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*H4A Press Clips**May 12, 2015*SUMMARY OF TODAY’S NEWSHuffington Post did an extensive deep-dive report on Hillary Clinton’slegacy as former First Lady of Arkansas. Politico previews Mayor DeBlasio’s expected announcement today of a progressive “Contract withAmerica,” characterizing it as an effort to exert leftward pressure onClinton.With a procedural vote set in the Senate later today on fast-trackauthority on trade, both the New York Times and Washington Post report onClinton’s reticence on the issue of free trade since departing the StateDepartment.John Oliver’s Mother’s Day segment this Sunday mirrored Clinton’s supportand highlighted that the United States is the only developed nation not toprovide any paid maternity leave. News outlets declared that paid leavewould become a big issue during the 2016 election.And a group of Ohio voters have filed suit over that state’s early votinglaws. News outlets have claimed that because Marc Elias is involved inthese proceedings that Hillary for America is a party to the suit beingfiled. The campaign issued a statement indicating it is not involved in thesuit, though it shares the concerns of the plaintiffs.On the Republican side, Jeb Bush’s interview with Fox News prompted searingcoverage from right-wing commentators such as Byron York and Laura Ingrahamover his statements that even knowing what he knows now, Bush would stillvote to authorize the Iraq war. LAST NIGHTS EVENING NEWSLast night there was no 2016 coverage on any of the networks. The threemajor news outlets instead covered Patriot’s Tom Brady’s 4 game suspensionand fine due to the Deflate-gate scandal, severe weather in Texas andArkansas, and the major hurdle cleared for Shell Oil Company to startdrilling in the Artic.SUMMARY OF TODAY’SNEWS……………………………………………………….. 1LAST NIGHTS EVENINGNEWS……………………………………………………….. 1TODAY’S KEYSTORIES………………………………………………………………….3*On trade deal, Hillary Clinton keeps her distance from Obama and her past*// WaPo // David Nakamura – May 12, 2015 4*In Arkansas, Hillary Clinton’s Legacy Remains Potent* // Huffington Post// Scott Conroy – May 11, 2015 7*Paid Leave Is Going to Matter in 2016, Thanks to John Oliver and HillaryClinton* // New Republic // Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig – May 11, 201511SOCIALMEDIA…………………………………………………………………………….13*Alex Hanson (5/11/15, 10:40 PM) @theAlexHanson:* First Republicanpresidential debate on track for Aug. 6 at The Q in Cleveland, sources says.cleveland.com/USEtCGi via@clevelanddotcom………………………………………………………..13*Emily Schultheis (5/11/15, 12:15 PM) @emilyrs:* New GW Battleground pollhas @HillaryClinton at 48 fav/49 unfav. 47% say they would consider votingfor her: tarrance.com/docs/BG57quest……………………………………………………………..13*Joe Sudbay (5/11/15 4:54PM) @JoeSudbay:* Huh. While Bush struggles withimmigration issue, his PAC’s anti-gay senior advisor, Jordan Sekulow, todaysigned amicus to end DACA &DAPA………………………………………………………………….13*Zac Moffatt (5/11/15 12:54PM) @ZacMoffatt:* @Hillary Clinton Rubbed Elbowsw 250 Top Donors For Each “Everyday American” She Met Last Week www.americarisingpac.org/populist-hero-………………………………………………………………..13HRC NATIONALCOVERAGE………………………………………………………….13*Hillary Clinton Walks Tightrope as Pressure Grows to Take Stance on TradeDeal* // NYT // Amy Chozick – May 12, 2015 13*Clinton Foundation Donors Fill Hillary’s Campaign Coffers* // AP //Lachlan Markay – May 12, 2015 16*Ohio lawsuit shows Clinton is already looking at battleground states* //On Politics- USA Today // Gregory Korte – May 11, 2015 18*Wall Street warns Hillary Clinton: Don’t be like Ed Miliband* // Politico// Ben White – May 11, 2015 19*Arkansas: The Clintons Don’t Live Here Anymore* // Real Clear Politics //Rebecca Berg – May 11, 2015 21*California woman receives Mother’s Day greeting from Hillary Clinton* //LA Times // Seema Mehta – May 11, 2015 24*Hillary Clinton Adds Latina From Labor Department To Oversee Hispanic,Black, Women’s Media* // Buzzfeed News // Adrian Carrasquillo – May 11,2015……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….25*Are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ‘Affirmative-Action Presidents’?* //NY Mag // Jonathan Chait – May 11, 2015 27*The Hillary Clinton paradox: Progressives can’t trust her — and that’s agood thing* // Salon // Elias Isquith – May 11, 2015 28*Clinton campaign’s dilemma: What to do with Bill?* // WaPo // PhillipsRucker – May 11, 2015 30*Former Clinton Advisor: Bill Looks ‘Washed-Out And Washed-Up’* // DailyCaller // Scott Greer – May 11, 2015 35OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE………………………………… 35*O’Malley plans 4 stops in NH Wednesday* // WMUR // May 11,2015………………………………. 35*De Blasio ‘Can’t Think of Anything More Important’ Than going to D.C.* //Observer // Will Bredderman – May 11, 2015 36*Bill De Blasio, Elizabeth Warren escalate pressure on Hillary Clinton* //Politico // Gabriel Debenedetti – May 11, 2015 37*Elizabeth Warren fires back at Obama … again* // Politico // Karey VanHall – May 11, 2015 39*Why Hillary Clinton needs Elizabeth Warren* // Vox // Ezra Klein – May 11,2015………….. 39GOP…………………………………………………………………………………………….41*First GOP debate: Aug. 6 in Cleveland* // Politico // Dylan Byers – May11, 2015………………. 41*Jeb Bush Says He Wouldn’t Repeal Obama’s Immigration Actions Right Away*// Bloomberg Politics // Michael C. Bender – May 11, 2015 41*The Assets and Liabilities of Jeb Bush* // WSJ // Gerald F. Seib – May 11,2015………………… 42*Jeb Bush leans on nonprofit group as he prepares likely presidential run*// Washington Post // Ed O’Keefe and Matea Gold – May 11,2015 44*Bush favorability rating suffers in new poll* // The Hill // JonathanEasley – May 11, 2015 46*John Boehner press aide Michael Steel takes job with Jeb Bush* // Politico// Jake Sherman – May 11, 2015 47*Jeb Bush’s disastrous defense of the Iraq War* // Washington Examiner //Byron York – May 11, 2015 48*Jeb Bush’s Revisionist History of the Iraq War* // New York Times //Andrew Rosenthal – May 11, 2015 50*All in the Family* // Slate // Jamelle Bouie – May 11,2015……………………………………………. 51*PolitFact NH: Jeb Bush says he met NH man who founded only U.S. bank sinceDodd-Frank* // Concord Monitor // Clay Wirestone – May 10, 2015 53*First on CNN: Ted Cruz to host fundraiser along U.S.-Mexico border* // CNNPolitics // Theodore Schleifer – May 11, 2015 56*Rand Paul Plans To Filibuster Patriot Act* // Huffington Post // IgorBobic – May 11, 2015 57*Rand Paul Battles the PATRIOT Act (and Fellow Senators Who Miss Votes)* //Bloomberg // David Weigel – May 11, 2015 58*Rand Paul supports bird flu role of agency he tried to cut* // USA Today// Christopher Doering – May 11, 2015 59*Rand Paul’s ‘Fast Track’ Dilemma* // WSJ // Bob Davis – May 11,2015…………………………… 61*Rand Paul Campaign Takes a Licking in New Hampshire* // TIME // PhilipElliott – May 11, 2015 63*Chris Christie Racked Up $300k of Food and Alcohol on Expense Account* //TIME // Sam Frizell – May 11, 2015 65*Marco Rubio Pushes Extension of NSA Phone Metadata Program* // Bloomberg// Ali Elkin – May 11, 2015 65*We Can’t Turn To The Leaders Of Yesterday* // Medium // Marco Rubio – May11, 2015…….. 66*Scott Walker Helps Journalists in Wisconsin Cover His Trip to Israel* //NYT- First Draft // Nick Corasanti – May 11, 2015 67*What Ben Carson’s Flat Tax Would Do to the Poor* // Bloomberg // Peter Coy– May 11, 2015 67*Carly Fiorina Changes Mind On Amending Constitution To Bar Same-SexMarriage* // Huffington Post // Amanda Terkel – May 11, 2015 68TOPNEWS…………………………………………………………………………………..69DOMESTIC………………………………………………………………………………..69*Administration Gives Conditional Approval for Shell to Drill in Arctic* //New York Times // Coral Davenport – May 11, 2015 69*Wellmark spurns Obamacare exchange, but two competitors don’t* // DesMoines Register // Tony Leys – May 11, 2015 71*HHS: Insurers must cover all birth control* // The Hill // Peter Sullivan– May 11, 2015…. 74*Tex. bill would bar local officials from issuing same-sex-marriagelicenses* // Washington Post // Sandhya Somashekhar – May 11,2015 75INTERNATIONAL………………………………………………………………………78*Pakistanis Knew Where Osama Bin Laden Was, U.S. Sources Say* // NBC News// Matthew Cole, Richard Esposito, Robert Windrem and Andrea Mitchell – May11,2015…………………………………………………………………………………………….78*Nepal Rattled by Powerful New Earthquake East of Capital* // NYT // AustinRamzy – May 12, 2015 79*John Kerry and Vladimir Putin to Hold Talks in Russia* // TIME // MatthewLee – May 11, 2015 81OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS…………………………………………………….81*Clinton clobbers Rubio on immigration* // The Hill // Brent Budowsky – May11, 2015……. 81*Clinton’s claim that illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than somecorporations* // Washington Post // Glen Kessler – May 11, 2015 82*Hillary Clinton hasn’t answered a question from the media in 20 days* //Washington Post // Chriz Cillizza – May 11, 2015 85*I Am A Dreamer Who Met Hillary Clinton* // Lets Talk Nevada // BlancaGamez – May 11, 2015 86*Barack Obama’s Hillary Clinton Problem* // Roll Call // Steven Dennis -May 12, 2015……. 88*Smart Social Programs* // New York Times // Jason Furman – May 11,2015………………….. 90*HBO’s Veep Just Got Very Real About the Hillary Clinton Campaign* //Vanity Fair // Joanna Robinson – May 11, 2015 92TODAY’S KEY STORIESOn trade deal, Hillary Clinton keeps her distance from Obama and her past<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/on-trade-deal-hillary-clinton-keeps-her-distance-from-obama-and-her-past/2015/05/11/bc2cc604-f7e1-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html>// WaPo // David Nakamura – May 12, 2015The United States’ reputation in Asia was suffering under the weight of itsown economic and political turmoil when Secretary of State Hillary RodhamClinton arrived in Hong Kong to reassure American business executives inthe summer of 2011.Back in Washington, President Obama was locked in a budget dispute withCongress that would ultimately damage the nation’s credit rating. But inremarks to the American Chamber of Commerce, Clinton painted a robustvision of U.S. economic leadership, anchored by an emerging free-trade dealthat “will bring together economies from across the Pacific.”The goal of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, she explained, was to “create anew high standard for multilateral free trade,” a pact that would cementthe United States’ standing in the world’s fastest-growing region.Four years later, with Obama making a desperate final push to complete that12-nation pact, his former partner and most effective global advocate forthe deal has gone quiet. As the president has scoured Capitol Hill forelusive Democratic support in recent weeks, Clinton has said virtuallynothing about the TPP, other than to point out areas of the deal with whichshe has concerns.[How Obama could face a Democratic filibuster on trade]Clinton’s silence on trade, coming at the worst possible time for Obama,dovetails with her transformation into a presidential candidate eager toalign herself more squarely with the liberal wing of her party. In otherareas in which Clinton has moved to the left — such as immigration reformand gay marriage — White House aides have been delighted that she hasforcefully embraced the president’s governing record.But on trade, Clinton’s hedge has left Obama without political cover in hisincreasingly bitter feud with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and otherprogressives, who have fiercely opposed the pact as a boondoggle for bigbusiness. On Tuesday, a bill to grant Obama “fast track” authority tocomplete the trade pact faces its first test in the Senate, without a clearpath to the necessary 60 votes to avoid a filibuster.“One of the biggest proponents of the TPP in the administration now, as acandidate, picking on a couple of technical issues just looks like purepoliticking,” said Ernest Bower, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center forStrategic and International Studies.For Clinton, the trade pact is “part of her legacy,” Bower said. “Shereally believes in it.” He predicted that as president she would “not onlywork to support it, but expand it as fast as she can.”White House aides have refused to criticize Clinton for remaining on thesidelines, noting that the trade pact has undergone changes since shedeparted more than two years ago. But she has been mocked by her politicalrivals on both sides of the aisle — including other Democratic presidentialhopefuls who oppose the deal and GOP leaders who support it — for herrefusal to take a clear position.“She can’t sit on the sidelines and let the president swing in the windhere,” House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said on “Meet the Press” lastweek.Clinton’s campaign pointed to a statement from three weeks ago, in whichher spokesman said any trade pact must “raise wages and create more goodjobs at home” and strengthen national security. Clinton reiterated thosecriteria a few days later during an appearance in New Hampshire, her onlypublic comments on the trade deal since launching her campaign.In many ways, the politics for Clinton are playing out in a fashion similarto 2008, when both she and Obama, competing for support in Rust Belt statesduring the Democratic primary, distanced themselves from the 1993 NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement, signed by President Bill Clinton.Longtime allies described Hillary Clinton as generally less inclined tosupport large, multilateral trade deals than her husband was. As a senator,she voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005, as didObama, then also a senator.“Some people are generally pro-trade or anti-trade. She’s case-by-case ontrade,” said Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council inboth the Clinton and Obama administrations. “There is no question she hashistorically had a more skeptical view on trade than President Clinton.”With manufacturing-heavy Iowa holding the first-in-the-nation caucuses —which she lost to Obama seven years ago — Clinton would be foolish toactively stump in favor of the president’s trade initiative, allies said.But this time, the political calculus is complicated by her legacy as thenation’s top diplomat.Foreign policy analysts have pointed to the Obama administration’s bid toshift U.S. attention and resources toward Asia to counter China aspotentially one of Clinton’s most significant achievements as secretary ofstate (especially when compared with the deteriorating securityenvironments in the Middle East and Eastern Europe).From the start of her tenure, Clinton made Asia a priority; her first tripin office was a swing through Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China.Early on, Clinton and her top aides endorsed the TPP as a way to balancethe Pentagon’s military buildup in the Asia Pacific region with an economicplatform.Clinton’s team, in conjunction with the White House, helped elevate thetrade pact as a pillar of what Clinton later described, in a Foreign Policymagazine cover story in October 2011, as the administration’s “pivot” toAsia.“Clearly, we all saw this as strategic,” said James Keith, the U.S.ambassador to Malaysia from 2007 to 2010. Before the administrationpublicly unveiled its Asia strategy, “there was lots of talk of having toadd meat to the bones, not just on security but on economics, too. Therewere deep discussions about making it more than just showing up, but alsoabout adding real resources and economic integration in Asia.”Yet a primary concern Clinton has raised about the TPP after leaving officedid not register alarms inside the State Department during her tenure.In 2009, the agency oversaw a review of a component of U.S. trade policy,appointing a panel of business officials, labor leaders and academics toreview the language in the United States’ “model bilateral investmenttreaty.” That treaty is used by U.S. negotiators to open talks with othercountries and is included in most trade deals.During the review, which lasted six months, one of the primarydisagreements centered on the standard inclusion of a dispute settlementmechanism that allows corporations to sue nation-states over policies thatdamage their profits. Under the provision, the cases are heard by aninternational tribunal that rules outside of domestic legal systems.To the chagrin of the labor representatives, the dispute mechanismprovision remained intact during the State Department review after thebusiness representatives on the panel fiercely defended it.“I had the feeling that we were a box that was just going to be checkedoff,” said Kevin P. Gallagher, an associate professor at Boston Universitywho participated on the review panel. “It was a multi-stakeholder dialoguein which we did not agree with each other, so they just go with the oldmodel.”Warren has made this arrangement — formally known as “investor-statedispute settlement” — a chief part of her objections to the TPP. She hasargued that the mechanism potentially exposes U.S. taxpayers to massivemonetary damages outside of U.S. courts if corporations sue the governmentover new laws to protect the environment or workers.Obama has called her arguments “dishonest,” and he has pointed out that theUnited States has been sued just 13 times over the provision in previoustrade pacts and never lost a case.In her book “Hard Choices,” published last year, Clinton raised concernsthat echo Warren’s. She cited a case in which the Asia division of tobaccogiant Philip Morris sued Australia over a “plain packaging” law, employingthe dispute settlement provisions in an Australia-Hong Kong trade pact.“We should avoid some of the provisions sought by business interests,”Clinton wrote.Some progressives said they do not fault Clinton for raising concerns onlyafter leaving office. They noted that the issue gained greater notorietyand urgency after public protests last year in Europe after a Swedishcompany sued Germany under a similar trade-deal provision.Robert Hormats, a high-ranking State Department official from 2009 to 2013,oversaw the trade policy review and emphasized that Clinton was notinvolved in those types of granular policy discussions.By the time she left office, the general framework for the TPP was alreadyin place. During a speech in Australia in November 2012, Clinton referredto the pact as “the gold standard in trade agreements.”The risk now for Clinton is that if the trade deal fails, the Obamaadministration’s “Asia pivot” strategy risks being viewed as morerhetorical than tangible, foreign policy analysts said, which could lead toa reevaluation of her legacy at the State Department.“We saw it as a chance to make a difference,” Hormats said, reflecting onthe Clinton team’s early embrace of the TPP. “You have to remember, theAmerican economy was in the dumps. The weakness of the American economy inthe financial crisis led many to assume the U.S. was backing off andincapacitated.”After he and other Clinton aides made trips to China in 2009, Hormats said,“we came back more resolute than ever that we had to do this.”In Arkansas, Hillary Clinton’s Legacy Remains Potent<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/11/hillary-clinton-arkansas_n_7258956.html?1431375085>// Huffington Post // Scott Conroy – May 11, 2015Back in the sizzling summer of 1991, Arkansans could often find Bill andHillary Clinton sitting in the bleachers at softball fields around LittleRock, as they watched their 11-year-old daughter Chelsea play third basefor the Molar Rollers — a team sponsored by a local dentist.After the last out was made, Chelsea’s teammates would often get a thrillwhen the governor loaded them into his official vehicle and took them outto get frozen yogurt. But every now and then, Bill’s jam-packed schedulewas such that Hillary was the only member of Arkansas’ first couple whocould attend a particular game.It was on one such occasion that longtime Clinton family friend SkipRutherford — whose daughter Martha was the Molar Rollers’ catcher –struck up a conversation about national politics while sitting in thestands next to Hillary.Still just a few months after the Persian Gulf War’s triumphant completion,President George H.W. Bush’s approval rating remained above 70 percent, andRutherford shared the popular opinion at the time that his re-election wasall but assured.“Whoever ends up running, it doesn’t look like they’ll have much of achance,” Rutherford recalls lamenting to Hillary. “I just don’t thinkPresident Bush can be beat. The numbers just look like he’s got the thingin the bag.”Clinton — the acclaimed attorney, who typically chose her words carefully– pondered this for a moment before issuing her reply.“Well, I’m not so sure,” she said.“Really?” Rutherford shot back, not yet aware that her husband had beguncontemplating a White House run.“What the Democrats need is a message and a messenger,” Hillary said.Clinton was, no doubt, referring to her husband. But in truth, “Billery,”as Bill and Hillary Clinton were known in Arkansas, was indeed a singularforce, and it was impossible to talk about the achievements of the formerwithout mentioning those of the latter.Even today, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s legacy in Arkansas — particularly inthe realms of education, health care and childhood welfare — remainsnearly as robust as her husband’s.This is, after all, a city where a 15-minute drive eastward can take youfrom the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library along President ClintonAvenue and then on to Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.As the Democratic frontrunner revs up her second campaign for thepresidency, one of most common critiques that Republicans levy againstHillary Clinton goes something like this: “Yeah, she has a long resume. Butwhat has she actually accomplished?”On the federal stage, she has had some significant swings and misses thathave fed into that perception. Among the most politically toxic: her failed1993 health care reform push as U.S. first lady, and the Russia “reset”policy and botched response to the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks when shewas secretary of state.Perhaps the simplest rebuttal that Clinton could deliver would be this:“Just look at what I left behind in Arkansas.”And while her achievements in the state are now a quarter-century or morein the rearview mirror, the Clinton campaign says it isn’t shying away fromrunning, in part, on the now-distant past.“Every aspect of Hillary’s professional life is an important part of thestory for voters in this election because her collective body of workdemonstrates a proven track record of being a tenacious fighter foreveryday Americans, their families and especially their children,” saidClinton spokesperson Adrienne Elrod. “People know that’s what she’ll do ifshe gets elected because it’s what she’s always done.”Clinton developed her curiosity — and ultimately her expertise — in theissues that would define her tenure as first lady of Arkansas before shemoved to the state with the future president.Following her graduation from Yale Law School in 1973, Hillary Rodham spenta year conducting postgraduate work at the Yale Child Study Center, duringwhich time she published a widely cited article in the Harvard EducationalReview examining how children were viewed under the law, and offeringsignificant proposals for reform.She also landed a job working for the Children’s Defense Fund, where sheworked to expose discrepancies between census data and school enrollment –a time she recalled at the first public event of her 2016 campaign inMonticello, Iowa, this April.“I was knocking on doors saying, ‘Is there anybody school-aged who’s not inschool?’ and finding blind kids and deaf kids and kids in wheelchairs whowere just left out,” she recalled. “And I was able in Arkansas to work andtry to improve education there and give more kids chances who reallydeserved them.”Hillary Rodham’s path to improving education in Arkansas began in 1974 whenshe moved to Fayetteville and became just the second female faculty memberat the University of Arkansas Law School. Bill Clinton lost his bid for aU.S. House seat the same year.After she married the following year, retaining her maiden name, Bill waselected attorney general of Arkansas, and the couple moved to Little Rock.Meanwhile, Hillary’s own career took off upon joining the high-powered RoseLaw Firm, where she took on pro bono children’s rights cases.In 1977, Hillary co-founded and drew up the articles of incorporation forthe Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families — a group that for nearlyfour decades since has fought for expanded opportunities in earlyeducation, juvenile justice reform, increases in state funding for childhealth care and other major initiatives.“She was a very forceful advocate to say the least,” recalled Jim Miles,who worked with her to create the group and develop its mission. “I thinkArkansas Advocates is one of the nation’s premier child advocacyorganization. They have tremendous peer respect.”After Bill Clinton was sworn in as governor for the first time in 1979, heappointed his wife to be the chairwoman of Arkansas’ Rural Health AdvisoryCommittee — a group that worked to expand health care access within thestate’s large rural population.Around the same time, Hillary became a board member of the ArkansasChildren’s Hospital, where she helped establish the state’s first neonatalnursery while she was pregnant with Chelsea. The facility has sinceexpanded several times over.Meanwhile, after reading about it during a trip to Florida, Hillary broughtto Arkansas a program called Home Instruction for Parents for PreschoolYoungsters, or HIPPY, which trains parents of at-risk children in earlyeducation methods.It wasn’t until after Clinton lost re-election in 1980 and then won his1982 comeback bid that the newly minted political wife (who now made itknown that she would henceforth be known as “Hillary Rodham Clinton”) madewhat is widely regarded as her most significant and lasting contribution topublic policy in Arkansas.Shortly after he reassumed office in 1982, Bill Clinton named his wife aschair of the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, an entity with thedaunting task of reforming the state’s public education system, which wasranked at or near the very bottom of all 50 states in just about everymeasure.To get a sense of how dire the situation had become, consider that amajority of Arkansas’ 365 school districts at the time offered no art orchemistry classes, and almost half had no foreign language program to speakof. And teacher training in some districts was fourth-rate.Don Ernst — who was a social studies teacher at Southside High School inFort Smith, Arkansas, before joining Clinton’s education policy staff –recalls walking into his school’s biology lab and seeing two dozen unopenedmicroscopes in storage. When he asked the biology teacher why theinstruments weren’t available to her class, she responded that she wasafraid her students might break them.Still, as Ernst recalls, school reform in Arkansas was not an easy sell.“It was doing the right thing,” he said. “But we also had to figure out howto deal with the politics of an anti-tax state and a state that has neverbeen particularly fond of intellectuals and education.”Hillary spent months traveling the state to sell her proposals for reform– which included boosting course offerings, reducing class sizes andimplementing testing requirements for both students and teachers — whilesoliciting ideas from parents and teachers.In the end, the administration tied the package to an unpopular initiativeto boost the state sales tax by 1 percentage point.Though she faced heated pushback from the teachers’ union and a relatedgroup, Hillary largely won over lawmakers in the end.Political operatives in the state still laugh about the thunderstruckreaction that Rep. Lloyd George, a colorful state representative with asyrupy drawl, had to her presentation: “I think we’ve elected the wrongClinton!”Though Bill Clinton received most of the credit nationally for the reformpackage that he signed into law, Skip Rutherford, who has served for thelast decade as the dean of the Clinton School of Public Service, said itwas Hillary who “took Arkansas to a completely different leveleducationally.”“She was really saying, ‘Look, when our students graduate now, they’regoing to be competing in a world economy,’” he said. “She was veryvisionary. She did it not for immediate gratification but for long-termsuccess.”In recent years, Arkansas’ public school system has been ranked byeducation groups as high as fifth in the nation and as low as 45th, asrelatively low achievement levels have struggled to keep up with the highstandards that Clinton implemented.But in spite of the continued challenges, education in Arkansas is nolonger the national laughingstock that it was when a common lament amongself-conscious policymakers around the capitol was, “Thank God forMississippi.”And for Clinton — particularly in a general election scenario, in whichshe may face off against a Republican governor who will boast of his ownexecutive leadership — that is something to crow about.Still, even if she does emphasize her Arkansas achievements more than shedid during the 2008 campaigns, there appears to be little chance thatshe’ll be doing so within Arkansas’ borders.The years of Democratic domination here have long since passed, as Arkansashas assumed an overwhelmingly Republican profile that is more in keepingwith neighboring states like Oklahoma and Missouri than it is with the newSouth battlegrounds of North Carolina and Virginia.It was Bill Clinton himself who offered a frank reality check for anyDemocrats who may have dreams of an Arkansas victory in 2016 dancingthrough their heads.”I was governor a long time,” he said last month during aquestion-and-answer session at his alma mater, Georgetown University. “Thepeople of my native state were good enough to elect me five times. Based onrecent events, I don’t know if I could win again down there.”Paid Leave Is Going to Matter in 2016, Thanks to John Oliver and HillaryClinton<http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121765/john-oliver-hillary-clinton-push-paid-maternity-leave>// New Republic // Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig – May 11, 2015John Oliver’s Mother’s Day segment this Sunday opened with a glimpse intowhat businesses are willing to take in the name of motherhood (namely: yourmoney, on this shamelessly Hallmarkian holiday) versus what they’re willingto give: paid maternity leave.Oliver pointed out that the United States is singular among developednations in its complete failure to provide any paid leave to motherswhatsoever. Globally, we are joined only by Papua New Guinea in our lack ofpaid maternity leave policy, according to data collected by theInternational Labor Organization, a United Nations agency. Unlike mothersin countries with mandates providing paid maternity leave—The Netherlands,for example, where women are guaranteed 16 weeks of paid leave, or Norway,where women can take 36 weeks—women in the U.S. often patch together amishmash of vacation time, sick days, and whatever maternity leave isavailable from their workplace to eke out time to care for their newborns.Oliver observed, quite rightly, that the meager twelve weeks of unpaidleave currently mandated by the federal government spooked employers whenproposed in 1993. Businesses’ allergy to any kind of regulation, Oliverproposed, helps explain why America has fallen so far behind when it comesto paid family leave. California’s paid maternity leave mandate hasn’tintroduced chaos or even inconvenienced businesses in the state;nonetheless, only three states have enacted similar legislation.It is a scandal that, in a nation where family values feature soprominently in political discourse, there is barely a shred of protectionfor working women who give birth. Worse, even the weak provision of twelveweeks unpaid leave doesn’t extend to some women, as Demos senior fellowCaroline Fredrickson points out in her new book Under the Bus: How WorkingWomen are Being Run Over. Women who work part-time, for small businesses,and immigrant women often in domestic work are left out of our leavemandates. Unfortunately, the women who happen to be excluded from theseprotections also happen to be the poorest workers, a reality that leads todire conclusions: “[I]n almost 9 percent of cases where [families] go underthe poverty line, the precipitating factor was the birth of a child,”Fredrickson notes, “and nearly 25 percent of these families succumb topoverty in thirty days when they are dependent on the earnings of a singlemother.” Fredrickson also reports that a study of 1,700 bankruptcy casesconducted by Human Rights Watch found that 7 percent of debtors identifiedthe birth of a child as their reason for going bankrupt.With numbers like these, it’s a wonder nobody has made paid family leave acampaign issue yet. But Hillary Clinton is aiming to fill that gap. OnMother’s Day, Clinton’s campaign posted a two-minute video detailingClinton’s respect for her mother, her role in her daughter andgranddaughter’s lives, and her support for paid leave. “It is outrageousthat America is the only country in the developed world that doesn’tguarantee paid leave,” Clinton says, her voice set to a montage of familyphotographs and her own meetings with constituents’ kids and babies. “Weknow,” Clinton adds, “that when women are strong, families are strong.”Fredrickson’s data on childbirth and poverty seem to bear out Clinton’sclaim: When women are well supported in terms of paid leave, families havea better shot at staying above the poverty line, which is good news forparents and babies. The Right may have a traditional claim to the politicsof strong families, but unless they can stake out a position that willoffer the kind of protections to mothers that Clinton has in mind, thepro-family rhetoric of the Right will remain nothing but talk.SOCIAL MEDIAAlex Hanson (5/11/15, 10:40 PM) @theAlexHanson:<https://twitter.com/theAlexHanson/status/597969574873702400> FirstRepublican presidential debate on track for Aug. 6 at The Q in Cleveland,sources say s.cleveland.com/USEtCGi via @clevelanddotcomEmily Schultheis (5/11/15, 12:15 PM) @emilyrs:<https://twitter.com/emilyrs/status/597797133819969537?refsrc=email&s=11>New GW Battleground poll has @HillaryClinton at 48 fav/49 unfav. 