Jeb Bush dismisses dip in polls, defends immigration stance

Jeb Bush, in an exclusive interview with Fox News’ “The Kelly File,” rejected the suggestion that the momentum behind his likely presidential bid has slowed – calling recent polls “irrelevant” and urging those closely watching them to “take a chill pill.”
Bush, though widely expected to run for the Republican nomination, has held back as several other Republicans have officially announced their 2016 campaigns in recent weeks. As they dominate the headlines, some – notably, Bush’s presumed home-state rival, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio – have enjoyed a surge in the polls.
But Bush stressed in the interview with Fox News that he’s not a candidate yet.
“The polls are totally irrelevant,” the former Florida governor told show host Megyn Kelly. “I’m not a candidate yet. So … everybody needs to take a chill pill on the polls until it gets closer.”
In the roughly 22-minute interview, Bush addressed Common Core, immigration reform and his family’s political dynasty – all issues posing early challenges for him in a potential GOP primary. And he defended his 2016 exploratory efforts – first announced in mid-December – while taking a swipe at the campaign for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
“I godo town hall meetings, don’t screen the questions, don’t have a protected bubble like Mrs. Clinton does, don’t have town hall meetings or roundtable discussion where I pick who gets to come and I screen the questions, and the press has to behave a certain way,” he said in his first full, on-camera TV interview this year.
While Bush continues to stay visible, his poll numbers have jumped around since he emerged as an initial GOP frontrunner earlier this year.
Fox News polling released late last month showed Rubio enjoying a bump after his mid-April campaign announcement, polling at 13 percent in the race for the GOP nomination. Bush slipped down to 9 percent in that survey.
The average of polling on RealClearPolitics.com shows Bush slipping only slightly, but his advantage over the rest of the field slimming considerably. He now pulls 16 percent of the vote but leads Rubio by just 1 percentage point, according to RealClearPolitics.com.
Bush, in the Fox News interview, continued to defend his stance on the English and math standards known as Common Core while acknowledging conservative criticisms.
He argued that schools must be held to higher standards and pointed to the program’s success in Florida, where he was governor from 1997 to 2007.
“I respect people having a view,” Bush said. “But the simple fact is, we need higher standards. They need to be state driven. The federal government should play no part in this either, either in the creation of standards, content or curriculum.”
He argued that only one-third of U.S. students are college or career ready and that Florida under his leadership led the country in learning gains, includes vastly improved graduation rates.
In response to criticism by conservatives that he supports a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants, Bush said he backs legal status -- but not citizenship -- for those who have entered the country illegally.
“A practical solution of getting to fixing the legal system is also allowing for a path to legalized status, not necessarily citizenship,” he said.
Nevertheless, he suggested that the country must take some kind of common sense approach to what to do with an estimated 11 million people living illegally in the United States, particularly children of illegal immigrants.
“What are we supposed to do, marginalize these people forever?” Bush asked.
He also suggested he would undo President Obama’s executive actions that suspend deportation for some illegal immigrants, under comprehensive reform legislation.
On the foreign policy front, Bush said that he would have authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq, like his brother, President George W. Bush did, and said Clinton – who backed the authorization for use of force as senator -- also would have.
“And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got,” he told Megyn Kelly.
He also acknowledged that he indeed uses his brother as a foreign policy adviser but said he is not the only adviser. And he dismissed criticism that winning the White House would only extend the family’s presidential dynasty that started with his father, George H.W. Bush, in 1989.
“I love my brother, and I respect his service,” Bush said. “I haven’t been in Washington … ever. I’m not part of Washington.”

Federal judge agrees to reopen Hillary Clinton email lawsuit

A federal judge has agreed to reopen a lawsuit that seeks to gain access to emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server.
Judge Reggie B. Walton’s decision Friday came after the State Department and Judicial Watch, which brought the lawsuit, agreed that the documents that Clinton kept on her own email server separate from the government should be turned over.
“This is the first case that’s been reopened,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch told The Washington Times. “It’s a significant development. It points to the fraud by this administration and Mrs. Clinton.”
Previously, the court dismissed Judicial Watch's request, on the grounds that the documents did not exist.
Judicial Watch is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation that promotes transparency and accountability in government.
Clinton provided about 30,000 emails to a House committee investigating the 2012 terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya but deleted 32,000 emails she considered personal and not government business.
According to The Washington Times, panel Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., cited “obstacles and frustrations” in dealing with the administration when pursuing access to Clinton’s emails.
“The legislative branch’s constitutional toolbox seems inadequate to uphold out task in seeking the truth,” Gowdy said.

