#Chris Thevenot

[og2k]

Short edit featuring Luc Ramos, Simon Perrottet, Mikael Lewertoff, Jason Singer, Gabriel Zufferey, Jonas Duclos, Guillaume Berthet, Kevin Deschamps, Thibaud Humbert, Jordan Queijo, Nabil Slimani, Manny Hernandez, Ugo Mighali, Luc Boimond, Chris Thevenot, Marcus Bruggmann, Florian Byrne-Sutton, Stefan Brodard, Antoine Poupin, Guillaume Zwaan, Jalil Sommerhalder and Marcel Ricci.

#Luc Ramos #Simon Perrottet #Mikael Lewertoff #jason singer #Gabriel Zufferey #Jonas Duclos #Guillaume Berthet #Kevin Deschamps #Thibaud Humbert #Jordan Queijo #Nabil Slimani #manny hernandez #Ugo Mighali #Luc Boimond #Chris Thevenot #Marcus Bruggmann #florian byrne-sutton #Stefan Brodard #Antoine Poupin #Guillaume Zwann #jalil sommerhalder #Marcel Ricci #skateboarding #skateboard #la fine equipe #geneve #Geneva

[jmarksthespots]

[#DEARPRESEIDENT #CONVERSATION] Dear President: What You Need to Know About Race in America with Kevin Young, Bayete Ross Smith, Liliana Segura, Chris Stone, Vijay Iyer & Yvonne Thevenot  Presented by the @schomburgcenter Thursday, January 26 | 7pm  Schomburg Center | 515 Malcolm X Blvd New York, NY  Admission: Schomburg Society Members: FREE | General Admission: $10 Purchase tickets here. “Dear President: What You Need To Know About Race” is WNYC’s post-election series of first-person radio essays by leading thinkers, writers and activists exploring a broad range of personal truths about America to help set a new agenda for racial equality. Join us for an evening of micro-conversations, hosted by WNYC's Rebecca Carroll, featuring a stand-up comedy performance by Khalid Rahmaan. CONVERSATIONS LINEUP: Micro-Conversation 1: That Extra Work We Do As Black Folks Inspired by Damon Young's essay, "Nigga Neurosis," Kevin Young, Poet and Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Bayete Ross Smith, photographer and multimedia/video artist, on how black folks do the most and whether we deserve a seat at the table. Micro-Conversation 2 : Hope Just Got Real Journalist at The Intercept, Liliana Segura, in conversation with Chris Stone, President of the Open Society Foundations, on facing an already failed criminal justice system under a Trump administration-- as inspired by Theo Shaw's essay, "An Uncomfortable Hope." Micro-Conversation 3: Who We Be in America Inspired by Kirsten West Savali's essay "The American Dream," composer Vijay Iyer joins Yvonne Thevenot, Founder and Executive Director of STEM Kids NYC, on the American Dream, who has access to it, and who does not. And how we will continue to encourage science and art moving forward.

#dearpresident #conversation #What You Need to Know About Race in America #Kevin Young #Bayete Ross Smith #Liliana Segura #Chris Stone #Vijay Iyer #Yvonne Thevenot #schomburg center #harlem #racism #race talk

[jobsearchtips02]

U.S. small businesses face mass closures without more pandemic aid

OAKLAND, Calif./ NEW YORK (Reuters) – After enduring 2 strokes at age 27, Olivia Colt tossed herself into starting a catering organisation, a long-lasting dream. Ten years and another stroke later on, she had actually built Salt & Honey Catering Plus Occasions into a flourishing operation in downtown Oakland.

Mary Foster prepares a product sample gotten from a factory overseas at Bentonville Copy & Ship that has actually been running a curbside service because March in reaction to the coronavirus illness (COVID-19) break out in Bentonville, Arkansas, U.S., July 24,2020 Ellie Boswell/Handout via REUTERS

Now with the coronavirus pandemic requiring cancellations of her customers’ wedding events and occasions, she has slashed her personnel from 25 to six and attempted to attract brand-new company by selling groceries online. She protected a $100,000 forgivable loan under the U.S. Income Protection Program (PPP) and another $150,000 loan under a federal program generally utilized for natural disasters. She anticipated the cash to get her through simply a couple of months of challenge.

However the hardships are dragging on.

” I have actually gotten all the grants and loans, I have maxed out my credit card, utilized my business’s reserves, invested my cost savings,” she stated.

Colt now fears she might need to shutter her service permanently. Numerous small companies across the country are reaching comparable breaking points in an economy with the greatest unemployment rate considering that the Great Anxiety. Small companies have endured the pandemic up until now with a mix of federal government aid, forbearance on debt and lease and creativity in selling to an increasingly homebound and economically distressed population.

As the very first wave of U.S. help runs short – and proprietors and lenders lose persistence – lawmakers remain in tense settlements over a brand-new round of stimulus, which might include more cash for small company.

The White House did not respond to an ask for comment.

A lot of companies have already lacked the cash they protected from the $600 billion Paycheck Defense Program, according to a survey released today from the National Federation of Independent Organisation, a leading trade group for little U.S. firms.

The federation also found in early July that 23%of respondents expected to be out of service within 6 months unless economic conditions change.

Costs Phelan – who tracks small business borrowing for credit reporting company Equifax Inc. – states defaults are up greatly to about 2.7%of small company debt. By next year, his designs are anticipating an increase to 5%or 6%. (For a graphic on business default trends, click tmsnrt.rs/ 2CVqyzZ)

Defaults peaked at 6.35%in 2009, throughout the Great Economic crisis, Phelan’s information programs. Then, U.S. government stimulus amounted to less than $1 trillion – compared with $3 trillion up until now given that the pandemic hit.

” The forbearance and the PPP have helped out a load, but they can’t go on forever,” he said.

Without a vaccine to combat new ages of infection, Phelan anticipates double-digit rates of default in hard-hit sectors consisting of hospitality, food service, and retail.

Entrepreneur like Colt are hard-pressed to stay open without accumulating more debt – without any warranties of success.

” Is it worth handling more debt, if your service can’t make it through?” she asked.

SURVIVAL BATTLE

Colt, whose mother and grandmother immigrated from the Dominican Republic, moved her kitchen in May to a cheaper space in industrial West Oakland. Her previous landlord initially had been understanding but quickly started requiring payments she could no longer afford.

The new business she’s cobbled together isn’t enough. Sales are a third of her pre-pandemic forecasts. Now she’s talking to accounting professionals and legal representatives about how to shut down her company – while hoping it never comes to that.

Similar dramas are playing out nationwide, specifically in states where surges of infection are requiring regional officials to tighten up constraints on services. Concerned customers are likewise picking to stay home and spend less, data from JP Morgan credit-card purchases show.

That’s making company owner take a hard look at closing down for excellent, stated Ari Takata-Vasquez, who leads the Oakland Indy Alliance, a group of about 500 small firms in Northern California, consisting of Colt’s.

” Three weeks ago I saw a shift in energy,” Takata-Vasquez stated. “A lot more individuals appear to have closure on the table.”

Some 44%of members surveyed recently have only sufficient money to run for three months or less, Takata-Vasquez states. To assist forestall a rash of failures, the Oakland company this week introduced a campaign to raise $4 million from donors to fund grants to regional firms, with concern offered to companies owned by immigrants and individuals of color.

Business owners who brave the financial conditions still face the ever-present risk of a health-related shutdown. Colt closed her catering operation for two weeks in May, when a worker hired with a fever, to permit her personnel to get tested and wait on results. The tests did not find coronavirus.

Farley’s East coffee shop, which used to sell lunches and lattes to Oakland’s downtown office employees, has actually now burned through its PPP funds and gets by through a contract with a not-for-profit organization that purchases meals from dining establishments and disperses them to those in requirement. Co-owner Chris Hillyard states the cafe’s long-lasting practicality depends on office buildings resuming – an outcome looking unlikely anytime soon as California leads U.S. states in COVID-19 infections and location schools won’t reopen until the surge subsides.

” We’re holding on,” Hillyard says.

WHAT NEXT?

Thousands of miles away in Florida, toy importer Basic Fun Inc says sales are increasing sharply as huge merchants consisting of Walmart Inc and Target Corp return to more normal operation. But chief executive Jay Foreman doesn’t have the $10 million he requires to purchase the product to fulfill that need.

In Bentonville, Arkansas, Holly Thomas has actually lost money because February on her printing and shipping company, a household company started by her father three decades earlier. She’s been paying her five employees, including herself, thanks in large part to a PPP loan of about $55,000 She’s trying not to dip into the extra $150,000 she’s borrowed from the federal Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.

Slideshow(4 Images)

Earnings for this year through July 24 is down 35%compared from in 2015. She quit some storage area to decrease her lease expenses by a 3rd, however her medical insurance expenses increased by 8%in April. At the current rate, she expects to be out of funds by October or November.

And then what? She worked formerly in the film and music industries, and worries it might be hard to discover a task in any market with millions of people unemployed.

” A lot of individuals are dealing with that exact same concern – what do I do next?” she said. “I understand I’m going to be competing with numerous individuals for just a handful of offered tasks.”

Reporting by Ann Saphir and Jonnelle Marte; Extra reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh and Tim Aeppel; Editing by Dan Burns and Brian Thevenot

%.

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/u-s-small-businesses-face-mass-closures-without-more-pandemic-aid/

[party-hard-or-die]

The culture clash behind GE

HOUSTON (Reuters) – When General Electric Co bought oilfield services giant Baker Hughes last July, it created a global industry colossus with $22 billion in annual revenue.

FILE PHOTO: The logo of General Electric Co. is pictured at the Global Operations Center in San Pedro Garza Garcia, neighbouring Monterrey, Mexico, on May 12, 2017. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

GE promised to digitalize oilfields worldwide, marrying its expertise in big data, analytical software and subsea equipment with Baker Hughes’ experience in drilling services, chemicals and tools.

Less than a year later, GE is bailing out of the deal, the firm announced Tuesday, planning to sell its 63 percent stake in the combined firm over time as part of a larger move to simplify its business and reduce debt.

The retreat comes amid slipping market share, management missteps and culture clashes that have unsettled employees and frustrated suppliers and customers, according to data reviewed by Reuters and interviews with more than 30 employees, former employees, recruiters, analysts, suppliers and customers.

GE managers initially took 11 of the combined firm’s top 15 posts and ushered in a by-the-book culture more like its aviation business than that of oil industry, where relationships are more prized and handshake deals are still common, said people who have had dealings with both.

In a Tuesday note to employees seen by Reuters, Baker Hughes GE Chief Executive Lorenzo Simonelli complimented his “amazing team” and reassured them about the path ahead, but acknowledged “the last year has not always been easy for you, or our customers and partners.”

“I recognize that this moment is bittersweet for some, welcomed perhaps by others,” he wrote.

Baker Hughes GE lost market share in 12 of 19 services and equipment sectors between 2016 and 2017, according to a Reuters analysis of data from prominent oilfield services consultancy Spears & Associates. In one area where Baker Hughes has been a pioneer, drill bits, its share fell to 17 percent from 20 percent between 2016 and 2017.

