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Trump-Backing Congressman: "Many Members Are Supporting Trump Quietly"

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Rep. Chris Collins of New York says his House colleagues don’t like Ted Cruz and are withholding formal endorsements of Trump for “reasons unique to their particular congressional districts.”

Joshua Roberts / Reuters

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Republican Rep. Chris Collins of New York said on Wednesday that many of his House colleagues are supporting Donald Trump "quietly", but not publicly endorsing the GOP frontrunner.

"Many members are supporting Trump quietly," Collins told New York radio host Bob Lonsberry. "They don't like Ted Cruz at all, and for various reasons unique to their particular congressional districts they're not formally endorsing Mr. Trump."

Collins, who became the first member of Congress to endorse Trump in February, said he'd gotten "no negative feedback" from other Republican over his support for Trump and that his colleagues "know" that Trump will be the party's nominee.

"But I've had absolutely no negative feedback," Collins said. "In fact, pretty much on the House floor people know he will be our nominee. With very few exceptions, four or five individuals, everyone's saying they will support the nominee. Paul Ryan has said that. And if it's Donald Trump, they're gonna support him, as we all need to do to defeat Hillary Clinton and the progressive liberal campaign."


Ted Cruz: I Didn't Attack Trump Earlier Because Those Who Did "Ended Up As Roadkill"

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“I am very strongly committed on the anti-roadkill approach.”

Sam Mircovich / Reuters

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Ted Cruz says he declined to directly attack Donald Trump for much of the Republican primary because those who did ended up "as roadkill."

"Well, listen, there is a season to politics," Cruz said Wednesday to radio host Charlie Sykes of WTMJ. "When we started, there were 17 candidates in this race," he continued. "It was a wonderfully diverse, talented, dynamic, young field. It had really incredible talent. If you look at a number of the candidates that took on Donald Trump early on, they ended up as roadkill."

Cruz, who called Trump a "sniveling coward" on Thursday after the businessman attacked his wife on Twitter, made the comment when asked about a tweet he sent in December in which he called Trump "terrific."

"The Establishment's only hope: Trump & me in a cage match. Sorry to disappoint -- @realDonaldTrump is terrific. #DealWithIt," Cruz tweeted.

Cruz said Wednesday he had to build his base before he could take on Trump.

"Our objective was simple from the beginning, it is to win this race, to win the nomination and then beat Hillary Clinton and turn this country around," he said.

"And not be roadkill," Cruz added. "I am very strongly committed on the anti-roadkill approach."

"And so our approach was quite simple, we needed to build our base first. We needed to get my positive message out, my record out, and build and assemble our team," he continued.

Cruz added that he has, since the beginning of the year, started to draw a contrast with Trump.

Internal Emails Raise Questions About Oklahoma Corrections Head's Resignation

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Sue Ogrocki / AP

Internal Oklahoma Department of Corrections emails obtained by BuzzFeed News are raising new questions about whether outgoing Director Robert Patton left his position voluntarily or was “forced out” following a failed execution attempt in September.

Officially, Patton, who had only been on the job 22 months when he resigned in December, left the department to “spend more time with his family.” But in emails to another corrections employee, an internal affairs agent who served as Patton's security detail said she believed he was pushed out over a grand jury investigation into multiple mistake-ridden executions last year.

Additional documents also show that a top corrections official scrubbed a press release announcing Patton’s departure to remove any mention of the grand jury investigation and insisted it have a subdued “tone.”

As BuzzFeed News first reported, Patton took a job with GEO Group immediately after leaving the department. GEO Group is a private prison company that was awarded a contract while Patton was director. A state lawmaker has questioned if the move violates Oklahoma’s ethics law.

The first execution under Patton’s leadership was a 45-minute affair, in which the inmate sat up on the gurney and spoke after he was supposed to be unconscious. In the second execution, the inmate’s last words included, “My body is on fire.” It was later revealed that the state used the wrong drug in that execution. When the state attempted to carry out its third execution under Patton, it had to be called off because, once again, the state had obtained the wrong drug.

On Dec. 2, weeks after a grand jury began investigating the department, Patton instructed his assistant to type up his letter of resignation to Kevin Gross, the chair of the Board of Corrections. The next day, the department of corrections’ communications team emailed with Gross, discussing how to tell the public.

The first draft of the press release announcing his resignation claimed that the resignation had nothing to do with the grand jury investigation.

“Director Patton said the resignation comes at a time when he wants to spend more time with his family, not because of the recent on-going grand jury investigation,” said a draft obtained by BuzzFeed News through an open records request.

“The members of the grand jury who have been conducting the investigation have been professional and diligent,” the draft quoted Patton as saying. “I appreciate their continued efforts moving forward.”

The draft also included glowing praise of Patton from Gross.

“When Director Patton told me about his decision, I encouraged him to stay, however it is hard to argue with the pull of family,” the draft quoted Gross as saying. “Since coming to the DOC Director Patton has overseen a difficult task and has thrived.”

But when the communications department sent it to Gross for approval, the board chair removed the statements saying the resignation had nothing to do with the grand jury investigation, as well as many of the words of praise for Patton.

“This is more the tone we need,” Gross wrote back. “We can talk about the grand jury. But I don’t think drawing attention to it will prevent them from coming to the conclusion.”

The new statement made no mention of the grand jury investigation and included more subdued praise that “Patton has upheld the mission of the agency and helped to ensure public safety.”

When asked days later by reporters if the grand jury investigation into execution mistakes played a role in Patton’s resignation, the department’s spokesperson said Patton wanting to spend time with his grandchildren “is his main reason for resigning.”

In an email to BuzzFeed News, spokesperson Terri Watkins wrote that “the back and forth on the news release is not uncommon.”

“The decision was it would be linked to the grand jury right or wrong no matter what the release said,” Watkins wrote. “And no it was not because the execution complication played a role.”

Gross did not respond to a request for comment.

But a member of Patton’s security detail wasn’t buying the official line. “Assuming he is being forced out because of the execution issues, it really was not his fault,” agent Stephanie Burk wrote in a Dec. email to a colleague. “The pharmacist is the one who substituted the drug without telling us.”

