Tom Williams / Roll Call / Getty Images

At the gym behind Our Lady Queen of the Americas Church in Washington, D.C., there is a regular 6 a.m. basketball game. Former felons, brought in by a nonprofit, play with a revolving set of people like economist Ike Brannon (worked for John McCain), Reggie Love (Obama’s former body man), and a secret service agent — real athletes.

For a long time, there was another regular player: Amanda Renteria, now the political director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. A basketball walk-on at Stanford (and a varsity athlete in two other sports), Renteria developed a reputation over eight years of 6 a.m. games.

"If someone gives a really hard foul, that's kind of intentional, we still refer to it as 'the Renteria,'” said Bryan Weaver, who works with at-risk individuals and brings the former felons in his nonprofit program to the game, and is also married to Democratic strategist Maria Cardona.

The games are serious, Weaver makes clear, with their most recent rivals being Dan Pfeiffer’s White House team. (“We hated them so much,” he said.) And in a competitive crowd, Renteria stood out. "She hit Pat Summit in the face in warm-ups between Stanford and Tennessee and she wore it as badge of honor," Weaver said.

"I've played basketball in jail and she's the toughest, meanest person I've ever played with,” he said. “She's this pretty Latina who comes on to the floor and is immediately an assassin.”

Renteria has since left Washington for Brooklyn, and traded this kind of competition for an even rougher one — the political director role on a campaign with make-or-break expectations. That role has been the subject of much consternation, gossip, and expectation among Latino politicos. They called for Clinton to include Hispanics in her inner-circle and in decision-making roles to ensure that Latino voters are a priority — and now the time has come for Renteria to deliver.

Her portfolio — which includes keeping Democrats on Capitol Hill, Latino groups, labor, and others happy — isn’t an easy one, though. Immigrant activists have made life difficult for Democrats over the last few years. Unions have been sharp opponents to President Obama’s trade agenda, a tension that seems unlikely to abate. And there is also this: Renteria is new to the world of a candidate who has more than two decades of national political connections.

The opening strategy, however, seems to be working. In interviews with labor operatives, Capitol Hill lawmakers and staffers, and Latino activists, Democrats praised Renteria’s early outreach and noted her deft ability to forge meaningful relationships on Capitol Hill, something the Obama White House has never quite prized. (“I know Amanda's coalition building skills and impeccable qualifications will be a tremendous asset to Secretary Clinton's campaign,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.)

Xavier Becerra, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told BuzzFeed News he’s been impressed with the efficiency the campaign has showed in communicating with him and his colleagues, for instance. Becerra has an established relationship with the fellow Californian, dating back to her time as Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s chief of staff, the first Latina to serve in that role on the Hill. "They're in touch with a number of us, whenever the secretary is going to a particular area, and we've been able to give feedback on her visits to various places," he said.

Michael Trujillo, Renteria's campaign manager last year, said he only begrudgingly met with Renteria after he was contacted by Emily's List — but was immediately won over. (He also had his own basketball story: In October of last year, she walked onto a court between games — in a dress and heels — and hit eight three pointers before missing one. With an audience of bewildered men looking on, she sunk another seven.) "The power of Amanda is that in five minutes you're going to want to help her and by doing that you're helping the Clinton campaign," he said.

Outreach has been the primary early effort and Renteria’s focus seems to be two-fold on the constituency level: labor leaders and immigration activists. Officials from AFL-CIO, SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the American Postal Workers Union, and the National Education Association (NEA) have all met with Renteria in recent weeks.

Carrie Pugh, NEA political director said she bonded with Renteria because they are both mothers. “She was incredibly gracious and interested in our issues, which is great in and of itself,” she said.

And her biggest impact has been felt in Clinton's most detailed policy comments to date, on immigration last month in Nevada.

Multiple campaign officials said she didn't lead the immigration event, where Clinton tacked hard to the left, fully endorsing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and saying she would go further on her own to protect parents of undocumented youth brought to the country as children (so-called DREAMers) from deportation, if Republicans don't work with her on a legislative overhaul. But Renteria was the one meeting with immigration and Latino leaders and she played a major role in translating demands she was hearing from skeptical immigration activists, hardened by a long fight with the Obama administration, into specifics by Clinton, in the early stages of a campaign that hasn't been big on them.

Trujillo said it was the Clinton campaign's "way of putting calamine lotion on those burns, that's why it feels so good."

"For me since the very beginning I've been very surprised she was reaching out," said high-profile DREAMer Erika Andiola. "On her end it's pretty smart, not only talking to the usual beltway folks but reaching out to the actual DREAMers."

And if Clinton's words sounded like something off an activist's wishlist, it's partly because an activist of whom the campaign thinks highly enough that they hired her, was consulted. Lorella Praeli, a veteran of the 2014 battle for Obama's executive actions with United We Dream, who often took on administration officials in private White House meetings, joins the campaign in June, but gave feedback ahead of the immigration event, a source told BuzzFeed News.

To Jose Parra, a former senior advisor for Harry Reid, what the campaign did on a Tuesday in Nevada was a major risk, but one that paid off, and likely lifted her currency within the campaign.

“On Monday it probably wasn’t that rosy,” he said. “It could have backfired, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were people pushing back. But campaigns are built on those tense moments, when it's a 50/50 thing, do we go or not?”

Renteria's versatility as a senior staffer who can also serve as a high-profile Latina surrogate has also been on display since the campaign's launch. She was on, for instance, Al Punto on May 10, a Spanish-language Meet The Press analogue with influential anchor Jorge Ramos after Clinton's immigration announcement. When House Republicans recently torpedoed an attempt by Arizona Democrat Ruben Gallego that would have allowed DREAMers to serve in the military, she was there again, releasing the campaign's comment.

While a major cog in the operation now, a senior staffer in the campaign said it was Clinton and not Renteria who did the selling when the two met in New York City in February to discuss the position. Democrats from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and California state party had both also courted her to take another shot at a Congressional run in a more-favorable presidential election year.

If Renteria's role has heartened outside observers for not being limited to Hispanic-specific outreach, though, her failed congressional campaign serves as a cautionary tale for the conventional but over-simplified “demography is destiny” calculus.

Renteria, the daughter of Mexican migrant farmworkers, lost by 17 points to Republican David Valadao, in a Central Valley district in California that is 70% Hispanic. In a wave election for Republicans, Valadao stood out as one of three House Republicans who supported a legislative overhaul solution proposed by Democrats in 2013.

Asked to appraise Renteria as an opponent, Valadao's communications director Anna Vetter said she couldn't be of much help, then offered this in an email: "If Amanda Renteria is as good at her role on Hillary Clinton's campaign as she was at running for Congress last cycle, then we look forward to having a Republican in the White House in 2016.”

Democrats argue it was a terrible cycle for the party and Renteria shouldn't shoulder blame for the loss.

"It was tough getting folks out, I don't care what part of the country, folks stayed home," Becerra said. "She did a remarkable job against an incumbent."

Democrats who followed the race say Valadao, who is Portuguese, did not do anything to dissuade voters who believed he was Latino, as well. They also said Obama's delay of executive action on immigration until after the election sapped enthusiasm from Hispanic voters.

But while early returns on both Renteria and Clinton's immigration positions are positive among Democrats, they say minefields must be avoided as the campaign progresses. In the case of Renteria, they point to something familiar: A Latina political director for a Democratic presidential campaign, Katherine Archuleta, who held the position for Obama in 2012. They say Archuleta was political director by title, but was not actually making those decisions for the campaign.

"The concern has been her becoming another Katherine," said a prominent Nevada Democrat.

Archuleta was the Latina face of the Obama campaign, the source said, having meetings with Latino leaders, though it was known that she didn't have influence in guiding campaign strategy. With Renteria, the question is "When shit hits the fan will she have influence?" the Democrat said.

On immigration more broadly, the Nevada Democrat said activists have "Obama PTSD," citing the 2014 immigration battle and don't know if they can trust Clinton.

The senior Clinton staffer acknowledged this feeling among advocates saying Americans are feeling distrustful of anyone in government and anyone running for office, and are tired of hearing promises. And so on this issue, the campaign, the official said, is looking forward to proving that it stands strong on the stances that have been outlined.

In a conversation with BuzzFeed News last month, Renteria called it the difference between merely seeking to create a "coalition to win" the election "versus a coalition to make a difference" on policy issues, like immigration.

But those who know Renteria say, make no mistake, she wants to win badly.

"People underestimate her," said Weaver, her longtime basketball teammate. "They're in for a rude awakening when the competitive edge comes out. She plays politics the same way, it's an elbow sport with her and she really is resilient."

“I have been doing business in China for decades, and I will tell you that yeah, the Chinese can take a test, but what they can’t do is innovate.”

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Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina argues that the Chinese are are not entrepreneurial, don't innovate, and are "not terribly imaginative" in her argument against the Common Core education policy.

