Joining today's show are Mike Barnicle, Sam Stein, Jonathan Capehart, Kasie Hunt, Mike Allen, Eliza Griswold, Michael Warren, Chuck Todd, Fmr. Rep. Eric Cantor, Ali Rezaian, Robin Wright, John Kirby, Leigh Gallagher, Brian Sullivan, Cindi Leive, Kent and Amber Brantly
OK. Lets get going after a late night of watching and listening to the first Phish show of the tour. The show was pretty good. Tonight is another one although I have a periodontist appointment today in a few hours from now. We have lots to talk about today i am sure so lets get that rolling now even though I am slow so far today.
And, what does Donald Trump mean when he speaks and notably about his latest rants against Lindsey Graham and Hillary Clinton. He makes no sense to me and we knew that Lindsey (Graham) would be next in his (Donald Trump) cross hairs. He goes off on such rants that he literally gave out Lindsey Graham's cell phone number. That is what I mean though, he has nothing really to say and so he falls into this adolescent stuff. He is actually quite reckless when he rants about other people. Donald Trump gave out Lindsey Graham's personal cell number to America. But what i love about Donald trump saying that even three or four years ago that he never heard of him. How could you be in politics or in big business and not heard of Lindsey graham as recent as four years ago. Mika just said that he (Donald Trump) announced some other guys phone number a few weeks ago. It is very idd behavior to act that way.
Speaking in front of hundreds at a rally in South Carolina on Tuesday, Donald Trump read a number he said people could use to reach South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham's private cell phone.
Trump and Graham have engaged in an ongoing feud in the past few days as they battle for the Republican presidential nomination. In Trump's speech Tuesday, he called Graham an "idiot," after Graham called him a "jackass," in an interview Monday with CNN's Kate Bolduan.
Trump gave out the number and urged attendees to call it.
"Give it a shot," Trump said, urging people to call the state's senior senator.
When CNN called the number, it went directly to voicemail and the recorded message said it was the phone number for Graham. The mailbox was full.
A text message to Graham using the number was not returned.
Immediately following Trump's rally, Graham's campaign manager released a statement saying that the only people excited about Trump's presidential bid are President Barack Obama and 2016 Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
"Donald Trump continues to show hourly that he is ill-prepared to be commander in chief," Christian Ferry said, adding later, that "Because of Trump's bombastic and ridiculous campaign, we aren't talking about Obama's horrible deal with Iran or Hillary Clinton's plans to continue Obama's failed national security agenda."
Graham also joked shortly thereafter that he might need a new phone now.
Willie just said that Donald trump likes to give a giant middle finger to the political system and all Donald trump is a a big bully. That is all it is. The Huffington Post has made the decision to take all Donald trump stories and to place them into the Entertainment Section.
Huffington Post says it will frame Trump’s campaign as entertainment. I support that. “Newsrooms should be more up front with us about how they classify the candidates. Can’t even take the guy seriously? Tell us!”
This was the entire announcement. Lets look at it again:
[Huff Post Politics]
A Note About Our Coverage Of Donald Trump’s ‘Campaign’Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post
Danny Shea, Editorial Director, The Huffington PostAfter watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacyfor president, we have decided we won’t report on Trump’s campaign as part of The Huffington Post’s political coverage. Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.
That’s concise. But there was no bill of particulars for the claim, “Trump’s campaign is a sideshow.” Huffington Post made a statement. It made no attempt to persuade people to it. Presumably the editors thought the evidence sufficiently clear for the basic equation: Trump campaign = entertainment.
I might have done it differently — I would have added a bill of particulars — but I support what Huffington Post did.
1. In that missing bill of particulars might have appeared this, heard on Meet the Press two weeks ago. I could show you hundreds of statements just like it from learned pundits and campaign correspondents. Here is the tireless author of the Washington Post’s The Fix blog (it’s for political junkies.)
CHRIS CILLIZZA: I certainly agree that Trump loves being anyone’s foil because it means we’re talking about him, right? And then I think this is a car accident candidacy, Donald Trump, which is essentially there’s a car accident. You don’t want to slow down. You don’t want to look. But there’s always traffic because everybody slows down and everybody looks, right? And that’s Donald Trump.
Right: that’s Trump. So to classify his campaign as entertainment is to share in — but extend a little bit — what Chris Cillizza and his colleagues have done hundreds of times in their columns and on air. There’s a different logic operating here, they have told us. The logic of… person who is a walking car wreck. A more innocent term for it is “showman.” An even milder, vaguer term is entertainment.
2. A car wreck is entertainment only in this sense: it produces attention from gruesome spectacle alone, not by persuading you of its goodness or fitness or information value. Anything that compels a look or gets ’em talking can be entertaining.
We know this from social life and media life. If you’re willing to be that person who is a walking car wreck, the attention problem is easier to solve. Trump is willing. Other candidates are not. Whatever “issue” he’s talking about at the moment, the problem he’s trying to solve is continuity of attention for the figurine Trump. You can’t assess that sort of campaign in the same way, even though it might affect The Race. Even though it might have political consequences that are quite real.
We know this from social life and media life. If you’re willing to be that person who is a walking car wreck, the attention problem is easier to solve. Trump is willing. Other candidates are not. Whatever “issue” he’s talking about at the moment, the problem he’s trying to solve is continuity of attention for the figurine Trump. You can’t assess that sort of campaign in the same way, even though it might affect The Race. Even though it might have political consequences that are quite real.
3. ‘There’s a different logic driving Trump’s campaign. So we re-classified it.’ This is what I understand the Huffington Post to be saying. To me it is a sensible proposition. (Trump’s response.)
4. Yes, I think journalists should be involved in such judgments. Exactly so. What is the logic of this candidacy? Who is a serious candidate for president? Who is not capable? These are exactly the assessments editors and reporters have to be making as they review the field and decide how to “spend” scarce coverage units. They’re not deciding who we vote for. They’re deciding how best to render the field. Who is a serious foreign policy candidate? Who has proposals for addressing inequality that are worthy of more discussion? Campaign journalists should be able to tell us, and then point to the record so we can check our judgment against theirs.
Part of the reason I support what Huff Post did with its Trump coverage is that I think newsrooms should be more up front with us about how they classify the candidates. Can’t even take the guy seriously? Tell us why! It will help in evaluating your coverage. Huff Post struck a blow for editorial transparency when it said: For us, Trump’s campaign is best classified as entertainment.
5. A “symbolic” blow it was, however. From what I can tell, not that much will be different in the way the Huffington Post reports on Trump. It’s not going to ignore the Trump phenomenon. Journalistically speaking, it can’t. The big summer project from Trump studios is affecting the other candidates. It could affect the fortunes of the Republican party. (We don’t know this yet.) It says something about the GOP’s current state that Trump could get this far. And there’s clearly commercial demand for the show among readers and viewers, as well as cable bookers. So let’s be clear: the Huffington Post will still be reporting on Trump’s campaign. But as Ryan Grim saidSaturday on Twitter: “It’s reported on first as entertainment. The distinction is symbolic.”
6. As rendered here:
“The distinction is symbolic.” Yes. Also difficult to observe in a wholly consistent way.
7. I asked Ryan Grim: If the move Huff Post made is symbolic — not a big shift in practice so much as a statement — what are you trying to say? He told me:
The media aren’t passive bystanders to history, but very much active participants, whether we like it or not. Polls at the early stages are largely a function of name ID. And since Trump entered the race, he has consumed the bulk of coverage and unsurprisingly he is rising in the polls, a phenomenon the media point to to justify even more coverage. It’s self-fulfilling absurdity. And we can choose to do it differently. That’s the message we’re sending.
Especially in the early stages of campaigns what appears to be significant is often a reflection of patterns in media coverage. Patterns in media coverage are a reflection of… well, that’s the problem. Huff Post is saying: We know we’re participants, as well as observers. In our role as framer of coverage and classifier of candidates we stand thusly on Trump’s 2016 campaign: its first logic is entertainment. Don’t agree with us? Fine. You know where we’re coming from.
To me that is progress. “The media aren’t passive bystanders, but participants…” is progress.
8. The opposing position was put forward by… Chris Cillizza, reacting to Huffington Post’s announcement:
Who are we to decide who’s serious and who’s not in an election? Trump’s polling suggests that, whether you like him or not and whether you think his campaign is a sideshow or not, plenty of people who identify as both Republicans and likely voters don’t see him that way. It’s not up to me, The Washington Post or the Huffington Post to decide the relative merits of people feeling that way. It’s our job to understand why they feel that way, analyze how long they might feel that way and figure out what it means for everyone else running for president that they feel that way.
In other words: We don’t know we’re participants. Maybe we’re just observers!
