July 23 and 24, 2016


News and Views

There is simply too much news for two days, so I will make little commentary, and present all information for readers to assess for themselves.



BEFORE WIKILEAKS --


SANDERS INFORMATION FOR THOSE WHO CARE

Facebook

Virginia Allain and Elle Smith posted in Writers for Bernie.

Virginia Allain
July 22 at 8:30pm

Thanks, Elle Smith, for reminding us as writers we still have a chance to influence this nomination. Here's where to send a message to the superdelegates and it is very easy. You send it in batches by states. http://www.lobbydelegates.com/engage.php



HOW TERRIBLE THOUGHT PATTERNS WORK

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/munich-shooting-germany-police-hunt-motive/

Police say Munich shooting suspect was obsessed with mass killings
CBS/AP
July 23, 2016, 7:15 AM

Play VIDEO -- Witness in Munich cafe describes chaotic scene
Play VIDEO -- Obama weighs in on Donald Trump, Munich attack
Photograph -- Police officers are pictured at the entrance of an apartment building following a shooting rampage at Olympia shopping mall in Munich, Germany, on July 23, 2016. REUTERS/MICHAEL DALDER
Play VIDEO -- What can be done to stop wave of violence?
Play VIDEO -- New video shows shots fired in Munich
Video -- A gunman is seen outside a McDonald's in Munich, Germany, on July 22, 2016, in this image taken from video posted to Twitter.
Play VIDEO -- Witness describes scene as shooter left mall in Munich
Play VIDEO -- Munich shooting rampage witness
Play VIDEO -- Witness to Munich attack describes shooting


Last Updated Jul 23, 2016 1:33 PM EDT

MUNICH -- The 18-year-old gunman who opened fire at a crowded Munich shopping mall and fast-food restaurant, killing nine people and wounding 16 others before killing himself, was obsessed with mass shootings, police said Saturday.

Investigators searched the home of the German-Iranian man, who officials identified as David Sonboly, overnight and found a considerable amount of literature about mass killings, including a book titled "Rampage in Head: Why Students Kill," but no evidence that he was linked to extremist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. They believe he acted alone.

"Documents were found about mass shootings," Munich's police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters. "The perpetrator was obviously obsessed with the issue."

Robert Heimberger, the head of Bavaria's criminal police, said it appeared the shooter had hacked a Facebook account and sent a message inviting people to come to the mall for a free giveaway.

The posting, sent from a young woman's account, urged people to come to the mall at 4 p.m., saying: "I'll give you something if you want, but not too expensive."

"It appears it was prepared by the suspect and then sent out," Heimberger said. The woman shortly after reported that her account had been hacked.

Initial investigations suggest the Munich-born suspect had suffered from psychological problems and received treatment, but details were still being confirmed, said Munich prosecutor Thomas Steinkraus-Koch.

The attack in the Bavarian capital sparked a massive security operation as authorities - already on edge after the recent attacks in Wuerzburg and Nice, France - received witness reports of multiple shooters carrying rifles shortly before 6 p.m. Eight hours later police declared a "cautious all clear," saying the suspect was among the 10 dead and that he had likely acted alone.

"We got one of the most critical injured patients," Dr. Peter Biberthaler, head of the trauma department at Rechts der Isar Hospital, told CBS News correspondent Seth Doane. "We tried to stop the bleeding, but the bleeding was not the problem. In this case, the traumatic brain injury was the problem because there were several bullets right into the brain."

His patient did not survive.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was due to chair a meeting of her government's security Cabinet Saturday.

At an address on Dachauer Strasse that was searched by police early Saturday, a neighbor described the suspect as "very quiet."

"He only ever said 'hi'. His whole body language was of somebody who was very shy," said Stephan, a coffee shop owner who would only give his first name.

"He never came in to the cafe," he added. "He was just a neighbor and took out the trash but never talked."

Some 2,300 police from across Germany and neighboring Austria were scrambled in response to the attack, which happened less than a week after a 17-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker wounded five people in an ax-and-knife rampage that started on a regional train near the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg. ISIS claimed responsibility for the train attack, but authorities have said the teen - who was shot and killed by police - likely acted alone.

The suspect's body was found about 2 1/2 hours after the attack, which started at a McDonald's restaurant across the street from the mall. He was found with 9mm Glock pistol and at least 300 rounds of ammunition, police said.

A cellphone video posted online showed the person filming from a balcony engaging verbally with the suspect dressed in black standing on the rooftop of the mall parking structure. The shooter at one point yells, "I'm German," to which the filmer responds, "You are a jerk," and demands to know what he is up to. The shooter yells at him to stop filming, and shortly after begins shooting. Andrae said police believe the video is genuine.

Police have asked anyone with video and photos to upload them directly to their website to aid the investigation.

David Akhavan, a 37-year-old who from Tehran, Iran, who works at the Shandiz Persian restaurant, described his anguish as he learned of the shooting.

"I started to get texts from friends asking if I was safe," he said. "Then, my thoughts were: please, don't be a Muslim. Please don't be Middle Eastern. Please don't be Afghan. I don't accept any of this violence."

Witnesses had reported seeing three men with firearms near the Olympia Einkaufszentrum mall, but Andrae said two other people who fled the area were investigated but had "nothing to do with the incident."

Local residents described the scene as the shooting unfolded.

"I was standing on the balcony smoking a cigarette. Suddenly I heard shots," said Ferdinand Bozorgzad, who lives in a high-rise building next to Olympic Shopping Center. "First I thought someone had thrown some firecrackers. I looked down at the McDonald's and saw someone shooting into the crowd. Then I saw two people lying there."

Franco Augustini, another local resident, said his daughter hid in the shopping center during the attack.

"Next to our flat was a woman who was full of blood," Augustini said. "My wife had a bottle of water. Then we helped to wash her. It was horrible and made me speechless."

Andrae, the police chief, said seven of the victims were teenagers; a 20-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman were also killed. All were residents of Munich, he said. Twenty-seven people were hospitalized, including four with gunshot wounds, said Andrae.

He said the city was safe to visit and that the attack wasn't linked in any way to the recent influx of asylum-seekers that has stirred a debate about immigration in Germany,

Munich's mayor, Dieter Reiter, declared a day of mourning for the victims of "this terrible act."

"These are difficult hours for Munich," he said, adding that the city's citizens had shown great solidarity toward each other. "Our city stands united," he said.



Excerpt -- “Investigators searched the home of the German-Iranian man, who officials identified as David Sonboly, overnight and found a considerable amount of literature about mass killings, including a book titled "Rampage in Head: Why Students Kill," but no evidence that he was linked to extremist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. They believe he acted alone. "Documents were found about mass shootings," Munich's police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters. "The perpetrator was obviously obsessed with the issue." Robert Heimberger, the head of Bavaria's criminal police, said it appeared the shooter had hacked a Facebook account and sent a message inviting people to come to the mall for a free giveaway.”


This does sound like a classic “copy cat” killer. He was fascinated with serial killings, and his apartment showed no signs of ISIS connections. He was Islamic, but not the same in his turn of mind as the others over the past two or more years. Of course more information may turn up soon which changes that view. Copy cats see on the news how police and the public go into high gear searching for a killer and realize that they can release their anger in the same way, and get lots and lots of personal attention. Almost always they are killed by the police. That’s the other often named pattern “suicide by cop.” This man may have been treated disrespectfully as a foreign, because before shooting he shouted from the rooftop “I’m German!”



BLACK AND WHITE


https://www.yahoo.com/gma/austin-police-chief-sickened-saddened-arrest-breaion-king-212105552--abc-news-topstories.html#

Austin Police Chief ‘Sickened and Saddened’ at Arrest of Breaion King
AVIANNE TAN,Good Morning America
July 23, 2016

Related: Therapist Shot by Cop in Florida Is a 'Hero,' Boss Says'
Video of Deadly Police-Involved Shooting in Houston Released
Minnesota Officer Who Fatally Shot Philando Castile Had an Interaction With Him in 2011, Records Show


Two Austin Police Department officers are now under investigation after dash-cam video shows one of the officers throwing a black woman to the ground during a traffic stop. A second video taken from inside the police car after the woman was arrested shows another officer suggesting to the woman that black people have "violent tendencies" and that’s "why a lot of white people are afraid of them."

Although the incident occurred in June 2015, Austin's police chief Art Acevedo said that it only came to his attention on Tuesday, when Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg called him and advised him that a reporter from the Austin American-Statesman was working on a story on the incident.

Video from the traffic stop, publicly released by police today, shows the woman, identified by police as 26-year-old Breaion King, stepping out of her car. An officer, identified as Austin officer Bryan Richter, then commands her to get back in her vehicle.

"Okay ma’am you’re being pulled over right now, so I need you to take a seat back in the car," Richter says.

“Are you serious?” King responds.

“Yes, ma’am, I’m not joking,” Richter replies. King appears to go back into her car, leaving the driver's door open.

Richter then tells King he needs to see her driver’s license and explains that she was stopped for speeding. He then asks her to put her feet in the car.

King asks Richter if he can "please hurry up," and Richter then tells her to "stand up" and he appears to try to pull her out of her car.

King starts screaming and says, “No! Why are you doing this to me? Oh my God!"

Richter tells her to "stop resisting" and an altercation ensues. He then yells, "Get out of the car!"

King responds, "I’m getting out, let me get out. Do not touch me."

Richter appears to forcibly pull King up and throw her down to the ground. On the ground, King yells, “Oh my God!” and Richter tells her she was "resisting."

Richter then appears to struggle handcuffing King, who asks him, "Why are you doing this to me?"

King attempts to stand up but Richter throws her back down to the ground before handcuffing her and escorting her into the police car.

