Presumptuous Politics

Sunday, June 5, 2016

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

WASHINGTON – 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.
"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.
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.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Brothers N Arms set record straight on viral video and the hypocrisy Two Mexican-American burn the Mexican Flag

Two Mexican-American burn the Mexican Flag

Paul Ryan Cartoons

Ryan chides Trump for comment on judge’s heritage

A united GOP front? Paul Ryan says he will vote for Trump

House Speaker Paul Ryan, a day after throwing his support behind Donald Trump, already has had to distance himself from one of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s comments.
The controversial remarks focused on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who's hearing a Trump University lawsuit. Trump told The Wall Street Journal that Curiel has "an absolute conflict of interest" because of his Mexican heritage as well as "an inherent conflict of interest" because Trump wants to build the border wall.
Asked Friday morning during a WISN radio interview about those comments, Ryan called them “out of left field.”
"It's reasoning I don't relate to, I completely disagree with the thinking behind that," Ryan said.
The speaker noted he’s “had to speak up” from time to time and said he’ll continue to do so, adding: “I hope it’s not” necessary.
The pushback comes a day after Ryan announced he would be voting for Trump, an announcement his office said amounts to an endorsement. This ended a tense period during which Ryan held back his endorsement amid reservations about the presumptive GOP nominee’s policy stances and past comments.
Even as he chided Trump for the judge comments, Ryan called Trump a “willing partner” for implementing a conservative agenda.
The Hillary Clinton campaign, meanwhile, slammed Trump for his remarks on the judge, saying: “The fact that Donald Trump doesn't see Judge Curiel and his family as Americans makes him unfit to be president of this great nation, a nation of immigrants.”
Curiel is a native of Indiana whose parents emigrated from Mexico. He received undergraduate and law degrees from Indiana University and served as a federal prosecutor and a judge in the California state judicial system before being nominated to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2011.
Trump University is the target of two lawsuits in San Diego and one in New York that accuse the business of fleecing students with unfulfilled promises to teach secrets of success in real estate. Trump has maintained that customers were overwhelmingly satisfied.
The school emerged as an issue in a February Republican presidential debate, after which Trump made his first comments criticizing Curiel.
The judge seemingly raised Trump's ire anew last week when he ordered the release of documents that had been sealed. Trump's campaign and private lawyers handling the lawsuits did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Federal judges have repeatedly rebuffed calls to step aside from cases over race, religion and ethnicity. U.S. District Judge Paul Borman, who is Jewish, turned down a request to withdraw from a case of a Palestinian immigrant accused of lying about her role in a fatal terrorist attack. "Like every one of my colleagues on the bench, I have a history and a heritage, but neither interferes with my ability to administer impartial justice," Borman said.
He later did step aside from the case, after discovering his family had an investment in the Jerusalem supermarket the woman helped bomb in 1969. Financial interests often are involved when judges withdraw.

How do you say 'Fail'? Clinton bungles well-known Spanish-language chant

No, she can't. Speak Spanish, that is.
During a stump speech in California, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton focused on an issue close to the hearts of Latinos, immigration, but then she proceeded to mangle a well-known Spanish-language chant.
“I love this country, and I know we are a nation of immigrants from New York to California,” Clinton said, and the crowd responded by clapping enthusiastically.
Some people took up the chant first used by the United Farm Workers during its 1970s protests, “Sí, se puede!” ("Yes, we can")
Clinton smiled, pointed to the crowd and attempted to join in. But instead of saying, "Yes, we can" in Spanish, she said something closer to "If one could."
“Sí, se pueda!” Clinton chanted, incorrectly conjugating the Spanish verb “poder.”
What makes the mistake worse is that Dolores Huerta, the UFW co-founder who coined the Sí, se puede!” chant with Cesar Chavez, is a staunch Clinton supporter.
This is not the first time that Clinton has taken heat for her use of Spanish.
In December, the former Secretary of State received backlash from Twitter users after her campaign put out a video called “7 Way Hillary Clinton is just like your abuela,” on the same day that Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, announced she is pregnant with what will be Clinton's second grandchild.
The ad was quickly derided by online users as employing stereotypes, basic Spanish vocabulary and a photo of the candidate with singer Marc Anthony to show she is in touch with a younger generation.
Clinton has also been known to pepper her tweets with Spanish words and has used “Basta!” (“Enough”) when speaking about Republican rival Donald Trump.
Despite these very public gaffes, Clinton is still heavily favored among Latinos if she were to go up against Trump in the general election.
A recent Fox News Latino poll found that 62 percent of registered Latino voters would head to the ballot box for Clinton in November, while only 23 percent would support Trump on Election Day.

