WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul declares that calls for more surveillance in the wake of the Paris attacks are "bullshit" in a series of social media ads targeting young people being released by one of the main super PACs supporting his candidacy.

"So when they stand up on television and say, 'The tragedy in Paris means you have to give up your liberty, we need more phone surveillance' — bullshit!" Paul says in the 15-second clip for Facebook, which was pulled from footage of a speech he gave at George Washington University last week. The super PAC, America's Liberty PAC, also made two shorter ads for Snapchat. All three ads were provided to BuzzFeed News in advance of the ads' release today.

The ads emphasize Paul's differences with the rest of the Republican field on national security during a fraught time in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. The attacks have intensified the hawkish tendencies of the other candidates and highlighted the fault lines over surveillance and privacy issues within the GOP field. Marco Rubio, for example, last week criticized rival Ted Cruz for voting for the USA Freedom Act, saying "the weakening of U.S. intelligence gathering leaves America vulnerable."

"If you want more government surveillance and less freedom, there are a dozen other Republicans and Hillary Clinton you can vote for," John McCardell, senior vice president of America's Liberty PAC, said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. "But if you want liberty, privacy and the Rule of Law, Rand Paul is the only candidate for you."

Paul makes a point of reaching out to younger audiences and frequently campaigns on college campuses. These ads are designed to appeal to that demographic.

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America's Liberty PAC is one of the main super PACs supporting Paul's candidacy and is led by two Paul family allies, former Ron Paul campaign manager Jesse Benton and Campaign for Liberty chief John Tate. Both took leaves of absence this year because of charges against them in a case relating to the bribery of an Iowa state senator during the 2012 election. Benton's trial culminated last month in an acquittal and the charges against Tate had previously been dropped, though a federal grand jury re-indicted them last week.

And it’s silly to think that ISIS isn’t already here, Graham says.

Jason Bahr / Getty Images

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Presidential candidate South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham says it would be naive to think ISIS does not already have terror cells in the United States.

Speaking in a joint interview on New Hampshire's Concord News Radio with Sen. John McCain, the South Carolina senator similarly said if people had listened to McCain the last five years the Paris attacks would not have happened.

"Well, rather than being self-serving, if we'd listened to Sen. McCain for the last four to five years, Paris would not have happened," Graham said. "ISIL wouldn't exist. The world would be safer, but we are where we are."

Graham said former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would make a political move to distance herself from Obama to show "she's tougher than Obama," on ISIS but did not have a plan that could defeat ISIS.

Meanwhile, McCain, who is campaigning for Graham and also took part in the interview, said President Obama was acting like a child in regards to ISIS and Syrian refugees.

"This president is acting in a petulant, childish fashion unlike any president I have ever seen on this issue," said McCain. "Lindsey Graham stands in stark contrast to a president who is overwhelmed by this situation and can't handle it."

Meanwhile, Graham maintained that ISIS has already entered the United States.

"Well, rather than talk about classified information — which I won't — just look at the open sources available to you," Graham said when asked if ISIS was already in the United States. The senator pointed to statements from the F.B.I. director and director of National Intelligence saying ISIS cells already existed in the United States.

"The bottom line is to think that they're not would be silly," said Graham. "To believe that we're somehow different from the rest of the world. Of all the places that they want to attack we're on the top of their list."

Graham cited the Paris attacks as proof of ISIS' capabilities.

"So, yes, I believe that our homeland's exposed, that there are ISIL cells here," he said.

Still, Graham said, "a modern regional army" with western backing could destroy ISIS.

Craig Lassig / Reuters

MINNEAPOLIS — On Tuesday night, not many protesting Jamar Clark's death had actually seen the video of a Chicago police officer fatally shooting a teenager that had just been released. But the video — and the long, tortured effort to get it released — were still a top concern.

Activists in recent days have pushed Minneapolis officials to release videos captured of the shooting that left Clark, 24, dead. Some bystanders say Clark had been handcuffed by police responding to a domestic call; the police say he wasn’t. But videos from bystanders, local surveillance, and an ambulance camera have not been released.

Activists believe releasing the video to the public is of dire importance.

Black Lives Matter and others have pressed the county attorney, Michael O. Freeman, to bring charges against the police officer who shot Clark. But Freeman has said that decision will instead rest with a grand jury, and the activists believe there is little hope of a grand jury indicting a police officer — especially if the video remains closed to the public.

This week, with the impending release of the video of Laquan McDonald’s death that Chicago officials withheld for more than a year, Cook County prosecutors brought charges against the officer who allegedly shot him 16 times.

"Ultimately, that is what we want here in Minneapolis in the Jamar Clark case," said Adja Gildersleve, a Black Lives Matter Minneapolis organizer. "We’ve seen too many horrific tapes of police violence without prosecution and conviction. We are inspired by what is happening in Chicago and we hope that officers in both cases face the same scrutiny murderers face in due process."

Gildersleve and others said the most important aspect of the release of the video of McDonald's killing is that the officer, Jason Van Dyke, is facing criminal charges for murder — and the video will likely play a significant role if he is ultimately convicted.

Releasing all video of the Clark shooting is the primary demand in the #4thPrecinctShutDown demonstrations and the source of frustration as the case appears more and more headed to a grand jury, "where murder charges against police go to die," activists say.

(Two other demands have been met: There will be a federal civil rights investigation into Clark's death and the names of the officers involved, Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze, were released.)

Protesters are annoyed at Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton's assertion on Monday that the video is inconclusive about what happened one way or the other; witnesses said Clark was handcuffed and unarmed, while the head of the police union said Clark took control of an officer’s weapon. Many activists said they are incredulous at the gulf between the two narratives, and even more so at the idea that the police narrative is to be most trusted.

