Thursday, March 31, 2016

Rubio Cartoon


Sanders off the DC primary ballot after Dems bungle paperwork

Clinton fights off challenge from Sanders in New York 
Sen. Bernie Sanders' name will not appear on the Washington, D.C., primary ballot at this point, after Democrats failed to turn over Sanders' paperwork in time.
The Democratic Party failed to submit Sanders' primary registration paperwork on time to the D.C. Board of Elections. While the party received paperwork and fees from both Sanders and Hillary Clinton's campaign, it only turned over Clinton's forms on time.
That means as of today, Clinton is slated to appear on the ballot, but Sanders isn't, according to a report by NBC-4. Sanders' campaign said it handed in its forms and $2,500 in fees earlier this month and ahead of schedule.
Democrats did not inform the board of its oversight mistake until a day after the March 16 registration deadline, which will create another hurdle to including him. A Washington, D.C., voter has already filed a challenge against Sanders' eligibility.
The Democrats called the incident a minor administrative dispute, according to NBC's reporter Tom Sherwood. Party chairwoman Anita Bonds, a member of the city council, said the city could choose to fix the problem by holding an emergency vote.

Rubio moves to keep delegates on lockdown until convention, to 'stop Trump'

Spoiler 
Marco Rubio is moving to lock down his delegates until the Republican convention so no one else can claim them just yet, in an unconventional move that represents the latest bid to stall Donald Trump’s front-running campaign – and perhaps give the Florida senator and ex-candidate a bigger role to play in July.
A Rubio spokesman confirmed the push Wednesday, while suggesting it’s more an effort to thwart Trump by denying him the necessary delegates than to somehow get Rubio back in the game in the event of a contested convention.
"Of course, he's no longer a candidate and wants to give voters a chance to stop Trump," spokesman Alex Burgos told FoxNews.com.
Rubio is making his personal appeal in a letter to the chairs of state Republican parties across the country, the entities that decide how to divvy up delegates.
While some of the senator’s delegates might otherwise be allowed to support other candidates before the July convention, Rubio is asking that those delegates be “bound” to him through at least the first round of voting at the convention.
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by FoxNews.com, says the decision to suspend his campaign was “not intended to release any National Convention Delegates bound to me as a result of the 2016 delegate selection process that took place in your State.
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“It is my desire at this time that the delegates allocated to me by your rules remain bound to vote for me on at least the first nominating ballot at the National Convention.”
According to MSNBC, Rubio is sending the letter to parties in all 21 states and territories where he won delegates.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Rubio had 171 delegates to his name. In a normal year, such a delegate haul might not matter much – but in the competitive 2016 GOP primary race, keeping all those delegates off the field could potentially keep Trump from clinching the nomination pre-convention with the necessary 1,237.
Trump currently has 736; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has 463; and Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 143.
Under the complex set of rules governing each state’s primary, dozens of Rubio’s delegates – though not all of them -- would normally become “unbound” before the convention and free to vote for whomever they choose.
Ever since Rubio suspended his campaign, those delegates have been an attractive target for the remaining candidates. Barry Bennett, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, recently told FoxNews.com the campaign already had started “going after” the “unbound” delegates.
“We aren’t going to waste resources on them, but if you’re 'wooable' we plan to woo,” Bennett said.
It’s unclear whether any sizeable number of Rubio’s delegates would back Trump anyway, as Rubio himself describes Cruz as the only true conservative left in the race. But Rubio’s letter-writing push is an attempt to prevent Trump from peeling off any before the convention.
MSNBC reported that the chairman of the Alaska GOP already has agreed to grant Rubio’s request.
Alaska previously had divvied up Rubio's five delegates to Trump and Cruz. However, since the actual people have not been selected yet, the state party said the delegates will go back to Rubio.
In Oklahoma, state party Chairwoman Pam Pollard said she also received a letter from Rubio saying he has not released his 12 delegates from that state.
Meanwhile, the three remaining Republican candidates are ramping up efforts to win over Rubio's delegates, in addition to claiming dozens more unbound delegates, in the contentious battle for the 1,237 delegate majority.
Acknowledging a late start in the nuts-and-bolts business of political wrangling, Trump's campaign will open a Washington, D.C. office in the coming days to run its delegate operation and congressional relations team, Bennett told the AP. In addition to the new space, Trump has hired a veteran political operative to serve as the campaign's convention manager. Paul Manafort, a seasoned Washington hand, will oversee the campaign's "entire convention presence" including a potential contested convention, said Bennett.
There are certain states where the allocation of delegates to the GOP convention is so complicated that they could produce outcomes where a candidate who did not prevail in a given primary might yet win that state’s delegates to the convention.
Trump has vowed to both file a lawsuit and an internal challenge within the Republican National Committee over reports that Cruz, despite losing the Louisiana primary to Trump in early March, could draw the support of enough “unbound” delegates and from Rubio supporters to actually overtake Trump in the state by as many as 10 delegates.
Asked on March 15 if he was preparing for a contested convention, Cruz told Fox News, “We make preparations for every contingency.”

