Cruz is wrong

Cruz is wrong on a solution to big money in U.S. politics

By David Donnelly

In a recent speech at the Heritage Foundation, Texas senator and Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz offered an unusually candid assessment — for a lawmaker — of how policy gets made in Congress.

“Let me explain to you how it works,” he told the crowd at the conservative think tank. “A bill is set to come before Congress, and career politicians’ ears and wallets are open to the highest bidder. Corrupt backroom deals result in one interest group getting preferences over the other, although you give the other a chance to outbid them. Or even worse, a very small interest group getting special carve-outs at the expense of taxpayers.”

It’s not a stretch to say that this is the norm for most policies: Too often, lobbyists and the big donors they represent get to write or influence laws at the expense of everyone else.

There’s no doubt that Cruz understands the symptom behind the problem. As he shared with a group of activists in New Hampshire in April, “I’ve told my 6-year-old daughter, ‘Running for office is real simple: You just surgically disconnect your shame sensor because you spend every day asking people for money.’”

This clear-eyed assessment — that money forces candidates to be money-seekers, not listeners or problem-solvers — makes it all the more confounding that his solution to our broken campaign-finance system would blow it up entirely.

Specifically, Cruz has called for repealing limits on what individuals can give to candidates and party committees — a proposal that would hand our elections wholly over to the wealthiest among us and bring the corrupting influence of money that is now going to outside groups right to the candidates’ campaigns themselves.

Cruz may be right about the problem, but he’s dead wrong about the solution.

We need to focus on increasing the participation and political power of the many, not allowing more money from an elite few. For the right solutions, Cruz should talk to his colleague, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., about the Fair Elections Now Act.

The Fair Elections Now Act — and its House companion, the Government By the People Act — would add needed balance to our political system. These bills amplify the voices of everyday Americans by providing matching funds for small donations so, for example, a $40 donation from a school teacher or waitress becomes $240.

Through a blend of small-dollar contributions and public matching funds, candidates can run for office with the support of people back home, not Washington lobbyists and corporate interests.

It would give qualified people the freedom to run for office without feeling like they’re selling themselves to the highest bidder, and most important, would hand control of our elections to the voters.

These bills are modeled on successful small-donor systems in effect in cities and states across the country — including Connecticut, Maine and New York City, where hundreds of candidates have been able to run and win competitive people-powered campaigns.

Recent surveys by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have both found overwhelmingly that Americans are tired of the pay-to-play system Cruz talks about. They think Congress no longer works for them.

At the same time, they don’t think any politician will actually do anything about it.

There is a huge strategic opening for a candidate to take this cynicism head-on and engage Americans on solutions to the money-in-politics problem.

Presidential candidate Cruz will find that voters are receptive to this message about corruption.

But unless he offers a concrete plan that improves, not worsens, the current system, he will sound like yet another politician who isn’t serious about change.

Here comes the money...

Democrat Clinton raises $45 million since April U.S. campaign launch

By Amanda Becker and Emily Flitter

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton has raised more than $45 million since she entered the race in April, aides said on Wednesday, setting a fast pace in what is sure to be the most expensive U.S. political campaign in history.

The fundraising figure, announced by the campaign on Twitter, did not include a breakdown of the total number of donors to Clinton, the average donation, or how many donors have already given the legal maximum for the primary campaign of $2,700.

But campaign aides said 91 percent of the donations were in amounts of $100 or less, and touted the figure as a sign of broad-based grass-roots support as she fights off a challenge from the party's liberal wing led by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The Sanders campaign said it had received contributions from more than 200,000 individuals since he entered the race at the end of April, and donations averaged about $37 per person.

The Clinton haul surpasses the $42 million in primary funds raised by President Barack Obama in 2011 in the first quarter after he announced his re-election bid, the previous record for the first quarter of a White House campaign.

Clinton was the first 2016 presidential contender to report even a rough total on the fundraising numbers, which are viewed as an early indicator of a candidate's appeal and staying power in the race.

Later on Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson reported he had raised $8.3 million in the last three months, and a total of $10.5 million since forming an exploratory committee in March.

The specific fundraising figures for the fiscal quarter ending on June 30 must be reported to the Federal Election Commission by July 15. Clinton said on Twitter her campaign was "still running the numbers" for the final report.

Clinton has kept up an intensive national fundraising schedule since her April campaign launch, holding dozens of fundraising events, often at wealthy donors' homes.

The campaign features a "Hillstarter" program that asks top donors to host fundraising events that each bring in at least $27,000 from donors.

