In a letter sent to all presidential candidates, a coalition of 40 of the top national Latino organizations introduced policy recommendations on health care, immigration, education, civil rights, voting rights, the minimum wage and more.

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A coalition of 40 national Latino organizations has sent a nonpartisan letter to all of the 2016 presidential candidates with policy recommendations they say will improve the lives of Hispanics in the country.

The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) letter, released first to BuzzFeed News a day before the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month, calls for increasing the minimum wage, a comprehensive immigration overhaul, continuing to implement Obama's Affordable Care Act, protecting voting rights, including Hispanics in the criminal justice conversation, and focusing on education through a Latino prism.

NHLA has already received interest and responses from the major Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley as well as Republican Jim Gilmore. But the hope is to engage as many presidential candidates as possible on these issues to find out where they stand.

While some of the recommendations will be a nonstarter for Republican candidates — none support Obama's signature healthcare law — the group says a focus on the Hispanic community is really a bet on the country because of changing demographics.

"The future of education in the nation is a Latino future," said NHLA chair Hector Sanchez, noting that 25% of students in the country are Hispanic.

The letter calls on candidates to "hold states and school districts accountable for improving the educational outcomes of Latino and English learner students" because the future economic competitiveness of the country will depend in great part on the educational attainment of the growing Hispanic community.

NHLA and one its member organizations, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), have become involved in making the conversation around criminal justice and police abuse in the country one that includes Latinos as well. At the same time, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, led by Rep. Tony Cardenas sent a letter to the Justice Department this summer asking for statistics on Latinos killed by cops in the last five years.

NHLA believes the issue needs to be given more prominence and Sanchez said a member organization Latino Justice PRLDEF is putting together an upcoming criminal justice summit on police brutality, mass incarceration and more.

In defending Obamacare, the letter said implementation of the law should continue because it "has resulted in 2.6 million previously uninsured Latinos gaining health coverage during the first enrollment period alone."

The letter also calls on policies that help small businesses grow and more Latinos to be hired into the federal workforce.

During a summer where Donald Trump has drawn attention to the issue of illegal immigration, using rhetoric about Mexican immigrants that has angered the Latino community, Sanchez said these policy priorities are an opportunity to refocus the debate on what will actually garner the support of the crucial bloc of Hispanic voters.

"This is a unique opportunity to engage on real issues, substantial issues critical to Latinos," he said. "If presidential candidates want the Latino vote, it's a priority to know where they stand."

And while he stressed that there are both progressive and conservative organizations among the 40 member coalition, he said this early outreach is just the first step in civic engagement and Latino voter education, because many of the groups are involved in voter registration efforts as well.

NHLA will join Voto Latino, Mi Familia Vota, SEIU and be among 70 advocacy organizations in a Hispanic Heritage Month of Action launch this week to register Latino voters.

Here is the letter NHLA sent to presidential candidates.

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DECORAH, Iowa — Hillary Clinton likes to tell voters that, as president, she’ll tackle two sets of problems: the ones that “fill the screens” — and further from headlines, the ones that “keep you up at night, that you talk about around the kitchen table, that are a source of worry and concern.”

On Monday, during twin college campus stops across northern Iowa, Clinton said she wanted to put an issue from the latter category at the fore of her presidential campaign: campus sexual assault.

“Thankfully, this is an issue that has finally gained the attention it deserves,” Clinton told an audience of about 500 students and local residents at the University of Northern Iowa, during first event of the day. “But it is not enough to condemn campus sexual assault. We need to end campus sexual assault.”

Clinton framed the problem as part of a “broader campaign” she hoped to wage against violence “that stalks and afflicts women and girls at home and across the world" — not just on campuses, she said, but in the workplace, military, and in homes.

Aides outlined the plan in three parts: Clinton, they said, would work to provide more comprehensive campus support to survivors; to ensure fair processes in schools and in courts; and to increase programs that, starting in high school, aim to educate students about consent and prevention. At her events on Monday, Clinton did not detail the plan further beyond these “three core principles," as aides described them.

Clinton's proposals do not differ broadly from those put forward by the White House and, in Congress, by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. The New York senator has proposed legislation with Claire McCaskill that has support from Republicans, including Sen. Marco Rubio, who is a co-sponsor on the bill.

But to date, Clinton is the only presidential candidate to highlight campus sexual assault as a central and distinct part of her campaign. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, two Republican senators running for president, have both publicly supported a separate bill by Gillibrand to overhaul the way sexual assault cases are adjudicated by the military.

This summer, Clinton also released a plan to better handle cases of mental health and substance abuse after hearing repeatedly from voters about the issue on the campaign trail. On Monday, she raised campus sexual assault as another question not frequently discussed in presidential politics.

“I intend to keep talking about it,” Clinton said.

Campuses, she said, must offer "every support she needs and will make sure that those services are comprehensive, confidential, and coordinated.” But, Clinton noted, many schools don’t offer students a clear route to health care and counseling services — and some don’t offer support services at all. Other colleges and universities, she said, “present a maze of bureaucracy that forces survivors to navigate that without any real help at the most painful times in their lives.”

