Jul 26

Today’s News 26th July 2016

  • "Credible Evidence" Shows Turkish Authorities Raped And Tortured Detainees Since 'Failed' Coup

    Via MiddleEastEye.net,

    Human rights group Amnesty International said on Sunday it had "credible evidence" of abuse and torture of people detained in sweeping arrests since Turkey's 15 July attempted military coup.

    The London-based group said some of those being held were being "subjected to beatings and torture, including rape, in official and unofficial detention centres in the country".

    Amnesty said more than 10,000 people have been detained since the attempted coup, and the group called for independent monitors to be granted access to detention sites across Turkey.

    Amnesty raised serious allegations of mistreatment against Turkish police, who they said have held detainees in “stress positions, denied them food, water and medical treatment, verbally abused and threatened them, and subjected them to beatings and torture, including rape and sexual assault”.

    Two lawyers working in the capital Ankara on behalf of detainees told Amnesty they witnessed “senior military officers in detention being raped with a truncheon or finger by police officers”.

    Another source told Amnesty between 650 and 800 soldiers have been detained at the Ankara police headquarters sports hall. The source said “at least 300 of the detainees showed signs of having been beaten”.

    “Reports of abuse including beatings and rape in detention are extremely alarming, especially given the scale of detentions that we have seen in the past week. The grim details that we have documented are just a snapshot of the abuses that might be happening in places of detention,” said Amnesty International’s Europe director John Dalhuisen.

    "It is absolutely imperative that the Turkish authorities halt these abhorrent practices and allow international monitors to visit all these detainees in the places they are being held.”

    A Turkish official, who asked to remain anonymous, told MEE that the government rejects Amnesty's allegations of mistreating detainees.

    "We categorically deny the allegations and encourage advocacy groups to provide an unbiased account of the legal steps that are being taken against people who murdered nearly 250 civilians in cold blood," the official said.

     

    "The idea that Turkey, a country seeking EU membership, would not respect the law is absurd. Just yesterday we released 1,200 military personnel because all we care about is concrete evidence of complicity in this grave assault against our democracy."

    Since the failed coup, a total of 13,165 people have been detained, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said late on Saturday.

    This included 8,838 soldiers, 2,101 judges and prosecutors, 1,485 police officers and 689 civilians.

    At least 123 generals and admirals have also been jailed, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

    Amnesty said that while Turkey has legitimate security concerns in light of the attempted coup, abuses of human rights are never acceptable. 

    "Turkey is understandably concerned with public security at the moment, but no circumstances can ever justify torture and other ill-treatment or arbitrary detention," Dalhuisen said.

    Speaking at a unity rally held in Istanbul on Sunday evening, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu told huge crowds of people from across the Turkish political spectrum that mistreatment of detainees "shouldn't be allowed".

    The leader of the centre-left CHP said, without specifically mentioning the Amnesty report: "The state cannot be run based on hate and vengeance. The rule of law needs to prevail. Torture, pressure in response will put state and putschists on same page and shouldn’t be allowed."

  • Hillary Clinton Is In Deep Trouble: "Hordes Of Wall Street Executives" Descend Upon Philly

    Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    Political pundits throughout the land are tripping over each other to compose the latest bland, uninsightful screed proclaiming the death of the Republican Party. This makes sense, because the primary purpose of a political pundit is to state the obvious years after it’s already become established fact to everyone actually paying attention.

     

    Yes, of course, Trump winning the GOP nomination marks the end of the party as we know it. After all, some neocons are already publicly and actively throwing their support behind Hillary. While this undoubtably represents a major turning point in U.S. political history, many pundits have yet to appreciate that the exact same thing is happening within the Democratic Party. It’s just not completely obvious yet.

     

    – From February’s post: It’s Not Just the GOP – The Democratic Party is Also Imploding

    I believe Hillary Clinton lost the Presidency this past week. While the explosive DNC leaks will undoubtably have a long lasting effect, this post will barely reference the leaks. Rather, it will explain how recent decisions by the Hillary campaign played right into Trump’s hands by essentially waving a gigantic middle finger to the 73% of Americans who think the country is headed in the wrong direction.

    What Hillary Clinton did in selecting Tim Kaine as VP was send a clear signal that not only is she the status quo candidate, she is proud of it. She didn’t just double down on being the establishment candidate, she tripled and quadrupled down. There is now no denying that Hillary Clinton is implicitly running on only two themes.

    1. Trump is scary. I am not Trump.

     

    2. Things aren’t really bad. I’ll continue along the path we’ve been on.

    This message will result in a guaranteed loss against an opponent who is telling the American public “I know you’re angry, I’m angry too, and I’m going to blow up the status quo.” Recall that 73% of the U.S. public thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction. As the Wall Street Journal noted:

    Some 73% in the new survey say things have gone off-course, with only 18% saying the nation is headed in the right direction.

     

    Numbers such as those are usually seen in times of national crisis, such as during the government shutdown of 2013, when only 14% said the nation was on-course, or during the 2008 financial crisis, when 11% said things were headed in the right direction.

