“In fact, we may soon find it possible to keep most people alive, albeit at varying levels of activity, well beyond their hundredth birthday. The question is: Should we do it simply because we can?”

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

Retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has, in two of his books, proposed national guidelines on end-of-life care for the elderly in order to prevent skyrocketing medical costs from bankrupting society.

In his 2000 book, The Big Picture, Carson laid out a simple question on keeping the sick and elderly alive past their 100th birthday: "Should we do it simply because we can?"

Carson, whose views on health care policy have varied over the years, argued a basic staple of his then-plan for the government to take over catastrophic coverage would be a rational discussion of end-of-life treatment the country had been lacking.

"The government's assumption of catastrophic health care would almost certainly and immediately prompt a national debate on what catastrophic conditions should be treated— and to what extent," he wrote. "We might even hope for some reasoned discussion on some difficult choices we will all face with the aging of our baby-boomer generation."

Medical treatment's advanced capabilities, Carson said, would soon mean the medical community could significantly extend the life of the elderly.

"As our medical knowledge increases and our technical abilities advance, the modern medical community finds itself capable of successfully performing procedures never before considered— such as quadruple bypasses on eighty-five-year-old patients or extensive resections of malignancies in very elderly individuals who also have a host of other serious medical problems," Carson wrote. "As America's general population ages and our medical capabilities continue to expand, we will face more and more such scenarios. In fact, we may soon find it possible to keep most people alive, albeit at varying levels of activity, well beyond their hundredth birthday. The question is: Should we do it simply because we can?"

Carson noted most health care costs incurred for people take place in the last few months of their life. He argued this was because unlike over advanced nations, Americans had yet to accept the inevitability of death and how to treat it when it comes.

"One reason for this is that, unlike many other advanced nations, American society has not yet accepted the idea of keeping someone suffering terminal or catastrophic illnesses comfortable at home rather than in a hospital," he wrote. "Our mind-set is to automatically pull out all medical stops— even if that means literally torturing loved ones during their last few months of life."

Carson said basic national guidelines should put in place, with allowance for flexibility and consideration of treatment on end-of-life care:

"What if rather than always putting terminally ill patients in intensive care units— where we poke, prod, test, and operate ad nausea— we allowed most people the dignity of dying in relative peace and comfort, at home, surrounded by loved ones, with hospice care or some other medical attendant if necessary? Agreement on who should be treated and who should not be treated would require an extensive national discussion that could hopefully result in some helpful basic guidelines. Obviously any such guidelines should allow for flexibility and choice. And decisions should be based not merely on age but on the viability of the patient. I have seen ninety-year-olds who are healthier than some forty- or fifty-year-olds. So I would argue that medical treatment should not be withheld any time there is a reasonable chance of recovery and a resumption of a quality lifestyle. If any patient insisted on having everything done, I think consideration of more aggressive treatment should be given. I also believe, however, that most reasonable, terminally ill patients would much prefer to die in comfort and dignity at home than be tormented until the end in a hospital setting. Especially if we can freely and honestly talk these issues out in a national discussion that would help us all rethink our culture's mind-set about death, dying, and terminal illness."

Carson noted he was not calling for euthanasia and mercy-killing but believed our culture around end-of-life procedures was out of whack.

"But I think too often in the face of terminal illness our attitudes and actions are colored more by a fear of physical death than by a belief in the spiritual nature and the sanctity of human life. This is true even for a lot of my fellow Christians," he added

In his 2012 book, America the Beautiful perhaps aware of the political ramifications, Carson made clear -- and even attacked -- those who might call such an approach "death panels."

"Again, I can hear some people screaming after reading this that I am advocating for 'death panels.' Some people like to put forth terms like this because they stir up emotional responses rather than encouraging people to engage in rational dialogue aimed at resolving issues," Carson wrote. "Obviously, as our population ages and as our medical technology becomes more sophisticated and expensive, the potential for bankrupting our society with medical costs skyrockets."

Jeb Bush has started attacking Marco Rubio for skipping Senate votes this year — something that has come under scrutiny in recent weeks.

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

“But Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work,” he said. “I mean, literally, the Senate — what is it, like a French workweek? You get, like, three days where you have to show up? You can campaign, or just resign and let someone else take the job.”

Rubio has missed votes this year, but that's not unusual. Barack Obama missed plenty when he was running for president.

Rubio has defended himself — and criticized the attack.

“The only reason why you’re doing it now is because we’re running for the same position, and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you,” Rubio told Bush during the debate.

In October 2003, though, when he was majority leader in the Florida House, Rubio faced similar criticism. He missed a key vote for a “family issue” — but also attended game five of the World Series in Miami.

Eliot J. Schechter / Getty Images

The vote concerned approving $310 million in state incentives to bring a branch of the Scripps Research Institute to Florida. Bush viewed the Scripps facility as a huge potential economic boon to the state, as one of his advisers predicted it would spur a boom in the biotechnology industry, creating thousands of jobs and raising Florida’s GDP by billions of dollars.

The final vote approving the package for the biomedical research facility passed the House easily, one key measure approving exemptions to public records laws, seen as crucial to bringing Scripps on board, barely got through. After the incentive package was approved, Bush hailed the vote as “a defining moment in Florida’s future.”

