Tag Archives: 2016 elections

Jeb Bush: "I’m Not Sure We Need Half a Billion Dollars" for Women’s Health

by gammak Posted on August 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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When he was governor of Florida, Jeb Bush vetoed state funding for Planned Parenthood. He thinks the next president should do the same—at the federal level.

That’s what Bush said Tuesday at the Send North America conference, one of America’s largest evangelical gatherings. He wasn’t done talking about women’s health care, though:

You could take dollar for dollar—although I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars—for women’s health issues, but if you took dollar for dollar, there are many extraordinarily fine community health organizations that exist to provide quality care for women on a wide variety of health issues. But abortion should not be funded by the government.

Reminder: This is what happens when Planned Parenthood is defunded.

UPDATE, Tuesday, August 4, 3:30 p.m. PT (Becca Andrews): Bush later issued a statement that he “misspoke.” It reads: “There are countless community health centers, rural clinics, and other women’s health organizations that need to be fully funded. They provide critical services to all, but particularly low-income women who don’t have the access they need.” He goes on to say that the “half a billion dollars” line only referred to Planned Parenthood.

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Jeb Bush: "I’m Not Sure We Need Half a Billion Dollars" for Women’s Health

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Here’s Donald Trump’s Cell Phone Number

by IlanaEbersbache Posted on August 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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Two weeks after publicly releasing a Republican presidential rival’s cell phone number, Donald Trump got his comeuppance on Monday.

Gawker’s Sam Biddle published Trump’s phone number in a story, responding to Trump’s public reading of Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone number during a campaign speech in South Carolina on July 21. Biddle argued that the release of Graham’s number was important to maintaining open and direct channels of communication between voters and candidates, and felt that Trump should be held to a similar standard.

But before you pull out your own phone and start dialing, remember that the billionaire is hardly the type to limit himself to a single number.

“It’s a very old number,” a Trump campaign spokesperson told Mother Jones. “This is not one he uses. Mr. Trump has several numbers so he has not experienced any issues.”

It remains to be seen which pyrotechnic method Trump will use to destroy his outed phone in response.

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Here’s Donald Trump’s Cell Phone Number

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4 Years Ago Scott Walker Promised This Woman He’d Bust Wisconsin’s Unions

by ElenaStallcup Posted on July 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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The super-PAC backing Scott Walker has many wealthy backers, but its single biggest contributor is Diane Hendricks, who ponied up $5 million. A billionaire through the roofing supply business she and her late husband founded, Hendricks has been one of Walker’s top benefactors since he first ran for governor. In 2012, Hendricks was the biggest donor to Walker’s campaign to stave off a union-led recall effort, and now she’s stepped up for him again. Out of the $20 million raised by the pro-Walker group Unintimidated PAC, 25 percent came from Hendricks.

If there was any question that Walker and Hendricks are on the same page, here’s a video of the two chatting in 2011 shortly after he took office.

“Good to see you!” Walker says, dashing through the door and hugging Hendricks and kissing her on the cheek.

Hendricks asks Walker about the possibility of turning Wisconsin into a “completely red state”.

“Oh, yeah,” Walker responds, going on to lay out his “divide and conquer” strategy for attacking public sector unions.

Despite her massive contribution, Hendricks still has some close competition as the group’s biggest funder. Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder and Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts, gave $4.9 million. And Joe Ricketts himself tossed in another $100,000.

Richard Uihlein and his wife Elizabeth, the founder and president of Illinois box company Uline, respectively, gave $2.5 million to the super-PAC as well.

Rounding out the list of seven-figure donors was Access Industries, a New York City holding company run by Len Blavatnik. Blavatnik is a Ukranian-born businessman who in April was named the “richest man in Britain” with an estimated net worth of $20.1 billion. Blavatnik, who is a US citizen, is also known for his lavish donations to universities including Oxford and Tel Aviv University. On Thursday, the super-PAC supporting Lindsey Graham reported receiving $500,000 from Blavatnik’s company.

