Good morning everyone! Happy Wednesday to you!

Joining utoday's show are Nicolle Wallace, John Heilemann, Mike Barnicle, Kasie Hunt, Alfonso Aguilar, Chris Jansing, Rep. Jim Jordan, Steve Kornacki, Rick Santelli, Rep. Steny Hoyer, Carl Quintanilla, Brian Sullivan, Sen. Cory Gardner, Charles Koppelman and more

Taiji: The drive hunt is over now for today. 15-20 Risso's dolphins have been killed. Here you see the dolphin that died after being caught in the net unnoticed. #dolphinproject #Tweet4dolphins 2015-10-28 12.15am
Taiji: This banger boat just headed out with six slings with live dolphins. Apparently releasing them #dolphinproject #Tweet4dolphins 2015-10-28 12.45am. 

Lubna Arikat says that Dumping 6 juveniles/babies at sea because they they too small to be counted in quota- the young ones chance of survival are slim to none. Risso's are large dolphins- to fit 6 on one banger boat.... Says they are small. For all we know the one that drowned is in one of the slings so not part of quota #tweet4taiji. 

Will you help us end the slaughter (http://bit.ly/1NQeEnR‪#‎DolphinProject‬)?
HEADLINES: World Series: Biggest moments from Royals' Game 1 win over the Mets (First time two expansion teams played each other in the World Series and these are the first two teams that were NOT a part of the racial divide in Baseball). Game 2 is tonight. Hillary Clinton Talks 'Bad TV,' Bank Regulations With Colbert on 'Late Show'. Donald Trump heads back to Iowa, where Ben Carson is surging. Carson enters GOP debate with momentum; Bush seeks jumpstart. Campaigns erupt over greenrooms at third GOP debate. Speaking of debates, there is one tonight in Boulder. Look Out for These Differences on Economic Issues. Republican presidential candidates gather for third debate. Hillary Clinton Falsely Calls Bernie Sanders a Sexist. Poll: Clinton routing Sanders by 41 points in Iowa. POLITICO also reports that Ex-McCain aides: Jeb Bush's campaign is not like ours and Nicolle Wallace fights back against that comparison by telling us the real story about how they ran into each at an airport. Rick Santelli is on the show today. He was the guy that in part helped create the Tea Potty movement with his rant on TV while he was reporting on Wall Street. I am not sure why they talk about the state of Miami University Football, but then again, I guess it is like me mentioning the Rams every other day here. The Carson-Trump Slugfest, Plus 9 Other Things to Watch at Wednesday's GOP Debate. If Trump does not win in Iowa BTW, "he will not speak to them ever again". Florida Newspaper Calls on Marco Rubio to Resign for Missing Senate Votes. Budget deal could end the fiscal wars until after the 2016 elections.....

Looks like the 2015 World Series is off to a dynamic startAn inside-the-park homer. Power outages. Oh, and extra innings. 

The Kansas City Royals beat the New York Mets 5-4 in the 14th inning early Wednesday morning to claim the first game of the series.

Both on and off the field, it was a wild and wacky contest from the start.

How wacky? Let us count the ways.

The longest Game 1 ever
It was the longest Game 1 in World Series history. The game started at Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday. Fourteen innings, 5 hours and 9 minutes later, Kansas City first baseman Eric Hosmer put an end to the epic affair with a sacrifice fly that allowed shortstop Alcides Escobar to score the winning run about a quarter past 1 a.m. Wednesday.

The first in-the-park homer in decades
We should have known from the series' first pitch we were in for a classic. Just how classic? How about an inside-the-park home run to start things off? Escobar -- yep, the same guy who scored at the end -- smashed that first pitch into center field and quickly sprinted around the bases to give Kansas City a stunning, early 1-0 lead. It's been awhile since anyone has seen an insider homer in a World Series. The last time it happened was in 1929.

The power goes out
Things were going along swimmingly until the bottom of the fourth, when viewers watching on Fox suddenly couldn't see the game. What happened? Both the primary and backup generators powering Fox's broadcast production trucks went out -- a "rare electronics failure," Fox said -- knocking the game off the air.

Fox quickly switched to MLB Network's international feed and announcers. That broadcast used a different generator. Fox was back on the air with its broadcast about 20 minutes later.

But the power outage didn't just affect folks watching at home. It delayed the game as well. That's because major league teams often use the television broadcast to watch for close calls by umpires they may want to challenge. Can't do that without TV.

"The on-field delay was due to replay capability being lost in both team's clubhouses," Fox said.

So action on the field was delayed about six minutes.

So how did social media react to all of this? With a steady stream of jokes and memes, of course.

The mascot of the Houston Astros tweeted during the power outage: "I'm walking to the bathroom a few minutes ago and these big shoes of mine tripped on a cord near a tv truck. What did I miss?"

Google Fiber fails
Google Fiber subscribers love to brag about how cool the gigabit Internet and TV service is. Well, it wasn't so cool Tuesday. In Kansas City, Google Fiber experienced about an hour-long outage during the early innings, enraging Royals fans watching the game and causing the tech giant to tweet out a quick apology.

"We're so sorry about the outage in KC," Google said. "We know it couldn't have happened at a worse time, and we're working as quickly as we can to fix it."

A pitcher gets terrible news
Game 1 also featured a sad development. The father of Royals pitcher Edinson Volquez died hours before the game started, but Volquez pitched for six innings, unaware of his father's death until after the game.

Royals manager Ned Yost said it was the family's wish to "let Eddie pitch."

Volquez headed off to the Dominican Republic to be with his family, and the Royals aren't sure right now when he'd return, Yost said. Players -- and their fans -- only have a few hours to absorb all this and rest up. The first pitch for Game 2 is at 8:07 p.m. ET.

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton admitted she and former President Bill Clinton like to binge watch "bad TV" in an appearance on the "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" airing Tuesday on CBS.

For her 68th birthday Monday, Clinton said she wanted to "do as little as I could get away with," which involved catching up on "Madame Secretary" and "The Good Wife" (two CBS shows, Colbert was quick to point out).

She revealed she and Bill recently finished Netflix political drama "House of Cards" — "It took a while," Clinton said.

Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton chats with Stephen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Tuesday Oct. 27, 2015 on the CBS. Jeffrey R. Staab / CBS
Clinton even confessed she was "a little" jealous that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made a guest appearance on "Madame Secretary" this season.

In a more serious moment, Colbert asked Clinton about her plan to rein in Wall Street abuses and whether she would, as president, let the big banks fail.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," Clinton said, repeating her answer for emphasis. "First of all, under Dodd Frank, that is what will happen because we now have stress tests and I'm going to impose a risk fee on the big banks if they engage in risky behavior."

"But they have to know, their shareholders have to know that yes, they will fail and if they're too big to fail, then, under my plan and others that have been proposed, they may have to be broken up," Clinton said.

When Colbert asked Clinton whether she'd rather run against Donald Trump or Ben Carson, Clinton deflected, saying she'd rather not have any influence on that side of the race.

Asked if she could picture either one of them in office, Clinton quipped, "I can picture them in some office."

The Colbert interview is the latest in a string of appearances meant to humanize Clinton and showcase her lighter side. This was Colbert's first interview with Clinton, who called the Ed Sullivan Theater "the cathedral of Colbert." Clinton is the fifth presidential candidate to stop by the show in its inaugural season.

Colbert joked that maybe the reason Clinton never came on his previous show on Comedy Central because he "was playing a character who did not care" for her.

"I can say it now: it was mutual," Clinton quickly responded.
Donald Trump simply doesn't understand why a series of polls have shown him losing in Iowa to retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

Trump has held several rallies that attracted "tremendous crowds" of exuberant Iowans, while Carson is rarely spotted there. Trump will hold a rally in Sioux City in western Iowa on Tuesday night, his second in the state in less than a week. Meanwhile, Trump's campaign has 13 staffers working in Iowa, along with a network of volunteers, making it the largest Republican operation in the state. And the campaign has been carefully building its own database of potential caucus-goers, a large number of whom they believe don't usually vote.

Trump was last in Iowa last Wednesday for a rally in Burlington, an industrial river town in the eastern part of the state. Since then, his lead in the state has vanished. On Thursday, a Quinnipiac University poll reported that 28 percent of likely Iowa caucus participants would vote for Carson, compared to 20 percent for Trump. The next day, a poll from the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics put Carson again at 28 percent and Trump at 19. A CBS-YouGov poll on Sunday showed Carson and Trump tied at 27 percent each -- but two more polls on Monday showed Carson with a double-digit lead over Trump.

"I don't get it," Trump said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday. "Some of these polls coming out, I don't quite get it. I was No. 1, pretty much, in Iowa from the beginning, and I would say we're doing very well there. So I'm a little bit surprised. The other polls, as you know, in other states are extraordinary, actually. But this one I don't quite get. I would have thought we were doing much better -- I think we are doing much better."

Trump said in the interview that he has no plans to write Iowa off: "I'll fight right to the end for it," he said. "And if I don't win it, I understand that can happen, but I will be fighting for Iowa."

And a New York Times-CBS poll released Tuesday showed Carson leading nationally at 26 percent, with Trump at 22 percent. Trump often devotes large chunks of his campaign speeches to listing off his latest poll numbers, citing both scientifically and unscientifically collected results. Now that he's slipping, skepticism has descended.

"The thing with these polls, they're all so different," Trump said. "One guy is up here, somebody else is up there, you see swings of 10 and 12 points and, immediately, even the same day. So right now it's not very scientific."

Trump said he hopes Carson's frontrunner status will bring some scrutiny of the doctor's stances and leadership capabilities because he sees "a lot of contradiction and a lot of questions." Trump accused Carson of being "pro-abortion not so long ago" -- even though Trump's own stances on abortion appear to have evolved over the years, having described himself as "very pro-Choice" in 1999. Trump criticized Carson for proposing to change the health-care system in a way that would abolish Medicare and questioned how Carson would negotiate with foreign leaders.

Trump knocked Carson for spending a "tremendous amount" on his campaign, including hiring staff and paying people to raise money for him. After bragging about his campaign's frugal spending, Trump said he is "willing to spend whatever it takes" to win.

These sorts of attacks are expected to continue Tuesday night as Trump takes the stage for a rally at a high school in Sioux City. A group of pro-immigration activists have questioned the school for allowing Trump to appear there and plan to protest outside the event.

The Republican candidates for president will gather Wednesday for their third debate amid fresh volatility in an already chaotic race, with Ben Carson surging past Donald Trump in Iowa and one-time front-runner Jeb Bush under pressure to prove he’s still a viable candidate for the GOP nomination.

The soft-spoken Carson has been a low-key presence in the first two GOP debates, but the retired neurosurgeon is likely to get more attention from moderators — as well as his fellow candidates — after a series of preference polls show him atop the field in Iowa.

Trump has already shown he’s eager to take on Carson, jabbing him for his speaking style and raising questions about his Seventh Day Adventist faith.

“We’ll see how Ben holds up to the scrutiny,” Trump said Tuesday on MSNBC.

Meanwhile, Bush will be grasping for momentum after one of the most trying stretches of his White House campaign. Slower-than-expected fundraising has led Bush to slash spending and overhaul his campaign structure, and he’s voiced frustration with the way the unusual race has progressed.

If the election is going to be about fighting to get nothing done, he says, “I don’t want any part of it.”

There will be 10 candidates on stage in the prime-time debate in Boulder, Colorado, all seeking a share of a smaller spotlight: this debate on CNBC will run for only two hours after the last affair went on for more than three.

Among the participants are two senators — Florida’s Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz of Texas. Rubio has sought to capitalize on Bush’s stumbles, but faces his own financial concerns. Cruz is positioning himself to inherit Trump’s supporters if the real estate mogul’s campaign collapses.

Taken together, it’s a Republican field that remains crowded and unwieldy three months before the lead-off Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. The political rookies appealing to voter anger with Washington have ceded no ground and establishment politicians are still waiting for the race to turn their way — and increasingly wondering if it ever will.

Trump remains the dominant force, commanding media attention, drawing large crowds and leading in most early voting states. But his dip in Iowa has prompted some speculation among Republicans that the tide could be turning against the bombastic billionaire.

