Scott Walker's Shifting Positions Move Him Further Right

isconsin Governor Scott Walker is entering into a new phase of his still-unannounced presidential campaign -- scrutiny. He has catapulted to the top of early presidential polls in a very short amount of time, won three tough statewide elections in four years and has become a Republican star in taking on public employee unions in Wisconsin.

Walker's rapid rise has left behind a fresh and plentiful record on a variety of issues that are now getting a closer look.

Since he came into the national spotlight, some of Walker's positions have shifted to the right as he seems to be situating himself to the more conservative end of the Republican spectrum in an effort to gain the Republican nomination.

He has changed his position on immigration and has shifted on half a dozen other issues. As a result, Walker is getting some pointed questions from some on the right. A "member diary" on the conservative website Red State wrote, "Spoiler alert: you may conclude that Walker is a flip flopper."

But shifting and evolving in positions is also part of the process of transitioning from a state-level candidate to a federal one, Mark Graul, Wisconsin-based Republican strategist, said. "Let's give this guy some time to develop his intricacies on federal policy," said Graul.

Here are some issues where Walker has moved recently:

Immigration

Scott Walker has recently declared his opposition to "amnesty." While amnesty can be defined in a number of different ways, it is mostly defined as giving an undocumented immigrant living in the U.S. citizenship or legal residency. Walker has completely changed his position.

In 2002, as county executive, Walker, according to Politico, approved a resolution that expressed "support of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors for a new program similar to the Federal amnesty program enacted by Congress in 1986 to allow undocumented working immigrants to obtain legal residency in the United States…."

In the same position but four years later, Walker signed a resolution in support of comprehensive immigration reform that passed the Senate, according to the National Review.

As recently as 2013, Walker told a local paper called Wasusau Daily Herald that "it makes sense" for undocumented immigrants to obtain citizenship after penalties and a waiting period.

Since then, Walker has admitted to changing his position. After being pressed on Fox News Sunday, Walker said, "My view has changed. I'm flat out saying it. I'm - candidates can say that. Sometimes they don't."

At the Iowa Ag Summit in early March, Walker said he's "not a supporter of amnesty. I know there's some out there and I respect their views on that but I'm not a supporter of amnesty."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel gave Walker a "full flip" for his shift.

Renewable Fuel Standard -- Ethanol

Walker's most recent shift in position is the renewable fuel standard, which is a federal policy that mandates a certain percentage of ethanol be added to gasoline. At the agriculture summit in Iowa over the weekend, Walker said "it's something he's willing to move forward on." He previously broadly said he didn't support government mandates.

Ethanol is an important issue to Iowans, who are also influential in the presidential nominating process as the first state to chime in on the nominee. And the issue is especially important to Bruce Rastetter and his business interests. The wealthy agriculture entrepreneur gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates each election cycle and who hosted the summit.

While Walker has now specifically weighed in with support for the standard, during his first campaign for governor in 2006, which he lost, Walker was against mandates, saying "mandates hurt Wisconsin's working families, and whether they are from Washington or Madison, we as fiscal conservatives should oppose them."

Wind Energy

Also at the Iowa summit, Walker said he wants "as many different energy…options as possible out there." He added that the wind energy tax credit "served a purpose."

But Walker's record as governor paints a different picture. During his first term, he proposed a bill that wind energy advocates said would be "the biggest regulatory barrier" to wind energy in the country, according to a quote in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The measure required an 1800 foot barrier between any wind turbine and property line.

More recently, in his latest budget released in February, Walker proposed $250,000 to study the health impacts of wind energy on residents who live close to turbines. Critics say it's a way to stall further production of wind energy.

Right to Work Legislation

On Monday, Walker signed into law so-called right to work legislation that would ban union workers from the requirement of paying union dues. But last October, in the midst of his reelection campaign, he told the Journal Sentinel, "I'm making it clear in this campaign, as I'll make it clear in the next (legislative) session, that that's not something that's part of my agenda."