According to the Miami Herald, Rubio flew out of Tallahassee with a group of other statehouse Republicans three hours before the exemptions passed. He later watched the game from the owners’ box while the House undertook the final vote. Meanwhile, the Sun-Sentinel reported that Rubio had been invited to join the Marlins at batting practice before the game.

Rubio told the Herald that he traveled to Miami to deal with a “family issue,” but declined to elaborate, only saying that he had to be in Miami on Friday morning, the morning after the game and vote.

“If any member has a problem, they can talk to me. I didn’t leave to go to a baseball game. I had to take care of a significant family issue,” Rubio said, adding that, “If I could have had a later flight, I would have taken it.”

A Rubio campaign spokesman replied to a request for comment by sending a link to the Herald story cited in this article, then later repeated that Rubio "went home for a family medical reason — not the game."

But Rubio wasn’t the only lawmaker who missed the vote! In fact, a number of lawmakers flew from Tallahassee to Miami — on Jeb Bush’s state plane.

Al Bello / Getty Images

That’s right: Lawmakers skipped a vote, because they were on a plane with Bush.

Some House members complained about Rubio’s absence, as well as that of others, such as majority whip Gaston Cantens — who had flown on Bush’s state plane two hours before the final vote, according to the Herald.

“There were some upset members, and there was some grumbling,” Rep. Joe Pickens said at the time. “A lot of us looked around and wondered where everybody went.”

A spokesperson for the Bush campaign wrote BuzzFeed News in an email, "If the best oppo research folks can find on Jeb's work ethic is that he was once with someone who wasn't doing their job at the time, I think it shows just how committed to public service he is."

The spokesperson then pointed to a section of the Herald article noting that Rubio came under "particular scrutiny" for the missed votes.

(The Marlins won.)

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Jim Cole / AP

At a winter retreat in Maryland in early January 2013, the Senate Democratic caucus met to plot the way forward on the large immigration bill that would include a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants, a guest-worker program, and major changes to U.S. immigration policy.

Senator after senator stood up to speak, discussing how to frame immigration positively to constituents, according to a source in the room. Even Sen. Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat who often disagrees with his colleagues, offered that in his experience talking about immigration through the stories of undocumented youth, known as DREAMers, was helpful.

Then it was Sen. Bernie Sanders's turn.

He was tired of guest workers in Vermont taking jobs from locals during ski season, and said there needed to be protections for them, the source recalls him saying.

It wasn't new or different for Sanders, the socialist senator, whose driving policy agenda is improving wages for American workers.

Though he ultimately voted for the 2013 Senate bill, Sanders voted against a similar effort in 2007. At the time, he told Lou Dobbs that he didn’t know why "we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are right now," he said. This year, he called open borders a right-wing idea, promoted by people like the Koch brothers, that would hurt the American poor, and was roundly criticized by Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us, United We Dream, and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The positions put Sanders squarely in the tradition of economic populism — but at odds with the Democratic Party’s progressive shift on immigration.

And as the campaign enters a more combative new phase, Sanders has cast himself as the true progressive in the race — someone who’s been consistent on the issues for decades, from trade to gay rights to intervention abroad. And though the stance requires Sanders to smooth over these past positions (he spent roughly half of an October speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute explaining his 2007 and 2013 votes), he clearly wants to be seen as an ally to progressives on immigration, too.

Sanders has hired some of the best known, most successful young immigration activists in the country to focus on Nevada's early caucus and the southwest. The campaign will also roll out details on something all Democratic candidates support: executive actions on immigration that go further than President Obama did.

According to sources with knowledge of the plans, in addition to Sanders current plan to expand deferred action to shield parents of DREAMers from deportation, the proposed administrative actions would include increased labor protections through deferred action to incentivize undocumented workers to report labor violations, and closing detention centers.

Arturo Carmona, the campaign's national Latino outreach director and southwest political director, declined to address the coming immigration announcement, but said that Latino and immigration outreach is "inspired by our platform."

"We're continuing to unveil important policy positions that directly impact Latinos," he said. "With the economy and economic justice, a big piece of that is immigration policy."

There are those who argue that Sanders past positions have been miscast as not progressive enough on immigration. Sanders has framed his 2007 vote, for instance, as against guest worker programs that he argues amount to slavery.

"His position has been unfairly twisted as anti-immigrant," said Daniel Costa of the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, whose board features labor figures like the AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka. "Pointing out the abuses and exploitation that happens in guest-worker programs is pretty progressive.”

"Clinton's been silent on it," he continued. "Bernie Sanders has been talking about it. The way the programs are set up it's bad for the U.S. workers that are here. If they get fired they become deportable."

Carmona, likewise, argued that Clinton’s position that many of the unaccompanied minors who entered the United States last year, largely from Central America, would ultimately need to be sent back wasn’t as progressive as Sanders’s position. “When it came to unaccompanied minors he was clear that we need to treat these people as refugees,” Carmona said.

The policy realm poses challenges beyond the immigration statements of the past, though. Although immigration policy is a passion point for Latino voters, many bristle at the way some campaigns make it their only outreach issue. Some activists feel Sanders, ironically, has now focused too much on immigration.

According to a source among the 15 national Hispanic leaders and operatives who attended Carmona's first Latino event in Los Angeles on Oct. 14, the conversation was almost entirely dominated by immigration. The source was annoyed that Latino youth education, a fast growing part of the country's education calculus as a whole, wasn't mentioned.

