Presumptuous Politics : May 27, 2016

Friday, May 27, 2016

Black Lives Matter Cartoons

Mister 1,237: North Dakota delegate puts Trump over the top

WASHINGTON – John Trandem wanted to be the delegate who would put Donald Trump over the top, giving him enough delegates to clinch the Republican presidential nomination.
But when he was contacted by an Associated Press reporter, the AP delegate count stood at 1,235 — two delegates short.
"I'm happy to be No. 1,237," said Trandem, a small business owner from North Dakota. "But I won't commit until you're at 1,236."
Trandem is an unbound delegate, meaning he is free to support the candidate of his choice. All 28 Republican delegates in North Dakota are unbound because the state party declined to have a primary or caucus.
Trandem, who lives north of Fargo, was reached on his wife's mobile phone. He was on his way to an event where he and other North Dakota delegates would meet Trump, giving the billionaire businessman enough delegates to clinch the nomination.
Wanting to break the story first, reporters were calling and emailing unbound delegates across the country.
Trandem was for Trump, but he didn't want to say so unless he was Mister 1,237.
No problem, he had a solution. He handed the phone to another delegate, state Rep. Ben Koppleman, who was riding with him.
After Koppleman confirmed he was committed to Trump, Trandem took the phone back.
"Are you at 1,236?" he asked.
Yes, he was told. "Then I'm the one!"
Minutes later the AP declared that Trump had secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination.
Later on Thursday, both men shook hands with Trump before sharing a stage with him during a news conference in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Louisiana governor signs 'Blue Lives Matter' bill

Louisiana’s governor signed a first-of-its-kind bill Thursday afternoon that makes it a hate crime to target police officers and first responders.
Called the “Blue Lives Matter” bill, the measure expands the state’s hate crime law to include law enforcement officers, firefighters and other emergency medical services personnel.
“The overarching message is that hate crimes will not be tolerated in Louisiana,” Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards told FoxNews.com in a written statement. He added that he has “great respect” for the work that law enforcement officers do and the daily risks they take.
“I thought it was critical that we add protections for the people that protect us,” state Rep. Lance Harris, a Republican, told FoxNews.com.
Harris authored the bill after the murder of Darren Goforth, a 47-year-old Texas sheriff who was gunned down at a gas station “because he wore a uniform.”
The gunman approached Goforth, a 10-year veteran of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, from behind unloading bullets into him even after the officer fell to the ground.
In many states like Louisiana, there are existing laws covering bias-motivated crimes against people based on their gender, race, religion and sexual orientation.
Under Louisiana’s new measure, anyone convicted of a hate crime-related felony could face up to an additional $5,000 fine and five years behind bars. For a misdemeanor, the punishment comes with a $500 fine and an additional six-month prison sentence.
The “Blue Lives Matter” bill easily passed both state legislative houses.
“The signing of this bill gives us all an opportunity to pause and remember the extraordinary acts by seemingly ordinary people who serve our state as first responders,” State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson said. “Whereas citizens flee danger, police, fire and EMS personnel run to it.”
But not everyone is on board. The Louisiana chapter of the Black Youth Project 100 purportedly had called on the governor to veto the bill.
Other critics like the Anti-Defamation League have also come out against the bill, arguing that providing protections to law enforcement under the “hate crime” statute is counterproductive.
“Adding professional categories to the current Hate Crimes statute deters efforts from protecting against identity-based crimes,” Anti-Defamation League Regional Director Allison Padilla-Goodman said in a written release. “We are not happy that it is being signed into law.”
In a letter to Edwards, Padilla-Goodman said the bill “confuses the purpose of the Hate Crimes Act.” She also said it “weakens its impact by adding more categories of people who are already better protected under other laws.”
Padilla-Goodman argues that hate crime legislation was created to protect people from discrimination against race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity and gender identity.
“Proving the bias intent is very different for these categories than it is for the bias intent of a crime against a law enforcement officer,” she wrote.
Emails to the Black Youth Project 100 were not immediately returned.