Kremlin confirms Putin to meet with Kerry in Sochi

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Russia Tuesday to news that the Kremlin had confirmed a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi.
The confirmation followed hours of limbo Monday during which the Kremlin refused to say whether Kerry and Putin would meet, despite U.S. officials' insistence that the talks would take place. A senior State Department official told the Associated Press tersely, "We usually don't go to Sochi to see Foreign Minister Lavrov."
Putin's spokesman welcomed Kerry's decision to travel to Russia. "We have repeatedly stated at various levels and the president has said that Russia never initiated the freeze in relations and we are always open for displays of political will for a broader dialogue," Dmitry Peskov told journalists in Sochi.
Kerry was to lay a wreath at a World War II memorial before meeting Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the brief visit, his first to Russia since May 2013 and the advent of the Ukraine crisis.
"This trip is part of our ongoing effort to maintain direct lines of communication with senior Russian officials and to ensure U.S. views are clearly conveyed," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement.
Kerry plans to test Putin's willingness to push pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine to comply with an increasingly fragile ceasefire agreement, according to U.S. officials traveling with him.
Kerry will also seek to gauge the status of Russia's support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose forces have been losing ground to rebels, and press Moscow to support a political transition that could end that war, the officials said.
In addition, Kerry will make the case to Putin that Russia should not proceed with its planned transfer of an advanced air defense system to Iran.
The Russian Foreign Ministry set a hostile tone for the visit by issuing a statement blaming Washington for the breakdown in relations between the two countries.
"The Obama administration chose the path of scaling back bilateral relations, proclaimed a course of isolating Russia on the international arena and demanded that those states that traditionally follow the lead of Washington support its confrontational steps," said the statement, which also claimed that Ukraine's crisis "was largely provoked by the United States itself."
White House spokesman Josh Earnest acknowledged the "complicated" relationship between the former foes, but insisted they could cooperate on "interests that benefit the citizens of both our countries."
Much hinges on violence decreasing in Ukraine, however.
The Western-backed government in Kiev continues to be embroiled in a sporadic conflict between government and separatist rebel forces in its eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk despite a cease-fire agreement sealed in mid-February. Russia was party to that deal; although the U.S. was not, one State Department official said it is important for Putin "to hear directly from the United States that we are firmly committed to (its) implementation."
Western nations say Russia supports the separatists with arms and manpower, and even directs some battlefield operations -- all claims Moscow denies. In return, the Russians bristle at Washington's provisions to Ukraine of military assistance in the form of hardware and training.
Diplomats in Moscow and Washington are at odds over a range of other issues.
Russia last month announced it would lift a five-year ban on delivery of an air defense missile system to Iran, drawing a hasty rebuke from the United States.
The White House said the missile system would give the Islamic republic's military a strong deterrent against any air attack. The Kremlin argues that the S-300 is a purely defensive system that will not jeopardize the security of Israel or any other countries in the Middle East.
On Syria, Russia has defied a chorus of international condemnation to remain allied with Assad.
Following his stop in Sochi, Kerry will travel to Antalya, Turkey, where he will attend a meeting of NATO foreign ministers Wednesday. Kerry will then return to Washington to attend meetings Thursday with Obama and top officials of the Persian Gulf Arab states, who are concerned about the possibility of a nuclear deal with Iran.