"If we’re talking about issues that affect our community, we have to have the conversation about education, it's the number one issue Latinos care about," the source said. "It's tone deaf to not be addressing it."

(Clinton has talked early childhood education for Latino children at events ranging from the NALEO gathering of Latino elected officials to the National Council of La Raza conference.)

From left: Erika Andiola, Arturo Carmona, and Cesar Vargas, prominent immigration activists who have joined the Sanders campaign.

AP images

Cristina Jimenez, the managing director of United We Dream said she has had conversations with Carmona about policies that she said would improve the "holistic livelihood" of undocumented immigrants.

Calling it "encouraging" to see Sanders working on policies that UWD has listed as critical for the immigrant community, Jimenez said her organization's early criticism has given way to keeping him and the other candidate's accountable for their promises.

"We've seen this movie before," she said.

In September, when Sanders cued up legislation to end private corporations running prisons, he included private detention facilities too, and said he wanted to end the bed quota mandated by Congress that calls for 34,000 beds to be filled every night.

Chris Newman, an immigration lawyer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), said what makes this election different is that the Democratic candidates are competing to come up with the best "administrative reform agenda" as well as a legislative fix.

Sanders has been careless in his rhetoric about immigrants in the past, Newman argued, but said he has an opportunity to turn the corner now.

"Democrats are undergoing an evolution on their words and actions on immigrant rights," he said. "It's going to be interesting to see how far he’s evolved."

Campaign officials acknowledge Sanders has his work cut out for him, particularly when it comes to name recognition with Hispanics. But they believe the excitement for Sanders will help them overcome organizational hurdles in, for instance, Nevada, where Clinton has had experienced operatives working since April. (Sanders will be in Las Vegas Nov. 8 and 9 to meet with union members and attend a presidential forum at the Fair Immigration Reform Movement 2016 summit in Las Vegas along with Martin O'Malley.) Clinton will not attend.

And in Carmona, Andiola, and Vargas, the campaign has uncompromising activists who were loud, influential voices during the fight for executive actions on immigration last year — and who mirror the insurgent, anti-establishment quality of Sanders’s candidacy.

Still, while Vargas went to the same high school in Brooklyn as Sanders, his support wasn't immediate. He said he wanted to see the first woman president, like many others. But last year when he and Andiola confronted Clinton and Sanders in Iowa, Vargas began to change his mind. Asked if she supported Obama delaying the executive action announcement, Clinton replied, "We have to keep working" and "Elect more Democrats," which annoyed the activists. Sanders responded that the president was wrong to delay.

In Nevada where Vargas and Andiola will team up, Vargas said he has already seen an influx of high school and college-aged Hispanics in his first two weeks who have come into the office energized to volunteer for Sanders.

But the activists-turned-staffers also acknowledge that language and messaging on immigration has been a challenge for the senator.

Before joining Sanders, Andiola herself openly wondered on Facebook what he meant by his remarks on guest workers. She also repeatedly has explained that the reason she gave advice on immigration to the Clinton campaign, then O'Malley, and finally Sanders before officially joining, was to push the Democratic frontrunner Clinton to the left on immigration. By joining Clinton’s most competitive opponent, Andiola is able to do that most effectively.

Andres Ramirez, a 20-year Nevada veteran Democratic strategist, said the challenge in the state is that it's much easier to get 100,000 people to go to an immigration rally than it is to get them to turn out to caucus for a candidate.

"There's a tactical difference between hiring Latino activists who don’t have campaign experience versus Latino activists who do have campaign experience, which is what Hillary's campaign has been focused on," he said.

Sanders' campaign stresses that it isn't just hiring immigration activists — Javier Gonzalez formerly of SEIU and Emilia Pablo, the state director of Mi Familia Vota, have come on in recent weeks.

And the enthusiasm is real. Vargas said as DREAMers, he and Andiola aren't doing this looking to the future, but as the logical continuation of their advocacy.

"This is it for us. We cannot work in the White House, we're not doing this to have a career as a White House staffer," he said. "Bernie Sanders is why we're getting our excitement. Clinton vs. Sanders is a brand vs. a movement."

Bernie Sanders Just Hired The Best Known Immigration Activist In The Country

Ben Carson's quiet demeanor has led many, including Donald Trump, to poke fun at him for seemingly being asleep all the time.

Mark J. Terrill / AP

Trump, joking about falling to second place behind Carson, said at a rally in October, "You know some of them: 'We have a breaking story. Donald Trump has fallen to second place behind Ben Carson. We informed Ben. But he was sleeping."

Jimmy Kimmel even did a segment on his show marketing a "Lullaby Ben" sleep assistant, which uses "actual sound" of Carson to help people go to sleep.

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Jokes aside, Carson has written of several instances in which he fell asleep at the wheel of his car. According to his books, he narrowly escaped colliding with an 18-wheeler after falling asleep on the road on two occasions, decades apart.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

One such occasion, he writes, is how he knew he was meant to be with his wife Candy.

As a senior at Yale, Carson was driving a sleeping Candy Rustin (now Candy Carson) back to New Haven from Detroit, when he too succumbed to fatigue.

"With my hands relaxed on the wheel, the car flew along at 90 miles per hour," he wrote in his 1996 autobiography Gifted Hands. "The heater, turned on low, kept us comfortably warm. It had been half an hour or more since I'd seen another vehicle. I felt relaxed, everything under control. Then I floated into a comfortable sleep too."

