage for some workers in New
York is the furthest she has gone yet on the issue of minimum wage, it
still falls short of the bar set by some of her Democratic rivals,
including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and former Maryland Gov. Martin
O’Malley, both of whom have called for doubling the current federal minimum
wage of $7.25 to $15 dollars an hour nationwide.

“I think if you work 40 hours a week you have a right not be living in
poverty,” Sanders said earlier this week, standing alongside hundreds of
low-wage workers who walked out of food service and janitorial jobs at
federal buildings in D.C. Sanders, who has centered his campaign on the
fight against income inequality, called on the President to act now and
only award federal contracts to companies paying higher wages. He also
introduced a bill that would a bump the national minimum wage to $15 an
hour by 2020.

“Today, we send a very loud message to the U.S. Congress and the president
... that all of our workers from coast to coast need at least $15 bucks an
hour,” he continued.

O’Malley has pushed this issue, too.

As governor, he successfully signed a law increasing the state minimum wage
to $10.10 an hour, but on the campaign trail he has repeatedly said he is
favor of $15 dollars an hour.

“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,” O’Malley
said in the statement Wednesday.

Advocates of a higher minimum wage enjoyed at least one major victory just
this week. The Los Angeles County followed the City of Los Angeles and
voted in favor of adopting a $15 an hour plan as well.

But recent national polling, suggests Americans are not in favor of such a
big hike. According to a CBS News-New York Times poll released in June,
while 71 percent support raising the minimum wage, only 38 percent are in
favor of “requiring fast food chains and other hourly employers to pay
workers at least $15 per hour.” Though, according to the same poll, a small
majority of Democrats -- 56 percent -- support the idea.

*Hillary Clinton: IG's Urge Justice Department to Probe Her Emails
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-email-igs-urge-probe-private-account/story?id=32660377>
// ABC // Justin Fishel and Mike Levine - July 24, 2015*

An internal government review of former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton's controversial private email account concluded that some of those
messages contained classified information, senior government officials
confirm to ABC News.

The inspectors general for the State Department and Intelligence Community
have sent a "referral" to the Justice Department, notifying it of potential
national security concerns.

The Justice Department clarified today that the referral is not criminal in
nature. The main concern is that classified information could be
compromised because it was sent over unsecured networks and remains in the
hands of Clinton's legal team, a spokesman for the Intelligence Community's
IG told ABC News today.

Clinton Email: Bill vs. Hillary and the Different Ways the Couple Uses It

Hillary Clinton's Emails: Unanswered Questions About Deleted Correspondence

The purpose of notifying the Justice Department was to inform the FBI of "a
potential compromise of classified information," spokesman Andrea Williams
said.

It was not intended to seek a criminal probe, Williams added.

In a memorandum to the State Department's Under Secretary for Management
Patrick Kennedy, the inspectors general said a review of Clinton's emails
revealed "hundreds of potentially classified emails within the collection.”

It also states that officials within the Intelligence Community confirmed
that “that several of these emails contained classified IC information,
though they were not marked as classified.”

Williams clarified that the intelligence community found four emails out of
a batch of 40 that it reviewed containing classified information.

The Clinton campaign said in a statement that Clinton had "followed
appropriate practices in dealing with classified materials."

When it was revealed early in her presidential campaign that she had
exclusively used a personal email account during her tenure as Secretary of
State, Clinton responded by turning over 55,000 pages of emails to the
State Department and asking that it make them public. At the time, she
claimed that none of them contained classified information.

Since then the State Department has been working with its Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) office to release those emails in tranches, 3,000 of
which have already been made public on its website.

The Intelligence Community says that one of those 3,000 emails the State
Department put on its FOIA website contained classified information, a
concern they also expressed to the Justice Department.

The State Department disputes that claim and maintains that nothing
classified in nature has been released to the public.

The Justice Department has not yet decided how it will respond to the the
referral.

*Hillary Clinton defends Planned Parenthood amid video controversy
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-defends-planned-parenthood-amid-video-controversy/>
// CBS // Reena Flores - July 24, 2015*

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton launched a strong defense
of Planned Parenthood while campaigning in South Carolina Thursday,
responding to the recent firestorm surrounding the women's health
organization and undercover videos released by anti-abortion activists.

"For more than a century, Planned Parenthood has provided essential
services for women -- not just reproductive health services, including
access to affordable family planning, but cancer screenings for example and
other health checkups," Clinton said at a town hall-style event in
Greenville. "And I think it is unfortunate that Planned Parenthood has been
the object of such a concerted attack for so many years."

The edited videos, the result of a sting operation conducted by the
California-based Center for Medical Progress, show undercover actors
engaging with top Planned Parenthood officials about buying intact fetal
specimens. It is illegal to sell fetal tissue for profit, but federal law
allows for tissue donations used for research purposes if the woman
undergoing an abortion gives her consent.

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards took responsibility and
apologized for the "tone and statements" of a staff member in the video,
but stressed that the organization follows all laws and ethical guidelines.

Clinton also acknowledged the tone of the staff member and noted that
Planned Parenthood had "apologized for the insensitivity of the employee"
depicted in the video but denounced the leaked footage as an "attack" on
abortion rights.

"It's really an attack against a woman's right to choose, to make the most
personal difficult decisions that any woman would face based on her faith
and the medical advice that she's given," Clinton said. "So I'm hoping that
this situation will not further undermine the very important services that
planned parenthood provides across our country."

Other Democrats have rushed to Planned Parenthood's defense, including
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who has said the "controversy doesn't
exist," and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.

A congressional investigation is underway to determine whether or not
Planned Parenthood's abortion practices violated any federal laws, and the
Department of Justice is also expected to review all information regarding
the videos.

*No criminal probe requested into Hillary Clinton's email, DOJ clarifies
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-criminal-probe-requested-into-hillary-clintons-email-doj-clarifies/>
// CBS // Paula Reid - July 24, 2015*

The Justice Department has received a request to investigate Hillary
Clinton's email account, but the department corrected its earlier statement
Friday to clarify that the request was not for a criminal investigation.

The request relates to Clinton's use of a private email account for
official business while she was secretary of state - which has already come
up as an issue in the 2016 campaign. The office of the Director of National
Intelligence (DNI) confirmed to CBS News that the inspector general for the
Intelligence Community [IC] has sent a referral to the Justice Department
on the matter.

The story was first reported by The New York Times, citing senior
government officials.

The request comes after a conclusion in a June 29 memo by the inspector
general for the State Department and the IC inspector general that
Clinton's private account had "hundreds of potentially classified emails"
in it. The memo was sent to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of
state for management.

In a July 17 letter to Kennedy, the inspectors general wrote that the IC
inspector general has received confirmation from IC Freedom of Information
Act [FOIA] officials that "several of these emails contained classified IC
information, though they were not marked as classified."

Additionally, CBS News has obtained a letter sent Thursday to the
leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees, in which the IC
inspector general says some of the emails on Clinton's server "should have
been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via a
secure network." He also reveals that the emails in question were
"purported to have been copied to a thumb drive in the possession of former
Secretary Clinton's personal counsel, Williams and Connelly attorney David
Kendall."

What's not clear is whether any information in the emails was marked as
classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton sent or received them
-- some information could have been retroactively classified. As the Times
reported, about two dozen emails were redacted before they were publicly
released because they were upgraded to "classified status."

In the Times' initial report, the investigation was described as pertaining
to whether Clinton specifically "mishandled sensitive government
information." That characterization was changed in a subsequent version of
the story.

Before the Justice Department corrected its characterization of the
requested probe as "criminal," one Democratic leader in Congress put out a
forceful statement that called the story "the latest example in a series of
inaccurate leaks to generate false front-page headlines."

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Benghazi Select
Committee, also noted that the State Department inspector general told him
personally that "he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal
investigation of Secretary Clinton's email usage."

The State Department inspector general -- as the above letters and memos
illustrate -- had been working with the IC inspector general to express
concerns over potential, unintentional leaks of classified information in
the Clinton emails.

While the IC inspector general has asked for a Justice Department probe
into the emails, Cummings said there's no evidence Clinton transmitted
classified information on her private account.

"The Benghazi Select Committee has obtained zero evidence that any emails
to or from Secretary Clinton were marked as classified at the time they
were transmitted, although some have been retroactively classified since
then," he said.

Since Clinton's use of the private account was revealed in March, she has
said repeatedly that the account contained no classified information. She
has said using it was a matter of convenience.

"I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions before the House
Committee," Clinton said at an event in New York on Friday afternoon. "We
are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right, but also
stay focused on issues, big issues."

The Justice Department hasn't decided if it will open a probe, the Justice
officials told CBS News.

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton's campaign released this statement Friday
morning:

"Contrary to the initial story, which has already been significantly
revised, she followed appropriate practices in dealing with classified
materials. As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails
deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact,
and not at the time they were transmitted."

*Hillary Clinton Would Double Taxes on Short-Term Capital Gains
<http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2015/07/24/hillary-clinton-would-double-taxes-on-short-term-capital-gains/>
// Fox // Dunstan Prial - July 24, 2015*

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday took aim at
some of the highest U.S. earners, proposing to nearly double the tax rate
on capital gains for stocks that are bought and sold relatively quickly.

In a speech in New York City, Clinton took aim broadly at Wall Street and
more narrowly at the niche category of investors – often referred to as
activist investors -- who swiftly move in and out of stock positions purely
for short-term profits.

Clinton, a former senator from New York and Secretary of State during
President Obama’s first term, criticized what she repeatedly described as
“quarterly capitalism,” or the Wall Street-inspired mentality of generating
short-term profits to appease shareholders every three months during
quarterly earnings.

"American business needs to break free from the tyranny of today’s earning
report so they can do what they do best: innovate, invest and build
tomorrow’s prosperity,” the Democratic presidential front-runner said.
"It’s time to start measuring value in terms of years -- or the next decade
-- not just next quarter."

Under Clinton’s proposal, investments held between one and two years would
be taxed at the normal income-tax rate of 39.6%, nearly double the existing
20% capital gains rate.

Only the top 0.5% of taxpayers would be impacted by the plan, which also
falls in line with Democratic calls for cracking down on the immense wealth
generated by ostensibly manipulative practices on Wall Street.

Activist investors have been criticized in recent months for running
destructive campaigns against companies purely in an effort to reap
personal gains from stock moves prompted by their actions.

Clinton’s plan would collect revenue from top-bracket taxpayers’ stock
holdings on a sliding scale, with the lowest rate applied to investments
held the longest. To qualify for the existing 20% rate, investors would
have to hold an investment for at least six years.

Clinton said the all-consuming effort by corporations to generate
short-term profits is harming the economy because companies are focusing on
quarterly earnings rather than expansion and hiring.

Clinton also spoke out in favor of a $15 an hour minimum wage, which many
business leaders have argued will force layoffs rather than improve the
lives of minimum wage workers.

Stock buybacks by companies also came under criticism by the Democratic
hopeful, who said the money that companies use to buy back stock and reward
shareholders might be better spent on research and development.

Clinton’s plan would impact taxes for the top-tier taxpayers who hold
investments for anywhere between two and six years. Stocks and other
investments held for two to three years would be taxed at 36%; those held
three to four years would face a tax of 32%. The sliding scale ends at six
years.

*New York Times Corrects Explosive Hillary Clinton Email Story Amid
Campaign Pushback
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-times-hillary-clinton_55b2a5cbe4b0224d883252f0?u3fmvx6r>
// HuffPo // Michael Calderone and Sam Stein - July 24, 2015*

An explosive New York Times story detailing a potential probe of Hillary
Clinton's use of a private email account unravelled quickly on Friday
morning, prompting questions about how inaccurate, politically sensitive
information could end up in the paper of record.

At issue was a Times breaking news alert sent out in the late hours of
Thursday evening, reporting that inspectors general were asking the Justice
Department to open a criminal investigation into whether Clinton sent
classified information from her private server. By the next day, the story
had changed, slightly but significantly. The subject of the investigation
wasn't Clinton, per se, but whether she was on the receiving end of the
information in question. Hours later, it changed again, this time more
significantly. The Department of Justice said that the probe requested
wasn't criminal in nature, but rather investigative. And then, it grew even
more complicated, with the State Department inspector general saying they
didn't even ask for an investigation at all.

As the different chapters of this in-the-weeds saga progressed, attention
turned to the Times, which has been the tip of the spear in reporting on
Clinton's use of a private email account and server. Times reporter Michael
Schmidt, who co-bylined Thursday’s story, also broke the news in March that
Clinton had violated government protocol by exclusively using a private
email account at the State Department.

In a correction appended to the Times article online, editors acknowledged
having “misstated the nature of the referral” related to Clinton’s email
use, which the paper had described as “criminal.” Though a Department of
Justice official initially told reporters the referral was “criminal” in
nature after the Times story was published, the agency reversed course and
said it was not. Times editors also wrote that the referral from two
inspectors general did not “specifically request an investigation” into
Clinton.

By midday, the paper was under withering criticism from progressives
online, who accused it of sparking a wave of outrage over ultimately faulty
charges. Other nonpartisan sources were suggesting that Republicans on the
Select Committee investigating the 2012 attacks on the compound in Benghazi
were behind the inaccurate leak.

The Clinton campaign itself wasn't shy about calling the story bunk,
pushing back hard on the Times, demanding and receiving a revision in the
piece and accusing congressional Republicans of going outside their
jurisdictions to attack the former secretary of state.

The avalanche of pushback left the Times in an uncomfortable spot. The
paper initially rejected calls to issue a correction. When it was later
forced to do so, it seemed unwilling to completely abandon the story. By
late Friday afternoon, the paper was still running a headline that labeled
the investigation into Clinton's email usage a "criminal inquiry." Its lead
sentence also still stated, "Two inspectors general have asked the Justice
Department to open a criminal investigation."

A Times spokeswoman did not immediately respond to questions about whether
those two elements of the story would be changed.

But even if they are, it's unlikely that the same audience will see the
updated version unless the paper were to send out a second breaking news
email with its latest revisions. The Clinton story also appeared the front
page of Friday's print edition.

For Clinton critics, the dispute over the paper's handling of this news
item still obscures the larger problem, which is that as secretary of
state, she used a private email account that could have compromised
sensitive government information. Indeed, lost in the back-and-forth Friday
was a Wall Street Journal story that detailed how several emails containing
classified information made it into her inbox. The information wasn't
classified at the time, but rather received the designation retroactively.

“None of the emails we reviewed had classification or dissemination
markings, but some included IC-derived classified information and should
have been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via
a secure network,” wrote Inspector General I. Charles McCullough in a
letter to Congress.

The debate over the article also underscores just how delicate reporting on
Clinton's email setup has become in the early stages of the presidential
campaign.

Each report drops amid a well-established narrative. Clinton is held to an
unfair standard by the press and maligned by the right, supporters say. Her
email use is indicative of Clintonian paranoia and a penchant for secrecy,
critics counter.

And reporters, often relying on anonymous sources, are going to face
questions about the motivations of those providing information. They're
also likely to encounter intense scrutiny from pro-Clinton organizations
like Correct the Record and Media Matters for America. If a story isn’t
completely airtight, the campaign and such media watchdogs are sure to pick
apart discrepancies, whether minuscule, or in this case, significant. Even
a correction doesn't always end the complaints.

Correct the Record slammed the Times’ “bogus” story late Friday afternoon
and suggested it fit a pattern of “thin sourcing, excess hype, and a
tag-team rollout with the hyper-partisan, Republican-led House Benghazi
circus.” Shortly thereafter, Media Matters Chairman David Brock wrote a
letter to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., urging him to appoint a
commission to examine the reporting behind Thursday’s story and three
previous Clinton reports the group has also criticized.

"David Brock is a partisan," a Times spokeswoman responded in a statement.
"It is not surprising that he is unhappy with some of our aggressive
coverage of important political figures. We are proud of that coverage and
obviously disagree with his opinion."

*Hillary Clinton's Economic Speech A Total Letdown
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-economic-speech_55b29dede4b0a13f9d1897a9>
// HuffPo // Zach Carter - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton gave a speech Friday that pledged to combat dodgy corporate
management but offered only soft-touch policy solutions that included
significant tax breaks for wealthy investors.

Advisors billed the talk as a major rollout of Clinton’s economic agenda.
The candidate herself pitched her proposals as a way to break from failed
policies that had damaged the economy. But the speech eschewed any emphasis
on income inequality, runaway finance, companies "too big to fail" or any
of the economic issues animating the Democratic Party. Instead, Clinton
offered a mild-mannered, small-bore critique of "quarterly capitalism," a
common corporate strategy that maximizes short-term profits over long-term
investments.

Such short-term thinking is almost universally recognized as a problem.
It's just not very high on the list of the country's economic woes.
Companies can sacrifice long-term investments and ignore long-term risks by
pursuing strategies that maximize returns to shareholders over the next few
months. In the long run, that's bad for society and bad for corporate
profits.

"Large public companies now return eight or nine out of every 10 dollars
they earn directly back to shareholders, either in the form of dividends or
stock buybacks which can temporarily boost share prices,” Clinton said in
the speech. "Last year the total reached a record $900 billion. That
doesn't leave much money to build new factory or a research lab or to train
workers or to give them a raise."

But Clinton didn't call for corporations to give their workers a raise, or
to tie CEO pay to the pay of average workers -- or any other policy that
would directly impact economic inequality. Instead, she focused on creating
incentives for companies to better profit from longer-term investments.
That means tax increases for investors cashing out shorter investments.

She also suggested altogether eliminating taxes on long-term investments in
"small businesses," a category she said would include "innovative
startups." As she praised early investors “patiently nurturing the next
disruptive innovator,” Clinton appeared to be simultaneously stroking the
egos of wealthy Silicon Valley venture capitalists and offering them a
substantial tax cut.

But the rest of her proposal included increases in capital gains taxes for
assets wealthy investors hold for less than six years. Clinton's plan would
boost capital gains taxes for investments of two years or less to 43.3
percent -- a rate that currently applies only to investments of less than
one year. The rate would gradually decrease over time to 23.8 percent after
an investment reaches six years.

The populist appeal of increasing capital gains taxes lies in the fact that
wealthy people accrue the vast majority of capital gains. Roughly half of
all capital gains flow to the richest 0.1 percent of Americans, according
to a Washington Post report. But the ultimate effect on inequality would
likely be limited -- if rich taxpayers simply don't sell off their stock
holdings for a longer time, they'll maintain a low tax rate, resulting in a
more rational corporate strategy but similar income distributions.

The problem Clinton is trying to address had been well documented. There
has been a decades-long divergence between the money companies borrow and
they money they invest, as the Roosevelt Institute’s Mike Konczal and J.W.
Mason pointed out earlier this year. Rather than raising money to build
better businesses, companies are, to a dramatic degree, raising money to
pay shareholders.

Clinton wondered whether AT&T would ever have invested in the iconic and
innovative Bell Labs in today’s pro-shareholder environment and cited
survey data that showed more than half of corporate executives would not
make a good long-term investment if it meant a short-term loss.

She offered a lot of brand-name love to companies including Trader Joe's,
QuikTrip, Chrysler, GM, Target, Starbucks and Chipotle who see their
"workers as assets, not costs to be cut," she said. Citing recent wage
hikes at McDonald's and WalMart -- which were spurred in part by public
pressure -- Clinton said it was time to end wage stagnation.

But just as no single policy can reverse decades of wage stagnation for
most Americans, no single tax policy can reserve the decades-long shift in
how businesses are run. There’s “no single cause, no single solution,”
Clinton admitted.

*Hillary Clinton Pushes Back On Report Of Email Investigation
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-email-investigation_55b2849fe4b0224d88322dfe>
// HuffPo // Sam Levine - July 24, 2015*

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday said that there had
been "a lot of inaccuracies" surrounding a New York Times report that the
inspectors general at the State Department and the Intelligence Community
had asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal probe into whether
emails with classified information had been mishandled in relation to the
personal account she used while secretary of state.

Clinton pointed to comments by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top
Democrat on the Select Committee on Benghazi, who said on Friday that the
IG had personally told him he did not request a criminal probe. A Justice
Department official said in a statement Friday morning that “the Department
has received a referral related to the potential compromise of classified
information. It is not a criminal referral.”

"Maybe the heat is getting to everybody," Clinton said. "We all have a
responsibility to get this right. I have released 55,000 pages of emails, I
have said repeatedly that I will answer questions before the House
committee."

Hillary Clinton said that there had been "a lot of inaccuracies"
surrounding a report about an investigation into potentially compromised
classified information on her private e-mail server.

The Times issued a correction on the story on Friday, saying that the
article "using information from senior government officials, misstated the
nature of the referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary
Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary of state. The
referral addressed the potential compromise of classified information in
connection with that personal email account. It did not specifically
request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton."

During a speech on details of her economic policy in New York on Friday,
Clinton said that she was being transparent.

"We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right,"
Clinton continued. " And I will do my part. But I am also going to stay
focused on the issues. Particularly the big issues that really matter to
American families."

*Classified Emails Were Sent Through Clinton's Private Network, Watchdog
Says
<http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/24/425839486/report-officials-seek-criminal-inquiry-over-clintons-use-of-private-email>
// NPR // Eyder Peralta - July 24, 2015*

The Justice Department has received a referral to look into whether
classified information was mishandled in relation to former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email account to conduct official
business.

After The New York Times first reported the story, the inspectors general
of the State Department and the Intelligence Community made public memos
that outline the concerns that led to the referral.

The memos reveal two important things: First, that investigators found that
Clinton's private email account contained "hundreds of potentially
classified emails." Second, the investigators found that "at least one
email made public by the State Department contained classified information."

Andrea Williams, a spokeswoman for the inspector general for the
Intelligence Community, told NPR's Carrie Johnson that at least four emails
that were sent through Clinton's private email network "were classified
when they were sent and are classified now."

On the face of it that seems like a simple statement, but the inspector
general also found that all of the emails were not marked as classified.
That raises questions about how the State Department and the Intelligence
Community handled sensitive information.

The issue of Clinton's private email account has cast controversy over her
burgeoning presidential campaign. Clinton, however, has always maintained
that she did not break the law when she opted to use a personal email
account instead of a State Department account to conduct official business
during her tenure as secretary of state.

"I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email," Clinton
said at a news conference in March. "There is no classified material. So
I'm certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not
send classified material."

The Clinton campaign issued a statement on Twitter Friday, reiterating that
point. Campaign spokesman Nick Merrill said that Clinton had followed
"appropriate practices in dealing with classified materials."

He added: "As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails
deemed classified by the administration have been done so after the fact,
and not at the time they were transmitted."

I. Charles McCullough, the Intelligence Community inspector general, seemed
to characterize that differently in a Thursday memo to lawmakers: "We note
that none of the emails we reviewed had classification or dissemination
markings, but some included IC-derived classified information and should
have been handled as classified, appropriately marked and transmitted via a
secure network. Further, my office's limited sampling of 40 of the emails
revealed four contained classified IC information which should have been
marked and handled at the SECRET level."

It's worth noting that it is still unclear who sent those emails and that
the State Department disputes the charges made by the Intelligence
Community inspector general,.

During his regularly scheduled briefing, deputy State Department spokesman
Mark Toner said they did not believe that Clinton sent classified
information through her personal email.

"She's handed over those 55-thousand pages ... to our knowledge, none of
that needed to be classified at the time," Toner said. "Some are being
upgraded as classified now."

Clinton addressed the reports during a speech Friday afternoon, saying
there has been a lot of misinformation.

"We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right," she
said. "But I will do my part, but I am also going to stay focused on the
issues, particularly the big issues that really matter to American
families."

Carrie reports that the Justice Department has received a referral related
to the case. The Justice Department had originally said it was a criminal
referral, but they later corrected themselves saying it was non-criminal
and "related to the potential compromise of classified information."

Carrie reports that there has been no decision yet from Justice about
whether it will launch an investigation into the State Department Clinton
email issue based on the referral.

Clinton's use of a private email account was first reported in March by the
Times. Before the revelation, Clinton had turned over tens of thousands of
emails to the State Department and eventually asked for them to be made
public. The State Department is releasing the emails in batches as they are
reviewed for sensitive information.

Our friends at It's All Politics took a comprehensive look at the law in
April. They found that whether any law was broken would likely come down to
whether classified material was sent over Clinton's personal account.

Update at 2:50 p.m. ET. One Or Two Referrals?

There has been some confusion as to how many inspectors general have issued
referrals to the Department of Justice.

The New York Times originally said both the inspector general for the State
Department and the one for the Intelligence Community referred the issue to
Justice.

But Rep. Elijah Cummings and State Department spokesman Mark Toner said
that was incorrect. The Intelligence Community inspector general did
confirm that it had referred the case to Justice and Justice also confirmed
receiving a referral.

We have updated this post to reflect this new information.

Update at 11:16 a.m. ET. Rep. Cummings Rebuts Reports:

Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, tells The Hill that the
State Department inspector general has told him that he did not request a
criminal investigation.

The Hill reports:

"'I spoke personally to the State Department Inspector General on Thursday,
and he said he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal
investigation of Secretary Clinton's email usage,' Cummings, the top
Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said Friday in a
statement.

"Instead, Steve Linick, State's Inspector General 'told me the Intelligence
Community IG notified the Justice Department and Congress that they
identified classified information in a few emails that were part of the
[Freedom of Information Act] review, and that none of those emails had been
previously marked as classified.'"

Update at 11:03 a.m. ET. The Public Release Of Classified Info:

In a memo dated June 29, Steve Linick, the State Department's inspector
general, writes that there was concern that a batch of emails scheduled for
release the next day contained "possible classified material."

Another later memo says at least one of those emails containing classified
information has been released to the public.

Update at 9:57 a.m. ET. The Memos:

The State Department's Office of the Inspector General has now made the
memos the New York Times reported on public. We've uploaded them here. But
here is the key paragraph from a July 17, 2015, memo written by Steve
Linick, the State Department's inspector general:

*How The New York Times Bungled the Hillary Clinton Emails Story
<http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-new-york-times-emails-357246?piano_t=1>
// Newsweek // Kurt Eichenwald - July 24, 2015*

What the hell is happening at The New York Times?

In March, the newspaper published a highly touted article about Hillary
Clinton’s use of a personal email account that, as I wrote in an earlier
column, was wrong in its major points. The Times’s public editor defended
that piece, linking to a lengthy series of regulations that, in fact,
proved the allegations contained in the article were false. While there has
since been a lot of partisan hullaballoo about “email-bogus-gate”—something
to be expected when the story involves a political party’s presidential
front-runner—the reality remained that, when it came to this story, there
was no there there.

Then, on Thursday night, the Times dropped a bombshell: Two government
inspectors general had made a criminal referral to the Justice Department
about Clinton and her handling of the emails. The story was largely
impenetrable, because at no point did it offer even a suggestion of what
might constitute a crime. By Friday morning, the Times did what is known in
the media trade as a “skin back”—the article now said the criminal referral
wasn’t about Clinton but about the department’s handling of emails. Still,
it conveyed no indication of what possible crime might be involved.

The story seemed to further fall apart on Friday morning when
Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) issued a statement saying that he
had spoken to the inspector general of the State Department and that there
had been no criminal referral regarding Clinton’s email usage. Rather,
Cummings said, the inspectors general for State and the intelligence
community had simply notified the Justice Department—which issues the
regulations on Freedom of Information Act requests—that some emails subject
to FOIA review had been identified as classified when they had not
previously been designated that way.

So had the Times mixed up a criminal referral—a major news event—with a
notification to the department responsible for overseeing FOIA errors that
might affect some documents’ release? It’s impossible to tell, because the
Times story—complete with its lack of identification of any possible
criminal activity—continues to mention a criminal referral.

But based on a review of documents from the inspectors general, the
problems with the story may be worse than that—much, much worse. The reason
my last sentence says may is this: There is a possibility—however
unlikely—that the Times cited documents in its article that have the same
dates and the same quotes but are different from the records I have
reviewed. I emailed Dean Baquet, the Times’s executive editor, to ask if
there are some other records the paper has and a series of other questions,
but received no response. (Full disclosure: I’m a former senior writer for
the Times and have worked with Baquet in the past.)

So, in an excess of caution, I’m leaving open the possibility that there
are other documents with the same quotes on the same dates simply because
the other conclusion—that The New York Times is writing about records its
reporters haven’t read or almost willfully didn’t understand—is, for a
journalist, simply too horrible to contemplate.

Indeed, if the Times article is based on the same documents I read, then
the piece is wrong in all of its implications and in almost every
particular related to the inspector generals’ conclusions. These are errors
that go far beyond whether there was a criminal referral of Clinton's
emails or a criminal referral at all. Sources can mislead; documents do not.

First, what did the Times article say? To be charitable, let’s use the
skinned-back version and quote the first two paragraphs:

Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal
investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled
in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used
as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.

The request follows an assessment in a June 29 memo by the inspectors
general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs.
Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds of potentially classified
emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of
state for management.

The words in those paragraphs would lead any rational reader of the Times
story to conclude that sensitive government information was mishandled,
that this mishandling raised concerns about criminal activity, and that
these concerns related somehow to classified information in Clinton’s email
account.

Here are the words that were left out: Freedom of Information Act. At no
point in the story does the Times mention what this memo—and the other it
cited—was really all about: that the officials at the Freedom of
Information office in the State Department and intelligence agencies, which
were reviewing emails for release, had discovered emails that may not have
been designated with the correct classification. For anyone who has dealt
with the FOIA and government agencies, this is something that happens all
the time in every administration. (Advice to other journalists: That is why
it’s smart to file multiple FOIA requests for the same document; different
FOIA officials will declare different items unreleasable, so some records
can be turned over where a sentence has been blacked out because one
reviewer decided it was classified, while another deemed it unclassified.)

The problem is, it is not as if the real purpose of this memo was hard to
discern. Here is the subject heading: “Potential Issues Identified by the
Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Concerning
the Department of State’s Process for the Review of Former Secretary
Clinton’s Emails under the Freedom of Information Act (ESP-15-05)”

Get it? This is about the process being used by FOIA officials in reviewing
former Secretary Clinton. And former government officials have nothing to
do with how FOIA officials deal with requests for documentation. To jump
from this fact to a conclusion that, somehow, someone thinks there is a
criminal case against Clinton (the original story) requires a level of
recklessness that borders on, well, criminal behavior.

Yes, there is memo after memo after memo, which the Times gloats were given
to it by a senior government official. (For those who have thoughts of
late-night meetings in parking garages or the Pentagon Papers, they were
unclassified documents. Reporters obtain those kinds of records through the
complex, investigative procedure of asking the press office for them.) And
all of them are about the exact same thing: the process being used by
current FOIA officials reviewing the emails of a former official is messed
up. That’s like criticizing the former owner of a car for the work
conducted by the new owner’s mechanic.

So what was the point of the Kennedy memo actually written by the two
inspector generals (the State Department’s Steve Linick and the
intelligence community’s Charles McCullough III)? The memo itself is very
clear: “The Department should ensure that no classified documents are
publically released.”

In terms of journalism, this is terrible. That the Times article never
discloses this is about an after-the-fact review of Clinton’s emails
conducted long after she left the State Department is simply inexcusable.
That this all comes from a concern about the accidental release of
classified information—a fact that goes unmentioned—is even worse. In other
words, the Times has twisted and turned in a way that makes this story seem
like something it most decidedly is not. This is no Clinton scandal. It is
no scandal at all. It is about current bureaucratic processes, probably the
biggest snooze-fest in all of journalism.

The heavy breathing of deception or incompetence by the Times doesn’t stop
there. In fact, almost every paragraph at the top of the story is wrong,
misleading or fundamentally deceptive.

The third paragraph states: “It is not clear if any of the information in
the emails was marked as classified by the State Department when Mrs.
Clinton sent or received them.” No, in fact, it is quite clear. All of the
memos are about emails that the officials say may not have been properly
designated as classified, meaning it would be improper to release them. If
a document is marked as classified, it is certainly not difficult to
determine if it has been marked as classified. Paragraph three is false.

Paragraph four: “But since her use of a private email account for official
State Department business was revealed in March, she has repeatedly said
that she had no classified information on the account.” Mmmm-kay. A point
that would seem to be reinforced by the fact that this whole issue is about
whether emails should have been designated as classified by FOIA officials.
The but makes it seem as if there is a contradiction, when in fact the two
points are completely consistent.

Then there are a couple of paragraphs that are a short summary of the past
and a comment from the Clinton campaign saying any released emails deemed
classified were designated that way after the fact. Yah—that’s what the
memos are talking about.

All of this is bad enough, but then there is the ultimate disaster,
paragraph seven: “At issue are thousands of pages of State Department
emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private account. Mrs. Clinton has said she used
the account because it was more convenient, but it also shielded her
correspondence from congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests.”

Wow. The first time that the story—which readers cannot possibly know is
about FOIA requests—finally mentions FOIA requests, it just manufactures a
reality out of thin air. Using a private account would not, in any way,
shield Clinton’s correspondence from congressional or FOIA requests.

Start with the rules. Under the FOIA, any document that is not specifically
exempted and that falls “under the control of the Department” at the time
the request for those records is submitted must be produced. By legal
definition, the secretary of state qualifies as part of “the Department,”
and thus anything that official writes as part of the job—whether by email,
telegraph or handwritten on personal stationery—is subject to a FOIA
request. Same goes for Congress. That’s why congressional hearings
sometimes produce personal handwritten documents—the fact that they might
not be in an email server does not limit the requirement that they be
turned over.

Second, contrary to the implication from the first Times story, Clinton’s
emails sent in her role as secretary of state were automatically saved into
a secure data system under the control of the department. In fact, where
does the Times think the FOIA offices for the State Department and the
intelligence community are finding the 55,000 emails now under review that
it cites in its new story? Are officials breaking into Clinton’s house in
the middle of the night to examine them by flashlight? Nope. They are
pulling them off of the system under the department’s control.

Then there is accusation by false association. If a sentence read, “Bill
shot Ted, and Ted died,” any responsible journalist who wrote that would
understand the implication was that Bill killed Ted. But if the truth is
that Bill accidentally shot Ted when they were on a hunting trip, and 30
years later Ted died from heart disease, the implied accusation is true in
its fact yet false in its statement.

This unforgivable journalistic sin turns up in paragraphs 13 and 14 in the
Times story. They read:

The inspectors general also criticized the State Department for its
handling of sensitive information, particularly its reliance on retired
senior Foreign Service officers to decide if information should be
classified, and for not consulting with the intelligence agencies about its
determinations.

In March, Mrs. Clinton insisted that she was careful in her handling of
information on her private account. “I did not email any classified
material to anyone on my email,” she said.

No reader could possibly know that the two paragraphs, jammed together and
using similar phrases—handling of information and handling of sensitive
information—have nothing to do with each other. The first paragraph is once
again based on the inspectors general’s memos. And again, what those memos
are actually discussing is the way that the FOIA office is handling its
review of the former secretary of state’s emails for public release. They
in no way discuss Clinton, her handling of emails or anything approaching
those topics.

But by slapping those two paragraphs together and using the same words, the
Times—again, either out of recklessness, ignorance or intentional
deception—makes it seem as if the inspectors general are saying Clinton
mishandled classified information. They didn’t.

In our hyper-partisan world, many people will not care about the truth
here. That the Times story is false in almost every particular—down to the
level of who wrote what memo—will only lead to accusations that people
trying to set the record straight are pro-Hillary. I am not pro-Hillary. I
am, however, pro-journalism. And this display of incompetence or malice
cannot stand without correction.

And to other reporters: Democracy is not a game. It is not a means of
getting our names on the front page or setting the world abuzz about our
latest scoop. It is about providing information so that an electorate can
make decisions based on reality. It is about being fair and being accurate.
This despicable Times story was neither.

*What Hillary Can Learn From Amy Schumer
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/24/what-hillary-can-learn-from-amy-schumer.html>
// Daily Beast // Keli Goff - July 24, 2015*

The confident, approachable, and self-deprecating Schumer could be a better
model for Hillary than you’d think.

In her new interview with GQ magazine, Amy Schumer said that she’s a fan of
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She also shared that the feeling is
mutual, noting that at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards Clinton told
Schumer she related to one of Schumer’s jokes. The joke in question?  “I
said that in L.A. my arms register as legs, and she really liked that. She
was like, ‘I can relate,’” Schumer recalled.

But Schumer and Clinton actually have more in common than their sense of
humor about the absurd physical expectations society places on women,
particularly women in their chosen professions. For starters, they are both
feminists whose political leanings have guided their work. But it is the
differences in their approaches—and how they are perceived by the
public—that may tell us more about Hillary’s chances for winning the White
House in 2016 than yet another poll. (Although we will get to the latest
polls in a second.)

When people think of Hillary Clinton, a lot of words come to mind.
Polarizing is one of them. But even her detractors will acknowledge she’s
also smart, resilient, and tough. They’ve thrown the kitchen sink at her
over the years and she’s still standing.

However, even her admirers would acknowledge she’s not what voters would
call accessible. There’s always a bit of a wall there. (Having that kitchen
sink thrown at her may have something to do with that.) And even more
damaging is the perception that she is not authentic. A growing number of
voters find her dishonest, according to the latest Quinnipiac poll.

Schumerhas been incredibly blunt about how trying it can be to be a woman
in a man’s world, but men are too busy laughing with her to resent her for
calling out the patriarchy.

Smart + inaccessible + inauthentic does not usually equal someone who can
easily win a presidential race. Just look at Al Gore and Mitt Romney.

Add to that equation the fact that she’s a woman and the climb is even
tougher because, as unfair as it is, we all know women are judged by
different standards. It is never enough to just be smart or talented or
tough; we’re also supposed to be attractive and likable at the same time.
(Before anyone starts typing an angry tweet or comment dismissing the
notion that women candidates are judged differently, ask yourself honestly
what would happen if a female candidate stopped wearing makeup on the
campaign trail and wore the same suit every day, something Clinton recently
touched upon.)

This is what makes Schumer’s ascent both fascinating and potentially
instructive for Clinton, someone who Schumer has said she plans to campaign
for.

Standup comedy is not exactly known for being an easy place for women and
very few female standup comics have truly cracked the boys club to become
household names. Even fewer have managed to earn serious respect within the
uber-male, uber-macho comic community. But Schumer’s done it. She’s managed
to become a breakout star with as many male fans as female ones, and she’s
done it without compromising her feminist zeal. There wasn’t a doubt in my
mind Schumer was both smart and a feminist the first time I read one of her
jokes. But I also realized the reason she would be a huge success is
because:

A) Even her comments about feminist issues, like women’s body image, were
ones men could laugh at.

B) Even when a joke didn’t really land, you could tell Schumer told it
because she thought it was funny—not because she spent hours calculating
where that joke would land her career-wise.

C) She would tell you the truth about how she saw things—even if it were
supremely uncomfortable for all involved, including her, the subject, or
the audience.

D) You can genuinely tell she has a sense of humor about it all—including
some of the unfair nonsense she knows she will have to put up with that a
male comedian won’t.

Part of Clinton’s problem is that she struggles with all of the above.
Having met her more than once I know she has a great laugh—but I doubt many
Americans believe she has a great sense of humor, and that comes across.

There’s this sense that the weariness of the last two decades on the
national stage has robbed her of her sense of enthusiasm for the process
altogether, and possibly stoked a resentment for it. I can’t say I blame
her. Unlike Hillary, I have a tough time hiding my disdain for stupidity,
prying questions, and people I don’t like. These are among the many reasons
I would never run for office.

But Clinton is running, so that means she’s going to have to find a way to
see the humor in it all. From the stupid comments some commentator (likely
male) will probably make about her appearance down the road, to the stupid
question someone will ask her in a debate that he would never ask a man.
Schumer has been incredibly blunt about how trying it can be to be a woman
in a man’s world, but men are too busy laughing with her to resent her for
calling out the patriarchy.

A big part of Schumer’s effectiveness is that whatever she says, it’s clear
she says it because she either really believes it or really believes it is
funny. Consider this: When Schumer faced her first round of negative
publicity, specifically the criticism she faced for making racially
insensitive jokes in the past, she did what few are willing to do in the
age of Twitter outrage: she defended herself. That further enraged some
people, but it also impressed others, me being one of them.

Though she eventually came around to saying she had evolved past the jokes
in question, whether you liked them or not, they reinforced a fundamental
perception about her: If she thinks it’s funny she’ll say it out loud. You
may not always love a person like that, but you also know you can trust her.

This week a thirty-something, white, female pro-choice friend mentioned to
me she finds Clinton untrustworthy. She doesn’t dislike her. But just
doesn’t trust her. When I pressed her on why, she mentioned the private
email server, but fundamentally it wasn’t about that. You either believe
someone will tell you the truth, and show you who they really are, or you
don’t.

In her GQ interview Schumer said, “I love being in my own skin” and
professed she wants others to feel comfortable in theirs.

For Clinton to win the presidency she’s going to have to show Americans
that she’s not only smart, resilient, and tough, but comfortable in her own
skin.

*Hillary Clinton wants to take on "quarterly capitalism" — here's what that
means
<http://www.vox.com/2015/7/24/9031597/hillary-clinton-quarterly-capitalism>
// Vox // Matthew Yglesias - July 24, 2015*

In a speech today at NYU's Stern Business School, Hillary Clinton plans to
finger what she considers a key impediment to long-term economic growth:
"quarterly capitalism." It's a brand of excessively short-term thinking in
which Wall Street considerations end up doing too much to drive Main Street
business decisions.

It's an intriguing way to drive a conceptually left-wing message that many
business executives actually agree with, and a demonstration that there's
no necessary tension between a progressive economic approach focused on
fairness and a more centrist one focused on growth.

It also reveals the deeply wonky side of Clinton. The supporting policy
details that her campaign has hinted at thus far — a change to the tax
code's definition of long-term capital gains, a new approach to sharing
buyback transparency, and perhaps some limits on the things so-called
"activist" investors are allowed to do — are not exactly candy for the
masses. They're an effort to grapple with some deep and profound issues
about the nature of the American economic system.

What is "quarterly capitalism"?

The term comes from McKinsey & Company managing director Dominic Barton and
some ideas he laid out in a March 2011 Harvard Business Review article, but
the basic concept is much older. It stems from the ritual through which
publicly traded companies release a statement about revenue and spending
every three months, known as the quarterly earning report.

These statements can have very large influences on share prices. For
example, on the afternoon of July 23 Amazon released an earnings report
that performed well above the consensus expectations of Wall Street
analysts. That caused its shares to skyrocket in value — up 18 percent —
within a matter of hours. And yet while the report was certainly good news
for Amazon, it — like most quarterly earnings reports — didn't really tell
us much of anything about the most profound issues facing Amazon (or any
other company) in the long run.

The thesis of quarterly capitalism is that the link between short-term
earnings and share prices, and the link between share prices and CEO pay,
has created management practices that are excessively focused on living
month to month.

"Lost in the frenzy," wrote Barton, "is the notion that long-term thinking
is essential for long-term success."

How quarterly capitalism can hurt America

On some level, the idea that giant businesses — just like everyone else —
sometimes have trouble focusing on the long term sounds like a bit of a
platitude. But there's reason to believe that short-termism in corporate
America can hurt the country's long-term economic prospects.

To see why, consider two companies deeply enmeshed in the technology
industry and the mobile revolution — Google and Verizon.

One big difference between these companies is that Google's voting stock is
utterly dominated by its two founders, Larry Page and Sergei Brin, who can
steer the company in any which way they like. Verizon, by contrast, was
essentially founded by nobody. It's a corporate descendant of Bell
Atlantic, which was founded in 1983 after the government made AT&T break
up. AT&T itself was founded way back in 1885. All of which is to say that
Verizon is highly subject to the whims of the stock market, while Google
essentially reflects the vision of two entrepreneurs.

Consequently, the companies behave very differently.

Google is adventurous: It plows the profits from its web search into a
shockingly wide range of ventures. It launched an email service and a
calendar and an office productivity suite. It builds a free mobile
operating system. But it also builds Chrome OS for laptops. It made some
weird glasses. It is trying to build a self-driving car. It runs
fiber-optic networks in eight cities.

Verizon pays a lot of dividends: By contrast, Verizon does not really do
exciting things. It does invest money in its infrastructure. But it does so
relatively cautiously, rolling out new fiber-optic lines at a measured
pace. It could build fiber faster, but doing so would be expensive. Instead
Verizon prefers to spend about $8 billion a year on paying dividends to its
shareholders, with billions on top of that spent on buying Verizon stock.

Verizon acts this way in large part because that's how Wall Street wants it
to act. Spending billions on dividends and buybacks is better for the share
price than spending billions on new infrastructure to compete with Comcast,
AT&T, and others.

But it certainly seems like it would be better for America if
telecommunications companies were investing more furiously in improving
services and competing with each other.

Research says public companies invest less

Of course, anyone can tell anecdotes. But academic research appears to back
up the idea that stock market pressures lead companies to invest less than
they otherwise would. John Asker, Joan Farre-Mensa, and Alexander
Ljungqvist did a study in which they compared publicly traded companies to
otherwise similar companies that are privately owned. They found that
"compared to private firms, public firms invest substantially less and are
less responsive to changes in investment opportunities" and that this
happens "especially in industries in which stock prices are most sensitive
to earnings news."

Short-termism, in other words, leads to less investment.

A clever synthesis

As my colleague Jon Allen has written, Hillary Clinton is a fairly
unimpressive public speaker on the stump, but she's an extremely skilled
consensus builder and savvy candidate. The quarterly capitalism thesis is
an example of that. On the one hand, it's a potent critique of mainstream
financial capitalism as practiced in the United States and similar
countries. It resonates deeply with the concerns of the American labor
movement, and with critics of Wall Street's influence on the real economy.
It reflects an academic research agenda that arose on the leftward margins
of the debate and has gained in influence over the years.

At the same time, framing a campaign argument around a Harvard Business
Review article by a McKinsey managing director is hardly a call for
imminent revolution and the overthrow of capitalism.

In fact, this is a criticism that lots of CEOs and other rich businessmen
agree with. They wish they were less slave to quarterly earnings reports
and had more of the freedom of a Larry Page. These are left-wing themes, in
other words, but while they'll certainly make Clinton some enemies among
the activist investor class they don't do all that much to alienate donors
or position her as anti-business.

Things will get harder the deeper she delves into policy specifics, but as
a broad campaign theme it's a tour de force. By embracing the quarterly
capitalism critique, Clinton offers a more radical criticism of the status
quo than we've ever heard from Barack Obama while also showing herself to
be more sensitive to the concrete concerns of American executives.

*Hillary Clinton's capital gains tax reform, explained
<http://www.vox.com/2015/7/20/9005911/hillary-clintons-capital-gains-quarterly-capitalism>
// Vox // Matthew Yglesias - July 24, 2015*

As part of her plan to reduce the impact of short-term thinking on
corporate America, Hillary Clinton is proposing a revamp of how investment
income is taxed in America. Right now, the tax code distinguished between a
short-term investment held for less than a year and a long-term investment
held for longer than that. She wants to replace that with a different
system, featuring a six-year sliding scale of rates to give genuinely
long-term investors a leg up.

What's a capital gain? How is it taxed?

A capital gain is income that a person makes from investment. If you buy a
house for $200,000 and sell it 10 years later for $250,000, you have scored
a $50,000 capital gain. The current tax code largely exempts capital gains
earned buying and selling owner-occupied houses, so the debate over capital
gains taxation generally focuses on capital gains secured by buying and
selling stocks, bonds, and other financial assets.

Right now the tax code distinguishes between short-term capital gains and
long-term capital gains. A short-term capital gain is defined as a gain on
an asset that you owned for less than a year, while a long-term capital
gain is defined as a gain on an asset that you owned for longer than a
year. Short-term capital gains are taxed at the same rate as wage or salary
income, but long-term capital gains are taxed at a lower rate.

In other words, the current tax code already features lower tax rates for
income derived from long-term capital gains than for income derived from
other sources. Clinton is proposing, essentially, to extend the logic of
the current system, not to replace it with a whole new logic.

Why is capital gains income taxed at a lower rate?

There are three big explanations for the current system — a cynical one,
one grounded in political rhetoric, and an economics-y one:

The cynical take is that capital gains income receives a tax preference
because the vast majority of capital gains income is earned by rich people.
And not just any old kind of rich person. A movie star or LeBron James is
still mostly working for a living. It takes a classy kind of rich person to
have big stock market earnings.

The rhetorical reason typically offered is that, as the American Enterprise
Institute's James Pethokoukis says, capital gains taxes are a "double tax."
The idea is that first Mr. Richpants gets paid a salary and pays taxes on
it. Then he takes some of his after-tax dollars and invests them in the
stock market. Then when he sells his stock, he is "taxed again" on his
earnings in a way that would not have happened had he spent the money on a
boat rather than invested it in the stock market.

The economics-y reason is a result in theoretical macroeconomics stemming
from work by Christophe Chamley and Kenneth Judd that shows that under
appropriate assumptions, the socially optimal level of investment taxation
is zero. The result involves a lot of math, but the intuitive idea is that
the less you tax investments in capital goods, the more capital goods you
get. And the more capital goods you have, the higher your wages will be.
Consequently, even people who derive all their income from wages benefit in
the long run from not taxing capital income. Garrett Jones has a slightly
longer explanation featuring light math if you are interested.

What is Hillary Clinton proposing to do?

Her campaign has not yet released a fully-fleshed out plan, but they say
she wants to make two changes. One is to push the current one-year
definition of short-term capital gains out to two-years.

The second is that she doesn't want to give every investment held for
longer than two years equal treatment. Instead, she wants a sliding scale
of rates over a multi-year period so that you would need to hold an
investment for a full six years to qualify for the discount rate.

Is the case for low capital taxation correct?

Needless to say, people disagree. In practice, there appears to be very
strong political consensus around preferential treatment for investment
income. Even very liberal members of Congress, for example, do not propose
ending the exemption of capital gains income from the payroll tax that
finances Social Security. Nor do liberal members of Congress propose to end
the exemption of profits made by selling owner-occupied homes from capital
gains taxation. Countries all around the world feature some form of
preferential treatment of investment income, and despite the partisan
controversies around the capital gains tax rate nobody in American politics
is actually proposing to do away entirely with our own preferential
treatment.

That said, as is typical with highly theoretical results in macroeconomics,
there are massive challenges in saying whether the Chamley-Judd construct
applies in a meaningful way to the actual policy choice at hand. As
economist Matthew Martin writes, "Any graduate macro text will show you
some of the ways in which Chamley-Judd assumptions are violated in reality,
producing a non-zero optimal tax rate."

Empirical studies also struggle to confirm the idea that tax rates on
investment income are an important driver of real investment activity. A
recent, statistically sophisticated study of the 2003 dividend tax cut by
Danny Yagan, for example, finds that "the tax cut caused zero change in
corporate investment."

Note, however, that even if the optimal tax rate for capital gains isn't
zero it might still be optimal to have a lower rate on investment income
than on wage income.

Why is Hillary Clinton proposing this?

Rather typically for Clinton as a political actor, what she seems to be
zeroing in on is a clever way to build consensus between competing factions
of wonks.

By raising tax rates on medium-term capital gains, Clinton will raise a
bunch of tax revenue, and she will raise it overwhelmingly from high-income
individuals. These are key demands of liberals, who are hungry for social
spending and redistribution.

At the same time, by maintaining the low rate on longer-term capital gains,
Clinton avoids a root-and-branch challenge to the principle of a tax
preference for investment.

Clinton has been critical lately of what she calls "quarterly capitalism"
and the idea that real world investment activity is being excessively
influenced by short-term stock market fluctuations and earnings targets.
Her altered tax system would make it more lucrative to be a patient
investor than an impatient one, which might help generate an overall more
patient climate on Wall Street — boosting corporate investment and
fostering more long-term thinking.

A serious venture capitalist, for example, would almost certainly find
himself still qualifying for the preferential rate. But a corporate raider
looking to buy a company, strip assets, improve quarterly results, and then
exit as quickly as possible would not.

Expect the campaign to front-load this short-term versus long-term issue,
since it's emerging as a key theme for Clinton overall. But also note that
in theory one could accomplish the same thing with a tax cut. Take today's
rate for investments held over one year and apply it to investments held
for one to three years. Take longer-term investments and apply a new lower
rate to them. This would address the short-termism concern, while also
addressing the GOP's opposition to higher taxes.

Clinton won't offer a proposal along those lines because for her, tax
revenue and tax system progressivity are at least as important as the
short-term versus long-term issue.

*How the old rules apply to the new Hillary Clinton email scoop
<http://www.vox.com/2015/7/24/9031511/clinton-rules-scoop-email> // Vox //
Jonathan Allen - July 24, 2015*

Two federal inspectors general want the Justice Department to investigate
whether classified information was mishandled in relation to then–Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton's now-famous emails. There are two parts to the
story that are worth noting.

First, the ongoing probes of Clinton and her email are at the very least a
political problem that's not going away anytime soon. She'll have the
unique challenge of running for president while being investigated by
Congress, and perhaps at some point by the Justice Department. The Obama
administration is in the uncomfortable position of either investigating the
prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination or taking hits for
stonewalling on her behalf. Some of the reporting Friday morning suggests
that Secretary of State John Kerry, who isn't a big Clinton fan, is getting
tired of his agency looking bad. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the
investigators' memo revealed "hundreds of potentially classified emails
within the collection" and that there may be classified material in one of
the emails the department already has made public.

Second, the Clinton rules are in full effect again. This case would fall
under the umbrella of No. 3: The media assumes that Clinton is acting in
bad faith until there's hard evidence otherwise. The New York Times, which
got the scoop, rewrote its original story and is taking a beating from
political observers and other media outlets for it. The first version said
the inspectors general want a criminal investigation into Clinton's actions
specifically, while the revised copy says they want the Justice Department
to open a probe, more broadly, into whether the email was mishandled. It
may turn out that Clinton is responsible for mishandling sensitive
material, but the inspectors general didn't ask for an investigation into
her, as the first version of the Times story said. Here are the two
versions:

The Times also changed the headline of the story, from "Criminal Inquiry
Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email" to "Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in
Clinton Email Account," reflecting a similar recasting of Clinton's
possible role. The article's URL was also changed to reflect the new
headline.

If Clinton was sending classified email from her personal account, attached
to a personal server, that's a political problem — and possibly a legal one
— that will be difficult to mitigate. She has said she wasn't sending and
receiving classified information, but there's a catch to that — since her
email was on her personal server, there was no way for anyone to know and
mark it classified.

Still, when the media gets the story wrong, it gives Clinton an out in
terms of the public relations war.

*Clinton responds to reports of possible email investigation
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-07242015-htmlstory.html?update=84069749>
// LA Times // Michael Memoli - July 24, 2015*

Before delivering a speech about corporate culture on Wall Street, Hillary
Rodham Clinton on Friday addressed reports that the Justice Department had
been asked to investigate whether classified material passed through her
private email account during her time as secretary of State.

Clinton suggested the news reports were inaccurate and that "maybe the heat
is getting to everybody."

"We all have a responsibly to get this right. I have released 55,000 pages
of emails. I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions before the
House committee," she said.

"We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right. And
I will do my part. But I'm also going to remain focused on the big issues.
Particularly the big issues that really matter to American families.”

*Clinton calls on corporations to shift focus to longer-term growth
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-clinton-economy-speech-20150724-story.html>
// LA Times // Michael Memoli - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton called on American business leaders Friday to
rethink a focus on short-term stock gains in favor of longer-term growth,
outlining proposals she said would address the trend of what she called
“quarterly capitalism” that has left the middle class behind.

Speaking in New York, Clinton cited data that showed large publicly held
companies returned a record amount of earnings directly to shareholders
through dividends and stock buybacks, at the expense of capital
expenditures or wage increases for their employees. The kind of focus on
tactics to boost short-term profits was “bad for business, bad for wages
and bad for our economy, and fixing it will be good for everybody,” she
said.

“American business needs to break free from the tyranny of today’s earning
report so they can do what they do best: innovate, invest and build
tomorrow’s prosperity,” she said. “It’s time to start measuring value in
terms of years or the next decade, not just the next quarter.”

At the start of her speech, Clinton took a moment to address the reports
that government inspectors general had asked the Justice Department to
investigate into whether classified information was mishandled through the
private email account Clinton used as secretary of State. Clinton said
there “have been a lot of inaccuracies” while noting that she has released
55,000 pages of her emails and was ready to testify before a special
congressional panel.

“We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right. And
I will do my part,” she said.

The centerpiece of the plan Clinton laid out Friday was a revision to the
capital gains tax that would implement a sliding scale, taxing gains from
stock sales within two years at the same rate as incomes for those earning
more than $465,000 a year, but returning to the current rate of 20% after
six years.

See the most-read stories this hour >>

She called the capital gains reform an “important first step” to address
short-term culture and said it would be part of a larger tax reform plan
she will outline. Executive compensation was another area she said should
be examined, saying there was “something wrong when senior executives get
rich when companies stutter.”

The speech builds off a broader economic policy speech Clinton gave on July
13 in which she called ending wage stagnation the "defining economic issue
of our time." Later that week in New Hampshire, she proposed giving
short-term tax credits to businesses that create profit-sharing
arrangements with their employees.

Though Clinton is the heavy favorite to win her party’s nomination, she
faces pressure from an active progressive base and Democratic rivals to
embrace more-sweeping economic proposals to address income inequality.
Notably in her speech, Clinton welcomed a recent decision by a New York
panel to implement a $15-per-hour wage for fast-food workers, while noting
that the cost of living in the state was higher than other places. Sen.
Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent running in the Democratic
primary, headlined a rally at the Capitol this week calling for a national
$15-per-hour minimum wage.

Another Democratic candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley,
challenged his opponents to embrace a set of principles guiding additional
Wall Street and corporate reforms.

"If Secretary Clinton wants to earn the enthusiastic support of grassroots
progressives that means standing up, staking out genuinely bold positions
on income inequality, and aggressively taking on the powerful, greed-driven
institutions that have dominated the Democratic Party and held back the
prosperity of the American people for far too long,” Charles Chamberlain,
executive director of Democracy for America, said in a statement. “Today's
speech hits those notes in some ways, but fails to do so in others."

Clinton promised that additional proposals focused on “reining in excessive
risk on Wall Street” would be forthcoming but focused on answering Friday
what she said was the important question of how to define shareholder value.

“I understand that most CEOs are simply responding to very real pressures
from shareholders and the market to turn in good quarterly numbers. And
investors are always looking for strong, reliable returns. But it is clear
that the system is out of balance,” she said.

*Federal investigators want Justice Department probe of Hillary Clinton
emails
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-clinton-email-20150724-story.html#page=1>
// LA Times // Evan Halper - July 24, 2015*

The Department of Justice has been asked to open an investigation into the
use of a personal email account by Hillary Rodham Clinton while she was
secretary of State, after government investigators concluded that
classified information may have been mishandled, U.S. officials said.

Inspectors general for the State Department and intelligence agencies asked
that the investigation be opened after finding that Clinton’s private
account potentially contained hundreds of classified emails. The New York
Times first reported the request to the Justice Department.

“The department has received a referral related to the potential compromise
of classified information,” said its statement. “It is not a criminal
referral.” Officials at the Justice Department declined to say anything
further about it.

Such referrals are routine when investigators in the office of the
inspector general for the intelligence community find evidence that
classified information may have been sent using unsecured email. In this
case, the evidence was referred to the FBI counterintelligence division,
according to a U.S. official briefed on the review.

The official cautioned that the referral was an early step and far from any
possible prosecution.

The Justice Department’s clarification, though, only raised a fresh round
of questions. Regardless of whether criminal charges are involved, the
compromise of classified information is generally considered a serious
breach.

Clinton has said repeatedly she did not keep classified information on the
account. Her campaign said in a statement that the emails in question were
classified by the State Department retroactively, and thus Clinton violated
no laws. It is unclear from the published findings of the inspectors
general whether they found otherwise.

"We all have a responsibility to get this right," Clinton said in brief
remarks addressing the issue Friday during a speech on the economy. "I have
released 55,000 pages of emails; I have said repeatedly that I will answer
questions."

Congressional Democrats released a letter Friday from the intelligence
agencies’ inspector general that they said demonstrates that none of the
material Clinton handled was marked classified. The memo said the
investigators found no emails with “classification or dissemination
markings” among the batch reviewed.