47% saythey would consider voting for her: tarrance.com/docs/BG57quest…Joe Sudbay (5/11/15 4:54PM) @JoeSudbay:<https://twitter.com/JoeSudbay/status/597867282275106817> Huh. While Bushstruggles with immigration issue, his PAC’s anti-gay senior advisor, JordanSekulow, today signed amicus to end DACA & DAPAZac Moffatt (5/11/15 12:54PM) @ZacMoffatt:<https://twitter.com/ZacMoffatt/status/597806912453869569> @Hillary ClintonRubbed Elbows w 250 Top Donors For Each “Everyday American” She Met LastWeek www.americarisingpac.org/populist-hero- <https://t.co/4wTzTBjKRe>HRC NATIONAL COVERAGEHillary Clinton Walks Tightrope as Pressure Grows to Take Stance on TradeDeal<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/us/politics/hillary-clinton-walks-tightrope-as-pressure-grows-to-take-stance-on-trade-deal.html>// NYT // Amy Chozick – May 12, 2015Liberal Democrats are intensifying their pressure on Hillary Rodham Clintonto oppose President Obama’s Pacific trade deal as detrimental to Americanjobs. But Mr. Obama’s allies want her to endorse the accord, which thepresident has called a boon to the United States economy.And Mrs. Clinton, stuck between the progressives she must woo in aDemocratic nomination fight and the president under whom she served, hasremained, for the most part, mum.The issue has become the first major policy test in her fledgling campaign,with Mrs. Clinton under mounting pressure to pick a side in the delicateand heated debate over the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, a 12-nationtrade agreement that Mr. Obama has aggressively pursued and that is facinga critical vote in Congress on Tuesday.Just 48 hours after Mrs. Clinton delighted liberal Democrats with aproposal to expand citizenship eligibility to immigrants who are in thecountry illegally, protesters on Thursday urged her to speak out againstthe trade deal.PhotoProtesters outside a fund-raiser attended by Mrs. Clinton last week inBeverly Hills, Calif. Credit Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press“Stop the TPP!” read one of the signs held by demonstrators who circled themansion in Beverly Hills, Calif., where Mrs. Clinton attended a high-dollarfund-raiser.The left wing has not been this agitated over a trade deal since the lasttime Mrs. Clinton ran for president, when her squishy position on the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement, signed into law by her husband in 1993,ignited debate during the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries.“The fact is, she was saying great things about Nafta until she startedrunning for president,” Mr. Obama said of Mrs. Clinton during their 2008fight for the Democratic nomination.This time, in an odd twist, it is Mr. Obama’s trade deal that haunts Mrs.Clinton’s early candidacy. If her stance on immigration, which would gofurther than Mr. Obama’s executive actions, offended the White House lastweek, any remarks she might make against the administration’s trade accordcould fracture her already delicate relationship with the president.On Saturday, Mr. Obama vigorously pushed back against Senator ElizabethWarren of Massachusetts, who has said the trade accord will help WallStreet and hurt American workers.“The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician likeeverybody else,” Mr. Obama told Yahoo News.“She’s absolutely wrong,” he added.But even a tacit endorsement of the accord would put Mrs. Clinton on theopposite side of a very vocal liberal base of her party, which she hasincreasingly been courting in her campaign.The chances of pleasing both sides are slim.Mr. Obama’s allies — including congressional Republicans and businessleaders who support the trade accord — as well as liberal Democrats, laborleaders, environmentalists and human rights advocates, have forcefullycalled for Mrs. Clinton to take a stance.If there is one thing both sides agree on, it is that Mrs. Clinton needs tosay more than the vague comment she made in New Hampshire last month: “Anytrade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity andprotect our security.”“She can’t sit on the sidelines and let the president swing in the windhere,” John A. Boehner, the Republican House speaker, said on the NBC Newsprogram “Meet the Press” last week.From the other side came this: “This is one you can’t waffle. You’re eitherfor the T.P.P. or against it,” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who isseeking the Democratic nomination and opposes the deal, told MSNBC.The Huffington Post reported that John D. Podesta, chairman of Mrs.Clinton’s campaign, had jokingly bemoaned in private, “Can you make it goaway?”The Clinton campaign may not be able to make the issue go away, but it canbe avoided until after a vote on Tuesday on legislation that would grantMr. Obama the ability to “fast-track” talks on a final trade deal, whichliberals vehemently oppose. Mrs. Clinton has no public events scheduledthis week, only private fund-raisers and a summit meeting in Brooklyn withdonors on Thursday. A spokesman for her campaign declined to comment.“She hasn’t taken any steps in the wrong direction, but she hasn’t gone asfar as many Democrats who have spoken out against ‘fast track,’ ” AdamGreen, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said.“She’s punted a little so far.”When she does finally weigh in, Mrs. Clinton’s position could give theliberal wing of her party pause. Left-leaning Democrats have beenencouraged by her recent campaign speeches about inequality andimmigration, but many still harbor concerns that Mrs. Clinton’s policieswill not do enough to advance their causes.The campaign had hoped to delay outlining her policy proposals until laterthis summer, but the pressure over the trade deal could prompt Mrs. Clintonto detail her domestic policies sooner.The debate has remnants of her 2008 campaign, when Nafta became a litmustest for whether Mrs. Clinton had the liberal credentials of her opponents,Barack Obama and John Edwards.Mrs. Clinton was accused of political posturing when she opposed Nafta, thesignature trade deal of her husband’s administration, which created theworld’s largest trading bloc, among Canada, the United States and Mexico.Coming out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she supported assecretary of state under Mr. Obama, could generate similar criticism.“She was working for President Obama, and you do what your boss does,”Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said of Mrs. Clinton’s pastsupport for the partnership.For Mrs. Clinton, coming out against the deal would be tantamount to arepudiation of not just a major legislative goal of Mr. Obama’s, but alsoof Mr. Clinton’s economic legacy. There are few policies Mr. Clinton ismore defensive about than Nafta, which many on the left have come to see asthe ultimate symbol of the perils of globalization.More than two decades later, Nafta still haunts Mrs. Clinton (who opposedparts of the deal as first lady), and it ignites a visceral reaction on thecampaign trail.“If she really does stand with working and middle-class Americans, sheneeds to come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” said ArturoCarmona, executive director of Presente.org and one of the protestersoutside Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raiser on Thursday. He pointed to damage doneby Nafta.After a speech at the Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., on Friday, Mr.Obama said liberal Democrats who opposed the trade deal — which wouldinclude Asia-Pacific nations and affect 40 percent of America’s exports andimports — were stuck in the 1990s.“Their arguments are based on fears, or they’re fighting Nafta, the tradedeal that was passed 25 years ago, or 20 years ago,” he said.Clinton Foundation Donors Fill Hillary’s Campaign Coffers<http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-foundation-donors-fill-hillarys-campaign-coffers/>// AP // Lachlan Markay – May 12, 2015High-dollar donors to Hillary Clinton’s family foundation have hosted themajority of the Democratic presidential candidate’s early fundraisers, datacompiled by political spending watchdogs reveal.Twelve of the 21 Hillary for America fundraising events reported by theSunlight Foundation have been or will be hosted by donors to the Bill,Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, according to Sunlight’s PoliticalParty Time website, which tracks fundraising events.The foundation donors hosting fundraisers include some of the largestsupporters of Clinton’s past political efforts. Together, they have givenas much as $90 million to the foundation, according to donor disclosures onits website.The largest foundation donor to host one of the events is Chicago mediamogul Fred Eychaner. Clinton will attend a fundraiser at his home on May20. Eychaner has donated more than $25 million to the Clinton Foundation.Clinton fundraisers’ donations to the foundation have come by way ofpersonal contributions as well as through foundations and private companiesthat they own or operate.Last week, Clinton attended fundraisers at the San Francisco homes ofbillionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer and Susie Tompkins Buell, founderof the Esprit clothing brand.Steyer has personally donated to the foundation. Buell has done so in apersonal capacity and through her own eponymous foundation and adonor-advised fund of a separate philanthropic group. The latter hascontributed as much as $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.Hedge fund manager Marc Lasry has personally donated as much as $250,000.His firm, Avenue Capital Management II, LP, has chipped in another $25,000to $50,000.The foundation lists donations in ranges, making it difficult to knowexactly how much each donor has contributed. It also declines to say whenspecific contributions were made. More than 1,000 donors to the groupremain anonymous.The foundation has become a source of controversy in recent weeks followingrevelations that Clinton, as secretary of state, may have taken actionsthat benefitted foreign governments and corporations that donated to thefoundation.Details of those transactions were revealed in a new book, titled ClintonCash, by Hoover Institute fellow Peter Schweizer. Clinton’s presidentialcampaign is going to extreme lengths to discredit Schweizer following thebook’s release.In the book, Schweizer suggests the foundation has served to advance theClintons’ political aspirations since the end of Bill’s presidency.“Perhaps the most important function of the foundation is to bolster Billand Hillary’s reputations as global humanitarians by bringing relief andcare to people all over the world,” Schweizer wrote.“This reputation not only flatters the ex-president’s ego and benefitsHillary’s political career, but it also has real value both in terms ofglobal influence and financial reward.”Many of the foundation donors hosting Hillary for America fundraisers arelong-time Clinton supporters. Haim and Cheryl Saban, whose foundation hasgiven as much as $25 million to Clinton’s, backed her 2008 presidentialbid, as did Buell, Lasry, and Eychaner.Some Clinton Foundation donors have also contributed recently to othergroups expected to back her candidacy, formally or informally.The TomKat Charitable Trust, the foundation run by Steyer and his wife, isa major donor to the Center for American Progress, which was founded byClinton campaign operative John Podesta and is expected to play a majorrole in crafting Clinton’s policy positions.Steven Rattner and his wife Maureen White are also CAP donors. They havegiven as much as $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation personally and throughtheir own foundation. They will host Clinton at their New York City homefor a fundraiser on Wednesday.CAP donor Elizabeth Bagley hosted Clinton last month for anotherfundraising event in Washington, D.C. Bagley and her husband have given asmuch as $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.In addition to supporting the Clintons’ political prospects, Schweizer saysthat donations to the foundation can be a means to ingratiate oneself withthe powerful family in the hope of securing access to their inner circle.“People look for ways to influence those in power by throwing money intheir direction,” Schweizer wrote. “Politicians are all too happy to vacuumup contributions from supporters and people who want access or something inreturn.”The Clintons and their foundation vehemently deny any quid-pro-quos.“The big question is whether taking such money constitutes a transaction,”Schweizer wrote. “The Clintons would undoubtedly argue that it does not.The evidence presented in this book suggests otherwise.”Ohio lawsuit shows Clinton is already looking at battleground states<http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/05/11/hillary-clinton-ohio-early-voting-lawsuit/>// On Politics- USA Today // Gregory Korte – May 11, 2015Lawyers for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Ohio DemocraticParty have filed suit over Ohio’s early voting laws, suggesting thatClinton is already looking downfield to what will be a key battlegroundstate in the 2016 general election.The lawsuit, filed late Friday in Columbus, alleges that Republicanlawmakers in Ohio have specifically targeted key Democratic constituencies— young people, Latinos and African-Americans — by eliminating theso-called “Golden Week” during which voters could register and vote on thesame day.The lawsuit does not mention Clinton, and she is not a plaintiff. Theplaintiffs include the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and three Ohio voters— an Ohio State University student with a California driver’s license, aDemocratic poll worker from suburban Cincinnati and an African-Americanminister from Akron.The lawyers are more interesting. They include Don McTigue, a lawyer forthe Ohio Democratic Party, and Marc Elias, who’s the general counsel forHillary for America. Elias is not licensed to practice law in Ohio and isseeking permission from the court to represent the plaintiffs in the case.The Clinton campaign said it was aware of the lawsuit, but it wasn’t filedon behalf of the campaign. “However, the campaign shares the concern aboutundue burdens being placed on the right to vote in states across thecountry, including Ohio,” said Hillary for America Press Secretary BrianFallon.But Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a defendant in the suit, called theplaintiff’s lawyers “politically motivated, legal lap dogs” who were“simply intending to interject chaos into Ohio’s nationally recognizedvoting system.” Husted notes that Ohio recently settled a federal lawsuitover many of the same issues, and that Ohio still has more liberal earlyvoting laws than New York, where Clinton lives.Elias said the lawsuit was brought on behalf of the named plaintiffs, andis just one of many lawsuits his Washington law firm, Perkins Coie, hasbrought to defend the right to vote. “It is unfortunate that SecretaryHusted chose to respond with a political attack rather than working toremedy the problems identified in our suit,” he said in an e-mail.Wall Street warns Hillary Clinton: Don’t be like Ed Miliband<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/wall-street-warns-hillary-clinton-117819.html>// Politico // Ben White – May 11, 2015NEW YORK — Wall Street has a message for bank-bashing U.S. populistpoliticians: Put down the pitchforks or you could wind up like Ed Miliband.Senior financial executives say the Labour leader’s anti-bank, soak therich rhetoric helped sink his party in the U.K. elections and assured asurprisingly big reelection win for Prime Minister David Cameron and hisConservative party last week. Miliband resigned as Labour leader followingthe loss.These bankers and their ideological supporters say if likely Democraticpresidential nominee Hillary Clinton keeps tacking to the left on WallStreet issues — as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, other progressiveDemocrats and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are demanding — she could wind upfacing the same fate.“Cameron embraced the role of the financial sector in growing the U.K.economy and creating jobs, never once criticizing hedge funds, banks or thewealthy,” said a top executive at one of Wall Street’s largest firms.“Milliband ran against hedge funds and bankers, promising bonus and mansiontaxes and lost big. Is that a lesson for Hillary as well?”This executive, like several others who cited the U.K. election result as awarning to populists, declined to be identified by name or by firm for fearof eliciting a heavy backlash.Another executive said Milliband’s adoption of Warren’s approach to thefinancial sector and banking regulation failed even though U.K. voterstrust banks even less than U.S. voters, according to opinion surveys.“Seems like there might be some political lessons for the U.S. out of theU.K. election — with Milliband’s Warren style, anti-business, anti-bankrhetoric clearly falling flat with the general public even as the press ateit up,” this executive from another of Wall Street’s largest firms said.“And the Edelman trust barometer actually shows that British voters aremore distrustful and wary of the banks than here in the U.S.”The financial executives cited Miliband’s attacks on Cameron and theConservatives as the “party of hedge funds” and his calls for higher taxeson the industry as failing to captivate U.K. voters. And they noted thatdespite polls showing a very tight race, Cameron and his party won 51percent of the vote and 331 seats in Parliament to just 36 percent and 232seats for Miliband and his Labour party.Conservative analysts also said U.S. politicians including Clinton shouldtake note of the U.K. result.“There are two lessons here,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the AmericanAction Forum. “One is the Miliband lesson. The U.S. has now seen thatpeople in the U.K. don’t really like this focus on inequality andredistribution. It’s not where people are. And the second is thatconservatives were very effective in saying they were for working peoplebut keeping the focus on work not excessive government intervention andbenefits.”Financial reform advocates in the U.S. say these executives and analystsare delusional and reading things into the U.K. results that are not reallythere.“Backwards logic like this almost makes you understand why Wall Streetexecutives are deluded enough to believe they shouldn’t be held responsiblefor blowing up the economy in 2008 and fighting common sense legislationdesigned to prevent them from doing it again,” said Neil Sroka,communications director for progressive group Democracy for America. “Ifthese guys actually believe that Cameron won because he bear-huggedbillionaire bankers or think that Democrats will do better in 2016 if theycontinue treating a thief on Wall Street differently than a thief on MainStreet, I’ve got an tranche of decade-old, toxic mortgages I know they’llwant to get in on.”Dennis Kelleher, head of financial reform group Better Markets, said manyother factors were at play in the U.K.“Claiming the five-week sprint known as the U.K. election — and theScottish freedom campaign — means anything for the US is nothing more thanwishful thinking by Wall Street’s spinners,” he said. “Secretary Clintonwill be spelling out pro-growth agendas that also protect the Americanpeople from Wall Street’s dangerous too big to fail banks. It’s noteither/or. It’s both.”The comments from Wall Street executives and conservative analysts come assome in the industry fear that Clinton will continue to move left onfinancial reform issues as her campaign progresses.Clinton used her first trip to Iowa as an announced candidate last month toissue a fresh assault. “There’s something wrong,” she told Iowans, when“hedge fund managers pay lower taxes than nurses or the truckers I saw onI-80 when I was driving here over the last two days.”In a fundraising note last month, Clinton wrote that “families have foughttheir way back from tough economic times. But it’s not enough — not whenthe average CEO makes 300 times what the average worker makes.”Wall Street mostly shrugged off those comments, confident that Clinton, whohas enjoyed heavy financial support from the industry, would ultimatelygovern as a pro-business pragmatist not inclined to bust up big banks orsupport higher taxes on financial transactions or new controls on executivepay.But as the “Draft Warren” for president movement continues to gain steamand coalitions of left wing and right wing populists in Congress flirt withthe idea of breaking up the biggest banks, Wall Street is getting a bitmore nervous. And they are pointing to the U.K. results and Republicangains in 2014 in the U.S. as evidence that Clinton should focus on otherissues or face a possible loss in 2016.“I would say that this is the second major election in a row where bankbashing no longer seems to move voters,” said a lobbyist for the bankingindustry. “Even where voters may continue to have anger about banks, otherissues seem to be driving their votes. We saw that last year in the U.S.,and now we seem to be seeing an echo in the U.K.”Arkansas: The Clintons Don’t Live Here Anymore<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/11/arkansas_the_clintons_dont_live_here_anymore_126533.html>// Real Clear Politics // Rebecca Berg – May 11, 2015HOPE, Ark. — Nearly a quarter-century after Bill Clinton introduced hissmall Arkansas hometown to America, Hope is a living shrine to its mostfamous native son.Clinton’s first home, on South Hervey Street, has been preserved andconverted into a museum. A few blocks away, a former train depot houses thetown’s visitor center, filled with even more mementos of the 42ndpresident’s upbringing and his political rise. At the site where the JuliaChester Hospital once stood, a plaque commemorates Clinton’s birth there.But there is no marker noting the birth there, nine years later, of anotherhometown hero: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, whoreturned to Hope this week to announce his second bid for the Oval Office.In his speech to an overflow crowd of roughly 2,500 people at a communitycollege, Huckabee said he hoped to bring America, as he had broughthimself, “from Hope to higher ground.”“Here in this small town called Hope, I was raised to believe that where aperson started didn’t mean that’s where he had to stop,” Huckabee said.He did not mention by name either Bill Clinton, who famously invoked “aplace called Hope” during his 1992 speech to accept the Democraticnomination for president, or Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nomineein 2016. He didn’t have to; the connection was obvious.But the event served not only as a stark reminder of the Clintons, whomHuckabee will use as a foil in his White House race, but also of theNatural State’s sharp political transformation in their absence. The statethat was once the last bastion for the Democratic Party in the South hasbecome one of the most firmly Republican states in the country — so much sothat even a beloved former Arkansas first lady might not be able to win thestate in a general election.“I do believe Hillary would have carried Arkansas in 2008,” said oneDemocratic strategist with deep ties to the state. “I think it’s unlikelyshe carries it in 2016.”Such a dynamic would until recently have been unthinkable. During BillClinton’s nearly 12 years as governor, Hillary Clinton was an equal partnerin policy and politics, and her popularity grew along with her husband’s.When Bill Clinton entrusted his wife as chairman of a committee to enacteducation reforms, a priority of his administration, she traveled the stateon an extended listening tour. In a meeting with lawmakers to discuss thecommittee’s work, a few of the good ol’ boys were stunned. “Gentlemen,we’ve elected the wrong Clinton!” state Rep. Lloyd George famously remarked.Although Arkansas has on the national level supported Republicanpresidential candidates for most of the past three decades, with BillClinton twice as the exception, the state’s congressional delegation andstatehouse were for most of those years dominated by Democrats.Helping to keep Democrats in power were three legendary politicians at thetop of the party: Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, and Bill Clinton. But, even asClinton took office as governor for the second time, in 1983, ArkansasDemocrats were paddling against a shifting tide. The state’s Republicanareas were swelling with in-migration from white retirees, while Democraticpopulations stagnated.Still, when Huckabee took office as governor in 1996, he did so as anoutsider — the sole Republican statewide elected official, facing the mostDemocratic statehouse in the country. A video that played before Huckabeetook the stage Tuesday recalled when he arrived at the statehouse to findthe governor’s office door nailed shut.Huckabee understood that he could not govern without Democrats, and so heworked extensively with them, enacting a host of policies that could wellbe used against him in this Republican primary: expanding Medicaid coveragefor children, awarding in-state tuition to the children of illegalimmigrants; and even pushing for a one-eighth cent tax to fund conservationefforts. Huckabee even enlisted Dick Morris, a former Clinton aide, as atop political adviser.The political landscape in Arkansas did not truly turn in the GOP’s favoruntil 2010, when Republican John Boozman unseated Democratic Sen. BlancheLincoln. During the next election cycle, in 2012, the state legislatureflipped to GOP control.Last year marked the watershed moment for Arkansas Republicans, as thestate appeared to pass a point of no return. As Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democratand the son of David Pryor, faced a tough re-election battle againstRepublican Tom Cotton, the Democratic Party unloaded its political ammo tothe last, even enlisting Bill Clinton to campaign on the incumbent’s behalf.At a rally in Hope, Clinton stood with Pryor outside of the visitor centerand asked Arkansans for their support. But even the former president’s starpower was not enough to lift Pryor, who lost with 39 percent to Cotton’s 57percent.The transition away from Clinton’s Arkansas was complete — and the outlookfor future Democrats remains dim. Because Arkansas lacks the growingminority populations of many Southern states, its political makeup now moreclosely resembles those of deep-red Kansas and Oklahoma.“It wasn’t that Arkansas was the last state to fall. Arkansas left theSouth,” said Skip Rutherford, a longtime Clinton ally and dean of theUniversity of Arkansas’ Clinton School of Public Service. “While the Southis trending to be more competitive for the Democrats, Arkansas is going inthe other direction.”Following the 2014 election, the state’s congressional delegation is nowfully Republican, with two GOP senators for the first time sinceReconstruction. Both statehouse chambers are also controlled by Republicans.The Clinton name is still everywhere in Arkansas, adorning the Little Rockairport, the presidential library, the school of public service, just aboutevery main drag. But the state’s party loyalties appear to have finally,conclusively flipped.When 2014 exit polls asked Arkansas voters whether Hillary Clinton wouldmake a good president, just 39 percent said she would, CNN reported, while56 percent said she would not.On the eve of Huckabee’s announcement, his top campaign staff and reportersmet in the back room of Doe’s Eat Place in Little Rock for a hearty meal ofsteak, shrimp and tamales. The walls are still adorned with Democraticartwork and memorabilia, including a poster depicting Ronald Reagan and hisvice president, George H.W. Bush, as “the first couple,” with Bush wearinga dress — a reminder of the Democrats who once frequented the space.During Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, the back room at Doe’swas a favorite hangout for James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, RahmEmanuel, and other top aides. Now, Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman,his pollster Bob Wickers, and his communications aides Alice Stewart andHogan Gidley were gathered around the table.And, at least for this week, Mike Huckabee was Hope’s hometown hero. Thenight before the kickoff, with his aides in Little Rock, Huckabee made therounds at Dos Loco Gringos, a Mexican restaurant in Hope.The next day, after the campaign launch, Hope visitor center director GuyRoyston pulled up a photo on his phone of Huckabee at the restaurant.Royston, who interned in the past with former Sen. Blanche Lincoln andformer Rep. Mike Ross, both Democrats, said he turned out for Huckabee’sannouncement speech, too — the second presidential campaign launch he’swatched in person, after Clinton’s in 1991.