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Yes the one that Jenny Beth told us to get behind is absolutely the worst choice!
By Jonathan Easley - 11/02/15 06:00 PM EST
Donald Trump threw the Republican presidential campaigns for a loop on Monday, announcing that he’d break from a group seeking to gain control over the debate process and go it alone.
Representatives from nearly every campaign — including Trump’s — gathered at a Washington-area hotel on Sunday night to hash out a list of demands they hoped to extract from the networks hosting 2016 debates going forward.
As late as Monday afternoon, Trump campaign officials appeared to be on board with a group letter crafted by Republican lawyer Ben Ginsberg, detailing how the campaigns expect the debates to proceed.
But The Washington Post first reported late Monday that Trump would reject the group letter and instead negotiate with the networks on his own.
“As we have for the previous three debates, the Trump campaign will continue to negotiate directly with the host network to establish debate criteria that will determine Mr. Trump’s participation,” a spokesman for the GOP front-runner said in an email to The Hill. “This is no different than the process that occurred prior to the FOX, CNN, and CNBC debates.”
Trump’s reversal on Monday came as news to the rest of the campaigns that, having wrested control of the process from the Republican National Committee, had gathered the night before in hopes of presenting a united front to the networks.
The Hill reached out to several campaigns in the wake of the breaking news, and all were learning about Trump’s decision for the first time.
“He was among one of the first candidates to pull us all together, it seems kind of strange that he’s jumping ship,” said one campaign aide.
Even Ben Carson’s campaign manager, Barry Bennett, who was instrumental in setting up the weekend meeting and pushing for changes to the process, learned about Trump’s withdrawal through media reports.
“From what I can tell, he wants to send his own letter on his own letterhead,” Bennett said, going through his email to see if he’d missed something.
Still, Bennett insisted little has changed and that the group would largely be moving forward as one.
He said he expected most of the campaigns would sign a letter within the next 48 hours that they’d send to the networks requesting information on the debate formats and outlining candidate expectations.
The letter, which is close to being finalized, demanded the candidates get at least a 30-second opening and closing statement and pre-approval of graphics displaying biographical information. It also moved to eliminate “lightning round” questions, which the candidates believe lack substance and contribute to “gotcha” moments.
The campaigns also wanted a pledge that the debates will not run longer than two hours, that the rooms will be kept at 67 degrees, and a general agreement from the networks that the moderators would focus on substantive issues and not pit the candidates against one another using personal attacks.
Sunday night’s meeting was spurred by furor from the candidates at CNBC’s handling of last week’s debate and anger at the RNC, which many candidates believed didn’t negotiate strongly enough on their behalf or communicate the details of the debate formats in a timely manner. A representative from the RNC was not on hand for the meeting.
But the united front the candidates hoped to put forth suffered a crack on Monday with Trump’s announcement.
The Trump and Carson campaigns have talked openly about how their lofty spots in the race earned gave them more negotiating leverage than the other campaigns have over the networks.
“The Trump and Carson campaigns have the opportunity to drive this forward in a good way,” Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told The Hill just hours before Trump backed away from the group. “These two [candidates] are far and away the front-runners, so that’s a factor in who has leverage.”
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/258896-trump-roils-gop-debate-...
By Jordan Fabian - 11/02/15 09:22 PM EST
President Obama on Monday mocked Republican presidential candidates as thin-skinned for lashing out at CNBC over the network’s handling of last week’s primary debate.
“They say, ‘when I talk to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, he’s going to straighten out,'" he said at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in New York City. "And then it turns out they can’t handle a bunch of CNBC moderators."
“If you can’t handle those guys, I don’t think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you,” Obama added.
The high-dollar event at the Richard Rodgers Theatre featured a special showing of the Broadway musical “Hamilton.”
Obama, who took his daughters Malia and Sasha to see the critically acclaimed show in July, said he was “annoyed” he did not get to see it again.
“Michelle and I love this show. It also happens to be the only thing Dick Cheney and I agree on," he joked.