On a different piece of video, inside the police car, King seems to calmly converse with another officer identified by police as Austin police officer Patrick Spradlin.

He asks King if she believes racism goes both ways, and she says, "I do," but "I believe that the Caucasian class has more supremacy over black people, just to be honest. They have more rights." She adds that a lot of people are “afraid of black people."

Spradlin then asks her why she thinks a lot of people are afraid of black people, and King replies, "That's what I want to clear out."

Spradlin then says, "I can give you a really good idea why it might be that way -- violent tendencies. And I want you to think about that. I'm not saying anything. I'm not saying it's true. I'm not saying I can prove it or nothing. But 99 percent of the time, when you hear about stuff like that, it's the black community that's being violent. That's why the white people are afraid, and I don't blame them."

He later adds, "By no means am I saying that there is no racism, because I know there is and everybody knows there is. Black people tend to be violent and that’s why a lot of white people are afraid, and I don’t blame them."

According to the police report, obtained by ABC affiliate KVUE, Richter wrote that he acted quickly because he "was increasingly concerned with King's "uncooperative attitude." He added that King "began reaching for the front passenger side of the vehicle." He noted that he was unaware if there was a weapon in the vehicle and that King resisted by pulling her arms away from him and wrapping “her hands and arms around the steering wheel.”

King told KVUE on Thursday that she was "genuinely fearful" for her life during the incident and that she "literally didn't understand what was happening."

She added that she wanted something done and that she had "become afraid of the people who are supposed to protect me and take care of me."

"If you’ve wronged someone and you haven’t been reprimanded, then how do you know that you’re wrong?” King asked.

At a news conference evening, Acevedo said his "heart was sickened and saddened" when he first learned about the two videos.

"First and foremost, let me just say this to Breaion King, her family, her friends, her neighbors, her supporters: 'I’m sorry that on the day that you were stopped for going 15 mph [above the speed limit], you were approached in a manner and then treated in a manner that is not consistent with the expectations of this police chief," Acevedo said. "There’s a way to do this job, and that day, we did not approach it anywhere near the way we should’ve approached it."

Acevedo said that "the chain of command" who reviewed Richter's use of force in the incident determined that "the incident was not consistent with the expectations of the department." Richter was told to attend training and counseling.

The chief added that the incident was never brought to his attention nor the attention of other executive members of the department and that an administrative inquiry has now been launched "into the chain of command decision-making process."

As for the second video showing Spradlin suggesting to King that black people have "violent tendencies," Acevedo claimed that the no one in the department had ever uncovered that video before until the District Attorney's Office brought it to the department's attention.

When asked by a reporter at the news conference if he thought Spradlin's comments were "racist," Acevedo replied, "Yes."

"This is not, I believe, reflective of the quality of this organization that we run," he said. "I want you to listen to that conversation and tell me that we don’t have social issues in this nation, issues of violence, issues of racism, issues of people being looked at differently because of their color."

The police chief said that his department has opened investigations into the incident and into the conduct of Richter and Spradlin. He added that both have been placed on paid administrative leave.

Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg has also requested the Austin Police Department's Special Investigations Unit to "conduct a criminal investigation of the arresting officer’s actions that are well documented on that video," so she can decide whether or not to present the case to a grand jury and decide whether Richter's conduct rises to a criminal offense," Acevedo said. He added that Lehmberg's office has since dropped the charges of resisting arrest against King.

King told ABC affiliate KVUE today that she appreciated the chief's public apology and that she believed what happened to her "is an opportunity to make things better and to change things for the better."

An Austin Police Department public information officer referred ABC News' questions today to the Austin Police Association.

A representative from the Austin Police Association told ABC News it was not immediately clear if Richter and Spradlin "have obtained outside council but all officers are represented by the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas (CLEAT).

CLEAT did not immediately respond to ABC News' requests for information. The Travis County District Attorney's Office also did not immediately respond to ABC News' requests for additional information and comment.

The Austin Police Association's vice president, Anthony Nelson, added in a statement to ABC News that the association understood "the public’s reaction to Officer Richter’s response to resistance" and that the association believed "Officer Spradlin’s comments were wrong and not reflective of the values and beliefs of the men and women who serve this community."

"We recognize how incidents such as these can divide our city and cause mistrust," Nelson added. "We have met with community stakeholders and begun a dialogue. We hope that the conversation will lead to substantive changes that will help bridge that divide."


Excerpt -- “At a news conference evening, Acevedo said his "heart was sickened and saddened" when he first learned about the two videos. "First and foremost, let me just say this to Breaion King, her family, her friends, her neighbors, her supporters: 'I’m sorry that on the day that you were stopped for going 15 mph [above the speed limit], you were approached in a manner and then treated in a manner that is not consistent with the expectations of this police chief," Acevedo said. "There’s a way to do this job, and that day, we did not approach it anywhere near the way we should’ve approached it." …. The chief added that the incident was never brought to his attention nor the attention of other executive members of the department and that an administrative inquiry has now been launched "into the chain of command decision-making process." As for the second video showing Spradlin suggesting to King that black people have "violent tendencies," Acevedo claimed that the no one in the department had ever uncovered that video before until the District Attorney's Office brought it to the department's attention. When asked by a reporter at the news conference if he thought Spradlin's comments were "racist," Acevedo replied, "Yes." …. The police chief said that his department has opened investigations into the incident and into the conduct of Richter and Spradlin. He added that both have been placed on paid administrative leave. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg has also requested the Austin Police Department's Special Investigations Unit to "conduct a criminal investigation of the arresting officer’s actions that are well documented on that video," so she can decide whether or not to present the case to a grand jury and decide whether Richter's conduct rises to a criminal offense," Acevedo said. He added that Lehmberg's office has since dropped the charges of resisting arrest against King. King told ABC affiliate KVUE today that she appreciated the chief's public apology and that she believed what happened to her "is an opportunity to make things better and to change things for the better."


Police departments across the whole country need to follow procedures more like this one, especially since though he showed violence, he didn’t pull out his gun and shoot her. This case is disgusting, but not as severe as the average bad reaction on the part of a police officer which ends in an unarmed Black man being shot.

I am delighted to see that the Chief has taken a firm stance on initiating the investigation. He STILL treated the men very gently, however, in that he gave them Admin Leave WITH PAY. There’s not much of a penalty here. Firing, demotion, reduction in pay scale, leave without pay would be more of a deterrent for future behavior of the kind by this officer and by others on the force. If officers come to believe that they will lose money, status or worse, they will be less likely to behave stupidly and maliciously. And for all that “I feared for my life” stuff (in this case it’s “I didn’t know if she had a weapon,”), he grabbed her and pulled her forcibly out. That was done in anger, and was totally inappropriate. He gives no excuse at all for throwing her bodily on the ground twice. What was his rationale for that?


SOME GOOD COP NEWS


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/07/21/we-were-promised-a-riot-in-cleveland-we-got-a-block-party-instead/

Arts and Entertainment
We were promised a riot. In Cleveland, we got a block party instead.
By Dan Zak
July 21, 2016

Photograph -- Officers pose for photos with Cleveland residents George Fossett and saxophonist Brittany Atterberry outside the Quicken Loans Arena on the last day of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Video -- Is the country safe? Trump supporters, protesters answer Play Video2:36
As Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters gathered in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention, both looked for answers on whether the country is safe or not. (Alice Li, Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)
Photograph -- Brigid Hopkins of Love on Legs, right, who was offering free hugs for passersby, paused to pet a hedgehog as protesters walked by near Public Square during the Republican National Convention on Wednesday in Cleveland. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Related: [The most baffling (but eye-catching!) Trump protest we’ve seen this week]
[Capitalism vs. communism on the streets of Cleveland]
[Cleveland police chief is ready to roll and keeping his cool]
Photograph -- Zarrea Ecols, 4, of Cleveland waves to police as she walks up E. Fourth Street with her grandfather Dontez Lofton, near Quicken Loans Arena during the final day of the Republican National Convention on Thursday. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Photograph -- Police play a game of Ping-Pong near where groups are demonstrating near the Republican National Convention on the last day of the convention in Cleveland. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)


CLEVELAND — Brittany Atterberry was walking down East Fourth Street in her hometown when she encountered a visiting Trump supporter on his guitar. So she unsheathed her soprano sax, fixed a microphone on its bell, and jumped into the blues with him. Then Atterberry’s brother George Fossett, who was holding an END RACISM sign, started dancing with a bare-chested Biker for Trump.

It was a tableau of can’t-we-all-just-get-along, mere blocks from the site of the fractious Republican National Convention, where each night politicians have done their best to make Americans afraid of each other.

Said the guitarist, Kraig Moss, 57, of his fellow musician: “The Lord sent her right down here.”

Said Atterberry, 25, a professional saxophonist who describes herself as anti-war: “Music is something that you feel. You can’t overthink it, like with voting.”

Said Daryl Rembowski, the Biker for Trump: “The silent majority is showing you we can [get along]. We’ve seen it all week.”

Said Fossett, his dance partner and fellow Cleveland resident: “Stop all the white against black, black against white. It’s all about love. This is what Cleveland is about. This is what the world should be about.”

What happened to the tear gas? The cars on fire? The cops digging their knees into people’s necks? Wasn’t Cleveland supposed to explode right alongside the GOP and its volatile nominee?

Instead this week, Cleveland trolleys feature a digital readout that says “SMILE AND RIDE FREE.” Instead, conventioneers have been taking photos with the cops they run into from their own hometowns. Instead, activists are giving out free burritos, and professional cuddlers are giving free hugs.