In Cedar Falls, Clinton told the crowd that one in five women report they were sexually assaulted in college, a statistic often cited by politicians that is also a source of debate. “Think of the impact on their lives while they’re trying to manage the emotional, the physical, sometimes the educational, financial fallout,” said Clinton. “They miss classes, some drop out, some never finish their education.”

She also suggested that she would propose policy changes to the criminal justice system — and encourage schools to do the same to their own disciplinary procedures — to "ensure a fair process."

“Rape is a crime wherever it happens,” she said.

Before her speech, Clinton met with about 15 students and local activists to discuss the ideas, an aide said, and to encourage feedback. “There are good smart solutions," she told the crowd in Cedar Falls. "We just need more of them."

Clinton closed the speech with a message to survivors: “Don’t let anyone silence your voice," she said. "You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed. And we’re with you.”

Who is Richard Glossip?

AP Photo/Oklahoma Department of Corrections, File

Richard Glossip, 52, is scheduled to be executed by Oklahoma on Wednesday for the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a motel where he worked as a manager.

For nearly 17 years on death row, Glossip has maintained his innocence — a claim that has led several thousand people to support his cause, including anti-death penalty advocates, senators, and celebrities, such as Susan Sarandon and Richard Branson.

Nearly 300,000 people have signed petitions to stop Oklahoma from killing Glossip and the case has gotten more media attention than any other recent executions. Glossip’s name — headlined in the recent Supreme Court decision about lethal injection drugs — has now become synonymous for some with the debate over the constitutionality of the death penalty itself.

Glossip was born in Illinois, the seventh of 16 children. His father was a coal miner and the house was crowded, according to Glossip’s own account of his life. While he had a “normal childhood” Glossip left home at 14, living on the streets until he went back to school and got a job at a restaurant.

Glossip, who has been married twice and has two children each from both wives, has been on death row since 1998.

Barry Van Treese

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On the night of Jan. 7, 1997, the body of Barry Van Treese, the owner of the Best Budget Inn, was found beaten to death with a baseball bat in Room 102 of his motel.

Around 4 a.m. earlier that day, 19-year-old Justin Sneed, who worked as the motel’s maintenance man in return for a free room and food, knocked on Glossip's door to tell him he had killed Van Treese. Hours after Sneed told Glossip about killing Van Treese, the two of them covered the window outside Van Treese’s room, which had been broken during the killing.

That afternoon, Glossip bought a $100-engagement ring for his girlfriend D-Anna Wood. Later that day, Van Treese’s car was found parked in nearby parking lot and Sneed had fled the motel.

A week later, police arrested Sneed after his fingerprints were found in Van Treese’s room and his DNA was detected on a $100 bill from $4,000 worth of stolen motel receipts in Van Treese's car. Sneed said he and Glossip split that money.

Under police interrogation, Sneed confessed to killing Van Treese, but eventually said that Glossip offered him money to carry out the murder so he could manage Van Treese’s motels. According to Sneed, Glossip also wanted his boss dead to conceal the fact that he had not performed repairs on the motel as per Van Treese's orders.

Sneed agreed to testify against Glossip in the trial in exchange for life in prison, while Glossip was sentenced to death for his role as the mastermind of the murder.

In 2001, a court granted Glossip a new trial because of ineffective counsel and noted there was no forensic evidence to implicate him in the crime. The court also found that there was "no compelling evidence" to corroborate Sneed’s testimony against him. However, in the 2004 re-trial, Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death.

In 2007, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that there was adequate evidence to corroborate Sneed’s testimony — including evidence against Glossip, such as his attempt to hide Van Treese’s body, his intention to leave the area, and $1,200 found in his bank account that he claimed was from his salary and sale of possessions.

Glossip was due to be executed earlier this year, however, the Supreme Court postponed his execution until a legal challenge — brought by Glossip and other death row inmates — against Oklahoma’s use of a controversial lethal injection drug was resolved. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the drug — midazolam — could be used in executions, and Oklahoma rescheduled Glossip’s execution for Sept. 16.

Despite 20 executions already this year — including several over the summer since the Supreme Court’s ruling on the use of midazolam in lethal injections — Glossip’s case is getting extensive media coverage and publicity, primarily due to the support of high-profile advocates.

The Aug. 31 episode of Dr. Phil was dedicated almost entirely to Glossip’s case. Renowned anti-death penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean, actress Susan Sarandon — who played Prejean in Dead Man Walking — and Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, appeared on the show to appeal to the public to fight the scheduled execution.

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A visibly emotional Sarandon read out Glossip’s statement where he once again proclaimed his innocence, but said he was prepared to die to ensure no other innocent man would be executed.

“I have never been in trouble with the law in my life,” Glossip’s statement read. “I have worked hard. Paid my taxes. I was a good citizen and always tried to help others. Now I have gone from doing everything right to fighting for my life.”