    In this post, I will prove that Hillary is signaling a “business as usual” approach to the status quo, and in return, the status quo is uniformly and excitedly rallying around her. This will disgust most Americans and lead to a Trump victory. People who dislike Trump more than Clinton will vote for him anyway, because they dislike the status quo even more.

    So let’s take a look at Tim Kaine, starting with the topic of banks. Here are a few excerpts from a recent Huffington Post article titled, Tim Kaine Calls To Deregulate Banks As He Campaigns To Be Clinton’s VP:

    Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is on Hillary Clinton’s short list of potential vice presidential nominees. He’s also actively pushing bank deregulation this week as he campaigns for the job.

     

    Kaine signed two letters on Monday urging federal regulators to go easy on banks ? one to help big banks dodge risk management rules, and another to help small banks avoid consumer protection standards.

     

    As Kaine joins the deregulatory fight, several other lawmakers are pushing the CFPB in the opposite direction. On Wednesday, 28 senators sent a letter to the agency urging them to toughen up their new rule against abusive payday lending. Kaine didn’t sign it.

    Moving along, what about the TPP, where does Mr. Kaine stand there?

    Here’s a hint from the Intercept’s recent article, Hours Before Hillary Clinton’s VP Decision, Likely Pick Tim Kaine Praises the TPP:

    Hillary Clinton’s rumored vice presidential pick Sen. Tim Kaine defended his vote for fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on Thursday.

     

    Kaine, who spoke to The Intercept after an event at a Northern Virginia mosque, praised the agreement as an improvement of the status quo, but maintained that he had not yet decided how to vote on final approval of the agreement. By contrast, Hillary Clinton has qualified her previous encouragement of the agreement, and now says she opposes it.

     

    Kaine’s measured praise of the agreement could signal one of two things. Either he is out of the running for the vice presidential spot, as his position on this major issue stands in opposition to hers. Or, by picking him, Clinton is signaling that her newly declared opposition to the agreement is not sincere. The latter explanation would confirm the theory offered by U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, among others, who has said that Clinton is campaigning against the TPP for political reasons but would ultimately implement the deal.

    Banking and fake free trade deals are two topics that get Americans animated across the ideological spectrum, and by selecting Tim Kaine, Hillary is not so subtly telling her donors not to pay attention to any anti-establishement rhetoric that may come out of her mouth during the campaign. She signaling that she knows the status quo has her back, and she has theirs.

    Unsurprisingly, the oligarchs and their lobbyists who run the show and craft policies behind the scenes have gotten the message loud and clear. How can I be so certain? Let me give you a few examples.

    First, let’s take a look at the extent to which lobbyists generally are embracing Clinton as opposed to shunning Trump. From The Hill:

    Lobbyists are being welcomed back into the fold of the Democratic Party as the Obama era draws to a close.

     

    President Obama campaigned heavily against special interests in 2008 and put in place several new policies limiting their service in his administration. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) banned lobbyist contributions, and lobbyists began complaining of a stigma — a “scarlet L” — being attached unfairly to their industry.

     

    Times appear to be changing, though, with the outward hostility to the K Street crowd thawing.

     

    Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has accepted more than $9 million in bundled donations from registered lobbyists, while the DNC has rolled back the lobbyist bans that Obama put into place.

     

    “In 2008 and 2012, there was no integration with the [Obama] campaign,” said Al Mottur, a senior Democratic lobbyist at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, adding that he would have liked to have helped. “Now, the campaign is welcoming — they’re open to us. That’s why I’ve done as much work for her as I’ve done on her behalf.”

     

    Lobbyist bundlers have contributed to Clinton’s massive donor advantage over the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

     

    Clinton’s bundler policy also gives lobbyists hope that she may reverse Obama’s policies, issued via executive order, that were intended to slow down what he called the “revolving door” between government and the private sector.

     

    “There are a lot of people on K Street who certainly hope she would” reverse or ignore an executive order signed by Obama aimed at limiting registered lobbyists from getting jobs in the White House, said Mary Beth Stanton of Heather Podesta + Partners.

     

    “With the anti-Washington sentiment of this campaign … it wouldn’t be something that would be discussed today,” she added. “That’s a staffing issue, and that’s not something that they’ll decide until they have to.”

    In other words, we know she’ll have our back in office even if she has to pretend to dislike us to get elected.

    For 2016, the DNC reversed the prohibition on lobbyist cash entirely, both for the party and the convention, giving corporations and lobbyists the opportunity to participate fully.

     

    Trump’s controversial campaign had a tangible effect on the Republican convention last week in Cleveland.

     

    Many companies skipped the event and declined to make donations for fear of being associated with the businessman’s controversial rhetoric. Several Republican lobbyists who did come to Cleveland told The Hill that they would be taking care of business for clients and out as quickly as possible.

     

    Clinton’s candidacy is also a draw for those on K Street, many of whom have been involved with the family for years.

     

    “The community is supporting her, there is no question about that,” said David Castagnetti of Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas. His firm is also kicking off the convention with a party on Monday.

