Sunday, June 5, 2016

Time Warner Cable Cartoons




Former Marine fired from job for lowering flag on Memorial Day


A former U.S. Marine said Friday he was fired from his contract job with Time Warner Cable in Charlotte after he lowered the American flag to half-staff on Memorial Day.
Allen Thornwell, 29, was thinking about his best friend, a former Marine who he said killed himself two years ago when he returned to the U.S., the Charlotte Observer reported.
The paper reported that Thornwell was fired Tuesday. The service that arranged the job for Thornwell said Time Warner told them they were disturbed by what was termed as “passion for the flag and (his) political affiliation.”
Thornwell said he remains in shock over his firing. Murphy Archibald, Thornwell’s attorney, said his client should have never lost his job.
“It’s disgraceful,” Archibald, who is a Vietnam vet, told the Observer. “He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s a veteran working on Memorial Day who corrected what he thought was a disrespectful flying of the American flag ... I would have taken it down myself.”
Thornwell, who was discharged in 2014, knew the U.S. Flag Code policy which states that the banner should be half-staff until noon on Memorial Day. Thornwell said the incident happened at around 2:30 p.m. He said he wishes now he had permission.
“I didn’t think of it as the property of Time Warner Cable,” he said. “It’s everybody’s flag.”
A Time Warner spokesman confirmed to the Charlotte Observer Friday that the former Marine “was no longer under contract” with the company but declined to provide further comment.

Making nice, Donald Trump to meet with N.M. Gov. Susana Martinez ‘in near future’


These two never seem to get their timing right.
Just when New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez appears to be warming, somewhat, to the idea of Donald Trump being the presumptive Republican nominee, he goes and starts bashing the job she’s doing  while campaigning in Albuquerque.
But in the last week, Trump has made overtures toward Martinez, telling the Santa Fe New Mexican on Thursday that he likes and respects Martinez and would like to get her endorsement.
Now CNN is reporting that Martinez and Trump will meet “in the near future,” according to a spokesman for the governor.
"Gov. Martinez is encouraged by Mr. Trump's commitment to protect New Mexico's labs and bases, which are not only important to our state but also our national defense," spokesman Mike Lonergan said. "The governor hopes to visit with Mr. Trump in the near future to discuss this issue and others that affect New Mexicans. As she has said, this has never been about her -- it's about the issues that impact New Mexico."
For these two, those are remarkably non-fighting words.
Martinez, the head of the Republican Governors' Association and the first Latina to be chief executive of any U.S. state, has been critical of the real estate tycoon a number of times in the past, including when he first brought up the issue of immigration and building a border wall last summer. His description of Mexicans as criminals was “completely and unequivocally wrong,” Martinez, who is of Mexican descent, said at the time.
According to the Washington Post, she told a group of 60 Republican donors in April that she felt insulted by Trump’s comments about Mexicans, and that his plan to get Mexico to pay for the border wall was “unrealistic and irresponsible,” according to people at the gathering.
Trump, for his part, called out Martinez while campaigning in New Mexico in May, telling supporters that she “has got to do a better job. She’s not doing the job.”
Then he added, "Hey! Maybe I'll run for governor of New Mexico. I'll get this place going ... She's not doing the job. We've got to get her going."
Lonergan attributed his remarks to bitterness over the fact that Martinez had not endorsed the mogul and had chosen not to attend the rally.
The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act on Trump’s part may be attributable to pressure from the GOP leadership to make nice with Martinez, who embodies two groups of voters Trump is believed to need to win over, Latinos and women.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has endorsed Trump, told CNN, "I think the attacks that he's routinely engaged in, for example, going after Susana Martinez, the Republican governor of New Mexico, the chairman of the Republican Governors' Association, I think, was a big mistake."