Karen Monahan, a Minneapolis-based activist, said regardless of the questions surrounding what happened, the public's relative ignorance about what happened on Nov. 15 exacerbates the distrust that recommendations from the president's 21st Century Task Force, and other efforts are supposed to be correcting.

The McDonald video put on display more police violence, but the year-plus of wrangling over the video's content is what makes it difficult to trust subsequent investigations and processes, activists say. "Basically you're asking us to put faith, trust and patience in a system that we know in the past has been designed to carry out laws that basically says that black and brown folks are dispensable," she said. "It is a lot to ask."

"You don’t need to watch another video of another black person getting killed to understand the rage and grief that comes along with not only that event occurring, but also with the widespread circulation of a teenager’s murder," said Ashley Yates , a protester linked to the Black Lives Matter Minneapolis chapter and who was instrumental in White House meetings last year after Ferguson. "And anyone who claims to not see the state of emergency that America’s insistence on systemic racism has caused has chosen to turn a blind eye."

A rally at the precinct was expected to continue Wednesday afternoon. Right now, the protesters are talking mostly about the grand jury: about the stakes, the timing and, if a grand jury is indeed inevitable, what, exactly, to do next.

Yates said whatever the next step for organizers is, it's best done for them to decide as a community. On Wednesday, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis called for supporters to contact Hennepin County Attorney and demand #nograndjury in the case against the officer who shot Clark.

A Crowd Rise fundraiser for Clark's family reached its $10,000 goal. He was to be laid to rest Wednesday.

He says he doesn’t know a New York Times reporter he mocked. It’s a common dodge for Trump.

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Donald Trump has the world's greatest memory, he says.

But that hasn't stopped The Donald from conveniently forgetting to know who people or organizations are when it suits him best.

After being ripped by the New York Times for mocking a reporter with a disability at the Times at a campaign rally, The Donald issued a statement saying he didn't even know who the reporter was.

Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, told the Times he's met The Donald dozens of times and that he and The Donald were on a first-name basis for years.

For another example, take former Klansman David Duke, who in August said Trump was "certainly the best of the lot" running for president.

"I don't need his endorsement. I certainly wouldn't want his endorsement. I don't need anybody's endorsement," Trump said on Bloomberg Politics in August when asked if he'd repudiate Duke. "I would do that if it would make you feel better. I would certainly repudiate — I don't know anything about him. Somebody told me yesterday, whoever he is, he did endorse me. Actually I don't think it was an endorsement."

"Whoever he is," indeed. While Trump purported not to even know who Duke was, in 2000 he cited the former Klansman as a reason he would not run for the Reform Party presidential nomination.

"The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani," Trump said that year. "This is not company I wish to keep."

Duke even gets cited in Trump's 2000 campaign book, The America We Deserve.

Next, take The Club for Growth.

"I had never even heard of the Club For Growth," Trump told Beitbart amidst his spat with the conservative organization over his record on taxes in November.

But Trump has himself, again, mentioned the organization before, in 2011, when his record on taxes was questioned at the time.

"Me? A liberal? What is the Club for Growth and who are they supporting? Because I understood — I had heard about this just a little while ago. I had heard that they have a favored candidate, whoever that may be," Trump said on ABC's This Week in 2011.

According to Politico in 2011, Trump also had a call with the organization's head that year too.

Then, take CNN host Michael Smerconish.

"You have some guy named Smerconish who I've never even heard of...," Trump said on Fox and Friends in May 2014 when talking about former Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

And yet, one month earlier Trump slammed the CNN host in a pair of tweets.

"I can't believe that CNN would waste time and money with @smerconish — he has got nothing going. Jeff Zucker must be losing his touch," tweeted The Donald.

"What a boring show! Snooze fest," Trump quoted another user saying about the host.

Or, take, finally, political operative Aaron Borders, a man Trump's campaign manager was caught on tape threatening to sue for recording his phone calls after he denied having done so to BuzzFeed News.

Despite Trump campaign claims they didn't know who Borders was, emails and phone calls showed him communicating with the Trump campaign. The campaign cut ties to him after BuzzFeed News found racist posts on Borders' Facebook.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Black Lives Matter activists hammered out an agreement to end the group's occupation of the 4th precinct in North Minneapolis in a nearly three-hour meeting with state and federal officials at the governor's residence last Saturday.

Though the loosely agreed upon pact seemed simple enough, it was never executed.

The deal was this: Gov. Mark Dayton would agree to a special session with Black Lives Matter and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change to address racial disparities facing communities of color. He would also issue a statement calling for the release of video recordings believed to reveal more about the death of Jamar Clark, an unarmed 24-year-old fatally shot by a police officer on Nov. 15.

When appropriate, the recordings would go to the family first, then be released to the public.

But as soon as they left the meeting, three Black Lives Matter Minneapolis activists — Lena K. Gardner, Kandace Montgomery and Mica Grimm — were filled with regret. Gardner told BuzzFeed News they thought they should have pushed harder for the public to see the tapes — which can only be released by court order or by Dayton.

After all, the release of the video recordings was the central demand of the nascent but highly effective #4thPrecinctShutDown action, not a prepared statement from Dayton. They wanted to find out what happened to Clark, not get another invitation to the governor's residence.

On the other hand, the organizers wondered, should they ultimately end the protests? Hadn't they scored huge victories?

It’s a big conflict inside Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, which is both rising in stature with city and state power brokers, and within the neighborhood near the precinct. The activists contend that the building influence in the halls of power and building connections in the community aren’t at odds — even as the organization debates internally how much to interact with elected officials, and as the protests here continue, with both sides claiming to represent the interests of Jamar Clark’s family.

