DNC Lets Bernie Put His Stamp on Platform Committee

Bernie Sanders. (photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

24 May 16
readersupportednews.org

 

“We believe that we will have the representation on the platform drafting committee to create a Democratic platform that reflects the views of millions of our supporters who want the party to address the needs of working families in this country and not just Wall Street, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry and other powerful special interests.”

– Sen. Bernie Sanders

n an unprecedented move, the Democratic National Committee has allowed Bernie Sanders to appoint 5 of the 15 members of the platform committee. Hillary Clinton appointed 6 and the DNC appointed 4. Under the rules, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz could have appointed all 15. Some of you are probably adding the 4 DNC appointments to the 6 Clinton appointees and saying, “Where is the victory?”

This is the most progressive platform committee I have seen in my years of organizing for or covering conventions. I remember in 2000 when I worked in Los Angeles for Bill Bradley’s campaign. We put together a group of Los Angeles delegates that included Gloria Allred and Tom Hayden. They went to a platform committee in Cleveland and couldn’t even get the votes to get any of their planks considered by the committee. It was a committee full of corporate reps who liked the Democratic Leadership Council’s centrist planks.

This committee is diverse and a lot more progressive. Sanders appointed civil rights activist and professor Dr. Cornel West and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who is co-chair of the Progressive Caucus and is one of only two Muslim members of Congress.

Sanders also appointed Deborah Parker, vice chair of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington State, Dr. James Zogby, head of the Arab-American Institute, and 350.org founder Bill McKibben.

Okay, I hear you, that’s only 5 votes, but Debbie Wasserman Schultz appointed Rep. Elijah Cummings to chair the committee, and Rep. Barbara Lee to serve on the committee. Lee was the only member of the house to vote against the 9/11 resolution that authorized the war in Afghanistan.

The Clinton campaign chose Wendy Sherman, a former top State Department official, Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Carol Browner, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Ohio state representative Alicia Reece; and Paul Booth of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union.

Wasserman Schultz also named former congressman Howard Berman and executive Bonnie Schaefer.

All in all, the votes are there for a progressive platform.

All of this is a step forward, but only a step. More important will be the makeup of the rules committee. That is the committee where structural changes to the party’s nominating process can take place. I don’t expect the DNC to be as kind when forming that committee. While the makeup of the platform committee showed a warming up to Sanders and his delegates, other developments this week were not unifying.

This weekend Sanders told Jake Tapper that he was endorsing Tim Canova, who is challenging Debbie Wasserman Shultz in her primary race. The campaign then sent out a fundraising email for Canova, who has already raised over a million dollars in his challenge of the DNC chairwoman. Sanders said in his Sunday interview that he would not reappoint Schultz if he becomes the party’s nominee.

Progress has been made in unifying the party. Let Bernie have a voice on the rules committee and we will be a lot closer to unity.

---

Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.

Meteor headed for my house? Bring it on, Arizona scientist says

By ANNA COPPER
Cronkite News 

PHOENIX — Valley residents this week were treated to a light show as a celestial object flashed across the sky. A meteor glowed brightly as it vaporized in the atmosphere.

Though no damage was reported, at least one person would have been delighted to have the object tumble through his roof.

“Seriously!” said Laurence Garvie, the curator of the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University. “A meteorite falling through your house the size of a grapefruit? You buy a new roof–and probably a new house and a car. So bring it on!”
Garvie said he estimated that the meteor, spotted in the middle of the night on Thursday, was five to 10 feet across and hurtled downward at 40,000 miles per hour.

He said doppler radar data indicates there are stones left on the ground.

Cronkite News spoke with him about what the event means for the scientists who are scrambling to find debris that may have fallen.

Anna Copper: What are you hoping to learn from an event like this?

Laurence Garvie: The thing that we’re all hoping for is that there’s stones on the ground…that we can actually bring into the lab and study and give us detailed insights into the formation and the history of our early solar system. When did the planets form? How many were there to begin with? What types were there?….There’s so many different things that can be answered and gleaned from studying these early solar system materials.