The Associated Press reported that Clinton has raised at least $19.5 million at 61 such fundraisers, an amount that makes up at least 43 percent of her total. It said the percentage was sure to be even higher because it used the most conservative ticket prices to calculate the total raised at each event.

'CHIP IN $1'

On Tuesday, the last day of the quarter, Clinton's campaign sent an email asking supporters to "chip in $1" to help it reach its goal of grass-roots donations.

Fundraisers for Clinton said the pace has been brisk, but some smaller donors were not in a hurry to open their wallets because it is still early in the race.

"These larger-dollar events have always been the early money. The smaller dollars tend to come later in the cycle," said Lorraine Harris, a Clinton fundraiser in the San Francisco area.

Another fundraiser, who asked not to be named, said, "There’s a general feeling of 'We’re going to be for Hillary, but we’ll get around to it.'"

The former secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady has a big lead in opinion polls over three Democratic challengers. Fourteen Republicans are running for their party's nomination ahead of the November 2016 presidential election.

Republican Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, received 210,000 donations from 151,000 donors, spokesman Doug Watts said.

The fundraising numbers for Clinton and other candidates will pale compared with the huge sums expected to be raised by allied super PACs, which will be reported separately from the campaigns.

Those groups are legally not supposed to work in concert with the candidates but can advertise on their behalf. About $1.5 billion could be spent on Clinton's bid between her campaign, allied super PACs, the national party and other outside groups, some experts have predicted.

In that context, the $45 million raised by Clinton is "a drop in the bucket," said Nick Nyhart, president of Every Voice Center, a group that wants to eliminate big money in politics.

"The bulk of the fundraising is ahead of them," he said.

Little AC?

Long the place for the dreamers and tinkerers to play, the evolution of top-end sail racing has finally made winged catamarans not only technologically interesting, but actually cool.   How else do you explain all the good looking youth engineers throwing their souls into the Quebecois Rafale Little America’s Cup project? Here’s an update from Canada, and head over to the thread for the latest likely entry list and chatter about the Little AC.

Our hulls are in the last stage of fabrication, i.e. just adding the daggerboard cases. Plateform assembly should be well advanced by the end of the week, depending on a few missing bits and pieces.  A prototype set of our hydrofoils has been tested by the Mystere Composites team on their Espadon Air Design 20ft catamaran. Results have been very encouraging with some good speed and stability. Our set of foils and rudders are being built as we speak by the Mystere team.  The wing is also at an advanced stage of completion. The front element is 90% complete. The flap / rear element is 60% or 70% complete. Most of the wing assembly should be complete by next weekend.

We are on track to be hitting the water on the weekend of July 4th and 5th. We should have 1 months testing and debugging before we ship the full kit to Switzerland.  There are still some questions marks on some key elements, especially shipping and budget. We are keeping our head down and hoping for the best.

I have to give a big shout to all the people who have supported us and helped us get this far, especially all our sponsors who have trusted us to deliver! We hope to make a good showing in Geneva and make them proud.  Overall I have been really impressed by the resourcefulness of the team and what we have manage to achieve considering where we started from. Few would have given us much chances of making it this far. For sure we have had to make many compromises along the way to save time and/or money. The result will be a boat that is slightly heavier than we would have liked but it’s not a bad effort for a first attempt. It will be a tremendous plateform to work from in the future.

From Sailing Anarchy

Resupply Ship

Russian Resupply Ship Rolls Out, Crew Preps for Japanese Cargo Craft

The next Russian resupply ship to launch to the International Space Station rolled out to its launch pad today. The crew is also preparing for Japan’s next cargo mission due in August.

The ISS Progress 60 (60P) cargo craft is at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch pad preparing for a 12:55 a.m. EDT launch Friday from Kazakhstan. The 60P is delivering more than 3 tons of food, fuel and supplies to the crew and will dock to the Pirs docking compartment.

NASA astronaut and One-Year crew member Scott Kelly worked Wednesday to also get the station ready for another cargo craft, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kounotori HTV-5, due for launch Aug. 16. It will lift off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan for a four day trip to the station where it will be grappled and berthed to the Earth-facing side of the Harmony node.

The two cosmonauts, Commander Gennady Padalka and One-Year crew member Mikhail Kornienko, were on the Russian side of the orbital lab conducting science and maintenance. The duo explored the dynamic forces the station experiences caused by mission events such as vehicle dockings and spacewalks including internal activities like physical exercise.

