New Hampshire Union Leader:
On the same August night that Fox News hosts a much-criticized and limited Republican presidential debate in Cleveland, the Union Leader will host a New Hampshire Presidential Forum in the first primary state.
It will be televised nationally by C-SPAN, which will also broadcast it on radio.
Union Leader Publisher Joseph W. McQuaid said the newspaper has been considering such a forum for some time. He said an open protest letter sent Wednesday to Fox and the Republican National Committee from 56 prominent state Republicans should be a wake-up call to everyone in New Hampshire.
"What Fox is attempting to do, and is actually bragging about doing, is a real threat to the first-in-the-nation primary," McQuaid said. "Fox boasts that it will 'winnow' the field of candidates before New Hampshire gets to do so. That isn't just bad for New Hampshire, it's bad for the presidential selection process by limiting the field to only the best-known few with the biggest bankrolls. Why the RNC and, especially, its New Hampshire representative, Steve Duprey, would defend this and be a party to it is baffling."
Politico:
"Perhaps some of the Fox eligible will prefer a N.H. forum. And, no, I'm unconcerned. Candidates will make their own decisions," McQuaid said.
In a statement, RNC spokesperson Sean Spicer said forums are permitted.
"The RNC has sanctioned 9 debates through February of 2016. Forums where candidates speak directly to an audience one at a time are permitted, but candidates who participated in an unsanctioned debate will not be permitted to participate in any sanctioned debates," Spicer said.
This post has been updated to clarify that the Union Leader plans to hold a candidate forum, not a debate, which would keep participants within RNC guidelines for future official debates.
So on the same night as the Fox debate happens, there'll be a Union Leader sponsored forum. And candidates can choose which to participate in.
This is a recipe for chaos (NH decides, not Fox, says the U-L.) Bet is that Fox will cave. But we'll see.
More politics and policy below the fold.
WaPo:
The airport huddles were just one sign among many of a political operation going off course — disjointed in message and approach, torn between factions and more haphazard than it appeared on the surface. Bush’s first six months as an all-but-declared candidate have been defined by a series of miscalculations, leaving his standing considerably diminished ahead of his formal entry into the race on Monday.
But if you're a regular Daily Kos reader, you knew that. We talk about it nearly every day.
Philip Klein:
Tom Coburn on Jeb Bush: 'His last name will kill 47 percent of the votes'
NBC News:
Despite a heavy push by President Barack Obama for a sweeping multinational trade deal, a majority of Americans echo the concerns of labor unions and a number of Democratic members of Congress that the trade accord will negatively impact U.S. workers and companies.
Two-thirds of Americans say protecting American industries and jobs by limiting imports is more important than allowing free trade so they can buy products at lower prices from any country, according to the most recent NBC News online survey conducted by SurveyMonkey from June 3-5.
And that sentiment is held across party lines, with majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independents agreeing that limiting imported inexpensive goods from other countries to protect jobs from other countries is more important than being able to buy cheap goods.
Survey Monkey! Why, that's almost like a poll. Actually it's an opt-in panel, and while it's not a probability survey, the panels have a
decent track record.
Greg Sargent on Mitch McConnell's plan to deal with SCOTUS fallout should Obamacare be gutted: McConnell’s reply raises a question:
How can Republicans simultaneously argue that the American people must be “protected” from the damage that undoing Obamacare will do — from the damage that will ensue from a Court decision unraveling subsidies that are crucial to the law’s basic functioning — without implicitly conceding that the right response is to reverse the immediate impact of the decision, and cleanly restore the subsidies?
In this interview, McConnell is telegraphing a partial answer to that question. Republicans will argue that the post-King chaos is the fault of the law itself, and not the fault of the Court decision (which Republicans urged on) that is knocking out a key pillar of it. In this telling, the cause of all the damage will be that Obamacare held out the false promise of economic security for millions, in the form of expanded coverage, but that security was then snatched out from under all those people (thanks to Obummer’s incompetence) when the Court clarified what the law actually says. All this is only the latest way in which Obamacare is hurting countless Americans.
That’s pretty damn slick. But it doesn’t answer the question of what Republicans will do in response...
Republicans are in the position of having to agree that the loss of subsidies for millions is a terrible outcome. Yet they are also in a position where restoring them with minimal damage is a non-starter. What to do? As McConnell has telegraphed, while the near-term legislative response is to be determined, the long-term fallback may have to be: blame Obama for the whole mess and hope that spreading confusion about his signature achievement works as well politically for Republicans as it has thus far.
There's a lot written and some planning, even, for this outcome. But what if SCOTUS just says, hey this is stupid, and (in effect) throws the case out? It'll be fun to revisit what the pundits wrote.
NY Times:
For Michelle Obama on Tuesday night, addressing a graduating high school class from the South Side near where she grew up summoned memories and offered a chance to draw lessons from her own upbringing: Never be afraid to ask for help, she told them. Instead of being discouraged by hardship, reach higher.
Michelle Obama spoke at graduation at King College Prep High School in Chicago on Tuesday.Michelle Obama Urges Chicago Graduates to Transcend a TragedyJUNE 9, 2015
At a time of roiling debate over the issues of race and opportunity, punctuated by the events of Ferguson, Mo.; Staten Island; and Baltimore, the nation’s first African-American first lady has added her voice. It is not a new message for her, but one that has taken on special resonance and one delivered with bracing candor in recent speeches. Along the way, Mrs. Obama has opened a window into her own life, not just in Chicago but also in the White House.
The Local (Spain):
The mother and father of the six-year-old who is fighting for his life at the Intensive Care Unit of Barcelona’s Vall de Hebron hospital are “destroyed and feel cheated” by the anti-vaccination movement that convinced them not to immunize their son.
Antoni Mateu, Catalonia’s regional secretary for public health said he had met the parents of the child and they had expressed their regret over their lapse of judgement.
"They are a lovely couple and both feel a terrible sense of guilt," he told a press conference on Friday.
He stressed that no action was planned against the parents, whose names have not been made public, either for failing to vaccinate their child or to hold them accountable for the cost of the treatment or expense of containing the infection.
However, he pledged to pursue offending anti-vaccination platforms who "spread lies and cause confusion" as they persuade people against the state-recommended immunization programme.