Presumptuous Politics

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

RNC head defends nomination process as Cruz claims Trump backers threatening delegates

The head of the Republican National Committee defended the party's presidential nominating process late Tuesday in a social media post directed at party front-runner Donald Trump.
Trump has repeatedly complained about the delegate-selection system after this past weekend's Colorado state convention, at which Texas Sen. Ted Cruz gained all 34 delegates to this summer's Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
"Our Republican system is absolutely rigged. It's a phony deal," Trump told a rally in a packed airport hangar in Rome, N.Y., Tuesday evening. The real estate mogul told the crowd the delegate-selection system was set up by "crooked politicians" to make sure a candidate like him could never win.
"These are dirty tricksters," he said, placing the blame on the Republican National Committee. "They should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this kind of crap to happen," he added, saying that both Republicans and Democrats have set up "phony rules and regulations" that makes it "impossible for a guy that wins to win."
He went further a few hours later during a CNN town hall in New York City, suggesting the RNC was actively working to defeat him.
"The RNC doesn't like this happening. They don't like that I'm putting up my own money because it means they don't have any control over me," Trump said, arguing that the deck is "stacked against me by the establishment."
Meanwhile, Cruz tore into Trump in a radio interview Tuesday, accusing his rival of being a bully, inciting violence and using dirty tricks to intimidate voters and delegates.
Cruz unloaded on Trump over reports that his supporters were publishing the home addresses of delegates in Colorado and threatening to make public the hotel room numbers of delegates at the convention this summer.
"That is the tactic of union thugs," Cruz told host Glenn Beck. "That is violence. It is oppressive. The idea that Donald is threatening delegates, we're seeing that pattern over and over again."
Cruz even compared Trump to the lead character from "The Godfather."
"Donald needs to understand he's not Michael Corleone," Cruz said. "Donald needs to stop threatening the voters. He needs to stop threatening the delegates. He is not a mobster."
Cruz also discounted the seriousness of the Trump candidacy, saying: "There was a real chance this was a lark, this was 'let's get some publicity, let's have some fun.' And I think he was surprised as anybody."
Cruz also joked that Trump is doing so poorly in securing delegates that he would have to fire himself from his reality show, "The Apprentice", and even got in a jab at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who endorsed Trump after dropping out of the race.
"Chris Christie right now is trapped in his own private hell," Cruz said. "When Chris was standing behind Donald holding his jacket, the look in his eyes. You could see the screaming."
Meanwhile, Trump released a new radio ad, that referenced Cruz's shot at "New York values" during a GOP debate, telling voters in next week's primaries that "other candidates do not like us."
Cruz conceded that Trump will do well in upcoming primaries, including in Trump's home state of New York next Tuesday.
"He ought to win his home state convincingly," Cruz said, setting expectations high for Trump. "If Donald isn't substantially above 50 percent in New York, it will be a big loss for him."
Cruz said he will fare better when the race shifts back west to Indiana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Montana, before finishing in California on June 7.
"If and when the people of California vote against Donald Trump, he's going to scream that they're stealing the election," Cruz said. "Apparently when anyone votes against him it's an act of theft."
Trump urged his supporters to turn out next Tuesday, not only to support his bid but to send a message to their party.
"You've got to show the Republican Party that they can't get away with this stuff any longer," he said.

Clinton pins racially charged skit on New York City mayor's shoulders

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton distanced herself Tuesday from a racially charged comedy sketch she participated in with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over the weekend.
In the sketch at the city's annual Inner Circle charity show, de Blasio said he took so long to endorse Clinton for president because he was running on "CP time", an apparent reference to the stereotype of African-Americans being late for appointments. Clinton then interjected: "Cautious politician time. I've been there."
"Well, look, it was Mayor de Blasio's skit," she told Cosmopolitan.com. "He has addressed it, and I will really defer to him because it is something that he's already talked about."
Many of the New York politicians, power brokers and reporters in the room laughed at the joke. But as word of the sketch spread via social media, the coverage became scornful. The Daily News blared "Skit for Brains" on its Tuesday front page. And New York magazine made reference to the mayor's black spouse, asking, "Does your wife, Chirlane (McCray), know about this joke?"
De Blasio, whose two multiracial children identify as black, downplayed the controversy.
"It was clearly a staged event," he told CNN on Monday. "I think people are missing the point here."
Mayoral aides added that the skit was not meant to offend and pointed out that it was far from the only risque joke during a night on which reporters put on a show to roast politicians and then the mayor returns the favor.
At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest deflected questions about the propriety of the joke, saying he hadn't seen it, but he praised Clinton and de Blasio for the "commitment that they've shown over the course of their career to justice and civil rights."
The flap comes at a poor time for Clinton, who has enjoyed deep support from black voters during the previous primaries and is banking on their support again in New York's April 19 primary to ward off a challenge from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. A loss for Clinton in her home state could upend the Democratic race, though she would still have a significant delegate lead.

