We speak to thomas frank author of listen, liberal or, what ever happened to the party of the people . He says the problem is not that they have been bribed by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and others, but they have been supplanted they have supplanted the gop as the party of wall street. Then we look at the white supremacist who killed jo cox, the british member of parliament. We speak with the former paid fbi informant who met the killer mair at a neonazi gathering the informant set up in 2000. Then to california where plans have been announced to shut down the states last Nuclear Power plant and replace it with greenhousegasfree Renewable Energy. We will speak with damon moglen of friends of the earth, the group who negotiated the historic agreement. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. A group of senators have unveiled a bipartisan measure to prevent people on the fbis terrorism watch list from purchasing guns. The move comes one day after the senate failed to pass four separate gun control measures in the wake of the massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in orlando, florida. None of the measures would have banned assaultstyle rifles like orlando ated in , Sandy Hook Elementary School in newtown, connecticut at the , Movie Theater in aurora, colorado, or in san bernardino, california. The measure led by maine republican senator Susan Collins would let the attorney general block gun purchases by people on the nofly list or a selectee list of people subjected to extra airport screening. The aclu has supported warned against crafting gun reform that relies on our nations errorprone and unfair watchlisting system. 20 people were arrested after tuesday staging a diein and blocking the drive to the National Rifle associations headquarters in virginia. About 100 people held an overnight vigil to mourn the orlando victims and call for a ban on military style assault weapons. Medea benjamin, head of the group code pink, denounced congress failure to pass gun control. Democracy is broken, just like our gun laws are broken, just like our hearts are broken, just like our lives are broken. If we had a real democracy, we would have had those laws passed yesterday. Amy three people have been arrested with a cache of weapons after police pulled them over for a cracked windshield near the holland tunnel in new york which connects new jersey and , new york city. Police recovered five pistols and ar15 Assault Rifle and a 12gauge shotgun. Authorities said the suspects are gun enthusiast with no known connection to terrorism. New york state has a ban on assault weapons which withstood a challenge at the Supreme Court on monday. Men who claims he was the lover of orlando shooter omar mateen has told univision he believes mateen committed the shooting for revenge, not terrorism. The man, who wore a disguise and called himself miguel, said mateen bore a grudge against puerto rican gay men, including one who revealed he was hivpositive following a sexual encounter with mateen. I believe and i really think he hate Puerto Ricans for all of the bad things they do to him. Will sound bad, and a lot of people are going to get a lot of pain for what im going thisy, but i believe crazy, horrible thing he did wasnt revenge. Amy attorney general Loretta Lynch says investigators may never identity a single motive in the orlando massacre, which she said was both an act of terror and hate. After meeting with relatives of the victims in orlando, lynch expressed solidarity with the lgbt community. Cox let me say to our lgbt friends and family, particularly to anyone who might view this tragedy as an indication that their identities, that theyre essential selves might somehow be better left unexpressed or in the shadows, this department of justice and your country stands with you in the light. Amy Hillary Clinton has attacked Donald Trumps economic policies and record of profiting off his companies bankruptcies. Speaking in columbus, ohio, clinton said trump would be dangerous to the u. S. Economy. Mrs. Clinton Ronald Reagan said it. He said, we have a wellearned reputation for reliability and credibility. Two things that set us apart from much of the world. Now, maybe donald feels different when because he made a fortune filing bankruptcies and stiffing his creditors. I will get to his Business Practices in a minute. But the United States of america does not do business trumps way. Amy donald trump meanwhile has said he will offset a fundraising deficit with clinton using his unlimited personal wealth. His remarks, amid reports Trumps Campaign had only 1. 