Venus and Jupiter are Close

On June 30, Venus and Jupiter were close in western skies at dusk. Near the culmination of this year's gorgeous conjunction, the two bright evening planets are captured in the same telescopic field of view in this image taken after sunset from Bejing, China. As the two bright planets set together in the west, a nearly Full Moon rose above the horizon to the south and east. Imaged that night with the same telescope and camera, the rising Moon from the opposite part of the sky is compared with the planetary conjunction for scale in the digitally composited image. The full lunar disk covers an angle of about 1/2 degree on the sky. Visible as well in binoculars and small telescopes are Venus' crescent and Jupiter's four Galilean moons. Of course, Venus and Jupiter are still close.

Course to Pluto

NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Stays the Course to Pluto

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is getting a final “all clear” as it speeds closer to its historic July 14 flyby of Pluto and the dwarf planet’s five moons.

After seven weeks of detailed searches for dust clouds, rings, and other potential hazards, the New Horizons team has decided the spacecraft will remain on its original path through the Pluto system instead of making a late course correction to detour around any hazards. Because New Horizons is traveling at 30,800 mph (49,600 kph), a particle as small as a grain of rice could be lethal.

“We’re breathing a collective sigh of relief knowing that the way appears to be clear,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA. “The science payoff will be richer as we gather data from the optimal flight path, as opposed to having to conduct observations from one of the back-up trajectories.”

Mission scientists have been using the spacecraft’s most powerful telescopic camera, the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), to look for potential hazards, such as small moons, rings, or dust, since mid-May. The decision on whether to keep the spacecraft on its original course or adopt a Safe Haven by Other Trajectory, or "SHBOT" path, had to be made this week since the last opportunity to maneuver New Horizons onto an alternate trajectory is July 4.

“Not finding new moons or rings present is a bit of a scientific surprise to most of us,” said principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. “But as a result, no engine burn is needed to steer clear of potential hazards. We presented these data to NASA for review and received approval to proceed on course and plan. We are ‘go’ for the best of our planned Pluto encounter trajectories.”

New Horizons formed a hazard analysis team in 2011, after the discovery of Pluto’s fourth moon, Kerberos, raised concerns the cratering of these moons by small debris from the outer area of the solar system known as the Kuiper Belt, could spread additional hazardous debris into New Horizons’ path. Mission engineers re-tested spare spacecraft blanketing and parts back on Earth to determine how well they would stand up to particle impacts, and scientists modeled the likely formation and locations of rings and debris in the Pluto system. By the time New Horizons’ cameras were close enough to Pluto to start the search last month, the team had already estimated the chances of a catastrophic incident at far less than one percent.

The images used in the latest searches that cleared the mission to stay on its current course were taken June 22, 23 and 26. Pluto and all five of its known moons are visible in the images, but scientists saw no rings, new moons, or hazards of any kind. The hazards team determined that satellites as faint as about 15 times dimmer than Pluto’s faintest known moon, Styx, would have been seen if they existed beyond the orbit of Pluto’s largest and closest moon, Charon.

If any rings do exist, the hazard team determined they must be extremely faint, reflecting less than one 5-millionth of the incoming sunlight.

“The suspense – at least most of it – is behind us,” says John Spencer, of SwRI, who leads the New Horizons hazard analysis team. “As a scientist I’m a bit disappointed that we didn’t spot additional moons to study, but as a New Horizons team member I am much more relieved that we didn’t find something that could harm the spacecraft. New Horizons already has six amazing objects to analyze in this incredible system.”

Faces of Pluto

New Horizons Color Images Reveal Two Distinct Faces of Pluto, Series of Spots that Fascinate

New color images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft show two very different faces of the mysterious dwarf planet, one with a series of intriguing spots along the equator that are evenly spaced. Each of the spots is about 300 miles in diameter, with a surface area that’s roughly the size of the state of Missouri.

Scientists have yet to see anything quite like the dark spots; their presence has piqued the interest of the New Horizons science team, due to the remarkable consistency in their spacing and size. While the origin of the spots is a mystery for now, the answer may be revealed as the spacecraft continues its approach to the mysterious dwarf planet. “It’s a real puzzle—we don’t know what the spots are, and we can’t wait to find out,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder. “Also puzzling is the longstanding and dramatic difference in the colors and appearance of Pluto compared to its darker and grayer moon Charon.”

New Horizons team members combined black-and-white images of Pluto and Charon from the spacecraft’s Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) with lower-resolution color data from the Ralph instrument to produce these views. We see the planet and its largest moon in approximately true color, that is, the way they would appear if you were riding on the New Horizons spacecraft. About half of Pluto is imaged, which means features shown near the bottom of the dwarf planet are at approximately at the equatorial line.

