Bush super PAC slams Rubio on illegal immigration, amnesty

Jeb Bush's super PAC is slamming Republican rival Marco Rubio on the contentious issue of illegal immigration and amnesty. 
The 30-second ad by Right to Rise USA, called “Vane,” depicts Rubio as a weather vane turning in the wind.
“Marco Rubio. He ran for Senate saying he opposed amnesty, then he flipped and worked with liberal Chuck Schumer to co-author the path to citizenship bill," the narrator says as the Rubio animation swivels around.
“He supported his own Dream Act and then he abandoned it,” the ad continues. ”Marco Rubio: Just another Washington politician you can’t trust.”
 
A source with the PAC told Fox News that the ad was intended to point out that Rubio has been a  “political chameleon” and lacked the leadership backbone of Bush, who governed Florida for two terms.
“No one in this race has flip-flopped on immigration more than Jeb,” said Alex Conant, communications director for Rubio’s presidential campaign.
“Jeb used to lecture Republicans about the need to support a pathway to citizenship--and then he changed his position. When Marco is president, there will be no amnesty. “
Starting Monday night, the spot will run in the early voting states of Iowa and South Carolina and on Fox News and digital platforms.

A PAC spokesman said that Right to Rise USA will spend nearly $2 million in Iowa and over $1 million in the Palmetto state in the next two weeks.

GOP candidate lineup announced for Fox Business Network debate

Fox Business Network on Monday announced the candidate lineup for the Jan. 14 Republican presidential debates – and already one candidate has said he will not participate after not qualifying for the prime-time event.
The participants qualifying for the prime-time, 9 p.m. ET debate are:
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
The participants qualifying for the earlier, 6 p.m. ET debate are:
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul; former HP CEO Carly Fiorina; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
However, the Paul campaign said Monday night it does not plan to participate.
This is the first time Paul has not qualified for a prime-time debate and his campaign, within minutes of the announcement, issued a statement complaining about the criteria.
“By any reasonable criteria Senator Paul has a top tier campaign,” his campaign said. “He will not let the media decide the tiers of this race and will instead take his message directly to the voters of New Hampshire and Iowa.”
The FBN debate lineup was decided based on the results of national, New Hampshire and Iowa polling. To qualify for the prime-time debate, a candidate had to place in the top six in an average of recent national polls, or in the top five in an average of recent Iowa or New Hampshire polls. ‎
The debate comes as front-runner Trump faces a rising challenge from Cruz, particularly in the caucus state of Iowa where the two are effectively tied for the lead.
The changing dynamic has fueled new tensions in the race, with Trump now openly questioning whether Cruz’ Canadian birth complicates his eligibility to run.
Trump’s comments have opened the door to other candidates and lawmakers exploring the issue – though Trump insists he’s only bringing it up because he’s concerned Democrats could use the issue against his GOP rival.
“I really don't know,” Trump told “Fox News Sunday.” “Does natural born mean born to the land? In that case he's not. But nobody knows what it means. … I speak well of Ted. I'm only saying that Ted has to get this problem solved because if he's running against a Democrat, and they bring a lawsuit, he's got a hell of a thing over his head.”
Cruz has brushed off calls to seek a court judgment on the issue.
“The son of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen,” Cruz said in a CNN “State of the Union” interview aired Sunday. “The internet has all sorts of fevered swamp theories.”
Legal scholars have backed Cruz in saying he would qualify as a natural-born citizen, and therefore be eligible to run, because his mother is an American citizen.
Nationally, Trump enjoys a more comfortable lead, but an interesting and fluid race is developing in early-voting New Hampshire where several candidates are in a tight battle for the No. 2 slot behind Trump – and many voters remain undecided.
The latest Fox News poll showed Trump leads with 33 percent among New Hampshire Republican primary voters – behind him are Rubio at 15 percent, Cruz at 12 percent, Bush at 9 percent and Kasich at 7 percent.
The Thursday debates will be held at the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center in North Charleston, S.C.
Anchor/Managing Editor of Business News Neil Cavuto and Anchor/Global Markets Editor Maria Bartiromo will moderate the prime-time debate; anchors Trish Regan and Sandra Smith will moderate the first debate.

