podesta_email_00566.txt

podesta-emails 52,661 words email

V15 V11 V9 D6 D3

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Press Clips* *May 23, 2015* SUMMARY OF TODAY’S NEWS Yesterday Hillary Clinton was in New Hampshire to speak about small business and community banks. She criticized congressional Republicans and presidential hopefuls for their opposition to Export-Import Bank, saying Friday that their priorities are "absolutely backwards" when it comes to helping Americans workers and businesses. The State Department released 300 emails that Hillary Clinton sent and received when she was secretary of state. The emails are the first tranche of many that will be released by the State Department over the next year. The news outlets covered the emails briefly and with little speculation, only noting that the GOP would not find a “smoking gun” in this release of emails. LAST NIGHTS EVENING NEWS ABC had a brief report on the State Department has released part of HRC’s emails, one has been classified. The emails show that HRC never sent classified information, but one email contains redacted information. Many of the emails are mundane and Republicans have yet to point to a smoking gun. CBS aired a two minute report on the release of almost 300 of HRC’s emails dealing with Benghazi on Friday; reported there were no major revelations in the emails; cuts to Nancy Cordes’ report; said the emails verify the confusion surrounding the aftermath of the Benghazi attacks; reported on both of the emails from Sidney Blumenthal that came after the attacks; reported many of the emails were heavily redacted including one about revised TPs that wrongly claimed the Benghazi attacks were spontaneous. NBC also included a report on the State Department emails including much of the same information; used footage of HRC’s answer at her press conference in New Hampshire on Friday about the classified email; reported the release included what may have been the last email HRC saw from Christopher Stevens; reported that HRC said she did not see Stevens’ emails where he warned of increased violence; reported the emails released show how concerned HRC’s team was about how she was portrayed and the political fallout from misleading talking points after the Benghazi attack. SUMMARY OF TODAY’S NEWS....................................................................... 1 LAST NIGHTS EVENING NEWS...................................................................... 1 TODAY’S KEY STORIES................................................................................... 4 *Hillary Clinton Says GOP Hopefuls Are Afraid to ‘Stand Up to the Tea Party and Talk Radio’* // Bloomberg // Jennifer Epstein - May 22, 2015................................................................................................... 4 *Clinton backs small business* // Union Leader // Jason Schreiber - May 22, 2015........................... 5 *Sorry, GOP. There’s No Smoking Gun In Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi Emails* // Daily Beast // Tim Mok - May 22, 2015........................................................................................................................................... 7 *Two Actual Everyday Americans Walk Into A Hillary Clinton Event…*.......................................... 11 *…and get crushed. The challenges of the “everyday” campaign.* // Buzzfeed // Ruby Cramer – May 22, 2015 11 SOCIAL MEDIA............................................................................................... 13 *Jay Rosen (5/22/2015;6:45 AM)*: In this dispatch from the campaign trail with HRC and reporters I defy you to find any point to the *exercise*..................................................................................................... 13 *Jennifer Epstein (5/22/2015; 2:07PM):* "There is no role whatsoever for American soldiers on the ground to go back" to Iraq except as trainers/advisers, Clinton says in NH"...................................................... 13 HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE......................................................................... 13 *State Department Releases Hillary Clinton Emails* // NYT // Michael S. Schmidt – May 22, 2015.. 13 *Hillary Discussed Speculation About Her Health With Aides In Emails* // Daily Caller // ALEX PAPPAS // May 22, 2015.................................................................................................................................... 14 *Clinton emails silent on deadly danger facing Americans in Benghazi* // Washington Examiner // BYRON YORK - MAY 22, 2015............................................................................................................................ 14 *First batch of Hillary's State Department emails released* // Politico // LAUREN FRENCH, JOSH GERSTEIN and BRYAN BENDER – May 22, 2015................................................................................................ 16 *Clinton’s Benghazi emails show correspondence with adviser* // Concord Monitor // Lisa Lerer - May 22, 2015................................................................................................................................................. 17 *Another day of damaging disclosures for Hillary* // Fox News // Chris Stirewait - May 22, 2015..... 18 *Blumenthal's hidden hand in Hillary's State Department* // Washington Examiner // Editorial Board - May 22, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 18 *Clinton Foundation Silent on Blumenthal’s Exit Date* // Washington Free Bacon // Alana Goodman - May 22, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 19 *Hillary Clinton's Surprisingly Effective Campaign* // The Atlantic // PETER BEINART - MAY 22, 2015 21 *On policy, Clinton plays it safe : With broad rhetoric but risk-averse stances, she tilts left without moving very far.* // Politico //ANNIE KARNI – May 22, 2015................................................................................. 22 *Clinton Foundation muscles the media* // AP // Jake Tapper - May 22, 2015................................ 25 *Hillary Clinton's dark whisperer is back* // Politico // Glenn Thrush - May 22, 2015...................... 28 *Clinton’s ‘Secret’ Email Accounts* // Fact Check // Eugene Kiely - May 22, 2015............................ 31 *Clinton N.H. trip interrupted by Benghazi e-mail release* // Boston Globe // James Pindell - May 22, 2015 36 *Insiders: Benghazi testimony works to Hillary's advantage* // Politico // Katie Glueck - May 22, 2015 37 *Clinton emails show concern about image after Benghazi* // Reuters // Mark Hosenball and Alistar Bell - May 22, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 40 First Batch of Hillary Clinton's Emails on Libya Made Public // NBC News // CARRIE DANN - May 22, 2015 42 *Clinton says she’s not running for a ‘third term’ of her husband or Obama* // WaPo // Robert Costa - May 22, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 43 *Hillary Clinton defends emails, slams GOP’s small business agenda* // MSNBC // Alex Seitz - Wald - May 22, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 43 *In a War-Torn Middle East, Clinton’s Legacy in Tunisia Is a Bit Brighter* // Newsweek // Emily Cadei - May 22, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 45 *Hillary Clinton Takes It to the People* // US News // David Cantanese - May 22, 2015................... 47 *Hillary Clinton Aims to Capture the Cool* // NYT // Jason Horowitz - May 22, 2015....................... 50 *Clinton campaigning in a bubble, largely isolated from real people* // McClatchy // Anita Kumar - May 21, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 53 *Journalists' contributions to Clinton Foundation raise credibility questions* // Baltimore Sun // Jules Witcover - May 22, 2015............................................................................................................................. 55 *Clinton: GOP threatening small-business jobs* // AP // Ken Thomas - May 22, 2015...................... 57 *Clinton’s claim that it takes longer to start a business in the U.S. than in Canada or France* // WaPo // Glenn Kessler- May 22, 2015................................................................................................................ 57 *Why Hillary Clinton Prefers to Talk About Community Banks* // TIME // Sam Frizell - May 21, 2015 59 *Hillary Clinton, Acutely Aware of Pitfalls, Avoids Press on Campaign Trail* // NYT // Jason Horowitz - May 22, 2015.......................................................................................................................................... 61 *Hillary Keeps It Boring* // Bloomberg // Margaret Carlson - May 22, 2015.................................... 64 *Koch organization attacks Hillary on Ex-Im bank* // Politico // Kenneth Vogel and Tarini Parti - May 22, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 66 *GOP chairman: Hillary a 'natural cheerleader' for Export-Import Bank* // The Hill // Kevin Cirill - May 22, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 67 *Republican PAC calls on Clinton to take clear position on trade agreement* // WMUR // John DiStaso - May 21, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 68 *Clinton the leader in Granite State Facebook traffic* // NH1 // Paul Steinhauser - May 22, 2015..... 69 *Hillary Clinton’s scripted campaign is starting to make New Hampshire mad* // Boston Globe // Nik DeCosta-Klipa -May 22, 2015................................................................................................................... 70 *New Hampshire paper blasts Hillary Clinton campaign for lame conference call* // WaPo // Erik Wemple - May 22, 2015.................................................................................................................................... 71 *New York Times does its best to be a 'real opponent' to Hillary Clinton* // Daily Kos // Laura Clawson - May 22, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 72 *Prospect of Hillary Clinton-Marco Rubio Matchup Unnerves Democrats* // NYT // Jeremy W. Peters - May 22, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 73 *Hillary Clinton's Accomplishment Deficit* // RCP // Jonah Goldberg - May 22, 2015...................... 76 OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE............................................ 78 *Clinton plants a flag in O'Malley's home state* // Baltimore Sun //John Fritze - May22, 2015....... 78 *O'Malley to campaign in Iowa hours after 2016 announcement* // AP // Catherine Lucey - May 22, 2015 81 *O’Malley has trips planned to Iowa and N.H. after ‘special announcement’* // WaPo // John Wagner - May 22, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 81 *Some Iowa Democrats prefer Sanders over Clinton* // Des Moines Register // Brianne Pfannenstiel - May 22, 2015................................................................................................................................................ 82 *Presidential Election Campaigning Underway in Iowa* // VOA // Kane Farabaugh -May 22, 2015.. 83 *Prospect of Hillary Clinton-Marco Rubio Matchup Unnerves Democrats* // NYT // Jeremy W. Peters - May 22, 2015......................................................................................................................................... 85 *A Win for Progressives in Philadelphia* // The Atlantic // Molly Ball - May 21, 2015...................... 88 GOP................................................................................................................ 89 *‘Optimistic’ Jeb Bush faces hard truths in New Hampshire swing* // MSNBC // Benjy Sarlin - May 22, 2015 89 *Jeb Bush’s War on Gay Adoption* // Daily Beast // Betsy Woodruff - May 22, 2015........................ 92 *Christie: Patriot Act debate is ‘dangerous’* // MSNBC // Jane C. Timm - May 22, 2015................... 96 *Chris Christie Says the Difference Between Coverage of Him and Hillary Reveals Biased Media* // IJRreview / Chris Enloe - May 22, 2015......................................................................................................... 98 *Florida's Jewish voters a target for 2016 Republicans, but a near lock for Democrats* // Tampa Bay News // Adam C. Smith and Kirby Wilson - May 22, 2015.................................................................................. 98 TOP NEWS.................................................................................................... 102 DOMESTIC................................................................................................ 103 *Senate Vote Is a Victory for Obama on Trade, but a Tougher Test Awaits* // NYT // Johnathan Weisman - May 22, 2015........................................................................................................................................ 103 *Obama Set to Strengthen Federal Role in Clean Water Regulation* // NYT // Coral Davenport -May 22, 2015 105 *Wal-Mart urges meat suppliers to curb antibiotic use* // Reuters // P.J. Huffstutter and Nathan Layne - May 22, 2015........................................................................................................................................ 107 INTERNATIONAL..................................................................................... 109 *Islamic State loyalists claim Saudi mosque attack* // AP // Abdullah Al-Shihri and Aya Batrawy - May 22, 2015............................................................................................................................................... 109 *In heavily Catholic Ireland, voters to decide on same-sex marriage* // LAT // Alexandra Zavis - May 22, 2015............................................................................................................................................... 111 OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS................................................................ 115 *The Trigger-Happy Generation* // WSJ // Peggy Noonan - May 22, 2015..................................... 115 *Traders hoped for a more interesting Yellen, got same old* // CNBC // Patti Domm - May 22, 2015 117 TODAY’S KEY STORIES Hillary Clinton Says GOP Hopefuls Are Afraid to ‘Stand Up to the Tea Party and Talk Radio’ <http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-22/hillary-clinton-says-gop-hopefuls-are-afraid-to-stand-up-to-the-tea-party-and-talk-radio-> // Bloomberg // Jennifer Epstein - May 22, 2015 As the State Department releases a batch of her e-mails, the Democratic front-runner takes aim at the right. Hillary Clinton chided congressional Republicans and presidential hopefuls for their opposition to Export-Import Bank, saying Friday that their priorities are "absolutely backwards" when it comes to helping Americans workers and businesses. "It is wrong that Republicans in Congress are trying to cut off this vital lifeline for small businesses," the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate said at Smuttynose Brewery in Hampton, N.H. "It seems as though they would rather threaten the livelihoods" of the estimated 164,000 workers whose jobs are supported by the bank "than stand up to the Tea Party and talk radio," she said. Clinton spoke at a roundtable on small business in the brewery's warehouse just as the State Department released a small trove of her e-mails on Libya. She did not address the release but kept her focus on exports, community banks and other issues related to small business. The Export-Import Bank guarantees loans for American businesses involved in exporting products. Its authorization expires June 30, and some Republicans have voiced strong opposition to keeping the agency alive. The Chamber of Commerce and other establishment groups continue to support the bank, but conservative groups such as Americans for Prosperity and the Club for Growth want to see it dismantled. Speaking before the latter group in February, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said the bank was one of sources of government overreach that he believes "should be phased out." Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been opposed to the agency since at least 2012 and has reiterated his position in recent weeks. Other Republican presidential candidates also want to see the bank lose its charter. The bank's current chairman, Fred Hochberg, is a longtime Clinton supporter who helped raise money for Hillary Clinton in 2008. He's contributed more than $18,000 to various Clinton political campaigns and has also given between $10,000 and $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Clinton backs small business <http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150522/NEWS0605/150529641&template=mobileart#sthash.xyyPNHXS.dpuf> // Union Leader // Jason Schreiber - May 22, 2015 HAMPTON — Surrounded by beer kegs at the Smuttynose Brewing Company, Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton met with locals Friday to talk about ways to strengthen small businesses, which she described as an engine for economic growth. During her second campaign visit to New Hampshire, the former First Lady and U.S. Secretary of State spent much of her time at Smuttynose batting around ideas for small business growth with a panel of seven local business leaders. "I want to be the small business President," Clinton said during a roundtable discussion before an audience of about 80 people inside a warehouse at the Hampton brewery. Later in the day, Clinton traveled to downtown Exeter, where she met with about 50 supporters at the Water Street Bookstore. At the rally, Clinton said she’s not running for a third Bill Clinton or Barack Obama term but wants to continue their "positive results," according to a pool report. She wrapped up her day with a final public stop at Moo’s Place, an ice cream shop in Derry, the pool report said. After touring the brewery earlier in the day, Clinton sat down at a table where there were no mugs of beer, but panelists were treated to water in Smuttynose glasses. Clinton took notes as she listened to Smuttynose co-owners Peter Egelston and Joanne Francis and other local business owners talk about their successes and the challenges they’ve faced growing their companies. Clinton shared her thoughts on expanding small businesses, expanding access to capital, tax relief for small businesses, and the need to access new markets. She said the local brewery exemplifies a lot of the reasons why she’s talking a lot about small businesses. Clinton said she wants to make it easier for small businesses to grow "so it feels less like a gamble." While the event was about business, Clinton said her campaign will focus on ensuring the economy is running "full steam" ahead with job creation and rising incomes; making sure families and communities are strong; fixing what she calls a dysfunctional political system; and dealing with the threats being faced in the world today. Clinton also addressed the debate in Congress over keeping the U.S. Export-Import Bank open. The bank is an independent federal agency that fills gaps in private export financing by offering financing, including working capital guarantees and export credit insurance, to promote sales of American goods and services abroad. Many conservative Republicans want to let the Export-Import Bank’s charter expire on June 30. "Assistance from the Export-Import Bank supported hundreds of millions of dollars in exports by small businesses here in New Hampshire over the past five years," Clinton said, adding that Ex-Im supports up to 164,000 jobs nationally. "It is wrong that Republicans in Congress are trying to cut off this vital lifeline for American small businesses. It’s wrong that candidates for President, who really should know better, are jumping on the bandwagon. In fact, it seems as though they would rather threaten the livelihood of those 164,000 jobs than stand up to Tea Party and talk radio," she said. Clinton also talked about the middle class, saying one thing that hasn’t changed are the values that "made the middle class mean something." "That is true for my family and generations of families like mine. Being middle class should mean you feel control (over) your own financial future, you have confidence that everything you’ve worked for won’t be lost in a flash particularly because of actions taken by people and institutions over which you have no control and are not a part of the decision making," she said. Clinton took no questions from audience members, most of whom were supporters who either reached out to the brewery to get a seat or were contacted by the campaign. Town hall meetings with voters haven’t been a part of her campaign so far, but supporters said they’re hopeful they’ll be coming soon. "I think that she’s trying to make this campaign a little bit different than the last campaign. She’s going small and then going big. I understand her emphasis on small businesses and getting to know the individuals in a smaller setting," said supporter Rich Green, 26, of Durham. Hampton Democrat Lenore Patton, 78, also wasn’t worried about the lack of town hall meetings. "I say to people when they tell me that, ‘Do you realize how far the election is from today and the time there is going to be to campaign?’" said Patton, who is vice chairman of the Rockingham County Democrats but wasn’t speaking on behalf of the group. Outside the brewery, supporters gathered with signs. Corina Chao, 19, of Hampton, held a sign that read, "A woman’s place is in the House, Senate and Oval Office." Chao has never heard Clinton speak, but has followed her since her 2012 campaign and is excited to vote in her first presidential election. "I’ve always liked her and I’ve liked the idea of a woman President, but that’s not the only reason I support her. Of course she’s on the right side of all the issues that I care about, especially from my generation, like LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights, raising the minimum wage (and) making college more affordable," she said. Sorry, GOP. There’s No Smoking Gun In Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi Emails <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/22/sorry-gop-there-s-no-smoking-gun-in-hillary-clinton-s-benghazi-emails.html?google_editors_picks=true> // Daily Beast // Tim Mok - May 22, 2015 Conspiracy-minded conservatives, be warned: The trove of Clinton emails don’t prove much about her culpability for the infamous 9/11 anniversary attacks. If Republicans were looking for a silver bullet to use against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the State Department’s Friday document dump about Benghazi wasn’t it. There’s no illicit weapons Libyan program to be found in the emails, as some have speculated. No ‘stand-down’ order. Just a hectic flow of information to and from Hillary Clinton—about danger, about death, and ultimately, about condolences. The State Department released Friday 296 emails involving Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State, from 2009 to 2013. The documents include some 300 emails related to Benghazi, which were turned over to the Congressional committee investigating the 2012 attacks. The attacks left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. The hundreds of emails released by the agency show a Secretary of State who was deeply engaged on Libyan issues—but usually just in a crisis. While Clinton was a key proponent of intervening in Libya to protect civilians under threat from then-Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi, her emails show that she took a largely hands off approach towards the country. Of course, this document trove is an incomplete view, at best. It excludes any phone calls, briefings or memos. It doesn’t include the emails that were deleted by Clinton—and we know there were many. (Republicans noted “inexplicable gaps” in Secretary Clinton’s emails over several time periods, such as from Oct. 2011 to Jan. 2012, and from April 2012 to July 2012. ) And it was released by a State Department that was formerly helmed by Clinton and is still part of a Democratic administration. But according to her Benghazi-related email traffic, Clinton appears to be only been involved at times of crisis and even then deferred to those on the ground, including Stevens and friends outside government. Clinton’s emails show that the late Amb. Christopher Stevens had multiple brushes with danger in Benghazi in 2011—more than a year before the September 2012 attacks that would ultimately take his life. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received an update about Stevens’ 2011 security situation: that there had been intelligence indicating a credible threat to his safety, and that officials were moving swiftly out of the hotel he was staying at in Benghazi. “There is credible threat info against the hotel that our team is using—and the rest of the Intl community is using, for that matter… DS [Diplomatic Security] going to evacuate our people to alt locations. Info suggested attack in next 24-48 hours,” wrote top Clinton aide Jacob Sullivan in an email to Clinton on June 10, 2011, with the subject line, ‘Hotel in Benghazi.’ At the time Stevens was a special envoy to Libya, and the U.S. had joined a U.N. campaign to set up a no-fly zone to assist rebels in the overthrow of Muammar Qadhafi. In a separate incident, in April 2011, a State Department official wrote: “The situation in Ajdabiyah has worsened to the point Stevens is considering departure from Benghazi. The envoy’s delegation is currently doing a phased checkout (paying the hotel bills, moving some comms to the boat, etc). He will monitor the situation to see if it deteriorates further, but no decision has been made on departure.” The communications received by the Secretary of State illustrate the fast pace of security decisions made on the ground—but don’t show Clinton with a direct role in these decisions. For example, there’s no indication that Clinton intervened in the decision-making process when told about Stevens’ 2011 security scares. Clinton was heavily criticized when it emerged in March that she had used a private email server to conduct business while she was Secretary of State. Her private email accounts prevented the normal process of archiving official government records. Clinton’s staff had turned over some 55,000 pages of email correspondence to the State Department in December 2014. Democrats on the Select Benghazi Committee had urged the release of Benghazi-related emails for months. Clinton herself had urged the State Department to swiftly publish the emails, telling reporters earlier this week that she wanted them in the public domain as soon as possible. “I am pleased that the State Department released the complete set of Secretary Clinton’s emails about Benghazi—as Democrats requested months ago,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee. The American people can now read all of these emails and see for themselves that they contain no evidence to back up claims that Secretary Clinton ordered a stand-down, approved an illicit weapons program, or any other wild allegation Republicans have made for years. In the time between the June 2011 security scare and the September 2012 terrorist attacks, the mood in Libya ebbed and flowed—Stevens left Libya in November 2011 before returning as U.S. ambassador in May 2012. In July, Libya held national elections which went off well, leading to people heralding the country worldwide. Meanwhile, Islamist flags had emerged on buildings throughout Benghazi. The correspondence in summer 2012 shows a somewhat positive situation in Libya: the last email from Stevens that Clinton receives paints a rosy picture: in July 2012 Sen. John McCain is in Tripoli, Libya, being lauded for his support of the rebels. “The atmosphere in Tripoli is very festive,” Stevens wrote in one email on July 7, 2012. “The gov’t declared today a holiday and people are driving around honking and waving flags and making peace sign gestures… McCain was applauded and thanked for his support wherever we went.” The world’s focus doesn’t dwell on Libya, and Clinton doesn’t receive additional emails about Benghazi again until the 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities. By September 2012, the situation in Libya had deteriorated. In a diary entry on Sept. 6, Stevens wrote about a “security vacuum” and “dicey conditions,” even suggesting that he was on an “Islamist ‘hit list’ in Benghazi.” On the fateful day of Sept. 11, 2012, at approximately 4 p.m. in Washington, D.C., the first attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound occurred. Clinton had previously testified (PDF) that she was at the State Department that day, which could explain why she did not send or receive a large volume of emails about Benghazi. She becomes more active on emails that evening, and at 11:37 p.m., she receives word through her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills that the Libyan government had confirmed Amb. Steven’s death. “Cheryl told me the Libyans confirmed his death. Should we announce tonight or wait until morning?” Clinton wrote in an email to top aides. Throughout the morning after the initial attacks she has a lot of activity: in particular she received a large number of messages expressing condolences to her and the State Department over the death of the ambassador. “The Ambassador was a perfect role model of the kind of person we need representing us around the world, and the others had so much to give—and already had given so much,” said former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. “What a wonderful, strong and moving statement by your boss. please tell her how much Sen. McCain appreciated it. Me too,” wrote a top national security aide for Sen. John McCain. That weekend, Clinton continued to exchange emails on the Benghazi issue. On Saturday Sept. 15, the day before Susan Rice appeared on cable shows to make the since-rescinded claim that the Benghazi attacks were the result of protests-turned-violent, Clinton was involved arranging calls from her home and the collection of an action memo via classified courier. The emails give insight into how Clinton operated at the time: using classified couriers to move memos and getting on the phone with other world leaders, rather than using email. None of the released emails show Clinton being involved with Rice’s appearance on the Sunday shows, or the discussion of what Rice should say. She does, however, receive a transcript of what Rice would eventually say. Findings of the Republican-led Select committee on Benghazi may not be released until sometime in 2016, in the thick of campaign season. If the Select Committee continues to operate through the end of the 2015, its estimated cost will rise to $6 million dollars. The House Select Committee on Benghazi was established in May 2014. If it continues through to the end of 2015, it will have been investigating for 19 months—longer than other major, comparable investigations. (To compare, the joint inquiry into the intelligence community’s actions with regard to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks took less than a year. The Senate Watergate committee operated for about 17 months before presenting its findings. And the Warren Commission on the assassination of President Kennedy operated for under a year.) The release of Friday’s Benghazi-related emails has itself been months in the waiting: the State Department had been going through an excruciating process of assessing the emails for any information that would show sensitive or personally identifiable information, and then removing it. The State Department will now turn its attention to performing the same task on thousands of Clinton emails that are not related to Benghazi. In fact, Hillary Clinton’s email correspondence has the potential to generate headlines at least through the end of the year, acting as a disruptive force that distracts from her presidential campaign. For Republican committee chairman Trey Gowdy, the release of these emails are just the first step in a long slog to “collect and evaluate all of the relevant and material information necessary.” Gowdy said that the emails released Friday had all been exclusively reviewed and released only after review by her own lawyers. Earlier this week, a federal judge had dismissed a State Department plan to release her email archives, comprised of some 55,000 pages of emails, by January 2016. Instead, the judge asked the State Department to come up with a plan to gradually release the emails in stages. In the nearer term, Hillary Clinton is expected to appear before the Select Committee on Benghazi, Gowdy said last week that he will not schedule the former Secretary of State’s testimony until the State Department turns over more documents. “The Select Committee should schedule Secretary Clinton’s public testimony now and stop wasting taxpayer money dragging out this political charade to harm Secretary Clinton’s bid for president,” Cummings, a Democrat, said Friday. The New York Times obtained and published about a third of the Clinton Benghazi emails earlier this week, revealing that longtime Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal had frequently written to her about Libya, serving as a source of information about the country before and after the 2012 attacks. While Blumenthal had originally blamed demonstrators in the American diplomatic facility in Benghazi, a subsequent memo fingered a Libyan terrorist group for the attacks, arguing that they had used the demonstrations as cover for the violence. This week, the Select Committee on Benghazi subpoenaed Blumenthal to appear before the panel. Two Actual Everyday Americans Walk Into A Hillary Clinton Event… <http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/two-actual-everyday-americans-walk-into-a-hillary-clinton-ev?utm_term=.olBm2ZOKv#.lyyG25PyW> …and get crushed. The challenges of the “everyday” campaign. <http://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/two-actual-everyday-americans-walk-into-a-hillary-clinton-ev?utm_term=.olBm2ZOKv#.lyyG25PyW> // Buzzfeed // Ruby Cramer – May 22, 2015 HAMPTON, N.H. — When they heard Hillary Clinton would be here on Friday in Hampton — a small coastal town just south of the Maine border — Lenore and Gary Patton contacted the campaign. They wanted to lend a hand as volunteers. The morning of the event — a roundtable discussion about small businesses at the locally owned Smuttynose Brewing Company — the Pattons arrived early, help set up, and secured the best spot in the house: front row, first two seats. Lenore, 78, and Gary, 77, had a perfect view of the candidate. Had this been a typical event, the Pattons may not have been able to attend. Clinton aides emphasize — in every email, memo, and press release — that this campaign is about “everyday Americans.” But as a result of efforts to keep each gathering intimate — allowing Clinton to best “get the input of everyday Americans” — few Americans of that particular stripe actually end up in the room. Clinton’s campaign functions are typically so small that there is barely an audience, just a handful of invited guests, often local Democratic officials. Last month, before her first event in New Hampshire, a group of young supporters stood outside the venue in the rain, hoping to catch a glimpse of the candidate. Clinton never materialized. But every now and then, one could be seen at the window, face pressed to the glass, hands cupped on either side for a better view. The roundtable in Hampton was Clinton’s largest yet. About 60 people came — including the Pattons, who described themselves as local activists who “fervently supported” Barack Obama in 2008 and now “fervently support” Clinton. The rest of the group was a mix: some invited by the campaign, some invited by the brewery, and others who’d simply asked to come. According to a Clinton aide, the campaign was able to accommodate nearly every request to attend that they received. For about an hour, the Pattons and the five other dozen guests watched Clinton, alongside her seven roundtable participants, discuss in granular detail the challenges facing small businesses. And then the spell of the everyday was broken. Clinton was swarmed by reporters. From the aisle, pressed up against a wall of beer cases stacked to the ceiling on pallet shelves, they gathered in a thick circle that happened to coalesce right around the two best seats in the house. Lenore and Gary Patton could not talk to the candidate they had come to see. They could not even get out of their chairs. Cameras flashed wildly. Lenore was crunched. Gary had a tape recorder in his right ear, a television camera in his left, and microphones just overhead. They were inches from Clinton, with her “in the eye of the hurricane,” as Gary put it after watching her field questions on Iraq, her emails, and her image. (“Do you have a perception problem?”) “I’m gonna let the Americans decide that,” Clinton replied on her way out. “Hey,” Gary said to no in particular. “She’s smart. She’s experienced. End of story.” But most people had left by then. One reporter turned to the Pattons to remark on their good view. “Well, we could hardly help it,” Gary said. “We couldn’t get out.” There was a certain disconnect the Pattons felt they had just witnessed. “My God, end of story. Stop telling me about the tape recorders,” Gary said, referring to the media swarm. “This woman has what it takes.” “She has ideas for the direction of the country,” said Lenore. “She cares about the middle class. We’re about as middle class as you can get.” “She’s so experienced, she’s so bright, and she’s so adroit,” her husband added. “And I came in here not necessarily feeling all of those things, but I go away thinking that we would be lucky to have her as the president, because she has so many attributes that you need.” “It’s an incredibly impressive performance,” he said. Clinton announced this week that her first rally wouldn’t be until June 13, a month later than originally expected, kicking off what aides have signaled will be a faster, bigger phase of the campaign. On Friday afternoon, at her second event of the trip, Clinton suggested that she’d prefer to push that all back indefinitely — staving off for a little bit longer the reality that her campaign isn’t small, intimate, or everyday. “Some people had asked me, particularly in the press, ‘When are you going to have really big events?” she told a group of supporters. “And I said, ‘Later, later, later…’” SOCIAL MEDIA Jay Rosen (5/22/2015;6:45 AM) <https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/601745743314034688>: In this dispatch from the campaign trail with HRC and reporters I defy you to find any point to the exercise <file:///C:\Users\aphillips\Downloads\nytimes.com\2015\05\23\us\politics\hillary-clinton-acutely-aware-of-pitfalls-avoids-press-on-campaign-trail.html>. Jennifer Epstein (5/22/2015; 2:07PM): <https://twitter.com/jeneps> "There is no role whatsoever for American soldiers on the ground to go back" to Iraq except as trainers/advisers, Clinton says in NH" HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE State Department Releases Hillary Clinton Emails <http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/22/state-department-releases-more-hillary-clinton-emails/?