In an article published Wednesday by The New York Times, two women describe how Donald Trump sexually harassed them: one said Trump groped her 36 years ago when she sat next to him on an airplane. The other said he forcibly kissed her on the lips in 2005, when she was a secretary for one of his real estate firms in Manhattan. At a rally in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, Trump, calling the women “horrible, horrible liars,” dismissed the charges as “all fabricated” and “pure fiction.” He claimed they were whipped up by the media and Hillary Clinton, his Democratic opponent.

“These vicious claims about me, of inappropriate conduct with women, are totally and absolutely false. And the Clintons know it,” Trump said at the rally.

A spate of sexual assault accusations involving the Republican presidential hopeful have surfaced in the days following a leaked tape in which Trump, in 2005, brags about forcing himself on women because he’s a “star.” Aside from the two women who shared their stories with the Times, Natasha Stoynoff, a writer with PEOPLE Magazine, recounted an incident from 2005 in which Trump assaulted her at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

“We walked into that room alone,” Stoynoff wrote, referencing a “tremendous” room Trump showed her while giving her a tour of his mansion. “Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.”

Trump vociferously denied all of these reports on Thursday in front of a boisterous crowd, saying:

And so now we address the slander and libels that was just last night thrown at me by the Clinton machine and the New York Times and other media outlets, as part of a concerted, coordinated and vicious attack. It’s not coincidence that these attacks come at the exact same moment, and all together at the same time as WikiLeaks releases documents exposing the massive international corruption of the Clinton machine, including 2,000 more e-mails just this morning.

Trump’s attorneys, meanwhile, threatened the Times, saying it would be sued for libel unless they took the article down. Times’ Vice President and Assistant General Counsel David McCraw responded in a letter:

“Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself,” he wrote, adding: “If Mr. Trump disagrees, if he believes that American citizens had no right to hear what these women had to say and that the law of this country forces us and those who would dare to criticize him to stand silent or be punished, we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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He remained committed to his own campaign as long as he could. But on Tuesday morning, in front of a packed high school auditorium in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders finally budged, endorsing Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee.

“This campaign is about the needs of the American people and addressing the very serious crises that we face, and there is no doubt in my mind that, as we head into November, Hillary Clinton is far and away the best candidate to do that,” said the 75-year-old Vermont senator, who electrified the progressive wing of the Democratic Party during his campaign.

Sanders represents the final–and perhaps most coveted–endorsement of the former secretary of state from key liberal figures. President Obama endorsed Clinton in June, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), another progressive stalwart, followed a few weeks later, stoking rumors of an all-female Democratic ticket.

#BernieSanders just endorsed #Clinton, did she blackmail him or threaten his life? Either way this is bad for the world.

— Partisangirl (@Partisangirl) July 12, 2016

And although his presidential hopes are all but officially dashed (the Democratic National Convention in less than two weeks will likely be the final blow), Sanders has his thumbprints all over the party’s platform, which was released as a draft on July 1. At Tuesday’s rally, Clinton touched on points likely to go over well with Sanders supporters, a cohort that has proved difficult to attract to her side.

She was steadfast in her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that she has supported in the past. She spoke on raising the minimum wage, as well as shaking up the way political campaigns are financed. All of the aforementioned issues were touchstones of the Sanders campaign. “These aren’t just my fights. These are Bernie’s fights. These are America’s fights,” she said. Sanders was hopeful that the party’s platform will get pushed through a White House and Congress dominated by Democrats. He said: “Our job now is to see that platform implemented by a Democratically controlled Senate, a Democratically controlled House and a Hillary Clinton presidency – and I am going to do everything I can to make that happen.”

I am somewhat surprised that Bernie Sanders was not true to himself and his supporters. They are not happy that he is selling out!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016

And indeed, the sea of Clinton supporters at the Portsmouth rally was punctuated by Sanders supporters who remained by his side, even as he embraced the candidate that they vehemently booed. According to a recent Reuters poll, Sanders supporters might not budge simply because Clinton increasingly absorbs his talking points. The poll found that only 40 percent of Sanders supporters signaled that they plan to back Clinton in November.

