June 13, 2016


News and Views


Delegate and Superdelegate

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/tulsi-gabbard-superdelegate-petition-224220

Tulsi Gabbard launches petition to end Democratic Party superdelegate process
By Kristen East
06/11/16 07:48 PM EDT

The Democratic presidential primary process may be ending next Tuesday, but the fight among Bernie Sanders supporters to rid the party of superdelegates and install new leadership at the Democratic National Committee is not.

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard encouraged her followers on Saturday to sign a petition ending the Democratic Party’s use of superdelegates.

“Whether you are a Bernie Sanders supporter or a Hillary Clinton supporter, we should all agree that unelected party officials and lobbyists should not have a say in who the presidential nominee of our party is,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “That should be left up to the voters.”

Gabbard resigned as a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee in February to publicly endorse the Vermont senator’s campaign.

Gabbard isn’t alone in the fight: The West Virginia Democratic Party at its state convention Saturday passed a resolution calling for the elimination of superdelegates, or that superdelegates be required “in each state to vote in the same relative proportion as the elected delegates of the state they represent.”

Sanders defeated Clinton in the May 10 West Virginia Democratic primary, 51.4 percent to 35.8 percent. He picked up 18 delegates; Clinton picked up 11, according to the Associated Press.

The party also passed a resolution calling for the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

“… If she does not resign in a timely manner, we call on the Democratic National Committee [to] take whatever steps are necessary and proper to remove her and install a new Chairperson,” the resolution reads.

Sanders last month said he supported Wasserman Schultz’s primary opponent, Tim Canova, and, if elected president, said he wouldn’t want her to continue leading the DNC.



“Whether you are a Bernie Sanders supporter or a Hillary Clinton supporter, we should all agree that unelected party officials and lobbyists should not have a say in who the presidential nominee of our party is,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “That should be left up to the voters.” …. Gabbard isn’t alone in the fight: The West Virginia Democratic Party at its state convention Saturday passed a resolution calling for the elimination of superdelegates, or that superdelegates be required “in each state to vote in the same relative proportion as the elected delegates of the state they represent.” …. a resolution calling for the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. “… If she does not resign in a timely manner, we call on the Democratic National Committee [to] take whatever steps are necessary and proper to remove her and install a new Chairperson,” the resolution reads.”


Clearly Sanders isn’t merely a wild-eyed revolutionary, but one who is questioning (strongly) an absolutely undemocratic system. Who we vote for at the national level is secondary to who our candidates are to be, and that is chosen – theoretically at least -- at the grassroots level. This article makes clear that the Superdelegates, who are NOT required to choose as the people in their precincts voted, then CHOOSE the candidate. What is the point in our Primary votes, may I ask? If the West Virginia Democratic Party has its’ way, Superdelegates should be eliminated entirely, or if not, required to vote proportionally as the citizens have voted. They also are demanding that Wasserman-Schulz be removed as chair if she doesn’t step down voluntarily.

I’ve always voted, but I didn’t know the inner workings of this primary choice system. See the following two articles -- www.democracynow.org and www.pastemagazine.com -- on the still uncounted 2,000,000 California votes for more information on the superdelegate system and the unethical and innacurate technique of counting superdelegates as being acceptable to complete ones’ required delegate count for the nomination. Who are superdelegates and how are they chosen? The members of the DNC are one and the same as the “superdelegates,” but not the only ones. So how does that work and where do they come from? Are they hatched from eggs? The next few articles will shed some light.



THE 1968 RIOTS AND THE BIRTH OF SUPERDELEGATES

In the beginning there were the smoke-filled rooms and their political pollution reeked across the land. Then came the Vietnam War and the Eugene McCarthyites. They wore their hair long mingled with flowers, danced in the streets, consumed illegal substances and generally demonstrated their prowess against the old guard Democrats.

In Chicago, in the year 1968, Mayor Richard J. Daley presided over the traditional smoke-filled room, and the McCarthites waxed wroth and very loudly outside their chambers. The crowds grew enormously in the streets of Chicago, and Mayor Daley in fear sent out his police with tear gas and bludgeons to quell the disorder. The next day many McCarthyites were killed or arrested, and the Democrat Party feared for its’ survival.

The party was split dangerously, and the evil one, Richard M. Nixon was anointed by the Fat Cats in their glee. The Democrats amended their selection procedures to “allow a greater voice for the masses,” by initiating a local election system to be defined in form by the state parties, either primary elections or caucuses. As time passed, several democratically elected candidates were considered “weak” and “unelectable.” In short, the Fat Cats lost their bets. To keep a hand on the reins, therefore, in the 1980s a “Superdelegate” system was hatched to restrain unruly and overly democratic voters from choosing their candidates freely by local voting, in case any more of the dangerous FDR followers or pointy-headed intellectuals were to emerge. We are, after all, a republic and not a democracy. The result is the system that Sanders now confronts in his run for the presidency. May God grant him success in his quest to purify the soul of the party, for we face another great foe – the Drumpf. Heaven help us.


https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/02/after-sanders-big-win-in-new-hampshire-establishme.html

After Sanders' Big Win in New Hampshire, Establishment Figures Want to Scare You with Superdelegates. Here's Why It's Bullshit
By Shane Ryan | February 10, 2016 | 2:25pm
Spencer Platt/Getty

Bernie Sanders’ win in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night came with some pretty impressive footnotes:

1. His margin of victory was the highest for a non-incumbent candidate in any state since JFK.

2. He won almost every demographic group—male, female, young, old, moderate, liberal, college educated, high school-educated—with the exception of voters making more than $200,000 per year.

3. He became the first Jewish candidate to win a state primary in U.S. history.

4. He became the first non-Christian candidate to win a state primary in U.S. history.

Sanders isn’t one to emphasize his religious affiliation—his political beliefs make him enough of an outsider as it is—so you won’t read much coverage about the historic nature of his win. What you will read about is how it’s going to change his primary battle against Hillary Clinton. The path to the nomination is still difficult for Sanders, and Clinton should still be considered the favorite, but winning New Hampshire in a blowout will give his candidacy a new kind of credibility and momentum. Sanders was polling below five percent nationally when he joined the race, and to come this far in such a short time, against an overwhelming favorite, is a bit staggering—so staggering that a frustrated Clinton “might “shake up her entire campaign.

The narrative has changed, which means that establishment figures are duty-bound to change it back. If you’re an avid follower of politics, you may have seen tweets like these in the aftermath of the win:

Reality check:

Delegate count after tonight
Clinton 431
Sanders 50https://t.co/no9ahxfTwi

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd) February 10, 2016
Or:

#NHPrimary

Vote totals
Sanders 60% Clinton 38%

Delegates won (incl Superdelegates)
Clinton 15, Sanders 13https://t.co/A0VV5jF5dl

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd) February 10, 2016

“Oh no,” you might be thinking, “look at those delegate totals! He’s getting killed! The New Hampshire primary is meaningless! He didn’t even really win!” On the Sanders Reddit page this morning, users were asking whether the whole primary process was a Sisyphean task, and if victory was impossible.

Make no mistake: That’s the point of this kind of messaging. To discourage, dismay, and dishearten, in the wake of something that should feel really positive for Sanders supporters. Reality check: The system is bigger than you, and you can’t change it, so go home.


I have no clue if Timothy McBride has any affiliation or even affection for Hillary Clinton, and he was certainly not alone in advancing this talking point. What I do know is that he tweeted these statistics out last night and again this morning, and whatever his intentions—and those like him—Clinton herself could not have written a better media script.

So what’s happening here? Are those delegate counts right?

Well, no—McBride’s math is wrong, but I’m assuming that wasn’t a malicious mistake. The actual count is 394-42.

So technically, yes, the count is close to accurate. He’s not overtly lying. But are the numbers illustrative of some critical, insurmountable problem for Sanders? Not at all. Are they even relevant to the primary race? Barely. Certainly not now, and probably not ever. Are these messages deceptive, even subtly? Yes. Absolutely. And they’re propagated by “experts” who are withholding the full story in the hopes that people like you and me are too stupid and complacent to find out on our own.

McBride’s sneaky tactic is to count “Superdelegates,” which is how he arrives at his imbalanced total. Accept the numbers blindly, and you might feel an impulse toward panic. My message to you: Chill. It’s a clever trick, but a silly one, and it won’t affect anything. To counter this narrative, let’s examine the political reality behind Superdelegates, and explain how they really work, Q&A style.

Q: You say Superdelegates don’t matter, but I don’t even know what they are. How does Hillary have 300+ already?

A: Let’s start simple: The Democratic nominee for president is decided based on which candidate wins the most delegates. You will find conflicting information about how many there are in 2016, but according to the AP, the delegate total is 4,763. It takes 2,382 of those to secure the nomination. And of the 4,763, 712 are “Superdelegates”—about 15 percent of the overall total.

Q: Okay, but what’s the difference?

A: The 4,051 “normal” delegates are allocated based on the votes in each state. That’s why we have primaries and caucuses in all of them, eventually—the will of the people decides where each of these delegates goes. In New Hampshire last night, Sanders won 13 delegates to Clinton’s nine, with two left to award when the last precincts report (in all likelihood, based on current percentages, it will finish 15-9 for Sanders). In Iowa, where Clinton won a narrow victory, the current delegate count is 23-21 in her favor. This process will repeat in every state until all 4,051 “normal” delegates have been alloted.

On the Democratic side, these delegates are rewarded proportionally in each state, rather than on the winner-take-all basis most states use in the electoral college. Those delegates are “pledged” to the appropriate candidate, and will not change affiliation at the national convention.

Q: That makes sense, but what are Superdelegates?

A: The remaining 712 delegates are not decided by each state’s popular vote, but rather by individuals [conveniently unnamed or defined in this article] who are given a vote by the Democratic party. They are free to choose whoever they want at the national convention, regardless of how the vote went in their home state.

Q: Who gets to be a Superdelegate?

A: Every Democratic member of Congress, House and Senate, is a Superdelegate (240 total). Every Democratic governor is a Superdelegate (20 total). Certain “distinguished party leaders,” 20 in all, are given Superdelegate status. And finally, the Democratic National Committee names an additional 432 Superdelegates—an honor that typically goes to mayors, chairs and vice-chairs of the state party, and other dignitaries.

Q: So they have way more importance than an ordinary voter?

A: Oh yeah. In 2008, each Superdelegate had about as much clout as 10,000 voters. It will be roughly the same in 2016.

Q: How did this system come to exist?

A: I’ll make this history lesson brief: In 1968, after the riots at the Democratic national convention in Chicago, party leaders knew they needed to change the nomination process to give ordinary people more of a say in how the potential president was chosen. Thus, the state-by-state primary/caucus system was born. By the 1980s, the party elites felt left out of the process, bereft of all influence, and they thought their absence had hurt the party when weaker candidates like George McGovern and Jimmy Carter were nominated. Jim Hunt, Governor of North Carolina, was commissioned to fix the alleged problem, and by 1984 the Superdelegate system was implemented. Democrats thought that by giving more power to party leaders, it would prevent “unelectable” candidates, beloved by the populace, from costing them the general election.


