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White House: We Don't Have The Authority To Pardon DREAMers

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Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images

White House officials moved Thursday afternoon to stop the nascent effort by Democrats and immigration activists asking President Obama to pardon so-called DREAMers, releasing a statement to BuzzFeed News that the president does not have the power to do so.

"The president takes the executive clemency power seriously. As a general matter, we do not comment on the likelihood of whether a specific pardon may be granted, should one be requested," a White House official said. "We note that the clemency power could not give legal status to any undocumented individual. As we have repeatedly said for years, only Congress can create legal status for undocumented individuals."

The statement came in response to a letter sent to Obama by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Rep. Lucille Roybal Allardm and Rep. Zoe Lofgren — and a subsequent press conference Thursday afternoon — in which the House members argued that Obama can grant a pardon for both prior and future immigration violations.

"There is a long line of cases that indicate that the pardon power of the executive is not reviewable by the other two branches of government so we urge the president to provide security to these young people," Lofgren said during the press conference.

Gutierrez said Democrats are calling on Obama to give some kind of further deportation protection while he is still in office for DREAMers who came forward, went through background checks, and registered with the government in order to be eligible to receive work authorization and driver's licenses.

David Leopold, an immigration lawyer that has worked with activists, said that the administration officials are right that the pardon powers of the executive branch cannot confer legal status to an undocumented immigrant. He cautioned the administration against dismissing these efforts out of hand, though.

"I think at a minimum the pardon power can be used effectively legally to put DACA recipients or DREAMers on a path to regularize their status if they had another method to do it," Leopold said, noting that the administration could pardon specific immigration violations like the three- and10-year bars an undocumented immigrant may face if they leave the country seeking to regularize their status before returning.

"DREAMers who have been vetted by the government shouldn't be burdened by Donald Trump's rhetoric and the harshness of our immigration laws coming into play," Leopold said.

The long-shot gambit by Democrats comes as desperate activists are digging in and assessing their options with the impending presidency of Donald Trump. One strategy the advocates have undertaken is pressure against the current administration to do what it can to protect undocumented immigrants.

But activists that have been in contact with the White House say that while the current administration is sympathetic to the urgency of their concerns, administration officials worry that anything the administration does will basically be a blinking-red invitation for Trump to undo it in his first days in office.

Still, as allies of undocumented immigrants scramble to identify strategies to protect Obama's 2012 executive action, pressure against the president appears likely to only intensify.

Recalling a 2012 Spanish-language ad during Obama's reelection bid, Gutierrez said the president stated that he passed DACA because he saw in DREAMers the same values that he and Michelle Obama inculcated in his two daughters.

"He made it personal, he said they were like his children," Gutierrez said. "So we ask the president, 'What would you do to protect your children?' They are our children."


Ivanka Trump, Expected To Run Father's Business, Also Met With Japanese Prime Minister

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A CNN reporter deleted a tweet on Thursday evening that included a picture of President-elect Donald Trump's meeting with Japan's prime minister — but not before several people noticed that it showed that Trump's daughter Ivanka was in the room.

A CNN reporter deleted a tweet on Thursday evening that included a picture of President-elect Donald Trump's meeting with Japan's prime minister — but not before several people noticed that it showed that Trump's daughter Ivanka was in the room.

Reuters ran a report on the meeting that included another photo, showing both Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, who is reportedly considering a role in the administration.

Reuters ran a report on the meeting that included another photo, showing both Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, who is reportedly considering a role in the administration.

The Reuters story identifies the photos as being handout photos provided by the Japanese Cabinet Public Relations Office. The press pool reporters covering the president-elect were not allowed into the meeting, even at the beginning or end for photos or brief comments — as Watson, the CNN reporter, later noted — and no photos were provided by the Trump transition team.

A CNN source told BuzzFeed News that Watson's tweet was deleted after guidance went out to the entire network saying they would not use handout photos — like those provided by the Japanese government.

Because the transition had provided no "readout" of the meeting — a summary of what had gone on — and the press had not been allowed into the meeting, even for a few minutes, the Japanese handout photos were the first time it was made public that Ivanka Trump apparently was sitting in on at least part of the meeting. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, reportedly offered the role of Trump's national security adviser, also appears in the photo Watson had posted.

Ivanka Trump's presence is notable because it remains unclear how the president-elect plans to deal with his business interests as president. He has, in the past, said that Ivanka — along with his other children — would be running the business in what he called a "blind trust" while he is in office. (Ethics lawyers from both parties have criticized the prospect, saying it would not be a blind trust.)

Abe is the prime minister of the world's third largest economy.

A Trump transition spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the photos or about whether Ivanka Trump has been in the room for other meetings and phone calls with world leaders or potential cabinet officers.

Non-Muslims Are Saying They Would Add Their Names To A Muslim Registry In Solidarity

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As a show of solidarity, non-Muslims on social media are vowing to add their name to a proposed registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.

It comes as controversy surrounding Trump's flagship anti-Muslim policy was reignited this week. Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, who has helped engineer anti-immigration efforts across the country, revealed in an interview with Reuters that Trump’s policy advisers have discussed reinstating a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries.

Protesters from Code Pink for Peace gather near Donald Trump's motorcade.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

On Twitter, people began circulating a year old New York Times article titled "Donald Trump Says He’d ‘Absolutely’ Require Muslims to Register." A tweet including this excerpt about Trump's response on how a Muslim registry would differ from the Jewish registry in Nazi Germany began to trend:

People have since started using the hashtags #RegisterMeFirst and #IWillRegister to show solidarity with Muslims and have sent tweets such as: "First, they came for the Muslims … not on my watch."

At the same time, activists questioned how helpful it was promising to register as a Muslim, rather than stopping the proposal in the first place.

Darakshan Raja, the co-director of the Washington Peace Center, an anti-racism organization, wrote in a Facebook post shared over 2,600 times about how people "didn't show up" to demonstrate solidarity for Muslim migrant communities in the past.

Raja cited lack of opposition to the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), a system for registering non-citizens from certain countries that was passed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Darakshan Raja/ Facebook Screengrab

The HMA Law Firm, an immigration specialist based in Virginia, published a blog about the implication of a proposal targeting Muslim immigrants and how it had caused "immense grief."

The post said the solidarity was appreciated, but had to be channeled to make a difference.

It read:

Let me say first I love the solidarity in response to yesterday's news about the "Muslim Registry." Non-Muslims are offering to register themselves, or become Muslim, in order to gum up the system - a form of civil disobedience …

I'm afraid that calling it a #MuslimRegistry (ie, for all Muslims) obfuscates what's actually happening: the resurrection of NSEERS. This failed Bush-era program required Muslim male immigrants to register - and 84,000 did - and 14,000 found themselves in removal proceedings, with nearly 3,000 detained. Number of terror convictions? Zero …

So while I appreciate the gesture of solidarity and offers to register - as a Muslim immigration lawyer, I'd rather you make it clear to your Congressman that a vote for this misguided policy will result in a vote for their opponent in 2018.

After Trump Win, The Alt-Right Prepares For An Unexpected Future

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Rosie Gray / BuzzFeed News

WASHINGTON — The white nationalist alt-right movement, once the very definition of fringe politics, is facing a truly unexpected scenario: Their preferred candidate is about to be in the White House.

To capitalize on this turn of events, alt-right leaders held a press conference on Saturday at the gathering of the National Policy Institute, the white nationalist think tank headed by Richard Spencer. The event was held in the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, and attracted vigorous protests outside.

Spencer appeared onstage with VDare’s Peter Brimelow, anti-Semitic writer Kevin MacDonald, Arktos editor Jason Jorjani, and American Renaissance founder Jared Taylor. More than two dozen reporters were in attendance, a stark shift from previous alt-right gatherings that attracted fewer. Behind the press conference, the rest of the NPI attendees gathered to watch, at times booing and jeering the reporters when they asked questions. The audience was nearly all young, white, and male, with some sporting Make America Great Again hats and many displaying the “fashy” cropped-sides haircut common to the movement.

