Good morning everyone! Happy Friday to you!

Joining today's show are Sam Stein, Jeremy Peters, Stephanie Gosk, Lenny DePaul, Eugene Robinson, Richard Haass, John Heilemann, Rep. Keith Ellison, Chuck Todd, Steve Kornacki, Mike Allen, Gen. Ray Odierno, Bianna Golodryga, Kasie Hunt, Dominic Chu, Frances Stead Sellers, Dr. John Noseworthy and more.

I am man enough to be a Girl. Scout (that is). I don't know what it means either but I like it (the shirt that Joe is holding up at the outset of today's Morning Joe show) too. Evidently though, Mika cursed at the Girls Scout for Connecticut event she spoke at last night. No (Girl Scout) cookies though were at the event where she spoke and used a curse word somehow. Let us get into things today. BTW, I think Joe (Scarborough) meant that the show Silicon valley culminates and/or ends this week (He said that it was the premier).

Also BTW, Obama, the rightest winged left wing and socialist guy on the planet is adding a more military presence in Iraq

I still think that Syria is the main problem we face today and have faced  suppose could be said now. Those guys ally themselves with ISIS and I firmly believe help in part, fund it/them.

Plus, like I have said 90 times is that we need to have everyone of the neighboring countries to fight vs. ISIS too. There are hundreds of thousands of troops spread out over a few countries in that region vs. what is I dunno. 17,000 or 25,000 ISIS troops or members in that group? It makes no sense that we have to fight that battle when there are plenty of military people in those countries surrounding Iraq and Iran. 

And, in the spirit of people getting things given to them in prisons around the world and in America, a dozen Emmy Award nominations went to this acclaimed comedy drama series including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Lead Actress for star Taylor Schilling. A crime she committed in her youthful past sends Piper Chapman (Schilling) to a women's prison, where she trades her comfortable New York life for one of unexpected camaraderie and conflict in an eccentric group of fellow inmates. 

The entire Season 3 of the show 'Orange Is The New Black' is available as of today at Netflix.


Orange Is the New Black
Obama looks at adding bases and troops in Iraq. resident Obama is open to expanding the American military footprint in Iraq with a network of bases and possibly hundreds of additional troops to support Iraqi security forces in their fight against the militant group that calls itself the Islamic State, White House officials said Thursday.

As Iraqi forces struggle on the battlefield, aides said Obama would consider establishing a series of outposts at which US advisers would work with Iraqi troops and local tribesmen. The bases would be run by Iraqis, and the Americans would not engage in ground combat. They would, however, play a more active role closer to the front lines.

White House officials stressed that no proposal has been presented to Obama and added that they anticipated no decision in the next few weeks. But the prospect of further escalation came a day after the administration announced the opening of a new base in Anbar province, an Islamic State stronghold, with an additional 450 US troops, bringing the total in Iraq to 3,550, the size of a typical Army brigade.

Administration officials said they would evaluate whether that new Anbar base makes a difference in coordinating the war effort, If it does, they would consider replicating the approach in other parts of the country. Although officials said it was possible other bases could be opened without sending more US troops, they acknowledged that more bases could require additional deployments.

For Obama, who has long resisted being drawn into another ground war since pulling out all forces in 2011, the latest developments represented another incremental step back into a sectarian conflict he had once hoped to be done with by the time he left office. Supporters of a more robust effort against the Islamic State group called it a welcome if inadequate step to make good on the White House’s vow to defeat the militants, while critics warned of sliding into a broader, bloodier, and ultimately ineffective campaign.

“The reason that we would consider expanding the training operation and the advise-and-assist operation that’s underway will be because it’s been an effective element of our strategy,” said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary. But Earnest emphasized that it was still hypothetical.

“There are no immediate or specific plans to do that,” he said.

General Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly raised the idea of establishing a network of what he called “lily pads” in Iraq while on a trip to Italy on Thursday. He said he did not envision another military base in Anbar, but Pentagon planners were looking at more northern areas for additional sites.

“You could see one in the corridor from Baghdad to Tikrit to Kirkuk to Mosul,” Dempsey told reporters aboard his plane.

The model would be the new base already being built at al-Taqqadum, an Iraqi post near the town of Habbaniyah in eastern Anbar. The US troops being sent there are to set up the hub primarily to advise and assist Iraqi forces and to engage and reach out to Sunni tribes in Anbar, officials said. One focus for the Americans will be to try to accelerate the integration of Sunni fighters into the Iraqi army, which is dominated by Shi’ites.

As the arrangements at al-Taqqadum show, even deploying small teams of advisers at a new base can involve much greater troop commitments. The number of Americans actually involved in advising the Iraqis at the base would be just a small fraction of the 450 announced by the administration.

While US officials said earlier this week that 110 would be directly involved in training and advising, on Thursday they said there would be just 50 advisers. They will be split into two teams, special operations forces who will work with Sunni tribes, and advisers who will work with the Eighth Iraqi Army DivisionThe rest are to provide support, logistics, and force protection.

What is it about these 450 troops that are headed to Iraq that is going to somehow and some way turn around or 'prop up' the Iraqi Military? They are the ones that buckle vs ISIS at every turn and as they approach them in any city or region.

New York prison break: Dogs pick up escapees' scent about mile from prison. Investigators are looking at surveillance video from a gas station about a mile from the New York prison where two inmates escaped over the weekend, Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie told CNN on Thursday night.

Tracking dogs picked up the scent of prisoners Richard Matt and David Sweat at the station and followed it east toward the town of Cadyville, Wylie said.

There is also a Subway sandwich shop at the gas station and Wylie said the prisoners might have been looking for food in the trash bin.

