RandySF
RandySF's JournalClinton slams Alabama’s ‘discriminatory’ voter law
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton on Saturday accused Alabama lawmakers of advancing “discriminatory” laws to roll back voting rights, as she looks to shore up support with black voters.
In her first visit to Alabama as a presidential candidate, Clinton elevated her call for voting rights as she condemned the state’s decision last week to close 31 driver’s license offices. Nearly all of the offices were in predominantly black neighborhoods.
She urged Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and his Republican-controlled legislature to keep the offices open, and “not just for one day a month."
“Here in Alabama, without the right kind of ID, it’s nearly impossible to vote,” she said as the packed room boomed with applause.
“It’s hard to believe we are back having this same debate about whether every American gets a chance to vote,” she declared, raising her voice as the cheers grew louder. “This is a blast from the Jim Crow past.”
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/257243-clinton-slams-alabamas-discriminatory-voting-law
Mental Health, the NRA's new straw man.
Four years ago, when Adam Lanza opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 26 people, Sen. Marco Rubio dismissed calls for increased gun control, instead declaring a need for greater focus on the mentally ill.
"We should look for ways to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill prone to misusing them, but I oppose legislation that will be used as a vehicle to impose new Second Amendment restrictions on responsible, law-abiding gun owners," Rubio said in a statement a few months after the mass shooting. "We should work to reduce tragic acts of violence by addressing violence at its source, including untreated mental illness, the lack of adequate information-sharing on mental health issues, and the breakdown of the family."
But in the years since, Rubio has not authored a single piece of legislation to expand services for mentally ill people while he has consistently voted against proposed gun restrictions.
This lack of follow-through places Rubio in a crowded camp. In recent years, as mass shootings have become a familiar tragedy in American life, the reactions have generally adhered to a consistent script: Republicans coalesce around the position that guns are not to blame while urging that attention be paid to the dangers posed by failing to treat mental illness. Then they go back to what they were doing before, voting down gun control bills while offering little to follow-through on their calls for increased attention to mental health care.
http://www.ibtimes.com/republicans-mass-shooting-response-focuses-not-gun-control-mental-health-reform-2125119
By the way, there is one group of corporations Bernie wants to protect
Gun manufactures. God forbid we hold THEM responsible for anything.
Gun Control Group: Sanders mirrors the talking points of the gun lobby.
A prominent gun control advocate is bashing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other Democratic presidential candidates for their ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA).
Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said he is even more concerned about Sanders’s record on guns following the debate.
Sanders “mirrors the talking points of the gun lobby,” said Gross, who praised Hillary Clinton and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley for hammering the senator on the issue.
“Last night, it was summarized as, ‘Don’t vote for Sanders, because he sides with the corporate gun lobby over the American people.’” Gross said.
Gross also expressed concerns to a lesser extent with what former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb had to say about guns.
http://thehill.com/regulation/256924-gun-control-group-bashing-sanders-chafee
Bernie Sanders Wins Focus Groups And Social Media, But Hillary Clinton Wins Post Debate Polls
Focus groups, social media and search data suggest a Bernie Sanders debate win, but a new HuffPost/YouGov poll tells a very different story. Democratic Party activists are taking Sanders more seriously but still stand by Clinton, while GOP activists are warming to outsiders. And we preview the polling on next week's elections in Canada. This is HuffPollster for Friday, October 16, 2015
DEMOCRATIC VOTERS GIVE CLINTON DEBATE WIN - HuffPollster: "Tuesday's Democratic presidential debate on CNN did what debates usually do, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll. It allowed the two leading candidates to make a positive impression on an audience of millions. More critically, however, the debate allowed front-runner Hillary Clinton to boost her standing among a far bigger base of support, making her the clear winner in the eyes of most Democratic voters. A 55 percent majority of registered Democratic voters who watched the debate said Clinton won. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who saw a surge in online interest and fundraising, was a distant second, with only 22 percent saying he was the best of the night. Clinton also saw an uptick in the proportion of Democrats who say they want her to be the party's presidential nominee. Before the debate, 44 percent of registered Democrats said they wanted Clinton to be the nominee. After the debate, the figure had risen to 52 percent." [HuffPost]
Clinton's bigger base the key, but Sanders also benefited - More HuffPollster: "Democrats tended to think their favored candidate prevailed Tuesday night. Among those who want Clinton to be the nominee, 82 percent thought she was the winner. Only 15 percent of those who prefer someone else said Clinton won, while 61 percent of those people judged Sanders the winner. The poll also shows that both Clinton and Sanders made good impressions on Democratic voters -- 52 percent said their view of Clinton improved, and 42 percent said the same of Sanders. The difference between candidates disappears if Democratic-leaning independents are included with Democratic voters. Among this larger group, 46 percent say their opinion of each candidate improved."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/post-democratic-debate-poll-clinton-wins_5620e1dbe4b06462a13b948b
Tickets for new 'Star Wars' may go on sale next week
The force is awakening.
