Joining today's show (Morning Joe) is / are Nicolle Wallace, Jonathan Capehart, Jennifer Senior, Jason Matthews, Jeremy Peters, Mike Huckabee, Ben Mezrich, Fmr. Gov. George Pataki, Brian Sullivan, Adam Carolla and more
BTW, and speaking about Tom Brokaw, I had a crush on his dauaghter back in like 1991, or 92 or 93 or maybe 1994. I think her name is Ali. I remember her being hot when I would see her out at clubs. She worked at EMI back then.
The park celebrates Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address highlighting the "four freedoms" : freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
"Her speech will lay out her view of the challenges facing this country and her vision and ideas for moving the country forward," the campaign said.
The park also honors Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the nation's most celebrated First Ladies.
The Clinton campaign notes that New York, Roosevelt's home state, also launched Clinton's Capitol Hill career by electing her as its first female senator.
Clinton formally announced her entry into the race on April 12, but she has not yet held a typical campaign rally with a speech outlining the fundamentals of her campaign. She's instead held small, roundtable-style events in key primary states.
The Four Freedoms Park event is being billed as her "official campaign launch" by Clinton campaign staff.
Homeland Security Chief Orders Changes at TSA After Failed Tests. Jeh Johnson reassigns acting head of Transportation Security Administration.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson ordered changes to U.S. airport security and reassigned the acting head of the Transportation Security Administration in the wake of an internal report on weaknesses in airport-security checks.
Mr. Johnson said late Monday that the changes were needed to address flaws recently revealed in tests by the department’s inspector general that focused on how individuals could bring prohibited items through TSA checkpoints. Mr. Johnson declined to elaborate on the classified tests.
Mr. Johnson said that he ordered the TSA to change its screening procedures “to address the specific vulnerabilities identified by the Inspector General’s testing.” He said he ordered new training for TSA officers and new tests on TSA screening equipment. He also directed department officials to examine new technologies to address the gaps identified by the inspector general tests.
ABC News, citing unnamed officials, reported that government investigators were able to get fake explosives and banned weapons past TSA screeners in 67 of 70 tests. In one case, an investigator set off an alarm, but TSA agents failed to discover a fake explosive taped to his back during a physical search, ABC News said.
The Homeland Security statement didn’t directly address the ABC News report. But Mr. Johnson noted that the government has long conducted internal testing of the aviation-security network, and that “the numbers in these reports never look good out of context, but they are a critical element in the continual evolution of our aviation security.”
In a separate statement late Monday, Mr. Johnson reassigned acting TSA Administrator Melvin Carraway to a different Homeland Security department. Mr. Johnson said acting Deputy Director Mark Hatfield would lead the TSA until he names a new acting administrator. Mr. Johnson has nominated Coast Guard Vice Adm. Pete Neffenger as the new TSA administrator, but he is awaiting confirmation from the U.S. Senate. Mr. Carraway led the TSA since former Administrator John Pistole retired at the end of 2014.
Lindsey Graham announces presidential candidacy, highlighting his personal story. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced himself to the nation here Monday by capitalizing on one of his most valuable political assets: his powerful up-from-nothing personal story.
The 59-year-old lawmaker returned to his birthplace, a 5,000-person town close to Clemson University in the western portion of the state, to announce his entry into an already crowded Republican primary field. He is the ninth Republican candidate to announce his candidacy, with six others expected to jump in.
It was a major event in the small town and in the state, and a point of pride that one of its native sons is running for president and launching his campaign here. Graham made full use of his humble origins, speaking from a raised stage in the middle of Main Street in front of the bar and pool hall that his parents owned, where Graham and his sister were raised in a back room.
Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, nine years her brother’s junior, told the several hundred spectators and a live television audience the story of their upbringing.
“Lindsey and I grew up in one room in the back of those buildings right there,” she said. “Not one bedroom, but one room where we lived, we slept and we ate.”
Looking over the crowd, Darline noted that Lindsey had taught her how to ride a bike “on that sidewalk right over there,” and that she had waited on that same sidewalk years later for the Greyhound bus to bring her older brother back from the University of South Carolina on weekends after he moved away to college.
Then Darline told the story of how she and Lindsey were orphaned when their mother died of Hodgkin lymphoma in 1976 and their father died 15 months later of a heart attack.
“I can remember the day my father passed away, standing in the living room of that house, absolutely scared to death. And Lindsey wrapped his arms around me and promised me that he would always be there for me, and always take care of me. And I can assure he’s done that. He has never let me down,” Darline said.
Graham stood listening inside the doorway of the cinderblock structure, looking down. When Darline introduced him moments later, and he strode to the stage to hug her, Darline’s husband, Larry Nordone, stood in front of the stage, his lips trembling as he applauded. “It’s just the culmination of years of hard times they went through,” Nordone told Yahoo News afterward.
Graham’s speech, on substance, was centered around his foreign policy credentials and his willingness to deal forcefully with America’s challenges abroad and at home.
“I have more experience with our national security than any other candidate in this race. That includes you, Hillary,” Graham said, with a reference to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
But the emotional architecture of the speech was built around Graham’s thankfulness to this town and to the people of his state for helping him become a three-term U.S. senator and now a presidential candidate.
“Everything I am, and everything I will be, I owe to the kindness and generosity and example of people in Central and Clemson and Seneca and Walhalla and other towns and farms of upstate South Carolina. Thank you,” he said, “for everything.”
A woman near the stage called out in response, “Thank you!”
But for all the moving sentiment, Graham’s announcement has introduced some thorny political challenges for people in his state and for others in the presidential contest, particularly former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Much of the money, political support and political operative talent in the state that would be going to Bush has remained uncommitted, at least officially, as Graham has built up to an announcement. Now that he is officially in, it represents a dilemma for some who would like to give money or go work for Bush’s campaign.
As one attendee at Graham’s kickoff event remarked, he was there “to see where this is headed.” Many in the state, and in Republican politics, are wondering the same thing. Graham does not currently break into even the top 10 of announced and likely presidential candidates, receiving the support of just over 1 percent of Republican voters in most polls.
Graham is one of several Republican presidential hopefuls whose candidacies are widely viewed as being less about winning the White House and more to do with having some ulterior motive. Some think it is to rebut Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) non-interventionist foreign policy. Graham himself has given indications he is running in part because he thinks Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is not ready to lead the country.
One attendee on Monday remarked that Graham may be angling to become Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State under a Republican president. That could be something he’d be able to bargain for in the days leading up to the South Carolina primary, currently scheduled for late February of next year, if his support would be crucial to helping one Republican senator win the first-in-the-South primary.
“I’m a man with many debts,” he said. “I’m running for president to repay those debts.”
But Graham is also capitalizing on the many favors owed to him to hold much of the South Carolina political universe in check, out of respect for him.
Graham’s candidacy, however, could gain traction if anxiety among conservatives about national security continues to grow, due to the ongoing military success of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
“The world is exploding in terror and violence, but the biggest threat of all is the nuclear ambitions of the radical Islamists who control Iran,” Graham said. “I am running for president because I have the experience, judgment and will to deny the most radical regimes the most dangerous weapons.”
After his speech, Graham headed to a closed-door fundraiser with supporters at Clemson University. He will head to New Hampshire on Tuesday and then to Iowa later this week, which go second and first, respectively, in the primary process. Graham plans to spend much of his time campaigning in these two states over the next several months, since most of the voters there know much less about him than the Palmetto State’s voters do.
MoveOn.org and Democracy for America to Suspend Run Warren Run Campaign.
Groups point to the presidential race’s focus on income inequality and populist progressives’ increasing power as key accomplishments. Six months after launching a major campaign to encourage Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to run for president, the groups behind the Run Warren Run effort announced today that they will suspend their participation in the draft effort on Monday, June 8 after delivering a petition with 365,000 signatures asking Sen. Warren to run.
MoveOn.org Political Action and Democracy for America launched the Run Warren Run campaign in December 2014 with a commitment to invest at least $1.25 million after supermajorities of both groups’ members voted in support. Over the following six months, hundreds of thousands of Americans, the Boston Globe, the New York Working Families Party, prominent cultural figures, and elected officials and grassroots leaders in Iowa and New Hampshire joined the call for Sen. Warren to run. So too did dozens of nationally prominent progressive leaders including Van Jones, Larry Cohen, Zephyr Teachout, Annie Leonard, and Lawrence Lessig, who headlined a Run Warren Run event in New York in April.
