Cruz Cartoon

Pundits enjoy Trump's setback, but can he still make them losers?

Some in the media are openly celebrating Donald Trump’s loss in Iowa, others are doing it more subtly. 
But those who believe his candidacy has crashed and burned are making a mistake, succumbing to the heady Iowa elixir that makes caucus winners look unstoppable—usually for eight days or so.
Trump made his share of mistakes, chief among them blowing off the Fox News debate. I talked to a few Iowans during my week in Des Moines who felt aggravated by the move. But more important, he ceded the stage to Ted Cruz, who won Monday night, and Marco Rubio, whose late surge defied the polls and almost pushed him past Trump into second place. Trump’s “genius” move played well with the press, but in Ames and Cedar Rapids, not so much.
Still, Trump’s 4-point loss to the Texas senator suggests he probably would have lost the caucuses even if he hadn’t picked a fight with Fox and sidestepped the debate. Iowa was never a great fit for him, despite his inroads with the evangelical voters who dominate the GOP caucuses.
And yes, the ground game does matter. Trump never seemed all in on building the kind of sophisticated machinery that Cruz used to turn out the largest vote for a Republican in caucus history.
Still, a billionaire who had never run for anything managed to finish second in Iowa’s complicated caucuses, way ahead of several governors, not a bad first-time showing. (I wrote that sentence before Trump tweeted that the media were failing to give him his due.)
There was an unmistakable sense of vindication in the media reports that declared the man who talks so much about winning is now a loser. New York’s Daily News was the most unabashed, with its “DEAD CLOWN WALKING” headline.
For more than seven months, media skeptics warned that Trump was a sideshow, that he would implode, that doom was always just around the corner. Conservative commentators at Fox, National Review and elsewhere disparaged him as a fake right-winger.
In recent weeks, as polls had him pulling ahead of Cruz in Iowa, many pundits started hedging their bets, acknowledging that Trump could run the table and win the nomination. But the caucuses allowed them to slip back into told-you-so mode.
Of course, Cruz deserves credit for executing a flawless strategy, and especially for parrying Trump’s attacks as a nasty guy and Canadian interloper. Rubio deserves credit for threading the needle by appealing to the party’s establishment and tea party wings—and clobbering his mentor, Jeb Bush, who wasted tens of millions of dollars in Iowa.
Still, Cruz has to show that unlike the last two caucus winners, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, he can retrofit a made-for-Iowa vehicle to zoom to victory in bigger and more diverse states. And whatever bump Cruz gets from Iowa, Trump has big leads in New Hampshire and South Carolina, at least for now. And he doesn’t have to worry about donors.
So now we find out whether Trump can take a punch. A little dose of humility might be good for him. When I watched him say he was a little nervous in a Monday-morning interview, I remember thinking that the bombastic candidate was showing a side of himself that might appeal to voters turned off by the endless bragging.
In politics as in life, Americans like someone who can pick himself off the canvas. Ronald Reagan lost Iowa, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush lost New Hampshire, and all went on to win the White House. The press ought to be careful about once again writing Trump’s obituary.

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.

IRS computer problems shut down tax return e-file system

The IRS stopped accepting electronically filed tax returns Wednesday because of problems with some of its computer systems. The outage could affect refunds, but the agency said it doesn't anticipate "major disruptions."
A "hardware failure" forced the shutdown of several tax processing systems, including the e-file system, the IRS said in a statement. The IRS.gov website remains available, but "where's my refund" and other services are not working.
Some systems will be out of service at least until Thursday, the agency said. "The IRS is currently in the process of making repairs and working to restore normal operations as soon as possible," the IRS said.
Taxpayers can continue to send electronic returns to companies that serve as middlemen between taxpayers and the IRS. But those companies have to hold on to the tax returns until the IRS systems are up and running again, the IRS said.
While the IRS said it is still assessing the scope of the outage, it expects 90 percent of taxpayers will receive refunds within three weeks.
People who have already filed returns don't need to do anything more, the IRS said.