    While disgusting, that’s nothing compared to the following excerpts from the Politico article titled, Wall Street Takes a Road Trip to Philadelphia. Brace yourselves…

    NEW YORK — Wall Street is taking the Acela down to Philadelphia this week.

     

    Hordes of industry executives will descend on the city to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s nomination for president and renew close associations that vexed the Democratic standard-bearer throughout her primary battle with Bernie Sanders.

     

    Goldman Sachs, which paid Clinton millions for private speeches, will be well represented in Philadelphia with executives Jake Siewert, a former Bill Clinton press secretary, making the trip along with Steven Barg, Michael Paese, Joyce Brayboy and Jennifer Scully, who was a major fundraiser for Bill Clinton in New York in 1992.

     

    Blackstone, one of the nation’s largest private equity firms, will hold an official reception in Philadelphia on Thursday featuring its president, Tony James, sometimes mentioned as a possible Treasury Secretary in a Clinton administration. 

    Recall: Here Come the Cronies – Buffett and Blackstone President Launch $33,400 a Plate Hillary Clinton Fundraiser

    Hedge fund managers and top Democratic donors including Avenue Capital’s Marc Lasry and Boston Provident’s Orin Kramer will also be on the scene as will Morgan Stanley executive and former top Clinton aide Tom Nides. Executives from Citigroup, JPMorganChase and other large banks will also prowl the streets and bar rooms of Philadelphia.

     

    The financial contingent will be in an especially good mood following Clinton’s selection of Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate. Kaine has shown a willingness to fight for regional bank relief from the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. But more than that, he’s not Elizabeth Warren, the potential VP pick that long had Wall Street terrified.

     

    Republicans with ties to the financial industry will also be there, a sharp contrast to Donald Trump’s convention in Cleveland, which Wall Street largely shunned over fears of the GOP nominee’s populist agenda on trade, immigration and Wall Street reform.

     

    The banker anxiety only grew during Trump’s convention as the party rolled out a platform plank calling for the re-imposition of a Depression-era Glass-Steagall law that could force banks to break up into smaller pieces. 

    See: GOP Includes Reinstatement of Glass-Steagall Into Party Platform

    Wall Street groaned as Clinton moved to the left during the primary —especially on trade — but the industry remains far more comfortable with the idea of another President Clinton in the White House than a President Trump.

     

    “I think she has shown perhaps ironically that she has a better understanding of business and Wall Street than Donald Trump does,” said Steve Rattner, an investment banker and Democratic donor who will make the short Acela ride down to Philly. “The GOP platform includes reinstating Glass-Steagall. And when you watched that [Trump acceptance] speech, Bernie Sanders could have given half of it. Putting partisanship aside, most of my Republican business friends are appalled at the thought of Donald Trump in the White House.” 

     

    What braindead Rattner fails to understand is the majority of the American public despise him and his crony “business friends,” and will actively vote to keep them as far away from power as possible.

    So while the Clinton camp won’t boast about it given the continuing unpopularity of Wall Street and the populist tilt of the electorate, the City of Brotherly Love will be the City of Banker Love this week. The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for a comment.

     

    Trump is likely to try to continue to exploit Clinton’s connections to the banking industry. On Saturday following the Kaine selection, Trump Tweeted: “Tim Kaine is, and always has been, owned by the banks. Bernie supporters are outraged, was their last choice. Bernie fought for nothing!”

     

    “Wall Street doesn’t really side with a party based only on where regulation is going. We live in an environment where we know there is regulation and that we are under scrutiny,” said Robert Wolf, an investment banker and major Democratic fundraiser who will be in Philadelphia. “The bottom line is that if the economy does better, finance does better and everyone does better.”

     

    Clinton has not showed Sanders’ ability to tap into a massive grassroots network of small donors and remains reliant on Wall Street cash to fund her campaign, making it difficult for her to shun bankers at her convention.

     

    According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Clinton and outside groups supporting her have raised $375 million so far in the 2016 cycle. The securities and investment industry is one of her top sources of cash, donating $40 million to her cause so far, according to the CRP.

     

    But in the background, the “Rubin wing” of the Democratic Party, named for Wall Street executive and former Bill Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, will be circulating through panel discussions, Democratic party committee events and cocktail parties.

     

    Larry Summers, a Harvard professor and former Rubin protégé who also served as Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, will take part in a POLITICO discussion on the economy on Wednesday along with Neera Tanden, a close Hillary Clinton adviser and president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, a think-tank some on the left now view as too centrist.

    Make no mistake about it, if you think the Obama administration represents a bunch of oligarch-coddling banker puppets, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

    But there’s more. Incredibly, the DNC has decided it would be wise to have billionaire New York City oligarch, Michael Bloomberg, speak at the convention. This is a man with extraordinarily deep ties to big finance, a  man who was a fierce proponent of “stop and frisk” while mayor of NYC, and the biggest Wall Street apologist alive. Yet this is the man Hillary Clinton’s team is parading out as some sort of hero.

