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Ted Cruz On Missed Hearings: "That's The Way Our System Works"

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“What is the simple reality is anyone who is running for president, you have to be out campaigning in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. You’ve gotta be listening to the people, you’ve gotta be out meeting the people, hearing their questions.”

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Republican Senator Ted Cruz said Tuesday during an appearance on "The Kelly File" that missing committee hearings and votes is a consequence of running for president "responsibly."

Cruz was responding to a question about a BuzzFeed News article that revealed he had missed committee hearings this year for television appearances and a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

"What is the simple reality is anyone who is running for president, you have to be out campaigning in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. You've gotta be listening to the people, you've gotta be out meeting the people, hearing their questions," Cruz said.

"That's the way our system works. It's a great system. That takes time," Cruz continued. "If you look at every senator that's run for president consistently, they end up having to miss a lot of committee meetings, a lot of votes, because to do the job responsibly of running for president, you need to look voters in the eyes and answer their questions."

Politico reported on Sen. Cruz's absence from 21 of 135 roll call votes this year and his "below average" attendance at various committee hearings, but also noted that Cruz's attendance issues were not isolated to the period around his presidential run.

In response to BuzzFeed News' original article on Cruz's missed hearings, his spokeswoman said the following: "If you are making the point he can't talk about such topics because he wasn't at these two hearings that is utterly ridiculous. But I don't know what your point is because you have no question. Do I want to comment on whatever it is you have here? Sure, use the first sentence because I find this inquiry ridiculous. But if you have an actual question instead of just lining up a series of links and a bland ask for comment, ask it."

Watch Cruz's response in the video below.

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Marco Rubio Said Two Months Ago It Wasn't A Mistake To Go To War In Iraq

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The Florida Republican said Wednesday that neither he nor George W. Bush would make the decision to invade Iraq knowing what we know today.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations Wednesday, Marco Rubio said he wouldn't have been in favor of the Iraq War knowing what we know today:

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ROGINSKY: "Was it a mistake to go to war to Iraq?

RUBIO: No, I don't believe it was. The world is a better place because Saddam Hussein does not in Iraq. Here's what I think might have happened, had we not gone in . And you might had an arms race to put Iraq in Iran, they are both would purse the weapon. I will be dealing with two problems, not just one. We forget that Iraq, at the time of the invasion, was in open defiance of numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions. That the United Nations refused to enforce. They were, they were, they were refused to comply with allowing inspectors in. Repeatedly, this was a country whose leader had gassed his own people on numerous occasions. So I think, hindsight is always 20/20, but we don't know what the world would look like if Saddam Hussein were still there. But I doubt it would look better in terms of -- it will be worst -- or we are just bad for different reasons. I think it's very difficult to predict, I think -- a better notion is, at the end of the Iraq war, Iraq had an opportunity to have a stable, peaceful future. The U.S. pulled out, completely abandoning it to Maliki, who then proceeded to move forward on these very aggressive strategies against the Sunni. Creating the intellectual and -- environment, that allowed ISIS to come back in and take advantage of what's happening

Via foxnews.com

"No, I think it was the right decision," President Bush said. "My regret is that -- a violent group of people have risen up again. This is 'Al Qaeda plus.' I put it in the book, they need to be defeated. And I hope we do. It's - I hope that the strategy works."


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O'Malley Flew Private Jet To Populist New Hampshire Campaign Swing

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The former governor of Maryland regularly hops rides from a prominent backer and the husband to Fox News host Greta Van Susteren.

Darren McCollester / Getty Images

Martin O'Malley took a private jet to his most recent campaign swing in New Hampshire, an aide confirmed to BuzzFeed News Wednesday.

"Gov. O'Malley flies commercial often," Haley Morris, an O'Malley spokesperson, said in an email. "Sometimes for convenience, he flies private."

Wednesday was a day for convenience. O'Malley left Baltimore's airport at around 6:45 a.m. according to flight records, touching down in Manchester later that morning. Most of the rest of the BWI-Manchester traffic was from Southwest, which runs multiple nonstops between the two airports each day. In the past, O'Malley has regularly used the private jet owned by John Coale, a retired lawyer and the husband of Fox News host Greta Van Susteren.

In New Hampshire, O'Malley delivered more of the populist rhetoric that has marked his run-up to an expected official presidential campaign.

"O'Malley said Wednesday that many Americans living in cities are worse off than they were eight years ago and Democrats in Washington wasted a chance to address poverty in the nation's urban areas," according to an AP writeup of his remarks. O'Malley again condemned President Obama's trade agenda, praising Democrats in the Senate for temporarily blocking a vote on so-called fast track trade authority, which gives Congress only an up or down vote on trade deals negotiated by the White House. Progressive groups are adamantly opposed to fast track.

Wednesday's stops in New Hampshire marked the midpoint of a week where O'Malley has pushed hard for the activist left to move away from its continuing focus on convincing Elizabeth Warren to run and accept him as their champion. At a meeting with progressive leaders in New York on Monday first reported by Politico, O'Malley called on more than two dozen top progressives to embrace him as the public face of their 2016 messaging. The left hopes to at least pressure Hillary Clinton into adopting Warren-like policy stances on financial policy and income inequality.

Clinton has markedly reached out to the activist left with speeches promising new executive action on immigration if Congress doesn't act, a focus on changing the criminal justice system to send less nonviolent offenders in prison and a coy trade stance that puts her neither at odds with the White House or the left on fast track and other trade deals. Clinton's travel arrangements have also made news. After a much ballyhooed van trip from New York to Iowa for her first stops of her second run for the White House, the Wall Street Journal reported Clinton flew back to the east coast first class.