But the inspector general, I. Charles McCullough, also noted there were
emails Clinton turned over to the State Department that did, indeed,
contain classified information but were not marked as such.

“We note that none of the emails we reviewed had classification or
dissemination markings, but some included ... classified information and
should have been handled as classified, appropriately marked and
transmitted via a secure network,” the letter said.

The finding reflects new concerns about the way Clinton managed her email.
Even if she took care not to accept or send messages marked as classified
through her personal server, sensitive material does not always get
appropriately marked immediately. McCullough reviewed a sampling of 40 of
the 30,000 emails from the Clinton server and found four of them had
information that should have been marked and handled as classified.

McCullough’s note also points out that Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall,
still appears to have those emails on an unclassified system. “The 30,000
emails in question are purported to have been copied to a thumb drive in
the possession of former Secretary Clinton’s personal counsel,” the letter
said.

The development is likely to prove a considerable problem for the Clinton
campaign. The former secretary of State’s email practices have been a
constant point of attack for opponents and have fueled the perception among
voters that Clinton is untrustworthy.

A House committee investigating Clinton’s handling of the terrorist attacks
in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 that claimed American lives has focused its
investigation on her personal email account. Its Republican chair has
repeatedly accused Clinton of working to conceal information that could
shed more light on how the State Department handled the attacks.

The State Department is under a court order to quickly review the 55,000
pages of emails that Clinton sent on the private account and release the
pages that are unclassified. Some 3,000 pages were disclosed a few weeks
ago, and the department is planning to publish another batch by the end of
this month.

The day before the most recent release, the two inspectors general sent a
memo to the State Department noting that staff reviewing the Clinton emails
“report discovering hundreds of potentially classified emails within the
collection. In addition, there is concern that possible classified material
will be posted in tomorrow’s release.”

The inspectors general later found that one of the emails released to the
public contained classified information. Their memo does not pinpoint which
email it was.

“At least one of these emails has been released to the public and can be
accessed on the Department’s website,” said a July 17 memo written by
Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary for management at State.

Republicans are pressuring the Department of Justice to proceed with an
investigation.

“Hillary Clinton’s desire to play by her own rules may have further exposed
classified information,” said a statement from Republican National
Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. “A full investigation by the Justice
Department is not just needed, but required.”

*Inspector General Says Hillary Clinton Emails Contained Classified
Information
<http://time.com/3971238/hillary-clinton-email-justice-classified/> // TIME
// Zeke J. Miller - July 24, 2015*

Federal officials have requested an investigation into a potential
compromise of classified information related to the handling of documents
once stored on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email
server, government officials confirmed Friday.

Clinton and her current and former aides have not been named as targets of
the investigation, and the scope of the investigation request has not been
revealed.

A Department of Justice official confirmed to TIME Friday morning that
there had been a “criminal referral.” Later that same day, the official
sent an updated statement: “The Department has received a referral related
to the potential compromise of classified information. It is not a criminal
referral,” it read.

Even if Clinton is not targeted in the probe, a Justice Department inquiry
could be used to tar her presidential campaign. Her decision to use a
private account for government business, and then choosing to delete
ostensibly personal information from the server has already contributed to
a decline in Clinton’s favorability rating and has provoked questions about
her trustworthiness.

I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence
community, voiced concerns in a July 23 memo over information that passed
through Clinton’s email server, was later given to her personal lawyer and
returned to the State Department. McCullough said the data should have been
treated with greater sensitivity, since it was derived from classified
information produced by the U.S. intelligence community.

Clinton has repeatedly said she never allowed information that was marked
classified to pass across her private email. “There have been a lot of
inaccuracies,” she said on Friday of the latest reports. “Maybe the heat is
getting to everybody. We all have a responsibility to get this right. I
have released 55,000 pages of emails, I have said repeatedly that I will
answer questions before the House Committee. We are all accountable to the
American people to get the facts right, and I will do my part.”

None of the investigating bodies, in Congress or elsewhere, have accused
Clinton of wrongdoing. But questions have been raised about the judgement
of State Department officials. “We note that none of the emails we reviewed
had classification or dissemination markings, but some included
[intelligence community]-derived classified information and should have
been handled as classified, appropriately marked, and transmitted via a
secure network,” wrote McCullough, the inspector general for the
intelligence community, who described his review as incomplete.

A spokeswoman for McCullough, Andrea Williams, said Friday that there are
at least four emails of concern, which have yet to be released by the State
Department under the Freedom of Information Act. “They were not marked at
all but contained classified information,” she wrote in an email to TIME
Friday.

If documents had not initially been marked as classified, agency heads
generally have significant legal leeway to decide how to classify most
information, with the exception of some categories, like nuclear secrets,
which are deemed classified by statute.

“The thing to understand about the classification system is that it is an
administrative decision that is rooted in executive order,” said Steven
Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American
Sciences. “The president delegates authority to agency heads. It’s up to an
agency head to decide if something is properly classified or not.”

The request for an investigation, first reported by the New York Times, is
in reference to “hundreds of potentially classified emails” contained among
Clinton’s messages.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House committee
investigating Benghazi, denied Friday that there was any criminal referral.
“I spoke personally to the State Department inspector general on Thursday,
and he said he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal
investigation of Secretary Clinton’s email usage,” Cummings wrote in a
statement. “This is the latest example in a series of inaccurate leaks to
generate false front-page headlines − only to be corrected later − and they
have absolutely nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi or protecting
our diplomatic corps overseas.”

In May, when releasing the first batch of Clinton emails to the public, the
State Department, at the request of the intelligence community, classified
23 words of an email relating to the arrest of a suspected assailant in the
2012 Benghazi attack which killed four Americans.

A senior State Department official told TIME then that the retroactive
classification does not mean Clinton did anything improper, adding “this
happens several times a month” when Freedom of Information Act reports are
prepared for the public. The executive order under which the classification
program operates allows for the reclassification of information, either
because of initial misclassification or because subsequent events have made
the information more sensitive.

At the time, the State Department said, the email was unclassified while it
resided on Clinton’s server and when it was sent to the House Select
Committee on Benghazi. McCullough, the inspector general, told Congress
that he believes copies of the emails were also placed on a thumb drive
that was given to David Kendall, Clinton’s personal attorney at Williams
and Connelly.

In a statement, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill brushed back on the
assertion that Clinton had done anything wrong, noting that the New York
Times had also changed the language of its initial story. At first, the
Times described “a criminal investigation into whether Hillary Rodham
Clinton mishandled sensitive government information.” That was changed to
“a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was
mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham
Clinton.”

“Contrary to the initial story, which has already been significantly
revised, she followed appropriate practices in dealing with classified
materials,” Merrill said. “As has been reported on multiple occasions, any
released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done so
after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted.”

In a March news conference, Clinton denied that she used the unsecured
account for classified information. “I did not email any classified
material to anyone on my email,” she said. “There is no classified
material. So I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements
and did not send classified material.”

In a statement Friday, Speaker of the House John Boehner criticized Clinton
for “mishandling” classified email, though it is not yet clear whether that
claim is a part of the potential Justice Department probe. He encouraged
Clinton to turn over her private server to Congress for further
investigation.

“Secretary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that the work-related emails on
her private home server did not include classified information, but we know
that is not true,” Boehner said. “She has claimed she is well-aware of what
matters are classified and what are not, and yet she set up a personal
email server to discuss matters of national security despite guidance to
the contrary from both her State Department and the White House. Her poor
[judgment] has undermined our national security and it is time for her to
finally do the right thing.”

The State Department is in the midst of a review of 55,000 pages of emails
from Clinton’s server, and is under court order to produce them regularly
to the public in order to comply with overdue Freedom of Information Act
requests.

The inspectors general of both the State Department and the intelligence
community have asked the State Department to review the Clinton emails in a
more highly classified environment, “given it is more likely than not” that
such records exist in her messages. The department has declined, citing
resource constraints.

In her public comments on the server issue, Clinton has at times been less
than forthright, telling CNN earlier this month that she hadn’t received a
subpoena for the records, for instance, when she had.

“The truth is everything I did was permitted and I went above and beyond
what anybody could have expected in making sure that if the State
Department didn’t capture something, I made a real effort to get it to
them,” Clinton told CNN this month. But Clinton was under a legal
obligation to preserve all messages pertaining to her work and to hand them
over to the State Department.

*Officials: Classified Emails ‘Should Never’ Have Been On Hillary Clinton
Server
<http://time.com/3971854/hillary-clinton-email-classified/?xid=tcoshare> //
TIME // Zeke J. Miller - July 24, 2015*

"Security referral" triggered by potential copies of classified documents
on Clinton's home server, lawyer's thumb drive drive.

The Justice Department investigation into the potential mishandling of
classified information was triggered by the revelation that classified
information contained in Hillary Clinton’s private email account could
still exist on her private home server and on the thumb drive in the
control of her personal lawyer, U.S. officials confirmed Friday.

The referral was made by the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General (IC
IG) to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterintelligence division,
not career prosecutors at the Justice Department. “The IC IG did not make a
criminal referral,” said the Inspectors General for the State Department
and Intelligence Community in a joint statement Friday. “It was a security
referral made for counterintelligence purposes.”

The immediate concerns are four emails culled from a limited sample of 400
emails that contained previously unlabeled classified information. “These
emails were not retroactively classified by the State Department; rather
these emails contained classified information when they were generated and,
according to IC classification officials, that information remains
classified today,” their statement said. “This classified information
should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”

In response to a records request from the State Department, Clinton has
turned over approximately 30,000 work emails that she had stored on her
private email server since her time as Secretary of State. She has
previously said that those emails contained no classified information. The
four emails in question were not properly labeled as classified, according
to the inspectors general.

Both inspectors general say they were required to notify the FBI by law
once they found that information that should have been marked as classified
was found among the former Secretary of State’s emails. Relevant
congressional committees were also notified on July 23.

A Department of Justice official confirmed to TIME Friday that, “The
Department has received a referral related to the potential compromise of
classified information. It is not a criminal referral.”

I. Charles McCullough III, the inspector general for the intelligence
community, voiced concerns in a July 23 memo to Congressional lawmakers
over the proper handling of information contained in Clinton’s email
records. He warned there has already been “an inadvertent release of
classified national security information” in a recent release of emails
under the Freedom of Information Act, a contention disputed by the State
Department.

Andrea Williams, a spokeswoman for McCullough, confirmed that the referral
was made to the FBI, in accordance with federal guidelines for the the
discovery of the potential compromise of classified information.

In a March news conference, Clinton denied that she used the unsecured
account for classified information. “I did not email any classified
material to anyone on my email,” she said. “There is no classified
material. So I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirements
and did not send classified material.”

*What Hillary Clinton’s New Tax Proposal Would Mean
<http://time.com/money/3971293/clinton-capital-gains-tax-hike/> // TIME //
Ian Salisbury - July 24, 2015*

Here's how the plan would change capital gains tax rates.

On Friday, Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton spelled out her
new plan to raise tax rates on capital gains — the profits people reap when
they sell an asset a like stock, parcel of real estate or even a business.

The capital gains tax rate has been a political football for years, not
least because rich people tend to own — and sell — the most stuff. Here are
a few key things you need know about capital gains tax in general, and
Clinton’s proposal specifically.

How are capital gains currently taxed?

While the tax rate on capital gains has bounced around a lot over the
years, the big tax deal reached in the last hours of 2012 pushed up the top
rate on long-term capital gains to 20% — still far lower than the 39.6% top
rate on income (although top earners also pay a health-care related 3.8%
surtax on investment income). For taxpayers in lower brackets, long-term
capital gains tax rates max out at 15% or less.

There is an exclusion for profits of up to $250,000 ($500,000 if you are
married) on your primary residence, so many homeowners won’t have to worry
about a huge tax bill when they move.

That’s all for long-term capital gains, by the way. Short-term capital
gains — that is, the profit made on stocks or other assets held less than a
year — get taxed at the same rate as income.

Why do capital gains get a tax break?

In the relatively recent past, both Democratic (Bill Clinton) and
Republican (George W. Bush) presidents have cut the capital gains rate in
hopes that doing so would spur the economy. Since the capital gains tax is
really a tax on investment, economists hope that lowering the tax will
prompt people to invest more of their money rather than spend it.

The idea is that if more people are looking to invest, it should be easier
for start-ups or existing companies that want to develop new products to
find funding.

That’s also why short-term gains get taxed as income — because short-term
gains benefit people who make their living buying stuff and then quickly
reselling, rather than investing for the long term.

So what’s the problem?

In addition to spurring investment, a low long-term capital gains rate also
spurs inequality. It’s not hard to see who the biggest beneficiaries are:
people who invest in the stock market or who sell businesses that they own.

The low capital gains rate is one reason America’s 400 biggest earners paid
a tax rate of less than 17% in 2012, the latest year for which the IRS has
released data. There are also questions about whether the low capital gains
rate really does boost the economy.

After all, while the economy took off under Bill Clinton, the stock market
has also continued to soar since the most recent increase in the long-term
gains rate.

What is Hillary Clinton proposing instead?

Hillary Clinton’s proposal would require wealthy taxpayers to hold their
investments much longer to get the full long-term capital gains tax
benefit. Instead of a single long-term gains rate that kicks in after one
year, her plan would create a series of rates ranging from 36% to 24% for
those who hold investments for at least two years but less than six years.

Clinton says she isn’t doing this simply to raise taxes on the rich. Rather
it’s to discourage short-termism among big investors. That’s something even
many on Wall Street regard as a problem, even if higher taxes might not be
their preferred solution. So it looks like good politics.

Is it a good idea?

That, of course, depends on who you ask. Many progressives would simply
like to see capital gains taxed as income.

Yet it’s not even clear whether Clinton’s proposal could actually change
investor behavior — even if it could pass Congress. “My general impression
is deep skepticism,” Leonard Burman, director of the nonpartisan think tank
the Tax Policy Center told Reuters earlier this week. “Frankly, I don’t see
the logic in trying to encourage people to hold assets for longer than they
want to.”

*Hillary Clinton Courts Both Liberals and Wall Street with Tax Plan
<http://time.com/3969682/hillary-clinton-tax-capital-gains/?xid=tcoshare>
// TIME // Sam Frizell - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton on Friday proposed a significant hike on capital gains
taxes for some investors, a plan favored both by progressive economists and
some Wall Street investors.

The proposal is intended to combat short-term investing, which Clinton
argued diverts capital away from important business expenditures.

“American companies need to break free from the tyranny of quarterly
earning reports so they can do what they do best,” Clinton said speaking at
New York University in Lower Manhattan on Friday. “Real value comes from
long term growth, not short term profits.”

Clinton’s capital gains plan calls for a sliding scale of taxes on
investments, with some short-term investments taxed at higher rates than
they are now.

Currently, top earners pay a tax rate of 39.6% on investments held for less
than a year, a rate that matches those earners’ income taxes. After holding
those investments for a year, the rate for top earners drops to 24%.

But under Clinton’s plan, the tax rate for top earners on capital gains
would remain at 39.6% in the second year, and then drop at a staggered rate
over six years to their current levels. It would amount to nearly doubling
capital gains tax rates in the second year.

“The current definition of a long-term holding period—just one year—is
woefully inadequate,” Clinton said, calling on companies to abandon what
she has called “quarterly capitalism” in favor of more farsighted
investments in research and development, talent and physical capital.

A six-year sliding scale, Clinton said, would “provide real incentives for
long-term investments.”

Clinton’s plan for a tax hike is aligned with some voices on Wall Street
and financial institutions. Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, the largest
asset manager in the world, called earlier this year for a plan similar to
Clinton’s. In a March letter to the executives of the 500 largest companies
in the United States, Fink recommended holding the capital gains tax rate
at income tax rates for three years—39.6% for the highest earners—and
eventually dropping over a period of 10 years.

“We believe that U.S. tax policy, as it stands, incentivizes short-term
behavior,” Fink said, using language similar to Clinton’s speech on Friday.
“We believe that government leaders around the world—with a concerted push
from both investors and companies—must act to address public policy that
fosters long-term behavior.”

A number of other major business figures have openly lamented so-called
economic short-termism, including Dominic Barton, managing director of
McKinsey & Co., Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever and others.

Economists, particularly those on the left, have also criticized the
relatively low rate of capital gains tax, arguing it acts an income subsidy
for the wealthiest Americans.

The Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan Congressional committee,
found that low rates on capital gains taxes will deliver in 2015 an
effective subsidy of $120.3 billion to investors, most of them wealthy: a
separate report by the Congressional Budget Office found that 68% of the
benefit of low rates on capital gains and dividends go to the top 1% of
earners.

Clinton’s plan, some economists say, would reduce inequality in the tax
code and create incentives for shareholders to hold longer-term investments.

Clinton’s proposal “is a way to target an inefficient tax subsidy—a tax
subsidy that subsidizes growing inequality—in a way that encourages more
long-term planning by investors,” said Harry Stein, director of fiscal
policy at the Center for American Progress. “I view this as a piece of a
larger agenda to encourage more of a long term outlook.”

Clinton’s plan is meant in part to slow activist investors, who tend to buy
large amounts of company stock and call for higher dividends, share
buybacks and other strategies to boost share prices. Some executives
complain that makes it more difficult for companies to invest in long-term
employees or facilities, stunting long-term growth.

Republicans have been quick to criticize the plan, pointing out that
Clinton said during the 2008 campaign that she would not raise capital
gains taxes above 20%, “if I raised it at all.” They argue that capital
gains taxes harm economic growth by preventing investment.

“Sadly, Hillary is not wise enough to have learned the simple lesson from
those decades: reducing the capital gains tax is part of any pro-growth
agenda,” said Grover Norquist, president of the conservative Americans for
Tax Reform.

Leonard Burman, the director of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy
Center and the top tax economist during the last two years of President
Bill Clinton’s administration, said he doubted the plan would significantly
change investor behavior.

“I’m sympathetic with her objective, but I don’t think her proposal is
going to solve it,” Burman said. He added that the plan might actually
encourage some shareholders to pull investments out of a company earlier
than they would otherwise: under the new plan, investors who could sell
shares after six months gain no tax benefits by waiting until after a year,
and little benefit for waiting more than two.

*Hillary Clinton: Capitalism is out of balance, needs a reset
<http://fortune.com/2015/07/24/hillary-says-capitalism-needs-a-reset/> //
Fortune // Tory Newmyer - July 24, 2015*

In the latest in a string of policy speeches, the Democratic front-runner
laid out her plan for tackling corporate short-termism

Hillary Clinton wants to hike capital gains taxes as part of her plan to
discourage short-term thinking among corporate executives and investors.

The Democratic presidential front-runner laid out her plan to retool the
tax treatment of investment earnings on Friday as part of an ongoing series
of speeches fleshing out her economic program. She proposed extending from
one to two years the period that top earners would need to hang on to an
investment before seeing the 39.6% tax rate applied to it start to fall.

And she would lower the rate slowly, over a six year period, down to the
24% rate for longer-term investments — a tweak that she said would help
refigure a system that’s bent itself out of shape over the last few
decades. Capitalism itself, she said, “needs to be reinvented, it needs to
be put back into balance.”

Her speech, delivered at New York University’s Stern School of Business,
was the sort of numerate wonk-fest that’s come to characterize her early
campaign — an effort aimed in part at comparing favorably with the
sprawling free-for-all on the Republican side. It also helped advance the
argument she aims to make the substantive centerpiece of both her bid and
her presidency: Addressing economic inequality is the defining challenge of
our time.

The capital gains tax reform was only the first of five major areas she
highlighted as requiring action to reverse the trend toward what she calls
“quarterly capitalism,” the Wall Street-centered, sugar-high approach
distracting public companies from investing in innovation, capital, and
worker training and wages in favor of stock buybacks and dividends. The
others ranged from leashing activist shareholders to further empowering
workers, though she couched her proposals to limit any C-suite alarm bells.

To bring what she called “hit-and-run” activist shareholders to heel,
Clinton exhorted institutional investors to exert their leverage as a
counterweight on management. And she pledged to order a review of
regulations on shareholder activism and to push for the same-day disclosure
of buybacks already in force in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.

Clinton also called out excessive compensation packages for executives as
part of the problem. “I’m all for rewarding CEOs well when their companies
prosper and their employees also share in the rewards,” she said. “But
there is something wrong when senior executives get rich while companies
stutter and employees struggle.” To address it, Clinton called for
regulators to finalize the Dodd-Frank requirement that companies list the
ratio of executive to worker pay; she proposed adjusting performance-based
tax write-offs for executives to discourage moves designed to juice share
prices; and she pitched mandating explanations for how executive pay
packages serve the longterm interest of companies.

For good measure, Clinton added that Washington bears some responsibility,
as well. She said elected leaders need to contribute by ending the budget
brinkmanship that saddles corporate executives with uncertainty.

While the Democrat’s speech presented as a critique of the wages of a Wall
Street-focused economy, the proposals that formed its spine are unlikely to
ruffle many feathers in the financial services industry. And her frequent,
favorable name-drops of corporate heavies checked any impression that she’s
lurched into fire-breathing populist territory. She praised the innovative
commitment of Google, SpaceX, and, historically, AT&T and Xerox, for
example. Clinton singled out GM, Ford, and Chrysler for “putting the memory
of the crisis behind them and making new investments in factories and
technologies of the future, including advanced batteries.” Trader Joe’s and
QuikTrip, she said, are becoming industry models for investing in worker
training; Target and Starbucks are leading larger employers toward raising
wages for entry-level workers; and Chipotle has earned her favor not just
for its burrito bowls but for starting to provide certain benefits to
part-time employees.

It’s of a piece with a carefully calibrated message she will tote through
the race as she seeks to keep faith with a restive base without alienating
big business interests.

*New York Times corrects bombshell email-scandal story after Hillary
Clinton blasts it
<http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clinton-email-probe-investigation-justice-department-2015-7>
// Business Insider // Brett Logiurato - July 24, 2015*

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday lashed out
against "inaccuracies" in reports about her use of a private email address
during her time as secretary of state, as the Justice Department weighed
whether to open an investigation.

"I want to say a word about what is in the news today, and it is because
there have been a lot of inaccuracies,” Clinton said during her opening
remarks at an event in Manhattan.

"Maybe the heat is getting to everybody. We all have a responsibility to
get this right. I have released 55,000 pages of emails. I have said
repeatedly that I will answer questions before the House committee. We are
all accountable to the American people to get the facts right. And I will
do my part."

The Justice Department said on Friday it is weighing a request by two
government inspectors to look into the possible mishandling of classified
information in Clinton's private email account from when she was secretary
of state.

The department said it "has received a referral related to the potential
compromise of classified information."

A Justice Department official said the "referral" is not a request for a
criminal investigation into Clinton's emails, thousands of which she handed
over to the State Department after resigning in 2013. The New York Times
reported Thursday night that the inspectors general had asked for a
criminal investigation. But the Justice Department told Reuters and other
outlets that the referral was not of a criminal nature.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted that The Times should
correct its story, which was altered overnight without explanation to
suggest she personally was not the focus of a criminal referral. The Times
did issue a correction Friday afternoon.

"An earlier version of this article and an earlier headline, ​using
information from senior government officials, misstated the nature of the
referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal
email account while she was secretary of state," the correction read. "The
referral addressed the potential compromise of classified information in
connection with that personal email account. It did not specifically
request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton."

Clinton's use of a private email account for her work as America's top
diplomat came to light in March and brought criticism from political
opponents that she had sidestepped transparency and record-keeping laws.

Clinton, the front-runner to represent the Democratic Party in the November
2016 presidential election, has repeatedly said she broke no laws or rules
by eschewing a standard government email account for her State Department
work in favor of her private account. She also said she sent no classified
information by email.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement that she "followed
appropriate practices in dealing with classified materials."

The former first lady said she handed to the State Department last year all
the work-related emails she had, amounting to some 55,000 printed pages
covering her four-year tenure, although her staff have recently
acknowledged there are gaps in the records she retained.

But the inspector general of the intelligence community, in a letter to
Congress, said a limited sampling of Clinton's emails in question found at
least four that contained classified information and should have been
considered secret.

Reports on Friday about a possible investigation into the emails caused
confusion.

The Justice Department had also said the inspectors general had requested a
criminal investigation into the emails before backtracking and saying that
there was a request for a probe but not a criminal one.

Republicans have seized on the email scandal in Congress and on the
presidential campaign trail. The Republican National Committee, in a
statement Friday, urged the Justice Department to investigate, saying a
full investigation was "not just needed, but required."

Broader questions about Clinton's private email server have at times drawn
attention away from the Democratic front-runner's presidential campaign.
The latest disclosure comes days after polls in three key swing states
showed that a majority of voters did not consider her "honest and
trustworthy."

She also trailed three strong Republican contenders — former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush of Florida, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and US Sen. Marco Rubio
of Florida — in theoretical general-election matchups in those states.

*Call for DoJ probe into Clinton emails
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bd62dc34-3215-11e5-8873-775ba7c2ea3d.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fhome_us%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct#axzz3gpaUQmL0>
// FT // Demetri Sevastopulo and Gina Chon - July 24, 2015*

The Department of Justice has been asked to investigate a “potential
compromise of classified information” surrounding emails that Hillary
Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, sent
on her personal email account when she served as US secretary of state.

Inspectors-general at the state department and intelligence agencies called
for the DoJ probe after they found evidence of classified information in
the private email account that Mrs Clinton used for government business.

Mrs Clinton has come under heavy criticism since revealing in March that
she used a personal email address, instead of her official email account,
when serving as secretary of state. Her claims that she sent no classified
information over the private email have been called into question by the
move by the inspectors-general offices.

“Now we learn that Hillary Clinton’s desire to play by her own rules may
have further exposed classified information,” said Reince Priebus, chairman
of the Republican National Committee. “While a full investigation by the
DoJ is not just needed, but required, Hillary Clinton must also hand her
entire secret server over to an independent third party for further review.”

While Mrs Clinton has argued that some previous secretaries of state used
personal email, she went one step further by setting up a network server in
her home. The scandal of the emails — including thousands that she deleted
bef​​ore they could be examined — has weighed on her presidential campaign​
​in recent months, although she remains comfortably ahead of her Democratic
rival​s in the polls.

“The department has received a referral related to the potential compromise
of classified information,” said a DoJ official. “It is not a criminal
referral.”

The official declined to comment further, but the DoJ has not determined
whether it will open an investigation. The US government, particularly
under the Obama administration, takes the improper handling of classified
information as a serious issue.

Many DoJ prosecutions involving the mishandling of classified information
have involved leaks to external sources. In April, David Petraeus, the
retired general and former Central Intelligence Agency director, was fined
$100,000 for inappropriately handling classified material that he shared
with his lover.

​However, ​M​r​s Clinton’s case differs from traditional ​alleged ​breaches
of rules, because the allegations focus on whether classified information
was handled properly internally.

“Secretary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that the work-related emails on
her private home server did not include classified information, but we know
that is not true,” said John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House
of Representatives. “She has claimed she is well aware of what matters are
classified and what are not, and yet she set up a personal email server to
discuss matters of national security despite guidance to the contrary from
both her state department and the White House. Her poor judgment has
undermined our national security and it is time for her to finally do the
right thing.”

The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

*Clinton: Focus more on workers than on profits
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/249138-clinton-focus-more-on-workers-than-on-profits>
// The Hill // Ben Kamisar - July 24, 2015*

Companies must ditch the devotion to quarterly profits and provide for its
workers, not just shareholders, Hillary Clinton pressed in a speech Friday
in which she backed a $15 per hour minimum wage for New York fast-food
workers.

“Quarterly capitalism, as developed over recent decades, is neither legally
required or economically sounds. It’s bad for business, bad for wages and
bad for our economy and fixing it will be good for everyone,” she said.

On top of sharing additional details of her economic plan and promising a
broader outline for tax reform, Clinton endorsed the New York state
proposal to raise the minimum wage for state fast-food workers.

That move comes as her Democratic presidential rivals, Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.) and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, have coalesced around a
national $15 per hour minimum wage.

But Clinton has repeatedly bucked calls to join that chorus, characterizing
the minimum wage as a policy that should be handled on a state-by-state
basis and noting that the cost of living in New York City is far higher
than that in Little Rock, Ark.

“The national minimum wage is a floor, and it needs to be raised,” Clinton
said.

“What you can do in L.A. or in New York may not work in other places.”

Clinton panned companies that privilege stockholders at the expense of
workers, noting that large public companies return more than eight out of
every 10 dollars of earnings back to shareholders.

“That doesn’t leave much money to build a new factory or a research lab or
to train workers or give them a raise,” she said.

“It’s time to return to an old-fashioned idea: that companies’
responsibility to their shareholders also encompasses a responsibility to
employees, customers, communities and ultimately to our country and, yes,
to our planet.”

She also called for a sliding scale that would increase capital gains taxes
— taxes on investment sales — depending on how many years the seller has
held the investment for. That would encourage people to hold onto
investments longer by punishing rapid-fire transactions with higher taxes.

*Top Dem denies criminal probe of Clinton’s emails
<http://thehill.com/policy/defense/249077-top-dem-refutes-reports-of-criminal-probe-of-clintons-emails>
// The Hill // Martin Matishak - July 24, 2015*

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) is rebutting reports that the State Department
has formally requested a federal criminal investigation into Hillary
Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State.

"I spoke personally to the State Department inspector general on Thursday,
and he said he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal
investigation of Secretary Clinton's email usage,” Cummings, the top
Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said Friday in a
statement.

Instead, State Inspector General Steve A. Linick, “told me the Intelligence
Community IG notified the Justice Department and Congress that they
identified classified information in a few emails that were part of the
[Freedom of Information Act] review, and that none of those emails had been
previously marked as classified."

The Democratic presidential candidate has faced repeated criticism for her
private email use, with Benghazi panel members refusing to schedule her
testimony until records they've demanded are handed over.

The New York Times reported Thursday that a criminal request was made by
two inspectors general following a June 29 memo to Under Secretary of State
for Management Patrick F. Kennedy that found Clinton’s email server held
“hundreds of potentially classified emails."

State is reviewing the emails from Clinton’s serve for public release. The
first batch of more than 1,900 emails was released June 30.

In that initial group, portions of some emails were redacted because they
became classified, but none were marked as classified at the time Clinton
handled them.

The inspectors general told Kennedy in a July 17 memo that at least one
released email contained information that was classified, but did not
identify what it was.

For his part, Cummings said the select committee “has obtained zero
evidence that any emails to or from Secretary Clinton were marked as
classified at the time they were transmitted, although some have been
retroactively classified since then.”

“This is the latest example in a series of inaccurate leaks to generate
false front-page headlines − only to be corrected later − and they have
absolutely nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi or protecting our
diplomatic corps overseas,” said Cummings, who also serves as ranking
member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

*Hillary Clinton email inquiry not linked to criminal wrongdoing, official
says
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/24/hillary-clinton-email-not-linked-to-criminal-wrongdoing>
// Guardian // July 24, 2015 *

US investigators have asked the Justice Department to look into a
“potential compromise of classified information” surrounding the private
email server used by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, a
department official said on Friday.

The official said the referral by the investigators did not relate to
possible criminal wrongdoing, despite saying earlier on Friday that it did.
Another US official said it was unclear whether classified information was
mishandled and that the referral did not necessarily suggest any wrongdoing
by Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential race.

The officials were not authorized to discuss the referral publicly and
spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Clinton’s campaign said she had “followed appropriate practices in dealing
with classified materials”.

“Any released emails deemed classified by the administration have been done
so after the fact, and not at the time they were transmitted,” campaign
spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement.

Merrill also criticised the New York Times, which first reported the
referral by the inspectors general.

“It is now more clear than ever that the New York Times report claiming
there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton’s use of email is
false,” he said.

Merrill added: “It has now been discredited both by the Justice Department
and the ranking member of the House oversight committee [Democrat Elijah
Cummings]. This incident shows the danger of relying on reckless,
inaccurate leaks from partisan sources.”

In a speech in New York on Friday afternoon, Clinton said there had been “a
lot of inaccuracies” in reports about her email. She added: “We are
accountable to the American people to get the facts right, and I will do my
part.”

It was not immediately clear if the Justice Department would investigate
the matter, but the existence of the referral suggests that Clinton is
likely to face lingering questions during the presidential campaign over
her personal email account – an issue that has dogged her for months and
that Republicans have used to criticize her.

“The number of questions surrounding secretary Clinton’s unusual email
arrangement continues to grow,” said representative Trey Gowdy, a South
Carolina Republican who is chairing a special committee investigating the
2012 deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, reiterated
his call for Clinton to turn over her personal email server to an
independent third party.

Facing questions in March, Clinton said that as secretary of state she had
used a personal email account as a matter of convenience to limit the
number of electronic devices she used. She maintained then that she had
never sent classified information. Earlier this month, the State Department
made public some 3,000 emails involving Clinton covering March through
December 2009, and is under court order to make regular further releases of
such correspondence.

The aim is for the department to unveil 55,000 pages of her emails by 29
January 2016. But a federal judge this month chastised the State Department
for moving too slowly in providing the Associated Press with thousands of
emails submitted through the Freedom of Information Act.

The Justice Department receives many referrals that it decides not to take
up, and decisions about what to pursue often take some time.

*Hillary Clinton decries Wall Street's 'quarterly capitalism' in tax reform
pitch
<http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/24/hillary-clinton-capital-gains-tax-reform-wall-street>
// Guardian // Ben Jacobs - July 24, 2015*

In a speech on reforming “quarterly capitalism”, Hillary Clinton struck a
far more cautious note on Wall Street reform than her opponents for the
Democratic presidential nomination.

Addressing an audience at New York University on Friday afternoon, the
former secretary of state outlined a proposal to reshape the federal tax
code. She said this would encourage investors to focus on “long-term
growth” and abandon “a culture of short-term speculation”.

Clinton said that while she understood “that most CEOs are simply
responding to very real pressures from shareholders and the market to turn
in good quarterly numbers ... the system is out of balance”.

To the former secretary of state, “real value comes from long-term growth
and not short-term profits”.

Clinton outlined “five areas of focus”, including taxing capital gains on a
six-year sliding scale; doubling the period of time that capitol gains are
taxed at the top rate of 39.6%; and condemning the influence of activist
shareholders “determined to extract the maximum profit in the minimum
amount of time”.

The former secretary of state also called for changing corporate incentives
on CEO pay and, in particular, implementing regulations on disclosure of
CEO pay under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

Clinton again endorsed raising the minimum wage. While she fell short of
endorsing a nationwide minimum wage of $15 an hour, as demanded by many on
the left, she did endorse a proposal to raise the minimum wage to that
level for fast-food workers in New York City and noted “the high cost of
living in Manhattan”.

The speech prompted criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. On
the right, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of the Republican
Florida senator Marco Rubio repeated a familiar attack line by condemning
Clinton’s proposals as “the outdated policies of yesterday”.

On the left, Charles Chamberlain, the executive director of the progressive
group Democracy for America, said the former secretary of state had not
gone far enough in her proposals for Wall Street reform.

“Working to end short-termism on Wall Street will definitely help working
families in important ways,” said Chamberlain.

“But let’s be really clear: the Democratic party doesn’t want, and the
American people don’t need, another Democratic president who tip-toes
around Wall Street’s insatiable greed, makes corporate shills like Third
Way happy, or portrays common sense, time-tested solutions to ‘Too Big to
Fail’ like Glass-Steagall as too simplistic.”

*Hillary Clinton likely 'mishandled' secrets because too much is classified
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/24/hillary-clinton-secrets-classified>
// Guardian // Trevor Timm - July 24, 2015*

The minute that private email server Hillary Clinton used for work emails
as Secretary of State became a controversy, it was clear that evidence
would surface showing that classified information passed through that
address – despite her repeated denials.

Of course there was “secret” information in her emails – but not because
she had attempted to cover up smoking gun Benghazi emails like
conspiracy-addled Republicans hoped. It’s because the US classification
system is so insanely bloated and out of control that virtually everything
related to foreign policy and national security is, in some way or another,
classified.

And now it’s finally happened: the New York Times reported late Thursday
that two internal government watchdogs have recommended that the Justice
Department open a criminal investigation into Clinton’s private email
account, because the cache of 55,000 emails from her now-deleted server
reportedly include “hundreds of potentially classified emails”.

Even before the New York Times report on Thursday, the State Department had
already “retroactively” classified a bunch of information in the first
tranche of emails released to the public as part of a Freedom of
Information Act lawsuit. As experts pointed out at the time, it was “highly
unusual” for the government to be classifying information six years after
the fact.

Why would Clinton repeatedly and forcefully denied that the email account
had any classified information on it? It’s hard to imagine she could not
have known how broadly the government blankets its work with a secrecy
stamp.

Just look at the hundreds of thousands of leaked State Department cables
addressed to Clinton in 2010 and 2011, published by Wikileaks, that caused
her State Department so many headaches. Along with extremely important
information, the cables were full of mundane facts, already-public
information and unsubstantiated gossip that were marked “secret” by
government classifiers for no other reason than they could.

As the Federation of American Scientists’ Steven Aftergood said at the
time: “Many officials in the State Department and elsewhere use classified
as a default setting...It diminishes the meaning of the classified stamp.
It ceases to be an index of national security sensitivity and it becomes a
mere bureaucratic artifact.”

The same can be said for any federal agency that has anything to do with
foreign policy or national security. Over-classification is why any
journalism investigation into the State Department or CIA or NSA worth its
salt is inevitably is full of classified information – which puts
reporters’ sources at risk of prosecution, even if the information clearly
in the public interest and plainly would not harm national security. (The
countless examples of absurd levels of government secrecy and staggering
numbers of people with access to it have been tallied elsewhere many times.)

But the chances of Clinton being prosecuted for “mishandling classified
information” are about as close to none as you can get – not because she
didn’t break the law (one suspects it will eventually come out that she
technically did, if only because the secrecy laws are impossible not to
break), but because the prosecution “crimes” involving classified
information in the US is so shamefully biased.

As we have seen over and over in the last few years, infractions involving
government secrets committed by low-level officials without connections
lead to jail time, but high-ranking officials with well-placed friends get
a slap on the wrist or nothing at all (or even sometimes they get
promoted). There’s no debate which category Clinton falls into.

However, Clinton – who has been dogged by criticisms of being overly
secretive her entire career – could turn this scandal into an advantage and
make transparency a campaign issue. There’s a non-controversial Freedom of
Information Act reform bill she could get behind. She could call for
increased funding for Foia departments throughout government - the State
Department is claiming they are so deluged with such requests that they
can’t respond to anyone in a timely manner, after all. More importantly,
she could take on the much larger challenge of dismantling the corrupt and
arbitrary secrecy system once and for all.

The late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote in the famous Pentagon
Papers case in 1971:

For when everything is classified, then nothing is classified, and the
system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless, and to
be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion.

Almost 44 years later, it’s clear Potter’s statement has never been more
true – as Clinton is now finding out.

*Hillary Clinton calls for shift in corporate priorities to help workers
<http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/hillary-clinton-to-call-for-shift-in-corporate-priorities-to-help-workers-1.10673535>
// Newsday // James T. Madore - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday called on U.S. corporations and investors
to focus on long-term investments in workers, equipment and factories.

The leading Democratic presidential candidate decried "hit-and-run
shareholders" and rich CEOs who put short-term profits over expenditures on
new products and worker training.

Clinton, speaking at New York University's Stern School of Business,
proposed raising the capital gains tax on the profits reaped by investors
who buy and quickly dump stocks. She also said the tax code should be used
to encourage investments in startups and businesses in poor regions.

Clinton outlined a five-point plan that calls for greater disclosure of CEO
pay and how it relates to a business' long-term growth.

"It is clear that the system is out of balance," she told the crowd of
about 200 supporters, professors and students. "Quarterly capitalism is not
legally required or economically necessary. It is not good for our country."

Clinton spoke amid new questions about her email use while U.S. secretary
of state during President Barack Obama's first term.

Two inspectors general have requested that the U.S. Justice Department
launch a criminal probe into whether sensitive information was mishandled
in connection with her private email account, The New York Times reported,
citing memos obtained from an unnamed source.

Clinton has maintained that her email contained no classified information.
Her spokesman declined to comment to the Times.

The latest developments in the email controversy came as Clinton sought to
focus attention on what her campaign says is her blueprint for "shifting
corporate culture" that has resulted in wage stagnation and increased
anxiety in the middle class.

Clinton's speech at NYU is among several the former first lady and former
New York senator plans to detail her economic platform. They follow her
first major speech on the economy, delivered July 13 nearby at The New
School.

Clinton, in that earlier address, called for "reforms to help CEOs and
shareholders alike focus on the next decade, not just the next day."

She said stagnant wages are the "defining economic challenge of our time."
She called for raising the federal minimum wage, making it easier for women
to enter the workforce and cracking down on Wall Street malfeasance.

"I believe we have to build a growth and fairness economy," she said.

Separately Friday, Clinton endorsed the New York State Fast-Food Wage
Board's recommendation on Wednesday that the minimum wage for employees of
chain restaurants rise to $15 per hour by 2021.

"I agree with the New York proposal ... the minimum wage is a floor, and it
needs to be raised," she said, referring to the federal wage rate of $7.25
per hour. "New York is right to go higher because the costs are higher
here."

Wrapping up the 34-minute speech, Clinton emphasized her support of
capitalism, saying it was responsible for the United States' past
prosperity.

"But it needs to be reinvented," she said to loud applause. "It needs to be
put back into balance."

Clinton plans to spend the weekend and Monday campaigning in Iowa, home of
the first presidential caucuses in January. She will meet supporters and
address groups of civil servants and teachers, according to campaign
officials.

*What’s in those classified Clinton emails?
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article28642813.html>
// McClatchy // Corrine Kennedy - July 24, 2015*

Of the 3,000 Hillary Clinton emails made public June 30, 22 had sections
redacted because they contained information pertaining to national
security, foreign relations or U.S. actions in a foreign country.

Officials said the redactions were made to prepare the emails for
publication and that the information was not classified at the time Clinton
sent or received the emails.

Many of the classified emails involved North Korea, which was holding two
American journalists in detention at the time. These emails, all from 2009,
were dated March 30, April 1 and May 16, 22 and 15. Another email, dated
May 25, provided background for a call with Japanese, Russian, Chinese and
South Korean foreign ministers in the wake of a North Korean nuclear test.

Other popular topics in 2009 were Haiti – three emails dated June 16, July
15 and Oct. 25 – and Sri Lanka, two dated May 16, which was ending a
25-year civil war about the same time the emails were sent. Other emails
involved Honduras, which had experienced a coup a few months prior to the
Oct. 25, 2009, email, and Egypt, referenced on Nov. 27, 2009. The subject
of other emails is hard to ascertain because of the amount redacted.

All of the emails except one appear to be sent from or to State Department
officials.

The exception is one 2009 email from Sid Blumenthal, on July 26, longtime
adviser to the Clinton and her husband, the former president.

Blumenthal forwards Clinton an email from Joe Wilson, diplomat and husband
of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame, and asks her how a recent visit with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin went.

Clinton responds, “Berlin was terrific. Lots of good exchanges w leaders.”
The rest of the message was classified.

Republicans on Friday seized on a New York Times report that said two
inspectors general had asked the Justice Department to open a criminal
investigation into whether sensitive government information had been
mishandled.

Clinton’s presidential campaign said the story was false and asked the
newspaper for a correction.

A subsequent statement from I. Charles McCullough III and Steve Linick, the
inspectors general, agreed that they had not made a criminal referral. But
in their statement they said they had uncovered four emails that have yet
to be made public that did contain classified information and that should
not have been on a non-government server.

“These emails contained classified information when they were generated,
and, according to IC classification officials, that information remains
classified today,” the two officials wrote. “This classified information
should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”

Their referral to “security officials within the executive branch” was
consistent with laws that require they report “potential compromises of
national security information.”

Of course, what’s in those yet-be-released emails is unknown.

*Hillary Clinton Email Scandal Could Turn into Criminal Investigation
<http://gawker.com/hillary-clinton-email-scandal-could-turn-into-criminal-1719967543>
// Gawker // Sam Biddle - July 24, 2015*

Update: The New York Times has altered and corrected its original report:

An earlier version of this article and an earlier headline, ​using
information from senior government officials, misstated the nature of the
referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal
email account while she was secretary of state. The referral addressed the
potential compromise of classified information in connection with that
personal email account. It did not specifically request an investigation
into Mrs. Clinton.

The March revelation that presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton
was using a secret, possibly insecure email server immediately damaged her
public image. Now, the New York Times reports, it could lead to criminal
charges.

According to the Times:

Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal
investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled
in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used
as secretary of state

This comes after months of scrutiny of Clinton’s inbox, including a
Gawker/ProPublica exposé revealing her use of an off-the-books foreign
intel-gathering network.

The request to the Justice Department follows a series of memos from Steve
Linick and I. Charles McCullough, inspectors general for the State
Department and intelligence community, respectively. You can read the memos
in full below, but this portion, dated July 17th, seems to implicate
Clinton in the possibly illegal use of classified materials passing through
her personal email account, [email-masked]:

Hillary Clinton Email Scandal Could Turn into Criminal Investigation

The Times says there’s no word out of the Justice Department as to whether
they’ll pursue a criminal probe of the Clinton server, but the House Select
Committee on Benghazi—which has basically just become the Select Committee
on Hillary Clinton’s Email—released this statement:

Committee Members on both sides have been aware of concerns about
classified emails within the self-selected records turned over by Secretary
Clinton. The Committee appreciates that Inspectors General appointed by
President Obama have confirmed this is a serious and nonpartisan national
security matter by any objective measure. This certainly merits further
review by the Executive Branch to determine the legal and national security
implications posed by the former Secretary’s unusual email arrangement in
order to mitigate any potential counterintelligence risks and minimize the
damage caused by this scheme. These issues should be evaluated under the
same strict standards that would apply to anyone found to be in possession
of classified information outside of an approved system.

*Hillary Clinton Alleges ‘Inaccuracies’ in Reports of Inquiries Into Her
Emails
<http://observer.com/2015/07/hillary-clinton-alleges-inaccuracies-in-reports-of-inquiries-into-her-emails/>
// NY Observer // Jillian Jorgensen - July 24, 2015*

Before getting to a speech on the economy today, former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton took a brief moment to allege “inaccuracies” in reporting
today about criminal inquiries being sought into her use of a personal
e-mail address at the State Department.

“There have been a lot of inaccuracies,” Ms. Clinton said at New York
University this afternoon.

Ms. Clinton continues to face scrutiny over emails she sent from a personal
address while she was Secretary of State, with the New York Times reporting
last night two inspector generals had requested a criminal investigation
into the emails. Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that the
inspectors found at least four emails from the personal address that
contained information deemed “secret,” and which was classified, at the
time they were sent.

Ms. Clinton’s campaign has insisted the reports of a criminal inquiry are
false and has called on the Times to issue a correction. And Congressman
Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on
Benghazi, shot down the story this morning, and Ms. Clinton made reference
to his rebuttal today.

“Maybe the heat is getting to everyone,” Ms. Clinton said today. S

he went on promise transparency, saying she would continue to release
e-mails (though critics note many have been deleted).

“I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions before the House
Committee,” Ms. Clinton said. “We are all accountable to the American
people to get the facts right, and I will do my part. But I’m aso going to
stay focused on the issues, parituclarly the big issues that matter to
American families.”

*Hillary Clinton resurrects ‘90s tax policy
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/24/hillary-clinton-resurrects-90s-tax-policy/>
// Washington Times // S.A. Miller - July 24, 2015*

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday
proposed resurrecting tax policies from the time of her husband, former
President Bill Clinton, that she promised would promote long-term
investments and build a stronger economy.

Mrs. Clinton’s plan would replace the current two-tiered tax on capital
gains — the profit from selling stock or other assets — with a six-year
graduated rate that penalized wealthy investors for selling too early.

“This means from the moment investors buy into a company they’ll be more
focused on its future growth strategy than its immediate profits. And so
will some of its executives who are paid in part with stock or stock
options,” she said in a speech at the New York University’s School of
Business.

The reform of capital gains taxes was part of Mrs. Clinton’s broader agenda
that she says will prod business and Wall Street to look beyond quarterly
earnings reports and behave in ways that are better for American’s
long-term economic health.

“American business needs to break free form the tyranny of today’s earning
report so they can do what they do best: innovate, invest and build
tomorrows prosperity,” she said.

The plan immediately came under fire from Republican presidential candidate
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

“With tax policy nearly identical to what we had in 1997, Hillary Clinton
is stuck in the outdated policies of yesterday,” said Rubio campaign
spokesman Alex Conant. “Just like we saw in the ‘97 hit flick ‘Titanic,’
Hillary Clinton’s tax proposal picks winners and losers, and ultimately
leaves behind the working class. Marco Rubio will modernize our tax code to
create more good paying jobs and help middle-class families in the 21st
century.”

Capital gains are currently taxes at two rates, a top rate of 43.4 percent
for investments held less than a year and 23.8 percent for anything beyond
a year.

“That may count as long-term for my baby granddaughter but not for the
American economy,” Mrs. Clinton said. “It’s no way to run a tax system, so
as president I would move to a six-year sliding scale that provides real
incentives for long-term investments.”

Her proposal, which resembles the capital gains tax rates adopted in 1997
by Mr. Clinton, would treat capital gains as ordinary income for the first
two years for taxpayers in the top bracket, subjecting it to the top rate
of 43.4 percent.

After two years, the rate would decrease gradually over four years until it
reached the current rate of 23.8 percent, Mrs. Clinton said.

*Hillary Clinton’s private email account triggers criminal inquiry request
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/24/hillary-clintons-private-emails-account-triggers-c/>
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski and Maggie Ybara - July 24, 2015*

Some of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails had
classified information in them, though they weren't specifically labeled
classified at the time, and at least one of those emails has already been
put out in public by the department, its inspector general has concluded.

The revelations, contained in 13 pages of memos released by the State
Department inspector general, could pose problems for Mrs. Clinton, who had
insisted she never trafficked in classified information while using her own
assigned email account and server, kept at her New York home, rather than
an official, secure email account.

The New York Times, which first reported on the potential problems, said
the State Department and intelligence community inspectors general had
referred the matter to the Justice Department for possible criminal
prosecution. The paper printed a correction Friday, retracting the claim of
a criminal referral and saying Mrs. Clinton wasn't specifically targeted in
the referral.

A Justice Department official Friday confirmed a referral of "the potential
compromise of classified information" but said it was not a criminal
referral. Earlier Friday, the department had confirmed to The Washington
Times and other news outlets that it did receive a criminal referral.

Mrs. Clinton, speaking Friday at an unrelated event in New York City, said
that "there have been a lot of inaccuracies."

"Maybe the heat is getting to everybody," Mrs. Clinton said. "We all have a
responsibility to get this right. I have released 55,000 pages of emails. I
have said repeatedly that I will answer questions before the House
committee. We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts
right, and I will do my part."

For now, the revelations remain a black eye for President Obama's State
Department, which has struggled to handle Mrs. Clinton's email scandal, and
now stands accused of releasing classified information it shouldn't have.

Both the State Department and intelligence community inspectors general
looked into Mrs. Clinton's emails and concluded information contained in
them should be withheld from the public because it should be classified.

Their memo urged the State Department to enact better controls to make sure
the emails being put out in public weren't divulging secrets.

"ICIG has received confirmation from IC FOIA officials that several of
these emails contained classified IC information, though they were not
marked as classified. In addition, at least one of these emails has been
released to the public and can be accessed on the Department's FOIA
website," the investigators said.

The State Department is reviewing about 55,000 pages of emails Mrs. Clinton
belatedly turned over nearly two years after she left office. Officials
have already determined that some of the information in the messages should
be retroactively classified.

Mrs. Clinton has said she set up the separate account on a private server
largely out of convenience, and her office has said she did not send or
receive classified information on the account. But the revelation of the
account has been a headache for Mrs. Clinton in the early throes of her
second White House run.

A Clinton spokesman said she "followed appropriate practices in dealing
with classified materials."

"As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails deemed
classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not
at the time they were transmitted," spokesman Nick Merrill said.

On Friday, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee investigating the
Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi pushed back
strongly on the initial report.

"Over the past hour, I spoke personally with the State Department inspector
general and the Intelligence Community inspector general together, and they
both confirmed directly to me that they never asked the Justice Department
to launch a criminal investigation of Secretary Clinton's email usage,"
Rep. Elijah Cummings, Maryland Democrat, said in a statement Friday
afternoon, saying they characterized it as a "routine" referral.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican and the panel's chairman, said
committee members on both sides have been aware of concerns about
classified emails within the "self-selected record" turned over by Mrs.
Clinton.

"The committee appreciates that inspectors general appointed by President
Obama have confirmed this is a serious and nonpartisan national security
matter by any objective measure," Mr. Gowdy said in a statement. "This
certainly merits further review by the Executive Branch to determine the
legal and national security implications posed by the former secretary's
unusual email arrangement in order to mitigate any potential
counterintelligence risks and minimize the damage caused by this scheme.
These issues should be evaluated under the same strict standards that would
apply to anyone found to be in possession of classified information outside
of an approved system."

Mr. Gowdy reiterated his call for Mrs. Clinton to turn over her private
server for an independent forensic evaluation.

"Regardless of whether the server is voluntarily relinquished or acquired
by other lawful means, there is clearly sufficient cause to examine the
contents of said server for the presence of other classified information,"
Mr. Gowdy said. "Moreover, whether it was classified initially or later
classified, it is appropriate for the executive branch and intelligence
community to determine where these now classified documents are housed and
by whom they are possessed."

*DOJ: No, We Weren't Asked To Launch A Criminal Probe Into Clinton's Emails
<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/doj-no-hillary-clinton-criminal-inquiry>
// TPM // Catherine Thompson - July 24, 2015*

The U.S. Justice Department said Friday that, contrary to media reports, it
did not receive a request to open a criminal investigation into how
sensitive information was handled in Hillary Clinton's private emails.

The New York Times reported Thursday that two inspectors general asked the
Justice Department "to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive
government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email
account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state." The language of
that report originally cast Clinton as a target of the requested probe, but
notably was changed after Times reporters received complaints from
Clinton's presidential campaign.

The agency now says that it what it received was "not a criminal referral,"
but a request related to the potential compromise of classified
information, according to Washington Post report Sari Horowitz:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the top Democrat on the select House committee
investigating the Benghazi attacks, also rejected the notion that the
inspectors general of the State Department and intelligence agencies asked
for a criminal probe into Clinton's email account.

"I spoke personally to the State Department inspector general on Thursday,
and he said he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal
investigation of Secretary Clinton's email usage,” Cummings said in a
statement, as quoted by The Hill.

Cummings added that the State Department inspector general "told me the
Intelligence Community IG notified the Justice Department and Congress that
they identified classified information in a few emails that were part of
the [Freedom of Information Act] review, and that none of those emails had
been previously marked as classified," according to The Hill.

*Justice Dept. May Probe 'Compromise' of Classified Info In Hillary
Clinton's Email
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/justice-dept-may-probe-presence-of-classified-info-in-hillary-clinton-s-email-20150724?utm_content=buffer838c9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer>
// National Journal // Ben Geman - July 24, 2015*

The inspector general for the intelligence community has contacted the
Justice Department about the presence of emails in former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton's private account that contained classified
information.

A spokeswoman for I. Charles McCullough, III, the intelligence community
IG, said he sent a referral to the FBI earlier this month.

"The letter IC IG sent to FBI earlier this month was a counterintelligence
referral indicating there is a compromise of classified national security
information in former Sec. Clinton's emails. The emails exist on a at least
one private server and thumb drive and that was the counterintelligence
information concern we referred to the FBI," said spokesman Andrea Williams
in an email.

A Justice Department official said Friday that "The Department has received
a referral related to the potential compromise of classified information.
It is not a criminal referral." Earlier in the day, Justice referred to it
as a "criminal referral" before revising the statement.

The spokeswoman for McCullough noted that "We don't make criminal referrals
– that is over to FBI to decide how to proceed." And late Friday afternoon,
McCullough's office and the State Department IG issued a joint statement
that further explains the action, calling it a "security referral for
counterintelligence purposes."

The Justice Department does not appear to have made a decision about
whether to launch an inquiry.

The New York Times first reported the referral late Thursday night.

The revelation is certain to intensify interest in Clinton's unusual
private server arrangement during her time as secretary of State as the
2016 elections draw closer.

At the outset of a speech on the economy Friday afternoon, Clinton made
brief comments about the revelation and the Times' story, which her
campaign has pushed back against and has been modified since first
publishing. "There have been a lot of inaccuracies," she said. "Maybe the
heat is getting to everybody—we all have a responsibility to get this
right. I have released 55,000 pages of emails. I have said repeatedly that
I will answer questions before the House committee.

"We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right and I
will do my part. But I'm also going to stay focused on the issues,
particularly the big issues that matter to American families."

Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton's presidential campaign, said in a
statement that Clinton "followed appropriate practices in dealing with
classified materials."

"As has been reported on multiple occasions, any released emails deemed
classified by the administration have been done so after the fact, and not
at the time they were transmitted," he said.

The referral stems from a review by the inspectors general for the
Intelligence Community and the Department of State's handling of emails.
Several memos from the internal watchdogs made public Friday identified
problems with State's management, under public records law, of emails
containing classified information.

On Friday McCullough's office released a memo that was provided on Thursday
to the leaders of the congressional intelligence committees about the
status of the review of State's protocols. It notes that State has
discovered that there are "potentially hundreds" of emails in the 55,000
pages worth that Clinton turned over to her former agency that may contain
classified information.

The memo also reveals that a limited review conducted by McCullough's
office of 40 emails revealed four that contained classified intelligence
community information "which should have been marked and handled at the
SECRET level." Those emails have not been released by the State Department,
according to the memo from the intelligence community and State Department
inspectors general.

Andrea Williams, the spokesman for the Intelligence Community IG, said the
four emails with classified information turned up in the IG's limited
review "were classified when they were sent and are classified now."

The joint statement from the IGs on the review of Clinton's emails notes
that while these four messages contained "classified IC-derived
information," they did not contain "classification markings" or
"dissemination controls." The statement says the information "should never
have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system."

The memo from McCullough to the lawmakers also notes that the roughly
30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department late last year
are "purported" to have been copied to a thumb drive in the possession of
Clinton attorney David Kendall. McCullough notes that because his office's
limited sampling turned up four emails with classified intelligence
community information, he decided to refer the matter to the FBI as well as
other counterintelligence officials.

The joint memo he issued with State's IG expands on the reason for the
referral, stating: "The main purpose of the referral was to notify security
officials that classified information on at least one private server and
thumb drive that are not in the government's possession." The intelligence
community IG is required under law to refer potential compromises of
national security information to the "appropriate" intelligence community
security officials.

The McCullough memo also exposes a disagreement between State and the
intelligence community IG about the portion of Clinton's emails already
made public.

"My office discovered that an inadvertent release of classified national
security information had already occurred in the State FOIA process as a
result of insufficient coordination with Intelligence Community (IC)
elements. (State personnel continue to deny the classified character of the
released information despite a definitive determination from the IC
Interagency FOIA process)," it states.

According to the Intelligence Community IG's spokeswoman, there has been at
least one email released that contained classified national security
information.

The memo provides a summary of the recommendations for preventing
inadvertent release of classified information.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, the GOP leader of the House Select Committee on Benghazi,
on Friday renewed his call for Clinton's private email server to be turned
over to a third party for review.

"Regardless of whether the server is voluntarily relinquished or acquired
by other lawful means, there is clearly sufficient cause to examine the
contents of said server for the presence of other classified information.
Moreover, whether it was classified initially or later classified, it is
appropriate for the Executive Branch and intelligence community to
determine where these now classified documents are housed and by whom they
are possessed," he said in a statement.

Following conflicting accounts of the scope of a potential Justice Dept.
inquiry, Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House committee probing
the 2012 Benghazi attacks, said in a statement Friday that State's IG told
him the referral was not about "Clinton's email usage."

"Instead, he told me the Intelligence Community IG notified the Justice
Department and Congress that they identified classified information in a
few emails that were part of the FOIA review, and that none of those emails
had been previously marked as classified," Cummings said.

"The Benghazi Select Committee has obtained zero evidence that any emails
to or from Secretary Clinton were marked as classified at the time they
were transmitted, although some have been retroactively classified since
then," he said.