The alt-right, Spencer said, had before the election been like a “head without a body,” trapped in internal conversations and debates.

“The Trump movement was a kind of body without a head,” Spencer said, saying that Trump’s campaign had been “half-baked” on policy despite having the right instincts on foreign policy and immigration. “I think moving forward the alt-right as an intellectual vanguard can complete Trump.” Spencer, who can take credit for coining the name of the movement, believes the alt-right has a “psychic connection” with Trump in a way they do not with other Republicans. Indeed, the very name of the alt-right indicates its wish to disassociate itself from the wider right: An important part of its project is to challenge and dismantle the conservative movement.

Spencer and the others are careful not to identify Trump himself as alt-right, nor his campaign CEO and soon-to-be White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. The alt-right leaders are aware of their political radioactivity and seek to not harm Trump by linking arms too firmly with him. "I don't think Steve Bannon is alt-right as I would define the term,” Spencer said, saying Bannon has no direct connection to the movement but that “I think a few of us have shaken his hand” and that there is “common ground” between the beliefs of Bannon and those of the alt-right.

Bannon has described Breitbart as a “platform for the alt-right,” and under his watch, the site evolved to embrace alt-right ideologies. Spencer said he 90% agreed with Bannon’s assessment but doesn’t think Breibart itself is alt-right per se.

“It’s clearly moved away from the conservative movement, it was pro-Trump and it was also a site that tons of people on the alt-right like, they get their news from, they share,” Spencer said.

Now that Trump has won, the alt-right must grapple with policy in real-world terms. NPI plans to start putting out policy papers as recommendations for the Trump administration going forward (regardless of whether these specific plans will ever have audience in the White House); the first, out now, is called “Beyond NATO.” One proposal by Spencer is to institute a 50-year freeze on net immigration. He also spoke approvingly of Ivanka Trump’s federally sponsored maternity leave proposals, and of the choice of Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general. Spencer told me later that he’s also proposing a “less is more” idea in which there is less college attendance and college is reserved for a “cognitive elite,” and a “greatness agenda” involving wildlife conservation.

The alt-right’s willingness to push the boundaries of left vs. right gives it common ground with European ethno-nationalist movements, a fact Spencer acknowledged during the press conference, saying, “I would say that many people here have been influenced pretty profoundly by the European new right.” His co-panelist Jorjani’s website, Arktos, translates works of the European movement into English.

Spencer has emerged alongside Brimelow and Taylor in particular as the public face of the movement as it gained notoriety during the election cycle. A sardonic man with a fondness for three-piece suits, Spencer clearly relishes the attention, and told me afterward how much fun he’d found the press conference to be. He says he’s beginning to be recognized in public; someone came up to him on the T in Boston and told him, “God bless you, Mr. Spencer,” he said.

But even if some of the leaders crave the limelight as they bask in Trump’s glow, many of the alt-right rank and file are still wary of public attention. Spencer gave a warning to the media before the press conference to not film attendees without their permission. The alt-right is generally hostile towards the media — a term that’s currently in vogue is “lügenpresse,” an old term used by the Nazis meaning “lying press. Alt-right Twitter trolls have aggressively attacked journalists, particularly Jewish ones, for the entire election cycle. (Last week, Twitter cracked down and banned several alt-right accounts, including Spencer’s.)

Many in the movement use a nom de guerre at these events for fear of being doxxed. I spoke with a 23-year-old who goes by Ajax and who was wearing a pin that he said signified his membership with Identity Evropa, a group that he said organizes direct actions based around white identity. These actions include giving out flyers.

“We understand identity groups broadly like BLM, and to a lesser extent Zionism, on the level that most liberals and conservatives never will be able to because we recognize what it’s like to be completely uprooted and be without an identity and feel alienated from society at large,” Ajax said.

A frequent criticism of the term alt-right, and particularly of the media’s use of the term, is that it is a kind of euphemism: an attempt to elide the movement’s focus on white nationalism and preoccupation with race.

Speaking from the stage on Saturday, Taylor denied that the use of the term is an attempt to sanitize the movement’s true beliefs.

“The suggestion in your question is that this is some kind of attempt to hide the ball,” Taylor said. “To pretend that we are not who we are. No one is guilty of that. We are as straightforward as any movement I can imagine.”

"You Are Amazing!" Donald Trump Wrote To Harry Reid In 2010

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Here is the letter Sen. Harry Reid received after Election Day in 2010:

Here is the letter Sen. Harry Reid received after Election Day in 2010:

"Dear Harry: Congratulations — you are amazing!"

Reid had just won a hard-fought re-election against Sharron Angle. Trump had given $4,800 to Reid's campaign.

On Sunday, Reid's office provided the letter to BuzzFeed News after Trump had tweeted that incoming minority leader Chuck Schumer is "far smarter" than Reid.

The Trump transition team did not immediately return a request for comment.

Conservative Lawyers Take Up The Unexpected Opportunity Of Trump's Win

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Chris Geidner/BuzzFeed

WASHINGTON — Conservative lawyers attending this year’s Federalist Society convention had anticipated an extended wake of sorts for Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.

Instead, surprised and skeptical of President-elect Donald Trump as they may be, the conservative legal world sees an enormous opportunity before it.

This is a community that stands apart from Trump to a degree. No prominent member of the president-elect’s team — including Trump's pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions — had any highlighted role at the event. The three elected officials who gave keynote addresses to the legal group — Sens. Ted Cruz and Ben Sasse and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — were at times sharply at odds with Trump this year. One prominent attendee, former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell, told BuzzFeed News that he voted for Sen. Marco Rubio in the primaries and Evan McMullin in the general election. He speculated that upward of two-thirds of the convention attendees likely didn't vote for Trump — and added that it's possible McMullin got a majority of the votes from the conservative lawyers.

But Trump won, Cruz and Haley both have met with Trump in the past week, and the conservative legal world also has made a 180-degree turn.

Instead of mourning the loss of Scalia and the likely loss of a conservative majority on the court, they are invigorated and believe that they will now be able to continue down the conservative legal path that Scalia led for decades.

The Federalist Society has, from all visible signs, moved onto the next steps. While national security experts face an ongoing debate about whether they would even consider working in a Trump administration, few seemed to be having that discussion at the Mayflower Hotel.

"It's an exciting time in our history ... a time to stop the talk and start the action," Haley told the conservative lawyers — noting, however, that the party must have a message that success is possible for all, regardless of "race, gender, or where they were born or raised."

"We stand on the cusp of great change," Cruz said of the Republican-led House, Senate, and presidency, in a speech that backed Sessions’ nomination — saying he “is going to make an extraordinary attorney general of the United States.”

Cruz said in his address that he guessed there were "scores" of future federal judges in attendance, not to mention countless soon-to-be Justice Department lawyers and lawyers who will be staffing other federal agencies — calling the event potentially the largest gathering of possible members of the incoming administration.

Don Emmert / AFP / Getty Images

Even more significant for the group, though, is the fact that Trump will be the first president in generations to begin his term with a vacancy on the Supreme Court. The Federalist Society has made it clear that they stand ready to help. The group’s vice president, Leonard Leo, already met with Trump during the transition to discuss the vacancy.

“I think he wants to move forward as swiftly as he can to make sure that the court’s full nine-member bench is restored,” Leo said after meeting with Trump on Nov. 16 — adding that he expects the Federalist Society will be one of several groups that he expects the Trump team will be consulting on the pick.

