Democratic side of the bipartisan coalition to produce change in the criminal justice system defends Koch Brothers against attacks from a Democratic research firm.

Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Democrats are defending the efforts of the Koch brothers. And they're defending the Kochs from attacks by other Democrats, who say the brothers' criminal justice work is just a "scam."

On Thursday, the Democratic-leaning research firm American Bridge Thursday released an opposition-research-style report, "The Koch Brothers' Criminal Justice Pump-Fake" that argues the criminal justice advoacy that the Kochs have poured money into is little more than a bogus attempt to distract from the Kansas billionares' anti-progressive agenda.

"A key point here is we're not making allegations against the Koch brothers, we're not trying to put our heads inside their head. We're literally quoting them about what their intentions are behind their criminal justice push," said Eddie Vale, president of American Bridge, adding that the report was timed to coincide with the growing momentum for bipartisan criminal justice legislation on Capitol Hill. "Kudos for honesty, their PR department has straight up said they like to talk about this because it deflates a negative narrative around the Koch brothers."

Criminal justice advocates on the left defended the Koch Brothers and said the attack missed the mark.

"I hope they hold onto that report and frame it," said Van Jones, a progressive organizer and former Obama administration official currently leading #Cut50, a prominent bipartisan criminal justice effort. "They can frame it right next to the picture of Obama signing a bill by Christmas and keep it as an object lesson in the downsides of division and also the incredible possibility in a democratic system for ideas to breakthrough."

It's a weird turn of events, but the unsurprising conclusion to the drug war collision course: progressives and libertarians, led by the Kochs, agree that the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and '90s need to change, from mandatory-minimum sentencing to the use of criminal records in hiring. President Obama even praised the Kochs this week, a week in which he commuted the life sentences of 46 drug offenders and advocates say big changes could really be coming.

Some of Jones' allies worried that the timing of the American Bridge attack could threaten the burgeoning bipartisan criminal justice coalition on Capitol Hill just as it is beginning to show signs of potential success.

"Whether their intentions are good or not, they've been very helpful in getting conservatives on board," said one activist, who said progressive criminal justice advocates have sometimes had to deal with liberals whose knee-jerk reaction to the name Koch brothers is to recoil after years of anti-Koch messaging. "Lefites will sometimes ask 'what's up with this Koch brothers bill? Why are you supporting it?' We have to explain it's also backed by the White House."

For Democrats trying to get bills passed in Congress, the timing of the American Bridge attack was a head-scratcher. Progressives credit Koch-backed efforts inside the GOP with bringing old-school tough-on-crime Republicans to the bargaining table with advocates, seen as the key to getting a legislation done and sealing another part of Obama's legacy.

"It doesn't make much strategic sense," said one Obama administration ally. "Who fucking cares why they're doing it if Republicans can point to them when they're supporting reform?"

Beyond the politics, many progressive-leaning advocates inside the criminal justice movement actually don't think the Koch brothers — or brother, as they often point out, noting that the criminal justice focus is supported most specifically by Charles Koch — are trying to pull a fast one with their support for the cause. Mark Holden, Koch Industries' general counsel, can talk for hours about the minutae of the criminal justice system and the ways it should be changed to be fairer to the poor and minorities. Liberal advocates often single him out as a powerful ally.

Outside of the legislative fight, the Kochs have won praise from the left for instituting changes within Koch-owned companies advocates on the left have long said would mitigate the impact a conviction could have on felons long after they leave prison. In April, Koch Industries stopped asking prospective employees about their criminal history on applications, joining with the so-called "ban the box" movement that argues those questions should wait for later in the hiring process, so felons who have served their time aren't weeded out before they have a chance to prove themselves. Ban the box has predominantly been led by progressive groups like the NAACP.

The box ban proved the American Bridge take on the Kochs and criminal justice, according to Vale.

"From our perspective, proves our point about what's behind this. Banning the box is good, no question about it," he said. "But in my book when you layoff workers to close plants and you layoff workers to outsource jobs and you don't give people a raise in the minimum wage and you want to take away their health care, doing something that is good doesn't absolve you of your other sins when the latter are much outweighed by the former."

Holden said the banning the box was an effort to make hiring at Koch Industries a model.

"We removed the box from our application because we are focused on finding the best candidates for employment based on who they are now and their entire person," he told BuzzFeed News in an email. "We don't think it is fair to exclude someone from the outset based on a mistake they may have made in their past."

The Kochs remain among the deepest pockets funding efforts to defeat progressive candidates for office and many progressive goals like new climate change regulation and an increase in the minimum wage. The brothers do not want a Democratic president nor do they want more Democrats in Congress. That hasn't changed even as they've allied with the White House recently. The criminal justice coalition is generally characterized by both sides as a marriage of convenience rather than a permanent long-term relationship.

"We have disagreed before. And it's likely we'll disagree again," Neera Tanden, president of the left-leaning Center For American Progress, told PBS in a joint interview with Holden in April. "But I think [the coalition] really speaks to the importance of this issue. We are willing and our friends on the right are willing to come together and work on it."

Vale was not as generous. He noted the Kochs have expressed support for politicians like Scott Walker, who has a legacy of boosting incarceration rates while also taking on public employee unions. When the Koch priorities of criminal justice and union busting are in opposition, he said, the Kochs will back away from the criminal justice.

Thursday's rift between Democrats over the Kochs defined the ways the criminal justice advocacy movement can both run alongside and counter to mainstream politics — often at the same time. The recent success of the criminal justice advocates can be traced back almost entirely to Koch-backed efforts in red states like Texas and Georgia to reduce nonviolent drug sentences and release prisoners into less expensive community outreach programs and supervised probation. That effort linked libertarians, evangelicals and social justice progressives in the the states.

In Washington, progressive lawmakers who had pushed for changes to the criminal justice system as it relates to the drug war for years found themselves with Republican allies as the libertarian wing of the Tea Party movement took power. Those Republicans quickly became the most vocal supporters of criminal justice legislation on Capitol Hill, joining with progressive Democrats to support bills aimed at eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and other priorities.

