Things could be better for the 44th president. A string of local television and newspaper front-page stories on his health care backpedal show that the press has not been merciful.
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Newseum Front Pages Gallery / Via newseum.org
In a speech to New Hampshire Democrats, the possible presidential hopeful turns his Baltimore campaign into a national argument. But for Warren and Clinton supporters, the focus isn’t O’Malley.
AFP / Getty Images
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has played presidential politics in New Hampshire before. He was here in the Granite State, home to the country's first primary race, just last year as a surrogate for President Obama and Gov. Maggie Hassan. He was here six years ago, stumping twice for Hillary Clinton. And he was here at the start of his career, in 1984, crisscrossing the state and sleeping on floors as a young operative on the Gary Hart campaign.
On Saturday night, at the New Hampshire Democratic Party's annual dinner, a table of old Hart hands looked on as their friend — the college kid on the campaign who made himself a city councilman, then a mayor, then a governor — came back to the state again. But this time, and for the first time, O'Malley was in New Hampshire to talk about himself.
In his keynote speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, a fundraiser and frequently a venue for national Democratic talent, O'Malley made an aggressive and at times impassioned case for executive leadership, framing his approach as mayor of Baltimore, and the "Believe" campaign he launched there more than 10 years ago, as a strategy that should be applied at the national level.
"The people of Baltimore rallied," he said to a crowd of 1,000 in Manchester's Radisson Expo Center. "Belief is important. Belief drives action. Now, like Baltimore in 1999, we, as Americans, are going through a cynical time of disbelief — a time, quite frankly, with a lot more excuses and ideology than cooperation or action."
"We seem to have lost the shared conviction we once had," O'Malley said, "that we actually have the ability to make things better together."
O'Malley, a possible candidate in the 2016 presidential race, launched the $2.1 million "Believe" campaign in 2002, his second full year in office, to combat the city's twin scourges, drugs and crime. The new mayor blanketed the city in jarring television ads that promoted a hotline, "1-800-BELIEVE," for mentorship and drug treatment programs. The seven-letter slogan — printed in all capitals, a white san-serif font on a background of black — appeared across Baltimore on bumper stickers and garbage cans, buildings and bridges.
"It wasn't about the bumper stickers, or the signs," O'Malley said Saturday. "It was about something deeper: the belief we shared that in our city there is no such thing as a spare American. We continued to act on that belief, and over the next 10 years, Baltimore actually went on to achieve the biggest reduction in crime of any major city in America," he said to applause in the Expo Center.
Before O'Malley took the dais, he was introduced by a three-minute glossy black-and-white video — titled "Belief" — that described the Baltimore campaign and highlighted "CitiStat," the data-driven software he created to track crime. "Things that get measured are things that get done," the narrator says, as images flash by of a young and dark-haired O'Malley touring crime scenes and walking city streets.
The video, produced by Jimmy Siegel, Eliot Spitzer's longtime ad man, looked like a campaign spot, just as easily as O'Malley's talk sounded like the platform of a national campaign in the making. The speech, focusing almost exclusively on Baltimore, was a major departure from O'Malley's previous political appearances.
Gov. Martin O'Malley / YouTube
The two-term governor, who more often appears as a surrogate for other Democrats than as a spokesperson for his own record, gave a talk at the Center for American Progress in October that focused on his state's economic performance, and on the general, more broad themes of job creation and building what he called an "innovation economy." Republicans panned the speech, and journalists took to Twitter to call it boring. "Looking forward to O'Malley '16 and his running mate, Watching Paint Dry," one wrote.
But in Saturday's speech, O'Malley's soft-spoken Maryland drawl was loud, even forceful. And by the time he reached his closing lines, as New Hampshire Democrats stood to applaud, O'Malley's voice boomed over the loudspeakers. "Enough finger-pointing! Enough obstruction! Enough wasted time!" he yelled into the microphone. "Let us achieve like Americans again. Let us lead like Americans again. Let us believe like Americans again."
In the Expo Center, a vacuous 30,000-square-foot space whose white walls are lit by unpleasant fluorescents, O'Malley was received warmly. (The crowd was the event's largest in 10 years, a party official said.)
A number of New Hampshire Democrats recalled meeting the governor on the Hart campaign or later, in 2007, when he made two trips to the state to campaign for Clinton, whom he endorsed early in the primary.
"We knew back then that Martin had a great future," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who worked for Hart with O'Malley in 1984.