That interest was on display at the Federalist Society's conference. In addition to speeches from the two current most conservative members of the Supreme Court — Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas — several of the those attending the conference were possible future members of the Supreme Court. One-third of Trump’s proposed possible Supreme Court nominees appeared as moderators of panels at the Federalist Society Lawyers Convention: Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid, 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Thomas Hardiman, 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Raymond Kethledge, Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen, 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William Pryor, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes, and Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett.

Ted Olson, the solicitor general for President George W. Bush’s first term, said on Nov. 17 that regardless of aims, the process involved in putting forward and getting confirmed a justice is extensive and he would be “very surprised” if someone is confirmed in time to hear cases this term — by April. Donald Verrilli, President Obama’s solicitor general, said a nomination and confirmation happening that quickly is “optimistic” but possible.

That Scalia could be replaced with a justice as conservative as he was is a possibility that seemed unthinkable for most of the year. At one of the closing panels, several leading legal scholars and judges came together to discuss how Scalia “transformed” several areas of constitutional law.

Federalist Society co-founder Lee Liberman Otis, a former law clerk of Scalia’s, introduced the panel by sharing a story. At an 80th birthday celebration for Justice William Brennan, several of the liberal justice’s most celebrated opinions laid out on display. Upon seeing them, Scalia joked, “So little time, so much to overrule!”

Over the next 30 years, however, Scalia — along with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court — did just that in many areas of the law.

“And there are still so many left for his successors,” quipped Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan Adler.

Alabama Probably Won't Be Trying A Never-Before-Used Single-Drug Lethal Injection

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Sue Ogrocki / AP

It appears unlikely that Alabama will try out a new single-drug lethal injection method next month, after the attorney general's office and death row inmate Ronald Bert Smith have been unable to reach an agreement.

Smith, along with other Alabama death row inmates, have challenged the state's lethal injection method, which uses a sedative similar to valium followed by a paralytic and then a painful drug that stops the heart. Instead, the inmates requested to be executed only using a single large dose of the sedative, midazolam.

The talks between the state and the inmate fell through over disagreements over how much of the drug to use and what the legal ramifications of doing so would be.

Alabama agreed that the inmates' request was feasible, and this month, U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins ordered the state to produce a one-drug execution plan of how it would use only midazolam. Watkins also asked inmate Smith to show cause of why he shouldn't be executed with the single drug as he had requested.

Last week, Smith responded that he would consent to being executed with a large 2,500 milligram injection of midazolam. Smith had requested a 500 milligram dose in his original complaint, but his attorneys say it was a typo. His own expert had said that a 2,500 milligram dose would be preferable.

Although the state said the 500 milligram dose was feasible and agreed to try it out, Attorney General Luther Strange's Office balked at the request for a higher dose.

"The ADOC does not have an unlimited supply of midazolam," Deputy Attorney General Thomas R. Govan, Jr. responded.

"Given the uncertainty in Smith’s unspecified protocol, particularly where Smith cannot even state how much midazolam would be needed [if the original dose doesn't kill him], it is uncertain whether the ADOC could carry out Smith’s execution based on his current stance."

The state did not disclose how much midazolam it has on hand, and states have closely guarded any information about their execution drugs.

The inmates also said they would only agree to the single-drug execution if their side was held to have won the case — meaning the three-drug protocol would be ruled unconstitutional. Under current US Supreme Court precedent, death row inmates challenging a state’s chosen method of execution must propose an alternative method.

On Friday, Judge Watkins dismissed Smith's lawsuit and criticized the conditions the inmate set.

"As Smith well knows, the law does not require, and has never required, these elements in lethal injection cases," Watkins wrote. "The unfortunate outcome of this ... process confirms the court’s previous reluctance to sidetrack capital litigation through negotiations."

Smith has already appealed the decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He is currently scheduled to be executed Dec. 8.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution of another Alabama inmate at the last minute. The inmate had challenged the state's three-drug protocol, as well as the state's sentencing law.

Trump Acknowledges, Disavows White Nationalist Alt-Right Movement

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Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Donald Trump disavowed the white nationalist alt-right movement in a meeting with reporters at the New York Times on Tuesday, according to tweets from reporters in attendance.

Trump reportedly said that "I don't want to energize the group, and I disavow the group," and "if they are energized, I want to look into it and find out why."

Trump has been reluctant in the past to disavow the racists who have enthusiastically supported his campaign. He was slow to disavow former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke after being asked about him in an interview with Jake Tapper this spring. In an interview with Anderson Cooper after Hillary Clinton gave a speech this summer pointing out Trump's ties to the movement, Trump professed ignorance, saying "nobody even knows what it is.” In that interview, Trump even denied the existence of the alt-right, saying, "There is no alt-right."

Trump's soon-to-be White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, formerly ran Breitbart News and has publicly described the site as a "platform for the alt-right." In the Times interview, Trump also defended Breitbart, which has covered Trump very favorably since before he announced his candidacy.

An alt-right gathering took place this past weekend in Washington at the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, the fringe think tank headed by Richard Spencer, who has emerged as one of the figureheads of the alt-right this year. After most reporters had gone home, Spencer gave a speech in which he shouted "Hail Victory" — the English translation of "Sieg Heil" — and which attendees responded to by giving Nazi salutes. Video of the incident was posted by the Atlantic. A photo also emerged on Twitter of Tila Tequila with two NPI conference attendees giving Nazi salutes at a dinner the group held the night before the conference at a restaurant in D.C.

Spencer claimed in an email to BuzzFeed News that his "hail" comments were "meant as an expression of exuberance" and "I certainly didn't salute anyone."

"Are you really not able to get irony and cheekiness?" Spencer asked.

LINK: How 2015 Fueled The Rise Of The Freewheeling, White Nationalist Alt Right Movement


Ben Carson Signals He'll Be Named Housing And Urban Development Secretary

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Lynne Sladky / AP

A day after President-elect Donald Trump said he was considering Dr. Ben Carson for his secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the retired neurosurgeon on Wednesday signaled he had accepted the position to join the new administration.

"An announcement is forthcoming about my role in helping to make America great again," Carson wrote on Twitter on Wednesday morning, linking to a separate Facebook post in which he discussed his desire to make "our inner cities great for everyone":

Winning the presidential election was only the first step for those who love traditional America and do not wish to fundamentally change it. Now the hard work begins of restoring the values that made us great. We must bring back the compassion and the unity that empowers us and banish the divisiveness that weakens us. After serious discussions with the Trump transition team, I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly to making our inner cities great for everyone. We have much work to do in strengthening every aspect of our nation and ensuring that both our physical infrastructure and our spiritual infrastructure is solid. An announcement is forthcoming about my role in helping to make America great again.

On Tuesday, Trump wrote on Twitter that he was "seriously considering" Carson, his former Republican primary rival, for the position, adding, "I've gotten to know him well — he's a greatly talented person who loves people!"

The Department of Housing and Urban Development oversees policies concerning ownership of affordable home, metropolitan community planning, low-income housing assistance, and homelessness.

Mike Segar / Reuters

The appointment of one of the nation's most prominent black conservatives to the role comes after Trump repeatedly excoriated America's inner cities and predominately black neighborhoods as "war zones" during his presidential run.

"You could go to war zones in countries that we’re fighting and it’s safer than living in some of our inner cities that are run by the Democrats," he told an Ohio rally in August.

"It is a disaster the way African Americans are living in many cases and in many cases the way Hispanics are living,” he said in making his case to minority voters. “And I say it with such a deep felt feeling, what do you have to lose?"

In September, Trump joined Carson for a brief tour of his boyhood Detroit neighborhood.

"I just wanted him to get a good idea of where I grew up and wanted him to see some of the more blighted areas of Detroit," Carson told reporters.

Trump and Carson in Detroit in September.