The State Department has released several thousand pages worth of Clinton's
messages from her time as secretary of State, and more releases from the
55,000 pages she provided are expected monthly until early next year.

A State Department official defended the vetting process.

‎"We are working with both the State IG and the Intelligence Community's
Inspector General to ensure that our review of former Secretary Clinton's
emails is completed in a manner that protects sensitive and potentially
classified information," the official said.

"To provide for greater cooperation through this process -- at the
invitation of the Department --IC FOIA reviewers are reviewing emails and
identifying those emails that might contain IC equities," the official
added.

*False reports of Hillary Clinton investigation just keep falling apart
<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/24/1405339/-False-reports-of-Hillary-Clinton-investigation-just-keep-falling-apart>
// Daily Kos // Laura Clawson - July 24, 2015*

The false story that the Justice Department was being asked to launch a
criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton continues to be shoved back
into the faces of the New York Times and whoever leaked the fake version of
the story. And the fact that one of the key sources of pushback is Rep.
Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on
Benghazi, might provide a wee clue as to the likely source of that leak.
(There's no good explanation for the Times falling for it.)

Cummings provides more support for the fact that the investigation the
State Department Inspector General wants to see is not into Clinton's
actions but into the State Department's later handling of the emails she
turned over:

"I spoke personally to the State Department Inspector General on Thursday,
and he said he never asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal
investigation of Secretary Clinton's email usage,” Cummings, the top
Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said Friday in a
statement.

Instead, State Inspector General Steve A. Linick, “told me the Intelligence
Community IG notified the Justice Department and Congress that they
identified classified information in a few emails that were part of the
[Freedom of Information Act] review, and that none of those emails had been
previously marked as classified."

Cummings also provided another memo from the Office of the Inspector
General making clear that the investigation in question wasn't about
Hillary Clinton's actions, and that the classified emails were not marked
as classified at the time. For more on that question, Marcy Wheeler has a
great look at the practice of retroactive classification.

On top of the investigation referral not being about Hillary Clinton's
actions, the Justice Department is now also saying it's not a criminal
inquiry at all. Could this story have been any more screwed up?

*New York Times presents another Clinton bombshell ... and again, it bombs
<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/24/1405310/-New-York-Times-presents-another-Clinton-bombshell-and-again-it-bombs>
// Daily Kos // Laura Clawson - July 24, 2015*

Is this going to be the story that finally embarrasses the New York Times
out of its never-mind-the-facts approach to Hillary Clinton? Late Thursday
night, the Times published a story claiming that the Justice Department had
been asked "to open a criminal investigation into whether Hillary Rodham
Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email
account," only to quietly change the story to say that the Justice
Department had been asked "to open a criminal investigation into whether
sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the
personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used." As in, the story
changed from being about a potential criminal investigation into Clinton's
conduct to being about a potential criminal investigation into the
mishandling of sensitive information by ... someone not named.

The title of a recent memo from the Office of the Inspector General at the
State Department—one of the offices the Times cites as having asked for the
investigation—offers a hint:

Potential Issues Identified by the Office of the Inspector General of the

Intelligence Community Concerning the Department of State's Process for the

Review of Former Secretary Clinton's Emails under the Freedom of Information

Act [Emphasis added]

Clinton, of course, is no longer at the State Department and so isn't in
control of how they review her emails. And the Associated Press reports
that:

One U.S. official said it was unclear whether classified information was
mishandled and the referral doesn't suggest wrongdoing by Clinton herself.

So the original story was all kinds of wrong. But never mind that! For a
brief moment, the New York Times thought it had an anti-Hillary scoop, and
boy did it run with it. The headline blared that "Criminal inquiry sought
in Hillary Clinton's use of email" and one of the reporters on the story,
Michael Schmidt, tweeted that:

This is not the first time this election season the Times has had reason to
be embarrassed by its political coverage, and specifically its coverage of
Clinton, but this may be the worst. (And the fact that I can't say
confidently that it is the worst is a shocking reminder of how bad some of
their other coverage has been.) They simply don't seem to have checked out
their story at all, leaving open the question of whether the reporting was
drawn directly from a Republican tip on the story without research into the
story's accuracy, whether the newspaper's editors didn't care to establish
the facts before running with an incendiary story that they knew would make
a splash, or whether they just hate Hillary Clinton that much. None of the
possibilities should be acceptable for anything aspiring to be the paper of
record, and the unacknowledged change to the heart of the story piles on an
additional shame. The Times owes its readers an apology and, more, a
promise to do better from now on.

*Capital Gains Tax And Long-Term Growth Topics At NYU Speech By
Presidential Candidate
<http://www.ibtimes.com/hillary-clinton-election-2016-capital-gains-tax-long-term-growth-topics-nyu-speech-2023934>
// IB Times // Jess McHugh - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton chose a speech Friday at New York University's Stern
Business School as the opportunity to detail the economic plan she would
put in place if elected president. The speech elaborated on a plan she had
outlined July 13.

Clinton said she would encourage long-term growth by discouraging
short-term investments and cracking down on "hit-and-run activists" who
were seeking immediate payouts from companies. "We need a new generation of
committed, long-term investors to provide a counter-weight to the
hit-and-run activists" she said.

The former U.S. secretary of state advocated for higher capital gains taxes
for people who hold stocks for less than a few years. She wants to take on
what she calls "quarterly capitalism" which values quarterly returns for
shareholders over long-term investment. Clinton said she believed that kind
of short-term thinking in the markets was a large part of what was slowing
the nation's economy.

The content of the speech seemed targeted at moderate voters. Though
Clinton aides said she wanted to start a broader conversation about
corporate culture, this address was more directly concerned with the
capital gains tax that many investors already think is a good idea.

Clinton did criticize the exorbitant paychecks of corporate executives,
noting that they sometimes earn up to 300 times what their employees do.
"That just doesn't make sense" said Clinton. She also said the issue of
executive pay is intrinsically tied to the problem of short-term
investments because "stock-heavy pay packages have created a perverse
incentive."

The speech called for a raise in the federal minimum wage and the
establishment of programs for middle-class corporate employees to share in
corporate profits. "Corporate profits are at near-record highs, but
companies are too often not choosing to reinvest those funds in innovation
or their workforce," a Clinton aide told CNN Thursday.

Many observers thought her economic plan could unite progressives and
moderates within the Democratic Party because it toed a subtle line and did
not suggest anything too radical. “It’s a complete win-win,” said Jonathan
Cowan, a former official in President Bill Clinton's administration, in
conversation with Politico. “Her political imperative is to unite the
growth wing and the fairness wing of the party, so she has the best shot at
winning a general election."

*Sanders Surges, Hillary Drops in New Gallup Poll
<http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-gallup-poll/2015/07/24/id/658819/>
// Newsmax // Jason Devaney - July 24, 2015*

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is becoming more popular among voters as he
contends for the Democratic nomination in the presidential race, while
Hillary Clinton's numbers are falling.

A new Gallup poll finds that Sanders' favorability rating has doubled since
March, rising from 12 percent to 24 percent. Since April, Clinton's
favorability rating has slipped from 48 percent to 43 percent.

Further, Clinton's unfavorable rating is now 46 percent, leading to a net
favorable rating of -3 percent — her lowest score since 2007, according to
Gallup.

Regarding Sanders' numbers, 44 percent of likely voters in the Gallup poll
were able to rate him, an increase of 20 percent since March — meaning he
is gaining more visibility.

Other highlights from the Gallup poll:

Among Democrats and left-leaning independents, Clinton's favorability
rating has dropped from 79 percent to 74 percent since April.

Clinton's favorability rating has fallen from 44 percent to 36 percent
among independents, while 14 percent of Republicans and right-leaning
independents hold a favorable view of her.

75 percent of women hold a favorable view of Clinton, compared to 32
percent for Sanders.

*Hillary Clinton Puts Fashion Bloggers to Shame
<http://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/2015/07/hillary-clinton-instagram-style/>
// W Magazine // Sarah Leon - July 24, 2015*

Six weeks ago, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton launched her
Instagram feed with a photo of red, white and blue pieces, playfully
captioned “Hard Choices.” Now, like many popular fashion bloggers,
@HillaryClinton posts daily images with “Get the look: Link in bio” of her
#OOTD ensembles. In fact, aspiring fashion bloggers could learn a thing or
two from the former senator-turned-style star. See for yourself.

It’s okay to match your look to your state. Here, Clinton takes on New York
in blue.

Celebrate others with great personal style.

Especially if they happen to be the President.

Remind friends that you’ve always been hip.

If Lady Gaga makes a T-shirt with your face on it—don’t pass up the
Insta-opportunity for a photo.

Celebrate the next generation of style stars.

Show off your total look—from the best possible angle.

Always coordinate with your backdrop.

And a good manicure.

When in doubt, post a #TBT.

*Hillary Clinton E-mails May Prompt Further Inquiry (Updated)
<http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/07/clinton-email-criminal-investigation>
// Vanity Fair // Kia Makarechi - July 24, 2015*

The inspectors general of the intelligence community and State Department
on Friday released a joint statement confirming that a referral was made
regarding the potential compromise of classified materials. They also,
however, said that the probe was not, as had earlier been reported by The
New York Times, a criminal inquiry.

The Justice Department also confirmed that it had received a referral, and
likewise said that the referral is not criminal in nature. The department
has not decided whether to open an investigation.

“There have been a lot of inaccuracies,” Clinton said on Friday. “Maybe the
heat is getting to everybody. We all have a responsibility to get this
right.”

“It is now more clear than ever than the New York Times report claiming
there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton’s use of e-mail is
false,” said Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill. “This incident shows the
danger of relying on reckless, inaccurate leaks from partisan sources.”

The Times added a correction to its story, which the paper said was the
product of faulty information from senior government officials.

The headline of this article has been updated in light of the above
information. The original article continues below.

Call it the Energizer Bunny: the scandal over Hillary Clinton’s e-mail
entered yet another stage on Thursday night, when The New York Times
reported that inspectors general had requested that the government open a
criminal investigation on the matter.

At issue is Clinton’s exclusive use of a private e-mail server—one housed
in her Chappaqua, New York, home—during her tenure as secretary of state.
Two inspectors general are pushing the Justice Department to investigate
whether Clinton’s use of the private e-mail addresses constituted a
mishandling of secret government information.

According to the Times, the department has yet to decide on whether it will
open a criminal probe. A Clinton spokesman told the AP that the former
secretary of state “followed appropriate practices in dealing with
classified materials.”

The e-mail scandal has dogged Clinton’s campaign for president. A poll
found in July that nearly 60 percent of Americans don’t believe Clinton is
“honest and trustworthy,” a reality Clinton dismissed in her first national
TV interview of the election cycle as the product of “the kind of constant
barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the right.”

Clinton insists that the use of the e-mail was a matter of convenience,
that her correspondence was appropriately captured by government archiving
systems, and that she did not handle classified information on the account.
Some of the e-mails have been classified after the fact, but, as the Times
notes, it is not clear whether she used the e-mail addresses to send or
receive any material that was classified at the time.

She has turned over 55,000 pages of e-mails and asked the State Department
to release them; a first batch of 3,000 documents was released last month.
They revealed that Clinton frequently communicated with Sidney Blumenthal,
a longtime Clinton insider whom Barack Obama’s administration had barred
from employment. Replete with details about ordering in dinners for late
nights on the job and Clinton’s misadventures with a fax machine, the
e-mails also offered a glimpse into the everyday banalities of life as a
cabinet official.

*Hillary Clinton: Capitalism Needs to Be ‘Reinvented’ and ‘Put Back into
Balance’
<http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/07/24/hillary-clinton-capitalism-needs-to-be-reinvented-and-put-back-into-balance/>
// The Blaze // Fred Lucas - July 24, 2015*

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said capitalism must be
“reinvented” during an economic address where she condemned the pursuit of
short-term profits at the expense of long-term prosperity.

Delivering remarks at New York University, Clinton decried “quarterly
capitalism.”

“I’m looking for new, creative, innovative, disruptive ideas that will save
capitalism for the 21st century because it is the greatest engine of
economic opportunity and potential that has ever been invented,” Clinton
said. “It is one of the great accomplishments of the American political and
economic history. It created the opportunity that so many generations of
Americans took advantage of and that led to the creation of the middle
class, the extraordinary economic accomplishment of our country.”

“As we’ve had to do in previous eras, it needs to be reinvented,” Clinton
said of capitalism. “It needs to be put back into balance. It needs to
recognize we really are all in this together. The better we all do, the
more there will be for everybody to share in, to invest in, to profit from.”

Clinton talked about reforming capital gains taxes to encourage long-term
investments. Her plan would tax investment more that are sold in less than
a year, but less if held onto for longer, as a means of what Clinton said
would encourage long-term investment and more innovation. Further, she
called for expanding tax credits for those who invest in underprivileged
areas.

“American business needs to break free from the tyranny of today’s earning
report so that they can do what they do best, innovate, invest and build
tomorrow’s prosperity,” Clinton said.

After her critique of large publicly traded companies, Clinton took a swipe
at Republicans.

“Their approach to government mirrors the worst tendencies of hit and run
shareholders, demanding quick payouts in the form of tax breaks for the
wealthy at the expense of investing in the future,” Clinton said. “They
ignore long-term challenges like climate change, poverty and inequality,
failing infrastructure.”

*New York Times Writes Badass Slash Fiction About Hillary Clinton Criminal
Investigation
<http://wonkette.com/592018/new-york-times-writes-badass-slash-fiction-about-hillary-clinton-criminal-investigation>
// Wonkette // Kaili Joy Gray - July 24, 2015*

In its pathological Liberal Media quest to catch Billary Clinton Doing Some
Kind of Bad Thing That Is Bad Maybe, the New York Times published a
devastating, campaign-destroying, earth-shattering, game-changing, smoking
gun GOTCHA! story late Thursday night, and it was Not Excellent News for
Hillary:

Criminal Inquiry Sought in Clinton’s Use of Email

Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal
investigation into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive
government information on a private email account she used as secretary of
state, senior government officials said Thursday.

That sounds pretty uh oh. Criminal, even! Hillary will never be president
now because she will be in PRISON, for emailing sensitive classified state
secrets from her personal [email-masked] email, even though she said
she only used it to plan her daughter’s wedding and talk about yoga. But
no! She used it for doing crime and jeopardizing national security. Bad
Hillary, no White House for you!

Just one little problem: it’s not true, according to the Justice
Department. Oops!

A statement issued by the Department said it had received a “referral” on
the matter, although it did not say who originated it.

“It is not a criminal referral,” the statement said.

But what about looking into Hillary’s “use of email”? Nope, that’s not true
either:

The Justice Department said Friday it has been asked to investigate the
“potential compromise of classified information” in connection with the
private e-mail account that Hillary Rodham Clinton used while serving as
secretary of state.

That’s a little bit different from saying Hillary Clinton might be
criminally investigated for emailing classified information, isn’t it? As
the Times noted in its shocking story:

In the course of the email review, State Department officials determined
that some information in the messages should be retroactively classified.
In the 3,000 pages that were released, for example, portions of two dozen
emails were redacted because they were upgraded to “classified status.” But
none of those were marked as classified at the time Mrs. Clinton handled
them.

So the State Department is retroactively classifying documents Hillary
emailed, which were not classified at the time, but that adds up to
criminal activity by Clinton, and the DOJ is ON IT, except not? Ace
reporting there, The New York Times!

The paper eventually decided it regrets the error of getting the whole
thing wrong, so it changed the headline and the lede and the story, and
added a “correction,” and it is very sorry about that, we good now?

But the interweb is forever, so you can see the changes from the original
story here, thanks to NewsDiffs.

So, how did the Times fuck this up so badly? Well, it got some secret
memos. Can’t tell you how, it is a SECRET. But Democratic Rep. Elijah
Cummings, who is a member of the House Benghazi Committee To Investigate
Hillary Clinton Until They Prove She Did Benghazi, thinks he might know:

In a statement, Cummings said that “this is the latest example in a series
of inaccurate leaks to generate false front-page headlines — only to be
corrected later — and they have absolutely nothing to do with the attacks
in Benghazi or protecting our diplomatic corps overseas.”

So hmm, maybe Republicans are leaking information to the Times to try to
turn a story that isn’t a story into a story, for their own political gain.
But nah, they would never do something like that, would they? And the Times
would never play along, would it? (Yes and yes.)

*Criminal Probe Sought Over Hillary Clinton's Private Emails: Reports
<http://www.people.com/article/hillary-clinton-criminal-inquiry-sought-private-emails>
// People // Maria Coder - July 24, 2015*

Two inspectors general want a criminal probe into whether government
information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account
that Hillary Clinton used as Secretary of State.

On the heels of a story from The New York Times, multiple sources report
the Justice Department is being asked to open an investigation.

In a memo to the Undersecretary of State for management, Patrick Kennedy,
the inspectors general of the State Department and the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence, wrote that Clinton had "hundreds of
potentially classified emails" in her private email account, according to
the Times, which cited "senior government officials."

The inspectors general are independent officials tasked with conducting
audits, investigations and inspections in the agencies for which they're
responsible.

Clinton's use of her personal account instead of a State Department one for
official business started a political storm after news of it was revealed
in March.

Clinton, now a Democratic presidential contender for 2016, has insisted it
was "undisputed" that the State Department had okayed her email arrangement
and that she did not handle classified material on her private email
account.

At first the Times reported that the inspectors general sought a criminal
inquiry into the way Clinton handled possible classified information with
her private email while serving as Secretary of State. It's now reported
that the investigation would just look at whether sensitive information was
mishandled, though not necessarily mishandled by Clinton, CNN reports.

In June, Clinton turned over to the State Department 3,000 pages of her
electronic correspondence – part of a batch of about 30,000 pieces.

The content included asking an assistant to fetch iced tea, comments on
scheduling glitches, and exchanges with her husband, former President Bill
Clinton, among other things.

The Justice Department has not yet decided if it will open an
investigation, according to the *Times.*

*OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE*

*O’MALLEY*

*A pro-O’Malley super PAC raises $289,000. That’s not all that super.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/24/a-pro-omalley-super-pac-raises-289000-thats-not-all-that-super/>
// WaPo // John Wagner - July 24, 2015*

A super PAC supporting Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley says
it will report having raised $289,000 during its first month -- a relative
pittance compared to the multi-million dollar efforts by outside groups
backing other candidates, including party frontrunner Hillary Rodham
Clinton.

Ron Boehmer, a spokesman for Generation Forward, the PAC backing the former
Maryland governor, said his group was pleased with its take, given that it
did not bring fundraising staff on board until the end of June, as the
reporting period was about to end.

“Now it’s go time,” said Boehmer, a former press aide to O’Malley. “I would
expect we’ll have much more significant numbers to report at the next
deadline.”

By contrast, a quartet of outside groups supporting Clinton have said they
brought in more than $24 million during the first half of the year. The
largest chunk of that -- $15.6 million -- came from Priorities USA, a
pro-Clinton super PAC.

Supporters of Republican Jeb Bush, meanwhile, raised $108 million for a
super PAC to bolster the campaign of the former Florida governor -- a mark
unmatched by any other outside group.

Groups backing a half-dozen other GOP contenders took in $10 million or
more.

Boehmer said Generation Forward’s money was raised from across the country
and that contributions ranged in size from $25 to the “six figures.”
Several donors previously gave to a leadership PAC maintained by O’Malley
known as O’ Say Can You See. The super PAC’s report is due to the Federal
Election Commision by the end of the month.

By law, O’Malley’s campaign can’t coordinate with the super PAC supporting
his presidential run. O’Malley has said that he would prefer that no super
PACs -- whose donors can give unlimited sums -- get involved in the race.

Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist senator from
Vermont, has gone further, discouraging super PACs from supporting his
quest for the Democratic nomination. He doesn’t appear to have been
entirely successful, however. Word surfaced last week of a new group dubbed
“Billionaires for Bernie.”

The pro-O’Malley group has cut a couple of targeted Web and television ads
and has said it has hired about 50 staffers do to on-the-ground organizing
for O’Malley in Iowa -- with the possibility of more to come. It also
hosted a gathering in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last week after a state party
dinner there that drew all five contenders for the Democratic nomination.

The figures from outside groups do not include what candidates have raised
for their own campaign committees. By that measure, O’Malley is lagging
both Clinton and Sanders.

Clinton has reported raising $47 million for during the past quarter
quarter, followed by Sanders with $15.1 million and O’Malley with nearly $2
million.

*On banks, O’Malley is both prosecutor and policy wonk
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/24/on-banks-omalley-is-both-prosecutor-and-policy-wonk/>
// WaPo // Aaron C. Davis - July 24, 2015*

As a young state’s attorney in Baltimore, Martin O’Malley prosecuted a
parade of drug dealers, the city’s seemingly insurmountable public enemy.
As mayor and, later, governor of Maryland, he often seemed most at home
when facing off against some other Goliath – a Republican governor trying
to take over his city’s schools, for example, or the gun industry.

In his long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, O’Malley
has taken on a new enemy: Wall Street and mega-banks.

During a policy speech in Washington Thursday, O'Malley blasted the
nation’s banking industry as everything short of evil . In the process, he
showcased both the best and the worst of the political DNA he’s counting on
to help him dethrone Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“We need to restore robust deterrents to those who police Wall Street. We
cannot assume that this is the one industry that’s allowed to police
itself. We need to put the cops back on the street,” O’Malley said.

O’Malley named Republican majorities in Congress as co-conspirators for
cutting funding for Wall Street oversight.He argued for more stringent
federal monitoring of banks, and, if necessary, government action to break
them up and to bring charges against executives when institutions fail.

“When there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing, we need to prosecute it,”
O’Malley said.

But O'Malley the prosecutor was also at times O'Malley the policy wonk,
swimming in legalese so deep that some in the audience began to check their
phones.

O’Malley ticked off a list of proposals, including an end to revolving
doors between positions in industry and government oversight. He said the
next administration must do a better job of enforcing Dodd-Frank, including
a provision that requires banks to have plans for how they would safely
dissolve instead of causing a chain reaction again that would destabilize
the economy.

As he first proposed in March, O’Malley called for Congress to reinstate a
“modern version” of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which forced
banks to separate their commercial activities and more speculative
investment ones. The measure was repealed by Congress in 1999.

But asked by a reporter “what’s wrong with the old one, if anything?”
O’Malley punted.

“Yeah,” O’Malley said, kicking the question to moderator Brad Miller, a
former Democratic congressman. “Maybe you have an answer to that
congressman? What was wrong with the old one?”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is the ranking minority member of the
Senate budget committee and has emerged as Clinton's chief rival so far for
the Democratic nomination,  has also made Wall Street largesse a theme,
crowding the space for O'Malley to define what he would do differently.
Asked about how he would distingush himself on banking from both Sanders
and Clinton, O'Malley repeated a stump speech line that he is the only
candidate among Democrats with executive experience.

Thursday’s event was originally scheduled for the National Press Club, but
O’Malley’s campaign balked at the club's longstanding format, in which a
single club-designated journalist asks follow-up questions of the
candidate. The speech was held instead at the Center for National Policy,
an organization whose board includes O’Malley adviser Douglas Wilson.

An Irish songwriter prone to quoting poetry, O’Malley spent some time
waxing philosophical about the campaign.

“Every election, especially every national election, is the opportunity for
a deeper understanding, and understanding precedes action," he said. "I
think real leadership is to forge a new consensus, not to follow or submit
to the straight jacket of the way things are today.”

*Congress needs to act on gun reform
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/07/24/martin-malley-congress-needs-act-gun-reform/VHwtYH6qor1wVsy4u1n2mJ/story.html>
// Boston Globe // Martin O’Malley - July 24, 2015*

THIS WEEK, we again watched in horror as more images of gun violence
flashed across our TV and computer screens.

On Thursday, two people were killed at a movie theater in Lafayette, La.
Last week, five service members were killed in Chattanooga, Tenn. And last
month, nine parishioners were killed in Charleston, S.C. — solely because
of their skin color.

During the first 204 days of 2015, there have been 204 mass shootings: a
mass shooting for every day of the year.

These tragedies aren’t isolated incidents or even “accidents” as some have
called them — they’re part of a full-blown epidemic.

We cannot let this become the new normal. As we mourn for the lives cut
short — for the victims and the loved ones they leave behind — we can’t
just sit by and wait for another tragedy to happen again.

We need comprehensive gun safety laws to save lives.

This is where we should start: The federal government should limit the sale
of firearms to tightly regulated, licensed dealers. That means closing the
“gun show loophole” once and for all, and banning unlicensed private
individuals from selling guns.

We should also impose greater restrictions on what, to whom, and where
dealers can sell guns. That means banning the sale of assault weapons,
increasing inspections, and establishing a national gun registry to help
law enforcement track down dangerous criminals. It also means requiring gun
owners to secure and safely store all firearms in their homes.

In Maryland, we implemented some of the toughest measures in the nation to
crack down on gun violence. The reforms we put in place included required
licensing, fingerprinting, background checks, and safety training. We
ensured that these requirements applied to all buyers, whether they were
acquiring a gun from a dealer, a secondary sale, or as a private gift.

We took action to keep guns off the street and make them less deadly. We
banned the sale of assault weapons and limited the size of magazines. And,
if a firearm was lost or stolen, we required it to be reported immediately
to law enforcement.

Our goal in Maryland, as it should be for the nation, was to reduce mass
shootings and keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

This wasn’t easy, and we didn’t get it done on the first try. It took six
years — from 2007, when I first supported an assault weapons ban, until
2013 — for us to get this done. I faced strong opposition even from members
of my own party. Legislators faced threats from the NRA and saw 2,000
gun-rights advocates flood the halls of the Maryland General Assembly.

The same debate is playing out in Congress today. While the public strongly
backs common-sense gun safety reforms, Congress has refused to act on them.

It’s no surprise: With millions of dollars from the gun industry and an
astronomical number of lobbyists, the National Rifle Association has been
able to silence members of Congress who privately support these reforms.
Their fear of retribution has led them to block even the most basic gun
safety reforms.

Stopping the preventable deaths of American citizens should not be a
partisan issue, or the purview of special interests. These members of
Congress need to find the courage to do the right thing, without fear of
the NRA’s clout, come next election.

It’s not enough just to “have the conversation.” It’s time for actual
leadership and action.

*O'Malley gets early backing from a California lawmaker
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-07242015-htmlstory.html?update=84070924>
// LA Times // Michael Memoli - July 24, 2015*

A California congressman has become the first Washington lawmaker to
endorse former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley in the Democratic race for
president, calling him the best choice for the millennial generation.

Second-term Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), a native Iowan, will campaign
for O'Malley in that key nominating state this weekend. In a Des Moines
Register op-ed, the 34-year-old Swalwell wrote that O'Malley helped inspire
his decision to enter public service.

“In 2012, I ran for Congress to bring new energy and ideas to Washington,
D.C., and fight for millennial issues. But my efforts alone cannot pave the
pathways to opportunity millennials need,” he writes. “Our generation needs
Martin O'Malley in the White House.”

Swalwell's endorsement is not a total surprise. Last year, we reported that
he had taken on a leadership role in O'Malley's political action committee
as chairman of the Young Professional Leadership Council. At the time, he
praised O'Malley, who is well behind Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham
Clinton in early polls, for helping raise money for Democrats in the House
and said his “results-oriented, data-driven approach” to governing would
appeal to younger voters.

*Martin O’Malley sides with illegal immigrants in lawsuit against Texas
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/24/martin-omalley-sides-illegal-immigrants-lawsuit-ag/>
// Washington Times // S.A. Miller - July 24, 2015*

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley on Friday blasted Texas
for denying birth certificates to some U.S.-born children of illegal
immigrants without valid identification documents, declaring that
“citizenship is a human right.”

“Denying birth certificates to U.S, citizens is not only outrageous, it’s
unconstitutional,” the former Maryland governor said in a statement
released in English and Spanish.

“The 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution could not be clearer. It
states that ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and
of the state wherein they reside,’ ” he said. “The Texas Department of
State Health services should cease this discriminatory and unconstitutional
practice immediately. Citizenship is a human right.”

Mr. O'Malley has attempted to challenge Democratic presidential
front-runner Hillary Clinton on immigration, proposing the most sweeping
plans for amnesty and expanding rights for illegal immigrants of any
candidate.

A group of 19 illegal immigrant parents and their 23 children have filed
suit against the Texas Department of State Health Services after officials
refused to issue birth certificates the U.S.-born children, citing invalid
forms of identification.

The parents came from Mexico and Central America and live in Texas’ Rio
Grande Valley, along the U.S.-Mexico border. Although the parents are not
citizens, their U.S.-born children are citizens by birthright under the
14th Amendment.

Texas health officials asking the judge to dismiss a lawsuit Wednesday,
arguing that court lacks jurisdiction over claims against the state agency.
Lawyers for the agency also argued that Texas has sovereign immunity and
cannot be sued and that its policy does not interfere with any federal
regulation.

Texas, they said, has the “power to control the circumstances under which
it will provide copies of birth certificates.”

*O’Malley nets first congressional endorsement
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/249150-omalley-nets-first-congressional-endorsement>
// The Hill / Jonathan Easley - July 24, 2015*

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) announced Friday he’ll support Martin
O’Malley (D) for president, giving the former Maryland governor his first
endorsement from a member of Congress.

In an op-ed published in The Des Moines Register, Swalwell, a 34-year-old
lawmaker serving his second term in the House, described O’Malley as a
“friend and mentor” who inspired him as a college student at the University
of Maryland to seek a life in public service after seeing O'Malley speak.

“He spoke to my class about our civic duty to help others, unify
communities and offer solutions for the common good,” Swalwell wrote. “I
was hooked. I watched him lead not just with words but by deeds, and I
committed myself to following his example of service to others.”

Hillary Clinton is far outpacing her Democratic rivals in the race for
congressional endorsements.

According to The Hill’s whip list, the former secretary of State and
presidential front-runner has the support of 85 members of the House and 30
senators.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has emerged as Clinton’s biggest
challenger, does not have any congressional endorsements.

O’Malley is struggling to gain traction in the race for the Democratic
presidential nomination.

According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, he’s stuck at 1
percent support nationally, trailing Clinton, Sanders, Vice President
Biden, who has not entered the race, and former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.).

O’Malley has sought to set himself apart by releasing a series of detailed
policy proposals that have been well-received by many liberals. But so far
Sanders is the candidate galvanizing the liberal base and chipping away at
Clinton’s lead in the polls.

*Our generation needs Martin O'Malley in the White House
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/caucus/2015/07/24/eric-swalwell-millennial-endorsement-martin-omalley/30630681/>
// Des Moines Register // Rep. Eric Swalwell - July 24, 2015*

I was born in Sac City, Iowa and this weekend, I am proud to be back in the
Hawkeye state to endorse my friend and mentor, Martin O’Malley for
President.

In 2001, when he was the Mayor of Baltimore, O’Malley visited my government
class when I was just a 20-year-old college student at the University of
Maryland. I was broke and between a vise of increasing college tuition and
few ideas of what I wanted to do upon graduation. O’Malley was 38 years
old, and at that point in my life, the youngest high-profile leader I had
met.

He spoke to my class about our civic duty to help others, unify communities
and offer solutions for the common good. I was hooked. I watched him lead
not just with words but by deeds, and I committed myself to following his
example of service to others. Inspired by O'Malley, I would go on to attend
his alma mater, the University of Maryland School of Law, start my career
as a prosecutor, and later serve on my local city council.

Now, at 34, I have the honor and responsibility of being a voice for 80
million millennials as a Representative in the United States Congress.

The greatest challenges facing our generation are the increasing barriers
to opportunity: harder and costlier paths to higher education, and fewer
good paying jobs once you graduate. Our generation needs a leader like
O’Malley in the White House. I know he is the leader our generation needs,
because I have personally needed him before. And he did not let me down.

In 2003, I was a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park and
Republican Bob Ehrlich had just been sworn in as Governor. Governor Ehrlich
immediately took an ax to public education, cutting funding to state
universities, and to add insult to injury, raising tuition for students.

Under those conditions, I could barely finish college and go on to law
school. I still remember the countless notices from the bursar's office:
"This is your last warning, if you do not pay your tuition, you will be
dropped from classes."

I and thousands of college students facing similar pressure needed someone
who would relieve the burden. Fortunately, Mayor O’Malley became Gov.
O’Malley and he kept his word to restore funding of the state's university
system and reduce the cost of tuition for students.

Gov. O’Malley expanded education funding even during the height of the
recession, and Maryland public schools were ranked No. 1 in the nation five
years in a row. I saw first-hand how his accomplishments transformed the
state and helped my generation.

Once again, millennials need O'Malley. Forty-one million young Americans
are mired in $1.3 trillion in student loan debt, leaving them stuck in
financial quicksand and preventing or delaying them from taking the job
they want, buying a house and starting a family. Millions more in college
and on their way to college face steep tuition costs and dim job prospects
upon graduation.

To help our generation, O'Malley has put forward a national goal of
debt-free college to address the rising cost of education and assist the
millions held back by debt. His bold and visionary plan would allow
students to refinance student loans, link minimum payments to incomes,
freeze public tuition rates, restore state higher education funding,
increase Pell Grants, and expand and modernize the need-based federal
work-study program.

O'Malley stood up for me when I needed him most, and today I am standing up
for him.

In 2012, I ran for Congress to bring new energy and ideas to Washington,
D.C and fight for millennial issues. But my efforts alone cannot pave the
pathways to opportunity millennials need.

Our generation needs Martin O'Malley in the White House. I endorse Gov.
O'Malley to be our next President.

*Report: Two Inspectors General Seek Criminal Probe Of Hillary Clinton
Email Use
<http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/24/report-two-inspectors-general-seek-criminal-probe-of-hillary-clinton-email-use/>
// The Daily Caller // Chuck Ross - July 24, 2015*

Two inspectors general are asking the Justice Department to open a criminal
investigation to find out whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified
emails as secretary of state.

The New York Times reports that the internal watchdogs at the State
Department and the Intelligence Community are requesting the probe, but
that the Justice Department has not yet said whether it will dive in.

The inspectors general sent a June 29 memo to under secretary of state for
management Patrick Kennedy claiming that Clinton’s records contained
“hundreds of potentially classified emails.”

More than two dozen of the emails out of the 55,000 pages of records
Clinton turned over to the State Department in December have retroactively
been deemed to be classified. One of the emails released to the House
Select Committee on Benghazi in May was classified upon release. The rest
were classified in June when the State Department released about 3,000
pages of Clinton emails last month.

According to The Times’ senior level sources, it is not clear whether
Clinton maintained classified documents on her private email server while
she was in office.

Any finding that she did would pose a massive problem for the Democratic
presidential candidate.

“I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email,” Clinton
said at a press conference in March, shortly after her private email
arrangement was revealed. “There is no classified material. So I’m
certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send
classified material.”

Politico reports that the State Department has acknowledged the
investigation request.

“We are working with both the State IG and the Intelligence Community’s
Inspector General to ensure that our review of former Secretary Clinton’s
emails is completed in a manner that protects sensitive and potentially
classified information,” State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach said.

*Intelligence Expert Nails Reasons For Investigation Into Hillary Emails
<http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/24/intelligence-expert-nails-reasons-for-investigation-into-hillary-emails/>
// The Daily Caller // Casey Harper - July 24, 2015*

With news of the possible criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s
email use, one intelligence expert took to Twitter to sum up the situation.

The New York Times reports that two Inspector Generals have called for a
criminal probe into Hillary Clinton’s email use after news that she used
her private email instead of a secure government email to send and receive
classified information, which would be illegal.

There’s a lot of confusion surrounding Clinton’s emails and their
significance, but Marc Ambinder, a journalist who literally wrote the book
on classified intelligence, fired off a string of tweets worth reading.

That question will be at the heart of any investigation, and Ambinder says
the answer is a definitive yes.

“Every security officer would tell you unequivocally yes. Derivatively
classified. Or you own judgment should tell you it that it …” Ambinder
tweeted. “Ought to be, and it’s your responsibility as a public official
with privileged access to secrets to make those distinctions.”

Ambinder said that if someone types classified information privately emails
it, that person “is legally liable if discovered.”

“I doubt any Clinton associate would knowingly use private email for
obviously classified purposes. But IGs suggesting they had obligation to
ensure that any inbound or outbound email was as free of potentially
classified info as possible,” Ambinder tweeted. “The targets here (if any)
seem to be the people who sent emails to the Clinton accounts, not the
emails that Clinton and team sent. And to be fair, making these calls is
not easy. But this, of course, is why a private email domain might not have
been the best idea.”

*SANDERS*

*Bernie Sanders’s ‘100% Brooklyn’ Roots Show Beyond His Accent
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/politics/bernie-sanderss-100-brooklyn-roots-show-beyond-his-accent.html>
// NYT // Jason Horowitz - July 24, 2015*

Ivor Williams stood on his porch and stared suspiciously at the visitor who
was pointing to the attic of his pink and shingled house near Brooklyn
College.

“I used to live here,” Steve Slavin explained, to no noticeable reaction
from Mr. Williams. Then he uttered the magic words: “With Bernie Sanders.”

“Bernie?” Mr. Williams, a 78-year-old immigrant from Guyana, exclaimed. “I
was just watching Bernie on the TV.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton may be a former senator from New York who located
her campaign headquarters in Brooklyn Heights, but all it takes to know who
really represents Brooklyn in the race for the Democratic nomination is for
Mr. Sanders to open his mouth and utter a few syllables.

As Mr. Sanders, a senator from Vermont, draws large crowds on the campaign
trail and enjoys an unexpected surge, his ur-Brooklyn accent and upbringing
in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Flatbush off Kings Highway have
become a particular point of pride for friends, former schoolmates and
fellow progressives in the borough where he was born.

An attic bedroom in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn is a spot that
Bernie Sanders, a presidential hopeful, once called home. By Jason Horowitz
on Publish Date July 24, 2015. Photo by Michelle V. Agins/The New York
Times. Watch in Times Video »

“I’m very proud of the fact that he speaks Brooklyn, because he’s not a
phony and that shows,” said Marty Alpert, who used to cheer for Mr. Sanders
when he was on the track team at James Madison High School, where she now
is on the alumni board.

On the school’s crowded Wall of Distinction, Mr. Sanders is no longer quite
so overshadowed by such alumni as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Senator
Chuck Schumer and four Nobel Prize winners, or, for that matter, Judge Judy
and Cousin Brucie.

Mr. Slavin was Mr. Sanders’s roommate when they were both students at
Brooklyn College. Now retired from teaching economics, Mr. Slavin recalled
staying up late listening to music on Mr. Sanders’s record player and
discussing Supreme Court cases, Marbury v. Madison in particular. And he
remembered how Mr. Sanders would curse when they heard their loathed
landlady angrily marching up the stairs.

“He was a lifer,” Mr. Slavin said, meaning that Mr. Sanders had known only
one place his entire life.

In fact, Mr. Sanders was on the verge of leaving — first for the University
of Chicago, where he transferred from Brooklyn College, and ultimately for
Vermont.

But Brooklyn’s imprint on Mr. Sanders was not limited to his tongue. In the
populist politics he has espoused for decades as a leftist activist,
socialist mayor, and independent congressman and senator, those who knew
Mr. Sanders, who declined to comment for this article, detect the influence
of postwar Brooklyn stickball games, arguments over money between his
parents and the work ethic instilled in him as a decorated long-distance
runner.

“He is 100 percent Brooklyn,” said Larry Sanders, the candidate’s older
brother, who decades ago traded in his Brooklyn accent for a British one
when he moved to England and pursued Green Party politics.

The Sanders brothers lived with their parents in a prewar apartment
building on East 26th Street that had a fake fireplace in the lobby. In
apartment 2C, Mr. Sanders and his brother swapped nights in a small bedroom
and living room, ate their mother’s meat-heavy dinners, and made occasional
outings to the local delicatessen and Chinese restaurant.

Their father, a paint salesman who emigrated from Poland at age 17, worked
out of Long Island and put 25,000 miles a year on his car. The family
rarely discussed politics and, according to Larry Sanders, looked at their
grandfather, “a very strong socialist,” as “eccentric.”

What their parents did talk about was money. “There were tensions about
money, which I think is important,” he said. “There was no sense of
long-term security. A salesman, things can go up and things can go down.”

But if that at all contributed to the senator’s economic populism, then his
appreciation for an equal playing field was influenced by the
self-regulating society of street games outside their house.

Sid Ganis, a past president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences, who lived downstairs from the Sanders family, recalled a roving
gang of Jewish kids who would play stickball, marbles and boxball, all
without adult meddling.

“In a way, when Bernard talks about cooperatives and so on, he is drawing
on something that was real for many years,” his brother said. “That the
people who did it, ran it.”

Mr. Sanders went to elementary school at P.S. 197 and spent his Saturday
mornings at the Nostrand movie theater watching cartoons and serials with
his brother. They took occasional trips into Manhattan, including one visit
to Rockefeller Center where his brother recalled a “Vermont state
propaganda place” that made the brothers marvel at the affordability of the
land. When Mr. Sanders married years later, he used money from his wedding
presents to buy acres in Montpelier.

Mr. Sanders started attending Madison, just down the street from his
family’s apartment, in 1955. Walter Block, now an economics professor and
libertarian at Loyola University New Orleans, would walk to school with Mr.
Sanders through what he called a “pretty pinkish” neighborhood. On Bedford
Avenue, they would enter a school that was a city in itself.

With about 5,000 students and split schedules between underclassmen and
juniors and seniors to thin out hallway traffic jams, there was also a
hunger to move up in the world.

“We wanted to count,” said Larry Hite, a well-known commodities trader who
graduated the same year as Mr. Sanders.

Mr. Sanders was a good student. He wrote for the school paper and ended up
running for school president, but he had to settle for president of his
class. His brother introduced him to Freud, and taught him why Thomas
Paine’s “Common Sense” was superior to Edmund Burke’s conservatism.

While others would eat pizza at Louis Gino’s, hang out at the Avalon
Tearoom or avoid Dubrow’s Cafeteria after school, Mr. Sanders’s free time
was spent on the track. As a tall freshman with a long stride, he became
one of the borough’s top long-distance runners. He became so used to
winning that in one race at Prospect Park, he pushed his co-captain, Dan
Jelinsky, ahead of him “so that I came in first,” Mr. Jelinsky recalled.

These days, the school is pushing Mr. Sanders out front and center. Jodie
Cohen, the school’s principal, talks about how happy she was when she heard
he was running. “If Bernie wins and then Chuck becomes majority leader,”
she said, referring to Mr. Schumer, “all of Madison’s dreams will become a
reality.”

Ms. Alpert, the alumni board member, is also enthusiastic about the
attention Mr. Sanders is getting. She said that when a counterpart at
nearby Midwood High School inquired about creating its own Wall of
Distinction, the Madison board members responded, “Besides Woody Allen, who
have you got?”

But the end of Mr. Sanders’s years at Madison was not a happy time. His
mother, whose heart had been weakened by a bout of rheumatic fever as a
child, had taken ill. He lost interest in track, and enrolled, unhappily,
in Brooklyn College.

“He wanted to go to Harvard,” said Lou Howort, 73, a track teammate.

After Mr. Sanders’s graduation in 1959, his brother returned from Harvard
Law School to be close to their mother as her condition worsened. It was
around that time that Mr. Sanders rented a furnished room with Mr. Slavin
on East 21st Street in the attic of a Madison Latin teacher and his wife.

Mr. Slavin said his old roommate needed some space from the tensions at
home, and that Mr. Sanders was crushed when his mother died when she was
just 46 after a second heart operation failed.

By the end of his year at Brooklyn College, Mr. Sanders was more than ready
to leave for Chicago. When finals came around, according to Mr. Slavin, he
paid less attention to his exams than to the books he brought back from the
college library. He was particularly fond of a biography of John Peter
Altgeld, a 19th-century progressive Illinois governor who championed child
labor laws, supported striking workers and challenged the Democratic
powerhouse of the time, Grover Cleveland.

Now, as he challenges the current Democratic powerhouse, Mrs. Clinton, Mr.
Sanders’s hometown supporters hope that a combination of his unabashed
liberalism, long-distance-runner’s persistence and old-school Brooklyn
charm will resonate with voters.

It already does resonate with Mr. Williams, who shrugged off his own
family’s analysis that Mr. Sanders’s being “straight-up honest” would only
get him so far.

“It’s great that the future president lived in my house,” Mr. Williams said.

*Bernie Sanders' spokesman holds down two jobs
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/michael-biggs-bernie-sanders-spokesman-120580.html>
// Politico // Gabriel Debenedetti - July 24, 2015*

If Bernie Sanders has a shadow on the campaign trail — from Missouri to
Iowa, to Arizona, to Texas, to Washington in the past two weeks alone —
Michael Briggs is it. And when reporters want to reach the suddenly
besieged candidate, Briggs is the man to call.

As Sanders’ communications director, he draws a salary from the
presidential campaign. At the same time, he’s collecting his paycheck from
the U.S. Senate, as the senator’s communications chief since 2007.

The arrangement isn’t unusual for staffers serving on Senate and House
reelection campaigns. But such double duty is out of the ordinary for a
high-profile presidential campaign — most other political operations
rigorously separate the two responsibilities, especially for a role as
public-facing as communications director.

And while Sanders’ staff closely follows the time-honored procedures for
government staffers working on campaigns — from making sure their salaries
don’t exceed the legal cap, to ensuring they don’t use official property
for political purposes — the arrangement illustrates the occasionally
blurred lines between Sanders’ presidential campaign and his Senate work.

While candidates who are sitting senators often use their access to the
Senate floor and lawmaking mechanisms to introduce legislation supporting
their bids, Sanders in particular has raised eyebrows with his near-mixing
of Senate and campaign activity — more than Marco Rubio or Lindsey Graham,
who also both have senior aides drawing two paychecks each, and more than
Ted Cruz, whose Senate staff receives stipends when they correspond with
the campaign side.

The questions about Sanders date back to the news conference he used to
announce his run in April: because of its political nature, the campaign
moved it from a Senate gallery to the grassy grounds outside the building
to avoid any conflict. And he has since held multiple rallies right outside
of the Capitol to push on themes that link his political plans with his
legislative programs, like advocating for a $15 minimum wage on Wednesday
after introducing legislation on the topic.

“Sen. Sanders is a candidate for president, but he is also a U.S. senator,”
his chief of staff Michaeleen Crowell said. “He takes that responsibility
seriously and Briggs works day and night to help the senator and the
reporters who cover Congress.”

While the five senators currently pursuing the White House saw a wave of
staff members exit their Senate chambers for their political teams over the
past year, months, and weeks — some just hours before the ink was dry on
the presidential paperwork — a POLITICO review of second-quarter Federal
Election Commission filings showed only a handful of top-level staffers
sticking around Capitol Hill as they also get a salary from the campaigns.

Briggs’ arrangement is the most prominent due to his status as a face of
Sanders’ campaign, but he’s not alone: In the case of Rubio, there’s his
deputy chief of staff for operations Jessica Fernandez, who the senator’s
office says is splitting her time 60/40 between the Senate and campaign.
And for Graham, there’s senior adviser Denise Bauld, who has no plans to
commit to either side full-time anytime soon.

Capitol Hill staffers whose bosses are running for reelection or higher
office — like Briggs, who will soon likely shift to a campaign-first
arrangement, while keeping some Senate responsibilities — generally know
they can’t talk politics on their official cellphone and that they
shouldn’t talk election strategy in their boss’ taxpayer-funded offices.
However, the stakes are considerably higher when it comes to presidential
elections, even if the same laws apply.

The Senate Ethics Committee guidelines on how such staffers are supposed to
behave are clear, said multiple lawyers working for presidential campaigns,
and go beyond just making sure the aides aren’t in the Capitol when they
take a political phone call. But because these rules are longstanding, the
lawyers explained, campaigns have perfected ways to blur the lines for
maximum convenience.

“The line is: Anything you do in your time, you’re fine to do either for
pay or as a volunteer. You can’t use any resources in your congressional
office. No phones, no computers. If you do any campaign activity, you’re
supposed to step out of the office. My experience is that doesn’t happen,”
said the Campaign Legal Center’s Meredith McGehee. “It’s an important line
because taxpayer money is not supposed to be spent on the senators’
political aspirations.”

However, a number of senators bristle at tight enforcement of these
regulations, say the lawyers. Some of the frustration comes from the
briefings supplied by the Senate committee, which reaches out to the
candidate’s offices (for example, it spoke with members of Sanders’ staff
in Washington and Vermont).

“There have been a number of investigations by the House and Senate ethics
committees — some haven’t become public — of the issue of members using
staff for the campaigns,” said one longtime Washington attorney working for
a 2016 campaign. “But the truth is the ethics committee is not great on
training on this topic. If they really spelled all of this out, a lot of
the senators would be upset.”

The committee guidelines allow aides to do whatever campaign activity they
wish to do on their own time, without using Senate resources. And, says the
committee, as a staffer spends more time on the campaign side during work
hours, his or her Senate pay should shrink accordingly. Those who earn more
than $121,956 on the official side aren’t allowed to bring in more than
$27,225 in any outside income — including campaign work. Accordingly,
Briggs has seen his Senate pay reduced as he spends more time on the
campaign trail. The FEC filings showed that he pulled in nearly $9,500 in
the

“The bottom line is that if somebody who is a full-time senior staffer is
suddenly doing campaign work and getting paid for that, you should expect
to see a reduction in their Senate hours and salary,” said another veteran
campaign lawyer representing a 2016 candidate. “The question is whether
they’ve reduced the salary. The ethics committee doesn’t go out there and
monitor this stuff. But people don’t get away with it. There’s always an
unhappy staffer or somebody that says something and turns it into the
ethics committee. It’s high risk not to do it right.”

Nonetheless, having two full staffs with some political, policy, and
research functions is one of the “built-in incumbent advantages” of running
as a sitting senator, said McGehee, even if such candidates run the risk of
creating a perception problem. And in a case like that of Sanders, a number
of former Senate staffers are now on the political team, fresh off the
government payroll.

Still, the biggest legal risk in mixing campaign and official staff is also
the hardest to track, said one of the lawyers advising a candidate. But
even if it’s caught, it just might not get a candidate in that much trouble.

“You’ll have a problem with the junior legislative assistant who gets
pulled into a project for the campaign and it’s a last-minute crisis and
they end up doing it in the Senate office space. That’s a flat violation of
the rules,” he said.

“If the Senate Ethics Committee notices it or files a complaint, what
ordinarily would happen is they would look into it, and if they determine
there was a violation, there’s a range of sanctions they could adopt. They
might take some action. But it would likely just be a letter of admonition.”

*What Do Anthem, Aetna, and Bernie Sanders Have in Common?
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-24/what-do-anthem-aetna-and-bernie-sanders-have-in-common->
// Bloomberg // John Tozzi - July 24, 2015*

U.S. health insurance companies think the U.S. has too many health
insurance companies.

A series of mergers have been proposed in recent weeks that would cut the
number of major national insurers from five to three. In the process, the
CEOs say, they would deliver savings for consumers by eliminating
inefficiencies.

You know who else wants that? Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont, and
others on the far left who have long argued that the country has too many
health insurers. Instead of three mammoth insurers, however, they have
proposed just one, run by the government, a system known as single-payer
health care.

Obviously the insurers don't share the long-shot Democratic presidential
candidate's long-shot goal of replacing the private health insurance
industry with a "Medicare for all" system. But the arguments for letting
giant health insurers combine are strikingly similar to some of the
arguments that single-payer proponents have made for years.

Here are some things Joe Swedish, chief executive of Anthem, said on a call
on June 22 announcing a bid for Cigna that would create a combined company
with 53 million enrollees and $115 billion in revenue:

It would have a strong position across growth markets and the scale to
drive greater efficiency and affordability for our customers. ... Customers
benefit from the clear improvements in cost efficiency, choice of
solutions, and continued investments in simplifying the health-care
experience.

The companies announced a $48.4 billion deal on Friday. Swedish expects
"synergies" to save the new company $2 billion a year.

And here's an excerpt from a 2013 press release from Physicians for a
National Health Program, which advocates for a single-payer system:

Upgrading the nation’s Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of
all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency
savings in its first year of operation. ... "Such a financing scheme would
vastly simplify how the nation pays for care, restore free choice of
physician, guarantee all necessary medical care, improve patient health
and, because it would be financed by a program of progressive taxation,
result in 95 percent of all U.S. households saving money,” [economist
Gerald] Friedman said.

Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, announcing a merger with Humana on July 6, said
the deal would "promote greater operational efficiencies that enable us to
lower cost to compete with more cost-effective products and create value
for our customers and provider partners." The new company, with $115
billion in combined revenue, would enjoy cost savings of $1.25 billion a
year, Aetna and Humana executives said.

Put aside, for a minute, whether insurance industry mergers would deliver
the savings they promise, and whether reduced competition would really
lower prices for employers and consumers. Put aside the political and
practical obstacles to creating a national, government-run health plan in
the U.S. Even Sanders's home state, famously agreeable to policies far left
of the American mainstream, abandoned its attempt to form a single-payer
system.

Everybody seems to agree that shrinking the number of insurers in the
health-care system at least has the potential to save money by reducing
overhead and paperwork. Consolidation also gives insurers more bargaining
power to negotiate with doctors and hospitals, which have been on their own
merger streak in recent years. Single-payer proponents say letting the
government negotiate (or, more likely, dictate) prices would save billions
in hospital, doctor, and drug spending.

Bernie Sanders and the leaders of the health insurance industry that he
would abolish agree on more than you might think.

*Reason #1 to Vote Bernie: Sanders Does 'Better Than Clinton' Against GOP
in Swing States
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/reason-1-to-vote-bernie-sanders_b_7863524.html>
// HuffPo // H.A. Goodman - July 24, 2015*

According to a July 22, 2015 Quinippiac University Poll, Hillary Clinton's
once overwhelming lead in public opinion has been cut substantially, and
it's still a long way to the February 1, 2016 Iowa Caucus. In states that
will decide the 2016 presidential election, Quinippiac reports that "Sen.
Bernie Sanders of Vermont, runs as well as, or better than Clinton against
Rubio, Bush and Walker." According to its latest poll, Quinippiac explains
how Clinton's lead has eroded in swing states, while Sanders's surge has
spread from Iowa and New Hampshire to other key regions:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is behind or on the wrong side of
a too-close-to-call result in matchups with three leading Republican
contenders, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in Colorado, Iowa and Virginia, according
to a Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll released today...

In several matchups in Iowa and Colorado, another Democratic contender,
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, runs as well as, or better than
Clinton against Rubio, Bush and Walker...

Colorado voters say 62 - 34 percent that Hillary Clinton is not honest and
trustworthy; 52 - 46 percent that she has strong leadership qualities and
57 - 39 percent that she does not care about their needs and problems...

"Hillary Clinton's numbers have dropped among voters in the key swing
states of Colorado, Iowa and Virginia. She has lost ground in the horserace
and on key questions about her honesty and leadership," said Peter A.
Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "On being a
strong leader, a key metric in presidential campaigns, she has dropped four
to 10 points depending on the state and she is barely above 50 percent in
each of the three states."

In addition, it's important to remember that Clinton already finished third
in the 2008 Iowa Caucus to Obama and John Edwards. Therefore, a precedent
exists of Clinton's name recognition and political prowess giving way to a
relative unknown who electrifies the masses; Sanders is filling arenas for
a reason, and it's a similar reason to what made Obama so unique in 2008.
Also, it's important to note that the phrase "Hillary Clinton is not honest
and trustworthy" is not merely a meme or Twitter message from a Bernie
Sanders supporter. Quinnipiac used those words in its poll (around 1,200
voters in each state were polled) and voters in Colorado, Iowa, and
Virginia expressed that Clinton's trust issues will be a key factor in 2016.

It's believed by some people that Clinton is the only way for Democrats to
win the White House. However, this mentality ignores the key issue of trust
and how this sentiment will decide the presidential election. For example,
Quinnipiac states that, "For 38 percent of Ohio voters, honesty is the top
quality in a candidate." The belief system stating only Clinton can beat a
GOP challenger also ignores the recent finding from Quinippiac that reads,
"In several matchups in Iowa and Colorado, another Democratic contender,
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, runs as well as, or better than
Clinton against Rubio, Bush and Walker."

Furthermore, the number one reason for Democrats to vote for Bernie Sanders
in 2016 is that swing states are already moving away from Clinton (in
search of more honest candidates like Sanders) and Election Day is just
over 470 days away. If Bernie Sanders has gone from an impossibility, to
drawing crowds of thousands, and now running "as well as, or better than
Clinton against Rubio, Bush, and Walker," then imagine the political world
470 days from now.

The political paradigm within the Democratic Party is changing, and grass
roots campaigning from organizations like Bernie 2016 TV, Feel The Bern TV
,Black Women 4 Bernie, Blacks for Bernie, Latinos for Bernie, Veterans for
Bernie 2016 and American veterans across the country, has made such a shift
become reality. Billions in campaign donations simply can't buy a person's
trust. Name recognition can at times be beneficial, but not when The New
York Times and Washington Post are focused on emails and foreign donor
controversies.

Also, even before the recent Quinnipiac Poll, CNN published an article on
June 17th titled Poll: Clinton's honesty and trustworthy problem extends to
swing states, explaining the issue of trustworthiness in key states like
Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania:

(CNN)A majority of voters in three key presidential swing states view
Hillary Clinton as not honest and trustworthy, according to a new poll out
Wednesday...

In Florida, 51% of voters hold the negative view of Clinton, compared to
43% who feel she is trustworthy. In Ohio, 53% of voters find Clinton not
trustworthy, compared to 40% who do. And in Pennsylvania, 54% of voters
don't find her honest, while 40% do.

Clinton's early state honest and trustworthy numbers follow what a CNN/ORC
poll released earlier this month found: 42% of Americans consider her
honest and trustworthy, while 57% don't.

Again, these findings aren't politically motivated diatribes from Democrats
longing for change within the Democratic Party or GOP pundits on Fox. In
terms of impact on the next election, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Colorado, Virginia, and Iowa combined have 95 Electoral Votes. The 2016
Democratic nominee needs to win these 95 Electoral Votes, not be defending
against a criminal inquiry regarding emails.

Interestingly, while CNN writes "The Clinton campaign has said that they
don't view public polling as reliable," the primary justification for
Hillary Clinton supporters has always been an enormous lead within earlier
polls. With this lead dwindling, and Bernie Sanders surging in some states
and polling "as well as, or better than Clinton against Rubio, Bush and
Walker," it will be interesting to see how the Clinton campaign responds to
a rapidly changing political environment. Pretty soon, it's likely that the
new talking point about Sanders running as a Democrat (after being an
Interdependent for years) will be greatly overshadowed by the fact swing
states are looking for honesty, not necessarily the letter "D" associated
with a person's name.

As far as party affiliation, the Democratic nominee for president will have
to earn the African-American vote in 2016, within swing states and through
the nation. This is an important and welcomed paradigm shift, and one that
will be tough for Clinton, especially after a controversial 3 AM television
advertisement (targeting Obama in 2008) and a curious three week delay in
addressing Ferguson. While Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley showed up at
the recent Netroots Nation event and spoke to Black Lives Matter advocates,
Chris Weigant is correct to ask, Where Was Hillary?

The issues presented at Netroots by Black Lives Matter must be addressed by
the next Democratic nominee, and I firmly believe Bernie Sanders will rise
to the occasion. In addition to winning swing states, the next Democratic
nominee will have to win the trust of African-American voters. This will be
crucial, especially when the Sandra Bland tragedy has brought racism to the
forefront of American politics in 2015.

Ultimately, in terms of trust, nobody has ever accused Bernie Sanders of
being untrustworthy; in fact his honesty at times has been seen as a
political liability. If polls had once convinced some voters that Sanders
couldn't win, these same polls should now illuminate a rapidly changing
political evolution in key swing states. Quinnipiac recently stated "Former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is behind or on the wrong side of a
too-close-to-call result in matchups with three leading Republican
contenders." Those words, as well as the finding that "U.S. Sen. Bernie
Sanders of Vermont, runs as well as, or better than Clinton against Rubio,
Bush and Walker," should be the number one reason to vote for the Vermont
Senator in 2016.

*Bernie Sanders' Appeal Has Doubled Among Americans Since March
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-favorable_55b2aed2e4b0074ba5a4ac2a?utm_hp_ref=politics>
// HuffPo // Janie Velencia - July 24, 2015*

Americans' views of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have grown more favorable
as they continue to learn more about him, according to a new Gallup poll.