Hillary Clinton comes out against deportation raids in break with Obama

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton joined her rivals Monday in opposing the Obama administration's deportation raids targeting Central American immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally and ignored deportation orders.
Speaking at a forum aimed at young and minority voters in Iowa, Clinton said the raids had "sown fear and division in immigrant communities across the country. People are afraid to go to work. They are afraid to send their kids to school. They are afraid to go to the hospital, or even the grocery store."
Clinton had previously drawn criticism from pro-immigration groups in 2014 when she said that unaccompanied Central American minors who had crossed the southern border should be returned to their home countries.
However, on Monday she called for government-funded counsel for unaccompanied minors in immigration court, as well as more funding for asylum officers, translators and immigration judges.
"We have laws and we must be guided by those laws,' Clinton said earlier, "but we shouldn’t have armed federal officers showing up at peoples’ homes, taking women and children out of their beds in the middle of the night."
The comments marked Clinton's clearest break with Obama, whom she served as secretary of state during the president's first term.
Clinton's rivals, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, had come out strongly against the raids when their planning was first reported last month. At the time, Sanders said he was "very distubed" by the reports, while O'Malley called the raids "mindless deportations" that were "at odds" with America's character.
The first of the raids reportedly were conducted last week in Texas and Gerogia, with more expected across the country. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the raids were designed to deter immigrants from illegally entering the U.S.
"As I have said repeatedly, our borders are not open to illegal migration," Johnson said last week. "If you come here illegally, we will send you back consistent with our laws and values."

Rock star David Bowie dead of cancer at age 69

David Bowie, a rock and roll icon who sustained a chart-topping career for five decades with hits including "Fame", "Heroes" and "Let's Dance", has died at the age of 69, his family and representative confirmed Monday.
Spokesman Steve Martin said in a statement that the "Ashes to Ashes" singer was surrounded by his family when he died Sunday after an 18-month battle against cancer.
"While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family's privacy during their time of grief," Martin's statement concluded. No further details were provided.
The singer's son, filmmaker Duncan Jones, issued a confirming statement of his own on Twitter.

Tributes poured in on social media from, among others, British Prime Minister David Cameron and comedian Ricky Gervais, who hosted Sunday night's Golden Globe Awards show in Los Angeles.


Bowie died two days after the release of "Blackstar", his 29th album, which had been timed to coincide with his birthday. The singer had kept a low profile in recent years after reportedly suffering a heart attack in the 2000s, and it had not been widely known that he was struggling with cancer.
Long before alter egos and wild outfits became commonplace in pop, Bowie set the music world on its ear with the release of the 1972 album, "The Rise of Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars," which introduced one of music's most famous personas. Ziggy Stardust was a concept album that imagined a genre-bending rock star from outer space trying to make his way in the music world. The persona -- the red-headed, eyeliner wearing Stardust -- would become an enduring part of his legacy, and a touchstone for the way entertainers packaged themselves for years to come.
Bowie, who was born David Jones in the Brixton area of South London, came of age in the glam rock era of the early 1970s. He had a striking androgynous look in his early days and was known for changing his looks and sounds. The stuttering rock sound of "Changes" gave way to the disco soul of "Young Americans," co-written with John Lennon, to a droning collaboration with Brian Eno in Berlin that produced "Heroes."
He had some of his biggest successes in the early 1980s with the stylistic "Let's Dance," and a massive American tour. Another one of his definitive songs was "Under Pressure," which he recorded with Queen; Vanilla Ice would years later infamously use the song's hook for his much maligned smash "Ice Ice Baby."
Bowie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, but he didn't attend the ceremony. Madonna, another artist who knew something about changing styles to stay ahead of the curve, accepted for him and recounted how a Bowie concert changed her life when she attended it as a teenager. David Byrne, of the art rockers Talking Heads, inducted Bowie and said he gave rock music a necessary shot in the arm.
"Like all rock `n' roll, it was visionary, it was tasteless, it was glamorous, it was perverse, it was fun, it was crass, it was sexy and it was confusing," Byrne said.
"My entire career, I've only really worked with the same subject matter," Bowie said in a 2002 interview with The Associated Press. "The trousers may change, but the actual words and subjects I've always chosen to write with are things to do with isolation, abandonment, fear and anxiety -- all of the high points of one's life."
His performance of "Heroes" was a highlight of a concert for rescue workers after the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.
"What I'm most proud of is that I can't help but notice that I've affected the vocabulary of pop music. For me, frankly, as an artist, that's the most satisfying thing for the ego."
However, Bowie felt uneasy about some of his greatest material, once embarking on a "greatest hits" tour saying it would be the last time performing much of his old material. He later relented, however.
"I'm not a natural performer," he said in the 2002 AP interview. "I don't enjoy performing terribly much. Never have. I can do it and, if my mind's on the situation, do it quite well. But five or six shows in, I'm dying to get off the road and go back into the studio."
Bowie was awarded a Grammy lifetime achievement award in February 2006 and his final performance on stage was later that year when he sang alongside Alicia Keys at the Black Ball in New York. He made a surprise comeback in 2013 when he suddenly released a new single on his 66th birthday, with his first new album in 10 years, "The Next Day," following just weeks later.
"Blackstar," which earned positive reviews from critics, represented yet another stylistic shift, as Bowie gathered jazz players to join him. He released a music video on Friday for the new song "Lazarus," which shows a frail Bowie lying in bed and singing the track's lyrics. The song begins with the line: "Look up here, I'm in heaven."
Bowie was married twice, to the actress and model Mary Angela "Angie" Barnett from 1970-80, and to international supermodel Iman since 1992. He had two children -- Duncan Jones and Alexandra Zahra Jones -- one with each wife.

