H4A News Clips 6.27.15
H4A News Clips
June 27, 2015
TODAY’S KEY STORIES..................................................................................... 4
Praising High Court, Hillary Clinton Assails G.O.P. Field // NYT // Nicholas Fandos – June 26, 2015 4
Hillary Clinton is already campaigning in Virginia, and this is why. // WaPo // Rachel Weiner – June 26, 2015............................................................................................................................................. 6
LGBT Issues, Racism, Immigration: Hillary Clinton Pitches Herself As A “Fighter” For All Occasions // Buzzfeed // Ruby Cramer – June 27, 2015............................................................................... 7
Clinton camp weekend plans: Energize states besides Iowa and New Hampshire // CNN // Dan Merica – June 26, 2015................................................................................................................................. 9
SOCIAL MEDIA................................................................................................ 10
Ben Jacobs (6/26/15, 6:27 AM) - Martin O'Malley: "there are real lessons to be learned from the tragedy in #Benghazi."......................................................................................................................... 10
Ben Jacobs (6/26/15, 6:28 AM) - This speech is the first time any Democrat has mentioned #Benghazi in 2016............................................................................................................................................ 10
Ben Jacobs (6/26/15, 6:28 AM) - O'Malley now mentions Ambassador Chris Stevens in discussing #Benghazi............................................................................................................................................ 10
Alex Seitz-Wald (6/26/15, 6:28 AM) - O'Malley invokes Benghazi, but quickly moves on. No mention of HRC............................................................................................................................................. 10
Martin O’Malley (6/26/15, 7:03 AM) - So grateful to the people of MD for leading the way on this important issue of human dignity and equality under the law. #MarriageEquaility................................. 10
President Obama (6/26/15, 7:10 AM) - Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins................................... 10
Dan Merica (6/26/15, 7:26 AM) - Bernie Sanders on #SCOTUSMarriage: "Today the Supreme Court fulfilled the words engraved upon its building: ‘Equal justice under law.’"................................................. 10
Bill Clinton (6/26/15, 7:58 AM) - America's continuing journey toward a more perfect union just took another very important step. #SCOTUSMarriage................................................................................ 10
Caitlin Huey-Burns (6/26/15, 8:48 AM) - "Governor Bush does not believe amending the Constitution is the right course," per spokeswoman Kristy Campbell re scotus ruling........................................... 10
Claude Brodesser (6/26/15, 8:57 AM) - .@GovChristie accuses Chief Justice Roberts of engaging in "mental gymnastics" to reach Obamacare opinion.............................................................................. 10
Maggie Haberman (6/26/15, 9:01 PM) - (AP) - Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood: Gay marriages cannot take place immediately in state............................................................................................ 10
Edward-Isaac Dovere (6/26/15, 10:01 AM) - @HillaryClinton is sitting in the front row of the Pinckney funeral, her head swaying left and right as the gospel choir sings......................................................... 11
David Chalian (6/26/15, 11:24 AM) - "Chris Christie for President, Inc" has invited donors to "presidential launch announcement & call day" on Tues............................................................................. 11
Teddy Schleifer (6/26/15, 11:31 PM) - More Ted Cruz reaction: "The federal government has declared its intention to go after people who believe in traditional views of marriage."............................... 11
Hugh Hewitt (6/26/15, 12:45 PM) - Also from @JebBush to me in interview which will open show: He is open to using Reid Rule to blow up filibuster to repeal Obamacare.................................................. 11
Zeke Miller (6/26/15, 1:04 PM) - Jeb Bush: Hillary's private e-mail server is as bad as 'Snowden' and 'Manning' youtube.com/watch?v=OLbNx1….......................................................................................... 11
Charlie Spiering (6/26/15, 1:14) - On Sean Hannity @TedCruz refers to "the darkest 24 hours in our nation's history"................................................................................................................................ 11
Jennifer Epstein (6/26/15, 1:11 PM) - Sanders campaign says 208,337 people have signed a petition asking @TheDemocrats to start presidential debates sooner & have more of them............................. 11
Jennifer Epstein (6/26/15, 2:41 PM) - Virginia Democrats say they've sold more than 2000 tickets (&counting) for tonight's event with Hillary Clinton, bringing in $1 million................................................ 11
Philip Rucker (6/26/15, 8:01 PM) - Hillary Clinton upped her game tonight. Most fiery, partisan, passionate speech of her campaign. Can she take VA JJ juice to Iowa and NH?......................................... 11
HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE............................................................................ 11
Hillary Clinton Visits Virginia, a Bellwether State in 2016 Race // NYT // Amy Chozick – June 26, 2015 11
Clinton Volunteers On Hunt For Brooklyn Apartments // NYT // Amy Chozick and Maggie Haberman – June 26, 2015................................................................................................................................ 12
Cheering Marriage Decision, Hillary Clinton Heads to Provincetown // NYT // Amy Chozick – June 26, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 15
Hillary Clinton’s Long Road to Supporting Gay Marriage // WSJ // Peter Nicholas – June 26, 2015 16
Undisclosed Clinton Emails Seen Prompting Broader Congressional Inquiry // WSJ // Bryon Tau – June 26, 2015..................................................................................................................................... 17
From opposition to embrace: Obama's and Clinton's public evolution on same-sex marriage // AP // Jim Kuhnhenn and Lisa Lerer – June 27, 2015.............................................................................. 19
Hillary Clinton slams GOP as 'party of the past' // Politico // Gabriel Debenedetti – June 26, 2015 21
Gay marriage ruling: A political gift to Hillary Clinton? // Politico // Annie Karni – June 26, 2015 22
Republican National Committee Files FOIA Request on Hillary Clinton Personnel Practices // Bloomberg // Billy House – June 26, 2015.................................................................................................. 24
Prominent Clinton backers to host open houses // Des Moines Register // Tony Leys – June 26, 2015 25
Hillary Clinton fired up over ‘historic day’ // MSNBC // Alex Seitz-Wald – June 26, 2015......... 26
Clinton Campaign's Amanda Renteria: How They're Building Latino Support // NBC News // Suzanne Gamboa – June 26, 2015.................................................................................................................... 28
Hillary Clinton hits Republicans over marriage, Obamacare rulings // CNN // Dan Merica – June 26, 2015........................................................................................................................................... 30
Clinton weathers the summer of Sanders // CNN // Jeff Zeleny – June 26, 2015...................... 32
State Department: It’s ‘Hard To Know’ How Many Other Emails Hillary May Have Failed To Turn Over // Daily Caller // Chuck Ross – June 26, 2015............................................................................. 34
No probe over undisclosed Clinton emails, State says // The Hill // Martin Matishak – June 26, 2015 35
Clinton Is Going To Take Fire on Iraq and Benghazi from Democrats, Too // Foreign Policy – David Frances – June 26, 2015....................................................................................................................... 37
Newly disclosed Hillary Clinton emails may undercut her earlier claims // Reuters // Jonathan Allen – June 26, 2015............................................................................................................................... 38
Hillary Clinton TBT: ‘Marriage Is Between A Man And A Woman’ // Inquisitr – June 26, 2015.. 39
Al Gore: ‘Too early’ to back Hillary Clinton // Page Six // Emily Smith – June 26, 2015............. 40
Hillary Clinton’s Achilles Heel: Trust // Fiscal Times // Eric Pianin – June 26, 2015................ 42
A tireless Clinton ran until the end // Boston Globe // John C. King – June 26, 2015................ 43
OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE................................................. 46
DECLARED................................................................................................. 46
O’MALLEY............................................................................................... 46
O’Malley lays out foreign policy vision // MSNBC // Alex-Seitz-Wald – June 26, 2015.............. 46
SANDERS................................................................................................ 48
Bernie Sanders’s Early Online Haul: $8.3 Million // NYT // Derek Willis – June 26, 2015........ 48
This Is Bernie Sanders' Plan to Beat Hillary Clinton // Mother Jones // David Corn – June 26, 2015 48
Bernie Sanders Is Enjoying a Mini-Surge // The New Yorker // John Cassidy – June 26, 2015... 51
Read Late 1970s Bernie Sanders’ No-Holds-Barred Critique Of Mass Media // Buzzfeed // Andrew Kaczynski – June 26, 2015....................................................................................................................... 53
Clinton backer has 'crush' on Bernie Sanders // The Hill // Judy Kurtz – June 26, 2015............ 54
GOP................................................................................................................. 54
DECLARED................................................................................................. 54
BUSH....................................................................................................... 54
Jeb Bush has a new problem: John Roberts // Politico // Eli Stokols – June 26, 2015............... 54
Jeb Bush is heading to Charleston for a private meeting with pastors // Reuters – June 26, 2015 56
Jeb Bush Tries to Win Without Speaking to His Favorite Strategist // Bloomberg // Michael C. Bender – June 26, 2015............................................................................................................................... 57
Nuclear 2.0? Jeb Bush is Open to Ending the Senate Filibuster to Repeal Obamacare // Bloomberg // Sahil Kapur – June 26, 2015.......................................................................................................... 59
RUBIO..................................................................................................... 60
Rubio pushes back against health care ruling, new gun control efforts, and negotiating with terrorists // NH1 // Paul Steinhauser – June 26, 2015...................................................................................... 60
Rubio calls for preserving American dream // Eagle-Tribune // Doug Ireland – June 26, 2015.. 61
Fishing for votes, Rubio turns attacks into jokes // Boston Herald // Chris Cassidy – June 26, 2015 62
Dubya’s Real Brother Is Rubio // The Daily Beast // Tim Mak – June 26, 2015........................ 63
Rubio among lawmakers vowing to repeal Obamacare following Supreme Court ruling // Fox News Latino – June 26, 2015....................................................................................................................... 65
PAUL........................................................................................................ 67
Rand Paul: Clintons ‘proud’ to incarcerate a generation of black men // WaPo // Katie Zezima – June 26, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 67
Rand Paul Calls Mass Incarceration The “New Jim Crow” While Slamming Clinton // Buzzfeed News // Andrew Kaczynski and Megan Apper – June 26, 2015......................................................................... 68
Rand Paul's Tax Plan May Be Radical, But It's Not Impossible // Forbes // Joseph Thorndike – June 26, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 69
Rand Paul Is Winning the Pot Reform Primary // U.S. News & World Report // Steven Nelson – June 26, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 71
CRUZ........................................................................................................ 72
After a tepid start to presidential run, Ted Cruz plans to ‘play hard’ in Iowa // WaPo // Katie Zezima – June 26, 2015..................................................................................................................................... 72
PERRY..................................................................................................... 76
Rick Perry Calls Supreme Court’s Gay Marriage Ruling a Shame // KYFO // Justin Massoud – June 26, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 76
SANTORUM............................................................................................. 76
Santorum Compares Same-Sex Marriage Ruling to Dred Scott Case // Politics PA // Nick Field – June 26, 2015............................................................................................................................................ 76
HUCKABEE............................................................................................. 78
Mike Huckabee rages at Supreme Court's marriage ruling: It's like repealing 'the law of gravity' // Business Insider // Colin Campbell – June 26, 2015............................................................................. 78
FIORINA.................................................................................................. 78
Carson, Forrester endorse Fiorina’s campaign // Concord Monitor – June 26, 2015.................. 78
Presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina woos, wows Colorado Republicans Denver Post // Lynn Bartels – June 26, 2015..................................................................................................................................... 79
Carly Fiorina: Marco Rubio is a ‘politician with a great future,’ ‘would make a great veep’ // Washington Times // David Sherfinski – June 26, 2015....................................................................................... 82
TRUMP.................................................................................................... 83
Creative Advice for Donald Trump, a ‘Proudly Egotistical Showman’ // NYT // Alexander Burns – June 26, 2015.................................................................................................................................... 83
How Donald Trump’s man in Iowa plans to mess with the GOP — and win // WaPo // Colby Itkowitz – June 26, 2015.................................................................................................................................... 84
Trump bump terrifies GOP // Politico // Jonathan Topaz and Daniel Strauss – June 26, 2015.. 87
Donald Trump bans Univision staff from his Miami golf resort // Politico // Dylan Byers – June 26, 2015 89
Donald Trump's war with Univision gets nasty // CNN // Tom Kludt and Mark Mooney – June 26, 2015 91
UNDECLARED............................................................................................ 92
WALKER................................................................................................. 92
Scott Walker calls for Constitutional amendment to let states define marriage // Politico // Daniel Strauss – June 26, 2015....................................................................................................................... 92
JINDAL.................................................................................................... 92
Bobby Jindal: Supreme Court Decision Is Not the End of the Obamacare Debate // TIME // Bobby Jindal – June 26, 2015....................................................................................................................... 92
Jindal: Obama & ‘apprentice-in-chief’ Hillary Clinton taking U.S. down ‘wrong path’ // Radio Iowa // O. Kay Henderson – June 26, 2015................................................................................................... 94
KASICH.................................................................................................... 95
Kasich urged to use vetoes in budget // Toledo Blade // Jim Provance – June 27, 2015............ 95
OTHER.................................................................................................... 96
Move On or Keep Fighting? GOP Candidates React to Gay-Marriage Ruling // WSJ – June 26, 2015 96
Affordable Care Act alternative now key for GOP hopefuls // Boston Herald // Lindsay Kalter – June 26, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 100
The Subtle, But Hugely Significant Shift In The Republican Response To The Marriage Ruling // Buzzfeed // Rosie Gray – June 26, 2015.................................................................................................. 101
OTHER 2016 NEWS....................................................................................... 102
Same-sex marriage ruling shakes up 2016 presidential race // AJC // Daniel Malloy – June 26, 2015 102
Opposition to same-sex marriage: political advantage or ‘political suicide’? // Radio Iowa // O. Kay Henderson – June 26, 2015................................................................................................................... 104
TOP NEWS..................................................................................................... 105
DOMESTIC................................................................................................ 105
President Obama Eulogizes Charleston Pastor as One Who Understood Grace // NYT // Kevin Sack and Gardiner Harris – June 26, 2015.......................................................................................... 105
Supreme Court rules gay couples nationwide have a right to marry // WaPo // Robert Barnes – June 26, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 109
Gay marriage ruling was 50 years in the making — with important Texas ties // Dallas News // Michael A. Lindenberger – June 26, 2015.............................................................................................. 112
INTERNATIONAL...................................................................................... 117
Terrorist Attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait Kill Dozens // NYT // Ben Hubbard – June 26, 2015 117
ISIS claims to be behind deadly Tunisia attack // WaPo // Liz Sly – June 26, 2015................. 120
OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS................................................................... 123
Clinton acts on racial justice // Quad-City Times // Rep. Phyllis Thede – June 26, 2015......... 123
MISCELLANEOUS ADDED BY STAFF............................................................. 123
12 Winning Brand Tweets After the Supreme Court's Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage // Adweek // Lauren Johnon – June 26, 2015....................................................................................................... 123
Praising High Court, Hillary Clinton Assails G.O.P. Field // NYT // Nicholas Fandos – June 26, 2015
FAIRFAX, Va. — Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday night berated her Republican presidential rivals for protesting the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage and for resisting stricter gun laws after the mass shooting in Charleston.
Reflecting on what she called “an emotional roller-coaster of a day,” Mrs. Clinton lauded the 5-4 decision recognizing gay marriage and renewed her calls for “common sense” gun control. But she saved her strongest words for criticizing the Republican contenders, who she said “seemed determined to lead us right back into the past” on those and other issues.
“Instead of trying to turn back the clock, they should be joining us in saying loudly and clearly saying no — no to discrimination, once and for all,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I am asking them, please, don’t make the rights, the hopes of any American into a political football for this 2016 campaign.”
Following the court’s decision Friday morning, several Republican presidential hopefuls, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, called for a constitutional amendment allowing states to define marriage as they wish.
Mrs. Clinton, who has repeatedly argued for “common sense” gun control measures since the shootings last week, also drew attention to a vote by the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday against an amendment that would have channeled increased funding to the Centers of Disease Control to study gun violence.
“How can you watch massacre after massacre and take that vote?” Mrs. Clinton said.
She proceeded to critique the Republicans systematically on a long list of issues, from the Affordable Care Act to climate change to women’s reproductive health, and without using his name, again rebuked Donald J. Trump for referring to Mexican immigrants in his campaign announcement speech this week as rapists and criminals.
Mrs. Clinton opened her speech, though, by addressing the court’s same-sex marriage ruling directly. She called it a triumph for love, equality and the country, and read aloud the concluding portion of the court’s majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“Today’s decision confirms we’ve been working toward equality as a nation, step by step, case by case, court by court, and that equality has been right there in the Constitution all along,” Mrs. Clinton said. “There is something quite remarkable about that.”
Her remarks came before the Democratic Party of Virginia’s annual Jefferson Jackson Dinner at George Mason University here. Before taking the stage, she spent the afternoon in Charleston, where she attended the funeral of Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator and the pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, who was killed there along with eight others in a mass shooting last week.
Mrs. Clinton’s visit to Virginia was the first since declaring her candidacy in April. It is also one of her first campaign events outside the early primary states. She has close ties to Democrats in the state, but Virginia is expected to be hotly contested in 2016.
Hillary Clinton is already campaigning in Virginia, and this is why. // WaPo // Rachel Weiner – June 26, 2015
Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton will make her campaign debut in Virginia on Friday night, her first stop as a presidential candidate in a state that Republicans feel they must win if they are to recapture the White House.
Clinton will headline a Democratic rally at the Patriot Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, which has replaced the annual party dinner in Richmond. Democratic leaders are hoping enthusiasm for the former secretary of state will inspire activists to start mobilizing for this fall.
The visit is one of Clinton’s first forays outside the early primary states, a sign of how critical Virginia is to both Democrats and Republicans in 2016. State legislative elections in November, with control of the state Senate at stake, will be an early sign of which party is better mobilized for 2016.
Virginia Democratic Party spokeswoman Morgan Finkelstein said the goal is for attendees to come away thinking that “the time to kick it into gear has come — it’s not September, it’s not next fall, it’s now.”
Clinton’s task is to deliver that burst of enthusiasm. With the official launch of her campaign earlier this month, she has been shifting from small roundtables to larger rallies. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), her socialist-leaning Democratic rival, is competing with her on that front, drawing huge crowds in Iowa and elsewhere as he attacks Clinton from the left.
“She’s reached Virginia early because Virginia is going to be probably one of the two or three most important states,” said Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University.
“If she doesn’t perform well, if she doesn’t energize and kind of send a little bit of energy through the core of the Democratic Party in Virginia, it could just make things in Virginia more difficult for her to get going.”
To repeat President Obama’s success in the state in 2008 and 2012, Clinton will need to in particular turn out Virginia’s Hispanic and African American voters in large numbers.
A spokesman for Clinton’s campaign would not offer any details on her speech, beyond that she will be “sharing her vision for Virginians that will help them get ahead, and stay ahead.”
Republicans see the state as equally critical. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is giving a news conference Friday afternoon outside the site of the Clinton event, joined by state party chairman and 2014 U.S. Senate candidate Ed Gillespie.
“A quick stop in the state for a Democrat fundraiser won’t win back the trust of the voters still waiting for answers from Hillary Clinton,” RNC spokeswoman Ali Pardo said in a statement.
Gillespie and Priebus have been helping to rebuild a state party that is fractured and financially strained by ideological division. The GOP has been recruiting minority candidates in Virginia in an effort to expand its base.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a close friend of Clinton’s who will introduce her Friday evening, has said repeatedly that the best way to help her win is to focus on the state’s economy.
But he has also made several recent moves that will appeal to the Democratic base. He engaged in the state primaries, helping unseat a conservative Democrat and propel his preferred candidates to victory. He is phasing out Confederate license plates in the state, launching a study of whether to bring back parole and easing the restoration of voting rights for ex-felons. In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, he is pushing again for Medicaid expansion despite firm Republican opposition.
Thousands are expected to turn out for Clinton, but the shift from a relatively intimate dinner in a hotel ballroom to a giant event has vexed some party activists.
“People were disappointed,” said Harry Wiggins, chairman of the Prince William County Democratic Party, who is not attending the event. “I think a lot of people were surprised that it’s turning into essentially a pep rally.”
Finkelstein said the party was planning to hold a more traditional dinner later this year.
“People do not like change,” said Fairfax Democratic Party Chairwoman Sue Langley. But she said she was looking forward to the Clinton rally, especially because “we don’t have to dress up.”
LGBT Issues, Racism, Immigration: Hillary Clinton Pitches Herself As A “Fighter” For All Occasions // Buzzfeed // Ruby Cramer – June 27, 2015
FAIRFAX, Va. — On a Saturday night in April — hours before Hillary Clinton declared herself a candidate for president — advisers previewed her campaign message for the first time. The crux was this: She would be a “tenacious fighter.”
Later that week, she unveiled the pillars of her campaign — the “four fights.”
And at her first rally two months later — when she ascended an H-shaped stage on Roosevelt Island to explain, with a careful mixing of biography and position, her reasons for running — she cast herself repeatedly as a “fighter for all Americans.”
The characterization, reinforced in official memos and emails and reprinted frequently in the press, has acted increasingly as the discernible through-line in a campaign that has already sought to address a vast spread of policy issues: mass incarceration, immigration, small businesses, voting rights, the economy.
At a Virginia Democratic Party dinner here on Friday night, the Clinton campaign turned to the same theme again to address the last nine days — a period that began with a mass shooting at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and ended with the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of nationwide same-sex marriage.
Terry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia and an old friend of the Clintons, introduced the candidate at George Mason University’s Patriot Center. Clinton, he said, was “smart.” She was “tough.” She was “compassionate.” Then he paused. “But most of all, why do I love Hillary Clinton?”
“Because Hillary Clinton is a tenacious fighter,” McAuliffe told the crowd of 2,000 in the arena. “She’s been beaten up, she’s been knocked down, but every time she does, she gets right back up. She dusts herself off, and she gets right back in that arena again, folks.”
While other political figures were reticent to discuss the racial motivations behind the shooting, McAuliffe said, Clinton “stepped forward and began a national conversation about race [and] gun violence.” The week after nine died in Charleston, Clinton described the killings “an act of racist terrorism.” And earlier on Friday, she attended the funeral of one of the victims, Rev. Clementa Pinckney.
“Now, I know it’s tempting to dismiss a terrible tragedy like Charleston as an isolated incident, to believe that in today’s America bigotry is largely behind us,” Clinton said on Friday night.
“But despite our best efforts, and our highest hopes, America’s long struggle with racism is far from finished. And let’s be honest, let’s be honest, despite today’s ruling, our struggle to end LGBT discrimination is also far from finished.”
“That’s because fear and hatred are far from finished. And so our march goes on.”
In one, long line that closed her speech — and moved the arena into a standing ovation — Clinton pitched herself as the president to best wage that fight.
“I will go to bat for the successful, the striving, and the struggling; for the innovators and the inventors; for the factory workers and food servers who stand on their feet all day; for the nurses who work the night shift; for the truckers who drive for hours,” she said, starting to lose her breath, “for the farmers who feed us; for the veterans who served our country; for the small business owners who took a risk; for the gay couple who loved each other; for the black child who still lives in the shadow of discrimination; and the Hispanic child who still lives in the shadow of deportation.”
“Just as Terry said,” Clinton told the crowd, winding down, “I’m on the side for everyone who’s every been knocked down but refused to be knocked out.”
“I will always stand my ground.”
When she finished speaking, Clinton moved from the podium to shake hands below the stage, and the loudspeakers filled the hall with a song by pop singer Kris Allen that the campaign will no doubt play again and again and again.
They could knock you down and make you fall…
We’ll get back up cause after all…
We’re born to be fighters.
Clinton camp weekend plans: Energize states besides Iowa and New Hampshire // CNN // Dan Merica – June 26, 2015
Hillary Clinton's campaign aides have long said they are focused on Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada - the four critical early nominating states. This weekend, the campaign turns its focus to the other 46 states.
Clinton campaign aides, volunteers and supporters will hold over 200 activities and events in the 46-non early nominating states this weekend, campaign officials told CNN on Friday.
Events will include phone banks, happy hours and house parties. Volunteers will canvas at a farmer's market in Oahu, Hawaii, march in a gay pride parade in San Francisco and make phone calls at a bingo hall in Durant, Oklahoma, among other events.
The 72-hour push -- called the "Weekend of Action" -- serves multiple practical and symbolic purposes for the campaign.
Symbolically, the simultaneous activities will also help aides rebut questions about the excitement around the Clinton campaign. Since the former first lady announced, political watches and critics have questioned whether Democrats are as excited for Clinton as they were for President Barack Obama in 2008.
It is unclear whether each event this weekend will be well attended and the proof of success in sparking excitement will be good turnout, but aides will likely use the 200-event push to show Clinton's broad support across the country.
Despite describing themselves as a small, scrappy operation, the Clinton campaign has grown quickly since the former secretary of state announced her presidential run in April. Shortly after announcing, the campaign dispatched at least one volunteer to each state and territory.
This 72-hour spree is meant to serve a similar purpose: It is a way for the campaign to flex its grassroots muscle, especially to other Democratic campaigns who don't currently have the operation to put together this kind of a show of force.
Ben Jacobs (6/26/15, 6:27 AM) - Martin O'Malley: "there are real lessons to be learned from the tragedy in #Benghazi."
Ben Jacobs (6/26/15, 6:28 AM) - This speech is the first time any Democrat has mentioned #Benghazi in 2016
Ben Jacobs (6/26/15, 6:28 AM) - O'Malley now mentions Ambassador Chris Stevens in discussing #Benghazi
Alex Seitz-Wald (6/26/15, 6:28 AM) - O'Malley invokes Benghazi, but quickly moves on. No mention of HRC.
Martin O’Malley (6/26/15, 7:03 AM) - So grateful to the people of MD for leading the way on this important issue of human dignity and equality under the law. #MarriageEquaility
President Obama (6/26/15, 7:10 AM) - Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins
Dan Merica (6/26/15, 7:26 AM) - Bernie Sanders on #SCOTUSMarriage: "Today the Supreme Court fulfilled the words engraved upon its building: ‘Equal justice under law.’"
Bill Clinton (6/26/15, 7:58 AM) - America's continuing journey toward a more perfect union just took another very important step. #SCOTUSMarriage
Caitlin Huey-Burns (6/26/15, 8:48 AM) - "Governor Bush does not believe amending the Constitution is the right course," per spokeswoman Kristy Campbell re scotus ruling.
Claude Brodesser (6/26/15, 8:57 AM) - .@GovChristie accuses Chief Justice Roberts of engaging in "mental gymnastics" to reach Obamacare opinion.
Maggie Haberman (6/26/15, 9:01 PM) - (AP) - Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood: Gay marriages cannot take place immediately in state
Edward-Isaac Dovere (6/26/15, 10:01 AM) - @HillaryClinton is sitting in the front row of the Pinckney funeral, her head swaying left and right as the gospel choir sings
David Chalian (6/26/15, 11:24 AM) - "Chris Christie for President, Inc" has invited donors to "presidential launch announcement & call day" on Tues.
Teddy Schleifer (6/26/15, 11:31 PM) - More Ted Cruz reaction: "The federal government has declared its intention to go after people who believe in traditional views of marriage."
Hugh Hewitt (6/26/15, 12:45 PM) - Also from @JebBush to me in interview which will open show: He is open to using Reid Rule to blow up filibuster to repeal Obamacare
Zeke Miller (6/26/15, 1:04 PM) - Jeb Bush: Hillary's private e-mail server is as bad as 'Snowden' and 'Manning' youtube.com/watch?v=OLbNx1…
Charlie Spiering (6/26/15, 1:14) - On Sean Hannity @TedCruz refers to "the darkest 24 hours in our nation's history"
Jennifer Epstein (6/26/15, 1:11 PM) - Sanders campaign says 208,337 people have signed a petition asking @TheDemocrats to start presidential debates sooner & have more of them.
Jennifer Epstein (6/26/15, 2:41 PM) - Virginia Democrats say they've sold more than 2000 tickets (&counting) for tonight's event with Hillary Clinton, bringing in $1 million
Philip Rucker (6/26/15, 8:01 PM) - Hillary Clinton upped her game tonight. Most fiery, partisan, passionate speech of her campaign. Can she take VA JJ juice to Iowa and NH?
HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE
Hillary Clinton Visits Virginia, a Bellwether State in 2016 Race // NYT // Amy Chozick – June 26, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton will make the first stop of her presidential campaign in Virginia on Friday to headline the local Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson dinner.
Her remarks will come against the backdrop of major Supreme Court decisions. She celebrated on Thursday the court’s ruling to affirm a key part of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, writing on Twitter: “Yes! SCOTUS affirms what we know is true in our hearts and under the law: Health insurance should be affordable & available to all.”
And she has implored the justices to rule that states cannot ban same-sex marriage.
Mrs. Clinton will likely address both cases in the Virginia address, but the state, with its large black population, will also present her the opportunity to continue her remarks on race and what she calls “common sense gun control” in the aftermath of the attack at a black church in Charleston, S.C.
Virginia represents a trend indicator of sorts in the 2016 race. For the Clinton campaign, the goal will be to appeal to a broad cross-section of black and white voters.
Senator Barack Obama won the state in 2008, the first time a Democratic presidential nominee captured Virginia since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. President Obama also defeated Mitt Romney in Virginia in 2012.
Mrs. Clinton has deep ties to Virginia. A longtime ally and fund-raiser for Bill and Hillary Clinton, Terry McAuliffe, was elected governor in 2013.
Mr. McAuliffe’s campaign manager in that close election, Robby Mook, now runs Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and is introducing a similar data-driven grass-roots strategy. He brought with him an army of young operatives (the so-called Mook Mafia), many of whom helped Mr. McAuliffe defeat his conservative Republican opponent, Ken Cuccinelli.
Clinton Volunteers On Hunt For Brooklyn Apartments // NYT // Amy Chozick and Maggie Haberman – June 26, 2015
When Jesse Lehrich heard he might have a chance to work on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, he did what most young staffers did. He moved to New York as an unpaid volunteer until Mrs. Clinton officially announced her candidacy and opened her headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn.
First, he stayed with his brother in a one-bedroom in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, until his eight boxes of clothes in the living room started to become annoying.
“He said: ‘I hope this isn’t a long-term solution, but I won’t let you sleep on the street,’ ” Mr. Lehrich, who turns 26 this weekend, said of his older brother.
Eventually, he found a room in an East Village apartment just above the glowing red silhouette of a rooster that marks the famed gay bar the Cock.
Mr. Lehrich has three roommates and his room does not have windows, but at $1,700 a month (partly paid for with his saved-up bar mitzvah money), the price was right. “All I’ll be doing is working and sleeping,” he said, “so who needs windows?”
For decades, idealistic twenty-somethings have shunned higher-paying and more permanent jobs for the altruism and adrenaline rush of working to get a candidate to the White House. But the staffers who have signed up for the Clinton campaign face a daunting obstacle: the New York City real estate market.
In Iowa and New Hampshire, “supporter housing,” the practice of locals hosting the army of young volunteers who descend on the state each election cycle, is a time-honored tradition. Every political organizer has tales of talking about the days of F.D.R. with an old lady in Waterloo or sharing a bunk bed with the son of a union organizer in Manchester. But in New York, the situation is not so straightforward. Few New Yorkers have the extra space of, say, a farmhouse in Iowa. The wealthy donors who contribute to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign have proved more comfortable cutting a check than opening their TriBeCa lofts and Upper East Side townhouses to strangers. And Mrs. Clinton’s campaign prides itself on living on the cheap and keeping salaries low, which is good for its own bottom line, but difficult for those who need to pay New York City rents.