Donald Trump, Clinton’s counterpart on the Republican side, jumped on Tuesday’s endorsement as an opportunity to court disillusioned Sanders supporters. He tweeted before and after the rally, and released a statement on his website, saying: “Bernie’s endorsement becomes Exhibit A in our rigged system – the Democrat Party is disenfranchising its voters to benefit the select and privileged few.”

To all the Bernie voters who want to stop bad trade deals & global special interests, we welcome you with open arms. People first.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2016

Trump wasn’t the only opportunist after the endorsement. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, both third party possibilities, criticized Sanders and called on his supporters to join their campaigns. But a unified party finally emerged on Tuesday, as Sanders and Clinton clasped hands and raised them in the sky in a show of unity. “I can’t help but reflect on how much more enjoyable this election will be now that we are on the same side,” Clinton said.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Donald Trump possesses the most divisive surname in America. He climbed from the top tier of reality television to the top of the Republican Party ticket. Hardly anybody saw this coming. It’s as if he was plucked from the brain of a science fiction novelist with a political bent, not quite believable enough to put on the page. But he is real, as is his movement. And if he can prove the pundits wrong once, can he a second time? During the primary cycle, political futurists swung and missed. But now that Trump the nominee is a reality–and the prospect of a President Trump looms–analysts, journalists, and soothsayers alike tap into their imaginations (and whatever concrete stances Trump has given them to build off) to forecast what an America led by the real estate scion might look like.

That’s exactly what happened Wednesday at New America–a Washington D.C. think tank–at an event titled “Imagining President Trump.” A stable of liberal and conservative thinkers gazed into their crystal balls to chew on what a Trump presidency might portend for the country and the very make up of America’s political system.

Foreign Policy

“America first.” That is the gist of Trump’s foreign policy platform, and that would be the driving force behind his relationships with the rest of the world. At least we think.

“You can take him on his word on Monday and then you look at his word on Tuesday and it’s the opposite of what he said on Monday so you don’t know,” said Injira Lakshmanan, a columnist for The Boston Globe and Politico.

She noted the foreign policy speech Trump delivered–via teleprompter, a rarity for him–at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington a few weeks ago, where he outlined what his foreign policy approach would be as president: He derided America’s historical lack of a coherent foreign policy, while also promising to be unpredictable, two seemingly incompatible notions.

Trump has sworn to destroy the Islamic State, though ceding that can only be done with a sizable surge of ground troops, from 20,000-30,000. But those will not be American troops, Trump has said. World leaders are terrified of an America led by Trump, Lakshmanan said, and as President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden’s recent trips abroad have shown, the current administration is attempting to assuage those fears. She also predicted that if President Trump removed the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, as he has indicated, world governments might reign in–or pull out altogether–their dollar investments.

“A lot of this is Trump flying by the seat of his pants. He throws out ideas as they occur to him, that feel right, but they are very contradictory,” Lakshmanan said, adding: “The rest of the world is terrified.”

First 100 Days In Office

For the last few decades at least, a popular metric when measuring a president’s success is his (or her) first 100 days as commander in chief. Is the status quo upheld or flipped on its head? Are campaign promises kept? Are new amenities added to the White House?

“I wouldn’t be surprised at all if both parties decide to conspire to make him the least effective president in his first hundred days,” predicted Lara Brown, director of George Washington University’s Political Management Program at the Graduate School of Political Management. She said it is in neither parties’ interest to have him succeed.

Matthew Continetti, the Editor in Chief of the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative-leaning political news site, said that Trump’s chief concern is being the center of the national conversation. Continetti believes that that hunger and his need to be talked about will lead to several disasters in his first 100 days: “a dysfunctional government, internecine warfare among his staff, and geopolitical instability.”

But Brown predicts Trump’s first 100 days might also deliver a shock to the voters who elected him to the highest office in the land. These are people who fixated on him because of his blustery promise of radical change, but who “would actually become profoundly disillusioned because it’s much more likely there would be no change,” Brown said.

The Republican Party

In securing the Republican nomination, Trump tapped into currents that went largely ignored by the establishment in past elections. He stirred up anger and discontent that stemmed from broken promises throughout the years. Millions of people–whether staunch conservatives, sort of conservatives, and even some disillusioned Democrats–latched onto his blunt rhetoric as the answer to an entrenched political system that has left them behind. Win or lose, Trump has sent shockwaves through the GOP, perhaps shifting its identity forever.