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4 Years Ago Scott Walker Promised This Woman He’d Bust Wisconsin’s Unions

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Four Years Ago Scott Walker Promised This Woman He’d Bust Wisconsin’s Unions

by PVUMorris370 Posted on July 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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The super-PAC backing Scott Walker has many wealthy backers, but its single biggest contributor is Diane Hendricks, who ponied up $5 million. A billionaire through the roofing supply business she and her late husband founded, Hendricks has been one of Walker’s top benefactors since he first ran for governor. In 2012, Hendricks was the biggest donor to Walker’s campaign to stave off a union-led recall effort, and now she’s stepped up for him again. Out of the $20 million raised by the pro-Walker group Unintimidated PAC, 25 percent came from Hendricks.

If there was any question that Walker and Hendricks are on the same page, here’s a video of the two chatting in 2011 shortly after he took office.

“Good to see you!” Walker says, dashing through the door and hugging Hendricks and kissing her on the cheek.

Hendricks asks Walker about the possibility of turning Wisconsin into a “completely red state.”

“Oh, yeah,” Walker responds, going on to lay out his “divide and conquer” strategy for attacking public sector unions.

Despite her massive contribution, Hendricks still has some close competition as the group’s biggest funder. Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder and Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts, gave $4.9 million. And Joe Ricketts himself tossed in another $100,000.

Richard Uihlein and his wife Elizabeth, the founder and president of Illinois box company Uline, respectively, gave $2.5 million to the super-PAC as well.

Rounding out the list of seven-figure donors was Access Industries, a New York City holding company run by Len Blavatnik. Blavatnik is a Ukranian-born businessman who in April was named the “richest man in Britain” with an estimated net worth of $20.1 billion. Blavatnik, who is a US citizen, is also known for his lavish donations to universities including Oxford and Tel Aviv University. On Thursday, the super-PAC supporting Lindsey Graham reported receiving $500,000 from Blavatnik’s company.

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Four Years Ago Scott Walker Promised This Woman He’d Bust Wisconsin’s Unions

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Meet the Megadonors Bankrolling Jeb Bush’s Campaign

by pinfamozpa Posted on July 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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Jeb Bush knows it doesn’t look good if a candidate appears to get most of his financial support from a small group of wealthy donors. Earlier this spring, he asked donors to try not to give checks of more than $1 million to his super-PAC, and when the group announced its total haul for the first six months of the year, it took pains to emphasize that 9,400 of its more than 9,900 contributors had donated less than $25,000.

But now it’s going to be a lot harder for anyone to think of the Bush super-PAC—which completely dwarfs his campaign in terms of financial resources—as anything but driven by extremely wealthy donors.

This morning, the Right to Rise super-PAC filed its first disclosure reports, confirming that it had indeed raised $103 million in the first six months of the year. That is an unprecedented amount, but what’s really news is the distribution of the donations. It does appear that only about 500 donors gave more than $25,000 to the super-PAC, but donations of less than $25,000 accounted for just $21.7 million of the total. On the other end of the spectrum, 23 people gave more than $1 million to the super-PAC, contributing a total of $27.3 million.

The size of the donations is shocking. Despite the growing public perception that super-PACs are playgrounds for millionaires, the number of people who have ever given $1 million to political causes in their lifetimes is small. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan campaign finance organization (where I used to work), prior to this election cycle, just 475 individuals had ever given $1 million or more cumulatively since 1989, when it began keeping track of the data. Given the seven-figure donations that have already been reported for other super-PACs in the last week, the number is probably well over 500 people now, and the Right to Rise super-PAC is responsible for many of them.

The fact that only about 0.04 percent of Americans gave more than $2,600 last election cycle means that even most of the donors who gave less than $25,000 were already elite in terms of political donations. But with these latest numbers, even the under-$25,000 contributors begins to look like small donors by comparison.

Among Bush’s top donors are people with an interest in some of the top foreign policy debates right now. Miguel Fernandez, a private equity executive who chipped in $3 million, the largest contribution to the super-PAC, was a refugee from Cuba. Bush has slammed President Obama’s rapprochement with the Castro regime. Hushang Ansary was the Iranian ambassador to the US before the Iranian Revolution; he and his wife each donated $1 million. Bush has likewise opposed Obama’s nuclear-containment deal with Iran.

