Aszilvasy

Former Donald Trump campaign manager and CNN contributor Corey Lewandowski on Tuesday night suggested that President Obama did not release his Harvard transcripts in order to hide that he was not born in the United States.

The comment came during a raucous CNN panel discussion in which CNN commentator Angela Rye mentioned that Donald Trump was the "spokesperson for the birther movement" and had called for Obama to release his Harvard transcripts.

Katrina Pierson, a spokeswoman for Donald Trump, on Tuesday evening tried to place blame on President Obama for the death of a Muslim American soldier in 2004, before Obama took office.

During an interview on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer pressed Pierson on whether Trump plans to apologize for his comments about the parents of Captain Humayun Khan.

Members of the armed forces, veterans, and their kin are hugely important to Republicans. “Add up active-duty military, reserves, national guard, veterans, and their families—you’ll find yourself somewhere north of 30 million people,” John Noonan notes at National Review. “That’s the second largest voting demographic in the country under Hispanics, and the only one that consistently votes Republican.”

Donald Trump is roiling them anyway.

Even as the candidate campaigns on the dubious premise that he’ll unite America, he has made a series of statements that predictably divide veterans and their families, even on subjects where there is no need to take any position whatsoever.

This began last summer, when Trump declared that decorated Vietnam veteran and torture survivor John McCain is not a war hero because he got captured. Earlier this spring, he declared that U.S. soldiers would perpetrate war crimes if he so ordered, drawing a sharp rebuke from current and former military commanders.

Most recently, Trump attacked the Khans, whose son died while serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq, because the grieving parents criticized Trump at the Democratic National Convention.

That final story has loomed large in the media for days. And although some Trump supporters say that the press doesn’t matter—that their candidate’s constituency just disregards all criticism from the MSM—a little digging on social media suggests that America’s military subculture is deeply divided by the Republican nominee’s recent behavior, with many defending him but many others expressing dismay or disgust.

National Review reported pointed rebukes from prominent veterans groups:

These groups, like the VFW and Gold Star Families, are vehemently apolitical and prefer to stay out of electoral frays. Trump’s thin skin, thick head, and wide mouth have forced them off the bleachers and into the fight.

The statement from VFW national commander Brian Duffy, aimed at the organization’s 1.7 million members, declared that “Trump has a history of lashing out after being attacked, but to ridicule a Gold Star Mother is out-of-bounds,” adding that,  “election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression … There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of word-smithing can repair once crossed. Giving one’s life to nation is the greatest sacrifice, followed closely by all Gold Star families, who have a right to make their voices heard.”

This prompted a divisive debate on Facebook. Many members objected to the statement.

“VFW is supposed to be non-political,” Monica Parrish Noland wrote on its Facebook page, echoing many. “If you want to express a political opinion, don't do it as a representative of the VFW … Hillary Clinton must never become President.”  

Kate McCabe declared that the VFW “just lost the support of this veteran’s wife, veteran’s daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin! How ignorant are you!” She went on to ignorantly repeat prejudicial falsehoods about Khan’s intentions, positing that Trump’s election “is going to effect Khan's business and maybe his interests in increasing the Muslim population in this country not to assimilate, but to conquer!”

Yet many others cheered the VFW. Ken Russell, a veteran who sells real estate in Florida, declared, “Regardless your political flavor, THIS is the stance of a true Veteran and leader!”

William J. Payne, who served in the 81st Regional Support Command and U.S. Army Reserves, used the opportunity to remind VFW members of other Trump miscues:

Donald J. Trump, "Patriot," a "self made" man, had several student deferments before getting a medical deferment for "bad feet." Must have been because of those cheap shoes he had to wear growing up. In the words of John Fogarty, "I ain't no fortunate son." In other words he is exactly the "Sunshine Patriot" Thomas Paine was talking about... When his country called on him he shirked from his duty, and when he says that he backs our troops, during Vietnam he did so from way back in New York City, just like Jody.

But hey, Mr. Trump did spend time in an elite military school and that provided him with more military experience than most vets and he does know more about ISIS than the generals. And last time I looked he has two strapping adult sons, I guess spending a tour in the service never crossed their minds either, kinda unlike that non hero, loser, former POW John McCain and his family, where his two sons served. Let that be lost on no one, he called POWs losers. And now he is comparing the "sacrifices" that he has has to make in his business life to the sacrifice of Gold Star Parents.

