Needing money, Trump turns Zionist. Hillary stays with TPP; Ben Carson
links
her to Lucifer
Newsletter published on 21 July 2016
(1) Needing money, Trump turns Zionist. Hillary also
relies on big
Jewish donors
(2) Trump deletes Tweet showing Hillary with
Star of David and a pile of
money
(3) Under Trump, the Old anti-Semitism
Is Making a Comeback - Haaretz
(4) Ben Carson warns Hillary is a devotee of
Saul Alinsky, who dedicaded
a book to Lucifer
(5) Hillary's mentor Saul
Alinsky dedicated a book "to the very first
radical ... Lucifer"
(6)
Hillary delegates vote down Sanders' call for TPP to be dropped
(7) Clinton
Backers Beat Back Sanders Supporters on TPP Trade Pact
(1) Needing money,
Trump turns Zionist. Hillary also relies on big
Jewish donors
From:
"Ken Freeland diogenesquest@gmail.com
[shamireaders]"
<shamireaders-noreply@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 22:33:22
-0500 Subject: [shamireaders] FW: In the US,
money talks when it comes
to Israel, Jonathan Cook
http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-07-19/in-the-us-money-talks-when-it-comes-to-israel/
In
the US, money talks when it comes to Israel
Jonathan Cook
The
National – 19 July 2016
The grubby underside of US electoral politics is
on show once again as
the Democratic and Republican candidates prepare to
fight it out for the
presidency. And it doesn’t get seamier than the battle
to prove how
loyal each candidate is to Israel.
New depths are likely
to be plumbed this week at the Republican
convention in Cleveland, as Donald
Trump is crowned the party’s nominee.
His platform breaks with decades of
United States policy to effectively
deny the Palestinians any hope of
statehood.
The question now is whether the Democratic candidate, Hillary
Clinton,
who positions herself as Israel’s greatest ally, will try to outbid
Mr
Trump in cravenly submitting to the Israeli right.
It all started
so differently. Through much of the primary season,
Benjamin Netanyahu’s
government had reason to be worried about Israel’s
"special relationship"
with the next occupant of the White House.
Early on, Mr Trump promised to
be "neutral" and expressed doubts about
whether it made sense to hand Israel
billions of dollars annually in
military aid. He backed a two-state solution
and refused to recognise
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
On the
Democrat side, Mrs Clinton was challenged by outsider Bernie
Sanders, who
urged "even-handedness" towards Israel and the
Palestinians. He also
objected to the huge sums of aid the US bestows on
Israel.
Mr Sanders
exploited his massive support among Democrats to force Mrs
Clinton to
include well-known supporters of Palestinian rights on the
committee that
drafts the party’s platform.
But any hopes of an imminent change in US
policy in the Middle East have
been dashed.
Last week, as the draft
Republic platform was leaked, Mr Trump proudly
tweeted that it was the "most
pro-Israel of all time!" Avoiding any
mention of a two-state solution, it
states: "We reject the false notion
that Israel is an occupier. … Support
for Israel is an expression of
Americanism."
The capitulation was so
complete that even the Anti-Defamation League, a
New York-based apologist
group for Israel, called the platform
"disappointing" and urged the
Republican convention to "reconsider".
After all, even Mr Netanyahu pays lip
service to the need for a
Palestinian state.
But Mr Trump is not
signalling caution. His two new advisers on Israel,
David Friedman and Jason
Greenblatt, are fervent supporters of the
settlements and annexation of
Palestinian territory.
Mr Trump’s running mate, announced at the weekend,
is Indiana governor
Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian and a stalwart of
pro-Israel causes.
So why the dramatic turnaround?
Candidates for
high office in the US need money – lots of it. Until now
Mr Trump has been
chiefly relying on his own wealth. He has raised less
than $70 million, a
fifth of Mrs Clinton’s war-chest.
The Republican party’s most significant
donor is Sheldon Adelson, a
casino magnate and close friend of Mr Netanyahu.
He has hinted that he
will contribute more than $100 million to the Trump
campaign if he likes
what he sees.
