The Friday Filibuster: The one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about this week in politics.
Closing Numbers
18% of Americans say government is the country’s No. 1 problem.
20% of U.S. voters trust Fox News “a great deal,” –more so than any other network.
42% of Americans think the Republican senators' letter to Iran was inappropriate.
2 - the number of Ferguson police officers who were shot this week during a protest rally.
6.5 million – The number of Americans over the age of 112 with active Social Security numbers.
56% of GOP primary voters could see themselves voting for Sen. Marco Rubio, coming in above all other potential Republican candidates.
23/23 – The United States’ ranking in math (for millennials) on the OECD’s test, which was given to 23 countries worldwide.
16,000 illegal immigrants will be eligible to receive social security starting in 2017.
Emailgate
Several days after news of Emailgate broke, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a brief press conference to address lingering questions, although she likely made the problem worse. She said she used a personal email account out of convenience, deleted 30,000 personal emails, and that the server in her home contained personal correspondence and will thus remain private. She also noted that many personal emails were communications between herself and her husband, which is curious considering earlier in the day WSJ had a report about how the former president only sent two emails in his life, both while president. She also said that the vast majority of her work emails went to government employees with government addresses and were thus preserved by the State Department. But State has an awful record of properly preserving emails. Moreover, she may have even committed a felony by not turning over the proper documentation prior to leaving her post. Trey Gowdy wants answers, and so do the Associated Press and Judicial Watch.
Recommended
While President Obama claimed to have learned about Emailgate through, you guessed it: news reports, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest admitted that the president had corresponded with the former secretary of state on her personal email.
Foreign Policy
Democrats were up in arms this week over Sen. Tom Cotton’s (and 46 other Republican senators) letter to Iran, reminding them of how our constitutional process works. Even Vice President Joe Biden spoke out, saying what Cotton did was “beneath the dignity of an institution I revere.” Gov. Bobby Jindal was quick to stand up for the senator, a combat veteran, and demanded an apology from the VP. President Obama also chimed in, accusing the Republicans of aligning themselves with Iranian ‘hardliners’ for sending the letter. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, for her part, said the letter was way worse than that time she went to Syria to visit dictator Bashar al-Assad. And regarding Obama’s AUMF request to combat ISIS, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were very skeptical about some of the language used in the proposal.
Gun News
The response to the ATF’s proposal to ban “green tip” ammunition was so overwhelming the agency temporarily pulled its proposal this week. No sooner, however, did some Democrats and the ATF begin looking for ways to revive the ban. In other gun news, President Obama made the ridiculous claim this week that it’s easier in some neighborhoods to buy a gun than it is to purchase a vegetable or book.
In Other News...
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed right to work legislation into law this week; the Utah legislature voted to bring back the firing squad; and U.S. attorneys declined to prosecute illegal immigrants who fraudulently used deceased Americans’ social security numbers for work purposes.
Townhall Exclusives
I had the opportunity to catch up with acclaimed investigate reporter Erick Stakelbeck to talk about his new book, “ISIS Exposed: Beheading, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam.” And Sarah spoke with Steve Deace about his new book, “Rules for Patriots: How Conservatives Can Win Again.”
Graphics by Townhall Graphic Designer Feven Amenu.
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