October 2, 2015


News Clips For The Day


ROSEBURG SHOOTER – THREE ARTICLES


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/oregon-shooting-umpqua-community-college-gunman-chris-harper-mercers-family-speaks-out/

Gunman's family reacts to Oregon massacre
CBS NEWS
October 2, 2015


TORRANCE, Calif. --The man suspected of opening fire on a college campus and killing nine people in Oregon had ties to Torrance and relatives in Tarzana, California, CBS Los Angeles reported.

Two law enforcement sources told CBS News that Chris Harper Mercer, 26, was the man who opened fire at Umpqua Community College. He died after exchanging gunfire with responding officers.

Carmen Nesnick, the stepsister of Mercer, said he was born in the United Kingdom and traveled to the United States as a young boy.

"I'm actually still shaking and my mom is in there crying. I don't know what to do," said Nesnick, who said that Mercer's father, who lives in Tarzana, married her mother a few years ago.

She says the last time she spoke with Mercer was about a year ago. Even though they had met only a few times, Nesnick described him as "caring and supportive."

"All he ever did was put everybody before himself. He wanted everyone to be happy. No matter if he was sad or mad, he would always try to cheer up everybody," she said.

Nesnick said her stepbrother was not a religious nor anti-religious person and that her family is Christian.

"I am just as shocked as anybody at what happened today," said Ian Mercer, the suspect's father.

"I can't answer any questions right now. I don't want to answer any questions right now. Obviously, it's been a devastating day, devastating for me and my family," he said.

Meanwhile, Bronte Hart, who lived below Mercer in the community of Winchester, told the Associated Press that Mercer would "sit by himself in the dark in the balcony with this little light."

Hart, who said Mercer "seemed really unfriendly," told the AP that a woman she believed to be Mercer's mother also lived upstairs and was "crying her eyes out" Thursday night.

Posts on an online blog that appears to belong to Mercer reference multiple shootings, including one in Virginia in August that left a television news reporter and cameraman dead. The last upload on the blog was Wednesday. when a documentary about the Newtown shooting was posted.

In one post on the blog about Vester Flanagan, the man who killed the reporter and cameraman in Virginia, Mercer apparently wrote, "I have noticed that so many people like [Flanagan] are alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems like the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight."





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-and-the-mental-health-connection/

Mass shootings and the mental health connection
By JONATHAN LAPOOK CBS NEWS
October 1, 2015

Video -- CBS NEWS with Scott Pelley


The cause of the shooting at a community college in Oregon on Thursday is not yet known, but often mental illness is part of it.

The American College of Physicians says gun violence is not only a criminal justice issue, but a public health threat, as well. In many cases, it is also a mental health issue.

CBS News' Chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook reports that when it comes to mental illness, early intervention helps, but even then, often access to care is difficult.

There's currently a pilot program at Children's National Medical Center in D.C. that began in May.

Pediatricians and school counselors are trained to identify mental illness and then call child and adolescent psychiatrists for help.

To learn more about the program and what it does, watch the video above.




MENTAL HEALTH – “The American College of Physicians says gun violence is not only a criminal justice issue, but a public health threat, as well. In many cases, it is also a mental health issue. …. There's currently a pilot program at Children's National Medical Center in D.C. that began in May. Pediatricians and school counselors are trained to identify mental illness and then call child and adolescent psychiatrists for help. …. To learn more about the program and what it does, watch the video above.”

I’m very glad to see that professionals who are in contact with children and teens are being trained to spot signs of mental illness, which can take on a number of different forms. I have most often heard about autism, ADHD, and depression. Such children may be bullied unmercifully on high school campuses and outside them, and too often teachers just don’t step in and stop that immediately, and may even blame the victim. Schools have become a no man’s land in many cities.

The teen years are usually a time of a “normal” level of emotional imbalance as the kids of both sexes are going through the natural hormonal changes of growing up, but they are also very much subject during that time to more serious feelings of social disaffection or emotional withdrawal. They want to be accepted by people but may be too shy or timid to blend with their peers in a way that will keep them from being bullied or simply shunned by some, especially if there are highly divisive social class elements in the school of race or wealth, and young people like that may have some highly negative views on authority figures or people of other races. Scattered among that group of young people are individuals with schizophrenia or other severe illness that tends to get worse with age or under social or school pressure. Then one day the child decides to take a gun to school and take vengeance against his enemies. Sometimes they have literally “snapped,” and other times they have planned it for months. This situation at Rosewood is such a case.

In this case he disliked Christians and “organized religion” of all kinds. I don’t like fundamentalist religion, but I do believe that the more liberal religious groups do a great deal of good for society, and I certainly am not moved to kill anyone over their opinions. Mercer also was highly involved with the IRA, which haven’t been in the news recently but were in the 1990s and for many years before. Both Mercer and his father were originally from the UK, one video said, and when his father spoke on camera he had what sounded to me like an Irish accent. The main connection I see in that with this killing is the severe violence of IRA members before they made a peace agreement with the UK government, and if he’s poring over their history, he was involved with some very violent material. I have always personally liked the Irish people I’ve met, and indeed am descended from them, but I don’t like their inherent tendency to be in fights. He was also interested in White Supremacy groups whose violence is legendary. He seems to have been steeped in hatred and rage, probably “stifled it” to avoid getting into trouble, and one day just boiled over. See the comments about him in the other two articles posted. He gave the appearance of being unusually conciliatory – that was very likely due to an inability to deal with conflict and possibly a fear of being injured. There may have been violence within his home, I think, as with many American families.

