“To me, the provisions in this deal are like telling teenage boys, not only can you have the doors closed, but we got to shout up the stairs before we walk up the steps.”

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

Scott Walker said on Wednesday that the United States should treat the inspection of Iran's nuclear facilities the way parents treat inspections of teenage boys' bedrooms.

"Throughout the process, I've spoke out repeatedly about it," the Wisconsin governor told Iowa radio host Simon Conway. "I've got two boys in college now, but when they were in high school, we'd have a rule that they could have friends over, including girls, as long as the door to their room was open."

He added that "the provisions in this deal" would be like allowing teen boys keep their doors closed and warning them before entering the room.

"To me, the provisions in this deal are like telling teenage boys, not only can you have the doors closed, but we got to shout up the stairs before we walk up the steps, 'Hey, we're coming up to check and see what you're doing. Just want to give you advance notice.' It makes no sense," Walker said.

"You wouldn't do it as a parent and we certainly shouldn't be doing it with the leading sponsor—the leading country when it comes to state-sponsored terrorism," he concluded.

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ACLU lawyer tells BuzzFeed News that the charges relate to Manning having prohibited materials in prison, including Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover story.

The Associated Press

Chelsea Manning faces indefinite solitary confinement after being charged with having prohibited materials in prison, one of her lawyers told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday.

Manning was convicted of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses in July 2013 after leaking thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. She currently is serving a 35-year prison sentence at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.

ACLU attorney Chase Strangio told BuzzFeed News that he is yet to see the charging document — and BuzzFeed News has not reviewed any documentation of the new charges. An Army spokesman did not respond to a request for the charging document and comment on the charges.

Strangio, however, did tell BuzzFeed News that the charging document — read over the phone by Manning to Christina DiPasquale, a public relations consultant, and communicated to Strangio — specifies that punishment could include indefinite solitary confinement.

Strangio noted that the charges have been brought against Manning by military officials at the prison and stated that Manning will have a hearing on the charges on August 18.

"Here Chelsea is at risk of losing various support networks simply because she had an expired tube of toothpaste, the Vanity Fair magazine that featured Caitlyn Jenner and requested a lawyer when she felt she was being accused of misconduct," Strangio told BuzzFeed News of the charges.

Supporters of Manning, led by Fight for the Future's Evan Greer and promoted by DiPasquale, have started a petition to raise awareness of the new charges.

Among the materials that DiPasquale told BuzzFeed News were confiscated from Manning are The Advocate and Out magazines; an issue of Cosmopolitan with an interview of Manning; Transgender Studies Quarterly; and a novel about transgender issues, A Safe Girl to Love.

According to the petition, the alleged misconduct that led to Manning requesting to speak with her lawyer related to her "sweeping some food onto the floor." The petition states that a charge of "improper medicine use" resulted from Manning having the expired tube of toothpaste.

"Given the materials that were confiscated, it is concerning that the military and Leavenworth might be taking action for the purpose of chilling Chelsea's speech or even with the goal of silencing her altogether by placing her in solitary," Strangio wrote. "Hopefully with public scrutiny the prison will respond by dismissing these charges and ensuring that she is not unfairly targeted based on her activism, her identity, and her pending lawsuit."

Huckabee’s Super PAC paid his travel company $30,000 this May, recalling the 1990s, when Huckabee’s Senate campaign paid a communications company of which he was the sole employee.

Danny Johnston / ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Super PAC supporting Mike Huckabee paid a travel company he runs just under $30,000 this May, according to FEC records first reported by the campaign money watchdog OpenSecrets.

It's not the first time the Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor, who is listed as the manager of Blue Diamond Travel, LLC, has had one of his companies benefit from his political campaigns.

During his 1992 bid for the Senate, which he lost to Dale Bumpers, Huckabee's campaign paid more than $17,000 to an unincorporated firm named Cambridge Communications. According to a report from the time in The Commercial Appeal, the company provided "television and print production services for the campaign." Huckabee was its lone employee.

While Huckabee wasn't penalized for this practice, he was hit with a fine for an ethics violation related to his 1992 campaign. The Arkansas Ethics Commission found that, in reporting his sources of personal income, he omitted the $14,000 his campaign paid his wife, Janet, for her contributions as a campaign treasurer. At the time of the fine, which was levied in 1998, his lawyer told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the failure to report the money was a mistake and that it had been reported on other public forms, such as the campaign's financial reports.

Huckabee was also fined another $500 in 1998 for taking over $43,000 from the Huckabee Re-Election Committee while running to be re-elected as Arkansas' lieutenant governor in 1994. The ethics commission argued that he used the money for a personal plane and then neglected to report it as a source of personal income.

Politico reported in 2007 that Huckabee later sued the ethics commission, claiming that its investigations infringed upon his due process rights. The commission responded by suing him. The parties ultimately settled out of court.

Jorge Silva is leaving Harry Reid’s staff, where he served as senior advisor for Hispanic media, to join the Clinton campaign to run Latino media, the campaign confirms.

Jim Cole / AP

Hillary Clinton has hired an experienced operative to lead Hispanic media for her campaign, adding Harry Reid's senior adviser for Latino media, Jorge Silva, the campaign has confirmed.

Silva, who starts on Monday, is the latest example of the campaign's focus on bringing on Hispanic staffers and gives it a deeply experienced team in the crucial swing state of Nevada.

He developed and implemented Hispanic media strategy in states like Colorado, New Mexico, and some parts of California, in addition to Nevada, as the senior strategist for the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Nathaly Arriola, who worked with Silva under Reid and served on Obama's Hispanic media team during his reelection campaign, said he has been behind the scenes for every major push the Democratic Party has engaged in when it comes to the Latino community during the last four to five years.

She said the Obama campaign modeled their Hispanic strategy after Reid's successful 2010 reelection with a focus on regional and district-specific approaches to Latino media — something the sprawling Clinton operation can make use of.

"In a campaign full of spokespeople, in a well-established operation, you don't need another spokesperson," she said. "You need someone to run the operation and make sure folks in the states are being heard."