His statement continued:

“I have been fighting for my innocence for 18 years. I now understand how important my fight is, not just for myself but for everyone facing the death penalty for something they didn’t do. I’m not doing this for myself alone. I hope and pray that my eventual exoneration will help others, and that this country will finally realize just how broken our system is, and how easy it is to make mistakes. Let me be clear, I do not want to be a martyr — I want to live — but if the worst happens, I want my death not to be in vain.”

Sarandon, who apologized on the show to Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin for calling her “a horrible person,” appealed for her to stay Glossip’s execution so that “new information” that was not heard at either of his trials could be presented to prove his innocence.

“I believe the evidence shows Richard deserves a chance for this information to finally be heard by people,” Sarandon said.

Fallin, who turned down a request to appear on the show, issued a statement saying the execution will go forward because “Glossip is guilty and because, after 17 years of appeals, the legal process has run its course.”

Sarandon, who is a vocal critic of capital punishment, said Prejean introduced her to the Glossip case.

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Prejean, who is Glossip’s “spiritual adviser,” told BuzzFeed News that she first spoke to Glossip on the phone in January when he asked her to be with him during his previously scheduled execution on Jan. 29.

"I was personally summoned by him," Prejean said, referring to her decision to take on Glossip’s case personally. She added that she knows that Glossip is "so innocent."

Prejean attributed the attention his case is getting to “a congruence of forces that have come together for the life of Richard.” She said she used whatever influence she had to get Sarandon to join the cause and also got Knight to work pro bono on finding new evidence in the case.

A MoveOn.org petition, started by Prejean and Sarandon, has amassed 230,316 signatures as of Sept. 14 while a change.org petition has more than 50,000 supporters. On Sept. 8, British billionaire Richard Branson joined the call to grant Glossip a stay of execution in a tweet to his 6 million followers.

Glossip’s name is also attached to the significant Supreme Court ruling this year on the use of midazolam — a controversial lethal injection drug used in some states, including Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona. In Glossip v. Gross, the Supreme Court allowed the use of the drug in three-drug protocols like the one used in Oklahoma — despite its use in botched executions in all three states.

Oklahoma Sen.Tom Coburn, University of Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer, and the co-director of the Innocence Project, Barry Scheck were among those who addressed a letter to Fallin asking her not to make a "deadly mistake" in allowing Glossip's execution.

In the letter, published on The Huffington Post, Scheck wrote about the dangers of executing a possibly innocent man. He called into question Sneed’s contradictory statements and "many lies." He also pointed out that there were several cases of exonerated death row defendants who had been convicted because another suspect implicated the innocent defendants.

“If Sneed was lying about Glossip's involvement — as he unquestionably lied in his various contradictory statements — then Oklahoma is about to execute an innocent man,” Scheck wrote.

Prejean said that after the Dr. Phil episode aired, Glossip received 400 letters from people and since then has received hundreds more. “When we talk, he always asks me, ‘Sister Helen, what do you think is going to happen on the 16th,’” Prejean said. “I tell him, ‘You are not going to die.’”

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On Monday in Iowa, President Obama talked about student loans and debt.

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He critiqued a proposal from Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson to penalize colleges that demonstrate political bias.

And then he had the following to say about political correctness on campus:

It’s not just sometimes folks who are mad that colleges are too liberal that have a problem. Sometimes there are folks on college campuses who are liberal, and maybe even agree with me on a bunch of issues, who sometimes aren’t listening to the other side, and that’s a problem too. I’ve heard some college campuses where they don’t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don’t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. I gotta tell you, I don’t agree with that either. I don’t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. I think you should be able to — anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with ‘em. But you shouldn’t silence them by saying, 'You can’t come because I'm too sensitive to hear what you have to say.' That’s not the way we learn either.

The rise of trigger warnings, safe spaces, and protests over proposed speakers on campus like former Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have become a particular point of debate and tension about student life in the 2010s, and were the subject of a recent Atlantic cover story that, like Obama, suggested American students are "coddled."

H/T Vox

“It’s a failure and we have to stand up and say it so that we can change it. And when I become president, I’ll drag them to the water to drink.”

Christie doesn't raise his glass to the Republican establishment.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says the Republican-controlled Congress has been "a failure" that hasn't delivered on the results they promised.

Christie made the comments on the Mike Gallagher Show Monday while speaking about the Iran nuclear deal.

"Well, what did we expect when we put a weakling like John Kerry in charge of the negotiation. You know, personality matters and when you were asking before, 'what will Christie presidency be know for?' It will be known for the same thing the governorship of New Jersey has been known for the last few years," Christie told radio host Mike Gallagher on Monday.

"We're tough, we're direct, and we get things done," added Christie. "And I think what people are upset about around the country is that government doesn't even work for them anymore. And so, that's why I rail against the Republican Congress."

Christie proceeded to bluntly label the Republican-controlled Congress a failure.

"I rail against them because I had great hopes for them, as so many people in this country," Christie said. "And they haven't delivered on that hope. And we need to tell the truth. I mean, just because they're Republicans it doesn't mean that I can't criticize them. And that's the problem with David Brooks and others like him. I'm supposed to only criticize Democrats? Believe me, you heard my speeches Michael, I've had plenty criticism for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton"

"But you know what, the Republican Congress is a failure. It's a failure and we have to stand up and say it so that we can change it," continued Christie. "And when I become president, I'll drag them to the water to drink."

