Joining Morning Joe are John Heilemann, Nick Confessore, Eugene Robinson, Howard Dean, Rep. Adam Schiff, Geoff Dyer, Phil Mattingly, Harold Ford Jr., Roger Bennett, Christopher Keating, Chuck Todd, Jeff Greenfield, Rep. Xavier Becerra, Frank Foer, Sara Eisen, Sheila Bair and Bryce Dallas Howard
In what is the shortest elected person at a position ever, Sepp Blatter says he will resign as FIFA president after what? 3 Days? 4 Days? And, another or the next election at FIFW will be held in march in 2016. Sepp Blatter, FIFA's long-time president, announced on Tuesday that he will be resigning as soon as an extraordinary FIFA congress has elected a successor.
Blatter had won a fifth term as president just last Friday and seemed to feel vindicated in two victory speeches, after yet another round of bribery scandals had beset him and his organization. A recent indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice had led to the arrest of nine of his close associates last week, and ABC News reported Tuesday that Blatter is, in fact, a subject of that continuing investigation. The sudden relinquishing of his iron grip on FIFA comes as a total shock to the soccer world, which had assumed Blatter would remain in power through the end of his new four-year term, extending his reign to 21 years. After defeating Prince Ali Bin Hussein 133-73 in the first round of Friday's election, the Jordanian challenger withdrew from the run-off vote. Blatter seemed to have once again consolidated his vast power, acquired over some four decades at the world's most popular sport's governing body.
Blatter didn't explain what triggered his resignation. Part of the FBI investigation that led to the DoJ's indictment, however, had accused South Africa of buying votes from the CONCACAF region, which includes the United States, that ultimately landed it the 2010 World Cup. Subsequent reports out of South Africa in the last 24 hours then produced a letter seeming to show that the $10 million payment had been funneled through FIFA directly, and that secretary general Jerome Valcke, Blatter's right-hand man, had personally overseen the transaction.
"I have been reflecting deeply about my presidency and about the 40 years in which my life has been inextricably bound to FIFA and the great sport of football," Blatter said in his address Tuesday. "I cherish FIFA more than anything and I want to do only what is best for FIFA and for football.
"I felt compelled to stand for re-election, as I believed that this was the best thing for the organization," he continued. "That election is over but FIFA's challenges are not. FIFA needs a profound overhaul. While I have a mandate from the membership of FIFA, I do not feel that I have a mandate from the entire world of football – the fans, the players, the clubs, the people who live, breathe and love football as much as we all do at FIFA. Therefore, I have decided to lay down my mandate at an extraordinary elective Congress. I will continue to exercise my functions as FIFA president until that election."
Blatter urged FIFA's executive committee to put on the extraordinary congress "at the earliest opportunity." The next one on the regular schedule is slated for Mexico City on May 13, 2016, but Blatter argued that waiting that long would "create unnecessary delay."
Domenico Scala, chairman of FIFA's audit and compliance committee, said a special election could be held between December and March of 2016.
"Since I shall not be a candidate, and am therefore now free from the constraints that elections inevitably impose, I shall be able to focus on driving far-reaching, fundamental reforms that transcend our previous efforts," Blatter added. "For years, we have worked hard to put in place administrative reforms, but it is plain to me that while these must continue, they are not enough.
"I have fought for these changes before and, as everyone knows, my efforts have been blocked. This time, I will succeed."
Scala will oversee the electoral committee and assist in Blatter's promised reforms.
"The decision that he has made today was difficult and courageous," Scala said in his own address. "In the current circumstances, this is the most responsible way to ensure an orderly transition. I know that he has truly acted with the best interests of FIFA and football in his heart."
Scala indicated that FIFA's statutes require a four-month notice for presidential elections and, also requiring time to vet candidates.
"For years, FIFA has worked hard to put in place governance reforms, but as the president has stated, this must go further to implement deep-rooted structural change," Scala said. "The president has outlined a number of specific recommendations to achieve this. A number of these steps have previously been proposed but have been rejected by members.