The addition of Silva now gives Clinton's campaign a strong team in Nevada, as he joins state director Emmy Ruiz and organizing director Jorge Neri, who both had the same roles in 2012 for Obama helping him garner 70% of the Latino vote in the crucial swing state.

The key to Silva's strategy with Reid was to identify the regional news organizations and newspapers and engage them, give them content, and provide access to Reid.

A source with knowledge of Silva's approach said the way this could work for Clinton is bringing her message to the Hispanic community, but tweaking it if a small community is more interested in one issue over another.

Silva also played a big role for Reid on another issue that has flummoxed and mobilized Democrats of late: how to deal with the LIBRE Initiative, a Latino conservative organization financially backed by the billionaire Koch brothers.

Because Silva was monitoring local Spanish-language newspapers, he noticed that LIBRE was doing small community events that no one else knew were happening. He flagged this up the chain in early 2012, before LIBRE would become well-known in the Democratic Party, and soon enough, Reid was thundering about the Koch brothers trying to infiltrate the Latino community on the Senate floor.

When the retiring Reid found out about Silva joining the Clinton campaign, he said it was a big deal, a source said, seeing it as another way of continuing his legacy of grooming Latino operatives.

Big crowds are fueling what the campaign calls a unique professionalized volunteer infrastructure. Meanwhile, in Iowa and New Hampshire, a traditional, paid boots-on-the-ground campaign is still figuring out how to turn 28,000 screaming Sanders fans in Oregon into votes in the primary states.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Bernie Sanders is running the most innovative campaign for president of anyone, his aides say. Separately, he's also running the most traditional campaign for president, his aides say.

How, and if, the twain shall meet could be the difference between Sanders as summer 2015 distraction and Sanders as serious threat to Hillary Clinton in 2016. His campaign machine is still in the process of launching just a few months after Sanders declared his bid for the White House. Twin operations — what one senior aide called "parallel campaigns" — are under construction.

First, there are the traditional paid operations in Iowa and New Hampshire. And second, a digital operation designed to harness Sanders enthusiasm into a relatively low-cost, high visibility national volunteer grassroots army.

Over the weekend, Sanders drew tens of thousands to three massive rallies on the west coast. Sanders fanatics waited for hours outside basketball arenas in Seattle and Portland to watch the uniquely all-vegetables Sanders political extravaganza — there were no fancy light shows, no opening band, opening video or, for the most part, any of the trappings of other large political gatherings. While Los Angeles crowd got a speech from comedian Sarah Silverman, the thousands in Seattle and Portland saw a handful of local activists and elected officials who introduced Sanders and talked about his record before kicking off the main event.

Then there was Sanders. He stood alone on an empty stage (save for a lectern bearing one of his campaign signs) and lectured for nearly an hour with a stump speech mostly devoid of rhetorical tricks.

And the response is the same each time: staggering, shattering enthusiasm.

The 73-year-old Democratic Socialist got screaming, standing ovations when he described something as mundane as the average interest rate people can get when they refinance their homes vs. the (higher, he said) rate they get for a student loan.

Any politician would kill for this. The Sanders political organization is still figuring out how to translate it into caucus-goers and voters. At a campaign stop in Oakland, California Monday, Sanders agreed that turning big crowds blue states into voters in the early primary calendar purple states was the key to his campaign.

"You're absolutely right. You can have 28,000 people coming out to a rally and that's great but you're not going to succeed unless you convert that energy into a grassroots movement and make sure people are voting," Sanders told BuzzFeed News. "What we are doing now, and I have to again say we've only been in this race for three-and-a-half months. Four months ago, my wife will tell you we were not sure we were going to do this thing. So we started with no organization."

Sanders said his nascent effort in Iowa is working along traditional lines, with a lot of phone calling and door-knocking run through paid staff efforts. He promised "a massive grassroots campaign in New Hampshire, as well" and said "we're starting to gear up in South Carolina and in Nevada and other states, as well."

"But I will not deny to you that we've got a lot of work to do," he said. "I think we're going to bring millions of people into [our] movement and that's how we're going to win this election."

That process was on display up and down the west coast over the weekend.

Right now, the supporters at Sanders' huge public events are being funnelled into a digital campaign run by Sanders' longtime digital aide, Kenneth Pennington. Outside huge Sanders rallies in Portland and Seattle, teams of volunteers wandered among the queues of supporters waiting to get in and gathered email addresses and phone numbers on clipboards. Inside the event, supporters were admonished to send a text message to Sanders' campaign, logging them and instantly signing them up for offers to volunteer and attend future Sanders grassroots events in their area.

Meanwhile, the tens of thousands who turn in for the events online are urged to share links all across their various social media accounts that also collect names and email addresses. Sanders' social media engagement is strong, and the campaign has shown off on several occasions how it can leverage the huge numbers of online followers its collected so far. On the night of the Republican presidential debate, Sanders had the most-retweeted tweet of any candidate, either party, of the night. To pack the large venues for his big west coast speeches, Sanders put the word out on social media just a week before they happened.

In a phone interview, Pennington said the whole digital effort is aimed at empowering the grassroots to become a sophisticated national field operation — with a relatively tiny national field staff befitting Sanders' small-dollar campaign. Those who agree to volunteer are connected with "grassroots team leaders" — especially reliable volunteers who help manage phone banks, letter-to-the-editor writing parties, and canvassing efforts. Grassroots team leaders are given regular digital and conference call trainings from Sanders staff and in-person training from "Builders" — super volunteers who are talking to Sanders headquarters constantly, giving a lot of their time to the campaign and coordinating trainings and field efforts with the paid staff in Vermont. The system is heavy on metrics, Pennington said. Volunteers regularly give reports to grassroots team leaders. They in turn give regular reports to builders who give their own reports to staff.

"People who get things done are rewarded with greater and greater responsibility," Pennington said.

The system is called the steer pyramid. Pennington said it differs from other grassroots digital efforts in past campaigns due its reliance on volunteers over staff for a lot of the basic work of building a field operation.

"The old system relied heavily on staff organizers, what the Obama campaign did with unpaid, but full-time organizers — basically unpaid interns. We don't have unpaid interns," Pennington said. "We're noticing increasingly that our volunteers are capable of doing a lot of heavy lifting on their own."

