Joining today's show are Don Borelli, Chris Jansing, John Heilemann, Ian Bremmer, April Ryan, Mike Barnicle, Gabe Gutierrez, Sen. Joe Manchin, James Hohmann, Fmr. Gov Lincoln Chafee, Zanny Minton Beddoes, Sara Eisen, Laura Vanderkam and more
U.S. considering 500 additional troops in Iraq. President Barack Obama's administration is considering sending about 500 additional forces to Iraq, with many of them focused on training Iraqi troops, a senior administration official told CNN Tuesday.
The military had been considering multiple options, one of which could have sent as many as 1,000 troops to Iraq, but it appeared as if the administration was zeroing in on a number closer to 500 late Tuesday, the official said. A final decision is expected soon.
It's not clear how many of those troops would be used to help train Iraqi forces or be used for other purposes, such as security, air support or medical help.
The United States anticipates Iraq adding military training sites. The number of additional forces would likely reach around 500 if new training locations are opened in Anbar province or other places. One of the options being considered would have U.S. forces directly train -- but not arm -- Sunni tribes, another senior U.S. official said earlier Tuesday.
The Associated Press was the first to report earlier Tuesday that the administration was considering sending up to 1,000 U.S. forces to the country.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters traveling with him in Jerusalem on Tuesday that Obama has asked military brass to "take a look at what we've learned over the last eight months in the train-and-equip program and make recommendations to him on whether there are capabilities that we may want to provide to the Iraqis to actually make them more capable." "He's asked us to look at whether there are other locations where we might establish training sites," Dempsey said. "He's asked us to take a look at how we might develop Iraq's leaders."
There are currently 3,050 U.S. forces in Iraq -- with 2,250 of them devoted to supporting Iraqi security forces, 800 protecting U.S. personnel and facilities, 450 training Iraqi troops and 200 in advising and assisting roles.
arlier today we described the situation currently facing Syria’s soon-to-be ex-President Bashar al-Assad as follows:
And speaking of time, the US-led alliance realizes very well that as long as Assad has to fight three fronts: i.e., the Nusra Front in the northwestern province of Idlib and ever closer proximity to Syria's main infrastructure hub of Latakia, ISIS in the central part of the nation where they recently took over the historic town of Palmyra, and the official "rebel" force in proximity to Damascus, Assad's army will either eventually be obliterated or, more likely, mutiny and overthrow the president, putting the Ukraine scenario in play.
Meanwhile, the US is waiting just across the border for the right time to sweep in and effect a long overdue (in the eyes of the US and its Middle Eastern allies, if not in the eyes of Iran and Russia) regime change in Damascus.
Complicating the issue is ISIS, a one-time “strategic asset” that has, for all intents and purposes, gone rogue by deviating from the original Assad usurpation plan, and getting sidetracked by the whole internally conceived “establish a caliphate” idea.
Now, it appears the US doesn’t know whether it wants to stick with what was probably the original plan (i.e. wait until ISIS overruns Assad and then storm in with 10,000 marines to ‘liberate’ the country before installing a more ‘agreeable’ leader after some farce of an election) or speed up the process by claiming that Assad is in fact working with ISIS and using the imaginary unholy alliance as an excuse to invade now.
If Washington tends to go with Plan A, it would certainly make sense why Obama told leaders at the G-7 that this US doesn’t “yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis.” The strategy probably goes something like this: 1) bide time until Assad’s army is decimated, 2) issue burn notice on black-flag waving former CIA asset, 3) announce Syria’s liberation, 4) install puppet government, 5) send “you’re welcome” note to Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The only thing “incomplete” here is securing public support for ground troops. Lately, the US has begun to float a few “boots on the ground” trial balloons, with some hawks suggesting that forward “spotters” may be necessary in order to make the aerial assault on ISIS more ‘effective’ and today, we get a few more feelers from The White House, as the President is reportedly considering sending additional troops to Iraq “for training.”
Via Reuters:
U.S. President Barack Obama is weighing steps to bolster Iraq's battle against Islamic State, including expanding the number of training sites for Iraqi forces, but the overall U.S. strategy is not in question, the top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a small group of reporters during a trip to Israel that it was still "to be determined" whether more forces might be needed in such a scenario.
A senior U.S. military official, speaking separately on condition of anonymity, said any decision to expand training of Iraqi forces would likely only require a "modest" increase of trainers and support personnel.