“His only hope of staying competitive is to entertain voters with his provocateur-in-chief routine right up until Election Day,” said Josh Holmes, a former adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “He’s the one candidate where ‘acting presidential’ actually has a detrimental effect on his campaign.”

While Carson is unknown to many Americans, he’s built a loyal following with tea party-aligned voters and religious conservatives. His campaign has started running new television advertisements in early voting states that center on his experience as a doctor and highlight his status as a political outsider.

Carson has raised eyebrows with his incendiary comments about Muslims and references to Nazis and slavery on the campaign trail, rhetoric he’s made no apologies for. His standing in early states has only appeared to strengthen with each controversial comment.

Carson’s biggest weakness may be his glaring lack of specific policy proposals. The issues listed on his campaign website are vague, including a tax plan that calls for a “fairer, simpler, and more equitable” system. On foreign policy, he’s said, “all options should remain on the table when dealing with international bullies,” such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Carson could be pushed Wednesday on domestic policy, with debate host CNBC promising to focus on economic issues, including taxes and job growth.

Policy discussions are usually a welcome refuge for Bush, the wonky former Florida governor. But his challenge Wednesday is less about highlighting his mastery of the issues and more about showing his supporters he has the temperament to fight through a long and grueling primary.

“You’ve got a guy here speaking from experience, speaking with knowledge about issues, speaking with a reasonable approach to matters,” said Pat Hickey, a Bush supporter from Nevada. “The problem, though, is: do those things seem to matter to the electorate?”

With a well-funded super PAC standing by, Bush doesn’t appear to be on the brink of a campaign collapse, even if he performs poorly in the debate. But a stronger performance could help soothe supporter anxiety.

Also on stage event Wednesday will be Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and former technology executive Carly Fiorina. Each will be eager for the kind of standout moment that Fiorina had in the second debate to jumpstart their campaigns.

The four lowest-polling candidates will participate in an earlier undercard event: South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former New York Gov. George Pataki. None has gotten close to breaking into the upper tier of candidates.

Aides to Chris Christie and Rand Paul complain their work spaces look like bathrooms. Just hours before GOP candidates take the stage here Wednesday night, tensions over the Republican National Committee’s handling of the debates are flaring anew.

During a tense 30-minute meeting at the Coors Event Center, which was described by three sources present, several lower-polling campaigns lashed out at the RNC. They accused the committee of allotting them less-than-hospitable greenroom spaces while unfairly giving lavish ones to higher-polling candidates, such as Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

The drama began Tuesday afternoon as RNC officials led campaigns on a walk-through of the debate site. After touring the stage, candidates got a peek at what their greenrooms looked like.

Trump was granted a spacious room, complete with plush chairs and a flat-screen TV. Marco Rubio got a theater-type room, packed with leather seats for him and his team of aides. Carly Fiorina’s room had a Jacuzzi.
Round 2: guess who is and ... Hint: someone has a jacuzzi
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Check out Marcos theater !!!!
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Then there was Chris Christie, whose small space was dominated by a toilet. So was Rand Paul’s. After the walk-through ended, RNC officials, led by chief strategist Sean Spicer and director of finance events Anne Marie Hoffman, guided the 35 or so advisers upstairs for a meeting. There, Spicer complained about a series of recent press leaks on RNC-led conference calls with campaigns. He also outlined the planned format for the fourth Republican debate, to be held in Milwaukee and broadcast on Fox Business on Nov. 10.

But with some campaign advisers steaming over what they’d seen during the walk-through, the discussion veered back to greenrooms.

“This is ridiculous,” fumed Christie’s campaign manager, Ken McKay. “We’re in a restroom.”

Paul’s team also piped in, with one adviser, Chris LaCivita, demanding that something be done to remedy the situation.

“Was there any advance done on the campaign work spaces?” he asked. “Because it sure as hell doesn’t seem like it.”

Another Paul adviser, Mike Biundo, also chimed in.
“We didn’t have these issues four years ago when we had 22 debates,” said Biundo, who in 2012 worked for Rick Santorum.

Hoffman responded: “Trust me, I was on those walk-throughs four years ago.”

“So was I,” Biundo shot back.

The RNC officials agreed to address the campaigns’ concerns, saying they would try to fix the problems with their work spaces. At one point during the complaining, Hoffman told the campaign advisers they should reconvene in a sidebar. (Late Tuesday eventing, LaCivita tweeted that his campaign had been granted by the RNC improved facilities and attached a picture of Paul's new workspace.)

Gail Gitcho, an aide to Bobby Jindal, chimed in to say that she’d heard enough about the greenrooms. The focus of the discussion, she said, should be on entry criteria for future debates — which, she argued, had made it hard for her candidate to be seen in prime time.

At various moments, the conversation veered to more substantive matters. Brett O’Donnell, an adviser to Lindsey Graham, suggested altering the debate format so in the future there would be two debates with seven or eight candidates onstage — each lasting 90 minutes, with the participants picked at random. Representatives for Paul and Bush, however, pushed back on the idea.

By the time the meeting wrapped up, those present say, RNC officials seemed exasperated by the whole thing. On Tuesday evening, campaigns received an email from RNC staffer Madeleine Westerhout about Wednesday morning’s debate-planning conference call.

“This call is cancelled tomorrow,” the email said. “We will follow up when it is rescheduled.”

RNC officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Jobs and the economy will be the focus of Wednesday night's "Your Money, Your Decision" Republican presidential debate hosted by CNBC. The candidates will likely be quizzed about their positions on a variety of issues, from taxes to trade.

The large field of GOP candidates have divergent views on some critical issues — and some candidates have yet to take positions on some of them — making this third GOP debate a critical forum where differences are likely to be on display. Here are some issues to watch:

Entitlements
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are always issues of contention in political campaigns. Because seniors, recipients of Medicare and Social Security, made up 18 percent of the vote in 2012, politicians, even the most fiscally conservative are reluctant to propose bold changes to the programs.