"Today more than ever, FIFA is committed to ensuring that these changes are implemented and upheld. As part of FIFA's work, the organization will re-examine the way in which it is structured. While it would be premature to speculate on the outcomes of this work, nothing will be off the table."
Blatter, in closing, claimed that he had made his decision in the best interest of soccer.
"It is my deep care for FIFA and its interests, which I hold very dear, that has led me to take this decision," he said. "I would like to thank those who have always supported me in a constructive and loyal manner as president of FIFA and who have done so much for the game that we all love. What matters to me more than anything is that when all of this is over, football is the winner."
What Willie just said about that guy, is that it (he) is just filled with arrogance. Honestly, if he were a mob boss that killed people (which it seems like that is the ONLY corrupt thing he is not known to do which more honestly, who the hell knows with this guy), he would be considered to be a socio path but he is one thread short of being called that term.
Boston Terror Suspect Shot by Cop Made Threats Against Police, Sources Say.
A terror suspect who was shot and killed by a Boston cop Tuesday was under 24-hour surveillance because he had made statements indicating he desired to attack police officers, sources briefed on the case told ABC News.
The FBI knew Usaama Rahim was armed and potentially dangerous and moved on him Tuesday morning when it appeared the threat he posed to uniformed officers in the Boston area had somehow increased, the sources said. He had been under surveillance by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, ABC News has learned.
In a related arrest, Massachusetts State Police and Boston police arrested a man in nearby Everett, later identified as David Wright, who had also allegedly expressed an interest in taking up the ISIS call to attack police.
The FBI and Rhode Island State Police conducted a related search of a location in Warwick, Rhode Island, but no arrests were made there. The FBI had been tracking Rahim, 26, for several weeks, and authorities are looking into whether he may have been radicalized by ISIS propaganda online, law enforcement sources said.
Such radicalization "represents the newest element of the terrorist threat facing the country, where we have individuals who affiliate with terrorist ideologies but do not coordinate their operational activities with terrorist organizations," said John Cohen, a former top Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor.
"This poses the most significant counter-terrorism challenge" for U.S. authorities since the 9/11 attacks, Cohen added.
An officer and an FBI agent approached Rahim a little after 7 a.m. Tuesday in the parking lot of a CVS in Roslindale, Massachusetts, police said. The suspect then "came at the officers" with a "military-style knife," police said.
Surveillance video from the scene shows officers "retreating ... and kept retreating," trying to get Rahim to drop the weapon, but he wouldn't, Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said at a news conference. So when the officers' lives were in danger, they discharged their weapons, Evans said.
Law enforcement wanted to question Rahim after receiving "some terrorist-related information," according to Evans. Specifically, Boston police and the FBI wanted to talk with Rahim "about his intentions in some other matters that we turned up," said Vincent Lisi, the head of the FBI's Boston field office.
Lisi wouldn't say if other suspects tied to Rahim were still on the streets, but he insisted, "We don't think there's any concern to public safety out there right now."
Police in Everett, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, made an arrest in connection with the investigation involving Rahim, authorities said, noting the arrest was made at the request of the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Additionally, there are a number of related searches in the area that are related to the investigation, sources told ABC News.
Early-morning approaches by law enforcement like the one that led to Rahim's death are unusual, according to Steve Gomez, the former head of FBI counter-terrorism efforts in Los Angeles.
The move may have been intended as "a disruption" to put Rahim "on notice" that authorities -- without sufficient evidence to build a legal case -- are watching him, or police and FBI may have been trying to obtain his cooperation in a related investigation, said Gomez, an ABC News consultant and contributor.
Either way, it all seems representative of what is going on throughout the FBI, which is aiming to take proactive steps even in "marginal types of terrorism cases" where it's too soon to tell exactly what suspects are up to -- but the FBI doesn't want to take any chances, according to Gomez.
Rahim died at Brigham and Women's Hospital, police said.
Democrats scramble to modify tax proposals in Connecticut, but business unimpressed.