Republican presidential campaigns were furious over last Wednesday’s CNBC debate, accusing moderators of showing political bias, asking unfair questions and not giving candidates equal portions of speaking time.
The Republican National Committee announced last week it would pull out of a planned Feb. 26 debate hosted by NBC amid a revolt by the candidates.
Seeking to wrest control over debate process from the RNC, the campaigns gathered Sunday night to draft a list of demands they hoped to extract from debate hosts going forward.
But GOP candidate Donald Trump threw a wrench into that plan when he announced Monday he would negotiate with the hosts on his own.
The president pointed to the debate fracas as just one example of how the GOP candidates “occupy a different reality.” He criticized their positions on a whole host of issues, including immigration reform, climate change and his bailout of the auto industry.
“According to them, everything was going really great in 2008 … This apparently was the golden age, that I messed up,” he said. “And Obamacare, and immigrants, and taxes and deficits all just messed everything up. And they’re really so glum. They really are so frustrated.”
Obama’s comments could touch a nerve with Republicans, who have been deeply critical of Obama’s handling of the gruff Russian leader. Many GOP say Obama’s weakness in dealing with Putin has led him to expand Russia’s influence in Ukraine and Syria.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/258923-obama-mocks-gop-h...
President Barack Obama, who has spent seven years complaining about Fox News and talk radio, mocked Republicans at a fundraiser in New York Monday evening over their complaints about the GOP debate moderators.
Yeah I remember him whining and bitching about Fox new coverage of him when it reported the truth about him. He is such narcissistic piece of work!
Donald Trump has rejected the Republican campaigns’ joint effort to negotiate the terms of the GOP debate format with the major media networks, insisting he will negotiate independently.
By Alexander Bolton - 11/02/15 08:35 PM EST
Senate Republicans are plunging into a difficult debate over ObamaCare as they seek to take up legislation before the Thanksgiving holiday that would repeal most of President Obama’s signature law.
The fight puts Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a difficult spot, between conservatives who are eager to send the repeal bill to the White House and centrists — including a senator vulnerable in 2016 — who are ready to defect over language in the House-approved bill.
But Senate Republican sources say the House bill cannot pass the upper chamber without significant changes, with McConnell short of the votes he needs.
“The House opted to go a certain way. We don’t have to go that way. We have members here who may have different views on things,” said a senior Senate Republican aide. “If it’s not the exact same as what the House did, that’s OK.”
The reconciliation process allows Senate Republicans to bypass a Democratic filibuster. GOP leaders earlier this year promised the tactic would be used to get an ObamaCare repeal bill through Congress, forcing the president to defend the law with a veto.
But the package passed by the House has created two problems for McConnell.
For one, a pair of presidential hopefuls, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), joined by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), are vowing to oppose any bill that stops short of repealing the Affordable Care Act in its entirety — something that could be exceedingly difficult to accomplish under reconciliation rules.
“Each of us campaigned on a promise to fully repeal ObamaCare and a reconciliation bill is the best way to send such legislation to President Obama’s desk,” Cruz, Rubio and Lee said in a statement.
“If this bill cannot be amended so that it fully repeals ObamaCare pursuant to Senate rules, we cannot support this bill.”
Without those three votes, McConnell would have just a bare majority of 51 for the reconciliation package — but that’s only if he can hold the rest of his conference together.
Several Republican centrists are already on record opposing the defunding of Planned Parenthood, a key piece of the House package that was included to win over conservatives.
GOP Sens. Mark Kirk (Ill.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) have all either voted against efforts to defund Planned Parenthood or stated they opposed them. Kirk is considered one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents in the country this cycle.
The tug-of-war between centrists and White House hopefuls means November will be a tough month for the Senate majority leader, after having dodged the bullet of a federal default and government shutdown with the October budget deal.
“If you move it to the right to placate those guys running for president, you make it a worse vote for people running in purple and blue states in 2016. McConnell’s between a rock and a hard place,” said a Senate Democratic leadership aide.