Clinton on $675G Goldman Sachs speech fee: 'That's what they offered'

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton proved Wednesday to be unabashed about accepting millions of dollars in speaking fees from Wall Street firms amid an increasingly competitive race with self-proclaimed "democratic socialist" Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
At a CNN town hall in Derry, N.H., moderator Anderson Cooper asked the former secretary of state, "Did you have to be paid $675,000?", a reference to her fees for three speeches to Goldman Sachs. Clinton responded, "I don't know. That's what they offered."
Clinton went on to say that she accepted the Goldman money after she left the State Department in 2013, when, as she put it "I wasn't committed to running" for president. An Associated Press analysis of public disclosure forms and records released by her campaign found that Clinton made $9 million from appearances sponsored by banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, private equity firms and real estate businesses.

Clinton made her comments amid an ongoing battle with Sanders over their respective progressive credentials following Clinton's narrow victory in Monday's Iowa Caucuses.
“I don’t know any progressive who has a super PAC and takes $15 million from Wall Street,” said Sanders, whose campaign has been driven by modest contributions and has risen in the polls on his promise of more equality for the middle class.
For her part, Clinton dismissed criticism that she’s not a true progressive and the long-held argument that she is part of the political establishment.
“I’m not going to let that bother me. I know where I stand,” said Clinton, who argued that the Sanders campaign tagging her as an establishment candidate because she was endorsed by Planned Parenthood was “inappropriate.”
“I am a progressive who gets things done,” Clinton added, before wondering aloud how Sanders came to be a progressive “gatekeeper.” She also disagreed with several aspects of Sanders’ platform, questioning his pledge for a "political revolution" and his plan to provide universal health care through expanding Medicare. Clinton said she wants to improve on ObamaCare, not dismantle it.

Despite their philosophical disagreements, both were in harmony on wanting to keep the Republicans out of the White House.
"These guys play for keeps,” Clinton said, while Sanders reserved most of his GOP-related ire for Donald Trump.
“Everybody in this room doesn’t want a right wing Republican in the White House,” he said. “I want Trump to win the nomination. And frankly, I think we could win against him.”
Though Sanders is running an insurgent campaign, he relied on his time on Capitol Hill to answer questions about whether Congress would approve some of his campaign promises and whether Democrats or Republicans better serve veterans.
“I have a history of working with Republicans when there was common ground,” Sanders said. He also pointed out that he was a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. However, Sanders acknowledged that he and other members of Congress “should have done better” recognizing and fixing problems with patient care at VA facilities.
Clinton and Sanders agreed on the need to stop the ISIS terror group with the help of coalition of nations, including Middle Eastern allies. Sanders continued to trumpet his opposition to the war in Iraq, which critics say eventually led to the rise of ISIS. Clinton, who voted to authorize the Iraq War, said Wednesday, “I did make a mistake.”
Clinton, also acknowledged she must do more to appeal to young people -- a voting bloc Sanders won handily in Iowa, saying “I accept the fact that I have work to … convey what I want to do for young people ... They don't have to be for me. I will be for them."
Clinton and Sanders won't clash face-to-face until Thursday's debate at the University of New Hampshire. On Wednesday, each answered about an hour’s worth of questions from voters and moderator Cooper.
Most polls have Sanders holding a substatial lead over Clinton in New Hampshire. The most recent Fox News poll, from late January, shows the Vermont senator with a 22-point cushion, 56 percent to 34 percent.

Top House Republican demands Kerry explain $1.7 billion Iran payment

Kerry admits some Iran deal funds will likely go to terror. (No Joke)

