Reports on Thursday evening suggested that Hillary Clinton is set to announce the launch of her Presidential campaign on Sunday, via video and social media. The former Secretary of State’s announcement has been looming since her campaign leased its Brooklyn headquarters last week, starting the clock on a 15-day FEC deadline.
The latest issue of The Economist says that voters have “plenty of doubts” about Mrs Clinton.
The Democratic grassroots have their own gripes with the Clintons. They have not forgotten that Mrs Clinton voted for George W. Bush’s Iraq war as a senator. It took her until March 2013 to come out for gay marriage. But mostly the left of the party worries that the Clintons are too soft on capitalism. They recall Mr Clinton’s presidency as a time when the rules on Wall Street banks were loosened, in their view setting the scene for the later financial crash. It remains an article of faith among trade unions that the North American Free Trade Agreement signed by Mr Clinton with Mexico and Canada sucked jobs out of the American heartland.
A new Quinnipiac poll showed that her popularity has been significantly pegged back in a series of key swing states, in the wake of the controversy over her personal emails.
And she may have company after all in a Democratic primary, as former Rhode Island Senator (and Governor) Lincoln Chafee announced on Thursday that he had set up an exploratory committee to consider a run. “The Republicans have lots of choices, I feel that Democratic voters deserve choices too,” he said.
So far, the only other Democrat to have moved as far as forming an exploratory committee is former Virginia Senator Jim Webb, who at an event on Wednesday said that the US has “lacked strategic direction” since Bill Clinton assumed the presidency.
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* WORLD * Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may have complicated prospects for the framework nuclear agreement, by saying he is not committed to it and demanding in a televised speech – on Iran’s National Day of Nuclear Technology – that all existing sanctions be lifted immediately upon the signing of a deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in a separate speech took the same position on sanctions.
President Obama is in Panama for the Summit of the Americas, with an announcement about removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism apparently still imminent. Obama could meet on Friday with Cuban President Raoul Castro.
During a stop in Jamaica on Wednesday en route to the summit, the President took a tour of the Bob Marley museum in Kingston. “I still have all the albums,” he said. (image: Reuters)
Law enforcement authorities in South Carolina released dashcam video from the traffic stop and minutes leading up to the weekend’s fatal shooting in North Charleston.
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* POLITICS * The National Rifle Association’s annual convention begins on Friday in Nashville, Tennessee, and will be addressed by all the potential Republican Presidential hopefuls, with the exception of Chris Christie and, interestingly, newly-minted candidate Rand Paul.
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* BUSINESS * Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest financial institution, is reported to be nearing a plea deal as part of a lengthy investigation over interest rate manipulation.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled because of a second day of strike action by French air traffic controllers. Further industrial action is planned next week.
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* MEDIA * The Guardian reports that France’s culture minister is to call an urgent meeting of the country’s media groups to assess their vulnerability to cyber attacks, after public service television network TV5Monde was hacked, apparently by someone representing ISIS.
Politico reports on a survey showing that The Drudge Report remains the leading source of referral traffic (excluding social media and search referrals) for many leading news organizations.
The bare bones conservative aggregator and agitator hasn’t changed much in more than two decades and has enormous influence in conservative circles. In 2014, DrudgeReport.com was the No. 1 site of referral traffic to the Daily Mail, CNN, Fox News, Roll Call, Breitbart, The New York Times, National Journal, USA Today, Associated Press, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and POLITICO, Intermarkets found.
Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron delivered the 2015 Hays Press-Enterprise lecture at the University of California, Riverside earlier this week. The transcript of his talk, entitled “Journalism’s Big Move: What to Discard, Keep, and Acquire in Moving From Print to Web” is here.
We are moving from one habitat to another, from one world to another. We are leaving a home where we felt settled. Now we encounter behaviors that are unfamiliar. Our new neighbors are younger, more agile. They suffer none of our anxieties. They often speak a different language. They regard with disinterest, or disdain, where we came from, what we did before. We’re the immigrants. They’re the natives. They know this new place of ours well. We’re just learning it.
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* CULTURE * Eddie Murphy will be the 2015 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
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* SPORTS * Richie Benaud, iconic cricket commentator and former Australian captain, died aged 84. Benaud played in 63 Tests, 28 as captain, before retiring in 1964 to become a commentator, becoming the face of Australian cricket for the following half-century.
(Sport4Everyone)
Finally, Thursday was the 50th anniversary of the opening game at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. The Astros hosted the New York Yankees and even a Mickey Mantle home run couldn’t stop the Astros winning 2-1.
(Keith Olbermann)
The Overnight Note 