SAN FRANCISCO—Wealthy liberals from across the country discussed strategy and finances this Sunday during the Democracy Alliance’s biennial donor confab, where the number of supported groups grew by more than a dozen and funding targets grew by tens of millions of dollars above previous years.
The contrasts are stark at this week’s meeting of the nation’s foremost liberal donor club. Flashy sports cars ferry climate crusaders to a luxury hotel, a private security company shields prying eyes from speeches on political accountability, and billionaire Democratic donors denounce money in politics.
The Alliance is a hub of liberal and Democratic fundraising. It steers tens of millions of dollars each year to leading political and policy groups strategically vetted and endorsed by its staff of progressive operatives.
“If there was an attack on this building, the Democratic donor base would be gone,” joked investor Joe Sanberg. “There are probably a lot of...
The New York branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve, wary that a natural disaster or other eventuality could shut down its market operations as it approaches an interest rate hike, has added staff and bulked up its satellite office in Chicago.
Some market technicians have transferred from New York and others were hired at the office housed in the Chicago Fed, according to several people familiar with the build-out that began about two years ago, after Hurricane Sandy struck Manhattan.
Officials believe the Chicago staffers can now handle all of the market operations that are done daily out of the New York Fed, which is the U.S. central bank’s main conduit to Wall Street.
The satellite office in the Midwest readies the New York Fed for perhaps the most delicate U.S. interest-rate hike ever. With rates having been near zero for more than six years, and markets flooded with reserves, the Fed will rely on...
The Good News:
You are officially no longer a Racist!
The Bad News:
You are now a Misogynist!
By HARRY ENTEN - Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign, which officially kicks off Monday, has so far attracted paltry support from Republican voters, according to polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as nationally. He’s down near Chris Christie! Yet, when we talk about him in the FiveThirtyEight office, we usually put Rubio in the top tier, in front of everyone except Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, the two candidates at the top of the polls.
Why? Rubio is both electable and conservative, and in optimal proportions. He’s in a position to satisfy the GOP establishment, tea party-aligned voters and social conservatives. In fact, Rubio’s argument for the GOP nomination looks a lot like Walker’s, and Rubio is more of a direct threat to the Wisconsin governor than he is to fellow Floridian Bush.
To win a presidential nomination, you need to make it past the party actors (i.e., elected officials and highly dedicated partisans). You can have all the strong early poll numbers in the world (hello, Rudy Giuliani), and your candidacy can still fail if party bigwigs come out against you. Rubio has a real chance of surviving — or even winning — the invisible (or endorsement) primary.
Rubio doesn’t have the flaws the other two official GOP candidates have. He’s a hawk on foreign policy (with an 89 percent conservative foreign policy score in National Journal’s vote ratings), so he’ll be able to avoid the pitfalls of Rand Paul’s candidacy. And Rubio isn’t anywhere near as extreme as Ted Cruz and has not alienated his fellow senators, so we shouldn’t expect mainstream party members coming out of the woodwork to stop Rubio. But he’s a solid conservative; statistical ideological ratings put him right in line with the average Republican in the...
(CNSNews.com) – With little fanfare, a U.N. body has given Iran seats on several entities, including one dealing with women’s empowerment, another with children, a third with narcotics and a fourth with crime prevention and criminal justice.
From January 1 next year, Iran will be a member of the executive board of the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (U.N. Women), the executive board of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, and Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
U.S. taxpayers account for 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular operating budget, plus millions of additional dollars to individual U.N. agencies. The State Department’s fiscal year 2016 request includes $7.7 million for U.N. Women and $132 million for UNICEF.
The decisions were made between Wednesday and Friday last week, at sessions of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a 54-member U.N. organ that coordinates socio-economic and related affairs.
Iran each time was on a “closed slate” of candidates put forward by its regional group, Asia. The contentious U.N. practice, which entails submitting the same number of candidates as there are vacancies available, effectively rules out any contest.
Closed slates have enabled repressive regimes to take up leadership posts across the U.N. system. Unless objections are raised, there is no actual vote, and the regionally-endorsed candidates are instead given the nod “by...
Author’s Note: I only listed the lies that Hillary Clinton has told that came immediately to mind. I expect I forgot to mention some and as her campaign rolls out she will surely tell additional lies, so if anyone reading this remembers any that I haven’t listed or becomes aware of any new ones she tells please be sure to add them to the list of Hillary’s Lies.
- My husband is not a sexual predator.
- Bill and I have a normal marriage, and any assertions that by defending him against allegations of aberrant sexual behavior I enable him to continue to prey upon vulnerable women are false.
- Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and all the others who have claimed to have had sex, been sexually harassed, assaulted or raped by Bill Clinton are just white trash publicity seekers.
- Bill did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky; allegations that he did are part of a vast right wing conspiracy.
- I was shocked to discover that Bill had had sex with Monica Lewinsky, but I forgave him because I love him and he had never done anything like that before and he hasn’t since.
- I do not have a vicious temper and reports that my ripping into Vince Foster on the morning he committed suicide may have driven him over the edge are unfounded.
- I never have had temper tantrums or exhibited violent behavior like throwing ashtrays or lamps when I found out about something I didn’t like or couldn’t get my own way.
- Reports that I told White House staff and Secret Service agents to step into a closet or hide behind a curtain because I didn’t want to have to see them when I walked down the halls are simply stories made up by an unscrupulous reporter
- Had Hillary Care been implemented it would have provided high quality affordable health care to all Americans while preserving their freedom to choose their doctors and their plans.
- I had no idea where the Rose Law firm billing records were.
- The Whitewater land deal was totally above board and there was nothing illegal or even unethical about it.
- When I said I came under sniper fire when I landed in Sarajevo I wasn’t lying.
- As Secretary of State, the ruling junta in Myanmar did not play me for a fool by pretending to embrace democratic reforms; that they slipped back into authoritarianism the minute I normalized relations and lifted sanctions is just a coincidence.
- ... LOTS More...
The Russian president has repealed the ban prohibiting the delivery of S-300 missile air defense systems to Iran, according to the Kremlin's press service. The ban was introduced by former President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010.
“[The presidential] decree lifts the ban on transit through Russian territory, including airlift, and the export from the Russian Federation to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also the transfer to the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the territory of the Russian Federation, both by sea and by air, of air defense missile systems S-300,” says the information note accompanying the document, RIA Novosti reported.
The decree enters into force upon the president’s signature.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented on the decision, saying that Moscow’s voluntary embargo on S-300 deliveries was no longer necessary, due to the...