Here's what that looks like: Wednesday morning, the Sanders campaign emailed a few hundred of its builders, asking them to follow up on the successful west coast swing. Within hours, 200 ideas for events were submitted across the country. Anyone can suggest an event through the Sanders website but each has to be approved, often by a builder-level volunteer. Pennington said he expects thousands of events soon.

The focus on volunteer-managed field and letting the grassroots grow on their own isn't just a function of money, Pennington said.

"The unique system we have working here is actually a Bernie Sanders idea," he said, saying it had similarities to campaigns Sanders has run in Vermont. "We have to mobilize in a grander scale than anything we've done before, but it flows out of his vision for political revolution."

The huge events across the country he's become known for have drastically increased the number of potential volunteers in the Sanders database. This national system of volunteers thousands of miles from the early primary states running and managing events in their own neighborhoods builds the Sanders brand, could eventually lead to "drive ins," where thousands of volunteers pour across the border into Iowa and of course help raise money. But it's not necessarily designed to win among the special circumstances of the early states.

"Digital is happening on a parallel track to Iowa and New Hampshire," Pennington said.

So: how does a 28,000-person crowd help Sanders get votes in New Hampshire?

"We don't exactly have a 1, 2, 3-step plan yet," said Julia Barnes, Sanders' Granite State director. She just took the job two weeks ago after being the executive director of the Vermont Democratic Party and is still creating the plan that will turn Sanders enthusiasm into votes on Primary Day. Before that, she worked on a number of New Hampshire campaigns.

Barnes was hired for her experience, and she expects to rely heavily on a traditional campaign model, featuring offices up and down the state, paid staff to work in them and a top-down field structure that's less like Pennington's and more like most other candidates who have tried to win New Hampshire in the past.

"There's going to be a component of tradition here. We're not throwing out the old standards," she said. "A huge component of our program is face-to-face voter contact."

The sprawling digital campaign offers some unique assets other campaigns don't have, Barnes said. The online effort creates a level of enthusiasm that is helpful in convincing local officials and experienced people to sign up. The online campaign will run alongside the traditional efforts, too, with volunteers in the steer pyramid creating events across the state. Barnes will have her offices and her more structured efforts.

"There is a lot of time and energy that goes with connecting with voters in New Hampshire and we are in the process of building that relatively quickly," she said. She's managing a breakneck effort to get Sanders the paid infrastructure he needs to compete.

"I expect by the beginning of September you'll see our numbers really bloom," she said.

Even with the focus on tradition, the chance to leverage the Sanders online army excites Barnes and her fellow New Hampshire veterans on the Sanders team and, she said, could be the campaign's edge.

"My experience and the folks who are coming aboard in New Hampshire now have a long history doing traditional campaigns in New Hampshire," she said. But Pennington's raucous online army is giving the effort "an energy we've never felt before," she said.

"It's really a professional dream for me to be able to utilize all these new resources," Barnes added.

The Sanders Iowa effort is very similar to the New Hampshire effort in that it's more like Iowa campaigns of cycles past than it the all-volunteer, all grassroots Sanders national effort.

Pete D'Alessandro, a veteran Iowa caucus operative dating back to 1999 when he became New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley's presidential campaign political director, is Sanders' state director. He's managing a growing number of offices throughout Iowa — 13 by the end of next week, he told BuzzFeed News.

The massive events for Sanders in far-flung places like Seattle and Los Angeles result in people coming into offices and asking how they can get involved, D'Alessandro said. They also serve as a great way to fire up those grinding through the monotony of field organizing.

"We're able to make it, 'Hey, we know we're doing phone banks all week, but come into the office and do a watch party for Bernie,'" he said. "It gives you that little extra thing to do for your organizers. You're gonna get some pizza, get some sodas, connect. So that's a positive."

Like Barnes in New Hampshire, D'Alessandro has been impressed by what the Sanders online army, fueled by the high-profile national appearances, is able to add to the traditional Iowa campaign. "This campaign has a much higher number of non-staff volunteers who take on regular duties much earlier than in other campaigns," he said. "People saying things like, 'there's a parade in my town' and then get people to the parade."

So: The huge crowds in Portland fuel the huge online army which in turn bolsters the traditional campaign D'Alessandro is running in Iowa. Maybe. But in the end, he said, the size of the crowd doesn't matter.

"I know why you guys think it's cool when 2,500 people show up in Council Bluffs, Iowa," he said. "That's a story in itself. But all we care about is how many can we get to commit to caucus."

Enviable online presence, jaw-droppingly huge crowds, millions of dollars raised without a billionaire donor. These are already Sanders success stories. But they're not victory.

"The only thing we're going to be judged on is how many people can you get to caucus," D'Alessandro said.

In a 1992 study, Carson and his colleagues from Johns Hopkins used fetal tissue to better understand how the human brain develops. But in the wake of the Planned Parenthood videos, the presidential candidate has called fetal tissue research “disturbing.”

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images / Via gettyimages.com

Ben Carson, a Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate, previously did research using human fetal tissue.

In the wake of the hidden-camera videos showing Planned Parenthood doctors discussing how to provide aborted fetuses to scientific researchers, Carson has told Fox News that the benefits of this research have been "overpromised" and "under-delivered."

Late on Wednesday, an OB/GYN and science writer Jen Gunter revealed on her blog a 1992 study in which Carson and three other colleagues used tissue from the fetal brain and nasal cavity to better understand the development of the chambers (or "ventricles") of the brain. These tissues "were obtained from two fetuses aborted at the ninth and and 17th week of gestation," the paper says.

Last month on the Fox News program The Kelly File, Carson said:

"At 17 weeks, you've got a nice little nose and little fingers and hands and the heart's beating. It can respond to environmental stimulus. How can you believe that that's just an irrelevant mass of cells? That's what they want you to believe, when in fact it is a human being."

Aborted fetuses have been used for a wide variety of medical research for decades. The vast majority of scientists who depend on this tissue are refusing to talk about it, afraid of retribution from anti-abortion activists.