Other reactions I saw from journalists took a similar tack. If you dismiss Trump as entertainment you are telling the voters who support him that they are clowns and asses and dupes. But these are real voters! You can’t say that about them. (Real voters don’t show up until January 2016, of course, but never mind…). Who are we to decide who’s serious and who’s not? The obvious trouble for journalists is they’re already doing that— but by default. As Ryan Grim said. “[Trump] has consumed the bulk of coverage and unsurprisingly he is rising in the polls, a phenomenon the media point to to justify even more coverage.”
9. I would have done it differently. I would have announced the policy with a detailed work of analysis that gives chapter and verse about early primary polls and media coverage. (Some of that started to emerge here.) I would have made sure that Trump-made news really doesn’t appear in the Politics section. (“We were ironing out kinks yesterday, but that’ll be how we handle it going forward,” Grim said Sunday morning.) And instead of asking political journalists to struggle with the entertainment logic of the Trump candidacy, I’d also ask entertainment journalists to struggle with the political consequences of the Trump production.
10. “That Trump has any support at all is a genuine phenomenon and has implications that are serious,” Grim told me. “That should be covered seriously. What we’re saying is that Trump himself shouldn’t be.” Again, seems sensible to me. And there are signs this weekend of peak Trump so maybe the problem will go away.
But what the Huffington Post did should be recalled as a slip in solidarity that revealed something about the campaign press: it likes the default settings and the circularity they create. It does not like dissent from them.
That’s grandstanding. (Politico.) That’s childish. (Bloomberg.) I disagree: “We will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section…” is the work of fed-up and free-thinking adults.
Trump Leads GOP Field, No Slump After Attacks on McCain. With just two weeks to go before Fox News hosts the first Republican presidential debate of the 2016 cycle, real estate mogul Donald Trump looks increasingly well-positioned to claim center stage.
A new Morning Consult poll finds Trump leading the Republican field with 22 percent of the vote, well ahead of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who clocks in with 15 percent, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, in third place with 12 percent.
No other Republican breaks into double digits. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson receives 8 percent of the vote, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 7 percent, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) at 6 percent and Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) at 5 percent. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) are tied at 4 percent apiece.
Republican Presidential Primary Contest
Trump
Bush
Walker
Carson
Huckabee
Rubio
Paul
Christie
Cruz
Fiorina
Someone else
Date Trump Bush Walker Carson Huckabee Rubio Paul Christie Cruz Fiorina Someone else
5/31/2015 5 16 11 9 9 9 9 7 6 2 3
6/8/2015 4 13 14 8 8 8 8 5 4 2 7
6/22/2015 12 19 10 9 7 10 7 5 3 1 3
6/29/2015 12 20 9 8 7 7 6 6 6 2 4
7/13/2015 17 19 7 5 6 9 8 6 6 2 3
7/20/2015 22 15 12 8 7 6 5 4 4 3 3
The Morning Consult survey, conducted July 17 through July 20 among 1,978 registered voters, includes a subsample of 754 self-identified Republican and Republican-leaning voters who say they will participate in the party’s presidential nominating contest, for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
There is no evidence that Trump’s numbers have slumped after comments he made questioning Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) war record. Though most of the rest of the Republican field — and even the Republican National Committee — loudly criticized Trump after he made the comments on Saturday morning at an event in Iowa, voters interviewed afterward weren’t any less likely to say they support him.
In fact, Trump has gained ground since a Morning Consult poll earlier this month, when he trailed Bush by a 19 percent to 17 percent margin. This week Trump is the second choice of 12 percent of voters, behind Bush’s 18 percent.
But both this week’s and last week’s polls suggest Trump’s ceiling is lower than other candidates. Republican voters have a broadly favorable impression of candidates running for their party’s nomination; 63 percent of self-described Republicans have a favorable view of Bush, while 27 percent see him unfavorably, for example.
Candidate Favorable Unfavorable
Bush 63 27
Huckabee 55 24
Rubio 54 17
Trump 49 41
Walker 48 11
Cruz 48 19
Paul 47 26
Perry 47 19
Santorum 47 24
Carson 43 13
Christie 40 40
Fiorina 29 16
Note: All ratings except Trump’s are from a poll conducted July 17 through July 20 among 618 self-identified Republicans. Trump’s rating comes from a survey conducted July 8 through July 13 among 593 self-identified Republicans. Both samples have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Trump’s favorable rating among Republican voters stands at 49 percent, while 41 percent see him unfavorably. Those who say they see him in a very unfavorable light spiked from 14 percent in June to 26 percent in mid-July. Only one other Republican candidate, Christie, has comparable unfavorable numbers among Republicans; 40 percent of GOP voters see Christie unfavorably, the same percentage that say they view him favorably.
More than half of self-described Republicans say they have favorable views of Huckabee and Rubio. Former Hewlett-Packard chief executive officer Carly Fiorina has the most room to grow of any Republican candidate: Only 45 percent of Republicans have an opinion of Fiorina, and 29 percent say they view her favorably.
John Kasich makes 2016 bid official in freewheeling announcement. Ohio Gov. John Kasich burst onto the Republican playing field Tuesday with a freewheeling and, at times, emotional speech that hit on two main points: Americans should be working together and he can win, despite long odds.
The second-term Ohio governor told his life story for 45 minutes Tuesday at his alma mater, Ohio State University. And it was 20 minutes into his speech, at times meandering and sounding unscripted, before he made it official:
"I am here to ask you for your prayers, for your support ... because I have decided to run for president of the United States," Kasich told the crowd of roughly 4,000.
Kasich tacked to the left throughout his speech, in a way that no other Republican candidate has this cycle, touching on themes of unity and support.
"There are those who say 'Just work harder.' 'Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps.' I believe in all of that. Some people just don't have the fortune we have," he said.
Later in his speech, Kasich -- who has been criticized heavily for expanding Medicaid under the President Barack Obama's signature health care law -- asked for empathy.
"The Lord wants our hearts to reach out to those who don't have what we have," he said. "That shouldn't be hard for America, that's who we are. Empathy. Don't be so quick too judge."
As he becomes the 16th major Republican candidate to enter the field, Kasich faces an immediate hurdle of trying to make it onstage for the first Republican debate. Fox News has said only the top 10 candidates in national polling will make the cut and Kasich has been trailing in the back of the pack with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Kasich hinted at his task in a refrain throughout his speech, laying down the argument for why he could upend the frontrunners in the wide-open field.
"They said it couldn't be done, and we proved them wrong again" Kasich said, as he recounted his first run for Congress, then his 2010 run for governor.
Though he waited until Tuesday to announce, the Kasich campaign has effectively been up and running for months. His affiliated campaign group, New Day for America, began airing its second television ad in New Hampshire this week. He blasted his way on-air late in June with the first major buy of the cycle, spending $1.7 million to introduce himself to New Hampshire voters.
Now, as he formalized his bid 20 minutes into his speech Tuesday, Kasich will be looking to ride the post-announcement bump into the top 10 candidates -- the group that will be able to participate in the first GOP debate next month sponsored by Fox Next.
The 63-year-old Republican has a resume tailor-made for presidential politics: elected twice statewide in battleground Ohio, worked in the private sector and served nearly two decades in Congress, which included a six-year run as chairman of the House Budget Committee.
Kasich launches his presidential campaign near the back of the pack in the polls. A CNN/ORC survey released in July showed the Ohio Republican with just 2% support among likely GOP primary voters. And the latest average tallied by RealClearPolitics has Kasich at 1.5% nationwide, and in 12th place, just behind former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.
His candidacy offers mainstream Republicans another option alongside former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
As he looks to differentiate himself, his calling card may end up being his blunt and sometimes prickly style -- which could be spun to present a straight-talking candidate, ready to break out of typical molds.
Kasich previously sought the presidency 16 years ago, but withdrew from the race in July 1999 and endorsed George W. Bush. During that campaign he referred to himself as the "Jolt Cola" of the Republican field to draw a contrast between his lively personality and what he saw as less exciting candidates. This time, however, he said he's staffed up and ready to run.
"I've done this before. The problem was last time that I had this jet airplane ready to take off but I didn't have any gas for it. It never got into the air," Kasich said earlier this month, following a meeting of Washington backers he convened near the Capitol. "I learned a lot from that."
More than a decade-and-a-half later, Kasich is still full of energy, and is not shy about taking on his fellow Republicans: He has accepted Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, supports Common Core education standards and has allowed for the possibility of a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
The Ohio 'formula'
That call-it-like-he-sees-it style has helped raise Kasich's political stock, at least in Ohio. The Republican scored a resounding victory in his 2014 re-election fight, receiving 64% of the vote and winning all but two of the Buckeye State's 88 counties, albeit against a flawed Democratic challenger.