Democratic legislators are using a two-stage, 50-cent increase in cigarette taxes to lessen – but not to eliminate – controversial income and data processing tax hikes, with the goal of passing a $40.3 billion, two-year state budget plan on Tuesday. The state’s chief business lobby quickly decried the changes, though, as woefully inadequate, charging that legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration have ignored concerns the business community has been raising for months.
The new budget, which was supposed to be debated Monday, stalled after rank-and-file Democrats from the House of Representatives’ majority balked at the last-minute addition of a $100 million-per-year income tax hike on middle income households.
This change, coupled with the scope of the overall tax hike, also sparked threats from major Connecticut companies, including GE and Aetna, to consider leaving the state.
Under the new deal outlined to Democratic representatives in a closed-door caucus Tuesday morning, the tax on cigarettes, which currently stands at $3.40 per pack, would climb by 25 cents in the 2015-16 fiscal year, and by another quarter to reach $3.90 in 2016-17. A last-minute component of the new two-year state budget deal includes a $100 million-per-year income tax hike on Connecticut’s middle class, according to budget documents released early Monday. The hit comes in the form of a reduced credit for local property tax payments.
White smoke on budget deal might require cigarette tax hike
Rep. Toni Walker talks to Mark Ojakian, the governor's chief of staff, on the way into recent budget talks.
Still needing a relatively small amount of revenue — tens of millions of dollars in a two-year budget of more than $40 billion — negotiators have struggled to find the right sources that will yield dollars without costing votes. A possible source under consideration is an old favorite, taxes on cigarettes.
By mid-afternoon, it was uncertain if the changes were sufficient for passage, according to a Democratic legislator.
Meanwhile, social service advocacy groups tried to push back on the business opposition to the budget, trying to rally support for the plan. While nobody likes higher taxes, they said, new revenue is needed to support the state’s most vulnerable residents.
Draft budget documents indicate that the budget deal would largely reverse many of the deep spending cuts Malloy proposed in February, replacing them with more modest funding reductions.
A coalition of anti-tobacco groups, including the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, has been urging lawmakers this session to add $1.50 per pack, calling it a no-brainer for several reasons.
The coalition argued its research shows a hike of this size would prompt 16,000 adult smokers to quit and discourage about 13,000 Connecticut at-risk teens from trying smoking. And then there’s the $60 million in extra annual revenue this would yield.
But a spokesman for Richmond, Va.-based Altria, parent company for cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris USA, said U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show 29 percent of low-income adults in Connecticut smoke, while less than 11 percent of those earning more than $50,000 per year smoke.
"Obviously it is a highly regressive tax increase," said Altria spokesman David Sutton.
He also predicted the cigarette tax increase, if enacted, would expand illegal cigarette sales and reduce patronage at convenience stores near the Rhode Island and Massachusetts borders. The increases would elevate Connecticut's cigarette tax to $3.90, topping both Rhode Island's $3.50 levy, and the $3.51 tax in Massachusetts.
The cigarette tax increase would not be accompanied by any extra money spent helping smokers quit. In fact, under the budget plan, the state’s usual source of anti-smoking dollars – funding provided through a settlement with tobacco companies – would be diverted for the next two fiscal years.
Bryte Johnson, director of government relations for the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, praised legislators for considering cigarette taxes, noting that they are effective at reducing smoking rates. But he suggested that the state should do more, noting that low and incremental increases haven’t brought the positive public health outcomes that larger, one-time tax increases have.
“Public health benefits are also undeniably limited when no revenue is dedicated to prevention and cessation,” he said.
Leaders of the legislature's House and Senate Democratic majorities and representatives of Malloy's administration investigated possible cigarette tax hike options last week when trying to finalize a budget deal, but opted not to include any.
Full details were not immediately available, but the revised agreement also seeks to raise a relatively small amount of revenue by increasing the maximum number of liquor licenses one entity can hold from three to four in the first year of the budget, and from four to five in the second.
Along with those changes, two tax hikes would be slowed.
The middle-class income tax hike would not come in the form of increased paycheck withholding, but rather by reducing the credit households can claim to offset their local property tax payments.