Q: Why does Hillary Clinton have so many more Superdelegates this time around?

A: Because Superdelegates are the establishment, and Clinton is the establishment candidate. Period.

A quick look at the chart below, courtesy of Wikipedia, shows how insanely imbalanced the Superdelegate race is at this point in time:

Screen Shot 2016-02-10 at 9.52.47 AM.png

In Congress, Hillary Clinton has 39 of the 47 Senators, with seven uncommitted. Bernie Sanders has an endorsement from just one Senator. That Senator’s name? Bernie Sanders. In the House, Hillary leads 157-2, and her advantage in the DNC is 138-10. Even among the “distinguished party leaders,” which includes Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, and Walter Mondale, she leads eight to one. Overall, the total is 355-14, with 341 uncommitted.

So when you see tweets like McBride’s above, where he cites Clinton’s 431-50 edge, he’s adding these “pledged” Superdelegates. We’ve already seen that his math is wrong—per the New York Times, the updated total is 394-42. But when you look at actual popular votes that have taken place, Sanders leads 34-32.

Q: From everything you’ve told me so far, I can’t understand why you’re calling Superdelegate votes “irrelevant.” It seems to me like they have the same voting power as a normal delegate, and this puts Sanders in a tremendous hole from the word “go.”

A: Here’s why it doesn’t matter: Superdelegates have never decided a Democratic nomination. It would be insane, even by the corrupt standards of the Democratic National Committee, if a small group of party elites went against the will of the people to choose the presidential nominee.

This has already been an incredibly tense election, and Sanders voters are already expressing their unwillingness to vote for Clinton in the general election. When you look at the astounding numbers from Iowa and New Hampshire, where more than 80 percent of young voters have chosen Sanders over Clinton, regardless of gender, it’s clear that Clinton already finds herself in a very tenuous position for the general election. It will be tough to motivate young supporters, but any hint that Bernie was screwed by the establishment will result in total abandonment.

Democrats win when turnout is high, and if the DNC decides to go against the will of the people and force Clinton down the electorate’s throat, they’d be committing political suicide.

The important thing to know here is that Superdelegates are merely pledged to a candidate. We know who they support because they’ve stated it publicly, or have been asked by journalists. They are not committed, and can change at any time. If Bernie Sanders wins the popular vote, he will be the nominee. End of story.

Q: But it’s not the end of the story, is it? Hasn’t the DNC pulled some shady shit already?

A: Oh yeah. They totally rigged the debate schedule to limit Sanders’ exposure, and now that he’s gaining ground on Clinton, they’re desperate to add more. Sanders probably won the popular vote in Iowa, but the party elite there are refusing to release popular vote totals, even though that’s exactly what they did in 2008. (Edit: It appears these 2008 numbers did not come from the party itself. Regardless, it’s a perversion of democracy that they haven’t been released.) Their entire modus operandi has been an embarrassment of Clinton protectionism from the very beginning.

However, that doesn’t mean they’ll overthrow the will of the people when it comes to the presidential nomination. Assuming Sanders wins the popular vote nationwide, and assuming the Superdelegates put Clinton over the top, let’s consider the consequences:

1. Sanders supporters abandon Clinton completely, cutting off a huge portion of her base.

2. Massive protests at the convention, and a party split in half.

3. Republicans have the easiest attack in presidential election history: “Her own party didn’t even want her!”

4. The perception that Clinton is fatally dishonest grows wings, and even if people are reluctant to vote for the GOP nominee, an independent like Bloomberg strips away an awful lot of votes.

All of this spells disaster for the Democrats. It may not be too corrupt for the DNC to imagine—they’ve got terrific imaginations—but it’s too transparent to execute. The winner of the delegate count from state primaries and caucuses will win the nomination, and the Superdelegates will fall in line. Just as they have in every single election since the system was implemented. (Including in 2008, when this same concern was raised—would Superdelegates cost Obama the nomination?)

Even the Democratic power structure isn’t so short-sighted that it would cut off its nose to spite its face.

Q: If Superdelegates can shift allegiances, and if going against the people’s will is so unthinkable, why don’t the pundits ever mention it?

A: It’s almost like there’s an agenda, right? Not to keep picking on McBride, who is a very minor figure in all this, and who had the bad luck to appear on my timeline yesterday, but what purpose do those numbers serve other than to discourage Sanders supporters? They’re essentially meaningless, but when presented without context, they give the impression of an unbeatable juggernaut, and tacitly encourage outsiders to give up all hope. On a smaller level, it’s the same when you see charts like these, from Politico:

Screen Shot 2016-02-10 at 10.25.05 AM.png

Sanders wins, but still loses the delegate count? How? Why?

It’s enough to provoke despair, if you don’t understand the system, and none of these outlets are bothering to explain. The reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions, and the distorted reality can seem overwhelming. I don’t know if the explicit goal is to have a chilling effect on participation, and to discourage passionate people from participating in our democracy, but it certainly feels that way.

So, do yourself a favor and ignore the Superdelegates. If Hillary Clinton wins the most popular delegates, she will be the party nominee. If Bernie Sanders wins the most popular delegates, he will be the party nominee. And anyone who tells you otherwise—even by implication, and even armed with misleading statistics—is selling you a bill of goods. Don’t buy it.



http://truthinmedia.com/reality-check-democrats-superdelegate-problem/

Reality Check: Democrats Have a Superdelegate Problem
By Ben Swann - Mar 11, 2016

The Democratic Party has a problem: superdelegates. A system the party created to protect itself from the wrong kind of Democratic nominee.

But those superdelegates could actually destroy the Democratic Party going into this year’s presidential election.

This is a Reality Check you won’t see anywhere else.

“Well, look, I won one of the contests and lost another close one. I am continuing to work hard for every single vote across our country. I was pleased that I got 100,000 more votes last night than my opponent and more delegates.” — Hillary Clinton

“And I think in the coming weeks and months, we are going to continue to do extremely well, win a number of these primaries, and convince superdelegates that Bernie Sanders is the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump.” — Bernie Sanders

That was Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders going at it in last night’s Democratic debate on CNN. Sanders, coming off a huge win in Michigan, a race that polls had him losing by 20 points. But Sanders beat Clinton 49.8 percent to 48.3 percent.

Of course, remember that in a primary, winning votes is not as important as winning delegates. Sanders picked up 65 delegates to Clinton’s 58 delegates.

If we are doing a true pledged delegate count, right now Clinton has the lead with 745 pledged delegates compared to Bernie Sanders’ 540 pledged delegates. So Clinton is currently leading by 205 delegates.

And that’s not much when it takes 2,383 delegates to win the nomination.

But the real problem for Sanders is unpledged delegates, also known as superdelegates.

The unpledged delegate count looks like this: of the total 712 superdelegates, Clinton has 461. Bernie Sanders has only 25.

So who are these superdelegates? They are party elites like Democratic governors, members of Congress, well-connected Democratic state legislators, and state party officials.

Again, it takes 2,383 delegates to win the Democratic nomination. But one third of that number is actually made up of superdelegates. According to the New Republic, superdelegates were put in place to stop grassroots populist candidates, like George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, from winning the nomination over the establishment party-approved party insiders. A great example of how this works: a tweet from former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. He said this just the other day:


4 Mar
Dana Born @D_Born
@GovHowardDean Your SD vote goes 2 Hillary no matter what? Way to represent the people! @BernieSanders will make a great Prez in spite of u

Follow
Howard Dean ✔ @GovHowardDean
@D_Born @BernieSanders Super delegates don't "represent people" I'm not elected by anyone. I'll do what I think is right for the country
3:48 PM - 5 Mar 2016
831 831 Retweets 678 678 likes


And in that case, Dean is right. He doesn’t represent the people. And that is precisely the reason that with every state that Sanders continues to win, the superdelegates actually damage the party they are supposed to protect.

Why? Simply put, Sanders on the Democratic side and Trump on the Republican side are both pulling from disenfranchised voters who simply feel that the political process is rigged against them.

And the truth is… the system is rigged.

Both the Republican and Democratic parties are private clubs, and the rules of those clubs are designed to protect the party, not represent the people.

And that’s what you need to know, because here is the bottom line. Right now, Hillary Clinton has won the majority of the vote in 12 states. Bernie Sanders has won the majority in 9 states.

But when you take the pledged and superdelegate count together, Clinton more than doubles Sanders’ numbers of delegates with 1,216 delegates for Clinton and only 571 for Sanders.

In a different year, the Democratic Party might be able to get away with using superdelegates to protect the party. But if Democratic voters feel that their candidate is getting cheated by party insiders, of all people, then the Democrats better be ready to have a large number of those voters stay home in November during the general election.

That’s Reality Check. Let’s talk about that on Twitter @BenSwann_



http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/12/live-video-bernie-speak-after-confab/85787406/

VIDEO: Bernie speaks after Burlington confab
Free Press Staff 7:27 p.m. EDT June 12, 2016

Photograph -- Bernie Sanders, speaking outside his home in Burlington, Vermont, says his campaign is united in defeating presumptive Republican nominee for president Donald Trump. RYAN MERCER/FREE PRESS

Bernie Sanders made an appearance at 5 p.m. Sunday outside his Burlington home afternoon following a confab with a few dozen close advisers and supporters from around the country.


DO WATCH THIS SPEECH, PLEASE. HE, SIMPLY BUT INTELLIGIBLY AS ALWAYS, EXPLAINS WHY WE PROGRESSIVES FEEL WE MUST PROCEED. HIS GOAL CONTINUES TO BE TO TRANSFORM THE PARTY AND AS A RESULT OUR SOCIETY BY ENACTING BETTER LAWS.



http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/12/sanders-meets-advisors-speaks-burlington-unite-and-defeat-trump/85800724/

Sanders in Burlington: Trump must be defeated
Elizabeth Murray, Free Press Staff Writer
7:51 p.m. EDT June 12, 2016

Photograph -- Bernie Sanders, speaking outside his home in Burlington, Vermont, says his campaign is united in defeating presumptive Republican nominee for president Donald Trump. RYAN MERCER/FREE PRESS
Photograph -- Sen. Bernie Sanders waves to supporters after addressing the news media on the front laws of his Burlington home on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The news conference followed a meeting with members of his family, advisers and supporters. (Photo: Aki Soga/Free Press)
Related: BURLINGTON FREE PRESS, Bernie Sanders huddles with aides in Burlington
Related: BURLINGTON FREE PRESS, Sanders to meet with Clinton on Tuesday after final Democratic primary


Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke outside his Burlington home on Sunday, reiterating his beliefs that the Democratic Party needs to transform to represent ordinary people and that Republican Donald Trump must be defeated in the general election.