The list of top donors has some expected names, the dependable rainmakers who have long fueled the Bush family. Included among the top donors are big Texas names like oilmen T. Boone Pickens and Ray Hunt, as well as the widow of Harold Simmons, a Dallas chemical magnate who is one of the largest political donors of all time and who was a major source of money for Karl Rove’s various fundraising efforts over the years.

There are also a number of donors who are not people—something that could not have happened before the super-PAC era, or at least not on the same scale. NextEra Energy, Florida’s electric utility, donated $1 million to the super-PAC. That donation itself is unusual, given that publicly traded corporations have tended to avoid giving money to super-PACs, though they may legally do so after the Citizens United court decision in 2010. The US Sugar Corporation Charitable Trust donated $505,000—possibly a first for charities, which are generally excluded from involving themselves in politics.

Not all of the corporate donors are quite as transparent. One $1 million donation came from a shell corporation called Jasper Reserve LLC. On the disclosure forms, the company lists a Charleston, West Virginia address belonging to a law firm that has represented numerous coal companies over the years. The company appears to be registered in Delaware, effectively blocking any information about who founded it or runs it.

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Meet the Megadonors Bankrolling Jeb Bush’s Campaign

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The State Department Is About to Ruin Reporters’ Weekend Plans With Another Clinton Email Dump

by ElliotLockhart Posted on July 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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Are you a reporter working the Hillary Clinton beat? Hope you didn’t have plans for Friday evening, because chances are you’ll be spending a late night at the office going through thousands of new Clinton emails on the US State Department’s clunky Freedom of Information Act site. The agency confirmed to Mother Jones that the next batch of emails from her time as secretary of state is due to be released tomorrow. Subsequent batches will be released on the last business day of the month.

The emails slated for release are part of the more than 55,000 pages of correspondence that the Democratic presidential candidate turned over to the State Department and that had been stored on her private email server. A federal judge ruled in May that the agency had to make the emails public on a rolling basis as it vetted them for sensitive information instead of releasing the whole trove of messages in January 2016, as the agency had originally proposed. Shortly after the ruling, about 300 emails were released in May, and another 1,900 were released at the end of June.

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The State Department Is About to Ruin Reporters’ Weekend Plans With Another Clinton Email Dump

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Hillary Clinton Refuses to Take a Position on the Keystone Pipeline

by Stephanj0r Posted on July 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton took a strong stance on clean energy Monday, telling a crowd in Des Moines, Iowa, that her efforts to tackle climate change would parallel President John F. Kennedy’s call to action during the space race in the 1960s.

“I want to get the country back to setting big ambitious goals,” Clinton said. “I want us to get back into the future business, and one of the best ways we can do that is to be absolutely ready to address the challenge of climate change and make it work to our advantage economically.”

Her remarks tracked closely with an ambitious plan her campaign released Sunday night, which set a target of producing enough renewable energy to power all the nation’s homes and businesses by 2027.

“America’s ability to lead the world on this issue hinges on our ability to act ourselves,” she said. “I refuse to turn my back on what is one of the greatest threats and greatest opportunities America faces.”

Still, the Democractic front-runner refused—as she has several times before—to say whether or not she supports construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. That project, which would carry crude oil from Canada’s tar sands to refineries and ports in the United States, is seen by many environmentalists as a blemish on President Barack Obama’s climate record. It has been stalled for years in a lengthy State Department review that began when Clinton was still Secretary of State. The Obama administration has resisted several recent attempts by Congress to force Keystone’s approval, but it has yet to make a final decision on the project—although one is expected sometime this year.

“I will refrain from commenting on Keystone XL, because I had a leading role in getting that process started, and we have to let it run its course,” Clinton said, in response to a question from an audience member.

Her non-position on Keystone earned derision from environmentalist Bill McKibben, whose organization 350.org has been at the forefront of opposition to the pipeline.

