“We need to have a debate about what’s best for us, what’s going to build a great future for our kids and grandkids, and it shouldn’t matter what political pundits or leaders in Washington or Iowa or New Hampshire think.”

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Sen. David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana who is currently running for governor in the state, says that it is "no secret" that Gov. Bobby Jindal has been running for president "for a while" and that it has affected his decisions as governor.

"Obviously it's no secret that our governor has been running for president for a while," Vitter said of Jindal on the local program Legal Lines with Locke Meredith when discussing his support for term limits.

"I think a lot that a lot of people think that has colored his decisions here on the ground in Louisiana. We need to have a debate about what's best for us, what's going to build a great future for our kids and grandkids and it shouldn't matter what political pundits or leaders in Washington or Iowa or New Hampshire think."

Jindal declared his candidacy for the president last week but has been making frequent trips to Iowa and New Hampshire over the past year.

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“What an insult to African-Americans, who were hosed in the street, who were beaten, who were truly discriminated against.”

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Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Tuesday that calling same-sex marriage a "civil right" was an "insult to African-Americans," who experienced "true discrimination" during the era of segregation.

The former Arkansas governor was criticizing those that argue churches and Christian educational institutions should lose their tax-exempt statuses for refusing to marry or accommodate same-sex couples.

"People are saying, 'Well, churches shouldn't have a tax-exempt status. A Christian school or a university should not have a tax-exempt status, shouldn't be able to let students come on Pell Grants.' Because if you equate same-sex marriage to a civil right--," Huckabee said on a local radio station in Baton Rouge, interrupting himself to make his case against the comparison.

"First of all," Huckabee said, "what an insult to African-Americans, who were hosed in the street, who were beaten, who were truly discriminated against with separate restrooms, separate drinking fountains, separate entrances. That was true discrimination and it was horrible. It's hard to say that the redefinition of marriage is on the same basis as was racial discrimination throughout our history."

In the interview, Huckabee also said that the Supreme Court's decision to make same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states meant that, "ultimately," "marriage can be between any group of people."

"If you live by the sword you die by the sword, and the same court that said, 'Sure, marriage can be between two men, two women,' ultimately it will mean marriage can be between any group of people who want to have a marriage because you can't deny it once you've opened the door."

“Because if there is a threat, if there is gonna be something happening, it’s gonna come from the Muslim community.”

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Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, says Muslims need to be more aware during the Fourth of July holiday of people in their community who might be planning terrorist attacks.

"Yeah, well -- let me say, I am addressing it largely -- or certainly, to a large extent -- to, you know, the Muslim community in this region," King said discussing terror threats with local radio L.I. in the AM on Tuesday. "Because if there is a threat, if there is gonna be something happening, it's gonna come from the Muslim community."

CNN reported earlier this week that various U.S. law enforcement agencies are boosting security efforts ahead of the holiday weekend.

King said Muslims should be quick to alert things to the police if they see things out of the ordinary.

"So they among all others should -- if they see something, if they see someone who is new to the neighborhood, who they don't think belongs there, or it's unusual for him to be there or her to be there, if they hear of any talk of anything happening, if they see different groups gathering -- that, tell that to the police."

The Long Island Republican added "the rest of us" should look out for suspicious bags and comply with police instructions.

"The rest of us, it would be, if you see anything, you know, that looks like, you know, a bag or something, anything that looks suspicious, or -- and,or -- if you get a request from the police, to comply with it. Like, if the police say: 'Go this way, rather than that way,' don't be giving the cops a hard time. There'll be a reason for that, over the next several days."

King noted that five people have been arrested recently on terror-related charges in the tri-state area as a example of the "level or coordination" going on with ISIS.

"Also, I think one of the reasons why, you know, the notice was put out -- and I've, again, I've known about this for several weeks. I said nothing about it publicly until Friday, and that's when the Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, went public. And the reason he went public is, as these arrests were being made, there were questions about why were these people being arrested? Were they lone wolves? Were they connected? I would just say that if you have five ISIS supporters arrested in New York, in the lead-up to 4th of July, that's not a coincidence. These wouldn't be lone wolves. There has to be a level of coordination, and there's more out there besides that."

“This will not stand.” Seriously, New York Times, never.

Last month, Jimmy Fallon told Jeb Bush he had to try peas in guacamole. He basically said that was a terrible idea.

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"I'm trying to be nice here."

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“You don’t have to be a religious person, but you still have to, in my opinion, acknowledge that the words in the Bible are God’s words, and God’s direction for America … “

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Rep. Walter Jones, a Republican from North Carolina, said Wednesday the Supreme Court's decision to strike down same-sex marriage ban was a "decision to disregard the words of God."

"When you defame the words of God," said Jones, "I think you are a nation in trouble."

Jones made his comments on Talk of the Town, a North Carolina radio show.

Calling America "a nation that was founded on Judeo-Christian values," Jones said that "you don't have to be a religious person, but you still have to, in my opinion, acknowledge that the words in the Bible are God's words, and God's direction for America -- and the world, quite frankly."

Jones pointed out that he supports same-sex "relationships" and "civil unions," but argued that the Bible leaves no room for ambiguity on the question of same-sex marriage.

"It's pretty -- Old Testament and New Testament -- it's pretty clear: Man marries woman, woman marries man," Jones explained. "That's in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And if you believe in the Bible, that is clear. That is absolutely clear."

Jones said that he thinks the Court "was wrong to make that kind of decision" -- although he said it wouldn't be the first time the Court made a bad call.

"Of course, they've made so many -- like, I think Citizens United was a bad decision," said Jones. "But the worst decision of all was what they did last week."

