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Trump Gets a Sizeable Convention Bounce in the Polls

by Penny9573cwi Posted on July 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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We now have four polls out that were taken after the Republican convention: CNN, CBS, Morning Consult, and Gravis Marketing. They show an average post-convention bounce for Trump of 6.3 points. That’s higher than the normal GOP bounce of about 4 points. They also show Trump leading Clinton by an average of 2.5 points.

This is not, by itself, anything for Democrats to be worried about. They’ll get their own bounce this week, and it won’t be until mid-August that everything settles down and we have a good idea of where everything really stands. But we can say two things. First, Donald Trump is suddenly going to start talking about polls again. Second, although liberals might have thought the Republican convention was a dumpster fire, it’s obvious that Trump’s message—even delivered in angry, apocalyptic tones—resonates with a lot of people. Democrats better hope that Team Hillary has an effective answer to that.

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Trump Gets a Sizeable Convention Bounce in the Polls

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Even Trump-Friendly Media Thinks Putin Prefers Trump

by DonnaShimp426 Posted on July 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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John Schindler on the DNC email leak:

The important part of this story is that Russian intelligence, using its Wikileaks cut-out, has intervened directly in an American presidential election….The most damaging aspect to the DNC leak is the certainty that Moscow has placed disinformation—that is, false information hidden among facts—to harm the Democrats and the Clinton campaign.

….It’s obvious that Moscow prefers Trump over Clinton in this election, which ought not surprise given the important role of Putin-friendly advisors in the Trump campaign, and what better way to help is there than to discredit Team Clinton?

This is mostly interesting for where it appeared: the New York Observer, which is owned by Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband. Sometimes you can’t even count on family to protect you.

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Even Trump-Friendly Media Thinks Putin Prefers Trump

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Democratic Party Chair Announces Resignation on Eve of the Convention

by LouannPhilipp Posted on July 24, 2016

Mother Jones

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Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced Sunday afternoon that she would resign her position following the end of the party’s quadrennial convention this week in Philadelphia.

The Florida congresswoman’s decision came just days after WikiLeaks published a trove of internal DNC emails, including one in which a party official discussed pushing stories about Bernie Sanders’ faith to damage the Vermont senator’s chances in southern states.

The Sanders campaign, and many of his supporters, had long held a grudge against Wasserman Schultz, accusing her and the DNC of favoring former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in various ways throughout the primary. But in her five years at the helm, Wasserman Schultz had often clashed with other party leaders. In 2014, Politico reported that her interactions with President Barack Obama were limited to brief exchanges on the rope-line at fundraising events.

Here’s the full statement:

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Democratic Party Chair Announces Resignation on Eve of the Convention

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The Virginia Supreme Court Tried To Kill A Key Voting Rights Order—And This Democratic Governor Won’t Let Them

by JinaGirardi Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Virginia’s Supreme Court on Friday blocked Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s attempt to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 felons. The 4-3 ruling, which could have a significant impact on the potential swing state in November, comes three months after the Democratic governor issued an executive order to enfranchise felons who had completed their sentences and parole or probation as of April 22.

In May, Virginia Republicans sued the governor over the use of taxpayer money to make such an order, suggesting that the order would aid Democratic turnout in the general election. State Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Normen, Jr. said in a statement at the time that McAuliffe had “overstepped the bounds of his authority and the constitutional limits on executive powers.” McAuliffe struck back, stating that the lawsuit would “preserve a policy of disenfranchisement that has been used intentionally to suppress the voices of qualified voices.”

The Virginia Supreme Court found that McAuliffe overstepped his clemency authority in granting 206,000 felons the right to vote through executive order and that it violated the state constitution. The ruling could affect the one in five African Americans who are disenfranchised as a result of a felony conviction in the state.

“Never before have any of the prior 71 Virginia governors issued a clemency order of any kind—including pardons, reprieves, commutations, and restoration orders—to a class of unnamed felons without regard for the nature of the crimes or any other individual circumstances relevant to the request,” wrote Chief Justice Donald W. Lemons in the majority opinion.

“To be sure, no governor of this commonwealth, until now, has even suggested that such a power exists,” the justice wrote.

The court’s decision made Virginia “an outlier in the struggle for civil and human rights,” McAuliffe said in a statement Friday. He criticized Republicans’ lawsuit.

“I cannot accept that this overtly political action could succeed in suppressing the voices of many thousands of men and women who had rejoiced with their families earlier this year when their rights were restored,” he said, adding that he would “expeditiously sign” orders to restore voting rights to 13,000 felons. It was immediately unclear if the court’s order would affect McAullife’s plans to grant rights for those people.