Carlo Allegri / Reuters

Earlier speculation had suggested that Carson could serve as Trump's secretary of health and human services, but the doctor had said he was not inclined to join the administration.

“The way I’m leaning is to work from the outside and not from the inside,” Carson told the Washington Post on Nov. 15. “I want to have the freedom to work on many issues and not be pigeonholed into one particular area.”

Carson had said he would prefer to act as an "ally" defending the administration in the media.

"I’ve said that if it came to a point where he absolutely needs me, I’d reconsider. But I don’t think that’s the situation with these positions,” he said.

"Having me as a federal bureaucrat would be like a fish out of water, quite frankly," he added.

His close advisor, Armstrong Williams, told the Hill that Carson was unlikely to serve in the Trump White House because of his lack of bureaucratic experience.

"Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency," Williams said. "The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency."

LINK: The Detroit Ben Carson Used To Call Home Is Long Gone

LINK: Could Running For President Destroy Ben Carson’s Legacy?

19 Photos Show What Life Is Like In Newly-Red Michigan

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A Donald Trump sign hangs from a building in Sanford, Michigan seen on Nov. 14, 2016. The village of Sanford has a population of 859 according to the 2010 census.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

On election night, when the results started rolling in and people couldn't believe what was happening, a new reality emerged: Michigan voted Republican.

We sent Theophil Syslo out to photograph the lesser-seen counties that played such a pivotal role in the election. The tri-city area in Michigan includes Midland, Saginaw, and Bay City. Midland has always been a bastion of red, but all of the surrounding counties, a mix of rural and urbane, voted twice for President Obama — and then flipped for Donald Trump, helping him to win Michigan by a narrow margin.

"There are many places that looked like they had been struggling, places where people and businesses had left and no one had returned to fill the void," Syslo said. "Younger people are migrating from the rural areas and going to cities so the landscape is changing. I did noticed a lot of Americana and patriotism, regardless of who someone voted for, people were very much rooting for this country."

"The Midwest is known for being polite, and during my coverage of the end of the presidential election, the region lived up to that standard. People were respectful, but they were also cautious to enter into a conversation about politics," he added. "For example, one person who voted for Trump, didn’t come out and blatantly say he voted for Trump, but instead discussed the movement that was started and where he wanted this country to head.

"Another had a lack of trust and thought Hillary would not support this region’s best interest, 'She is in someone's pocket and with Trump, at least we know what we are paying for,'" he recalled her saying. "However, nobody really projected their opinions compared to what you would see on the TV news."

Here's that tri-city area through Syslo's lens:

The VFW Post 1071 on East Railway Street, Coleman, Michigan seen on Nov. 14, 2016. The population was at 1,243 in the 2010 census.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

American flags on display in Sanford, Michigan seen on Nov. 14, 2016. The village of Sanford has a population of 859 according to the 2010 census.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

A barn with a Donald Trump sign is seen from U.S. Highway 2 in Schoolcraft County Michigan on Nov. 12, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

A 1970 Dodge Dart that sits outside of a home in Homer, MI. "It was a pretty ugly mail car from Texas... now it represents the country and the people who serve it," said Chuck Stockton on Nov. 13, 2016. Homer Township is a civil township of Midland County, as of the 2000 census the township population was 3,924.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

A view of Washington Street looking south towards Consumers Energy plant in Midland, MI., on Nov. 13, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

Alex Spicuzzi, Andy Ross, Lukas Dexter and Logan Willbanks play a pickup game of rink hockey at Emerson Park in Midland, Michigan on Nov. 13, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

John Johnson, of Midland, and his English springer named Baxter, fish along the Tittabawassee River in Midland, Michigan on Nov. 15, 2016. "Baxter is an old hand at fishing," he said. "He's been doing it for so long."

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

New development along Midland Road and Northwest View Drive in Bay City, Michigan, seen on Nov. 16, 2016. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 34,932.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

A customer leaves Sanford Hardware in Sanford, Michigan, on Nov. 14, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

Bud Rivard of Monitor Charter Township on Nov. 16, 2016. Rivard built his home in 1953 along Midland Road. The township's population was 10,735 as of the 2010 census and is included in the Bay City Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

Ken Williams of Bay City, and his sons Kartel and Kamdom chase a kite outside of Duncan's Outdoor Shop in Bay City, Michigan, on Nov. 18, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

A nativity scene sits on top the grass of The Midland County Courthouse located on West Main Street in Midland. The building was constructed in 1924 in the Tudor Style.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

The McClain family, of Saginaw, Michigan, sits for an ice cream dessert at Fuzzy's Restaurant in Saginaw on Nov. 18, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

Looking east down Center Avenue from on top of Delta College Planetarium and Learning Center in Bay City on Nov. 18, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

Saginaw residents Pedro Rodriguez, left, Jonathan Smith, center, and Greg Pritchett, right, enjoy a smoke break while skating at the Frank N. Andersen Celebration Park Skate Park in Saginaw on Nov. 17, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

Mark Shull and Keri Cicciarell sit outside the 75th District Court at the Midland County Courthouse in Midland on Nov. 15, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

Justin Cook of Midland, relaxes as Irish's Barber Shop co-owner John Owens cuts his hair on Nov. 16, 2016 in Midland, Michigan.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News


Bob Eickholt, an American Legion volunteer, poses for a portrait while sweeping the parking lot at the American Legion Post 18 in Bay City on Nov. 18, 2016.

Theophil Syslo for BuzzFeed News

Florida Supreme Court Signals Possible Upheaval For State's Death Row

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The Florida State Supreme Court chamber in Tallahassee, Fla.

Mark Foley / AP

WASHINGTON — The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday signaled that a significant portion of the state's death row population could need to be re-sentenced, the biggest fallout yet from this January's US Supreme Court ruling that the state's death sentencing law is unconstitutional.

The court ordered Richard Franklin to be re-sentenced for the 2012 murder of a prison guard because the jury was not unanimous in its recommendation of a death sentence.

The ruling could be the sign of a potential coming upheaval in the nation's second largest death row, lawyers said on Friday.

"At a minimum, we're looking at dozens of re-sentencings, if not hundreds," Death Penalty Information Center executive director Robert Dunham told BuzzFeed News.

It was not immediately clear how far back the decision would reach in its effect on the state's 385 inmates on death row currently — but it does mean that at least somewhere around 30 inmates will need to be re-sentenced. The court's ruling signaled, however, that the decision could affect a larger group — closer to 130 inmates, or about 1/3 of the state's death row, would need to be re-sentenced.

If the court later holds that the unanimity requirement applies to the state's entire death row population — a question not addressed in Wednesday's case — the number would jump even higher and as many as 290 inmates would need to be re-sentenced.

Due to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, spokespeople in Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's office were unavailable for comment on Wednesday evening.

The US Supreme Court held in January, in Timothy Lee Hurst's case, that the state's death sentencing law was unconstitutional because the judge, not the jury, made the decision to sentence a person to death. The court held that Florida's law violated the standards set forth in a 2002 case, Ring v. Arizona.

As a result, Florida passed a new death sentencing law that removed that discretion from the judge in death sentencing — but continued to allow a non-unanimous jury — 10 of 12 — to recommend death, an issue raised in but not ruled on by the US Supreme Court in Hurst's case.

In October, the Florida Supreme Court had ruled that the state's attempt to fix the death sentencing law was still unconstitutional because it allowed a non-unanimous jury to recommend a death sentence.

Regarding Hurst's case, the court held that — as with other sentencing errors — a "harmless error" analysis would apply. In other words, might the error (here, an unconstitutional death sentencing law) have made a difference in whether Hurst was sentenced to death. As to Hurst specifically, the court ruled that the state had not shown the error to be harmless and he was ordered to be re-sentenced.