Obama to decide on declassifying 9/11 documents within 60 days


Did members of Saudi royal family fund terrorism against US?

President Obama will decide whether to declassify 28 pages of sealed documents — which some suspect show a Saudi connection to the 9/11 attacks — within 60 days, according to a former senator who co-chaired the 2002 joint congressional inquiry into the attacks.
Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham told Fox News late Tuesday that the White House had informed him that a decision whether declassify the documents would be made in one to two months.
Graham, who has pressed for the documents to be made public, told Fox he was "pleased that after two years this matter is about to come to a decision by the president."
Both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations have refused to unseal the documents, claiming it would jeopardize national security. Critics say the reluctance is a calculated move to hide Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.
Obama had come under renewed pressure to release the documents ahead of a planned presidential trip to Saudi Arabia for a summit of Gulf leaders next week.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand told CBS’ “60 Minutes” she believes the documents, which she has seen, should be made available to the family members of 9/11 victims.
“I don’t know how the Saudi government will react to it, but I think it’s just information,” Gillibrand said Sunday.
Gillibrand is among a growing, bipartisan group of lawmakers advocating for the release of the documents.
"If the president is going to meet with the Saudi Arabian leadership and the royal family, they think it would be appropriate that this document be released before the president makes that trip, so that they can talk about whatever issues are in that document," Gillibrand said.
Asked about the renewed information requests on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said he doesn’t know whether Obama has read the 28 pages but they are the subject of an intelligence community “classification review.”
Earnest said Obama has “confidence” in their ability to “consider those documents for release.” Asked about any potential Saudi ties to 9/11, Earnest cited the 9/11 Commission's findings that there was no evidence the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials funded Al Qaeda.
But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she, too, wants the pages declassified.
"As the former Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and top the House Democrat on the Joint Congressional investigation looking into the 9/11 attacks, I agree with former Senator Bob Graham that these documents should be declassified and made public, and that the Bush Administration's refusal to do so was a mistake," Pelosi said in a written statement. "I have always advocated for providing as much transparency as possible to the American people consistent with protecting our national security."

Nationality of Hijackers Involved in 9/11 Attacks | Graphiq

Last year, convicted Al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui implicated high-level Saudi royals in the 9/11 attacks. fueling the ongoing congressional effort to declassify the official report.
Some Saudi connections to the attacks are already well-known, including that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian citizens -- and that mastermind Usama bin Laden was the son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian contractor with close ties to the Saudi royal family.
“There are a lot of rocks out there that have been purposefully tamped down, that if were they turned over, would give us a more expansive view of the Saudi role,” Graham told "60 Minutes."
"The Saudis know what they did. We know what they did," Graham said.
Fox News earlier reported on the Saudi connection to the 9/11 hijackers and the mysterious 28 pages in a 2011 documentary called “Secrets of 9/11.”
Graham has said in the past the 28 classified pages lay out a network of people he believes helped the hijackers obtain housing in the U.S. and enroll in flight school.
“You believe that support came from Saudi Arabia?” CBS reporter Steve Croft asked.
"Substantially," Graham responded.
"And when we say, 'the Saudis,' you mean the government, the -- rich people in the country? Charities?" Kroft pressed.
"All of the above," Graham confirmed.
Nineteen militants associated with Al Qaeda hijacked four airliners and carried out attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania on 9/11. Two of the planes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York City. Another plane hit the Pentagon while a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
The United States went after the masterminds behind the attack and, in May 2011, killed the terror group’s leader Usama bin Laden.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

$15 Hour Cartoon

SEIU reportedly spent millions on minimum wage initiative as enrollment drops

The Service Employees International Union is believed to have spent $20 million on its campaign to have the minimum wage raised to $15 last year, according to a new report.
The report by the Center for Union Facts, a watchdog group, says that the new figure is in addition to the $50 million already spent since 2012. The numbers come from the 2015 financial disclosures released by the SEIU that were was analyzed by the CUF.
What the CUF discovered was that a majority of the $20 million spent for the “Fight for 15” campaign last year went to various organizing committees and that the powerhouse union was likely spending even more, due to staff salaries, legal services and money paid to minimum wage advocacy groups such as the National Employment Law Project (NELP) and the Economic Policy Institute (EcPI).
“While the SEIU has made some headway in its push for a job-killing $15 minimum wage, working Americans appear to be sending a clear message to SEIU big spenders: ‘Find a way to create jobs rather than diminishing them.’" CUF Executive Director Richard Berman said in a statement. “The $15 campaign may generate some legislative wins, but even former SEIU boss Andy Stern has acknowledged that this big-spending strategy isn't sustainable."
The $70 million figure since 2012 is close to estimates from November, when it was believed that the SEIU had spent $80 million since 2012—a low cost compared to the potential of revenue it stands to make from unionizing fast food workers.