That 2014 victory was even more remarkable considering Kasich's standing just a few years earlier. Shortly after taking office, Kasich pushed to end the collective bargaining rights for public employee unions in the state, a bruising battle that saw his approval ratings dip into the 30s. In November 2011, Ohio voters rejected the measure at the ballot by a 22-point margin, 61% to 39%.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich speaks at the First in the Nation Republican Leadership Summit on April 18, 2015, in Nashua, New Hampshire. The summit was attended by all the 2016 Republican candidates as well as those eying a run for the nomination. Click through for more on the political career of Kasich:
"It's clear the people have spoken," Kasich said in the aftermath of the defeat. "I heard their voices. I understand their decision. And frankly, I respect what the people have to say in an effort like this. And as a result of that, it requires me to take a deep breath and to spend some time to reflect on what happened here."
Less than two years later, Kasich took a step that would roil some conservatives, announcing in February of 2013 that Ohio would accept federal money under President Obama's health care law to dramatically expand Medicaid coverage to some 275,000 residents. The decision resulted in a months-long fight with GOP state lawmakers, but Kasich ultimately prevailed in an effort that he has framed as both an economic and moral cause.
"I'm proud of what we've been doing for the people who have been living in the shadows, living under a bridge or whatever," Kasich said during a Republican Governors Association panel last November. "And the people have responded to it. Conservatives in my state have responded to it by and large."
The effort did not appear to have any lingering effects by the time November 2014 rolled around, with 88% of conservatives saying they backed Kasich for a second term, according to exit polls. But it was Kasich's ability to expand his support among groups that Republicans have struggled to win over at the national level, winning 60% of women, 59% of moderates and 26% of African-Americans.
Kasich suggests other Republicans should be following his example if they want to take back the White House next year.
"I think it's a formula for the country. Look at problems and fix them. Don't be worried about the next election," Kasich told CNN's Gloria Borger during a visit to South Carolina in February. "I mean, too many politicians worry about getting elected as they do their job -- if they worried more about doing their job they'd get elected.
His own brand of conservatism
No Republican has waged a successful campaign for the White House without winning Ohio. And there is one thing Kasich says will not work with Buckeye State voters: extremism.
"If somebody comes into Ohio and they're extreme, they're not going to win," Kasich told CNN. "I mean, we don't operate that way in Ohio."
That has been a common refrain for Kasich as he explored a potential presidential bid earlier this year. During a March appearance in New Hampshire Kasich blasted "all the divisions in America" and said leaders should "cross their own interest groups and reach out to unite and lift Americans."
The challenge for Kasich, though, is selling a more pragmatic brand of politics to a conservative GOP primary electorate eager to draw sharp contrasts with President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee in 2016.
Kasich has an answer ready for critics who contend his approach to governing does not line up with conservative principles.
"You know what, I've got as much a right as anybody in the Republican Party to define what conservatism means," Kasich told CNN in February. "I was the governor of Ohio that took an $8 billion hole and produced a surplus. We've cut taxes more than anybody in the country, and they're wondering about my conservatism? Maybe I should wonder about theirs."
'Crusade' to balance the budget
There is one policy area where it is hard to deny Kasich's conservative chops: the budget.
The fiscal health of the country has been a focus of the Ohio Republican for decades. Kasich describes himself as the "chief architect" of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, signed by President Bill Clinton, which resulted in the first federal budget surplus since the late 1960s.
Last December, fresh off his 2014 re-election victory, Kasich launched what he dubbed a "crusade" to adopt a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which included travel to the key early voting states of South Carolina and New Hampshire, as well as others such as Idaho and Utah.
"If you don't manage the debt, it'll kill you," Kasich said during a March stop in New Hampshire, pledging to "travel all over America" to promote his agenda.
An opening for Kasich
When he was mulling a bid earlier this year, Kasich said that one of the key factors in his decision would be whether there was a way for him to win the White House.
Amid a field of bigger-name contenders -- like Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker -- Kasich looks crowded out. However, his affiliated "New Day" group announced a combined fundraising haul of $11.5 million during a somewhat-abbreviated period starting from May 1, enough for the Kasich team to land in the middle of the pack.
And Kasich has the backing of a handful of key Republicans, including top media strategists from Sen. John McCain's 2008 bid, Fred Davis and John Weaver, and former New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu, something Kasich often points out.
"Give me somebody better than John Sununu in New Hampshire, tell me who it is," Kasich said earlier this month. "I can't figure out who it would be. Maybe (former) Gov. (John) Sununu, his father. But I'll take young John."
Trump'd again!
By HENRY C. JACKSON 7/21/15 6:30 PM EDT
THE CLOCK: 476 days until Election Day 2016 …
DEBATE CLOCK: 16 days until the first Fox News GOP debate in Cleveland ...
TRUMP’D: POLITICO’s Hadas Gold reports: JOHN KASICH announced his White House dreams with a pugnacious, 43-minute speech. He got Trump’d. JEB BUSH introduced a plan to limit the influence of Washington lobbyists. Trump’d. RAND PAUL even brought out a chainsaw, a woodchipper and fire to destroy the U.S. tax code. Trump’d again.
One month after DONALD TRUMP launched his presidential campaign with all the subtlety of, well, a chainsaw, Republican candidates have gasped for air, choked off from media access and desperate for a polling bump ahead of the first debate on Aug. 6.
They’ve taken different tactical approaches. Those on the lower tiers, such as RICK PERRY and LINDSEY GRAHAM, have attacked Trump with abandon, making their peace with the media’s relentless appetite for all things Donald. Top-tier candidates like JEB BUSH and SCOTT WALKER have stayed above the fray. But every time any of them try to get a little attention for themselves, Trump ups the ante. Full story tonight on POLITICO.com.
A good Tuesday to you all, and welcome to today’s 2016 Blast. Henry C. Jackson (@henrycjjackson) is your guide to today’s campaign news. Send your tips, complaints, and hottest hot takes to: hjackson@politico.com
TRAIL MIX: Here’s what’s popping on the campaign trail
In today’s campaign news, HILLARY CLINTON eats cobbler, JOHN KASICH gets Trump'd, BERNIE SANDERS pushes a $15 minimum wage and SCOTT WALKER pulls in $26 million.
THE DAILY CLINTON:
No public events today for HILLARY CLINTON, who is raising money at the home of David Katz and Jill Alper in tony Grosse Pointe, Mich. She did, however, enjoy some black-eyed pea & collard green soup and sweet potato cobbler at a local establishment. http://bit.ly/1KjlWMV
-- AN ACTUAL GENDER CARD: POLITICO’s Nick Gass: HILLARY CLINTON’s response to Mitch McConnell accusing her of playing the gender card has been to produce an actual gender card that ticks off her campaign wish list: “affordable child care,” “paid family leave,” “earned sick days,” “equal pay.” http://politi.co/1CO96GW
-- ATTACK OF THE DAY: Free Beacon: CARLY FIORINA blasts HILLARY CLINTON for her “deafening silence” about “a video that appears to show an official from Planned Parenthood discussing the sale of aborted baby parts.” http://bit.ly/1HORqra
-- @ScottWalker: “.@HillaryClinton attacks me for protecting life after 5 months, but won’t condemn disgusting Planned Parenthood videos. –SW”
-- DRUDGE BANNER: DOCTOR HAGGLING PRICE OF BABY SCRAPS
LAMBORGHINI FOR TISSUE
--CLINTON AND SCHUMER: NY Magazine: Comedian of the moment Amy Schumer says she and HILLARY CLINTON bonded earlier this year at Glamour’s Women of the Year awards: “I said that in L.A. my arms register as legs, and she really liked that. She was [like], ‘I can relate.’” http://thecut.io/1CObehL
THE PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE:
--BERNIE LAYS A TRAP: IBTimes: “Sen. BERNIE SANDERS and ... co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, will unveil legislation” on Wednesday “that would set the federal minimum wage at $15 an hour — a figure that’s more than double the current rate of $7.25.” http://bit.ly/1CTOE7o
-- BIG VENUE BERNIE: Cincinnati Enquirer: A BERNIE SANDERS event scheduled for July 29 is “is being moved to a larger venue.” http://cin.ci/1MFqj5l
-- FUN FACT: BERNIE SANDERS has spent $0 (zero dollars) on polling. http://huff.to/1GzJ592
-- LIL B FOR BERNIE: Lil B, Bay Area rapper, online gadfly, curser of Kevin Durant, tweets, “I’m voting for and rockin @BernieSanders he was marching against segregation what was Hillary Clinton or others doing that time?” http://bit.ly/1KiCVSp
-- ISIL AND CLIMATE CHANGE? Huh? Huffington Post: “Republicans are outraged that Democratic presidential contender MARTIN O’MALLEY” linked the rise of the Islamic State with global warming. http://huff.to/1VqPYor
-- WHAT O’MALLEY SAID: In an interview with Bloomberg: “One of the things that preceded the failure of the nation state of Syria and the rise of ISIS, was the effect of climate change and the mega-drought ... that created the symptoms — or rather, the conditions — of extreme poverty that has now led to the rise of ISIS and this extreme violence.” https://youtu.be/q6gqY25f3wY
THE REPUBLICAN SWEET 16
KASICH’S MOMENT: Ohio Gov. JOHN KASICH, the twice-elected governor of perhaps the nation’s most critical swing state, entered the Republican field on Tuesday. He was overshadowed by DONALD TRUMP giving out LINDSEY GRAHAM’s private cellphone number. Welcome to 2016.