Sanders' remarks came following a meeting with a few dozen close advisers and supporters from around the country, which lasted for several hours. Sanders walked outside of his New North End home with his wife, Jane O'Meara Sanders, other family members, and a group of his advisers to greet members of the local and national press.

A large group of neighbors, Burlington residents, and Sanders fans stood on the other side of the street, cheering for Sanders as he walked down his driveway and waved.

Sanders said the discussion Sunday was devoted to comparing notes about the campaign and talking about the future of the Democratic Party.

"What we need is a 50-state strategy, which engages people, young people, working people to stand up and run for school board, to run for city council, to run for state legislature, to revitalize American democracy at the local, state and federal level," Sanders said. "Demand that government starts listening to ordinary people rather than campaign contributors."

Sanders said he's meeting rival Hilary Clinton on Tuesday, the same day as the last primary, in Washington D.C. Clinton clinched the presumptive nominee title Tuesday after wins in California, New Jersey and elsewhere. Sanders said he is looking forward to hearing what Clinton has to say about some of the issues most important to voters.

Responding to a question about to whether he will be a candidate after Washington D.C. primary, Sanders said, "We are taking this campaign and our ideas for a strong platform to transform the Democratic Party away from a party that spends far too much time raising money for wealthy people into a party which represents the grassroots of this country."

He added that he would be taking these ideas to the convention in Philadelphia in July.

As he said after meeting with President Obama earlier this week, Sanders spoke Sunday about his mission to defeat Trump.

"Donald Trump is running a campaign based on bigotry, which is hard to understand that can still be happening in the year 2016," Sanders said. "After all this party has gone through for hundreds of years trying to combat discrimination. ... It is not acceptable to me that he is running a campaign trying to demonize Mexicans and Muslims, women or African Americans. I will do everything I can, and I'm sure I'm speaking for everyone behind me, to see that he will be defeated."

Sanders said he and the group of advisers concluded that "political revolutions" — which he has called his campaign from the beginning — are not dependent on election days.

"This country faces enormous crises and we together are going to do our best to transform this country by bringing millions and millions of people into the political process," Sanders said. "If you ask me what I am most proud of in this campaign is we have begun doing just that."



UNCOUNTED VOTES, ELECTION/ORIGINATION OF SUPERDELEGATES, DECISION OF ISSUES


http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/10/as_california_admits_2_million_ballots

As California Admits 2 Million Ballots Remain Uncounted, Sanders Pushes for Changing Primary Process
INDEPENDENT GLOBAL NEWS
Primary Process
JUNE 10, 2016STORY

TRANSCRIPT -- This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


On Thursday, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said at least 2 million votes cast in California’s presidential primary election have yet to be counted. So far Hillary Clinton is leading Bernie Sanders by 440,000 votes. We speak to Bernie Sanders superdelegate Larry Cohen on why the Sanders campaign is calling for major changes to how the Democratic Party holds its primaries.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about something Bernie Sanders said, Larry Cohen. Last night at his rally, he said the final result of the California primary is not official yet. On Thursday, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said at least 2 million votes have yet to be counted. Hillary Clinton is currently leading by about 440,000 votes. So, California is not a done deal?

LARRY COHEN: Well, I think that our supporters in California are quite adamant that every vote be counted. There have been problems all through the primary and caucus process. One of the issues that we will definitely take to the convention and beyond is the way this whole process has worked. And it has not worked well in state after state, including, as you mentioned, California and, days before, Puerto Rico, which is still not counted. But really, the bigger issue in terms of transparency has been, you know, places like Iowa, at the beginning, where there’s not even a tally of how many people showed up at each precinct. Only the Democratic Party has it. So, we need reform in this process. We need a lot more attention to it. We need the superdelegates out. That’s really one of the main things we will be fighting for.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about this. I mean, you are one of those superdelegates. I think you were Bernie Sanders’ first superdelegate. How long have you been a superdelegate? Something like 11 years?

LARRY COHEN: Eleven years. Howard Dean—goes back to that period.

AMY GOODMAN: OK, so—

LARRY COHEN: He was head of the DNC, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain how it works and why you’re calling for, well, making your position obsolete, essentially.

LARRY COHEN: Yeah, well, so, first of all, the process of how people get on the Democratic National Committee, which then becomes so-called superdelegates, is totally—there’s no transparency at all about it. But, you know, more importantly, we go through this long dramatic process, from Iowa through the District of Columbia, and meanwhile, 15 percent of the delegates who come to the convention in Philadelphia have nothing to do with that process. So even in a state like Washington, where I think Bernie got 72 percent of the votes, we don’t have a single superdelegate. And in some ways more importantly, the Democratic establishment there backs the TPP, when overwhelmingly in this country Democrats are against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as are most Republicans. So we have this—we have this disconnect between the financial elite and what they do to the Democratic Party, in terms of the financial control they have, versus the people when they vote. And democracy should be about the people when they vote.

So, the whole superdelegate process is flawed fundamentally. And this—earlier this week, when the Associated Press announces, "Well, now there’s a—new superdelegates have come out. We’re not going to tell you who they are. You know, in confidence, they’ve told us they’re supporting Hillary, so now Hillary has a majority of the convention delegates." That’s, again, not what democracy looks like. It’s just one more in a whole series of roadblocks here along the way that any insurgent candidate faces, including Bernie Sanders.

AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, Michelle Chan, can you talk about the TPP? Are you calling for platform planks that deal with the TPP? Michelle?

MICHELLE CHAN: Hello? Oh, excuse me.

AMY GOODMAN: Hi, Michelle. On the issue of the TPP and the Democratic platform?

MICHELLE CHAN: Well, I would certainly hope that we are able to use this opportunity to essentially get the Democratic Party platform more in line with what the majority of Americans, and certainly the people in the Democratic Party, believe on trade. Currently, I think that the 2012 Democratic platform describes support for free and fair trade. I think that perhaps what we might be able to see is a little bit of scrubbing of the word "free," because what we’ve seen that term mean when it comes to the free trade deals that have been brought before Congress, when it comes to fast track, is deeply flawed, very anti-environmental trade deals that end up threatening not only current environmental decision, policies and regulations, but have a chilling effect on the kinds of environmental regulations that we need to see.

What free trade deals mean now is actually not really trade at all. It means anti-regulation, deregulation. And when environmental and public health regulations themselves are treated as the barriers to trade and therefore need to be taken down, these kinds of deals are absolutely not in the interest of the United States, nor any of the countries that end up signing them, and certainly not in the interest of the planet.

AMY GOODMAN: Before we conclude, I want to talk about Donald Trump. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized Donald Trump in a speech Thursday, singling out his repeated claims that a federal judge’s Mexican heritage could make him biased against Trump, which is why he should recuse himself, Trump says.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Donald Trump says Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself. No, Donald, you should be ashamed of yourself. Ashamed. Ashamed for using the megaphone of a presidential campaign to attack a judge’s character and integrity simply because you think you have some God-given right to steal people’s money and get away with it. You shame yourself, and you shame this great country. ... We will not allow a small, insecure, thin-skinned wannabe tyrant or his allies in the Senate to destroy the rule of law in the United States of America. We will not.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Elizabeth Warren on Thursday. On Thursday also, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton engaged in a Twitter war. Trump began it by tweeting, "Obama just endorsed Crooked Hillary. He wants four more years of Obama—but nobody else does!" Hillary responded by writing, "Delete your account." OK, Larry Cohen, one of the key arguments Bernie Sanders has been making in saying that Trump must be defeated is that he is the one to do it, that national polls show he is the one who comes out ahead of Trump in more polls. Now, yesterday, after coming out of the White House, he said he will be coordinating with Hillary Clinton in defeating Trump and that that’s the most important issue. It sounded like code for he’s, you know, giving in. What do you think?

LARRY COHEN: Bernie is not giving in. I mean, again, we are fighting with a—in the platform drafting committee on all the issues we’ve just discussed. We are pushing for reform of the party. He will be talking more to Hillary Clinton. They talked briefly Tuesday night. He’ll be meeting with her. The meeting with the president, the meeting with Senate leaders, what Bernie is trying to figure out is: Is there a way to have a Democratic Party that’s a populist party, and so that supporters, the more than 10 million voters, can be enthusiastic, not about—not just about the nominee for president, but also about where this party is headed, as opposed to feeling like this is a party where, you know, the voters are taken for granted and it’s controlled by the people who raise the money?

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something. We had Jill Stein on yesterday, who is going to—is hoping to be another woman on the presidential ballot in November. She has called for Bernie Sanders to perhaps join her in running in the Green Party ticket, said maybe even rules could be changed that he could be the presidential candidate of the Green Party, that he should give up on this two-party duopoly in the United States. Your thoughts?

LARRY COHEN: Well, Bernie, as you know, for 25 years in Congress, has run as an independent, on the one hand. On the other hand, he’s been in the Democratic Caucus the whole time. So what he would say is, we are inside and outside the Democratic Party, fighting for democracy, fighting for economic and environmental and racial justice. He’s made a pledge to support the Democratic candidate this year. I believe he’ll stick to that. You know, we think Jill is a wonderful person and champion of economic and social justice, but Bernie’s pledged to support the Democratic nominee.

AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Chan, there is talk today of a meeting between Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren—Elizabeth Warren, like Bernie Sanders, holding up the progressive wing’s flag of the Democratic Party. Do you see a war happening now, a battle within the party for which wing will win out? And would you like to see, if Hillary Clinton is the presidential nominee, even if Bernie Sanders were, Elizabeth Warren on the ticket?

MICHELLE CHAN: Well, I think that Elizabeth Warren on the ticket would certainly be exciting for many, many people. I think that a lot of progressives would be—support the vision and views of both candidates and—or, sorry, both people. And so, if that were to occur, I think that a lot of progressives, Friends of the Earth Action, would strongly consider what that would look like and would likely, I think, be excited about that kind of a prospect.

Certainly, I think what Bernie has inspired in people is a vision and a set of values. And I think that he, himself, has been pretty clear that, you know, this political revolution isn’t about a person or one decision, and that in order to see these visions and values lived forth, that it will take many, many different forms, on many, many different political levels, and lots of different kinds of political engagement. And so, I don’t think that Bernie supporters would feel like it is—or many Bernie supporters would feel like if he dropped out of the presidential or VP slot, that they would never, ever consider any other progressive, to put their support behind them.

AMY GOODMAN: Larry Cohen, let me ask you about this. This was Bernie Sanders just last Sunday speaking with Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union. Let’s go to a clip.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Do I have a problem when a sitting secretary of state and a foundation run by her husband collects many millions of dollars from foreign governments, governments which are dictatorships? You don’t have a lot of civil liberties or democratic rights in Saudi Arabia. You don’t have a lot of respect there for opposition points of view, for gay rights, women’s rights. Yeah. Do I have problem with that? Yeah, I do.