"I also think the argument for Common Core is frequently, 'Oh, we have to compete with the Chinese,'" Fiorina said earlier in the year to the Iowa Caffeinated Thoughts political vlogger.

Fiorina cited her decades of business experience in China to say that the Chinese people are good at test taking but are not imaginative, entrepreneurial, or innovative.

"I have been doing business in China for decades, and I will tell you that yeah, the Chinese can take a test, but what they can't do is innovate," she said. "They are not terribly imaginative. They're not entrepreneurial, they don't innovate, that is why they are stealing our intellectual property."

She added teaching innovation, risk-taking, and imagination "are things that are distinctly American and we can't lose them."

The line of argument against Common Core is one Fiorina also advances in her book Rising to the Challenge: My Leadership Journey. In it, Fiorina argues the Chinese educational system is "too homogenized and controlled" to encourage risk taking and imagination.

From her book:

Proponents of Common Core argue that we must compete with the Chinese in subjects like math and science. I agree that we must compete, but we will not win by becoming more centralized and standardized in our education methods. Although the Chinese are a gifted people, innovation and entrepreneurship are not their strong suits. Their society, as well as their educational system, is too homogenized and controlled to encourage imagination and risk taking. Americans excel at such things , and we must continue to encourage them. A centralized bureaucracy in Washington shouldn't be telling teachers how to teach or students how to learn. Our states have been described as "laboratories of democracy." They are also laboratories of innovation.

Fiorina frequently cites her business experience aboard as part of her foreign policy credentials. An often-repeated quip in her stump speech is that she has "met with more world leaders today than anyone else running for president, with the exception of Hillary Clinton."

As a recent graduate of Harvard Law, Obama discussed his childhood and race in America. He also read a passage from Dreams from My Father and performed a series of impersonations.

Via youtube.com

In March, a video of the 34-year-old Barack Obama surfaced on YouTube. It contains footage of an appearance he made at the Cambridge Public Library in September 1995.

While the video has accumulated over 1 million views, these appear to have primarily come from fringe websites, which have cited the video as evidence that, to quote Infowars, a "Communist schooled [Obama] on white racism." (This is referring to Frank Marshall Davis, a friend of Obama's grandfather.)

At the time this video was taken, Obama had just published his first book, a memoir entitled Dreams from My Father. Originally envisioned by agents as a "feel-good story," the memoir is instead a personal, (if factually questionable) examination of the experiences of the mixed-race boy and young man who would eventually become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

The future president at the time was a lecturer at the University of Chicago, where he would teach constitutional law for more than a decade. He also was working as a civil rights attorney and had directed Project Vote in Chicago to register voters for the 1992 election.

Over the course of a speech, book reading, and question-and-answer session, Obama candidly discusses himself and his views on race relations in the United States from an variety of angles. He also performs a series of impersonations, first of some of his peers and then of his grandparents.

youtube.com

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A panel of judges from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government’s request to allow the president’s immigration executive action to move forward.

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A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied the government's request to allow President Obama's executive actions on immigration to move forward, preventing an estimated 4 million undocumented immigrants from receiving work permits and being shielded from deportation.

Judge Jerry E. Smith wrote that the court was denying the motion for a stay because "the government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its appeal of the injunction." The court also denied the government's request that the appeals court limit the injunction to Texas or the plaintiff states.

The decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals kept in place an earlier ruling by Judge Andrew Hanen of the Southern District of Texas placing an injunction on the Obama administration's immigration actions.

The U.S. government appealed that decision to the 5th Circuit, as well as asking the appeals court to stay the injunction during the time the 5th Circuit considered the appeal. The panel denied the stay in a 2-1 vote, with Judge Stephen A. Higginson dissenting.

The lawsuit was filed by Texas in conjunction with 25 other states, which are arguing that the deportation relief programs are an executive overreach that will cause the states to suffer harm.

Immigration advocates condemned the court's decision, but said they still expect the relief programs to prevail in the end. "We think this is an unsound decision, and unfortunately a very harmful one for our economy, our community, and all the families that would benefit from the programs," Melissa Keaney, a staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, told BuzzFeed News. "Obviously we're very disappointed about it, but we're also undeterred."

The U.S. government can now choose whether to appeal this decision on the stay request to the Supreme Court.

Read the opinion:

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After promising transparency, the state hasn’t revealed some results of a test into what caused its execution drug to be defective.

Georgia’s pentobarbital on the day it was to be injected into Gissendaner.

Georgia Department of Corrections

The state of Georgia is withholding the results of an experiment about what caused the state's execution drugs to go bad — despite promising that the results would be released.

Officials proposed the experiment shortly after an execution was called off because the drug solution was discovered to have particles floating in it.

Georgia Department of Corrections General Counsel Robert Jones proposed a simple experiment to help determine why the drugs set to be used in Kelly Gissendaner's scheduled execution in March ended up like this.

Jones, in an affidavit filed by the Georgia Attorney General's Office, told a federal judge that the results of the experiment would be given to the court, and to lawyers for inmate Gissendaner, who nearly had the cloudy drugs injected into her.

Two months later, the experiment is done. But Georgia is now withholding the results. It is unclear when, or if, the results will ever be made public.

The state contends that the most likely cause for its pentobarbital to "precipitate" is because of the temperature in which it was stored. However, their own expert says it also could have been caused by deficiencies in how the drug was mixed.

Back in March, Jones proposed that the pharmacist, who compounds the drug in secret, would mix up another batch. Some of the drug would be stored in a cooling unit at 37 degrees, like Georgia did last time. The rest of the drug would be stored closer to room temperature, which is what their expert now advises.

"These samples will be photographed and closely monitored for seven days," Jones said in an affidavit. "This test should confirm whether the problem with the drugs that were to be used in the Gissendaner execution was that they were stored at too cold a temperature."

A Corrections employee moves the syringe to show the particles floating in it.

Georgia Department of Corrections

If the colder drugs turn cloudy but the warmer drugs are fine, that would hint that the temperature was a cause. If both samples turned out to be unacceptable, then that would indicate problems with its compounding. Jones added that it was the Department of Corrections' intention to provide the results to the court and to Gissendander, which has not happened.

"Those [photographs and results] are currently classified and confidential," Department of Corrections spokesperson Gwendolyn Hogan told BuzzFeed News. The department also denied an open records request, citing attorney-client privilege.

Hogan added that "when and if privileged and classified documents are released is up to the agency's attorney," which would be Attorney General Sam Olens.

Olens's office would only say that the results are "privileged." A spokesperson would not say if the results will ever be made public.

Even before Georgia proposed the experiment that it now wants to hide, Gissendaner's attorney worried about the investigation being biased.

The state "will not be merely the subject of this investigation; they will also conduct it," attorney Gerald King wrote in March. "And they will hide all critical aspects of their self-assessment from Ms. Gissendaner, the public, and this Court."

"A self-investigation with opaque results is unacceptable."

Georgia sent samples of its cloudy drug to two testing labs in March. The labs determined that the pentobarbital "precipitated" — meaning that solid versions of the drug appeared in the solution.

Georgia has indefinitely postponed its executions while it sorts out what went wrong.

King argues that his client can't be executed, because she "endured hours of unconstitutional torment and uncertainty" while the state decided whether or not to use the drug. Georgia has pushed to have the suit dismissed, and Gissendaner is expected to file a response this week.

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Bush co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations task force that recommended a slate of policies on immigration to then Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

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In 2009, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis advocating an immigration plan developed by the Council on Foreign Relations. That report included in its recommendations an earned pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Bush was one of two co-chairs of the bipartisan task force.

The letter, signed by Bush, identifies "a program of earned legalization that offers an opportunity for many illegal immigrants to earn the right to remain in America" as one of three pieces of the plan.

In the report, though, the program of "earned legalization" is described as a "path to permanent residence and citizenship."

"We favor a scheme that allows many illegal immigrants to earn the right to live in this country lawfully and to start on the path to permanent residence and citizenship," read the report.

Spokespeople for Bush have said his preferred position on immigration is legal status, but not citizenship for undocumented immigrants; Bush has also said that he would be open to citizenship in part of a broader immigration compromise. And in his 2013 book, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, Bush wrote that permanent residency should not lead to citizenship as it would reward illegal immigration.

Here's the letter sent by Bush:

Letter

Earned Legalization

As discussed in greater detail above, the Task Force has concluded that earned legalization is necessary and warranted for many illegal immigrants living in the United States. The current situation is dangerous for American security, corrodes respect for the rule of law, makes those immigrants vulnerable to exploitation, and creates unfair competition for American workers that erodes labor standards. But the Task Force is opposed to amnesty; instead, we favor a scheme that allows many illegal immigrants to earn the right to live in this country lawfully and to start on the path to permanent residence and citizenship.