The store opens at 4 a.m. so it would have been staffed about the time officials believe the convicted killers broke out. There is limited security video from the store and authorities were reviewing it.

Wylie said the dogs were still on the scent Thursday evening and they were working their way in from the perimeter.

"If this is an actual true lead that the dogs are following on, we hope to be successful in the next 24 hours," he said.

Earlier Thursday, law enforcement search crews converged on a site east of the gas station in upstate New York.

A large-perimeter search area has been set up around the site, about 3 miles from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, according to a state official and another source briefed on the investigation. Guards found out about the killers' escape from the maximum-security prison during a bed check early Saturday.

A resident in the area said she's confined to her house.

"I haven't left home in two days, I had to call in to work today because you wouldn't be able to return back home," Brooke Lepage said. "There were constant helicopters. Last night they had floodlights. There was a recorded (telephone) message telling us to stay in the house and make sure outside lights were on."

In addition to the scent, investigators found an imprint either from a shoe or boot as well as food wrappers in the area, one of the two sources said. Wylie said that possible bedding -- an indent in the grass or leaves -- has also been discovered. As the manhunt intensified, new details emerged about a prison employee who officials said may have assisted the inmates in their brazen escape.

State Department of Corrections officials had previously received a complaint about the relationship between prison seamstress Joyce Mitchell and one of the two escaped inmates, according to a state official briefed on the internal investigation.

Wylie confirmed the inquiry to CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360˚" but said the allegation was unfounded.

"There wasn't enough evidence to support a finding inside the department (of corrections)," Wylie said.

But, he added: "I don't believe that the information was that there was absolutely no relationship."

Wylie said Sweat was removed temporarily from the prison tailor shop, where he and Mitchell worked.

Investigators zeroed in on Mitchell -- whose relatives have denied her involvement in the breakout -- because of the earlier complaint, the source said.

State corrections officials declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation.

Source: Matt made prison employee feel 'special'
New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico has said Mitchell, an industrial training supervisor at the prison, had befriended the men and "may have had some sort of role in assisting them." The state police superintendent did not elaborate. But according to a source close to the investigation, authorities believe Mitchell planned to pick up the inmates after their escape but changed her mind at the last minute. Her cell phone was used to call people connected to Matt, according to another source. It's unclear who made the calls, when they were made or whether Mitchell knew about them.

Mitchell told investigators that Matt made her feel "special," though she didn't mention being in love with him, a source familiar with the investigation said.

While she didn't warn authorities about the escape, she has answered all their questions each time they've gone back to her, a New York state official said.

Authorities are holding off on charging her with being an accomplice, hoping instead to have her continued cooperation, a New York state official told CNN.

Wylie, the Clinton County district attorney, said his office is considering possibly charging her with felonies. One would accuse her of being an accessory to the escape and the other would be for "promoting prison contraband."

Mitchell's family is standing behind her, with her daughter-in-law telling CNN that "95% of what is being said" is not true.

Paige Mitchell denied that her mother-in-law was to be the getaway driver and that she helped provide the power tools used in the escape. She added that Matt may have persuaded her mother-in-law to contact people for him who knew about art, saying, "Her heart was in the right place."

"They don't have the facts to prove this," she said. "This is just slander and rumor."

Wylie said Mitchell is fully cooperating and has come to meet with investigators almost every day since Sunday.

"She voluntarily seeks us out, comes in, and each day has been providing more additional information that's assisted the investigators," he told Cooper.

Vermont governor: The escapees are dangerous and desperate. The jailbreak has transformed the rural, idyllic swath of northeast New York from a place where people go to get away from the crowds and crime of urban life into something closer to a "military state," as one resident described it.

Authorities closed parts of State Route 374 on Thursday "until further notice" because of a lead from the previous night, New York State Police spokesman William Duffy said. Checkpoints were set up along a stretch from Dannemora east to West Plattsburgh, while authorities looked for clues.

Searches were underway in hundreds of seasonal homes in a 5-square-mile area in and around West Plattsburgh, with helicopters equipped with thermal cameras providing support, officials said. The law enforcement presence and possibility of killers on the loose prompted the cancellation of classes Thursday in the Saranac Central School District, which includes Dannemora.

The area isn't the only place law enforcement is looking.

Vermont state police vessels and troopers have searched on Lake Champlain, which straddles the two states, as well as in nearby campsites.

But Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin acknowledges that "we really have no idea where they are."

"This is a governor's nightmare," he added. "We're trying to protect the public safety and take care of our folks (because) these guys are dangerous, they are desperate, and they would do anything to continue their freedom." Authorities have been looking for Matt and Sweat since Saturday morning.

The two used power tools to get out of their cells and cut into a steam pipe, navigating a tunnel of pipes and finally surfacing out a manhole. Sweat was serving a life sentence without parole for fatally shooting and then running over Broome County Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Tarsia.

Matt held a businessman hostage for 27 hours, and then tortured and killed him after he wouldn't give him more money. State data show that most escapees in New York are captured within 24 hours. Of 29 inmates who fled between 2002 and 2013, only one was free for more than two days. CNN's Ray Sanchez, Faith Karimi, Shimon Prokupecz, Mary Kay Mallonee, Jason Carroll, Deborah Feyerick, Kevin Bohn, Tina Burnside, Doug Criss, Laura Ly, Katie Tutrone and Tal Trachtman Alroy contributed to this report.

