June 23, 2016

Democrats end sit-in on House floor after more than 24 hours

Source: The Washington Post

Democratic lawmakers on Thursday afternoon ended the dramatic protest they have staged on the House floor for more than 24 hours, while pledging to continue to find ways to pressure Republicans to hold votes on gun-control measures.

Tired of what they viewed as a publicity stunt by Democrats, Republican early Thursday morning formally adjourned for the long-scheduled Fourth of July recess.

But Democrats said they would continue to press the issue, promising to hold events during the recess both on the House floor and in districts across the country under the belief that they finally have momentum behind putting in place some restrictions on the sale of guns following the recent mass shootings in Orlando.

“Now we have to take the actions which will enable us to meet our goal, which is to win the vote,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi(D-Calif.).

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/06/22/democrats-stage-protest-on-house-floor-to-force-gun-control-votes/

June 23, 2016

Murphy Embellished His Business Background (Grayson's opponent)

CBS Miami digs into Rep. Patrick Murphy’s (D-FL) background as the likely Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Florida:

A CBS4 News investigation into Murphy’s history as both a CPA and a self-described small business owner, however, shows Murphy has in some cases exaggerated his experience and in other instances made claims that were misleading or outright false.

For instance, he has never worked a day in his life as a Certified Public Accountant.

And he was never a small business owner.

###

https://politicalwire.com/2016/06/23/murphy-embellished-his-business-background/

June 23, 2016

Boston Globe Editorial: Paul Ryan, what are you afraid of?

A CLUMSY ACT of censorship by House Republicans Wednesday says more about the party’s timidity than it could possibly have intended. The Republican leadership abruptly shut down the video feed from the House floor to prevent CSPAN viewers from seeing a protest by House Democrats, who were pressing for action on gun control.

The same House has endured debates on war, impeachment, taxes, and any number of other contentious issues — all with the cameras rolling. A call to action on guns, though, was apparently too much for the tender feelings of Speaker Paul Ryan, whose office shut down CSPAN’s access.

It was a telling move. Censorship is not something that politicians who are confident of the righteousness of their beliefs bother with. If anticontrol lawmakers genuinely believe their abject fealty to the gun lobby is in the public interest, they should have no problem with debating gun-control proponents in front of the cameras. Likewise, if the Democrats who support gun control were really so misguided, the Republicans would presumably want the American people to see them Wednesday as they argued for a bad cause.

Rather, turning off the camera is a desperation move for those who know they have no excuse and need to hide from the public. Pulling the plug on coverage of the gun protest was uncomfortably similar to the actions of a much earlier Congress, which forbade members from even discussing the issue of slavery out of deference to the powerful cotton lobby.

In those days, Massachusetts representative and former president John Quincy Adams led the fight against the so-called gag rule, which led to calls for his ouster from the House. He was admonished for breaking the rules of the House — just as a spokeswoman for Ryan justified the shut-off on Wednesday by saying, “the House cannot operate without members following the rules of the institution.”

more
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/06/22/paul-ryan-what-are-you-afraid/E5U98g15gZJ21ma03MfzMN/story.html

June 23, 2016

Clinton touts economic record, courts Sanders backers in N.C. speech

RALEIGH, N.C. — Hillary Clinton shared a long list of economic priorities during a speech here Wednesday with two objectives seemingly in mind: contrasting her seriousness of purpose with Republican Donald Trump and reassuring supporters of her Democratic rival Bernie Sanders of her progressive bona fides.

Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, pledged to make the largest investment in U.S. jobs since World War II and recounted numerous initiatives she has offered over her candidacy, including steps to ensure that large companies and the “super rich” pay their “fair share” of taxes.

The former secretary of state also touted measures to make college debt-free, increase corporate profit-sharing, expand access to child care and provide more generous Social Security benefits.

Her remarks at the state fairgrounds here came a day after a companion speech in Ohio in which Clinton sought to portray Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, as unfit to manage the nation’s economy despite his background in business. Trump, in turn, delivered a scathing address about Clinton on Wednesday, accusing her and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, of financially profiting off their public service.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-touts-economic-record-courts-sanders-backers-in-nc-speech/2016/06/22/df5f763c-3807-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html

June 23, 2016

If Hillary Clinton cracks that ‘highest, hardest glass ceiling,’ she’ll bring other women along...

