Partys dr. Jill stein while , reich is backing clinton after endorsing Bernie Sanders during the primaries. In florence influence. How foreign money is flowing into the u. S. Election system. We uncovered a Foreign Controlled Corporation owned by a Chinese National concluded a large amount of money to a president ial Campaign Super pac. This is the first definitive proof that thanks to the Citizens United decision, foreign money has entered our federal election system. Amy we will speak to lee fang, coauthor an explosive new series in the intercept. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. In election news republican , president ial nominee Donald Trumps campaign appears to be in turmoil, with widening divisions both inside the Trump Campaign and between trump and Republican Party leaders. On tuesday, trumps running mate indiana governor mike pence endorsed House Speaker paul ryan in his wisconsin congressional race after trump refused to endorse ryan earlier this week. Instead, trump has praised ryans opponent in the race, saying he was running a very good campaign. Ryans opponent, paul nehlen, has defended trumps attack on khizr and ghazala khan, the parents of a u. S. Army captain who died serving in iraq in 2004. Congressmember ryan however, publicly distanced himself from trump over the comments. Trumps refusal to endorse ryan comes amid reports Trumps Campaign staff are beginning to panic. On monday, Trumps Campaign announced the firing of two senior advisers, including longtime republican strategist ed brookover, who had been trps aisohe rnc. On wemp Campaign Staffer told cnbc trumps staff were suicidal and that Campaign ManagerPaul Manafort was unable to control trump and was mailing it in. This comes as a number of Top Republicans have said in recent days they would support trumps rival Hillary Clinton. On wednesday, Newt Gingrich who until two weeks ago was considered a possible running mate for trump criticized trump. Still behaving like as though it was the primaries and there were 17 candidates. He has not maybe transition to being the potential president of the United States, which is a much tougher league. People are going to watch every single day and take everything they can out of context. He has is not yet performing at the level you need to. Amy later, Newt Gingrich walked back his comments, saying he was behind trump 100 . At a Campaign Rally in florida yesterday, trump sought to assure voters his campaign was fine. Mr. Trump i would say right now it is the best in terms of being united that it has been since we began. We are doing incredibly well. We are leading in the state of florida. You saw the polls. We are leading in ohio. We are about tied in pennsylvania, but i think we will be leading the next time so i think we have never been this united, and i just want to thank everybody for being here. This is incredible. Amy as Hillary Clinton campaigned on wednesday, she used a visit to colorado tie factory to chastise donald trump for making ties in china. She said meanwhile, trumps grasp of Foreign Policy has come up repeatedly as a potential issue if he were elected president. On msnbc on tuesday, host Joe Scarborough made this troubling claim about trump. , aseveral months ago foreignpolicy expert on the International Level went to advise donald trump. Three times he asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked. At one point, if we have them, why cant we use them . Amy Joe Scarborough made the claim during an interview with former cia director michael hayden. Hayden also expressed concern about how erratic trump is. The green Party President ial Convention Begins today in houston, texas. The agenda includes workshops on abolishing Constitutional Rights for corporations and how to run for public office. The presumptive green Party President ial nominee and her running mate, ajamu baraka, will. In more election news, progressive candidate Pramila Jayapal has won a congressional primary in Washington State with 38 of the vote. Jayapal was one of the first candidates to receive an endorsement from Bernie Sanders. She has championed initiatives that include expanding Social Security benefits, debtfree college, and a 15 minimum wage. Her win follows other congressional primary victories for progressives, including Zephyr Teachout in new york and jamie raskin in maryland. Meanwhile, in a congressional primary in kansas on tuesday, twoparty congressmember Tim Huelskamp lost in a landslide to john marshall, a political novice. Congressman huelskamp was a part of the rightwing freedom caucus, which battled repeatedly with former House Speaker john boehner. A widely circulated photo showed boehner toasting to huelskamps defeat. The Obama Administration said on wednesday the 400 million in cash paid to iran the same day as the release of americans detained there was not a ransom as some republicans have charged. The five hostages, including Washington Post reporter jason rezaian, were released in january. The white house had announced before the hostages release that it would send iran 400 million in funds as part of the landmark nuclear deal. The money has been oh to iran since the 1970s when the u. S. Refuse to give them weapons they had ari paid for. But the timing and nature of the transfer was only first reported in the wall street journal this week, fueling allegations it was linked to the release of the hostages. Civil Rights Groups, the Justice Department and the state of , texas have reached an agreement over the states voter id laws. A federal court ruling last month ordered the law be changed after finding it discriminated against African American and latino voters. Texas residents will now be allowed to cast ballots in novembers election even if they have none of the seven identifying documents that the law had required. This comes less than a week after courts nullified a similar voter id law in north carolina, and ordered wisconsin to expand its list of valid id cards and do away with other voting restrictions. The Supreme Court has blocked a court order requiring a Virginia School district to accommodate a transgender students request to use the male restroom. A Virginia Appeals Court ruled in favor of High School Student gavin grimm in april, saying the federal law title ix protects the rights of students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. But on wednesday, the Supreme Court blocked this ruling, saying it wanted to preserve the status quo until the Court Decides whether to hear grimms challenge to the school board. Wednesdays announcement marks the first time the Supreme Court has become involved with the issue of transgender bathroom rights. A federal judge has ordered a Coroners Office not to publicly release an autopsy report on the death of alton sterling, the African American man shot and killed by Police Officers in baton rouge, louisiana. East baton rouge parish coroner beau clark said it is the first time in his three years as coroner that a court order has sealed one of his offices reports. Sterlings death sparked nationwide protests against police brutality. Meanwhile in maryland new , details have emerged in the Police Shooting of an africanamerican woman after an armed standoff. Police say