Creating that scheme, of course, is an enormous challenge facing Congress. The conditions for legalization must be demanding enough that they bar individuals who are either a threat to this country or are unwilling to make the commitments required for full membership in American society. On the other hand, if the conditions are too onerous it may be impossible to bring many illegal migrants into the legal system. Congress has already considered more limited legalization programs that would be an important first step in the right direction. The DREAM Act, for example, which has been reintroduced in the 111th Congress, would provide a path to permanent residence for certain young immigrants—both those here illegally and those whose parents are here on temporary visas and who will no longer be eligible when they become adults. The act sets out stringent conditions for eligibility. An individual must have arrived in the United States before age sixteen, lived here at least five years, and graduated from an American high school or obtained a GED. Those eligible would receive conditional permanent residency for six years, and would then be required to go on to attend college for at least two years or to perform two years of military service. They would also be required to demonstrate good moral character, a stringent legal standard that disqualifies an individual for most criminal offenses, providing false information on documents, or failing to register for Selective Service. At the end of six years, if all
these conditions are met, the individual would be eligible for permanent residence.

The DREAM Act is no amnesty. It offers to young people who had no responsibility for their parents' initial decision to bring them into the United States the opportunity to earn their way to remain here. As such, the Task Force supports passage of the DREAM Act, and believes that it provides a good framework for a broader legalization scheme.
Extending such a scheme to adults who were fully responsible for their decision to come to the United States, and are already working here, produces an extra layer of complexity. Such individuals cannot be expected to earn their legal residency through schooling or military service. But Congress has already considered a number of sound alternatives. The McCain-Kennedy legislation, for instance, would have required applicants to show a history of employment in the United States, to prove that they had paid taxes, to be in the process of studying English and learning about U.S. history and government, to pass criminal and security background checks, and to pay significant fines along with the application fee. Like the DREAM Act, it would have established a six-year probationary period before a green-card application were possible. Some other versions of the legislation have called for a demonstrated knowledge of English and the performance of community service. What is central to these approaches is that they require those seeking legalization to show a history of contribution to the United States through work and taxes, a commitment to remaining by learning English and adopting U.S. democratic values, and a willingness to pay some restitution. These are not the ingredients of an amnesty.

The Task Force recommends that Congress approve a program of earned legalization for illegal migrants in the United States, subject to appropriate penalties, waiting periods, background checks, evidence of moral character, and a commitment to full participation in American society by learning English and embracing American values.

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Which Avenger would he be?

Speaking to radio host Dana Loesch last week, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said if he had to pick an Avenger to be he would pick Captain America.

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"Oh I don't know, I think of all the movies out there I kind of love Captain America," said the likely presidential candidate. "You know, there's nothing like the red, white, blue and being strong and standing up for folks, but I don't know. You have a fun time watching any of those."

Walker confirmed he "loves movies" but is a "little bit dated" because he waits for movies to be released outside the theaters.

Walker, Stark: 2016

Katherine Miller

“We will correct the error in the next printing.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

The publisher behind Rand Paul's new book will update future editions to correct a mistake: The book misstates the number of people killed in the Benghazi attack.

Paul writes in the book, Taking a Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America, which was published this week, that six people died in the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

"I believe judgment day for Benghazi is also at hand," writes Paul. "When the secretary of state answers a question concerning the murders of six Americans, including an American ambassador, by saying, 'What difference, at this point, does it make?' I think that's a pretty clear indication that it's time for that person to go. It's 3 a.m., Mrs. Clinton. The phone is ringing. The American people deserve to know why you never bothered to answer it."

The attack on the consulate resulted in the deaths of four, not six, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

"We will correct the error in the next printing," a spokeswoman for Hachette Book Group told BuzzFeed News Tuesday.

Several pages earlier, the number of deaths is printed correctly.

A BuzzFeed News review previously found Paul cites information in his book that has been disputed or later found to be unsubstantiated by the House Select Intelligence Committee about the Benghazi attack.

A Paul spokesperson didn't return a comment request.

In the late 1980s, Miriam Ochshorn was living in New York. Already a successful Israeli doctor, she had come to the United States for a fellowship in addiction medicine in 1986. She was divorced, and the mother of two daughters.

One day, she got a call from a childhood friend, who was also now living in the United States. The friend, Sara Aronson, had just run into a man Sara knew in a Brookline, Massachusetts, deli. He was also single and was looking to meet an Israeli woman. Could Sara give him her number? Miriam said yes.

The man was Sheldon Adelson. He was wealthy — far from his working-class upbringing as the son of a Dorchester taxi driver — but at an inflection point. He was still a few years from selling Comdex, the computer trade show company he’d built, for $862 million. He was close to buying the Las Vegas Sands, his first entrée into what would be a very lucrative Vegas career. He had only just started visiting Israel. And he, too, was divorced, the father of three.

The pair began talking on the phone. They did this before ever meeting, getting to know each other over the telephone line before starting to go on real dates. He proposed a few months later, and they were married shortly thereafter in two weddings — a religious ceremony at the King David hotel in Jerusalem, and a party in Las Vegas, where 10 years later Adelson would open the huge Venetian hotel and casino.

The Adelsons at the Venetian last year.

Bryan Steffy / WireImage

More than a quarter-century later, Sheldon Adelson is one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Currently valued by Forbes at $29.9 billion, he has more money than a person could ever spend — the kind of money that can alter a presidential race or spur a medical breakthrough, money beyond the imagination. Sheldon Adelson has that. And though there are a lot of billionaires in the world, he is the object of particular attention and fascination because of his influence in Republican presidential politics and in Israeli politics and society. The so-called Adelson primary is a feature of the Republican primary process, if a slightly overhyped one, and his support is a litmus test for Republican candidates on Israel just as the country becomes an increasingly partisan issue.

Much less attention has been paid to his wife — she’s hardly been written about,
except for a handful of interviews over the years. But for those competing for Adelson cash, she’s just as important as her husband. The Adelsons make their giving decisions together. When Sheldon Adelson meets with prospective recipients, Miriam Adelson is often there, too.

Those who deal regularly with the Adelsons treat Miriam with as much deference as Sheldon, and crave her approval just as much. “There’s a head of an organization that receives a lot of funding from Sheldon who says, ‘If you keep Sheldon happy, that’s helpful, but to keep Miriam happy is critical,’” said one family friend who spoke on condition of anonymity. As the 2016 election heats up, the press is once again becoming laser-beam focused on the Adelsons and their money. And Miriam is once again escaping the limelight, though her influence this cycle is already starting to be felt. And as time goes on, she’s expected to take on an even more prominent role within the organization, and to be the keeper of the Adelson political infrastructure. Miriam Adelson declined to be interviewed for this story, but interviews with her friends and political associates paint a portrait of someone who, though reluctant to go before the public, is quietly influential, and becoming more so, behind the scenes.

The Republican Jewish Coalition, one of a large family of Adelson outfits, holds its annual conference at the Venetian, tucked away in a conference room off to the side of the windowless maze of slot machines and restaurants that makes up the rest of the hotel and casino complex.

The Venetian itself stands as a testament to the Adelsons' partnership. Miriam was there before Sheldon was the mega-rich casino magnate — before the empire. It was Miriam's idea, in fact, to give his huge casino and hotel in Vegas a Venetian theme, according to people familiar with the process. The two had chosen Venice for their honeymoon. Throughout the Venetian and the Palazzo, the addition to the Venetian built in 2007, plaques read, “Coins found in water fountains throughout the Palazzo are donated to fund the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Clinic for Drug Abuse Treatment and Research,” adding that the Adelsons will match the contributions. (Another sign of their partnership: Miriam actually owns more of Las Vegas Sands than Sheldon does; according to the most recent proxy statement, Sheldon directly owns 65.9 million shares, while Miriam directly owns 93.8 million shares. There are also hundreds of millions of shares held by trusts that Miriam controls.)

Republicans descend each year on the Venetian for the RJC’s retreat, where likely presidential candidates make their pitch to this small but highly influential crowd. The Adelsons are capable of unleashing floods of money for candidates who meet their criteria on foreign policy — specifically, supporting policies to bolster Israel’s security. Any sign of hand-wringing over the occupation — like Jeb Bush’s involvement with former Secretary of State James Baker, who spoke at the liberal group J Street’s conference — can disqualify candidates off the bat.

The Adelsons at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress this year.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

People around the Adelsons say it’s hard to know if Miriam is responsible for deepening Sheldon’s love for Israel, or whether it would have happened anyway. According to a friend of the family, Sheldon likes to tell a story that begins by his saying that his father had oddly shaped feet. The only other person with feet like that, in Sheldon’s telling, is Sheldon. His father had always wanted to go to Israel, but by the time Sheldon made enough money to make this a reality, his father was too old to go. After his father died, Sheldon was going through his father’s belongings and found a pair of shoes, which fit. He took them to Israel and wore them outside in a park as soon as he got there — so that at least his father’s shoes could walk in the land of Israel.