In each state, there has been some pushback against this past week’s Supreme Court ruling upholding same-sex couples’ marriage rights. [Update: The trial court in the Mississippi challenge already Wednesday night ordered the state to stop enforcing the ban.]

Justin Ables, right, and William Hensel joke with Judge Gisela D. Triana at the Travis County Courthouse after signing a marriage certificate on June 26, 2015 in Austin, Texas.

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WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Wednesday afternoon directed the district courts in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas to issue final orders ending enforcement of the states' respective bans on same-sex couples' marriages.

In the Texas case, in which the trial court had struck down the ban, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, in an opinion by Judge Jerry E. Smith, wrote that "the injunction appealed from is correct in light of Obergefell, the preliminary injunction is AFFIRMED."

In the Louisiana case, in which the trial court had upheld the ban, the appeals court, in a second opinion by Judge Smith, wrote that "the judgment appealed from is REVERSED, and this matter is REMANDED for entry of judgment in favor of the plaintiffs." Notably, Smith added: "The district court must act expeditiously on remand, especially in view of the declining health of plaintiff Robert Welles," a plaintiff in the case.

In the Mississippi case, in which the trial court had struck down the ban and refused to issue a stay of the ruling during the state's appeal — leading the appeals court to issue a stay — the court stated that "the injunction appealed from is correct in light of Obergefell" and, therefore, "the preliminary injunction is AFFIRMED." It also lifted its earlier stay of the district court's ruling.

The Mississippi opinion came last, likely a result of the fact that Gov. Phil Bryant initially had said he opposed the plaintiffs' motion to put a quick end to the case after the June 26 Supreme Court ruling striking down marriage bans.

In all three cases, the appeals court ordered the trial courts to act on the final resolution of the cases "by July 17, 2015, and earlier if reasonably possible."

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In 1999, voters in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, received an email newsletter from their state assemblyman touting “the most important piece of legislation” passed that cycle: the Truth In Sentencing Act.

The new law effectively ended parole as Wisconsin knew it, creating the conditions for a prison system that would eventually house more inmates than any surrounding state.

Splashed in that section of the newsletter was a photo of Scott Walker, standing, arms crossed, outside a jail.

Sixteen years later, Walker is Wisconsin's governor and a top-tier, real-deal contender for the Republican nomination — at a critical moment in the criminal justice debate that could become an inflection point in the way Americans are prosecuted and jailed.

After decades of tough-on-crime policies, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and activists is advocating for changing sentencing laws, drug policies, and more — changes that poll well broadly but are untested on the presidential political stage.

ScottWalker.org / Via web.archive.org

Walker was a tough-on-crime guy, and he made his name sponsoring and strongly advocating for some of the most stringent criminal penalties in the country. He helped introduce laws that allowed children as young as 10 years old be tried as adults for homicide and automatically charged 17-year-olds as adults for all felonies. Walker championed a return to chain gangs for prison labor and mandatory minimum sentences for all manner of offenses.

This is what defined Walker’s early career, and made him a star in a state where people voted to clamp down on crime — a reality that’s made Wisconsin one of the toughest-on-crime states in the country, even as progressives say the policies disproportionately and dangerously affect minorities and conservatives say the policies just cost too much to sustain.

It’s complicated for Walker, the Wisconsin politician: If changing criminal justice laws has swept some corners of the country on both left and right, Wisconsin has gone untouched.

But it’s also complicated for Walker, the national candidate: Some of his rivals for the Republican nomination — most notably Rand Paul, but others, too — are aggressively calling for changes big and small to the criminal justice system. And while the best-known political donors in the country, Charles and David Koch, are said to be very taken with the Wisconsin governor and his record on unions, they are also possibly the biggest advocates in political money for changing the exact kinds of criminal justice policies that Walker championed in Wisconsin.

These days, Scott Walker doesn’t talk much about criminal justice.

Walker aides did not respond to repeated requests for comment, including detailed questions about his past positions and opinion on the modern conservative criminal justice movement. And while the few things he does say lean more toward the bipartisan criminal justice advocacy movement, Walker hasn’t taken any legislative steps in that direction, even standing in the way of some changes favored by advocates just a year or two ago. Nevertheless, some conservative advocates take Walker’s new, quieter approach to be a sign he’s turning their way.

Either way, rhetorically, Walker has made a big shift, mostly toward silence, on the issue that was once the hallmark of his political career.

"Other states learned to go a different way, and we never did."

The same year that Walker posed out in front of the jail, Mark Pocan got saddled with a job most new members of the Wisconsin State Legislature wouldn’t jump at: a minority seat in the General Assembly’s Corrections Committee, which oversees the state’s prison system.

Pocan, a liberal Democrat from Madison, quickly found himself working closely with the committee’s chair —Walker.

“We were pretty much at the place where most states were, which was being tougher on crime not smarter than crime,” Pocan recalled in a recent interview with BuzzFeed News. “Other states learned to go a different way, and we never did.”

Walker wasn’t an ideologue, Pocan said. He operated on a command of the issues, not partisanship. He let Democrats hold hearings on issues important to them, and joined them on a push to ban juveniles from the state’s notorious “supermax” penitentiary.

But there was little doubt where Walker stood on the nascent criminal justice advocacy movement of the late 1990s, which questioned the drug war, mandatory minimum sentences, and ever-increasing prison terms for non-violent drug offenders. Walker’s view, shared by many politicians in Wisconsin at the time, was that parole and recidivism were linked and crime was an out-of-control problem that only more prison beds could solve. He was known around the legislature as the GOP’s go-to guy on crime, and the go-to guy on punishment.