While his spokesperson points out that Walker was a co-sponsor of similar legislation when he was a member of the legislature, that was in 1993. On Fox News Sunday, Walker defended himself, saying "It's not a flip…. I never said I'd veto it." Walker signed it into law.

Common Core

Walker came into office in 2011 after Wisconsin had already adopted the Common Core standards. In his first budget, he supported its implementation. But since then his position, like many Republican governors who are potentially running for president, changed.

Walker started to move away from Common Core when he said in 2013 that Wisconsin should "have its own unique standards," and then in July of 2014, a couple months before his reelection, he said he supports the "repeal of Common Core and replace it with standards set by the people in Wisconsin." In January he threw his weight behind a proposal that would set up a commission to review Common Core, which Common Core opponents say gives mixed signals. It's not a repeal and they say his review commission doesn't go far enough.

Abortion

Walker announced last week that he would sign a bill that bans abortion after 20 weeks. "I was raised to believe in the sanctity of life and I will always fight to protect it," he said in a statement. In the statement, he also noted that he defunded Planned Parenthood and prohibited abortion from being covered in the health insurance exchanges.

While Walker has always been anti-abortion, during what was expected to be a close reelection against Democratic challenger Mary Burke in 2014, Walker released an ad where he chose his words carefully and made it seem like he would not support abortion bans. In the ad, he said he "support(s) legislation to increase safety and provide more information for a woman considering her options. The bill leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor."

Obamacare

Walker has said he's opposed to the Affordable Care Act, but Walker has used the program. He transferred tens of thousands of Wisconsin Medicaid recipients to the exchange program where they are eligible for federal subsidies. Wisconsin's generous Medicaid program included people who made enough money to qualify for federal support.

Walker also rejected the financial support the federal government offered to the states to expand its Medicaid program, but Walker expanded Medicaid to another tens of thousands of people below the poverty line anyway, with the state picking up the entire bill.

Boston Marathon jury sees fragments of bombs used in attack

1 of 3. A blood-stained message that prosecutors say Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote on the inside of a boat is seen with bullet holes in an undated evidence picture shown to jurors in Boston March 10, 2015.

Credit: Reuters/U.S. Department of Justice

(Reuters) - The jury hearing the Boston Marathon bombing trial on Wednesday saw pieces of one of the pressure-cooker bombs that ripped through the crowd at the race's finish line in 2013, killing three people and injuring 264.
Prosecutors also presented shredded pieces of a black and white backpack that they contend 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, used to carry their homemade bombs.
FBI agent Sarah DeLair showed debris including nails, BB's and pieces of shrapnel, as well as a piece of wire collected amid the wreckage on Boylston Street on April 15, 2013. The wire, she testified in U.S. District Court in Boston, was part of one of the bomb's detonators.
"It's the part of the bomb that would make it go off," DeLair said.
Tsarnaev could be sentenced to death if he is convicted of charges including fatally shooting a police officer three days after the bombing as he and his brother tried to flee the city. Tamerlan, 26, died that night following a gunbattle with police.
Tsarnaev's attorneys opened the trial by admitting he committed the crimes of which he is accused, but are seeking to spare him the death penalty by demonstrating he was following the lead of his older brother.
Federal prosecutors contend Tsarnaev, who emigrated with his family from Chechnya a decade before the attack, was driven by an extremist view of Islam and a desire to strike back at the United States in revenge for military campaigns in Muslim-dominated countries.
On Tuesday, jurors were presented with photographs of the blood-stained message that prosecutors say Tsarnaev wrote in pencil inside the hull of a boat in which he was hiding in Watertown, outside Boston, before his violent capture.
The note accuses the United States government of killing Muslims and says "I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished". It adds "I don't like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam but due to said (...) it is allowed." Words were missing from the note due to bullet holes.
After opening with three days of emotional and graphic testimony by witnesses including nine people injured in the attack, Tsarnaev's trial has moved into to a more technical phase as prosecutors show evidence about the bombs and communication between the two brothers.
Despite the admission that opened the trial, Tsarnaev's not guilty plea stands, leaving it to the federal government to prove his guilt before the trial moves into a second phase, when the jury will determine whether to sentence him to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
(Additional reporting by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Scott Malone and Tom Brown)

