The Friday Filibuster: The one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about this week in politics.
Closing Numbers
12: The number of Christians ISIS executed in recent attacks for refusing to renounce faith.
9: The number of people who died in South Carolina’s historic floods.
$20,000: The amount of taxpayer dollars one ATF agent stole after submitting fraudulent work hours.
16% of New Hampshire Republicans would vote for Fiorina, meaning she came in second place and is gaining on Trump.
42%: The amount deportations have dropped since 2012.
30% of Americans still have a ‘very favorable’ view of Planned Parenthood, despite the undercover video investigation.
42% of 18-20 year olds identify as a Democrat, which makes them less liberal than Millennials between the ages of 25-29.
3: The number of swing states surveyed that showed Hillary is both disliked and distrusted.
Gun control
After the mass shooting in Oregon last week Democrats wasted no time in politicizing the tragedy and calling for more gun control. Bloomberg’s anti-gun group pushed Obama to take executive action and Hillary said if she became president she’d totally bypass Congress on gun control if necessary, even though there’s no correlation between gun laws and homicide rates. Too bad the NRA is more popular than her. She also happens to believe the NRA and Iranian terrorists are pretty much the same thing. Meanwhile, the Oregon community rocked by the campus shooting didn’t want Obama there. The father of one of the victims refused to attend the president’s exploitative gun control trip. GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson spoke out about how there needs to be people in schools who are armed and trained to respond more quickly to such scenarios. He also promoted the trend ‘I am a Christian’ after the shooting since the murderer singled out people of the Christian faith in his rampage.
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HRC Happenings
Week by week things never seem to be getting any better for the Democratic frontrunner. She’s doing poorly in polling (see above), and now even trails Trump, Jeb, and Carly in New Hampshire and Iowa. She’s not trusted or liked, and has a big problem with male voters, further highlighting why she’s an awful candidate to begin with. Recognizing her many problems, she attempted to be humorous and relatable, making an appearance on SNL. In a nutshell, she’s struggling to find meaning on the campaign trail.
The email scandal isn’t going away; rather, we learned this week that China, South Korea, and Germany tried to hack her private server, and unauthorized subcontractors stored her emails on the cloud, which faced even more cyberattacks. Moreover, she’s actually getting grilled by the media over it, and “Morning Joe” won’t even have her aides on, at least not until she agrees to appear herself. A Connecticut IT firm may have more of her personal emails so be on the lookout for more.
Chaos on Capitol Hill
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suddenly dropped out of the race for Speaker of the House on Thursday leading to complete disarray in the Republican Party. The decision left Rep. Chaffetz ‘stunned’ and Rep. Paul Ryan ‘disappointed.’ Boehner is confident a new speaker will be elected within weeks but others are less certain. Pressure is mounting on Ryan to join the speaker’s race, while former Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa is considering a bid as well. McCarthy’s decision came after he made disparaging remarks about the Benghazi committee’s work last week, which were ‘disappointing’ to colleagues, and also came the same day a DHS IP address made edits to his Wikipedia page alleging an affair with Rep. Renee Ellmers.
In other news on the Hill this week, House Democrats again tried (and failed) to dissolve the select committee on Benghazi. Gowdy defended the committee’s work and penned a scathing letter to the top Benghazi committee Democrat. A bipartisan House committee was also created this week to investigate Planned Parenthood. And Sen. Tom Cotton blocked three of Obama's ambassador nominees over the Chaffetz Secret Service scandal.
Campaigns & Elections
Vice President Joe Biden reportedly leaked the story about his dying son’s wish to see him run. Meanwhile, Guy overheard some interesting remarks from a longtime Clinton ally absolutely trashing the VP and Sanders. MSNBC weighed in on Fiorina this week, saying she is ‘terrifying’ to Democrats. And up in New Hampshire, Gov. Maggie Hassan will challenge Sen. Kelly Ayotte in 2016.
In other news:
A deal was reached in the Trans-Pacific Partnership; the FBI director warned about ‘gaps’ in the screening of Syrian refugees coming to the U.S.; and the Pentagon has finally scrapped the Syrian rebel training program.
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