“We just keeping hearing ‘you’re a breath of fresh air,'” said Brigid Hopkins of the groups Love on Legs and Cleveland Cuddlers, which is exactly what it sounds like. She wore a pink T-shirt that says FREE HUGS in the crowded pedestrian corridor of East Fourth Street, where conservatives and progressives are forced into intimate proximity. “Excuse me,” said a shaggy drug-policy activist to a manicured woman in sequined cowboy boots who responds, “You’re fine, honey.”

The city was edgy with anticipation earlier this week, and some people are spoiling for a fight. But if you avoid the small spectacles of religious extremists and combative revolutionaries — which draw all the cameras and onlookers — you’ll see general comity. It might be because the feds urged protesters not to come, or because Cleveland is basically a police state this week (a fact muddled by the good weather and handsome architecture of downtown).

Or it might just be because of the city itself, with its Midwest homey-ness, its Rust-Belt fortitude, the soothing breeze off Lake Erie.

“We’ve been downtrodden for so long that we’re happy for someone to notice us,” said Cleveland native Roseanne Maloney, a staunch liberal Democrat who’s nevertheless volunteering for the city’s RNC host committee. “We are not without strife [but] I’m proud of my city and wanted to be a part of this.”

In the past two years, Cleveland has ridden high and sunk low. The city is still buzzed from the Cavaliers’ NBA championship last month. But look closely at some political T-shirts here, and you’ll see — in campaign-style font — not TRUMP but TAMIR, in tribute to the 12-year-old Cleveland boy who was killed by police in 2014.

This week, the police have been unflinching in their niceness, at least from this reporter’s observations. When they walk in groups down East Fourth Street, sidewalk diners stand and applaud. Florida highway patrolmen joke with residents about how the Miami Heat remains superior to the Cavs. On the edge of Public Square, mounted police officers from Texas smiled pleasantly as a protester tried to goad them with a sign that said LICK MY TAINT, FASCIST PIGS.

“It’s been calm — it’s been nice, actually,” said a policeman in gray from Worcester, Mass. “If it stays like this, it’s going to be a fun week.” There were 23 convention-related arrests by Thursday evening, compared with just two at the 2012 GOP convention in Tampa (according to Cleveland.com), but nearly all were for the rather demure infraction “failure to disperse.”

Everyone has a right to be on edge: cops after Dallas, street revelers after Nice, minorities after yet another shooting of an unarmed black man, on Monday, this time in North Miami. But as the convention approached its climax Thursday, everyone seemed to be reveling in the good vibes, and also knocking on wood.

Ben Terris contributed to this report.


Excerpt -- “Said Atterberry, 25, a professional saxophonist who describes herself as anti-war: “Music is something that you feel. You can’t overthink it, like with voting.” Said Daryl Rembowski, the Biker for Trump: “The silent majority is showing you we can [get along]. We’ve seen it all week.” Said Fossett, his dance partner and fellow Cleveland resident: “Stop all the white against black, black against white. It’s all about love. This is what Cleveland is about. This is what the world should be about.” …. But look closely at some political T-shirts here, and you’ll see — in campaign-style font — not TRUMP but TAMIR, in tribute to the 12-year-old Cleveland boy who was killed by police in 2014. This week, the police have been unflinching in their niceness, at least from this reporter’s observations. When they walk in groups down East Fourth Street, sidewalk diners stand and applaud. Florida highway patrolmen joke with residents about how the Miami Heat remains superior to the Cavs. On the edge of Public Square, mounted police officers from Texas smiled pleasantly as a protester tried to goad them with a sign that said LICK MY TAINT, FASCIST PIGS. …. There were 23 convention-related arrests by Thursday evening, compared with just two at the 2012 GOP convention in Tampa (according to Cleveland.com), but nearly all were for the rather demure infraction “failure to disperse.”


According to the reporter, the police in Cleveland have been persistently nice rather than ill-natured and aggressive. That seems to help the whole atmosphere to be positive and cooperative. I think we would have fewer shootings if the de-escalation training were mandatory for all officers to undergo every year or so. Pay raises and promotions for officers who do succeed in the respectful and gentler type of policing might also make a great difference. Most good dog trainers use NO physical or otherwise harsh punishment – just patient repetition and treats when the animal does the correct thing. As for the crowd, the Fascist Pig sign was the worst provocation mentioned, except for the “failure to disperse” arrests. For officers to be respectful to the public would go a long way to mending community relations, which would then make their job much easier and more pleasant. One of the real problems with police interactions is that they too often show a very thin skinned demand for total obedience and respect which includes furious behavior if they feel they are being challenged.

There have been several stories of a mentally challenged or even deaf person “failing to obey orders” fast enough to please the cop, with tragic results. I think that is exactly what happened in the Texas case above. When I read two versions of the story I found that the teacher dared to made an implied criticism of the cop when she asked him could he please hurry (she was on her lunch break). At that point he snapped and pulled her out of the car by her arm. Then he pointlessly threw her to the ground and more. Even without a gun, that is assault and battery -- a crime.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-introduces-vp-pick-tim-kaine-at-first-joint-campaign-event/

Clinton introduces VP pick Tim Kaine at first joint campaign event
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
July 23, 2016, 1:21 PM

Photograph -- 2016-07-23t172703z543532518ht1ec7n1cg7ukrtrmadp3usa-election-clinton.jpg,
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton arrives on stage to name U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) as her vice presidential running mate during a campaign rally in Miami, Florida, U.S. July 23, 2016. REUTERS


In their first appearance as running mates, Hillary Clinton introduced her vice presidential pick, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, at a Miami event Saturday.

Taking the stage before Kaine, Clinton began by slamming this week's recently adjourned Republican National Convention, where she said she saw GOP nominee Donald Trump stoke "the fear and the anger and the resentment" of Americans.

Contrasting the Democrats' upcoming national convention, Clinton said, "next week in Philadelphia, we will offer a very different vision for our country -- one that is about building bridges, not walls, and embracing the diversity that makes our country great."

Introducing Kaine, she added that her vice presidential pick was "a man who doesn't just share those values, he lives them."

"Sen. Tim Kaine is everything Donald Trump and Mike Pence are not," Clinton said. "He is qualified to step into this job and lead on day one. He is a progressive who likes to get things done."

Clinton ticked off a list of their commonalities -- growing up in the Midwest with fathers who ran small businesses -- before giving the podium up to Kaine.

"I'm feeling a lot of things today," Kaine said after Clinton's introduction. "Most of all gratitude. I'm grateful to you, Hillary, for the trust you've placed in me."

Kaine, who speaks fluent Spanish, said the two were "compañeros de alma in this great lucha ahead" -- "soul mates in this great fight ahead."

Clinton first announced her choice in a text message to her supporters Friday evening.

"I'm thrilled to tell you this first: I've chosen Sen. Tim Kaine as my running mate," Clinton wrote.

Kaine acknowledged the news in a tweet, saying he was "honored" to be Clinton's No. 2.

Follow
Senator Tim Kaine ✔ @timkaine
Just got off the phone with Hillary. I’m honored to be her running mate. Can’t wait to hit the trail tomorrow in Miami!
8:39 PM - 22 Jul 2016
12,312 12,312 Retweets 29,937 29,937 likes
The pick was praised across the aisle.

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican, tweeted out his congratulations to his Senate colleague, calling the Virginia Democrat a "good man and a good friend."

Follow
Jeff Flake ✔ @JeffFlake
Trying to count the ways I hate @timkaine. Drawing a blank. Congrats to a good man and a good friend.
8:59 PM - 22 Jul 2016
4,940 4,940 Retweets 11,130 11,130 likes

And in a fundraising email blasted out Saturday, President Obama also praised Kaine for his legislative and executive track record.

"Like Hillary, Tim is an optimist," Mr. Obama wrote. "But like Hillary, he is also a progressive fighter."

But there was one person unhappy with Clinton's choice: Republican nominee Donald Trump, who tweeted up a storm against Kaine Saturday morning, charging that the Virginian was "owned by the banks" and slamming Kaine's previous praise for the Obama-backed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
The Bernie Sanders supporters are furious with the choice of Tim Kaine, who represents the opposite of what Bernie stands for. Philly fight?
6:31 AM - 23 Jul 2016
5,683 5,683 Retweets 17,718 17,718 likes
Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Tim Kaine is, and always has been, owned by the banks. Bernie supporters are outraged, was their last choice. Bernie fought for nothing!
6:35 AM - 23 Jul 2016
7,524 7,524 Retweets 19,812 19,812 likes
Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Tim Kaine has been praising the Trans Pacific Partnership and has been pushing hard to get it approved. Job killer!
11:36 AM - 23 Jul 2016
4,676 4,676 Retweets 12,778 12,778 likes
Trump has repeatedly called the TPP trade deal a "rape" of the United States economy.

His own running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, was a strong backer of TPP while serving in Congress.



I will only make one statement about the fact that she didn’t even CONSIDER Sanders for VP. As Trump’s rates keep rising, and hers are falling, I don’t understand her move. The article on Kaine below seems to show a capable and good person, but the DNC has been out of line in the way it has handled the whole thing since Sanders entered the race. They’re making enemies within their own party in order, apparently, to court those farther to the right. Foolish, in my opinion. Those people are never going to vote for her.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/5-things-to-know-about-clinton-veep-pick-tim-kaine/

5 things to know about Clinton veep pick Tim Kaine
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS
July 23, 2016, 11:44 AM

The veep pick is in for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who announced Friday evening that Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine will be joining her on the general election ticket.

Clinton will appear with Kaine, the Harvard-educated lawyer and career politician from Virginia, during a Miami event Saturday.

Here are five important things to know about Kaine before the November election:

He's never lost an election
Over a long political career, Kaine has never lost an election against his opponents.

He was first elected to the city council of Richmond, Virginia, in 1994, later serving as mayor from 1998 to 2001.