Years ago he would have been booed by veterans but this year as he took the stage at the National VFW Convention my fellow Vets gave him a standing ovation. And I'm NOT advocating for Clinton either. Both choices are bad, when the best thing you can really truthfully say about a candidate is that they are not the other candidate, that's pretty bad.

Bobby Toothaker called the GOP frontrunner “out of bounds”:

I am a Life Member, formerly served as an officer.

I am so proud of the VFW and Commander Duffy for the release of this statement. I agree this is out of bounds... Anyone that disrespects our Gold Star family members can be advised where the boundaries are. This isn't the first time Mr. Trump has stepped out of bounds. This is the first time the V has advised him where they are. Commander Duffy would do the same for any public figure who repeatedly disrespects our Veterans.

Lou Chiarella, a U.S. army veteran and Notre Dame graduate, wrote that he is unfit to lead:

I'm SO glad that the VFW publicly took a stand here for Gold Star families and against those who would denigrate their sacrifice for political ends. Of course, this is also the man who also that POWs like Senator John McCain were losers, and has absolutely no understanding of military service. Quite simply, Donald Trump is no friend of veterans and is completely unfit to be Commander in Chief. Our veterans deserve the best and our gold star families do not deserve the continued disgrace.

And Laurie Davies Emmer, a former combat medic who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, complained, “Those of us who served, had loved ones who served and still have loved ones serving cannot compare this type of sacrifice, to the sacrifices of building a billion dollar empire. Gold Star families sacrifices cannot and must not ever be compared to the sacrifices of building a billion dollar empire.”

These aren’t liberal journalists or elites in the GOP establishment complaining about Trump’s statements. They’re veterans or people with relatives who have served. Their Facebook accounts suggest that they are mostly white, many live in swing states, and almost all of them are friends on social media with other military voters.

They’re showing up at campaign events, too.

At a rally for Mike Pence, the GOP ticket’s vice-presidential candidate, a mom with a son currently serving asked about Donald Trump’s disrespect for military families, only to be loudly booed by other attendees. There’s video of the incident here.

“Trump will still likely win military voters,” Noonan writes, “but he needs to over perform with them, because he pathetically underperforms with every other demographic save white males.” With the press treating this story as an impetus to investigate how Trump avoided military service during Vietnam, and months to go until election day, it will be interesting to see how these voters ultimately treat a man who claimed bone spurs in youth and grew up to repeatedly shoot himself in the foot.

When Khizr Khan took the stage last week at the Democratic National Convention, proudly standing before a portrait of his Muslim American son, who died while fighting in Iraq for the U.S., he removed a pocket Constitution from his jacket, thrust it toward the camera, and demanded to know if Donald Trump, a proponent of laws that violate the document, had ever bothered to read its articles.

The crowd in Philadelphia erupted. So did folks on Twitter and Facebook. The mainstream media fawned too. This all but guaranteed that Trump, who has spent his whole life working to garner more media attention than others, would respond.

But few expected that his initial comments would be an attack on Khizr Khan’s wife, who stood beside her husband for emotional support but did not herself deliver a speech. "If you look at his wife,” Trump said on ABC, as if it had anything to do with the matter at hand, “she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably—maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me."

* * *

The wife, Ghazala Khan, in fact has much to say. “Donald Trump said that maybe I wasn’t allowed to say anything,” she wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “That is not true. My husband asked me if I wanted to speak, but I told him I could not.” Why? She explained that even though 12 years have passed she still feels the loss of her son; that she cries every day when she prays for him; that she cannot bring herself to clean his old closet or to see his photograph without breaking down. “Walking onto the convention stage, with a huge picture of my son behind me, I could hardly control myself. What mother could?” she demanded. “Donald Trump has children whom he loves. Does he really need to wonder why I did not speak?”

She also spoke to Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC:

Those who watched the clip can see that Khizr Khan had more to say too: he pleaded with House Majority Leader Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who he called decent, patriotic men, to repudiate Donald Trump because it is the right thing to do. “There is so much at stake, and I appeal to both of these leaders: This is the time,” he said. “There comes a time in the history of a nation where an ethical, moral stand has to be taken regardless of the political costs. The only reason they're not repudiating his behavior, his threat to our democracy, our decency, our foundation, is just because of political consequences.”