    As Bloomberg itself reports:

    Michael Bloomberg will endorse Hillary Clinton in a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, a timely boost as the candidate prepares to accept her party’s nomination for president.

     

    “As the nation’s leading independent and a pragmatic business leader Mike has supported candidates from both sides of the aisle,” said Howard Wolfson, an adviser to Bloomberg and a former spokesman for Clinton’s 2008 campaign. “This week in Philadelphia he will make a strong case that the clear choice in this election is Hillary Clinton.”

    Of course Bloomberg has supported Republicans and Democrats. That’s what oligarchs do.

    The endorsement from the former mayor of New York City could resonate with swing voters and Republicans who haven’t warmed to their party’s nominee, Donald Trump.

     

    “Given her demographic targets, Bloomberg is good get for @HillaryClinton,” David Axelrod, chief strategist for Barack Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns, said on Twitter.

    The above paragraphs demonstrate perfectly just how mired in a bubble of corruption and cluelessness these people really are. Despite Trump winning the Republican nomination, despite him now leading Hillary in the polls, they still don’t get it. The idea that Wall Street cheerleader and billionaire oligarch Michael Bloomberg has any appeal to the 73% of Americans who think the country is headed in the wrong direction is absolutely preposterous.

    But the cluelessness extends to those who are not merely Hillary Clinton sycophants. For example, take this excerpt from a recent post by Robert Reich, who fiercely supported Bernie Sanders in the primary:

    This week’s essay: Does Hillary Get It?

     

    Does Hillary Clinton understand that the biggest divide in American politics is no longer between the right and the left, but between the anti-establishment and the establishment?

    I worry she doesn’t – at least not yet.

    I’m sorry Robert, but could you possibly be more delusional? How can you think someone who doesn’t understand the above at this point in time is qualified to be President.

    Then, later on in the post, he makes the following suggestion:

    Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to move toward the “middle.” In fact, such a move could hurt her if it’s perceived to be compromising the stances she took in the primaries in order to be more acceptable to Democratic movers and shakers.

     

    She needs to move instead toward the anti-establishment – forcefully committing herself to getting big money out of politics, and making the system work for the many rather than a privileged few.

    Here was my Twitter response to this absurd notion:

    Meanwhile, it’s time to admit that a material percentage of Bernie Sanders supporters will not be rallying behind Clinton. A combination of her choice of Tim Kaine as VP, and the DNC leaks, virtually guarantee that this will not happen.

    Indeed, I thought the following paragraph from a Wall Street Journal article summed it up perfectly:

    But at the pro-Sanders rally, attendees were more than eager to list the reasons that Mrs. Clinton deserved to be incarcerated. At least once during a four-mile march from City Hall to Roosevelt Park, rallygoers began loudly chanting “Lock her up!” — the same chant heard on the floor of the RNC.

    Interestingly, it appears the only thing an extremely polarized American public actually agrees on is that Hillary Clinton should be locked up.

    Going forward, I fully expect Hillary to get a bump after Obama speaks at the DNC convention later this week. Moreover, with a guy as volatile and disliked as Trump as her opponent, there will be many ups and downs in the months ahead. Nevertheless, I think Hillary Clinton lost both the momentum and the election this past week, never to fully recover.

  • Snowden Explains How To Get To The Bottom Of "Who Hacked The Democrats"

    With the scandals plaguing the Democratic National Convention – set to start in just over an hour – get stronger, so does the narrative that it was all Russia’s fault the Democratic party was hacked.

    As a result, as reported earlier today, the objective FBI said it is now investigating how thousands of DNC emails were hacked, a breach that Hillary Clinton’s campaign maintains was committed by Russia to benefit Donald Trump.  Indeed, as noted yesterday, Clinton’s campaign, citing “experts”, pointed to a massive hacking of DNC computers in June that cybersecurity firms linked to the Russian government.

    Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta added fuel to the debate Monday, saying there was “a kind of bromance going on” between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump. The Clinton campaign says Russia favors Trump’s views, especially on NATO.

    Trump on Monday dismissed as a “joke” claims by Hillary Clinton’s campaign that Russia is trying to help Trump by leaking thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee.

    “The new joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC emails, which should have never been written (stupid), because Putin likes me,” Trump wrote as part of a series of Tweets. “Hillary was involved in the email scandal because she is the only one with judgement (sic) so bad that such a thing could have happened.”

    The scandal continue into the afternoon when a Motherboard article noted that “”metadata show that the Russian operators apparently edited some documents, and in some cases created new documents””

    Perhaps it did, but not the ones that Wasserman Schultz already resigned over. Because while the Democratic party is pointing fingers the underlying reality is simple: no matter who hacked the Wikileak’ed emails, the DNC was engaging in media collusion and actively suppressing the campaign of Bernie Sanders.  To be sure, as some already noted, “one way the DNC could have prevented embarrassing info about its collusion and lies from entering the public domain: not colluded and lied.“

    In any case, the fallout from the email leak has been escalating all day, with Sanders supporters booing the former DNC Chairman offstage, forcing her to skip the convention entirely. And so has the fingerpointing at the Kremlin as the culprit behind a scandal that threatens to overshadow even last week’s scandal-ridden Republican convention.