During his visit to the state six years ago, New Hampshire Democrats identified the governor, now 50 years old, as a rising star in the party — someone who "has all the right characteristics," Sylvia Larsen, New Hampshire Senate Democratic leader, told the Baltimore Sun at the time.
But early polling shows that O'Malley, who has said he's considering running for president, has a long way to go. A survey of New Hampshire Democrats in May showed the governor polling at "zero percent" in the state. In that poll, Clinton got 65% of the vote, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren received 5%. Although Warren has said she is not running for president — she even signed a letter encouraging Clinton to get in the race — progressives have clamored in recent weeks for a candidate who lines up with Warren on economic issues.
Supporters of Clinton and Warren both made their presence known at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner. Adam Green, the co-founder of the left-wing group, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, passed out bumper stickers that read, "I'm from the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party." And Terry Shumaker, a New Hampshire lawyer and senior advisor to the super PAC, "Ready for Hillary," passed out lapel buttons bearing the group's logo.
"Everybody's just picked me clean tonight," Shumaker said.
And O'Malley? "I was very impressed with Governor O'Malley, and the New Hampshire primary welcomes all candidates," he said.
When asked about the Warren bumper stickers circulating the room, Shumaker brandished his own "Ready for Hillary" button and asked, "Well, are people actually wearing the stickers? Or are they just lying on the table? I would draw that distinction, because people are actually wearing these."
Mary Bonauto has played a key role in almost every big win in the marriage fight, and she’s not done yet. “I want to be a part of helping take it over the finish line.”
Mary Bonauto is escorted by police on May 17, 2004, the first day same-sex couples could marry in Massachusetts.
Susan R. Symonds / Infinity Portrait Design / Via infinityportraitdesign.com
PORTLAND, Maine — Ten years after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered that the state become the first in the country to allow same-sex couples to marry, the once-feared concept has gained mainstream popular support, is recognized by the federal government, and is now the reality in 15 states and Washington, D.C.
Without Mary Bonauto, however, marriage equality might never have happened.
The lawyer brought marriage equality cases in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. She argued the case to the justices in Massachusetts who brought marriage equality to the United States. She won the first decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act's federal definition of marriage, and the first appellate decision too — a ruling that forced the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year. If there's been a big moment in marriage equality's long march to reality, Bonauto was probably there.
And it's no secret either: The movement's other leading lawyers openly credit Bonauto for making the success possible.
Evan Wolfson, the lawyer who served as co-counsel in the Hawaii case that started the marriage equality discussion in full force back in the 1990s and now runs Freedom to Marry, gives Bonauto credit as the lawyer who "was able to deliver it." Paul Smith, whose argument at the Supreme Court led the justices to end sodomy laws across the nation, says she has been "essential" to LGBT progress since the 1990s.
"For Mary, it's all about winning — and it's not winning for her sake, it's winning for the dignity and the equality of gay people," says Roberta Kaplan, the attorney who argued against DOMA at the Supreme Court this year. "And everything that she has done in her career — everything — has been focused on that objective."
WHEN Bonauto first started at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), her task wasn't marriage equality at all, the 52-year-old lawyer explains at her kitchen table.
At home in Portland, where she lives with her wife, Jennifer Wriggins, and their twin daughters, Bonauto does not have the sharp edges of a lawyer who has squared off with the federal government on one of the most divisive issue of the day. She's just picked up pastries from her favorite bakery — not the kind of place that makes trendy cupcakes — in her minivan. Her gentle demeanor, however, is countered by a rapid-fire manner of speaking, belying the legal mind behind an easy smile.
After growing up and going to college in upstate New York, Bonauto graduated from Boston's Northeastern University School of Law in 1987 and began her legal practice in Maine. Bonauto became the director of Boston-based GLAD's civil rights project in 1990 to help litigate cases aimed at enforcing a new Massachusetts law banning sexual orientation–based discrimination in employment.
She told Wriggins that the job might only last a year or two.
"It wasn't clear the law was going to be around," she says. Though the discrimination ban had been signed into law by then-Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1989, a bid was under way to put the law on the ballot and up for a vote.
It did stay on the books, though, and Bonauto began bringing cases under the law.
"I was two and a half years out of law school, and I was trying to take on this idea … of showing why these nondiscrimination laws made sense, why nondiscrimination is the right policy," she says.
"The ferocity of the litigation was an indicator of where we were at because people were just so offended at being sued by 'a fag,'" she says of the era. "I mean, 'You're telling me I can't get rid of this person? You've got to be kidding me.'"
It was in this environment that Bonauto turned down potential challenges to marriage laws.