The lack of affordable housing has put an added burden on the Clinton campaign to play a Craigslist-like role in finding staffers a place to sleep, whether it’s pairing them with roommates or pleading with supporters for a spare room.
Jasmin Harris, a 22-year-old Clinton campaign worker, had been matched with a middle-age couple who agreed to host her in their Brooklyn Heights apartment. They even did her laundry. But after six weeks, they had out-of-town family coming to visit and needed the spare room back, and Ms. Harris was waiting on a recent afternoon for the campaign to pair her with another supporter. “I don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I’ll be somewhere else tonight,” she said. “I have my bags packed and am waiting for an email.”
A recent email from the campaign pleaded with donors to provide staffers with “a spare room — or just a spare couch!” because “you and I both know that finding a place to live in New York can take longer than an afternoon of apartment hunting.”
Marc Lasry, a hedge fund manager, a major Democratic donor and a friend of the Clintons, let the campaign’s communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, stay in his family’s Manhattan home, a penthouse on Central Park West, for a handful of nights early on. The city, he said, “is expensive, particularly for young people. We have five children, so we are used to having a lot of people around, and we’re happy to put up folks from the campaign.”
Mr. Lasry is not the norm. When the campaign’s finance director, Dennis Cheng, reached out to New York donors, some of them seemed concerned with the prospective maze of campaign finance laws and with how providing upscale housing in New York City might be interpreted. Several of the hedge fund managers and finance titans who support Mrs. Clinton hosted would-be aides before the campaign’s start in April, but ended the practice once a formal campaign existed. (A campaign finance lawyer, Kenneth A. Gross of Skadden, Arps, said, however, that hosting campaign workers would not be considered an in-kind donation.)
Scott Murphy, a former congressman representing the area outside Albany, hosted Josh Schwerin, 29, a press aide on the campaign who previously worked for Mr. Murphy, in his Upper West Side co-op before the campaign started.
Mr. Schwerin got what used to serve as a maid’s room. “You could touch both walls if you were on the air mattress, and the bathroom was through the kitchen, so he didn’t have a lot of privacy,” Mr. Murphy said. “But,” he added, “it was in line with what he paid for it.” (Which was, of course, nothing.) Mr. Schwerin later found an apartment near Fort Greene Park, a 12-minute walk to the office.
Many of the campaign workers who moved to Brooklyn from across the country were unfamiliar with the borough and thought it would offer cheaper prices than “the city” (read: Manhattan). But in the past year, average rents in Brooklyn have risen by 4.3 percent, nearly twice the increase of those in Manhattan, to $3,252 a month. Rents in Brooklyn Heights, a neighborhood adjacent to campaign headquarters, are the highest in the borough, according to Jonathan J. Miller, the president of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
The campaign has worked with the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce for guidance on where staffers could find housing. The chamber suggested Clinton Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights, but has not made much progress in convincing staffers to consider these less gentrified neighborhoods, said Carlo A. Scissura, the president and chief executive of the chamber.
“These folks are coming from all parts of the country to work for Hillary, and the broker says, ‘I want 15 percent of annual rent,’ and they’re like ‘What are you talking about?’ ” said David J. Maundrell III, the founder of aptsandlofts.com, a real estate brokerage specializing in Brooklyn.
Some have had luck at a rental building on the edge of Downtown Brooklyn, Avalon Fort Greene, where at least six Clinton aides have taken up residence, prompting some campaign staffers to affectionately call it “the dorm,” a reference to their small quarters and proximity to one another.
Adrienne Elrod, 39, a campaign spokeswoman, is originally from Arkansas but moved to Brooklyn from Washington with her corgi-terrier mix, Bernie (not named after Mrs. Clinton’s primary opponent Senator Bernie Sanders). If she stretches her arms far enough in her tidy studio in “the dorm,” she can almost touch the foot of her bed and her kitchen countertop at the same time.
An exercise aficionado, Ms. Elrod has a bike resting against a patch of bare wall. Her refrigerator is adorned with a few stickers, including the “H” logo with an arrow that symbolizes Hillary for America.
“It’s a 10-minute walk from the office,” Ms. Elrod said. “It’s easy to come home in the middle of the day to walk the dog.”
Marlon Marshall, 35, a veteran organizer who is now the director of state campaigns and political engagement for the Clinton campaign, crashed in the spring with the pollster Joel Benenson in his Upper East Side co-op.
Mr. Benenson recalled sleeping on a friend’s couch in New York City during Mario Cuomo’s campaign for governor in 1994, when his family was living in Albany. And in 2008, during the Obama campaign, when Mr. Benenson still lived in New Jersey, he and his wife, Lisa, played host to four young organizers.
“We refer to them as our Obama kids,” he said. So when he was asked to house campaign staffers this time, he didn’t hesitate. “We hardly ever saw Marlon,” he said of Mr. Marshall, who primarily used the place to sleep for a few hours before going back to work.
Mr. Marshall, who had never lived in New York before, ended up renting a friend’s two-bedroom apartment in a Fort Greene co-op, an eight-minute walk from the campaign’s headquarters.
He now hosts a rotating cast of staffers in his spare bedroom and in his free time explores the borough. “I have been to the Smorgasburg, and it is the greatest thing in my life,” Mr. Marshall said of the borough’s popular weekly food festival.
Cheering Marriage Decision, Hillary Clinton Heads to Provincetown // NYT // Amy Chozick – June 26, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton transformed her H-and-an-arrow campaign logo into a gay-rights rainbow on Friday to mark the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling. She issued a statement calling the court’s decision “an affirmation of the commitment of couples across the country who love one another.” Her campaign sells a variety of branded “Hillary” items timed to June’s Gay Pride Month.
But on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton will make perhaps her most gay-friendly move: She will visit Provincetown, Mass.
The seaside enclave — in the state that was first to legalize same-sex marriage — has long been a Shangri-La for gay men and lesbians who enjoy raucous, romantic or just relaxing weekends in the scenic city at the northern tip of Cape Cod.
In 2012, the Census reported that Provincetown had 163.1 same-sex couples per 1,000 people, the most of any city in the country.
As much as it may call to mind drag-queen pool parties or kitschy rainbow-festooned nightclubs, Provincetown has served a far more serious purpose: Historically, it was one of the few resort locales where gay men and lesbians could openly enjoy a vacation without the threat of discrimination or worse.
Mrs. Clinton, who maintains strong support among gay people, and whose campaign recently released a video showing same-sex couples before and during their weddings, will attend a fund-raiser in Provincetown hosted by Bryan Rafanelli, an event planner, and Alix Ritchie, a prominent gay-rights activist. The event is part of a string of fund-raisers Mrs. Clinton has arranged in and around Boston in early July.
It was planned weeks ago — but just became extremely well timed.
Hillary Clinton’s Long Road to Supporting Gay Marriage // WSJ // Peter Nicholas – June 26, 2015
Hillary Clinton applauded the Supreme Court ruling that legalizes gay marriage nationwide, putting out a statement Friday praising the gay rights activists who “sacrificed so much for this victory.”
Yet it wasn’t so long ago that these same activists might have seen Mrs. Clinton as an adversary on the issue.
For most of her career in politics Mrs. Clinton supported many gay-rights stances but opposed same-sex marriage, favoring arrangements like civil unions that fell short of marriage. Not until 2013 did she take the position that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry.
Her evolution has largely tracked public opinion. As the country has gotten more comfortable with same sex marriage, Mrs. Clinton’s opposition has softened.
Facing re-election in 1996, her husband Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which described marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
That was Mrs. Clinton’s position on the matter, too.
Running for a U.S. senate seat in New York, Mrs. Clinton in 2000 said: “Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman.”
Whatever her position on gay marriage, she maintained strong political ties to members of the gay community. In that same Senate race, she collected $125,000 from a fundraising event organized by a gay activist in New York, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
As a sitting senator in 2004, she spoke on the Senate floor against a proposed constitutional amendment barring same sex marriage. Yet she maintained that “marriage is not just a bond, but a sacred bond between a man and a woman.”
A wrinkle emerged in 2006 when, according to press reports, she told a group of gay elected officials that if New York state officials were to legalize gay marriage, she would not oppose such a move.
“Obviously my friends and people who spoke to me — we’ve had many long conversations and I think … that the way that I have spoken and I have advocated has certainly evolved and I am happy to be educated and to learn as much as I can,” she said.
She maintained her opposition to same sex marriage as a candidate for president in 2008 – as did the ultimate winner, Barack Obama.
A secretary of state doesn’t normally wade into politically-fraught domestic debates. So, as Mr. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden announced their support for same sex marriage in 2012, Mrs. Clinton didn’t choose to weigh in. In March 2013, though — two after she stepped down as secretary of state — she proclaimed her support for same sex marriage.
“I support it personally and as a matter of policy and law,” she said.
Evaluating whether she has flip-flopped, PolitiFact, an independent fact-checker, wrote last week that when it comes to gay marriage, “we give Clinton a Full Flop.”
Undisclosed Clinton Emails Seen Prompting Broader Congressional Inquiry // WSJ // Bryon Tau – June 26, 2015
WASHINGTON—Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s failure to turn over at least 15 work-related emails to the State Department is expected to prompt a broader congressional inquiry into her email practices while she served in the Obama administration.
The State Department revealed this week that a small number of emails were missing in part or in whole from their archive of more than 55,000 pages of work-related emails that Mrs. Clinton gave to the department last year.
Those emails were obtained by the House Select Committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks from Sidney Blumenthal, a close confident and former aid of Mrs. Clinton’s.
Republican lawmakers involved in the investigation said the revelations raised new and troubling questions about the Democratic presidential candidate’s compliance with the law.
“It looks like the State Department didn’t give us everything that Blumenthal did, and Hillary Clinton didn’t give everything to the State Department,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican on the panel investigating the matter.
As Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton exclusively used her own email account run off a personal server for all her work-related correspondence in an arrangement that was legal though discouraged during her time in government. The arrangement has prompted questions about whether Mrs. Clinton has complied with records laws that require preservation of federal records.
The emails’ absence in State Department records contradicts Mrs. Clinton’s public claims that she turned over all relevant federal records before deleting her entire email server. In a March news conference, Mrs. Clinton assured reporters that her attorneys did a thorough search before turning over all work-related correspondence as required by federal record-keeping laws.
The revelations also intensified calls for Mrs. Clinton to turn over her personal email server to a neutral third party—a call that Republicans on the Benghazi committee have been making for months.
“We not only want to see it—but the American people deserve to have those official documents that were contained on her private server,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo about the email server.
The State Department acknowledged Friday that the 15 missing emails appeared to be work-related and not personal—and therefore should have been given by Mrs. Clinton to the department.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said he couldn't account for why they weren't produced by Mrs. Clinton initially and that he wasn’t certain that the department was in possession of her full set of emails.
“Unless you have another inventory to check it against, like in this case we had Mr. Blumenthal’s emails—it’s hard to know,” he said.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said that “she has turned over 55,000 pages of materials to the State Department, including all emails in her possession from Mr. Blumenthal.”
Mr. Pompeo, a Republican member of the panel, said he was “doing everything that we have the power to do” to get answers from Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Kirby said that the department wouldn't itself investigate whether it was in possession of all of Mrs. Clinton’s emails. The department’s independent inspector general is conducting a general review of information management, but a spokesman for the IG didn’t say whether Mrs. Clinton’s emails would be part of the scope of the investigation.
Democrats have accused the Benghazi panel of straying from its original mission of investigating the 2012 terrorist attack. “This Benghazi select committee has become the committee to investigate Hillary Clinton. Period,” Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the panel, said last week.
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) has said he is open to the possibility of subpoenaing the server. A spokesman declined to comment. Benghazi committee chairman Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) said he was “considering carefully” his committee’s next steps.
Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said that running one’s own personal server email server instead of using government email means “you’re stuck with the consequences.”
“When you have hundreds of thousands of emails and you start using your personal emails, stuff could get lost,” he said.
From opposition to embrace: Obama's and Clinton's public evolution on same-sex marriage // AP // Jim Kuhnhenn and Lisa Lerer – June 27, 2015
WASHINGTON — When President Barack Obama praised the Supreme Court's watershed same-sex marriage ruling, he held it up as evidence that a "shift in hearts and minds is possible."
Obama may well have been describing his own public trajectory on gay unions — a complicated path that took him through opposition and ambivalence to enthusiastic embrace.
His journey is not unlike the rest of America. But over the years he has worn his uncertainty on his sleeve, publicly musing about his stance before becoming a full-throated advocate for marriage and other aspects of gay rights.
"When all Americans are treated as equal, we are all more free," Obama declared Friday.
As far as political figures go, Obama's road to "yes" is hardly unique.
Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign jumped on the Supreme Court decision, changing its red campaign logo to a rainbow colored H, releasing a gauzy video of gay wedding ceremonies, and blasting out supportive tweets aimed at building its campaign list.
In a fiery speech Friday night to Democratic activists in Northern Virginia, Clinton said that "love triumphed in the highest court" and declared: "We can sum up the message from the court and the American people in just two words: Move on."
But like Obama, such expressions of support mark a remarkable shift for Clinton, who opposed gay marriage for more than two decades as a first lady, a U.S. senator and a presidential candidate. Just three months ago, Clinton's position was that while she personally supported gay marriage the issue was best left for individual states to decide — a policy stance held by most of the Republican presidential field.
"It has been an evolutionary process," said Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group. But he said Obama now stands as one of the great champions of gay rights, up there with the likes of Harvey Milk. As for Clinton, he said, "she connects with gay people on a level that is beyond explanation."
Obama has carefully staked out his position on same-sex marriage throughout his political career. During his 1996 Illinois state Senate race, he replied to a questionnaire from a gay newspaper in Chicago: "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages." Two years later, he declared himself undecided.
By 2004, as he ran for the U.S. Senate, he said he opposed gay marriage for politically strategic reasons, saying Republicans would exploit the issue, and he advocated instead for gay civil unions. In his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope," he cited his own faith as a reason to oppose same-sex marriage, though he also wondered whether "in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history."
He came out firmly for same-sex marriage in 2012 and called for it in his second inaugural address. But earlier this year, his former top strategist, David Axelrod, wrote that Obama had feigned opposition to gay marriage for most of his political career, grudgingly taking Axelrod's advice that African-American religious leaders and others would oppose him if he let it be known he supported gay marriage.
"If Obama's views were 'evolving' publicly, they were fully evolved behind closed doors," Axelrod wrote.
Obama disputed the account, telling BuzzFeed News that he thought civil unions were "a sufficient way of squaring the circle," but that "the pain and the sense of stigma that was being placed on same-sex couples who are friends of mine" changed his mind.
"I think the notion that somehow I was always in favor of marriage per se isn't quite accurate," Obama told BuzzFeed.
But even after he endorsed gay marriage, he took his time embracing other aspects of the gay community's agenda.
It wasn't until July 2014 that Obama gave employment protection to gay and transgender workers in the federal government and its contracting agencies.
Still, gay rights advocates hold him up as one of their biggest political advocates.
"It's absolutely right to note that this administration did not get off to a good start with LGBT advocates," Sainz said. "But the sheer volume of what he has done will be hard for another president to replicate, simply because so much of what he has done has been so incredibly powerful, momentous and life changing for LGBT people."
Clinton's path into the embrace of the gay community has been similar. She backed her husband's Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, described marriage between a man and a woman as a "fundamental bedrock principle" in a 2004 Senate floor speech, and dodged the question when asked in 2007 whether she agreed with Gen. Peter Pace, then the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, that homosexuality was immoral.
But as secretary of state, Clinton emerged as a champion of gay rights, declaring that "gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights," at a 2011 conference in Geneva.
Sainz said that in Clinton, the LGBT community sees a kindred spirit. "It's in our DNA to support her," he said. "We have been forced to deal with some of lives greatest indignities and have come out on the other side."
Hillary Clinton slams GOP as 'party of the past' // Politico // Gabriel Debenedetti – June 26, 2015
FAIRFAX, Va. — Hillary Clinton looked to draw a red line for her Republican rivals on LGBT rights in her first large swing-state rally outside of the early-voting states on Friday night, pointedly urging them not to turn “the hopes of any American into a political football for this 2016 campaign.”
“Instead of turning back the clock, they should be joining us in saying ‘no’ — ‘no’ to discrimination for once and for all,” Clinton said in a fiery speech at a fundraising rally for the Democratic Party of Virginia here in Fairfax just hours after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide.
“This morning, love triumphed in the highest court in our land. Equality triumphed. America triumphed,” she said before quoting the final paragraph of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision.
While the event was not intended to be a Clinton rally, it quickly turned into one as speaker after speaker praised the former secretary of state in front of the crowd of around 2,000. She was introduced by her longtime friend Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who himself spoke after Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine — who also left no doubt about where their political loyalties lie.
The Democratic front-runner did not call out any of the Republican White House hopefuls by name, but she derided the calls from some of them to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, insisting that the lesson of a week that saw the Supreme Court affirm the legality of Obamacare and that saw a widespread backlash against the Confederate flag was that Republicans should “move on.”
“Today’s decision confirms we’ve been working toward equality as a nation step by step, case by case, court by court, and that equality has been right there in the Constitution all along,” said the former first lady and senator, who didn’t support marriage equality when she first ran for president in 2008.
Coming straight to the rally from the Charleston funeral of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney — who was killed along with eight other African-American churchgoers in the shooting last week — Clinton also promised to fight for a “better, smarter, safer, approach to getting the gun violence in this country under control.”
Clinton sat in the front row at the afternoon service, at which President Barack Obama delivered a eulogy for Pinckney that the former secretary of state said “stirred” her. Hours later, in perhaps the most political of her campaign speeches so far, she applauded both South Carolina’s Republican governor Nikki Haley and McAuliffe for speaking out against public use of the Confederate flag.
But she was also withering in her criticism of some Republican rivals in particular.
Responding to Donald Trump’s characterization of Mexican immigrants as “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists,” Clinton suggested — without using Trump’s name — “maybe he’s never met them.”
And on a day after new polls showed that Clinton’s primary Democratic rival for the nomination Bernie Sanders is gaining on her in some early-voting states, she made clear that she would keep her focus on Republicans, not her fellow party members.
“Across the board, they are the party of the past,” she said to applause. “Not the party of the future.”
Gay marriage ruling: A political gift to Hillary Clinton? // Politico // Annie Karni – June 26, 2015
You might say the Supreme Court’s decision to make same-sex marriage a nationwide right was an in-kind contribution to Hillary for America.
Never mind that the 5-4 ruling could easily have gone the other way: It gives her a chance to stress the importance of nominating liberal Supreme Court justices, and creates a moment of enthusiasm in the LGBT community that her campaign needs to ride. It places her squarely in the mainstream of public opinion. And it puts her stance in sharp relief against the Republicans fulminating, to various degrees, at the majority’s break with tradition.
It also delivers to her opponents in the Democratic primary a chance to tell voters that they were on the right side of history first — but that might not matter much.
“Along with millions of Americans, I am celebrating today’s landmark victory for marriage equality, and the generations of advocates and activists who fought to make it possible,” Clinton said in a statement Friday morning. “From Stonewall to the Supreme Court, the courage and determination of the LGBT community has changed hearts and changed laws.”
She said the ruling “represents our country at its best: inclusive, open, and striving towards true equality.”
With about 60 percent of Americans supporting gay marriage, according to recent polls, Clinton’s position in favor of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage offers a winning contrast with most of the Republican field — especially among younger voters. The Supreme Court ruling takes away some of that drama, now that the issue no longer hangs in balance.
But Democrats said there are still opportunities for Clinton to position herself as a fighter for civil rights. “There’s going to be a backlash among religious conservatives to this ruling today,” said Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist and loyal Clinton supporter. “There will be plenty of leadership opportunities for Hillary Clinton and other politicians to oppose the whittling away of this victory, with trumped-up exemptions. Republicans will make the mistake, I predict, in raising the rhetoric level.” She pointed to Indiana’s controversial religious freedom law as an example.
In her statement, Clinton hinted that the Supreme Court’s ruling hadn’t put the issue to bed. “For too many LGBT Americans who are subjected to discriminatory laws, true equality is still just out of reach,” she said. “While we celebrate today, our work won’t be finished until every American can not only marry, but live, work, pray, learn and raise a family free from discrimination and prejudice. We cannot settle for anything less.”
Clinton is also expected to speak in the coming weeks about the importance of electing a president who can nominate progressive Supreme Court justices, a campaign aide said. This week’s court rulings — on Obamacare, fair housing and same-sex marriage — highlight how galvanizing a political issue the appointments of justices can be, and the Clinton camp is eager to seize the moment.
In terms of the Democratic primary, however, Clinton’s rivals might be tempted to ask why it took her so long to support the constitutional right to same-sex marriage — just last year, she said it was an issue left to the states to decide. Her opponents in the primary, former Gov. Martin O’Malley and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, were well ahead of her at the time.
As governor, O’Malley led Maryland’s 2012 fight to legalize same-sex marriage — and likes to remind primary voters of that fact. “I’m glad Secretary Clinton’s come around to the right positions on these issues,” he said in April in a rare direct jab at the Democratic frontrunner. “I’m grateful to the people of Maryland for leading the way on this important issue of human dignity and equality under the law,” he said in a brief statement Friday morning.
Sanders, meanwhile, voted against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, signed into law by President Bill Clinton. And Vermont was the first state to legalize same-sex unions in 2000. He supported the legalization of gay marriage in 2009. “For far too long our justice system has marginalized the gay community,” Sanders said in his statement Friday, “and I am very glad the Court caught up to the American people.”
It’s not yet clear whether either candidate can take advantage of Clinton’s changing views.
“In Iowa, some Democratic activists are very proud of having been in the lead on this issue early in the game,” said Kenneth Sherrill, political science professor emeritus at Hunter College. “If O’Malley or Sanders are able to say, ‘I was with you during your period of trouble,’ that might be helpful to them. On the question of who is a courageous leader, who’s willing to take risks in the name of justice, they may use this to picture Clinton as cautious and late to the game.”
The LGBT community, however, has been fired up for Clinton’s candidacy, and seemingly willing to overlook her less-than-perfect record on the issue of gay marriage. Many leaders in the community stressed that all mainstream national Democrats have been evolving on the issue — and they’re simply happy that the time has come that a Democratic frontrunner for president can embrace a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
“One of her platforms is equality for all, which is not something we saw in 2008,” said Eunic Ortiz, president of the Stonewall Democrats of NYC, which won’t endorse any candidate until 2016. “It’s something she has evolved on. This is now equality for all, and we are looking forward.”
Clinton was fully embracing the decision Friday morning online. On Twitter, the campaign changed her banner to say the word “HISTORY,” in an all-caps, rainbow-colored font.
“She’s certainly going to rejoice about the decision,” Sherrill said. “At least she can say she came out for marriage equality before the Supreme Court did.”
Republican National Committee Files FOIA Request on Hillary Clinton Personnel Practices // Bloomberg // Billy House – June 26, 2015
The Republican National Committee is pressing the State Department for information on whether former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her chief of staff at the department, Cheryl Mills, failed to disclose a special arrangement allowing Mills to hold outside jobs.
A Freedom of Information Act request the RNC sent to the department Friday demands a copy of all records related to Mills' "selection, approval, status, and/or classification of Mills" as a special government employee in 2009 and again in 2013. Coming on the heels of a disclosure that Clinton's release of business-related emails she sent on a private account was incomplete, the RNC's latest move underscores Republicans' determination to maintain a relentless focus on the Democratic presidential frontrunner's managerial practices.
The RNC request follows a report that Mills had a special arrangement in 2009 that enabled her to continue to hold outside positions with the William J. Clinton Foundation, New York University, and as a board member for the school's UAE-funded Abu Dhabi campus.
At issue, for the RNC, is why Mills then was not included on a list of all special government employees for the year 2009, released by State last year in response to a FOIA request from ProPublica. She was included in a list for the year 2013.
Clinton's campaign had no immediate comment on the FOIA request.
“The fact that Secretary Clinton’s top State Department aide was allowed to receive outside income while serving as her Chief of Staff, and failed to disclose it is troubling," says RNC Research Director and Deputy Communications Director Raj Shah. "Now we are seeking to determine Mills’ and Clinton’s roles in covering it up."
The FOIA request Friday from the RNC calls for all records related to “ProPublica’s FOIA request regarding State Department special Government employees” including any discussion related to why Mills may have not been included in the 2009 list.
"To clarify, this request includes any records that may exist about ProPublica’s FOIA and why Cheryl Mills’ 2009 special Government status was excluded from the State Department’s FOIA response," the FOIA request states.
A State Department spokesman said the agency does not typically comment on FOIA requests.
Previous news accounts have reported another close Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, had been given special government employee status under Clinton, which also allowed her to have outside work along with being a part-time employee of the State Department.
The RNC has previously sent the State Department FOIA demands focused on Mills and other top aides who served there under Clinton, including Abedin and another longtime political adviser, Philippe Reines, regarding anything that said the words “Freedom of Information Act” or “FOIA” for discussions on the topic or other matters in which they may have intervened.
The RNC had not previously asked "for all records pertaining to any individual FOIA request or any matter outside of FOIA policy, such as employees receiving Special Government Employee status," said Shah.
Prominent Clinton backers to host open houses // Des Moines Register // Tony Leys – June 26, 2015
Hillary Clinton's campaign is having prominent Democratic supporters host volunteer organizing events over the next two weeks.
The supporters will host open houses at offices around the state, spokeswoman Lily Adams said. They include former Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson; former Planned Parenthood of the Heartland President Jill June; State Reps. Abby Finkenauer of Dubuque, Phyllis Thede of Davenport, Mary Mascher of Iowa City and Timi Brown Powers of Waterloo; State Sens. Bill Dotzler of Waterloo and Jeff Danielson of Cedar Falls; former State Reps. Wes Whitead of Sioux City and Tyler Olson of Cedar Rapids; former state Sen. Staci Appel of Ackworth; Cedar Rapids City Councilman Justin Shields; former Cedar Rapids Mayor Lee Clancey; and former state party Chairwoman Sue Dvorsky of Coralville.
Clinton's campaign, which faces a growing left-flank challenge from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, has been eager to show its early organizing strength. The campaign says it has opened 10 organizing offices in Iowa, with 27 organizers, who have held about 2,500 one-on-one meetings with voters since Clinton officially entered the race in April.
Hillary Clinton fired up over ‘historic day’ // MSNBC // Alex Seitz-Wald – June 26, 2015
FAIRFAX, Virginia – Hillary Clinton fired up almost 2,000 Virginia Democrats Friday night here at a party fundraiser hosted by her old friend, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, in one of the first major rallies of her second presidential campaign.
She said she was thrilled to be speaking to Democrats on “Such a historic day for our country.”
Just hours ago, Clinton had attended the funeral for slain South Carolina pastor Clementa Pinckney, and before that celebrated the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision. She called it “an emotional roller coaster of a day,” pleased that “love triumphed in the highest court in our land.”
But she cautioned that the fight on both LGBT rights and race relations is not over. She also vowed, “I for one am never going to stop fighting” for gun control.
Inside the cavernous Patriot Center arena on the campus of George Mason University, it felt more like June 2016 than June 2016.
The screaming fans who often rose to their feet and chanted Clinton’s name, the many invocations of “our next president,” and setting in a key swing state, made the rally feel like a general election pep rally. That, even though Clinton aides have said she is squarely focused on the primary campaign and even as Sen. Bernie Sanders surges in polls.
Speaker after speaker praised Clinton as if the Democratic nomination were a fait accompli. “Hillary Clinton is our choice for the future!” said Sen. Mark Warner, the state’s popular Democratic senator, to cheers.
And Clinton kept her sights squarely on Republicans, firing off on them on issue after issue. “Across the board, they are the party of the past, not the future,” she said.
Rep. Gerry Connolly obliquely mentioned the other Democrats running for the nomination before waving them off. “Nobody has a stronger resume to be president of the United States than Hillary Rodham Clinton,” said Connolly, who welcomed everyone to “Clinton territory.”
Nearly every speaker said it was time to put a woman in the White House.
Former Sen. Jim Webb, who is considering a run and lives in nearby Arlington, was not mentioned. Neither was former Gov. Martin O’Malley, who hails from just across the river in Maryland.
But more than anything, the event was a chance for Clinton to help her old friend McAuliffe build the Democratic Party in a key presidential battleground state.
Clinton is rushing to fill her coffers ahead of the end of the finance quarter next week, but she will make no money from her appearance here. All the proceeds – more than $1 million, according to officials – will go to the Virginia Democratic Party.
McAuliffe chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection run. He’s raised tens of millions of dollars for both Clintons, and is now working to win the Virginia state Senate for Democrats and hold the seat in 2016.
Reunited on stage, McAuliffe now the governor of a large state and Clinton cruising to the Democratic nomination after both lots their first tries at each, they displayed the easy chemistry of old allies.
“This is personal for me,” said McAuliffe of Clinton. “We’ve worked hard together, we’ve played hard together.”
The governor explained that if he and his wife are on vacation with the former first couple, and he wants to enjoy a beer or cocktail in the evening, “I don’t go looking for Bill Clinton. I go looking for Hillary Clinton. She’s a lot more fun that Bill Clinton is!”
The love was mutual. Clinton said she was “starting to run out of superlatives” while praising McAuliffe after he introduced her.
“He’s my kind of leader, a pragmatic progressive,” Clinton added. “He prefers common ground to scorched earth.”
Clinton will need a strong Democratic Party if she makes it to the general election in 2016 in the Virginia, which has become a key state in Democrats’ post-Obama election electoral map.
Virginia Democrats have been on a tear lately, and especially under McAuliffe. The party now controls all five statewide offices for the first time in 40 years and has won two presidential elections in a row.
McAuliffe and the party are gearing up to try to win control of the state Senate in November of 2015, and the political organization they build can then be turned around to support Clinton.
Clinton Campaign's Amanda Renteria: How They're Building Latino Support // NBC News // Suzanne Gamboa – June 26, 2015
NEW YORK -- It may take several knocks on the same door before getting to an offer of a cafecito and election talk, but Hillary Clinton's national political director Amanda Renteria is sure those offers will come often as Latinos see they are a big part of Clinton's campaign focus.
"The first time, it's, 'Thank you very much.' The second time, it's, 'Okay, I'll listen' and the third time it's like, 'Come on in. Let's have a cafecito. Let's talk about this,'" Renteria said, talking about the Democratic candidate's on-the-ground efforts to reach potential Hispanic voters.
In an interview with NBC News, Renteria spoke about how the Clinton campaign is building its relationships with America's largest minority group.
The mission is one that has risen in importance as the Latino electorate has grown, even though it performs under its potential, and as campaigns take note of the oncoming onslaught of young Latinos who are turning 18 by the hundreds of thousands every year.
The history of the last two presidential elections is fresh enough to remind campaigns that President Barack Obama, though he did not win the white vote, got more than 70 percent of the Latino vote and secured two elections with a multiracial coalition that will continue to grow so that eight presidential elections from now whites will not longer be the majority.
For her part, Clinton has been speaking to Latino groups, including two recent visits to Las Vegas, a city whose population is about one third Hispanic. She's met with young immigrants without U.S. legal status as well as Latino officeholders, laying out her proposals such as a greater emphasis on early childhood education and her support for a path to citizenship for immigrant families.