He served as Virginia's lieutenant governor from 2002 to 2006, then was elected governor from 2006 to 2010, taking over the executive office after a close race with the state's former attorney general.

In 2006, Kaine was exposed to the national political spotlight when he gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush's State of the Union address. And from 2009 to 2011, Kaine served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012.

Here's where he stands on the issues
As Virginia's governor during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, Kaine cut taxes, maintained Virginia's business-friendly climate and expanded early childhood programs.

Kaine is personally opposed to abortion as a Catholic, but when it comes to legislating and governing, he has a strong pro-abortion-rights track record in Virginia, with Planned Parenthood and NARAL giving him perfect scores as a senator.

When he launched a bid for the U.S. Senate, Kaine ran with a focus on immigration reform and supported President Obama's executive actions for undocumented immigrants (recently ruled null by a Supreme Court decision).

Kaine was the governor during the deadly Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, which took the lives of 32 people. After the violence, Kaine shined a spotlight on mental health issues in Virginia and boosted investment in the state's mental health programs.

Kaine also hunkered down on tightening gun control measures after news reports surfaced that the Virginia tech shooter passed a federal background check to buy firearms despite his mental illness record. In 2007, he issued an executive order closing a background check loophole and banning people from buying guns who had undergone involuntary mental health treatment.

In a fundraising email Saturday morning, Mr. Obama praised Kaine's liberal record.

"Like Hillary, Tim is an optimist," the president wrote. "But like Hillary, he is also a progressive fighter."

He makes political sense
That Kaine hails from Virginia could help boost Clinton's standing in the perennial swing state, even if the senator's approval ratings aren't particularly high (though they are significantly higher than his disapproval ratings).

Kaine, the son of a welder raised in Kansas, is also expected to hold some appeal with a demographic Clinton currently struggles with: white men. Recent CBS News polling showed Clinton's rival Donald Trump leading among white voters (Trump was at 43 percent to Clinton's 37 percent last month) and male voters (Trump had 45 percent to Clinton's 37 percent). Among white males, Trump led by double digits: 51 percent to Clinton's 31 percent.

And because the Virginia senator speaks fluent Spanish, Kaine could also draw in Latino voters. His fluency comes in part from when he took time off from Harvard Law School to do missionary work in Honduras, and he's put his language skills to use in his political career. In 2012, Kaine became the first U.S. senator to deliver a speech entirely in Spanish from the Senate floor. Kaine's faith could also be another pull for faith-minded voters to the Democratic ticket.

He hasn't always been #WithHer
In the Clinton vs. Obama race for the White House in 2008, Kaine was one of Barack Obama's first backers.

"Sen. Obama is just in a completely different category than anybody I've ever stood on a stage with," Kaine said in a January 2007 interview with the Washington Post. "There is just a feeling of, you know, kind of a projection of hope on him from an audience that is just unreal. It's unreal." He gave then-candidate Obama his endorsement just a month later and was later on Obama's shortlist for the vice presidential gig.

Still, since that election, Kaine has been a loyal Clinton booster as early as 2014, when he said the former secretary of state should be the next person in the White House. Kaine has since worked for the Ready for Hillary political action committee, and after Clinton officially launched her presidential bid, he campaigned with her during several events in Virginia.

He's boring

Those are his words: "I am boring," Kaine told NBC's "Meet the Press" about a month before the veep announcement was made. "But boring is the fastest-growing demographic in this country."

Just because he's boring doesn't mean Kaine doesn't have some hidden talents.

Kaine plays the harmonica and also sings in a church choir.

Here's a sampling of his musical talents, rocking out with Washington, D.C.'s 19th Street Band on St. Patrick's Day:

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) will appear on "60 Minutes" in their first joint interview. Scott Pelley will conduct the interview, which will be broadcast Sunday, July 24 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.



http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/tim-kaine-effect-what-does-hillary-clintons-vp-pick-bring-race

ELECTION 2016
The Tim Kaine Effect: What does Hillary Clinton’s VP pick bring to the race?
Yes, the Virginia Senator was seen as the safe pick, but he represents a big bet on one issue: competence.
By Simon Maloy / Salon July 23, 2016


It’s official: Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate is Tim Kaine. The New York Times reported the news late thus evening, citing a senior campaign official. The Virginia senator had reportedly been Clinton’s top pick going down the stretch, and he’s long been viewed as the “safe” pick for Hillary: he’s a relatively moderate middle-aged white guy from a swing state and he speaks Spanish. Kaine reportedly narrowly missed out on being Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008, but now he’s finally made it to the big stage.

So what does Kaine bring to the ticket? Well, he has a ton of experience in politics and elected office having served Virginia as senator, governor, and lieutenant governor. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee a few years back and has a close political relationship with Barack Obama, who nearly picked Kaine as his own running mate back in 2008. And he hails from a swing state, which theoretically should help nudge Virginia’s electoral votes into Hillary’s column.

What Kaine doesn’t do is excite the Democratic Party’s restive liberal base. Kaine isn’t a gormless moderate in the Evan Bayh model, but he’s certainly not the first choice of progressive activists who had hoped that Bernie Sanders’ vigorous challenge to Hillary in the primaries would have impelled her to pick a more left-wing running mate. His record on abortion issues is a bit muddled (Kaine supports pro-choice policies even though he describes himself as “personally” opposed to abortion) and he recently irked progressives by signing two letters supporting deregulation of large and small banks. Kaine also favors expanded U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war, which dovetails with Clinton’s call to establish a no-fly zone over the war-torn nation.

At the same time, Kaine does have a record of progressive activism he can draw from. As Mother Jones’ Patrick Caldwell wrote in his recent profile of Kaine, the senator is “driven by the gospel of social justice” and spent his pre-political career as a civil rights attorney fighting against housing discrimination in Richmond. He did missionary work in Honduras and he provided legal representation to death-row inmates. Even still, he’s not going excite the party’s left wing in the way that Elizabeth Warren or Sherrod Brown would have.

In fact, would-be vice president Kaine isn’t really going to excite anyone. He’s not an ideologue, and he’s certainly not an attack dog – Kaine tried taking a few swipes at Donald Trump last week, and the meanest thing he could come up with was to call Trump a “trash talker.” He’s an unassuming and quietly accomplished public official. By selecting Kaine, Hillary is making it clear that her overriding priority is projecting an image of competence.


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gormless

gormless (adj.) Look up gormless at Dictionary.com
c. 1746, also in early use gaumless, gawmless, "wanting sense, stupid," a British dialectal word, from gome "notice, understanding" (c. 1200), from Old Norse gaumr "care, heed" (of unknown origin); + -less.



http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/798471/delegates-clinton-vp-pick-solid-may-not-help-dem-unity

Associated Press
July 23rd, 2016 12:45 PM

Photograph --
READ: Hillary Clinton chooses Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as running mate
READ: Trump and Clinton looking for different things in a VP


WASHINGTON — Delegates to the Democratic National Convention gave mostly positive reviews to Hillary Clinton’s choice for vice president Friday, saying he will appeal to moderates but also do little to soothe disenchanted Bernie Sanders supporters.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine received praise for his wide-ranging experience, even as many delegates acknowledged that he would not generate the level of enthusiasm or party unity as a progressive or first-ever Latino pick. Sanders delegates in particular hoped for the selection of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who aligns more closely with Sanders on positions such as regulating Wall Street.

“People are going to discount Tim Kaine, and have in the past, and it’s going to be a lot more exciting than maybe what Bernie Sanders delegates will think,” said Katie Naranjo, a Clinton superdelegate from Austin, Texas. She said that while Kaine may seem like a “conventional choice,” he will balance the ticket well for the general election.

Delegates were heading to Philadelphia for the convention starting Monday, with those who support Sanders indicating uncertainty about embracing a Clinton ticket. Sanders endorsed Clinton last week.

It “was a horrible pick,” said Angie Morelli, a Sanders delegate from Nevada. “In a time when she is trying to cater to Sanders supporters, it was more catering to conservative voters and she’s not going to get any wave from it.” She said she’s bothered by Kaine’s association with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global trade pact that Sanders and Clinton oppose.

Dwight Bullard, a Florida state senator, said not one of the 70-plus Sanders delegates in his state including himself is happy with Kaine’s selection. He worried that the centrist choice could magnify progressives’ view that Clinton will backtrack on issues important to them, such as climate change and tuition aid for college students.

“If you bring in someone with great credentials, that’s fine, but inclusivity of the progressive agenda can be a more important message,” Bullard said.

Sanders delegates were mulling ways to show support for Sanders during the convention, such as a walkout after the roll call of states Tuesday, according to excerpts of a Slack thread Friday obtained by The Associated Press. But many others also said they wanted to get direction from Sanders, who was scheduled to meet privately with his delegates Monday.

“Delegates are intensely discussing and considering options,” said Norman Solomon, a San Francisco delegate who called Kaine’s selection “unacceptable.” Solomon leads the Bernie Delegates Network, a loose organization of more than 1,200 delegates.

Clinton settled on Kaine after vetting a diverse group of candidates that included Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and Labor Secretary Tom Perez. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, one of two black senators, was also considered.

Clinton delegate Roger Salazar of California said he was rooting for Clinton to select Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Hispanic and one of the most powerful Democrats in the House. But Salazar, a longtime party strategist, called Kaine “a pretty solid choice.”

Jocelyn Bucaro, an Ohio superdelegate and Clinton supporter, praised Kaine as someone who will appeal to a broad range of voters in swing states, even Republicans uncomfortable with Trump.

“The most important consideration is his ability to step in as president, and he clearly has the experience, knowledge, intelligence and temperament to do that,” Bucaro said.