We'll close with the following quote from Senate uber-hawk John McCain whose rhetoric demonstrates precisely why, in the end, fearmongering will likely be more than enough to rally support for a US 'operation' in the region:
"ISIS goes from house to house in Ramadi with lists of names and they execute people and they kill 3-year-old children, and they burn their bodies in the streets and the atrocities in Syria continue as Bashar Assad barrel bombs innocent men, women and children."
In a major shift of focus in the battle against the Islamic State, the Obama administration is planning to establish a new military base in Anbar Province, Iraq, and to send 400 American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi.
The White House on Wednesday is expected to announce a plan that follows months of behind-the-scenes debate about how prominently plans to retake Mosul, another Iraqi city that fell to the Islamic State last year, should figure in the early phase of the military campaign against the group.
The fall of Ramadi last month effectively settled the administration debate, at least for the time being. American officials said Ramadi was now expected to become the focus of a lengthy campaign to regain Mosul at a later stage, possibly not until 2016.
The additional American troops will arrive as early as this summer, a United States official said, and will focus on training Sunni fighters with the Iraqi Army. The official called the coming announcement “an adjustment to try to get the right training to the right folks.”
The United States Central Command’s emphasis on retaking Mosul depended critically on efforts to retrain the Iraqi Army, which appear to have gotten off to a slow start. Some Iraqi officials also thought the schedule for taking Mosul was unrealistic, and some bridled when an official from the Central Command told reporters in February that an assault to capture the city was planned for this spring.
Now, pending approval by the White House, plans are being made to use Al Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town of Habbaniya, as another training hub for the American-led coalition.
Alistair Baskey, a National Security Council spokesman, said that the administration hoped to accelerate the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, and that “those options include sending additional trainers.”
The United States now has about 3,000 troops, including trainers and advisers, in Iraq. But the steps envisioned by the White House are likely to be called half-measures by critics because they do not call for an expansion of the role of American troops, such as the use of spotters to call in airstrikes.
There has long been debate within the administration about what the first steps in the campaign should be.
Led by Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the Central Command has long emphasized the need to strike a blow against the Islamic State by recapturing Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which was taken by the group in June 2014. Mosul is the capital of Nineveh Province in northern Iraq and was the site of a sermon that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, defiantly delivered in July. The Baiji refinery, a major oil complex, is on a main road to Mosul.
While General Austin was looking north, State Department officials have highlighted the strategic importance of Anbar Province in western Iraq.
Anbar is home to many of Iraq’s Sunni tribes, whose support American officials hope to enlist in the struggle against the Islamic State. Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, is less than 70 miles from Baghdad, and the province borders Saudi Arabia and Jordan, two important members of the coalition against the Islamic State. The differing perspectives within the administration came to the fore in April when Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asserted that Ramadi was not central to the future of Iraq.
The Islamic State’s capture of Ramadi last month also punctured the administration’s description that the group was on the defensive.
Suddenly, it appeared that the Islamic State, not the American-led coalition, was on the march. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq scrambled to assemble a plan to regain the city.
The Islamic State now controls two provincial capitals, as well as the city of Falluja. With the help of American air power, the Iraqis have retaken Tikrit, northwest of Baghdad, but so many buildings there are still rigged with explosives that many of its residents have been unable to return.
To assemble a force to retake Ramadi, the number of Iraqi tribal fighters in Anbar who are trained and equipped is expected to increase to as many as 10,000 from about 5,500.
More than 3,000 new Iraqi soldiers are to be recruited to fill the ranks of the Seventh Iraqi Army division in Anbar and the Eighth Iraqi Army division, which is in Habbaniyah, where the Iraqi military operations center for the province is also based.
But to the frustration of critics like Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who say that the United States is losing the initiative to the Islamic State, the Obama administration has yet to approve the use of American spotters on the battlefield to call in airstrikes in and around Ramadi. Nor has it approved the use of Apache helicopter gunships to help Iraqi troops retake the city.
General Dempsey alluded to the plan to expand the military footprint in Iraq during a visit to Israel on Tuesday, saying that he had asked war commanders to look into expanding the number of training sites for Iraqi forces.
The United States is not the only country that is expanding its effort.
Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, said this week that his country would send up to 125 additional troops to train Iraqi forces, including in how to clear improvised bombs.