"On my very first week on the job, a couple called me, and I had to say no. I said no a lot, and it's not like I like saying no. I wanted to get married to Jenny, I did," she says. "For me, just, as a strategic matter, it was absolutely not the right time. And I have no second thoughts about that. At all."
But everything changed in 1993, when the Hawaii Supreme Court irrevocably shifted the focus of LGBT organizations — and of those opposed to LGBT rights.
In a landmark ruling, the Hawaii court held that the state would have to show a compelling reason for treating same-sex couples differently from opposite-sex couples. The ultimate results of the ruling in Hawaii would be muted for 20 years: The state passed a constitutional amendment in 1998 that allowed the lawmakers to restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples, before becoming the 15th state to legalize same-sex couples' marriage last week.
The ruling, however, reverberated far beyond Hawaii. At the time, the LGBT movement had, primarily, been focused on defensive efforts — from addressing hate crimes to repealing sodomy laws to responding to the AIDS crisis — and passing anti-discrimination laws. Now marriage really began drawing the attention of advocates.
LGBT advocates weren't the only people, though, who took note: Congress passed DOMA in 1996 in an effort to stop any other state or the federal government from needing to recognize any marriages of same-sex couples granted in Hawaii.
"It was one of those things where people's hopes had really been kindled, and then they were smashed," Bonauto says. "And then we faced the onslaught of the state marriage statutes."
After President Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law, Bonauto took the first of several key steps to change history, working with lawyers in Vermont to file a lawsuit in 1997 seeking marriage licenses for same-sex couples in the state.
"When Mary first started pushing that strategy with respect to the Vermont case, everyone told her she was crazy," says Kaplan. "It's one of the most brilliant, concerted litigation strategies I have ever seen — going step by step by step."
Bonauto and others at GLAD began working on the marriage case with two Vermont attorneys, Beth Robinson and Susan Murray. As they did so, though, the effort faced scrutiny from within the LGBT political and legal world. Coming so soon after the passage of DOMA and as voters in Hawaii and Alaska passed amendments halting marriage equality efforts in their tracks, the marriage equality fight that Bonauto has led did not start with a united front. Some advocates worried the trio's legal efforts in Vermont could set off a damaging chain reaction.
"I think there was a sense [from the political groups] that the legal groups were crazy," Bonauto says. "I remember many conversations … where the political groups would come in and they would basically caution us about doing things that would trigger a federal marriage amendment. That was always the concern."
The case reached the Vermont Supreme Court for oral argument on Nov. 18, 1998, and Robinson — now a justice on that court — argued the case. After a wait of more than a year, the decision finally came down on Dec. 20, 1999.
Bonauto immediately flew to Vermont from Massachusetts — before she had even read the opinion. "I had to jump on an airplane without seeing it … [or knowing] exactly what it meant," she says.
Vermont Supreme Court Chief Justice Jeffrey Amestoy wrote for the court that "legal protection and security for [same-sex couples'] avowed commitment to an intimate and lasting human relationship is simply, when all is said and done, a recognition of our common humanity."
Despite the language, the decision shocked Bonauto. The court had ducked the question of whether marriage needed to be extended to same-sex couples by leaving that decision to the legislature — an out that led the legislature to create civil unions instead. Particularly coming after the steamrolling against marriage equality on the federal level in 1996 with DOMA and the 1998 loss before the voters in Hawaii, Bonauto and others were looking for marriage. The civil union concept, as Bonauto says, gave otherwise supportive politicians room to believe, "We can be fair to gay couples, and it doesn't have to be marriage!"
Nonetheless, judging the political reality at the time, GLAD backed the move — although she called it "a bitter thing" and acknowledged that some of their coalition partners left the group over the decision because it was not marriage.
"Looking back on it in hindsight, knowing how much grief I have felt over civil unions over the years," Bonauto says, "I still think it was the right thing to do because we didn't have any comprehensive status anywhere. We didn't really have a family in a way that seemed like a family to anyone, as a legal matter."
Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
A perfect Paul-bot.
Via mashable.com
Via imgur.com
The MSNBC host deleted some Sunday night tweets taunting Anderson Cooper about ratings and another tweet that said his suspended show might not return.
Paul Egerman, a Warren gatekeeper, waves donors off the hype over the senator’s possible presidential run. “It’s not gonna happen,” one funder says.
Joshua Roberts / Reuters
Elizabeth Warren's former national finance chair, Paul Egerman, has told several inquiring donors this month that, despite runaway speculation and a burning desire from the party's left wing, the freshman senator will not run for president in 2016.