At the same time, Obama's Justice Department, with the support of the progressive movement, was making big changes to prosecutions and clemency review aimed at unilaterally making changes to the criminal justice system favored by advocates.

The two sides formally combined their national efforts after Republicans won the Senate in 2014. Criminal justice was on the short list of agenda items the White House said could be possible in the new political reality, and it wasn't long before the Kochs and CAP linked up to to create the high-profile Coalition For Public Safety, which promised to pour millions into a push to pass new criminal justice laws. Those efforts mirrored existing left-right partnerships in the states and some smaller coalitions already formed in Washington, such as a group formed by two former co-hosts of Crossfire, Jones and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The efforts also left Democrats, who have made the Koch Brothers enemy number one in more than one election cycle, in a tricky position.

Koch-funded advocates and their allies are a regular part of the coalition to make bipartisan criminal justice legislation happen before the end of the year. That group has the support of the White House, which has regularly hosted meetings between criminal justice advocates, including Koch-backed advocates, and administration officials.

At the same time, nearly a billion dollars in Koch money is being deployed across the country to create field programs and ad campaigns aimed at defeating Democrats, especially the party's presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton, at the polls in 2016. The party has already promised to make the Koch brothers a focus of fundraising and organizing efforts this cycle, and that push has already begun.

Vale said American Bridge's ongoing effort to prove the Koch brothers don't actually care about criminal justice won't derail bipartisan efforts to pass a bill.

"I do appreciate other people's characterization of how much influence and power we have," Vale said. "If I thought that legislation in the United States congress would hinge on the words of American Bridge, then I would be a very happy camper. But I'm not going to grant myself that much power."

Jones said the partisan battles in Washington will rage, but the criminal justice movement will survive it.

"Underneath all this crap of the food fights that American politics have become, and all the incentives to keep the food fight going...underneath all this crap is a real pent-up desire to do something on the part of an awful lot of people in that town," he said. "People don't actually go through all the crap of being elected so they can literally get nothing done."

“…I’m actually a conservative with a heart.”

Carlos Osorio / ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is standing by his past support for universal health care.

"I want people taken care of in the country, okay? You can call it anything you want, but I want -- including people that don't have anything," The Donald told radio host John Fredericks in an interview Wednesday. "We gotta do that."

Trump said in 1999 -- when he was flirting with a presidential rub on the Reform Party ticket -- that the U.S. should make health care an entitlement and that coverage should be universal.

"I would put forward a comprehensive health care program and fund it with an increase in corporate taxes," Trump said at the time.

Trump said as president he was going to get people good plans that would have low costs.

"You know, I'm a very conservative guy, I'm Republican, I'm -- number one, the people that can do it, we're gonna get them plans that are so good, and we're gonna break the borders, we're gonna go, you know, the private plans," he stated.

"You know, a lot of people had plans they loved, before Obamacare came along. You probably did. I have friends that had really good plans -- now they have horrible plans, and they're paying five times more for them. We're gonna get great plans, we're not gonna have huge costs. The biggest thing the government has to do is make sure these companies are very, very solvent, you know, that they're very strong. Because what you don't want is having a company collapse, right? So that's the only function of the government. "

Trump said his health care plan would take care of poorer people by negotiating deals with hospitals, saying he "actually a conservative with a heart."

"Then on top of that, the people that can't afford to do that, we have to help them out at the lower level," added Trump. "We have to help them out. And I would make deals with hospitals, and I'd make deals with people where they can get some care, John. I mean, you can't have a guy that has no money, that's sick, and he can't go see a doctor, he can't go see a hospital. You know, I just don't think you can have that. I mean, 'cause I'm actually a conservative with a heart."

Trump added that he didn't care if he lost votes for his position, saying "you have to take care of poor people."

"And if I lose votes for that, I don't really care. Because you have to take care of poor people, you have to take -- I mean, think of yourself. You're really sick, and you're not allowed to see a doctor; I mean, it's almost like, sort of, that's you're being in hell. So we have to take care of people that are poor. We have to do it. And we can make a plan, we can work a deal -- I can work a deal with hospitals that will be great for everybody, and they'll be able to go there, and you're not gonna want to do that, and it won't be pretty, it won't be as nice as the other, but at least they're being taken care of."

“This is why I’ve been arguing against the rollbacks in our intelligence capability that Senator Paul has advocated for.”

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on Friday that the shooting in Tennessee that left four Marines dead shows why his opponent Rand Paul's position on the scope of the government's intelligence gathering makes "our country weaker and more vulnerable."

Christie was asked to comment on the shooting, which took place at a military site in Chattanooga, on a New Hampshire radio station, when he turned to the Kentucky Senator's position on anti-terrorism and privacy issues.

"Of course, we have to do more to protect them. This is a dangerous world," Christie said. "This is why I've been arguing against the rollbacks in our intelligence capability that Senator Paul has advocated for. This is not the right way to go in our country. It's making our country weaker and more vulnerable than we were."

"I'm the only person in this race that has actually prosecuted terrorism cases, who has done applications under the Patriot Act, who has gone to foreign intelligence courts to get the type of monitoring that we need."

Christie has previously attacked Paul on this subject.

And so, first off, it's an awful tragedy for the families. Secondly, we have to do more. Of course, we have to do more to protect them. This is a dangerous world. This is why I've been arguing against the rollbacks in our intelligence capability that Senator Paul has advocated for. This is not the right way to go in our country. It's making our country weaker and more vulnerable than we were. I'm the only person in this race that has actually prosecuted terrorism cases, who has done applications under the Patriot Act, who has gone to foreign intelligence courts to get the type of monitoring that we need."

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Paul’s chief strategist calls Christie’s comments linking Paul’s position on government surveillance to the Chattanooga shooting “disgusting,” “shameful,” and “patently false.”