Take a listen to the audio:

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“…We can’t even have a discussion about why we’re taking only Muslims in the United States.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum says there are "serious" questions surrounding the movement of Syrian refugees and the spread of Islam.

"We're seeing this emigration out of the region and it's interesting that you'd think it would be women and children, but it's not. It's primarily men," Santorum said on The Mike Gallagher Show this week.

"And you take a step back and say, 'well, what's going on here?' Are these men being driven out? What happened to the women and children? Why aren't they being driven out? And you look at the mix and you have to start to wonder if something else is going on here and we're not even having a discussion about that."

Santorum continued, saying that such a discussion would raise questions about the spread of Islam, and who's allowed in the United States.

"There are serious questions here about Islam and the spread of Islam and how it spreads and, again, because the administration refuses to acknowledge that Islam has anything to do with anything, we can't even have a discussion about why we're taking only Muslims here in the United States."

Santorum also said he is against opening U.S. borders to Syrian refugees.

Take a listen:

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“They’re alienating a lot of people who are not black because what they’re hearing is that we’re the only ones who are important and nobody else is important.”

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Ben Carson continued his criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement on Monday, arguing that it was "alienating a lot of people who are not black" in an exchange on NewsOne, an outlet targeted at black Americans.

Carson has previously argued, in an op-ed for USA Today, that the movement is inspiring anger and is distracting the black community from what matters most.

On Monday, the Republican presidential candidate expanded on that line of attack, asserting that other problems from "institutions like Planned Parenthood," "rotten schools," "crime up on each other," and toleration of drug use, were more damaging to blacks than bad policing.

"Yes, black lives matter," Carson said, "but I believe all black lives matter. And I am very disappointed that the movement doesn't recognize that the carnage in the community coming about from institutions like Planned Parenthood and crime up on each other is very significant. And we need to be looking at the things that are keeping the black community from accelerating, like rotten schools and tolerating the drugs that are in your neighborhood."

When asked by host Roland Martin why he thought it was wrong for the movement to focus on one issue, Carson, who is the only black candidate in the presidential field, said that the movement needs to be "all-encompassing" in its approach to problems facing black communities.

When pressed again on this point, Carson replied that, "I want them to be successful. And they're gonna be a lot more successful if they don't alienate a big part of the community."

Asked to be more specific as to who they were alienating, Carson said he was referring to "people who are not black."

"They're alienating a lot of people who are not black by just — because what they're hearing is that we're the only ones who are important and nobody else is important."

"A lot of people are hearing that," he said. "And we don't want them to hear that."

The interviewer responded that he thought the movement had been effective at "forcing a conversation," as well as "actual changes, that others have not been able to actually do."

"I've heard a lot of the opposite of what you're saying," Carson shot back. "And here's the issue. We're probably not even on the opposite sides of this. We want the same things to occur."

Asked if this meant he supported the Black Lives Matter movement's "calls for police accountability, and their calls for better policing, as well as changes in terms of how people are treated by police," Carson said, he could not imagine anybody being against that, before returning to a point he often makes, about mutual respect.

"Well, I can't imagine anybody who would be against that," he said. "But what we have to start talking about is mutual respect. And that's what I talked about down in Ferguson. The police have to have a different attitude toward the people and the people have to have a different attitude toward the police."

“He wants to divide Americans,” Trump wrote of Buchanan in his book, The America We Deserve.

Laura Buckman / AFP / Getty Images

When Donald Trump announced he was running for president in June, he characterized Mexican immigrants crossing the border illegally as rapists and drug smugglers.

The remark was met with criticism from his opponents, but Trump didn't back down and instead only went further. In one radio interview he compared undocumented Mexican immigrants to the "hardcore criminals" Fidel Castro sent to the United States in the early 1980s.

But when Trump was toying with a presidential bid for the Reform Party in the late 90s and early 2000s, he criticized potential opponent Pat Buchanan on at least two occasions for "egregious examples of intolerance," singling out Mexicans (and others) as one of the groups of people Buchanan had disparaged.

"Pat Buchanan has been guilty of many egregious examples of intolerance. He has systematically bashed Blacks, Mexicans, and Gays," wrote Trump in his 2000 campaign book The America We Deserve.

Trump went further in an interview with the The Advocate, calling Pat's writings on Mexicans and other minorities "disgusting."

"I used to like Pat. I was on Crossfire with him," Trump said. "I thought he was a nice guy. Then I read the things he had written about Hitler, Jews, blacks, gays, and Mexicans. I mean, I think it's disgusting. That speech he made at the '92 Republican convention was a disaster. He wants to divide Americans."

BuzzFeed News noted Monday during his flirtation in 1999 with a run for White House as a member of the Reform Party The Donald targeted former-Republican turned Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan as too controversial to be elected.

Buchanan's platform that year included a number of planks similar to Trump's today: a trade protectionist attitude, anti-illegal immigration, isolationism, and anti-Washington corruption.