Italy is also expected to play an important role in training the Iraqi police.
Texas officer resigns after 'indefensible' actions at pool party. A Texas officer widely criticized for his handling of black teens at a pool party has resigned -- even before the investigation into the case has finished.
A YouTube video that showed Eric Casebolt's response to reports of fighting at a McKinney pool party sparked swift allegations of racism.
Critics decried the white officer for cursing at several black teenagers, unholstering and waving his gun at boys and slamming at bikini-clad girl to the ground, his knees pressed down on her back.
McKinney's police chief announced Casebolt's firing Tuesday and called Casebolt's actions "indefensible."
"Our policies, our training, our practice, do not support his actions," Police Chief Greg Conley said. "He came into the call out of control, and as the video shows, was out of control during the incident."
Prior to his resignation Casebolt had been on administrative leave as police investigated what happened at McKinney's Craig Ranch community last Friday.
It's too soon to say whether the former officer will face charges over what happened, the police chief said.
"We are continuing looking into all the allegations that are being presented to us, and any part of a criminal investigation regarding anyone will take a matter of time for us to work through all those allegations and those people who have come forward to us to complain," Conley said.
He noted that Casebolt was the only responding officer who was out of line.
"I had 12 officers on the scene, and 11 of them performed according to their training," he said. "They did an excellent job."
Casebolt's attorney has not responded to CNN's requests for comment.
While the police chief said Casebolt's actions were clearly unjustified, opinions vary as to whether race played a role.
Party host: Racist remark sparked tensions
Tatyana Rhodes was hosting a pool party Friday and said tensions flared after a racially charged fight broke out.
It started, she said, when two white women told a group of black teens they should leave and "go back to their Section 8 homes." One of the women, she said, smacked her in the face.
But Rhodes said the police officer took things too far.
"He didn't have to use aggression," she told CNN's "Erin Burnett: Outfront."
Now, she says she's glad he has stepped down.
"I'm happy that he's resigning," she said. "I feel that everyone in McKinney will feel better that he's resigning. ... It's the first step."
Black resident: 'This was not a racially motivated event'
Benet Embry, a black resident at Craig Ranch, saw things differently at the neighborhood pool Friday.
He said he saw a crowd of teenagers show up, even though Craig Ranch's strict homeowners' association rules prohibit bringing more than two guests to the pool. The teens huddled by the gate and shouted to be let in. Some jumped over the fence, Embry said. A security guard tried to get them to leave but was outnumbered, so the guard called police.
"Let me reiterate, the neighbors or the neighborhood did not call the police because this was an African-American party or whatever the situation is," he said. "This was not a racially motivated event -- at all. This whole thing is being blown completely out of proportion."
Embry did say he was disturbed to see the officer kneel on top of the bikini-clad girl and wave his gun at other teens.
"I may or may not agree with everything that the police officer did, but I do believe he was trying to establish order," he said.
Brandon Brooks disagrees. He's the 15-year-old white teen who shot the video and said there's no doubt race was a factor in how police responded. Brandon said the officer was targeting black teens at the scene. "I was one of the only white people in the area when that was happening," he told CNN affiliate KDAF. "You can see in part of the video where he tells us to sit down, and he kinda like skips over me and tells all my African-American friends to go sit down."
Brandon said he was unnerved to see his 14-year-old friend tackled and pressed to the ground.
"I think she was 'running her mouth,' and she has freedom of speech, and that was very uncalled for him to throw her to the ground," he said.
Tackled girl: 'My back was hurting bad'
Dajerria Becton, the girl seen taken to the ground by Casebolt, told local station KDFW she had obeyed the officer's order to leave.
"He told me to keep walking," she said. "And I kept walking, and then I'm guessing he thought we were saying rude stuff to him." That's when things got physical, she said.
"He grabbed me, twisted my arm on my back and shoved me in the grass and started pulling the back of my braids," Dajerria told KDFW.
In the video, the officer places her hands behind her and kneels on her back.
"I was telling him to get off me because my back was hurting bad," Dajerria said.
Dajerria wasn't charged, McKinney police said. She was released to her parents. CNN's Nick Valencia, Jason Morris and Janet DiGiacomo contributed to this report.
Manhunt for escaped murderers focuses on small New York town. The manhunt for two dangerous murderers who made a daring escape from an upstate New York prison was focusing Tuesday on a small town some 30 miles south, where two suspicious men were reportedly spotted.