"As a neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson knows full well that fetal tissue is essential for medical research," Gunter wrote in her post. "His discipline would have a hard time being [where] it is today without that kind of work."

Carson told the Washington Post that Gunter's post was "desperate."

"If you're killing babies and taking the tissue, that's a very different thing than taking a dead specimen and keeping a record of it," Carson said. (His campaign subsequently sent BuzzFeed News a statement, published below.)

Carson has not explained how his team's procurement of fetal tissues was any different from what was described in the Planned Parenthood videos. Many top-tier universities obtain their tissue samples from abortion clinics.

When asked by email to clarify this point, Carson's communications director, Doug Watts, told BuzzFeed News that Carson was not involved in procuring the fetal cells:

"Dr. Carson's involvement in this 1992 study was supplying tumors that he removed from patients," Watts wrote.

"The microscope slides of those tumors were compared with pre-existing microscope slide of fetal tissues by pathologists," he continued. "Those slides have existed for decades and are often compared to diseased tissue for clues in pathology. Dr Carson had nothing to do with the acquisition of these potentially decades old fetal tissue slides."

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“We’ve taken on bigger challenges than that in Wisconsin and so, I’m not thwarted by that.”

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

Scott Walker is tired of hearing about Donald Trump.

Walker, who wants to run on his conservative record as a Wisconsin governor who was elected three times in a blue state, says mostly around the country he just gets asked about The Donald.

When asked if he found it frustrating that The Donald sucks the oxygen out of the room, his response on 620 WTMJ radio was: "Yes, it really is."

"It's just one of those -- where there's a lot of important issues out there -- but more than often not, around the country that's most of what we get asked about. We've taken on bigger challenges than that in Wisconsin and so, I'm not thwarted by that."

Walked said he's not concerned that The Donald was in first in the latest Iowa poll, adding that his campaign is like a track race.

"For us it's steady, steady as you go," he said.

Trump slammed Walker during an appearance in Iowa late last month after a Walker supporter called Trump "DumbDumb" while fundraising.

"Wisconsin is doing terribly,'' Trump said. "The roads are a disaster because they don't have any money to rebuild them, and they're borrowing money like crazy.''

Walker says The Donald was just using the Democrats' rhetoric.

"He used basically the same Democrat talking points we've heard over the last four plus years here," said Walker. "And, as I noted, they didn't work."

Still, Walker thinks Trump has staying power.

"I think so, mostly just because he's so well known," he said. "He's not just a flash in the pan. He's somebody that people know of because of the years of his name.

Walker concluded by noting Trump was tapping into "genuine frustration" about things not getting done in Washington, but said he'd have to make the case that he was the candidate that could "shake up the status quo."

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O’Malley has come out strong on immigration, Puerto Rico’s financial crisis, and has called Donald Trump racist for his comments about Mexicans. So why isn’t anyone paying attention?

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

At the National Council of La Raza conference in Kansas City last month, Martin O'Malley talked about his Maryland record with Latinos: passing the DREAM Act, giving licenses to undocumented immigrants, and increasing government contracts to Hispanic-owned businesses by 154%.

The next day in New York City on July 14, he laid out a progressive eight-page immigration plan, and took time to call Donald Trump "racist" for his comments about Mexicans while he was at it.

And then he was in Puerto Rico two weeks later, too, addressing the island's financial and health care crisis, between sips of a mango smoothie.

The former Maryland governor has gone to great lengths to focus on issues relating to Hispanics — making a personal plea to former Obama Hispanic media director Gabriela Domenzain to join the campaign and advise him — but has thus far found it difficult to gain traction in the polls between the growing and adoring liberal crowds coming out for Bernie Sanders and the well-known, well-funded frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.

Lost in the coverage of Clinton slipping behind Sanders in a New Hampshire poll released Tuesday, was that O'Malley was polling at the same level as former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee in the state. Both have done little to no campaigning. A Wednesday fundraising email from the campaign titled "a personal request" cited four polls showing that O'Malley's support has gone from 1% to 3% to 5% to 7% in Iowa, rising, but still far behind the other candidates.

Still, the campaign has made it clear that it believes O'Malley is leading Clinton and Sanders on issues that matter to Hispanic Americans, and even though he won't use those words himself, the campaign hopes it can be an area where he separates himself from his opponents.

"I think I'm leading Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton on issues that matter to all Americans," O'Malley told BuzzFeed News. "We're running a campaign focused on the better choices we need to make as a country and comprehensive immigration reform is one of those."

Many Democrats say that before promising big changes to the immigration system during elections was enough; but the environment in 2015 is that Congress has not passed new immigration laws despite multiple major campaigns to do so — and meanwhile, executive action has become a frontier for policy change.

O'Malley supports further executive action — and specific policies long desired by activists. For instance, he'd like an end to the 34,000-bed mandate that maintains large populations in federal detention centers; he's even called for Affordable Care Act coverage to be extended for DREAMers and millions of undocumented immigrants affected by Obama's executive actions. The last point led influential Univision anchor Jorge Ramos to tweet that it was the most inclusive immigration plan released by a presidential candidate thus far.

The problem for O'Malley is simple: Clinton stole any potential thunder for him on immigration.

In the late spring, at a high school event in Nevada, Clinton may have had the benefit of low expectations, but she stunned activists who were more than ready to be disappointed. She said she would go further than Obama administratively and blasted the bed mandate and private management of detention facilities, though she did not mention the health care issue.

The O'Malley campaign says while Clinton has her words on immigration, he has his record. During his NCLR speech he said "las palabras NO son hechos" in Spanish — words aren't actions.

The campaign points to Clinton's comments during the height of the surge of unaccompanied minors coming from Central America when she said they should be given as much love as possible, but many should be ultimately sent back.

O'Malley angered the administration by saying sending back the children would be sending them "back to certain death" and now Maryland, the campaign says, has more of the children per capita than other states.

"They're no longer unaccompanied," O'Malley said. "They're being taken care of by foster families in Maryland."