"I think speaking Spanish isn't enough … it's about the issues and who has been fighting for them," said Renteria, who is Mexican American. "I think when you see things coming from the Republican party and none of the Republicans stood up to the divisive words, the inflammatory words that a friend of theirs said, the community sees that kind of stuff."
Although she didn't name him, Renteria was referring remarks by Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and reality show TV host whose remarks about Mexicans and Mexico when he announced his presidential bid have drawn strong backlash. Just Thursday, the Spanish language network Univision announced it was dropping their deal to broadcast Miss Universe pageants (Trump is part owner, along with NBC Universal), over his referrals to immigrants crossing the border as rapists, drug users and criminals.
Clinton criticized Trump's comments at the time, saying "hotter and more negative" public discourse can trigger people who are less stable, a reference to the fatal shootings at a black church in South Carolina last week that ended the lives of nine people.
As Renteria sees it, Clinton can draw some affinity between Latino values and her life, even if she can't claim Hispanic identity or connect through a Latino spouse or children, as can Republican candidates Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
In her NALEO speech in Las Vegas last week, Clinton wove through issues relating to values often named by Latinos as part of their makeup: family, children, education and immigration reform.
She also spoke some about her own mother. In future events, Rentería said, Clinton will talk more about herself and her mother, Dorothy Rodham, who was raised by her severe grandparents after her parents divorced and who was on her own at 14.
"The whole story of it takes a village, that's so like the Latino community. It takes the grandparents, the mom, the vecinos (neighbors), everyone involved," said Renteria, invoking an African proverb that is a favorite of Clinton and was the title of a children's book she wrote.
Part of Renteria's job as national political director is to oversee interaction with coalition groups, those that advocate for Latinos, African Americans and others, and build support among them. She said she likes to describe her job to her parents as "trying to grow the biggest tent that's ever been built."
She said that after South Carolina, she finds it more of a responsibility to focus on a "welcoming" campaign. "I think it really does affect the fabric of our community, the fabric of our country. I think that for me that was a big change in terms of the seriousness of what we are doing … and really building the tent," she said.
Renteria is part of that tent. From the Central Valley of California, Renteria's father is an immigrant from Zacatecas, Mexico who worked California's farm fields. Her mother was born in the U.S and is of Mexican descent. After studying economics at Stanford and working in the financial industry and as a teacher, Renteria become the first Latina hired as a chief of staff in the U.S. Senate. She made a run for Congress last year but lost to Republican incumbent Rep. David Valadao.
"We as a community need to have a voice in the political environment. I didn't grow up in this, but once you realize what kind of impact you can have and how you can help others in public service I hope more Latinos and different voices come together and are part of it," she said.
Hoping to build on Obama's success in galvanizing multiracial coalitions, the Clinton campaign wants to unite generations and bring together singular groups such as Latinos or African Americans for Hillary, so that they become for example, People of Color for Hillary, Renteria said.
"How do you build (support) deep within the communities, across generations, but also how do you then, bring everyone onto the stage?" she said, adding that taking a position on voting rights is one way.
When asked what are the issues Clinton will stress as she reaches out to Hispanics, Renteria said they would include the Democrats' achievements on health care access, and elaboration on her early campaign declaration that she would go beyond Obama's immigration executive action, including finding a way for parents of children not legally in the U.S. to remain and work.
"We already have an idea legally of what we can do a little bit further than the president ," Renteria said, "in large part, because he went as far as he did and we learned what worked and what didn't and now we get to tweak it a little bit more so it can work for more people."
Hillary Clinton hits Republicans over marriage, Obamacare rulings // CNN // Dan Merica – June 26, 2015
The Democratic frontrunner was speaking at a Jefferson Jackson fundraiser for the Virginia Democratic Party at George Mason University on a night in which she was repeatedly referred to by fellow Democrats as the next President of the United States.
"This morning, they all decried the Supreme Court's ruling," Clinton said, noting that "we even heard them call for a constitutional amendment" against same-sex marriage.
A fired-up Clinton then seemingly spoke directly at the 13 declared Republican presidential hopefuls.
"I am asking them, please, don't make the rights, the hopes, of any American into a political football for this 2016 campaign," she said. "LGBT Americans should be free not just to marry, but to live, learn and work, just like everybody else."
Republican response to the Supreme Court's decision was universally opposed, but politically mixed. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called for respect for the court's decision, despite opposing it. On the other side of the spectrum, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he wants to amend the Constitution to leave the decision over who can marry up to each state.
Clinton read the last paragraph of Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion from the stage on Friday, ending with, "And to that I say, amen, thank you."
"This morning, love triumphed in the highest court in our land," Clinton said. "Equality triumphed, America triumphed."
She did not mention former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee or Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during the event, all of whom are vying to be the Democratic Party's nominee.
Clinton's stance on same-sex marriage has evolved over the years. Her husband, President Bill Clinton, signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which defined for federal purposes marriage between one man and one woman. As a senator, Clinton backed civil unions and partner benefits for same-sex couples, and came out in favor of same-sex marriage in 2013, shortly before the Court struck down a key provision of the 1996 law.
But the former secretary of state's attacks on Republican hopefuls were not limited to same-sex marriage.
Reacting to the other landmark decision by the Supreme Court this week, Clinton said, "All the Republican candidates were furious that earlier this week the Supreme Court once again confirmed what we have all known and believed for years: (Obamacare) is settled law and it is here to stay."
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court saved Obama's controversial health care law on Thursday, ruling that the Affordable Care Act was authorized to provide federal tax credits to states with federal marketplaces.
"Even after two Supreme Court verdicts and a presidential election, they are still fighting to take us backwards," Clinton said, referring to the 2012 Supreme Court decision on the issue and that year's presidential election. "I think we can sum up the message from the Court and the American people: 'Move on.'"
As she has in the past, Clinton said she doesn't think the health care law is perfect, pointing to drug and out-of-pocket costs as two areas that she says need to be addressed.
But she embraced Obama throughout the speech, and she applauded the way the President eulogized Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the South Carolina state senator who was killed along with eight others in last week's church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina.
She referenced the tragedy when she hit House Republicans for voting on Wednesday to put restrictions on whether the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can study gun violence and make recommendations.
"How can you watch massacre after massacre and take that vote?" she asked. "That is wrong. It puts our people at risk, and I, for one, am never going to stop fighting for a better, safer approach to get the gun violence in this country under control."
Friday's event was meant to focus on the successes of Virginia Democrats -- including longtime Clinton friend and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. But as the program went on, the event started to feel like a Hillary for America rally.
Rep. Bobby Scott said he was happy to welcome "the next President of the United States of America to the commonwealth of Virginia." Sen. Tim Kaine said, "I'm so excited we get to be here to welcome Secretary Clinton, our next President." And Sen. Mark Warner added, "I don't know about you, but I made my choice. I'm ready for Hillary."
McAuliffe, Clinton's 2008 campaign chairman, was even more effusive, to the point of getting personal.
"Folks, let me say this, this is personal for me," he said. "I have known Hillary for decades. We have worked hard together, we have played hard together."
The famously blunt governor went on to tell the audience that when he and his wife travel with Bill and Hillary Clinton and the governor wants a drink, "I don't go looking for Bill Clinton. I go looking for Hillary Clinton, because she is a lot more fun that Bill Clinton."
McAuliffe described Clinton as a fighter who has "been knocked down" but gets up every time and "gets right back in that arena again."
"And yes, after 239 years," he concluded, "it is time for a woman President of the United States."
Clinton weathers the summer of Sanders // CNN // Jeff Zeleny – June 26, 2015
Hillary Clinton always insisted she wasn't expecting a coronation in her second presidential bid, but a single-digit lead over Bernie Sanders was surely not what she had in mind.
It's now clear that Clinton, despite a raft of political advantages that make her the envy of rivals from both parties, faces a stubborn obstacle in her quest to win the Democratic nomination.
She must weather the summer of Sanders.
Her once commanding and comfortable lead in New Hampshire has narrowed to 8 points, according to a new CNN/WMUR New Hampshire Primary poll. Sanders, a senator from neighboring Vermont, has emerged as the leading progressive alternative to Clinton, consolidating support from Democrats who had been clamoring for Elizabeth Warren to enter the race.
An early sense of curiosity surrounding Sanders, who is drawing Obama-size crowds to his campaign rallies, is now translating into actual support for his candidacy.
"I think we are probably doing a lot better than you would have thought two months ago when we got into this, right?" Sanders said in an interview. "Clearly, what I do know, is the stronger that I get, the attacks are going to come from all kinds of sources."
Yet don't expect those attacks to start coming from Clinton, at least not directly.
The Clinton campaign, which has been carefully tracking the Sanders momentum for the last month, has no immediate plans to go after Sanders. Taking an aggressive posture could not only elevate him even more in the eyes of liberals, it could also backfire and create deep divisions inside the Democratic Party that she is still far more likely than not to lead.
Several Democrats close to the campaign, even some who have been underwhelmed by the first three months of her candidacy, tell CNN that Clinton and her team are far from panicking.
Clinton plans response to Sanders
But Clinton does intend to respond to Sanders -- and the progressive wing of her party -- in a far more nuanced way this summer. She intends to take several steps, including:
** Escalating her direct challenge of Republicans, increasingly calling them out by name, in an effort to cement her image as a fighter for Democratic interests. There's nothing more energizing to Democrats than a few well-honed attacks on Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker and the rest of the Republican field.
** Delivering a series of policy speeches throughout the summer, amplifying her call for social and economic issues that animate progressives. She intends to tackle college affordability, women's pay equity and paid family leave -- among other issues -- in hopes of making her candidacy more acceptable to voters who may be more inclined to favor Warren or Sanders.
** Campaigning aggressively in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two contests in the primary fight, to demonstrate that she knows she must work hard to capture the Democratic nomination and will put in the work needed to win over any skeptical liberals.
Clinton struggles on empathy question
Since jumping into the race, Clinton has struggled to persuade voters that she is empathetic. The latest New Hampshire poll shows 45 percent say Sanders is the candidate who cares the most about people like you, compared with 24 percent who believe Clinton is.
Sanders, a political independent who proudly calls himself a socialist, is heading to New Hampshire for a weekend campaign swing to try and expand upon his early support.
So far, he has avoided directly going after Clinton, mentioning her by name only when asked by reporters. His aides say he has no plans of changing that strategy.
"What I am doing is, in fact, speaking to issues that are in the hearts and the minds of the American people in a way that is a little bit bolder than other candidates have in the past," Sanders said in an interview. "And I think people are responding to that."
The New Hampshire poll shows that many Democrats are responding favorably to Clinton's candidacy, including 74 percent who say they have a positive impression of her. She also is more trusted to handle the economy and health care, two of the leading domestic issues in the contest.
Clinton has been spending considerable time in June raising money, eyeing the first campaign fundraising deadline next week. A series of interviews with local Democratic leaders in New Hampshire and Iowa suggests there is a hunger among party activists for more -- not less -- of Clinton.
Desire for a contest
There is also a hunger for a competitive primary fight.
"There are two kinds of groups," said Jean Pardee, the Democratic chairwoman in Clinton County, Iowa. "There are those who are concerned that Hillary's baggage will keep her from winning. There is another group who likes the blunt, outspoken answers that Bernie Sanders gives."
Pardee and other party leaders say the growing interest in Sanders is only a warning sign for Clinton.
"As of now, I don't see it as a problem," Pardee told CNN. "I think it will make her and her staff work a little more carefully and harder. They certainly won't take anything for granted, as in 2008 they did."
State Department: It’s ‘Hard To Know’ How Many Other Emails Hillary May Have Failed To Turn Over // Daily Caller // Chuck Ross – June 26, 2015
A State Department spokesman admitted it’s “hard to know” how many work-related emails former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton failed to turn over to the agency.
“We don’t know the degree to which there may be other emails that another third party may have — in this case Mr. Blumenthal — that we do not have,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a press conference Friday.
He was responding to Thursday’s bombshell revelation that the agency did not have 15 Libya-related emails sent between Clinton and her longtime friend, Sidney Blumenthal. Blumenthal turned over 60 emails he sent to Clinton when she was in office. He provided the records to the House Select Committee on Benghazi last week.
In doing so, it quickly became apparent that Blumenthal’s emails included some exchanges which Clinton had not turned over to the State Department in December.
That despite Clinton’s confident assurance at a press conference in March that she “provided all…emails that could possibly be work-related” to the State Department.
Kirby mostly dodged reporters questions on Friday but was forced to admit the State Department has no way to determine how many other official government emails Clinton failed to turn over.
Cornered by a reporter about whether the discrepancy revealed in the Blumenthal emails indicates Clinton failed to turn over other records, Kirby said: “it would appear to be so.”
“Unless you have another inventory to check it against, like in this case we had Mr. Blumenthal’s emails, it’s hard to know,” Kirby said.
“We only knew about these 15 because Mr. Blumenthal had them and provided them to the Select Committee so there was something to check it against,” he added.
“I couldn’t possibly hypothesize about what other email traffic that might relate to Benghazi or Libya that we don’t have.”
Clinton has made it all but impossible to figure out just how many official records she failed to turn over. She has said her team went through her email account and picked out work-related emails and deleted the rest. Her attorney has also indicated to the Select Committee the personal server she used to maintain the email account has been wiped clean. That attorney, David Kendall, has also said Clinton will not turn over the server.
In his comments, Kirby took off the table the one sure way of knowing whether Clinton has been telling the truth. He said that the State Department has no plans to ask Clinton for her private email server. He also said the agency will not undertake an investigation into Clinton’s email gap.
“I know of no such investigation — certainly not by the State Department,” Kirby said.
No probe over undisclosed Clinton emails, State says // The Hill // Martin Matishak – June 26, 2015
The State Department says there won't be an internal investigation into why the agency couldn’t find part or all of 15 emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal email server.
“I know of no such investigation, certainly not by the State Department, no,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said during a Friday press briefing.
Clinton’s former agency found it lacked the communications following the House Select Committee on Benghazi’s release of nearly 60 emails it had received from Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal earlier this month.
“We were clear about that in our communication with the committee that of the 15 that we did not have, that Mr. Blumenthal had, they were not specifically related to Benghazi, which was the original mandate on the select committee,” Kirby said.
“Again, we only knew about these 15 because Mr. Blumenthal had them and provided them to the select committee, so there was something to check it against,” he told reporters. “We don't know the degree to which there may be other emails that another third party may have, in this case, Mr. Blumenthal, that we do not have.”
Earlier this year, Clinton, a 2016 presidential candidate, gave her old agency around 30,000 emails from the private server she used while serving as the nation’s top diplomat.
Clinton’s attorney later said all data stored on the server has been destroyed.
The missing memos all predate the Sept. 11, 2012, siege on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, but the select committee seized on the discovery as another sign Clinton has not been forthcoming about her State Department tenure.
“This confirms doubts about the completeness of Clinton's self-selected public record and raises serious questions about her decision to erase her personal server — especially before it could be analyzed by an independent, neutral third party arbiter,” panel Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said in a statement Thursday night.
He said the revelation "is significant and troubling” and “has implications far beyond Libya, Benghazi and our committee's work.”
“This conclusively shows her email arrangement with herself, which was then vetted by her own lawyers, has resulted in an incomplete public record,” Gowdy said.
Kirby said the emails “would appear” to be work-related, thus meeting the benchmark for Clinton set for herself before turning them over.
But he said it’s not up to the State Department to determine how the emails were initially missed.
“That would be a matter between the select committee and former Secretary Clinton,” Kirby said.
Clinton Is Going To Take Fire on Iraq and Benghazi from Democrats, Too // Foreign Policy – David Frances – June 26, 2015
The 2016 Republican presidential field long has poked at two of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s most visible political vulnerabilities: her 2002 vote for the Iraq war, and the 2012 attacks against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. A speech from a member of her own party suggests Democrats will also target those Achilles’ heels.
In a Friday speech outlining his foreign policy, former Maryland Governor and Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley pointedly mentioned Iraq and Benghazi. Speaking at the TruCon 2015 conference, he didn’t mention Clinton by name, but it was clear his arrows were aimed toward the former senator and secretary of state.
“We must recognize that there are real lessons to be learned from the tragedy in Benghazi,” O’Malley’s said. “Namely, we need to know in advance who is likely to take power—or vie for it—once a dictator is toppled.”
Later, he said, “The invasion of Iraq—along with the subsequent disbanding of the Iraqi military—will be remembered as one of the most tragic, deceitful, and costly blunders in U.S. history.“
“We are still paying the price of a war pursued under false pretenses and acquiesced to by ‘the appalling silence of the good,” he said.
O’Malley’s foreign policy adviser, Doug Wilson, denied the his boss was trying to frame the debate with Clinton. “You see no mention of candidates’ names in what he had to say. This was not a speech about Hillary Clinton,” Wilson told CNN.
But O’Malley didn’t mention Iraq and Libya by accident. His statements on the war in Iraq and Benghazi lays the groundwork for future avenues of attack for Democrats trying to unseat Clinton from her perch above the rest of the field. His other comments on foreign affairs issues like Iran and the Islamic State largely toed the Democratic line.
Republicans are taking the same tack as President Barack Obama did in 2008 — going after Clinton’s vote as a New York senator to authorize the Iraq war. They also refuse to let the Benghazi issue die. O’Malley’s comments show the issue is also fair game in the Democratic primary, even though a 2014 GOP House investigation found Clinton had done nothing wrong.
It’s clear this week, despite no wrongdoing, that the scandal has yet to breathe its last breath. In May, Clinton released hundreds of pages of emails related to Benghazi from a private Internet server she used from home while still serving at the State Department. On Thursday, the State Department announced that all or part of 15 email exchanges between Clinton and her long-time adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, were missing. Conspiracy-minded critics pounced.
“This confirms doubts about the completeness of Clinton’s self-selected public record and raises serious questions about her decision to erase her personal server — especially before it could be analyzed by an independent, neutral third party arbiter,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said Thursday.
Newly disclosed Hillary Clinton emails may undercut her earlier claims // Reuters // Jonathan Allen – June 26, 2015
A batch of 15 newly disclosed Hillary Clinton emails appears to contradict her assertion last month that memos about Libya she received from an old friend while she was U.S. secretary of state were "unsolicited."
Clinton did not hand over the emails to the State Department last year when she provided the agency with what she said was a complete record of her work-related emails, the department said on Thursday night.
The disclosure that the record was incomplete, for reasons that remain unclear, has added to criticism of the favorite to become the Democratic Party's nominee for the 2016 presidential election.
Political opponents say Clinton side-stepped federal record-keeping and transparency laws by using a private email server in her home for work-related correspondence. The Republican Party said on Friday it was renewing its demands that Clinton relinquish the server to be examined.
"Greetings from Kabul!" Clinton wrote in one of the newly disclosed emails in July 2012, in reply to a memo on the Libya election from her old friend and informal adviser Sidney Blumenthal. "And thanks for keeping this stuff coming!"
Blumenthal was barred from a job at the State Department by aides to President Barack Obama because of lingering distrust over his role advising Clinton's run against Obama in the acrimonious 2008 Democratic primary, according to the New York Times.
A Clinton spokesman did not immediately respond to questions about whether the newly disclosed emails undercut Clinton's comments at a campaign stop in Iowa last month on her relationship with Blumenthal.
"He's been a friend of mine for a long time and he sent me unsolicited emails, which I passed on in some instances," Clinton said of Blumenthal in May.
In a March 2012 email, Clinton replied to an email from Blumenthal about possible French and British actions in Libya. "This strains credulity based on what I know," she wrote to Blumenthal. "Any other info about it?"
In a third example, she thanked Blumenthal for sending her intelligence about the Libyan National Transitional Council in August 2011 ahead of a meeting with NTC leaders. "I'm going to Paris tomorrow night and will meet [with National Transitional Council] leaders so this and additional info useful," she told him.
Clinton has seen her trustworthiness ratings erode after the revelations in March about her unusual email habits while she was the nation's top diplomat.
She used a single private email account for all her personal and work correspondence, connected to a computer server kept in her New York home, an arrangement that she said broke no rules.
In March, Clinton deflected accusations of undue secrecy by saying she had "absolute confidence" she had given any emails that could possibly be work-related to the State Department, including all that mentioned Libya. She later called for the entire cache to be made public.
It remains unclear why Clinton apparently did not include these 15 emails when she handed over her records in December, and whether there are other omissions yet to be made public.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Friday the department did not know if other emails were missing.
The undisclosed emails first came to light after a Republican-led committee of U.S. lawmakers investigating the 2012 attack on diplomatic staff in Benghazi, Libya, obtained Blumenthal's record of the emails through a subpoena.
Clinton did include a number of emails between her and Blumenthal in her disclosure last year. Some of those had already been made public, but none of those included examples of Clinton actively encouraging Blumenthal's correspondence.
Nick Merrill, a Clinton spokesman, said Clinton had provided the State Department with all the work-related correspondence she had in her possession. He declined to say whether emails had been deleted from Clinton's private server at an earlier date, prior to the department's request.
Blumenthal could not be reached for comment.
Hillary Clinton TBT: ‘Marriage Is Between A Man And A Woman’ // Inquisitr – June 26, 2015
A Hillary Clinton TBT message has been making the rounds on Friday via Facebook, and it’s casting a shadow over her celebration of the same-sex marriage Supreme Court victory.
First, I’ll start with Clinton’s reaction to the momentous decision of five Supreme Court Justices to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states.
As you can see, it was quite the celebration, but it was also something that she did not support while her husband was in office.
First, the Hillary Clinton TBT meme that has conservative America, in particular, buzzing.
The Wall Street Journal dug up the full quote from the frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic nomination in a piece entitled, “Hillary Clinton’s Long Road to Supporting Gay Marriage.”
“Her evolution has largely tracked public opinion,” writes WSJ’s Tim Hanrahan. “As the country has gotten more comfortable with same sex marriage, Mrs. Clinton’s opposition has softened.”
In 1996, he points out, her husband, President Bill Clinton, signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
So there is no saying that Hillary held a different view from her husband, he also includes this quote, which she gave while running for the U.S. Senate in 2000 for the state of New York.
“Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman.”
And here’s some video from 2004.
Nevertheless, Clinton has been a pretty strong supporter of marriage equality during the campaign trail.
But what do you think, readers? Is the Hillary Clinton TBT attack fair? Is Mrs. Clinton just saying what she thinks everyone wants to hear, or is it possible her support is legitimately held? Sound off in the comments section.
Al Gore: ‘Too early’ to back Hillary Clinton // Page Six // Emily Smith – June 26, 2015
Al Gore declined to back Hillary Clinton for president when asked who he thinks would be next in the White House.
When questioned by WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell at the Cannes Lions festival of creativity about whom he would back for 2016, Gore — Bill Clinton’s vice president from 1993 to 2001 —notably didn’t take the chance to praise Hillary.
In a packed Cannes Lions session Friday, Sorrell asked Gore, “Would you refuse to answer the question [who will be the next president of the United States]?”
Gore responded, “I wouldn’t refuse to answer that question, I would try to cleverly dodge the question … I would say it’s actually too early.”
Gore merely smiled, but didn’t comment further, after Sorrell added, “I think Hillary will win and it would be great to have a female president of the most powerful nation on the planet.”
Gore has reportedly had a complicated relationship with the Clintons since 2000. Political insiders speculate Gore may be remaining neutral for now but would eventually back the Democratic nominee.
Gore last October described Hillary in an interview with Bloomberg as an “extremely capable person,” adding she did an excellent job as secretary of state and a New York senator. But he also said it was too early and “I am not going to engage in horse race analysis before the horses even go to the gate.”
The former vice president used his speech at Cannes to call on the ad and creative world to help him in his fight against climate change. When asked about climate deniers, Gore said it was a campaign run by polluters and compared their actions to the tobacco industry, which employed actors posing as doctors to reassure consumers that smoking was safe: “It was deeply unethical, immoral, destructive, really evil, and that is exactly what the climate denial industry is doing.”
Gore believes global warming would be a big issue at the next election: “The age of fossil fuels is beginning to end … years ago a Saudi minister once said, ‘The stone age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.’”
But he blasted lobbyists and special interests for blocking reform: “American democracy has been hacked … the US became the world’s leader by making better decisions than any other nation … the role of money really degraded the decision-making quality in the US.
“Big sources of special interest money are able to prevent the passage of almost any meaningful reform in the public interest, it really pains me to say … That has had a cascading impact on the ability of the US to continue providing the thought leadership to the world as a whole.
“It is urgent not only for the interests of the US but for the future of humankind … that the US find ways to quickly restore its ability to make decisions based on its best values and to limit the corrupting impact and degrading impact of lobbying and campaign contributions.”
When asked if he thought the Obama administration had “lost traction,” Gore continued that presidents have been constrained by Congress, and “The most serious dysfunction in American democracy is now in the legislative branch, in Congress, because they spend most of their time begging rich people and special interests for money.”
Urging the world’s most powerful ad executives and creatives to join him in the fight against climate change, he added, “Please help … this is for real.”
During the session, Gore also poked fun at Sorrell’s headline-grabbing salary. After Sorrell, who heads the world’s biggest ad agency and earned $66 million last year, stated, “I am an expert in renumeration,” Gore joked, “I think I read about that every year.” And when Sorrell kept interrupting him with questions, he quipped, “Your mind is so active, Martin.”
There were also laughs when Gore talked about his $14 billion venture capital firm Generation Investment Management, founded in London with David Blood, and Sorrell asked, “You weren’t going to call it Blood and Gore, were you?”
Sorrell ended the interview by asking which was the more honest TV portrayal of life in the White House, “The West Wing” or “Veep.” Gore shot back, “You are leaving out ‘House of Cards’?”
The former vice president added, “I think Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an absolute comedic genius, I was honored that she came and asked for some advice before their first season, then again second season. But one of my former speechwriters was a writer on ‘West Wing,’ and I think both shows have been fantastic.” But he added, “‘House of Cards’ — for the most part — should not be taken literally.”
Hillary Clinton’s Achilles Heel: Trust // Fiscal Times // Eric Pianin – June 26, 2015
While Hillary Clinton remains the odds-on favorite to capture the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, the former secretary of state continues to be dogged by questions about her honesty and integrity.
After a steady stream of negative reports about dubious fundraising by her family’s global foundation, the tens of millions of dollars that she and former President Bill Clinton raked in giving speeches to colleges and special interest groups, and the controversy over her use of her private email account to conduct official business during her four years at the State Department, recent polls show that doubts about her credibility may be her Achilles heel.
The Washington Post and other news organizations reported Thursday that Clinton withheld from the State Department at least 15 emails related to the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya – once again calling into question her contention that she had handed over her complete public record.
The discrepancy came to light several days ago after a House special panel investigating the Benghazi tragedy that led to the death of four Americans subpoenaed former Clinton White House adviser Sidney Blumenthal’s records. After Blumenthal turned the emails over to the panel, the State Department said on Thursday that it could not locate “all or part” of the emails among the 55,000 pages messages from a private server Clinton used while in office.
“This confirms doubts about the completeness of Clinton’s self-selected public record, and raises serious questions about her decision to erase her personal server -- especially before it could be analyzed by an independent, neutral third-party arbiter,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this month shows that the number of people who view Clinton as honest and trustworthy has dropped from 53 percent a year ago to just 41 percent now. Slightly more than half now don’t see her as honest and trustworthy.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described Democratic socialist, is steadily gaining ground on Clinton in the early primary battleground states of Iowa and New Hampshire, with the latest CNN/WMUR Granite State Poll showing Sanders trailing Clinton in New Hampshire by just eight percentage points, 43 percent to 35 percent.
A Bloomberg Politics/Saint Anselm Poll conducted June 19-22 shows Clinton leading Sanders in Iowa 50 percent to 24 percent and in New Hampshire by 56 percent to 24 percent. That represents a six- to eight-point increase in his support since those states were polled by Bloomberg in May.
As Bloomberg noted, with nearly identical support in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders’ rise in the polls suggests that his appeal goes well beyond his populist, anti-Wall Street message, and that voters are giving him higher marks than Clinton on “authenticity” and integrity.
A tireless Clinton ran until the end // Boston Globe // John C. King – June 26, 2015
The candidate was speaking in a hoarse, raspy voice. Late at night, behind schedule again.
I was leaning on a table in the back of the room, straining to hear and scribbling notes.
“The man is a HOSS. A HOSS. Just a . . . HOSS!! You got to understand what we are seeing here.”
“Horse,” is what James Carville was shouting at me in his Cajun cadence, somehow giddy despite the late hour and, more importantly, the character cloud that had pushed his candidate from front-runner into free fall as New Hampshire primary day approached.
Gennifer Flowers and allegations of marital infidelity. A newly released 1969 letter in which Bill Clinton called the Vietnam draft “illegitimate.”
“It seals his fate,” then-US Senator and Clinton rival Tom Harkin told me when I asked him about the draft letter.
Clinton’s poll numbers were tanking, and Democratic circles buzzed with talk that the Arkansas governor was toast and perhaps Governor Mario Cuomo of New York or Senator Lloyd Bentsen would enter the race to save the party.
My bosses suggested returning to Washington as the best option to track all the rumors and rumblings. I begged to stay: I wanted to see whether one man’s remarkable personal tenacity was enough to defy political gravity.
The language and lessons of that tumultuous 1992 primary stand out most among seven cycles of cherished New Hampshire memories that I covered for the Associated Press and later for CNN.
The campaign began with the Clintons confident. His “Putting People First” economic plan promising jobs and a middle-class tax cut was welcomed in a state that was struggling. The Democratic field was not considered all that strong.
Clinton’s Southern roots and lexicon brought a bit of head scratching. Like when the candidate compared critics to “pigs squealing under a gate” or questioned the timing of political attacks by noting, “if you see a turtle on a fence post, chances are it didn’t get there by accident.”
But those same Southern roots fit the Clinton narrative: This was not a Northern liberal like Michael Dukakis or Walter Mondale; the pro-death penalty governor gave Democrats a chance to win the White House.
In the heady days, Hillary would introduce Bill, who would then brag New Hampshire and the nation were about to get “two for the price of one.” But as 1991 gave way to 1992, and the first-in-the-nation primary was drawing near, confidence gave way to crisis. Crises, to be more accurate.
On Super Bowl Sunday, the Clintons traveled from New Hampshire to Boston to sit side by side on a hotel suite couch for an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” to brush the Flowers allegations aside.
“I have acknowledged causing pain in my marriage,” said Bill Clinton, declining to offer details.
“I’m not sitting here like some little woman, standing by my man like Tammy Wynette,” Hillary Clinton said. “I’m sitting here because I love him.”
Again, I was next to Carville, the Clinton campaign strategist. This time he was silent, hanging on every word of the interview, gasping at one point when a light stand began falling toward the Clintons.
I was there because the Clintons had agreed to an Associated Press interview after the CBS taping. We began in the elevator down to the lobby, the Clintons holding hands, and continued in the car en route to Logan Airport.
“They bought and paid her,” Hillary Clinton said of Flowers and the Star tabloid.
Bill Clinton was more sympathetic.
“There have been a lot of victims in this process and maybe she [Flowers] is one of them,” he said.
“Not any more,” his wife quickly retorted.