That is what I want to know. Why was this guy, or these guys I should say, allowed to be housed in the lesser criminal wing or whatever they call it ('honor wing') when you are allowed to do more things than the average prisoner. This guy during his trial was under such scrutiny. Jeremy Peters just said that there were snipers on the roof's at the adjacent buildings during one of the guys trials. He also said the had to take out the glass in the court room and some other precaution too that I forget what he said. That same guy was just described by him as a Hannibal Lechter type of a criminal (meaning violent because I heard he chopped some guy up to get himself locked up after or while he murdered that Police Guy).

I also wonder if the woman that worked as a seamstress that also fell in love with the one prisoner, can now get in legal trouble for not showing up to pick up the guys that broke out. Can she be in trouble for planning it with them and not carrying it out? How does something like that work where you do NOT carry out the actual crime of helping out these guys during their break out of that prison?

Everything We Know About the New York Prison Break.
US Escaped Prisoners
Five days after two men pulled off a cinematic escape from Clinton Correctional Facility — complete with papier-mâché dummies, a squeeze down a steam pipe, and a taunting note left for law enforcement — the convicted killers are still at large. In addition to the reported sightings outside the prison in Dannemora, New York, and 40 miles south in Willsboro, New York, Canadian and Mexican authorities have been put on high alert, Vermont State Police are searching near Lake Champlain, and police shut down a stretch of highway back near the prison on Thursday. Hundreds of tips have poured in, but it seems police are no closer to catching Richard Matt and David Sweat. "We need to find these escapees," New York governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday. "They are murderers. There’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t do it again; they’re going to be more desperate than ever." Here's a rundown — that will be continuously updated — of everything we know about the prison break, and the killers on the run.

RICHARD MATT
Matt, 48, was born in Tonawanda, New York, and spent most of his youth in foster homes and juvenile correctional facilities. According to the Buffalo News, he made his first prison break at 19, when he was serving a one-year sentence for third-degree assault. In June 1986 a guard at the Erie County Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, accidentally opened the electronic lock on his cell and Matt bolted, cutting himself severely while scaling two gates topped with razor wire. He was captured five days later at his brother's apartment.

Convicted Murderers Escape From New York State Prison
Photo: 
Convicted Murderers Escape From New York State Prison
He was jailed again in 1991 for allegedly raping a Buffalo woman and stabbing a nurse who was the mother of his child. While in custody, he met David Telstar, who had been accused of embezzling $1.3 million from his wife, an heir to the Warner Bros. fortune. Telstar posted bail for Matt, then offered him $100,000 to kill his wife, her parents, and her attorney. In an uncharacteristic move, Matt became a police witness, and Telstar later pleaded guilty to the charges.

After serving several more years in prison, in December 1997 Matt kidnapped, killed, and dismembered his former boss, 76-year-old food broker William Rickerson. Believing that Rickerson had large sums of money, Matt and his accomplice, Lee E. Bates, beat and tortured the man in his home. Then they bound Rickerson with duct tape, threw him in the trunk of a car, and set out on a 27-hour drive. Bates, who served 15 years for his role in the murder, told CNN this week, "Torture is probably an understatement." He saw Matt shove a knife sharpener in Rickerson's ear, bend his fingers back until the bones cracked, and snap his neck with his bare hands. Rickerson's dismembered remains were dumped in the Niagara River.

Matt fled to Mexico, where he was captured by local authorities after fatally stabbing a man outside a bar (he has a "Mexico Forever" tattoo on his back). He was extradited to the United States in 2007 and convicted the following year of second-degree murder, kidnapping, and robbing for slaying Rickerson. He was sentenced to 25 years to life, and the county jail arranged to have him shipped to state prison immediately. "For [at least] 25 years, he's someone else's problem," said Chief Deputy James R. Voutour. Juror Brett Sawyer compared Matt to a "cult leader," saying, "It seems he has a way of manipulating people to do things." A female juror commented, "There's no doubt that if he got out, he'd do something ... It's sociopathic behavior. He needs to stay in there."

DAVID SWEAT
Sweat, 34, was born in Dickinson, New York, and had an extremely troubled youth, according to his mother. Pamela Sweat told the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin this week that when her son was 9, he brought a butcher's knife to school in his backpack to deal with bullies, and later he tore the door off their bathroom and began stealing cars. David was put in a foster home and a group home, and Pamela does not know if he attended high school. She told the paper her son is verbally abusive and said his issues have given her health problems. "I don't want nothing to do with him," Sweat said. "He has tormented me since he was 9 years old, and now he's 34 and I feel like he's still doing it."
Convicted Murderers Escape From New York State Prison
In this handout from New York State Police, convicted murderer David Sweat (L) is shown. Richard Matt, 48, and Sweat, 34, escaped from the maximum security prison June 6, 2015 using power tools and going through a manhole. As a teenager, David Sweat was arrested several times on burglary charges and spent 19 months in the Buffalo Corrections Facility. In July 2002 Sweat and two accomplices stole a pickup truck in Pennsylvania, then burglarized a firearms and fireworks store. They had stopped in a park across the state line in Kirkwood, New York, to divide the stolen firearms when they were confronted by sheriff's deputy Kevin Tarsia. Sweat shot Tarsia and ran him over, and another man shot him twice in the face. Sweat pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life without parole.

For years Pamela Sweat had been corresponding with her son weekly, but in an interview with WBNG Binghamton she said she hasn't heard from him in two months. In his last letter he asked for money, which she was unable to send him.

THE PRISON
The Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, is the largest maximum security prison in the state, and one of the most notorious. It houses nearly 3,000 prisoners, who are guarded by about 1,400 correction officers, and has held many famous inmates, including mafia boss Charles "Lucky" Luciano, serial killer Joel Rifkin, and rapper Tupac Shakur.