In a statement to Reuters, Baker Hughes GE attributed the market share losses to “challenging market dynamics” and said most of the losses occurred before the merger closed in summer of last year.

Since the merger, suppliers have chafed under strict cost-cutting demands, and some customers shifted to competitors after abrupt service-fee increases and contract changes, according to suppliers, customers and former Baker Hughes executives. The choppy transition also has driven out veteran Baker Hughes managers in key departments and rattled staff.

Revenue for the combined company last year was $21.9 billion, well below the $23.8 billion estimated in its 2017 merger proxy.

Baker Hughes GE oilfield services and equipment revenues declined by $700 million. Rivals Schlumberger and Halliburton posted higher revenues on a resurgence in the North American hydraulic fracturing market, said Chirag Rathi, a consulting director at market researcher Frost & Sullivan. Baker Hughes sold a majority of its hydraulic fracturing business in 2016.

Baker Hughes GE said its financial performance reflects broader industry trends and called itself a “strong and differentiated company” that now has a “defined path” to unwind the merger over the next two or three years. It said it would stay focused on supporting workers, customers and boosting shareholder value.

Baker Hughes GE’s shares were up 2 percent to $33.13 on Tuesday, but still down nearly 18 percent since the merger closed.

The company will now set about dividing itself before ever fully integrating the two firms. While the combined culture remains a work in progress, “the old Baker Hughes structure has been torn apart,” said Edward Muztafago, director of equity research at Societe Generale.

It remains unclear whether Baker Hughes will continue to benefit from GE’s financial clout and advanced manufacturing over the long term.

Last year, Baker Hughes landed a major deal with Twinza Oil to provide oilfield services, equipment and financing for an offshore development near Papua New Guinea. Analysts say access to credit and lending from GE Capital, a unit GE is now planning to shrink, helped that deal come together.

FILE PHOTO: A Baker Hughes sign is displayed outside the oil logistics company’s local office in Sherwood Park, near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada November 13, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File Photo

For now, Baker Hughes will continue to have access to vaunted GE technologies that were cited as key advantages in the original merger, including the GE Store, a technology and manufacturing exchange, and GE’s Predix operating system, which links and monitors equipment through the internet, the company said. But the company said Tuesday it would also develop solutions independent of the Predix system.

ABRUPT PRICE HIKES, CONTRACT CHANGES

Shortly after the merger closed last year, Baker Hughes GE made an “overnight” decision to raise prices and internal sales targets, a former employee told Reuters. The moves, along with squeezing costs from supplier contracts, aimed to raise revenue and margins.

While oilfield margins have modestly improved, they still trail well behind those of top rivals Schlumberger and Halliburton, said Bernstein analyst Colin Davies, who noted the oil-price recovery has driven margin gains industrywide.

One privately-held U.S. oil producer that uses Baker Hughes GE’s artificial lift products said the company raised its service prices by 20 percent late last year with little notice. The customer shifted some of its business to a rival, Novomet Inc, even after Baker Hughes GE agreed through negotiations to trim the increase.

“They’re not managing the account as personally as they need to,” the customer said, declining to be named because of ongoing business between the two firms.

Baker Hughes GE declined to comment on its pricing except to say it makes regular adjustments to stay competitive.

Suppliers also have faced post-merger changes to contract terms and procurement processes. One company told Reuters that Baker Hughes GE pressed for a 3.5 percent discount on goods and a 120-day grace period on payments, terms the company rejected. Normally, customers pay within 30 to 60 days, the supplier said.

One dispute escalated into a breach-of-contract lawsuit. Manufacturer Markall Inc built a successful business supplying components to Baker Hughes over four decades, but the relationship quickly deteriorated after the merger.

In the suit, filed in November, Markall alleges Baker Hughes GE had not paid for more than $5 million in custom parts that it had agreed to buy before the merger.

Baker Hughes GE declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying it deals with issues predating the acquisition.

EXODUS OF EXECUTIVES

GE Chief Executive John Flannery, appointed shortly after the merger, foreshadowed Tuesday’s announcement last November when he said the firm was considering its “exit options” just months after acquiring its controlling stake.

Then the company canceled a planned switch of former Baker employees to GE’s healthcare plan, several former Baker Hughes and GE Oil & Gas employees told Reuters. A move to cut staff just ahead of end-of-year holidays also hurt morale, two former workers said.

Another sign of strain: the departure of veteran employees in key positions, according to more than a dozen sources familiar with the resignations.

More than 50 resumes from Baker Hughes employees have landed with one professional recruiter since last summer, according to a headhunter there.

Melissa Law – a 20-year Baker Hughes veteran and former president of its global chemicals business – joined food ingredients supplier Tate & Lyle last September. Eric Holcomb, formerly a Baker Hughes director of financial planning, left after more than a dozen years to join marine shipping company Kirby Corp in December.

Chief Global Operations Officer Belgacem Chariag – one of a handful of Baker Hughes executives to remain in senior management after the merger – resigned in January without announcing a new position.

Chariag did not respond to a request for comment. Baker Hughes declined to comment on the departures but called its overall retention rates “strong and in line with the market.”

Reporting by Liz Hampton; Additional reporting by Andres Guerra Luz in New York; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Brian Thevenot

The post The culture clash behind GE appeared first on World The News.

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[dragnews]

The culture clash behind GE

HOUSTON (Reuters) – When General Electric Co bought oilfield services giant Baker Hughes last July, it created a global industry colossus with $22 billion in annual revenue.

FILE PHOTO: The logo of General Electric Co. is pictured at the Global Operations Center in San Pedro Garza Garcia, neighbouring Monterrey, Mexico, on May 12, 2017. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

GE promised to digitalize oilfields worldwide, marrying its expertise in big data, analytical software and subsea equipment with Baker Hughes’ experience in drilling services, chemicals and tools.

Less than a year later, GE is bailing out of the deal, the firm announced Tuesday, planning to sell its 63 percent stake in the combined firm over time as part of a larger move to simplify its business and reduce debt.

The retreat comes amid slipping market share, management missteps and culture clashes that have unsettled employees and frustrated suppliers and customers, according to data reviewed by Reuters and interviews with more than 30 employees, former employees, recruiters, analysts, suppliers and customers.

GE managers initially took 11 of the combined firm’s top 15 posts and ushered in a by-the-book culture more like its aviation business than that of oil industry, where relationships are more prized and handshake deals are still common, said people who have had dealings with both.

In a Tuesday note to employees seen by Reuters, Baker Hughes GE Chief Executive Lorenzo Simonelli complimented his “amazing team” and reassured them about the path ahead, but acknowledged “the last year has not always been easy for you, or our customers and partners.”

“I recognize that this moment is bittersweet for some, welcomed perhaps by others,” he wrote.

Baker Hughes GE lost market share in 12 of 19 services and equipment sectors between 2016 and 2017, according to a Reuters analysis of data from prominent oilfield services consultancy Spears & Associates. In one area where Baker Hughes has been a pioneer, drill bits, its share fell to 17 percent from 20 percent between 2016 and 2017.

In a statement to Reuters, Baker Hughes GE attributed the market share losses to “challenging market dynamics” and said most of the losses occurred before the merger closed in summer of last year.

Since the merger, suppliers have chafed under strict cost-cutting demands, and some customers shifted to competitors after abrupt service-fee increases and contract changes, according to suppliers, customers and former Baker Hughes executives. The choppy transition also has driven out veteran Baker Hughes managers in key departments and rattled staff.

Revenue for the combined company last year was $21.9 billion, well below the $23.8 billion estimated in its 2017 merger proxy.

Baker Hughes GE oilfield services and equipment revenues declined by $700 million. Rivals Schlumberger and Halliburton posted higher revenues on a resurgence in the North American hydraulic fracturing market, said Chirag Rathi, a consulting director at market researcher Frost & Sullivan. Baker Hughes sold a majority of its hydraulic fracturing business in 2016.

Baker Hughes GE said its financial performance reflects broader industry trends and called itself a “strong and differentiated company” that now has a “defined path” to unwind the merger over the next two or three years. It said it would stay focused on supporting workers, customers and boosting shareholder value.

Baker Hughes GE’s shares were up 2 percent to $33.13 on Tuesday, but still down nearly 18 percent since the merger closed.

The company will now set about dividing itself before ever fully integrating the two firms. While the combined culture remains a work in progress, “the old Baker Hughes structure has been torn apart,” said Edward Muztafago, director of equity research at Societe Generale.

It remains unclear whether Baker Hughes will continue to benefit from GE’s financial clout and advanced manufacturing over the long term.

Last year, Baker Hughes landed a major deal with Twinza Oil to provide oilfield services, equipment and financing for an offshore development near Papua New Guinea. Analysts say access to credit and lending from GE Capital, a unit GE is now planning to shrink, helped that deal come together.

FILE PHOTO: A Baker Hughes sign is displayed outside the oil logistics company’s local office in Sherwood Park, near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada November 13, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File Photo

For now, Baker Hughes will continue to have access to vaunted GE technologies that were cited as key advantages in the original merger, including the GE Store, a technology and manufacturing exchange, and GE’s Predix operating system, which links and monitors equipment through the internet, the company said. But the company said Tuesday it would also develop solutions independent of the Predix system.

ABRUPT PRICE HIKES, CONTRACT CHANGES

Shortly after the merger closed last year, Baker Hughes GE made an “overnight” decision to raise prices and internal sales targets, a former employee told Reuters. The moves, along with squeezing costs from supplier contracts, aimed to raise revenue and margins.

While oilfield margins have modestly improved, they still trail well behind those of top rivals Schlumberger and Halliburton, said Bernstein analyst Colin Davies, who noted the oil-price recovery has driven margin gains industrywide.

One privately-held U.S. oil producer that uses Baker Hughes GE’s artificial lift products said the company raised its service prices by 20 percent late last year with little notice. The customer shifted some of its business to a rival, Novomet Inc, even after Baker Hughes GE agreed through negotiations to trim the increase.

“They’re not managing the account as personally as they need to,” the customer said, declining to be named because of ongoing business between the two firms.

Baker Hughes GE declined to comment on its pricing except to say it makes regular adjustments to stay competitive.

Suppliers also have faced post-merger changes to contract terms and procurement processes. One company told Reuters that Baker Hughes GE pressed for a 3.5 percent discount on goods and a 120-day grace period on payments, terms the company rejected. Normally, customers pay within 30 to 60 days, the supplier said.

One dispute escalated into a breach-of-contract lawsuit. Manufacturer Markall Inc built a successful business supplying components to Baker Hughes over four decades, but the relationship quickly deteriorated after the merger.

In the suit, filed in November, Markall alleges Baker Hughes GE had not paid for more than $5 million in custom parts that it had agreed to buy before the merger.

Baker Hughes GE declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying it deals with issues predating the acquisition.

EXODUS OF EXECUTIVES

GE Chief Executive John Flannery, appointed shortly after the merger, foreshadowed Tuesday’s announcement last November when he said the firm was considering its “exit options” just months after acquiring its controlling stake.