Obama takes swipe at Trump overseas

Nothing stops politics this election season -- not even the water's edge.
While traveling overseas on official business Thursday, President Obama couldn’t resist wading into political matters back home, sparking controversy by saying foreign leaders are “rattled” by the rise of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Obama, saying leaders have "good reason" to feel that way, made the remarks on the sidelines of a Group of Seven economic summit in Japan.
"They are rattled by it — and for good reason," Obama said. "Because a lot of the proposals he has made display either ignorance of world affairs, or a cavalier attitude, or an interest in getting tweets and headlines."
He contrasted that with proposals he said thoughtfully address what's required to keep the U.S. safe and "to keep the world on an even keel."
Trump, though, brushed off Obama's put-down later in the day. Speaking ahead of an address in North Dakota, Trump said: "That's a good thing, I love that word."
"In business, when you rattle someone, that's good," Trump said. "If they're rattled, in a friendly way, that's a good thing ... not a bad thing."
Trump also touched on remarks Obama made at a campaign stop in Billings, Montana, saying, "he said other countries are nervous. I say it’s good if they’re nervous."
Obama, meanwhile, was criticized for his remarks by other Republicans, with one calling them “incredibly irresponsible” given the context.
“When the president of the United States goes overseas he’s representing the country,” Josh Holmes, former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said on Fox News. “It is remarkably irresponsible and remarkably unpresidential for him to weigh in on a domestic political battle and effectively undermine one of the candidates who could replace him next January.”
“In front of the world community and effectively in front of all the world leaders, saying someone is essentially unfit for office is an incredibly irresponsible move for the president of the United States,” Holmes said.
Questions about Trump have followed Obama on his travels abroad, with world leaders expressing concern about certain aspect of Trump’s campaign, most notably his plan to temporarily ban Muslim immigration and his positions on trade.
Trump has also threatened to renegotiate Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and the global climate treaty reached in Paris. As Obama was warning world leaders Thursday about Trump, a newly released Associated Press tally showed he has now attained the number of delegates needed to clinch the GOP nomination.
Obama made the remarks a day before he visits Hiroshima, and said other countries pay more attention to the U.S. elections as they depend on America to provide stability and direction.
"I think it's fair to say they are surprised by the Republican nominee," Obama said, referring to Trump.

State Department official thought Clinton used personal email for 'family and friends'

A longtime State Department official said he assumed that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was using her personal email to "stay in touch with family and friends", not conduct official business.
In a two-hour deposition with the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch last week, Lewis Lukens also said he offered to set up a "stand-alone" computer for Clinton to check her personal email account, only to be told that she "does not know how to use a computer to do email."
Lukens' testimony was released Thursday, the day after the State Department inspector general released a report criticizing Clinton's email setup, saying that it violated federal records rules and cybersecurity guidelines.
The FBI is investigating possible mishandling of classified information that passed through the server, which was set up in the basement of Clinton's Chappaqua, N.Y. home. Clinton has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and did so again Thursday.
"This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state," Clinton told ABC News. "It was allowed. And the rules have been clarified since I left."
According to Lukens, he first spoke to Clinton's Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills in 2009 about ways that Clinton could access her personal email without using the State Department's OpenNet system.
In an email released by Judicial Watch earlier this year, Lukens initially suggested a computer that could be "connected to the internet (but not through our system) to enable her to check emails from her desk."
"The reason that I proposed a PC was that it would make it easier for her to log on,” Lukens said in the deposition. “And at that point, as far as I knew, there was no requirement for her to be connected to our system.”
The computer system was never installed. Lukens was told that Clinton could only send and receive email on her Blackberry smartphone.
Because Clinton's State Department office was considered a secure zone, she was unable to bring her Blackberry there. As a result, Lukens recalled "on occasion" seeing Clinton looking at her Blackberry in the hallway outside the secure area.
Lukens, who has been with the State Department since 1989, said he could not recall explicitly discussing Clinton's use of a personal email account with other officials, adding that he assumed she was using "a commercially available email account."
Lukens is the first of at least six named witnesses to be deposed about Clinton's use of a private email server to handle her correspondence during her time as America's top diplomat.
Mills is scheduled to testify on Friday. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled Thursday that recordings of her deposition are to be kept under seal over concerns the video might be used "as part of partisan attack" against Clinton.