If Pluto has clouds, New Horizons can detect them. Both the high-resolution LORRI imager and the Ralph color imager will be used to look for clouds across the face of Pluto during its approach and departure from the planet. “We’re looking for clouds in our images using a number of techniques,” said science team postdoc Kelsi Singer of the Southwest Research Institute, “If we find clouds, their presence will allow us to track the speeds and directions of Pluto’s winds.”

San Salvador update

San Salvador update:
Well since the launch was called off because of an issue with the weight of the boat and the capabilities of the cranes, the work on finishing has been on going with a 'Plan B' for launch also underway. So now that the hull is basically finished and the hull painted, the masts were stepped recently and the rigging started. Here are a set of pictures of the process. The launch date has not been published but should be coming with in a month.

main mast going in

rigging up

coin in the mast step

Mast being stepped

As of today

Embassies to open

Obama Announces Plan to Open Embassies in Cuba and United States 

By Inae Oh

On Wednesday, President Obama announced that the United States and Cuba have agreed to open embassies in Washington and Havana to formally reestablish diplomatic ties after more than 54 years of broken relations.

"This is a historic step forward in our efforts to normalize relations with the Cuban government and people and begin a new chapter with our neighbors in the Americas," Obama said.

"We don't have to be imprisoned by the past," he added. "When something isn't working we can and will change."

Obama said Secretary of State John Kerry will also be traveling to Havana later this summer to "proudly raise" the American flag over the new embassy.

Wednesday's announcement, which follows last month's move by the United States to remove Cuba from a list of states sponsoring terrorism, is another historic step in normalizing relations between the two countries. Shortly before the president's press conference, the Foreign Ministry of Havana also announced that diplomatic ties with Washington would be fully restored by July 20.

TPP info leaked...

Leaked: What's in Obama's trade deal

Is the White House going to bat for Big Pharma worldwide?

By Michael Grunwald

A recent draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal would give U.S. pharmaceutical firms unprecedented protections against competition from cheaper generic drugs, possibly transcending the patent protections in U.S. law.

POLITICO has obtained a draft copy of TPP’s intellectual property chapter as it stood on May 11, at the start of the latest negotiating round in Guam. While U.S. trade officials would not confirm the authenticity of the document, they downplayed its importance, emphasizing that the terms of the deal are likely to change significantly as the talks enter their final stages. Those terms are still secret, but the public will get to see them once the twelve TPP nations reach a final agreement and President Obama seeks congressional approval.

Still, the draft chapter will provide ammunition for critics who have warned that TPP’s protections for pharmaceutical companies could dump trillions of dollars of additional health care costs on patients, businesses and governments around the Pacific Rim. The highly technical 90-page document, cluttered with objections from other TPP nations, shows that U.S. negotiators have fought aggressively and, at least until Guam, successfully on behalf of Big Pharma.

The draft text includes provisions that could make it extremely tough for generics to challenge brand-name pharmaceuticals abroad. Those provisions could also help block copycats from selling cheaper versions of the expensive cutting-edge drugs known as “biologics” inside the U.S., restricting treatment for American patients while jacking up Medicare and Medicaid costs for American taxpayers.

“There’s very little distance between what Pharma wants and what the U.S. is demanding,” said Rohat Malpini, director of policy for Doctors Without Borders.

Throughout the TPP talks, the Obama administration has pledged to balance the goals of fostering innovation in the drug industry, which means allowing higher profits, and promoting wider access to valuable medicines, which means keeping prices down. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has pointed out that pharmaceutical companies often have to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to get a new drug to market, which they would have little incentive to do without strong protections for the patented product. But Froman has also recognized the value of allowing much cheaper generic drugs to enter the market after those brand-name patents expire. In the U.S., generics now comprise more than five-sixths of all prescription drugs, but only about one-quarter of drug costs.

Advocates for the global poor, senior citizens, labor unions and consumers as well as the generics industry have accused the administration of abandoning that balance, pushing a pharmaceutical-company agenda at the expense of patients and taxpayers. One critic, hoping to illustrate the point and rally opposition to TPP in Congress, gave POLITICO the draft chapter, which was labeled “This Document Contains TPP CONFIDENTIAL Information” on every page.

U.S. officials said the key point to remember about trade deals is that no provision is ever final until the entire deal is final—and that major compromises tend to happen at the very end of the negotiations. They expect the real horse-trading to begin now that Obama has signed “fast-track” legislation requiring Congress to pass or reject TPP without amendments.