Sanders' "favorable" rating has doubled since March, jumping from 12
percent to 24 percent. Gallup notes that his rise in favorability can be
attributed to Americans' increasing familiarity with him as he campaigns
against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic
presidential nomination.

In March, only 24 percent of Americans were able to give an opinion on
Sanders. Today, 44 percent say they are able to rate him. Sanders'
increased visibility has caused his unfavorability quotient to go up as
well: 20 percent of Americans now rate him unfavorably, compared to just 8
percent in March. Still, he remains the only Democratic candidate to have a
net positive "favorable" rating, meaning that more people like him than
dislike him.

At the same time, Americans' feelings toward Clinton have grown slightly
less positive, dropping 5 percentage points since April. This latest poll
marks Clinton's lowest net "favorable" score since 2007.

Sanders' recent surge still leaves him considerably behind Clinton, who has
a 43 percent "favorable" rating compared to Sanders' 24 percent. Clinton
also remains the most identifiable Democratic candidate. Eighty-nine
percent of Americans are able to rate Clinton, while only 44 percent are
able to rate Sanders.

Nearly 40 percent of Democrats and independents who lean toward the
Democratic Party have a favorable view of Sanders. By contrast, 3 in 4
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have a favorable view of
Clinton.

According to HuffPost Pollster, which aggregates all publicly available
poll results, 18 percent of Democrats currently support Sanders, while 57
percent support Clinton. Sanders is, however, doing slightly better in
primary states.

Gallup polled 2,374 American adults using live telephone interviews between
July 8 and 21.

*De Blasio gushes about 'democratic socialist' Bernie Sanders, says Donald
Trump rallies people to 'blame immigrants'
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/de-blasio-gushes-democratic-socialist-bernie-sanders-article-1.2303315>
// NY Daily News // John Spina and Jennifer Fermino - July 24, 2015*

Mayor de Blasio likes a lot of things about presidential contender Bernie
Sanders — especially his “democratic socialist” designation.

"Bernie Sanders has done an extraordinary job talking about where we need
to go in the country,” the mayor gushed in an interview on CNN on Friday.

When the network’s anchor Carol Costello asked de Blasio if he is s a
“socialist” like Sanders — a Democratic senator from Vermont — De Blasio
quickly corrected her to say that Sanders is a “Democratic socialist.”

He said he liked the sound of that.

“I think there's a lot to like in that title,” he said adding, “He
[Sanders] has offered a critique of what's wrong that is very powerful. He
has offered a set of ideas about the changes we need to make. And it's
helping to drive the national discussion.”

Sanders’ role in the 2016 race is an important one, no matter what the
outcome, de Blasio said.

“Some candidates that don't prevail still have a very big impact on the
debate. I think right now he's playing a productive role,” he said.

He was more cautious when discussing Hillary Clinton.

De Blasio was also critical of Donald Trump (pictured), saying that he
‘tries to whip people up and blame immigrants as the root of the problem.’

“When I look at what she said [on issues like income inequality] I was
encouraged,” he said.

“What I would like to see and what I think a lot of Democrats ... would
like to see, is a clear road map to those changes."

The mayor also analyzed Republican Donald Trump’s standing in the polls —
saying his popularity stems from him people’s unhappiness with the economy
— which has led them to scapegoat immigrants.

“I think there is a subset of the American people that are very frustrated
about some of the reality we face, and unfortunately try to blame
immigrants, who are not the root of the problem,” he said.

He added, “Unfortunately, someone like Trump tries to whip people up and
blame immigrants as the root of the problem. They're not the problem.”

Although many elected officials have called for the city to sever its
business dealings with Trump because of his caustic comments, de Blasio
said that seems unlikely - but they’ll try.

“I don’t think from what we’ve seen so far there is a construct to get out
of those contacts, but we will certainly look for every option,” the mayor
said.

*A closer look at an old Bernie Sanders talking point
<http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/jul/24/closer-look-old-bernie-sanders-talking-point/>
// PolitiFact // Louis Jacobson - July 24, 2015*

As Sen. Bernie Sanders has begun to make waves in the Democratic
presidential primary field, an old quote by the Vermont senator has been
making the rounds on social media.

"A two-income family today has less disposable income than a one-income
family had 30 years ago," Sanders said, according to a post on Reddit that
links to an undated video of Sanders addressing a California Democratic
Party convention. The claim was sufficiently intriguing that three readers
independently emailed PolitiFact to ask whether it was accurate.

We found several examples of Sanders saying this, or something close to it.
He used the line in a 2007 op-ed in the Huffington Post, in a lengthy and
high-profile Senate floor speech in 2010, in the 2011 book version of that
speech, and in the California Democratic Party address from that video,
which, we determined, occurred in 2011.

When we checked with Sanders’ staff, however, they said he doesn’t use this
talking point any more, and indeed, we couldn’t find examples of him using
it after 2011. For this reason, we won’t put the claim to the
Truth-O-Meter. Still, because the claim was interesting to us, and because
it was clearly of interest to some of our readers, we decided to take a
closer look at its origins and accuracy.

Is something off here?

We first turned to Census Bureau data (table F-12 here, to be specific)
that measures median income for families by the number of earners in the
family. The figures are adjusted for inflation.

We found that the median income for a one-earner family in 1983 was
$43,144. For a two-earner family in 2013, the median income was $87,997.
That’s quite a bit higher -- more than double, in fact, in
inflation-adjusted dollars -- but that’s total income.

What about "disposable income"?

Economists define disposable income as income minus taxes. We did our own
estimate of how much of a bite taxes took out of incomes in both 1983 and
2013 by looking at inflation-adjusted data from the Commerce Department’s
Bureau of Economic Analysis. As it turns out, BEA data shows that
disposable income accounted for about 88 percent of personal income in both
1983 and 2013. (This is a total figure, of course; individual results may
vary.)

Using this data, we calculated that 88 percent of one-earner family income
in 1982 was $37,967, while 88 percent of two-earner family income in 2013
was $77,420. That, too, is more than double -- a far cry from being less,
as Sanders said.

So what’s going on?

Disposable vs. discretionary

A big part of the problem is that Sanders was using the word "disposable"
when he should have said "discretionary." This is a common mistake -- both
words start with "d," after all -- but one that has significant
consequences for the claim’s accuracy.

Unlike disposable income, discretionary income doesn’t have a widely
accepted definition. Generally, it means disposable income minus expenses
that are necessary to maintain a decent standard of living. Housing and
food would likely be included, and you could make a good case for clothing,
health insurance and a motor vehicle.

But there’s no official list and lots of room for disagreement about how
much to allow as a reasonable cost burden for such items. Own a home or
rent? Whole Foods or Walmart? New or used car? Low- or high-deductible
health insurance? And that doesn’t even take into account geography;
certain areas of the United States have much higher or lower costs of
living.

Brookings Institution economist Gary Burtless noted that unlike taxes,
which must be paid under law, the necessity of everything else is more
flexible.

"Nearly everyone needs shelter, but relatively few of us are obliged to
spend 40 percent or more of our income to obtain a minimally decent place
to live," Burtless said. "Just because people spend a huge fraction of
their income to live in a bigger house or a more expensive neighborhood
does not mean they face a mandate to pay so much for their housing. There
are usually less expensive alternatives."

Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist, added that the
structure of households has changed over time. "Families are smaller, and
two-earner households are more likely among the higher educated who are
more likely to get married," she said. "So the numbers are slippery."

The Warren connection

As it turns out, we were able to locate what may be the methodology that
produced Sanders’ (former) talking point. Interestingly, the source may
have been Sanders’ fellow Senate progressive icon -- Elizabeth Warren,
D-Mass. -- and, even stranger, it emerged long before either politician
ended up in the Senate.

The comparison appears to have come from a passage in Warren’s 2003 book,
The Two-Income Trap, co-authored with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi. It
compares two families, one in the 1970s and one around 2002. Each has a
mom, a dad, and two kids. In the 1970s, the mom stayed at home; in 2002,
she was working, so the 2002 figures included costs for a second car and
day care, plus taxes for a higher tax bracket. All figures were
inflation-adjusted and were drawn from median figures for each category.

The 1970s family, by the Warren calculation, earned $38,700 in income from
the father, and had to pay $5,310 in annual mortgage costs for an average
home in an average neighborhood; $5,140 in vehicle costs; $1,030 for health
insurance; and income taxes of $9,386 at the 24 percent tax bracket.

That leaves $17,834, or about $1,500 per month in "discretionary income"
for all other expenses, including food, clothing and utilities.

As for the 2002 family, the working parents’ combined income was $67,800.
Costs included $9,000 for the mortgage, $8,000 in car expenses, $1,650 for
health insurance; $9,670 for day care; and $22,435 in income taxes in the
33 percent tax bracket.

That leaves $17,045. Under this model, then, the two-working-parent family
in 2002 earned $789 less than the 1970s one-earner family. That’s not a big
decline -- about 4 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars over the course of
close to 30 years -- but the family certainly isn’t gaining ground.

Still, there are a couple of things worth pointing out, beyond the fact
that Sanders chose the wrong "d" word to describe what he was talking about.

First, Sanders was using this statistic as late as 2011, almost a decade
after it was first calculated. That’s a long time for a statistic of this
sort to remain unchanged.

Second, George Mason University professor Todd J. Zywicki noted in the Wall
Street Journal in 2007 that the biggest increase in Warren’s comparison
comes from a higher tax burden -- not from the rising cost of housing,
vehicles, health insurance and day care. In fact, taxes were 2.4 times
higher for the 2002 family. Each of the other items saw significant
increases, but none more than doubled, as taxes did. Yet complaints about
taxes holding back working families are usually a talking point for
conservatives, not for progressives like Sanders.

A new talking point

At least Sanders appears to have settled on a more accurate talking point.

When we checked with his staff, they said Sanders’ usual line today is
this: "Since 1999, the typical middle-class family has seen its income go
down by almost $5,000 after adjusting for inflation. Incredibly, that
family earned less income last year than it did 26 years ago – back in
1989."

His staff pointed to Table A-1 of the Census Bureau report on Income and
Poverty in the U.S., released in 2014.

The report found that in 2013, median income was $51,939. That compares to
a real median income of $56,895 in 1999, and a real median income of
$52,432 in 1989. This data, we confirmed, checks out.

Even here, though, there’s more than meets the eye, Burtless said.

Burtless noted that in 1989, there were 2.65 Americans per household, while
in 2013, there were 2.55.  "It’s a small matter, but it means that the
median income per person in the median family increased about 3 percent
over that period even though the median income of households fell by 1
percent," he said.

The moral of the story: When it comes to documenting economic stagnation
experienced by the middle class, it’s complicated.

*OTHER*

*Draft Biden campaign ramps up
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-07242015-htmlstory.html?update=84069749>
// LA Times // Michael Memoli - July 24, 2015*

Vice President Joe Biden may still be weeks away from deciding whether to
join the 2016 presidential race, but a group seeking to nudge him off the
fence is ramping up its push.

Draft Biden 2016 is holding a "National Day of Action" on Saturday with 20
events across the country, a potential sign of whether there is appetite
for more candidates -- and this candidate specifically -- in the Democratic
field. The group's executive director will be speaking in New York, while
other events are planned in early nominating states like New Hampshire and
South Carolina, and five in California alone.

On Friday, the group also launched its first video on YouTube -- icalled
"Ridin' with Biden" -- seeking to gin up support for the idea. It's hardly
the most polished video, but it features unnamed advocates touting his
credentials on LGBT rights and his work to stop domestic violence.

The Chicago-based group says it has gathered 150,000 signatures for its
petition to encourage Biden to enter the race.

Biden has said little publicly about the possibility of making a third
presidential run since the death of his eldest son, Beau, in late May. A
final decision could come in September.

*Draft Biden group ramps up outreach
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/249120-draft-biden-group-ramps-up-outreach>
// The Hill // Jonathan Easley - July 24, 2015*

The super-PAC organized to encourage Vice President Biden to run for
president released its first ad on Friday ahead of a “national day of
action” to gather signatures for the push.

“Some people ask why Joe Biden,” a young man in the ad says. “I turn back
and ask them why not Joe Biden? He’s been on of the most influential vice
presidents that this country has seen. He’s right now a part of one of the
most successful administrations in recent history, and he’s a big reason
for that success.”

Supporters in the ad praise Biden for being on the forefront of the gay
rights movement, for working to stop violence on college campuses and for
generally appealing to “the younger generation’s beliefs.”

“In 2016 I’m ridin’ with Biden,” the supporters say.

Draft Biden said it wasn’t putting any money behind the ad, but was sending
it to supporters and relying on grassroots support to promote it. The group
is operated by William Pierce, who reportedly volunteered for Biden's 2008
presidential campaign.

Hillary Clinton remains the front-runner in the race for the Democratic
nomination, but recent polling shows Biden would have an impact on the
contest if he were to run.

According to a Monmouth University survey released earlier this month,
Clinton takes 51 percent support nationally, followed by Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) at 17 percent and Biden at 13 percent.

But the poll found Biden’s entrance would shake up the race.

In addition to Biden’s 13 percent support, an additional 12 percent of
Democratic voters said they’d be likely to support Biden if he took the
plunge, and 31 percent said they’d be somewhat likely to support him.

Most of that additional support, 68 percent, would come from those who are
currently Clinton supporters.

“Most people seem to be focusing on a Sanders surge among the liberal wing
of the party,” said Monmouth polling director Patrick Murray. “But the
bigger threat to Clinton may come from a Biden candidacy, where the two
would be fighting for the same voters.”

*Rival bets Biden will run for president
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/249084-chafee-bets-biden-will-run-for-president>
// The Hill // Jesse Byrnes - July 24, 2015*

Presidential hopeful Lincoln Chafee is predicting that Vice President Biden
will launch a bid for the White House.

"I think he’s going to get in," Chafee, a former Rhode Island governor and
long-shot candidate for the Democratic nomination, said during an interview
with Larry King on his Ora.tv show "PoliticKING."

"I see him standing with President Obama in every photo. Especially the big
main profile [photos] — when the Supreme Court ruled in favor the
Affordable Care Act, the deal with Iran, the opening of Cuba — it always
seems the vice president is standing right there," Chafee said.

"That seems to signal something to me."

Biden visited Colorado and California this week for a series of speeches on
the economy, part of his ramped up schedule in the weeks following the
death of his eldest son, Beau, 46, to brain cancer.

Speculation that Biden will enter the race and challenge Hillary Clinton,
the Democratic frontrunner, has ticked up in the past few weeks, starting
with a report that his two sons had urged him to run.

Two more reports in the past couple weeks have suggested that Biden is
still mulling a bid, though a spokesperson has repeatedly said that such
speculation "is premature and inappropriate."

"He’s run before — he ran in 1988 and of course in 2008," said Chafee, who
was a senator before being elected governor.

"And I served with him on the Foreign Relations Committee, we’ve traveled
together to Iraq and done some trips together to Mexico. I’ll put my two
dollars that he gets in," he added.

Clinton holds a major lead against Democratic rivals including Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.), former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Sen.
Jim Webb and Chafee.

However, a recent poll suggested that Biden could tighten the race, should
he announce a bid.

*GOP*

*BUSH*

*Jeb Bush wants to ‘phase out’ Medicare. Here’s what he meant.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/24/wonkbook-jeb-bush-wants-to-phase-out-medicare-heres-what-he-meant/>
// WaPo // Max Ehrenfreund - July 24, 2015*

Democrats seized on a remark by Jeb Bush on Thursday, saying his comments
on phasing out Medicare showed he was out of touch with senior citizens.

"We're not going to have adequate coverage for our children or our
grandchildren without Medicare," a woman at a town hall in Gorham, N.H.
told him, according to Politico's Eli Stokols. "It's not an entitlement. I
earned that." (The average female worker born in 1945 will take $521,000 in
benefits over her lifetime, having paid $374,000 into the system in taxes.)

"It's an actuarially unsound system," the former Florida governor replied.

"The people that are receiving these benefits, I don’t think that we should
touch that," Bush went on to say. "We need to figure out a way to phase out
this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have
something, because they're not going to have anything."

At The Week, Ryan Cooper notes that MSNBC's Steve Benen writes that cost
projections for Medicare are less dire than they were before President
Obama's health care reform took effect, and The Week's Ryan Cooper argues
the problem isn't with Medicare, but with this country's exceptionally
expensive health care system.

A spokesman tells Bloomberg's Michael C. Bender that Bush didn't mean he
believes Medicare should be scrapped entirely. Instead, Bush wants to raise
the retirement age and force wealthier beneficiaries to pay more. If he
were elected, Republicans in Congress might send him something similar to
the proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who converts Medicare into a
voucher system.

As Vox's Matthew Yglesias notes, Bush is making a distinction without much
of a difference. Adding a means test to a program that has always been a
universal benefit, or giving the elderly vouchers for health insurance,
would alter Medicare's fundamental character. It would hardly be the same
program.

*Jeb Bush now says he wouldn’t ‘phase out’ Medicare. What he would do is
just as wrong.
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/07/24/jeb-bush-now-says-he-wouldnt-phase-out-medicare-what-he-would-do-is-just-as-wrong/>
// WaPo // Paul Waldman - July 24, 2015*

It had to happen sooner or later: a Republican presidential candidate says
something suggesting he’d destroy Medicare, the Democrats jump all over
him, and he backtracks, saying that’s not what he meant and in fact he only
wants to strengthen it. This time it’s Jeb Bush, who said the other day
that though we can keep Medicare around for the people who are currently on
it, “we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and
move to a new system that allows them to have something – because they’re
not going to have anything.”

This is an old argument from Republicans, one they also use to justify
attacks on Social Security: the program is doomed anyway, so we should go
ahead and privatize it. The argument is completely wrong with regard to
Social Security, and the truth about Medicare is that the program’s future
is looking brighter and brighter — in no small part because of the
Affordable Care Act. The argument Bush is making is ten years out of date.

Bush did try to walk back his statement a bit, saying the “phase out” part
was taken out of context and he’s only talking about how we “reform our
entitlement system.” Here’s his follow-up, which doesn’t change the essence
of what he was arguing:

“It’s an actuarially unsound health care system,” said Bush, who said
something must be done before the system burdens future generations with
$50 billion of debt. “Social Security is an underfunded retirement system;
people have put money into it, for sure.

“The people that are receiving these benefits, I don’t think that we should
touch that; but your children and grandchildren are not going to get the
benefit of this that they believe they’re going to get, or that you think
they’re going to get, because the amount of money put in compared to the
amount of money the system costs is wrong.”

Bush hasn’t yet released his plan to phase out/reform Medicare, but given
these comments it seems likely he’ll embrace something like what Paul Ryan
has been advocating for years. It involves changing Medicare from a
guaranteed single-payer government insurance plan into a voucher plan, in
which the government gives senior citizens a set amount of money with which
they can go out and get private health insurance. It saves money by
limiting the value of that voucher, so if it’s less than what coverage
actually costs, well, tough luck. In that way, it eliminates the central
promise of Medicare, which is that every American senior citizen will have
health coverage.

We’ll await Jeb’s particulars, but I promise you that most of the GOP
candidates will embrace some version of this plan, because that’s what the
Republican consensus on Medicare is these days. And it’s always justified
with the argument Jeb gives: because of skyrocketing costs the program is
doomed, so privatization is the only way to make sure it’s there for your
kids. But don’t worry, current seniors, we won’t touch your Medicare! Which
is one of the ironies of their argument: the free market is supposed to
make everything wonderful, but they fall all over themselves to promise
senior citizens that they won’t disturb the big-government, socialist
program that seniors love.

Now on to the cost question. As it happens, the Medicare Trustees just
released their annual report on the future of the program. And as Kevin
Drum noted, things are looking a lot sunnier than they were a few years ago:

Ten years ago, Medicare was a runaway freight train. Spending was projected
to increase indefinitely, rising to 13 percent of GDP by 2080. This year,
spending is projected to slow down around 2040, and reaches only 6 percent
of GDP by 2090. Six percent! That’s half what we thought a mere decade ago.
If that isn’t spectacular, I don’t know what is.

Those are projections for what’s going to happen decades from now, so
things are doubtless going to change. But the presumption of the Republican
argument is that Medicare is eventually going to eat the entire federal
budget, and so we have no choice but to fundamentally alter it. And that’s
just not true.

The other assumption they make is that the way to alter Medicare is simple:
privatize it. But they’re wrong about this, too. Medicare is expensive, but
that’s not because it’s an inefficient big-government program. In fact,
Medicare is remarkably efficient, more so than private insurance. That’s
because it benefits from economies of scale, and because it doesn’t have to
spend money on things like marketing, underwriting, and big salaries for
executives. The reason Medicare is expensive is that American health care
is expensive, and it serves a lot of people. The retirement of the large
Baby Boom generation is what’s producing its current funding challenges.

Let’s not forget that at the same time Republicans cry that Medicare is
unaffordable and so must be dismantled, they fight any effort to actually
lower costs in a rational way. For instance, they’re adamantly opposed to
comparative effectiveness research, which involves looking at competing
treatments and seeing which ones actually work better. That this isn’t
something Medicare already takes into account sounds ridiculous, but it’s
true. If there are two medications for a particular ailment that are
equally effective, but one costs $100 a year and one costs $100,000 a year,
wouldn’t it make sense for Medicare to 1) find that out, and 2) make
coverage decisions accordingly? But Republicans have said no — Medicare
should just pay for both, no matter what it costs.

Republicans also oppose the most significant effort to reduce Medicare
costs in decades, something called the Affordable Care Act, which included
all kinds of provisions meant to achieve this goal. Perhaps most
critically, the law starts a move away from the fee-for-service model, in
which doctors and hospitals make more money the more procedures they do, to
a model where they get paid a single rate for treating a patient. Under the
fee-for-service model, if your hospital screws up, you get an infection,
and you have to get re-admitted, they make more money; the ACA actually
punishes them for that, giving them a greater incentive to provide better
and less expensive care.

But Republicans not only want to repeal the ACA, which means repealing all
those kinds of payment provisions, they have nothing much to say about how,
specifically, we might save money in Medicare. Their only answer is that if
we privatize it, the magic of the market will produce savings. Of course,
if that were true America would have the cheapest health care system in the
advanced world, since ours is already more private than in any other
similar country. And yet we don’t — ours is far and away the most
expensive, and that’s precisely because the market has failed.

So to sum up, this is the Republican argument on Medicare: We absolutely
can’t do anything in particular that would bring down the cost of Medicare,
but the cost of Medicare is so outrageous that we have no choice but to
privatize it.

When Jeb Bush and the other candidates talk about this subject, pay close
attention to what they say. They’ll use the word “strengthen” a lot — we
want to strengthen Medicare! They’ll tell seniors, who vote in great
numbers, that they aren’t going to touch their precious Medicare. And
they’ll ignore what we’ve learned in the last few years, talking as though
things look just as bad as they did before the Affordable Care Act was
passed and health care spending slowed. But the truth is that their
solution is no solution at all.

*Bush’s strategy: Run as the un-Trump
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/24/bushs-strategy-run-as-the-un-trump/>
// WaPo // Ben Terris - July 24, 2015*

As Donald Trump flew to the Mexico border — ensuring what he would probably
call the biggest, classiest, most impressive headlines of the day — former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was making a few superlative stops of his own:
checking out the longest candy counter in the world, visiting the oldest
ski store in the country and talking to a few dozen voters in the shadow of
the largest mountain in New England.

It was decidedly lower-key campaigning, and Bush said he’s okay with that.

“I’m the tortoise in the race,” he told a gaggle of voters and media
outside of Lahout's ski shop in Littleton, N.H. “Slow and steady progress
each and every day.”

This has been the New Hampshire mantra for Bush all along, and one he
repeated a number of times on his five-stop tour through the North Country
on Thursday. And he can’t complain about the results at this early stage.
While many of his opponents have been on a polling roller coaster here in
the first-in-the-nation primary state, Bush has held steady. He's currently
leading the pack at about 16 percent in the most recent surveys.

So when asked outside of the ski shop whether Trump was really just running
to promote a new reality show called “Political Apprentice,” Bush didn’t
take the bait.

“I think he’s a serious candidate and he’s going to have a lot of money,”
he said. “He’s tapping into people’s angst, which is legitimate. But I
don’t think you win by denigrating people, I don’t think you win by tearing
us apart. You have to give concrete proposals that allow people to rise up”

Over his two days this week in New Hampshire — a state seen as central to
his nomination hopes — Bush spent plenty of time talking about his own
proposals. At an event for Americans for Prosperity, Bush didn’t seem
afraid to stultify his audience with wonkery.

He knocked the Export-Import Bank, talked about the importance of the
sharing economy, and said he was for simplifying the tax code. At a VFW he
talked about the need to rebuild the nation’s military, and took questions
from climate activists who were happy that he wanted to eliminate federal
subsidies for fossil fuels, but displeased that he wanted to do the same
for renewable engergy. He promised a woman at a town hall that he wouldn’t
take away her guns, and got into an exchange with a woman angry that he
wanted to “phase out” Medicare (he preferred to say “reform” Medicare).

He wasn't without some controversy. When asked whether Democratic
presidential candidate Martin O'Malley should have to apologize for saying
"all lives matter," a perceived slight to the "Black Lives Matter"
movement, Bush said "of course not."

"We're so uptight and so politically correct now that we apologize for
saying 'lives matter?'" asked Bush.

The challenge here is the same one that's bedeviled his campaign from the
start: how to paint himself as something new and   fresh as a member of a
political family that's long been familiar to New Hampshire voters. He uses
words like “disruption” and talks about how great Uber is. He speaks in
Spanish and talks about how Republicans cannot survive without reaching out
to the Latino community. He told one voter that he supported term limits
for Congress, because it’s important to get new blood into positions of
power.

“The talent that exists in Florida’s legislature is better [because of
it],” he said.

Of course, it’s not the easiest argument for Bush to make, since his name
is synonymous with the past. It’s become a cliché, but that doesn’t make it
any less true, that his surname is both his biggest asset and his biggest
liability.

“I voted for Prescott, H.W., your brother, and possibly you,” Bill Remick,
a former local politician, told Bush as he walked into the VFW.

“Possibly?” Bush’s communications director Tim Miller asked him. “What do
we need to do? Why possibly?”

“Well, I just met him,” said Remick.

*Jeb Bush Learns Perils of Medicare Overhaul Proposal
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/23/democrats-pounce-on-jeb-bushs-remark-that-medicare-should-be-phased-out/>
// WSJ // Beth Reinhard - July 24, 2015*

Jeb Bush learned Thursday that it’s still politically treacherous to talk
about entitlement reform, even though an overhaul of Social Security and
Medicare has become widely accepted in Republican circles.

At a forum Wednesday in Manchester, N.H., organized by Americans for
Prosperity, a leading conservative group, Mr. Bush said he wanted to “phase
out” Medicare in its current form for the entitlement program’s future
beneficiaries, while protecting it for people receiving benefits now.

He said: “I think a lot of people recognize that we need to make sure we
fulfill the commitment to people that already received the benefits, that
are receiving the benefits. But then we need to figure out a way to phase
out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to
have something because they’re not going to have anything.”

On Thursday, Democratic and liberal groups circulated footage of Mr. Bush’s
comments in the hope of turning it into one of those widely shared moments
from the campaign trail that goes viral and damages a candidate. “Save
Granny,” declared one email missive.

Proposing to revamp Medicare and Social Security has long been considered
dangerous political turf because elderly people typically vote in large
numbers. But over the last couple election cycles, as the tea party
movement has sounded alarms about the national debt and as Wisconsin Rep.
Paul Ryan’s entitlement reform plan gained traction, proposals to protect
benefits for today’s seniors while overhauling the program for future
beneficiaries has become commonplace among Republicans.

On Thursday, at a town hall meeting in Gorham, N.H., Mr. Bush was
confronted about his Medicare plan.

“I paid into it to it for all these years just like all these other seniors
here and now you want to take it away?” a woman asked, according to a video
taken by a Democratic group, American Bridge. “Why are you always attacking
the seniors?”

Mr. Bush called Medicare an “actuarially unsound healthcare system” and
Social Security an “underfunded retirement system.”

“The people that are receiving these benefits – I don’t think we should
touch that, but your children and grandchildren are not going to get the
benefits that they believe they are going to get or that you think they’re
going to get,” he said. “Whenever you get into a conversation about
reforming entitlement the first thing that you can be guaranteed of is that
the left will attack you and demonize you.”

Liberals, Mr. Bush said, were taking his words “out of context.”

*Florida poll: Jeb Bush takes big lead over Marco Rubio //
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/florida-poll-jeb-bush-takes-big-lead-over-marco-rubio-120572.html?ml=tl_50>
Politico // Marc Caputo - July 24, 2015*

Jeb Bush holds a commanding lead over Sen. Marco Rubio among registered
Florida Republicans, who have soured on the senator since he announced his
presidential bid in April, a new poll shows.

In the crowded GOP field, Bush leads the second-place Rubio 28 to 16
percent in their home state, according to Mason Dixon Polling & Research’s
survey. In Mason-Dixon’s poll three months ago, Rubio was essentially tied
with Bush 31 to 30 percent.

Rubio’s 15 percentage-point drop coincides with the rise of Gov. Scott
Walker, who’s now in third place with 13 percent – an 11 point increase for
the Wisconsin governor since the April survey.

“And the center of the GOP political universe of late — Donald Trump — is
in fourth with 11 percent,” Mason Dixon pollster Brad Coker said in a
written analysis.

“This is the first Florida poll taken entirely since Trump’s remarks
regarding John McCain’s Vietnam War service. His 11% showing in Florida is
far below his support in recent national polls. This could be the result of
the home state advantage of both Bush and Rubio,” Coker wrote. “However,
the fact that Walker has slipped ahead of him may be a stronger sign that
his candidacy is fading. Furthermore, there is a clear ceiling that Trump
has among Florida Republicans. When asked if they are considering a vote
for Trump, a large majority (58%) said they were not. Only 27% gave an
indication that Trump was under their serious consideration.”

All the other Republican candidates are polling in the single digits.

The Democratic primary isn’t much of a race at all. Hillary Clinton leads
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders 58 to 17 percent. Former Maryland Gov. Martin
O’Malley received just 2 percent support in the poll, with former Rhode
Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb registering no
support. In that primary, 23 percent are undecided.

In the more-contested GOP primary, 13 percent are undecided, a decrease of
4 points since April. Because the number of undecided voters didn’t shrink
much while Rubio’s support plummeted, he could have lost voters to Walker
and Trump, who wasn’t named in the last survey. Bush’s 2-point drop since
April is statistically insignificant, indicating his support has
essentially remained stable.

This is the second troubling poll for Rubio this week. On Sunday, a
Bendixen & Amandi International poll of Republican voters in Miami-Dade
County – Florida’s most populous and the home base of the two GOP
frontrunners – showed Bush ahead of Rubio 35 to 25 percent. That poll was
underwritten by The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.

“Here’s what’s really shocking: Bush is leading Rubio 43 percent to 31
percent among Cuban-American Republicans in Miami-Dade,” pollster Fernand
Amandi told POLITICO. “Marco is Cuban-American. Jeb isn’t. That’s a real
serious problem for Rubio.”

The Bendixen & Amandi survey polled 250 Republicans in the county. Mason
Dixon surveyed 500 statewide. Of the Mason-Dixon respondents, 64 were
Hispanic and they supported Bush over Rubio 40 to 30 percent. In the last
Mason-Dixon poll, Rubio was up 40 to 20 percent over Bush among Hispanics.
Factoring in Bush’s rise and Rubio’s fall, the numbers indicate Hispanic
support has shifted 32 percentage points in Bush’s favor. Coker cautioned
that the margin of error for this sub-sample was high, 13 percent. The
overall error-margin for the statewide poll is 4 percent.

Bush’s support among Florida, Miami-Dade and Hispanic Republicans isn’t too
surprising because, as a former popular governor, he has strong name ID and
broad support among financial and political leaders in the state. The
bilingual Bush has remained a sought-after figure on the campaign trail for
Florida Republicans for years, thereby keeping his name in circulation.

Bush also leads Rubio and all others in the Sunshine State money race. Of
the $11.4 million in campaign contributions Bush received in the just-ended
quarter, $2.6 million came from Florida. Rubio raised a total of $8.9
million, $1.9 million of which came from Florida. Rubio has more money in
his campaign bank account, but Jeb has far more financial support from
now-independent third-party political committees. In total dollars raised
between the committees and the campaigns, Bush leads Rubio $119 million to
$45.2 million.

While Rubio has kept a relatively low profile since his announcement, Bush
began barnstorming early states after he officially entered the race in
mid-June. Unlike Rubio, Bush has numerous well-publicized town-hall events
and frequently takes questions from scrums of reporters and voters. Bush
has also established himself as the anti-Trump after the New York
billionaire (a part-time Florida resident) made disparaging remarks about
illegal Mexican immigrants and Bush’s wife, the Mexican-born Columba Bush.

Bush’s advantage in money and popularity are no surprise to Rubio’s top
supporters, who have deftly tried to set low expectations compared to the
elder former governor. Rubio has enough money to survive and even thrive.
And all sides know the race will change.

And it’s only July, 2015. Florida’s winner take-all primary is March 15.

*Jeb Bush's Struggle to Say What He Means Continues
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-24/jeb-bush-s-struggle-to-say-what-he-means-continues>
// Bloomberg // Michael C. Bender - July 24, 2015*

During a forum sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, the influential
conservative group backed by David and Charles Koch, Jeb Bush told the
audience that he wants to "phase out" Medicare.

Afterwards, the former Florida governor was approached by an environmental
activist, who was momentarily excited when Bush used the same language to
say he preferred to "phase out" tax credits for energy companies.

Neither of those positions are quite what they seem.

While eliminating tax credits might sound great to liberal
environmentalists and Tea Party Republicans focused on "crony capitalism,"
many of the breaks for Big Oil aren't technically tax credits.

On Medicaid, Bush's team complained that Democrats were taking him out of
context, an increasingly frequent objection from the candidate who is
billing himself as the most experienced and most thoughtful on the trail.

The protest from Bush's camp has been justified, to be sure. Democrats,
including presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, leaned a bit too far over
their skis recently when they suggested that a component of Bush's economic
plan was that Americans should work harder. What Bush said was that he
wanted to find more full-time job opportunities for part-time workers. And
while the economic reality of that happening is somewhat dubious, the
attacks gained some traction and the spin found its way into town-hall
questions Bush has faced on the campaign trail.

Similarly, Bush was confronted Thursday in Gorham, New Hampshire, about his
Medicare comments. "Why are you always attacking the seniors?," an
unidentified woman (and possible liberal activist) asked Bush.

"It’s an actuarially unsound health care system," said Bush, adding that
he's not attacking seniors, according to a Politico report from the event.
“The people that are receiving these benefits, I don’t think that we should
touch that. But your children and grandchildren are not going to get the
benefit of this...because the amount of money put in compared to the amount
of money the system costs is wrong.”

How it started

Bush takes as many questions, if not more, than other candidates. The
strategy is a double-sided sword: His candidness often earns him support
from crowds and favorable stories in the media, but also one that can also
lead to more confusion than clarity, and reinforce one of his biggest
problems on the trail.

The source of the dispute on Medicare is somewhat ironic. Speaking about
the issue on Wednesday, Bush was bemoaning the politics of the issue,
recalling the 2011 digital ad from the liberal group Agenda Project that
showed a Paul Ryan lookalike wheeling an elderly woman off a cliff. The ad
was in response to the Wisconsin Republican's plan to end fee-for-service
Medicare for people 55-and-under, and replace it with subsidies for people
to buy either a private plan or a government-provided plan.

Bush, whose home state has the highest percentage of seniors in the nation,
then went on to say that Americans generally agree that, while current
benefits should be protected for those receiving them, the Medicare system
needs to be reformed. And here's where he gets himself into trouble.

"We need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others, and move
to a new system that allows them to have something, because they're not
going to have anything," Bush told his Manchester audience.

"A massive blunder on Jeb Bush's part," U.S. Representative Debbie
Wasserman Schultz of Florida, head of the Democratic National Committee,
said Thursday on a conference call with reporters. "Maybe Jeb Bush can
afford to get by without Medicare—I'm sure the Koch brothers would be fine,
too—but millions of Americans count on Medicare when they retire for access
to quality, affordable health care."

Bush's team had a different interpretation. Bush never said he wanted to
replace Medicare, spokesman Tim Miller argued, adding that the former
governor was referring to the changes he's been talking about for months on
the campaign trail, such as increasing the retirement age and means testing
to make wealthier Americans pay more.  "It's an obvious attempt to take him
out of context," Miller said.

While Miller's irritation was somewhat justified a few weeks ago, here the
trouble is of Bush's own causing. The "new program" he was talking about
may well have been Medicare with more means testing, and a higher
retirement age. But that language is at best imprecise, particularly for a
debate, as Bush himself noted, that easily can be distorted.

Medicare and oil

While Bush hasn't released specifics about his own Medicare plan, an
often-mentioned change would raise the eligibility age from 65 to 67. The
effect of that change would reduce the budget deficit—projected to increase
to about $1 trillion over 10 years—by about $19 billion during that time,
according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. A report from the
Kaiser Family Foundation notes that such a move may also increase premiums
on both the young and old.

Bush also hasn't been specific about exactly what he means by means
testing, a concept that is so popular its been approved several times by
Congress. The Medicare Modernization Act, enacted in 2003, increased
premiums on individuals earning more than $85,000 a year. High-earners
shouldered more of the Medicare burden under Obamacare, and again this year
under a bipartisan plan to maintain reimbursements to Medicare doctors.

After the event in Manchester, Bush was approached by an activist tied to
350 Action, a New York-based environmental group, who wanted to know what
Bush was going to do about tax breaks for big oil. Oil tycoons Richard
Kinder, Ray Lee Hunt, Jeffery Hildebrand, Trevor Rees-Jones, and T. Boone
Pickens all donated to Bush’s campaign, according to disclosures.

Bush, to the activists surprise, said he wanted to eliminate them all. But
smile soon faded as Bush explained what he meant by "all."

"We should phase out, through tax reform, the tax credits for wind, for
solar, for the oil and gas sector, for all this stuff," Bush said, adding
that "the best way" was to "let markets decide this."

When the activist protested about cutting subsidies for renewable energy,
Bush pounced. "You want to pick winners and losers," the Republican said.
"I don't think we should pick winners and losers. Tax reform ought to be to
lower the rate as far you can, and eliminate as many of these subsidies;
All of the things that impede the ability in a more dynamic way to get to
where we need to get, which is low cost energy that is respectful of the
environment."

The problem here is, again, one of definitions.

Bush hasn't been very specific yet about what he wants to do with the tax
code. But when he talks about eliminating "credits" for energy, that's
likely to have a disproportionate effect on renewable sources.

Solar and wind energy producers get their tax benefits in the form of tax
credits. Oil and gas producers typically don't, instead enjoying faster
write-offs, deductions and some favorable accounting rules that aren't
"credits."

*Bush but no Trump expected at Aug. 3 Republican forum
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/24/us-usa-election-forum-idUSKCN0PY2C420150724>
// Reuters // Steve Holland - July 24, 2015*

A Republican forum on Aug. 3 in New Hampshire is growing in significance as
14 candidates have now agreed to participate.

The Voters First Republican Presidential Forum was set up to accommodate
candidates who were not ranked in the top 10 in national polling and who
are to compete in the first official Republican debate, moderated by Fox
News on Aug. 6 in Cleveland.

But now many in the top 10 are planning to show up for the New Hampshire
forum as well. New York real estate mogul Donald Trump is not attending,
the Union Leader newspaper of Manchester, New Hampshire, reported.

The Voters First Republican Presidential Forum is to be held at St. Anselm
College in Manchester.

The two-hour forum is intended to highlight the importance of New
Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary, along with the nominating contests
in Iowa and South Carolina.

The Union Leader, one of the sponsors for the forum, said the candidates
who have committed to attend include Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Rand Paul,
Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich and Chris Christie.

Also on the list are Rick Perry, George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz,
Rick Santorum and Ben Carson.

*Jeb Bush’s family values man
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/jeb-bushs-family-values-man> // MSNBC // Irin
Carmon - July 24, 2015*

Two weeks ago, as social conservatives gathered in New Orleans for the
annual National Right to Life Convention, they were courted by Republican
presidential candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio and former Sen. Rick Santorum.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sent a produced video, featuring two
anti-abortion activists and his own remarks. In the video, recently
uploaded by Bush’s campaign under the title “Defending Life,” Mark Merrill,
a Tampa-based radio host and author of “All Pro Dad,“ vouches for Bush. “He
stands strongly for life,” says Merrill.

Bush and Merrill go back a long way, most notably when Merrill chaired a
commission under then-Gov. Bush devoted to “Building Florida’s Families,”
chiefly by focusing on marriage promotion. These days, Merrill’s Twitter
profile says he is “sharing parenting, marriage & relational truth,” often
through popular blog posts.

For Merrill, that truth is fairly gendered. His advice for fathers to their
daughters:

“Be a Lady.” Teach her to be a lady in the way she dresses. Girls can be
modest and still be trendy. It means to use lady-like language…crassness
and cussing are very unattractive. It means to use good manners. It means
to draw physical boundaries and let men know that her body is reserved
exclusively for her future husband.

There’s a pretty stark divide between the advice Merrill offers to husbands
and wives. For example, “Filling the 4 Chambers of Your Husband’s Heart”
counsels, “We also want our wives to validate our manliness. A man wants to
be a hero to his wife.” The counterpart directed at men says, “Cherishing
and safeguarding her physically and emotionally leads to her being
protected.”

Some of Merrill’s advice goes both ways for men and women. In one post, he
advises spouses to “stop flaunting your body to others. This applies to men
and women. Our culture does not value modesty, and when you flaunt your
features, it appears you’re advertising yourself or are available to
others. Dress like you’re only available to one person, your spouse.
Because that’s the only person you should be available to.”

A representative for the Bush campaign didn’t immediately respond to a
request for comment on Merrill’s role in the campaign.

*Jeb Bush doubles down on far-right Medicare ‘reform’
<http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/jeb-bush-doubles-down-far-right-medicare-reform>
// MSNBC // Steve Benen - July 24, 2015*

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush caused a stir Wednesday night,
telling a Koch-backed political group that he wants to “phase out” Medicare
entirely. At a town-hall event in New Hampshire yesterday, an unhappy voter
asked for an explanation. Here’s what the former Florida governor said in
response:

“To my point last night, here’s what I said. I said, first and foremost,
whenever you get into a conversation about reforming entitlements, the
first thing that you can be guaranteed of is that the left will attack you
and demonize you. It took about six hours for that to happen [on Wednesday
night]. I woke up in the morning and words taken out of context – exactly
what I predicted would happen.

“I told the story of Paul Ryan who had a plan to deal with this over the
long haul. The first thing I saw, that happened to him was, a guy looking
like Paul Ryan was in a TV ad attacking him, wearing a red tie and a suit,
throwing granny off the cliff.

“This is, we’ve got to get beyond this, because this is not a sustainable
system. We need to protect it for people that have it, and we need to make
sure that we reform it for people that are expecting it.”

He then transitioned to talking about the latest report from the Medicare
trustees, which was released this week, and which Bush seems to believe
bolsters his argument.

I didn’t really intend to return to the subject – here’s yesterday’s piece
if you missed it – but so long as the GOP candidate is doubling down on a
poor argument, it’s probably worth clarifying further why Bush is mistaken.

Bush is concerned, for example, about being “attacked” and “demonized.” I
don’t imagine it’s fun being a candidate facing irate voters, but when
those seeking public office talk about giving tax cuts to millionaires
while taking health benefits away from seniors on a fixed income, they
shouldn’t be too surprised when there’s pushback.

He also believes his comments from Wednesday were “taken out of context.”
For what it’s worth, I published the entire context and linked to a video
of Bush’s comments. Unfortunately for the candidate, there’s nothing in the
context that makes the argument any stronger.

Finally, the Florida Republican characterizes his approach as if it were
simply common sense. Medicare is not “sustainable,” he says, which means
it’s up to responsible officials to agree now to “phase out” – a phrase he
replaced with “reform” yesterday – Medicare altogether.

The reality, however, is far different. As Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum
explained yesterday, “So this is what Jeb is saying: Right now the federal
government spends about 20 percent of GDP. We can’t afford to increase that
to 23 percent of GDP over the next 30 years. That would – what? I don’t
even know what the story is here…. This whole thing is ridiculous. Over the
next 30 years, we need to increase spending by 1 percent of GDP per decade.
That’s it. That will keep Social Security and Medicare in good shape. Why
is it so hard for people to get that?”

For Bush, among other GOP candidates, Medicare is facing fiscal challenges
in the future, so the system must be eliminated. We must destroy Medicare,
the argument goes, in order to save it. This is, of course, absurd – the
challenges are perfectly manageable without radical changes to anyone’s
health security.

The more Jeb Bush talks about this, the more it seems he doesn’t fully
understand one of his signature issues.

Postscript: Just as an aside, the Medicare trustees’ report he encouraged
voters to read shows Medicare’s fiscal health getting considerably better,
not worse, in large part because of the Affordable Care Act. Jeb Bush, of
course, wants to repeal the ACA, which would necessarily make the Medicare
system he wants to “protect” far weaker, far faster.

*Jeb Bush Says No Need to Apologize for 'All Lives Matter'
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jeb-bush-apologize-lives-matter/story?id=32660669>
// ABC // Candace Smith - July 24, 2015*

As questions swirl over what happened to 28-year-old Sandra Bland, who was
found dead in her cell in a Texas jail, candidates in the 2016 presidential
race are being hammered on their views surrounding the call for justice and
the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.

It is a movement that largely began last year as part of the protests over
the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

Republican candidate and former Florida governor Jeb Bush was asked
Thursday in New Hampshire if he thought that Democratic candidate Martin
O'Malley should apologize for saying that "all lives matter" during
progressive gathering, Netroots Nation.

Bush responded by asking, "We're so uptight and so politically correct now
that we apologize for saying 'lives matter?"

I Emailed Jeb Bush About Guacamole, And He Actually Responded

He added, "Life is precious. It's a gift from God. I frankly think that
it's one of the most important values that we have. I know in the political
context it's a slogan, I guess. Should he have apologized? No. If he
believes that white lives matter, which I hope he does, then he shouldn't
have apologized to a group that seemed to disagree with it."

The Liberal super pac, American Bridge, quickly uploaded the video.

The 'Black Lives Matter' movement, largely led by young grassroots
organizers who profess a non-partisan view, has proved to be a stumbling
block for candidates on both sides. Both O'Malley and his Democratic rival
Bernie Sanders were criticized for their responses to activists'
demonstrations, declining to advocate specifically for Black Lives Matter,
choosing the more inclusive call of "All Lives Matter."

It is a slogan viewed by activists as deeply out of touch and a view that
overlooks the crux of their call to social equality and an end to the
systematic prejudice they say African-Americans face in the eyes of the
justice system.

Both quickly scrambled to amend his remarks; O'Malley appearing on a black
talk show to say he made a mistake, Sanders forcefully condemning Bland's
arrest, calling it "painful and dreadful".

On Thursday, Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton tried to overcome her
own similar stumbles while speaking to a black church in South Carolina,
twice invoking the "Black Lives Matter" slogan and calling Bland's death
"heartbreaking".

"And that’s why I think it is essential that we all stand up and say loudly
and clearly, ‘Yes, black lives matter.’ And we all have a responsibility to
face these hard truths of race and justice honestly and directly,” Clinton
said to cheers during a campaign stop at the Brookland Baptist Church in
West Columbia, South Carolina.

Clinton was criticized last month for saying “all lives matter” at an event
at a historic black church close to Ferguson, Missouri, where protesters
last year widely used the phrase “Black Lives Matter.”

Bush has said in the past that he will win this campaign by going to places
"that haven't seen a Republican in a very long time", declaring to be able
to rally the support of Latinos and African-Americans, groups that have
traditionally eluded the GOP.

*Here’s Jeb Bush’s Underwhelming Review of Sharknado 3
<http://time.com/3971389/sharknado-3-jeb-bush/> // TIME // Sarah Begley -
July 24, 2015*

"I'm culturally illiterate, apparently"

Jeb Bush has discovered Sharknado, and he is not impressed.

The 2016 contender shared his thoughts on the franchise in a video posted
to his campaign’s YouTube channel under his series “#JebNoFilter.” He says
he discovered Sharknado 3 while channel surfing in a hotel room and found
it “kind of weird.”

“People are getting killed, the White House is being collapsed, the
Washington Monument’s going down, and lo and behold, Mark Cuban is
president of the United States!”

As puzzled as Bush was by the shark-filled plot, he was even more baffled
to learn that it was the third movie in a series. “Please help me, give me
some information about what’s going on,” he said into the camera. “I’m
culturally illiterate, apparently.”

*RUBIO*

*Marco Rubio Has a New Answer For His Inexperience Problem
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-24/marco-rubio-has-a-new-answer-for-his-inexperience-problem>
// Bloomberg // Sahil Kapur - July 24, 2015*

Has Marco Rubio hit on a way to turn two political minuses into a plus?

The 44-year-old first-term senator is competing for the Republican
presidential nomination against a crowded field that includes eight
governors or former governors and several more experienced lawmakers. He
has also been dogged by questions about his acumen when it comes to his
personal finances. In recent days he has come up with an argument that
seemingly attempts to handle both potential problems.

At a forum last weekend in Ames, Iowa, Republican pollster Frank Luntz told
Rubio that "the single biggest knock on you" is that "you haven't been
around long enough." In response, the son of Cuban immigrants from humble
beginnings cleverly morphed job "experience" into life "experience,"
arguing that his makes him the most qualified to understand issues facing
ordinary Americans.

"I don't think anybody running for president understands what life is like
for people today more than I do," Rubio said, adding that his parents lived
"paycheck to paycheck" and that he had student loans until four years ago.
His youth and his financial struggles have given him more of kind of
experience a president needs, he argued.

"No one running has more experience on the issues we face right now, today,
in the 21st century, with a world that's more dangerous than ever and an
economy that's changing faster than we've ever seen since the industrial
revolution."

The crowd applauded.

Thursday, in another interview, Rubio trotted out a different version of
the same line.

"The world is changing, and no one who is running for president has more
experience than I do on the issues confronting our country right now," the
freshman Florida senator told Fox News in an interview Thursday.

Fox host Bret Baier didn't seem convinced. Why, he asked, is a governor not
better positioned for the White House than he is?

Rubio responded that the presidency is a "unique office" that's "not like
being a senator, but it's not like being a governor, either," saying that
presidents face national security challenges but that they "don't create
jobs."

Republican voters tend to prefer governors to senators for the White
House—and Rubio has been among them in the past as he endorsed former
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in 2008 and former Massachusetts Governor
Mitt Romney in 2012. Recently in Iowa, a voter pointed out similarities
between Rubio and then-Senator Barack Obama in 2008.

Will Rubio's new argument work? It remains to be seen, but the Floridian
could use a boost. He has placed below the top three in the last five
nonpartisan national polls of Republican primary voters tracked by
RealClearPolitics.

*The radicalism of Rubio’s foreign policy
<http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-radicalism-rubios-foreign-policy>
// MSNBC // Steve Benen - July 24, 2015*

Earlier this week, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said of the international
nuclear agreement with Iran, “This is not America’s deal with Iran. It is
Barack Obama’s deal with Iran.” It wasn’t an offhand, impromptu comment
made during an interview; the Republican senator actually included the line
in a written statement.

Yesterday, during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the
Iran deal, Rubio made a nearly identical argument to Secretary of State
John Kerry:

“Secretary Kerry, I do not fault you for trying to engage in diplomacy, and
striking a deal for Iran, I don’t. I do fault the president for striking a
terrible deal with Iran. […]

“[E]ven if this deal narrowly avoids congressional defeat because we can’t
get to that veto-proof majority, the Iranian regime and the world should
know that this deal is your deal with Iran, meaning your’s and this
administration’s, and the next president is under no legal or moral
obligation to live up to it.”

Obviously, when the Florida Republican refers to “the next president,”
Rubio believes he’s referring to himself.

The surface-level issue is the concern that the GOP senator is using a
serious foreign-policy debate for campaign grandstanding – Rubio wants
far-right activists to see him, not his rivals, as the party’s fiercest
critic of nuclear diplomacy. All of the top Republicans are talking about
their plans to abandon the U.S. commitment in this area, and Rubio sees
value in being a top member of the club.

But just below the surface, Rubio’s posturing even far more serious.

The GOP candidate is describing a foreign-policy dynamic in which every new
American president, upon taking office, effectively tells the world, friend
and foe alike, “Maybe I’ll honor  U.S. commitments, maybe not. I’ll let you
know.”

American foreign policy has never worked this way, because it can’t. The
United States is a global superpower – by most measures the global
superpower – in part because the world values the consistency of our
leadership. If we abandon agreements reached with our allies after every
election, that consistency disappears.

Imagine future negotiations between U.S. officials and foreign heads of
state. What happens when those on the other side of the table tell American
diplomats, “We’d accept these terms, but we’re worried our agreement will
be null and void after you hold elections in a few years”?

As for Rubio drawing a distinction between America’s international
agreements and the American president’s international agreements, I’m
reminded of something Max Fisher wrote in January:

The Supreme Court has codified into law the idea that only the president is
allowed to make foreign policy, and not Congress, because if there are two
branches of government setting foreign policy then America effectively has
two foreign policies.

The idea is that the US government needs to be a single unified entity on
the world stage in order to conduct effective foreign policy. Letting the
president and Congress independently set their own foreign policies would
lead to chaos. It would be extremely confusing for foreign leaders, and
foreign publics, who don’t always understand how domestic American politics
work, and could very easily misread which of the two branches is actually
setting the agenda.

At least so long as President Obama is in office, Rubio seems to believe
that chaos is worthwhile and undermining American foreign policy – which he
perceives as something less than America’s foreign policy – is a
responsible course for U.S. lawmakers to follow.

I have a sinking suspicion he would see things differently under a Rubio
administration.

*Marco Rubio: Donald Trump’s not going to be the Republican nominee
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/24/marco-rubio-donald-trumps-not-going-be-republican-/>
// Washington Times // David Sherfinski - July 24, 2015*

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Friday that Donald Trump is not going to
be the Republican presidential nominee and that the real estate mogul is
benefiting from people hearing his name in the news.

“Not long term,” Mr. Rubio, who is also running for president, said on “CBS
This Morning” when asked if he thinks Mr. Trump is a problem for his party.
“Donald Trump’s not going to be the nominee of the Republican party.”

Mr. Trump has been leading in recent polling on the 2016 GOP field, but Mr.
Rubio said polls “swing up and down” and that he personally has been higher
and lower than where he is now.

“These polls, at this point, basically are measuring who people are hearing
about on the news, and Donald Trump is benefiting from that,” he said. “I
strongly believe that not just the next nominee, but the only way that
Republicans are going to win the presidency is by offering an optimistic
but realistic vision of the 21st century with a real plan of how we can
benefit from all the globalization that’s changing the nature of our
economy, from the technological advances that have changed the nature of
work, and also about playing our proper role in the world in terms of
leading the free people of this planet to confront global challenges.”

*WALKER*

*Top Scott Walker Fundraiser Calls Donald Trump ‘DumbDumb’
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/24/top-scott-walker-fundraiser-calls-donald-trump-dumbdumb/>
// WSJ // Reid J. Epstein - July 24, 2015*

A fundraiser for Scott Walker’s presidential campaign called Donald Trump
“DumbDumb” in a fundraising invitation and said electing the New York
developer would be “a total and complete disaster for the country.”

“As you’ve seen Gov Walker is now well ahead of everyone not named DumbDumb
(aka Trump) in the national polls,” wrote Walker fundraiser Gregory
Slayton, a New Hampshire venture capitalist who served as consul general to
Bermuda during the George W. Bush administration. “He’s also a plain spoken
member of the 99% (as opposed to someone pretending to be so)…and that will
be a KSF in 2016.”

Mr. Slayton’s email invited his political network to fundraisers Wednesday
in Greenwich, Conn., and at the Union League Club in New York City. His
email indicated Mr. Walker will also hold “a foreign policy oriented
breakfast” Thursday morning in New York.

Reached by phone Friday, Mr. Slayton said Mr. Trump is not as smart as Mr.
Walker.

“I didn’t mean that to be public but obviously I stand behind it,” Mr.
Slayton said. “Look, this is a great country. Guys who are not that smart
can get rich, it’s wonderful. But Donald Trump is not going to be president
of the United States ever, period, end of story.”

Mr. Slayton added: “To elect someone who alienates his friends, the guy
would be a total and complete disaster for the country and I think
everybody admits that.”

Mr. Slayton’s characterization of Mr. Trump as “DumbDumb” comes after his
candidate has spent recent weeks carefully avoiding criticizing the New
York developer’s incendiary language about Mexican immigrants. The
Wisconsin governor did denounce Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Sen. John
McCain, who served five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was not a
war hero.

Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, predicted Mr. Walker will
not stand for his supporters questioning Mr. Trump’s intellect.

“Gov. Walker is a good guy and he would not condone such type of negative
thinking about the leading presidential candidate in the GOP field,” Mr.
Lewandowski said. “I’m sure he will quickly denounce Mr. Slayton and his
rhetoric.”

The Walker campaign didn’t comment on Mr. Slayton’s remarks.

*PAUL*

*‘Super Pac’ Backing Rand Paul Raised Far Less Than Rivals, Report Shows
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/24/one-of-two-charges-against-rick-perry-is-dismissed/>
// NYT // Nick Confessore - July 24, 2015*

A “super PAC” set up by allies of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky raised just
over $3 million in the first six months of the year, according to a report
filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday — far less than most
of the outside groups backing Mr. Paul’s rivals for the Republican
presidential nomination.

Almost half of the money came from a single donor: George Macricostas, a
Nevada-based businessmen and technology entrepreneur. Most of the rest came
from Jeff Yass, an investor from Pennsylvania, who contributed $1 million.

A handful of other donors — some of them also raising money directly for
Mr. Paul’s campaign — made six-figure contributions, including Robert
Arnott, a California investor, and Kenneth Garschina, a longtime Paul
backer in New York.

The super PAC, America’s Liberty, filed more than a week before the
official deadline. It had about $2.7 million in cash at the end of June,
according to the filing.

The haul was relatively low in the high-dollar, high-stakes world of super
PACs, which have taken center stage in this year’s Republican primary
contest.

A super PAC backing Jeb Bush announced this month that it had raised $103
million, while Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is backed by a network of super
PACs that brought in $37 million. Two groups supporting Senator Marco Rubio
of Florida brought in a combined $32 million.

*Rand Paul super PAC brings in less money than Bobby Jindal’s or Carly
Fiorina’s
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/24/rand-paul-super-pac-brings-in-less-money-than-bobby-jindals-or-carly-fiorinas/>
// WaPo // Tom Hamburger and Anu Narayanswamy - July 24, 2015*

A super PAC backing Rand Paul's presidential candidacy raised $3.1 million
in the first half of 2015, with two-thirds of the total coming from just
two donors.

The sum reported Friday afternoon by Paul's supporters is among the
smallest reported from the dozen or so presidential candidate super PACs
that have so far revealed their fundraising figures.

Paul's total puts him behind Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO,
whose supporters reported raising $3.4 million for a super PAC. Allies of
former Florida governor Jeb Bush raised nearly $103 million for the Right
to Rise super PAC. Supporters of Democratic presidential hopeful Martin
O'Malley, the former Maryland governor, reported raising just $289,000 for
his super PAC during its first month.

Paul, the Kentucky senator and son of former Texas congressman and
presidential candidate Ron Paul, reported raising nearly $7 million for his
official campaign account -- a more respectable number, but still in the
lower tier of candidate totals.

Supporters of other GOP presidential hopefuls, including Sen. Lindsey
Graham (R-S.C.) and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, have yet to
disclose totals for  super PACs backing them.

The pro-Paul PAC, called America's Liberty PAC, lists two seven-figure
donors: George Macricostas, the chairman and CEO of a RagingWire, a data
center company, and Jeff Yass, the owner of Susquehanna Partners, an
investment firm.

