pnwmom
pnwmom's JournalMSNBC: Hillary wins NJ. (Decision Desk called it first.)
http://www.decisiondeskhq.com/results/2016/primary/dem/president/new-jersey/And with about half of the vote in, it's 64% to 36.
Maddow: There were no exit polls in New Jersey, so there won't be any projections
till enough votes are counted -- they won't be able to combine results of exit polls with today's results.
Meet the Swedish heroes, the grad students who tackled the Stanford rapist
https://www.buzzfeed.com/emaoconnor/meet-the-two-swedish-men-who-caught-brock-turner?utm_term=.sb6yo28Az#.ebMX0RDvbCarl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonsson, the two Swedish Ph.D. students who found Brock Turner sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster at Stanford, said they immediately knew something was wrong.
Nearly a year and a half ago Arndt and Jonsson were biking to a party on Stanford’s campus when they saw Turner, 20, on top of his victim behind a dumpster. They managed to tackle Turner as he ran away and they called the police.
The two men were key witnesses in the case against Turner, who was eventually found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and was sentenced by Judge Aaron Persky to three months of a six-month sentence in county jail with probation. He said a longer sentence in prison would have a “severe impact” on the Stanford athlete.
SNIP
“Thank you to the two men who saved me, who I have yet to meet,” the victim wrote. “I sleep with two bicycles that I drew taped above my bed to remind myself there are heroes in this story. That we are looking out for one another. To have known all of these people, to have felt their protection and love, is something I will never forget.”
Arndt was a teaching assistant at Stanford in math and engineering while getting his degree. He spent time at J.P. Morgan as research associate. Jonsson received his Master of Science degree in management science and engineering from Stanford in May. Previously he attended Uppsala University in Sweden for economics.
Why Hillary didn't want the AP to make the call last night.
The optimal time for her campaign would have been after NJ voting was completed at 5 o'clock Pacific Time -- when voting would still be ongoing in California.
NJ is going heavily for Hillary, and so there would be no wish to suppress any vote there.
Also, NJ would have given her the 19-23 delegates she still needed to reach the majority of all delegates (depending on the source). She wanted pledged delegates to put her over the top -- not super delegates.
And then if voting slowed in CA, it wouldn't have mattered. It might even have helped Hillary, since last minute voters would be more likely to be younger (read, Bernie) voters. (That's true in a typical election, anyway.)
So she really didn't benefit from getting the election called last night. There's little reason to think there was anything involved other than AP and Reuters and NBC all competing to see who could report the story first.
NPR: Campaign mystery -- Why Don't Bernie's Big Rallies Translate to Big Wins?
This hasn't been a mystery to me -- the Hillary supporters I know don't want to spend hours at a crowded, noisy campaign rally. That doesn't mean we're not enthused about Hillary or that we're not voting for her. But for those who are still wondering . . .
http://www.npr.org/2016/04/26/475681237/campaign-mystery-why-dont-bernie-sanders-big-rallies-lead-to-big-wins
(Howard) Dean offers a couple of theories about what causes the disconnect. For one thing, when he was campaigning in Iowa back in 2003, he started to notice the same faces from event to event. He thinks that is happening with Sanders.
"Some of the crowd size is people who come because they love Bernie and they want to hear this message and it invigorates them and they keep doing it and they follow him around just like [fans of] the Grateful Dead or Phish."
Dean says there's a deeper issue than numbers. Eventually the insurgent candidate needs to go from playing the role of agitating outsider to someone voters of all stripes can see as president.
"And I couldn't change. And I knew I had to. But the crowd pulls you back," says Dean. "They're dying for you. They're bleeding for you. And it's very hard to do."
Dean says he sees Republican Donald Trump publicly struggling with it. And he says Sanders likely is, too. A speech with applause lines all your supporters can recite back makes for an amazing rally.
"But it's also the thing that isolates you at the end, because you have to build a coalition," adds Dean.
Put another way: big crowds aren't the same thing as a winning coalition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/07/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
But many realize that they may be seeing the last of Mr. Sanders on the campaign trail. Chuck Hollis, 69, of West Sacramento, who has attended three Sanders rallies in the past few weeks, said some friends had teased him for going to so many.
But he said that being part of the crowd “provides a great deal of satisfaction” and that he wanted to show his support for Mr. Sanders in “a very concrete way.”
SNIP
Angela Collins, 48, of El Paso, does not believe Mr. Sanders has a chance. She is a Clinton supporter, but she attended a rally last month in Vado, N.M., because, she said, she did not want to miss seeing the senator.
Ms. Collins stuffed her Clinton button in her pocket and waved a large Sanders sign the campaign handed out to be “respectful.”
In 2008 Bernie endorsed BHO right after the primaries, saying BHO was the nominee.