WWII soldier's lost gift to mom returns home for Mother's Day

MILLVILLE, Mass. –  This is the story of a loving tribute from a soldier preparing for war to his mother on the other side of the continent, who didn't know if she would ever see her boy again.
The elaborate pillow sham he sent her, lost for more than 70 years, has finally come home, just in time for Mother's Day.
The sham, emblazoned with the word "Mother" and sent in 1942 by Dominic O'Gara from his Army base in California to his mother in the small Massachusetts town of Millville, was discovered last month by a town native on eBay.
The hope now is to put the sham on display in the town's senior center, just yards from the house where the O'Gara family once lived.
"To me, it's come back to where it belongs," said Margaret Carroll, chairwoman of the town Historical Commission. "It's as close to Mrs. O'Gara as it can get."
Donald Lamoureux, who lives in Cumberland, Rhode Island, but who grew up in Millville, spotted an envelope for sale on eBay, and even though he had no idea what was inside, he knew he had to have it when he saw the date and the Millville address. He paid $5 for it.
He was stunned when he looked inside.
"There was this pillow sham that had been sealed away for 73 years, and it looked brand new," he said.
Although it had deep creases from being folded for decades, it wasn't frayed, stained or faded.
The white pillow cover has a blue fringe, and in addition to the word "Mother" in blue, is decorated with red roses with green stems, and the words "Camp McQuaide, Calif.," where O'Gara was stationed.
It also has this famous poem, written by lyricist Howard Johnson:
___
M is for the million things she gave me
O means only that she's growing old
T is for the tears she shed to save me
H is for her heart of purest gold
E is for her eyes with love light shining
R means right and right she'll always be
Put them all together they spell mother
A word that means the world to me
___
"It was very touching," Lamoureux said.
Millville, about 40 miles southwest of Boston, had a population of about 1,800 in the 1940s. Even these days, it holds only about 3,200 people.
"My grandfather (Rodrique "Pete" Lamoureux) was a World War II veteran, and Millville is such a small town, I just knew they had to have known each other," he said. "I felt this instant connection."
Where the pillow sham has been the past 70-plus years is a mystery. The 6-cent airmail stamp on the envelope was canceled, indicating it had been delivered. But the cover appeared pristine. O'Gara's mother, Catherine, died in 1956.
Lamoureux bought it from a Rhode Island man who runs a collectibles shop and found the envelope in a box of junk acquired from an anonymous seller.
Of course, Lamoureux wanted to return the pillow cover to O'Gara's family, but he couldn't find any living relatives.
He found that O'Gara, the son of Irish immigrants, was an artilleryman who served in Italy in World War II, then lived for years in the nearby town of Milford before dying in 1998. His wife died in 1974.
Lamoureux turned to his own parents, Donald and Diane Lamoureux, and their friends in Millville, including Carroll and Council on Aging member Ellen Ethier Bowen, who both remembered the O'Gara family. But even Carroll, who has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of town history, came up empty.
The group discussed it and came up with the idea of framing the pillow sham and envelope and hanging them in the senior center. The building is a short walk from the O'Garas' former home in a section of town known as Banigan City, named for the former president of a now-closed rubber manufacturing plant who built the homes for his workers.
Bowen hopes to bring the proposal to the full Council on Aging. It would be perfect if the pillow sham could be hung by Memorial Day, she said.
"This whole story just tugs at your heartstrings," she said.

California Cartoon

Students at Texas university look to rid campus of Jefferson Davis memorial

Student leaders at a Texas university are looking to remove a statue memorializing Confederate president Jefferson Davis from its campus.
"We thought, there are those old ties to slavery and some would find it offensive," said senior Jamie Nalley, who joined an overwhelming majority of the Student Government at the University of Texas at Austin in adopting a resolution in March supporting his ouster.
As students take aim at Davis, the number of sites in Texas on public and private land that honor the Confederacy is growing, despite the opposition from the NAACP and other groups. Supports say they have a right to support Confederate veterans because of their role in Texas history, while opponents argue that memorials are too often insensitive or antagonistic, while having the backing of public institutions like UT.
The Texas Historical Commission has recognized more than 1,000 Confederate memorial sites from far South Texas to the upper reaches of the Panhandle. The Sons of Confederate Veterans are planning more monuments, including a 10-foot obelisk a few miles from the Davis statue to honor about 450 Confederate soldiers buried at the city-owned Oakwood Cemetery.
"I don't think we're trying to put up stuff just to put up stuff," said Marshall Davis, spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Texas. "We don't want to impede anyone else from honoring their heroes. We would like to honor our heroes with the same consideration, tolerance and diversity."
Besides the obelisk, other projects include a Confederate memorial along Interstate 10 in the city of Orange will feature 32 waving flags representing Texas regiments of the Confederate army, along with 13 columns for each Confederate state. That projected started after a Confederate Veterans Memorial Plaza was unveiled two years ago in downtown Palestine, near what the NAACP claims was the site of a “hanging tree.”
Student leaders and the NAAP say the Jefferson Davis statue has not place on the UT campus since his link to Texas is primarily based on the state’s ties to the Confederacy.
“I think it's offensive that you exalt Jefferson Davis but you don't exalt Abraham Lincoln," said Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP.
The Student Government resolution has been forwarded to campus administrators but no action has been taken, according to a university spokesman.
Don Carleton, executive director of the Briscoe Center for American History at UT, said the statue and many other memorials across the South in the early 1900s were commissioned by aging Civil War veterans who were outspoken that it was states’ rights and not slavery that motivated their actions.
Late in his life, George Washington Littlefield — a Confederate officer, UT regent and prominent benefactor to the school — had commissioned Italian artist Pompeo Coppini to build a fountain and statues to Littlefield's heroes, Carleton said. The artist sought to include a statue of President Woodrow Wilson and arrange a fountain configuration that represented the country moving beyond its fractured past and unifying behind the fight against Germany and its allies in World War I.
But Littlefield later died, money dried up and Coppini's vision was never fully realized, Carleton said. Instead, statues of Davis, President George Washington, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Postmaster General John Reagan and others were scattered about the campus without context.
Carleton said aside from the symbolism of the statues, they're works of art and should be preserved. He suggests adding explanatory plaques that describe the original intention.
"That's not going to placate everyone, and I understand that, but I think it's a lot better in explaining them to people rather than leaving it just as it is," he said.
The Texas Historical Commission has records of the more than 1,000 sites in the state that memorialize the Confederacy — from a Confederate cemetery in San Antonio and marker honoring Gen. Lawrence "Sul" Ross at Sul Ross State University in Alpine to a building in Marshall that housed the Civil War State Government of Missouri in exile.
The effort to remove the Davis statue is ill-conceived, said Marshall Davis.
"The fact that the state of Texas joined the Confederate States of America is history. It happened," he said. "It's not a matter of opinion."