Obama will not endorse candidate in Democratic primary race

President Obama will not endorse a Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential primary race, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said Sunday.
"That's not our job,” McDonough said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “That's the job of the party to make those decisions and then they'll take a look at the agendas and the positions of those candidates."
McDonough said that Obama, in the final 11 months of his presidency, will wait until voters pick a nominee, as he has in the past.
“When the nominee will be set, then the president will be out there," McDonough said.
Obama undoubtedly will back a fellow Democrat -- either front-running Hillary Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders or former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.
The president has recently suggested that he will nevertheless get involved in 2016 Senate races in which gun control is an issue, following his recently announced plans to tighten federal gun laws through a series of executive orders that side-step Congress.
Obama’s decision not to issue an endorsement, however, has
some precedent among recent two-term presidents.
George W. Bush didn’t endorse his party’s nominee in 2008 until March 5, by which point Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had just about locked up the bid.
Ronald Reagan didn’t endorse his sitting Vice President, George H. W. Bush, as the Republican nominee until May 1988. Reagan said he wanted to wait until the outcome of the nomination race was clear.
Bill Clinton was the only two-termer in the past 30 years to break with the tradition. He endorsed his sitting vice president, Al Gore, in December 1999.

Carson prays with Clemson coach ahead of college football title game

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson isn't taking sides in Monday night's college football national championship, but he prayed with one of the coaches for a solid performance, his campaign said Sunday. 
Carson had a private phone call with the Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney to pray for the Tigers when they take on the Alabama Crimson Tide in the national championship football game, according to the campaign.
Carson and Swinney prayed together for the team "to do very well,” and the two men also reminisced about their childhoods and the struggles of growing up in poverty.
The campaign also said Carson was happy to pray for the Clemson team because he felt they too were the underdogs and that Carson believes in the underdogs.
Carson campaign staffers in South Carolina were told that the Clemson coach was a “fan” of the presidential candidate and helped to organize a phone call between the two. The men spoke for a short while before praying together over the team and the game.
However, Carson's senior communications strategist, Jason Osborne, is an Alabama fan so Carson  wasn’t quick to completely back either team.
Clemson is ranked No 1. and Alabama is ranked No 2.