On a recent night, a young man was asked to just play the drums on a kit he set up — and he played as people watched and danced and jammed along. People noshed on granola bars and fried chicken, coffee and hot cocoa, that volunteers had brough — a few without saying a single word to the protesters at the site. Gatherers huddled by fires in frigid, but not unbearable temperatures. One white couple told BuzzFeed News they drove 80 miles into Minneapolis from their home to bring firewood after seeing a request from Black Lives Matter Minneapolis' Twitter account.

And yet, as night falls, the encampment remains tense. Far flung conspiracy theories about the shooting abound, and unfamiliar faces and oncoming traffic at times has caused panic.

Jamar Clark's funeral procession went past the encampment site on Wednesday.

Stephen Maturen / Getty Images

For a moment, it appeared the sit-in might end, after the meeting with Dayton last weekend. The meeting had brought together more than just the governor and the protesters: Clark’s brother and his wife attended, as did Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison and a top aide, while the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, Vanita Gupta, called in.

Afterward, Dayton issued a statement calling for the tapes to be released when they no longer hindered the ongoing investigation. The governor also agreed to a special session with Black Lives Matter and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change in December to hammer out policies that could help fix racial disparities in the state.

Several sources told BuzzFeed News that based on the results of the conversation Black Lives Matter had with the governor, the group was going to call for the end of the occupation of the precinct.

But on Tuesday afternoon, just hours after a shooting near the protest that left five injured, a spokeswoman for Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, Misky Noor, told reporters that the sit-in would continue.

“We will not bow to fear or intimidation. Black Lives Matter exists to fight this type of dangerous white supremacy,” Noor said.

Ellison then issued a lengthy statement calling conditions at the sit-in unsafe and said the #4thPrecinctShutDown needed to “evolve beyond the encampment.”

Michael McDowell, a founding organizer of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, said that the activists were always going to do one more thing before they made any big decisions. “We said that we were going to [present] it to the community and see what they said. And they said they wanted to stay.”

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis said that while they understood Ellison's frustration — according to a source, he phoned an organizer on Wednesday fuming that they hadn't ended the occupation — the consensus in the community is to not end the occupation, McDowell said. The organization’s eight-member leadership is trying to be sensitive to the community’s needs.

A spokesperson from Ellison’s office on Thursday said he was not available for an interview on Thanksgiving, and Ellison declined two earlier requests for an interview through a spokesperson.

Ellison spoke to a live stream documenting the encampment late Thursday. Among other factors, he said, many people were exposed to poor air quality due to the fires.

"I think this is a good and righteous effort," he said. "I will tell you that I am concerned about safety. I really am. There were five people who got shot by a white supremacist the other night. That was dangerous. None fatal, thank God for that. And the next night there were shots fired. Even though I'm not 100% with this particular tactic, and I think it's certainly served its purpose, these are my folks. I stand with them. And if they're going to be out here I'm going to be out here."

Some key organizers who had been instrumental inside the occupation thought it would be a good idea “to end sooner rather than later,” Gardner said. Black Lives Matter Minneapolis activists were working on a strategy to end the occupation, she said. “But then the shooting happened.”

Following the shooting this week, Eddie Sutton, the brother of Jamar Clark, who was present at the governor’s residence, provided a statement through Ellison's office on behalf of the family. Given the shooting, it was time for the protests to end, Sutton said.

The protesters are undeterred. Even two people who were shot on Tuesday night were back on Wednesday night, limping around the site of the protest.

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis also said it had spoken with family members, too, some of whom Wednesday were a steady presence at the protest.

The circumstances of Jamar Clark's family are also complicated. Observers said Wednesday that his family is comprised of a biological, foster and adoptive family, all of whom have been in contact with organizers of the protests.

“As with any family you can expect dissent and different ideas,” Gardner said. “We’ve been adamant that we want to honor the family and be true to the community. A lot of the brothers who are most at risk are the ones pushing the hardest for us to stay out here.”

A week ago, before the shooting near the protest site, close to 30 people, including Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and a collection of leaders that sprang from the encampment, Ellison announced that the end of the occupation of the 4th precinct was near. “In the meeting he made it seem like we were ending the occupation. He was advocating for it to end and folks weren’t really having it.”

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis grew annoyed with Ellison. “Folks were mad because that’s not what we said we wanted to do,” McDowell said.

McDowell told BuzzFeed News that ending the protest prematurely would squander the chance continue to make inroads in the community.

“We’re pretty much staying out here so that we can make sure this community stays safe. If we leave it's going to go back to business as usual. So there’s no way we can just pick up and leave tomorrow,” McDowell said.

Gardner said they understood Ellison's position as a member of Congress. She praised his support of the community, saying that he'd been in contact with the protesters since the beginning. But Gardner stressed that releasing the tapes represents the most transparent step the Minneapolis Police Department and the city can take toward accountability.

For his part, Dayton has said the recording he has seen is inconclusive as to exactly what happened to Clark. But officials did release the names of the officers involved. Mike Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze are on standard administrative leave, according to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is conducting the investigation. It's not clear which officer killed Clark.

Gardner, sitting outside by a fire late Wednesday night, credited Dayton for how he's handled outreach to the family and worked closely with organizers from Black Lives Matter.

"In the history of Minnesota, we've never had a governor like this who has made a commitment to work with a group like ours and to agree to a special session addressing racial disparity," she said. "I look at those as two huge, huge, wins. It's a shift in the conversation.”

"I think the problem we run into," she continued, "is that politicians here are really good at talking about racial equality, and then there are never any structural or policy changes."

“He’s got a chance to win the nomination. I think five or six people have a chance. His challenge: he’s created a high floor but a low ceiling.”

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Republican strategist Karl Rove says Donald Trump has a real chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination.

"Oh sure, look he's taken the lead, took the lead in July and held it," Rove, who was a top adviser to President George W. Bush, said on NewsMax TV last week. "He's got a chance to win the nomination. I think five or six people have a chance. His challenge: he's created a high floor but a low ceiling."

