TYT: Bernie Sanders Picks Progressives To Shape Democratic Platform

I just cast my second vote for Bernie this year!

Washington State has both a caucus and a non binding primary. I kinda like the caucus but just being able to drop a ballot off is pretty easy.

I'm curious what the vote totals will end up being.

Clinton campaign declines invitation to California debate

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton on Monday declined an invitation from Fox News to participate in a debate with rival Bernie Sanders in California before that state's June 7 primary.

Clinton and Sanders are competing aggressively in California as primaries wrap up.

But Clinton is close to getting the delegates she needs to seal the nomination. Sanders says he has a chance to pass her in pledged delegates, though he admits he faces tough odds. Then he would have to persuade many superdelegates to switch their support to him.

Campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Clinton will compete hard in the remaining primary states, particularly California, while also turning her attention to presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

"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," Palmieri said.

Clinton's decision was quickly criticized by Sanders.

"I am disappointed but not surprised by Secretary Clinton's unwillingness to debate before the largest and most important primary in the presidential nominating process," he said in a statement.

"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," he said. "I hope Secretary Clinton reconsiders her unfortunate decision to back away from her commitment to debate."

Bill Sammon, Fox News vice president and Washington managing editor, said the decision was unfortunate."


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEM_2016_CLINTON_DEBATE?SITE=MATAU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Hillary will cave and a debate will happen.

SANDERS: DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION COULD BE 'MESSY'

"LOS ANGELES (AP) -- 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."


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEM_2016_SANDERS_INTERVIEW?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-05-23-19-05-51

Flashback: State Dept. Watchdog Subpoenaed Clinton Foundation Docs

"State Department investigators last fall issued a subpoena to the Clinton Foundation seeking documents about the charity's projects that may have required approval from the federal government during Hillary Clinton's term as secretary of state, according to a report published Thursday on The Washington Post's website.

The full scope and status of the inquiry, conducted by the State Department's inspector general, were not clear from the material correspondence reviewed by The Post, the paper said."

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/report-state-dept-watchdog-subpoenaed-clinton-foundation-docs-n517076

Last fall huh? Storm Clouds are gathering.

Flashback: McAuliffe defends Clinton Foundation's acceptance of foreign funds

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a close ally of Hillary Clinton, is defending her from criticism that the Clinton Foundation took donations from foreign governments.


The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Clinton Foundation had dropped its self-imposed ban on accepting funds from foreign countries, and that it had collected money from countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman.
“If the biggest attack on Hillary’s going to be that she raised too much money for her charity, okay, I’ll take that," McAuliffe, who chaired Clinton's 2008 campaign, told The Washington Post. "No one’s alleging anything beyond that she raised money and people gave her money and foreign governments gave her money. At the end of the day, that’s fine. It went to a charity. It helped a lot of people."

Republicans have raised the prospect that the donations could give foreign governments undue influence if Clinton becomes president.

"Unless Hillary Clinton immediately reinstates the ban on foreign countries giving to her foundation and returns the millions of dollars these governments have already donated, she's setting an incredibly dangerous precedent," RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told the Associated Press. "The American people are not about to elect a president in Hillary Clinton who could expose them to the demands of foreign governments because they dumped massive sums of cash into her foundation."

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/233441-mcauliffe-defends-clinton-foundation-accepting-foreign-funds#
I wonder if Mr Wang's money was a part of this?

Hillary Clinton’s Energy Initiative Pressed Countries to Embrace Fracking, New Emails Reveal

"BACK IN APRIL, just before the New York primary, Hillary Clinton’s campaign aired a commercial on upstate television stations touting her work as secretary of state forcing “China, India, some of the world’s worst polluters” to make “real change.” She promised to “stand firm with New Yorkers opposing fracking, giving communities the right to say ‘no’.”

The television spot, which was not announced and does not appear on the official campaign YouTube page with most of Clinton’s other ads, implied a history of opposition to fracking, here and abroad. But emails obtained by The Intercept from the Department of State reveal new details of behind-the-scenes efforts by Clinton and her close aides to export American-style hydraulic fracturing — the horizontal drilling technique best known as fracking — to countries all over the world.

Far from challenging fossil fuel companies, the emails obtained by The Intercept show that State Department officials worked closely with private sector oil and gas companies, pressed other agencies within the Obama administration to commit federal government resources including technical assistance for locating shale reserves, and distributed agreements with partner nations pledging to help secure investments for new fracking projects.