Corrections officers, New York State Police troopers and Essex County Sheriff's Office deputies were focusing on farms and fields around Willsboro, a town of about 2,000 people on the shore of Lake Champlain, in the search for Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 34, who disappeared from the Clinton Correctional Facility sometime before Saturday morning. One of the men reportedly has family in the area, and residents reported seeing a couple of men walking on a road late Monday in Willsboro during a driving rainstorm.
"[We're] chasing down a lead," a law enforcement source told Fox News.
Authorities declined to confirm earlier reports that Joyce Mitchell, an industrial training supervisor at the Clinton Correctional Facility, was being questioned by authorities about the escape. The Press Republican reported, citing an unnamed source, that she worked inside a tailor shop inside the prison and may have helped the men get power tools needed to cut their way out of the lockup.
"They are dangerous and we want to make sure that they don't inflict any more pain and any more harm."
- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo
Authorities said there are many questions surrounding the escape, including how the men acquired power tools used to break out of the facility. Prison authorities are checking to see if any power tools are missing from contractors at the prison. Police also said they believe the convicts stashed the tools they used to escape in a guitar case, according to the New York Post. The Upstate New York, prison is surrounded by dense forest. "It's very important that we locate these individuals," said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. "They are dangerous and we want to make sure that they don't inflict any more pain and any more harm."
Mack's half-brother, Wayne Schimpf, told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that Mack was "a very dangerous man" who "has nothing to lose at this point."
He also said on "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" that after he testified against his half-brother, Mack had threatened to kill him and "I'm very worried he's coming this way."
Shaun Gillilland, the town supervisor of Willsboro, told the Wall Street Journal 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 rain storm."
"When the car this person was in approached, they took off into the fields," Gillilland told the newspaper.
Mark Fuhrman, a former Los Angeles Police Department detective and Fox News contributor, said there is no doubt the two had help -- both during and after the escape -- and said he suspects the men are far from the area.
"They could be a thousand miles away or a mile away, but laying low close by only complicates your problem," Fuhrman said. "If anyone is going to recognize their photos, it's someone in the immediate area." Matt, (l.), and Sweatt are both convicted killers and considered extremely dangerous. (New York State Police). No report of a carjacked or stolen vehicle in the area indicates the men had help outside the prison, according to Fuhrman.
"Escaping this type of a correctional facility and getting to the point of exit is only half the problem," he said. "You need logistical help to get from that point to a place where you're not going to be picked up."
"That's the first thing police look at when you have someone afoot," Fuhrman said of stolen vehicles. "If you don’t have that, they had help."
Sweat is serving a sentence of life without parole after he was convicted of first-degree murder for killing a Broome County sheriff's deputy in 2002.
Sweat and another man fired 15 rounds into Deputy Kevin Tarsia on the Fourth of July in 2002 shortly after using a pickup truck to break into a Pennsylvania woman's house, stealing rifles and handguns, authorities have said.
Matt is serving a sentence of 25 years to life for the kidnapping, beating death and dismemberment of his former boss, William Rickerson, in 1997.
Following Rickerson’s murder, Matt escaped from a minimum-security prison while awaiting trial and fled to Mexico, where he was eventually arrested after fatally stabbing another American outside a bar in a robbery attempt. He was jailed in Mexico for the killing, and later extradited to the U.S. in 2008 to face trial in the Rickerson murder.
The Daily Beast reported that Matt's ex-girlfriend, who worked as a stripper, testified during the 2008 trial that Matt confessed to breaking Rickerson's neck. Wayne Schimpf, Matt's half-brother, remembered when Matt showed him an article about the businessman's body being found hacked up in a river.
Schimpf recalled during testimony asking Matt how he managed to cut up the body. Officials believe the men used power tools to cut their way into a steam pipe, then shimmied through it to freedom. (New York State Police)
"He turned and looked at me, and with a grin that I won't forget, he said, 'With a hacksaw.' This whole time I'm still thinking he's full of crap, he’s just trying to sound big. You know, I really didn’t want to believe it."
Matt landed at Clinton Correctional in 2008 after being convicted in the Rickerson murder.
At the prison, Matt's and Sweat's adjoining cells were empty during a Saturday morning check, said Anthony Annuci, the acting state corrections commissioner.