In 1998, Walker championed the Truth In Sentencing Act, a bill that would go on to become law, star in that constituent newsletter and create an approach to imprisonment critics said would later balloon the state’s prison population and lead to severe racial disparities in the prison population.

The law ended the common practice of releasing prisoners early for good behavior or other reasons. Parole as a concept was essentially eliminated in favor of what’s known in Wisconsin as “extended supervision,” which only kicks in after 100% of the time handed down by a judge is served in prison. The law makes no distinction between violent and non-violent crimes and led to longer sentences and high costs.

A 2004 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel investigation found the law would cost Wisconsin $1.8 billion dollars over 25 years and bring prison spending to par with the state’s university system.

In 2013, a University of Wisconsin study found the state imprisons black men at a higher rate than anywhere else in the country, a statistic cited often by criminal justice advocates in the state. More than 20,000 inmates currently serve time in the state’s prison system, a number that has helped to jumpstart a bipartisan criminal justice advocacy movement in Wisconsin similar to the ones in other Republican-controlled states.

"Overall, the primary purpose was to just have the certainty of knowing exactly how long someone was going to be in prison."

Walker has said in the past that Truth In Sentencing’s effect on the length of sentences and cost to taxpayers that went along with it was unintended. In 2004, he told the Journal-Sentinel the expectation was that judges would hand down shorter sentences, taking into account that a convict would serve the full term plus the mandatory parole-like supervision.

"In some cases, like with sex offenders, that was something I was interested in," Walker said of extended sentences at the time. "But overall, the primary purpose was to just have the certainty of knowing exactly how long someone was going to be in prison."

The reality of the law, however, is a huge increase in the prison population, and a large share of it coming from offenders who broke probation rules rather than committed new crimes. It’s hard to leave the criminal justice system in Wisconsin, which is one reason why it has become so expensive. The Journal-Sentinel’s 2004 prediction that the prison budget would come to rival the university budget came true, and now lawmakers in Wisconsin are stuck with a system that’s hard to operate, almost impossible politically to attack, and too expensive to leave alone.

But at the time, voters in the state were open to tough-on-crime legislation, and Walker was the man who made his name giving it to them. The 1999 newsletter with the photo of Walker also promoted his push to increase the number of prison beds available to the Wisconsin justice system and trumpeted a plan to sent more than a thousand inmates over the border to out-of-state prisons, a policy generally favored by the private prison industry.

A 2014 report by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, which opposes the policy, said the rules had seen around 260,000 17-year-olds tried as adults and around 80,000 of them “spending at least sometime in an adult jail.”

Walker has made support for the program a hallmark of his political messaging in the past. In 2008, he assailed his opponent in the race for Milwaukee County Executive for supporting changes to the program.

“I think crime’s a problem, and we need to send more criminals to prison,” Walker said in a TV ad. “My opponent thinks there are too many people in prison, and keeping 17-year-old criminals out of prison is a solution.”

An effort to amend the policy so it did not apply to first-time, non-violent 17-year-old offenders collapsed in the Wisconsin legislature last year after some county leaders balked at the proposed cost. Walker’s office reportedly told Republican sponsors of the legislation he was interested in looking at the issue, but there was not any public advocacy for changes.

Walker’s gubernatorial record more mimics his rhetoric as a state legislator than it does his seeming caution on the issue now. Walker pushed for and got the repeal of a Democratic-backed 2009 law that let some prisoners out early as a cost-savings measure. He cited his role in bringing Truth In Sentencing to the state to explain his opposition. Prisoners sentenced before Truth In Sentencing, and therefore able to appeal for parole, have seen their chances at supervised release dry up almost completely.

The strictness of the laws Walker championed makes change a tall order. Truth in Sentencing has dramatically increased prison terms and the prison population, and lawmakers are acutely aware of the political risk that goes with freeing potentially thousands of offenders.

Walker wasn’t alone in pushing for Truth In Sentencing. The state’s Democratic Attorney General, Jim Doyle, who would go on to become Walker’s predecessor as governor, backed the law when Walker introduced it. The bill flew through the legislature, landing on Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson’s desk for an easy signature. Prison system observers in Wisconsin say the broad-based support and rapid passage of Walker’s law was predictable given the political atmosphere of the time.

Walter Dickey ran Wisconsin’s prison system in the 1980s and then became a trusted adviser to Thompson on criminal justice matters when he assumed office in 1987. He said Democratic support for Truth In Sentencing and a general tough-on-crime sentiment sweeping the nation at the time pushed Thompson to sign a law that was harsher and more expensive than many intended.

Fear of the tough-on-crime crowd continues to define criminal justice politics in Wisconsin, Dickey said. “The widely-held view is, ‘being soft on crime may not get you elected but it may get you unelected,’” he said. “Nobody’s talking about criminal justice at all in Wisconsin.”

That’s not entirely true. But those talking about changes to Wisconsin’s ever-more outlying criminal justice system lack the political power they have in Republican-controlled states in other parts of the country, and some of them blame Walker for that.

“He’s a huge obstacle,” said state Rep. Evan Goyke, the Democratic leader of the Wisconsin legislature’s mostly informal bipartisan criminal justice caucus. “The reason why he’s nervous is he’s running for president.”

"I haven’t heard (Walker) speak on the issue in months."

Goyke said about a dozen or so lawmakers are interested in making the kinds of changes to Wisconsin’s justice system that would mean dismantling much of Truth In Sentencing. However, Goyke said the GOP in his state don’t have the momentum for criminal justice reform they have in states like Texas and Georgia, where libertarian, conservative evangelicals, and progressives have united under Republican governors to pass significant changes to their criminal justice systems.

Wisconsin is one of only a handful of states not lit up on the conservative criminal justice advocacy group Right On Crime’s Reform In Action map.