We get quite upset whenever there is a shooting like this one and understandably so, but violence among young people is far more common than just those high profile shooting cases, and it should not be discounted as a cause for concern. I believe violent young people should be given mental health treatment rather than simply arresting them. Gang violence is also caused by poor mental health. Young people who are full of anger and don’t “fit in” frequently join street gangs for the group security they find there, and then end up in jail. It’s not an accident, but a result.

They need some mental health counseling and possibly appropriate drugs, but too often don’t get it. Many parents simply don’t see there children as having any real problems, especially if they are in the habit of punishing their kids harshly rather than maintaining a close talking relationship with them. That is not only less effective in “reforming” the young person, but it often brings out chronic fear and anger to make their behavior worse and worse. Many adults have little insight into their own thoughts and emotions, and even less so into those of their children, so they rarely just “talk to them” like Sheriff Andy Taylor with Opie, but threaten them with violence. If a pediatrician points out to the parent that their child needs professional help, as the Children's National Medical Center in D.C. mentioned above recommends, they are more likely to pay closer attention to the matter, and perhaps even agree to go to Family Counseling with a psychological professional rather than merely a church minister.

One of the main enemies of good mental health in this country is Fundamentalist religion of any kind, not usually just because of its specific tenets, but because of the closed-minded and often harsh thinking patterns of their members. Many of these shooters turn out to be religious radicals, especially in the killing of abortion doctors and the Islamic killers of the last year or so here in this country and in France. The dogmas of religion are so often taken as a substitute for good thinking, gentleness and self-knowledge, that such people believe that their actions are not only justified, but a “call from God.” I personally consider people like that to be either less than normally intelligent or psychotic, and there have been more of them during the last ten or fifteen years since 9/11.

This killer had a different twist on religion, though he was killing Christians, he wasn’t affiliated with any religion and posted anti-religious comments on the Internet. He also was highly involved with guns, as most of these people are and had a collection. The following MSN article gives a great deal of detail about Mercer and his background and also about the shooting as it progressed.



http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-shooter-said-to-have-singled-out-christians-for-killing-in-%e2%80%98horrific-act-of-cowardice%e2%80%99/ar-AAf2dui?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=iehp

Oregon shooter said to have singled out Christians for killing in ‘horrific act of cowardice’
The Washington Post
By Eli Saslow, Sarah Kaplan and Joseph Hoyt
October 2, 2015


ROSEBURG, Ore. — Investigators including cyber-experts and hate crime specialists peered Friday into the life of a 26-year-old gunman whose massacre across an Oregon campus may have been driven by religious rage and a fascination with the twisted notoriety of high-profile killers.

What is known so far about the attacker — identified by a U.S. law enforcement official as Chris Harper Mercer — appear only as loose strands that suggested an interest in firearms and the infamy gained by mass shooters.

Witnesses also said he seemed to seek specific revenge against Christians, and police examined Web posts that hinted of wider antipathy toward organized faith.

But authorities still struggled to build a clearer picture at what drove the California-raised Mercer to stalk rural Umpqua Community College — armed with three pistols and a semiautomatic rifle — and methodically pick off students and professors Thursday on the fourth day of the fall semester.

At the end, nine people were dead, plus Mercer, and the college joined the mournful roster of America’s mass shooting sites.

[Shooter left behind online portrait of a lonely youth with a grudge]

At least 10 others were admitted for treatment at the Mercy Medical Center, said the chief medical officer, Jason Gray, on Friday. Three patients were transferred to larger facilities for more intensive care, he added.


“The days and weeks ahead will be the most challenging” as the small community copes with the aftermath, Gray said.

The names of those killed and wounded were not yet released nor would Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin name the shooter publicly, more out of rage than discretion. “I will not name the shooter,” he said at a news conference Thursday night. “I will not give him credit for this horrific act of cowardice. Media will get the name confirmed in time … but you will never hear us use it.”

A gofundme fundraising page was started for one man believed to be a victim of the shooting, Christopher Mintz, an Army veteran who was shot seven times. The page, which includes a photo of Mintz lying in a hospital bed, was established by a man who identified himself as Derek Bourgeois, a cousin of Mintz’s. Bourgeois said he grew up with Mintz in Randleman, N.C.

Relatives told CNN that Mintz tried to block the door of a classroom and was shot three times. When the shooter made his way in, Mintz told them that Thursday was his son’s sixth birthday and was shot at least twice more. Mintz was wounded in the back, stomach, hands and legs, according to the report.

The gofundme page says that “yesterday my cousin Chris Mintz was shot 7 times while trying to protect others from the gunman at Umpqua Community College.” It adds that “during the shooting both of his legs were broken and he is going to have to go through a ton of physical therapy.”

The transition from the anonymity of “before” to the notoriety of “after” took just about 10 terrifying minutes, during which the shooter strode through a school building armed with three pistols and a semiautomatic rifle. Clad in a dark shirt and jeans, driven by a motive that is still unknown, he methodically sprayed bullets into classrooms full of students, who hid behind desks and desperately tried to block doors that didn’t lock.

In one classroom, he appeared to single out Christian students for killing, according to witness Anastasia Boylan.

“He said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,'” Boylan’s father, Stacy, told CNN, relaying his daughter’s account while she underwent surgery to treat a gunshot to her spine.

“And then he shot and killed them.”

Another account came from Autumn Vicari, who described to NBC News what her brother J.J. witnessed in the room where the shootings occurred. According to NBC: “Vicari said at one point the shooter told people to stand up before asking whether they were Christian or not. Vicari’s brother told her that anyone who responded ‘yes’ was shot in the head. If they said ‘other’ or didn’t answer, they were shot elsewhere in the body, usually the leg.”

The violence stopped only after authorities exchanged gunfire with Mercer. At 10:47 a.m. local time Thursday, the end was announced over the police scanner: The suspect was down.