Rove said it would be hard for Trump to grow and gain new supporters when he's constantly slamming all his rivals as haters and losers. He added that Trump would need to "find a way to pivot" to become a unifier to get the nomination.

"Nobody wins the nomination and wins the general election until they have unified and attempted to unify the country," Rove said.

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“I mean, virtually everything that I’ve said he’s backed.”

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Donald Trump says he and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have a "good relationship" and that Cruz backs everything he says because they share similar positions on issues.

Speaking two weeks ago with local Texas radio host Michael Berry, the Republican front-runner said he and his presidential rival Cruz line up the same on basically every issue.

"Well it's a good relationship," Trump said of Cruz. "He's a good man. He's a conservative guy. He's doing pretty well. He's doing pretty well. Fortunately, he's not doing as well as I am, but these are minor details. He's doing pretty well and he's said wonderful things about me and he actually backs anything I do, because we have similar views."

"He's not doing this out of a weakness, he's doing this out of a strength. He backs virtually everything that I said — wouldn't you say," continued Trump. "I mean, virtually everything that I've said he's backed."

While Trump has traded barbs with most of his Republican opponents, he and Cruz have maintained a largely cordial relationship, with the two offering each other praise at various points during the campaign. Trump said during the interview that Cruz had even backed his position on deporting undocumented immigrants, although he added he wasn't sure if that was true (Cruz has called for enforcing existing deportation laws and deporting criminal undocumented immigrants, but has not expressed support for the kind of mass deportation advocated by Trump).

"Well, we line up on most of the issues if not all, and I actually hear that as of last night he actually came along on the deportation issue with respect to what I'm doing and I don't know if that's right or not," said Trump. "At first it was softer than mine but I think he's lined up on that too. Look, he's a good man. I like him personally, number one. I respect him and he feels the same about me and we have a good relationship. And we've been very supportive each other. Now at some point, if there's two of us left, I don't know if that's going to happen."

“He’s really not a factor at this point.”

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Republican presidential candidate and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore says his opponent Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is "really not a factor."

Speaking about the National Security Agency's surveillance program on the John Fredericks Show last week, Gilmore singled out Paul as weakening U.S. defense capabilities against terrorism with his positions on the NSA.

"If you look of the official reports of the commission that I chaired on Homeland Security, I am very clear that we're not giving up our civil freedoms in return for this kind of security but disarming is not the answer — and this is what Rand Paul would do," said Gilmore.

"He's really not a factor at this point," Gilmore, whose support barely registers in national polls, added of Paul.

Gilmore said that Paul had an "ill idea" of law enforcement.

"He's got this kind of ill idea about people who are tying to protect us. Our police, fire-rescue, our intelligence services, our FBI and the feeling that they are somehow the enemy," he said. "They are not. You have to oversee, control, regulate, make sure they are not invading our privacies, but give them the tools necessary to fight this international guerrilla war that we're in."

Gilmore has previously questioned why his own poll numbers were so low, saying on New Hampshire talk radio, "I'm not some weirdo that's out here just kinda running crazy, I'm the former governor of the state of Virginia."

According to a new book by BuzzFeed News’s McKay Coppins, Doug Stafford was the author behind work under Rand’s name that came under scrutiny in 2013.

Doug Stafford, the chief strategist for Kentucky senator Rand Paul's presidential campaign and a former senior staffer in his Senate office, was the culprit behind most of the plagiarized writings that went out under the Kentucky senator's name.

That tidbit comes from The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House a new book to be published Tuesday by BuzzFeed News reporter McKay Coppins. (Disclosure: I was interviewed for the book.)

Coppins's book also provides a sometimes damning minute-by-minute account of how the senator and his office respond to a series of plagiarism accusations that came out over the course of a week in fall of 2013.

It started on Oct. 28, 2013, as Coppins notes, when MSNBC's Rachel Maddow revealed a speech Paul at the gave evangelical Liberty University cribbed heavily from the Wikipedia entry for the movie Gattaca. The next day, BuzzFeed News posted a story noting the Kentucky senator had again lifted almost word-for-word the plot summary of the Wikipedia article for the 1988 movie Stand and Deliver.

Paul had yet to understand the seriousness of the charges, Coppins reports.

"But while Rand's advisers understood the seriousness of the charges, the senator himself was convinced he was the victim of a fevered witch hunt," he writes. "He thought the evidence of his supposed lapse in ethics was outrageously thin and nitpicky. He'd been recapping movie plots in these speeches, not reciting Tolstoy and calling the words his own. He felt certain that if he could just explain this in a neutral setting, his attackers' petty animus and partisanship would be laid bare."

In an interview with Fusion's Jorge Ramos, Paul said the problem was merely about footnoting— leaving aside the fact the speeches were not footnoted on his website. At the time, a spokesperson similarly said to BuzzFeed News that "only in Washington is something this trivial a source for liberal media angst."

Politico then ran a story alleging Paul's 2013 State of the Union response had taken language from a Associated Press article. And as Paul raged, Doug Stafford, a senior aide to Paul began to panic, Coppins reveals. Stafford had been with Paul since he launched his political career and wrote much of writing that went out under his name, including ghostwriting Paul's second book Government Bullies.

"He wrote at home and on weekends, in between meetings and during dull conference calls, on trains and planes and all throughout the long daily commute from and to his far-flung Virginia suburb," Coppins writes. "From speeches to essays to op-eds to books, Stafford was in charge of it all — and his corner cutting was now costing them."

Stafford invited Trygve Olson, another Paul adviser, in for a meeting, according to Coppins. Olson questioned whether Paul's bomb-throwing response on the Sunday shows would be a good idea. Olson warned it would be a horrible move for Paul if there was more plagiarism.

There was.