“The doctor should have caught it too before it was used on Warner. He/she caught it before it was used on Glossip, which started this latest mess. He/she felt so bad and apologized profusely. But someone had to take the fall and you can’t fire the pharmacist or the doctor, so… Of course, this is pure speculation as to why he is leaving. We knew he wouldn’t stay long anyway. Bad health and he misses his grandkids in AZ terribly.”

Burk worked closely with Patton, and said in another email to a colleague that she had been working with him since he took over and had grown to know and admire him on a personal level.

Burk declined to comment on how she knew about the doctor’s reaction — if she was basing it on first-hand or second-hand knowledge — or questions asking about her speculation that Patton was forced out because of execution mistakes. Oklahoma’s execution protocol also calls for members of the inspector general’s office to play a role in the execution.

Burk would only direct questions to corrections spokesperson Terri Watkins, who told BuzzFeed News, “Any personal statements made regarding their opinion as to why he left are not mine to comment on.”

The results of the grand jury could come down as soon as the next few weeks. While the investigation has been going on, Warden Anita Trammell, who ran the prison where executions occur, has resigned, as well as Gov. Mary Fallin’s general counsel, Steve Mullins.

The grand jury is scheduled to convene again next week, when it could announce its findings. If a conclusion is not met then, the grand jury will meet again in mid-April.

LINK: Execution Mistakes Followed Corrections Director From Arizona To Oklahoma


Democrats: Republicans Blocking Supreme Court Nomination For Trump

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WASHINGTON — Democrats launched new web ads Friday accusing vulnerable Senate Republicans of blocking President Obama's Supreme Court nominee in order to allow Donald Trump to nominate a new justice if he wins in November.

The ads are part of a broader Democratic strategy aimed at hitting Republicans in swing states who fear a Trump nomination could doom their reelection prospects.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is paying for ads — which were first shared with BuzzFeed News — on Twitter and Facebook that say “The GOP wants Trump to pick the next Supreme Court nominee?!”

The ads are part of the group’s broader “Party of Trump” campaign and link to a website and a video with clippings of Republican Senate incumbents and candidates, which the group refers to as “ReTrumplicans,” saying they will support the GOP nominee.

Senate Republicans in tough 2016 contests have been trying to distance themselves from Trump by denouncing some of his comments, endorsing other presidential candidates and running their own campaigns focused on state issues.

But Democrats are planning on spending big this year using digital and TV ads to make it harder for Republicans to run away from Trump.

"Republicans Senators and candidates have already let Trump take over their party, and now they're ready to let him take over the Supreme Court, too," said Lauren Passalacqua, spokeswoman for the DSCC, in a statement.

"Republicans are refusing to carry out their basic constitutional responsibilities and voters back home are putting them on the spot, calling them out for their unprecedented shutdown and demanding that they do their jobs. As they continue to double down on their obstruction, the DSCC will continue highlighting their efforts to let Donald Trump pick the next Supreme Court justice.”

Lindsey Graham: Trump Is A Demagogue Who Uses Racial Dog Whistles

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“I think Donald Trump is a demagogue. I don’t think he’s personally racist. I think he whistles things that help in a primary that would kill him in a general election.”

Mike Blake / Reuters

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In a radio interview on Thursday, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham called Donald Trump a demagogue who has used racial dog whistles to gin up support in the primary.

"Donald Trump policy positions on immigration, his judgement, his tone, his temperament — 49% of the people say they would be scared if he's president," Graham said on the Kilmeade and Friends radio program on Thursday morning. "Why does David Duke like Donald Trump? If you think Donald Trump is gonna sell to the American people, you're not listening to them when talk about what they want in the next president."

Graham said he doesn't think Trump is a racist, but called him a demagogue who uses racial dog whistles to win votes.

"I think Donald Trump is a demagogue. I don't think he's personally racist. I think he whistles things that help in a primary that would kill him in a general election."

The South Carolina senator criticized Trump's comments on undocumented immigrations, Muslim immigration, and Megyn Kelly.

"That's the only person Hillary Clinton can beat," said Graham, who in January (on the same show) also said Clinton would "cream" Ted Cruz (who he just endorsed).

"If we nominate Donald Trump we're gonna lose and we deserve it."

Cory Booker: Boycott Israel Movement "An Anti-Jewish Movement"

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A caller on a radio show asked the New Jersey senator to condemn Max Blumenthal.

Larry French / Getty Images

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Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said on Thursday that the BDS movement, which calls for boycotting, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, was "anti-Jewish."

During an interview on the Michael Medved Show, Booker was confronted by a caller who said that, though he was a Bill Clinton supporter, he would never vote for Hillary Clinton because of her relationship to Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton administration aide and longtime adviser, and Blumenthal's son Max, a journalist who has been highly critical of Israel.

The caller asked Booker to condemn Max Blumenthal. In response, Booker didn't discuss the Blumenthals in his answer, but did criticize BDS.

"I'm gonna go even further," he said. "I think, what I'm seeing now in the BDS movement that's going around this country. What I'm seeing now in the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. These are things that have to be condemned for what they are, which in my opinion are efforts to undermine America's most significant ally, specifically in that region. And call it for what it is. And I really do think it is an anti-Jewish movement."

Booker, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton, went on to acknowledge that his comments might be controversial.

"And I say that, and I know a lot of people are gonna rankle and get upset that I said that," he said. "But please. When people start talking about boycotting Israel, the first thing I want to know is, there's, if you look at the numbers of countries who are violating human rights—"

Earlier this week, Clinton was similarly critical about BDS movement — which she called "alarming," particularly in light of anti-Semitism in Europe — in remarks to AIPAC.

After a commercial break, the host again asked Booker to specifically comment on the Blumenthals. Booker said he was not very familiar with them, but rejected the ideas the Medved described them as having and stood by Clinton's position on Israel.

"Again, I'm not as familiar as I sort of confessed to you off the air, with these two gentlemen, but I reject that kind of thought," he said. "And I think that Hillary Clinton, I would not support her, frankly, this would be a deal-breaker for me, if she did not have a very pro-Israel stance and a vision for our alliance."

At the end of the interview, Booker also praised Paul Ryan for reneging on his use of the terms "makers" and "takers".

"That was a moment for me," Booker said.