JAKE TAPPER: Do you think it creates an appearance of conflict of interest?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yeah, I do. I do.

AMY GOODMAN: So there is Bernie Sanders saying that Hillary Clinton has a conflict of interest between the Clinton Foundation receiving millions of dollars from corrupt, despotic governments, like Saudi Arabia, and the secretary of state’s work. Are we going to see comments like this anymore? Donald Trump says he’s going to give a major address on the Clintons this week, perhaps as early as Monday. Your thoughts?

LARRY COHEN: Well, I think Bernie, as you heard yesterday, is going to shift more to a focus on Donald Trump, because in elections we have choices, not necessarily the choices we want, so probably not many more of those comments. I do think the campaign has been important in terms of pointing out the differences between Bernie and Secretary Clinton. You know, that’s part of what this campaign was about.

More of it, as Michelle said, has been about, you know, a different vision for America, an inclusive vision that excites young people and people of all ages and from all backgrounds about a new American dream—about growth in the country, as opposed to stagnation; about getting rid of student debt in terms—instead of continuity, let’s just keep things the way they are; talking about workers’ rights and fighting for workers’ rights and environmental justice and ending fracking. That campaign will go on. We’re going to support lots of candidates—for Congress, for state legislature, municipal government—that carry that forward. This has not just been a campaign for the presidency. It’s a campaign for social justice and for social change. This campaign will go on.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Larry Cohen, senior adviser to Bernie Sanders, past president of Communications Workers of America, first superdelegate for Bernie Sanders. And thank you, Michelle Chan, spokesperson for Friends of the Earth Action, working on recommendations for Bill McKibben to bring to the Democratic platform drafting committee, that just began meeting in Washington this week.

When we come back, though we’re in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, we’re heading to Louisville, Kentucky, the funeral of Muhammad Ali. Stay with us.



SANDERS MOVES FORWARD


http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2016/06/11/sanders-huddles-aides-burlington/85764158/

Bernie Sanders huddles with aides in Burlington
WILSON RING, Associated Press
5:45 p.m. EDT June 11, 2016

Photograph -- MAINBPHOTO.JPG, The Church Street Marketplace is reflected in the window of the building where Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign headquarters is located in Burlington. Sanders is in Burlington for the weekend. (Photo: Wilson Ring/AP)


People in the city that Bernie Sanders helped transform as Burlington mayor before embarking on a career in Congress are proud of the mark he’s left in the 2016 presidential race even as they recognize that his White House bid is almost certainly going to fall short.

The senator returned to Burlington, his hometown, after a week of major developments in the campaign: Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic nomination, President Barack Obama endorsed her after meeting with Sanders at the White House, and the party kept up efforts to ease Sanders from the race while trying not to offend his many supporters.

Sanders was largely staying out of public view this weekend, though he was booked on some Washington-based news shows on Sunday and his campaign spokesman, Michael Briggs, said Sanders and his wife, Jane, invited “a couple dozen key supporters and advisers from around the country to come to Burlington to share ideas.”

Briggs said he expected “a lot of thoughtful discussion among smart people and good friends.”

Sanders was expected to return to Washington for Tuesday’s primary in the District of Columbia, the final one on the nomination calendar. In an email Saturday to supporters, Sanders reminded them of their “chance to stand up and be heard.” His message ended: “I thank you for everything you’ve shared with me and all the support you’ve given our campaign. Now it’s time to bring it home on Tuesday.”

Sanders hasn’t said he would quit the race, but after meeting with Obama, he made clear he would do everything he could to stop presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump from winning the White House.

Sarah Mandl, 26, of Ithaca, New York, who attended the University of Vermont and spends summers in the state, said she was surprised and happy that Sanders made it as far as he did in the Democratic race, and continues to try to get out his message “even though he knows he’s not going to be president.”

People in Burlington are familiar with Sanders and the message of social justice that he has promoted since before he was elected mayor in 1981. Many credit him with helping make Burlington the vibrant, multicultural small city that it is today, and are thrilled to see his message gain so much attention.

“He’s raised some questions both the Democrats and the Republicans have to answer,” said Dan McAllister, 60, a clergyman from South Burlington who was manning a booth for a friend’s church not far from Sanders’ Senate and campaign offices.

Don Dresser, 65, a retired postmaster from Huntington was wearing a “Bernie” sticker on his shirt. He said that during a recent visit to Spain he talked politics with a German couple and they knew of Sanders.

“They were very enthusiastic about Bernie,” Dresser said.

“Where does he go from here?” Dresser said. “I’m not sure, but I think he’s hopefully going to go to the Democratic convention and press things for his agenda. I mean he’s been speaking on the same thing since I came here in the mid-70s.”



DEMOCRATS SPEAK OF INCLUSION AND CHANGE


http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-sanders-idUSKCN0YY0F9

Politics | Sun Jun 12, 2016 7:28am EDT Related: ELECTION 2016, POLITICS, ELIZABETH WARREN
Democrats want 'major role' for Sanders: Reuters/Ipsos poll
NEW YORK | BY CHRIS KAHN

Photograph -- Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders delivers a statement after his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama (not pictured) at the White House in Washington, U.S. June 9, 2016.
REUTERS/GARY CAMERON


Bernie Sanders may have lost his bid to become the Democratic nominee for the White House, but party members don't want the U.S. senator from Vermont to step off the stage.

More than three-quarters of Democrats say Sanders should have a "major role" in shaping the party's positions, while nearly two thirds say Hillary Clinton - who beat him for the nomination - should pick him as her vice-presidential running mate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

In a sign that Democrats hope their party can unite after a fierce primary season, two-thirds also said that Sanders should endorse Clinton, a former secretary of state and senator who appears bound for a showdown with Republican Donald Trump in November's presidential election.

Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, managed to turn his long-shot run into a mass movement with hard-line proposals to combat wealth inequality, increase access to health care and education, and defend the environment.

His challenge to Clinton, one of the best-known figures in American politics, lasted far longer than expected, as he racked up strong results in a number of state nominating contests and stayed in the race even when the delegate count seemed to spell his doom, and yielded record numbers of small donations to his campaign.

Sanders so far has not conceded defeat, even though Clinton recently clinched the nomination and won endorsements from President Barack Obama and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts - a favorite of the same left-leaning voters who supported him.

Sanders has said he will continue to push for a liberal agenda heading into the Democratic National Convention in July - when Clinton's nomination is expected to become official - though he has hinted he does not want his presence to hurt the Democrats' chances of keeping the White House.

"We will not let Donald Trump become president," Sanders told supporters last week.

The poll, conducted June 7-10 - right after Clinton sewed up the delegate majority to become the presumptive Democratic nominee - showed that while most Democrats want Sanders to line up behind Clinton, about 44 percent would like him to make an independent run for the White House. Some 47 percent said he should not.

The poll included 455 respondents and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 5.3 percentage points.

(Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Leslie Adler)



AFTERMATH OF MASSACRE


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/urgent-need-for-blood-donors-after-deadly-orlando-mass-shooting/

"Urgent need" for blood donors after Orlando mass shooting
By JENNIFER EARL CBS NEWS June 12, 2016, 5:32 PM

Photograph -- Hundreds of community members line up outside a clinic to donate blood after an early morning shooting attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, U.S June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Steve Nesius REUTERS


Florida was in desperate need for blood donors in wake of the deadly attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday.

"There is an urgent need right now for O negative, O positive and AB plasma blood donors following the mass shooting," Susan Forbes, vice president of OneBlood, told CBSN.

Situations like this show why a ready blood supply is so vital for communities, Forbes explained.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted to his more than 1.4 million followers asking them to consider donating.

Follow
Marco Rubio ✔ @marcorubio
If you live in Central Florida, blood donations are needed after mass shooting at #PulseNightclub http://fw.to/qzxKZuF
9:35 AM - 12 Jun 2016
Photo published for os-orlando-nightclub-shooting-blood-donations
os-orlando-nightclub-shooting-blood-donations
OneBlood is putting out a call this morning for blood donations in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting that killed 20 people and injured at least 42 others.
orlandosentinel.com
4,843 4,843 Retweets 3,585 3,585 likes
"As quickly as it is donated it is processed, tested and shipped out the door," Forbes said.

Hundreds of people could be seen lining up outside of blood banks in Orlando; the line at one blood bank was at least two hours long, according to one Twitter user.

View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter
Follow
Jim Buff @jimbuff
Line at ONE #Orlando blood bank is 2 hours long to donate to shooting victims.@jeremybuff
12:02 PM - 12 Jun 2016
3 3 Retweets 2 2 likes
By 5 p.m. ET, OneBlood said they were "at capacity," but residents who want to help can schedule an appointment.

However, there are limits to those who can donate. The Food and Drug Administration's policy bars donations from men who have had sex with a man in the previous year.

View image on Twitter
View image on Twitter
Follow
Christal Hayes ✔ @Journo_Christal
Blood center is overloaded with people wanting to give blood in the aftermath of the #Pulse mass shooting
10:16 AM - 12 Jun 2016 · Oneblood, United States
6,658 6,658 Retweets 7,772 7,772 likes
While blood centers are currently full, Forbes encourages others to sign up to donate this week.

"It is an ongoing need every day for blood centers across the country," Forbes said.



POSSIBLE RELATED CASE IN CALIFORNIA

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/heavily-armed-man-arrested-near-california-pride-parade/

Police: Man arrested near L.A. gay pride parade had guns, explosives
By CRIMESIDER STAFF CBS NEWS June 12, 2016, 2:08 PM

Photograph -- Investigators work a crime scene around a white Acura vehicle after the arrest of a man found with assault weapons and possible explosives, who told authorities he was in town for the city's gay pride parade in Santa Monica, California, June 12, 2016. REUTERS/JONATHAN ALCORN


SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- A heavily armed Indiana man arrested Sunday on his way to a Southern California gay pride parade told police he wanted to do harm to the event, authorities said.

James Wesley Howell, 20, of Indiana was arrested about 5 a.m. after neighbors reported suspicious behavior on the street where he was parked the wrong way in a white sedan, Santa Monica police said in a statement, according to CBS Los Angeles.

james-wesley-howell-la-pride-arrest.png
A mugshot shows James Wesley Howell, 20. SANTA MONICA P.D.

"Further investigation, led to the recovery of three assault rifles, high capacity magazines and ammunition," Santa Monica police Lt. Saul Rodriguez said. "Additionally, officers discovered a 5 gallon bucket with chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device. All items were recovered from Howell's vehicle."

Santa Monica police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks tweeted that Howell told officers after he was arrested that he wanted to harm the gay pride event in West Hollywood that was taking place about seven miles away later Sunday.

His arrest came as the mass shooting that killed 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was still unfolding. Police said they have not found evidence of a connection between the California arrest and the killings.

Police would answer no further questions on Howell or his motives, deferring to the FBI, which has taken over the investigation.