BuzzFeed News posted on the Saturday night before Paul's appearance that three pages of Paul's book Government Bullies were lifted nearly word for word from a 2003 Heritage Foundation study. Subsequent BuzzFeed News stories would show he plagiarized in his Washington Times column and in Senate testimony. The Times would end Paul's columns over the allegations.

The press would eventually die down, and Paul, clearly annoyed if not humbled by the turn of events would pledge to do better.

"It annoys the hell out of me. I feel like if I could just go to detention after school for a couple days, then everything would be okay," he told National Review. "But do I have to be in detention for the rest of my career?"

Still, as Coppins later reveals, the incident didn't dash Paul's faith in Stafford, who ghostwrote Paul's next book Taking A Stand.

"Many in the senator's orbit had privately urged him to find a different ghostwriter for his upcoming book after the egregious cribbing in his last title set off a media firestorm," Coppins writes. "But Rand, defiant and loyal as ever, stuck with repentant plagiarist Doug Stafford as his chief scribe. Stafford labored over the manuscript as if it were his own masterpiece: researching, writing, rewriting, carefully — very carefully — compiling citations, submitting the drafts to Rand, and then starting all over again once the senator returned the pages with handwritten notes scribbled across the margins."

Reach for comment, Stafford told BuzzFeed News that Coppins's book was "fiction."

"I love fiction, so I am looking forward to reading more Washington media machine stories from 'sources,'" wrote Stafford in an email. "Also I lived on Capitol Hill from 2011-2014 with a four block commute. And I avoid conference calls like the plague."

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“If Trump is the nominee, we lose – as Republicans, we lose the Senate, we lose most of the House, and we lose the presidency.”

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Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu says that Republicans will "lose everything" if they elect Donald Trump as their nominee.

Asked in an interview with Steve Malzberg of Newsmax TV why he thought the New Hampshire Union Leader had given its highly-coveted endorsement to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last week, Sununu said, "I think they want to influence this process, and I think they're looking at the Trump phenomena, and really understanding how disastrous it is."

"Look, let me give a context to what's happening with Trump," continued Sununu. "People want to get policies changed – I assume that even the Trump supporters want this country to move in a different direction. If Trump is the nominee, we lose – as Republicans, we lose the Senate, we lose most of the House, and we lose the presidency."

"It is nice to go for somebody that has got hot rhetoric that makes you feel good, but this is someone who has turned off eighty percent of America," he added. "He may have the support of twenty-five percent of the Republicans, which is about twelve percent of America, but eighty percent of America really does not like this man."

Sununu also served as chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush. His son, who is also named John, is the chairman Ohio Gov. John Kasich's New Hampshire campaign.

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In an email to Hillary Clinton, longtime Clinton adviser and confidant Sidney Blumenthal identified what he thought was the "best commentary" on the downfall of Gen. David Petraeus.

The email contains a single link and nothing else.

That link literally goes to a passage from Machiavelli about shunning flatterers.

Really:

XXIII. That Flatterers Should Be Shunned

ONE error into which Princes, unless very prudent or very fortunate in their choice of friends, are apt to fall, is of so great importance that I must not pass it over. I mean in respect of flatterers. These abound in Courts, because men take such pleasure in their own concerns, and so deceive themselves with regard to them, that they can hardly escape this plague; while even in the effort to escape it there is risk of their incurring contempt.

For there is no way to guard against flattery but by letting it be seen that you take no offense in hearing the truth: but when every one is free to tell you the truth respect falls short. Wherefore a prudent Prince should follow a middle course, by choosing certain discreet men from among his subjects, and allowing them alone free leave to speak their minds on any matter on which he asks their opinion, and on none other. But he ought to ask their opinion on everything, and after hearing what they have to say, should reflect and judge for himself. And with these counsellors collectively, and with each of them separately, his bearing should be such, that each and all of them may know that the more freely they declare their thoughts the better they will be liked. Besides these, the Prince should hearken to no others, but should follow the course determined on, and afterwards adhere firmly to his resolves. Whoever acts otherwise is either undone by flatterers, or from continually vacillating as opinions vary, comes to be held in light esteem.

With reference to this matter, I shall cite a recent instance. Father Luke, who is attached to the Court of the present Emperor Maximilian, in speaking of his Majesty told me, that he seeks advice from none, yet never has his own way; and this from his following a course contrary to that above recommended. For being of a secret disposition, he never discloses his intentions to any, nor asks their opinion; and it is only when his plans are to be carried out that they begin to be discovered and known, and at the same time they begin to be thwarted by those he has about him, when he being facile gives way. Hence it happens that what he does one day, he undoes the next; that his wishes and designs are never fully ascertained; and that it is impossible to build on his resolves.

A Prince, therefore, ought always to take counsel, but at such times and reasons only as he himself pleases, and not when it pleases others; nay, he should discourage every one from obtruding advice on matters on which it is not sought. But he should be free in asking advice, and afterwards as regards the matters on which he has asked it, a patient hearer of the truth, and even displeased should he perceive that any one, from whatever motive, keeps it back.

But those who think that every Prince who has a name for prudence owes it to the wise counsellors he has around him, and not to any merit of his own, are certainly mistaken; since it is an unerring rule and of universal application that a Prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised by others, unless by chance he surrender himself to be wholly governed by some one adviser who happens to be supremely prudent; in which case he may, indeed, be well advised; but not for long, since such an adviser will soon deprive him of his Government. If he listen to a multitude of advisers, the Prince who is not wise will never have consistent counsels, nor will he know of himself how to reconcile them. Each of his counsellors will study his own advantage, and the Prince will be unable to detect or correct them. Nor could it well be otherwise, for men will always grow rogues on your hands unless they find themselves under a necessity to be honest.