Continetti sees two paths forward for the party of Lincoln: the Ben Sasse option and the Tom Cotton option. Both young Republican senators–Sasse of Nebraska and Cotton of Arkansas–represent two competing factions of the party’s mood, a fissure exacerbated and revealed by Trump’s ascension. The Sasse route would embrace the moral majority image of the party and update it for a new century, something Ted Cruz tried to tap into in his failed run. For this reason, and for the sinking of the #NeverTrump movement and Sasse’s own failure to drum up support for a third-party run in November, Continetti does not see this path materializing.

Instead, the “white, populous, protectionist, ‘America first,'” option will likely prevail, Continetti said, the swath of the electorate that Cotton and especially Trump have spoken to. Norman Ornstein, also part of Wednesday’s five member panel and a contributing editor to The Atlantic, sees the warring factions within the Republican Party as akin to the ethnic divisions tearing apart the Middle East. He predicted that if America’s 45th president is indeed Donald Trump, Democrats might cozy up to him more than members of his own party would.

“He’s going to have more allies among Democrats than he will among Republicans, which will drive a good portion of that Republican base even more up the wall,” he said.

It is important to note that all five panelists on Wednesday agree that a Trump White House is unlikely. But he was written off once before, and we all know how that turned out.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The second Republican primary debate of the year was aired last night by CNN and took place at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. It was a three hour debate that left me with more questions than answers–for example, did they really all go that entire stretch without having to use the bathroom? But, tradition dictates that we boil down those three hours into some gifable snapshots, so without further ado, check out the top ten moments from the second Republican debate.

10. Mike Huckabee Appealed to Millennials with a Reference from the ’80s

Mike Huckabee referred to the Republican field as the “A Team” and decided that Donald Trump was Mr. T, saying:

I think we are in fact The A-Team. We have some remarkable people. We even have our own Mr. T, who doesn’t mind saying about others, ‘you’re cool.’

Pop culture references are a great way to appeal to the masses–and if he had picked something less than 30 years old (we’re not counting the horrible 2010 remake) it might have been successful.

9. Marco Rubio Made a Fun Reference

One of Marco Rubio’s early introductions to the national stage was when he gave the Republican response to the State of the Union back in 2013. During the speech he took a fantastically awkward sip of water:

But last night, Rubio paid homage to that really awkward moment by bringing his own water to the debate. It was a sweet and dad-joke like, but I’m not sure how much of a splash it made.

We’re entering the next phase of the #GOPdebate. Anyone need refreshments? http://t.co/tdQhhyEBDb pic.twitter.com/ki3fr601BE

— Guardian US (@GuardianUS) September 17, 2015

8. Donald Trump Proves his Mature Rhetorical Mastery

Trump, on immigration: “First of all, I want to build a wall-a wall that works. We have a lot bad dudes, from outside, in this country.” So eloquently put, Trump, although I do have to admit “bad dudes” is a bit more PC than calling swarths of the population “rapists.”

7. Carly Fiorina Makes Things Up

Carly Fiorina went on a weird, grisly rant about Planned Parenthood that would have been strategically powerful if it was in any way true. She stated–presumably in reference to the much-edited Planned Parenthood hit videos created by the Center for Medical Progress:

I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.

The videos were disturbing to be sure, even though they were patently fiction. But at no point did those videos even come to close to portraying a fully formed fetus kicking its legs–Fiorina at this point was over-exaggerating exaggerations in an incredibly upsetting way. It’s one thing to be anti-choice, it’s another thing altogether to use lies and fear-mongering to prove your point.

6. Everyone Got Handsy with Donald Trump

Donald Trump was flanked on stage by Ben Carson and Jeb Bush, and at various points he exchanged really awkward high fives/handshakes with each of them. First was Ben Carson, who was very reluctant to get involved in the entire situation: But Jeb Bush got a little too enthusiastic, and actually appeared to make Trump flinch: 

Here you go Twitter pic.twitter.com/9wfzAQGftg — Brandon Wall (@Walldo) September 17, 2015

5. Winner of the Happy Hour Debate (Literally): Lindsey Graham

Lindsey Graham had my favorite quote of the earlier happy hour debate, which featured the candidates who aren’t polling well enough to make it to the main stage. Graham, who has his priorities in order, stated: “That’s the first thing I’m going to do as president. We’re going to drink more.”