“The Israel stuff was born and bred into him by a father who never actually went,” the friend said.

But it’s Miriam who has a lifetime of connections in Israel — even before the creation of the Israeli state. Born Miriam Farbstein in Haifa in 1946, her parents had left Poland as part of the Zionist youth movement called Hashomer Hatzair before World War II. The Farbsteins ran movie theaters.

“It’s an opinion, but if I had to guess, of course having an Israeli wife and having a home in Israel and having a family in Israel — she has a very large family in Israel, which is his family now after they got married — has to affect your connection and your relationship, and he spent so much time in Israel” with Miriam, said Sara Aronson, the friend who would later go on to introduce her to Sheldon.

“Our childhood was really very happy,” Aronson said. “We grew up at a time when there were not major wars.” The young state of Israel was rapidly expanding under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion and enjoyed relative peace between the bloody 1948 war for independence and the Six-Day War in 1967. Like others who know Miriam from childhood, Aronson calls her “Mira”; other friends call her Miri.

Friends characterize young Adelson as sharp and a conscientious student who took care to help others as well. After her compulsory military service, Adelson went on to university and then medical school at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University — where she “passed everything with flying colors,” said Dr. Dalia Kalai Goshon, her friend from medical school, and a now-retired Florida dermatologist. When Dalia moved to the United States with her new husband two years before graduating, Miriam took it upon herself to send her the notes from their classes every week in the mail. Dalia was able to return to Israel and pass her exams. This kind of behind-the-scenes helping out has continued to this day, across a wide range; Miriam has been known to try and make matches for younger single people in their circle. She also recruited Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to obtain political asylum in Rwanda for a young Afghan couple who were marrying for love and under threat, according to Boteach.

Miriam married fellow physician Ariel Ochshorn in the 1970s, and had two daughters with him, Yasmin and Sivan. After they divorced in the 1980s, she came to New York to do a fellowship at Rockefeller University with Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek. The two doctors have remained friends and collaborators to this day.

Kreek, who began her conversation with BuzzFeed News by stressing that she had gotten permission from Miriam to do the interview, said that she had been approached by an official in Israel’s Ministry of Health in 1986 about sending an Israeli doctor to Rockefeller to work on addiction medicine. In short order, Adelson came over to New York with her two teenagers, who attended the Ramaz School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

At the time, treating heroin addicts with methadone was still considered a cutting-edge treatment, and Kreek and Adelson (then Ochshorn) were on the forefront. It was also starting to become controversial; while many doctors argue that methadone maintenance is an effective harm-reduction tool that allows people to master their addiction and live normal lives, opponents say that using methadone instead of heroin is really another form of dependence. Kreek, who receives significant funding for her program from the Adelsons, decried the “stigma” surrounding methadone maintenance treatment.

While the Adelsons’ political giving is well known and much discussed, they also pour huge amounts of money every year into medical research through the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation. They are funding research on cancer and neural repair and rehabilitation, as well as two addiction clinics run by Miriam in Las Vegas and Israel, which Sheldon helped open. According to Kreek, each clinic has a caseload of about 250 patients at any given time. Miriam also helps treat patients in Macau, where Sheldon has opened a casino. According to people who have been in Sheldon’s office, he keeps org charts of the medical initiatives displayed, and is intimately familiar with the ins and outs of what they are funding.

The family also has a personal history wrought by addiction: Sheldon’s son from his previous marriage, Mitchell, died of an overdose in 2005. "He used heroin and cocaine from an early age,” Miriam told Haaretz in 2008. “I spoke with him but I was not his professional therapist,” she told Haaretz of Mitchell. “There was a period when he lived without drugs, and there were periods when he lived with the drug substitute, methadone."

The clinic is far from their only interest in Israel. The Adelsons are arguably just as powerful there as they are in the United States, and maybe even more so. There, too, they are met with media scrutiny. Search the liberal paper Haaretz’s website for mentions of them in the past year, and hundreds of results come up. It makes sense; their influence is felt in several different aspects of Israeli society. They are close with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and they own the most-read newspaper in the country, Israel Hayom (“Israel Today” in Hebrew). Miriam’s daughter Yasmin has served as chair of the newspaper's board. They’ve poured huge sums into Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, and Taglit-Birthright Israel, the organization that brings young Diaspora Jews to Israel for trips every year (in fact, they sent another $40 million to Birthright in February).

"Most donors are sort of dilettantes in this space and their wives even more so...Half the time, the wives don't even want to spend money on this shit. But she's serious and intelligent and thoughtful and committed."

If well funded, the projects are neither universally beloved nor universal successes: Although the most widely read newspaper in Israel, Israel Hayom doesn’t have the best reputation; one Israeli reporter sneered to me a few months ago that its staff was mostly “has-beens,” and it’s viewed by many in Israel and the United States as simply a mouthpiece for Adelson’s agenda and for Netanyahu. The newspaper has been accused by critics of basically being a way to skirt strict Israeli campaign finance laws, which prohibit the kind of giving Sheldon is used to in the United States, to support Netanyahu. “Formally, Adelson hasn't broken the letter of the campaign financing rules,” wrote the American Prospect columnist Gershom Gorenberg last year. “The spirit of the rules [is] another matter.”

Now that the U.S. election has begun in earnest, however, the United States will become the main stage again. There is money to be given — and a sufficiently pro-Israel president to be elected.

Onstage at the RJC conference this April, they auditioned. Most of the decision makers were kept largely out of view, except for this three-hour window of speeches. Ted Cruz, who went first, was the unalloyed favorite among the crowd. He roamed the stage, talking about his three visits to Israel since becoming a senator and emphasizing his opposition to the Iran deal being negotiated by the administration (Cruz demurred, however, on the question of whether he would pardon Jonathan Pollard, an issue that is important to Adelson). Rick Perry gave a physical (literally) speech, waving his arms around and pointing at random moments.

Outside those speeches, people surrounded Adelson — “You’ll notice if you’re there that people are going to be swarming him wherever he is, there’ll be a gaggle, almost like vultures,” said a family friend. “And yet [Miriam] will still be standing 10 feet away with like one or two people there to talk to her.”

This could be about to change, for two reasons. One, there are questions about Sheldon’s health. People give different opinions — some say he’s actually healthier than people think, and everyone agrees that his mind is as sharp as ever — but several people told BuzzFeed News that Sheldon can no longer stand up unassisted. A spokesperson for the Adelsons confirmed that Sheldon must use his scooter for longer distances and needs a cane to manage short distances. He is 81 years old. Realistically, even if his health is as good as can be right now, he will be personally involved in only a few more elections.

There is also the increasing sense among those who circle the Adelsons, whether as recipients of their largesse or would-be recipients, that Miriam is the more reasonable and more realistic half of the couple to deal with, and the person whom those in this particular right-wing, pro-Israel world can really pin their hopes on for the future.

“She’s a smart lady, she’s not some dummy, and she really cares about this stuff,” said one Republican operative who has dealt with the Adelsons. “Most donors are sort of dilettantes in this space and their wives even more so, if the wives even want to be pissing money away on this kind of stuff. Half the time, the wives don’t even want to spend money on this shit. But she’s serious and intelligent and thoughtful and committed, and she’s going to be a real force.”

Sheldon is “a guy who has the proof that he’s been right about a lot of things,” the operative said. He’s demanding, and “you get a lot of money but it also comes with strings.”

Miriam is “way easier to deal with and a much more reasonable person than he is,” said another Republican operative who has had dealings with the Adelsons. “Sheldon is not one who takes counsel or takes advice.”

The Adelsons toast during the opening of Sands Macao in Macau in 2004.

Reuters / Bobby Yip

According to the family friend, Sheldon speaks of a “24-hour rule” where he won’t commit to funding anything until he’s spoken to Miriam and slept on it. She is involved in his meetings, and isn’t shy about gently correcting him or jumping in.

“I think they’re a good team together,” said Las Vegas–based Republican consultant Sig Rogich, who is a friend of the Adelsons. “I think they communicate a lot. It’s not unusual for them to talk on the phone many times in a day.”

And though many in the movement depend on their generosity and hesitate to criticize them publicly, the Adelsons’ giving draws scrutiny. Some of the decisions have seemed confusing or even nonsensical. Why, for example, did the Adelsons pour $20 million into Newt Gingrich’s super PAC in 2012, artificially extending his candidacy and arguably weakening the frontrunner, Mitt Romney? Why do even their smaller projects, like the Israeli American Council, a group representing the relatively small community of Israeli expats in the United States, need such huge budgets — $18 million this past year, in the case of the IAC? Why are they the major backers of Boteach, who went from lovable to nearly radioactive in neocon circles this year when he ran a full-page ad in the New York Times accusing Susan Rice of turning a blind eye to genocide right before she was scheduled to speak at the AIPAC conference? (Sheldon told a New Jersey outlet this week that he has given Boteach millions of dollars over the past few years.) Why in the past were they unable to sustain outfits like Freedom’s Watch, which dissolved in infighting and dysfunction after trying to become the right’s answer to MoveOn during the 2008 election?

