January 31, 2019

Leads point to political motives in Bezos' National Enquirer leak probe

The brother of Bezos' mistress, Lauren Sanchez, is a Trump supporter and friends with Roger Stone and Carter Page




Gavin de Becker, the Amazon chief’s longtime personal security consultant and the point person for the investigation, confirmed to The Daily Beast on Wednesday that his probe has scrutinized Michael Sanchez, the brother of Bezos mistress Lauren Sanchez and a personal and business associate of Trumpworld figures including Roger Stone, Carter Page, and Scottie Nell Hughes.


On Wednesday, The Daily Beast first reported the existence of that investigation, which is taking place independent of Amazon and being funded by Bezos personally. Three sources familiar with the inquiry said it was increasingly convinced that whoever leaked the text messages to the Enquirer, which ran a conspicuously large 12-page spread on Bezos’ affair, harbored political animosity towards Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post.


Asked about Sanchez, de Becker, a former Reagan administration appointee and Justice Department adviser, told The Daily Beast, “Michael Sanchez has been among the people we’ve been speaking with and looking at.” De Becker would not elaborate on their conversations, and stressed that the investigation is ongoing. But he confirmed that “strong leads point to political motives.”

According to two sources familiar with de Becker’s investigation, Sanchez has suggested that the “deep state,” and specifically the National Security Agency, may have been responsible for obtaining text messages from Bezos’ phone. Investigators have not taken that possibility seriously.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bezos-investigators-question-the-brother-of-his-mistress-lauren-sanchez-in-national-enquirer-leak-probe?ref=home

January 31, 2019

Former Mass. Gov. William Weld to announce possible run for president as a Republican

William Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts who was the Libertarian Party's nominee for vice president in 2016, is mulling a run for president and could make an announcement about a possible presidential run as soon as Thursday.

Sources tell NewsCenter 5 he has taken a leave of absence from his law firm and it is unclear whether he is announcing the run or announcing the formation of an exploratory committee.

The news was first reported by WCVB's On The Record co-anchor Janet Wu, who
has learned any possible run would be made as a Republican.


https://www.wcvb.com/article/former-mass-gov-william-weld-to-announce-possible-run-for-president/26092546

January 30, 2019

Undocumented worker who was fired by Trump Organization to attend State of the Union

An undocumented worker who was fired from the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., after she publicly disclosed her immigration status will attend President Trump’s State of the Union address next week.

Victorina Morales, who was born in Guatemala, will be a guest of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat, when the president speaks to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Watson Coleman’s office confirmed the decision Wednesday.

The choice to invite Morales follows news stories about the Trump Organization’s failure to fully check the work status of all its employees, even as Trump described illegal immigration as a national crisis and demanded funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The Post reported Saturday that about a dozen undocumented workers were fired this month from the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, N.Y. Eric Trump said Tuesday that the company will implement E-Verify, a federal program that vets workers’ immigration status, across all of its properties.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/undocumented-worker-fired-from-trump-organization-to-attend-state-of-the-union/2019/01/30/635de4ae-24bf-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html?utm_term=.35db75370847

January 30, 2019

Democrats aren't radical leftists and Schultz isn't a "Centrist"

The story of the Democratic Party in the 20th century was about standing up for common sense, basic rights of working people. FDR presided over the New Deal, and JFK signed an executive order granting federal employees the right to join unions. Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, and Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The party has not moved radically left. It’s Schultz who has generally run his business in a way that runs against the party’s history of standing for basic workers’ rights.

During Schultz’s long tenure as CEO, Starbucks repeatedly fought against workers’ attempts to organize a union. In 2008, for example, a National Labor Relations Board judge found that the company had illegally fired three workers for their union activities, as well as violated other aspects of the law. Starbucks workers in our country still don’t have a union. Although the right wing has tried for years to paint unions as extreme, a recent Gallup poll showed that 62 percent of Americans approve of labor unions; similarly, an MIT survey found that most workers wanted a greater voice on the job, and that almost half would join a union if given the opportunity. Squelching union organizing efforts may be routine for companies, but it’s not where our country’s political center lies.

Starbucks also pays its workers poverty wages. According to PayScale, an online salary information company, the average hourly rate for Starbucks employees is around $11 per hour. Baristas average $9.77 per hour, and wages don’t reach $15 per hour until a worker becomes a retail store manager ($17.44) or assistant manager ($15.17). And for years, Starbucks workers had unpredictable work schedules that impeded their ability to plan child care and other aspects of their lives. The company even had something workers unofficially named “clopenings,” in which the same person would be assigned to close the store and then open the next morning, leaving little time for anything in between. After negative media coverage, Starbucks announced in 2014 that schedules would be reliable and shared in advance, yet a year later workers still reported persistent problems.