*Rand Paul Super PAC Raised $3.1 Million in First Half of 2015
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/24/rand-paul-super-pac-raised-3-1-million-in-first-half-of-2015/>
// WSJ // Rebecca Ballhaus - July 24, 2015*

The primary super PAC backing Republican Rand Paul’s presidential campaign
raised $3.1 million in the first half of the year, according to a
disclosure filed with the Federal Election Commission Friday, falling far
short of the rest of the Republican field.

America’s Liberty PAC’s small haul, coupled with the relatively low $7
million raised by Mr. Paul’s campaign in the second quarter, puts the
Kentucky senator firmly in the second tier of GOP fundraising. Mr. Paul is
currently polling seventh among Republican primary voters, according to a
Real Clear Politics average of five recent national polls.

The super PAC’s president, John Tate, said he was “very pleased” with the
group’s fundraising.

“We are just getting started and this financial support will allow us to
continue to give Sen. Paul the help he needs in this race,” he said. The
group is building a “tech-savvy, highly-targeted data driven effort that
can be used to effectively manage the tremendous grassroots support that
Sen. Paul has built over the years,” he added.

Two-thirds of the funds the super PAC raised came from two donors: Jeff
Yass, owner of the trading firm Susquehanna Partners, who gave $1 million,
and George Macricostas, founder of the data center company RagingWire, who
gave $1.1 million. A quarter of the super PAC’s haul — $750,000 – was
donated by Mr. Macricostas on June 30, the final day of the reporting
period. Neither donor gave to Mr. Paul’s campaign in the second quarter,
according to its filing with the FEC.

Aside from those two major donors, other donations to the super PAC were
relatively low. The average donation, not including those of Messrs. Yass
and Macricostas, was $28,500. Still, a review of the donor list suggests
the group does have some room to grow: Among the contributors were
millionaires John Mackey, the chief executive of Whole Foods, and land
developer Don Huffines. Mr. Mackey gave $50,000; Mr. Hiffines gave $25,000.

The super PAC’s haul is just 3% of the $103 million raised by the super PAC
backing GOP front-runner Jeb Bush—a record-setting sum that far surpassed
any other contender in the 2016 race. But it also falls significantly short
of the $38 million raised by four super PACs backing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz,
as well as the $16 million raised by the pro-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio super
PAC.

Even groups backing candidates who are polling lower than Mr. Paul have
raised more: The super PAC backing former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is
polling nearly four percentage points below Mr. Paul, according to Real
Clear Politics, raised $17 million; the group supporting New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie, who is nearly three points behind in the polls, raised $11
million.

Super PACs are not required to file disclosures with the FEC until July 31.
The groups backing several contenders have already released their totals,
but some have yet to do so.

Mr. Paul also has the backing of another super PAC, run by former
FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe, that has yet to disclose its totals.

*Rand Paul super PACs raise $5 million
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/rand-paul-super-pacs-raise-5-million-120594.html?ml=tl_5>
// Politico // Daniel Strauss - July 24, 2015*

wo super PACs supporting Rand Paul’s presidential candidacy together raised
about $5 million in the first half of the year.

One of the PACs, America’s Liberty, raised $3.13 million, according to FEC
filings. The second PAC, Concerned American Voters, told POLITICO it had
raised $1.88 million.

That’s far short of the amount raised by the super PAC backing former
Florida governor Jeb Bush, which reported raising more than $100 million in
the first half of the year, and short of those of other top-tier Republican
presidential contenders, such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Wisconsin Gov.
Scott Walker.

The two biggest donors to America’s Liberty were Nevada data mogul George
Macricostas (who gave $1.1 million) and Philadelphia options trader Jeff
Yass (who gave $1 million).

America’s Liberty PAC is run by Jesse Benton, a longtime aide of Paul and
his father, former Rep. Ron Paul, and John Tate, the president of the
libertarian millennial group Campaign for Liberty.

Concerned American Voters is run by Matt Kibbe, formerly of FreedomWorks.

Each of the two super PACs has a different focus: America’s Liberty PAC
will likely concentrate on paid media, while Kibbe’s emphasizes grassroots
organizing.

“I am very pleased with these results so far,” Tate said in a statement.
“This sum shows that Sen. Paul has real support in this race for president
and we are working tirelessly to assist him by airing TV ads, managing and
collecting data and running a top-notch digital campaign.

“We are just getting started and this financial support will allow us to
continue to give Sen. Paul the help he needs in this race,” Tate said.
“Instead of spending millions on slick TV ads, we have invested and are
building a tech-savvy, highly targeted data-driven effort that can be used
to effectively manage the tremendous grassroots support that Sen. Paul has
built over the years.”

Two weeks earlier, Paul’s official campaign reported that it had raised $7
million in the last fundraising quarter.

*Why Isn't Rand Paul Making a Data Deal With the GOP?
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-24/why-isn-t-rand-paul-making-a-data-deal-with-the-gop->
// Bloomberg // Sasha Issenberg - July 24, 2015*

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is living up to his promise to run for president
as a “different kind of Republican.” His campaign appears to have decided
that he can win the nomination without even basic help from party bosses,
and that if he comes up short his loss should not serve to strengthen their
infrastructure.

Several presidential candidates are likely to sign contracts allowing them
to simultaneously receive voter profiles from both the Republican National
Committee and i360, a rival data warehouse managed by the political network
associated with Koch Industries. Paul, however, seems to be following a
different path—one that will allow him to maintain full control of any data
collected by his campaign or affiliated super-PAC and set up a distinct
power base beyond 2016 entirely independent of the Republican Party.

Paul is the only one of the party’s candidates trying to assemble a
full-fledged presidential campaign who has refused to sign a so-called data
agreement with the RNC. This is a standard arrangement in both parties,
designed to permit candidates to benefit from one of few durable resources
in American politics: a national party’s voter database. In exchange for
access to it, candidates pledge that after the election they will enrich
the database by returning intelligence gathered on the electorate through
their interactions with individual voters.

Thus far, according to a party official who asked not to be named in order
to freely discuss the committee's internal mechanics, 11 of the party’s
presidential candidates have signed a data agreement with the RNC. The
others who have have yet to sign a data agreement are all those who are are
new to the race or have otherwise shown signs of mounting something other
than a conventional, well-rounded national campaign: businessman Donald
Trump, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, former New York Governor
George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore, former Governor of Virginia. Party
officials have had conversations with Ohio Governor John Kasich’s political
team, and anticipate he will eventually sign one, according to a person
familiar with the talks. (Data agreements are available only to those who
have made their candidacy official; Kasich did so only this week.)

Voter data is essential in running a modern campaign. But the rise of a
competing data warehouse, i360, managed by the Kochs’ Freedom Partners, has
given candidates the choice of opting out of the party structure
altogether. A Freedom Partners spokesman, James Davis, refused to identify
specific clients, citing non-disclosure agreements. However, it is widely
understood that i360—a private company in which turning a profit is a
concern secondary to electoral impact—is eager to serve as a data provider
to multiple Republican candidates.

In an April interview with USA Today, Charles Koch identified five he said
“are the ones we have talked to the most and who seem to be the possible
leaders.” Four of them—former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, Governor Scott
Walker of Wisconsin, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and Senator Marco Rubio of
Florida—have already executed data agreements with the RNC. Paul is the
only one who hasn’t.

Paul quarterly spending report depicted a candidate seeking to assemble a
data infrastructure entirely independent of the RNC. He has paid $19,000 to
Aristotle International, a venerable non-partisan data vendor favored by
candidates unaligned with a party machine. Paul’s campaign also paid a sum
to the Republican Party of Iowa that could been to purchase a list of past
caucus-goers, a standard move for candidates competing in the state. The
newly established super-PAC Concerned American Voters has vowed to maintain
Paul’s “grassroots organization, e-marketing and proven Get Out The Vote
tactics,” as president Jeff Frazee described it in a press release
announcing the group’s creation. Filings from Concerned American Voters
show a variety of payments to i360, including one for “Voter Data and
Outreach Capability.”

The RNC and i360 have developed an intense and unexpectedly public feud as
they compete over business from Republican candidates, a proxy for the
greater conflict between the Koch network and party establishment for
dominance in conservative politics. The left has featured a similar tension
for nearly a decade, as the Democratic National Committee’s voter file
battles for primacy against one maintained by the independent Catalist,
which has close ties to organized labor. (The crucial difference: i360
currently holds a stronger market position than Catalist does on its side,
and the factional rivalries within the right are far more pronounced than
those within the left.)

Although both databases are assembled atop publicly available
voter-registration records, they offer differing strengths. The RNC has
maintained its voter file for a quarter-century, constantly replenishing it
with information about voter behavior and attitudes on candidates and
issues collected through campaign canvasses and phone banks. Want to know
which Iowa voters told McCain-Palin volunteers that bailouts were their
greatest concern? There’s only one place to find it.

The much-newer i360 has little of that historical data, but sustained by
the Kochs’ seemingly limitless funds, boasts of having acquired a wide
range of consumer profiles and a growing team of data scientists developing
topical predictive models from them. Looking for probable 2016 caucus-goers
who are likely to think the Islamic State is a greater concern than civil
liberties? You should expect to see it offered from i360 rather than the
RNC.

Many Republican analysts see the two entities’ data as potentially
complementary, particularly if combined to form a larger base for
predictive models specific to a candidate’s targeting needs. (Campaigns
that arrange to work with both the RNC and i360 are required to sign a
contract ensuring that the underlying sets of data are not commingled.)

Paul's unorthodox appeal and strategy may dictate his posture toward the
RNC. Paul has vowed to bring new supporters into the Republican primary
process, including young voters unlikely to have been contacted much by
previous Republican candidates. If Paul succeeds in doing so, the granular
intelligence his campaign assembles about that coalition—knowledge of
individual issue preferences, and contact information like cell-phone
numbers—will become a unique asset in American politics and one he will be
happy not to have to return to the RNC.

Paul’s own campaign could theoretically acquire any data collected by the
super-PAC at any point, either through purchase or by trading something of
comparable value. If structured correctly, Paul could then match
intelligence gathered from the super-PAC’s field operations to his own
list, which the campaign has been cultivating through stunts like his
quasi-filibuster of the Patriot Act and this week’s video taking a chainsaw
to the tax code. Those backers, pushed to the campaign’s website to sign up
as supporters, have shared e-mail addresses and given the campaign the
opportunity to serve them ads elsewhere online through browser cookies.

Complete control over all the data his campaign collects could make Paul a
power broker in future party primaries, and sustain a career as a perpetual
candidate—with a constant implied threat that he could do it either inside
the party or outside of it. Rand’s father, former Representative Ron Paul
of Texas, sought the presidency twice as a Republican and once as the
Libertarian Party’s nominee. When asked to explain Rand Paul’s resistance
to signing a data agreement with the RNC, spokesman Sergio Gor responded by
e-mail, “We'll pass on this story.”

But Paul himself betrayed his thinking about his relationship with the
party when he announced his candidacy in April. “Too often when Republicans
have won we have squandered our victory by becoming part of the Washington
machine,” he said during a speech in Louisville. “That’s not who I am.”

*Rand Paul super PACs raise paltry $5 million
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/rand-paul-super-pac-woes/index.html>
// CNN // Theodore Schleifer - July 24, 2015*

The two super PACs supporting Rand Paul raised less money than many of his
Republican rivals in the first half of 2015, confirming speculation that he
would face difficulty financing his grassroots campaign.

The main super PAC led by Paul's former advisers, America's Liberty PAC,
raised $3.1 million, according to a filing, far less than nearly every
other Republican candidate's. And a second, grassroots-focused group
dedicated to electing him, Concerned American Voters, said in a statement
to CNN Friday that it had raised an additional $1.9 million.

Jeb Bush shattered records by raising $103 million for his super PAC, but
even the allied groups of candidates who perform significantly worse than
Paul in polls managed to outraise Paul's by significant margins.

Rick Perry's claimed $17 million, Chris Christie's said it brought in $11
million, and even the group allied with Carly Fiorina -- who is unlikely to
have enough support to make the Republican debate -- said it raised more
than Paul's main group with $3.4 million.

Despite the poor numbers, the head of America's Liberty indicated they
would build a leaner operation not focused entirely on television
campaigns, which in recent cycles have been in super PACs' bailiwick.

"Instead of spending millions on slick TV ads, we have invested and are
building a tech-savvy, highly-targeted data driven effort that can be used
to effectively manage the tremendous grassroots support that Sen. Paul has
built over the years," John Tate, the group's president, said in a
statement.

Paul does seem to have two major supporters, however: Philadelphia investor
Jeff Yass and Nevada IT executive George Macricostas, who each gave about
$1 million to support America's Liberty. Concerned American Voters has not
yet released the names of its backers, but will have to by the end of the
next week.

Donors can make unlimited contributions to super PACs, but the groups
aren't allowed to coordinate how to spend that money with the campaign.

Paul's own campaign also trailed the official operations of many other
hopefuls: The Kentucky senator only raised $7 million in what are called
"hard dollars."

Paul has placed a particular emphasis on recruiting donors in Silicon
Valley, but there is no sign that he succeeded: Only four donors with
California addresses donated to America's Liberty, for a total of $56,000.

*Rand Paul Launches Snapchat Ads
<http://time.com/3972129/rand-paul-snapchat-ads/> // TIME // Zeke J. Miller
- July 24, 2015*

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was one of the first 2016 presidential contenders
to embrace Snapchat, and now he’s becoming one of the first to advertise on
the platform.

Paul’s campaign is placing three ads on the social network this weekend as
part of a broader digital campaign soliciting ideas for how the libertarian
lawmaker can destroy the tax code. The 10-second video spots are cut from a
longer video released earlier this week featuring Paul fire, using fire, a
woodchipper and a chainsaw to tear up piles of papers, all set to an
electric guitar rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.”

The ad campaign is the latest effort by Paul to revive a campaign that is
in danger of falling behind amid a softening of his support in the polls
and lackluster fundraising for the campaign and super PAC.

The ads are targeted at all users in the four early voting states, Iowa,
Nevada, South Carolina and New Hampshire, and his campaign hopes they will
appeal to the platform’s younger-skewing demographic.

Last week, Snapchat featured two ads for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and
one for Ohio Gov. John Kasich in a politically-themed “live story” for
users on the platform from the four early states. Paul’s ads are aimed at
all users from those states, not just those viewing the “live story,”
including those using Snapchat’s “discover” feature.

“Many younger ‘off-the-grid’ voters aren’t consuming traditional news
outlets and are increasingly using platforms like snapchat as their source
of information,” said Vincent Harris, Paul’s digital strategist. “Senator
Paul’s campaign plans to continue to run ads and connect with voters in
this way.”

Harris would not reveal the dollar-amount behind the buy, adding, “The
campaign will continue to spend more after we see the ROI. This is new and
exciting territory.”

*Rand Paul Destroys the Tax Code? Donald Trump Is Contagious!
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2015/07/24/rand-paul-destroys-the-tax-code-donald-trump-is-contagious/>
// Forbes // Christopher Bergin - July 24, 2015*

For several days, you couldn’t turn on the TV or radio looking for news
without running into “in-depth reporting” on what Donald Trump said about
John McCain. This especially included the Sunday news shows – which I admit
with some shame I still watch.

I wasn’t sure if what Trump had to say about a bona fide war hero was
really news to begin with, but by the 3,000th “news report” on it I was
sure its news cycle was over. Reporters should know by now that when Trump
says something incredibly idiotic, there is no need to dwell on it because
within days he’ll say something even worse. (A friend of mine and I are
thinking of starting a pool — kind of an over-under for when the next
ludicrous comment comes up.)

The danger of Donald Trump acting as if he is P.T. Barnum is that other
presidential candidates will decide that the American voter is attracted to
stupid stuff. And a huge target about which to say really stupid stuff is
the tax code. Now, it’s OK if you want to pick on the nation’s tax law
because it is too complicated, inconsistent, and unfair. But it’s also very
serious business, the main purpose of which is to create the rules by which
we collect the revenue to fund the U.S government. Hurling insults at the
tax code is not going to solve any problems.

But someone needs to tell Rand Paul that. Taking a page from Donald Trump,
Paul just released a brand-new video featuring him destroying the U.S. tax
code. On the video, Paul sets thousands of pages of tax law on fire, feeds
them into a wood chipper, and goes after them with a chain saw. Apparently,
Paul’s own favorite method is the chain saw, but he urges people to vote on
which they like best.

Paul doesn’t appear very handy with a chain saw, but at least he’s wearing
eye protection. The senator is an ophthalmologist. Maybe he should stay
with that and leave the clownish performance pieces to trained clowns —
like Donald Trump (I hope Trump gives out my phone number for that shot).

The point of Paul’s video is to promote his “Fair and Flat Tax,”
essentially a flat tax of 14.5 percent that eliminates almost all special
deductions and other giveaways. I’m not saying it’s a bad plan or that it
shouldn’t be part of the discussion, but how can you take a presidential
candidate’s plan seriously when he introduces it with a wood chipper? In
the promotional material for Paul’s tax plan, he saves a great deal of
vitriol for the IRS, which of course is easy to hate, and at times appears
only too happy to pour fuel onto its own fires. Paul calls the IRS a
“rogue” agency whose corruption it enabled by a convoluted tax code. Well,
the IRS didn’t impose a convoluted tax code on itself; Congress did. I
don’t know how any agency could efficiently administer our tax code.

Does the IRS need to be reformed starting with an entirely new leadership
structure? Yes. But even if Paul gets his flat tax, who will collect that
tax if we also “destroy” the IRS? Apparently that’s one the senator has no
answer for. Anyway, it’s more fun playing with a chain saw and following
Donald Trump’s lead than it is thinking about the tough stuff.

Maybe we need two pools: one on the next stupid thing Trump says, and one
on the next presidential candidate to start imitating him. I’ve predicted
that it will take two years to start a serious discussion of reforming the
tax laws and the agency that administers them. After watching Paul’s video,
I’ve pushed that back a decade.

*CRUZ*

*Ted Cruz Accuses Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Lying
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/senator-ted-cruz-accuses-mitch-mcconnell-of-lying-on-ex-im-bill.html?ref=politics>
// NYT // Jonathan Weisman - July 24, 2015*

Senator Ted Cruz, the sometimes-incendiary Texan running for the Republican
presidential nomination, took to the Senate floor on Friday to call his
party’s majority leader a liar in an extraordinary public airing of
grievance.

Mr. Cruz, an ardent opponent of the federal Export-Import Bank, reacted in
starkly personal terms after the leader, Senator Mitch McConnell,
Republican of Kentucky, allowed a vote pressed by a bipartisan group of
senators to resurrect the government’s export credit agency.

That vote will come Sunday in a rare weekend session of Congress called to
rush forward a major infrastructure bill before the Highway Trust Fund runs
out of money July 31.

“I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie,” Mr. Cruz said of Mr.
McConnell, who he said had promised him there was no deal to bring Ex-Im up
for a vote.

Mr. Cruz said allowing that vote on the measure — which almost certainly
will pass — was “an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every
Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again
was a simple lie.”

The outburst breached the Senate’s decorum — and perhaps its rules, which
preclude a senator from using “any form of words” to “impute to another
senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a
senator.” Mr. McConnell and his staff declined to comment.

Aides to Senator John Cornyn, a fellow Texan, said the Senate’s No. 2
Republican is reviewing Mr. Cruz’s speech.

Mr. Cruz has been a combative figure since his arrival in the Senate in
2013, when he helped shut down the government in a fruitless effort to
defund the Affordable Care Act. He also pressed to shut down the Department
of Homeland Security this year over President Obama’s executive orders on
immigration.

While Mr. Cruz frequently challenges Democrats, he has largely refrained
from attacking fellow Republicans.

“In my time in the Senate I haven’t impugned the character of Republicans
or Democrats and I don’t intend to start today,” he said earlier this
month, when pressed to condemn a fellow Republican White House hopeful,
Donald J. Trump, who had questioned Senator John McCain’s wartime heroism.

On Friday, Mr. Cruz held nothing back. He detailed what he said was a
closed-door confrontation he had with Mr. McConnell in May, after
supporters of the Export-Import Bank tried to derail a trade bill unless
they were promised a vote to keep the bank open.

“It was a direct question I asked the majority leader in front of all the
Republican senators,” he said. He said that Mr. McConnell had been “visibly
angry” and that “like St. Peter,” the majority leader had offered a denial
three times: “There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.”

Far from backing down, Mr. Cruz joined Rush Limbaugh Friday afternoon,
basking in the conservative radio show host’s praise for a “direct hit” on
leadership like none Mr. Limbaugh could remember.

“It’s not a good day when the majority leader is willing to lie to the
Senate,” Mr. Cruz told Mr. Limbaugh.

Tea Party groups, the Heritage Foundation’s political arm, and the Koch
Brothers’ Freedom Partners rushed to Mr. Cruz’s defense.

Support for Ex-Im in both the House and Senate is sufficient to restore the
agency if Republican leaders allow it. On June 30, the authorization ran
out on Ex-Im, which offers loan guarantees and other assistance to the
foreign customers of American exporters.

Businesses — powered by some of the nation’s biggest corporations — Boeing,
General Electric and Caterpillar — have been pressing to reopen it, arguing
that the conservative war on Ex-Im is costing American jobs in the service
of a purely ideological fight. On the other side of the money fight, Delta
Air Lines, the Koch Brothers, Club for Growth, and the Heritage Foundation
are fueling Ex-Im opposition.

Mr. Cruz framed the fight as one pitting “the Washington cartel of the
lobbyists on K Street, or the big money and big corporations” against the
American taxpayer. Money has in fact sloshed through both sides of the
fight. Among Republican presidential candidates only Senator Lindsey Graham
of South Carolina, where Boeing operations benefit from Ex-Im financing,
supports restoring the bank.

Mr. McConnell, in allowing a vote to reopen the bank Sunday afternoon, was
careful to say he personally opposed it. At the same time, he offered
conservatives a compromise in the form of a separate amendment to the
highway bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Cruz called that “an empty show vote.”

“The Republican leader is behaving like the senior senator from Nevada,”
Mr. Cruz said, accusing Mr. McConnell of running the Senate the same way
his predecessor, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, had operated.

In a test vote last month, 65 senators — Republican and Democrat — showed
they would vote for the Ex-Im Bank’s reauthorization. In the House, 60
Republicans have signed onto legislation to reopen new lending activity at
the bank, more than enough to pass a bill that has overwhelming Democratic
support.

The question is whether Speaker John A. Boehner will buck the opposition of
other Republicans on his leadership team to allow the Senate’s Ex-Im
amendment to come to a vote.

*Ted Cruz Breaks Vow to Not Criticize Other Republicans
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/24/one-of-two-charges-against-rick-perry-is-dismissed/>
// NYT // Alan Rappeport - July 24, 2015*

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has made taking the high road a hallmark of his
presidential campaign so far, vowing not to get into fights with other
Republicans. Apparently Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is not covered
by that policy.

Mr. Cruz’s animus was unleashed on Friday because Mr. McConnell allowed a
vote to move forward on the federal Export-Import Bank, which Mr. Cruz
opposes.

Here are few of Mr. Cruz’s recent promises of intra-party civility:

“I understand that our friends in the media love to see Republicans shoot
each other. That makes for good newsprint when it gets nasty and personal,
but I have no intention of going there,” Mr. Cruz said in speaking to The
Daily Caller in May about being nice to his rivals for the Republican
presidential nomination.

“I’m not gonna engage in the media’s game of throwing rocks and attacking
other Republicans. I’m just not gonna do it,” Mr. Cruz said on July 6,
speaking about Donald J. Trump’s remarks on immigration.

“To the best of my knowledge, in my time in the Senate, I have not spoken
ill of any of my colleagues, Republicans or Democrats. When others attack
me, for whatever reason that’s happened once or twice, my response
consistently is to respond with praise. To take the high road,” Mr. Cruz
said at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa on July 18.

But on Friday, Mr. Cruz took a different approach:

“Well, we now know that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and
makes an explicit commitment that he is willing to say things that he knows
are false,” Mr. Cruz said on the Senate floor in a speech in which he
accused Mr. McConnell of telling a “flat-out lie” and compared him to
Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the former majority leader loathed
by many Republicans.

*Ted Cruz to GOP leader: You lied.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ted-cruz-to-gop-leader-you-lied/2015/07/24/6a967690-3225-11e5-97ae-30a30cca95d7_story.html>
// WaPo // Mike DeBonis - July 24, 2015*

Firebrand Republican senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz did
something surprising in the Senate on Friday: He accused the head of his
party, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of lying to his colleagues.

“We know now that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes
an explicit commitment, that he is willing to say things that he knows are
false,” Cruz (Tex.) said. “That has consequences for how this body
operates.”

Cruz’s remarks laid bare, in the most august of settings, simmering
tensions between the conservative activist wing of the Republican Party and
the mainstream GOP establishment. In his 20-minute speech, Cruz accused
McConnell (Ky.) of running the Senate in much the same manner as his
Democratic predecessor as majority leader, Harry M. Reid (Nev.).

“There is a profound disappointment among the American people because we
keep winning elections, and then we keep getting leaders who don’t do
anything they promised,” Cruz said. “We’ve had a Republican majority in
both houses of Congress now for about six months. . . . This Senate
operates exactly the same, the same priorities.”

Prompting the outburst was McConnell’s move to prepare amendment votes on a
must-pass transportation bill. After senators voted to consider the bill,
McConnell set up votes on two controversial issues — a repeal of the
Affordable Care Act and a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank of the
United States. Not included were such issues as immigration enforcement and
cuts to Planned Parenthood funding, for which Cruz and other conservatives
had pushed.

The move incensed Cruz, who had announced his intention to offer other
amendments and who, like many conservatives, strongly opposes the bank’s
reauthorization despite the support it enjoys among a supermajority of
senators. That puts him at odds with McConnell, who has attempted to keep
major legislation moving steadily through the Senate and has struck deals
and engaged in procedural maneuvers to avoid getting bogged down, with
uneven success.

Though McConnell has personally spoken against the Export-Import Bank’s
reauthorization, Democrats said in June that he had agreed to schedule a
vote on the bank in order to get highly divisive trade legislation passed.

Cruz said Friday that McConnell, in a private Republican conference
meeting, denied that any deal had been struck to pass the trade bill.

“I asked the majority leader very directly: What was the deal that was just
cut?” Cruz recalled. “The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I
would ask such a question, and the majority leader looked at me and said,
‘There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.’ Like Saint Peter,
he repeated it three times.”

McConnell spokesman Don Stewart declined to comment.

Rule XIX

Senators generally refrain from impugning their colleagues on the floor, a
practice codified in Senate Rule XIX: “No Senator in debate shall, directly
or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other
Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

The penalty for breaching that rule is to be ordered to take one’s seat —
in effect, to sit down and shut up. But no senator rose to make a point of
order before Cruz left the floor.

“It’s unusual, certainly,” Betty K. Koed, the Senate’s official historian,
said of Cruz’s remarks. “The Senate prides itself on being an environment
of polite, respectful decorum, but this happens from time to time.”

In a 1995 speech on Senate decorum, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) denounced
senators who accuse their colleagues of dissembling: “The use of such
maledicent language on the Senate floor is quite out of place, and to
accuse other senators of being liars is to skate on very, very thin ice,
indeed.”

Rule XIX was nearly invoked in 1988 after Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) accused
Sen. H. John Heinz III (R-Pa.) and others of being “spokesmen” for “special
interest groups.” But after Heinz rose in protest, Gramm withdrew his
remarks.

Cruz’s statement would seem to be a more serious breach of floor comity
than Gramm’s. But they both fall well short of other, more distant floor
antics — such as the time, during debate on the Compromise of 1850, that
Henry S. Foote of Mississippi pulled a pistol on fellow Democrat Thomas
Hart Benton of Missouri, or the 1902 fistfight between South Carolina
Democrats Benjamin R. Tillman and John L. McLaurin.

Presidential ambitions

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), the longest-serving Republican senator,
defended McConnell and criticized Cruz to reporters Friday: “I don’t think
we make headway around here by implying, even, that other people are liars.”

He also made note of Cruz’s presidential bid, which registered single-digit
national support in the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll of
Republican candidates. “People who run for president do some very
interesting things from time to time, so we should allow wide leeway there,
too,” Hatch said.

Presidential ambitions have been a source of continuing headaches for
McConnell as he has sought to keep the Senate productive in his first
months as floor leader. In April, amendments offered by Sen. Marco Rubio
(R-Fla.) helped short-circuit debate on a bill setting up congressional
review of an Iran nuclear deal. A month later, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
derailed McConnell’s plan to extend key federal surveillance authorities,
which were forced to lapse briefly because of Paul’s objections.

In recent weeks, McConnell signaled that the transportation bill would be a
likely vehicle for the Export-Import Bank’s reauthorization. Before Cruz
spoke, McConnell said he had no choice but to allow the vote, saying that
the bank’s supporters “made it clear they’re ready to stop all other
amendments if denied that opportunity.”

“They have already proven they have the votes to back up the threat, as
well,” he said, referring to a June 10 test vote in which 65 senators
supported reauthorization. “This presents a challenge for the Senate and to
opponents of the Ex-Im Bank, like myself, in particular.”

Hatch, who has been at the center of the trade and highway debates as
Finance Committee chairman, defended McConnell by saying it has been clear
for two months that there would be a vote on the Export-Import Bank — ever
since Democrats, particularly Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), threatened to
defeat the trade bill over the expiration of the bank’s charter.

“I think everybody knew that he had said that he would help the senator get
a vote,” Hatch said. “To me, that was publicly known.”

McConnell said Friday that he considered the dueling health-care and bank
amendments to be a “compromise,” noting that a vote on repealing the
Affordable Care Act is “something nearly every Republican wants.”

But Cruz, a fierce opponent of the health-care law, was not mollified by
McConnell’s move to bring up a repeal vote, calling it “empty showmanship.”

“We’ll have a vote on repealing Obamacare,” he said. “The Republicans will
all vote yes; the Democrats will all vote no. It will be at a 60-vote
threshold. It will fail. It will be an exercise in meaningless political
theater.”

*Cruz to McConnell: You’re a liar
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/07/24/cruz-to-mcconnell-youre-a-liar/>
// WaPo // Elise Viebeck - July 24, 2015*

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) broke an unspoken rule of etiquette on the Senate
floor Friday when he called Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a liar
as the chamber worked on a must-pass transportation bill.

Cruz’s outburst took place after McConnell set up votes on two
controversial amendments — repeal of the Affordable Care Act and
reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank — in a way that would make it
difficult for other amendments to receive votes.

As The Post’s Mike DeBonis reports, the vote on Ex-Im surprised and enraged
Cruz:

While McConnell has personally spoken against Ex-Im reauthorization,
Democrats said in June he had agreed to schedule an Ex-Im vote in order to
get highly divisive trade legislation passed.

But McConnell at the time denied that any deal had been struck, and Cruz
said Friday the same assurance was given in a private Republican conference
meeting.

“We had a Senate Republican lunch where I stood up and I asked the majority
leader very directly, what was the deal that was just cut on [trade
legislation, and was there a deal for the Export-Import Bank?’ [Cruz said.]

‘It was a direct question. I asked the majority leader in front of all the
Republican senators. The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I
would ask such a question, and the majority leader looked at me and said,
‘There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.’

‘Like Saint Peter, he repeated it three times,’ Cruz added.”

*Ted Cruz debated Code Pink protesters for 24 minutes
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/24/ted-cruz-debated-code-pink-protesters-for-24-minutes/>
// WaPo // David Weigel - July 24, 2015*

It was supposed to be a quick show of strength by conservative groups
opposed to the nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States. It
turned into a debate between the self-identified avatar of "courageous
conservatives" and the omnipresent anti-war activists of Code Pink -- and
it lasted as long as the average sitcom episode. The result, captured on
video by the Cruz-positive team at Breitbart News, is among the most
popular conservative entertainment of the past week.

The drama began on Thursday afternoon, when Concerned Women for America
brought Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Christians United for Israel campaigner
Gary Bauer to the gates of the White House. Code Pink's presence was a
given. Led by Medea Benjamin, who in the last few years has interrupted
everyone from President Obama to Henry Kissinger, the group relentlessly
works its way into congressional hearings and political events. If there is
a picture of a political figure with angry protesters holding signs behind
him, odds are Code Pink did it. (The pinkness is a play on the
long-defunct, much mocked Department of Homeland Security color code for
potential risks.)

Cruz issued his familiar arguments. Code Pink activists, easily able to
swarm an outdoor event like this, kept heckling. After a few minutes, Cruz
dared the loudest heckler to stand and debate him.

"It is very interesting to see those who profess to believe in free speech
be afraid of speech," said Cruz. "Hold on a second -- sir, come forward.
You want to be a part of the discussion?"

The main heckler stood down, and Code Pink dispatched Benjamin to debate
Cruz. He talked about the deal, specifically. She talked about the benefits
of diplomacy, generally.

"Over $100 billion will flow to Iran that they will use to fund jihadists
that will murder people," said Cruz.

"The only way we're going to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is
through negotiation," said Benjamin, who insisted that Iran's real nuclear
ambitions were still mysterious, or over-hyped.

"I think in debates, truth matters," said Cruz. "One entity with whom there
is no ambiguity, in terms of whether Iran wants nuclear weapons, is
Ayatollah Khameini... I recognize that the Code Pink folks like to hold up
signs saying, 'Peace with Iran.' Do you know who doesn't reciprocate those
views? Iran."

Code Pink protesters did not stutter or falter. But they were pitted
against one of the best debaters at the high levels of American politics.
This encounter did not make the rounds on the left; it went viral on the
right. A recap of the debate became the top trending story at the
Washington Examiner. Washington Free Beacon reporter Adam Kredo, who stood
right by Cruz during the debate, reported that the senator "tussled with
and shut down a group of left wing activists." On the first-generation
conservative blog Powerline, it was reported that Cruz had "crushed" Code
Pink.

Few senators would have bothered. Earlier this year, when a Code Pink
heckler interrupted a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen.
John McCain (R-Ariz.) told the "low-life scum" to exit. Security made it
so. But Cruz saw a chance to work a speedbag, in full view of the
conservative base that he courts. He took that chance. A debate with actual
Republican opponents will follow in less than three weeks.

*Ted Cruz to GOP leader: You lied.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ted-cruz-to-gop-leader-you-lied/2015/07/24/6a967690-3225-11e5-97ae-30a30cca95d7_story.html>
// WaPo // Mike DeBonis - July 24, 2015*

Firebrand Republican senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz did
something surprising in the Senate on Friday: He accused the head of his
party, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of lying to his colleagues.

“We know now that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes
an explicit commitment, that he is willing to say things that he knows are
false,” Cruz (Tex.) said. “That has consequences for how this body
operates.”

Cruz’s remarks laid bare, in the most august of settings, simmering
tensions between the conservative activist wing of the Republican Party and
the mainstream GOP establishment. In his 20-minute speech, Cruz accused
McConnell (Ky.) of running the Senate in much the same manner as his
Democratic predecessor as majority leader, Harry M. Reid (Nev.).

“There is a profound disappointment among the American people because we
keep winning elections, and then we keep getting leaders who don’t do
anything they promised,” Cruz said. “We’ve had a Republican majority in
both houses of Congress now for about six months. . . . This Senate
operates exactly the same, the same priorities.”

Ted Cruz slams Congress over 'corporate welfare'(5:25)

On the Senate floor, Cruz accused "career politicians" in Congress of
"looting the taxpayer to benefit wealthy, powerful corporations." (AP)

Prompting the outburst was McConnell’s move to prepare amendment votes on a
must-pass transportation bill. After senators voted to consider the bill,
McConnell set up votes on two controversial issues — a repeal of the
Affordable Care Act and a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank of the
United States. Not included were such issues as immigration enforcement and
cuts to Planned Parenthood funding, for which Cruz and other conservatives
had pushed.

The move incensed Cruz, who had announced his intention to offer other
amendments and who, like many conservatives, strongly opposes the bank’s
reauthorization despite the support it enjoys among a supermajority of
senators. That puts him at odds with McConnell, who has attempted to keep
major legislation moving steadily through the Senate and has struck deals
and engaged in procedural maneuvers to avoid getting bogged down, with
uneven success.

Though McConnell has personally spoken against the Export-Import Bank’s
reauthorization, Democrats said in June that he had agreed to schedule a
vote on the bank in order to get highly divisive trade legislation passed.

Cruz said Friday that McConnell, in a private Republican conference
meeting, denied that any deal had been struck to pass the trade bill.

“I asked the majority leader very directly: What was the deal that was just
cut?” Cruz recalled. “The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I
would ask such a question, and the majority leader looked at me and said,
‘There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.’ Like Saint Peter,
he repeated it three times.”

McConnell spokesman Don Stewart declined to comment.

Rule XIX

Senators generally refrain from impugning their colleagues on the floor, a
practice codified in Senate Rule XIX: “No Senator in debate shall, directly
or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other
Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

The penalty for breaching that rule is to be ordered to take one’s seat —
in effect, to sit down and shut up. But no senator rose to make a point of
order before Cruz left the floor.

“It’s unusual, certainly,” Betty K. Koed, the Senate’s official historian,
said of Cruz’s remarks. “The Senate prides itself on being an environment
of polite, respectful decorum, but this happens from time to time.”

In a 1995 speech on Senate decorum, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) denounced
senators who accuse their colleagues of dissembling: “The use of such
maledicent language on the Senate floor is quite out of place, and to
accuse other senators of being liars is to skate on very, very thin ice,
indeed.”

Rule XIX was nearly invoked in 1988 after Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) accused
Sen. H. John Heinz III (R-Pa.) and others of being “spokesmen” for “special
interest groups.” But after Heinz rose in protest, Gramm withdrew his
remarks.

Cruz’s statement would seem to be a more serious breach of floor comity
than Gramm’s. But they both fall well short of other, more distant floor
antics — such as the time, during debate on the Compromise of 1850, that
Henry S. Foote of Mississippi pulled a pistol on fellow Democrat Thomas
Hart Benton of Missouri, or the 1902 fistfight between South Carolina
Democrats Benjamin R. Tillman and John L. McLaurin.

Presidential ambitions

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), the longest-serving Republican senator,
defended McConnell and criticized Cruz to reporters Friday: “I don’t think
we make headway around here by implying, even, that other people are liars.”

He also made note of Cruz’s presidential bid, which registered single-digit
national support in the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll of
Republican candidates. “People who run for president do some very
interesting things from time to time, so we should allow wide leeway there,
too,” Hatch said.

Presidential ambitions have been a source of continuing headaches for
McConnell as he has sought to keep the Senate productive in his first
months as floor leader. In April, amendments offered by Sen. Marco Rubio
(R-Fla.) helped short-circuit debate on a bill setting up congressional
review of an Iran nuclear deal. A month later, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
derailed McConnell’s plan to extend key federal surveillance authorities,
which were forced to lapse briefly because of Paul’s objections.

In recent weeks, McConnell signaled that the transportation bill would be a
likely vehicle for the Export-Import Bank’s reauthorization. Before Cruz
spoke, McConnell said he had no choice but to allow the vote, saying that
the bank’s supporters “made it clear they’re ready to stop all other
amendments if denied that opportunity.”

“They have already proven they have the votes to back up the threat, as
well,” he said, referring to a June 10 test vote in which 65 senators
supported reauthorization. “This presents a challenge for the Senate and to
opponents of the Ex-Im Bank, like myself, in particular.”

Hatch, who has been at the center of the trade and highway debates as
Finance Committee chairman, defended McConnell by saying it has been clear
for two months that there would be a vote on the Export-Import Bank — ever
since Democrats, particularly Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), threatened to
defeat the trade bill over the expiration of the bank’s charter.

“I think everybody knew that he had said that he would help the senator get
a vote,” Hatch said. “To me, that was publicly known.”

McConnell said Friday that he considered the dueling health-care and bank
amendments to be a “compromise,” noting that a vote on repealing the
Affordable Care Act is “something nearly every Republican wants.”

But Cruz, a fierce opponent of the health-care law, was not mollified by
McConnell’s move to bring up a repeal vote, calling it “empty showmanship.”

“We’ll have a vote on repealing Obamacare,” he said. “The Republicans will
all vote yes; the Democrats will all vote no. It will be at a 60-vote
threshold. It will fail. It will be an exercise in meaningless political
theater.”

*Ted Cruz Says GOP Leader McConnell Told ‘Flat-Out Lie’
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/24/ted-cruz-says-gop-leader-mcconnell-told-flat-out-lie/>
// WSJ // Isaac Stanley-Becker - July 24, 2015*

Sen. Ted Cruz, the conservative Texas firebrand and Republican presidential
candidate, on Friday accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.,
Ky.) of lying to him, in an unusually personal jab for a body that holds
itself to a strict standard of decorum.

“The majority leader looked me in the eye and looked 54 Republicans in the
eye,” Mr. Cruz said toward the end of a nearly 20-minute speech on the
Senate floor. “I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie, and I voted
based on those assurances that he made to each and every one of us.”

Mr. Cruz was referring to a lunch meeting of Senate Republicans in which he
stood up and asked Mr. McConnell a question about talks over granting
President Barack Obama fast-track trade negotiating authority. Mr. Cruz
wanted to know whether Mr. McConnell had agreed, as part of the trade
talks, to also call a vote on reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank,
which formally expired July 1.

Several Democrats urged Republican leaders to hitch the bank to the trade
legislation, which they ultimately declined to do. Mr. Cruz said he and his
staff suspected a deal had been struck to hold the vote on a separate piece
of legislation. Lawmakers have disagreed about the precise nature of how
Mr. McConnell said he planned to address the bank’s reauthorization, which
a supermajority of senators backed in a show vote in June.

“The majority leader looked at me and said there is no deal,” Mr. Cruz said.

Mr. McConnell on Friday scheduled a Sunday vote on reauthorization of the
bank, which provides financing for U.S. exports, as an amendment to the
highway bill that Republican leaders are hoping to advance next week. Along
with the vote on the bank, whose reauthorization is supported by most
Democrats and some Republicans, Mr. McConnell scheduled a separate
amendment vote on repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which remains a
legislative target of Congressional Republicans following two Supreme Court
rulings upholding central components of the law.

The Senate voted earlier this year on a GOP budget resolution that included
a repeal of much of the health law. But this would be the first time in
this congressional session that the Senate would vote on a separate measure
to undo the law, which is unlikely to surmount the 60-vote threshold. The
GOP-controlled House has voted numerous times to repeal the health law,
including in February of this year.

McConnell said his plan to bring up both amendments was a “more balanced
proposal,” adding, “Ex-Im shouldn’t be the only vote we take on this bill.”

But Mr. Cruz, who opposes the Ex-Im bank reauthorization, denounced the
move as duplicitous – “a simple lie,” he said, accusing Mr. McConnell of
cowing to lobbyists and Democrats.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) countered that Mr. McConnell has made clear,
even as publicly as on the Senate floor, that he would ensure a vote on the
bank’s reauthorization.

“I don’t think any member of the Senate should use that kind of language
against another senator unless they can show definitive proof that there
was a lie,” Mr. Hatch said. “And I know the leader didn’t lie, because I’ve
been involved in all these negotiations.”

Mr. Hatch hinted Mr. Cruz’s presidential aspirations may be to blame for
the provocative remark.

“People who run for president do some very interesting things,” he said,
heaping praise on Mr. McConnell as one of the best lawmakers to ever lead
the Senate.

Katherine Scott, an associate Senate historian, said civility has been the
rule of the Senate, but there have been infrequent violations. In 1902,
South Carolina Sen. John McLaurin accused the state’s senior senator, Ben
Tillman, of telling “a willful, malicious and deliberate lie.” Mr. Tillman
responded by punching Mr. McLaurin in the jaw.

The skirmish led to a change in the Senate rules, which now proscribe
senators from imputing to another member “conduct or motive unworthy or
unbecoming a senator.”

*Ted Cruz accuses Mitch McConnell of telling a 'flat-out lie'
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/ted-cruz-says-mitch-mcconnell-lies-export-import-bank-120583.html?ml=tl_18>
// Politico // Manu Raju - July 24, 2015*

Ted Cruz took to the Senate floor Friday and charged that Mitch McConnell
told a “lie,” escalating his campaign against GOP leaders and challenging
the traditions of the usually decorous chamber.

In a scathing floor speech, the Texas firebrand accused the Senate majority
leader of breaking his word to him and the rest of the GOP conference over
McConnell’s plans for the controversial Export-Import Bank, the country’s
chief export credit agency. In Cruz’s telling, McConnell privately promised
him and other Republicans that “there was no deal” with a handful of
senators who were seeking to revive the bank in exchange for their votes to
advance a major trade bill in May.

McConnell, he said, became “visibly angry” when Cruz challenged him on the
matter during a meeting in May.

“Like St. Peter,” Cruz said, “he repeated it three times. He said, ‘The
only thing I told the proponents of the Export-Import Bank is like any
other senator in this body, they could offer any amendment they liked on an
any amendable vehicle, but I gave them nothing.’”

That day in late May, Cruz said his staff informed him that McConnell was
“lying” to him, but he said he believed the Senate GOP leader that “he
wasn’t lying to us.”

But after McConnell took procedural steps Friday to move to a proposal to
revive the Ex-Im bank, Cruz said on the Senate floor: “I cannot believe he
would tell a flat-out lie.”

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., leaves after
speaking at the Georgia Republican Convention, Friday, May 15, 2015, in
Athens, Ga. Georgia

“What we saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told
every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over again
was a simple lie,” said Cruz, a fierce opponent of the bank. “The majority
and minority leader, arm-in-arm again, should not team up against the
American taxpayers.”

The attack is unusual even for Cruz, who has made his battle with Senate
Republicans a centerpiece of his campaign for the GOP presidential
nomination. Senators tend to avoid directly calling out specific senators
on the Senate floor — particularly from their own party and especially
their own party leader. Senate rules say, “no senator in debate shall,
directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another senator or
to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.”

Asked to comment, McConnell smiled and walked away. Sen. John Cornyn, a
fellow Texas Republican and McConnell’s chief deputy, said he was reviewing
Cruz’s remarks and would not comment further.

After initially declining to comment on the Ex-Im dispute, Sen. Mike Lee, a
close Cruz ally who is wooing the GOP establishment to ward off any primary
threat in Utah next year, said he “was surprised and disappointed that such
aggressive tactics were used to resurrect the Export-Import Bank, a policy
most Senate Republicans oppose,” in a statement.

The bank has become a flashpoint in the battle between the GOP’s business
and tea party wings. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce argues that the bank’s
support is essential in promoting American exports and supporting more than
a million U.S. jobs. But conservative groups like Heritage Action and the
Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity argue that the bank is nothing more
than corporate welfare that picks winners and losers and should be
disbanded.

The GOP versus GOP fight led to the expiration of the 80-year-old bank’s
charter in July, preventing it from backing any new loans. But a bipartisan
majority in the Senate is pushing hard to revive it, putting McConnell in
the crosshairs.

McConnell, who opposes the bank, vowed to three senators who strongly
support the bank — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Washington Sens.
Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray — that he would allow a vote on the bank’s
charter during high-stakes negotiations over the trade bill in May. After
those assurances, those three senators voted to advance the fast-track
bill, which eventually became law and will pave the way for the sweeping
Trans-Pacific Partnership.

With Congress now headed to an August recess, the bank’s proponents are
looking to find any legislative vehicle that will revive it. The last
remaining vehicle is a highway bill that must pass before the August
recess. So McConnell on Friday filed a cloture motion to break a filibuster
and bring up the Export-Import Bank measure on Sunday. He also filed
cloture on a full-scale repeal of Obamacare, which could give him some
political cover on the right after the backlash from his moves to allow the
bank’s charter to be revived.

But since the Obamacare vote will fail to surmount a Democratic filibuster,
Cruz lashed McConnell for “empty showmanship.”

During his speech, Cruz also strongly rebuked the GOP Senate majority’s
record this Congress, rebutting McConnell’s argument that the new
Republican majority has fulfilled its promises to voters.

“We’ve had a Republican majority in both houses of Congresses now for about
six months. What has that majority done? First thing we did, in December,
we passed a $1 trillion crominbus plan filled with pork and corporate
welfare. Then this Republican majority voted to fund Obamacare, voted to
fund President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty. And then the
leadership rammed through the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney
general.”

Cruz added: “Madam President, which of those decisions would be one iota
different if Harry Reid were still majority leader? Not a one. Not a one.”

He added that McConnell is “behaving” like Reid by limiting debate and
amendments on the Senate floor, even arguing that the GOP leader did not
put up a strong enough fight to push for Republican votes during debate
over an Iran congressional review bill this past spring. Cruz recounted a
private conversation in McConnell’s office over their dispute.

As he walked off the Senate floor, Cruz didn’t stop insulting McConnell.

He told reporters that he would try to force a procedural vote on an
amendment to force Iran to recognize Israel’s right to exist and release
the four American hostages held in Tehran. Forcing a procedural vote — to
overturn the ruling of the chair — is another highly unusual move,
particularly for a rank-and-file senator challenging his own leadership.

“I assume leadership is going to whip against that amendment,” Cruz said.

In the 15-minute press availability, Cruz was asked to produce evidence
that McConnell is a liar. He sent aides to his Senate desk, and he
circulated photos from the Senate floor of Graham and Cantwell huddling
with McConnell and his deputies on the Senate floor during the tense vote
on Trade Promotion Authority. Cruz said at a subsequent party lunch, he
challenged McConnell “explicitly” to find out what deal they cut.

“If the majority leader is willing to lie to 54 Republicans to their face,
when is he willing to do so again?” Cruz said.

*Republican White House hopeful Cruz calls McConnell a liar
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/24/us-usa-election-cruz-idUSKCN0PY29P20150724>
// Reuters // David Morgan and Richard Cowan - July 24, 2015*

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz ripped into his party's
establishment on Friday, calling Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell a
liar during an unusual public attack on the floor of the Senate.

Amid intense maneuvering over an ambitious $340 billion transportation
bill, Cruz railed that McConnell and the Senate's new Republican majority
were serving the interests of big money lobbyists and corporations, because
of a move to offer an amendment to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

Cruz, a fiery first-term Senator who helped shut down the federal
government in 2013, is among 16 presidential candidates vying for the 2016
Republican presidential nomination. He has also used his Senate perch to
try and gain traction among voters by criticizing what he calls "Supreme
Court activism" over gay marriage and Obamacare.

He said McConnell assured him months ago at a meeting of Republican
senators that there would be no deal to revive the U.S. export credit
agency's charter, which expired June 30. The measure now expected to come
before the Senate on Sunday has substantial bipartisan support.

In rhetoric tinged with Biblical overtones, the Texas Republican said
McConnell denied three times "like St. Peter" that there was a deal to
bring Ex-Im bank to a vote.

"What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he
told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and
over again was a simple lie," Cruz said.

"We now know that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes
an explicit commitment, that he is willing to say things that he knows are
false."

The incendiary outburst, unusual in the cordial atmosphere of the Senate,
came less than two weeks before the first televised Republican debate, in
which the mud-slinging mogul Donald Trump could take center stage.

The tirade also reflected heightened tensions as the campaign trail heats
up, as well as trouble ahead for Congress with major tax-and-spending
challenges coming in September.

Cruz accused the Republican-controlled Senate generally of ignoring the
interests of voters and listening instead to "the lobbyists on K Street ...
big money and big corporations."

McConnell's office had no immediate comment.

Days ahead of a long August recess, the Senate was working to pass
legislation to replenish the federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays for
about half the country's transportation projects and is on track to run out
of money.

The ambitious bipartisan Senate bill to provide three years of funding for
America's roads, bridges and rail systems was getting loaded down with
unrelated amendments.

McConnell is trying to advance the legislation by allowing amendments
popular to each side. For instance: repeal of Obamacare for Republicans;
for Democrats, reauthorization of Ex-Im Bank, which helps U.S. exporters.

*William Shatner: Ted Cruz calling Kirk a Republican is ‘silly’
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/william-shatner-ted-cruz-calling-kirk-republican-silly>
// MSNBC // Benjamin Landy - July 24, 2015*

Self-professed “Star Trek” nerd and GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz
believes Captain Kirk was “quite likely” a Republican. And William Shatner,
who starred as the character in the original 1960s hit television series,
is having none of it.

“To put a geocentric label on interstellar characters is silly,” Shatner
tweeted Thursday after The New York Times Magazine published an interview
with the Texas senator in which he offered “a little psychoanalysis” on why
Kirk was probably a Republican and Jean-Luc Picard, the starship captain in
“Star Trek: The Next Generation,” was a Democrat.

“If you look at ‘’Star Trek: The Next Generation,’ it basically split James
T. Kirk into two people. Picard was Kirk’s rational side, and William Riker
was his passionate side. I prefer a complete captain. To be effective, you
need both heart and mind,” Cruz said, later comparing himself to his
favorite character.

“The original ‘Star Trek’ was grittier,” Cruz continued. “Kirk is working
class; Picard is an aristocrat. Kirk is a passionate fighter for justice;
Picard is a cerebral philosopher. The original ‘Star Trek’ pressed for
racial equality, which was one of its best characteristics, but it did so
without sermonizing.”

Although “Star Trek” has been praised for its progressive outlook on racial
and gender relations, which broke ground with a diverse cast, humanitarian
plot lines and television’s first interracial kiss, Shatner pushed back on
any political reading.

“Star Trek wasn’t political. I’m not political; I can’t even vote in the
US,” tweeted the actor, who was born in Canada. At least he and Cruz have
that in common.

*Brent Bozell endorses Ted Cruz for president
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/brent-bozell-endorses-ted-cruz-president> //
MSNBC // Kelly O’Donnell - July 24, 2015*

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today received the endorsement of Brent
Bozell, conservative stalwart and president of the Conservative Victory
Committee. Bozell released a video announcing his support of Sen. Cruz’s
candidacy for president.

“Make no mistake: If the Republican Party repeats what it has done the last
two presidential elections, Republicans will lose. I guarantee it,” Bozell
said in the video. “On the other hand, if we nominate a principled,
passionate conservative America can count on to restore her greatness,
there will be an outpouring of support.”

Bozell continues, “We need a courageous conservative who tells the truth
and does what he promises. We need to nominate an inspiring leader who has
proven he is willing to take on the Washington Cartel and buck the
political establishment of both parties. We need a leader who will win, and
reignite the promise of America. There are some good conservatives running
for president, but we need more than a ‘campaign conservative’ – we need a
consistent conservative who has led the fights important to us. Ted Cruz is
this leader.”

Brent Bozell III is one of the most outspoken and effective national
leaders in the conservative movement today. He has spent more than three
decades promoting and defending conservative values. He has built the
largest media watchdog organization in the country, successfully exposing
the mainstream media’s biased coverage of conservative candidates and
ideas. Additionally, he is founder of ForAmerica, an organization committed
to restoring America to its founding principles with an online army of
almost 8 million members, and previously served as president of the
National Conservative Political Action Committee.

*Cruz says he won't speak ill of Republicans, bashes McConnell
<http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-07242015-htmlstory.html?update=84069749>
// LA Times // Kathleen Hennessey - July 24, 2015*

Sen. Ted Cruz savaged Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a fellow Republican,
on the Senate floor Friday in a surprising screed about honesty, trust,
loyalty and the export credit agency known as the Ex-Im Bank.

Cruz's speech dived deeply into Senate deal-making gone sideways, and Cruz,
who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, made it clear he
feels burned by his colleague and party leader.

He accused McConnell of lying to him, of bowing to the "Washington cartel
of the lobbyists on K street" and of being no more trustworthy than the man
who preceded McConnell, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, a Democrat.

"It saddens me to say this. ... I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out
lie, and I voted based on those assurances that he made to each and every
one of us," Cruz said.

"What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he
told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and
over again, was a simple lie."

Calling another senator a liar on the Senate floor is a remarkable breach
of decorum in an institution that likes its dusty traditions. But it's even
more remarkable given what Cruz had to say less than a week ago about
speaking ill of his fellow Republicans.

When asked Saturday whether he would condemn Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump for comments casting Mexican immigrants as "rapists"
and saying Sen. John McCain was "not a war hero," Cruz demurred and
declared he'd take the high road.

"Folks in the press love to see Republican-on-Republican violence, and so
you want me to say something bad about Donald Trump, or bad about John
McCain or bad about anyone else," he said. "I'm not going to do it."

Cruz's decision to blast McConnell and take a pass on Trump fits with his
political positioning in the Senate and in the race for the nomination. The
Texas conservative is aiming to make a name for himself as the
rabble-rousing outsider in the race. But it's hard for Cruz to one-up Trump
in the rabble-rousing outsider category. So he has essentially decided to
join him, rather than try to beat him. In the Senate, Cruz has less
competition. On Friday, he had the floor.

"There is a profound disappointment among the American people because we
keep winning elections and then we keep getting leaders who don't do
anything they promised," Cruz said.

*Ted Cruz Blasts Big Money In Politics
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-money-in-politics_55b25879e4b0a13f9d183f91?utm_hp_ref=politics>
// HuffPo // Paul Blumenthal - July 24, 2015*

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) launched into a tirade on the corrupting role of
lobbyists and campaign contributions in Washington during a Senate floor
debate Friday about the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.

“It’s not that this majority gets things done,” Cruz said. “It does get
things done, but it listens to one and only one voice. That is the voice of
the Washington cartel of the lobbyists on K Street of the big money and big
corporations.”

Cruz’s comments came amid debate over the reauthorization of the
Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that provides credit to corporations
to finance and insure foreign purchases. The largest recipient of the
bank's support is the giant aerospace corporation Boeing.

The bank is the target of a massive campaign by libertarian-minded groups
like Heritage Action and the billionaire Koch brothers’ Americans for
Prosperity and Freedom Partners . Support for the bank has been funded by
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest corporate lobby. The
standoff has been billed as major battle between the tea party wing and the
corporate wing of the Republican Party.

The bank’s authority lapsed in June, as Congress declined to approve it.

What sparked the Texas senator and Republican presidential candidate's
tirade Friday was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's announcement
that he would allow two amendments to a transportation funding bill: one to
repeal Obamacare and another to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.

Cruz said on the floor that McConnell lied to him and other Republicans
when he sought support to provide President Barack Obama with fast-track
trade authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade
agreement the U.S. is negotiating with Pacific nations. According to Cruz,
McConnell promised that he would not allow any amendments to reauthorize
the bank.

In response to the amendment, Cruz took issue with money in politics, with
targets ranging from McConnell to Senate Democrats:

“Every Democrat who rails against big money and corruption in Washington,
every Democrat who styles himself or herself a populist -- their actions on
this matter speak far louder than their words,” he said. “And when it comes
to Republicans -- Republicans are also listening to K Street and the
lobbyists. Why? It’s not complicated. The giant corporations that are
getting special favors from the taxpayers hire army of lobbyists that write
campaign checks after campaign checks -- and by the way, these checks go to
both Democrats and Republicans. It is career politicians in both parties
that are kept in office by looting the taxpayer to benefit wealthy powerful
corporations.”

Cruz’s solution to big money in politics, however, may not exactly be
conducive to reducing corporate control of Congress. In 2014, he introduced
a bill to eliminate all limits on campaign donations to allow political
candidates to raise unlimited sums from any source, whether a person,
corporation or labor union. At least on that issue, Cruz, the Koch brothers
and the Chamber of Commerce can all agree.

*Ted Cruz Is Really Fed Up With Mitch McConnell
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-mitch-mcconnell_55b2576ee4b0074ba5a441b1?utm_hp_ref=politics>
// HuffPo // Sam Levine - July 24, 2015*

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.) of lying and railed against the Kentucky senator's leadership
during a fiery speech on the Senate floor Friday morning.

Cruz, who is running for president, was angry that McConnell will not allow
senators to attach amendments to a highway funding bill -- even though
McConnell indicated in January that he would allow an open amendments
process as majority leader.

McConnell said on Friday that he will only allow two amendments on the
bill: one to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and one to reauthorize the
Export-Import Bank, which guarantees loans for those who purchase American
exports and is an institution that Cruz strongly opposes. The bank's
authority expired on June 30.

The Texas senator said that McConnell had previously told him that no deal
had been struck to reauthorize the bank when the Senate was considering the
Iran Review Act and whether to grant President Barack Obama Trade Promotion
Authority.

"I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie," Cruz said.

Cruz also accused McConnell of running the Senate like Sen. Harry Reid
(D-Nev.) did when Democrats controlled the upper chamber.