The parade continued as planned, albeit with dramatically increased security, CBS Los Angeles reported. Hundreds of thousands of people attend the annual event.


View image on Twitter
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Follow
LA PRIDE @LAPRIDE
Your West Coast friends are all with you, Orlando. 💜 #ThePrideMustGoOn
4:58 PM - 12 Jun 2016
1,344 1,344 Retweets 2,107 2,107 likes

"Forty-six years ago, members of the LGBTQ community came out in cities across the country in response to the Stonewall Riots," according to a statement from the board of directors of Christopher Street West, which sponsors the event. "Today, we are heartbroken that so many of our brothers, sisters and allies were lost in this tragic attack. As we remember them today at our moment of silence, we must continue to show our pride, not just today but every day.

"Our brave founders made this happen to show the world who we are. We will be loud. We will be proud and we will celebrate in honor of all those lost. Today's parade and festival will continue on as originally scheduled. We will also be holding a rally on our main stage this afternoon."

LA Pride is one of the nation's biggest public festivals celebrating gay, lesbian and other alternate lifestyles, honoring the LGBTQ community's past struggles while celebrating its future generation of leaders, according to CBS Los Angeles.

At the scene, police searched a white four-door Acura sedan parked facing the wrong direction on a busy thoroughfare in a mostly residential area of the seaside city west of Los Angeles. There was a red plastic gas can near the car and items laid out on a white sheet next to it.

Heriberto Gomez, a lifelong resident who says he watches over the neighborhood, stepped outside at 3 a.m. Sunday and saw the white Acura sedan in the street.

Gomez said the man ran across the street and hid in bushes and overhanging trees. It appeared the man was looking back at him.

"I was looking at him for a minute, for a long minute," Gomez said. "He didn't want to come my way because he seen me standing right here."



STRANGE INFORMATION ABOUT SHOOTER’S FATHER – TALIBAN SUPPORTER


https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/12/orlando-shooting-suspects-father-hosted-a-political-tv-show-and-even-tried-to-run-for-the-afghan-presidency

Orlando suspect’s father hosted a TV show and now pretends to be Afghanistan’s president
By Max Bearak
June 12, 2016 at 2:53 PM

Photograph -- Seddique Mateen, the father of Omar Mateen, who authorities say committed the worst mass killing in U.S. history. The elder Mateen hosted the "Durand Jirga Show," which aired on a channel broadcast from California. (YouTube)


The father of Omar Mateen, identified by police as the man behind the carnage at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning, is an Afghan man who holds strong political views, including support for the Afghan Taliban. In a video he posted on Saturday, he appears to be portraying himself as the president of Afghanistan.

Seddique Mateen, who has been referred to as Mir Seddique in early news reports, hosted the “Durand Jirga Show” on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan, which broadcasts from California. In it, the elder Mateen speaks in the Dari language on a variety of political subjects. He doesn't always make much sense. Dozens of videos are posted on a channel under Seddique Mateen's name on YouTube. A phone number and post office box that are displayed on the show were traced back to the Mateen home in Florida. Mateen also owns a nonprofit organization under the name Durand Jirga, which is registered in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

In one video, Mateen expresses gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban, while denouncing the Pakistani government.

“Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up,” he said. “Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon.”

The gunman who killed at least 50 people in a shooting rampage at an Orlando nightclub has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen. Here is what we know about him so far. (The Washington Post)
The “Durand Line issue” is a historically significant one, particularly for members of the Pashtun ethnic group, whose homeland straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Durand Line is that border. It is not clear whether the Mateens are Pashtun. The Afghan Taliban is mostly made up of Pashtuns.

The line was drawn as a demarcation of British and Afghan spheres of influence in 1893. The British controlled most of subcontinental Asia at the time, though some parts, including what is now Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, were only loosely held. The line was inherited as a border by Pakistan after its independence. Since it splits the Pashtun population politically, it is seen as a cause for their marginalization. Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in most of eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.

Photo Gallery: The scene in Orlando after a gunman opened fire at a nightclub
Pashtuns are also sometimes referred to as Pakhtuns, or Pathans.

<i>Just hours before the Orlando shooting, Seddique Mateen posted a video on a Facebook page called Provisional Government of Afghanistan — Seddique Mateen. In it, he seems to be pretending to be Afghanistan's president, and orders the arrest of an array of Afghan political figures.

"I order national army, national police and intelligence department to immediately imprison Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmay Khalilzad, Atmar, and Sayyaf. They are against our countrymen, and against our homeland," he says, while dressed in army fatigues.

The most recent video on Mateen’s YouTube channel shows him declaring his candidacy for the Afghan presidency. The timing of the video is strange, as it came a year after presidential elections were held in Afghanistan. Mateen appears incoherent at times in the video, and he jumps abruptly from topic to topic. His use of Dari, instead of Pashto, the language of Pashtuns, was another strange element of his presentation, given that he is discussing issues of Pashtun nationalism.

A gunman opened fire on a crowded nightclub in Orlando early Sunday, June 12. He killed at least 50 people. The final death toll is not known, but this shooting is already the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States. (The Washington Post)

On Sunday morning, Mateen told NBC News that his son’s rampage “has nothing to do with religion.” Instead, he offered another possible motive. He said his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a few months ago. He said his son was especially enraged because the kissing took place in front of his own young son.

“We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country,” Mateen said.

Mateen could not be reached for comment by The Washington Post. His cellphone has been switched off.



https://www.everipedia.com/mir-seddique/

Mir Seddique

Mir Seddique
GenderMale
EmployerThe Durand Jirga, Inc.
Children Omar Mateen
Place of Birth Afghanistan
Religion Sunni Islam

Mir Seddique operates religious non-profit The Durand Jirga, Inc. in Port St Lucie, Florida. He is an immigrant from Afghanistan and an ethnic Pashtun. He is the father of Pulse Orlando Shooting killer Omar Mateen. [2] Mir hosts a political TV show and sympathizes with The Taliban. [15] 

Seddique insists his son's crime has nothing to do with ISIS or Islam. He told NBC News:

“This has nothing to do with religion. We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.” [3] 

However, ISIS has already taken credit for the massacre.

In a 2011 speech at a fundraiser for The Durand Jirga, Inc., Seddique was noted for saying: "Pull out your swords and slay anyone that says Pashtun and Afghan are not one! Arabs know this and so do Romans: Afghans are Pashtuns, Pashtuns are Afghans!" [4] 


THE "GOTNEWS" MATERIAL BELOW IS CLEARLY WRITTEN BY A DONALD TRUMP SYMPATHIZER, BUT IF THE INFORMATION IS ACCURATE, IT'S IMPORTANT, IT SEEMS TO ME.


“gotnews” below contains six videos, one of which threatens the US and another threatens gay people. The writer is clearly a Rightleaning American, however, and I haven’t dug any more deeply to try to verify anything.

http://gotnews.com/tag/durand-jirga/

DEPORT?! Look at #Orlando #PulseNightClub Shooter Dad’s Facebook
JUNE 12, 2016 BY CHARLES C. JOHNSON 2 COMMENTS

The lion's share of the money we make on this website comes from donations. Please support independent journalism. If you'd like to hire our research team, email us at editor@gotnews.com.
We now take Paypal and Bitcoin! Research takes time and money. Anything you can do to help out is sincerely appreciated!

The Orlando shooter’s father Seddique Mateen is currently running for president of Afghanistan. That’s just one of the crazy things we found researching the family of the Orlando shooter.

Screen Shot 2016-06-12 at 11.23.06 AM
And while Mateen insists to a credulous media that his son’s terrorist slaying of 50 plus people in Orlando has nothing to do with religion the evidence points in a different direction.

How assimilated do you think an Afghan immigrant with an Afghan flag background is?

Seddique owns a non-profit company, “The Durand Jirga, Inc” which is really his political party. A description of the company can be read below:

THE DURAND JIRGA, INC. has been set up 11/28/2010 in state FL. The current status of the business is Active. The THE DURAND JIRGA, INC. principal adress is 519 SW BAYSHORE BOULEVARD, PORT ST. LUCIE, FL, 34983. Meanwhile you can send your letters to 519 SW BAYSHORE BOULEVARD, PORT ST. LUCIE, FL, 34983. The company`s registered agent is MATEEN SEDDIQUE M 519 SW BAYSHORE BOULEVARD, PORT ST. LUCIE, FL, 34983. The company`s management are Director – Mateen Seddique M, Director – Seddique Sabrina, Director – Aurakzai Mustafa. The last significant event in the company history is AMENDMENT which is dated by 2/2/2012. This decision is take in action on unknown. The company annual reports filed on Annual reports – 4/28/2015.

The Daily Beast mentioned the organization but didn’t mention that it was a political party!

You can watch him discuss his political party and his bid for Afghan president. Send us some of the best screenshots and we will add them.

We don’t speak Afghan or Arabic and are looking for Afghan or Arabic translators of the material we’ve currently amassed.

We guarantee you the dad knows exactly who, when, and where he was radicalized.

Here’s something from the father’s YouTube channel.

In April an anti-gay Muslim speaker called for death penalty and spoke in Orlando mosques.

The solution to the problem of Muslim terrorism is found in Russia.

I hope President Trump keeps his promise about “taking out the families” of terrorists.

Until then can someone please name a contribution that Afghan immigrants have made to America beside terrorism?

GotNews.com will always bring you news first that you’ll see nowhere else. We’ve done it with Judge Gonzalo Curiel and we’ll continue to do it as long as you’ll continue to fund us. Consider donating at GotNews.com/donate.


There are pages and pages of entries under the search terms Payame Afghan TV, a world wide ethnic media group based in California, which is at least tangentially related to Mateen. Mateen has had a long running talk show on the network called the Durand Jirga show. Mateen under the name Mir Seddique is claiming to be running for President of Afghanistan and calling for the ouster and arrest of half a dozen Afghani leaders, so he is either a scam artist, a potentially dangerous radical, or is not sane. His manner of speaking on the video is described as disjointed and skipping from subject to subject. (That sounds like me, but at least I’m not running for President.

See the bio article in https://www.everipedia.com/mir-seddique/, also.


Searching on Google under the term “Payame Afghan TV,” I found many pages. Page five has this very interesting latimes entry dated a week or so after the date 9/11/2001. They apparently researched the foreign language station as a result of the attack, and didn’t find it to be dangerous. It is presented as a culturally useful station which helps newcomers to adapt here.

The senior Sediqque has a supposedly religious show, but from the content it seems to be political instead. See the latimes article below on Radio Payame Afghan --

“Locally Based Radio Program Serves Afghan...
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/sep/23/local/me-48910
Sep 23, 2001 ... Radio Payame Afghan fills a media void--offering commentary, news and call-in talk shows for a community with limited access to broadcasts in ....”