How about access to courts? If workers want to bring a lawsuit for anything from race discrimination to sexual harassment to wage theft, they can’t, because the company requires employees to sign an arbitration agreement as a condition of employment, and also to give up their right to bring a class action lawsuit. The #MeToo movement has helped to illustrate how harmful forced arbitration is: It typically results in denying workers the ability to vindicate their rights and hiding misconduct from public view. Schultz made much of his “Race Together” corporate campaign to spark conversations about race, but if a Starbucks employee were actually discriminated against, the company would prevent her from going to court.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/howard-schultz-starbucks-ceo-workers-bad-job.html

January 30, 2019

Howard Schultz is on Morning Joe bashing Democrats again.

Saying he's not a Democrat anymore because they want to give everybody a job and free healthcare. Steve Schmidt is his chief strategist and they're looking to game the electoral college, like Trump did.

January 29, 2019

Andrew Gillum is joining CNN as a political commentator

https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1090257863237357568

Former Tallahassee mayor and Democratic nominee for FL governor @AndrewGillum is joining @CNN as a political commentator.

January 28, 2019

Marianne Williamson is announcing her candidacy for the Presidency tonight

https://twitter.com/marwilliamson/status/1089890607764463616


Join me tonight as I formally announce my candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president. Live in Los Angeles, the Saban Theatre 8440 Wilshire Blvd. 7:30PM





Hard pass.

January 28, 2019

Howard Schultz is getting his name on ballots in all 50 states as an Independent.

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1089193640843460609

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz tells @60Minutes Donald Trump is not qualified to be president and both parties aren't doing what's necessary for the American people.




He's getting absolutely trashed over on WaPo and on his new Twitter account. He says Trump isn't qualified, well, what in the hell makes him think HE is? Another egotistical narcissist.


https://twitter.com/andrewrsorkin/status/1089676242528452609

It's official: @HowardSchultz is preparing to run for president as an independent. "Republicans and Democrats alike — who no longer see themselves as part of the far extreme of the far right and the far left — are looking for a home


https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1089563054801649664

Howard Schultz and John Delaney both represent the problem of self-funding campaigns. If you're wealthy enough, you can always find consultants willing to take your money and tell you're (a) smart and (b) have a chance. Political gravity is suspended as long as the checks clear.



At least Delaney is running as a Democrat. I'm fine with that.

January 27, 2019

Message from Washington state Democrats

https://twitter.com/washdems/status/1089287737692147712

January 25, 2019

A crisis of conservatism creates gridlock on both sides of the Atlantic

In the capital cities of the two great anglophone powers, public business has ground to a halt. On one side of the Atlantic, federal workers are lining up to receive free food while the president holds the government to ransom. On the other side, the House of Commons, a legislative body that likes to call itself the “mother of parliaments,” is completely frozen by its inability to legislate. The government cannot pass the Brexit deal it has negotiated. The opposition cannot unseat the government.

Their double failure is no coincidence. In the 1980s and 1990s, anglophone conservatives were motivated by ideas so powerful that they spread from the United States and Britain to the rest of the world: faith in democracy, faith in free markets, faith in free trade. Pummeled by events — the financial crisis, the wars in Iraq and Syria — both parties have lost that faith. But they have failed to find anything else to replace it. Instead, they have been captured by angry minorities. They are easily manipulated by big funders and special interests. They have stopped thinking about the good of the nation and can focus only on what’s good for the party — or for themselves.

Certainly this is true in Britain, where May’s main focus since 2016 has been party management, not British interests. She adopted the language of the Brexiteer extremists — she told her party that “if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere,” to great applause — while quietly trying to placate the pro-business center. She lost opportunities for cross-party compromise. Had she been willing to reach across the aisle and forge a compact with the Labour Party, she could have ended the stalemate already: There is a majority in the House of Commons for Britain to remain inside a customs union with Europe, a solution that would let trade continue and avoid the need for a hard border with the island of Ireland.

At least until now, Republican leaders in Congress have also refused to embrace a pragmatic solution — pass legislation to re-open the government, make a compromise on border security — for exactly the same kinds of reasons. Like May, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has refused to reach across the aisle in order to pay civil servants because he fears a split in his party. Like the British Conservatives, American Republicans answer only to their own voters, not to the population at large. As for the U.S. president, Trump’s personal narcissism leaves no room for concern for anyone ­— not government workers, not his party colleagues. His voters seem motivated by tribalism, not ideas, to support him.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/a-crisis-of-conservatism-creates-gridlock-on-both-sides-of-the-atlantic/2019/01/24/f7b4b776-1ff7-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html?utm_term=.a6a91943d862


The crisis started with Thatcher/Reagan but it's culminated in absolute shitshows on both sides of the pond.