The court did not give a definitive answer about the outcome of that "harmless error" analysis more broadly as to the nearly 400 people on Florida's death row, but suggested a low bar: "Where the error concerns sentencing, the error is harmless only if there is no reasonable possibility that the error contributed to the sentence."

On Wednesday, in Franklin's case, the court went further, holding, "In light of the non-unanimous jury recommendation to impose a death sentence, we reject the State's contention that any Ring- or Hurst v. Florida-related error is harmless."

In a few other cases, the court has held that a Hurst violation is a harmless error where the jury reached a unanimous recommendation and, including in a decision Wednesday, that there is no Hurst violation when a defendant waived his right to a jury at sentencing.

With Wednesday's Franklin ruling, however, the state's high court signaled that any death sentence handed down by a non-unanimous jury and finalized on its direct appeal since the Hurst ruling — and, it appears, since the Ring ruling — would be able to obtain an order that they be re-sentenced. The court has not yet commented on, let alone decided, whether it will consider the re-sentencing requirements regarding non-unanimity to be retroactive to cases finalized before Ring.

Of the 385 people currently on Florida's death row, a rule only reaching back to Hurst would potentially cover about 40 death sentences (meaning they would have a right to re-sentencing if their jury's death sentence recommendation was non-unanimous). Although specific numbers were not immediately available, a recent analysis showed that nearly 75% of Florida's death sentences were recommended non-unanimously. That would mean roughly 30 people would be ordered to be re-sentenced.

A rule reaching back to Ring — suggested by the court's discussion of the issue as a "Ring-Hurst Claim" — would potentially include about 170 death sentences, meaning about 130 people would need to be re-sentenced. If the court later decides that the ruling is wholly retroactive under Florida law, then all death row inmates would be subject to the Franklin rule — meaning up to 290 people would need to be re-sentenced.

Any significant number of re-sentencing orders could set off a domino effect throughout the system, Dunham said, noting, "There are not enough prosecutors to handle" those numbers of re-sentencings and their regular caseloads. "There is not enough court personnel to handle that influx of cases." He also questioned whether there would be enough judges or court dates and whether the state would be able to supply sufficient indigent defense.

Robert Smith, the director of the Fair Punishment Project at Harvard Law School, put the blame on prosecutors.

"For over a decade, Florida's prosecutors buried their heads in the sand and pretended that there is nothing wrong with the state's death sentencing statute despite all evidence to the contrary from the U.S. Supreme Court," he told BuzzFeed News, adding that "new hearings are going to cost millions of dollars and cause crime survivors untold misery."

To that end, Dunham asked: "How much are Florida legislators willing to spend on this, and how much are Florida taxpayers going to tolerate? We don't know."


Here's Why Trump Probably Won't Be Able To Repeal Common Core Nationally

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Donald Trump supporters have a lot of demands for their president-elect and his education secretary appointee, Betsy DeVos.

They really want Trump and DeVos to repeal Common Core, a set of achievement standards for primary school students in English and math subjects as they progress through each grade.

And Trump has promised to do it.

As recently as a Nov. 7 rally in Manchester, NH, Trump promised constituents that he would get rid of Common Core. He made similar pledges at multiple rallies in Florida.

DeVos' appointment complicates the demands, however. She's previously supported the standards and currently sits on the boards of several pro-Common Core organizations

But on Wednesday, she said that she unequivocally is not a supporter.

But there's a bigger problem with a repeal of Common Core

The federal government doesn't have much to do with Common Core any more, according to Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor at the USC Rossier School of Education, and Kevin Carey, director the education policy program at New America.

"At this point, states have either adopted Common Core or they haven’t," Polikoff told BuzzFeed News. "There's no possibility of a federal repeal of Common Core."

The federal government and the National Governors Association devised the Common Core state standards starting in 2009, and, once the standards were published, states could adopt or reject them.

Forty-two states have adopted the standards, which were never federally mandated, though they was incentivized with Race to the Top grants to schools.

Race to the Top, though, is over and it isn't likely to come back, according to Carey, who said there is a clause within the reauthorized Every Student Succeeds Act that prohibits the secretary of education and the Department of Education from mandating a set of standards across the country.

What will Trump and DeVos do?

The president-elect could theoretically enact a wholesale ban on Common Core. But Polikoff said that's unlikely because such a policy would break with decades of Republican orthodoxy.

The GOP has for years advocated for less federal involvement in education, a direction that Trump has supported. Federal overreach was one of the party's most pointed criticisms of President Obama, whose longtime education secretary, Arne Duncan, centralized power in his department to enact sweeping changes to national policy.

A federal ban on Common Core that required states to reformulate their standards and reorganize their curricula wouldn't fit with a turn towards a diminished Department of Education, Polikoff said, adding that it would also be a murky policy to implement.

"I don’t know how you would interpret such a law," he said. "Common Core is just a set of standards, so would the new standards have to be different? How different would they have to be?"

Carey does expect some sort of symbolic gesture against Common Core and rolling back regulatory oversight on education.

"How much discretion states get on education depends on how much the DoE cares," he said. "A Trump DoE will keep its hands off and just not do anything, which will give power to the states."

The Trump transition team did not return requests for comment.

States can still roll back Common Core, though

States with Republican governors may feel more empowered to reject Common Core and devise their own state standards because of Trump's promises, Polikoff said. But he added that states that reject Common Core often use the standards as a foundation for their own curricula and tests.

In New Hampshire, where Trump promised to eliminate the standards, Governor-elect Chris Sununu campaigned on a platform of removing the Common Core. His transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rick Scott, the incumbent governor in Florida, supervised the implementation of the standards in his state. In 2014, though, he declared he would push them out of his state, only to be met with the criticism that his newly devised Florida Standards were just the Common Core with some extra items added in. The state still uses the Florida Standards. His office also did not return requests for comment.

Jill Stein Has Raised More Than $2 Million To Fund Recounts In 3 States

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Dennis Van Tine / Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein raised more than $2 million on Wednesday to fund election recounts in three key states over claims the vote could have been manipulated or hacked.

Stein sought to raise $2.5 million by Friday to cover filing fees for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — swing states that had gone to Donald Trump in the presidential election. Had those states been declared for Hillary Clinton, she would have passed the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency.

Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2 million, but Trump secured 290 electoral votes to take the presidency. The margins were especially close in Michigan, where the secretary of state said on Wednesday that Trump led by 10,704 votes. In Wisconsin, he won by about 27,000.

On Tuesday, New York magazine reported a group of academics and election lawyers believed election results in the states could have been manipulated or hacked — by enough of a margin that Clinton could have won. Though there was no proof of a hack, the group had lobbied the Clinton campaign to seek a recount and independent review, New York reported.

The Clinton campaign has not commented on the matter, and other election experts have been skeptical that a recount would show different results. But on Wednesday, the campaign of Green Party candidate Jill Stein launched a fundraising effort to review the integrity of the election, particularly where machine-counted voting machines were used.

"With your help, we are raising money to demand recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—three states where the data suggests a significant need to verify machine-counted vote totals," the fundraising page said.

As of 11:10 p.m. CT Wednesday night, the campaign had raised $2.1 million and was growing steadily.

"Our effort to recount votes in those states is not intended to help Hillary Clinton," the campaign said. "These recounts are part of an election integrity movement to attempt to shine a light on just how untrustworthy the US election system is."

The campaign set a deadline of 4 p.m. Central Time on Friday to raise the $1.1 million filing fee for a Wisconsin recount, $500,000 for Pennsylvania, and $600,000 for Michigan. Because donations were going through a campaign, donors are limited to giving $2,700 each. If the fundraising goal for recounts was not reached, the campaign said the money would be dedicated to other election integrity efforts.

"This is about more than the results of this one election," Stein wrote in an email soliciting donations. "This is about protecting our democracy and ensuring that 'We the People' can have confidence in reported results. I do not have confidence in the reported results and donated to help make sure our votes were counted accurately on election day."