On Puerto Rico, the campaign stresses that he was the first declared candidate to go to the island. (Jeb Bush went before he announced he was running and Clinton announced her trip on Tuesday.) The campaign said Puerto Rican companies should be able to file for bankruptcy, and Puerto Ricans should be able to file for equitable reimbursement rates on Medicare under the health care law. Right now they receive 6 or 7 cents on the dollar compared to Americans in the United States.

O'Malley has long had an old sign on his desk that reads "No Irish need apply." He said it's perhaps because of this that he has "a soft spot for island people being treated unjustly."

He argued that how the federal government acts regarding Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth unable to pay its debts, will reverberate throughout Latin America, and framed it as a way of regaining lost standing in the region.

"Whether we stand with the governor and help him renegotiate this debt or do a hands off approach and let them get worked over by powerful folks from Wall Street broadcasts much farther than Puerto Rico," he said.

The candidate's interest in the issue mirrors his staff's. Domenzain was at her family's farmhouse in Florida when she received a May phone call from O'Malley himself.

Two days before he announced his candidacy, he told her that he was not just playing constituency politics, he was ready to run on issues that speak to people of color.

Domenzain dismissed those who would say that speaking up for undocumented immigrants or Puerto Ricans on the island who can't vote is a waste of time politically.

"The I-4 corridor is a decisive vote in Florida," she said of the largely Puerto Rican part of Florida. "It's not true that if you talk to press in Puerto Rico the I-4 doesn't know about it." But the larger argument is that it's the right thing to do, she said.

Domenzain noted that O'Malley includes immigration in his criminal justice platform, linking black and brown issues, and is the only candidate who has called on the Dominican Republic to stop the mass deportation of Haitians, which he wrote about in an op-ed in the Huffington Post and discussed on Haitian radio.

When it comes to Clinton, the O'Malley campaign has been quick to broadcast when it feels it is being given short shrift, either with the media on positions it says he took before she did, but also with smaller perceived slights.

On Clinton's big announcement this week, of a broad plan to offer debt-free college, the campaign sent out a release that said he "has led, not followed" on the issue. When NCLR sent an email blast announcing that Clinton would speak at its event, the campaign grumbled that they were glad she was joining O'Malley weeks after he confirmed.

Domenzain has also criticized the Clinton campaign on Twitter, suggesting campaign officials were using Google Translate for its tweets in Spanish. (Her screenshot from Google did not match the language in the tweet, however.)

A recent Univision poll showed Clinton with 73% support from Democratic Latino voters, while Sanders and O'Malley did not break 10%. The Clinton campaign has also made many Latino hires, including high-profile roles like national political director Amanda Renteria and treasurer Jose Villarreal, who is informally leading the Latino fundraising effort. The O'Malley campaign has not hired nearly as many Latino operatives and was hit for their diversity numbers in a July report.

The reality of the polling, though, continues to be an issue — even as activists and Democrats note they like his proposals.

Erika Andiola, a national immigration activist, was in Arizona when O'Malley met with and heard the stories of undocumented immigrants at the offices of Puente Arizona, an activist group. She said out of the three candidates O'Malley has the best platform on Latino and immigrant issues, but it's "hard to challenge Hillary just with O'Malley, because he's behind in the polls."

She lauded O'Malley for speaking out against government opposition to a court ruling to end family detention and said the Clinton campaign should look to some of his policy planks, like the health care for DREAMers idea.

Democratic strategist Jose Parra said O'Malley's place in the polls is not a function of his positions being wrong or him being a bad candidate, but of people lining up with the winner.

He said O'Malley should keep positioning himself the way he is because if "you don't keep pushing and then the opening comes, what do you do?"

But he also said having candidates talking constructively about Latino issues is ultimately good for the Democratic Party.

"You are seeing the Democratic field trying to out-Latino each other as opposed to Republicans that are trying to out-Trump each other," he said.

Notably, The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors anti-semitic language, condemned his comments.

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

Mike Huckabee says the media was wrong when it reported that Jewish organizations were upset with by his comments invoking the Holocaust to criticize President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.

The former Arkansas governor received widespread criticism after saying in June that the Obama administration's nuclear deal "will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven."

Notably, The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors anti-semitic language, condemned his comments. The National Jewish Democratic Council called his remarks "may be the most inexcusable we've encountered in recent memory."

But Huckabee told Washington Watch with Tony Perkins on Wednesday that Jewish organizations were not upset by his comments.

"It's interesting, when I made some comments a few weeks ago, really talking about how horrible this is and used a reference to the Holocaust -- which is quite appropriate since we're talking about targeting Jews -- it was reported by the media, Tony, that Jewish organizations we're upset with me," stated Huckabee. "Well let me assure you, that's just not the case."

Huckabee cited the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which said it agreed with Huckabee, to prove his point. Huckabee said the Friend of Likud also agreed with his remark, though BuzzFeed News could not verify this.

Huckabee also repeated a line he's often made in defending the remarks, saying that Holocaust survivors thanked him for making the comments.

"This notion -- just because the president chose to attack me personally while he was in Ethiopia only to me, made it very clear, that I must have been right directly over the target," concluded Huckabee.

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“Let’s see how far it goes.”

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For Iowa Rep. Steve King, there's one candidate who has gone where no candidate has gone before: Donald Trump.

Speaking with Iowa public television this week, King, who has become a kingmaker of sorts in Iowa presidential politics, said he wouldn't rule out endorsing The Donald.

"I surely wouldn't rule out Donald Trump," King said. "He has shown a confidence and leadership and he has been able to step forward and say things that were true, he has been attacked for these things and they have turned out to, many of them, be true."

King, who has in the past made controversial comments about undocumented immigrants, pointed to the media's reporting that a rally in Arizona where Trump railed against undocumented immigrants merely got 4,000 people, while Trump said it was 15,000. King said "a friend" counted the amount of people at the rally and it was indeed 15,000.

"Donald Trump has turned out large numbers of people, he has tapped into that nerve. Now let's see how far it goes," continued the Iowa lawmaker. "We've been in no place like this in history before. Ross Perot didn't do this to this kind of magnitude. We've never had a candidate that came in from the outside and launched himself early and sustained an ascending campaign. We'll see if Donald Trump can do that."