The men were last seen during a standing count inside the prison at 10:30 p.m. on Friday, June 5. During a 5:30 a.m. bed check the next day, guards realized they were gone. "We went back and pieced together what they did," said New York governor Andrew Cuomo. "It was elaborate. It was sophisticated. It encompassed drilling through steel walls and pipes, so this was not easily accomplished."

The 170-year-old prison has been dubbed "Little Siberia," as it's located in the Adirondack Mountains, about 25 miles from the Canadian border. The New York Times reports that "nearly 90 percent of inmates at the maximum-security prison have been convicted of violent crimes, compared with an average of two-thirds statewide." A 2014 report by the Correctional Association of New York, an independent nonprofit that inspects state prisons, found that "overall, the level of physical violence and staff abuse and intimidation, the pervasive environment of oppression, the lack of proximity to any urban center, and the tensions derived from vast racial and cultural disparities between staff and incarcerated persons at Clinton epitomize the worst aspects of mass incarceration in New York State."

THE BREAK
Matt and Sweat were well behaved at Clinton Correctional Facility and had adjacent cells on the "Honor Block," which gave them more freedom than other inmates. According to the Albany Times Union, they were allowed to cook, visit other inmates' cells, and wear civilian clothing. The two men worked in the prison's tailor shop, where they sewed Metro-North uniforms.
Convicted Murderers Escape From New York State Prison
Cuomo (who's cast himself as this tale's Tommy Lee Jones) was given a tour of their escape route on Saturday, and his office released photos of the inmates' journey through the bowels of the prison. After leaving dummies fashioned from sweatshirts stuffed with laundry in their beds (complete with papier-mâché heads and clippings of their hair), Matt and Sweat exited their cells through neat holes cut into the quarter-inch-thick steel walls behind their beds.
Convicted Murderers Escape From New York State Prison
They made an unsuccessful attempt to drill into the thick prison wall, then cut into a 24-inch-wide steam pipe. Before climbing in, they paused to leave the message "Have a nice day!" and a racist caricature on a Post-It note.
Convicted Murderers Escape From New York State Prison
Then they shimmied through the pipe, cut another hole to escape, and sliced through the chain and lock on a manhole cover about 400 feet from the prison.
Convicted Murderers Escape From New York State Prison
A Dannemora resident believes he spotted Matt and Sweat in his backyard at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday as they were making their escape. He told ABC News that when he confronted the two men, one responded, "We're just lost. We don't know where we are. We're on the wrong street," then they bolted.

The witness says they were holding a guitar case, which according to the Daily News is what the two men were using to carry their tools. Authorities say no prison equipment is unaccounted for, but contractors were doing work there recently and their tools are not counted as they move in and out of the facility. Cuomo told the inmates they must be "heavy sleepers" and said he thinks Matt and Sweat must have had assistance. "I don’t think they could have acquired the equipment they needed to do this without help," he said on Monday.

THE POSSIBLE ACCOMPLICE
New York State Police superintendent Joseph D'Amico confirmed on Wednesday that police have been questioning prison worker Joyce Mitchell, who befriended the men and "may have had some sort of role in assisting them." Mitchell, 51, worked as an industrial training supervisor in the prison's tailor shop for seven years. While she has yet to be arrested or named as a suspect, she's been the subject of wild tabloid reports over the past few days, as if the story needs a juicier angle. Sources told CNN that her cell phone was used to call people connected to Matt, and she planned to act as a getaway driver for the inmates, but backed out at the last minute. Other reports claim she was charmed by Matt — who possesses a certain positive attribute in addition to being a sadistic killer. Her ex-husband and a former co-worker have come forward to detail alleged infidelities in her past, leading the New York Post to brand her as a "sex-crazed homewrecker."

Mitchell's son and daughter-in-law insist that "95 percent" of what's being said about her is untrue, and revealed that she checked herself into the hospital on Saturday with severe chest pains. Paige Mitchell said she thinks Matt may have convinced her mother-in-law to contact people who knew about art on his behalf. "He was interested in art," she said. "Her heart was in the right place." But her husband, Tobey Mitchell, a senior airman with the Vermont National Guard, said there's no way his mother willingly acted as an accomplice. "She is not the kind of person that's going to risk her life or other people's lives to let these guys escape from prison," he told NBC News.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Mitchell was previously investigated in the past year for having an alleged relationship with David Sweat. There wasn't enough evidence at the time to do anything about the allegations, but the inmate's shift was switched afterward.

THE MANHUNT
On Monday Cuomo said the men could be "anywhere in the country," and the state is offering a $100,000 reward for information that leads to their capture. "This is a crisis situation for the state," the governor said. "These are dangerous men. They are capable of committing grave crimes once again." Hundreds of law enforcement officers are participating in the search, and they're being assisted by the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service. Authorities in Canada and Mexico have been put on alert, due to the prison's location and Matt's affection for our neighbor to the south. Early on there was speculation that the men could be hiding in the thick forest near the prison, though experts say it's unlikely they'd survive long outdoors.

Five days into the manhunt, investigators are still scouring Dannemora for clues, searching homes and the surrounding wilderness. "The whole town’s locked down," resident Rich Green said shortly after the escape. "You can’t drive anywhere. You can’t come into town. They’ve got detours all over the place. They’re checking trunks. It’s just something I’ve never seen before." Officials have said the escape wasn't caught on tape and there aren't many surveillance cameras around town.