Why Trump Really Won Wisconsin And Pennsylvania

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Republican presidential elect Donald Trump speaks during election night at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York on November 9, 2016. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images

A few weeks after the shock of Donald Trump’s victory has worn off and reality sets in, some are alleging that the voting in key Midwestern swing states was somehow “hacked.” These people contend this may be the real reason three states which have voted Democratic over the last seven to eight presidential cycles (Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) narrowly flipped to Donald Trump in 2016.

But Trump really won, and he won in exactly the way you would have expected him to win if he was going to win at all. The results mirror patterns seen across these states, regardless of their type of ballot, and across the country with respect to class and formal education.

The DecisionDeskHQ is a nonpartisan group of elections analysts and volunteers whose job is to tabulate votes on election day and project winners in real time, providing an alternative to the Associated Press. We partnered with BuzzFeed on their election-night coverage and are experts in both the recent and historical voting trends of swing states. We have dealt with this sort of data on a near-daily basis for over four years now.

We will now explain in detail how Trump’s victories in two key states — Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — not only suggest no evidence of fraud, but in fact track with national trends in every conceivable way. Buckle up.

Wisconsin

Let’s begin with Wisconsin, as it forms the core of the accusations of vote hacking currently being floated.

According to New York magazine, the Hillary-backing consortium of “prominent computer scientists and election lawyers” making allegations of potential vote fraud offered only one detail: “Clinton received 7% fewer votes in [Wisconsin] counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots.” Details beyond this one charge have not been forthcoming, but if this is their “key claim” then it is extremely weak.

Technically speaking, the claim is true: Trump did happen to perform well in many counties that used electronic-only voting. (This handy PDF lists exactly which counties and towns in Wisconsin used optical scanning of ballots versus electronic-only voting.) He also often performed better than the man with whom he shared a ballot: Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who ironically defeated his Democratic opponent by a larger margin than Trump did Hillary Clinton (3% versus 1%).

So does that suggest that fraud may have been in the mix? No. The data in fact suggests the opposite.

Voting technologies and election processes differ wildly from state to state. Wisconsin in particular has decentralized system run on a county/township level, so any presumptive fraud would have had to be a massively micro-targeted effort involving hundreds of precincts, literally on the machine-level. (Presumably this would require a commensurate level of manpower — it could not be done remotely, as these machines are not connected externally to the internet or networked together.)

Even if all that happened, we would have expected to see inexplicable results in certain regions, as outcomes that had been “hacked” in advance ran bizarrely counter to national trends. And yet the vote shift in Wisconsin follows that of every other state across the entire Rust Belt (specifically Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota).

That trend is unmistakeable: Donald Trump ignited the white working class of these small towns, exurbs, and rural areas in a way few prior Republican candidates ever had, in many cases converting them from Obama voters to Trump supporters.

If Trump did well in what we think of as blue-collar areas, though, he also tended to run behind his Republican ballotmates in white middle-class suburban regions that in previous cycles supported Republican Presidential candidates, and which — critically, as it provides a direct comparison for us — supported Ron Johnson in Wisconsin in 2016 in line with those same historical trends.

In other words, there is no correlation to whether Trump ran ahead or behind Johnson in Wisconsin on the basis of whether a county uses electronic-only voting. Instead, the correlation is clearly mappable onto geography and demography.

In the educated urban and suburban areas of Wisconsin Trump bled votes to both Hillary Clinton and Gary Johnson that Ron Johnson did not. In Waukesha County — a traditional Wisconsin blood-red GOP stronghold in the suburbs of Milwaukee — Clinton got 8,000 more votes than Russ Feingold (the Democratic Senate candidate), while Gary Johnson pulled a remarkable 4% of the vote on average in the three main Milwaukee collar counties. (Yes, that’s right: many educated white-collar Republicans in the Milwaukee suburbs voted a “Johnson & Johnson” ticket.)

Meanwhile, in points north and west of the Milwaukee collar counties, in rural and working-class areas heavy with white voters lacking college degrees, Donald Trump ran significantly better than Johnson. The fact that many of these voters were likely Democrats is suggested by how Trump outperformed Johnson, a much more traditional Republican candidate.

The “Trump/Feingold” voter was a very real phenomenon outside the Milwaukee suburbs and the northeastern Fox Valley area, especially in the counties surrounding La Crosse and Eau Claire. These are precisely the sorts of places where doctrinaire Republican Senate candidates have historically failed to gain much purchase, yet where Trump’s blue-collar and anti-trade appeals appear to have resonated.

In Sauk County, a Democratic-leaning small-town and rural county, both Clinton and Feingold won. But, tellingly, Clinton did far worse than Feingold, nearly losing the county 47.4-46.9%. Meanwhile Feingold won handily, 52.5-44.5%. The clear difference-maker? Trump/Feingold voters.

The key thing about Sauk County: They use optical scanners and paper ballots.

Trump’s overperformance can’t be attributed to electronic-only balloting and a mysterious “hacked vote.” It is but one example of Trump’s overperformance among white midwestern voters outside of urban/suburban enclaves, one that was replicated all across the rest of Wisconsin. In nearby Iowa County (whose larger towns use optical scanners instead of electronic voting) Clinton and Feingold both won but Trump again ran ahead of Johnson by a point. The same pattern shows up in Rock County and Green County (two southern Madison exurbs); they are optical-scanner Democratic counties where Trump nevertheless performed notably better than Ron Johnson on the same ballot.

This pattern — of Trump overperforming more traditional Republican candidates in Democratic-leaning working-class regions while underperforming them in the GOP’s historical educated suburban heartlands — is repeated county-by-county, precinct-by-precinct, all across the entire Rust Belt region from New York through to Minnesota. It happened regardless of whether that county in question used paper ballots, optical-scanners, or electronic-only voting technology. It was an undeniable national trend. It’s also a logical, demonstrated explanation for the election’s outcome in these areas.

Pennsylvania

Trump won Pennsylvania thanks to a massive surge in white working class voters in every conceivable pocket of the state. While Clinton indeed suffered a drop in votes in Philadelphia city proper, it’s striking to note that even if she had hit the same numbers as President Obama did during his 2012 reelection, she still would have fallen short statewide.

There have been a variety of allegations of nefarious activity, but many of them concern the manipulation of votes in areas with high concentrations of minorities.

But Pennsylvania is an overwhelmingly white state. As in, mayonnaise-on-Wonderbread white. Outside of Reading, Bethlehem, Allentown, a few scattered communities around Pittsburgh, and about half of Philadelphia-proper, the variance in Pennsylvania voters runs along class, not race. The state is whiter than North Carolina, Florida, and Michigan. There simply aren’t enough minority voters in the state to determine its fate — Democrats had performed well enough with white voters to hold the state for six elections.

In every place you look, areas with high concentrations of white voters with with no college degree, or some college experience, broke very heavily for Trump, even in pockets of counties that broke toward Clinton (like Delaware, Montgomery, and Allegheny), and these changes directly affected the fate of the vote.

County-level comparisons are insufficient for us at the DecisionDeskHQ, where we have spent years arguing that Republican prospects in Pennsylvania were greater than the conventional wisdom held. If you want to get a real feel for the voters and the various demographics, you need to look at things on a municipal level. Even in areas where Clinton improved on President Obama’s numbers, like the Collar Counties (Bucks, Delaware, Chester, and Montgomery), Trump’s white working class voters surged:

See the interactive chart here.

DecisionDeskHQ

When you look at the data within the areas of the state, you find things you might expect based on demographics: that Clinton netted more votes out of both Reading (a township in Berks where the Latino population is now larger than the white one) and Pittsburgh (erroneously thought of as a white working-class town, when in fact over a third of its residents have college degrees) than Obama during his re-election.