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news> // NYT // Michael S. Schmidt – May 22, 2015 WASHINGTON — The State Department said on Friday it was releasing 296 emails that Hillary Rodham Clinton sent and received when she was secretary of state. The emails are the first tranche of many that will be released by the State Department over the next year. After it was revealed in March that Mrs. Clinton had exclusively used a personal email account when she was secretary of state, she asked the State Department to release all of the emails she had provided it from her time in office. The State Department said the emails it was releasing Friday were provided to a specially appointed House committee investigating the 2012 attack on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya. The emails were sent from January 2011 and December 2012, the State Department said. The New York Times on Thursday obtained and published an initial batch of the emails online. “The emails we release today do not change the essential facts or our understanding of the events before, during, or after the attacks, which have been known since the independent Accountability Review Board report on the Benghazi attacks was released almost two and a half years ago,” the State Department said. The website that the State Department uses was not working on Friday when it said it was releasing the emails. Hillary Discussed Speculation About Her Health With Aides In Emails <http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/22/hillary-discussed-speculation-about-her-health-with-aides-in-emails/> // Daily Caller // ALEX PAPPAS // May 22, 2015 Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed with aides the chatter on cable news about whether she actually suffered a concussion in 2012, according to emails released by the State Department on Friday. A week before she was to testify before Congress in December 2012 about the attacks in Benghazi, Clinton postponed her appearance with aides explaining she had fainted and suffered a concussion. On Dec. 20, chief of staff Cheryl Mills forwarded Clinton by email a transcript of Fox News host Greta Van Susteren discussing Clinton’s health with Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain. “Senator,” Van Susteren said during that segment, “there is a report from the State Department that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify on Benghazi before the middle of January. There has been some criticism of whether or not she has a concussion. I believe she has a concussion. What do you think?” McCain replied: “I have never seen her back down. And I believe that she is now not physically well enough to testify and she will testify the middle of January.” Mills sent a transcript of that interview to Clinton’s personal email — [email protected] — and to close aide Huma Abdein. Speaking of McCain, Clinton replied: “Huma called him and [South Carolina Sen. Lindsey] Graham.” “Also,” Clinton added, “someone should call Greta VS to thank her for ‘knowing the truth.’” The emails released Friday, ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, are a few of the thousands the Democratic presidential candidate has turned over to the State Department from her personal email account. Clinton acknowledges she used that email account for both personal and official business. Clinton emails silent on deadly danger facing Americans in Benghazi <http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-emails-silent-on-deadly-danger-facing-americans-in-benghazi/article/2564920> // Washington Examiner // BYRON YORK - MAY 22, 2015 The newly-released Hillary Clinton Benghazi emails do not contain any communications relating to security from the critical last month before the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. facility in Libya. During that period, Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who along with three other Americans would die in the attack, warned Clinton and other State Department officials of a growing danger, indeed a security emergency, in Libya. Stevens specifically noted that the possibility of an attack on Americans was growing, and, if such an attack occurred, the U.S. contingent did not have the strength to repel it. But to judge from the emails made public Friday, Clinton gave not a thought to the matter. Go back to August 2012. On the 15th of that month, U.S. security officers in Libya held an "emergency" meeting to address the very real possibility that growing violence in the area could soon target Americans. The next day, August 16, Stevens sent a cable to Clinton concluding that the Americans in Libya could not defend U.S. facilities "in the event of a coordinated attack, due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound." It was a clear call for help, one that, judging by the newly-public emails, went entirely unheard at the highest level of the State Department. Apart from some hugger-mugger analyses of Libyan politics by Clinton's friend Sidney Blumenthal, there is nothing at all in the emails concerning Benghazi from the month before the attack. Clinton has long maintained she never saw the August 16, 2012 cable. "That cable did not come to my attention," Clinton testified under oath before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January 2013. "I have made it very clear that the security cables did not come to my attention or above the assistant-secretary level, where the [State Department internal investigation] placed responsibility." Clinton explained that she was simply too busy, and there were simply too many cables, for her to see every0ne. "One-point-43 million cables a year come to the State Department," she told the House committee. "They're all addressed to me. They do not all come to me." But wasn't that August 16, 2012 cable -- warning of dire consequences should the existing violence in Libya target Americans -- a pretty important communication? What struck Republicans investigating Benghazi is that, while they knew Clinton was indeed busy, other equally busy top Obama administration officials did read the cable. In an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, both former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey -- two busy men with pretty big jobs -- testified they knew about it. "You were aware that Ambassador Stevens -- of his cable that said that the consulate could not withstand a coordinated attack, is that right?" Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte asked Panetta. "Correct," said Panetta. "General, you had said that you previously were aware of that?" Ayotte aid to Dempsey. "Yes, I was aware of the communication back to the State Department," Dempsey answered. Clinton, on the other hand, insists to this day that she knew nothing. And there is nothing in the newly-released emails to contradict her sworn testimony on the matter. That should not come as a surprise to anyone. After all, because Clinton kept her communications on a separate, secret system, the only emails that State Department officials possess are the ones Clinton has given them. Clinton and her lawyers, of course, chose the emails that she gave to the State Department and then destroyed all of her email communications, including backups. Could anyone possibly be surprised that nothing Clinton turned over to the State Department -- and ultimately to the public -- contradicted her testimony under oath? The period leading up to the Benghazi attacks is the most critical time in the entire tragic episode. What did Clinton know about the danger to American officials there, and what did she do about it? That is the key question of Benghazi. What happened afterward -- the blame-the-video spin -- can be interpreted as an attempt to cover up Clinton's inaction before the attack. Yes, the spin campaign was dishonest. But the more serious offense was allowing the conditions that led to the deaths of Stevens and three other Americans. The crime is worse than the cover-up. And if Republicans thought they would receive any new information in the Clinton-edited version of the emails released Friday, they will surely be disappointed. First batch of Hillary's State Department emails released <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/hillary-clinton-emails-release-118214.html> // Politico // LAUREN FRENCH, JOSH GERSTEIN and BRYAN BENDER – May 22, 2015 The first batch of emails from Hillary Clinton’s four years running the State Department was released Friday. Even before the emails were made public, the State Department argued that the nearly 900 pages of documents do not fundamentally alter the findings of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board that probed the Benghazi terrorist attacks. “The emails we release today do not change the essential facts or our understanding of the events before, during, or after the attacks, which have been known since the independent Accountability Review Board report on the Benghazi attacks was released almost two and a half years ago,” wrote the department’s deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf. These highly anticipated emails, some of which have already leaked out, give insight into Clinton’s tenure as the top U.S. diplomat. They’re also serving as fodder for critics of the Democratic presidential front-runner, who is still dogged by questions about a 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens. And they are sure to raise more questions about the administration’s and Clinton’s response to what quickly became a political scandal. There is an email dated Sept. 15 with Clinton providing “talking points” for an upcoming closed-door hearing before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, but with the exception of Jake Sullivan the recipients are blacked out, along with the entire document. It states only: “Per the discussion at Deputies, here are the revised TPs for HPSCI.” The emails also show that Clinton received now-classified documents on her personal email address. One of the documents State recently deemed classified was a November 2012 email reporting possible arrests in Libya related to the Benghazi attack. The memo was sent through unclassified State Department channels and forwarded to Clinton’s private account by Sullivan, State’s Director of Policy Planning. A notation on the document released says it was classified as –“SECRET”—the middle tier of national security classification—on Friday, the same day the records were released. Clinton has been under intense pressure for weeks since it was revealed that she used a non-official email address while at the State Department and stored those emails on a personal server in her New York home. Republicans jumped on those revelations to accuse Clinton of attempting to runaround federal records laws and keep key documents about Libya and Benghazi from the public. Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, has subpoenaed the State Department for all documents on Libya from Clinton’s time at the State Department and is refusing to schedule the former secretary to testify until the Obama administration turns the emails over to congressional investigators. Clinton’s Benghazi emails show correspondence with adviser <http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/16992325-95/clintons-benghazi-emails-show-correspondence-with-adviser> // Concord Monitor // Lisa Lerer - May 22, 2015 A batch of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails from her time as secretary of state show her corresponding with a longtime adviser about the Libyan rebellion against Moammar Gadhafi and the Benghazi attack. The set of messages, which were published yesterday by the New York Times, focus on the 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens. The emails – many of which are marked “sensitive but unclassified” – show the role played by Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime Clinton family confidante, who was working for the Clinton family foundation and advising a group of entrepreneurs trying to win business from the Libyan transitional government. Blumenthal, who was not an employee of the State Department at the time, repeatedly wrote dispatches about the events in Libya to Clinton, who often forwarded them to senior diplomatic officials. Clinton has faced months of controversy after revealing that she used a private email address while working as secretary of state, rather than a government address, and failed to preserve all of her messages. This week, a district court judge ruled that the agency must set a timetable to release the 55,000 remaining pages. The portion of the emails about the events in Libya have already been given for review to a special House panel investigating the attacks. They are expected to be released by the State Department in the coming days after months of delay. Clinton had initially been expected to testify this week on the attacks, but her testimony was put off after panel chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., complained that he lacked the necessary State Department documents to thoroughly question her. Speaking after a campaign stop in Iowa this week, Clinton urged the agency to make her emails public as quickly as possible. Another day of damaging disclosures for Hillary <http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/22/another-day-damaging-disclosures-for-hillary/> // Fox News // Chris Stirewait - May 22, 2015 If the first rule of scandal management is to completely purge the damaging information and cauterize the wound, Hillary Clinton is failing badly. We learned today that Clinton’s family foundation hid $26 million in foreign and corporate contributions as “revenue” on the grounds that the presumptive Democratic nominee or her husband or daughter gave speeches in exchange for the gifts. The donors include a Chinese energy consortium, a Nigerian newspaper and Citibank. And later today we will get the first wave of her emails from a secret server. “This is coming from individual who when she worked in State Department didn’t obey the law to begin with, which said she should have had an official email on an official government server. So she’s already broken the law once, so now we’re to trust her that the ones she turned over are all of emails? I personally won’t be satisfied till we look at the server.” – Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on “America’s Newsroom” Blumenthal's hidden hand in Hillary's State Department <http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/blumenthals-hidden-hand-in-hillarys-state-department/article/2564868> // Washington Examiner // Editorial Board - May 22, 2015 The New York Times ran an alarming report this week on how Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton aide from the 1990s and an employee of the Clinton Foundation, may have helped shape U.S. policy in Libya. Despite being barred by former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel from employment at the State Department when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to hire him in 2009, Blumenthal passed intelligence to Clinton at an email address she had previously maintained she did not use at the time. She evidently took his advice very seriously, routinely forwarding his unvetted memos to senior diplomats. Her aide would anonymize the memos, concealing the fact that Blumenthal — a polarizing figure known in the 1990s for ruthlessly attacking the Clintons' critics, and accused of attacking Obama during the 2008 campaign — was their source. Blumenthal's information "appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional government," the Times revealed. Much of the information Blumenthal handed over was wrong — in some cases ignorantly so, as when he confused two different politicians who had the same last name. But Blumenthal had Clinton's ear, so that his intelligence was disseminated anyway throughout the upper echelons of the State Department. Clinton even recommended passing information from one of his unvetted memos — purporting to describe the attitude of Libya's new president toward Israel — to the Israeli government. The revelation of Blumenthal and his scurrilous, possibly self-serving rumors raises the question of exactly who was running things during Clinton's tenure at the State Department, and just how public-spirited their goals were. This would not be nearly as much of an issue if the U.S. military intervention in Libya had gone well. The fact that it has been a disaster — nearly as big as the invasion of Iraq, albeit with fewer American casualties — makes the situation even more troubling. Since the U.S. intervention, Libya has become a failed state featuring rival governments, warring militias and hundreds of thousands of internally and externally displaced persons. It is also a new locus of power for the fanatics of the Islamic State terrorist group, who have become known for proudly posting video of their crimes against humanity online. The Times report is dispiriting and raises many grave questions. For example, Blumenthal seems to have had Clinton's ear in a way that American diplomats, with their repeated requests for additional security at their vulnerable facilities, did not. But more to the point, he had access to a gullible or complicit top government official who was willing to treat his word as fact. If used in a proper and convincing way, this access could have put the resources of the U.S. government into the service of helping Blumenthal and his business partners make a considerable amount of money, even if they never succeeded in doing so. Clinton Foundation Silent on Blumenthal’s Exit Date <http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-foundation-silent-on-blumenthals-exit-date/> // Washington Free Bacon // Alana Goodman - May 22, 2015 Controversial Clinton pal Sidney Blumenthal is no longer on the Clinton Foundation payroll, but it is still unclear when he left and under what circumstances. A spokesperson for the foundation told the Washington Free Beacon that Blumenthal ”hasn’t worked here in a while,” but did not confirm when he left or why. Blumenthal did not respond to request for comment. The New York Times reported on Monday that Blumenthal was simultaneously working for the foundation, entities with business interests in Libya, and providing foreign policy advice to Hillary Clinton while she was at the State Department. The congressional committee investigating the Benghazi attack subpoenaed Blumenthal on Tuesday for a closed-door deposition, which could take place as early as June 3. According to the Times, Blumenthal sent Clinton numerous emails with advice on Libya policy, which she then passed on to other State Department officials. Some of the messages mentioned officials related to Blumenthal’s business interests, while others included information that seemed dubious to State Department officials. At the time, Blumenthal was also being paid as an adviser to the Clinton Foundation, according to the Times. Blumenthal, a former journalist who became an advisor to President Bill Clinton, used his media clout to help defend the Clintons in the 1990s. But some critics accused him of underhanded tactics. According to his long-time former friend, the late journalist Christopher Hitchens, Blumenthal shopped around false stories about Monica Lewinsky in an attempt to discredit her during the Kenneth Starr investigation. Blumenthal’s ties to the Clintons came under new scrutiny in 2013, after his private emails advising Hillary Clinton on Libya policy were leaked by a hacker known as Guccifier. Later that year, Blumenthal began promoting a controversial anti-Israel book written by his son, Max Blumenthal, and launched a behind-the-scenes attack campaign against the book’s critics. The book, Goliath, compared the Israel government to Nazi Germany and painted the Jewish state as inherently racist. It was endorsed by the white supremacist David Duke’s website, and landed Max Blumenthal on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of the “Top 10 Global Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel Slurs.” The left-leaning columnist Eric Alterman wrote in the Nation that the book “could have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed).” In response, Sidney Blumenthal launched an attack campaign against Alterman by blasting the columnist’s credibility in a widely circulated mass email reported by BuzzFeed. He also hosted the book launch party for Goliath at his home, the Free Beacon reported. At the time, media outlets were stonewalled by the Clinton Foundation when they asked whether Sidney Blumenthal was on the payroll. Blumenthal also fled from a Free Beacon reporter who asked whether he was being paid by the foundation. At the time, Clinton ally Alan Dershowitz called on the Clintons to cut ties with Blumenthal if he did not distance himself from the views expressed in the book. “In light of the long association between the Clintons and Sid Blumenthal, I hope that the Clintons ask Sid to expressly disasscoate himself from his son’s views–and if he refuses to, that they no longer work with him on any matters,” Dershowitz told Breitbart News. Hillary Clinton defended her long-time adviser on Tuesday in response to the new revelations. “We’ve been friends for a long time,” said Clinton during an event in Iowa. “He sent me e-mails I passed on in some instances. That’s part of the give and take. … I’m going to keep talking to my old friends, whoever they are.” Hillary Clinton's Surprisingly Effective Campaign <http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/hillary-clintons-2016-campaign/393872/?utm_source=SFTwitter> // The Atlantic // PETER BEINART - MAY 22, 2015 Hillary Clinton has been an official candidate for president for five weeks, and she still hasn’t done the thing most candidates do on day one: given a speech laying out her vision for America. Nor is she planning on doing so anytime soon. Politico reports that Hillary’s “why I’m running for president,” speech, initially scheduled for May, has now been delayed until June, or even later. There’s a reason for that: The speech is unlikely to be very good. Soaring rhetoric and grand themes have never been Hillary’s strengths. That’s one reason so many liberals found her so much less inspirational than Barack Obama in 2008. And it’s a problem with deep roots. In his biography, A Woman in Charge, Carl Bernstein describes Hillary, then in law school, struggling to articulate her generation’s perspective in an address to the League of Women Voters. “If she was speaking about a clearly defined subject,” Bernstein writes, “her thoughts would be well organized, finely articulated, and delivered in almost perfect outline form. But before the League audience, she again and again lapsed into sweeping abstractions.” Team Clinton appears to understand this. And so it has done something shrewd. Instead of talking vision, Hillary is talking policy, which she does really well. The Many Measures of Hillary Clinton If Hillary’s struggles with vision go back a long time, so does her passion for wonkery. As a student government leader at Wellesley, Bernstein notes, Hillary developed “a better system for the return of library books” and “studied every aspect of the Wellesley curriculum in developing a successful plan to reduce the number of required courses.” In 1993, she took time off from a vacation in Hawaii to grill local officials about the state’s healthcare system. In his excellent book on Hillary’s 2000 Senate race, Michael Tomasky observes that, “In the entire campaign, she had exactly one truly inspiring moment” but that, “over time it became evident to all but the most cynical that she actually cared about utility rates.” Hillary’s handlers have played to this strength. On April 29, she devoted the first major speech of her campaign not to her vision for America, but to something more specific: race and crime. She began with a graphic and harrowing description of the young black men recently killed by police: Walter Scott shot in the back in Charleston, South Carolina. Unarmed. In debt. And terrified of spending more time in jail for child support payments he couldn’t afford. Tamir Rice shot in a park in Cleveland, Ohio. Unarmed and just 12 years old. Eric Garner choked to death after being stopped for selling cigarettes on the streets of this city. And now Freddie Gray. His spine nearly severed while in police custody. She recounted advocating for prisoners while director the University of Arkansas’ legal-aid clinic. She noted the parallels between race and class, observing that life expectancy is declining not only for many African Americans, but also for white women without high-school degrees. And she made the crucial point that because government currently treats drug addiction and psychiatric disorders primarily as criminal rather than public-health problems, “our prisons and our jails are now our mental health institutions.” The speech was not merely substantive. It was authentic. It showcased the real Hillary Clinton: A woman who, whatever her faults, hates injustice and knows what she’s talking about when it comes to government. A week later in Las Vegas, Hillary gave another impressive speech, this one on immigration. In a media environment where “pro” and “anti” immigration often refers merely to how many people America lets in, Hillary turned the conversation to how America treats immigrants once we do. First, she talked movingly about her childhood memories of the migrant farm workers who worked in the fields around Chicago. Then she attacked the idea, common in “pro-immigration” Republican circles, that America should legalize undocumented immigrants without allowing them citizenship. “Today not a single Republican candidate, announced or potential, is clearly and consistently supporting a path to citizenship,” she declared. “Not one. When they talk about “legal status,” that’s code for “second-class status.” America, Hillary insisted, must see the undocumented not merely as workers, but as human beings. Sooner or later, Hillary will have to move from policy to philosophy. It may be a rocky transition. And if the Republicans nominate Marco Rubio (which at this point looks like a decent bet), she will face a candidate who interweaves personal biography and national aspiration better than she does. But if Hillary stumbles, these opening weeks of her campaign may offer a template for how she regains her footing. She’s at her best talking about America not abstractly, but concretely. She’s most inspiring when talking not about what she believes, but about what she wants to do. And she most effectively humanizes herself by being true to who she is: knowledgeable, passionate, and vaguely obsessive about making government work. Against Rubio, or any other likely Republican challenger, that identity should provide an excellent contrast. On policy, Clinton plays it safe : With broad rhetoric but risk-averse stances, she tilts left without moving very far. <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/on-policy-clinton-plays-it-safe-118236.html?hp=c3_3> // Politico //ANNIE KARNI – May 22, 2015 HAMPTON, N.H. — Hillary Clinton’s approach to policy, so far, has been as risk-averse as her media strategy. On the trail, she prefers the safe haven of the controlled roundtable setting, and for the most part avoids taking questions from the press. And when it comes to the issues she wants to talk about, Clinton sticks with those that are either so broadly popular as to present no threat to her brand or general-election prospects, or so small-bore as to carry little chance of backlash. On Friday in New Hampshire, Clinton spoke with a passionate, progressive voice, pounding away at Republicans for “jumping on the bandwagon” to kill the Export-Import Bank, whose authorization in Congress is set to expire June 30. It was a safe call, to say the least: House Democrats support the bank. Moderate Democrats such as Sen. Chuck Schumer support the bank. A liberal like Sen. Elizabeth Warren? She’s pro-bank, too. “It is wrong that Republicans in Congress are now trying to cut off this vital lifeline for American small businesses,” said Clinton, at the SmuttyNose Brewery in Hampton. Republicans, she said, would threaten the livelihoods of American workers rather than “stand up to the Tea Party and talk radio. It’s wrong, it’s embarrassing.” Weighing in forcefully on an issue where her outlook matches that of the majority of her party was right in line with Clinton’s posture on many policy issues during this first phase of her campaign. In her month and a half on the trail, Clinton has spoken in broad terms that give her the appearance of sometimes channeling Sen. Elizabeth Warren and championing the left — in the case of her appearance at SmuttyNose Brewery, sticking up for small businesses and bashing the GOP. She sounds like she’s wrapping her arms around the progressive wing of her party while alienating few. She uses rhetoric that sounds Warren-esque (“The deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top”) while being vague about details of how precisely she would address the problem. One Democratic strategist described Clinton’s positioning as a “head fake, making the general audience of the left think she’s one of them.” The risk is that Clinton plays into the stereotype that she is a cautious and poll-driven politician more inclined to appease rather than lead. In an op-ed in the Portsmouth Herald Friday, Sen. Marco Rubio knocked Clinton for playing it safe and feeling no pressure to “offer new ideas.” Clinton campaign advisers, meanwhile, argue that her positioning is not a strategy at all, but rather a sincere reflection of her record of fighting for the middle-class. “The campaign is built on that record and consistent with the values Hillary Clinton has always championed,” spokesman Jesse Ferguson said. “It’s not about left or right, it’s about the values Hillary Clinton believes in and the fight she is continuing to wage.” But the issues her advisers cite tend to be broadly accepted Democratic chestnuts. Clinton has said same-sex marriage should be a constitutional right; the minimum wage should be raised; the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision should be overturned to remove big money out of politics; community college should be free; police departments should be equipped with body cameras; what works in Obamacare should be extended and the high cost of prescription drugs should be lowered; paid family leave should be instituted; effective treatment should be provided for those who suffer from mental health and substance abuse problems. Some of her stances, such as that on same-sex marriage, represent an evolution from where she has been in the past. But overall, Clinton has not supported progressive positions where she would have to stick her neck out from where the majority of her party is. Moderate Democrats have taken note. “She’s being smart by checking the boxes on progressive issues that have wide appeal across the party, but keeping her general election powder dry by not going too far to the left,” said Jonathan Cowan, president of Third Way, a think tank started by former Clinton administration staffers. Nonetheless, she’s succeeded in giving the impression of moving to the left. The right-wing America Rising PAC has already accused Clinton of “staking out far-left positions that are outside of the mainstream of most Americans.” Even some of her biggest donors claim they see a shift. “I think she is moving a little bit to the left and I think that’s fine,” hedge fund manager Marc Lasry, who recently hosted a fundraiser for Clinton, said in a television interview with Bloomberg. “People who are giving money to her understand that.” But supporting universal pre-k and reforming student loans are hardly bold positions for Democrats in 2015 — instead, Democratic strategists argued, they act as liberal stalking horse issues that allow a candidate to appear boldly progressive while risking little. A real sign that Clinton was tacking left would be a call for a single-payer healthcare system, or a promise to break the country’s large banks, or returning to a higher income-tax rate on everyone making more than $1 million a year. Clinton is unlikely to take those positions, and so far has not offered those kinds of specifics. Indeed, as Vox.com’s Jonathan Allen pointed out, 91 percent of voters said they favored police officers wearing body cameras, according to a Pew poll from last year. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from April showed that 58 percent of respondents favor legalizing same-sex marriage. And 57 percent of voters support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who live in this country, according to a CBS/New York Times poll from earlier this month. On those issues that could be potentially costly to her — like weighing in on President Obama’s trade deal or the Keystone XL Pipeline— Clinton has notably refused to weigh in. “Her strategy: alienate no one,” said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. “Give the left of the Party no reason to criticize. Rhetoric works better than detail. Rhetoric you can change or edit. Details are difficult to erase.” Details, such as how much she would like to raise the minimum wage, have yet to be shared. Even on immigration, where Clinton surprised many of the immigration activists who in the past had protested her speeches, some are still waiting eagerly for specifics. Clinton has yet to outline how, legally, she would be able to institute any policy that would go beyond where Obama went with an executive action to let millions more undocumented immigrants gain protections and work permits. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton eyes her chocolate peanut butter fudge ice cream Friday during a stop at Moo's Place in Derry, N.H. AP Photo “Everything we hear now is words on the campaign trail, but the proof is in the pudding,” said Javier Valdes, co-executive director of Make the Road Action Fund. “We appreciate that she’s pushing the envelope. But the details will matter. We’re happy to hear that she’s taking that stance but we need to hear a little bit more.” The hope, Democrats said, is that Clinton will soon add specifics to the outlines of policy she has only traced so far. On Thursday, the campaign announced its big kick-off rally, where Clinton will address thousands of supporters with a big-picture speech about her candidacy and her vision for the future. Clinton Foundation muscles the media <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/05/22/clinton-foundation-muscles-the-media/> // AP // Jake Tapper - May 22, 2015 CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper this week entered the news cycle obliquely. An article in USA Today noted some turbulence over just how to describe his role in the June 8-10 Clinton Global Initiative America Meeting in Denver. Was he going to be a “speaker” at the event, or something else? CNN and the Clinton Foundation appear to be going back and forth on the matter, as Breitbart’s John Nolte has reported. Neither USA Today nor Breitbart would have plowed such interest into this matter a year ago, back when the Clinton Foundation was an aggressive global charity with a bipartisan roster of supporters. After Hillary Clinton ramped up and then announced a 2016 presidential bid, the Clinton Foundation has turned into something different: An aggressive global charity with a bipartisan roster of supporters — and whose every move is suspect. Author Peter Schweizer, the New York Times, The Washington Post and Fox News, among others, have combed the foundation’s records in search of overlaps with Clinton’s dealings as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. “We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” writes Schweizer in “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.” The sudden touchiness of the Clinton family charity explains why last week’s revelation that ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos had donated $75,000 to the foundation blew a pothole in an otherwise smooth career. And it surely contextualizes the negotiations between the foundation and CNN over just how Tapper’s participation in the Denver event is presented. At the Denver confab next month Tapper will not only interview former president Bill Clinton as part of the proceedings but is also listed as the moderator of a panel on “The Business Case for Investing in America’s Workforce,” according to the event’s Web page. Portions of that discussion will air on CNN, according to a network spokesperson, who notes that details are still being negotiated. The proceedings will take place under the banner of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), a Clinton Foundation subsidiary that “convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges,” according to the foundation. And by the foundation’s accounting, CGI community members “have made nearly 3,200commitments which have improved the lives of over 430 million people in more than 180 countries.” Those numbers look impressive, but it’s a name that attracts media heavies such as Tapper. He’ll interview Bill Clinton for 15 to 20 minutes, according to the foundation. Even when his wife is not at the center of the country’s biggest ongoing news story, former president Clinton is an ideal interviewee — informed, agile and ever willing to joust with his questioners. Says a CNN spokesperson: “This on-the-record interview with President Clinton will be broadcast exclusively on CNN. Nothing is off limits and Jake intends to use this opportunity to ask important, pressing and relevant questions of the former President who happens to have a unique role in the 2016 elections.” So why is Tapper also moderating a CGI panel? Because that’s part of the media-CGI “template,” to cite the term of Craig Minassian, chief communications officer for the Clinton Foundation. This template features access to the former president in addition to — or, perhaps, in exchange for — participation in one of the CGI’s panel discussions. “There’s an understanding that the package has two elements because that’s how we’ve always done it,” says Minassian, who indicates that the arrangement dates back to 2006. The template saw some action earlier this month, when CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour participated in a CGI event in Marrakesh, Morocco. She interviewed Bill Clinton and moderated a panel discussion on youth and education. The interview made some waves, as Bill Clinton chided “Clinton Cash” author Schweizer: “Even the guy that wrote the book apparently had to admit under questioning that we didn’t have a shred of evidence for this, we just thought we would throw it out there and see if it flies. It won’t fly!” The panel discussion on youth and education yielded less striking headlines. It consisted of Amanpour chatting with Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, along with two others — Kenyan Kennedy Odede, who runs a girls school in Nairobi that’s sponsored by the Clinton Foundation, and Tunisian activist Asma Mansour. The first question from Amanpour to Chelsea Clinton: “What about your current trip has really staggered you or stood out for you?” Softballs aside, the discussion was thorough, informed and utterly shadowed by the Clinton Foundation iconography on the curtain surrounding panel members: The panel discussion, as well as the Clinton interview, secured air time on Amanpour’s show. The Clinton Foundation doesn’t micromanage the questions posed by the likes of Amanpour or Tapper in these sessions. “We don’t put editorial restrictions on interviews with the president,” says Minassian. “We’re not trying to compromise the editorial perspective of the journalist but the reason we’re working with news organizations is so that we can get the message and word out about the work that CGI is doing.” At that, CGI has been successful. Though Tapper is the news peg for this go-round, many of his colleagues have plowed this same terrain over the years. Former CNN anchor Piers Morgan, CNN anchor Erin Burnett, former CNBC host Maria Bartiromo, PBS’s Charlie Rose, former NBC News anchor David Gregory and others have all worked the CGI interview-panel circuit. Consider that last one. In June 2014, Gregory interviewed Bill Clinton in the aftermath of media buzz about the Clinton family’s wealth. In her then-headline-making tour for her book “Hard Choices,” Hillary Clinton had madenews with her comment that the family was “not only dead broke, but in debt” after leaving the White House. When asked about the topic by Gregory at CGI, Bill Clinton said, “It is factually true that we were $7 million in debt.” Gregory also moderated a panel with Clinton and national business leaders on economic issues, portions of which aired on “Meet the Press,” not to mention a “Meet the Press Extra”. That’s not all, either. MSNBC aired an “extended” version of the panel discussion. The tradeoff facing media organizations that want a seat at the CGI scene appears stark: You get to interview Bill Clinton one on one. But you have to stick around to do one of our wonky panel discussions — and air the end product. Which brings up an idea — couldn’t CNN or NBC News or ABC News simply tell CGI that they’ll take Door No. 1 (President Clinton interview) and decline Door No. 2 (panel discussion)? “They could but we wouldn’t do it,” says Minassian. Assertive! For Clinton watchers who chronicle the family’s transactional nature, log this one in the books. The foundation’s people know they have a commodity for which news organizations will negotiate. And the byproduct of the negotiations is extensive exposure for the Clinton Foundation. This should go down in the Philanthropy Book of Best Practices. It’s all a collaborative arrangement, notes Minassian. “Hopefully it works for everybody,” he says. “We like to think it’s a creative approach. Everybody has felt that it gives them access not only to an interview but also to other important voices. . . . Our approach is that CGI is a content platform, where the content is the philanthropic work that all sectors of society are doing.” The Erik Wemple Blog is agnostic about whether CGI is a content platform. In any case, Minassian highlights the ways in which CGI’s interests overlap with the media’s. For instance, the topic of Amanpour’s panel discussion very much tracked on the sort of issues she approaches in her international coverage. The economics topics explored by Gregory’s panel, likewise, melded with the fare on “Meet the Press.” “We’re working with them to create content,” says Minassian. Yet it’s not quite as collaborative as all that. The Clinton Foundation is doing what other global charities only dream of doing, which is to muscle media organizations into promoting and moderating discussions on themes of the charity’s choosing. Consider that after more than a decade of holding CGI conferences, the foundation now fields proposals from TV outlets. “The networks have been coming to us for years,” says Minassian, noting that CNN last fall approached the foundation about its 2015 plans. “Working with networks to originate programming from CGI events is just one of the many ways we showcase philanthropic work that’s improving the lives of millions of people around the world to as wide an audience as possible,” Minassian writes in an e-mail. “Since CGI has a long history of convening global leaders from all sectors of society, it shouldn’t be surprising that networks approach us about working together to create compelling content. Good news about what’s going right in the world is a tough sell so of course we’re going to take every opportunity to promote it.” If nothing else, the arrangement places pressure on the networks to tell viewers just who is deciding on the themes of discussion and the guests arrayed on stage. Transparency, that is. Said Tapper in a note to the Erik Wemple Blog: “As I learned from the late, great David Carr and from you when I worked for you at Washington City Paper years ago, transparency is extremely important in journalism. That lesson (and others) I learned during my time at WCP guide me to this day, and that will not change no matter whom I interview.” Hillary Clinton's dark whisperer is back <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/sidney-blumenthal-hillary-clinton-118212.html> // Politico // Glenn Thrush - May 22, 2015 Sidney Blumenthal is right back where he wants to be: in the middle of another partisan blood feud with the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy he’s been fighting since the 1990s. Hillary Clinton’s wartime, peacetime — anytime — confidant has been thrust again into the public eye by disclosures that he had shoveled questionable second-hand intelligence on Libya in 2012 to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in the form of reports she forwarded to her skeptical Foggy Bottom aides. The revelations, contained in 850 pages of emails grudgingly released by Clinton, are likely to earn Blumenthal an appearance before Rep. Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi committee – but they haven’t weakened the bond between the former New Yorker writer and the Clintons, according to a half-dozen people who know both parties. In the words of one longtime Clinton ally, Blumenthal’s involvement in the email mess “has if anything strengthened his position” by underscoring his loyalty and willingness to share inside dope, however flawed — always coin of the realm for the information-hungry Clintons. Blumenthal’s knack for passing along intriguing tidbits and strategic advice has long given him a position of influence, if not direct operational power, inside Clinton’s inner circle of friends. His now-central role in the Benghazi fight comes as no surprise to allies who have watched with fascination, and not a little alarm, as he’s outlasted a musical-chairs cast of professional Clinton advisers over the past 20 years. Clinton was unapologetic about her relationship with Blumenthal when asked about the emails on Tuesday during a campaign stop in Iowa. “I have many, many old friends, and I always think that it’s important when you get into politics to have friends you had before you were in politics, and to understand what’s on their minds,” she said. “He’s been a friend of mine for a long time.” People close to Blumenthal say he’s lawyering up, unbowed and eager to fight back. And he’s confident the Clintons will have his back — as part of an informal loyalty pact that extends back to the early 1990s when he defended them in print, often to the dismay of his own editors. In addition to being a friend, Blumenthal is also on the extended payroll of Clinton Inc., drawing a salary as a strategic adviser to the Clinton family foundation and another from Democratic-aligned advocacy groups run by a powerful Clinton ally. Blumenthal is no longer in the inner circle of full-time Clinton operatives populated by the likes of Huma Abedin, John Podesta and the increasingly involved Chelsea Clinton. He consults with Bill and Hillary Clinton less frequently than he did during the 2008 campaign, when he forged a powerful alliance with Clinton pollster Mark Penn, people close to her tell POLITICO. And campaign officials don’t consider him to be as influential as other key intimates outside the official chain of command, such as superlawyer Cheryl Mills or Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. But Blumenthal has been plenty active since Clinton declared her candidacy in March, sharing his insights with the Clintons on the 2016 Republican field and quietly offering opinions on how to battle conservative groups to a select group of friends, according to Democratic operatives familiar with his activities. And Blumenthal still enjoys unmediated access to the former first couple, to the irritation of the candidate’s senior staff, especially campaign chairman John Podesta, who chafed at Blumenthal’s back-channel access to the first family when he served as chief of staff — and Blumenthal’s boss — in the Clinton White House. When POLITICO reached out for comment, Blumenthal responded by saying he was entirely consumed with finishing the first installment of a four-volume political biography of Abraham Lincoln. “I have cultivated patience, and made no attempt at a retort,” Blumenthal emailed — Lincoln’s statement to critics following his 1858 defeat in the Illinois Senate race to Stephen Douglas. He has, indeed, thrown himself into book research: When a reporter approached him at a pre-White House Correspondents’ Dinner event last month, Blumenthal responded by saying he would be happy to chat — so long as the conversation was confined to the topic of Honest Abe. Then followed a cheerful, erudite and achingly detailed analysis of the political motivations underlying Lincoln’s 1847 speech opposing the Mexican war. Blumenthal broke his silence on the Benghazi emails late Thursday, issuing a statement through his attorney saying he intended to fully cooperate with congressional investigators and emphasizing the informal nature of his consultations with Clinton. “From time to time, as a private citizen and friend, I provided Secretary Clinton with material on a variety of topics that I thought she might find interesting or helpful,” he wrote. “The reports I sent her came from sources I considered reliable. I have informed the House Select Committee on Benghazi that I will cooperate with its inquiry and look forward to answering the Committee’s questions.” The Benghazi email trove is probably just a hint of what’s out there. Over the years, Blumenthal has corresponded more or less constantly with the Clintons, but especially Hillary, on a wide range of topics — not for nothing did he earn the nickname “Grassy Knoll” for spinning dark conspiracy theories during his tenure in the White House during the Lewinsky scandal. Blumenthal’s noir, wheels-within-wheels worldview meshed with the first lady’s less-than-sunny view of the press and Republicans. In his 2003 chronicle of 1990s life in the White House, “The Clinton Wars,” Blumenthal describes feeding Hillary Clinton’s appetite for intelligence on her enemies as an operational — and emotional — necessity, a psychic security blanket that gave her a sense she could survive whatever Republicans threw her way. “Having knowledge restored a sense of normality, even amid the storm,” he wrote. “We could see the lines of influence underlying the scandal — the cause and effect, intent and action — and they were political and familiar.” Blumenthal’s greatest coup — and the one that cemented his standing as a Clinton loyalist — was the secret recruitment of David Brock, a conservative investigative reporter who had done more damage than any other anti-Clinton journalist, as a double agent of sorts in the late 1990s. In 1997, Blumenthal reached out to Brock through a mutual friend and to his surprise, Brock expressed his disgust with the machinations of the right-wing press and the rich conservatives who funded his anti-Clinton work. The two stuck a friendship. Eventually, Brock flipped sides, developed his own relationship with the Clintons and built a powerful network of Democrat-allied organizations that have made him a major player in party politics. Blumenthal and Brock remain close, and Blumenthal has worked for the Brock-founded Media Matters for America and his super PAC, American Bridge. One job he couldn’t get: an appointment as a formal staff adviser to Clinton at the State Department. Her attempt to bring him on board in 2009 was vehemently opposed by President Barack Obama’s team, led by then-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and press secretary Robert Gibbs, over Blumenthal’s role in pushing unflattering stories about Obama’s drug use and personal life to the media. Yet, as the Benghazi emails show, Blumenthal and Clinton managed to work together anyway, in typical over-the-transom fashion. One could hear the you-can’t-stop-me in Clinton’s voice Tuesday when she defended the correspondence: “He sent me unsolicited emails which I passed on in some instances, and I say that that’s just part of the give and take.” The first tranche of emails, revealed Thursday by The New York Times, shows the danger of this sort of informal arrangement: Blumenthal sent then-Secretary Clinton a memo a day after the Benghazi attack claiming that the murderous mob was part of a wave of protests against a YouTube video that had prompted an attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Cairo. Clinton forwarded the email to Jake Sullivan, a top foreign policy adviser, requesting “More info.” But the emails also show that Republicans’ hoped-for smoking gun is, at least so far, nowhere to be found: Sullivan responded politely but noncommittally to most of the Blumenthal emails and forwarded the information, at Clinton’s request, to the appropriate State Department specialists. There they seem to have died. Despite the fact that Clinton doesn’t name Blumenthal as her source in the emails, two former administration officials told POLITICO that Sullivan, who now serves as the Clinton campaign’s policy czar, knew very well that he was her source and that he resented Blumenthal’s freelancing. “Jake was too nice to tell the secretary what he really thought,” said one former senior national security official. “But he was really pissed off that Sid was wasting everybody’s time.” Still, Sullivan is discovering what other Clinton hirelings have known for years: Bill and Hillary think Sid’s time, advice and dish are yet valuable. Clinton’s ‘Secret’ Email Accounts <http://www.factcheck.org/2015/05/clintons-secret-email-accounts/> // Fact Check // Eugene Kiely - May 22, 2015 The Republican National Committee thinks it has the smoking gun that proves Hillary Clinton used “multiple secret email addresses” as secretary of state. It doesn’t. The RNC made its claim in a May 18 blog post hours after the New York Times published copies of emails that Clinton had sent and received when she was secretary. The emails displayed two accounts: [email protected] and [email protected]. That seemed to clearly contradict Clinton’s claim that she used only [email protected] while in office, which was from January 2009 to February 2013. But the Clinton campaign says there is a simple explanation for this apparent discrepancy: The emails published by the Times were printed out in 2014 after Clinton had left the State Department and after she had changed her email address, so the printed copies of emails she sent while in office display her new address ([email protected]), even though they were originally sent under her old address ([email protected]). We agree that this is possible. The Clinton explanation passed two tests — including one conducted for us by Ray Tomlinson, the man who is widely credited with inventing email. Tomlinson ran an optical character recognition on the PDF of the emails that the Times posted to its website, and what he found is consistent with the Clinton campaign’s explanation for what happened. We at FactCheck.org also tested Clinton’s explanation. Our IT staff created [email protected] and renamed it [email protected]. An email sent by [email protected] printed out as if it had come from [email protected] after we changed the name of the email account. Tom Conte, a professor at the Schools of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology and president of the IEEE Computer Society, said Clinton’s explanation is “technically possible” and that our test “proves it.” @clintonemail.com As most know by now, Clinton did not use the government email system while secretary of state. Instead, she used a private server and email account. This unusual arrangement — first detailed March 2 by the New York Times — triggered a political firestorm. Republicans have accused Clinton of seeking to avoid public disclosure of her emails on controversial issues, such as the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the temporary consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. For her part, Clinton has said that her email arrangements were a matter of convenience, and that the “vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses,” so they were preserved at the State Department. The issue of how many private email accounts Clinton used was first raised by a special House committee investigating Benghazi. On March 4, two days after the Times disclosed Clinton’s exclusive use of personal emails to conduct official business, the Select Committee on Benghazi said it was “in possession of records with two separate and distinct email addresses used by former Secretary Clinton and dated during the time she was Secretary of State.” At the time, the House committee declined our request to provide us with the second email address. Why does it matter how many private email accounts Clinton had? The Republicans question whether Clinton has been forthcoming in turning over all the documents related to Benghazi. Clinton turned over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department in December 2014, her office confirmed after the Times story appeared. The existence of [email protected] has been public knowledge since March 2013, a month after she left office. But the existence of [email protected] became public when the New York Times on May 18 and May 21 published copies of the printed emails. On May 18, the RNC wrote that the emails published by the Times contradicted a claim by Clinton’s lawyer that she used only one @ clintonemail.com email account as secretary of state. Clinton’s lawyer David Kendall sent a letter on March 27 to Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the Benghazi committee, that said “ ‘[email protected]’ is not an address that existed during Secretary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.” On May 20, House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman Matt Wolking wrote that Kendall’s response to the committee is “completely false.” He wrote, “The address [email protected] did exist while she was Secretary of State, according to emails from 2011 and 2012 published by The New York Times on Monday.” Conservative websites were abuzz with claims that Clinton was “caught in another email lie,” as Breitbart put it. The Blaze embedded several emails (like the one below) into its news article and said, “Multiple emails show Clinton used account “ [email protected]” while serving in the Obama administration as secretary of state.” But all is not what it seems. What the Evidence Shows and Experts Say When we contacted the Clinton campaign about the apparent discrepancy, we were referred to an explanation that was first contained in a Q&A issued by the campaign on March 10. The question and answer addressed the allegation, made by the Benghazi committee, that Clinton had two private email addresses: Why did the Select Committee announce that she used multiple email addresses during her tenure? In fairness to the Committee, this was an honest misunderstanding. Secretary Clinton used one email account during her tenure at State (with the exception of her first weeks in office while transitioning from an email account she had previously used). In March 2013, a month after she left the Department, Gawker published the email address she used while Secretary, and so she had to change the address on her account. At the time the printed copies were provided to the Department last year, because it was the same account, the new email address established after she left office appeared on the printed copies as the sender, and not the address she used as Secretary. In fact, this address on the account did not exist until March 2013. This led to understandable confusion that was cleared up directly with the Committee after its press conference. Kendall, in his letter to the committee, identified the new email address established in March 2013 as [email protected]. But why would the emails — including the one we display above — show [email protected] as the sender if it came from [email protected]? Is that even technically possible? We consulted four computer experts, and all agreed that it was possible. There is one example in the trove of emails that the Times posted online that proves it is possible. That’s a May 6, 2011, email from Clinton to Jake Sullivan, who at the time was her deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning. On page 31 of the New York Times‘ PDF of Clinton’s emails is a print copy of Clinton’s email to Sullivan that shows Clinton’s email address as [email protected] (the one she says was created after she left office). But that same email also appears on page 35 of the PDF as part of an email exchange with Sullivan (who had responded to her), and the email address for Clinton in that case is displayed as [email protected]. “This string of email messages proves the Clinton team’s explanation is true,” said Conte, the president of the IEEE Computer Society. The reason, he said, is simple: The [email protected] address that is part of the email string is now static text, so it wouldn’t change. That means that the email originated from [email protected]. But the address on the printed version of just Clinton’s email to Sullivan would be populated with the new email address because that is an active data field — giving the illusion that it came from [email protected]. We asked our IT staffers to see if they could recreate the same behavior, and they did. They created an email account called [email protected], exchanged emails with this author and then changed the name of the account to [email protected]. The emails were then printed out by the sender after the account was renamed. The results are below. The first email sent on Thursday, May 21, at 12:26 p.m. displays [email protected] as the sender, because it was part of an email string and was static text: But that same email appeared to be sent from [email protected] when it was printed out separately: Original The steps that we followed for the test were the same as those suggested by Tomlinson, who was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame for inventing email. Tomlinson conducted a separate test that weighs in support of Clinton’s claim. He used optical character recognition (OCR) to convert the Times‘ PDF of the Clinton emails into searchable text. He said “the 37 messages that were purportedly sent from H have [email protected] in the From: field. No such message is From: hdr22. hdr22 appears only in the From: field of 15 messages that were included in a received message. All such messages contained in replies to H are from hdr22 and no such message contained in replies to H are from hrod17.” He said that outcome is consistent with the Clinton campaign’s “statement that the messages originally sent from H appear in the pdf as if they were sent from hrod17. There are no counterexamples.” The RNC noted that IT expert Bruce Webster told the Daily Caller that Clinton’s explanation “made no sense.” But the conservative website also quoted Webster as saying it is possible with servers hosted by Microsoft Exchange — which, as it turns out, is the server that we used for our test. Tomlinson initially also told us that the Clinton explanation was “not a completely natural outcome,” even if it is possible. But after we told Tomlinson of our test and sent him our results, he replied: “Your experiment may refute that last statement.” This doesn’t prove, of course, that Clinton did not have more than one @ clintonemail.com address while secretary of state. All four experts told us the only way to know for sure how many @clintonemail.com accounts Clinton had while in office is to conduct a forensic examination of her mail server. (Clinton has said she will not make her personal server available to the government or an independent third party.) “The best way to obtain all of the facts about these emails would be for a third party forensic examiner to conduct an examination of Ms. Clinton’s mail server and desktop system,” said Jonathan Zdziarski, forensics expert and author of the book “iPhone Forensics: Recovering Evidence, Personal Data, and Corporate Assets.” “That could easily determine what email addresses existed at approximately what dates, possibly even when they were changed, as well as retrieve the original email envelopes and content.” What we do know, however, is that the emails posted by the Times do not support the RNC’s claim that Clinton had “multiple secret email addresses” as secretary of state, and there is no evidence to contradict Clinton’s claim that she created [email protected] after she left office. Clinton N.H. trip interrupted by Benghazi e-mail release <http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2015/05/22/hillary-clinton-trip-interrupted-benghazi-email-release/Qk9Ze3kM7Zm3m8VlOBkk2O/story.html?rss_id=Top-GNP&google_editors_picks=true> // Boston Globe // James Pindell - May 22, 2015 HAMPTON, N.H. – Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was pleased the State Department released hundreds of e-mails she sent from a private server in the days following an attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans, including a US ambassador dead. On Friday the State Department released 900 pages of e-mails, which they characterized as not contradicting an official review on what went wrong during the September 2012 attack. After a presidential campaign event in New Hampshire, Clinton told reporters these e-mails had already been sent to a House Committee investigating the Benghazi matter. “I’m glad that the e-mails are starting to come out,” Clinton said. “It is something that I’ve asked to be done, as you know, for a long time. Those releases are beginning.” The moment served as just another reminder of how difficult it will be for Clinton to move on from e-mail scandals during her tenure as US secretary of state. With cases of beer and kegs serving as Clinton’s backdrop, a chorus of vibrating phone news alerts interrupted her roundtable with small business leaders at Smuttynose Brewery Co. Later during her trip Friday, her second to the state since launching her campaign for president, she went to a grass-roots event at a bookstore in Exeter. She is scheduled to attend a similar event in Amherst later. Earlier in the day, the Clinton campaign hoped she could seize some attention in calling for Republican presidential candidates to back reauthorizing the US Export-Import bank. The bank helps underwrite loans for American businesses selling abroad. Some Republicans say the bank doesn’t create American jobs, arguing that the bulk of the loans benefit just a handful of major companies like Boeing and Caterpillar. At her noontime event, Clinton argued that Republicans who espouse this position are “embarrassing.” About 50 people attended her appearance at the brewery, which was invitation only — like the rest of her events so far as a candidate. The Clinton campaign has been criticized for not holding a single public event in Iowa or New Hampshire Clinton addressed some of that criticism at her second stop of the day at a Water Street Bookstore in downtown Exeter. “Some people had asked me, particularly in the press, when are you going to have really big events. And I said later, later, later. I want to listen to people. I want to talk to people on small groups,” Clinton said. “What I want to do is to make sure that we have a conversation about what we want to accomplish in our country and this is the way I feel most comfortable doing it.” Dozens of supporters gathered outside the bookstore on the sidewalks for her arrival. More fans awaited inside, including one with a sign that read: “Welcome home to New Hampshire.” Apparently, those who show initiative can make their way onto the guest list. For example, earlier this week, Trinette Hunter, 13, of Henniker, N.H., told her mother it was her dream to have dinner with Clinton. When she was 5, her mother, Jessica Gorhan, took her into the voting booth to pull the lever for Clinton in the 2008 New Hampshire primary. This week, Gorhan called the brewery to ask how to get in, and the Clinton campaign got in touch with her. After the event, Hunter and her mom were among about 50 people lined up to take pictures with Clinton and get her autograph. “It was awesome,” Hunter said. Insiders: Benghazi testimony works to Hillary's advantage <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/insiders-benghazi-testimony-works-to-hillarys-advantage-118202.html> // Politico // Katie Glueck - May 22, 2015 Three out of four Democratic insiders in the early states believe testifying before Congress about the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, will work to Hillary Clinton’s advantage. This week’s survey of The POLITICO Caucus, a bipartisan group of the most influential activists, operatives and elected officials in Iowa and New Hampshire, found that most Democrats think it would be beneficial to Clinton when she is called to discuss the matter before Congress, something she is expected to do at some point, likely this summer. Story Continued Below Earlier this week, Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton ally, was subpoenaed by a House committee investigating the incident, which in the past has been a major galvanizing issue for Republicans critical of Clinton’s role when she was secretary of state. Democrats were skeptical that Clinton would get a fair hearing, but were confident she would do a good job shutting down questioners in the hopes of moving on from the issue. “Republicans prefer the safety of manufactured outrage on Benghazi. In person, I think Clinton will crush their questions,” said an Iowa Democrat. Added a New Hampshire Democrat, “As she has proven many times before, Hillary is not afraid to testify and is a very good witness; she will walk out of the hearing room enhanced.” A majority of Republicans — nearly 60 percent — also said it would be helpful for Clinton to address the issue head-on (she appeared before Congress once before on this issue in 2013). Several Republicans warned some in their party could overdo the confrontation, which could work to Clinton’s advantage if she appears to be answering questions openly and honestly. “It is a real opportunity for her to face this and defuse it—the R’s will not be able to resist the temptation to gang up and it may actually engender some sympathy for her, hard as that is to imagine,” said a New Hampshire Republican. Another Granite State Republican acknowledged, “Hillary is at her strongest when she answers her critics head-on. She should embrace it — and hope her opponents overplay their hands. Which they could do, easily.” An Iowa Republican added, “Do not underestimate the ability of Republican House members to overplay their hand and appear more focused on scoring partisan points than ascertaining the truth.” The issue of Clinton’s handling of the Benghazi tragedy itself appears to have faded slightly from the minds of GOP primary voters, though one nonpartisan Iowan said that if the former secretary of state testifies, “The testimony keeps the story alive and in the newspapers on a daily basis. Also continues to give Republicans reason to talk about it on the campaign trail.” Still, 74 percent of Democrats and 22 percent of Republicans — including one-third of the 15 New Hampshire Republicans who responded this week — say that the Benghazi attack is not quite as much of a hot-button issue for the GOP base as it was in the aftermath of the attacks and during the 2014 midterm elections. “The nut job conspiracy theorists on the fringe love the issue. Everyone else sees shades of gray in a horrible, messy, tragic situation, and how it was handled,” said a New Hampshire Republican. “Could have happened just as easily in a Republican administration.” An Iowa Republican who also thinks the issue has faded, reacted very differently, saying, “Sadly I think many people have forgotten about the issue. Perhaps with congressional hearings and a campaign it will again gain attention.” In any case, the issue still moves the dial, according to 78 percent of Republicans surveyed. “It’s a rally cry that still unifies activists,” an Iowa Republican said. Here are four other takeaways from this week’s POLITICO Caucus: The furor surrounding the release of Clinton’s emails isn’t breaking through … yet. A judge ruled this week that the emails Clinton sent from a personal account during her time at the State Department should be released on a rolling basis. Clinton herself also said this week that she wants the emails, which have been the subject of significant controversy because she sent government communications through a personal account, released as soon as possible. But 96 percent of Democrats and about one-third of Republicans say voters aren’t paying much attention yet. “So Beltway,” yawned an Iowa Democrat. Another one added, “Second-rate Clinton ‘scandals’ are like seasonal allergies: predictable and annoying but not concerning.” A New Hampshire Democrat said, “[This] is reporter-land territory, not kitchen table people land territory.” Republicans saw the extended scrutiny of her emails as potentially more damaging. But one New Hampshire Republican noted, “This has drawn out (and will continue to draw out) so long that people have become numb to it, regardless of the seriousness of the issue.” Still, said other Republicans, reminders that Clinton was using her own email to do official government business reinforce problematic narratives — that the Clintons are secretive and see themselves as above the law. “Democrats try to dismiss the email scandal as white noise and Beltway chatter, but the saga reinforces with voters all the worst attributes of the Clintons: secrecy, arrogance, hypocrisy and one set of rules for them and a different for everyone else,” said a New Hampshire Republican who believes the issue is hurting Clinton. “… Undercutting and discrediting Clinton’s secretary of state bona fides is going to be a big part of the GOP strategy for defeating her in 2016, and the emails are going to play a key role in that process.” Republicans don’t want to see a crowded debate stage — and Democrats are gleeful at the prospect. Close to 20 Republicans could seek the GOP nomination this year, and many campaigns are obsessing over which candidates will make the cut and whether the standards for inclusion in the debates are fair. On Wednesday, it became clear that the television networks would set the rules for some of the early debates. Before that news broke, insiders were asked whether everyone should be allowed onstage — and 87 percent of Republicans said no. But many also said that finding the right threshold for inclusion would be a daunting task. “There is no good answer but whoever picks should get armed protection for the rest of his or her natural life,” said one New Hampshire Republican. Others suggested fundraising and polling thresholds, but recognized that there was no way to placate all the campaigns. So far, Fox News and CNN have indicated that polling averages will be a factor. “You probably have to use polling and fundraising parameters, but the candidates will scream about it,” added another Republican Granite Stater. Democrats, on the other hand, relish the prospect of messy debates marked by long-shot GOP candidates taking valuable time away from more viable contenders. “Please include every single one — please!” urged one Iowa Democrat. Another offered, “The crazier the candidate, the more air time they should get.” Insiders on both sides were preoccupied by the question of whether Donald Trump would qualify to compete. “Filed presidential committee (to smoke out Trump once and for all),” should be a key criterion, advised one Iowa Republican. Jeb Bush’s Iraq headache isn’t over yet. Last week, Bush fumbled several attempts to answer the question of whether he would have invaded Iraq if he had known at the time of intelligence failures. Ultimately he spelled out that he wouldn’t have, and he was back on the campaign trail this week seeking to bounce back. But 61 percent of Republicans and 85 percent of Democrats say he has not put the issue behind him. “He’s able to move on and talk about other things, but that clip is going to come back to bite him one way or the other in the next seven months,” said an Iowa Republican. “The video lasts forever,” added an Iowa Democrat. Hillary Clinton was also asked about her Iraq position this week, an issue that plagued her during the 2008 primary. But she called her Senate vote authorizing the war a mistake, and 80 percent of Democrats surveyed this week said that’s good enough for them. Rick Santorum shouldn’t expect a repeat of his 2012 performance. The former Pennsylvania senator, who in 2012 won the Iowa caucuses and stayed in the Republican primary far longer than expected, is expected to announce another presidential bid next week. But an overwhelming majority of Republican insiders surveyed — 93 percent — said he won’t match or outpace his performance from last time. Forty-one percent said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is in the best position to win social conservatives in Iowa and New Hampshire, followed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at 23 percent, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 18 percent. Santorum got 2 percent. Clinton emails show concern about image after Benghazi <http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/22/us-usa-clinton-emails-idUSKBN0O71WW20150522> // Reuters // Mark Hosenball and Alistar Bell - May 22, 2015 Top aides to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fretted over how she would be portrayed after the 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, emails released on Friday showed. The emails from Clinton's personal email account made public by the State Department do not appear to contain any revelations that could badly damage her bid for the presidency in 2016 or provide fodder for Republicans who accuse her of being negligent before the Benghazi attacks. But they offer a glimpse into how Clinton's team was concerned about her image immediately afterward. A senior adviser to Clinton forwarded an email from a State Department official about positive media coverage of a statement she gave on Sept. 12, 2012, the day after the killings. "Really nice work guys," State Department official Matthew Walsh wrote in an email to other staffers, which linked to a story on the Slate news site praising Clinton's comments about Benghazi as "her most eloquent news conference as secretary of state." Sullivan passed the email on to Clinton with the letters "FYI." In another email from September 2012, Sullivan assured the secretary of state that she had used the correct language to describe the lead-up to the Benghazi attack by Islamist militants on a U.S. diplomatic compound and CIA base. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the time, Susan Rice, drew heavy criticism from Republicans for defending this view on Sunday TV shows, even though intelligence indicated within hours that the attacks were the carefully planned work of Islamist militia members. Sullivan assured Clinton that her language when discussing the attacks in public had been correct. "You never said spontaneous or characterized the motives, in fact you were careful in your first statement to say we were assessing motive and method," he wrote in an email. Long a focus of Republican investigators in Congress, accusations that Clinton was negligent on Benghazi are putting her under more intense scrutiny now that she is running for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2016 presidential election. Republicans say the Obama administration was lax about the security of U.S. personnel in Libya and then misled the public about the nature of the attacks, but various congressional probes have produced little damaging evidence. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the 296 emails released on Friday "do not change the essential facts or our understanding of the events before, during or after the attacks." They were the first installment of a rolling release of 55,000 pages of emails from her time as secretary of state between 2009 and 2013 that are due to be released in the coming months. Clinton or her aides have deleted another 30,000 emails which she has termed as personal from the same private account, causing Republicans in Congress to accuse her of picking and choosing what she wants to make public. Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican who heads the Benghazi probe in the House of Representatives, said the emails made public on Friday "continue to reinforce the fact that unresolved questions and issues remain as it relates to Benghazi." "The best way to answer all questions related to the attacks in Benghazi continues to be having access to the full public record, not a 'record' controlled, possessed and screened exclusively by Secretary Clinton's personal lawyers,” he said. First Batch of Hillary Clinton's Emails on Libya Made Public <http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton/first-batch-hillary-clintons-emails-libya-made-public-n362506http:/www.nbcnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton/first-batch-hillary-clintons-emails-libya-made-public-n362506> // NBC News // CARRIE DANN - May 22, 2015 A batch of Hillary Clinton's personal emails made public on Thursday morning offers a glimpse into her team's initial exchange of information in the wake of the Benghazi attacks as well as her relationship with longtime confidante Sidney Blumenthal, who sent her at least two dozen memos regarding Libya during her tenure as Secretary of State. The State Department plans to release about 850 pages of the emails, which had been handed over to the congressional panel investigating the Benghazi attacks. But on Thursday, the New York Times released about a third of that batch of correspondence, which Clinton exchanged using a private server rather than a government email account. The documents show that, while Clinton used her personal email account to receive information the government calls "sensitive," she did not appear to use her private server to exchange classified information. The "sensitive" information included details like the location of State Department officials in Libya during a time of instability in the country in 2011. The documents released by the New York Times also show that Clinton received numerous briefing memos about Libya from Blumenthal, a longtime friend of the Clintons who was not employed by the State Department. The New York Times reported earlier this week that Blumenthal was also involved with a possible business venture in the country at the time. Two of those memos from Blumenthal came in the days immediately following the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks. In one, sent on September 12, Blumenthal suggested that top security officers in the country believed that the attacks "were inspired by what many devout Libyan viewed as a sacrilegious internet video on the prophet Mohammed originating in America." Clinton forwarded that information to top adviser Jake Sullivan with the message "more info." But another memo sent the following day indicated that the attacks may have actually been carried out by a militia group. Blumenthal wrote that officials in the country "believe that the attackers having prepared to launch their assault took advantage of the cover provided by the demonstrations in Benghazi protesting an internet production seen as disrespectful to the prophet Mohammed." The release of the emails comes after a prolonged political fight for Clinton over her use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State. On Tuesday, Clinton urged the State Department to expedite the vetting of the emails after initial reports suggested that the data trove would not be ready for public release until January of next year. Clinton says she’s not running for a ‘third term’ of her husband or Obama <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/05/22/clinton-im-not-running-for-husbands-third-term-and-im-not-running-for-barack-obamas-third-term/?akfjakj> // WaPo // Robert Costa - May 22, 2015 EXETER, N.H. -- Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday sought to distance herself somewhat from both her husband, a previous president, and Barack Obama, the current White House occupant who defeated her in 2008. "I'm not running for my husband's third term and I'm not running for Barack Obama's third term," Clinton said here, where she met with activists. "I'm running to continue the positive results oriented policies that both of them worked for." Clinton is attempting a balancing act between highlighting her own identity as a former U.S. senator and secretary of state while embracing many of the policies of her Democratic predecessors, especially Obama. With her husband, Clinton has already notably deviated from policies enacted or expanded under Bill Clinton by embracing gay marriage and calling for an end to harsh criminal sentencing policies that took root in the 1990s. During her second trip to New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton also defended the low-key beginnings of her presidential campaign, which have focused on tightly controlled meetings with handpicked activists and supporters in Iowa and New Hampshire. The Clinton campaign announced Thursday that she would hold her first big campaign rally and speech event in mid-June. "Some people had asked me, particularly in the press, when are you going to have really big events," Clinton said. "And I said later, later, later. I want to listen to people. I want to talk to people on small groups." Hillary Clinton defends emails, slams GOP’s small business agenda <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-says-she-wants-expedite-email-release?google_editors_picks=true> // MSNBC // Alex Seitz - Wald - May 22, 2015 HAMPTON, New Hampshire – After declaring in Iowa earlier this week that she wants to be “a small-business president,” Hillary Clinton came to a craft brewery here Friday to slam Republicans for trying to kill what she called a crucial institution for small companies. She also answered questions from reporters on the ongoing controversy over her private email account, moments after the State Department released almost 300 of them. Clinton said all the information in the emails was “handled appropriately.” Her comments came after a roundtable discussion at Smuttynose brewery here, where she defended the Export-Impact bank, which she said supports 164,000 American jobs. “It is wrong that Republicans in Congress are trying to cut off this vital lifeline for American small businesses,” she said “Republican candidates for president who really should know better are jumping on this bandwagon, and it seems as though they would rather threaten the livelihood of those 143,000 jobs than stand up to the Tea Party and talk radio.” She called the attacks on the Export-Import bank “wrong” “embarrassing” and “absolutely backwards.” Long a noncontroversial government agency, the Export-Import bank, which helps companies engaged in international trade secure financing, has lately become a top target for some libertarian-leaning conservative. Tea Party activists and others view the bank as “crony capitalism,” and have mounted several attempts to kill it in Congress. New Hampshire is an exporting state, and Clinton said the Export-Import bank helps many local businesses around the state. Fred Hochberg, the Obama-appointee who runs the Export-Import bank, is a longtime Clinton donor and was one of her top bundlers during her 2008 presidential campaign. He also ran the Small Business Administration under the presidency of Clinton’s husband. As she did at a similar event at a bike shop in Iowa Tuesday, Clinton noted that her own father was small businessman. Hugh Rodham owned a tapestry business in suburban Chicago, where Clinton grew up, and taught her the value of hard work and entrepreneurship, she said. But even as Clinton laid out her message here, questions swirled nationally over her use of a private email account while she served as Secretary of State. In the middle of her event here, the State Department released its first batch of Clinton’s emails – 296 documents put online about 30 minutes after she began her remarks. After the event, Clinton, took questions from the press for the second time this week. She defended her use of private emails after being asked by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “All of the information in the emails has handled appropriately,” she replied, adding that she was glad the emails are coming out. “I want people to be able to see all of them.” It’s expected to take months for all 55,000 pages of email Clinton turned over to State to be fully released. Asked if she was worried that people don’t trust her after the email issue, she replied only, “I’m going to let the Americans decide that.” Meanwhile, thursday night, the Clinton Foundation also disclosed information on 97 speeches Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton gave on behalf of the charity since 2002. The speeches, mostly from Bill Clinton, raised between $12 million and $26 million for the charity’s work from a wide range of companies, banks, universities, and nonprofits. Also that night, Sidney Blumenthal, the former Clinton White House advisor who sent Secretary Clinton intelligence-like reports on Libya before and after the Benghazi terror attack, defended himself and said he had agreed to testify before a House committee investigating Benghazi in a statement Thursday night. Clinton also met with grassroots organizers in New Hampshire Friday. She heads to South Carolina and Florida next week. In a War-Torn Middle East, Clinton’s Legacy in Tunisia Is a Bit Brighter <http://www.newsweek.com/war-torn-middle-east-clintons-legacy-tunisia-bit-brighter-334795> // Newsweek // Emily Cadei - May 22, 2015 Hillary Clinton was secretary of state on December 10, 2010, when a street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire, lighting a fuse that became the Arab Spring. When the new Tunisian president, Beji Caid Essebsi, visited the White House Thursday, the country remained the only real democracy left standing out of the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa earlier this decade. As Essebsi observed in public remarks Wednesday in Washington, D.C., “There is actually no such thing as an Arab Spring. There is a Tunisian spring.” So, sure, Libya, Egypt and Syria didn’t work out. But maybe little Tunisia is Clinton’s State Department success story, the example of a foreign policy accomplishment that has proven so elusive, even to her supporters. Let’s take stock. Tunisia has never been a focus of American foreign policy the way, say, Egypt or Jordan have been. It’s just not as important from a security standpoint, and its cultural and economic ties have traditionally been much stronger with Europe, which lies just across the Mediterranean. So when the uprising in Tunisia toppled dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in early 2011, sparking a wave of protests elsewhere in the region, Clinton and her team at the State Department had to scramble to respond. According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has allocated over $610 million in aid to Tunisia since 2011, equivalent to over 40 times what U.S. aid was in fiscal year 2009. Much of the early money was to stabilize the country and help with the democratic transition. But as Clinton, herself, pointed out during a visit to the country in March 2011, “It’s not just about the politics, because what sparked the Tunisian contagion was a terrible incident of a young man taking his own life out of such desperation because he saw no future.” Economic reforms, she said, were key, including “opening up the system, creating more entrepreneurs, people like those who started this station and more businesses, employ more young people who are educated.” Tunisia’s economy, however, isn’t in great shape. Economic growth,according to the African Development Bank, was just 2.6 percent in 2013, lower than projected and a dip from 2012. And many of the programs that Clinton and other Obama administration officials touted early on, saying they’d help kick-start the economy, are decidedly works in progress. Take the Tunisian-American Enterprise Fund, one of the signature efforts, which Clinton and others said would promote private investment in the country. The U.S. government has provided $60 million in funding, but has made just one $2.4 million investment, in a private equity fund, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Another early initiative was to submit Tunisia for a major grant through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. aid agency. That never materialized amid criticism from the development community and Congress. At a more general level, the United States has also struggled, under Secretary Clinton and her successor, John Kerry, to keep Tunisia on the front burner, despite its symbolism as the cradle of the Arab Spring. Middle East expert Amy Hawthorne, who worked at the State Department on the response to the uprisings until 2013, says it was apparent to her that “Secretary Clinton was quite interested in Tunisia.” She signaled to staff there that “this is a priority; we need to put a spotlight on this country.” Clinton wasn’t able to overcome some harsh realities, however. In an era of fiscal austerity, few politicians in Washington were eager to dump a lot of money into a North African country of just 11 million people. And with major conflicts exploding elsewhere in the region at the same time, Washington was consumed with crisis management. Tunisia, too, felt the impact of the chaos next door in Libya, with a steady flow of refugees, weapons and militants across its border (and some of the blame for that could arguably fall at Clinton’s feet given her support for the invasion there). And then Tunisia, itself, was unstable, going through a series of interim governments. None of those things are very conducive to economic rebirth. The fact is, the type of economic development Clinton and the State Department talked up are slow and grinding in the best of times. There “wasn’t really an appreciation of how long these takes,” says Hawthorne, now senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank. “These things were really oversold.” And yet, Tunisia is still standing. The country adopted a relatively liberal new constitution in January 2014 and held free and fair elections later that year, won by Essebsi and his secular Nidaa Tounes party. Its relationship with the United States is strong and growing stronger. During Essebsi’s visit to the White House Thursday, President Obama announced his intent to designate Tunisia as a major non-NATO ally. The White House has proposed doubling foreign aid to Tunisia this year. The president and Essebsi also penned a joint op-ed in the Washington Post, hailing the fact that “democracy and pluralism are taking root” in the country. As Hawthorne observes, “Whenever an authoritarian leader falls from power suddenly, it’s really tumultuous. Tunisia is doing pretty well, but it hasn’t been easy.” There have been failures, and progress has come in fits and starts. But there are signs of progress, and that started during Clinton’s tenure at State. Hillary Clinton Takes It to the People <http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/05/22/hillary-clintons-play-people-over-the-press> // US News // David Cantanese - May 22, 2015 Hillary Clinton's animus toward the press was born long before her failed run for the presidency in 2008, and even before the painful impeachment trial of her husband a decade earlier. It dates back even further, to those early days in Arkansas around when Bill Clinton lost the governorship after just one term in 1980, stunning the couple and suspending their dogged political ascendancy. Ellen Brantley, who went to college with Hillary at Wellesley and was later appointed an Arkansas state judge by Bill, explained it to The New Yorker in 1994. "She has always really disliked the press. Her attitude is, 'We're the ones who are trying to accomplish some good, we're doing the best we can, we're on the right side – so stop taking potshots at us. And, especially, don't raise anything during a campaign.'" Flash-forward more than two decades to her own political comeback, and it's no surprise Clinton has not made reporters a priority as she ramps up her candidacy. "If she's decided not to speak to the press, she has her reasons," Brantley told U.S. News this week. The difference is, back then, Clinton needed to cultivate the media to achieve her political goals. Now, in the opening stages of her 2016 campaign, she is universally known, obsessively covered and the overwhelming front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. She simply doesn't have to. While Republicans have piled on Clinton for answering only approximately 20 questions from reporters since launching her bid, the former secretary of state is countering by highlighting her direct contact with everyday Americans, whom she says, in turn, are altering her message and priorities as a candidate. "Somebody asked me the other day, 'Well, you know, you're going to these events where you're taking time to actually talk and listen to people. Is that what you're really going to do?'" Clinton said Monday at a home in Mason City, Iowa. "And I said, 'Well, yes, it is. Because not only do I learn a lot, but I also feel like it's the best way to make those connections that will not only give me a firm foundation in the caucus here in Iowa or in a primary in New Hampshire – because it really is about people-to-people connections … but it will also give me the kind of information I need to be an even better president." Correct The Record, an effort launched by pro-Clinton super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, has outlined more than 100 questions Clinton has asked supporters who have attended her round-tables in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. But even by their count, she had fielded only 20 queries from these "everyday Americans" through Monday. As concerns continued to mount this week about the fundraising pursuits of the Clinton Foundation during her time as the country's top diplomat and the revelation of a second private email addressshe used during her tenure, the demand for a substantive exchange with Clinton reached a boiling point. "Why won't you answer any questions?" Fox News Channel's Ed Henry shouted at Clinton Monday as she climbed into a traveling van positioned safely away from reporters. On Tuesday in Cedar Rapids, Henry interrupted Clinton in the middle of a small business round-table, complaining that "we haven't heard from you in a month." Raising her open hand up in his direction, she replied, "Maybe when I finish talking to the people here." Henry's gambit worked, forcing Clinton later into a semicircle of hungry reporters, where she fielded seven questions in five minutes. She called her vote as a U.S. senator to authorize the Iraq War a "mistake" and asked the State Department to expedite the process for releasing her emails. Her very act of engaging the press was enough to prompt a breaking news chyron by CNN: "Just In: Hillary Clinton Takes Questions." But these types of rapid-fire rope line interactions aren't conducive to the follow-ups or depth required to penetrate controversial issues. Unlike every one of the Republicans contemplating presidential bids, Clinton hasn't done a sit-down interview with even a local reporter since formalizing her candidacy. What's more, she appears largely unmoved by the pressure thus far, seeing little need to appease a frustrated press corps whose complaints are far from the minds of those "everyday Americans" who will ultimately determine her fate. Having absorbed years of battle wounds, her respect for the media likely has only declined since she was pitching her husband's health care reform initiative in 1993 and referred to the "unjust, inaccurate reporting that goes on from coast to coast, north to south, east to west." Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney's chief strategist in 2012, thinks Clinton has simply surveyed the scars from her 2008 campaign and made a calculus of risk over reward. "The only thing that matters is what the numbers tell you, and if the numbers tell you you can get away with not talking to the press, don't talk to the press," he says. "If they're winning, it's OK. If they're losing, they'd do some regression analysis to see if there's any causality. Until there is some reason to change, they won't change. What they're betting on is the press doesn't matter." On the other side of the campaign, the press has mattered, and the risk-reward equation has come out negatively for some. Republicans Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio recently sat for those longer interviews but found they didn't necessarily serve them well. It was a conversation with Fox's Megyn Kelly that produced Bush's befuddling Iraq answer, which metastasized into the former Florida governor's worst week as a potential presidential candidate. Rubio's sit-down with Fox's Chris Wallace similarly produced a combative back-and-forth that exposed flaws in the Florida senator's defense of the 2003 decision to go to war. But, unlike Clinton, both Bush and Rubio are wrestling for every potential inch of support in a wide-open primary battle for their party's nomination. The accessibility deficit between Clinton and the GOPers is, at least in part, due to a lack of robust Democratic competition. "The Republicans, because there's so many of them, are straining for attention," says Iowa Democratic National Committeeman Scott Brennan, a former state party chairman who defended Clinton. "She can't win. The problem is, when she ran in the 2008 cycle, the criticism was she didn't talk to real Iowans. She had big rallies, giant press events. They heard that criticism and are out talking to Iowans and now they get criticized for talking to Iowans," Brennan adds. Most of the "real people" Clinton is talking to have been thoroughly vetted beforehand and are interested in local issues, a smoother alternative to a pesky press corps angling for reaction to the latest revelations about her complicated political entanglements. Standing in a supporter's home in Mason City on Monday, Clinton spoke about learning of the drug epidemic plaguing rural communities from Davenport to Council Bluffs through kitchen table conversations. "I did not believe I would be standing in your living room talking about the drug abuse problem, the mental health problem and the suicide problem," Clinton said. "But I'm now convinced I have to talk about it." This is her implicit rationale for skirting the media – it's a play to gather up ideas from the ground that will eventually inform her policies. And while Stevens, the former Romney operative, calls the semi-staged confabs "insulting," he also admits the Clinton camp has the luxury of adopting such a strategy. "They are operating under different rules," he says. "I don't know that they're not right." Brantley, who knew Clinton 40 years ago, thinks her old college classmate's mindset is based on "many, many years of experience." "I'm sure she will" engage with the media, she said. But "right now … she's thought it through, and her strategy seems to be not to." Hillary Clinton Aims to Capture the Cool <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/fashion/hillary-clinton-aims-to-capture-the-cool.html> // NYT // Jason Horowitz - May 22, 2015 On Super Tuesday of the bitter 2008 Democratic primary campaign, a group of Barack Obama supporters riding the New York City subway noticed Audrey Gelman wearing aHillary Rodham Clinton campaign button on her jacket. They berated Ms. Gelman, then a junior staff worker on the Clinton campaign, for backing a candidate standing in the way of the first black president. At another point, the button invited mocking inquiries at a Lower East Side cafe as to whether Ms. Gelman was a Republican. Now a 27-year-old public relations consultant with one foot in Democratic politics and the other in New York’s hipper-than-thou fashion, arts and music scene, Ms. Gelman is feeling more confident in her Clinton accessories this time around. “If you go to a party in Williamsburg or Bushwick now and wear a Hillary pin,” she said, “people are going to be like, ‘Right on.’ ” “Cool Kids for Hillary.” You may be able to imagine it on a campaign button, but would any of them wear one? Whereas Mr. Obama’s 2008 candidacy organically prompted excitement on college campuses, the country’s skinny-jean citadels and celebrity hangouts, the candidate Clinton seems to be trying awfully hard to be down with the in crowd. “Say you’ll Bey on Team #Hillary2016, too” read a May 15 tweet on Mrs. Clinton’s official account above an article in Marie Claire (where Ms. Gelman is a contributing editor) that was headlined “Beyoncé just publiclyshowed her support for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.” Then there’s the Brooklyn Heights campaign headquarters. “Brooklyn U.S.A. How can you beat that?” Mrs. Clinton asks in a meet-the-neighbors web video — complete with a precious faux-handwriting font — that captures her greeting adoring Brooklynites. (Never mind that this is one of the borough’s more-staid neighborhoods.) Ms. Gelman, who called the former secretary of state “a feminist icon and a cultural icon,” has sought to lift Mrs. Clinton’s cultural cred. On the day Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy, Ms. Gelman said that approving Instagram messages poured in from the singer Ciara, the stars of the raunchy millennial comedy “Broad City” and her best friend and “Girls” creator Lena Dunham. (“My new tramp stamp,” Ms. Dunham wrote under the campaign logo.) There have also been endorsements from Katy Perry, 50 Cent and America Ferrera, the star of TV’s “Ugly Betty.” On Thursday evening, Mrs. Clinton replied “Back at you” to the singer Kelly Clarkson, who called herself a “fan of Hillary.” But in campaign appearances, Mrs. Clinton has targeted voters on the opposite side of the cool-kid spectrum. On Monday, she stood before leatherbound classics and a ceramic life-size dog in the Mason City, Iowa, living room of Dean Genth and his husband, Gary Swenson. “People really got to see a personable, down-to-earth, approachable Hillary Clinton that I think a lot of people don’t realize exists,” Mr. Swenson said after the event, adding that she was “really interested in what the heartland of America and what America in general is interested in.” The next day, Mrs. Clinton sat for a round-table discussion about small businesses inside a Cedar Falls, Iowa, bicycle shop. With the clean-cut owner of Goldie’s Ice Cream Shoppe on her right, Mrs. Clinton put on her super-folksy accent and stated, again, “I’m running for president because everyday Americans and their families need a champion.” And yet, Mrs. Clinton would love for young trendsetters to champion her cause and to replicate Mr. Obama’s success at converting his cultural currency among young voters into hard votes. The campaign argues that she enjoys their widespread support, thoughDemocratic Party operatives say that has more to do with the increasingly liberal positions she has taken than any excitement about her per se. “Obama was new,” the actor Steve Buscemi said on a recent afternoon as he took a break from filming a scene for a television show on Mott Street. He called Mrs. Clinton “formidable” and “amazing” but added, “She’s been around a long time, so we can’t expect her to have the same thing.” Mrs. Clinton has made efforts to maintain contact with cultural signposts. In 2012, she posed with the singer Lia Ices at Roberta’s, the Bushwick pizzeria housed in a former garage that was all the rage. That same year, she tasted viral Internet fame and liked it. Stacy Lambe and a friend were at Nellie’s Sports Bar, a popular Washington gay hangout, when they got the idea of writing humorous texts under a photograph of Mrs. Clinton wearing oversize sunglasses and reading her BlackBerry. The resulting Tumblr account, “Texts From Hillary,” turned into an Internet meme of a woman so ice-cold as to be cool. Mrs. Clinton embraced the image, making it her Twitter avatar. But Mr. Lambe, who now works at “Entertainment Tonight,” said the meme’s momentum and excitement over Mrs. Clinton has abated somewhat since the controversy over her personal email accounts. Moreover, “there was this cool-kids factor with Obama,” he said, “and I definitely think Hillary didn’t have that.” There is little doubt that young voters, who are traditionally Democrats, will prefer Mrs. Clinton over the Republican nominee. And one of the most accomplished women in American political history certainly does not care much about the opinions of people whose defining characteristics are the style of their Warby Parker glasses or the origins of their pour-over coffee. But she does care a lot about becoming president. The question is then whether she can get young people excited about her candidacy. A temperature-taking in Washington Square Park was not promising. “Honestly, I really haven’t seen anything,” said Mckennah Spagnola, 19, a New York University student studying psychology, when asked about her peer group’s response to Mrs. Clinton. A few feet away, the actress Anne Hathaway and her husband smiled as they watched toddlers interacting with dogs. She politely declined to comment (a former boyfriend of hers who once pledged $50 million to the Clinton Global Initiative pleaded guilty to fraud in 2008) and instead admired a circle of aspiring Broadway stars shouting voice exercises. While the musical theater set had approving things to say about Mrs. Clinton, Mariah Ramirez, 18, who was in sixth grade in the months before the 2008 presidential election, said, “It’s not cool to support Hillary.” Ms. Ramirez said that while the prospect of a female president was exciting, she supports Senator Bernie Sanders because he has said he would not accept super PAC money. Apathy may be preferable to some of the ambiguous messages Mrs. Clinton has triggered on the streets around her Brooklyn headquarters, where black-and-white posters popped up in April depicting the former first lady over the words “Secretive” or “Ambitious.” That’s a far cry from the Hope posters (and subsequent ubiquitous T-shirts) made by the graffiti artist Shepard Fairey, who said he is not going to be making another one for Mrs. Clinton. “I was interested in Obama in 2008 because his stated positions at the time made him seem like a subversive delivery vehicle for progressive principles I believe in,” Mr. Fairey wrote in an email. “Since then, I’ve realized that the corrupt nature of the system itself, with current campaign finance structure and the stranglehold corporations have on government, limits the kind of candidates that will make it into the system and narrows the spectrum of what’s available in our near non-Democracy.” Try putting that on a T-shirt. On a recent afternoon, in front of St. Ann’s, a private school across the street from the Clinton headquarters, Adrian Briscoe, 42, paused from chatting with the actress and Brooklyn Heights native Jennifer Connelly to discuss Mrs. Clinton’s decision to base her campaign nearby. “Do I seem excited?” he asked. He did not. Neither did Stewart Gerard and Jessica Mazza, who walked out of Glasserie, a trendy restaurant in Greenpoint that evening, to smoke a cigarette in front of a red retro pickup truck. Ms. Mazza, 25, an aspiring filmmaker and artist, said she wished Elizabeth Warren would get in the race. Mr. Gerard, 32, a production designer, insisted that while he was “down with Hillary,” he worried that young people wouldn’t come out to vote for her, as he had seen none of the enthusiasm Mr. Obama had generated in 2008. He added with a touch of nostalgia, “I wish I could vote for Obama for a third term.” Clinton campaigning in a bubble, largely isolated from real people <http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/05/21/267463/clinton-campaigning-in-a-bubble.html> // McClatchy // Anita Kumar - May 21, 2015 CEDAR FALLS, IOWA — Here’s how Hillary Clinton campaigned for president this week: She took a private 15-minute tour of a bike shop that had closed for her visit. She spoke to four small business owners chosen by her staff in front of an audience of 20, also chosen by her staff. She answered a few questions from the media following weeks of silence. And after a little more than an hour, Clinton was off, whisked away by aides and Secret Service agents, into a minivan and on to the next event. Members of the public who wanted to go inside the building to support her, oppose her or merely ask a question of her were left outside on an unseasonably cool Iowa day. Most didn’t bother showing up. “I am troubled that so far in this caucus cycle she hasn’t had any public town halls,” said Chris Schwartz, a liberal activist from Waterloo, as he stood outside the bike store hoping to talk to Clinton about trade. “If she had a public town hall then we wouldn’t be out here. We would much rather be in there engaging with her.” Welcome to Hillary Clinton 2.0. Mindful of her defeat by Barack Obama in 2008, Clinton has embraced a new strategy – one that so far does not include town-hall meetings and campaign rallies, media interviews, even public events. Instead, she holds small controlled events with a handful of potential voters in homes, businesses and schools. She repeats many of the same lines (“I want to be your champion” is a favorite), participants are handpicked by her staff or the event host, and topics are dictated by her campaign. Brent Johnson, 35, the owner of Bike Tech, said Clinton campaign staffers walked into the shop a week earlier and asked him if he’d be interested in hosting an event. He and the three roundtable participants were on a conference call with the campaign the day before to hear Clinton’s “basic talking points” about helping small businesses. A campaign aide says they found guests through the small business community. Clinton’s approach – made possible by her lack of strong competition for the Democratic nomination – comes as she works to relate to working American families after years of being criticized as an out-of-touch Washington insider garnering hefty paychecks for her speeches and books. But the campaign to show the world that she’s never forgotten her middle-class, Middle America sensibilities can be a tough sell from inside a bubble of armored cars, Secret Service agents and wary aides. “It’s going to come back and haunt her,” said Eric Herzik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno. “I think it will backfire.” Clinton takes a minute at most events to talk about her approach. “This conversation is just another example of why I love doing this, because I always learn something and I feel like we need a conversation in our country again, where we are talking to each other, where we are respecting each others’ opinions,” she said, thanking the roundtable participants Tuesday. As of Monday, Clinton had answered 20 questions from “everyday Americans” and asked 117 questions to “everyday Americans,” according to Correct the Record, a research organization designed to defend Clinton against attacks. “In 2008, the rallies got so big you couldn’t talk to her,” said Scott Brennan, a former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. “This provides a chance to get to know her.” Clinton’s distance from the public stands in contrast to other candidates in both parties, who routinely mix and mingle with the public, hold town-hall meetings and appear on TV news programs. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, has been known to unexpectedly break into song on the campaign trail when someone hands him a guitar. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, unexpectedly posed for photos with a bride and groom last month after his speech in New Hampshire had to be moved to accommodate their wedding. And Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was surrounded by crowds this week after campaign events in Philadelphia, where people lined up to shake his hand or pose for photos. “You can’t script your way to the presidency – put yourself in a protective bubble and never interact with people, only talk to people who totally agree with you,” said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican. “It’s not going to work.” Walking outside the bubble does pose political risks, of course. Bush, for example, has faced tough questions, such as when a 19-year-old college student confronted him about former President George W. Bush’s role in allowing the Islamic State terrorist group to grow. “Your brother created ISIS,” the student said in a tense exchange at a town hall in Reno. So far, Clinton has not held one event open to the public since she launched her campaign, though aides say she eventually will hold bigger events. She sometimes makes unannounced visits to coffee shop and stores, though the easily recognizable Clinton, who often travels with an entourage, frequently finds herself physically removed from the crowds. “She’s someone I’m interested in seeing in seeing face to face and asking her some questions,” said Christine Elliott, 28, a librarian at nearby Wartburg College who generally votes for Democrats. Elliott said she appreciates Clinton’s new strategy but wonders if it’s authentic. “It’s just advertising,” she said. “It’s a ploy to show that she can get down to our level. That’s how it is with all politicians.” Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said that while there’s value in hearing what potential voters say, the Clinton campaign has ensured she only gets friendly audiences even if she doesn’t know exactly what they will say. “There’s not the same level of push-back. It’s always going to be artificial.” he said. “She shouldn’t be afraid to talk to voters and really campaign.” Clinton spoke Monday to about 60 people at the Mason City home of Dean Genth and Gary Swenson, major Democratic organizers in Iowa who were among the first gay couples married in the state. They supported Barack Obama in 2008. “It just thrills me that Hillary is coming to Iowa and really doing what Iowa caucus-goers love, which is having up-close personal interactions,” Genth said. “I think she is astute and smart at this stage of the campaign to come to Iowa and gather what is on Iowans’ minds.” Journalists' contributions to Clinton Foundation raise credibility questions <http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-journalists-contributions-to-clinton-foundation-raise-credibility-questions-20150521-story.html> // Baltimore Sun // Jules Witcover - May 22, 2015 While much of the political community frets over the influence of billionaire money in presidential campaigns, the much smaller world of journalism occasionally worries over the ethics of politicians crossing over into the news-and-analysis business. The latest stir has occurred in the disclosure that George Stephanopoulos, an ABC News anchor and once a key political aide to President Bill Clinton, contributed$75,000 between 2012 and 2014 to the charitable Clinton Foundation, headed by Bill, Hillary and Chelsea. The red flag of conflict of interest immediately fluttered, especially since Mr. Stephanopoulos had been mentioned to moderate a Republican presidential debate in early 2016 sponsored by the network and the Republican National Committee. ABC News quickly announced that he had decided not to be the moderator, and he apologized for not having disclosed the donations himself, saying he thought his gifts "were a matter of public record." In hindsight, he said, "I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on air during the recent news stories about the foundation." I'm unaware of any reporting that Stephanopolous has done on the Clinton Foundation. Even so, are reporters not allowed to ever give to the Gates Foundation? That's a pretty ridiculous bar you've set. Mr. Stephanopoulos was referring to a recent interview he did with Peter Schweizer, author of a book, "Clinton Cash," highly critical of the Clintons and their foundation. It questioned whether donations from foreign governments might have affected Hillary Clinton's decisions as secretary of state in the first term of the Barack Obama administration. The ABC anchor reported that his network and others had found no evidence of it. The close tie between Mr. Stephanopoulos and Bill Clinton has been well known in the political community in light of his White House departure after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. That scandal led to Mr. Clinton's impeachment and subsequent acquittal (thanks to Democratic senators who held their noses and voted not to convict). Mr. Stephanopoulos's book, "All Too Human," was a frank if sympathetic account of his five years as a key Bill Clinton political insider. He has defended his contribution as motivated by the foundation's work on global AIDS and deforestation, but he has admitted he should have been aware of the appearance of conflict of interest. The fact that he came into high-profile journalism after working as a political partisan may be an explanation for his blind spot, but hardly an excuse. Along with this disclosure came word that another prominent television anchor, Judy Woodruff of "PBS NewsHour," had also made a one-time contribution the Clinton Foundation of $250 for Haitian earthquake relief in 2010 in response to a plea from Mr. Clinton and former President George H.W. Bush. But that was peanuts compared to the Stephanopoulos donations and Ms. Woodruff had no working connection with either president, rising in journalism as an Atlanta newscaster who moved to the White House beat for NBC with the 1976 election of former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter. The phenomenon of political operatives segueing into high-level journalistic posts as been a longtime subject of discussion within the journalistic community. A once-honored wall between the two professions has increasingly broken down, especially as television and its huge advertising revenue have produced astonishingly high salaries and made celebrities of the recipients. The recently suspended Brian Williams, anchor of "NBC Nightly News," reportedly had just signed a $10 million contract. Occasionally, a journalist who already has attained star status, such as CBS' Edward R. Murrow, may switch teams at a president's request for less money. He became director of the U.S. Information Agency in the Kennedy administration, and NBC's John Chancellor was recruited for a time to head the government-run Voice of America by Lyndon Johnson. But the switch most times works the other way around. For example, ABC's Diane Sawyer was a press aide in the Nixon White House, and Chris Matthews of MSNBC was a press secretary to House Speaker Tip O'Neill before achieving prominence in television news. Press credibility took a big hit from the revelation that Mr. Williams was given to exaggerations, to say the least. Any appearance of conflict of interest in reporting or commenting on the news can easily lead to further public distrust, unless there is full disclosure of any possible suspicion of favoritism or softness in journalists' relations with public officials. Clinton: GOP threatening small-business jobs <http://bigstory.ap.org/article/22a81d79f57c4832a5bec3043beeb886/clinton-gop-threatening-small-business-jobs> // AP // Ken Thomas - May 22, 2015 HAMPTON, N.H. (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton says Republicans in Congress and GOP presidential hopefuls are threatening tens of thousands of small-business jobs by seeking to cut a little-known government agency that guarantees loans to help U.S. exporters. The Democratic presidential contender said during a round-table discussion at Smuttynose Brewery in New Hampshire that Congress should renew financing for the Export-Import Bank. She argues the GOP is risking up to 164,000 jobs supported by the bank. She says Republicans running in the 2016 campaign would rather threaten the jobs than "stand up to the tea party and talk radio." Conservatives have sought to eliminate the Export-Import Bank, arguing it gives the government too big a role in helping some large American companies sell products overseas at the expense of others. Clinton’s claim that it takes longer to start a business in the U.S. than in Canada or France <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/05/22/clintons-claim-that-it-takes-longer-to-start-a-business-in-the-u-s-than-in-canada-or-france/> // WaPo // Glenn Kessler- May 22, 2015 Our antenna always goes up when a politician asserts a “fact.” Clinton made this remark in the midst of a discussion about the “perfect storm of crisis” that she said small businesses face in the United States. She made a similar point in an article she posted on LinkedIn on May 21, but with an additional country added: “It should not take longer to start a business in the U.S. than it does in Canada, Korea, or France.” This statement poses a fact-checking conundrum because, as the Clinton campaign hastened