Then the company canceled a planned switch of former Baker employees to GE’s healthcare plan, several former Baker Hughes and GE Oil & Gas employees told Reuters. A move to cut staff just ahead of end-of-year holidays also hurt morale, two former workers said.

Another sign of strain: the departure of veteran employees in key positions, according to more than a dozen sources familiar with the resignations.

More than 50 resumes from Baker Hughes employees have landed with one professional recruiter since last summer, according to a headhunter there.

Melissa Law – a 20-year Baker Hughes veteran and former president of its global chemicals business – joined food ingredients supplier Tate & Lyle last September. Eric Holcomb, formerly a Baker Hughes director of financial planning, left after more than a dozen years to join marine shipping company Kirby Corp in December.

Chief Global Operations Officer Belgacem Chariag – one of a handful of Baker Hughes executives to remain in senior management after the merger – resigned in January without announcing a new position.

Chariag did not respond to a request for comment. Baker Hughes declined to comment on the departures but called its overall retention rates “strong and in line with the market.”

Reporting by Liz Hampton; Additional reporting by Andres Guerra Luz in New York; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Brian Thevenot

The post The culture clash behind GE appeared first on World The News.

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[newestbalance]

Democrats aim to mobilize African-American base, win back white…

JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) – Walking through his law office in Jackson, Mississippi, Mike Espy shows off a framed award from the National Rifle Association recognizing his pro-gun votes in Congress.

Now running for U.S. Senate, Espy calls himself a free-trader, a budget-cutter, a job-creator, a Christian, a friend of the military and an admirer of retired Republican Senator Thad Cochran, whose seat he seeks.

One big difference between him and Cochran: Espy is a Democrat.

The centrist rhetoric reflects Espy’s challenge in trying to win this conservative stronghold and become the state’s first African-American senator since the late 1800s and its first Democratic senator since 1989.

With little chance of converting hard-core Republicans, Espy needs to capture moderate and independent white voters in a state that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2016 – while at the same time energizing Mississippi’s large and typically liberal African-American vote.

“You can’t put me in a box,” said Espy, who highlights his “sometimes conservative” record as a congressman 25 years ago along with more progressive leanings on many issues.

Espy’s challenge is shared by Democratic Senate candidates in key states such as Missouri and Tennessee. Democrat Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in the presidential race laid bare vulnerabilities for Democrats and has party insiders debating the best way to revamp their strategy.

In states Clinton unexpectedly lost – including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – she saw lackluster turnout among black voters and a defection of some white working-class voters and union members, who once reliably voted Democratic.

Political analysts give Espy a realistic, but difficult, shot to win Mississippi – and it’s the kind of upset the party needs to take control of the Senate from Republicans. Strategists say Democrats’ narrow path to flipping Republicans’ two-seat Senate majority requires capturing swing states such as Nevada and Arizona, and also scoring one or two unexpected victories in states such as Tennessee, Mississippi or Texas.

Espy is running in a nonpartisan special election. His main rivals are conservative firebrand Chris McDaniel and establishment Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith. If no one wins a majority on Nov. 6, the top two vote-getters go to a run-off.

Espy says he’s modeling his campaign after Democratic Senator Doug Jones, who upset a Republican last year in a special election in Alabama, a demographically similar Southern state. Jones had a unique advantage – his opponent, Roy Moore, faced allegations of past sexual misconduct with teenage girls – but the campaign also effectively boosted African-American turnout.

“We have to do what they did in Alabama, which is a data-centric campaign that identifies black voters that haven’t voted in a while and get them registered and get them out to vote,” said Espy, 64.

COURTING BLACK VOTERS

Espy hopes African-American voters will connect with his potential to make history as the first black senator from Mississippi since post-Civil War Reconstruction; his commitment to modern civil rights issues; and his promise to take down the statue of Jefferson Davis – president of the Confederacy during the Civil War – that Mississippi sent to the U.S. Capitol in Washington in 1931. He hopes his record as a former U.S. agriculture secretary attracts rural voters of all races.

African-Americans make up 38 percent of Mississippi’s overall population – the highest of any state – giving rise to Espy’s other data-centric focus: He has calculated that, with strong support from black voters, he only needs 25 percent of white voters to win.

Even that might be difficult, given that Democratic President Barack Obama won only about 10 percent of white votes here in 2008 and 2012, according to exit polls.

Neither is Espy guaranteed strong African-American support and voter turnout. A Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll suggests black voters are feeling more distant from the party. The percentage identifying as strong or moderate Democrats fell to 61 percent so far this year, down seven points from 2012.

(For more detailed poll results, see: tmsnrt.rs/2Jnleri )

U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy speaks during an interview in Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. May 8, 2018. Picture taken May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

Jaribu Hill, an African-American Democrat who heads a Mississippi advocacy organization for low-wage workers, said she was not excited about any of the three main Senate candidates – including Espy – because none had effectively addressed poverty and racism.

“People are basically cynical in many ways because they haven’t seen a lot of accountability,” Hill said.

While the African-American vote will be important for Democrats in House and Senate races nationwide, it is crucial in Senate campaigns because they are statewide, encompassing more diverse populations, and because most competitive Senate races are in states where Trump trounced Clinton.

“We’ve got to not only win the minority vote, we’ve got to excite the minority vote,” said U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat.

TENSIONS IN MISSOURI

In Missouri, Cleaver and other prominent African-Americans, including Senator Cory Booker, are campaigning alongside Claire McCaskill, a white Democratic senator seeking re-election. Some black leaders in the state had criticized McCaskill earlier this year, saying she was giving short shrift to African-American voters while focusing mostly on white, rural voters.

Since then, she has opened field offices in Kansas City and in Ferguson, the predominantly African-American city near St. Louis that in 2014 erupted in protests over a white police officer’s fatal shooting of a black man.

“Claire isn’t taking a single vote for granted,” said McCaskill campaign spokeswoman Meira Bernstein.

Steve Phillips, a major Democratic donor and author of the book “Brown is the New White,” says the party wrongly concluded from Trump’s win that it needs to focus on winning back working-class white voters. He argues boosting minority turnout would win more elections.

“You would think that by now, that there would be a major, massive investment in voter mobilization of African-Americans in particular and people of color in general,” said Phillips. But “there is nothing.”

Waikinya Clanton, the Democratic National Committee’s top liaison for black and female voters, said party officials have learned from the failures of 2016 and other cycles that it can’t be seen by minority voters as the party that “just comes around every so often.” She said the party has launched a $10 million fund to find innovative ways to reach out to minority voters.

In Mississippi, Espy will likely need major financial backing from the national party, which it has not yet committed. An official with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the DSCC is monitoring the race and considers Espy a “strong candidate.”

Cedric Buckley, a 48-year-old African-American father and registered Democrat, applauded Espy’s centrist message.

“He is the only candidate who is not speaking political party rhetoric,” said Buckley, founder of an early learning center in Jackson.

To win, Espy also needs to lure voters such as Shelby Sandifer, a white, 27-year-old behavioral therapist who describes her politics as libertarian.

Sandifer, who lives in Florence, Mississippi, said her dislike for Trump might make her more likely to vote in the Senate race – and more likely to vote for Espy, to protest the administration.

Slideshow (17 Images)

She said she was not sure if Mississippi would elect an African-American senator, but added: “I would love it if they did.”

Reporting by Caren Bohan; Additional reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Brian Thevenot

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[dani-qrt]

Democrats aim to mobilize African-American base, win back white…

JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) – Walking through his law office in Jackson, Mississippi, Mike Espy shows off a framed award from the National Rifle Association recognizing his pro-gun votes in Congress.

Now running for U.S. Senate, Espy calls himself a free-trader, a budget-cutter, a job-creator, a Christian, a friend of the military and an admirer of retired Republican Senator Thad Cochran, whose seat he seeks.

One big difference between him and Cochran: Espy is a Democrat.

The centrist rhetoric reflects Espy’s challenge in trying to win this conservative stronghold and become the state’s first African-American senator since the late 1800s and its first Democratic senator since 1989.

With little chance of converting hard-core Republicans, Espy needs to capture moderate and independent white voters in a state that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2016 – while at the same time energizing Mississippi’s large and typically liberal African-American vote.

“You can’t put me in a box,” said Espy, who highlights his “sometimes conservative” record as a congressman 25 years ago along with more progressive leanings on many issues.

Espy’s challenge is shared by Democratic Senate candidates in key states such as Missouri and Tennessee. Democrat Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in the presidential race laid bare vulnerabilities for Democrats and has party insiders debating the best way to revamp their strategy.

In states Clinton unexpectedly lost – including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – she saw lackluster turnout among black voters and a defection of some white working-class voters and union members, who once reliably voted Democratic.

Political analysts give Espy a realistic, but difficult, shot to win Mississippi – and it’s the kind of upset the party needs to take control of the Senate from Republicans. Strategists say Democrats’ narrow path to flipping Republicans’ two-seat Senate majority requires capturing swing states such as Nevada and Arizona, and also scoring one or two unexpected victories in states such as Tennessee, Mississippi or Texas.

Espy is running in a nonpartisan special election. His main rivals are conservative firebrand Chris McDaniel and establishment Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith. If no one wins a majority on Nov. 6, the top two vote-getters go to a run-off.

Espy says he’s modeling his campaign after Democratic Senator Doug Jones, who upset a Republican last year in a special election in Alabama, a demographically similar Southern state. Jones had a unique advantage – his opponent, Roy Moore, faced allegations of past sexual misconduct with teenage girls – but the campaign also effectively boosted African-American turnout.

“We have to do what they did in Alabama, which is a data-centric campaign that identifies black voters that haven’t voted in a while and get them registered and get them out to vote,” said Espy, 64.

COURTING BLACK VOTERS

Espy hopes African-American voters will connect with his potential to make history as the first black senator from Mississippi since post-Civil War Reconstruction; his commitment to modern civil rights issues; and his promise to take down the statue of Jefferson Davis – president of the Confederacy during the Civil War – that Mississippi sent to the U.S. Capitol in Washington in 1931. He hopes his record as a former U.S. agriculture secretary attracts rural voters of all races.

African-Americans make up 38 percent of Mississippi’s overall population – the highest of any state – giving rise to Espy’s other data-centric focus: He has calculated that, with strong support from black voters, he only needs 25 percent of white voters to win.

Even that might be difficult, given that Democratic President Barack Obama won only about 10 percent of white votes here in 2008 and 2012, according to exit polls.

Neither is Espy guaranteed strong African-American support and voter turnout. A Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll suggests black voters are feeling more distant from the party. The percentage identifying as strong or moderate Democrats fell to 61 percent so far this year, down seven points from 2012.

(For more detailed poll results, see: tmsnrt.rs/2Jnleri )

U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy speaks during an interview in Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. May 8, 2018. Picture taken May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

Jaribu Hill, an African-American Democrat who heads a Mississippi advocacy organization for low-wage workers, said she was not excited about any of the three main Senate candidates – including Espy – because none had effectively addressed poverty and racism.