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/sep/23/local/me-48910

AFTER THE ATTACK
Locally Based Radio Program Serves Afghan Community
Media: Immigrant Omar Khatab's broadcasts feature native-language news, commentary and call-in talk shows about his homeland.
September 23, 2001|KIMI YOSHINO | TIMES STAFF WRITER


The pouches under Omar Khatab's puffy eyes are from pure fatigue. His voice is weak, his speech slow.

Twenty minutes is all he needs. Time for meditation and quiet, time to close his eyes.

Then, he says, as if willing it so, "I'll be fine."

Khatab, 46, runs one of the country's longest-running Afghan radio programs. Operating out of studios in Orange and Canoga Park, he buys time on the airwaves in Southern California, Toronto and Washington, D.C., for his weekly show, Radio Payame Afghan. In Northern California, home to the nation's largest Afghan emigre community, he broadcasts around the clock.

Radio Payame Afghan fills a media void--offering commentary, news and call-in talk shows for a community with limited access to broadcasts in Afghan languages such as Pashto and Persian. He numbers his potential listening audience at more than 150,000 in North America.

Most listeners still have strong family ties to the country. Although Afghanistan hovered in the news for decades with its struggle against Soviet occupation and its civil war, the country now faces perhaps its greatest threat: military strikes by the United States for providing refuge to terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

Like many in his audience, Khatab--raised to be loyal to the monarchy that once ruled the country--has mixed feelings about the current regime. As a Muslim, he says he at first supported the fundamentalist Taliban government.

"People in Afghanistan rallied around them," he says. "They were very good in the beginning. They brought peace. They brought security."

But the Taliban leaders were young and inexperienced, and in part because of the radicalizing influence of Bin Laden, they have gone too far, he says. He regards Bin Laden as an uninvited guest who has put his country in great danger.

The United States--which supported the Taliban initially in its fight against Soviet invaders--must share some of the blame for the current state of affairs for withdrawing that support when it was most needed, he says.

Afghan refugees in the United States are drawn from a wide political spectrum--from supporters of the Northern Alliance, which is fighting the Taliban, to those who back the current government. To serve this diverse audience, Khatab's radio programs focus on providing neutral news accounts and information that all can use, he says.

"My role is first to inform them of the truth, to shed light on what's going on in Afghanistan and in the United States," Khatab says. "Mentally and psychologically, people are worried. They are shaken. They are shocked. . . . It is a big burden, and doing it on a 24-hour basis is not an easy job."

He airs native-language broadcasts by the BBC and Voice of America. He also programs music and cooking shows, as well as call-in talk shows about everything from the Taliban to how to get into college.

Although Khatab says callers to his radio shows have all decried the terrorist attacks on the East Coast, some have echoed the Taliban in demanding that the United States not retaliate against Afghanistan without proof that Bin Laden is responsible.

Radio listener and volunteer Walid Farooqi, 21, of Canoga Park said Khatab's strategy of providing neutral news has been successful.

"People that don't understand what's on television can listen. And it has other things that the regular American programming and news don't cover. . . . It brings people together."

Throughout Southern California, numerous ethnic radio programs and publications cater to everyone from Vietnamese to Central Americans. Sandra Ball-Rokeach, a professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, calls them "mini-media" that help immigrant populations maintain their identity and connect with their home countries.

"It's an essential information resource--all the way from huge cultural identity things to everyday coping," she said. But, she added, "under a situation like this, it becomes critical."

Since Sept. 11, His Workdays Are Longer

For nine years, Khatab has kept the operation afloat through advertising and money from his other businesses, which include small auto-repair and parking operations. He relies on unpaid disc jockeys and talk-show hosts, and devotes hours of his own time--acting as ad salesman, station manager and news director all rolled into one.

For these reasons, it's always an exhausting job. But since Sept. 11, the workdays have stretched longer even as his personal anxiety has increased--both about what may happen to Afghanistan and the backlash many immigrants are feeling here.

Married with two children and living in Anaheim Hills, Khatab works out of an office in his Orange studio that is a strange mix of his two countries, America and Afghanistan. Arabic calligraphy quoting passages from the Koran hangs on his wall. "The Happily Ever After Handbook" and a supply of motivational books on tape, such as "Swim With the Sharks," sit on his shelves.




Followup Information on the STANFORD RAPE ISSUES --

RAPE CULTURE / PARTY CULTURE /JUDGE ON THE HOT SEAT


For years I have been shocked at how light the sentences are on many young men who fail to STOP when the woman says to, or who administer Rohypnol when the girl’s back is turned. This leniency is especially common in the cases of wealthy college students, prized student athletes, and boys from politically influential backgrounds. The comparison with the “twenty to life” sentences that some black men or boys have received illustrate the true nature of the problem clearly.

The swimmer’s father, in trying to make the crime seem lighter, called it “twenty minutes of action” a crude male term for what, under the best of circumstances, would be considered love making to a perhaps deluded young woman. Part of the problem in this whole case is the vast gulf between the male and female minds. The brutal battering of all kinds that woman too often endure is as bad in its’ own way, and the bystander who rescued the young woman did describe the act as extremely violent, and one article said that an “object” was used to penetrate her.

This judge got caught in his own mental and emotional trap when he failed to follow the law. Men simply don’t always view “rape” as being real. I know some women do “cry rape,” but most cases are not voluntary sex. The congressman who foolishly said that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy” got caught, too. Read the article below on Congressman Akin’s unfortunate verbal blunder.

See the articles below: Family and others defend Turner, sending Judge Persky “at least 39 letters” before the sentencing – clearly an orchestrated action by his family or lawyer which, unfortunately, worked. He got out of all but 3 months in the local jail.

The young woman Rasmussen calls the Internet reaction to her letter “political correctness,” and implies that her letter was revealed to the public eye improperly. I’ve never liked that term, because it always means that a bad guy got what was coming to him.

Hundreds of thousands of readers are furious about this swimmer’s special treatment, from our political leaders to a certain well respected Stanford Law Professor. She and an organization called UltraViolet are working to get Judge Aaron Persky removed from the bench. His tip of the hat to wealth may bring about the end of his career.

For your entertainment, see the nbcnews article on “legitimate rape.” While the term “the rape culture” is a new one to me, there certainly are continuing threads between these several articles, in classic literature that I have read, and other court trials in which women are always the “bad” ones. When my mother was young, she said the family went to see a “tent preacher” who ranted against women for “tempting” men and causing them to “sin.” She said it totally turned her off toward religion.

The Missouri Republican Todd Akin several years ago stepped right in the middle of something when he defended is wish to deny abortion on the grounds of rape. He said that
“people always want to make it into one of those things,” and that women rarely get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” Claire McCaskill beat him in that race.



http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/19/13365269-missouri-republican-legitimate-rape-rarely-causes-pregnancy?lite

Missouri Republican: 'Legitimate rape' rarely causes pregnancy
Sunday Aug 19, 2012 1:55 PM

In a statement and a Tweet, conservative congressman Todd Akin says he "misspoke" during a local TV interview in which he made comments about "legitimate rape" and abortion. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.

BY MICHAEL O'BRIEN, NBC NEWS

Updated 8:55 p.m. — A Republican Senate nominee found himself in hot water on Sunday for suggesting that instances of "legitimate rape" rarely results in pregnancy.

Rep. Todd Akin, a Republican who's locked in a hard-fought campaign in Missouri to unseat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, was answering a question regarding his position on abortion rights in instances when a woman is a victim of rape.

"People always want to make it into one of those things — well, how do you slice this particularly tough ethical question," Akin said in an interview on KTVI-TV, video of which was circulated by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge.


Todd Akin on the The Jaco Report
August 19, 2012

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," Akin said.

Regarding his opinion on whether to allow for an abortion in such instances, Akin added: “But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

Akin's comments had an almost immediate impact on Missouri's Senate race. McCaskill wrote on Twitter:

YouTube ‎@YouTube
Follow
Claire McCaskill ✔ @clairecmc
As a woman & former prosecutor who handled 100s of rape cases, I'm stunned by Rep Akin's comments about victims this AM http://bit.ly/NahiHz
3:28 PM - 19 Aug 2012
3,611 3,611 Retweets 449 449 likes

In a statement, Akin said that he had misspoken.

"In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it's clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year," he said.




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-writes-open-letter-to-courageous-stanford-sexual-assault-victim/

Joe Biden writes open letter to "courageous" Stanford sexual assault victim
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
June 9, 2016, 3:31 PM

Play VIDEO -- Stanford attacker's letter to the judge
Play VIDEO -- "No question" privilege was factor in light punishment for ex-Stanford swimmer



Joe Biden penned a letter Thursday to the "courageous young woman" at the heart of the high-profile Stanford sexual assault case, praising her for the letter she wrote to her attacker and how it "helped change the culture."

"I do not know your name--but your words are forever seared on my soul. Words that should be required reading for men and women of all ages," he wrote in a letter posted by BuzzFeed News. "I am in awe of your courage for speaking out--for so clearly naming the wrongs that were done to you and so passionately asserting your equal claim to human dignity."

Earlier this week, the victim read off her own statement about the trauma of the ordeal at the sentencing of Brock Turner, the star Stanford swimmer who sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious outside a fraternity party. Turner, 20 years old, was handed down a six-month sentence in county jail, along with three years' probation, for the crime.

Speaking directly to Turner at his sentencing, his victim described how the attack left her "closed off, angry," and "empty," according to the full letter published later on BuzzFeed. She chose to remain anonymous because, according to her, "for now, I am every woman."

In response, the vice president -- who spearheaded efforts to pass the 1994 Violence Against Women Act and who is actively involved in the White House's campaign against sexual assault -- wrote of how he had been "filled with furious anger" reading the victim's words.

"You were failed by a culture on our college campuses where one in five women is sexually assaulted--year after year after year. A culture that promotes passivity. That encourages young men and women on campuses to simply turn a blind eye," Biden wrote, calling it "obscene" that the numbers of sexual assault have not gone down.

The vice president also praised the young men -- "heroes that ride bicycles" -- that helped to stop the assault from continuing.

"They did not worry about the social or safety implications of intervening, or about what their peers might think," he said. "Those two men epitomize what it means to be a responsible bystander. To do otherwise--to see an assault about to take place and do nothing to intervene--makes you part of the problem."

"It's on us. All of us," Biden continued. "We all have a responsibility to stop the scourge of violence against women once and for all. I do not know your name - but I see your unconquerable spirit."

The vice president isn't the only politician weighing in on the rape case and rallying to the victim's side.

On the House floor early Thursday, Texas Rep. Ted Poe, a Republican, called for an appeals court to overturn the "pathetic sentence" handed down by the judge in the case. Poe,[sic] who faced up to 14 years in prison, was handed down a sentence of six months. Prosecutors had initially requested a six-year term.

"The punishment for rape should be longer than a semester of college," Poe said. He later added that the judge "should be removed" from the bench for the decision.

"Justice demands the judge is removed," he said. "The defendant should receive more time in prison and we the people support and assist the victim in all possible ways."