to point out, it is accurately drawn from a database at the World Bank. But sometimes, depending on the context, things can be technically true but still misleading. Let’s take a look. The Facts The World Bank’s database lists 189 countries in terms of the time required to start a business. For 2014, in first place is New Zealand, with one day. In France and Canada, along with eight other countries, it takes five days. (South Korea, along with six other countries, is listed as four days.) The United States, with 12 other countries, is listed as six days. First of all, one extra day does not seem like much of a hindrance — so much so that, as Clinton asserted in the LinkedIn article, the fact signified the “red tape that holds back small businesses and entrepreneurs.” But if you did dig even deeper into the data, the differences narrow further. From France it works out as 36 hours (4.5 days), Canada 40 hours (5 days) and the United States 45 hours (5.6 days). The average time for starting a business in the world was 22.3 days, according to the World Bank. In high-income countries, it was 15.2 days, while in the Euro area, it was 10.6 days. So, within the world, the United States ranks very close to France and Canada — and exceeds many other industrialized countries. We should note that the World Bank studied a very specific size of company —employing between 10 to 50 people within one month, having five owners, using start-up capital equivalent to 10 times income per capita and being engaged in industrial or commercial activities and owning no real estate. But there’s another funny thing about the data. While Clinton uses these numbers as a proxy for entire countries, in most cases, researchers only looked at the time it took to start a business in a country’s largest city. That would be Paris in France and Toronto in Canada. But the United States was one of the few countries in which its figure was an amalgam of the two largest cities — New York and Los Angeles. When you look at the individual city data, it turns out that it takes four days to start a business in New York and eight days to start one in Los Angeles. In the report, that was averaged as six days. But if you really used an apples to apples comparison – the largest city in each country –then actually the United States (ie, New York, with four days) tops France (Paris, with 4.5 days) and Canada (Toronto, with five days.) The World Bank Web site lets you compare the individual cities to countries, so New York ends up tied for 6th place — with Belgium, Iceland, South Korea, the Netherlands and Sao Tome. Los Angeles is down in 15th place, tied with Cyprus, Egypt, Madagascar and the Kyrgyz Republic, among others. Another World Bank report notes that the differences are so large because, in the United States, “company law is under state jurisdiction and there are measurable differences between the California and New York company law.” So what does data about starting a business in the largest city have to do with small businesses in Iowa? Beats us. The Clinton campaign noted that the United States (ie, the combined ranking for New York and Los Angeles) ranked 46th on a broader “starting a business” category, which also includes time to start a business, the number of procedures, cost of capital and paid-in minimum capital. Each element is weighed equally to come up with an overall ranking. Under this criteria, Canada ranked second, Korea was 17th and France was 28th. But again, the U.S. score is dragged down by greater difficulties found in starting a business in Los Angeles. And Clinton spoke simply of the time it took to start a business. The Pinocchio Test In the context in which Clinton used this factoid, it does not make much sense. This is specifically about starting businesses in a country’s largest city — and the score for the United States is affected by the fact that it is one of the few countries with a blended figure for two cities. There is such a wide variation between New York and Los Angeles because corporate law generally is set at the state level — making us wonder what federal solution Clinton is proposing. (Her article said such specific policy suggestions would be forthcoming in the future.) On a strictly technical level, this factoid at least is based on a legitimate data set. But it means much less than Clinton suggests in her statement and lacks important context. So she earns a Pinocchio. One Pinocchio. Why Hillary Clinton Prefers to Talk About Community Banks <http://time.com/3891520/hillary-clinton-community-banks/> // TIME // Sam Frizell - May 21, 2015 Like many Democrats, Hillary Clinton has talked tough about reining in mega banks. But as her presidential campaign has gotten underway, she’s focused on the homier side of the financial industry: community banks. At times, listeners might have even mistaken Clinton for a moderate Republican. “Today,” Clinton said, “local banks are being squeezed by regulations that don’t make sense for their size and mission—like endless examinations and paperwork designed for banks that measure their assets in the many billions.” “And when it gets harder for small banks to do their jobs, it gets harder for small businesses to get their loans,” she said. “Our goal should be helping community banks serve their neighbors and customers the way they always have.” Community banks tend have less than $1 billion in assets, are usually based in rural or suburban communities and are the kind of place your uncle in Idaho might go for money to open an antique shop. Touting small businesses is a tried-and-true trope for candidates on both sides of the aisle. For office-seekers from Barack Obama to Marco Rubio, the subject is as noncontroversial and all-American as crabgrass. The difference, then, comes at how politicians want to handle bigger banks. Congress right now is debating how far to exempt banks from certain regulations. Democratic lawmakers generally want to reduce them only for smaller banks; some Republicans want to exempt all banks, an approach Clinton criticized. Big banks in the United States have become increasingly large and powerful in the seven years since the financial crisis. Of the 6,000-odd banks in the United States, the five largest control nearly half of the country’s banking wealth, according to a December study. In 1990, the five biggest banks controlled just 10% of the industry’s assets. Small banks complain that federal regulation in the aftermath of the Dodd-Frank legislation is contributing to a decline in their numbers. Annual examinations at a community banks, for instance, require staff to walk regulators through paperwork. Filling out paperwork and paying for compliance lawyers to deal with new Dodd-Frank stipulations are burdensome extra costs, banks say. And new rules can impose high damages on lenders who do make unsafe loans. “There’s an inherent advantage in scale,” said Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, pointing out that small banks often have more trouble paying for regulation compliance. “Community banks, being smaller, have less business to spread the cost of regulations over.” It’s an issue that resonates with Iowa bankers, says John Sorensen, president and CEO of the Iowa Bankers Association. “A lot of the banks we have across Iowa are small businesses with 10 to 30 employees that have been interrupted in their ability to serve their customers through a good part of Dodd-Frank,” he said. But some say the discussion about scrapping community bank regulations as Clinton suggests is a distraction. Small banks were in steady decline for many years before Dodd-Frank, and they are protected from liability on certain loans that big banks are not. And regulators argue that preventing risky mortgages of the kind that brought on the financial crisis is a good thing. Much of the push to deregulate community banks comes from bigger institutions who want exemptions from regulation themselves. “If you were able to somehow magically trace who is whipping up frenzy about regulator burden on small banks, you’d find its trade associations at the behest of bigger banks,” said Julia Gordon of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank that has supplied some top officials in the Clinton campaign. During the roundtable, Donna Sorensen, chair of the board of Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust and a participant on Tuesday, suggested to Clinton that more U.S. Small Business Administration-supported loans come with no fees. Clinton took notes and nodded in assent. “If we really wanted to jumpstart more community bank lending, part of what we would do is exactly that—raise the limits to avoid the upfront fee” for businesses that need loans, Clinton said. Clinton did not say specifically what regulations she would remove if she were elected president, but locals in Independence, Iowa, where Clinton stopped by for a visit after her small business roundtables, asked her to hold true to her sentiments. Terry Tekippe, whose family owns an independent hardware store, walked onto the street as Clinton walked by. “Keep us in focus,” Tekippe said. “I want to be a small business president, so I am,” Clinton called back as she continued down the street. Hillary Clinton, Acutely Aware of Pitfalls, Avoids Press on Campaign Trail <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/us/politics/hillary-clinton-acutely-aware-of-pitfalls-avoids-press-on-campaign-trail.html?_r=0> // NYT // Jason Horowitz - May 22, 2015 CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Hillary Rodham Clinton was in a forgiving mood. She had been discussing the small-business economy at a round-table gathering at a bike shop here on Tuesday when the Fox News correspondent Ed Henry interrupted. When, he shouted, would she take questions from the news media she had ignored for weeks on end? “Maybe when I finish talking to the people here,” Mrs. Clinton said as she leaned over a 3-D printed mechanical part that looked like a post-apocalyptic Rubik’s cube. “How’s that?” “You’ll come over?” Mr. Henry followed up. “I might,” Mrs. Clinton said teasingly. For the amusement of the 19 local residents invited to attend this latest installment of the movable Clinton court, and to the annoyance of the more than 50 members of the news media roped off around them, she added: “I have to ponder it. But I will put it on my list for due consideration.” Unlike in 2008, when Mrs. Clinton’s regal bearing was brought low by Barack Obama’s insurgent campaign, there is no one to force her out of her Rose Garden. Neither Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, nor Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, has applied significant pressure on her. That leaves the news media as her only real opponent so far on the way to the Democratic presidential nomination, and while it may not be great for an educated populace or the furtherance of American democracy, it makes all the political sense in the world for Mrs. Clinton to ignore them, too. What Hillary Clinton Would Need to Do to Win There is no shortage of reminders of the downsides of engagement. She need only look at her Republican counterparts, starting with Jeb Bush, who has made a point of opening up more to reporters butdamaged himself during a several-day struggle with how to answer a question about the wisdom of the war in Iraq. Senator Marco Rubio’s difficulties with the same question were condensed to a few highly awkward and viral minutes. Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin has been working for weeks to overcome his flubbing of initial questions about foreign policy, and Senator Rand Paul’s snappish interactions with female reporters have only fed the impression that he is thin-skinned. Mrs. Clinton had her own rocky introduction to the 2016 press corps when she gave defensive and not entirely convincing answers at a news conference prompted by the revelation that she had used a private email server as secretary of state. But as reporters have dug deeper into the emails, the financial conduct of her family’s foundation and the character of the company she keeps, Mrs. Clinton has only seemed more comfortable and dominant on the campaign trail. She has rolled out more liberal positions on immigration reform and college debt and stayed mum on inconvenient things she does not want to talk about, like a potential trade deal or Israeli policies loathed by her liberal base. And unlike in 2008 — when the battle between her and Mr. Obama forced Mrs. Clinton to do events late into the night, and she often slipped up or held forth about brain science — she is keeping her campaign schedule to a bare minimum. This week, as she campaigned in Iowa, in Chicago and, starting Friday, in New Hampshire — a relative flurry of activity — she generally filled each day with one event open to the news media, a smaller one with a pool reporter, and then some unexpected stops where she ordered coffee or bought toys for her grandchild. Always the grandchild. At the bike shop event on Tuesday, she listened intently to the stories of the round-table participants, nodding 43 times a minute as they talked about their ice cream shops and 3-D printing. As television lights cast the shadows of two rows of “everyday Americans” onto the tablecloth, she looked expertly over the locals’ heads and into the television cameras behind them to give her prepared remarks (“I want to make the words ‘middle class’ mean something again”). Who Is Running for President (and Who’s Not)? She complimented the participants on their inquiries (“that’s a very fair question” or “that’s a very good question”), and when the moderator unexpectedly pushed her on her position on President Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, she dodged artfully. When it finally came time to ask their questions, the reporters seemed more agitated than the candidate as they pushed against a rope line for the impromptu news conference and gasped when her traveling press secretary, Nick Merrill, joked, “Wouldn’t it be funny if she walked off?” “Hey, y’all ready?” Mrs. Clinton asked as she sauntered over. “Yeah!” said the chorus of reporters. “Tell me — tell me something I don’t know,” she said, almost musically, as she snapped her head to the left in a Janet Jackson-era dance move. “Ha, ha, ha, ha.” The smile on Mrs. Clinton’s face slowly faded as she nodded and replied and obfuscated in response to the half-dozen questions asked of her. She did so with ease, despite the people shouting about her destroying her emails and calling out, “Did you take official actions for the Clinton Foundation donors?” And then she turned away, essentially dusting the whole dodging-the-press story line off her bird’s-eye blazer. Rick Santorum Denounces Fox News Curbs on Debate07:40 AM ET Today in Politics: No Time for a Lazy Summer as Campaigns Ramp Up 07:01 AM ET Clinton Foundation Releases List of Speeches That Filled Its Coffers 9:42 PM ET Mrs. Clinton’s relationship with the political press has never been warm. She started the 2008 race straight-arming reporters, and only when the nomination began slipping from her grasp did she seek to embrace them. It was too late. When she boarded the press bus with bagels (“I didn’t want you to feel deprived”), no one partook. Despite that chill, though, there was a sense of professionalism and familiarity on the Clinton bus, because many of the reporters represented New York-based publications and had covered her as a senator. News conferences were not frequent, but they occurred behind curtains after events. Now, both Mrs. Clinton and the news media have changed. She seems less a presidential candidate than a historical figure, magically animated from a wax museum to claim what is rightfully hers. And the press corps, both blessed and cursed with live streaming, tweeting and Snapchatting technologies, is armed with questions devised to win the moment. The result is a carnival atmosphere. It is not clear what Mrs. Clinton gains politically from playing the freak. The solution for her team has been to keep the press at bay as Mrs. Clinton reads the scripts to her daily campaign shows. “The media was confined between the bar and the stove,” Gary Swenson said, describing an event with Mrs. Clinton at his home in Mason City, Iowa, on Monday. Asked if he had learned anything from her talk, he said, “No, I don’t think I learned anything remarkably new,” but added after a pause: “I think it was more her demeanor. It astonished me. I expected somebody who had space between herself and the people who lived here, and there was none.” The press did not learn much, either, from Mrs. Clinton’s remarks in Mason City or her answers at the impromptu bike store news conference, except that she is an exceedingly strong candidate. But that did not mean the event was entirely without news. Outside, by the steps of the bike shop, Mr. Henry did a stand-up in front of his Fox camera. “The reason she had a news conference is because I started shouting questions,” he crowed to his viewers. He called that the day’s “bottom line.” Small victories. Hillary Keeps It Boring <http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-21/hillary-keeps-it-boring> // Bloomberg // Margaret Carlson - May 22, 2015 This week, Hillary Clinton broke her almost month-long streak of avoiding the press. After a speech on small businesses in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, she took six questions from reporters who have been diligently following her around since she announced her presidential candidacy April 12. No surprise, the media didn't clamor for her to flesh out her plan for small businesses. Instead, she found herself parrying queries about her e-mails, the Clinton Foundation and its donors, and her vote to approve the invasion of Iraq in 2003. What would have been a squirm-inducing moment for any other candidate was for Clinton an occasion to draw on skills tempered in the fires of decades in politics. It provided both a reminder of her past in the hot seat of Whitewater, Monica and other battles and a glimpse of her future campaign strategy: She will swat away any unwanted questions by stonewalling as long as possible and, when that's no longer viable, by deflecting with responses designed to make the topic seem as boring as rain and her questioners as tedious gnats. Here's how she handled a question about the burgeoning scandal involving questionable donations to the Clinton Foundation: “I am so proud of the Foundation," she said. "I’ll let the American people make their own judgments.” There's nothing to see here. Move on. My boring question: Is Hillary just kidding us or is she also kidding herself? At the very least, she didn’t report the Foundation's donations from foreign governments, as she promised the president she would when she became secretary of state. At worst, the Foundation took money from some shady characters hoping to put a Clinton gloss on dicey businesses. But the thin gruel she served up has a strategic purpose: Next time the controversy comes up, she can say: asked and answered, old news. Can we please talk about the important issues the American people care about? It works, too. The Clintons have an extraordinary ability to thrive amid turmoil that would fell mere mortals. They -- and the rest of us -- have seen it all before. Speaking of déjà vu, Sidney Blumenthal, a consigliere from the Clinton White House and Monica Lewinsky scourge, has re-emerged as the author of memos on Libya that Clinton passed on to top State Department aides as urgent reading. So how does he fit now and why was a political operative giving advice on Libya policy? Hillary played the loyalty card: “I have many, many old friends and I always think that it’s important when you get into politics to have friends you had before you were in politics and to understand what’s on their mind.” Even ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, one of the few top aides to President Bill Clinton to escape the association seemingly unscathed, recently found the tentacles reaching around his neck because of a charitable donation to the Foundation. But she will wriggle free of all that and whatever else comes her way. In March, Hillary waited eight days to address the missing e-mails, and said no more about it for another month. She was following the first rule of Clintonland: Wait out the first wave of attacks, then say there’s nothing to be concerned about in a frustrated, sing-song voice, as if to a group of kindergartners. The template was forged when her husband intoned his infamous denial about not having sex with that woman, then left the stage to his enemies for six months, giving them time to self-destruct. Instead of Clinton having to resign for a scandalous dalliance with an intern, Ken Starr looked pruriently overzealous, Republicans viciously partisan, and impeachment a bridge too far. If boring worked for Monica -- Bill Clinton is one of the most popular men on the planet -- surely it’s going to work for Hillary’s more mundane, sex-free scandals. She’s had a lot of practice weathering flare-ups: Gennifer Flowers, the embarrassing tax deduction for Bill’s underwear, cattle futures, the pardons, the furnishings taken (and returned) to the White House, nefarious friends with private jets and the list goes on. There were predictions that Hillary’s poll numbers would plummet after the public learned that thousands of e-mails spanning her tenure at state were destroyed. It didn't happen. What’s more, with the passage of time, Hillary was able to conflate two separate sets of e-mails into one so that now it’s the darn State Department’s fault if anything's missing. All she has to do is to keep repeating the answer she gave Tuesday, "I have said repeatedly I want those e-mails out." Note the deft use of “repeatedly,” conveying the sense that these questions are getting really tiresome. We should have known when Hillary announced her candidacy with a supremely boring video that she intended to run the most boring campaign ever. She’s off to a good start. Koch organization attacks Hillary on Ex-Im bank <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/koch-brothers-export-import-bank-hillary-clinton-fight-118224.html> // Politico // Kenneth Vogel and Tarini Parti - May 22, 2015 The Koch brothers organization on Friday blasted Hillary Clinton’s support for the Export-Import bank, previewing a potentially rancorous and expensive fight between the leading Democratic presidential candidate and the deepest pocketed network of donors on the right. The issue of re-authorizing the once little known export credit agency is getting a lot of attention on the campaign trail, with the bank’s charter set to expire June 30 and Republican presidential candidates and members of Congress under pressure from influential conservative groups including those in the Koch network to oppose it. It’s a fight that plays into the sweet spot of both — Clinton and the Koch network. For the Kochs and their network, it’s a chance to elevate a pet issue while engaging in the presidential race at a time when its legions of rich donors remain divided over which GOP candidate to back. Freedom Partners, the umbrella group overseeing the Koch network, in a statement released Friday and promoted on social media asserted that Clinton’s support for re-authorizing the bank draws “a clear line between her and the Republican presidential field and push(es) the Ex-Im Bank into the national dialogue.” Freedom Partners also linked Clinton’s support to donations to her family’s foundation from beneficiaries of the bank, while the Koch group’s spokesman James Davis called Clinton’s position “a case study in cronyism and corporate welfare. Congress should reject Mrs. Clinton’s Ex-Im position and end this culture of corruption, and start fighting on behalf of hard-working taxpayers.” Clinton during a Friday afternoon roundtable at Smuttynose Brewery in New Hampshire, criticized Republicans for targeting the bank and risking up to 164,000 jobs supported through its programs at the behest of “the tea party and talk radio.” And her campaign seemed to welcome the attack from Freedom Partners, with spokesman Jesse Ferguson responding in a statement “Hillary Clinton just made the case that Republicans were jeopardizing small business exports by blocking the Export-Import Bank to please their tea party base when an overwhelming share of the bank’s transactions support American small businesses. And then a leading tea party organization came out attacking her for it. Enough said.” Democrats in the last couple elections spent significant time and money trying to make a campaign issue of the unprecedented political and public policy spending by the industrialist billionaires Charles and David Koch and the donors in their network, which they allege created the tea party protest movement in 2009. Freedom Partners didn’t actually form until late 2011 and since then it has overseen a vast expansion of the Koch network to include scores of wealthy conservative donors funding groups pushing primarily fiscal conservative initiatives and messaging. The network helmed by Freedom Partners intends to spend $889 million in the run-up to the 2016 election through electoral and advocacy efforts. Freedom Partners in a web video last month signaled its desire to take on Clinton over her support for the bank. It distinguished her position on the issue with those of the leading GOP contenders. The group has spent the last few months pressuring the GOP’s presidential prospects to support their economic policy agenda, which includes expiration of Export-Import bank’s charter. “Should your tax dollars fund foreign companies? Hillary Clinton does,” a narrator says in the video, which ends with pictures of Sens. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Gov. Scott Walker and Jeb Bush. “Will Congress follow Hillary or free market champions who oppose it?” GOP chairman: Hillary a 'natural cheerleader' for Export-Import Bank <HTTP://THEHILL.COM/BUSINESS-A-LOBBYING/242941-GOP-CHAIRMAN-HILLARY-A-NATURAL-CHEERLEADER-FOR-EX-IM> // The Hill // Kevin Cirill - May 22, 2015 House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) attacked Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton Friday over her support for the embattled Export-Import Bank. Clinton is expected to reiterate her support for the bank during campaign appearances in New Hampshire, as Congress continues to grapple with whether or not to reauthorize the 80-year-old bank's charter before it expires June 30. “Hillary Clinton is a natural cheerleader for the Export-Import Bank. After all, Ex-Im’s biggest beneficiaries are foreign governments and giant corporations," Hensarling said in a statement. Hensarling and other conservatives — including all top-tier Republican presidential candidates — oppose reauthorizing the federally-backed bank, which finances business projects overseas. Critics argue that the bank unfairly benefits big corporations by backing major, politically connected firms as opposed to small businesses. Boeing, for example, received more than a third of the Bank's total loan commitments between 2007 and 2013, according to an S&P report. "Conveniently, these just happen to be among the biggest donors to the Clinton Foundation as well as major underwriters of the speaking fees that added millions of dollars to the Clinton bank account," Hensarling said in a statement. “If Mrs. Clinton truly wants to help small business and exporters, she would be an outspoken supporter of trade promotion authority, pro-growth tax reform, the Keystone pipeline and real regulatory relief," Hensarling said. Hensarling's panel has jurisdiction over a reauthorization bill and it's unclear whether the House will vote to extend the bank's charter. The issue has exposed a rift between the Tea Party and the business community within the Republican Party. The business community — including prominent groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers — are working to reauthorize the bank, arguing that its support of big businesses helps sustain small business jobs in the supply-chain economic ecosystem. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a potential presidential candidate and supporter of the bank, said Thursday that he expects a vote in the Senate before the bank's charter expires. Republican PAC calls on Clinton to take clear position on trade agreement <http://www.wmur.com/politics/republican-pac-calls-on-clinton-to-take-clear-position-on-trade-agreement/33155004?absolute=true> // WMUR // John DiStaso - May 21, 2015 MANCHESTER, N.H. —A top official of a pro-Republican political action committee Thursday called on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to take a clear position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which cleared a major hurdle in the U.S. Senate earlier in the day. Ahead of Hillary Clinton’s second trip to New Hampshire on Friday, a small business owner from Portsmouth will get a unique social media opportunity. For one day, she’ll be tweeting to more than 3.5 million followers. MORE Colin Reed, executive director of America Rising PAC, charged that Clinton’s “refusal to take a position on President Obama’s bipartisan trade deal undercuts all her empty small business rhetoric and leaves no doubt that she is nothing more than a typical politician desperate to get elected.” His comments came on the eve of Clinton’s second visit to New Hampshire since announcing her candidacy. She will focus on small businesses while in the state, her campaign said. Reed, the former campaign manager for 2014 Republican U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown, cited a 2012 study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics and East-West Center that said the TPP would result in 3,359 new jobs for the state. The institute was founded by Peter G. Peterson, a commerce secretary during the Nixon administration and an investment banker and fiscal conservative. The study was published on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website. America Rising PAC, founded in 2013 by former Mitt Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades, cited remarks by Clinton supportive of the TPP in 2010 and 2011, when she was secretary of state. The group noted that since becoming a presidential candidate, she has been less definitive in her position. In Iowa earlier this week, she said she wants to “judge the final agreement. I have been for trade agreements. I have been against trade agreements." CNN reported that Clinton said she wants to see rules included in the TPP that would penalize countries for driving down the value of their currencies in order to give their exports a price advantage in the U.S. market. She also reportedly said she is concerned about a provision that would give, she said, “corporations more power to overturn health and environmental and labor rules than consumers have.” Clinton's campaign on Thursday declined to comment on the criticism by Reed of America Rising and to comment further on the trade agreement. The Senate Thursday voted 62-38 to provide President Barack Obama “fast-track” authority he needs to complete the TPP deal. Reed said, “It’s impossible for Secretary Clinton to credibly talk about small business without addressing this major piece of bipartisan legislation." The issue has split Obama, who strongly supports the agreement, and liberal Democrats such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who strongly oppose it. Clinton the leader in Granite State Facebook traffic <http://www.nh1.com/news/steinhauser-clinton-the-leader-in-granite-state-facebook-traffic/> // NH1 // Paul Steinhauser - May 22, 2015 CONCORD – Hillary Clinton’s the overwhelming front runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and it appears she’s also far out in front in the battle among 2016 White House contenders for Facebook visitors in the first-in-the-nation primary state. New numbers provided to NH1 News by the social media giant indicate that over the past two months 71,00 people on Facebook in New Hampshire made 457,000 likes, posts, comments and shares related to Clinton. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who was the first big name in the Republican Party to launch a White House campaign, was a distant second, weighing in with 29,000 unique people and 162,000 interactions. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who’s running for the Democratic nomination, had 21,000 unique people and 107,000 interactions. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a GOP presidential candidate, scored 20,000 interactions and 111,000 likes, posts, comments and shares. With social media increasing playing a larger and larger role in campaign politics, these numbers matter. "Facebook is home to a political conversation that isn't just large, it's authentic and meaningful. Not only are voters are using Facebook to connect with candidates, debate public policy issues, and get the latest election political news and information, but so are presidential contenders using Facebook to reach out to voters,” Erin Egan, Facebook’s vice president of U.S. Public Policy, told NH1 News. And in the Granite State, Facebook trumps Twitter. “With regards to social media, in New Hampshire, no offense to Twitter, the best way to reach people is through Facebook,” said NH1 News Digital Director Kevin Deane. Hillary Clinton’s scripted campaign is starting to make New Hampshire mad <http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2015/05/21/hillary-clinton-scripted-campaign-starting-make-new-hampshire-mad/bN1yNXGLgZ3W91aJtccZ2K/story.html> // Boston Globe // Nik DeCosta-Klipa -May 22, 2015 At some point in the 1970s, a man in Manchester, New Hampshire asks his friend, “What do you think about Mo Udall for president?” The other man replies, “I don’t know, I only met him twice.” Or so goes John McCain’s oft-repeated joke about the Granite State’s brand of personal politics. Now it appears that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is starting to get on New Hampshire’s nerves for being impersonal. The Nashua Telegraph published an editorial Thursday that said a conference call by Clinton’s campaign with local media was “the antithesis of what NH is about.” According to the Telegraph, the former secretary of state’s campaign expected that participating media would write stories from the call using unnamed sources only, even though it had “little or no substance.” Clinton’s campaign wanted to talk about their social media outreach plan. From the Telegraph’s editorial: “And then there was this: New Hampshire voters “would be seeing a lot of (Clinton) in the months ahead,” said a campaign strategist. That’s not exactly stop-the-presses material right there. The importance of what was said by campaign operatives in no way rose to a level that required anonymity. In fact, the nature of the call itself runs counter to a long tradition where the appearance of unnamed sources – be they presidential candidates or their operatives – are few and far between in New Hampshire newspapers, including this one. Anonymity, as a matter of course and for its own sake, is part of the culture in Washington, not New Hampshire.” The editorial came one day after a prominent Democratic activist in New Hampshire told The Boston Globe that when it comes to Clinton, “We feel like we don’t matter. I feel like she doesn’t realize it is personal in New Hampshire.” During her first New Hampshire visit, Clinton held panel discussions and house parties, only open to pre-credentialed media and individuals selected by campaign organizers. As The Globe’s Annie Linskey pointed out, “Those everyday Americans who want to quiz Hillary Rodham Clinton on trade, foreign policy, or even her favorite color have one option: They need to be on the right invite list to get in a room with her.” However, a spokesman for the campaign told Linskey the pattern is not part of a long-term strategy, noting there is “plenty of time” before the state’s primary February 9, 2016. Clinton’s campaign is set to return to New Hampshire this weekend, visiting Smuttynose Brewery in Hampton and an organizing event in Exeter. A campaign press release indicates neither will be open to the public. Clinton’s national and New Hampshire campaigns didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. New Hampshire paper blasts Hillary Clinton campaign for lame conference call <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/05/21/new-hampshire-paper-blasts-hillary-clinton-campaign-for-lame-conference-call/> // WaPo // Erik Wemple - May 22, 2015 The “background call” is a staple of contemporary American politics. A message-shaping tool, it involves spinmeisters telling a group of reporters about their strategies on the condition that their names not be used. It’s the launching pad of those quotes you see in the media citing a “senior campaign official” or a “White House official” and so on. Too rarely do the shenanigans of the “background call” get called out. But that’s precisely what the the Telegraph of Nashua, N.H., did today in a searing editorial ripping the paltry information that Hillary Clinton’s campaign dished under the cover of anonymity. Here’s a look: Clinton operatives held a conference call about efforts the campaign is making to bulk up a social media outreach campaign and plans to build working groups that are – get this – based on specific issues rather than the traditional county-by-county breakdown. We’ll give you a moment to recover from the impact of such revelatory news. There was no reason to report any of the “news” from the call, noted the editorial. Except for the existence of the tepid call itself. The editorial ripped away: “Everyone has a story, and connecting that story to their support for this campaign is something that is as crucial and important and something that people want to do – people want to tell those stories,” said a top official with the national campaign. They needed anonymity for that? Really? Another bonus came from a Clinton strategist, who said that New Hampshire voters “would be seeing a lot of (Clinton) in the months ahead.” The killer line: “Anonymity, as a matter of course and for its own sake, is part of the culture in Washington, not New Hampshire.” The Erik Wemple Blog can confirm the part about Washington. New York Times does its best to be a 'real opponent' to Hillary Clinton <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/22/1386859/-New-York-Times-does-its-best-to-be-a-real-opponent-to-Hillary-Clinton> // Daily Kos // Laura Clawson - May 22, 2015 New York Times reporters really aren't bothering to hide their loathing of Hillary Clinton anymore, to the point where the next logical step is for the newspaper to adopt the mottoes "fair and balanced" or "we report, you decide." Here's how one Times reporter tweeted his latest article: In Iowa, Queen Hillary and the Everyday Americans of the Round Table distribute alms to the clamoring press. http://t.co/... — @jasondhorowitz Yeahhhh, Queen Hillary. "We report, you decide!" As for the article itself ... Unlike in 2008, when Mrs. Clinton’s regal bearing was brought low by Barack Obama’s insurgent campaign, there is no one to force her out of her Rose Garden. Neither Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, nor Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, has applied significant pressure on her. That leaves the news media as her only real opponent so far on the way to the Democratic presidential nomination, and while it may not be great for an educated populace or the furtherance of American democracy, it makes all the political sense in the world for Mrs. Clinton to ignore them, too. "That leaves the news media as her only real opponent so far." It's a horrible premise, as Jay Rosen among others has made clear. But boy is it ever a premise Jason Horowitz does his best to live out in an article with personal animus oozing from under every line. Here's how Horowitz describes Clinton taking press questions, as they'd been endlessly whining she was not doing: “Tell me — tell me something I don’t know,” she said, almost musically, as she snapped her head to the left in a Janet Jackson-era dance move. “Ha, ha, ha, ha.” The smile on Mrs. Clinton’s face slowly faded as she nodded and replied and obfuscated in response to the half-dozen questions asked of her. Later in the piece, "She seems less a presidential candidate than a historical figure, magically animated from a wax museum to claim what is rightfully hers." So, Janet Jackson-era dance moves and a historical figure magically animated from a wax museum—she's old! To claim what is rightfully hers—Queen Hillary, so entitled! How dare she be a strong presidential candidate when we, the press, don't like her? The entitlement here is on the part of the press, claiming a role in politics that does not belong to it by any reasonable read of the role of the press, with reporters insisting that their inane questions and picayune obsessions are what's important in this race. Insisting that, rather than covering Bernie Sanders' campaign as seriously as they're covering the campaigns of Republicans with lower polling numbers than Sanders, the right way to cover the Democratic primary is by dismissing Sanders and setting themselves up as Clinton's true opposition. It's disgraceful. Prospect of Hillary Clinton-Marco Rubio Matchup Unnerves Democrats <http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/us/politics/prospect-of-hillary-clinton-marco-rubio-matchup-unnerves-democrats.html?referrer=> // NYT // Jeremy W. Peters - May 22, 2015 WASHINGTON — They use words like “historic” and “charismatic,” phrases like “great potential” and “million-dollar smile.” They notice audience members moved to tears by an American-dream-come-true success story. When they look at the cold, hard political math, they get uneasy. An incipient sense of anxiety is tugging at some Democrats — a feeling tersely captured in four words from a blog post written recently by a seasoned party strategist in Florida: “Marco Rubio scares me.” What is so unnerving to them at this early phase of the 2016 presidential campaignstill seems, at worst, a distant danger: the prospect of a head-to-head general-election contest between Mr. Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yet the worriers include some on Mrs. Clinton’s team. And even former President Bill Clinton is said to worry that Mr. Rubio could become the Republican nominee, whittle away at Mrs. Clinton’s support from Hispanics and jeopardize her chances of carrying Florida’s vital 29 electoral votes. Interactive Feature | What Marco Rubio Would Need to Do to Win Mr. Rubio will try to position himself as a next-generation conservative who can unite the Republican Party. Democrats express concerns not only about whether Mr. Rubio, 43, a son of Cuban immigrants, will win over Hispanic voters, a growing and increasingly important slice of the electorate. They also worry that he would offer a sharp generational contrast to Mrs. Clinton, a fixture in American politics for nearly a quarter-century who will turn 69 less than two weeks before the election. As her supporters recall, Barack Obama beat Mrs. Clinton for the nomination in the 2008 elections after drawing similar contrasts himself. Patti Solis Doyle, who ran Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign for most of the 2008 contest, said Mr. Rubio “could have the ability to nip away at the numbers for the Democrats.” Ms. Doyle, the first Hispanic woman to manage a presidential campaign, added that Mr. Rubio could allow Republicans to regain a “reasonable percentage” of the Hispanic vote, which hit a low of 27 percent in the 2012 presidential election. Interactive Feature | What Hillary Clinton Would Need to Do to Win Mrs. Clinton can expect little if any opposition in the Democratic primaries. But she was similarly well positioned when she declared her candidacy in 2007. “He is a powerful speaker,” she added. “He is young. He is very motivational. He has a powerful story.” Recognizing how essential it is to win Hispanic support, Mrs. Clinton has gone further in laying out an immigration policy than she has on almost any other issue, saying that she would extend greater protections to halt deportations of people in the United States illegally. She has also hired a former undocumented immigrantto lead her Latino outreach efforts. Her own strategists, their allies in the “super PACs” working on her behalf and theDemocratic Party all say they see plenty of vulnerabilities in Mr. Rubio’s record and his views. And they are trying to shape the perception people have of him while polls show that he is still relatively unknown: Yes, the Democratic National Committee said in a recent memo, Mr. Rubio was a fresh face, but one “peddling a tired playbook of policies that endanger our country, hurt the middle class, and stifle the American dream.” So far, Democrats who have combed over Mr. Rubio’s voting record in the Senate have seized on his opposition to legislation raising the minimum wage and to expanding college loan refinancing, trying to cast him as no different from other Republicans. The subtext: He may be Hispanic, but he is not on the side of Hispanics when it comes to the issues they care about. Democrats will try to use Mr. Rubio’s youth and four-year career in national politics against him, depicting him as green or naïve — a liability at a time when unrest abroad is a top concern. “A Dan Quayle without the experience,” suggested Christopher Lehane, a veteran strategist who has worked for the Clintons. Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, who is of Mexican heritage, said Democrats would also make an issue of Mr. Rubio’s mixed record on how to overhaul the immigration system: He initially supported a Senate bill to grant people in the United States illegally a path to citizenship, but he later backed down. Mr. Richardson said that would poison his chances with Hispanic voters. “His own Hispanic potential would defeat him,” he said. It is also unclear how much Mr. Rubio would appeal to Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and other voters with Latin American ancestry who may not feel much cultural affinity with a Cuban. Still, when many Democrats assess Mr. Rubio’s chances, as nearly a dozen of them did for this article, they put him in the top tier of candidates who concern them the most, along with former Gov. Jeb Bush, another Floridian who is courting Hispanics, and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Mr. Rubio’s heritage and his youth could be particularly dangerous to Mrs. Clinton, they said. Each of those points could help neutralize one of her biggest strengths: the opportunity to help elect the first female president, and the experience Mrs. Clinton gained as secretary of state. Mr. Rubio already appears to be pursuing that strategy. By calling himself a candidate of the “21st century, not the 20th,” he seeks both to turn Mrs. Clinton’s long career against her and to entice voters who may desire a change of direction. In Florida, Democrats who have watched Mr. Rubio’s rise warn against playing down his strengths. Former Gov. Charlie Crist, who lost to Mr. Rubio in the Republican primary for the 2010 senatorial election but later switched parties, said he admired how Mr. Rubio told the story of his immigrant parents — his mother a maid, his father a bartender — and how they worked hard so that he could succeed. “It’s hard to get more compelling than that,” Mr. Crist said. John Morgan, a major Democratic donor in Florida who will hold a fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton next week, said he planned to raise the issue of Mr. Rubio’s strengths with her. “Jim Messina talks about how elections are about where we want to go from here,” Mr. Morgan said, naming the strategist who helped President Obama win two national elections. What is problematic about Mr. Rubio, he said, is “his theme will be, ‘We don’t want to go back; we need to go forward.’ ” “I think they do underestimate him,” Mr. Morgan added. “He’s energetic, he’s photogenic, and he will say whatever you want him to say.” Steve Schale, the Florida strategist who wrote the “Marco Rubio scares me” blog post, said that when he worked for the Democratic leader of the Florida House of Representatives, his boss, Dan Gelber, had a saying about Mr. Rubio’s effect on crowds, and about his sincerity: “Young women swoon, old women pass out, and toilets flush themselves.” And Mr. Gelber himself recalled the day in Tallahassee, Fla., in 2008 when he and Mr. Rubio, then the speaker of the State House, gave their farewell speeches. He spoke first, followed by Mr. Rubio, as Mr. Gelber’s wife looked on. “She’s sitting there weeping,” Mr. Gelber recalled, still incredulous. “And I look up, and I mouth, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” Mr. Gelber praised Mr. Rubio’s ability to use his family’s story to convey compassion for people marginalized by society, but he said he believed, as many Democrats do, that this was disingenuous. “It’s a little maddening when his policies are so inconsistent with that,” Mr. Gelber said. “My head would explode.” A Rubio-Clinton contest could ultimately come down to Florida. Republicans can ill afford to lose the state if they hope to win the White House. And bleeding Hispanic votes could make Mrs. Clinton’s path much harder. “Losing a point among whites means winning Hispanics by about 5 percent more just to make up that loss,” Mr. Schale wrote in his memo on Florida’s election demographics. If Democrats continue to lose white voters, he added, Mr. Rubio’s place on the ballot would only complicate matters. “He should be the one you don’t want to face,” Mr. Schale wrote. Hillary Clinton's Accomplishment Deficit <http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/22/hillary_clintons_accomplishment_deficit_126693.html> // RCP // Jonah Goldberg - May 22, 2015 There are plenty of reasons to believe 2016 will be a very ugly election year. Here’s one more. Bloomberg Politics convened a focus group of Iowa Democrats. Nearly all loved Hillary. “She’s a bad mama-jama,” said one female participant. Bad mama-jama is good, by the way. The woman explained that Clinton is “not afraid to step up” or “afraid to say, ‘No. I don’t want to do it that way. I’m going to do it this way.’” Another participant insisted that Clinton is a “better woman than I am” — a great standard for selecting a president, to be sure — because of Clinton’s ability to weather various scandals and humiliations. The awkward part came when Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin asked the room, “What did she accomplish that you consider significant as secretary of state?” The answers — or rather, the replies, since no one had an answer — were awkward to say the least. “I really can’t name anything off the top of my head,” one squirming Democrat admitted. “Give me a minute. Give me two minutes. Go to someplace else,” another Iowa Democrat pleaded. A third let the uncomfortable silence play out for as long as she could before confessing, “No.” One young man offered the most grudging endorsement he could. “She’s been at a high level in numerous offices for about 25 years now. It’s either going to be that or it’s going to be Scott Walker . . . destroying America’s unions. She’s not perfect. But she’s been in the eye for a long time — in the public’s eye — and you’re going to have some stuff on her. But, you know, she has great policies and she knows how to get stuff done.” So, the best case for her is that she weathered a lot of scandals and, to borrow Robert Hoover’s defense of the Delta Tau Chi fraternity in Animal House, Hillary Clinton has “a long tradition of existence.” Supporters also said she knows how to get stuff done but can’t name anything she’s actually, you know, done. This is like praising a coach for knowing how to win football games but not being able to cite any actual wins. In fairness to them, Clinton can’t name anything significant she did as secretary of state either — because she didn’t do anything very significant. The consensus inside the Beltway is that this isn’t a big problem for Clinton. I’m not so sure. The Beltway view does have merit. Most voters are party-line voters. The young man who hates Scott Walker will vote for whichever candidate isn’t Scott Walker. (Likewise, Republicans will likely vote for whichever candidate isn’t Hillary Clinton.) John Kerry had no significant accomplishments to his credit after decades in the Senate — and yet, in 2004, he got more votes than any Democratic presidential candidate ever had up until then. Still, Clinton has a problem. While partisan Democrats will surely vote for her, their difficulty — and her difficulty — in citing any meaningful accomplishments may not play well with independents and swing voters. Personally, I think swing voters are a mixed bag. We don’t have a formal parliamentary system in this country, but in reality we vote for parties, not personalities. Do you want these 5,000 appointees running the government or those 5,000 appointees? If you’re a liberal Democrat, you want liberal policies implemented by liberal officials. If you’re a conservative Republican, you want conservative policies implemented by conservative officials. Swing voters put more emphasis on particular personalities. They also put a premium on their own self-conception as independent thinkers. Thus, they give a lot of weight to things like accomplishments, if for no other reason than to justify their “swing voterness.” If neither Clinton nor her fans can offer evidence she’s effective, that could hurt her among swing voters in swing states. And that’s why the 2016 election will be an ugly affair. Going by her own fan base in Iowa, Clinton is not a fresh face. She has more baggage than the luggage-claim level at O’Hare Airport. Her record amounts to surviving scandals, many of her own making. Her most compelling selling point is that she’s a woman. And her strategists have decided she needs to energize the “Obama coalition” of low-information voters. All of this points to a general election strategy of demonizing her opponent — whoever he (or she) might be. If you can’t make the case for yourself, you make the case against your opponent. And the Clintons certainly have a long record of accomplishment in doing exactly that. OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE Clinton plants a flag in O'Malley's home state <http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-hillary-clinton-maryland-20150522-story.html> // Baltimore Sun //John Fritze - May22, 2015 It's Martin O'Malley's home turf, but Hillary Clinton is beginning to engage in Maryland. For a state that rarely plays a role in presidential politics because of its late primary, Maryland has received considerable attention from Clinton's nascent presidential campaign — including an effort to engage elected leaders and early communication with political donors. O'Malley, a former two-term governor, is widely expected to announce his presidential ambitions in Baltimore next weekend. Since leaving office in January, the Democrat has become a regular presence in early-nominating states and has promoted his record in Annapolis and as Baltimore's mayor. Polls show Clinton crushing O'Malley in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, even as the former secretary of state has faced her share of obstacles. Hundreds of emails sent from a private account she used during her time at the State Department were released Friday, resetting attention on a controversy that had ebbed somewhat in recent weeks. With its late-April primary — nearly three months after the Iowa caucuses — Maryland has long been flyover country for presidential candidates. Yet Clinton called Rep. Steny H. Hoyer when she formally launched her campaign last month and requested that he reach out to other elected officials in the state. The Southern Maryland lawmaker also helped coordinate an organizing meeting for Clinton volunteers this month in Bethesda. Her campaign has held at least three similar meetings in the state since then. "I don't think Hillary is taking anything for granted," said Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House. "What I've experienced so far is a lot of enthusiasm and broad-based support for her candidacy." And what of O'Malley, who led state Democrats for eight years? "I admire Governor O'Malley, I like Governor O'Malley," Hoyer said, echoing a sentiment expressed by others backing Clinton. "I think he's proving to be … a very attractive candidate," he added. Most of Maryland's federal elected officials long ago expressed support for Clinton, including Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski. The dean of the state's congressional delegation, who is close with O'Malley, came out early for Clinton, providing a measure of political cover for others to follow. Sen. Ben Cardin, who had previously expressed his support for Clinton, reiterated that position in an email Friday. "Hillary's ground-breaking presidency will be a message to the world that the U.S. has selected the very best to lead our nation and that we are prepared to take on the challenges necessary to ensure a progressive future where all young girls and boys, regardless of ZIP code or continent, have an equal shot at reaching their dreams," Cardin wrote to supporters. An O'Malley spokeswoman said the campaign isn't putting much stock in such gestures. "The establishment backing the establishment is the oldest story in politics," O'Malley spokeswoman Haley Morris said in a statement. "If Governor O'Malley runs for president, he'll bring new leadership — not old-guard establishment thinking — to the race." Clinton's campaign has repeatedly pressed its network of elected officials in Maryland to engage in the race. Lawmakers and their staff have been asked to use social media to direct their supporters to events for Clinton, for instance. That effort has caught the attention of some O'Malley supporters who speculate Clinton's team is trying to undercut him. "I'm surprised that they are being as aggressive as they are right now," said Yvette Lewis, a former chair of the state Democratic Party and an O'Malley ally. "If it was me, if I was getting calls this early in the game, I would be a little concerned because I would feel like I'm being strong-armed." In public, the Clinton campaign has gone out of its way to ignore O'Malley's potential candidacy. Several Clinton supporters said they have not seen evidence of an approach that is any more heavy-handed than in other states that aren't home to a presidential aspirant. "Just like we are doing in all 50 states, D.C. and the territories, we are starting early, building a lasting relationship with communities and organizing to earn every vote in each primary and caucus, taking nothing for granted," Clinton campaign spokesman Tyrone Gayle said in a statement. In addition to interactions with elected officials, Clinton is hiring staff in Maryland, including several former aides to then-Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign last year. Alicia Jones, a Baltimore native who worked briefly for Brown, is serving as the Clinton campaign's "grass-roots organizer." Michael Schultz, a fundraiser for Brown, is now the Clinton campaign's finance director for Maryland and Delaware. And there are early signs the Clinton operation is beginning to tap political donors in the state. Maryland ranked ninth in the nation in political giving in the 2008 presidential campaign. "Absolutely," said longtime political operator and donor Lainy LeBow-Sachs, when asked if she had heard from Clinton's campaign finance team. "I've given and I'm going to raise for her." LeBow-Sachs also has given thousands of dollars to O'Malley. But, she said, she's supporting Clinton. Polls have shown voters in Maryland have a mixed view of O'Malley. About 60 percent of both Democratic and Republican residents polled by Goucher College in February said O'Malley should not run, compared with 31 percent who said he should. That's an improvement, said Mileah Kromer, director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher. During last year's gubernatorial campaign, when Republican Gov. Larry Hogan was running television ads criticizing O'Malley's record, 65 percent of respondents said O'Malley should not run. O'Malley does better among state Democrats who would actually vote in the presidential primary. Only half of them say he should not run. "Maryland might not necessarily be throwing their support behind the hometown guy," Kromer said, "but the pathway to the presidency doesn't go through Maryland." O'Malley to campaign in Iowa hours after 2016 announcement <http://www.wsoctv.com/ap/ap/political/omalley-to-campaign-in-iowa-hours-after-2016-annou/nmMKj/> // AP // Catherine Lucey - May 22, 2015 Once he announces his presidential decision, Martin O'Malley will waste no time in getting himself to Iowa. O'Malley will campaign in the leadoff caucus state on May 30, the same day he makes an announcement in Baltimore about whether he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination. A Democrat with knowledge of O'Malley's travel plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt the formal announcement, said O'Malley would appear in Davenport in the afternoon and Des Moines at night. If he runs for the nomination, as his travel plans strongly suggest he will, O'Malley will join former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as the major candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination. The former Maryland governor has made several visits to the early caucus state this year, has two paid staffers on the ground and plans to add more. He also invested heavily in Iowa last year, making four trips to the state and putting 14 staffers to work on state campaigns. During a visit earlier this year, O'Malley said Iowa Democrats needed to get to know him. He said that at a certain point, "the race quickly narrows between the once inevitable front-runner and the new and unknown candidate who emerges to offer a more compelling alternative." O’Malley has trips planned to Iowa and N.H. after ‘special announcement’ <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/05/22/omalley-has-trips-planned-to-iowa-and-n-h-after-special-announcement/> // WaPo // John Wagner - May 22, 2015 Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley has back-to-back trips planned to Iowa and New Hampshire after his presidential announcement at the end of this month, according to activists in those early nominating states. The Democrat has heavily teased a “special announcement” the morning of May 30 at Federal Hill Park in Baltimore, the city he served as mayor for seven years. According to activists, O’Malley will then travel to Iowa, where he has events scheduled in Davenport and Des Moines, and he plans to be in New Hampshire the following day. The activists spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for O’Malley’s campaign-in-waiting. Aides to O’Malley, who are relocating to new office space in Baltimore, did not immediately return phone calls on Friday. If O’Malley moves forward with a White House bid, he will become the third Democrat to enter the race, joining Hillary Rodham Clinton, the dominant frontrunner, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is drawing support from the party’s liberal wing. Sanders has a “hometown campaign kickoff” planned Tuesday in Burlington, Vt., where he served as mayor before being elected to Congress. O’Malley aides have continued to be coy about his intentions, though all signs point to a White House bid, including a recent solicitation for a May 29 fundraiser that went out under an “O’Malley for President” banner. On Friday, Daniel Goetzel, finance director for O’Malley’s political action committee, send out an e-mail solicitation saying O’Malley “is really close to a very important decision, one that will transform the 2016 political landscape.” He asked for contributions of $20.16 “to show that we're with him.” O'Malley has also been adding in staff in both Iowa and New Hampshire, according to activists in the two states. This weekend, O’Malley plans to travel to Ireland, where is scheduled to give a paid speech that was canceled late last month. O’Malley cut that trip shortafter rioting and looting broke out in Baltimore, saying he wanted to be present amid the unrest in the city he had served. Some Iowa Democrats prefer Sanders over Clinton <http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/05/22/iowa-democrats-focus-group-sanders-clinton/27771519/> // Des Moines Register // Brianne Pfannenstiel - May 22, 2015 Iowa Democrats participating in a Bloomberg Politics/Purple Strategies focus group this week acknowledged exercising pragmatism over idealism in the 2016 elections. Four participants in the 10-person focus group said they would favor U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont over frontrunner Hillary Clinton in the presidential race if they thought he had a better shot at winning the nomination. They prefer his policies, but don’t believe he’s electable, they said. “He proposed something — free college tuition at public universities,” said Charlie, a 24-year-old graphic designer. “You know what, good luck getting that through.” “And that’s the big difference,” he said. “You know, he is to the left on just about every issue. And a lot of the issues I agree with him — not on maybe every issue, but I am with him on a lot of stuff. But, you know, good luck with that. ... It’s just not going to get passed.” Sanders, who is an independent but caucuses in the Senate as a Democrat, announced his candidacy in April, joining a small list of possible challengers to Clinton. Others include former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia. John, a 31-year-old teacher, said he likes that Sanders’ policies are generally more liberal than Clinton’s. He voiced — and others echoed — the hope that Sanders’ presence in the race will push her to the left on certain issues as the campaign progresses. “He is going to have a bigger voice than he’s given credit for,” he said. But the four are throwing their support to Clinton, in an effort to see a Democrat continue to occupy the White House. Sanders is a self-described socialist, making him an easy target for conservative and tea party Republicans, they said. Another major drawback is his inability to raise enough cash to compete with the fundraising efforts of the Clinton campaign and others. “I mean right now, whether we like it or not, you know, we have a Citizens United America, and you need to raise a lot of money,” Charlie said. “And he’s just not — there is just so many characteristics where he does not stand a chance.” About the focus group Bloomberg Politics, in conjunction with Purple Strategies, conducted two qualitative focus groups in Des Moines, one of likely Democratic caucus participants and one of likely Republican caucus participants. Each group consisted of 10 participants, both men and women, and from a variety of ages and socio-economic and educational backgrounds. Qualitative research results cannot be statistically analyzed or projected onto the broader population at large. As is customary, respondents were compensated for their participation. Presidential Election Campaigning Underway in Iowa <http://www.voanews.com/content/presidential-election-campaign-underway-in-iowa/2782568.html> // VOA // Kane Farabaugh -May 22, 2015 CEDAR FALLS, IOWA— Although the November 2016 presidential election is over a year and half away, campaigning to choose party nominees is already underway in Iowa - a key state because it holds a party caucus early in the election season. Though Cedar Falls, Iowa has a population just over 40,000, right now it is the epicenter of the race for the White House. Republican party presidential hopefuls are pressing the flesh (shaking hands with people) and answering voters' questions on issues ranging from immigration reform to marriage equality. “My biggest concern as a voter is that America has to come back to God," said Linda Morris. Republican voter Linda Morris was among a group attending a breakfast with candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. “We have gone down the wrong path for the last eight years," she said. Conservative voter Curtis Bartlett agrees. He wants a president that can reverse escalating racial tensions in America. “I don’t understand why whites and blacks can’t get together and sit down and talk over what one person wants, the other person wants too," said Bartlett. Bartlett’s list of concerns also includes the debate over same-sex marriage. It’s an issue that attracted dozens of protestors outside Cedar Falls High School. Inside, Huckabee joined fellow presidential hopeful former Senator Rick Santorum on stage to speak with conservative voters who oppose same-sex marriage. “I don’t think it’s that big of an issue," said Lynn Brant. As a Democrat, Lynn Brant supports same-sex marriage. In his party, the leading presidential contender is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also visited Cedar Falls to interact with potential supporters. “It looks like Hillary might be a shoo-in, but I hope not. I hope that there is a debate that she will have to defend herself and the Democrats will have a choice," said Brant. Iowa matters for these candidates because it is the first state to hold an election, called a caucus. The results can either boost or sink aspirations for the White House early in an election year depending on who wins or loses. For Republicans this year, Iowa is the place where they can build name recognition and momentum ahead of the caucus. But the growing field of candidates all vying for attention and campaign funding concerns Curtis Bartlett. “Because are you going to wipe out somebody who could be a good candidate right away because they can’t get the finances?" Asked Bartlett. More finances means more advertising, and in an election expected to break all previous records for money spent, every dollar counts. Prospect of Hillary Clinton-Marco Rubio Matchup Unnerves Democrats <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/us/politics/prospect-of-hillary-clinton-marco-rubio-matchup-unnerves-democrats.html> // NYT // Jeremy W. Peters - May 22, 2015 WASHINGTON — They use words like “historic” and “charismatic,” phrases like “great potential” and “million-dollar smile.” They notice audience members moved to tears by an American-dream-come-true success story. When they look at the cold, hard political math, they get uneasy. An incipient sense of anxiety is tugging at some Democrats — a feeling tersely captured in four words from a blog post written recently by a seasoned party strategist in Florida: “Marco Rubio scares me.” What is so unnerving to them at this early phase of the 2016 presidential campaign still seems, at worst, a distant danger: the prospect of a head-to-head general-election contest between Mr. Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yet the worriers include some on Mrs. Clinton’s team. And even former President Bill Clinton is said to worry that Mr. Rubio could become the Republican nominee, whittle away at Mrs. Clinton’s support from Hispanics and jeopardize her chances of carrying Florida’s vital 29 electoral votes. What Marco Rubio Would Need to Do to Win Democrats express concerns not only about whether Mr. Rubio, 43, a son of Cuban immigrants, will win over Hispanic voters, a growing and increasingly important slice of the electorate. They also worry that he would offer a sharp generational contrast to Mrs. Clinton, a fixture in American politics for nearly a quarter-century who will turn 69 less than two weeks before the election. As her supporters recall, Barack Obama beat Mrs. Clinton for the nomination in the 2008 elections after drawing similar contrasts himself. Patti Solis Doyle, who ran Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign for most of the 2008 contest, said Mr. Rubio “could have the ability to nip away at the numbers for the Democrats.” Ms. Doyle, the first Hispanic woman to manage a presidential campaign, added that Mr. Rubio could allow Republicans to regain a “reasonable percentage” of the Hispanic vote, which hit a low of 27 percent in the 2012 presidential election. “He is a powerful speaker,” she added. “He is young. He is very motivational. He has a powerful story.” Recognizing how essential it is to win Hispanic support, Mrs. Clinton has gone further in laying out an immigration policy than she has on almost any other issue, saying that she would extend greater protections to halt deportations of people in the United States illegally. She has also hired a former undocumented immigrant to lead her Latino outreach efforts. Her own strategists, their allies in the “super PACs” working on her behalf and the Democratic Party all say they see plenty of vulnerabilities in Mr. Rubio’s record and his views. And they are trying to shape the perception people have of him while polls show that he is still relatively unknown: Yes, the Democratic National Committee said in a recent memo, Mr. Rubio was a fresh face, but one “peddling a tired playbook of policies that endanger our country, hurt the middle class, and stifle the American dream.” So far, Democrats who have combed over Mr. Rubio’s voting record in the Senate have seized on his opposition to legislation raising the minimum wage and to expanding college loan refinancing, trying to cast him as no different from other Republicans. The subtext: He may be Hispanic, but he is not on the side of Hispanics when it comes to the issues they care about. Democrats will try to use Mr. Rubio’s youth and four-year career in national politics against him, depicting him as green or naïve — a liability at a time when unrest abroad is a top concern. “A Dan Quayle without the experience,” suggested Christopher Lehane, a veteran strategist who has worked for the Clintons. Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, who is of Mexican heritage, said Democrats would also make an issue of Mr. Rubio’s mixed record on how to overhaul the immigration system: He initially supported a Senate bill to grant people in the United States illegally a path to citizenship, but he later backed down. Mr. Richardson said that would poison his chances with Hispanic voters. “His own Hispanic potential would defeat him,” he said. It is also unclear how much Mr. Rubio would appeal to Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and other voters with Latin American ancestry who may not feel much cultural affinity with a Cuban. Still, when many Democrats assess Mr. Rubio’s chances, as nearly a dozen of them did for this article, they put him in the top tier of candidates who concern them the most, along with former Gov. Jeb Bush, another Floridian who is courting Hispanics, and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Mr. Rubio’s heritage and his youth could be particularly dangerous to Mrs. Clinton, they said. Each of those points could help neutralize one of her biggest strengths: the opportunity to help elect the first female president, and the experience Mrs. Clinton gained as secretary of state. Mr. Rubio already appears to be pursuing that strategy. By calling himself a candidate of the “21st century, not the 20th,” he seeks both to turn Mrs. Clinton’s long career against her and to entice voters who may desire a change of direction. In Florida, Democrats who have watched Mr. Rubio’s rise warn against playing down his strengths. Former Gov. Charlie Crist, who lost to Mr. Rubio in the Republican primary for the 2010 senatorial election but later switched parties, said he admired how Mr. Rubio told the story of his immigrant parents — his mother a maid, his father a bartender — and how they worked hard so that he could succeed. “It’s hard to get more compelling than that,” Mr. Crist said. Chris Christie and Jeb Bush Cite Experience in Courting Southern G.O.P. 4:35 PM ET Josh Duggar Receives Support From Mike Huckabee 3:22 PM ET Hillary Clinton Takes Questions Again and Addresses Emails 2:53 PM ET John Morgan, a major Democratic donor in Florida who will hold a fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton next week, said he planned to raise the issue of Mr. Rubio’s strengths with her. “Jim Messina talks about how elections are about where we want to go from here,” Mr. Morgan said, naming the strategist who helped President Obama win two national elections. What is problematic about Mr. Rubio, he said, is “his theme will be, ‘We don’t want to go back; we need to go forward.’ ” Continue reading the main story “I think they do underestimate him,” Mr. Morgan added. “He’s energetic, he’s photogenic, and he will say whatever you want him to say.” Steve Schale, the Florida strategist who wrote the “Marco Rubio scares me” blog post, said that when he worked for the Democratic leader of the Florida House of Representatives, his boss, Dan Gelber, had a saying about Mr. Rubio’s effect on crowds, and about his sincerity: “Young women swoon, old women pass out, and toilets flush themselves.” And Mr. Gelber himself recalled the day in Tallahassee, Fla., in 2008 when he and Mr. Rubio, then the speaker of the State House, gave their farewell speeches. He spoke first, followed by Mr. Rubio, as Mr. Gelber’s wife looked on. “She’s sitting there weeping,” Mr. Gelber recalled, still incredulous. “And I look up, and I mouth, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” Mr. Gelber praised Mr. Rubio’s ability to use his family’s story to convey compassion for people marginalized by society, but he said he believed, as many Democrats do, that this was disingenuous. “It’s a little maddening when his policies are so inconsistent with that,” Mr. Gelber said. “My head would explode.” A Rubio-Clinton contest could ultimately come down to Florida. Republicans can ill afford to lose the state if they hope to win the White House. And bleeding Hispanic votes could make Mrs. Clinton’s path much harder. “Losing a point among whites means winning Hispanics by about 5 percent more just to make up that loss,” Mr. Schale wrote in his memo on Florida’s election demographics. If Democrats continue to lose white voters, he added, Mr. Rubio’s place on the ballot would only complicate matters. “He should be the one you don’t want to face,” Mr. Schale wrote. A Win for Progressives in Philadelphia <http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/jim-kenney-wins-in-philadelphia/393827/> // The Atlantic // Molly Ball - May 21, 2015 Is there a rising progressive tide in the Democratic Party? Liberals like to claim that there is. But beyond the recent elections of two vocal populists—Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio—there hasn't been a whole lot of evidence to point to. Indeed, in two of the most hyped challenges to centrist Democratic officeholders—the recent primaries of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel—the left has come up short. And things aren't looking much better for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in his left-wing challenge to Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, though, progressives scored a victory. The Democratic primary for Philadelphia mayor pitted a crusading left-winger against a charter-school advocate backed by suburban hedge-fund magnates. This time, the left-winger, a former city councilman named Jim Kenney, actually won. Given the city's overwhelmingly Democratic tilt, the primary is likely to decide the election. Kenney ran on a de Blasio-esque platform of establishing universal pre-K, raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and ending stop-and-frisk police tactics. (Kenney, a 57-year-old Irish-American, also epitomizes the classiness and tact for which Philadelphia sports fans are famed: In December, he called New Jersey Governor Chris Christie "fat assed" and "a creep" for sitting in the Dallas Cowboys' box at an Eagles game.) On Monday, de Blasio endorsed Kenney, saying the two shared a "progressive vision." Kenney’s campaign was outspent many times over by supporters of his chief rival, Anthony Hardy Williams, a state senator who was backed by a $7 million super PAC. But on Tuesday night, Kenney took 56 percent of the vote. The Kenney-Williams divide typifies the current split within the Democratic Party between those who style themselves "pro-business" and those who emphasize remedying income inequality. It's a conflict that's also currently playing out on Capitol Hill, where President Obama is in an increasingly acrimonious dispute with the majority of congressional Democrats over a Republican-backed trade-authority measure. The split has echoes of the 1990s battles between Bill Clinton's Democratic Leadership Council and the party base led by Jesse Jackson. Education is a major fault line in the current Democratic divide—in Chicago, Emanuel's school policies were a principal driver of the dissatisfaction that forced him into a runoff last month. De Blasio has also been in high-profile fights with New York charter-school advocates, while Obama's stance in favor of education reform has dismayed the teachers’ unions that are a major Democratic Party constituency. Williams, Kenney's rival, was the author of a state law that created a voucher-like system giving companies tax credits in exchange for student scholarships. The super PAC backing him was bankrolled by three financiers who support free-market education reform. Yet in addition to backing Kenney, Philadelphia voters on Tuesday also approved an advisory ballot question seeking to return public schools to local control. Kati Sipp, director of Pennsylvania Working Families, a union-backed liberal coalition, declared the primary "a big win for public education," adding, "Money men tried to buy this election, but they failed." Liberal activists say Kenney's election is further proof that the center of the Democratic Party is indeed moving leftward—a trend that Clinton, even without a serious primary challenger, will have to grapple with in 2016. Also Tuesday, the city council in Los Angeles voted to raise that city's minimum wage to $15 per hour. "The energy in the Democratic Party is on the left," Anna Greenberg, Kenney's pollster, told me. "It's coming from the urban centers, and that's where Democratic votes come from." GOP ‘Optimistic’ Jeb Bush faces hard truths in New Hampshire swing <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/optimistic-jeb-bush-faces-hard-truths-new-hampshire-swing?google_editors_picks=true> // MSNBC // Benjy Sarlin - May 22, 2015 PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire – Jeb Bush has cautioned from the start of his presidential flirtation that he would only take the final plunge if he can “do it joyfully.” “In order to win a Republican has to be joyful, has to be hopeful, has to be optimistic,” Bush told a roundtable of business leaders here on Wednesday during a 2-day campaign tour of the nation’s first primary state. That goal has never looked more daunting than it does now, as the nominal GOP frontrunner looks to shake off a rough period of questions about his position on the Iraq War, fend off ongoing attacks from the right on his stances on immigration and education, and – perhaps most importantly – unshackle himself from his brother’s legacy. “Joy” is one of his most frequently used words on the trail and there are laughs here and there in his speeches, but his one-liners tend toward the biting rather than the giddy. As he left a local Chamber of Commerce event at a bar in Concord on Thursday, he told reporters gathered outside his car that he had been told to smile more – then flashed a grin before driving off. If Bush is having trouble smiling enough, it’s because there’s an implied underside to Bush’s talk of a “joyful” run, which is the modern political meat grinder that the campaign usually is in practice. Bush’s well-earned contempt for the show is borne out of generations of family experience and he got his first taste of its bitter reality earlier this month when he stumbled over an answer on the Iraq War, prompting a multi-day media frenzy that played out across multiple interviews with network TV and radio hosts and in scrums at high-profile GOP gatherings. “It got a little bumpy, but all is well now,” Bush told a voter concerned about the Iraq episode in Portsmouth. “The ship is stable.” With the worst behind him for now, Bush spent his two days in New Hampshire getting back to basics at four small retail events with just a few dozen attendees each. Along the way, he accepted hours of impromptu questioning from locals and the press alike on any topic that crossed their minds in between shaking hands and slapping backs. These are the kinds of personal grill sessions that state Republicans argue are the key to prevailing in what is likely a must-win primary for Bush. It was also, as Bush’s aides liked to point out, a pronounced contrast to the often inaccessible Hillary Clinton. Bush is better versed in the X’s and O’s of political strategy than probably anyone in the field with the exception of Clinton and it showed. He has a habit of narrating his political thinking in real time, a kind of meta-commentary in which he tells audiences whether something he’s about to say might cause him problems with the press, or with a key voting bloc, or with his political opponents. After an audience member in Portsmouth asked him about what he would do about the “pathological liar on the other side” in the general election– presumably Clinton – Bush straightforwardly said he “can’t rephrase that question because I’ll get in trouble with the ‘pathological liar’ part” before answering. He quipped that he was called “a lot of things I can’t repeat here in front of the press” as governor. Later that evening, a state radio reporter asked Bush whether he regretted raising money for Republican Rep. Frank Guinta, who is now engulfed in a career-threatening campaign finance scandal. Knowing any response he gave would crowd out coverage of his remarks in the local press, Bush offered a bracing non-answer: “I am avoiding the question.” Bush, who opens his speeches with earnest biographical anecdotes about his wife and family, even went into detail with one voter about the political logic to the way he discusses his personal life – it’s meant to insulate him from the character attacks that plagued the previous nominee. “Mitt Romney was a successful, loving, caring, generous man and he never showed it,” Bush said. But the obvious savvy Bush displayed on the road raised a troubling question for some attendees. How could someone with such a finely-tuned political radar get caught so flat-footed last week over an issue as predictable as the Iraq War? “I would have thought if you were a presidential candidate or a serious politician you’d have had the answer down pat on the first try,” Joan Rice, who works at a financial planning business, told msnbc at the Portsmouth event. “It’s such an important question – how could not be prepared for it?” Milling around a Bedford house party ahead of a visit from Bush, state representative David Milz said he was glad the 2016 hopeful had eventually distanced himself from the decision to invade Iraq. Not because Milz was critical of the Iraq War – as far as he’s concerned, George W. Bush has nothing to apologize for – but because it was the obvious political move. “Bush gets blamed for everything – everything,” he told msnbc. “They’re still trying to hold him responsible for stuff Obama has screwed up for years now.” It’s the topic of family that most threatens to harsh Bush’s vision of a mellow campaign. The former Florida governor seems almost physically pained discussing any kind of difference with his sibling or father. During the Fox News interview with Megyn Kelly launched the Iraq odyssey, he appeared most concerned about making sure viewers know that whatever criticisms of the war he cited were shared by his brother as well. “I’m proud of my family, I love my mom and dad, I love my brother and people are going to have just get over that,” he said in Portsmouth, prompting a round of applause. “That’s the way it is.” At the house party, Bush turned to discussing the fall of the Soviet Union at one point, a development he credited to Ronald Reagan “and the guy who succeeded him who I’m supposed to somehow disown.” Bush scored a laugh at the same event by assuring the audience that he would differentiate himself from Marvin and Neil Bush, two non-politician siblings. He waxed philosophical about the issue after being asked an audience member to elaborate on his family ties, telling the crowd how reading the great historian Barbara Tuchman had reminded him of history’s “confounding way of repeating itself” and that even though the world had “changed dramatically” since his father was president, he planned to apply lessons learned from previous administrations. He got some encouragement along the way too. Bush met plenty of supporters in New Hampshire who thought the Iraq issue was overblown or said that the Bush name was a selling point, not a drawback. “If I’m hiring a plumber and he says his dad’s a plumber, I’m not going to say he can’t work on the house,” Lori Ashooh, who co-hosted the Bedford party with her husband, told msnbc. She’s uncommitted for now in the primaries. But the previous week also showed the danger for Bush of setting himself up, intentionally or not, as the Republican field’s defender-in-chief of the family legacy. Many Republicans say they like the younger Bush personally, but are concerned about encouraging a “dynasty” or worry that he’ll be constantly sucked into old political fights if he can’t mute the issue early on. Well aware of the problem, Bush offered the most pointed critique of his brother’s presidency yet to a voter in Concord who asked where they differed on policy. “I think in Washington during my brother’s time Republicans spent too much money,” Bush said. “I think he could have used the veto power, he didn’t have line item veto power, but he could have brought budget discipline to Washington, DC.” For most candidates it would be a relatively banal admission – almost nobody in the party defends Bush-era spending anymore. For the only candidate whose last name is Bush, however, it’s not so easy. He quickly followed up with a set of caveats – Obama’s deficits were bigger, nobody’s perfect, let’s not dwell on our differences, etc. “I don’t feel compelled to go out of my way to criticize Republican presidents,” Bush said. “I don’t know, just call me a team player here. Just so happens the last two Republican presidents happen to be my dad and my brother, but you’ll never hear me complain about Ronald Reagan either. Every president makes mistakes, the question is what do you do, what do you learn from those mistakes?” It did not look like a joyful moment. Only 536 days until the general election. Jeb Bush’s War on Gay Adoption <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/22/jeb-bush-s-war-on-gay-adoption.html?google_editors_picks=true> // Daily Beast // Betsy Woodruff - May 22, 2015 Bush defended Florida’s strict ban on LGBT adoption, but emails from his time as governor show he had trouble explaining why. When Jessie Odell asked Jeb Bush to let him and his partner adopt a child 15 years ago, all he got was silence. But his pleas did no go unheard, and despite the governor’s best efforts, Odell is now a father. His story is one of many that play out in the email exchanges between Bush and his staff -- which the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting recently made searchable -- and it gives an intriguing view into how the then-Florida governor struggled to explain his opposition to adoption rights for LGBT people. It also shows that Bush and his top advisors were acutely aware of internal inconsistencies in the state’s policy on same-sex adoption and foster families. In 1977, Florida became the only state in the country to proactively ban gays and lesbians from adopting. Thanks in part to the dogged anti-gay activism of former Miss Oklahoma Anita Bryant, the state implemented legislation saying sexual orientation alone could disqualify prospective parents from adopting. That law faced a court challenge during Bush’s time as governor. In 2004, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against four gay men trying to overturn the law – a decision Bush applauded. “[I]t is in the best interest of adoptive children, many of whom come from troubled and unstable backgrounds, to be placed in a home anchored both by a father and a mother,” Bush said at the time, according to the St. Petersburg Times. “Our adoption policies take that important role into account.” In 2005, the Supreme Court refused to hear the men’s appeal. But years later, the adoption ban was finally overturned. Bush’s email exchanges with gay constituents during the adoption fight indicate that his rhetoric on the topic was carefully crafted. And perhaps the most telling exchange is between Bush, his staffers, and Jessie Odell. Odell, a gay man then living in Florida with his long-term partner, emailed the governor on Feb. 9 of 2000 pushing him to change his stance on adoption. “My partner and I have been together for 11 years, our income is in the six figures, we have a very normal and stable home life,” Odell wrote. “We have a lot to offer a child, love, the finest schools, and good moral standing. I also want to know, do you all feel that we would raise our children to be gay or lesbian? Do you all think that we would molest children?” He then appealed to the governor’s traditional values. “I understand that the media sometimes will show only the bad side of people, such as the drag parades on gay day, and other negative things of that nature,” he continued. “Please understand that there is a whole other gay community, that the general public is unfamiliar with. My partner and I are in that community. We go to work, and pay bills just like you and your family.” I spoke with Odell about this email, and he said he never heard back from the governor or his staff about it. But emails show that Bush wanted to respond and was ultimately persuaded against it by his aides. A day after getting the email, in fact, he forwarded it to staffers and asked them to draft a reply. Two months later, Brian Yablonski, one of Bush’s most senior advisors, emailed around a proposed response. “While I respect the great diversity of our state, and have not been a vocal opponent of the gay and lesbian lifestyle, I am not in favor of lifting the ban on gay and lesbian adoptions,” wrote Yablonski in his suggested response for Bush. He continued to say that placing a child in “an alternative environment, as loving it may be [sic],” would be “an additional challenge for that child to face.” Then Yablonski suggested that the governor touch on the gay “lifestyle.” “I do not believe it is for the state to encourage or endorse this particular lifestyle,” he wrote. “So long as it is within the bounds of the law, people may be free to do what they wish in their own private and personal affairs. However, when those activities require state approval and oversight, then that constitutes an explicit endorsement of the activity by the state. I am joined by the majority of policymakers and Floridians who do not believe it is appropriate for the state to sanction this particular lifestyle.” Yablonski suggested they conclude the email by saying, “I am sure this is not the response that you wanted to hear, but on this matter we have difference of opinion.” Sally Bradshaw, perhaps Bush’s most trusted aide, then weighed in on Yablonski’s proposed response. “I am concerned about the obvious inconsistency in the fact that we allow gay couples to become foster parents, but not to adopt children,” she wrote. “Don't we?” Bush’s reply was confused. “I didn't think we allowed gay couples to be foster parents,” he wrote. “Or maybe it is adoption.” Bradshaw then emailed, “Don't you remember the info about [Kathleen Kearney, then-secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families] presenting an award to a gay couple for being stellar foster parents? That's why this is problematic.” Yablonski then cleared up that the state had a “don’t ask don’t tell” policy on gay foster parenting, and that as a result children were placed with gay foster parents. And his proposed response never went out. Yablonski told the email chain that he spoken to Kearney about the issue, and that she discouraged them from replying. “She encouraged us not to respond because there is on going litigation against the state on this matter,” he said. And that was that. In 2011, the now-married Odell finally adopted a son who, despite Bush’s concerns, has been on Honor Roll several times this year and is “the center of our universe.” “God really played his hand in this, because we ended up with the most perfect, most gorgeous blond-haired, blue-eyed boy you’ve ever seen and not a problem in the world, just happy to be loved and have daddies,” he said. Odell never heard back from Bush. When I directed his attention to the emails discussing his note, he wasn’t impressed with the inner workings of Team Bush. “I am absolutely appalled to read those ‘possible’ responses they were considering sending,” Odell told me. “Especially the one that ended in ‘I know that's not the response you wanted to hear, But...’ That is the REAL Jeb Bush right there. Typical cowboy behavior like his brother. God Help us should he win the presidency. Go Hillary!!!” But some gay Floridians were more forgiving of Bush’s stance on adoption. “I am a proud republican and a gay man as well,” wrote Miik Martorell on Oct. 15, 2002. “Unlike many in my community, I support the conservative agenda because I believe that being BORN THIS WAY does not make me any less of a person or any more of a person. It makes me EQUAL, just like everyone else.” Then he raised a concern. “I believe that making the statement that only a man and a woman must parent a child is to say the least, ignorant,” he wrote. “What you said about gay parenting just hurts, even more because I have supported you for so long,” he continued. “I believe I could make a good parent one day and I hope that I will be able to marry the one I love before I die. I guess my only thought for you would be to take a look at people like me that support you even though they are ridiculed by their community for doing so, yet we still fight on.” Martorell didn’t get the response he wanted, but at least he got one. The governor wrote that he opposed anti-gay discrimination and hate, but didn’t think barring gays from adopting was a type of discrimination. “Perhaps our disagreement is that I believe that the creation of life by a husband and wife and the creation of a family from that should be something that is protected and treated differently than other family strutures [sic],” he wrote. “I don't believe that this is a discriminatory position.” And a few days before the 2002 re-election, another gay supporter emailed Bush to express support and call for him to change his stance on adoption. “It seems that practically all people in the gay community think that if you are gay that you must vote for the democratic candidate,” wrote Bob Fritz. “Not so. Perhaps you should rethink your position on gay adoption and perhaps there may be another issue or two that I would like to see you take a different position on, but no candidate is perfect.” Bush’s stance on gay adoption gets less popular by the day. Talking Points Memo reported earlier this week that, per UCLA demographer Gary Gates, gay adoption has even stronger public support than gay marriage. It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that Bush has softened his rhetoric on the issue. Earlier this week, the governor alluded to the gay adoption issue in an interview with the Christian Broadcast Network. “If we want to create a right to rise society where people -- particularly children born in poverty -- if we want to have them have a chance, which should be a core American value, we have to restore committed loving family life with a mom and a dad loving their children with their heart and soul,” he said. Bush hasn’t endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz’s push for a Constitutional amendment to keep the federal government from overturning states’ marriage laws, and in 2012 told Charlie Rose that loving same-sex parents can be good role models. And earlier this year, he talked about his opposition to LGBT adoption in the past tense. “Previously, I opposed gay adoption, but it has since become the law in our state, and I respect that decision,” he told Politifact in January. For families like the Odells, that’s good news. Still, as the emails from his time as governor show, Bush’s messaging is certain to be handled carefully on LGBT issues as he struggles to court both social conservative die-hards, and a broader electorate that’s much more pro-equality than when he last ran for office. Christie: Patriot Act debate is ‘dangerous’ <http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/christie-patriot-act-debate-dangerous?google_editors_picks=true> // MSNBC // Jane C. Timm - May 22, 2015 OKLAHOMA CITY — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slammed the Patriot Act’s critics on Friday for engaging in a “very dangerous debate.” “This debate that we’re having right now about the Patriot Act — it’s is a very dangerous debate because it’s done by people with no experience dealing what I’ve dealt with,” Christie said. “I’m the only person in this national conversation who has used the Patriot Act, signed off on it, convicted terrorists because of it.” Presidential candidate and Republican Sen. Rand Paul has been the most vocal critic of the act, part of which has allowed for bulk data collection by the NSA and is set to expire on June 1. Paul spoke for ten-and-a-half hours in a “talking filibuster” to protest the Patriot Act’s re-authorization, helping to delay the vote to Saturday in the Senate. His epic talk-a-thon also means that it’s likely to expire temporarily since the House of Representatives is already in recess for the holiday weekend. A bipartisan group of senators assisted Paul by asking questions during the filibuster, a tactic designed to give the speaker a break. Christie — who is expected to mount his own presidential campaign — said there’s a “responsible” way to oversee the laws, and that the current critics were being irresponsible in the debate about the law. “That’s why I act the way I act, some days it may make you feel great and cheer, and other days you may wince and say I can’t believe he said that!” NEW JERSEY GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE “These same folks who are criticizing it now will be the same people who will stand on Capitol Hill if there’s another attack on America and interrogate the CIA director and FBI director and say why they didn’t connect and not see the hypocrisy in their own actions,” he said to big cheers, speaking at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, where Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are canceling in-person appearances because of the planned Saturday votes. Likely presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has had a difficult time appealing to hard line conservatives on social issues in particular, agreed with Christie, saying the Patriot Act should be reauthorized. The pair of governors will struggle among some of the most conservative voters, as they’re seen as more moderate on a handful of issues. As such, both sought to assure the crowd they’re conservative enough. Bush talked up his conservative credentials and worked to convince the crowd that he is an effective leader with executive experience in a purple state. “We took on the public unions and we won. We took on the teacher’s unions and we won. We took on the broken worker’s compensation system and we won,” he said, continuing to enumerate his record despite applause that drowned him out. “I’m proud of that record and i believe there’s a direct role for the next president of the United State to apply the kind of principles that we applied in the state of Florida to Washington, D.C.” Bush and Christie both spoke on Friday morning, where they largely impressed the audience in equal amounts; the crowd particularly approved of the conservative credentials Bush championed, like high grade ratings from the National Rifle Association. On the other hand, Christie boasted of his work as a U.S. Attorney and worked to introduce himself to the conservative crowd — the New Jersey governor doesn’t always attend these GOP cattle calls. He also portrayed himself as a more hawkish, safety-oriented potential candidate. “I love this country and I want this country to be safe for my children,” he said. “I will fight for it with every ounce of energy. I have to return America to the promise and prosperity at home and leadership around the world, if you give me a chance. That’s why I came to Oklahoma.” Christie also seemed to offer a defense — and some spin — about his often blunt style, particularly highlighted in an expletive-laden speech on Thursday. Recounting his late mother’s advice, Christie said he knew she’d advise him to speak plainly in a presidential bid. “[She’d say] you better tell them what’s on your mind and in your heart and you better not mince words because they need to trust you,” he said. “That’s why I act the way I act, some days it may make you feel great and cheer, and other days you may wince and say I can’t believe he said that! But here’s what you’ll never have to say — you’ll never have to say I wonder what he thinks.” Chris Christie Says the Difference Between Coverage of Him and Hillary Reveals Biased Media <http://www.ijreview.com/2015/05/327596-gov-chris-christie-blames-media-bias-scrutiny-received-bridgegate-scandal/> // IJRreview / Chris Enloe - May 22, 2015 During an interview on CNBC Thursday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slammed the media for their leniency toward Hillary Clinton and her private email server scandal. Gov. Christie said he was upset because he faced a lot more scrutiny from the media over the “Bridgegate” scandal than Clinton has over her email use scandal. Christie said: “Has there been coverage of the email situation with the Secretary, absolutely. But the intensity of the coverage, and the relentlessness of the coverage is different. And that’s where the bias is revealed.” Christie went on to hypothetically ask the show hosts how they thought the media would react if it had been him who had deleted his emails, in an attempt to show the media’s bias for Hillary Clinton: “If I had come out the day after the ‘Bridgegate’ thing was announced and said, ‘By the way, all my emails are on a private server, and I deleted a whole bunch of them and destroyed the server and you have to take my word for it, the emails had nothing to do with the bridge stuff,’ can you only imagine what the reaction would have been? Can you imagine if it were me who deleted my emails?” During the interview, Christie also reiterated the fact that he was recently exonerated of any wrongdoing in the “Bridgegate” scandal: “Fifteen months later … everything that I said the day after that story broke, everything I said, has proven out to be true after three different investigations.” In recent weeks, three people from Christie’s office have been charged in connection with the scandal. Gov. Christie is also considering a 2016 White House run, but hasn’t made any formal announcements about if or when he will decide to enter the race. Florida's Jewish voters a target for 2016 Republicans, but a near lock for Democrats <http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/floridas-jewish-voters-a-target-for-2016-republicans-but-a-near-lock-for/2230708> // Tampa Bay News // Adam C. Smith and Kirby Wilson - May 22, 2015 TAMARAC — Republicans can't win the White House without winning Florida, so every presidential election cycle they look longingly at Florida's Jewish voters. Just reason with them, the thinking goes. They are disproportionately affluent and well-educated. Surely these Floridians can be persuaded that voting Republican is more in their self-interest, through lower taxes and unwavering support for the conservative government in Israel. The difference between three-quarters of Florida Jews voting for the Democratic nominee and two-thirds voting Democratic could be 50,000 votes — enough to decide the election. "We're looking to do whatever we can," said Mark McNulty of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which spent $6.5 million in 2012 trying to sow doubts with Jewish voters about President Barack Obama's commitment to Israel. "In places like Florida and Ohio with substantial Jewish populations, a couple percentage points can mean the difference in an election." But as much as political groups like the RJC like to say they are steadily gaining ground with Jewish voters, their progress is more accurately measured in inches than miles. Even amid the falling out between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as leading Republican presidential candidates argue Obama and Hillary Clinton made the Middle East less safe, and as Obama critics in Washington and Israel call the emerging nuclear deal with Iran a grave threat to the Jewish state, few experts see Republicans as likely to significantly improve their performance in 2016. Clinton's strong ties to the Jewish community, in fact, could make Jewish voters a harder target for the Republican nominee. "It's a constant feature of American elections in the past decade. Every time the GOP claims to make inroads, and every time they are disappointed to find the American Jewish community has not changed its behavior," said Shmuel Rosner, a prominent columnist in Israel and political editor of the Jewish Journal. It doesn't help that many of the Republicans most vocal about their deep love and devotion to Israeli security are Christian conservatives who turn off even staunchly Republican Jews. "Apart from getting rid of their base — evangelicals — I don't see a way for Republicans to make really deep inroads in the Jewish vote," said Kenneth Wald, a political science professor and the Samuel R. "Bud" Shorstein professor of American Jewish Culture & Society at the University of Florida. "They've essentially got the Jewish voters who they're going to get, and it's essentially the same group they've had for a long time, probably about a fifth to a quarter of the population." More than 40 years ago, political scientist Milton Himmelfarb noted that Jews are about the only ethnic group not to have grown more conservative as they became more prosperous, quipping that Jews "earn like Episcopalians, and vote like Puerto Ricans." But Wald credits radio host and comedian Peter Sagal with best summing up the question about Jewish voters that has consumed academics and confounded leading Republican strategists for generations: "What is it about being rich and white that Jews do not understand?" • • • The tip filtered through the newsroom of the Tampa Bay Times earlier this month. Somebody's friend had an elderly mother living in a vast condo complex in Broward County, the kind of overwhelmingly Jewish retirement community as familiar to Democratic politicians in Florida as to fans of the TV showSeinfeld. Supposedly this lady's Democratic Club was loaded with people either ambivalent about Hillary Clinton running for president or downright hostile to her candidacy. That would be a stunning development. Tepid support among elderly Jewish Democrats, expected to be among Clinton's most loyal constituencies, would signal serious trouble for the likely Democratic nominee. Nowhere are the political stakes higher than Florida, the nation's biggest battleground state where Jewish voters represent anywhere from 3 percent to 6 percent of the electorate. A 10 percent swing in the Jewish vote would mean a net gain of 100,000 votes for the Republican. Obama won Florida by 74,000 votes in 2012 and 236,000 in 2008. We hopped on a plane, drove to the 4,869-home Kings Point community in western Broward, and marched into the Kings Point clubhouse. Residents on this particular morning had gathered around dozens of sign-up tables for clubs ranging from Current Events to Canasta and Ceramics. "I don't like that they're trying to spread all this garbage about her emails, and donations to their foundation. It's not right, and it's not fair," said Shirley Rosen at the Hadassah table. "I'm all for her, and I don't think you'll find anyone around here who doesn't like Hillary, but there are very few Republicans. ... Honestly, when someone tells me they're Republican I think to myself, 'I really don't know who you are.' " Paula Layne, 80, was distributing cards for her funeral service business and bantering with friends, when she overheard a mention of Clinton. "She's the smartest human being on Earth — truly. She's got good ideas and she's not afraid of anybody. She's fearless. All my friends are Hillary people and very enthusiastic" Layne declared. "If she were a man, we'd say she has brass ones," chimed in George Jaquith, another transplant from the northeast. "And I think people are ready for a woman president ..." "Not just a woman, but a smart woman," Layne cut in. "What she went through is an inspiration to all women. She overcame everything with such dignity and beauty and did not break up her family." At the nearby Current Events Club table, Caroline Gore did not sound like much of a swing voter either. "Any woman who votes for a Republican is an idiot, I'm going to tell you that right now. Look at the stricter abortion laws they're doing across the nation in a lot of places," she said. "It's not because she's a woman that I support her, but because of the issues. And I think she's the strongest candidate we have who can win the presidency and be a good president. I think she'd be a terrific president." So it went throughout the Kings Point Clubhouse. Enthusiasm for Clinton was almost unanimous. Almost. "As much as I am a Democrat all my life, I don't know how much I like Hillary Clinton," said Viola Baras, 87, sitting at the Holocaust survivors table. "These emails? If most people did that they would be in jail." Turns out Mrs. Baras, who has two physician sons in the Tampa Bay area, was the source of the rumor of Clinton's weakness among Kings Point Democrats, though she doubted even the rare critic of Mrs. Clinton in her circle would ever vote Republican. "The Jewish vote will always be Democratic. As much as they may not like some of the policies with Israel, it doesn't affect their votes," said Baras, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp. • • • Alan Bergstein, a Republican activist in Broward County, has spoken to countless Jewish groups in South Florida about why he thinks Republicans are better for Israel. These days he sounds about ready to throw in the towel. Clinton will "absolutely" win a bigger share of Florida's Jewish vote than Obama did, Bergstein predicted, and almost nothing Republican political committees or billionaire conservatives like Sheldon Adelson do will change that. National exit polls showed Obama received 69 percent of the Jewish vote in 2012, compared to 78 percent in 2008, although another, more detailed analysis of exit polls concluded he really received 74 percent in 2008. Considering that Obama's support among white voters overall dropped 4 percentage points, some experts see the drop in Jewish support as insignificant. "It's terribly frustrating," said Bergstein, a former school principal in New York. "When I talk to people who are Jewish, like I am, and have made literally fortunes in their businesses and are extremely bright people, for them to not understand the situation tells me they are no longer Jews, they are Democrats first. Their religion has been superseded by their politics." Polls show Jewish voters more liberal on Middle East matters than most Americans, and Israel a lower-tier issue. Only 4 percent of Jewish voters cited Israel as the most important issue in their vote in a 2012 Public Religion Research Institute survey. More than half cited the economy, 15 percent said the growing gap between rich and poor, 10 percent said health care and 7 percent the deficit. They overwhelmingly supported abortion rights, same-sex marriage, environmental regulation, and more than half said they would pay more taxes to fund programs to help the poor. "The position on Israel for most candidates is not going to be the determining factor for how Jews vote," said Ira Sheshkin, director of the Jewish Demography Project of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the University of Miami. "Jews vote on social issues." Wald, the UF professor and nationally recognized expert on Jewish voting behavior, dismisses the common supposition that Jews tend to be liberal due to Jewish values or historical experience. Only in America are Jews so concentrated on the left of the political spectrum, he noted, and Jewish support for Democrats has fluctuated at times. "The political priority of most American Jews is making sure that the Jews continue to be full and equal participants in American life, and that is largely driven by their sense that the law should take no notice of religion," Wald said. "It's deeper than separation of church and state. It's more fundamentally that citizenship in the United States doesn't depend on your religion, your race, your ethnicity." Jewish support for Democrats dropped in the 1960s, as the party embraced identity politics and policies such as affirmative action. President Jimmy Carter, who spoke often about being a born-again Christian, had little reservoir of goodwill with Jewish voters when he worked closely with Palestinian Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat. The Jewish voted shifted back toward the Democrats in the 1980s as the Christian right gained prominence in the GOP. A 2007 Pew survey found Jewish voters more receptive than non-Jews to supporting a presidential candidate who was Catholic, Mormon, Muslim, atheist, black, woman, or Hispanic — but not Evangelical Christian. "Every time the surveys come out showing that 58 percent of Republicans think the U.S. should officially be a Christian country, that just reminds Jews that their success here is never entirely secure," Wald said. TOP NEWS DOMESTIC Senate Vote Is a Victory for Obama on Trade, but a Tougher Test Awaits <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/business/senate-vote-is-a-victory-for-obama-on-trade-but-a-tougher-test-awaits.html?google_editors_picks=true> // NYT // Johnathan Weisman - May 22, 2015 President Obama moved closer to expanded trade negotiating power Friday night after the Senate passed hard-fought legislation that would help complete the most ambitious trade accord in a generation. The deal would link 12 nations on either side of the Pacific into a trading bloc that would encompass 40 percent of the global economy. The Senate voted 62-37 to give this president and the next so-called trade promotion authority, ensuring that Congress could not amend or filibuster any trade accord negotiated over the next three-to-six years, though lawmakers could reject it. Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and usually a foe of Mr. Obama’s, called it “likely the most important bill we’ll pass this year,” adding, “it shows that when the president is right we will support him.” The legislation still faces a difficult path in the House, where almost every Democrat is dug in against Mr. Obama’s top legislative priority, and where a rebellion may be brewing among the most conservative Republicans. Opponents say the measure will only hasten the exodus of manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries like Vietnam, depressing wages for the working class as it buoys the fortunes of the affluent. “Do we want to live in an America where the middle class is wiped out?” asked Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, presaging criticism to come. But Mr. Obama’s Senate victory was significant and convincing. It brought the president one step closer to securing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a legacy-defining trade accord linking countries from Canada to Chile and Australia to Japan, cementing at least the economic part of Mr. Obama’s so-called pivot to Asia. Trading partners have said they cannot complete negotiations without trade promotion authority because they cannot make their own politically difficult concessions, knowing Congress could tamper with them. But the legislation goes still further. It extends that negotiating power for three years, with a possible extension for another three. That would mean the next president will enjoy most of the authority and it would ease passage of another major trade accord under negotiation with the European Union, expected to be finished in 2016. Twice, Democratic opponents nearly derailed the trade promotion bill on procedural votes. On Friday night, supporters of the bill narrowly defeated a bipartisan amendment that would have demanded that future trade agreements crack down on countries that intentionally devalue their currencies, a measure that again could have derailed the bill. The amendment, by Senators Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, and Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, fell 48 to 51. In the end, 13 Democrats sided with the president over Senate Democratic leadership to ensure passage. “By passing this legislation, we can show we’re serious about advancing new opportunities for bigger American paychecks, better American jobs and a stronger American economy,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, who forged a rare alliance with the president to push the legislation. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader and stalwart Obama ally, denounced the bill as “a handout for multinational corporations” that “does nothing for the middle class.” Final passage came only after the bill ran a gantlet of amendments that could have derailed it — or at least made passage through the House much more difficult. The nail-biter was over the currency provision co-sponsored by Mr. Portman, a former United States trade representative in the George W. Bush White House. It would have demanded that future trade agreements include an enforceable crackdown on countries that intentionally depress their currencies to make their exports cheaper and American imports more pricey. Jacob J. Lew, the Treasury secretary, had called on Mr. Obama to veto the trade promotion bill if the currency amendment was attached, fearing it could have backfired and empowered trading partners to challenge American fiscal and monetary policy making. The Senate also voted down an amendment by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, which tried to remove from the Pacific accord a chapter that would give corporations the power to challenge governments that take actions that affect the value of their investments. Ms. Warren maintains the so-called investor-state dispute settlement process could jeopardize American banking regulations and future environmental protections. Also defeated was an amendment requiring congressional approval before any country not among the original 12 could join the Pacific partnership, and a Republican effort to strike assistance to workers who lose their jobs because of trade agreements. The trade battle now shifts to the House, where passage was always expected to be more difficult. Only 17 Democrats have publicly declared their support, well short of the 30 that Republican leaders say they need. Senior House Democrats are adamant that trade deals dating to the North American Free Trade Agreement have cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and depressed wages for workers competing with low-wage countries. More ominously for supporters of trade are the rumbles on the right that could cost the president Republican votes. The decision by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas and a Tea Party favorite, to back trade promotion has insulated the bill from Republicans inclined not to give Mr. Obama authority for anything. But that protection may be fraying. On Friday, Rush Limbaugh became the latest conservative voice to pressure lawmakers. “Since it’s an Obama deal, the odds are the United States is going to take it in the shorts, as we have on so much of the Obama agenda, both domestic and foreign policy,” he announced on his radio show. Obama Set to Strengthen Federal Role in Clean Water Regulation <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/us/politics/obama-set-to-strengthen-federal-role-in-clean-water-regulation.