He took the same message to CNN:

History will not forgive them. This election will pass, but history will be written. The lack of moral courage with remain a burden on their souls.

He concluded that they have a “moral, ethical obligation to not worry about the votes but repudiate him; withdraw the support. If they do not, I will continue to speak.”

* * *

Paul Ryan is not a bigot. And he has always tried to counter the image of the Republican Party as a coalition driven in large part by racial and ethnic prejudice. Before this cycle, I doubt he could’ve imagined backing an unapologetically prejudiced candidate.

Enter Donald Trump. His transgressions are many. Ryan himself declared Trump’s comments about a Mexican American judge “the textbook definition of racism.”

Now let’s return to Trump’s latest egregious affront against an ethnic minority: trying to discredit the parents of a fallen soldier by prejudging them as a chauvinist husband and a cowed wife who wasn’t allowed to speak; ignorantly spreading that stereotype; and offering no retraction even after knowing it to be false.

If that were the end of the story, it would be bad enough for Paul Ryan. He would be relearning this about himself: that electing a Republican is more important to him than opposing naked racism and prejudice. Few partisans want to think that about themselves.

Yet there’s more than the personal cost of knowing it about himself.

The father of a fallen soldier intends to keep reminding Paul Ryan about this, to keep insisting that it is a moral failure, until Ryan changes his mind. As Josh Barro put it, the Mexican American jurist, Gonzalo Curiel, “is a sitting judge presiding over a Trump case, so he couldn't camp out on TV and keep the story alive. Khizr Khan can.”

That will have consequences.

Before, Republicans could always maintain, with at least some veneer of plausibility, that they would of course repudiate a politician who crossed a certain line.

With Donald Trump as their standard-bearer, that line has been shown to encompass a candidate who, feeling attacked by the father of a fallen soldier, finds that his first instinct is to lash out at the man’s grieving wife, the fallen soldier’s mother, impugning both with ignorant, derogatory speculation rooted in prejudice.

In this way, Trump brings shame to everyone and everything his campaign touches. For Ryan and other informed Republicans who back him, the inescapable conclusion is that neither naked racism nor prejudice are deal-breakers for them in the head of their party or their country. It’s an accusation that they would’ve assailed in the recent past. Today, the proposition’s truth is self-evident. And a man with a knack for TV will keep reminding them of their shame.

When Donald Trump tweeted after Bernie Sanders' speech that Sanders "totally sold out to Crooked Hillary Clinton. All of that work, energy and money, and nothing to show for it! Waste of time!" he was exactly half right. Maybe you'll quibble with the verb, but Sanders did capitulate to Hillary Clinton. But he sure as hell didn't sell out for nothing.

He sold out, and Clinton changed her position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a result, probably dooming that trade bill, a signature piece of President Obama's second-term foreign policy agenda.

He sold out, and the Democrats changed their superdelegate rules, binding a much larger percentage of them to the popular vote winners of state contests. At a minimum, this means that establishment candidates will be forced to organize more heavily at a lower level of politics in more states in the future.

He sold out, and he and Clinton are now on board with a college tuition proposal that would satisfy Sanders' criteria, not the one Clinton initially believed in.

He sold out, and the party endorsed what Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) called its "most progressive platform in history."

He sold out, and he received a primetime speaking slot, getting a chance to give what amounted to a concise version of his campaign stump speech, without filters.

He sold out, and his own name will get to be held up for the nomination on Tuesday.

He sold out, and the superdelegates he's attempted to persuade still have the freedom to vote for the candidate of their choice.

He sold out, and his supporters will have greater access to the reins of power inside the party. They will get to determine the rules, going forward.

He sold out, and Hillary Clinton, loathe to commit to hold a potential Supreme Court justice to any standard other than to recognize that the Constitution lives and breathes, now must nominate a justice who specifically opposes a settled law of the land.

The #BernieOrBust delegates who interrupted their own candidate with boos last night, the ones who marched alongside a giant doobie outside the convention, and the few who tried to throw Elizabeth Warren off stride with cries of "We Trusted You!" are like the people who carry phones with cracked screens, refusing to get them replaced, even for free.

In Trump's mind, since Sanders didn't get the private plane his staff had asked the DNC for, perhaps Sanders got nothing. That's because in Trump's mind — as in the mind of the #BernieOrBust folks — not getting everything is the same as getting nothing.