On the tarmac at Logan, they split — Bill Clinton headed back for events in New Hampshire; Hillary Clinton flew home to Little Rock to be with then 11-year-old Chelsea as her parents’ marriage became the flashpoint of American politics.
It was just one of many vivid memories of trailing Clinton in that New Hampshire campaign’s tumultuous final weeks. There were late nights with impromptu stops, including one Friday, as midnight approached, opening the door of his second VFW post in an hour.
“This place must be OK — they’ve got Roy Orbison playing,” Clinton said with a smile . Once inside, he shook every hand and fed a quarter into the jukebox, pausing at Mariah Carey and ultimately selecting Patsy Cline.
Another day it was what reporters dubbed a “death march” through a shopping mall. Even some of the governor’s aides surrendered to exhaustion and sat on the floor while Clinton looked for more hands to shake, more skeptics to convert.
Repeatedly, in speeches and one-on-one appeals, Clinton suggested the attacks on him were designed to steer the campaign away from voters and their economic anxiety.
One such appeal is now the stuff of New Hampshire primary legend, his promise — delivered in Dover — that if the voters gave him a second chance, “I’ll be there for you till the last dog dies.”
He didn’t win, but he declared his second-place finish evidence he was 1992’s “comeback kid.”
Covering Clinton in those days was to experience “Survivor” long before the age of reality television, and he always remained grateful to New Hampshire.
On Inauguration Day 2001, after handing the White House over to George W. Bush, Clinton flew home to Little Rock, and invited a few reporters who had been there in the early days of the 1992 campaign along for the ride.
The conversation was full of memories of Dunkin’ Donuts, the loyal band of Clinton New Hampshire supporters, and the roller coaster final weeks.
“That was wild,” the now former president said on that nostalgic flight. “I love that place.”
OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE
O’Malley lays out foreign policy vision // MSNBC // Alex-Seitz-Wald – June 26, 2015
Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley laid out his foreign policy vision in his most extensive remarks on international affairs to date at the Truman Project, a progressive national security group in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
As a former governor of Maryland, O’Malley has arguably less direct foreign policy experience than his Democratic rivals. Front-runner Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state, while the rest of the field served in the Senate, which has a constitutional role in making and approving foreign policy.
But O’Malley was the first declared Democratic presidential candidate to give a traditional speech exclusively on foreign policy, and he used the remarks Friday to bolster his credentials and to subtly distinguish himself from Clinton.
The former governor called for a more holistic approach to national security — which he argues should go beyond typical military threats to include dangers like climate change, infectious pandemics, droughts, and cybersecurity. And traditionally economic issues like immigration and energy policy should also be viewed as key national security concerns, he added.
After years of war, “it’s understandable that many Americans would like to disengage from the world around us. That’s understandable, but it’s not responsible,” he said. He detailed a range of threats to the U.S., including the so-called Islamic State, which he called “a gang of murderous thugs who have perverted one of the world’s great religions.”
The U.S. national security structure, which was created after World War II, was organized in a way that did not account for these modern-day threats. O’Malley called for a “new National Security Act,” the Truman-era law that made sweeping reorganizations of the basic structure of the military in 1947.
“Development, defense, diplomacy; they all stand together as equal parts of our national security – or at least they should,” he said.
O’Malley drew on his experience as governor where possible, discussing his work on combating various threats and calling for training National Guard troops to take a lead on cybersecurity in the U.S. homeland. “Critical infrastructure remains extremely vulnerable to hackers,” he said.
But he also acknowledged that he had more learning to do. “This time is not exclusively for questions! If you have answers, we would really like to hear your answers,” he quipped at the start of a question-and-answer session, which was open only to participants and not the press.
While he never mentioned her name, O’Malley drew some apparent contrasts between himself and Clinton.
The Iraq War, which Clinton voted to approve in the Senate, “will be remembered as one of the most tragic, deceitful, and costly blunders in U.S. history,” he said. The former governor added that the war would not have been possible without the “appalling silence of the good,” quoting Martin Luther King Jr.
He even invoked the Benghazi terror attack, which occurred under Clinton’s watch, but retreated from the issue quickly. “There are real lessons to be learned from the tragedy,” he said.
O’Malley’s campaign denied that his comments were a veiled rebuke of the Clinton. “This was not a speech about Hillary Clinton and the State Department,” O’Malley’s senior foreign policy adviser Doug Wilson told reporters afterwards.
Wilson is also the chairman of the board of advisers for the Truman Project.
“This governor has traveled. He has met with foreign leaders. He has met with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Wilson said, of O’Malley’s foreign policy credentials. “So I think he feels that he has qualifications in this area. He may not be a Bookings Institution policy wonk, but he is somebody who has a sense of the realities of the world.”
Proving foreign policy chops is a challenge familiar to every governor who runs for president. But American nonetheless tend to nominate and elect governors for the presidency more often than senators or candidates from other jobs.
The Truman Project, which trains many young progressive foreign policy operatives, invited all Democratic presidential candidates to speak. Top Clinton policy aide Jake Sullivan will speak Friday, but not on behalf of the campaign. Vice President Biden, who is still considering a presidential run, spoke Thursday evening.
Bernie Sanders’s Early Online Haul: $8.3 Million // NYT // Derek Willis – June 26, 2015
The enthusiastic crowds that have been greeting Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail have been matched by online donor excitement.
Mr. Sanders, the socialist Vermont senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination, has raised at least $8.3 million online through June 17, according to Federal Election Commission records. His campaign won’t file its initial report until July 15, but filings by ActBlue, the online fund-raising committee that serves as a conduit for Democratic campaigns, show that Mr. Sanders has brought in more money in May and the first half of June than any other Democratic candidate using ActBlue.
It’s likely that Mr. Sanders will report more than $9 million raised as of June 30, the deadline for midyear F.E.C. reports. That amount is larger than any Republican not named Mitt Romney raised in the first half of 2011.
His total is greater than that of Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor who also uses ActBlue and has collected more than $331,000 in his first month of online fund-raising. But Mr. Sanders’s online success is likely to be eclipsed in the first set of filings by Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has a larger network of donors and more time to raise money. (ActBlue is not Mrs. Clinton’s primary online fund-raising vehicle; she has received at least $43,000 through ActBlue users between April 20 and June 17).
On April 30, the day Mr. Sanders announced his candidacy, he generated more than $1 million via ActBlue. He got $1.6 million on May 3. Not counting those two largest days, on average ActBlue users sent $177,598 to Mr. Sanders each day between May 4 and June 17.
Without the support of a “super PAC,” Mr. Sanders’s total may seem small compared with some of the other 2016 candidates, but anywhere close to $10 million would be a very respectable total for a candidate who raised a total of $6.2 million for his 2012 Senate race. One question is whether this initial flood of donations represents the high-water mark or can be sustained.
Unlike candidate filings, ActBlue’s F.E.C. reports don’t make for easy browsing, because they often include tens of thousands of rows on a spreadsheet detailing millions of dollars of contributions. And absent special congressional elections in Mississippi, New York and Illinois, ActBlue would not have needed to file its own report until next month. But because of those races, we get a glimpse of donor support for Mr. Sanders.
This Is Bernie Sanders' Plan to Beat Hillary Clinton // Mother Jones // David Corn – June 26, 2015
It's fortunate for Hillary Clinton that Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist from Vermont who is challenging her for the Democratic presidential nomination, despises and eschews negative advertising. That's because the political consulting firm that Sanders has retained to advise his campaign has a well-developed expertise in devising attack ads. Earlier this year, this outfit, Devine Mulvey Longabaugh, won a Pollie award from the American Association of Political Consultants for creating the best Democratic congressional ad of 2014. The spot slammed Dave Trott, a Republican running for a congressional seat in Michigan, for making millions of dollars by foreclosing on residents of his state, and it focused on the harrowing eviction of a 101-year-old Detroit woman. Trott survived this assault and handily won the seat in the Republican district, but the Washington Post called the commercial "one of the most brutal attack ads you'll ever see."
The Sanders campaign has no plans to hurl these kinds of ads at Clinton. As Tad Devine, the veteran political operative who leads this firm and a longtime adviser to Sanders, notes, mudslinging is not part of the campaign strategy that Sanders and his advisers have crafted. There won't even be one speck of dust directly tossed at Clinton. But, Devine tells me, implicit negative messages aimed at Clinton will certainly be "embedded" in Sanders' advertising and social media messaging.
Sanders does have an overall plan on how to beat Clinton. As Devine explains, it goes something like this: Raise enough money to devote significant resources to building a full operation and maintaining a media presence in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as Nevada and South Carolina. At the same time, develop a basic foundation for campaign organizations in other states, so if Sanders fares well in the initial contests, these preliminary outfits can quickly be built out. Devine and other Sanders advisers estimate they will need to raise $40-$50 million by the Iowa caucuses to be in such a position, and they claim Sanders is on track to hit that mark, mainly with thousands and thousands of low-dollar contributions. (Sanders has drawn crowds of thousands at recent campaign events.) "I don't know if we can outright beat her in Iowa and New Hampshire," Devine says, "but we have a real shot at it in both places."
And when—or if—that happens, Devine figures, Sanders will have about a million contributors already on his side, and this group will enthusiastically kick in more money to replenish Sanders' coffers and fund the continuation of Bernie-mentum. "I worked for Walter Mondale in 1984," Devine recalls, "but I saw what Gary Hart did." Hart, a former senator who went up against Mondale in a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, placed a surprising second in Iowa and won New Hampshire. "Things then moved fast. Some polls moved 50 points in seven days," Devine says. (Mondale, though, did end up squelching the Hart insurgency by exploiting the Democratic establishment in key states.)
If Sanders does score well in the early states, Devine insists, his campaign will have a delegate-accumulation strategy reminiscent of the one Barack Obama's 2008 campaign employed to focus as much on snagging delegates as winning caucuses and primaries. "Even if Clinton beats us in some states by 20 points, we can split the delegates with smart focusing," Devine says. And then Sanders will be in a position to make the case to the Democratic establishment that he can assemble an electorate in the general election that is favorable to Democrats (as Obama did in 2008). "We don't know yet what it will look like," Devine remarks. "We haven't done the strategic modeling yet. I've been trying to persuade Bernie we should do that." Instead, he says, Sanders at this point would rather concentrate on promoting his message: Inequality is killing the middle class, climate change must be addressed, big-money politics must be reformed, and new progressive policy ideas, such as free college tuition and expanded Social Security benefits, must be advanced. (Devine also gave Sanders a PowerPoint presentation on how the campaign can use Big Data methods: "He was impressed, but we're not sure we can scale up to that. We won't have $1 billion.")
And what about Clinton? How will Sanders take her on?
Sanders recently boasted that he has "never run a negative ad," noting that he "hates and detests these 30-second negative ads." Devine says this is part of Sanders' DNA. "You need to know Bernie's history with negative ads to get this," Devine says. In 1988, when Sanders was the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, he ran for an open congressional seat as an independent and lost a close race to Republican Peter Smith. Two years later, Sanders was back to challenge Smith. In that 1990 race, Smith aired tough ads assailing Sanders, and Sanders' aides advised him to hit back. Instead, Sanders bought airtime for a five-minute spot in which he talked straight to the camera and decried the attack ads. (It didn't hurt Sanders that the National Rifle Association was slamming Smith for having voted for a ban on semi-automatic weapons.) Sanders ended up winning that race by 16 points. "This was his formative experience," says Devine. "Negative ads have to be denounced and jiu-jitsued."
During his 1994 re-election race, Sanders had a close call. He won by only three points. He responded by doing what he swore he would never do: He hired a Washington consultant, Devine. But he told Devine he would stick to his no-negative-ads stance. In the next election, Sanders aired only positive spots and won by 22 points.
Ten years later, Sanders ran for the Senate, with Devine still advising him. His Republican opponent was a millionaire businessman named Rich Tarrant who dumped about $7 million into the race in a state where, Devine says, no candidate had ever spent more than $2 million on a campaign. "It was a vicious campaign against Bernie," Devine recalls. "He ran ads that accused Bernie of supporting child molesters and terrorists. Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid were telling Bernie, 'You must respond.'" Sanders replied with an ad Devine had cut, in which Sanders noted he was being unfairly attacked and asked voters to visit his website to get the truth. Subsequent commercials by Sanders attempted to refute the stream of attack ads from Tarrant. The Sanders campaign also pushed an ad in which country singer Willie Nelson endorsed Sanders and cited his work for family farmers. Sanders beat Tarrant by more than a 2-1 margin.
So Sanders has survived and thrived in politics by neutralizing negative ads and resisting the urge to attack. And part of his shtick is that he doesn't do conventional politics. So, Devine notes, he will not directly criticize or poke at Clinton. For sure, no personal attacks or cheap shots. "That won't help him," Devine says. "He rejects the status quo of politics." Sanders won't even do a straight-up contrast ad—as in, Bernie Sanders believes X about subject Y, but Hillary Clinton believes Z. "If we do that, we're done," Devine says. "If we do a classic comparative ad, it's over. We'll have to be smarter."
And Team Sanders does have what it considers to be a smarter way: implying a contrast. In previous campaigns, Devine says, "We have constantly embedded contrast in everything we do." One example: During the 2006 Senate race, Tarrant's residence became a political issue because he had claimed a Florida mansion as his home for tax purposes. Sanders ran a biographical ad in which he declared he worked in Washington and lived in Burlington—an indirect jab at Tarrant. In the campaign against Clinton, Devine notes, "There will be a lot of implicit negative. But it won't look negative. It won't feel negative."
That's how Sanders recently handled the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. He opposes the measure as a sop to corporate America and billionaires. Asked about Clinton's view—she has referred positively to this trade deal in the past but more recently has avoided stating a firm position—Sanders didn't proclaim that she's in bed with the 1 percent; he called on her to take a clear stance. "It's not a question of watching this," he said. "You're going to have determine which side are you on." Devine points out that "this is not negative, but contrasting. When you offer voters a contrast on the issues, they don't take that as a negative." He adds that Sanders is "very good at this."
Contrast without attacking—that's the mantra. "As someone making the ads, it will be a difficult challenge," Devine says. "We have to present the differences in the ads without him coming across as part of the political system." Devine fears that if Sanders crosses that line, the Clinton campaign will fire back hard: "They have all the tonnage. We're dead."
Bernie Sanders Is Enjoying a Mini-Surge // The New Yorker // John Cassidy – June 26, 2015
On Thursday, while the political world was focussed on the Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling, two polls came out showing Bernie Sanders making up ground on Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire and Iowa. In a survey carried out by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center for CNN and the Manchester-based WMUR TV, Clinton was leading Sanders by just eight percentage points: forty-three per cent to thirty-five per cent. Meanwhile, a poll carried out in Iowa for Bloomberg found that Sanders now has the support of about a quarter of likely Democratic voters, by far his strongest showing yet in the state that will be the first to vote in the Democratic primary. “It’s tremendous progress that he is making with voters in the first two states,” Tad Devine, Sanders’s chief political strategist, told Bloomberg’s John McCormick. “It’s something we felt on the ground.”
At this stage, it’s necessary to issue a few qualifiers.
First, it’s not July 4th yet, and there are still seven months until the 2016 primaries begin. At this early stage, opinion polls bounce around quite a bit, and no single survey should be accorded very much weight. Second, Clinton is trouncing Sanders in the national polls. Third, even in the early primary states she still has a big advantage. In Iowa, Sanders has yet to come within twenty-five points of her in any poll, and in New Hampshire a separate Bloomberg survey found that she retains a much bigger lead than the CNN/WMUR survey suggested: twenty-six points. “Clinton remains enormously well-known and well-liked in New Hampshire, a state she won before,” Doug Usher, of Purple Strategies, the research firm that carried out Bloomberg’s New Hampshire poll, said. “She benefits from a gender gap in a primary that will be disproportionately female, and even Sanders’s voters admit Clinton is likely the nominee.”
So there’s no need for panic in the Clinton camp, which has adopted the public position that it expected a competitive primary all along. But for Sanders, and for Democrats who would like an alternative to Clinton, the signs are encouraging. The seventy-three-year-old Vermont senator is clearly enjoying himself, hurtling around the country, drawing large crowds, and promoting his progressive agenda. In the past few days, for instance, he has welcomed Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change, criticized Congress for granting President Obama fast-track authority to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and reiterated his call to expand Medicare into a national health-care system for everyone.
As Sanders promised when he started out, he isn’t criticizing Clinton directly. But he is seeking to draw a contrast between his clear positions on such issues as trade with his opponent’s nuanced statements. And he’s insisting he’s in it to win. Speaking to David Corn, of Mother Jones, Devine explained that Sanders’s strategy is based on raising enough money—forty or fifty million dollars—to advertise in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, and he claimed that, thanks to lots of small donations, this strategy is working so far. “I don’t know if we can outright beat her in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Devine said, “but we have a real shot at it in both places.”
That may be stretching things. Still, if Sanders keeps gaining, he will certainly have the capacity to disrupt some of the Clinton campaign’s carefully laid plans. Should they go after Bernie? Should they ignore him? Something in the middle? Up until now, the Clintonites have been running a professional and highly scripted operation that has achieved most of its initial goals, but that sometimes resembles painting by numbers. Clinton has the money, the infrastructure, and the support from other prominent Democrats that Sanders lacks, but the Vermont senator has advantages, too: enthusiasm at the grassroots, the flexibility that comes with being a one-man band, and the ability to position himself as a scrappy underdog and outsider.
“You can make the case that a certain amount of Bernie Sanders’s support is a protest vote, but there’s more to it than that,” J. Ann Selzer, the president of Selzer & Co, which carried out Bloomberg’s poll in Iowa, said. “People like him. They like what he stands for. They like showing up at his events and hearing him say things they believe in.” In short, Sanders is running a classic insurgency campaign. And as many establishment candidates have discovered in the past, running against such an opponent can be an uncomfortable experience.
Read Late 1970s Bernie Sanders’ No-Holds-Barred Critique Of Mass Media // Buzzfeed // Andrew Kaczynski – June 26, 2015
In the late 1970s Bernie Sanders, then still known mostly as the perennial Liberty Union candidate and freelance writer, wrote a critique of mass media and television for the Vanguard Press, an alt-weekly that ran from the mid 1970s into the early 1980s.
In the critique, Sanders holds contempt for the mainstream media, which he said abided by the “well-tested Hitlerian principle that people should be treated as morons and bombarded over and over again with the same simple phrases and ideas.”
Sanders noted three major functions of the television industry.
“First, it is supposed to make as much money as possible for the owners of the industry and for the companies who advertise,” he wrote. “Second, like heroin and alcohol, television serves the function of an escapist mechanism which allows people to ‘space out’ and avoid the pain and conflict of their lives — and the causes of those problems. Third, television is the major vehicle by which the owners of this society propagate their political points of view (including lies and distortions) through the ‘news.’”
Today, the socialist Vermont senator who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination still views mass communication as an important issue facing the country. He maintains a page on his website where he notes, “media consolidation suppresses diversity and ignores the needs and interests of local communities.”
The Vermont weekly Seven Days has dug deep in Sanders’ history in the state, as a perennial candidate, mayor, congressman, and senator. A “Bernie Beat” archived details his record in the state coming back into the early 1970s. This article is among those posted in their extensive archives.
Sanders noted a “fundamental contradiction” in television like many aspects of a capitalist society. He said owners of the mass media industry don’t want to educate people because “to do so would be to act against their own best interests.”
“What the owners of the TV industry want to do, and are doing, in my opinion, is use that medium to intentionally brainwash people into submission and helplessness,” wrote Sanders.
“With considerable forethought they are attempting to create a nation of morons who will faithfully go out and buy this or that product, vote for this or that candidate, and faithfully work for their employers for as low a wage as possible.”
Sanders said if “the television industry encouraged intellectual growth, honesty, and the pursuit of truth, it would put most major corporations out of business.” He noted “most advertising consists of lies designed to sell products which are either identical to the competition, totally useless, grossly overpriced, or dangerous to human health or the environment.”
“The last thing that the owners of the TV industry would want is for people to know the truth about the products sold on the air,” he wrote.
Sanders concluded by noting control of television is a political issue that is necessary to address for those “who are concerned about living in a democratic and healthy society.”
Clinton backer has 'crush' on Bernie Sanders // The Hill // Judy Kurtz – June 26, 2015
Margaret Cho, a Hillary Clinton supporter, says she’s got a "crush" on Bernie Sanders.
“I am in Hillary’s corner,” the comedienne told Larry King on his show, “PoliticKING,” on Thursday, “although I have a little crush on Bernie Sanders. I think he’s kind of great.”
Cho told King that it’s not the married Democratic presidential candidate’s looks that hooked her, but rather, “I think he’s very much about telling the truth. He’s really talking about like, how this is all a race about money. It's just billionaires kind of comparing who's got the most money, and that’s actually true when you think about the presidential race.”
Despite her "crush," the outspoken entertainer and LGBT rights activist said she’s “long been” a fan of Clinton: “I had a hard time sort of deciding between Hillary and Obama. I did go to the Obama camp eventually. But Hillary is great.”
Cho, 46, added of Sanders’ political rival, “Hillary's already been president for eight years. So she always knows the job. So she’s cool.”
The Vermont senator, Cho said, “may be pulling” Clinton to the left. “Sanders is very much to the left,” she said. “He’s kind of got this very different appeal.”
Jeb Bush has a new problem: John Roberts // Politico // Eli Stokols – June 26, 2015
Jeb Bush is always facing nagging questions about the Bush family’s political legacy. Now he’s got another: John Roberts.
With conservatives up in arms over Roberts’ role in preserving Obamacare, Jeb Bush suddenly finds himself called to answer for the chief justice appointed by his brother, George W. Bush. And not just Roberts — Jeb is also taking flak for David Souter, the liberal justice appointed by his father, George H.W. Bush.
In a radio interview Friday afternoon, Jeb Bush was pressed by host Hugh Hewitt to explain the Roberts and Souter nominations to disappointed conservatives.
Bush was reluctant to criticize the chief justice, preferring to talk more broadly about the need to appoint battle-tested conservatives to the high court after back-to-back rulings on Obamacare and same-sex marriage that delighted the left.
“I’m disappointed in both decisions,” Bush told Hewitt. “It’s important I think to think about going forward what kind of judges we need in the highest court in the land.
“When I was governor, we tried to find people with a proven record of judicial restraint, and people that were committed to enforcing the constitutional limits on government authority. In essence, what I’m saying is I think we need to have people that have not just theoretically, but have had a proven record of not legislating from the bench.”
That’s what conservatives thought they were getting in Roberts, who was appointed to his position by George W. Bush in 2005. After his majority opinion in King v. Burwell, which preserved Obamacare’s tax subsidies, they’re not so sure.
“It’s fair to say conservatives are re-assessing their view of John Roberts,” said John Andrews, the organizer of the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, where seven GOP presidential hopefuls will address 4,000 Republicans this weekend. “These rulings have sharpened the consciousness of conservatives about the importance of judicial appointments, for sure.”
Three of the nine current Supreme Court justices were appointed by a Bush: George H.W. Bush appointed Clarence Thomas in 1991; George W. Bush tapped Samuel Alito and Roberts for two vacancies in 2005.
Conservatives couldn’t be more pleased with Thomas and Alito. When it comes to the chief justice, however, it’s a different story now that the Roberts Court has twice ruled in favor of Obamacare.
Following the court’s 6-3 decision to uphold Obamacare subsidies on Thursday, Jeb Bush’s campaign pointed the finger at the president, emailing his supporters with a fundraising pitch that argued, “This is the direct result of President Obama.”
Hewitt, however, wouldn’t let him get away with that line, noting that the decision itself came from Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion.
“Is he still a model for you going forward?” the host asked Bush.
“I liked one of his rulings and I didn’t like the other,” Bush replied, referring to his agreement with Roberts’ dissent in the same-sex marriage case. “He is a person of unimpeachable integrity and great intelligence.”
Bush’s velvet-glove criticism of Roberts wasn’t nearly tough enough for a conservative base that loathes Obamacare.
“The biggest political loser in this decision was Governor Jeb Bush who can’t be trusted with Supreme Court nominations,” wrote the conservative publication Human Events. “The Bush family has packed the court liberals in conservative clothing. America can’t take the risk of another Bush making the same mistake.”
Hewitt reminded Bush about the justices appointed by his father and brother, specifically Souter, who’s no longer on the court. The now retired justice wound up siding mostly with the court’s liberal wing during his tenure and became a huge disappointment to conservatives.
Roberts, once beloved on the right and a jurist whom conservatives hoped would preside over the court for decades to come, is now drawing unfavorable comparisons to Souter for having ruled to uphold the Affordable Care Act — first by saving the individual mandate in the summer of 2012 and now by declaring the tax subsidies offered under the health law to be constitutional.
“All justices disappoint their presidents some of the time but Souter was like a 90 percent swing and miss,” Hewitt said. “How do you avoid Souters?”
“You focus on people to be Supreme Court justices who have a proven record of judicial restraint,” Bush answered.
Jeb Bush is heading to Charleston for a private meeting with pastors // Reuters – June 26, 2015
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jeb Bush, a Republican contender for president, will sit down with pastors on a visit on Monday to Charleston, South Carolina, where nine African-Americans were shot to death at a historic black church, his campaign said on Friday.
Bush, the former Florida governor who leads many polls of Republican voters in the race for the party's 2016 presidential nomination, had canceled a planned campaign stop in Charleston a week ago when the shootings took place.
Instead of a campaign event, Bush will hold a private session with pastors from the Charleston community. In an attempt to keep the session low key, the news media will not be allowed in.
Bush has vowed to campaign in places where Republicans have not always gone in recent years, such as black churches and impoverished neighborhoods.
President Barack Obama gave a speech in Charleston on Friday about racial differences in the United States at the funeral for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was among those shot to death.
Hillary Clinton, who is the Democratic frontrunner for president, was among those at the funeral on Friday.
While Florida governor, Bush engineered a move for the state to stop displaying the Confederate battle flag. A source familiar with the situation said Bush had consulted with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in the days before she announced an effort this week to remove the flag from the grounds of the state capitol in Columbia.
Jeb Bush Tries to Win Without Speaking to His Favorite Strategist // Bloomberg // Michael C. Bender – June 26, 2015
The singular failure of Jeb Bush’s political career was his 1994 loss in the Florida governor’s race by less than two percentage points. The defeat cast Bush, a rising Republican star, into the political wilderness just as his older brother, George, won an upset victory over Ann Richards in Texas, putting him on the path to the presidency. When Jeb ran again in 1998, he brought in Mike Murphy, an ad man credited with helping John Engler and Christine Todd Whitman win governorships in Michigan and New Jersey. Bush won by more than 10 points. He had Murphy at his side as he cruised to reelection in 2002. Now he’s trying to win the presidency without his favorite strategist whispering in his ear.
Murphy is in charge of Right to Rise, a super PAC created to get Bush elected. Because of regulations requiring a separation between candidates and super PACs, they can’t formally coordinate their efforts between now and the election. All the major candidates in the 2016 race will have super PACs working on their behalf, but Bush and Murphy are trying something unprecedented in U.S. presidential elections: building a separate, and better-funded, organization that will in some ways eclipse the official campaign as a vehicle for promoting the candidate. Murphy’s Los Angeles-based team will produce digital marketing, television ads, and opposition research on behalf of Bush, whose campaign headquarters are across the country in Miami. “He’s a good friend, and I’m going to miss him,” Bush says. “I hope to see him on election night and give him an embrace. But from here on out, I won’t be talking to him.”
Unlike the campaign, the super PAC can accept unlimited contributions. Bush spent the months before announcing his candidacy on June 15 taking in tens of millions of dollars for the group, which will report how much it’s raised in mid-July. He has been the featured guest at least 39 times for Right to Rise fundraisers, according to invitations compiled by the Sunlight Foundation. The list includes events where the suggested donation was $100,000 a person in Chicago, Miami, and New York. Going forward, he’ll be allowed to appear at the group’s events as a guest, but he can’t discuss strategy or coordinate with Murphy directly.
For Murphy, who declined to be interviewed, the setup offers some clear benefits. For one thing, he’ll be the autonomous ruler of the super PAC staff, free of the office politics of the campaign. He plans to use his own Virginia-based consulting company, Revolution Agency, to produce TV ads and a digital marketing effort to reach voters via social media and text messaging. In a June 17 conference call with donors, Murphy said he was no longer coordinating with the campaign but was “well informed as of a week ago” about Bush’s strategy. He said Right to Rise would focus on fundraising this year, holding on to most of its cash until primaries begin in early 2016—though Murphy said Right to Rise would “do a few frugal, highly targeted things to help boost the governor’s narrative” this summer, as the candidate travels around the country meeting voters.
The call, which was reported by BuzzFeed, illustrates the limits of the no-coordination rules. In the midterms, candidates and super PACs devised numerous tactics for telegraphing their strategies. One was tipping off mainstream news organizations to ad buys or strategic shifts. American Crossroads, a major Republican super PAC, and other groups used Twitter to share polling data with party committees, posting tweets filled with cryptic strings of data—in one case from an account named for a West Wing character. Aides to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee tweeted a link to ad scripts devised by New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s campaign that were used by Senate Majority PAC, the largest outside Democratic group. “If Bush’s chief strategist is doing conference calls to lay out exactly what the plan is and how that’s part of the campaign, then there is no independence,” says Bill Burton, a co-founder of Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC created in 2012 to support President Obama’s reelection that’s now working for Hillary Clinton. (Burton is no longer involved.) “That’s not to suggest Mike Murphy and the Bush campaign or anyone is breaking the laws. It’s just that the law is really stupid.”
Bush says his campaign and Right to Rise are on parallel tracks. “I don’t think we’re exporting any responsibilities,” he says. The campaign already has staff on the ground in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Right to Rise staffers have been trailing Bush and his events for months, stockpiling footage for ads. “The super PAC? We’ll see what they do,” Bush says. “I hope it enhances the message that I hope to bring.”
Bush’s top adviser on the campaign is Sally Bradshaw, who has been working with him since his father’s presidential campaign in 1992. Murphy, who also worked on the 1992 campaign, is a foil for Bush, who sometimes struggles to tell a joke but has a keen appreciation for the role humor can play in buoying or tanking a campaign. In the 1998 governor’s race, when Bush faced off against a Democrat named Buddy MacKay, Murphy came up with a simple tag line: “He’s not your buddy.” The line, or a version of it, was used in every possible ad. “That’s a great example of Mike’s creativity,” says Cory Tilley, a Tallahassee political operative who handled communications for Bush in his Florida races. “That took the edge off some so it didn’t look like a down-in-the-gutter attack.” One TV spot accused MacKay and Florida Democrats of being soft on crime because they’d relaxed sentencing laws to address prison overcrowding. “Thanks, Buddy,” said a burglar in the commercial.
Along with Bradshaw, Murphy has been able to tell Bush when he’s strayed off course—or help him regain focus after campaign setbacks. “Murphy is one of the few people that Jeb can hear that from and believe it,” says Brian Crowley, a Florida political analyst.
Nuclear 2.0? Jeb Bush is Open to Ending the Senate Filibuster to Repeal Obamacare // Bloomberg // Sahil Kapur – June 26, 2015
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said Friday he's open to eliminating the Senate's 60-vote threshold if it helps Congress repeal Obamacare and enact "free-market oriented" health care reforms.
Appearing on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, the former Florida governor was asked if he'd support invoking the "Reid rule"—also known as the "nuclear option"—to nix the legislative filibuster to replace the Affordable Care Act.