David Zalubowski / AP

The chief strategist for Rand Paul's presidential campaign told BuzzFeed News on Friday that Chris Christie's comments linking Paul's position on government surveillance to the shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee were "disgusting," "shameful", and patently false."

The New Jersey governor and Republican presidential candidate said Thursday's shooting in Tennessee that left four Marines dead was an example of "why I've been arguing against the rollbacks in our intelligence capability that Senator Paul has advocated for."

Asked for comment, Doug Stafford of Paul's campaign said it was "disgusting" for Christie "to seek to use a tragedy like this."

"From transportation to national security, Gov. Christie has a long record of political stunts and cheap shots," Stafford wrote in an e-mail. "It is disgusting for him to seek to use a tragedy like this to launch a shameful and patently false attack."

LINK: Christie: Chattanooga Shooting Shows Why Rand Paul Is Wrong On Patriot Act

“…it should be an excuse to look at our own selves, and find out why there are a lot of people who would like to kill us right now.”

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Getty Images

Ron Paul says the attack at two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee "should be an excuse to look at our own selves, and find out why there are a lot of people who would like to kill us right now."

"Investigate, find out what's going on, make sure we have the facts before we drop a bomb on somebody," the former Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate on said The Michael Barry Show when asked about the attacks.

"We don't know the details. A lot of times the immediate reaction isn't exactly what really happened. So I don't know the details. If you're going to have a purpose for government, it should be preserving the peace. So the person that does this, you know, gets a penalty."

The elder Paul, whose son Rand is currently running for the Republican presidential nomination, said he didn't think the attack should be "an excuse to declare war on some country", but should be a time for self-reflection, saying "it should be an excuse to look at our own selves, and find out why there are a lot of people who would like to kill us right now."

The FBI said 24-year-old Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez opened fire at two military facilities in Chattanooga on Thursday. A total of five people, including Abdulazeez, died in the attacks.

Paul, who was appearing on the show after his son, said people are incapable of thinking the United States had anything to do with the events leading up to the shootings.

"And that's what people can't do — they can't think that we have anything to do with it. We talk about terrorism, but if you were in a Muslim family at a funeral, and a bomb came out of the sky with a drone, and an innocent wedding party or funeral party, killed a bunch of people — wouldn't you call that terrorism? I mean — and we've done this," said Paul.

"It is estimated that at the hands of Untied States policy during the 1990s, 500,000 Iraqis were killed," added Paul.

"And Madeline Albright admitted this! She said 'Well, that's just the price you have to pay for our policy.' And we have to understand that, if we ever want to have peace in the world, we just don't need to go looking for another fight. We need a peace dividend — we need plowshares!"

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“This is a president that will sacrifice anything, anything near and dear to us, anything that a million four people in uniform, men and women, that have given up their lives to preserve.”

Alex Wong / Getty Images

This is a person I think the psychiatrists would have a field day with him. Everything is about him. I have often thought about sendin' pastor Rick Warren's book so he could read about purpose driven life and it starts off with 'it's not about me.' This is a president that will sacrifice anything, anything near and dear to us, anything that a million four people in uniform, men and women, that have given up their lives to preserve. His legacy, his place in the world, is more important than the American people. It's absolutely sad. We've elected him twice. Elections have consequences. People need to wake up and stop thinking about who it is I think likes me more, and start thinking about who the hell it is that should run this country the way it needs to be run.

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There are ways to fight them it's going to take though a highly - a highly - alerted civilian group to be watching it. Every one of us need to have our eyes peeled now and be looking out for this type of behavior and the possibility that it could happen or it's going to continue happen. These people are radicalized to a point right now that you and I would look and say, 'my God.' In my lifetime I never thought I'd see this. My parents saw it. My dad fought in World War II, they came through the Great Depression. Those folks. I often said Joe, if you were to script a movie or play...those people when I grew up we came from the greatest town, the greatest times that anybody could possibly image because of parents, preachers, teachers and coaches that made us who we were. They had survived The Great Depression and World War II. We've been sitting in a La-La-Land in this political correctness that has swept over this country where we don't say what we know is true, we don't say what we know is right. We kinda bump the edges cause we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Well please tell me, that what just happened the other day is acceptable on anybody's mind. 'Well, geez I-I kinda thought something was wrong, I just didn't want to hurt anybody's feeling or make anybody look bad.' We ought to wake up and smell the coffee. We are at war.

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“They didn’t say boo about Reagan doing it! And yet that was even a bigger gamble — but it was the right gamble to make.”

T.J. Kirkpatrick / Getty Images

Ron Paul expressed support for President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran in two interviews this week, saying in one that the agreement was "to the benefit of world peace."

The former Texas congressman's position stands in contrast to that of many Republicans, including his son, Kentucky senator and current presidential candidate Rand Paul.

Speaking to Ed Berliner of Newsmax TV's "The Hard Line" on Wednesday, elder Paul said that "[o]ur foreign policy is basically driven by the military industrial complex, and if they can sell something, they will keep stirring the pot."

"There's something to be said about moving in the direction of at least talking to people," Paul said "instead of saying, 'All right, you're scoundrels, we'll keep our $100 billion we've taken from you and all options are on the table, like if you don't do what we tell you, we're allowed to use our nuclear weapons against you.'"

"The tone has been changed" by the deal, said Paul."It's to our benefit; it's to the benefit of world peace."

In an appearance on The Michael Berry Show on Friday, Paul said Americans have "been conditioned to distrust and hate the Persians," but claimed that Iran's actions on the world stage are comparable to those of the CIA.

"We have learned and been conditioned to distrust and hate the Persians, and that they're gonna kill us," said Paul. "But there's no history to show that Iran are aggressive people. When's the last time they invaded a country? Over 200 years ago!"

"We're the ones who are all around the world, and yet everybody won't pay much attention to that," he continued, adding Iran's support of terrorist groups is comparable "to what our CIA does."

"If you compare what they're doing, and their involvement — and I would say ours is probably 99% of the interventions around the world," Paul argued, "we're in 160 countries, and Iran is, you know, involved with Hezbollah and the others, trying to protect their interests."