Egerman, close to both Warren and to the heavy-hitting liberal base of funders who helped her raise $42 million last year, has been approached by donors in the last two weeks and told them that, no, Warren is not planning to run, according to two major players in Democratic financial circles who spoke with Egerman directly.
One Democratic fundraiser said he spoke with Egerman roughly two weeks ago, after articles by Peter Beinart in the Daily Beast and Noam Scheiber in the New Republic heightened fervor amongst the progressives over whether Warren would challenge Hillary Clinton, already the presumed frontrunner, from the left.
Egerman, the fundraiser said, quickly threw cold water on the theory.
"It's not gonna happen," the source said.
More recently, at meetings last week in Washington for Democracy Alliance, a tightly guarded coalition of some of the country's biggest liberal donors, the question of Warren's candidacy was still fresh. Warren herself spoke at the conference on Thursday, introducing a panel on the judiciary with Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, and Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU.
At the meetings for the group, which funds a portfolio of progressive organizations, Warren and Egerman spoke about her intentions in 2016, according to a Democratic political strategist with close ties to the Democracy Alliance who had a private conversation about the interaction with Egerman later. Warren told Egerman, according to the strategist, that she has no plans to run against Clinton in a primary.
Another donor, based in New York City, asked Warren directly at the conference about her intentions and received the same answer, according to the strategist who spoke later that week with the donor.
The sources described Egerman, a retired software entrepreneur who calls himself an "enthusiastic supporter of Senator Elizabeth Warren" in his biography on Twitter, as the gatekeeper between the senator and the world of her financial backers.
"He's the guy to ask," said the fundraiser, citing Egerman's longtime ties to the Democratic fundraising world. "The geese talk to the geese. The bears talk to the bears. And the hippos talk to the hippos."
In an email, Egerman said he had no comment for this article.
Another donor with ties to the Clintons reached out about two weeks ago to another member of Warren's circle, former finance director Michael Pratt, and was given the same answer regarding 2016, the donor said.
As speculation over Warren's possible run continues, the message to the donor class is clear, and happens to be consistent with what staffers in Warren's own Senate office have told reporters in the last week.
Lacey Rose, Warren's press secretary, gave BuzzFeed the following statement: "As Senator Warren has said many times, she is not running for president."
Three attendees at last week's Democracy Alliance meetings cautioned that there is already an understanding inside fundraising circles that Warren would not consider running unless Clinton bows out of the race — a possibility that looks increasingly unlikely as her allies build up an expansive infrastructure for her campaign a full three years in advance of Election Day.
But the excitement over a Warren candidacy — even if that candidacy never comes to fruition — may still make waves in the 2016 race.
The whispers have given oxygen to demand on the left for an anti-Wall Street, Warren-like candidate, and have caused angst inside a pro-Clinton camp already concerned that the hype alone could expose one of her biggest potential weaknesses: that she may not be progressive enough.
One attendee at the Democracy Alliance conference, though, said the focus there was less on 2016 and more on next year's races, particularly Wendy Davis' bid for governor of Texas, and Michelle Nunn's for U.S. Senate in Georgia.
Memes have not been kind.
Via tumblr.com
“If he wants to say something he should say something,” a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister says.
Getty/ Kobi Gideon
WASHINGTON — A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not confirm rumors circling in the Israeli foreign ministry on Monday that Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Israel this week is not happening amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Israel over Iran.
"It's the job of the Secretary's department to talk about this," Mark Regev, Netanyahu's spokesman, told BuzzFeed. "I'm giving you my non-answer to this. If he wants to say something he should say something."
State department spokespeople declined to comment on Kerry's plans.
Netanyahu told CNN on Sunday that Kerry would be arriving in Israel on Friday. Tension has flared between Israel and the U.S. over nuclear negotiations with Iran, which the Israelis fear will result in a "bad deal" that allows Iran to continue progressing toward a nuclear bomb.
Kerry's schedule for Friday currently states that he will spend the day in "meetings and briefings, at the Department of State."
A U.S. diplomatic source in the region said that Kerry's schedule is up in the air and it's still unknown whether he is coming.
Meanwhile, French President François Hollande is in Israel this week for talks with Netanyahu and to speak before the Knesset. Israel has credited France with scuttling what it viewed as a potentially bad deal in the last round of Geneva talks. The talks are due to start up again on Wednesday.
Update: Kerry told reporters he will visit Israel not this week but after Thanksgiving. (2:28 p.m.)