King said Trump has "has tapped into a vast reservoir of the fed up Americans," and that this is causing his surge in the polls.

King added he thought it "foolish" for the real estate tycoon to rule out a third party run while he's at the top of the polls. Still, King said he wouldn't advise Trump to do it.

"If I were advising Donald Trump today, and he being where he is in the polls, I think it would be foolish for him to rule out a third party run because of this, he's at the top of the polls," said King. "So why should he be making decisions on what he might do if he doesn't win the nomination from the Republican Party?"

"If it comes down to that point of a decision to run as a third party candidate, that would not be my advice to Donald Trump," he concluded.

Court rules against religious liberty, free speech claims.

WASHINGTON — The Colorado court of appeals on Thursday ruled that a baker there violated the state's nondiscrimination law by refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex couple's wedding.

In doing so, the court rejected the baker's claim that forcing him to do so violated his free speech and religious freedom rights.

"Masterpiece remains free to continue espousing its religious beliefs, including its opposition to same-sex marriage," the court held. "However, if it wishes to operate as a public accommodation and conduct business within the State of Colorado, CADA prohibits it from picking and choosing customers based on their sexual orientation."

The unanimous decision of the three-judge court upheld lower administrative decisions, including from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, that also found against the bakery, Masterpiece Cakeshop, and its owner Jack C. Phillips.

In detailing the legal issues in dispute, the court noted that Masterpiece and Phillips argued that they had not treated the same-sex couple differently because of their sexual orientation but, instead, only was addressing their opposition to the conduct of a same-sex couple's intent to marry.

The court held, however, that "discrimination on the basis of one's opposition to same-sex marriage is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation."

The case is one of several that have arisen across the country in the wake of marriage equality — although some, like a New Mexico case involving a photographer, were not tied to marriage ceremonies but related instead to commitment ceremonies. The cases also are being fought out as state legislatures in several states have considered expanding religious liberty protections, with some legislation attempting to address cases involving wedding-related service providers.

The court ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional. The main effect of the ruling is on those put on death row before the state repealed the death penalty in 2012.

The death chamber at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia.

Ric Feld / ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the state's death penalty violates the state's constitution, sparing the lives of the 11 men on death row. The legislature had repealed the death penalty for future sentences in 2012, but left open the possibility that those sentenced prior to then could be executed.

Inmates who were sentenced to death before the repeal argued that executing them based on the date of the sentence would be an arbitrary distinction. In a 4–3 decision, the court ruled Thursday that "new insights," along with the legislature's ban, show that "the death penalty no longer can be justified as a necessary or appropriate tool of justice."

"Although the prospective nature of [the repeal] reflects the intent of the legislature that capital punishment shall die with a whimper, not with a bang, its death knell has been rung nonetheless," the ruling states. "Our elected representatives have determined that the machinery of death is irreparable or, at the least, unbecoming to a civilized modern state."

The opinion compared the end of the death penalty with the extinction of the dinosaurs. The gradual shift in standards of decency was the state evolving away from the punishment, the opinion stated, with the legislature's repeal serving "as the sociological equivalent of the meteor."

Even without Thursday's ruling, it was already a long shot that the men on death row would actually be executed. The state has only put one man to death in the past 50 years — and in that case the killer voluntarily waived his right to appeals.

The 11 inmates formerly on death row will now face life without the possibility of parole.

In a statement, Gov. Dannel Malloy said it was a "somber day" and that the focus "should not be on the 11 men sitting on death row, but with their victims and those surviving families members."

The issue over whether a death penalty repeal applies to those sentenced prior is one that another state faces as well. The Nebraska legislature repealed the death penalty earlier this year, although its governor believes he will still be able to execute those remaining on death row.

Read the full ruling:

LINK: Court Decision Spares Life Of Petit Family Killers In Connecticut

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The New Jersey governor vetoed a bill that would have made it easier for transgender people to change their birth certificates because, he says, “it doesn’t make any sense to me.”

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Chris Christie said on Wednesday a bill he vetoed that would have allowed transgender people to change the gender identifications on their birth certificates without undergoing sex reassignment surgery went "beyond the pale" and didn't "make any sense."

Asked about his decision by radio host Michael Medved, Christie said, "Listen, you know, for people who do not have a sex change operation, all the bill required was that somebody would seek a doctor's treatment and that that doctor would verify that, in fact, they felt like the opposite gender."

The bill, which the New Jersey governor vetoed on Monday, would have required that people show proof that they underwent "clinically appropriate treatment for the purpose of gender transition, or that the person has an intersex condition." Christie nixed the same bill once before in 2014.

In the radio interview, Christie defended his decision, saying that "there are certain things that just go beyond the pale" and that "it doesn't make any sense to me."

"I have to tell you the truth, Michael, you know, there are certain things that just go beyond the pale," he said. "And that's not what I'm gonna permit the law to be in New Jersey. It doesn't make any sense to me and that's why I vetoed it again and if they send it to me again, I will veto it again."

In the statement he issued on Monday to explain the decision, however, Christie cited the security of "many of our nation and state's critical and protected benefits" as the reason he vetoed the bill.

"Birth certificates unlock access to many of our nation and state's critical and protected benefits such as passports, driver's licenses, and social services, as well as other important security-dependent allowances," the governor's statement said. "Accordingly, I remain committed to the principle that efforts to significantly alter state law concerning the issuance of vital records that have the potential to create legal uncertainties should be closely scrutinized and sparingly approved."

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China Stringer Network / Reuters

Supporters of Al Gore have begun a round of conversations among themselves and with the former vice president about his running for president in 2016, the latest sign that top Democrats have serious doubts that Hillary Clinton is a sure thing.

Gore, 67, won the popular vote in the 2000 election and has been mentioned as a possible candidate in every contested Democratic primary since then. He instead spent much of the 2000s focused on environmental campaigning and business ventures. He has largely slipped out of public view in more recent years.

But in recent days, “they’re getting the old gang together,” a senior Democrat told BuzzFeed News.

“They’re figuring out if there's a path financially and politically,” the Democrat said. “It feels more real than it has in the past months.”