The scraps of information about Mercer uncovered so far did not fit together easily and much remained unconfirmed, including reports that he had forecast some act of violence in Oregon in a dark corner of the Internet known as 4chan, a report being investigated by federal authorities, according to the New York Times. But a murky portrait was emerging of a quiet and withdrawn young man who struggled to connect with other people, instead seeking attention online, and who harbored anger against organized religion.

Thursday’s rampage was the latest in a series of mass shootings that have produced national revulsion, even as they have left Republicans and Democrats divided over whether such violence should lead to stricter gun laws. The campus shootings came three months after nine people were gunned down at a historic African American church in Charleston, S.C.

One group that tracks gun violence, the Mass Shooting Tracker, said it was the 294th death or injury from a shooting involving four or more people in the United States this year — a rate of more than one victim a day.

School shootings have figured prominently in this series of tragedies, including the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings and the deaths of 20 children in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

From Washington, a visibly frustrated President Obama offered prayers for the victims and their families and quickly pivoted to repeat his call for stricter gun-safety laws, something he has done throughout his presidency to no avail.

“Each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough,” he said. “It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. It does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America.”

But in Douglas County, a rural region where hunting is popular and crime rates are low, support for gun rights is strong.

“I carry to protect myself — the exact same reason this happened,” Casey Runyan, a disabled Marine Corps veteran who now lives in the area, told the Associated Press. He told the AP he brings a Glock-29 pistol wherever he goes.

Hanlin, the Douglas County sheriff, sent a letter to Vice President Biden in 2013, after the shootings in Newtown renewed the debate about gun control. Hanlin said that proposed restrictions would be “irresponsible and an indisputable insult to the American people,” and he and his deputies would refuse to enforce them.

For Thursday night, at least, attention was mainly on the victims. In a ritual that has repeated itself many times in other places over the past few years, people gathered at the Douglas County Fairgrounds where evacuees from the school had been taken to meet their families. With darkness falling, the site of reunions became a base for an anxious vigil. A chaplain led a group prayer. Families missing a member clung to one another. Friends stood by and struggled to stave off dread.

“It’s agonizing to be here and just wait,” said Sarah Cobb, 17, a UCC student who had survived the shooting by ducking under her desk but was still waiting to hear about some of her classmates and friends.

“The longer people sit in there, the more they know it is going to be bad,” she said, referring to a gathering of investigators and FBI agents in a small building at the fairgrounds. “But you’re just praying and hoping that it’s not.”

[Grief and uncertainty at the vigil: ‘Pretty much just total shock’]

All day Thursday, local and federal law enforcement officials swarmed Umpqua’s small campus, a modest collection of about a dozen buildings largely unprotected by gates or walls.

Umpqua, one of 17 community colleges in Oregon, has about 2,000 students and about 200 full- and part-time faculty members. Federal data suggests Umpqua is a quiet campus; the only crimes reported there in recent years have been an occasional burglary and, in 2013, an aggravated assault.

After a 2006 incident in which one student was shot by another at Roseburg High School, local institutions — including UCC — hired security guards, according to the Eugene Register-Guard. Those security guards are unarmed, interim college President Rita Calvin told the newspaper. The campus is a gun-free zone.

Investigators also fanned out across two states where Mercer lived, questioning family members and former neighbors, sifting through social media postings and obscure Internet forums in search of some clues about what happened, and why.

Public records showed no previous brushes with law enforcement by Mercer. Social media accounts attributed to him, including a MySpace page and an online dating profile, offer hints of his interests — the Irish Republican Army, punk rock music, an antipathy toward religion — but little real insight.

According to reports, authorities are investigating a conversation on the message board 4chan posted Wednesday evening. The site is notorious for staging online hoaxes, in addition to cat memes, hackings and Internet attacks. But the conversation, if authentic, appears to show a gunman’s plans for a shooting. “Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest,” the post reads.

Mercer grew up in California, where he attended the Switzer Learning Center for students with disabilities. Rick Rada, a former classmate, recalled Mercer as quiet, cheerful and non-violent.

“To me Chris was just an ordinary guy, really. He was one of the silent types like me,” Rada told The Washington Post. “… But we got along with our teachers. He opened up with the teachers, talked to them, had fun.”

Former neighbors in Torrance, Calif., a beachside city just south of Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times that Mercer liked to practice target shooting and tended to act “anxious or nervous,” as Rosario Espinoza put it. He and his mother, Laurel Harper, mostly kept to themselves, except for occasional disputes over bugs or loud noises. Espinoza’s mother, Rosario Lucumi, recalled thinking it “strange” that Harper referred to her son as “baby.”

[Umpqua, Ore.: Where unemployment is high and gun rights are precious]

Mercer moved to Oregon with his mother a year or two ago, according to public records. It’s not clear if and how he may have been affiliated with Umpqua Community College, though a student told CNN that she took a theater class with Mercer, and a “Chris Harper-Mercer” is listed as a production assistant on the Facebook page of a UCC fall show.

His father, Ian Mercer, still lives in Los Angeles. He stepped outside his home there briefly on Thursday night to say that he had spent the day speaking with law enforcement and could not answer questions about his son or the shooting.

“Shocked is all I can say,” he told reporters. “It’s been a devastating day.”

Gloria Buhring, a neighbor at the Winchester, Ore., apartment complex where Mercer appeared to have lived, said police officers swarmed the area Thursday, blocking much of the complex off with police tape.

Buhring didn’t know Mercer. But on Wednesday, she returned home to find a previously empty dumpster “overflowing with stuff that looked like it had been moved from an apartment,” she told The Washington Post. “It looked like somebody had gotten rid of a lot of stuff and left.”