Ben Carson, however, did that. In an interview with CNBC's John Harwood in May, Carson said it's "a no-brainer" that people will support his plan to replace Medicare with life-long Health Savings Accounts.
Carson has since walked back that position. On Fox News Sunday Carson said that was his "old plan" and that HSA's would be an "alternative."

Even though Donald Trump once endorsed Carson's idea on ABC's "This Week," saying the HSA proposal is "a very good idea and it's an idea whose probably time has come," just a few days later on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Trump attacked Carson for it.

"I heard that over the weekend. He wants to abolish Medicare. And I think, you know, abolishing Medicare, I don't think you'll get away with that one. It's actually a program that's worked. It's a program that some people love, actually," Trump said.

Meanwhile, Jeb Bush released his entitlement reform proposal Tuesday. His plan for Medicare is to "lower" the subsidies that "wealthier" seniors receive. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has the same idea as Bush.

As for Social Security, most of the candidates endorsed raising the retirement age and reducing payments to wealthier seniors.

Taxes
Several candidates have released their tax plans and they all reduce taxes, especially for the wealthy.

Three candidates, Carson, Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz propose a flat tax. And that's pretty much the extent of Cruz's and Carson's plans.

The others — Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Trump and John Kasich — unveiled more standard tax plans that reduce income tax rates, reduce the number of tax brackets from seven to three or four, reduce itemized deductions and reduce the corporate tax rate.

The conservative Tax Foundation priced out the plans. The most expensive is Trumps, which would add nearly $12 trillion over ten years. The most cost effective is Paul's, which would cost $2 trillion over ten years.

Carly Fiorina has yet to release a detailed plan but said on her Facebook page that "need to go from a 70,000 page tax code to about a three-page tax code."

Trade
Most of the Republican field are largely supportive of trade deals, save Donald Trump, however. Trump has called NAFTA a "disaster," and he echoed a common Democratic refrain that trade needs to be "fair."

"Scott, we need fair trade. Not free trade," Trump told CBS News' Scott Pelley on "60 Minutes."

Trump often rails against Mexico and China, insisting that they are benefiting from unfair trade practices.

The economy is center stage Wednesday as ten Republican presidential candidates gather for a third debate -- and so is the new battle between dueling front-runners Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

Trump, who is suddenly trailing Carson is a series of polls, told voters in Iowa Tuesday, "what the hell are you people doing to me?"

In the Colorado debate, "outsider" candidates Trump, Carson and Carly Fiorina will again go up against opponents with experience in public office and likely argue that the nation's political system has failed most Americans.

The more established candidates — Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Chris Christie and Rand Paul — will likely tout their efforts to cut taxes and promote economic growth.

The event — dubbed "Your Money, Your Vote" — is being sponsored by the CNBC financial news network and takes place at the University of Colorado Boulder. The debate comes in the wake of new polls, including one national poll and recent surveys in Iowa, showing Carson overtaking Trump for first place.

"Some of these polls coming out, I don't quite get it," Trump said Tuesday on MSNBC.

Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, says voters are responding to his message. "People are recognizing that I'm consistent and I'm truthful and I'm one of them," Carson said on Breitbart News.
A security officer and fencing block off the entrance
As with the two previous Republican debates, the Colorado event will include a preliminary session with the lower-polling candidates: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former New York governor George Pataki, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Questions in both debates will deal with "the key issues that matter to all voters," CNBC said. "Job growth, taxes, technology, retirement and the health of our national economy."

Like Trump, Fiorina has argued that her business background has prepared her for the presidency.

The prime-time debate also features three U.S. senators — Rubio of Florida, Cruz of Texas, and Paul of Kentucky — who have been involved in high-stakes budget battles with the Obama administration.

The governors and ex-governors in the field — Bush of Florida, Kasich of Ohio, Christie of New Jersey and Huckabee of Arkansas — are expected to emphasize economic development efforts in their states.

All of the candidates are likely to be asked about the new budget and debt ceiling deal struck between congressional leaders and the White House, a proposal denounced by many Republican conservatives. Paul, for one, has said he plans to filibuster the debt ceiling bill.

Kasich may also provide some political sparks in the debate. During a rally Tuesday in Ohio, he angrily denounced Carson's comments about Medicare and Trump's proposal to deport all migrants who are in the country illegally.

"Look, we're hearing all kinds of crazy things right now on the campaign trail," Kasich said. "One of the guys wants to abolish Medicare and Medicaid. Another guy wants to deport 10 million people out of America."

Clinton tries the low road against a candidate of conscienceLets discuss first the charge, then the truth, and then the impact of Hillary Clinton’s false charge that Bernie Sanders is a sexist during their recent debates over gun control.

Here is the charge: Mr. Sanders has been saying that nothing is achieved by politicians “shouting” about gun control. In response, Ms. Clinton replied she was not “shouting” in her advocacy and implied that when men — in this case Mr. Sanders — say women are “shouting” they are being sexist.

Here is the truth: Bernie Sanders is not a sexist.

Period. Exclamation point. End of discussion. Mr. Sanders has a stellar and uncompromising history of supporting the range of rights and aspirations for women. He and many other male and female politicians often use the word “shouting” as a figure of speech applied equally to men and women in the course of political debate. Ms. Clinton knows this well. She also knows very well that Bernie Sanders is not sexist.

If this column offered a truth-o-meter, this political attack by Ms. Clinton that Mr. Sanders is sexist would earn the maximum number of Pinocchios.

Sometimes in order to win an election she plays fast and loose with words, with the result that she generates an abnormally high level of distrust from voters.

Here is the effect of this Clinton charge against Bernie Sanders: first, it does not enhance her reputation for being trustworthy, which is in need of enhancing, and second, it angers supporters of Mr. Sanders, who she will desperately need to vote for her in November 2016 if she is ultimately the Democratic nominee for president.

“Who doth ambition shun” wrote Shakespeare in As You Like It. The rap against Ms. Clinton, which sometimes concerns even many of her supporters, is that sometimes in order to win an election she plays fast and loose with words, with the result that she generates an abnormally high level of distrust from voters.

Nobody has defended Ms. Clinton stronger than I have since 2012 against the partisan attacks against her from Republicans in Congress who have been abusing the rules of Congress and misusing Congressional committees. I have defended her against GOP slanders in print, on the internet and on radio and television throughout 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 and have called on the House Ethics Committee to investigate the House Benghazi Committee for unethical abuses of power.

