Presumptuous Politics

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Sanders warns Democratic National Convention could be 'messy'

LOS ANGELES – Bernie Sanders predicted Monday that the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia could be "messy" as he pushed the party to adopt his progressive agenda, but added, "Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle."
The Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press that his supporters hoped to see a platform at the July convention that reflects the needs of working families, the poor and young people as opposed to one that represents Wall Street and corporate America.
The Vermont senator said he will "condemn any and all forms of violence" but his campaign was bringing in newcomers to the process and first-time attendees of political conventions. He said the Democratic Party could choose to be more inclusive.
"I think if they make the right choice and open the doors to working-class people and young people and create the kind of dynamism that the Democratic Party needs, it's going to be messy," Sanders said. "Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle but that is where the Democratic Party should go."
Asked if the convention could be messy, Sanders said: "So what? Democracy is messy. Everyday my life is messy. But if you want everything to be quiet and orderly and allow, you know, just things to proceed without vigorous debate, that is not what democracy is about."
Sanders is vying for support ahead of California's June 7 primary, a day that also includes contests in New Jersey and four other states. Rival Hillary Clinton has 271 more pledged delegates than Sanders and is just 90 delegates shy of clinching the nomination when the total includes superdelegates, the party officials and elected leaders who can support the candidate of their choice.
Sanders said he had a "shot" at winning the June 7 California primary against Hillary Clinton and said, given his delegate deficit, it was "imperative" that he perform well.
"What happens if I win a major victory in California? Will people say, 'Oh, we're really enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton despite the fact that Bernie Sanders has now won whatever it may be, 25 states, half the states?'" he said.
If that happens, he added, superdelegates "may rethink that. That is why you want the process to play out."
The senator spoke after the Democratic National Committee announced a 15-member platform drafting committee, which write the first draft of the party platform and will include allies of both candidates.
Sanders said the drafting of the platform would be an "excellent time to educate the American people. There are two sides to every issue and I'm sure that Secretary Clinton will have very vigorous proponents of her point of view, as we will have."

Clinton declines Fox News invitation to proposed Dem debate

Hillary Clinton rejects Fox News debate invitation

Hillary Clinton's campaign has declined an invitation to a proposed Fox News-hosted Democratic presidential debate that her primary opponent Bernie Sanders tentatively accepted last week.
The campaign released a statement Monday, almost a week after Fox News invited both Democratic presidential candidates to a final debate in California before the June 7 primaries.
"We have declined Fox News' invitation to participate in a debate in California," Clinton Campaign Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri said in a statement. "As we have said previously, we plan to compete hard in the remaining primary states, particularly California, while turning our attention to the threat a Donald Trump presidency poses.
"We believe that Hillary Clinton's time is best spent campaigning and meeting directly with voters across California and preparing for a general election campaign that will ensure the White House remains in Democratic hands."
“Naturally, Fox News is disappointed that Secretary Clinton has declined our debate invitation, especially given that the race is still contested and she had previously agreed to a final debate before the California primary," Bill Sammon, Fox News VP and Washington Managing Editor said in a statement.
Sanders’ campaign tentatively accepted the invitation last week under the assumption they could reach a "mutual agreement” with Clinton.
Sanders said in a statement Monday night he was "disappointed but not surprised" by Clinton's decision not to participate.
“The state of California and the United States face some enormous crises. Democracy, and respect for the voters of California, would suggest that there should be a vigorous debate in which the voters may determine whose ideas they support. I hope Secretary Clinton reconsiders her unfortunate decision to back away from her commitment to debate.
"I also would suggest that Secretary Clinton may want to be not quite so presumptuous about thinking that she is a certain winner. In the last several weeks, the people of Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon have suggested otherwise," he said.
The Vermont senator echoed his statement at a campaign apperance in Santa Monica, Calif. Monday night.
"I gotta tell you this," Sanders said, "I think it is a little bit insulting to the people of California, our largest state, that she is not prepared to have a discussion with me about how she will help the Californians address the major crises that we face."
The campaigns earlier this year agreed in principle to hold a May debate.
California is one of six states holding Democratic primaries or caucuses on June 7. The others are Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and North and South Dakota.