You can read the judges’ opinions here.

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The Virginia Supreme Court Tried To Kill A Key Voting Rights Order—And This Democratic Governor Won’t Let Them

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An Indiana Court Just Said Women Can’t Be Jailed for Ending Their Own Pregnancies

by ThaoGoodell Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Indiana Court of Appeals on Friday overturned the feticide conviction of a woman found guilty in the death of her child after she bought abortion-inducing drugs off the internet. Purvi Patel was sentenced to 20 years behind bars in 2015 after an Indiana trial court convicted her of two felonies: feticide and “neglect of a dependent.”

Patel, in her mid-30s, was managing her family’s restaurant in rural Indiana when she got pregnant. After doing research online, Patel ordered mifepristone and misoprostol (the same drugs typically prescribed for a medical abortion by a clinic) from a Hong Kong pharmacy for $72. In July 2013, Patel texted a friend, “Just lost the baby.”

But when she started experiencing severe bleeding, Patel went to the emergency room. There, her doctors called the police, who found the baby, which they estimated weighed a little over a pound, in a dumpster near Patel’s work. One of the ER physicians, who was also a member of a pro-life medical organization, left the hospital to join police in the search. About a week later, Patel was arrested and charged with feticide and neglect.

During her trial, attorneys for Indiana argued that Patel was at least 25 weeks into her pregnancy and that her fetus was not only viable but also took at least one breath before dying. They also argued that the state’s feticide law, passed in 2009 to protect pregnant women from acts of violence, could be used to criminalize pregnant women, not just third-parties. In 2015, after two years behind bars, Patel was convicted of both charges.

Patel’s attorneys, along with abortion rights advocates, vowed to overturn what they called a wrongful and contradictory conviction.

“Even assuming Indiana’s feticide law could somehow become an abortion criminalization law, many people were initially baffled by how Patel could be charged with two seemingly contradictory charges: feticide for ending a pregnancy and also child neglect for giving birth to a baby and then failing to care for it,” wrote Lynn Paltrow, the founder and executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which provided legal support to Patel’s case.

In its ruling on Friday, the Appeals Court noted the contradiction, calling the outcome “absurd,” but found that the state’s feticide statute doesn’t require a dead fetus, despite the common definition of the word. Instead, the law just requires that a person terminates the pregnancy.

But the court did overturn the feticide conviction, ruling that the statute wasn’t meant to be applied to pregnant women themselves. The court also ruled that Patel’s class A felony charge should be bumped down to a class D felony. The case will go to a trial court for resentencing.

Jill E. Adams, a lawyer and the chief strategist for the University of California-Berkeley Law School’s new Self-Induced Abortion Legal Team, which also gave legal support to Patel, told Mother Jones that Patel does not plan to challenge the new felony charge.

“The SIA Legal Team is pleased the court recognized that feticide laws are intended to protect, not prosecute, pregnant women,” she wrote in an email. “Women don’t need to be stigmatized and sentenced; instead, they need safe, affordable access to provider-directed and self-directed health care.”

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An Indiana Court Just Said Women Can’t Be Jailed for Ending Their Own Pregnancies

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These WNBA Players Were Fined for Shirts Supporting Black Lives Matter—and They’re Not Going to Take It

by HungNewbigin Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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In the locker room Thursday afternoon, following a home-court loss to the Indiana Fever, players from New York Liberty refused to answer questions about basketball. Same with the Fever.

That morning, the Women’s National Basketball Association fined the New York Liberty, Phoenix Mercury, and Indiana Fever $5,000 apiece, and their players $500 each. Their transgression? During warmups in recent games, they’ve donned black t-shirts in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement. (For one game, the Liberty’s shirts included hashtags for #blacklivesmatter and #Dallas5—recognizing the five police officers slain in Dallas.) Earlier this week, the league sent out a memo reminding players of its attire policy, and noting that players could not alter their uniforms in any way.

“We are proud of WNBA players’ engagement and passionate advocacy for non-violent solutions to difficult social issues,” league president Lisa Borders told the Associated Press on Wednesday, “but expect them to comply with the league’s uniform guidelines.”

The WNBA’s decision to fine the women was met with criticism, especially given that NBA players led by New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony and other superstars have been calling for renewed social activism among pro athletes. After the 2014 death of Eric Garner, who died after a police officer put him in a choke hold in Staten Island, New York, superstars Lebron James, Derrick Rose, and Kyrie Irving, and members of the Brooklyn Nets, wore “I Can’t Breathe” shirts during warmups—no one got a fine. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver supported the players while noting that he preferred they “abide by our on-court attire rules.” (Just yesterday the NBA, in an unprecedented act of social activism by a pro sports league, punished North Carolina for its controversial workplace discrimination and transgender bathroom law by moving its lucrative All-Star game away from Charlotte.)

