Jeb Bush Says He Doesn't Regret Using The Term 'Anchor Babies'

Jeb Bush said Thursday he doesn't regret using the term "anchor babies" to describe children born in the United States to undocumented parents.

While taking questions from the press after a town hall in New Hampshire, the former Florida governor and GOP presidential hopeful was a Hfsked if he regretted using the term during a radio interview earlier this week.

"I don't," he said. "Do you have a better term? ... You give me a better term and I'll use it."

"Is that not bombastic?" a reporter asked.

"No, it isn't," he said. "Give me another word."

"What I said was it's commonly referred to [as] that," Bush continued. "I didn't use it as my own language. What we ought to do is -- do you want to get to the policy for a second? I think that people born in the country ought to be American citizens. Okay? Now we got that over with."

Watch video of the exchange above.

Bush used the derogatory term during an interview with radio host Bill Bennett Wednesday while discussing Donald Trump's recent call to end birthright citizenship. The former governor said he disagreed with Trump, but called for "greater enforcement" of the policy to prevent "abuse."

"If there's fraud or if there's abuse, if people are bringing, pregnant women are coming in to have babies simply because they can do it, then there ought to be greater enforcement," he said. "That's the legitimate side of this. Better enforcement so that you don't have these, you know, 'anchor babies,' as they're described, coming into the country."

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called out her potential GOP rival on Twitter:

They're called babies. https://t.co/VyJJA26OVl

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 19, 2015

Source: The Huffington Post

Here's Who Republicans Wish Hadn't Been Left Out Of The Debate

Just because they're not planning to vote for a candidate doesn't mean they don't want to watch them onstage.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Republicans mostly don't mind having their first primetime debate capped at 10 candidates, but they'd prefer a slightly different lineup. 

Fox News, which is hosting the debate on Thursday, chose the politicians receiving the most support in an average of recent surveys, with the remaining seven consigned to a separate forum. But a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, which instead directly asked Republicans to pick up to 10 different candidates they'd like to see debate, found slightly different results.

While they agree with the top eight contenders, rank-and-file Republicans say they'd swap out the two lowest-polling candidates included, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Instead, they'd rather watch two politicians who missed the cut: former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and businesswoman Carly Fiorina.

Christie is disliked by a sizeable fraction of his own party, many of whom who don't see him as adequately conservative; Kasich, meanwhile, remains unknown to most in the GOP.

Read more at The Huffington Post

Congress Stays On Course For Another Shutdown Showdown

WASHINGTON -- Coming back from its Independence Day vacation, Congress appeared no closer Tuesday to finding a way to avoid yet another government shutdown showdown in the fall.

Democrats who are angry that Republicans have proposed spending bills that hike defense while continuing to cut other domestic programs have begun to filibusterall of those appropriations measures in the Senate, saying it's the only way to make Republicans negotiate and compromise on some items sought by Democrats and President Barack Obama. Obama has also threatened to veto those bills.

Asked if Congress was indeed headed for another shutdown battle -- and whether that was wise -- the second-ranking Democrat in the House, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, answered that the unwise choice was for Congress to maintain the so-called sequestration spending levels it passed in 2011 when it was also unable to agree on debt and spending cuts.

"In world of alternatives, it is not wise to pursue sequester numbers. That’s bad for our country," Hoyer said, referring to the automatic, across-the-board cuts set in the 2011 Budget Control Act, which also raised the nation's debt limit.

The Republican budget calls for spending that eases sequestration on defense, but not on other areas, and the defense spending bill uses some $38 billion in "overseas contingency operation" funds -- essentially war funding that doesn't count against sequestration -- to boost the rest of the military.

"I would hope that Republicans do the right thing."- Steny Hoyer

Democrats see that as a gimmick that both ducks reality and avoids dealing with other pressing domestic needs such as education and infrastructure needs. The Senate filibustered the bill last month.

"Like Harold Rogers [the House Appropriations Committee chairman], who pulled a bill last year and said that this was ill-advised and unrealistic to pursue sequester... I think it is the only rational policy to follow in saying, 'This is not going to work, you know it’s not going to work,'" Hoyer said.

Republicans showed no sign of agreeing with Hoyer and other Democrats, however.

“Democrats must decide whether they support our troops or not," said Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), focusing on the defense bill. "In a time of grave threats to our nation, Democrats are denying funding for our troops, their families, and the nation’s veterans in order to extract more government spending on Washington bureaucracies like the IRS and the EPA. They are putting their political interests ahead of the most important priority we have –- protecting our nation –- and that is unconscionable.”

Hoyer mocked the GOP position, since it agrees with Obama on the level of spending for the military, although Obama's budget doesn't use the contingency fund to pay for the boosts.

"It’s ironic," Hoyer said, "that the Republicans used a gimmick to get to his numbers."

Hoyer was not convinced that the GOP would even be able to pass all of the 12 required appropriations bills in time, since so far they've gotten to six.

He insisted Democrats were correct in trying to force them to negotiate a more two-sided spending plan.

"I think we’re doing the right thing. I think the Senate is doing the right thing, and I would hope that Republicans do the right thing and sit down and discuss what are not unrealistic but realistic numbers, not an ill-conceived plan, but a well-conceived plan, to move ahead on the appropriations process," Hoyer said.

Not incidentally, if Congress is still fighting over spending bills in September, when the fiscal year ends, not only will it be facing a government shutdown, but also a looming exhaustion of the nation's current $18.1 trillion debt limit. The country hitthe limit in March, and the Treasury Department has been employing what are known as "extraordinary measures" to keep the bills paid. That ability should run out around November, at which point the nation would be facing a default if Congress does not act to raise the debt cap.

Source: The Huffington Post