Trump's current anti-immigration rhetoric was not-too-different from Buchanan's in 1999.

"It is a disgrace; it is overrun; it's treated with contempt by the Mexican government, by illegals," Buchanan told reporters during one stop on the border that year.

"Exploding crime statistics, swamped social services, and the rise of ethnic militancy tell the sad story," Buchanan's platform on stopping undocumented immigration read.

Take a look at the portion of the The Advocate interview below:

The Advocate

“…I wish the other Republicans who are running to match his racism and sexism would run to match his position on taxing hedge fund managers, changing our trade policy and investing in infrastructure…”

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"Yeah, I mean racism and sexism aside, those things you mentioned are certainly rational observations about our crumbling infrastructure and the need to invest, our failed trade policy. You know, yeah he happens to be in the right place on those things and I wish the other Republicans who are running to match his racism and sexism would run to match his position on taxing hedge fund managers, changing our trade policy and investing in infrastructure, but unfortunately they just seem to be taking the bait of his racist-sexist stuff and leaving on the table the good stuff, like taxing hedge fund managers."

Despite current and past liberal positions, Trump garners the most support among self-described Tea Party voters in the latest CNN national poll.

The Hispanic Heritage Month campaign also hopes to encourage voter registration between September 15 and October 15.

The #HispanicHeritageHero campaign is asking people to share photos of their Latino heroes for Hispanic Heritage Month.

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Family members, celebrities, and community leaders will be highlighted in the effort led by Voto Latino in collaboration with Instagram.

Voto Latino is a nonprofit organization that encourages civic participation in the Hispanic community.

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"We're thrilled to collaborate with Voto Latino on their #HispanicHeritageHero campaign," said Instagram public policy manager Lilly Wyden, adding that they wanted to spotlight Voto Latino's community and the collaboration felt "like a natural fit."

Instagram will be posting Hispanic Heritage Heroes along with Voto Latino throughout the month.

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“Photos carry the power of storytelling and we will leverage social media as a way to honor our mentors and heroes,” said Maria Teresa Kumar, president & CEO of Voto Latino.

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A Charlotte fundraiser this month for the neurosurgeon features some co-hosts who’ve backed Republican Party efforts and Mitt Romney — not a small-donor crowd.

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Ben Carson is surging in polls and raking in millions — and, in the more unusual development, establishment GOP donors in key states are taking notice.

The latest example: The neurosurgeon-turned-politician is expected to attend a fundraiser benefitting his presidential bid in Charlotte, North Carolina, later this month. An invitation for the event — one of 30 nationwide in the coming weeks — lists some bold-faced names as co-hosts.

They include former Rep. Robin Hayes, who also served as N.C. GOP chairman during the 2012 election cycle; Frank Harrison, CEO and Chairman of Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, who also sits on the board of the American Beverage Association; and members of the Petty family, considered the "First Family of NASCAR." Carson is known for his small-dollar fundraising operation — but, as the New York Times reported last week, he is also now tapping into the more lucrative realm of private donors. In terms of the North Carolina fundraiser, some of the co-hosts have previously given to Republican Party committees and backed Mitt Romney in the last presidential race.

The fundraiser, which includes a VIP reception for those who give between $1,000 and $2,700 and a general reception for donors giving $250 and more, will be at the home of new donors Candace and Michael Salamone.

In an email to supporters, Candace Salamone said she and her husband had "never been involved in politics before, but feel strongly that the Lord has called us to get behind Dr. Carson both in support and in prayer. It's been amazing to see what the Lord is doing along the campaign trail — as the numbers rise."

While Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker are struggling in polls, donors who previously gave to those candidates or were considering giving to them are giving Carson another look, according to Carson's allies. The campaign has brought in $5 million so far this month, according to the Associated Press.

Andy Yates, who is running a pro-Carson super PAC called One Vote, said his group has been in conversations with several wealthy GOP donors — some of whom typically support establishment candidates — in the aftermath of the last debate and subsequent decline in polls for several candidates.

"We're definitely seeing more interest from those types of folks," he said. "They now see Dr. Carson as a viable candidate. They are starting to come on board with Carson."

Yates said for many of those major donors Carson might still not be the first choice, but they see him as a better option than Trump and are offering to write big checks.

The latest CBS News/New York Times poll released Tuesday found Carson nipping at Trump's heels. The poll showed Trump with 27% of the support and Carson with 23%.

Yates declined to name donors, but added: "We're hearing all the way from people who can give $10 to $100,000 to those who can give, if they feel so inclined, in the millions."

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

LOS ANGELES — Promising reforms for veterans and a strong military, Donald Trump handed out free hats and shared the stage with radio DJ and TV game show host of yesteryear Wink Martindale in what proved to be a relatively subdued version of the Trump show the night before Wednesday's Republican primary debate.