TSA head of security forced out amid furor over long airport lines

TSA administrator Peter Neffenger

The Transportation Security Administration's head of security operations was removed from his post Monday, law enforcement sources told Fox News.
The departure of Kelly Hoggan was one of a series of shakeups at the agency amid a furor over growing security delays at American airports.
Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee expressed outrage in a May 12 hearing over a $90,000 bonus package Hoggan received, even after reports surfaced of systematic security screening failures at airports around the country. Those security lapses were detailed in a Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report last year.
TSA administrator Peter Neffenger announced Darby LaJoye, former head of security operations at Los Angeles International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport, as Hoggan’s replacement effective immediately, according to the email obtained by Fox News.
In that same memo Neffenger said LaJoye’s expertise has “driven a renewed agency-wide focus on security effectiveness,” which is an issue TSA has been wrestling with since last year’s scathing DHS inspector general's report, and now, with passengers experiencing extraordinarily high screening line wait times at airports around the country.
Wait times have eclipsed three hours at many airports, a phenomenon Neffenger and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson have attributed, in part, to a shortage of TSA officers combined with heightened air traveler volume.
It is for those reasons the agency’s chief announced Monday the establishment of a national command center at TSA headquarters. The Incident Command Center will “closely track daily screening operations, shifting officers, canine resources, the National Deployment Force and other resources to meet mission demands in advance of predicted passenger volume,” Neffenger wrote in the email.
As part of an immediate strategy, Secretary Johnson and Administrator Neffenger unveiled a ten-point plan earlier this month aimed at streamlining TSA screening wait times. That effort expedites the hiring of hundreds of TSA officers, maximizes the use of overtime for existing staff, and reduces the size and number of carry-on bags passengers can travel with.
But despite TSA’s best efforts, the agency is still warning airline passengers to expect wait times and to “manage expectations” when preparing for travel. While acknowledging the hardship increased wait times pose, both Johnson and Neffenger have vowed not to compromise aviation security in the face of heightened passenger volume.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Mark Cuban Cartoons

Cuban rules out third-party bid, open to being Clinton, Trump's VP

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said Sunday that he'd "absolutely" consider being either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton’s running mate.
And if neither of those two scenarios work out, maybe he'll run for president in 2020 or 2024, the NBA team owner and reality show star told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Cuban said Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has a "real chance to win" but that his statements sound like "he's proposing things based off the last person he talked to."
The interview followed a recent Washington Post story in which Cuban's name was mentioned as a possible independent candidate whom some Republicans were trying to recruit to challenge Trump in the general election.
Cuban also appeared to dismiss an independent 2016 run to beat Trump or Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, and the idea of running on the Libertarian Party ticket.
“I haven't really delved into the Libertarian Party to know where they stand,” he said. “I'm not sure they would want to bring somebody in that isn't quite a match with their views. But you know, it's too late for this election.”