In municipalities where college degrees abound, Clinton soared; in areas where they did not, Trump did. Clinton’s Achilles heel in Pennsylvania was the simple fact that whites without college degrees vastly outnumber whites with them in the state.

The decline in Democratic numbers in minority-heavy areas coinciding with mini-Trump surges wasn’t consistent across the board, either. For example, Penn Hills township is about a third black and saw a dip in Democratic votes — but saw a larger dip in Republican ones. Pittsburgh saw an increase in Democratic votes even when Philadelphia saw a decline.

Trump won because he solved a problem that bedeviled Republicans for almost three decades: He solidified white working-class voters in the North. He carried every conceivable one of them he could find, not just in the counties that blinked red on the map, but in the blue ones, too. Clinton’s campaign failed from weaknesses not just in one section of the state, but everywhere. When you look precinct after precinct, municipality after municipality, you see the same pattern — white working-class voters moving rightward, college-educated voters moving a bit leftward.

Conclusion

This is a case where the simplest explanation is the correct one: Donald Trump won because he did exceptionally (indeed, historically) well with the white working class, a bloc that until 2016 was resistant north of the Mason-Dixon line to voting Republican en masse. These voters are concentrated in the Rust Belt and Pennsylvania, which is why Trump swept every state therein except Minnesota. But the hallmarks of this shift were evident in states well beyond their borders (Coos County, New Hampshire, for example). It is all too human to be uncomfortable with outcomes that we do not predict. It is dangerous, however, to stare at reality in the face and insist that what is real cannot be true, simply because it was unforeseen.

Brandon Finnigan is the founder of the DecisionDeskHQ. Jeffrey Blehar is an elections analyst at the DecisionDeskHQ.

Wow, Trump's Campaign Manager Really Hates Mitt Romney, Huh

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CNN

Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, launched an extraordinary critique of Mitt Romney on Sunday, joining a chorus of hardline conservatives opposed to the president-elect appointing the former Massachusetts governor as secretary of state.

Romney, who publicly chastised Trump as a "phony" and a "fraud" who was "playing the American public for suckers" during the election campaign, is now being considered for the role of top US diplomat, much to the consternation of Trump loyalists.

The appointment of a presidential cabinet is normally a clandestine affair, but in a highly unusual public spectacle, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee have appeared on television in recent days to argue that Trump should not trust Romney to the post.

On Thursday, Conway tweeted that she had been receiving a "deluge of social media & private [communications]" warning against the appointment of Romney, but appearing on TV on Sunday it was clear that she, too, had personal issues with the 2012 Republican presidential candidate.

"I'm all for party unity but I'm not sure we have to pay for that with the secretary of state position," she said on CNN's State of the Union, describing a possible Romney appointment as a betrayal to Trump's hardcore supporters.

"I'm just saying that we don't even know if Mitt Romney voted for Donald Trump," she continued. "So I think there are concerns that those of us who are loyal have and you want somebody — you want a secretary of state who is loyal to the president and loyal to the president's vision of the world."

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Conway said she and others will ultimately support the president-elect's final choice, but added she "felt compelled to mention it because it's just breathtaking in scope and intensity the type of messages I've received from all over the country ... [from] the number of people who feel betrayed to think that Governor Romney would get the most prominent cabinet post after he went so far out of his way to hurt Donald Trump."

At the end of Conway's takedown of Romney, CNN anchor Dana Bash responded, "Pretty clear how you feel."

In addition to Romney, Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Trump loyalist, is considered a leading contender for the secretary of state position.

"Astounding to hear K. Conway, who has the ability to tell Trump privately, trash possibility of Romney as Sec of State publicly on @CNNSotu," Ana Navarro, a Republican commentator, tweeted after the show.

Conway then retweeted Navarro's post, adding:

In a separate appearance on ABC's This Week, Conway doubled down on her Romney criticisms, but would not explain why she was going public on TV and on Twitter with her opinions.

"I weigh in privately," she responded.

LINK: How Mitt Romney Decided To Take On Donald Trump


Trump Falsely Claims Millions Voted Illegally, Costing Him The Popular Vote

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Carolyn Kaster / AP

Without offering any evidence, President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday made the extraordinary claim that millions of people voted illegally in the US election, costing him the popular vote.

Trump made the fanciful claim as he weighed in via a Twitter tirade on efforts led by Green Party candidate Jill Stein to recount votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

"In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," Trump tweeted. "It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than the Electoral College in that I would only campaign in 3 or 4 states instead of the 15 states that I visited. I would have won even more easily and convincingly (but smaller states are forgotten)!"

By the latest count, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2 million votes. Trump won the presidency with 309 electoral votes (270 are needed to win).

A claim — based on tweets from a self-styled vote protection activist — that 3 million "illegal aliens" had voted in the election was published by right-wing conspiracy site InfoWars on Nov. 14. The site also said that all 3 million fraudulent votes would have gone to Clinton — without showing any evidence to support the claims.

Trump tweeted again later on Sunday that "serious voter fraud" had taken place in several states. He criticized the media, but again failed to offer any evidence for the claims.

As he was campaigning, Trump had frequently said the election was rigged against him and even famously declined to accept the results of the election during one presidential debate.

Clinton’s campaign team on Saturday announced they would participate in Stein’s recount of the votes, even though they had found no evidence of any voting irregularities.

Marc Elias, general counsel for the Clinton campaign, wrote in a post on Medium on Saturday that “now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.”

Earlier on Sunday, Trump also tweeted that he believed the recount would be a waste of time and resources, and wouldn't change the results of the election.

Election officials told BuzzFeed News that claims of a widespread attempt to rig the election were nonsensical.

In states where Stein is seeking a recount, there has been no evidence of any kind of tampering — though a group of academics noted it could be possible and deserves a closer look.

Trump's tweets on Sunday came as ugly rifts in his staff were on public display, with loyalists taking the unusual step of publicly attacking Mitt Romney, whom Trump is considering for secretary of state.

Additionally, the New York Times published an extensive article analyzing how Trump’s business dealings around the world could potentially create conflicts of interest for him as president.

LINK: Clinton Campaign Joins Jill Stein’s Recount Of Votes In Wisconsin

LINK: Wow, Trump's Campaign Manager Really Hates Mitt Romney, Huh

Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters Have Taken Their Message To The Capital

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Lissandra Villa/BuzzFeed News

WASHINGTON — Protesters opposed to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline sounded their message in the nation's capital on Sunday with a huge march through the streets of Washington, DC.

Hundreds of demonstrators began rallying outside the Department of Justice, which Sen. Cory Booker has urged to investigate the police tactics used against protesters at the Standing Rock site in North Dakota, where the pipeline is being built.

The marchers then followed a route that took them by the Trump International Hotel, the White House, and on to the National Mall, near the base of the Washington Monument.

"We decided to bring the fight to Washington, DC, because they don't want to take the time out of their day to come to us," said Laundi Keepseagle, one of the event coordinators, in an interview with BuzzFeed News.

Keepseagle, who said the rally was organized in about two weeks, expressed surprise at the number of people who had turned out for the event.

The controversial Dakota Access Pipeline would stretch 1,172 miles and carry crude oil through underground pipes on sacred Native American land.

On Friday, officials said they would soon be closing the area in North Dakota where protesters have been camping, opening instead a "free-speech zone" nearby.

While Sunday was a clear day, the weather in DC was in the 40s. Demonstrators held signs and broke into chants throughout the rally, including chants of "Water is life."

Many well-known activists gathered to help spread the message, from Dolores Huerta, prominent labor and civil rights leader, to Shailene Woodley, star of the Divergent series.

Shailene Woodley joins the protest.

