Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20160812 : vimarsana.co

LINKTV Democracy Now August 12, 2016

Scott anderson, author of fractured lands how the arab world came apart. His story takes up the entire print edition of the New York Times magazine. But first, we will speak with Pulitzer Prize winning reporter James Grimaldi of the wall street journal, who has covered the Clinton Foundation for years. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. A series of bomb blasts in thailand have hit three of the countrys most popular tourist resorts killing four people and wounding dozens. There were at least 11 explosions in total. No group has claimed responsibility. The blasts comes days after the country voted to accept a militarybacked charter in a referendum. Human rights watch warned that thailand is moving toward become a military dictatorship. Brad adams, the groups asia director said instead of the longpromised return to democratic civilian rule, the w constitution facilitateunaccountabl military power and a deepening dictatorship. In campaign news, the New York Times and the gannett newspaper chain have petitioned the new York Supreme Court to unseal records from Donald Trumps 1990 divorce with ivana trump. Unsealed records could determine if ivana directly accused trump of raping or sexually assaulting her during their 14year marriage. According to the book lost tycoon, ivana used the word rape during one deposition in the divorce case. She later softened her language, saying she felt violated during an encounter where donald trump reportedly held back her arms and pulled out fistfuls of her hair. Donald trumps former North Carolina Campaign Director has resigned after being accused of pulling a gun on at least five people, including campaign staffers. The director, earl phillip is , named in a new lawsuit filed by a staffer who claims phillip pointed a loaded. 45 caliber pistol at him and then placed the barrel of the gun on his knee while they were driving in South Carolina earlier this year. Phillip remained in his position even after the staffer notified senior trump officials. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton traveled to warren michigan to outline her Economic Vision just days after donald trump spoke in detroit. Clinton accused trump of paying lip service to being on the side of average americans. Mrs. Clinton there is a myth that somehow he is really on the side of the little guy. Dont believe it. Amy a panel of federal judges has ordered North Carolina to redraw its legislative districts saying the current ones are unconstitutional and racially gerrymandered. In a statement the reverend William Barber of the North Carolina naacp said this ruling is a tremendous ruling that the Republicanled Legislature used Racial Discrimination to undermine the power of the black vote and other minority voters, which is contrary to our constitution and our democracy. Despite the ruling, the judges have allowed the current voting maps to be used in the november election. Late last month, a federal Appeals Court also struck down voting restrictions in North Carolina, saying they disproportionately affected african americans. Federal Election Commission member ann ravel has proposed a new ban on political contributions by domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations. Ravel said the issue is no longer a hypothetical concern citing a recent report in the intercept exposing how a chineseowned firm donated money to jeb bushs campaign. Such donations can now be made thanks to the supreme courts Citizens United ruling. The intercepts lee fang talked about his reporting on democracy now we looked at some of the largest corporate donations to president ial super pacs and tried to find out their ownership structure. By chance, we found that one of the largest corporate donors to the Jeb Bush Super pac, right to rise, was owned or is owned by two chinese nationals, permanent residents of singapore, and they gave 1. 3 million to the Jeb Bush Super pac. Amy the Drug Enforcement administration has rejected requests to stop classifying marijuana as a dangerous drug with no medical use. This means marijuana will remain a schedule i drug the same as heroin. While 25 states have approved the medical use of marijuana, the department of health and Human Services maintains there is no accepted medical use in the United States. Meanwhile, in a separate decision, the government has announced it will start allowing more universities to start growing marijuana for research purposes. Currently it is only allowed at the university of mississippi. In news from los angeles, democracy now has obtained a video from the aftermath of the Police Killing of a 14 year old mexicanamerican jesse romero who died earlier this week. Police say they were responding to a call about teenagers writing graffiti in the early neighborhood of boyle heights. Police say they shot and killed fromfter he ran away police and fired a gun. But witnesses contradict the police claim. The video, which begins just after the shooting, shows officers standing over