“People are basically cynical in many ways because they haven’t seen a lot of accountability,” Hill said.

While the African-American vote will be important for Democrats in House and Senate races nationwide, it is crucial in Senate campaigns because they are statewide, encompassing more diverse populations, and because most competitive Senate races are in states where Trump trounced Clinton.

“We’ve got to not only win the minority vote, we’ve got to excite the minority vote,” said U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat.

TENSIONS IN MISSOURI

In Missouri, Cleaver and other prominent African-Americans, including Senator Cory Booker, are campaigning alongside Claire McCaskill, a white Democratic senator seeking re-election. Some black leaders in the state had criticized McCaskill earlier this year, saying she was giving short shrift to African-American voters while focusing mostly on white, rural voters.

Since then, she has opened field offices in Kansas City and in Ferguson, the predominantly African-American city near St. Louis that in 2014 erupted in protests over a white police officer’s fatal shooting of a black man.

“Claire isn’t taking a single vote for granted,” said McCaskill campaign spokeswoman Meira Bernstein.

Steve Phillips, a major Democratic donor and author of the book “Brown is the New White,” says the party wrongly concluded from Trump’s win that it needs to focus on winning back working-class white voters. He argues boosting minority turnout would win more elections.

“You would think that by now, that there would be a major, massive investment in voter mobilization of African-Americans in particular and people of color in general,” said Phillips. But “there is nothing.”

Waikinya Clanton, the Democratic National Committee’s top liaison for black and female voters, said party officials have learned from the failures of 2016 and other cycles that it can’t be seen by minority voters as the party that “just comes around every so often.” She said the party has launched a $10 million fund to find innovative ways to reach out to minority voters.

In Mississippi, Espy will likely need major financial backing from the national party, which it has not yet committed. An official with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the DSCC is monitoring the race and considers Espy a “strong candidate.”

Cedric Buckley, a 48-year-old African-American father and registered Democrat, applauded Espy’s centrist message.

“He is the only candidate who is not speaking political party rhetoric,” said Buckley, founder of an early learning center in Jackson.

To win, Espy also needs to lure voters such as Shelby Sandifer, a white, 27-year-old behavioral therapist who describes her politics as libertarian.

Sandifer, who lives in Florence, Mississippi, said her dislike for Trump might make her more likely to vote in the Senate race – and more likely to vote for Espy, to protest the administration.

Slideshow (17 Images)

She said she was not sure if Mississippi would elect an African-American senator, but added: “I would love it if they did.”

Reporting by Caren Bohan; Additional reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Brian Thevenot

The post Democrats aim to mobilize African-American base, win back white… appeared first on World The News.

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Democrats aim to mobilize African-American base, win back white moderates

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=3482

Democrats aim to mobilize African-American base, win back white moderates

JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) – Walking through his law office in Jackson, Mississippi, Mike Espy shows off a framed award from the National Rifle Association recognizing his pro-gun votes in Congress.

Now running for U.S. Senate, Espy calls himself a free-trader, a budget-cutter, a job-creator, a Christian, a friend of the military and an admirer of retired Republican Senator Thad Cochran, whose seat he seeks.

One big difference between him and Cochran: Espy is a Democrat.

The centrist rhetoric reflects Espy’s challenge in trying to win this conservative stronghold and become the state’s first African-American senator since the late 1800s and its first Democratic senator since 1989.

With little chance of converting hard-core Republicans, Espy needs to capture moderate and independent white voters in a state that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2016 – while at the same time energizing Mississippi’s large and typically liberal African-American vote.

“You can’t put me in a box,” said Espy, who highlights his “sometimes conservative” record as a congressman 25 years ago along with more progressive leanings on many issues.

Espy’s challenge is shared by Democratic Senate candidates in key states such as Missouri and Tennessee. Democrat Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in the presidential race laid bare vulnerabilities for Democrats and has party insiders debating the best way to revamp their strategy.

In states Clinton unexpectedly lost – including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – she saw lackluster turnout among black voters and a defection of some white working-class voters and union members, who once reliably voted Democratic.

Political analysts give Espy a realistic, but difficult, shot to win Mississippi – and it’s the kind of upset the party needs to take control of the Senate from Republicans. Strategists say Democrats’ narrow path to flipping Republicans’ two-seat Senate majority requires capturing swing states such as Nevada and Arizona, and also scoring one or two unexpected victories in states such as Tennessee, Mississippi or Texas.

Espy is running in a nonpartisan special election. His main rivals are conservative firebrand Chris McDaniel and establishment Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith. If no one wins a majority on Nov. 6, the top two vote-getters go to a run-off.

Espy says he’s modeling his campaign after Democratic Senator Doug Jones, who upset a Republican last year in a special election in Alabama, a demographically similar Southern state. Jones had a unique advantage – his opponent, Roy Moore, faced allegations of past sexual misconduct with teenage girls – but the campaign also effectively boosted African-American turnout.

“We have to do what they did in Alabama, which is a data-centric campaign that identifies black voters that haven’t voted in a while and get them registered and get them out to vote,” said Espy, 64.

COURTING BLACK VOTERS

Espy hopes African-American voters will connect with his potential to make history as the first black senator from Mississippi since post-Civil War Reconstruction; his commitment to modern civil rights issues; and his promise to take down the statue of Jefferson Davis – president of the Confederacy during the Civil War – that Mississippi sent to the U.S. Capitol in Washington in 1931. He hopes his record as a former U.S. agriculture secretary attracts rural voters of all races.

African-Americans make up 38 percent of Mississippi’s overall population – the highest of any state – giving rise to Espy’s other data-centric focus: He has calculated that, with strong support from black voters, he only needs 25 percent of white voters to win.

Even that might be difficult, given that Democratic President Barack Obama won only about 10 percent of white votes here in 2008 and 2012, according to exit polls.

Neither is Espy guaranteed strong African-American support and voter turnout. A Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll suggests black voters are feeling more distant from the party. The percentage identifying as strong or moderate Democrats fell to 61 percent so far this year, down seven points from 2012.

(For more detailed poll results, see: tmsnrt.rs/2Jnleri )

U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy speaks during an interview in Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. May 8, 2018. Picture taken May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

Jaribu Hill, an African-American Democrat who heads a Mississippi advocacy organization for low-wage workers, said she was not excited about any of the three main Senate candidates – including Espy – because none had effectively addressed poverty and racism.

“People are basically cynical in many ways because they haven’t seen a lot of accountability,” Hill said.

While the African-American vote will be important for Democrats in House and Senate races nationwide, it is crucial in Senate campaigns because they are statewide, encompassing more diverse populations, and because most competitive Senate races are in states where Trump trounced Clinton.

“We’ve got to not only win the minority vote, we’ve got to excite the minority vote,” said U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat.

TENSIONS IN MISSOURI

In Missouri, Cleaver and other prominent African-Americans, including Senator Cory Booker, are campaigning alongside Claire McCaskill, a white Democratic senator seeking re-election. Some black leaders in the state had criticized McCaskill earlier this year, saying she was giving short shrift to African-American voters while focusing mostly on white, rural voters.

Since then, she has opened field offices in Kansas City and in Ferguson, the predominantly African-American city near St. Louis that in 2014 erupted in protests over a white police officer’s fatal shooting of a black man.

“Claire isn’t taking a single vote for granted,” said McCaskill campaign spokeswoman Meira Bernstein.

Steve Phillips, a major Democratic donor and author of the book “Brown is the New White,” says the party wrongly concluded from Trump’s win that it needs to focus on winning back working-class white voters. He argues boosting minority turnout would win more elections.

“You would think that by now, that there would be a major, massive investment in voter mobilization of African-Americans in particular and people of color in general,” said Phillips. But “there is nothing.”

Waikinya Clanton, the Democratic National Committee’s top liaison for black and female voters, said party officials have learned from the failures of 2016 and other cycles that it can’t be seen by minority voters as the party that “just comes around every so often.” She said the party has launched a $10 million fund to find innovative ways to reach out to minority voters.

In Mississippi, Espy will likely need major financial backing from the national party, which it has not yet committed. An official with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the DSCC is monitoring the race and considers Espy a “strong candidate.”

Cedric Buckley, a 48-year-old African-American father and registered Democrat, applauded Espy’s centrist message.

“He is the only candidate who is not speaking political party rhetoric,” said Buckley, founder of an early learning center in Jackson.

To win, Espy also needs to lure voters such as Shelby Sandifer, a white, 27-year-old behavioral therapist who describes her politics as libertarian.

Sandifer, who lives in Florence, Mississippi, said her dislike for Trump might make her more likely to vote in the Senate race – and more likely to vote for Espy, to protest the administration.

Slideshow (17 Images)

She said she was not sure if Mississippi would elect an African-American senator, but added: “I would love it if they did.”

Reporting by Caren Bohan; Additional reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Brian Thevenot

Read full story here

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[cleopatrarps]

Democrats target union workers who regret Trump vote

DUBUQUE, Iowa (Reuters) – Inside Knicker’s Saloon, a factory worker hangout here, Jesse Oberbroeckling has just finished his shift at the John Deere plant when he reveals his regret.

Like many union workers, Oberbroeckling voted twice for former Democratic President Barack Obama before backing Donald Trump and other Republicans in 2016.

Now he has buyer’s remorse – and plans to support the Democratic challenger to Rod Blum, the Republican congressman in this blue-collar, eastern Iowa district.

“Trump is for the rich,” said Oberbroeckling, 37, sipping a rum-and-coke. “Blum’s for big business. They said they were for the workers, but they’re not.”

That sentiment should encourage Democrats, who saw their once-reliable labor vote help send Trump to the White House after he vowed to revive Rust Belt factories with trade tariffs and ailing coal mines with environmental deregulation. Now – with coal still struggling and Trump stoking a trade war – many union workers have soured on the president ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections, the Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll shows.

Between March 2017 and March 2018, union members’ approval of Trump fell 15 points, to 47 percent. In more than two dozen interviews with union members, many blasted Trump’s tax cut, arguing most of the benefits will flow to corporations and wealthy people.

A loose coalition of union leaders, Democratic strategists and political action committees (PACs) aims to seize on that shift by directing money and campaign workers to about 30 competitive races union-heavy districts. The party needs to gain 23 seats to retake the U.S. House of Representatives.

But falling support for Trump is no guarantee Democrats can restore the party’s historic dominance of the union vote. Nearly half of members polled still approve of the president, and their support for congressional Democrats has declined slightly from two years ago.

Forty-seven percent of union members polled would support a Democratic candidate in November; 34 percent favored a Republican. That compares to 51 percent favoring Democrats and 29 percent supporting Republicans in March 2016.

The 2018 poll was conducted online, in English, and included more than 1,400 union workers nationwide. It has a credibility interval of 3 percentage points, meaning results could vary in either direction by that amount.

Union membership has fallen by half since the early 1980s, to 10.7 percent of U.S. workers last year. But members can still sway close elections because they are concentrated in specific regions and vote at high rates. In the 2014 midterms, 52 percent of union workers voted, compared to 39 percent of others, according to a study by Demos, a liberal think tank.

