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Hundreds of U.S. troops, sent to help fight Ebola in West Africa, are now coming home. That's the news from the White House today.

Did they make a difference?

Goats and Soda

Can The U.S. Military Turn The Tide In The Ebola Outbreak?

Not in the way you'd think. The grand plans to build 17 new field hospitals in Liberia and train thousands of health care workers, announced in September, didn't quite come off. Several of the hospitals weren't needed and were never built. Others opened after the epidemic had peaked and were practically empty. Only a fraction of the promised health workers were trained.

But even though the hospital-building strategy wasn't the most productive, the U.S. did have a significant impact.

Tom Kirsch, who runs the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at John's Hopkins University, says the deployment of U.S. troops sent a strong message internationally — and it was about more than just building or not building new Ebola hospitals.

At the time the U.S. went in, he explains, "most of the ports along West African coast were blocking transport in to Liberia, the airlines had begun to pull out. And only one or two carriers were still left. So the logistical capacities that the U.S. military brought I think were probably the most important part of their response."

In other words, the military got things where they needed to go. The U.S. Air Force, for example, set up an air supply line from Senegal to ferry supplies in.

That's not all the U.S. accomplished. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention helped create systems to track cases. The U.S sent in mobile laboratories to test blood sample of suspected Ebola patients. This cut the time it took to diagnose — or rule out — an Ebola infection from days to just a few hours.

Over the last year the U.S. spent nearly a billion dollars fighting Ebola in West Africa. And only about a third of that went to the military part of the response. The $939 million the U.S. has spent on the outbreak is far more than the other leading donors — the U.K., Germany, the World Bank and the European Commission — combined.

Just because most of the troops are coming home doesn't mean the battle is over. President Obama says there is still a lot to be done to completely stop the spread of the deadly virus — and it's not charity work.

"In the 21st century, we cannot build moats around our countries," Obeama said today. "There are no draw bridges to be pulled up. We shouldn't try. "

And he vowed that the U.S. civilian response to the Ebola outbreak will continue until there are "zero" cases in West Africa.

ebola

Liberia

Not-quite-yet presidential candidate Jeb Bush posted the first chapter of an e-book about his two terms as Florida governor online Monday, along with six massive files containing a quarter-million of his emails.

This was something Bush said he would do back when he announced he was "actively exploring the possibility" of running for president. (He's since explained the phrase is legalese he is using for now; the lack of an actual candidacy allows him to raise unlimited donations for a super PAC supporting him — something that will be impossible once he is a candidate.)

In his introduction, Bush explains that he made a point of making sure average Floridians had access to him via email, and he estimates he spent an average of 30 hours per week reading and responding to it. At least some Floridians had trouble believing he was actually doing this.

One woman wrote to complain about tractor trailers on Interstate 75, but then added: "By the way, are you really Jeb or a staff member? Just curious."

Bush responded: "I am jeb." And then referred her to the Department of Transportation.

Here are five things we learned from the chapter — and the emailing habits of the man who refers to himself as Florida's "eGovernor:"

1) Bush loved his job.

The two-term GOP governor starts out his ebook saying so:

"I loved being the governor of Florida," he wrote. "It was my dream job, and that feeling never changed, not in eight years. Not through the hurricanes, budget debates, or even hanging chads."

Read even a few pages of his correspondence, and the time and attention he paid to any number of issues, big and small, quickly become clear. A Jan. 15, 1999, email at 8:36 pm to chief of staff Sally Bradshaw, for instance, sets out an agenda for a coming staff meeting:

Pharmacy formulary

Tobacco endowment rollout

Dev. Disability rollout

Mentor initiative"

In layman's terms: Medicaid prescription drug purchasing; the creation of an endowment fund with money collected from the state's successful lawsuit against the tobacco industry; a revamping of state services for children with developmental disabilities a new program to mentor at-risk children.

All but the last were highly technical in nature, and Bush was right at home down in the policy weeds.

2) No, it's not his White House agenda.