After the shooting at the Orlando gay nightclub that killed 49 people, the WNBA distributed T-shirts bearing a rainbow heart with the words #OrlandoUnited on them for a night. The Minnesota Lynx wore shirts with the words “Change starts with us, justice and accountability” for one game—prompting four off-duty police officers working the game to walk out. (The women did not receive a fine in that case.)

Here’s what some of the fined players had to say about the whole affair:

Liberty guard Tanisha Wright: “We really feel like there’s still an issue still in America, and we want to be able to use our platforms. We want to be able to use our voices. We don’t want to let anybody silence us in what we want to talk about…It’s unfortunate that the WNBA has fined us and not supported its players.”

Liberty forward Tina Charles: (Charles wore her usual warmup shirt inside out while accepting the “Player of the Month” award prior to the game.) “I was just thinking, with what happened today in North Miami to the African-American male who was down just trying to help an autistic person out, when I heard about that news, I just couldn’t be silent. You know, just knowing my status, knowing the player I am representing this organization, if anybody was going to wear it, it had to be me. So for me, it’s just all about me continuing to raise awareness. I have no problem wearing this shirt inside out for the rest of the season until we’re able to have the WNBA support.”

Liberty guard Swin Cash: “We really would appreciate that people stop making our support of Black Lives Matter, an issue that is so critical in our society right now, as us not supporting the police officers. There’s a lot of women in this room right now, and in the WNBA, that have family members who are in law enforcement, family who are in the military…The fact of the matter is, there is an issue at hand is, and as much as we can grieve and feel sorry for those families who are losing those police officers, we also have the right and the ability to also have our voice be heard about an issue that goes back even further than the deaths that have been happening lately. And so I think people need to understand that it’s not mutually exclusive. You also can support both things, but at the same time, this issue is important to us.”

Tanisha Wright: “More than 70 percent of this league is made up of African-American women, so that affects us directly. We need the league to be just as supportive of this issue as they were with any other issue: Breast cancer awareness, they support that. Pride, they support that. Go Green initiative, they support. So we want them to stand with us and support this as well.”

Indiana Fever’s Briann January: “Race is tough, it’s very tough, but when you go about it the right way and attack that issue with information and statistics and support for those people, there is not a fight here. We’re not here to put up a fight. We’re here to support a certain group. We’re asking for change. Every race deserves the right to be treated with respect and not be treated based on the color of their skin.”

Tanisha Wright: “We feel like America has a problem with the police brutality that’s going on with black lives…And we want to just use our voices and use our platform to advocate for that. Just because someone says black lives matter, doesn’t mean that other lives don’t matter…What we say is black lives matter, too. Period.”

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These WNBA Players Were Fined for Shirts Supporting Black Lives Matter—and They’re Not Going to Take It

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Friday Cat Blogging – 22 July 2016

by Jeanett6168 Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Somebody pointed out last week that we haven’t seen Hopper for a while. Is that true? Maybe! So here she is, in all her green-eyed glory.

Have a nice weekend, everyone. We deserve one after four days of the Republican convention.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 22 July 2016

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That Deal Tom Barrack Talked About? Trump Took a Bath On It.

by SoniaMcKinnon Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Tom Barrack is now telling us about the time he sold Trump the Plaza Hotel. “He played me like a Steinway piano,” Barrack said. Trump was a steely-eyed negotiator, a tiger in the jungle.

Who is he kidding? The Plaza Hotel was a disastrous deal. Trump went with his gut and overpaid enormously. He bought it for $407 million—far more than it was worth at the time—spent over $50 million in renovations, and then, when he was going through bankruptcy proceedings, was forced to sell it in a deal that valued the hotel at $325 million. Barrack and his boss took Trump to the cleaners.

What’s more, Barrack was highlighting the absolute worst part of this deal: that Trump was so eager to get the hotel that he agreed to forego normal due diligence and instead allowed Barrack to just give him a list of stuff that needed fixing. It was massive negligence on Trump’s part. If Harvard has a list of the worst, laziest deals ever made, this one would make the top ten list.

Yet this is the example they’re touting to show what a great businessman Trump is? That takes real balls. It’s a testament to the fact that the Trump campaign figures it can just say anything. The Trump hagiography is once again beamed out to millions of people and nobody will ever hold them to account.

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That Deal Tom Barrack Talked About? Trump Took a Bath On It.