“If we don’t win them back, we will never win here,” said Abby Finkenauer, the leading Democrat challenging Blum in Iowa’s 1st District.

Blum’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

TARGETING FARM, FACTORY TOWNS

Democratic strategists are targeting blue-collar enclaves of the Midwest, along with districts covering California farmlands, New York industry towns and Montana wilderness. They aim to trash the Republican tax cut, along with Trump’s failure to back a minimum wage and his attempt to repeal Obamacare.

In Iowa’s 1st District, dotted with farms and factories, Finkenauer tells audiences at union halls that her father was a union pipefitter-welder and that only a Democrat can improve their wages, health care and pensions.

Blum’s website says lower taxes and cutting business regulation will create jobs.

Ford O’Connell – a Republican strategist who was among the first to highlight how voter anger could propel Trump’s candidacy – said the party will appeal to union voters with his tariffs against China, anti-immigration efforts and the tax cut they argue helps all workers.

Democrats counter they are already recapturing labor votes, citing the March special election victory in Pennsylvania by Conor Lamb, who beat an outspoken opponent of unions. Trump won the same district in 2016.

Following Lamb’s victory, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) convened focus groups of voters who had supported both Trump and Lamb. Participants wanted candidates who support unions, boost jobs and wages and protect Medicare and Social Security.

Jesse Oberbroeckling, a member of the United Auto Workers union who works at a John Deere factory has a drink in Knicker’s Saloon in Dubuque, Iowa, U.S. March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Tim Reid

In interviews with Reuters, union members criticized the tax cut, along with Republican moves in some states – including Iowa – to curtail collective bargaining by public employees. And while Trump’s tough trade talk attracted many union workers to his campaign, some now worry his policies may protect some blue-collar jobs at the expense of others. Trump’s steel tariffs, for instance, could raise prices for the raw material used in factories supporting union jobs.

Reuters/Ipsos polling data shows union workers now view Democrats more favorably on key issues such as healthcare, the economy and taxes.

Ken Jones, a retired mechanic and Teamster union member, backed Trump because he believed Clinton was “crooked” – borrowing Trump’s signature insult – and that Trump might curtail illegal immigration, create jobs and fix Obamacare.

“Now I see he’s not going to do anything,” said Jones, of Oklahoma, who plans to vote Democratic this fall. “The working man don’t get nothing out of it. I never voted Republican until Trump, and it was the worst mistake I ever made.”

Other union members, however, continued to praise Republicans.

“The economy is doing better,” said Otis Evans, 47, of the United Auto Workers in Michigan. “Trump’s straightforward and candid.”

CAMPAIGN COLLAPSE

While union leaders backed Hillary Clinton for president, they failed to deliver rank-and-file votes.

Clinton won 8 percent more of the union vote than Trump, according to polling of union members by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

That’s 10 percent less than Obama won in 2012 and a drastic drop from the more than 30-point advantage among union households that her husband, President Bill Clinton, enjoyed in 1992. In interviews, many union members cited a distrust of Hillary Clinton personally, rather than her specific policies, as one reason they backed Trump.

Unions still overwhelmingly back Democrats financially. In 2016, donations to state and national Democratic parties from several major unions – United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFCSME), and the biggest unions in the AFL-CIO – totaled more than $1.5 million, according to a Reuters analysis of Federal Election Commission data.

Those unions donated nothing to Republicans that year, the analysis showed.

This year, the AFL-CIO will deploy campaign workers and political donations in 31 union-heavy congressional districts, along with a wider array of races in 14 battleground states.

The organization has revamped how it gauges its political effectiveness, said organizing director Julie Greene. In addition to traditional measures like tracking phone calls and door knocks, it will analyze qualitative data, such as the length and substance of member-to-member conversations.

The DCCC is sending organizers to three dozen House districts, where they are partnering with representatives of the two-million-member SEIU to emphasize labor issues in those campaigns.

Guy Cecil, president of Priorities USA Action, a Democratic “super PAC,” said it will finance Democrats in seven states. It is the first time the group, founded in 2011 to support Obama, has waded into midterm elections.

All these efforts are designed to prevent a repeat of 2016, said Steve Rosenthal, the AFL-CIO’s former political director and now a political consultant.

“There was a collapse of union support,” he said.

Slideshow (6 Images)

(For graphic on Trump support among union voters, click: tmsnrt.rs/2JSv3sW

Reporting by Tim Reid in Dubuque, Iowa and Joseph Ax in New York; Additional reporting by Chris Kahn and Grant Smith; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Brian Thevenot

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Exclusive: Chevron, Exxon seek 'small refinery' waivers from U.S. biofuels law

New Post has been published on http://newsintoday.info/2018/04/13/exclusive-chevron-exxon-seek-small-refinery-waivers-from-u-s-biofuels-law/

Exclusive: Chevron, Exxon seek 'small refinery' waivers from U.S. biofuels law

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global energy giants Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil have asked U.S. regulators for exemptions to the nation’s biofuels policy that have historically been reserved for small companies in financial distress, according to sources familiar with the matter.

FILE PHOTO: A Chevron gas station sign is seen in Del Mar, California, in this April 25, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

The requests will add fuel to a raging dispute between Big Oil and Big Corn over how the Trump administration should manage the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard – a 2005 law that requires oil refiners to mix biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into the nation’s fuel supply, or buy government-awarded credits from other energy firms who do the blending.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already issued an unusually high 25 hardship waivers to small refineries in recent months, according to an agency source, driving blending credit prices down and helping the oil industry reduce compliance costs.

But the agency won’t name the firms receiving the exemptions, citing a concern over disclosing private company information.

Both Chevron (CVX.N) and Exxon (XOM.N), among the world’s most profitable energy companies, have asked EPA for waivers for their smallest facilities – Chevron’s 54,500 barrel-per-day refinery in Utah and the Exxon’s 60,000 bpd refinery in Montana, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The exemptions would free the plants from their obligation to hand in blending credits earned or purchased for 2017, which came due this year, the sources said.

The disclosure of the Chevron and Exxon applications, which have not been previously reported, follow a Reuters report this month that the EPA has exempted three of ten refineries owned by Andeavor (ANDV.N), one of the biggest U.S. refining companies.

The waivers could save Andeavor $50 million or more in regulatory costs for the company’s 2016 obligations under the biofuels law.

Husky Energy – a Canadian oil giant backed by a Hong Kong billionaire – will also be seeking an exemption, this one covering the 2018 requirements for its small Superior, Wisconsin plant, spokesman Mel Duval told Reuters, disclosing the waiver for the first time.

Duval said Husky inherited a 2017 exemption when it bought the 50,000 bpd Superior refinery from Calumet Specialty Products Partners (CLMT.O) for $435 million in November.

The waivers are intended for facilities producing less than 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) that can also prove compliance with the policy would cause them “disproportionate economic hardship.”

A spokesman for Chevron, Braden Reddall, declined to confirm or deny the application, but said waivers provide an edge.

Slideshow (2 Images)

“Several competitors have reportedly received exemptions from the RFS,” he said in a written statement to Reuters. “If true, any refinery which has not been exempted from the RFS will be at a competitive disadvantage.”

Exxon spokesman Dan Carter declined to comment.

The exceptions and the EPA’s refusal to disclose them have infuriated the corn lobby, which argues the waivers hurt farmers by undermining demand for corn and should be used only sparingly for tiny facilities in dire straits.

“EPA is hiding behind poor excuses about proprietary business information to shield big oil companies from public scrutiny,” five Republican senators, including Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst from Iowa, wrote in a joint statement Thursday.

“This looks like just another backdoor attempt by (EPA) Administrator (Scott) Pruitt to destroy the Renewable Fuel Standard and circumvent congressional intent.”

Bob Dinneen, head of the Renewable Fuels Association said there is nothing ‘small’ about Exxon and Chevron, both of which rank in the top 20 of the Fortune 100.

“For these two behemoth oil companies to claim economic hardship is downright offensive and insulting to the hard-working farm families and ethanol producers that depend on the RFS,” Dinneen said.

It’s unclear whether the EPA has approved the Exxon or Chevron application. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman declined to comment on which firms have applied for or received exemptions.

She said the agency considers any application to exempt a refinery of less than 75,000 bpd – regardless of the size of the company that owns it.

“EPA decisions on waivers are based on refinery-specific information,” she said in an email. “We continue to work through petitions received for 2017.”

Exxon reported net profits of $19.7 billion last year. Chevron reported earning $9.2 billion.

Both bill themselves as globally integrated companies, and neither breaks out the financial details for their individual facilities in the public disclosures they are required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Republican Senator John Barrasso, of Wyoming, home to several small refineries, praised the expansion of the exemption program in a statement on Thursday. He did not address the controversy over the exemptions granted to some of the nation’s largest refiners.

“I applaud Administrator Pruitt and Secretary Perry for recognizing the burdens of this program. They know that we can’t allow it to hurt our nation’s small refineries,” Barrasso said.

‘DEMAND DESTRUCTION’

The EPA has historically doled out fewer than ten hardship exemptions per year to U.S. refineries, according to a former U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. A current EPA official, however, said the number reached 20 for 2016.

The EPA has come under pressure for being stingy with the waivers in the past. A successful lawsuit last year by Sinclair Oil Corporation led a federal court to order EPA to expand its definition of “economic hardship” – opening the door for more facilities to be eligible.

The Trump administration has also signaled a willingness to help refining companies reduce their biofuels compliance costs – which industry players say has encouraged a surge in recent applications.

Trump hosted a series of meetings with advocates for the corn and oil industries at the White House since late last year aimed at reforming biofuels regulations in a way that cuts costs for refiners without reducing overall biofuels demand. The effort failed to yield a deal due to protests from corn industry representatives.

Obtaining a waiver helps refiners in two ways: they no longer have to earn or purchase blending credits, called RINs, to prove compliance, and they can sell any RINs they have on hand into the open market. That can provide a company with a benefit ranging into the tens of millions of dollars.

Other big oil companies including Phillips 66 (PSX.N) also own refineries small enough to be eligible for a waiver, as does CVR Energy (CVI.N) which is owned by billionaire investor and Trump ally Carl Icahn.

Officials for those companies did not respond to requests for comment on whether they are seeking exemptions.

Icahn’s efforts last year to overhaul the biofuels program – while acting as an adviser to Trump on regulatory issues – drew scrutiny from federal investigators after lawmakers said it raised ethical concerns.

Biofuels proponents including U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has criticized the use of RFS exemptions as “demand destruction” for corn-based ethanol. Ethanol demand has been vital to farmers who are buffeted by low commodities prices and the threat of a global trade war.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents big oil companies like Exxon and Chevron, has also opposed small refinery exemptions in the past, arguing for a level competitive playing field.

Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Chris Prentice; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot

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Green Crack, Blue Dream, Gorilla Glue: The problem of pricing pot

NEW YORK (Reuters) – In 2014, as Jonathan Rubin and Ian Laird considered investing in the booming U.S. cannabis industry, they hit a problem: How to value pot starts-ups with little verified data on the price of the weed itself?