Those hoping for an outline of what he might do were he elected president will be disappointed. Bush's e-book is less a narrative than a series of brief explanations of a topic followed by emails about that topic. The chapter released Tuesday covers his first month in office. The rest of the book will be released by the end of this year.

3) Some transparency about Bush's transparency

Although Bush cites the "spirit of transparency" as the reason to release all these emails, there is also the fact that he had no choice. Florida has one of the most comprehensive public records laws in the country, and emails by a public official pertaining to public business are (with some specific exceptions, such as the privacy of children) open to public inspection.

The emails Bush posted today were public from the instant they were sent or received. Many reporters requested and received them (with varying degrees of bureaucratic and cost hurdles) in real time, and several news organizations, including NPR, requested and received the entire set from the Florida State Archives. In other words, Bush's use of them for his own book can be seen as taking a potential liability and turning it into an asset – making political lemonade from the lemons Florida law saddled him with.

4) A limited level of candor

Those looking for complete candor about the functioning of Bush's governor's office will also be disappointed. Within a month of officially taking office, Bush and his staff were keenly aware their correspondence was serving as news coverage fodder. When his staff began debating later that year whether the amount of vacation time they were getting was appropriate, Bush advised they take their discussion offline. "I suggest that you guys have a verbal conversation about it rather than create a public document." He did, however, finish the thought with a smiley face.

5) The governor's competitive streak

Despite knowing that everything he was typing would someday become public, Bush sometimes hit the send button even when perhaps he shouldn't have. In a May 2002 email, he reveals both the competitive streak and flash of temper that were well known inside the Capitol building. A Democratic voter sent him an email with the subject line "Shame, shame, shame..." to criticize his education plan and vowed to boot him from office come November. Bush responded by defending his record and then finished: "Give it your best shot," and "Have a wonderful day."

Bush won his re-election easily.

2016 Republican presidential nomination

Jeb Bush

David Axelrod recalls the first time he met Barack Obama in 1992 when they had lunch: "I was really impressed by him," he says.

The veteran political consultant was struck that the president, who had been the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and was highly sought after by big law firms, instead decided to put together a voter registration drive and practice civil rights law at a little firm in Chicago.

The world of candidates, Axelrod tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies, divides into two candidates: "People who run for office because they want to be something, which is the more numerous category, and people who run for office because they want to do something," he says. "That is the smaller and more admirable group that I love to work with and for. It was clear he was going to be that kind of a person."

i

Chief campaign strategist David Axelrod (left) and communications director Robert Gibbs talk to members of the traveling press corps during a flight leading up to the Pennsylvania primary in 2008. Scout Tufankjian/Polaris hide caption

itoggle caption Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

Chief campaign strategist David Axelrod (left) and communications director Robert Gibbs talk to members of the traveling press corps during a flight leading up to the Pennsylvania primary in 2008.

Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

Axelrod ended up crafting the media strategy for Obama's two presidential campaigns and spent two years in the White House as a senior adviser to the president. He gives stories and insights about his years with Obama in his new memoir Believer: My Forty Years in Politics offers plenty of stories and insights from his years with Obama.

Specifically, Axelrod recalls the moment in the 2008 campaign when he interrupted Obama and running-mate Joe Biden on a flight to tell them Sarah Palin was the Republican vice presidential nominee, which prompted Biden to say, "Who's Sarah Palin?"

Axelrod's book also recounts his early years as a political reporter and his work with other candidates, including presidential contender John Edwards (not a good experience) and plenty of rogues and colorful characters from his home base in Chicago, among them Harold Washington, the city's first black mayor, and Rod Blagojevich, who eventually became governor and went to jail in part for trying to sell Obama's former U.S. Senate seat.

Axelrod is now director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, which he says he founded to inspire young Americans to consider participating in American politics.

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My Forty Years in Politics

by David Axelrod

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Interview Highlights

On the transition from being a journalist to a political adviser

The first time I was at a rally with [Paul] Simon after I made the switch and realized that I could applaud, it was kind of a shock to my system because I was so used to maintaining at least the veneer of objectivity. I think every reporter has views, but you try to be as objective as you can.