Lissandra Villa/BuzzFeed News

"This is not an uncommon theme, where we see indigenous people at the front lines of most climate change and most fossil fuel fights," Woodley said in a Facebook Live interview with BuzzFeed News. "It's because they recognize that when one part of any community suffers, all parts of that community suffer, and when we talk about community, we're talking about the world."

Woodley was joined on stage at the rally by Ezra Miller, actor in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Dave Matthews of the Dave Matthews Band. The rock group was set to perform a benefit concert for the cause at DAR Constitution Hall on Sunday evening.

"People are standing up for the environment, people are taking a look at what we're doing to our Mother Earth, and we can't let big corporations dictate how we are going to live on this planet, because there is no planet B that we can move to," said Courtney Yellow Fat, a 41-year-old Standing Rock resident. "This is what we have, and we have to start taking care of it."

Watch the march here:

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LINK: Cory Booker Calls For Federal Investigation Into Police Tactics At Dakota Access Pipeline

LINK: Army Tells Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters To Leave Camp By Dec. 5

Trump Nominates Obamacare Critic Tom Price For Health Secretary

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Tom Price at Trump Tower on Nov. 16.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday his intent to nominate Obamacare critic and lawmaker Tom Price to helm his Department of Health and Human Services.

Price, 62, is a Republican congressman from Georgia who is among the few lawmakers to propose an actual strategy for dismantling the Affordable Care Act. The president-elect called Price a "renowned physician," a "problem solver," and a "go-to expert on healthcare policy."

"He is exceptionally qualified to shepherd our commitment to repeal and replace Obamacare and bring affordable and accessible healthcare to every American. I am proud to nominate him as Secretary of Health and Human Services,” Trump said in a statement.

Like many Republicans, Price has in the past been critical of President Barack Obama's signature health care law. However, Price set himself apart by repeatedly introducing bills that offered a detailed plan to replace Obamacare. He has specifically proposed ditching the law's exchanges and coverage mandate.

Price said in a statement that he was honored by the nomination and is "humbled by the incredible challenges that lay ahead."

"There is much work to be done to ensure we have a healthcare system that works for patients, families, and doctors; that leads the world in the cure and prevention of illness; and that is based on sensible rules to protect the well-being of the country while embracing its innovative spirit," he said.

Before entering politics, Price worked as an orthopedic surgeon. He has been proposing health care-related bills since before Obama's election, but became particularly interested in the Affordable Care Act — which in October he called "disastrous."

Though Price's bills have failed to become law, they nevertheless offer hints at how Trump might work to deliver on his oft-repeated campaign promise to repeal Obamacare.

"With real, patient-centered reforms we can build a more innovative and responsive health care system — one that empowers patients and ensures they and their doctor have the freedom to make health care decisions without bureaucratic interference or influence," Price said in a statement earlier this year.

Trump also announced Tuesday that he has chosen Seema Verma to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“She has decades of experience advising on Medicare and Medicaid policy and helping states navigate our complicated systems. Together, Chairman Price and Seema Verma are the dream team that will transform our healthcare system for the benefit of all Americans,” Trump said in a statement.

Verma runs national health policy consulting company SVC, Inc and she has redesigned Medicaid programs in several states.

LINK: Despite Promises, Trump May Not Repeal Obamacare After All


Coalition Calls On Obama Administration For Expedited Clemency Review

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WASHINGTON — A coalition of more than 50 scholars and advocates are calling on President Obama to expand clemency efforts in the final weeks of his administration — including considering granting clemency to entire groups of people without case-by-case review.

The letter — which includes signatories Van Jones and John Legend, advocates like Sherrilyn Ifill from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and academics from across the country — provides Obama with recommendations on how to speed up the clemency process before his term ends.

Obama has granted clemency to more than 1,000 people in his time in office, but advocates point to thousands of others who remain without relief whose clemency applications were to be prioritized under the criteria laid out by the administration when it began the clemency project.

"While your administration continues to review individual petitions, we urge you to also determine that nonviolent offenders in certain extremely low-risk categories either deserve expedited review or should be granted clemency absent an individualized review," the group writes.

The specifics include ways of considering more people serving harsh crack cocaine sentences that did not benefit from the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, which attempted to address that disparity. The letter suggests using "prison placement (to a camp – the lowest level of federal incarceration – or to a low or medium facility) as a surrogate for how an individual has behaved in prison" to speed up the process of reviewing applications.

The letter suggests handling applications for clemency for non-crack cocaine sentences similarly in terms of using prison placement as a proxy for individualized prison behavior review. The letter also suggests the president could give "special priority" to veterans or older individuals.

The letter also suggests that Obama could grant clemency to those who have been labeled a "career offender" — triggering longer sentences — due only to drug offenses. It goes on to note that the president need not "commute entire sentences" for these people but could "provide tiered relief" to reduce sentences.

In all, the letter is a last-ditch, very public effort from some of the top names in liberal and progressive criminal justice circles to press Obama to act before Donald Trump — who campaigned on being a "law and order" president — takes office.

"We do not know whether the next president will support clemency efforts or criminal justice reform," the letter concludes. "But we do know that until January 20, you alone have the power to deliver both mercy and justice to those who deserve it."

Read the letter:

Read the letter:

Via assets.documentcloud.org

After Bringing Back The Death Penalty, Nebraska Looks To Act In Secret

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Nate Jenkins / AP

After nearly 20 years with no lethal injections, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services is hoping to give sweeping authority to its director in an effort to speed up executions.

Last year, Director Scott Frakes authorized a $50,000 payment to a man in India in exchange for illegal execution drugs. As BuzzFeed News reported, the drugs never made it out of India — and the would-be supplier refused to give the state a refund.

But under the department's proposed procedures, Frakes would be allowed to keep records about its execution drug purchases confidential.

“Given the recent history of scandals within the Department of Corrections, this Department should be making extra efforts to be transparent and accountable to the people of Nebraska," Danielle Conrad, the head of the ACLU of Nebraska said in a statement. Conrad said the ACLU would fight "any effort to cloak Nebraska’s broken death penalty in secrecy."

In the new protocol, the department of corrections cites a vague statute as its authority to keep records about the supplier secret. That statute, which addresses the procedure for creating protocol, says the director can "perform or authorize any other details deemed necessary and appropriate by the director." The state is claiming that the secrecy is "necessary and appropriate."

Using documents obtained through public records requests, BuzzFeed News was able to determine last year the timing of Nebraska’s attempt to secure the illegal drugs, information about the failed attempt itself, as well as extensive information about the source of the drugs. The supplier, in India, claimed business and manufacturing headquarters that were not places where he would have been able to manufacture drugs.

Withholding records about the supplier would make such discoveries difficult, if not impossible, going forward.

The secrecy isn't the only change the department hopes to make. Also proposed is giving the director the authority to change the drugs and doses used on inmates; the inmates would be informed of the changes 60 days before an execution date was requested.

The changes will be discussed at a Dec. 30 hearing, in which the public will be allowed to speak.

The proposed changes come just weeks after Nebraska voters elected to bring back the death penalty in the state. Last year, the legislature voted to repeal the state's death penalty over the veto of its Gov. Pete Ricketts. Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs and founded TD Ameritrade, bankrolled the effort to get the death penalty on the ballot. His brother, Todd, is reportedly expected to be nominated to a senior role in the Trump administration Commerce Department.

“Nebraskans were decisive in their choice to maintain the death penalty and it is now our duty as elected officials to carry it out," Gov. Pete Ricketts said in a statement. "These proposed changes in protocol balance appropriate inmate notification with the flexibility to utilize various constitutionally approved drugs, so political maneuvers at the federal level can’t circumvent the will of the people.”

The federal government has blocked shipments of execution drugs because sodium thiopental is an "unapproved new drug" and is illegal to import. The FDA is under a court order to block the drug.

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