Louis Vuitton condom? Check.
Via Instagram: @johnnywright220
Via Instagram: @johnnywright220
Beefcake.
Robert Knudsen. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
Robert Knudsen. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
National Archives
National Archives
Ask and you shall receive.
We can all die happy now.
Via youtube.com
“We’re past that now. We need to now fix this,” Terri Lynn Land said Monday morning, when asked about repealing and defunding Obamacare. Later in the afternoon, Land tweeted, “I support defunding and repeal.”
Via Facebook: TerriLynnLandForSenate
Within the span of a few hours, Michigan Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land flipped her position on the repeal of Obamacare.
Speaking on "Michigan's Big Show" Monday morning, Land, the former Michigan secretary of state, said the Affordable Care Act dodged a question about whether she supported repealing the law.
"Well, again, we all agree we need affordable health care," she said, when asked if she was part of a group to repeal the law.
"After you pass bills, sometimes you have to go back and do fixes," she said in the interview. "That's not unusual, and it's something that, you know, I've done in the past and that's something that we need to do here."
Land added later that she previously supported defunding the Affordable Care Act, but that "we're past that."
"I supported defunding it because I thought that was a way to get the conversation going. We're past that now. We need to now fix this," Land said. "And again, like I mentioned, where 5 million people nationwide have lost their insurance and 225,000 here in Michigan alone and those people wanted that insurance. And I just think that's critical that they have that opportunity to have that insurance that they want."
Several hours later, Land sent messages on Facebook and Twitter saying she supported a repeal of Obamacare.
"I supported defunding the Obamacare law when that was an option. I support repealing the Obamacare law if we can get it repealed. President Obama and Congressman Peters promised that Michiganders could keep their insurance and their promise has been broken. I support the Upton bill to fix Obamacare in the short term if that is what it takes to stop 225,000 people in Michigan from losing their insurance. Washington is broken and we need leaders who are ready to make the tough decisions," Land wrote on Facebook.
Obamacare will likely be a key issue for the 2014 midterm elections — but Land's switch could indicate it may be more difficult to run against the health care law for Republicans than some have suggested in recent weeks.
Raising nearly $14.5 million in contributions in 2012, NOM reported spending nearly $16.5 million during the year. The group unsuccessfully fought three marriage equality ballot measures and one state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex couples from marriage in November 2012.
Charlie Neibergall / AP
WASHINGTON — One of the nation's leading organizations opposed to same-sex couples' marriage rights found itself in the red at the end of a year in which it found itself on the losing end of four major state marriage fights, federal records show.
According to reports filed with Internal Revenue Service, The National Organization for Marriage, which has been a leader in the fight against same-sex couples' marriage rights, was more than $2.7 million in the red because of of its political advocacy arm's spending, while the organization's educational arm ended fiscal year 2012 with just over $1.6 million in the bank.
All told, the organization was more than $1 million in the red following a difficult year for those fighting marriage equality battles.
The organization raised nearly $14.5 million in contributions, with the bulk of it — more than $9.4 million — going to the political advocacy arm. The advocacy arm also reported receiving more than $1.6 million in reimbursement of expenses,
Although the names of the donors are redacted, the largest donor to NOM was a person who gave the organization's political advocacy arm more than $2.6 million. Another donor gave $1.9 million to the political advocacy arm, while a third gave $1.5 million.
The second largest donor to the organization gave $2 million to the education arm, while another gave a little more than $1 million.
The political advocacy arm — a 501(c)(4) organization — reported more than $13 million in expenses, with the education arm — a 501(c)(3) organization — reporting a little less than $3.5 million in expenses.
The organization contributed more than $1 million to the ballot referendum campaigns in Maryland and Washington, as well as to the campaign for a marriage amendment in Minnesota. The organization gave more than $1 million to the "NOM ME Fund," presumably its contribution to fighting the Maine marriage equality initiative.
The Human Rights Campaign had filed a complaint earlier Monday regarding NOM's alleged failure to provide a copy of the Form 990s required to be filed with the Internal Revenue Service. But NOM President Brian Brown rejected that argument in statement, saying, "our 2012 Form 990 was mailed to the IRS on Nov. 15 as required by law."
A humbled city makes its pitch to the GOP.
Ethan Miller / Getty Images
At the mention of hosting a national political convention, Las Vegas leaders used to scoff.
They were way too busy making cash off business-driven mega-conferences to accommodate a bunch of eggheads who probably didn't gamble much, they confided in private.
