News you can use to help prep you for the voting booth, how and why politicians dial it back, the latest comic revelation has Captain America's fans going crazy.
Grab a spoon: Bitter political rivals end up eating their words at the party convention
As the primary contests wind down, and the presumptive nominees turn their sights to November, bitter foes on both sides of the political aisle have started dialing back their heated rhetoric.
But this is far from the first time former rivals have had to mend fences with the presidency on the line. So what makes a graceful about-face?
Take Two took a look back at some of the best presidential backtrackers in recent memory with Sam Popkin, who has advised for several presidential campaigns. He is also the author of the book, “The Candidate: What it Takes to Win -- and Hold -- The White House.”
Why do former presidential candidates dial it back?
“They want to be ready for the next time,” Popkin said. “They want to act loyal enough, so they don’t alienate the winner’s people while secretly praying that he loses, and they want to keep faith with their followers, so they’re ready for the next time when they hope to win.”
Bill Clinton vs. Jerry Brown
President Bill Clinton sat down with California Governor Jerry Brown at the governor’s mansion this Monday. It’s a scene that might have seemed impossible 24 years ago when they competed for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“1992 was Jerry’s third race, and he jumped in with angry attacks on Bill Clinton. Much harsher than even Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton,” Popkin said.
Here’s a clip from a particularly contentious primary debate in 1992:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5kUITklALQ
Popkin says Clinton and Brown buried the hatchet because the both have likely come to the conclusion that they’re just too old to be petty.
“I think now at this point they’re old warriors. Old enemies have more in common than almost anybody else because they remember how much fun they had when they were the stars,” Popkin said.
Gerald Ford vs. Ronald Reagan
It was a contentious and awkward political climate: a sitting president was challenged by a member of his party — and the challenger almost won.
“It was very acrimonious,” says Sam Popkin. “It was as bitter as I can remember many races and he (Reagan) was really rallying forces that had been in the party since the Goldwater defeat.”
Here’s Ronald Reagan’s concession speech:
https://youtu.be/_eSmfldz_bA?t=6m10s
Well-played, says Sam Popkin. “You want to act like you really want your party to win. You want to remind your party why we hate the other party; then you want to do just enough so nobody can say you didn’t try.”
He adds that Reagan didn’t really try to help Ford after that. It’s now clear why that was.
Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton
Sam Popkin says the tense primary race of 2008 led to a rift in the Democratic Party. That all culminated in Clinton’s concession speech.
“It was very touchy,” Popkin says. “A lot of African-American supporters of Hillary were angry at Obama, who wasn’t ‘black enough.’ There were generational splits in families, and it was very passionate."
Clinton’s concession:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mTpGpjIyHs
So, let’s talk about Sanders …
“He’s doing what he needs to [in order to] get to the convention and make as much of a footprint as he can for his legacy,” Popkin says. “Only at the end of June when people have calmed down will we really get a sense of whether he actually wants Hillary to win, or he really wants to change the party. Ronald Reagan acted like he wanted to work with Jerry Ford and then he didn’t.”
Press the blue play button above to hear the full story.
Hiroshima survivor retells devastating aftermath of atomic bomb
President Obama is close to wrapping up his weeklong trip to Asia.
He’s in Japan Thursday and on Friday he will be making a historic visit to Hiroshima. He’s the first sitting president to visit the city which was devastated by an atomic bomb during World War II
Last year, on the 70th anniversary of the bombing, we spoked to Jack Dairiki, a Californian who was living in Hiroshima at the time, and he described that day for us as one that began like any other.
Japanese American survivor of Hiroshima retells his story
May Yamaoka was also there when the bombing happened. She is now 87-years-old and living in El Cerrito, California. She was among those who also survived and remembers being ushered into a bomb shelter.
"The people who were sitting by the windows...they got burned on the one side of their face. We were standing inside of the building by the machinery so it became really dusty and the walls - the inside walls fell. We didn't know about it until the dust cleared and we got up to go outside."
Once she went outside she saw the aftermath of the bombing and realized what had happened to the city.
"It's hard to describe what I saw..imagine the blisters that were so huge and and the skins hanging down and I seldom talk about it because I just can't relive it," says Yamaoka.
She will be watching the President's visit closely and hopes he will realize the extent of the damage.
Intruders breach US airport fences about every 10 days, AP finds
Under pressure to prevent people from sneaking onto runways and planes at major U.S. airports, authorities are cracking down — not on the intruders who slip through perimeter gates or jump over fences, but on the release of information about the breaches.
A year after an Associated Press investigation first revealed persistent problems with airports’ outer defenses, breaches remain as frequent as ever — about once every 10 days — despite some investments to fortify the nation’s airfields. As Americans wait in ever-longer security screening lines inside terminals, new documents show dozens more incidents happening outside perimeters than airports have disclosed.
At the same time, leaders at some airports and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration are saying some of the 345 incidents AP found shouldn’t count as security breaches, even when intruders got deep into secure areas.