He was abruptly awakened, he says, by the "vibration of the car striking the metal illuminators that separate each lane," at which point he "grabbed the steering wheel, and fiercely jerked to the left." A "heartbeat" after the car came to a stop, "an eighteen-wheeler transport came barreling through on that lane."

It was then, he writes, that Candy told him she thought they were meant to be together and Carson said he thought so too. It's a story he has re-told in other books, such as this year's You Have A Brain.

Fast-forward to 1998, when, according to a friend quoted in a Real Clear Politics piece on Carson, the renowned neurosurgeon had another epiphany after falling asleep while driving.

The RCP story says Carson was "weighed upon" by the death of the friend's daughter and "a late night of surgeries," when he passed out at the wheel, only to be awakened by the "sound of the cars' wheels on the shoulder."

"The episode also awakened Carson to a work-life dynamic that he decided was gravely out of balance, Boyer recalled; the next day, Carson asked that his workload at Johns Hopkins be reduced," RCP reports.

Carson writes of a similar event in his 1999 book The Big Picture. He fell asleep at the wheel twice "in a matter of days," in the weeks before the completion of that book.

The first time it happened, Carson said he was driving home at two in the morning after his seventh operation of the day. Going 70 miles per hour "in light traffic," Carson "dozed off," barely avoiding an "eighteen-wheeler" (just as when he fell asleep while driving back to Yale with his future wife by his side).

"When I suddenly awakened," Carson continued, "I instinctively jerked the wheel of my Buick to the left just in time to avoid drifting under the wheels of an eighteen-wheeler I didn't remember starting to pass."

After the second time he fell asleep at the wheel that week, Carson said it "scared me so badly," he wrote to the administration of Johns Hopkins to inform them that he could no longer perform surgeries so late into the night.

Carson said that his superiors took it well, arguing that ultimately to blame for his exhausting schedule was "the system itself — a system where all the providers, hospitals, as well as doctors, are being squeezed harder and harder by an insurance industry that too often makes profits a higher goal than quality health care."

Carson said in October that his energy levels are "perfectly fine."

Wrestlemania 4 took place next door to Trump Plaza in Atlantic City. “Thank god Donald Trump’s a Hulkamaniac,” explained Hogan about The Donald who was in attendance at the event, “he’ll know enough to let go of his materialistic possessions, hang onto the wife and kids, dog paddle with his life all the way to safety.”

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“Do we really care about what we’re doing to millions of children who don’t have gender confusion and introducing the subject and saying, ‘well maybe you should.’”

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Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, says introducing the subject of "gender confusion" to children will only make those who do not have "gender confusion" more confused.

Santorum, speaking on NewsMaxTV's Steve Malzberg Show last Thursday about federal officials who told a Illinois school district it broke the law by a banning a transgender student from the girls locker room, said "I don't why children at that age are even, ya know, why this is even an issue.

"The idea that we are introducing this type of real dangerous confusion for young people at this early age. Do we really care about what we're doing to millions of children who don't have gender confusion and introducing the subject and saying, 'well maybe you should. Maybe this is something you should start thinking about.'

"At age seven, I mean this is really dangerous and it's going to far because it's gonna have — it is having — an impact on not just folks who may be in a difficult situation at an early age but many who would never have been in that situation that now are being confronted with it," continued Santorum.

Earlier this year, the former senator said of Caitlyn Jenner's public transition that if Jenner "says he's a woman, then he's a woman." He then clarified by saying two weeks later, "I know what obviously and biologically he is. That doesn't change by himself identifying himself."

BuzzFeed News has found more instances of Rand Paul misattributing quotations to historical figures in American history. Can you spot them?

Sean Rayford / Getty Images

A further review by BuzzFeed News has turned up several previously unnoticed instances in which the Republican presidential candidate has misattributed a quotation. Can you spot the real from the fake?

Take the quiz:

“Mr. Trump is funding his campaign on his own, he’s not taking donor money.”

Kena Betancur / AFP / Getty Images

Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said on the radio this week that Trump is not taking donor money and self-funding his entire presidential campaign — claims that are demonstrably false.

"The first thing is obviously is the inside-the-beltway guys have no control over Donald Trump and I mean that in a good way," Lewandowski said on Breitbart News Radio on SiriusXM on Tuesday.

"Most of those people are bought and paid for by special interests, by lobbyists, by major donors," added Lewandowski. "Mr. Trump is funding his campaign on his own, he's not taking donor money. He isn't beholden to those people and can't be accountable to those people who want special interests out of the government. He's gonna do what's right for the country."

Trump is, in fact, accepting donations and has a donation page on his campaign website. Trump is also not, as he himself continues to say in speech and debates, entirely self-funding his campaign. Though Trump donated a large amount of his own money to his campaign early on, the majority of money Trump has raised and spent recently has come from donations.

From the New York Time's blog post on Trump's FEC filing in mid-October:

Mr. Trump revealed in a filing Thursday to the Federal Election Commission that the vast majority of the money he raised and spent this summer as he rose to the top of national polls came not from his own coffers, as it had in the spring, but from about $3.7 million in what he called "unsolicited contributions." Some 74,000 donors pitched in an average of about $50 to help his campaign, he reported. Mr. Trump himself contributed only about $100,000 in in-kind contributions, including rent space that he donated and payroll expenses that he covered. That represented a huge drop from the spring, when Mr. Trump donated about $1.9 million to his campaign, financing the bulk of it himself.