Stormfront Founder Urged Listeners To Vote For Trump

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“It is important, even though you might not like Trump, like me, he represents a movement, he represents an insurgency that will benefit our people,” said Stormfront.com founder Don Black.

Don Black

Don Black, the founder of the first major white supremacist website Stormfront.com and a former Ku Klux Klan member, said on his radio program earlier this month that he wanted his listeners to vote for and support Donald Trump.

"Much of this world looks to this country as influencing their own counties for better or worse. Usually, typically for worse, but perhaps for the best this time," Black said on the day of the primary in Florida, where he resides. "So despite all of our misgivings about not having the perfect candidate here, we are all pulling for him, voting for him if we can."

"It will be a fun night tonight," Black added.

Throughout Trump's campaign, white supremacists have praised him for his positions and rhetoric on immigration and Muslims. Trump has disavowed their support, but that hasn't stopped many of them from speaking publicly in his favor. In February, white nationalist and former KKK leader David Duke also urged his supporters to volunteer for Trump's campaign.

Speaking on his radio program earlier this month, Black said, "I don't particularly like him either but still support him."

"It is important, even though you might not like Trump, like me, he represents a movement, he represents an insurgency that will benefit our people," he later noted.

Trump, Black said, has energized a movement similar to the one tapped into by David Duke.

"I don't know how it will turn out in November, but it's gonna be a hell of a fight. The battle lines are clearly delineated," Black said. "We never seen anything like this in this country. So, and I've seen a lot personally. I remember in—I was 14 years old in 1968—when George Wallace ran as an independent from my home state but ran for president as an independent candidate."

He continued, "And he got some of the same kind of audience that Trump is getting, but the issues weren't as clearly defined back then. Wallace at that point was still speaking in code words but now things are a lot different. I've seen other campaigns. The David Duke campaign which is very, very much like the Donald Trump except that David Duke knew more about the issues and talked about them, but the kind of support he had was very similar."

He noted the demographics have changed but "the enthusiasm among many of our people has increased."

"I think Trump has sparked an insurgency in this country, a movement," he continued, saying he didn't believe the movement would stop if Trump lost the election or the Republican nomination.

"I'm very optimistic," said Black.

Here's the two hours of the show:

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These Mexican-American Dudes Made A Corrido For Bernie Sanders

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A California Norteño band, Grupo La Meta, just made a corrido called "El Quemazon" — The Bern — in honor of Bernie Sanders.

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The band from Modesto, California in the valley wanted the song to have a "campesino" sound, like what you might hear musicians playing at a Mexican restaurant, and as soon as the song starts, it's clear the Bern is being felt.

"He’s the man with a vision to better this country," the song opens in Spanish. "Running for president but the rich don’t want him. Bernie Sanders is his name. Now you're going to feel his burn."

In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Juve Quintana, the 26-year-old singer and songwriter of the berning hot tune, said his girlfriend turned him on to Sanders.

"I can relate to him and everything he wants to do for us," Quintana said. "I thought what can I do so the Hispanics, the paisanos, the Mexicans vote for him? Everyone I speak to says 'I’m going to vote for Hillary' and I say 'Have you heard of Bernie Sanders?" And they say 'No, I don’t even know who that is.'"

The song, which was shared by Sanders Latino staffers and supporters on social media on Friday, comes at a good time, with the campaign turning lots of its attention to California and its big pool of delegates in a June primary. Quintana is trying to connect with the Sanders campaign with hopes of opening up for one of his rallies to show that the Vermont senator has Latino support.

Deputy political director Arturo Carmona enjoyed how much the corrido hewed to the candidate's message — including shots at the establishment and the media —and said the campaign is reaching out to the band.

"We want them to be part of our activities, I could see them at a rally," he said.

Which means Sanders supporters in California may soon be hearing "Many call him Robin Hood, others call him El Quemazon!" very soon.

And Quintana said part of the motivation for releasing the song was the violence against protesters at rallies for the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and to push back against his comments about Mexicans and immigrants.

"Yes, we are upset," Quintana said. "I don’t know what he’s thinking but I think he forgets that even he came from a family of immigrants. And if they never came to this country he wouldn’t be here now and this is why we all come, for a better life for our families and so our kids can go to school."



Senate Republicans Signal Willingness To Accept Supreme Court Nominee Questionnaire

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Judge Merrick Garland speaks after President Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden, announced Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court, in the Rose Garden at the White House on March 16, 2016.

Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans and the White House are signaling a tentative point of agreement on a key part of President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination process: the nominee questionnaire.

The statements regarding the questionnaire are part of the careful maneuvering on the issue by all sides in this tense and unusual Supreme Court nomination process for D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Merrick Garland.

Traditionally, the Senate Judiciary Committee sends a personalized questionnaire for Supreme Court nominees to the White House. This time, the White House has not received one from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democratic member of the committee.

Nonetheless, on Friday evening, Grassley’s spokesperson, Beth Levine, told BuzzFeed News that the Republicans “assume the administration will fill out the standard questionnaire submitted for judicial nominations.”

Levine reiterated, however, the Republican leadership’s position that “a majority of the Senate has made clear that the American people should have an opportunity to weigh in on this vacancy.”

The White House reacted to the statement with cautious optimism.

“It appears that Chairman Grassley is prepared to accept a questionnaire from Judge Garland,” White House spokesperson Brandi Hoffine told BuzzFeed News on Saturday. “We are heartened by this development and look forward to the Committee making this request directly to the nominee as well as to the White House, as is standard practice.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire is a critical part of the process for those nominated for a federal judgeship. The questions focus on the basics, like education and employment history, but also seek detailed information on speeches and writings of the nominee, as well as information about the nominee’s experience as a practicing lawyer and a complete recounting of the decisions of nominees who already are lower-court judges.

Hoffine said Garland “is prepared to provide all relevant information, consistent with standard practice, in short order.”

By this time in the nomination processes for now-Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, their questionnaires had not only been sent to the White House by the Senate committee but also had been returned to the committee.

Leahy’s spokesperson, Jessica Brady, noted the “important role” the committee plays in the nomination process, telling BuzzFeed News, “The full committee's formal review of Chief Garland's record begins when it receives a completed Senate questionnaire laying out the nominee's record. Of course the committee should do its job and treat Chief Judge Garland the same way previous Supreme Court nominees have been treated.”