“We root for the hometown guys,” Royston said.But when a couple from Los Angeles, in town for Huckabee’s speech, stoppedby the visitor center, there wasn’t much to show he’d grown up in Hope,too. A photograph of Miss Marie Perkins noted that she was Clinton’skindergarten teacher, but not that she also taught Huckabee.Earlier, on the way to Huckabee’s announcement, a bus transportingreporters stopped outside of his childhood home. Unlike Clinton’s, it istoday a private home, not a museum, and there is no sign or other indicatorof the politician who once lived there.Huckabee might never get the chance to win Arkansas in a general election.Another Clinton likely will — but Arkansas has moved on.California woman receives Mother’s Day greeting from Hillary Clinton<http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-83513395/> // LA Times //Seema Mehta – May 11, 2015A California woman was among a handful of women whom Hillary Clinton phonedto wish a happy Mother’s Day.Sheila Frank, 73, said she felt honored to speak with the Democraticpresidential candidate for a little over 10 minutes on Sunday.“We congratulated each other on being mothers and grandmothers,” saidFrank, a retired psychologist who was straightening her bedroom in thegated community of Bear Valley Springs near Tehachapi when Clinton called.Frank was one of five women Clinton called on Sunday, the winners of aMother’s Day contest on Clinton’s campaign website. A friend enteredFrank’s name and she was randomly selected. No donation was required toenter.Since announcing her presidential bid, Clinton has focused on her gender inways she never did during her unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign.Frank, who has an adult son and two grandsons, noted that Clinton recentlybecame a grandmother when her daughter Chelsea gave birth to a daughternamed Charlotte.“She of course adores her new granddaughter. I could tell she was veryexcited about that,” Frank said.But the bulk of their conversation focused on policy, Frank said, notablyFrank’s work with prisoners, the poor and the homeless. Mental illness,Frank told Clinton, was a scourge that was not being dealt with, and thesituation was being made worse because of state budget cuts torehabilitation programs.Frank grew up in New Jersey and attended graduate school at UC Berkeleyduring the “Free Speech Movement,” a milestone in her political development.“That’s where I was coming from. We thought we had the answers. We alwayssaw a bright future,” Frank said. “We were so naïve but we were committed.At 73, one is no longer so naïve.”Frank said she initially supported Clinton’s 2008 presidential effort,until she grew enamored by then Sen. Barack Obama’s speeches and theprospect of a black man being elected president of the United States. Shebelieves Obama has been treated unfairly since being elected to the WhiteHouse, and wholeheartedly supports Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid.“I do think a lack of experience has been an issue [for Obama] and Hillarydoesn’t have that – she comes with an incredible amount of experience, andI’m definitely supporting her,” Frank said.Frank said that while she admires Democrats such as Massachusetts Sen.Elizabeth Warren, she believes Clinton is the party’s best choice.“I think that she can represent the middle class in a decent way. I loveher husband, Bill. I told her that. She told me she does also, so that wasfun,” Frank said. “I think she will speak to support more of the middleclass, whatever there is left of us.”Hillary Clinton Adds Latina From Labor Department To Oversee Hispanic,Black, Women’s Media<http://www.buzzfeed.com/adriancarrasquillo/hillary-clinton-adds-latina-from-labor-department-to-oversee?utm_term=.lxB2ZYreZ#.mr5QZ4DYx>// Buzzfeed News // Adrian Carrasquillo – May 11, 2015Hillary Clinton has filled a major communications position in the campaign,tapping Xochitl Hinojosa as director of coalitions press, five sources toldBuzzFeed News.Hinojosa, who served at the Department of Labor under Secretary Tom Perezfor almost two years and is the daughter of Texas Democratic Party ChairmanGilberto Hinojosa, will oversee Hispanic, black, and women’s media, amongothers.Her last day in her current role is next week. The Clinton campaigndeclined to comment on the hire.Democratic strategist Maria Cardona said Hinojosa has been in the mix as anearly hire for a while. Cardona worked with Hinojosa on two projects withthe Department of Labor and said she is someone who understands the nuancesof the press landscape both in general media and Hispanic media.“It’s a rare mix to be able to get someone like her with experience,someone who can do it well and do it with grace,” she said. “I was thrilledwhen they told me her name.”In her role, Hinojosa will not only work closely with the communicationsteam but would also serve as a connection between field staffers organizingthese coalitions on the ground — something that didn’t always exist in the2012 Obama campaign.A former Obama staffer said that looking forward, you could envision ascenario where an organizer in Charleston, South Carolina, is working witha local hip-hop station to get information out to that neighborhood. Astronger link between coalitions on the ground and the national press teamwould “free up the opportunity for the field to communicate and leveragecommunications channels to send the most authentic message to votersthey’re working with,” the Obama campaign veteran said.Hinojosa also wouldn’t be the person charged with, for example, doing theday-to-day work with black media. Hinojosa would have a team under her andthere are plans to fill those roles as the campaign progresses.Sources with campaign media experience said she will need a robust staff toensure those coalitions aren’t relegated to or feel like specialty media.For example, Univision, which is a top four network in the United States,regardless of language, doesn’t want to be relegated to a secondaryposition in the campaign, said Jose Parra, a former senior adviser forHarry Reid.Hinojosa’s hire makes her the fourth high-profile Latino hire, and thirdLatina, along with Amanda Renteria, the political director and Emmy Ruiz,who returned to run the Clinton operation in Nevada. Jose Villarrealpreviously joined as campaign treasurer, as well.The hiring continues the approach stressed by Clinton officials likeRenteria of not just hiring, say, Latinos for Latino roles.The early focus on strong Latino hiring and outreach operations has beenrepeatedly called for by Democrats who note that Clinton was popular amongLatino voters in the 2008 primary against Obama, but must show she isserious about addressing their concerns during this campaign. Democratshave also worried that Republicans like Jeb Bush, who is fluent in Spanishand has a Hispanic family, and Marco Rubio, could compete for support fromLatino voters.Hinojosa followed very much in the footsteps of her father, Gilberto, whorepresented farm workers in class-action lawsuits “and made sure that theU.S. Department of Labor Employment Services Division provided farm workerswith needed interstate employment services,” according to the TexasDemocratic Party.She previously spent time at the Department of Justice’s civil rightdivision, as well as campaigns and senate offices before joining Labor,where she has been focused on issues like pay leave and the minimum wage.Are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ‘Affirmative-Action Presidents’?<http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/clinton-obama-affirmative-action-presidents.html>// NY Mag // Jonathan Chait – May 11, 2015“If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in 2016 she will not only be thenation’s first woman president but our second affirmative-actionpresident,” writes Joseph Epstein. This may sound like Epstein is makingthe outlandish claim that Clinton and Obama are uniquely lacking in meritas compared to previous presidential candidates in American history. Thatis exactly what Epstein is claiming. In a bizarre, rambling essay that theWeekly Standard has deemed worthy not only of publication but of its cover,the esteemed conservative scholar asserts that presidential elections usedto be based on intrinsic merit, until 2008. “How have we come to thepoint,” Epstein asks, “where we elect presidents of the United States noton their intrinsic qualities but because of the accidents of their birth:because they are black, or women, or, one day doubtless, gay, or disabled —not, in other words, for themselves but for the causes they seem to embodyor represent, for their status as members of a victim group?”Yes, that’s right. America used to elect presidents on “intrinsicqualities” rather than “accidents of their birth.” And this processresulted in the election of forty-three consecutive white men, an outcomeEpstein must regard as an extreme coincidence. The last president to beelected on the basis of intrinsic qualities rather than accidents of birthwas George W. Bush, whose birth circumstances, Epstein apparently believes,had no bearing upon his career trajectory.The whole essay is a remarkable testament to the level of delusion ofright-wing identity politics. Epstein does not merely claim that pockets ofleft-wing thought in academia and elsewhere have allowed social-justiceideology to go too far, an argument with which I sympathize. He argues thatwhite men as a whole have become a subaltern class. Epstein is attemptingto intellectualize a sentiment coursing through the right and given dailyexpression in such places as Fox News and talk radio, but in so attemptingserves only to demonstrate its sub-intellectual character.On its face, the idea that white men have become a victim class is hard tosquare with the ethnographic composition of the economic and politicalelite, which remain far more white and male than the population as a whole.Epstein clearly believes this to be the case. Apparently unaware of a vasttrove of evidence proving the continuing existence of traditional race andgender discrimination, he refers to it in the past tense. (“Everyone knowsof the travails of slavery and beyond, the battles of women for equality inthe workplace and elsewhere, the mocking and shunning of homosexuals, andthe degrading of other victim groups; it was genuine, and painful.”Emphasis added.) Epstein likewise asserts, “Today it is the victim who isdoing the bullying.”After a painful meandering tour through Epstein’s view of contemporaryAmerica, he returns at the conclusion to his premise about Clinton as anaffirmative-action hire, which he has not bothered to substantiate. Here isEpstein’s evidence that Clinton plans to run a campaign based on victimhood:Given the large constituency of victims in America, Hillary Clinton, as awoman, has already climbed aboard the victim train in the hope of riding itto the presidency. “When women are held back, our country is held back,”she said in a recent speech. “When women get ahead, everyone gets ahead.Our mothers and sisters and daughters are on the front lines of all ofthese battles. … But these are not just women’s fights. These have to beAmerica’s fights and the world’s fights. We have to take them on, we haveto win them together.” What a rich ragout of victimhood and virtue in thosewords!Not only do these Hillary Clinton quotes contain no hint of personalvictimhood, they contain an explicit appeal to common interest. Theargument Clinton makes in this passage is that policies that prevent womenfrom fulfilling their potential harm men and women alike, by deprivingsociety of the ability to develop the potential talent of half itspopulation. This is the most representative quote Epstein is able to findto support his thesis, and it instead makes the exact opposite of the pointhe claims.In a larger sense, of course, the very existence of Epstein’s piece servesto disprove its thesis. If it is still possible for a white man to write anincoherent farrago of self-pity whose only shred of evidence directlyundercuts its thesis, and have such drivel thrown onto the cover of anational magazine, then white men are probably still doing okay.The Hillary Clinton paradox: Progressives can’t trust her — and that’s agood thing<http://www.salon.com/2015/05/11/the_hillary_clinton_paradox_progressives_cant_trust_her_and_thats_a_good_thing/>// Salon // Elias Isquith – May 11, 2015The Hillary Clinton paradox: Progressives can’t trust her — and that’s agood thingBecause I care about my readers and don’t want them to pollute their mindswith meaningless political ephemera any more than being a good citizenabsolutely requires, I hope this comes as news to you — but, last week, theNew York Times and CBS published a new poll on how the public views formersecretary of state and current presidential candidate Hillary RodhamClinton (HRC). There were two big takeaways for the 2016 frontrunner, bothof which could be reasonably seen by left-wing activists as good omens forthe months and maybe years to come.The poll’s most striking discovery pertained to how voters felt aboutClinton’s handling of her email while at Foggy Bottom, which was eitherunnecessarily secretive or downright sketchy. I got into some argumentswith other folks in the media about how much voters actually cared aboutthis story; so forgive me my vanity, but I can’t help but note that duringthe weeks following the press’s wall-to-wall coverage of “emailgate,”Clinton’s favorability actually went up. And it wasn’t just a littlestatistical blip; it was an increase of nine full points. (On this score,then, picture me as Nelson Muntz.)The poll’s second notable finding, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly so muchof a boon to Clinton supporters. According to CBS and the Times, fewer thanhalf of respondents described her as “honest and trustworthy”; and thatnumber was only near the 50 percent mark because around 80 percent ofDemocrats answered in the affirmative. This issue of HRC’s trustworthinesshas been the thin reed on which many of the loudest promoters of theemailgate pseudo-scandal have hung their arguments. But as RonaldBrownstein writes in National Journal, a Clinton has already won the WhiteHouse before while being seen as less than entirely untrustworthy.However, just because American doubts about her honesty are unlikely tokeep HRC out of the White House, that doesn’t mean that her image on thisscore is irrelevant. What it means instead is that Clinton’s low margin forerror on trust will manifest in harder to perceive ways during her campaignand hypothetical presidency. For example, look at President Obama and Sen.Elizabeth Warren’s argument over fast-tracking the Trans-PacificPartnership (TPP). It’s the kind of debate Obama is having with those onhis left — a debate over progressive bona fides — that a President Clintonprobably will not.If you’re unfamiliar with the battle over TPP and the fast-track option,I’d recommend this Wall Street Journal post as an OK, mostly objectiveprimer. The short version, though, is that Obama wants Congress to granthim expanded powers to negotiate the biggest free-trade agreement sinceNAFTA and to do so without having to worry about folks in the House orSenate larding-up the agreement with amendments. Instead of lettingCongress get into the weeds of the deal, Obama would prefer they leave itto him and then ultimately give what he comes up with a simple yea-or-nayvote. Along with most liberal and labor organizations, Warren is opposed.Yet what matters for our purposes isn’t the TPP so much as the way Warrenand Obama, arguably liberal America’s two favorite politicians, have beenfighting about it through the media. From the very beginning, Obama hasrelied on a rhetorical strategy that can be boiled down to one essentialquestion: Don’t you trust me to do the right thing? “When people say thatthis trade deal is bad for working families,” he said in late-April, “Itake that personally. My entire presidency has been about helping workingfamilies.” Just this weekend, he used similar phrasing, saying he’d “haveto be pretty stupid” to support a deal that imperiled the middle class theway Warren claims the TPP does.The biggest reason why Obama has been able to adopt this strategy canprobably be found in a Gallup poll released earlier this month. On thatquestion of trustworthiness, the president fares well, especially by thestandards of our polarized era: 53 percent of respondents say “honest andtrustworthy” applies to Obama, while just 45 percent disagree. That’s not aGrand Canyon’s worth of distance apart from HRC’s 48 percent, of course.But it is enough to make the White House feel relatively confident thatliberals are willing to trust the president — and to make Warren skip overObama and raise concerns about what the next (possibly Republican)president might do with fast-track’s powers.On the trail (as well as in the White House, if she wins) Clinton will bemuch more constricted. Yes, she’s very popular with self-identifiedliberals; and, yes, like Obama’s, much of her negative numbers ontrustworthiness are the product of overwhelmingly disdain fromconservatives. But while Democrats may on the whole approve of HRC, theydon’t necessarily trust her, at least not yet. That means that Clinton willbe much more poorly equipped to argue in the face of a challenge from herleft that liberals should relax and trust her to do the right thing. Foranyone who wants to see Sen. Bernie Sanders succeed in pulling her to theleft during the primary — or see Sen. Elizabeth Warren pulling her to theleft if she’s in the White House — this is a plus.All of that being said, there’s still a good chance that, by the time 2016really kicks-in and voters are paying attention, the reality ofpolarization in American politics will bump HRC’s numbers ontrustworthiness and honesty closer to where the president’s are today. Andeven without that development, pushing Clinton from her left will be harderon issues where left-wing anger over her husband’s record isn’t quite soclose to the surface (Obama is desperate to separate TPP from NAFTA for areason). But if Brownstein is right, and HRC wins despite a majority ofvoters not exactly trusting her completely, it could be something of awin-win for liberal activists. Not only would they get a non-Republicanpresident, but they’d get one with a stronger desire than the currentincumbent to prove she’s one of them.Clinton campaign’s dilemma: What to do with Bill?<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-the-clintons-a-big-question-what-to-do-with-bill/2015/05/10/1f5b6212-f4db-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html>// WaPo // Phillips Rucker – May 11, 2015MARRAKESH, Morocco — The scene that unfolded here last week as Bill Clintonconvened world leaders for a philanthropic conference was hardly what hiswife’s champion-for-everyday-Americans campaign would have ordered up.Gathered in Marrakesh for a Clinton Global Initiative confab, foreignoligarchs and corporate titans mingled amid palm trees, decorative poolsand dazzling tiled courtyards with the former president and his travelingdelegation of foundation donors — many of whom are also donors to HillaryRodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.When daughter Chelsea moderated a discussion on women’s empowerment, theonly male panelist was Morocco’s richest person, Othman Benjelloun, whoseBMCE Bank is a CGI sponsor. For the week’s biggest party, guests werechauffeured across the city to an opulent 56-room palace that boasts aprivate collection of Arabian horses, overlooks the snow-capped AtlasMountains and serves a fine-dining menu of “biolight” cuisine.Ahead of that event, Bill Clinton greeted Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal.“See you tonight, Turki,” he told his royal highness.It was a long way from Hillary Clinton’s campaign-trail visits to Chipotle.The luxe week in Morocco highlighted the over­arching question facing theClintons and their co­existing circles of political advisers: What to dowith Bill?The question applies not only to the campaign but also to his role as firstgentleman if she gets elected.In a presidential race that could include two dozen candidates, none has aspouse like Bill Clinton — a former president whose sprawling charitableventures are rife with potential conflicts of interest; an admired publicfigure whose common touch propelled his rise but who now charges up to$500,000 to give a speech; a curious ideas man whose penchant for speakinghis mind drives news cycles; and a globe-trotting icon whose recognizabletuft of white hair draws onlookers everywhere, from his old Arkansas hauntsto the bustling souks around Marrakesh’s central square.Bill Clinton is a political animal who logged 168,000 miles on the campaigntrail in 2014. Yet senior aides say he does not plan to do any campaignactivities for his wife in 2015, including fundraisers for her campaign orallied super PACs. He has said privately that she should lead the campaignon her own, aides said.“He’s completely focused right now on the foundation,” said Tina Flournoy,Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. “That does not mean that he does not realizehis wife is running for president. But he is not directly engaged in thecampaign. As he has said before, if his advice is asked for, he’s happy togive it.”But even if he’s off the campaign trail, Bill Clinton is never out of thelimelight. He will remain prominent in the public eye with a busy scheduleof appearances, including visits this week to a Harlem food festival andnext month to Little Rock for a charity ball. In mid-June, he will be inDenver to host CGI America, a domestic-themed spinoff of his foundationconference.On Tuesday, he’ll be on the “Late Show with David Letterman.”He will also speak for pay at Univision’s presentation to advertisers inNew York on Tuesday. The prominent Spanish-language television network isowned in part by Haim Saban, a foundation and campaign donor who hosted afundraiser for Hillary Clinton last week at his Beverly Hills mansion.One strategist said Hillary Clinton, shown here with Bill Clinton andformer senator Tom Harkin, should not campaign with her husband: “It’s hardto shine when you’re standing next to the sun.” (CharlieNeibergall/Associated Press)“Bill Clinton is like nuclear energy,” said David Axelrod, a strategist onPresident Obama’s campaigns. “If you use it properly, it can be enormouslyhelpful and proactive. If you misuse it, it can be catastrophic.”‘A supporting spouse’Keeping the former president at a distance is one way the 2016 Clintoncampaign is trying to prove it has learned from the mistakes of 2008.Although as her aides know well, it is impossible to truly isolate him fromher campaign.“He is a very smart political strategist and practitioner,” said Ann Lewis,a longtime Hillary Clinton adviser. “He has never thought that politics isbeneath him. He believes that politics is the way that we govern ourselves.”Bill Clinton has many assets. He is universally known and unusuallypopular; 73 percent of voters approved of his job performance as presidentin a Washington Post-ABC News poll in March, while his personalfavorability rating stood at 65 percent in a CNN-ORC poll in March. He alsois considered one of the Democratic Party’s most talented communicators;his 2012 convention speech was a standout moment in support of Obama’sreelection.“Any conversation about Bill Clinton and his impact on the campaign has tostart with the fact that Americans like him and they’ve liked him for along time,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster for Hillary Clinton’s 2008campaign who now works for Priorities USA, a pro-Clinton super PAC.But as Bill Clinton showed in 2008, he can be an undisciplined and roguesurrogate. Some of the ugliest episodes in his wife’s campaign were hismaking, including his stray remarks about Obama that angered black votersin South Carolina and his behind-the-scenes meddling in the campaign’sstrategy.Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who feuded with Bill Clinton in 2008 overwhat he saw as race-baiting, said in a recent interview that the formerpresident should be “a supporting spouse” this time around.“He should refrain from doing anything or saying anything that would takethe attention off of her candidacy,” said Clyburn, who has not endorsedanyone in the 2016 race. “It’s got to be about Hillary. It’s got to beabout her vision, and he’s got to be supportive of that.”Axelrod, recalling the Clintons’ joint appearance in the fall at retiringSen. Tom Harkin’s steak fry in Iowa, said it would be foolish for them tocampaign together regularly. “It’s hard to shine when you’re standing nextto the sun,” he said recently. “He’s a luminescent character, and it isdiminishing to have him out there at her side.”Aides insisted that Bill Clinton is not calling up campaign aides,devouring polls or mapping out strategies. The campaign has no “Billwhisperer” tasked with managing him, although Flournoy is in regularcontact with top aides at Hillary Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters. Theformer president also has long-standing relationships with campaignchairman John D. Podesta and other advisers.The Clintons speak to each other often, sometimes multiple times a day, butusually about personal matters and rarely about the nity-gritty of herrace, aides said. Some days, he doesn’t know where she’s campaigning. Andon the Africa trip, he was more attuned to the British elections — glued tothe BBC — than to her campaign.One afternoon in April, Bill Clinton looked up at a television in hismidtown Manhattan office and saw the grainy security-camera photo of hiswife and her aide, Huma Abedin, at a Chipotle in Ohio, appearing incognitoin dark sunglasses. He turned to aides and wondered, “What are she and Humadoing? Are they robbing that place?”Far away, but still making newsAs Hillary Clinton raised money in California last week, Bill Clinton wasabout as far away as he could get, visiting the family foundation’sprojects in Africa and convening the CGI meeting in Morocco.Yet he was still making big headlines. In an interview with NBC News inKenya, he appeared testy while defending the foundation’s foreignfundraising. He also said he would continue giving six-figure paidspeeches: “I’ve got to pay our bills,” he said, sounding out of touch,considering he has reported earning $105 million in speaking fees over 12years.There were other awkward moments as well. As Bill Clinton wrapped up theCGI meeting in Morocco, a top Coca-Cola executive joined him onstage toannounce a $4.5 million program to help African youths obtain job skillsand career counseling.Then Curtis A. Ferguson, the company’s regional president, shifted to thesales pitch. “I hope they’re thirsty,” he said, referring to the youngAfricans. Then he said he wanted to “share a Coke with Bill,” pulling out aCoke bottle inscribed with the former president’s first name in Arabic.They posed for photos holding the bottle, smiling.But much of the Africa trip — which stretched for 10 days and includedstops in Tanzania, Kenya, Liberia and Morocco — was aimed at showcasing thegood works of the foundation and its partners.At a hearing-aid fitting in Kenya, Bill Clinton witnessed a young manhearing the voice of his sister for the first time. In Tanzania, he metfarmer Wazia Chawala, a single mother with seven children, who withfoundation help has improved crop yields with modern soil, seed andcrop-rotation techniques.Clinton also visited a drab Nairobi laboratory, where he listened to apresentation on tracking carbon emissions and rainfall patterns so farmerscould improve their yields. When he asked the donors with him if they hadany questions, Drew Houston, the chief executive of Dropbox, asked, “Whatwere your biggest technical challenges?”For Clinton and his staff, it was a proud moment of synergy — the founderof one of the world’s largest cloud-computing companies asking a Kenyan labtechnician a question about uploading data to the cloud.Clinton, who declined a request to be interviewed for this report, isgrappling with what the future might hold. He is continuing to raise moneyfor the foundation, where his daughter has assumed a greater leadershiprole. Last year, the foundation raised a $250 million endowment to providelong-term stability in his absence.His advisers understand that the foundation’s activities could complicate aHillary Clinton presidency.“In his heart and mind, I think he wants there to always be a scenariowhere his foundation is doing the work that he’s deeply invested in,”Flournoy said. “How does that look, and what does experience and time andhistory mean you might have to change? We don’t know. But this is hislife’s work.”‘What does she want me to do?’Bill Clinton says his role would be determined by his wife. “What does shewant me to do?” he said in an interview last week with CNN’s ChristianeAmanpour. “I have no idea.”One option is that Hillary Clinton could draft him as a special envoysomewhere or give him a portfolio in her administration. He is continuallyfascinated by science, aides said, and lately has been thinking aboutcreating a fairer economy. He also has talked about bringing togethercorporate partners to rebuild Baltimore after last month’s riots.A return of the Clintons to the White House would also usher in a blurringof traditional gender roles, not to mention titles: Bill Clinton’s aidesstill refer to him as “the president.”“Even if he were assigned the responsibility of picking out china, I thinkothers would probably overrule him on taste,” said Skip Rutherford, alongtime adviser and friend. “People used to kid him about picking out hiscrazy ties. I can’t imagine.”The closest historical parallel is Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. DuringFranklin’s presidency, Eleanor earned personal income from paid speeches,newspaper columns and a weekly radio show, which was sponsored by Simmonsmattresses, said Carl Anthony, a historian at the National First Ladies’Library. He said she gave most of her income to the March of DimesFoundation, which her husband founded to combat polio.“She made a lot of money on her own, but not without a congressionalinvestigation and media attacks on her commercializing the presidency,”Anthony said.Fred Wertheimer, president of the reform group Democracy 21, said thecouple should completely withdraw from the charity if Hillary Clinton wins:“Change the name of the foundation, and make a clean break.”Foundation supporters believe otherwise.“It would probably be one of the greatest wastes of human talent in thehistory of the world” for Bill Clinton to withdraw, said Jay Jacobs, amajor donor who traveled with him to Africa. “How do you say to these poorfarmers, to mothers whose children can’t hear, ‘Sorry, no more becausepolitics can’t abide by it?’ That would be morally wrong.”Kevin Sieff in Nairobi contributed to this report.Former Clinton Advisor: Bill Looks ‘Washed-Out And Washed-Up’<http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/11/former-clinton-advisor-bill-looks-washed-out-and-washed-up/>// Daily Caller // Scott Greer – May 11, 2015Former Bill Clinton advisor and television personality Dick Morris thinkshis old boss isn’t looking too good these days.“I didn’t recognize the character that was on TV,” Morris said of BillClinton’s recent interview with NBC News in a video released Monday. “Hewas washed-out, he was listless, he was apathetic, he was very slow-talkingand even slower thinking!” (RELATED: MSNBC Panelists: Bill Clinton’sRemarks ‘Will Come Back To Haunt’ Him, Are ‘Out Of Touch’ [VIDEO])The man who helped manage Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign tookparticular issue with how the former president ineffectively responded tothe issue surrounding his $500,000 salary from the Clinton Foundation — aquestion he should’ve anticipated.