UPDATE 1-Missing man believed to have fallen overboard during Bahamas cruise

Wed Mar 11, 2015 10:43am EDT

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(Adds details on search and quote from Carnival)
(Reuters) - A missing 21-year-old man is believed to have fallen overboard during a cruise in the Bahamas, Carnival Cruise Lines said in a statement on Wednesday.
The guest was reported missing on Carnival Glory on Sunday morning and a review of security camera footage confirmed a man overboard, the company said.
It said the U.S. Coast Guard was notified and started search and rescue operations.
Carnival Cruise Lines is part of Carnival Corp.
The name of the missing man has not been released but media reports said he is a student at Virginia Tech University. Reuters was not able to independently confirm those reports.
"We extend our heartfelt sympathy and concern for the family and loved ones of our missing guest," the Carnival statement said.
Carnival Glory returned to the location and participated for a period of time in the search and a second cruise ship, the Carnival Ecstasy, also was diverted by the cruise line to help in the search on Monday, the company said. (Reporting by David Adams; Editing by Susan Heavey)

Big Bay Area quake: 72 percent chance in next 30 years, scientists say

The Bay Area has a nearly three-in-four chance of experiencing a potentially deadly earthquake in the next 30 years, scientists reported Tuesday in a long-awaited update of statewide earthquake probabilities that provides the most precise look yet into our foreboding seismic future.

The newly revised estimates show a 72 percent chance that a magnitude-6.7 or larger quake -- almost the size of the 1989 Loma Prieta temblor -- will strike the Bay Area before the year 2044. The odds of a much larger magnitude-7 quake are 50-50.

"The San Francisco Bay Area should live every day like it is the day of The Big One," said U.S. Geological Survey scientist Ned Field, lead author of the eight-year-long analysis, called the "Third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast."

Damage to a bakery in downtown Paso Robles after a 6.5 earthquake in December 2003. (Mercury News archives) ( JOANNE HOYOUNG LEE )

The new study shows the Golden State can expect a magnitude-6.7 quake every 6.3 years, which is less frequent than the quake every 4.8 years that scientists had predicted in a 2008 report. But the Bay Area risks haven't changed much.

Of the region's three major faults, the Hayward Fault still seems the most primed to break. The highest risk of an earthquake in the Bay Area is along a stretch of that fault between Hayward and Milpitas, where the risk of a magnitude-6.7 or greater rupture is 22.3 percent over the next three decades.

"At this point, the Hayward Fault is pretty much reloaded," said Menlo Park-based USGS earthquake scientist Wayne Thatcher.

That's because the Hayward Fault has a lot of pent-up energy, after giving a modest shrug long ago, in 1868. It is more than twice as likely to rupture -- with a 14 percent risk of a 6.7 quake over the next 30 years -- as the northern San Andreas (6.4 percent), which exploded in 1906, devastating much of the Bay Area.