One Republican operative who has dealt with the Adelsons drew a comparison with liberal mega-donor George Soros. Sheldon is “way richer” than Soros, yet Soros “built a massive institution that spends his money advancing his ideological position” in a way that Adelson hasn’t.

Though Miriam might be easier to deal with than her husband, that doesn’t mean she has a different political outlook. “You already see her stamp all over this stuff, and it would be a mistake to believe that his politics are dramatically different from hers, or vice versa,” a family friend said. She’s widely believed to have been the main driver behind the decision to fund Gingrich, for example.

Who the Adelsons will pledge their support (and money) to this time has already been the source of enormous speculation, and in some cases, pronouncement. Many believe that Marco Rubio is the early favorite — he’s been featured several times on the cover of Israel Hayom and associates have told reporters that this is the case. Except one other thing must be considered: The Adelsons are still distinct people. According to people familiar with her comments, Miriam told people at the RJC conference that she likes Cruz, not just Rubio. Miriam “loves her some Ted Cruz,” one person familiar with her comments said.

In the future, those decisions may fall more on Miriam Adelson — she who already commands the respect and loyalty of those around her husband may be the one who delivers more and more of the political money.

And if the decisions seem random at times, the principles aren’t. The belief in Israel’s importance and its preservation threads through almost all of the Adelsons’ decisions, their existing ventures and their future ones, the nascent projects that the Adelsons hope to fund.

Miriam, in particular, wants to soon fund an effort to combat the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement on college campuses, where it has taken hold. The Adelsons have two teenage boys, Adam and Matan, who are approaching college age. Though BDS hasn’t seen significant victories yet, and certainly not on a broad scale, its mission to get U.S. companies and universities to divest from Israel — which members call an apartheid state — has begun to gain adherents and momentum across the United States, particularly in the university system.

And now, to that end, the Adelsons have enlisted Boteach to start the process of putting together an organization with the working title of Campus Maccabees. In Las Vegas, according to several people who were in the room, Miriam and Sheldon got up during a panel on BDS and delivered their vision for the project in a back-and-forth exchange with Noah Pollak, the executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, who was on the panel with Breitbart editor Joel Pollak, Brandeis campus activist Daniel Mael, and Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi director Andy Borans.

Boteach said that he had first started discussing the idea with the Adelsons in Israel over Hanukkah, which marks the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid empire in the second century B.C.

The name, according to Boteach, is Miriam’s idea.

“She understands that we’re not going to galvanize a lot of people, necessarily,” he said, “but that sometimes it has to be Maccabees. We have to be prepared to fight.”

Again! The social conservative and former Pennsylvania senator ran surprisingly strong in 2012.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Rick Santorum said Wednesday he is running for president, following his strong performance in 2012.

Then, the former Pennsylvania senator captured social conservatives to nearly win Iowa. But unlike last time, when conservative dissatisfaction with Mitt Romney and a dearth of candidates viewed as sufficiently socially conservative propelled Santorum, he will face a much stronger field, populated by sitting or newly former senators and governors competing in the same space.

Newer entrants to the national political landscape like Sen. Ted Cruz and Dr. Ben Carson have already made significant overtures to socially conservative Republican voters, as has former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who did not run in 2012, but won Iowa in 2008.

Santorum left office in 2007, after losing his re-election bid to Democratic Sen. Bob Casey. His social conservatism — and vehement opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage — has since become his most prominent characteristic as a public official.

This spring, Santorum garnered headlines for saying that "if (Bruce Jenner) says he's a woman, then he's a woman." Since making that remark, he has since said that, "If Bruce Jenner says he's woman then I'm not gonna argue with him. I know what obviously and biologically he is."

The video was uploaded to SoundCloud on Wednesday by “Santorum for President” and titled “Take Back America, UNLEASH OUR PRIDE.” Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator is expected to launch his presidential campaign Wednesday evening. It’s unclear if the song is official or unofficial at this moment but links on the user page go to Santorum’s campaign website, Instagram, and YouTube. Update: The song is the official theme song and was taken down and replaced with a teaser.

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“I claim that we who think that a different policy could have saved their lives are much more intense in our the concern for the military.”

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Former Rep. Ron Paul, the father of presidential candidate Rand Paul, said on Memorial Day, we should honor people such as Pentagon Paper leaker Daniel Ellsberg and NSA leaker Edward Snowden. In a segment on the Ron Paul Liberty Report, the elder Paul noted it was "tragic" we only hear about "only those who are able to kill a lot of people in a war that makes no sense."

"Well, it doesn't," said Paul, in response to a question about how interventionist foreign policy and the U.S. approach to ISIS honors veterans on Memorial Day. "I mentioned the fact that to me one of the saddest things to me is that the propaganda says we send our kids over there to risk their lives, lose their lives, lose their limbs because they are protecting our constitution in an unconstitutional war. We are protecting our liberties as the NSA destroys our liberty and it's so little to celebrate."

Paul noted "it's very difficult to say" that none of the deaths in recent American military conflict would have occurred with a "non-interventionist foreign policy."

"But this has come up in the presidential campaign and it's very difficult to say, 'Well, in a truly free society, and a non-interventionist foreign policy, none of these deaths would have occurred, none of these injuries would occur and it would be quite a difference.' Because you cannot be insensitive and I'm not," added Paul.

"I claim that we who think that a different policy could have saved their lives are much more intense in our the concern for the military than those who say, 'Oh, this is an honorable thing and that's why Memorial Day is just great. We have to praise them, and thank you for your service' — that's a cop-out. They are hiding behind that. They are using propaganda for themselves to make sure that they don't feel responsible. Because I think they are sincere, but I think they are sincerely misled."

"So to me that's a rather sad story, and I think Memorial Day ought to be a day when we remember some of our heroes. As a matter of fact, I am still on the side of Edward Snowden — considering him a hero. Daniel Ellsberg — you know got a lot of bad press and almost went to prison," Paul said.

"There are so many out there that we don't even hear about that risk their lives," he said. "But only those who are able to kill a lot of people in a war that makes no sense — so it's tragic."

John Stanton

GREENVILLE, S.C. — “No, no! Don’t throw it yet!” a burly Scotsman warned the beauty queen. “Put your foot on the line, there—” he motioned toward her black stilettos, “and then throw.”

She laughed nervously. Next to her, Miss Greenville Scottish Games Teen stepped up to the line, looked down range, and in lightning quick, fluid synchronicity loosed an axe from manicured fingers. It landed with a satisfying thud.

This — the annual Scottish Games in Greenville — is where Jim Webb, former U.S. senator and longshot candidate to defeat Hillary Clinton, spent last weekend.

The Republican contenders spoke to conservatives in air-conditioned Oklahoma City last week. Hillary Clinton toured small businesses in Iowa and New Hampshire. And Jim Webb casually walked past a woman straining under the weight of a 15-foot poplar tree trunk, which she then hurled into the air. It’s not your normal presidential campaign stop, sure. But what about Webb’s candidacy is quite normal?

Since announcing the creation of a 2016 exploratory committee in November, he’s essentially moved, unnoticed, through the early circus of the campaign season as bigger names on both sides of the aisle have announced their own campaigns, each seizing a week or more of media attention. All the while, Webb has done his own thing, and whether that’s good or bad for his prospective campaign doesn’t really seem to bother him.

During the course of 18 hours in South Carolina, he made only one, oblique reference to the race, telling the Gathering of the Clans dinner that he and his fellow Scotch Irish have “had 13 presidents, so far — so far.”

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While he’s spent a fair amount of time in some early primary states (“I’ve been in Iowa several times, I’ve been in New Hampshire, I was down here in South Carolina once before … I think we’re fine,” he told me), it’s certainly not the saturation level pursued by his opponents. They’ve spent the last six months in constant motion between Iowa, New Hampshire, and big money trips in New York and L.A.

Meanwhile Webb has either played the small venue circuit like the Scottish Games, or just gone missing altogether. Instead of attending the South Carolina Democratic convention last month, he sent Mudcat Saunders (“I’m supposedly an adviser,” Saunders told the crowd. “I don’t advise. I tell him what’s going on. There’s no whisperin’ in the ear. There’s no, you know, design, strategy. Jim Webb is Jim Webb.”)