“He tried a couple of others [answers] but then he settled on the patheticanswer: ‘I have to pay my bills!’” Morris said. “C’mon? Who’s going to betaken in by that?”The political consultant continued his criticism of the lacklusterperformance of Clinton and believes his “muddled thinking” is a result ofsomeone who “is not all there.”“His mind was not agile, it wasn’t energetic, he wasn’t forceful and Ireally just wondered what happened to the guy,” Morris commented. “I’mconcerned about him, worried about him, I’m also disappointed. I thinkyou’re dealing with somebody who really is not all there.”The ex-Clinton confidant thinks this spells bad news for Hillary Clintonand her bid for the White House.“She’s losing her best advisor, she’s losing her top consultant. They madequite the team and I don’t think Bill Clinton is up to this game.”OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGEO’Malley plans 4 stops in NH Wednesday<http://www.wmur.com/politics/omalley-plans-4-stops-in-nh-wednesday/32952016>// WMUR // May 11, 2015MANCHESTER, N.H. —Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has four NewHampshire stops planned for Wednesday. The Democrat will begin the day witha diner stop in Manchester at a location to be announced, followed by avisit to the Alpha Loft, a business incubator, also in Manchester.O’Malley will attend a private fundraiser for the New Hampshire HouseDemocratic Caucus at midday and then attend a party at the Durham home offormer executive councilor Dudley Dudley. Later, O’Malley will campaign inRockingham County with Maureen Mann, a candidate for the New HampshireHouse of Representatives in an upcoming special election.De Blasio ‘Can’t Think of Anything More Important’ Than going to D.C.<http://observer.com/2015/05/de-blasio-cant-think-of-anything-more-important-than-going-to-d-c/>// Observer // Will Bredderman – May 11, 2015Mayor Bill de Blasio maintained that his trip tomorrow to the nation’scapital to unveil “The Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality” withother leading liberals is important and appropriate to his duties as mayor,despite complaints that he is neglecting the bread-and-butter issues ofevery day New Yorkers.Talking to the press today after an unrelated event in Queens, Mr. deBlasio defended making a two-day jaunt to promote his left-leaning idealsin Washington D.C.—viewed as a move to elevate his personal profilenationally—while making only infrequent visits to conservative enclaves ofhis own city, such as Staten Island. He asserted repeatedly that part ofthe trip was to call for the renewal of federal transportation funding,which is due to expire at the end of the month, as well as lobby for otherpolicies such as progressive taxation reduce the gap between rich and poor.“I can’t think of anything more important. I’ll be doing that over the nextcouple of days because now is the right time to do it,” he said, notingthat many criticized his ambitious agenda as a mayoral candidate in 2013 asbeyond the reach of a mayor. “We need a federal partner. And we are goingto create, I think, some real critical mass tomorrow pushing for thesebigger solutions in Washington.”Mr. de Blasio argued that mayors since his hero Fiorello LaGuardia—whom hesaid he sought to emulate in his own “humble” way—have rallied with theircounterparts from other cities to request federal money for urban concerns.The transportation bill push, he said, was simply part of that tradition.“We have a real bipartisan effort with mayors from across the country onWednesday, working with the business community, working with chambers ofcommerce from around the country, working with folks, businesses depend onbetter transportation, to push the Congress for more funding,” he said.“Let’s face it, where so much of the energy is, where so much of theresources are, they’re in Washington. The situation now in Washington isunacceptable. It’s not helping New York City, it’s not helping citiesacross the country. We’ve got to break through in some way.”“We’ve got to change the dynamic so we can get the federal support we need,and we’ve got to do the work here every day, and my job is to do both,” hecontinued.Mr. de Blasio’s approval rating has long hovered around 50 percent and isracially polarized. He is still popular with black voters but increasinglyunpopular with whites.Nonetheless, Mr. de Blasio will seek to take a national leadership rolewhen he joins top liberals like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren andNobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz in unveiling a left-leaningagenda for the nation on Wednesday. He has maintained, however, that rumorshe will launch a long-shot bid for the presidency next year arefalse—rumors he denied again today.“No,” he said resolutely. “I said I have one job: mayor of New York City. Ilook forward to running for re-election in 2017.”Bill De Blasio, Elizabeth Warren escalate pressure on Hillary Clinton<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/bill-de-blasio-elizabeth-warren-hillary-clinton-2016-117837.html>// Politico // Gabriel Debenedetti – May 11, 2015Like Elizabeth Warren, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio isn’t running forpresident — he’s running to influence the presidential race.So when he and Warren appear together at the National Press Club inWashington before unveiling his Contract with America for the left, it willbe the latest step in the Democrats’ primary within the primary: liberals’effort to figure out how to push Hillary Clinton to the left.The primary within the primary may prove more challenging for Clinton thanthe real thing, in which she’s leading competitors by up to 50 points insome polls.James Carville, the longtime Clinton adviser, compared de Blasio’s effortsto the Club for Growth pressuring Republicans to move to the right ontaxes: “It’s a natural thing that happens in presidential politics,” hesaid.Nonetheless, the progressive mayor’s swing through the capital is designedto kick the Democratic debate up a notch just as Warren escalates her ownfight with President Barack Obama in a trade dispute that’s also entangledClinton. But it will also represent a balancing act, as de Blasio —Clinton’s former Senate campaign manager — looks to influence thediscussion without directly opposing the dominating front-runner.After his joint appearance with Warren, de Blasio will stand alongsideliberal lawmakers and labor leaders on Capitol Hill to roll out a policywish-list. Progressives close to de Blasio say the hard part will be layingdown an achievable marker for candidates — including Clinton — while stillapplying enough pressure to get their attention.“The challenge is that a lot of this will just get a head nod” fromClinton, said one progressive Democratic leader.As they maneuver for influence, Warren and de Blasio have taken up much ofthe oxygen from the party’s actual candidates, grabbing headlines andjumping in the policy trenches — in de Blasio’s case going as far as toeffectively hit the campaign trail before revealing his “ProgressiveAgenda” on Tuesday.But with the former secretary of state claiming commanding leads innational and state-level polling, in many cases performing better amongliberals than among all registered Democrats, the question of how best todrag her to the left without alienating her is still outstanding.Clinton’s team is quick to predict that another candidate will reach atleast 30 percent of the vote in Iowa, the first state with a 2016 contest,much of it coming from Democrats who would like to see Warren run. Thatconcern partially explains Clinton’s recent leftward shifts on issuesincluding immigration reform and criminal justice. Meanwhile, her campaignhas remained in contact with liberal groups like the Progressive ChangeCampaign Committee, which is encouraging Clinton to embrace expandingSocial Security and a debt-free college plan.But so far, Clinton stands far ahead of her likely competitors — VermontSen. Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former VirginiaSen. Jim Webb, and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee — in polling,reducing pressure on her to appease liberals.In that vacuum, Warren and de Blasio have sought to position themselves asking-makers among activists in early-voting and swing states, a role deBlasio has pursued by stopping in Iowa and Wisconsin. His “ProgressiveAgenda” is designed to be broad enough for Clinton and other Democrats toembrace whole-heartedly: he is expected to call for universalpre-kindergarten, a higher minimum wage, and a paid family leave policy —all of which Clinton has mentioned favorably in recent months.And de Blasio’s Wednesday roll-out follows a similar speech in late Aprilby AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka — an address that read like a warning memoto Clinton about how to gain crucial union support.“Standing with working people once in a while won’t work. Candidates can’thedge bets any longer,” said Trumka on April 27.The Clinton campaign named a Labor Outreach Director on April 28.The mayor’s stop in Washington comes at a time when Clinton has been caughtbetween Obama and Warren over supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnershiptrade agreement she helped negotiate as secretary of state. Warren andObama traded barbs over the weekend, as the president told Yahoo NewsWarren is “a politician like everybody else” when trying to explain heropposition to the trade deal.Clinton has avoided weighing in on the topic, only vaguely describingrestrictions she would put on a deal rather than firmly opposing it.Trade is just one policy where liberals are seeking to get more clarityfrom Clinton, particularly as Sanders intensifies his campaign schedule andO’Malley — who has recently focused on Wall Street reform and debt-freecollege — nears his expected late-May campaign launch.The bar is low for Clinton to satisfy liberals in many cases, but she stillfaces some risk of alienating more centrist voters she might need inNovember 2016.“Two areas where words alone do make a difference are expanding socialsecurity and debt-free college,” explained the PCCC’s Adam Green, pointingto a recent interview where her campaign manager mentioned the latter. “Ifshe were to give a speech or even send a tweet mentioning them, that wouldshift the entire national discussion.”Thus, Warren and de Blasio have shown few signs of letting up. The formermayor has pointedly refused to endorse her, and Warren has declined to askthe various organizations aiming to draft her into the race to stand down.And de Blasio’s national travels aren’t ending on Tuesday. His next stop,on Wednesday, will be in Silicon Valley — 3,000 miles from Manhattan.Elizabeth Warren fires back at Obama … again<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/elizabeth-warren-obama-trade-fight-117809.html>// Politico // Karey Van Hall – May 11, 2015The war of wrong continues.Sen. Elizabeth Warren hit back at President Barack Obama in an interviewpublished on Monday, saying she is justified in her criticism of tradenegotiations that she believes could undermine the Dodd-Frank financialreform law.The tit-for-tat comes after Obama over the weekend again asserted thatWarren is “absolutely wrong” in arguing that fast-track authority for tradedeals could be a boon for Wall Street.Warren, in an interview with the Washington Post, said fast-track authoritygives a future Republican president a better path for undermining financialreforms because it would only require 51 votes in the Senate instead of 60.She also said Dodd-Frank can be undercut through other measures besidesstraight legislation, such as international agreements on capital standardsand leverage ratios.“It’s possible to punch holes in Dodd-Frank without directly repealing it,”she said.Warren and Obama have been long-time allies in public on consumer issues,but the trade deal has seemingly eroded their relationship.In the interview published on Monday, Warren again accused Obama of notbeing forthcoming about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact that hisadministration is negotiating with 11 other countries.“If the president is so confident it’s a good deal, he should declassifythe text and let people see it before asking Congress to tie its hands onfixing it,” she said.Why Hillary Clinton needs Elizabeth Warren<http://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8583313/hillary-clinton-elizabeth-warren> //Vox // Ezra Klein – May 11, 2015Elizabeth Warren has pulled off something remarkable in the Democraticprimary: she’s managed to set the terms of the challenge to Hillary Clintonwithout actually entering the race and challenging Clinton herself.In part, this is because Warren’s agenda has been defined down from veryspecific ideas about financial regulation to a pretty generic form ofeconomic populism. When Hillary Clinton mentioned that “the average CEOmakes about 300 times what the average worker makes” and said “the deck isstacked in favor of the powerful,” the New York Times wrote that she was”embracing the ideas trumpeted by Ms. Warren.”This is really just standard-issue Democratic populism. As it happens,Clinton used that CEO pay statistic in her 2008 campaign, too. But Warrenhas become so synonymous with the populist wing of the Democratic Partythat Democrats sounding like Democrats gets reported as Democrats soundinglike Elizabeth Warren. And that’s great news for Hillary Clinton, becauseit sets up a test she can easily pass.On economic policy, Clinton is pretty liberal. Her last presidentialcampaign was full of rhetoric that you could imagine in any Bernie Sandersor Elizabeth Warren speech today:Over the 12-month period that just ended in July, the slow growth in wagesactually accounted for more than two-thirds of the increase in corporateprofits. What does that mean? Well, the profits go up, but unlike everyother time in our history, the CEOs and the boards of these companies arenot sharing the wealth. So companies are actually profiting off of keepingworkers’ wages stagnant … In 2005, the last year I could find the numbersfor, all income gains went to the top 10 percent of households, while thebottom 90 percent saw their incomes decline. That is not the America that Igrew up in.”Hillary was talking about inequality and wage stagnation before it was invogue,” says Neera Tanden, who served as policy director on Clinton’s 2008campaign and now leads the Center for American Progress. “She was ahead ofthis debate, not behind it.”If the question of the 2016 Democratic primary is whether Hillary Clintoncan sound like a populist, and adopt more populist policies, she’s going toanswer it with ease. Compared with the status quo, Clinton pretty muchagrees with Sanders, with Warren, and with every other liberal: she wantshigher taxes on the rich, more social spending, a tighter social safetynet, a public option for health insurance, stronger financial regulationsthan what Congress actually passed, and so on.There might be individual policies on which Warren or Sanders go furtherthan Clinton — Sanders, for instance, supports single-payer health care —but on most economic issues, Clinton is well to the left of current policyand to the left of the average voter. And on specific issues like financialregulation, she’s willing to go further than many expect: she has alreadynamed Gary Gensler, a tough financial regulator, to be her campaign’s chieffinancial officer.There’s just not going to be that much room to her left on economic policy.But there is a lot of room to her left on other issues — and these aredisagreements that the Warrenization of the Democratic primary is helpingto obscure.GOPFirst GOP debate: Aug. 6 in Cleveland<http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/first-gop-debate-aug-in-cleveland-206951.html>// Politico // Dylan Byers – May 11, 2015The first Republican primary debate will take place on Aug. 6 in Cleveland,the Northeast Ohio Media Group reports.The debate, sponsored by Fox News, will take place at the Quicken LoansArena (or, “The Q”), home to the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. The Q is alsothe site of next year’s Republican National Convention, which is scheduledfor July 2016.Fox News is expected to formally announce the date and venue within thenext few days. Spokespeople for both Fox News and the Republican NationalCommittee did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Mondaynight.The RNC has sanctioned nine primary debates for the 2016 campaign, with thepossibility of adding three more. It had previously announced that thefirst debate would take place in August in Ohio, though the exact day andlocation were unknown.Last week, an NBC News spokesperson told the On Media blog that the lastsanctioned Republican primary debate would take place in Houston on Feb.26, 2016, just four days before Super Tuesday. That debate is beingsponsored by NBC News and Telemundo in partnership with National Journal.Fox News and CNN have each been granted two debates this cycle with thepossibility of a third. The three broadcast networks — ABC, CBS and NBC —have each been given one debate, as have Fox Business and CNBC.The Democratic National Party has sanctioned six primary debates, though ithas yet to name the sponsors.Jeb Bush Says He Wouldn’t Repeal Obama’s Immigration Actions Right Away<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-11/jeb-bush-says-he-wouldn-t-repeal-obama-s-immigration-actions-right-away>// Bloomberg Politics // Michael C. Bender – May 11, 2015He may be a staunch critic of President Obama’s executive orders onimmigration, but Jeb Bush wouldn’t rush to repeal them if he’s the nextWhite House resident.In an interview scheduled to air Monday night on Fox News, Bush suggestedthat he would wait until a new law was in place before overturning Obama’sactions.Noting the political difficulty of repealing the orders, host Megyn Kellyasked Bush how he would go about undoing them. “Passing meaningful reformof immigration and make it part of it,” Bush answered, according to atranscript of the interview. The interview will air in full on The KellyFile at 9 p.m.Bush, who hasn’t yet formally entered the presidential race, also defendedhis support for giving undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses and theirchildren in-state tuition, saying, “If you’ve been here for an extendedperiod of time, you have no nexus to the country of your parents.””What what are we supposed to do? Marginalize these people forever?” Bushsaid.Bush insisted that his support for providing undocumented immigrants a pathto legalization wouldn’t be a deal-breaker for voters in the GOP primary,saying Republican voters “can be persuaded.” Bush suggested he’s showingstronger leadership than the rest of the field by defending his position,which includes strengthening border security, limiting those who canimmigrate because of family ties, and expanding the number of immigrantswho come for economic reasons.”Do you want people to just bend with the wind, to mirror people’ssentiment whoever is in front of you? Oh, yes, I used to be for that butnow, I’m for this. Is that the way we want to elect presidents?” Bushsaid.Bush has regularly criticized Obama’s executive actions on immigration,saying the Democrat exceeded the constitutional authority of the nation’shighest elected office, and has promised to repeal those changes, includingone that protects those brought to the country as children, if he’s electedpresident. But Bush, who is married to a Mexican American woman andsupports legalizing many of the 11 million undocumented workers in thecountry, hasn’t said whether he’d make those changes without Congress firstpassing a comprehensive immigration bill. Such a move, which HouseRepublicans supported last year, would put millions of otherwiselaw-abiding immigrants at risk of deportation.The Assets and Liabilities of Jeb Bush<http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-assets-and-liabilities-of-jeb-bush-1431359095>// WSJ // Gerald F. Seib – May 11, 2015Five months ago this week, Jeb Bush got a beat on the world by announcinghe was forming a committee to explore running for president. That meansenough time has passed to frame the Bush paradox: He is the establishmentfavorite in a party that almost always picks that candidate, but has walkedinto an election cycle in which that isn’t necessarily the case.The powerful assets Mr. Bush brings to the table have been on full displaysince his December move. He can raise prodigious amounts of money from theparty’s business and finance wings, and enjoys the backing of many GOPpower brokers and most of his family’s network of supporters. He is anarticulate candidate with a conservative record as Florida’s governor, yetcrossover appeal to moderates. He is better than other governors and formergovernors at discussing the national-security issues that are rising on GOPvoters’ priority list.But as the weeks have gone by, it’s also been easy to see Mr. Bush’sproblems within his party. Conservative skepticism is higher than someanticipated, based largely on his support for Common Core educationstandards and broad immigration reforms. Rival candidates— Mike Huckabeeand Sen. Rand Paul in particular—have tapped into an antiestablishmentstrain within the party that works against Mr. Bush. The loss of twoelections to Barack Obama has left some yearning for a generational changethat is being exploited by—ironically enough—Sen. Marco Rubio, something ofa Jeb Bush protégé.Any rational analysis has to rate Mr. Bush as the slight favorite within anexceptionally crowded field of Republican contenders, though it’s way tooearly to draw definitive conclusions. What is possible, based on ananalysis of polling data and the shape of the race ahead, is to define twosignificant problems Mr. Bush faces, as well as two big advantages:First, the problems:The Republican party has changed. Since his brother and father wereelected, the party has become more populist and has been altered by therise of the tea-party movement and the absorption of its messages and footsoldiers.In a broad examination of party-identification trends, Public OpinionStrategies, a Republican polling firm that helps conduct the Wall StreetJournal/NBC News survey, found that the party’s three largest subgroups noware tea-party supporters, self-identified conservatives and whiteSoutherners. Moreover, in the last few years, the Republican party hasbecome more male in composition.These trends don’t necessarily work to Mr. Bush’s favor. In the latest WallStreet Journal/NBC News poll, he is the top choice among Republicansoverall, by a small margin, but scores somewhat better among women thanamong men, better among moderates than among conservatives, and is the topchoice of just 6% of self-described tea-party supporters.The Romney experience left a bitter aftertaste. The nomination, followed bythe defeat, of Mitt Romney in 2012 has left some Republicans questioningthe party’s tendency to nominate the big name whose time has come.Democrats didn’t do that when they picked Barack Obama over Hillary Clintonin 2008, the argument goes, and they won the White House twice as a result.Mr. Bush isn’t quite the same next-in-line choice that Mr. Romney was.Still, the Romney experience has opened the way for rivals such as Sen. TedCruz to argue that Republicans lose general elections because they don’texcite and turn out their conservative base. While that analysis is open toquestion, the Journal/NBC News poll found Mr. Bush behind both Sen. Pauland Sen. Cruz among Republican primary voters who didn’t vote for Mr.Romney.Here are two big Bush advantages:The conservative anti-Bush vote is being splintered. There is no singlepopulist/antiestablishment/tea-party/evangelical alternative to Mr. Bush,but rather a whole series of them. That reduces the chances that any onerival can, at least for a while, reach the critical mass necessary to beseen as the singular alternative. Which leads to the second big advantage:A long nomination contest benefits Jeb Bush. The longer a fight goes on,the more important it is to have a lot of money to wage it. Mr. Bush istops in that category.More than that, Mr. Bush has a plausible answer to conservative criticismof his support for Common Core education standards—that he’s for highstandards at the state level, not federal coercion in imposing them—thatwill benefit from more time and opportunity to deliver it.And to the extent the nominating contest moves into big swing states on theMarch and April calendar—Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania—itwill reach relatively more natural Bush voters than may be found in some ofthe early states. A marathon may suit Jeb Bush just fine.Jeb Bush leans on nonprofit group as he prepares likely presidential run<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jeb-bush-leans-on-nonprofit-group-as-he-prepares-likely-presidential-run/2015/05/11/db20d700-f81b-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html?postshare=7201431382177068>// Washington Post // Ed O’Keefe and Matea Gold – May 11, 2015A nonprofit group allied with former Florida governor Jeb Bush is playing amore expansive role in his current political operation than previouslyknown, housing several top policy advisers who are expected to join hiseventual campaign, according to people familiar with the structure.At least four people with expertise on energy issues, foreign affairs andcommunications are working with Right to Rise Policy Solutions, a nonprofitadvocacy group that can accept secret, unlimited donations from individualsand corporations.Bush’s reliance on the non­profit as he prepares for a likely presidentialbid puts him on untested legal ground, cloaking who is paying the salariesof his expected advisers. But a polarized Federal Election Commission isunlikely to scrutinize the maneuver, campaign finance experts said.The latest hire was announced Monday: Michael Steel, a top spokesman forHouse Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said that he was moving to Floridato take a role with the nonprofit group. If Bush officially launches apresidential campaign, Steel would join it, according to people familiarwith the plans who were not authorized to speak publicly.At least three others working for the group are expected to make similarmoves. Marcus Peacock, a former staffer with the Senate Budget Committee,is working with the group on environmental and energy issues. Formercongressional staffers Robert S. Karem and John ­Noonan are advising theformer governor on foreign policy issues as paid consultants to Right toRise Policy Solutions.In a statement, William Simon, the group’s founder, said that if Bushlaunches a campaign, his entity “will continue its education effortsindependent of such campaign.” He confirmed in a separate e-mail that “someof our policy team are on short-term contracts to help get up to speedbuilding policy and creating an informational Web site. As the yearprogresses I expect that some will move on to other opportunities.”Simon is a former Wal-Mart executive and was head of Florida’s Departmentof Management Services during Bush’s second term as governor. In February,Simon established Right to Rise Policy Solutions as a nonprofit corporationin his home state of Arkansas.Having Simon’s nonprofit group temporarily house a team of Bush aides meansthat the public may never know who is paying the salaries of those helpingcraft Bush’s policies right now. Tax-exempt “social welfare” groups such asRight to Rise Policy Solutions can accept unlimited funds from individualsand corporations and are allowed to keep the names of the contributorssecret. Simon has said he may end up disclosing the donors to the group,but it is unclear when that might happen.“The beauty of nonprofits from the standpoint of some donors is that thesource of the money will never see the light of day,” said Kenneth Gross,who heads the political law practice at Skadden Arps. “The entire processis going to be even less transparent than it has been in the past.”Campaign finance experts said the nonprofit’s relationship with Bush islegally risky. A landmark 2002 law bans a candidate from directly orindirectly establishing an organization that is not subject to federalcontribution limits.It is unclear, however, how that would apply to Bush, since he has not yetdeclared his candidacy for the White House. And the FEC is mired in intensepartisan gridlock, making it unlikely that the six-member panel would agreeto pursue the issue.“It seems to me that it is pushing the envelope, but I don’t know whetherthe FEC is going to take any action,” said Gross, a former associategeneral counsel at the commission.Advocates for tougher enforcement of campaign finance rules said thatBush’s aggressive use of a nonprofit in his political operation underminesthe federal contribution limits, which permit individuals to give up to$2,700 to a candidate per election. The former governor has also beenraising money at an intense clip for his allied super PAC, also calledRight to Rise.“This is another example of how he is running roughshod over campaignfinance law,” said Larry Noble, senior counsel at the Campaign LegalCenter. “He is outsourcing what will normally be campaign activity, andhe’s not even admitting he’s testing the waters, which is absurd.”Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman for Bush, said in an e-mail Monday that histeam is “fully complying with the law in all activities Governor Bush isengaging in on the political front and will continue to do so.”Bush is not the first presidential contender to have an allied tax-exemptorganization. A super PAC set up to back President Obama in 2012 had asmaller nonprofit arm, Priorities USA, which ended up giving most of itsmoney away to groups such as Planned Parenthood and Hurricane Sandy reliefefforts before being dissolved, according to tax documents.Other 2016 Republican contenders — including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida,former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, former Texas governor Rick Perry,Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former senator Rick Santorum ofPennsylvania — have aligned nonprofits groups that have conducted polling,developed policy and covered travel expenses.But Bush’s advisers appear to have gone further by parceling out a specificfunction to a tax-exempt group that is expected to flank his eventualcampaign.Steel has served as Boehner’s press secretary since 2008, chieflyresponsible for handling daily interactions with the congressional presscorps and implementing a broader communications strategy, especially duringhigh-stakes negotiations over formation of the “super committee” in 2011,the 2012 “fiscal cliff” and the 2013 government shutdown.Boehner has voiced support for Bush generally in the past but is notexpected to endorse any candidate before a nominee is chosen. He praisedhis outgoing spokesman in a statement on Monday, calling him “a pro’s pro.”Bush favorability rating suffers in new poll<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/241626-bush-favorability-rating-suffers-in-new-poll>// The Hill // Jonathan Easley – May 11, 2015Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) has the worst favorability rating of any ofthe prospective Republican presidential candidates and a majority of votersnationwide say they won’t even consider voting for him, according to a newpoll.The George Washington University poll released on Monday found that only 35percent of voters say they have a favorable of view of Bush, against 48percent who view him negatively.Only 36 percent of voters said they would consider voting for Bush, while60 percent said they would not consider voting for him.The rest of the GOP field has better favorability ratings, but remainslargely unknown.Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is viewed favorably by 22 percent ofvoters, against 19 percent who say they view him negatively. However, 47percent said they don’t know enough about Walker, compared to only 6percent who said the same about Bush.Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is the only other GOP candidate with a positivefavorability rating, with 31 percent saying they view him positively,against 30 percent who have a negative view of him. Twenty-six percent ofvoters said they don’t know enough about Rubio to have an opinion.Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) breaks even on favorability with a34-34 split, while Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is 4 points underwater at 33percent positive and 37 percent negative. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) comes inat 25 percent positive and 33 percent negative.But it’s not just Bush that faces deep skepticism from the electorate atlarge – 55 percent of voters said they wouldn’t consider voting for Paul,Huckabee or Cruz, while 50 percent said the same about Rubio and Walker.Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) is viewed positively by 48percent of voters, while 49 percent say they have a negative view of her.Forty-seven percent of voters said they would consider voting for Clinton,against 51 percent who said they would not.“These GW Battleground Poll results show that the American electorate’sdeep, broad and chronic pessimism about jobs and economic securitytranslates into across-the-board hostility toward the 2016 presidentialcandidates,” Michael Cornfield, the research director for the GW GlobalCenter for Political Engagement said in a statement.“In each and every case, more respondents said they would not considervoting for them than would,” he added. “Campaigners face stiff suspicionsand a preference for political effectiveness over ideological affinity.”The poll of 1,000 registered voters, conducted between May 3 and 6, has amargin of error of 3.1 percentage points.John Boehner press aide Michael Steel takes job with Jeb Bush<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/michael-steele-jeb-bush-pac-117814.html>// Politico // Jake Sherman – May 11, 2015Michael Steel, one of Speaker John Boehner’s top aides, is moving to Miamito work in a “leadership role” for Jeb Bush’s political action committee.Steel has worked as the press secretary for Boehner since 2008, when theOhio Republican was the minority leader of a battered Republican party inthe House. He has guided Boehner’s communications operation for sevenyears, helping craft the strategy that made the Ohio Republican speaker,and subsequently playing a key role advising him in day-to-day governing,including high-stakes negotiations with President Barack Obama.Steel will be an adviser to Bush’s Right to Rise Policy Solutions PAC,“with a leadership role in policy and communications,” according to asource familiar with the role. Right to Rise is the precursor to Bush’sall-but-certain presidential campaign.“Ask anyone in the Capitol – Republican, Democrat, or otherwise – aboutMichael Steel, and they will tell you the same thing: he is a pro’s pro,”Boehner said in a statement to POLITICO. “For more than seven years, I haverelied on his ability to dissect an issue, win a debate, and deal openlyand honestly with the press. He brings nothing but class, decency – andeven cheer – to his work no matter how tough the situation. We would not bewhere we are today without him. All of Boehnerland is sorry to see him go,but we wish Michael the best of luck and we thank him for his service.”Boehner has been clear that he himself is a fan of Bush, and wants theformer Florida governor to run for president.Steel, a graduate of the University of North Carolina and ColumbiaUniversity’s graduate program in journalism, has worked on Capitol Hill fora dozen years. He started in 2003 as the press secretary for former ArizonaRep. John Shadegg.Steel has frequently taken leaves of absence from the Hill to hit thecampaign trail. He was Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) press secretary during the2012 presidential campaign. In 2014, he was a senior adviser to theRepublican Party of North Carolina and helped Sen. Thom Tillis defeat KayHagan.This time, he is leaving Capitol Hill behind.Jeb Bush’s disastrous defense of the Iraq War<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/jeb-bushs-disastrous-defense-of-the-iraq-war/article/2564325?custom_click=rss>// Washington Examiner // Byron York – May 11, 2015Is it possible that in 2016, more than a decade after the invasion of Iraq,the Republican party’s presidential nominee could become bogged down indebating whether the war was the right thing to do? The answer, adepressing one for many in the GOP, is yes — if the nominee is Jeb Bush.Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asked Bush a straightforward, concise question:”Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?” Bush’sanswer was an unhesitating yes.”I would have, and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remindeverybody,” Bush said, “and so would have almost everybody that wasconfronted with the intelligence they got.””You don’t think it was a mistake?” asked Kelly.”In retrospect, the intelligence that everybody saw, that the world saw,not just the United States, was faulty,” Bush answered.Bush’s view of the war is considerably less clear-eyed than that of hisbrother, former President George W. Bush, the man who ordered the invasion.In his memoir, Decision Points, W. wrestled with the dilemma of hisdecision to start a war on the basis of bad intelligence. Only W. did notcall the intelligence “faulty,” as Jeb had. W. called the intelligence”false.””The reality was that I had sent American troops into combat based in largepart on intelligence that proved false,” George W. Bush wrote.Even though W. still argued that the world is “undoubtedly safer” withoutSaddam Hussein, he knew the failure to find the weapons of mass destructionthat he used to justify the invasion was “a massive blow to our credibility— my credibility — that would shake the confidence of the American people.””I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it,” George W. Bushwrote. “I still do.”As for whether Hillary Clinton would have authorized the invasion “knowingwhat we know now” — it’s hard to believe that Jeb Bush is serious when hesays she would. Of course she wouldn’t.Nor would others involved in the decision. For example, look at the accountof another key player in the 2002-03 Iraq debate, top presidential advisorKarl Rove. “Would the Iraq War have occurred without WMD?” Rove asked inhis book, Courage and Consequence. “I doubt it: Congress was very unlikelyto have supported the use-of-force resolution without the threat of WMD.The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways toconstrain Saddam, bring about regime change and deal with Iraq’s horrendoushuman rights violations.”So no, Congress would not have authorized war if lawmakers knew there wereno WMDs.If Jeb Bush sticks to his position — that he would still authorize warknowing what we know today — it will represent a step backward for theRepublican Party. Other candidates before Jeb have grappled with the issueand changed their position. Look at the evolution of the 2012 GOPpresidential nominee, Mitt Romney.In January 2008, Romney said, “It was the right decision to go into Iraq. Isupported it at the time; I support it now.” In 2011, Romney said: “Well,if we knew at the time of our entry into Iraq that there were no weapons ofmass destruction — if somehow we had been given that information, why,obviously we would not have gone in.”So now Jeb Bush takes a step back to support an invasion even in theabsence of WMD.Jeb’s statement is likely to resonate until he either changes his positionor loses the race for the Republican nomination. Should he become thenominee, the issue will dog him into the general election campaign.To his credit, George W. Bush wrestled with the consequences of hisdecision to invade Iraq. Other war supporters were forced to re-think theirpositions, too. In coming days, Jeb Bush will likely have to do the same.Jeb Bush’s Revisionist History of the Iraq War<http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/jeb-bushs-revisionist-history-of-the-iraq-war/>// New York Times // Andrew Rosenthal – May 11, 2015Last week, a spokesman for Jeb Bush, who used to be governor of Florida andis now vacuuming up as much dark money as he can without actuallyannouncing a run for president, tried to unspin a comment Mr. Bush made ina private gathering that suggested he was taking advice about the MiddleEast from his brother, former President George W. Bush.Since it’s hard to think of a foreign-policy success by George Bush in thatregion, it was alarming that the would-be president would take his brotheras his role model. Turns out it’s much worse. Jeb Bush doesn’t seem to havelearned anything from his brother’s failures and he is blithely parrotingthe worst propaganda about the war in Iraq.Asked on Fox News (in an interview to be aired tonight) if he would haveauthorized the invasion of Iraq, knowing what the world now knows, Jeb Bushreplied: “I would have and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remindeverybody. And so would almost everybody that was confronted with theintelligence they got.”Let’s leave aside for a moment that Mr. Bush has no clue what Mrs. Clintonwould have done given her knowledge now about the lack of a security threatto the United States from weapons of mass destruction or anything else inIraq. What he appears to be referring to is the fact that Mrs. Clinton,like most of the Senate, voted in favor of a war resolution after George W.Bush presented Congress with a National Intelligence Estimate that saidSaddam Hussein had active programs in nuclear, chemical and biologicalwarfare.The former president likes to say Congress had the “same intelligence” hehad when they voted to authorize the war, which sounds good, but is notexactly true. George Bush decided to invade Iraq long before the NationalIntelligence Estimate was ever even drafted. Its purpose was not to informpolicymaking, but to fool Congress, the United Nations, the American peopleand the rest of the world into supporting the war.The world now knows that the document was reverse-engineered to suit apolicy that had already been created. The assessments of Saddam Hussein’sweapons programs were wrong, and hotly disputed within the intelligencecommunity at the time; the Bush administration just conveniently forgot tomention that to Congress.Mr. Bush said in his interview: “Once we invaded and took out SaddamHussein we didn’t focus on security first,” a stunning understatement ofthe incompetent way Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld planned the invasion.Jeb Bush added that his brother “thinks those mistakes took place as well.”That may set a new standard for passive shifting of responsibility — evenworse than the classic dodge, “mistakes were made.”All in the Family<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/05/jeb_bush_is_embracing_his_brother_s_invasion_of_iraq_while_hillary_clinton.html>// Slate // Jamelle Bouie – May 11, 2015Hillary Clinton is sprinting away from Bill. In the short month since she’sbeen an official candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination,she’s renounced his criminal justice policies—pledging an end to the “eraof mass incarceration” her husband helped usher—and adopted a carefulskepticism on free trade, versus the enthusiasm of the Clintonadministration. She hasn’t abandoned the former president—Bill will almostcertainly campaign for Hillary—but she’s begun to put space between hercareer and his legacy.The other dynastic candidate in the presidential race, Jeb Bush, is movingin the opposite direction. “If you want to know who I listen to for advice,it’s him,” said Bush of his brother, President George W. Bush. In thisinstance, speaking to a group of Manhattan financiers, he was referencinghis proposed policy toward Israel. But it’s clear Jeb has taken siblingwisdom on a variety of topics. Not only does he sound like his brother onimmigration—he wants a path to “earned legal status” for 11 millionunauthorized immigrants—but he’s on board with his foreign policy as well.When asked if, “knowing what we know now,” he would have authorized theinvasion of Iraq, Jeb Bush said yes. “I would have,” he told Fox Newsanchor Megyn Kelly, “and so would have Hillary Clinton,” he added.Because the question was whether Bush would go to war with today’sinformation—as opposed to 2002’s intelligence—this wasn’t really an answer.Clinton’s vote to authorize the war with the information she had doesn’tmean she would do the same with the information she now has (though,someone should ask). But that’s secondary to the astonishing fact that Bushhas embraced the most disastrous choice of his brother’s administration.To that point, Kelly also asked if Bush thought the war was a mistake. Andhere, his reply was even more interesting. “In retrospect,” Bush said, “theintelligence that everybody saw, that the world saw, not just the UnitedStates, was faulty. And in retrospect, once we invaded and took out SaddamHussein, we didn’t focus on security first, and the Iraqis, in thisincredibly insecure environment turned on the United States militarybecause there was no security for themselves and their families. By theway, guess who thinks that those mistakes took place, as well? George W.Bush. So, news flash to the world, if they’re trying to find places wherethere’s big space between me and my brother, this might not be one ofthose.”Either Bush is dodging the question—and looking for ground to defend hisbrother—or he doesn’t understand that the mistake of the war was thedecision to launch it, not the shoddy aftermath. Even with a more competentadministration in charge, it’s likely the Iraq war would have remained adisaster: a needless diversion against an overblown threat that claimedtens of thousands of lives, committed the United States to a longdestructive occupation, and destabilized the Middle East in ways that stillreverberate. And if Bush doesn’t grasp the error of the invasion, then he’sliable to make a similar mistake if elected president.Bush has to know this is toxic to the general public. Even with thegruesome violence of ISIS, pluralities—and sometimes majorities—ofAmericans oppose further major involvement in Iraq. Last June, in a pollfrom Quinnipiac University, 61 percent of Americans said the Iraq war wasthe wrong thing to do, and that October, in a poll from NBC News and theWall Street Journal, 66 percent of Americans said the war was “not worthit.”But at this moment in the election, Bush isn’t speaking to the public. He’sspeaking to Republicans. And even now, most Republicans think the war was agood idea. Last year, in a poll from USA Today and the Pew Research Center,52 percent of Republicans said it was “right to use” military force inIraq. And in the aforementioned Quinnipiac survey, 56 percent ofRepublicans agreed that the war “was the right thing for the UnitedStates.” In that instance, Republicans were the only group to show majoritysupport.If Bush were running unopposed—or with marginal opposition—there might notbe an imperative to embrace the Iraq war. But he’s running in a crowdedfield of legitimate competitors, where most are hawkish (Sen. Rand Paul isthe notable exception) and one, Sen. Marco Rubio, has the belligerentposturing of George W. Bush in his first term. In his 2010 campaign forSenate, Rubio praised the Iraq war for making the world “better off,” andin a 2013 speech in London, he called the war a “vitally importantachievement” of America’s relationship with the United Kingdom. He’s pushedinterventions in Syria (he would have armed the rebels), opposed withdrawalin Iraq and Afghanistan, and wants a more aggressive stance toward Iran. AsEliana Johnson wrote for National Review last year, Rubio is theneoconservative candidate for 2016: “To this group, beating back the risingtide of non-interventionism in the Republican party is a top priority, andthey consider Rubio a candidate, if not the candidate, capable of doing so.”You can chalk up Jeb Bush’s Iraq position to familial loyalty, if you want.But you shouldn’t ignore the politics of it. Bush needs to distinguishhimself from a younger, more popular competitor in a congested presidentialfield. Embracing the Iraq war—and his brother’s legacy on foreign policy—isone way to challenge Rubio on his own turf, at least among donors andelites. Likewise, over on the left, Clinton is rejecting the triangulationof her husband and adopting progressive positions on criminal justice andimmigration reform, to bolster her position and preclude a repeat of the2008 primary.Most observers assumed Clinton and Bush would be forced to make some movesbecause of the political legacy of family members. What’s ironic is thatthey’ve moved opposite of expectations. Bill Clinton is among the mostpopular presidents of recent memory, and George W. Bush is among the mostdisliked. But Hillary, eager to define herself and reconstitute the Obamacoalition, has distanced herself from her husband while Jeb, fighting tobuild stature in a melee of a Republican primary, has pulled closer to hisunsuccessful brother.PolitFact NH: Jeb Bush says he met NH man who founded only U.S. bank sinceDodd-Frank<http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/politics/16828828-95/politfact-nh-jeb-bush-says-he-met-nh-man-who-founded-only-us-bank>// Concord Monitor // Clay Wirestone – May 10, 2015At an appearance in Concord in mid-April, former Florida governor Jeb Bushtalked banking — and the legislation meant to reform it.“On my last trip to New Hampshire I think I met the guy who founded thefirst and only bank since Dodd-Frank passed, since the financial crisis,”Bush said at his speech at Saint Anselm College’s Politics and Eggs eventApril 17. “One bank in the country.”The banking reform legislation known as Dodd-Frank became law on July 21,2010, nearly five years ago. We decided to look into Bush’s statement thatonly one bank had been founded since that time.We checked with Bush’s camp and according to spokesman Matt Gorman, Bushmet with businessman Bill Grenier when he was in the state March 14.Greiner, of Bedford, filed last year with the Federal Deposit InsuranceCorporation to charter an entirely new bank named Primary Bank.“We’re going against the grain, and we’re okay with that because we see aneed,” he told the Wall Street Journal in December.So would Primary Bank be the nation’s “first and only” since Dodd-Frank?Not exactly. Depending on the data set you choose, it’s either the second,fourth, ninth or 20th.The Journal and other media sources have said the first bank founded afterthe law’s passage is in fact the Bank of Bird-in-Hand, Pa. It mainly servesthe area’s Amish community. And yes, it includes a drive-through window forhorse-and-buggy.This was included in the information forwarded to us by Bush’s spokesman.But we decided to ask the FDIC itself. Greg Hernandez, an agency spokesman,offered further details. First, off, when Bush and others talk about newbanks, they’re referring to de novo banks, or banks issued a new charter bythe agency.Not counting Grenier’s startup, the FDIC actually lists three banks issuedcharters since 2010. The oldest, Lakeside Bank of Lake Charles, La., hadits charter approved in October 2009, before Dodd-Frank’s passage. But thecharter wasn’t consummated until late July 2010, after the bill was signedinto law.The next bank on the FDIC’s list is Start Community Bank of New Haven,Conn. While its charter was approved in December 2010, the bank itself saysits origins date to 2004, with the founding of its parent company.The Bird-in-Hand bank’s charter was both approved and consummated inNovember 2013.It seems fair to call Primary Bank the second of all-new bank approved bythe FDIC since Dodd Frank’s passage. But if you include the two others thatthe agency itself lists, Primary Bank would come in fourth.The FDIC lists five other banks as having been established since mid-2010,including one in Kansas City, Mo.; Brockton, Mass,; and Easley, S.C.,according to Hernandez. These banks, however, didn’t apply for new charters.“Other banks can be established through a shelf charter from the Office ofthe Comptroller of the Currency,” Hernandez wrote in an e-mail. “That wouldbe when a private equity group purchases a failed bank. Also, (newly)established banks can be the result of a merger or acquisition.”If you use that criteria, and include the five other banks mentioned,Primary Bank would be the ninth bank started after Dodd-Frank.And finally, while they’re not called banks and are regulated by adifferent agency, consumers generally see credit unions as the equivalentof banks (and credit unions are affected by the law, too). According toJohn Fairbanks of the National Credit Union Administration, there have beenat least 11 credit union charters approved since the start of 2011. Thatwould make Primary Bank at least the 14th and at most the 20th suchinstitution started since Dodd Frank overhauled the banking industry.None of these different contexts would make Grenier’s bank the first oneestablished since the passage of Dodd-Frank.And there’s the implication that new banks aren’t being created because ofDodd-Frank, which raises the question:What does the law actually do, and why is it important?The full name of the law is the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and ConsumerProtection Act, and it passed on July 15, 2010. President Obama signed itinto law on July 21. While the financial crisis mentioned by Bush predatedthe law by a couple of years, Dodd-Frank itself has been fiercelycriticized by Republicans, who say it stifles growth in the financialsector.The law itself was meant to prevent another financial meltdown like that of2008-9. According to an overview from CNBC, the law was meant to avoidbanks becoming “too big to fail,” regulate risky trading and created newoversight bodies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.The banking industry blames the law, in part, for the lack of new banks.Frank Keating, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association,criticized government regulations on the financial sector in a recentcolumn for The Hill. After mentioning the New Hampshire bank, he gets downto business.“Investors are reluctant to shoulder the cumulative regulatory burdens –both from new laws and from a more stringent approach by regulatorsthemselves — and the rising legal risks associated with running a bankthese days.”Keating doesn’t mention Dodd-Frank by name, but the implication is clear.He also highlights the dropoff of bank creation post-2010, pointing outthat “the average from 2002 to 2008 was closer to 100” per year. Accordingto a Motley Fool explainer piece, “between 1990 and 2006, the FDIC approvedan average of 152 bank and thrift charters a year.”That being said, there isn’t universal agreement that regulation is behindthe drop in new bank creation.Keating acknowledges that in his column, noting toward the end that “thelow interest rate environment is challenging for bank startups. And thenumber of banks has been steadily falling for decades due to a wave ofmergers and acquisitions.”According to a report from the Richmond Federal Reserve bank, there couldbe several factors at work. One is the Federal Reserve’s policy of keepinginterest rates low. That lowers interest rates overall, making it harderfor banks to earn money. (The Motley Fool suggests that’s the main reasonfor the drop.) The research raises the possibility that the cost ofcomplying with regulations has gone up, but says “it is unclear” whetherthat is driving down the creation of new banks.Finally, though, it mentions that the FDIC itself has changed its policiesfor new banks, in a move that predates the passage of Dodd-Frank.“In 2009 the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation increased the length oftime — from three to seven years — during which newly insured depositoryinstitutions are subject to higher capital requirements and more frequentexaminations,” the paper’s authors write.Our rulingFormer Florida governor Jeb Bush said “I met the guy who founded the firstand only bank since Dodd-Frank passed, since the financial crisis. One bankin the country.”He’s certainly got a point that there has been a sharp dropoff of newlychartered banks since Dodd-Frank became law in the summer of 2010, but it’sincorrect to say Primary Bank would be the first in the country. There isat least one other in the nation, and possibly several more. It iscertainly the first bank chartered in New Hampshire during that time.The suggestion that Dodd-Frank has caused the drop-off in new bankformation is also debatable. While regulation has perhaps played a role,FDIC policies set before the law’s passage may have had a more directeffect. And the overall economic picture, with incredibly low interestrates, has simply made it difficult for banks to make money.We rate Bush’s statement Mostly False.First on CNN: Ted Cruz to host fundraiser along U.S.-Mexico border<http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/11/politics/ted-cruz-election-2016-rio-grande-valley-fundraiser/index.html>// CNN Politics // Theodore Schleifer – May 11, 2015Washington (CNN) Ted Cruz will raise money for his presidential campaignalong the U.S.-Mexico border next month.The Texas senator — who has made beefing up border security a calling cardof his presidential campaign — will visit McAllen, Texas, for a$1,000-a-head fundraiser on June 9, according to an invitation obtained byCNN.Cruz deplores the White House’s executive actions on immigration and hasproposed tripling the size of the U.S. Border Patrol. On the stump, hefrequently jokes about staffing the border with reassigned Internal RevenueService agents.”Imagine you had traveled thousands of miles in the blazing sun. You’reswimming across the Rio Grande and the first thing you see is 90,000 IRSagents. You’d turn around and go home too,” Cruz said to applause at theSouth Carolina Freedom Summit this weekend.Cruz has been criticized by local officials and business leaders forspeaking extensively about the border but visiting relatively infrequently.Steve Ahlenius, the head of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, told the TexasTribune earlier this year that too many politicians like Cruz prioritize”parachuting” in over spending meaningful time on the ground.”They don’t come in with viable solutions that really kind of take intoaccount the feedback, comments and ideas coming from the local area, asopposed to what they think someone in Iowa is going to want to hear,” hesaid.The Rio Grande Valley, a Democratic stronghold in a solidly Republicanstate, is about 90% Hispanic and is currently represented by only Democratsin Austin and Washington. Hidalgo County, where Cruz will raise money nextmonth, gave 70% of its vote in 2012 to Barack Obama.Much of the early money Cruz has raised has come from Texas, even thoughthe state’s business community was originally hostile to him when he firstentered the political scene. The Republican firebrand has worked hard towin over much of the state’s traditional donor base, but he now findsserious competition from a crowded field of presidential candidates withties to the Lone Star State, led by Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor.The Cruz campaign declined to confirm the event to CNN.Rand Paul Plans To Filibuster Patriot Act<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/11/rand-paul-filibuster-patriot-act_n_7258460.html>// Huffington Post // Igor Bobic – May 11, 2015Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said this week that he intends to mount a fightagainst the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, the post-Sept. 11 law thatgives the National Security Agency much of its authority to conductsurveillance programs.”I’m going to lead the charge in the next couple of weeks as the PatriotAct comes forward. We will be filibustering. We will be trying to stop it.We are not going to let them run over us,” Paul told the New HampshireUnion Leader on Monday.The Patriot Act expires June 1, but Congress must effectively renew the lawby May 22nd because of a scheduled weeklong break. Paul, a civillibertarian who hopes to capture the 2016 Republican nomination forpresident, has consistently spoken against reauthorizing the law, going sofar as to oppose a 2014 bill that would have ended controversial NSA phonerecord collection because it left the government’s broad authority toconduct surveillance intact.It’s unclear whether Paul plans to vote to block reauthorizing thesurveillance law, or whether he intends to mount a traditional “talking”filibuster that would eat up valuable time on the Senate floor. A requestwith the senator’s spokesperson for more details was not immediatelyreturned.The Kentucky Republican isn’t the only member of the Senate with objectionsto the Patriot Act. On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Ron Wyden(D-Ore.), who is one of the most persistent critics of U.S. surveillanceprograms, has said that he, too, plans to wage war over some of the law’smost controversial provisions. In an interview with MSNBC on Sunday, Wydenthreatened to mount a filibuster if Congress reauthorizes Section 215 ofthe act, upon which the government has built its rationale for the bulkdata collection revealed in 2013 by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.Wyden and Paul have teamed up on national security issues in the past. In2013, the senator from Oregon lent his voice to Paul’s filibuster of thenomination of John Brennan as CIA director.A request for comment with a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader MitchMcConnell (R-Ky.), who is a strong supporter of the Patriot Act, was notimmediately returned on Monday.Rand Paul Battles the PATRIOT Act (and Fellow Senators Who Miss Votes)<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-11/rand-paul-battles-the-patriot-act-and-fellow-senators-who-miss-votes->// Bloomberg // David Weigel – May 11, 2015Last night, before arriving for a short and busy visit to New Hampshire,Kentucky Senator Rand Paul published an op-ed in Manchester’s conservativeUnion Leader newspaper.”As President of the United States, I will immediately end the NSA’sillegal bulk data collection and domestic spying programs,” said Paul. “Iwill take my responsibilities seriously and protect the Fourth Amendmentrights of all Americans. I believe the overreaching NSA spying programrepresents the worst of the ‘Washington Machine.'”He’d touched on some of the same themes Saturday, on a visit to SanFrancisco. Paul, having been accused of a light touch when drone strikesand police brutality were forced into the news cycle, was taking theopposite approach to the NSA. He would talk about it whenever he could, andfocus on the June battle over whether to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act.Before his big public event of the day in Londonderry, Paul joined a smallgroup of New Hampshire state legislators who planned to endorse him. Theywanted to hear his critique of the NSA. As soon as he arrived at theLondonderry Lions Club, Paul walked into a scrum of waiting cameramen andstarted talking about how a New York court’s ruling against the NSA’s bulkmetadata collection would define his race.”I’m the only Republican and the only Democrat who said I’d end thisprogram on day one,” said Paul. “It’s illegal. We can catch terrorists byusing the Constitution. We can use