Santorum Clarifies Jenner Comments: "Obviously And Biologically" Not A Woman, But Won't Argue Out Of Respect

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“If Bruce Jenner says he’s woman then I’m not gonna argue with him. I know what obviously and biologically he is. That doesn’t change by himself identifying himself.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

"If he says he's a woman, then he's a woman," Santorum, who is weighing running for president again in 2016, said in response to a question from BuzzFeed News during a roundtable with reporters at the South Carolina Republican Party's convention. "My responsibility as a human being is to love and accept everybody. Not to criticize people for who they are. I can criticize, and I do, for what people do, for their behavior. But as far as for who they are, you have to respect everybody, and these are obviously complex issues for businesses, for society, and I think we have to look at it in a way that is compassionate and respectful of everybody."

"So these are tough issues. I haven't got into the whole issue, and I don't think the federal government should get into the whole issue of bathrooms," Santorum said after being asked whether he thinks Jenner should be able to use women's public restrooms. "I think those are things that the business community and local agencies and organizations should deal with."

Via buzzfeed.com

Santorum then posted on his Facebook saying, "It was meant to express empathy not a change in public policy."

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Santorum clarified the comments on local New Hampshire radio on Tuesday. Santorum said he knew what Jenner was "obviously and biologically" but wouldn't argue that point with Jenner. He added Jenner should be treated with "dignity and respect."

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George Stephanopoulos Interviewed Bill Clinton About CGI In 2013

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The This Week anchor also donated to the foundation, which has come under scrutiny this year, in 2013.

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George Stephanopoulos donated to the Clinton Foundation in 2013 — and he interviewed President Bill Clinton about the foundation's biggest project, the Clinton Global Initiative.

On Thursday, after questions from the Washington Free Beacon about public documents listing Stephanopoulos as a donor to the foundation, Stephanopoulos apologized for not disclosing the $50,000 in donations in a statement to Politico.

"I made charitable donations to the Foundation in support of the work they're doing on global AIDS prevention and deforestation, causes I care about deeply," he said in the statement. "I thought that my contributions were a matter of public record. However, in hindsight, I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on air during the recent news stories about the Foundation. I apologize."

Stephanopoulos recently interviewed author Peter Schweizer about his book, Clinton Cash, which investigates the activities of the foundation.

In September of 2013, the This Week anchor sat down with Clinton for an interview that encompassed several topics, but included a three-minute segment about CGI.

"In the meantime, (Hillary Clinton) has joined the Clinton Foundation," Stephanopoulos says in the introduction to that segment. "[And] of course, at the Clinton Global Initiative, which brings philanthropists and CEOs together with nonprofits to make concrete commitments aimed at some of the world's toughest problems. Almost 10 years in, they have leveraged billions of dollars in assistance to more than 180 countries and we have talked to President Clinton about that, too."

The positive interview about the foundation is largely Clinton talking with few questions.

Stephanopoulos asks Clinton about the percentage of entities that make commitments that follow through ("Oh, it's quite good," Clinton says. "We get detailed progress reports now on 60% of the commitments.") and asks Clinton to talk about a large-scale project for women entrepreneurs ("Is that the project you're most excited about?").

A request for comment to ABC News about whether Stephanopoulos had donated to the foundation before or after the interview was not immediately returned.

Claire McCaskill: There Was “A Lot Of Sexual Harassment” In The Missouri State Legislature In The 1980s

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“Well at the time, if you went and looked at the highest paid assistants in peoples offices, almost every single one was having an affair with their boss. There’s that,” the Missouri senator said in a radio interview last year.

Missouri House Speaker John Diehl resigned Thursday after reports surfaced he sent sexually-charged messages to an intern in his office.

Missouri House Speaker John Diehl resigned Thursday after reports surfaced he sent sexually-charged messages to an intern in his office.

Orlin Wagner / AP

"To say that there was some sexual harassment would be an understatement, there was a lot of sexual harassment," said McCaskill to St. Louis public radio's Politically Speaking.

McCaskill also said that "at the time, if you went and looked at the highest paid assistants in peoples offices, almost every single one was having an affair with their boss."

The senator added she was hazed during her time in the legislature.

"There was some hazing by some of my classmates in the legislature that were lawyers, where they kind of formed a club to see if they could screw with my legislation," she said.

McCaskill served in the Missouri state legislature in the early 1980s when she was in her late 20s and early 30s.

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HOST: But I just kind of wanted to ask, as the first female elected US senator, what was it like entering legislative politics in the early 80's. Was it different because of your gender or anything like that, and how kind of were you perceived when you entered politics?

MCCASKILL: Well you know it's funny because I've been working on a book, and this chapter I've just been working on. It was an interesting time, because I was the only woman who was a lawyer, and most of the women down there - not all - but a lot of them had gotten there because of their family or their husbands.

HOST: Yeah, especially back then.

MCCASKILL: Yeah, it really wasn't as much…and so it was… I mean, I had great role models. Annette Morgan and Karen McCarthy, who were members of the house that were also from Kansas City, and we — they were terrific, but it was a tough time, and there was some hazing by some of my classmates in the legislature that were lawyers, where they kind of formed a club to see if they could screw with my legislation. So there were times that it…I had to have a sense of humor. You had to, I mean you have to make a choice at some point. Are you going to be a victim or are you a leader? But to say that there was some sexual harassment would be an understatement, there was a lot of sexual harassment.

HOST: Really? This is, this is in the state capitol?

MCCASKILL: Oh yeah. Well at the time, if you went and looked at the highest paid assistants in peoples offices, almost every single one was having an affair with their boss. There's that. I shouldn't have said that, that's in the book.

HOST: Long pause!

[laughter]

MCCASKILL: It will be in the book!

HOST: The reason I asked that question, you know as someone who followed the legislature for years as a reporter, I was just curious how it was back in the 1980's because as Jo has mentioned many times on this show I wasn't even born yet when you entered the legislature, and I'm sure it was a different environment and experience than it is now, but I think even now women in the legislature, whether Republican or Democrats, still kind of deal with the issues since it is such a male-dominated entity.