Hence it follows that good counsels, whencesoever they come, have their origin in the prudence of the Prince, and not the prudence of the Prince in wise counsels.

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At the height of the 2012 Republican primary — four years after losing her first campaign on insufficient caucus organizing, and two before launching her second committed to rectifying that mistake — Hillary Clinton still felt disdain for the voting process known as caucusing.

In an email, sent on Jan. 22, 2012 and made public on Monday, Clinton described the caucuses as "creatures of the parties' extremes."

The candidate and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have long expressed private frustration with the caucus process. In caucus states, including crucial early states such as Iowa and Nevada, voters cannot simply cast a ballot: They're asked to attend a caucus site at a designated time and place and express their preference for a candidate in an extended group process.

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In the email, sent to longtime adviser Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton handicapped the GOP race in Florida: If Mitt Romney ("Mittens") can't beat Newt Gingrich ("Grinch"), Clinton ventures, "there will be pressure on state Republican parties to open or liberalize ballot access especially in the caucuses, which as we know are creatures of the parties' extremes."

Along with hundreds others, the email was made public by the State Department on Monday as part of an ongoing release of correspondence from Clinton's four years as secretary of state.

Her second presidential campaign, now seven months in progress, has invested far more heavily than her first in organizing and in the caucus states. In 2008, unlike Barack Obama's campaign, the Clinton team failed to make a consistent commitment to organizing. They suffered most in the caucus states, where candidates stand to benefit even more than in typical primaries from a corps of passionate volunteers.

After Clinton won the vote in the Nevada caucuses, for instance, she defeated Obama in just one other caucus contest: the American Samoa.

“When I was in college, we had a machine in the bathroom. You put 50 cents in and voila!”

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WASHINGTON — Democrats in Congress are using the recent shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado to once again put pressure on Republicans to disband a select committee tasked with investigating the women's health organization.

Returning to Washington after Thanksgiving break on Monday, some Democrats more forcefully called for ending the committee, which was formed by House Republicans after the release of a series of undercover videos accusing Planned Parenthood of selling aborted fetuses’ organs and tissues. Democrats also referred to the shooting on Friday, which killed three people, as an act of terror — language that abortion rights supporters have pushed lawmakers to use to suggest that a network of anti-abortion groups and advocates have helped fuel violence.

"Since the attacks on Planned Parenthood, there's been this uptick in attacks on clinics — vandalism and attempted arson and now three murders," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democratic member of the select committee who also called the shooting a "terrorist attack" in an interview with BuzzFeed News.

"I don't know what they want," she said. "I don't know what they're looking for."

Schakowsky said the Democratic members of select committee will meet Tuesday to come up with a broader plan moving forward on how to counter Republicans on the issue. "We're absolutely planning a strategy," she said, adding that they will be ready to grill Republicans on funding for the committee "and other mechanics" if they don't disband the group.

In a speech on the Senate floor Monday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid also called for an end to committee in the aftermath of the shooting, which he described as an act of "domestic terrorism."

"Last summer, a right-wing group began releasing a series of heavily edited videos with unsubstantiated allegations," Reid said. "And since that time, Republicans in Congress have made it their mission to defund Planned Parenthood, which would irreparably damage this health provider’s care."

The Nevada Democrat continued: "Republicans are also leading politically-motivated investigations into Planned Parenthood... Republicans should give up before they match the millions of dollars they’ve wasted on the so-called Benghazi Select Committee — another politically motivated and ultimately fruitless attack."

The comments on Monday come as some Democrats have been reluctant to politicize the shooting without law enforcement first establishing a clear motive.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, who released a statement over the weekend urging Speaker Paul Ryan to disband the Planned Parenthood committee, said the motive of the shooter is irrelevant because attacks on abortion providers are not new and lawmakers have to be careful about targeting such groups.

"The shooter whether he mentioned ['baby parts'] or not, we've seen killings of doctors who provide abortions," Boxer told BuzzFeed News.

The full Planned Parenthood Select Committee has yet to meet and is currently in the process of hiring staff, said Rep. Diane Black, a Republican member appointed to the committee, in an interview.

The Tennessee Republican criticized Democrats for connecting Republicans' efforts to defund and investigate Planned Parenthood to the Colorado shooting.

"It's irresponsible to make that connection," she said. "This gentlemen was deranged and committed a heinous activity. This has nothing to do with the select committee or pro-life movement. The pro-life moment is a compassionate movement that cares about the dignity of life of the born and unborn. And to connect those two is total irresponsible behavior."

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WASHINGTON — Five months after two Supreme Court justices made clear that they have serious questions about the constitutionality of the death penalty, lawyers are bringing plenty of related cases to the justices — and they're due to consider whether to hear one of them this week.

When Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg disagreed with the court's ruling in June allowing Oklahoma to use the sedative midazolam in its execution protocol, they also made it clear — in Breyer's dissenting opinion — that they saw bigger problems with the death penalty, including whether the punishment itself is constitutional.

Criminal defense lawyers have responded by bringing three main types of death penalty cases to the court since then. Three petitions currently pending before the justices raise questions about trial process in capital cases, post-conviction process for death row inmates, and the overall constitutionality of the death penalty itself.

The justices are scheduled to consider whether to hear one of the challenges — a post-conviction process challenge — on Friday. The court potentially still could, however, agree to hear any of the three cases yet this term.

The effect of considering the cases, or even deciding them in the inmates' favor, could vary widely, however, because of the distinctions between the types of challenges.

Post-Conviction Process Challenge

While these challenges have the potential to open up federal courts to death-row inmates, they are the most purely procedural because they address how challenges brought by inmates after their convictions are handled.

In the petition seeking review brought by lawyers for Texas death-row inmate Robert Leslie Roberson III, the question is whether a truly independent lawyer needs to be appointed for an inmate who possibly could raise an ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

Roberson was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2002 killing of his daughter, Nikki Curtis. His conviction was upheld on direct appeal.