The documents also reveal the department’s role in bringing foreign dignitaries to a fracking site in Pennsylvania, and its plans to make Poland a “laboratory for testing whether US success in developing shale gas can be repeated in a different country,” particularly in Europe, where local governments had expressed opposition and in some cases even banned fracking.

The campaign included plans to spread the drilling technique to China, South Africa, Romania, Morocco, Bulgaria, Chile, India, Pakistan, Argentina, Indonesia, and Ukraine.

In 2014, Mother Jones reporter Mariah Blake used diplomatic cables disclosed by Wikileaks and other records to uncover how Clinton “sold fracking to the world.” The emails obtained by The Intercept through a separate Freedom of Information Act request provide a new layer of detail.

The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment."


https://theintercept.com/2016/05/23/hillary-clinton-fracking/

Hillary Clinton wrong that no negative ads have hit Bernie Sanders

Hillary Clinton, who said this week she "will be the party’s nominee," emphasized on Meet the Press that she’s already won more votes than rival Bernie Sanders and she’ll also be the better prepared candidate for the fall.

When Chuck Todd pointed out that Sanders fares better than Clinton in head-to-head matchups against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, Clinton suggested Sanders hasn’t been vetted as thoroughly as she’s been.

"Let me say that I don't think he's had a single negative ad ever run against him. And that's fine. But we know what we're going into, and we understand what it's going to take to win in the fall," she said. "And finally, I would say that, you know, polls this far out mean nothing."

Clinton has a point that compared with her, Sanders hasn’t really felt the burn of negative ad blitzes from Republican groups. But her claim that he hasn’t had "a single ad ever run against him" is an exaggeration.

Dem-on-Dem negative campaigning

Many of the attacks we found on Sanders in the Political TV Ad Archive actually come from other Democrats, including by Clinton supporters.

The Clinton campaign itself sent a President's Day-themed attack ad against Sanders through text messages, BuzzFeed reported. After audio of Sanders saying it would be a good idea if President Barack Obama "faced primary opposition" in 2012, the text reads, "Hillary is the only one in this race who’ll fight for the progress we’ve made under Pres. Obama.""


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/22/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-wrong-negative-ads-bernie-sanders/

Clinton Foundation Would Weigh Down a Hillary Presidency

"The Clintons have been targeted by trumped-up scandals from Whitewater to Benghazi. There also are self-inflicted wounds: President Bill Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky and Hillary Clinton's use of private e-mail servers while secretary of state.

They may be on the verge of creating another one: The Clinton Foundation, which has done extraordinary good works over the past 15 years, would present an inherent conflict of interest should she become president, and may be problematic for her even now as a candidate.

Clinton has suggested that if she is elected, the foundation -- which collects contributions from wealthy interests including foreign governments -- would continue basically as is. "The work that it's done has been extraordinary," she said in March when asked whether there would be any ethical concerns about continuing the foundation. "The answer is transparency."

Ethics experts reject that. They say there wouldn't be any way to avoid the appearance of conflicts if she wins the presidency.


"If Bill seeks to raise large sums of money from donors who also have an interest in U.S. policy, the public will rightly question whether the grants affected United States foreign policy," says Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at New York University School of Law. Ethics rules, he notes, are "not merely to prevent bad behavior but to foster public trust in the integrity of government choices." He's open, however, to the idea of the Clintons' daughter, Chelsea, running the foundation."


https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-22/clinton-foundation-would-weigh-down-a-hillary-presidency

The foundation hasn't been vetted yet.

All In: Bernie Sanders Says Debbie Wasserman Schultz Will Be Gone From DNC If He's President

"Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) went all in on Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the head of the Democratic National Committee, on Saturday, saying he supports a primary challenger in her re-election bid for her House seat and would remove her from the DNC if elected president.

Sanders has repeatedly accused the DNC, which is neutral in the Democratic primary, of favoring his rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

He told CNN's Jake Tapper he "clearly" favors the DNC head's opponent, law professor Tim Canova.

"His views are much closer to mine than Wasserman Schultz's," the senator said in an interview that will air Sunday on "State of the Union."

"With all due respect to the current chairperson, if elected president, she would not be reappointed to be chair of the DNC"