At first, Bush said his focus was coming up with a health care plan that Republicans can unify behind.
"I think we Republicans first need to unify behind the replacement," he said. "If there's unity there, we can act. Right now, though, for the last few years we've been organized against Obamacare... But there hasn't been any kind of unity about what the alternative is and that's what my focus is."
Hewitt pressed Bush, pointing out that Republicans are unlikely to get 60 Senate to defeat a filibuster if Democrats stick together and block efforts to repeal Obamacare, as they have done for years. "At that point," Hewitt said, "would you at least be open to making the argument that on this issue, before it gets its tentacles too deep, that we break the filibuster and ram through a repeal and replacement?"
Bush responded that he was open to it.
"I'd have to see—if the repeal is what I'm going to advocate, then I might consider that," he said, adding that if the replacement includes high-deductible, low-premium catastrophic coverage and helps the middle class, "then I would certainly consider that."
Bush is unique among presidential candidates who have signaled any openness to ending the legislative filibuster. Democrats ended the 60-vote threshold for nominations to the executive and judicial branches (except the Supreme Court) in November 2013, drawing fierce conservative pushback. Since then, Republicans have preserved the change but have not sought to further dismantle the filibuster.
Even Senator Ted Cruz of Texas—a rival Republican candidate who is no stranger to supporting scorched-earth legislative tactics—wouldn't support the idea of scrapping the filibuster in February 2015 as he was pushing legislation to overturn President Barack Obama's immigration executive actions.
Rubio pushes back against health care ruling, new gun control efforts, and negotiating with terrorists // NH1 // Paul Steinhauser – June 26, 2015
EXETER – Marco Rubio says “I believe Obamacare’s bad for Americans. Bad for the country.”
Asked by NH1 News about the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday upholding the Affordable Care Act, the senator from Florida and Republican presidential candidate said “I disagree with their decision.”
“I think a better approach is the one we’re pushing for, and that is a patient centric, consumer centric, Obamacare replacement that would allow individual Americans to buy health insurance of the kind they want from any company in any state in America that would sell it to them,” he added.
Rubio spoke to NH1 News and other news organizations outside the historic town hall in Exeter, minutes after the high court’s ruling. Rubio was in Exeter to headline an event hosted by the conservative organization Concerned Veterans for America.
Asked by NH1 News about new gun control efforts in Congress in the wake of last week’s horrific shootings at an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina that left nine people dead, Rubio said “I think it’s ineffective and it won’t achieve what we’re trying to achieve, and that’s keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. Criminals don’t care what the law is. That’s why they’re criminals.”
Rubio’s visit came one day after President Obama announced a policy overhaul that will allow the United States government to communicate and negotiate with hostage takers. Noting that his administration has too often failed the families of Americans taken hostage by groups like ISIS, the President said that the new rule “does not prevent communications with hostage takers by our government, the families of hostages or third parties who help these family.”
But Obama said he wouldn’t change a longstanding policy against paying ransoms to terrorist groups.
Rubio said he disagrees with the President, adding that “we have to understand that when you negotiate with terrorists, you are in essence incentivizing them to take more hostages in the future. You place other Americans, including service men and women, in danger.”
Rubio’s come under attack recently by Donald Trump, a rival for the GOP nomination. Asked by NH1 News about Trump’s comments and whether the real estate mogul and reality TV should be taken seriously, Rubio said “I’m going to focus on my campaign and my message.”
“One of the reasons Barack Obama is president of the United States today is because Republicans in the last election spent an inordinate amount of time attacking each other and calling each other names. We’ll have disagreements on policy. I look forward to that debate. But my message is going to be about the future of America. I’m not running against any other Republican,” he added.
Earlier, during the Concerned Veterans for America event, Rubio gave the President an F grade when it comes to the overhaul of the troubled Veterans Affairs department.
"It’s not just a funding issue, it’s not even ‘a want to’ issue, it is the fact that the model itself may not work in the 21st century,” Rubio said.
“The key is, it’s up to the veteran to choose,” Rubio added. “Putting the veteran in charge. If you don’t do that, you’ll have failing grade no matter who the president is.”
This was Rubio’s first trip to the first-in-the-nation primary state in two months. But top Rubio campaign officials told NH1 News to expect to see a lot more of the candidate in the Granite State going forward.
Rubio calls for preserving American dream // Eagle-Tribune // Doug Ireland – June 26, 2015
SALEM, N.H. — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio called for a 21st-century approach to solving the nation's problems during a town hall meeting Thursday at the Derry-Salem Elks Lodge.
Recalling his Cuban parents' struggle to make ends meet after coming to the United States in 1956, the Republican presidential hopeful said the nation's next leader must make sure Americans have the same opportunities to succeed as they did.
"The answer to why I'm running for president is really about my family," he told the crowd of nearly 150 people. "Their life wasn't an instant success. They struggled."
Rubio said his parents — a bartender and a maid — were able to better themselves through hard work.
"They were able to retire with dignity and security, and they were able to leave their four children better off than them," Rubio said. "There was no goal out of reach because we were Americans."
But he said many low-income Americans no longer have the opportunities to succeed like his parents did because of a soaring national debt and uncertain economic climate.
Rubio called for programs and policies that boost job growth and training for workers. A simpler tax code and less government regulation are also needed, he added.
"We have to make it easier to open a business," Rubio said. "We have wiped them out because of these regulations."
He spoke of the need for a child-tax credit to help working families, and said programs such as Medicaid and Social Security need to be improved and preserved.
Fishing for votes, Rubio turns attacks into jokes // Boston Herald // Chris Cassidy – June 26, 2015
SALEM, N.H. — Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio turned the press attacks on his personal finances into punch lines while campaigning here yesterday — including a New York Times report that he “splurged” on an “extravagant ... luxury speedboat.”
“Probably the most stunning argument I’ve heard recently from our friends in the press is that I’m not rich enough to be president of the United States,” Rubio said to laughs during a town hall. “And, look, it’s true I don’t have a family foundation that’s raised $2 billion, some of it with foreign donors ... But Jeanette and I have been blessed ... we’ve been able to buy a luxury speedboat, cleverly disguised as a fishing boat.”
The Times story earlier this month claimed Rubio had been splurging on luxuries even though he was “bedeviled by financial struggles.” A Politico report the next day revealed the “luxury” ves-sel was an $80,000 fishing boat he bought after receiving a book advance.
Rubio hit the Granite State for the first time in several weeks, appearing at two town halls in Exeter and Salem and delivering a policy speech in Manchester.
He also met briefly with five Massachusetts Republican lawmakers in Salem — state Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, state Sens. Vinny deMacedo and Ryan Fattman and state Reps. Shawn Dooley and Keiko Orrall.
All but Tarr say they are definitely supporting Rubio and plan to campaign for him on both sides of the border.
“I’ll come up to New Hampshire if needed,” Dooley said. “Our focus will be to deliver Massachusetts for him. I don’t think this will be a campaign season that will be won or lost in New Hampshire. Massachusetts will play a factor in the primary.”
Michael Dewitt, a former 2012 Mitt Romney staffer from Meredith, said he’s “90 percent” leaning toward Rubio but also considering Jeb Bush and Scott Walker.
“He was easily the coolest, most down-to-earth guy that we had dealings with,” Dewitt said of his encounters with Rubio on the Romney campaign. “I’ve seen a lot of politicians, and a lot of them are just full of ... themselves. He’s very articulate. He’s very well-versed on the issues. He’s very passionate about ... the country and where we’re going.”
Dubya’s Real Brother Is Rubio // The Daily Beast // Tim Mak – June 26, 2015
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- What if George W. Bush's real brother -- ideologically, at least -- is Sen. Marco Rubio?
Rubio barnstormed the Granite State Thursday, bringing with him a campaign stump speech that was heavy on the compassionate conservatism and deeply hawkish foreign policy closely associated with Bush 43.
The Florida senator can embrace George W. Bush's message and rhetorical stylings -- higher defense spending and domestic policies that will appeal to conservatives but targeted at lower-income Americans -- but with the personal authority to speak about the poor in this country. And he can do it without the dynastic baggage that fellow 2016er Jeb Bush brings to the presidential contest.
The Republican Party hasn't seen compassionate conservatism in a while. During the heyday of the Tea Party movement, Republicans around the country decried Obama as a food stamp president and demanded drug testing for welfare recipients. Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney came off as apathetic to the poor, and his "47 percent" comments cemented his reputation as a heartless plutocrat in the minds of many voters.
But Rubio grew up the son of a bartender and a maid, both immigrants. He has a mortgage -- just one -- that he and his wife pay on the fifth of every month. The Florida senator can speak with familiarity about being poor -- which couldn't be said of Romney, a gazillionaire memorably described by Mike Huckabee as “the guy who fires you”; John McCain, the son and grandson of admirals; and George W. Bush, the son of a president.
There are a lot of negative connotations in being compared to George W. Bush. But with Bush's approval rating recovering with the passage of time, Rubio brings a new face -- and new personal authority -- to an older perspective on conservatism.
"We have to reinvigorate our economy, and that begins with recognizing the plight of millions of Americans who today live paycheck to paycheck," Rubio told a small group of New Hampshire voters at the Derry-Salem Elks Lodge Thursday. "Do you know why I'm a conservative, why I love free enterprise? Because it's the only economic model in the history of the world where people like me even have a chance."
And Rubio’s emphasis on increased defense spending and a renewed willingness to use America’s military might abroad is also reminiscent of George W. Bush. Asked by an attendee what he would do in his first 100 days in the White House, Rubio's first three off-the cuff ideas were about national security.
"I would immediately ask Congress for a supplemental budget authority to increase defense spending," Rubio said. It was a topic he hammered over and over again: "We need a strong America on the global stage, because nothing else matters if we're not safe. And that starts with having the strongest military in the world. Today we are eviscerating our military, we have had rapid reductions in defense spending... We can't solve all the world's problems, but we can always be on the side of moral clarity."
But the capital-B, capital-I Big Idea that Rubio is campaigning on is that the things that guaranteed middle class stability and opportunity for the poor in the 20th century no longer work today. Touching on subjects ranging from social security to whether a college education will guarantee a job to the Veterans Administration, Rubio held three town halls in New Hampshire, all of which touched on how to improve the lot of the less well off.
"One of the fundamental issues that I've been campaigning on is the argument that the 21st century is dramatically different from the 20th, that things that used to work in the past don't work as well now because the world has changed," Rubio said at a Concerned Veterans for America event, where he urged reforms to the VA system broadly, Tri-Care military health insurance, and the vets' disability claims process.
Rubio also wants to reform the higher education system. He wants more students to pursue technical degrees, and college credit to be more easily granted for students with prior work experience or military service. A military service member who served two tours in Iraq shouldn't be made to sit through a course on modern Middle Eastern politics, he said.
"In the 21st century it is not enough to just have a college degree," Rubio said. He wants college loans to be granted only after colleges tell each student the average annual wage for the major and degree that they've chosen.
Many of the other ideas are fundamentally the same as 2000s conservatism: tax cuts for small businesses, increasing the child tax credit for working families, and reversing environmental regulations that hinder economic growth.
"The more people you hire, the more you pay them, and the more you expand -- the less you will owe the IRS. We need a tax code that allows businesses to immediately [reinvest] back into their employees," Rubio said.
His style impressed some of the locals, many of whom consider it their civic duty to put presidential candidates on the hot seat.
"His off-the-cuff remarks: he's moving up on the electability scale. He's sliding up," said Jorg Dreusick, a veteran from Pelham, New Hampshire who placed Rubio near the top of his list of top five presidential contenders. He attended both the morning event in Exeter, N.H. and the early afternoon event in Salem, N.H.
One thing Rubio simply didn't do while campaigning in New Hampshire: he didn't toss the crowd the red meat they really wanted. He got the largest applause out of one crowd when he spoke about Benghazi ("incompetence") and about President Obama ("who has chosen to divide us against each other, for [the] purpose of winning elections"). But those lines were responses to questions raised by the crowd.
Unlike some other presidential candidates, who thrive on the raucous response of the conservative primary audiences, Rubio didn’t pander. Asked for his priorities as president, he geeked out on the proper role of the National Security Council, an issue unlikely to resonate with vast swaths of the electorate. Then he said he wanted centralized cybersecurity procedures so that agencies use best practices to protect information.
He even went out of his way to take a little shot at someone the many Patriots fans in attendance surely consider a hero.
"Tom Brady, when is he going to retire?" he asked the New Hampshire crowd.
Rubio among lawmakers vowing to repeal Obamacare following Supreme Court ruling // Fox News Latino – June 26, 2015
Thursday's Supreme Court ruling validating federal health insurance subsidies for nearly 6.4 million Americans had consumers breathing a sigh of relief that they would be able to afford their policies, but the reaction was markedly different from governors and lawmakers in states that have fought against the Affordable Care Act.
Many of them strengthened their calls to repeal the act, setting the tone for what will likely be a common GOP refrain during next year's presidential campaign.
Florida would have been ground zero for the aftermath, with more than 1.3 million people relying on the federal subsidies. Setting up a state exchange was a political non-starter. Republican Gov. Rick Scott and House Republicans strongly opposed a Senate bill that would have created one as well as expand Medicaid.
Scott and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, both reaffirmed their commitment to repealing the law Thursday.
"It's a bad law," Scott told reporters. "It's made promises after promises."
Texas, like many of the 34 Republican-led states relying on the exchange, had no backup plan if the court had struck down the subsidies. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had no interest in setting up a state exchange for the 832,000 Texans relying on the federal tax credits that lowered their monthly premiums.
"The Supreme Court abandoned the Constitution to resuscitate a failing health care law," Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement. "Today's action underscores why it is now more important than ever to ensure we elect a President who will repeal Obamacare and enact real health care reforms."
He and other GOP governors said it would have been up to the president and Congress to fix it.
At issue in the case were the subsidies given by the federal government to consumers in the 34 states that relied on the federal health insurance exchange. A handful of words in the Affordable Care Act suggested the subsidies were to go only to consumers using exchanges operated by the states. In its 6-3 ruling, the high court said those subsidies did not depend on where people live.
The court's decision to allow the subsidies to continue was a relief to many who had purchased health insurance policies through the federal exchange.
Among them is Jennifer Greene, a 58-year-old from Boca Raton, Florida, who feared she would have to go without insurance if she lost her $547-a-month tax credit.
She had insurance through her job at a large grocery store chain but lost it because she missed too much work following surgery to remove part of her colon, which required lengthy follow-up care.
Greene signed up for a mid-level insurance plan in February, paying $25 a month after the tax credit. She was able to keep her primary care doctor and has relied heavily on the insurance to cover follow-up appointments with specialists and a hernia surgery.
"Those things are not affordable without insurance," she said Thursday. "Having the insurance makes the difference of staying healthy or ignoring your health issues."
With the coverage expansion under the law, about 90 percent of Americans now have health care. After the Supreme Court ruling, the focus will shift to those who remain uninsured. But closing the gap will mean convincing some 20 states that have resisted the law's Medicaid expansion to drop their opposition.
The biggest payoff could come if Texas and Florida expand their programs, but governors and legislators in those states have blocked all Medicaid expansion efforts.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a potential Republican presidential candidate, called on Congress to repeal and replace the law, saying Obama's signature domestic policy achievement had failed the American people. Some 183,000 Wisconsin residents are getting health insurance through the exchange.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another potential GOP presidential contender, said in a Twitter message that "leaders must turn our attention to making the case that ObamaCare must be replaced."
Gov. Phil Bryant was among several Mississippi Republican leaders who criticized the Supreme Court's decision.
"Today's decision does not change the fact that Obamacare is a socialist takeover of health care forced down the throats of the American people without proper review, and it does not slow the massive and unprecedented transfer of wealth that is at the heart of the subsidy system," Bryant said.
Pennsylvania was one of the few states that had applied to set up a state exchange, but Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said he would withdraw those plans given Thursday's ruling.
As the law's opponents regroup, consumers say they are grateful the court allowed the federal premium subsidies to continue.
Shawn Turner of Cisco, Illinois, finished chemotherapy for uterine cancer last summer and relies on the $830-a-month in tax credit she and her husband receive for regular follow-up scans to make sure the cancer is gone. If the court had struck down the subsidies, she said they would have had to dip into their savings or start selling their possessions to pay for their insurance.
"I'm just so relieved and happy, not just for me but for everyone who's being helped by this," said Turner, 55.
Cindy Williams, a 63-year-old breast cancer and liver cancer survivor from Texas, receives a federal premium subsidy of more than $500 a month. She said she would not be able to afford to go to the doctor or buy her medications without it.
Williams, who lives in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville, said she was thrilled to hear about the court's ruling.
"I am so happy because that means that I can keep my insurance, that I can stay healthy and move on with my life," she said.
Rand Paul: Clintons ‘proud’ to incarcerate a generation of black men // WaPo // Katie Zezima – June 26, 2015
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that Bill and Hillary Clinton were "proud" to be in power at a time when legions of young black men were put in prison as part of the war on drugs.
"Bill Clinton presided over the incarceration of an entire generation of young black men," Paul, a GOP presidential candidate, said Thursday on "The Wilkow Majority" on SiriusXM. Young black men, Paul said, are being put in jail "at a rate never before seen in history" because of the war on drugs.
"Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, they were all proud to do this, but now that I've been speaking out and saying that mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow, now all the sudden the Clintons are saying now we’re going to be back on the other side of this issue now," he said.
Paul has long emphasized criminal justice issues, for example co-sponsoring legislation that would reform mandatory sentencing laws.
He pointed to poll numbers that showed him doing well against - or surpassing - Hillary Clinton in some swing states. A recent Quinnipiac poll, for example, showed Paul running even with Clinton in Ohio and ahead of her in Pennsylvania
"Someone from the DNC is listening to our radio interview now and they’re looking for ways to attack me because they see me as a threat to Hillary Clinton," Paul said. "I’m going to the south side of Chicago, I’m going to the inner city Philadelphia, I’m going to Baltimore, I’m going to Ferguson and I’m saying what have the Democrats done for you? What have they done to alleviate poverty? What have they done on crime? What have they done for the young men in your community and you know what it’s starting to gain traction."
Paul went to Chicago last month, spoke to the Baltimore County GOP earlier this month, and spoke at the Constitution Center and held a rally outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia last month.
Rand Paul Calls Mass Incarceration The “New Jim Crow” While Slamming Clinton // Buzzfeed News // Andrew Kaczynski and Megan Apper – June 26, 2015
Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul said Thursday that Bill and Hillary Clinton are “proud” to have presided “over the incarceration of a whole generation of young black men” in comments singling out mass incarceration as “the new Jim Crow.”
The senator from Kentucky is an advocate for making changes to the criminal justice system and has co-sponsored legislation with Democratic Sen. Cory Booker to help keep nonviolent criminal offenders out of prison.
“Bill Clinton presided over the incarceration of a whole generation of young black men,” Paul said on The Wilkow Majority. “We are putting young black men in jail at a rate never before seen in history and it’s because of this war on drugs.”
Paul said Hillary and Bill Clinton were “proud to do this.”
Hillary Clinton spoke earlier this year of ending “the era of mass incarceration.” Clinton’s remarks rejected the “tough-on-crime” mantra and legislation advocated by her and her husband during his time as president which included signing the 1994 crime bill.
“And so Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, they were all proud to do this,” said Paul. “But now that I’ve been speaking out and saying that mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow, now all of a sudden the Clintons are saying, ‘oh wait a minute, we are going to be back on the other side of this issue right now.’”
Paul said Democrats saw him as “a threat to Hillary Clinton” because he goes to communities like Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland and says “what have the Democrats done for you?”
“And I hate to tell you this, but someone from the Democrat National Committee is listening to our radio interview right now and they are looking for ways to attack me, because they see me as a threat to Hillary Clinton, because I’m going to the south side of Chicago, I’m going to the inner city of Philadelphia, I’m going to Baltimore, I’m going to Ferguson, and I’m saying, what have the Democrats done for you? What have they done to alleviate poverty? What have they done for crime? What have they done for the young men in your community and you know why? It’s starting to gain traction, and that is why we lead her in several states that Obama won.”
Paul said he that understands marijuana isn’t good for people, but the law needs to be fair and not incarcerate one race more than another.
“I think that the law needs to be fair and that we shouldn’t incarcerate one race more than another and I think the law should be fair in the sense that the penalties should be proportionate to the crime,” said Paul.
“You can kill someone in Kentucky and be eligible for parole in 12 years, but we have people in jail for marijuana sales for 55 years, life, 20 years, 25 years. We’ve gone too far in all of this and then when you add up the numbers, even the white kids and black kids use marijuana at about the same rate and in national surveys the arrests and incarceration rate is four times greater for black males than it is for white males.”
Rand Paul's Tax Plan May Be Radical, But It's Not Impossible // Forbes // Joseph Thorndike – June 26, 2015
Last week Rand Paul unveiled his plan for the “Fair and Flat Tax.” That makes him the latest – but certainly not the last – presidential candidate to embrace the rhetoric of flatness. If recent experience is any guide, it won’t be an easy sell. Just ask Steve Forbes, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, or any of the other failed candidates who put flat taxes at the center of their campaigns.
A long view of history, however, suggests that flat taxes may have some legs. The United States has been using graduated rates for the federal income tax since 1913, but there’s precedent for flat rate levies, too.
Congress has twice enacted single-rate taxes on income, the first in 1861 and again in 1894. Both disappeared before they were collected. But the debate surrounding their adoption — as well as the discussion in 1913 — reveals ample support for proportional, rather than progressive, taxation.
Confusing Polls
When it comes to taxes, “flat” is one of those words that often elicits favorable poll responses. Last yearReason.com reported that 62 percent of Americans endorsed the idea of a flat rate tax on income. Similarly,Rasmussen Reports found that 58 percent of respondents favored a flat income tax in 2011.
Other polls have been less encouraging. In 2011 The Hill found that only 35 percent of respondents supported a single-rate tax. Another 2011 survey found similar results. “Flat tax proponents face an uphill battle,” observed David Brady and Tammy Frisby in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Americans in general opposed the flat tax proposal 39% to 28%.”
If the polls are confusing, it’s probably because the flat tax is confusing, too. There is no single definition of a flat tax. Politicians have used the term to describe a wide range of plans with little resemblance to each other. Some flat taxes are imposed on income, others on consumption. Some are flat in the sense that they wipe out all deductions, credits, exclusions, and similar tax preferences. Others – including Paul’s – retain some popular (and costly) deductions, like those for mortgage interest and charitable giving.
A single rate would seem crucial for any tax claimed to be flat. But some flat taxes have featured graduated rates. Anyone remember the Fair Flat Tax Act of 2007? Don’t let the name fool you; it was introduced not by Paul but by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. Wyden, who now serves as ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, made room in his outline for a series of graduated rates as well as some popular deductions.
However, almost every flat tax is rooted in arguments for less graduation in the rate structure. Even Wyden’s plan would have slashed the number of brackets from six to three.
The hostility to graduation can seem nonsensical. After all, we’ve had a progressive rate structure for more than a century; it’s obviously crucial to the tax system.
Or maybe not.
The 1913 income tax was not flat. It featured graduated rates ranging as high as 7 percent. But progressive rates were peripheral in arguments for adopting the tax. Supporters wanted to use the income tax to counterbalance regressive consumption taxes, especially the tariff. In general, they believed that even a flat rate tax would do the job.
“Graduated rates were not seen as essential to achieve the goals of an income tax,” explained legal historian Steven Bank in a 1996 article on the origins of the flat tax. “The progressive rates were a response to the perception that the tariff was burdening the poor, in the form of higher prices, with more than their fair share of taxes.” The thinking was that when levied with the tariff, the income tax would produce a relatively flat overall tax burden, he said. “Thus, consistent with the country’s tradition, the income tax in the Act of 1913 was used to achieve the goal of a flat or proportionate rate tax system,” Bank wrote.
Of course, rates increased rapidly after 1913. Just four years later, income in the top bracket was taxed at 77 percent. But for the most part, the income tax was viewed as a compensatory tax, designed to balance other, more regressive levies. In 1913 the tariff needed a counterweight. Today, it’s payroll taxes.
Over the years, some left-leaning politicians have suggested using the income tax as a way to redistribute wealth or income. Franklin Roosevelt comes to mind. But more moderate (and numerous) politicians have defended the income tax as a way to redistribute the tax burden, with the ultimate goal being something close to proportionality.
Which brings us back to Paul’s Fair Flat Tax. It’s certainly radical and a sharp break with the recent past. As my colleague David Brunori has pointed out, it would reshape not just the tax system, but government as a whole, by starving the federal government of revenue.
But radical doesn’t mean implausible. Since proportionality lies at the heart of Paul’s plan, history suggests it might have a shot.
Rand Paul Is Winning the Pot Reform Primary // U.S. News & World Report // Steven Nelson – June 26, 2015
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is the favored candidate of leading marijuana reform advocates. Pot legalization is popular with young voters and likely will be on a half-dozen state ballots in 2016.
Sen. Rand Paul bested his rivals for the White House in a candidate report card issued Friday by the Marijuana Policy Project, one of the largest organizations pushing to regulate the drug like alcohol.
The group gave the Kentucky Republican an A- in recognition of his efforts to overhaul federal drug laws and his support of states’ right to legalize marijuana.
Second place – a B+ – went to former Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who has not officially announced a bid, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, a former Republican seeking the Democratic nomination.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent also seeking the Democratic nomination, got a B, as did former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican who favors reducing criminal penalties.
MPP leaders have discussed formally endorsing Paul, and the group's political action committee this year contributed $5,000 to his presidential campaign, $5,000 to his Senate re-election bid and another $5,000 to a Paul-supporting PAC.
None of the other presidential campaigns have received funding from the group, which helped spearhead the successful legalization campaigns in Alaska and Colorado.
No serious contender has said they support legalization, despite majority support in many polls. Sanders and Chafee, however, have hinted they may evolve on the issue.
The Democrats’ front-runner, Hillary Clinton, earned a B- in the report card for supporting states’ right to legalize the drug and expanded research.
Many leading Republican contenders fared worse. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who supports state autonomy, got a C+. Businessman Donald Trump earned a C.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., got a D, as did Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is widely expected to seek the GOP nomination. Also earning a D was Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet announced if he will seek the Democratic nomination.
Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., who has promised to end state-regulated recreational marijuana sales if he's elected president, earned an F.
After a tepid start to presidential run, Ted Cruz plans to ‘play hard’ in Iowa // WaPo // Katie Zezima – June 26, 2015
RED OAK, Iowa — Sen. Ted Cruz wound his way through the small towns and rolling hills of western Iowa last week, doing the gruntwork of retail campaigning: shaking hands, posing for photos, giving stump speeches and, most importantly: making entreaties for support in a state that could determine the trajectory of his presidential campaign.
“Whether we win or lose, this race will be decided by the men and women gathered here,” he said last Friday to a group of mostly older people sitting on folding chairs in a conference room.
Iowa’s first-in-the nation caucuses are often a high-stakes event for presidential campaigns — and this year the state is especially critical for Cruz, a stalwart conservative in a crowded field. The Texas Republican’s uncompromising stances seem designed to appeal to the conservative base that dominates the state GOP, as well as the state’s heavy concentration of evangelical Christians. On Friday in Sheldon, Iowa, Cruz forcefully denounced Supreme Court rulings upholding a key part of the Affordable Care Act and affirming the rights of gays to marry nationwide.
But the early evidence suggests that victory in Iowa may be an uphill climb for the Texas senator.
Cruz’s poll numbers in the state are underwhelming so far: a Des Moines register poll last month put him in eighth place among likely caucus-goers, with 5 percent saying they would support Cruz. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was in first place with 17 percent of the vote. State Republicans have expressed surprise that Cruz, who has only one paid staffer in Iowa, had visited the state as an officially declared candidate just twice before last week’s trip.
Now Cruz is doubling down on the Hawkeye State. Cruz is again making a swing through the state Friday. His last stop: a speech Saturday at Drake University in Des Moines, titled “Believe Again.”
“I’m going to spend a lot of time in the great state of Iowa,” Cruz promised more than a week ago at a restaurant in Denison, where a print of “American Gothic” hung on the wall behind him and a man rang a cowbell each time the senator made an applause line.
He has visited the state twice before as a candidate, with several more visits in the works over the coming weeks. He is vowing to visit all of Iowa’s 99 counties, launching a fresh push to recruit key grass-roots volunteers and opening a campaign office soon.
“If Ted Cruz is your guy, I want to talk to you,” Bryan English, Cruz’s Iowa campaign chair, said to about 75 people who came to hear the candidate speak in Red Oak. They included the father of Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who said he plans to support Cruz.
But Ernst herself — who took a very public motorcycle ride with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) earlier this month — remains uncommitted. Other key state leaders have already signed on to other campaigns. And some here wonder why it took so long for Cruz to push this hard in Iowa.
Cruz went to Iowa a week after his announcement in March, and returned in April to attend a homeschooler conference in Des Moines. A third planned trip was canceled because of weather. He did not attend the Ernst event three weeks ago that featured many other GOP presidential hopefuls — including Walker — instead speaking at the North Carolina Republican convention. Cruz has also had to spend a large chunk of time in Washington, where the Senate has been in session.
“We haven’t seen him,” said Craig Robinson, a former Iowa Republican party political director. “It’s one of those things where if he’s going to be competitive here, and he has some stiff competition for the space he wants to occupy, he has to have a more constant presence in the state. You can’t be gone for two months.”
An Iowa Republican who did not want to be identified in order to speak freely was more blunt: “Ted Cruz can absolutely win the Iowa caucuses, but thus far he’s not running the campaign that can do it for him.”
In an interview Saturday, Cruz defended his strategy, saying much of the campaign’s time and energy for the first few months had been focused on fundraising, on recruiting statewide leadership teams and on peeling away caucus-goers who once backed current presidential candidates, including Mike Huckabee, who won the state in 2008, and 2012 caucus winner Rick Santorum. Members of Cruz’s Iowa team include former Iowa secretary of state Matt Schultz, who supported Santorum, and Joel Kurtinitis and state Sen. Jason Schultz, who both endorsed former Texas congressman Ron Paul during the last cycle.
Cruz said he is “playing hard” here – as well as New Hampshire, where he wants to appeal to Catholics, and South Carolina, where there are many evangelical Christians.
“If you look at our leadership teams you see conservatives, you see evangelicals, you see libertarians … I’m not aware of any other candidate that enjoys that breadth of support from the many groups that comprise the Republican majority,” Cruz said before an event at an indoor gun range in Johnston, Iowa.
Cruz advisers say that the candidate’s strategy is to coalesce his conservative base while pulling in support from evangelicals and conservative libertarians and casting aside what the candidate calls “the mushy middle.”
The campaign describes the electorate in a bracket-style system: conservatives, libertarians, evangelicals, and moderates. It believes Cruz’s path to victory involves winning the conservative bracket and getting large numbers of people in the evangelical bracket, as well as libertarians, to back his campaign.
But the biggest focus has been on fundraising. Cruz’s campaign raised $4 million in its first week and a collection of super PACs supporting the candidate have raised $37 million, according to CNN. The campaign itself said it is on pace to have raised $8 million to $10 million by June 30.
“In the early parts of a campaign, you cannot succeed without having the resources to communicate your message,” Cruz said.“There are seasons and phases in a presidential race.
