Feb.18
Political News, Now.
Donald Trump Calls Pope’s Criticism ‘Disgraceful’
As he returned to Rome after his six-day visit to Mexico, Francis said, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” in response to a question about Mr. Trump aboard the papal airliner.
Mr. Trump condemned that remark during a campaign rally in South Carolina, describing himself as a good Christian and arguing that Francis does not understand America’s immigration crisis.
“For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” Mr. Trump said.
The Trump campaign also released a statement from the candidate, defending his hard-line policies on immigration and saying the pope was out of line.
“No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith,” Mr. Trump said, going on to claim that the pope was being used for political purposes by the Mexican government. “They are using the pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so, especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant.”
Mr. Trump went on to say that he would defend Christianity more aggressively than current political leaders.
“If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’ ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened,” Mr. Trump said.
Other members of Mr. Trump’s campaign also pushed back against the pope. Dan Scavino, his social media director, posted an image of Vatican City and noted that it is surrounded by a wall.
And Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University and a supporter of Mr. Trump, said that the pope had crossed a line.
“Jesus never intended to give instructions to political leaders on how to run a country,” Mr. Falwell told CNN.
Pope On Donald Trump's Christianity
Pope Francis, while flying back to the Vatican from Mexico, said that anyone who wants to build a wall along the Mexican border is not a Christian.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on February 18, 2016. Photo by Alessandro Di Meo/Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, via Associated Press.More Posts
Bernie Sanders Takes His Turn Meeting With Civil Rights Leaders
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, aiming to cut into Hillary Clinton’s lead among black voters, met with the heads of nine civil rights organizations Thursday — two days after Mrs. Clinton met with the same group in New York.
The gathering, held at the Washington offices of the National Urban League, centered on how Mr. Sanders’s policies would address the racial components of economic injustice, overhaul the criminal justice system, protect voting rights and address institutional racism.
The black leaders at the meeting included Marc H. Morial, the chief executive of the National Urban League; the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network; Cornell William Brooks, president of the N.A.A.C.P.; Melanie L. Campbell, president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation; and Benjamin L. Crump, president of the National Bar Association and a supporter of Mrs. Clinton.
The actor Danny Glover, who has endorsed Mr. Sanders, and Mr. Sanders’s wife, Jane, accompanied the senator.
“We understand that since the Wall Street crash of 2007, 2008, millions of people have lost their jobs, their life savings, their homes,” Mr. Sanders said. “I understand that the African-American community has been harder hit than any other community in America. I understand that it is unacceptable that 35 percent of black children in America are living in poverty.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Sanders has pushed to strengthen his support among black voters, particularly in southern states that hold primaries in the next few weeks.
Also sitting down with Mr. Sanders were Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; and Janice Mathis, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women.
At the meeting, the leaders said they wanted to hear how Mr. Sanders would address both economic and racial injustices. The officials also expressed frustration that President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, filling a vacancy created by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last weekend, might be blocked by the Senate.
Mr. Sanders told the group that the Senate should hold hearings on Mr. Obama’s choice.
“In my mind, it is absolutely incomprehensible that we have Republicans in the United States Senate who refuse to honor the Constitution of the United States,” Mr. Sanders said. “The idea that Republican obstructionism, unprecedented in American history in terms of what we have seen in the last seven years, continues on this important issue, is incomprehensible to me. And, I will do everything I can to support the president’s nominee.”
Mr. Sanders said he would also focus on making sure voting rights are protected especially after blacks fought and died for the right to vote.
“The idea that we have governors and legislators in this country working overtime right now trying to figure out how to suppress the vote, how they can make it harder for people who might vote against them to participate in the Democratic political process is to me vulgar,” Mr. Sanders said. “This to me is something I take personally.”
The senator also touched on his recent visit to Michigan and his meeting with several families from Flint.“To understand what is happening in Flint in the United States of America in the year 2016 is literally hard to believe,” Mr. Sander said. “The suffering that is going on there, talking to mothers who are seeing the intellectual capabilities of their children deteriorate in front of their eyes. Can one imagine that?”
Mr. Sanders was to travel to Las Vegas later on Thursday to take part in a town-hall-style event hosted by MSNBC and Telemundo, and attend a dinner hosted by the Clark County Democratic Party.