As had been the case with Sotomayor and Kagan, Garland’s Supreme Court nomination is not the first time Garland would submit a questionnaire to the Judiciary Committee. Garland submitted one when President Clinton nominated him to the D.C. Circuit.

In the normal confirmation process, the committee staffs then review the questionnaire, often seeking follow-up information, in advance of the hearings for the nomination.

This, though, is a highly unusual nomination process. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said, unequivocally, that no nominee of Obama’s to replace Justice Antonin Scalia will receive a vote. And both McConnell and Grassley have said there will not be hearings for Garland’s nomination. Given the reluctance of many Republicans to even meet with Garland for the informal, one-on-one meetings that ordinarily take place after a Supreme Court nomination is announced, it was not clear Republicans even would accept a Garland questionnaire — or that there would be a reason to even undertake the process.

But, nine days after Obama nominated Garland in a Rose Garden announcement, there are some tentative signs of a thaw — at least among those Republicans facing tough reelection battles.

On Tuesday, Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois is scheduled to be the first Republican senator to meet with Garland, the senator’s office announced Friday. A day earlier, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran said that, while he doesn’t support Garland, he believes Obama’s nominee deserves a hearing. And, for her part, Maine Sen. Susan Collins has said she will meet with Garland — and has been pushing colleagues to do so and hold hearings as well.

None of those senators are the majority leader, though, and none are even on the Judiciary Committee. But, it is clear that McConnell’s plan does not have unanimous support. And Friday’s statement from Grassley’s spokesperson does open the door for this unconventional nomination to at least take one conventional step forward.

The White House, for its part, will continue to press for further steps forward with its “do your job” argument.

“We expect that, alongside this request [of the questionnaire], Committee members will do their jobs by completing meetings with the nominee, noticing a hearing, and giving Judge Garland the consideration he deserves,” Hoffine said.

The Kids Are All Left

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MacMillan Books / Via MacMillan Books

Most twenty-somethings will never belong to a union — and may never know anyone who does. But many are in need of a job (unemployment for those under 25 is 18%) and many more are sitting on student loans, the sum of which now total more than $1 trillion nationally. And now, plenty of them are favoring a presidential candidate who identifies as a democratic socialist.

A new collection of essays by and for this demographic looks at the future of organized labor, with debt strikers, Black Lives Matter, the Fight for 15 and other movements leading the way forward. BuzzFeed News spoke with the collection's editors — Sarah Leonard, a senior editor at the Nation, and Bhaskar Sunkara, the founder of political quarterly Jacobin.

Given that a lot of people in our generation may never belong to a union, how do you see them engaging with the labor movement?

Sarah Leonard: We’ve definitely seen the fits and starts of organizing of a generation that didn’t grow up with unions. But one of the reasons the Sanders campaign is so successful is because a number of these movements have laid the groundwork for thinking about problems socially. And that’s a bigger change than sometimes we remember today.

A number of years ago, a Tumblr got started that allowed people to post their debt online. People would share photos of themselves, often with a piece of paper over their faces, saying, "I have this much medical debt. I have this much school debt. I’m really ashamed." It brought people together in a way that literally allowed us to view their debt as collective — in one big stream. Whereas before everyone thought that they were doing something wrong, that they’d screwed up somehow, that they were stupid. And that’s a really insidious feeling. You’ll never struggle over something you feel you deserve to suffer. But if you feel like this is a social problem that has been unfairly, structurally imposed on society, then you have something to fight over.

Demonstrators wear signs around their neck representing their debt during a 2012 protest.

Andrew Burton / Reuters

Bhaskar Sunkara: The only maybe downer note I’ll add to that is — it’s not even just a matter of raising consciousness. Most people, let’s say, don’t try to start a union not because they’re not aware of this as an option. But also because they’re just too smart to try to start a union.

We’re in an era where there’s high real unemployment, and there is not a strong labor movement. Say you manage to be stably employed — your best bet is often to try to keep your head down, and if you need to cover any debts, you’re going to go to your friends, your family, or maybe you're going to take out some credit card debt. That’s often a more viable route.

So I think we need to understand how much the deck is stacked against ordinary workers. Not to be defeatist, but to take stock of the number of steps it will take to get to a point where collective action is going to be a viable thing for most people.

The collection focuses on the relationship between race, gender, sexuality, and class. Could you talk about the book's intersectional lens on the labor movement?

SL: People experience the lack of power in their lives in many different ways. It’s important to talk about those experiences so we can do coalition-building — to be able to say, "I feel ground down by my boss, but you also feel ground down by the police, and for you those are equivalent problems."

BS: Often I think this kind of stuff is poorly labeled identity politics, in a dismissive way. I think it’s better to call it the old-school way: anti-oppression politics. One thing the book drives home is that any viable anti-racist or anti-sexist agenda has to have a class component. That’s not to say that just class is enough, but if you try to present an anti-racist or anti-sexist program without class, it’s definitely not enough.

SL: A social justice unionism can mean collaborating with all kinds of movements, such as Black Lives Matter. The Black Youth 100 Project put out a big report recently on the role of black workers in the labor movement, for example, because black people in this country have more trouble building wealth. It’s harder to get a mortgage, for instance, and people of color are more likely to suffer in times of layoffs.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

SL: The way that the candidates have had to address the issues raised by Black Lives Matter has also been extremely significant. That’s partly because they’ve declined as a movement to endorse anyone, they’ve taken away candidates’ microphones and made public relations nightmares for them when they failed to address issues affecting black and brown people in this country.

At the last Democratic debate, the candidates were competing to be most progressive on mass incarceration and criminal justice. The effect of that movement on the campaigns has shown how movements should use campaigns. We have a group of the leaders of Black Lives Matter having a conversation in the book — addressed specifically to the police but also to larger criminal justice questions.

The book also talks about what the labor movement can do to help combat climate change.

SL: We thought that was crucial. If the context of our politics in the future is the fact that our world is melting, we have to have a strategy for dealing with that which incorporates the critique we’re already making of how burdens often fall on the poor.

