The Friday Filibuster: The one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about this week in politics.
Closing Numbers
58% of Republican voters say they like Jeb Bush less after hearing more about him.
6—the number of attacks on Israelis there has been in the past few days.
5—the number of years from now when Christians in the Middle East will be nearly extinct.
3—the number of minutes away from an elementary school the Obama administration may place Gitmo detainees.
75% of Palestinians have “no trust” in Obama to negotiate a peace deal with Israel.
5—the number of federal agencies Sen. Ted Cruz would eliminate if elected president.
3—the number of ‘Pinocchios’ WaPo gave Hillary’s email claim.
81% of military service members want current DoD policy changed to be able to carry concealed weapons on base.
$56.6 billion—the amount of wages gutted by the EPA’s ozone regulations between 2008 and 2013.
GOP Debate, Round 4
The fourth Republican debate on Fox Business actually turned out to be a wonky, intellectual debate among the GOP hopefuls, which the RNC was very pleased with. Guy has the analysis, and here are some stand-out quotes from the evening. At the earlier debate, Huckabee and Jindal sparred and Christie tried to keep the focus on Hillary. Later in the evening Sen. Paul and Donald Trump discussed the TPP deal, Rubio hit Rand for being a ‘committed isolationist,’ and in an apparent reversal, Carson now says he won’t raise the minimum wage. Also noteworthy was Rubio’s comment about how we need more welders and fewer philosophers, hoping to draw some attention to the nation’s growing skills gap, and Carly put forth what her three-page tax code looks like. Many are theorizing that the endgame will come down to Rubio vs. Cruz.
HRC Happenings
First, the emails. The federal investigation into her emails has turned to her cover-up, in other words, looking into new potential felonies over false statements. This whole scandal is ironic considering in 2011 Hillary warned about ‘repeated’ hack attempts against U.S. officials’ private emails.
On the campaign trail, she laughed hysterically this week when a male audience member said he wanted to “strangle” Carly Fiorina, which made the former HP executive a bit upset with the media for failing to be interested in the exchange. There’s talk of a Clinton-McAuliffe ticket (speaking of which, McAuliffe had a pretty awful week in Washington).
A Mess at Mizzou
When it comes to political correctness, racism, and free speech on college campuses, the University of Missouri took the limelight this week and Matt and Katie brought you everything you need to know about what happened. In a nutshell, “students are protesting the university's response to a series of alleged racially charged incidents on campus. The university president resigned after demands for his ousting were made by members of the Mizzou football team, who accused the president of failing to address racial incidents properly.” The saga includes special little snowflakes’ feelings getting hurt, a fecal swastika, a leftist media professor ordering a journalist to leave an area where demonstrators had gathered, African-American Mizzou students self segregating into “black spaces” and then arming themselves with pepper spray and tasers to defend the safe zones, and a few resignations. Other non-scandal scandals of the week include Rubio’s credit card “scandal” and Ben Caron’s West Point explanation.
Foreign Affairs and National Security
The Kurds and Coalition forces launched an offensive against ISIS, which had a pretty awful week. Meanwhile, even Democrats have called out Obama’s incomprehensive Syria strategy. The White House is considering closing Gitmo by executive order, even though they’re not sure that’s constitutional (hint: Obama doesn’t care).
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