Read more: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/798471/delegates-clinton-vp-pick-solid-may-not-help-dem-unity#ixzz4FHrCJLv3
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AFTER WIKILEAKS
Sunday, July 24, 2016


http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/

DNC treatment of Sanders at issue in emails leaked to Wikileaks
By Theodore Schleifer and Eugene Scott, CNN
Updated 8:39 PM ET, Sat July 23, 2016

New Video – Clinton/Sanders acceptance speech.
Sneak preview -- Story highlights, Nearly 20,000 emails sent and received by DNC staff members were released Friday by Wikileaks. The revelation threatened to shatter the uneasy peace between the Clinton and Sanders camps and supporters


(CNN)Nearly 20,000 emails sent and received by Democratic National Committee staff members were released Friday by Wikileaks, and some messages are raising questions about the committee's impartiality during the Democratic primary.

One email appears to show DNC staffers asking how they can reference Sanders' faith to weaken him in the eyes of Southern voters. Another seems to depict an attorney advising the committee on how to defend Clinton against an accusation by the Sanders campaign of not living up to a joint fundraising agreement.

The revelation threatened to shatter the uneasy peace between the Clinton and Sanders camps and supporters days before the Democratic convention kicks off next week.

The leaks, from January 2015 to May 2016, feature Democratic staffers debating everything from how to deal with challenging media requests to coordinating the committee's message with other powerful interests in Washington.

The emails were leaked from the accounts of seven DNC officials, Wikileaks said. CNN has not independently established the emails' authenticity.

One email features DNC staffers appearing to ponder ways to undercut Sanders, an insurgent Democrat who had a bitter relationship with party leadership. Sanders supporters charged that the DNC was biased toward Clinton, and Sanders late in the primary endorsed DNC chair Debbie Wassserman Schultz's primary opponent in her Florida congressional race.

On May 5, a DNC employee asked colleagues to "get someone to ask his belief" in God and suggested that it could make a difference in Kentucky and West Virginia. Sanders' name is not mentioned in the note.

"This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist," DNC chief financial officer Brad Marshall wrote.

Marshall did not respond to a request for comment. But Baltimore mayor and DNC Secretary Stephanie Rawlings-Blake denied any suggestion that Clinton's camp was treated more favorably by the committee.

"My expectation is beyond your opinion about a candidate, that you act evenly. All of the officers took a pledge of neutrality and I honored that, and I take that very seriously," Rawlings-Blake told CNN's Poppy Harlow. She added, "I know that the chair will hold those employees accountable if they're found to have acted outside of that neutrality and even-handedness."

Republican nominee Donald Trump, however, said the emails were proof of the Democrats' "rigged" system, resurfacing an attack he's leveled against the party before.

"Leaked e-mails of DNC show plans to destroy Bernie Sanders. Mock his heritage and much more. On-line from Wikileakes, really vicious. RIGGED," Trump tweeted Saturday morning.


Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Leaked e-mails of DNC show plans to destroy Bernie Sanders. Mock his heritage and much more. On-line from Wikileakes, really vicious. RIGGED
6:55 AM - 23 Jul 2016
20,449 20,449 Retweets 41,438 41,438 likes


In another email, an attorney appears to advise the DNC on how to respond to a dispute between the two campaigns over how much money Clinton's operation had raised for state parties. Sanders' campaign charged that Clinton's team was not handing over its fair share of its fundraising, which Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver said was "laundering" and "looting."

"My suggestion is that the DNC put out a statement saying that the accusations the Sanders campaign are not true. The fact that CNN notes that you aren't getting between the two campaigns is the problem," Marc E. Elias wrote. "Here, Sanders is attacking the DNC and its current practice, its past practice with the POTUS and with Sec Kerry. Just as the RNC pushes back directly on Trump over 'rigged system,' the DNC should push back DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying is false and harmful (to) the Democratic party."

Elias and the Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.

Another exchange involves a discussion on whether to move Maryland ophthalmologist Sreedhar Potarazu from sitting beside President Barack Obama at a DNC event after National Finance Director Jordan Kaplan said he gave less money than Philip Munger, another donor.

"It would be nice to take care of him from the DNC side," Kaplan wrote, referring to Munger.

Potarazu told CNN Saturday that he wants answers from top DNC officials on how they are responding to these revelations, which have surfaced days before the Democratic convention.

"I was obviously shocked to see my name in the middle of all of this because I'm just an innocent bystander," he said.

"I'm curious to see what's happening at the highest levels of the DNC right now," he added. "I don't know, but I'm sure it's a fire drill. The timing is not good."

Wasserman Shultz also called Weaver a "damn liar" in May after he criticized the Nevada Democratic Party following protests among Sanders supporters who said Clinton's backers had subverted party rules. They shouted down pro-Clinton speakers and sent threatening messages to state party Chairwoman Roberta Lange after posting her phone number and address on social media.

"The state party there has a lot of problems. They've run things very poorly. It has been done very undemocratically," Weaver said on CNN in May. "And there seems to be an unwillingness on the part of the Nevada Democratic Party to bring in all of the new people that Bernie Sanders has brought into the process."

The DNC chair responded in an email: "Damn liar. Particularly scummy that he barely acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred."

And in an email quoting Weaver as saying, "I think we should go to the convention," Wasserman Shultz wrote: "He is an ASS."

Asked about the exchanges, Rawlings-Blake said, "Expressing an opinion about a candidate doesn't mean that you're in collusion, doesn't mean that you are actively working against them. And I don't think that that's what it shows."

'It's gas meets flame'

The publication of the emails comes just a weekend before the start of the Democratic convention, where a major objective will be to unify the Democratic Party by winning over Sanders' voters.

Several Democratic sources told CNN that the leaked emails are a big source of contention and may incite tensions between the Clinton and Sanders camps heading into the Democratic convention's Rules Committee meeting this weekend. Representatives of the former primary rivals were expected to meet Friday night to discuss the issue.

"It could threaten their agreement," one Democrat said, referring to the deal reached between Clinton and Sanders about the convention, delegates and the DNC. The party had agreed to include more progressive principles in its official platform, and as part of the agreement, Sanders dropped his fight to contest Wasserman Schultz as the head of the DNC.

"It's gas meets flame," the Democrat said.
Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, had no comment.
DNC hack: What you need to know

The issue surfaced on Saturday at Clinton's first campaign event with Tim Kaine as her running mate, when a protester was escorted out of Florida International University in Miami. The protester shouted "DNC leaks" soon after Clinton thanked Wasserman Schultz for her leadership at the DNC.

The DNC has previously had its files hacked by an individual named "Guccifer 2.0" that may have had ties to the Russians.

Hackers stole opposition research on Donald Trump from the DNC's servers in mid-June. Two separate Russian intelligence-linked cyberattack groups were both in the DNC's networks.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny, Chris Frates, Elizabeth Landers, Brianna Keilar, Dan Merica, Ziris Savage and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.



“One email appears to show DNC staffers asking how they can reference Sanders' faith to weaken him in the eyes of Southern voters. Another seems to depict an attorney advising the committee on how to defend Clinton against an accusation by the Sanders campaign of not living up to a joint fundraising agreement. The revelation threatened to shatter the uneasy peace between the Clinton and Sanders camps and supporters days before the Democratic convention kicks off next week. …. One email appears to show DNC staffers asking how they can reference Sanders' faith to weaken him in the eyes of Southern voters. Another seems to depict an attorney advising the committee on how to defend Clinton against an accusation by the Sanders campaign of not living up to a joint fundraising agreement. The revelation threatened to shatter the uneasy peace between the Clinton and Sanders camps and supporters days before the Democratic convention kicks off next week.”


Short of a lawsuit or an actual fracture of the party structure, which I personally would like to see, I don’t know what can be done. There is no criminal issue, I would think. The Constitution leaves things like this up to the Party’s discretion. We need a federal law, because our choice of a presidential candidate is highly flawed by what has happened in this case. I remember a fairly recent article (last year or two) concerning elections in Taiwan. Citizens are allowed to vote for a representative; however, the several people on the list of potential candidates are not chosen by the people, but rather the Party. The same thing has happened here. The DNC did not allow Sanders a real chance, even though he showed tremendous support among the voters. Disgusting!!



THIS ARTICLE IS A LITTLE OLD, BUT IT INCLUDES DETAIL ON THE SANDERS’ CAMP’S PLANS

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/sanders-delegation-plotting-public-and-secretly-shake-democratic-convention

ELECTION 2016
Sanders Delegation Plotting in Public and Secretly to Shake Up Democratic Convention
Veep protests, amendment fights, interrupting Hillary.
By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet July 18, 2016

Photograph -- Crowd listening to speech, apparently. Photo Credit: Steven Rosenfeld


Different camps inside Bernie Sanders’ 1,900-member delegation to the Democratic National Convention next week are anticipating varying degrees of protests—some telegraphing their intentions now, others planning in secret—if Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party do not make additional major concessions.

These protests go beyond high-profile public announcements in recent days, such as scholar and activist Cornell West, who was appointed to the Platform Committee at Sanders’ request, announcing he would be supporting Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee in November.

On Saturday, a group called the Bernie Delegates Network announced that more than 250 Sanders delegates had responded to its poll about the acceptability of six possible centrist vice presidential picks: Sen. Tim Kaine, D-VA; HUD Secretary Julian Castro; Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA; Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ; Admiral James Stavridis and Admiral Mike Mullen. All were overwhelmingly rejected, with a majority of respondents saying they would “seriously consider” publicly denouncing a centrist VP pick and/or “nonviolently and emphatically protesting in the convention hall during Clinton’s acceptance speech.”

“You see in the survey if they close Tim Kaine, or someone like Tim Kaine, it could be a somewhat unruly convention,” said Jeff Cohen, co-founder of RootsAction, which conducted the poll in partnership with Progressive Democrats of America. “To have two corporate centrists on the ticket when 45 percent of voters were voting for a transformative progressive agenda is a slap in the face to them and to 1,900 delegates.”