Conservative elite, sounding a bit panicked, says Trump will destroy GOP

The Republican establishment, which has always distrusted and discounted Donald Trump, is getting increasingly nervous.
So nervous, in fact, that some of its media voices are starting to denounce their party’s front-runner in the strongest possible terms.
As in, refusing to vote for the man if he’s the nominee. As in, loudly proclaiming that he will destroy the GOP.
Viewed from one perspective, this has the smell of panic. Viewed from another, it’s a case of party stalwarts speaking out based on principle.
For decades now, there has been primary-season sniping between the establishment wing and the insurgent/hard-line/Tea Party wing. Commentators rough up their least favorite candidate, even declare them unqualified for the White House.
But if that person prevails—think Mitt Romney in 2012—the sharpest Republican critics find a way to walk it back. Well, he wasn’t my first choice, but he would be better than Barack Obama. He’s evolved on immigration/tax cuts/ObamaCare. He would pull this country out of its left-wing tailspin.
These days, the rhetoric is getting so hot that there will be no scrambling back on board. Bill Kristol has been openly musing about a third party if Trump wins the nomination.
Does the conservative media elite hope to throw some tacks under the Trump steamroller with such sharp rhetoric? Or are its members just speaking out to clear their consciences?
If it’s the former, I think it might actually help Trump to have the Beltway types arrayed against him. These are the folks he is running against, and he’s never positioned himself as a doctrinaire conservative.
Michael Gerson, a Bush White House official who writes for the Washington Post, uses sweeping language:
“Trump’s nomination would not be the temporary victory of one of the GOP’s ideological factions. It would involve the replacement of the humane ideal at the center of the party and its history. If Trump were the nominee, the GOP would cease to be.”
Cease to be. That’s pretty historic stuff.
Gerson calls Trump a “demagogue” who “has followed some of America’s worst instincts wherever they have led, and fed ethnic and religious prejudice in the process. All presidential nominees, to some extent, shape their parties into their own image. Trump would deface the GOP beyond recognition.”
In case you missed the point, Gerson says: “Trump is disqualified for the presidency by his erratic temperament, his ignorance about public affairs and his scary sympathy for authoritarianism. But for me, and I suspect for many, the largest problem is that Trump would make the GOP the party of racial and religious exclusion.”

Doug Heye

Doug Heye has been communications chief of the RNC, a top deputy to Eric Cantor and a Bush administration official. He makes a personal declaration in the Independent Journal:
“Because of Trump’s perversion of conservatism, along with the devastating impact he would have if nominated, I cannot support Donald Trump were he to win the Republican nomination.”
Heye says Trump would be “dangerous to the United States and the world at a time when the world is at risk.” His nomination, says Heye, “would be catastrophic for Republican hopes to win the White House and maintain control of the Senate and would damage the party and the conservative cause for years to come. His having the legitimacy that comes with the nomination of a major political party would cause greater instability throughout the world at a time when the world looks to America for leadership that is serious and sober.”
This is the New York Times’ latest version of the same story, calling it a “people’s coup”:
At family dinners and New Year’s parties, in conference calls and at private lunches, longtime Republicans are expressing a growing fear that the coming election could be shattering for the party, or reshape it in ways that leave it unrecognizable.
But a very different tack from Peggy Noonan, who worked for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who turns the question back on the establishment:
“I do not understand the inability or refusal of Republican leaders to take Mr. Trump seriously. They take his numbers seriously—they can read a poll—but they think, as Mr. Bush said, that his support is all about anger, angst and theatrics. That’s part of the story, but the other, more consequential part has to do with real policy issues. The establishment refuses to see that, because to admit it is to implicate themselves and their leadership. Political consultants can’t see it because they don’t think issues matter—not to them and certainly not to the dumb voters.
“But issues do matter, and Mr. Trump has functioned this year not as a great communicator or great compromiser but as the great disruptor. He brags that he has brought up great questions and forced other candidates to face them and sometimes change their stands—and he has.”
There really isn’t much of an establishment left. It consists of some megabuck donors, elected officials, seasoned operatives and media pundits. They don’t have the power to stop Trump, and they know it.
The best they can hope for is to influence the debate. Their problem is that most of them don’t like Ted Cruz, either.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz. 