Her triumph over the House Benghazi Committee in its latest inquisition masquerading as a hearing lifted the hearts of Democrats everywhere, including Mr. Sanders, who fiercely defended her in their last debate when he said he was tired of hearing about the damned Clinton emails and won a huge ovation from Clinton and Sanders supporters alike.

The sad and strange thing about the bogus attack by Ms. Clinton against Mr. Sanders when she suggested he is sexist, is that it was both wholly false and wholly unnecessary. At the very moment Ms. Clinton was regaining strength after her strong performance before the Benghazi committee — after an assist from Mr. Sanders, who showed his character and integrity defending her over the emails during the debate — she regressed to the kind of low blow that accounts for the kind of distrust she often generates.

There is an additional matter to be emphasized on the issue of gun control. From the point of view of supporters of gun control, Ms. Clinton is always on the right side while Mr. Sanders is almost always on the right side. While my views on gun control are closer to Ms. Clinton’s, there is a lot of posturing that comes with the issue.

When I worked for Democratic leaders, the Democratic members from more conservative states and districts would tell us privately that they would rather not vote on the issue, and would only vote for gun control if there was a grand and sustained battle and their votes would provide the margin of victory.I spent many years working for House Democratic leaders and for senior Democratic Senators such as Lloyd Bentsen. In those positions I worked with Democrats representing all factions and  regions. The reason major gun control does not become law is the National Rifle Association has a dominating power in the capital. Even many Democrats from more conservative states are afraid to take on the NRA, which can and should be defeated, but will only be defeated if Democrats wage a sustained and all-out fight on the floor of the House and Senate.

After the mass murder of children at Sandy Hook—which should have inspired the grand battle that was long overdue–grieving families of the murdered children came to Washington to support gun control legislation at a White House event.

I was told off the record by senior Democrats in Congress and in the Obama White House, “Don’t go too far in your columns about gun control because nothing is going to happen.” I am telling a sad truth about Washington that much of the talk about gun control after Sandy Hook was nothing more than public relations. The moms and dads mourning the death of their sons and daughters were brought to Washington for a staged media event supporting legislation that the White House and Democrats in Congress knew would never pass, because Republicans and the NRA would fiercely oppose it and the Democrats would not push it for political reasons.

I considered this charade to be one of the greatest outrages of my years in Washington.

My guess is that this truth—which is rarely told in official Washington—lies at the heart of the Clinton-Sanders debate over gun control.

I support Ms. Clinton’s strong position, but only if she is willing to wage the sustained and grand battle that will be necessary to win, and is not merely using the issue as  a political talking point for a Democratic nominating campaign that would be abandoned if Democrats win the election.

Whatever the merits of the gun control debate, Bernie Sanders is not a sexist. His comments about “shouting” had nothing to do with his views about women. The Clinton charge of sexism was both false and offensive to supporters of Mr. Sanders.

Bernie Sanders is the candidate of conscience for progressives. On issue after issue — including issues of vital importance to women — Mr. Sanders has been a leader and champion in the House and the Senate, year after year, decade after decade. He has talked the talk and walked the walk in good times and bad, under Democratic and Republican presidents and Congresses, whether his positions championing progressive causes were popular or not.

It is a political mistake of the first order of magnitude for Ms. Clinton to falsely charge Mr. Sanders with sexism. This charge is transparently false, unworthy of the Clinton campaign and unworthy of the Democratic party.

Gun control is a very legitimate issue, but to charge Mr. Sanders with sexism is a totally illegitimate tactic. It does not help Ms. Clinton, who needs to rebuild high levels of trust, and should not be insulting Mr. Sanders with false charges and offending his many supporters who are the heart and soul of the Democratic party.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has opened up a 41-point lead over rival Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Iowa, according to a Monmouth University survey released Tuesday that differs wildly from other polls showing a tighter contest.

The Monmouth University poll finds Clinton taking 65 percent support among likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, while Sanders takes 24 percent. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley clocks in at 5 percent support.

Clinton leads among every demographic in the poll — men, women, very liberal Democrats, somewhat liberal Democrats, and self-described moderate voters. Her biggest lead is among women, with whom she commands a 73 percent to 16 percent advantage over Sanders.

“We now have a two-person race, but one of those competitors has just pulled very far ahead,” said Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray.

This is Monmouth’s first poll of Iowa Democrats, and the first survey of the race conducted since two major developments last week: Vice President Biden’s decision not to run for the White House and Clinton’s appearance in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

The poll finds Clinton with a much larger advantage than any other recent poll of Iowa Democrats.

According to the RealClearPolitics average, Clinton has only a 7-point lead over Sanders in Iowa. Three surveys taken since Biden announced he won't run found Clinton and Sanders splitting Biden’s support, with Clinton holding leads of between 3 points and 11 points over Sanders. However, none of those polls were taken after Clinton’s Benghazi testimony.

Forty percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers in the Monmouth poll said they have settled on their final decision and are unlikely to change their minds. Thirty-seven percent said they’re close to settled, but are still open to changing their minds.

Clinton’s support is firmer than that of Sanders. About half of Clinton’s supporters say they’ve firmly made up their minds and are sticking with the former secretary of State, while only 27 percent of Sanders’s supporters said the same thing about him.

Both candidates have strong favorability ratings, with Clinton coming in at 88 percent positive and 8 percent negative, and 77 percent saying they view Sanders positively, against 11 percent who view him negatively.

The Monmouth University survey of 400 likely Democratic Iowa caucus-goers was conducted between Oct. 22 and Oct. 25 and has a 4.9 percentage point margin of error.

POLITICO also reports that Ex-McCain aides: Jeb Bush's campaign is not like ours and Nicolle Wallace fights back against that comparison by telling us the real story about how they ran into each at an airport. But McCain himself sees the comparison as validJeb Bush, short on money and long on staff, is reaching for a flattering analogy these days: John McCain’s go-for-broke comeback win in 2008.