Cohen said the poll—which did not offer any progressive choices, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA or Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-OH—was sent to about 1,000 delegates to try to “facilitate communication” among people headed to Philadelphia because the once top-down Sanders campaign “is sort of a void now.” Cohen said, “As of Sunday night, 212 people had said they’re ready to denounce, and 179 said they were ready to protest during Clinton’s speech.”

The group, which hopes Clinton will pick a progressive, also has other protest plans. “We already have a distribution network for stickers inside the hall, which delegates can wear by the hundreds, some of which are pretty oppositional,” he said. “One will say ‘Stop the TPP.’ Another one will be ‘Hillary is a war hawk.’”

It is important to focus on the vice presidential choice, Cohen said, because it's one decision Clinton “cannot go back on” or reverse, and because “if you study U.S. history, of the 43 presidents we’ve had, about a third have been vice presidents.”

Many Possible Protests

The poll and its followup actions are one thread in an evolving tapestry of potential protests in Philadelphia. There have been other public efforts, such as e-mails to Bernie delegates since he endorsed Clinton last week that argued he did it just to get into the convention hall where he can still win. One such e-mail sent to New England delegates had this question-and-answer section:

Q: So Wait, Bernie DIDN’T quit today?
A: No. he has to say she won the primary, he endorses her and will help the party defeat Trump, yada yada but he DID NOT concede. There is a very big and important difference. Had he conceded, all of his delegates would go to Hillary and he would no longer be an option for the nominee.
Q: So Bernie can actually still win?
A: YES. And if he wasn’t still TRYING to win, he would have conceded. The ONLY option he had to get to the convention with his delegates behind him and have a chance to still win was to do what he did today. He is not a traitor. He didn’t sell us out. He did the only possible thing he could have done to keep fighting for the nomination.

Seeing this e-mail, one state Democratic Party official commented, “This is the craziness that is fueling some of our nationwide delegates. I’ve been told that everyone that is in a responsible position is dealing with these posts.”

“There are adherents to that strain of thinking, but it’s not very big,” said Karen Bernal, a Sanders delegate from Sacramento elected as a co-representative of the California delegation, the nation's largest. In a half-hour interview, she described a half-dozen different camps under the Bernie umbrella: the Bernie or Bust crew, reflected in the Q&A e-mail; a similiar subset that thinks the party’s superdelegates, or hundreds of party insiders and elected officials, can still be swayed to pick Sanders; people, like those in the VP poll, who say they are willing to publicly protest on the floor; those who agree with those protesters but would not disrupt the proceedings; those who will follow whatever directions Sanders or the campaign says; and “eventual nominee” types, who tend to be elected or aspiring politicians, who will back Clinton.

“As you can imagine, we have everything from the most die-hard Bernie Busters,” Bernal said, speaking of the 200-member California delegation and its counterparts. “In terms of the people who occupy that universe, they are almost indistinguishable from protesters you will see outside the convention. Under no circumstance will they ever vote for Hillary. They’re very protest-minded… That goes all the way to the other end of the spectrum, which is the 'eventual nominee' types. These are all Bernie delegates.”

Keeping Plans Secret

What was most intriguing about the delegation Bernal described was that the individuals and contingents who are serious about protesting are looking at a series of upcoming decisions—not just the veep pick—and are keeping quiet about their plans, she said. They are not releasing vice presidential poll results, writing op-eds about moving to the Green Party or sending out far-fetched interpretations of the strategy lurking behind Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton.

“What I can tell you is most of the other national organizing efforts I know of are fairly insular, and you can kind of read into why they might be—because they plan actions,” Bernal said. “And so the organizing seems to be peer to peer, and not necessarily anything you would find publicly posted, because that is the nature of what they wish to organize. I’ll leave it at that.”

There are going to be “a couple of other shoes that drop” as the Democratic conventional approaches, she said. “The VP pick is one of them. Two other things from what I’m hearing—not only in California but in couple of other states—no one is accepting what has taken place regarding the minority [platform] report, and the fact that they have tried to shut down any kind of floor fight over the platform amendments that were rejected, particularly TPP [Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal]. There’s lots of delegates that want to push on that and fight back and insist on some action on the floor regarding that.”

“The other one is whatever comes out of the Rules Committee meeting on Saturday,” Bernal said, referring to the Sanders campaign’s effort to end the party’s superdelegate system. “You will definitely see, if it doesn’t go well, which, we believe with Barney Frank as its chair, that it won’t—there will be some action around that for sure. The reason you are not seeing a lot of things publicly posted is why would we want to advertise our intentions so publicly so they can be interfered with? That’s the thinking.”

Bernal said what’s uniting many Sanders delegates is a desire to have a roll call vote where each state announces its primaries and caucus results so the nation can see how much support there was for Sanders and his vision. Twenty-three states and 13 million people voted for Sanders, she emphasized.

In the meantime, Bernal said the Sanders campaign has barely been in contact with the state delegations, and many delegates have taken it upon themselves to do their best to represent the voters who are sending them to Philadelphia.

“There is no two-way communication whatsoever, and even one-way communication from the campaign is very little,” she said. And if there were top-down directions, “I am not so sure how successful it would be, because the Bernie delegates themselves are very independently minded. They have been informed by Occupy, Black Lives Matter and so on. What you have is a movement that is self-organized. I’m not so sure that unless the message was one of resistance, that necessarily everyone would fall into lockstep behind anything the Bernie Sanders’ campaign said.”

And so, the many slices of Sanders supporters have taken it upon themselves to decide what message they will bring to Philadelphia.

“In that void, you have various different self-organized organizations popping up, some of them with wide reach,” she said. “They are networking from state to state. Some of them are about trying to do what Bernie’s campaign wants. Some are about making a statement that is self-determined, because now everyone realizes the campaign has been compromised because of the endorsement. Kind of like snow on a warm day, they are melting into the landscape—the DNC landscape and Hillary Clinton landscape. Instinctively, many Bernie delegates see that. They are taking it upon themselves to define what they are going to insist upon at the convention.”


Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008).



“Bernal said what’s uniting many Sanders delegates is a desire to have a roll call vote where each state announces its primaries and caucus results so the nation can see how much support there was for Sanders and his vision. Twenty-three states and 13 million people voted for Sanders, she emphasized. In the meantime, Bernal said the Sanders campaign has barely been in contact with the state delegations, and many delegates have taken it upon themselves to do their best to represent the voters who are sending them to Philadelphia. “There is no two-way communication whatsoever, and even one-way communication from the campaign is very little,” she said. And if there were top-down directions, “I am not so sure how successful it would be, because the Bernie delegates themselves are very independently minded.”


The events “on the ground,” have become more stressed now that the DNC emails have been leaked, and the truly despicable manner in which they have chosen to handle things is not apparent. There’s a lot of arrogance and conceit in it. I believe they thought that Sanders was an egg-headed and idealistic fool, who could never muster a real following. Then when it became clear from the polls that such a viewpoint was disastrous, they started planning how to trip him up, including the matter of his personal religious beliefs. How like a bunch of Republicans! I am personally ready to change my party membership to the Greens as soon as Trump is (hopefully) soundly defeated.

It does look as though the Democratic Convention will be eventful rather than a fully planned and totally tame “coronation,” and possibly more, like a change of VP. One article yesterday said that the VP pick will be DECIDED at the Convention and not singlehandedly by Clinton, so I can’t wait for the convention to start!!



OBAMA’S INTERVIEW THIS MORNING --
A gentle and reflective turn of mind is never a bad thing. I really love to hear Obama talk, especially in an interview setting in which he speaks his personal views. See below:


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-presidency-clinton-dnc-trump-foreign-policy-george-bush/

President Obama on Hillary Clinton: "There are better speech-makers"
By EMILY SCHULTHEIS FACE THE NATION
July 24, 2016, 8:37 AM


With the Democratic convention opening Monday in Philadelphia to formally nominate Hillary Clinton, President Obama said in an interview this weekend that he's "clear-eyed" about her strengths and weaknesses--but that there is no candidate in modern history who has been "more prepared" than her to be president.

"You know, we don't go vacationing together. I think that I've got a pretty clear-eyed sense of both her strengths and her weaknesses," he told CBS' John Dickerson in a wide-ranging interview for "Face the Nation" Friday. "And what I would say would be that this is somebody who knows as much about domestic and foreign policy as anybody, is tough as nails, is motivated by what's best for America and ordinary people, understands that in this democracy that we have -- things don't always happen as fast as we'd like. And it requires compromise and grinding it out."

"She's not always flashy. And there are better speech makers," Mr. Obama added. "But she knows her stuff. And more than anything, that is what is ultimately required to do a good job in this--in this office."

He said her decision to use a private email server was a "mistake," but that anyone who's been in public life as long as Clinton has is sure to have made a few mistakes over the years--and that "on the big stuff, she's gotten it right."

"If you've been in the public eye for decades at the highest levels of scrutiny, folks are going to find some mistakes you make," he said. "I've made mistakes. I don't know any president or public official at her level who aren't going to look back and say, 'I should have done something like that differently.'"

"But what I would also say is that the consistency with which she has devoted her life to trying to make sure that kids get healthcare and a good education, and that, you know, families are getting a fair break if they're working hard, and that America upholds its best traditions of foreign policy-- on the big stuff, she's gotten it right," he added.

Mr. Obama named four qualities he thinks the country should be looking for in its next president: they should be a team builder, have a sense of "discipline," have a "vision" for the country, and truly care about the American people.