"A search revealed that there was a hole cut out of the back of the cell through which these inmates escaped," Annucci said. "They went onto a catwalk which is about 6 stories high. We estimate they climbed down and had power tools and were able to get out to this facility through tunnels, cutting away at several spots."
State police said more than 200 officers from multiple agencies were searching for the inmates. The search included bloodhounds and aerial surveillance.
Cuomo said the prison break was the first escape from the maximum-security portion of the prison since it was built in 1865.
The prison is about 20 miles from the Canadian border. Roadblocks were set up in the area, WIRY-AM reported.
Sweat is white, 5 feet 11 inches, with brown hair and green eyes and weighs 165 pounds, police said. He has tattoos on his left bicep and his right fingers.
Matt is white, 6 feet tall, with black hair and hazel eyes, according to police. He weighs 210 pounds and has tattoos including "Mexico Forever" on his back, a heart on his chest and left shoulder and a Marine Corps insignia on his right shoulder. FoxNews.com's Cristina Corbin and The Associated Press contributed to this report
Escaped killers' driver went to hospital instead, source says. Investigators think a woman who worked with Richard Matt and David Sweat at the Clinton Correctional Facility planned to pick the convicted killers up after they escaped but changed her mind at the last minute, a source familiar with the investigation tells CNN.
Joyce Mitchell went to a hospital this weekend because of panic attacks, the source said.
Mitchell is one of several prison employees who has been questioned in the case. She has given a statement and is being "somewhat cooperative," a source said. She has not been charged.
Her cell phone was used to call several people connected to Matt, another source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. It's unclear who made the calls or when the calls were made. Authorities are trying to determine whether Mitchell was aware her phone was being used.
Her son, Tobey Mitchell, has come to her defense.
He told NBC that she wouldn't "risk her life or other people's lives to help these guys escape." He said his mother was in a hospital with severe chest pains about the time of the escape.
Possible sighting
Authorities scoured farms and fields around an upstate New York town Tuesday, looking for the pair who escaped from a prison days earlier, a local official said.
The search was prompted by someone who spotted two "suspicious men" walking down a road in Willsboro in the middle of a "driving rainstorm" overnight "in an area that's all ... large farms and fields and wooded lots," Town Supervisor Shaun Gillilland said. As the citizen's car approached them, they took off.
"They were walking down the road, not dressed for the elements," Gillilland said. "They ran into the fields, from what I understand. So this behavior ... was suspicious."
Given the meticulous detail involved in the escape, there were concerns fugitives Richard Matt and David Sweat put a similar level of planning into their getaway, including transportation.
But a law enforcement source close to the investigation doesn't think that's what happened, saying a witness and other indicators suggest the men have been on foot since springing themselves from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, about 40 miles north of the search site in the southern part of Willsboro.
Local, state and federal authorities set up a search perimeter there. As of 2 p.m., Gillilland wasn't aware that any clothes, vehicles or other evidence had been found, but it was still relatively early in the process.
The stormy overnight spotting in Willsboro, a town of 2,000 people on Lake Champlain, is one of the first big potential breakthroughs since prison guards found Matt and Sweat's beds empty at 5:30 a.m. Saturday.
Until then, the closest might have been an account from two Dannemora residents about two men, whom they now believe to be the escaped killers, walking through their backyard shortly after midnight Friday.
"I go look at him (and) I say, 'What the hell are you doing in my yard? Get the hell out of here,' " one of the residents told ABC's "Good Morning America" of that encounter.
The two men complied, one apologizing that he'd been on the wrong street. It wasn't until the next day that the resident, who asked not to be named, and his female friend realized who the trespassers probably were. They are killers whom authorities fear could do so again to evade capture.
Elizabeth Ahern, who lives in Plattsburgh, about five miles from the prison and 25 miles south of the Canadian border, isn't taking any chances. The North Country, she says, is a place where people usually don't bother securing their doors and have weapons to hunt, not to guard themselves against criminals.
"It's a scary situation," Ahern told CNN's "New Day." "We are now closing our doors and locking them, and making sure we have knives and guns ready to go, just in case."
New York escapees' violent pasts bring urgency
Expert: 'They had to have help'
Finding the two fugitives is job No. 1 for authorities. Job No. 2 is figuring out how they got out -- and who, if anyone, helped them become the first inmates to escape Clinton Correctional in its 170-year history.