At the end of March, Webb left the country entirely for 10 days at the behest of the government in Thailand, which had asked for his assistance in quelling an ongoing major social and political upheaval. It was an odd move for someone like Webb, who needs all the exposure he can get in the early states. Odder still, though, was the fact that his campaign didn’t use the trip to tout his foreign policy chops.

Even at the most overt campaign-style event of the weekend in Greenville, Friday’s Gathering of the Clans dinner, Webb entered to virtually no fanfare.

Taking the stage from a visiting clan leader from Scotland, Webb admonished the crowd, “Please, do not call me a politician,” before launching into arguably the briefest stump speech in presidential history — a six-minute-and-five-seconds contemplation of the role of the Scotch-Irish in American history. Aside from his closing quip about the number of Scotch-Irish presidents, there was virtually no reference to the primary campaign, Hillary Clinton, the Republican field … not even his own policy positions or beliefs.

In fact, Webb wasn’t even the main attraction. As his speech wrapped up, a group of men dressed in traditional tartan kilts made their way into the hall, carrying swords and a stuffed sheep’s stomach, parading the haggis through the hall to cheers.

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The next morning, walking around the heavily tattooed and kilted crowd, Webb was both clearly at home and yet detached from his environment, more observer than participant. Sporting a tan suit and green Marine Corps tie, he could easily be on hand to provide emergency legal services in the event of a fight between clans rather than serve as guest of honor.

He mixed with the crowd, shaking hands and trading pleasantries, watching groups of thick muscled men and women participating in the Caber Toss, a traditional Scottish feat of strength that is one of the highlights of the games.

When Webb was announced, the crowd only clapped politely.

There were no planted campaign volunteers the crowd waving Webb 2016 signs, no t-shirts with campaign slogans. It was clear that aside from his one staffer and the handful of VIPs that organizers introduced him to, I was probably one of the only person in the crowd that recognized him, let alone knew that he’s running for president.

It was a deeply weird moment and Webb, or anyone for that matter, could be forgiven feeling and looking awkward as he walks solitary to the viewing stand.

But Webb was at ease, casually walking past the caber tossing as he made his way, unaware, to join the gathered VIPs.

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If it all is a little odd, Webb seems to know exactly what he’s doing. “Where do you want me? Is this OK?” he asked when we started our interview. There are some of the obvious trappings of a campaign, too — Webb is constantly flanked by his body man, who had Webb 2016 bumper stickers stuck in his back pocket last weekend. And organizers, recognizing that this was the first time in the Greenville Scottish Games history that a presidential candidate has visited, kept Webb on a tight schedule, ferrying him about the sprawling event site in a VIP golf cart (over his protestations — “Jim keeps saying we want to walk around, but they insist on using the golf cart,” Webb’s man, Joe Stanley said).

Webb maintains this is all to plan, and that it is working, even if it hasn’t gotten much, if any, attention from the campaign press corps.

“We have our own pace,” he told me. “The Democratic side is different from the Republican side in terms of how you can get your message out and in terms of how you can even proceed forward with a campaign. We’ve set a baseline of what we would attempt to do, and we’ve done it carefully.”

Asked why, as a presidential candidate, he’d spend the first day of the Memorial Day weekend at this particular stop, he replied, “This is an interesting event. I’ve never been to it, but it celebrates the impact of the Scottish, and particularly the Scotch-Irish immigration into the country … I’ve always wanted to see this.”

This is the arc of Webb’s career, nearly, this idea of showing up in the most unexpected places — writing novels, running for Senate, leaving the Senate after one term — for reasons unclear, but possibly because it’s simply the interesting thing to do. I mentioned to Webb that once, shortly after his 2006 election, I saw him emerge late one evening from an Ethiopian restaurant on 9th St NW in Washington, D.C. Now an epicenter of gentrification, bistros, and expensive apartments, a decade ago, the neighborhood was significantly rougher, and it’s almost certain he was the first member of the United States Senate to have walked its streets alone, late at night.

He laughed, saying that a story on his Senate election noted that he “was one of the few political leaders that this writer had known who could go down into the alley ways of South East Asia and also the hollows of Southwest Virginia. You know, that’s just been my personal experience, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

It’s easy to write off Webb’s Seinfeld-esque campaign tactics as hopelessly out of touch with modern political realities. But towards the end of the day Saturday, I met Kevin McBride, a former Marine Corps veteran who coordinated the Games’ tribute to the various branches of the U.S. military.

McBride, an avowed “hard-right kind of guy,” had actually met Webb before, nearly 30 years ago during an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., when the Marine Corps commandant honored the Marine Corps’ best riflemen.

“Gen. Gray was the commandant and Gen. Gray loved infantry Marines,” McBride explained. “He loved all Marines, but he had a particular fondness for infantry Marines. One of his terms of endearment was that whenever he gave somebody a commendation or a metal, he always punched them in the chest. Gen. Gray, he was a sort of sawed-off, ornery little cuss.”

“He punched all 13 of us,” McBride said.

With hundreds of people looking on, Gray then introduced Webb, who as Secretary of the Navy was the guest of honor at that ceremony, too, to considerably more fanfare.

Webb shook Gray’s hand — and then Webb punched him.

“He wasn’t used to that … we were close enough and I could see his eyes. There was a second of anger, his face turned red,” McBride laughed. “So as Marines, in the group, we always had a real fondness for Secretary Jim Webb.”

“I’d just be honored to see him step forward and knock [Secretary] Clinton to the side… he’s a real person,” McBride said.

Some of the biggest names in Democratic organizing, research, and activism have been meeting in private to determine how to combat the LIBRE Initiative, the conservative group that’s targeting Latinos. BuzzFeed News has the first look.

The LIBRE Initiative holds events in Latino communities but has drawn the ire of liberals for taking on and helping to defeat Democrats in elections.

Eric Gay / AP

The day after Hillary Clinton's big May 5 immigration announcement in Nevada, a group of Democrats met in Washington to plot a way forward against a serious threat from conservatives in the fight to appeal to Latino voters in key states — the Koch-funded LIBRE Initiative.

The group included many, many top Democratic stakeholders, BuzzFeed News has learned. In attendance: representatives from labor unions SEIU and AFL-CIO, progressive research groups American Bridge and People For The American Way (PFAW), as well as Angela Kelley (a major D.C. player on immigration), Ben Monterroso of Mi Familia Vota, Frank Sharry of America's Voice, Kristian Ramos of Media Matters, top strategists Jose Parra and Andres Ramirez, and Cristobal Alex, the president of Latino Victory Project (LVP), the Democratic fundraising group and in whose offices the meeting was held.

The meeting was the first of a few throughout May, which culminated in a presentation to Democracy Alliance-aligned liberal donors last week in New York City. The presentation, which BuzzFeed News obtained, details the challenge LIBRE poses to Democrats and the plan to fight back through a coalition of organizations to counter the conservative group.

The "coordinated LIBRE response" will focus on countering the group through: organizing and voter education, which includes on the ground work like that of Mi Familia Vota; strategic communications, which includes social media campaigns and could see the coalition bring in a group like Voto Latino; policy and research, the domain of Media Matters, American Bridge and PFAW; and a political slice, which includes earned media.

"Libre means free, but they've gotten a free ride so far and they're not going to get it anymore," said Alex of LIBRE's work since 2011 and up to the recent midterm election. "We want to define and marginalize them."

Latino Victory Project

What has LIBRE done to earn this level of ire? Well, they've held food banks in Texas and helped immigrants learn how to drive in Nevada, all while espousing a message of free market and small government principles. If that was it, liberals would be less concerned. But LIBRE, which has received more than $10 million from the Koch brothers, also got involved in torpedoing two Democrats in 2014 — spending big in ad campaigns against Pete Gallego in Texas and Joe Garcia in Florida, which made it personal for LVP, which supported both candidates.

"We're about increasing Latino political power by getting them elected and they have a bad habit of attacking our candidates," Alex said, calling LIBRE a "clear and present danger."

In the last month concerns and dire warnings about the group have only intensified. On May 4, Albert Morales with the DNC made a presentation to Democrats about LIBRE. Two weeks later American Bridge released a detailed report saying the group is "harmful" to the Hispanic community and PFAW, which released a similar report earlier this year, is holding a briefing June 1 about them.

In an invitation to the event forwarded to BuzzFeed News, LIBRE was described as reaching "out to Latino communities under the guise of economic empowerment to push a radical agenda designed to deceive a critical section of the electorate."

Daniel Garza, executive director of LIBRE and a former official in the George W. Bush administration, thoroughly enjoyed the news that a coalition of liberal organizations is coming together to take on the group, which will soon field 70 employees across nine states.

He said the reason LIBRE was formed was to counter the existing narrative of Latino left organizations. He argued the groups have been advancing a "progressive agenda like minimum wage, more and more public assistance and pro-union activity" for a long time.