If Hillary Clinton cracks that ‘highest, hardest glass ceiling,’ she’ll bring other women along with her into office

By Curtis Bell June 23 at 5:00 AM

Now that Hillary Clinton has locked up the Democratic nomination for president, she is one step closer to breaking the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” in American politics. If she wins, would her presidency bring more women into political office in the United States?

That’s very possible — even probable. At least, that’s what we can conclude from my new paper about the 50 countries where, since the 1950s, women have held the highest office, such as president or prime minister.

On average, when a woman becomes a country’s chief executive, that country starts electing more women to the legislature

The graph below shows that the number of countries with a woman holding its highest office has generally been increasing since 1960. In the spring of 2014, 18 countries had a female leader. Although the figure has dropped recently, women are now leading as many countries today as they did at any point before 2009. Some female leaders, like Clinton, come from powerful political dynasties. But without exception, each of the women currently serving in her country’s highest office was elected in her own right and did not inherit the position from her father or her husband.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/23/if-hillary-clinton-cracks-that-highest-hardest-glass-ceiling-shell-bring-other-women-along-with-her-into-office/

June 23, 2016

Donald Rumsfeld Is All In For Trump: It’s ‘Not A Close Call’

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Daily Mail in a Wednesday interview that Donald Trump will have his full support in November.

Rumsfeld said his decision to vote for Trump over Clinton was “not a close call,” citing the threat from “radical Islamists” and the need to limit how many refugees the U.S. accepts.

As the former secretary of dense put it, “Mrs. Clinton is a known known. Donald Trump is a known unknown who's a recent entry into the equation. And I am a lot more comfortable with a known unknown, who I will support, than with a known known who is unacceptable.”

The language is borrowed from Rumsfeld’s 2002 comments describing the intelligence community’s lack of firm evidence affirming that the Iraqi government possessed weapons of mass destruction, the justification for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

more
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-rumsfeld-endorses-trump

June 23, 2016

Republicans: Save your party, don’t give to Trump - By George F. Will

“There’s an old adage about a vat of wine standing next to a vat of sewage. Add a cup of wine to the sewage, and it is still sewage. But add a cup of sewage to the wine, and it is no longer wine but sewage. Is this what Donald Trump has done to our politics?”

— Martha Bayles, in the Claremont Review of Books

-snip-

In Trump, Republicans have someone whose reputation is continental only in being broadly known. He illustrates Daniel Boorstin’s definition of a celebrity as someone well-known for his well-knownness. It will be wonderful if Trump tries to translate notoriety into fulfillment of his vow — as carefully considered as anything else about his candidacy — to carry New York and California. He should be taunted into putting his meager campaign funds where his ample mouth is. Every dime or day he squanders on those states will contribute to a redemptive outcome, a defeat so humiliating — so continental — that even Republicans will be edified by it.

Trump’s campaign has less cash ($1.3 million) than some congressional candidates have, so Republican donors have never been more important than they are at this moment. They can save their party by not aiding its nominee.

Events already have called his bluff about funding himself and thereby being uniquely his own man. His wealth is insufficient. Only he knows what he is hiding by being the first presidential nominee in two generations not to release his tax returns. It is reasonable to assume that the returns would refute many of his assertions about his net worth, his charitableness and his supposed business wizardry. They might also reveal some awkwardly small tax payments.

-snip-

Various Republican moral contortionists continue their semantic somersaults about “supporting” but not “endorsing” Trump. In Cleveland, they will point him toward the highest elective office in a country they profess to love but that he calls “a hellhole.” When asked in a 1990 Playboy interview about his historical role models, he mentioned Winston Churchill but enthused about others who led “the ultimate life”:

“I’ve always thought that Louis B. Mayer led the ultimate life, that Flo Ziegfeld led the ultimate life, that men like Darryl Zanuck and Harry Cohn did some creative and beautiful things. The ultimate job for me would have been running MGM in the ’30s and ’40s — pre-television.” Yes, that job, not the one he seeks.

full column:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-save-your-party-dont-give-to-trump/2016/06/22/f56a8cda-37eb-11e6-a254-2b336e293a3c_story.html

June 23, 2016

House Democrats’ Gun Protest Drowns Donald Trump In A Tidal Wave Of Blue Power

By Jason Easley on Wed, Jun 22nd, 2016 at 8:02 pm

Donald Trump thought he was going to get all of the media attention with his speech about Hillary Clinton. Instead, House Democrats have dominated the news with a dramatic takeover of the House floor to demand a vote on gun control legislation.