BS: Part of it is also trying to push against the notion that "this is what happens when civilization gets too complex, and we start polluting more often," — like your average worker owns a coal power plant. So on the one hand it’s pushing against the idea that we’re all responsible, while also saying that any solution should be in the interest of the vast majority.

An activist takes part in a global climate march in November 2015 in New York City.

Kena Betancur / Getty Images

The book primarily deals with domestic issues. How do you see it as informing or being informed by movements outside the United States?

SL: We’ve seen a number of upsurges in other countries. Corbyn is a good example. Syriza in Greece. Podemos in Spain. The Left party in Portugal. People are suffering, and so people want left-wing governments. They’re like, "Get us out of here."

But the forces are not really strong enough to support a stable left-wing program. So we're engaging in a learning process. What we’re trying to do with this book and elsewhere is think, "What if we might actually win?" This is not the full policy brief for a socialist presidency, god knows. But we’re doing our best. The important thing is to stop thinking of yourself as a perpetual critic and start thinking you might actually have an opportunity to begin implementing these things.

Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders arrives at a campaign event in Iowa in June.

Jim Young / Reuters

On that note, there’s pragmatism to the book, but there’s also some radical thinking. Why is it important to sometimes think in utopian terms?

SL: Bernie Sanders sounds idealistic to some people and pragmatic to other people. If you have no union, low wages, and no healthcare, he sounds pretty pragmatic. Because when people say, “He’ll never be able to get anything done, and there will be blood in the streets before a Sanders agenda can pass,” — well, there’s already blood in the streets. We have high infant mortality compared with Western Europe. I was talking to a women from the nurses’ union and she said, “When people come into the intensive care unit where I work, the first question out of their mouths is about how they’re going to pay for it.”

BS: Beyond that, let’s say this was a race between radical reforms offered by Sanders and incremental reforms by Clinton — if you have a Republican congress constituted the way it is now, the incremental reforms aren’t going to pass anyway. So would you rather spend that capital getting failed but insufficient reforms through, or would you rather put forward a politics that can build its own social base? And Sanders has actually uncovered a large constituency that had felt left out of the political process.

The National Nurses United union endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for president.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

People are ready for something radical. They want enemies named, and they want proposals put forward they aren’t used to. And it’s really up to us and to people like Sanders to put forward these proposals, because if they aren’t put forward by us, they’re going to be put forward by the Trumps of the world.

Similarly radical, but in the opposite direction.

BS: Right. I also think a lot of what is going on now with socialism is kind of a mile-wide but an inch deep. We need to take advantage and talk to as many people as we can, but also be aware of our own marginality.

I feel the same way about Jacobin. We’re growing quite fast by the standards of a socialist publication, and we think we can ride the Sanders wave to above 20,000 subscribers. But at the same time that’s the old feeling of, “We have five people in a group. Two months ago, we had one. Therefore, at this pace, in a hundred months, we’ll be a mass party.” It doesn’t actually work that way.

Scott Olson / Getty Images

SL: We did want to be somewhat pragmatic with the collection. There’s nothing in there that’s unimaginable: universal child care, paying people to do jobs that are not creating climate change. These are not things that should be impossible to conceive of, even in the relatively near term, should the political will exist.

We didn’t want to call it a blueprint because we’re aware that any solutions are the result of people’s struggle. That struggle is something we’re seeing right now, and so we would not presume to say, "The outcome should be 'x.'" That’s not our place. Our place is to contribute to that movement by putting forward things that we can agree to struggle for — and expanding our imagination as to what those things might be.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

What led you two to this place — to your politics and to be editing this collection?

SL: I grew up a Democrat with liberal parents. And what became frustrating was — Democrats always seemed to be half-assing it. So they’d say, "we want to redistribute — some." But it always seemed to be picking at the edges. So I started moving away from those politics and then started working at Dissent, which is a long-standing political quarterly that identifies as democratic socialist. Which is a word that people understand now.

BS: My parents were immigrants who came to the country in 1988, the year before I was born. So my first couple years, as one would imagine, there was a lot of moving around. My dad, who was a professional overseas, was de-classed, for lack of a better word. He was just always working. My mom didn’t finish her high school education, so she was working as telemarketer and did lots of other jobs.

I’m the youngest of five, and it’s impossible to think that the fact that I was able to pursue what I wanted to do and go to college was anything more than an accident of birth and circumstance. To the extent our family situation got way, way better it was just because both my parents got public sector jobs. So if I was going to develop any political consciousness at the very least it would be a broadly social-democratic, liberal sentiment that understood that value of public sector work and public goods.

What do you say to older critics who may take issue with your age and relative radicalism?

SL: If they didn’t want bunch of radical twenty-somethings, they shouldn’t have created a system of massive college debt. And no healthcare. That's on them.

Donald Trump Viciously Mocked Rosie O’Donnell’s Depression During Their Public Feud

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“If I looked like Rosie, I’d struggle with depression too,” Trump said.

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Donald Trump, while feuding with Rosie O'Donnell in the mid-2000s, mocked her struggle with depression, an insult which temporarily ended their very public war of words and which Trump boasted about weeks later in a speech as an example of how to "get even."

Over the past week, Trump has turned his attention toward Ted Cruz's wife. He retweeted a crude meme comparing Heidi Cruz and Melania Trump. And Trump has threatened to "spill the beans" on Heidi Cruz — which many have interpreted as a reference to her struggle with depression in the 2000s. The Trump campaign in recent days has pointed, belatedly, to Heidi Cruz's work on the Council on Foreign Relations, and other Washington groups.

An early episode of Trump's very public and vicious treatment of women occurred in 2006 and 2007, when he was engaged in a now-infamous feud with O'Donnell which began when she criticized his handling of the Miss USA pageant. The two traded barbs over several months, with Trump attacking O'Donnell's physical appearance in the cruelest of terms.

But their already nasty feud took on an even darker tone when Trump mocked O'Donnell's revelation that she suffered from depression.

"If I looked like Rosie, I'd struggle with depression too," Trump told Entertainment Tonight.

The remark ended the months long back-and-forth, with O'Donnell responding on The View, saying, "The guy, he can't get over me, that's all I can say. Never mention that dump truck again."

Trump referenced the diss a few weeks later in a speech in Toronto as an example of how to get even.