Grover Norquist, the small-government advocate who is a prominent member of the conservative criminal justice advocacy movement made, his first real overture to the small, bipartisan group of lawmakers backing change just a couple of months ago.

In March, Norquist spoke to a small number of conservative and progressive lawmakers in the state and called on them to end the rule that 17-year-olds are automatically charged as adults.

“The Republican Party in Wisconsin is maybe two or three years behind their counterparts” in other red states, Goyke said. “We’re on the whole a few years behind everyone else.”

Part of that lag, he said, is a lack of advocacy from Walker. The governor is popular among Republicans, and Goyke said he could help them take a risk on changes to criminal justice. But Goyke and other observers say that Walker hasn’t changed positions when it comes to tough-on-crime. He’s just stopped talking about it.

“I haven’t heard him speak on the issue in months,” he said.

Across the board, people BuzzFeed News spoke with noted Walker’s public silence in criminal justice, especially when compared to the past.

Advocates working outside the legislature do not consider Walker an ally. But they’re happy to see Walker at least stop advocating for more and harsher sentences. They see it as a sign that their side is starting to have an impact.

“A couple years ago, he just stopped talking about criminal justice, like at all,” said Dave Liners, director of WISDOM, a faith-based Wisconsin advocacy group pushing for an end to Truth In Sentencing. “It’s really clear he made the calculation that there’s no good position to take on criminal justice.”

Liners isn’t bullish on Wisconsin’s lawmakers tackling Truth In Sentencing. Democrats and Republicans were both complicit in the law, and few are showing much interest in taking big swings at changing things. But he said Walker is particularly stuck in the past.

“The governor is really saddled with Truth in Sentencing stuff,” he said. “He can’t really do an about-face.”

"I don’t want to give someone a pass, but we’re not going to take someone to task about something that was said in the past."

However, conservative advocates aren’t ready to count Walker out yet. Where some in Wisconsin see a calculated silence to avoid upsetting the growing numbers of wealthy criminal justice advocates in the national GOP, national leaders see Walker at least making an effort. They’re not convinced he’s with them yet, but he’s shown signs that he’s more open to a dramatic shift on criminal justice than his past might suggest, they say.

Walker is helped by the pragmatism of the conservative criminal justice advocacy movement. There just aren’t that many Republicans who were in politics in the 1990s who weren’t big time law-and-order types, so advocates are generally open to letting bygones be bygones.

“I don’t want to give someone a pass, but we’re not going to take someone to task about something that was said in the past,” said Marc Levin, the head of Right On Crime. “[Walker] has made some comments about this issue in recent weeks that suggest he’s open to taking different approaches.”

Levin and his allies are encouraged by an essay collection published by the Brennan Center at NYU, a criminal justice advoacy group. Walker’s essay ran alongside other 2016 candidates who have endorsed criminal justice reform, such as Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, Cruz; as well as bipartisan leaders of the national movement like former NRA president David Keene and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

Walker’s essay wasn’t about reducing Wisconsin’s current prison population. Rather, it was about his support for so-called drug courts that advocates say can reduce the number of people going to prison in the first place.

Walker made no bones about his past in the essay, even defending Truth In Sentencing, but he couched the rules in the language of the advocates.

“We are pushing reforms at the front end of the process to create opportunities that impede paths to incarceration,” Walker wrote. “We want a safe and sound system.”

There’s no doubt that — among the Koch shortlist, along with Jeb Bush, Cruz, Paul and Marco Rubio — Walker is lacking when it comes to criminal justice rhetoric. Bush was a big time tough-on-crime politician in the 1990s, but in 2011 he signed on to Right On Crime’s advocacy efforts. Rubio remains in the tough-on-crime camp for the most part, but he doesn’t carry the baggage that Walker does.

A top Koch aide stressed in a recent interview that criminal justice advocacy is a huge issue for the Republican powerbrokers, but added that Walker, like most of the candidates, hasn’t met with Koch political advisers to talk about the criminal justice policy goals espoused, especially, by Charles Koch.

Earlier this month, while speaking at a Florida candidate’s forum, Walker claimed the issue of non-violent offenders being stuck for years in criminal justice system or behind bars wasn’t much of a problem in Wisconsin, a move that drew harsh criticism from advocates in the state, according to the Daily Beast.

The Koch aide also pointed to the Brennan Center essay, saying, “We think [speciality courts] are a good idea.”

For Walker, the shift into the new reality may be tougher than it has been for others — but the advocates are open to converts.

“I don’t know why any elected official does what they do, but if good policy is good politics, then so be it," Levin said.

Molly Ward contributed reporting.

“They need to rise up, they need to say to political correctness, ‘Take a hike.’”

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Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson said in February 2012 that "political correctness" has caused Americans to fall "silent, very much like the people in Nazi Germany were silent."

The now-retired neurosurgeon drew the comparison to Nazi Germany during an interview at Patrick Henry College, in the course of explaining how "we've dumbed things down" in the American education system. He noted that in "international surveys looking at the ability of students in multiple countries to solve math and science problems," "we rank right near the bottom," then contended that the country's evolution into "a politically correct situation" "starting at about the '30s" precipitated this intellectual decline.

"And the process as we've evolved more and more into a politically correct situation, we don't even want to talk about what the family's supposed to do versus what the school's supposed to do, what the responsibilities are of fathers and mothers," he argued. "It really has degenerated to that level."

Carson then claimed that "our whole society" hasn't degenerated to that level, but that "the loudest voices and particularly the media has tried to pretty much force" political correctness on people, before explaining that "exactly the same thing will happen to the freedoms that we enjoy in America" that happened under the Third Reich.