He was referring to Ronald Reagan’s tradition of drinks with Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, but it still makes for an awesome one-liner, and I wholeheartedly approve.

4. Chris Christie Gets Fed Up

Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina got into a spat back-and-forth about their business records, and Christie got really damn tired of listening to it. He eventually said:

 The fact is that we don’t want to hear about your careers. Back and forth and volleying back and forth about who did well and who did poorly. You’re both successful people. Congratulations. You know who is not successful? The middle class in this country who’s getting plowed over by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Let’s start talking about those issues tonight and stop this childish back and forth between the two of you.

While I’m normally not a Christie fan, and I don’t agree with the claims in his comment, here’s some well-deserved applause for shutting up that annoying Trump and Fiorina spat:

3. Jeb Bush Tries to Prove He’s a Cool Kid

Jeb Bush attempted to get some street cred in the lamest way possible–by admitting he had smoked  marijuana 40 years ago and his mom doesn’t approve:

So, 40 years ago, I smoked marijuana, and I admit it. I’m sure that other people might have done it and may not want to say it in front of 25 million people. My mom’s not happy that I just did.

 

2. Fiorina Takes Down Trump

You can watch this one yourself:

.@CarlyFiorina responds to @realDonaldTrump‘s comment about her face #CNNDebate http://t.co/jcEf6bW9ja #GOPDebate http://t.co/m0eDU5NvhT

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 17, 2015

Ok, now we actually do have a bad ass over here.

1. Some Really Lame Answers to the “Which Women You’d Put on the $10 Bill Question”

As a fun, easy question toward the end, the moderators asked each of the debaters “Which woman would you put on the $10 bill?” Some answers were fine–Susan B. Anthony,  Rosa Parks, Clara Barton, and Abigail Adams are all admirable American women. But some of them were flat-out ridiculous. For example, three of the candidates–Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson–all cited female family members. Huckabee chose his wife, Donald Trump chose his daughter, and Ben Carson named his mother. While those are nice answers and may have been good responses to “who inspires you,” they’re also total cop-outs and a bit insulting. Women have done so many great things for this country and none are included on our paper currency–yet three of the eleven candidates couldn’t even name one.

Then, Jeb Bush gave arguably the weirdest answer all night–put Margaret Thatcher on the $10 bill. Alright Jeb Bush, please do remember that if you want a fighting chance, some American women will have to vote for you. Although at this point, I haven’t the foggiest why we would.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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GOP presidential candidates are nervously returning money and double checking their finances this week. An investigation recently revealed that the leader of the white supremacist group that is said to have radicalized Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old white man who murdered nine black people during a bible study in Charleston last week, has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns.

Sixty-two-year-old Earl P. Holt III is president of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), a self-declared “conservative activist group” that opposes “race mixing” as a religious affront and that “vilifies blacks as an inferior race.” Holt has donated $65,000 to campaign funds in recent years, including 2016 GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum. According to Federal Election Commission filings, Holt has provided $8,500 to Senator Cruz since 2012. Another $1,750 was given to Senator Paul’s action committee, and $1,500 was donated to Senator Santorum, who attended Sunday’s memorial service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina. A spokesman for Cruz’s campaign was quick to say that the money donated by Holt would be immediately refunded. Also in hot water to return money funded by this extremist organization is Paul, who said today that he would also be foregoing the money donated by Holt. Santorum  finally denounced the funding on Monday afternoon, saying he would be donating the money to the victims’ families.

GOP candidates got cash from white nationalist cited by Charleston shooting suspect http://t.co/sLN6nNSdYV pic.twitter.com/d1Gqsdz9D4

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) June 22, 2015

Over the past four years, a user named Earl P. Holt III has posted racist comments on The Blaze, a conservative news outlet. On a February 2014 article, the user–who is suspected to be the same Earl P. Holt III who is funding Republican campaigns–wrote that black activists would “kill you, rape your entire family, and burn your house to the ground.” Roof echoed these chillingly racist remarks as he complained to his victims in Charleston last week, saying: “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go.” A close associate and former director of the CofCC, Jared Taylor, was asked by Holt to handle all media inquiries relating to the Charleston massacre. When asked about the online user going by Holt’s full name, Taylor stated: “If there’s a statement that is ‘Earl P. Holt III’, he probably made it.”