Matthew Horace, a law enforcement veteran who spent years with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said: "They had to have help. ... I wouldn't be surprised if, when this all pans out, there's more than one, two, three or five people that helped them on the inside." Matt and Sweat cut through a cell wall that included steel a quarter-inch thick, maneuvered across a catwalk, shimmied down six stories to a tunnel of pipes, followed that tunnel, broke through a double-brick wall, cut into a 24-inch steam pipe, shimmied their way through the steam pipe, cut another hole so they could get out of the pipe and finally surfaced through a manhole.
If other people are proved to have played a role in Matt and Sweat's escape or their life on the lam, they'll pay a price. An accomplice could be convicted of a misdemeanor for helping introduce nondangerous contraband into a prison. Or they could get up to seven years in jail for the class D felony of "hindering prosecution" by providing "criminal assistance" to someone sentenced to 20 years to life for a violent crime.
Slain deputy's brother: 'I just hope he doesn't come back'
Matt and Sweat are convicted killers whose behavior is prison appears to have been good.
Matt was convicted on three counts of murder, three counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery after he kidnapped a man and beat him to death in December 1997, state police said. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. In 1986, he escaped from an Erie County jail. Upon his capture, Matt was sent to a maximum security prison in Elmira, New York, on charges of escape and forgery. He was released from the Elmira Correctional Facility in May 1990.
Sweat was serving a life sentence without parole for killing sheriff's Deputy Kevin Tarsia in 2002.
It has been years since these murders. While at Clinton Correctional, they were in the prison's "honor block" for those who have gone years without significant disciplinary action, according to a state official briefed on the investigation.
Being in an honor block carries privileges such as having hot plates and refrigerators in their cells and congregating for hours in a central gallery area each evening with fellow inmates, said Rich Plumadore, who worked at Clinton Correctional for 35 years. About 250 to 300 inmates are in this unit at the prison. CNN's Deborah Feyerick, Ray Sanchez, Polo Sandoval, Lorenzo Ferrigno, Mary Kay Mallonee, Don Lemon, Alisyn Camerota and David Shortell contributed to this report.
Rubio's 'luxury speedboat' is a fishing boat. In an effort to showcase Sen. Marco Rubio's history of financial struggles, The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Florida Republican had spent "$80,000 for a luxury speedboat" even as he faced outstanding debts.
But while Rubio did indeed spend $80,000 on a boat, the vessel in question is not the glamorous "luxury speedboat" the Times article portrayed. It is, in fact, an offshore fishing boat. On Tuesday, Rubio spokesperson Alex Conant sent POLITICO a link to a website showing the make and model of the boat Rubio owns: an EdgeWater 245CC Deep-V Center Console. The manufacturer, Edgewater, notes that the boat is perfect for "safety-minded family boaters and avid anglers." In a place like Miami, home to billionaires and stars who have multimillion-dollar yachts, an “$80,000 luxury boat” can seem like a contradiction.
Rubio’s campaign said his boat purchase included two new 150-horsepower 4-stroke Yamaha engines, a relatively standard amount of horsepower. According to eBay, each engine could cost as much as $16,000 — making the value of the boat hull itself less than $80,000. The Times reported that Rubio "splurged" on this "extravagant purchase" after receiving an $800,000 advance on a book deal. "At the time, Mr. Rubio confided to a friend that it was a potentially inadvisable outlay that he could not resist," the article stated. "The 24-foot boat, he said, fulfilled a dream."
The Times reported that this purchase reflected "a series of decisions over the past 15 years that experts called imprudent: significant debts; a penchant to spend heavily on luxury items like the boat and the lease of a $50,000 2015 Audi Q7; a strikingly low savings rate, even when Mr. Rubio was earning large sums; and inattentive accounting that led to years of unpaid local government fees."
Times political editor Carolyn Ryan and spokesperson Eileen Murphy did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the characterization of Rubio's boat. We will update here if and when we hear back. The New York Times headline about it is Marco Rubio's Career Bedeviled by Financial Struggles. This is a quintessential non story and if this and the traffic tickets are what they have against Marco (Rubio), this is good for the candidate and it is a stretch by the media.
Jeb Bush meets with Merkel. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush kicks off his six-day European tour in Germany with strong words for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In Berlin, the potential presidential candidate met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday.
His focus, Russia's Putin.