MCCASKILL: Yeah, and it was a different time and there were — I was single, and you know I wasn't married. I used to make the joke — somebody on the floor of the house said, 'you know, I've got the American dream. I've got the family and kids and my home', and I'm like going well what am I, the American nightmare? I rented and didn't own. I had to borrow pets for the pictures for my brochures, I mean I didn't even… I was not the norm down there in many ways, because most people were not single and most people were not young, and I was in my 20's, and so it was an interesting…


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New York Launching "First-Of-Its-Kind" Transgender Health Care Program

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The state’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, is teaming up with hospitals and advocates to educate about the law and best practices for transgender health services on Friday. A BuzzFeed News exclusive.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

New York officials on Friday morning will be announcing a new public-private partnership aimed at improving health care services for transgender people in the state, BuzzFeed News has learned.

The initiative — launched between the New York Attorney General's Office, Greater New York Hospital Association, Mt. Sinai Health Systems, and Lambda Legal — will provide information and training to hospitals about both legal requirements and best practices for addressing the health needs of transgender people.

"My office is committed to ensuring equal and respectful access to medical care for all New Yorkers, regardless of their gender identity," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. "We are proud to partner with hospitals and health care centers across New York State to help educate and raise awareness around the specific needs and challenges transgender individuals face when seeking basic medical care."

According to information provided to BuzzFeed News about the "first phase" of the initiative, Schneiderman's office held briefings for members of the Greater New York Hospital Association ("GNYHA") in order to prepare for trainings that will be held within the group's member hospitals.

The training program, according to the information provided, is aimed at addressing: "the legal framework of protections for transgender individuals"; "the nature and extent of discrimination experienced by transgender individuals in accessing health care"; and "identification of best practices for hospitals."

In announcing the program, the New York Attorney General's Office pointed to a 2011 survey conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality and National LGBTQ Task Force to highlight problems faced by transgender people in seeking health care. Specifically, the office notes, the problems include "harassment, denial of care, restrictions on access to gender-specific facilities, and invasion of privacy through inappropriate questions."

The president of GNYHA, Kenneth E. Raske, said that his group and member hospitals are "proud to work alongside Attorney General Schneiderman to promote best practices to ensure that all patients receive the best care, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity."

Noting that the briefings, which included staff from Lambda Legal, focused on discussions with administrators who are likely to be involved with addressing transgender care issues — like diversity and quality officers, legal counsel, and compliance personnel — the Attorney General's Office described the briefings as having provided an opportunity to discuss the best practices in light of "implementation issues at member hospitals."

Lambda Legal's transgender rights project director, M. Dru Levasseur, said the group was "thrilled" that Schneiderman's office was taking on this "first-of-its-kind" program.

"We look forward to continuing to work together to help hospitals meet the needs of transgender patients across the state," Levasseur added.

Rubio Elaborates On Iraq: Bush "Absolutely" Made Right Call Based On Intelligence

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“And so it was not a mistake in the sense that the president made the right decision based on what he believed and had reason to believe at that time.”

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Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Thursday that President George W. Bush made the right decision to go to war in Iraq based on the intelligence at the time, adding that "the world is a better place cause Saddam Hussein is not around."

Rubio was elaborating on an answer he gave to Charlie Rose Wednesday in which he said he would not have made that decision based on what is known today, mainly that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.

"Well there's two separate questions involved in that," Rubio told Concord News Radio Thursday. "The first is what I was asked yesterday by Charlie Rose, 'if you knew there weren't weapons of mass destruction would you have gone forward?' And the truth is not one would have."

The presidential hopeful said the United States would still have had to deal with Saddam Hussein but "obviously would have done so differently."

"We would still have had to deal with Saddam Hussein but obviously would have done so differently. Um, but presidents don't get that luxury. The president has to act on what he is told at the time and all of the leading intelligence agencies and foreign intelligence agencies were telling President Bush at the time that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And they had a long history of producing them of gassing their own people."

Rubio said the Iraq War decision was "not a mistake" in the sense that President Bush made the right call based on the intelligence provided to him.

"And so it was not a mistake in the sense that the president made the right decision based on what he believed and had reason to believe at that time. So two separate issues, presidents don't have the benefit of hindsight and the fact of the matter is the world is a better place cause Saddam Hussein is not around."

Rubio added you "absolutely" would have had to take out Saddam Hussein if you thought he possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"Absolutely, if you believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That they could have passed on to terrorists. That they could have used to massacre their people and start a regional arms race. You absolutely have to do that. The presidents not an intelligence officer they have to rely on the information provided to them."

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations Wednesday, Marco Rubio said he wouldn’t have been in favor of the Iraq War knowing what we know today:

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George W. Bush's Iraq War Hawks Dismayed By Jeb's Dithering

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Dubya’s neoconservative advisers and allies can’t believe Jeb didn’t have a good answer on Iraq. “Frankly astonishing.”

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Jeb Bush has drawn derision from all quarters of the political world this week for his bumbling response to questions about the 2003 invasion of Iraq — but some of the sharpest criticism is now coming from his own brother's orbit.

In interviews with more than half a dozen Republican foreign policy hands and veterans of the George W. Bush administration, the reaction to Jeb's dithering on Iraq ranged from disappointment to disbelief.

"No, it was not handled well by Gov. Bush... I don't know why he said what he did," said Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary for Bush 43 at the beginning of the war.

"Making a basic misstep like that with a question that was perfectly, 100% predictable is frankly astonishing," said Randy Scheunemann, a former adviser to defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. "It does not bode well for his candidacy."