On whether he believed in every candidate he represented

I always went through a process of trying to sell myself before I tried to sell anybody else, and I would get emotionally wrapped up in my campaigns and sometimes on behalf of candidates who weren't worthy of that.

On President Obama's first debate with Mitt Romney in 2012 for his re-election

We were always worried about the first debate because it historically is a killing field for presidents. Presidents aren't used to debating. Their opponents have generally been debating in primaries; presidents aren't used to being challenged by someone standing four feet away from them, being treated as a peer.

So presidents generally do badly in the first debate and we tried mightily to avoid that. But the prep sessions didn't go very well. There were a lot of testy exchanges with John Kerry who was playing Mitt Romney. We actually cautioned the president against engaging too much, which may have been a mistake, because we were worried about the testiness of those exchanges.

It drives my wife crazy. She hates the caricature of the rumpled, sloppy, food-stained political warrior — but that's the cartoon and I've come to live with it. Maybe I've come to represent it, I don't know.

- David Axelrod

We had a last prep session before the first debate in Denver, which we all thought was pretty appalling. ... I had the dubious honor of going in and talking to him for the group after the session and he said, "Well, I think that went pretty well." And I said, "Well, actually there are some things we need to work on yet." He didn't receive that news well and used a word that he has never used before or since and that I won't use here, but made clear how he felt about me at that moment, and he bolted out of the room and I didn't see him until the next morning.

I was kind of stunned by it because we'd known each other for so long, but I also knew that he really wasn't directing it at me so much as at his own frustration, because he knew we weren't where we needed to be. I think every single one of us, including the president, knew we weren't headed into Denver in good shape — and that, of course, turned out to be true.

On following the many different media platforms

Yes, you follow Twitter and you're aware that any little event somewhere could hijack a day's news, sometimes a week's news, or several weeks' news. It makes [for] a really, really difficult environment. It also means that if you're president — we used to talk about the "bully pulpit" — but you have to assemble your bully pulpit each time you want to communicate something because Americans aren't watching the same thing or aren't getting their news from the same place as they once did. So you have to speak through many different platforms.

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As Obama steps up his campaigning during his first presidential bid, his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod talks with a reporter in Malvern, Pa. Scout Tufankjian/Polaris hide caption

itoggle caption Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

As Obama steps up his campaigning during his first presidential bid, his chief campaign strategist David Axelrod talks with a reporter in Malvern, Pa.

Scout Tufankjian/Polaris

I mean, who would've thought that the president of the United States would be on a show called Between Two Ferns to promote his health care plan? But the fact is he hit 10 million people with that appearance — many of whom were the target for younger people who we needed to sign up for that health care plan. So it's a far more complex and challenging environment than past presidents and past generations have faced.

On how Axelrod restrained himself while on Meet the Press and other shows

It was hard, but you know, when you're speaking for the president of the United States, you know that one misstatement can send armies marching and markets tumbling — and that is a very sobering realization.

So yes, I felt constrained when I was on those programs to color within the lines and not to be too venturesome because I knew some off-handed remark could have real consequences. ... It was a discipline that was hard for me because I'm a congenital smart aleck and I love tossing off good lines — and this was decidedly not the place to do it.

On what he's been called in the media, including Axelfraud, Streetfighter, Message Maven, Political Protector, Marxist Mentor and Lefty Lumberjack

The "Axelfraud" thing sticks in my mind because those guys were shouting it at me when I was on the steps of the capitol in Massachusetts. I hadn't heard Lefty Lumberjack, it seems like an oxymoron to me. But I'm surprised though that on your list there aren't [other descriptive words]. "Rumpled" almost always comes up and "stained" is another one because generally you can find remnants of my last meal somewhere on me. The president loves that. He's always inspecting me so he can ask me what it was that I had that he's looking at. So those are the ones that are most prominent in my mind. It drives my wife crazy. She hates the caricature of the rumpled, sloppy, food-stained political warrior — but that's the cartoon and I've come to live with it. Maybe I've come to represent it, I don't know.