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Crime Is Down and People Feel Safer

by dmqugzpcv Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump is apparently planning to deliver a hair-raising speech tonight focused on the “crime and violence that today afflicts our nation.” According to Trump, homicides are up, Washington DC is a killing zone, police shootings have skyrocketed, and illegal immigrants are “roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.”

Whew. Just to prepare you for all this, here’s a chart you’ve seen many times before showing the rate of violent crime since its peak in 1993:

We don’t have official numbers for 2015 yet, and they might show a small uptick. That’s the nature of these things. But it’s pretty obvious that America is a considerably safer place than it’s been in decades.

But as the redoubtable Paul Manafort says, what about how people feel? Do they feel safe? That’s a hard question to answer, but Gallup asks it every year. Here’s the latest. I’ve included Excel’s trendline just to make it clear which direction this is going:

Bottom line: crime is way down and people feel safer than ever. Try not let Donald scare you too much tonight.

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Crime Is Down and People Feel Safer

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Meet the VIPs for Trump’s Big Speech Tonight

by PhilMcNish51795 Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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In the leaked version of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech, he rails against special interests, big donors, and elite media figures as the puppet masters behind Hillary Clinton. But waiting backstage and seated in the luxury boxes at the Quicken Loans Arena as he delivers his big address will be the very type of people he denounces.

According to a copy of the speech obtained by the Washington Post, Trump will blame America’s problems on special interests, as he has done throughout the campaign:

…These interests have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit. Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place.

They are throwing money at her because they have total control over everything she does.

She is their puppet, and they pull the strings. That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change.

But an official guest list for the VIP boxes at the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention, first published by Bloomberg on Thursday afternoon, includes billionaire mega-donors such as Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Wisconsin roofing supply mogul Diane Hendricks, and the Amway scions of the DeVos family. (If Trump’s puppet master line sounds familiar, it’s because he once mocked Marco Rubio as “a perfect little puppet” of Adelson, who was believed to prefer the Florida senator.)

Adelson, Hendricks, and the Devoses will be situated in Suite 125 at the Quicken Loans Arena, located directly behind the podium where Donald Trump will make his acceptance speech, where they will be joined by:

Joe Craft, the CEO of coal company Alliance Resources.
Wilbur Ross, a billionaire leveraged buyout king who owned the coal company involved in the Sago Mine disaster.
Woody Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and owner of the New York Jets who was the finance chairman of Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign.
Anthony Scaramucci, a New York hedge-funder who leads Trump’s outreach to Wall Street.
Steve Mnuchin, a banker and Trump’s campaign finance chairman.
Todd Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who was a major bankroller of the #NeverTrump movement. (A source told Bloomberg that Ricketts was attending as a supporter of the party, not Trump.)

This luxury box will also include a handful of Trump’s closest political allies, such as governors Chris Christie and Rick Scott.

In another suite, hosted by Mnuchin, key Trump business and political allies will huddle. The list includes Phil Ruffin, Trump’s partner on his Las Vegas hotel; billionaire Andy Beal, a banker, mathematician, and poker player; Tom Barrack, the Los Angeles billionaire investor who is heading an effort to raise money for a pro-Trump super-PAC; Harold Hamm, a natural gas fracking mogul who Trump is said to be considering for Energy secretary in a potential Trump administration; and…Nacho Figueras, an Argentinean model and polo player.

In another suite, Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of hedge fund billionaire (and former Ted Cruz backer) Robert Mercer. The leaked documents show Mercer (and a bodyguard) will be joined by five guests, including Steve Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart News, Matt Boyle, the conservative website’s Washington editor, and other Breitbart staff.

If Trump starts to rail against NAFTA, another suite may fall a little silent—one invitee is Dennis Nixon, CEO of Laredo, Texas-based International Bank of Commerce, whose website hails him as “instrumental” in the passage of NAFTA. Nixon’s guests include IBC executive Eddie Aldrete, vice-chairman of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration reform group, as well as Noe Garcia, a Washington D.C.-based lobbyist who represents the Border Trade Alliance.

The final VIP suite includes Annie Dickerson, a key advisor to hedge funder Paul Singer, who has made his dislike of Trump very clear. Dickerson led the unsuccessful fight last week to include more pro-LGBT-friendly language in the RNC platform, a major issue for Singer, who strongly supports LGBT rights. Dickerson’s listed guest is former Bush adviser Dan Senor, who made news last week when he tweeted about recent conversations with Indiana governor Mike Pence where Pence complained about Trump. (Senor says he won’t be attending.)

The full guest list for the VIP suites is below.

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Meet the VIPs for Trump’s Big Speech Tonight

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