“The negotiations on intellectual property are complex and continually evolving,” said Trevor Kincaid, a spokesman for Froman. “On pharmaceutical products, we are working closely with stakeholders, Congress, and partner countries to develop an approach that aims to make affordable life-saving medicine more widely available while creating incentives for the development of new treatments and cures. Striking this important balance is at the heart of our work.”

The draft chapter covers software, music and other intellectual property issues as well, but its most controversial language involves the rights of drug companies. The text reveals disputes between the U.S. (often with support from Japan) and its TPP partners over a variety of issues—what patents can cover, when and how long they can be extended, how long pharmaceutical companies can keep their clinical data private, and much more. On every issue, the U.S. sided with drug companies in favor of stricter intellectual property protections.

Some of the most contentious provisions involve “patent linkage,” which would prevent regulators in TPP nations from approving generic drugs whenever there are any unresolved patent issues. The TPP draft would make this linkage mandatory, which could help drug companies fend off generics just by claiming an infringement. The Obama administration often describes TPP as the most progressive free-trade deal in history, citing its compliance with the tough labor and environment protections enshrined in the so-called “May 10 Agreement” of 2007, which set a framework for several trade deals at the time. But mandatory linkage seems to be a departure from the May 10 pharmaceutical provisions.

In an April 15 letter to Froman, Heather Bresch, the CEO of the generic drug company Mylan, warned that mandatory patent linkage would be “a recipe for indefinite evergreening of pharmaceutical monopolies,” leading to the automatic rejection of generic applications. The U.S. already has mandatory linkage, but most other TPP countries do not, and Bresch argued that U.S. law includes a number of safeguards and incentives for generic companies that have not made it into TPP.

“With all due respect, the USTR has…cherry-picked the single provision designed to block generic entry to the market,” Bresch wrote.

Generics are thriving in the U.S. despite linkage, saving Americans an estimated $239 billion on drugs in 2013. But the U.S. is the world’s largest market, and advocates fear that generic manufacturers may not take on the risk and expense of litigation in smaller markets if TPP tilts the playing field against them. One generics manufacturer, Hospira, reportedly testified at a TPP forum in Melbourne, Australia, that it would not launch generics outside the U.S. in markets with linkage.

The opponents are also worried about the treaty’s effect on the U.S. market, because its draft language would extend mandatory patent linkage to biologics, the next big thing in the pharmaceutical world. Biologics can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for patients with illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis, hepatitis B and cancer, and the first knockoffs have not yet reached pharmacies. The critics say that extending linkage to biologics—which can have hundreds of patents—would help insulate them from competition forever.

“It would be a dramatic departure from U.S. law, and it would put a real crimp in the ability of less expensive drugs to get to market,” said K.J. Hertz, a lobbyist for AARP. “People are going to look at this very closely in Congress.”

Drug companies are already pushing for TPP to guarantee them 12 years of exclusivity for their data regarding biologics, although the draft text suggests the other TPP nations have not agreed. Jay Taylor, vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said it’s crucial for TPP to protect the intellectual property that emerges from years of expensive research, so that drug companies can continue to develop new medicines for patients around the world.

“These innovations could be severely hindered if IP protections are scaled back,” Taylor said. “This is especially important in the area of biologic medicines, which could hold the key to unlocking treatments for diseases that have thwarted researchers for years.”

U.S. officials would not discuss the status of the TPP talks. But they suggested the May 10 Agreement did include a milder form of linkage, although it didn’t prevent regulators from approving generics mired in patent disputes.  They also believe a 2009 U.S. law included a form of linkage for biologics, although again, that law's dispute resolution process for patent issues was not as prescriptive as the TPP draft. And they cautioned that any pre-Guam draft would not reflect recent negotiations over “transition periods” that would delay the stricter patent standards in developing countries like Vietnam.

In any case, Kincaid said U.S. negotiators are determined to strike a balance between innovation and access in the final product.

“While this is our touchstone, the negotiations are still very much in process, and the details of a final outcome cannot yet be forecasted,” he said.

But Malpani of Doctors Without Borders said U.S. negotiators have basically functioned as drug lobbyists. The TPP countries have 40 percent of global economic output, and the deal is widely seen as establishing new benchmarks for some of the most complex areas of global business. Malpani fears it could set a precedent that crushes the generic drug industry under a mountain of regulation and litigation.

“We consider this the worst-ever agreement in terms of access to medicine,” he said. “It would create higher drug prices around the world—and in the U.S., too.