“There are other candidates in the field who are not seeing significant fundraising success, who can spend every day doing nothing but grass-roots events because they’re not having success raising money,” he said.
Cruz’s campaign downplayed its minimal staffing in the state saying that its strategy all along has been to focus on recruiting the key, lesser-known grass-roots activists who can make inroads with his base, and to reach to conservatives who may not have voted in 2012.
“The era when a candidate could come move to an early state for a year, catch fire and then build a national campaign based on the momentum of that one state is no longer likely to occur because the time frame is compressed,” said Cruz. “And so we are also very deliberately running a national campaign.”
Cruz advisers said the candidate needs to win one of the first three primary states — or be in the top three in Iowa. Additionally, the campaign is pouring resources into states that will vote March 1 and March 15, a strategy they believe will position Cruz well after the crowded early primaries and caucuses shake out. Regardless of outcome, the campaign wants to be positioned to immediately dive into the delegate-rich second round of states, which includes Cruz’s home state of Texas.
“Our intent is to be standing” on March 15, an adviser said. Cruz will spend August stumping in states including Arkansas, Wyoming and Alabama. Cruz’s team also wants to try to solidify conservatives in more liberal states such as Massachusetts and Minnesota.
But Iowa Republicans believe the state is ripe for a candidate like Cruz. While Cruz advisers say they have solid teams in New Hampshire, where he has drawn large, rowdy crowds, and South Carolina, they are traditionally less friendly to a candidate, such as Cruz.
“I think Iowa is crucial for his candidacy,” Robinson said. “I’m surprised by his campaign strategy of saying we’re going to compete later on in the race and not go all in in Iowa. Iowa is a state where he can make his mark.”
In this evangelical-dominated state, Cruz has the advantage of being able to deploy an evangelical pastor as a campaign surrogate: his father, Rafael. The elder Cruz has often drawn headlines for the wrong reasons — for instance, comparing President Obama to Fidel Castro. But he’s been warmly received by many of the evangelical voters who made up 57 percent of Republican caucus-goers in 2012, according to entrance polls. He’s been a steady presence here in Iowa, showing up at more than a dozen events across the state over a three-day period this month.
Cruz assailed against what he said are efforts to strip away religious freedom. He reaffirmed his promises to protect the Second Amendment, repeal Obamacare and abolish the IRS. He vowed to destroy the Islamic State, and ensure Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear weapon. And he described himself as the only candidate who is willing to take on anyone — Republican, Democrat or otherwise — to fight for his beliefs.
“If you look at the other candidates and ask on those issues on your list, where have they stood and led. What have they meaningfully done to lead on those issues?” he said in Denison.
Cruz paces around when delivering speeches and speaks with the cadence and zeal of a sermon. Here in Red Oak, he asked the enthusiastic crowd to imagine a president that won’t allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.
“Scripture tells us there’s nothing new under the sun,” he said.
“We could if we could get you in there,” a woman in the crowd said.
“Well, Amen, ma’am,” said Cruz. “That’s exactly what we’re working to do.”
Rick Perry Calls Supreme Court’s Gay Marriage Ruling a Shame // KYFO // Justin Massoud – June 26, 2015
Former Texas Governor and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has accused the U.S. Supreme Court of ignoring the 10th amendment with its decision to overturn all gay marriage bans in the country.
“Regardless of what any court says, true marriage will always be between one man and one woman,” said Perry via press release. “This truth is biblical and a super majority of Texans have affirmed this through the democratic election process. It is a shame that once again the Supreme Court has decided to ignore the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and decided to legislate from the bench and impose their will on the states.”
The Supreme Court ruled in favor (5-4) of legalizing same-sex marriage Friday (June 26). Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Steven Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Anthony Kennedy were the majority opinion in the decision. Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito dissented.
Santorum Compares Same-Sex Marriage Ruling to Dred Scott Case // Politics PA // Nick Field – June 26, 2015
The Supreme Court ruled that state bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional and Rick Santorum is not happy.
The former Pennsylvania Senator and presidential candidate has long been an opponent of same-sex marriage and his response today was no different.
“Today, five unelected justices decided to redefine the foundational unit that binds together our society without public debate or input,” Santorum stated. “Now is the people’s opportunity respond because the future of the institution of marriage is too important to not have a public debate. The Court is one of three co-equal branches of government and, just as they have in cases from Dred Scott to Plessy, the Court has an imperfect track record. The stakes are too high and the issue too important to simply cede the will of the people to five unaccountable justices.”
The cases Santorum cited, Dred Scott and Plessy, are generally considered the most infamous in the history of the Supreme Court.
In Dred Scott v. Sanford, the Court ruled that Scott, a slave at the time in Missouri, could not sue for his freedom. Additionally, Chief Justice Roger Taney’s majority opinion asserted that African-Americans, whether then enslaved or free, were not American citizens and therefore had no legal standing.
The Dred Scott case is considered by historians as one of the major causes of the Civil War. It is unlikely today’s decision will lead to similar circumstances.
The Plessy v. Ferguson decision declared racial segregation as constitutional and created the “separate but equal” doctrine.
Santorum went on to state that he will lead the fight against the Court’s ruling that LGBT Americans have, as the Justice Kennedy put it, “equal dignity in the eyes of the law.”
“As President, I will be committed to using the bully pulpit of the White House to lead a national discussion on the importance to our economy and our culture of mothers and fathers entering into healthy marriages so that every child is given their birthright- to be raised by their mother and father in a stable, loving home,” Santorum concluded. “I will stand for the preservation of religious liberty and conscience, to believe what you are called to believe free from persecution. And I will ensure that the people will have a voice in decisions that impact the rock upon which our civilization is built.”
Justice Kennedy did address religious liberty, however, in his majority opinion.
The following is the last paragraph of section IV of Kennedy’s opinion:
Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons. In turn, those who believe allowing same-sex marriage is proper or indeed essential, whether as a matter of religious conviction or secular belief, may engage those who disagree with their view in an open and searching debate. The Constitution, however, does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex.
Of course, Santorum’s statement was released just a half hour after the ruling was announced so it is possible he had not yet read the decision.
Mike Huckabee rages at Supreme Court's marriage ruling: It's like repealing 'the law of gravity' // Business Insider // Colin Campbell – June 26, 2015
Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) fumed at the Supreme Court on Friday after it legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
"I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat," he said in a statement.
Huckabee, a former pastor and one of the most outspoken social conservatives in the 2016 race, urged elected officials not to "surrender" in the face of the ruling.
"This ruling is not about marriage equality, it's about marriage redefinition. This irrational, unconstitutional rejection of the expressed will of the people in over 30 states will prove to be one of the court's most disastrous decisions, and they have had many," he said. "The only outcome worse than this flawed, failed decision would be for the President and Congress, two co-equal branches of government, to surrender in the face of this out-of-control act of unconstitutional, judicial tyranny."
Huckabee also compared the ruling to repealing the law of gravity.
"The Supreme Court can no more repeal the laws of nature and nature's God on marriage than it can the law of gravity. Under our Constitution, the court cannot write a law, even though some cowardly politicians will wave the white flag and accept it without realizing that they are failing their sworn duty to reject abuses from the court," he continued.
The former governor also raged at the Supreme Court on Thursday after it upheld a critical component of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Carson, Forrester endorse Fiorina’s campaign // Concord Monitor – June 26, 2015
Two Republican state senators have voiced support for Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and one of the many GOP candidates for president.
State Sens. Sharon Carson of Londonderry and Jeanie Forrester of Meredith announced their endorsement in a press release from Fiorina’s campaign Thursday.
“Carly’s positive vision for unlocking the potential of our nation is appealing to me and so many others who have met her here on the campaign trail,” Carson said in the release. “She is talking about what we can do as a nation, not dwelling on what we can’t. It is time for an uplifting, real-world leader with the executive experience to tackle our challenges. That’s Carly Fiorina.”
Forrester called the candidate “a Washington outsider.”
“Her life experiences come from the private sector, not government,” Forrester said in the press release. “Like me, Carly has a business, charitable and nonprofit background and it is this background that has prepared her to lead our nation. She has accomplished much, knows what it is like to be held accountable and understands how to work with others to inspire change. I am pleased to be supporting her for president.”
Carson echoed that support.
“Carly will bring a fresh perspective to Washington to roll back crushing regulations, simplify our onerous tax code and finally shrink the size and price tag of our federal government,” Carson said in the release. “And she has specific ideas on how to do it: use zero-based budgeting to legitimize every federal tax dollar spent and cut waste; and leave vacant those federal jobs left by retiring baby boomers. She’s serious about changing Washington for the better and I know she will be successful.”
Kerry Marsh, the New Hampshire state director of Carly for America, said the campaign is very excited to have the senators’ support.
“Senators Carson and Forrester understand, like Carly, that our nation is at a pivotal point,” Marsh said. “Republicans must win the White House in 2016 to stop Washington from crushing our small businesses and holding back the potential of our citizens. Carly’s personal story, her vision and her ability to connect with voters will give Republicans a real shot at winning in 2016 and our nation real hope for positive change.”
Presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina woos, wows Colorado Republicans Denver Post // Lynn Bartels – June 26, 2015
Carly Fiorina told Colorado Republicans Friday morning she supports civil unions but not gay marriage, health care policy should be left up to the states and to let “The Donald go do what The Donald’s going to do.”
Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and the only woman running for president in a crowded Republicans field, got her first round of applause when she talked about energy, which drives Colorado’s economy.
“We should be, we could be, we must be, we will be, if I am president of the United states, a global energy powerhouse in the 21st century,” she said.
Fiorina spoke at the Brown Palace in Denver at an event sponsored by RealClearPolitics. She also will address the Western Conservative Summit, which kicks off its three-day gathering in Denver on Friday. She received a warm reception — state Rep. Perry Buck, R-Windsor, cheered as Fiorina took the stage after being introduced by Carl Cannon, the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics.
“I like her because she’s not a politician,” said Buck, who was one of a number of Republican state lawmakers who attended the event. “I like her business smarts and the economy is the most important thing. I do think she has some great international experience that I don’t think some of the other candidates have.”
Fiorina has taken on the Democrats’ frontrunner, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in various speeches since announcing in May she was seeking the GOP nomination for president.
Here’s some of what Fiorina had to say:
GAY MARRIAGE
I support civil unions and I have for a very long time because I do not believe government can discriminate in any way. Everyone should be protected equally under the law. It’s why I provided benefits to same-sex couples way back in 1999 when I came to Hewlett Packard.
On the other hand, marriage means something very specific. I do not think it is the purview of five people on the Supreme court, unelected and unaccountable, to think in their hubris that they have the power to change that. I hope that after this decision we will focus on preserving and protecting religious liberty because there are millions of people who disagree with this decision. I’m one of those people who believes marriage is between a man and a woman.
OBAMACARE
Whatever you thought of the Supreme Court ruling, set that aside. Here are the facts about Obamacare. The law itself was longer than a Harry Potter novel and not nearly as interesting. It was accompanied by tens of thousands pages of regulations. No one understands it. We need to repeal it because it’s too complicated. My own view is we let states manage high-risk pools.
I’m a cancer survivor — I understand you can’t bankrupt the families with pre-existing conditions. If people truly need help we need to give them that. (But the decision needs to be made) in the states, as close as possible to the people impacted by the decisions.
DONALD TRUMP
Let the Donald go do what the Donald’s going to do. I’m going train my fire on Hillary Clinton, on the policies she is trying to lay out for this nation, and talk about why our values and our principles work better to unlock the potential of every American in this country.
THIS AND THAT
* I truly know from having lived and worked all over the world that only in this nation can a young woman start out typing and filing and answering the phones, go on to become the chief executive officer of the largest technology company of the world and run for the presidency of the United States.
* I’m not a professional politician but I’m not a political neophyte. I played a very active role in two presidential campaigns, I ran my own Senate campaign in the state of California. I spent last year helping other people win, including here in Colorado with Cory Gardner.
* Of course my business record is fair game. I led Hewlett-Packard for six years. It was a very difficult time. We had the dot.com bust, 9/11, the worst technology recession in 25 years.
CEO PAY, AN ISSUE RAISED BY CLINTON
You have to let shareholders vote on it and you have to be utterly transparent. Those were the rules that applied when I was the chief executive. I changed the rule so shareholders would vote on my pay.
But I don’t hear Hillary ever saying a baseball player makes too much, a Hollywood mogul makes too much, my husband made too much when he got $500,000 for a speech, gee, it wasn’t right that we accepted tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments while I was secretary of state.
CYBER ATTACK
How is is that the Office of Personnel Management couldn’t manage to push back against a Chinese cyber attack. I’ve advised two secretaries of defense, a secretary of state, a secretary of homeland security. We have known without a doubt for at least 12 years that the Chinese were trying to hack into our federal government databases. Now we have 18 million people’s most personal records in the hands of the Chinese. That, ladies and gentleman, is ineptitude.
Afterward, Fiorina received rave reviews.
“I’m pro Carly, very much so,” said state Rep. Jack Tate of Cetennial. “I think she has a depth of intellect and a record of accomplishment that makes her stand out among all the candidates.”
Debbie Brown with the Colorado Women’s Alliance said, “I get more impressed every day.” She also said she found it interesting that Fiorina doesn’t shy away from the press.
Carly Fiorina: Marco Rubio is a ‘politician with a great future,’ ‘would make a great veep’ // Washington Times // David Sherfinski – June 26, 2015
Former Hewlett-Packard CEO and 2016 GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, asked for rapid-fire assessments of some of her Republican rivals, said Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida would be a good selection for a presidential ticket — but maybe not in the slot Mr. Rubio has in mind at this point.
During a Thursday evening appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” program, Ms. Fiorina said it’s far more productive for her to be training her fire on former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton than on other Republican candidates.
“Some candidates are training all their fire on each other, and I think that’s unfortunate, actually,” she said.
But asked during a different part of the show for quick answers on some of the other 2016 GOP contenders, these were her responses:
On Mr. Rubio: “I think he is a politician with a great future. I think he would make a great veep.”
On Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky: “I think he is outside the mainstream of this party, and I think that we are a nation that must always [face] outward into the world. When we are not leading, which doesn’t mean rushing off to war, the world is a far more dangerous and tragic place.”
On former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: “Jeb Bush is a very good man. I think that it’s difficult for people to think about a Bush 3.”
On Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (who has said he’s been approached about a Walker-Rubio ticket, or vice versa): “Guy with a lot of grit — a lot of grit and a lot of heart. He has a very different experience than I do, which is a lifetime in Wisconsin politics.”
On Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas: “Smart man — a very smart man. And I think that being president requires unifying the country.”
On former Texas Gov. Rick Perry: “Rick Perry’s a good friend of mine. Rick Perry got me to outsource a lot of manufacturing from California to Texas, as a matter of fact.”
Ms. Fiorina and Mr. Rubio were actually tied for fifth at 6 percent in a CNN/WMUR poll released Thursday on the GOP field in the early state of New Hampshire.
Mr. Bush was in first at 16 percent, followed by businessman Donald Trump at 11 percent, Mr. Paul at 9 percent and Mr. Walker at 8 percent.
Creative Advice for Donald Trump, a ‘Proudly Egotistical Showman’ // NYT // Alexander Burns – June 26, 2015
In Fred Davis’s imagination, a whole new Donald J. Trump would have announced for president last week: a softer, humbler version of “the Donald,” with a common touch and a demeanor far removed from (in Mr. Davis’s words) the “proudly egotistical showman” of reality television fame.
Mr. Davis, a top adviser and creative director to Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and known for his arresting television commercials, laid out his vision for overhauling Mr. Trump in a three-page memo last month to the real estate mogul’s campaign manager.
“No braggadocio, no 757s or helicopters (as much as I love them), a different Mr. Trump would be portrayed,” Mr. Davis wrote. “Remember this morning when you said he was really ‘down to earth’? Right now that is simply unbelievable, it would be my job to make it believable and authentic.”
That pitch was as far as things went: Mr. Davis now advises Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, another likely Republican presidential candidate.
In Mr. Trump’s campaign kickoff last week, he eschewed humility entirely, announcing that he was “really rich” and estimating his net worth at nearly $9 billion, and offending Hispanics by saying that Mexican immigration means more crime, drugs and rapists in the United States.
In an interview, Mr. Davis confirmed that he had met with Trump advisers – as well as a “super PAC” supporting Senator Ted Cruz of Texas – after his longtime client, Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, announced he would not run for president. But Mr. Davis’s proposal for a toned-down Mr. Trump never gained traction.
“I never met or talked to Trump, but somebody over there didn’t seem to agree,” Mr. Davis said. “My guess is that it was the Donald, but I don’t know.”
At least superficially, Mr. Davis and Mr. Trump might have seemed an intriguing match: Mr. Davis is known for producing quirky and creative ads, which often garner intense attention online and in the political press.
Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, described Mr. Davis as “one of the best in the business,” but said the campaign planned to take its own distinctive approach to advertising.
“We’ve talked to a number of firms, but Mr. Trump, because of his success in business – he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he’s doing O.K. – he wants to do things a little differently,” Mr. Lewandowski said.
In his memo, Mr. Davis proposed an extensive – and presumably costly – media campaign, including immediate advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire, and on national cable.
“I envision something beautiful and elegant, not like any political ad ever, with minimal visuals of Mr. T. Instead it would feature a lot of people across the country talking about finally needing this place to work,” Mr. Davis wrote, adding of Mr. Trump, “He is present in the film in an understated way, causing people to think, ‘maybe I was wrong about that man.’”
Flashing enthusiasm, Mr. Davis added: “This is a very exciting project. Almost life-defining, if you’ll pardon a touch of hubris.”
How Donald Trump’s man in Iowa plans to mess with the GOP — and win // WaPo // Colby Itkowitz – June 26, 2015
DES MOINES — After years of flamboyant flirtations with presidential politics, Donald Trump is devising a genuine game plan to try to prove that an unfiltered showman can become a vote-getting presidential candidate.
It begins, appropriately for the star of TV’s “The Apprentice,” with a key hire — a longtime Republican operative who is causing a stir in GOP circles here as Trump’s man on the ground and the architect of a strategy designed to upend the traditions of the all-important, first-in-the-nation caucuses.
Chuck Laudner is best known for engineering Rick Santorum’s upset caucus win here in 2012 by driving around the former senator from Pennsylvania in his pickup truck. He is now traversing the state, laying the groundwork to convert celebrity gawkers who flock to events featuring Trump, a famed real estate magnate, into first-time caucusgoers.
To Laudner, that means running what he calls a “parallel campaign.” While the 15 or so other Republican candidates fight over the 120,000 regular GOP caucusgoers who turn out every four years to spend hours in school gymnasiums or church basements for the grueling voting process, Laudner is seeking out “people who wouldn’t be caught dead at a Republican event.”
“I want to do something different,” he added, “which means everything has to be different.”
Few in the party establishment take Trump seriously as a contender. He is considered more of a sideshow, a carnival attraction in an otherwise strong field of respected senators and governors. Many dismiss Laudner’s efforts as the work of someone enjoying the perks, such as private flights, that come with working for a mogul. John Brabender, a top Santorum adviser, said he couldn’t blame him, pointing to “the novelty of it, of being in Trump land.”
But several new polls that place Trump near the top nationally and in New Hampshire are forcing people to take notice. Although those results could be a sign simply of name recognition, Trump is signaling, through the Laudner hire and other moves, that he intends to wage a serious campaign. He has hired 40 paid campaign staff members around the country, including eight in Iowa.
“Everybody wanted Chuck,” Trump said in an interview this week, boasting of his ability to lure a top-tier consultant.
Trump bristled at the speculation, rampant among rival consultants, that Laudner is being paid far more than the typical rate. Trump and Laudner declined to disclose the salary.
“I pay him the same as everyone else,” Trump said. “It’s very important, very important. I’m a business person. I don’t want to be anybody’s sucker.”
Some Iowa party leaders say Trump has earned a second look merely by bringing a well-respected consultant on board.
Laudner, 49, has been in Iowa politics for 30 years. He ran Rep. Steve King’s first campaign, was King’s chief of staff and led the state party during the 2008 cycle.
“I think about the people who, especially inside-the-Beltway people, they will tend to make offhanded comments that Trump isn’t serious, he’s just playing with it,” said King (R). “All along the way, I said, ‘Trump’s in, I know he’s in.’ The reason I know that is Chuck wouldn’t be there if it was a game.”
Laudner has brought Trump to Iowa nine times this year, including the night he made his official campaign announcement. On Saturday, Trump is returning to headline a sold-out fundraiser for the Madison County GOP at the John Wayne museum. Later, he’ll attend a barbecue for the county party. Co-chair Heather Stancil said the group has sold more tickets for the event than ever before.
Trump and his team first identified Laudner in late 2014. During a January 2015 trip to Iowa to speak at a land investment expo, Trump invited Laudner and his wife on his jet for a chat. Trump asked them questions about caucus rules and ad buys. The couple hung back during the speech. As Laudner recalls, after an informal survey of attendees who said things such as, “That’s exactly what this country needs,” they accepted Trump’s offer.
Laudner said he immediately viewed Trump as a disruptive force for the caucuses. Although typical candidates maneuver to recruit local opinion leaders and activists and fill their living rooms for meet-and-greets, with a few dozen prospective voters at a time, Trump could operate at a higher level, Laudner said.
“If I was working for any of these other campaigns, ‘Oh, you gotta be at Pizza Ranch,’ ‘Oh, you gotta meet Suzy because Suzy is the most important person here,’ ” Laudner said, mockingly, during an interview recently at a Tasty Taco here. “And you go to this town, and Jack, if you get Jack, you get the whole town.” But, he added, pointing at the sparse lunchtime crowd, “you wouldn’t get as many people who are in this restaurant right now.”
Trump’s appeal is not based on policy alone, Laudner said. No matter that he has favored abortion rights or once supported a ban on assault weapons, positions that would be deal-breakers for most candidates vying to win the conservative-dominated Iowa caucuses. He can be presented as someone who challenges the Washington political elite with a brazen fearlessness that can come only from having nothing to lose — “the biggest bull to send into the china shop,” Laudner said.
This approach could be a risk in friendly Iowa. Just this week, Trump got into a fight with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision after he said Mexican migrants are “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”
Laudner considers the bombast as a plus, saying, “Once he stops being Donald Trump, people are going to think he’s a politician.”
To underscore the point, Laudner wants to make a scene at the Iowa State Fair in August by walking Trump through the crowd, unannounced, to create “chaos and mayhem.”
On a recent Saturday, wearing a thin-striped gray collared shirt tucked into C.E. Schmidt jeans over scuffed brown cowboy boots, Laudner was deploying one of his well-worn strategies: Be everywhere.
He slipped his TRUMP business card to attendees at a somber veterans suicide awareness event, crashed a campaign appearance by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) at a shooting range, and later met local craft brewers at an outdoor beer festival downtown.
He wore an oversize navy blue TRUMP button pinned over his left breast, a walking advertisement and a surveying tool.
At the veterans event, a man in a burgundy Elks jacket tapped the button with his index finger. “I like that pin,” said the man, Roger McQueen, president of the Iowa Elks Club.
McQueen said he doesn’t think Trump has a chance, but added that Trump “makes us think about things differently.”
Later, as Cruz spoke to about 25 people at the shooting range, Laudner asked a tea-party friend to keep his ear to the ground, and suggested that he could arrange a meeting with Trump.
At the brew fest, a man wearing an olive green “Life Is Good” baseball cap spotted Laudner’s button. The man said he was leaning in favor of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, but he added of Trump: “I like his no bull---- approach.”
Asked in an interview about Laudner’s plan to leverage celebrity into votes, Trump sounded unsure.
“I don’t know. Maybe it won’t translate,” he said. But, he added: “I get the biggest crowds, I get standing ovations. . . . I’m a person who wins. When I do things, I win. The goal isn’t to do well.”
Trump bump terrifies GOP // Politico // Jonathan Topaz and Daniel Strauss – June 26, 2015
All jokes aside, the Republican Party is officially afraid of Donald Trump.
He has virtually zero chance of winning the presidential nomination. But insiders worry that the loud-mouthed mogul is more than just a minor comedic nuisance on cable news; they fret that he’s a loose cannon whose rants about Mexicans and scorched-earth attacks on his rivals will damage the eventual nominee and hurt a party struggling to connect with women and minorities and desperate to win.
“Donald Trump is like watching a road-side accident,” said former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. “Everybody pulls over to see the mess. And Trump thinks that’s entertainment. But running for president is serious. And the risk for the party is he tarnishes everybody.”
Those risks were amplified this week after a trio of polls showed him likely to earn a coveted invitation to the party’s debates, which ironically were restructured with the very goal of avoiding the circus-like atmosphere of 2012. Having Trump introduce the 2016 field to a national audience was not exactly the Big Tent the party’s bigwigs had in mind.
“I’m not excited about somebody as divisive as Trump or somebody as obnoxious as Trump being on the debate stage,” one RNC member confessed.
Trump currently sits in eighth place among Republicans, according to the Real Clear Politics average of national polls — ahead of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. And this week, he came in second in two New Hampshire polls and in a Fox News national poll, finishing behind only former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in all three.
Under the rules instituted by Fox News, the top 10 candidates by national polling average will be included in the first debate, to be held in August. Trump’s star could easily fade by then. But as of now, he would be in — over 2012 Republican runner-up Rick Santorum, who won 11 states and around 4 million votes last cycle; over Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the popular governor of a key swing state; over South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a leading foreign policy voice in the field; and over Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, known as a policy wonk.
He’d also make it in over Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who the party establishment desperately wants on the debate stage. Fiorina has earned strong reviews from early-state activists, and party insiders say her inclusion in the debate is critical — both to demonstrate the GOP’s diversity and to help male candidates find the right tone in connecting with female voters, whom Republicans have struggled to win over in recent years.
“If Donald Trump elbows out Carly Fiorina, for example, that would be a real tragedy for our side,” said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean.
Beyond that, there are concerns about what he’ll do once he’s on the stage — namely, go hard after the other Republican hopefuls and say incendiary things that will hurt the party.
In recent months, he’s said that Fiorina got “fired viciously” from HP and “got clobbered” in her 2010 California Senate loss to Barbara Boxer (she lost by 10 points.) He’s rippped Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as “very weak” on immigration. He’s called Jeb Bush “an unhappy person” and said he “couldn’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag.”
Asked whether Trump will keep up the attacks, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said he would. “They should be worried about Donald Trump,” Lewandowski said of the party establishment, before criticizing Rubio and Bush on several issues.
And worried they are.
“There is a real concern, particularly on the debate stage, that Trump won’t play by the rules and he’s going to throw some below-the-belt punches,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.
“Republicans in a primary don’t like to see the candidates attacking each other,” said Peter Feaman, an RNC National Committeeman from Florida. “They’d like to see the focus stay where it should be, and that’s the leadership of the Democratic Party for the last eight years.”
“The challenge with somebody like him is that when you’re running in these races, there’s sort of an assumption that you’re racing with professionals,” said Katie Packer Gage, a former deputy campaign manager for Mitt Romney. “He makes up facts. It’s a challenge because he’s very unpredictable.”
And above all the RNC — whose self-assessment of the party’s failure in 2012 urged the importance of appealing to non-white voters, especially Hispanics, 71 percent of whom voted for President Barack Obama — is nervous about Trump’s rhetoric. He accused Mexican immigrants of being rapists and smuggling drugs in his announcement speech, and said at a January Republican cattle call in Iowa that half the undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are criminals. In 2011, he led the racially loaded calls for Obama to release his long-form birth certificate and, in April, blamed the president for the riots in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray.
Fleischer, one of the five co-authors of the RNC autopsy report, said Trump largely embodied all of the party’s problems with non-white voters. “When he says something irresponsible like getting Mexicans to pay for a wall, he will alienate Hispanics … he’s irresponsible, he’s divisive, he’s hurtful,” he said.
Asked about those concerns, Lewandowski responded: “Who’s saying this, old white guys? You’re saying you’ve got old white guys saying they’re concerned about Donald Trump’s messaging about illegal immigrants coming across our southern border. Wow, that speaks for itself.”
Several Iowa Republicans expressed dismay at Trump’s momentum, labeling him as someone whose brash personality and celebrity status make him a bad fit for the rural first nominating state.
“Most of the rank-and-file Republicans think, ‘What have we done to let a guy like Donald Trump on the debate stage?’” said one Iowa Republican activist with ties to the party. “When I saw the New Hampshire poll, I was like, ‘Oh my god.’”
“He’s just not Iowa nice,” the person added — relaying several stories about Trump’s recent trips to the Hawkeye State. At two events, the person said, Trump insisted on speaking earlier than scheduled so that he could get back to his home in New York City: “It was kind of embarrassing. He left before our donors showed up.” (Lewandowski said he hadn’t seen that at any events in Iowa and touted Trump’s large crowds in the state.)
Party insiders acknowledge that there’s a sliver of voters — those fed up altogether with the political system — who are drawn to Trump. “I love him,” said Jeanne Sangenario, who was on Romney’s New Hampshire women’s leadership team in 2008 and now serves as Seacoast Republican Women director. “Because I know he would take no baloney from anybody from any world leader and he would get things done and the economy would come back big time, he would get it done. No two ways about it.”
Other Republicans say voters will drown him out — particularly in a more formal debate setting where viewers expect a serious discussion.
“I do remember growing up in Kermit [Texas], every time the carnival came to town it always drew a big crowd,” said Republican consultant John Weaver, who worked on Arizona Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and has signed up to work with Kasich. “But nobody wanted the carnival barker to be mayor.”
Donald Trump bans Univision staff from his Miami golf resort // Politico // Dylan Byers – June 26, 2015
Donald Trump sent a letter to Univision CEO and president Randy Falco on Friday informing him that "no Univision officer or representative" is allowed to use his Trump National Doral, the resort and golf club immediately adjacent to Univision offices in Miami, the On Media blog has learned.
The move is the latest in a public dispute that started Thursday when Univision announced it would end its business relationship with the Miss Universe Organization, which is co-owned by Trump and NBCUniversal, based on what it described as Trump's "insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants" during the launch of his presidential campaign. Trump later announced that he would sue Univision for breach of contract and defamation, and accused Univision of defaulting on an "iron-clad" $13.5 million contract, which he said it had no right to terminate.
In the letter, Trump writes to Falco, "Please be advised that under no circumstances is any officer or representative of Univision allowed to use Trump National Doral, Miami—its golf courses or any of its facilities. Also, please immediately stop work and close the gate which is being constructed between our respective properties. If this is not done within one week, we will close it."
In a post-script, Trump added: "Please congratulate your Mexican Government officials for having made such outstanding trade deals with the United States. However, inform them that should I become President, those days are over. We are bringing jobs back to the U.S. Also, a meaningful border will be immediately created, not the laughingstock that currently exists."
Shortly after publication of this item, a Univision spokesperson told the On Media blog that the following directive had been sent to all employees: "As part of this decision, [Univision Communications Inc.] employees should not stay at Trump properties while on company business or hold events/activities there."
Trump, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, said in a speech earlier this month that he would build a wall to stop Mexico from dumping "rapists" and criminals on U.S. soil, though he later issued a statement accusing the media of trying "to distort my comments regarding Mexico and its great people." Univision said Thursday that it would severe its business relations with Trump based on those remarks, including its five-year contract with the Miss Universe Organization, which gives Univision broadcasting rights to the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants.