Another Winchester neighbor, Bronte Hart, told Seattle TV station KIRO that Mercer would “sit by himself in the dark in the balcony with this little light.”

Hart said a woman she believed to be Mercer’s mother lived with him and was “crying her eyes out” Thursday.

Steven Fisher, who also lives nearby, described Mercer as “skittish.”

“His demeanor, the way he moved, always looking around,” Fisher told CNN. “I got a bad vibe from him.”

Those words — “silent,” “skittish,” “strange” — come up a lot in answers to questions about Mercer. But not “violent.” No one interviewed who knew him said they suspected that he might be the type of person to fire into a classroom full of college students.

The attack started just after 10:30 a.m. local time, when students in Snyder Hall — a modest building in the southeast part of campus where science and English classes are held — heard a sudden popping noise.

Some were bewildered by the noises. But Cobb, a 17-year-old who heard the sound from her Writing 121 class in Snyder, recognized them immediately.

Gunshots.

“I grew up hunting, so by then I knew what it was,” she told The Washington Post. Cobb screamed to her teacher that they all needed to get out, and the instructor opened the door onto chaos: students running, a teacher crying, a man screaming for someone to call 911. Cobb left her phone, her backpack and all of her belongings in the classroom and then ran out of the building, tripping her way down the stairs.

“There was so much screaming you knew it was serious,” she said. “I was terrified. I was sprinting. You could hear the gunshots echoing in the hall.”

Cobb had just moved to Roseburg from Eugene a few months earlier, and she didn’t know anyone in her class.

“I think everyone in my room escaped,” she said. “But you know right away that wasn’t going to be the same next door.”

One of Cobb’s classmates, 19-year-old Hannah Miles, told the Eugene Register-Guard that she followed her instructor and several other classmates to the school bookstore, where an employee called 911.

The report came in at 10:38 a.m: “Active shooter at UCC,” the dispatcher said.

While police, paramedics and first responders went into action, Mercer continued his rampage on campus.

Anastasia Boylan, the witness being treated for a spinal injury, told her family that the gunman entered her classroom firing, according to CNN.

“I’ve been waiting to do this for years,” he told the professor. Then he shot the man point blank.

According to Boylan’s account, as retold by her family, everyone in the classroom dropped to the ground. Mercer reloaded his weapon, then asked students who were Christian to stand up.

They did so. That’s when he told them “you’re going to see God,” and fired, choosing to shoot others in the legs.

Boylan, 18, survived by pretending to be dead. She’d been hit in the back and lay on the floor bleeding, according to CNN. When Mercer said, “Hey you, blonde woman,” she did nothing.

Eventually, Boylan was rescued and airlifted to a Eugene hospital, where she is being treated for her injuries, her grandmother told the LA Times.

In a room nearby, Cassandra Welding heard the percussive sounds of gunshots with horror. A classmate opened the door to look at what was happening, Welding told the LA Times, and was shot.

“We were screaming, ‘Close the door! Close the door!'” Welding said.

Someone dragged the injured woman back into the room and locked the door. Taking turns, classmates performed CPR on the woman, who had been shot in the torso. Her broken glasses lay on the floor near her, Welding told the LA Times. Blood was splattered on the walls.

The students crawled toward the back of the room, away from the door.

“I was so terrified for my life and I was shaking,” Welding said. While another classmate called 911, the 20-year-old phoned her mother. She wasn’t the only one.

“I just heard other people in tears, crying, calling their loved ones and telling them, ‘I love you.'” she told the Times. “It was such a heart-wrenching thing.”

Minutes after the initial 911 call, police arrived on campus.

Their quick, deadly confrontation with gunman was reported over the police scanner.

“We exchanged shots with him; he’s in a classroom on the east side of Snyder Hall,” an officer hurriedly informed the dispatcher.

Then, minutes later: “The suspect is down. We’ve got multiple gun shot wounds. We’re going to need multiple ambulances on scene,” an officer urged. “… As many ambulances as possible. We have upwards of 20 victims.”

Later in the day, that figure was revised down: 10 dead, including the gunman, and seven more wounded.

Hanlin, the Douglas County sheriff, said at a Thursday night press conference that the victims likely won’t be identified for another 24 to 48 hours. Officials want to ensure that all families have been notified before releasing the names of those killed.

Officials at Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg said the hospital had received 10 patients from the shooting.

PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend, a hospital about 70 miles north of the school, said it had three female patients, one in critical condition and the other two in serious condition.

The UCC campus will remain closed Friday, as officials continue to catalog and investigate the aftermath. Around Oregon, flags are being flown at half-staff.

“Today was the saddest day in the history of the college,” Cavin said at a news conference Thursday.

That evening, with their friends in the hospital, their campus a crime scene and the dead still nine nameless unknowns, hundreds of people gathered at a park in downtown Roseburg. Cheeks wet, candles clutched in their hands, mourners listened as professors, public officials and the college president urged them to think of the victims, and not the man who killed them.

When the speeches were over, a chant went up: “We are UCC.”

“After” was underway.

Eli Saslow and Joseph Hoyt reported from Oregon. Brian Murphy, Michael Miller, Yanan Wang, Mark Berman and Jerry Markon contributed reporting from Washington.




POLITICAL CANDIDATES


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/01/bernie-sanderss-26-million-cash-haul-is-a-major-problem-for-hillary-clinton/

Bernie Sanders’s $26 million cash haul is a major problem for Hillary Clinton
By Chris Cillizza
October 1 at 9:09 AM

Photograph and video -- Democratic candidate for president, Sen. Bernie Sander's (I-Vt.) campaign is surging, but does he even have a chance against Hillary Clinton? The Fix's Chris Cillizza explains. (Pamela Kirkland and Randolph Smith/The Washington Post)


Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton technically beat Bernie Sanders by $2 million in the chase for campaign cash over the past three months. But that isn't the story — not even close.