Should Mr Netanyahu offer implicit
endorsement, as he did for Mitt
Romney in the 2012 race, Christian Zionist
preachers such as John Hagee
will rally ten of millions of followers to Mr
Trump’s side too – and
fill his coffers.
Similar indications that
money is influencing policy are evident in the
Democratic party.
Mr
Sanders funded his campaign through small donations, giving him the
freedom
to follow his conscience. Mrs Clinton, by contrast, has relied
on
mega-donors, including some, such as Haim Saban, who regard Israel as
a key
election issue.
That may explain why, despite the many concessions made
to Mr Sanders on
the Democratic platform, Mrs Clinton’s team refused to
budge on Israel
issues. As a result, the draft platform fails to call for an
end to the
occupation or even mention the settlements.
According to
The New York Times, Mrs Clinton’s advisers are vetting
James Stavridis as a
potential running mate. A former Nato commander, he
is close to the Israeli
defence establishment and known for his hawkish
pro-Israel
positions.
Mrs Clinton, meanwhile, has promised to use all her might to
fight the
growing boycott movement, which seeks to isolate Israel over its
decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory.
The two candidates’
fierce commitment to Israel appears to fly in the
face of wider public
sentiment, especially among Democrats.
A recent Pew poll found 57 per
cent of young, more liberal Democrats
sympathised with the Palestinians
rather than Israel. Support for
hawkish Israeli positions is weakening among
American Jews too, a key
Democratic constituency. About 61 per cent believe
Israel can live
peacefully next to an independent Palestinian
state.
The toxic influence of money in the US presidential elections can
be
felt in many areas of policy, both domestic and foreign.
But the
divorce between the candidates’ fervour on Israel and the
growing doubts of
many of their supporters is particularly stark.
It should be dawning on
US politicians that a real debate about the
nation’s relationship with
Israel cannot be deferred much longer.
(2) Trump deletes Tweet showing
Hillary with Star of David and a pile of
money
From: "Come Carpentier
comecarpentier@gmail.com
[shamireaders]"
<shamireaders-noreply@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 12:49:49
+0530 Subject: [shamireaders] Trump realises
that he is up against
something too strong to be challenged
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/us/politics/trump-clinton-star-of-david.html
POLITICS
Donald
Trump Deletes Tweet Showing Hillary Clinton and Star of David Shape
By
ALAN RAPPEPORT
JULY 2, 2016
Donald J. Trump, the presumptive
Republican presidential nominee, came
under fire on Saturday for posting on
Twitter an image of the Star of
David shape next to a picture of Hillary
Clinton and calling his
opponent the "most corrupt candidate
ever!"
While the six-pointed star is used in other contexts, including as
a
symbol of many Sheriff’s Departments, it has deep meaning in Judaism and
the image was overlaid atop a pile of money. It appeared to play into
the stereotype of Jews being obsessed with finances. After being derided
on social media, Mr. Trump deleted the post and replaced it with one
that had a circle instead of the star shape.
Crooked Hillary -- Makes
History! #ImWithYou #AmericaFirst
pic.twitter.com/PKQhYhMmIX — Donald J.
Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2,
2016
While Mr. Trump has been
working to professionalize his campaign, the
Twitter post was the latest
example of him making remarks many deem
offensive. Several weeks ago, he
insinuated that a federal judge
presiding over a lawsuit against Trump
University could not be impartial
in the case because of his Mexican
heritage.
Mr. Trump apparently realized the problem with the original
Twitter post
because he rarely apologizes for his remarks or deletes his
posts. His
campaign did not respond to a request for comment on
Saturday.
Before the post came down, Josh Schwerin, a spokesman for Mrs.
Clinton’s
campaign, asked on his personal Twitter account, "Why is there a
Star of
David?" Other commenters were more blunt:
@finkowska All
right. OK. Is this a deliberate show of grotesque
anti-semitism or an
accidental act of grotesque stupidity? — Neil Bennun
(@NeilBennun) July 2,
2016
Mr. Trump regularly touts his close ties to Jewish people, noting
that
his daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism when she married her husband,
Jared Kushner. He also has promised to make the security of Israel a top
priority if he is elected president.