Clinton inches closer to nomination with seven-delegate sweep in Virgin Islands


Hillary Clinton scored a sweeping win in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Saturday, picking up all seven pledged delegates at stake as she inched tantalizingly close to the Democratic nomination.
She is now just 60 delegates short of the 2,383 needed to advance to the November general election.
The party said Clinton won 84.2 percent of the vote, while Bernie Sanders earned 12.2 percent. Under Democratic National Committee rules, a candidate must win at least 15 percent of the vote to be eligible to receive delegates.
It was almost as big a margin as Barack Obama had in 2008, when he beat Clinton by 90 percent to 8 percent.
The Virgin Islands is one of five U.S. territories that casts votes in primaries and caucuses to decide the nominee, even though those residents aren't eligible to vote in November. While its pool of delegates is small, the island chain took on more importance as Clinton gets closer to clinching the nomination.
Earlier this month, former President Bill Clinton campaigned for his wife in the Virgin Islands while Sanders opted to focus more on neighboring Puerto Rico, which has 60 delegates at stake in a primary Sunday.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
"People were excited and overjoyed when Bill Clinton came to visit," said Cecil R. Benjamin, who chairs the party there. He noted that in addition to the seven pledged delegates, all four of the Virgin Islands' superdelegates are now backing Clinton. Superedelegates are party officials who can back any candidate.
"We are the only state or U.S. territory where she got 100 percent of the delegates," he said, citing in part the large voter turnout. "It was great, and we are ready for the national convention."
Clinton now has 1,776 delegates to Sanders' 1,501, based on primaries and caucuses.
When including superdelegates, her lead is substantial — 2,323 to Sanders' 1,547. It takes 2,383 to win.
In the final stretch of the primary season, six states including New Jersey and California will vote on Tuesday, with 694 delegates up for grabs. The District of Columbia is the last to vote on June 14.

Sanders, Clinton talk immigration, battle for Hispanic vote before big California primary


Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are spending their final weekend in California, before the state’s big primary Tuesday, rallying voters over immigration issues and warning the state’s diverse electorate about the perils of electing Republican Donald Trump.
On Saturday, Sanders expressed confidence that he could win a majority of votes next week in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota and North Dakota.
However, the Vermont senator acknowledged that he’ll need a high voter turnout, like those that have helped him win previous state contests.
“It’s going to be an uphill battle” Sanders said a press conference in Los Angeles, repeating what he has said many times recently.
Still, a report Friday by the state that a record 17.9 million Californians, or 72 percent of eligible state voters, are registered to vote in the primaries could help Sanders.
Sanders on Saturday also repeated that the front-running Clinton will not have enough pledged delegates after polls close Tuesday to secure the nomination.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
He said she will have to instead rely on super-delegates, or those who have previously committed to Clinton, to claim the nomination and that he will continue to try to win over those delegates to take the nomination at the party’s convention in July.
“We look forward on Tuesday to doing very well,” Sanders said. “There will be a contested convention. … Super delegates can and have changed their candidate choice in the past.”
He also focused on the issue of immigration, as Clinton did earlier in the day in California, a state that borders Mexico and where Hispanics will be a key voting bloc.
Sanders argued that Trump,  the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, should not be elected because his “bigotry” against Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans and others “cannot be tolerated.”
“Donald Trump cannot be elected president,” Sanders said. He also spoke Saturday to supporters at his campaign headquarters in Los Angeles.
Clinton, in a panel discussion in Slymar, Calif., expressed optimism about passing legislation to overhaul federal immigration law.
Clinton argued that as U.S. senators she supported bipartisan Senate reform legislation while Sanders did not.
“It was heartbreaking,” she said. “There were people from every part of the planet who were so hopeful. … I believe that after this election, if all goes well, we will have a chance to pass immigration reform.”
She also said Trump plans to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, calling such talk “the most unfair and dangerous kind of conversation” that has veered off “toward anger and fear.”
Other scheduled events for Clinton this weekend included a stop Saturday in Oxnard, Calif.
Trump campaigned this week in California, despite having enough delegates to secure the GOP nomination, but held no events Saturday.
Some of those events brought violent protests outside the venues.
One of California’s most influential daily newspapers, The San Francisco Chronicle, this weekend endorsed neither Clinton, Sanders nor Trump.
That the Chronicle wouldn’t endorse Trump was not surprising, consider the editorial board for the paper, in liberal-leaning Northern California, had previously expressed its distaste for what it calls his “low-substance, high-insult candidacy.”
The paper was also highly critical of the front-running Clinton, pointing out her refusal to meet with the board and her many fundraising forays in the state.
However, the Chronicle declined to back Sanders in the neck-and-neck primary Tuesday, suggesting his “aggressively progressive promises” can never be realized with so many Republicans ruling Congress.
Two other major California dailies -- The Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union Tribune -- have endorsed Clinton. The Tribune this weekend sarcastically endorsed Ronald Reagan over Trump.

CartoonsTrashyDemsRinos