"You know this country was supposed to be for, of, and by the people but the people have become silent, very much like the people in Nazi Germany were silent. Most of them did not agree with what Hitler was doing but they kept their mouths shut and you see what happened," he said. "And exactly the same thing will happen to the freedoms that we enjoy in America and the kind of nation that we've had if people don't speak up."

Carson said that people must order political correctness to, "Take a hike."

"They need to rise up, they need to say to political correctness: 'Take a hike. This is who we are, this is what we believe in, these are principles that allowed us to become the pinnacle nation in the world in record time and we're not about to throw them out of the window for the sake of political correctness.'"

This is not the only time Carson has warned of the grave threat "political correctness" poses to the United States by making a comparison to an infamously doomed society. He has made a similar case that it could lead America to "go the same route as Ancient Rome."

In the interview at Patrick Henry College, Carson also compared the arguments of abortion rights advocates to those slave-owners made "decades ago."

"Woman: do you really have a right to kill the baby just because it's in your body?" he asked. "You know, it sort of, it harkens back to the argument, you know, decades ago about slavery. When slave-owners thought, 'I own this person, I should be able to do anything to them that I want.'"

He made similar comments at a pro-life banquet also in 2012.

“I’m also supportive of federal efforts to define marriage as between a man and a woman.”

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Republican presidential candidate Bobby Jindal says he supports a constitutional amendment to define marriage between a man and woman after the Supreme Court struck down same-sex marriage bans last week.

"As a Christian I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I don't think an earthly court can change my view or beliefs, it doesn't change my view or beliefs of the proper definition of marriage," the Louisiana governor said Wednesday in an interview with NewsMaxTV's Steve Malzberg Show on Wednesday evening. "I support federal efforts to return to the states our Tenth Amendment rights."

"I'm also supportive of federal efforts to define marriage as between a man and a woman."

While many Republican presidential candidates have supported a federal definition of marriage in the past, after the court's decision was handed down last week, the opponents of the ruling, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, seemed only willing to call for an amendment allowing the states to define marriage.

Jindal said he believed the court, and politicians such as Hillary Clinton and President Obama, who support marriage equality, were merely doing so in response to public opinion polls.

"On marriage, the reason I said it shouldn't have taken a constitutional amendment is that the court clearly was not following the constitution. The court clearly is following public opinion polls," Jindal said. "Hillary Clinton, President Obama, they evolved, meaning everybody knows they followed the opinion polls. My views are not evolving on this issue and I want to be clear, to me, this is not something just watching opinion polls."

"I know the easiest thing for any politician to do is to simply evolve and change their views as the president did and Secretary Clinton did. I'm not evolving. My views are grounded in my faith. I continue to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I continue to believe in religious freedom rights. I also think, by the way, that you can have religious freedom rights without discrimination. I think the left has got this completely wrong."

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With an assist from Charlie Crist.

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It was 1997, a simpler time, and Jeb Bush was making his second run for governor of Florida. Bush, like most gubernatorial candidates, decided to do a radio interview to help support his bid.

Bush's interview segment on the ``Bubba the Love Sponge'' morning radio show, arranged by then-state senator Charlie Crist, was sandwiched between "Lesbian Tuesday'' and ``No Panties Thursday" segments on the shock jock's show, according to the Miami Herald.

A ''Lesbian Tuesday'' show before Bush went on "featured Bubba interviewing two of his coterie of strippers, then graphically describing a sex act he said they were performing in the studio, while they provided sound effects and commentary," according to the Orlando Sentinel.

"Jeb goes on a lot of radio shows, trying to reach as many Floridians as possible. By going on the show, he doesn't endorse everything that happens on the show," a Bush spokesman said at the time. Bush made a similar appearance on the show during his 1994 bid for governor.

Charlie Crist, the future-governor-turned-independent-turned-ambulance-chaser lawyer-turned-Democrat had arranged the appearance on the show.

"I wouldn't tell you I approve of everything he does on his show, but he's still a friend of mine," Crist said, according to the Herald. "I doubt that people approve of everything I have to say, but we are a country that believes in free speech.''

Bubba said Bush was probably unaware of the show's content. "I don't think (Bush is) being hypocritical," he said. "He's from out of town, he may never have heard it.''

According to the St. Petersburg Times, Bubba the Love Sponge was fired in 2004 "after his station racked up the highest fine ever for indecency broadcasts."

In 2002, Bubba was acquitted of animal cruelty charges after he slaughtered a feral pig on-air in 2000.

Bubba the Love Sponge is currently best known for his litigation with professional wrestler Hulk Hogan after a video of Hogan having sex with Bubba's then-wife Heather Cole found it's way onto Gawker.com. Hogan and Gawker are currently fighting in court over the tape, with Hogan seeking $100 million in damages from Gawker.

Bubba the Love Sponge and Hogan settled, but Hogan said, "Just for the record, Bubba and I are NOT friends and never will be friends, we are NOT friends."

"I guarantee you, that's the next governor of Florida," Bubba told listeners after Bush's appearance.

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“Anyone who has any illusions that gun control will cause a significant dent in the very serious problem of crime is mistaken.”

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Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders once told a group of Vermont voters that he did not believe gun control was a "panacea for the forces of crime," saying that "people pull the trigger, not the guns themselves."

Sanders made the remarks -- reported by Vermont's Rutland Herald at the time -- while campaigning for a seat in the House of Representatives in 1990. That year, the National Rifle Association targeted his opponent, incumbent Republican Rep. Peter Smith, who they felt had betrayed him on a key issue. Sanders used the N.R.A.'s disappointment with Smith to his advantage in that campaign.