    But how to get to the bottom of who did what?

    One way would be to listen to the person who should know all about this stuff: Edward Snowden. This is what he said earlier today on Twitter:

     

    So there you have it: if you want to know if the Russians “did it”, just get a credible, accurate answer from the NSA.

    The only problem is getting a “credible and accurate” answer from what is fundamentally a biased, political organization.

    But perhaps the biggest irony is that while half the US is accusing Russia of hacking the DNC, it was the US government that was exposed specifically authorizing the hacking of political parties.

    Define irony?

  • DNC Day 1: Debbie Doesn't Do Philly But Bernie Meets Michelle – Live Feed

    After the turmoil of last week's RNC, this week' Democratic Nation Convention is off to an even more chaotic start (no matter what the surrogates desperately try to say). Wasserman Schultz resignation and decision not to 'gavel in' the convention is over-shadowed by the increasingly loud voices of Bernie (who will speak tonight) supporters booing any mention of Clinton-Kaine, but according to the mainstream media, Michelle Obama's headline speech tonight will bring the party together.

     

     

    Live Feed (due to start at 4pmET)

    *  *  *

    Hillary better hope for a Convention bounce because she is starting to lag Trump notably…

    *  *  *

    Or do voters know something else? Did Jane Sanders just drop a huge hint at what comes next?

    While almost inaudible, some have suggested she says: "They don't know your name is being put in nomination…"

    Source: MichaelPRamirez.com

    *  *  *

    Full order of business (via NJ.com):

    The list of speakers released by the Democratic National Committee is incomplete. Clinton's running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, has yet to be added to the schedule, as well as many of the federal and state elected officials,who were announced as speakers on Thursday.

    Here is the current schedule:

    Monday, July 25

    Session begins at 4 p.m.

    • Pam Livengood of Keene, N.H., whose daughter struggles with drug addiction
    • Karla and Francisca Ortiz of Las Vegas. Karla is an American citizen but Francisca, her mother, is undocumented
    • Anastasia Somoza of New York, an advocate for Americans with disabilities
    • Astrid Silva, an undocumented immigrant who came to the U.S. as a child
    • Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota
    • National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen Garcia
    • Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona
    • Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal and candidates of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee
    • SEIU President Mary Kay Henry
    • Rep. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts
    • Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, chair of the Democratic Governors Association
    • Building Trades President Sean McGarvey
    • U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon
    • Rep. Linda Sanchez of California and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
    • AFSCME President Lee Saunders
    • AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka
    • American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten
    • U.S. Sen. Cory Booker
    • U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont
    • First Lady Michelle Obama

    Tuesday, July 26

    The session begins at 4 p.m.

    • Thaddeus Desmond, a Philadelphia advocate for children
    • Dynah Haubert, a Philadelphia lawyer for a disability rights organization
    • Kate Burdick, a lawyer at the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia
    • Anton Moore of Philadelphia, who founded a nonprofit community group to talk to youth about gun violence
    • Dustin Parsons of Little Rock, Ark., a fifth grade teacher
    • Students from Eagle Academy in New York City and Newark for at-risk youth
    • Joe Sweeney, a New York City police detective who responded to 9/11
    • Lauren Manning, a former executive and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald who was wounded in the World Trade Center attack on 9/11
    • Ryan Moore, originally from South Sioux City, Neb., who has a health condition that hie father's employer refused to cover
    • Donna Brazile, Democratic National Committee vice chair of voter registration and participation
    • Former Georgia state Sen. Jason Carter
    • House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and the Democratic women of the House, including Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey's 12th District.
    • Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards
    • President Bill Clinton, husband of Hillary Clinton
    • Mothers of the Movement, mothers who lost their children to gun violence or to enounters with law enforcement.

    Wednesday, July 27

    The session will begin at 4:30 p.m.

    • Erica Smegielski, whose mother Dawn was the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and was one of 26 people killed in the 2012 mass shooting there
    • Felicia Sanders and Polly Sheppard, two of the three survivors of the 2015 shooting at a black church in Charleston, S.C., which killed nine
    • Jamie Dorff, whose husband, an Army helicopter pilot from Minnesota, died while on a search and rescue mission in northern Iraq
    • Rep. G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina and members of the Congressional Black Caucus
    • Rep. Judy Chu of California and members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus
    • NARAL President Ilyse Hogue
    • Retired Navy Rear Adm. John Hutson 
    • Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson
    • Rep. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexco and candidates of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
    • Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
    • Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey
    • EMILY's List President Stephanie Schriock
    • Center for American Progress Action Fund President Neera Tanden
    • Vice President Joe Biden
    • President Barack Obama

    Thursday, July 28

    The session begins at 4:30 p.m.