The Texas Defender Service's Lee Kovarsky is asking the justices to take the case. He has been opposed in letters sent to the justices by the lawyer who represented Roberson in his state and federal post-conviction proceedings, James Volberding, and the lawyer referred to as "supplemental counsel," Seth Kretzer — who Kovarsky argues has an ongoing relationship with Volberding. (Notably, these two lawyers also had their representation challenged in last-minute requests brought by Raphael Holiday, executed earlier this month.)

In the 5th Circuit where Roberson's appeal was heard, he argues, the only rule for such "supplemental counsel" is that the lawyer did not represent the client in state post-conviction proceedings. Other circuits, he counters, require that supplemental counsel "must operate independently of incumbent counsel." Texas, which also opposes the petition, argues that there is no such "circuit split" because, it asserts, both courts apply the same "interest-of-justice standard" for appointing supplemental counsel.

The justices are scheduled to consider Roberson's petition at their private conference on Friday.

If the justices take the case, a victory for Roberson would mean that new, truly independent supplemental counsel could be appointed to pursue his ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Such a ruling also could lead to more opportunities for death row inmates to have similar challenges pursued by new lawyers, with more opportunities for relief, but it would not directly alter any sentences.

Trial Process Challenge

Slightly more ambitious are challenges to the trial process — decisions that can, directly or indirectly, lead to the need for changed procedures, re-sentencing of death row inmates, or even orders for new trials altogether.

The court already has heard several of these types of cases this term. The cases raised questions about how jurors assess mitigating factors that weigh against imposing a sentence of death, the role of the judge in sentencing, and how reviewing courts must address claims of racial discrimination in jury selection.

In Kevin Charles Isom's case out of Indiana, his lawyers, led by Ben Cohen, raise the question of whether a unanimous jury must decide beyond a reasonable doubt that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances during the sentencing phase before deciding to impose a death sentence in a capital case.

Although the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is the well-known standard for a criminal finding of guilt, there is no such standard established for the sentencing phase of a capital trial.

Isom was convicted and sentenced to death in 2013 for the 2007 triple-murder of his family: Cassandra Isom, Ci’Andria Cole, and Michael Moore.

In detailing the issue presented to the court, Isom's lawyers note that there are 19 states with no death penalty, another seven that by statute or court ruling require a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt finding by the jury at sentencing, and, the petition says, "[t]he remaining death penalty jurisdictions are a patchwork with no discernible commonality." Indiana falls into that latter group, with juries having to "determine[] that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances," Isom's lawyers argue, but given "no burden of proof for the jury to make the moral determination."

The lawyers — leaning on longstanding concerns about the arbitrariness of the implementation of the death penalty — state that this "lack of uniformity has produced arbitrary results" in urging the justices to take the case.

Indiana's lawyers asked for a 30-day extension in responding to Isom's petition, according to Isom's lawyers, meaning its response would be due Dec. 28.

Frontal Constitutional Challenge

Shonda Walter, sentenced to death in Pennsylvania in 2005, has brought the most significant challenge to the justices, asking earlier this month for the court to address the fundamental question of the constitutionality of the death penalty head on.

"The question presented is whether, in all cases, the imposition of a sentence of death violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments," Walter's lawyer, Daniel Silverman, writes.

Walter was convicted of murder and sentenced to death for the 2003 killing of an 83-year-old man, James Sementelli.

This is of course the most significant of claims that could be brought to the justices, as it asks for the court to end the death penalty across the board, across the country.

Walter's lawyer argues that the death penalty should be abandoned for two reasons: "First, our standards of decency have evolved to the point where the institution is no longer constitutionally sustainable."

"Second, the assumptions underlying this Court’s reinstitution of the death penalty after Furman have proved wrong, flawed, or illusory," Walter's lawyers continue. They argue the reliability of the process put in place since the 1970s cases ending and then approving the use of the death penalty still don't protect against wrongful executions — and that arbitrariness and racial discrimination remain.

The state's response is due Dec. 17, according to the Supreme Court's docket.

LINK: The Most Ambitious Effort Yet To Abolish The Death Penalty Is Already Happening

Brian Snyder / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton will launch her first radio ad, a 60-second spot that highlights her mother's struggle as a woman who exceeded expectations to raise a daughter who many could now see as the next president of the United States. It will run on black radio in South Carolina.

In the ad, a first-person narrative about her mother's rise from childhood abandonment to raising the eventual raising a future First Lady, the candidate references that her oft-cited work for the Children's Defense Fund brought her to South Carolina.

South Carolina is a pivotal state in next year's Democratic primary. It's the first primary state with a significant black electorate; in 2008, it proved a turning point for then-Sen. Barack Obama, whose victory there catapulted him to the nomination.

Clinton hopes to capture the momentum of black voters there that will help her lock up the nomination early, in part to avoid a protracted fight with her closest challenger, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Clinton is said to be ahead by as much as 50 points in South Carolina. For his part, Sanders has said there's still time to beat her.

"I've done many jobs since," she says in the ad, and talks about her mother's work to fight for a better life for her. "But working here on the problems facing children helped shape my fight for families."

"I served proudly in President Obama's cabinet and I'm running for president now to make sure every child has a chance to live up to his or her God-given potential. And that every family can get ahead and stay ahead," Clinton says.

Here's the ad:

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Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has, on several occasions, recounted how Founding Father Benjamin Franklin led the Constitutional Convention to pray before conducting the business of writing the Constitution — a story that is contradicted by Franklin’s own writing.