On Tuesday, there was a possible sighting in Willsboro, New York, prompting reports that law enforcement had the men "cornered" in the small town 40 miles south of the prison. "A report was called in by a citizen of two suspicious men walking down a very rural road in the southern part of our town in the middle of a driving rainstorm," said Shaun Gillilland, the town supervisor. "When the car this person was in approached, they took off into the fields." However, it seems that the search did not turn up any new clues.
Embedded image permalink
At a press conference earlier in the day, New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico admitted, "I have no information on where they are or what they're doing, to be honest with you." Authorities urged the public to report anything unusual – while staying far away from Matt and Sweat. "We don't want them out searching the woods," Clinton County Sheriff David Favro said. "But if you're sitting on your porch, get your binoculars out and see if you see something unusual."

The next day the focus shifted again after Governor Cuomo revealed, "We have information that would suggest that Vermont was discussed as a possible location." Vermont governor Peter Shumlin added that they believe the convicts "thought New York was going to be hot, Vermont would be cooler in terms of law enforcement and that a camp in Vermont might be a better place to be than New York." The two states beefed up security along the border and authorities said Vermont State Police were searching camps along the shoreline of Lake Champlain.

Late on Wednesday, New York State Police said a stretch of Route 374 near the prison would be closed through Thursday morning "to investigate a lead involving the escapees from the Clinton Correctional Facility." According to WPTZ, residents in the area have been urged to stay indoors and leave their exterior lights on.

The Saranac School District was closed on Thursday owing to the number of roads closed in the area. The search efforts are focused on a town about three miles east of the prison, Cadyville. Police dogs have picked up the scent of the convicts. Police officers also found food wrappers and a footprint. Helicopters were flying close to the tree line on Thursday morning, as some residents watched from their front lawns. 

One police officer told the Plattsburgh Press-Republican, "Best lead by far. We are close. This could be it." Officials said later on Thursday that the inmates may have been contained within an area between Dannemora and nearby Plattsburgh.

Residents just want it all to be over. 

John St. Germaine, who had to listen to helicopters all night, said, "They walk across the road like they own it. I don't care if a bear gets them or the cops. I just want this over; it's a pain in the butt." "Look," Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday, trying to explain the pace of the case. "They could either be four miles from the prison or they could be in Mexico, you just don't know."

Hillary Clinton's message to America: 'It is your time.'
Hillary Clinton Speech
Hillary Clinton will kick off the next phase of her presidential campaign on Saturday by delivering a major speech on Roosevelt Island in New York City. According to a Clinton campaign official, her address will have four key elements.

All of the four main parts of the speech fit with the main overarching theme of Clinton's campaign, her desire to be a "champion for everyday Americans."

At one point, the official said Clinton will address these everyday Americans directly with a simple message:

"It is your time."

The official said the first major component of the speech will be a discussion of what has motivated Clinton to enter public service. Specifically, Clinton will talk about how her mother's life story cemented her belief that every day people, and particularly children, need advocates. 

Clinton's mother, Dorothy Rodham, passed away in 2011. As a teenager, Rodham was abandoned by her parents. In her memoir "Hard Choices," Clinton wrote about her mother's traumatic upbringing.

"When I got old enough to understand all this, I asked my mother how she survived abuse and abandonment without becoming embittered and emotionally stunted," Clinton wrote. "How did she emerge from this lonely early life as such a loving and levelheaded woman? I’ll never forget how she replied. 'At critical points in my life somebody showed me kindness,' she said."

According to the campaign official, in her speech, Clinton will credit Rodham with giving her a fighter's instinct. She will also explain that Rodham's story of being sustained through acts of kindness from friends and neighbors helped shape her belief people need a champion.

The official said the second element of the speech will be Clinton outlining who she is fighting for in the 2016 race. Clinton will outline something she will describe as her guiding principle, which is that the country's success should be measured by how families are doing rather than how the richest fare.

Clinton will expand on this idea in the third portion of her speech, wherein she will share her vision for the country. As part of this, the campaign official said Clinton would identify what she considers the central question of the 2016 race — whether you are advocating for everyday Americans. Clinton will then preview a set of domestic policies that she plans to detail further in a series of announcements over the next few months.

The fourth element of Clinton's speech will involve her casting the 2016 election as a starkly clear choice between her ideas and Republicans' policies. She will cast the GOP as being focused on trickle down economics and outdated social policies, the official said. 

According to the official, Clinton's discussion of her personal history and the lessons she learned from her mother will continue as she hits the campaign trail following the speech. Her team is also producing a biographical video that will be released in the days following the kickoff event that will focus on Clinton's work for the Children's Defense Fund after she finished law school. 

After Clinton announced her campaign in April, she entered what her campaign characterized as a "ramp up" phase where she held relatively small-scale events focused on intimate conversations with voters in key primary states. Her speech on Saturday will serve as a formal kickoff for the campaign and afterwards Clinton will begin outlining some of her specific policy ideas. 

Let's post the Opinion Piece written up by Eugene Eobinson at the WAPO that is entitled, United StatesObama’s hesitancy on Iraq.
"Don’t feel bad if you’re confused about what the United States is trying to accomplish in Iraq. President Obama doesn’t seem to know, either — or else he won’t say.

Days after admitting that “we don’t yet have a complete strategy” for training Iraqi government forces — which are supposed to ultimately defeat the Islamic State — Obama is sending an additional 450 troops to execute this unstrategized mission. That will raise the number of U.S. military personnel in Iraq to about 3,500. But what, realistically, is their goal? And how are they supposed to achieve it?

Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s Style section.  It is understandable that the president might feel pressed to do something in response to the Islamic State’s recent battlefield gains — including the rout of disorganized Iraqi forces in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. But Obama imposed such tight restrictions on the activities of U.S. soldiers that only the sunniest optimist would believe this increase can make a military difference.