“The campaign was basically over,” Bush said at a campaign event last month. “Everybody said it. All the pundits said, ‘It's over, why waste your time?’"

But McCain never quit, Bush noted: "He won New Hampshire, he won Florida, he won the nomination and he should have been president."

There’s just one problem: McCain’s own people aren’t buying the comparison.

"McCain was the only guy in the world that could have come back in the world from where we were, which was dead broke and running around on commercial flights and everything,” said Charlie Black, a top adviser for McCain's 2008 campaign.

"I think it’s bullshit," said another former top McCain aide who is now working for one of Bush’s rivals. "I think there's a difference between being a front-runner like McCain was and being kind of like a disappointing single, which is what Jeb kind of is.”

McCain explicitly retooled his flailing campaign around a “comeback narrative,” noted Steve Schmidt, another former senior McCain adviser. In contrast, the Bush campaign’s strategy has been to deny that there’s a problem, or argue that it’s premature to make a judgment about the state of the race.

One top McCain ‘08 operative who was more charitable? John McCain.

"I think they’re valid comparisons,” McCain told POLITICO, arguing that most primary voters “are really not focused on it.”

“They enjoy seeing all the theatrics,” he said. “But I think most people, particularly in New Hampshire, don't make up their minds until shortly before the election, and they pride themselves on that. So I think he's in the game very heavily."

Superficially, McCain loyalists allow, the comparison makes some sense. Like McCain in ‘08, Bush is trailing his rivals and has slashed his staff amid slowing fundraising numbers. An ABC News/Washington Post poll from Nov. 4, 2007, found McCain 14 percentage points behind Rudy Giuliani, and previous surveys by that pollster found him trailing former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson.

But that’s where the analogy begins and ends, the former McCain aides say: The Republican field is bigger and different this time around; Bush is the son of a former president and the brother of another; McCain, as the runner-up in 2000, was already well known in New Hampshire; the Arizona senator has more natural charisma than the stiff former governor.

“There’s some parallels, but Jeb's in a whole lot better shape than McCain was. We had no money. And had paid staff at a bare minimum and a lot of volunteers working. But Jeb's got a super PAC out there with more money than anybody else. And so they can do all the TV ads,” said Black, who added that Bush "still has as good a chance as anybody" of winning the nomination.

“I think there are maybe some similarities, but it’s a vastly different situation,” said another McCain alum who is now a top operative for one of Bush’s rivals. “McCain had run for president before. Had been the runner up. Had networks of people who had really bled for him in 2000, through think and thin.”

“What is Bush’s singular issue? What is the singular thing that he can say to Republican primary voters?” this operative continued.

Others suggested Bush lacks McCain’s ability to win over a crowd.

“The force of McCain’s message and personality and the debates, his ability to do well in the debates that fall, really helped,” Black said.

“One of the most fundamental differences is McCain had a real true base of support — almost an incumbency in New Hampshire,” another former McCain staffer now working for a Bush rival said. “He had won [in 2000] and had never lost that fervor. Jeb doesn’t have that. He talks about South Carolina like he won it. He didn’t; his brother did. And that was 16 years ago, and McCain was eight years ago.”

Others noted Bush’s growing unpopularity among likely Republican primary voters, a consistent finding that suggests the former Florida governor’s problems lie not in his campaign operation, but with himself.

“In 2007, John McCain had a very high positive rating in New Hampshire and had a great organization, stemming from his victory there in 2000, and built even stronger over time. Bush has nearly a 50 negative rating in New Hampshire among primary voters and his organization trails that of Kasich and others,” said John Weaver, the chief strategist for Ohio Gov. John Kasich's presidential campaign and a former top adviser to McCain. “So, no.”

Another missing link between the two campaigns, argued Schmidt, was that McCain’s shoestring operation “set on a strategy deliberately designed to create scenarios necessary for there to be a comeback” — crafting a new message built around McCain’s tell-it-like-it-is persona. And he aggressively embraced the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq, a risky move that nonetheless reinforced the Arizona senator’s straight-talk image.

“The first thing that the McCain campaign realized in those days is that it had fundamentally lost control of its destiny in the same way that an 8-8 football team loses control of its destiny near playoff time and needs a certain series of events to hold in order to get the playoff birth,” Schmidt said. “And the Bush campaign, like the McCain campaign, is fundamentally no longer in control of its destiny.” Austin Wright and Jeremy Herb contributed to this story.

A new front-runner, desperate candidates, and a formula for bedlam.
It's that time again: The third Republican presidential primary debate is upon us. On Wednesday night, the 14 top candidates will gather in Boulder, Colorado, for a showdown over the economy hosted by CNBC. The 10 candidates with the highest polling averages—Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Rand Paul—will appear in the main debate, preceded by a junior-varsity debate with the four candidates whose lagging poll numbers disqualified them from the main show: Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Santorum.

Here's what to look for Wednesday night.

How will Trump handle being No. 2? Time and again, Trump has answered critics the same way when they've questioned his ability to pull off the nomination: Look at the polls! But after months in the lead, Trump will arrive in Boulder in second place. For the first time since July, someone else is now leading the latest major national poll: Ben Carson. Watch for how Trump adjusts to this new reality. Will he feel the need to amp up his showmanship to retake the spotlight? Might he expound on his recent insight on burkas?

Will the Trump-Carson detente end? For the past two debates, Trump and Carson have enjoyed something of a mutual security pact, with each going relatively easy on the other. But their diplomacy may be falling apart now that Carson has overcome Trump in the latest poll. Trump recently took a jab at Carson's religion. (Carson is a devout Seventh-day Adventist.) Will this clash between the two front-runners escalate on Wednesday? Trump may lash out, only to find Carson—whose calm demeanor appeals to many voters—unwilling to fight back.

Will Carson become the main target? Candidates typically use debates to try to take down the front-runner and elbow their way to the center of attention. So will Carson get the front-runner treatment from his fellow candidates? Would lashing out at the preternaturally calm neurosurgeon even help a candidate like Trump or Cruz, who would love a piece of Carson's broad support among evangelicals? Carson is lucky in at least one respect: Aside from Cruz and Huckabee, the candidates who most need the same evangelical demographic as Carson—Jindal and Santorum—won't be on the same stage.