Paul told Berry that the threat posed by Iran was overstated.

"We build up fear that the Iranians are coming," said Paul. "It's a third world nation! They have no air force, no navy, nothing! No missiles! And yet, people are intimidated to say: 'Well, we gotta threaten 'em — if they don't come clean we've gotta drop a bomb on 'em.'"

"I think it's all war propaganda, and it's driven too often by the military-industrial complex," he added.

Later in the interview, Paul pointed to a comparable agreement supported by Ronald Reagan.

"Reagan did another deal with the Soviets, at the height [of the Cold War], and they had 30,000 missiles!" said Paul. "And if the Republicans had done what Obama just did, the Republicans went 'Oh, okay.'"

"They didn't say boo about Reagan doing it!" Paul concluded. "And yet that was even a bigger gamble — but it was the right gamble to make."

Here's Paul on Wednesday:

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And here's Paul on Friday:

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Charlie Neibergall / AP

HOUSTON — Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul downplayed his lackluster fundraising on Friday, arguing that he is polling well and that his campaign has "plenty of money."

"We’re raising plenty of money and I think there’ll be a crescendo as we get into debates and can separate ourselves from the others," Paul said in an interview with BuzzFeed News after a campaign rally in downtown Houston. "We have had no shortage of money."

Paul's campaign reported $6.9 million raised in the latest fundraising totals released after the FEC's second quarter deadline. The main super PAC supporting his bid has not yet released its numbers. By contrast, rival candidate Ted Cruz has raised $14 million and Marco Rubio $12 million. While Jeb Bush raised just $11 million for his campaign itself, his super PAC raised a staggering $100 million.

The disappointing haul has been taken as a sign that Paul's iconoclastic bid has stopped creating as much buzz as it once did. "What the hell happened to Rand Paul?" conservative writer Erick Erickson wrote this week. "Rand Paul should be doing much better. He actually has a good story. He actually has positions that set him apart from the GOP field. He has a built in base of support from his father. But remarkably it appears Rand Paul will be less a factor on 2016 than his dad was in 2012."

NBC News led with the following on a story about Paul on Friday: "Remember Rand Paul?"

There are hopeful signs for Paul in the money race, particularly when it comes to grassroots support. Nearly half of his total — $3.2 million — came from small-dollar donors giving $200 or less.

"There’s something to be said for having hundreds of thousands of donors that are small donors who can give again," Paul told BuzzFeed News. "When I ran for Senate I had someone who gave me thirteen dollars and 66 cents every two weeks for two years. So I've had people who are working class, making thirty, forty thousand dollars a year, become a maximum donor by giving a little bit out of each check.

"We have a really committed crowd," Paul said. "On a workday here, we have 800 people, which is pretty impressive."

However, Paul hasn't been able to bag a benevolent moneyman like the other top tier candidates. His network has looked to Silicon Valley as a potential fount of big money, but so far, key potential donors like Peter Thiel and Sean Parker haven't come through. And his positions on national security alienate the pro-Israel donor class from considering him.

Paul believes he's doing well regardless.

"We actually think we’re in a great place," he said. "In poll after poll after poll we’ve been in the top tier. We’ve led some national polls, they go up and down, there’s a new leader each week."

Paul is in Texas, his home state, this weekend for the rally in Houston and fundraisers and private meetings.

The raucous rally of more than 500 people on Friday made its way from the Phoenix convention center to the Maricopa County sheriff’s jail chanting for Arpaio to resign.

Spurred by the idea that the success of a rally against Sheriff Joe Arpaio would be measured by how many Netroots 15 attendees participated, hundreds of progressives streamed out of the Phoenix convention center to take part Friday.

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Facebook: NetrootsNation

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Trump did not serve in Vietnam. He received four student draft deferments and one medical deferment.

FREDERIC J. BROWN / Getty Images

Speaking at The Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, the reality star and real estate mogul said the 2008 Republican nominee for president is only considered a war hero by some because he was captured.

Frank Luntz: He is a war hero, a war hero.

Donald Trump: He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured — OK, I hate to tell ya. He's a war hero because he was captured, OK? And I believe perhaps he is a war hero, but right now, he said some very bad things about a lot of people.

Here's the video:

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At war with the ride-hailing juggernaut, New York’s mayor wants to talk about ideology, not taxis.

A John Paczkowski Special

So will Bill de Blasio pry the Uber app from his constituents' cold, dead hands?

That is the experiment the New York mayor will start running on Tuesday, when he imposes a cap on the growth of what is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the world and sets up a high-stakes confrontation that will absorb his mayoralty and define the politics of Uber and its lesser-known siblings in the flexible, insecure new economy.

As it stands, de Blasio is about to cap the number of drivers of Ubers and other for-hire car companies, a move that will in turn place limits on a service that is popular among its users, and which has no organized opposition. He is walking into a political buzz saw: Uber has endless cash, real panic about getting capped in its biggest market, and every incentive to make an example of the high-profile New York mayor. The campaign is being run by David Plouffe, who once pulled off the rather impressive feat of persuading Democrats to hate the Clintons, and who immediately made it personal.

"The de Blasio folks think this is going to end on Tuesday, but Uber is just going to chip away at his [poll] numbers," said a top New York Democrat who is among many here doubting the wisdom of the mayor's fight.

De Blasio's aides say he didn't pick the fight, and that Uber was never serious about playing by any rules. But now that he's got a fight on his hands, he has only one real option: to polarize it.

De Blasio's strategy for holding his ground is turning Uber into something along the lines of the National Rifle Association, a powerful lobby that provokes its own backlash, and which is as much about ideology as about bits of metal. That's the terrain on which New York's progressive mayor is comfortable, and it's terrain that Uber — despite its founder's admiration for Ayn Rand — is eager to avoid. The Democratic Party is wrestling with how to respond to what the Center for American Progress calls the "gig economy," and de Blasio hopes to make this fight about much more than transportation.