U.S. troops will not be allowed near the front lines, where their presence, according to Obama’s critics, could stiffen the resolve of an Iraqi army that often chooses to flee rather than fight. There will be no American forward air controllers, who could direct U.S. airstrikes with far greater precision. There will be no use of deadly Apache attack helicopters in support of Iraqi ground operations.

In essence, sending the 450 new troops is less a military move than a political gesture. After the fall of Ramadi, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi desperately needed a signal of U.S. support. In that strictly limited sense, I suppose, mission accomplished. Sort of.

Obama: Coalition ready to ramp up training of Iraqis(1:18)
President Obama said that the U.S. "is going to continue to ramp up our training and assistance" for Iraqi forces in the fight against the Islamic State. (Reuters)
With the added personnel, U.S. commanders will start by establishing a fifth site for training Iraqi forces. The new camp will be in Anbar, the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni minority, where American advisers will try to somehow inspire loyalty to the Shiite-dominated central government in Baghdad. Given the sectarian brutality of the Shiite militias that fight alongside the regular army, many Anbar tribal leaders have come to see the Islamic State as the lesser of two evils. A few hundred extra U.S. soldiers, confined to their posts, are not going to turn the tide in this war. They represent just a baby step — but in a direction Obama obviously doesn’t want to go.

When the U.S. airstrikes failed to halt the Islamic State in its tracks, it didn’t take a clairvoyant to predict a future of gradual escalation and mission creep. Obama has stubbornly resisted, however. I believe he simply does not want his legacy to include embroiling the United States in another big, tragic, expensive, open-ended Middle East war.

I don’t blame him. Do you?

Critics of Obama’s policies propose relatively modest steps that sound reasonable: Speed up the training. Intensify the bombing, using American spotters. Provide more arms. Let U.S. advisers stand shoulder to shoulder with Iraqi officers on the front lines.

But none of this deals with the central problem, which is that too many Iraqis place sectarian, ethnic and regional loyalties ahead of their allegiance to the nation. If the ideal of a unified, pacified, pluralistic Iraq is more important to us than it is to the Iraqis, even the 10,000 additional U.S. troops proposed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) cannot possibly make a difference.

Yes, the United States could easily marshal the necessary forces and recapture Ramadi. But what would we do with it? Give it back to a government that the city’s residents don’t trust? Keep it under martial law until we could make it safe for McDonald’s?

Here’s a bigger question: Would a large, long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq — and, almost surely, Syria as well — make Americans safer? I think not, but it’s an argument worth having. What makes no sense to me is believing in an Iraqi nation that doesn’t believe in itself.

Obama’s hesitancy suggests a deep skepticism about what, at this point, must be considered his war. That would explain why he keeps announcing we have no strategy. Maybe one does exist — but the president doesn’t think it will work.

Or perhaps Obama is playing for time. Maybe he has decided to do just enough to keep the Iraqi government from collapsing, while giving his generals every chance to make their far-fetched training program work.


The problem is that in any war, the enemy gets a vote. And nothing, so far, has altered the fact that the Islamic State is far more in control of events than the president."

Bloomberg reports that Scott Walker Says Supporters Have Suggested Walker-Rubio 2016 Ticket. Some who have talked to the governor privately about a possible pairing say they have been surprised by how seriously he seems to be taking the prospect. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Thursday talked positively about a Republican presidential ticket—potentially announced even before the first nomination balloting—that would include himself and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

In a Bloomberg Politics interview, the likely candidate also expressed agreement with President Barack Obama on the pressing issue of fast-track trade legislation. On the administration's decision to deploy an additional 450 U.S. troops to train and assist Iraqi forces in fighting Islamic State militants, he offered a nuanced response that was nonetheless critical of the president.

"It recognizes that we definitely need to do more there," said Walker, who has previously declined to rule out a full-scale American re-invasion of Iraq. "But I think it’s critical that this is not enough. Just sending more troops there is not enough if we don’t lift those restrictions on the people that are already there."

Walker, 47, isn't expected to formally enter the race until early July, after his state has completed a two-year budget plan. Still, he's apparently given some consideration and had discussions already about a potential running mate, with the focus on Rubio.

“I've actually had quite a few people, grassroots supporters, donors, and others who have made that suggestion,” he said when asked about a Walker-Rubio ticket.

“For now, you know, Marco is a quality candidate,” Walker said. “He's going to be formidable in this race as things progress. And if we were to get in, we'd be as well, and we'll see where things take us.”

Walker was in Utah to meet with potential financial supporters and to speak at a summit hosted by 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney that's attracted six declared and likely presidential candidates. Walker said both he and Rubio often hear the suggestion that they should combine forces, potentially even before the first nomination voting in Iowa in February 2016, as a way to stand out amid a crowded field. “We'd just probably have to arm-wrestle over who would be at the top of the ticket,” he said.

Some who have talked privately to Walker about a possible pairing with Rubio say they have been surprised by how seriously the Wisconsin governor seems to be taking the prospect. At this phase of presidential campaign, the norm would be for a White House hopeful to summarily dismiss such a move, in public and in private.

Walker said he likes governors and their executive experience better than senators as potential presidents and vice presidents, but that Rubio stands out.

“I do like Marco Rubio,” he said. “I think he and I have similar thoughts on national defense and foreign policy.”

Walker noted how he tweeted greetings to Rubio, 44, for his birthday last month, a move that also underscored his own relative youthfulness amid a mostly older Democratic and Republican field.

“Marco, happy birthday from one 40-something to another,” Walker said of his greeting. “There’s certainly a generational issue there.”

In the most recent Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, Walker led in the state that starts the nomination process, while Rubio was the most popular second choice among likely Republican caucus participants.

