April 29, 2015

Amid Baltimore Violence, Hillary Clinton Set to Unveil Plan to Reform Criminal Justice System

During her first major policy speech as a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton today is expected to lay out an ambitious plan to reform the criminal justice system. The plan, according to a Clinton aide, will include calling for the “end of an era of mass incarceration” and for increasing the use of body cameras by law enforcement agents nationwide.

The former secretary of state will announce her new policy proposals – likely to be her most specific yet since launching her campaign – during a policy forum at Columbia University in New York City this morning.

The announcement of her plan comes amid unrest and riots in Baltimore, Maryland following Monday’s funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of a spinal injury apparently suffered in police custody. This situation in Baltimore, like that of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in Staten Island, was sparked by concerns of police use of force and institutionalized racism.

At a fundraiser Tuesday night, Clinton made her most extensive comments yet on the situation in Baltimore, and called for widespread reform of the country’s criminal justice system.

“It is heartbreaking,” the Democratic presidential candidate said, according to a pool report of the event. “The tragic death of another young African-American man. The injuries to police officers. The burning of peoples’ homes and small businesses. We have to restore order and security. But then we have to take a hard look as to what we need to do to reform our system."

During her remarks today, Clinton is expected to “lay out a broader vision” for reform that will “include specific policy proposals,” according to an aide.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/amid-baltimore-violence-hillary-clinton-set-unveil-plan/story?id=30664649

This is an incredibly important issue. It is good to hear that she will be laying out policy proposals.

April 23, 2015

Question submitted by morningfog

April 23, 2015

I am glad Warren is not running for Pres. We'll need her to fight Hillary

Warren is handling Obama masterfully on this deal. She has the Democratic President running defense as he sides with the conservatives.

We will need her leadership for the next 4-8 years. She is likely more effective in pushing a Democratic President than a repug president, who would just ignore and denigrate her. She'll be a great liberal counter to President.

This is a preview of how Warren could influence the presidential debate without even running.

April 17, 2015

Parents of 8-Year-Old Boy Killed in Marathon Bombings Don’t Want Tsarnaev to Get Death Penalty

The parents of Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombings two years ago, have writtten a plea to end the attention convicted killer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has received and spare him from the death penalty.

In an essay written for The Boston Globe, Bill and Denise Richard ask that the case come to a close, writing, “We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives.”

The essay continues:

As long as the defendant is in the spotlight, we have no choice but to live a story told on his terms, not ours. The minute the defendant fades from our newspapers and TV screens is the minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/04/16/parents-year-old-boy-killed-marathon-bombings-don-want-tsarnaev-get-death-penalty/RV4ziGRsSPJfi85KWp2NFM/story.html?p1=feature_stack_1_hp

April 16, 2015

Liberia Now 25 Days Without Ebola in 2nd Countdown

Liberia has gone 25 days without any new Ebola case reported in its second countdown to being declared Ebola-free.

The head of the Incident Management System team, Tolbert Nyenswah, said that Liberia has less than 20 days before being declared Ebola free as specified by the World Health Organization.

After having initially gone 28 days without a new Ebola case, the country faced a setback when on March 25, a Liberian tested positive for the virus and subsequently died.

Nyenswah said that all contacts from that case have completed their 21 days of follow up.

According to the United Nations Mission on Ebola Emergency Response, the number of confirmed Ebola cases in the three most affected Ebola hit countries of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone has declined.

Nyenswah said, “Guinea currently has the highest rate while the cases in Sierra Leone have decreased and Liberia remains at zero.’’

http://www.bushchicken.com/liberia-now-25-days-without-ebola-in-2nd-countdown/

April 13, 2015

Gay couple featured in Hillary Clinton’s launch video invites candidate to their wedding

The gay couple featured in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 announcement video said Monday that they were so delighted to have been included in the ad that they invited the Democratic presidential contender to their wedding this summer.

Jared Milrad and Nate Johnson, two Democratic campaigners who were filmed in Clinton’s online launch ad talking about their commitment to each other said in an interview with the Washington Blade that they didn’t know they were being filmed for the announcement but were nevertheless ecstatic to have been featured.

“When we were first contacted, they basically told us a little bit about what they would be doing and said they were interviewing people going through big changes in life and also said that it was something affiliated with Hillary, but didn’t exactly say what it would be,” Johnson said.

“They just mainly wanted to hear our story about that and our life and decision to get married and how we’re dealing with that and how excited we are about that,” he said.

Milrad told the Blade that he and Johnson were “really excited” after they saw themselves in the video Sunday. In fact, shortly after the video was posted, Milrad took to Twitter to invite the former Secretary of State to their July 19 wedding in Chicago.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/gay-couple-clinton-2016-video-invite-wedding-article-1.2183449

April 13, 2015

"Getting Started" - Hillary's announcement video

&feature=youtu.be

Maybe it's here in GD as a stand alone post, but I didn't see it. So here is a link to it.

April 10, 2015

So what #hashtags will Hillary use in her Sunday tweet?

Hillary is going to tweet the announcement of her second run for president on Sunday. What #hashtags will she, or should she use?

How about some suggestions and predictions, DU?

March 31, 2015

Hillary Clinton also used iPad for e-mail

Hillary Rodham Clinton e-mailed her staff on an iPad as well as a BlackBerry while secretary of state, despite her explanation she exclusively used a personal e-mail address on a homebrew server so that she could carry a single device, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The dispute over her e-mails has cast a shadow over Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination who is widely expected to announce her candidacy next month.

The State Department released a total of four e-mails between Clinton and her top advisers as part of a Freedom of Information Act request filed in 2013 by the AP, which sought Clinton's correspondence with senior advisers over a four-year period relating to drone strikes overseas and U.S. surveillance programs.

While limited, the e-mails offer one of the first looks into Clinton's correspondence while secretary of state. The messages came from and were sent to her private e-mail address, hosted on a server at her property in Chappaqua, N.Y., as opposed to a government-run e-mail account.

They show that Clinton, on at least one occasion, accidentally mingled personal and work matters. In reply to a message sent in September 2011 by adviser Huma Abedin to Clinton's personal e-mail account, which contained an AP story about a drone strike in Pakistan, Clinton mistakenly replied with questions that appear to be about decorations.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/31/hilary-clinton-email/70708314/

Another unforced error from Hillary. Why lie about the "convenience" of only one device as the reason for co-mingling? Ineptly or cocky, she thinks she can just say whatever she wants and won't get contradicted. Almost everything from her only press conference has been proven inaccurate or worse.

March 29, 2015

Scrubbing the server looks very bad.

For many reasons. Hillary scrubbed her emails sometime between when she gave emails to the State dept and this month.

When determining which emails to give State, it was in response to the Benghazi nonsense. Thus, her team used Benghazi and Libya based search terms to find responsive emails. They said they also pulled any to .gov accounts as well as search by email address/name of some dignitaries and other officials.

Then, at some point after that document production, they deleted it all. Now, there is no way to ensure or verify that she retained all the records required. She employed the Benghazi based searches to find any emails that may not have been included by the .gov and official's name search. It follows that there are numerous other subjects that would likewise be missed by the .gov/officials search. But they are gone now.

This smells like destruction of evidence, desperation and spoliation. Because of another stupid (or worse) decision, this story will grow new and longer legs. All it will take is one business email to turn up which she didn't produce to destroy any credibility she has left. I hope whatever she is hiding either stays hidden or is revealed long before the convention. She's a liability for the Democratic Party.