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/aaron-persky-brock-turner-judge-stanford-sexual-assault-california-removal/

Group taking action against judge in Stanford sex assault case
AP June 10, 2016, 12:34 PM

Related -- Play VIDEO, Biden letter praises Stanford sex assault victim's courage
Play VIDEO -- "No question" privilege was factor in light punishment for ex-Stanford swimmer
Play VIDEO -- ESPN's Mike Golic slams judge in Stanford sexual assault case
Play VIDEO -- Stanford attacker's letter to the judge
Play VIDEO -- Former Stanford swimmer expressed remorse over sexual assault
Play VIDEO -- Stanford rapist begins controversial sentence


SAN FRANCISCO -- A women's advocacy group planned to turn in petitions Friday in a symbolic effort urging a California agency to remove the judge who sentenced a former Stanford University swimmer to six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.

The organization, UltraViolet, said it collected more than 824,000 signatures and other groups gathered thousands more that they will deliver to the California Commission on Judicial Performance, the agency that investigates complaints of judicial misconduct and disciplines judges.

But to officially recall Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky, organizers would need to collect signatures from 58,634 registered county voters. A call to commission attorney Victoria Henley about what penalties the agency could impose was not immediately returned.

Persky has faced intense outcry after sentencing Brock Turner, 20, of Dayton, Ohio, last week to six months in jail and three years' probation for assaulting the woman behind a campus dumpster in January 2015.

Several prospective jurors who opposed Persky's decision even refused to serve on a jury this week in an unrelated case he is handling. They were dismissed from service after coming forward with their complaints.

Persky said in court that he followed a recommendation from the county's probation department in the sentence and cited Turner's clean criminal record and the effect the conviction will have on his life.

Prosecutors had argued for six years in prison for crimes that could have gotten Turner 10 years. But the county's district attorney has said Persky should not lose his job because of the ruling.

Online records show Turner is expected to be released from jail after three months. County jail inmates serve 50 percent of their sentences if they keep a clean disciplinary record. Turner is being segregated from the general jail population, which is standard for high-profile inmates who could be targets.

"We need judges who work to protect survivors, not their rapists," Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet, said in a statement. "The California Commission on Judicial Performance must move swiftly to remove Judge Persky from the bench and send a clear signal that rape apologists will never be tolerated as part of the criminal justice system."

Stanford University law professor Michele Dauber launched a campaign to remove Persky from the bench over what she calls a lenient sentence and plans to speak at a rally outside the commission Friday.

"His statements during the sentencing show that he does not understand sexual violence. He does not understand violence against women," she told The Associated Press on Thursday. "And so we are going to recall him, and we're going to replace him with someone who does."

Lawyers who have appeared in Persky's court have called him a fair and respected judge. He has no record of judicial discipline and previously worked as a Santa Clara County prosecutor responsible for keeping sexual predators locked up.

A court spokesman has said Persky is barred from commenting on the case because Turner is appealing his conviction on felony assault and attempted rape charges.

Stephanie Pham, a Stanford student who co-founded the Association of Students for Sexual Assault Prevention, said the sentence stirred anger and frustration on campus.

"When the sentencing came out, people lost faith in the legal system," she said. "Survivors felt alienated and silenced by the fact that someone found guilty is still going to be given a lenient sentence."



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/brock-turner-sex-assault-case-supporters-apologize-letters-judge-sentence/

Brock Turner's supporters issue apologies over letters to judge
CBS/AP June 9, 2016, 12:12 PM

Play VIDEO -- "No question" privilege was factor in light punishment for ex-Stanford swimmer
Play VIDEO -- Stanford attacker's letter to the judge
Play VIDEO -- Former Stanford swimmer expressed remorse over sexual assault
Play VIDEO -- Stanford rapist begins controversial sentence


Two Ohio women who filed letters in support of a former Stanford University student-athlete convicted of sexually assaulting a woman as she lay unconscious behind a dumpster have issued apologies for their statements.

The apologies come after the six-month jail sentence of Olympic swimming hopeful Brock Turner, who agreed to leave the prestigious school rather than face possible expulsion, unleashed a fury.

Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky cited Turner's clean criminal record and the impact the conviction will have on his life. The outrage has lasted for days.

Before the sentencing, Persky received at least 39 letters from Turner's family and friends advocating for the 20-year-old. His sister wrote "a series of alcohol-fueled decisions ... will define him for the rest of his life."

Two of those letters came from Kelly Owens, a high school guidance counselor in Dayton, Ohio, and Turner's childhood friend Leslie Rasmussen, who lives in suburban Dayton.

In Owens' letter, she called Turner "a young man of character, integrity." She said that he "seeks opportunities to help others, and is absolutely undeserving of the outcome" in the sexual assault trial, the San Jose (California) Mercury News reported.

In her letter, Rasmussen blamed campus drinking culture and political correctness for Turner's inebriated life choices.

On Wednesday, CBS Dayton affiliate WHIO-TV reported that Owens apologized to her school district and said that she made a mistake.

"Of course he should be held accountable," Owens wrote. "I pray for the victim, her family and all those affected by this horrible event. I am truly sorry for the additional pain my statement has caused. I tell my students they have to be accountable, and Brock is no exception."

In a message posted to her Facebook page, Rasmussen apologized for not acknowledging "strongly enough the severity of Brock's crime and the suffering and pain that his victim endured."

"I fully understand the outrage over Brock's sentencing and my statement," Rasmussen wrote. "I can only say that I am committed to learning from this mistake. I am 20 years old, and it has never been more clear to me that I still have much to learn."

Rasmussen's apology came after critics took to Twitter, Facebook and other social streams to demand her indie rock band Good English, which includes her two sisters, be dumped from at least four gigs that included some in Brooklyn clubs hosting a small music festival called the Northside Festival.

On Tuesday, Rasmussen posted a long statement to Facebook explaining the one submitted into the court record in California two months ago.

"Unfortunately, due to the overzealous nature of social media and the lack of confidence and privacy in which my letter to the judge was held, I am now thrust into the public eye to defend my position on this matter in the court of public opinion," the statement said.

It continued: "Now, my choices to defer college to write and play music, to finally introduce 10 years of hard work to a national audience while working consistently and intentionally on my own personal and professional integrity, has led to an uproar of judgment and hatred unleashed on me, my band and my family."

Rasmussen's statement mattered little to David Kyrejko, co-founder of Industry City Distillery, one of the Brooklyn venues that canceled Good English as soon as the world figured out Rasmussen was in the band and playing there.

Industry City and other venues, along with the promoters of Northside Festival and the festival itself, have been dealing with outraged New Yorkers over Rasmussen's remarks. None immediately returned calls and emails seeking additional comment beyond what they have posted online.

Industry City was to host a number of artists, not just Good English, on June 11.

"Then this whole situation started to unfold and we immediately contacted the producers of the event and demanded that they be removed from the lineup," Kyrejko said Wednesday. "We found out through fans. We were made aware of it Tuesday, almost instantaneously. Our response was that Good English was removed from the roster."

Why? And what of Rasmussen's right to free expression?

"It's pretty simple in my opinion," Kyrejko added. "The support of rape culture is not tolerated. That's why we removed them from our roster. I think she can do whatever she wants, but if you're going to preach that, you're not welcome in our venue. The show will go on. It's going to be a great show."




http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/06/05/brock_turner_s_dad_s_defense_proves_why_his_victim_had_to_write_her_letter.html

Brock Turner’s Father Sums Up Rape Culture in One Brief Statement
XX Factor What Women Really Think
By Christina Cauterucci
JUNE 5 2016 9:30 PM

Photograph -- Brock Turner in an undated Facebook photo.

In the few days since ex–Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was given a six-month jail sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, much of the internet’s chatter has converged on a heart-wrenching, beautifully argued, deeply felt statement the woman read to him in court. It’s a devastating account of the survivor’s revictimization during her trial, a powerful indictment of the lighter sentences imposed on white, wealthy sex criminals, and a haunting depiction of how rape culture exerts its influence on college campuses and in courts of law. The victim provided her statement to BuzzFeed News; the page been viewed more than 4 million times since Friday afternoon.

Now, the internet has an opposing letter to read: a defense of Turner reportedly written by his father, Dan. Posted early Sunday morning by Michele Dauber, a Stanford law professor and sociologist who led the school’s revision of its sexual assault policies in recent years, the letter appears to have been written prior to Brock’s sentencing to advocate for probation only, in lieu of any jail time.

The sentence Brock got—six months in county jail and three years of probation—was extraordinarily light; he could have served up to 14 years in state prison. The judge opted for just a few months in jail (the Santa Clara County district attorney predicts he’ll only serve three of the six) because, the judge argued, a prison sentence would “have a severe impact on [Turner].” Turner will also have to register as a sex offender.

That generous decision is an echo of Dan Turner’s letter, which essentially argues that Brock has already suffered enough for his crimes. This piece is a near-perfect complement to the victim’s gripping 7,200-word essay—Dan Turner defends his son with nearly every thin excuse his son’s victim demolishes in her letter; he elevates all the rape-apologist, victim-diminishing tropes she exposes as misogynist garbage.


Follow
Michele Dauber @mldauber
#brockturner father: son not "violent" only got "20 mins of action" shouldn't have to go to prison. @thehuntinground
12:58 AM - 5 Jun 2016
4,852 4,852 Retweets 3,480 3,480 likes

Dan’s letter begins by describing how his son’s life has been thrown off track by his sexual assault, but never assigns responsibility to Brock, who repeatedly defended himself by saying that the victim enjoyed the assault and even had an orgasm. It’s not “Brock’s sexual assault” or “Brock’s actions” that occurred in January 2015, according to Dan; it’s “the events.” He spends five full sentences discussing Brock’s loss of appetite, as if that’s plenty punishment for his deeds. Perhaps he was trying to avoid the tone-deaf protests put forth by so many other Brock defenders, including the probation officer who helped determine his sentence, who’ve argued that the loss of his swimming scholarship is a major retribution that should figure into his sentence. In her essay, the survivor of Brock’s assault eloquently explains why that’s another symptom of a justice system sick with racial and socioeconomic inequity:

The probation officer weighed the fact that he has surrendered a hard earned swimming scholarship. How fast Brock swims does not lessen the severity of what happened to me, and should not lessen the severity of his punishment. If a first time offender from an underprivileged background was accused of three felonies and displayed no accountability for his actions other than drinking, what would his sentence be?

Later in his letter, Dan Turner writes that jail time is “not the appropriate punishment” for Brock because “he has no prior criminal history and has never been violent to anyone including his actions on the night of Jan 17th 2015.” That is patently untrue. A jury convicted Brock of three violent offenses: assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated person; sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object; and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object. Brock’s victim made a persuasive argument for why Brock’s lack of criminal history is no reason to let him off with a slap on the wrist:

As a society, we cannot forgive everyone’s first sexual assault or digital rape. It doesn’t make sense. The seriousness of rape has to be communicated clearly, we should not create a culture that suggests we learn that rape is wrong through trial and error. The consequences of sexual assault needs to be severe enough that people feel enough fear to exercise good judgment even if they are drunk, severe enough to be preventative.