However, Mr. Trump has
frustrated some Jews for initially declining to
take a firm stand on the
side of Israel when discussing the conflict
with the Palestinians. And he
angered some last year when he joked about
Jews being good with money during
a speech to the Republican Jewish
Coalition.
Mr. Trump has also been
criticized for failing to denounce supporters
who have harangued Jewish
journalists on social media and at gatherings
of white nationalists, and for
being slow to disavow the support of
David Duke, the former
Klansman.
(3) Under Trump, the Old anti-Semitism Is Making a Comeback -
Haaretz
From: "Israel Shamir adam@israelshamir.net [shamireaders]"
<shamireaders-noreply@yahoogroups.com>
X-Yahoo-Profile: ish314 Date:
Sat, 9 Jul 2016 08:37:37 +0300 Subject:
[shamireaders] Trump and Jews
Regarding Pick Your Poison Part 2 Did Trump
surrender his position to
the Jews? Here is a lengthy piece from Haaretz
implying that he did not.
Under Trump, the Old anti-Semitism Is Making a
Comeback
by Chemi Shalev Jul 07, 2016 11:18 PM
http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.729654
The
motto "Always Fight, Never Apologize" was bequeathed to Donald Trump
by his
late lawyer and presumed mentor, Roy Cohn. The repulsive
mastermind of the
McCarthy hearings could also answer Trump’s claim that
he can’t be an
anti-Semite because he loves his converted daughter and
his Jewish
son-in-law and grandchildren: Cohn was a full-fledged Jew,
yet he hated Jews
with a vengeance and persecuted them with undisguised
zeal. So it can be
done.
But even if we accept Jared Kushner’s assertion, in response to the
brave essay posted in his own Observer newspaper by Dana Schwartz that
"my father in law is an incredibly loving and tolerant person who has
embraced my family and our Judaism since I began dating my wife." And
even if we take at face value the factually-challenged statement of
Trump’s adviser and advocate Jason Greenblatt that Trump "has refuted
anti-Semitism, loudly and publicly". his follow up rhetorical question
remains unanswered: "Why would Mr. Trump countenance the support of any
Jew hater, when he is one of the most pro-Jewish, pro-Israel candidates
ever to seek national office?"
Why indeed. Greenblatt claims that
Trump hasn’t countenanced such
support, but things may seem different
outside Trump Tower. The facts
are that Trump tried to avoid denouncing
David Duke for as long as he
could; that he has said nothing about the
racists and anti-Semites
coming out of the woodworks in droves under his
umbrella; that he
refused to criticize the anti-Semitic trolls who hounded
journalist
Julia Ioffe after her magazine portrait that Trump’s wife Melania
did
not like and that he has said nothing about the vicious anti-Semitic
social media bombardment of any Jewish journalist who happens to write a
bad word about him; that he has refused to let go of the slogan "America
First" even though he must surely realize by now that it carries a
specific anti-Semitic historical connotation; that he repeatedly lauds
tyrants and dictators that are problematic for Jews, including Benito
Mussolini and Saddam Hussein; and that he himself has been known to
release the occasional anti-Semitic remark, including his assertion to
the Republican Jewish Coalition, more relevant today perhaps than it
was back in March, that Jews won’t support him because they can’t
control him because they can’t buy him with money. You know, like
Hillary Clinton in the star-studded ad that Trump insists has nothing to
do with Jews.
But instead of simply apologizing and moving on, as
Jewish leaders have
begged him to do, both publicly and privately, Trump has
persisted in
doubling down and making things worse. He asserted on Wednesday
that
critics who see a Star of David where there is only an innocent
sheriff’s badge are "sick". He insisted that he wouldn’t have removed
the offensive ad in the first place, as his staff did, because there’s
nothing offensive about it. He completely ignored the fact that the ad
was lifted directly from a neo-Nazi website. And then he added insult to
injury with an inane tweet that compared the Clinton ad to a poster of a
Disney book of Frozen that also featured a six-pointed star. So which is
it? Is Trump playing stupid? Pandering to what he assumes is the lowest
common denominator of his supporters? Or is there something more
sinister at play?