Clinton held 58 fundraising events to raise her total; Sanders held seven. As of the end of September, Sanders had brought in 1.3 million total donations from 650,000 individuals since he began running. Clinton's campaign did not release how many total donors she has. And Sanders ended September with $25 million in the bank; Clinton did not release how much money her campaign had on hand.

Read between the lines, and you get this: Sanders is drawing huge amounts of small-dollar donations via the Web. That means two important things: (1) Sanders has been able to concentrate on meeting and greeting potential voters rather than spending his time courting donors, and (2) He has been able to conserve money because he isn't spending cash on lavish events for donors.


Money is, of course, a sign of broader trends in the race as well. Sanders is the grass-roots candidate who is appealing to the heart of the party base; Clinton is the lead candidate, accruing donations — at least in part — out of a sense that, in the end, she will be the nominee. Hence, lots of people are sending small-dollar donations to Sanders while Clinton holds more traditional fundraising events to collect cash from the usual suspects.

[How Bernie Sanders would transform the nation]

That story line is — as you might have guessed — not a good one for Clinton. It reinforces everything that people already believe about the dynamics of the contest — that Sanders is the energy candidate who is speaking the language of the base and that Clinton continues to struggle to inspire that sort of devotion and passion.

Then, of course, there is the simple fact that if I told you six months ago that Sanders would (1) raise $25 million in a single fundraising quarter and (2) would come within a few million dollars of Clinton, you would not have believed me. No way.

Sanders, who began this campaign as an oddity, now has every vestige of a serious candidate — from crowds to organization to money. And he has the one thing that Clinton badly wants/needs: energy.

There are practical realities of Sanders's fundraising, too. Having $25 million in the bank, and having raised $40 million, Sanders will now be able to get his message out — largely via TV ads — in at least Iowa and New Hampshire. Clinton and her aligned super PAC will still outspend Sanders on TV, but it won't be totally lopsided or at least as lopsided as everyone, including Sanders and his team, expected.

Sometimes, top-line numbers don't tell the whole story. This is one of those cases. Yes, Clinton raised the most money. But, make no mistake: This is Sanders's quarter.

Update 12:06 p.m.: Clinton's campaign says it has at least $32 million cash on hand, compared to Sanders's $25 million.


Chris Cillizza writes “The Fix,” a politics blog for the Washington Post. He also covers the White House.




“That story line is — as you might have guessed — not a good one for Clinton. It reinforces everything that people already believe about the dynamics of the contest — that Sanders is the energy candidate who is speaking the language of the base and that Clinton continues to struggle to inspire that sort of devotion and passion. …. There are practical realities of Sanders's fundraising, too. Having $25 million in the bank, and having raised $40 million, Sanders will now be able to get his message out — largely via TV ads — in at least Iowa and New Hampshire. Clinton and her aligned super PAC will still outspend Sanders on TV, but it won't be totally lopsided or at least as lopsided as everyone, including Sanders and his team, expected.”

When I first began to see what Bernie Sanders was saying, and the fact that he calls himself a Democratic Socialist, I thought, “I do wish he could become president,” but I feared all the angry white men would lambast him out of all ability to win, because of his Socialist label. My early political years, the fifties and sixties, were full of the widespread fear of communism in this country, though it never really appealed to the masses here. Socialism is viewed by those people as “Communism Lite.” The word back then was Pinko for Socialist and Red for Communist. In small Southern cities like Thomasville there was a great deal of anger in the air over that issue.

It is interesting that not one conservative has been in the news – at least a leading candidate – even criticizing him very much over anything, much less his “Pinko” leanings. Are they holding their breath because they are afraid to give him that much personal attention? Of course, there will be more talk about it before 2015 is over, and especially if he gets the Democratic nomination. My fear, however, is that the leaders of the Democratic Party will be terrified of nominating him for fear the “White Backlash” crowd will rise up in fury and he will be seen as truly unelectable.

I’m still hedging my bet. If he is nominated I will certainly vote for him, but if Hillary or Biden gets it instead I will also vote for them. I will not vote for Sanders if he makes a third party run. He promised not to do that. I really can’t wait for the Democratic convention next year. I do have high hopes for Sanders. He’s like a breath of fresh spring air in February. I’m interested in Biden, but he has said very, very little so far. I don’t think that’s a good thing.





http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jeb-bush%e2%80%99s-remarks-about-blacks-echo-a-firestorm-he-faced-as-governor/ar-AAf2cM6?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=iehp

Jeb Bush’s Remarks About Blacks Echo a Firestorm He Faced as Governor
The New York Times
By MATT FLEGENHEIMER
October 2, 2015 6 hrs ago

Photograph -- © Mark Foley/Associated Press Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida met in January 2000 with State Representative Anthony C. Hill and State Senator Kendrick Meek.


In 1999, shortly after Jeb Bush’s election as governor of Florida, the leader of a national movement to overturn affirmative action policies visited his Tallahassee office with a request: Would Mr. Bush support a ballot measure banishing such policies, which had become a favored conservative target?

The governor’s eyes wandered to an image on his wall, featuring several black children. He approached the photograph. “I’m not with you,” Mr. Bush said finally, according to the activist, Ward Connerly. “They are the ones I want to help.”

By the end of the year, black leaders across Florida disagreed with that self-assessment.

Mr. Bush unveiled an alternative plan, which itself took aim at racial preferences in public university admissions and state contracting, setting off a firestorm he said he had strained to avoid. Black legislators staged a sit-in at the governor’s executive suite. Thousands marched on the Capitol. And Mr. Bush’s inbox swelled with the pleas of students, asking why he was quashing their chance to attend college.