LONG SHOT: POLITICO’s Alex Isenstadt reports from Columbus, Ohio: “Kasich — without the help of a teleprompter — presented himself as an underdog and outsider who had grown accustomed to beating expectations. From his youth as the blue-collar son of a mailman to his ascension through the political ranks, he said, he had shown he was willing to take on stiff challenges. And now, as the latest presidential candidate in a Republican field that’s almost too large to keep track of, he said he would do so again.” http://politi.co/1IgTc89
-- MONEY QUOTES: “You know what resilience is? It’s getting knocked down,” he said. “And I have been knocked down so many times.”
“The sun is going to rise to the zenith in America again. I promise you it’s going to happen.”
“I’m just a flawed man, trying to be God’s messenger. I don’t understand it, he’s been very good to me.”
-- AXELROD NOD: @davidaxelrod: “On paper, Kasich’s state resume, TV skills should make him a top tier candidate. Could be biggest threat to Bush in center right, NH lane.”
-- HUNTSMAN 2.0: 538: “Kasich, like Huntsman, is adored by the media, is seen as too moderate by GOP voters and appears to enjoy telling Republicans they’re wrong.” http://53eig.ht/1g1u1MD
--IT GETS WORSE: The Atlantic: “[JOHN KASICH] has golfed with Obama and generally declines to attack the president personally.” http://theatln.tc/1LALK8S
TRUMP TRUMPS: As Kasich’s speech wrapped, DONALD TRUMP began a characteristically boisterous appearance in South Carolina. POLITICO’s Nick Gass and Adam B. Lerner report Trump “ramped up his attacks” on South Carolina senator LINDSEY GRAHAM “and even gave out Graham’s private cell phone number.” http://politi.co/1MiAX42
-- GRAHAM NOT AMUSED: “When it comes to the Donald, nothing surprises me anymore,” he told POLITICO. “It’s just too bad, really.”
-- OR WAS HE? @LindseyGrahamSC: “Probably getting a new phone. iPhone or Android?”
-- TRUMP ON GRAHAM: “What a stiff. What a stiff.”
-- TRUMP ON RICK PERRY: “Put on glasses so people will think that he’s smart.”
--MAKE YOUR OWN with TIME’s Donald Trump Insult Generator: http://ti.me/1MGeTyb
RAND’S CHAINSAW: POLITICO’s Eliza Collins: “The Kentucky senator and Republican presidential candidate released a video Tuesday of him taking on the tax code with fire, a woodchipper and a chainsaw to a rock-and-roll rendition of the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’” http://politi.co/1HHflLl
-- DETROIT REPUBLICAN: The Detroit News makes note of Paul’s “Detroit Republican” T-shirt. The shirt is “a gift he received when Paul opened the Republican National Committee office in Detroit, a campaign spokesman said.” http://bit.ly/1HHfA99
BULLY BUSH: Larry Sabato for POLITICO Magazine: “an examination of the Bush family legacy in campaigning makes it clear that JEB BUSH’s ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ routine isn’t likely to last all that long ... It’s an easy prediction that he’ll follow his brother and father in bushwhacking any opponent standing between him and the presidency.” http://politi.co/1fjO8ol
LOBBYISTS: Tampa Bay Times: Both MARCO RUBIO and JEB BUSH “have been registered lobbyists in Miami-Dade County. ... Bush registered on behalf of his real estate company before he was elected to office ... Rubio registered as a lobbyist while working for various law firms, mostly on land use.” http://bit.ly/1IhXTAu
BON JOVI > THE BOSS!? In a videotaped interview with Laura Ingraham’s LifeZette website, CHRIS CHRISTIE, who has made his love for Bruce Springsteen known on multiple occasions, picks Jon Bon Jovi over the Boss. http://bit.ly/1OvsA4q
RUBIO TALKS IRAN: “They can either stand with President Obama and allow this flawed agreement to go through, or they can stand with a majority of the American people.” http://bit.ly/1KjjWVa
FACT CHECK: “Skeptical majority backs Obama’s Iran deal” http://politi.co/1gK6PTd
RAP PANDER: @marcorubio: “Anyone know a good theatre in Manchester or Des Moines to catch #straightouttacompton? Trailer looks amazing.” http://bit.ly/1OkUaRd
WALKER COWBOYS UP: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “Gov. SCOTT WALKER has issued an executive order allowing Wisconsin National Guard members to carry weapons while they are on duty. The move comes less than a week after a gunman in Chattanooga, Tennessee, opened fire on a military recruiting center, then drove to a Navy operations support center and launched a second attack, killing four Marines and a sailor.”
WHY: “Safety must be our top priority, especially in light of the horrific attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee,” Walker said.
THIRD PLACE: Daily Caller: “The pro-Walker Unintimidated super PAC released its first fundraising disclosure statement Tuesday ... the PAC has raised more than $20 million from slightly less than 300 different donors.” http://bit.ly/1COguSB
SANTORUM’S FINANCIAL REBOOT: POLITICO’s Katie Glueck reports that RICK SANTORUM rolled out finance committee Tuesday after he “has so far struggled with fundraising in his second run for the White House.” Big names: Lee Roy Mitchell, Lamar Hunt, Jr., Foster Friess. http://politi.co/1MiLKes
CRUZ’S DOOMSDAY: POLITICO’s Burgess Everett: TED CRUZ’s worst fear about the nuclear deal with Iran? That “millions of Americans will be murdered by radical theocratic zealots.” http://politi.co/1DbK280
CRUZ’S GAY MARRIAGE VIDEO: TED CRUZ’s campaign released a video highlighting a straight Iowa couple that refused to offer wedding services to same-sex couples. Cruz interviews Dick and Betty Odgaard of Grimes, Iowa, whom he says “inspire me.” http://bit.ly/1COszas
THE LOGO PRIMARY: Design experts weigh in for POLITICO Magazine on an important question: Which 2016 candidate has the worst logo? http://politi.co/1gMOkxo.
The court, finding fault with certain jury instructions from Blagojevich's retrial, vacates five of 18 counts. re than three years ago, Rod Blagojevich stood with his family on the steps of his Chicago bungalow and vowed to dozens of supporters to fight to overturn his conviction on corruption charges and his 14-year prison sentence.
On Tuesday, 1,224 days after the disgraced former governor checked in to a federal prison in Colorado, his lawyers staged a news conference at the same spot on the Northwest Side. This time, however, there were no cheering crowds or autographs to be signed. The pained look on the faces of Blagojevich's wife, Patti, and 18-year-old daughter, Amy, spoke volumes.
In a long-awaited ruling just hours earlier, a federal appeals court in Chicago threw out five of the 18 counts against Blagojevich and ordered his sentence vacated. The three-judge panel tempered the small legal victory by calling the evidence against Blagojevich "overwhelming" and making it clear he will likely remain locked up for years to come.
The same judge who imposed the original sentence — a frequent target of the defense for his alleged unfairness — will still decide his punishment.
Calling her husband an eternal optimist, a somber Patti Blagojevich said she broke news of the ruling to the former governor, who is more than three years into his sentence.
"This has been a long road for our family. We've waited a long time for this decision. We are very disappointed," Patti told reporters. "There's been so much in the last 3½ years that Rod's missed — high school graduations, proms, birthdays — and so if there's any silver lining for us it's that possibly this is a step in the right direction to getting him home with us and with his girls where he belongs."
As she listened, Amy began to cry, resting her head on her mom's shoulder.
Blagojevich's lawyers blasted the ruling as legally unsound and said they'd consider asking the full 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to rehear the case or possibly filing an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court — both considered long shots at best.
The ruling came 19 months after oral argument, and at 23 pages, it was surprisingly concise. Its author, Judge Frank Easterbrook, said the court could have produced "a book-length opinion" because of the complexities of Blagojevich's two trials but chose to stick to "the most important facts" and the "principal arguments" of the lawyers.
Blagojevich's appellate attorney, Leonard Goodman, said he was stunned that the court didn't address many of the issues and alleged evidentiary errors that the former governor's appeal raised.
"And the ones it does address it gets it wrong," said Goodman, referring in particular to the trial judge's decision to exclude testimony from Blagojevich that he believed his actions were lawful. "So it's shocking to me that after a year and a half this could be the result of the court's work."