"This Senate operates exactly the same," he said. "We keep winning
elections, and we keep getting leaders who don't do anything they promise."

The exchange caught the eye of Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson, who sent an
email to reporters saying that Cruz's speech helped explain a Pew poll
showing that Republican favorability has dipped while Democratic
favorability has remained more stable since the GOP took control of the
Senate in January.

Cruz also called McConnell out for allowing a vote to repeal Obama's health
care law, which the Texas senator has vowed to reverse if he is elected
president. On Friday, he said that McConnell's amendment was "empty
showmanship."

"We'll have a vote on repealing Obamacare. The Republicans will all vote
yes, the Democrats will all vote no. ... It will be an exercise of
meaningless political theatre."

Clarification: This story has been updated to indicate that McConnell said
in January he would allow an open amendments process for bills in the
Senate without referring to a specific bill.

*Mitch McConnell's Move Leaves Ted Cruz Out In The Hallway
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-mitch-mcconnell-ndaa_55b26f47e4b0074ba5a461c0?utm_hp_ref=politics>
// HuffPo // Ali Watkins and Akbar Shahid Ahmed - July 24, 2015*

Senior lawmakers and staff from the House and Senate armed services
committees are hammering away on the National Defense Authorization Act,
the annual bill that keeps the military up and running. But there are fewer
chairs at the negotiating table this time. And committee member and
presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) isn’t in one of them.

GOP leadership was worried that the notorious grandstander would tank the
crucial spending bill, two sources familiar with the process told HuffPost.
In an effort to keep him out of the room, they cut the membership of the
conference committee -- the panel responsible for hammering out differences
between the House and Senate versions of the bill -- to a smaller number
than it’s been in years.

“The number of Senate conferees was cut from previous years. Typically, all
members of the [Senate Armed Services Committee] are named as the Senate
conferees, but that is not the case this year,” said one congressional
source familiar with the process.

Both sources said they were told the conference panel was slashed in an
effort to keep Cruz out of the room.

Instead of naming the entire Senate panel, the choice of this year’s
conferees lacks a clear formula. It consists of the committee leadership,
plus several chairs and ranking members of the subcommittees. Sens. Jim
Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) are also on the conference panel.

Cruz sponsored several amendments in the Senate's version of the NDAA,
including requirements for reporting on the military capabilities of U.S.
adversaries. But that didn't get him a seat at the table.

The firebrand senator is infamous for showy political maneuvers that often
have far less to do with actual legislative objectives and far more to do
with the interests of Ted Cruz. He’s chosen several hills through his
senatorial career to die on -- Obamacare is his weapon of choice, and he
led a government shutdown over it in 2013. More recently, he embarked on a
21-hour filibuster over the Affordable Care Act that served little purpose
besides further bogging down the already bogged-down Senate and providing
the masses with his Darth Vader impression.

But the motive for boxing Cruz out of the end stages of the NDAA process
isn’t entirely clear. After all, bombastic freshman Sen. Tom Cotton
(R-Ark.) landed an appointment. Cruz voted against the bill when it passed
the Senate last month, but so did several other committee members who were
eventually appointed to the conference panel.

“You’d have to ask Senator McConnell. That was his decision,” Armed
Services Committee Chair John McCain (R-Ariz.) said, adding that the
conference process was ongoing.

There’s certainly no love lost between Cruz and Mitch McConnell, the Senate
majority leader. On Friday, Cruz took to the Senate floor to, among other
things, call McConnell a liar.

"I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie, and I voted based on those
assurances that he made to each and every one of us," Cruz said. He was
referring to a supposed promise that McConnell made to Cruz and his
Republican colleagues on a vote regarding a controversial export system.

McConnell has thrown his own jabs at the presidential hopeful, joking
earlier this year about Cruz’s threats to throw himself in front of a train
to stop Obamacare.

“That idea has some merit to it,” McConnell said at a dinner in January.

The offices of both Cruz and McConnell did not respond to requests for
comment.

*Ted Cruz Exploits Americans Trapped In Iran To Score Political Points
Against Obama
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-iran-captives_55b25bd5e4b0224d8831f81c?utm_hp_ref=politics>
// HuffPo // Akbar Shahid Ahmed - July 24, 2015*

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Thursday used the plight of four Americans
trapped in Iran to launch a political attack on the Obama administration
for its efforts to negotiate a limit to Iran's nuclear program.

But in doing so, the senator and presidential candidate did more than
reduce the captives' suffering to political grandstanding. Cruz also
conveniently ignored the fact that the captive Americans' own families hold
views on the Iran negotiations that differ starkly from his own hawkish
stance. The families have stated that they are generally optimistic that
the nuclear deal recently negotiated between Iran and six world powers will
help their loved ones come home.

"Signing a deal that sends millions of dollars to jihadists that want to
murder us, that facilitates and accelerates Iran's acquiring nuclear
weapons to murder us, and that abandons four American hostages in Iran is
profoundly dangerous," Cruz said Thursday, speaking at a rally organized by
conservative groups that oppose the nuclear deal.

Cruz went on to compare President Barack Obama with former President Jimmy
Carter, who was president in 1979 when Iran took a number of U.S. hostages
following a raid on the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

"There is nothing more pressing right now than that Americans all across
this country come together to stop this catastrophic Iran nuclear deal,"
the Texas senator said.

The rally where Cruz spoke was put together by the advocacy arm of the
conservative group Concerned Women for America, which has asked Congress
not to back the nuclear deal, and the pro-Israel think tank Endowment for
Middle East Truth, whose founder and president called the deal
"appeasement, bordering on capitulation, bordering on treason."

The Americans being held in Iran include three Iranian-Americans who are
known to be in jail: Pastor Saeed Abedini, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati
and Washington Post Tehran correspondent Jason Rezaian. All three are
charged with various breaches of state security, and securing their freedom
will require working through Iran's opaque judicial system. In addition,
former FBI agent Robert Levinson disappeared in Iran eight years ago and
his whereabouts have been unknown since. He is believed to be held in
retaliation for his work in Iran on behalf of the CIA.

Citing the cases of the four hostages has become a favored tactic of
opponents of the nuclear agreement. The deal subjects Iran to strict
restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from certain
stringent economic sanctions. However, it does not cover the question of
the Americans being held in Iran, though the Obama administration has said
repeatedly that U.S. negotiators raised the matter each time they met with
their Iranian counterparts.

Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Energy
Secretary Ernest Moniz testify during a hearing on Iran before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.

The families of the four Americans have been deliberate but cautious in
their activism, raising the captives' profiles but remaining careful not to
insult Iran or alienate its elites. Family members and other advocates for
the captives have largely supported the nuclear talks, believing that an
agreement makes freedom more likely for the Americans.

"We are optimistic that the Iranian government will deliver on their
promise to help find my father and send him home to show America, and the
world, that they are serious about their peaceful intentions," Sarah
Moriarty, one of Levinson's daughters, wrote in a HuffPost blog post last
week. "My family has watched intently as our country went from absolutely
no relations with Iran to this very promising open and direct dialogue. We
truly believe this is the beginning of more fruitful discussions to come,
and that it will unlock any remaining challenges our countries have in
order to get my father home."

On the day that the deal was announced, Hekmati's family told HuffPost in a
statement that they hoped the 31-year-old's release might become easier now
that the U.S. and Iran had proven themselves committed to peace.

Ali Rezaian, the brother of the Washington Post reporter, remained
supportive of the deal in remarks on Wednesday -- even as he criticized the
Obama administration for failing to show Iran it would face consequences
for arbitrarily imprisoning an American reporter. Rezaian conceded that it
would have been "problematic" to expect the deal to be tied directly to the
Americans' release.

Saeed Abedini's wife Naghmeh has made the same argument. Last week, she
told CNN "it makes sense" that the captives were not immediately released
upon the deal's announcement.

Unlike Cruz, Abedini declined to blame the White House for her husband's
continued imprisonment. "I was hoping to hear some good news but I do think
as the president said, he does care, he's concerned and they're working on
it," she said.

Levinson's family declined to comment about Cruz's remarks. The families of
Hekmati and Rezaian and a representative for Abedini's family did not
respond to a request for comment.

Of the four hostages, only Abedini was represented in any sense at
Thursday's rally. Tiffany Barrans, an attorney from the American Center for
Law and Justice, a conservative group championing Abedini's case, spoke
after Cruz. Abedini's family is the only one of the four that is not
outwardly supportive of the deal.

Barrans told The Huffington Post the pastor's family did not want to weigh
in on the specifics of the deal -- whether, for instance, they felt it
suitably regulated the Iranian nuclear program. Instead, she said, Naghmeh
Abedini would like lawmakers to remember her husband's case while
considering the deal and to vote against it if he remains imprisoned by the
deadline for congressional review. If Abedini is released by then, Barrans
added, his family would be happy for lawmakers to review the deal simply on
its own merits.

From left, Ali Rezaian, Naghmeh Abedini, Sarah Hekmati and Daniel Levinson
testify on Capitol Hill. All four witnesses have family members who have
been detained in Iran.

Cruz's attempt to politicize the Americans' cases was met with disdain by
analysts and advocates who are following the issue.

"To make it an issue to go after the administration on in a campaign is
unfair to the families, is unfair to the prisoners," said Haleh Esfandiari,
the director emeritus of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Esfandiari herself was held for 105 days in Iran under suspicion of trying
to foment regime change, and said her disapproval of Cruz's comments was
tied to her own experience. "I remember when I was in prison, my family did
all they could to keep it out of partisan politics," she said. "It hurts
the prisoners. it doesn't help."

Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), Hekmati's congressman, sponsored a bipartisan
congressional resolution last month calling for Iran to release the
Americans. He told HuffPost on Thursday that he believes that Congress,
which will soon vote on whether or not to approve the agreement, should
consider the deal on its merits -- that is, as an attempt to limit Iran's
nuclear capacity.

"To imply that there was some failure in the negotiation, if that is
[Cruz's] implication, that's not consistent with the interests of these
Americans, it's not consistent with the wishes of the American that I
represent being held in Iran," Kildee said. "It's a very dangerous thing
for politicians to put their own political fortunes ahead of those
interests."

He noted that the Americans being held in Iran would face greater
uncertainty were the nuclear negotiations to fail. "The fate of these
American would be far less within any control of the outside world if we
further isolated Iran," Kildee said.

At Thursday's rally, HuffPost asked Cruz how he would respond to the
captives' families who advocate more peaceful approach to Iran. In
response, the senator reverted to his main talking point: the alleged
failure of the Obama administration.

Cruz argued that Obama's team had proven willing to lift sanctions against
a top Iranian general involved in killing Americans in Iraq yet "could not
demonstrate the same willingness to bring home our four American hostages."

"We need a president who will stand with Americans and defend Americans,
and unfortunately this president and this administration are not doing
that," he said.

When asked what approach he would take to bringing the captives home, Cruz
did not respond.

*CHRISTIE*

*Chris Christie Makes Big Advertising Splash on Fox News
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/24/one-of-two-charges-against-rick-perry-is-dismissed/>
// NYT // Jeremy W. Peters - July 24, 2015*

In the race to crack the top 10 threshold that will determine which
candidates can be in the first Republican presidential debate Aug. 6 on Fox
News, there is more than one approach to getting your poll numbers up.

Some, like Carly Fiorina and former Senator Rick Santorum, have been
seeking as much free media attention as they can, making the rounds on
cable television and talk radio. Others, like Senator Marco Rubio and
Senator Rand Paul, have made the news by sparring with Secretary of State
John Kerry over the Iran nuclear deal.

Or, you could also try to buy your way to a higher standing in the polls.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, in essence, is trying to do just that.
His campaign has purchased $250,000 of advertising time — on Fox News.

The ad buy starts on Friday and goes through Aug. 9. Because Fox will use
the candidates’ standing in national polls to whittle down a field of 16
Republican candidates, the exposure that comes from a national cable
television buy is extremely valuable.

And while Mr. Christie’s standing in the top 10 is fairly sturdy — but not
guaranteed — this ad buy is aimed to help buttress his standing.

*New Jersey Gov. Christie blames Amtrak for nightmarish commutes
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/24/us-usa-new-jersey-transportation-idUSKCN0PY2GY20150724>
// Reuters // Hilary Russ - July 24, 2015*

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a 2016 Republican presidential
candidate, on Friday blamed Amtrak for a week of nightmarish commutes to
and from New York and called on the Obama administration and Congress to
"step up their responsibility," and fix the problems.

New Jersey pays Amtrak, the national rail operator, $100 million annually
so that NJ Transit trains can use Amtrak tunnels and rails, Christie said.

Travelers using NJ Transit trains were "victimized" by extreme delays and
cancellations throughout the system this week because of "Amtrak's
indifference to New Jersey commuters and its abject neglect of the
infrastructure that New Jersey and our entire region relies upon," Christie
said in a statement.

Christie said he had asked the state attorney general to review the matter.

Amtrak apologized for the delays.

"We are actively sharing information with our partners at New Jersey
Transit and other agencies and will continue to work closely with them in
developing an immediate solution," spokeswoman Kimberly Woods said in a
statement.

She said the power failures that caused problems on the Northeast Corridor
this week showed the "urgent need for a funding solution."

Christie's broader record on transportation is less supportive. Just after
taking office in 2010, he cancelled a new Hudson River tunnel project
already under construction, called Access to the Region's Core, saying
costs were likely to skyrocket and citing his state's lack of funding
ability.

New Jersey's Transportation Trust Fund, which pays for roads and bridges,
is also nearly broke. That has prompted calls from Democrats to raise the
state's gas tax, which Christie has rejected.

New Jersey Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski
called Christie's comments about Amtrak hypocritical.

"His piece-meal approach and lack of long-term planning has left our roads
and bridges in shambles," Wisniewski said in a statement.

Christie's cancellation of the tunnel project also "left New Jersey's
trans-Hudson commuters with no choice but to endure Amtrak's delays, a
problem that will only be exacerbated as the existing tunnels reach their
expected lifespan and must be closed for improvements," he said.

*Christie forgets: some Reagan references don’t work
<http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/christie-forgets-some-reagan-references-dont-work>
// MSNBC // Steve Benen - July 24, 2015*

Chris Christie’s presidential campaign has a new television ad, which may
not work quite as well as the Republican governor’s team intended. Here’s
the transcript:

“President Obama gave away the store to the Iranians, to a group of people
who since 1979 have been chanting ‘death to America.’ This was negotiated
so badly that you wouldn’t let this president buy a car for you at a car
dealership.

“Now, he’s lying to the American people about how the deal’s going to work.
I would’ve walked away from the table. That’s what Ronald Reagan did when
he walked away from Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik.

“And so as president, the top priority is to protect the United States of
America, and I’m the only one in this race who’s had at least some small
part of that responsibility. I’m Chris Christie and I approve this message.”

The whole idea behind the ad is odd, in a candidate-focuses-on-his-weakness
sort of way. Christie has no meaningful background in foreign policy or
national security, and he’s struggled at times to understand the basics, so
for the governor to pretend this is his area of expertise is jarring.

For that matter, if the scandal-plagued Republican has any evidence of the
president “lying to the American people about how the deal’s going to
work,” Christie hasn’t shared his proof with anyone.

But that’s not the funny part.

Rather, what jumped out at me was Christie’s willingness to get a
gratuitous Reagan reference into the ad about U.S. policy towards Iran.

Um, gov? The Reagan White House illegally tried to sell weapons to Iran in
order to help finance an illegal war in Central America. It was one of the
biggest scandals in American history. Much of Reagan’s national-security
team ended up under indictment.

Sure, I realize Christie was talking about Reagan’s nuclear talks with the
USSR (which, incidentally, the right opposed and was also proven wrong
about). But when going after Obama’s approach to Iran, Republicans really
ought to leave the Reagan example out of their talking points.

*Time for some traffic problems under the Hudson River
<http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/time-some-traffic-problems-under-the-hudson-river>
// MSNBC // Steve Benen - July 24, 2015*

By most measures, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s ongoing “Bridgegate”
scandal has done severe and lasting damage to his Republican presidential
campaign. But his aides’ decision to deliberately paralyze Fort Lee for
political reasons isn’t the governor’s only problem related to
transportation.

The New York Times reported yesterday, for example, on an even more
immediate challenge.

For the third day in a row, electrical problems in century-old rail tunnels
under the Hudson River on Wednesday stymied the commutes of tens of
thousands of New Jersey Transit riders, illustrating again the shortcomings
of the region’s languishing infrastructure system.

The delays, coming a week after the board of New Jersey Transit approved a
major fare increase, created chaos during the morning rush and gave rise to
another round of questions about Gov. Chris Christie’s decision five years
ago to halt construction of a new rail tunnel.

In the scandal surrounding the George Washington Bridge lane-closures, the
controversy is focused on Christie’s team abusing its powers to a criminal
degree. The problems in the tunnels under the Hudson River – part of the
“busiest railroad corridor in the United States” – have nothing to do with
Christie’s team conspiring in secret to exact partisan revenge and
everything to do with the governor showing poor judgment.

Revisiting our previous coverage, Christie made a bizarre decision in 2010,
killing a project called Access to the Region’s Core, “a
years-in-the-making effort to build a new rail tunnel from New Jersey to
New York City. Proponents of the project say it could have created as many
as 44,000 jobs in and around the state and hiked local property values by
up to $18 billion. A recent report from the office of New York Governor
Andrew Cuomo even suggests that an additional tunnel under the Hudson River
connecting New Jersey and New York could make regional infrastructure more
resilient in the face of disasters like Hurricane Sandy.”

I remember following Paul Krugman’s coverage of this closely at the time.
At one point, he wrote, “At some visceral level, I guess I was expecting
Christie to back down at the last minute – expecting that there would be a
still, small voice in his mind saying, ‘If we can’t do even this – if we
can’t follow through on a project so obviously needed, so clearly in the
interests of the state and the nation – what hope is there for America?’
But no. He went ahead and killed the tunnel.”

Indeed, the governor killed the tunnel for reasons he struggled to explain,
after millions of dollars of infrastructure investment had already been
spent.

Had Christie shown better judgment, the overhaul project very likely would
have been finished by now. Instead, conditions continue to get worse.

This helps add some context to the message of the governor’s presidential
campaign: Christie is effectively running on his personality because his
record in office is a subject that’s incredibly difficult to defend.

*PERRY*

*One of Two Charges Against Rick Perry Is Dismissed
<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/24/one-of-two-charges-against-rick-perry-is-dismissed/>
// NYT // Alan Rappeport - July 24, 2015*

Former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who is seeking the Republican nomination
for president, received some good news regarding his legal problems on
Friday when an appeals court in his state dropped one of the two felony
charges he is facing.

Mr. Perry was indicted last summer on criminal charges of abuse of power
and coercion of a public servant. The case surrounds an episode during
which Mr. Perry was accused of trying to use his powers as governor to make
an elected official step down after being charged with drunken driving.

The case has been a nuisance for Mr. Perry as he looks to gain traction in
a crowded field of Republicans seeking the party’s presidential nomination.

On Friday, the Austin court dismissed the coercion of a public servant
charge against Mr. Perry on the grounds that violates his right to free
speech under the First Amendment.

“Because the First Amendment bars enforcement of the statute on which the
“coercion of a public servant” charge is based, that charge must be
dismissed,” Judge Bert Richardson wrote in an opinion.

The coercion charge would have carried a prison sentence of two to 10
years. Mr. Perry still faces the more serious abuse of official capacity
charge, which carries a prison sentence of five to 99 years.

Critics of Mr. Perry argue that he overstepped his authority following the
2013 arrest of Rosemary Lehmberg, the district attorney in Travis County,
who is a Democrat. He threatened to veto $7.5 million in state funding for
the public corruption unit in her office unless she resigned.

When she would not resign, Mr. Perry followed through, vetoing the money
and saying that he could not support “continued state funding for an office
with statewide jurisdiction at a time when the person charged with ultimate
responsibility of that unit has lost the public’s confidence.”

Mr. Perry, the first Texas governor in nearly 100 years to face criminal
charges, has denied any wrongdoing and on Friday applauded the ruling. His
lawyers have argued that the remaining charge should be considered a
misdemeanor and that a veto in the absence of bribery cannot be illegal.

“The remaining charge is hanging by a thread, and we are confident that
once it is put before the court, it will be dismissed on its face,” said
Tony Buzbee, lead counsel for Mr. Perry.

Michael McCrum, the special prosecutor who has brought the case against Mr.
Perry, was not immediately available to comment on the dismissal of the
charge.

Mr. Perry chose not to run for another term as governor of Texas, stepping
aside in January after a 14 year reign to focus on his second White House
bid.

Despite the controversy, Mr. Perry’s Republican rivals have been cordial
about the case and have not used it against him. This year, Gov. Scott
Walker of Wisconsin and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana panned the
accusations and defended Mr. Perry’s character.

*Texas Court Dismisses One Charge Against Perry While Upholding Another
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-court-dismisses-one-charge-against-perry-while-upholding-another-1437756308>
// WSJ // Nathan Koppel - July 24, 2015*

Lawyers for former Texas Gov. Rick Perry persuaded an appeals court Friday
to whittle down criminal charges that he abused his power while in office,
but the court ruled that part of the case can still go forward,
complicating his prospects as he runs for president.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled in favor of dismissing one
felony count against the governor for alleged “coercion of a public
servant” in connection with a veto he issued in 2013 as governor. The
appellate court ruled the Texas coercion statute was a violation of
constitutional free-speech protections.

But the appellate court ruled against dismissing a second felony charge,
“abuse of official capacity,” and sent the case back to a trial court in
Austin to resolve the charge.

The upshot is that the 2014 indictment against Mr. Perry, issued by a grand
jury in Austin, will continue to hang over him as he tries to gain ground
in the crowded Republican nominating contest for president.

Tony Buzbee, lead counsel for Mr. Perry, cast the ruling as a victory. “The
appeals court made clear that this case was questionable,” he said. “The
remaining charge is hanging by a thread, and we are confident that once it
is put before the court, it will be dismissed on its face.”

The case stems from an allegation that Mr. Perry improperly threatened to
veto $7.5 million in funding for a prosecutorial unit headed by Travis
County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg if she didn’t resign following
an arrest for drunken driving. Travis County includes Austin, the state
capital.

Ms. Lehmberg, an elected Democrat, declined to quit, and Mr. Perry carried
out the veto.

Mr. Perry has long denied wrongdoing, claiming the criminal charges were
politically motivated.

Michael McCrum, the special prosecutor in the case, didn’t immediately
return a call for comment about the appellate ruling.

Craig McDonald, the director of Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit,
liberal advocacy group that filed a complaint about the veto that
ultimately gave rise to the criminal case, said he was pleased the case
would continue to move forward.

“The fact that one potential felony indictment is in place is significant,”
he said.

*Appeals court drops one felony charge against Rick Perry
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/rick-perry-one-felony-charge-dropped-120584.html?ml=tl_17>
// Politico // Adam B. Lerner - July 24, 2015*

An appeals court in Texas had dismissed one of two felony charges pending
against former Gov. Rick Perry.

A grand jury indicted Perry last August on one count of abusing his office
and one count of coercing a public servant for allegedly trying to push a
local Democratic district attorney to resign by threatening to withhold
state funds from her office.

Prosecutors claim that Perry tried to use his veto power to force Rosemary
Lehmberg, the Travis County district attorney, to leave office after she
was arrested for driving while intoxicated. Lehmberg’s office in Austin
oversees public corruption investigations, including into officials in the
Texas state government and the federal government.

The appeals court dropped the coercion of a public servant indictment,
citing the Texas Republican’s right to free speech.

“The statute on which the ‘coercion of a public servant’ is based, as
written, and as we are bound to construe it, violates the First Amendment
and, accordingly, cannot be enforced,” wrote Texas Court of Appeals Judge
Bert Richardson.

The charge would have entailed a prison term of between two and 10 years,
while the remaining abuse of his official government position charge could
carry between five and 99 years, according to the New York Times.

The former Texas governor, a 2016 Republican candidate for president, has
repeatedly proclaimed his innocence.

The lead attorney for Perry’s team, Tony Buzbee, said in a statement that
Friday’s decision “is a clear step towards victory for the rule of law.”

“The only remaining count we believe to be a misdemeanor, and the only
issue is whether the governor’s veto — or any veto in the absence of
bribery — can ever be illegal. The appeals court made clear that this case
was questionable,” he added.

“The remaining charge is hanging on by a thread, and we are confident that
once it is put before the court, it will be dismissed on its face.”

*Texas appeals court tosses one count against former Governor Perry
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/24/us-usa-texas-perry-idUSKCN0PY1T220150724>
// Reuters // Jim Forsyth - July 24, 2015*

A Texas state appeals court on Friday dismissed one of two felony counts in
an abuse-of-power case against former Governor Rick Perry stemming from a
2013 veto by the now-presidential candidate.

The Texas Third Court of Appeals in Austin threw out a count of coercion of
a public official, saying it violated Perry's right to free speech.
However, the court let stand an abuse of official capacity charge.

In a 97-page opinion, the court said the statute on which the "coercion of
a public servant" violates the First Amendment and cannot be enforced.

Perry was indicted in August by a grand jury in Travis County, a Democratic
stronghold in a heavily Republican state, with abuse of official capacity,
a first-degree felony, and coercion of a public official, a third-degree
felony.

If convicted of a first-degree felony, he could face from five to 99 years
in prison.

The charges relate to what many see as a threat by Perry in 2013 to veto
$7.5 million in funding for an integrity unit in the Travis County District
Attorney's office. Many said Perry played hardball politics to force out
county District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, a Democrat, after she pleaded
guilty to drunken driving.

Since Lehmberg is an elected official in a different branch of government
from Perry, the grand jury said his actions amounted to illegally
attempting to use his office to influence the behavior of another elected
official.

The abuse of official capacity count claims that by vetoing funding for
Lehmberg's office, Perry engaged in what amounted to misuse of government
property.

"One down and one to go," Tony Buzbee, Perry's lead attorney, told Reuters
after Friday's ruling. "We believe the only remaining count is a
misdemeanor and raises the question of whether the exercise of a veto can
ever be illegal in the absence of bribery.

"This thing is hanging by a thread and, in my view, is very near to being
over," Buzbee said.

The former governor has said he acted within the powers granted to him
under the Texas Constitution.

Perry entered the 2016 Republican presidential campaign in June. He had
sought the party's nomination in 2012 but dropped out after a series of
gaffes.

The case has political overtones because Texas Republicans have long
complained that the Public Integrity Unit is used by officials of
overwhelmingly Democratic Travis County to harass and intimidate Republican
elected officials.

*Court dismisses one criminal charge against Perry
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/rick-perry-criminal-charges/index.html>
// CNN // Eugene Scott - July 24, 2015*

A Texas appeals court dismissed one of two criminal charges Friday against
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry.

The court agreed with the argument from Perry's legal team that a Texas law
concerning "coercion of a public servant" violated Perry's First Amendment
freedom of speech rights. It did, however, allow a charge related to abuse
of power, to move forward.

"The statute on which the 'coercion of a public servant' is based, as
written, and as we are bound to construe it, violates the First Amendment
and, accordingly, cannot be enforced," the appeals court ruled according to
the Austin American-Statesman.

Perry is accused of threatening to veto funding the Travis County Public
Integrity Unit unless a district attorney, who received a drunken driving
conviction, resigned.

The attorney did not resign, so Perry vetoed the funding.

"The Americans in this country are looking for a president that will stand
up and do what's right and that's exactly what Perry did," said Tony
Buzbee, lead counsel for Perry.

Texans for Rick Perry released a statement calling the ruling a clear step
towards having the second charge, a misdemeanor, dismissed.

"We believe once we put that issue in the front of the Court of Appeals,
they will throw it out on their face and Governor Perry will go on about
his business," Buzbee said.

*Rick Perry Now Has One Less Problem In His Run For President
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rick-perry-criminal-charges_55b24406e4b0a13f9d182c12?utm_hp_ref=politics>
// HuffPo // Jacob Kerr - July 24, 2015*

A Texas court of appeals has tossed out one of the criminal charges against
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, which arose from a 2013 veto
he made as governor.

According to the Austin American-Statesman, the court determined the
"coercion of a public servant" count against Perry violated his right to
freedom of speech under the First Amendment. The court allowed an "abuse of
official capacity" count to continue.

“The only remaining count we believe to be a misdemeanor, and the only
issue is whether the governor’s veto – or any veto in the absence of
bribery – can ever be illegal,” lawyer Tony Buzbee said in a statement.
“The appeals court made clear that this case was questionable. The
remaining charge is hanging by a thread, and we are confident that once it
is put before the court, it will be dismissed on its face.”

The case concerns a line-item veto Perry made in 2013, which cut $7.5
million from the state's public integrity unit. Perry reportedly threatened
to veto the funding unless Travis County District Attorney Rosemary
Lehmberg, a Democrat whose office oversees the unit, resigned because of a
DWI conviction she received. When Lehmberg refused, Perry followed through
and cut the funding.

An ethics complaint was subsequently filed against Perry and a grand jury
indicted him on the two counts last year.

"I'm going to enter this courthouse with my head held high knowing the
actions that I took were not only lawful and legal, but right," Perry said
when he turned himself in for his mugshot in August 2014.

Despite the efforts of Perry's legal team, this is the first time a court
has thrown out one of the charges.

Perry left the governor's office after his third full term ended in January
and announced his second bid for the White House last month.

*SANTORUM*

*Rick Santorum joins fray in N.H.
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/24/rick-santorum-visits-for-presidential-campaign/Jfxc9k6s0lsMKr7SChkvjO/story.html>
// Boston Globe // Akilah Johnson - July 24, 2015*

Former US senator Rick Santorum, a Republican running for president, tried
to position himself as someone outside of political establishment on
Friday, taking swipes at both political parties on immigration and national
security.

“We need someone who understands the threats that are facing the American
country and has the courage to tell the American people the truth,”
Santorum, one of 21 White House hopefuls — 16 Republicans and five
Democrats — told a crowd of about 50 people inside a storefront campus of
New England College.

Santorum’s visit marked one of the socially conservative Pennsylvanian’s
rare trips to the Granite State, where GOP primary voters tend to focus
more on fiscal issues. In his remarks Friday, Santorum concentrated on
foreign policy and other domestic issues.

Cyber attacks by Russia and China are threatening America’s digital
information, he said. Diplomatic relations with Cuba have aligned the
country with a nation that, along with Venezuela, has “systematically
turned almost every single Central and South American country against the
United States,” Santorum said.

But the biggest threat to the United States, according to Santroum, is
Iran, a country he said practices a “radical” form of Islam that is
preparing to play out its version of an Armageddon story. He called
President George W. Bush “a good man,” but said his “War on Terror” was a
“misnomer,” as Iraq was not our biggest threat.

“And this is the country we’re giving an on-ramp for nuclear weapons,” he
said, referring to the Iranian nuclear agreement, which is also supported
by five other world powers. The deal prevents Iran from building a nuclear
weapon for 15 years, by limiting uranium enrichment and allowing for
international inspections of suspected processing sites, in exchange for
the lifting of harsh economic sanctions.

“This is the worst, most dangerous agreement that any president has ever
entered into,” he said. “We have a media that is just silent, and the
Republican Party — and US Senate — that has been feckless at best. Anybody
who doesn’t stand up to this president, you now own Iran. You are partners
with everything Iran does heretofore.”

The 57-year-old won the Iowa caucuses in his unsuccessful run for president
in 2012. A religious conservative, Santorum spent much more time in Iowa
than New Hampshire, more than double, during the last presidential election
cycle.

But at Friday afternoon’s town hall meeting, which was sponsored by the
Merrimack County Republican Committee, Santorum acknowledged the importance
of the New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, saying he plans to do
“a whole series of town halls meetings in the next few days.”

This is only Santorum’s third trip to the state since his 2012 bid for
president. At the end of this two-day swing through New Hampshire, Santorum
will have spent four days there, compared with 31 days in Iowa this year.

Santorum spoke for more than an hour on Friday, taking nearly a dozen
questions on everything from immigration to contraception to entitlement
programs. On immigration, Santorum said politicians have gotten away from
doing what’s in the best interest of the country, focusing instead on their
political futures and personal riches.

Democrats, he said, “believe if these folks come, they will
disproportionately vote for them. Republicans, in large part, are no
better. They’re not looking for votes, they’re looking for cheap labor.”

*Santorum Walks Away From Porn-Busting Promise
<http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/07/24/santorum-walks-away-from-porn-busting-promise>
// US News // Steven Nelson - July 24, 2015*

The last time he ran for president, former Sen. Rick Santorum aroused
Internet users by promising to take away their access to pornography.

Federal law makes distribution of hardcore pornography illegal, he said in
a statement on his 2012 campaign website. All that's required is a
president who will “vigorously” enforce the ban, the Pennsylvania
Republican said, pledging to do so.

“While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over
children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration,”
the statement proclaimed.

The pledge attracted intense discussion after Santorum emerged as Mitt
Romney’s most prominent rival for the GOP nomination. It was laughed off by
pornographers but discussed seriously by legal experts, some of whom said a
crackdown might succeed – albeit imperfectly without a grand national
firewall – if juries find porn sites and consumers guilty of distributing
or receiving “obscene” content.

But as the 2016 presidential race heats up, the reliable social
conservative – running again – says he’s forgotten his position on the
issue, perhaps dooming it to increasing irrelevance after a two-decade lull
in prosecutions that coincided with a boom in availability of Internet porn.

“I don’t even remember that position to be very honest with you,” Santorum
said during a recent roundtable interview at U.S. News. “I wish I could say
I was cognizant of everything that’s on my website.”

He added: “I’m not, candidly, familiar with the federal laws with respect
to pornography. … but all I would say is whatever the laws are, unlike this
president I will enforce [them].”

Santorum and the more than dozen other Republicans running for president
soon will be asked to stake a position on the issue by Patrick Trueman, a
Reagan administration prosecutor who now leads the group National Center on
Sexual Exploitation.

Trueman proudly participated in federal pornography prosecutions in the
1980s and during the last election cycle said that Romney’s campaign, too,
had promised to vigorously enforce obscenity laws, but that he suspected
Romney “saw that Rick Santorum got beat up in the mainstream press for
being so forthright” and elected not to advertise his position.

Trueman believes it would be fairly easy to win obscenity convictions for
porn featuring consensual adult group sex, depictions of violence and
unusual fetishes. Anything more salacious than waist-up female nudity would
be eligible for conviction somewhere in the country, he told The Daily
Caller during the last election.

It’s legal for individuals to possess pornography their neighbors may deem
obscene, according to the Justice Department, but it’s technically illegal
under many circumstances to distribute or receive it.

There’s reason to doubt any change to status quo nonenforcement of
obscenity laws as they pertain to pornography featuring consenting adults.
In addition to presumably shifting public opinion, the past three
presidential administrations – including the Republican George W. Bush
administration – showed no interest in cracking the whip.

*HUCKABEE*

*Graham's fundraising puts him in middle of GOP pack
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2015/07/25/grahams-fundraising-puts-him--middle--gop-pack/30578647/>
// USA Today // Mary Troyan - July 24, 2015*

Donors from Sen. Lindsey Graham's home state of South Carolina account for
most of the money he's raised as a Republican presidential candidate, but
he's also seeing support from outside the South.

Graham has raised $2.14 million from individual donors since January,
according to his first Federal Election Commission report as a presidential
candidate. Forty percent of that — about $864,000 — came from people in his
home state.

But Graham, who formally announced his candidacy June 1, also hauled in
$300,000 from California donors, $172,000 from New York, $73,000 from
Massachusetts and $63,000 from Florida.

His FEC report, which covers checks written through the end of June,
doesn't change his status as a long shot for the Republican nomination.

Graham's fundraising puts him in the middle of the GOP presidential pack.
He's behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, retired
neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Kentucky Sen. Rand
Paul. But he's raised more than former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee,
former Texas governor Rick Perry, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina,
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum and
former New York governor George Pataki.

National polls have Graham at less than 1%, too low to make the top 10 cut
for the first national televised debate among GOP candidates. He polls much
higher in South Carolina, site of the first Southern GOP presidential
primary in early 2016.

In addition to the $2.14 million he's raised from individual donors, Graham
transferred $1.52 million from his Senate campaign account. As of June 30,
he had $2.58 million in campaign cash.

Greenville residents accounted for $163,000 in donations. Among them are
Smyth McKissick III, CEO of Alice Manufacturing, $5,400; Michael Riordan,
president and CEO of Greenville Hospital Systems, $5,300; Wallace Cheves,
managing partner of Sky Boat Gaming, $2,600; and Clyde Selleck III,
chairman of Michelin, $2,500.

About 144 people each gave $2,700, the maximum per election. Another 38
each gave $5,400, the maximum total for the primary and the general
elections.

Other notable donors included John Cahill, CEO of Kraft Foods, $2,600; U.S.
Rep. Tom Rice, R-Myrtle Beach, $1,000; Jim Albaugh, former CEO of Boeing,
$2,600; Riley Bechtel, chairman of the board of Bechtel Group, $2,700;
Oracle CEO Safra Catz, $2,700; Robert McNair, chairman and CEO of the
Houston Texans, $2,700; David Pankau, chairman and CEO of Blue Cross/Blue
Shield of South Carolina, $2,600; former U.S. secretary of State George
Shultz, $5,400; and Thomas Kinder Jr., public announcer for the Cincinnati
Bengals football team, $1,500.

Employees at the Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough law firm donated a
total $25,800, and the firm's political action committee gave $5,000. One
of the firm's partners, David Wilkins of Greenville, chaired Graham's
initial exploratory committee. Wilkins is a former speaker of the South
Carolina state House and was ambassador to Canada under former president
George W. Bush. He also was South Carolina chairman of the Bush-Cheney
campaign in 2004.

An unrelated pro-Graham super PAC, which can collect unlimited donations,
is not required to release its first fundraising report until July 31.

*JINDAL*

*Bobby Jindal on theater shooting: 'We will get through this'
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/23/politics/bobby-jindal-movie-theater-shootings/index.html>
// CNN // Jedd Rosche - July 24, 2015*

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal spoke from just outside a Lafayette movie
theater after a deadly shooting took place there Thursday, saying he was
"horrified and shocked."

"We will get through this," Jindal said outside the theater, while
investigators were still examining the crime scene. "This is a unified
community."

Jindal, who said he was in Baton Rouge about 45 minutes away when he was
notified of the shooting, was flanked by local and state law enforcement at
the 9:45 p.m. local time press conference.

Details were scarce following the incident, which took place at the Grand
Theatre 16, as local law enforcement officials said at a briefing they were
unsure of how many were wounded or if anyone, besides the shooter had been
killed.

Vice president of the Acadian Ambulance Clay Henry told CNN's Don Lemon on
Thursday that at least nine people were wounded and brought into local
hospitals. Henry said he was aware of two people who had died, one of which
included the shooter.

Who was the shooter? Why did he do it? What comes next?

Shortly after 8 p.m. local time, Jindal, who announced that he was running
for the Republican nomination for president last month, used his Twitter
account to ask her followers for prayers for those involved in the incident.

"Prayers for Lafayette at Grand Theater. Talking to state police colonel
about shooting in Lafayette," Jindal tweeted.

"I'm on my way to Lafayette right now. Please say a prayer for the victims
at Grand Theatre and their families," Jindal tweeted about an hour after
the 911 call came in regarding the shooting.

The shooting comes nearly three years after the deadly Aurora, Colorado
shooting, that left 12 people dead at a movie theater in July.

*Every Interview Bobby Jindal Gives Is The Same
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/christophermassie/every-interview-bobby-jindal-gives-is-the-same#.ymQ5k7rRN>
// BuzzFeed // Christopher Massie - July 24, 2015*

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is very, very, very good at staying on message.

In radio interviews — a common feature of Republican campaigning — Jindal
has a set of talking points he delivers again, and again, and again.

In fact, Jindal is far and away the Republican presidential candidate who
most consistently delivers or returns to his talking points, based on
BuzzFeed News reporters who track presidential candidates daily and weekly
interviews with radio and local television.

Jindal’s favorite point is that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are
turning “the American dream into the European nightmare.” He has been
making some version of this exact statement virtually every time he has
done a radio interview on the campaign trail for the past two months.

Other points oft-repeated by Jindal are that America is on the “path to
socialism,” that he disagrees with Jeb Bush’s statement that Republicans
“need to lose the primary to win the general,” and that Obama and Clinton
are both “socialists,” just like Bernie Sanders, “only Bernie’s more honest
about it.”

Here are some examples of him repeating the same things over and over again:

*TRUMP*

*Donald Trump Is With the GOP, for Now
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-is-with-the-gop-for-now-1437695049>
// WSJ // Reid J. Epstein - July 24, 2015*

Visiting the nation’s border with Mexico on Thursday, Donald Trump declared
that he would win the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination but
didn’t rule out running as an independent candidate.

Mr. Trump has caused significant headaches for establishment Republicans by
stealing the recent spotlight of the party’s primary campaign. But he could
make things far worse for the party by running as an independent or
third-party presidential candidate, where he could siphon off some voters
from the eventual Republican nominee.

“Look, I’m a Republican,” Mr. Trump told some 100 journalists who traveled
to the border at Laredo, Texas, for his nine-minute news conference, which
was carried live by multiple cable television networks. “I’m a
conservative. I’m running. I’m in first place by a lot, it seems, according
to all the polls. I want to run as a Republican. I think I’ll get the
nomination. We’ll see soon enough. I think I’ll get the nomination.”

But Mr. Trump hasn’t ruled out taking his White House run independent. Last
weekend in Ames, Iowa, he said he wouldn’t rule out the possibility. And in
an interview with the Hill newspaper published Thursday, Mr. Trump
threatened to go on his own if he feels mistreated by the GOP, which has
condemned his recent belittling of Sen. John McCain’s war record.

“I’ll have to see how I’m being treated by the Republicans,” Mr. Trump said
in the interview. “Absolutely, if they’re not fair, that would be a factor.”

The visit to the border was intended to highlight what has become a
signature issue for the New York developer since he announced his run for
president last month. During that announcement, Mr. Trump said Mexican
immigrants crossing the border illegally are drug traffickers and
“rapists,” and he has vowed stricter immigration-control measures.

On Thursday, wearing a white baseball cap emblazoned with his campaign
slogan, “Make America Great Again,” Mr. Trump predicted that his comments
about immigrants wouldn’t damage his standing among Hispanic voters seen as
critical to a Republican victory in 2016.

“I think I’ll win the Hispanic vote,” he said. “Over the years thousands
and thousands of Hispanics have worked for me and now work for me.”

Mr. Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination doubt that contention. Former
Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday gave a speech in Washington attacking
Mr. Trump in tones unusually aggressive for primary opponents. And on
Thursday, former New York Gov. George Pataki said in an interview that Mr.
Trump’s presence in the primary would make it harder for the eventual GOP
nominee to win support from Hispanics.

“He’s not going to be president of the United States,” Mr. Pataki said. “I
just think it’s unfortunate that so much of the media, so much of the
dialogue is about someone like that as opposed to” the Iran deal, security
at military recruiting centers and the nation’s tax policies.

Mr. Trump has offered few specifics about his immigration policy beyond a
pledge to build a fence along the southern border. When asked Thursday how
he planned to deal with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants
already in the U.S., he dodged the question.

“We’re going to have plenty of time to talk about it,” Mr. Trump said.

*For Donald Trump, Being His Own Super PAC Has Its Advantages
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/for-donald-trump-being-his-own-super-pac-has-its-advantages-1437755846>
// WSJ // Rebecca Ballhaus - July 24, 2015*

Donald Trump is effectively his own super PAC, and that comes with
advantages.

Mr. Trump, as a Republican candidate for president and a billionaire who is
nearly single-handedly financing himself, is running a hybrid operation
that doesn’t have to follow many of the rules imposed on his rivals.

He can raise and spend unlimited sums of his own money on his campaign, and
while other candidates can’t coordinate their activity with the
better-funded super PACs backing them, Mr. Trump as a self-funded candidate
is in control of all of his money, a big chunk of which is being redirected
into his own bank accounts.

Of the $1.4 million his campaign spent in the second quarter, at least 40%
went to Trump-affiliated entities, disclosure reports filed last week with
the Federal Election Commission show.

The campaign paid more than $500,000 to Tag Air, Inc., an airline owned by
Mr. Trump. It also pays $10,000 a month in rent to Trump Towers and paid
another $38,000 to reimburse the Trump Corp. for “facility, resources and
domain names,” according to the report.

Mr. Trump drew income of more than $5.1 million from Trump Corp. in 2014
and most of the first half of 2015, his personal financial disclosure on
Wednesday showed.

Beyond how he is paying for administrative expenses, “there’s the obvious
advantage in being very involved and close to the messaging of the campaign
and the strategic planning of the campaign,” said Kenneth Gross, former
head of enforcement at the Federal Election Commission.

Of the $1.9 million the campaign raised in the second quarter, $1.8
million, or 94%, came from Mr. Trump’s own pocket. Mr. Trump’s
second-quarter campaign account fell short of what other GOP front runners,
including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, raised
for their candidacies. Mr. Bush collected $11.4 million, while Mr. Rubio
garnered $12 million.

But should Mr. Trump, who is currently topping the field in polling of GOP
primary voters, continue to pour millions into his campaign, he will be
uniquely equipped to purchase campaign advertisements at lower cost, since
candidates pay a reduced rate compared with outside groups, such as super
PACs.

TV stations are required to give candidates the “lowest unit rate” in the
45 days before a primary election, and before that must still charge a
reasonable rate. While other candidates are also entitled to the lowest
rate, the majority of the funds backing their campaigns will likely land in
the outside groups backing them.

Outside groups face prices driven by the market, and the supply-and-demand
dynamics in such a crowded primary are certain to send advertising rates
skyrocketing. Mr. Bush’s allies estimated earlier this week that it would
cost nearly $60 million just to run 10 days’ worth of advertising in the
first 30 primary states. The former Florida governor’s super PAC has
already raised $103 million-nearly 10 times as much as Mr. Bush’s campaign
took in.

An unlimited access to funds could also allow Mr. Trump to stay in the race
far longer than other candidates, who may face fundraising constraints.
Under federal law, individual donations to a candidate are capped at
$2,700. Since Trump isn’t relying on anyone else for money, that
restriction is essentially meaningless. Mr. Trump did accept $100,000 in
contributions in the second quarter, but doesn’t appear to be actively
soliciting outside cash.

“I don’t need anybody’s money.…I don’t care. I’m really rich,” Mr. Trump
said when he announced his candidacy. He has $300 million in cash and
liquid assets, his campaign confirmed.

Corey Lewandowski, his campaign manager, said, “If he wanted, which he
doesn’t, he could have billions of dollars of cheap financing against his
unlevered assets from banks overnight.”

Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, Mr. Trump criticized the rest
of the presidential field as “controlled by the lobbyists and the special
interests and their donors.”

Mr. Trump also avoids the risk that his main backers will quit on him if he
doesn’t perform well in the early primaries. His rivals can’t say as much.
“He can remain viable as a Republican or even perhaps an independent
candidate…for the duration,” Mr. Gross said, adding that a self-funded
candidate doesn’t have to pander to the wishes of big donors. “If a
candidate is self-financing, you get what you hear, whether you like it or
not,” he said. “At least you know they’re not speaking on behalf of
somebody else.”

Still, there are perils to paying your own way. “Money helps get attention
and be in the race,” said Jan Baran, a campaign-finance lawyer at Wiley
Rein. “Whether the candidate is able to stay in a race depends on the
voters.”

Self-financing a presidential campaign also hasn’t proven a particularly
effective tactic in past elections. In 1992, Texas billionaire Ross Perot
campaigned as an independent, pouring more than $60 million of his own
dollars into the effort. He ultimately won less than 20% of the popular
vote.

Republican Mitt Romney lent $44 million to his 2008 campaign for his
party’s nomination, which he lost to Arizona Sen. John McCain. He didn’t
loan any personal funds to his next campaign in 2012, when he clinched the
nomination but lost the general election.

*Donald Trump loved and hated by Hispanics in border city
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/bf4b40c834f04bf791fa26db494864ae/donald-trump-loved-and-hated-hispanics-border-city>
// AP // Jill Colvin - July 24, 2015*

There was an audible gasp from the gathered crowd as Donald Trump's 757
lifted off the tarmac.

"Oh my God. Wow," said Gina Gil, 48, after an excited shriek, reaching for
her 11-year-old-nephew. "I think it's a historic moment, ma'am. Seriously,
I really do."

Gil was referring to Trump's visit Thursday to Laredo, Texas, a small city
on the U.S.-Mexico border where the Republican presidential candidate spent
less than an hour touring the border, bragged to reporters about the danger
he faced, proclaimed Hispanics love him, and stopped traffic with a
presidential-sized motorcade.

Yet beyond the spectacle The Donald seems to create wherever he goes, the
billionaire businessman's visit exposed evidence of a divided community
whose overwhelmingly Hispanic population both decried Trump as racist and
cheered his hardline immigration views. Interviews during and after the
whirlwind tour with more than a dozen local residents underscored the
danger Trump represents to the GOP's relationship with Hispanic voters and
his appeal to a vocal segment of frustrated voters, many Hispanics among
them, who see a glaring problem on the nation's southern border that
requires attention.

Jessica Gonzalez, 79, a retired housewife who was born and raised in
Laredo, said she'd watched as the city she'd grown up in had changed, with
restaurants replaced with Mexican food and new people coming in.

"I think he's right," she said in the parking lot of a local CVS. "All we
have is people from foreign countries. ... It's not like it used to be."

Gonzalez — a Democrat — and her husband used to travel across the border
frequently to shop and for entertainment, but are now afraid to cross
because of violence from the drug cartels.

"I want to go down and say: Donald Trump, you're on fire in Laredo! Because
everybody feels what you think!" she said.

Outside Obregon's Mexican Restaurant, Enrique Harrington Ramon, 75, said he
felt Spanish-speaking immigrants "take advantage of us" in Laredo, and said
people are responding to what Trump says "because it's the truth."

"I am sick of walking into a store and hearing 'en que le puede ayudar?'
What country are we in?" he said.

Others in this growing city of about 250,000, where 95.6 percent of the
population identified as Hispanic or Latino in 2010, lashed out at Trump,
who described some Mexican immigrants in the country illegally as "rapists"
and "criminals" during his announcement speech last month and has refused
to apologize.

"I wish he wouldn't come down here," said Raul Gonzalez, 65, a retired
trailer and truck mechanic who was born and raised in Laredo. "He's very
disrespectful to Latinos."

Laredo-born Tony Flores, 82, who was wearing a cap that identified him as a
Korean War veteran, said of Trump: "He is poisonous. He is hatred."

While Hispanic voters along the U.S.-Texas border have a unique
perspective, the vast majority of the growing demographic supports more
forgiving immigration policies that would allow a pathway to citizenship or
permanent residency for immigrants in the country illegally, according to
recent polls.

Trump, meanwhile, is viewed favorably by just 28 percent of Americans and
unfavorably by 58 percent, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll
conducted earlier in the month. About one-third of whites, but just 16
percent of Hispanics and 10 percent of blacks, have a favorable view of
Trump.

At the airport, Patti Magnon, 43, who works for a law firm, said she
brought her 6-year-old daughter to see Trump's custom plane, emblazoned
with his name in big gold letters, land and then returned to watch him go.

"He's not wrong entirely. I'm from Laredo and I see the problems that we
get," she said, noting that Mexican workers used to come across the border
to work and return home afterward, but now don't want to leave.

"They get all the benefits that I can't get. I have to pay taxes," she
complained.

Trump has appeared to tone down his immigration rhetoric in recent days. He
stressed he's opposed to illegal immigration, not those immigrants who
enter the country legally. And he noted that he has employed "tens of
thousands" of immigrants over the years.

At least one Laredo resident tried to ignore Trump altogether.

"I don't think anything about him. He's not right for a president," said
Joe Rodriguez, 50, a longtime Laredo resident who was born in Dallas.
Rodriguez said he'd been invited to join a protest of Trump's visit but
decided it wasn't worth his time.

"I said: 'Why? Don't protest. Don't show him any attention,'" he said.

*Debating The Donald: GOP rivals preparing with caution
<http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2a5dd9d2246541e9ab651eea04d76f86/trump-looms-over-first-republican-debate-primary-race>
// AP // Jill Colvin - July 24, 2015*

Considered the ultimate wildcard, Donald Trump is complicating debate
strategy for Republican presidential candidates now scrambling to prepare
for their first face-to-face meeting on national television.

The billionaire businessman, who has dominated the 2016 Republican race in
recent weeks, threatens to do the same when the top 10 GOP candidates — as
determined by national polls — face off in less than two weeks. It's a
high-risk, high-reward event for candidates eager to stand out yet wary to
fall victim to one of Trump's notorious bombastic political attacks.

"It's the No. 1 unavoidability," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a
2012 GOP candidate who had a knack for standing out in debates four years
ago.

"Do not try to match him in anger and in aggressiveness. It's not
possible," Gingrich warned Trump's rivals. "He's a very instinctively
aggressive guy, and if you try to dance with him on his strengths he'll run
over you."

Despite his longshot status, the reality television star has commanded
attention and seen his poll numbers rise after firing off provocative
comments about immigrants, his presidential rivals and critics in both
parties.

His supporters love him because he's willing to say what others only think.
But that makes him dangerous in a debate setting, says Charlie Black, a
leading GOP strategist who has worked on multiple presidential campaigns.

"Just try to ignore him," Black said. "The less attention you give him the
better. I wouldn't even look at him."

That's easier said than done in a nationally televised program where Trump
is sure to play a central role — literally, perhaps, if he's positioned at
the center of the stage as the leader in recent polls.

Count former Texas Gov. Rick Perry as among the candidates eager for a
showdown, although he may not qualify for the Aug. 6 meeting in Cleveland.
Only the top 10 candidates in national polling will be allowed on stage.
With 16 declared candidates, several high-profile Republicans will be left
out. Perry is on the bubble.

"If Donald Trump wants to sit on the stage and talk about solutions, I'm
going to be happy to have that conversation," Perry said on Fox News. "But
if all he's going to do is throw invectives, then I'm going to push back
and I'm going to push back hard."

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told The Associated Press that he's ready to be
tested.

"You have to be able to stand your ground," Paul said, because politics is
"somewhat of a body combat sport."

Even without Trump's emergence, the first debate promises to be an unruly
affair.

Never have more than 10 candidates taken the stage for a televised
Republican presidential debate. Part of the problem is basic math.

In a 90-minute debate featuring so many candidates, there could be only
enough time for four or five questions — with little time left over for the
interaction between candidates that makes for an actual debate.

And few campaigns expect Trump to respect the time limits or other rules
established by organizers.

While there were some rumblings about trying to bar Trump from the stage,
some GOP leaders say they're happy about Trump's participation, predicting
it will attract a far larger audience, exposing new people to Republican
ideas.

"If I were Fox, I would be thrilled that Trump has made this so intense so
early because they'll have a much higher viewership than they would have
three or four weeks ago before Trump got on a roll," Gingrich said.

Ron Kaufman, a senior adviser to 2012 nominee Mitt Romney who is supporting
Jeb Bush, said Trump offers a prime-time opportunity to lesser-known
candidates to get attention.

"I think they have to pick a fight with Trump," Kaufman said.

Many candidates have already been hard at work. Bush, one of the top
contenders, recently brought in two veterans of Romney's 2012 campaign,
Beth Myers and Peter Flaherty, to help coach him. Aides say Bush will fill
much of his schedule next week with debate preparation in Florida.

Bush has not participated in a debate as a candidate since his successful
re-election campaign for governor in 2002.

"My objective with this is to, wherever I can, share my record," Bush said
this week in South Carolina. He said he'll go into the debate without
thinking about Trump or any rival but that it's his first presidential
debate and he's "not certain how all this plays out."

Paul perhaps summed up the field's feeling best when asked how he prepares
to face someone like Trump: "Very carefully," he said.

*Trump Says He's 'Big Believer' in Merit-Based Immigration System*
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-24/clinton-adds-capital-gains-complexity-with-tax-rise-6-year-wait>*
// Bloomberg // Ben Brody - July 24, 2015*

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate who has taken a hard
stance opposing illegal immigration, suggested he'd support leniency for
some of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without
authorization.

"I'm a very big believer in merit system," Trump said on MSNBC's Morning
Joe Friday. "Some of these people have been here, they've done a good job.
You know, in some cases, sadly they've been living under the shadows."

The real estate mogul said securing the border and getting "the bad ones"
out of the country permanently should be the priority, but that after that,
deportation of all 11 million might not be his goal.

“If somebody's been outstanding, we try and work something out.”

Donald Trump

"If somebody's been outstanding, we try and work something out," he said.

He did not say whether he would support a path to citizenship, which many
Republicans oppose as “amnesty.”

*Donald Trump bans Des Moines Register from Iowa campaign event
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/trump-bans-des-moines-register-from-iowa-campaign-event-120615.html?ml=tl_4>
// Politico // Eliza Collins - July 24, 2015*

Donald Trump courted further controversy on Friday by banning the Des
Moines Register from attending his Iowa campaign event Saturday, according
to the Register.

The real-estate mogul and Republican 2016 candidate was unhappy with an
editorial published by the newspaper that called on Trump to pull out of
the race.

“We’re not issuing credentials to anyone from The Des Moines Register based
on the editorial that they wrote earlier in the week,” Trump’s campaign
manager Corey Lewandowski told the newspaper.

He said he expected the campaign would reconsider for future events.

The editorial section of the Register — Iowa’s largest newspaper — operates
independently from the newspaper’s political team.

“As we previously said, the editorial has no bearing on our news coverage.
We work hard to provide Iowans with coverage of all the candidates when
they spend time in Iowa, and this is obviously impeding our ability to do
so. We hope Mr. Trump’s campaign will revisit its decision instead of
making punitive decisions because we wrote something critical of him,” the
Register’s editor Amalie Nash said in a statement.

*Trump dominates GOP field in name ID
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/poll-gop-2016-name-recognition-donald-trump-jeb-bush-120573.html?ml=tl_47>
// Politico // Nick Gass - July 24, 2015*

Donald Trump is the best-known Republican candidate in the last two weeks,
while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is second, according to the results of a
Gallup tracking poll of Republicans and Republican-leaners out Friday.

But neither is the best-liked over that same time frame.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson hold the best
net favorable ratings in the presidential field of 16, at a net of 42
points and 40 points, respectively, while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is
close behind at plus-34 points.

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents surveyed, 92 percent
said they were familiar (i.e. had an opinion) with Trump, while 81 percent
said they knew Bush.

Several candidates, including Bush, were both well-known and well-liked
among the Republicans surveyed. More than half of Republicans surveyed (54
percent) said they had a favorable opinion of the former governor of
Florida, while 27 percent said they viewed him unfavorably, giving him a
net favorability of +27 percentage points. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike
Huckabee drew a net favorable rating of plus-37 percentage points, while 73
percent were familiar with him, followed by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul with a
familiarity rating of 68 percent and net favorability of plus-26 points.
Approximately two-in-three voters said they had an opinion of Texas Gov.
Rick Perry (67 percent), drawing a positive net favorable rating of 35
points.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz drew a 66 percent familiarity rating, while grabbing a
net favorable rating of plus-34 points. Next up, 64 percent of those
surveyed said they knew of Rubio, who earned the best net favorability of
any Republican hopeful.

Other candidates, like Walker, Carson and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, are
well-liked but are not as well-known.

Approximately half of those surveyed had an opinion on each of the three
candidates, though all three polled quite favorably with the base (Walker
at plus-34, Carson at plus-40 and Jindal and plus-29).

Just two candidates — Trump and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — are
well-known but are comparatively not as well-liked, according to Gallup.
With 92 percent familiar with him, Trump’s net favorability is still in the
black at plus-20 points, though far behind other top contenders. With 72
percent familiar with Christie, the governor’s net favorability is a
comparatively smaller plus-6 points.

The only Republican candidate with negative favorability in the poll is
former New York Gov. George Pataki, at negative-7 points, though just 49
percent of those surveyed said they were familiar with him. Voters were
only less familiar with former Hewlett Packard executive Carly Fiorina (39
percent) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich (35 percent). Both Fiorina and Kasich
drew net favorable ratings of plus-23 points and plus-15 points,
respectively.