the boys body on the sidewalk, then handcuffing him. Jesse romero was a student in middle school. She would have turned 15 on august 24. He would have turned 15 on august 24. In news from florida, more information has come to light about the Police Officer who fatally shot a 73yearold retired librarian during a Police Training exercise earlier this week. The woman, mary knowlton, had volunteered to participate in a shoot dont shoot exercise as part of the Citizen Police academy. She died after the officer lee coel accidentally shot her with live ammunition. Last year, coel was accused of using Excessive Force when he let his police dog severely maul a man who was pued over for biking without a headlight or taillight. The incident was caught on video. Down. Get down. Get down. Get down. Get down on your face. Get down. Get on your face. I am. Corrects stop resisting. [screaming] amy the officer has been placed on administrative leave. In north dakota, 14 people were arrested thursday protesting the 3. 8 billion Dakota Access pipeline that will stretch from north dakota to illinois. The protest was led by members of the Standing Rock sioux tribe which has been staging , nonviolent protests against the pipeline for months. [chanting] amy the tribe maintains the pipeline is being built in violation of the National Preservation act. Ecuador has announced it will allow swedish prosecutors to interview wikileaks founder Julian Assange in its London Embassy where assange has been living for five years. For more than four years. Swedish authorities want to question assange about allegations of sexual misconduct, although charges have never been filed. He has been confined to the embassy fearing if he were to attempt to leave, he would be arrested by british police. He ultimately fears he would be extradited to the United States where it is believed there is a sealed indictment against him over wikileaks release of documents. In argentina, the mothers of the plaza de mayo held their 2000th march in buenos aires on demanding justice for their thursday, children who went missing during the countrys military dictatorship. The mothers have been staging regular protests in the plaza de mayo since 1977. Hebe de bonafini is president of the groups. Children, all the 30,000 missing, 15,000 who were shot in the streets, the 8900 Political Prisoners and more than 2 million in exile who have all become our children, this is no small thing. It is a heavy burden of so many children. But it is so beautiful, so amazing, so unique. I think that are no women like us and the world with the strength and our bellies, in our hearts, in our bodies with so much responsibility for our children whom we love. Whom we love and whom we continue to defend. Amy thursdays march in argentina came just days after the United States declassified documents showing that former secretary of state Henry Kissinger thwarted the state departments efforts to stop the mass killings by instead praising argentinas military leaders in 1978. One of indias most famous movie stars has been stopped for at least the third time while entering the United States sparking new outcry over racial , profiling. Last night, shah rukh khan, who is known as the king of bollywood, tweeted to his 20 million followers a message reading i fully understand and respect security with the way the world is, but to be detained at u. S. Immigration every damn time really really sucks. And in new hampshire, republican senator kelly ayotte was confronted by an unusual type of protest. As she ran in a 5k road race in manchester, a group of climate activists began running with her wearing donald trump masks. They urged her to drop her support for trump. 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. Newly released state Department Emails are raising questions about the close ties between the Clinton Foundation and the state department during Hillary Clintons time as secretary of state. The 44 emails include exchanges between top members of the Clinton Foundation and clintons Top State Department advisers, including huma abedin and cheryl mills. Cnn reports the fbi wanted to investigate the Clinton Foundation earlier this year, but u. S. Attorney general Loretta Lynch pushed back. On thursday, state Department Spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau denied any improper communication between the Clinton State Department and the Clinton Foundation. The departments actions under secretary clinton were taken to advance Administration Policy as set by the president in the interest of american foreignpolicy. With statement the state department is not aware of any action that were influenced by the Clinton Foundation. Amy one of the newly released email exchanges is about billionaire nigerianbased developer gilbert chagoury, who contributed between 1 million and 5 million to the Clinton Foundation. The emails show a top Clinton Foundation executive writing to abedin and mills asking for help putting chagoury in touch with the u. S. Ambassador to lebanon. Abedin responded, ill talk to jeff, referring to thenu. S. Ambassador