If you watched the convention on television, your day likely began with news footage of contention. The midpoint was, funnily enough, comedian Sarah Silverman's shade throw from the platform, calling the #BernieorBust movement "ridiculous." The peak was Michelle Obama's speech, which was among the most effective arguments I've heard anyone make for Hillary Clinton. And Sanders himself was the denouement. Thanks to judicious directing by the television pool, the crying, defiant Sanders supporters seemed to be energized at the beginning of the day, reproached by the middle, and crying, resigned (perhaps) to his defeat by the end.

The truth, I suspect, is that the media just went fishing for a narrative. Clinton has the support of about 85 percent of Sanders' supporters nationwide already; Trump has the support, after his convention, of about 85 percent of all Republicans who said they voted in their primaries. Both parties are going forward relatively united. How enthusiastic they are relative to their unity is a separate question — and it is one that, uniquely, and perhaps alone, Hillary Clinton will be responsible for answering.

Yesterday's xkcd:

Mouseover title: ""Ok, I lit the smoke bomb and rolled it under the bed. Let's see if it–" ::FWOOOSH:: "Politifact says: PANTS ON FIRE!""

An Australian vegan cook has pioneered the creation of a new form of sushi. These heavenly sushi donuts are handmade in donut molds with all the traditional sushi ingredients and topped off with wasabi, black sesame seeds, and avocado.

Check it out

FBI Director’s recommendation is in: Hillary showed very bad judgement, but she didn’t break the law. The right isn’t happy and, not surprisingly, won’t put it behind them. Its path to victory in November, after all, is very narrow, resting on demagogy, racism, nativism, and Hillary hating – and, of course, voter suppression. But what surprised me was the reaction of some on the left: they won’t put it to bed either. i understand that Hillary isn’t their first choice. Nor is she an ideal candidate.

But it escapes me how their reaction to yesterday’s announcement serves any good purpose. It certainly does nothing to defeat Trump and the Republican gang down the ticket. But isn’t crushing Trump at the polls the main thing at this stage of the election process? Isn’t it the overarching task for anybody who cares about the country’s future? Time to pivot.

Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Tuesday night. Here's what you need to know:.

1.  Cops had Sterling restrained on the ground before they killed him.

“You f*****g move, I swear to God,” said one officer pinning him down. Another officer points a gun at him and quickly shoots him. Observers said that Sterling was not reaching for a weapon and was already restrained on the ground.

2.  The police officers were aggressive and callous, according to witnesses.

“They were really aggressive with him from the start,” said Abdullah Muflahi, the owner of the convenience store where the shooting occurred. And, after they killed Sterling, Muflahi heard one of the officers say to “Just leave him.”

3.  Cops were wearing body cameras— but they weren't working at the time of the killing.  

Remember all the talk about body cameras being the solution to police violence? Well, the officers had body cameras on, but according to Police Department spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McKneely "both body cameras came loose and dangled from the officers’ uniforms during the incident."

The police vehicle apparently had multiple dash cams, but reports indicate that only one of those has been confirmed to have captured the incident.

4.  Cops immediately seized the convenience store's surveillance footage.

The owner of the convenience store where the incident occurred said that not only did police take the store's surveillance footage but they seized his entire video system, as well.

We’ve seen this before. Remember when Lacquan McDonald was killed in Chicago? Police demanded to see footage from a local Burger King, and "when the police left the restaurant almost two hours later, the video had an inexplicable 86-minute gap that included when McDonald was shot," according to the Chicago Tribune.

"I was just trying to help the police with their investigation," the restaurant manager said later. "I didn't know they were going to delete it."

Without a bystander’s cell phone footage, the disturbing details of Alton Sterling’s killing would likely have never come to life.

5.  The officers could wait up to 30 days before making a statement.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) tweeted what seemed to be a backing of Donald Trump on Wednesday. The only problem? He avoided saying Trump's name.

The House Freedom Caucus– the same group that drove House Speaker John Boehner out of office after years of run-ins over funding bills– won't back a gun bill being pushed by House Speaker Paul Ryan that aims to keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists.