Bush, who is expected to announce his bid for the Republican presidential nomination this summer, crash-landed in this campaign quagmire Sunday when he was asked by Fox News host Megyn Kelly, "Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?" He surprised many observers when he confidently responded in the affirmative, prompting an onslaught of frenzied media coverage and bipartisan criticism. After the interview aired Monday, he tried to backpedal on Sean Hannity's radio show, explaining that he had "interpreted the question wrong" — but when the conservative host gave him a chance to clarify his position, Bush demurred: "I don't know what that decision would have been. That's a hypothetical."

While some of his Republican rivals made hay out of his vacillating, Bush continued to provide varied dodges. It took him until Thursday afternoon before he finally relented, testily telling a group of voters in Arizona, "If we're all supposed to answer hypothetical questions: Knowing what we now know, what would you have done? I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq."

He hastened to add that he believed the world was safer without Saddam Hussein, and eventually concluded, "We've answered the question now."

The answer at which Bush eventually arrived aligns with popular opinion in the United States, where an Associated Press poll last year found that 71% of Americans — and 76% of Republicans — believed the Iraq war would be judged a failure by history.

But Bush's defense of the war left much to be desired among the neoconservative elites who served as architects and advocates for the U.S. mission in Iraq — and remain ideologically invested in the muscular foreign policy that undergirded it. While the 2016 Republican field is almost uniformly hawkish, few of the party's would-be standard-bearers feel compelled to defend all aspects of an unpopular war launched before most of them were even old enough to Constitutionally run for president. Every GOP contender asked this week said that with the benefit of hindsight, they wouldn't have sent troops into Iraq.

Many of the party's old-guard Iraq hawks hoped Bush would be the exception. They wanted to see him go to bat for his brother's legacy in the region — reminding the electorate that, botched intel aside, there were good reasons to topple the Hussein regime and seek democratic change in the country. And more to the point, many believe the case should be made on the campaign trail that President Obama made a grave mistake in pulling troops out of Iraq.

"As a political messaging matter, Gov. Bush could easily say to Obama, 'The surge was working. You were handed a three-run lead at the bottom of the ninth, all you had to do was come in and close, and you blew the game," said Scheunemann.

But while Bush has, in fact, touched on these arguments, they have been largely lost amid the tangle of confused quotes, hasty walk-backs, and constant revisions that has characterized Bush's recent Iraq rhetoric. "It shows how rusty he is as a candidate," said Scheunemann. "And that whoever's advising him isn't giving him very good advice."

That sentiment was echoed by a former Bush 43 State Department appointee, who said Jeb should be talking about the ink-stained fingers of first-time Iraqi voters and the success of the troop surge late in his brother's presidency. "The answers aren't hard for Jeb," he said. "People may not all agree with them, but they're pretty obvious."

Ideology aside, several Republicans in the former president's orbit are simply bewildered that Jeb seemed so caught off-guard by such a predictable question as Kelly's. As David Frum, a former White House speechwriter for Bush 43, wrote in Politico, "Sooner or later the question had to be asked. Yet, somehow Jeb Bush failed to be prepared for it." How is it possible that he didn't already have well-rehearsed talking points to address what was arguably the most polarizing — and defining — chapter of his brother's presidency?

"That's the very first thing that should have come up when Jeb decided to run: How are we doing to deal with the Iraq issue?" said a former foreign policy adviser to Bush 43. "The fact that he's floundering on it now is crazy."

"You would think the communications people around him would have him a little more prepped," said Paul McKellips, who served as a public affairs specialist in Iraq for the state department. "I mean, this is probably his fifth re-qualification of the week."

McKellips tentatively chalked up Bush's wobbly rhetoric to the former governor's lack of foreign policy experience — but he wasn't entirely convinced. "We all get enough of the news to form our own opinions," he said. "You would think if you were the caliber of Gov. Bush, you would be ready to go with those quotes."

One retired senior military officer who worked on communications in Baghdad suggested Bush, who is known to be a quick study, should spend time boning up on Iraq. "He wasn't involved in the war effort, really," he said. "I think it's going to be incumbent upon him to become as smart as he can on the issues."

Still, Fleischer predicted Jeb's clumsy game of rhetorical hopscotch would eventually be forgotten as he defines himself independently of the other two Oval Office alumni in his family. During George W. Bush's 2000 campaign, Fleischer recalled, "reporters always tried to shoe-horn everything into being about his father... it was a constant fly we had to swat at." He said one problem with Jeb's struggle to answer the Iraq question this week was that he unwittingly prolonged a story about his brother, and the past — rather than talking about himself, and the future.

"The press wants to write the easy story: Who is he? Is he his brother, or is he his dad?" said Fleischer. "And because of the manner in which he answered the question, this issue has arisen. So, it's his week in the barrel. But in terms of flare-ups in the campaign, I think this is a level-three flare-up out of 10."

Scott Walker And The Israel Primary

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JERUSALEM — When you run for president in 2015, you have to visit Iowa a lot. You have to go to New Hampshire. And, increasingly, you have to take a trip to Israel.

The pilgrimage has become a near rite for Republican campaigns. And while the trips are really intended for domestic American consumption to signal credibility, their frequency belies a new, unspoken reality: Israel, a foreign country, is now seen as another constituency to win.

It’s no secret that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies would prefer a Republican in the oval office. It’s a feature of American presidential politics across the board to visit Israel — Barack Obama visited in 2008 — but inside the Republican Party, where Israel has become a bedrock issue for significant constituencies, an established familiarity with Israel and its leadership carries special cachet. Already this cycle, Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson have visited — and this week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took his turn.

“There is no doubt that in the last years, the last decades that there is a kind of affinity between Likud and the GOP,” said Dani Dayan, the former leader of the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. “An ideological affinity.”

