Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Biden Cartoon



Trump refers to terror attacks on '7/11' at pre-NY primary rally


Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump's final rally before Tuesday's New York primary was marked by an unfortunate slip of the tongue, as the real estate mogul mistakenly mentioned the name of a popular convenience store chain in place of 9/11.
Trump was about to deliver prepared remarks lauding New York values at Buffalo's First Niagara Center Monday night when he referred to 7-Eleven.
"It's very close to my heart because I was down there, and I watched our police and our firemen down at 7/11, down at the World Trade Center right after it came down, and I saw the greatest people I've ever seen in action," Trump told the crowd.
Trump, who polls show holding a sizable lead over rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich in New York, has repeatedly invoked the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks as he campainged across his home state. He paid his first visit to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum earlier this month.
Trump billed the Buffalo event as a final push to rally supporters and make sure they vote.
"No New Yorker can vote for Cruz, no one can vote for Kasich", Trump told the estimated crowd of more than 11,000 people. "You know Cruz is way down in the polls, Kasich is not even showing up."
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Cruz, who has made up considerable ground on Trump in the Republican delegate race, tried to downplay his Empire State expectations in an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly Monday.
"New York is Donald’s home state," the Texas senator said. "Of course he will do well in his home state. When we were in Texas my home state well walloped him."
Trump countered later Monday by calling Cruz "a catastrophe. He didn’t even [garner] 50 percent [of the vote] in his own state."
The rally was briefly interrupted by about a dozen protesters, who sat  locked arms and sat down on the floor of the arena shortly after Trump took the stage — forcing authorities to carry several out by their arms and their legs. Trump continued speaking as the demonstrators were removed.
Buffalo police said they arrested six people, mainly for disorderly conduct and trespassing. They added that 21 people were ejected from the event, but no arrests were made inside the arena.

VA accused of shredding documents needed for veterans' claims


The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been systematically shredding documents related to veterans' claims -- possibly affecting benefits for veterans, according to an investigation by the inspector general. 
Investigators with the Department of Veterans Affairs audited 10 vererans benefits offices around the country and found that staff were destroying mail related to claims, according to a report by Military.com, citing an OIG report released on Thursday.
The surprise audit, which was conducted at the offices on July 20, 2015, came after reports of such document shredding in Los Angeles, the website reported.
 
Investigators reportedly sifted through some 438,000 documents awaiting destruction at the regional offices. Of 155 claims-related documents, 69 were found to have been incorrectly placed in shred bins at six of the regional offices, according to Military.com.
Those offices were in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Reno, Nev. At least two of the 69 documents headed to the shredder directly affected benefits and nine had the potential to, according to the website.
The OIG report concluded that, "The potential effect should not be minimized."
"Considering that there are 56 [VA regional offices], and if weekly shredding is conducted, it is highly likely that claims-related documents at other VAROs are being improperly scheduled for destruction that could result in loss of claims and evidence, incorrect decisions and delays in claims processing," the report s

Biden slams Netanyahu hours after Jerusalem attack


Vice President Joe Biden said Monday night that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government was leading the country "in the wrong direction" hours after a bus bombing in Jerusalem wounded at least 21 people. 
In a speech to the Israel advocacy group J Street, Biden did single out Palestinian leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas, for declining to condemn specific acts of terrorism carried out against Israelis. The vice president said he didn't know whether Monday's explosion was a terrorist attack, but added that the U.S. condemns "misguided cowards" who resort to violence.
However, the bulk of the Biden's criticism was reserved for Netanyahu, reflecting diminishing patience within the White House as President Barack Obama's term nears an end, compounded by deep disagreements over Iran and a strained relationship between the two leaders.
Biden suggested that Netanyahu's approach raised "profound questions" about how Israel could remain both Jewish and democratic.
"I firmly believe that the actions that Israel's government has taken over the past several years -- the steady and systematic expansion of settlements, the legalization of outposts, land seizures -- they're moving us and more importantly they're moving Israel in the wrong direction," Biden said.

He said those policies were moving Israel toward a "one-state reality" -- meaning a single state for Palestinians and Israelis in which, eventually, Israeli Jews will no longer be the majority.

"That reality is dangerous," Biden added.
Biden, who met in March with both Netanyahu and Abbas, said he came away from that trip discouraged about prospects for peace anytime soon. Still, he said the U.S. is obliged to guarantee Israel's security and to "push them as hard as we can" toward a two-state solution despite "our sometimes overwhelming frustration with the Israeli government."

"There is at the moment no political will that I observed from either Israelis or Palestinians to go forward with serious negotiations," Biden said.