Trade, tax policy

Walker said he supports giving Obama the authority to submit trade agreements to Congress for an expedited, up-or-down vote without amendments. “If we don't go down this path, we're going to be at a competitive disadvantage, and so I think it just makes sense,” he said.

At the same time, like many Republicans who support granting the trade authority recent past presidents have had, Walker said the deal would allow the Republican-controlled Congress to review Obama's actions.

“If this president were to give them a bad deal, they should hold him accountable and vote it down,” he said. “They have every right to do that under the proposal.”

On taxes, Walker said he'd look for ways to lower them especially for those in “the middle of the bracket” as well as for businesses. “I certainly wouldn't be talking about anybody paying any more,” he said.

The popular home-mortgage deduction is not a place where Walker would look for additional revenue to balance the cuts he'd like to see made, he said. “We're going to look at the entire tax code and what the best way to reform is, but I think homeownership is an important part of living the American dream,” he said.

Walker expressed similar views about the popular deduction for charitable contributions.

Questioned on the most positive and negative aspects of Bill Clinton's presidency, Walker offered some faint praise for budget balancing and a comment directed at Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.

"Certainly, all the scandals were the worst part," he said. "I think a lot of Americans are worried we're going to get a repeat of a lot of those scandals again."

Walker said he just finished reading "Reagan at Reykjavik," a book about his favorite president's historic 1986 summit with Mikhail Gorbachev that proved to be a key turning point in the Cold War.

In the Jeb Bush camp, fact-checking Jeb Bush who will announce for president June 15.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush takes the stage for a speech at Gov. Rick Scott's Economic Growth Summit on June 2, 2015, in Orlando. (Getty)
After acting like a presidential candidate for six months, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will officially announce his bid on June 15 at a suburban campus of Miami Dade College.

In December, Bush announced on Facebook that he would explore a bid. Since then, Bush has played the role of an unofficial candidate by giving speeches across the country, granting interviews and raising millions of dollars for his Right to Rise Super PAC, which can accept unlimited donations.

PolitiFact Florida has fact-checked Jeb Bush 39 times on our Truth-O-Meter. We’ve rated 26 percent of his statements True, 31 percent Mostly True, 13 percent Half True, 23 percent Mostly False, 5 percent False and 3 percent Pants on Fire.
He joins a crowded field of GOP candidates, including his protégé Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Bush served as Florida governor from 1999 to 2007 and was in office while his brother George W. Bush was president. During his tenure, he saw Florida’s 2000 recount, the busy 2004-05 hurricane seasons, the feds seizing Elián González and the fight to keep Terri Schiavo connected to a feeding tube.

While in office, Bush implemented the state’s A through F school grading system, helped cut billions in taxes and slashed thousands of state jobs.

Despite some commentators now calling him a "moderate" for his views in favor of Common Core and changing immigration policies, he has touted his conservative credentials such as slashing spending, which earned him the nickname ‘Veto Corleone.’

Here’s a look at some of our fact-checks of claims by or about Bush.

Iraq
Bush’s differing or disparate comments about the Iraq war caught people’s attention in May. He initially said he would have invaded even "knowing what we know now," but later said he misheard the question. Days later, he said "I would not have engaged, I would have not gone into Iraq."

At a town hall event in Nevada later that month, Bush said the Obama administration was at fault for troubles in Iraq. "We had an agreement that the president could have signed that would have kept 10,000 troops" in Iraq, he said.

That’s not quite what happened. Obama inherited a timeline to exit Iraq from George W. Bush and followed it, but there was no agreement to leave a large force behind. The Obama White House considered 10,000 troops for a short time but ruled it out, suggesting a much smaller force. Negotiations with Iraq broke down, however, and there was no agreement that met conditions Washington wanted. We rated his claim Mostly False. (On June 10, Obama ordered the deployment of up to 450 more troops to Iraq in an effort to reverse major losses to the Islamic State.)

Education
Bush has a longtime interest in education. After he lost his first race for governor in 1994, Bush launched a charter school in Liberty City, a poor area of Miami-Dade County. (The school has since closed.) On the trail this year, he’s made several claims related to the achievement gap and about Florida’s Hispanic students.

As governor, one of Bush’s most controversial education decisions was his 1999 executive order implementing the One Florida plan, which banned racial preference in state school admissions. Bush has claimed the plan has actually boosted minority enrollment.

"I eliminated affirmative action by executive order -- trust me, there were a lot of people upset about this," Bush said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. "But through hard work, we ended up having a system where there were more African American and Hispanic kids attending our university system than prior to the system that was discriminatory."

Bush is exaggerating what the policy accomplished. The raw numbers of black and Hispanic students are up, but the percentage of black students in the state university system is down slightly since Bush’s order. The number of Hispanic students has gone up considerably, but that is partly because of a recent change in how students report ethnicity during the admissions process. There’s no hard evidence Bush’s One Florida program had much to do with the enrollment changes. Experts say demographics, graduation rates and state-sponsored scholarship money have had more influence.

We rated the statement Mostly False.

Immigration
Bush has been a leading Republican voice for changing immigration law for years. In a book he co-wrote in March 2013, Bush called for an overhaul to the immigration system, including an emphasis on work, rather than family reunification, for granting visas.

"Nearly 65 percent -- almost two-thirds -- of all new permanent residents obtained that status by virtue of their family status," he wrote.

That’s accurate. This number refers to a group known as legal permanent residents, or green card holders. In 2011, about 1 million people became legal permanent residents, and those who entered based on family ties accounted for about 65 percent. We rated Bush’s statement True. (This trend has continued -- the same statistic holds true for 2013.)