On leaving politics to direct the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago

I really am happy to be where I am today and I think my family is happy that I am where I am today. I asked them to make so many sacrifices — and I want to spend the rest of my life trying to inspire these kids and spend time with my family.

If people call me and ask me for advice, of course I'll give it to them, but I'm not going to get on that carousel again. I had such a singularly great experience with Obama. I had a relationship with him that I'll never have with anyone else, and I'd rather go out on top and move on.

The Los Angeles City Council is currently considering whether to raise the minimum wage to $15.25 an hour by 2019. It would follow Seattle and San Francisco, two cities that approved $15 minimum wages in the past year.

The spread of a higher minimum wage is a huge victory for the labor unions backing these measures — but it is unlikely most of the people getting raises will ever be part of organized labor.

The idea of a $15 minimum wage first came to the public's attention in a series of fast-food strikes starting in 2012. Those fry cooks and cashiers didn't just walk off the job by themselves — they were part of a multimillion-dollar effort orchestrated by unions.

But none of those restaurants have unionized, and they probably never will, says David Rolf, a vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

"Since at least the early 1980s, winning unions for the first time in the private sector has been a herculean task," Rolf says. "The political process provides an alternative vehicle."

Rusty Hicks is the new head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents over 300 unions. While some union leaders say organizing is dead, he says unions must focus on it. Ben Bergman/Southern California Public Radio/ KPCC hide caption

itoggle caption Ben Bergman/Southern California Public Radio/ KPCC

It was voters who approved San Francisco's $15 minimum wage in November and in SeaTac, Wash., a year earlier, after a campaign led by Rolf.

"We can't be the movement that's just about us," Rolf says. "The labor movement that workers flocked to by the tens of millions in the 1930s wasn't known for negotiating 500-page contracts. They were known for fighting for the eight-hour day, fighting to end child labor."

Rolf is controversial among labor leaders because he's not shy about saying collective bargaining as we know it is dead.

"Any model that shrinks for 50 years in a row in all 50 states is probably not part of the future," he says.

In the mid-20th century, about 1 in 3 American workers belonged to a union. Last year, only about 1 in 10 did, which is the lowest number in nearly a century.

Even so, Rusty Hicks, the new head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, says unions should focus on organizing.

"There is a big debate going on within the broader labor movement about, how do you adapt to a global economy of the 21st century?" Hicks says. "I believe that collective bargaining is not dead."

And Hicks says that while unions may be on their way out in the rest of the country, they're not in LA, where 16 percent of the area's workers are unionized. That number has held steady for more than a decade, which counts as a victory these days.

"LA is on the cutting edge of organizing in this country, from the port drivers, to hotel workers and everything in between," Hicks says.

But it might not be in unions' best interest to be leading the $15 fight, says Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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"In effect, what you have now is the SEIU — its hospital membership ... or its membership working for the department of motor vehicles — [saying that] their dues money is helping to raise the wages of fast food workers, and not their own wages," he says.

This is because most unionized workers earn far more than the minimum wage. According to a report by UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, union workers in LA earn an average of more than $27 an hour.

Still, Lichtenstein says, having a higher floor could be beneficial in future contract negotiations.

"If you can raise the wages in those sectors which have been pulling down the general wage level — i.e. fast food or retail, for that matter — then it makes it easier for unions to create a higher standard and [to] then go on and try to get more stuff," he says.

It's also rare now for workers to stay in the same job for their whole career, so people are likely to drift in and out of unions.

For this reason, Robert Matsuda, a studio violinist represented by the American Federation of Musicians, is all for a $15 per hour wage.

"I might have to take a minimum-wage job in the near future, so it might directly affect me," he says.

Even though Matsuda works for well above the minimum wage now, he worries that may not last. He's getting fewer gigs as more film and TV scoring work gets outsourced overseas.

Wages

restaurant workers

organized labor

unions

labor

Los Angeles

minimum wage