Under the budget deal struck between Democratic legislative leaders and Malloy late Saturday, the maximum property tax credit that state income tax filers can claim was supposed to drop from $300 to $200 starting in the first year of the budget.
Now it would stay at $300 in the first year, but fall to $200 in the second.
Households lose eligibility for the credit at upper income levels, and the budget also sought to accelerate that phase-out. Sources said that provision remains in the budget.
One of the other tax hikes that sources said scuttled any chance for a vote Monday involved raising the sales tax on data processing services from 1 to 3 percent.
Sources said the revised budget would give companies more time to prepare for the 3 percent sales tax rate. It would rise to only 2 percent in the first year of the new budget, and reach 3 percent in the second.
Sources also said no major changes in spending from the original budget deal were reported at Tuesday’s House Democratic Caucus.
“It appears, so far, that all of the comments about the dire consequences of this tax package have gone unheeded if the only change that’s being made is to reduce (the sales tax rate on) computer data processing by 1 percentage point,” said Connecticut Business and Industry Association President Joseph F. Brennan.
Brennan said businesses have raised concerns about far more than the data processing rate, including:
An overall tax hike of close to $1 billion per year.
New restrictions on corporation tax credits and a switch to a controversial system of reporting corporate earnings.
And a dramatically new interpretation of the constitutional spending cap that would enable legislators to move pension contributions outside of the cap without first securing a 60 percent vote of approval in both legislative chambers.
“We have been saying these things over and over and over for months,” Brennan said. "It is clear that the message isn't getting through."
A spokesman for GE declined to comment. But the company warned earlier this week that that the prospect of more than $700 million in higher business taxes over the next biennium “makes businesses, including our own, and citizens seriously consider whether it makes any sense to continue to be located in this state.”
Aetna spokeswoman Cynthia Michener said “not much has changed and our response remains the same.”
The insurance giant is a massive user of data processing services. And in a statement Monday, it wrote that, “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.”
Meanwhile, the Ridgefield-subsidiary of Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation, an international pharmaceutical giant, added its voice to the protesting businesses with a written statement Tuesday.
"Implementing the current, short-sighted tax proposals will stifle innovation, especially research and development of critical medicines, and have far-reaching implications on our ability to plan and make long-term business decisions," the company wrote. "The current proposal will undermine the financial feasibility of continued capital investments at our Ridgefield/Danbury site."
Malloy has led several initiatives since taking office to expand the state's bioscience industry, particularly around the University of Connecticut Medical Center in Farmington.
By Tuesday afternoon, social service advocacy groups were trying to rally support for the budget. The Connecticut Alliance for Basic Human Needs emailed supporters to say business was “being a bully,” and urged them to call the governor and legislators. The Connecticut Community Providers Association, which represents nonprofit human service providers, issued a statement urging support for the budget.
"Fortune 500 companies like GE, Travelers and Aetna have located their corporate headquarters in Connecticut in part because of the quality of life," the statement said. "The very providers whose funding is in jeopardy help to make our state a great place to live and work, providing mental health service and substance abuse treatment, and supports for families and individuals with developmental disabilities." Mirror Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas contributed to this report.
I was going to say out loud, "is that Louis' (Bergdorf) voice?" Since when has MSNBC started to allow him to do real news, let alone real interviews at the House or with people in Congress?
Obama: Stalled peace process makes it harder for U.S. to defend Israel at UN. In interview with Israeli TV, Obama hints at possibility that U.S. won't veto French resolution on ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict at UN Security Council.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, along with the conditions Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set for establishing a Palestinian state, have made it harder for the United States to continue defending Israel at the United Nations against European initiatives. In saying this, Obama hinted that the U.S. may withhold its veto on the French initiative to transfer a decision on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the UN Security Council.
Obama made the comments in an interview with Israeli journalist Ilana Dayan on the Channel 2 show "Uvda" (Fact), which aired Tuesday evening.
Shortly after the show was aired cabinet ministers and deputy ministers were instructed by Israel's Government Secretariat not to talk to the media or comment in any way on Obama's interview.
During the interview, Obama reflected on Netanyahu's statement in the lead up to Israel's March election that a Palestinian state would not be established under his premiership, calling it "unequivocal." Obama added that while Netanyahu subsequently suggested it could be possible to establish a Palestinian state, these latter comments sounded like they were made in an effort to return to the status quo.
Netanyahu's statements included "so many caveats, so many conditions, that it is not realistic to think that those conditions would be met anytime in the near future," Obama said. "The danger here is that Israel as a whole loses credibility, " he added. "Already, the international community does not believe that Israel is serious about a two-state solution. The statement the prime minister made compounded this belief."
The U.S. president also clarified remarks he made in an interviw with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, in which he said that Netanyahu's anti-Arab remarks on Election Day would have consequences for America's foreign policy.
"Let's be very specific" regarding the "practical consequence that I referred to [in the Goldberg interview]," Obama said to Dayan: "Up until this point we have pushed away against European efforts for example, or other efforts. Because we've said, the only way this gets resolved is if the two parties worked together," said Obama. "Well, here's the challenge. If in fact, there's no prospect of an actual peace process, if nobody believes there's a peace process, then it becomes more difficult, to argue with those who are concerned about settlement construction, those who are concerned about the current situation, it's more difficult for me to say to them, 'Be patient. Wait, because we have a process here,' because all they need to do is to point to the statements that have been made to say, 'There is no process.'"
Obama clarified that he does not foresee a "framework agreement" between Israel and the Palestinians being possible in the current climate. "I don't see the likelihood of us being able to emerge from Camp David or some other process and hold hands" in victory, he said.
Obama rejected the claim that tensions between him and Netanyahu are personal. This despite expressing harsh criticism of Netanyahu for addressing the U.S. Congress prior to the Israeli elections, referring to Israel's democratic values and what he called the "politics of fear."
The U.S. president said he has put the Congress-speech saga in the past, but in the same breath stated that he would not have behaved like Netanyahu did. "I think it's fair to say that if I showed up at the Knesset without checking with the prime minister first, if I had negotiated with Mr. Herzog, there would be a sense that some protocols had been breached."
Obama told Dayan that he enjoys "jousting" with Netanyahu during their meetings and despite their conversations being "tough" and "forceful," they are still good conversations.
"There's no doubt that Prime Minister Netanyahu and I come from different political traditions and have different orientations. I am less worried about any particular disagreement that I have with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I am more worried about Israeli politics that's motivated only by fear. And that then leads to a loss of those core values that, when I was young and I was admiring Israel from afar, were the essence of this nation. There are things that you can lose, that don't just involve rockets."
Obama said Netanyahu is "skeptical about the capacity of Israelis and Palestinians to come together on behalf of peace," but added: "I think that he is also a politician who's concerned about keeping coalitions together and maintaining his office."
What did Mark Twain say about June (In the bay Area)? Is that it was the coldest summer he had lived in or something like that but yeah, the weather on the East Coast went from hot to winter/fall like at the drop of a dime and it is indeed June now.
What are we talking about now on Morning Joe? Would Scott Walker do well in Florida and it looks like Bobby Jindal looks like he will start his run for POTUS. I will tell you that the GOP candidates have become or are very much star studded this year. Everyone is running. I also believe that using the Monica Lewinski card is weak. Who cares about that issue today and this was Bill's doings. Not Hillary. It is an odd statement to make today. "It was jabby."
It looks like Marco Rubio is now at the top of some new poll done by CNN. Just above Scott Walker who was at the top spot last week. There is no clear front runner in that GOP field. I agree with (John) Heilemann in that the national polls mean nada today. The Sate ones do however or not matter but those are more head turning than say a national poll. No one in the broad scheme of life cares about that GOP field yet today. Hillary (Clinton) and (Jeb) Bush are not doing that well just yet. Hillary is actually dropping ever since Bernie sanders and even since Mark O'Malley announced their entry into that race. Which make politically scientific sense that a front runner all alone in a race would rop its numbers the weeks of when opponents announce that they are in the races.
Howard dean is on now and like Mika says, "here we go." This will be an all about Hillary (Clinton) segment. Hillary's numbers are at serious low. The lowest since 2013 I think is what that CNN pollster said about her numbers.
My partner and my main man Adam Schiff is on Morning Joe to discuss many things going on in the world, but also including the NSA surveillance bill passes after weeks-long showdown.
The National Security Agency lost its authority to collect the phone records of millions of Americans, thanks to a new reform measure Congress passed on Tuesday. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on Tuesday evening.
It is the first piece of legislation to reform post 9/11 surveillance measures.
"It's historical," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, one of the leading architects of the reform efforts. "It's the first major overhaul of government surveillance in decades."
The weeks-long buildup to the final vote was full of drama.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul assailed the NSA in a 10-hour speech that roused civil libertarians around the country. He opposed both renewing the post 9/11-Patriot Act and the compromise measure -- that eventually passed -- known as the USA Freedom Act.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and defense hawks such as Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, had hoped to extend the more expansive Patriot Act, arguing it was essential for national security. The Republican infighting broke out during two weeks of debate on Capitol Hill and on the presidential campaign trail. And in part thanks to Paul's objections, certain counterterrorism provisions of the Patriot Act expired late Sunday amid warnings of national security consequences.
Obama welcomed the bill's final passage on Tuesday, but took a shot at those who held it up.
"After a needless delay and inexcusable lapse in important national security authorities, my administration will work expeditiously to ensure our national security professionals again have the full set of vital tools they need to continue protecting the country," he said in a statement.
No that Obama has signed the bill, his administration will get to work getting the bulk metadata collection program back up and running during a six-month transition period to the new data collection system.
Senior administration officials described a two-step process: The first is the technical process -- essentially flipping the switches back and coordinating the databases of information stored by the government -- which takes a full day.
The second is a legal process that could take longer. The government needs to make a filing with the special secretive court -- which has authorized the bulk metadata collection program since 2006 -- to verify that the metadata programs are legal under the new law.
It's unclear how long the process would take, but one official estimated the process could take three or four days.
Final passage of the compromise bill was in question until Tuesday, until the Senate successfully rebuffed with three amendments which could have thrown a wrench into the works.
The bill's passage is the culmination of efforts to reform the NSA that blossomed out of NSA leaker Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations.
"This is the most important surveillance reform bill since 1978, and its passage is an indication that Americans are no longer willing to give the intelligence agencies a blank check," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Congress had failed last year to pass a similar reform effort.
The legislation will require the government obtain a targeted warrant to collect phone metadata from telecommunications companies, makes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the FISA court) which reviews those warrant requests more transparent and reauthorizes Patriot Act provisions that lapsed early Monday.
The bill, though, passed over the strong and impassioned objections of security hawks in the Republican Party and from some former members of the intelligence community.
But as the June 1 deadline to renew expiring provisions of the Patriot Act closed in, and as NSA reform advocates refused to budge in the face of charges of damaging national security, top Senate Republicans led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell eventually relented, giving way to pressure from House Republicans, the Obama administration and reform advocates in their own body.
McConnell and others realized that the USA Freedom Act, which passed the House three weeks earlier, was their only ticket to keeping counterterrorism provisions like data collection and roving wiretaps alive.
But while McConnell kept up his protest into the final moments leading up to the vote, his fellow Kentucky senator who antagonized his every move to reauthorize provisions of the Patriot Act noticeably avoided the spotlight on Tuesday.
Paul's weeks of staunch and unflinching opposition to reauthorizing the Patriot Act, and to the USA Freedom Act for not going far enough, ended Thursday with a simple "No" vote on that bill. He even relented in his plan to offer his own amendments to that piece of legislation and didn't make a prominent speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday.
Paul chalked up his efforts as a win, though, succeeding in leading the bulk metadata collection program to its expiration on Sunday night. CNN's Deirdre Walsh, Athena Jones, Ted Barrett, Jim Acosta, Kevin Liptak and Kristen Holmes contributed to this report.
regardless of it all happening today, I am so busy that I can't even write so stay in touch please....