Was it a perimeter security breach in March 2015 when a woman walked past a vehicle exit gate at San Francisco International Airport and onto the tarmac, where she tried to flag down a jet for a trip home to Guatemala? No it was not, said the airport and TSA officials, who also tried to suppress information about the case.
After discussing intrusions openly at first, officials at several airports and the TSA started withholding details, arguing the release could expose vulnerabilities.
Following a two-year legal struggle with the TSA, AP has now used newly released information to create the most comprehensive public tally of perimeter security breaches. The 345 incidents took place at 31 airports that handle three-quarters of U.S. passenger travel. And that’s an undercount, because several airports refused to provide complete information.
The count shows that an intruder broke through the security surrounding one of those airports on average every 13 days from the beginning of 2004 through mid-February; starting in 2012, the average has been every 9.5 days. Many intruders scaled barbed wire-topped fences or walked past vehicle checkpoints. Others crashed cars into chain link and concrete barriers.
Airport officials point out that no case involved a known terrorist plot. Police reports suggest many trespassers were disoriented, intoxicated or delusional. Some came on skateboards and bikes, while others commandeered vehicles on the tarmac. One man got into a helicopter cockpit and was preparing to take off.
Five intruders brought knives and one a loaded gun.
Over the past year, the TSA and airports have been focused less on perimeter security than on stopping weapons that passengers or baggage handlers try to sneak onto planes.
“It doesn’t surprise me that people sometimes try to jump over fences to see what they can get away with,” said TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger. “The question is: What’s your ability to detect it and … what might you do to mitigate that happening in the future?”
Democratic U.S. Rep. William Keating of Massachusetts reacted to AP’s findings by saying the TSA must extend its focus beyond screening passengers and help airports protect their perimeters.
“It’s like saying your door is locked but your window’s wide open,” he said.
Airport officials would not discuss how much they are spending on fortifying perimeters. Some that added security in the past year saw fewer intruders, others had more.
Altogether, there were at least 39 breaches nationwide in 2015, which also was the annual average from 2012 through 2015. The low was 34 in 2013 and the high 42 in 2012, when incidents spiked after several years hovering around 20 breaches.
Aviation security consultant Jeff Price said the TSA and airports have not done enough to address gaps in perimeter security.
“The straight-up honest answer as to why it’s not being vigorously addressed? Nothing bad’s happened. Yet,” Price said.
Airport officials stress that the miles of fences, gates and guardhouses protecting their properties are secure and say many intruders are quickly caught.
Perimeters are not “a gaping vulnerability,” said Christopher Bidwell, vice president of security at the advocacy group Airports Council International-North America. When intruders are quickly caught, “their ability to do anything nefarious isn’t really there,” Bidwell said. “It’s being neutralized because they are actively being surveilled.”
But video cameras and guards don’t always spot intruders.
After eluding security and reaching parked planes at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, one intruder warned an airport worker in December that he “better not say” anything. Authorities never found the man, though they did arrest three others at different times in 2015, including one man who managed to drive his vehicle in with a convoy entering the airfield during a visit by Pope Francis.
The large airports with the most known incidents serve San Francisco (41), Las Vegas (30), Philadelphia (30) and Los Angeles (26). New York’s JFK ranked 10th with 12 breaches.
Associated Press reporter Justin Pritchard joins Take Two to discuss the findings of their investigation.
Pritchard reported from Los Angeles, Mendoza from San Francisco. Contributing were Dan Kempton in Phoenix, Monika Mathur and Alicia Caldwell in Washington, and Brian Barrett, Rhonda Shafner, Jennifer Farrar and Jacob Pearson in New York.
Expect airport security lines and wait times to remain long through the summer
It's not just your imagination -- airport security lines have gotten longer and the Transportation Security Administration has been under pressure from airports and airlines for weeks to hire more agents in time for the summer season.
TSA head Peter Neffenger told Congress Wednesday the agency is trying to manage the wait times, but it still lacks enough officers to really stay ahead of the lines.
Earlier this month, Congress authorized $34 million dollars to hire new officers and pay overtime but TSA says it might ask for even more.
Earlier, Nico Melendez, a spokesperson with the TSA in Los Angeles, joined the show to discuss and update on the situation.
He says that around this time, passengers should expect busier scenes at airports.
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
State of Affairs: Sanders and Clinton in close race for CA and a Trump-Sanders debate?
On this week's State of Affairs, Donald Trump reaches the necessary number of delegates for the GOP nomination, a new poll finds Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a virtual tie in CA, and the possibility of a debate between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump before the June primary.
Joining Take Two to discuss:
- Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, professor of the Practice of Public Policy Communication at USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy
- Joe Garofoli, senior political writer at The San Francisco Chronicle
Is downtown LA ready to let go of the Cecil Hotel?