Will Rubio-mentum keep building? As Bush's campaign flails, Rubio is emerging as the leading establishment candidate to go up against Trump and Carson. Watch to see if Rubio can take advantage of his minisurge. If he wants to win over the establishment voters—and donors—he needs to make a strong case for himself on matters of business and economics, which are the emphasis of CNBC's debate. This is his moment to shine. Can he pull it off?

Jeb who? A Bush donor recently admitted that it feels like Bush's campaign is in a "death spiral." Another said Bush "has to have a moment out there" to save his campaign. Can Bush use this debate to escape the political quicksand he's in? In particular, Bush will need to fend off Rubio, his top contender for the establishment vote and a former protégé. Watch for tensions between them to escalate.

Who's a RyNO now? With a new debt ceiling and budget deal in the works—and some of the major candidates poised to take a vote on it in the Senate—the question is whether any of them will take a political risk to back a deal that would save the country from defaulting on its debt and bring greater budget stability, at least in the short term. How will the three senators who have to vote on this deal—Cruz, Rubio, and Paul—handle it? And if they are against it, will their denouncements extend to soon-to-be House Speaker Paul Ryan (dubbed a "RyNO" by the right-wingers who often label party moderates as Republicans in Name Only, or RINOs)?

Does Fiorina have staying power? The former Hewlett-Packard CEO has used the debates to rise from the bottom tier of candidates to the top. But after each bump comes a fall. Watch to see if Fiorina can dominate this debate—and if that performance can translate into sustained momentum.

Is this Rand’s last stand? Like Bush, Paul is struggling. He's near the bottom of the top-10 pack, with just over 3 percent in the polling averages. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Paul's fellow senator from Kentucky, has called on the presidential candidate to focus more on holding onto his Senate seat. (Paul is also up for reelection next November.) His fundraising effort is bombing. What's his plan for using the debate to forestall the inevitable? Go after Christie, again?

Will anyone pay attention to the kiddie debate? Before the big kids' debate, the four contenders with the lowest numbers will take the stage. And their numbers are dwindling. Rick Perry has dropped out; Jim Gilmore (the former governor of Virginia—remember?) is polling so low that CNBC won't let him debate. The only candidate who has graduated to the main stage is Fiorina. Will anyone else be able to follow her? And are enough people watching the junior-varsity round for these debates to continue? Being relegated to the minidebate is a cruel fate for these four candidates. "On our side, you've got the No. 2 guy [Carson] tried to kill someone at [age] 14, and the No. 1 guy [Trump] is high energy and crazy as hell," said Graham, a longtime senator, on Monday. "How am I losing to these people?"

Will the moderators treat Carson like a front-runner? Normally, a front-runner gets scrutiny from the moderators. Trump and Hillary Clinton have been grilled by moderators throughout the debates so far. Will the CNBC team treat Carson—who has struggled with even simple economic policy questions—like a front-runner? And will the moderators stick to their topic, or let the candidates sound off on buzzier subjects like the Benghazi hearing, Planned Parenthood, and ISIS?
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida at a campaign event in Derry, N.H. this month.
One of Florida’s largest newspapers is calling on Senator Marco Rubio, who has the worst attendance record in the Senate, to resign.

In a blistering editorial published on Tuesday evening, The Sun Sentinel, which covers southern Florida, accused Mr. Rubio, in effect, of defrauding voters for collecting a paycheck while he spends most of his time campaigning for president.

“You are paid $174,000 per year to represent us, to fight for us, to solve our problems,” the editorial said. “You are ripping us off, senator.”

Mr. Rubio has missed about a third of his votes in the Senate this year. Though that makes him the senator who has skipped the most roll calls, absenteeism among members of Congress who are running for president is hardly rare. In 2008, for example, Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain were all sitting senators who let their day jobs suffer a good deal.

He is not running for re-election. And he and his campaign advisers see little consequence in staying out of Washington, especially in a divisive Republican nominating contest in which anyone viewed as too close to the reviled federal government is punished politically.

But that has not stopped his opponents, from Donald J. Trump to Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who helped shape Mr. Rubio’s early political career, from calling him out.

The Sun Sentinel’s call on Mr. Rubio is notable because the paper endorsed him for the Senate in 2010.

Here is that article actually, this is great stuff that Mika just read from it:

Marco Rubio should resign, not rip us off.

After five years in the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio does not like his job. A long-time friend told The Washington Post "he hates it." Rubio says hate might be too strong a word, but he sure acts like he hates his job.

Rubio has missed more votes than any other senator this year. His seat is regularly empty for floor votes, committee meetings and intelligence briefings. He says he's MIA from his J-O-B because he finds it frustrating and wants to be president, instead.

"I'm not missing votes because I'm on vacation," he told CNN on Sunday. "I'm running for president so that the votes they take in the Senate are actually meaningful again."

Sorry, senator, but Floridians sent you to Washington to do a job. We've got serious problems with clogged highways, eroding beaches, flat Social Security checks and people who want to shut down the government.

If you hate your job, senator, follow the honorable lead of House Speaker John Boehner and resign it.

Let us elect someone who wants to be there and earn an honest dollar for an honest day's work. Don't leave us without one of our two representatives in the Senate for the next 15 months or so.

You are paid $174,000 per year to represent us, to fight for us, to solve our problems. Plus you take a $10,000 federal subsidy — declined by some in the Senate — to participate in one of the Obamacare health plans, though you are a big critic of Obamacare.

You are ripping us off, senator.

True, it's not easy to raise money and run a presidential campaign while doing your day job. But two other candidates — Sens. Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders — have missed only 10 Senate votes during their campaigns for the White House. You, on the other hand, have missed 59, according to a tally by Politico. This includes votes on the Keystone pipeline, the Export-Import Bank and trade, to name just a few.

It is unpersuasive — and incredible, really — that you say your vote doesn't matter. "Voting is not the most important part of the job," you told CNN.

And it is unconscionable that when it comes to intelligence matters, including briefings on the Iran nuclear deal, you said, "we have a staffer that's assigned to intelligence who gets constant briefings."

