Clintons Welcome New Grandbaby

Chelsea Clinton and husband Marc Mevinsky have announced the birth of a son named Aidan Clinton Mezvinsky. Hillary Clinton had no public events on Thursday or Friday, and none scheduled this weekend.

Hillary Clinton frequently mentions her granddaughter, Charlotte, at campaign stops, often saying, "FaceTime was invented for grandparents."

At an event in Santa Barbara, California, earlier this month, she said becoming a grandparent is "truly like falling in love all over again — nothing like it."

Bill and Hillary Clinton issues a statement saying: "We are all over the moom as Chelsea and Marc welcome Charlotte's little brother to the world and grateful for our many blessings. Chelsea and Aidan are both doing well and enjoying this very special time together."

Chelsea Clinton is vice chair of the Clinton Foundation , a nonprofit started by her father in his post-presidency life.

Sanders loses convention leverage Politico

The bad news bear is settling in over the Bernie Sanders campaign. Any leverage that Bernie might have is based on respect and a belief that he prioritizes the Democratic party over himself. Like Trump, Bernie seems to believe that his popularity will keep him in the limelight as a powerbroker. Every day that ticks by without a Clinton endorsement weakens his influence, as other progressives rally around Hillary. Let the next couple weeks be an education lesson in how politics is played on the big stage. There's ego and rigid thinking, and then there's poise and a connection to the big picture village. ~ Anne

Enough Bernie, Enough: Sanders Needs to Hang It Up New York Daily News

After decisively losing the nomination of a party that was never his political home, Bernie Sanders is revealing egotism of practically Trumpian proportions.

Sanders insists that he deserves powerful sway over the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton, whom he savaged during the campaign as an “unqualified” stooge of Wall Street.

As they say at closing time: Bernie, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

Bernie Sanders Does Not Concede Democratic Nomination to Hillary Clinton TIME

Sanders charts a risky path by deciding not to concede. He may anger party leaders as well as the base of the Democratic Party, who will begin to see him as an obstruction to Clinton despite his significant loss, and denying the first woman major-party nominee in the country the full claim to that title.

Clinton Condemns Attack on British MP as a Violent Act of Political Intolerance Politico

A terrible assassination occurred yesterday in Britain with the shooting and stabbing death of British MP Jo Cox. I'm distressed now to read that Cox has been the subject of a three-month barrage of hate for her positions 1) on supporting immigration of Syrian refugees into Britain and her town in Yorkshire and 2) wanting Britain to stay in the EU. While campaigning was suspended today, the Brexit vote happens in about a week.

I wrote about the truly gifted achievements of this young woman with so much heart. You can read about Jo Cox at in my yesterday article. I had no doubt that Hillary would make a strong statement, and I'm researching to see if Jo Cox's work at the Gates Foundation and Oxfam brought her to the Clinton Foundation. Hillary's quote follows.

"It is critical that the United States and Britain, two of the world's oldest and greatest democracies, stand together against hatred and violence. This is how we must honor Jo Cox -- by rejecting bigotry in all its forms, and instead embracing, as she always did, everything that binds us together," Clinton said on Thursday.

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head in a 2011 assassination attempt, said she was “sickened” to receive news of Cox's murder.

“Absolutely sickened to hear of the assassination of Jo Cox. She was young, courageous, and hardworking. A rising star, mother, and wife,” she tweeted.

Giffords, who is now a prominent gun safety advocate, added that the attack on Cox as well as the one she endured "represent the importance of a democracy connected to its citizens."

Bernie Sanders Goes AWOL on Guns Filibuster by Goldie Taylor The Daily Beast

{Quote}: "Notwithstanding his track record on gun control, his absence was curious, given that his seat in the Senate is safe. He is—by any measure—in the final stretch of a decades-long political career. It’s difficult to imagine any political strategist worth their salt advising Sanders against going to the Capitol Wednesday night. Doing so would have been political malpractice.

Sanders stands at a critical juncture. Right now, as the DNC convention looms, he and his team of advisors should be coalescing their support and deepening points of leverage if he wants establishment types and Hillary Clinton’s forces to go along with some of his proposals. As a Democrat, especially one who just mounted a campaign for the presidency, he must make sure that his colleagues know they can count on his voice and his action in the fight.

By skipping out on the filibuster on gun control, Sanders casted doubt on that. He cannot afford such questions now and neither can his movement."