3 million in cash on hand at the end of may, compared to clintons 42 million. Speaking to cbs news, trump accused clinton of raising blood money. Mr. Trump i do not want to devote the rest of my life from raising money from people. When she races this money, she is making deals. Saying, and i be the ambassador to this, could i do that, make sure my businesses taking care. Give me a break. All of the money she is raising, that is blood money. She is getting tremendous amounts of money from wall street. Shes getting tremendous amounts of money from lots of people. She is going to take care of all of those people. Amy donald trump has directed nearly 1 5 of his Campaign Cash to companies in his business empire. Trump said he will deliver a major address against clinton today. In california, two wildfires have burned about 5000 acres of terrain and are threatening to merge in the mountains outside los angeles. Firefighters said they are shortstaffed because people have been sent to fight other fires burning in different parts of california. U. S. Forest service fire chief Robert Garcia gave an update on the fish and reservoir fires, which have forced hundreds to evacuate. Both our continuing to burn and and Angeles National forest and the National Monument in steep, rugged terrain. All of the fuel beds, areas of the forest that have not burned in quite a number of years. Amy meanwhile in arizona, governor doug ducey has declared a state of emergency in Navajo County where firefighters are battling a blaze that has grown to more than 40,000 acres. The fires have been fueled by recordshattering heat, the latest sign of humancaused Climate Change. A former honduran soldier has said murdered environmentalist Berta Caceres appeared on a hit list distributed to u. S. Trained special forces in honduras months before she was assassinated. First Sergeant Rodrigo Cruz told the guardian he was 100 certain that Berta Caceres was killed by the army. Caceres was an indigenous lenca leader who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her fight against the agua zarca dam. She was shot to death on march 3 at her home in la esperanza, honduras. Cruz said caceres name was on a list distributed to a military police unit in the interinstitutional security force, or fusina, which received training from 300 u. S. Marines and fbi agents last year. Five people have been arrested includings murder, hundred major. Last year was the deadliest on record for environmentalists. The Group Global Witness says killed last year, a 60 increase over the previous year. 50 of them were killed just in brazil alone where the summer , olympics are set to take place in august. The Israeli Military says its soldiers shot and killed a 15yearold palestinian boy and wounded four other people by mistake. Mahmoud rafat baderan was killed while he and his family were driving home from a swimming pool. The military said soldiers mistakenly believed he had been throwing stones in an earlier incident. Federal prosecutors say they will not charge three Police Officers in pasco, washington , for the Fatal Shooting of mexican farm worker antonio zambromontes. Police fired 17 shots at him accusing him of throwing stones , at them. Cell phone video appears to show zambranomontes running across an intersection, turning to face police, and raising his hands before hes shot. But u. S. Attorney Michael Ormsby said there was insufficient evidence the officers violated zambranomontes civil rights. His family has filed a lawsuit in federal court. In turkey, press freedom advocates rallied tuesday to protest the arrest of two journalists and an academic on accusations of disseminating terrorist propaganda. Among those arrested was the head of the local Reporters Without Borders chapter. The three had taken part in a Solidarity Campaign for the prokurdish newspaper ozgur gundem. The husband of slain British LabourParty Lawmaker jo cox says he believes she was killed for her political views. Cox was stabbed and shot to death thursday, allegedly by thomas mair, who had ties to the neonazi National Alliance and attended a meeting of british White Supremacists organized by an fbi informant in 2000. Brendan cox said his late wife worried about the direction of global politics. I think she worried we were entering an age we have not seen peopleince the 1930s of people feeling insecure for lots of different reasons, for economic reasons or security reasons, and then populous politicians, whether that is trump the u. S. Or whoever else, exploiting that and driving communities to hate each other, saying the reason you dont have a job or the reason that youre feeling insecure is because of this powerless person, not because of, you know, choices that we are making and that was driving people it was creating an atmosphere of hatred. Has been. Is jo coxs later in the broadcast, we will be with the fbi informant who organized the meeting in london of british White Supremacists who met mair then. A new lawsuit accuses a judge and the city court in bogalusa, louisiana of running a , modernday debtors prison. The Southern Poverty Law Center says judge robert j. Black routinely orders people to jail for failing to pay fines for minor offenses, like traffic violations, and charges them socalled extension fees to avoid jail time. In one case, a man found guilty of stealing 5 worth of food to feed his family was ordered to pay a 450 fine, then jailed for four hours when he couldnt pay the 50 extension fee. The federal Aviation Administration has issued new rules to allow corporations to fly drones. The rules allow commercial drones to fly up to 400 feet in the air during daytime hours. The drones must be kept within sight, precluding, for now the proposed use of delivery drones by Companies Like google and amazon. Despite concerns, the rules do not include regulations on privacy. Meanwhile in ireland, prochoice activists flew a drone into Northern Ireland carrying a different cargo pills to induce an abortion. The action was aimed at highlighting strict antichoice laws in both Northern Ireland and the irish republic. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Juan and im juan gonzalez. Welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. In a Major Economic address in ohio on tuesday, Hillary Clinton warned the election of donald trump would be disastrous for the u. S. Economy and result in what she dubbed a trump recession. Mrs. Clinton i think donald trump has said he is qualified to be president because of his business record. A few days ago, he said, i am going to do for the country what i did for my business. So lets take a look at what he did for his business. He has written a lot of books about business. They all seem to end a chapter 11. [laughter] mrs. Clinton go figure. And over the years, he intentionally ran up huge amounts of debt on his companies and then defaulted. He bankrupted his companies not once, not twice, but four times. Hundreds of people lost their jobs. Shareholders are wiped out. Contractors, many of them small businesses, took heavy losses. Many went bust. But donald trump . He came out fine. Amy describing donald trump as the king of debt Hillary Clinton , warned a Trump Presidency would cause an economic catastrophe. Trump is scheduled to give a major speech today, resizing clintons policies. On tuesday, he posted his short video on instagram. Mr. Trump Hillary Clinton is right about one thing, i understand that and how to handle it. I have made a fortune with debt. But that for this country is a disaster and obama has piled it on and she has been there watching. Juan while Hillary Clinton is attacking donald trump over his economic policies, there is also a simmering debate within the Democratic Party over the partys own platform. Last week in an address to supporters democratic president ial candidate Bernie Sanders told supporters he planned to go to the Democratic Convention next month in philadelphia to push the party in a more progressive direction. Mr. Sanders i look for to working with secretary clinton to transform the Democratic Party. So that it becomes a party of working people and young people and not just wealthy campaign contributors. A party that has the guts to take on wall street, the pharmasset ogle industry, the fossil feel industry, and the other powerful special interest that dominate so much of our political and economic life. Amy to talk more about the president ial race, we are joined by author and social critic thomas frank, author of many books including, whats the matter with kansas . His newest book is called, listen, liberal or, what ever happened to the party of the people . Welcome to democracy now , thomas frank. You write well, it is the problem with us to must stems democrats is not that they had been bribed by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and others, but they plan to supplant the gop as the party of wall street. Explain. It is not so much they decided first, they decided they did not want to be the part of the working class, the middle class. This goes back to the 1970s, if not before. But by the wait, so the group is they decided they would represent is the affluent whitecollar professionals beginning in the 1970s. By the 1990s, that had come into full flower with the bill clinton administration, and they actively courted wall street. All through the last decade, the years of the bush administration, you had democratic theorist after democratic tourist talking about how their was this natural the democratsen on wall street. Wall street was supposed to be this place, the professional class was doing these fantastic things, plucking wealth out of thin air. This was the Creative Class in full bloom, right . Doing these wonderful things, so creative. Everybody could see this was a naturally democratic industry. The clintons and barack obama all had a hand in this transformation of the party. Juan what about this relationship between the Democratic Party and the working class were organized labor . You could argue the democratic elite was prolabor as long as there was an alternative out there in the world, the socialist bloc or the communist bloc, that provided an alternative vision for workers once you had the collapse of communism and socialism in other parts of the world, the democratic elite no longer thought they never did needed to appeal to organized labor. I guess you would call that the grand sweeping view of history. In fact, the democratic abandonment of the working class really does begin in the vietnam era and a lot of it happen for reasons that are very understandable and even admirable. The Democratic Party wanted to reconstitute itself in the early 1970s and move away from organized labor and remove organized labor from its sexual position in the Democratic Party because structural position in the Democratic Party. A lot of organized labor had really supported president johnson in those days. The Democratic Party wanted to change itself. To make a very long and winding story short, they made their decision to shift their allegiance to the professional managerial class, and it turned out to be really good for them from a financial point of view because were talking about very affluent people. Everything sort of has worked out for them for the democrats, that is, and it is been great for them for organized labor and working people it has been a catastrophe. This is the reason inequality one of the biggest reasons inequality