De Blasio adviser Phil Walzak told me Friday that the mayor plans to make any fight with Uber about much more than traffic in Manhattan. "Uber's track record is worth a conversation and an examination," he said, citing in particular "whether this company has the workplace and consumer protections in place." He promised an "honest conversation" — which everyone in politics knows means throwing the kitchen sink.

A top de Blasio ally said City Hall also expects the city's organized left — the labor movement and its outgrowths — will help organize opposition to Uber. They are the closest thing around to natural supporters for the mayor's side, because it's hard to imagine de Blasio rallying much of anyone to the yellow cab industry. And that may be a stretch: His own progressive supporters have always scratched their heads at his allegiance to the cab owners, who run what some see as rolling sweatshops.

City Hall doesn't buy the notion that Uber is growing fast enough for a cap to disrupt the service. (My colleague Johana Bhuiyan has reported in detail about the substance of this argument.) And the mayor's circle also doesn't believe that Uber is broadly popular, or represents anything most New Yorkers care about.

"It's a boutique side issue," said a top City Hall ally. "There's a small set of excited tech people who are reading Mashable and might think the mayor isn't innovative enough."

Republicans, conveniently, would also like to polarize this fight. "Today, if you're against Uber, you're against the future," the veteran GOP consultant Alex Castellanos told me. Romney's top aide, Stuart Stevens, said that de Blasio's opposition to Uber reflects "a failure to appreciate the chaotic, unique nature of Americans."

De Blasio's aides sigh in relief every time Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio champions the company. Those are the enemies a New York mayor needs.

This is, indeed, the vision both of New York's progressive mayor and of Republican leaders: that this new economy becomes a nationally polarizing, deeply symbolic issue. That it becomes, in fact, more or less like guns — an issue on which the right has largely won on the policy, but which both sides have used to rally their respective bases through the years, as common ground evaporates.

"Guns and Uber both represent more than the commodity people are paying for — they represent a deep philosophy behind them that people are devout to," John Goodwin, a former NRA lobbyist, told me when I floated the analogy. He also thinks de Blasio is going down "a very very dangerous road."

"The hardest thing for any politician is to take something away from someone — whether it's health care or guns or Social Security or the ability to on-demand hail a car," he said.

Uber, understandably, rejects the comparison. They are, unlike guns, popular in urban liberal strongholds. They don't kill people at a higher rate than yellow cabs.

"People get really upset when you start talking about taking things away — that's where the similarities begin and end," said an Uber official.

Uber would prefer this fight to go like the last time de Blasio picked a big ideological fight, his ill-fated attempt to stop the growth of charter schools last year. The mayor soon learned that parents didn't care much about the ideological case against charters, and that their rich backers could derail his agenda and his popularity. The ride-hailing service, similarly, hopes to rally its supporters, and knows that they face no organized opposition besides the nakedly self-interested people who own a bunch of taxi medallions.

The conflict has "nothing to do with the facts about congestion (or safety or workers' rights or whatever else you choose to add to the list), and everything to do with past campaign contributions," New York Uber General Manager Josh Mohrer wrote users over the weekend. (The industry gave more than $350,000 to the mayor's 2013 campaign, a lot in a city with tight fundraising caps.)

De Blasio's hope of making his Uber fight about ideology, not taxis, is a long shot in a situation with few good political options. It does, however, guarantee maximum ugliness in city where everyone's first instinct is to punch below the belt. (Uber has already tried to make this about race, everyone's first move in any city politics conflict.)

"He's got nobody on his side really here, unlike the charter battle," observed the New York Democrat. Meanwhile, "for Uber this is existential — they just have to kick the shit out him forever as an example to other mayors."

Two Democrats will play key roles in deciding whether Uber becomes a polarizing, partisan issue.

One is Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo has crossed progressives repeatedly on economic issues; his favorite hobby is humiliating the mayor, as he did when he decisively ended the charter school fight. The city is, under the law, a creature of the state. Cuomo may well intervene this fall.

The other is Hillary Clinton, who managed to make news by saying exactly nothing about Uber earlier this month. This new economy, she said in a carefully prepared speech, is "unleashing innovation...but also raising hard questions." Well, yes. An aide, Jake Sullivan, later told reporters that "there's no beef" in her comment, clarifying he meant that "in the dramatic sense." The sheer banality of her remark suggests she hasn't yet worked out how she's going to play this one, and may well continue to simply have it both ways.

But she will, likely, be the one who decides whether Uber becomes as partisan and polarizing as guns, or as American as the iPhone.

Charlie Neibergall / AP

The southwest corner of 1st Avenue and 3rd Street was Martin O’Malley territory.

This — for much of the hot and humid Friday afternoon in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — was not in dispute. A few dozen O’Malley people, each wearing an O’Malley t-shirt, stood chanting near a line of cars, each taped with an O’Malley sign. “O-Mall-ee! O-Mall-ee!”

Then came the Hillary Clinton people — twice as many, with more signs and louder cheers — an army of “H” arrows. They moved in on the corner, singing the refrain from “Land of 1000 Dances”: Naaa, na-na-na-naaa, na-na-na-naaa, na-na-naaa-na-na-NA.

But even as the Hillary group took over, engulfing the smaller contingent almost entirely, the O’Malley fans stayed put until the main event: a state party dinner. Across the street was the convention center where, for the first time, from the same stage, O’Malley would face Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — the competition he’s been trying to overtake with as much persistence and as little success as his t-shirted cheer-squad.

The great sign wars of 1st Avenue kicked off a weekend that, in effect, served as the start of the Democratic contest — and put on display the distinctions in approach between the three candidates as the first caucuses and primaries draw closer. Inside the convention hall, Clinton and Sanders each fell into what is, by now, their own familiar rhythms.