For Dayan, who advocates for the kind of settlement expansion that has repeatedly been condemned by the Obama administration, a Republican administration could translate into less pressure to stop settlement growth in the West Bank. He cited the example of how Chris Christie had to walk back his use of the term “occupied territories” last year. “It’s a fundamental incident because when a mainstream Republican candidate retracts the words ‘occupied territories,’ I don’t care why he did it, that’s a real change.”

There was no such moment on Walker’s trip to Israel. He played it safe — very safe.

The trip was everything you’d expect and little more: Walker visited with Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog; he visited with other members of the Knesset; he visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, and the Western Wall; he flew around the country in a helicopter. It’s arguably the safest plan a politician’s aides could dream up — mostly politically correct, uncontroversial, boring enough to keep press from even wanting to cover it, and all designed to keep him out of trouble.

Other trips to Israel by lower-tier candidates this cycle have been more adventurous: Ben Carson visited settlements in the West Bank during his Israel trip in December, according to Dayan, and Mike Huckabee visits often. Visiting settlements in the West Bank— or Judea and Samaria, the biblical terms used by Dayan and other settlers for the area — is a Rubicon not yet crossed by the major presidential candidates this cycle, though.

Even so, Walker’s staff refused to tell reporters about his bland plans. Not without reason: These foreign trips as a candidate or pre-candidate can be full of minefields, especially for governors like Walker with no foreign policy experience. Small bits of information were instead meted out on Twitter: either Walker’s feed or that of Matt Brooks, the director of the Sheldon Adelson-funded Republican Jewish Coalition, which co-funded the trip with Walker’s PAC. The decision did not protect him from bad press about the trip.

If the coverage was fairly sparse, Walker seem to have made an equally sparse impression in Israel. Though Netanyahu normally puts out some kind of press release or statement after meeting with American politicians, as noted by Walla News, there was no such acknowledgement of the Walker visit.

The people who met with Walker were largely positive about him, if vague.

Walker seemed “very much engaged on the issues relating to Israel and its security,” said Kory Bardash, the head of Republicans Abroad Israel, who attended a two-hour dinner with the governor on Tuesday night to discuss energy issues in his capacity as an executive with Genie Energy.

But did Walker appear to know much about Israel? “He seemed to have a pretty solid knowledge base,” Bardash said. “First of all, the land — he’s very familiar with the Bible.”

Uzi Dayan, a major general in the Israel Defense Forces and the nephew of legendary Israeli general Moshe Dayan, spent Tuesday with Walker on the helicopter jaunt. They started in Jerusalem, saw the Jordan Valley, flew to the Golan Heights, and then toured the south of the country, including areas affected by rocket attacks from Hamas. Dayan explained to Walker some of the security challenges Israel faces.

“It’s his first visit in Israel, so it was very clear that he came to learn,” Dayan told BuzzFeed News. “He came to learn and that’s what he did very seriously.”

In addition to information about Israel and its geopolitical situation, he said, the “learning tour” highlighted important Christian sites in Israel (Walker is a Christian).

If Israel is part of the campaign now, too, Israelis know it. While in the Negev, they met some heads of regional municipalities who pressed Walker for information about his campaign.

Walker dodged.

They “asked him who’s his main rivals,” Dayan said. “He said that if he will run for (the) presidency, he’s not running against anybody but he’s running for being, you know, to be the president of the United States and not against something.”

“He was very careful, and they were very Israeli,” Dayan said.

Walker was so careful on his trip that his team turned down an offer from a Republican activist to put him in touch with a potential donor while he was in Israel, according to the activist. Instead, he rounded out the trip by meeting with Naftali Bennett, the leader of the hard-right Jewish Home party who finally agreed to join Netanyahu’s coalition after holding out for weeks, and who opposes Palestinian statehood. He also met with Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, a Likud politician who will be the energy minister in the new government — and in one of the only moments of color from his entire trip, gave him a tie.

The trip wasn’t bad for Walker. The trip wasn’t impressive. It was simply a necessary checking of the box, a means for boosting his credentials at home and for at least introducing himself to the Israeli political establishment, which follows U.S. politics closely.

“The United States is huge for Israelis. It’s the sun out there, you can’t ignore it for better or for worse,” said Gerald Steinberg, an American-born political science professor at Bar-Ilan University and head of the pro-Israel group NGO Monitor. He is seen as sympathetic to Netanyahu’s thinking.

“There’s a real division in terms of Netanyahu’s embrace of Romney and how deeply Israeli officials should get involved in the American political process,” Steinberg said. “There’s a strong view that Netanyahu got too close to Romney, and Romney didn’t win...There is a tendency to say, ‘Let’s pull back on this.’”

Both Steinberg and Dani Dayan, the settler leader, said that the flap over James Baker, the former secretary of state under George H.W. Bush who has advised Jeb, wasn’t much of a story in Israel; it only registered “in a very minor way,” Steinberg said. Dayan said people on the right in Israel feel favorable toward Rubio and, to a certain extent, Bush.

“This generation, Obama in particular and people around him, most of the Democrats in Congress are seen here as isolationists or naive or both,” Steinberg said. “The view of the world is hopelessly unrealistic. And Republicans tend to be more realists. They understand power.”

“[Secretary of State John] Kerry certainly has no grasp of how the world works, is completely lost in the Middle East — you can quote me on that,” Steinberg said. “That is the general Israeli view, even among Israelis who are center-left.”

Skepticism over the Iran deal specifically is widely shared in Israel, between both the government and the opposition. However, some on the left in Israel are uncomfortable with what they see as Netanyahu’s fanning the flames of increasing partisanship over Israel in the United States.

“I think it’s perfectly OK and acceptable and I would even support part of the positions,” said Erel Margalit, a Labour MK who was educated partly in America, “that the Prime Minister of Israel would make it clear to the American president and the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense and whoever it is that we need to speak to in Congress and the Senate that Iran as a threshold nuclear state is detrimental to the region and to our own interests and U.S. interests, in our view. That’s legitimate.”