Even if you stipulate that you agree with Trump
100% that the Star of
David ad is completely innocent, why is he so totally
unresponsive to
protests that have come from Jews and non-Jews alike,
including Paul
Ryan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives? Why is
such a
self-proclaimed lover of Jews allowing anti-Semitism to rear its head
in
the middle of his election campaign instead of nipping it in the bud so
that it goes back under the rock from which it emerged? How is it
rational for Trump to antagonize and alienate so many Jews for no good
reason?
Perhaps it’s truly because he never apologizes and always
hits back "ten
times harder," as Cohn taught him. Perhaps he thinks that
standing tall
against the media and refusing to bow to political correctness
was, is
and will forever be essential to his success. Perhaps he’s counted
and
then realized that there are far more racists than Jews, who aren’t
going to vote for him anyway, because they can always a buy a Democrat
like Clinton, as the ad states and as he once implied.
And perhaps,
in a worst-case scenario, Trump is keeping the Jews in
reserve as an
emergency scapegoat, if his campaign doesn’t go well. It’s
a long-standing
tradition in American politics, though not one usually
kept by mainstream
candidates of the two big parties. From the
manipulative Rothschild bankers
of William Jennings Bryant in 1896,
through the Bolshevik agents in the
1920’s, the international Jews who
pushed Franklin Roosevelt to fight the
Nazis and implement the Jew Deal
in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Roy Cohn’s 1950’s
communists, George Wallace’s
liberals in the 1960’s, Jesse Jackson’s hymies
in the 1980’s and Pat
Buchanan’s neocon Israel-Firsters, pushing America
into a war of
civilizations in the 1990’s, anti-Semitism is always just
around the
corner, if anyone needs it.
The situation is laced with
irony. It was only a short while ago, no
more than a year or two, when the
era was being touted as a golden age
for American Jews, in which they are
more than prosperous, their culture
permeates throughout the land and they
are the most admired and sought
after religious group of all. In any case,
if anyone was going to
unleash a new wave of anti-Semitism, it was going to
be the Jewish
Democrat Bernie Sanders, rather than the candidate of the
party that in
recent years has been portrayed as absolutely philo-Semitic as
well as
completely supportive of Israel.
This was supposed to be the
year that the GOP would hit the jackpot with
the Jews. Jewish Republicans
had hoped to use the 31 per cent that Mitt
Romney extracted from the Jews in
2012 as a launchpad to try and match
the previous records of 39 per cent for
Ronald Reagan in 1984 and 40 per
cent for Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.
Instead, they should now fear
plummeting to John McCain’s 24 per cent in
2008, George W. Bush’s 19 per
cent in 2000 and even, heaven help them, his
father’s measly 11 per cent
in 1992.
While the government of Israel
and its constituent Jewish organizations
have been waging a crusade against
new anti-Semitism that is fueled by
hostility to Israel from Islam and the
left, the far older and more
entrenched anti-Semitism that requires hatred
for Jews alone has reared
its head on the right. Reservations about Barack
Obama’s attitude
towards Israel and fear that Clinton will follow in his
path will now
have to compete with far more primeval fears that Jews have
known
throughout the ages. And after several years in which it may have
seemed
that Jews in America and in Israel are growing closer and facing
common
enemies, the particular Diaspora experience suddenly reappears,
driving
a new wedge between them. Israelis have grown accustomed to a
dichotomous worldview in which the left is the root of all evil while
the right, racist as it is, is a kindred spirit. A resurgence of
anti-Semitism from the right will be disconcerting for many Israeli
Jews, reminding them that support for Israel and animosity towards Jews
are not mutually exclusive.