Student leaders at a Texas university?

Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP.

Republicans embrace new social media tech, in drive to 2016

Republican presidential hopefuls trying to break from the crowded primary field are taking to cutting-edge social media to connect with more and younger voters, in the latest sign that -- come 2016 -- GOP candidates are determined to close the digital divide with historically tech-savvy Democrats.
While still stumbling on some digital basics, the fluid procession of Republicans jumping into the 2016 race are showing a willingness to experiment. Not only blanketing social-media megaphones Facebook and Twitter, the campaigns are road-testing new apps in a bid to quickly build their circle of political friends.
Earlier this week, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina announced her candidacy on Facebook and Twitter, but then turned to the video-streaming app Periscope to connect more directly with voters.
In the hyper-paced world of social media, Twitter-owned Periscope debuted shortly before the Fiorina announcement, and allows users to broadcast and view live events on mobile devices. And its video-streaming rival, Meerkat, has been up and running only since late February. Already, both are being used heavily in the presidential campaign.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul -- one of more than a dozen Republicans who have either announced a 2016 White House bid or are considering one -- was the first in the pack to use the Meerkat smartphone app. He live-streamed a March 15 appearance at the South by Southwest festival, in Austin, Texas.
Craig Agranoff, a Florida-based digital marketer specializing in political campaigns, predicts that video streaming will be to the 2016 race what Facebook was to President Obama’s 2008, and to a lesser extent, 2012 victories -- reaching millions of young and previously untapped voters.

2 Mississippi police officers dead after shooting at traffic stop

Did what happen in Ferguson and Boston empower these Two?

Two suspects accused of killing two Mississippi police officers Saturday night were reportedly arrested early Sunday morning.
The Hattiesburg American reports that Curtis Banks was brought to the Mississippi Highway Patrol Troop J headquarters at around 3 a.m. local time. His brother Marvin Banks was arrested about two hours earlier.
The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported that as reporters were asking Curtis Banks if he had shot two of the Hattiesburg patrolmen he blurted out “no sir, I didn’t do it.”
The killings prompted a statewide manhunt for the two suspects late Saturday.
Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, said one Hattiesburg officer had initially stopped a 2000 Gold Cadillac Escalade in an industrial part of the city at around 8:30 p.m. local time Saturday. A second officer arrived afterward to assist him and that is when shots were fired. Those were reported to be the first deaths on the Hattiesburg police force in three decades.
"Obviously these suspects are armed and dangerous. There is a danger, a threat for sure," Strain told The Associated Press by telephone early Sunday from the scene, an industrial corridor fronting a housing area. He said officers had told people in the immediate area to "take shelter."
Strain said both officers died of their injuries at a hospital. He said law enforcement agencies across the state were searching for two men identified as 26-year-old Curtis Banks and his 29-year-old brother Marvin Banks.
A Hattiesburg Police Department spokesman, Lt. Jon Traxler told The Associated Press the officers who died were 34-year-old Benjamin Deen and 25-year-old Liquori Tate.
"All I know right now is that there was a traffic stop and someone started shooting at them and both of the officers were struck," Traxler said. He said he didn't know how many shots were fired, or exactly by whom, adding that was now part of the investigation.
He said the state's chief law enforcement agency, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, had taken up the probe of the shooting. 
"That's still under investigation. The crime scene unit is processing the scene," said Strain.  .
Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree told the Clarion-Ledger he lamented the deaths.
"The men and women who go out every day to protect us, the men and woman who go out every day to make sure that we're safe, they were turned on (Saturday) night," DuPree said outside Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg, where the officers were taken. 
The Clarion-Ledger reports these are the first Hattiesburg officers to die in the line of duty in 30 years. It said Tate was a recent police academy graduate while Deen was a K-9 officer who had been honored as the department's "Officer of the Year" in 2012.