"She announced last week that she suffers from depression. They called me for a comment, and rather than saying 'I have no comment' or 'isn't that too bad oh, that's so bad,' I said, 'I think I can cure here depression,' — most of you heard this. 'If she stopped looking in the mirror, I think she'd stop being so depressed.'"

He continued, "And they said, 'It's a horrible statement, it's a horrible statement.' What's so horrible about it? She attacks me. She said I had terrible hair. You know, it's amazing. She calls me comb-over, she calls me — but we're not allowed to attack."

Trump then said that when O'Donnell was asked about his remark, she said, "I have no comment, I have no comment about him."

"Get even," Trump said to the cheering crowd. "When somebody screws you, screw the back in spades. I really mean it. I really mean it. You've got to hit people hard and it's not so much for that person, it's other people watch."

CNN's Washington Bureau Chief Defends Airing Of Trump Rallies As "Valuable Service"

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Rhona Wise / AFP / Getty Images

With CNN on the defensive over its role in the rise of Donald Trump, a top news executive defended devoting long blocks of time to live Trump events as a "valuable service."

CNN Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist was grilled about Trump during a discussion of the 2016 presidential election at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center in February, and said he favors airing the events of all the major candidates.

“I think that taking candidate rallies unedited is actually a valuable service," Feist said, noting that it gave the candidates exposure to viewers who don't live in early primary states.

“I think that taking those rallies live, unedited, without commentary is useful," he added. "We can do the commentary afterwards. I don’t think we should interrupt them in the middle of it to annotate what they say.”

Media observers and critics have, in recents weeks, found fault in the press coverage of Donald Trump's candidacy, particularly on cable news, where the airing of the Republican frontrunner's events live and uninterrupted has been common practice since he announced he was running last June. CNN has faced particularly sharp criticism.

Former network news correspondent Jeff Greenfield compared the airing of Trump's rallies to state television, telling CNN's Reliable Sources in mid-March, "That’s what like happens when Fidel used to speak."

Feist, who has a major role in shaping CNN's election coverage, fielded multiple questions about the coverage of Trump at the event, including one about the line between reporting the news about Trump and simply perpetuating his controversial statements.

"Our job is to make sure you know what he’s saying," Feist answered. "That you know perhaps that no one has ever said it before. That you understand what he said, what the context is, what the criticism of his comments are from either other candidates or in some cases experts and what the other candidates are saying about it.

"I believe our job is to put as much information as we possibly can and let the voters decide what they want to do with it. It’s not a complicated mission.”

Feist also argued that the amount of coverage a candidate receives is "commensurate with their likelihood of becoming president."

“I think that the leading candidates, the ones who either are well-funded or are particularly successful in the polls, are the ones who get the most attention, the most scrutiny, the most coverage," Feist said. "And I think that the candidates who are not, really don’t seem to have as serious chance of becoming president get less coverage and I think that’s probably OK."

He continued, saying, "I’m not sure that candidates who aren’t at one percent in any poll have earned the coverage or should be covered the same way as candidates who have some reasonable likelihood of becoming president of the United States. I’m not sure that would be the right use of our resources."

Feist said Trump's message was resonating with a segment of Americans, some of them well-informed about the candidate and his positions.

“Clearly Donald Trump is striking a chord with some Americans," he said. "I don’t think that they’re necessarily ill-informed. They may agree with him. We have to at least accept the possibility that the positions he’s taking are positions that quite a number of Americans agree with.”

Listen to the full talk here:

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Joe Biden Urges Senate Action On Supreme Court Nominee

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WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden on Monday continued the administration's effort to make the case for Senate action on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, saying in a new video provided to BuzzFeed News that Senate inaction "has never happened before" with such a nominee.

"Folks, there's already enough dysfunction in Washington, D.C.," Biden says. "Now is not the time to spread that dysfunction to the Supreme Court of the United States of America."

Calling Obama's nominee, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland, "one of America's sharpest legal minds," Biden focuses most of the five-minute video discussing his time in the Senate, the current Senate leadership's position that there will not be hearings or a vote on the nomination, and the possible effects of inaction.

Biden, reiterating many of the points made in a speech at Georgetown University Law Center this past week, notes that he was chairman or ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 17 years, presiding over eight justices and nine nominees. Each of those nominees got a hearing from the Judiciary Committee, and, Biden says in the video, "Every nominee ... got an up-or-down vote by the Senate. Not much of the time, not most of the time, every single time."

Biden, however, has faced significant criticism and claims of hypocrisy from Republicans, who point to a speech Biden gave in June 1992, when he said, "It is my view that if the president ... presses an election-year nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee should consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the campaign season is over." While there was no vacancy at that time, and while others have pointed to the broader context of Biden's 1992 speech, Republicans have taken to calling that portion of Biden's remarks "the Biden Rule" and using it as a justification for their position today.

Although not specifically referencing those comments, Biden does respond to them.

"The only rule I ever followed as chairman was the Constitution's clear rule on advice and consent. That's the rule being violated today by the Senate Republicans," Biden says. "Nobody is suggesting that the senators have to vote yes on our nominee. Voting no is always an option."

Holding no hearings or vote when presented with a Supreme Court nominee, Biden says, "has never happened before."

Biden goes on to describe the "consequences" for people across the country: the possibility of tie votes — which would allow lower court rulings to stand. "Your freedom of speech, your freedom to practice your faith, your right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, all could depend on where you happen to live," Biden says.

The vice president ends on what has become the administration's key line during the nomination fight, saying, "We all have to do our job, including the U.S. Senate."

Donald Trump Is Still Flip-Flopping On Toppling Saddam Hussein

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Trump for years said President George H.W. Bush should have “finished the job” by invading Baghdad. He told the New York Times over the weekend Bush did the “right thing.”

Joshua Roberts / Reuters

In an apparent shift in opinion, Donald Trump told the New York Times over the weekend that he believes President George H.W. Bush made the right decision to not invade Baghdad and depose Saddam Hussein at the end of the First Gulf War.

For years, Trump has said Bush should have "finished the job," writing in his 2000 book The America We Deserve: "He wasn't afraid to use American power when he figured out that Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to American interests in the East. I only wish, however, that he had spent three more days and properly finished the job."