The risk of break along the South Bay's Calaveras Fault, less well understood, is 7.4 percent. The report does not predict where the next quake will hit -- or when. And it focuses on the probability of rupture, not the extent of destruction.
But it improves upon the previous 2008 analysis in two major ways: It boosts the number of known faults from 200 to 350 and represents deeper understanding of their behavior. Previous estimates assumed that each fault or fault segment, would cause its own quake, but we now know that they can rupture together, wreaking greater havoc.
The largest of California's most recent earthquakes ruptured right past such boundaries, jumping from one fault to another: the 1992 Landers quake (magnitude-7.3); the 1999 Hector Mine quake and 2010 El Mayor—Cucapah earthquakes (both 7.2).
The new analysis -- "a huge computational and intellectual challenge," said Field -- will be used to update seismic hazard maps that warn residents of dangers in their locales. It can also be used to refine structural designs of bridges, hospitals and schools, Field said.
While the Bay Area risks haven't changed significantly, the picture is different for the overall stability of the Golden State, a restless landscape straddling two major tectonic plates.
Statewide, the new study estimates that the likelihood California will experience a cataclysmic magnitude-8 or larger earthquake in the next 30 years has increased from about 4.7 percent to 7 percent. But the odds of a smaller magnitude-6.7 quake have fallen.
The report, which brought together experts from the U.S. Geological Survey, USC's Southern California Earthquake Center and the state Geological Survey, is a reminder that the state's nearly 40 million residents live in one of the planet's most violently seismic zones, risking lives and destruction of housing, businesses, transportation and communication infrastructures.
Of all the faults in the state, the southern San Andreas, which runs from Parkfield in Central California southeast to the Salton Sea, poses the greatest risk. There is a 19 percent chance in the next three decades that a Northridge-size quake will occur on the southern stretch of fault, compared to 6.4 percent for its Bay Area segment.
The San Jacinto fault, which bisects the fast-growing city of San Bernardino east of Los Angeles, has a 5 percent change of a magnitude-6.7 rupture.
"We are fortunate that seismic activity in California has been relatively low over the past century," said Tom Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center and a co-author of the study. "But we know that tectonic forces are continually tightening the springs."

Contact Lisa M. Krieger at 650-492-4098.

Earthquake forecast

This new California earthquake forecast by the U.S. Geological Survey and partners revises scientific estimates for the chances of having large earthquakes over the next several decades

Why Utah is bringing back the firing squad

State lawmakers have approved the measure in the event that authorities can’t obtain drugs for legal injections, making Utah the latest death penalty state to allow an alternate method of executing death row inmates.

By Jessica Mendoza, Staff Writer March 11, 2015

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  Trent Nelson/AP Photo/File

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The firing squad is coming back to Utah.
State lawmakers have approved a measure that would allow authorities to use the old method of execution if drugs for lethal injections can’t be obtained, NBC News reported. The state Senate passed the bill Tuesday in an 18-10 vote, though Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has not said whether or not he will sign it.
"We would love to get the lethal injection worked out so we can continue with that but if not, now we have a backup plan," Rep. Paul Ray (R) of Clearfield, who sponsored the bill, told The Associated Press.

Recommended: Infographic Death penalty: The state of capital punishment in the US, worldwide

The state is the latest to approve an alternative to lethal injection in the event that the latter becomes impossible to administer.

Infographic Death penalty: The state of capital punishment in the US, worldwide

Photos of the Day Photos of the day 03/10

To date, 15 states have backup methods of execution, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics: 8 have authorized death by electrocution, three have authorized lethal gas, three have authorized hanging, and two, including Utah, have authorized using a firing squad.
In most cases, the condemned prisoner can choose the method of execution.
In July, however, Tennessee became the first state to approve an alternative to lethal injection that would be used without the inmate having a choice, The Washington Post reported. Lawmakers there allowed the use of the electric chair in case lethal injection is deemed unconstitutional or authorities can’t obtain drugs for execution.
Alabama approved similar legislation earlier this month. Around the same time, Oklahoma legislators overwhelmingly approved the use of nitrogen gas chambers as the second alternative after lethal injection.
Death penalty states began debating the return of other methods of execution in the wake of the European Union’s 2011 ban on exporting drugs to the United States that would be used in lethal injections.
The drug shortage forced those states to adjust their formulas for lethal injection cocktails. Without the support of the FDA, which has refused to test the drugs’ efficacy, or the larger medical establishment, which has said it wants no part in administering death, the result was a number of botched executions that led to prolonged deaths.
“I believe in the death penalty for certain crimes. But that is not an acceptable way of carrying it out,” Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona told Politico last year, after Joseph Wood, a convicted murderer, died gasping and snorting almost two hours after authorities administered the lethal drugs.
“The lethal injection needs to be an indeed lethal injection and not the bollocks-upped situation that just prevailed,” Sen. McCain added. “That’s torture.”
The bungled executions led capital punishment opponents to hope that of the 32 states supporting the death penalty, at least some would find reason for a change of heart. Instead, those states began looking for other ways to enforce capital punishment.
"I think we had a little flash of hope that it would help our cause, but all it did was generate a lot of conversation about it," Lydia Polley, a longtime member of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, told The Christian Science Monitor in December, months after one inmate’s execution went so badly the executioners had to close the viewing galley curtains to conceal the mess.
“It just led to people thinking of better ways to kill them,” Ms. Polley said