The weeks-long inconveniences of a convention — traffic, security perimeters, an uncontrollable press corps at a way off-brand event — in an otherwise busy venue were always considered too high a price for too small a payoff.
Well, forget that. Las Vegas is now in the hunt for the Republican National Convention with both feet, its Republican governor, senator, and mega-donors all blessing a campaign that once felt beneath the, uh, dignity of Sin City.
And, in Vegas parlance, they may be an odds-on favorite win.
"The response received four years ago in Vegas was that it wasn't a good business decision," said Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, the Republican leading the push, told BuzzFeed last week. "But the thinking has evolved."
The benefits of a Vegas convention for the RNC in 2016 are obvious. Vegas is a logistical dream: There are more than 100,000 hotel rooms within a two-mile radius of either of the likely sites, the Las Vegas Convention Center or a new 20,000-seat arena expected to be built along the Strip near the New York-New York resort. The airport is among the nation's easiest and most convenient to use — and, unlike Tampa, a hurricane is less likely on the Strip than the Jaguars making the 2014 Super Bowl.
The politics end offers a lot too. Nevada is a bona fide swing state worthy of such attention. What's more, the glamor of the Strip might actually add some pizzazz to a crowd described by RNC chairman Reince Priebus in March as a party of "stuffy old men." And, by all accounts, the 2012 breakout mega-donor Sheldon Adelson — net worth: $28.5 billion, per Forbes — is eager to spend seven figures to defray costs typically incurred by local taxpayers.
"These are folks who have been generous to the RNC in the past, so we believe we can present a financial model that will be very appealing," Krolicki said.
But Krolicki's tune is a jarring change from the swaggering Vegas of old, the one that found this to be a bothersome piece of business that would draw a sort of clientele and off-message media coverage the city wasn't looking for. Vegas, after all, doesn't show clips of its many conventions — a core part of the town's economy — in the ads they book during Mad Men.
"We've been invited (to pitch a convention plan) and, solely as a business decision, we haven't," said Billy Vassiliadis, owner of R&R Partners, the firm that handles advertising and marketing for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, in the interview with the Las Vegas Sun years ago. "It's just a function of our business model and their needs not intersecting."
Now the RNC is sweetening the pot with a willingness to move its quadrennial show to July — the quietest time in a town when the average high is over 105 degrees — and find ways to shrink the window that the Secret Service traditionally needs to secure the premises for a convention.
"From some of the very preliminary discussions on logistical side, I understand there has been a potential tightening of the time frame for security," Vassiliadis told BuzzFeed. "Vegas is built to move a convention in effectively and move it out again. It isn't the same buildup cost or logistical cost or structural cost" as likely rival Kansas City.
More significant, though, is that Vegas was chastened spectacularly by the Great Recession. Even a half-decade after the national housing and banking collapses began, Nevada still suffers the highest unemployment and foreclosure rates in the nation. Three mega-resorts — Encore, Aria and the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas — have opened since the fiscal crisis started, adding about 10,000 hotel rooms at precisely the moment when recession-battered Americans stopped coming.
Tourism numbers have perked up thanks largely to the broader recovery and significantly discounted room prices. Yet it has been difficult to wash off the stink of failure that comes with such ignominy, especially after the hubris Vegas showed for much of the 1990s and into the aughts.
"The recession really hit really hard and we're not back to where we were before," said former Nevada Republican Party chairwoman Sue Lowden, a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2014. "It would be good for us. We're looking at new ideas."
The national parties have considered Vegas before, given its gargantuan and concentrated room supply, only to have been summarily spurned. But it was usually Democrats — led, of course, by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — that seemed most intrigued.
Nevada's strong labor unions and burgeoning Hispanic populations helped President Barack Obama win the state twice, and Democrats are far less discomfited by the overt sexuality of the town. The GOP's two most recent nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney, were never photographed in casinos on their campaign visits; Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton both glad-handed in full view of the media at the Bellagio, Caesars and Aria resorts, among others.
But the old stigma about Vegas as a turnoff to religious conservatives will be allayed in their bid, Krolicki said, by emphasizing family-friendly offerings of the Strip and the surrounding environs. The fact that Garth Brooks and Shania Twain have standing Vegas gigs and the Grand Canyon is a few hours east can only help, he said.
"Country Western will be very much part of a presentation we make," Krolicki said. "There's a vast array of entertainment and talent in Las Vegas to appeal to just about anyone, including social conservatives."
More importantly, Lowden said, the city can hardly afford to turn away high-profile business.