Hillary Clinton Headlines June 18

Walking Away from the Revolution The Atlantic

Clinton campaign takes control of DNC CNN

Armitrage to back Clinton over Trump Politico

Rapper Vic Mensa slams Trump's post-Orlando rhetoric, calls for gun control CNN

New Evidence Donald Trump Didn't Pay Taxes The Daily Beast

Activists Gather to Seize on Sanders 'Moment' CNN

Sanders's revolution faces primary setback as MoveOn congratulates Clinton The Washington Post

Clinton wins endorsement of the AFL-CIO PBS

Hillary Clinton vows to end 'carried interest' loophole -- even if Congress won't VOX

Why doesn't Bernie Sanders know he's asking the DNC to do something it has no power to do? The Washington Post

Donald Trump just lost a lot of money Mother Jones

More Companies Opt to Sit Out Trump's Coronation in Cleveland Bloomberg Politics

Clinton’s Progressive Beacon Is a Former Goldman Sachs Banker and Bob Rubin Protégé Bloomberg Politics

Donald Trump's Greatest Self-Contradictions Politico

. . . Over the past four decades Trump has talked about every imaginable subject: gun rights to germs, the nature of competition to pre-nuptial agreements, love and sex, self-promotion and politics. And on every one of those topics, he has taken positions that directly contradict exactly what he has previously said.

In a world where candidates have lost elections over a single flip-flop, Trump has turned the self-contradiction into an art form. To create the definitive archive of Trump’s long argument with himself, Politico mined an almost limitless seam of his radio and TV interviews, newspaper and magazine profiles, books written about him and books written by him, rambling campaign speeches and late-night tweets. Read them together and they reveal a person who may be amazingly good at gauging the moment, but whose principles, beyond simply winning, remain elusive—perhaps even to himself.

Did Hillary Clinton start the Obama birther movement? PolitiFact

FALSE

Donald Trump made news on CNN's Wolf Blitzer on May 4, 2016, resurrecting his accusation that Hillary Clinton launched the anti-Obama birther movement. PolitiFact rates this claim as FALSE!

John Avlon, editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast, explored the roots of the birther movement in his book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America. Avlon described a posting on the PUMA. He wrote that a Clinton volunteer and convention delegate in Texas, Linda Starr, played a key role in spreading the rumor.

Reading 'Where's Linda Starr, the Inventor of the Birfer Story?, Starr does qualify as a Wingnut.

"Starr connected with Pennsylvania attorney Philip Berg in August and Berg followed up by suing in federal court to block Obama’s nomination. The suit was thrown out repeatedly on the grounds that Berg lacked standing and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately refused to hear his appeal."

Subsequently, Phil Berg sued Linda Sue Belcher, aka Linda Starr, on behalf of his assistant Lisa Liberi for libel. Linda has ublicly accused Phil Berg of incompetence. These are the real nutjobs who invented the Obama birther story.

Hillary Clinton Not Involved in Birther Story

There is no record that Clinton herself or anyone within her campaign ever advanced the birther claims against now President Obama. A review by our fellow fact-checkers at Factcheck.org reported that no journalist who investigated this ever found a connection to anyone in the Clinton organization.

It seems that President Obama was satisfied with Clinton's innocence if he asked her to be his secretary of state.

Clinton, herself, addressed this outrageous accusation after Trump's tweet during an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. Lemon asked Clinton if she started smear campaigns that Obama was born outside the United States.

"That is – no. That is so ludicrous, Don. You know, honestly, I just believe that, first of all, it’s totally untrue, and secondly, you know, the president and I have never had any kind of confrontation like that," Clinton said. "You know, I have been blamed for nearly everything, that was a new one to me."

The Atlantic reported that Clinton even rejected her campaign staff's divisive strategy in the 2008 campaign that played to Obama's lack of American roots. "Let's explicitly own 'American' in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn't" (Mark) Penn suggested. But he added: "We are never going to say anything about his background."

Related on Trump

Trump Names Hedge Fund Manager as National Finance Chairman Bloomberg Politics

Trump Decides He's Not Rich Enough to Self-Fund His Campaign Fortune

Argentinian TV channel mocks Donald Trump to promote Copa America 2016 The Guardian

Thousands of soccer-loving Latin Americans will be winging their way to American this summer, for games all over America. The TyC Sports network in Argentina chose Donald Trump's immigration nightmare to frame the Argentinian team's soccer prowess.