Donald Trump is scrambling for cash for his presidential campaign, and desperate for media attention. The Trump campaign has been touting their speech about Hillary Clinton as the big moment that would turn their campaign around, but less than hour after Trump finished speaking, Rep. John Lewis came to the House floor and asked the rest of his colleagues to join him on the House floor.

What Rep. Lewis said next was more powerful than a million Trump teleprompter speeches, “So today we come to the floor of the House to dramatize the need for action. Not next year, but now, today. Sometimes you have to do something out of the ordinary. Sometimes you have to make a way out of no way. We have been too quiet for too long. There comes a time when you have to say something when you have to make a little noise. You have to move your feet. This is the time. Now is the time to get in the way. The time to act is now. We will be silent no more. The time for silence is over.”

At that moment, Trump’s hopes of winning media day were dashed as House Democrats staged a protest that led to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan cutting off the C-SPAN cameras on the House floor. The Democratic message was not be denied as the protesters started broadcasting live video from the House floor on Facebook and Periscope.

Today was supposed to be Donald Trump’s big pivot day to attacking Hillary Clinton, but the presumptive Republican nominee is playing a distant second fiddle to a Democratic protest in the House. Trump is finding out that in the political arena celebrity isn’t enough to carry the day. A blue wave rose up and swallowed Donald Trump. It is an experience that he should get used to because it may repeat itself often between now and Election Day.

###

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/06/22/house-democrats-gun-protest-drowns-donald-trump-tidal-wave-blue-power.html

June 23, 2016

WaPo Editorial: Hillary Clinton offers a welcome concession to reality

VIEWED IN the abstract, or compared with a Platonic ideal of political speechmaking, Hillary Clinton’s economic-policy address Wednesday rated as well short of historic. There was little new in the list of proposals she laid out. On one or two points, she was objectionable — as when she pledged to “say no” to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which she rightly supported when she was secretary of state.

Viewed in its real-world context, however, Ms. Clinton’s speech was considerably better, and more reassuring, than that. These are troubled times in the United States economically, and also and perhaps more important, politically. The Republican Party is about to nominate an uncivil demagogue for president, a man who offers insults of his opponents in lieu of constructive realistic economic plans. The Democrats, meanwhile, face an internal left-wing revolt spearheaded by a candidate who was more decent personally than the GOP standard-bearer-to-be but whose policy offerings are, in their own way, deeply irresponsible.

In the middle of all this, Ms. Clinton stood before her audience Wednesday and insisted that “it takes a plan. And it takes experience and the ability to work with both parties to get results.” What’s more, Ms. Clinton refused to paint the still-recovering U.S. economy in dire terms, which is of course in her self-interest because her party is in the White House and also that assessment has the advantage of being true, despite what Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have been saying. Beyond her capitulation on the TPP, there was blessedly little evidence that she feels forced to adopt the more expansive — and expensive — plans of the party’s left wing, such as free state college for all or universal zero-co-pay health insurance.

Her plans for keeping the economy on an even keel were incremental but appropriately focused on the needs of working- and middle-class people — promises, essentially, to sustain the progress of the Obama administration and pick up its unfinished business: promoting higher-wage employment through major new infrastructure spending; helping families cope with workplace realities through paid family leave; chipping away at the student-debt burden; enforcing existing Dodd-Frank regulations on Wall Street “vigorously” ; and extending rules to cover the “shadow banking system.” Though there wasn’t much detail attached, Ms. Clinton also repeated her pledges to encourage longer-range thinking by corporations and to reward them for profit-sharing with employees.

-snip-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-offers-a-welcome-concession-to-reality/2016/06/22/9cf03160-38b1-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html

June 22, 2016

Ryan says Democratic ‘sit-in’ demanding gun control vote is publicity stunt

Source: Reuters

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said on Wednesday a sit-in by Democratic representatives aimed at pushing for a vote on gun control legislation was a publicity stunt and he would not bring the bill up for a vote.

“They know that we will not bring a bill that takes away a person’s constitutionally guaranteed rights without … due process,” Ryan said in an interview with CNN. “We don’t agree with that. The Senate already doesn’t agree with that…. This is a publicity stunt.”

###



Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/ryan-says-democratic-sit-in-demanding-gun-control-vote-is-publicity-stunt/