And you want us to take you seriously as a presidential candidate?

Two weeks ago, you took to the Senate floor to excoriate federal workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs for failing to do their jobs. You said, "there is really no other job in the country where if you don't do your job, you don't get fired."

With the exception of your job, right?

Look, a lot us are frustrated by our jobs and office politics. But we still show up for work every day to earn a paycheck.

By choosing to stay in the Senate and get the publicity, perks and pay that go with the position — without doing the work — you are taking advantage of us.

Jeb Bush is right to call you out. "What are high standards worth if we don't apply them to ourselves?" our former governor said in August. "Consider a pattern in Congress of members who sometimes seem to regard attendance and voting as optional — something to do as time permits."

Your job is to represent Floridians in the Senate.


Either do your job, Sen. Rubio, or resign it.


Budget Deal's Big Winner: The U.S. Economy

Budget Deal's Big Winner: The U.S. Economy
wochit Business
Budget deal could end the fiscal wars until after the 2016 elections.
The House moved closer Tuesday to ending the persistent threat of fiscal crisis that has been a Washington hallmark in recent years, readying a budget deal that would push the next potential spending clashes past the 2016 elections.

The move would empower Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as he prepares to take the speaker’s gavel this week by removing some of the land mines that doomed the current speaker.

A vote on the agreement, which would increase federal spending by $80 billion over two years and raise the federal borrowing limit through 2017, is expected Wednesday, shortly after House Republicans meet behind closed doors to nominate Ryan to replace the outgoing speaker, John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

“This is a good deal,” said Boehner, who will step down Friday. The alternative, he said, would be a debt-ceiling-suspension measure with no guarantee of additional military funding, which most Republicans have advocated.

Many conservatives expressed sharp reservations about the spending agreement, negotiated secretly in recent weeks by Boehner, President Obama and other congressional leaders. But centrist Republicans and Democrats appeared largely united in support, leaving leaders of both parties confident that the bill will pass.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) announced that he would run for House speaker only if his set of demands was met. 

Senate leaders said Tuesday that they expected to move quickly once the House approved the deal, putting it on Obama’s desk before a Nov. 3 deadline to raise the debt ceiling. “I’m hopeful and optimistic that that bill will come over to the Senate, and when it does, we’ll take it up,” said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

But the most closely watched player on Capitol Hill on Tuesday was Ryan, who walked a fine line between appeasing the conservative lawmakers he will routinely have to corral in his new job and endorsing the budget legislation, which those conservatives oppose.

He did so by making a distinction between the substance of the deal and the way in which it was struck: “I think this process stinks,” Ryan told reporters Tuesday. “Under new management, we are not going to run the House this way.”

That message appears calibrated to avoid alienating GOP lawmakers who have pressed for a more bottom-up approach to House management. But Ryan also steered clear of the deal’s specifics, which are deeply unsettling to House conservatives and largely similar to the provisions of a deal Ryan struck two years ago with Obama and Senate Democrats.

The approach appeared to be working Tuesday, with most conservative Republicans saying they did not blame Ryan for the shortcomings of the new agreement.

“This is John Boehner’s deal,” said Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.), a conservative freshman and a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.

Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), another Freedom Caucus member, said that Ryan “promises a much more orderly and grass-roots process from the ground up, an organic type of process, and we’re going to take him at his word.”

“He’s made those commitments in private, that he’s not going to drop a big bill like this on us at the last minute and expect us to vote for it,” Fleming added.

If those feelings persist, the budget deal could pass the House on Wednesday with votes from centrist Republicans and Democrats, while allowing Ryan to win the speaker’s chair Thursday with both a united GOP and a clean fiscal slate.

But other pitfalls appeared Tuesday for the budget accord. The agreement includes several controversial measures, such as reductions in crop insurance payments and the repeal of an Obamacare provision that requires large companies to automatically enroll full-time employees in a health plan.

And while Republican leaders originally said all spending increases would be fully offset with savings, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that the savings would fall about $5 billion short. That had key players scrambling into the night to resolve those issues to avoid losing more GOP support.

Still, most Democrats and many Republicans said the bill reflected a reasonable compromise.

The deal was close to a complete victory for Democrats, who had pushed for spending increases for months. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) embraced the agreement early Tuesday, signaling that the 188 House Democrats could provide a large portion of the vote needed Wednesday.

If so, Boehner will have to win the support of just 40 to 50 Republicans to pass the deal. Many of those votes are expected to come from defense hawks who pressed for the military spending increases included in the bill.

“A two-year deal will provide the Department of Defense with the certainty it needs to plan for and execute its missions around the world,” Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) wrote to a group of more than 100 pro-military Republicans, urging them to support the legislation.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said the deal includes other significant wins for Republicans, including long-term reforms to Social Security and Medicare.

The $80 billion increase, split between defense and nondefense spending, would be offset by savings from changes to the Social Security Disability Insurance trust fund and reductions in Medicare payments to health-care providers. Additional revenue would be raised by auctioning off new portions of the broadcast spectrum, selling part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and redoubling audits of large business partnerships.

“I think it’s a pretty easy choice to make,” Cole said. “It’s a compromise, and that means we had to give some things up that we don’t want, but we got some great things.”

Ryan has not yet said how he plans to vote on the budget package. Supporting it could refracture House Republicans less than a week after Ryan appeared to have largely healed the split between hard-line conservatives and the rest of the conference. On the other hand, opposing it could open Ryan to charges of political opportunism.

The deal shares more than a name — the Bipartisan Budget Act — with the 2013 accord that Ryan struck with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). At the time, both lawmakers chaired their respective chambers’ budget committees.

Both deals were meticulously negotiated behind closed doors and increased federal spending in the short term in exchange for potential future savings through modest reforms to entitlement programs.

Boehner himself said Tuesday that the new deal “isn’t a whole lot different” from the 2013 pact and made clear that he believed it will ease Ryan’s burden over the next 18 months, probably sparing him from multiple threats of federal shutdowns or defaults.

“This will make it easier for the entire Congress for the balance of this year, and it’ll make next year a whole lot smoother for the Congress as well,” Boehner said.

Regardless of it all happening on this big news day, please stay in touch!