"Any time you're on national TV and people having a great time and loving your city, it's good," Lowden said. "I don't know if you can be on TV too much."
“I’ve talked to Speaker Boehner and he’s totally committed to this but he needs to find a way to get enough support.”
Mark Wilson / Getty Images
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday night he thinks the House will pass immigration reform next year, calling Speaker John Boehner "totally committed" to the effort.
"I think there will be bills passed," Bush said at a talk at 92nd Street Y in New York City. "It won't be one comprehensive bill. I think it will probably be in late spring, where there's a little bit of a window before the election starts in earnest. I hope so, I hope that's the case. I've talked to Speaker Boehner and he's totally committed to this, but he needs to find a way to get enough of the support."
Boehner said last week that he has no intention of going to conference on the Senate bill, effectively ending any chance that the House takes up immigration reform this year.
Bush said he thinks the major elements of the Senate's immigration reform, which passed in June, could be passed by the House as separate bills. He added that the main disagreement comes over immigrants who have already come to the United States illegally.
The measures in the Senate bill are "a pretty big price to pay for coming into this country illegally," Bush said. "I'm comfortable with that and I hope that the House gets comfortable with it as well."
Bush, who was discussing his book, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, said that in general, he thinks immigration reform should be part of an economic strategy.
"I think a lot of people view immigration as, by supporting immigrants, you're taking away from me. And I would argue the opposite is the case," he said. "If we have this narrow perspective of 'We're not going to grow anymore and the pie is set and that's it, so I'm going to fight for mine,' we're doomed. That's it. Our country doesn't work well in a static kind of environment. Our country works well when it's dynamic and aspirational." He added that immigrants "aren't a drain on that, they're actually a catalytic converter for sustained economic growth."
Bush's wide-ranging discussion with Fordham law professor Thane Rosenbaum, director of the Forum on Law, Culture & Society, also touched on education reform, today's political climate, and the future of the Republican Party, among other topics. Bush, who has been mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential candidate recently, said the time is not right for him to make a decision on whether to make a bid for the White House.
That didn't stop him from lobbing a slight jab at Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, another oft-mentioned potential 2016 candidate, before praising the freshman senator's father. Rosenbaum asked Bush, who speaks fluent Spanish, whether the country would be in a similar situation if members of the Tea Party also spoke the language. Rosenbaum mentioned that Cruz does speak some Spanish.
"Not much," Bush replied, to laughs from the audience. "I'm not sure Ted speaks much Spanish. His dad speaks fluent Spanish — he's a Cuban immigrant, has a wonderful story to tell and a very powerful one."
Bush also praised Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, another 2016 hopeful, who he said "gets a lot of credit for kind of leading parts of the party towards" immigration reform.
Despite the talk of other potential 2016 contenders, Bush was coy with his own intentions. At the end of the discussion, Rosenbaum said Bush had "earned a lot of votes here tonight."
"Votes for what?" Bush responded.
CORRECTION (12:07 a.m. ET): Former Gov. Bush said Monday he believes the House will pass immigration bills next year, but not one comprehensive bill. An earlier version of this item included the word comprehensive in one description of that effort.
The Washington State woman President Obama cited as an Affordable Care Act success can’t afford the coverage after all and plans to pay the penalty.
"I am a single mom, no child support, self-employed, and I haven't had insurance for 15 years because it's too expensive," President Obama said, reading from a letter he received from Jessica Sanford, a Washington State woman, during an Oct. 21 speech in the White House Rose Garden.
"My son has ADHD and requires regular doctor visits and his meds alone cost $250 per month," the president continued, reading Sanford's words. "Now, finally we get to have coverage because of the [Affordable Care Act] for $169 per month. I was crying the other day when I signed up. So much stress lifted."
The president said Sanford's success story was "not untypical for a lot of folks" who have struggled without health insurance. Despite the problems plaguing HealthCare.gov, he said, the law itself was benefiting people.
But her joy ended there.
Soon after signing up for the health plan, Sanford was informed the state made a mistake calculating her tax credit. Three days after the president delivered his speech, a notice arrived from the Washington state health exchange with her new monthly premium: $280 a month for a "gold" plan.
Despite the error and significantly higher price, she decided to continue purchasing the insurance.
Then more bad news arrived.
Sanford received another notice from the state last week informing her they had once again erred while calculating her tax credit. This time, her health premium soared to $390 per month for a "silver" plan with a higher deductible -- a price she simply couldn't afford.
Once again, she was reduced to tears.
"I had a good cry," she told CNN. "This is it. I'm not getting insurance. That's where it stands right now unless they fix it."