“I think it’s bogus,” he said in an email. “Look, the notion that she can’t talk about it because the State Dept. is still working on it makes no sense. By that test, she shouldn’t be talking about Benghazi or Iran or anything else either. The more she tries to duck the question, the more the whole thing smells.”

Clinton also punted on an audience request to reveal further details of how exactly she would finance the renewable energy targets she announced yesterday, which aim even higher than those already put in place by Obama. She reiterated that one key step would be to ensure the extension of federal tax credits for wind and solar energy that have expired or are set to expire over the next few years. And she said that she would continue Obama’s practice of pursuing aggressive climate policies from within the White House, saying that “we still have a lot we can do” without waiting for a recalcitrant Congress to act.

Clinton acknowledged that the clean energy boom would come at a cost for the US coal industry, which is already in steep decline. She said she would “guarantee that coal miners and their families get the benefits they’ve earned,” but didn’t elaborate on what she meant or how specifically she would achieve that.

Environmental groups offered a generally positive reaction to Clinton’s policy announcement Sunday. In a statement, League of Conservation Voters vice president Tiernan Sittenfield commended her for “calling out climate change deniers and effectively illustrating the urgent need to act on a defining issue of our time.” She also earned praise from billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, who has set a high bar on climate action for any candidate who wants to tap his millions.

“I refuse to let those who are deniers to rip away all the progress we’ve made and leave our country exposed to climate change,” Clinton said.

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Hillary Clinton Refuses to Take a Position on the Keystone Pipeline

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Texas Poised to Let An Unfairly Prosecuted Person Walk, For Once

by MarieMawby Posted on July 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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The number of criminal charges against Rick Perry has been cut in half, thanks to a Texas court. On Friday, reports the Houston Chronicle, the 3rd Court of Appeals tossed out the charge that the former Texas governor and GOP hopeful had coerced a public official. In effect, the court said Perry was free to trash-talk Texas officials as much as he pleased, even if it meant encouraging one of those officials—the Travis County District Attorney—to leave office.

Perry’s legal troubles date back to a line-item veto he signed in 2013, erasing $7.5 million that had been designated for the Public Integrity Unit in the Travis County District Attorney’s office—a small group tasked with investigating corruption in the state’s political class. At the time, Perry claimed the Integrity Unit could no longer be trusted to fulfill those duties after the district attorney had remained in office following her arrest for drunk driving. (She had also been caught on camera trying to exploit her office to get out of the arrest.) Perry has been accused of overstepping his authority as governor by explicitly tying that veto to his desire to see the district attorney—a locally elected official—removed from office.

His use of the line-item veto is still under review. While the court sided with Perry on one count, it wasn’t ready to dismiss the entire case. Perry still faces one felony indictment for abusing his powers as governor by zeroing out the budget for the state’s corruption watchdog.

Read more about the history of the charges against Perry here.

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Texas Poised to Let An Unfairly Prosecuted Person Walk, For Once

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Jeb Bush Wants to Eliminate All Energy Subsidies

by TereseHeathersha Posted on July 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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The federal government spends several billion dollars each year subsidizing the oil and gas industry. These tax breaks are extremely unpopular with the American public, but they have considerable support from congressional Republicans, who have opposed the Obama administration’s efforts to eliminate them. So it was a bit surprising when video surfaced yesterday of GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush calling for an end to all energy subsidies, including for wind, solar, and oil and gas. You can watch it above. As the National Journal reported:

“I think we should phase out, through tax reform, the tax credits for wind, for solar, for the oil and gas sector, for all that stuff,” Bush said in New Hampshire on Wednesday, according to a video recorded by grassroots environmental group 350 Action.

“I don’t think we should pick winners and losers,” Bush added, saying: “I think tax reform ought to be to lower the rate as far as you can and eliminate as many of these subsidies, all of the things that impede the ability for a dynamic way to get to where we need to get, which is low-cost energy that is respectful of the environment.”…

When pressed by the activist on whether he would get rid of all fossil-fuel subsidies, Bush replied: “All of them. Wind, solar, all renewables, and oil and gas.”

Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies has long been a goal of environmentalists and climate activists, but if Bush’s proposal were to become law, the subsidy-dependent renewable energy industry would take a hit as well. Quantifying energy subsidies is a bit complicated, but according to one measure from the Energy Information Administration, renewables received upward of $15 billion in government support in 2013, compared to just $2.3 billion for oil and gas and $1.1 billion for coal. The wind and solar power industries received $5.3 billion and $5.9 billion, respectively.

As Andy Kroll explained in a Mother Jones magazine story last year, the relatively recent clean energy subsidies are much more defensible than the oil tax breaks, which have been enshrined in the tax code for decades. “The difference is that renewables are at the stage where oil was a century ago: a promising yet not fully developed technology that needs a government boost to come to scale,” Kroll wrote. “That’s what motivated the original tax giveaways to what would become Big Oil.” The wind industry in particular has relied on a federal tax incentive called the Production Tax Credit. Congress has allowed it to expire several times in recent years, and in each instance, wind investment has plummeted. The PTC expired again at the end of last year.

Michael Dworkin, an environmental law professor at Vermont Law School, praised Bush’s comments. “If he really means it, great,” said Dworkin in an email. “Just lets be sure that it’s ALL of the traditional energy subsidies, not just a few symbolic ones.”

I also reached out to various energy industry groups to get their reaction. The American Wind Energy Association, which is calling for the PTC to be renewed, declined to comment. But the Alliance for Solar Choice, which represents rooftop solar companies such as SolarCity, embraced Bush’s proposal. “Bush is right—we shouldn’t pick winners and losers,” said TASC spokesperson Evan Dube in statement. Of course, the solar industry isn’t ready to disarm unilaterally. “We would welcome the phase out of all energy incentives,” added Dube, “but until that happens, the solar ITC Investment Tax Credit goes a small way to level the playing field against decades of fossil fuel subsidies.”

The American Petroleum Institute didn’t respond to requests for comment.

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Jeb Bush Wants to Eliminate All Energy Subsidies

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Jeb Bush Stiffs Christian Group on Poverty Video

by FranciscoErickso Posted on July 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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More than 100 Christian leaders from the right and the left working under the umbrella group Circle of Protection recently asked all of the presidential candidates to make a three-minute video answering this question: “What would you do as president to offer help and opportunity to hungry and poor people in the United States and around the world?” Ben Carson, Bernie Sanders, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Carly Fiorina each responded with videos specifically produced for this project that to varying degrees answer the question. Jeb Bush replied by sending the group a stock campaign ad.

The non-Bush videos are mostly mediocre in production value and content. The Republican candidates couch most of their rhetoric in religious terms, suggesting that they would encourage families and churches take care of their own, with no help from the government. Cruz, in an awkward video, talks directly to the camera to declare the War on Poverty an abject failure. He promises to “reward” Americans who give money to Christian ministries. Fiorina barely manages to eke out a whole minute talking about the subject, but she works in lots of references to God. Carson suggests that big US agricultural companies working in Cameroon hold the key to helping the hungry. Sanders’ video is low-budget but at least presents specific proposals, including funding infrastructure improvements to put people to work. Huckabee’s video shows his childhood home in Hope, Arkansas. He vows to protect Medicare and Social Security.

Jeb Bush didn’t bother to cut a video for the Circle of Protection, which includes the National Association of Evangelicals. Instead, he sent in the “Making a Difference” video he released last month to “introduce himself to the nation” before officially announcing his presidential campaign. The spot has high production values, music, and lots of other people talking: the mother of a developmentally disabled child; a formerly battered woman; a kid who got a private school voucher. It’s easier to watch than Cruz’s. But it’s just a campaign ad.

Chris Ford, media relations manager for Bread for the World, one of the founders of the Circle of Protection, says that the group is not commenting on the individual videos and is “letting the voters decide” what to think. More videos, which will be circulated to churches across the country, are expected in the next week or so from Hillary Clinton, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Martin O’Malley and Rand Paul. Ford says that the group has reached out to Donald Trump, but he hasn’t responded to its requests.

You can watch the Bush video here:

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Jeb Bush Stiffs Christian Group on Poverty Video

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