Changing the legislation could be contingent on favorable rulings from Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who will decide whether provisions in the legislation conform to the rules of reconciliation.
Some Senate conservatives are pushing for their chamber’s reconciliation package to include a one-sentence repeal of the entire law, but there’s an internal argument over whether such a blanket move would pass the procedural litmus test known as the Byrd Rule.
The Senate parliamentarian has provided early indications that the entire healthcare law — including parts that do not directly affect the deficit, such as the requirement that young adults be allowed to stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26 — cannot be repealed through reconciliation.
But she has not delivered a final judgment on the matter after hearing arguments from all sides, according to Senate sources.
The parliamentarian’s rulings could generate significant controversy, especially if Republicans are thwarted in their attempts to roll back parts of the law.
Cruz earlier this month said Republicans should not let the parliamentarian stand in the way of getting rid of ObamaCare.
“At the end of the day, the Senate parliamentarian is an employee of the Senate. Virtually every Republican campaigned promising full repeal,” the Texan said.
The House reconciliation bill takes a targeted approach to repeal, abolishing the employer and individual mandates for insurance as well as the “Cadillac tax” on expensive employer-provided health plans. The House bill also repeals the law’s excise tax on medical devices.
But Senate conservatives complain that it leaves the core of ObamaCare — primarily its hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies — intact, as well as many of the law’s new taxes.
“Many of the ObamaCare tax increases aren’t included in the House bill,” said one Senate aide. “It doesn’t include a repeal of the Medicaid expansion or the subsidies provided by the healthcare exchanges, which are certainly reconcilable.”
But repealing the subsidies, which help offset the cost of insurance for people under certain income limits, could be a tough vote for endangered Republican incumbents in battleground states.
Vulnerable members could also balk at rolling back some popular parts of the healthcare law, including the ban on insurers denying people for pre-existing conditions and the provision that allows young adults to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26.
“Why in the world are we here on the floor of the House of Representatives passing legislation that’s going to take away affordable healthcare to 15 million Americans, including 3 million children?” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is also running for Senate, said when the reconciliation bill passed the House last month.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/258920-gop-searches-for-obamacar...
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton met with family members of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown during a campaign swing through Chicago on Monday, according to a Clinton aide.
Clinton huddled with several African-American parents whose children have died in shootings. She is pushing for criminal justice reform and new gun control laws.
Clinton also met with the mothers of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old fatally shot in Ferguson, Mo., last year, and Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old fatally shot in Cleveland, according to the aide. Brown and Rice were shot by police officers.
CNN, which first reported the meeting, said that is also included the family of Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old African-American high school student who was shot at a gas station in 2012.
Protests over a string of shootings involving African-American men in the past few years, especially following the case of Brown, have evolved into the Black Lives Matter movement, which touches on criminal justice reform.
Activists from the movement have interrupted Clinton during her presidential campaigning, including during a rally late last week in Atlanta focused on criminal justice reform.
Clinton said Monday that the United States has "allowed our criminal justice system to get out of balance.”
Monday's meeting underscored "the epidemic of gun violence which demands common sense gun reforms" as well as "the sense of distrust that too often exists between law enforcement and the communities they serve," the Clinton aide said.
"Hillary and the family members discussed the need to deliver real reforms that can be felt on our streets and that can rebuild the bonds of trust in our communities," the aide said.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/258922-clinton-meets-with-famil...
November 02, 2015, 03:53 pm
By Jesse Byrnes
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has edged his way into third in the early voting state of Iowa, according to two new polls released Monday.
Cruz snags 15 percent support in the poll, with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) following at 10 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 9 percent.
A separate poll of Iowa released Monday by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling also found Cruz in third place behind Trump and Carson, with 14 percent support.
A puppet master speaks, he is discouraged because he is not in control of the front runner......
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/koch-campaigns-dishonest-attacks/2...
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