He made his call for a “political revolution” to close the gap between rich and poor — and she for a unified front against the other party. Clinton, who leads the field in fundraising and among early voters in key states like Iowa, didn’t acknowledge her primary opponents. “I’m already having a great debate with Republicans,” Clinton told the crowd. The next day, she skipped the annual progressive conference, Netroots Nation, held this year in Phoenix, to headline a state party dinner in Arkansas — the Republican-leaning state where her campaign could hope to compete next year in the general election.

At every point this weekend — as Clinton and Sanders held to their carefully hewn strategies — O’Malley telegraphed, with trademark persistence, that no matter how bad the polls look, he is the candidate who simply won’t go away: who will work harder and mingle longer, who will shake more hands, answer more questions, propose more policy, be the most progressive and most aggressive — the candidate who will always engage.

Supporters of Hillary Clinton and Martin O'Malley shout out dueling cheers in Cedar Rapids on Friday evening.

Ruby Cramer / BuzzFeed

He has, now 50 days into his campaign, taken almost every opportunity.

While Clinton draws headlines about her “strained relations” with the press, O’Malley’s staff rarely turns a reporter away. (On Friday night, his super PAC invited members of the media to an afterparty with the sign-carrying field organizers. “It’s open-press and we promise no rope-lines,” an official said in an email, adding a smiling emoticon. The Clinton cheer-squad, meanwhile, said they weren’t allowed to talk to reporters.)

And while other Democrats in the race, including Sanders, don’t often go after Clinton, O’Malley makes a habit of it — indirectly, at least. (In his Iowa speech, he stressed his support for a $15 minimum wage, days after Clinton declined to endorse it, and suggested she was slow to oppose “bad trade deals” like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.)

But there was no greater show of the O’Malley method than inside the Phoenix Convention Center on Saturday morning — when activists aligned with Black Lives Matter, a social justice group, upended a presidential forum at Netroots Nation.

O’Malley and Sanders spoke separately. The protesters asked each candidate to address questions about violence against blacks involving law enforcement. Both “responded poorly” at the time, as the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors, put it later.

But after the forum — a jarring event that drew attention in and far outside the Netroots gathering — Sanders canceled his afternoon line-up of small meetings, including one with Black Lives Matters backers, according to participants. O’Malley, as his aides were quick to note, added events and sought to apologize for his reaction to the protest.

O’Malley was only through about two questions from Jose Antonio Vargas — a journalist and activist who moderated the forum — before the activists started up their chorus: “What side are you on, my people,” they yelled through the hall. “What side are you on?”

At first, O’Malley tapped his knee along with the chant. But the protesters continued on, bringing the event to a stand-still. O’Malley leaned back and sighed. Vargas didn’t know what to do. When one of the activists mounted the stage, he handed her the microphone.

O’Malley stood off to the side, waiting.

Cullors, the Black Lives Matter co-founder, joined her colleague on stage. “We don’t like shutting shit down.” But we have to, she told the crowd. “We are in a stage of emergency.”

Given the chance to respond, O’Malley fumbled.

When he promised to roll out a “criminal justice reform package,” an activist shouted back, “Don’t generalize that shit.” And when he mentioned his push as governor of Maryland to repeal the state death penalty — telling the protesters that “black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter” — the group boomed back in anger. “We already know white lives matter,” one man yelled. “We don’t want to hear that shit!”

Then Vargas cut the event off. “Oh, man,” O’Malley said. “We just started.” He walked off, quietly chanting along with the crowd. “Black. Lives. Matter… Black. Lives. Matter.”

Sanders was waiting backstage — and apparently ready to deliver his same call for “political revolution,” a stump speech that is almost exclusively centered on the economy and has drawn crowds of thousands from the progressive and labor communities.

As he took his seat next to Vargas, there were regular cheers from the crowd — “we love you, Bernie!” — but the activists still dominated, chanting over the candidate. “Whoa, whoa,” Sanders said. “Let me talk about what I want to talk about for a moment.”

“Say her name, say her name, say her name,” the group yelled back, referring to Sandra Bland, a black woman found dead of an apparent suicide in a Texas jail cell.

“Should I continue or leave?” Sanders asked Vargas. “It’s okay with me.”

Sanders tried shouting his speech over the protesters. “Of course black lives matter,” he finally told them. Sanders looked to the moderator. “What are we doing here?”

“Hold on one second, sir,” said Vargas.

Sanders stared back. “OK. Are you in charge?”

Sanders tries to speak as he is shouted down

Ross D. Franklin / AP

After the forum, O’Malley was out in the crowd. He hurried to tell a reporter that his response to the protest — white lives matter, all lives matter — had been a “mistake.” Then he ran around the conference center: He did an interview, held a roundtable, stopped by a forum, held another forum. And by 1:45 p.m., he was in his second interview of the afternoon — this one with the media outlet, This Week in Blackness.

“That was a mistake on my part,” O’Malley said. “I did not mean to be insensitive in any way or communicate that I did not understand the tremendous passion, commitment, and feeling and depth of feeling that all of us should be attaching to this issue.”

Around the same time, Sanders was scheduled to meet with a small group of activists supporting Black Lives Matters. The senator has been focused with great intensity on the message driving his campaign — income inequality — and the idea behind the meeting was to “get Sanders on track with the conversation about issues around racial justice,” according to Elon James White, who is the founder of This Week in Blackness and was invited to attend the gathering. “His campaign was completely oblivious to the Black Lives Matter campaign and what’s been happening around the movement.”

When White arrived for the meeting, Sanders wasn’t there. It was just a few staffers. White was told, he said later, that Sanders had cancelled all meetings for the afternoon.

“It was absolutely foolish,” he said. “O’Malley is on my stage giving an interview and Sanders is nowhere.” (White called the meeting a “complete waste of my time.”) Cullors, the Black Lives Matter co-founder, was also informed that Sanders had canceled his meetings. She said she still had yet to see “authentic engagement” from any candidate.

Later, Sanders angered members of the Arizona Democratic Party, when he canceled 40 minutes after his scheduled speaking slot, according to Alexis Tameron, the chair of the party. The reason given to Tameron: “logistical issues,” she said. “That was it.”