Populist paradox: Why Donald Trump could grab some Bernie voters

One of the strangest questions in politics is whether disaffected Bernie backers might wind up on the Trump train.
It scrambles all the usual Beltway assumptions on left-right politics. After all, how could diehard supporters of Bernie Sanders—who’s so far left that he’s unhappy with eight years of Obama liberalism—move to a Republican who wants to build a wall on the Mexican border and temporarily bar Muslim immigrants?
Part of the answer is that the electorate has changed. And part is that voters don’t operate the way pundits do, with an issue-by-issue checklist that requires ideological consistency.
Trump rails against a rigged system. Sanders rails against a rigged system. Trump even says the Democratic Party is screwing Bernie and, in a bit of mischief-making, urges him to run as an independent.
They both tee off on unfair trade deals and play to middle-class economic anxieties. That populist approach touches a nerve far more than a bunch of carefully worded position papers.
“A lot of those people would come with me,” Trump said of Sanders supporters yesterday on “Fox & Friends.” “I'm no fan of Bernie Sanders, but he's right about one thing: trade agreements.”
Many Americans go with their gut. Trump comes from outside the political system. Sanders is a veteran senator but until last year wasn’t even a Democrat. They are both leading movements. No wonder there’s some overlap.
In the end, I think most of those feeling the Bern will fall into line and back Hillary Clinton. But the fact that Trump has a shot at a good chunk of them—which could help put a few Democratic-leaning states in play—is a sign of the scrambled politics of 2016.
It’s also a sign of a changing electorate. Trump was arguably the least conservative Republican in that field of 17. Sanders would have been the most liberal Democratic nominee since LBJ.
National Review Editor Rich Lowry picks up that point:
“Sanders’s and Trump’s styles and affects are very different — the rumpled, oddball lecturer in Socialism 101 vs. the boastful, power-tie-wearing business mogul — but they have worked in tandem to ensure that the center of gravity in this fall’s presidential election will be further to the left than it has been in decades.”
Lowry argues that “Sanders and Trump have executed a squeeze play on the Madam Secretary. Sanders pushed her to the left on trade and Social Security in the primary, when she disavowed the Trans-Pacific Partnership that she helped negotiate and embraced increasing Social Security benefits. She probably won’t be snapping back to the center on those issues in a general election because it would open her up to Sanders-like attacks from Donald Trump. Such is the shift in the tectonic plates of our politics that the presumptive Republican nominee for president, endorsed by voices on the right ranging from Sean Hannity to Mitch McConnell, is making a far-fetched but not entirely irrational pitch for the support of fans of a Vermont socialist.”
Let’s take this a step further. If both parties are edging left, it doesn’t come as some kind of backlash to a right-wing administration.
Charles Krauthammer declares that “after nearly two terms of Barack Obama’s corrosively unsuccessful liberalism — both parties have decisively moved left. Hillary Clinton cannot put away a heretofore marginal, self-declared socialist. He has forced her into leftward genuflections on everything from trade to national health care. At the same time, Bernie Sanders has created a remarkably resilient insurgency calling for — after Obama, mind you — a political revolution of the Left…
“The Republicans’ ideological about-face is even more pronounced. They’ve chosen as their leader a nationalist populist who hardly bothers to pretend any allegiance to conservatism. Indeed, Donald Trump is, like Sanders, running to the left of Clinton on a host of major issues including trade, Wall Street, NATO, and interventionism.”
This was deemed heresy by true-blue conservatives during the primaries, but I kept reminding folks it would make Trump a stronger general-election candidate if he got that far.
And there is growing nervousness on the left that Hillary could lose to The Donald:
“Clinton has no chance of winning a majority of working-class white voters,” Salon says. “They have voted heavily Republican for years, especially working-class men. In the 2014 midterm elections, for example, working-class whites voted for Republicans by a 30-point margin. But Clinton needs to win some of them. In 2012 Barack Obama won the support of about 35 percent of working-class whites, which was enough to help him win reelection…
“If she lets Trump position himself as the tribune of the working class, she’ll only dig a deeper hole for herself with blue-collar voters.”
It’s no secret that an evolving electorate is driving some of this political upheaval. The growing proportion of minority voters means a Republican has to win more white voters to offset losses in that community. A new generation of younger voters takes for granted such matters as same-sex marriage, which used to be a Republican wedge issue.
And voters who came of age during the Iraq war may share a wariness of military intervention, reflected in Trump’s frequent criticism of George W. Bush’s invasion.
Perhaps Trump, who doesn’t emphasize social issues, and Sanders, who doesn’t emphasize foreign policy, both sensed this new reality. And maybe the idea that they share a certain appeal isn’t so crazy after all.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

Polls show Clinton, Trump tied in likely November matchup, record un-favorability