Results for the poll came from landline and cellphone interviews conducted
July 8-21 as part of the Gallup U.S. Daily survey. These results were based
on a sample of 1,028 Republicans and GOP leaners nationwide, carrying a
margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

*Donald Trump county chair not 'a 100 percent fan' of Donald Trump
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/trump-county-chair-not-a-100-percent-fan-of-trump-120613.html?ml=tl_2>
// Politico // Cate Martel - July 24, 2015*

Add this to the list of the latest Donald Trump drama: At least one of his
17 New Hampshire county chairs said he doesn’t actually support the real
estate mogul.

Or does he?

Raul Cervantes, who serves as Trump’s Grafton County chairman, told
POLITICO last week that he’s not fully supportive of Trump — especially in
light of the candidate’s recent remarks about immigration.

But just hours after he told POLITICO about his issues with Trump, the
campaign forwarded a message from Cervantes effectively backtracking on his
comments. Cervantes would not explain what changed his mind, and the Trump
campaign would not elaborate.

“I think his written statement that says he supports Trump speaks for
itself,” Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told POLITICO Friday.
When asked what prompted Cervantes’s email, Lewandowski could not explain.
“I have no idea. I’m sitting in New York today, so I don’t know of every
conversation that takes place in each of the states on a daily basis.”

The controversy began last Tuesday when Cervantes told POLITICO, “Yes, I’m
a county chair for Donald Trump because I did a favor to my friend. That
doesn’t mean I’m a 100 percent fan of his.”

Cervantes, a Mexican immigrant who lives in Lebanon, New Hampshire, said he
was approached to join as a county chair by his friend Andrew Georgevits,
Trump’s deputy state director, who didn’t respond for a request to comment.
While he generally agrees with Trump, Cervantes thinks Trump needs to be
more respectful to Latinos like him.

“You don’t have to generalize everybody. I come from Mexico and I’m not
saying ‘all the Americans are fat people,’ said Cervantes. “Mexico, right
now, is dealing with a drug-dealing problem, but a lot of Americans consume
the drugs.”

Cervantes also expressed his support for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

But later that evening, the Trump campaign forwarded POLITICO an all-caps
email from Cervantes that said, “I, RAUL CERVANTES, DO SUPPORT MR DONALD
TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT. RAUL CERVANTES.” The email was dated eight hours after
he told POLITICO about his hesitance with the Trump campaign.

When POLITICO contacted Cervantes last Thursday to ask why he had a change
of heart, Cervantes indicated that Georgevits had contacted him in the
meantime and questioned his loyalty. “I support all the candidates in the
Republican Party, OK?” Cervantes said.

“Nothing changed,” he added. “I [told] you I was a little in disagreement
in what Mr. Donald expressed against the Mexicans, but you know, I can be
in disagreement with Trump — [like I can] with members of my family — but
that doesn’t mean I’m gonna dump him, right?”

Raul’s wife, Karen Cervantes, a local GOP official, has even more concerns
about Trump. While she respects his business acumen, after attending a few
events, she said she found him “arrogant” and sensed that Trump feels like
he is “much better than us.”

“[A]s a president, he would scare the ever living out of me,” she said. “I
just don’t think he knows how to work with people. He is used to being in a
[position of power] and he is used to getting his way — and saying whatever
he wants.”

*Donald Trump: 'Maybe people will get tired of me'
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-morning-joe-interview-people-tired-of-me-120578.html?ml=tl_39>
// Politico // Nick Gass - July 24, 2015*

What could keep Donald Trump from getting the Republican nomination? Maybe
people could get tired of him, the leading presidential candidate said
Friday.

“I don’t know,” Trump said during a telephone interview with MSNBC’s
“Morning Joe.” “I’m just chugging along. You know, maybe people will get
tired of me. Who knows? This press is crazy.”

Responding to another question about a report from The Hill that he could
seek an independent bid if the Republican National Committee treats him
poorly during the primary season, Trump said the RNC is currently treating
him “with tremendous respect.”

“The best way to win is to win as a Republican. I do not want to do
independent at all. If

I’m treated poorly, that’s one thing,” Trump said.

And if he doesn’t win, Trump said, it would be very hard to support pretty
much any of the other Republican candidates.

“I may just sort of, like, shift off into the moonlight,” he said. “I hope
that won’t be the case. I hope that won’t be the case, but it could very
well be.”

Trump won’t be a long-term problem for the Republican Party, fellow GOP
presidential candidate Marco Rubio said in a separate interview.

“Donald Trump’s not going to be the nominee,” Rubio told “CBS This
Morning.” “These happen in these presidential races. These polls swing up
and down.”

Trump also appears to want more attention from “Morning Joe.” He took issue
with an earlier segment in which panelists discussed whether Ohio Gov. John
Kasich has the “Jon Huntsman problem.” In that segment, host Mika
Brzezinski pointed out, Scarborough talked about other candidates in that
context but did not mention that Trump was at the top of national polls.

“Donald, you aren’t really that thin-skinned, are you?” Scarborough asked.

“Yes, oh, I’m thin-skinned,” Trump responded. “Oh, yes he is,” Brzezinski
said, noting that her co-host and Trump are alike in that respect.

Later in the interview, Scarborough noted that many Americans support him
on the border issue.

“And other things, Joe,” Trump responded.

“I know, Donald. My God! Stop being so thin-skinned” Scarborough replied.

*Insiders: Donald Trump has peaked
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-2016-campaign-caucus-120562.html?ml=tl_24>
// Politico // Katie Glueck - July 24, 2015*

About three quarters of Republican early-state insiders say they believe
Donald Trump has peaked — but many acknowledge that may also be wishful
thinking.

That’s the assessment from this week’s POLITICO Caucus, our weekly
bipartisan survey of the top operatives, strategists and activists in Iowa
and New Hampshire.

The controversial real estate mogul and GOP presidential candidate provoked
some caucus insiders into offering expletives and other colorful language
when asked whether Trump has hit his ceiling.

“The McCain smear and giving out Graham’s cellphone? What an asshole,”
vented a New Hampshire Republican, who says Trump has peaked. “Trumpism
does not represent some deeper sentiment within the party, nor has he
tapped into something a more conventional candidate can now co-opt. His
candidacy has as much substance and meaning as cotton candy. I didn’t like
him before. Now I loathe him.”

An Iowa Republican said, “yes,” when asked whether Trump has hit his
zenith, but clarified, “I’d like to think so. But who the hell really knows
anymore?”

The insiders weighed in following another week in which Trump dominated
political coverage.

First, on Saturday, he dismissed Sen. John McCain’s heroism during his time
as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, causing the other candidates to scramble
to denounce him. Then on Tuesday, he gave out Sen. Lindsey Graham’s
personal cellphone number; and finally on Thursday, he descended — with
classic Trump bravado — on the U.S.-Mexico border after repeatedly
inveighing against illegal immigrants with particularly heated rhetoric.

He was greeted in Laredo by several people who gave him the middle finger.

“I hope and pray that he has peaked,” added another Granite State
Republican, who like all participants was granted anonymity in order to
speak freely. “The GOP has a chance in 2016 and it diminishes each time
Trump increases his poll numbers.”

Trump has caused heartburn for the Republican Party since he announced his
White House run on June 16. Some of the first words out of his mouth
involved calling undocumented Mexican immigrants “rapists,” to the horror
of many establishment Republicans who want to see the party take a more
inclusive approach after an abysmal performance with Hispanic voters in
2012.

Since then, it’s just gotten worse for Trump’s competitors as he’s sucked
up the media oxygen and soared to the top of some national polls. Several
Caucus insiders predicted that Trump would flame out soon, but others said
he won’t lose steam before the first GOP primary debate next month, and may
have legs into the fall, though few expect that his momentum will continue
as the GOP field narrows.

“Everybody is still watching to see what he will do next,” a Granite State
Republican said. “It’s like riding down the highway and seeing an accident
in the other direction — you know [you] shouldn’t look but you do. I think
by September he will begin a downward descent as people get totally sick of
his antics.”

In this week’s survey, Granite Staters were slightly less likely than
Iowans to say that Trump has hit his ceiling. Among New Hampshire
Republicans, 73 percent say he has, while 81 percent of Hawkeye State
Republicans said the same. The numbers overall were about reversed among
Democrats, who are enjoying watching Republicans grapple with Trump — 74
percent of them said he isn’t done yet.

“GOP establishment (especially in early states) and some media are in a
panic right now about Trump, and are quick to develop a storyline that he
can’t last,” said a New Hampshire Democrat, who like all participants
answered through an online submission form. “The truth is otherwise. The
base loves him, he keeps showing top tier status nationally and in early
states, he (like Hillary) has 100 percent name ID, and unlike all others,
doesn’t need either traditional donors or dark money ones. While there are
some parallels to [Ross] Perot, this is a new phenomenon and existing
precedent doesn’t apply. Who knows where this goes?”

Another added, “If peaking is poll numbers, maybe, but this guy is far from
done. He has no reason to drop out. He is going to be the focus of the
first debate.”

Here are three other takeaways from this week’s POLITICO Caucus:

Thanks in part to Donald Trump, not qualifying for the first debate is not
necessarily fatal …

Eighty percent of New Hampshire Republicans, and 76 percent of Iowa
Republicans, say candidates who don’t poll high enough to qualify for the
first presidential primary debate on Aug. 6 are not doomed — especially
because, several predicted, Trump will steal the spotlight anyway.

“The more the first debate is dominated by Trump, the less damaging
non-inclusion will be,” said one Iowa Republican.

“Just wait: Pundits will talk about how ‘refreshing’ and ‘interesting’ it
was to have a Trump-less debate where real issues were discussed and we
could get to know a candidate more, beyond just how they answered or
responded to Mr. Trump,” added another.

“The audience will be watching for the Donald show and the [others] on the
stage will be marginalized. They will seem like props. To quote a great
Republican President: ‘The world will little note nor long remember what
they say here,’” said a New Hampshire Republican, cribbing from Abraham
Lincoln.

Others said that controversy over debate rules — which the Republican
National Committee, after moving to shorten the debate schedule, largely
ceded to television stations — blurs the importance of the first debate.

Fox News has limited inclusion in that first debate to candidates who
finish in the Top 10 in an average of national polls. The rest will get to
participate in a one-hour event before the main show.

“We’re still so far away from the actual voting day, and the debate over
debates have become such a cluster that no regular voter is going to rule a
candidate out for not making the cut,” said a New Hampshire Republican.

… But missing out will take a toll.

Still, noted many insiders on both sides of the aisle, not qualifying is
certainly not helpful. Democrats were more inclined to think getting
onstage is important, with about a third of insiders saying not qualifying
would kill a campaign, whereas only 22 percent of Republicans overall said
the same.

“Not fatal, but anyone who misses it will be on life support,” a New
Hampshire Democrat said. “Voters need to limit their choices and appearing
in the debate could be a big part of that process. The question is, what
will the candidates do around the debate to be relevant if they aren’t
onstage?”

Overall, Republicans said the candidate who has the most to lose from not
being on the stage is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, followed by former
Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
Christie and Perry are both right on the bubble, but Fiorina, who has made
a big push to get onstage, lags further in polls.

“Christie’s the guy who thinks of himself as the cleanup hitter. He is
striking out in the polls, his fav/unfav has tanked all over the country,
but if he can get that one perfect pitch, he’ll try and drive it over the
fence,” an Iowa Republican said. “I don’t think he can salvage a lagging
campaign with one debate performance, but there is precedent for it,” the
source said, noting Newt Gingrich’s surge in South Carolina in 2012, driven
in part by a debate tussle with moderator John King of CNN.

The numbers changed slightly when broken down by state: Christie got the
most votes among Iowa Republicans with 30 percent, but a third of New
Hampshire Republicans said it was most important for Fiorina to get onstage.

Twenty six percent of Democrats agreed that Christie most needed to be
onstage — the same percentage that said John Kasich, the Ohio governor who
announced for president this week, will also be damaged if he doesn’t make
the cut because the debate is in his home state.

“Both Kasich and Bush are fighting over the ‘reform-minded governor’
niche,” said one Granite State Republican. “Moreover, Kasich has an ability
to eat away at Bush’s advantage among independents who would vote in … New
Hampshire’s open Republican primary.”

“He’s Jeb Bush by a different last name,” added an Iowa Republican. “And
that is important to people who are worried about nominating another Bush.”

In New Hampshire, where both Kasich and Christie are also seeking to court
the center-right vote, several caucus participants noted that the Garden
State governor was also vulnerable to losing some support to the Ohio
executive.

“He moves exactly into their air space,” said a New Hampshire Republican
who thinks Kasich could pull from both Bush and Christie, if he can keep
his notoriously short temper in check. “He does town halls as well as
Christie and has a record of getting things done that exceeds Bush. I
guarantee that every voter who is considering Bush/Christie will now also
look at Kasich.”

“Blunt-talking governors who have a successful record full of left leaning
policy baggage draw from the same side of the pond,” argued another.

But some caucus participants — particularly those in Iowa — were skeptical
that Kasich would gain enough traction to pull votes from anyone.

“Nobody is talking about Kasich,” said one Hawkeye State Republican.

*Dennis Rodman endorses Donald Trump for president
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/dennis-rodman-endorses-donald-trump-2016-president-120592.html?ml=tl_6>
// Politico // Adam B. Lerner - July 24, 2015*

Dennis Rodman has endorsed Donald Trump for president.

On Friday, the five-time NBA champion tweeted that the Donald “has been a
great friend for many years.”

“We don’t need another politician, we need a businessman like Mr. Trump!
Trump 2016,” he added.

Trump responded on Twitter, writing, “Thank you @DennisRodman. It’s time to
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain! I hope you are doing well!”

Rodman previously appeared on Donald Trump’s NBC television show “The
Celebrity Apprentice” and was the fifth contestant fired, of 16 total
contestants.

He announced his support of Trump only an hour after defending World
Wrestling Entertainment legend Hulk Hogan in separate tweets. Hogan was
released from the WWE after audio of him using racial slurs reportedly
surfaced.

“I’ve known @HulkHogan for 25 years,” Rodman, who has previously appeared
in the WWE, tweeted. “There isn’t a racist bone in that mans [sic] body.”

The former NBA All-Star has previously drawn controversy for traveling to
North Korea and playing in a basketball game for the country’s dictator,
Kim Jong-un.

Rodman defended the trip by calling the North Korean leader a “friend.”

After the North Korea visit, Trump praised Rodman for going to the
Pyongyang and agreed with the basketball player that President Obama should
call Kim Jong-un.

Later, Trump tweeted that Rodman “is saying I wanted to go to North Korea
with him.”

“Never discussed, no interest, last place on Earth I want to go,” Trump
added.

He also wrote, “Dennis Rodman was either drunk or on drugs (delusional)
when he said I wanted to go to North Korea with him. Glad I fired him on
Apprentice!”

*The State That Facebooks About Donald Trump the Most
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-24/jeb-bush-s-struggle-to-say-what-he-means-continues>
// Bloomberg // A.J. Feather - July 24, 2015*

Guess which state is Facebooking the most about Donald Trump?

Not New York, where the real estate mogul grew up and maintains his
corporate headquarters.

Not Florida, where Trump's swanky Palm Beach property is the venue for many
of his over-the-top celebrations.

No, the state where Trump's presidential campaign is generating the most
chatter on Facebook is... West Virginia. Connecticut, The District of
Columbia, Alabama, and, finally, New York, round out the top five.

That's just one of the unexpected facts unearthed by Facebook in data
released Thursday.

In terms of overall numbers, Democrat Hillary Clinton is dominates the
social network. Whether measuring by interactions within the first 24 hours
of her campaign launch or the last 90 days, no one comes close to the
front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Within 24 hours of
making her candidacy of her candidacy, Clinton generated 10.1 million
interactions on Facebook from 4.7 million people, according to data
compiled by the social networking site.

Donald Trump came closest to the former secretary of state in interactions
within the first 24 hours after launching his presidential campaign. But
the 6.4 million interactions from 3.4 million people generated by the real
estate mogul's announcement amounted to less than three-fourths of the
Clinton's figure. Trump falls far behind Clinton when comparing the average
number of unique people discussing each candidate over the last 90 days,
but that may be due to his campaign being just more than a month old.
Clinton made her bid for the presidency official on April 13.

Although his announcement day generated a less-than stellar amount of
interaction, Jeb Bush has maintained a strong, steady following over the
last three months. Bush ranks second to Clinton when comparing the average
number of unique people discussing each candidate over the last 90 days.
However, Clinton remains far away in the lead with 270,000 unique people
per day. That gives her more than three times Bush's figure of 85,000.

Also intriguing: the location of interactions. While much of the country
may be trying to avoid the early onset of presidential politics,
Washington, D.C. ranks in the top five states chattering about each and
every candidate.  For all but three contenders, the top site for Facebook
traffic is their home state.

The exceptions:

*Trump Says He's 'Big Believer' in Merit-Based Immigration System*
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-24/trump-says-he-s-big-believer-in-merit-based-immigration-system>*
// Bloomberg // Ben Brody - July 24, 2015*

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate who has taken a hard
stance opposing illegal immigration, suggested he'd support leniency for
some of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without
authorization.

"I'm a very big believer in merit system," Trump said on MSNBC's Morning
Joe Friday. "Some of these people have been here, they've done a good job.
You know, in some cases, sadly they've been living under the shadows."

The real estate mogul said securing the border and getting "the bad ones"
out of the country permanently should be the priority, but that after that,
deportation of all 11 million might not be his goal.

"If somebody's been outstanding, we try and work something out," he said.

He did not say whether he would support a path to citizenship, which many
Republicans oppose as “amnesty.”

*GOP's nightmare: An Independent Donald Trump
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/23/politics/donald-trump-third-party/index.html>
// CNN // MJ Lee - July 24, 2015*

Republicans dreaming of shooing away Donald Trump may want to think twice.

By publicly rebuking the billionaire businessman for his inflammatory
comments, the party may convince Trump to launch a third-party candidacy.

That's a potential nightmare scenario for the GOP establishment: a populist
outsider with unlimited resources attacking their nominee from the right in
the general election, raising hell -- and attracting votes -- with his
rhetoric on issues like illegal immigration.

Ralph Nader, who has run for president multiple times as a third-party
candidate and may have cost Democrat Al Gore the 2000 election by running
to his left, said Republicans mishandle Trump at their own peril.

"The Republican Party establishment is playing with nitroglycerine when it
goes after Donald Trump and tries to minimize him and exclude him," Nader
said in an interview Thursday. "Because a jilted Donald Trump as a
third-party candidate can blow the presidential race wide open and turn it
into a three way race."

Trump has become a favorite punching bag since launching his White House
campaign last month, angering fellow Republicans by questioning Sen. John
McCain's status as a war hero last week.

Trump has fired back at the criticism -- especially a rebuke from the
typically-neutral Republican National Committee. He's repeatedly declined
to rule out a third-party White House run, saying in an interview with
CNN's Anderson Cooper earlier this month that he's constantly being asked
to run as an independent. This week, he told The Hill that his decision
will depend on "how I'm being treated by the Republicans."

No small feat

Launching a third-party candidacy is no small feat. It is a time-consuming
and expensive process riddled with logistical hurdles, including massive
signature-gathering requirements to gain ballot access in each of the 50
states.

But if it's tedious, it's hardly impossible — particularly for a candidate
with money to throw around.

Republicans remember all too well businessman Ross Perot's independent
candidacy for president in 1992. The Texan made an appeal to voters looking
for an alternative to establishment candidates, and his campaign is widely
considered to have complicated George H.W. Bush's effort to win reelection
against Bill Clinton.

Clay Mulford, Perot's son-in-law and political adviser, said a third-party
run from Trump has the potential to energize a part of the electorate
that's itching for a fresh face.

"There is just a sense of ineffectiveness of the two-party system. So I
think he would do better than expected if he were in the debates and if he
were considered viable," Mulford said. "And having money helps."

Indeed, poll numbers suggest that a third-party candidacy from Trump would
damage Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a top-tier candidate in the current
Republican field.

Bush

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton leads Bush, 50% to 44%, in a
head-to-head match-up, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll out
this week. But throw an independent Trump into that race, and Clinton's
lead grows significantly to 46%, leaving Bush at 30%.

"He'd be the one person that would probably fit the bill. He's not really a
Republican, he's not a Democrat," said former U.S. Sen. Dean Barkley of
Minnesota, who was appointed and served briefly as an independent by Gov.
Jesse Ventura.

Independents "decide the election every four years and if all of them or
most of them go to Trump, that leaves the Republicans too small of a base
to have any chance of winning."

At a campaign stop in New Hampshire Thursday, Bush made sure to emphasize
that he isn't dismissive of Trump's candidacy.

"I think he's a serious candidate and he's going to have a lot of money.
He's tapping into people's angst that are legitimate," Bush said.

Meanwhile, during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas,
Thursday, Trump said his preference is to run as a Republican and he was
confident that he could win the party's nomination.

But in many ways, a third-party run makes a lot of sense for Trump.

The former host of the reality TV show "The Apprentice" was once a
registered a Democrat, donated money to members of both parties, and
considered running for president in 2000 as an independent.

At the very core of his campaign is the idea that he is the
anti-politician. Trump has never held public office and he loves to point
out that thanks to his massive wealth — which he claims amounts to more
than $10 billion — he is not beholden to anyone, including party leadership.

Headaches for the GOP

This last point has already created massive headaches for the GOP.

Trump sparked furious backlash by referring to some Mexican immigrants that
enter the United States as "criminals" and "rapists." Republicans
criticized Trump's choice of words as being hurtful and insensitive to the
immigrant community, but many chose their words carefully — a sign of how
delicate of an issue illegal immigration is.

For many Republicans, Trump seemed to cross the line last weekend with his
critique of McCain.

"I like people that weren't captured, OK?" Trump said of the Arizona
Republican senator, who spent more than five years in as a prisoner of war
during the Vietnam War.

The RNC, which remains neutral in the GOP nominating process, took the
unusual move of speaking out.

"There is no place in our party or our country for comments that disparage
those who have served honorably," said RNC spokesman Sean Spicer.

The RNC declined to comment for this story.

Bill Hillsman, a political consultant who has worked for a number of
independent candidates including in gubernatorial races in Massachusetts
and Texas, said the party's condemnation of Trump is likely to have helped
fuel Trump's unorthodox campaign.

"I think the damage is already done to a large extent," Hillsman said. "All
the people who said well, his campaign is over now and blasted him for some
of his previous comments, many of which he's walked back, they already have
just pretty much dismissed this guy and the polls are saying otherwise."

*Rep. Joaquín Castro blasts Laredo’s ‘bizarre’ welcome for Trump
<http://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell/rep-joaquin-castro-blasts-laredos-bizarre-welcome-trump>
// MSNBC // John O’Brien - July 24, 2015*

Congressman Joaquín Castro is speaking out against fellow Texas leaders for
embracing Donald Trump’s Thursday visit to the U.S.-Mexico border in
Laredo, Texas.

In a tweet to Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz, Castro wrote that Trump exploited
the city’s government for his own image, and added that the city’s
reception of Trump was “embarrassing for South Texans and Hispanics.”

Castro doubled down on his criticism on msnbc Friday. “They rolled out the
red carpet for Donald Trump, someone who’s made just hateful comments about
Mexican immigrants,” Castro said on Andrea Mitchell Reports. “To treat him
like an officeholder or like he’s President of the United States or even
the nominee already, I thought it was just bizarre, considering what he
said.”

In Trump’s presidential campaign launch speech in June, the real estate
mogul and reality television star said, “When Mexico sends its people,
they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending
people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems.”

On Friday on Morning Joe, Trump addressed the controversy around his own
remarks about immigration and touched on the possibility of a system that
would allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S. based on their
contributions.

Castro said Trump’s recognition that deportation for millions of
undocumented people was not a solution. “I’m glad that he seems to be a
little more reasonable than he was before,” he said, “but still: all of his
comments have just made a serious conversation on immigration and dealing
with it in Congress much tougher now.”

*How Donald Trump Could Fall Into the Ross Perot Trap
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/24/how-donald-trump-could-fall-into-the-ross-perot-trap.html>
// Daily Beast // Eleanor Clift - July 24, 2015*

In 1992, the Texas billionaire thrived on all the free media coverage. But
then he refused to spend money. If Trump is serious about a third-party
run, he’ll need to shell out.

There was no social media in April 1992 when Texas billionaire Ross Perot
announced his third-party candidacy on the Larry King show.

But Perot had 4 million volunteers who called his 800-number, and when
Republican strategist Ed Rollins asked what he did with their information,
Perot said he had it all on computer cards. Great, Rollins thought. A
veteran of many campaigns, including President Reagan’s, he had been
brought in to professionalize Perot’s grassroots campaign.

Four million names was like money in the bank in those days, but Perot
bristled at the idea of sending “junk mail” to his prized volunteers. “He
had no understanding of the game, and when he saw it, he didn’t like it,”
Rollins recalled in a phone interview with The Daily Beast. As Perot gained
strength in the polls, the media scrutiny intensified, and he told Rollins,
“I never got bad press until I hired you and Hamilton [Jordan].”

Rollins told him that he was being treated like any other candidate, and in
June 1992, with Perot polling at 39 percent, ahead of both President George
H.W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton, Jordan, who had been President
Carter’s chief of staff, exclaimed, “If we’re not careful, we’ll elect this
guy.” Rollins assured him not to worry. He had by then figured out Perot
was not going to listen to any of their advice and was temperamentally
unsuited to run a campaign, much less the country.

Still, he got 19 percent of the vote in the November election, which was
almost 20 million votes, and many analysts believe he handed the election
to Clinton. Thirty-two years later, another rich Republican is off the
reservation and threatening to run as a third-party candidate. And another
Clinton could benefit. “As an Independent, [Donald Trump] would take a
certain segment, mostly Republicans, which tilts the race to Hillary,” says
Rollins.

“Perot didn’t understand advertising and PR. He didn’t understand the
presidency, and he had very little substance.”

There are similarities between the two men in wealth and ego, and in the
tightfistedness of the very rich when it comes to parting with their own
money. Rollins had proposed to Perot a $150 million media campaign with Hal
Riney, creator of Reagan’s “Morning in America” ads, at the helm. Perot
balked. He wasn’t going to spend money on all those longhaired hippies
behind the cameras when he could go on Larry King for nothing.

Perot was very tight with the dollar, and a third-party bid is expensive.
He wasn’t willing to spend the money. Trump is much more savvy than Perot
ever was. “Trump is very reluctant to spend his money, but he’s been
through the wars, he’s used to being battered around,” says Rollins. “Perot
didn’t understand advertising and PR. He didn’t understand the presidency,
and he had very little substance.”

Trump knows the game. The big question for him is how far he will take his
candidacy in terms of dollars he will put on the line. “No one knows how
much Trump is willing to spend,” says Rollins. “I think at this point he’s
a distraction. The potential is there for him to be a very destructive
force in the party. The country is pretty disgusted with politicians, and
that’s what he’s tapping into.”

Trump has so far offered very little substance on issues other than to
claim he would get a better deal with China and he would get Mexico to pay
for a border wall. Perot raised one important issue, the deficit, and he
became a Johnny One Note on the subject. John White, a former Carter OMB
and Defense Department official who was brought in to teach Perot the
issues, was alarmed at how little the candidate knew and how uninterested
he was in learning. Give me a one-pager on health care, he would bark, and
that was it.

Like Perot, Trump appears to have a very shallow understanding of what the
presidency is all about, and he’s not temperamentally qualified to be
president.

But two billionaires three decades apart reflect and are captive to an
angry electorate. Perot said some stupid things, more out of lack of
knowledge, says Rollins. Trump is mean-spirited, and if he doesn’t feel
he’s being treated fairly by the GOP, he has the club of running third
party. Ballot access in all 50 states is not hard, but it’s expensive. You
have to hire people and they have to collect enough signatures to qualify.
Americans Elect did it in 2012 on a “build it and they will come theory,”
but no candidate stepped up to run.

Trump is already altering the dynamics of the race. “It’s his plane, it’s
his staff; he has all kinds of resources available to him. And there’s a
novelty to him,” says Rollins. That novelty might wear off as it did with
Perot, whose bizarre behavior became more obvious closer to the election.
Whether or not Trump is in it for the duration, he’s created bigger
problems for his party with Hispanics. “On immigration, he’s stirring up
the hard core right wing of our base, so if someone like Jeb Bush says
something different, he could get booed off the stage,” says Rollins.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz worked with the Perot campaign, and said in
an email that Trump has “all the advantages Perot had…and one more that
Perot didn’t. He has the thickest skin of anyone I’ve ever seen in
politics. Nothing bothers him, and you need that fortitude to be a
successful third-party candidate.”

For those trying to gauge the seriousness of Trump’s campaign, the reported
involvement of pollster Pat Caddell adds to concerns that Trump could be
hell bent on destroying the GOP in order to save it. Caddell was the
architect of what became known as Carter’s “malaise” speech, and the two
seem like a match made in heaven. New York magazine reports that he and
Trump talk almost every night. Caddell has searched for years to find a
candidate who doesn’t distort his message.

“All I can say is Trump makes Ross Perot look like George Washington,” says
Gerald Rafshoon, Carter’s former media adviser, who flew to Dallas in ’92
to meet with Perot about his ad campaign. The meeting didn’t go well. Perot
told Rafshoon he could get on TV any time he wanted, so why should he spend
money on ads? To underscore his point, he called out to his secretary to
get Larry King on the phone and book him for that evening.

Perot’s candidacy was born on King’s CNN show and for a time thrived in
that venue. Trump is a cable news creature, plus he’s known from his show,
The Apprentice, and his signature line, “You’re fired.” How long he can
keep his candidacy going depends on how long the free media continues, and
how much of his own money he is willing to spend.

If Trump runs as a third-party candidate, he will have to spend money, a
lot of it, and if he concludes his chances in the end are no better than
Perot’s of cracking the two-party lock, that may not look like a deal he’ll
want to make.

*Stay Classy: Trump Used To Test His Dates For AIDS
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/25/stay-classy-trump-used-to-test-his-dates-for-aids.html>
// Daily Beast // Asawin Suebsaeng - July 24, 2015*

In the early ‘90s, the Donald said he would ask his ladies to swing by the
doctor for an AIDS test before he’d wine and dine them.

Future American President Donald J. Trump appears to be a tad germophobic.

“One of the curses of American society is the simple act of shaking hands,
and the more successful and famous one becomes the worse this terrible
custom seems to get,” the 2016 Republican presidential frontrunner wrote in
his book The Art of the Comeback, published in 1997. “I happen to be a
clean hands freak. I feel much better after I thoroughly wash my hands,
which I do as much as possible.” (He has repeatedly described the custom of
handshaking as “barbaric,” because of the germs.)

But his fear of disease goes well beyond his worries about catching a cold
from glad handers. According to an early ‘90s Associated Press article,
Trump—then a “newly eligible bachelor”—talked about how he asked women to
agree to an AIDS test at his doctor’s office before he would take them out
on a date.

“It’s one of the worst times in the history of the world to be dating,” he
explained in late June 1991, roughly four months before Magic Johnson
announced that he tested HIV-positive, and before Queen frontman Freddie
Mercury died of AIDS.

Trump made his comments shortly after his divorce from Ivana Trump was
finalized, and after he had been seen out on the town with TV personality
Marla Maples and then model Carla Bruni.

“I have been known to say that to women,” the real estate mogul and
notorious womanizer told Newsday when asked if he actually asked potential
lovers to test for STDs. “It’s one way to be careful. There are a lot of
ways. I’m saying, take all of those ways and double them, because you will
need them…It’s very scary out there.”

In the early ‘90s, the Donald said he would ask his ladies to swing by the
doctor for an AIDS test before he’d wine and dine them.

After some years of wooing and HIV-testing, Trump would settle down and
remarry, twice. But along the way there was one famous woman he regretted
never asking out: Princess Diana.

“Do you think you would have seriously had a shot?” NBC’s Stone Phillips
asked Trump during a Dateline segment from November 1997. (Princess Diana
had died that past August.) “I think so, yeah,” Trump replied. “I always
have a shot.”

Trump claimed he never asked her out because he was always too busy. It is
unclear if The Donald would have AIDS-tested the late Princess of Wales,
had he not been so busy.

*Trump barring Des Moines Register from campaign event
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/07/24/trump-barring-des-moines-register-campaign-event/30645343/>
// Des Moines Register // Jason Noble - July 24, 2015*

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has denied The Des Moines Register
press credentials to gain access to a candidate event scheduled for
Saturday in Oskaloosa.

The reason: an editorial published by the newspaper last Tuesday calling on
Trump to quit the Republican race.

Register political columnist Kathie Obradovich was informed Friday that she
had been denied a credential to the event, a “family picnic” featuring
Trump that will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the George Daily
Community Auditorium in Oskaloosa.

Trump’s national campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, told Obradovich in a
phone call that the Register was being excluded from the event because of
the editorial.

The Register’s editorial board operates independently from the editors and
reporters who conduct political coverage.

In a subsequent conversation with the Register’s chief political reporter,
Jennifer Jacobs, Lewandowski reiterated that news staffers were being
denied access because of the editorial.

“We’re not issuing credentials to anyone from The Des Moines Register based
on the editorial that they wrote earlier in the week,” he said.

Lewandowski said he expected the campaign would consider allowing the
Register to attend events at some point in the future.

Trump responded to the editorial’s publication almost immediately on
Wednesday, denouncing the Register’s coverage as “uneven,” “inconsistent”
and “dishonest.” Still, it is highly unusual for a political campaign to
deny credentials to a media organization.

Much about Trump’s candidacy has been unusual, though, even as it has
succeeded in drawing massive national media exposure and vaulted him to the
top of many national polls on the Republican race.

In a statement, Amalie Nash, the Register’s editor and vice president for
audience engagement, emphasized the division between the newspaper’s news
and opinion desks.

“We are disappointed that Mr. Trump’s campaign has taken the unusual step
of excluding Register reporters from covering his campaign event in Iowa on
Saturday because he was displeased with our editorial,” she said. “As we
previously said, the editorial has no bearing on our news coverage. We work
hard to provide Iowans with coverage of all the candidates when they spend
time in Iowa, and this is obviously impeding our ability to do so. We hope
Mr. Trump’s campaign will revisit its decision instead of making punitive
decisions because we wrote something critical of him.”

*Priebus: Trump won't run as third-party candidate
<http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/249181-priebus-trump-wont-run-as-third-party-candidate>
// The Hill // Kevin Cirilli - July 24, 2015*

Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus on Friday said
he does not think Donald Trump will run as a third-party candidate should
the billionaire business mogul lose the GOP nomination.

"I don't think he's going to do that. I think he knows that if you're going
to beat Hillary Clinton — if Hillary Clinton is going to get beat, there's
only one party that's going to beat her: It's the Republican Party,"
Priebus said on Fox News' "On The Record: With Greta Van Susteren."

Earlier Friday, Trump — who has surged to the top of the early Republican
presidential polls — seemed to soften his tone against the RNC after
telling The Hill on Wednesday that he would consider a third-party run if
RNC leaders were unfair to him during the primary process.

"I want to run as a Republican. I think I'll get the nomination," Trump
said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" earlier Friday.

Priebus said on Fox News that "any one of the sixteen candidates on our
side know that the only individual that is going to beat Hillary Clinton is
going to be a Republican if she's going to get beat, if she's going to be
beat. Period. And everyone in America knows that's true.”

Earlier this month, Priebus reportedly called Trump and asked him to tone
down his rhetoric on immigration. RNC officials also released a public
statement denouncing Trump's comments about Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on
Saturday.

Trump had said that he didn't think McCain was a war hero, but he
immediately followed up by saying that he did think McCain was a war hero.

Trump has received an onslaught of criticism from the crowded Republican
presidential field, including former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Lindsey
Graham (R-S.C.).

Host Greta Van Susteren described Priebus' job as a bit like "herding cats
right now."

"It's a little bit like that, but then when you look at the polling and you
see that Hillary Clinton is losing to candidates in key battleground states
with her 100 percent name ID, I kind of like where we're sitting," Priebus
answered.

He added that having so such a big field was ”a lot for our party to handle
but it's also a great opportunity."

"I'm tired of the name-calling — from everybody — and I think it needs to
stop from whatever source, from whatever place," Priebus said of GOP
infighting.

*KASICH*

*Stalking Jeb Bush in New Hampshire
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/stalking-jeb-bush-in-new-hampshire-120595.html?ml=tl_2>
// Politico // Eli Stokols - July 24, 2015*

As campaign staffers hurriedly darted about, carrying in more chairs to
accommodate a larger-than-expected crowd, two older men sat and chatted as
the room filled up, waiting for John Kasich to arrive for his town hall on
Thursday afternoon. They spoke about the Ohio governor’s reputation as a
budget hawk and even his record as a congressman with great detail.

“He did that balanced budget amendment back in 1997,” one of them said to
the other.

“And he’s done it in Ohio twice,” the other responded.

As savvy and substantive as New Hampshire voters can be, they’re also just
as susceptible to television ads as voters anywhere else. The biographical
bullet points the two men were reciting have, in fact, been blanketing New
Hampshire in recent weeks, part of an early $3 million TV ad buy — 4,000
gross rating points across multiple markets in three weeks — aimed at
introducing the relatively unknown candidate to Granite Staters confronting
a crowded field of GOP contenders, more than half of whom view this state
as critical to their hopes of breaking through.

If he catches on here, Kasich poses the biggest direct threat to Jeb Bush,
another establishment-friendly candidate with a centrist conservative
message, in his most critical early voting state.

It’s a big if, but that battle began in earnest Thursday, as both
candidates spent the day criss-crossing the hilly hamlets of New
Hampshire’s north country.

Bush, who has led the GOP field here for almost two months,and Kasich, who
still barely registers, are appealing to the same subset of Republican
primary voters, those for whom promises of bipartisanship and various
challenges to the hard-line GOP orthodoxies of the moment aren’t anathema —
but they are, stylistically, at times a study in contrasts.

It starts, at least in Kasich’s rendition, with their biographies. While
Bush typically brushes past his privileged upbringing to tell voters about
his life-altering trip to Mexico where he met his wife at age 17, Kasich
opens by mentioning that his father was a mail carrier. “I grew up in a
blue-collar neighborhood outside Pittsburgh,” Kasich said Thursday as he
introduced himself to a crowd of 100 people. “Blue collar, common sense,
God-fearing and all that stuff.”

As meandering a speaker as he can be — when a questioner mentioned a Czech
pilsner because Kasich’s ancestry is Czech, he told a long, rambling
anecdote about being in Paris with his wife because, he explained, they’d
been in Prague on the same vacation — he is concise and colloquial,
summarizing his priorities into three simple bullet points: balancing
budgets, strengthening the military and fostering more bipartisan comity in
Washington.

Answering one question about campaign finance, Kasich offered his most
obvious critique of Bush, whose $114 million six-month haul leaves him well
positioned to bruise and outlast his many rivals over the course of a long,
sprawling primary fight.

“I think there is an element of fundraising influencing some decisions; not
my decisions — I could care less, but it’s an issue,” Kasich said. “Money
can’t buy you love in New Hampshire.”

Bush, as evidenced by his hustle here, gets that. For now, he doesn’t seem
to view Kasich as anything more than another trifling inconvenience on his
path to the nomination. Yes, Kasich is folksy and blue-collar. Yes, he’s
from critical Ohio. Yes, his message and tone are largely the same as
Bush’s, appealing to the same voters.

And yet.

Bush, confident in his campaign’s overwhelming financial advantage, his
spot on the debate stage given his consistently high standing in national
polls and the durability of his mainstream message, is plodding along,
content to let the national media chase Donald Trump while he works small
towns where just a few hundred Republican votes are up for grabs.

As Trump neared the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday morning, Bush was almost to
Canada. On the front porch of Lahout’s Country Store in Littleton, the
country’s oldest ski shop, Bush continued to present himself as the
anti-Trump, a candidate engaged in more than mere performance art, one
meeting voters where they are, offering substance and a record of
conservative executive leadership.

“I’m not a candidate who has a grievance; I’m not angry,” Bush said. “I’m
the tortoise in the race: slow, steady progress.”

Bush suggested to reporters on Thursday that he, like most observers,
thinks Trump-mentum will fade. When it does, he’ll still have to contend
with Kasich, not to mention Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Carly
Fiorina and Lindsey Graham, all making a play for New Hampshire and its
more establishment-tilting primary electorate.

Currently, polls show Bush in good shape, atop the GOP field with around 15
percent support in New Hampshire, enough for a five-point cushion over his
closest rivals (for the moment that’s Trump, followed by Scott Walker, Rand
Paul and Marco Rubio). Kasich, tracking at just 2 percent in New Hampshire,
has a long way to go — but longtime political observers here think he has
the most room to grow.

“Kasich has the potential to capitalize on Bush fatigue,” said Fergus
Cullen, a conservative columnist and New Hampshire primary historian. “I’ve
seen them both and like them both. Part of Kasich’s pitch, subtle and
unstated, is that if you like Bush’s record, message, tone and electability
in a swing state, you get that with Kasich without any baggage.”

Bush’s jam-packed schedule on Thursday, which included stops at a candy
store, a VFW hall in Lancaster and a town hall in Gorham, was an investment
in the type of retail politics voters here demand, a charm offensive aimed
at winning people over by making personal connections: photo-ops with
preschoolers, accepting a jug of maple syrup from the Lahouts, signing Solo
cups and endlessly posing for “selfies.”

As Bush plopped himself onto a lawn with a dozen three- and four-year-olds,
a passel of photographers and iPhone-wielding reporters snapped away. Rich
Killion, the New Hampshire operative overseeing Bush’s campaign here,
hustled around, unable to hide the grin on his face.

“There’s an old saying: If you tell one person in North Country about an
issue or a presidential candidate, everybody knows because everyone knows
their neighbors, everyone’s related up here,” said Joe Kenny, a member of
New Hampshire’s Executive Council from the North Country who was at events
for Bush and Kasich Thursday. “The difference between the vote count in
who’s going to be first, second or third is only a few thousand people. So,
you come up to these small North Country towns [and] you can collect a lot
of votes.”

Unlike Kasich or other long-shots, Bush is finding a number of Democratic
activists showing up to his appearances. One young woman slapped a Jeb!
sticker on her T-shirt and took her place inside the VFW hall, but Bush
recognized her, and her questions about climate change, from past meetings.
A tracker from American Bridge, the primary Democratic opposition research
group, follows and records his every move.

The scrutiny – and missteps like his weeklong attempt in May to cleanly
answer a question about Iraq to more recent statements about workers
putting in “longer hours” and, on Wednesday night here, “phasing out”
entitlement programs — may make Bush a more polished, message-disciplined
candidate. But as much or more than any of his rivals, he is constantly
answering questions, engaging with reporters, activists and voters of every
stripe, flouting his capacity for ad-libbing beyond his talking points.

“I campaign like Jeb,” he said in South Carolina on Tuesday, even though
only long-time Floridians could have any idea what he meant.

The accessibility, in many ways, has become elemental to Bush’s main
message, a point of emphasis and contrast to rivals like Walker, who has
yet to hold a town hall in New Hampshire, and Hillary Clinton, the likely
Democratic nominee whose campaign corralled reporters a safe distance from
the candidate with a rope during a July 4 parade through Gorham, where Bush
held his town hall Thursday.

Although Bush joked about the rope line, his comments about his political
approach have focused more of late on separating himself from his fellow
Republicans, specifically Trump, who has basically hijacked the primary
with his can’t-look-away antics.

“It’s a large number of people and I respect them all,” Bush said of the
GOP field. “I’m running to win, I’m not running to make a point. I’m not
running because my version of conservative reform philosophy is better than
anybody else’s. I’m not running because I’m angry. I’m running because I
want to win to fix these things and I think I have the leadership skills to
do so.

“I’m running to draw people towards our cause, rather than push them away.
A Republican will never be elected president of the United States unless we
campaign like this, where we campaign in every nook and cranny of this
country.”

Kasich’s message of inclusion – he speaks of job growth as a “the most
important moral purpose of government” and of healing the partisan divide –
isn’t much different from Bush’s. Just as Bush often affirms he is
campaigning with “joy in my heart,” Kasich on Thursday evening told
reporters he, too, is having a lot of fun, echoing Bush right down to the
characteristic sarcasm they share.

“I’m enjoying this,” said Kasich, whose prickly reputation may well be an
asset here in a state where voters are often drawn to candidates who are a
little rougher around the edges. “I’m actually having fun.”

His top adviser, John Weaver, who oversaw John McCain’s successful New
Hampshire campaigns in 2000 and 2008, touted the response Kasich is getting
so far in terms of voters signing up to support him, including many who
waited a lot longer to sign on with McCain.

“We are building as deep and wide an organization in New Hampshire as I
have ever been a part of, including John’s in 2000,” Weaver said. “It’s
clear voters are finding something real and refreshing in John Kasich.”

As amazing as it sounds in a field this large, there appears to be an
opening for Kasich, especially with Christie struggling to catch on.
Despite a campaign built around the New Hampshire-style politics of
“telling it like it is,” the New Jersey governor is stuck around five
percent in the polls after an almost constant presence in the state for
months. Similarly, long-shots like Graham and Fiorina, however endearing,
are struggling to turn warm receptions from voters into hard support.

Kasich, Weaver points out, is largely undefined in New Hampshire; his
negatives are low, especially compared to Christie’s, and he may hold
appeal to moderate conservatives concerned about the baggage of the Bush
brand. What remains to be seen is whether he can seize that opportunity,
whether he’ll have the resources to continue running TV ads into the fall
and winter, whether he can convince voters he can actually win the
nomination.

“It’s odd,” Bush said Tuesday of Kasich’s likely absence from the first
primary debate taking place next week in Cleveland, which is closed to
candidates polling outside the top 10 nationally.

“John Kasich is an effective governor and has a great record,” Bush said,
killing Kasich with kindness, assured of his own place on next week’s
debate stage.

“And I’ll give a shoutout to Kasich if he’s not on. Maybe he’ll be in the
crowd if he’s not in there.”

*John Kasich Is the Real Deal: Pay Attention To Him
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnzogby/2015/07/24/john-kasich-is-the-real-deal-pay-attention-to-him/>
// Forbes // John Zogby - July 24, 2015*

Seemingly lost in the all the “Donaldfoolery” of late is that a real
candidate announced his bid for the Republican nomination for President:
Governor John Kasich of Ohio. Kasich brings a singular level of experience
to the race as both a legislator and an executive, significant business
success, four decades of winning elections, and impressive (even historic)
accomplishments in public policy. He is what Governors Scott Walker and
Chris Christie can, at this point in their tenures, only aspire to be. He
has more experience than both former Governor Jeb Bush and Senator Marco
Rubio combined. And he has the kind of blue collar support needed in a GOP
must-win state.

Let’s examine the real advantages he represents.

Resume

Kasich has been a state Senator, was elected to nine terms as a member of
Congress, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and has twice elected
Governor of Ohio. His grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe and
he was born into a working class family in western Pennsylvania.

Policy success

Kasich was the chief architect and major negotiator of the 1997 balanced
budget during the Clinton administration, an agreement that brought the
first balanced federal budget since 1969 and led eventually to a federal
budget surplus. Kasich also chaired the congressional conference committee
that adopted major welfare reform, requiring new work/training requirements
into the system. He also played a major part in House passage of the
Goldwater–Nichols Act, the first real restructuring and streamlining of the
military command structure since the creation of the Department of Defense
in 1947. Under his tenure as Governor, Ohio’s unemployment rate has been
nearly halved from 9.4% to about 5%, the state’s surplus has more than
tripled, and he has cut taxes by $3 billion and consolidated and
streamlined the state’s economic development efforts

He’s a winner

In addition to his state and Congressional district victories, he defeated
an incumbent Democrat, Governor Ted Strickland in 2010, and then won
re-election with 64% of the vote in 2014. He has received significantly
more support from both Latino and African American voters than Republicans
can usually expect.

Across the aisle

While this may not be popular with hardliners in the GOP, Kasich is a
moderate conservative. He favors smaller government and tax reform, but he
has worked successfully with Democrats to pass both important legislation
and to be an early adopter of Medicaid expansion in Ohio under the
provisions of the Affordable Care Act. At the same time, he has not shied
away from battling teachers unions on the issues of both pension reform and
Common Core Curriculum. He seems to govern practically, not ideologically.

Kasich also appears to have a strong independent streak. He is
unappreciated by unions but workers love him. He is hated by the National
Rifle Association but gun owners support him.

Now he does like to talk a lot–but so did that young Clinton fellow from
Arkansas.

History may be on Kasich’s side. Republicans typically nominate the most
moderate candidate in the field. (The one exception since 1968 was Ronald
Reagan, but he had the good fortune to be both the heir apparent–another
GOP tradition–and the beneficiary of a split among moderate opponents.)
Kasich will have to catch on in the primaries, which he can do because he
doesn’t have anywhere near the baggage most of his opponents have out
there. And he can cause some real fear among Democrats who could be
blindsided by a possible Kasich-Rubio, Kasich-Fiorini or a Kasich-Haley
ticket.

John Kasich’s announcement deserved a whole lot more attention than it got.

*OTHER*

*Bush leads Rubio in Sunshine State battle
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/jeb-bush-marco-rubio-poll-florida/index.html>
// CNN // Theodore Schleifer - July 24, 2015*

The two Floridians running for president may be heading for a battle royale
in their home state, and it looks as if Jeb Bush is currently on top.

Former Gov. Bush leads Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in the state's key
Republican primary, according to a new Mason-Dixon poll released Friday.
Bush earned 28% of Republicans' support, while Rubio, Bush's mentee, wins
over 16% of those polled.

The two Floridians have overlapping donor networks and both rise from the
same Miami-based political base. Some Republican strategists believe that
only one of the two candidates will emerge as a top-tier contender after
Florida's March 15 primary, which features several of the country's most
expensive media markets.

Previous polls have shown a narrower spread between Rubio and Bush, with
the most recent Mason-Dixon survey in April revealing the distance between
the pair to be just one percentage point. Rubio fell from 30% support to
16% since April, but Bush held steady in the Mason-Dixon poll.

Winning some of Rubio's support appears to be Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker,
who earned 16% in the new Mason-Dixon poll, up from 2% in April. Following
Walker in Friday's poll was businessman Donald Trump, who notched 11%
support. All other candidates earned 5% or less in the survey.

Five hundred Republican voters were surveyed this week from Monday to
Thursday with a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

*OTHER 2016 NEWS*

*Presidential Candidates Denounce Violence, but Avoid Talk of Policy
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/politics/presidential-candidates-denounce-violence-but-avoid-talk-of-policy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1>
// NYT // Jonathan Martin - July 24, 2015*

The morning after the third deadly mass shooting in six weeks, the
presidential candidates acted as though they had not seen the news.

Republicans attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton over the personal email account
she used as secretary of state. Mrs. Clinton went ahead with a planned
speech about tax policy. Senator Bernie Sanders, a rival Democrat, talked
about children’s issues in Iowa.

Only Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, speaking at a news conference outside
the movie theater where three people were killed Thursday night, addressed
the violence at length.

But Mr. Jindal, who is mounting a long-shot candidacy for the Republican
nomination, completely deflected questions on tougher gun laws, saying he
would talk about “policy and politics” another time, and telling reporters
to focus on the victims, survivors and the heroic police officers who had
responded to the shooting.

Law enforcement and other emergency personnel responded to the scene of the
shooting.Gunman Kills 2 and Himself at Movie Theater in Lafayette, La.JULY
23, 2015

Though most denounced the shooting and called for prayers for the victims —
as they did after recent shootings in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Charleston,
S.C. — none of the presidential contenders offered policy solutions to
address gun violence, a reflection of the fact that gun laws are
politically radioactive.

Five servicemen died after a gunman opened fire at two military centers on
July 16 in Chattanooga, Tenn. Credit Kevin Liles for The New York Times

The leading Republican presidential candidates are overwhelmingly opposed
to any effort to restrict access to guns, and have responded to the string
of recent shootings by focusing on — depending on the nature of the
shooting — spiritual healing, the threat of Islamic terrorism and mental
health efforts.

The Democratic hopefuls have proposed gun control measures, but they have
been generally more focused on issues of economics, race and gender than
gun violence.

In the wake of Thursday’s attack, Mrs. Clinton made sure to acknowledge
that “gun ownership is part of the fabric of many American communities,”
before urging broad policies to address gun violence.

“We must come together for common sense gun violence prevention reforms
that keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and the violently unstable,
while respecting responsible gun owners,” she said in a statement that was
unlikely to offer encouragement to proponents of stricter gun laws.

Mrs. Clinton has, however, called for universal background checks and
stronger efforts to block those who are on terrorist watch lists, suffer
from mental illness, or have records of domestic abuse from obtaining
firearms.

Though Mr. Sanders seems to be gaining ground based largely on the support
of liberal voters, he is compromised on the issue of guns in a way that
Mrs. Clinton is not. The Vermont senator has previously been backed by the
National Rifle Association and has argued on the campaign trail that guns
in his home state, or in rural New Hampshire, are not the equivalent of
guns in major urban areas like Chicago. Mr. Sanders’s campaign noted Friday
that he supports instant background checks, tighter restrictions on gun
shows and has a dismal rating from the N.R.A.

Among the Democratic contenders, only Martin O’Malley, who wrote an op-ed
in The Boston Globe late Friday, made a forceful call for Congress to pass
more restrictive gun measures.

Strategists in both parties say that, regardless of who wins the White
House next year, there is little chance for passing gun legislation because
Republicans, who will almost certainly still control the House, will not
bring any bills restricting gun access up for a vote. The only times in
recent American history when significant gun control bills were signed into
law — 1968, 1993 and 1994 — were when Democrats controlled the presidency
and both chambers of Congress.

Although President Obama said this week that the failure to persuade
Congress to pass “common sense gun safety laws” was one of the great
regrets of his presidency — just hours before the shooting in Louisiana —
Congress is unlikely to close any of the loopholes in federal gun laws
exposed by the recent shootings.

The bill in Congress with the most traction may be one that would give
military officers the ability to carry weapons at recruitment centers.

Where Congress has faltered, the states have moved to tighten safety
aspects of gun ownership. For instance, 10 states have made it harder for
people with domestic violence convictions to obtain weapons.

Court records show that the gunman in Louisiana had a history of mental
illness and had once been the subject of a protective order in Carroll
County, Ga., which may have been detected with a stronger mental health
reporting systems. That too is the subject of legislation languishing in
Congress.

Nearly 20 states and the District of Columbia now have universal background
check laws similar to a measure that failed in the last Congress, which may
have blocked or at least slowed the gun purchase of Mohammod Youssuf
Abdulazeez, who law enforcement officials say shot and killed four United
States Marines and one sailor at a military recruitment center in
Chattanooga. Mr. Abdulazeez bought his weapon on the Internet, an avenue
that Senate legislation in the last Congress intended to make subject to
background checks.

The man who the police say killed nine Charleston churchgoers had not
completed his background check, but he was allowed to buy a gun anyway
under a so-called default proceed. Federal law permits a firearms dealer
who has initiated a background check to proceed with a sale if the dealer
has not been notified of violations within three business days.
Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, filed
legislation that would close the loophole, but Republican leaders have not
acted on it.

In the case of the Chattanooga killings, some of the candidates called for
letting members of the military and National Guard arm themselves at
recruiting centers, a move codified by bills pending in Congress. This
week, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter responded coolly to the idea.

“We need to recruit, but we can’t put people at unnecessary risk as well,”
he said, saying that he would await the recommendations of commanders, “and
then I’ll make decisions sometime in the next few days.”

No single law usually could have prevented mass shootings, which remain
rare. Gun violence experts are increasingly interested in changing laws to
better target those who have a demonstrated propensity for gun violence.
For instance, a nonviolent felony conviction from two decades ago may well
be less predictive of gun violence than a domestic violence protection
order or drunken-driving conviction, said Daniel Webster, director of the
Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.

“There is very little research that says what the best gun policy is to
prevent mass shootings,” Mr. Webster said. “But we do have a good amount of
research to show that when you have higher standards for legal gun
ownership and more robust efforts needed to gain access you have much lower
rates of gun violence. A lot of people have a hard time believing that
because you never see a news story that some dangerous person didn’t kill
someone today because they didn’t get a gun.”

*Tom Steyer: Candidates Who Want My Support Must Be Aggressive on Clean
Energy
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/24/tom-steyer-candidates-who-want-my-support-must-be-aggressive-on-clean-energy/>
// WSJ // Colleen McCain Nelson - July 24, 2015*

Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate-change activist, laid out a litmus test
for 2016 candidates Friday, calling on them to develop aggressive
clean-energy plans.

Mr. Steyer set a high bar for candidates and elected officials seeking his
support, asking for concrete plans to increase the share of clean energy in
the United States’ power generation mix to 50% by 2030.

“Reaching this goal would more than triple renewable energy in our country
– putting us on the pathway to a 100% clean-energy economy by 2050 and
millions of new jobs,” Mr. Steyer wrote in a blog post.

The goal set by Mr. Steyer and his advocacy group, NextGen Climate, is more
ambitious than President Barack Obama’s pledge to achieve 20% renewable
energy other than hydropower by 2030. Mr. Steyer called his newly announced
target “a minimum starting point” for candidates who are committed to a
clean-energy economy.

Mr. Steyer, who founded a hedge fund before shifting his focus to politics
and philanthropy, has emerged as a consequential environmentalist who is
willing to spend millions to elevate the issue of climate change. He spent
$73 million during the 2014 midterm elections, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics.

A spokesperson for NextGen Climate made clear Friday that candidates who
don’t clear Mr. Steyer’s bar on clean energy aren’t likely to win the
group’s backing.

“NextGen Climate fully expects all candidates up and down the ballot to
show the leadership we need, so it’s hard to imagine supporting a candidate
who doesn’t embrace this goal,” the group’s spokesperson said.

While NextGen Climate issued a broad call for all candidates to lay out
clean-energy plans, the message appeared aimed at prodding Democratic front
runner Hillary Clinton, who has not yet detailed her own climate-change
policy.

Other Democratic presidential candidates have been vocal about climate
change on the stump.  Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has said the
United States should zero out fossil fuels and be powered entirely by clean
energy by 2050. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been a vocal opponent of the
Keystone XL pipeline and has called for aggressive steps to combat climate
change.

Mr. Steyer hosted a donor meeting for Mrs. Clinton at his San Francisco
home in May

*Red-state Democrats fret about leftward shift
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/red-state-democrats-leftward-shift-120605.html#ixzz3gqwXInKz>
// Politico // Kyle Cheney - July 24, 2015*

Centrist Democrats were wiped out in the 2014 elections and in their
absence emerged a resurgent liberal movement, embodied most recently by the
surprisingly competitive presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie
Sanders.

But the suddenly ascendant left — its populist overtones becoming part of
the mainstream Democratic pitch — is worrying Democrats who want to compete
on Republican-leaning turf. The party lost every competitive gubernatorial
and Senate race in the South last year. And Democrats didn’t fare much
better in the heartland.

Now, as Bernie Sanders’ surge foreshadows a new burst of progressivism,
moderate Democrats are looking to their counterparts in Washington with a
plea: Don’t freeze us out.

“The national Democratic Party’s brand makes it challenging for Democrats
in red states oftentimes and I hope that going forward, the leaders at the
national level will be mindful of that and they will understand that they
can’t govern the country without Democrats being able to win races in red
states,” said Paul Davis, who narrowly failed to unseat Republican Kansas
Gov. Sam Brownback last year.

Davis and his ilk were partly victims of a historically dismal year for
Democrats, who saw their gubernatorial ranks fall to 18. Their candidates
were weighed down by perceptions that President Barack Obama was too
liberal. Now, Democrats in red states are worried that the party’s shift
toward an even more polarizing, populist tone could turn off the swing
voters they need to mount a comeback in 2015 and 2016, when a handful of
GOP-tilted states with Democratic governors are on the ballot.

“It’s important that the Democratic party be ‘big-tent,’” said Vincent
Sheheen, who lost last year to South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. “So if the
result of that kind of rhetoric is an antagonism toward or a hostility
toward the moderate elements of the Democratic Party then yeah, it’s big
trouble and big problems.”

“We’ll never take back Congress unless we can win in the South. We’ll never
take back governorships unless we can win in the South,” he added.