It was, allies say, neither the first nor the last time that Mr. Bush’s good intentions had been misunderstood on a matter of race. The most recent example arrived last week, as Mr. Bush told a crowd in South Carolina that Republicans should not appeal to African-Americans with promises of “free stuff.”

“Our message is one that is uplifting,” Mr. Bush said then, “that says you can achieve earned success.”

Opponents saw in the Sept. 24 comments a brazen hypocrisy from a son of political royalty — the latest stumble for a candidate who has cast himself as a bridge to new voters, with experience leading a diverse state and a unique perspective among Republican presidential candidates as the bilingual husband of a woman born in Mexico.

Longtime supporters heard something else: an echo of one of the most turbulent episodes of his governorship.

Mr. Bush had not planned on a fight upon entering office, at least not on this count. Chastened by a narrow election loss in 1994 — he campaigned for governor as a tough-on-crime conservative who glibly predicted he would do “probably nothing” for blacks if elected — Mr. Bush had since moved to expand his outreach to new constituencies.

He co-founded a charter school serving predominantly black residents in Miami, pressed for diversity in appointments of agency heads and judges, and expressed remorse in a 1998 debate when asked about his relationship with black voters.

“Republicans have ignored the black vote in this state, and I was part of that, and it was a mistake,” he said.

As Mr. Bush took office, though, Mr. Connerly, who had helped spur a national movement to challenge affirmative action policies on state ballots, eyed Florida as his next battleground.

Mr. Bush largely agreed with him, arguing against racial quotas. But he cast the prospect of a ballot measure as needlessly divisive. Some critics saw another motivation: The vote would have come in November 2000, and threatened to increase African-American turnout for an election in which his brother was on the ballot for president. Those close to Mr. Bush have disputed any connection.

Mr. Bush proposed a third way, calling the initiative “One Florida.” It banned racial preferences at universities and in state procurements, but required state campuses to guarantee a spot for all students who finished in the top 20 percent of their class. His brother George W. Bush, then the Texas governor, had endorsed a similar approach, backing a 1996 court decision that banned racial preferences at the University of Texas School of Law but called for an “affirmative access” approach that assured admission for top graduates from Texas high schools.

In Tallahassee, Mr. Bush argued the changes would actually increase enrollment figures for minority groups — a claim that, more than a decade later, remains contested. He also said he was ordering agencies to revamp procurement protocols to encourage greater diversity among vendors.

Few groups were pleased. Some black elected officials suggested Mr. Bush had not consulted them sufficiently. Conservatives had long questioned why he refused to back Mr. Connerly’s efforts in the first place.

“I am not wobbly,” Mr. Bush responded in a March 1999 email to one skeptic. “I oppose quotas and set-asides, and can assure you that they will not be used in state government.”

By Mr. Bush’s count, he received about 20 messages a day on the subject — and answered most of them himself, suggesting the state’s Citizen Services unit lacked “the political or social sensitivities” to respond adequately.

“Kind of scary and I am very tired,” he wrote to aides at the end of his first month as governor, describing the email volume.

At times, Mr. Bush seemed wounded. “Who told you that?” he wrote back to a 13-year-old who suggested his hopes of attending college would be dashed. “Why don’t you get the person who told you an untruth to write me?”

The debate consumed much of his first year in office, cresting perhaps in January 2000, two months after Mr. Bush had issued an executive order outlining his vision.

Two prominent black lawmakers arrived in Mr. Bush’s executive suite for a meeting with the lieutenant governor. Mr. Bush, who had resisted meeting the men himself, dropped in briefly to lament the futility of their push.

“If you think I’m going to change my mind, you might as well get some blankets,” he told the lawmakers, according to one of them, Anthony C. Hill, then a state representative.

“So we did that,” Mr. Hill recalled.

Soon, the governor’s office was overtaken by the spectacle. Protesters descended on the Capitol to support Mr. Hill and his State Senate colleague, Kendrick Meek, who did not budge for more than 24 hours. Reporters raced to the premises. And in a hot-mike moment that attracted national headlines, Mr. Bush ordered aides to “kick their asses out,” unaware that his words were being recorded. His team later insisted he was talking about the reporters.

Eventually, Mr. Bush relented, slightly. He agreed to meet the lawmakers and scheduled a series of public meetings on the changes to come.

But emotions simmered still. The Rev. R.B. Holmes Jr., who was Mr. Bush’s most outspoken black supporter, said at the time that he felt double-crossed: “Instead of One Florida, it’s divisive Florida.” (The enmity did not last; Mr. Holmes introduced Mr. Bush at his presidential campaign kickoff in June and has continued campaigning for him.)

Al Cardenas, Mr. Bush’s longtime adviser and friend, said Mr. Bush feared violent demonstrations and urged his team to avoid inflaming tensions.

“It’s the only time I remember him calling me two or three times saying, ‘Don’t be too provocative,’” said Mr. Cardenas, who had advocated challenging the affirmative action supporters to a public debate.

Less than two months after the sit-in, as Mr. Bush defended One Florida in his State of the State address, an enormous protest, led by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, rolled through Tallahassee.

Inside the House chambers, Mr. Bush vowed that his plan would work. “This year,” he pledged, “more minority students will be admitted to our university system than last year.”

That fall, Mr. Bush and his team highlighted gains in minority admissions at state universities. But many in higher education were skeptical of the program, noting that those acceptance decisions had taken place before One Florida’s implementation.

The next year, some statistics were less encouraging. At the University of Florida, 7.2 percent of incoming freshmen in 2001 were black, down from 11.7 percent the previous year.