    • Henrietta Ivey, a Michigan home care worker who advocates for a $15 an hour minimum wage.
    • Beth Mathias of Ohio, who works two jobs
    • Jensen Walcott and Jake Reed. Walcott was fired from her job in Bonner Springs, Kan., for asking why her co-worker, and friend,  Reed, made more than she did for the same job
    • Khizr Khan, whose son, , Humayun S. M. Khan, is one of 14 American Muslims killed after 9/11 serving in the U.S. Armed Forces
    • Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan
    • Candidates of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
    • Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin
    • League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski
    • Rep. Sea Patrick Maloney of New York, co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, and LGBT rights activist Sarah McBride
    • U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Democratic women of the Senate
    • Chelsea Clinton, Clinton's daughter
    • Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, presumptive Democratic nominee

    Finally, there is one 'unified' group that Hillary can rely upon…

    h/t @Mark412NH

  • Marissa Mayer Blames “Gender-Charged” Reporting Of Yahoo

    “We all see the things that only plague women leaders, like articles that focus on their appearance, like Hillary Clinton sporting a new pantsuit. I think all women are aware of that, but I had hoped in 2015 and 2016 that I would see fewer articles like that. It’s a shame” Marissa Mayer decried to the Financial Times.

    While the honorable thing would be to admit the countless mistakes Yahoo! made along the way, including refusing to purchase Google for $1 million in 1998, purchasing Tumblr for $1.1 billion, and refusing to sell itself to Microsoft for $40 billion, evidently it is easier to blame the boogeyman of sexism.

    “I’ve tried to be gender blind and believe tech is a gender neutral zone but do think there has been gender-charged reporting,” she argues.

    We wonder if she will complain about gender-charged reporting once she is set to receive a compensation package of up to $55 million in cash and stock.

    Finally, for those who may still believe appearances and pantsuits led to Yahoo’s demise, as the FT presents below, sales at Yahoo’s core business, market share and market capitalization have been plummeting since Mayer first took over in 2012. Perhaps another Vogue photo session  is in the making of this Silicon Valley star.

  • Bernie Fans Claim Their Signs Are Being Seized At Convention

    Submitted by Blake Neff via DailyCaller.com,

    Bernie Sanders supporters at the Democratic National Convention claim people are seizing pro-Sanders signs in an effort to suppress the heavy support he is receiving on the convention floor.

    The allegations began flying Monday night on Twitter just as the Democratic convention kicked off. Many Sanders supporters in the arena booed every mention of presumed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, creating a divisive atmosphere at what is supposed to be the party’s big celebration.

    “They are ripping signs out of people’s hands and threatening no credentials tomorrow if we hold up signs,” one Sanders delegate allegedly said in a text message exchange posted online by a friend.

    Another video first posted to Twitter and later uploaded to YouTube, shows a man in a suit allegedly taking a Sanders campaign sign from an attendee.

    Despite the claim that the man is confiscating Sanders signs, it’s not entirely clear what is actually happening in the video. When the video starts, the man in the suit already has a large Sanders sign, and a person appears to hand over a smaller Sanders sticker quite willingly.

    Other tweets claim that party operatives began handing out “Love Trumps Hate” signs to the audience in an effort to drown out the many Sanders signs. Some of the Vermont senators’ supporters quickly began modifying the paraphernalia to be pro-Sanders, though…

  • Furious Sanders Supporters, Angry Media, Blistering Chaos Marks First Day Of Democratic Convention

    Democrats were delighted to watch as last week’s scandal-plagued Republican National Convention lurched from one fiasco to another until…. the Democratic National Convention was on the verge of crashing and burning (and that is not a pun on the searing Philadelphia heat) during its own disoragnized launch among angry supporters, blistering temperatures, sheer chaos, and a fractured organization that has left Republicans stunned in amazement at a Democratic party seemingly torn in two.

    As documented earlier, Bernie Sanders supporters disrupted the first day of the Democratic convention, repeatedly chanting and booing mentions of Hillary Clinton’s name as the party’s hopes for a show of unity dissolved into frequent chaos. Speakers in the convention’s first hour struggled to carry out business as angry Sanders supporters roared their disapproval, drawing a deafening response from Clinton delegates, Reuters adds.

    “We’re all Democrats and we need to act like it,” U.S. Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio, the convention’s chairwoman, shouted over the uproar.

    Earlier in the day, Sanders drew jeers from his supporters when he urged his delegates to back the White House bid of his formal rival, Clinton, and focus on defeating Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 presidential election. Sanders’ followers shouted: “We want Bernie” in a show of anger at both Clinton’s victory in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and emails leaked on Friday suggesting the party leadership had tried to sabotage Sanders’ insurgent campaign.

    In an attempt to project unity, former rivals Hillary and Bernie urgently joined forces Monday to tamp down dissent among his supporters, as Democrats tried to keep infighting from overtaking an opening night featuring some of the party’s biggest stars, including first lady Michelle Obama.