Trump walks back statement on women being punished for abortion if procedure banned


Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump quickly walked back a statement he made earlier Wednesday that if abortion were illegal in the United States, then women who have the procedure should be punished - saying later that only those who performed the procedure should be punished.
“If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman,” Trump said in a written statement. “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb.”
Earlier, at a taped MSNBC town hall to be aired later Wednesday, Trump said if abortions were illegal, women should be held responsible.
Host Chris Matthews pressed Trump to clarify, asking him whether abortion should be punished and who ultimately should be held accountable.
“Look, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, ‘Yes, it should,’” Trump said.
The candidate later put out a statement saying: “This issue is unclear and should be put back into the states for determination.”
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Trump’s comments come at a time when he’s losing traction with women voters.
When asked specifically at the town hall what he thought, the New York businessman answered, “I would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail?”
“I’m asking you,” Matthews prompted.
“I am pro-life,” Trump said.
Matthews pressed on, asking again who should be punished in an abortion case if it were illegal.
“There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump said.
“For the woman?”  Matthews asked.
“Yeah,” Trump responded, adding later that the punishment would “have to be determined.”
His rivals seized on the remarks. Ohio Gov. John Kasich later told MSNBC “of course women shouldn’t be punished.”
An aide to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted: “Don't overthink it: Trump doesn't understand the pro-life position because he's not pro-life.”

Supreme Court appears skeptical about feds applying Clean Water Act to family biz properties


For decades, the Pierce family has operated a peat-mining business that involves draining muddy bogs, scraping away the plant material, drying it, then selling it for use in golf greens and athletic fields.
The company hoped to add hundreds of acres to its operation. But in 2011, the Army Corps of Engineers announced the Minnesota land in question was connected to the Red River, roughly 120 miles away, and would be subjected to the Clean Water Act permitting process.
The property rights dispute landed Wednesday in the Supreme Court, where Justice Anthony Kennedy called the federal act “quite vague in its reach, arguably unconstitutionally vague ... ."
The property owners are fighting for the right to challenge the corps’ findings in federal court, while the corps argues the landowners cannot do so without going through a time-consuming permitting process that will likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“We're talking about the effect, direct effect on millions of land owners nationwide, couldn't be a bigger precedent,” said the plaintiffs' attorney, Reed Hopper of the Pacific Legal Foundation.
With the exception of Justice Elena Kagan, the court seemed nearly unanimous in its skepticism about whether the property is indeed “wetland” and subject to the act.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the process “arduous and very expensive.”
“It’s going to take years and cost ... a lot of money," she also said.
Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Steward, the federal government’s attorney, argued the landowner could simply roll the dice by moving ahead with developing the land despite the court’s findings.
That prompted Justice Stephen Breyer to respond: “Then he goes to jail.”
A decision is due by the end of June.
Kevin Pierce, one of three land/ business-owners in the case -- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co. Inc. -- has not been willing to take such a risk.
"We could have expanded a couple of years ago and different things,” he said outside of the court room. “But we've been held up because of the threat of high fines and criminal charges and all of the things that come out of the corps and jurisdictional determination.
Critics of President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination, Merrick Garland, say the case is the kind they’re worried about if Garland is appointed to the high court, considering his overwhelming deference to federal agencies.

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