In a major schism within his conference, Ryan is struggling to garner consensus on the legislation that was designed to look similar to Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn's bill that forces investigators to provide evidence before a gun sale to a suspected terrorist is permanently blocked. According to a report from Politico, Ryan had initially planned to bring the legislation to the floor as early as Wednesday, but a rules committee meeting on the legislation was postponed after rumblings began that the House Freedom Caucus was frustrated with both the process and the perception that Ryan was rewarding House Democrats who had taken to the floor for a sit-in to demand action on guns in June.

Amid the push by liberals to get Hillary Clinton to elevate Elizabeth Warren to the vice presidency, some wonder whether this would be much of a promotion at all.

After all, as one of the best-known senators and the major liberal factional leader, Warren has considerable autonomy to pick fights and wage crusades. As veep, she’d lose capacity for autonomous action in exchange for an unclear upside. She’s too old to use the vice presidency as a launch pad for a future presidential race, and the vice presidency is not itself a powerful office.

Traditionally, vice presidents are chosen for near-term coalition-building reasons, not due to a desire to give the chosen politicians more power. John Adams and Aaron Burr served as vice presidents under George Washington and Thomas Jefferson respectively, in both cases primarily in order to add northern heft to Virginia-based administrations. Abraham Lincoln’s first vice president was a New England radical put on the ticket to balance out Abe’s moderate Midwestern persona. His second VP was a border-state white supremacist Democrat put on the ticket to broaden the ideological appeal of the Civil War coalition. Dwight Eisenhower put Richard Nixon on the ticket to appease the right-wing faction of the GOP, while Ronald Reagan added George H.W. Bush to appease the moderate faction.

And sure enough, all these men found the vice presidency to be a frustrating office. Adams dubbed himself His Irrelevancy. FDR’s first vice president, John Nance Garner, famously proclaimed the office to be worth less than a warm bucket of piss. HBO’s broad political satire is called Veep for a reason — the vice president is the ultimate comic figure in American politics, proximate to power but personally powerless.

On the other hand, the practical prestige of the vice presidency has risen in recent decades. Modern veeps routinely get face time with the president, a precious Washington commodity denied to most Cabinet secretaries and almost all senators. As VP, Warren could be the most powerful liberal insider in decades — pressing her distinctive agenda on trust busting, financial reform, and other issues.

The promise of Vice President Warren

Progressive optimism about a Warren vice presidency is premised on the long-term trend toward veeps being more important members of a presidential team, and on the fact that Warren has repeatedly proven herself to be very shrewd at identifying leverage points in the political system.

Vice President Warren could serve, in theory, as a kind of liberal answer to Dick Cheney. Whatever top priorities President Clinton is focusing on, there will inevitably be dozens of fairly important things that aren’t top priorities. Warren will be digging into those, plumbing the depths of the bureaucracy and the vast cadres of political appointees for chances to drive her agenda forward and hold corporate America accountable.

Warren is the kind of person who likes to delve into obscure details — she’s managed to provoke significant national controversies over things like the Federal Reserve’s general counsel and the investor-state dispute settlement provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership — so were she given free range to kick the tires of an entire presidential administration, she could get a lot done.

The peril of Vice President Warren

The trouble with imagining Warren as a progressive Cheney is that, based on what we know about Clinton, she seems overwhelmingly likely to be her own Cheney.

Clinton is not a big-picture ideas person. And she’s not a glad-hander. She’s certainly not a charismatic empty suit. She’s a person who lives to delve into the details of things. Positive anecdotes about her from people she’s worked with usually involve an earnest, diligent, low-key partnership on something relatively obscure.

Cheney wouldn’t have been Cheney without Bush, and Clinton is no George W. Bush.

And Cheney aside, while modern vice presidents have tended to play a more substantive role than the ones from the “ain’t worth a warm bucket of piss” days, it hasn’t usually been a policymaking role. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama all entered the Oval Office with very little Washington experience and picked veteran senators to essentially help them as senior emissaries to Capitol Hill.

But just as Clinton doesn’t need a Cheney to run her executive branch, she doesn’t need a Biden to shoot the shit with the old bulls of Congress, either — and if she did, Warren would be an odd choice. What Clinton could use is an emissary to the kind of liberal activists who didn’t back her in 2008 or 2016, whom she needs to have on her team to lead a united party.