“I just want to make sure whoever plays me in one of the skits is someone who does it well.”

Bryan Steffy / Getty Images

"No, they haven't called me to host it," Rubio told Charlie Skykes on WTMJ radio on Wednesday morning when asked Republican frontrunner Donald Trump hosting Saturday Night Live. "I couldn't host it. I don't lived in New York and I've got a campaign to run. I just want to make sure whoever plays me in one of the skits is someone who does it well. Maybe Mario Lopez is someone they should look into."

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Mary Schwalm / Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate and Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill Wednesday to end the federal prohibition on marijuana, the first such bill to ever be introduced in the Senate, according to marijuana legalization advocates.

Sanders went farther than any other presidential candidate last week on the question of ending the drug war when he called for lifting the federal ban on marijuana, and he followed up this week by introducing a bill in the Senate to remove marijuana from the federal government's list of Schedule I drugs, which includes other illegal substances such as heroin and LSD.

“It is absurd that it is compared to, or treated, the same way as heroin is,” Sanders told The Daily Beast Tuesday.

Last week, Sanders told an audience of college students that ending marijuana prohibition was essential to ending racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

“Although about the same proportion of blacks and whites use marijuana, a black person is almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person,” Sanders said. “Too many Americans have seen their lives destroyed because they have criminal records as a result of marijuana use.”

Marijuana legalization advocates praised Sanders' bill.

“This is the first time a bill to end federal marijuana prohibition has been introduced in the U.S. Senate," Tom Angell, the chairman of the pro-legalization group Marijuana Majority, told BuzzFeed News. "A growing majority of Americans want states to be able to enact their own marijuana laws without harassment from the DEA, and lawmakers should listen."

The bill would not legalize marijuana, but rather leave its legal status up to individual states. It would ban interstate transport of marijuana, but it is still the most wide-sweeping marijuana bill to be introduced in the Senate, which is traditionally more reserved than the House on this issue.

Sen. Rand Paul, who is running for the Republican nomination for president, joined Democratic senators Corey Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand in introducing a bill earlier this year that would lift the federal ban on medical marijuana.

For the past several years, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans in the House have pushed amendments into spending bills blocking the Justice Department from using resources to prosecute medical marijuana businesses and cultivators in states that have legalized the drug for medical purposes.

Read the bill:

BuzzFeed News

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Earlier this year, as Donald Trump began noisily flirting with a 2016 presidential bid, a flurry of Trump-related book ideas began circulating among Manhattan publishing types. There was the writer who wanted to produce an ironic collection of Trump's most outlandish quotes; the conservative journalist promising unparalleled access for a campaign hagiography; the other conservative journalist ready to rush a quickie anti-Trump polemic to the presses.

And, finally, there was Trump's own political manifesto — Trumpily titled, Crippled America: How To Make America Great Again — which was released this week to much fanfare by Simon & Schuster.

With its celebrity author currently topping 2016 polls and generating nonstop media attention with his vaudevillian White House bid, the book seems destined for bestseller status. But despite the potential for a publishing bonanza, Crippled America is one of very few new Trump-centric title to have hit the shelves so far this year. One reason? The book industry — like the political press — largely dismissed Trump's campaign at the outset as a short-lived publicity stunt that would be over before they had time to cash in.

Now that The Donald has proven them wrong, the haters and losers of the professional literati are left kicking themselves.

"I think everybody in political publishing had been burned too many times by [authors] who were at their high when they sold their books and then had fizzled by the time the books came out," said one editor. "A lot of people thought this was a Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain situation."

Indeed, the graveyard of the publishing industry is littered with money-losing political books that were tanked by bad timing, like the 2012 memoir that fetched Marco Rubio an $800,000 advance at a time when pundits were predicting he would be Mitt Romney's running mate — and then flatlined in sales once he didn't make it on the ticket. Given The Donald's well-documented record of toying with presidential bids and then abandoning them, book editors were especially wary of placing big bets on 2016-themed Trump-lit.

The first of this year's ill-fated Trump projects was conceived during a backstage interview with conservative Daily Mail journalist David Martosko at the Iowa Freedom Summit in January. Trump's attempts to stoke 2016 buzz at the conservative confab that day had elicited mostly eye-rolls from the incredulous reporters in attendance — but Martosko believed he was serious this time. Spotting a ground-floor investment opportunity, the reporter proposed that Trump collaborate with him on a campaign book, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.

Trump liked the idea, and Martosko — a former editor at The Daily Caller who declined to comment for this story — spent the following weeks negotiating with the billionaire's aides and pitching the project to publishers. One concept was a collection of high-octane interviews with Trump on various political subjects; another was an authorized inside account of Trump's early campaign, tentatively titled, Three Weeks With The Donald.

On its face, bidding on the proposal might have seemed like a no-brainer for publishers. As one source who was supportive of the project put it, "Donald Trump is an ATM with eyes and a mouth."

But the reception Martosko received from editors earlier this year was often muted and hesitant. One editor said he passed on the book because he didn't believe Trump would actually run. Another source said the standard lead time in the publishing industry — even if accelerated to warp speed — seemed unlikely to produce a topical book before Trump inevitably flamed out of the race.