AC: So, this is huge, in other words?
LG: Yes! And it could be a really rare type of meteorite that we all want to study, or it could be a relatively normal one that we’re still excited to have. Every new meteorite fall is exciting.

AC: How often do these events happen?
LG: We have, on average, between 40 and 80,000 tons of material coming into the earth’s atmosphere from space every year. Now, most of that is dust and will produce at the most tiny little brief flashes of shooting stars. And we have a handful of events every year over the land masses…..Now this year alone, we’ve already had two recovered meteorite falls from the U.S. That’s what’s made this year so exciting.

AC: So there’s no way to really predict them?
LG: The answer to that is yes and no. Yes, if they’re large enough, like hundreds of feet in diameter for instance. There’s various programs throughout the U.S. to track what are called near-earth asteroids. Because we would really want to know if there was a big one coming. However, small ones like this, a few feet in size, there’s no easy way to see them. They’re just too small. So they are random and sporadic, and we can’t really predict those.

Stephen Hawking Angers Trump Supporters With Baffling Array of Long Words

Physicist Stephen Hawking. (photo: Karwai Tang/Getty)

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

03 June 16
readersupportednews.org

he theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking angered supporters of Donald J. Trump on Monday by responding to a question about the billionaire with a baffling array of long words.

Speaking to a television interviewer in London, Hawking called Trump “a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator,” a statement that many Trump supporters believed was intentionally designed to confuse them.

Moments after Hawking made the remark, Google reported a sharp increase in searches for the terms “demagogue,” “denominator,” and “Stephen Hawking.”

“For a so-called genius, this was an epic fail,” Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said. “If Professor Hawking wants to do some damage, maybe he should try talking in English next time.”

Later in the day, Hawking attempted to clarify his remark about the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, telling a reporter, “Trump bad man. Real bad man.”

 

Comments

+43 # RMDC 2016-06-03 14:34

These low intelligence voters who have been whipped up into a patriotic fever by right wing demagogues of both the secular and religious variety are the ones who put GW Bush in the White House. And Reagan before him. They are also the ones who support Hillree.

The American idiocracy runs the nation. That's what democracy has come to - idiocracy.

+50 # CL38 2016-06-03 17:26

What can we make of those who condone what little we know about Trump 'policy' positions that are racist, anti-women, xenophobic, homophobic, etc.?

It seems to me that Trump supporters welcome the reincarnation of a Hitler type to run THIS country.

Wake up! We haven't sunk low enough?

We don't need to experience THAT!

+56 # jsluka 2016-06-03 21:37

Amazing isn't it? When TV reporters ask Trump supporters why they support him they almost always say something superficial (and frankly stupid) like "He says what he thinks, no matter what." D'uh. Like that's a good thing regardless of what he says? I saw a Trump supporter asked "Do you think Trump would be a good person to control the nuclear weapon launch codes?" And the dimwit answered, "He'd be the best, because he would say just what he thinks to the generals." Oh, it makes my head hurt.

+27 # vicnada 2016-06-03 21:58

Quoting jsluka:

"He says what he thinks, no matter what."

...which, if you truly "think" about it, is not true. Trump speaks instinctively. Instincts, by definition, operate reflexively, unmediated by thought or feeling. When Trump appears reasonable or sympathetic, these are instinctive behaviors for which he was rewarded in the past.

Update: Asteroid broke apart over Payson

Danielle Quijada, The Arizona Republic | azcentral.com 12:43 a.m. MST June 3, 2016

NASA: ASTEROID FLASHED ACROSS ARIZONA SKYLINE 
Dashcam shot of asteroid near Kingman, Arizona

Mark Olhava says he was driving east on I-40 near Kingman, Arizona at around 4 a.m. when a huge flash of light flew across the sky. Credit: Mark Olhava

The boom and flash of light that broke the predawn quiet and lit up the sky early Thursday was confirmed by NASA officials to be a small asteroid, about 10 feet in diameter, that had entered the Earth's atmosphere above Arizona. 