Jewish groups that are not identified
with the left have kept mainly
silent until now, with the notable exception
of the Anti Defamation
League’s Jonathan Greenblatt, who has been urging
Trump to apologize and
get the Star of David affair over with. Several
Jewish groups united
yesterday to issue a call against anti-Semitism in the
campaign, without
mentioning Trump by name. You can imagine that some of the
groups were
concerned about their right wing donors, while others insisted
that
Sander’s demands for changes in the Democratic platform also merit a
mention.
"It’s like a bad dream that we need to wake up from," one
Jewish leader
told me this week. Which reminded me of a "nightmarish
fantasy" I wrote
in March in which anti-Semitism exploded during the
campaign, Trump won
the elections and liberals found refuge in Israel. That
last part
remains wishful thinking, of course, but of the "nightmarish
fantasy"
that existed three months ago, I suspect only the nightmare remains
today.
Chemi Shalev Haaretz Correspondent
(4) Ben Carson warns
Hillary is a devotee of Saul Alinsky, who dedicaded
a book to
Lucifer
http://www.jta.org/2016/07/20/news-opinion/politics/when-gop-needs-a-rallying-tactic-better-call-saul-alinsky
When
GOP needs a rallying tactic, better call Saul (Alinsky)
By Ron
Kampeas
July 20, 2016 7:33am
CLEVELAND (JTA) — Two days into the
coronation of Donald J. Trump, the
arrival of Saul Alinsky, in all his dead
Jewish radical glory, was not a
surprise.
Lucifer, on the other hand,
was an unexpected guest, brought into the
proceedings by Ben Carson, the
rival Trump defeated.
Alinsky is the community organizer and author whose
templates have
loomed large in the conservative mind in recent years as the
ur-text of
leftist nefariousness.
Among other techniques, he
advocated using non-violent conflict as a
rallying principle, and the
identification of an external threat as a
means of uniting an afflicted
community.
Those disruptive tactics and Alinsky’s associations with
Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama have made him a bogeyman for the right
wing. Clinton
wrote her undergraduate thesis on Alinsky, and interviewed him
– she was
critical of some of his tactics, but her association still incurs
conservative wrath.
Alinsky was a community organizer in Chicago and
Obama was a community
organizer in Chicago — but decades later, long after
Alinsky died when
Obama was 11.
Newt Gingrich embraced the
Alinsky-Obama nexus during his abortive 2012
run for president, thrice
mentioning Alinsky in his South Carolina
primary victory speech. The
Forward’s Gal Beckerman wondered at the time
if Gingrich was sending out a
high-pitched whistle.
"I might be overreacting, it’s possible, but if I
hear what I hear when
he uses that obviously Jewish, foreign-sounding name,
I’m sure others do
as well," Beckerman wrote.
No surprise, Alinsky
had a walk-on Tuesday night, hours after Donald
Trump formally assumed the
nomination through a roll call vote on the
floor of the Quicken Loans Arena
in Cleveland on the second night of the
convention.
Alinsky’s channel
was Carson, the neurosurgeon who briefly overtook
Trump in polls last year,
earning him a typically Trumpian scorched
earth takedown. (The developer and
reality TV star likened Carson to a
child molester. Don’t
ask.)
Carson is now ensconced in the Trump camp – it came down to hating
Ted
Cruz even more than he did Donald – and was the penultimate
speaker.
Carson was charming and self-deprecating at first, wondering, in
his
neurosurgeonish way what had happened to the brain of Democrats, who, he
argued, were losing their minds to political correctness.
Then came
Hillary Clinton, and this:
"One of her heroes, her mentors was Saul
Alinsky. Her senior thesis was
on Saul Alinsky. He wrote a book called
‘Rules for Radicals.’ On the
dedication page it acknowledges Lucifer, the
original radical," Carson said.
"This is a nation where every bill in our
wallet says ‘In God we
trust,'" Carson continued, and the audience joined in
with him on the
last four words, and also when he got to "under God,"
reciting the
pledge of allegiance.
"Are we willing to elect as
president someone who has as their role
model somebody who acknowledges
Lucifer?" he asked.
Here’s Alinsky’s dedication (or, to be precise, an
epigraph that
precedes his book, along with a quote from Rabbi Hillel):
"Lest we
forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very
first
radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to
know
where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the
very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment
and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom —
Lucifer."