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, has accused Bush of flip-flopping on immigration over the years, though. "@JebBush a flip-flop-flip on immigration?" tweeted the Democratic National Committee chair from Florida in March 2013. "Wow. I fashioned you more of a baseball player than a gymnast. My bad. #notsurprisedatall."

Has Bush’s position changed over the years? We’ve documented several changes of position.

In 1994, when Bush ran against Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, the Miami Herald asked Bush what he would do about illegal immigration. "Start deporting people," he answered.

Bush lost that race and then won the seat four years later. While governor, he began to change his stance. He called it "just plain wrong" to charge illegal immigrants with a felony, and he opposed "penalizing the children of illegal immigrants" by denying them U.S. citizenship.

But after he left office, Bush clearly made a "flip" in favor of a path to citizenship. "You have to deal with this issue," Bush said in 2012. "You can’t ignore it. And so, either a path to citizenship, which I would support, and that does put me probably out of the mainstream of most conservatives; or a path to legalization, a path to residency of some kind."

He then "flopped" back somewhat with the release of the book Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, in which he explicitly opposed citizenship. "A grant of citizenship is an undeserving reward for conduct that we cannot afford to encourage," he wrote.

However, the book didn’t take a hardline deportation approach: Bush called on illegal immigrants to plead guilty, pay fines, and learn English and then become eligible to start the process to earn permanent legal residency. Because Bush has had different positions on immigration over the years, we rated Wasserman Schultz’s statement True.

Since the book came out, he has made additional comments about citizenship.

In March 2015, Bush told reporters that he could support a path to citizenship. "If you could get a consensus done, where you could have a bill done, and it was 15 years (to achieve citizenship) as the Senate Gang of Eight did, I’d be supportive of that," he said.

However, he’s also said some things contrary to that stance. In New Hampshire in April, Bush urged, "Deal with the folks who are here illegally in a rational, thoughtful way. My suggestion is earned legal status. Not earned citizenship, but earned legal status."

Obamacare
In 2013, Bush tweeted: "Why would our president close the embassy to the Vatican? Hopefully, it is not retribution for Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare."

As it turned out, Obama was not closing the embassy to the Vatican -- the United States was moving to a more secure location closer to the Vatican. In addition, the move didn’t originate with Obama. It has been in the works since George W. Bush was president. Finally, we found no evidence to support the idea that the relocation was related to battles over Obamacare. We gave Bush a  Pants on Fire -- his only one. If anyone does spot a claim by Jeb Bush or another political figure in need of fact-checking? Tweet us #PolitiFactThis or email us at florida@politifact.com

Wow! The next story is about some Virginia honor student pleads guilty to assisting ISIL. What is up with that issue? 

USA Today reports that a Virginia honor student pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to charges that he supported the Islamic State's recruitment campaign in the U.S. The 17-year-old, one of the youngest Americans to face such terrorism-related charges, is the latest example of the growing influence of ISIL among youth in America.

Ali Shukri Amin acknowledged assisting in the radicalization of an 18-year-old friend, Reza Niknejad and aiding Niknejad's travel overseas earlier this year to join ISIL's ranks in Syria.

Amin also established a Twitter account, amassing thousands of followers, used to instruct prospective jihadis on how to mask financial contributions to ISIL by using the virtual currency Bitcoin, according to court documents.

Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, who oversees the Justice Department's National Security Division, said the case underscores ISIL's continuing social media effort to draw U.S. sympathizers to its cause, snagging ever-younger recruits.

"This case serves as a wake-up call that ISIL's propaganda and recruitment materials are in your communities and being viewed by your youth,'' Carlin said. "This challenge requires parental and community awareness and action to confront and deter this threat wherever it surfaces."

In court documents outlining Amin's admitted activities, prosecutors said Amin used his Twitter account, webpage and pro-ISIL blog to "proselytize his radical Islamic ideology, justify and defend ISIL's violent practices and to provide advice on topics such as jihadists travel to fight with ISIL.''

"On his blog,'' prosecutors said, "the defendant authored a series of highly technical articles targeted at aspiring jihadists and ISIL supporters detailing the use of security measures in online communications to include the use of encryption and anonymity software.''

Perhaps the most consequential of Amin's actions centered on the assistance he provided to Niknejad. Starting in September, according to court documents, Amin "began an effort to convert (Niknejad) to a radical form of Islam."

By December, Amin had arranged an overseas contact to provide travel instructions for his friend. The next month, Niknejad boarded a Turkish Airlines flight to begin a journey that ended with his successful crossing into Syria.

After Niknejad's departure, Amin acknowledged delivering a letter to his friend's family, which indicated that Niknejad, who also has been charged with terror support, "did not plan to see his family again.''

Before leaving, Niknejad had told his family he was embarking on a "camping trip.''

Amin's attorney, Joseph Flood, said the actions of his client, a devout Muslim, were part of a "sincere belief'' that the current Syrian regime had committed atrocities. At the same time, Flood said, Amin's behavior is "a reflection of his … immaturity, social isolation and frustration at the ineffectiveness of non-violent means for opposing a criminal regime.''

"Mr. Amin has taken responsibility as an adult for his actions as a child,'' the attorney said in a written statement.

Flood described his young client as a committed student and a volunteer in his Manassas, Va.-area community whose behavior "does not reflect his values or his true character.''

Amin, Flood said, had been planning to enter college in the fall to pursue academic interests that included science, technology and robotics.

"Mr. Amin deeply regrets having allowed himself and his faith to become entangled in criminal offenses and causing his family and community pain,'' Flood said, adding that his client has been cooperating with federal investigators.

Amin faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 28.

Regardless of it all happening during this great week in general, please stay in touch!