The senior Democrat and other sources cautioned not to overstate Gore’s interest. He has not made any formal or informal moves toward running, or even met with his political advisers about a potential run.

A member of Gore’s inner circle asked to be quoted “pouring lukewarm water” — not, note, cold water — on the chatter.

“This is people talking to people, some of whom may or may not have talked to him,” the Gore adviser said.

Roy Neel, a former top adviser to Gore, said Thursday he hadn’t spoken to Gore about it and dismissed the idea of a bid. “It’s extremely unlikely,” he said.

Gore himself didn't immediately reply to an inquiry emailed to his personal account.

Polling this week put Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders ahead of Clinton for the first time in New Hampshire. And she is contending with another round of stories about her use of personal email, and the security of the server on which it was hosted, during her time as secretary of state.

In June, when asked who will be the next president, Gore joked that he would dodge the question, before saying that it was “actually too early” to say. Gore declined to endorse Clinton in 2008, choosing to stay out of the Democratic primary until after Obama secured the nomination.

Gore has had other focuses in recent years. In particular, Gore and a business partner are suing Al Jazeera, which purchased Current TV from him, over $65 million dollars held in escrow during the deal; Gore and his associate contend the money belongs to him. The Qatar-based network acquired Current in early 2013 in a deal reportedly worth $500 million.

The former vice president has taken a step back from the climate change advocacy groups he helped to found, focusing instead on his business ventures and being a public climate change expert, if not the active lobbyist he once was. Climate change is still a top issue for Gore, and he’s been happy to trash the Keystone XL pipeline, putting him to the left of both President Obama and Clinton on the issue. Both have publicly reserved judgment on the project until a State Department review is complete.

In March, Vox editor Ezra Klein argued that Gore, with his ability to fund a campaign and to mount a serious challenge to Clinton, should run for president.

Klein cited Gore’s support for single-payer health care, his advocacy on climate change, and his opposition to the Iraq War to make the case that “the rest of his positions are closer in line with Democratic Party activists than, say, Clinton's.”

“And what we really, in my opinion, should be looking for are ways to […] reduce the cost to a level where people can afford their own health care. And then, very much like they do in Scandinavia, it would not then be unreasonable to require that people own healthcare insurance.”

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

In 2007, Ben Carson suggested he wasn't opposed to hypothetically requiring people to buy health insurance like in the Scandinavian health care system — though he argued it would be "unreasonable" to do so then.

Carson was speaking during a 2007 meeting of the President's Council on Bioethics convened by George W. Bush:

The individual mandate concept — the idea of requiring people to buy health insurance — gained traction first in the 1990s when the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, advocated for it. As governor of Massachusetts in 2006 — the year before Carson's remark — Mitt Romney later signed into law a health care law that included a mandate.

In recent years, Republicans have widely criticized the individual mandate, which in the case of Obamacare, requires individuals to purchase health insurance or face a tax penalty. Carson once infamously called Obamacare "the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery."

In another Council meeting earlier that year, Carson suggested that "if everybody owned their own health insurance, there are some real possibilities here" for using premium prices to incentivize healthy behavior.

"For instance, if they become a lion tamer, their rate goes up. You know, if they're going to climb mountains, Mount Everest, on a regular basis, their rate goes up," Carson said. "Why should everybody else have to be responsible for somebody who clearly is going to be pushing the button? If they're going to be riding a motorcycle without a helmet, their rates go up."

Carson also suggested that the mechanism could be used to disincentivize obesity.

"We don't necessarily have to hold that person responsible for being fat," Carson suggested. "But if we say, 'Your premium goes up because you weigh 400 pounds, sorry,' they're going to start thinking about it."

A Carson spokesman said he would not respond to specific quotes, saying Carson was used talking about ways to make health care more affordable.

"I'm not going to respond to any of these specific quotes as, in general, it is clear he was not speaking of a specific health care policy but musing about tactics and solutions to make health care more affordable and accessible," the spokesperson said.

"Today, Dr. Carson advocates a health care system based on cradle to grave health savings accounts, an affordable high quality approach to health care that minimizes government and insurance company interference between the patient and their health care provider."

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Counting isn’t among them.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

In a six-page memo first reported by Vox Wednesday, Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, in attempt to calm jittery Clinton supporters, laid out three priorities for the Democratic frontrunner. Work it out on your fingers and see if you can spot the mistake.

BuzzFeed News / Via scribd.com

Mook is one of the best campaign operatives in the country, especially when it comes to counting, but this wasn't his day.

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“We should not be funding, what apparently is a criminal organization.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Ted Cruz says Planned Parenthood is "apparently" a criminal organization.

The Texas senator, a proponent of stripping Planned Parenthood's government funding in a spending bill this fall (which could lead to a government shutdown), made the comments in response to the latest in a series of videos showing Planned Parenthood employees discussing the harvesting of tissue from aborted fetuses.

"Well, unfortunately there are far too many leaders in Washington who are apart of what I call the 'Washington cartel," Cruz told radio host Dave Elswick on Wednesday. "You know I have a new book that came out a few weeks ago called A Time For Truth, and in that book I detail what happens with the Washington cartel, which is career politicians in both parties who get in bed with special interests, and lobbyists, and who grow, and grow, and grow Washington.

"It's why we are $18 trillion in debt and the sad reality is that Republican leadership doesn't want to use the Constitutional authority we have to defund Planned Parenthood," he continued. "We should not be funding, what apparently is a criminal organization."

The Center for Medical Progress has released a series of videos over the past month that purport to show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the illegal sale of fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood has said the videos, shot by undercover anti-abortion activists, were deceptively edited and merely show legal repayments for handling tissues that are donated for research.

Cruz said the videos appear to show violations of U.S. law.

"You know, you watch these videos and they are horrifying. Planned Parenthood is caught on camera bartering and selling the body parts of unborn children," Cruz said. "That is a felony, a criminal offense that carries ten years in prison."

Cruz added that one of the first things he would do as president would be have the Department of Justice "open an investigation into Planned Parenthood and to prosecute any and all criminal violations by that organization."