FILE PHOTO: Employees prepare recreational marijuana orders for customers at the MedMen store in West Hollywood, California, U.S., January 2, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

While a smoker may know the going retail price for “Strawberry Diesel” or “Buddha’s Sister”, the sector’s wholesale tier still operates much like a black market because of ongoing federal prohibition, despite legalizations in 30 U.S. states and Washington D.C. since the 1990s.

That left Rubin and Laird puzzled on the investment value of a dispensary, a weed farm or a factory making pot-infused candy. The problem spawned a different investment: The founding of New Leaf Data Services LLC, a Stamford, Conn.-based wholesale price data service that fields reporters to take on the steep challenge of cataloguing going rates.

Started three years ago, New Leaf now publishes weekly benchmark spot prices and forecasts on wholesale indoor-, outdoor-, and greenhouse-grown marijuana for 17 regions with legalization laws.

New Leaf makes money from about 350 pot proprietors and other subscribers who buy reports and custom analytics. It has raised money from investors who want exposure to the cannabis sector without the risk of breaking federal law.

The model is roughly based on S&P Global Platts, a firm where Rubin once worked that researches and publishes wholesale prices for crude oil, fuel and other commodities such as metals or agricultural crops.

The task is much harder for pot, and New Leaf’s experience stalking prices sheds light on the murky trade of what might be the fastest-growing U.S. commodity, sold legally and illegally for untold billions of dollars.

Cannabis firms still deal almost exclusively in cash to avoid a paper trail or because they have almost no access to banks and financial services. Because it’s illegal to transport the drug across state lines, prices and available products vary widely in different regions based on whether a state has both medical and recreational markets and the number of licensed dispensaries and producers.

Last week, spot prices for flower in Alaska were $5,496 per lb, while prices in Colorado and Oregon fell to historic lows of $1,008 and $1,166, respectively, according to New Leaf.

(For a graphic on state marijuana laws and price differences, see: tmsnrt.rs/2AFalvZ )

Legal pot prices are also impacted by supply and demand fluctuations in the illegal market, and the spread between the two can vary.

In California, regulated market prices are more than $1,000 per lb, whereas prices for illegal weed can be as low as $500 per lb, estimated Scott Davies, a California cultivator. Legal market marijuana tends to be more expensive because supplies are more restricted and because it is taxed.

“Consider each state to be a different country when it comes to their laws, amount of licenses issued, what the qualifying conditions are for entry into their medical program, as well as what the political climate and current illicit market looks like,” said Nic Easley, one of New Leaf’s market consultants.

Easley, a disabled veteran of the U.S. Air Force, said he moved to Colorado in 2006 to use cannabis to ease the pain of injuries. He’s one of New Leaf’s team of a dozen price experts who chase down their market data and intelligence through a network of commercial players and cannabis industry groups, such as the Oregon Retailers of Cannabis Association (ORCA). The data suppliers agree to submit weekly prices anonymously and, in exchange, get discounted subscriptions or other services.

LEGAL BUT UNDERGROUND

A multi-billion dollar cannabis industry has developed despite federal prohibition, but many executives, farmers and employees are still wary of federal prosecution.

Davies, a farmer in Humboldt County, California – a region renowned for its premium cannabis – said growers have historically done and still do handshake deals with counterparts vouched for by shared acquaintances. Davies sells directly to dispensaries, essentially relying on the rumor mill to set prices.

“It’s all been word-of-mouth, through people we know and trust who are established players,” he said.

But the market in California – which recently legalized recreational use – is evolving rapidly and becoming more like a traditional industry, with buyers and sellers now sometimes meeting at industry events, Davies said.

Market transparency has seen a boost from heightened regulations as authorities in states like Oregon rolled out legal recreational markets, said Casey Houlihan, head of ORCA.

Under the new rules in that state, dispensaries must purchase cannabis from registered producers, who are required to track their sales and report them to the government. Previously, dispensaries could buy more liberally through a medical marijuana program.

The data New Leaf collects is still fairly rough, and the marijuana market has nothing like national benchmark prices or futures contracts common to other legal commodities trades. There’s no real way for businesses to hedge, and price-setting remains largely guesswork, said Josh Richman, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Franklin BioScience, which grows cannabis and manufactures branded products, such as mints, in Colorado, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

“There isn’t something where I can sell long or short,” he said.

GRAPHIC: U.S. legalization legislation and regional pot prices – tmsnrt.rs/2AFalvZ

BLUE DREAM, GREEN CRACK AND GORILLA GLUE

The retail market is somewhat more transparent, and a pricing service called BDS Analytics runs an online database of more than 140,000 types of pot and pot products. BDS sells pricing and popularity data to retail shop owners.

Roy Bingham, who co-founded BDS Analytics in 2015, is a veteran of the finance and consultancy industries.

“We knew this data is really invaluable for the retail business,” Bingham said. “There are people in this industry who have been in supply chains at Walmart, GNC and other mainstream operations.”

His firm collects point-of-sales data from retailers and lists the details for products such as “Blue Dream” and “Green Crack”.

Joseph Hopkins, co-owner of a dispensary called The Greener Side in Eugene, Oregon, uses the data to deal with suppliers.

“When vendors come in and say they have x, y, z products, I can go back and look at whatever the going rate is for that product,” he said.

Still, the metrics are imperfect. State regulators increasingly perform quality tests to ensure safety, but no one checks to make sure that what someone is selling as “Green Crack” really matches weed branded under the same name elsewhere.

The data show variations in demand for various brand among regions. For example, Blue Dream has reigned as the most popular strain for flower in Colorado and Washington since 2014. But in Oregon, tokers favor a strain known as GG – formerly “Gorilla Glue,” until its purveyors got sued by the makers of the actual glue by the same name.

Reporting by Chris Prentice; Editing by Simon Webb and Brian Thevenot

The post Green Crack, Blue Dream, Gorilla Glue: The problem of pricing pot appeared first on Sports News, Transfers, Scores | Watch Live Sport.

[party-hard-or-die]

Democrats aim to mobilize African-American base, win back white…

JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) – Walking through his law office in Jackson, Mississippi, Mike Espy shows off a framed award from the National Rifle Association recognizing his pro-gun votes in Congress.

Now running for U.S. Senate, Espy calls himself a free-trader, a budget-cutter, a job-creator, a Christian, a friend of the military and an admirer of retired Republican Senator Thad Cochran, whose seat he seeks.

One big difference between him and Cochran: Espy is a Democrat.

The centrist rhetoric reflects Espy’s challenge in trying to win this conservative stronghold and become the state’s first African-American senator since the late 1800s and its first Democratic senator since 1989.

With little chance of converting hard-core Republicans, Espy needs to capture moderate and independent white voters in a state that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2016 – while at the same time energizing Mississippi’s large and typically liberal African-American vote.

“You can’t put me in a box,” said Espy, who highlights his “sometimes conservative” record as a congressman 25 years ago along with more progressive leanings on many issues.

Espy’s challenge is shared by Democratic Senate candidates in key states such as Missouri and Tennessee. Democrat Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in the presidential race laid bare vulnerabilities for Democrats and has party insiders debating the best way to revamp their strategy.

In states Clinton unexpectedly lost – including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – she saw lackluster turnout among black voters and a defection of some white working-class voters and union members, who once reliably voted Democratic.

Political analysts give Espy a realistic, but difficult, shot to win Mississippi – and it’s the kind of upset the party needs to take control of the Senate from Republicans. Strategists say Democrats’ narrow path to flipping Republicans’ two-seat Senate majority requires capturing swing states such as Nevada and Arizona, and also scoring one or two unexpected victories in states such as Tennessee, Mississippi or Texas.

Espy is running in a nonpartisan special election. His main rivals are conservative firebrand Chris McDaniel and establishment Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith. If no one wins a majority on Nov. 6, the top two vote-getters go to a run-off.

Espy says he’s modeling his campaign after Democratic Senator Doug Jones, who upset a Republican last year in a special election in Alabama, a demographically similar Southern state. Jones had a unique advantage – his opponent, Roy Moore, faced allegations of past sexual misconduct with teenage girls – but the campaign also effectively boosted African-American turnout.

“We have to do what they did in Alabama, which is a data-centric campaign that identifies black voters that haven’t voted in a while and get them registered and get them out to vote,” said Espy, 64.

COURTING BLACK VOTERS

Espy hopes African-American voters will connect with his potential to make history as the first black senator from Mississippi since post-Civil War Reconstruction; his commitment to modern civil rights issues; and his promise to take down the statue of Jefferson Davis – president of the Confederacy during the Civil War – that Mississippi sent to the U.S. Capitol in Washington in 1931. He hopes his record as a former U.S. agriculture secretary attracts rural voters of all races.

African-Americans make up 38 percent of Mississippi’s overall population – the highest of any state – giving rise to Espy’s other data-centric focus: He has calculated that, with strong support from black voters, he only needs 25 percent of white voters to win.

Even that might be difficult, given that Democratic President Barack Obama won only about 10 percent of white votes here in 2008 and 2012, according to exit polls.

Neither is Espy guaranteed strong African-American support and voter turnout. A Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll suggests black voters are feeling more distant from the party. The percentage identifying as strong or moderate Democrats fell to 61 percent so far this year, down seven points from 2012.

(For more detailed poll results, see: tmsnrt.rs/2Jnleri )

U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy speaks during an interview in Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. May 8, 2018. Picture taken May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

Jaribu Hill, an African-American Democrat who heads a Mississippi advocacy organization for low-wage workers, said she was not excited about any of the three main Senate candidates – including Espy – because none had effectively addressed poverty and racism.

“People are basically cynical in many ways because they haven’t seen a lot of accountability,” Hill said.

While the African-American vote will be important for Democrats in House and Senate races nationwide, it is crucial in Senate campaigns because they are statewide, encompassing more diverse populations, and because most competitive Senate races are in states where Trump trounced Clinton.

“We’ve got to not only win the minority vote, we’ve got to excite the minority vote,” said U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat.

TENSIONS IN MISSOURI

In Missouri, Cleaver and other prominent African-Americans, including Senator Cory Booker, are campaigning alongside Claire McCaskill, a white Democratic senator seeking re-election. Some black leaders in the state had criticized McCaskill earlier this year, saying she was giving short shrift to African-American voters while focusing mostly on white, rural voters.

Since then, she has opened field offices in Kansas City and in Ferguson, the predominantly African-American city near St. Louis that in 2014 erupted in protests over a white police officer’s fatal shooting of a black man.

“Claire isn’t taking a single vote for granted,” said McCaskill campaign spokeswoman Meira Bernstein.

Steve Phillips, a major Democratic donor and author of the book “Brown is the New White,” says the party wrongly concluded from Trump’s win that it needs to focus on winning back working-class white voters. He argues boosting minority turnout would win more elections.

“You would think that by now, that there would be a major, massive investment in voter mobilization of African-Americans in particular and people of color in general,” said Phillips. But “there is nothing.”