A super PAC called Veterans for a Strong America hosted the event, which took place on the U.S.S. Iowa, a de-comissioned World War II battleship. The speech was billed as a national security policy speech, but like with many Trump events, policy specifics were difficult to pin down. Trump promised reforms to the Veterans Affairs system and vowed to tackle long wait times for veterans to get medical care, saying he will send them to private doctors and hospitals instead. He promised that he would cause the military to become so powerful that "I don't think we're ever going to have to use it. Nobody's gonna mess with us." As for how to do this, Trump said he would "come out with some plans in a very short time" to bolster the military. And he repeated his familiar points about immigration.

Trump has faced questions over his own draft deferment in Vietnam, a fact that juxtaposes awkwardly with his accusations that other politicians are weak on military matters. But no one in the audience seemed to mind that Trump has never served, least of all Joel Arends, who endorsed Trump after saying that his organization has never endorsed a candidate before but that this election is "too important." According to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings, Veterans for a Strong America Action Fund has neither raised nor spent any money this year as of the end of the second quarter. This event was, in fact, also a fundraiser for the group; tickets ranged from $1,000 to free for actual veterans.

"I doesn't bother me that he didn't serve," said Jorge Herrera, 30, who was holding a "Latinos for Trump" sign ("I'm not alone, but I am a minority" among Latinos, Herrera said). "He's a self-made guy, he's very — sometimes he speaks too strong, but I think he's got the energy, he's got the desire, he's a true patriot, I honestly think he's a true patriot and he wants to help our veterans."

"It doesn't bother me at all," said Ray Bernasconi, 54, of Chino Hills. "Not at all."

"To me it's our principles, it's our moral, your characters. Everybody says he was left-leaning prior, questioning his conservatism. You know what, we all get a second chance," said Bernasconi, who is of Mexican-Italian heritage. Bernasconi, who was telling people around him "Latinos for Trump" and wearing a Make America Great Again hat signed by Trump that he'd caught when Trump distributed them, said he had never been excited about a presidential election before this one.

Trump didn't say anything particularly striking, and spoke for less than 15 minutes, wrapping up by tossing signed "Make America Great Again" hats into the crowd. He shook hands for another 10 minutes or so, then left. It was a low-key performance, or as low-key as someone like Trump can be.

Still, the adoration typical of Trump's crowds was on display. Debra Oresko, 55, of Orange County, said she had taken her husband, son, and mother to dinner at the Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles to celebrate both Trump's announcement and Father's Day earlier this year — her own father "would love Donald Trump," she said, and she wanted to "do something momentous for Father's day."

As for Martindale, the first speaker at the event and former host of Tic-Tac-Dough told BuzzFeed News after the event that he hadn't met Trump before today.

"Very rarely, this is the first time certainly in this election cycle I've done it," Martindale said when asked whether he often participates in these kinds of events. He said he'd done it as a favor for a fellow member of Friends of Abe, a group for Hollywood conservatives, who had asked him to emcee the event. Trump appeared at a Friends of Abe dinner last month.

"Never met [Trump] until tonight," Martindale said. "Don't know him, just appreciate what he's saying, and in large regard, many points I agree with, some of course I don't."

Ted talks.

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Musician and outspoken conservative activist Ted Nugent has a presidential favorite: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

"Ted Cruz, I think he'd make a wonderful president," Nugent told radio host Lars Larson on Tuesday.

Still, the musician is also a fan of Donald Trump, unsurprisingly because of Trump's attitude.

"I'm a big big fan of Donald Trump's," Nugent said after a word-salad analysis of how Trump was taking on the "the scourge that this Barack Obama, liberal Democrat, fundamental transformation, destructo-derby of the American dream."

Take a listen:

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The Univision anchor’s page went from 190,000 fans to more than 1 million after a high-profile clash with Trump, and now he has a U.S. English-speaking audience ready to watch his live videos in defense of Latinos ahead of the election.

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Every story about Univision's Jorge Ramos includes a line about how he is an "influential Spanish-language anchor" as a way of introducing English-speaking audiences to a man they may not know much about.

But after Ramos' high-profile clash with GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in August, the opinionated journalist gained a new weapon to battle rhetoric and policies he feels are anti-Latino and anti-immigrant: a rapidly growing Facebook page that is exposing him to a larger English-speaking audience than ever before.

The numbers are pretty clear.

Ramos worked with Facebook's Karen Comas, who handles U.S. Hispanic and Latin America strategic partnerships, and was given early access to the social network's Mentions app, which allows public figures to broadcast live video straight to their page, much like Periscope and Meerkat on Twitter.

He had 190,401 fans on Aug. 10 when he started using Mentions. On Aug. 18, he posted his first big video: Using a dry-erase board with a map of the U.S. and Mexico, Ramos explained that Trump's plan to build a wall on the border would cost $20 billion. The video was watched 6.3 million times.

On Aug. 25, Ramos was kicked out of a press conference by Trump. After sharing a clip of his interview on CNN about the incident, the video was watched 10.2 million times. Ramos gained 150,000 news fans, and his name would trend on Facebook for two days. The next day a video of his exchange with Trump received 3.4 million views and he gained almost 250,000 more fans.

By Aug. 31, he hit 1 million fans, roughly the audience he has on Univision every night.