France jewel heist: Robbers target security vans in brazen raid

Paris (CNN)Armed men targeted security vans carrying jewels in a late-night raid staged at a tollbooth near Auxerre, France, the French national police force said Wednesday.

About 15 men attacked the two vans around midnight Tuesday on the A6 highway at the Avallon tollbooth in the Yonne department, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) southeast of Paris, a police spokesman told CNN.

The spokesman didn't confirm the total value of the jewels taken.

But CNN's French affiliate BFMTV reported that the haul was estimated at 9 million euros ($9.5 million.)

The gang used some kind of gas on the van drivers as they commandeered the vehicles, BFMTV said.

However no shots were fired, said the police spokesman, adding that there were four drivers in total, two in each van.

The drivers are being questioned by the Central Office for the Fight against Organized Crime, which is leading the investigation, he said. They are not charged but are being held in custody for questioning.

The robbers fled in four high-speed cars and the two vans, which were found abandoned -- and emptied of their contents -- near the tollbooth. The burned-out vans have since been taken to a nearby town for examination, the police spokesman said.

A mechanical digger was found with its arm inside one of the vans, he said.

The cars of the attackers were spotted driving about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Avallon toward Paris at some point Wednesday, police said.

The national police force is using aircraft to hunt for the robbers. Forensic officers are also combing the scene of the crime for clues, BFMTV reported.

The Paris prosecutor's office is in charge of the judicial inquiry.

It's not the first time thieves have targeted high-value jewelry in France.

In one raid in Cannes in July 2013, an armed man made off with jewels worth close to $136 million, according to the Nice prosecutor's office.

That robbery followed two major jewel heists during the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Most notable diamond heists

CNN's Sandrine Amiel reported from Paris, and Laura Smith-Spark wrote and reported from London.

US blacklists Ukraine separatists, Crimea bank

The US Treasury listed eight separatist officials and the Eurasian Youth Union, a nationalist Russian group said to recruit fighters to join the rebels, under the sanctions.

Washington — The United States stepped up pressure on Ukraine separatists on Wednesday, announcing economic sanctions on rebel leaders and their alleged Russian supporters, and on the largest bank in Crimea.
The US Treasury listed eight separatist officials and the Eurasian Youth Union, a nationalist Russian group said to recruit fighters to join the rebels, under the sanctions.
The separatists include Aleksandr Karaman, Oleksandr Khodakovsky, and Ekaterina Gubareva, top officials with the self-proclaimed rebel Donetsk People’s Republic in Ukraine.
The Treasury named as well the Russian National Commercial Bank, a formerly little-known institution which has become the largest bank in Crimea since Russia seized the region from Ukraine one year ago.
Also listed were three officials of the former Ukraine government of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Moscow president overthrown in an uprising in February 2014.
The sanctions freeze any assets of the individuals and institutions held on US property and ban Americans from doing business with them.
For Russian National Commercial Bank, the sanctions effectively lock it out of major parts of the global financial system by forbidding other banks with US presences — including most large global banks — from handling money for it.
The Treasury called the sanctions “part of an ongoing effort to hold accountable those responsible for violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“That includes individuals, organisations, businesses, and the governments that support them,” said Treasury acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam Szubin.
“If Russia continues to support destabilising activity in Ukraine and violate the Minsk agreements and implementation plan, the already substantial costs it faces will continue to rise,” he said.
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