“I don’t like the way that Israel is used in the partisan politics in the United States,” Margalit said, adding that the “showdown” between Obama and Netanyahu is bad for Israel.

“It’s dangerous for Israel to allow one party or the other to be seen as the party that’s legitimately supporting Israel, and the other not,” Margalit said.

Dani Dayan, too, doesn’t like the fact that Israel is becoming a partisan issue in the United States, he says, and on his trips there he reaches out to both moderate Republicans and Democrats — with more success among the Republicans.

There is some doubt that the 2016 election will look exactly like the 2012 contest, though, even if every candidate visits. It’s not as foregone a conclusion that Netanyahu will openly support any of the Republicans to the extent that he did Romney.

“We do know that there might be a very big difference between different candidates,’ Uzi Dayan said. “It’s not a big national secret that people in Israel are not thrilled by Obama and by the American policy in this region.”

Romney was “a special case,” Steinberg noted, because of his personal relationship with Netanyahu — and the poor relationship with Obama. “There wasn’t much to lose. That’s not going to happen again.”

And then there’s the reality that Clinton is flat out viewed more favorably than Obama.

“We can live with a Clinton administration,” Dani Dayan said. “We definitely can live with a Clinton administration.”

In the meantime, expect to see more candidates coming to Israel in the months ahead. Rubio, for example, is said to be coming in the summer.

“We Israelis, we are sure that we’re the center of the world,” Uzi Dayan said with a laugh. “From our point of view, it’s natural that candidates are coming to Israel. And we like it because we think it’s very important for us and in a way we think that Israel is a strategic asset. The relations between the United States and Israel are a strategic asset for both sides.”

Marco Rubio Missed Intelligence Briefing And Foreign Relations Hearing In February While Visiting NH

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Rubio missing a closed Intelligence briefing and a Foreign Relations committee hearing while appearing at an event in the early primary state of New Hampshire.

Jim Cole / AP

Republican Senator Marco Rubio missed two committee meetings in February of this year while on a trip to New Hampshire, according to a BuzzFeed News review.

On February 24 -- a little less than two months before announcing his own presidential campaign -- Rubio was absent from a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing with Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry took questions on a variety of national security issues, including the ongoing negotiations about nuclear weapons with Iran and the threat of ISIS.

An aide to Sen. Rubio confirmed that Rubio missed the Foreign Relations hearing, noting he submitted seven questions for the record on topics like Cuba, Venezuela, and Argentina.

Earlier in the day, Rubio appeared at Politics and Eggs, an event series hosted by the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH that frequently features potential presidential candidates. Rubio's speech included comments about the variety of international threats facing the United States, including instability in the Middle East.

"First you have the threat of the Iranian nuclear program, which they continue full steam ahead on," Rubio said. "It's not just the ability to re-process plutonium or enrich uranium, it's the fact that they've probably already bought a bomb design. It's the fact they continue to develop long range rockets already capable of reaching parts of Europe and eventually capable of reaching our very own homeland."

"Add to that the uncertainly of non-state actors such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra and Boko Haram, the spread of radical jihadists that now find themselves in multiple continents and dozens of countries," Rubio continued. He also answered questions about his position on an authorization of use of military force, or AUMF, for ISIS.

Rubio also missed a closed Senate Intelligence briefing that occurred at the same time as the Foreign Relations hearing.

The senator has cited his "extensive work" on the Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees as experience that sets him apart from the current president, who was also a one-term senator when he ran for president.

Rubio has previously missed committee hearings in order to attend fundraising events, including trips to Texas and California earlier this year.

The Rubio campaign pointed to a previous statement they have issued when BuzzFeed News has requested comment on other hearings the senator has missed.

"Since he's been in the Senate, Senator Rubio has received regular classified briefings, attends most Intel committee hearings, and reads intelligence reports almost on a daily basis, and if he misses a hearing, he is always briefed on the material covered," a Rubio aide told BuzzFeed News in that statement. "He is seriously considering running for president and taking the necessary steps to field a competitive campaign, and it's not unusual for presidential candidates to occasionally miss Senate business."

21 Photos Of Jeb Bush Doing Things

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Just JEBBIN’.

Jeb Bush maneuvers a hovercraft powered by a leaf blower.

Jeb Bush maneuvers a hovercraft powered by a leaf blower.

Danny Johnston / AP

Jeb Bush makes a funny face at a 2006 gubernatorial debate.

Jeb Bush makes a funny face at a 2006 gubernatorial debate.

Jay Nolan / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jeb Bush and George Bush share a warm embrace.

Jeb Bush and George Bush share a warm embrace.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / ASSOCIATED PRESS

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Steve Cannon / AP


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Jeb Bush's Wife Columba Launched An Instagram And Twitter Account

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She will be tweeting and ‘gramming in English and Spanish, a source familiar with Columba Bush’s plans told BuzzFeed News. Family photos are coming.

(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Jeb Bush's campaign hasn't been announced yet, but one of the routine parts of an expected candidacy is here: social media accounts from the spouse.

"Privileged to meet @ICADV leaders while in IA with Jeb this weekend. Join me in supporting Domestic Violence prevention," she tweeted after meeting with the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

A source familiar with Columba Bush's plans told BuzzFeed News she's really excited to interact with people, and should Bush decide to move forward with a campaign, this would be a way of gradually getting her out in public and getting Americans familiar with her story.

She will be approving all of the posts on both @ColumbaBush accounts on Twitter and Instagram.

Her bio says she is a "Proud Mother, Grandmother, and Wife of Jeb Bush. Advocate for Domestic Violence and Drug Prevention, the Arts," with a link to Bush's Right To Rise PAC website.