Scientists estimated that the object was moving at more than 40,000 mph when it sped across the Arizona sky shortly before 4 a.m.

There were no immediate reports of damage.

“If Doppler radar is any indication, there are almost certainly meteorites scattered on the ground north of Tucson," a spokesman from NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.

The Arizona Geological Survey’s seismic network picked up an impact near Payson, and the agency believes that it marks the detonation of the asteroid.

More than 140 people have reported the “bright fireball” that illuminated the sky around 3:57 a.m. Thursday to the American Meteor Society, a spokesman said. Very bright meteors, also referred to as “fireballs,” occur quite frequently over oceans and other inhabited areas but are usually not visible in daylight, the society said.

Dust and meteorites fall to Earth's surface daily, according to the NASA statement, with between 80 and 100 tons of material entering the atmosphere each day.

Cancel your subscription to the Roundup and get up-to-the-minute news seven days a week from The Arizona Republic.  Call 1-800-332-6733 today.  How many more bogus stories about the 4-year college that will never come do you want to read?

Juniper Fire south of Young reaches 15,000 acres

JUNIPER FIRE

Between 8:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Today’s Date: June 3, 2016

Fire Start Date: May 17, 2016

Size: Approximately 14,989 acres

Cause: Lightning caused

Location: about 10 miles south of Young,AZ, on the Pleasant Valley Ranger District, Tonto National Forest

Growth Potential: Fire will continue to grow slowly

Percent Contained: 16%

Resources Assigned: This morning there were 416 total personnel on the fire, with five hotshot crews, four Type 3 and 11 Type 6 engines, two initial attack and two regular fire crews, plus many command and support personnel. Large equipment includes twoType 1, two Type 2, and two Type 3 helicopters, two small fixed-wing aircraft, a masticator, and three dozers.

 State Route 288 will be open temporarily today and tomorrow, June 3rd and 4th between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., with a pilot vehicle escorting traffic.

 Smoke from the fire will head mainly toward the east this morning, then will begin toshift toward the south by this afternoon. At night smoke will tend to settle in drainages and valleys to the south, including the Roosevelt Lake area.

 The area closure around the fire planning area remains in effect. More details on theclosure below.


Summary: As temperatures rise and fuels dry, crews on the Juniper Fire have shifted most burning operations to nighttime. At night while it’s cooler and winds are lighter, fire moves more slowly and with lower flame lengths. During daylight hours, fire crews continue to build fire lines and protect structures and other senstive resoures as the Juniper Fire moves in a southerly direction. Fire managers have been assessing lands to the south, identifying and preparing sites where they do not want fire to burn and building lines to prevent fire from going down into the Sonoran desert ecosystem.

Aircraft continue to monitor the fire’sprogress on all sides. Helicopters also assist with burnout operations by dropping small, incendiary devices on ridge tops to get fire to back downhill toward the main fire’s leading edge.

Helicopters are also using 150 or 380-gallon buckets to drop water on hot spots in places that fire managers don’t want to burn or want to reduce the heat.

Helicopter doing bucket work on the fire 
As fire operations move toward the south end of the fire planning area, some fire crews will begin staying at spike camps at the south end to minimize drive time from Young. Other crews are continuing to monitor and manage existing fire lines farther north and their base camp will remain in Young.

This morning the smoke from the fire will be drifting mainly to the east and will begin to shift south by afternoon. Tonight smoke will settle into drainages and valleys to the south, affecting the Roosevelt Lake area and places south.