Though his state is fairly reliable for Democrats, Delaware Gov. Jack
Markell told POLITICO he worries that overemphasizing liberal themes to
turn out the Democratic base will backfire.

“There are still more self-described conservatives than there are
self-described liberals,” he said. “I think relying on a strategy where all
you’re trying to do is turn out your base of liberal Democrats is not a
very compelling electoral strategy. I think what we need to do is we need
to have a message that is compelling to Democrats, to independents, and
even to some Republicans.”

Georgia Democrat Jason Carter, the grandson of former president Jimmy
Carter and the narrow loser of his state’s 2014 governor’s race, said the
party would do well to preserve its inclusive image.

“Democrats in the South are the only truly ‘big tent’ party left,” he said,
adding that he expects that mentality to pay off in the near future. “The
only real litmus test we have is that you have to want to be in the fight
with all different kinds of people — and not exclude folks because of one
or two issues.”

Though Sanders has largely come to represent the restive left, supplanting
liberal beacon Elizabeth Warren, the fear among moderate Democrats is not
that he’ll win their party’s nomination — they’re still confident Hillary
Clinton will be the party’s nominee — only that his supporters will tug the
party so far away from the middle that there’s no place for Southern
moderates or Midwestern centrists.

The shift comes amid furious turnover for moderate Democrats at the
gubernatorial level. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear is term-limited and the
race to succeed him takes place in three months. Missouri’s Jay Nixon and
West Virginia’s Earl Ray Tomblin are also term-limited and will see
successors elected in 2016. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is up for reelection
next year.

These Democrats, who congregated here for the summer meeting of the
National Governors Association, treaded cautiously around the issue,
emphasizing repeatedly that energy within any faction of the party is a
positive force that will aid Democrats across the ideological spectrum.

Tomblin predicted West Virginia Democrats would continue to run as
“moderate to conservative” candidates and won’t suffer from the pull of
national politics. Beshear, whose preferred successor Jack Conway has
bragged on the campaign trail about suing Obama over EPA regulations,
underscored the importance of retaining the Democrats’ big-tent mentality.

“We include viewpoints all across the political spectrum and that includes
everything from the most liberal viewpoints to the most conservative
viewpoints,” he said. Beshear argued that Democrats’ focus on common goals
— job creation, improved education and access to health care — would keep
the party united. “Those issues bring us all together and I think will
serve as sort of the anchor of the party throughout future years.”

Bullock, who heads the campaign organization tasked with electing
Democratic governors this year, cited “roles for all of us” in the party,
and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a former national Democratic leader
whose term expires after 2017, said “Anytime anyone brings any energy to a
political process, it’s a good thing.”

Democrats were also quick to deflect from their internal debate with a
quick reference to Donald Trump. For all their ideological squabbling, they
noted, the Republican Party is far more fractious and still struggling to
find its identity.

“If you look at the difference among Democratic candidates on their core
message, their core issues, I mean there is much less difference than what
we see from extreme parts of the spectrum of Republican candidates,” said
Mark Schauer, who lost last year’s Michigan governor’s race against Rick
Snyder and is now leading Democratic efforts to retake state legislatures.

Yet Democrats are mindful of how easily Republicans managed to tag local
and statewide candidates as pawns of national leaders deeply unpopular in
Republican-leaning states.

“Nancy Pelosi in South Carolina does not play well,” said Sheheen. “We need
to have moderate figureheads in the party who can speak to people and
relate to people in the south. If the message is a less mainstream message,
if it is a more extreme message, then that would be a problem.”

One Democratic operative who works with gubernatorial candidates argued
that the Democratic Party must avoid a slide into factionalism that mirrors
the rise of the tea party on the right.

“The Democratic Party cannot become what the Republican Party is today – a
fractured party with the tea party crazies on one side and the libertarian
loonies on the other,” the operative said. “We have to be able to embrace
all.”

*Ways of seeing
<http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21659732-presidential-candidates-ideas-boosting-wages-reveal-different-diagnoses-how>
// Economist // July 24, 2015*

The presidential candidates’ ideas for boosting wages reveal different
diagnoses of how the economy has changed over the past 40 years

With unemployment low, decent growth anticipated for this year and the
Federal Reserve preparing to raise interest rates, America’s economy looks
rosier. That has not stopped candidates for president from worrying about
it. With the economy back on its feet, the presidential hopefuls want to
address a longer-term condition: stagnant wages. Median household incomes
remain lower in real terms than in 1989, and only 11% higher than in 1970.
Talk of the death of the American dream is rife. The candidates have
suggested a variety of reviving strategies, each of which reveals a
different diagnosis of the underlying problem.

The first idea is to boost growth. Most economists reckon GDP rose by
around an annualised 2.5% in the second quarter—strong, by today’s
standards. But it lags the pace achieved, say, from 1996 to 2000, when
annual growth topped 3.5%, and real median incomes grew by 10% to boot.

Jeb Bush, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, wants a repeat of
this superlative economic performance, and is promising to target growth of
4%. With such a fast expansion, argues Mr Bush, “the middle class will
thrive again”.

That is probably true, but the ambitious target has raised plenty of
eyebrows among economists, many of whom think the economy’s potential for
growth is permanently lower today. Mr Bush’s plan is light on details, but
in an interview with a New Hampshire newspaper on July 8th he said part of
the solution might be for Americans to work longer hours. The Democrats
immediately lambasted him as out of touch; Americans already toil for
longer than any other workers in the G7 group of large rich countries.

Mr Bush may have a point all the same. There are 6.4m Americans in
part-time jobs who want to work full-time, up from 4.5m on the eve of the
recession. The Federal Reserve reckons these workers form part of the slack
in the labour market which holds wage growth down. Still, it is not clear
what Mr Bush could do about this, were he to win the White House.
Labour-market slack is a short-run issue that is usually the domain of the
Fed.

A more promising approach is to try to boost productivity in the hours
already worked—another natural way to get wages up. In a thoughtful speech
on July 7th Marco Rubio, one of Mr Bush’s many rivals for the Republican
nomination, focused on this route to riches. The plight of the middle class
was not, he said, the result of a cyclical economic downturn. Instead,
Americans need help adapting to the new world of high-tech jobs. Just as
textile workers in the industrial revolution had to retrain to learn to use
the power loom, and became richer as a result, Americans today will thrive
only if they learn to harness the tools of the global techno-economy.

To that end, Mr Rubio wants to overhaul higher education. A four-year
college course is unnecessary for many students, and too expensive for
workers looking for new skills, he argues. Mr Rubio wants to make it easier
to set up cheaper, shorter courses and break what he calls the “cartel” of
colleges controlling accreditation. He would also introduce a new funding
model for students, who could offer up a fixed percentage of their future
incomes to investors willing to finance their studies.

Boosting skills and productivity is necessary to increase wages. But
Hillary Clinton, the probable Democratic nominee, likes to point out that
this is not, on its own, enough. Americans have not reaped the fruits of
their labour in recent decades Since 1970, productivity has more than
doubled, while median incomes have risen only 11% (see chart).

That makes the problem look like one of pie-cutting rather than
pie-cooking. The labour share—the proportion of GDP that flows to the
pockets of workers—has been in decline since the turn of the century, with
capital gobbling up an increasing share of the economy’s spoils. Mrs
Clinton wants to arrest this trend by encouraging firms to share profits
with workers. She would offer a two-year tax credit to firms that do so,
worth up to 15% of whatever was paid out. The hope is to nudge firms
towards schemes that they will continue after the tax break is withdrawn.
The firms may find this is good for them: there is strong evidence that
profit-sharing boosts productivity, argues Joseph Blasi, an economist at
Rutgers University who advised the Clinton campaign on the policy.

Pie-eyed

One problem is that wages may fall to offset the profit share. To begin
with, this would be spotted easily. But over time it would be harder to
detect (for instance, wages might grow at a slower pace with profit-sharing
in place). The only way of ensuring that workers shared company profits in
the long-run would be to encourage employee ownership of firms.

Mrs Clinton’s challengers on the left have a more rudimentary approach.
Both Martin O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland, and Bernie Sanders, a
senator from Vermont, say they will more than double the federal minimum
wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour. Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco are
already phasing in such a policy. On July 22nd a panel of experts
recommended a $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers in New York. A much
higher minimum wage would boost median incomes, because many low-wage
workers are their household’s second earners. But the minimum wage is a
blunt instrument, and economists know little about the long-run impact
these increases would have on employment (see article).

The candidates do not seem short of ideas to improve the fortunes of
average Americans. And the renewed focus on wages is welcome; economic
growth matters little if it does not boost living standards. Most of the
front-line candidates have correctly identified the causes of the malaise
(Scott Walker, who sees no problem, is an exception). But slower growth,
weak productivity and a declining labour share of income are global trends.
The next president will need to fight all three.

*Why Bernie Sanders & Donald Trump represent a perfect storm for American
politics <http://www.salon.com/2015/07/24/pulver_on_sanders_and_trump/> //
Salon // Matthew Pulver - July 24, 2015*

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are not the same. At all. Sanders is not
the Trump of the left, and vice versa. I feel uncomfortable even joining
them in the same sentence. But the two campaigns’ shocking early successes
do reflect the same growing helplessness and anger at a Washington many
increasingly feel to be distant, unresponsive, dynastic and unconcerned
with regular citizens’ lives. We’re finding that if you’re a truth-to-power
speaker, there’s a ready-made following in each party. At least, Trump’s
freewheeling, shoot-from-the-hip disdain for GOP leaders (and Democrats
when he gets around to it) looks like speaking truth to power to followers;
and Sanders is stubbornly reminding his party’s leadership about its
mistakes. They’re both tapping into the same bipartisan well of unhappiness
with our government. Trust in government is at its lowest sustained trough
since Pew started collecting that data in 1958, and Trump and Sanders
represent a radical choice in each party, each man an outsider against
establishment favorites named Clinton and Bush.

Neither Trump nor Sanders even belongs to the party for whose nomination he
runs. Trump said he identified “more as Democrat” in 2004, declined to
affiliate with the party in 2012, and up until the 2012 election had given
“significantly more money to Democrats.” Sanders is proudly an Independent.
He describes himself as a “democratic socialist” and boasted  in April that
he is “outside of the two-party system, defeating Democrats and
Republicans.”

So neither feels the need then to play ball according to party rules. They
weren’t reared in their parties. Trump has gone on a rampage against GOP
establishment figures like John McCain and Lindsey Graham recently, which
has been verboten and in breach of Reagan’s “Eleventh Commandment” that
“thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” But the recent ad
hominem and dirty internecine attacks of the sort hitherto reserved for
Democratic opponents actually boosted Trump’s poll numbers and sent him
firmly into the frontrunner position.

Bernie Sanders is the anti-Trump and committed to not personally attack
Hillary Clinton. He prides himself on his career-long avoidance of such
tactics. “I’ve never run a negative ad in my life,” he told The Nation’s
John Nichols earlier this month. ”I’m supposed to be telling the people
that my opponents are the worst people in the world and I’m great,” he
said. “That’s crap; I don’t believe that for a second…” But his leftist
critique constitutes a gigantic subtweet against the Clintons, whose
centrism has defined the direction of the party since the early ’90s, if
not the late ’80s. He doesn’t have to name the Clintons to be attacking
virtually their entire political project.

Sanders often boasts that he’s “the longest serving independent in the
history of the U.S. Congress,” and in 2006 he became the first socialist
ever elected to the U.S. Senate. He’s running as a Democrat only because
that’s the only lane available to make a meaningful run at the White House
in a political duopoly.

Both are true outsiders. If nominated, Trump would be the first Republican
candidate never to have served in elective office since Eisenhower, who did
have a little gig as Supreme Allied Commander in WWII but no elective
position. Republican nominee Wendell Willkie in 1940 is the last to have
not served in government before his run. Sanders, of course, would be the
first socialist president and complete the dream of Eugene V. Debs, the
early 20th century socialist presidential candidate who garnered nearly a
million votes in 1920.

In recent decades, there have been a few outsider-like candidates who have
done well in primaries, but not actual outsiders like Trump and Sanders.
Republican Pat Buchanan in 1996 was something of a well-performing wild
card, but he was a party man, serving in both the Nixon and Reagan
administrations. Democrat Howard Dean was labeled an “outsider” in 2004 and
enjoyed some unlikely success early in the primaries. But Dean wasn’t
actually an outsider. The former Vermont governor went on to chair the
Democratic National Committee, the organization “responsible for governing
the Democratic Party.” So the most insider position there is, basically.
Jesse Jackson’s run in 1988 is probably the closest modern-era comparison
to this election’s two outsiders, but Jackson, it turned out, represented
the last gasp of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party for two decades,
not the resurgence that Sanders’ campaign represents.

The 1988 primaries do share some similarities with this election’s
surprising early showings by Sanders and Trump. Jackson’s more radical,
outsider campaign did, like Sanders’, have a conservative counterpart in
televangelist Pat Robertson, who could be thought of as the Trump. The two
outsiders won 12 state primaries between them.

But in 1988 there wasn’t the same populist anger that’s marked the last 6
or 7 years. The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, whatever your opinion of
the two movements, were manifestations of a deep distrust of Washington
that transcended party. The spark that ignited what would become the Tea
Party occurred under a Republican president: the rejection of President
Bush’s Wall Street bailout in 2008, a Republican-led “stunning defiance of
President Bush and Congressional leaders of both parties.” Occupy was born
under Obama in 2011 and presented a progressive challenge to the Democratic
establishment. Both movements initiated a new period of intra-party
conflict in each of Washington’s two political houses.

The electorate of both parties is, as a result, accustomed to internecine
fighting in a way that’s been absent. No longer is it simply the other
party and its leadership to blame for our ills but voters’ own party
leadership. The last several elections have seen “almost unprecedented”
political carnage on the Republican side by Tea Party insurgents, and
Senator Elizabeth Warren and Sanders form the beginnings of a progressive
antagonist wing of the Democratic Party.

It’s a perfect storm. With nearly every measure of trust and approval of
Washington showing historic levels of disdain with the establishment, the
two parties proffer a Bush and a Clinton as the most likely nominees. Bush
and Clinton’s fundraising utterly dominate everyone else in the field, and
each party’s base sees machinations and string-pulling. Neither Trump nor
Sanders will sit in the Oval Office unless invited by the next president,
but it’s time to start paying attention to the anger. Party leaders can
dismiss Trump and Sanders, but they shouldn’t dismiss the millions they
represent. All a rabble needs is a good rouser. Neither candidate is right
for that job, but there is almost certainly someone out there who is,
someone with a 2020 vision.

*OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS*

*Hillary Clinton Classified
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-classified-1437780446> // WSJ
// July 24, 2015*

When Hillary Clinton called a press conference on March 10 to defend her
use of private email for official State Department business, she was
categorical in saying that as Secretary of State she “did not email any
classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.”

Mark that down as another Clinton untruth, along with coming under fire on
a tarmac in Bosnia, suddenly discovering the Rose Law Firm billing records
in the upstairs bedroom after years of saying they’d been lost, earning a
10,000% profit trading cattle futures after having read the Wall Street
Journal, and so many more.

A government review has now found that Mrs. Clinton sent at least four
emails from her personal account that contained classified information
during her time as Secretary of State. The content should have been labeled
“secret,” the second level of classification, according to a letter sent to
Congress by the Inspector General for the intelligence community. Those
four emails came from a mere 40 that the IG inspected. There are 30,000
more emails the IG hasn’t reviewed, according to a story Friday in the
Journal.

This is no small slip-up, and the intelligence IG and his State Department
counterpart have referred the handling of Mrs. Clinton’s email to the
Justice Department for review. Other senior officials have faced criminal
charges for misusing classified information. Former CIA Director David
Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor this year for disclosing
classified information to his mistress, while Clinton-era National Security
Adviser Sandy Berger copped a misdemeanor plea in 2005 for walking off with
classified documents from the National Archives.

The latest revelation adds to the scandal of Mrs. Clinton’s private emails,
which by now would have crippled a lesser figure running for President.
Mrs. Clinton first said she wanted to use a private server so she could use
a single electronic device. Then we learned she had more than one device
anyway.

She claimed she had turned over all of her private emails to the State
Department to review and release to the public. Then we learned that she
had failed to turn over some Benghazi-related emails to her outside
political fixer, Sidney Blumenthal. We only learned about the emails she
didn’t turn over because Mr. Blumenthal gave them under subpoena to the
Congressional committee investigating the 2012 terror attack in Benghazi.

As usual, Mrs. Clinton didn’t acknowledge her previous falsehood when asked
about it on Friday, attempting to change the subject. “Maybe the heat is
getting to everybody,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We are all accountable to the
American people to get the facts right, and I will do my part. But I’m also
going to stay focused on the issues, particularly the big issues that
really matter to American families.”

If the Clinton pattern holds, her campaign will eventually admit she
“misspoke,” but it will say it was inadvertent, the breaches were minor,
and what difference does it make anyway? But it makes a huge difference in
regard to the honesty and judgment Americans expect in a President.

Mrs. Clinton took an enormous risk to national security by putting her
official emails on a private server. Sooner or later she was certain to
send or receive some information useful to foreign governments even if it
wasn’t officially classified. Every intelligence expert we’ve talked to
says it is close to a certainty that some foreign intelligence agency was
able to hack her emails while she was America’s chief diplomat.

Her reason for taking this risk was most likely because she didn’t want
those emails to become public if she ran for President. And she admits she
destroyed thousands of emails that she says—please take her word for
it—weren’t official business.

One of this week’s big political stories is that Mrs. Clinton is now
trailing three GOP presidential candidates in head-to-head polling in three
swing states. More dangerous for Democrats, a majority in those states say
they don’t believe Mrs. Clinton is honest or trustworthy. Perhaps that’s
because she has proven so often that she isn’t.

*Hillary Clinton Rebuffs Liberals’ Push to Break Up Banks
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/23/hillary-clinton-rebuffs-liberals-push-to-break-up-banks/>
// WSJ // Laura Meckler - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner for president, said she would
not be pushed by liberals in her party to advocate for a breakup of big
banks or the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall law that separated
commercial and investment banking.

In response to a question about Glass-Steagall, she said: “I think it’s a
more complicated assessment than any one piece of legislation might
suggest.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley,
who are challenging her for the Democratic nomination, are both advocating
a breakup of the banks. Mrs. Clinton suggested that was a simplistic
response and promised to lay out her plan for Wall Street regulation at a
future date. It isn’t expected to include anything that sweeping.

Mr. Sanders in particular has gained traction with liberals in the party
pushing for a big populist platform and a crackdown on what he calls the
“billionaire class.”

Mrs. Clinton said that people advocating for new bank rules should remember
that it was not just banks, but mortgage companies, insurance companies and
non-commercial banking entities who were “as big if not bigger contributors
to the collapse” of the financial system.

“So I am not interested in just saying there is one answer to the
too-big-to-fail problem, we have a too-big-to-fail problem still and we
have to figure out the best way to address it and I’m going to be talking
more about that,” she told reporters at the end of a day of campaigning in
South Carolina.

She also emphasized the importance of defending the 2010 Dodd-Frank
legislation that added new regulations and suggested the real contrast was
with Republicans who want to roll that back.

On a related subject, on Friday in New York City, she plans a speech on
corporate responsibility and how to encourage long-term thinking and
discourage what she calls “quarterly capitalism.” Asked how she thinks the
Wall Street banks will respond, she said she didn’t know.

“I think I’m proposing policies that will make our economy stronger, that
will promote both strong growth and fair growth but will do so with a
longer-term perspective,” she said. “That’s what I think is best for the
country. I think it’s also best for business whether they agree with it or
not.”

Earlier, during a question-and-answer session with the public, she said she
still thinks a two-state solution is the only way to resolve the conflict
between the Israelis and the Palestinians and if elected president she’d
“go right back at it” in trying to reach a peace deal.

It was a rare appearance for foreign policy on the campaign trail for the
former secretary of state. She mentioned that while in office, she was able
to “bring together” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas and the U.S. envoy to the region, George Mitchell,
for three face-to-face meetings.

“We sat there for several hours and I could see that there were
opportunities to bridge some of these really difficult gaps,” she said.
She said that “some difficulties that I won’t get into” since then have
made it harder but vowed to try again. “There is no alternative and I will
continue to work for that.”

In Greenville, Mrs. Clinton also gave a rare shout-out to a pro-immigration
Republican, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham. Mrs. Clinton typically attacks
all GOP presidential candidates as opposing a path to citizenship for
people in the country illegally, even though Mr. Graham has been a leading
supporter of just such a policy.

On Thursday, asked about immigration by an audience member, she mentioned
the 2013 comprehensive overhaul that went through the Senate, though it
died in the House.

“Your senior senator, Lindsey Graham, was instrumental,” she said. “I
really respected the way he defended that when he ran for re-election.”

*Here Are Hillary Clinton’s Proposed Capital-Gains Tax Rates
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/24/here-are-hillary-clintons-proposed-capital-gains-tax-rates/>
// WSJ // July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton is proposing a sharp increase in the capital-gains tax rate
for the highest earners for investments held only a few years, a campaign
official said Friday. This is part of her push to combat what she sees as
too short-term a focus by American companies and investors. The campaign’s
proposal would affect the top 0.5% of taxpayers, hitting top-bracket single
filers with taxable income above $413,201 and married couples filing
jointly with taxable income above $484,850.

*In Clinton email inquiry, a changing story
<http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/07/in-clinton-email-inquiry-a-changing-story-211211.html>
// Politico // Dylan Byers - July 24, 2015*

The New York Times' report about a potential investigation into Hillary
Clinton's State Department email account has undergone multiple revisions
in the hours since it was published, due to mistakes made by both the Times
and the Justice Department, the On Media blog has learned.

The most significant error rests with the Justice Department: multiple
sources with knowledge of the situation said that the DOJ told the Times on
Thursday that the Intelligence Community Inspector General had sought a
criminal investigation into the mishandling of sensitive government
information in connection with Clinton's personal email account. (On
Friday, the DOJ also initially told other news organizations the referral
was "criminal.")

But hours later, the DOJ reversed course: "The Department has received a
referral related to the potential compromise of classified information. It
is not a criminal referral," the Department said in a statement. DOJ
spokesperson Melanie Newman said she would not comment further.

The Director of National Intelligence's office also said Friday that the
Intelligence Community Inspector General's referral was not criminal: "An
important distinction is that the Intelligence Community Inspector General
didn’t make a criminal referral – it was a counterintelligence referral to
the proper office at the FBI. It’s up to them how to proceed," DNI
spokesperson Andrea Williams said.

That distinction will likely force the Times to once again alter a report
(and headline) that it was already forced to change late Thursday night,
after the Clinton campaign complained to the Times that the article had
mischaracterized the former Secretary of State's position in the
investigation.

As previously reported, the Times initially reported that two inspectors
general -- the IC IG and the State IG -- had asked the Justice Department
to open a criminal investigation "into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton
mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she
used as secretary of state." That clause, which suggested Clinton was a
target in the potential criminal probe, was later changed to eliminate that
suggestion: the inquiry was now into "whether sensitive government
information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account."

The Times initially provided no update, notification, clarification or
correction explaining the changes made to the article, its headline or its
URL. Early Friday morning, Times reporter Michael Schmidt said that the
Clinton campaign had complained about the story to the Times: “It was a
response to complaints we received from the Clinton camp that we thought
were reasonable, and we made them,” he said.

On Friday afternoon, the Times issued a correction acknowledging that it
had "misstated the nature of the referral to the Justice Department
regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary
of state. The referral addressed the potential compromise of classified
information in connection with that personal email account. It did not
specifically request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton."

As of 4 p.m. on Friday, the Times article and its headline still stated
that the referral was "criminal," despite the DOJ and IC IG claims to the
contrary.

Meanwhile, the Times' claim that two inspectors general sought an inquiry
also came into question on Friday afternoon after Jennifer Werner, a
Democratic spokesperson for the Select Committee on Benghazi, told the On
Media blog that the State Inspector General "did not ask for any kind of
investigation, criminal or otherwise." Werner said the referral "went from
the Intelligence Community IG to the FBI," and that the Times was therefore
wrong to report that two inspectors general had sought the investigation.

New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy has yet to respond to requests
for comment regarding the changes to the Times report.

The Clinton campaign now claims that the Times' reporting has been
"discredited."

"It is now more clear than ever that the New York Times report claiming
there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton’s use of email is
false," campaign spokesperson Nick Merrill said in a statement. "It has now
been discredited both by the Justice Department and the Ranking Member of
the House Oversight Committee. This incident shows the danger of relying on
reckless, inaccurate leaks from partisan sources."

But much of the substance of the story remains true. The IC IG has made a
referral to the Justice Department for an investigation. Moreover, the Wall
Street Journal has since reported that an internal government review "found
that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent at least four emails
from her personal account containing classified information during her time
heading the State Department."

During a speech at New York University on Friday afternoon, Clinton
addressed the controversy.

"I want to say a word about what's in the news today. It's because there
have been a lot of inaccuracies," Clinton said. "We all have a
responsibility to get this right. I have released 55,000 pages of emails. I
have said repeatedly that I will answer questions before the House
committee. We are all accountable to get the facts right. I will do my
part. But I'm also going to stay focused on the issues, particularly the
big issues that really matter to American families."

*Hillary Clinton’s latest e-mail mess
<http://nypost.com/2015/07/24/hillary-clintons-latest-e-mail-mess/> // NY
Post // Editorial Board - July 24, 2015*

So much for Hillary Clinton’s claim last March that “there is no classified
material” on the private e-mail server she used for official business as
secretary of state.

A review by two inspectors general found that four of just 40 e-mails
sampled (out of 30,000-plus) contained material that should have been
marked “secret,” the second-highest classification level.

And unlike material only later deemed classified, these e-mails were — at
least, in effect — “classified when they were sent and are classified now,”
according to a spokeswoman.

Which is why the intelligence community’s inspector general referred the
matter to the FBI’s counterintelligence division, according to The Wall
Street Journal.

Justice Department sources initially confirmed that the referral was
criminal in nature — though, late Friday, the agency reversed course
without explanation.

The two IGs confirmed they’d made a “security referral for
counterintelligence purposes.” They said the e-mails “should have been
handled as classified, appropriately marked and transmitted via secure
network” and “should never have been transmitted” over Clinton’s private
server.

All of which puts Hillary’s longstanding claim about not sending sensitive
information via her server in doubt. And whether her goal was to thumb her
nose at calls for transparency or, as she preposterously claims, for mere
convenience, her private e-mail system was clearly an abuse.

What’s more, this may be just the start: The results of this limited review
suggest hundreds of other e-mails may contain classified information as
well. (As for those Team Hillary decided were irrelevant and destroyed, the
public may never know.)

Again: Hillary’s private server represented an outrageous flouting of the
rules. Since its discovery, she’s been anything but forthright.

“We are all accountable to the American people to get the facts right,”
Hillary insisted Friday. We’d say it’s long past time that principle were
applied to her.

*Uber Shows That 20th-Century Policies Aren't Right For A 21st-Century
Economy
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2015/07/24/uber-shows-that-20th-century-policies-arent-right-for-a-21st-century-economy/>
// Forbes // Andrew Clark - July 24, 2015*

A simple question: Are Uber, Lyft, Airbnb and other companies in the
sharing economy modern examples of entrepreneurial innovation? Or are they
examples of the free market run amok?

Taxi drivers, union members and civic groups hold a news conference and
rally on the steps of City Hall to support a City Council move to limit the
number of Uber drivers and other for-hire car companies on the streets of
New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Unfortunately for Millennials, a growing number of policymakers see it as
the latter. During her first major economic policy speech last week,
Hillary Clinton proposed to “crack down” on companies in the sharing
economy that are threatening Americans’ well-being by supposedly
“exploiting” workers through their business models.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was quick to follow suit. This week, he
called for temporarily capping the number of new for-hire drivers—read:
Uber and Lyft drivers—out of concerns for environmental quality and bad
traffic, among other things. But after four days of intense backlash (which
even included an Uber app setting called “de Blasio” that showed no
available rides), he ultimately backed down.

The economy is moving forward – and we can’t be left behind

This is nonsense. A far greater threat to Americans’ well-being are
policies like Clinton’s and de Blasio’s that apply a 20th century framework
to a 21st century economy. Such an outdated approach will only stall the
progress of future generations.

Simply put, the sharing economy shows how free markets create new products
and opportunities that better people’s lives.

It’s also an example of what should be the 21st century model of
government: getting out of the way of tech-driven innovation. Services like
Uber, Airbnb and others allow for private individuals to interact with one
another with little government interference. If you like the services—as
either the provider or consumer—you’ll use them again; if you don’t, you
won’t.

Americans have embraced the sharing economy

Americans’ choices speak for themselves. Airbnb has served over 30 million
guests since 2008, while Uber had 162,000 drivers as of January of this
year. These companies are providing jobs for people who need them. That’s
especially important for Millennials who face a youth unemployment rate of
nearly 14%.

In fact, this new economy is achieving what even the best-intentioned
government policies rarely do: raising wages and providing greater worker
freedoms.

Uber drivers in six of its largest cities—New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, Boston and Washington, D.C.—make an average of $19.06 per
hour, nearly triple the current federal minimum wage and more than the $15
minimum wage some activists are demanding. It’s also 48% more than the
average taxi cab driver’s $12.90 per hour. Some Uber drivers make up to
$90,000 a year.

The sharing economy also provides other freedoms hardly imaginable in the
20th century. Forget the 9-5, Uber drivers can make their schedules as they
please.

Uber has disrupted the absurdities of the taxi industry

Even more telling is the number of cab drivers trading in their taxis for
Uber stickers. Taxis have long been among the most heavily regulated
industries in the country, with local cab commissions operating like
cartels. In places like New York, these commissions have driven up the cost
of taxi medallions (essentially licenses for doing business) to over $1
million.

Enter Uber. Since it exploded in the New York market, the price of taxi
medallions has fallen by 23% from its 2013 highs. All drivers had to do was
make a choice.

Government stands in the way of innovation

And that’s the biggest point about the sharing economy. It didn’t require
laws or regulations to increase wages and worker freedoms. It took
government getting out of the way. When individuals can decide when, where
and how they work, they are capable of improving their own lives more than
any government policy.

This makes Clinton’s embrace of 20th century economics all the more
puzzling. Many of her policies—like a minimum wage increase, support for
labor unions and an expanded welfare state—are tired relics of the past.
While the sharing economy prospers because it doesn’t rely on government,
those policies are fatally flawed because they do.

*Hillary Unveils Her Wonky Plan to Jack Up Taxes on Rich Investors
<http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/07/24/hillary_clinton_capital_gains_plan_she_wants_to_jack_up_rates_on_rich_investors.html>
// Slate // Jordan Weissman - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton has unveiled what might be the first truly interesting
economic proposal of her presidential campaign. Today during a speech in
New York, she detailed a plan to hike taxes on income from investments that
high-income Americans hold for less than six years. It is part of a broader
platform designed to fight what she refers to as "quarterly
capitalism"—corporate America's focus on maintaining short-term prefits in
order to appease shareholders. "American business needs to break free from
the tyranny of today's earnings report," Clinton said. Frankly, a few of
the ideas she brought up—such as more elaborate disclosure rules regarding
executive pay and stronger disclosure rules on stock buybacks—seemed a bit
limp. But the tax increase on investors could become a defining issue.

Most obviously, because it's a tax increase. Republican contenders like
Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have argued for eliminating taxes on investment
income altogether, a move that would overwhelmingly benefit wealthier
households. (New York University economist Edward Wolff calculates that, in
2013, the top 10 percent of U.S. households owned 81.4 percent of all
stocks.) Hillary is officially moving in the opposite direction.

Here's how it would work. Today, when Americans sell stocks or bonds that
they have held for less than a year, it's taxed as normal income. If they
hold it for more than a year, they pay the lower long-term capital gains
rate, which technically maxes out at 20 percent. (However, high earners
also pay an additional 3.8 percent surcharge under Obamacare, so the final
number is really 23.8 percent.)

Clinton argues, very reasonably, that it's silly to consider everything a
long-term investment after just a year. Instead, she wants to the capital
gains rate to decline gradually, so that the longer people hold their
stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, the less they pay after cashing them in.
For Americans in the top tax bracket, the government would tax investments
sold after less than two years like ordinary income. Then, over the next
four years, the rate would fall back down toward 20 percent (you have to
add the 3.8 percent Obama surcharge onto each of these numbers to get the
total tax amount). None of this would affect people outside the highest
bracket.

Again, Hillary is couching this change to the tax code as a way to prod
investors into thinking long-term, rather than push companies to cut
investment and pay out dividends to enrich their shareholders at the
expense of future growth. It might work. It might not. But, ultimately,
it's a progressive tax increase on investment income, and that should make
many progressives happy. Regardless of whether it changes investors's
behavior, it will raise some money from the wealthy, especially given that
the average stock is currently held for less than a year.

Inevitably, conservatives will argue that the plan is a job killer. In
general, the right maintains that raising on capital gains (or corporate
dividends) is a wrongheaded, because it will dissuade individuals people
from investing in companies and saving, which will in turn cause companies
to invest less on their operations. Suffice to say, it's far from clear
that's true.

If you simply chart the top capital gains rate against economic growth,
there isn't much of an obvious pattern. Given the vast number of factors at
play in the economy at a given moment, it's extremely difficult for
economists to design credible studies singling out the effects of the
investment taxes, which, as the Congressional Research Service has noted,
actually have a very small effect on how much it ultimately costs companies
to fund themselves. However, a clever paper by University of California,
Berkeley professor Danny Yagan found that the Bush administration's 2003
dividend tax cut had no effect on corporate investment. Yagan looked at the
way companies organized as C-Corporations, which were affected by the
changed, reacted compared to those organized as S-Corporations, which were
not affected. Long story short: There wasn't much of a difference.

So here's the potential upside of Hillary's plan: It's a tax increase that
will raise a bit of revenue and dampen some of the worst impulses of
investors without risking much in the way of growth.

Economic merits aside, parts of Wall Street will obviously hate and oppose
this idea. But maybe not all of it. As I wrote earlier this week, some
major figures in finance, like BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, have argued that
short-termism has become a crisis that threatens to undermine capitalism.
It's possible that other money managers who subscribe to his buy-and-hold
approach to investing might get behind Clinton's idea, if only because it
would give them an advantage over competitors with a shorter horizon.

Ultimately, Clinton's proposal sets us up for a campaign-season debate
about how the country should treat the money people earn from investing
versus the money people earn from their work. Given the declining share of
the nation's income that's going to labor, it's one of the most essential
questions we could ask about inequality right now.

*Tom Steyer Just Gave Hillary Millions of Reasons to Get Specific on
Climate
<http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/07/24/tom_steyer_s_climate_litmus_test_can_nextgen_force_hillary_clinton_to_finally.html>
// Slate // Josh Voorhees - July 24, 2015*

Hillary Clinton has promised to make global warming a key pillar of her
2016 campaign but, much to the frustration of the climate crowd, she hasn’t
gone into any detail about how she’d actually address the problem as
president. On Friday the biggest individual spender (non–dark money
category) in the midterm elections suggested that’s going to have to change
if the Democratic front-runner wants the backing of his well-funded super
PAC.

Tom Steyer, a hedge fund manager-turned-environmental activist, announced
that his NextGen Climate Action group will only back candidates in 2016 who
push energy policies aimed at having half of the nation’s electricity
generated from renewable or zero-carbon sources by 2030, and 100 percent by
2050. “That’s the hurdle candidates have to get over to win our support,”
the billionaire told the New York Times. The creation of such a clear,
public litmus test is surprising—particularly since earlier this year
Steyer held a private fundraiser for Clinton in his San Francisco home.

So far this year, NextGen has largely focused its efforts on the Republican
field by trying to put the candidates on record about not believing that
man is a significant contributor to global warming. Friday’s announcement,
though, is aimed directly at the Democratic side of the field—and Clinton
specifically. Hillary’s top two rivals are already in Steyer’s good graces:
Martin O’Malley laid out his plans last month for a shift to 100 percent
renewable electricity by the middle of this century, while Bernie Sanders
often talks forcefully on the stump about what needs to be done to curb
climate change. (Whether Sanders will be willing to release a specific plan
tailored to NextGen’s request, though, remains in question given the
Vermont senator’s general disdain for billionaire donors.)

Clinton, though, has taken a more moderate, let’s-not-move-too-fast
position that has angered many in the climate community, which has long
been upset over her unwillingness to speak out against the Keystone XL
pipeline. Clinton’s strongest climate comments to date were a promise to
fight to preserve the regulations being implemented by President Obama’s
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at “all costs.” That was welcome news
to climate activists but hardly something for them to get excited about.
They’ve long pushed for Obama to go bigger on climate, and they want
Clinton to make promises that go beyond more of the same.

As I’ve noted before, Clinton doesn’t have to pay much heed to your
run-of-the-mill climate activist in the primary given that she won’t have
to worry about them come the general. Their legitimate fears about a
climate science–denying Republican president will be a much greater
motivating force on Election Day than their doubts about Clinton ever could
be. But Steyer’s vow could force Clinton’s hand. He donated $67 million of
his own cash to his NextGen Climate Action super PAC in 2014 (without much
to show for it). While he hasn’t said how much he’s willing to spend this
cycle, a NextGen spokeswoman told the Times that he intends to “double
down.” If he does, he’ll give Clinton millions of more reasons to finally
get specific on an issue she’s so far been treating as a political
advantage as opposed to a real-world problem.

*Review of Hillary Clinton's Capital Gains Tax Proposal
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/berniekent/2015/07/24/review-of-hillary-clintons-capital-gains-tax-proposal/print/>
// Forbes // Bernie Kent - July 24, 2015*

In a speech in New York City today, Hillary Clinton set forth a proposal to
increase the holding period needed to obtain the lower tax rates applicable
to long-term capital gains. Her proposal apparently applies only to that
portion of  a taxpayer’s income that would otherwise be taxed at the 39.6%
tax bracket. For 2015, this would apply only to income in excess of
$464,850 for married taxpayers filing jointly and $413,200 for single
taxpayers.

Hillary’s proposal extends the one year holding period for long-term
capital gains rates to a two to six year period, with a sliding scale to
obtain the lower long-term capital gains rates:

after 2 years, 36%

after 3 years, 32%

after 4 years, 28%

after 5 years, 24%.

After a six year holding period, the long-term capital gains tax rate for
the capital gains in excess of the highest tax bracket threshold would be
taxed at 20%, as it is now. Of course the capital gains would still be
subject to the 3.8% Obamacare tax on net investment income, the
approximately 1.2% impact of the “Pease Tax” and any state income tax that
might apply. It is a fair presumption that these higher rates and holding
periods would also apply for purposes of Alternative Minimum Tax, but that
the higher rates would not apply to qualified dividends, since there is no
holding period for dividends.

There are several dimensions on which to evaluate this proposal: impact on
the economy, impact on tax revenue, fairness and complexity.

Economic Impact

Hillary Clinton said that the purpose of her proposal is to discourage the
tendency of public companies to emphasize  short-term performance over
long-term performance. I fail to see how lengthening the long-term capital
gain holding period for the highest bracket taxpayers will reduce emphasis
on quarterly performance. There is really no link between quarterly
earnings reports and the tax rates applicable to stocks held for two to six
years. A one year holding period more than adequately addresses the issue
of short-term speculation. There is no reason to think that a two to six
year holding period will reduce emphasis on quarterly earnings. Remember
that a decent portion of the publicly traded shares are held by tax exempt
entities such as endowments and pension plans. These funds are concerned
about long-term performance already. On the other hand, those money
managers and investors who currently focus on short term performance will
not be deterred from this behavior by a holding period that they currently
fail to meet. Even if this proposal increases the holding period of a few
high bracket investors (and I think it might), how will this affect the
behavior of CEOs who are focused on quarterly performance at the expense of
long-term performance? I see very little economic impact from this
proposal, other than that a few of the highest bracket individuals may hold
a few investments slightly longer.

Revenue Impact

The timing of paying capital gains taxes is generally determined by the
investor. Only rarely is an investor forced to sell stock due to a cash
buyout. Some high bracket taxpayers may delay the recognition of capital
gains if Hillary’s proposal is enacted. This may offset the revenue gained
by the higher rates. The Clinton campaign is not looking to this proposal
as a revenue raiser. It is unclear how this proposal would impact
charitable contributions of appreciated long-term capital gains property,
for which taxpayers can deduct the full fair market value of the
contributed asset. If the taxpayer contributes an asset to charity which
does not meet the holding period for long-term capital gains tax, the
taxpayer can only deduct the cost basis of the asset, not the fair market
value. Will Mrs. Clinton’s proposal require a one, two or six year holding
period to be able to deduct the full fair market value of an asset
contributed to charity?

Fairness

One of the arguments in favor of lower tax rates for long-term capital
gains is that the nominal gain is not the same as the real gain, due to the
impact of inflation. If you bought an asset such as stock or real estate 50
years ago for $100,000 and sold it today for $250,000, you would have a
nominal gain of $150,000 on which you would have to pay tax. However to
replace the purchasing power of $100,000 in 1965, you would need around
$750 ,000 now. This means that on an inflation adjusted basis, your
investment sold for only 1/3 of what it was worth in 1965, even though you
are being taxed on a $150,000 gain. One justification for the lower tax
rate on  long-term capital gains is this loss of purchasing power.
Hillary’s proposal is a more appropriate way to deal with this than a
simple one step reduction to 20% after one year. However, if one were truly
interested in addressing this problem, you would eliminate the lower tax
rates on capital gains and index tax basis for inflation each year.

Complexity

By creating all of these additional capital gains tax rates that apply to a
small number of taxpayers, possibly on only part of their capital gains,
you are introducing additional complexity into the tax code. But that
complexity would not be too difficult to handle. Presumably capital losses
on holding periods shorter than six years would be applied to similar
holding period capital gains and any net capital  losses from one holding
period bucket would be applied to the highest tax rates of other capital
gains until exhausted. This could result in capital loss carryforwards for
an additional four holding periods. However it may be that all of the
higher rate capital losses will be put in the same bucket since it is not
known whether the taxpayer will have gains in subsequent years on income in
excess of the thresholds. Keeping track of the carryforwards for each of
the holding periods could subject all taxpayers to this additional
complexity if there are six loss carryforward buckets, even though the
taxpayer may never be in the 1/2 of 1% of taxpayers who would be subject to
this tax.

*Hillary's wrong about 'quarterly capitalism'
<http://m.nydailynews.com/opinion/mark-zandi-hillary-wrong-quarterly-capitalism-article-1.2303721?utm_content=buffer185ed&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=jgreenman+twitter>
// NY Daily News // Mark Zandi - July 24, 2015*

Conventional wisdom says American businesses are myopic, focused only on
making their companies look good next quarter in order to temporarily get
their stock prices up. The thinking is that this is endemic in corporate
culture and is at the root of the sluggish economic recovery and the wide
gap between the haves and have nots.

In a speech today, Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton dubbed
this “quarterly capitalism.” Clinton proposed a few policy changes aimed at
reforming this dysfunctional culture. Most notable was to change the way
capital gains are taxed — the taxes paid on the gains enjoyed by investors
in stocks and other assets.

The premise for her proposals is off-base: America’s businesses aren’t
short-term focused, at least not to the degree that it impedes long-term
economic growth.

If they were, then what explains the fact that businesses are investing so
much in research and development? According to the Bureau of Economic
Analysis, R&D investment is expanding at a robust double-digit pace — and
has never been greater relative to the size of the economy. These
investments are as risky as they get, and if they payoff it is generally
long into the future.

Some argue that short-termism is evident in businesses’ big dividend
payouts and stock repurchases. Getting this cash makes investors happy, but
at the cost of limiting business expansion and job creation, they claim.

Not so. Businesses are making so much money they have plenty to do all of
the above. Indeed, companies are devoting about the same share of their
profits to dividends and repurchases as they always have. And job growth is
about as strong as it ever gets, with jobs being created across all pay
scales.

Wage gains have been tepid, but this still reflects the fallout from the
Great Recession, when unemployment topped out in the double-digits.
Unemployment and underemployment will be back to normal by this time next
year if the current pace of job growth is sustained. Wage growth will
accelerate.

Even if you don’t buy into the view that our economy is plagued by
quarterly capitalism, it is still good policy to incent businesses to
invest more in their people and their own long-term growth. However,
tinkering with tax rates on capital gains won’t go far toward achieving
that goal.

The shares of most American companies are held by large institutional
investors, such as mutual funds, ETFs, pension and hedge funds. These
investors are motivated by many things when buying and selling stocks.
Whether the cap gains rate is a bit lower if they hold onto their stocks
longer isn’t one of them.

Moreover, activist investors who are interested in making a quick buck when
they purchase a company’s stock aren’t likely to be dissuaded by such a tax
change. Companies that are the targets of activists often do temporarily
pull back on expansion plans in an effort to get their stock price up and
ward off the activists. Yet this may ultimately force target companies to
take the difficult steps needed to be more competitive, and to also create
opportunities for competing companies that then enjoy even stronger growth.

Setting aside schemes to incentivize holding stock for a long period of
time, broadly increasing capital gains taxes would help ameliorate the
skewed wealth distribution. Most capital gains go to the very rich.

Taxing carried interest as normal income and not as a capital gain, also
supported by Clinton, is a good idea. Private equity firms and hedge funds
that earn carried interest when making investment decisions on behalf of
their generally wealthy investors have abused this tax loophole.

But this should be done in the context of broader reforms to our corporate
tax code. There is general agreement that our corporations pay too high a
tax rate to be globally competitive. President Obama and Congressional
Republicans have both put forward plans to reduce corporate tax rates and
scale back loopholes.

Hillary Clinton has misdiagnosed what ails the U.S. economy. It isn’t
short-sighted American companies. It is a broken tax code.

*TOP NEWS*

*DOMESTIC*

*Louisiana theater gunman described as a ‘drifter’ with mental illness
history
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/louisiana-theater-gunman-described-as-a-drifter-with-mental-illness-history/2015/07/24/28ced008-323f-11e5-8f36-18d1d501920d_story.html>
// WaPo // Ashley Cusick, Sarah Kaplan, J. Freedom du Lac - July 24, 2015*

Police on Friday identified an out-of-state “drifter” with a history of
mental illness as the lone gunman who killed two people and injured nine
others in a crowded movie theater here before turning the gun on himself.

But authorities were struggling to determine why John Russell Houser, 59,
of Phenix City, Ala., set off on the rampage late Thursday, and what he was
doing in Lafayette, a southwestern Louisiana city about 500 miles from his
home.

“Why did he come here? Why did he do that?” Col. Michael D. Edmonson,
superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said at a news conference.
“We don’t know that,” Edmonson said. “We may not find a motive.”

Police said Houser was one of 25 people who bought tickets to an evening
screening of the romantic comedy “Trainwreck” in Grand Theatre, a multiplex
in a busy part of town. Houser watched the first part of the movie, they
said, then suddenly stood and silently opened fire with a .40-caliber
semiautomatic handgun, targeting the two people sitting directly in front
of him first.

He fired at least 13 times, police said, reloading once.

Two women were killed. College student Mayci Breaux, 21, died in the
theater, where she had been watching the movie with her boyfriend. Musician
and graphic designer Jillian Johnson, 33, died later at a local hospital.

Nine others suffered injuries ranging from minor to life-

threatening and were transported to local hospitals, said Lafayette Police
Chief Jim Craft. By late Friday, four of the victims had been released.

“Here’s a guy who was a drifter . . . who just happened to be in this
theater and took two beautiful lives,” Edmonson said.

Craft said police received reports of the shooting around 7:30 p.m. Within
minutes, two officers who had already been patrolling the crowded multiplex
entered the theater.

“As they made their way into the crowd, they heard a shot, and upon
entering the theater, the suspect was found deceased from a self-

inflicted gunshot wound,” Craft said.

Houser’s car — a blue 1995 Lincoln Continental — was positioned near a
theater exit, Craft said. He attempted to leave the multiplex after the
shooting. Houser retreated back into the theater, fired three additional
shots, striking at least one person, and then turned the gun on himself.

“It was apparent that he was intent on shooting and then escaping,” Craft
said.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) on Friday ordered flags at state buildings
to be flown at half-staff out of respect for the victims. A contender for
the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, Jindal was fresh off a campaign swing
through Iowa when he got word of the shooting and sped to Lafayette.

At a news conference late Thursday, Jindal said there was “no good reason
why this act of evil should intrude on the lives of families.” He added:
“This is an awful night for Lafayette, this is an awful night for
Louisiana, this is an awful night for the United States.”

Jindal also told stories of acts of heroism in the theater. He told of two
teachers, longtime friends, one of whom leapt on top of the other to
protect her from the bullets. Both were wounded, but the second woman said
her friend had probably saved her life.

The second teacher then dragged herself to a fire alarm and pulled it,
probably saving many others.

“A lot of folks in that situation would just be thinking about themselves,”
Jindal said. “She had the presence of mind to think, all right, even though
she was shot in the leg, she saved other people.”

The shooting follows a spate of recent mass shootings and comes three years
after another deadly rampage in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. Monday was
the third anniversary of that attack, and jurors are now weighing a death
sentence for James Holmes, the gunman found guilty of killing 12 people
during a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in 2012.

The guilty verdict in Holmes’s case was delivered July 16, the same day a
lone gunman opened fire at two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn.,
leaving four Marines and one sailor dead.

Before the Lafayette shooting, President Obama said in an interview with
the BBC that gun safety is “the one area where I feel that I’ve been most
frustrated and most stymied.”

“The United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which
we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws,” the president
said. “Even in the face of repeated mass killings.”

On Friday, Jindal declined to discuss the role gun laws may have played in
the tragedy. “This is a time for healing,” he told CNN. “There will be a
time for those debates.”

But anti-gun activists quickly seized the moment.

“Two innocent people are dead, several more are injured and hundreds were
terrorized all while taking part in one of our country’s most beloved
pastimes — a night at the movies,” Dan Gross, president of the Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement.

“Investigators have already made it clear that the shooter has a criminal
history. As we await further details from the investigation, it will be
important to learn whether he legally had any business owning a firearm
and, if not, finding out how he got one.”

Authorities said Houser purchased the handgun legally from a Phenix City
pawn shop in February 2014.

But much else about Houser remained murky late Friday. He had been staying
at a local motel, where law enforcement agents found wigs, glasses and
disguises during a predawn search. Additionally, he had illegally switched
the license plate on his Lincoln Continental, Craft said.

Craft told CNN that Houser “was maybe trying to disguise his appearance,
although we’re told that when he purchased his ticket, he was not wearing
any type of disguise.”

It remained unclear why Houser went to the multiplex, why he chose the
raunchy Amy Schumer comedy and why he started shooting.

“Why this city? Why this movie? Why those people?” Craft said.

The Grand Theatre 16 is one of two Grand multiplexes in Lafayette. The
other was quickly shut down after the shooting “out of an abundance of
caution,” Craft said.

About 300 people were at the theater at the time of the shooting, including
Jalen Fernell, a 20-year-old student at the University of Louisiana at
Lafayette.

Fernell was in a different theater watching a screening of “Southpaw” when
the sound of gunshots interrupted the movie’s opening scene. Fernell said
he initially thought the noise was part of the movie but then heard the
fire alarm.

“When those sirens went off, immediately my heart sank into my chest
because I was like, ‘Wait, those gunshots came from inside the building,’ ”
Fernell said.

The audience “rampaged” out of the theater, Fernell said, emerging to the
sound of sirens and the sight of police and emergency vehicles swarming the
parking lot. Police were shouting directions over a public address system,
and Fernell said the scene was frenzied.

A woman sitting on the curb was bleeding from the leg. A police radio
crackled: “Six down in Theater 14.”

Moments later, a horde of officers charged into the multiplex. Over the
radio, Fernell heard the words “suspect down.”

“I was terrified, because I didn’t know what was going to happen next,” he
said. “My main thing was I was trying not to get shot because we didn’t
know what was going on. Everybody was running around; everybody was
screaming. It was a stressful state.”

Fernell added: “That’s the last thing that you’d think would happen at a
movie theater, especially on a Thursday night.”

Police said people left dozens of belongings behind as they ran — shoes,
bags, cellphones and keys. The parking lot, filled early Friday with
flickering blue light from police vehicles, was packed with abandoned cars.

Police said they have no reason to think that Houser targeted any other
locations or that there might be another active shooter. Investigators
don’t think Houser knew any of his victims.

“It does not look like he went there to target somebody specifically,”
Jindal said on CNN.

In a statement from Air Force One while en route to Kenya, White House
press secretary Josh Earnest said the president had been briefed on the
shootings and the status of those injured.

“The thoughts and prayers of everyone at the White House, including the
president and first lady, are with the community of Lafayette, Louisiana,
especially the families of those who were killed,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Lafayette City Councilman Keith Patin gave a tearful interview
to CNN.

“It’s so terrible; it’s devastating,” Patin said. “We’re used to dealing
with natural types of catastrophes, hurricanes, stuff like that. But
nothing like this.”

*Texas Supreme Court Orders Houston LGBT Ordinance To Be Repealed Or Put On
Ballot
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/texas-supreme-court-orders-houston-lgbt-ordinance-to-be-repe#.kxPAMl2YZ>
// BuzzFeed // Chris Geidner - July 24, 2015*

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Houston City Council to
repeal an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance it passed in 2014 or put a
referendum opponents had sought on this November’s ballot.

In the Friday decision, the court gave Houston officials a month to decide
what to do, ordering a decision be made by Aug. 24.

After the “HERO” LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance was passed by Houston
City Council, a group sought a referendum effort. If enough signatures were
gathered, as certified by the city secretary, then City Council would have
the option to repeal the ordinance or put it on the ballot.

After a review of the signatures submitted, the city secretary asserted
that sufficient signatures were gathered but also noted that the city
attorney found that many pages of the petitions were invalid — meaning that
any signatures on those pages would be invalid. Accordingly, Houston City
Council found that there were insufficient valid signatures to force
reconsideration of the ordinance or a vote.

Opponents of the law sued to get City Council to accept the petitions, lost
at the trial court, and appealed. The opponents also, separately, had asked
the Texas Supreme Court to issue a writ of mandamus — a request that a
court order a public official to take a specified action, here, repealing
the ordinance or putting it on the ballot.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday held that it would not wait on the appeal
of the trial court decision before considering the issue because “the
appellate process will not resolve the case in time for the referendum to
be placed on the November 2015 ballot.”

Then, with no oral arguments having been held in the case, the Texas
Supreme Court found that the city secretary’s statements served as
certification that sufficient valid signatures were gathered — the city
attorney’s findings notwithstanding. As such, the court ruled in an
unsigned opinion, City Council could not reject the petitions and had to do
one of two things: repeal the ordinance or put it on the ballot.

“Once the City Council received the City Secretary’s certification, it had
a ministerial duty to act,” the court stated. “If the City Council does not
repeal the ordinance by August 24, 2015, then by that date the City Council
must order that the ordinance be put to popular vote during the November
2015 election.”

The court also put enforcement of the ordinance on hold in the meantime.

*INTERNATIONAL*

*U.S. Preparing to Release Convicted Israeli Spy Jonathan Pollard,
Officials Say
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-preparing-to-release-convicted-israeli-spy-jonathan-pollard-officials-say-1437766957>
// WSJ // Devlin Barrett - July 24, 2015*

The Obama administration is preparing to release convicted Israeli spy
Jonathan Pollard, according to U.S. officials, some of whom hope the move
will smooth relations with Israel in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal.

Such a move would end a decadeslong fight over Mr. Pollard, who was
arrested on charges of spying for Israel in 1985 and later sentenced to
life in prison. The case has long been a source of tension between the U.S.
and Israel, which has argued that a life sentence for spying on behalf of a
close U.S. partner is too harsh. For decades, Israel has sought Mr.
Pollard’s early release only to be rejected by the U.S.

Now, some U.S. officials are pushing for Mr. Pollard’s release in a matter
of weeks. Others expect it could take months, possibly until his parole
consideration date in November. Some U.S. officials strongly denied Friday
there was any link between the Iran deal and Mr. Pollard’s prospective
release, saying that any release decision would be made by the U.S. Parole
Commission.

A White House spokesman referred questions to the Justice Department, where
a spokesman declined to comment on a matter which may be before the Parole
Commission.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a vocal opponent of the
deal struck between Iran and six world powers to curb Iran’s nuclear
program. Discord between Israel and the U.S., longtime allies, has led to a
deteriorating relationship that is the stormiest it has been in decades.

Mr. Netanyahu has personally pressed for years to get the U.S. to release
Mr. Pollard, who is currently serving time in a federal prison in Butner,
N.C.

Mr. Pollard, 60 years old, was a civilian analyst with the U.S. Navy when
he was arrested for passing secret documents to Israel. He eventually
pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life.

The mechanism or likely rationale for freeing Mr. Pollard couldn't
immediately be learned. The most likely scenario would be to free him when
he first becomes eligible for parole in November, according to some U.S.
officials.

Under sentencing laws at the time he was convicted, Mr. Pollard has to be
considered for parole after 30 years. The Bureau of Prisons website
currently lists his possible release date as Nov. 21, which is the date the
federal parole commission is slated to consider whether to end his sentence.

A parole hearing for Mr. Pollard was held in early July. Mr. Pollard’s
lawyer, Eliot Lauer, said he hasn’t heard from the parole commission “and I
would expect that either I or my client would be the ones who would be
notified.’’

Last year, President Barack Obama told an Israeli interviewer: “I have no
plans for releasing Jonathan Pollard immediately but what I am going to be
doing is to make sure that he, like every other American who’s been
sentenced, is accorded the same kinds of review and the same examination of
the equities that any other individual would provide.’’

To get out before November would require unusual intervention. In the
federal prison system, often the easiest way to free an inmate early is to
cite deteriorating health. Mr. Pollard’s supporters say he is suffering
from a host of medical ailments that should qualify him for mercy.

The U.S. has considered releasing him before but always backed away from
such a move, largely because of opposition from senior leaders at the
Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the
Justice Department.

It is possible such opposition could again scuttle any release, but it
appears his chances at winning freedom are better now than they have ever
been, U.S. officials said. Some U.S. officials have concluded he will be a
free man before the year is over, these people said.

The prospect of Mr. Pollard’s freedom still grates on many U.S.
intelligence officials, in part because his release wouldn’t likely come as
part of like-for-like swap, as is often how espionage cases are resolved.
Other officials counter that 30 years is a fair punishment and that keeping
Mr. Pollard in prison until he dies would serve little purpose.

Mr. Pollard has explained his espionage activity by citing a great affinity
for Israel, though counter-intelligence officials say he was paid tens of
thousands of dollars for his work.

From June 1984 through November 1985, Mr. Pollard removed large amounts of
highly classified U.S. intelligence from his office, made copies and
delivered it to Israeli operatives.

About a year after his spying began, federal agents stopped Mr. Pollard as
he was leaving work and questioned him about the possible unauthorized
removal of classified information.

During that conversation, he twice took breaks to call his wife, using a
prearranged code word “cactus,” signaling that she should remove a suitcase
full of classified information from their apartment. She also pleaded
guilty and served three years in prison and later moved to Israel.

*Top CIA Official Says Nuke Deal Makes It Hard for Iran to Cheat
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/07/24/top-cia-official-says-nuke-deal-makes-it-hard-for-iran-to-cheat/>
// WSJ // Damian Paletta - July 24, 2015*

A top Central Intelligence Agency official said Friday that the recently
brokered nuclear agreement between leading nations and Iran will make it
difficult for the Middle Eastern country to dupe nuclear inspectors.

CIA deputy director David Cohen, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, said
intelligence officers were “reasonably” confident that the terms of the
nuclear deal would prevent Iran from cheating in a way that avoided
international detection.

“We would be able to detect Iran if it were trying to deviate from the
requirements that they’ve signed up to,” Mr. Cohen said.

He cited inspectors’ “real-time persistent access to declared sites as well
as a mechanism for getting scheduled access to suspicious sites” as a
primary reason that it would be difficult for Iran to improperly enrich
uranium while the terms of the deal were in place. He also referenced the
U.S. government’s access to “other information and capabilities,” as a way
to ensure Iran’s cooperation, though he didn’t provide more information.

Mr. Cohen’s comments were the first public statements by a CIA official
since Iran, the U.S., and five other countries reached the nuclear
agreement earlier this month.