"You have to really care about the American people," he said. "Not in -- not in the abstract. Not as boilerplate. But you have to really every single day want to do your best for them. Because if you don't have that sense grounding you, you will be buffeted and blown back and forth by polls, and interest groups, and voices whispering in your heads."

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Mr. Obama said the fact that someone like Trump--who, four years ago, was openly questioning whether Mr. Obama was born in the United States--can win the Republican nomination is a sign the party is undergoing a major shift.

"I think it says something about what's happened to the Republican Party over the course of the last 8, 10, 15 years," he said. "If you think about what a Bob Dole, or a Jim Baker, or a Howard Baker, or a Dick Lugar, or a Colin Powell stood for, yeah, they were conservative. They were concerned about limited government, and balancing budgets, and making sure we had a strong defense. But they also understood that our system of government requires compromise, that Democrats weren't the enemy, that the way our government works requires us to listen to each other."

He cautioned against playing on the fears of the American people after recent terror attacks in the U.S. and abroad, saying the country is still "significantly" safer now than it was right after 9/11. And as for the dark worldview Trump presented in his speech at the Republican convention in Cleveland last week, Mr. Obama said it isn't representative of what's happening in the country.

"As serious as these terrorist attacks are, the fact of the matter is that the American people are significantly more safe now than they were before all the work that we've done since 9/11," he said. "And so maintaining that perspective I think is absolutely critical. And trying to fan fears simply to score political points I think is not in the best interest of the American people."

Mr. Obama also weighed in on Trump's suggestion that the U.S. could and should withhold military support from NATO countries that have not pulled their weight, saying those comments show a "lack of preparedness that he has been displaying when it comes to foreign policy."

"Anybody who's been paying attention knows there is a big difference between challenging our European allies to keep up their defense spending, particularly at a time when Russia's been more aggressive, and saying to them, 'You know what? We might not abide by the central tenant of the most important alliance in the history of the world,'" he said.

As for his decision not to use the term "radical Islam"--for which Trump and other Republicans have been highly critical--Mr. Obama said it could discourage Muslim allies if they think the U.S. is willing to lump them in with terror groups like ISIS.

"The fact of the matter is that I've never been politically, or particularly concerned with the phrase," he said. "What I've been more concerned about is how do we stop violent extremists from killing us."

"The reason that I haven't used the particular phrase "radical Islam" on a regular basis is because in talking to Muslim allies, in talking to the Muslim American community here, that was being heard as if we were ascribing to crazy groups like I.S.I.L. or Al Qaeda, the mantle of Islam," he added, using an alternative acronym for ISIS.

As he contemplates his last year in office, Mr. Obama said he feels like he and his team have hit their stride.

"I feel as if I'm a better president than I've ever been," he said. "That the experience has made me sharper, clearer, about how to get stuff done. My team is operating at a peak level. And we're really proud of what we're going to do, and we're going to run through the tape. But I also think that It's really important for self-governance and democracy that we go through this process and I'm able to turn over the keys.

Mr. Obama also recalled two pieces of useful advice about the presidency he got from his predecessor, George W. Bush.

"The first piece of advice was, 'Trust yourself. And know that ultimately regardless of the day-to-day news cycles and the noise that the American people need their president to succeed, regardless of political party,'" he said. "Which I thought was very generous of him."

The second one, Mr. Obama said, was a bit more practical: "Always use Purell hand sanitizer. Because if you don't, you're going to get a lot of colds because you shake a lot hands."



BLOW BY BLOW -- DNC CONTROVERSY HITS THE FAN


http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-chief-accountable-dnc-emails-show/story?id=40825318

Bernie Sanders Campaign Chief Says Someone Must Be 'Accountable' for What DNC Emails Show
By MARYALICE PARKS
Jul 23, 2016, 4:38 PM ET

Photograph -- Video -- Sanders: No question DNC was supporting Hillary Clinton 02:08
Related: Emails Released by WikiLeaks Appear to Show DNC Trying to Aid Hillary Clinton
Clinton, Kaine Campaign As Running Mates For First Time


Bernie Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said his team was "disappointed" by the emails from the Democratic National Committee leaked through WikiLeaks, which seemed to reveal staff in the party working to support Hillary Clinton.

"Someone does have to be held accountable," Weaver said during an interview with ABC News. "We spent 48 hours of public attention worrying about who in the [Donald] Trump campaign was going to be held responsible for the fact that some lines of Mrs. Obama's speech were taken by Mrs. Trump. Someone in the DNC needs to be held at least as accountable as the Trump campaign."

Weaver said the emails showed misconduct at the highest level of the staff within the party and that he believed there would be more emails leaked, which would "reinforce" that the party had "its fingers on the scale."

"Everybody is disappointed that much of what we felt was happening at the DNC was in fact happening, that you had in this case a clear example of the DNC taking sides and looking to place negative information into the political process.

"We have an electoral process. The DNC, by its charter, is required to be neutral among the candidates. Clearly it was not," Weaver said, responding for the first time to the growing controversy. "We had obviously pointed that out in a number of instances prior to this, and these emails just bear that out."

Another member of Sanders' staff, Rania Batrice put it this way: "Everything our fans have been saying -- and they were beaten down for and called conspiracy theorists -- and now it's in black and white."

The email dump comes at a crucial time, just days before the party's national convention in Philadelphia, with thousands of delegates representing both campaigns gathering from across the country. Weaver and several other members of the Sanders staff have said they are worried the news could disrupt the goals of the convention.

"We are trying to build unity for the fall to beat Donald Trump and Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a figure of disunity in the party, not a figure of unity," Weaver added. Weaver and the DNC chairwoman have tangled often during this campaign cycle. Asked specifically whether she should resign, Weaver responded, "She should consider what her options are."

Weaver said that he was surprised that no one with the party had reached out to him, "given the conduct that was disclosed" in the emails. Several of the emails showed that DNC staff called Weaver names including "a liar."

Several members of Sanders staff have expressed specific outrage over the emails, which seemed to suggest attacking the senator's religion. Sanders' former Iowa State Director Robert Becker told ABC News that it showed "a total lack of decency."

The Democratic National Committee has not commented on the issue.

Several of the emails released indicate that the officials, including Wasserman Schultz, grew increasingly agitated with Sanders and his campaign as the primary season advanced, in one instance even floating bringing up Sanders' religion to try and minimize his support.

"It might may [sic] no difference, but for KY and WA can we get someone to ask his belief," Brad Marshall, CFO of DNC, wrote in an email on May 5, 2016. "Does he believe in God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My southern baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist."


Excerpts -- "Everybody is disappointed that much of what we felt was happening at the DNC was in fact happening, that you had in this case a clear example of the DNC taking sides and looking to place negative information into the political process. "We have an electoral process. The DNC, by its charter, is required to be neutral among the candidates. Clearly it was not," Weaver said, responding for the first time to the growing controversy. "We had obviously pointed that out in a number of instances prior to this, and these emails just bear that out." Another member of Sanders' staff, Rania Batrice put it this way: "Everything our fans have been saying -- and they were beaten down for and called conspiracy theorists -- and now it's in black and white." …. "Someone does have to be held accountable," Weaver said during an interview with ABC News. "We spent 48 hours of public attention worrying about who in the [Donald] Trump campaign was going to be held responsible for the fact that some lines of Mrs. Obama's speech were taken by Mrs. Trump. Someone in the DNC needs to be held at least as accountable as the Trump campaign." …. Several members of Sanders staff have expressed specific outrage over the emails, which seemed to suggest attacking the senator's religion. Sanders' former Iowa State Director Robert Becker told ABC News that it showed "a total lack of decency." The Democratic National Committee has not commented on the issue. Several of the emails released indicate that the officials, including Wasserman Schultz, grew increasingly agitated with Sanders and his campaign as the primary season advanced, in one instance even floating bringing up Sanders' religion to try and minimize his support.”


I think there will be ANOTHER Sanders camp lawsuit. I agree that “someone does have to be held responsible.” There are rules of operation in Democratic primaries and selection of a candidate which were not followed. This is more than just an insult to Sanders. Rather than having a CIVIL WAR we have regular and well-placed elections instead, and those elections must be fair to all, from the right to vote to our choice of the nominees by vote. There is nothing in the rules that says a huge bunch of handpicked “Superdelegates” has a right to upset the results, even if the DNC doesn’t like the choice. The election process is basic to our democratic nation. It has to be democratic from the ground up to the top, and that wasn’t done in this case.



OOPS! SHE OVERSTEPPED HER BOUNDS

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/

Debbie Wasserman Schultz not presiding over Democratic convention
By Theodore Schleifer, Eugene Scott and Jeff Zeleny, CNN
Updated 11:54 AM ET, Sun July 24, 2016


(CNN)Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz will not speak at or preside over the party's convention this week, a decision reached by party officials Saturday after emails surfaced that raised questions about the committee's impartiality during the Democratic primary.

The DNC Rules Committee on Saturday named Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, as permanent chair of the convention, according to a DNC source. She will gavel each session to order and will gavel each session closed, a role that had been expected to be held by Wasserman Schultz.

"She's been quarantined," another top Democrat said of Wasserman Schultz, following a meeting Saturday night.

Wasserman Schultz's stewardship of the DNC has been under fire through most of the presidential primary process, but her removal from the convention stage comes following the release of nearly 20,000 emails.

One email appears to show DNC staffers asking how they can reference Bernie Sanders' faith to weaken him in the eyes of Southern voters. Another seems to depict an attorney advising the committee on how to defend Hillary Clinton against an accusation by the Sanders campaign of not living up to a joint fundraising agreement.

This is seen as a concession to Sanders, who has been furious at Wasserman Schultz for what he believed was favoritism to Clinton.

The Democrat familiar with the decision said it was done in hopes of preventing chaos on the convention floor among Sanders supporters.