Ramos is known for his tough interviews, particularly on immigration, and his support for an immigration overhaul. The Obama administration is no fan of the way he has grilled the president on the issue, but Republicans, and lately Trump, have drawn his ire.

"How do you effectively say what [Trump] is saying is dangerous to the Latino community?" Ramos said in an interview with BuzzFeed News.

The Trump incident was news, he said, but the platform has also given him the opportunity to be much more personal on issues that he cares about, with impact and immediacy.

He pointed to his most recent video where he discussed how the government would actually go about deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants over two years, as Trump has suggested. Ramos explained that the numbers come out to 458,000 people deported per month, or 30 747 jets filled with people every day, for two years.

Facebook's Comas said Ramos has used the platform to do hands-on journalism and add visual elements to his stories.

"He embraced the platform right before these major moments occurred so he was able to communicate directly with people via Facebook where he's been able to make a huge impact," she said.

With Hispanic Heritage Month underway, a time when brands and politicians attempt outreach to Latinos in often wooden ways, Ramos said it may go against conventional wisdom that his audience is about 50/50 English and Spanish-speaking, numbers that Facebook confirmed.

He said it took him years to get 1.5 million followers on Twitter and even though he has Spanish-language columns published around the country and in Latin America, this new Facebook audience is a big deal for him.

"In 2016, more than 26 million Latinos will be eligible to vote," Ramos said. "They can decide an election and they are connected every single day," he said. "What I know for sure is that I don't work only for Univision and Fusion but also that I have to use Facebook as a platform."

Which is perhaps bad news for politicians whose rhetoric and policies he believes are bad for the Latino community.

LINK: The Behind The Scenes Jockeying To Speak To Univision And Telemundo Ahead Of 2016

As Supreme Court justices raise questions about whether the constitutionality of the death penalty should be reconsidered, this BuzzFeed News map — which will be updated as circumstances warrant — takes a look at where executions take place in America today.

BuzzFeed News

On Wednesday, the state of Oklahoma was scheduled to execute Richard Glossip, the first execution in the state since January and the 21st execution in the country this year.

Hours before the execution, the state's Court of Criminal Appeals granted Glossip a two-week stay of execution so that it can consider a last-minute filing by Glossip's lawyers. Without further order from the court, however, the execution will proceed on Sept. 30.

While the Supreme Court's June decision to allow Oklahoma to continue to use midazolam as part of its three-drug execution protocol was a loss for opponents of the death penalty — who were attacked at oral arguments by Justice Samuel Alito as waging a "guerrilla war" against executions — the decision itself was overshadowed in some ways by a dissenting opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer.

"In 1976, the Court thought that the constitutional infirmities in the death penalty could be healed; the Court in effect delegated significant responsibility to the States to develop procedures that would protect against those constitutional problems," Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote. "Almost 40 years of studies, surveys, and experience strongly indicate, however, that this effort has failed."

Breyer's reference to 1976 was to the Supreme Court's decision upholding the death penalty laws considered in Gregg v. Georgia as constitutional. The decision ended a four-year moratorium on executions in the country that had resulted from the court's 1972 ruling in Furman v. Georgia that the implementation of the death penalty was unconstitutional.

In detailing the reasons why he and Ginsburg called for reconsideration after nearly 40 years of whether the death penalty itself is unconstitutional, Breyer laid out three defects: unreliability of the death penalty process, arbitrariness of how that process is implemented, and delays in the process that undermine its purposes. "Perhaps as a result ... most places within the United States have abandoned its use," Breyer wrote.

As part of its coverage of the death penalty in America, BuzzFeed News will be updating this map as needed to provide a visual answer — along with descriptions below — to the question of where the death penalty is used in the U.S.

Fourteen states with the death penalty and with an execution in the past 5 years: For the past several months, only Texas and Missouri have been conducting executions. The states are the only known two that have both wanted to proceed with executions and have been able to secure pentobarbital, a single execution drug that was not at issue in the recent Supreme Court case.

Earlier this year, Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma also held executions, all in January.

Over the past five years, however, nine other states also have conducted executions, with several of them planning to conduct executions over the coming six months.

In Virginia, Alfredo Prieto, a foreign national from El Salvador, is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 1.

In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich put off all executions in 2015, but they are scheduled to resume in January 2016.

Twelve states with the death penalty and no moratorium, but no executions in the past 5 years: Among the states that could but have not conducted an execution over the past five years is Arkansas. On Sept. 9, however, Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced that he had set execution dates beginning Oct. 21 and continuing through January 2016 for eight death row inmates.

In many states, however, the death penalty remains the law but actual executions have all but ended.

In Kansas, the most recent executions took place in 1965 and included Perry Smith and Richard Hickock — the killers of the Clutter family made famous by Truman Capote nonfiction novel In Cold Blood.

New Hampshire last executed someone in 1939.

In other states, the death penalty has been used since executions resumed in the U.S. again in 1976, but not recently. In Wyoming, for example, only one person has been executed since Gregg, and he was executed in 1992.