On June 8, Run Warren Run supporters will deliver to Sen. Warren’s Washington, D.C., office a petition with more than 365,000 signatures asking Sen. Warren to enter the presidential race. The groups will then rest their case and suspend their draft effort, pivoting their focus to working alongside Sen. Warren and other progressive populists on issue fights like defeating Fast Track negotiating authority for the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
Since its launch, the Run Warren Run campaign has:
- Signed up more than 365,000 Americans who believe Sen. Warren’s vision and track record would make her a great candidate;
- Opened field offices in Iowa (Des Moines, Cedar Rapids) and New Hampshire (Manchester), hired field organizers in both states, andbuilt a network of local, grassroots leaders in these key early states committed to encouraging Sen. Warren to run;
- Recruited more than 60 state legislators and local party leaders from Iowa and New Hampshire to join the Run Warren Run effort;
- Held more than 400 events, including rallies, house parties, teach-ins, honk-and-waves, and other events in nearly every state;
- Been endorsed by dozens of prominent organizational leaders, elected officials, celebrities, and other progressives;
- Generated coverage in thousands of news stories elevating Sen. Warren’s voice and demonstrating a groundswell of grassroots support for her leadership—setting the stage for the presidential race and changing the dynamics of important debates in Washington.
“The Run Warren Run campaign has changed the conversation by showing that Americans are hungry for Elizabeth Warren’s agenda—an agenda that rejects the rigged status quo in Washington and puts working and middle-class Americans over corporate interests,” said Ilya Sheyman, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action. “We’ve assembled a grassroots army and demonstrated the substantial support Sen. Warren could expect if she were to enter the race. Now it’s time to suspend our active draft efforts and pivot to standing alongside Sen. Warren on the big fights ahead, starting with stopping Fast Track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
“Even without her in the race, Elizabeth Warren and the Run Warren Run campaign she inspired have already transformed the 2016 presidential election by focusing every single Democratic candidate on combatting our country’s income inequality crisis,” said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America. “We still think there’s plenty of time for Sen. Warren to change her mind, but now that we’ve shown that she has the support she would need to mount a winning a campaign, we’re excited to take the grassroots juggernaut we’ve built with our members and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Warren in the battles ahead.”
Kathleen Willey, the former White House aide who claims President Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her in 1993 during his first term, now suspects the former president suffers from dementia, and calls Hillary Clinton a “money-hungry” hypocrite who looks “awfully haggard” and is the “worst role model for a wife and a mother and a politician.”
Willey, author of the book “Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton,” made her scathing comments in an interview Sunday night on Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, broadcast on New York’s AM 970 and Philadelphia 990 AM, as well as online.
She is now seriously questioning the mental health of both of the Clintons.
“[Hillary] is really looking awfully haggard these days,” Willey said.
“After watching [Bill's] performance with [NBC News' Cynthia] McFadden, when he said that I’ve gotta pay my bills, I think he’s showing early signs of dementia or something. He’s not the old Bill Clinton that we all remember. I mean, he was all over the place. Now you’re seeing clips of [Hillary] talking to herself all the time. I think that I want somebody in there who knows what they’re doing, and money isn’t the No. 1 issue for them. They have enough money. They made $30 million … in the last 15 months on speaking engagements. Isn’t that enough?”
Speaking of Hillary Clinton’s behavior during those White House years, Klein said, “There’s no way Hillary did not know what was going on, that women were being abused and accosted by her husband. You took it further on my show. You said Hillary was the war on women.”
Kathleen Willey
“She’s absolutely unqualified to run this country,” stated Willey. “Just look at something as simple as her judgment. … I question her judgment on a number of issues when it comes to being the president. She enabled his behavior. It’s as simple as that. She looked the other way. She might throw a tantrum, but she enabled it to happen again and again and again and again. Then she chooses to go after the women that he hooked up with to ruin them again and again and again and again. That’s how it works. I don’t see how anybody can respect a woman like that, especially another woman. She is the worst role model for a wife and a mother and a politician, anything. … She is a hypocrite.”
Regarding finances, Willey said Hillary’s desire for wealth overrides her judgment:
“She is money-hungry, absolutely … She says they were dead broke? … They’ve got money hand over fist. They just can’t seem to make enough. And she doesn’t see any reason whatsoever that there’s anything wrong with this. That’s what bothers me. Where’s the woman’s judgment? She has no sense of good judgment whatsoever. I don’t want that woman to be my president.”
Given a choice between Democrat candidates, Willey came down firmly in the camp of former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.
“If I were a Democrat – which I’m not anymore for obvious reasons – if it came down to a choice between Hillary Clinton and O’Malley, I would vote for him in a New York minute. … He’s a good family man, he loves his wife. … I don’t agree with all his policies, but he just seems to me to be a regular, normal kind of guy. I think he was well-liked in Maryland. … He seems to be at least a moderate.”
Hillary and Bill Clinton
Willey has high praise for Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
“When it comes down to my choice, the more I hear Carly Fiorina talk, the more I like her. I mean, there’s a role model for you,” she said.
“I would love to work on her campaign. She doesn’t hedge when she’s asked questions, she gives you straight answers, she’s direct, she’s not afraid of anybody. … I mean, she’s just got more cajones than everyone in Washington combined. … I think she’s great, I think she’s wonderful. …
“She didn’t get where she got on the coattails of other men like Hillary did. She worked her way up. … She did it on her own. I have got a lot of admiration for that woman. … Women in this country who want a woman for president ought to be paying a whole lot more attention to Carly Fiorina than to Hillary Clinton, because Hillary Clinton has nothing to offer. She won’t talk, she won’t answer questions, she hides behind the Secret Service, I haven’t heard one innovative idea come out of her mouth since all of this started. What does she have to offer this country except for the fact that she thinks that she’s entitled to this? What has she accomplished? I can’t think of a thing.”
Flash Flood Threat Starts June in Northeast. People across the region will want to keep their umbrellas close by into Tuesday.
"Worse than threatening to ruin outdoor plans, there is concern for the rain to pour down heavily at times, leading to flash flooding," stated AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski.
The risk of flash and urban flooding will extend from Portland, Maine, and Boston to New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
A disturbance rolling northeastward along a slow-moving cool front will enhance the rain and cause thunderstorms to erupt from into early Tuesday along much of the Interstate 95 zone.
The poor visibility associated with the downpours can lead to slow travel on area highways and sporadic airline delays at the airports.
Clouds will help keep temperatures in the 50s across much of New England for the first couple of days of June, the equivalent of 10 to 15 degrees below normal.
"The chill will have many people thinking that the calendar was actually flipped back to April," added Pydynowski.
Cooler air will push southward on Tuesday, reaching Baltimore and Washington, D.C., with highs forecast to be within a few degrees of 70.
While some people may not like the cooler weather this late in the year, the rain accompanying it is needed across the region.
Much of May has been abnormally dry across the Northeast with the region only receiving a fraction of the rain that it typically receives during the month.
New York City, for example, received only 0.40 of an inch of rain from May 1 to May 30. This accounts for only 10 percent of what The Big Apple typically receives in all of May.
Even though the early week rain is not likely to balance out the rain deficit across the Northeast, this rain will help to water lawns, gardens and other vegetation that is thirsty for some rain.
The cooler, wet weather pattern is not expected to stick around the region for very long.
By Wednesday, the flow will become southerly and another warming trend will be underway for the Northeast, said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams.
This will result in a stretch of dry days with temperatures running closer to normal than earlier in the week.
The warmup will occur more quickly in southern areas, as opposed to farther north.
Temperatures are not forecast to be as high later in the week as they were during the last week of May. Additionally, the humidity will not be as high either, resulting in lower AccuWeather.com RealFeel® temperatures.
Anyone with outdoor plans into Tuesday may want to consider moving them to later in the week if possible to account for the flip in the weather pattern.
Rand Paul, with overheated rhetoric, pummeled by conservative media over NSA. In the heat of the moment, Rand Paul went too far.
And he may be the most unpopular Republican in Washington right now.