Bush says the U.S. and other Western powers need to clearly state the "consequences" Putin will face in advance, rather than reacting to incidents like the fight over control of Ukraine. He noted that Merkel had done a good job of laying out consequences, but also said that the U.S., Russia "reset button" had failed, a clear dig into the policy that President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set almost eight years ago.
This trip is an opportunity for Bush to tout his foreign policy stance before he announces next week if he is running for president.
Bomb threat: White House briefing room briefly evacuated. Secret Service agents interrupted a live, televised White House press briefing Tuesday to evacuate journalists after a bomb threat was called in to police. No bomb was found, the Secret Service said. President Barack Obama was in the Oval Office and remained there during the evacuation, which only affected the James S. Brady Briefing Room. White House press secretary Josh Earnest, who was briefing reporters at the time of the evacuation, said later that first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia were in the White House residence and were not evacuated.
The incident came after a bomb threat related to the White House briefing room was phoned in to local Washington police, the Secret Service said. Roughly 20 minutes later, uniformed Secret Service officers on the scene said an all-clear had been issued, and journalists were later allowed back into the White House, where the daily press briefing resumed.
Evacuations at the White House are rare, but not unprecedented. Last year, journalists and officials were temporarily evacuated after a fence-jumper made it inside the White House.
Yet Tuesday's incident was made more dramatic by the fact that it took place on camera during a live press briefing - the first such instance since the White House started allowing live television coverage of full press briefings in the 1990s.
Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said the decision to evacuate only the briefing room, while allowing White House officials to remain in other parts of the building, was "due to the specific nature of the threat," although he did not elaborate. He said the Secret Service commander on the scene decided to evacuate the briefing room "out of an abundance of caution." Earnest said that the Secret Service had swept the briefing room with the help of bomb-sniffing dogs before allowing people to return. Associated Press journalists returning to their workspace in the White House after the all-clear found items displaced, ostensibly by Secret Service officers searching for potential security threats.
"The evacuation was conducted to protect the safety of all of us," Earnest said.
Many television networks have permanent cameras installed in the White House briefing room. Following the evacuation, the cameras were pointed up to the ceiling so that the briefing room was no longer visible, then covered completely. The Secret Service had no immediate comment on why the cameras were covered up.
The political pedigree of Dennis Hastert Judge Thomas Durkin. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin, the judge in the former House Speaker Dennis Hastert case on Tuesday – and a two-time donor to Hastert’s congressional campaign fund – offered to recuse himself unless both parties agree to waive that recusal.
The Sun-Times reported Durkin said he believes a “reasonable person might believe” a bias may exist. He gave both parties until 4 p.m. Thursday to decide whether he should indeed be disqualified.
Here is Durkin’s political pedigree:
* Federal Election Commission contribution records show that Durkin donated as a lawyer in private practice to Hastert’s congressional campaign when Hastert was House speaker. While working for Mayer Brown in Chicago’s Loop Durkin gave $1,000 to Hastert’s campaign on June 29, 2004, and $500 on June 26, 2002. Hastert’s son Ethan is a Mayer Brown partner.
* Durkin was confirmed by the Senate in December 2012 — making it to the federal bench after trying for years to get the spot.
Durkin submitted an application to Sen. Dick Durbin D-Ill. on May 8, 2009, according to a questionnaire reviewed by the Sun-Times that Durkin completed for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Following an interview by Durbin and his selection committee, Durkin’s name joined others on a list for consideration by President Barack Obama. Durkin was not picked.
Durkin made another bid for a federal judgeship on March 18, 2011, sending his application to Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. This time, Obama nominated Durkin.
* One of Durkin’s seven brothers is Jim Durkin, who became the Illinois House Republican leader on Oct. 22, 2013. Jim Durkin was Sen John McCain’s R-Ariz. Illinois state chairman when McCain ran for president in 2000 and 2008. Between 2006 and 2008 Durkin donated $4,300 to political funds associated with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
*McCain supported Jim Durkin when he ran for Senate in 2002 against Durbin. Thomas Durkin adonated $2,000 to his brother’s failed Senate bid.
*Durkin provided pro bono assistance to the Illinois House Impeachment Committee scrutinizing then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich after he was indicted on federal corruption charges, according to Durkin’s questionnaire. Jim Durkin in 2008-2009 was the ranking Republican on that panel.
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