Waikinya Clanton, the Democratic National Committee’s top liaison for black and female voters, said party officials have learned from the failures of 2016 and other cycles that it can’t be seen by minority voters as the party that “just comes around every so often.” She said the party has launched a $10 million fund to find innovative ways to reach out to minority voters.

In Mississippi, Espy will likely need major financial backing from the national party, which it has not yet committed. An official with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the DSCC is monitoring the race and considers Espy a “strong candidate.”

Cedric Buckley, a 48-year-old African-American father and registered Democrat, applauded Espy’s centrist message.

“He is the only candidate who is not speaking political party rhetoric,” said Buckley, founder of an early learning center in Jackson.

To win, Espy also needs to lure voters such as Shelby Sandifer, a white, 27-year-old behavioral therapist who describes her politics as libertarian.

Sandifer, who lives in Florence, Mississippi, said her dislike for Trump might make her more likely to vote in the Senate race – and more likely to vote for Espy, to protest the administration.

Slideshow (17 Images)

She said she was not sure if Mississippi would elect an African-American senator, but added: “I would love it if they did.”

Reporting by Caren Bohan; Additional reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Brian Thevenot

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[dragnews]

Democrats aim to mobilize African-American base, win back white…

JACKSON, Miss. (Reuters) – Walking through his law office in Jackson, Mississippi, Mike Espy shows off a framed award from the National Rifle Association recognizing his pro-gun votes in Congress.

Now running for U.S. Senate, Espy calls himself a free-trader, a budget-cutter, a job-creator, a Christian, a friend of the military and an admirer of retired Republican Senator Thad Cochran, whose seat he seeks.

One big difference between him and Cochran: Espy is a Democrat.

The centrist rhetoric reflects Espy’s challenge in trying to win this conservative stronghold and become the state’s first African-American senator since the late 1800s and its first Democratic senator since 1989.

With little chance of converting hard-core Republicans, Espy needs to capture moderate and independent white voters in a state that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2016 – while at the same time energizing Mississippi’s large and typically liberal African-American vote.

“You can’t put me in a box,” said Espy, who highlights his “sometimes conservative” record as a congressman 25 years ago along with more progressive leanings on many issues.

Espy’s challenge is shared by Democratic Senate candidates in key states such as Missouri and Tennessee. Democrat Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in the presidential race laid bare vulnerabilities for Democrats and has party insiders debating the best way to revamp their strategy.

In states Clinton unexpectedly lost – including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – she saw lackluster turnout among black voters and a defection of some white working-class voters and union members, who once reliably voted Democratic.

Political analysts give Espy a realistic, but difficult, shot to win Mississippi – and it’s the kind of upset the party needs to take control of the Senate from Republicans. Strategists say Democrats’ narrow path to flipping Republicans’ two-seat Senate majority requires capturing swing states such as Nevada and Arizona, and also scoring one or two unexpected victories in states such as Tennessee, Mississippi or Texas.

Espy is running in a nonpartisan special election. His main rivals are conservative firebrand Chris McDaniel and establishment Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith. If no one wins a majority on Nov. 6, the top two vote-getters go to a run-off.

Espy says he’s modeling his campaign after Democratic Senator Doug Jones, who upset a Republican last year in a special election in Alabama, a demographically similar Southern state. Jones had a unique advantage – his opponent, Roy Moore, faced allegations of past sexual misconduct with teenage girls – but the campaign also effectively boosted African-American turnout.

“We have to do what they did in Alabama, which is a data-centric campaign that identifies black voters that haven’t voted in a while and get them registered and get them out to vote,” said Espy, 64.

COURTING BLACK VOTERS

Espy hopes African-American voters will connect with his potential to make history as the first black senator from Mississippi since post-Civil War Reconstruction; his commitment to modern civil rights issues; and his promise to take down the statue of Jefferson Davis – president of the Confederacy during the Civil War – that Mississippi sent to the U.S. Capitol in Washington in 1931. He hopes his record as a former U.S. agriculture secretary attracts rural voters of all races.

African-Americans make up 38 percent of Mississippi’s overall population – the highest of any state – giving rise to Espy’s other data-centric focus: He has calculated that, with strong support from black voters, he only needs 25 percent of white voters to win.

Even that might be difficult, given that Democratic President Barack Obama won only about 10 percent of white votes here in 2008 and 2012, according to exit polls.

Neither is Espy guaranteed strong African-American support and voter turnout. A Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll suggests black voters are feeling more distant from the party. The percentage identifying as strong or moderate Democrats fell to 61 percent so far this year, down seven points from 2012.

(For more detailed poll results, see: tmsnrt.rs/2Jnleri )

U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy speaks during an interview in Jackson, Mississippi, U.S. May 8, 2018. Picture taken May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

Jaribu Hill, an African-American Democrat who heads a Mississippi advocacy organization for low-wage workers, said she was not excited about any of the three main Senate candidates – including Espy – because none had effectively addressed poverty and racism.

“People are basically cynical in many ways because they haven’t seen a lot of accountability,” Hill said.

While the African-American vote will be important for Democrats in House and Senate races nationwide, it is crucial in Senate campaigns because they are statewide, encompassing more diverse populations, and because most competitive Senate races are in states where Trump trounced Clinton.

“We’ve got to not only win the minority vote, we’ve got to excite the minority vote,” said U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat.

TENSIONS IN MISSOURI

In Missouri, Cleaver and other prominent African-Americans, including Senator Cory Booker, are campaigning alongside Claire McCaskill, a white Democratic senator seeking re-election. Some black leaders in the state had criticized McCaskill earlier this year, saying she was giving short shrift to African-American voters while focusing mostly on white, rural voters.

Since then, she has opened field offices in Kansas City and in Ferguson, the predominantly African-American city near St. Louis that in 2014 erupted in protests over a white police officer’s fatal shooting of a black man.

“Claire isn’t taking a single vote for granted,” said McCaskill campaign spokeswoman Meira Bernstein.

Steve Phillips, a major Democratic donor and author of the book “Brown is the New White,” says the party wrongly concluded from Trump’s win that it needs to focus on winning back working-class white voters. He argues boosting minority turnout would win more elections.

“You would think that by now, that there would be a major, massive investment in voter mobilization of African-Americans in particular and people of color in general,” said Phillips. But “there is nothing.”

Waikinya Clanton, the Democratic National Committee’s top liaison for black and female voters, said party officials have learned from the failures of 2016 and other cycles that it can’t be seen by minority voters as the party that “just comes around every so often.” She said the party has launched a $10 million fund to find innovative ways to reach out to minority voters.

In Mississippi, Espy will likely need major financial backing from the national party, which it has not yet committed. An official with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the DSCC is monitoring the race and considers Espy a “strong candidate.”

Cedric Buckley, a 48-year-old African-American father and registered Democrat, applauded Espy’s centrist message.

“He is the only candidate who is not speaking political party rhetoric,” said Buckley, founder of an early learning center in Jackson.

To win, Espy also needs to lure voters such as Shelby Sandifer, a white, 27-year-old behavioral therapist who describes her politics as libertarian.

Sandifer, who lives in Florence, Mississippi, said her dislike for Trump might make her more likely to vote in the Senate race – and more likely to vote for Espy, to protest the administration.

Slideshow (17 Images)

She said she was not sure if Mississippi would elect an African-American senator, but added: “I would love it if they did.”

Reporting by Caren Bohan; Additional reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Brian Thevenot

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[newestbalance]

Democrats target union workers who regret Trump vote

DUBUQUE, Iowa (Reuters) – Inside Knicker’s Saloon, a factory worker hangout here, Jesse Oberbroeckling has just finished his shift at the John Deere plant when he reveals his regret.

Like many union workers, Oberbroeckling voted twice for former Democratic President Barack Obama before backing Donald Trump and other Republicans in 2016.

Now he has buyer’s remorse – and plans to support the Democratic challenger to Rod Blum, the Republican congressman in this blue-collar, eastern Iowa district.

“Trump is for the rich,” said Oberbroeckling, 37, sipping a rum-and-coke. “Blum’s for big business. They said they were for the workers, but they’re not.”

That sentiment should encourage Democrats, who saw their once-reliable labor vote help send Trump to the White House after he vowed to revive Rust Belt factories with trade tariffs and ailing coal mines with environmental deregulation. Now – with coal still struggling and Trump stoking a trade war – many union workers have soured on the president ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections, the Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll shows.

Between March 2017 and March 2018, union members’ approval of Trump fell 15 points, to 47 percent. In more than two dozen interviews with union members, many blasted Trump’s tax cut, arguing most of the benefits will flow to corporations and wealthy people.

A loose coalition of union leaders, Democratic strategists and political action committees (PACs) aims to seize on that shift by directing money and campaign workers to about 30 competitive races union-heavy districts. The party needs to gain 23 seats to retake the U.S. House of Representatives.

But falling support for Trump is no guarantee Democrats can restore the party’s historic dominance of the union vote. Nearly half of members polled still approve of the president, and their support for congressional Democrats has declined slightly from two years ago.

Forty-seven percent of union members polled would support a Democratic candidate in November; 34 percent favored a Republican. That compares to 51 percent favoring Democrats and 29 percent supporting Republicans in March 2016.

The 2018 poll was conducted online, in English, and included more than 1,400 union workers nationwide. It has a credibility interval of 3 percentage points, meaning results could vary in either direction by that amount.

Union membership has fallen by half since the early 1980s, to 10.7 percent of U.S. workers last year. But members can still sway close elections because they are concentrated in specific regions and vote at high rates. In the 2014 midterms, 52 percent of union workers voted, compared to 39 percent of others, according to a study by Demos, a liberal think tank.

“If we don’t win them back, we will never win here,” said Abby Finkenauer, the leading Democrat challenging Blum in Iowa’s 1st District.

Blum’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

TARGETING FARM, FACTORY TOWNS

Democratic strategists are targeting blue-collar enclaves of the Midwest, along with districts covering California farmlands, New York industry towns and Montana wilderness. They aim to trash the Republican tax cut, along with Trump’s failure to back a minimum wage and his attempt to repeal Obamacare.

In Iowa’s 1st District, dotted with farms and factories, Finkenauer tells audiences at union halls that her father was a union pipefitter-welder and that only a Democrat can improve their wages, health care and pensions.

Blum’s website says lower taxes and cutting business regulation will create jobs.

Ford O’Connell – a Republican strategist who was among the first to highlight how voter anger could propel Trump’s candidacy – said the party will appeal to union voters with his tariffs against China, anti-immigration efforts and the tax cut they argue helps all workers.

Democrats counter they are already recapturing labor votes, citing the March special election victory in Pennsylvania by Conor Lamb, who beat an outspoken opponent of unions. Trump won the same district in 2016.

Following Lamb’s victory, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) convened focus groups of voters who had supported both Trump and Lamb. Participants wanted candidates who support unions, boost jobs and wages and protect Medicare and Social Security.