Which doesn’t necessarily hurt his presidential campaign.
The Kentucky lawmaker single-handedly blocked the Senate from extending the NSA’s bulk records surveillance authority, which ended—at least temporarily—at midnight Sunday.
In lashing out at his detractors, Paul said that some of his critics “secretly want there to be an attack on the U.S. so they can blame me.” That is an outrageous charge, saying that some who disagree with him on the controversial program would prefer to see dead Americans so they can score political points.
Paul tried to backpedal yesterday on Fox, telling Bill Hemmer that “hyperbole can get the better of anyone” and suggesting his comment had been a “mistake,” but repeatedly refusing to retract it.
That was a self-inflicted wound. But here’s the problem I have with some of those who are pummeling Paul. They are charging him with derailing a vital national-security program purely to help his presidential campaign.
It’s a cynical assumption, shared by many in the media, that what Rand Paul is doing is entirely about 2016. Relatively few people in this cynical culture are willing to concede that he believes in the principle he is espousing.
And yet Paul is hardly late to the privacy bandwagon. He has been railing against NSA overreach for years, making it a centerpiece of his campaign. He has come down firmly on the privacy side of the national security debate, risking the wrath of those who believe he is weakening the war on terror.
And that assault has been led by Republicans. Mitch McConnell, who has forged an alliance with his fellow Kentuckian, nonetheless accused him of a “campaign of demagoguery and disinformation.” John McCain said he was engaging in a “fundraising exercise” (and Paul did make a money pitch based on his anti-NSA stance).
The Daily Beast says the senator’s lone-wolf campaign “just made Rand Paul GOP Enemy No. 1.”
A Daily Caller column is headlined “The Fall of Rand Paul?”
“We may look back at Sunday as the moment when Rand Paul went from being a wannabe mainstream Republican contender to a fringe message candidate like his father,” the piece says.
A columnist for The Week at least gave Paul credit for his beliefs, but under the headline “Rand Paul just sacrificed his presidential campaign for his libertarian principles.”
That seems like an overstatement to me, though it’s fair to say that attacking the NSA (and a less aggressive stance on military intervention) could have more appeal in a general election than among the conservative Republicans who turn out in primaries.
But keep in mind that some of these conservative pundits didn’t much like Rand in the first place.
The NSA controversy comes days after Paul infuriated his party by saying that Republican hawks “created” the terror group running roughshod in Iraq and Syria: “ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS.”
That prompted a scolding by the Wall Street Journal editorial page: “Speaking of gall, and a word of political advice, an aide might want to remind Senator Paul which party’s nomination he is seeking. Republicans who begin their campaigns assailing other Republicans rarely succeed.”
Paul was siding with those who say that George W. Bush’s invasion ultimately led to the creation of ISIS, and not Barack Obama’s withdrawal of troops and initial dismissal of these butchers as a JV squad.
I don’t know whether the pundits are right and Paul is undermining his own presidential campaign. But if that’s the case, at least he’ll go down fighting for what he believes.
Nicole Wallace is no the Morning Joe show now and she is on fire about Elizabeth Warren. She states that Liz could never get elected to be POTUS. Actually, I forgiot all about Chris Christy whom she says is someone that 'champions' businesses. The thing that everyone is missing about Liz is that she is NOT against business. She is against corrupt businesses or businesses that act in corrupt ways.
GE, Aetna, Travelers Criticize State Tax Increases.
In an unprecedented move that stunned leaders, three of Connecticut's largest corporations — General Electric, Aetna and Travelers — criticized the legislature and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Monday for considering about $700 million in increased taxes on businesses over the next two years.
GE was the first to issue a statement, saying early Monday that the proposed tax increases are "truly discouraging'' and that the company would "seriously consider whether it makes any sense to continue'' to remain in Connecticut.
"It is essential that Governor Malloy and legislative leaders find a more prudent and responsible path forward for Connecticut and its residents in their current budget negotiations,'' the company said.
The statement by General Electric was highly unusual because the company rarely comments publicly on tax and spending proposals in the legislature. Hours later, Aetna — an iconic company in Greater Hartford — also issued a strongly worded statement against a package that increases business taxes in multiple categories, including creating a "unitary'' tax on major corporations, extending the 20 percent surcharge on the corporate profits tax and tripling the sales tax on computer and data processing services from 1 percent to 3 percent.
"We strongly believe this will undermine the competitiveness of Connecticut-based businesses and will lead to an exodus of jobs and business from the state,'' Aetna said. "Connecticut is in danger of damaging its economic future by failing to address its budget obligation in a responsible way. Such an action will result in Aetna looking to reconsider the viability of continuing major operations in the state.''
Malloy's spokesman, Mark Bergman, said the governor spoke with business executives in recent days about the budget.
"We are asking our wealthiest and our corporate community to help pay for a transformational transportation and infrastructure system that will benefit Connecticut's economy for decades to come and will help keep existing business and bring new companies to our state and with it, good paying jobs for Connecticut middle-class families,'' Bergman said. "Working with the legislature, we are making a historic investment in transportation."
The business taxes are just one aspect of the overall revenue package. Some lawmakers were concerned Monday that the property tax credit on the income tax would drop to $200, down from the current maximum of $300 per household. The credit had been $500 under Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell. The credit is targeted at the middle class, and the vast majority of those taking the credit earn less than $100,000 per year, legislators said.
One of the ideas floating around the Capitol after the corporate statements was to remove some business taxes that are unpopular with corporations and substitute taxes on cigarettes and other items to fill the financial hole. House Majority leader Joseph Aresimowicz, a Berlin Democrat, favors the idea, but he said that no final decisions had been made.
"When it was first talked about, I wanted it included in the package immediately,'' Aresimowicz said of the cigarette hike. "If it was up to me, I would'' increase cigarette taxes.
Aresimowicz, a former smoker, also favors pushing the top rate on the income tax to 6.99 percent for couples earning more than $1 million a year.
"Making upper-income wage-earners pay their fair share is great in my book,'' said Aresimowicz, a union supporter. "I guess the difference between a weekend on the yacht and a regular trip to the grocery store — they can take a weekend off from the yacht.'' When asked Monday night if he has the 76 votes necessary to pass the budget, House Speaker Brendan Sharkey said, "Yeah, I think we do.''
He said the bill had been changed "in response to some of the concerns that had been expressed,'' but he declined to say whether the unitary tax had been deleted from the bill. He declined to discuss the details until meeting with legislators in a closed-door caucus.
But by early Tuesday debate had not started on the budget, and there was no indication when it would.
The business taxes captured the most attention at the Capitol on Monday.
Joseph Brennan, the president of the 10,000-member Connecticut Business and Industry Association, said he had never seen public statements on the same day by major corporations. .
"This doesn't happen. I've never seen it in 27 years," Brennan said. "They're just not in the business of doing this."
"If that doesn't get people to reconsider, I don't know what will,'' said Brennan, whose organization includes GE and Aetna as members.
Democrats and Malloy are scrambling to pass a two-year, $40 billion budget before the deadline of midnight Wednesday. If the deadline is missed, the legislature would be called into special session to pass a budget.
Later in the afternoon, Travelers became the third major corporation to issue a statement that blasted the proposed tax hikes.
"We are disappointed with the proposed tax increases in the budget agreement,'' Travelers said. "Raising taxes again will increase the cost of living for nearly every resident and small business in the state, negatively impacting our employees and customers. Lawmakers should explore other solutions to the state's budget to help keep Connecticut competitive and make it a desirable place to live and work.''
One of the biggest problems that has been cited by business lobbyists is the so-called "unitary'' tax that would be imposed on Connecticut corporations for the first time. The system involves combined reporting for companies with operations in multiple states, such as GE. Currently, multistate companies like Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS and others pay Connecticut taxes only on their Connecticut operations. Under the unitary system, their taxes would increase by at least $27 million in the first year, legislators said.
The initial news broke at the Capitol when a Republican legislator said Monday that GE was considering whether to remain in Connecticut following the disclosure of increased taxes on corporations that was crafted in a tax package by Malloy and Democratic legislators.
Rep. John Frey of Ridgefield said he received a telephone call Sunday from Jeffrey S. Bornstein, the chief financial officer of General Electric, about the tax increases and whether GE would stay in Connecticut with the proposed tax hikes.