Vox editor suspended for encouraging riots at Trump rallies

How many illegals are in this picture?

An editor with the website Vox was suspended Friday for a series of tweets encouraging protesters to "start a riot" at Donald Trump rallies – shortly after the Republican candidate's supporters were attacked outside a San Jose rally the night before.
"We welcome a variety of viewpoints, but we do not condone writing that could put others in danger,” the site's founder, Ezra Klein, said in a statement announcing the suspension of Emmett Rensin.
Rensin, deputy editor for the site's first-person section, had taken to Twitter as reports first emerged of the chaotic scenes Thursday night outside the California rally, where protesters confronted supporters of the presumptive GOP nominee as they departed. Supporters were punched, and one woman was seen on film being hit with an egg and other trash.
Rensin tweeted that it's "never a shame to storm the barricades set up around a fascist."
He then posted:
His suggestion was followed by a series of similar statements.
"Listen, if Trump is Hitler then you've got no business condemning rioters. If he isn't, you've got no business pretending normal is better," he argued.
Several bloggers, including Ed Morrissey of the conservative Hot Air, criticized Rensin’s comments, but it was not until Friday afternoon that Klein chimed in. A frequent commentator on MSNBC, Klein left his position as a Washington Post columnist to start Vox in 2014.
In announcing Rensin's suspension, Klein asserted he welcomes debate, but that “direct encouragement of riots crosses a line between expressing a contrary opinion and directly encouraging dangerous, illegal activity.”
Meanwhile, Trump commented on the San Jose chaos during a rally Friday afternoon in Redding, Calif., calling some of the protesters "thugs."
Rensin continued his tweet-storm well into Friday morning, while clarifying and defending his position.
He wrote: “I wonder how many of the people beside themselves about anti-Trump riots have called for armed revolt against Obama in the past 8 years?”

Clinton IT aide Pagliano ordered to produce DOJ immunity agreement

Clinton aide Pagliano pleads the Fifth in email scandal

A federal judge ordered the man who set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server Friday to produce the immunity agreement he had reportedly struck with the Department of Justice as part of her investigation.
According to The Hill, the judge’s order postpones Bryan Pagliano’s deposition with the watchdog group Judicial Watch indefinitely. The interview had been scheduled to take place Monday.
Pagliano planned to assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refuse to answers questions over an open records lawsuit, according to court documents obtained Wednesday by Fox News. His lawyers also asked a federal judge to block Judicial Watch from recording his deposition, stating that a written transcription should be enough.
However, Judge Emmet Sullivan declared that his lawyers need to file a legal memorandum to outline the legality for him to plead the Fifth “including requisite details pertaining to the scope of Mr. Pagliano's reported immunity agreement with the government,” The Hill reported.
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, called Sullivan’s order “an important step to getting more answers from Mr. Pagliano about Hillary Clinton's email system.”
Pagliano, who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before helping install the so-called “homebrew” server system in her Chappaqua, N.Y. home, cut an immunity deal last fall with the Justice Department amid the FBI probe. He was recently described to Fox News by an intelligence source as a “devastating witness.”
In the fall, Pagliano told at least three congressional committees in the fall that he will invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying against Clinton. He was asked to testify about the serve by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
The Washington Post reported in September 2015 that Pagliano had been subpoenaed by the Benghazi committee Aug. 11 and committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. had ordered that he appear for questioning Sept. 10. Gowdy also demanded that Pagliano provide documents related to all servers or computer systems controlled or owned by Clinton between 2009 and 2013.
The Post reported in August 2015 that Pagliano had worked as an IT director on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and was asked to oversee the installation of Clinton’s server to handle her correspondence while secretary of state. He was paid by a political action committee tied to Clinton until April 2009, when he was hired by the State Department as an IT specialist.
According to the paper, Pagliano left government service in February 2013 and now works for a technology contractor that provides some services for the State Department.
Lawyers for senior Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, during a nearly five-hour deposition last week in Washington, repeatedly objected to questions about Pagliano’s role in setting up the former secretary of state’s private server.
According to a transcript of the deposition with Judicial Watch released on Tuesday, Mills attorney Beth Wilkinson – as well as Obama administration lawyers – objected to the line of questioning about Pagliano, who has emerged as a central figure in the FBI's ongoing criminal probe of Clinton's email practices.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing related to her private server.