Just two days after the primaries ended Bernie announced Obama was the nominee and gave him his support. He didn't wait for BHO to win the nomination at the convention.
So what changed his mind since then? Other than his wish to use the super-delegate system (which he claims to despise) to snatch the victory from the woman who has millions more votes and hundreds more pledged delegates?
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/08-sanders-endorsed-obama-clinton-formally-exited-race-n586556
As Bernie Sanders and his supporters argue that Hillary Clinton can't clinch the Democratic nomination on Tuesday - because superdelegates don't count until the convention - it is worth noting that Sanders endorsed Barack Obama two days after Obama crossed the magic number (pledged + superdelegate), saying he had become Democratic nominee.
And Sanders' endorsement of Obama came before Clinton had officially exited the 2008 presidential race.
"I plan to play a very active role," Sanders said of endorsing Obama, according to an interview in the June 5, 2008 Burlington Free Press. "I will do everything I can to see that he is elected president."
But the newspaper added, "Sanders said he held off supporting either of the Democrats [Obama or Clinton] because he has made it a custom not to support any Democrat for the presidential nomination until the party had chosen its nominee."
Obama clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3, 2008.
Clinton did not formally end her presidential campaign until June 7, 2008.
Prosecutor: No Charges Against Mom of Boy in Gorilla Exhibit
Source: ABC News
A prosecutor said Monday that he isn't seeking charges against the mother of a 3-year-old boy who got into the Cincinnati Zoo's gorilla exhibit, resulting in the shooting of an endangered gorilla to protect him.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said the child's mother had three other children with her, and she was attending to them when the 3-year-old "just scampered off" on May 28. He said children's services made a visit to the boy and mother, and social workers were impressed by the child's environment.
Deters said the mother's actions were "not even close" to meriting reckless endangerment charges.
Legal experts had said that prosecution on child endangerment or similar charges seems unlikely. The family has declined to comment.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ohio-prosecutor-decide-charges-cincinnati-zoo-case-39632035
Here is another story about the decision:
http://www.people.com/article/prosecutors-wont-press-charges-in-cincinnati-zoo-fall
"By all accounts, this mother did not act in any way that she presented this child into some harm," the prosecutor told reporters. "She had three other kids with her, and she turned her back. I've gotten dozens if not hundreds of emails about this case. If anyone can’t believe a 3-year-old can scamper off very quickly, then they've never had kids."
His decision followed an extensive review of evidence collected by detectives as well as witness statements and interviews with the boy's family.
Trump responds to racism accusations with FAKE photo of black supporters
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/06/04/3784856/trump-responds-accusations-racism-fake-photo-black-supporters/This morning on Twitter, Trump was back at it, highlighting the support of an African-American family.
Just one problem. The photo is fake.
It was not taken at a Trump event. Rather, it was taken at the “The 27th annual Midwest Black Family Reunion” held in Ohio in August 2015. The event featured “music, art, chess, children’s games and other activities.”
Last year, Trump attracted controversy when he retweeted fake statistics claiming 81% of white murder victims were murdered by blacks. The actual figure is 14%.
UPDATE JUN 4, 2016 2:21 PM
Speaking to BuzzFeed News, the parents in the photo -- Eddie and Vanessa Perry -- said they are not Trump supporters. They aren't endorsing or publicly supporting anyone. Eddie Perry called Trump's use of the photo "misleading" and "political propaganda."
Something odd happened at my caucus that showed the amount of suspicion
that had already infected Bernie's campaign back in March.
We all had to wait outside for almost an hour before they let us in. (And this was March -- when it's usually raining. Did I say how much I hate caucuses? They tell you to come at a certain time but don't open the doors for another hour.) Anyway, I didn't want to stand in a line that long, but I noticed a bench against a wall -- the only one -- and there was a spot available. A few feet away from the bench was a table where they were passing out Bernie stuff.
So though my precinct was split almost evenly between the two candidates, I found myself sitting in a corner of Bernie world. All of a sudden, some Bernie leader is telling everyone in our area to take cell phone photos of our ballots. I didn't know why, but I dutifully did it. Then I learned that they wanted the photos as proof.
Proof that we never needed. When we got inside, we sat around long tables where careful volunteers sat and deliberately counted, and recounted, and recounted, the ballots from our table. There was absolutely no reason for our cell phone photos of our ballots. (Though maybe now I should print mine out and frame it.)
The whole system was time-consuming, unrepresentative, elitist, frustrating, amateurish, and slow. But it was obvious all the party volunteers were doing the very best that they could. They were all perfectly fine people, even though half of them were supporting the wrong candidate. 
But that Bernie guy outside -- the one who urgently told us to take photos of our paper ballots -- had already instilled the idea in all our brains that the whole system was not to be trusted.
When you are constantly on the look out for voter fraud, you're probably going to see it everywhere. Even at an open caucus with a bunch of your neighbors.
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