On Saturday, Internet sleuths discovered that Dylann Roof had a website complete with a racist manifesto, which states that he learned about black on white crime from the CofCC website. Roof says it was the Trayvon Martin killing and his opinion that George Zimmerman did no wrong in shooting the unarmed black teen that began his obsession with “black on white violence.”

In an online statement, Holt said he was not surprised that Roof had learned about “black-on-white violent crime” from the CofCC. He stated that the Council is one of the few brave activist groups that are not afraid to “accurately and honestly” disclose “the seemingly endless incidents involving black-on-white murder.” Holt said the Council of Conservative Citizens should not be held responsible for Roof’s actions just because he gained “accurate” information from the website.

Santorum has declared the statements made and sentiments held by Holt to be “unacceptable.” But isn’t it unacceptable to have your campaign financed by individuals and groups that represent the beating heart of racism? It’s easy to wonder if Cruz, Paul, and Santorum knew that their campaigns were receiving donations from a man who runs a white supremacist organization. Moreover, if the media had not exposed Holt’s status as a white supremacist, would the candidates have donated and refunded the money? Hopefully this exposure will shed light on the often amoral campaign financing process and lead to more scrutiny about where our presidential candidates are getting their money.

Emily Dalgo

Emily Dalgo is a member of the American University Class of 2017 and a Law Street Media Fellow during the Summer of 2015. Contact Emily at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee formally announced his run for the Democratic presidential bid on Wednesday, June 3. Chafee joins a few other declared Democratic presidential candidates, with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton garnering the most support thus far at 12.8 percent and 61.2 percent respectively. Given Chafee’s relative obscurity, however, he seems to be a bit of a long shot candidate.

Chafee’s moment of glory mainly comes from his work with Obama. Obama helped Chafee win the governorship in 2010 and then Chafee became one of Obama’s strongest supporters during his reelection campaign in 2012. Chafee seems to be mimicking some of Obama’s actions in the Democratic primary, especially Obama’s tactic of attacking the Iraq War vote to defeat Clinton in the 2008 race. Obama opposed the Iraq war from the beginning and in the 2008 Democratic presidential race, he persistently attacked Clinton for her decisions regarding the Iraq war. This attack point helped Obama defeat Clinton, and Chafee appears to be capitalizing on the same thing. He has launched his campaign with a focus on his dissenting vote in the Senate regarding the Iraq War in 2002. Chafee is using this to separate himself from Clinton, which is not an awful tactic considering that it’s a weak spot for the Democratic frontrunner.

In this aspect, Chafee joins O’Malley in being the only other Democratic presidential candidate to play a little dirty instead of focusing on the issues and policy reforms. Which, considering neither Clinton nor Sanders has resorted to the same kind of tactics, could backfire for Chafee immediately.

According to Chafee’s website, his four main platform points are an aversion to foreign entanglements, building a strong middle class, improving environmental stewardship, and the protection of personal liberties. Chafee’s past is actually most interesting aspect of his presidential bid–he entered politics as a Republican and then became an independent until he joined the Democratic Party in 2013. But Chafee is not at all worried with how his party-switching history will affect his popularity in the primary. In fact, his response to this concern was:

I have not changed. My old liberal Republican stand on the issues does line up with the Democratic Party—women’s reproductive freedoms, support for working families. I have a 30-year record.

Another notable aspect of Chafee’s presidential bid is his insistence on switching the United States to the metric system. His reasoning for doing so is to become “an internationalist country.” He believes that by switching to the metric system, among other moves, the United States will be giving a symbolic message to the rest of the world that it is ready to integrate into the world system instead of taking a unilateral approach to foreign policy.

Chafee’s run is undoubtably a long shot. But the same buzz surrounded Bernie Sanders when he first announced, and he is the only Democratic candidate who has threatened Clinton’s standing, even if only marginally so. Chafee seems focused on his role as the underdog and feels America has a particularly soft spot for that kind of status. But the problem is that both O’Malley and to a lesser extend, Sanders, have been running on a similar platform. So the Democratic presidential bid is turning into a contest between the established Clinton dynasty, a progressive-socialist independent Sanders, little known O’Malley, and now Chafee, the new underdog.