Rumors are flying around the Internet that pre-order tickets for the new film "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" premiering in December will become available in a galaxy close to home on Monday, October 19.
SFGATE checked in with the media relations department at Lucasfilm and they're not revealing details, but word on the street is that Monday is the big day.
The i09: Welcome from the Future site reports that the final trailer for the film will land Monday night around 8 p.m. EST, likely during half-time on "Monday Night Football" on Disney-owned ESPN. Shortly after, "tickets will go on sale. They should be available at most, if not all, ticketing sites and theaters."
When tickets go on sale, they're expected to be for "screenings starting at 7 p.m. on December 17 and running through January 3," io9 reports, and tickets for a seven-movie marathon, starting at 4 a.m. and wrapping up with the 7 p.m. Force Awakens premiere, will also be available.
http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/pre-order-tickets-Star-Wars-Force-Awakens-Monday-6574335.php
Hillary Clinton Says A National Gun Buyback Program Is 'Worth Considering'
It's "worth considering" whether the United States should emulate Australia by instituting a national gun buyback program, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Friday at a town hall in New Hampshire.
A man in the audience asked Clinton whether she thought it would be possible for the U.S. to enact such a program, and if not, why. Gun buybacks have happened at the metropolitan level in the U.S., but any effort at the national level would be sure to run into intense political opposition.
Clinton, for her part, seemed open to the idea.
"Australia is a good example, Canada is a good example, the U.K. is a good example. Why? Because each of them have had mass killings" she said. "Australia had a huge mass killing about 20, 25 years ago, Canada did as well, so did the U.K. And, in reaction, they passed much stricter gun laws."
Australia’s mandatory gun buyback program of semiautomatic and automatic rifles and shotguns was enacted after a shooter killed 35 people in 1996. The country bought back more than 650,000 weapons.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-gun-buybacks_56216331e4b02f6a900c5d67
The senator who won’t shoot straight: What Bernie Sanders gets wrong about gun control
In addition to flubbing the origins of America’s current impasse on gun control, Sanders also failed to fully account for his own record on the issue. As both moderator Anderson Cooper and Hillary Clinton pointed out, Sanders voted against the Brady Bill of 1993, which would have established background checks on firearms and supported legislation that would have made it illegal to sue gun manufacturers and sellers when their firearms were misused. Although Sanders now supports background checks, he never explained why he opposed the Brady Bill at the time or how he has arrived at his current position.
Sanders was more forthcoming when it came to prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers and sellers, saying that he doesn’t think gun shop owners who commit legal transactions should be held responsible if “somebody goes out and does something crazy.” At the same time, he then conceded, “Where you have manufacturers and where you have gun shops knowingly giving guns to criminals or aiding and abetting that, of course we should take action.”