The ruling left uncertain how Blagojevich's fate would ultimately be resolved. Prosecutors could opt against a third trial, throw out the five overturned counts and proceed to a resentencing on the remaining convictions.
If prosecutors elect to drop the counts that were thrown out on appeal, then U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who presided over two criminal trials for Blagojevich, should "proceed directly to resentencing," the opinion stated.
"It is not possible to call the 168 months unlawfully high for Blagojevich's crimes, but the district judge should consider on remand whether it is the most appropriate sentence," Easterbrook wrote in the unanimous opinion. In ordering a sentencing redo, the judges indicated that Blagojevich might not expect a more generous outcome from Zagel this time around.
The U.S. attorney's office in Chicago had no immediate comment Tuesday. Both U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon and his top assistant, Joel Levin, likely won't be involved in deciding how the office responds to the court's ruling because of conflicts of interest. Both represented clients connected to the Blagojevich case while in private practice.
Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor, said the ruling wasn't a vindication for Blagojevich "by any stretch of the imagination," noting the court did not find that he was wrongfully convicted.
"This is a technicality on jury instructions," he said of the decision.
Cramer said the government will almost certainly throw out the five counts reversed by the court and attempt to defend the 14-year prison sentence Zagel already handed down. In fact, the court noted that Zagel had already found that the original sentence called for under federal guidelines was too harsh.
"He had already given (Blagojevich) more than half off," Cramer said.
After a federal appeals court in Chicago threw out five of 18 counts against former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, his daughter Amy, left, and wife Patti Blagojevich, center, hold a press conference outside the family's home on the Northwest
Patti Blagojevich, left, attends a news conference outside her home as attorney Len Goodman, right, speaks following the announcement that a federal appeals court in Chicago threw out five of 18 counts against former Illinois Gov., July 21, 2015.
Blagojevich, now 58, was convicted of misusing his powers as governor in an array of shakedown schemes, most famously for his alleged attempts to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama after his 2008 election as president. Blagojevich, incarcerated in a federal prison in suburban Denver since March 2012, is not scheduled to be released until May 2024, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
The appellate court had mulled the ruling since holding oral arguments in December 2013, a delay that led to speculation over a split among the panel of three judges — Easterbrook, Ilana Diamond Rovner and Michael Kanne.
Blagojevich has long claimed he was no different than other elected officials who leveraged their political power, and much of the appellate opinion focused on that sometimes gray line between traditional political horse-trading and flat-out bribery.
The court ruled that the instructions given to the jury in Blagojevich's second trial should have differentiated between Blagojevich's various schemes to sell the Senate seat, in particular his idea to seek a position in Obama's Cabinet in exchange for appointing longtime Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. The opinion called that a "common exercise of logrolling," essentially the swapping of political favors.
Another aspect of the scheme — to give the seat to Jarrett in exchange for money — represented a much brighter line of criminal activity, the court held.
"The (jury) instructions treated all proposals alike," the opinion stated. "We conclude, however, that they are legally different: a proposal to trade one public act for another, a form of logrolling, is fundamentally unlike the swap of an official act for a private payment."
The opinion also invoked a key exchange from the 2013 arguments when Easterbrook pressed a federal prosecutor on how Blagojevich's conduct differed from a famous political deal supposedly struck more than 60 years ago: President Dwight Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court in exchange for the California governor's support in the 1952 election.
"If the prosecutor is right, and a swap of political favors involving a job for one of the politicians is a felony, then if the standard account is true both the President of the United States and the Chief Justice of the United States should have gone to prison," the opinion stated.
But the opinion was also clear that the evidence against Blagojevich was overwhelming, "much of it from Blagojevich's own mouth" as a result of wiretaps on his phone and his rambling testimony in his second trial. The opinion also upheld what perhaps was the most brazen of Blagojevich's extortion and bribery convictions: a deal to name then-U.S. Rep. Jessie Jackson Jr. to the Senate seat in exchange for $1.5 million in campaign cash.
While it was forced to reverse convictions on the five counts, the court wrote, prosecutors could focus at a retrial on the then-governor's more straightforward efforts to swap Jarrett's appointment for money, not a Cabinet post.
In his remarks to reporters outside Blagojevich's home, Goodman said he had not yet spoken to Blagojevich so he wasn't sure about the next course of action. But he said his advice to Blagojevich will be to continue to fight the case.
"The evidence that would have acquitted him was excluded at trial, and my advice to the governor is that he should fight on," Goodman said.
Patrick Collins, another former federal prosecutor who helped secure a corruption conviction against former Gov. George Ryan, said the opinion's legacy may be in the way it attempts to draw a clearer distinction between logrolling and behavior that is clearly corrupt.
"It really tries to draw a bright line, and that gives some helpful guidance to politicians, particularly those who operate in the gray zone," Collins said. Chicago Tribune's Dawn Rhodes, John Chase and Jeff Coen contributed.
Department of Justice drops Barry Bonds prosecution. After a nearly decadelong steroids prosecution, Barry Bonds emerged victorious Tuesday when federal prosecutors dropped what was left of their criminal case against the career home runs leader.
The government's pursuit of Bonds ended quietly with a one-paragraph motion by the U.S. Department of Justice announcing Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. will not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the appellate decision that overturned Bonds' obstruction of justice conviction.
A jury found the former San Francisco Giants star guilty in 2011 for giving a meandering answer to a federal grand jury in 2003 when asked whether his personal trainer gave him anything that required a syringe for self-injection. An 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that conviction in April, and the government had until Wednesday to file for a Supreme Court review.
The jury deadlocked on three counts accusing Bonds of making false statements when he denied receiving steroids or human growth hormone or any substance that required a syringe for self-injection from the trainer, Greg Anderson. The government dismissed those counts in August 2011, and the 9th Circuit barred a retrial on the obstruction charge, citing double jeopardy.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced in a one-paragraph statement that it would not ask the Supreme Court to consider the reversal of Barry Bonds' felony conviction. David Paul Morris/Getty Images
"The finality of today's decision gives me great peace," Bonds, who turns 51 on Friday, said in a statement. "As I have said before, this outcome is something I have long wished for. I am relieved, humbled and thankful for what this means for me and my family moving forward."
Major League Baseball had no immediate comment. The U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco didn't immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment.
Bonds' legal victory is unlikely to win over critics who concluded he cheated by using performance-enhancing drugs, or help him with Hall of Fame voters.
In his third year on the Hall ballot in 2015, Bonds received 202 votes for 36.8 percent from the Baseball Writers' Association of America. A player must garner at least 75 percent of the vote to be elected.
But it brings to a close one of the most high-profile prosecutions to emerge from an investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative that began in 2002 and saw the convictions of Olympic track gold medalist Marion Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.
"It seems that the government has finally come to their senses," BALCO founder Victor Conte, who was sentenced to four months in prison and four months of home confinement, said in a statement. "In my opinion they should have never brought charges against Barry Bonds and wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. ... The Bonds case was simply a trophy-hunting expedition by these federal agents and prosecutors and I believe they need to be held accountable for this waste of federal funds."
The BALCO investigation also helped lead to the report by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, which called out many of baseball's top players, including Roger Clemens, for alleged steroids use. Clemens was acquitted in 2012 on all charges that he obstructed and lied to Congress in denying he used performance-enhancing drugs.
Bonds was charged four years after he testified before a grand jury after receiving a grant of immunity. Bonds didn't dispute that he took steroids, but testified to the grand jury that Anderson told him they were flaxseed oil and arthritic balm.
After a three-week trial, Bonds was convicted for his response to the question: "Did Greg ever give you anything that required a syringe to inject yourself with?"
"That's what keeps our friendship," Bonds replied. "I was a celebrity child, not just in baseball by my own instincts. I became a celebrity child with a famous father. I just don't get into other people's business because of my father's situation, you see."
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit unanimously upheld the conviction in 2013 but the larger group of judges ruled in April that there was insufficient evidence Bonds' answer was material to the federal investigation into sports doping.
After the 2011 conviction, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston sentenced Bonds to 30 days of home confinement, two years of probation, 250 hours of community service in youth-related activities and a $4,000 fine. Bonds served the home confinement before his conviction was overturned.
Bonds ended his career after the 2007 season with 762 homers, surpassing the record of 755 that Hank Aaron set from 1954 to '76. He has been more active with the Giants recently, serving as a hitting instructor at spring training, and Bonds still has the backing of Giants who played alongside him, such as two-time NL Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum.
"Thank you to all of you who have expressed your heartfelt wishes to me; for that, I am grateful," Bonds said.
EXCLUSIVE: Stats prove Mayor de Blasio's claims Uber is causing congestion are misleading, ridesharing company says. Mr. Mayor, don’t blame Uber for your claims of congestion on the streets of Manhattan, the app-based taxi service said Tuesday.
The tech-fueled car company says records show it’s not driving gridlock, even as Mayor de Blasio this week blamed the surging growth of Uber and for-hire cars for straining Manhattan’s congested grid.