The area closure around the fire planning area remains in effect. It includes all National Forest System lands, roads, and trails east of State Route 288 from FR 202 (Board Tree Saddle) south to the junction with FR 203; and then west of FR 203 back up to State Route 288. It also includes all National Forest System lands, roads, and trails up to 1⁄2 mile west of SR 288 between Circle Ranch Trailhead (milepost 286.2) and milepost 279.8. This includes the Circle Ranch Trailhead and the developed campsites of Reynolds Creek and Rose Creek, and the Sawmill dispersed area.

Donald Trump Must Release His Tax Returns

Robert Reich. (photo: unknown)

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page

25 May 16
readersupportednews.org

 
onald Trump is still refusing to release his tax returns, claiming that “there’s nothing to learn from them.” But voters deserve to decide that on their own. In the interest of a transparency and a fully informed electorate, Donald Trump must immediately release his tax returns for public scrutiny. There's no excuse to keep hiding this information from the public. Trump wants to conduct the people’s business from our nation's highest office -- so we deserve to see how he’s conducted his private business too.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have already released their tax returns, and Donald Trump is the only candidate left in the race who's holding out. 

Please join me in signing this petition:

https://secure2.convio.net/comcau/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1564&s_src=1564&s_subsrc=reich

Comments

+56 # danireland46 2016-05-25 09:20

F. Scott Fitzgerald in his classic, The Great Gatsby, says simply "The rich are not like us." This simple sentence is the essence of people like Trump. They've been separated from the life experiences of the common man, and vaccinated against the pain of ordinary life by virtue of their wealth. They get what they want while we have trouble getting what we need. They do what they want, while we dream about that possibility. Our dreams keep us going, they don't understand dreamers.

Unfortunately, dreams are all we have, so we read about "The Secret" and we think that if we believe hard enough, if we vibrate in harmony with the rich, we can become rich. We've seen Trump stomp all over common competitors in his reality show and we think, "He doesn't sound any smarter than me, I could be him." So we accept him as a model and we're willing to forgive his foibles, including weak excuses about not releasing his tax returns.

Wake up people; this isn't Oz and the guy behind that curtain isn't God, it's a poor little rich boy who never grew up.

+15 # tingletlc 2016-05-25 09:40

Quoting danireland46:

F. Scott Fitzgerald in his classic, The Great Gatsby, says simply "The rich are not like us."

Not unless you have a page citation. I think you're referring to a maybe apocryphal anecdote about a conversation between Fitzgerald and Hemingway, in whose canonical version Scott says something like "The rich are different from us" and Ernest replies "Yeah, they have more money."

+17 # rocback 2016-05-25 11:22

Tax returns expose a lot of things like:
1. How aggressive bordering on illegal were you in taking deductions
2. What nefarious people were on your payroll who you gave 1099's to
3. Whether you gave a fair share to charities.
4. How did you cheat by using IRA's for different levels of stock ownership like when we foudn out Romney had over $100 million in his IRA
5. Who did you give money to like when it showed Obama giving so much to Jeremiah Wright
6. The actual income from the assets Trump claimed in his federal disclosure ( He estimated his "brand name of Trump was worth $3 billion whereas Forbes said it was only $125 million)
7. Clinton's whitewater land deals got a lot of scrutiny including her gain of $100,000 on cattle futures

Every President since Nixon who by the way was under audit at the time has released their returns. What is he hiding?

NRA Tells Parents To Keep Guns In Kids’ Rooms

265 people were accidentally shot and killed by kids last year.

By Kira Lerner -

May 31, 2016

Nation of Change

During a seminar on “home defense concepts” at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Louisville, an instructor encouraged gun owners to store firearms in their children’s bedrooms.

Rob Pincus, who owns the popular firearm instruction company I.C.E. Training, paced across a conference room stage as he repeatedly warned against the threat of violent home invasions. After establishing that filling one’s home with weapons is the only solution, he then recommended that gun owners store firearms in their kids’ rooms for easy access.