"That's terrifying,'' Frey said of the conversation with Bornstein, a constituent whom he knows. "He said if he knew where this was headed, he would have written an op-ed about it. ... I don't think this is an idle threat.''
Frey said that he was shaken when he heard the comments on the phone Sunday and was shaken again when he told the story to his colleagues on the tax-writing finance committee on Monday.
Frey said Bornstein told him in a second conversation that GE Electric received a call from New York state on Monday morning about possibly moving there.
After Frey's statements, the co-chairman of the tax committee, Sen. John Fonfara of Hartford, said he agreed with Malloy that the tax package would lead to "a brighter day'' in Connecticut.
Fonfara responded to Frey and others that New York state and the New England states have a combined reporting system. It is needed, he said, to prevent corporations from shifting money from state to state "to avoid taxation.''
The local hardware store "can't shift it to another state'' because it has no operations in other states, Fonfara said.
"This is a pro-competition initiative if there was ever anything,'' Fonfara told committee members.
But Sen. Toni Boucher, a Wilton Republican who once worked for GE, said it was her understanding that other states have a unitary system to show combined reporting but do not ask corporations to pay an additional tax.
"That is not my understanding,'' Fonfara replied.
"So we have a difference of opinion,'' said Rep. Jeffrey Berger, a Waterbury Democrat who is co-chairman of the committee with Fonfara.
Brennan and Timothy G. Phelan, president of the Connecticut Retail Merchants Association, have said repeatedly that corporations are strongly against the unitary tax. But Monday was the first time that the three major corporations made public statements on the tax package.
"This is not like the first time that we've heard that businesses are going to leave,'' said House Republican leader Themis Klarides of Derby. "At a certain point, they're actually going to leave. There's going to be that breaking point, and I have the sad feeling that it is now. ... They're saying enough is enough. It's not just about this budget. This is, I think, the straw that broke the camel's back. It's cumulative.''
Republicans blasted the Democratic tax proposals Monday as they began to learn the details of an agreement that was struck early Sunday. Legislators were reviewing the latest revenue estimates Monday from a wide range of tax increases, including increased revenue from changes in the state's liquor laws.
A late-night deal struck between Malloy and Democratic legislators calls for an additional opening hour for package stores and supermarkets that sell beer — to 10 p.m. from Monday through Saturday and 6 p.m. on Sunday, up from the current 5 p.m. on Sunday. In addition, individuals or corporations could own five package stores — up from the current maximum of three.
Another change is that car washes would now be subject to the state's 6.35 percent sales tax, lawmakers said. In addition, the Internet tax would increase from the current 1 percent to 3 percent and would cover digital downloads, such as those from iTunes.
Sen. L. Scott Frantz, a Greenwich Republican who serves as the ranking senator on the tax-writing finance committee, blasted proposals that would raise the personal income tax on the wealthy and corporate taxes.
The tax increases, Frantz said, mark "a true turning point for the state of Connecticut.''
Speaking of South Carolina, i could have watched three hours of the Southern harm reunion show with Andy Cohen hosting it last night. One hour was much too short.
The author (Jennifer Senior) of the new story entitled, Not the Bush You Think He Is, is on the show now with Nicole Wallace and the panel (Joe, Mika and Willie). Jeb Bush is more ruthless than he looks, more conservative than moderates like to believe, and possibly more appealing to Latinos than Marco Rubio. Here is that article written up in New York Magazine.
Veteran CIA Officer Writes Second Spy Novel. They say write what you know. For retired CIA officer Jason Matthews, it's spying. He talks to NPR's Linda Wertheimer about his new thriller, Palace of Treason, inspired by his clandestine career.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
Jason Matthews worked for the CIA for 30 years and not analyzing cables in an office in the woods in Virginia, but working the street, following folks who might be turned into double agents, keeping in touch with spies who have something so secret to report that the exchange of information is also a deep, dark secret. Matthews has written a new book called "Palace Of Treason." That's a slang description of the Kremlin. And it brings back some of the characters from this first book "The Red Sparrow." Notably, the beautiful Russian intelligence officer, Dominika Egorova and the dashing, of course, CIA Officer Nate Nash. Others, including President Vladimir Putin, play important supporting roles in a book that is a super-tense and exciting version of the spy novels made popular by John LeCarre, filled with tradecraft like how to lose followers from the other side and spy slang, making the reader feel like a momentary insider in a secret world. Jason Matthews joins us from KUCR in Riverside, Calif. Welcome to our program.
JASON MATTHEWS: Thank you. Nice to be here.
WERTHEIMER: Now, this book is a sort of a souped-up throwback to the novels of the Cold War - two super powers squaring off. Why go back to that? Is it because was at the golden age of spy novels or something? Is this a celebration of what human intelligence can do?
MATTHEWS: Well, it is a celebration, but, you know, Linda, it's also a celebration of the new Cold War; a Cold War that is going on right now as we speak.
WERTHEIMER: Between, once again, the main enemies, as you call them in the book?
MATTHEWS: Yeah. The Cold War basically is based on ideology, on economics, on commerce, but the barometer of the Cold War is the level of spying that states do against one another.
WERTHEIMER: And do you think that's still right up there?
MATTHEWS: It's absolutely - it's humming along nicely.
WERTHEIMER: (Laughter).
MATTHEWS: If you remember in the summer of 2010, the FBI arrested 11 Russian illegals. That's another name for deep-cover sleeper agents. And these people were living in the United States as Americans, as your neighbors for a decade trying to develop access to secrets.
WERTHEIMER: Now, your heroine, Dominika, is spying for the Americans not because she fears for the destruction of Russia from without so much as a she fears for the collapse of Russia because of corruption within.
MATTHEWS: Well, that's exactly right. Dominika, the character in my book, is fed up with the corruption and the rot of Putin's Russia. He is trying to preserve his kleptocracy, his inner circle of FSB and KGB insiders, the oligarchs, the massive corruption and theft of public funds. He is the news Czar. And the story is basically - Dominika is recruited by Nate Nash, and they fall in love. And then there's always the threat of her name being exposed. I wrote in Vladimir Putin because he's such a compelling character. She goes back to Moscow as a penetration of the Kremlin, and he notices her and brings her into the inner circle.
WERTHEIMER: One of the things I was intrigued by in reading your book was that you put recipes at the end of every chapter. You've done this in both your books. Spy novelist's cookbook, what's that about?
MATTHEWS: Well, I've always admired writing in books that describe food, describe meals but describe it well to get your mouth watering. And I thought to myself, I'd be a little provocative and put a very elliptical recipe at the end of each chapter describing food that's mentioned in the preceding chapter. But these are recipes without measurements or oven temperatures. It's how your grandmother used to cook - a pinch here, a pinch there.
WERTHEIMER: (Laughter) So are you the cook in your family. Do you have a family?
MATTHEWS: I do. My wife Suzanne was also a 33-year veteran of the agency. We worked together. We were called a tandem couple. To answer your question, she cooks too.
WERTHEIMER: (Laughter).
MATTHEWS: We lived most of our 33 years overseas.
WERTHEIMER: So did you model this woman after your favorite females spy, your wife?
MATTHEWS: Well, not really. But, you know, we did this work together. We worked a lot. In the old days of the Cold War in their ponderous chauvinism, the Soviets in the east block and the Cubans never assumed that spouses of diplomats would do anything, what we call, operational, do any spy work because they'd go shopping and they'd push the baby in the carriage. But on any given dark and stormy night, I'd take a walk in the city park with 15 surveillants on me, and Suzanne would be coming home from a book club reading at the Canadian embassy. She'd check her status. If she was black, that means surveillance free. She'd go and to the operational act. And the bad guys, the opposition, never knew what hit him.
WERTHEIMER: So they were following you, and she was doing the deed.
MATTHEWS: Absolutely.
WERTHEIMER: Jason Matthew's new book is called "Palace Of Treason." Mr. Matthews, thank you very much.
MATTHEWS: Nice to be here. Thank you.
Iowa Poll shows big Clinton lead, but also some worries. Hillary Clinton shouldn't worry that a string of possible controversies will hamstring her in the Iowa presidential caucuses, but many Democrats fear the disputes could hamper her in the general election, a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll suggests.