A Sanders spokesperson did not respond to a question about his schedule.

He finally reappeared in the early evening — at a small gathering hosted by the Latino Victory Project. But when he was asked about Black Lives Matter, Sanders turned the question back on the crowd. “How do we best deal with racism in America?” At his rally later that night — toward the end of his “political revolution” speech — Sanders referenced the protests again. “When a police officer breaks the law, that officer must be held accountable.” And the next day, his campaign tweeted, “#BlackLivesMatter.”

But the incident at Netroots hasn’t done much else to disrupt the race yet. The candidates are still in their same lanes. On Saturday, Sanders drew his largest crowd yet at Netroots — 11,000 people — and Clinton spent her evening in Little Rock talking about the latest offense from Donald Trump, the “party of the past,” and their dangerous politics.

O’Malley was still working: He pushed out his interview with This Week In Blackness, wrote about the protests on Twitter, and generally promoted to the world an incident that, flattering or not, at least showed he was “committed to continuing the conversation.”

Even on Saturday evening, as Sanders was getting ready to take the stage in Phoenix, and as Clinton made her way to the Little Rock arena, O’Malley wore on — walking the halls of Netroots, answering more questions, taking more pictures, meeting more people.

“I hope none of you have sympathy for him because we need to hang him on the courthouse square as soon as we get our hands on him,” said former Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

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Former Sen. Saxby Chambliss says he believes Edward Snowden should be publicly hanged as soon the United States can "get our hands on him."

The Republican from Georgia, who recently retired from the Senate, served previously as the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Chambliss was speaking at the University of Georgia in July, reflecting on his career in the Senate when he made the comments. He was responding to a question about the hack of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the largest data breach in U.S. government history.

"This is real and the worst part of it -- not unlike the Snowden incident, which I hope none of you have sympathy for him because we need to hang him on the courthouse square as soon as we get our hands on him -- but just like we're gonna lose American lives as a result of this breach," Chambliss said earlier this month.

Rudy, no.

Noam Galai / Getty Images

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says he believes Donald Trump is actually helping Republicans by garnering more interest in the primary race.

"I think it's getting very interesting and unlike a lot Republicans I think Trump is making it interesting," the Giuliani said on the Cats Roundtable on AM970 The Answer on Sunday morning, adding he didn't agree completely with his comments on Mexican immigrants.

"I think Trump has enlivened the race," Giuliani stated.

Giuliani added that more people will watch the first Republican debate in August because Trump is in it, and the larger audience will help any candidate that performs well.

"I think Trump is helping them in a way, unlike other Republicans. First of all that debate, in the first week of August on Fox -- because Trump is in that debate it's going to get three times the audience. Which means, if anyone of these people performs well, they'll be three times as many people who get effected by it than if Trump is not in the race."

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“You know in the old days you’d execute Bergdahl.”

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said earlier this year that in the "old days," when the United States was strong, it would have executed Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier held in captivity by the Taliban for five years in Afghanistan.

Bergdahl went missing from his base in Afghanistan's Paktika province in 2009 and was held captive by a Taliban-affiliated group until his release last year as part of a prisoner swap deal involving five senior Taliban figures. He was charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy in March.

"You know in the old days you'd execute Bergdahl," the real estate mogul told Virginia radio host John Fredericks in April of this year. "You know, when this country was strong and powerful and meant something, you would execute Bergdahl. Now he's being protected. They said 'oh well, he had some psychological problems and you know.'"

Trump said in the radio interview that not trading for Bergdahl was "common sense," calling Bergdahl a "traitor" who he would send back to the Taliban.

"So you know, as far as I'm concerned send Bergdahl back," he added. "Drop him right in the middle of those characters and they will take care of it."

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The former Democratic senator from Maine said that he believed the agreement would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

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Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who famously helped negotiate the Belfast Agreement to bring peace to Northern Ireland, said last week he is strongly in favor of the Iran nuclear deal.

"If I were in the Senate I would vote to support the agreement," the former Democratic senator from Maine said while speaking at Patten Free Library in Bath, Maine on Thursday. He said that he believed the agreement would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Mitchell added he thought Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon would be devastating for the world and lead to the number of countries with nuclear weapons to shoot up dramatically.

"It's taken us 60 or 70 years to go from zero to nine (countries with nuclear weapons) and I think we'll go from nine to 29 in just a few years," he said, adding it was "just plain commonsense," to try to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon through negotiations instead of war.

Mitchell said the idea of rejecting the deal and increasing sanctions would not work.

"That is not a realistic proposal for one simple reason," he stated, citing China and Russia as not willing to increase sanctions on Iran.

"Walking away means that the sanctions will dissolve," he added. "We'll keep them on but they will not have the same effect and Iran will then be free to proceed to a nuclear weapons and then our choice will be accepting them with a nuclear weapon or war."

Mitchell said he would tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "that he is wrong."

"In 1993, 22 years ago, he said that Iran was on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon," he said. "He was wrong."

Mitchell pointed to President Ronald Reagan negotiations with the Soviet Union to make the case for the deal. He said the president's opponents want to compare this agreement to a perfect agreement.

"No one," has presented an alternative, he added.

“Does being captured make you a hero? I don’t know. I’m not sure,” Donald Trump told Dan Rather in 2000.

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RATHER: (Voiceover) The way Trump looks at it, he's at least better than everyone else in the race, beginning with John McCain.

Mr. TRUMP: I mean, he was captured.

RATHER: (Voiceover) And he flew combat missions with distinction.

Mr. TRUMP: Does being captured make you a hero? I don't know. I'm not sure.

It is not clear if Trump made similar comments in other interviews at the time. One book, John Karaagac's John McCain: An Essay in Military and Political History, notes that "[i]n a televised interview, Donald Trump -- in his assessment of the candidates -- wondered aloud about McCain's war record. Reading the McCain story, Trump opined, one might hesitate to call McCain's experience 'heroic.'"