He said he welcomes the debate on the merits of policy and doesn't look to stifle or censor them, but said there is one thing he will not accept.

"I would condemn any efforts by them to bully, demagogue, or demonize our activities — that's where I draw the line and I won't have any of that," he said. "That would be a disservice to the community."

There actually has been talk by people who attended the meetings over how to deal with this very issue. Some believe the coalition should steer clear of directly taking on LIBRE and should just work to spread its own message, while others say the group has very clearly come after and helped defeat Democrats and should be dealt with head on.

"They're not behaving like some sort of conservative think tank, it would be different, they're behaving like a political operation with electoral goals in mind," said Parra, a former senior advisor to Harry Reid. He pointed to LIBRE's actions in Nevada in 2014 and argued the group was telling Latinos that both parties were the same "clearly to depress the vote in Nevada."

Ramirez, a 20-year strategist in the state, has watched LIBRE's rise and was one of multiple sources who said the group must be countered by an effort led by and including Latinos, who understand the community.

He argued the group is intentionally spreading false information, and the more effective strategy — one employed by groups like Media Matters and the research organizations — is to discredit them where they are wrong.

"Latinos are used to seeing predatory tactics in our community, people who take advantage and mislead, and when those efforts are exposed Latinos respond pretty rapidly," he said.

Bradley Beychok, the president of Media Matters, told BuzzFeed News that the reason MMFA will be part of this effort is LIBRE's "misinformation" that undermines "pro-Hispanic" policies like the health care law, raising the minimum wage, and Obama's immigration actions. "We are fighting back by exposing their agenda within the media and ensuring our allies have the tools and information necessary to hold this organization accountable."

This messaging and research will be complemented by field work to counter LIBRE, an area of experience for Arizona political consultant John Loredo, which is why he was brought into the fold on these meetings as well.

Loredo said that Arizona's tough immigration law SB1070 "was like fertilizer for the community," growing a generation of activists and DREAMers. Those activists, he said, are now successfully countering LIBRE at community events they attend as well.

"Where they are, we're there too," he said. "We tell people what their positions are on DACA, DAPA, and health care."

But there will be difficulties, too.

The presentation to donors in New York City featured a slide titled "our challenges" which identified "a relatively scattered and siloed infrastructure and focus, no permanent touch, limited expertise on the issues other than immigration, an incomplete narrative, and a short bench of culturally competent messengers."

The groups believe they'll succeed in countering LIBRE because they understand what is at stake and because Latinos are their constituents, but acknowledged that the ongoing conversations they're having with donors are what will help the effort take off.

"I believe the conversations will be fruitful," said Loredo, who was at the event with donors, along with Alex.

Earlier this spring, the Democracy Alliance came under fire from Latino organizations after the alliance announced funding recommendations for 35 groups, a set that did not include Hispanic groups. Ramirez said it's time for that to change.

"Historically donors that fund liberal and progressive organizations have not allocated or dedicated funding for these types of efforts, that hasn't happened," he said. "That's something for them to do, to determine if engaging the Latino community is important."

Asked if he's worried liberals will make it rain on LIBRE, and whether he should go back to his funders to ask for more money, Garza summoned a long, deep laugh, and changed the subject.

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But some students from the era say it was probably a joke that Bush was in such a club. A prep school mystery.

Jeb Bush 1971

Was former Florida Gov. Jeb a young socialist during his years of teenage angst at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts?

It's an odd story that has made its way into numerous articles and books on Bush, all sourcing themselves to a decade-old account from author Peter Schweizer. It's an anecdote that Bush spokesman Tim Miller said he had "no idea" about to a Daily Beast reporter and one a Bush spokeswoman told BuzzFeed News that Bush has "no recollection of."

The truth, it turns out, appears somewhat more complicated and may fall somewhere in between Schweizer's passing anecdote and a Daily Beast report that the claim "doesn't appear to be true." According to Andover's student newspaper The Phillipian, Jeb Bush once attempted to get his political group "the Socialist Anti-Nationalist Party" into the Andover Student Political Union. But, according to students from the time, the club (and even the article about it), might have just been a sarcastic joke.

"Two new political groups, the Anarchist Non-Party and the Socialist Anti-Nationalist Party were formed this week with the ultimate intention of joining the Andover Student Political Union," reads the Oct. 16, 1968, edition of the school's newspaper. "Members from both new groups expressed their dissatisfaction with the five existing parties."

Bush, according to the account, was attempting to form the party with classmates Jim Steinberg and Charlie Finch. Finch and Steinberg, by all newspaper accounts, were active young leftists in the political scene at school. Bush has been described as somewhat apolitical, interested in smoking pot and playing tennis (very, very well).

"The Socialist Anti-Nationalist Party under the direction of lowers Jim Steinberg and Jeb Bush and upper Charlie Finch, feels that, 'Nationalism is the sole cause of hatred and war in the world today.' Therefore, they advocate the abolition of nationalism and the joining of all countries to form 'one nation-one people.'"

Steinberg, a former under secretary of state under Hillary Clinton who helped lead Andover's student lobby efforts against the Vietnam War and occasionally wrote for the school newspaper, didn't respond to inquiries, but Charlie Finch (a retired reporter) said the socialist club never existed, chalking the student newspaper article up to "some sophomore bullshit."

Finch said he believed the article was mostly satire written by student Richard Samp, who he referred to as "a preppy douche" attempting to mess with him and Bush.

Samp, now a prominent Washington attorney, vaguely recalled the events and said he was "sure I didn't write the story as satire."

He said he never spoke to Bush at Andover and the only way it could have made it into the article was if someone told him.

"If somebody told me that he was a member of the socialist anti-nationalist party, that would be how I would've put it into the story — I'm sure I never spoke to him directly," he said.

The idea that someone would start a socialist party as satire didn't surprise Samp, though.

"This whole political union thing was a relatively short-lived thing and it may well be that they decided to start this party as somewhat of a satire," he said. "I would not put it past them to have decided that they would announce the founding of apolitical party as a joke but this group didn't have any particular rules, anybody could show up at a meeting and announce that they were starting a party."

He said he did, however, recall Steinberg showing up to a meeting and starting a political party.

"As I recall, Jim Steinberg really did come to a meeting of this organization and announce that he was starting a new party," he said, but added he accepted Finch's claim at face value the party was probably satire.

"When Charlie Finch tells you it's a satire the only question would be, was Jeb Bush involved in the satire," he said.

Crosby Kemper, the founder of the Student Political Union was adamant that he believed founding the party was most likely a joke.

"I would find it really amazing if I could go back and remember that Jeb was serious about anything political at that point. He was a very nice guy, very friendly, very warm, full of jokes. He was always joking. My sense is if he did it was a joke," he said.

Kemper called Finch "totally without redeeming social value at that point in his career." Finch would write an article under the pseudonym Thomas Doland for Look magazine in 1970 saying "here are a hell of a lot of drugs pushed around Andover." In an article for the newspaper, "Thomas Doland Explains Radical Views," Finch railed against the student government which he called "a farce" that was "powerless."

"I tell you what: Now I can tell you for sure," Kemper said, after hearing Finch's name. "Charlie was totally without redeeming social value at that point in his career. Charlie at that point in his life did not have a serious bone in his body." He says they later became friends. An Andover bulletin article on Finch from 1970 says he had the "highest average" in his class his senior year.

Kemper called Bush and Finch "two class clowns...it was a joke, I'm telling you, knowing Jeb and Charlie."

He added of Bush, "Here's a kid who was totally without interest in his father's political view."

James Shannon was president of the Andover Student Political Union in 1968. A future congressman and attorney general of Massachusetts, Shannon said he remembered the trio being involved in political arguments at the Union. He said he believed the party was probably "tongue-in-cheek."

"I don't remember the effort to get this party recognized by ASPU, but I remember Jeb Bush, Jim Steinberg, and Charlie Finch being involved in the political arguments at the ASPU and on the Andover campus at that time," said Shannon.

"All of them were bright, reasonable and constructive people," he said. He added he thought the newspaper article "makes me think that their 'party' might have been a little tongue in cheek. We had a lot of fringe groups in the ASPU. In fact in 1968 it seemed like the whole world was one big fringe group."

Howard Lim, listed in yearbook as being on executive board of the Student Political Union, said he no recollection of Bush at Andover. Lim is the longtime secretary for New York's Conservative Party.

"You are not that conscious of people behind," said Lim who added being in the Student Political Union in the yearbook was most-likely resume padding to apply for college.

Lim said he would't be surprised if there were actual socialist on campus describing a student body caught up in counter-culture and rebelling against the War in Vietnam. He spoke of specific incident in which students from Andover protested the war by wearing black armbands in the town's Memorial Day parade.

Lim added forming a socialist club as a joke represented "the kind of cynical smirky attitude" you might have found in the Andover student body in that day.