    It was unclear whether the efforts would succeed, AP adds. Chants of “Bernie” echoed through the arena, and boos could be heard nearly every time Clinton’s name was raised. Outside the arena, several hundred Sanders backers marched down Philadelphia’s sweltering streets changing, “Nominate Sanders or lose in November.”

    For Hillary, it was a turbulent start to a historic four-day gathering that will culminate in the nomination of the first woman to lead a major U.S. political party. 

    Sanders had a better start to the convention, scoring a major victory with the forced resignation of party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz following the release of emails showing her staff favored Clinton during the primary despite vows of neutrality. But Sanders’ aides reached out to the Clinton campaign Monday afternoon to express concerns that the chairwoman’s ouster wouldn’t be enough to keep supporters from disrupting the convention, according to a Democratic official.

    Sanders previewed his remarks during an appearance earlier Monday before supportive delegates. He implored them to vote for Clinton, generating a chorus of boos. “Brothers and sisters, this is the real world that we live in,” Sanders said as he tried to quiet the crowd. “Trump is a bully and a demagogue.”

    The discussions between the two camps prompted Sanders to send emails and text messages to supporters asking them not to protest.

    “Our credibility as a movement will be damaged by booing, turning of backs, walking out or other similar displays,” Sanders wrote.

    As Reuters adds, the scenes of booing in Philadelphia were a setback to Democratic officials’ attempts to present the gathering as a smoothly run show of party unity in contrast to the volatile campaign of Republican nominee Trump. 

    Desperately hoping to appease boisterous Sanders’ supporters, moments after the convention opened in Philadelphia, the DNC also apologized to Sanders and his backers “for the inexcusable remarks made over email.” The statement was signed by DNC leaders, though Wasserman Schultz’s name was notably absent.

    The Florida congresswoman’s resignation is effective later this week, though she also stepped down from her official convention duties. The mere sight of her on stage had been expected to prompt strong opposition from Sanders’ backers. 

    Meanwhile, Trump gloated at the Democrats’ opening day disorder. “Wow, the Republican Convention went so smoothly compared to the Dems total mess,” he wrote on Twitter.

    Trump also seemed to enjoy the Clinton campaign’s attempt to blame the DNC hack, which is now being investigated by the FBI, on Russian military intelligence agencies. The campaign also accused Moscow of trying to meddle in the U.S. election and help Trump, who has said he might not necessarily defend NATO allies if they are attacked by Russia. Trump dismissed the suggestion in a tweet: “The joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC emails, which should never have been written (stupid), because Putin likes me.”

    But, ironically, the bulk of the democrats’ anger was focused not so much on Trump, at least not yet, as on Wasserman Schultz (and in many cases, Hillary herself). Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman who resigned as the DNC head on Sunday, was the focus of anger from liberal Democrats over some 19,000 DNC emails that were leaked by the WikiLeaks website that showed the party establishment working to undermine Sanders. 

    She told Florida’s Sun Sentinel newspaper she would not speak as planned at the opening of the event. On Monday morning, Wasserman Schultz struggled to be heard above boos as she spoke to the delegation from her home state. Some protesters held up signs that read “Bernie” and “E-MAILS” and shouted: “Shame” as she spoke.

    The cache of leaked emails disclosed that DNC officials explored ways to undercut Sanders’ insurgent presidential campaign, including raising questions about whether Sanders, who is Jewish, was an atheist. Sanders supporters were already dismayed last week when Clinton passed over liberal favorites like U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to select the more moderate Kaine as her running mate.

    * * *

    But it wasn’t just the lack of unity and common voice that marked the start of the DNC. According to The Hill, the apparent lack of organization as well as a hostile weather conditions, all conspired – pun intended – to make the initial impression of the Democratic Convention even worse than that of the Republican one. 

    Attendees reported walking long distances — in some cases, nearly a mile — in 98-degree temperatures to get to the arena from the car drop-off area. Complaints of overheating and poor coordination by the DNC are escalating just as the party looks to contain the fallout from the resignation of its chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
     
    Wasserman Schultz, who was expected to open the convention’s first night, is no longer expected to speak at all. 

    Just hours before the opening gavel, only two eateries inside the convention center were serving food and drinks around lunchtime. Water bottles were priced at $4.50. Thousands will arrive by Monday evening for keynote speeches by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and first lady Michelle Obama. Outside, temperatures reached 98 degrees Fahrenheit by 3 p.m., with a heat index of 109 degrees. 

    The National Weather Service had previously warned of “multiple days of excessive heat” during the Democratic National Convention. Officials said the heat would “greatly affect those who are attending outdoor activities,” such as the thousands of people joining protests downtown.

    Morgan Finkelstein, a spokeswoman for the DNC’s media team, said in a text Monday afternoon that its event contractor was “working on making it colder in the tents.”   Just outside the convention center by the media tents, a handful of food trucks sizzled on the pavement, with no other food spots nearby. Inside the tents, water has only been made available by media outlets for their own staff.  