“When that policy was put in place, we scrambled a little bit,” Joe Glover, the University of Florida’s provost, said in an interview.

He said the program had, for better or worse, helped compel the school to revise its admissions practices by targeting groups, like low-income applicants whose parents had not attended college, to increase diversity without violating the order.

Mr. Bush’s supporters have argued that the plan fulfilled its purpose, infusing admissions policies with conservative ideals while coaxing schools to find opportunities for underrepresented groups in other ways.

An analysis by the Orlando Sentinel in 2010 found that minority enrollment in the state’s university system had not kept pace with the number of minorities graduating high school. In 1999, the report said, more than 20 percent of the state’s high school graduates and 17.5 percent of university freshmen were black. By 2008, black students accounted for 19.5 percent of high school graduates and 14.9 percent of university freshmen.

Mr. Bush’s team has pushed back since his tenure ended, noting that more students of all races had been enrolled, with particular gains among Hispanics as the state’s demographics shifted.

And according to the Bush campaign, businesses run by blacks and Hispanics received tens of millions of dollars more in state procurements by the time he left office.

But some opponents required special attention from the governor. In 2000, a student named Tania Williams engaged Mr. Bush in a multi-email exchange, predicting a return to the era of Jim Crow and asking how long Mr. Bush would wait to assess the program’s success.

“Great question and that is what I am working on to lessen people’s fears,” Mr. Bush wrote. “You are very perceptive!”

Ms. Williams asked, with a typed smiley face, if this meant she could pester Mr. Bush about a summer internship. “I don’t know if we have summer internships, but look me up nonetheless,” he replied.

In an email this week, Ms. Williams said she had gotten the internship.

She is now a lawyer in West Palm Beach, some 75 miles from Mr. Bush’s campaign headquarters.




“In 1999, shortly after Jeb Bush’s election as governor of Florida, the leader of a national movement to overturn affirmative action policies visited his Tallahassee office with a request: Would Mr. Bush support a ballot measure banishing such policies, which had become a favored conservative target? The governor’s eyes wandered to an image on his wall, featuring several black children. He approached the photograph. “I’m not with you,” Mr. Bush said finally, according to the activist, Ward Connerly. “They are the ones I want to help.” …. Mr. Bush unveiled an alternative plan, which itself took aim at racial preferences in public university admissions and state contracting, setting off a firestorm he said he had strained to avoid. …. The most recent example arrived last week, as Mr. Bush told a crowd in South Carolina that Republicans should not appeal to African-Americans with promises of “free stuff.” “Our message is one that is uplifting,” Mr. Bush said then, “that says you can achieve earned success.” …. Mr. Bush proposed a third way, calling the initiative “One Florida.” It banned racial preferences at universities and in state procurements, but required state campuses to guarantee a spot for all students who finished in the top 20 percent of their class. …. Few groups were pleased. Some black elected officials suggested Mr. Bush had not consulted them sufficiently. Conservatives had long questioned why he refused to back Mr. Connerly’s efforts in the first place. …. Less than two months after the sit-in, as Mr. Bush defended One Florida in his State of the State address, an enormous protest, led by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, rolled through Tallahassee. Inside the House chambers, Mr. Bush vowed that his plan would work. “This year,” he pledged, “more minority students will be admitted to our university system than last year.” …. He said the program had, for better or worse, helped compel the school to revise its admissions practices by targeting groups, like low-income applicants whose parents had not attended college, to increase diversity without violating the order. …. An analysis by the Orlando Sentinel in 2010 found that minority enrollment in the state’s university system had not kept pace with the number of minorities graduating high school. …. Ms. Williams asked, with a typed smiley face, if this meant she could pester Mr. Bush about a summer internship. “I don’t know if we have summer internships, but look me up nonetheless,” he replied. In an email this week, Ms. Williams said she had gotten the internship. She is now a lawyer in West Palm Beach, some 75 miles from Mr. Bush’s campaign headquarters.”

When I clipped this article I thought I would see some ugly references to black people accidentally overheard, but actually it just basically says that he was against direct quotas based on race. He did offer a slot in all state schools for those who make a grade in the top 20% of their class, which is something that most black kids certainly could do if they would do their homework every day; he also gave a slot at state schools to low income students whose parents had not attended college. Those are good initiatives, however the diversity didn’t improve as much as needed.

I would like to see some statistics on how many black students coming out of high school did, in fact, place in the top 20% of their class. Perhaps if he had offered work scholarships or small academic scholarships to all poor children who qualified academically to enter the college, that would have added more. Many minority people are very poor, and poor people simply cannot always pay basic tuition. Now if Bernie Sanders is elected, and manages to require all states to offer free tuition on state supported college campuses, at least for those poor kids, that would make an even greater difference. Still, I’m glad to see that on the human level Jeb saw his way to giving Ms. Williams her Internship. I guess he thought she had proven that she deserved it.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vatican-popes-encounter-with-kim-davis-not-a-sign-of-support/

Vatican: Pope's encounter with Kim Davis not a sign of support
AP October 2, 2015

Photographs -- Pope Francis, and Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis. REUTERS/AP
90 PHOTOS -- Pope Francis in America





VATICAN CITY - The Vatican on Friday distanced Pope Francis from Kim Davis, the focal point in the gay marriage debate in the U.S., saying she was one of dozens of people the pope greeted in the U.S. and that their encounter "should not be considered a form of support of her position."

After days of confusion, the Vatican issued a statement Friday clarifying the circumstances of Francis' Sept. 24 encounter with Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who went to jail for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

In a statement, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Francis met with "several dozen" people at the Vatican's embassy in Washington just before leaving for New York.

Lombardi said such meetings are par for the course of any Vatican trip and are due to the pope's "kindness and availability." He said the pope only really had one "audience" in Washington: with former students and his family members.