Now the single mom and her son are left without health insurance, and under the Affordable Care Act, face a $95 penalty.
Sanford, who twice voted for Obama, says she isn't angry at the president for her insurance problems, and instead blames the state of Washington.
"I am so incredibly disappointed and saddened," she wrote on the state health exchange Facebook page. "You majorly screwed up."
Via Facebook: WAHealthplanfinder
Via Facebook: WAHealthplanfinder
Update: Police are investigating the incident as an “attempted murder and suicide.” Creigh Deeds, a Virginia state senator and 2009 candidate for governor, is in critical condition after reportedly being stabbed. His son — who underwent a court-ordered mental health evaluation on Monday — was found dead of a gunshot wound in the family’s home, officials said.
File photo of State Sen. Creigh Deeds with his son Gus in 2009.
Hyunsoo Leo Kim/The Virginian-Pilot via Reuters
Virginia State Sen. Creigh Deeds, 55, has undergone surgery and is currently in "fair" condition after being stabbed in his home, apparently by his 24 year-old son, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Tuesday. Deeds' son Gus was found dying from injuries sustained by a gunshot wound. Gus Deeds had been released from Bath County Hospital Monday following an emergency court-ordered mental health evaluation.
In a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said that officers responded to Deeds' home in Millboro at 7:25 a.m. after a 911 call to the sheriff's office. Geller confirmed that Deeds and his son had an "altercation," but declined to give further details. She said that the senator, suffering from multiple wounds to his head and torso, escaped the scene on foot and was picked up by a cousin who happened to be driving by the Deeds family home. An ambulance transported Deeds from the cousin's home to a nearby field, where he was able to be stabilized for airlift to the UVA Medical Center in Charlottesville.
When authorities arrived at Deeds home, they found Gus Deeds, who died from injuries sustained by a gunshot wound shortly afterwards. Geller did not say that Deeds' son stabbed him, but confirmed that they are investigating the tragedy as a "murder and suicide."
Dennis Cropper, executive director of the Rockbridge County Community Services Board, told the Times-Dispatch that Gus Deeds was evaluated Monday at Bath County hospital under an emergency custody order, or ECO, but was released because no psychiatric bed could be located "across a wide area of western Virginia."
"In this tough and sad time, our thoughts and prayers are with the Deeds family," Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said in a statement Tuesday. "The news from this morning is utterly heartbreaking. Creigh Deeds is an exceptional and committed public servant who has always done what he believes is best for Virginia and who gives his all to public service. He cares deeply about Virginia, and the people of Virginia care deeply for him. I urge all Virginians today to join me in praying for a full and complete recovery for Creigh and for many more years of his public service to the Commonwealth. At this moment, our state unites in prayer for Creigh Deeds and his family."
The first lady was a fashion icon.
JFK Presidential Library
JFK Presidential Library
Photograph by Robert Knudsen, White House, in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
JFK Presidential Library
“The back office systems, the accounting systems, the payment systems, they still need to be [built],” Deputy Chief Information Officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Henry Chao said. UPDATE: Health and Human Services official says numbers are actually reversed, 30% to 40% of the site still needs to be built.
It's been several weeks since HealthCare.gov was supposed to be fully up and running, but one official said that between 60 and 70% of the website hasn't even been built yet.
At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Deputy Chief Information Officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Henry Chao said while the front end of the site — the part most people actually see, where you can compare plans and apply for enrollment — was finished for the Oct. 1 rollout, the backend is still a long way from completion.
"The back office systems, the accounting systems, the payment systems, they still need to be [built]," Chao said.
UPDATE: Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters told BuzzFeed in an email it's actually the other way around, meaning 30 to 40% of the website still needs to be built.
Here's her full statement:
The parts of the Marketplace that were essential for consumers to be able to apply for eligibility and select a plan were live on October 1. The additional functionality that has not been launched has to do with pieces that are not needed until 2014. The Federally Facilitated Marketplace is comprised of distinct pieces of functionality that, together, make up the full integrated system--plan management, eligibility and enrollment and financial management. As we have said, CMS prioritized essential functionality to be live on Oct 1 to ensure that consumers would be able to apply for eligibility and select a plan. Other functionality will come online over time. This is a complex project with a short timeline -- and as such issues were prioritized to meet the October 1 launch date. As part of this prioritization, back end tools, including Financial Management, Monthly Enrollment Reconciliation and Risk Adjustment, which are not consumer facing and not essential until 2014 will be rolled out in the coming months.