    The media was furious: peeved reporters and editors have taken to Twitter to complain about the event’s disorganization, with some pining for their experience at last week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

    Megan Liberman, editor-in-chief of Yahoo News, described the day as “chaos”  (and an employee for Yahoo should know). “To be totally objective and nonpartisan: the logistics at DNC are appalling. Squalid hotels, sweltering workspace, no directions. Chaos,” Liberman tweeted.

    “Walking thru hot media tents, or walking the mile from Uber drop off to hot media tents, one hears longing for CLE,” Washington Post reporter Philip Rucker tweeted.

    Finkelstein said the DNC was providing air conditioning in the media tents “the best that we can.” In the arena, she said they tried to “beef up AC as much as we could” — including adding two 300-pound chillers stationed near the delegates. 

    Finkelstein said reporters were allowed to buy or bring their own water into the convention hall or the media tents. When asked if the DNC planned to make any available in the hotter-than-expected tents, she said: “I don’t actually know if we’re allowed to provide that.”

    The DNC’s media facilities had already drawn complaints before temperatures began to soar Monday. With an approaching thunderstorm late Sunday, convention officials warned reporters to be prepared to evacuate the media tents in case of lightning. “Tents in the vicinity of the area are not designed to fully protect inhabitants in the event of a direct lightning strike,” according to an email by the DNC’s Department of Media Logistics.

    * * * 

    Perhaps it is poetic justice that after all the mocking of the Republican Convention, the Democratic one has launched on such chaotic, turbulent waves. That said, we are hopeful that things will normalize, and eagerly look forward to Bernie’s speech later tonight when the Vermont socialist will do all in his power to bring the two warring group of democrats together. If what has transpired so far is any indication, he may have an uphill battle.

  • FishLivesMatter: California To Decide If Saving 'Delta Smelt' Is Worth $65 Billion Of Taxpayer Money

    Starting tomorrow, California's State Water Resources Control Board will begin hosting months of public hearings on whether or not to proceed with Jerry Brown's controversial "California WaterFix" project, or the "Delta Tunnels" as it is more commonly known.  The project has been heavily criticized as yet another Brown-sponsored public works boondoggle with total price tag estimates ranging to over $65BN.
    California Delta

    We have to admit that we're a little perplexed by this project as it seems to address only one of the symptoms of California's water crisis while completely ignoring the overall illness which is the complete inflexibility of the Endangered Species Act.  While the twin tunnels may limit the number of smelt getting ensnared in the Delta pumping stations it does nothing to address the salinity issues raised by environmentalists when too much fresh water is removed from the system.  Maybe we're a little dense, but it's unclear to us how moving upstream to divert fresh water flows from the Sacramento River, a river which otherwise empties into the Delta and accounts for roughly 85% of the total fresh water flows into the system, rather than pulling it directly from the existing pumping stations would have any impact on overall salinity levels in the Delta.  As we discussed here just a few days ago, without addressing the inflexibility of the Endangered Species Act this is simply another opportunity to squander taxpayer money on more water infrastructure that will never actually be used because of leadership's inability and/or lack of desire to stand up to California's environmentalists in favor of practical solutions.

    For those of you less familiar the intricacies of the proposal, the Delta Tunnels project calls for diverting a portion of the Sacramento River’s fresh water flow via new gravity-fed intakes more than 30 miles upstream, between Clarksburg and Courtland. The water would then flow south via two 40-foot-wide pipes buried 150 feet underground and ultimately feed into the existing state and federal canal systems.

    While there are multiple viewpoints on the pros/cons of the Delta Tunnels (often based on where a person lives, farms, etc.), in general, proponents argue that the tunnel plan is better for the Delta Smelt population as it reduces reliance on large pumping stations at the south end of the Delta that often entrap the small fish.  Opponents, on the other hand, view the tunnels simply as a form of corporate welfare for large corporate ag interests and/or are concerned that the tunnels will do nothing to actually increase water flows to the southern part California without relaxing rules under the Endangered Species Act.

    Proposed Delta Tunnel Plan

    Separately, California voters in November will be presented with a ballot initiative that could effectively torpedo the tunnels plan. Proposition 53, would require a statewide vote on any public works project financed with at least $2 billion in revenue bonds.

  • With G20 Over, FX Market Chaos Resumes: Yen Surge, Yuan Purge

    Once again the 'fake' FX stability of pre-geopolitical-events has ben shattered now that the G-20 meetings ended with their usual un-fanfare of nothingness (and rising discord). After exuberant status-quo-supporting weakness in the Yen and stability in the Yuan (against the dollar), that's all coming unglued rapidly in the last 36 hours as USDJPY tests back to a 104 handle and Yuan resumes its weakening trend…

    As Bloomberg notes, history shows that the Chinese currency usually strengthens ahead of major political or economic events, such as President Xi Jinping’s state visits to the U.S. and the Boao Forum.

     

    And sure enough, as soon as G-20 is overm Yuan starts to weaken again…

     

    And USDJPY has tumbled back to a 104 handle… (down 3 handles from pre-G-20 highs), back below Brexit levels…

     

    As a reminder, geopolitical risks are surging…(and not priced in)

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