But de Blasio is apparently blaming the wrong color car for traffic pain.
Uber data obtained exclusively by the Daily News show that 60% of Uber’s trips in the evening rush hour from June 1 to July 19 began below 59th St. During the morning rush hour, 43% of Uber trips started there.
Yellow cabs, meanwhile, make 90% of their trips in Manhattan, according to city officials.
Uber officials say they have an hourly average of 2,000 cars in the city’s central business district during the day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
De Blasio on Monday clung to the fact that Uber cars quickly eclipsed the 13,587 yellow taxis in the city. City officials have also said 72% of “high growth” for-hire car companies — code name Uber — are starting trips in Manhattan’s core.
De Blasio on Monday clung to the fact that Uber cars quickly eclipsed the 13,587 yellow taxis in the city.
“Imagine that a few years ago, no one had ever heard of Uber, and now suddenly it has more vehicles than we have yellow taxis in all of New York City,” de Blasio said.
“Obviously, that’s had an impact on congestion in the city, particularly in Midtown.”
Uber’s New York City general manager Josh Mohrer said de Blasio is playing loose with the numbers.
“The de Blasio administration is misleading the public. They have this data,” Mohrer told The News. “They actually know how many cars are on the road. They are withholding that information because it undermines the merits of the congestion argument.”
According to Uber’s data, the times with the most cars on the road — on average — were Thursday and Saturday nights.
During the morning rush hour, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., there were between 2,100 and 3,811 drivers, on average, making pickups citywide. The evening commute — 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. — saw 4,595 to 5,037 cars on the road citywide.
Uber officials say the number of their cars on the street is far lower than the de Blasio administration would have people believe.
The Uber app added a new feature for New York users that shows what the service would be like if the De Blasio cap bill passes.
“It’s not nearly what folks might think,” Mohrer said.
City officials warn that the pace of Uber’s growth will clog the streets.
In pushing a policy to cap new cars, city transportation officials said 25,000 new for-hire vehicles hit the roads since 2011, right as Uber and taxi app services rolled onto the scene. New car licenses have been approved at a clip of 2,000 a month, according to officials.
“That means we’re facing the addition of over 25,000 cars to our streets over the next year — the rough equivalent of two times the total number of yellow taxis in all of New York City,” de Blasio wrote in a News Op-Ed.
The City Council this week is poised to vote on limits for new for-hire cars so the city can study traffic and air quality. City transportation officials pointed to a slowdown in Manhattan traffic speeds as evidence of gridlock.
During Uber drivers’ busiest hour — July 9 from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., with 13,645 trips — 62% of the pickups were below 59th St. In other similarly busy hours — during the evening of June 27, Pride weekend — 55% of the trips were in Manhattan’s business core.
'The de Blasio administration is misleading the public,' Uber’s New York City general manager Josh Mohrer said.
But de Blasio spokesman Wiley Norvell rejected Uber’s claim it’s not the source of the traffic pain. Both cabs and Ubers jam the streets in search for possible passengers, Norvell said.
“They cruise, they travel around,” Norvell said of Uber. “Their behavior is more akin to what taxis do.”
Because of this, Uber cars should be subject to a study, just like the environmental review required for new yellow taxis to hit the road, Norvell said.
“An environmental review from just two years ago showed major environmental impacts of adding just 2,000 new taxis, precisely for these reasons,” he said.
Mohrer warned of dire consequences for Uber fans if the Council goes through with new limits on black and livery cars.
“Service quality in Manhattan will get worse,” he said. “Getting an Uber in the boroughs will become impossible.”
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Mohrer says if de Blasio's cap on cars goes into effect 'service quality in Manhattan will get worse' and 'getting an Uber in the boroughs will become impossible.'
Taxi riders, meanwhile, have seen Uber as a welcome addition to their travel options.
Rachell Weston, 40, a paralegal from Uniondale, L.I., said she can avoid the discrimination she has faced trying to get a traditional taxi. Weston, who is black, called the mayor’s plan a “silly prohibition.”
Toni Sedotto, 25, who works in advertising, prefers Uber.
“You know that you’ll always get a cab, as opposed to waiting forever with your hand in the air,” Sedotto said.
But surge pricing can be a deterrent.
Austin Randall, 27, of Brooklyn, said Uber’s fares skyrocket when you need a car the most.
“I’m going to go with the yellow taxis,” he said. “In a pinch, when you really need a cab, when it’s raining or late Saturday night, (Uber) really jacks the price up.”
Homeland Security Leaders Bent Rules on Private E-Mail. Jeh Johnson, the secretary of homeland security, and 28 of his senior staffers have been using private Web-based e-mail from their work computers for over a year, a practice criticized by cybersecurity experts and advocates of government transparency.
The department banned such private e-mail on DHS computers in April 2014. Top DHS officials were granted informal waivers, according to a top DHS official who said that he saw the practice as a national security risk. The official said the exempt staffers included Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Chief of Staff Christian Marrone and General Counsel Stevan Bunnell.
Asked about the exceptions on Monday, the DHS press secretary, Marsha Catron, confirmed that some officials had been exempted. "Going forward," she said, "all access to personal webmail accounts has been suspended."
Future exceptions are to be granted only by the chief of staff. Catron said that a "recent internal review" had found the chief of staff and some others were unaware that they had had access to webmail.
The DHS rule, articulated last year after hackers first breached the Office of Personnel Management, states: "The use of Internet Webmail (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL) or other personal email accounts is not authorized over DHS furnished equipment or network connections." Johnson and the 28 other senior officials sought and received informal waivers at different times over the past year, the official said. Catron said exceptions were decided on a case-by-case basis by the chief information officer, Luke McCormack. DHS employees are permitted to use their government e-mail accounts for limited personal use.
Erica Paulson, a spokeswoman for the DHS Office of the Inspector General, said that the office does not confirm or deny the existence of any open investigations.
It remains unclear whether Johnson and the other officials conducted DHS business on their private webmail accounts. (The DHS spokeswoman said "the use of personal e-mail for official purposes is strictly prohibited.") If even one work-related e-mail was sent or received, they could be in violation of regulations and laws governing the preservation of federal records, said Jason R. Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration.
"I suppose it is remotely conceivable that in seeking a waiver, 20 or more government officials could all be wishing to talk to each other through a Web-based e-mail service about such matters as baseball games or retirement luncheons they might be attending," he said. "But it is simply not reasonable to assume that in seeking a waiver that the officials involved were only contemplating using a commercial network for personal (that is, non-official) communications."
In March, the New York Times reported that as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton had used a private e-mail server exclusively to conduct her State Department business. Clinton said she had not violated any transparency laws because the Federal Records Act states that officials are permitted to use private e-mail, so long as they forward on any government-related communications to their government accounts so they can be archived and used to respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
In November 2014, the Federal Records Act was amended to impose a 20-day limit on the time an official has to transfer records from private e-mail to government systems. Clinton transferred over 30,000 e-mails from her private server to the State Department in early 2015. She deleted another 30,000 e-mails on her private server, claiming they were all strictly personal.
It is unclear how Johnson and the other officials used their webmail accounts, and whether they forwarded any messages about government business to their official accounts.
Johnson has used his personal Gmail for government business at least once, before he was head of DHS; that was disclosed during the scandal that led to David Petraeus's resignation as CIA director. The Justice Department is fighting to keep Johnson from having to give a video deposition in that case.
Anne Weismann, executive director of the Campaign for Accountability and a former Justice Department official dealing with FOIA litigation, said that even by seeking the waivers at DHS, Johnson and the other officials created at least an appearance and opportunity for impropriety.
"How could they possibly justify exempting the secretary and the most senior people from the policy? You are allowing the people who are most likely to create e-mails that are most worthy of preservation to bypass the system that would ensure their preservation," she said.
The issue of top government officials using private e-mail is widespread and the rules barring such practices are rarely enforced, said Weismann. "What they really want is to have the ability to have off-the-record discussions," she said. "It creates problems for record keeping and it puts it out of the reach of FOIA."
Cybersecurity experts said that allowing the use of commercial webmail on otherwise secure computers increases the risk that those computers could be penetrated by hackers, foreign intelligence services or malware. Webmail messages are often stored without encryption, leaving them vulnerable to theft by anyone who gains access to the webmail server.
"The fundamental issue is that these commercial webmail systems were not designed with the threat in mind that is present when government officials are using consumer tools," said Johannes B. Ullrich, dean of research for the SANS Technology Institute.
The threat is not just theoretical. In 2008, Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account was hacked by someone who used a password reset function to gain access, he said.
There's also a moral hazard.
"If there are just certain individuals being exempted here, it's setting a bad precedent for the rest of the department. If you say, 'Hey, it doesn't apply to everybody over a certain pay grade,' the idea of these controls gets diminished and people look for workarounds," said Ullrich.