"Mr. Smith had said he would oppose gun control, but he agreed to sponsor legislation that would have banned certain types of assault weapons," explained a New York Times article published after Sanders was elected. "Conservative Republicans abandoned him, joining liberal voters to form a solid majority for Mr. Sanders, who said he would not support Federal gun-control measures."

In the Rutland Herald article, Sanders reportedly expressed his support for a ban on several assault rifles to a room full of "sportsmen," but qualified that he was no expert and that he would consult with them on gun issues that came up in the Congress.

Here's the full article:

The Rutland Herald

The following year, as a member of Congress, Sanders opposed the "Brady Bill" -- which instituted a waiting period for handgun purchases and required background checks for those seeking to buy guns from federally-licensed firearms dealers.

Sanders was not quiet about his opposition to the bill. In an interview with the Rutland Herald, Sanders said that "anyone who has any illusions that gun control will cause a significant dent in the very serious problem of crime is mistaken."

Sanders made similar comments at the time to the New York Times and the Washington Post.

"I have a problem with a Congress and media that spend an enormous amount of time talking about the Brady bill, which even the strongest proponents know will not have a major impact on crime," Sanders told the Washington Post at the time. "I view it as hypocritical."

According to the Times, Sanders "described the bill as 'tokenism' and 'pure symbolism,' and said gun control should not be a Federal concern."

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The former governor of Texas says the GOP has given up on the black vote and “lost our moral legitimacy as the party of Lincoln.”

Perry campaigning in Iowa last month

Scott Olson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Rick Perry says Republicans have to accept that the government still needs to play a role in erasing the legacy of slavery and segregation for black families in America, even if that means walking back the focus on state's rights that were the central planks of his last campaign for president.

In a remarkable speech at National Press Club, Perry distanced himself from his past rhetoric — and book — praising the 10th Amendment and made a direct appeal to his party to rethink an approach to black voters he said often leaves them at a distance from the GOP.

"I know Republicans have much to do to earn the trust of African Americans. Blacks know that Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964 ran against Lyndon Johnson, who was a champion for civil rights," Perry said. "They know that Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He felt parts of it were unconstitutional. States supporting segregation in the South, they cited states' rights as a justification for keeping blacks from the voting booth and the dinner table."

The years of states' rights messaging have squandered the Republican's once close relationship with black voters, especially in the south, Perry said.

"For too long, we Republicans have been content to lose the black vote because we found we didn't need it to win. But when we gave up trying to win the support of African Americans, we lost our moral legitimacy as the party of Lincoln, as the party of equal opportunity for all," Perry said. "It's time for us once again to reclaim our heritage as the only party in our country founded on the principle of freedom for African Americans."

Perry reaffirmed his support for the 10th Amendment, but said his focus on it does not mean he doesn't support federal government efforts to mitigate the lasting effects on history for black families.

At times, Perry said, he may have gone too far when talking about "states rights," often seen by black Americans as a code for racial division.

"There has been and there will continue to be an important and a legitimate role for the federal government in enforcing civil rights. Too often, we Republicans — me included — have emphasized our message on the 10th Amendment but not our message on the 14th, an amendment, it bears reminding, that was one of the great contributions of the Republican Party to American life, second only to the abolition of slavery," Perry said.

Perry opened the speech with a long, detailed, and highly graphic retelling of the 1916 torture and murder of Jesse Washington, a young black man accused of raping a white woman, by a white lynch mob in Waco, Texas. Perry said the retelling, which made some in the audience visibly uncomfortable, was necessary for Texas to understand its history of often violent racial division.

"Even today, we Texans struggle to talk about what happened to Jesse Washington. We don't want to believe that our great state could ever have been the scene of such unimaginable horror," he said. "But it is an episode in our history that we cannot ignore. It is an episode that we have an obligation to transcend."

When it came to hot-button policy issues for black voters in America, today Perry still sided with the idea that states should make their own choices over federal law. He said South Carolina should make its own choice about the Confederate flag, and didn't weigh in on what that choice should be. Perry again noted the efforts to ban Confederate flag license plates while he was governor, but didn't mention his past public support for Confederate symbols in the late 1990s.

On voter ID laws, which many black advocates and Democrats have rejected as racially unjust, Perry again stood up for the states' right to run elections as they choose.

"There are a host of different photo IDs that you can use so that you can vote, but keeping that from being fraudulently used means as I go through TSA to fly from here to New Hampshire in the morning, they are going to want to see my photo ID," Perry said. "And I think if it is important enough for the federal government to require a photo ID, that of the state wants to have a photo ID to protect that precious right of voting and make sure it is not fraudulently used, I think that is quite all right for the states to do that."

Perry said the Republican message to black voters should focus on economics and criminal justice. Citing his own record leading sweeping changes to the legal system in Texas heralded by criminal justice advocates on the right and left, Perry said it was time for the federal government to adopt a new approach to nonviolent offenders.

"We can reform the federal sentencing laws, just as we have done at the state level to ensure more young people have a real shot at life, and we can do so while keeping our low income communities safe from crime as well," he said.

Marijuana legalization — a policy favored by many opponents of the war on drugs — appeared to be off the table as well, at least at the federal level.

"From time to time a state will make a mistake, and they will pay a price for that," Perry said. "When I read [that quote Perry said came from former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis], I think about Colorado today. You know, but I will defend Colorado's right to be wrong."

Winning the black vote back for Republicans means adopting an approach toward criminal justice, taxes and entitlements similar to the one Perry oversaw in Texas, he said.

Perry said reforms to welfare programs and new tax credits and lower taxes overall can create greater income opportunity for black Americans. Proving that Republican policies can reduce the incarceration rate and raise the graduation rate for young black men will go a long way in rebuilding the shattered trust between the GOP and black voters, Perry said.