Warren’s job would be to explain why Sherrod Brown or Bernie Sanders was wrong to be raising the alarm bells about this or that, that such-and-such bill was really the absolute best bill the administration could get, and that so-and-so the new appointee is really much more progressive than people realize.

If this all sounds out of character for Warren, then recall that all the various humiliations visited upon historical vice presidents have also been out of character.

Warren would change the campaign

The stakes around this choice are unusually high because Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump, is a very unusual kind of Republican.

His lack of ties to established Republican Party actors, his deep hostility toward both immigration and international trade, and his tendency to lash out at those who criticize his positions mean it will be feasible for Clinton to try to position herself as the consensus choice of a certain swath of corporate America that depends on participation in global markets.

Warren, who is really disliked by the business community, would essentially spoil that possibility — which liberals might like because it would force Clinton to run a more progressive, more issue-oriented campaign and try to win a clearer mandate for specific ideas. That, more than anything Warren would actually do as vice president, might be the main attraction for liberals. Clinton adopted a very progressive platform to defeat Bernie Sanders in the primaries, and putting Warren on the ticket would essentially lash her to that mast and prevent her from pivoting to the center.

UTICA, N.Y. (AP) — A woman accused of taking part in a 14-hour group beating that killed one of her half brothers and injured another during a church counseling session was convicted on Tuesday of manslaughter and assault but was acquitted of murder.

Donald Trump expressed admiration for overthrown Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s skill at killing terrorists during a Tuesday campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

We now know that Donald Trump tweeted an anti-Semitic image which in fact came from a notorious white supremacist/anti-Semitic Twitter account. The most notable fact about this incident is that while it would likely destroy most presidential campaigns, in Trump’s case it will likely be no more than a two or three day story. This is in part because, at this point, it’s just not terribly surprising (dog bites man, as journos say) but also because Trump is sure to embrace or broadcast some other racist or anti-Semitic meme within a day or two. The next blow up will push this off the front pages. The second most notable thing is that the Trump campaign can’t seem to decide what its story is: unfortunate but inconsequential mistake the campaign quickly corrected? example of political correctness run amok? or it’s a Sheriff’s badge just like these nine other Trump supporter accounts are pointing out? Trump has thus far managed the genuine feat of simultaneously holding the support of a significant chunk of the right-wing Zionist community and virtually all online anti-Semites and neo-Nazis, an accomplishment we should not overlook.

It all raises the question: is Donald Trump really an anti-Semite?

Donald Trump posted a since-deleted tweet Saturday with an image of Hillary Clinton that labeled her corrupt in Star of David. It also included a background of money, drawing accusations that the meme was using anti-Semitic imagery.

Massachusetts voters will face the choice in November whether to lift a cap on the number of charter schools in the state, and the big money is already rolling in, with some notorious names attached:

Public Charter Schools for MA, the group supporting a referendum to lift the state’s charter school cap, has reserved $6.5 million in advertising for the seven weeks before election day, according to The Tracking Firm, a service that tracks TV advertising spending.

The ads will be produced by DC-based SRCP Media, the same firm behind the infamous “Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” campaign against John Kerry in 2004. The ads will begin airing on Sept. 20.

Even under the current cap system, charters are sucking money out of public school systems in Massachusetts:

Here’s the math: If charter-bound students happened to leave in tidy groups of 25 — it would also help if each group had similar abilities, grade-levels, and interests — then a neighborhood school could consider firing a teacher every time this imaginary, homogenous cohort left.

But 25 students leaving Amherst Regional take $303,000 with them, five times a $60,000 mid-range teacher’s salary. For every five children — a fraction of a class — who go to charter schools from a district with a relatively low $12,000 charter assessment, a teacher’s salary goes with them. Or another art or phys. ed. or language program

Relatively tight regulation and the charter cap keep Massachusetts charter schools at a higher quality than we see in many places where charters have been allowed—encouraged, even—to expand without oversight or regard for quality. Take Detroit:

[Ana Rivera] enrolled her older son, Damian, at the charter school across from her house, where she could watch him walk into the building. He got all A’s and said he wanted to be an engineer. But the summer before seventh grade, he found himself in the back of a classroom at a science program at the University of Michigan, struggling to keep up with students from Detroit Public Schools, known as the worst urban district in the nation. They knew the human body is made up of many cells; he had never learned that. [...]