Aside from the legal risk and the national security risk, exceptions to the department's policies reinforce the narrative that the Obama administration lets senior officials skirt the rules, including by keeping their communications secret. The pattern was present in the previous administration as well, but after the OPM hacks and the deletion of Clinton's e-mails, it is widely criticized and hard to defend. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Hillary Clinton is trailing the 3 strongest Republican candidates in 3 key swing states. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is trailing three Republican presidential candidates in three separate, key swing states, according to a new set of polls released Wednesday morning by Quinnipiac University.
In Colorado, Iowa, and Virginia, the Democratic front-runner Clinton is behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) in theoretical general-election matchups.
Rubio and Walker outpace Clinton by as much as 9 points in those states. Another Democratic candidate, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), runs close to or outpaces Clinton in the matchups with Rubio, Walker, and Bush.
Here's the breakdown:
Bush leads Clinton 41-36 in Colorado; 42-36 in Iowa; and 42-39 in Virginia.
Walker leads Clinton 47-38 in Colorado; 45-37 in Iowa; and 43-40 in Virginia.
Rubio leads Clinton 46-38 in Colorado; 44-36 in Iowa; and 43-41 in Virginia.
Clinton had led those candidates in the three states in a set of Quinnipiac polls released in April. All three are key swing states that President Barack Obama captured in both the 2008 and 2012 elections, and that Republicans will be looking to turn red in 2016.
Clinton has hinted that she views this trio of Republican candidates as her likely opponents in the general election.
During a sweeping economic speech in New York last week, she took jabs at each candidate's policies.
The percentage of voters in the three states who view Clinton as "honest and trustworthy" has plunged: By more than 25-point margins, most voters in Colorado and Iowa say she is not honest and trustworthy. The split is still negative, though less so, in Virginia. A breakdown:
- In Colorado, voters say she is not honest and trustworthy by a 62-34 split.
- In Iowa, voters say she is not honest and trustworthy by a 59-33 split.
- In Virginia, voters say she is not honest and trustworthy by a 55-39 split.
Voters in all three states also view her decidedly unfavorably — by a 35-56 split in Colorado, 33-56 percent in Iowa, and 41-50 percent in Virginia.
A majority of voters in all three states say that she does "not care about their needs and problems." And her ratings as a "strong leader" have also dipped, though they are still over the key 50% threshold.
"Hillary Clinton's numbers have dropped among voters in the key swing states of Colorado, Iowa and Virginia. She has lost ground in the horserace and on key questions about her honesty and leadership," said Peter Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll, in a statement.
"On being a strong leader, a key metric in presidential campaigns, she has dropped four to 10 points depending on the state and she is barely above 50 percent in each of the three states."
Eric Cantor is on the show with limited memory when he talks about the divisiveness today compared to when he was in Congress. He helped divide our Government big time. I don't know what it is but i can care less about what Eric cantor has to day. I hated it when he was in Congress. He was an ass and he was not about the people. He was so part of the problem we had in the Government then which has led to where we are at today.
Urged on by anguished testimony from the father of a murder victim, Congress plunged into a heated debate over immigration on Tuesday as GOP lawmakers vowed to shut down funding for so-called sanctuary cities like San Francisco that shield immigrants from deportation by federal authorities.
Immigrant advocates denounced the approach, accusing Republicans of following presidential candidate Donald Trump in demonizing Latinos.
But after 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was shot this month, allegedly by an immigrant with a criminal record and without legal status, even some Democrats were calling for action to address the ineffective tangle of federal and local laws and policies that left the man on the street.
"We feel strongly that some legislation should be discussed, enacted or changed to take these undocumented immigrant felons off our streets for good," said Kathryn Steinle's father, Jim Steinle, who was with his daughter when she was killed while strolling in daylight along a popular San Francisco pier. "We feel if Kate's law saves one daughter, one son, a mother, a father, Kate's death won't be in vain."
Testifying before a somber Senate Judiciary Committee, Jim Steinle described his daughter as friendly, happy, adventurous and full of laughter and love. Shot at random before his eyes as they walked arm in arm, she had time only to utter the words "Help me, Dad."
"Those are the last words I will ever hear from my daughter," Steinle said. "We'd be proud to see Kate's name associated with some of this new legislation."
The alleged murderer, Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, had multiple felony convictions and had been deported five times, but San Francisco authorities released him, rejecting a request from federal immigration authorities to hold him until they could take him into custody.
San Francisco is among hundreds of jurisdictions nationally that decline to honor federal immigration requests, or "detainers," which have been successfully challenged in court and which advocates say can unfairly target immigrants who've done nothing wrong or committed only minor crimes.
The House will vote on legislation by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., this week that would shut down two different types of local law enforcement grants to cities that don't cooperate with federal immigration authorities, and cut off their reimbursements for the costs of jailing immigrants in the country illegally who commit crimes.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, announced Tuesday that he too was offering a bill to cut off certain federal funding to sanctuary cities, as well as require a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence for immigrants who illegally re-enter this country after having been deported. The latter provision has been championed by Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who's dubbed it "Kate's Law," and has been embraced by a number of conservative lawmakers.
"Enforcing the immigration laws of the United States is not a voluntary or trivial matter. Real lives are at stake. Things cannot continue this way," Grassley said. "No more people should die at the hands of those who break our laws just by being here."
But the GOP proposals infuriated advocates who accused Republicans of targeting immigrant communities after repeatedly blocking comprehensive immigration overhaul legislation on Capitol Hill. The debate also comes as Trump has inflamed Latinos by describing Mexican immigrants as "criminals" and "rapists."
"Republicans, rather than look at the problem, which in essence is a need to revamp our entire immigration system, take a tragedy like this, which is a horrible tragedy, and politicize it," said David Leopold, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It's no different than what Donald Trump has been running around the country doing and that's demonizing immigrants."
Congressional Democrats also sought to connect Trump to the debate on Capitol Hill, issuing a press release on Hunter's bill declaring that: "House Republicans are rushing the Donald Trump Act to the floor this week - a wildly partisan, misguided bill." Democrats noted that a number of law enforcement groups support allowing local jurisdiction flexibility on immigration matters.
Hunter's bill was also encountering some opposition from the right. NumbersUSA, a group that advocates lower immigration levels, announced its opposition. The group said the bill was too weak because it does nothing to address the federal government's release of tens of thousands of immigrants annually who've committed crimes.
The Iran nuclear deal and the Obama Doctrine. The US president's use of 'smart power' can outsmart his opponents for the moment, but Iran is not lagging behind. Though long in the offing, it will be quite sometime before we completely figure out what exactly happened in Vienna on July 14, when Iran and its European adversaries led by the US signed a "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action" easing a crippling economic sanction regime imposed on it for years in exchange for the suspension of its nuclear programme.
A key conceptual cornerstone of understanding the unfolding significance of this accord is the political thinking of the US President Barack Obama, single-mindedly pushing for this momentous event against all domestic and regional odds.
'Historic' nuclear deal agreed with Iran; An Obama Doctrine?
In a perfectly timed interview with the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, President Obama went out of his way to assure him and his fellow Zionists that his attempts at reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran was in no shape or form at the expense of his commitment to the Jewish apartheid state and he was "absolutely committed to making sure that they [Israelis] maintain their qualitative military edge".
In the course of this overstretched appeasement of the Israeli lobby through one of their chief lieutenants at the New York Times, Obama and Friedman explored what now they both termed "the Obama Doctrine".
What is the Obama Doctrine?
As Friedman phrases and Obama acknowledges it, the Obama Doctrine articulates "a common denominator to his decisions to break free from long-standing US policies isolating Myanmar, Cuba, and now Iran.
Obama said his view was that "engagement", combined with meeting core strategic needs, could serve American interests vis-a-vis these three countries far better than endless sanctions and isolation.
He added that the US, with its overwhelming power, needs to have the self-confidence to take some calculated risks to open important new possibilities - like trying to forge a diplomatic deal with Iran that, while permitting it to keep some of its nuclear infrastructure, forestalls its ability to build a nuclear bomb for at least a decade, if not longer.
Obama further qualifies his doctrine: "We are powerful enough to be able to test these propositions without putting ourselves at risk [...] Iran's defence budget is $30bn. Our defence budget is closer to $600bn. Iran understands that they cannot fight us [...] You asked about an Obama Doctrine. The doctrine is: We will engage, but we preserve all our capabilities."
Making of a proxy empire
What to his Republican opponents and neo-con detractors appears as appeasement and disengagement is actually a much smarter form of imperialism that works like a ringmaster in a circus, or perhaps a chess player would be a better metaphor, where the master player knows both the power and the weakness, the kneejerk reactions and hidden desires, of all his players and by making one smart move allows for the rest to adjust their positions and moves according to their whims, which serve the chess master's design.