"The pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis, and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects," Lombardi said.

Fr. Tom Rosica, and assistant to Lombardi, told CBS News that the meeting was arranged solely by the nuncio.

Davis, an Apostolic Christian, spent five days in jail for defying a series of federal court orders to issue same-sex marriage licenses after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the country.

A judge ultimately freed Davis on the condition she not interfere with her deputies issuing the licenses. When Davis returned to work, she confiscated the marriage licenses and replaced them with new ones saying they were issued not under the authority of the county clerk, but "pursuant to federal court order."

Is Kentucky clerk Kim Davis back in hot water?

However, Davis' lawyer, Mat Staver, told The Associated Press that the Vatican initiated the meeting as an affirmation of her right to be conscientious objector.

"We wouldn't expect the pope to weigh in on the particulars of any case," Staver said Friday.

He said Vatican personnel initiated the meeting on Sept. 14, the day she returned to work, saying the pope wanted to meet her. He said Vatican security picked up her and her husband from their hotel and told her to change her hairdo so she wouldn't be recognized since the Vatican wanted the meeting kept secret.

Staver disputed a Vatican spokesman's claims that the pope only met Davis in a receiving line. He said the couple was in a separate room with Francis and Vatican personnel.

Davis said earlier this week that she and her husband met briefly with the pope at the Vatican's nunciature in Washington and that he encouraged her to "stay strong."

"Just knowing that the pope is on track with what we're doing and agreeing, you know, it kind of validates everything," she told ABC.

The Vatican statement made clear the pope intended no such validation.

News of the audience sent shockwaves through the U.S. church, with Davis' supporters saying it showed the pope backed her cause and opponents questioning whether the pope had been duped into meeting with her.

Initially the Vatican only reluctantly confirmed the meeting but offered no comment.

On Friday, Lombardi met with Francis and issued a fuller statement to "contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired."

He declined to say who invited Davis into the nunciature or what the pope knew of the case ahead of time. Such encounters are arranged by the Vatican ambassador and his staff, not the pope's delegation or the U.S. bishops' conference.

An assistant to Lombardi, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, said he believed the pope was unaware of Davis or the implications of the meeting.

"I don't think it's a matter of being tricked as of being fully aware of the situation and its complexities," he said. "I don't think anyone was willfully trying to trick the pope, and at the same time nor was the pope briefed properly on who was he meeting. He wasn't properly briefed on the person or the impact of such a visit."

From the start of his six-day tour, Francis encouraged Americans to preserve religious freedom, which he called "one of America's most precious possessions." But he listed it among many other issues, including immigration, climate change and the death penalty.

Francis firmly upholds church teaching that marriage is between a man and woman, but he did not focus on the debate over same-sex marriage during his visit, at one point telling the U.S. bishops to avoid "harsh and divisive" language despite the challenges they face in society.

As he left the country, Francis told reporters who inquired that he did not know Davis' case in detail, but he defended conscientious objection as a human right.

"It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right," Francis said.




“In a statement, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Francis met with "several dozen" people at the Vatican's embassy in Washington just before leaving for New York. Lombardi said such meetings are par for the course of any Vatican trip and are due to the pope's "kindness and availability." He said the pope only really had one "audience" in Washington: with former students and his family members. "The pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis, and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects," Lombardi said. Fr. Tom Rosica, and assistant to Lombardi, told CBS News that the meeting was arranged solely by the nuncio. …. "We wouldn't expect the pope to weigh in on the particulars of any case," Staver said Friday. He said Vatican personnel initiated the meeting on Sept. 14, the day she returned to work, saying the pope wanted to meet her. He said Vatican security picked up her and her husband from their hotel and told her to change her hairdo so she wouldn't be recognized since the Vatican wanted the meeting kept secret. Staver disputed a Vatican spokesman's claims that the pope only met Davis in a receiving line. He said the couple was in a separate room with Francis and Vatican personnel. …. "Just knowing that the pope is on track with what we're doing and agreeing, you know, it kind of validates everything," she told ABC. The Vatican statement made clear the pope intended no such validation. News of the audience sent shockwaves through the U.S. church, with Davis' supporters saying it showed the pope backed her cause and opponents questioning whether the pope had been duped into meeting with her. Initially the Vatican only reluctantly confirmed the meeting but offered no comment. …. He declined to say who invited Davis into the nunciature or what the pope knew of the case ahead of time. Such encounters are arranged by the Vatican ambassador and his staff, not the pope's delegation or the U.S. bishops' conference. An assistant to Lombardi, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, said he believed the pope was unaware of Davis or the implications of the meeting. …. Francis firmly upholds church teaching that marriage is between a man and woman, but he did not focus on the debate over same-sex marriage during his visit, at one point telling the U.S. bishops to avoid "harsh and divisive" language despite the challenges they face in society. As he left the country, Francis told reporters who inquired that he did not know Davis' case in detail, but he defended conscientious objection as a human right.”

"I don't think anyone was willfully trying to trick the pope, and at the same time nor was the pope briefed properly on who was he meeting. He wasn't properly briefed on the person or the impact of such a visit." This article serves to cast doubt on Davis’ claims about a Papal meeting or his overall approval of her actions. He approves of her right to a stance of conscientious objection, but I wonder if he would think that she should keep her job, receiving the nearly $70,000 for the position, and at the same time persist in marking the marriage licenses as invalid, if only by refusing her signature. The rights under our constitution are not defined by any religion, but by citizenship. Everything she has done, including this recent claim about the Pope, makes me angry. She should simply quit her job and bow out. She disapproves of the requirements of her position and is unwilling to perform them. 'Nuff said.