"Look, it's February, and by April this is all gonna be over and we're gonna be on the hook for a contracted book with a big advance," said one source familiar with Martosko's project, summing up the initial reluctance by publishers.

Martosko, who has conducted nearly a dozen interviews with Trump, did generate some interest from editors, but they said any book contract would be contingent on a commitment of cooperation from The Donald — and that never materialized. After much back-and-forth, Trump eventually informed Martosko that he had decided not to do a campaign book at all, reasoning that he already had world-beating name recognition and didn't need to bother.

It was only a matter of weeks, however, before Trump reversed that decision, and by summer he was peddling his own political book to publishers. Even with Trump surging in the national polls at that point, the proposal was still met with some skepticism from the publishing world.

Said one editor, "Probably any publisher would have taken that swing gladly at some level — just not for the amount [of money] Trump's agent was asking."

The agent in question was Byrd Leavell, a unique fixture in the New York literary scene whose impeccably lowbrow client roster includes the raunchy bro-bait blogger Tucker Max; the creators of the website Total Frat Move; socialite-cum-"pillhead" memoirist Cat Marnell; and a young Maryland woman who went viral after emailing a profanity-laced tirade to her sorority sisters. Leavell does not typically traffic in presidential politics: He is best known in the industry for his tendency to trawl on the web, and then successfully repurpose the most controversial content into bestselling books. He's had some hits — the adaptation of the popular "Shit My Dad Says" Twitter account sold more than a million copies — and some misses, such as a widely panned book by the author of Twitter's Goldman Sachs Elevator account. But Leavell's gleeful anti-elitism made him a natural fit for Trump.

In a 2013 interview, Leavell described the philosophy that animates his search for literary talent. "There's a number of books that have pubbed that just say, you know, I had too many drinks, I banged him, I kicked him out of bed, and I went to work," he mused. "Like, it's out there, but I think there's room for more."

Trump's new book is light on such first-person tales of debauchery, but compared to the stodgy, sanitized memoirs of his Republican rivals, Crippled America — with its politically incorrect title and glowering cover photo — is similarly defiant of genre conventions. And Leavell was the perfect agent to get it sold.

Leavell declined an interview request and wouldn't respond to questions about the size of Trump's advance (though he did say in an email that the candidate planned to donate the money). One source close to Trump speculated that he was aiming for something in the ballpark of Hillary Clinton's rumored $14 million contract — so that he could boast about the comparison in a general election face-off. "He really does think that way," the source said. Others in publishing circles said Trump's advance was likely closer to low-end seven figures.

Meanwhile, the industry's scramble to catch up and cash in on Trump-mania continues. Editors described a number of books at various stages of fruition, including a novelty collection of Trump's most outrageous utterances, and new editions of old biographies and books about The Donald. In September, a biography of Trump called Never Enough came out.

Kevin Williamson — a National Review correspondent whose vicious report on Trump's campaign kickoff earlier this year was headlined "Witless Ape Rides Escalator" — churned out a short paperback over the course of ten days in September, which will be published by a small conservative imprint this month under the title, The Case Against Trump.

Williamson said he and his editor both held off for a while before committing to the book, because they assumed — and hoped — that Trump would fade. Eventually, they had to come to terms with reality.

"Frankly, I would have rather Trump exited the race quickly and I not write the book," Williamson said, adding, "I think he'll probably sell a few more copies than I do."

“…you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.”

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Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson told graduates during a commencement address in the late '90s that he believed the pyramids in Egypt were built by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain, and not, as most archeologists contend, as tombs for pharaohs.

At the 1998 commencement for Andrews University, a school associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Carson also dismissed the notion that aliens were somehow involved in the construction of the pyramids.

"My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said. "Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs' graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don't think it'd just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain."

In the Old Testament, Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob, is sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers. He eventually rose to become a top aide to the Egyptian pharaoh, advising him of a dream vision he had of coming years of famine in the ancient kingdom. Joseph's sage advice of the coming famine (and directions to store gain) helped the Egyptians survive the famine.

Carson said the design of the pyramids made clear they were for grain storage.

"And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they'd have to be that way for various reasons. And various of scientists have said, 'Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that's how—' you know, it doesn't require an alien being when God is with you."

Watch the full commencement address below:

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Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's campaign released a new ad attacking Hillary Clinton on gun policy.

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"How many senseless acts of violence do we have to endure as a people before we stand up to the Congressional lobbyists of the NRA," O'Malley says, his voice rising as he speaks. "How many more Americans have to die?"

In the ad, O'Malley's line is met with thunderous applause:

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But here's how it sounded in the original clip of his speech to the U.S. Conference of mayors in June 2015. It was an applause line, but... not anywhere near as loud as the ad:

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WASHINGTON — There have been allegations of insider trading, lawmakers are calling for investigations, and lobbyists have been retained. But drastic changes aren’t necessarily coming to the daily fantasy sports industry — at least not anytime soon.

Led by FanDuel and DraftKings, the daily fantasy industry has exploded into a $2 billion industry in recent years. That success has brought new scrutiny, especially following the disclosure last month that a DraftKings employee released data, then won $350,000 on FanDuel in the same week.