Alinsky, a Jew, is not embracing Christian phenomenology, nor
is he
lauding its antithesis. He is asking why a society needs a Lucifer,
and
suggesting that the invention of the devil is a product of repressing
tendencies that might at times prove productive.
(5) Hillary's mentor
Saul Alinsky dedicated a book "to the very first
radical ...
Lucifer"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-ben-carson-lucifer-20160720-story.html
Dr.
Ben Carson links Hillary Clinton to Lucifer in RNC address
Chicago
Tribune and Baltimore Sun staff
July 20, 2016
Ben Carson walked
away from night two of the Republican National
Convention with only seven
delegates voting for him to get the
nomination. Even still, he left quite an
impression.
The retired neurosurgeon delivered a scathing assessment of
presumptive
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at the
Republican
National Convention on Tuesday, criticizing her ties to community
organizer and author Saul Alinsky.
Carson said Clinton was an
admirerer of Alinsky, having written a thesis
about his work. He connected
the former secretary of state with an
epigraph for Alinsky's 1971 book
"Rules for Radicals" that calls Lucifer
"the very first
radical."
"This is a nation where every coin in our pockets and every
bill in our
wallet says, ‘In God We Trust.’ So are we willing to elect
someone as
president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges
Lucifer?" Carson said.
The full text of the note at start of "Rules
for Radicals," one of three
at the beginning of the book, reads:
Lest
we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very
first
radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is
to know
where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is
which), the
first radical known to man who rebelled against the
establishment and did it
so effectively that he at least won his own
kingdom —
Lucifer.
According to Politifact, there is no other discussion of Lucifer
or
Satan in the book.
Clinton has said she agreed with some of
Alinsky's opinions on social
change, but disagreed with his view that the
political systems could
only be changed from the outside.
Alinsky,
who died in 1972, is a favorite target for conservatives to pin
on
Democrats. Republicans also sought to tie Barack Obama to him in 2008
and
2012.
Alinsky, born in Chicago to Jewish immigrants from Russia, is
credited
with formalizing many of the tactics used to organize modern
protest and
community movements in the United States. He was active in the
labor
movement, led community organizations on the South Side of Chicago and
received both praise and derision from politicians in his
lifetime.
(6) Hillary delegates vote down Sanders' call for TPP to be
dropped
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2111843-sanders-supporters-praise-most-progressive-platform-despite-losing-key-battle-over-trade/
Sanders
Supporters Praise ‘Most Progressive Platform’ Despite Losing Key
Battle Over
Trade
By Steven Klett, Epoch Times
July 11, 2016 AT 1:09
PM
Last Updated: July 11, 2016 2:39 pm
Bernie Sanders and Hillary
Clinton delegates came to an agreement during
a meeting in Orlando, Florida
on a final version of the Democratic
party’s platform to be voted on in the
Philadelphia convention later
this month.
The platform is a
non-binding agreement, but acts as symbolic
representations of influence and
compromise between Clinton and Sanders
who have different visions for the
party.
The Sanders campaign claimed victories, passing amendments raising
minimum wage to $15, expansions to health care, and language calling for
environmental and drug reform.
"We have made enormous strides,"
Sanders said in a statement on his
website. "Thanks to the millions of
people across the country who got
involved in the political process – many
for the first time – we now
have the most progressive platform in the
history of the Democratic Party."
Thanks to millions of people
across the country, we have the most
progressive platform in the history of
the Democratic Party. Thank you!
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders)
July 10, 2016
Sanders delegates also expressed surprise and optimism
about the results.
"It went a lot better than I thought it would," said
environmentalist
and author Bill McKibben, one of the platform committee
delegates
supporting Bernie Sanders, in en email to Epoch
Times.
McKibben agreed with Sanders’ assessment that the platform was the
"most
progressive platform by far ever."
The Clinton campaign also
touted the success of the platform stressing
the unity between the two
candidates coming together to strengthen the
document.