Detroit now has a bigger share of students in charters than any American city except New Orleans, which turned almost all its schools into charters after Hurricane Katrina. But half the charters perform only as well, or worse than, Detroit’s traditional public schools.

For the corporate education policy crowd, though, draining the public schools dry is the point. Quality of education and respect for students are low on the priority list, if they even make the list.

Several members of the Democratic party’s platform committee sent me the draft of the platform. It is linked below so we can all reflect on what is being considered. This is a draft so it can be changed. Please read it and send your best ideas.

The section on education contains a lot of reformer lingo. Zip codes. Options. Accountability. The Democratic party favors “high academic standards.” Who favors “low academic standards?” The party opposes too much testing; who favors too much testing?

The rhetoric about “high academic standards” brings echoes of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Wouldn’t it have been refreshing to see a statement about meeting the needs of all children? Or ensuring that all schools have the staff and resources they need for the children they enroll?

And then there’s the section on charters. The party is against for-profit charters: so far, so good, but how about saying that a Clinton administration will stop federal funding of for-profit schools and colleges, because they are low-quality and predatory, with profit as their top priority?

The party favors “high quality charters.” Does that mean corporate charter chains like KIPP, Achievement First, and Success Academy? Probably. How about a statement opposing corporate replacements for neighborhood public schools? How about a statement insisting that charters accept English language learners and students with disabilities at the same rate as the neighborhood public school? How about a statement opposing draconian disciplinary policies and suspensions?

How about a clear statement that the Clinton administration will no longer permit school closings as academic punishment? How about a clear signal that the Clinton administration intends to protect and strengthen our nation’s essential traditional public schools, which serve all children. How about signaling a new direction for federal education policy, one that promises to support schools and educators, not to punish them.

Please read and share yours reactions. I will pass ideas along to platform committee members.

See the entire pdf here.

So Tim Watts is my new best friend in the Australian federal parliament. MP Tim Watts. Needless to say, we're pals now because he's getting bombarded by the Trump campaign asking for money to fight 'Crooked Hillary'. Among other things, Tim's a Labor party member. So even apart from it being illegal for Trump to solicit funds from Tim (remember, Tim's not an American citizen, being from Australia), their politics likely don't line up. So as we've been researching Trump's top foreign countries for fundraising, I've been curious whether the Trump campaign has now taken the actually quite simple steps required to purge its list of at least foreign government officials at their government email addresses.

The answer is: no. As recently as last night (US time) Tim was getting emails from Trump begging for more money ahead of the critical June FEC deadline - which we discussed yesterday.

But here's where things got significantly weirder.

CNN reports on some of Trump’s possible VP choices:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are among the finalists to be Donald Trump’s running mate, sources confirmed to CNN on Thursday.

Trump is limited in his choices to the relatively few high-profile Republicans that endorsed him early and have stuck with him so far, so judged by that standard having Christie and Gingrich on the list makes a certain amount of sense. There simply aren’t many current or former Republican officeholders that would agree to be Trump’s running mate, but most of those that are willing have more than enough baggage to make them poor choices under normal circumstances.

Christie is staggeringly unpopular in his own state, he is widely disliked by most Republicans, and ever since he endorsed the nominee he has become little more than a punchline for jokes about being held hostage by Trump. He adds nothing to the ticket electorally, he brings with him his shoddy record as governor, and on top of it he knows only slightly more about foreign policy than Trump while holding the most predictably hawkish views. Adding Christie to the ticket might keep a few foreign policy hard-liners from voting for Clinton, but it would probably come at the expense of alienating a nontrivial portion of Trump’s core supporters. By Christie’s own admission from a few years ago, he isn’t qualified to be president because of his lack of preparation on foreign policy, and that remains true today. Christie would be a comprehensively terrible choice, and so it is entirely possible that he will be Trump’s selection.

Gingrich is a less obviously ridiculous choice, but it’s hard to see what he brings to the ticket. He is a former Speaker of the House ousted because of personal scandal, he comes from a state Trump should still be able to win without him, and he likes to indulge bizarre ideas (colonizing the moon) and alarmist warnings (the danger of an EMP attack!). One sign of Gingrich’s poor judgment is that he happens to be one of a small army of political has-beens that has shilled for the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), the “former” terrorist group and totalitarian cult that almost all Iranians around the world despise.