Donald Trump’s Dispute With Pope Francis Reverberates on Campaign Trail
The dispute between Donald J. Trump and Pope Francis spilled onto the campaign trail on Thursday, turning the final days before the South Carolina primary into a surprising clash involving religion and politics.
After Mr. Trump took offense to the pope’s suggestion that the candidate’s views on immigration discredited his claims of being a Christian, other candidates treaded lightly. They were cautious not to be critical of Francis while not wanting to sound soft on border security.
In Anderson, S.C., on Thursday, Senator Marco Rubio, himself a Catholic, was careful to offer words of praise for the pope, addressing him as “the holy father” and expressing “tremendous admiration and respect” for the head of the Roman Catholic Church.
But he said that as a United States senator, his biggest obligation was to “keep people safe” by enforcing immigration laws – the kind of rules, he noted, that Vatican City, the home of the pope, applied to visitors.
“Vatican City controls who comes in, when they come and how they come in, as a city-state,” Mr. Rubio said, during a brief news conference. “The U.S. has a right to do that as well.”
Senator Ted Cruz also did his best to avoid touching on the conflict.
“Listen, that’s between Donald and the Pope, I’m not going to get in the middle of that,” he told reporters in Easley, S.C. “I’ll leave it to the two of them to work it out.”
Commentators on social media debated the effect that the pope’s criticism of Mr. Trump might have on the presidential race. Some suggested that it could help Mr. Trump, who is Presbyterian, win over evangelicals who distrust Catholicism. Others pointed to the wall surrounding Vatican City as evidence of the pope’s hypocrisy on the issue.
Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host, came to Mr. Trump’s defense, noting how unusual it was for a pope to question a politician’s faith. He also criticized Francis for expressing an openness to the use of contraception in regions where the Zika virus has been found and wondered if a justification for abortion would be next.
“It is quite a curious thing,” Mr. Limbaugh said. “Do you think the pope is mad that Donald Trump said ‘Two Corinthians’ instead of Second?”
Jeb Bush, who is Catholic and has criticized Mr. Trump on many issues, appeared to defend him on the issue of his faith.
“I don’t question anybody’s Christianity,” Mr. Bush said. “I honestly believe that that’s a relationship that you have with your creator, and it only enables bad behavior when you — when someone from outside our country talks about Donald Trump.”
Michael Barbaro contributed reporting from Anderson, S.C., and Matt Flegenheimer from Easley, S.C.
Marco Rubio’s Campaign Accuses Ted Cruz of ‘Deceitful’ Altering of Photo
GREENVILLE, S.C. – Moments after Senator Marco Rubio left the stage at a rally on Thursday, one of his top advisers summoned reporters and handed each of them a sheet of paper.
On the paper was a “completely invented photo,” in the words of the adviser, Todd Harris, who said it had just appeared on a website paid for by Mr. Rubio’s rival, Senator Ted Cruz.
It was the start of the latest chapter in heated arguments raging between Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz in South Carolina, as they fight for what recent polls are saying will be second place in Saturday’s Republican primary.
Much of the fury feels somewhat manufactured, but that has not stopped the campaigns from expressing it, loudly, over and over in this state.
The image, which appeared on the website called the Real Rubio Record,appears to show Mr. Rubio shaking hands with President Obama in front of the Capitol in Washington. On the right side, these words are etched into the picture: “The Rubio-Obama Trade Pact.”
“Rubio,” it reads, “cast the deciding vote to fast-track three highly secretive trade deals negotiated by Obama.”
It is a reference to a Senate vote Mr. Rubio cast in favor of granting Mr. Obama the authority to negotiate a global trade agreement. As it happens, Mr. Cruz voted for the same legislation, but later reversed course when it came up for a second vote.
Mr. Harris, the Rubio adviser, called it “the most egregious example” of Mr. Cruz’s campaign style, which he called “phony” and “deceitful.”
Mr. Harris then analyzed the image in clinical detail.
“This is not Marco Rubio,” Mr. Harris said, pointing to the image of Mr. Rubio’s face, which appears to have been somewhat sloppily superimposed over another man’s body.
“This person, we don’t know who this is — they Photoshopped Marco’s face onto this body,” Mr. Harris said.
Mr. Cruz’s campaign did not deny that the image was altered. “Two days before the presidential primary in South Carolina, they want to talk about a picture we used,” a top Cruz aide, Rick Tyler, told CNN. “If Rubio has a better picture of him shaking hands with Barack Obama, I’m happy to swap it out,” he added.
