One-time presidential favorites engage longshot rivals
Parallel political clashes were igniting Sunday in the volatile presidential primary races, as one-time Republican and Democratic favorites battled once-unlikely rivals in their own party over guns and foreign policy ahead of the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses. Fueling the back-and-forth: President Barack Obama‘s address heralding two developments in U.S. relations with Iran as triumphs for “smart” diplomacy. Across the Sunday talk shows hours before their next debate, Hillary Clinton battered Bernie Sanders over his new opposition to a law that shields gun manufacturers from lawsuits. On the Republican side, Donald Trump pounded rival Ted Cruz for not reporting bank loans that Cruz had called an oversight. The Texas senator stuck to his debate sneer that Trump represents “New York values.” And from the margins, far from the front-runner position that was once presumed his, Jeb Bush condemned some of his rivals — especially Trump. “The guy’s entertaining, for sure. But his ideas aren’t gonna help people,” the former two-time Florida governor said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”He’s not going not win the nomination. And I am.” That’s far from clear just two weeks before the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, given the unsettled Republican field and Bush’s fade. But ambiguity rules the Democratic contest too: Sanders, the Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist, was giving former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton a strong challenge in Iowa and New Hampshire. On the eve of the debate, Sanders may have handed Clinton the tool she’s seeking. Sanders on Saturday night abruptly announced he now supports legislation that would expose gun manufacturers to some legal liability. Clinton jumped on the “flip-flop” and said on several Sunday shows that she hopes he changes his mind about other proposals tightening gun policy. Sanders denied he was changing position. In the past, he has said his support for the 2005 was in part an effort to protect small shops in home-state Vermont. The new proposal includes an amendment that would require the government to monitor and report on the law’s effect on small stores that serve the hunting community in rural areas. Among Republicans, as Cruz surged in Iowa, Trump grumbled that the Texas senator is “nasty” and said he would bring up Cruz’s loans that had been unreported. Cruz has said that was an oversight. Even President Barack Obama made an appearance during the Sunday morning shows to highlight back-to-back developments on Iran that he held up as victories: the release of Americans long-held by the Islamic Republic as part of a prisoner swap and the end of some sanctions against Iran as part of nuclear talks. “This is a good day,” Obama said. Republicans said they were glad the hostages were being released, but they cast the tangle of deals and developments as ultimately risky. “A very dangerous precedent,” is how Cruz, who is surging in Iowa, described the agreement’s implementation on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.” ”The result of this, every bad actor on earth has been told, ‘Go capture an American’ … President Obama is in the let’s-make-a-deal business.” Clinton, formerly Obama’s secretary of state, backed the developments but said the U.S. needs to monitor Iran’s behavior on other matters. “If you’re committed to making the world safer and to show strong American leadership, you have to engage in patient, persistent diplomacy with people who are not your friends,” she said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Jeb Bush super PAC attempts to crowdfund Super Bowl ad
The super PAC supporting GOP hopeful Jeb Bush is asking donors to pitch in to fund a Super Bowl advertisement. On Friday, The New York Times reported Mike Murphy, the head or Right to Rise, urged donors in an email to contribute online to air an advertisement supporting Bush in New England during the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is Feb. 7, two days before New Hampshire’s primary on Feb. 9. According to the Times, the email to donors included a link to the website. The organization is looking to raise $300,000 for the advertisement, according to the fundraising campaign’s website. “We need your help to run the first-ever political ad funded by everyday Americans during the 50th anniversary of the BIGGEST sports event of the year,” states the fundraising website. Much like other crowd-sourced sites, the committee is offering donors thank-you gifts for donating. A “super fan” — or someone who gives a $25 donation to the effort — gets a preview of the ad and a Right to Rise USA Big Game Koozie; while someone who gives a $1,000 donation is considered a “coach” and gets an “one-of-a-kind Right to Rise USA gift basket.” Want to be a “MVP?” According to the site that designation is reserved for someone who gives $10,000. Those donors would be invited to a watch party in New Hampshire and would get to attend a strategic briefing with Murphy. As of Sunday afternoon, 176 donors gave a total of $31,717 toward the $300,000 goal. Right to Rise has raised more than $103 million to support Bush’s run for president. The organization has spent more than $61.8 million, according to The Center for Responsive Politics. According to NBC News, Bush and his allies spent $49 million on advertisements through Jan. 9. The committee spent most of that sum, according to the NBC News report.