Gingrich’s MEK boosterism should be disqualifying all by itself, but it also reflects just how horrible his foreign policy judgment is. No one interested in a sane or responsible foreign policy should want someone like this on a national ticket or anywhere close to the office of the presidency.

In 2012, Donald Trump used money from one of his charities to drop $12,000 on a Denver Broncos football helmet and jersey signed by Tim Tebow, then the team's quarterback, according to a Washington Post report.

Trump bid on the item at a fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, for the Susan G. Komen organization, as the Palm Beach Post detailed at the time.

ThinkProgress is reporting on a case in Tupelo, Mississippi, where a police officer allowed his K-9 to maul an unarmed man, then fatally shot the individual.

Antwun “Ronnie” Shumpert was driving a friend’s vehicle around 9:30 pm on Saturday, June 18 when he was pulled over by Tupelo Police Officer Tyler Cook, according to attorney Carlos Moore, who’s representing Shumpert’s family. The 37-year-old father of five immediately exited his vehicle and ran for unknown reasons. 

In response, the officer released a K-9 who found Shumpert hiding under a nearby home. The dog attacked him, gashing a hole through his testicles and scratching him across his body. When the officer found Shumpert, he shot him four times. 

According to Moore, Shumpert was also found with injuries to his face and teeth, indicating that there may have also been a physical altercation between him and the officer. 

Shumpert was handcuffed and transported to the North Mississippi Medical Center where he died roughly five hours later.

The Associated Press reported last week that the FBI is monitoring the case and awaiting the results of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation’s examination of the incident.

At a press conference called by the attorney for Shumpert’s family on June 27, Moore said there are too many unanswered questions from the police department about what happened to Shumpert. He also stated that a homeowner recorded part of the incident and shared the video with him and Shumpert’s family.

Today TPM's Caitlin MacNeal brought us the news that Donald Trump and his scion Donald Trump Jr have been bombarding members of the UK House of Commons with fundraising email spam asking for contributions to his political campaign. He even offers to match their illegal foreign contributions dollar for dollar from his own fortune up to two million dollars.

Accepting contributions from foreign nationals is illegal of course though in this case it seems more a matter of incompetence than criminal intent, as though Trump has bought his email list not for a party list vendor but maybe from a Nigerian email scammer. In any case, it's not just the UK. It turns out some or perhaps all members of the Icelandic parliament have also receiving fundraising emails from the Trump campaign asking for money.

The Federal Elections Commission is very clear on the fact that foreign nationals cannot legally donate to candidates in the United States. The reason is pretty simple—they don’t want U.S. elections to be influenced by outside money. That apparently didn’t stop the Trump campaign from sending a fundraising solicitation to Scottish Parliament members. The email was from Donald Trump, Jr., on behalf of his father. Scottish Member of Parliament Natalie McGarry was repulsed by Trump’s “repugnant campaign” and she fiercely replied back with a public flogging. Her tweet is below. I’ve recreated her responding email for easy reading. Enjoy!

Dear Donald J. Trump Jr.

Quite why you think it appropriate to write emails to UK parliamentarians with a begging bowl for your father’s repugnant campaign is completely beyond me.

Given his rhetoric on migrants, refugees and immigration, it seems quite extraordinary that he would be asking foreign nationals for money; especially people who view his dangerous divisiveness with horror.

The U.S. elections are a matter for the American people, but I do send my hope that they reject your father fundamentally at the ballot box, not just to protect and improve the cohesion in society, to stop his corrosive othering of immigrants and for the protection of hard fought women’s rights in the U.S. but also, selfishly, for world security, and international relations. The thought of his reactionary type of politics and apparent ignorance of world affairs having access to a seat at the world table is both surreal, and terrifying.

The above is a long way to say No, and do not contact me again.

Sincerely,

YOWZA! That’s going to leave a mark. And as a (gulp) well-known conservative blog points out, Scottish elected officials weren’t the only ones to receive the fundraising plea from the Republican nominee.

In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Texas law on abortion violates the Constitution and places an undue burden on the right to an abortion. Justice Breyer writes the opinion, which says in essence:

Both the admitting privileges and surgical center requirements place a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability abortion, constitute an undue burden on abortion access, and thus violate the Constitution.

SCOTUS's decision is a victory for women in Texas and across America. Safe abortion should be a right—not just on paper, but in reality. -H