Obama allows the Saudis to do their thing in Yemen, and Iranians to do what they desire in Iraq and Syria, and other Arab Gulf states to pursue their fears and anxieties in Syria, and if the world expects him to make a move on Syria he looks at Turkey and wonders why President Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not do it. This is imperialism by proxy, not by direct hard power intervention, which he uses or refrains from using judiciously.
It is in this context, that the Iran nuclear accord - if it goes smoothly through the treacherous spin of the US Congressand their conservative counterparts in Iran, will be the crowing achievement of this Obama Doctrine, the articulation of a new mode of "smart power" that seeks to manipulate the existing propensities of power politics in the region without overcommitting US military force on the ground, with the full assurance that the threat of power is far more effective that the delivery of power.
[What Obama does] is imperialism by proxy, not by direct hard power intervention, which he uses or refrains from using judiciously.
In exchange for returning Iranian frozen assets and easing off the regime of sanctions against them, Obama is employing and implicating Iran into the geopolitics of the region. This is Harvard University professor Joseph Nye's notion of "smart power" par excellence, the combination of hard and soft power that enables domination and legitimacy.
According to its authors, "Smart power is neither hard nor soft - it is the skilful combination of both. Smart power means developing an integrated strategy, resource base, and tool kit to achieve American objectives" - and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is already on board with the idea.
Obama is just a cleverer version of Bush, and chances are that Hillary Clinton will do as Obama does - and the domain of this smart power, Obama Doctrine, is far beyond Iran and its nuclear programme.
The Iranian natural gas flowing towards Europe will considerably diminish their reliance on Russian supply, and turn the Iran deal into leverage against Russia in Ukraine and elsewhere!
But among the intention of the author of any doctrine, and the text of that doctrine, and the way it is read and reversed by others, there will always be a vicious hermeneutic triangle.
Call it Obama Doctrine or "smart power", both Barack Obama and Joseph Nye have to pack their lunch bags and go back to school at a Qom Seminary to learn what "smart power" is. The ruling clerics in Iran, compared to whom, Shakespeare's Gloucester in Henry VI is a pussy cat, "Can add colours to the chameleon/Change shapes with Proteus for advantages/And set the murderous Machiavel to school."
Through the same porous borders that the UN inspectors and the Israeli spies among them are going to go to Iran to inspect and monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities and thus to compromise the Iranian national sovereignty, Qassem Soleimani has already gone the other way outsmarting Barack Obama and Joseph Nye put together. Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.
IAEA Tells Congressmen of Two Secret Side Deals to Iran Agreement That Won’t Be Shared with Congress. The other secret side deal concerns how the IAEA and Iran will resolve outstanding issues on possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s nuclear program. In late 2013, Iran agreed to resolve IAEA questions about nuclear weapons-related work in twelve areas. Iran only answered questions in one of these areas and rejected the rest as based on forgeries and fabrications.
Former Department of Energy official William Tobey explained in a July 15 Wall Street Journal op-ed why it is crucial that Iran resolve the PMD issue. According to Tobey, “for inspections to be meaningful, Iran would have to completely and correctly declare all its relevant nuclear activities and procurement, past and present.” According to the Cotton/Pompeo press release, there will be a secret, opaque procedure to verify Iran’s compliance with these side agreements. The press release says: According to the IAEA, the Iran agreement negotiators, including the Obama administration, agreed that the IAEA and Iran would forge separate arrangements to govern the inspection of the Parchin military complex — one of the most secretive military facilities in Iran — and how Iran would satisfy the IAEA’s outstanding questions regarding past weaponization work.
Both arrangements will not be vetted by any organization other than Iran and the IAEA, and will not be released even to the nations that negotiated the JCPOA [Iran nuclear agreement]. This means that the secret arrangements have not been released for public scrutiny and have not been submitted to Congress as part of its legislatively mandated review of the Iran deal.
This means that two crucial measures of Iranian compliance with the nuclear agreement will not be disclosed to Congress despite the requirements of the Corker-Cardin bill (the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act), which requires the Obama administration to provide the U.S. Congress with all documents associated with the agreement, including all “annexes, appendices, codicils, side agreements [emphasis added], implementing materials, documents, and guidance, technical, or other understandings and any related agreements, whether entered into or implemented prior to the agreement or to be entered into or implemented in the future.” It also means that Congress will have no way of knowing whether Iran complied with either side agreement.
This is especially troublesome for the PMD issue. I wrote in National Review on June 15 and June 17 that the Obama administration was trying to find a way to let Iran off the hook for past nuclear weapons-related work. It seems to have found a way to do this with a secret procedure shielded from the American public and the U.S. Congress. What do Obama administration officials know about these secret agreements? A source who was in the Cotton-Pompeo meeting told me that IAEA officials gave a vague answer to this question that “Secretary Kerry was told about the agreements.” GET FREE EXCLUSIVE NR CONTENT I don’t buy this any more than I buy the numerous other dubious and outright false statements made by Obama officials about the Iran deal. I believe that U.S. negotiators drafted the side agreements and then asked the IAEA to assume responsibility for them. This allowed the Kerry negotiating team to sidestep issues that Iran refused to resolve in a way that did not have to be reported to Congress.
The Cotton-Pompeo trip is already affecting the debate over the Iran deal on Capitol Hill. According to The Hill, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker and ranking member Ben Cardin met with Department of Energy secretary Ernest Moniz today to demand copies of the side agreements discovered by Cotton and Pompeo. The two senators also sent a joint letter to President Obama asking for copies of these documents. Congressman Pompeo said in the press release, “This agreement is the worst of backroom deals.” I agree with Pompeo, but I also worry about whether there are other side deals associated with the Iran agreement that Pompeo and Cotton were not told about. — Fred Fleitz is senior vice president for policy and programs for the Center for Security Policy. He followed the Iranian nuclear issue for the CIA, the State Department, and the House Intelligence Committee during his 25-year government career. Follow him on Twitter @fredfleitz.
Obama calls for release of Americans held in Iran, after nuke deal omitted them. President Obama called Tuesday for the release of Americans held in Iran, individually naming them during a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention -- a week after his diplomatic team helped strike a nuclear accord with Iran that did not secure the prisoners' freedom.
The deal's failure to address the prisoners' status has fueled criticism of the Obama administration, though State Department officials have said they raised their imprisonment repeatedly. The president also scolded a reporter last week at a White House press conference for suggesting he was "content" to leave the prisoners out of the deal.
Obama vowed Tuesday to continue to press their case.
“We are not going to relent until we bring home Americans who are unjustly detained in Iran,” Obama said at the VFW convention in Pittsburgh.
Obama mentioned Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Pastor Saeed Abedini and former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati by name, saying all of them "should be released." He also said Iran should help the U.S. find retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who has been missing since 2007.
In his wide-ranging address, the president also took a jab at lawmakers criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, saying negative comments come from “the same people who rushed into war with Iraq.”
Obama accused them of “chest beating” and said they were simply popping off soundbites that could derail the still-delicate deal.
Obama’s comments came one day after the U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed the agreement. Since then, the White House has mounted a massive outreach campaign to try to win over skeptics and avoid a veto showdown with Congress, which could play out this fall.
The president also told the crowd of veterans he wasn’t satisfied by the level of medical care they were receiving and called for fast-tracking funding for the Veterans Affairs department.
Obama said he has sent an “urgent request” to Congress that would give the VA more flexibility so it can transfer funds where needed.
“I’m calling on Congress to approve this request quickly,” Obama said, adding, “our vets need it and our hospitals need it.”
House Speaker John Boehner's office, in response, urged Obama to join House Republicans in supporting a new bill to give the VA secretary the authority to fire anyone for misconduct. A spokesman said the public doesn't need more "hollow platitudes."
Obama also addressed growing concerns in the military over Thursday’s massacre in Chattanooga, Tenn., that claimed the lives of five service members at two military facilities.
“We don’t know all the details of the attack in Chattanooga but we do know ISIL (Islamic State) has encouraged attacks on servicemembers,” Obama said, adding that it was difficult to detect ‘lone wolves’ but that the government was working hard to do just that.
Earlier Tuesday, Gen. Mark Milley, tapped to be the next Army chief of staff, said during his nomination hearing that he would support a push to arm soldiers manning recruiting stations if certain legal hurdles were cleared.
Obama’s multi-topic speech included comments on an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, U.S.-Cuba relations and the rise of the Islamic State.
He also announced that the Defense Department is close to finalizing predatory lending legislation that would close loopholes in the law that have “trapped some members of our military in an endless cycle of debt, adding financial strains to families that already bear the burden of defending our country.”
Obama made the announcement on the fifth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank reform bill and said protecting veterans against predatory lenders “is the right thing to do” and that he would “not accept any attempts to roll back this law.”
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