Bernie Cartoon

Texas Gov. Abbott ‎calls for convention on Constitution, proposes amendments

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott looked for Republican support on Friday for calling the first constitutional convention since 1787, a new priority for his administration that has blocked state laws over gay marriage, abortion restrictions and voting rights.
Abbott hopes his weight as the leader of the nation’s largest conservative state can revive momentum in an enduring, yet unattainable dream of some Republicans. Abbott’s vision includes an outline of new state protections that would nullify federal laws and weaken the Supreme Court as well as a federal balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
One of his nine proposals would require a supermajority of seven justices — out of nine — to invalidate any state law. The plan spanned nearly 70 pages, according to the Dallas Morning News.
"The Supreme Court is a co-conspirator in abandoning the Constitution," said Abbott, the state's former attorney general and a former Texas Supreme Court justice. "Instead of applying laws as written, it embarrassingly strains to rewrite laws like Obamacare."
The nine proposed amendments include:
·         Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs in one state
·         Require Congress to balance its budget.
·         Prohibit administrative agencies from creating law
·         Prohibit administrative agencies from pre-empting state law
·         Allow a two-thirds majority of the states of override a Supreme Court decision
·         Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law
·         Restore balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution
·         Give state officials the power to sue in federal court when federal officials overstep their bounds
·         Allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override a federal law regulation.
Texas has been named as a defendant in major cases before the Supreme Court. The court will hear oral arguments over the state’s abortion crackdown in March. The restrictions would leave the state with fewer than 10 abortion providers, down from 40 in 2012.
Abbott unveiled his plan to a friendly audience of conservative policymakers in Austin, but outside, others called the prospect of a convention far-fetched.
"There is no remote possibility that is going to take place," said Lino Graglia, a conservative professor of constitutional law at the University of Texas at Austin. "Just to get any constitutional amendment is virtually impossible."
Abbott’s opponents were quickly dismissive about his plan. Texas Democratic Party Deputy Executive Director Manny Garcia said the governor’s priorities were misguided.
“America added 292,000 new jobs in December. But under Abbott, Texas fell to sixth in job creation, remains the uninsured capitol of the nation, wages and incomes remain far too low for hardworking families, our neighborhood schools are still underfunded, and college education is slipping out of reach,” Garcia said in a statement. “Texas families deserve serious solutions, not Tea Party nonsense.”
The American Civil Liberties Union also urged Abbott to not “mess with the Constitution.”
Over the last 40 years, 27 states have endorsed the idea of an assembly at one time or another, including Texas at a time when the state was run by Democrats. Convention proposals were also introduced or discussed in about three dozen legislatures last year. An assembly needs approval from 34 legislatures.
Shortly after Abbott took office last year, the Texas Legislature failed to endorse a more narrowly focused convention on conservative ideals. Some Republicans blamed the defeat on fears of a "runaway" convention that would take on myriad issues. Abbott said he wants Texas lawmakers to give their support next time around in 2017.
Earlier this week, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio said if elected president he will advocate for the states to call a constitutional convention to impose term limits on members of Congress. He says creating term limits must come from a grassroots movement because members of Congress will never do it themselves.
The United States has not held a constitutional convention since George Washington himself led the original proceedings in Philadelphia in 1787.

Sanders calls Bill Clinton's affair 'totally disgraceful and unacceptable'

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said Friday night that former President Bill Clinton, now stumping on the campaign trail for wife Hillary Clinton, committed a “totally disgraceful” act in having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Sanders’ remark was in response to a question at an Iowa town hall meeting, not part of a speech.
However, the Vermont senator had until this point in the primary season largely avoided saying anything negative related to the front-running Hillary Clinton, expect to attack her on policy issues.
“Look, Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton," Sanders said Friday. “What Bill Clinton did, I think we can all acknowledge, was totally, totally, totally disgraceful and unacceptable. But I am running against Hillary Clinton. I’m not running against Bill Clinton.”
But Sanders continues to trail Clinton by roughly 20 percentage points in national polls and needs to at least compete with her in first-in-the-nation primary state Iowa, which votes Feb.1 and where he once led Clinton. And he needs a solid showing in New Hampshire, which votes Feb. 9 and where he now trails by about 4 points.
Front-running 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and others have increasingly criticized Bill Clinton’s extra-marital past since his wife announced last month that he would stump for her starting in January. The Trump campaign has argued that its attacks are in response to the Clinton campaign accusing Trump of being sexist.
In Iowa, where Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, trails Clinton by rough 13 points, he nevertheless stuck Friday to his campaign strategy of distinguishing himself from Clinton and Republicans on the issues of income inequality and the so-called “disappearing middle class.”
“So what I am doing is contrasting my record with Hillary Clinton’s record, and they are very, very different records,” he said. “But I am not going to get into the personal stuff. … I’ve never run a negative TV ad in my life.”