In Washington, some lawmakers are aggressively calling for tighter regulation — something that could significantly affect the industry, which is exempt from the federal laws that prohibit online sports betting and poker. FanDuel and DraftKings have responded by hiring up lobbying firms in the past month on the federal level, and spending big on the state level. But hearings aren’t yet scheduled, no major legislation has been introduced in Congress, and if either happen, it won’t be for a while.

The chairmen of the two Senate committees that would have jurisdiction on the issue — Sen. John Thune of the Commerce Committee and Sen. Chuck Grassley of the Judiciary Committee — told BuzzFeed News that although they are paying some attention to it, they don't currently have plans to look into the industry.

"Right now, I don't have an opinion," Grassley said. "None of my colleagues have asked me to have hearings. It's relatively new. I know it's seven or eight years old, but it's relatively new in terms of people talking about it politically."

Thune said he had heard from some of his Democratic colleagues, but he hasn't "decided on any specific course of action."

"We're obviously paying attention to the issue and following some of the reporting," he said. "We've had some discussions about it. Obviously, our issue area of involvement would be the consumer protection issue because we have jurisdiction over the Federal Trade Commission. So we're following it."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton has said a hearing is "likely" — after ranking member New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone became the most vocal critic of the industry — but also said it won’t happen soon. "There’s a lot of things on our front burner right now," Upton said recently.

There is some bipartisan concern. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has sponsored legislation to ban all online gambling, told BuzzFeed News he would also “like to deal with fantasy sports.” And Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a ranking member on the consumer protection subcommittee, said “the more that's learned about fantasy sports, the more momentum and evidence there will be for stricter oversight and scrutiny.” But it’s clear the issue isn't a priority for either chamber.

Insiders say the lobbying firms were mostly hired as a defensive strategy to educate members of Congress — more a preventative measure. DraftKings and FanDuel hired the lobbying firms less than 10 days before third-quarter lobbying reports were due and had already reported spending a combined $30,000. Fantasy Sports Trade Association spent another $20,000 in the third quarter.

“I don’t see a fantasy sports bill passing out of Congress anytime soon,” said Jeremy Kudon, a lobbyist who represents FanDuel, DraftKings, and the Fantasy Sports Trade Association on the state level.

"We've certainly been focused on the states since February," he said. "We have a robust infrastructure that's only getting more robust by the day."

Before the recent push for regulation, fantasy sports companies had already been banned from operating in five states. Nevada, which ruled last month that fantasy sports companies needed a gaming license, essentially became the sixth — a major setback for the industry.

But the decision in Nevada might not be one that could as easily be replicated in other states, except New Jersey, which also has a competing casino industry. The growing popularity of fantasy sports combined with the intense behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts in states is expected to produce less aggressive proposals in state legislatures, based on interviews with various stakeholders.

Although the industry is gearing up for legislation in up to 35 states, most state legislatures won’t come back to session until next year, when the issue might have faded.

In the meantime, there’s a proposal from Illinois — introduced last week — that some are expected to use as a potential model. The bill, which would add consumer protection measures and require auditing policies, has some support from the industry.

“Other jurisdictions don’t have entrenched gaming interests that deal with casino issues and have not traditionally regulated the gaming industry,” said David Klein, a managing partner at a New York-based firm who specializes in fantasy sports and gaming law and represents some fantasy sports companies. “For them to take the Illinois approach — which is of lighter touch — would make more sense.”

Chris Grove, who follows the issue closely as author of an influential website Legal Sports Report, said some movement in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are also worth watching, but he expects more states to follow Illinois’ approach.

“States recognize that while there is the appearance of a lot of money in the industry... there isn’t really a lot of tax revenue,” Grove said. “As they get educated on the issue, that moves them away from gambling regulation.”

Grove also said that although change through state or federal legislation that could dramatically hurt the industry seems less likely at this point, there are some civil and criminal investigations facing companies that could be considered long-shots, but could also serve as “pressure points that could bring about rapid and violent change.”

The attorney general of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are among those investigating fantasy sports companies. A federal grand jury in Florida is also reportedly looking into possible criminal violations, and Washington Redskins’ Pierre Garcon has filed a class-action lawsuit against FanDuel for using his name and likeness without his permission.

With little clarity so far on where the industry is headed, Klein summed up how he sees it playing out: “The industry will be different. There will be more checks and balances, but I expect the industry to survive and thrive.”

Donald Trump raised eyebrows in October when he referred to a $1 million loan his father gave him at the beginning of his career as a "small loan."

"It has not been easy for me," Trump said. "I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars. I came into Manhattan, and I had to pay him back, and I had to pay him back with interest."

It's not the first time Trump has characterized a loan from his father, Fred Trump, as small. In a 2007 deposition, the Donald admitted to taking about $9.6 million from his father's estate, calling the sum "a very small amount of money."

Trump was being deposed by the lawyer of journalist Timothy L. O'Brien, who Trump sued for defamation after the writer estimated in his 2005 book TrumpNation that Trump's net worth was a mere $150 to $250 million, compared to Donald's own $6 billion personal valuation. Trump was asked in the December 2007 deposition if he had ever borrowed money from the deceased Fred Trump's estate.

"I think a small amount a long time ago," Donald Trump replied. "I think it was like in the $9 million range."

Asked when this happened, Trump said, "I don't know. Years ago."

Claiming that borrowing was "a way of getting some interest into the estate," he went on to assert, "At that point I was worth a tremendous amount of money. And the rest of the family borrowed too, or members of the family borrowed also. But I don't — I don't know the exact amount, but it wasn't a very significant amount."