At least 70 percent of likely Democratic Iowa caucusgoers say they aren't bothered by any one of three issues that Clinton opponents have pushed as controversies. The issues are her use of a private email server instead of a government account when she was secretary of state; her handling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and its aftermath; and foreign governments' donations to the Clinton Foundation.
But 66 percent of the likely Democratic caucusgoers say they think at least one of the three issues could hurt Clinton in the general election if she becomes their nominee, the poll shows. Early polls may prematurely thin GOP field
Clinton continues to hold a commanding Iowa lead among possible Democratic candidates for president, the poll shows. A whopping 57 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers say she would be their first choice for president. That's one point higher than Clinton scored in an Iowa Poll conducted in late January, which was more than two months before she formally launched her campaign.
Almost three in four (72 percent) say Clinton is their first or second choice.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has replaced fellow populist Elizabeth Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, as the leading contender to Clinton among Iowa Democrats, the poll finds. Sixteen percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers say Sanders would be their first choice for president. That's up from 5 percent in the January poll.
Poll participant Mary Patrick, 76, of Des Moines leans more toward Sanders than toward Clinton, but she doesn't think he has much chance of beating her for the nomination.
"I'm not ready for Hillary," Patrick joked in an interview, riffing on one of the Clinton campaign's slogans. Patrick, who is a retired religion teacher at Grand View University, sees Clinton as too open to corporate influences. She wants Clinton to feel pressure from the left, and she sees Sanders as best able to provide it. Clinton "really needs someone who would be a sparring partner" to sharpen her before the general election, Patrick said.
Patrick supported Barack Obama over Clinton in the 2008 caucuses, but she expects Clinton to be the 2016 nominee, and she would support her in the general election. When asked if she saw any realistic Democratic alternative, she replied, "I don't know. Who would it be?"
Trailing Clinton and Sanders among other possible contenders are Vice President Joe Biden at 8 percent, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb at 2 percent each. If first and second choices are combined, Biden, who hasn't committed to running, ranks higher than Sanders, at 39 percent vs. 29 percent.
The poll, conducted May 25-29 by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, has a margin of error of plus of minus 4.7 percentage points for questions involving likely Democratic caucusgoers.
Sanders gains ground, is viewed favorably
Sanders' support is notable but could be fleeting, said Steve McMahon, a Washington, D.C., political strategist.
"It's not a statement of support for Bernie Sanders as much as it's a proxy for a progressive alternative" to Clinton, he said. A few months ago, many of the same liberals were pining for Warren, he said. "It could be Martin O'Malley or somebody else next month."
Warren, who was at 16 percent in the January poll, has repeatedly said she isn't running for president. The poll didn't include her name this time in a list of possible Democratic contenders.
Thirty-seven percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers in the new poll say Warren better represents their political beliefs than Clinton, up 11 percentage points from January, and 26 percent say Sanders better represents their beliefs than Clinton.
Sanders, a self-described socialist, has gained attention recently by formally announcing his candidacy and continuing his travels to Iowa, yet 41 percent of poll respondents don't know him well enough yet to rate their feelings toward him. The ratings he does get are tilted heavily to favorable, 47 percent, compared with 12 percent unfavorable. (Clinton rates 86 percent favorable, 12 percent unfavorable and 2 percent not sure.).
Kevin Geiken, a Des Moines political consultant, said Sanders can be an appealing candidate to liberals who want to see someone stand up for their ideas. "They are still holding strong on their ideology," he said. "…They're saying, 'Screw the winnability factor, we're just going after Sanders, because he says what we want a candidate to be saying.' "
Independents aren't as enamored with Clinton as other likely Democratic caucusgoers are. A minority of independents, 39 percent, pick Clinton as their first choice. But no one else among the announced and potential candidates has captured their support either. Just 20 percent of independents choose Sanders.
McMahon said the 43 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers who don't pick Clinton as their first choice probably include some people who dislike her and others who just aren't ready to see any candidate handed the nomination.
It's as if they're at a restaurant, he said. "They don't want to be told what to eat. They want to be handed a menu so they can pick what they're having for dinner."
Some Clinton backers remain open to others.
Poll participant Cody Lowe, 25, of Council Bluffs said he supports Clinton because of the experience she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, would bring to the White House. But he also wishes she had stronger challengers in the Democratic nomination race.
"I think it would be more beneficial for it to be competitive, instead of lopsided like it looks like it's going to be," said Lowe, who is a law student at Creighton University.
Lowe said he isn't bothered by the purported controversies critics have raised against Clinton, but he thinks some of them might hurt her if she becomes the Democrats' nominee. Republican-leaning media outlets will talk ceaselessly about them, including Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state, he said. "I think if they keep pitching that, some people might pick it up and run with it."
Poll participant Maria McDonald-Overturf of Cedar Rapids also supports Clinton. McDonald-Overturf, 42, who is a stay-at-home parent, said she backed Obama over Clinton in the 2008 Iowa caucuses. She is impressed with the experience Clinton has added to her resume, and she likes Clinton's focus on children's and women's issues.
However, McDonald-Overturf is willing to consider other Democratic candidates.
"I'm familiar with some of their names, but I don't know much about what they represent," she said.
McDonald-Overturf said she is a bit concerned that some of the controversies around Clinton could hurt her in the general election. The one that sticks out for her is the dispute over whether Clinton did enough to prevent the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and whether she was truthful about it afterward.
McDonald-Overturf's husband served in the Afghanistan war with the National Guard, and she's sensitive to questions about how the Benghazi terrorists managed to kill four Americans. Although she doesn't think Clinton did anything wrong, "it does give me some concern that there might have been some kind of cover-up," she said.
Patrick, the Des Moines poll participant, isn't personally bothered by the controversies around Clinton, but she thinks Benghazi might cause her grief among general election voters. "You throw enough mud, and some of it sticks," she said. "That's why you throw mud."
Many Republicans see Clintons as unethical.
The poll offers evidence that the controversies could cause Clinton more harm in November 2016 than on Feb. 1, the scheduled date of the Iowa caucuses.
Among likely Democratic caucusgoers, 71 percent say they think the controversies around the Clintons are "just a bad rap." But among likely Republican caucusgoers, 84 percent believe the controversies show a pattern of unethical behavior by the Clintons.
McMahon, the Washington political strategist, said he doubts the purported controversies will have much effect on Clinton, because most Americans have already decided how they feel about her, one way or the other. Other, lesser-known candidates would have a harder time withstanding so much negative publicity, he said.
Geiken, the Des Moines consultant, said he's hearing the most concern among Democrats about the controversy over Clinton's use of a private email account instead of her official State Department account. That dispute could have some legs if it reinforces an image of someone who believes she's above rules that apply to other people, he said.
COMPLETE POLL RESULTS:
About the Iowa Poll
The Iowa Poll, conducted May 25-29 for The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 437 registered Iowa voters who say they definitely or probably will attend the 2016 Democratic caucuses and 402 registered voters who say they definitely or probably will attend the 2016 Republican caucuses.
Interviewers contacted 4,161 randomly selected active voters from the Iowa secretary of state's voter registration list by telephone. Responses were adjusted by age, sex and congressional district to reflect all active voters in the voter registration list.
Questions based on the subsample of 437 likely Democratic caucus attendees have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points, and questions based on the subsample of 402 likely Republican caucus attendees have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the percentages shown here by more than plus or minus 4.7 or 4.9 percentage points, respectively. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have a larger margin of error. Copyright of the Iowa Poll is credited to work of the staffers at The Des Moines Register and at Bloomberg Politics. Thanks!
Murder capital: Baltimore’s homicide explosion in wake of Freddie Gray case dwarfs rate of similar cities. The double murder Thursday of a young mother and her 7-year-old boy brought Baltimore's bloody monthly homicide tally to 38, a figure that dwarfs that of similar-sized cities and even exceeds the total for the same period in New York.
Jennifer Jeffery-Browne, 31, and her son, Kester, were found shot to death in their southwest Baltimore home, leaving friends and family heartbroken and city officials scrambling to reverse a tide of carnage that began following the racially-charged death of a black man in police custody. Police say the way City Hall and the local prosecutor handled the Gray case, which sparked several days of rioting and looting and led to the indictments of six cops, has handcuffed them and emboldened criminals.