In an interview with the On Media blog on Thursday, Trump accused Univision of capitulating to pressure "put on them by various sources in Mexico."
"The Mexican government is putting pressure on Univision to get me to stop exposing the weaknesses the U.S. has at the southern border," he said during the interview, citing his claims that U.S. leaders were "incompetent" on trade with Mexico, allowing the country to take advantage of the U.S., and that the southern border "is a sieve" that "illegals are pouring through."
"The government of Mexico and the lobbyists and the special interests have put tremendous pressure on Univision, a company that is very subservient to Mexico, to get Trump to stop exposing the terrible situation at the border and the terrible trade deals that are being made by the United States to the benefit of Mexico," he said. "I will not be party to that, because my love of the country is too great to allow this to happen."
On Friday, Trump also published a photograph of a hand-written letter from Univision's Jorge Ramos that included the anchor's personal cell phone number, a move that was likely to inflame tensions between the two parties.
Donald Trump's war with Univision gets nasty // CNN // Tom Kludt and Mark Mooney – June 26, 2015
Donald Trump's fight with Univision is heating up. On Friday he published an anchor's personal phone number, called for the resignation of a top executive and banned all of the channel's executives from using Trump's golf course in Miami.
"Under no circumstances is any officer or representative of Univision allowed to use Trump National Doral, Miami," the letter read.
Trump added a P.S.: "Please congratulate your Mexican Government officials for having made such outstanding trade deals with the United States. However, inform them that should I become President, those days are over."
Trump also posted a personal hand-written note that Univision correspondent Jorge Ramos had sent him requesting an interview. The note included Ramos' cell phone number.
Univision fired back on Friday, sending out a memo to its employees that they "should not stay at Trump properties while on company business or hold events/activities there."
The war began after Trump made offensive statements about Mexicans, including calling them "rapists," while announcing he was running for president.
In response, Univision, the largest Spanish language network in the country, broke off its deal to air the Miss USA Pageant, which is partially owned by Trump.
Trump also lashed out at Univision President Alberto Ciurana who apologized to Trump after he posted a photo comparing Trump to the Charleston gunman who killed nine people.
"Apology not accepted," Trump wrote. "I call for his resignation as president of Univision and Univision should not be allowed to host the Presidential debate. It is a total conflict of interest." Univision plans to hold a presidential forum.
In an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett Thursday, Trump called the photo that Ciurana posted "disgraceful."
"When he put that up, he then took it down... he's got tremendous liability," Trump said.
Scott Walker calls for Constitutional amendment to let states define marriage // Politico // Daniel Strauss – June 26, 2015
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, seizing the moment after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, called Friday for a Constitutional amendment that would allow the states to decide whether gay marriage should be legal.
Walker’s call came shortly after the high court ruled 5-4 that same-sex couples could marry across the country, overturning a number of state same-sex marriage bans.
The ruling was “a grave mistake,” the Republican governor said, touting his support for amending his state’s constitution “to protect the institution of marriage from exactly this type of judicial activism.”
“As a result of this decision, the only alternative left for the American people is to support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to reaffirm the ability of the states to continue to define marriage,” Walker said in the statement.
Walker’s statement put him directly at odds with one potential 2016 rival, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said he didn’t support pursuing a constitutional amendment.
“[G]iven the quickly changing tide of public opinion on this issue, I do not believe that any attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution could possibly gain the support of three-fourths of the states or a supermajority in the U.S. Congress,” Graham said in his statement. “Rather than pursuing a divisive effort that would be doomed to fail, I am committing myself to ensuring the protection of religious liberties of all Americans.”
Such an amendment would face steep odds on Capitol Hill.
Bobby Jindal: Supreme Court Decision Is Not the End of the Obamacare Debate // TIME // Bobby Jindal – June 26, 2015
Thursday, the Supreme Court had its say on Obamacare; soon, the American people will have theirs.
As a matter of law, the Court’s decision upholding subsidies for states participating in the federally run insurance exchange, healthcare.gov, violates the plain text of Obamacare. The statute expressly restricted insurance subsidies to those individuals purchasing coverage through an “Exchange established by the state.” But just as Chief Justice Roberts three years ago decreed that the individual mandate functioned as a tax, even though both Congress and President Barack Obama stated that it wasn’t, the Court decided that “Exchange established by the state” meant any type of Exchange, whether established by states or by Washington.
It’s a sad outcome for the rule of law — and the English language. But when it comes to the political debate surrounding Obamacare, the Court’s ruling ultimately decides little. Of course, Obama, who took an entirely predictable victory lap yesterday, would have you believe otherwise. But we’ve seen his triumphalism before — and have seen it come crashing back to reality.
Three years ago, Obama stated he wouldn’t “refight old battles,” mere hours after seven Supreme Court justices — including his own former solicitor general — struck down the law’s mandatory Medicaid expansion as unconstitutional “economic dragooning” of the states. On election night 2012, the president promised to “move forward” — months before at least 4.7 million Americans received insurance cancellation notices thanks to Obamacare. And this April, the president arrogantly declared that “the repeal debate is and should be over” — mere weeks before his native state of Hawaii shut its failed insurance exchange, an effort the federal government spent more than $200 million funding.
So, much as the President would like the debate on Obamacare to be over, it isn’t. The debate persists in large part because the law has singularly failed in its prime objective: Containing health care costs. Consider why this Supreme Court case mattered so much to the administration in the first place. The law spends over $1.7 trillion on subsidized coverage to make insurance more “affordable,” largely to offset the new mandates and regulations that have raised the price of insurance.
And with myriad insurers proposing double-digit premium increases for next year — some as high as 50% — candidate Obama’s 2008 promise to lower insurance premiums by $2,500 per family is further away then ever. No wonder the law remains singularly unpopular. When it comes to winning the debate on Obamacare, there is still all to play for.
But in order to win, we conservatives first have to play. That means outlining our alternative vision for health care: How we would restore freedom and choice to a health care sector currently lacking for both — and most importantly, how we would slow, and hopefully reverse, the trend of skyrocketing health care costs.
As I write this, I stand as the sole major declared presidential candidate (with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders) to put forward my vision on health care, and an alternative to Obamacare. As proud as I am of my plan, that is a boast I wish I were not able to make. Because Republicans, from the top down, must outline a clear and coherent vision for health care to win the trust of the American people to repeal this President’s health law.
While we should be shouting our vision from the rooftops, many of my fellow candidates have managed barely a whisper about how exactly they would repeal Obamacare, or what they would do to tackle the main issue plaguing our health care system: rising costs. Sen. Mike Lee recently stated that lack of an Obamacare replacement plan should be a disqualifier for any conservative presidential candidate. He’s absolutely right. We owe it to the American people to release our plans well before November 2016, and to have a robust debate within our party about what should come after Obamacare.
Because, contrary to this President’s self-proclaimed edicts, yesterday’s Supreme Court decision is not the end of the debate on Obamacare.
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, the debate shifts back to the elected branches of government — the ones that caused our health care mess in the first place. It is there that conservatives can complete our work to repeal Obamacare.
Jindal: Obama & ‘apprentice-in-chief’ Hillary Clinton taking U.S. down ‘wrong path’ // Radio Iowa // O. Kay Henderson – June 26, 2015
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is in Iowa today, his first trip here since officially entering the Republican presidential race this week.
“I think as conservatives we need to stand up for our principles,” Jindal told Radio Iowa this morning. “Let’s do something new. Let’s endorse our own beliefs. You know, for too long conservatives have tried to hide our beliefs, try to make the left and the media like us and it doesn’t work.”
Jindal said President Obama and Hillary Clinton have led the country down the wrong path economically, internationally and culturally.
“This president has done more damage in my lifetime than I’ve seen from any other president in our country,” Jindal said. “I worry that his apprentice-in-chief, Hillary Clinton, his apprentice-in-waiting, would continue down this wrong path.”
Jindal accuses the Obama Administration of being more interested in waging war on trans fat than on “naming” and defeating radical Islamic terrorists. And Jindal said, domestically, the Affordable Care Act is a bad law that needs to be repealed and replaced with market-based alternatives.
Kasich urged to use vetoes in budget // Toledo Blade // Jim Provance – June 27, 2015
COLUMBUS — A $71.2 billion, two-year budget is heading for Gov. John Kasich’s desk as the calls rolled in for him to exercise his line-item veto pen.
“There are going to be some vetoes, and there will probably be some disagreements on vetoes,” he said Friday. He offered no clues as to what they might be.
The House voted 61-34 to send the spending plan to the governor, with a single Democrat joining Republicans in support and three Republicans breaking with the majority to oppose it.
Among other things, the governor has been urged to strike language imposing more restrictions on abortion clinics, penalizing Toledo and other cities that won court orders to continue operating traffic cameras, restricting the collective bargaining power of some workers, and eliminating journalists’ ability to review gun concealed carry permit records.
The governor will sign the budget Tuesday.
The plan contains an estimated $1.97 billion in income tax breaks for businesses and individuals over two years, pumps $955 million more into basic K-12 school aid, and orders a freeze in college and university tuition over the next two years.
The plan banks hundreds of millions in surpluses, bringing reserves to nearly $2 billion. Perhaps days from announcing a GOP bid for the White House, he contrasted that with the federal fiscal picture.
“Normally in good times, it’s party time,” he said. “Everybody wants to spend. The [Ohio legislative] leaders feel the pressure over this. I’ve been part of this process. I left Washington with a $5 billion surplus. The next thing I knew we were $18 trillion in the hole down there with more debt and more spending.”
State Reps. Teresa Fedor and Michael Ashford of Toledo and Mike Sheehy of Oregon, all Democrats, opposed the budget.
“We could have balanced more of our budget to have more opportunity for the middle class,” Ms. Fedor said. “More charter school reform hasn’t happened yet. The issues for Toledo need to be addressed. The traffic camera issue should lay low until we find out from the courts what is happening, and there was definitely an attack on women and their right to control their reproductive systems and health care.”
The budget won support from all northwest Ohio Republicans — Reps. Barbara Sears (Monclova Township), Tim Brown (Bowling Green), Robert Sprague (Findlay), Steven Kraus (Sandusky), Robert McColley (Napoleon), Bill Reineke (Tiffin), Bob Cupp (Lima), Tony Burkley (Payne), and Jeff McClain (Upper Sandusky).
With the exception of increasing the cigarette tax by 35 cents to $1.60 a pack, lawmakers did not embrace Mr. Kasich’s proposals to move further from income taxes toward consumption taxes. The governor had proposed higher taxes on sales, oil and natural gas drilling, other tobacco products, and larger businesses.
Mr. McColley said transitioning to a consumption tax-based economy is probably a good idea over the long run.
“But we need to do that slowly and deliberately,” he said. “It is something we need to do with a great deal of planning, which is one reason I’m happy to see the 2020 tax (study) council being introduced in the budget and being implemented in the near future.”
The budget would reduce income taxes by 6.3 percent across all brackets. It also offers a 75 percent cut on the first $250,000 earned by small businesses, a 100 percent cut next year, and a flat 3 percent tax on income above $250,000.
“We feel this budget is tired…,” Rep. Denise Driehaus (D., Cincinnati) said. “I think this budget was offered back in 2005. It’s got the same tax policy. It’s as if we didn’t learn anything from that… I know we expect a different result.”
The budget promises no school district will receive less state funding than it did this year and offers about $200 million more to colleges and universities in exchange for a two-year freeze on tuition and efforts to reduce costs.
Republican House members pointed to efforts to control Medicaid costs, but did not mention that the budget quietly continues to fund the controversial Medicaid expansion Mr. Kasich has championed.
Pro-choice advocates are urging the governor to strike language from the plan that threatens to close the Capital Care Clinic, Toledo’s last abortion clinic. Capital Care recently won the first round in its legal fight against the state’s attempt to close it because its emergency-care agreement is with the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, more than 50 miles away.
The budget bill would require such an agreement to be with a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic.
Move On or Keep Fighting? GOP Candidates React to Gay-Marriage Ruling // WSJ – June 26, 2015
The Supreme Court decision guaranteeing marriage equality to gay couples drew criticism on Friday from Republicans running for president in 2016, but the contenders took different tones and promised different degrees of pushback–signaling just what a tricky political issue this is for the party.
Some candidates expressed disappointment but signaled it was time to move on, while others blasted the court and vowed to keep fighting.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum said: “Today, five unelected justices decided to redefine the foundational unit that binds together our society without public debate or input … The stakes are too high and the issue too important to simply cede the will of the people to five unaccountable justices.”
Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, struck a significantly less confrontational note:
“While I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision, their ruling is now the law of the land. I call on Congress to make sure deeply held religious views are respected and protected. The government must never force Christians to violate their religious beliefs. I support same-sex civil unions but to me, and millions like me, marriage is a religious service not a government form.”
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush restated his support for traditional marriage but struck a more conciliatory tone about accepting gays.
“Guided by my faith, I believe in traditional marriage. I believe the Supreme Court should have allowed the states to make this decision,” he wrote. “I also believe that we should love our neighbor and respect others, including those making lifetime commitments. In a country as diverse as ours, good people who have opposing views should be able to live side by side. It is now crucial that as a country we protect religious freedom and the right of conscience and also not discriminate.”
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said the right to redefine marriage should rest with the states but that he accepts the court’s ruling as the law.
“As we look ahead, it must be a priority of the next president to nominate judges and justices committed to applying the Constitution as written and originally understood,” he said in a statement. The next president must also “strive to protect the First Amendment rights of religious institutions and millions of Americans whose faith holds a traditional view of marriage.”
Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co., called the court’s decision “only the latest example of an activist court ignoring its constitutional duty to say what the law is and not what the law should be.” Ms. Fiorina said in the statement that the ability to “redefine marriage” should have stayed among the states.
Echoing the concerns of others in the GOP field, she also expressed concern about “protecting the religious liberties and freedom of conscience for those Americans that profoundly disagree with today’s decision.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee blasted the court’s decision upholding gay marriage: “The Supreme Court has spoken with a very divided voice on something only the Supreme Being can do — redefine marriage,” said Mr. Huckabee, a candidate who is a favorite among evangelical conservatives. “I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.”
Donald Trump tweeted his reaction to the ruling, taking a jab at Mr. Bush in the process. “Once again the Bush appointed Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has let us down. Jeb pushed him hard! Remember!”
Chief Justice Roberts was one of the four dissenting justices in Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down restrictions on same-sex marriage in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee that a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court upheld last year and validated a series of lower court opinions that expanded the institution across most of the nation since 2012.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a GOP presidential candidate who is trying to appeal to evangelical voters, accused the court of bowing to public opinion and threatening the religious freedom of people who are committed to traditional marriage.
“The government should not force those who have sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage to participate in these ceremonies. That would be a clear violation of America’s long held commitment to religious liberty as protected in the First Amendment.”
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry joined those who said they were disappointed, and responded to promising to appoint more conservative justices to the bench if he was president.
“I fundamentally disagree with the court rewriting the law and assaulting the 10th Amendment. Our founding fathers did not intend for the judicial branch to legislate from the bench, and as president, I would appoint strict Constitutional conservatives who will apply the law as written.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is expected to announce his candidacy for the GOP nomination, is the only member of the 2016 field to call for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling. In a statement, he called the ruling a “grave mistake” and said that the power to redefine marriage should rest with the states.
“I call on the president and all governors to join me in reassuring millions of Americans that the government will not force them to participate in activities that violate their deeply held religious beliefs,” he said.
Mr. Walker’s call for a constitutional amendment illustrates he has shifted his views to more aggressively back gay-marriage bans since the court in 2014 declined to consider requests from Wisconsin and four other states to reinstate such bans. Mr. Walker had backed his state’s ban on gay marriage but said his fight was “over in Wisconsin” after the court’s decision, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Earlier this month, he told ABC News that if the court ruled in favor of gay marriage, a constitutional amendment was “the only next approach.”
Robert Nichols, a spokesman for another potential candidate, Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, said Mr. Kasich would respect the court’s ruling. “The governor has always believed in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, but our nation’s highest court has spoken and we must respect its decision.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is is expected to announce he’s running for president next Tuesday, said that he didn’t agree with the majority’s opinion and sided with Chief Justice Roberts in arguing that voters, not the courts, should have decided on the issue.
Still, Mr. Christie, who believes marriage should be reserved to heterosexual couples, said that the U.S. should now abide by the law. Mr. Christie dropped his opposition to gay marriage in New Jersey after the state’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of it in 2013.
“Our job is going to be to support the law of the land and that’s the law of the land,” Mr. Christie said while taking questions after signing the New Jersey budget on Friday.
Reaction from the Democratic candidates was celebratory:
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton was the first White House contender to tweet her reaction to the ruling:
Mrs. Clinton, who came out in support of gay marriage in 2013, also issued a statement praising the Supreme Court ruling:
“This ruling is an affirmation of the commitment of couples across the country who love one another,” Mrs. Clinton said. “It reflects the will of the vast and growing multitude of Americans who believe that LGBT couples deserve to be recognized under the law and treated equally in the eyes of society. And it represents our country at its best: inclusive, open, and striving towards true equality.”
She added that the next goal must be a broader effort to end discrimination. “While we celebrate today, our work won’t be finished until every American can not only marry, but live, work, pray, learn and raise a family free from discrimination and prejudice,” she said. “We cannot settle for anything less.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont also hailed the court’s decision. “Today the Supreme Court fulfilled the words engraved upon its building: ‘Equal justice under law.’
“This decision is a victory for same-sex couples across our country as well as all those seeking to live in a nation where every citizen is afforded equal rights. For far too long our justice system has marginalized the gay community and I am very glad the Court has finally caught up to the American people.”
Martin O’Malley recalled passing gay marriage in Maryland as governor and tweeted, “There’s no greater human right than love.”
Affordable Care Act alternative now key for GOP hopefuls // Boston Herald // Lindsay Kalter – June 26, 2015
The Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare will give GOP presidential candidates a new angle to woo voters, but they’ll have to hone their rhetoric and swap out the old “repeal” mantra for well-defined plans to improve it, political operatives say.
“It’s a huge opportunity for Republicans if they handle it right,” said Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of New Hampshire Republican Party. “It’s not enough for Republican candidates to say, ‘We need to repeal every word of Obamacare.’ The Republican position on health care cannot be, ‘Do not get sick, do not get hurt, do not get old.’ They have to come up with an alternative.”
The 6-to-3 ruling backs the Obama administration, agreeing that all low- and moderate-income residents should have access to subsidies, regardless of whether they live in states with their own health insurance exchanges, as the law’s wording required, or used the federal exchange instead.
“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote.
The ruling ups the pressure for Republicans to breathe new life into Obamacare pushback in early-voting states such as New Hampshire, where they’ll need to entice anti-ACA voters with plans that include age-based refundable tax credits and scrapping the employer mandate, said Sally Pipes, head of California-based think tank Pacific Research Institute.
“The Republican candidates will really have to articulate what their vision of health care will be,” Pipes said. “I think people in a state like New Hampshire would appreciate what’s good for job growth, which includes getting rid of employer mandate.”
GOP national pundit Ford O’Connell said Republican candidates “will need to provide more than just red meat,” and should focus on three primary changes to the system: allowing consumers to buy insurance across state lines, de-linking it from employment and strengthening patient power over their insurance accounts.
“Voters will want insurance that can travel with you, not the car you’re driving,” O’Connell said.
Although cries for a repeal will likely still sound from the Republican voting pool, the administration’s victory may pave the way for Congress to make tweaks and improvements to the law rather than fully replace it, said Wendy Parmet, director of the Northeastern Program on Health Policy and Law.
“One of the things that has happened over the last several years has been that Republicans have tried to wage existential challenges to the Affordable Care Act,” Pamet said. “It’s going to be clear that it isn’t going away. It’s becoming part of the fabric of society.”
She added, “Maybe we can get to politicians cleaning up a little and making it work better.”
The Subtle, But Hugely Significant Shift In The Republican Response To The Marriage Ruling // Buzzfeed // Rosie Gray – June 26, 2015
Two of the leading Republican contenders responded nearly in lockstep on Friday to the Supreme Court ruling that has legalized same-sex marriage nationwide: by waving a white flag in the fight over marriage — and promising to take up arms in a new culture war battle over religious freedom.
“While I disagree with this decision, we live in a republic and must abide by the law,” Marco Rubio said in a statement, then called for officials to “protect the First Amendment rights of religious institutions and millions of Americans whose faiths hold a traditional view of marriage.”
“It is my hope that each side will respect the dignity of the other,” Rubio said.
Jeb Bush cited his Catholic faith to explain his personal belief in “traditional marriage,” but added, “I also believe we should love our neighbor and respect others, including those making lifetime commitments.” He then pivoted to the need to “protect religious freedom and the right of conscience and also not discriminate.”
No one said they agreed with the court, but a number of the candidates signaled the desire to cut their political losses on the losing issue of marriage — and instead reframe their party’s social agenda in terms of protecting the viewpoints of the dissenting. The distinction may seem like mere semantics, but it represents a profound shift in the culture wars, in which Republicans are deliberately moving from offense to defense.
For decades, Republicans rallied the religious right by championing “family values,” and pressing for policies meant to infuse American society with Judeo-Christian morals — from anti-sodomy laws to crackdowns on pornography and keeping condoms out of schools. Social conservatives presented themselves as the country’s “moral majority” — the banner under which Jerry Falwell mobilized millions of Christian voters in the ‘70s and ‘80s — and their mission was to defeat the disproportionately powerful secular elites in media and government.
The populist disavowal of Washington elite has remained, but as the GOP’s agenda on gay issues has fallen out of favor in recent years, party leaders are no longer claiming to be in the majority. Instead, they are making appeals to pluralism — which are much more popular — arguing that while society has changed where LGBT issues are concerned, religious conservatives should be able to object when they believe their principles have been infringed.
Not all of the 2016 candidates on Friday followed the example of Bush, Rubio, and also dark-horse candidate Lindsey Graham, who said in a statement that he opposes a marriage amendment to the Constitution: “Rather than pursuing a divisive effort that would be doomed to fail, I am committing myself to ensuring the protection of religious liberties of all Americans.” Conservative culture warriors like Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal all quickly released statements harshly condemning the court, signaling that they still have an appetite to fight the marriage movement on the merits.
And, more importantly, Scott Walker — considered a top-tier candidate — took a sharper tone on Friday’s ruling. Walker argued in favor of a marriage amendment to the Constitution and called the court’s decision a “grave mistake.” Walker is expected to make a serious bid to win the Iowa caucuses next year; his response seems aimed at the conservative Iowa voters who can help him do that.
But those candidates signaling surrender in the marriage fight are no doubt hoping that an emphasis on religious freedom will be enough to placate the still-influential conservative Christian primary voters in states like Iowa and South Carolina. It remains to be seen whether those voters are ready to embrace the same political pragmatism that their prospective standard-bearers are exhibiting.
Same-sex marriage ruling shakes up 2016 presidential race // AJC // Daniel Malloy – June 26, 2015
WASHINGTON — Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage across the country gave Democrats running for president a rallying cry, while Republicans disagreed with resignation, vitriol or somewhere in between.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was conciliatory, saying:
“In a country as diverse as ours, good people who have opposing views should be able to live side by side. It is now crucial that as a country we protect religious freedom and the right of conscience and also not discriminate.”
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sounded ready to move on from this legal fight:
“While I disagree with this decision, we live in a republic and must abide by the law. As we look ahead, it must be a priority of the next president to nominate judges and justices committed to applying the Constitution as written and originally understood.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, meanwhile, sounded like he was preparing for armed insurrection:
“I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was not going that far, as he vowed to appoint conservative justices if elected and spoke of the religious liberty fight to come:
“I call on the president and all governors to join me in reassuring millions of Americans that the government will not force them to participate in activities that violate their deeply held religious beliefs. No one wants to live in a country where the government coerces people to act in opposition to their conscience. We will continue to fight for the freedoms of all Americans.”
Democrats were in a celebratory mood. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley even went down to the Supreme Court to join in.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community’s battles go beyond marriage:
“For too many LGBT Americans who are subjected to discriminatory laws, true equality is still just out of reach. While we celebrate today, our work won’t be finished until every American can not only marry, but live, work, pray, learn and raise a family free from discrimination and prejudice. We cannot settle for anything less.”
Clinton in recent days has used the issue to fire up supporters. When her campaign sent out an email asking backers to “tell us why you’re a part of this campaign,” Kevin Lowery, of Milton, wrote back.
Lowery told the Clinton camp he is glad Clinton supports protections for gay couples, considering that he had married his husband in New York City a couple years ago, but the union still was not recognized in Georgia.
Clinton replied Thursday with a blast email to all of her supporters quoting from Lowery’s letter and adding: “Any day now, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to recognize marriages across the country. Like millions of people, I’m waiting and hoping. And I’m thinking of families like Kevin’s.”
In a phone interview, Lowery said he was surprised by Clinton’s reply.
“I feel like people like her operate in an entirely different world than I do,” Lowery said. “To be brought into such close connection, it’s probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever felt, one of the closest things I’ve felt to ever meeting a celebrity.”
Then came Friday’s even bigger news.
“I feel like I’m on Cloud Nine,” Lowery said.
Opposition to same-sex marriage: political advantage or ‘political suicide’? // Radio Iowa // O. Kay Henderson – June 26, 2015
Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling which has legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states is drawing both cheers and jeers. Republican presidential candidate Bobby Jindal, campaigning in Iowa today, said the ruling tramples on states’ rights.
“I’m a proponent of traditional marriage between a man and a woman,” Jindal told Radio Iowa this morning. “I don’t think the court should be overturning what states have decided on this. In Louisiana, it’s in our state constitution.”
Jindal said this ruling will “pave the way for an all-out assault on religious liberty.”
“What is happening today is you see that Christian business owners, florists, caterers and musicians — they’re being forced to participate in wedding ceremonies that violate their beliefs, their conscience,” Jindal said. “I think that’s wrong.”
Republican candidate Rick Santorum, campaigning in western Iowa this morning, called the ruling a “bad decision” that will “harm the country.” Santorum favors an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban same-sex marriage.
During a campaign stop in Pella Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said he doesn’t accept the “idea” of same-sex marriage.
“I don’t believe it is a Biblical norm. I have friends who are homosexual. I love them. They’re my friends. I don’t quit loving them because of what they do or who they are,” Huckabee said. “I don’t accept the idea of a same-sex marriage not because I don’t like people, but because I believe the institution of marriage is something very sacred, unique, that is not just a human institution. It’s a divine institution that reflects the very relationship of Christ and his church. For me, that’s something I can’t yield.”
Huckabee, Santorum and Jindal are among the nine GOP candidates who will speak in mid-July at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames. The event’s hosted by Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader and Vander Plaats told Radio Iowa this morning this ruling will bring “common sense” Americans who oppose same-sex marriage “out of the woodwork.”
“We’re going to start seeing what the candidates are saying,” Vander Plaats predicted.
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley are praising the court’s decision on same-sex marriage. State Senator Matt McCoy, a Democrat from Des Moines who is the only openly gay member of the legislature, said it’s not a big issue for Democrats and he predicts it won’t be for Republicans either.
“I think this is an issue that’s going to get a lot of oxygen for the next several months, then it is absolutely going to become one of the least important issues of the campaign,” McCoy told Radio Iowa.
However, McCoy said Democrats do need to realize this decision may not have gone the way it did if a Republican president had been in office since 2009.
“I think we need to remind Democratic voters just why we have the decision we have today,” McCoy said. “And that’s primary due to the good appointments that we’ve had on the court.”
Jennifer Harvey of West Des Moines and her partner legally married in 2009, shortly after Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Harvey suggests opposition to same-sex marriage is a perilous position for a politician.
“I think for politicians who decide to take a stand on that, it might not be right now, but in the very near future that’ll be a form of political suicide,” Harvey said. “If you watch how political sentiment has changed, people very quickly come ot realize that It just sort of makes sense. I think this is settled. I think this will be a non-starter in the next three, four or five years.”
Harvey was a bit surprised by her emotional reaction to today’s decision.
“Kind of just a big sign of relief, like we can finally stop talking about this,” Harvey said, laughing. “It feels like it’s been small victory, small victory, small victory and I was surprised to find myself feel this ping of real joy and kind of a, ‘Wow! It’s finally done.'”
Harvey and her partner, Chris, are the parents of two children and she says in the past six years that same-sex marriage has been legal in Iowa, there’s been a “climate change” in how her family is treated and perceived by others.
President Obama Eulogizes Charleston Pastor as One Who Understood Grace // NYT // Kevin Sack and Gardiner Harris – June 26, 2015
CHARLESTON, S.C. — In one of his presidency’s most impassioned reflections on race, President Obama eulogized the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney on Friday by calling on the nation to emulate the grace that he displayed in his work and that the people of South Carolina demonstrated after the massacre of nine worshipers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Before nearly 6,000 mourners and a worldwide television audience, Mr. Obama, who met Mr. Pinckney during his first presidential campaign, placed the shootings in the context of America’s long history of violence against African-Americans. He also reiterated his plea to restrict the availability of firearms and called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the State House in Columbia.
Mr. Obama thrilled the mostly African-American audience by preaching with revivalist cadences, and by closing his 40-minute address by singing, in solo, the opening refrain of “Amazing Grace.” The crowd came to its feet and joined in, leading the Rev. Norvel Goff, a presiding elder in the A.M.E. church, to later “thank the Reverend President.”
“Maybe we now realize the way racial bias can infect us even when we don’t realize it,” Mr. Obama said as Mr. Pinckney’s coffin, draped in a blanket of red roses, sat before him. “So that we’re guarding against not just racial slurs, but we’re also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview, but not Jamal. So that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote.” By treating every child as important regardless of skin color and by opening up opportunities for all Americans, Mr. Obama said, “We express God’s grace.”
As the nation’s first African-American president, Mr. Obama has often struggled to find the proper balance of timing, words and place to speak about America’s racial divisions. Intent on being seen as a president for all and confronted with what he saw as the more urgent economic crisis, he approached racially charged disputes cautiously in his first term.
But politically unfettered after his re-election in 2012, and angered by the racially motivated killings in Charleston and the deaths of black men at the hands of white police officers, the president on Friday dispensed with his usual reticence, rediscovered the soaring rhetoric that inspired his supporters in 2008, and spoke with unusual — and occasionally acerbic — directness. “For too long,” Mr. Obama said, “we’ve been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the present. Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career.”
As he spoke, Mr. Obama was backed by a stage filled with African Methodist Episcopal preachers, cloaked in the purple vestments of their church, and a black-robed gospel choir.
Mr. Obama joined with others paying tribute in stressing that the 21-year-old white man charged in the killings had failed to achieve his stated goal of inciting racial conflagration. Rather, he said, the killings had the opposite effect, generating an unprecedented show of racial unity and inspiring a nationwide revolt against Confederate symbols.
“It was an act that drew on a long history of bombs and arson and shots fired at churches,” Mr. Obama said, “not random, but as a means of control, a way to terrorize and oppress, an act that he imagined would incite fear and recrimination, violence and suspicion, an act that he presumed would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation’s original sin.”
He paused for effect. “Oh, but God works in mysterious ways,” Mr. Obama said. “God has different ideas. He didn’t know he was being used by God.” The crowd erupted in applause as women waved their hands toward the ceiling.
Mr. Obama commended South Carolina’s Republican governor, Nikki R. Haley, for her call this week to bring down the Confederate flag in Columbia, saying it would be “a meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds.”