Service Employees | FindTheCompany

Unionizing just a third of the nation’s estimated 3.6 million fast-food workers could bring in more than $400 million per year in dues to the SEIU, according to one estimate at the time.
In order to woo potential union members, the SEIU financially backed the “Fight for 15” movement, which was presented in some areas as a grassroots initiative for struggling fast food workers and activists.
“The SEIU is sponsoring ‘Fight for 15’ to do its dirty work,” Jared Meyer, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research, told FoxNews.com last November.
The fast food industry has long been coveted for unionization. Experts say that previous efforts to organize have stumbled in part because of the high-turnover rate and reliance on young and part-time workers who do not see the value in paying union dues.
A vast majority of fast-food workers also do not see their current jobs as a full-time career, in contrast to workers in other industries such as manufacturing or education, say experts.
The SEIU’s efforts, however, may be for naught.
As their spending has increased, their numbers have been dwindling, losing 6,000 members in 2015 alone, according to the CUF.
That figure is on top of membership numbers that have consistently dropped for the past five years.
The newest filing shows that the SEIU claimed 1,921,786 union members in 2011, the year prior to the start of the Fight for $15--almost 34,000 more than it had in 2015.

Hillary Clinton, NYC Mayor De Blasio draw criticism over racially-tinged joke at charity dinner

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton were forced to defend a joke made by the mayor at a charity dinner that critics considered racially offensive.
The incident occurred Saturday night, when Clinton and De Blasio took part in a skit at the Inner Circle dinner, a black-tie event in which New York City's political press corps and politicians spend the evening making fun of each other.
Clinton took the stage ostensibly to thank De Blasio, a former aide, for his belated endorsement of her for the Democratic nomination.
"Took you long enough," Clinton said.
De Blasio responded, "Sorry, Hillary. I was running on C.P. time." The phrase, popular in pop culture, is a reference to the stereotype that African-Americans are typically late for appointments.
Broadway actor Leslie Odom Jr., who was also on stage with Clinton and De Blasio and appeared to be in on the joke, said, "That's not - I don't like jokes about that, Bill."
Clinton then turned to Odom and delivered the punch line, "Cautious Politician Time. I've been there."
The exchange takes place at the 8:30 mark of this video, posted on the NYC Mayor's Office YouTube channel.
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The joke was widely criticized in the media, with New York magazine calling it "amazingly unfunny, terribly executed". Left-leaning website Salon called it "cringeworthy", as did The Root, which bills itself as a site for "Black News, Opinion, Politics, and Culture."
The skit came at an awkward time for Clinton, who has ridden strong African-American support to several wins in key primary states but has also been criticized by some for using the term "superpredator" during her husband's administration to describe criminals.
Last week, former President Bill Clinton clashed with Black Lives Matter activist and defending his criminal justice policies at an appearance in Pennsylvania. Hours before her Inner Circle appearance, Hillary Clinton told the New York Daily News that she also agreed with critics who say the bill contributed to high levels of incarceration for non-violent crimes, like drug offenses.

De Blasio told CNN Monday evening that critics of the skit were "missing the point."
It was clearly a staged show. It was a scripted show and the whole idea was to do the counter intuitive and say 'cautious politician time,'" he said. "Every actor involved, including Hillary Clinton and Leslie Odom Jr., thought it was a joke on a different convention."
A Clinton spokesman said in a statement to ABC News, "We agree with the mayor."