"Criminals feel empowered now. There is no respect. Police are under siege in every quarter. They are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty."
- Lt. Gene Ryan, President of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3
“The criminals are taking advantage of the situation in Baltimore since the unrest,” Lt. Gene Ryan, President of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, which represents officers in Baltimore, said in a statement provided to FoxNews.com. “Criminals feel empowered now. There is no respect. Police are under siege in every quarter. They are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty."
With two days remaining in the month of May, the 38 homicides seen in Baltimore, whose population is about 622,000, is cause for alarm. Year-to-date homicides stand at 111, up from 71 for the same period last year, and this year on pace to be the Charm City’s deadliest since 2007. If May's pace cannot be slowed, all bets are off.
Compared to other U.S. cities of similar size, the May homicide rate is truly staggering, according to data compiled by FoxNews.com. Nashville, Tenn., with a population of about 658,000, has only seen six homicides this month and 21 for the year so far. Louisville, Ky., whose population is about 20,000 less than Baltimore's, has only had three homicides for the month and 28 for the year.
Las Vegas (603,488) has recorded 12 homicides in May 2015 and 41 for the year; Denver, Colo., (663,862) has logged just two homicides this month and its yearly total matches Baltimore's monthly tally.
Boston, which has a population 645,966, has had just one homicide for the month of May and 15 for year-to date.
Homicide Spike Baltimore.jpgExpand / Contract
Police pick up a pair of shoes after a double shooting in Baltimore. Residents in West Baltimore.One month after riots erupted, homicides and shootings are up and residents feel like they've been left to fend for themselves.
The largest city in the country, New York, has seen 30 homicides for the month as of May 28, and at 8.5 million, its population is nearly 14 times that of Baltimore.
Law enforcement experts say police cannot be proactive if they believe politicians and prosecutors are treating them unfairly. In Gray's case, the career criminal suffered fatal injuries while being transported in a police van. Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, in announcing indictments that included murder charges against one of the of six police officers involved in the case, struck a tone that many in the police department considered anti-cop.
“This is going to be a fairly routine occurrence – double digit shootings, high homicide rates over the course of the next three months,” said one Baltimore police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity to Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity earlier this week. "It’s a definitely direct result of the indictment of the six officers. When you have officers out there… and those that are doing their jobs are indicted for murder… you couldn’t help but have repercussions where police are afraid to go out there, that they are apprehensive about putting their hands on people…”
Police morale across the nation has reeled in the wake of several racially-charged incidents, including the shooting of an unarmed black man, Michael Brown, last August in Ferguson, Mo., followed by a grand jury's decision not to indict an NYPD cop in the death of Eric Garner and most recently the death of Gray.
“In case people ever needed a reminder, the increase in Baltimore’s murder rate shows how important police are," John Lott, president of Crime Prevention Research Centerand a Fox News contributor said. “As police are worried about being called criminals themselves, the sudden increase stands in sharp contrast to how murder rates are changing in the rest of the country."
NYPD reveals increases in homicides and gun violence across NYC compared to last year, with half as many stop-and-frisks. The NYPD is in an all-out battle with illegal guns — and all of us are losing.
More people are getting shot. More people are being killed. And fewer people are being stopped and frisked.
“We’re struggling with homicides and shootings,” NYPD Chief of Department James O’Neill said Monday. “As we expect when warm weather comes, we see an increase in certain crimes.”
O’Neill laid out the grim numbers during a press conference at 1 Police Plaza, revealing a 19.5% spike in homicides during the first five months of the year. There were 135 murders through Sunday compared to 113 at the same time last year.
Of this year’s murder victims, an alarming 72% died of gun violence, officials said. It’s usually around 57%.
O’Neill, who added that cops might be performing more stops in crime-plagued areas, said the spike in crime keeps the NYPD brass awake at night.
“When we’re talking about murders and shootings, we’re talking about people’s lives,” he told reporters. “These are not just numbers. And that’s what our business is about, saving lives. We do not take this lightly. This is our focus. This is what keeps (us) up at night.”
Police records show there were 510 people hit by gunfire this year — a 9.3% increase from the 467 people hit by bullets through May 31 of last year. With the summer months on the horizon, cops are gearing up for a seasonal increase in violence.
Despite the increase in shootings and homicides, overall crime was down 6.6% through Sunday compared with the same period last year.
In order to combat the expected increase in shootings and violence, the NYPD will have the Summer All Out initiative as they did last year, which puts additional cops at problem areas. In order to combat the expected increase in shootings and violence, the NYPD will have the Summer All Out initiative as they did last year, which puts additional cops at problem areas.
The NYPD is hoping to prevent more bloodshed in part with its Summer All Out initiative, which floods problem areas with additional cops. O’Neill said the summer initiative last year helped stem the increase in shootings and homicides.
More than 330 cops normally assigned to non-enforcement roles are at the Police Academy training for this year’s deployment. They will start next Monday, a month earlier than last year. Cops will also be assigned to a violence-reduction overtime program this summer, working 4 p.m. to midnight and midnight to 8 a.m.
O’Neill said police might also be performing more stop-and-frisks where needed.
“If we see an area where there is an increase in violence, of course we’re going to put more resources in there, but the stops that we want are good stops,” he said. “We want stops and summary enforcement activity to the people connected to the violence.” Cops performed 7,125 stops during the first quarter of the year. During the same time last year, there were 14,261 stops — just over twice the number from the first three months of 2015, records show.
The stepped-up enforcement can’t come soon enough for John Farr, 50, a bystander shot in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on Sunday.
“I was going out to get groceries,” Farr told the Daily News at Kings County Hospital. “I stepped out and all of a sudden, shots rang out,” he said. “I felt a sharp pain in my back and I went down. I started bleeding and I felt that my lower back was wet.”
Startling video shows the gunman on Malcolm X Blvd. walking down the sidewalk and holding a Glock 19 around 3:40 p.m. The man, wearing a brown sweatsuit, fired 22 times in two bursts from the automatic weapon — trying to steady his aim by resting the gun on his arm.
A police source said the shooting stemmed from a dispute over drugs between the gunman and someone else. The gunman remained at large, but police found his sweatshirt and the gun.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Dermot Shea acknowledged the uptick in crime has ignited fears that there are more guns on the street.
“The level of homicides committed is substantially higher,” he said. “Is that indicative of more guns on the street? It’s something that we're looking at. Or is it a comfort level of the accessibility of guns and the ease of getting them.”
He said that many of the shootings and homicides were gang-related. In the last four or five years in the city there are “groups that seem to be shooting each other for absolutely no reason,” he said. The 81st Precinct, where Farr was shot, had more shootings in May — with nine — than any other precinct.
Elizabeth Handley, 49, lives in the neighborhood and said her 28-year-old son, Louis, was shot to death there a year ago. Cops haven’t made an arrest. “There’s a shooting every weekend,” she said. “And now with summer coming — just forget about it.”
Murder capital: Baltimore’s homicide explosion in wake of Freddie Gray case dwarfs rate of similar cities. The double murder Thursday of a young mother and her 7-year-old boy brought Baltimore's bloody monthly homicide tally to 38, a figure that dwarfs that of similar-sized cities and even exceeds the total for the same period in New York.
Jennifer Jeffery-Browne, 31, and her son, Kester, were found shot to death in their southwest Baltimore home, leaving friends and family heartbroken and city officials scrambling to reverse a tide of carnage that began following the racially-charged death of a black man in police custody. Police say the way City Hall and the local prosecutor handled the Gray case, which sparked several days of rioting and looting and led to the indictments of six cops, has handcuffed them and emboldened criminals.
"Criminals feel empowered now. There is no respect. Police are under siege in every quarter. They are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty."
- Lt. Gene Ryan, President of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3
“The criminals are taking advantage of the situation in Baltimore since the unrest,” Lt. Gene Ryan, President of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3, which represents officers in Baltimore, said in a statement provided to FoxNews.com. “Criminals feel empowered now. There is no respect. Police are under siege in every quarter. They are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty."