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1&assetType=nyt_now> // NYT // Coral Davenport -May 22, 2015 The Obama administration is expected in the coming days to announce a major clean water regulation that would restore the federal government’s authority to limit pollution in the nation’s rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands. Environmentalists have praised the new rule, calling it an important step that would lead to significantly cleaner natural bodies of water and healthier drinking water. But it has attracted fierce opposition from several business interests, including farmers, property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers and a national association of golf course owners. Opponents contend that the rule would stifle economic growth and intrude on property owners’ rights. Republicans in Congress point to the rule as another example of what they call executive overreach by the Obama administration. Already, they are advancing legislation on Capitol Hill meant to block or delay the rule. The announcement of the rule could come as soon as Friday. If not, it is likely to happen next week, people with knowledge of the plans said. The water rule is part of a broader push by President Obama to use his executive authority to build a major environmental legacy, without requiring new legislation from the Republican-controlled Congress. This summer, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release a final set of rules intended to combat climate change, by limiting greenhouse gas pollution from power plants. Mr. Obama is also expected to announce in the coming year that he will put vast swaths of public land off limits to energy exploration and other development. “Water is the lifeblood of healthy people and healthy economies,” Gina McCarthy, the E.P.A.’s administrator, wrote in an April blog post promoting the water rule. “We have a duty to protect it. That’s why E.P.A. and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are finalizing a Clean Water Rule later this spring to protect critical streams and wetlands that are currently vulnerable to pollution and destruction.” But even as E.P.A. staff worked this month to finish the rule, the House passed a bill to block it. The Senate is moving forward with a bill that would require the agency to fundamentally revamp the rule. “Under this outrageously broad new rule, Washington bureaucrats would now have a say in how farmers, and ranchers, and families use their own property,” said Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming and the chief author of the Senate bill. “It would allow the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate private property just based on things like whether it’s used by animals or birds, or even insects,” he said. “This rule,” he added, “is not designed to protect the traditional waters of the United States. It is designed to expand the power of Washington bureaucrats.” The E.P.A. proposed the rule, known as Waters of the U.S., last March. The agency has held more than 400 meetings about it with outside groups and read more than one million public comments as it wrote the final language. The rule is being issued under the 1972 Clean Water Act, which gave the federal government broad authority to limit pollution in major water bodies, like Chesapeake Bay, the Mississippi River and Puget Sound, as well as streams and wetlands that drain into larger waters. But two Supreme Court decisions related to clean water protection, in 2001 and in 2006, created legal confusion about whether the federal government had the authority to regulate the smaller streams and headwaters, and about other water sources such as wetlands. E.P.A. officials say the new rule will clarify that authority, allowing the government to once again limit pollution in those smaller bodies of water — although it does not restore the full scope of regulatory authority granted by the 1972 law. The E.P.A. also contends that the new rule will not give it the authority to regulate additional waters that had not been covered under the 1972 law. People familiar with the rule say it will apply to about 60 percent of the nation’s waters. “Until now, major bodies of water were protected under the law,” said Elizabeth Ouzts, a spokeswoman for Environment America, an advocacy group. “But they can’t be fully protected unless the streams that flow into them are also protected.” The rule will also limit pollution in groundwater and other sources of drinking water. Polluted groundwater is now chemically treated before being used as drinking water. “We could spend a lot of money to massively treat the water that we drink, but it makes a lot more sense to protect the source,” Ms. Ouzts said. A coalition of industry groups, led by the American Farm Bureau Federation, has waged an aggressive campaign calling on the E.P.A. to withdraw or revamp the rule. Farmers fear that the rule could impose major new costs and burdens, requiring them to pay fees for environmental assessments and to obtain permits just to till the soil near gullies, ditches or dry streambeds where water flows only when it rains. A permit is required for any activity, like farming or construction, that creates a discharge into a body of water covered under the Clean Water Act or affects the health of it, like filling in a wetland or blocking a stream. “It’s going to cause a nightmare for farmers,” said Don Parrish, the senior director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation. “Our members own the majority of the landscape that’s going to be impacted by this,” he said. “It’s going to make their land, the most valuable thing they possess, less valuable. It could reduce the value of some farmland by as much as 40 percent. If you want to build a home, if you want to grow food, if you want a job to go with that clean water, you have to ask E.P.A. for it.” The lobbying fight over the rule has also generated a public-relations battle over social media. In its protest of the rule, the American Farm Bureau Federation started a social media campaign, using the Twitter hashtag #DitchTheRule, to urge farmers and others to push the E.P.A. to abandon or revamp the rule. The E.P.A., in response, created a campaign with the hashtag #DitchTheMyth, urging people to speak out in favor of the rule. But some legal experts contend that campaign might have tested the limits of federal lobbying laws, which prohibit a government agency from engaging in grass-roots lobbying for proposed policies or legislation. Wal-Mart urges meat suppliers to curb antibiotic use <http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/22/us-wal-mart-stores-antibiotics-idUSKBN0O71OV20150522> // Reuters // P.J. Huffstutter and Nathan Layne - May 22, 2015 Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) is pressing meat, seafood, dairy and egg suppliers to reduce the use of antibiotics, becoming the first large retailer to take such a public stand against the excessive use of drugs in raising farm animals. The voluntary guidelines announced on Friday would limit suppliers to using antibiotics to treat and prevent disease, and not for promoting growth, a controversial practice by livestock producers. The move comes as concern is growing that over-use of antibiotics in animals can spawn drug-resistant superbugs, endangering human health. Wal-Mart, the country's biggest food retailer, is also telling suppliers not to raise animals in gestation crates or in other conditions considered inhumane. The retailer is asking suppliers to its roughly 5,200 Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in the United States to publicly disclose their use of antibiotics and treatment of animals on an annual basis. In March McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) said in two years its U.S. restaurants would stop buying chicken raised with human antibiotics, marking the first time a major U.S. company had taken concrete action and set a timetable to it. Bulk retailer Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O), a Wal-Mart rival, has said it was working with suppliers to phase out chicken and livestock raised with antibiotics that are used to fight human infections. But Wal-Mart's move is the most significant by a retailer so far, advocates said. Since it controls a quarter of the U.S. grocery market, the guidelines will likely ripple through the entire food supply chain and prompt rivals to follow suit. "They're the first ones who have asked for this sort of data and to make it public. We haven't gotten that from anyone else, including the U.S. government," said Gail Hansen, senior officer for Pew Charitable Trusts' antibiotic resistance project. "Because of its size, Wal-Mart can drive the industry on this and they can do more," said Susan Vaughn Grooters, policy analyst with the nonprofit group Keep Antibiotics Working. In 2013 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released guidelines for drug makers and agricultural companies to voluntarily phase out antibiotics as a growth enhancer in livestock. But the extent to which U.S. meat producers are using such drugs is unclear. The U.S. Agriculture Department is planning to begin collecting more detailed data on antibiotics used on farms, a potential precursor to setting targets for reducing use of the drugs in animals. Wal-Mart said its move was rooted in consumer demand. It cited an internal study showing that 77 percent of its customers would increase their trust and 66 percent were more likely to shop from a retailer that ensures humane treatment of livestock. "Our customers want to know more about how their food is grown and raised, and where it comes from. As the nation's largest grocer, Walmart is committed to using our strengths to drive transparency and improvement across the supply chain," Kathleen McLaughlin, senior vice president of Walmart sustainability, said in a statement. Wal-Mart told suppliers it wanted them to adhere to the "five principles" of animal welfare, a set of guidelines that includes ensuring animals are not starved, have sufficient space to move, and do not suffer mental distress. The advocacy group Mercy for Animals said Wal-Mart's "historic" move came after protests and its release of hidden-camera videos exposing animal abuse at pork suppliers of the retail chain. Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said the news reflected "game-changing progress" but urged Wal-Mart to set a deadline for suppliers to implement the changes. Some meat and chicken suppliers have already begun shifting their policies after McDonald's announcement, but others have dug in their heels. Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N), the largest U.S. poultry producer, said in April that it planned to eliminate the use of human antibiotics in its chicken flocks by September 2017. However, Sanderson Farms Inc (SAFM.O), the third largest U.S. poultry producer, said on Wednesday that it planned to continue using antibiotics on its birds, partly because there are no alternatives on the horizon for treating a deadly but common gut disease. Wal-Mart's rivals may also come under pressure to alter their policies. Target Corp (TGT.N), one of the nation's top 10 grocers, said it requires that suppliers for its Simply Balanced line of healthy food products use meat from animals raised without antibiotics, hormones and steroids, and are vegetarian fed. It does not impose the same limits on other food products. INTERNATIONAL Islamic State loyalists claim Saudi mosque attack <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/05/22/saudi-arabia-suicide-attack-mosque/27777881/> // AP // Abdullah Al-Shihri and Aya Batrawy - May 22, 2015 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A suicide bomber killed at least 19 people Friday in a blast inside a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia as worshippers commemorated the 7th century birth of a revered figure, residents and officials said. Loyalists of the extremist Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack — the second against Shiites in the kingdom in six months. In November, the extremist Islamic State group was accused of being behind the shooting and killing of eight worshippers in the eastern Saudi Arabian village of al-Ahsa. Despite a string of IS-related attacks over the past several months that have also targeted police, Friday's suicide bombing appears to be the deadliest in the country in nearly a decade. Habib Mahmoud, managing editor for the state-linked Al-Sharq newspaper in Qatif, said that the local Red Crescent authorities confirmed to him that 19 people had been killed and 28 wounded. Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry has not released its count for the number of dead and wounded, but said that a suicide bomber who hid explosives under his clothes was behind the attack. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said that the attacker struck the Imam Ali mosque in a village called al-Qudeeh. In a statement distributed on Twitter feeds linked to IS group loyalists, a group purporting to be the IS branch in Saudi Arabia issued the claim. It could not be independently confirmed if the new group actually has operational links to the Islamic State group, which is based in Syria and Iraq. The group's statement carried a logo in Arabic referring to itself as the "Najd Province" — a reference to the historic region that is home to the capital Riyadh and the ruling Al Saud family, as well as the ultraconservative Wahhabi branch of Islam. Mahmoud, the editor in Qatif, said the attacker stood with the worshippers during prayer and then detonated his suicide vest as people were leaving the mosque. A local activist, Naseema al-Sada, told The Associated Press by telephone from Qatif that the suicide bomber attacked worshippers as they were commemorating the birth of Imam Hussain, a revered figure among Shiites. She said the local hospital has called on residents to donate blood. The Al-Manar television channel, run by the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group, carried blurry pictures of pools of blood inside what appeared to be the mosque where the attack took place. It also showed still photos of at least three bodies stretched out on carpets, covered with sheets. One person dressed in a white robe was being carried away on a stretcher. The attack comes amid heightened Sunni-Shiite tensions in the region as Saudi Arabia and Iran back opposite sides in conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Just before Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against Shiite rebels in Yemen in late March, a purported affiliate of the IS group claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Yemen's capital that killed at least 137 people and wounded nearly 360. The Saudi offensive in Yemen has sharpened anti-Iranian rhetoric inside the kingdom. Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of arming the Yemeni rebels, a claim that both the militias and Tehran deny. Some ultraconservative Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, known as Wahhabis, have used Friday sermons to rally support for the war and simultaneously criticize Shiites and their practice of praying at the tombs of religious figures, which they view as akin to polytheism. Mahmoud said people in Qatif are shocked by the attack and "hold those who are inflaming sectarian rhetoric, from those on social media and in the mosques, responsible." He said that too often the public does not differentiate between what is Iranian government policy and what is Shiite, and "blame Shiites for Iranian actions in the region." The country's top cleric, Grand Mufti Abdel-Aziz al-Sheikh, told Saudi state television that the attack in Qatif aims at "driving a wedge among the sons of the nation" and described it as "a crime, shame and great sin." The country's top council of clerics issued a statement blaming the attack on "terrorist criminals with foreign agendas." Residents in the country's eastern region say they are discriminated against because of their faith. They say that despite the region being home to most of the kingdom's oil reserves, their streets, buildings, hospitals, schools and infrastructure are neglected and in poor condition. They say unemployment runs high among Shiite youth in the area. In 2011, Shiites in the east inspired by the Arab Spring uprising in neighboring Bahrain took to the streets to demand greater rights. Police arrested hundreds of people and a counterterrorism court sentenced an outspoken cleric, Nimr al-Nimr, to death. After the bombing, a few hundred people marched in mourning through the village, Mahmoud said. Al-Sada, the activist, said she too holds the government responsible for not doing more to criminalize sectarian rhetoric. "The government should protect us, not encourage sermons and schoolbooks to incite against us as non-believers," al-Sada said. "We want them to prevent this from happening in the first place." "Martyrdom does not scare us, but we want to live like other citizens and with stability," she said. In heavily Catholic Ireland, voters to decide on same-sex marriage <http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-ireland-same-sex-marriage-20150521-story.html?track=lat-pick#page=2> // LAT // Alexandra Zavis - May 22, 2015 Joe Masterson isn’t your typical gay rights activist. A 72-year-old Irish farmer, he grew up in an era when such matters were simply not discussed. But there he was, going door to door this week asking neighbors in the small village of Castlepollard to support a proposal to allow same-sex couples in Ireland to marry. He was not alone. Opinion polls suggest that this once deeply conservative and still overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country could become the first to legalize gay marriages through a popular vote Friday. That such a milestone could be reached in a country that did not decriminalize homosexuality until 1993, is evidence of how quickly attitudes have changed and of the declining influence of the church after a succession of child abuse scandals. In spite of the church’s opposition, the government and all the main political parties have come out in support of the proposal to introduce a line into Ireland's Constitution that says: “Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.” They have been joined by major businesses, trade unions, media organizations, sports stars and other celebrities. Even some Catholic priests have said they back the amendment. Still, analysts caution that the margin of support has narrowed in recent weeks and the vote’s outcome is not certain. They suspect that some conservative voters might be shy about publicly saying they are likely to vote no. “Everything hangs on who turns out on Friday,” said David Farrell, a politics professor at University College Dublin. Support for the amendment is strongest among young, urban voters, but turnout is usually higher among their older, rural counterparts. Masterson was taking nothing for granted as he headed out for one last night of handing out leaflets before campaigning was officially halted Thursday. For him, the issue is personal. Masterson’s son, Allan, the youngest of three children, was about 20 years old when he finally confided to his dad that he might be gay. Masterson gave his son a hug and told him it wouldn’t change anything. But inside, he worried whether others in the family would respond as he did. It wasn’t until years later, when the young man married his longtime partner in the Netherlands, that his father realized how much support there was for him. Aunts, uncles, cousins traveled from near and far to celebrate the marriage. Now, Masterson would like the union to be recognized in Ireland, in case his son should want to move back with his husband one day. “It should be the same for everybody,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a them-and-us issue.” To opponents, the proposal is an assault on traditional values that would encroach on religious beliefs and redefine marriage in ways they fear would harm children. We who are parents, brothers and sisters, colleagues and friends of Ireland's gay citizens know how they have suffered because of second-class citizenship. They have draped city lampposts with posters featuring a pair of parents kissing a rosy-cheeked infant. “Children deserve a mother and a father. Vote no,” it says. “It does seem strange to me that we have reached a point not just in Ireland, but in Western society, where we are suddenly doubting the intrinsic value of mothers and doubting the intrinsic value of fathers,” said David Quinn, founder of the Iona Institute, a conservative religious advocacy group. He argues that approving the amendment would have broad implications, making it extremely difficult, for example, for Parliament to approve an adoption or surrogacy law that says, “actually it’s in the best interests of the child to have a mother and a father, all other things being equal.” The debate has played out on television screens and in homes across the island nation. “I am told that I am not broad-minded enough and I'm old-fashioned,” said Una Heaton, a 65-year-old artist and museum curator in Limerick, the country’s third-largest city, who planned to vote no Friday. “But it's nothing to do with being broad-minded; it's to do with marriage and children.” “I see nothing wrong with gay friends having civil relationships, but gay marriage is a step too far,” she said. “And putting it in our constitution is bonkers.” Unlike in the United States, where the issue has been taken up by the Supreme Court, a simple majority of voters will decide whether to legalize same-sex marriage in Ireland. Seventeen countries have already done so, all of them through legislation or court rulings. Ireland would have to change its constitution, which requires a referendum. For 'banished' adoptees, search for Irish family is risky The results are expected on Saturday, which happens to be the day of the Eurovision song contest. That could make Saturday “the gayest day in Irish history,” quipped Rory O’Neill, the drag queen known as Panti Bliss, in an interview with the Independent newspaper of London. Same-sex couples have been able to enter into civil partnerships in Ireland since 2011, but activists argue that those don’t afford the same rights and protections as being legally married. “In symbolic terms, it is also incredibly important because it says to Irish lesbian and gay people, especially young people, that they too can grow up in a country that values them,” said Brian Sheehan, codirector of Yes Equality, the umbrella group that leads the yes campaign. Until recently, he said, many people had to emigrate if they wanted to be open about who they were. The decriminalization of homosexuality allowed thousands more to come out of the closet, a big part of the change in Ireland, Sheehan said. One of the things he found most moving about the campaign was the number of parents who became advocates for their gay children. They include people as prominent as former President Mary McAleese, a devout Catholic who spoke about the bullying endured by her son, Justin. “We who are parents, brothers and sisters, colleagues and friends of Ireland’s gay citizens know how they have suffered because of second-class citizenship,” she said at an event this week. The debate also prompted top political figures such as Health Minister Leo Varadkar and former Equality Minister Pat Carey, who are both gay, to speak publicly about their sexuality for the first time. Both remarked on the warm response they received. The conservative-leaning prime minister, Enda Kenny, paid a visit to one of Dublin’s more prominent gay bars in December. Church leaders have also stepped into the fray, distributing pastoral letters to their congregations. But Farrell, of University College Dublin, said that “they’re pulling their punches a lot more than they used to.” “This one referendum we’re having on marriage equality personifies very well just how far the relations between church and state have changed,” he said. Irish political leaders have long deferred to the church, especially on matters of social policy. Contraceptives were only fully legalized in 1985. Divorce was outlawed until 1995, and abortion is still banned in most cases. But a series of damning reports detailing decades of sexual abuse of children by clerics and efforts of church officials to protect the abusers rather than the victims was met with a public outcry and calls for a break between church and state. The scandals came at a time of spreading secularization in Ireland, which began with the economic boom of the 1990s. Archbishop Eamon Martin took pains to emphasize in a statement posted on YouTube that gay people “ought always to be treated with respect and sensitivity.” But he said Irish bishops can’t support an amendment that “places the union of two men or two women on a par with a marriage between a man and woman, which is open to the procreation of children.” Such arguments have been hard for Louise Fitzgerald to hear. The 29-year-old radiographer is planning to marry her partner, a female police officer. She already has a wedding venue picked out in her hometown of Cork. “All I want to do is quietly live my life with my partner and get on with work, and I feel like my character and her character are being laid bare and dissected in public,” Fitzgerald said on Wednesday. She was planning to do some canvassing that night, but was nervous about how she would be received. “It’s a strange thing to have to go up to someone’s door and ask them if it is OK if I get married,” she said. She was born in Wales, where same-sex marriage is now legal, and is thinking of going there to get married if the referendum doesn’t go her way. “It means the world to have that piece of paper,” she said, “just to have a proper marriage somewhere.” OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS The Trigger-Happy Generation <http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trigger-happy-generation-1432245600> // WSJ // Peggy Noonan - May 22, 2015 Readers know of the phenomenon at college campuses regarding charges of “microaggressions” and “triggers.” It’s been going on for a while and is part of a growing censorship movement in which professors, administrators and others are accused of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, gender bias and ethnocentric thinking, among other things. Connected is the rejection or harassment of commencement and other campus speakers who are not politically correct. I hate that phrase, but it just won’t stop being current. Kirsten Powers goes into much of this in her book, “The Silencing.” Anyway, quite a bunch of little Marats and Robespierres we’re bringing up. But I was taken aback by a piece a few weeks ago in the Spectator, the student newspaper of Columbia University. I can’t shake it, though believe me I’ve tried. I won’t name the four undergraduate authors, because 30 years from now their children will be on Google, and because everyone in their 20s has the right to be an idiot. Yet theirs is a significant and growing form of idiocy that deserves greater response. The authors describe a student in a class discussion of Ovid’s epic poem “Metamorphoses.” The class read the myths of Persephone and Daphne, which, as parts of a narrative that stretches from the dawn of time to the Rome of Caesar, include depictions of violence, chaos, sexual assault and rape. The student, the authors reported, is herself “a survivor of sexual assault” and said she was “triggered.” She complained the professor focused “on the beauty of the language and the splendor of the imagery when lecturing on the text.” He did not apparently notice her feelings, or their urgency. As a result, “the student completely disengaged from the class discussion as a means of self-preservation. She did not feel safe in the class.” Safe is the key word here. There’s the suggestion that a work may be a masterpiece but if it makes anyone feel bad, it’s out. Later the student told the professor how she felt, and her concerns, she said, were ignored. The authors of the op-ed note that “Metamorphoses” is a fixture in the study of literature and humanities, “but like so many texts in the Western canon it contains triggering and offensive material that marginalizes student identities in the classroom.” The Western canon, they continue, is full of “histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression” that can be “difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background.” That makes them feel unsafe: “Students need to feel safe in the classroom, and that requires a learning environment that recognizes the multiplicity of their identities.” The authors suggest changing the core curriculum but concede it may not be easy. Another student, they report, suggested in her class that maybe instead they could read “a Toni Morrison text.” A different student responded that “texts by authors of the African Diaspora are a staple in most high school English classes, and therefore they did not need to reread them.” That remark, the authors assert, was not only “insensitive” but “revealing of larger ideological divides.” The professor, they report, failed at this moment to “intervene.” The op-ed authors call for “a space to hold a safe and open dialogue” about classroom experiences that “traumatize and silence students,” with the aim of creating environments that recognize “the multiplicity” of student “identities.” Well, here are some questions and a few thoughts for all those who have been declaring at all the universities, and on social media, that their feelings have been hurt in the world and that the world had just better straighten up. Why are you so fixated on the idea of personal safety, by which you apparently mean not having uncomfortable or unhappy thoughts and feelings? Is there any chance this preoccupation is unworthy of you? Please say yes. There is no such thing as safety. That is asking too much of life. You can’t expect those around you to constantly accommodate your need for safety. That is asking too much of people. Life gives you potentials for freedom, creativity, achievement, love, all sorts of beautiful things, but none of us are “safe.” And you are especially not safe in an atmosphere of true freedom. People will say and do things that are wrong, stupid, unkind, meant to injure. They’ll bring up subjects you find upsetting. It’s uncomfortable. But isn’t that the price we pay for freedom of speech? You can ask for courtesy, sensitivity and dignity. You can show others those things, too, as a way of encouraging them. But if you constantly feel anxious and frightened by what you encounter in life, are we sure that means the world must reorder itself? Might it mean you need a lot of therapy? Masterpieces, by their nature, pierce. They jar and unsettle. If something in a literary masterpiece upsets you, should the masterpiece really be banished? What will you be left with when all of them are gone? What in your upbringing told you that safety is the highest of values? What told you it is a realistic expectation? Who taught you that you are entitled to it every day? Was your life full of . . . unchecked privilege? Discuss. Do you think Shakespeare, Frieda Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, Langston Hughes and Steve Jobs woke up every morning thinking, “My focus today is on looking for slights and telling people they’re scaring me”? Or were their energies and commitments perhaps focused on other areas? I notice lately that some members of your generation are being called, derisively, Snowflakes. Are you really a frail, special and delicate little thing that might melt when the heat is on? Do you wish to be known as the first generation that comes with its own fainting couch? Did first- and second-wave feminists march to the barricades so their daughters and granddaughters could act like Victorians with the vapors? Everyone in America gets triggered every day. Many of us experience the news as a daily microaggression. Who can we sue, silence or censor to feel better? Finally, social justice warriors always portray themselves—and seem to experience themselves—as actively suffering victims who need protection. Is that perhaps an invalid self-image? Are you perhaps less needy than demanding? You seem to be demanding a safety no one else in the world gets. If you were so vulnerable, intimidated and weak, you wouldn’t really be able to attack and criticize your professors, administrators and fellow students so ably and successfully, would you? Are you a bunch of frail and sensitive little bullies? Is it possible you’re not intimidated but intimidators? Again, discuss. By the way, I went back to the op-ed and read the online comments it engendered from the Columbia community. They were quite wonderful. One called, satirically, to ban all satire because it has too many “verbal triggers.” Another: “These women are like a baby watching a movie and thinking the monster is going to come out of the screen and get them.” Another: “These girls’ parents need a refund.” The biggest slayer of pomposity and sanctimony in our time continues to be American wit. Traders hoped for a more interesting Yellen, got same old <http://www.cnbc.com/id/102701661> // CNBC // Patti Domm - May 22, 2015 Fed Chair Janet Yellen stuck to her script Friday, even though traders had hoped a jump in consumer prices would force the central banker to give a nod to the improved inflation data. (Tweet This) Yellen reiterated comments that the Fed is on track to raise rates this year and that inflation will ultimately move to 2 percent as the economy strengthens. The consumer price index, excluding energy and food, rose 0.3 percent, compared to expectations for 0.2 percent. Headline CPI gained 0.1 percent as expected, meaning overall prices actually fell 0.2 percent year over year. Core prices, however, rose 1.8 percent, closer to the Fed's inflation target. "It's basically the first summer Friday. It's before a long weekend. She hardly strays from her FOMC colleagues in normal times. She said we're still on track to raise rates," said John Canally, strategist and economist at LPL Financial. "She didn't say we're going to tighten soon or in June, so I think that leaves September or December." Traders had speculated that Yellen would have to address the move higher in consumer prices because inflation is one of the Fed's main issues. They said if the pickup in consumer inflation continues, it would be key in determining whether the central bank will need to move sooner to raise rates. Treasury yields moved higher after CPI, while the yield curve flattened—indicating the market believes a rate rise could come sooner. According to RBS, fed funds futures are now giving 45 percent odds for a Fed rate hike in September, up from a perceived 35 percent chance last week. After Yellen's afternoon comments, yields stayed roughly in the same range they had been trading in, and stocks gained slightly but were still mostly lower on the day. The dollar index moved higher, adding 0.2 percent after her remarks. "(CPI) was a gain, a bigger-than-expected gain, and there's been a steady gain in core for the last few months, so in the near term it certainly is influential and brings on the ever-increasing risk of a Fed move. But I don't think we need to change the odds very much," said David Ader, Treasury strategist at CRT Capital. Yellen spoke in Rhode Island to the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce on the economy, and she did not take questions. Ader said he hoped to get insight into whether the Fed was concerned about the rise in core inflation or whether it was looking elsewhere. Yellen did give a nod to labor market improvement, and said there were some encouraging improvements to wage growth this year. However, wage data in the CPI on Friday showed zero movement. Traders had also been anxious about the timing of Yellen's comments, delivered during pre-holiday trading and on a day when some markets close early. Chicago pit trading in foreign exchange and interest rates futures closed early, at 1 p.m. ET, just as Yellen started to speak. But electronic trading remained open. The Treasury cash market was to close early at 2 p.m. ET, and stocks were to remain open until 4 p.m. ET, as usual. "I think the market has adjusted in anticipation. Yields are higher at the front end by 4 basis points, implying that she'll be more hawkish, but the benchmark 30-year is down on the day. People are betting there's going to be a flatter curve," said Ader ahead of Yellen's speech. "The best-performing issue is the 30-year so if you think the Fed might hike, that's supportive of the back end, relative to the front end." Tyler Tucci, RBS short-term markets and derivatives strategist, said according to his firms' calculations, fed funds futures Friday morning showed a 100 percent chance for a 25-basis-point Fed rate hike by December. The odds had been as low as 88 percent for December recently after some traders placed bigger bets on January for the first increase. Art Cashin, director of floor operations for UBS at the NYSE, said the bond and stock markets had different interpretations of the importance of the CPI number. "Stock guys shrug it off, pointing to distort that is primarily health cost (government related). Bond types see it as somewhat inflationary and fed fund futures move for an earlier Fed liftoff and bond yields rise. Gold seems to side with stock types," Cashin wrote in a quick note. Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies, said one factor pushing up CPI was rent, and the other inflation data have not been strong enough to change his view that the Fed will hold off on rate hikes until December. "The bottom line is there's very little signs of inflation of any type. It's a think day. Hope springs eternal. People want to get the Fed off zero. Numbers like we saw today are not going to do that," McCarthy said, noting the decline in last week's PPI and drops in import prices. But yet, the markets wonder how much the Fed, stating it is data-dependent, will take notice of this one CPI reading. "All of a sudden, we have back-to-back core CPI advances of 0.23 percent and 0.26 percent in March and April. I certainly do not expect core inflation to be that firm every single month, but I have to wonder how many more of these Fed officials will need to see before they stop worrying about deflation," wrote Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities. "A 0.3 percent increase in the core CPI is such a rare event that it holds considerable shock value, even though the unrounded gain was 'only' 0.256 percent. In fact, there have only been four 0.3 percent rises in the core CPI since the financial crisis, and each of them was 0.25 percent or 0.26 percent unrounded. The last time we had a larger monthly increase than 0.26 percent was January 2008," he wrote. JPMorgan economists, in a note, said they do not expect to see the CPI translate into a gain in the core PCE, the Fed's preferred inflation measure because of the influence of health-care costs. Medical care in the PCE index is based on inputs from the producer price index, which were softer than CPI data. JPMorgan expects the core PCE to be up 1.3 percent over a year ago. As for CPI, they noted that medical care services rose 0.9 percent, helping lift core services, up 0.3 percent, the highest since June 2008. Rent measures also gained, with owners equivalent rent rising 0.28 percent. Airfares fell for a second month, losing 1.3 percent. *Alexandria Phillips* *Press Assistant | Communications* Hillary for America | www.hillaryclinton.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "HRCRapid" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.