Dan also furthers the tired, insulting, victim-blaming narrative that holds drunk women responsible for their own sexual assaults when he discusses Brock’s possible future as an anti-drinking activist. “By having people like Brock educate others on college campuses is how society can begin to break the cycle of binge drinking and its unfortunate results,” he writes. The unfortunate results of binge drinking are manifold, but they do not include sexual assault. Brock’s victim writes:

Alcohol is not an excuse. Is it a factor? Yes. But alcohol was not the one who stripped me, fingered me, had my head dragging against the ground, with me almost fully naked. Having too much to drink was an amateur mistake that I admit to, but it is not criminal. … Regretting drinking is not the same as regretting sexual assault. We were both drunk, the difference is I did not take off your pants and underwear, touch you inappropriately, and run away.

Starting an anti-drinking foundation and becoming an anti-drinking activist is something celebrities do to manage their reputations after they incur a DUI; no sane person would expect Brock to devote the rest of his life to fighting teen alcoholism, much less be any good at it. But his father claims that a sole sentence of probation would allow Brock to “give back to society in a net positive way.” Net positive: as in, when the sum of negative consequences of Brock’s sexual assault are combined with the sum of whatever positive influence he could affect with his anti-drinking lectures, the positives outweigh the negatives. Dan Turner is saying that the harm Brock caused by sexually assaulting an unconscious woman and antagonizing her for a year on trial is so minimal, he could more than make up for it by lecturing students about keggers.

But the worst parts of Dan’s letter are his grave mischaracterizations of rape as sex. “[Brock’s] life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life,” Dan writes, as if Brock should get special credit for not raping anyone during the first 19 years of his life. Committing sexual assault is not getting “action,” and 20 minutes may have been short for Brock, but it is not a short time for a victim enduring a sexual assault. Brock’s assault was not over when 20 minutes were up—his victim will forever contend with its persistent, damaging consequences. She will pay for his actions for the rest of her life.

Dan, like Brock and his lawyer, deny the very existence of sexual assault by equating it with the kind of casual sex other college students enjoy: “Brock can do so many positive things as a contributor to society and is totally committed to educating other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity.” Alcohol did not sexually assault Brock’s victim, and hook-up culture did not threaten her dignity and self-worth. Anonymous, drunken sex did not land Brock in jail. In her letter, Brock’s victim explains the willful ignorance someone must employ in order to conflate sexual assault with casual sex. “It is deeply offensive that [Brock] would try and dilute rape with a suggestion of ‘promiscuity.’ By definition rape is not the absence of promiscuity; rape is the absence of consent,” she writes. “It perturbs me deeply that he can’t even see that distinction.”

Christina Cauterucci is a Slate staff writer.



The ESPN article below is repetitive, but it shows an excellent video shared between the Stanford attorney who is working to get the judge removed from the bench and the Assn. of Prosecuting Attorneys. I think modern Western society is opening its’ long closed eyes to the fact that men don’t deserve to get everything they want and then blame it on women. I don’t think that they should receive the death penalty UNLESS it is a very severe case – some rapists literally torture the woman in ways like cutting them, biting them, and worse, and I do think they should be executed. I know, believing in the death penalty isn’t popular, but some things should be punished.



http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/15997412/brock-turner-father-says-son-suffer-20-minutes-action

Brock Turner's father sparks outrage in rape case
ESPN.com news services
Jun 7, 2016
ESPN.com news services

See excellent video with another assault victim, Stanford Law professor, David LaBahn CEO of Assn of Prosecuting Attorneys, discussing legal issues


A six-month jail sentence for former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, who was convicted of sexual assault, has caused public outrage. His father's letter asking the court for leniency has only fanned the flames.

"His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve," Dan A. Turner wrote in the letter asking for probation. "That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life."

Turner had been convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster after both he and she attended a fraternity party. The assault was interrupted by two students. Turner tried to flee, but the students tackled him and held him down until police arrived.

EDITOR'S PICKS

A survivor's bravery and a nation's outrage

A woman's powerful statement to the former Stanford swimmer who assaulted her made the country take notice. The reaction and outrage in its wake shows how far we've come, Jane McManus says.

In addition to the six-month jail term, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sentenced the 20-year-old Turner to three years' probation, ordered him to register as a sex offender and mandated that he complete a sex-offender-management program.

Turner's father wrote that "the fact that he now has to register as a sexual offender for the rest of his life alters where he can live, visit, work, and how he will be able to interact with people and organizations."

The letter was made public over the weekend by a Stanford law professor who wants Persky removed from office over the sentence. Two petitions on Change.org also push for a recall of Persky, who's running unopposed for re-election Tuesday.

Persky received his undergraduate degree from Stanford and was captain of the lacrosse team.

Court spokesman Joe Macaluso says the judge is barred from commenting because Turner is appealing his conviction.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen criticized Turner's father for comparing a sexual assault to "20 minutes of action." He said that Turner "preyed upon" his victim and displayed violence during the assault.

Rosen, however, said Persky should not lose his job because of the ruling.

Stanford defended how it handled the incident, saying it "did everything within its power to assure that justice was served." David Madison/Getty Images

"While I strongly disagree with the sentence that Judge Persky issued in the Brock Turner case, I do not believe he should be removed from his judgeship," Rosen said in a statement Monday. His office would not comment further.

Before the sentencing, the victim read the court an impact statement that has gone viral. She said she had gone to the party to spend time with her sister.

Addressing Turner, she said: "I made silly faces, let my guard down, and drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college," she said. "The next thing I remember I was in a gurney in a hallway. I had dried blood and bandages on the backs of my hands and elbow. I thought maybe I had fallen and was in an admin office on campus. I was very calm and wondering where my sister was.

"A deputy explained I had been assaulted. I still remained calm, assured he was speaking to the wrong person. I knew no one at this party. When I was finally allowed to use the restroom, I pulled down the hospital pants they had given me, went to pull down my underwear, and felt nothing."

After describing in detail how hospital staff documented her injuries, she said: "I stood there examining my body beneath the stream of water and decided, I don't want my body anymore. I was terrified of it. ... I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else."

She said Turner picked her off like she was a "wounded antelope of the herd, completely alone and vulnerable, physically unable to fend for myself."

She told Turner that "you do not get to shrug your shoulders and be confused anymore. You have been convicted of violating me with malicious intent, and all you can admit to is consuming alcohol. Do not talk about the sad way your life was upturned because alcohol made you do bad things."

She described how she had changed since the assault.

"My independence, natural joy, gentleness, and steady lifestyle I had been enjoying became distorted beyond recognition. I became closed off, angry, self-deprecating, tired, irritable, empty," she said.

In the 12-page statement, she said: "While you worry about your shattered reputation, I refrigerated spoons every night so when I woke up, and my eyes were puffy from crying, I would hold the spoons to my eyes to lessen the swelling so that I could see. I showed up an hour late to work every morning, excused myself to cry in the stairwells, I can tell you all the best places in that building to cry where no one can hear you, the pain became so bad that I had to tell my boss I was leaving, I needed time because continuing day to day was not possible. I used my savings to go as far away as I could possibly be."

In a statement made after the sentence was announced, Rosen said that "the punishment does not fit the crime."

"The sentence does not factor in the true seriousness of this sexual assault, or the victim's ongoing trauma. Campus rape is no different than off-campus rape. Rape is rape," he said.

In an editorial, The San Jose Mercury News called the six-month county jail sentence a "slap on the wrist."

"Brock Turner's six-month jail term for sexual assault of an intoxicated, unconscious woman on the Stanford campus last year is a setback for the movement to take campus rape seriously," the newspaper said. "If Turner's slap on the wrist sentence is a setback, activists can take some comfort that the jurors at the trial in March saw what happened as a very serious crime."

Stanford issued a statement Monday, calling it a "horrible incident" but defending how it handled its aftermath, saying it "did everything within its power to assure that justice was served."

"Once Stanford learned the identity of the young woman involved, the university reached out confidentially to offer her support and to tell her the steps we were taking," the university said. "In less than two weeks after the incident, Stanford had conducted an investigation and banned Turner from setting foot on campus -- as a student or otherwise. This is the harshest sanction that a university can impose on a student."

USA Swimming, meanwhile, told USA Today Sports that Turner is not, nor will he be, eligible for any of its sanctioned events, which include the Olympic trials.

"Brock Turner's membership with USA Swimming expired at the end of the calendar year 2014," USA Swimming spokesman Scott Leightman said in an email to USA Today Sports. "He was not a member at the time of his crime or since then. USA Swimming doesn't have any jurisdiction over non-members.

"Brock Turner is not a member of USA Swimming and, should he apply, he would not be eligible for membership. ... Had he been a member, he would be subject to the USA Swimming Code of Conduct. USA Swimming strictly prohibits and has zero tolerance for sexual misconduct, with firm Code of Conduct policies in place, and severe penalties, including a permanent ban of membership, for those who violate our Code of Conduct."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.



THAT LAST ARTICLE WAS NAUSEATING. RAPE SHOULD NOT BE HANDLED BY ANY PARTIES ON A UNIVERSITY CAMPUS, BUT BY THE POLICE, AND THE RELATIVE YOUTH OF A STUDENT SHOULD NOT EXCUSE HIM FROM HIS ACTIONS. AS FOR OUR HEROINE PROFESSOR DAUBER, HERE IS HER BIOGRAPHY, AND SHE HAS A NUMBER OF HONORS TO HER NAME.


https://law.stanford.edu/directory/michele-landis-dauber/

Biography
Professor (by courtesy) of Sociology

A law professor and a sociologist, Michele Landis Dauber has written highly original historical and sociological studies focusing on the history of social provision and the US welfare state. Her first book, The Sympathetic State (2013 University of Chicago Press) received numerous distinguished book awards and prizes including from the American Historical Association, the American Sociological Association, the American Political Science Association, the American Society for Legal History, and the Law and Society Association.

Professor Dauber has received numerous grants for her research including from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is currently working on a project about the history of resettlement and relocation following catastrophes.

Professor Dauber is the recipient of the 2006 Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford University’s highest teaching honor. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 2001, Professor Dauber was a clerk to Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (1998-99) and a doctoral fellow at the American Bar Foundation (1999-2001).

From 2011-13, Professor Dauber co-chaired the Board on Judicial Affairs and helped to lead the process that revised Stanford’s policy on sexual assault. She is a nationally-respected advocate for improving college and university policies on sexual assault in order to increase compliance with Title IX.

She is an avid outdoorswoman and skiier, and has backpacked more than 2000 miles in the Sierra Nevada. A mother of five, Dauber lives in Palo Alto with her husband Ken, a Google engineer, their son Elliot, and their five chickens.