Columba Bush is from Mexico and Jeb Bush is fluent in Spanish. Her new social media presence will be able to highlight the family and softer side of the expected campaign.

The source said you can expect photos of Columba at events and old family photos, especially on Thursdays.

The public social media presence also begins to answer the question of what Columba's role would be if Bush does what everyone expects and announces his campaign for president. She receded from public view when Bush was governor in 1999 after improperly declaring the value of goods she had bought in Paris. Bush has previously said that she "is uncomfortable with the limelight, which is why I love her."

The accounts are a mundane development, but the pre-campaign also sees them as an opportunity to engage with Latino voters.

The source said creating the accounts makes sense because Hispanics use social media more than other groups and this would be an opportunity to speak to them where they are.

This has been a tough week for Bush after bungled answers on whether he would have invaded Iraq. But he is also viewed as an imposing figure among the Republican field because of how much money his Right to Rise PAC is expected to raise. In late-April he told donors they had helped raise more money in the first 100 days than any other Republican operation in history.

Scott Walker Shares Fake Thomas Jefferson Quote

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“Thomas Jefferson said it best.”

Although the ideas expressed in this quotation may be in line with Jefferson's opinions to some extent, the exact phrasing is almost certainly not Jefferson's. However, this quotation has been associated with the ideological descendants of Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party for a very long time (see above), and this is likely why it ultimately came to be attributed to him. Merrill Peterson even referred to the quotation as a "Jeffersonian maxim" in The Jefferson Image in the American Mind (1960).


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9 Key Politics Stories Of The Week: Jeb's Plans And People, The Bill Problem, Walker In Israel

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…and George Stephanopoulos’s donation issues, young Hillary Clinton’s thoughts on privacy, and a fake letter in a Supreme Court brief.

Scott Walker And The Israel Primary — BuzzFeed News

Scott Walker And The Israel Primary — BuzzFeed News

The Wisconsin governor took a very boring, very safe trip to Israel this week — everything you'd expect and little more. People who traveled with him emphasized how much "learning" he did. The trip is just the latest example of how Israel, like Iowa or New Hampshire, has become a prerequisite campaign stop — to the pride and concern of Israeli insiders, Rosie Gray reports from Jerusalem. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Scott Walker / Via Twitter

Jeb Bush, Ana Navarro, and the Question That May Have Been Misheard — the New York Times

Jeb Bush, Ana Navarro, and the Question That May Have Been Misheard — the New York Times

After Jeb Bush's initial Iraq answer, Ana Navarro, pictured above with Jeb Bush Jr., told CNN that he'd misheard the question as part of her sort of de facto media role as a Bush-allied Republican. "How much of a confidante she is of Mr. Bush, however, is open to question." Read it at the New York Times.

Lynne Sladky / Getty

Jeb Bush May Skip Iowa In 2016, Sources Say — BuzzFeed News

Jeb Bush May Skip Iowa In 2016, Sources Say — BuzzFeed News

Jeb's trip to Iowa this weekend is only the second one this year. Sources say the Iowa Straw Poll may not be the only thing he’s skipping in the socially conservative caucus state. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Clinton campaign’s dilemma: What to do with Bill? — the Washington Post

Clinton campaign’s dilemma: What to do with Bill? — the Washington Post

So far, and for the foreseeable future, Bill Clinton won't be a visible presence on his wife's campaign. He won't appear at events or fundraise. But that's just part of a larger question about what role the former president will play, Phil Rucker reported from the foundation's big event in Morocco. Read it at the Washington Post.

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Loretta Sanchez Apologizes For Whooping "War Cry" Imitation Of Native Americans

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The California Democrat, who is currently running for Senate, used the gesture to jokingly distinguish between Indian Americans and Native Americans, in a meeting with Indian Americans.

On Saturday, Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez was meeting with Indian-American Democrats when this happened:

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Video of the event was shared by Uduak-Joe Ntuk with KCRA, a local TV station. Sanchez is running for the Senate seat soon to be vacated by Barbara Boxer, against California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who called the gesture "shocking."

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Later, when asked about this, Sanchez literally ran away from reporters:

Later, when asked about this, Sanchez literally ran away from reporters:

KCRA

"In this crazy and exciting rush of meetings yesterday, I said something offensive, and for that I sincerely apologize," Sanchez told hundreds of delegates Sunday on the closing morning of the state Democratic Party convention in Anaheim.

Sanchez said she was proud of her record defending the rights of Native Americans.

"They know my record," she said. "They know how much I have spent, the time that I have spent with them at their tribal councils, listening to them, advocating for them. They know that I have always had their backs.

"And they know what many of you don't know -- that like so many Mexican Americans, I am proudly Native American on my mother's side."

Rand Paul: Iraq War Architects Shouldn't Get To Keep Going On Sunday Shows

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“History has already begun to harshly judge those who made this country’s decisions after 9/11,” Paul writes in his forthcoming book.

Darren McCollester / Getty Images

Republican Sen. Rand Paul writes in his forthcoming book that it is troublesome that those who planned the Iraq War are still invited on Sunday morning political talk shows to give their opinions.

"Let's take for example the war in Iraq," writes Paul. "Unlike Mrs. Clinton, had I been senator at the time of the Iraq War, I would have never voted for it, and it troubles me that we were sold the war on false pretense."

"It's also bothersome that the mainstream media continues to invite the architects of the Iraq invasion on to share their opinions on Sunday morning shows," he adds. "History has already begun to harshly judge those who made this country's decisions after 9/11."

Paul has been vocal in saying that, even at the time, the Iraq War was a mistake.

Paul's book, Taking a Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America is due out later this month.

Three Awesome Communications Rules From The Arkansas GOP's 1982 Campaign Manual

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“2. Greed is the only consistent human characteristic.”