With two days remaining in the month of May, the 38 homicides seen in Baltimore, whose population is about 622,000, is cause for alarm. Year-to-date homicides stand at 111, up from 71 for the same period last year, and this year on pace to be the Charm City’s deadliest since 2007. If May's pace cannot be slowed, all bets are off.
Compared to other U.S. cities of similar size, the May homicide rate is truly staggering, according to data compiled by FoxNews.com. Nashville, Tenn., with a population of about 658,000, has only seen six homicides this month and 21 for the year so far. Louisville, Ky., whose population is about 20,000 less than Baltimore's, has only had three homicides for the month and 28 for the year.
Las Vegas (603,488) has recorded 12 homicides in May 2015 and 41 for the year; Denver, Colo., (663,862) has logged just two homicides this month and its yearly total matches Baltimore's monthly tally.
Boston, which has a population 645,966, has had just one homicide for the month of May and 15 for year-to date.
Homicide Spike Baltimore.jpgExpand / Contract
Police pick up a pair of shoes after a double shooting in Baltimore. Residents in West Baltimore.One month after riots erupted, homicides and shootings are up and residents feel like they've been left to fend for themselves.
The largest city in the country, New York, has seen 30 homicides for the month as of May 28, and at 8.5 million, its population is nearly 14 times that of Baltimore.
Law enforcement experts say police cannot be proactive if they believe politicians and prosecutors are treating them unfairly. In Gray's case, the career criminal suffered fatal injuries while being transported in a police van. Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, in announcing indictments that included murder charges against one of the of six police officers involved in the case, struck a tone that many in the police department considered anti-cop.
“This is going to be a fairly routine occurrence – double digit shootings, high homicide rates over the course of the next three months,” said one Baltimore police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity to Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity earlier this week. "It’s a definitely direct result of the indictment of the six officers. When you have officers out there… and those that are doing their jobs are indicted for murder… you couldn’t help but have repercussions where police are afraid to go out there, that they are apprehensive about putting their hands on people…”
Police morale across the nation has reeled in the wake of several racially-charged incidents, including the shooting of an unarmed black man, Michael Brown, last August in Ferguson, Mo., followed by a grand jury's decision not to indict an NYPD cop in the death of Eric Garner and most recently the death of Gray.
“In case people ever needed a reminder, the increase in Baltimore’s murder rate shows how important police are," John Lott, president of Crime Prevention Research Centerand a Fox News contributor said. “As police are worried about being called criminals themselves, the sudden increase stands in sharp contrast to how murder rates are changing in the rest of the country."
NYPD reveals increases in homicides and gun violence across NYC compared to last year, with half as many stop-and-frisks. The NYPD is in an all-out battle with illegal guns — and all of us are losing.
More people are getting shot. More people are being killed. And fewer people are being stopped and frisked.
“We’re struggling with homicides and shootings,” NYPD Chief of Department James O’Neill said Monday. “As we expect when warm weather comes, we see an increase in certain crimes.”
O’Neill laid out the grim numbers during a press conference at 1 Police Plaza, revealing a 19.5% spike in homicides during the first five months of the year. There were 135 murders through Sunday compared to 113 at the same time last year.
Of this year’s murder victims, an alarming 72% died of gun violence, officials said. It’s usually around 57%.
“When we’re talking about murders and shootings, we’re talking about people’s lives,” he told reporters. “These are not just numbers. And that’s what our business is about, saving lives. We do not take this lightly. This is our focus. This is what keeps (us) up at night.”
Police records show there were 510 people hit by gunfire this year — a 9.3% increase from the 467 people hit by bullets through May 31 of last year. With the summer months on the horizon, cops are gearing up for a seasonal increase in violence.
Despite the increase in shootings and homicides, overall crime was down 6.6% through Sunday compared with the same period last year.
In order to combat the expected increase in shootings and violence, the NYPD will have the Summer All Out initiative as they did last year, which puts additional cops at problem areas. In order to combat the expected increase in shootings and violence, the NYPD will have the Summer All Out initiative as they did last year, which puts additional cops at problem areas.
The NYPD is hoping to prevent more bloodshed in part with its Summer All Out initiative, which floods problem areas with additional cops. O’Neill said the summer initiative last year helped stem the increase in shootings and homicides.
More than 330 cops normally assigned to non-enforcement roles are at the Police Academy training for this year’s deployment. They will start next Monday, a month earlier than last year. Cops will also be assigned to a violence-reduction overtime program this summer, working 4 p.m. to midnight and midnight to 8 a.m.
O’Neill said police might also be performing more stop-and-frisks where needed.
“If we see an area where there is an increase in violence, of course we’re going to put more resources in there, but the stops that we want are good stops,” he said. “We want stops and summary enforcement activity to the people connected to the violence.” Cops performed 7,125 stops during the first quarter of the year. During the same time last year, there were 14,261 stops — just over twice the number from the first three months of 2015, records show.
The stepped-up enforcement can’t come soon enough for John Farr, 50, a bystander shot in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on Sunday.
“I was going out to get groceries,” Farr told the Daily News at Kings County Hospital. “I stepped out and all of a sudden, shots rang out,” he said. “I felt a sharp pain in my back and I went down. I started bleeding and I felt that my lower back was wet.”
Startling video shows the gunman on Malcolm X Blvd. walking down the sidewalk and holding a Glock 19 around 3:40 p.m. The man, wearing a brown sweatsuit, fired 22 times in two bursts from the automatic weapon — trying to steady his aim by resting the gun on his arm.
A police source said the shooting stemmed from a dispute over drugs between the gunman and someone else. The gunman remained at large, but police found his sweatshirt and the gun.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Dermot Shea acknowledged the uptick in crime has ignited fears that there are more guns on the street.
“The level of homicides committed is substantially higher,” he said. “Is that indicative of more guns on the street? It’s something that we're looking at. Or is it a comfort level of the accessibility of guns and the ease of getting them.”
He said that many of the shootings and homicides were gang-related. In the last four or five years in the city there are “groups that seem to be shooting each other for absolutely no reason,” he said. The 81st Precinct, where Farr was shot, had more shootings in May — with nine — than any other precinct.
Elizabeth Handley, 49, lives in the neighborhood and said her 28-year-old son, Louis, was shot to death there a year ago. Cops haven’t made an arrest. “There’s a shooting every weekend,” she said. “And now with summer coming — just forget about it.”
What a news today so far today. Mike Huckabee is being interviewed by Joe.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Monday he’s not going to “impugn” the motives of Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in Mr. Paul’s fight against the Patriot Act, but reiterated his call for presidential candidates to give up their taxpayer-funded jobs once they jump into the race.
“I’m not going to impugn his motives,” Mr. Huckabee, a 2016 presidential candidate, said on “Fox and Friends,” saying Mr. Paul, also a 2016 presidential candidate, has been “very consistent” on the issue.
“And so let’s be fair to Rand Paul — this is not something he just took up because it’s a political cause,” Mr. Huckabee said. “He truly believes this, and I respect that a whole lot. I respect anybody who has the convictions and will stand by them no matter what the consequences, even if he’s out there by himself.”
The comparatively positive comments from Mr. Huckabee come as Mr. Paul has taken some intra-party fire in recent weeks over the Patriot Act and some of his recent comments blaming the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group on hawks within the GOP.
Mr. Paul on Sunday helped block the extension of key provisions of the Patriot Act that were due to expire at midnight. The Senate did move forward on a House-passed bill that would extend two less controversial provisions and do away with the NSA’s bulk data collection program, though not in time to meet the midnight deadline.
“I do think that if you’re taking a check from the taxpayers to do a job, then do that job,” Mr. Huckabee said Monday. “If you want a different job, then say, ‘You know, I don’t want this one anymore. I’m bored with it. I want to take a different job’ … be honest and go out and give the taxpayers a break and let them have someone on the job full-time.”
Extensive Interview done between them.
Ben Mezrich writes his newest book about an Oligarch who angered Putin: Rise and fall of Boris Berezovsky. The Rise of the Oligarchs—A True Story of Ambition, Wealth, Betrayal, and Murder.
The bestselling author of Bringing Down the House (sixty-three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and the basis for the hit movie 21) and The Accidental Billionaires (the basis for the Academy Award–winning film The Social Network) delivers an epic drama of wealth, rivalry, and betrayal among mega-wealthy Russian oligarchs—and its international repercussions.
Once Upon a Time in Russia is the untold true story of the larger-than-life billionaire oligarchs who surfed the waves of privatization to reap riches after the fall of the Soviet regime: “Godfather of the Kremlin” Boris Berezovsky, a former mathematician whose first entrepreneurial venture was running an automobile reselling business, and Roman Abramovich, his dashing young protégé who built a multi-billion-dollar empire of oil and aluminum. Locked in a complex, uniquely Russian partnership, Berezovsky and Abramovich battled their way through the “Wild East” of Russia with Berezovsky acting as the younger man’s krysha—literally, his roof, his protector.
The colorful Boris Berezovsky, who died in unexplained circumstances over the weekend at a country estate south of London, was one of the Russian oligarchs who made fortunes following the breakup of the former USSR.
But by the time of his death the 67-year-old was reportedly in financial difficulties after he was ordered to pay a massive divorce settlement to his ex-wife as well as legal costs following the loss of a $6.5 billion lawsuit against fellow oligarch Roman Abramovich last year.
His high-stakes later years were a far cry from his earlier career as a Moscow math professor and systems analyst who switched to more lucrative jobs in post-Soviet Russia, said CNN's Jill Dougherty, who interviewed him many times.
Berezovsky went on to sell cars "at a time when that was a luxury," she said.
"There were a lot of people who wanted to buy them, and he parlayed that -- as so many of these oligarchs did -- into something much, much bigger."
While Berezovsky made a good portion of his money from luxury car sales, his wealth and political influence skyrocketed when he bought into Russian media.
He invested in the Moscow Independent Broadcasting Corp., which -- with TBS as a partner -- founded Moscow's first independent television station, TV-6. Under President Boris Yeltsin, the Russian Federation's first president from 1991 to 1999, "there were really no rules governing anything," Dougherty said.
Businessmen who came to be known as oligarchs amassed massive wealth and political influence in the 1990s during the privatization of Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union.
Those like Berezovsky wound up lending the fledgling Russian government money "when it was desperate for money," Dougherty said. "These guys picked up companies on the cheap -- for pennies on the dollar."
A year or two later, the companies were worth much more, and the owners became wealthy.
In return for backing Yeltsin, Berezovsky gained political influence within the Kremlin. He later backed Vladimir Putin for president, pouring money into the latter's political party.
But after he was elected, Putin saw that the oligarchs had the potential to gain too much political power and moved to thwart them, Dougherty said.
It has been widely reported that Putin resented the meddling of the oligarchs, particularly Berezovsky.
Berezovsky did not have an easy time of it as an oligarch. "There were two attempts on his life," said Stuart Loory, a former Turner Broadcasting System executive vice president and a former consultant to Berezovsky.
"One at his country home outside Moscow in a gated community. Somebody planted a bomb in his car and, fortunately, it didn't work very well. And the other was when he was leaving his club and there was a car bomb in the car and his driver was killed and he escaped without injury."
Within months of Putin's election in 2000, the government began trying to collect on tax claims against the oligarchs, including Berezovsky, who fled to Britain.
Berezovsky began agitating from Britain against Putin, calling for a coup to oust the Russian president.
In 2003, as Russia was seeking his return, Berezovsky was granted political asylum by British authorities after they realized he was wanted on political grounds, not criminal, according to published reports at the time. The case strained relations between Moscow and London.
Berezovsky was convicted of fraud and tax evasion in absentia by a Russian court in 2007. He also accused Russia of trying to assassinate him, and eventually befriended Alexander Litvinenko, the FSB (the KGB's successor) agent who claimed to have been sent to kill him.
Litvinenko himself died at a London hospital November 23, 2006, from a massive dose of the radioactive material polonium-210. In a deathbed statement he blamed Putin for his death, something the Kremlin strongly denied.
Berezovsky later won libel damages in London over allegations that he was involved in Litvinenko's death, which were broadcast April 1, 2007, on RTR's news program Vesti Nedeli, or News of the Week.
But he is believed to have been in serious financial difficulties after running up huge legal fees in recent years.
In 2011 he paid out what was reported to have been Britain's biggest-ever divorce settlement to ex-wife Galina Besharova. The Daily Telegraph said the settlement was worth up to £220 million ($330 million).
And Berezovsky made headlines the following year after losing what was called one of the most expensive private lawsuits in history against Abramovich, a former friend and ally.
Berezovsky sued Abramovich, owner of Chelsea Football Club, for $5.1 billion, alleging that he was forced to sell his stake in the Russian oil company Sibneft for a fraction of its true value.
The judge called Berezovsky's testimony unreliable and, at points, dishonest.
Analysts put the price tag for legal fees alone at more than $250 million spent between the two sides, which Berezovsky was ordered to pay.
Berezovsky was this year reported to be in serious financial difficulties; last week he sold an Andy Warhol screen print entitled "Red Lenin" for $200,000 and the mansion where he died was reported to be owned by his ex-wife.
As speculation swirled about the cause of his death, Damian Kudriavtsev, a friend of Berezovsky, said Sunday that his friend was unhappy and was in financial trouble, but wouldn't have harmed himself.
Berezovsky, he said, had always hoped to return to Russia someday.
About two months ago, he sent a letter to Putin asking permission to return to Russia, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "He admitted that he had made a lot of mistakes, asked forgiveness for the mistakes and asked Putin to let him return home," Peskov said, according to a duty officer with the presidential press service.
It's unknown whether Putin responded to the letter, but Berezovsky did not return.
That looks like a great book and potential movie.
Pataki: This is the 'most dangerous time' since 9/11. Former New York governor and Republican presidential candidate George Pataki said in an interview on CNN's "New Day" that Sen. Rand Paul, is "significantly responsible for the fact" the National Security Agency couldn't do its job.
Amid an ongoing Senate debate on the Patriot Act, the government's ability to obtain specific, targeted data on suspects temporarily expired. The NSA officially shut down the bulk metadata collection program officially at 7:44 p.m. Sunday night, a senior government official told CNN.
"This is probably the most dangerous time for Americans here since September 11th, and to now have this void where the NSA cannot track lone wolves, they cannot use roving wiretaps against people they understand, probably are looking to engage in terrorist acts is completely wrong," Pataki said. "It's dangerous and I fear for our safety." Maine independent Sen. Angus King, who voted against the Freedom Act, said that the Kentucky senator and Republican presidential candidate is "overdoing it."
"We've got half the U.S. Senate, it seems, running for president and we've got some important deadlines coming up... and if somebody who is running for president can essentially take over the floor of the U.S. Senate and make this kind of publicity deal it's going to really impede our ability to get the people's work done." King added that while he thinks Paul's opinion on NSA surveillance is "genuine," he is "overstating it significantly."
"I just worry about the implications of every two or three months, we'll have somebody running for president taking over in this way and it's not productive," said King.
Meanwhile, the Senate is expected to restore the expiring provisions midweek.
But regardless of it all on this dreary day today, please stay in touch!
Pataki: This is the 'most dangerous time' since 9/11. Former New York governor and Republican presidential candidate George Pataki said in an interview on CNN's "New Day" that Sen. Rand Paul, is "significantly responsible for the fact" the National Security Agency couldn't do its job.
"This is probably the most dangerous time for Americans here since September 11th, and to now have this void where the NSA cannot track lone wolves, they cannot use roving wiretaps against people they understand, probably are looking to engage in terrorist acts is completely wrong," Pataki said. "It's dangerous and I fear for our safety." Maine independent Sen. Angus King, who voted against the Freedom Act, said that the Kentucky senator and Republican presidential candidate is "overdoing it."
"We've got half the U.S. Senate, it seems, running for president and we've got some important deadlines coming up... and if somebody who is running for president can essentially take over the floor of the U.S. Senate and make this kind of publicity deal it's going to really impede our ability to get the people's work done." King added that while he thinks Paul's opinion on NSA surveillance is "genuine," he is "overstating it significantly."
"I just worry about the implications of every two or three months, we'll have somebody running for president taking over in this way and it's not productive," said King.
Meanwhile, the Senate is expected to restore the expiring provisions midweek.
But regardless of it all on this dreary day today, please stay in touch!