“Why would you consider staging a firearm inside a child’s room?” he told the few hundred NRA members in attendance. “It’s the first place I’m going to go! As I’ve said…many times, if your kid is going to break into the safe just because it’s in their room, you have a parenting issue, not a home defense issue.”

Why would you consider staging a firearm inside a child’s room? It’s the first place I’m going to go!

Pincus then posed a question to the audience (respondents received a copy of his book, Defend Yourself: A Comprehensive Security Plan for the Armed Homeowner): Describe your responsibility as gun owners, in terms of access.

A woman toward the front raised her hand and discussed her duty to “ensure” that unauthorized people don’t get their hands on her firearms. Pincus immediately toned down her response.

“Ensure is a strong word,” he said. “So I’m going to say we have an obligation to try to prevent unauthorized access.” He added that hidden, instead of locked or secured, is a perfectly appropriate way to secure a gun.

Researchers have found that only 39 percent of gun-owning families keep their firearms locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. For those that do not, the consequences can be terrible.

Everytown for Gun Safety reports that the U.S. has one of the highest rates of unintentional child gun deaths in the world. At least 265 people were accidentally shot by kids in 2015, and so far in 2016, there have been at least 96 accidental shootings by children. In one week in April, four toddlers accidentally shot and killed themselves, according to a New York Times report.

During the three days of the NRA convention, a three-year-old girl accidentally shot and killed a seven-year-old girl in Beverly, Illinois, less than 300 miles from where the leaders of the country’s most powerful gun lobby gathered to discuss their opposition to any type of gun safety legislation. And just over 700 miles away in LaPlace, Louisiana, a five-year-old girl accidentally killed herself while playing with a gun in her home.

Meanwhile, the threat of a violent home invader is far less likely than Pincus claims. Not only is the national rate of household burglary decreasing steadily, but so is the rate of violent crime during a home invasion. Less than one percent of homicides in the U.S. occur during a home invasion, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report from 2010, the most recent year the issue was studied. The roughly 100 homicides per year that occur during household burglaries is far dwarfed by the number of shootings by kids who accidentally get their hands on firearms (not to mention the staggering number of unintentional shootings committed by adults every year).

“If the NRA is really are a gun safety organization, they should be lobbying for stronger laws that will protect children,” Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, told ThinkProgress. “Instead, they are trying to promote and sell guns in a way that actually puts them in danger.”

Bowling Green, Kentucky-resident Haley Rinehart is all too aware of the very real danger of young children getting their hands on guns. In 2002, her then-four-year-old son, Eli, was at a relative’s home playing in a bedroom when he found a loaded gun laying between children’s books. He picked it up, his hand slipped and hit the trigger, and he shot himself through the eye.

Luckily her son recovered from his shooting, and the 18-year-old will graduate from high school next week. But for months, Rinehart said her family was unsure if he would pull through.

Haley Rinehart and her son, Eli.

CREDIT: Haley Rinehart

Now a mother of four, Rinehart told ThinkProgress she has recently become an advocate with Moms Demand Action because she is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure more families do not have to go through what she did.

“It’s not something anyone should have to experience,” she said. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, gun lover or not.”

When she heard about the NRA’s recommendation that parents store weapons in children’s bedrooms, she was shocked.

“In my opinion, that is almost child negligence,” she said. “I would never advise to keep a gun, be it loaded or unloaded, in a child’s room, because if it’s in there, the child will eventually find it. That’s just irresponsible.”

Eddie Eagle

Across the convention’s “seven acres of guns and gear,” thousands of NRA members perused the assault weapons and gear racks while pushing strollers or with small children trailing behind. Some older children took part in the action, trying out guns and gear alongside their parents. Other children dragged their parents to one vendor, which set up a candy station with some containers filled with candy and others filled with bullet casings.

n Friday, a sales associate helped 12-year-old Ciara Palermo, from Fort Wayne, Indiana, look at a bright pink carrying case for her automatic rifle. “I like looking around and trying out all the different guns and stuff,” she told ThinkProgress, wearing a pink NRA t-shirt and matching pink bandana. “I own two guns, personally.” Her dad, Tom, interrupted: “Well they’re hers but obviously she can’t title them.”