they shot and killed Korryn Gaines monday after she pointed a rifle at them. Her fiveyearold son was in the apartment with her and was injured by gunfire. Police initially said they entered Korryn Gainess apartment with a key obtained from her landlord. But Court Documents say police kicked down the door. Police were at gainess apartment to execute an arrest warrant related to a traffic violation. Police have not said who fired the shot that injured gainess son. Turning to north korea, where the government launched a Ballistic Missile on wednesday that crashed into the ocean near japan. It is the latest in a series of test launches by north korea and comes as a decision by the u. S. To place an antiMissile System in south korea has raised tensions in the region. In south korea, daily protests against the deployment the u. S. s thaad Missile System continued into their second week today. Residents of seongju county, southeast of seoul, have held daily demonstrations since their area was announced as the location for a missile base. The south korean government says it needs the missiles to counter threats from north korea, but not all South Koreans agree. This is south Korean NationalAssembly Member kim han jung. Fight motivation of the of the residence is that only about protecting their own interest and theyre not fighting alone. They fight for peace and the korean peninsula, for the good of their homeland. Amy in the philippines, police, military, and vigilantes have killed more than 400 people in a crackdown against drug crime since president Rodrigo Duterte took office a month ago. Human Rights Groups say many of those killed have been summarily shot or had nothing to do with the drug trade. More than 100,000 people have turned themselves in to police for drug offenses to avoid the prospect of a violent arrest. Prior to his election, duterte admitted to his role in death squads, joked about the gang rape of an australian missionary, and pledged to kill tens of thousands of people. President obama commuted the sentences of 214 federal prisoners wednesday. The white house says it is the largest number of prisoners granted clemency on a single day in at least the last 100 years. Almost all of those released had been convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. To date, obama has commuted the sentences of 562 federal prisoners more than the previous , nine president s combined. And missouris lead public defender has ordered missouri governor governor jay nixon to represent a defendant this month and efforts to protest governor nixons refusal to fund the public defenders office. Public defender Michael Barrett said he was using a provision of state law that allows him in to delegate legal representation to any lawyer in missouri. Nixon is a lawyer. Barrett said the governor has repeatedly declined to give the public defender system the money it requests and is withholding promised funding increases this year. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. A week ago today, Hillary Clinton made history by becoming the first woman to accept a majorParty President ial nomination. But clinton is not the only woman running for president this year. The Green Partys NationalConvention Opens today in houston, texas and dr. Jill , stein is expected to win the nomination. Last week, Juan Gonzalez and i hosted a debate between the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist chris hedges and former labor secretary robert reich about the president ial race. Hedges has endorsed stein. Reich is backing clinton after endorsing Bernie Sanders during the primaries. Reich served in bill clintons cabinet as labor secretary from 1993 to 1997. He now teaches at uc berkeley. We began the debate by asking robert reich about whether the Democratic Party would unite behind Hillary Clinton or whether a group of sanders supporters would go on to back dr. Jill stein. It is hard to tell what delegates are going to do an hard to tell for even harder to tell what the electorate is going to do. You know, this is a very agonizing time for many Bernie Sanders supporters. I, with a great deal of reluctance initially, because ive known Hillary Clinton for 50 years 50 years endorsed Bernie Sanders and worked my heart out for him, as many, many people did. And so at this particular juncture, theres a great deal of sadness and a great deal of feeling of regret. But having worked so long and so many years for basically the progressive ideals that Bernie Sanders stands for, i can tell you that the movement is going to continue. In fact, its going to grow. And right now, at this particular point in time, i just dont see any alternative but to support hillary. I know hillary. I know her faults. I know her strengths. I think she will make a great president. I supported Bernie Sanders because i thought he would make a better president for the system we need. But nonetheless, Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee. I support her. And i support her not only because she will be a good president , if not a great president , but also, frankly, because i am tremendously worried about the alternative. And the alternative, really, as a practical matter, is somebody who is a megalomaniac and a bigot, somebody who will set back the Progressive Movement decades, if not more. Amy chris hedges . Well, reducing the election to personalities is kind of infantile at this point. The fact is, we live in a system that Sheldon Wolin calls inverted totalitarianism. Its a system where Corporate Power has seized all of the levers of control. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs or exxonmobil or raytheon. Weve lost our privacy. Weve seen, under obama, an assault against Civil Liberties that has outstripped what george w. Bush carried out. Weve seen the executive branch misinterpret the 2001 authorization to use military force act as giving itself the right to assassinate american citizens, including children. I speak of anwar alawlakis 16yearold son. We have bailed out the banks, pushed through programs of austerity. This has been a bipartisan effort, because theyve both been captured by Corporate Power. We have undergone what John Ralston Saul correctly calls a corporate coup detat in slow motion, and its over. I just came back from poland, which is a kind of case study of how neoliberal poison destroys a society and creates figures like trump. Poland has gone, i think we can argue, into a neofascism. First, it dislocated the working class, deindustrialized the country. Then in the name of austerity, it destroyed public institutions, education, public broadcasting. And then it poisoned the political system. And we are now watching, in poland, them create a 30,000 to 40,000 armed militia. You know, they have an army. The Parliament Nothing works. And i think that this political system in the United States has seized up in exactly the same form. So is trump a repugnant personality . Yes. Although i would argue that in , terms of megalomania and narcissism, Hillary Clinton is not far behind. But the point is, weve got to break away from which is exactly the narrative they want us to focus on. Weve got to break away from political personalities and understand and examine and critique the