"I do not think there is more powerful way I can say to an African American that I gave her child the opportunity to succeed because we let them graduate from high school," Perry said. "What a powerful message that you live in the state where the number one high school graduation rate is. That is a powerful message. Oh, by the way, we let you keep more of your money, too. That is a powerful, powerful message."

Clinton’s Kansas City speech to one of the largest yearly gatherings of Latinos will come weeks after she addressed Hispanic elected officials in Las Vegas.

Hillary Clinton addressing the NCLR conference in 2005.

Joseph Kaczmarek / AP

For the second time in a month, Hillary Clinton will speak to a huge gathering of Latinos, this time in front of 2,000 Hispanic activists and community leaders Monday, July 13 at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) annual conference in Kansas City, BuzzFeed News has learned.

"We are thrilled that Secretary Clinton will join us to speak to the thousands of Latino community leaders who will gather in Kansas City next week," said Janet Murguía, President and CEO of NCLR. "We look forward to hearing about her vision for the country and her thoughts on the issues of greatest concern to our community."

Clinton will be speaking to the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the country weeks after addressing Latino elected officials in Las Vegas, Nevada.

NCLR bills itself as nonpartisan but also came out strongly for immigration action by President Obama.

As part of Clinton's four fights that she repeatedly mentions on the campaign trail, she has included detailed immigration policy comments in her pledge to "strengthen families and communities."

In Las Vegas, she spoke about immigration but also early-childhood education for Latino kids. Clinton previously spoke at NCLR in 2005 in Philadelphia and 2007 in Miami.

Speaking to Latino voters and gaining their support will be a key part of the election, something Republicans presidential candidates like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio also hope to be able to do.

The NCLR conference will take place between July 11 and July 14 and also feature Clinton's opponent for the Democratic nomination Martin O'Malley and U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro.

An O'Malley campaign source told BuzzFeed News they were glad Clinton was joining NCLR weeks after he confirmed he would attend.

“Those who would attempt to extort from them or anyone who committed a crime against a person because they didn’t accept homosexual marriage could be prosecuted for a hate crime.”

Danny Johnston / AP

Mike Huckabee said on Wednesday that, if he were the sitting president, he would direct the attorney general to prosecute "those who would attempt to extort" or "who committed a crime against a person because they didn't accept homosexual marriage" for hate crimes.

The comment echoes a three-point plan the Republican presidential candidate issued on Tuesday, reported by the Des Moines Register, outlining how he would respond to Supreme Court's decision that same-sex couples can marry in all 50 states.

The released outlined how Huckabee, if elected president, would direct the U.S. attorney general to prosecute as hate crimes groups or individuals who discriminated or attacked individuals, businesses, religious organizations, and others for their religious beliefs about marriage.

Speaking to radio host Steve Deace, Huckabee pushed these points, reiterating promises to issue an executive order proclaiming his goal to "fully protect religious liberty at all levels" and to "instruct the defense secretary to immediately allow chaplains and to let chaplains know that they would be allowed to practice their faith as it is, not as it is desired by people who support same-sex marriage."

His vow to prosecute crimes against opponents of same-sex marriage as hate crimes came sandwiched between these other aspects of his platform.

"The second thing I would do is I would issue a directive to the attorney general and I would, uh, insist that everyone's religious liberty be vigorously defended," he said. "That there be no, uh, allowance for people to have their businesses shut down and that those who would attempt to extort from them or anyone who committed a crime against a person because they didn't accept homosexual marriage could be prosecuted for a hate crime."

In the interview, Huckabee also argued that Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion for last Friday's decision, "went to Zen school and had a New Age experience and he used words like 'intimacy' and spirituality' as a sort of ex cathedra constitutional basis to say that same-sex marriage is just fine because some people feel really strong about it."

He further asserted that Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg "clearly should have recused themselves" because they "both had officiated at same-sex marriage ceremonies."

The comments are the latest in the torrent of criticism Huckabee has unleashed at the ruling, beginning with his initial statement that the decision constituted "judicial tyranny," up to his remark on Tuesday that classifying same-sex marriage as a "civil right" is "an insult to African-Americans."

Here's the clip:

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A BuzzFeed News investigation.

This year, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has faced questions about the legacy of George W. Bush — and, at times, seemed uncomfortable with the subject. It's raised an interesting question: What exactly is the nature of the relationship between George and Jeb Bush? BuzzFeed News has been investigating the situation, and obtained photos that show the two men could be brothers.

The results of the investigation:

Luke Frazza / Getty Images

Mari Darr~welch / AP

Phil Coale / ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Clinton adds a new line to her speech in New Hampshire.

Darren McCollester / Getty Images

Before a Friday afternoon crowd of Granite Staters, Hillary Clinton offered a new line:

"I take a backseat to no one when you look at my record of standing up and fighting for progressive values."

Clinton, since her campaign began, has often cast herself as a "fighter" — emphasizing the "four fights" of her campaign and framing her career, going back to her days as a lawyer, as "fighting" for the welfare of children and women.

But the "progressive values" part is new — and just how committed Clinton is to the current slate of progressive policy goals, particularly when it comes to economics, has been a source of speculation and critique over the last year.

Bill Clinton's presidency often emphasized centrism: He signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the banking securities law that progressives like Elizabeth Warren want to see restored; he promised and implemented changes to the welfare system; he supported the tough-on-crime policies popular in the 1980s and '90s, that his wife also wrote in support of at the time.

And Hillary Clinton herself was slow to, for instance, endorse same-sex marriage; she did not offer her public support until 2013, and did not deem it a constitutional right until earlier this year.