There's a notoriously creepy hotel in downtown LA that inspired an entire season of American Horror story:
In the show, they renamed it the Hotel Cortez, but there's no mistaking the similarities between that place and LA's Cecil Hotel, which is now a hostel renamed Stay On Main.
But New York developers have stepped in and are looking to give it a makeover.
Will Angelenos embrace the change, or will they never be able to let go of the Cecil's past?
For more, Bianca Barragan Associate editor at Curbed LA joined the show to discuss the new developers, the hotel's creepy past, and public opinion of the project.
Interview Highlights
Who are these developers?
"Richard Born is kind of a boutique hotelier in New York. He runs trendy hotels like the Mercer, the Bowery, the Maritime. Often these are properties that need deep renovations and one of them, the Jane even had a seamy history."
What plans do these developers have for the hotel?
"Just earlier this month, a new developer came into the mix. Simon Baron development inked a 99-year ground lease for the hotel and what's going to happen next isn't really clear. Richard Born had a plan to turn the hotel into reasonably priced residences aimed at young professionals. But Simon Baron hasn't really said exactly what the price point is going to be for his project, but he did say that it's going to be a hotel and apartments."
What's a brief history of this Hotel's past?
"The hotel opened in the mid-1920's. When it opened it was aimed at business travelers but with the great depression by the 1950's it had become pretty run down and started acquiring a reputation after a lot of people committed suicide by jumping off the building or dying in otherwise unfortunate circumstances in the building. In the 1980's the night stalker Richard Ramirez took up residence in the hotel and by the 1990's another serial killer had moved into the hotel and he was living there sometimes his name was Jack Unterweger, and those are just the serial killers that we know about.
And in 2013, there was that unfortunate event with that tourist named Elisa Lam and was found dead in the water cistern on the roof. It was actually the inspiration for a TV show."
What has public opinion been on this?
"I think that public opinion has been divided, as many discussions about downtown's quote, unquote resurgence, or rise have been. There are those people who are definitely excited to see an influx of money, they're definitely excited to see a building that they imagine as kind of a hotbed for violence and a run down place. There are also people though who are really worried about what's going to happen when downtown...more projects like this and there are a lot of projects that are coming in and making run down hotels fancy or run down buildings fancy, I think they're worried that they're going to push out the people that have called this place home for a long time before it was cool."
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
Say it ain't so! Has Captain America turned to the dark side?
Good Ol' Captain America. Defender of our country. Always believing in American values.
That is until this week...
"Hail Hydra."
Two words that millions of comic book fans would have bet millions that Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America would NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER say.
But he did.
Cap has been fighting the evil terrorist organization for 75 years - HOWEVER - yesterday Marvel dropped Captain America: Steve Rogers #1 on the shelves and it revealed that the red, white and blue hero has been a deep agent for Hydra the whole time.
What? Why? How?
Here to help answer ALL of those questions is KPCC pop culture editor Mike Roe.
"There have been storylines similar to this in the past," Roe said to Take Two's A Martinez. "I think that a lot of what the anger over this storyline is that it came out at a time when there's the internet for people to get upset about it."
And indeed that internet outrage was swift and powerful. On twitter #SayNoToHYDRACap trended for much of Wednesday, with some even going so far as accusing Marvel of spitting in the face of an iconic character.
So will this drastic change stick?
"It's highly unlikely," Roe said. "Big reveals like this often don't last."
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
The Binge: In the Line of Fire, The Firm, Ray Donovan and more
Thanks to services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and others - there are thousands of movies and television shows available at any given time. But how do you decide?
Take Two contributor Mark Jordan Legan stops by with this month's Binge offerings, this time - it's all about movies and TV shows that are filled with dramatic action and intrigue.
- In the Line of Fire - (Amazon Prime)
In the 1993 film, Eastwood plays a grizzled, old Secret Service agent who is still haunted by what happened in Dallas in 1963 – he was there to protect JFK and has always second guessed himself about that fateful day. Decades later a mysterious figure starts threatening the current President.
- The Firm (Amazon Prime)
Also from 1993 is the exciting action thriller starring Tom Cruise as a young Harvard Law School grad, who after being heavily recruited by many prestigious law firms, decides to go with a top Memphis firm where everything seems too good to be true… and it isn’t.
- Ray Donovan (Hulu via Showtime)
The Showtime series starring Liev Schreiber has been hailed by fans and critics alike. Schreiber plays an Irish-American from South Boston with a lot of secrets in his past and he currently is a “fixer” for a powerful Hollywood law firm. He takes care of the dirty work for many of the firm’s rich, powerful and troubled clients. But he also has to deal with a troubled family - including his recently released father, played by Jon Voight.
- The Americans (Amazon Prime via FX)
And finally, we go to a show that the Washington Post recently called the best show on TV, The Americans. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell play what appears to be the perfect American couple living in the suburbs right outside Washington D.C in the year 1981. But what you discover is they are deep cover Russian KGB spies.
is a writer living in Los Angeles - here's a link to see more of the past Binge segments.