Sarina Neote

Sarina Neote is a member of the American University Class of 2017. Contact Sarina at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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At Governor Martin O’Malley’s announcement for the Democratic presidential candidacy this previous Saturday, there were numerous protesters carrying signs that read “NOMALLEY” and “Stop killer cops.” Instead of receiving Maryland’s support for the presidential bid, there were scant supporters and numerous protesters. Despite this lukewarm reaction, O’Malley laid bare his grand plans for immigration reform, the LGBT community, and leveling the economic playing field. But O’Malley has remained silent on one message that resonates with Baltimore in particular and with millennials everywhere–police brutality.

O’Malley looks pretty good on paper. He ended the death penalty, legalized same-sex marriage, and passed the Dream Act in Maryland. But his reaction to crime in Baltimore some 15 years ago as mayor has provoked mixed responses. On one hand, O’Malley dramatically reduced drug violence and homicide in Baltimore. But on the other, he adopted a zero tolerance approach to crime that some claim has sparked the protests resulting from Freddie Gray’s death.

One of the largest criticisms of O’Malley’s actions as mayor was the number of arrests sky-rocketing to 108,447 in 2005, amounting to about one sixth of the Baltimore population. The main reason these arrests were controversial is because many resulted from petty crimes. In addition to more arrests, O’Malley also implemented CitiStat, a data-tracking management tool that holds government employees accountable for their actions. CitiStat allows the government to gather data on an array of performance indicators, such as response time or employees who do not come into work. CitiStat was originally on track to monitor weekly issues, such as domestic violence and felony gun arrests. But this monitoring abruptly stopped and the employees working on these issues were sent a stream of meeting cancellations. This abrupt change has led some to claim that this tool disproportionately targets minorities and women.

O’Malley’s popularity among Marylanders varies; there are those outspoken enough who chose to protest his announcement and there are others who show their unrelenting support. In terms of approval ratings, O’Malley recently saw 47 percent approval, but also 47 percent who actively disapprove of him.

In the national playing field with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, O’Malley is clearly trailing behind. Clinton epitomizes traditional Democratic Party values and relies on old money and name recognition in order to garner support for her presidential bid while Sanders appeals to the liberal, left wing population vying for reform and dramatic change. O’Malley, however, falls somewhere in between. O’Malley seems to be anticipating an equivalent political field to the 2008 Democratic presidential race when Obama rose to the challenge in victory. O’Malley is hoping to fill the moderate vacuum between Clinton and Sanders by presenting himself as a liberal alternative to Clinton who is not quite as radical as Sanders.

But O’Malley has avoided taking any prominent stance on police reforms or police brutality, as seen on his website for his presidential campaign. He hits his major points regarding income inequality in America and touches on a few gender-related topics, but the closest he gets to police brutality is mentioning the need for accountability of our governments.

O’Malley’s rhetoric regarding Freddie Gray’s death is sympathetic, but he guides the discussion of police brutality away from race or policing by emphasizing “the scourge of hopelessness in America’s cities.” O’Malley resorts to numerous tactics to avoid the issue of institutionalizing police brutality and militarization, such as ignoring the problem in his presidential bid announcement and not featuring crime or violence on his website. This could ultimately lead to the downfall of his campaign.

When comparing O’Malley to Sanders, Sanders has already taken a firm position against police brutality. Sanders immediately recognized the problem within the United States when police departments are treated as militaries. Likewise, Clinton has taken a similar stand in calling for reforms in police departments so African Americans are not disproportionately targeted. Contrarily, O’Malley has said little to nothing.

O’Malley’s silence on police brutality speaks volumes to the actions he is willing to take in reforming the police system. His silence is blaring, especially considering his previous position as the mayor of Baltimore. This omission, in addition to his lack of support from Marylanders puts his entire presidential bid on shaky ground. His chances of winning over Sanders and Clinton seem almost nonexistent if he is not willing to speak out against police brutality as his opponents have done.

Sarina Neote

Sarina Neote is a member of the American University Class of 2017. Contact Sarina at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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