Jesse Oberbroeckling, a member of the United Auto Workers union who works at a John Deere factory has a drink in Knicker’s Saloon in Dubuque, Iowa, U.S. March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Tim Reid

In interviews with Reuters, union members criticized the tax cut, along with Republican moves in some states – including Iowa – to curtail collective bargaining by public employees. And while Trump’s tough trade talk attracted many union workers to his campaign, some now worry his policies may protect some blue-collar jobs at the expense of others. Trump’s steel tariffs, for instance, could raise prices for the raw material used in factories supporting union jobs.

Reuters/Ipsos polling data shows union workers now view Democrats more favorably on key issues such as healthcare, the economy and taxes.

Ken Jones, a retired mechanic and Teamster union member, backed Trump because he believed Clinton was “crooked” – borrowing Trump’s signature insult – and that Trump might curtail illegal immigration, create jobs and fix Obamacare.

“Now I see he’s not going to do anything,” said Jones, of Oklahoma, who plans to vote Democratic this fall. “The working man don’t get nothing out of it. I never voted Republican until Trump, and it was the worst mistake I ever made.”

Other union members, however, continued to praise Republicans.

“The economy is doing better,” said Otis Evans, 47, of the United Auto Workers in Michigan. “Trump’s straightforward and candid.”

CAMPAIGN COLLAPSE

While union leaders backed Hillary Clinton for president, they failed to deliver rank-and-file votes.

Clinton won 8 percent more of the union vote than Trump, according to polling of union members by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

That’s 10 percent less than Obama won in 2012 and a drastic drop from the more than 30-point advantage among union households that her husband, President Bill Clinton, enjoyed in 1992. In interviews, many union members cited a distrust of Hillary Clinton personally, rather than her specific policies, as one reason they backed Trump.

Unions still overwhelmingly back Democrats financially. In 2016, donations to state and national Democratic parties from several major unions – United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFCSME), and the biggest unions in the AFL-CIO – totaled more than $1.5 million, according to a Reuters analysis of Federal Election Commission data.

Those unions donated nothing to Republicans that year, the analysis showed.

This year, the AFL-CIO will deploy campaign workers and political donations in 31 union-heavy congressional districts, along with a wider array of races in 14 battleground states.

The organization has revamped how it gauges its political effectiveness, said organizing director Julie Greene. In addition to traditional measures like tracking phone calls and door knocks, it will analyze qualitative data, such as the length and substance of member-to-member conversations.

The DCCC is sending organizers to three dozen House districts, where they are partnering with representatives of the two-million-member SEIU to emphasize labor issues in those campaigns.

Guy Cecil, president of Priorities USA Action, a Democratic “super PAC,” said it will finance Democrats in seven states. It is the first time the group, founded in 2011 to support Obama, has waded into midterm elections.

All these efforts are designed to prevent a repeat of 2016, said Steve Rosenthal, the AFL-CIO’s former political director and now a political consultant.

“There was a collapse of union support,” he said.

Slideshow (6 Images)

(For graphic on Trump support among union voters, click: tmsnrt.rs/2JSv3sW

Reporting by Tim Reid in Dubuque, Iowa and Joseph Ax in New York; Additional reporting by Chris Kahn and Grant Smith; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Brian Thevenot

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Pot Pharm: Booming Canada weed sector plots next-wave medicines

New Post has been published on https://lawyer800marketing.com/business/pot-pharm-booming-canada-weed-sector-plots-next-wave-medicines/

Pot Pharm: Booming Canada weed sector plots next-wave medicines

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TORONTO (Reuters) – Canopy Growth Corp, one of the world’s biggest medical marijuana producers, now wants to take on the world’s pharmaceutical giants.

The Canadian firm launched Canopy Health Innovation in late 2016 to build a portfolio of patented and federally approved cannabinoid-based medicines. The venture is one of a small but growing number of companies here aiming to compete with established drugs treating diseases ranging from anxiety and chronic pain to multiple sclerosis and childhood epilepsy.

They’re developing research-backed formulations to be sold as pills, inhalers, solutions and creams, with the goal of convincing doctors and insurers to embrace marijuana as a mainstream medicine.

“You’ll see a lot of companies like Canopy Health starting to form, and they’re basically going to create medical cannabis 2.0,” Canopy Health Chief Executive Marc Wayne said in an interview. “There is a gold rush for cannabis intellectual property, and it’s accelerating.”

Canada’s relaxed regulations, mature marijuana industry and free-flowing capital offer such firms a unique opportunity to advance research without the legal and political risks that bog down cannabis firms in the United States and elsewhere.

While U.S. federal law continues to ban weed in all forms, Canada approved medical pot in 2001 and will legalize recreational use this year. Its government welcomes and even finances the research and clinical trials needed to fully legitimize medical cannabis.

Canada is also one of only two nations – along with the Netherlands – that currently exports marijuana, allowing firms here to take immediate advantage of recent medical pot legalizations in more than 20 countries. Research firm Brightfield Group last year forecast the global medical cannabis market would quadruple to $31.4 billion by 2021.

Offerings in today’s Canada medical marijuana market differ little from those used recreationally – the smokable plant and, more recently, oil extracts. More than 70 companies have licenses from the federal drug regulator, Health Canada, to cultivate, produce and sell medical marijuana, with more than half those licenses granted in 2017 or 2018.

Canopy Health and other firms now aim to craft new formulations with varying cannabinoid levels; to find the best dosage delivery systems, such as rapid-release or long-acting tablets or metered-dose inhalers; or to combine cannabinoids with other drugs or supplements to improve effectiveness.

Canada opened the door to serious medical research in 2015 with the approval of cannabinoid extract sales, allowing for the isolation of cannabis components that could form the basis of more sophisticated medicines.

The pace of research – and investment – quickened last year after the government introduced legislation to legalize recreational use. Equity offerings by Canadian marijuana firms tripled to nearly $1 billion in 2017.

Canopy Health raised C$16 million ($12.77 million) last year to finance medical trials alongside other institutions and researchers, Wayne said. It has filed 27 patents for treatment of insomnia relief and is now working on remedies for anxiety. The firm expects to have its first federal approval by about 2020.

Canopy Growth, a publicly listed firm valued at C$5.3 billion, retains a 46 percent stake in the new private company.

Canopy Health’s competitors include CanniMed, which last month agreed to be acquired by Aurora Cannabis to form what would be a C$6 billion firm, the world’s biggest marijuana producer by market value.

CanniMed has partnered with universities including McGill University in Montreal and the University of Manitoba on research into managing symptoms of multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis and pediatric epilepsy.

“Canadian companies are taking the lead because we’ve more freedom to operate and can actually afford it now,” Chief Executive Officer Brent Zettl said in an interview.

Other players forging ahead with medical research include MedReleaf, Emerald Health Therapeutics, Emblem Corp and Tilray, an unlisted company owned by private equity firm Privateer Holdings.

CONVINCING DOCTORS, INSURERS

Section grower Corey Evans walks between flowering marijuana plants at the Canopy Growth Corporation facility in Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada, January 4, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

Although some medical uses for marijuana have been long established – to reduce nausea, for instance, or treat glaucoma – little research exists to convince the health care establishment of its medical value.

Patients are typically only prescribed marijuana when they ask for it, and it’s open secret that “medical” marijuana is often used recreationally.

“The way the medical cannabis world now works is really patient-driven,” said Avtar Dhillon, executive chairman of Emerald Health Therapeutics and a medical doctor. “I can relate to physicians who want evidence.”

Emerald will soon start human clinical trials of a cannabis formulation to manage pain, he said.

Only a few Canadian insurance plans cover medical cannabis, including grocery chain Loblaw Cos’ employee insurance plan, Veterans Affairs Canada and insurer Sun Life Financial.

“There’s a lot we need to learn about this plant, and the research goes a long way to quantify and demonstrate its medical benefits,” said Jason Zandberg, a research analyst focused on small-cap growth companies at PI Financial.

Government money is helping the cause. Canada’s National Research Council awarded C$1.7 million for the study of cannabis between 2014 and 2017. Among the recipients were Emerald, MedReleaf and Tilray.

In January, the Canadian Institute of Health Research approved C$1.4 million for studies led by hospitals and universities into subjects including the impact of cannabis on driving and mental health.

LITTLE RESEARCH, MUCH DEBATE

Debates still rage over the effectiveness and risks of prescribing pot.

The concerns include addiction from long-term use, impaired cognitive function, anxiety, depression and lung cancer, according to a 2014 paper posted on the U.S. National Institutes for Health website.

“Cannabis has not been through Health Canada’s rigorous pharmaceutical regulatory process,” said Canadian Medical Association President Laurent Marcoux. “Physicians do not know about the appropriate dosage, the potential side effects and how it could interact with other medications.”

CanniMed Therapeutics has financed physician and pharmacist training programs developed by professionals in each field and accredited by their certification bodies, a company spokeswoman said.

Emblem Corp, which received Health Canada approval to sell medical marijuana in August 2016, is spending C$3.2 million over the next two years on studies to find the best cannabinoid strains to treat pain and reduce dependence on opioids.

The chief of the firm’s pharmaceutical division, John Stewart, previously worked as the Canadian and U.S. CEO for Purdue Pharma, the creator of OxyContin, a painkiller widely seen as a major contributor to North America’s opioid crisis.

But the firm needs more data, Stewart said.

“We don’t know yet how you might initiate cannabis therapy in a patient who wanted to discontinue their opioid therapy but certainly doesn’t want to discontinue their pain control,” he said.

Medical marijuana firms have an unusual advantage in that they can continue to sell a legal but largely unregulated medicine as they raise money for research into fully regulated products that might have “enormous potential” in the pharmaceutical market, said MedReleaf CEO Neil Closner.

“We’re allowed to sell a product that many people view as being a possible replacement for many pharmaceutical products,” he said. “But we’re not obligated to take it through the traditional Health Canada approval process.”

Reporting By Nichola Saminather; Editing by Denny Thomas and Brian Thevenot

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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[ogskate]

It's time for the SWISS FINALS!! O.G.Skate presents The Final of the Swiss Championship of Game of Skate on Sunday 24th in Geneva, place Châteaubriand, hosted by O.G.2000 Family. There will be a "242 Race" and a "Faust Best Tricks" open to everyone!!! Here are the 12 skaters qualified from the 6 contests. Gland, 1. Philip Küng, 2. Makusu Steven Zurich, 1. Sven Kilchenmann, 2. Diego Thonney Lugano, 1. Manolo Galvani, 2. Jonas Duclos Basel, 1. Janos Herzog, 2. Chris Thevenot Luzern, 1. Thomas Schmid, 2. Michel Müller Bern, 1. Simon Perrottet, 2. Saphep Tang The 4 "Wild Cards" will be announced very soon! The concept is simple. It's a game of skate. To make it easy, we will use the "berrics rules" for the contests with one extra rule to add some fun.. The "Suraj". In each game, for the last letter, the skater who showed the trick is allowed to offer the defender a third try. ONLY ONCE BY GAME. More info will be posted soon! See you on Sunday 24th! Peace, Love & Having Fun! O.G.Skate All events are supported by: 242shop, Faust Skate Co, Spitfire, Thunder Trucks, Modus Bearings Music delivered by Sound Hustlers, Eagle and Madkid of SWC