 The chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee demanded Wednesday that Secretary of State John Kerry explain a $1.7 billion settlement paid to Iran that some Republicans have described as a "ransom" tied to last month's release of five American prisoners.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., complained in a letter to Kerry that his committee was not consulted about the settlement. The Obama administration claimed the agreement was made to settle a dispute with Iran dating back to 1979 over $400 million in frozen funds. The remaining $1.3 billion was described by the Obama administration as "interest".
"It is unclear how this $1.7 billion payment is in the national security interests of the United States," Royce wrote.
Royce's letter included 10 questions to Kerry about the settlement. Among them are how the administration calculated the $1.3 billion "interest" on the payment, a timeline of negotiations over the payment since this past summer's nuclear deal, and why the money was not used to "compensate American victims of Iranian terrorism who have been awarded judgments against Iran."
Royce's letter also asks for a list of U.S. officials who participated in negotiations with Iran over the payment, the prisoner release and the nuclear agreement.
The White House announced the payment on Jan. 17, the same day that Iran released five American prisoners, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, former Marine Amir Hekmati, and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini.
At the time, Obama defended the amount paid by the U.S., saying it was "much less than the amount Iran sought." The president added that the one-time payment was preferable to letting more interest accumulate while waiting for a judgement from the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, which is based in The Hague and was created in the deal that ended the Iran hostage crisis in 1981.
"I have a larger concern that in choosing to resolve this relatively minor bilateral dispute at this time, the Obama Administration is aggressively moving towards reestablishing diplomatic relations with Iran," Royce wrote. "Such action would clearly violate the President’s pledge to “remain vigilant” in countering the threat Iran poses to the United States and our allies in the region."
State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed to Reuters that Royce's letter had been received.
"As with all Congressional correspondence, we'll respond as appropriate," Kirby said. Royce's letter gives Kerry until Feb. 17 to respond to his questions.

Iowa Caucuses Cartoon

UConn building 'black-only' living space to promote scholarship

They're just kidding us right?

Faced with alarmingly low graduation rates for black males, the University of Connecticut is trying something it calls bold -- and critics call segregation.
The school's main campus in Storrs has launched a program slated for fall in which 40 black male undergraduates live together in on-campus housing. Proponents believe the students can draw on their common experiences and help each other make it to commencement. But others cringe at the idea of black-only housing, saying it turns decades of hard-fought racial progress on its head.
“Forget about this nonsense and just treat students without regard to skin color,” President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity Roger Clegg told Insidehighered.com. “If there are students of color who are at risk or who could use some access to special programs, that’s fine, but schools shouldn’t be using race as a proxy for who’s at risk and who’s going to have a hard time as a student. There are lots of African-American students who come from advantaged backgrounds. And lots of non-African-American students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

“Forget about this nonsense and just treat students without regard to skin color."
- Roger Clegg

ScHOLA²RS House – which stands for “Scholastic House of Leaders who are African American Researchers and Scholars” – was designed so UConn could more effectively marshal resources for black males, similar to other learning communities at the school that live as a group. When ScHOLA²RS House launches, it will be located in a new facility, Next Generation Connecticut Hall, along with seven other learning communities.
Niger Innis, the national spokesperson for the Congress of Racial Equality, said UConn may be unintentionally creating an atmosphere where black students are “the other.”
“If they wanted to go to an all-black institution, there are plenty of historically black colleges that still exist,” he told FoxNews.com. “But if they want to go to an institution that is racially diverse and integrated, then racial diversity and integration is part of it. To have a university-sanctioned segregation or separation is, to me, a bit troubling.”

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An artist's rendering of Next Generation Connecticut Hall. (uconn.edu)

Some minority students have expressed irritation at the narrow focus of ScHOLA²RS House.
While black females are “encouraged” to apply to other learning communities, according to the UConn website, that solution doesn’t appear to satisfy everyone.
“My immediate thought was ‘What?’” Haddiyyah Ali, an Africana studies and political science major, told Daily Campus. “I know there had to be a lot of research that went into it…but just for me coming from a student perspective, my initial thought was, 'What about black women and girls – what about us?'”
Vice Provost Sally Reis rejected critiques of the program.
“It’s no more segregated than putting individuals with an interest in entrepreneurship together because they have common interests,” Reis told FoxNews.com.
But while students with interests in engineering and public health and female students with a focus in math, science and engineering majors also have their own learning communities, a race-based cluster is new.
Erik Hines, a UConn professor set to serve as faculty advisor to the ScHOLA²RS House students, said that while the only current race-based group was for black males, the administration could add learning communities based on other races, genders or cultures.
“We have all types of learning communities,” he told FoxNews.com. “If they bring forth a proposal to our Office of Programs and Learning Communities they will be considered by our executive director.”
Hines said about 13 students had already applied for ScHOLA²RS House. Male students “who identify as African American/Black or mixed-race will be prioritized in selection, however any student interested in engaging in topics related to the experience of black males in higher education is invited to apply,” according to the UConn website.
 “In predominantly white institutions, some of the experiences that African-American males face on campus is a little different than some of the other populations,” Hynes said. “In some of your courses you can be the only African American male in your class. It could be stressful and that’s a huge burden to shoulder.”
Reis pins most of the pushback so far on “misinformation.”
“I’ve actually heard people saying, ‘You’re building a dorm for African-American males only?’” she said. “We’re not building a separate dorm. It’s not even a separate floor. It’s a portion of a new residence hall.”
Puppetry major Isaac Bloodworth told Daily Campus that opposition could be rooted in racism.
“The white portion of the University of Connecticut is probably not ready for it,” he said. “You have people who are going to go against it because they are just racist and they see this as a form of segregation or that we’re getting better things than they are.”