Hillary Clinton has already campaigned against some of the policies of the 1990s — she's argued in favor of changes to the criminal justice system and in favor of significantly broadening legal status and citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Where Clinton — often critiqued by liberal Democrats for her connections to Wall Street — will ultimately come down on the populist economic policies pushed by progressives has been less clear. While Clinton's talked often about "reshuffling" the deck of cards she says is "stacked against" middle-class and working-class Americans, she's been less forthcoming about her proposed economic policies. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, has managed to draw impressive crowds in liberal bastions like Madison, Wisconsin.

On Friday, though, Clinton said she would soon be outlining her economic agenda in specifics.

Yeah…

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Babe.

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It was May 2010 and Mike Huckabee was in Las Vegas for a filming of his self-titled Fox News' Huckabee at The Venetian. The former Arkansas governor, who is now running for the Republican presidential nomination, also took on a different role that weekend: Cher puppet.

Huckabee took a trip that weekend to see Terry Fator, the Vegas performer who uses puppetry and impressions in his comedy routine. At the show, Huckabee was pulled on stage to the audience's delight and turned into a puppet for one Fator's acts.

Huckabee donned a wig, a costume of a dress, a puppet mascot, and was made to sing Sonny and Cher's hit song I Got You Babe.

Huckabee, who was a good sport about the whole thing, actually has a particular affection for Cher's Vegas show. In a book about his 2008 presidential campaign, Huckabee wrote that he was a fan of Cher in comments attacking his opponents for flip-flopping as fast as Cher can "change costumes in one of her many farewell tours." Huckabee writes he finds her show "an amazing blend of rock concert, circus and fashion show."

"I think Cher is on her third or fourth 'Farewell Tour' — saying good-bye is a hard thing to do, and frankly, it would be a shame if she did quit given that I have to admit that her show is an amazing blend of rock concert, circus and fashion show."

Low stakes, and telling.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

When a colleague and I visited Bernie Sanders in his Senate office four months ago, he was thinking about Greece.

He was watching the rise of the left-wing Syriza party hopefully, he said:

"It's terribly important that they be allowed to implement what they campaigned on: raising the minimum wage, undoing the privatization, getting the electricity to people who needed it and creating jobs in their country."

It was a rare moment of animation during a brief interview that had all the rapport of a hostage situation. His passion was also, in a sense, part of the reason he's filling stadiums in Madison: He has a clear point of view, forged over decades as a member of the global economic left. The man calls himself a socialist, and knows where he stands.

The Greek crisis is a defining moment for Europe. But it is also extremely low stakes in the terms of American politics. What you think about Greece is wrapped up not just in what you think about austerity, but also what you think about the European Union, a subject which has not been known to generate much energy in primary politics. There are more than two sides, and possible outcomes in which both German and Greek leaders claim victory.

That's why this is such an interesting test for Hillary Clinton, who has said not a word about Greek entitlements or the future of the Eurozone. This is not unwise politics, or uncharacteristic. She's waiting to see how it shakes out before she takes a stand.

But who will Clinton choose to be? She is, by her history and her associations, obviously in the austerity camp. Bill Clinton ran and governed as a Democrat who believed in balanced budgets and the bond market, and Hillary Clinton has spent most of her career in the center of her party. In 2011 she described Greece's austerity package as "vital first steps and acts of leadership."

Her Davos-inflected life tilts the same way. She has personally taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from Goldman Sachs, which played a leading role in getting Greece into this mess, for speeches. Her husband has taken more, their foundation yet more. The CEO of the Clinton Global Initiative, Robert Harrison, was a Goldman partner. Her son-in-law's hedge fund bet against the rise of the Greek left, and lost badly. (Also: her son-in-law runs a hedge fund.)

And so if she's true to where everyone who knows her assumes she would actually govern, she'll probably say some version of the hazy comment from White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz on Thursday:

"Our belief is that all sides should work together to get back on a path that will allow Greece to resume reforms, return to growth, and achieve debt sustainability within the Eurozone. We believe that continues to be in the best interest of Greece, Europe, and the global economy."

This is also what everyone assumes Hillary Clinton would say if she were president. (President Sanders would, obviously, be in Athens, crammed onto on the back of the motorbike with Yanis Varoufakis and his wife.)

It's preposterous to think that Clinton would feel pressure on this question from a Vermont socialist who is deeply hostile to the global financial system into which her political and personal lives are deeply bound. Or really, that the future of the Greek entitlement system is a question about which her campaign could possibly worry.

But right now, Clinton has a tactical goal: in her words, taking "a backseat to no one when you look at my record in standing up and fighting for progressive values." At the moment, she's taking a backseat to Bernie on the crisis in Southern Europe. Moreover, there's no immediate political cost to waving the red flag about Greece today. No real global cost either: Angela Merkel will, presumably, know domestic politics when she sees it and expect Hillary to stand with her during the next Greek meltdown in 2017.

And so Clinton's statement on Greece, and the extent to which she uses this moment to shift her shape, won't ultimately tell us much about how she'll govern. But it will offer a glimpse at how much, or how little, it will take for her to shift her political identity.

“I would hope that we could add a point every couple weeks as we move towards January,” said O’Malley.

This is Martin O'Malley. He is running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

O'Malley is currently polling at 1.3%, according to the latest Real Clear Politics polling average. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is at 62.8%.

Via realclearpolitics.com

Speaking with WBAL radio over the weekend in Iowa, O'Malley attributed his low numbers to being a "virtual unknown in Iowa and New Hampshire." He called this a "summer of introduction,” adding he hopes to pick up a percentage point "every couple weeks."

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