In a long interview with the New York Times on his foreign policy, Trump revealed that he now believes Bush "did the right thing."

"Well he did the right thing, he did the right thing," Trump said, when discussing the Gulf War. "He went in, he knocked the hell out of Iraq and then he let it go, O.K.? He didn't go in. Now I don't know was that Schwarzkopf, was that, was that...or maybe it was him, but he didn't go in, he didn't get into the quicksand, right? He didn't get into the quicksand and I mean, history will show that he was right."

Trump cited Hussein's taunting of Bush in 1992 following the war to show he overplayed his hand.

"And he was taunting to them, he was saying, and even I used to say 'Wow' because I knew that we could've gone further," he said. "We went in for a short period of time and just knocked the hell out of them and then went back, sort of gave them a lesson, but we didn't destroy the country, we didn't destroy the grid, we didn't, you know, there was something left. There was a lot left. And instead of just sort of saying he got lucky and to himself, just going about, he was taunting the Bushes. And Junior said, 'Well I'm not going to take it' and he went in."

Trump's position on how to deal with Hussein has shifted over the past two decades. He has claimed this past year that he was vocally opposed to the Iraq War before the invasion, a claim contradicted by his own words. For years, Trump said Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction were a threat and that Bush 41 should have finished the job.

BuzzFeed News previously reported three times Trump advocated for toppling Hussein.

"Yeah, I guess so," Trump said on Howard Stern when asked if he supported invading Iraq. "I wish the first time it was done correctly."

"He didn't finish the war," Trump said in 1999 in Fox News Sunday. "I wish he'd finished the war."

"We can learn something here from George Bush and see how good a president he was," Trump wrote in his 2000 book The America We Deserve. "He wasn't afraid to use American power when he figured out that Saddam Hussein posed a direct threat to American interests in the East. I only wish, however, that he had spent three more days and properly finished the job. It is this kind of will and determination to use our strength strategically that America needs again in dealing with the North Koreans."

SANGER: So you know Mr. Trump, from listening and enjoying these two conversations we've had today which have been extremely interesting, I've been trying to sort of fit where your worldview and your philosophy here, your doctrine fits in with sort of the previous Republican mainlines of inquiry. And so if you think back to George H. W. Bush, the most recent President Bush's father, he was an internationalist who was in the realist school, he wanted to sort of change the foreign policy of other nations but you didn't see him messing inside those countries and then you had a group of people around —

TRUMP: Well he did the right thing, David, he did the right thing. He went in, he knocked the hell out of Iraq and then he let it go, O.K.? He didn't go in. Now I don't know was that Schwarzkopf, was that, was that —

SANGER: It was George W. Bush himself.

TRUMP: Or maybe it was him, but he didn't go in, he didn't get into the quicksand, right? He didn't get into the quicksand and I mean, history will show that he was right. And with that Saddam Hussein overplayed his card more than any human being I think I've ever seen. Instead of saying "Wow, I got lucky" that they didn't come in and take this all away from me. He should've just relaxed a little bit, O.K.? And instead he taunted Bush Sr. He taunted him. And Bush Jr. loves his father and didn't like what was happening, but I remember very vividly how Saddam Hussein was taunting, absolutely taunting, saying we have beaten the Americans, you know, meaning they didn't come in so he would tell everybody he beat them. Do you remember that, right?

SANGER: I do indeed.

TRUMP: And he was taunting to them, he was saying, and even I used to say "Wow" because I knew that we could've gone further. We went in for a short period of time and just knocked the hell out of them and then went back, sort of gave them a lesson, but we didn't destroy the country, we didn't destroy the grid, we didn't, you know, there was something left. There was a lot left. And instead of just sort of saying he got lucky and to himself, just going about, he was taunting the Bushes. And Junior said, "Well I'm not going to take it" and he went in. And you know, look that was —

Mike Lee: "Too Many Unanswered Questions" To Know If I'll Back Trump As Nominee

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“I would need to know where he stands on a lot of the issues,” Lee said.

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Republican Sen. Mike Lee from Utah says he's hasn't decided whether he will support Donald Trump if the businessman wins the party's nomination.

"I haven't, because there are too many unanswered questions. I would need to know where he stands on a lot of the issues," Lee, who earlier this month endorsed Ted Cruz, told WTMJ's Charlie Sykes Show on Monday when asked if he'd support Trump.

Lee said it wasn't clear where Trump stands on many important issues.

"Again, federalism, separation of powers, the fundamental purpose of government. How he reads the enumerated powers of the federal government," he said. "I haven't heard a whole lot of detail. In fact, I haven't heard any detail from Donald Trump when it comes to any of those questions."

Lee added it was too early to decide if he'd support a third party candidate if Trump became the nominee.

"That's too early to say that, and it's unnecessary because Ted Cruz is going to win this. Donald Trump's not gonna win it, Ted Cruz is. He can get there and I believe he will."


Trump: I Was Just Joking When I Made Crude Comments About Women

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Trump says he was serious about Megyn Kelly though.

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Donald Trump said in an interview on Monday that he was just joking when he made demeaning comments towards women in the past.

Trump's comments — in which he degrades, ranks, and rates women — have been used against him by his opponents, even appearing in an attack ad from an anti-Trump super PAC. Trump has previously said he didn't recognize some of his own past comments and dismissed others as part of being in "show business."

He told a local Wisconsin television station on Monday that he was just joking.

"Well number one, I'm no different than anybody else, and people joke and I joke," Trump said in a phone interview with Wisconsin local FOX11. "And I never knew I was going to be running for office. And you joke, and you kid and say things, but you're not a politician so you never think anybody cares."

"All of a sudden you decide because the country's doing so badly that you're going to run for office, and then they take every single thing that you've ever said over a lifetime," he continued. "Much of that I said in jest, much of that I said — although with the Fox debate, I didn't say that in jest at all. I said that 100% because Megyn Kelly never treated me fairly and everybody knows it. But you say things and I guarantee you I'm no different, if anything I'm far better than the people I'm running against."

You can watch the interview here:

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LINK: Donald Trump Said A Lot Of Gross Things About Women On “Howard Stern”


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Sanders Campaign Architects: We Have A Secret List Of Pro-Bernie Superdelegates

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SEATTLE — There is a “significant number” of superdelegates ready and willing to support Bernie Sanders, top officials at the Sanders campaign told reporters on a conference call Monday.