During a trip to the Clinton Library in Arkansas, we found this, the 1982 Arkansas Republican Party campaign manual:

During a trip to the Clinton Library in Arkansas, we found this, the 1982 Arkansas Republican Party campaign manual:

It's full of detailed instructions for all aspects of campaigning — how to fundraise, operate a budget, run a schedule, perform opposition research, and organize.

Republican Party of Arkansas / Via University of Arkansas Special Collections

But inside, you'll find the three basic "laws" of campaign communications, which are amazing and are as follows:

But inside, you'll find the three basic "laws" of campaign communications, which are amazing and are as follows:

Republican Party of Arkansas / Via University of Arkansas Special Collections

1. Truth is what the people believe.
It has very little to do with fact. So base your communications strategy in the firm footing of attitudes within your district. You can change people's perceptions of what you stand for, but you cannot, at least in the context of a campaign, change what they stand for.

2. Greed is the only consistent human characteristic.
Nobody does something for nothing, in the final sense. The payback may not always be physical or monetary, it can be spiritual, ethical, or biological. But somehow, if you are going to get someone to vote for you, you have to offer him something in return. And, given that most people do not care nearly as much about politics as those of us who work in it full time, the more specific that something can be, the more related to his own personal needs, goals, and aspirations, the more likely it is to serve as a motivation for him to do what you want him to do — vote for you.

3. There are three kinds of people who are susceptible to flattery: men, women, and children.
We Republicans are very good at the technical aspects of campaigning, probably better overall than our opponents. But we are often miserable at the people aspects. Volunteers must be thanked, not just after the campaign, but during it, too. Flattery also works on people with whom the candidate comes into contact within his day-to-day campaigning — his goal in a handshaking tour should be to have everyone he shakes hands with get the impression that he has been wading through all those other people just to get to him. Flattery is also important when considering the constituency as a whole. Never insult the people by telling them how bad off they are — a frequent Republican mistake because we think that by following such a statement with an accusation blaming the situation on the incumbent Democrats we can win votes. It doesn't work. Attack your opponent, yes. But flatter the people at all times.

Also, the party outlines the four ways to defend yourself in a campaign:

Also, the party outlines the four ways to defend yourself in a campaign:

Republican Party of Arkansas / Via University of Arkansas Special Collections


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Harvard Professor: Rick Santorum Is Misusing My Book To Say "All Black Men Are Sexual Predators"

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“I’m not going to say who it is but what I’m trying to say is, he’s a conservative and he took what I was saying and sort of so misinterpreted it that it’s nothing like—it’s just isn’t even in the universe of what I said.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Last week, former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum called men who father children with multiple women “sexual predators."

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"Another new statistic just came out in his book. A majority of children being born out of wedlock today in America are born in families where the father is in the home. But they're not married," said Santorum. "So they are born to cohabiting couples. So the majority of children born out of wedlock are born to cohabiting couples. And what does Putnam say about these? They stuck to them longitudinally, they never get married. Let me use that term, never, like one or two percent ever get married.

"And he compared it when he was growing up in the 1950s and when children were conceived out of wedlock, what happened in the 1950s," added Santorum. "We all know what happened in the 1950s and here is the amazing thing, this is Putnam saying this, 80 plus percent of these marriages succeeded.

"And children were raised in stable homes. Now these fathers leave the home and not just father children with that particular women, they father a child with another women, and another and another. We have created predators, sexual predators particularly where, again, Putnam—low income America."

Last week, during a speech to promote his book, Putnam said “a presidential candidate” was misinterpreting his book to say that "all black men are sexual predators."

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Vermont Kills Failure-To-Protect Law

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State lawmakers nixed a proposed statute​ that would​ criminalize parents who don’t protect their children from abusers​.​ ​Similar laws ​in other states​ ​have lead to the imprisonment of battered women​.​

Vermont's Statehouse.

Wangkun Jia/Wangkun Jia

Vermont legislators last week killed a measure that would have targeted parents who fail to protect their children from abusers. Similar laws in other states have led to lengthy prison sentences for women who were battered by the same men who abused their children.

Senate Bill 9, a child abuse prevention bill, easily passed the state senate with a provision to create the crime of "failure to protect," punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

But the house stripped that provision from the bill after a debate in which at least one elected official and a domestic violence advocate pointed to a BuzzFeed News investigation, published last year, that found 28 mothers in 11 states who were sentenced to 10 years or more despite evidence they also suffered physical violence at the hands of the abusers.

Most of those mothers were in states where the law specifically makes it a crime to fail to protect a child from abuse — like the statute that Vermont lawmakers killed. Some of the mothers were in states with more general and ambiguous laws.

A six-member house and senate panel hashed out a final version of the bill late last week without the failure-to-protect measure. Gov. Peter Shumlin plans to sign the bill by late June, spokesman Scott Coriell told BuzzFeed News.

The bill, once it becomes law, will toughen the penalty on a current law that generally opens the door for the potential prosecution of parents who fail to protect their children. The current law, which makes it a crime to neglect a child, will be revised to carry a maximum 10-year penalty if the child dies or suffers "serious bodily injury."

Whether Vermont prosecutors might use this tougher – but more vague – law in failure-to-protect type cases is unclear. David Cahill, who represents county district attorneys at the Vermont statehouse, said "there is little evidence it has been used for that purpose" in the past, and added that the new, stronger penalty may compel prosecutors to take a closer look at the law in future cases.

Lawmakers did, though, add in an extra provision meant to protect battered women from prosecution. Known as an "affirmative defense," it exempts from prosecution people who endangered their children because they had a "reasonable fear" they would be harmed if they didn't.

LINK: Investigation: Battered, Bereaved, And Behind Bars

LINK: Vermont House Balks At Failure To Protect Law


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