"We are proud
of the work that Democrats did in Orlando and for coming
together to further
strengthen the most progressive platform in the
history of our party," said
Clinton senior policy adviser Maya Harris as
the two-day Platform Committee
meeting wrapped up late Saturday night,
according to a report by
NBC.
Sanders is preparing to end the rivalry with Clinton on Tuesday at a
rally in New Hampshire where he will be campaigning with the presumptive
nominee and is expected to make a full endorsement of her. Issues
Sanders Lost On
Three major issues that were pushed by the Sanders
campaign were
rejected by the Platform Committee: trade, fracking, and a
change in
position on Israeli settlements.
An amendment to oppose the
TPP was voted down by Clinton delegates
despite the fact that neither
campaign supports it and no Clinton
supporters spoke up in support of the
trade agreement. The delegates
didn’t want to cross the President’s support
of the deal.
(7) Clinton Backers Beat Back Sanders Supporters on TPP
Trade Pact
http://www.newsweek.com/clinton-backers-beat-back-sanders-supporters-tpp-trade-pact-479138
By
Nicholas Loffredo On 7/9/16 at 6:07 PM
Bernie Sanders' attempts to
progressively influence the Democratic
Party's 2016 platform suffered a blow
Saturday when his supporters
failed to add specific opposition to the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
trade deal to the party's
planks.
Sanders' supporters shouted insults at Hillary Clinton loyalists
and
vowed to force a vote on the party's stance on the 12-nation trade pact
when it holds its convention later this month, CNN reports. But it
wasn't a lost weekend for Sanders; the party added explicit support for
a federal $15-an-hour minimum wage to the platform, expressing support
for one of the Vermont senator's signature initiatives.
"We will
continue fighting to protect American jobs and to ensure
Congress does not
pass this disastrous trade agreement," said Warren
Gunnels, Sanders' policy
director, according to the Washington Post.
Both Clinton and Sanders
oppose the TPP, which has been a major priority
of the Obama administration.
Attempts to avoid embarassing Obama, who
stumped with Clinton this week,
kept the anti-trade deal language out of
the platform although an amendment
was adopted that lays out the party's
priorities for trade deals. The
amendment, proposed by the American
Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees union president Lee
Saunders, avoided actual mention of
the TPP and passed by a vote of 116
to 64, according to the
Post.
Sanders controls a minority of votes on the 187-member Democratic
National Committee, with 70 to Clinton's 100, according to NBCNews.com.
The balance are appointed by the committee itself.
At least two
attempts were made by Sanders backers to take a stand
against the TPP, which
is also opposed by Donald Trump, the presumptive
GOP candidate. Both failed,
prompting some Sanders delegates to walk out
and others to shout "shame" and
"fake progressive" at Clinton backers.
"We’ve had no speech in favor of
TPP, but we can’t bring ourselves to
say that we oppose TPP?" asked Robert
Kraig, a Sanders delegate,
according to the Post.
"The majority of
Democrats, like the majority of Americans, are against
the TPP," said Ben
Jealous, who sparked the effort to denounce the TPP.
"Hillary is against the
TPP. Bernie is against the TPP. Let’s not be
bureaucrats—let’s be
leaders."
Sanders hasn't suspended his campaign or endorsed Clinton for
president
despite the former secretary of state reaching the delegate
threshold to
be nominated at the party convention. He has largely faded from
headlines recently as Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren endorsed
and campaigned with Clinton, and was booed this week by House Democrats
who want him to get behind the Clinton campaign. His reluctance has
largely been seen as an attempt to extract concessions from the party
establishment and move the platform left—which he did accomplish with
the successful adoption of the $15-an-hour minimum wage plank.
The
platform will call for the benchmark to be introduced "over
time"—less
specific than Sanders wanted but a significant break from
Clinton's prior
support for a $12-an-hour minimum wage. He is expected
to win further
concessions to his progressive platform before the
weekend
concludes.
Sanders will appear with Clinton at a campaign event Tuesday
in New
Hampshire, with speculation swirling that he may finally endorse her
candidacy.
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