Trump came under heavy fire from his fellow Republicans over the weekend for saying that Arizona Sen. John McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, is "not a war hero," and, if he was, it is only because he was captured in the war.

"He's not a war hero," Trump said speaking at The Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa on Saturday.

"He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured — OK, I hate to tell ya. He's a war hero because he was captured, OK? And I believe perhaps he is a war hero, but right now, he said some very bad things about a lot of people."

McCain was captured during the war when his plane was shot down during a combat mission. His torture at the hands of North Vietnam featured repeated savage beatings and rope bindings that left him with limited mobility in his arms.

Megan Apper contributed reporting

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“I think it is likely the next president will be advised in January ’17, you have two and only two choices: either you acquiesce to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon or direct military action must be used to take it out.”

Pat Sullivan / AP

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said on Saturday that the deal to restrict Iran's nuclear program and lift economic sanctions on the country would likely force the next president to take "direct military action" to prevent a nuclear catastrophe that "could cost the lives of tens of millions of Americans."

The Texas senator said in an interview with the Trail Talk podcast over the weekend that it was "very likely that a new president" would be told, in January 2017, that Iran was "on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons." Cruz said the deal rendered economic sanctions "no longer an effective tool," and therefore the new president would be presented with two choices: "acquiesce" or attack.

He said that the "unacceptably high" odds of Iran using a nuclear weapon if it acquired one made it so that President Obama had essentially forced his successor into taking the military option.

"I think it is likely the next president will be advised in January '17, you have two and only two choices," Cruz said. "Either you acquiesce to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon or direct military action must be used to take it out. I think that's unfortunate but that's what President Obama is forcing."

Cruz added that Iran could launch a nuclear warhead from a ship off the Atlantic Coast, setting off an "electromagnetic pulse," which would "take down the electrical grid for the entire Eastern seaboard." Such a disaster, he said, could leave tens of millions of people "unable to get food and water."

"The projections are that tens of millions of Americans would die, as they were unable to get food and water and the basic foodstuffs of life," Cruz said. "That's the threat President Obama's nuclear deal provides and anyone who is remotely qualified to be commander in chief needs to be prepared to do whatever is necessary prevent a threat that could cost the lives of tens of millions of Americans."

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CRUZ: "If Congress does not stop this deal, I think it will be the single greatest challenge a new president in January '17 will confront because it is very likely that a new president when he or she sits down in the Oval Office for the first security briefing, will be told that Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons and because President Obama unraveled the international consensus on sanctions, sanctions will no longer be an effective tool. Because even if you wanted to reimpose sanctions, it would take months, even years, if ever, to bring foreign countries back together in an effective sanctions regime, which means that tool, President Obama's effectively taken away from the next president. I think it is likely the next president will be advised in January '17, you have two and only two choices: either you acquiesce to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon or direct military action must be used to take it out. I think that's unfortunate but that's what President Obama is forcing."

QUESTION: "And President Cruz would entertain a direct military?"

CRUZ: "Under no circumstances would I allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. And I believe any responsible commander in chief should be prepared to do whatever is necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons because if they acquired those weapons, the odds are unacceptably high that they would use them in the skies of Tel Aviv or New York or Los Angeles. That getting this decision wrong could result in the deaths of millions of Americans and in fact it's even worse than that. One of the greatest threats of an Iranian nuke is if they had one nuclear warhead and they put it on a ship anywhere off the Atlantic seaboard and they fired it on a missile straight up in the air into the atmosphere and detonated a nuclear weapon, it would set off what's known as an electromagnetic pulse—an EMP, which would take down the electrical grid for the entire Eastern seaboard. The projections are that tens of millions of Americans would die, as they were unable to get food and water and the basic foodstuffs of life. That's the threat President Obama's nuclear deal provides and anyone who is remotely qualified to be Commander in Chief needs to be prepared to do whatever is necessary prevent a threat that could cost the lives of tens of millions of Americans."

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“This is a strong guy knows what he wants, and this is what we need.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

President Obama held his first prime-time press briefing — designed to build support for the economic stimulus package that was his top priority upon taking office — on Feb. 9, 2009. Later that same night, real estate mogul Donald Trump took to the airwaves to sing the plan's — and the president's — praises.

"I thought he did a terrific job," Trump told Fox News's Greta Van Susteren. "This is a strong guy knows what he wants, and this is what we need."

"First of all, I thought he did a great job tonight," said Trump. "I thought he was strong and smart, and it looks like we have somebody that knows what he is doing finally in office, and he did inherit a tremendous problem. He really stepped into a mess, Greta."

Van Susteren then asked Trump if a simple payroll tax holiday might be a better way to stimulate the flagging economy. Trump, however, held firm in his support for Obama's plan, which he praised for the wide breadth of approaches it took to combatting the crisis.

"Well, I think taxes are very good. I think it goes quickly. It is easily done, and etc., etc.," Trump told Van Susteren, "but building infrastructure, building great projects, putting people to work in that sense is also very good, so I think you have a combination of both plus he is doing a rebate system and I think that is good also."

Van Susteren tried again, questioning whether Trump thought that "the breakdown between spending projects and taxes" in the president's plan was the right one. And again, Trump offered praise for Obama's proposal.

"Well, I have analyzed the bill as closely as it can be analyzed in this quick a period of time, but he's really got a combination of both," Trump replied. "He is doing the taxes, he is doing rebates, and he is also doing lots of public works."

Trump went on to qualify his enthusiasm slightly, noting that a "couple of things slip in there which are bad."

In the end, however, he returned to his strong support for the president and his plan.

"It is a bad sound bite," said Trump, "but I thought he did a terrific job. This is a strong guy knows what he wants, and this is what we need."

Among the tens of thousands of Clinton administration documents made public for the first time this spring were LITERALLY BOXES of letters sent to the four-legged inhabitants of the White House in the ’90s. Here are some of the best.

Nathan wanted a "paw printed picture" of the First Pets.

George wanted his own cat.

Musti and Harmo — from Finland — were "big fans" of Socks.

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