Carson accuses Cruz camp of spreading false rumors on campaign suspension

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson on Tuesday pointedly accused Ted Cruz’s campaign of spreading false rumors during the Iowa caucuses claiming the retired neurosurgeon was suspending his bid, in a coordinated effort to seal Cruz’s victory Monday night.
The stunning charge came as a Carson spokesman declared, “There has never been a more tainted victory in the Iowa caucuses.”
Early reports that Carson – who was directly competing with Cruz for social conservative and evangelical supporters – was leaving the campaign trail started to surface as caucusing began Monday evening.
Upon hearing reports that their candidate was leaving the trail to return to his home in Florida, Team Carson responded swiftly, saying the retired neurosurgeon was only going home for clean clothes but was then headed to New Hampshire for the Feb. 9 primary.
But Carson told Fox News Tuesday morning that Cruz supporters and representatives took that narrative a step further, and began telling caucus-goers at “many” precincts that he was dropping out.
Speaking on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Cruz apologized on Tuesday. He said their political team had forwarded an initial news report that said Carson was taking a break from the campaign trail, but did not forward an update to that same story.
“Unfortunately, they did not then forward the subsequent story, that was Ben’s campaign clarifying that he was continuing the campaign and was not canceling the campaign,” Cruz said. “And so I apologize to Ben for that. They should have forwarded that subsequent story. That was a mistake on our part.”
Carson's campaign issued a statement Tuesday evening saying he "accepted" Cruz's apology.
On Tuesday morning, Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler also told MSNBC that the campaign simply repeated what Carson had said: that after Iowa, he was returning to Florida for a couple of days, then going to Washington for the National Prayer Breakfast.
“That told us he was not going to New Hampshire,” Tyler said. “That was not a dirty trick.”
Carson, interviewed earlier on “Fox & Friends,” said that his supporters were told Monday that “voting for me was wasting their vote, and that they should reconsider.”
Carson ended up finishing a distant fourth in Iowa, with 9 percent, while Cruz claimed a big victory over Donald Trump. Cruz, a Texas senator, had 28 percent, and Trump had 24 percent. How much the drop-out rumors may have affected that count is unclear. But the interactive caucus process does offer an opportunity for supporters of one candidate to be persuaded to change sides before casting their ballot.
The usually mild-mannered Carson accused the other side of using the process to execute “dirty tricks.”
“It’s the exact thing the American people are tired of,” he said. “Why would we want to continue with this kind of shenanigans?”
He said his suspicions were also confirmed by tweets, “other correspondence,” and a first-hand experience by his wife at a precinct.
Carson said his wife Candy arrived at the precinct to learn that a Cruz supporter was “disseminating” the misinformation and was asked to set straight the record.
“She did, and we won that precinct,” he said.
One of the tweets, Carson noted, came from Rep. Steve King, a Cruz supporter and an influential Iowa Republican.
King later tweeted that he respects Carson and regrets any "miscommunications."
Carson said if Cruz was unaware of the tactics, then he should find out who was involved and fire them. And if Cruz knew about the effort, he should admit his involvement and “offer a solution,” Carson said.
The Cruz campaign is also taking heat for a “mailer” it sent out to potential voters before caucus night that seemingly accused them of voting violations.
Tyler earlier told MSNBC that Iowans are used to getting similar ones and that the campaign “modeled ours after them.”