The episode did not end at the rally. About an hour later, at another Rubio campaign rally in Anderson, S.C., Mr. Harris raised the topic again, by showing reporters what he said was the original image of a white man shaking the hand of a black man. Several details from the image matched up identically with those in the picture from the Cruz-sponsored website.
Mr. Harris said that Mr. Rubio’s wife, Jeanette, had done some online sleuthing and found the original image. As rendered on the anti-Rubio website, the position of the two men in the picture has changed from the supposed original version.
“They reversed it,” Ms. Rubio wrote to Mr. Harris in a text message that he showed to reporters. (This, Mr. Harris said, is a simple task using photo-altering software.)
Mr. Harris, during his talk with reporters, repeatedly sought to portray the Cruz campaign as suffused with deception.
“There is a culture of dishonesty from top to bottom in the Cruz for President campaign,” he said.
Poll Watch: A Sharp Partisan Divide Over Supreme Court Vacancy
The public is split on whether President Obama should nominate a new Supreme Court justice before his term ends, according to a CBS News pollreleased on Thursday — and that divide falls almost entirely along party lines.
More than four in five Republicans, presumably hoping for their party’s victory in November, want the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia to be filled by the next president. Almost as many Democrats, 77 percent, think Mr. Obama should choose Mr. Scalia’s successor.
Over all, 47 percent of Americans say Mr. Obama should make the pick and 46 percent say he should not, the poll shows. The numbers mirror Mr. Obama’s broader job approval rating, which is at 47 percent approval and 45 percent disapproval, according to the poll. It was conducted from Friday, the day before Mr. Scalia’s death, to Tuesday, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points among all respondents.
The public’s opinion of the court’s performance is more positive than it has been since 2012, when CBS News started asking the question. Currently, 49 percent approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing, and 37 percent disapprove. Democrats hold a higher opinion than Republicans, with 55 percent approving compared to 46 percent of Republicans.
The partisan divide over the court appointment reflects the positions that each party’s leadership has taken in the wake of Mr. Scalia’s death. Both parties know that a liberal appointee would swing the Supreme Court’s balance of power to the left.
Eighty-two percent of Americans who call themselves very liberal want Mr. Obama to appoint a new justice, while 79 percent of very conservative respondents want the next president to do it. More than three-fourths of white evangelical Christians want it to be the incoming president’s prerogative.
The CBS News poll is not the only recent survey to measure public opinions on replacing Mr. Scalia. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll also released on Thursday found a comparable result to a similar question, with Democrats wanting Mr. Obama to name a new justice and Republicans saying the next president should do so.
Giovanni Russonello is a member of The Times’s news surveys department.
This is one of an occasional series of posts taking a deeper look at polling during this campaign cycle.
Donald Trump Turns His Fire on Nikki Haley
SUMTER, S.C. — Donald J. Trump, who had kind words for Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina early in the week, ripped into her as weak on immigration on Wednesday after she endorsed Senator Marco Rubio, and the crowd of Trump supporters booed the mention of her name.
“She’s very, very weak on illegal immigration,’’ Mr. Trump said, echoing earlier charges that were a departure from his gentler remarks about South Carolina’s governor in speeches this week. “Very weak,’’ he continued. “She’s very, very weak on illegal immigration. You can’t have that.’’
Ms. Haley, whose endorsement is a major boost for Mr. Rubio as Republicans head to the polls on Saturday, has served as a foil in Trump speeches ever since she urged voters last month to avoid “the angriest voices.”
Mr. Trump joyfully embraces his anger in most speeches as reflecting the mood of the country. In a speech in Greenville on Monday, he called Ms. Haley, who is popular with South Carolina Republicans, “a very nice woman” and “a friend of mine.’’ He said she had modified her original accusation that he was too angry, which she made in the official Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address.
By Wednesday night, Mr. Trump’s blandishments had changed. So had his audience’s mood. “You know, Nikki Haley gave a speech a couple of weeks ago and she said that we——’’ Mr. Trump began, waving an arm to include the crowd.
There was a chorus of boos.
“It’s not good,’’ Mr. Trump said. Then he flung into his criticism of her.