jeffrey feltman. On wednesday, chagourys spokesman said chagoury was simply passing along his observations and insights about the dire political situation in lebanon at the time. For more, we are joined by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist James Grimaldi. Hes a Senior Writer at the wall street journal and has covered the Clinton Foundation since 2014. Welcome to democracy now james, europe and covering the Clinton Foundation for years. Can you talk about what this suggestsoup of emails and how significant it is about the relationship between the Clinton Foundation under secretary of state Hillary Clinton and between the state department under clinton and the Clinton Foundation . I think this confirms what we sort of knew. There are obvious ties and relationships the key tie would be douglas band, who was a top aide to bill clinton. He helped bill clinton create the Clinton Foundation and sort of devised how he would spend his days in retirement. He was very close, of course, to cheryl mills and huma abedin. At one point he was employing a contractor to huma abedin hu as was working at the state department. Ma during this time of the lebanese elections, he sent an email, as you describe now, regarding one of their greatest benefactors, mr. Chagoury, and suggested that the state department have the person who was a lead of the ambassador to lebanon speak to mr. Chagoury. It shows how donations to the Clinton Foundation when access to state Diplomatic State Department diplomatic officials. It is sort of begging the question, if he had not given that money to the Clinton Foundation, whether he would have had that kind of easy access. I would say it would probably be unlikely. It certainly would not happen as swiftly. Possibly, the state Department Ambassador might have consulted with this person regarding that issue, but it sure shows or seems to create an appearance of conflict of interest that bought access by making this donations to the Clinton Foundation. Juan speaking of the issue of conflict of interest, you noted during her confirmation hearings as secretary of state, secretary clinton specifically said she would take extraordinary steps to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. How well do you think she has followed through on that promise . Well, over the past year, we have looked at that issue. And what i did was i went into the lobbying records to see which companies and other entities were lobbying the state department, and also looking to see how many of them had given to the Clinton Foundation. And one of our findings was that at least 60 copies of lobbied the state department, had given as much as 26 million, and many of those kind companies, 44 of the 60, had participated in are they call commitments philanthropic projects that were valued by the Clinton Foundation at 3. 2 billion dollars. So then we went to look and see if mrs. Clinton had done anything for these companies. At the time they were making these gifts. We looked at several companies electricoeing, general , and microsoft and others, walmart, who seemed to have been getting favors from mrs. Clinton perhaps for good reason promoting American Companies and american jobs. It also coming at the same time that there were donations going to the Clinton Foundation. Amy you wrote an extensive piece, james, last year about clintons complications with ubs. Can you talk about that, just as an example . That is one of our deeper dives into one of the banks that was involved. Clinton is very close to a lot of the wall street banks. In this case, with ubs. They were in a bind. They whistleblower had come forward, an american who is helping ubs fined americans who wanted to dodge taxes. In switzerland, literally recruiting them to open an account in switzerland that would then be hidden from the. Nternal Revenue Service he blew the whistle. The government, iris, doj wanted 50,000 accounts a new about in which americans were hiding ines, hiding their income the ubsswiss Bank Accounts. So they would not be taxed. In the end, ubs did not want to provide those names because there was a law in switzerland that said they could not reveal that kind of confidential information. In the end, they only gave about 5000 of those 50,000 names. And we sell the donations from ubs to the Clinton Foundation increase from a little under 60,000 to 600,000, plus they participated in a 30 million innercity loan program, and then hired bill clinton to do speeches around the country for 1. 5 million. Juan of course, ubs was not all he closely tied with the clintons, as i recall, robert wolf, the head of ubs americas, was one of the big fundraisers for president obama in fact, famously was playing golf with president obama when the Justice Department announced this deferred prosecution agreement with ubs on this issue of the accounts. So there seems to have been you also raise the issue of whether other foreignpolicy objectives of the government were not included in the negotiated deal to eventually get switzerland to give up at leas

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