In an interview with televangelist Marcus Lamb in October, Carson said, “I think they were geniuses and I think they were divinely inspired. You know, the whole thing was about to fall apart in 1787 and Benjamin Franklin, the elder statesman, said, 'Gentleman, during the pre-revolutionary days and the Revolutionary War everything out of your mouth was 'God save us,' and now you don't want to talk to God. Let's get down on our knees and ask God to give us wisdom.' They knelt and prayed and got up and they put together 16-and-a-third-page document that is one of the most admired and substantial documents in the history of mankind."

Carson has told a version of this story in various settings over the years, but three scholars who spoke with BuzzFeed News said that Carson’s telling is inaccurate. According to them, Franklin did indeed move for a prayer to be held before each convention gathering, but his motion was not successful and the prayer did not take place.

“This is the truth of the story: Franklin said, ‘Yeah, we all gotta pray.' They said, 'We gotta get a clergyman from outside, but if they got clergyman outside, everyone would know.' So everyone was uncomfortable with the idea and it never came to pass,” Richard B. Bernstein, a lecturer in political science at City College in New York who has written several books on the Founding Fathers, told BuzzFeed News.

Similarly, Ellen Cohn, editor-in-chief of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin at Yale, said that Carson “didn’t get the story quite right,” and provided BuzzFeed News with the text of Franklin’s call for prayer from his handwritten speech, which was accompanied by a notation also written by Franklin.

“The Convention except three or four Persons, thought Prayers unnecessary,” the note reads.

Carla Mulford, author of Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire and professor at Penn State University, reiterated to BuzzFeed News that Carson’s telling was incorrect, adding, “Franklin rarely spoke during the Constitutional Convention, and when he did, it was usually to try to mitigate the extreme positions being taken."

A spokesperson for the Carson campaign told BuzzFeed News he was "not in a position to corroborate" Carson's research "now or soon," adding that someone on the campaign would take a look and "perhaps query Dr Carson’s notes."

“If one violent nut claimed to be acting on behalf of the pro-life cause then he will be rightfully repudiated and condemned. But that doesn’t exonerate Planned Parenthood for its own reprehensible past actions.”

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says the anti-abortion community should publicly condemn the man accused of opening fire and killing three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado last week if he is found to have been motivated by the recent series of undercover, anti–Planned Parenthood videos.

Huckabee, speaking about the alleged shooter Robert Dear on his Huckabee Exclusive podcast, said at the time of his recording, no motive for the shooting was known, but added that a lack of known motive didn't stop the left from placing blame and jumping to conclusions.

"Naturally that didn't stop a lot of people from kangarooing to conclusions about it, Attorney General Loretta Lynch declared the shooting a crime against women seeking healthcare services," said Huckabee. "Planned Parenthood openly blamed abortion opponents, especially those who exposed and criticized their practices. And, as always, President Obama immediately called for more gun control laws without even waiting to find out whether any proposed laws would have prevented the crime.

"My position on all such tragic incidents has always been the same: wait 'til you know what happened before passing judgment, blaming people who had nothing to do with it, or rewriting the Constitution."

Huckabee said if it turned out the shooter was motivated by anti-abortion videos, such as those released by the Center for Medical Progress, then the anti-abortion community should publicly condemn him.

"If it turned out that Dear was motivated by viewing the Planned Parenthood videos, then pro-life people should publicly denounce his actions as I'm sure they will," said the former Arkansas governor. "That type of disregard for human life is the antithesis of everything we believe in. If one violent nut claimed to be acting on behalf of the pro-life cause then he will be rightfully repudiated and condemned. But that doesn't exonerate Planned Parenthood for its own reprehensible past actions."

“I think what’s taking place is a deep kind of bigotry that is evolving and hardening into the political landscape.”

Jeff Roberson / AP

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Democratic Rep. Andre Carson, the second Muslim-American to be elected to the House of Representatives, says the movement to halt the admittance of Syrian refugees to the United States after the terrorist attacks in Paris is a "deep kind of bigotry."

"I think what's taking place is a deep kind of bigotry that is evolving and hardening into the political landscape," said the Indiana congressman on Sirius XM radio this week. "Our previous governor, Gov. Mitch Daniels, is of Syrian descent; he was one of Bush's few Arab advisers. And so, my hope being is that, folks like you, who are using you platform phenomenally well, continue to use similar things to spread the word."

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was one of the more than two dozen governors across the U.S. to announce that his administration would attempt to stop Syrian refugees from resettling in his state until further assurances on security were made by the Obama administration. The House passed a bill last month that would suspend U.S. acceptance of Syrian refugees until more security measures are put in place. Carson called that bill "draconian," and said that the record has proven Syrian refugees to be law-abiding citizens.

"Since two years ago, I think 2013, last November, about 2,200 refugees have been admitted to the United States, and half of those were children. So you have families that were driven out of their homes by the disgraceful war in Syria, and ISIS's, or Daesh's, brutal rule, and a quarter of those refugees are over 60," said Carson. "So they've proven to be law abiding citizens and we've not had any problems."

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“So again, why would anyone even be thinking about doing something like that?”

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Dr. Ben Carson argued that because a majority of the American public is against bringing in additional refugees from Syria, actually bringing the refugees would increase the likelihood that they would become "radicalized."

"You bring a lot of people here from another culture and what they will tend to do is congregate together, that's a natural thing, which makes them much easier targets for radicalization," Carson said on Breitbart News Radio. "Particularly if you bring them into an environment where a lot people of are resentful of the fact that they are here. That's just going to create incidents that will increase further the likelihood of radicalization."

"So again, why would anyone even be thinking about doing something like that?" asked Carson.

Carson, who recently returned from a trip to refugee camps in Jordan, is against bringing in refugees from the region. The former neurosurgeon has suggested the best solution is for regional countries to take in refugees with humanitarian support from the United States.

Like most candidates, Carson has stated the ultimate solution to problem is solving current Syrian civil war.