"Everything was a joke," he added.

Here's the article:

The Phillipian

When Florida Gov. Rick Scott called Arne Duncan to discuss Common Core, Duncan turned to an unlikely adviser: Jeb Bush.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sought — and received — advice from Jeb Bush about how to deal with Florida Gov. Rick Scott's concerns about Common Core, emails obtained by BuzzFeed News show.

Bush advised Duncan that Scott, "fearful of the rebellion" brewing around the program, "[w]ants to stop using the term common core but keep the standards," but couldn't name "specifics [sic] things that the federal government is doing or perceived to be doing" that he found objectionable.

The exchange, which took place in the morning of Sept. 23, 2013, begins with an email ("Subject: Gov Scott") to Bush from Duncan's private account. It reads simply: "Is calling me. Any advice?"

Just over an hour later, Bush replies from the air:

I am on a plane.

He is fearful of the rebellion. Wants to stop using the term common core but keep the standards. Wants to get out of PARCC. I asked him if he had specifics things that the federal government is doing or perceived to be doing. He didn't have them when I spoke to him last thursday evening.

Duncan replies: "Thanks."

The very same day, Scott issued a press release detailing his plan "[t]o protect Florida from the federal government's overreach in education policy."

Scott's release included an announcement that he was withdrawing Florida from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) — a group of states building tests based on the Common Core standards — just as Bush had warned.

"Since leaving office, Gov. Bush has focused on reforming education, state by state, through the education foundation he established that is committed to improving education for every American child," a spokesperson for Bush told BuzzFeed News. "Gov. Bush has worked with leaders in both parties to introduce state-based reforms that hold the power to transform education in America by providing more choices for parents and greater accountability for schools and teachers."

Here's the exchange:

“Although I did not learn quite as much Spanish as I could have…I learned a lot about the Mexican people and their way of life.”

George Bush Presidential Library and Museum

When Jeb Bush was a 17-year-old high school senior, he famously went to Mexico for a class called "Man and Society."

It was an experimental course, meant to give students a practical education, as well as an academic one, teacher Thomas Lyons said at the time. It was also designed to remove a group of students, accustomed to the privileges of life at plush prep school Phillips Academy Andover, from their usual surroundings.

The winter months he spent in Mexico made an enormous impression on the teenage Bush. "My life really began in earnest when I was 17 years old in León, Mexico," Bush said earlier this month, according to a Politico story about the trip. It was then, for instance, that he met his wife, Columba.

When the students got back, the Andover student newspaper, The Phillipian, published a story on the trip. Though it doesn't mention Columba, it describes the charitable projects the students participated in, from building a schoolhouse, to working with an archaeologist, to teaching English at an orphanage.

Jeb was part of the schoolhouse project. In summarizing the trip, he mentions Bernardo, a Mexican man, who, as a Bush spokesman told Politico, prevented the team of prep schoolers from building the schoolhouse lopsided. (That part also isn't in the Phillipian article.)

"I went to Mexico hoping to learn Spanish and study the culture there," Bush told the student paper. "Although I did not learn quite as much Spanish as I could have because of the group's tendency to speak English with each other, I learned a lot about the Mexican people and their way of life. I was impressed very much by the sentiments of one Mexican named Bernardo, who worked on the schoolhouse project. At the final fiesta held before our group left Mexico, Bernardo broke out crying to demonstrate the deep deep feelings and admiration he held for our group of Americans. Apparently the people were quite impressed with the group and were willing to show their feelings even though it is very embarrassing for a grown Mexican to start crying in public."

The article also features a number of apparently well-meaning, but sweeping generalizations from Bush's peers, coupled with criticism of the country and school they'd come from.

Student Heath Allen called Andover "an atmosphere saturated with cynicism, whereas the Mexicans maintain a positive attitude towards people and life."

"Mexico is a timeless land where clocks have no meaning and where there is no hurried existence such as one notices in America," said Fred Puzak. "Instead of a Coke machine you find a man selling juice on ice-cubes. Instead of going to McDonalds, you buy from a little old lady selling tortillas."

Here is the first part of the article:

The Phillipian, 4/14/1971 / Via pdf.phillipian.net

And here is the end of the article:

The Phillipian, 4/14/1971 / Via pdf.phillipian.net

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Jindal currently polls last among a group of 14 both declared and potential Republican candidates.

w.soundcloud.com

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told radio host Michael Medved that he's not concerned about his low poll numbers that would currently exclude him from the Republican primary debates beginning later this summer.

In an interview earlier today, Gov. Jindal said "I don't worry about poll numbers" after the host asked why he was polling outside of the "top tier" of Republican candidates. Jindal said he'd made an official decision about his candidacy after the Louisiana legislative session ends in mid-June.

Medved pressed Jindal on whether it was fair for Fox News (which will host the first Republican primary debate on Aug. 6) to limit debate participation to the top 10 candidates determined by an average of last five national polls.

"Obviously, I can't control that. If we get in this, we get in this to win this," Jindal said. "When I got into my first race, we were at 2% which is within the margin of error which is — you know, you could be at zero at that point."

"I think it is a good thing on the Republican side that we've got so many choices," he continued. "I think Democrats are making a mistake simply by doing a coronation process for Hillary Clinton. I think Republican primary voters, the ones I've talked to would resent any attempt to clear the field."

According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Jindal ranks last among a group of 14 both declared and potential Republican presidential candidates with just 1.3%.

Yesterday, Jindal criticized Sen. Rand Paul for comments he made about the Islamic State, posting a statement on his "Office of the Governor" website declaring Paul "unsuited to be Commander-in-Chief."

"I think this a very important election. It won't be about one-liners or debates or just TV ads," Jindal told Medved of 2016 election. "It really is going to be who is the candidates best positioned, best qualified, best able to get our country back on the right path to make sure that American dream is there for our children."

“A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused.” The essay, on men and women, was published before his political career and appeared in a Mother Jones profile this week.

Vermont Freeman / Via Mother Jones

LINK: How Bernie Sanders Learned to Be a Real Politician

The Justice Department charged the Illinois Republican Thursday for evading reporting requirements and lying to the FBI as part of a scheme to pay off the victim of “prior bad acts.”

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert on reporting evasion charges and lying to the FBI as part of an effort to conceal paying off the victim of "prior bad acts."

In an indictment handed down in the District Court of Northern Illinois, the Department of Justice and IRS charged Hastert, 73, with illegally transferring funds in an effort to avoid detection by the IRS, a scheme known as "structuring."

In the indictment, Hastert is accused of agreeing to pay one individual $3.5 million.

Although the indictment does not specify the "bad acts," sources said they could be from before Hastert, who is now a lobbyist in Washington, entered politics in 1980. The indictment does, however, claim that Hastert agreed to make the payments "[d]uring ... 2010 meetings and subsequent discussions." In at least one of those meetings, according to the indictment, Hastert and the individual "discussed past misconduct by [Hastert against the individual] that had occurred years earlier."

U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Fardon agreed to withhold details of the alleged "prior misconduct" as part of an indictment against the Illinois Republican, two sources familiar with the case told BuzzFeed News.

According to the indictment, the FBI began, in 2013, investigating cash withdrawals allegedly made by Hastert "as possible structuring of currency transactions to evade the reporting requirements."

When the FBI interviewed Hastert on Dec. 8, 2014, he was asked whether the purpose of the withdrawals was related to his lack of trust in the banking system, which he confirmed. According to the indictment, Hastert said, "Yeah ... I kept the cash. That's what I'm doing." The indictment counters that Hastert "then well knew, this statement was false," because he had agreed to provide the individual with $3.5 million "to compensate for and conceal his prior misconduct against" the person.

Hastert spent 20 years in the House representing Illinois, and was elected Speaker of the House in 1999 after former Speaker Newt Gingrich retired and the heir apparent, former Rep. Bob Livingston, abruptly retired amid charges he had carried on inappropriate sexual affairs.

Hastert's tenure as speaker was marred by numerous scandals and controversies, including the political fight over Terri Schiavo, charges of corruption against Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and the resignation of Rep. Mark Foley in 2006 after it was reported Foley had an inappropriate relationship with an underage House page.

In the wake of the 2006 election, in which Democrats retook control of the House and Senate in part because of the House Republican conference's repeated scandals, Hastert considered staying on in the Republican leadership, but instead retired. He became a lobbyist in D.C. On Thursday evening, a spokesperson said he had resigned from Dickstein Shapiro, a Washington-based law and lobbying firm.

Prior to entering politics, Hastert was a teacher and football and wrestling coach in Yorkville, Illinois, from 1964 until 1980, when he was elected to the state House of Representatives. In 1976, he was named Illinois Class A "Coach of the Year," the same year the team won the state championship.

Hastert, left, in 1975 as a wrestling coach

The Pantagraph

Read the indictment:

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