warrants, with a judge writing thewarrant, with someone’s name on the warrant.”Inside the Lions Club, Paul gave a truncated stump speech to around 100voters, several of whom had been in the crowd for his April campaignannouncement speech, just down the road. “We’re getting ready to have a bigfight over the PATRIOT Act,” said Paul. “I was walking down the hallwaywith another senator, three years ago, when I led the fight to get rid ofthe PATRIOT Act. He said, ‘What will happen? It will expire tonight? If youfilibuster, it will expire.'”One voter started applauding, even before Paul’s punchline.”I said: ‘Maybe for a few hours, we can just use the Constitution!'”Paul’s town hall queries veered from common core to VA hospital funding toSocial Security, but it ended with a question about spying. James Bellamy,a 28-year old law student at Western New England University, asked Paul ifhe’d vote for the USA FREEDOM Act. Some libertarian-minded Republicans,like Representative Justin Amash, were already promising to oppose thatbill, a supposed fix to the data collection program that allowed thegovernment to make bulk requests through alternate means.”I sued the NSA,” said Paul. “I’m a leader in trying to stop this. My billwould end it, and not replace it. The USA FREEDOM Act ends it, but thenreplaces it with another program. My concern is whether or not they’ll haveindividualized suspicion to get your records. USA FREEDOM says thegovernment is not going to collect your records in Utah, but the governmentcan get them from the phone company. I’m okay with the government gettingthem from the phone company if they have your name on the warrant. I’m notokay with them saying, we need everybody in Londonderry’s stuff, so eventhough it’s not being held in Utah, they can get in from the phone company.”The answer to Bellamy’s question wasn’t easy. “I’m not perfectly at homewith the USA FREEDOM Act,” Paul said. “I voted against it once. The reasonI voted against it was that it reauthorized the PATRIOT Act.”In other words, Paul’s vote would depend on the Senate’s debate. That waswhere he’d be heading next—to the Senate, to debate. Before Paul even tookquestions, State Senator Andy Sanborn, an early endorser, made jokingreference to Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.”We don’t want to mention anyone else who might be living in Texas or inFlorida,” said Sanborn, explaining why Paul might have to run out early.”He’s actually going to go back and do his job as a senator and vote.”On the way to the pick-up truck that would spirit Paul to the airport, NH1reporter Paul Steinhauser asked Paul if he agreed with Sanborn’s snark.”I get paid by the taxpayer, and I figure I need to vote, so I’m workingvery hard to do this and also vote at the same time,” Paul said. “I’ll notonly be back there for a vote this afternoon, I’ll be back and voting andleading the effort against the PATRIOT Act, and leading the vote to try toend bulk collection of your phone records.”Rand Paul supports bird flu role of agency he tried to cut<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/11/rand-paul-usda-bird-flu/27110857/>// USA Today // Christopher Doering – May 11, 2015WASHINGTON — Presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul as recently as 2013proposed cutting an Agriculture Department agency responsible for studyingthe spread of poultry diseases such as bird flu, a virus that has killedmillions of birds in Iowa the past two weeks.Paul, a Kentucky Republican, had proposed budget plans as recently as twoyears ago that backed scrapping the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service,the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the AgriculturalResearch Service, which includes a division responsible for studying waysto predict, treat and control poultry diseases.Steve Grubbs, Paul’s chief Iowa strategist, declined to address specificspending reductions at the USDA or whether the senator continues to supportcutting those agencies as he has in past budget proposals.But Grubbs said Paul favors the government playing an active role inworking with farmers to combat bird flu because the virus has spreadthroughout several states. As a result, the outbreak triggers what’s knownas the commerce clause in the Constitution, effectively giving thegovernment the power to get involved, he said.”Sen. Paul recognizes that there are important programs in the USDA relatedto food safety and disease control that need to be protected andpotentially enhanced,” said Grubbs. Bird flu and other diseases are “aperfect place for the USDA and other federal agencies to play a role.”Former Lt. Gov. Patty Judge brought the budget items to the attention ofthe Des Moines Register.On May 1, Gov. Terry Branstad declared a state of emergency in Iowa — anaction that could help state agencies assist in the disposal of birdsstricken by the virus. The virus, which can kill a poultry flock within 48hours, has struck in 14 states.In Iowa, more than two dozen cases of avian influenza have been identified,affecting an estimated 20 million birds that have been infected or must bedestroyed to contain the disease.Government officials are still trying to determine how the disease isspreading and find ways to bring it under control.Paul has pushed for smaller government, sparring with some GOP leadersduring his first term in the Senate, blaming them for being part of theproblem. Political analysts believe that if elected president, Paul wouldmove to cut the federal government. He has proposed eliminating severalCabinet-level departments including Commerce, Education and Energy.A spokesman with the USDA declined to comment on Paul’s previously proposedcuts.Ed Schafer, a former agriculture secretary in the George W. Bushadministration and a one-time governor of North Dakota, said agencies suchas the Agricultural Research Service are especially vulnerable whenlawmakers are looking to rein in spending because their results aredifficult to measure right away.Research programs, he said, are vital to helping agriculture thrive bydiscovering new advancements in yields, improving water management andfinding ways for crops to handle weeds and pests.”I’m all for Rand Paul’s efforts to say we need to trim the cost ofgovernment. What the trick is is identifying the priorities and putting themoney there,” Schafer said. “(Research) is an easy one to cut because thereis no immediate benefit seen. It comes in minute, little advances but overthe long-term you increase the food supply, you make it safer and moreaffordable. Research, to me, is more important than some other programs.”Ken Blanchard, a professor of political science at Northern StateUniversity in Aberdeen, S.D., said it’s almost impossible to remove ordrastically overhaul a Cabinet department. He noted that President RonaldReagan campaigned for the presidency in 1980 by promising to abolish theEducation Department, which was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter ayear earlier.”Cabinet agencies are like Dracula. No matter how many times you draw thestake in their heart or expose them to light they are always back again forthe next movie,” Blanchard said. “You’ve got so many vested interests thatthe agency manages to put its tendrils into in so many parts of the rest ofthe country and various private interests. It’s just almost impossible” tomake a major change to a Cabinet department, he said.Rand Paul’s ‘Fast Track’ Dilemma<http://www.wsj.com/articles/rand-pauls-fast-track-dilemma-1431387236> //WSJ // Bob Davis – May 11, 2015Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has emerged as a top spokesman for a view ontrade legislation that could complicate President Barack Obama’s push topass a major Pacific trade pact.The 2016 presidential candidate says he is a “big believer in free trade”but has qualms about the legislation, known as fast track, designed to helppass major trade deals with limited involvement by the Senate. Some otherRepublicans are expressing similar misgivings in both the House and Senate.With a key Senate procedural vote on fast track set for Tuesday, Mr. Paulis in the crosshairs as groups on both sides of the issue vie for his vote.Last week he said he hadn’t made up his mind on fast track.But on Monday, Mr. Paul told WMUR in New Hampshire that he opposed fasttrack, in part, because of his frustration about the secrecy surroundingthe Trans-Pacific Partnership.“I’ve told leadership I’m a ‘no’ vote on trade promotion authority,” Mr.Paul told the station, according to an account on WMUR.com. “I’m hesitantto give blanket authority on stuff we haven’t seen.” He said he might bepersuaded in the future to back fast track if he approved of provisions inthe TPP.At a Heritage Foundation forum earlier this year, he indicated sympathy forarguments that the procedure weakens congressional authority and that tradepacts should be treated like treaties—meaning they would need a two-thirdsmajority of the Senate for approval, as opposed to the simple majority thePacific pact requires.His business allies in Kentucky and elsewhere are strong fast-tracksupporters, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made winning his vote apriority. “His vote is important, given his credibility withconservative-leaning folks,” said Christopher Wenk, the Chamber’s executivedirector of international policy. The Chamber is working with four bigKentucky business organizations to woo Sen. Paul.But many of Mr. Paul’s grass-roots supporters are trade skeptics—andoutright hostile to fast track. In a late April Wall Street Journal/NBCNews poll, Paul supporters by a 41% to 36% margin said free trade had hurtthe U.S.With Mr. Paul, “you have mixed elements and motivations,” said conservativelegal scholar Bruce Fein, a Paul adviser who opposes fast track. “He’s anunorthodox candidate.”President Obama is trying to rally Democratic support for the Trans-PacificPartnership. What would this trade pact do? How is Mr. Obama answeringcritics from within his own party? WSJ’s Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer.Under fast track, formally called trade promotion authority, Congressagrees to vote yes or no on a trade pact but not to amend it. All majortrade deals for decades have passed Congress that way. That is becausetrade partners won’t reveal their bottom lines in negotiations if theythink Congress could step in afterward and rewrite the contents of a tradedeal.With fast track, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has said, the12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes the U.S., Vietnam andJapan, could be concluded in a few months.But a number of conservative lawmakers, even those who say they back tradeexpansion, oppose fast track as an abrogation of congressional power.GOP Rep. Steve Russell of Oklahoma, who calls himself a “constitutionalconservative,” says opening up trade is “not a bad thing,” but won’t votefor fast track. Rep. Walter Jones (R., N.C.), who opposes fast track,called Mr. Paul the “national spokesman on the issue of sovereignty.”Four Senate Republicans opposed fast track when it last came beforeCongress under President George W. Bush. Two other GOP 2016 presidentialcandidates, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, both backfast track.Mr. Paul’s openness to free trade and the Pacific pact has made him atarget of intense business lobbying. The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce isdispatching a top representative, Bryan Sunderland, to make a personalappeal, as well as asking its members to lobby Mr. Paul themselves.“Our hope is that when he hears from Kentucky business leaders who havebeen with him for years, that will resonate,” said Trey Grayson, presidentof the North Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, which also is lobbying Sen Paul.But the squeeze is coming from the other side, too. One Paul supporter,Robert Berry of Broomfield, Colo., who calls himself a libertarianactivist, said fast track could be a “make or break vote” for Mr. Paul.“It seems a little cute that you’d be for a [trade] pact that much of yourbase despises, but you are wavering on legislation that would make it areality,” Mr. Berry said.Rand Paul Campaign Takes a Licking in New Hampshire<http://time.com/3854594/rand-paul-licking-video/> // TIME // PhilipElliott – May 11, 2015It’s unlikely many people in the audience at a New Hampshire town hallmeeting noticed anything amiss Monday. But a 90-second confrontationbetween an aide to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and a Democratic operativejumped out immediately online.As shown in the brief video, a tussle between the two ended with the Paulstaffer licking the camera.“Just when you thought Rand Paul’s campaign couldn’t get any stranger, hissenior staffer in New Hampshire decided to taste our tracker’s camera lenstoday,” said Preston Maddock, a spokesman for American Bridge 21st Century,the liberal group that had sent the operative. “It was truly bizarre,creepy and unprofessional.”Despite American Bridge’s indignation, it was exactly the type of momentthey were looking for: embarrassing, awkward and buzzworthy.Opposition researchers, as the practitioners call themselves, have longbeen part of campaigns, digging up dirt on rivals and passing it toreporters and activists. But in recent years, they’ve become activeparticipants as well, sending one-person camera crews to document as manyof the rival candidates’ campaign stops as possible and maybe evenunintentionally provoke them.The same American Bridge tracker from the New Hampshire town hall lastchased former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown as he canoed on the ContoocookRiver during his failed attempt to return to the Senate representing NewHampshire.It’s an equal opportunity pastime. American Bridge and its Republicancounterpart, America Rising, are each million-dollar organizationsdedicated to documenting the stumbles of the presidential candidates andthose around them. The goal is to discredit the candidates to voters and toamplify their errors with raw footage of candidates behaving oddly.The biggest catch—and one that only encouraged the trend—was in August of2006, when then-Sen. George Allen of Virginia introduced his audience to atracker from Democratic rival Jim Webb’s campaign. The tracker’s name? S.R.Sidarth.“This fella here, over here with the yellow shirt—Macaca, or whatever hisname is—he’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere,” saidAllen, who went on to lose to Webb.Critics said “macaca” was a slur against the tracker, who isIndian-American.Other campaigns and political parties quickly identified the value ofsending a staffer to tail rivals with a video camera, just in case theyfumbled or responded to harassing questions. The addition of YouTube andother video sharing services only hastened the ease with which campaignscould share video to supporters and reporters alike.It has changed how candidates interact with voters and reporters alike.In 2010, Senate hopeful Sharron Angle fled journalists in Reno. Trackersfrom the Nevada Democratic Party documented the Republican’s refusal toanswer questions from reporters. The video of reporters chasing Angle froman event, and her speeding away in a white SUV, reinforced opponents’arguments that she was not up for the job.In 2012, Republican Rep. Allen West of Florida was asked during a town hallappearance how many lawmakers were Marxists or socialists. West took thequestion seriously: “There’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Partythat are members of the Communist Party.” The local news carried hiscomments, but the addition of video—easily shared online—made it a topic onsocial platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. West narrowly lost hisre-election bid.Candidates can even get in trouble for trying to avoid confrontation.In 2014, as cameras rolled, immigration activists confronted Paul while hewas campaigning in Iowa with Rep. Steve King. The activists, who werebrought to the country illegally as young children and want to be treatedas citizens now, confronted King about his views on immigration.Paul, who was sitting across from King, looked to communications aideSergio Gor. Taking his cue, Paul put down his burger, pushed back hisplastic picnic chair and walked quickly away from the table. King,meanwhile, stayed and sparred with the DREAMer. The video quicklyricocheted around the Internet.American Bridge officials were hoping Monday’s licking incident would havesimilar viewership.Asked about Mondays incident, Gor declined to identify the licker or say ifhe worked for the campaign in an official capacity. Instead, he issued astatement completely unrelated to the incident.“Sen. Rand Paul visited New Hampshire today to accept the endorsement of 20New Hampshire state representatives who support his run for the WhiteHouse, and to visit with and take questions from the voters,” Gor said. “Itwas a great day of events.”Chris Christie Racked Up $300k of Food and Alcohol on Expense Account<http://time.com/3853598/chris-christie-expense-account-new-jersey/> //TIME // Sam Frizell – May 11, 2015New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spent $300,000 of a government stateallowance over five years in office to buy food, alcoholic drinks anddesserts, according to a new analysis of state records.In addition to his $175,000 salary, Christie receives $95,000 a year forpurposes vaguely defined in the state budget for official purposes likestate receptions, operating an official residence, or other expenses.And numbers published by local website New Jersey Watchdog show Christie, aRepublican presidential hopeful, took full advantage of the stipend overhis five years as governor. He spent $76,373 during 53 shopping runs atWegmans Food Markets, and $11,971 in purchases at ShopRite supermarketsduring 51 visits, in addition to another $6,536 in seven visits toShopRite’s liquor stores. The site is published by the Franklin Center forGovernment & Public Integrity.All the food purchases were for official purposes, an aide in Christie’soffice said, including receptions and general upkeep at the governor’smansion.During the 2010 and 2011 NFL football seasons, Christie also spent a totalof $82,594 at the MetLife Stadium, where the New York’s Giants and Jetsplay their home games. The New Jersey Republican State Committee laterreimbursed the money Christie spent at MetLife to the state.Gov. Christie’s office said the money was used for official politicalfunctions to host dignitaries and legislators.“Whenever the Governor hosts an event in his official capacity, thediscretionary account is available to pay for those costs associated withofficial reception and hosting and related incidental expenses,” saidChristie’s press secretary Kevin Roberts in a statement.“Nonetheless in early 2012, the Governor made the decision that costsassociated with hosting at the sporting venues were better paid withnon-state funds, and those expenses incurred during 2010 and 2011 werereimbursed by the NJGOP.”Christie every year returns leftover funds from the $95,000 allowance tothe state. The amount Christie returned annually to the state increasedfrom $2,716 in 2010 to $30,377 last year.Marco Rubio Pushes Extension of NSA Phone Metadata Program<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-11/marco-rubio-pushes-extension-of-nsa-phone-metadata-program>// Bloomberg // Ali Elkin – May 11, 2015Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio continued his tough talk onnational security on Sunday, saying the risk of a terrorist attack in theUnited States is at a post-9/11 high.Arguing for an extension of the National Security Agency’s phone metadataprogram in light of threats like those from the Islamic State, the Floridasenator wrote in a USA Today op-ed, “The government is not listening toyour phone calls or recording them unless you are a terrorist or talking toa terrorist outside the United States.” He added, “There is not a singledocumented case of abuse of this program.”His comments follow a Saturday appearance at the South Carolina FreedomSummit, where he emphasized a hard line on terrorism. “Have you seen themovie Taken? Liam Neeson. He had a line, and this is what our strategyshould be: ‘We will look for you, we will find you, and we will kill you,’”said Rubio, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and SelectCommittee on Intelligence, at the cattle call for White House hopefuls.As Bloomberg’s Bob Van Voris reported last week, a recent federal appealscourt ruling against the data collection comes as the Patriot Act’s Section215, “under which intelligence agencies have justified the phonesurveillance, is set to expire June 1 unless Congress passes a bill backedby Senate Republicans to extend it through the end of 2020. Because thecourt didn’t rule on the program’s constitutionality, lawmakers couldchoose to amend the act to explicitly authorize the data collection.”We Can’t Turn To The Leaders Of Yesterday<https://medium.com/@marcorubio/we-can-t-turn-to-the-leaders-of-yesterday-485c03126602>// Medium // Marco Rubio – May 11, 2015You’ve seen “A New American Century” everywhere since I announced forPresident. But what does that really mean? Let me tell you.Families are working harder than ever, but living paycheck to paycheck.Students are doing exactly what we told them to do and getting a collegeeducation. Yet they are graduating with mountains of debt and a degree thathas no career path.The news says evil is winning and we are less capable than ever to stop it.Is it decline? Is it the normal course of history?No.It’s a direct result of our leaders who have trapped us in the past.Leaders from yesterday still believe in outdated economic policies. Theyhave forgotten one of the timeless truths of our world: Jobs and prosperityare tied to our ability to compete internationally.Today we face a fundamental economic transformation that leaves us with achoice.We can embrace the future or be left behind by history.In the New American Century we will reform our tax code and update oureconomic policies to make America the best place in the world to work,start a business and cultivate innovation.It’s time to leave yesterday behind.Scott Walker Helps Journalists in Wisconsin Cover His Trip to Israel<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/11/scott-walker-helps-journalists-in-wisconsin-cover-his-trip-to-israel/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Politics&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body>// NYT- First Draft // Nick Corasanti – May 11, 2015Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was adamant that his trip to Israel thisweek be a “listening tour” that focused exclusively on Israel, not abouthis presidential-campaign-in-waiting.“We wanted to make it an educational focus, not just a media trip,” he toldreporters before he left. That meant no reporters, no video cameras, nophotographers, nada. Just Mr. Walker, his team and members of theRepublican Jewish Coalition, a pro-Israeli group heavily financed by thecasino billionaire Sheldon G. Adelson.That doesn’t mean they want the news media at home to be left in the dark,however.Mr. Walker has been sharing photographs and updates from his Twitteraccount. And Matt Brooks, the coalition’s executive director, has beenposting pictures of Mr. Walker’s tour on Twitter as well.What Ben Carson’s Flat Tax Would Do to the Poor<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-11/what-ben-carson-s-flat-tax-would-do-to-the-poor>// Bloomberg // Peter Coy – May 11, 2015Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told Fox News Sunday that it’s”very condescending” to poor people to tax them at lower rates than richpeople. He called for a flat tax along the lines of a biblical tithe, inwhich rich and poor alike pay a tenth or so of their income in taxes.”Now, some people say it’s not fair because, you know, the poor peoplecan’t afford to pay that dollar,” Carson told host Chris Wallace. “That’svery condescending. You know, I grew up very poor. I’ve experienced everyeconomic level. And I can tell you that poor people have pride, too. Andthey don’t want to be just taken care of,” Carson said.What does economics have to say about Carson’s flat tax? It’s hard to saybecause the retired neurosurgeon (profiled here by Bloomberg Politics)hasn’t fleshed out his concept. Also because “very condescending” isn’t aterm that economists use very often.What’s sometimes forgotten is that there’s no giant increase in taxes whenyour income climbs.One thing is indisputable: An unadulterated flat tax—which Carson may ormay not favor—would raise taxes on the poor and reduce them on the rich.That would almost certainly decrease net national happiness. The reason isobvious: People who are just barely getting by, living from paycheck topaycheck, would find it very hard to pay more in taxes than they do now.People who make a lot of money have far more breathing room. They may notenjoy paying the taxes they pay now, but paying any given dollar in tax iseasier for them than it is for someone at the bottom of the income scale.The implication is that the benefit to them of paying less tax would beless than the loss to the poor of paying more. (This is the economicconcept of “marginal utility.”)The theory of the flat tax is that it preserves incentives to work andinvest because people don’t have to pay punishingly high rates on eachextra dollar of income. What’s sometimes forgotten is that there’s no giantincrease in taxes when your income climbs into a new bracket. You pay thehighest rate only on the portion of income that’s above the threshold. Therest of your income continues to be taxed at lower rates—which are detailedhere.There are ways to keep a flat tax from pinching the poor. One is to createa generous per-person exemption—so, for example, the first $25,000 ofincome per person isn’t subject to tax. The granddaddy of flat taxes,proposed in the early 1980s by Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka of the HooverInstitution, provided that the first $25,500 of wage and pension income fora family of four would be tax-free. A more complicated way is to exemptfrom the flat tax certain necessities such as food and medicine.Carson may have some kind of break for the poor such as these in mind. Ifso he didn’t tell Chris Wallace. “It’s a distinct possibility that hehasn’t fully developed his tax plan,” says Tax Foundation economist KylePomerleau.Whether an unadulterated flat tax would be less “condescending” to the poorthan today’s tax code is more of a value judgment than an economicquestion. The staff of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation—whichserves both Republicans and Democrats in Congress—delved into questions offairness in a March 3 report called “Fairness and Tax Policy” (availablefor download here).Carly Fiorina Changes Mind On Amending Constitution To Bar Same-Sex Marriage<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/11/carly-fiorina-marriage_n_7260282.html>// Huffington Post // Amanda Terkel – May 11, 2015Scott Olson via Getty ImagesGOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said she does not support amendingthe U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, a reversal of a positionshe held a few years ago.”I think the Supreme Court ruling will become the law of the land, andhowever much I may agree or disagree with it, I wouldn’t support anamendment to reserve it,” Fiorina said Saturday. “I very much hope that wewould come to a place now in this nation where we can support theirdecision and at the same time support people to have, to hold religiousviews and to protect their right to exercise those views.”The former Hewlett-Packard CEO made her comments in an interview with theconservative blog Caffeinated Thoughts after a speech to the Dallas CountyRepublicans in West Des Moines, Iowa.As Right Wing Watch noted, Fiorina previously supported such an amendment.While running for Senate in 2010, Fiorina filled out a Christian Coalitionsurvey and indicated that she backed a federal marriage amendment.Although Republican support for marriage equality is growing, the GOPpresidential candidates still oppose it.Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) recently introduced two bills to stop same-sexmarriage, including one that would establish a constitutional amendment toprotect states that define marriage as being between one man and one womanfrom legal action.Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who is exploring a run for president, hassaid that although he personally does not support same-sex marriage, he haslittle appetite for working to repeal it.TOP NEWSDOMESTICAdministration Gives Conditional Approval for Shell to Drill in Arctic<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/us/white-house-gives-conditional-approval-for-shell-to-drill-in-arctic.html?smid=tw-share>// New York Times // Coral Davenport – May 11, 2015WASHINGTON — The Obama administration gave conditional approval on Mondayfor Shell Gulf of Mexico, Inc. to start drilling for oil and gas in theArctic Ocean this summer.The approval is a major victory for Shell and the rest of the petroleumindustry, which has sought for years to drill in the remote waters of theChukchi seas, which are believed to hold vast reserves of oil and gas.“We have taken a thoughtful approach to carefully considering potentialexploration in the Chukchi Sea, recognizing the significant environmental,social and ecological resources in the region and establishing highstandards for the protection of this critical ecosystem, our Arcticcommunities, and the subsistence needs and cultural traditions of AlaskaNatives,” Abigail Ross Hopper, director of the Interior Department’s Bureauof Ocean Energy Management, said in a statement. “As we move forward, anyoffshore exploratory activities will continue to be subject to rigoroussafety standards.”The Interior Department decision is a devastating blow toenvironmentalists, who have pressed the Obama administration to rejectproposals for offshore Arctic drilling. Environmentalists say that adrilling accident in the icy and treacherous Arctic waters could have farmore devastating consequences than the deadly Gulf of Mexico oil spill of2010, when an oil rig explosion killed 11 men and sent millions of barrelsof oil spewing into the water.The move came just four months after the Obama administration opened up aportion of the Atlantic coast to new offshore drilling, adding a newchapter to the president’s environmental legacy.On some fronts, President Obama has pursued the most ambitiousenvironmental agenda of any president, issuing new regulations intended tocurb climate change, working toward an international global warming accord,and using his executive powers to put public lands off-limits fromdevelopment. But he has also sought to balance those moves by opening upuntouched federal waters to new oil and gas drilling.The Interior Department’s approval of the drilling was conditional onShell’s receiving approval of a series of remaining drilling permits forthe project.“The approval of our Revised Chukchi Sea Exploration Plan is an importantmilestone and signals the confidence regulators have in our plan,” saidCurtis Smith, a spokesman for Shell. “However, before operations can beginthis summer, it’s imperative that the remainder of our permits bepractical, and delivered in a timely manner. In the meantime, we willcontinue to test and prepare our contractors, assets and contingency plansagainst the high bar stakeholders and regulators expect of an Arcticoperator.”Environmental groups denounced the move and said that Shell had notdemonstrated that it can drill safely in the Arctic Ocean.Both industry and environmental groups say that the Chukchi Sea is one ofthe most dangerous places in the world to drill. The area is extremelyremote, with no roads connecting to major cities or deep water ports withinhundreds of miles — which makes it difficult for clean-up and rescueworkers to get to the site in case of an accident.The closest Coast Guard station with equipment for responding to a spill isover 1,000 miles away. The weather is extreme, with major storms, icywaters, and waves up to 50 feet high.The sea is also a major migration route and feeding area for marinemammals, including bowhead whales and walruses.