Two polls released Sunday show Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton tied with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in a likely general election race, after having a double-digit lead just months ago.
Clinton leads Trump 46-to-43 percent in a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, compared to a similar one in April in which Clinton had an 11-point lead.
The new poll also shows Clinton primary rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders leading Trump by 15 percentage points, 54-to-39 percent, in a hypothetical November matchup.
“Polls this far out mean nothing,” Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They certainly mean nothing to me. And I think that if people go back and look, they really mean nothing in terms of analyzing what's going to happen in the fall.”
Earlier Sunday morning, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed voters favored Trump over Clinton 46-to-44 percent. The numbers also show Clinton losing an identical 11-point lead since earlier this spring.
Both polls were within the statistical margin of error, which means Clinton and Trump are essentially tied.
Trump said on the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” show that he suspects some of the support is coming from Sanders’ backers, now that their candidate faces very long odds in winning the Democratic nomination.
“I hear and I look at polls, and I hear a lot of those people are coming with us,” Trump said in a phone interview. “A lot of the Bernie Sanders’ voters, they do not like Hillary Clinton. … A lot of those people will come with me.”
The Washington Post/ NBC poll also shows a majority of the electorate has an unfavorable impression of Clinton, a former secretary of state, and Trump, a billionaire businessman, and that likely voters are “motivated as much by whom they don’t like as by whom they do.”
According to The Washington Post: “Never in the history of the Post-ABC poll have the two major party nominees been viewed as harshly as Clinton and Trump.”
The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll reported voters also have record-low opinions of those two candidates.
“Trump and Clinton are currently the two most unpopular likely presidential nominees in the history of the NBC/WSJ poll,” the pollsters said.

US lifts Vietnam arms embargo in move to counter China

President Obama lifted the 41-year-old U.S. arms embargo against Vietnam Monday in an apparent effort to shore up the communist country's defenses against an increasingly aggressive China.
Obama announced the full removal of the embargo at a news conference in Hanoi alongside Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang. The American president said the move was intended as a step toward normalizing relations with the former enemy and to eliminate a "lingering vestige of the Cold War."
Obama added that every U.S. arms sale would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
U.S. lawmakers and activists had urged Obama to press for greater human rights freedoms in the one-party state before lifting the embargo. Vietnam holds about 100 political prisoners and there have been more detentions this year.
Washington partially lifted the embargo on arms in 2014, but Vietnam wanted full access as it tries to deal with China's land reclamation and military construction in the disputed South China Sea. Vietnam has not bought anything, but removing the remaining restrictions shows relations are fully normalized and opens the way to deeper security cooperation.
"At this stage both sides have developed a level of trust and cooperation, including between our militaries, that is reflective of common interests and mutual respect" Obama said.
Obama said the United States and Vietnam had mutual concerns about maritime issues and the importance of maintaining freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. He said that although Washington doesn't take sides on the territorial disputes, it does support a diplomatic resolution based on "international norms" and "not based on who's the bigger party and can throw around their weight a little bit more," a reference to China.
Lifting the arms embargo will be a psychological boost for Vietnam's leaders as they look to counter an increasingly aggressive China, but there may not be a big jump in sales.
Obama was greeted Monday by Quang at the Presidential Palace, where Obama congratulated Vietnam for making "extraordinary progress." Quang praised the expansion in security and trade ties between "former enemies turned friends" and called for more U.S. investment in Vietnam. He said there was enormous bilateral trade growth potential.
Obama is the third sitting president to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Four decades after the fall of Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, and two decades after President Bill Clinton restored relations with the nation, Obama is eager to upgrade relations with an emerging power whose rapidly expanding middle class beckons as a promising market for U.S. goods and an offset to China's growing strength.
The United States is eager to boost trade with a fast-growing middle class in Vietnam that is expected to double by 2020. That would mean knocking down auto, food and machine tariffs to get more U.S. products into Vietnam.
During his three days in Vietnam, Obama will make the case for stronger commercial and security ties, including approval of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Trade agreement that is stalled in Congress and facing strong opposition from the 2016 presidential candidates.