The decision was blessed by Clinton and Sanders officials, this Democrat said.


Sanders on Sunday told CNN's Jake Tapper the release of DNC emails that show its staffers working against him underscore the position he's held for months: Party Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz needs to go.

"I don't think she is qualified to be the chair of the DNC not only for these awful emails, which revealed the prejudice of the DNC, but also because we need a party that reaches out to working people and young people, and I don't think her leadership style is doing that," Sanders told Tapper on "State of the Union," on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

"I am not an atheist," he said. "But aside from all of that, it is an outrage and sad that you would have people in important positions in the DNC trying to undermine my campaign. It goes without saying, the function of the DNC is to represent all of the candidates -- to be fair and even-minded."

He added: "But again, we discussed this many, many months ago, on this show, so what is revealed now is not a shock to me."

Emails leaked from seven DNC officials

The leaks, from January 2015 to May 2016, feature Democratic staffers debating everything from how to deal with challenging media requests to coordinating the committee's message with other powerful interests in Washington.

The emails were leaked from the accounts of seven DNC officials, Wikileaks said. CNN has not independently established the emails' authenticity.

One email features DNC staffers appearing to ponder ways to undercut Sanders, an insurgent Democrat who had a bitter relationship with party leadership. Sanders supporters charged that the DNC was biased toward Clinton, and Sanders late in the primary endorsed Wassserman Schultz's primary opponent in her Florida congressional race.

On May 5, a DNC employee asked colleagues to "get someone to ask his belief" in God and suggested that it could make a difference in Kentucky and West Virginia. Sanders' name is not mentioned in the note.

"This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist," DNC chief financial officer Brad Marshall wrote.

Marshall did not respond to a request for comment. But Baltimore mayor and DNC Secretary Stephanie Rawlings-Blake denied any suggestion that Clinton's camp was treated more favorably by the committee.

"My expectation is beyond your opinion about a candidate, that you act evenly. All of the officers took a pledge of neutrality and I honored that, and I take that very seriously," Rawlings-Blake told CNN's Poppy Harlow. She added, "I know that the chair will hold those employees accountable if they're found to have acted outside of that neutrality and even-handedness."

Republican nominee Donald Trump, however, said the emails were proof of the Democrats' "rigged" system, resurfacing an attack he's leveled against the party before.

"Leaked e-mails of DNC show plans to destroy Bernie Sanders. Mock his heritage and much more. On-line from Wikileakes, really vicious. RIGGED," Trump tweeted Saturday morning.

Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Leaked e-mails of DNC show plans to destroy Bernie Sanders. Mock his heritage and much more. On-line from Wikileakes, really vicious. RIGGED
6:55 AM - 23 Jul 2016
22,950 22,950 Retweets 47,146 47,146 likes

In another email, an attorney appears to advise the DNC on how to respond to a dispute between the two campaigns over how much money Clinton's operation had raised for state parties. Sanders' campaign charged that Clinton's team was not handing over its fair share of its fundraising, which Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver said was "laundering" and "looting."

"My suggestion is that the DNC put out a statement saying that the accusations the Sanders campaign are not true. The fact that CNN notes that you aren't getting between the two campaigns is the problem," Marc E. Elias wrote. "Here, Sanders is attacking the DNC and its current practice, its past practice with the POTUS and with Sec Kerry. Just as the RNC pushes back directly on Trump over 'rigged system,' the DNC should push back DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying is false and harmful (to) the Democratic party."

Elias and the Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.

Another exchange involves a discussion on whether to move Maryland ophthalmologist Sreedhar Potarazu from sitting beside President Barack Obama at a DNC event after National Finance Director Jordan Kaplan said he gave less money than Philip Munger, another donor.

"It would be nice to take care of him from the DNC side," Kaplan wrote, referring to Munger.

Potarazu told CNN Saturday that he wants answers from top DNC officials on how they are responding to these revelations, which have surfaced days before the Democratic convention.

"I was obviously shocked to see my name in the middle of all of this because I'm just an innocent bystander," he said.

"I'm curious to see what's happening at the highest levels of the DNC right now," he added. "I don't know, but I'm sure it's a fire drill. The timing is not good."

Wasserman Shultz also called Weaver a "damn liar" in May after he criticized the Nevada Democratic Party following protests among Sanders supporters who said Clinton's backers had subverted party rules. They shouted down pro-Clinton speakers and sent threatening messages to state party Chairwoman Roberta Lange after posting her phone number and address on social media.

"The state party there has a lot of problems. They've run things very poorly. It has been done very undemocratically," Weaver said on CNN in May. "And there seems to be an unwillingness on the part of the Nevada Democratic Party to bring in all of the new people that Bernie Sanders has brought into the process."

The DNC chair responded in an email: "Damn liar. Particularly scummy that he barely acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred."

And in an email quoting Weaver as saying, "I think we should go to the convention," Wasserman Shultz wrote: "He is an ASS."

Asked about the exchanges, Rawlings-Blake said, "Expressing an opinion about a candidate doesn't mean that you're in collusion, doesn't mean that you are actively working against them. And I don't think that that's what it shows."

'It's gas meets flame'

The publication of the emails comes just a weekend before the start of the Democratic convention, where a major objective will be to unify the Democratic Party by winning over Sanders' voters.

Several Democratic sources told CNN that the leaked emails are a big source of contention and may incite tensions between the Clinton and Sanders camps heading into the Democratic convention's Rules Committee meeting this weekend. Representatives of the former primary rivals were expected to meet Friday night to discuss the issue.

"It could threaten their agreement," one Democrat said, referring to the deal reached between Clinton and Sanders about the convention, delegates and the DNC. The party had agreed to include more progressive principles in its official platform, and as part of the agreement, Sanders dropped his fight to contest Wasserman Schultz as the head of the DNC.

"It's gas meets flame," the Democrat said.

Michael Briggs, a Sanders spokesman, had no comment Friday.

DNC hack: What you need to know

The issue surfaced on Saturday at Clinton's first campaign event with Tim Kaine as her running mate, when a protester was escorted out of Florida International University in Miami. The protester shouted "DNC leaks" soon after Clinton thanked Wasserman Schultz for her leadership at the DNC.

The DNC has previously had its files hacked by an individual named "Guccifer 2.0" that may have had ties to the Russians.

Hackers stole opposition research on Donald Trump from the DNC's servers in mid-June. Two separate Russian intelligence-linked cyberattack groups were both in the DNC's networks.


CNN's Chris Frates, Elizabeth Landers, Brianna Keilar, Dan Merica, Ziris Savage and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.



Excerpt -- "I don't think she is qualified to be the chair of the DNC not only for these awful emails, which revealed the prejudice of the DNC, but also because we need a party that reaches out to working people and young people, and I don't think her leadership style is doing that," Sanders told Tapper on "State of the Union," on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. "I am not an atheist," he said. "But aside from all of that, it is an outrage and sad that you would have people in important positions in the DNC trying to undermine my campaign. It goes without saying, the function of the DNC is to represent all of the candidates -- to be fair and even-minded." He added: "But again, we discussed this many, many months ago, on this show, so what is revealed now is not a shock to me." …. DNC hack: What you need to know -- The issue surfaced on Saturday at Clinton's first campaign event with Tim Kaine as her running mate, when a protester was escorted out of Florida International University in Miami. The protester shouted "DNC leaks" soon after Clinton thanked Wasserman Schultz for her leadership at the DNC.”


The DNC thought they were all powerful, but I think if many thousands of Progressive Dems do decide to pull out over this, when their income level drops, they may well be concerned enough to cooperate with reforms. If they’re smart, they will even put Sanders in as the VP at this convention.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-dnc-email-leak-russia-putin-trump/

Clinton campaign manager says pro-Trump Russia behind DNC email leak
CBS/AP
July 24, 2016, 10:55 AM

Photograph -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's director of communications Jennifer Palmieri (2nd L), longtime aide Huma Abedin (C), and campaign manager Robby Mook (R) listen as Clinton speaks at a campaign rally with Senator Bernie Sanders in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S. July 12, 2016. REUTERS/BRIAN SNYDER


Hillary Clinton's campaign manager accused Russia on Sunday of leaking emails on purpose from the Democratic National Committee to help Republican Donald Trump in the presidential election.

Wikileaks has posted emails that including several denunciations of Clinton's primary rival, Bernie Sanders, and his supporters.

Robby Mook said Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union" that experts are telling the campaign "Russian state actors" broke into the DNC's emails "in order to help Trump," and that other experts say these Russians are now selectively releasing the emails.

Mook added: "Last week we saw that Trump made changes to be more pro-Russian and when you put all this together (it) is disturbing."

He says it's no coincidence the emails are coming out on the eve of the party's nominating convention in Philadelphia.

Last month, officials revealed that hackers thought to be working for two different Russian intelligence agencies broke into and were able to "read all e-mail and chat traffic" in the DNC's system.

The hackers were all kicked out of the DNC computer system shortly after they were discovered. A spokesperson for the Russian Embassy said at the time they had no knowledge of the operation. No financial information was stolen, which indicates that the breach was not the work of criminal hackers.

Putin has complimented Trump in the past and Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's campaign chairman, has worked with Kremlin-linked figures abroad.

Trump, meanwhile, has questioned NATO's continued role and often calls for better relations with Moscow.



This Trump/Putin situation really is disturbing. I think Putin may be toying with him, actually, but Trump has already shown tendencies toward despotic thinking processes, and now these several articles on his apparent admiration of Putin, and vice versa, could become a serious problem if he were to be elected in November. Right now, it’s a little funny to me, but it’s a real possibility for the future that we shouldn't ignore. We really do have to keep that man out of the White House. He’s a “nutjob.”