YouTube Runs Out of Ad Inventory in Nevada and South Carolina
Political advertisers hoping to attach their ads to YouTube replays of Taylor Swift’s Grammy speech may be out of luck in Nevada and South Carolina: There’s essentially no reserve inventory left on the popular platform ahead of the coming primary elections and caucuses there.
As political campaigns and their “super PACs” have flooded broadcast and cable stations since January, they’ve also been pumping ad after ad onto YouTube in the early states. In New Hampshire and Iowa, YouTube’s reserve inventory completely sold out well before voters cast their ballots or headed to a caucus.
Certain segments, such as those directed at younger age groups or households with children, were sold out much earlier in the year. But as the desire for advertising increases closer to decision day, other, broader segments of the market have been snapped up as well.
Unlike on broadcast television, campaigns are not given special dispensation on YouTube. There is no federal regulation guaranteeing a campaign would be given time on the platform if other candidates advertise on it. YouTube is only able to make available what it has, and that’s it.
YouTube, and digital advertising in general, has been particularly attractive to super PACs and outside groups this cycle. While those groups find themselves paying sometimes nine or 10 times the rate a campaign would on broadcast television in a crowded market, there is no such difference for online advertising. A super PAC would pay the same rate as a campaign online.
While the reserved inventory is gone, campaigns hoping to increase their ad purchases can still get in through a real-time auction process. But that process is far from guaranteed and often more expensive.
CBS Poll Shows Donald Trump Keeping Lead Nationally
A new national poll from CBS News found that Donald J. Trump still holds a dominant lead atop the Republican field of presidential candidates, suggesting that he remains in a strong position ahead of the coming wave of primary elections.
The survey found that 35 percent of Republican primary voters would like to see Mr. Trump win the party’s nomination. Senator Ted Cruz trails him with 18 percent, followed by Senator Marco Rubio with 12 percent and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio with 11 percent. Lagging the pack are Ben Carson with 6 percent and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida with 4 percent.
The results will likely bring a sigh of relief to the Trump campaign after an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Wednesday that showed Mr. Cruz erasing Mr. Trump’s lead nationally. However, separate polls from Quinnipiac University and from USA Today/Suffolk University showed the billionaire holding a substantial advantage.
The CBS poll found that a majority of Republican voters think Mr. Trump has the best chance of winning in a general election and he is seen as the most likely candidate to get things done in Washington. Mr. Trump is seen as qualified as Mr. Cruz when it comes to appointing justices to the Supreme Court.
Sniping between Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump has intensified ahead of the South Carolina Republican primary on Saturday. Mr. Trump has threatened to sue the Texas senator for running false advertisements, while Mr. Cruz has said that Mr. Trump is not a true conservative because of his past liberal positions.
According to the CBS survey, 50 percent of Republicans think that Mr. Trump shares their values and 35 percent would enthusiastically support his nomination.
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.
Marco Rubio Objects as Supporter Calls Hillary Clinton ‘a Traitor’
GREENVILLE, S.C. — An audience member at a rally for Senator Marco Rubio called Hillary Clinton “a traitor,” prompting an objection from the candidate.
“I wouldn’t go that far, sir,” Mr. Rubio said from the stage where he was campaigning with Gov. Nikki Haley, who stood by his side.
It was the kind of confrontation that presidential candidates must carefully navigate — tamping down potentially offensive statements from voters without offending energetic supporters.
And it arrived just a few days after a similar moment, when Mr. Rubio did not object to a voter at a different campaign event in South Carolina, who suggested that Mrs. Clinton should be subjected to torture.
“Let’s waterboard Hillary!” the audience member shouted.
At the time, Mr. Rubio playfully noted that the news media was in the room but said he did not hear what the man had said, drawing laughs from the crowd.
As he campaigns for president, Mr. Rubio routinely says that Mrs. Clinton is disqualified from serving as president because of her conduct in the past, such as relying on a private email server and her handling of the attacks on the United State consulate in Benghazi, Libya. It was at that moment on Thursday that the man in the audience yelled out that Mrs. Clinton was a traitor.
When Mr. Rubio objected, the man who had shouted about Mrs. Clinton sought to elaborate. He mentioned Benghazi. Mr. Rubio addressed the attack on the consulate but quickly moved on from the subject.
Donald Trump Flaunts Real Estate Prowess With Campaign Yard Signs
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Donald Trump delights in breaking the rules of presidential politics.
Except, it seems, those governing the placement of campaign yard signs.