This statement conflicts with the facts on the issue: Leading legal scholars agree that the bill Sanders supported, Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, makes it impossible for even those manufacturers and shops to be held accountable. A product of the George W. Bush administration, Media Matters’ Sergio Munoz explains that the 2005 act “immunized gun makers and dealers from civil lawsuits for the crimes committed with the products they sell, a significant barrier to a comprehensive gun violence prevention strategy.” Munoz argues that the bill essentially “shields the firearm industry.”
Perhaps the worst part of all this is that Sanders’ rural background isn’t as an excuse for his poor record on gun legislation. In fact, that history is what puts Sanders in a unique position to take a stand against pro-gun hardliners.
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/16/the_senator_who_couldnt_shoot_straight_what_bernie_sanders_gets_wrong_about_gun_control_partner/
Yes, Bernie Won Every Poll on the Internet. Hillary Still Won the Debate.
So, what gives? Were my fellow journalists and I watching a different debate than everyone else?
Let me start with the polls. As I explained after the first GOP debate when there was a similar difference in opinion between the chattering class and online respondents, instant online polls are informal and unscientific. The results rely on a self-selecting group of respondents with no regard to political affiliation, age, country, or even whether the person doing the responding actually watched the debate. Respondents, meanwhile, don’t have even the slightest motivation to be objective; it’s hard to imagine a Hillary supporter casting an online vote for Bernie or vice versa, regardless of what he or she saw onstage. Like tracking new Twitter followers or Google searches, the online surveys provide an interesting snapshot of the mood of a particular slice of the Internet, but they’re mostly for entertainment (for the reader) and traffic (for the outlet). No one should mistake them for the scientific surveys done by professional pollsters.
They also tend to favor those candidates with active and impassioned fans—something that Bernie’s fundraising numbers and campaign crowds suggest he clearly has in spades. When Slate and a number of other established media outlets declared Hillary the winner, we gave that same fan base—which has long felt, not unjustifiably, that their man’s not getting a fair shake in the media—one more reason to reload the page and vote again. In online polls, like elections, it’s all about turnout. In online polls, unlike elections, you can vote as many times as you want.
Which brings us to what I saw on Tuesday: As I wrote then and still believe now, Hillary was confident, poised, and unexpectedly aggressive. That, I concede, is a subjective opinion—as is any that calls a “winner” in a contest where there is no agreed-on metric to actually score the participants. But it’s also an informed one. She entered the night up nearly 20 points on Sanders when pollsters included Joe Biden in the race, and by even more when they didn’t. In other words, she didn’t need to win converts, only to preach to her choir—and from where I was sitting, she did just that. If absolutely nothing else, her email scandal was effectively eliminated as a primary issue thanks to Bernie’s benevolence—a massive pickup given the topic has been by far Clinton’s single biggest vulnerability this year.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/14/bernie_won_polls_not_the_debate_hillary_won_the_debate.html
Krugman: On financial reform, Clinton has "the better case"
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had an argument about financial regulation during Tuesday’s debate — but it wasn’t about whether to crack down on banks. Instead, it was about whose plan was tougher. The contrast with Republicans like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, who have pledged to reverse even the moderate financial reforms enacted in 2010, couldn’t be stronger.
For what it’s worth, Mrs. Clinton had the better case. Mr. Sanders has been focused on restoring Glass-Steagall, the rule that separated deposit-taking banks from riskier wheeling and dealing. And repealing Glass-Steagall was indeed a mistake. But it’s not what caused the financial crisis, which arose instead from “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers, which don’t take deposits but can nonetheless wreak havoc when they fail. Mrs. Clinton has laid out a plan to rein in shadow banks; so far, Mr. Sanders hasn’t.
But is Mrs. Clinton’s promise to take a tough line on the financial industry credible? Or would she, once in the White House, return to the finance-friendly, deregulatory policies of the 1990s?
Well, if Wall Street’s attitude and its political giving are any indication, financiers themselves believe that any Democrat, Mrs. Clinton very much included, would be serious about policing their industry’s excesses. And that’s why they’re doing all they can to elect a Republican.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/opinion/democrats-republicans-and-wall-street-tycoons.html?_r=0
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