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“This is not what you want as your president.”

Bill Pugliano / Getty Images

Donald Trump says Bernie Sanders appeared to be a "little frightened puppy" on Saturday when Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted his rally in Seattle.

For Sanders, it was the second time one of his campaign events was interrupted by the activists. The first occurred at the Netroots Nation gathering in Phoenix last month.

"I think it's so ridiculous, I thought it was a disgrace the way they treated Bernie Sanders, and frankly I thought he handled it very poorly," Trump said on the Jeff Kuhner Show on Wednesday. "He was weak and he was ineffective and I thought it was a disgrace the way they just went up there and took it over and they should be ashamed of themselves and he should be ashamed of himself frankly, for allowing that to happen."

The Donald said he would let his security pull the protesters off stage if they tried to interrupt his event.

"I will tell you that security will not have them on the stage very long, that's true," Trump said. "Of course I'll have security - I'll have them taken off the stage. I think it's ridiculous and that's what Bernie Sanders should of done. It was - he looked like a little, frightened puppy back there and it was ridiculous. This is not what you want as your president."

Here's the audio:

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Inspectors found serious safety violations at Matt Bevin’s Connecticut bell-making factory that burned down in 2012.

Timothy D. Easley / AP

A bell-making company owned by Matt Bevin, the Republican nominee in Kentucky's upcoming gubernatorial election, paid more than $12,000 in fines for safety violations at its factory in East Hampton, Connecticut, BuzzFeed News has found.

An Occupational Safety & Health Administration inspection found the violations in December, 2011, at least four months after Bevin took over as president of the firm. According to the agency's database, the OSHA search was in response to an employee complaint and specifically looked for infractions related to "amputation." It discovered violations of eleven safety standards, including three of the highest "gravity," meaning they put employees at risk of "danger of death or extremely serious injury or illness."

After saying on Thursday afternoon he would provide a statement, a spokesman for Bevin's campaign, Ben Hartman, did not reply to repeated requests for comment.

Bevin's family has run the Bevin Brothers business since 1832. The factory where the violations occurred had stood since approximately 1880, until it burned down in 2012. Though Bevin says he became involved with the company in 2008, exactly when he took over as president is unclear: in 2013, his spokeswoman said he took over in August, 2011, but a 2008 profile lists him as president. The company became something of a political piñata during the 2014 election cycle, when Bevin ran (and lost) a primary campaign against incumbent senator Mitch McConnell.

The Senate Majority leader dubbed his opponent "Bailout Bevin" in part for taking $100,000 from the state of Connecticut to help rebuild the factory, which didn't have fire insurance.

As reported by BuzzFeed News, Bevin also failed to disclose tens of thousands of dollars in federal tax liens when he applied for the $100,000 grant.

The OSHA inspection took place five months before the fire. Though the violations it found initially resulted in $25,880 in fines, informal settlements eventually helped drop that sum to $12,575 (slightly less than the $12,600 listed in the database), according to OSHA's Bridgeport area director.

While the database does not reveal details of the violations, some of the most serious broke rules regulating "the control of hazardous energy." After an initial charge of $4,620, the company ultimately paid $3,000 for failing to comply with three of these standards, which say that employers must maintain machines and train workers to protect them from equipment unexpectedly "energizing" or releasing "stored energy."

The third maximum-gravity violation was for a breach of a rule calling for employee protections during the use of "mechanical power presses."

The company was further cited for violations of requirements for "mechanical power-transmission apparatus," communicating potential hazards, and for breaking "general requirements" for hazard assessment. It also did not use proper agency forms to record injuries and illnesses.

It wasn't the first time Bevin Brothers has been hit with fines. Two separate inspections of the Connecticut factory in May 2007, the year before Matt Bevin says he became involved in the bell-making business, ultimately cost the company over $3,000.

Bevin, for his part, has vowed to rebuild the factory.

Kentucky's gubernatorial election will be held on Nov. 3.

A Jindal campaign spokesperson calls the New Orleans mayor’s efforts to remove Confederate monuments, including one dedicated to a white supremacist insurrection, “political correctness run amok.”

upload.wikimedia.org/commons/2/23/One_side_of_the_monument_erected_to_race_prejudice_New_Orleans_Louisiana_1936.jpg / Creative Commons

WASHINGTON — Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's presidential campaign Thursday defended his plan to block New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu's efforts to remove statues to confederate soldiers — including one which celebrates a white supremacist insurrection that left 32 people dead, including a number of police officers.

On Thursday, Jindal's administration said the governor is looking into legal authorities to block Landrieu, and his campaign spokesperson accused Landrieu and his supporters of "political correctness."

"The Governor opposes tearing down these historical statues and has instructed his staff to look into all relevant laws to determine the legal authority we have to stop it. We need to preserve our history to remember what we've learned and how far we've come," spokesperson Shannon Dirmann told BuzzFeed News. "This is political correctness run amok. What's next? Maybe we can edit our history books too, and then burn all the books we disagree with."

Last month Landrieu proposed removing three statues from New Orleans public property that celebrated the Confederacy, as well as a memorial to the Battle of Liberty Place, the 1874 white supremacist insurrection against the integrated reconstruction-era government.

"The monuments were erected at a time when supremacy was the order of the day," Landrieu told the City Council as part of the announcement. "But a lot has changed since the Civil War. Supremacy is a part of our past. But it should not be part of our future."

Efforts to remove monuments to the Confederacy, which began in earnest following the July mass shooting at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, have been controversial amongst some segments of the South. But the Battle of Liberty Place is unique in that it specifically celebrates the efforts of white supremacists to overthrow the post-war government.

The monument hails the efforts of white supremacists to overthrow the "usurpers" and notes that while "United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers … the national election of 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state."

The Confederacy lost its four-year bid to maintain slavery in 1865 when it was defeated by the United States.

Landrieu spokesman Brad Howard did not comment directly on Jindal's decision, saying in an email that "Mayor Landrieu called for a 60-day period of public discussion to encourage opportunities for people to respectfully engage in public discussion about these statues … It is important that all those who are interested have an opportunity to share their perspective and opinion about this issue."