Delegate disruption: Shenanigans fuel Trump's case that the system is rigged

Donald Trump says that what happened in Colorado is “crooked.”
That’s not quite right, but it sure seems undemocratic.
And it reeks of the kinds of insider politics that has caused widespread disgust with both parties.
I say both parties because, as Trump noted, Bernie Sanders is also getting hosed on the Democratic side.
I’ve been concerned in the last few days that the media’s coverage of the presidential race is getting down into the weeds. The issues have mostly been drowned out, and even the state-by-state contests have been overshadowed by endless chatter about delegate math and party procedures. This is the stuff that media and political junkies crave but that civilians start to find incomprehensible.
But people get it in their gut when someone is getting screwed.
Primaries are the fairest way of picking a nominee. Caucuses are more time-consuming and complicated (although at least folks get to vote). And then there are states like Colorado.
In March, Colorado held caucuses to pick delegates to a bunch of assemblies and conventions. And those people picked their favorite candidate. Ted Cruz won them all because his people outhustled an error-riddled effort by the Trump camp, and perhaps because the kind of party insiders elected to these gatherings don’t like Donald Trump. (Yes, Cruz is a hardly an establishment figure, but he’s become the most viable alternative for the GOP’s stop-Trump crowd.)
"The people out there are going crazy,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” yesterday. “They’re going absolutely crazy because they weren’t given a vote.”
National Review’s Jim Geraghty is unsympathetic, saying: “The evidence is mounting that yes, indeed, Trump really is being poorly served by his staff, as his campaign seems to get blindsided by existing rules week after week.”
But the whole point of Trump’s candidacy is not to play the game created by political hacks. Rather, he wants to beat them at their own game.
Yet all this is unfolding before we even get to Cleveland, where some delegates may declare themselves to be unbound and all kinds of shenanigans may take place as the candidates try to woo and even pressure their way to 1,237.
It doesn’t help matters when Trump’s new convention manager, Paul Manafort, accuses the Cruz camp of “Gestapo” tactics. Can we lay off the Nazi analogies, please? John Kasich, with milder language, accused the Cruz team of using strong-arm tactics in Michigan. This fracas has been heating up by the day.
On the Democratic side, Sanders won Wyoming over the weekend, but he and Hillary Clinton are getting seven delegates each. Kind of makes you wonder: what’s the point of voting?
The system of Democratic superdelegates, created to avoid another McGovern-style wipeout, is a huge insurance policy for Hillary. It almost guarantees the party a veto over insurgent candidates.
Democracy can be messy, we all get that. And there is a fine line between complaining about complicated rules and appearing to be whining.
But this is turning into a huge PR problem. And the appearance that the game is rigged will only boost the outsider candidates and fuel public distrust in both political parties.

Ted Cruz says Trump 'whining' over GOP nominating process

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz waded into the controversy over the Republican party's nominating process Monday, accusing his rival for the GOP nomination, Donald Trump, of "whining" over Cruz's sweep of Colorado's delegates for this summer's Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
"Donald has been yelling and screaming. A lot of whining. I'm sure some cursing. And some late-night fevered tweeting," Cruz told hundreds of supporters in Irvine, Calif.
Cruz went after Trump again at an appearance in San Diego, saying, "As we know in the state of California, whine is something best served with cheese."
Addressing the real estate mogul directly, Cruz then said, "Donald, it ain't stealing when the voters vote against you. It is the voters reclaiming this country and reclaiming sanity."
Trump has repeatedly blasted Colorado's Republican leadership since this weekend's state convention, and did so again Monday at a rally in Albany, N.Y., calling Cruz's win "a total fix."
"There’s so much - the people all wanted to vote. They took away their votes," Trump said. "I think it’s going to come back to haunt them because people aren’t going take it anymore. We’re not going to take it anymore. It’s a corrupt system. It’s a totally corrupt, rigged system."
Cruz noted that Trump's complaints follow his struggles in recent primary contests in Utah, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Colorado. He also took to social media to drive home the point.
Trump tied the Colorado controversy to next week's New York primary, where polls show him holding a big lead over Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
"You’re going to go out and vote … well, we found out in Colorado it's not a democracy like we thought and we're not going to have a rigged election," Trump said.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus pushed back against Trump's claims Monday, telling conservative radio host Mike Gallagher in an interview that the convention system used in Colorado is "not an affront to the people of Colorado. It just is what the rule is."
"I don't know why a majority is such a difficult concept for some people to accept," Priebus said.
Colorado isn't the only delegate battleground between Trump and Cruz. Trump won the popular vote in Louisiana's early March primary by three percentage points but the close result gave both candidates the same amount of delegates.
"I end up winning Louisiana and then when everything is done, I find out I get less delegates than this guy that got his ass kicked”, Trump said Monday.
The top two in the Republican party delegate race are not only seeking votes, but are also looking to outmaneuver each other in state gatherings where the delegates who will attend the summer convention are being chosen. Cruz's campaign has implemented a more strategic approach to picking up delegates, which, despite Trump's current lead, are essential if he wants to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

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