“Once again, our government has rushed to approve risky and ill-conceivedexploration in one of the most remote and important places on Earth,” saidSusan Murray, a vice president of Oceana, an environmental group. “Shell’sneed to validate its poorly planned investment in the U.S. Arctic Ocean isnot a good reason for the government to allow the company to put our oceanresources at risk. Shell has not shown that it is prepared to operateresponsibly in the Arctic Ocean, and neither the company nor our governmenthas been willing to fully and fairly evaluate the risks of Shell’sproposal.”The Obama administration had initially granted Shell a permit to beginoffshore Arctic drilling in the summer of 2012. However, the company’sfirst forays into exploring the new waters were plagued with numeroussafety and operational problems. Two of its oil rigs ran aground and had tobe towed to safety. In 2013, the Interior Department said the company couldnot resume drilling until all safety issues were addressed.In a review of the company’s performance in the Arctic, the departmentconcluded that Shell had failed in a wide range of basic operational tasks,like supervision of contractors that performed critical work.The report was harshly critical of Shell management, which acknowledgedthat it was unprepared for the problems it encountered operating in theunforgiving Arctic environment.But the administration contends that as long as Shell passes a final set ofpermit reviews, it can proceed to drill this summer.The Obama administration has also issued new drilling safety regulationsintended to prevent future accidents like the explosion on the DeepwaterHorizon oil rig on April 20, 2010. Last month, the Interior Departmentproposed new rules to tighten safety requirements on blowout preventers,the industry-standard devices that are the last line of protection againstexplosions in undersea oil and gas wells.The 2010 explosion was caused in part when a section of drill pipe buckled,which led to the malfunction of a supposedly fail-safe blowout preventer ona BP well.Wellmark spurns Obamacare exchange, but two competitors don’t<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/health/2015/05/11/wellmark-participate-obamacare-exchange/27114395/>// Des Moines Register // Tony Leys – May 11, 2015Moderate-income Iowans who want to use Affordable Care Act subsidies topurchase health insurance still won’t be able to choose policies fromWellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield next year. But they should be offeredpolicies from at least two competitors.UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health-insurer, confirmed Mondayevening that it plans to start selling policies to Iowans this fall on theonline public marketplace, known as HealthCare.gov. Coventry Health Care,which this year is most Iowans’ sole choice on the system, said it willcontinue marketing plans on the public marketplace. The online system, alsoknown as an exchange, is the only place where Americans can buy policiesthat qualify for the Obamacare subsidies.The addition of UnitedHealthcare means Iowans who want subsidized insurancecould choose from plans offered by at least two companies. That allowsconsumers to compare prices, benefits and the networks of doctors andhospitals enrolled in each plan.Insurance Commissioner Nick Gerhart said he expects a third, unidentifiedcompany to file an application this week to sell policies to Iowans on theexchange. Companies must declare this week whether they will be sellingplans to Iowans on the public exchange.”It’s good news. People are going to have some choices,” he said.Wellmark, which dominates the state’s health insurance market, disclosedMonday that it has decided for the third straight year not to offerpolicies on the online public marketplace.”It’s not a matter of if we will participate, it is really a matter ofwhen,” Wellmark Vice President Laura Jackson said in a conference call. Shesaid the decision was made to protect the 1.8 million Iowans who alreadyhave Wellmark insurance.UnitedHealthcare spokeswoman Jessica Kostner said her Minnesota-basedcompany expects “to have a competitive product available for Iowa consumersthat will be valuable in terms of quality, access, affordability,innovative design and service excellence.”Most Iowans who make less than 400 percent of the poverty level — or about$47,000 for a single person — can qualify for Affordable Care Act subsidiesto help pay for premiums. But only about 38,000 Iowans — about 1 percent ofthe population — have received such subsidies, averaging $260 per month.Iowa has one of the lowest participation rates in the country, and anational expert said that’s partly because the state’s main insurer is notparticipating.Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, saidIowa, South Dakota and Mississippi are the only states where the major BlueCross insurance plan is declining to participate in the Obamacaremarketplace. Wellmark also is the main Blue Cross carrier in South Dakota.A Kaiser Foundation analysis found that just 20 percent of Iowans who couldhave qualified for premium subsidies last year took advantage of them,which was the lowest level in the country. South Dakotans, at 21 percent,were the second-least likely. “That seems like more than a coincidence,”Levitt said. The national average was 42 percent. Mississippi’s rate was 37percent.Levitt said some Iowans probably made a rational choice to maintain theirunsubsidized Wellmark plans rather than accept a small public subsidy toswitch to an unfamiliar carrier. But he said other consumers might not beaware of their options because the main insurer in the state is not usingits marketing muscle to promote the subsidies.Levitt said competition from multiple insurance carriers helps keep costsdown and gives customers options of networks of enrolled health careproviders. “More choice means consumers have a better chance of being ableto go to the doctors and hospitals that they want,” he said.Consumers can still purchase Wellmark’s individual insurance policies offthe public marketplace, but those plans don’t qualify for subsidies.However, the new plans must meet all new federal rules, including that theydon’t ask whether applicants have pre-existing health problems.Jackson also disclosed Monday that her company is seeking to raise premiumsby an average of 28 percent for about 30,000 individual customers whobought Wellmark policies since the Affordable Care Act took full effect in2014. She said her company lost money on that group of customers, mainlybecause they used more health care, including prescription medications,than expected.She said Wellmark and other insurers had expected the new customers woulduse relatively large amounts of health care, because many of them werepreviously uninsured. But the demand for services was even greater thanpredicted, Jackson said. The company also had to pay bills for 135 peoplewho bought policies, used services and then canceled their policies, shesaid. A few of those people died, but many of them simply canceled afterreceiving pricey care, such as having a baby or undergoing hip-replacementsurgery, she said.The rate increase would not affect most Wellmark customers, who purchaseinsurance via employers or who bought individual policies before 2014. Thepremium increase also would not affect people who purchase Medicaresupplement policies from Wellmark.The proposed increase for individual, Affordable Care Act-compliant planswill be the subject of a July 25 hearing organized by the Iowa InsuranceDivision, a Wellmark spokeswoman said. She added that the company plans toraise premiums on small-employer plans by 5.9 percent to 10.7 percent. Thecompany has until June 8 to propose increases on 110,000 individualpolicies that predate implementation of the Affordable Care Act.Levitt, the Kaiser Foundation expert, said it’s too soon to tell whetherWellmark’s 28 percent proposed increase will be unusual for 2016. However,he said there is reason to think that Wellmark faces especially large costsin the pool of people in its new plans. The carrier retained manyrelatively healthy people in its old pools of customers, who could passnow-banned inquiries into their health status. And it isn’t offering thecarrot of public subsidies to attract other relatively healthy people intoits new plans, he said. So the people most likely to buy the carrier’s newplans are those with serious health problems, he said.Most Iowans this year only had one carrier to choose from onHealthCare.gov. That carrier, Coventry, told the Register it intends tocontinue selling policies on the exchange for 2016. Another carrier thatsold on the exchange, CoOportunity Health, went belly-up last winter afterselling thousands of subsidized policies to Iowans.Brian Gillette, chief operating officer of the Iowa insurance agency GroupBenefits Ltd., said he wasn’t surprised to see Wellmark continue to stayout of the Obamacare marketplace, especially as the U.S. Supreme Court isconsidering a major challenge to the law. That case, known as King v.Burwell, calls into question whether it’s legal for the federal governmentto pay subsidies for policies purchased on the federal version of theexchange, which Iowa and many other states are using. The Supreme Court isexpected to rule next month. No one is sure what would happen if thejustices declare the subsidies illegal.HHS: Insurers must cover all birth control<http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/241617-obama-admin-all-approved-types-of-birth-control-must-be-free-under>// The Hill // Peter Sullivan – May 11, 2015Insurers must cover a wide range of contraceptive methods at no cost toconsumers, the Obama administration said Monday in new guidance to healthinsurance companies.The guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) makesclear that insurers are obligated under the Affordable Care Act to cover atleast one version of each of the 18 federally approved birth controlmethods.“Today’s guidance seeks to eliminate any ambiguity,” HHS said. “Insurersmust cover without cost-sharing at least one form of contraception in eachof the methods (currently 18) that the FDA has identified for women in itscurrent Birth Control Guide, including the ring, the patch and intrauterinedevices.”The agency made the announcement after a series of reports indicatedinsurers had conflicting policies on covering contraceptives, despiteObamaCare’s requirement that contraception be offered at no cost.The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health research group, reportedlast month that some insurers were not providing all 18 forms ofcontraception at no charge. Five of 20 insurance plans it reviewed chargedwomen for a vaginal ring, and one plan did not cover the contraceptive atall.A separate report from the National Women’s Law Center found problems withcoverage of the vaginal ring, the patch and an intrauterine device (IUD).In some cases, insurance companies would “even suggest that a woman switchmethods if she does not want any out-of-pocket costs,” according to thereport.America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the insurers’ trade group, hadcondemned that study as presenting a “distorted picture of reality.”“Today’s guidance takes important steps to support health plans’ use ofmedical management in providing women with safe, affordable health careservices,” AHIP President Karen Ignagni said in a statement. “Health plansare committed to promoting evidenced-based decision-making and to ensuringall consumers understand how their coverage works.”AHIP is happy that the new guidance allows insurers to still use so-calledmedical management techniques, aimed at controlling costs. So whileinsurers have to cover one of each of the 18 types for free, they can stilltake steps like charging patients for more expensive brand-name versionsinstead of generics.Democrats in Congress, led by Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), had been pushingthe administration to clarify the rules for birth control coverage.“I’m pleased that with this announcement [HHS] Secretary Burwell is actingto address these violations as well as others that have become barriers toaccessing critical preventive care, especially for those in the transgendercommunity,” Murray said in a statement.The guidance makes clear that insurers cannot limit preventive services fortransgender people based on their sex assigned at birth.The 18 federally approved types of birth control that now must be offeredfree include morning-after pills and IUDs, which have been controversialand labeled by conservatives, such as the owners of Hobby Lobby stores, as“abortifacients,” meaning they cause abortion.The 18 types of contraception are:• Sterilization surgery• Surgical sterilization implant• Implantable rod• Copper intrauterine device• IUDs with progestin (a hormone)• Shot/injection• Oral contraceptives (the pill), with estrogen and progestin• Oral contraceptives with progestin only• Oral contraceptives, known as extended or continuous use that delaymenstruation• The patch• Vaginal contraceptive ring• Diaphragm• Sponge• Cervical cap• Female condom• Spermicide• Emergency contraception (Plan B/morning-after pill)• Emergency contraception (a different pill called Ella)Last updated at 1:43 p.m.Tex. bill would bar local officials from issuing same-sex-marriage licenses<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tex-bill-would-bar-local-officials-from-issuing-same-sex-marriage-licenses/2015/05/11/a4657d24-f807-11e4-9030-b4732caefe81_story.html?hpid=z1>// Washington Post // Sandhya Somashekhar – May 11, 2015Texas Republicans are pushing legislation to bar local officials fromgranting same-sex couples licenses to marry, launching a preemptive strikeagainst a possible U.S. Supreme Court ruling next month that could declaregay marriage legal.Supporters of the measure, which is scheduled for a vote as soon as Tuesdayin the Texas House, said it would send a powerful message to the court.Taking a cue from the anti-abortion movement, they said they also hoped tokeep any judicially sanctioned right to same-sex marriage tied up in legalbattles for years to come.The measure, by Rep. Cecil Bell, a Republican from the outskirts ofHouston, would prohibit state and local officials from using taxpayerdollars “to issue, enforce, or recognize a marriage license . . . for aunion other than a union between one man and one woman.”Bell said the bill “simply preserves state sovereignty over marriage.”Gay rights advocates condemned it as mean-spirited and discriminatory.“It’s shocking that Texas lawmakers would pursue a path that would set upthis showdown between the Texas legislature and the courts,” said RebeccaRobertson, legal and policy director for the American Civil Liberties Unionof Texas.The move comes as the Supreme Court is poised to rule on whether there is aconstitutional right to same-sex marriage or if states have the authorityto define marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, as the TexasConstitution does.If the court finds a universal right to same-sex marriage, that provisionof the Texas Constitution would be swept aside. But a legislative ban onthe issuance of marriage licenses could stand, resulting in a potentiallycostly and drawn-out confrontation between the state government and thefederal courts.As of late Monday, more than half the members of the Texas House hadsignaled support for the measure, virtually ensuring its passage if itovercomes potential procedural hurdles and reaches the floor before aThursday deadline. If it passes the House, the measure would move to theTexas Senate, where it is also likely to be favorably received.Conservatives’ battleThe measure’s passage would represent a big victory for socialconservatives, who have been freshly invigorated by the fight over same-sexmarriage and are laying plans to use every tool at their disposal to thwartit.Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court ordered county officials notto issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, directly contradicting theruling of a federal judge who struck down that state’s same-sex-marriageban. Other states have enacted laws aimed at protecting religious objectorswho do not want to participate in gay weddings.“This is indicative of this clash that we’re seeing and will see at anincreased level with the Supreme Court ruling coming,” said Mat Staver,president of the Liberty Counsel, a public-interest law firm that promotesconservative Christian stances.Still, opponents of same-sex marriage face ever more difficult odds. Gaymarriage is now legal in 37 states and the District, and support for it isrising. Nationally, a record 6 in 10 people said they supported same-sexmarriage in a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted last month.Even in Texas, opposition to gay marriage is dwindling. Polling conductedby the Public Religion Research Institute in 2014 shows that nearly half ofTexans, 48 percent, support same-sex marriage, and 43 percent oppose it.In a teleconference with reporters, critics of the Texas measure predictedthat it would provoke a backlash like those that roiled Indiana andArkansas this year, after those states attempted to enact religiousprotections that were viewed as anti-gay.But gay rights advocates are worried about the bill. The state’slegislative session is scheduled to end in just three weeks, leaving littletime to rally opposition. Meanwhile, they fear that a victory in Texascould prod other states to copy the approach.That could lead to a standoff much like the conflict that arose in the1950s over school desegregation, gay rights advocates said. That battleeventually ended in the capitulation of resistant Southern states — butonly after years of litigation slowed the advance of civil rights.“Texas is pioneering a new strategy to prevent equality for its LGBTresidents, to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court and even roll back gains thathave been made in the state,” said Chuck Smith, president of EqualityTexas, a gay rights group.The measure “seeks to subvert any ruling this summer by the U.S. SupremeCourt that would allow the freedom to marry for loving, committed lesbianand gay couples in Texas and around the country,” Smith said.Abortion analogySupporters of the legislation said the proper analogy is not schooldesegregation but abortion rights. Abortion has been legal since 1973, whenthe Supreme Court ruled in a landmark Texas case, Roe v. Wade. In recentyears, however, conservative lawmakers have enacted a slew of bills thathave reduced access to the procedure — for example, by requiring clinics tobe built to expensive hospital-like standards or putting restrictions onthe use of abortion-inducing drugs.Many of these measures have been challenged in the courts, with mixedresults, and some are likely to end up before the Supreme Court. But inTexas, they have already contributed to the closure of more than half ofthe roughly 40 clinics operating in the state just two years ago, accordingto the Texas ACLU.“Texas, above all states, has . . . done everything we can to eliminateabortion,” even as it remains technically legal, said Steven ­Hotze,president of Conservative Republicans of Texas, a political actioncommittee that pushed for the same-sex-marriage bill.“By taking a stand on homosexual ‘mirage’ — and I call it ‘mirage’ becauseit’s counterfeit, it’s false, it’s a lie — it will send a loud signal andbe a rallying cry across the country for those who do not want to redefinemarriage.”INTERNATIONALPakistanis Knew Where Osama Bin Laden Was, U.S. Sources Say<http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pakistanis-knew-where-bin-laden-was-say-us-sources-n357306>// NBC News // Matthew Cole, Richard Esposito, Robert Windrem and AndreaMitchell – May 11, 2015Two intelligence sources tell NBC News that the year before the U.S. raidthat killed Osama bin Laden, a “walk in” asset from Pakistani intelligencetold the CIA where the most wanted man in the world was hiding – and thesetwo sources plus a third say that the Pakistani government knew where binLaden was hiding all along.The U.S. government has always characterized the heroic raid by Seal TeamSix that killed bin Laden as a unilateral U.S. operation, and hasmaintained that the CIA found him by tracking couriers to his walledcomplex in Abbottabad, Pakistan.The new revelations do not necessarily cast doubt on the overall narrativethat the White House began circulating within hours of the May 2011operation. The official story about how bin Laden was found was constructedin a way that protected the identity and existence of the asset, who alsoknew who inside the Pakistani government was aware of the Pakistaniintelligence agency’s operation to hide bin Laden, according to a specialoperations officer with prior knowledge of the bin Laden mission. Theofficial story focused on a long hunt for bin Laden’s presumed courier,Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.While NBC News has long been pursuing leads about a “walk in” and aboutwhat Pakistani intelligence knew, both assertions were made public in aLondon Review of Books article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.Hersh’s story, published over the weekend, raises numerous questions aboutthe White House account of the SEAL operation. It has been stronglydisputed both on and off the record by the Obama administration and currentand former national security officials.The Hersh story says that the “walk in,” a Pakistani intelligence official,contacted U.S. authorities in 2010, that elements of ISI, the Pakistaniintelligence agency, knew of bin Laden’s whereabouts, and that the U.S.told the Pakistanis about the bin Laden raid before it launched. The U.S.has maintained that it did not tell the Pakistani government about the raidbefore it launched.On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren called Hersh’s piece”largely a fabrication” and said there were “too many inaccuracies” todetail each one. Col Warren said the raid to kill bin Laden was a”unilateral action.” Both the National Security Council and the Pentagondenied that Pakistan had played any role in the raid.Pakistani media personnel and local resiAAMIR QURESHI / AFP/Getty ImagesPakistani media personnel and local residents gather outside the hideout ofal Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan after the U.S. raidthat killed him.”The notion that the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden was anything buta unilateral U.S. mission is patently false,” said NSC spokesman Ned Price.”As we said at the time, knowledge of this operation was confined to a verysmall circle of senior U.S. officials.”The administration’s responses do not address the specific allegations inthe Hersh article, including the existence of the “walk in” asset.Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,dismissed Hersh’s account. “I simply have never heard of anything like thisand I’ve been briefed several times,” said McCain, R.-Arizona. “This was agreat success on the part of the administration and something that we alladmire the president’s decision to do. “The NBC News sources who confirm that a Pakistani intelligence officialbecame a “walk in” asset include the special operations officer and a CIAofficer who had served in Pakistan. These two sources and a third source, avery senior former U.S. intelligence official, also say that elements ofthe ISI were aware of bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. The formerofficial was emphatic about the ISI’s awareness, saying twice, “They knew.”Another top official acknowledged to NBC News that the U.S. government hadlong harbored “deep suspicions” that ISI and al Qaeda were “cooperating.”And a book by former acting CIA director Mike Morrell that will bepublished tomorrow says that U.S. officials could not dismiss thepossibility of such cooperation.None of the sources characterized how high up in ISI the knowledge mighthave gone. Said one former senior official, “We were suspicious thatsomeone inside ISI … knew where bin Laden was, but we did not haveintelligence about specific individuals having specific knowledge.”Multiple U.S. officials, however, denied or cast doubt on the assertionthat the U.S. told the Pakistanis about the bin Laden raid ahead of time.Nepal Rattled by Powerful New Earthquake East of Capital<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/world/asia/nepal-earthquake-east-of-kathmandu.html?ref=world>// NYT // Austin Ramzy – May 12, 2015HONG KONG — A powerful earthquake shook Nepal on Tuesday, less than threeweeks after a devastating temblor there killed more than 8,000 people.Early details were scarce, but some deaths and collapsed buildings werereported.Residents of Kathmandu reported that buildings swayed in the earthquake,which was felt as far away as New Delhi. The United States GeologicalSurvey assigned the quake on Tuesday a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, withan epicenter about 50 miles east of Kathmandu, near the border with China.The April 25 earthquake registered magnitude 7.8 and was centered west ofKathmandu.“We’re obviously hearing of buildings destroyed, buildings collapsed,buildings falling, we’re hearing about casualties, but the numbers are notknown yet,” said Jamie McGoldrick, Nepal resident coordinator for theUnited Nations Development Program. He said several international rescueteams, including American and Indian teams, were still in Kathmandu but hadnot yet been asked to deploy.Four people died in Chautara, a town in the Sindhupalchowk districtnortheast of Kathmandu where several buildings collapsed, said Paul Dillon,a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration. “A search andrescue crew of some locals and international groups are digging throughrubble as best they can,” Mr. Dillon said.“We are seeing huge damage in our district,” said Krishna Prasad Gaiwali,the chief district officer in Sindhupalchowk. “It was terrible, reallyterrible. Buildings were shaking too much for too long.”Since the April 25 quake, people across Nepal have feared another powerfulone, in part because the first one left many buildings cracked andunstable. An American structural engineer who examined buildings inBhaktapur, a city near Kathmandu, said that he believed one-third of thebuildings he had seen would have to be demolished.Nevertheless, many families have moved back into their apartments, afterliving under tents for the week after the first quake.Kunda Dixit, the editor of The Nepali Times, described “some degree ofpanic” in Kathmandu as the tremor “just became bigger and bigger andbigger, started rocking more and more and more.” He said that officeworkers ran into the street and that electric power was out and telephoneswere jammed.“It started slow, it kept on swaying, and the birds were up in the air,” hesaid. “I looked outside and the electricity polls were just swaying fromside to side, the wires were swaying.”Bikash Suwal, a trekking guide in Kathmandu, said that he and othercolleagues had fled from an office on the fourth floor of a building andsought safety in the open. He said that he had not seen any buildings fallor people injured, but residents worried that the damage closer to theepicenter could be serious. Cellphone calls to that area were not goingthrough, he said.He said that residents in Kathmandu would face a choice of staying outsideovernight, and risk being caught in the rain, or going indoors and riskanother quake. “I will stay at home, but other people, I don’t know,” hesaid.Dhruba Prasad Ghimire, an aid worker who had been distributing food in avillage west of Kathmandu, said buildings there shook and residents raninto the open in fear as the quake triggered landslides on nearby hills.But he said he had not seen anybody injured among the residents, and thebuildings still standing in the village had not fallen down.“It was very frightening again, but we will keep giving out food,” he saidin a brief telephone interview. “We are O.K., but there were landslides andmore of the aftershocks — you could see the ground falling down on thehills.”He said, “People will be frightened. We don’t know if there will be more ofthese earthquakes.”John Kerry and Vladimir Putin to Hold Talks in Russia<http://time.com/3853535/john-kerry-putin-russia/> // TIME // Matthew Lee -May 11, 2015(WASHINGTON) — The State Department says Secretary of State John Kerry willtravel to Russia this week for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.It will be his first trip to Russia since the start of the Ukraine crisis,which has badly damaged relations between Moscow and the west, and only hissecond since taking office.The State Department said Kerry will meet Putin and Russian ForeignMinister Sergey Lavrov at the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday.After his brief stop in Russia, Kerry will travel to Turkey for a meetingof NATO foreign ministers and return to Washington for a summit of GulfArab leaders that President Barack Obama is hosting at Camp David.Kerry last visited Russia in May 2013.OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGSClinton clobbers Rubio on immigration<http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/241614-clinton-clobbers-rubio-on-immigration>// The Hill // Brent Budowsky – May 11, 2015Hillary Clinton’s bold initiative last week to call for a path tocitizenship and other dramatic reforms of immigration policies creates abrilliant contrast to the incoherent and weak immigration position of Sen.Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and the hostile negativity of leading Republicans toimmigration reform.Don’t believe what you read about the GOP making significant inroads in theHispanic vote in 2016. The Democrats have the upper hand on issuesimportant to Hispanic voters, ranging from economics to immigration tohealthcare and both Bill and Hillary Clinton have long had a specialrelationship with Hispanic voters.Last week, Hillary Clinton took forceful command of the immigration issue,a smart move that dramatizes the substantial advantage that Clinton andDemocrats have over Rubio and Republicans.When the Senate passed historic immigration reform, in part because of thegreat leadership of Rubio, I applauded him for a profile in courage thatdemonstrated real leadership.What has happened since? Rubio has disowned his former position, disavowedhis greatest legislative accomplishment in the Senate and destroyed hiscredibility on immigration.It is sad to see. Rubio’s profile in courage became a profile in cowardice.Rubio now opposes his previous good work on immigration and says he haslearned his lesson. The lesson he learned is apparently to never showcourage or leadership without obtaining permission from the right wing ofthe Republican Party.Let’s see if former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) — who sometimes seems to supporthistoric immigration reform, sometimes seems to waffle about it, andsometimes seems to oppose it — has the courage of his convictions anddefies the Republican right on a matter the right sadly considers a holygrail of modern conservatism.I respect Rubio, have at times praised him and consider him a seriouscandidate for the presidency. Yet, to my knowledge, no candidate has everbeen elected president after disowning the major achievement in his career;one which would have been an argument in favor of presidential stature andnow diminishes it.America is a nation of immigrants. Historic immigration reform is urgentlyneeded. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the leader of Democrats in the Senate,understands this. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the leader of Democrats inthe House, understands this. Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for theDemocratic nomination for president, understands this and leads the chargefor it. Republican leaders in Congress reject this and the junior senatorfrom Florida was for it — before he was against it.Clinton’s claim that illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than somecorporations<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/05/11/clintons-claim-that-illegal-immigrants-pay-more-in-taxes-than-some-corporations/>// Washington Post // Glen Kessler – May 11, 2015“In New York, which I know a little bit about because I represented it foreight years and I live there now, our undocumented workers in New York paymore in taxes than some of the biggest corporations in New York.”–Hillary Clinton, roundtable in North Las Vegas, May 5, 2015Several readers contacted The Fact Checker asking about this assertion bythe former secretary of state, made as she discussed her policy goals fortackling illegal immigration. They wanted to know how this statement waspossible.Her statement is vague enough that one could interpret it as meaning thatindividual workers pay more in taxes than corporations, but Clinton’scampaign said that she was talking about undocumented workers as a group.Even so, is her claim possible?The FactsThe Clinton campaign initially pointed to an opinion column by Albor Ruizin the Daily News, dated April 20, 2015, titled, “Corporate giants oftenget huge tax breaks, while poor, undocumented immigrants have paid billionsin state taxes.”We often warn that opinion columns are not necessarily as good a source ofinformation as articles based on straight news reporting. Ruiz, forinstance, relied on facts on corporate taxes from the Web site of Sen.Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), which does not disclose sources for its assertions.Ruiz claimed that although “many of these corporate behemoths pay zerotaxes, the eternally vilified undocumented immigrants in New York paid $1.1billion in state taxes in 2012.”The figure about taxes paid by undocumented workers comes from a reportissued by the left-leaning Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy. Wehave no major issues with the methodology used in that report, except tonote that it is a very broad estimate, based on assumptions about thenumber of immigrants, the average size of immigrant families, the range ofincome of immigrant workers, the number of homeowners and effective taxrates. A change in any one of those assumptions would alter the result.For New York, for example, the report estimated that in 2012 there were873,000 illegal immigrants, with an average family income of $32,600.Eighteen percent were estimated to be homeowners. They supposedly paid $566million in sales and excise taxes, $186 million in state and local incometaxes, and $342 million in property taxes, for a total of more than $1billion. (Note that more than 50 percent of the figure comes from salestaxes, which every person and company pays just anytime something ispurchased.)But the most important aspect of the report is that it looks at state,local and property taxes paid by immigrants — not federal taxes. TheSanders Web site is about federal taxes. So Ruiz — and Clinton by extension— are mixing apples and oranges.Thus, for the purposes of this fact check, we are not going delve deeplyinto the question of whether some big corporations do not pay much – oreven zero — in federal taxes. The issue is very complicated and not verywell reported in the U.S. media. (See, for example, how Fortune documentedflaws in a New York Times report on General Electric.)A company’s annual 10-K filing in March generally will only have estimatednumbers, as the actual tax return generally is not filed until later in theyear. Total tax numbers can be determined from looking at cash flowstatements, but one generally cannot figure out what taxes are being paid.Yet it is silly to assert that these companies pay no taxes at all, becauseat the very least they are paying property taxes, sales taxes andemployment taxes.The only New York-based companies mentioned in Ruiz’s column were Verizonand Citicorp, so let’s take a closer look at them. Verizon, for instance,announces how much it expects to pay in such taxes. In 2012, it says itpaid $1.7 billion in property and other taxes and $1.3 billion inemployment taxes. The income tax bill in 2012 was relatively low — $351million — but it jumped to $4 billion in 2014. That brought Verizon’s totaltax bill above $7 billion in 2014.As for Citicorp, spokeswoman Molly Millerwise Meiners said the company in2012 paid nearly $1 billion in U.S. taxes (not including sales and excisetaxes), including $300 million in state and local taxes, at least $110million in property and use taxes, and $500 million in employment taxes.Sales taxes would bring the number even higher. Citi, of course, hadenormous losses during the financial crisis which wiped out its federalincome tax bill in 2012, but in 2014, she said, federal income taxes alonewere about $1 billion.David Kallick, director of the Immigration Research Initiative at FiscalPolicy Institute, which co-released the ITEP report, said that Clinton wastrying to make the point that undocumented immigrants pay more in taxesthan most people recognize. But he acknowledged that “if you really want tomake a thorough comparison, you would have to include other taxescorporations may pay.”Indeed, the accounting firm Ernst & Young estimates that that state andlocal business taxes totaled $643 billion in 2012. About one-third of thetotal stemmed from property taxes and one-fifth from sales taxes. Therewere also tens of billions paid in public utilities taxes, excise taxes,business license taxes, unemployment insurance taxes and other statebusiness taxes.Matt Gardner, executive director of ITEP and a co-author of the report,said it’s correct that many big companies pay no income taxes in certainyears but it makes little sense to compare those numbers to a group ofpeople. “If she means undocumented workers as a group, it’s not anapples-to-apples comparison,” he said. “You could pick any large segment ofthe population and state, probably correctly, that that group pays moretaxes than certain specific corporations. It’s just not obvious why that’sa very meaningful comparison to make.”“The point she was making is that undocumented immigrants pay more in stateand local taxes alone than some of our biggest companies pay in eitherstate or federal corporate income tax,” said Clinton spokesman JoshSchwerin. “That is a striking fact. And that’s why she raised it.”The Pinocchio TestEven if Clinton incorrectly stated her talking point, this is a tendentiousargument that is probably made even less relevant by 2014 tax data. (Notehow the taxes paid by Verizon and Citicorp increased as the economy beganto pick up.) If she is only talking about state and local income taxes,that’s just $186 million, according to the ITEP estimate for New York.Verizon and Citicorp still exceed that number on state and local taxesalone.Undocumented immigrants obviously pay a lot of taxes, especially salestaxes. Clinton would have an even stronger case to highlight the taxcontribution of illegal immigrants if she mentioned that the SocialSecurity actuary estimated that illegal immigrants paid $12 billion inSocial Security taxes in 2010 alone, with little hope of ever receivingbenefits. (They used false or duplicative Social Security numbers.) That’seven more than the ITEP estimate for state/local income taxes, sales taxesand property taxes paid by illegal immigrants across the nation.But comparing the taxes of hundreds of thousands of people to the tax billof one corporation is a stretch and fairly misleading. Even the companiesthat pay little or no federal income taxes end up paying lots of othertaxes. So it’s a nonsense comparison.We wavered between Three and Four Pinocchios, but ultimately settled onFour. As a former senator, Clinton should know better.Hillary Clinton hasn’t answered a question from the media in 20 days<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/05/11/hillary-clinton-hasnt-answered-a-question-from-the-media-in-20-days/?wprss=rss_politics>// Washington Post // Chriz Cillizza – May 11, 2015Welcome to day 29 of the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign!In those 29 days – including April 12, the day she announced, and today –Clinton has taken a total of eight questions from the press. That breaksout to roughly one question every 3.6 days. Of late, she’s taken even fewerquestions than that. According to media reports, the last day Clintonanswered a question was April 21 in New Hampshire; that means that shehasn’t taken a question from the media in 20 straight days.Carly Fiorina, one of the many newly minted Republicans running forpresident, is doing everything she can to shine a light on Clinton’sclose-mouthed approach with the press. This came from Fiorina deputycampaign manager Sasha Isgur Flores this morning:In the last eight days, Carly has been interviewed almost 30 times andanswered well over 300 questions. She continues to impress voters, pundits,and reporters alike with her willingness to share her thoughts and ideas –and to answer any question, from whether she likes hot dogs to how shewould tackle the crisis in the Middle East. … This is in stark contrastto many other candidates – and most especially to Hillary Clinton.And it’s not just the Republican candidates attacking Clinton on hersilence. The New York Times posted an item on its “First Draft” blog lastweek titled “Questions for Hillary Clinton: Immigration” in which AmyChozick wrote: “This is the first installment of a regular First Draftfeature in which The Times will publish questions we would have asked Mrs.Clinton had we had the opportunity.” And, late last month, I offered upseven questions Clinton should answer.The Clinton campaign’s response to all of this? Blah. Reporters whining –like they always do. And, as every Clinton staffer is quick to note, shehas answered questions from lots of regular people during her first monthas a candidate – holding roundtables in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.They are also quick to note that she makes opening statements at theseroundtables.She’s taking questions from voters! She’s talking about policy! You guysjust don’t like it because she’s not falling all over herself to jumpthrough your hoops!So, for roughly the billionth time, let me make two points in response tothat way of thinking.1. Making policy statements/opening statements does not remove the need toanswer actual questions from reporters.2. While answering questions from hand-picked audience members is notwithout value, no one could possibly think it is the equivalent ofanswering questions from the working press.As I have written before, Clinton needs the media at this point in thecampaign far less than someone like Carly Fiorina does. Clinton is not onlyuniversally known but also has a huge primary lead and is ahead of allRepublican contenders in general election matchups as well. Fiorina, on theother hand, is known by roughly no one, and to the extent anyone does knowher, it’s for the way she left HP.Still, this is the new Clinton campaign, right? The one where she and thepeople around her pledged to deal differently with the press? Little did weknow that “different” in this case meant “next to not at all.”Yes, we are one month into the campaign. And yes, Clinton and her teamwanted to start very low-profile this time around – to avoid making themistakes she made in 2008. So, it’s possible things could change. But ifpast is prologue, I wouldn’t bet on it.I Am A Dreamer Who Met Hillary Clinton<http://letstalknevada.com/i-am-a-dreamer-who-met-hillary-clinton/> // LetsTalk Nevada // Blanca Gamez – May 11, 2015This past Tuesday, six undocumented individuals — Astrid Silva, ErikaCastro, Rafael Lopez, Betsaida Frausto, Juan Salazar and myself — had theopportunity to have an open and honest conversation with Democraticpresidential candidate Hillary Clinton at Rancho High School in Las Vegas.The fellow participants and I looked forward to not only sharing ourstories, but to have the chance to ask Former Secretary of State HillaryClinton questions surrounding the topic of immigration. Prior to speakingwith Secretary Clinton, we were told this was an un-rehearsed conversation,to not hold back, and to ask questions so we could get her stance on thevarious issues that plague the undocumented community.As the six of us waited in anticipation for Secretary Clinton’s arrival, weshared our stories with one another as a means to calm our nerves.Secretary Clinton has been scrutinized in the media due to her comments inthe past on the topic of immigration, unlike the Republican presidentialcandidates who make comments about not following through with PresidentObama’s executive orders and their critical stance on comprehensiveimmigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. Secretary Clinton hastaken the opposite approach, agreeing to follow through with PresidentObama’s plans and she will urge Congress to pass comprehensive immigrationreform.Once we were seated, the conversation commenced with Secretary Clintonsharing her own immigration story. She said that when she was young girlshe visited the labor camps of migrant workers. She recalled witnessing theworkers returning home from a hard day out in the fields and how thechildren would run to welcome home their fathers, the same way she wouldwhen her father came home from work. She further discussed that we do notneed a second-class system; this is a country where people should betreated with respect.Following her introductory speech, she turned to each of us and asked us toshare our own stories which entailed when we arrived in the United States,background on our families and how the President’s executive actionsimpacted our lives. As we shared our stories we asked questions. Ourquestions varied, as we all have different ways immigration impacts us.Examples of these questions included members of the trans-community who arenot provided adequate legal representation when they are detained indetention facilities, the 3 to 10 year unlawful presence bars for when anindividual enters the country without inspection (illegally) and facesleaving the country for 3 to 10 years as they fix their status, and whatwould be done to include those who did not qualify under the President’sexecutive orders?I was completely surprised by Secretary Clinton’s responses to the variousquestions that we asked from her. She not only answered the questions, butdelved deeper into the issues, which are rarely spoken about.Secretary Clinton spoke about the injustices faced by inmates in thedetention centers, as large corporations fund these centers and have a bedmandate which requires a certain amount of beds to be filled every day.This is something that many are unaware is happening. Additionally, sheshared that she plans to find a solution for the 11 to 12 millionundocumented immigrants in this country, even if she has to go further thanPresident Obama’s executive actions. The conversation then shifted intore-unification of those who have become separated from their families, toraising the minimum wage, and to student loan debt.I think all of us, including the audience members and the media, thought wewere going to hear the same old talking points. Yet, during theconversation, Secretary Clinton took a problem solving detailed approach tothe topic of immigration, something she had not done in the past and shedelved further than any of the other presidential candidates. Her answersstunned me as they were not the usual answers you’d expect to hear fromsomeone. Rather, they were answers that were accompanied by facts.Leaving the conversation, I can say I was very pleased with SecretaryClinton’s answers. Yet we Dreamers must hold her to them as she continueson the campaign trail, and if she is elected as our next President of theUnited States.Barack Obama’s Hillary Clinton Problem<http://blogs.rollcall.com/white-house/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-problem/?dcz=>// Roll Call // Steven Dennis – May 12, 2015You knew it was coming: The White House is starting to get a case ofClintonitis.With Hillary Rodham Clinton the overwhelming favorite to carry theDemocratic torch next year — and now an official candidate starting tospout policy positions — the White House has been forced to parry anever-increasing barrage of questions.Speaker John A. Boehner got the ball rolling by asking President BarackObama to enlist Clinton’s help to pass fast-track trade authority. That hadWhite House Press Secretary Josh Earnest retaliating, suggesting such amove would signal desperation from the GOP.“It seems a little early for a pretty desperate act like that, to basicallysuggest that you need a candidate for office from the other party to helpyou advance the agenda when you’ve got the majority in the House ofRepresentatives,” Earnest said.He later had to use all the rhetorical tools in his arsenal to avoidcommenting on Clinton’s push to set up a deferred action process for theparents of “DREAMers,” who brought their children to the United Statesillegally years ago, so they can avoid deportation.Reporters asked if an expansion of Obama’s executive actions would belegal. “That will be something for future presidents and ultimately futurecourts to decide,” Earnest replied.What about Clinton’s plan? “I’m not a judge and I didn’t go to law school,so I’m not going to be in a position to render a legal opinion …” he said.But the White House has already issued its legal opinion that the presidentwent as far as he could go.The strategy seems to be: When in doubt, refer to Clinton’s team.“I’ll let Secretary Clinton and her campaign describe exactly what stepsthey envision taking, and I’ll allow them to make the case about why it’slegal,” Earnest said.Senators on Capitol Hill face a similar dynamic, with DREAM Act sponsorSen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., claiming ignorance as to what might bepossible with executive orders when asked whether he agrees with thepresident’s assertion he has done everything he can — or if he agrees withClinton there’s room to go further.Then there are the missing Clinton emails and foreign donations to theClinton Foundation while she was secretary of State.Earnest — and Obama — have done their best to keep the presidentialcampaign at bay, aided by a Clinton campaign that, until very recently, hadbeen sandblasted of anything approaching serious policy proposals. (Herwebsite still doesn’t have an issues page.)The White House has even kept meetings Obama has held with Clinton — andformer President Bill Clinton — off the public schedule.That’s only going to get more awkward as the campaign gears up and Clintonstarts laying out an agenda, which necessarily will include either newitems or recycled Obama proposals that failed to launch (universalpre-school, anyone?).The president can expect a lot of “Why didn’t Obama do that?” questions. Ifthe White House simply blames Congress — a standard fallback — that wouldundercut Clinton’s ability to claim she’ll get things done. Unless, ofcourse, she and her team were to join in on the chorus of criticism aboutObama’s congressional relations.The New York Times reported last month that while Clinton was campaigningin Iowa, she told lawmakers privately she could do a better job workingwith Congress. The Times reported it was one of her best-received lines.“One of her biggest messages was, ‘I know how hard it is to work withCongress; I’ve done it before, and I will continue to when I’m in the WhiteHouse,’’’ state Rep. Mary Mascher of Iowa City, who attended theclosed-door meeting, told the newspaper.There’s also the potential for moments that could have the feel of VicePresident Joseph R. Biden Jr. going off-script and endorsing gay marriageahead of the president. The bolder Clinton and her team become, the moreawkward the non-answers from Earnest and company will be.There also is the real possibility of Clinton undermining the remainingparts of the Obama agenda that can get through a GOP Congress as she seeksto rally the Democratic base and shore up her left flank against the likesof Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and,maybe, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. That includes the trade agenda andassorted other messy compromises to come.A senior administration official minimized the issue, saying there’s nodaily call with the Clinton team yet to vet issues, although the two campskeep in touch. Many Clinton hands are veterans of the administration,including former Obama Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri.“They have been focused on driving a contrast with GOPers, not with us,”the official told CQ Roll Call. “That’s not just a testament to our sharedvalues and priorities. It’s a reflection of the president’s politicalstanding.”Obama, after all, remains very popular within the Democratic Party and hisnational poll ratings have nudged higher.Indeed, his approval ratings lately have eclipsed Clinton’s.Smart Social Programs<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/opinion/smart-social-programs.html?ref=opinion>// New York Times // Jason Furman – May 11, 2015WASHINGTON — DO government efforts to support low-income families work?Since the War on Poverty in the 1960s, skeptics have argued that even ifthese programs provide temporary relief, the only long-term impact isincreased dependency — witness, they say, the persistent lack of mobilityin places like inner-city Baltimore.But a growing body of research tells a very different story. Investments ineducation, income, housing, health care and nutrition for working familieshave substantial long-term benefits for children.Consider Moving to Opportunity, an experiment in the 1990s that gavefamilies housing assistance, in some cases contingent on their moving toless poor neighborhoods. Initial evidence from the randomized trial wasdisappointing, finding little or no improvements in test scores forchildren or earnings for adults. A new paper by the Harvard economists RajChetty, Nathaniel Hendren and Lawrence F. Katz, however, followed thechildren for another decade. It found that traditional rental vouchers hadincreased their earnings as adults by 15 percent, and experimentalvouchers, which required people to move to less poor neighborhoods, by 31percent. The additional tax revenue from these higher earnings was enoughto repay the program’s cost.This is only the latest in a number of recent studies that use big data tounderstand the longer-term effects of a range of government programs.One intriguing recent study by the economists Anna Aizer, Shari Eli, JosephP. Ferrie and Adriana Lleras-Muney examined the records of 16,000 childrenwhose families applied for a temporary income-support program that was ineffect from 1911 to 1935. By comparing the outcomes of those who receivedthe benefit to those of similar children who were denied, the researchersfound that the program resulted in more education, higher earnings andlower mortality. Social Security data were used to follow programbeneficiaries until as late as 2012, allowing researchers to show that thebenefits of receiving even a few years of assistance as a child couldpersist for 80 years or more.Although we do not have 100 years of follow-on data from today’s programs,recent research following children as they entered their 20s and 30s hasproduced similarly striking findings.Studies show that the earned-income tax credit, one of the government’slargest tools to reduce child poverty, may also reduce the incidence of lowbirth weight, raise math and reading scores and boost college enrollmentrates for the children who benefited. The Supplemental Nutrition AssistanceProgram, formerly known as food stamps, has been shown to have similarbenefits for child recipients that can last decades.Receiving Medicaid in childhood makes it substantially more likely that achild will graduate from high school and complete college and less likelythat an African-American child will die in his late teens or behospitalized at 25. For women, Medicaid participation in childhood isassociated with increased earnings.A body of research on the long-term effects of high-quality preschoolprograms and other early-childhood interventions, like home visits byhealth professionals, consistently finds that they improve a range of adultoutcomes, from higher earnings to reduced crime rates. Other research hasfound that Head Start achieves similar results.There are three noteworthy elements in this new research. First, thebenefits often are not captured by short-term outcomes like improvements inchildren’s test scores, which typically last only a few years before fading.Second, while program design certainly matters — and can matter a lot —much of the benefit appears to derive from helping low-income families payfor basic needs like food, housing or health care, or simply reducing theintense economic pressure they face. This relates to findings that povertymay increase intense stress, inhibiting young children’s cognitivedevelopment.Third, in many cases, the additional tax revenue from the higher long-runearnings generated by the program is sufficient to repay much or even morethan all of the initial cost.In addition to long-term benefits, the safety net, of course, supports manyAmericans right now. In 2013, income and nutrition assistance programslifted 46 million people, including 10 million children, out of poverty,while health programs benefited tens of millions more. As a result, theproportions of Americans who are poor and uninsured have fallen over thepast several decades.Moreover, safety-net programs do not discourage work in any big way.Instead, the E.I.T.C. rewards low-income parents for working. And childcare and pre-K programs make it easier for parents to work in the firstplace, while also putting children in a better position to succeed.President Obama’s goal is greater mobility and higher incomes. We know thatthe large cuts to nutrition assistance, health care, housing vouchers andother programs contained in the recent congressional budget resolutionwould not only hurt the poor today but also shortchange our economy’sfuture. In contrast, the evidence strongly supports making child care andpreschool available to all families with young children, restoring housingvouchers that were cut during the sequester and expanding tax credits forworking families.We cannot solve poverty or lack of mobility overnight, but contrary to whatthe skeptics say, investing in families works — not just for them, but forall of us.HBO’s Veep Just Got Very Real About the Hillary Clinton Campaign<http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/05/veep-hillary-clinton-campaign-amy-quits>// Vanity Fair // Joanna Robinson – May 11, 2015No matter what, Veep—HBO’s satirical comedy about a fictional femalepresident—was going to draw comparisons to Hillary Clinton’s bid for theOval Office. As perhaps the most prominent female political figure in U.S.history, Clinton is an inevitable inspiration for the show. But while lastnight’s episode didn’t specifically put Clinton and her campaign in itssatirical crosshairs, it did frankly address the stakes of a potentialHillary Clinton presidency.When this season kicked off with Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s character SelinaMeyer out of the vice president role and not only acting ascommander-in-chief, but also running for reelection, creator ArmandoIannucci knew Clinton and her campaign would be on everyone’s mind. “Weweren’t consciously aping Hillary when we wrote Selina. It’s inevitable nowI suppose that Hillary is campaigning as Selina is president that therewill be comparisons made,” he said on a recent episode of Sirius XM’s PopPolitics. But that’s likely not a coincidence. Iannucci— the canny satiristbehind political properties like In the Loop, In the Thick of It, and, ohyes, Clinton: His Struggle with Dirt—said in the same interview that hetries “to make a couple of guesstimates as to where reality might be whenthe show goes out,” in order to keep his political commentary fresh.But the hilariously inept and craven Selina only bears a very superficialresemblance to Hillary. (Louis-Dreyfus uses Clinton’s make-up artist andlast season’s haircut plot was based on a Hillary incident.) This isn’texactly John Travolta doing a Bill Clinton impression in Primary Colors. Sowhen Selina’s campaign manager Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky) let herlong-simmering rage boil over at her inept boss, it’s not a condemnation ofHillary the politician in any way. (In fact, Iannucci has said that“talking to people at the State Department, they only had good things tosay about [Hillary] as a boss.”) But what Amy said is a piercing reminderthat, like it or not, a Hillary Clinton presidency has incredibly highstakes. As she quit the Meyer campaign, Amy said, through gritted teeth:You have made it impossible to do this job. You have two settings—nodecision and bad decision. I wouldn’t let you run a bath without the CoastGuard and the fire department standing by, but yet here you are runningAmerica. You are the worst thing that has happened to this country sincefood in buckets and maybe slavery. I’ve had enough. I’m gone.You have achieved nothing apart from one thing. The fact that you are awoman means we will have no more women presidents because we tried one andshe fucking sucked.Other than those literally superficial hair and makeup aspects above, Veephas avoided taking on Hillary directly while still touching on othermembers of the Clinton clan. Selina’s big teleprompter gaffe that openedSeason 4 is actually based on a Bill Clinton incident from 1993. AndIanucci asked actress Sarah Sutherland—who plays Selina’s daughterCatherine—to “have a look at footage of Chelsea [Clinton] doing publicstuff.” But while Ianucci may claim that vice presidents like Biden, Gore,and Cheney are all inspirations for Selina, there’s no doubt Hillary hasalways been there in the background. He recently connected the dots betweenLouis-Dreyfus’s Selina and Kate McKinnon’s portrayal of an eager,campaign-ready Clinton on Saturday Night Live. He referred to it as “Thatair of ‘I am going to be the first woman president of the United States.You do know that. Have you forgotten that?’” No one’s forgotten, and withthe political landscape still starved for female representation, the stakeson that first female commander-in-chief will, to paraphrase the moreeloquent Amy Brookheimer, be sky high.– *Alexandria Phillips**Communications | Press Assistant**Hillary for America *https://www.hillaryclinton.com– You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “HRCRapid” group.To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hrcrapid+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.To post to this group, send email to hrcrapid@googlegroups.com.For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

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