But Sanders’ secret stash of superdelegates will remain nameless for now, campaign manager Jeff Weaver said. They’re not ready to come forward just yet.

Superdelegates are among the most confounding aspects of the Democratic nominating process for Sanders supporters. The group of federal elected officials, party elders, and DNC members total 712 votes in the race for the party’s nomination. They can vote for anyone they want, unlike the non-super — or “pledged” — delegates candidates win in state nominating contests.

A candidate needs 2,383 delegates to win the Democratic nomination. In a tight race, superdelegates can make the difference. And Hillary Clinton has a huge lead among superdelegates.

Politico reported Monday that she has the support of 469 superdelegates — to Sanders’ 30. Clinton also leads Sanders 1,267 to 1,037 among pledged delegates, according to Five Thirty Eight’s tracker. The math isn’t good for Sanders.

That Sanders backers now talk this way about superdelegates — about having and wanting their support — represents a bit of a shift. The line has always been that the superdelegates are really just a reflection of Clinton’s standing with the party establishment, which Sanders supporters have said really just wants Clinton to win.

Now, a big part of Sanders’s strategy to buck the math is to try to flip superdelegates to his side. Senior Sanders adviser Tad Devine has said for weeks that superdelegates could flip to Sanders if the campaign can prove he’s stronger than Clinton in a general election and can expand the party’s base of support in the fall.

After Sanders’ victories in Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii over the weekend, Devine and Weaver again told reporters that the superdelegates could still be convinced Sanders is the way to go. The three wins allowed Sanders to once again claim the momentum in the Democratic primary race, even if they didn’t do much to change math — which still shows the nomination is Clinton’s to lose.

And so, on Monday, the prospect of winning over unpledged superdelegates and flipping superdelegates who support Clinton was raised once again by top Sanders aides.

“We have a number of superdelegates who are not prepared to go public at this point who have indicated that to us that they're supportive, so we believe our superdelegate number is higher than the one that is publicly available,” Weaver told reporters. “I understand that's not worth a lot at this point from you all's perspective. But we do believe we have identified a substantial number of superdelegates above what's publicly out there.”

Weaver noted that there are “a few hundred” unpledged superdelegates who could still go to Sanders. The fact that they exist proved his point that the superdelegates should not be taken for granted, he added.

“It would be very easy for them to be pledged to Hillary Clinton given the media narrative and the establishment support that she has,” he said. “The fact that they have yet to do that I think demonstrates that there is certainly a large number of superdelegates who have some reluctance about Secretary Clinton's campaign."

The Sanders secret stash of superdelegates would have to be pretty big to make a real difference, however. In fact, Sanders needs Clinton superdelegates to flip. Pressed on the real numbers, Devine warned that the superdelegates secretly in Sanders’ corner are not enough to make the difference at the moment.

“We don't have like 300 super delegates ready to endorse Bernie tomorrow,” he said. “But we do have a lot of people, you know, dozens, who have expressed support for Bernie and are going to find the right time to make that support public.”

Senate Democrats Call For Vote On Obama's Supreme Court Nominee By Memorial Day

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WASHINGTON — Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee urged the Senate's Republican leadership to "reconsider" their position on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee and called for a Senate floor vote on confirmation on May 25.

In a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, the nine Democrats on the committee lay out a timeline for consideration of Obama's nominee, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Merrick Garland, based on "the average confirmation schedule for nominees since 1975."

According to those averages, Democrats state that hearings for Garland should begin April 27, with a vote of the Judiciary Committee on May 12.

McConnell and Grassley, however, have said that there will not be hearings or a vote on Obama's selection.

In the letter, Democrats push back, writing, "Since Committee hearings began in 1916, every pending Supreme Court nominee has received a hearing, except nine nominees who were all confirmed within 11 days."

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats

Read the Democrats' letter:

Split Supreme Court Means A Win For Public Sector Unions

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WASHINGTON — A 4-4 split Supreme Court on Tuesday left in place a lower court ruling that allows public unions to collect fees from non-members.

After arguments in January, it had appeared that a 5-4 court was going to strike down so-called "agency fees," but the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February upended the case.

The decision marks a victory for unions that was completely unexpected when the Supreme Court agreed to hear Rebecca Friedrichs' case this past June, and the strongest sign yet of the changed composition of the court without Scalia.

The Supreme Court had allowed for such fees in a 1977 decision that the unions had argued was now a settled part of the American workplace landscape, but the court in a recent case had signaled that it was open — if not eager — to reconsider that ruling.

In November 2014, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld such fees administered by the California Teachers Association under the 1977 case, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. Two months later, Friedrichs asked the Supreme Court to reverse Abood and end "agency fees" in public unions.

The case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, was considered almost a done deal when the court agreed to hear the case, given the comments from the five-justice conservative majority of the court in 2014 in Harris v. Quinn. The arguments in Friedrichs bore that out, with the five justices appearing poised to end the fees.

Friedrichs argued that the First Amendment bars California from forcing her to pay money to a union with which she disagrees and has chosen not to join. The unions, joined by California and the Obama administration, countered that the 1977 decision was reinforced by other decisions about more lenient speech rules that apply to the government when it acts as an employer.

The change that Scalia's death a month after arguments would bring to the Friedrichs case was one of the most certain effects of his death.

The court, in its unsigned, one-sentence opinion on Tuesday made that clear: "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court."

The Obamas' Faces While Reading A Story For Kids Are Just Incredible

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These guys really, really get into it.

On Monday, the president and first lady welcomed families to the White House for their final Easter Egg Roll as first family.

On Monday, the president and first lady welcomed families to the White House for their final Easter Egg Roll as first family.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Just as in years past, the Obamas treated the kids present to a story, reading the iconic Maurice Sendak children's book Where The Wild Things Are.

Just as in years past, the Obamas treated the kids present to a story, reading the iconic Maurice Sendak children's book Where The Wild Things Are.

Yuri Gripas / Reuters

They....really got into it.

They....really got into it.

Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images

Their facial expressions were just incredible.

Their facial expressions were just incredible.

Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images


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