I have a 22 that I use quite a bit,” Ciara continued. “I haven’t shot my AR that I got for my birthday last year.”

Her father, Tom Palermo, told ThinkProgress that he buys his children guns because he wants “to teach them responsibility and not to be afraid of them if they ever come across them.”

Though Ciara’s parents were more of the target demographic at the gun lobby’s annual meeting, the NRA did not shy away from welcoming children. The group hosted events for NRA youth on Saturday of the convention weekend, offering free six month NRA junior memberships for all attendees. Face painting and coloring stations were advertised alongside a “3 gun experience AirSoft” competitive shooting match.

A booth by the convention center entrance handed out materials for kids advertising the “Eddie Eagle” program, a curriculum designed by the NRA to advise children how to handle firearms safely. Children across the building carried Eddie Eagle-branded activity books and bags. 

While the NRA is eager to extend its reach to children, it is not willing to provide resources for effective gun safety programs. Studies of the Eagle Eddie program have found that it is entirely ineffective at teaching children how to safely respond to an unsupervised firearm in a real-life situation.

And in states across the country, the group has lobbied against gun safety laws designed to help cut back on the high number of violent shootings involving children. In Tennessee, for example, the NRA was the most outspoken opponent against MaKayla’s Law, a bill that would have made it a crime to leave a loaded firearm unattended and readily accessible to a child under 13 years of age.

“If anti-gun legislators were serious about keeping kids safe, they would know that the key to reducing firearm accidents isn’t about prosecuting after the fact,” an alert issued in March by the NRA-ILA, the group’s lobbying arm, said. “It’s about educating children and parents about the safe use of firearms.”

Secret Compartments

Parents at the convention told ThinkProgress they agree that teaching “firearm safety” is the best way to keep children safe. One of those parents, shooting instructor Mark Schreiber, traveled to Louisville from Columbus, Ohio with his wife, seven-year-old son, and seven-week-old baby.

“He’s been shooting since he was three,” Schreiber said, pointing to his son sitting next to him, swinging a toy sword. “I have my own rifle!” Mark Jr. declared.

Mark Schreiber and his son, Mark Jr.

CREDIT: Kira Lerner

Among the hundreds of vendors at the convention, a few dozen targeted people who want to hide firearms in their homes. One vendor sold artwork that slides to the side to reveal a hidden compartment, and another, Secret Compartment Furniture, displayed tables and other household items with hidden compartments for weapons.

Founder Jill Herro, from Akron, Ohio, showed NRA members how the top of her company’s armoire can flip open to store a rifle and how a coffee table was configured with a secret sliding drawer for a smaller firearm. “I can put a lock on if somebody wants,” Herro told ThinkProgress. “I offer locking mechanisms if people want them.” But she said only about 50 percent of buyers request locks.

Though Herro was clear that she would never want a buyer to leave a firearm unsecured in their home, the reality is that there will be parents who do not take the necessary precautions to protect their children, Watts said.

“Two-thirds of unintentional shootings are the result of guns storage like that furniture,” she said.

Gun control advocates like Watts and Rinehart, whose son still has flashbacks to his accident when he hears loud noises, say that effective gun safety programs are incredibly important because we will never be able to eliminate the risk that children come across firearms.

“Accidents can happen,” Rinehart said. “We’re not against guns. We’re not against the right to bear arms. All we want is for people to properly secure their guns and be responsible gun owners.”

Though Schreiber said most of his family’s firearms are locked away, he added that he has some “defensive firearms strategically placed for safety purposes,” making his son one of the more than two million children living in homes with unsecured guns.

“He does not know where they are, and even if he does know where they are, he would not touch them,” Schreiber said.

“I know where the guns are! In the basement!” his son chimed in.