A document his campaign distributes to volunteers and staff members in South Carolina lays out, in elaborate detail, where large signs bearing his name can and cannot be staked into the ground — touching on local law and the unspoken Trumpian rules of real estate.
Not on interstate highways (I-85, I-26, I-385), it explains. “They will be removed by the Department of Transportation,” the document states.
Not on the “railroad side” of certain small town main streets “as this land belongs to the railroad company.”
Not on church, university or government property “since it suggests the organizations back a particular candidate.”
Approved locations include intersections (“but without blocking visibility around the corner”); “the outside of a curve in a road”; across the street from exits of malls and schools.
The Trump campaign is obsessed with the signs, a low-cost form of advertising that its candidate has perfected in his day job, by affixing his name to towers across the world. On Wednesday night, a campaign staff member bragged that the Greenville office had just received a new shipment of 12,000 such yard signs.
Mr. Trump’s real estate wisdom seems to have reached the authors of the memo, who suggest finding creative ways to lure eyeballs.
“Use a series of three signs, spaced 10-15 feet apart,” it suggests. “This catches the eye.”
In Trump fashion, the document warns sign-placers to avoid wasting their wares on low-traffic spots.
“Placing a sign in front of the very last house on a country road,” it says, “is not optimal.”
Clashes and Surprises Emerge in Prelude to South Carolina Primary
It’s becoming easier to see how the Republican race will shape up after the South Carolina primary on Saturday. It’s less clear how it will shake out.
The dueling town-hall-style forums on Wednesday night — one by MSNBC with just Donald J. Trump, the other by CNN with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Ben Carson — were mere accents at the end of one of the most intense days of the Republican race. Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz locked horns throughout the day over a cease-and-desist letter that Mr. Trump’s team sent to Mr. Cruz about a Cruz ad with a clip from 1999 in which Mr. Trump said he was “very pro-choice.” Mr. Trump has said that he has evolved on the issue, and that the spot doesn’t represent his current position.
Mr. Cruz announced that he would not pull the ad, daring Mr. Trump, who has threatened for days to file some form of suit against his rival, to do just that. That spat was capped by the surprise announcement that Gov. Nikki R. Haley, Republican of South Carolina, was endorsing Mr. Rubio, providing him with a potentially significant push in the final three days. That announcement was a blow to Jeb Bush, who seemed to be wearing disappointment at events during the day. Those four candidates all hope to finish in the top three slots in South Carolina.
After Saturday, the race moves to territory that is more favorable to Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, with a string of contests in the Midwest. Mr. Rubio hopes to consolidate much of the vote to try to become the person who can sell himself to voters and donors as the man to stop Mr. Trump, who has run through the reeds of the Republican establishment with a machete in recent days. But Mr. Cruz has money and a case to make. And so the race will march on.
Senate Republicans Face Ire From Editorial Boards Over Supreme Court Stance
In the world of insta-pundits and unmonitored comments, newspaper editorials may seem quaint, evoking cranky gentlemen of a certain age banging away with wrath on their keyboards about the incandescent issues of the day.
But for senators from places where good governance and political courage are viewed as inherent state virtues, a critical editorial suggesting that a lawmaker has acted outside the accordance of either can still sting. And the Supreme Court contretemps has captured the attention of the civic watchdogs.
In New Hampshire, The Concord Monitor had harsh words on Wednesday for Senator Kelly Ayotte, the state’s first-term Republican, over her decision to support Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader from Kentucky, in his efforts to block President Obama from bringing a Supreme Court justice nominee to the Hill.
“Jumping on the anti-nomination bandwagon calls into question the sincerity of Ayotte’s recent breaks with her party over immigration and Obama’s attempt to address climate change by ordering a cap on carbon emissions,” the left-leaning editorial board wrote. “Her high court position is wrong, and she should quickly reverse it.”
In Wisconsin, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Capital Times editorial boards both went after Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican who has been somewhat flexible on his positions, at first siding firmly with Mr. McConnell but then telling a local radio station that a vote might be in the offing. A news article in The Morning Call, the hometown paper of Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, suggested his office was being facile with the facts about past nominations during election years.
Local editorial boards have also targeted Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, and Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who takes his state responsibilities so seriously he religiously visits each of its 99 counties each year, over the same issue. The political class knows these editorials can have bite at home, which is why Democrats have sent them out this week, almost like mean letters from home, as their evidence that Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered