MORNING MESSAGE
More
than 20 progressive organizations representing millions of voters are putting
their weight behind a five-point agenda for the next stage of Wall Street
reform. What these groups will formally announce Tuesday, in an event featuring
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, sets a high but practical standard for what
a candidate would have to embrace to be considered a progressive on reining in
the financial sector.
SANDERS STRENGTHENS CONVENTION POSITION
DNC
concedes more platform committee slots to Sanders. W. Post: “The senator
from Vermont was allowed to choose nearly as many members of the Democratic
Party platform-writing body as Clinton … Sanders’s slate includes James Zogby, a
longtime activist for Palestinian rights as well as a DNC member … Native
American activist [Deborah Parker] and author and racial justice activist Cornel
West … Sanders also named Rep. Keith Ellison [and] author and environmental
activist Bill McKibben…”
Sanders
encourages Democrats to allow a “messy” convention. AP quotes: “I think if
they make the right choice and open the doors to working-class people and young
people and create the kind of dynamism that the Democratic Party needs, it’s
going to be messy. Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle but that is
where the Democratic Party should go … if you want everything to be quiet and
orderly and allow, you know, just things to proceed without vigorous debate,
that is not what democracy is about.”
Sanders
criticizes Clinton’s decision to reject California debate. The Hill quotes:
“I was disturbed, but not surprised that Secretary Clinton has backed out of the
debate. I think it’s a little bit insulting to the people of California…”
CLINTON BLASTS TRUMP ON MORTGAGES
Clinton
attacks Trump on housing crisis. W. Post: “About a dozen surrogates and
local elected officials in Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Hampshire,
Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and elsewhere will host calls, events and release
statements focused on Trump’s response to the housing crisis that precipitated
the economic recession … Clinton’s allies plan to highlight that Trump Mortgage
approved subprime mortgages to unqualified borrowers. The mortgages were one of
the key financial instruments linked to the crash.”
W.
Post’s Dana Milbank tags Trump “welfare king”: “Several tax experts I spoke
with said it’s entirely possible that Trump has continued to report negative
income — and therefore not pay taxes — because of loopholes and dubious
deductions that benefit powerful real estate interests … Trump has claimed to
represent the American worker and has condemned corporate executives who ‘make a
fortune’ but ‘pay no tax.'”
PROGRESSIVES STEP UP PRESSURE TO BLOCK TPP
“Labor,
environmental groups call on Congress to oppose TPP” reports The Hill:
“Labor unions and environmental groups are among the more than 1,500
organizations calling on Congress to reject [TPP. They] argued in a letter sent
to Capitol Hill on Monday that [it] would kill U.S. jobs, hurt the environment
and endanger food safety … In a separate letter sent earlier Monday, more than
400 businesses in 10 states signed off in calling for lawmakers to support
[TPP.]”
TPP
could mean more shoes made by cheap labor in Vietnam. McClatchy: “The deal
would allow Vietnam’s manufacturing industry – already booming because of low
labor costs – to export more products to the United States, primarily clothes,
textiles and shoes … Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the
House Ways and Means Committee, said he’s concerned the administration had not
pushed the Vietnamese government, which he said continues to subject labor
activists to to monitoring, intimidation, harassment and assault.”
Exxon
equates organizing with conspiracy. NYT: “So say defenders of the energy
company, who in recent weeks have tried to flip the script on the activists
whose work helped set the stage for the current investigations of possible
conflicts between Exxon Mobil’s public and private statements on climate change.
They say the environmentalists have been holding a series of meetings and
discussions to plot their strategy … But any accusations that the group engaged
in a conspiracy would seem to violate the first rule of conspiracies: that they
operate in secret.”
Progressive
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