The vice president's remarks to J Street, a dovish group that frequently criticizes Netanyahu, came at the height of a campaign season in which candidates have been scrutinized over their adherence to traditionally stalwart U.S. support for Israel.
Ahead of Tuesday's primary in New York, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has sparked controversy by saying the U.S. should be even-handed and mustn't always say that Netanyahu is right.
In another dig at Netanyahu and his Likud party, Biden singled out for praise Stav Shaffir, a young member of Israel's parliament and a Netanyahu critic from the left wing of Israeli politics.

"May your views begin to once again become the majority opinion in the Knesset," Biden said.

Sanders camp touts growing Latino support; crucial in NY, Calif. races


Bernie Sanders, even as he struggles to win over black voters from Hillary Clinton’s side, appears to be making gains among Hispanics -- including in key primary states like New York and California, where a total of 722 delegates are at stake.
The Sanders campaign points to several recent polls, including those showing the Vermont senator essentially tied with Clinton nationally for the Hispanic vote and having largely closed a double-digit gap with Clinton among Hispanic voters in California.
Sanders pollster Ben Tulchin told FoxNews.com on Monday the campaign thinks it finally has caught up with Clinton in terms of message and name recognition, especially among Latinos who have supported Clinton as far back as 2008, when she ran for president against Barack Obama.
“Look at the national polls. The campaign is now doing better than ever, and Latinos are part of it,” said Tulchin, who touted Sanders’ popularity among young, working-class Hispanics. “Bernie has a very powerful message that includes health care for all and free college tuition. … New York has a huge Latino population, and California is the prize of the elections.”
Nationally among all voters, polls show Sanders has now pulled roughly even with the front-running Clinton at about 48 percent. He has won seven of the last eight contests.
After the New York Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, in which 247 delegates are at stake, Sanders and Clinton will eventually compete in California on June 7, for 475 delegates, the most of any state.
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The Clinton campaign did not return a request Monday for comment.
An April 11 poll for the NY 1 news station showed Sanders leading Clinton in New York 55-38 percent among Hispanic voters.
A national poll released four days earlier, by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, found Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters preferred Sanders over the front-running Clinton 48-47 percent.
The California poll was released April 8 by the nonpartisan Field Research Corp. It found Sanders now trails Clinton 42-49 percent among Hispanic likely Democratic primary voters, after trailing 35-53 percent in January.
Sanders’ gains with Hispanic voters stand in stark contrast to his ability to win over black supporters, something he failed to do in primary races across the South.
Despite big outreach efforts ahead of the Feb. 27 South Carolina Democratic primary, Clinton won roughly 80 percent of the black vote. Sanders was never able to break through the so-called “firewall” that black voters had created for Clinton across the region.
“Secretary Clinton cleaned our clock in the Deep South,” Sanders said in last week’s CNN debate. “We got murdered there.”
Still, Sanders nearly beat Clinton in the Feb. 20 Nevada Democratic caucuses with the help of the Latino vote.
The Clinton campaign continues to dispute entrance poll numbers, touted by the Sanders camp, showing Sanders won the Latino vote by 8 percentage points. However, the larger point, Tulchin argued Monday, is the Latino vote helped Sanders close on Clinton’s early, double-digit lead.
Sanders still faces a daunting task of catching Clinton in the race to get 2,383 delegates before the July convention. Clinton leads in the delegate count, 1,758-1,076, with New York, California and just 15 other contests remaining.
As the country’s fasting-growing minority, Hispanics have become an increasingly important voting bloc for Democrats and Republicans.
In the 2012 presidential race, President Obama won at least 70 percent of the Hispanic vote, out of an estimated 23.3 million eligible Hispanic voters. Hispanics account for roughly 9 percent of the total eligible vote, essentially unchanged from 2012.
However, a recent Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data shows an additional 4 million more Hispanics are eligible to vote this cycle, with those 35 or younger accounting for nearly half of the increase, good news for Sanders who is widely popular among millennials.
Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola University Law School in Los Angeles, on Monday acknowledged the value of the Hispanic vote in the state’s Democratic primary.
But she argued Sanders will need a strong voter turnout, as he does in other states, to do well, considering Hispanic residents are under-represented in terms of registered voters.
“Hispanics could be a big voting bloc, extremely powerful,” said Levinson, who specializes in election law. “But they have to do two things -- register and show up.”
Levinson says Clinton still appears to have the overall advantage considering “she has a better ground game and support from party elders.”
And the contest could in large part be determined by who has the money to compete in California’s expensive TV market.
“It’s about commercial advertising, not retail politics,” Levinson said.

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