SUMMARY: In our NewsHour Shares moment of the day, an island six miles off the coast of Portsmouth, N.H., is home to a colony of terns — a species of seabirds whose numbers are quickly dwindling worldwide. Every summer, the island becomes a nesting place, but predators and lack of food pose a challenge to their survival.
SUMMARY: In New Hampshire, a high-profile contest is drawing outsized attention and outside money due to its stakes in shaping the Senate. Republican incumbent Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, both well-respected and popular political figures in their state, are running a neck-and-neck race while keeping the presidential candidates at an arm's length. Lisa Desjardins reports.
LISA DESJARDINS (NewsHour): The start of fall in New Hampshire. Along with the changing leaves this year, the Granite State is home to something else special, a contest between two respected and popular Senate candidates.
Republican U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte, out gathering votes at an apple festival this weekend, is defending her seat. Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan, rallying volunteers, is hoping to win it. Polls show it is a toss-up race, a sharp partisan fight, even as both brandish they are not.
GOV. MAGGIE HASSAN, Democratic Senate Candidate: We passed a bipartisan Medicaid expansion program. We froze in-state tuition at our university system, and actually lowered it at our community colleges.
SEN. KELLY AYOTTE, Republican Senate Candidate: I have one of the most bipartisan records in the Senate. I have certainly been called a problem-solver by the independent group No Labels, who I have worked with.
LISA DESJARDINS: Both are former lawyers, both known for their work ethic. Neither is flashy. But Hassan charges Ayotte is too conservative for the state, in lockstep with the GOP on defunding Planned Parenthood, overturning Roe vs. Wade, and on guns.
GOV. MAGGIE HASSAN: Whether it's standing with the gun lobby, rather than expanding background checks so that terrorists can't get guns online and at gun shows, or whether it's standing against a woman's right to make her own health care decisions, those decisions of Senator Ayotte, her positions and her votes, really have pulled us backwards.
LISA DESJARDINS: Ayotte stands by her position to ban most abortions as a matter of faith, adding she supports access to more contraception. She attacks Hassan on taxes, a core issue here.
SEN. KELLY AYOTTE: In terms of taxes, I'm someone who focuses on low taxes, a better tax climate for individuals and small businesses. She has long record of increasing taxes, not only on small businesses, but on campgrounds, registration fees, on the people of New Hampshire.
LISA DESJARDINS: Hassan's tax record is complicated. She cut taxes for some, but raised them for others, citing urgent needs like fighting the opioid crisis.
Meanwhile, both candidates are keeping their party's presidential nominees at arm's length. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were both in New Hampshire last week, but neither Hassan nor Ayotte joined them on stage. Ayotte has said she's voting for Trump, but not endorsing him.
But how do the important people, the voters, see this?
Jim Jalbert runs a thriving family-owned bus company, C&J Bus, in Portsmouth. Jalbert is a registered Republican who doesn't like Trump. But between Ayotte and Hassan:
JIM JALBERT, C&J Bus Lines: If you look at the two of them, they're both really good people.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to the discuss the week’s news, including takeaways from Thursday’s PBS NewsHour Democratic debate, Donald Trump’s victory in New Hampshire and how the first primary re-scrambled the GOP field.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The Democrats faced off on the debate stage last night, and now the focus of the race for the White House turns to South Carolina and Nevada.
With that, we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
And welcome, gentlemen. Some of us are back from Milwaukee, and glad to be back.
Mark, Tuesday — it was only three nights ago — Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary big time. How did that change the race, how did it change the dynamics, do you think, in last night’s debate?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Well, it changed the race, Judy, by guaranteeing that we will probably have a race in June, that there will be a Bernie Sanders/Hillary Clinton competition in California.
It guaranteed Bernie Sanders $6.5 million in the first 19 hours after the polls closed. He’s got a national following. He’s got a national treasury. It puts her at a disadvantage. It gave him credibility.
So, going in last night, Hillary Clinton, on the heels of a thrashing 48 hours earlier, was in a position of trying to bring him back down to earth as they head South. And I thought she arrived, surprisingly, with her poise and confidence intact.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How did you see the dynamics going into the debate last night?
DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: Well, going into the debate, it was a question of how aggressive she would get, and would she get overly aggressive or not?
I thought her demeanor, especially in the first half-hour, 45 minutes, was quite good. She can be sometimes lecturing. But she was more explaining, because — you were there, Judy, so you might know this.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: I know this.
DAVID BROOKS: That they were — it was a debate over pragmatism vs. vision.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.
DAVID BROOKS: And she was saying, well, you know, that’s not reality. You can’t start the health care system as if we don’t have a health care system; 100 million people have their employer health care. You just can’t do that.
And so she was trying to explain reality to them. And I thought she was quite effective. I think, toward the end, one of have the central facts in the structure of the race, the first is pragmatism vs. his radical vision, but the second is, on what ground is this debate being fought?
And because he has such a strong narrative and his campaign is built around that narrative, his life is built around that narrative, it’s always fought on his ground. And she has no narrative. And she’s trying to create one with Obama, but that’s Obama’s narrative.
And so I think, as the domestic part went on, he sort of gained strength just by the structure of the way the argument is.
Shields and Brooks analyze the PBS NewsHour Democratic debate
SUMMARY: Nineteen-year-old Owen Labrie, a former student at a prep school in New Hampshire, was accused of raping a freshman girl in 2014, but a jury cleared him of felony rape, convicting him on other lesser charges. Jeffrey Brown discusses the case and the idea of sexual consent with Deborah Tuerkheimer of Northwestern University School of Law and Emily Bazelon of The New York Times Magazine.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): ..... we return to questions and concerns being raised about sexual assault among teens at the high school and college level, and what sort of consent can and should be given.
A trial over an alleged case of rape at an elite boarding school in New Hampshire concluded today. The case has attracted national attention, and it touches on some broader issues.
Jeffrey Brown starts with some background.
WOMAN: Guilty or not guilty?
WOMAN:Guilty.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):Owen Labrie wept as the verdict was read aloud in a New Hampshire state courtroom. The former prep school student had been accused of raping a freshman girl before his graduation in May 2014.
But the jury this afternoon cleared him of felony rape and instead convicted him on three misdemeanor sex charges and one felony count of using a computer to lure a minor for sexual contact. During the trial, prosecutors argued Labrie forced himself on the alleged victim during a so-called senior salute, a tradition at Saint Paul’s where some older students arrange trysts with younger ones, including for sex.
OWEN LABRIE, Defendant: I thought she was having a good time.
JEFFREY BROWN: Labrie said there was consensual sexual contact between the two, but later testified that — quote — “divine inspiration” compelled him to stop short of intercourse.
OWEN LABRIE: I thought to myself, maybe we shouldn’t do this. It hadn’t been my intention going into the night to have sex.
JEFFREY BROWN: The identity of the victim, now 16 years old, has not been released. She testified that she said no to Labrie three times during the encounter.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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