A roundup of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers
A roundup of Sunday editorials from Alabama’s leading newspapers: The Anniston Star – Getting under Trump’s skin For politicians, the press is an easy target because its defense is the truth and the First Amendment, not bluster and ego. That’s especially the case for aspiring politicians like Donald Trump, who’d rather rough up a reporter’s reputation than deal in facts. As Trump marches toward the Republican presidential primary season, he’s repeatedly shown how he’d deal with people outside his control who don’t follow his script. The press — particularly national reporters covering his campaign — have only one job: fair political coverage. Portraying Trump as he’d prefer isn’t part of the deal. On Friday, a reporter for the New York Times was kicked out of an Iowa campaign event for the New York billionaire and reality-TV star. The reporter, Trip Gabriel, was one of a number of reporters there. Gabriel, however, had written a story the day before that detailed the inner troubles of Trump’s Iowa team. The Times put it on the front page. Trump, apparently, didn’t like it. Thus, Gabriel was shown the door. Gabriel was told it was a private, invitation-only event. The other journalists remained. This is how Trump operates, which is fine; it’s his prerogative to act petulantly. It’s important to note, as well, that Friday wasn’t Trump’s first rodeo with a wayward media outlet during this campaign. Gabriel’s account of his trouble in Iowa included the fact that reporters from the Des Moines Register had been barred from Trump events after that newspaper’s editorial board called for Trump to suspend his campaign. The Birmingham News – 100,000 reasons Mike Hubbard won’t resign as AL House Speaker Mike Hubbard has at least 100,000 reasons not to step down as Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives. With his every action and word scrutinized, Hubbard will use all available legal means to defend himself, and that likely requires him to remain in his powerful post. Hubbard is entitled to his day in court to face the charges against him, and we all know that private legal defense is expensive. Under Alabama law, Hubbard is able to use his campaign funds to pay for legal expenses, and he’d have to be crazy—or independently wealthy—not to do exactly that. The Speaker’s annual campaign finance report tells the story. Hubbard’s largest 2015 campaign expenditures were paying off a $50,000 personal loan he made to the campaign and his legal expenses totaling almost $40,000. More significantly, Speaker Hubbard raised almost $90,000 in a year where he’snot facing election after he was indicted. That was permissible because he had campaign debt (to himself) to repay after his reelection. The Speaker of the House is, by many accounts, the most powerful political office in Alabama. Anyone who wants legislation to move is wise to stay on the Speaker’s good side. That’s a clear fundraising advantage unique to the office. At the same time he made his annual campaign filing, Hubbard also submitted a “major contribution” report for a $100,000 loan he made to his campaign in January of 2016. Think of it as a type of bridge loan. The Decatur Daily – Hits and misses Decatur police deserve credit It’s a rough time to be a police officer. Around the nation, attention increasingly has focused on the use of force by policemen. Sometimes fairly and sometimes not, police have been called out for the use of excessive force. In the midst of the resulting hostility, police still have to go about their jobs: protecting the public and solving crimes. A recent Decatur Daily story profiled the two detectives who bore the brunt of handling Decatur’s five 2015 homicides. As Detective Mike Burleson pointed out, real life detective work bears little resemblance to the TV shows. “There’s no supercomputer with everybody’s fingerprints, DNA, all the girlfriends a person’s ever had and their cellphone records,” Burleson said. “We rely mostly on witnesses and people telling us what they know or saw. It’s nothing like what you see on TV.” It’s high-pressure work that is emotionally and physically draining, and even quick results usually are too slow for an anxious public used to an arrest in one hour, minus commercial breaks. And especially at the Decatur Police Department, it’s work that does not pay well. Sgt. George Silvestri explained why it is worth the effort. “The look on those families’ face and the light in their eyes when we tell them ‘We got ’em’ is why I do this job,” Silvestri said. Staying focused on the job is tough when hostility toward police is running high and Monday morning quarterbacking of split-second decisions is the norm. Kudos to Burleson, Silvestri and their colleagues for their success. Dothan Eagle – No. 16 and its big payoff for Alabama If there’s anything to be said about the University of Alabama’s football team, it’s that the Crimson Tide is a winner. Even many dyed-in-the-wool Auburn fans will admit that there’s something about the team from the other side of the state that exudes success. Perhaps it’s the legacy of Bear Bryant, the iconic coach who led the team to the pinnacle time and again, or the uncanny ability of Nick Saban to set a trajectory that may ultimately set him above the Bear in the annals of the Capstone’s gridiron history. Whatever the logic, it had many people in our state convinced that there was no way on earth that Alabama’s team, even with its loss to Ole Miss on its 2015 record, would travel to Glendale, Arizona, to face an undefeated Clemson team and return without a 16th national championship trophy. They were right: the game was a nail-biter; the Alabama squad prevailed; and the people back home were frenzied. Many would argue that college athletics are irrelevant to life, that academics get short shrift in the shadow of athletic powerhouse schools, and on and on. And while there may be some truth to those arguments, the game reverberates throughout the nation, and the beneficiaries