Four states with a governor-imposed moratorium on executions: Halts on executions in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington have taken executions off the table in those states without much pushback, but Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf's decision to set a moratorium has been challenged by the Philadelphia district attorney. The state's Supreme Court heard arguments recently on whether Wolf has the authority to issue continual, indefinite reprieves on executions in the state.

One state with a court-imposed moratorium on executions: A federal court declared California's death penalty system to be unconstitutional, although the state has appealed the ruling. The appeal was heard recently by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

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A lesson on the 13th and 14th Amendment.

Learn our History

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has repeatedly said he wouldn't follow the Supreme Court's June ruling legalizing same-sex marriages as president.

In event after event, the presidential candidate has slammed what he labels as "judicial tyranny" going so far as to claim the Supreme Court's 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford — which held that all blacks, free or enslaved, could not be American citizens — is still the law of the land even though no one follows it.

BuzzFeed News previously noted Huckabee's history DVDs for children teach the opposite of Huckabee's interpretation of the court's authority. The DVDs call the court "ultimate authority on the Constitutionality of law" who make "a final determination that the nation recognizes as definitive."

Huckabee's DVDs also specifically contradict what he has said about the Dred Scott ruling. The same history lesson on the courts notes the slaves were freed under the 13th Amendment in aftermath of the Dred Scott decision, and also teaches the 14th Amendment, which overturned the court's decision.

The episode covering Dred Scott has been embeded below. It runs several minutes.

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Eleven candidates slugged it out during Wednesday’s debate at the Reagan Library in California.

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Jeb plays the Trump card.

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Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took aim at Donald Trump in the Republican debate Wednesday night after Trump said Bush was a puppet to his donors.

Bush singled out Trump as the "one guy" who tried to get him to change his position on something after giving him money.

"The one guy that had some special interest that I know of, that try'd to get me to change my views on somethings, that was generous and gave me money was Donald Trump. He wanted casino gambling in Florida."

"Totally false," said Trump.

"You wanted it and you didn't get it," replied Bush, noting he opposed it before and after the election. Trump held a fundraiser for Bush in that 1998 election and donated heavily to the Florida Republican Party.

Trump added, "I promise, if I wanted it I could have gotten it."

At the same time, Bush tweeted a link to the CNN article, "Jeb Bush: The man who killed Trump's casino dreams."

From the CNN article:

He did so for Jeb Bush in 1998, holding a high-dollar fundraiser for the gubernatorial candidate in Trump Tower and shelling out $50,000 to the Florida Republican Party. But when Bush took office in 1999, Trump didn't get the political help he needed to make his casino dreams a reality in the Sunshine State.

Instead, Bush maintained his hardline stance against gambling in the state, delivering a death blow to Trump's hopes of building out a multi-million dollar casino endeavor with the Seminole Tribe of Florida and prompting him to abandon those plans.

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“I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”

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Fiorina said: “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”

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Kasich warned fellow Republicans on Wednesday of the consequences of shutting down the government over Planned Parenthood. In his 2006 book, he called the 1995 government shutdown “one of the greatest moments of my career.”

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During the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, John Kasich cautioned against shutting down the government to defund Planned Parenthood because, eventually, they are "gonna open it up and the American people are gonna shake their heads."

But as an Ohio Congressman in 1995, Kasich championed a government shutdown, a stand he has called "one of the greatest moments of my career."

"When it comes to closing down the federal government, we've got to be very careful about that," Kasich said Wednesday. "When we shut the government down—if we have a chance of success and it's a great principle, yes, but the president of the United States is not gonna sign this. And all we're gonna do is shut the government down and then we're gonna open it up and the American people are gonna shake their heads and say, what's the story with these Republicans?"

Kasich went on to invoke his time in Congress, boasting of his accomplishments, including a balanced budget, claiming "there are ways to do it without having to shut the government down."

"I was in the Congress for 18 years, balanced the budget, cut taxes, got it done, changed welfare, went around the president to get welfare reform done," he said. "But there are ways to do it without having to shut the government down. But I'm sympathetic to the fact that we don't want this organization to get funding and the money oughta be reprogrammed for family planning in other organizations that don't support this tactic, but I would not be for shutting the government down."

However, in his 2006 book Stand for Something, Kasich called the balanced budget "a direct result" of the 1995 government shutdown.

"For this one battle, for the time being, we forgot about politics and focused on good government, and if we had to take a beating for it, then so be it," he wrote. "And as a direct result of that government shutdown in 1995, we wrote a bill that provided for the first balanced budget in nearly forty years and allowed us to pay down the largest chunk of our staggering national debt in the history of this country."

In the book, he cast the shutdown as a rare example of politicians setting aside "opinion polls and reelection concerns", for the sake of "our children," "our shared future" and "for America."

"Today, with perspective, pundits look back and suggest that shutting down the government under those circumstances was dumb, but I look back and think it was one of the greatest moments of my career," he argued. "Why? Well, typically politicians make their decisions based on votes. They'll side this way or that way on an issue according to public opinion polls and reelection concerns. And yet in at least this one instance politicians set aside these concerns and stood up for what was right. For our children. For our shared future. For America."