He later confirmed that the loan was for $9.6 million, before adding, "It's a very small amount of money, by the way, and it's an amount of money that was easily handleable by me in many different ways. So this is not — this is not exactly earth-shattering."

He said that he had paid back the loan "with interest," though he was unable to say when.

Donald Trump's presidential campaign did not reply to a request for comment.

Here's a sample of the deposition:

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In an interview with MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday, Donald Trump called his opponent Ben Caron's theory that the Egyptian pyramids were built to store grain "a strange deal."

“Yes, and you informed me very interestingly about the pyramids," he told the hosts. "I think I'll have to put that into my repertoire when I talk about Ben. That was a strange — that was a strange deal. I learn a lot by watching your show, folks.”

In a 1998 commencement address unearthed by BuzzFeed News on Wednesday, the retired neurosurgeon said he believed that the Egyptian pyramids were not built as tombs for pharaohs.

“My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson said. “Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.”

Carson ruled out alien involvement as well.

“And various of scientists have said, ‘Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how—’ you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.”

Watch the exchange below:

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Ben Carson: Egyptian Pyramids Built For Grain Storage, Not By Aliens Or As Tombs

“Have you ever seen Barack Obama sit down and be interviewed by Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck, or Mark Levin? Barack Obama is terrified of questions from real journalists who actually would press him.”

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In response to President Obama's mocking of Republicans over their reaction to the CNBC debate, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said on Wednesday that the president cowers from interviews with "real journalists" on conservative talk radio.

Earlier this week, Obama said of Republicans complaining about the CNBC debate, "It turns out they can't handle a bunch of CNBC moderators at the debate. Let me tell you, if you can't handle those guys, then I don't think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about you."

"It's not surprising that President Obama is taking cheap shots," Cruz said on WTMJ, calling the president the "worst negotiator in the history of the world for the United States of America."

The Texas senator cited President Obama's Iran deal and rising tensions with Russia as proof Obama was a weak negotiator.

"You just give them everything they want," Cruz stated.

Cruz said the president was a hypocrite and afraid of being interview by what he-called "real journalists," citing several of conservative radios biggest names.

"Everyone of us goes on lefty journalist shows all day long," added Cruz. "I go on MSNBC. I have liberal journalists take shots at me all day long. Have you ever seen Barack Obama sit down and be interviewed by Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, or Glenn Beck, or Mark Levin? Barack Obama is terrified of questions from real journalists who actually would press him. He likes to be surrounded by his fawning accolades."

When asked about Donald Trump, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio appears to have new go-to attack line, saying on two occasions that Trump gets "weird" and "strange" when he sees bad news.

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Rubio said it on Wednesday in New Hampshire and then again on Thursday morning when he was asked about Trump on the radio.

"Every time he sees something in the — he follows the news very closely, he’s obsessed with the news and anything they say about him," Rubio told host Jack Heath. "So anytime he reads something or something happens, like a poll is not as good as he wants it to be, he gets really weird and he does and says weird and strange things."

The Florida senator then added that he would "continue to focus on the future of America" and wouldn't "change who I am or why I'm running because of someone else."

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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's new book, released on Oct. 20, has sold fewer than 500 copies, according to numbers from Nielsen BookScan.

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Paul's book, Our Presidents & Their Prayers, a 36,000-word account about the faith of U.S. presidents, had only sold 80 copies in the first six days, according to the BookScan numbers. Today the number of sales for Paul's book stands at 440 through Sunday, according to sources with access to the numbers.

For comparison, Donald Trump's latest book, Crippled America, released on Tuesday, sold 174 copies of "only pre-sales that have come through our panel of retailers," according to a Nielsen spokesperson.

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A publishing source notes that Trump's number isn't a good representation of sales because data provided was pre-sales, and the next update of the sale numbers (next Wednesday) would only provide sales data through Sunday. Meaning, Trump's number of sales are likely far greater than the number taken on Wednesday. Still, the book's numbers far exceed Paul's early total.

Martin O'Malley argued on Wednesday that the race for the Democratic nomination "only just began."

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"I believe that this Democratic race for president really only just began about 14 days ago with that first debate," O'Malley said on New Hampshire radio.

"And look, Chris, can you remember a time when people dropped out before the first votes were even cast?" O'Malley asked.

During the previous debate, there were five candidates on stage. Two, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb, have since dropped out of the race.

PBS compiled a list of 16 other presidential candidates who dropped out before a single vote was cast, dating as far back as 1988. That list includes Joe Biden, Gary Hart, and Tom Vilsack.

O'Malley also went after Hillary Clinton for naming Republicans among enemies she is proud to have made during her career.

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“I don’t consider Republicans to be my enemy," said the former governor of Maryland. "Republicans are my neighbors, they’re my — they’re my uncles, they’re sometimes my family members, and, um, you know, they’re the guy that comes that calls, that comes when your family has to call 911 and a paramedic comes to take your son or daughter to the hospital."

O'Malley added Clinton's comment was why "people in our nation are hungry for new leadership."

"We’ve had enough of the division," he said. "We’ve had enough of the vilification of one another. We need to talk with each other, not past each other. And we need to get things done again. That’s what I’ve shown the ability to do, that the other two candidates in the Democratic party frankly have never been able to do for all their years in public service.”

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