“Removing the flag from this state’s Capitol would not be an act of political correctness,” Mr. Obama said. “It would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought — the cause of slavery — was wrong. The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people, was wrong.”
The service lasted more than four hours as speaker after speaker, first legislators, then church leaders, then cousins and friends, and finally the president, took the podium to pay homage to Mr. Pinckney, who was both a respected state senator and a pastor in the most prestigious A.M.E. pulpit in South Carolina.
TD Arena in Charleston, just steps from the historic whitewashed church where the killings took place on June 17 during a Wednesday night Bible study, was packed with pastors in their black robes and collars, women in flowered hats and parents eager to expose their children to a moment of history. An estimated 5,000 people were turned away because of a lack of space. Members of Emanuel, where Mr. Pinckney had been pastor for five years, were given prime seating on the arena floor.
The dignitaries in attendance included the first lady, Michelle Obama; Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden; House Speaker John A. Boehner, who traveled on Air Force One for the first time during the Obama presidency; Ms. Haley; Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state and current Democratic presidential candidate; Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina; Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. of Charleston; dozens of members of Congress and the South Carolina Legislature; and civil rights leaders like the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Martin Luther King III.
“Sister Jennifer and the girls,” Mr. Goff said, addressing Mr. Pinckney’s wife and two daughters, “I want you to know that the world has come to you.”
After the service, the Obamas and the Bidens met with the families of those killed as well as the survivors of the massacre.
Mr. Obama, who acknowledged that he did not know Mr. Pinckney well, said that friends of the pastor’s had remarked “that when Clementa Pinckney entered a room, it was like the future arrived; that even from a young age, folks knew he was special, anointed.”
While the service centered on paeans to Mr. Pinckney, some speakers took the opportunity to address the nature of his death and its remarkable political aftermath. “Someone should have told the young man,” said the Right Rev. John Richard Bryant, senior bishop of the A.M.E. church, referring to the suspect in the killings, Dylann Roof. “He wanted to start a race war but he came to the wrong place.” The audience rose in a thunderous ovation, punctuated by an organist’s wailing exclamations.
A sign on an easel to the left of the stage declared: “Wrong church! Wrong people! Wrong day!”
State Senator Gerald Malloy, one of Mr. Pinckney’s closest friends, spoke of Mr. Pinckney’s support for often unsuccessful legislative efforts to expand Medicaid coverage, regulate discriminatory lending practices and block voter identification requirements. “He answered life’s most pervasive question, and that is what are you doing for others,” Mr. Malloy said.
The pastor’s funeral was the third in a series of nine that is scheduled to conclude on Tuesday. Three others are planned for Saturday, one each on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
Mr. Pinckney’s burial in Marion, S.C., home to his mother’s family, concluded a three-day tour that took his coffin first to Columbia, where he lay in state beneath the State House rotunda, then to his simple childhood church in Ridgeland, S.C., and, on Thursday night, to Emanuel itself. Thousands of dark-suited mourners waited in line for hours to walk through the church, peer into Mr. Pinckney’s open coffin and pay respects to his devastated family.
Ushers handed out a glossy program filled with photographs of Mr. Pinckney, from childhood through his pastorate. In one, he was dressed in blue hospital scrubs holding one of his newborn daughters. Others showed him as a boy, dressed in his uniform of a vested suit and necktie.
The program included letters to Mr. Pinckney from his family, their first public comments since the shootings.
“You promised me you would never leave me!” Jennifer Benjamin Pinckney wrote to her husband. “You promised me we would be together for years to come! You promised me we would watch our children grow, get married and have children of their own. You promised me that we would grow old together and spend our latter years without the demands of the Church or the State. I feel robbed, cheated, and cut short.”
Mr. Pinckney’s eldest daughter, Eliana, 11, observed that “when someone loves you, they care even if they are not there.” Her sister, Malana, 6, wrote: “Dear Daddy: I know you were shot at the Church and you went to Heaven. I love you so much! I know you love me and I know that you know that I love you too.” She signed it, “Your baby girl and grasshopper.”
Supreme Court rules gay couples nationwide have a right to marry // WaPo // Robert Barnes – June 26, 2015
A deeply divided Supreme Court on Friday delivered a historic victory for gay rights, ruling 5 to 4 that the Constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry no matter where they live.
The court’s action rewarded years of legal work by same-sex marriage advocates and marked the culmination of an unprecedented upheaval in public opinion and the nation’s jurisprudence.
Marriages began Friday in states that had previously thwarted the efforts of same-sex couples to wed, while some states continued to resist what they said was a judicial order that changed the traditional definition of marriage and sent the country into uncharted territory. As of the court’s decision Friday morning, there were 14 states where same-sex couples were not allowed to marry.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who has written all of the court’s decisions recognizing and expanding gay rights, said the decision was based on the fundamental right to marry and the equality that must be afforded gay Americans.
“Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right,” Kennedy wrote. He was joined in the ruling by the court’s liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
All four of the court’s most conservative members — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — dissented, and each wrote a separate opinion.
The common theme in their dissents was that judicial activism on the part of five members of the court had usurped a power that belongs to the people.
“If you are among the many Americans — of whatever sexual orientation — who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision,” wrote Roberts, who for the first time in his tenure marked his disagreement with a decision by reading part of his dissent from the bench.
“Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it,” he wrote.
Scalia called the decision a “threat to American democracy,” saying it robs citizens of “the freedom to govern themselves.”
In a statement in the White House Rose Garden, President Obama hailed the decision: “This ruling is a victory for America. This decision affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts. When all Americans are truly treated as equal, we are more free.”
It wasn’t until 2012 that Obama declared that same-sex couples should be able to marry, and it was only last year that he said he thought the Constitution provided such a right. But by Friday evening, the rainbow colors that gay rights activists have adopted were projected onto the north face of the White House. With the Supreme Court’s ruling, Obama said, “Today we can say in no uncertain terms that we have made our union a little more perfect.”
There were wild scenes of celebrations on the sidewalk outside the Supreme Court. Same-sex marriage supporters had arrived early, armed with signs and rainbow flags. They cheered at the announcement of a constitutional right for gay marriage, which did not legally exist anywhere in the world until the turn of this century. The first legally recognized same-sex marriages in the United States took place just 11 years ago, the result of a Massachusetts state supreme court decision.
Jim Obergefell, who became the face of the case, Obergefell v. Hodges, when he sought to put his name on his husband’s Ohio death certificate as the surviving spouse, said, “Today’s ruling from the Supreme Court affirms what millions across the country already know to be true in our hearts: that our love is equal.”
“It is my hope that the term gay marriage will soon be a thing of the past, that from this day forward it will be, simply, marriage,” he said.
But Austin R. Nimocks, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group that supports traditional marriage, said: “Today, five lawyers took away the voices of more than 300 million Americans to continue to debate the most important social institution in the history of the world. . . . Nobody has the right to say that a mom or a woman or a dad or a man is irrelevant. There are differences that should be celebrated.”
The Supreme Court used cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, where restrictions against same-sex marriage were upheld by an appeals court last year, to find that the Constitution does not allow such prohibitions.
Kennedy over the past 20 years has written the Supreme Court’s most important gay rights cases: overturning criminal laws on homosexual conduct, protecting gays from discrimination and declaring that the federal government could not refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed where they were legal.
He often employs a lofty, writing-for-history tone, and Friday’s decision was no different.
Referring to the couples who brought the cases before the court, Kennedy wrote: “It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions.”
Kennedy did not respond directly to the court’s dissenters, but he addressed the argument that the court was creating a constitutional right. The right to marriage is fundamental, he said. The difference is society’s evolving view of gay people and their rights, he said.
“The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest,” he wrote. “With that knowledge must come the recognition that laws excluding same-sex couples from the marriage right impose stigma and injury of the kind prohibited by our basic charter.”
As in previous decisions, Kennedy did not spell out how courts should scrutinize laws that treated gays differently. But Mary Bonauto, who argued the case for gay plaintiffs at the Supreme Court, said that message from Kennedy’s combined opinions “is one of inclusion: Stop making rules for gay people.”
Scalia was a sharp critic of Kennedy’s style, saying it was “as pretentious as its content is egotistic.”
“The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie,” Scalia wrote.
Roberts wrote a lengthy dissent that was a point-by-point takedown of the majority opinion. Gay activists had wondered whether the 60-year-old justice might take note of the increasing public support for same-sex marriage and find a way to join the majority on what they called the “right side of history.”
But he and the other dissenters said the question was not whether same-sex marriage was a good idea, but who should decide.
“The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs,” Roberts wrote. “Just who do we think we are?”
Roberts rejected a comparison to Loving v. Virginia, in which the court struck down bans on interracial marriage. That did not change the age-old definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, he said. He raised concerns that the decision could lead to polygamous marriages — he mentioned a married threesome of lesbians called a “throuple.”
He noted that voters and legislators in only 11 states had authorized same-sex marriages, and said it was better for gay marriage to be adopted through the democratic process than by judicial order. He said religious leaders could take little comfort from the majority opinion that their beliefs would be respected.
That theme was picked up by Alito in his dissent. He said there could be “bitter and lasting wounds” from the decision and warned that the decision will be “exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.”
The questions raised in the cases decided Friday were left unanswered in 2013, when the justices last confronted the issue of same-sex marriage. A slim majority of the court said at the time that a key portion of the Defense of Marriage Act — withholding the federal government’s recognition of same-sex marriages — was unconstitutional. In a separate case that year, the court said procedural issues kept it from answering the constitutional question in a case from California but allowed same-sex marriages to resume in that state.
Since then, courts across the nation — with the notable exception of the Cincinnati-based federal appeals court that left intact the restrictions in the four states at issue — have struck down a string of state prohibitions on same-sex marriage, many of them passed by voters in referendums.
Gay marriage ruling was 50 years in the making — with important Texas ties // Dallas News // Michael A. Lindenberger – June 26, 2015
WASHINGTON — In explaining his decision to require every state in America to allow gay couples to marry, Justice Anthony Kennedy said some things are simply too important to be left to the hands of voters.
“Of course, the Constitution contemplates that democracy is the appropriate process for change, so long as that process does not abridge fundamental rights,” he wrote in his groundbreaking and deeply divisive majority opinion.
And yet, Friday’s history-making ruling was one the country largely got ready for in less than half a century, thanks to a sometimes painful struggle by gay and lesbian Americans.
In the summer of 1969, a small crowd of angry onlookers — drag queens and people living on the streets among them — clashed with New York police as they hauled people out of the Stonewall Inn and into waiting paddy wagons for, essentially, the crime of being gay in a bar. What followed were several days of riots, hundreds of arrests, and the birth of the modern gay rights movement.
From Stonewall to the Supreme Court, there is a straight line showcasing the rise of gay rights and the fading potency of the traditional, conservative moral authority that has warned, and still warns, that gay marriage could mean society’s undoing.
The line crosses through Texas in an important way. Justices, Kennedy said, had often been cautious when dealing with advances in human rights to its citizens, and those delays harmed the people affected in ways that weren’t undone years later when other decisions changed the law. “Dignitary wounds cannot always be healed with the stroke of a pen.”
He was in part referring to his own role 12 years ago, when he authored the Lawrence vs. Texas ruling in which a six-person majority upended precedent and ruled that laws making gay sex illegal could not stand.
Gay marriage, of course, was illegal everywhere in America, and not a single national politician of either party had ever suggested there was anything wrong with that. Many gay rights advocates felt marriage, if it were to ever come, was decades away.
But the Texas case was a fundamental turning point.
About two hours past sunset on Sept. 17, 1998, the first night of the year’s longest heat wave, John Lawrence’s legal troubles began. An acquaintance was angry because he thought Lawrence was having an affair with his lover, a younger man named Tyron Garner.
Shortly after 10:30 p.m., the acquaintance walked out of Lawrence’s apartment and called the police to make a false report. In the flush of jealousy, he told them an angry black man was waving a gun and shouting at the neighbors.
Officers barged in minutes later, finding an undressed Lawrence in his bed, Garner sitting on a couch nearby and another man inside — but no gun.
They were arrested for violating Texas’ law against having gay sex, taken to jail and released early the next morning. They’d eventually be convicted and fined $200. (The man who made called about the gun was charged with making a false report.)
“John and Tyron were just regular guys who wound up being arrested and charged with homosexual conduct,” said lawyer Suzanne Goldberg, a Columbia law professor who in 1998 was a lawyer for Lambda Legal Defense Fund who helped represent the pair.
“It would mean coming out publicly to the people they worked with and to their families,” Goldberg said. “Neither had planned on taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. But they both understood the important potential of their case, and they were courageous in deciding to pursue it.”
“I don’t know that they expected, that any of us expected, then that their pictures would end being splashed around the globe.”
What made the case worth fighting for gay legal activists was the tremendous power the relatively minor — and often unenforced — statutes against gay sex carried in other areas of gay life.
“In states like Texas that had these sodomy laws on the books, there was a very strong barrier to being out,” recalled Washington lawyer Paul Smith, who would argue successfully Lawrence’s case before the Supreme Court in 2003. “If you were an out person you could lose your jobs, custody of your kids, and people could refuse to rent to same-sex couples — all on the basis that admitting you were gay was basically admitting that you were a criminal.”
String of cases
But as for gay marriage, in 1998 it was still illegal everywhere.
A string of cases brought by couples who were denied licenses had entered the courts in the years immediately after the Stonewall Inn riots, as new organizations such as the Gay Liberation Front began to slowly move gay advocacy out of the shadows. Cases were filed — and lost — in Kentucky, Minnesota and elsewhere.
In Texas, a couple was granted a marriage license only to face an immediate backlash — including threats of prosecution — once officials learned that the blushing bride had been a gay man in drag. The license wasn’t honored.
Only one of the cases, involving a Minneapolis couple, reached the Supreme Court, in 1972. The justices heard no arguments and dispensed with it in a single sentence.
But five years before Lawrence and Garner were arrested, Hawaii’s top court opened the door to gay marriage by a crack. In 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court sent a case brought by a gay couple back to the trial court with new instructions: For the first time, the state would have to prove that its denial of a marriage license to a gay couple could be justified.
State and federal officials had rushed to slam shut that possibility.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the widely popular Defense of Marriage Act, making it illegal for the federal government to treat gay couples as married, whether or not Hawaii or another state issued them a license. The law also meant that no state would have to recognize a gay marriage performed in another state.
Two years later, Hawaiians voted to bar gay marriage, rendering moot the ongoing trial from 1993. Voters in Alaska followed suit the same year.
But the people who were thinking most about the issue were the same ones who were fighting hardest to keep laws like the Texas anti-sodomy statute on the books.
That connection had been on the minds of the lawyers and the justices the first time the Supreme Court confronted the question of gay sex laws, in a 1986 Georgia case.
“This court will quite soon be confronted with questions concerning the legitimacy of statutes which prohibit polygamy, homosexual same-sex marriage, consensual incest, prostitution, fornication, adultery” and other horrors if it decriminalizes gay sex, warned the lawyer for Georgia.
The justices were persuaded.
“Respondent would have us announce … a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do,” Justice Byron White wrote in his 5-4 majority opinion.
Scalia’s dissent
Seventeen years later, the court changed its mind, and ruled in favor of Lawrence and Garner. That sent Justice Antonin Scalia fuming. He read his scathing dissent word for word from the bench.
“It is clear from this that the court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed,” Scalia said. “Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home.”
Echoing lawyer Hobbs from 17 year before, he said the arrival at the court of arguments for gay marriage would only be a matter of time.
He was no less disgusted on Friday, when he wrote that the court’s decision amounted to tyranny. “It is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.”
Whatever one thinks of Scalia’s rhetorical bursts, it’s only fair to note this about his 2003 predictions: He was absolutely right.
The first federal court decision making gay marriage legal came just months later, in Massachusetts. The first page of the opinion cited the ruling in Lawrence vs. Texas.
Smaller changes
But what counted most, many scholars and some of the strongest opponents of gay marriage say, were the smaller, incremental changes in the way Americans looked at homosexuality and other moral issues.
Did the California Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in favor of gay marriage pave the way for Californians to marry? It’s hard to say. Within months, voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic state went to the polls to change the state’s constitution and bar same-sex marriages.
But the backlash triggered a response of its own. Hollywood icon Rob Reiner opened his check book, and his Rolodex, and bankrolled what would become Freedom to Marry, a national movement founded by activist Evan Wolfson. Slowly but surely the idea of gay marriage was being discussed everywhere.
“There was both the reality and perception of dramatic moral change on part of the American people,” said the Rev. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. “You could see it even as the Fortune 500 companies saw that it was in their interests to join that moral revolution in their advertising.”
By 2013, when the Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, conservatives were resigning themselves to defeat.
Harvard professor Michael Klarman, who has studied the link between judicial decisions and broad social change, said even the biggest court rulings are rarely the most important elements of that change.
“Thinking that those discrete landmark-seeming events are really driving anything long-term is, I think, a mistake,” he said. Smaller, step-by-step changes in the way people see each other, the way individuals feel about gays in general, had much greater impact over time.
Gay people finally feeling free to come out, he said, is what made the biggest difference.
Theodore Olson doesn’t disagree. The former top U.S. appellate lawyer under President George W. Bush, he joined with Demcoratic super-lawyer David Boies to sue California to force its hand on gay marriage.
“There was discrimination everywhere,” he said. “Of course, it is not all gone. But the atmosphere has totally changed.”
Proof of that came just hours after the court announced its decision. Standing in the Rose Garden, President Barack Obama said the decision arrived with the force of a thunderbolt, but grew out of decades of struggle.
“It is a consequence of the countless small acts of courage of millions of people across decades who stood up, who came out, talked to parents, parents who loved their children no matter what, folks who were willing to endure bullying and taunts, and stayed strong, and came to believe in themselves and who they were.
“And slowly made an entire country realize that love is love.”
Terrorist Attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait Kill Dozens // NYT // Ben Hubbard – June 26, 2015
BEIRUT, Lebanon — In a matter of hours and on three different continents, militants carried out attacks on Friday that killed scores of civilians, horrified populations and raised thorny questions about the evolving nature of international terrorism and what can be done to fight it.
On the surface, the attacks appeared to be linked only by timing.
In France, a man stormed an American-owned chemical plant, decapitated one person and apparently tried to blow up the facility. In Tunisia, a gunman drew an assault rifle from a beach umbrella and killed at least 38 people at a seaside resort. And in Kuwait, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque during communal prayers, killing at least 25 Shiite worshipers.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait, according to statements on Twitter. But it almost did not matter for terrorism’s global implications whether the three attacks were coordinated. Each in a different way underlined the difficulties of anticipating threats and protecting civilians from small-scale terrorist actions, whether in a mosque, at work or at the beach.
The attacks occurred at a time of fast evolution for the world’s most dangerous terrorist organizations, which continue to find ways to strike and spread their ideology despite more than a decade of costly efforts by the United States and others to kill their leaders and deny them sanctuary.
The United States has killed leaders of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere, but the group has maintained a string of branches and melded itself into local insurgencies. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has worked on two levels, seeking to build its self-declared caliphate on captured territory in Iraq and Syria while inciting attacks abroad.
Fueling that expansion are civil wars and the collapse of state structures in Arab countries from Libya to Yemen that have opened up ungoverned spaces where jihadists thrive, while social media has given extremists a global megaphone to spread their message.
While officials in the three countries investigated the attacks, many noted that leaders of the Islamic State have repeatedly called for sympathizers to kill and sow mayhem at home.
Earlier this week, the spokesman for the Islamic State, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, greeted the group’s followers for Ramadan, telling them that acts during the Muslim holy month earned greater rewards in heaven.
“Muslims, embark and hasten toward jihad,” Mr. Adnani said in an audio message. “O mujahedeen everywhere, rush and go to make Ramadan a month of disasters for the infidels.”
The attacks targeted each country in a particularly sensitive spot.
Tunisia, widely hailed as the sole success of the Arab Spring uprisings that began more than four years ago, suffered a sharp blow to its tourism sector, a pillar of the local economy.
The bombing in Kuwait followed the pattern of similar attacks on Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia and was aimed at sowing sectarian divisions in a country where Sunnis and Shiites serve together in top government bodies and open friction between the sects is uncommon.
The motivation behind the attack in France was less clear, although the beheading suggested that the perpetrator had at least been inspired by the Islamic State, which frequently propagandizes similar killings in the territories it occupies.
And because the day’s events appeared to bear some of the infamous hallmarks of the Islamic State and its supporters, some analysts speculated that the attacks had been timed to mark the first anniversary of its declaration of a caliphate. Even if that is not the case, the SITE intelligence Group, which tracks extremist propaganda, said the attacks inspired “celebration from Twitter accounts of Jihadi fighters and supporters of the Islamic State.”
Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said “We have entered a new jihadist era,” adding that the Islamic State had used its international brand to establish sleeper cells abroad, whose actions were meant to advance its efforts to build a state.
“Everything in the end serves the purpose of strengthening the project of the Islamic State,” she said.
United States intelligence and counterterrorism officials were scrambling Friday to assess the connections, if any, between the attacks in France, Kuwait and Tunisia. Officials said that if the assessment found that the attacks were linked, officials would seek to determine whether the Islamic State had actively directed, coordinated or inspired them.
Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, condemned the attacks, which he called “heinous.” But there was no word yet on whether they were coordinated, he said. “We just don’t know yet.”
In claiming the Kuwait attack, the Islamic State called the suicide bomber “one of the knights of the Sunni people” and lauded him for killing Shiites, who are considered apostates in the group’s hard interpretation of Islam.
The assault resembled others launched by the Islamic State recently on Shiite mosques in neighboring Saudi Arabia, prompting many to believe that the militant group is seeking to set off a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites.
Some Kuwaitis said that with sectarian tensions rising across the region, it was only a matter of time before they reached Kuwait.
“Ever since I heard about Qatif and the Shiite mosques there, I just had this feeling that we were next,” said Bodour Behbehani, a Shiite graduate student in Kuwait City, recalling a mosque bombing last month near Qatif, a city in Saudi Arabia.
The American war on terrorism has taken many forms over the years. But the spread of such small-scale attacks highlighted what even American officials have called a failure to win the ideological — or information — war that feeds militancy and inspires recruits.
The challenge, analysts and government officials say, is to reorient a strategy centered on combat to one that challenges extremist groups on all fronts simultaneously: political, social, ideological and religious. A primary aim, they say, should be to win the information war and undermine the appeal of radical Islamist ideologies.
Such terrorist attacks have shattered the assumption that the Islamic State can be confined to territories it controls in the Middle East, said Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. Although Western governments can work to monitor those who might be plotting attacks, this will not solve their root cause.
“Chasing individuals is probably a fool’s errand given the geographically disparate nature of the threat,” Dr. Hoffman said. “There comes a point where you have to tackle the organization behind it.”
And monitoring has limits. The authorities in Tunisia said the gunman there was a young Tunisian with no prior police record. The authorities in France said that the attacker arrested there had connections to radical Islamists but that surveillance of him stopped in 2008.
The Kuwaiti authorities did not identify the attacker in their country.
To fight the Islamic State, the United States has formed an international coalition that is bombing its fighters and their bases in Iraq and Syria, a process that President Obama has said seeks to degrade and destroy the group. But while the group has lost many fighters and some territory, Friday’s attacks demonstrated the continued power of the jihadist movement to inspire attacks abroad by local actors.
It is an extraordinary coincidence that “all three attacks happened at the same day and time,” said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism research fellow at New America, a research organization in Washington. He said the attacks suggested that the focus on taking territory from the Islamic State could make the United States miss other ways it poses dangers.
“We can’t get attached to a single metric for understanding this organization,” he said.
ISIS claims to be behind deadly Tunisia attack // WaPo // Liz Sly – June 26, 2015
BEIRUT — Assailants beheaded, bombed and gunned down victims on three continents Friday, killing more than 60 people and raising fears that a global surge of terror strikes could be imminent.
There was initially no reason to believe the disparate attacks — at a factory in France, a beach resort in Tunisia and a mosque in Kuwait — were connected.
But then the Islamic State asserted responsibility for two of them, first the bombing in Kuwait in which 25 died and later, in a separate statement, the assault on the beach in Tunisia, which killed 39.
The second statement contained a warning that more attacks soon will follow: “Let them wait for the glad tidings of what will harm them in the coming days, Allah permitting,” it said, referring to the “apostates” who had been the target of the assault.
The three incidents followed an appeal Tuesday from the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, for Muslims to mark the holy month of Ramadan by carrying out acts of “jihad,” or holy war.
“Make Ramadan a month of disasters for the kuffar,” meaning infidels, he said in the audiotaped address. He promised followers “tenfold” rewards in heaven if they died in such acts during the holy period, associated by most Muslims with fasting, prayer and peaceful reflection.
The attacks suggested that some may have heeded his words.
About 9:30 a.m. in the quaint town of Saint-Quentin-Fallavier in southern France, a deliveryman crashed a vehicle into a shed containing gas cylinders at an American-owned factory, causing an explosion. After the driver was caught by firefighters, police found a severed head on the factory fence flanked by two flags bearing Arabic inscriptions.
Minutes later and 3,000 miles away, a man wearing a suicide belt walked into a Shiite mosque in Kuwait City and detonated his explosives among worshipers gathered for Friday prayers, killing 25.
Two hours passed before at least one gunman burst into a Mediterranean beach resort in the Tunisian town of Sousse and randomly opened fire on bathers lounging under beach umbrellas, killing 39.
The Islamic State asserted responsibility for the attack in Kuwait, saying in a statement circulated on social media accounts that one of its members, Abu Suleiman al-Mowahid, targeted the mosque because it had been used to try to convert Sunni Muslims to the Shiite branch of Islam.
It was too early to say whether the Islamic State was connected to the French attack or whether the strike was conducted on behalf of the Islamic State or was inspired by its propaganda. A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, said U.S. officials are investigating possible links.
But the timing and geographical scope of the violent acts appeared likely to play into the Islamic State’s narrative that it is posing an ever-greater threat to global security, analysts said.
“For ISIS, terror is a strategy, a way to keep conveying a sense of expansion,” said Emile Hokayem, an analyst with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, using an acronym for the extremist group. “This is not a movement that’s on its last legs. It’s still there, seeking to impose and shape the agenda and be at the center of the conversation.”
In France, the gruesome killing caused jitters in a country still reeling from the Charlie Hebdo slayings in January, in which two gunmen mowed down staffers at a satirical newspaper in Paris.
French prosecutor François Molins said at a news conference that the man detained in Friday’s attack, identified as Yassin Salhi, 35, had periodically drawn the attention of French intelligence services between 2011 and 2014 because of his links with ultraconservative Muslims, known as Salafists, in Lyon. Security services had filed reports between 2006 and 2008 on the man’s radicalization, he said.
The victim found beheaded at the factory was the 54-year-old manager of the transportation firm that employed Salhi, the prosecutor said. In addition to the beheading, there were also two injuries in the explosion at the factory operated by Air Products, a global gas and chemical company based in Allentown, Pa.
French President François Hollande called it “a pure terrorist attack, especially inasmuch as a corpse has been found, decapitated with a message.”
He summoned security chiefs and placed security agencies in southeastern France on a state of high alert.
Tunisia also was still reeling from a recent terrorist attack — the assault by gunmen in March at the Bardo museum in the capital, Tunis, in which 22 people died. The bloodshed on the beach in Sousse is expected to further dent the North African country’s vital tourism industry.
Witnesses described scenes of chaos as a gunman opened fire with an automatic rifle, sending sunbathers scrambling for cover amid beach umbrellas and sun beds. Tunisian authorities said the assailant was killed, and it was unclear whether more than one attacker was involved.
“A state of panic,” said Tunisian journalist Moez Ben Gharbiya, describing the scene from the seaside town, a popular spot for European tourists about 90 miles south of Tunis.
The bombing in Kuwait fit a recent pattern in which the Islamic State has been targeting Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
The tactic echoes the way in which an earlier iteration of the group provoked sectarian strife in Iraq by relentlessly bombing Shiite mosques, and this appears to be the goal now, Hokayem said.
“By going after Shiites in Saudi and Kuwait, ISIS is playing a sophisticated game where it thrives off of existing sectarianism in the Sunni world,” he said.
Kuwaitis, however, rallied behind the Shiites, a small but widely accepted minority in the tiny nation. The country’s emir immediately visited the mosque, and Kuwaitis lined up to donate blood to the injured, who numbered more than 200, according to media reports in Kuwait.
“This criminal act on one of the houses of God is a desperate and wicked attempt to divide the unity of the Kuwaiti people, and it comes amid threats faced by the entire region,” said Crown Prince Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah in a statement on Kuwaiti state television.
World leaders elsewhere denounced the attacks.
The United States “condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist attacks” in the three countries, a White House statement said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted that he was “sickened by the attacks in Tunisia, France and Kuwait,” and he summoned an emergency meeting of his security chiefs to assess the heightened threat.
Clinton acts on racial justice // Quad-City Times // Rep. Phyllis Thede – June 26, 2015
There isn’t a soul in America who wasn’t shocked by the massacre that occurred last week in Charleston.
Yet again, a young man looking to do harm was able to acquire a gun and we must face how as a nation we continue to tolerate these mass shootings without acting. But last week’s massacre also highlighted a topic that is too often overlooked and swept under the rug – the deep racist sentiments that persist in pockets of our society.
Over this past week, Hillary Clinton has consistently and persistently brought to the forefront a much-needed dialog about race.
It is all too easy for us to dismiss the murderer in South Carolina as crazy or fringe. As Clinton said this week, “our problem is not all kooks and Klansman. It's also in the cruel joke that goes unchallenged. It's in the off-hand comments about not wanting ‘those people’ in the neighborhood.”
In Iowa, we know that racial disparities still exist. Iowa has the second highest percentage of incarceration of African Americans in the country with African American males making up 26 percent of the prison population despite only comprising about 3 percent of the state’s population. In 2010 it was reported that three in four white Iowans own a home, which can only be said for three in every 10 black families. In education, 16 percent of black Iowans graduated college compared to 25 percent of white Iowans in 2010.
Scripture tells us that there is a time to keep silent and a time to speak out, a time break down and a time to build up. Now is the time to speak out and to build up. I applaud Hillary Clinton for bringing these issues to the forefront, and wholeheartedly believe she will help build a safer, more tolerant, and inclusive country.
12 Winning Brand Tweets After the Supreme Court's Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage // Adweek // Lauren Johnon – June 26, 2015
When the Supreme Court ruled this morning to legalize same-sex marriage in all states, many marketers expectedly took to Twitter to celebrate.
Brands like Mastercard, Target and Ben & Jerry's were prepared for today's news with videos and photos that were ready to tweet, while others like YouTube seemed to whip up tweets on the fly. Hillary Clinton, who is running for president, got a huge reaction to her tweet, which can only help her campaign in winning over the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. And Gap, The White House and American Airlines have swapped out their regular Twitter avatars for themed ones.
Yesterday, MasterCard posted a video telling the story of a couple who won tickets to see Gwen Stefani, the brand's spokeswoman, in celebration of Pride Month. Today, the tweet is getting a boost with Promoted Tweets around the #LoveWins and #MarriageEquality hashtags—two of the buzziest topics on Twitter right now. And Maytag is owning the #SCOTUSMarriage hashtag.
Here are 11 more tweets from brands this morning: