podesta_email_01617.txt

podesta-emails 11,610 words email

D6 P17 P19 V11 P22

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*[image: Inline image 1]* *Correct The Record Thursday July 10, 2014 Morning Roundup:* *"Hard Choices" is a success! Secretary Clinton's book "Hard Choices" remains on track to be one of the bestselling political books of the year, spending its first three weeks at number one on the New York Times' Bestsellers List and now landing at number two in its fourth week. See here <http://correctrecord.org/hard-choices-a-success/>.* *Headlines:* *The Daily Beast: “Hillary’s Outside Enforcers Are Led by a Former Foe” <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/10/hillary-s-outside-enforcers-are-led-by-a-former-foe.html>* “Some venues say that the job is to write on her once a day, or write on her five times a week or something, which puts a number value on the article, instead of a value of content,” said Strider. “I think that deserves a little discussion from the other side. You know it is getting rough when you turn on Morning Joe and they are criticizing themselves for covering Hillary so much.” ...“I think it is fair to say that it has always been the case that the media interest in the Clintons seems wide and deep,” said Brock. “The right thinks, and there is a history going back 20 years, that the Clintons have been very good for business. They are magnets for money on the Republican and conservative side, and a lot of this anti-Clinton stuff can be seen as a business.” *Las Vegas Review-Journal: “UNLV Foundation: Clinton fee pencils out” <http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/unlv-foundation-clinton-fee-pencils-out>* “The University of Nevada, Las Vegas Foundation can afford Hillary Clinton’s much-debated $225,000 fee to speak at its annual fundraising dinner, having sold out the Oct. 13 event’s best tables at $20,000-a-pop.” *Gainesville Sun opinion: Douglas Smith, former assistant secretary for the private sector at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: “International tourism benefits Florida” <http://www.gainesville.com/article/20140707/OPINION/140709767?p=1&tc=pg>* “As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton used the tools available to her as America’s top diplomat to positively impact the economy here at home, understanding that our economic security was integral to our national security, and vice versa.” *Media Matters for America: “MSNBC's Joan Walsh Corrects Mischaracterization Of Clinton's Court-Appointed Defense Work” <http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/09/msnbcs-joan-walsh-corrects-mischaracterization/200044>* “MSNBC political analyst Joan Walsh corrected attempts to cast doubt on the fact that Hillary Clinton served as defense attorney on a decades-old criminal case at the direction of the court, pointing out that, in fact, the judge had compelled Clinton to take the case.” *The Daily Caller opinion: Lanny Davis: “Hillary Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’ Show Who She Really Is” <http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/09/hillary-clintons-hard-choices-show-who-she-really-is/>* “What is missing from most of the reviews is what the book reveals about Clinton the person. I can speak to that, knowing her since I was a senior and she was a freshman at Yale Law School when we first met in the fall of 1969.” *Time: “Here’s What John Kerry Can Learn From Hillary About Israel’s New Crisis” <http://time.com/2969852/hillary-clinton-john-kerry-barack-obama-israel-hamas/>* “Just over 18 months later, many of the same dynamics apply as Obama weighs whether Kerry can — or should — broker a deal like the one Clinton struck.” *Washington Post column: Harold Meyerson: “Hillary Clinton’s identity crisis” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-hillary-clintons-identity-crisis/2014/07/09/9c7a45cc-0794-11e4-a0dd-f2b22a257353_story.html>* “Which Hillary Clinton would run for — and, more important, govern as — president?” *Slate blog: Weigel: “How Hillary Clinton Went from Working Class Hero to Elite Loser, in Two Bill Kristol Columns” <http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/07/09/how_hillary_clinton_went_from_working_class_hero_to_elite_loser_in_two_bill.html>* “One of the great joys of political reporting circa 2014 is how quickly you can crowd-source a question.” *Associated Press: APNewsBreak: “Different Attackers In Benghazi?” <http://bigstory.ap.org/article/apnewsbreak-different-attackers-benghazi>* “Newly revealed testimony from top military commanders involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks suggests that the perpetrators of a second, dawn attack on a CIA complex probably were different from those who penetrated the U.S. diplomatic mission the evening before and set it ablaze, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American.” *New York Post: Page Six: “Sales figures for Hillary’s book continue to plunge” <http://pagesix.com/2014/07/09/sales-figures-for-hillarys-book-continue-to-plunge/>* “According to Nielsen BookScan, Clinton’s book sold just 16,000 copies in its most recent week, down from 28,000 a week prior. The title has sold 177,000 in its first month.” *U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “Joe Biden Heading to Netroots Nation” <http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/07/09/joe-biden-heading-to-netroots-nation>* “The announcement Wednesday that Vice President Joe Biden is heading to Netroots Nation means that two of the three biggest stars in the Democratic Party will attend the largest gala of progressives in the nation this year. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, will have a bus visiting in her absence.” *Wall Street Journal: “Cuomo Weighs Making Trip to Israel” <http://online.wsj.com/articles/cuomo-weighs-making-trip-to-israel-1404964881>* “For Mr. Cuomo, who is said to have national political aspirations, such trips could boost his standing among other Democrats jockeying for the 2016 presidential nomination.” *Washington Free Beacon: “What They’re Saying About the Hillary Tapes” <http://freebeacon.com/politics/what-theyre-saying-about-the-hillary-tapes/>* “Mainstream media members have listened to the tapes uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon of Hillary Clinton laughingly discussing a child rapist she defended in the 1970s, and they’ve come away rather troubled about how they bode for her 2016 presidential prospects.” *Articles:* *The Daily Beast: “Hillary’s Outside Enforcers Are Led by a Former Foe” <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/10/hillary-s-outside-enforcers-are-led-by-a-former-foe.html>* By David Freedlander July 10, 2014 [Subtitle:] She’s ostensibly not in campaign mode, but a staff of 20 at the outside group Correct the Record is busily working to defend the former secretary of state against right-wing attacks. On a recent sweltering Wednesday in Washington, D.C., when most of the town had cleared out for the upcoming Fourth of July weekend, Adrienne Elrod was at a desk piled high with books—among them both of Hillary Clinton’s memoirs and the 2008 campaign pot-boiler Game Change—emailing with a reporter from BuzzFeed about a small item running later that evening. Elrod is the communications director for Correct the Record, a six-month-old outfit founded by David Brock, the one-time conservative dirty trickster who in the 1990s turned over a new leaf and started Media Matters, which keeps a watchful eye on the latest talk radio or Fox News outrage. The new group was created to, well, correct the record, particularly the right-wing attacks on Hillary Clinton as she mulls a 2016 presidential run. The 20 or so staff members at Correct the Record, glued to computers in a loft-like space on Massachusetts Avenue, next to Brock’s own office, were engaged that afternoon in pushing back on a narrative emerging that sales of Clinton’s latest memoir, Hard Choices, were tanking. “If we hadn’t already seen three articles on this, before the bestseller list was even out, we wouldn’t be doing this,” said Burns Strider, a genial bear of a Mississippian. He was surrounded by Elrod, an Arkansan and former operative with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and two other aides who barely looked up from their MacBooks. On the walls around them were photos of Clinton at various periods of her career—looking regal at the State Department, shaggy with Bill in their Yale Law School days. The idea for CTR came to Brock during the Benghazi hearings on Capitol Hill. With Clinton not there to defend herself, having left her post as secretary of state, the right wing was having a field day, Brock says. “There was no, or limited, capacity for her to deal with the range of attacks, coming mainly from Capitol Hill but echoed elsewhere,” Brock told The Daily Beast. Plus, there were already a half-dozen or so right-wing super PACs that had Clinton in their sights, none more serious than America Rising, an opposition research outfit founded to counter some of Brock’s efforts. That group is run by Tim Miller, a 30-something former aide to Jon Huntsman who, Strider huffed, “must have, like, a Ph.D. in snark.” (Indeed, on the PAC’s website at the moment are GIFs of George Constanza, The Office, and Mr. Potato Head lifting a dumbbell, each meant to highlight some dunderheaded comment from a Democrat.) Strider and his team see Miller and America Rising as their dark shadow, if a somewhat unserious one, throwing whatever they can against the wall to see what sticks. “They throw out stuff, like, 10 times a day. The RNC has a damn squirrel following her around! I mean—they have a squirrel!” Strider said in disbelief, referring to the Republican National Committee intern tasked with stalking Clinton’s appearances in a squirrel mascot outfit, wearing a T-shirt that reads, “Another Clinton in the White House is NUTS.” According to Elrod, Correct the Record is trying its best to avoid the kind of flack-on-flack combat that is a hallmark of political campaigns, especially in the era of Twitter and all-night news-athons, preferring to stick to the facts and work by subterfuge. “We are strategic about how we get our facts out there,” she said, pointing out that her group tends to push out its own research to friendly reporters. “A lot of what we do doesn’t have our fingerprints on it.” So far, there have been only a few exceptions to that rule. When Miller and America Rising put out a hit on President Clinton for boasting about how he had given away several $550 watches to friends, Correct the Record did respond, noting that the watches came from the Shinola company, a Detroit success story. “So not only were they anti-Clinton, but they were anti-American small business and anti-generosity!” cackled Strider. And when America Rising put out a surprise e-book on Clinton’s time at the State Department, researchers at Correct the Record had, according to Isaac Wright, a Democratic consultant brought on by Brock, “within two hours on a Sundaynight debunked everything they had in that book. That book went nowhere. It quite deservedly landed in the trash.” A bigger question facing the new outfit, however, is how to manage press operations from a non-campaign campaign when Clinton is the best-known figure in American political life—according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, only 1 percent of respondents did not have an opinion about her—and when news outlets have proliferated since she was last approaching a race. “There is no exact science. The first thing you look at is, is it getting any traction? And we start getting reports on Twitter or Facebook, or other reporters picking it up, and see where is it going,” said Strider. “You may still hold off, or you may go balls to the wall for whatever reason.” If something is going to stay in conservative precincts, Correct the Record prefers to keep it there rather than respond and fan the flames further. “You can almost tell what things she says will get mischaracterized,” said Elrod. “You can tell what is going to end up in The Daily Caller, what is going to get picked up by the Free Beacon, and which are going to move more into the mainstream. We try to always have a prepared response, but we wait to see what moves.” Brock and his staff expressed frustration that mainstream outlets, The New York Times chief among them, have dedicated reporters to covering Clinton long before she has announced a potential candidacy. “Some venues say that the job is to write on her once a day, or write on her five times a week or something, which puts a number value on the article, instead of a value of content,” said Strider. “I think that deserves a little discussion from the other side. You know it is getting rough when you turn on Morning Joe and they are criticizing themselves for covering Hillary so much.” Part of the point of Correct the Record is to make sure that Democrats don’t get caught flat-footed the way they did in 2004. Then, long before the days of super PACs, wealthy Republicans funded ads that questioned John Kerry’s war record. At the time, the attacks seemed absurd to Democrats; the Massachusetts senator was a decorated Vietnam veteran, and George W. Bush’s service record was spotty at best. “I think Democrats to this day tend to have Swift Boaters right over our shoulder,” said Strider. “We tend to worry. We saw what happened to Senator Kerry, and while it was happening, everyone thought, This can’t work. This guy’s got medals. Well, they had a free ride for a good long while before there was an honest-to-God response. I think on some level Democrats think of that and say, ‘Never again.’” If Kerry got it bad in 2004, Obama in 2008, with his funny name and exotic upbringing, surely had it far worse. That year, the campaign devoted a significant part of its outreach to a “Fight the Smears” effort to beat back rumors that their candidate was Muslim or born in another country. And even though a British tabloid occasionally picks up a story about Obama’s divorce or has some anonymous first-person account of his cocaine habit, no American political figure has undergone quite the onslaught that Clinton has in her nearly three decades on the national scene. “I think it is fair to say that it has always been the case that the media interest in the Clintons seems wide and deep,” said Brock. “The right thinks, and there is a history going back 20 years, that the Clintons have been very good for business. They are magnets for money on the Republican and conservative side, and a lot of this anti-Clinton stuff can be seen as a business.” Recently, staffers at Correct the Record have been surprised to discover that the stories they need to push back on are not about Clinton’s book tour, or her time as secretary of state, or even her stint in the U.S. Senate, but her time as first lady, or even more surprisingly, her time as first lady of Arkansas, if not before. When the Free Beacon discovered diaries of the late Clinton friend Diane Blair that revealed Clinton’s thoughts during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the CTR staff thought it was old news but still flew someone down to Little Rock the next day. By that evening, their staffer was poring through the files at the University of Arkansas. When an uproar arose more recently over Clinton’s role as a public defender in a Little Rock rape case, the group helped arrange interviews with Mahlon Gibson, the prosecutor in the case whom Elrod and Brock knew from their Arkansas days. Gibson told CNN and others that Clinton was appointed to the case and expressed reservations about it at the time. Such retread stories from the past, they say, do not worry them. “When [Kentucky Sen.] Rand [Paul] cranks up his old hits from the ’70s, it is such a waste of time,” said Burns. “Certainly those events helped shape the character of the people we all are today, but you know, the people who remember it aren’t interested in reliving it. I remember the last night of disco. People burned that damn stadium down…Campaigns are about the future. It is all they have, so they are working it. “Sometimes when somebody brings up one of [the scandals of the past], you see all the old hands come out of the woodwork. I mean, good lord. What is that woman’s name—Maureen Dowd? Peggy Noonan. It’s like they want to get one more shot at their glory years in their 40s, and they are all going at it again, all giddy.” But if a well-turned phrase by Dowd or Noonan can no longer set tongues wagging like it did in the ’90s the ability of rapid responders to punch back is equally limited. In the last 24 hours, 365 news articles were devoted to Hillary Clinton, according to Google. There have been dozens of tweets just in the last few minutes, including, “Perhaps Hillary Clinton should have thought about who her husband was before naming her book ‘Hard Choices…’ Just sayin…” and “Name 1 thing Hillary Clinton has ever accomplished? As 1st lady? As Senator? As Secretary of State? You CAN’T! She has accomplished nothing!” Never mind whatever podcast, Vine, Tumblr, talk radio host or triple digit cable network is spouting off about at the moment. How can any one response team keep up? And, for that matter, why should they? “In the old days, rapid response meant you convince NBC or whomever that the story was bogus and don’t run it,” said Paul Begala, a Brock ally (and former Daily Beast columnist) running his own super PAC. “In this citizen journalism age, you can’t do that anymore. Somebody is going to run it anyway. All you can do is push back with the facts. I can come up with the hyperbole, don’t worry about that, but give me the facts and the data and the quote in context.” As Begala, who was chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, sees it, the impetus behind the conservative attacks on Hillary Clinton now is not so much to change perceptions about her, since she is so well-known, but to drive down enthusiasm. If there is an idea afoot that Clinton is soft on rapists, for example, then maybe key parts of her coalition, like young women, will stay home. Some Democratic communicators told The Daily Beast that they thought Correct the Record’s time would be better spent on offense. With the group’s resources, it could track what the top GOP 2016 contenders were doing, much as its bête noire, America Rising, is doing to Clinton, and pull out embarrassing comments made when Paul, Ted Cruz, and others think no one is really listening. And the very idea that the Clintons already have a group pushing back on negative stories about them plays into one of the persistent themes of Clinton-world—that they are too sensitive to slights and press criticism, and so need an outside entity to defend them even during an ostensible non-campaign period. It was Hillary Clinton, after all, who invented the modern day campaign war room back in 1992, Begala said. Brock, naturally, disputes this point. “To the extent that there is a sensitivity, it is almost a wholly warranted sensitivity,” he said. “I would say someone could write a book about the unfair treatment of the Clintons, but I already did.” But the main question facing Correct the Record is what becomes of it once Clinton embarks on a full-scale campaign. In the era of super PACs, almost everything a campaign does can be outsourced—get out the vote drives, advertising, and the like. Keeping a rapid response operation offsite could double its firepower, or it could mean two entities tripping over each other, adding to the noise. “This is kind of a new chapter being written about how it is being done,” said Strider. “It’s death-defying. You are either writing a whole new chapter on how to win, or you know, you blew it.” *Las Vegas Review-Journal: “UNLV Foundation: Clinton fee pencils out” <http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/unlv-foundation-clinton-fee-pencils-out>* By Laura Myers July 9, 2014, 9:37 p.m. EDT The University of Nevada, Las Vegas Foundation can afford Hillary Clinton’s much-debated $225,000 fee to speak at its annual fundraising dinner, having sold out the Oct. 13 event’s best tables at $20,000-a-pop. The foundation has already sold $353,000 in high-dollar seats and expects to make a profit from the event at Bellagio for only the third time in its history, UNLV spokesman Tony Allen said Wednesday. The first profitable dinner was in 2012, when Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton, was paid $250,000 to address a record crowd of 992 people, clearing a total of $75,998, according to figures released by the university. Last year talk show host Charlie Rose was paid $141,700 to speak at the dinner, which earned a $68,335 profit. The UNLV Foundation launched the annual fundraiser in 1989 but didn’t start charging to attend the event until 2010, when David Gergen, a former adviser to Bill Clinton and three previous presidents, spoke for $55,000. The dinner lost $93,289 after expenses, however. The most expensive dinner was in 2005, when the nonprofit foundation spent $319,435 for 482 attendees to kick off a $500 million fundraising campaign. Over the years, the foundation has raised more than $1 billion for the university. Allen said foundation leaders in recent years realized the value of selling pricey tables for 10 with special access to speakers. “The foundation changed the business model for the donor recognition event in 2010 to a paid dinner, which has helped the foundation cover its event costs and in recent years raise money to support the work of the foundation,” Allen said in an email. “Previously, the annual dinner was complimentary to attendees and budgeted and paid for by the foundation.” Asked whether the foundation expected the fall event with Clinton to be profitable, Allen said, “Yes, we anticipate the donor recognition dinner will cover event costs and generate a net profit.” Hillary Clinton’s six-figure fee stirred controversy with critics complaining that it’s too large, especially because she’s speaking to an educational group. Timing is also an issue. The $225,000 fee got extra attention because of gaffes the former secretary of state made while on tour to promote her new book, “Hard Choices.” The potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate said she was “not truly well off.” She also said the Clintons were “dead broke” when they left the White House in 2001. The couple has earn more than $100 million, much of it from speaking fees, in the past eight years, according to Politico. David Damore, a political science professor at UNLV, said Hillary Clinton is under a microscope. “She’s so high-profile that anything she does is going to draw the partisans out,” he said. “And the optics weren’t great.” Clinton’s supporters note that her speaking fees from universities go to the Bill, Hillary &Chelsea Clinton Foundation, a charitable organization that deals with a range of issues, from global warming to economic growth. Controversial or not, Clinton is looking like a good investment. So far, all $20,000 tables ($18,000 tax deductible) have sold out, according to the foundation’s website. All confirmed 16 “world” tables were reserved. Those tickets include a photo session with Clinton and autographed copies of her book as well as “premium wines, champagne and special menu for guests.” Three $10,000 tables have also been sold, as has one $3,000 table. There were no takers for a $5,000 table as ofWednesday afternoon, Allen said. The total tables sold so far adds up to $353,000. Individual tickets at $200 a pop aren’t available for sale until August, according to the foundation. Allen said it’s too soon to say how many people will attend the dinner or how much it will cost because “it’s still in the planning stages.” The Clinton dinner has created a division among UNLV’s student leaders, too. Last week, Student Body President Elias Bejjelloun and Daniel Waqar, public relations director for the student government, co-signed a letter to the Clinton Foundation, suggesting she donate all or part of her fee to the university as a charitable gesture. The students were careful to praise Clinton and say they looked forward to her speaking at UNLV. This week, UNLV Sen. Alex Murdock objected and on Tuesday mailed his own letter to the Clinton Foundation, apologizing for what he called an “inappropriate and embarrassing request” by Bejjelloun. “The request made by the CSUN Student Body President was not only in poor taste, it was also misinformed and not indicative of the intelligence of UNLV Students,” Murdock wrote. Murdock also trashed Bejjelloun, saying his ascent to the presidency this year violated bylaws and the student government constitution. The two men have clashed since Murdock challenged Bejjelloun’s election, which was upheld. Murdock said Wednesday he thought Bejjelloun should have consulted with all UNLV student senators before writing the Clinton Foundation. He also noted that the event will make money, so the high fee is worth it. “You have to spend money to make money,” Murdock said. Bejjelloun stood by his actions, saying Wednesday that he wanted to send out a timely request after Clinton’s fee was revealed. He also said he consulted with other senators who were on campus. Murdock, a Navy reservist who served in Iraq, said he was involved in special military training at the time and wasn’t asked. Bejjelloun was unsympathetic. “If Murdock wanted to be consulted he should come into the office and do his job. He’s never here,” he said. *Gainesville Sun opinion: Douglas Smith, former assistant secretary for the private sector at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: “International tourism benefits Florida” <http://www.gainesville.com/article/20140707/OPINION/140709767?p=1&tc=pg>* By Douglas Smith July 7, 2014, 3:52 p.m. EDT The Washington Economics Group recently released its quarterly report, which shows that tourism and recreation spending in Florida increased 6.4 percent from the same quarter last year. On the report, WEG principal and founder Tony Villamil said that the growth is “a sign of a sustainable economic recovery led by tourism and investment spending.” In Florida, and other areas throughout the country, tourism has been a large driver on the road to economic recovery. The money spent by foreign tourists fuels economic growth and supports hundreds of thousands of American jobs. According to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “For every 65 international visitors, one American job is created.” In Florida, international tourism is vital to the state’s economy. The most recent data from the Department of Commerce ranks Florida as the second highest destination for international visitors to the United States. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton used the tools available to her as America’s top diplomat to positively impact the economy here at home, understanding that our economic security was integral to our national security, and vice versa. In her book, “Hard Choices,” she writes about “how a collapsing economy in Athens, Greece, affects businesses in Athens, Georgia [and] how a revolution in Cairo, Egypt, impacts life in Cairo, Illinois.” I worked alongside Secretary Clinton’s team to promote international tourism when I served on the President's Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. We implemented a variety of policies that helped increase the number of international tourists to the U.S. from 55 million in 2009 to 70 million in 2013 – which gave the American economy a boost when it needed it the most, while never compromising our national security. Secretary Clinton’s work on two important initiatives made a profound impact on Florida’s economy by increasing the number of Brazilian visitors to the state. Florida is the top U.S. destination for Brazilian tourists, who spend more than $5,000 per visit, higher than the average overseas tourist and nearly twice as much as visitors from France and the UK. First, she reduced inefficiencies and optimized the process for Brazilians to obtain U.S. visas, by creating new visa adjudicator positions and expanding processing facilities. This resulted in a 58% increase in visa processing capacity in just one year. According to Secretary Clinton, “in Sao Paulo in Brazil, it once took 140 days to get a visa, that time is now under 48 hours.” Second, Clinton worked with the Brazilian government and American Airlines to increase the number of flights to the U.S., adding 10 additional flights a week between Miami and Brazil, including the first nonstop routes from Miami to Recife and Salvador. Her work paid off. In 2012, it was reported that “more flights” and “easing of the visa logjam” are listed as two of the four reasons Florida has become “a magnet for Brazilians.” In fact, the number of visitors from Brazil to South Florida has reached record levels over the past few years, making Brazil Miami-Dade’s top international market. Secretary Clinton’s efforts on these two initiatives increased the number of visitors to Florida, fueled money into Florida’s economy, and created tens of thousands of jobs for Floridians in the middle of an economic downturn. Earlier this year, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said, “travel and tourism to and within the United States has been a significant contributor to our economic recovery.” The increase in foreign travelers under Secretary Clinton’s watch spurred economic growth and created jobs at a time when America needed it most, particularly in Florida. *Douglas Smith is executive vice president of the public relations firm MWW. He is the former assistant secretary for the private sector at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he served from October 2009 to November 2013.* *Media Matters for America: “MSNBC's Joan Walsh Corrects Mischaracterization Of Clinton's Court-Appointed Defense Work” <http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/09/msnbcs-joan-walsh-corrects-mischaracterization/200044>* By Emily Arrowood July 9, 2014, 3:48 p.m. EDT MSNBC political analyst Joan Walsh corrected attempts to cast doubt on the fact that Hillary Clinton served as defense attorney on a decades-old criminal case at the direction of the court, pointing out that, in fact, the judge had compelled Clinton to take the case. The July 8 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews rehashed Hillary Clinton's work as a court-appointed defense attorney in the 1975 prosecution of an alleged rapist, a role that, while known publicly for years, is reemerging in wake of the conservative Washington Free Beacon's improper appropriation and publication of an interview Clinton gave in the mid-1980s discussing the case. During the discussion, frequent MSNBC guest and president of the conservative Bernard Center for Women Michelle Bernard repeatedly suggested that Clinton had elected to represent the defendant of her own volition. Joan Walsh, Salon editor and MSNBC analyst, attempted to correct the record on Clinton's court appointment, pointing out that "she was court-appointed" and that the judge had forced her to take the case. Bernard, however, continued to imply Clinton may have voluntarily accepted the role after speaking with the prosecutor. The fact that the court appointed Clinton to represent the defendant is not in doubt. The judge -- not the prosecutor -- directed Clinton to take on the case, as Glenn Thrush established in a 2008 Newsday report: “On May 21, 1975, Tom Taylor rose in court to demand that Washington County Judge Maupin Cummings allow him to fire his male court-appointed lawyer in favor of a female attorney. Taylor, who earned a meager wage at a paper bag factory and lived with relatives, had already spent 10 days in the county jail and was grasping for a way to avoid a 30 years-to-life term in the state penitentiary for rape. “Taylor, 41, figured a jury would be less hostile to a rape defendant represented by a woman, according to one of his friends. Cummings agreed to the request, scanned the list of available female attorneys (there were only a half dozen in the county at the time) and assigned Rodham, who had virtually no experience in criminal litigation. “‘Hillary told me she didn't want to take that case, she made that very clear,’ recalls prosecutor Gibson, who phoned her with the judge's order. “‘I didn't feel comfortable taking on such a client, but Mahlon gently reminded me that I couldn't very well refuse the judge's request,’ the eventual first lady writes in ‘Living History.’” Clinton had no choice but to accept the court's order, despite voicing reservations, a fact the case's prosecutor reiterated to CNN: “Mahlon Gibson told CNN on Wednesday the then 27-year-old Hillary Rodham (now Clinton) was ‘appointed’ by the judge in the case, even though she voiced reservations. “[...] “Gibson said that it is ‘ridiculous’ for people to question how Clinton became Taylor's representation. “‘She got appointed to represent this guy,’ he told CNN when asked about the controversy. “According to Gibson, Maupin Cummings, the judge in the case, kept a list of attorneys who would represent poor clients. Clinton was on that list and helped run a legal aid clinic at the time. “Taylor was assigned a public defender in the case but Gibson said he quickly ‘started screaming for a woman attorney’ to represent him. “Gibson said Clinton called him shortly after the judge assigned her to the case and said, ‘I don't want to represent this guy. I just can't stand this. I don't want to get involved. Can you get me off?’ “‘I told her, 'Well contact the judge and see what he says about it,' but I also said don't jump on him and make him mad,’ Gibson said. ‘She contacted the judge and the judge didn't remove her and she stayed on the case.’” *The Daily Caller opinion: Lanny Davis: “Hillary Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’ Show Who She Really Is” <http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/09/hillary-clintons-hard-choices-show-who-she-really-is/>* By Lanny Davis July 9, 2014, 10:02 p.m. EDT The reviews are in on Hard Choices, Hillary Clinton’s history of her four-year tenure as U.S. secretary of State. They are almost all positive. Her book sales are strong — number one on The New York Times bestseller list for three weeks in a row. What is missing from most of the reviews is what the book reveals about Clinton the person. I can speak to that, knowing her since I was a senior and she was a freshman at Yale Law School when we first met in the fall of 1969. First, to state the most obvious: Hard Choices is about Hillary working hard. We have all read the data of her travels and meetings as secretary of State: 401 days on the road, one million miles traveled, 112 countries visited. The book depicts the results of that hard work, her enduring achievements as secretary of State, including her indefatigable personal shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Egypt, which led to a cease-fire between Israel and the Hamas-led Palestinians in Gaza, saving countless lives; her determined negotiations with Russia, which led to a reduction in U.S.-Russian nuclear missiles with better verification; and her successful effort to obtain global cooperation imposing economic sanctions on Iran, widely credited with bringing Iran to the negotiating table regarding its nuclear weapons program. Then there is Hillary the strong and decisive leader, who made difficult judgments based on the available facts, taking the risk that, with the wisdom of hindsight, she might turn out to be wrong. The most dramatic example, described in page-turning detail in her book, was her support of President Obama’s courageous decision to send in the Navy SEALs to kill Osama bin Laden, a decision opposed by Vice President Biden. Finally, the book conveys the positive global effects of her authenticity and likeability. In my view, one of Clinton’s most enduring achievements as secretary of State — maybe the most important — was the dramatic increase in positive perceptions of American leadership around the world during her tenure. In the last two years of the Bush administration, according to Gallup World Poll data, America trailed Britain, France, Germany, Japan and China in approval of its leadership. That’s right, behind even China. In 2011, after two years of Clinton as secretary of State, America was tied for first place with Germany. Finally, several sentences in the last two chapters of her book convey core insights into the real Hillary Clinton that her long-time friends have understood over the years. When Obama asked her to stay into the second term, she wrote that she “felt the tug of my ‘service gene,’ that voice telling me there is no higher calling or more noble purpose than serving your country.” But then made she made the decision to return to private life — “spending more time with my family, reconnecting with friends, doing the everyday things I missed.” She also wrote poignantly about her thoughts at her mom’s funeral: “I looked at Chelsea and thought about how proud Mom was of her. Mom measured her own life by how much she was able to help us and serve others. I knew if she was still with us, she would be urging us to do the same. Never rest on your laurels. Never quit. Never stop working to make the world a better place. That’s our unfinished business.” The first time I met Hillary Rodham in September 1969, we were standing in line to register for classes at Yale Law School. I asked her if she needed any advice on how to study and brief cases in her first semester at a fairly challenging law school. She said, politely, “no thank you,” and then asked: “Can you tell me where I can find the nearest legal services clinic?” No, Hillary Clinton hasn’t changed through all the years: the importance of family and friends, the “service gene” as active today as I witnessed some 45 years ago, motivating her to “never quit — never stop working to make the world a better place.” *Time: “Here’s What John Kerry Can Learn From Hillary About Israel’s New Crisis” <http://time.com/2969852/hillary-clinton-john-kerry-barack-obama-israel-hamas/>* By Michael Crowley July 9, 2014 [Subtitle:] Clinton writes that Obama was “understandably wary” about intervening the last time violence flared Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, amid rising fears that the confrontation between Israel and Hamas could escalate to new levels of bloodshed. But Kerry might also want to talk to his Foggy Bottom predecessor about how the last round of violence in the intractable conflict was defused. When Israel and Hamas last fought in Gaza in November 2012, President Barack Obama dispatched then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to broker a cease-fire. As Israel called up 75,000 reservists for a possible ground invasion, Obama was “understandably wary” of the U.S. taking a direct mediation role, Clinton writes in her new book, Hard Choices. “If we tried to broker a cease-fire and failed, as seemed quite likely, it would sap America’s prestige and credibility in the region,” Clinton says. American involvement might also risk undercutting Israel, whose “right to defend itself” Clinton underscores. Obama officials also worried a U.S. role might “elevate” the conflict’s profile, leading both sides to harden their negotiating positions. Even so, Clinton and Obama concluded that it was “imperative to resolve the crisis before it became a ground war.” Clinton knew that Netanyahu didn’t want to invade Gaza — but that he faced domestic pressure to do so and had no clear “exit ramp” that would allow him to de-escalate without seeming to back down, Clinton writes. Just over 18 months later, many of the same dynamics apply as Obama weighs whether Kerry can — or should — broker a deal like the one Clinton struck. For now, Obama officials have two public messages. One is that Israel is entitled to hit back at Hamas when the hard-line Palestinian group launches rockets at its territory. “No country can accept rocket fire aimed at civilians, and we certainly support Israel’s right to defend itself against these attacks,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki saidTuesday. The other is that the two sides should rein in the violence — which now takes the form of Hamas rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes. “We’re continuing to convey the need to de-escalate to both sides,” Psaki said. That may not happen on its own, warns Dennis Ross, a former Obama White House aide who has handled Middle East issues for multiple Presidents. “Even if neither side wants it to spin out of control, the potential for that is quite high,” Ross says. That’s why Obama has to decide whether to step in, especially given growing signs of an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. Israel’s 2009 incursion into the Hamas-governed coastal territory left 1,400 dead, and badly damaged Israel’s international image. A second invasion was averted in November 2012 only by the Clinton-brokered cease-fire, a deal struck just 48 hours before Israeli troops planned to swarm into Hamas’ stronghold. Just before Thanksgiving that year, Clinton flew to the region and met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. She also saw Egypt’s then President Mohamed Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood government was friendly with Hamas. The result was a mutual cease-fire, overseen by Egypt, with the promise of future negotiations about Hamas’ rocket arsenal and Israel’s Gaza blockade. Those talks never went far. But the cease-fire held. (Netanyahu won another concession, Clinton recalls: a phone call from Obama promising U.S. help against rocket smuggling into Gaza. “Did [Netanyahu] take some personal satisfaction from making the President jump through hoops?” Clinton wondered.) Obama faces a different calculus today, including the recent collapse of Kerry’s push for a Middle East peace deal, and a new Egyptian regime that is decidedly hostile to Hamas, making Cairo unlikely to mediate again. But many of the core principles that Clinton says swayed Obama in 2012 likely still resonate at the White House: that peace in the Middle East is a key U.S. national-security priority, that a ground war in Gaza would be disastrous, and that there is “no substitute for American leadership.” Indeed, Clinton writes that after the 2012 cease-fire deal, an Israeli official told her that “my diplomatic intervention was the only thing standing in the way of a much more explosive confrontation.” The burning question for Obama is whether the same holds true today. *Washington Post column: Harold Meyerson: “Hillary Clinton’s identity crisis” <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-hillary-clintons-identity-crisis/2014/07/09/9c7a45cc-0794-11e4-a0dd-f2b22a257353_story.html>* By Harold Meyerson July 9, 2014, 8:39 p.m. EDT Which Hillary Clinton would run for — and, more important, govern as — president? The onetime New York senator whom many Wall Street bankers supported and former secretary of state who gave speeches to Goldman Sachs and others for a reported $200,000 per? Or the leader of an increasingly progressive Democratic Party, who, in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel this week, affirmed the thesis of economist Thomas Piketty? “I think he makes a very strong case that we have unbalanced our economy too much towards favoring capital and away from labor,” she said. Friend or foe of Wall Street? On the one hand, it was Clinton’s husband who entrusted the nation’s economic policymaking to former Goldman Sachs executive Robert Rubin, who, along with subsequent Treasury secretaries Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, promoted an agenda of free trade, deregulation and privileging the interests of big banks over all others. On the other, as a senator, Clinton called for tougher regulations on derivatives and said that “Wall Street has played a significant role” in the subprime mortgage disaster — and she did so in 2007, one year before the great collapse. What makes Clinton’s predicament particularly significant is that it’s not hers alone. For decades, the default position of generations of Democrats has been to back economic policies that helped ordinary Americans — higher minimum wages, the right to unionize, spending on infrastructure — without reining in banks, corporations and the wealthy beyond the basic constraints laid down by the New Deal. They could do this for one fundamental reason: Economic growth in the United States was largely equitable; prosperity was broadly shared. When President John F. Kennedy famously declared that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” he was not merely describing how the economy worked in the pre-globalization and highly unionized United States of the post-World War II decades. He was also, however inadvertently, explaining how the relative absence of class conflict enabled Democrats to be both pro-union and a friend of financial elites, who were not yet accruing all the proceeds of growth for themselves. But that was then. Today, as Clinton told Der Spiegel, capital has eclipsed labor. Fully 95 percent of the nation’s income growth since the recovery began in 2009, University of California economist Emmanuel Saez has shown, has gone to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. The share of the country’s gross domestic product going to profits is at a record high; the share going to wages a record low. Under these conditions, what’s a Democrat — what’s Hillary Clinton — to do? How does she propose to re-create a United States where the gains in productivity go not only to the largest shareholders but also to the workers who make those gains? She could, for starters, propose cutting taxes on employers who raise wages in line with the nation’s annual productivity increase, and raising the levy on employers who don’t. She could propose hiking taxes on capital gains and dividends at least to the level of taxes on work-derived income. She could propose cutting taxes on corporations that divide their boards equally between representatives of shareholders and employees, as the Germans do, and raising the tax rates of corporations that don’t, that are run almost solely for the benefit of their large shareholders and their top executives — as most U.S. corporations are. Immodest proposals, to be sure, but in an economy in which nearly all the income growth accrues to a sliver of investors, Democrats no longer have the luxury of indulging both that sliver and everybody else. As Clinton’s proto-candidacy continues to take shape, one modest way that she could begin to address the scourge of inequality would be to follow the example of Franklin Roosevelt. In selecting his Treasury secretary, Roosevelt opted not to choose Sen. Carter Glass, in part because Glass wanted a J.P. Morgan executive as his deputy. As Adam Cohen documents in “Nothing to Fear,” his history of Roosevelt’s first 100 days as president, Roosevelt told his aide Raymond Moley, “We simply cannot go along with Twenty-Three.” (The Morgan bank was headquartered at 23 Wall St.) Expanded from 23 to the rest of the street, that’s pretty good guidance for our next president, whomever it may be. Wall Street veterans aren’t likely to see Wall Street’s ascendancy over the rest of the economy as a problem. The cure for Clinton’s, and the Democrats’, identity crisis begins with a clear declaration that the nation’s economy will no longer be entrusted to the leaders of the very institutions that have brought it low. *Slate blog: Weigel: “How Hillary Clinton Went from Working Class Hero to Elite Loser, in Two Bill Kristol Columns” <http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/07/09/how_hillary_clinton_went_from_working_class_hero_to_elite_loser_in_two_bill.html>* By David Weigel July 9, 2014, 2:07 p.m. EDT One of the great joys of political reporting circa 2014 is how quickly you can crowd-source a question. After skimming a column about how Hillary Clinton's book tour might have happened too early (this, after how many months of coverage of when Clinton would climb back on the horse?), I flashed back to all the punditry from 2011 and 2012 about Clinton's political might. Hadn't pundits argued for Joe Biden to leave the ticket and the popular, adroit Hillary Clinton to replace him? Had any pundits argued both for a Hillary-veep switch and argued that Hillary 2016 was falling apart? Within five minutes of my ask, Reuters reporter Gabriel Debenedetti produced two Bill Kristol columns that did exactly this. On May 28, 2012, Kristol trolled the Obama campaign by suggesting an obvious face-saving/election-winning switcheroo. Joe Biden had to go. (My emphasis.) “Who should replace Biden? Everyone knows the answer. Hillary Clinton received nearly 18 million votes in the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination. Her rating in a Washington Post survey a couple of weeks ago was 65 percent favorable, 27 percent unfavorable. Biden hurts Obama. She would help him. What’s more, she’d help with precisely the undecided voters Obama needs in November. Many of them are white, working- and middle-class Americans who supported her in the 2008 primaries. They overcame their disappointment at Clinton’s defeat to vote for Obama that November. But many became disillusioned and voted Republican in 2010, producing that year’s GOP landslide. Barack Obama needs to win back as many of them as possible in 2012. They voted for Hillary Clinton once. Surely they’d be more likely to return to Obama if given the opportunity to vote for her again as part of the ticket.” Just two years and one month later, Kristol reacted to Hillary Clinton's book tour -- specifically, her inartful answer to Diane Sawyer's question about how rich she'd become post-Foggy Bottom. In "Our Dead Broke Leaders," he suggested that the Republican party could easily out-campaign this royalist. “Republicans, for a change, aren’t saddled with the prospect of an out-of-touch insider as their presidential nominee. (Is it conceivable that no populist Democrat will see Hillary Clinton’s glaring weaknesses and take her on?) The populist mantle, the reformist mantle, the Main Street and Middle America mantles, are there for the Republican taking.” To be fair, perhaps the white, working, and middle-class Americans who supported Hillary before do not technically live in middle America, or on Main Street. They might live on State Street, or Locust Street, or Electric Avenue. Thanks anyway to Debenedetti for coming up with the columns. It's nice when someone covers politics with consistency. *Associated Press: APNewsBreak: “Different Attackers In Benghazi?” <http://bigstory.ap.org/article/apnewsbreak-different-attackers-benghazi>* By Donna Cassata and Bradley Klapper July 9, 2014, 7:53 p.m. EDT Newly revealed testimony from top military commanders involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks suggests that the perpetrators of a second, dawn attack on a CIA complex probably were different from those who penetrated the U.S. diplomatic mission the evening before and set it ablaze, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American. The second attack, which killed two security contractors, showed clear military training, retired Gen. Carter Ham told Congress in closed-door testimony released late Wednesday. The assault probably was the work of a new team of militants, seizing on reports of violence at the diplomatic mission the night before and hitting the Americans while they were most vulnerable. The testimony, which The Associated Press was able to read ahead of its release, could clarify for the first time the events of Sept. 11, 2012, that have stirred bitter recriminations in the U.S., including Republican-led congressional investigations and campaign-season denunciations of the Obama administration, which made inaccurate statements about the Libyan attacks. The testimony underscores a key detail that sometimes has been lost in the debate: that the attacks were two distinct events over two days on two different buildings, perhaps by unrelated groups. The U.S. government still has not fully characterized the first attack in which, according to Ham and eight other military officers, men who seemed familiar with the lightly protected diplomatic compound breached it and set it on fire, killing Stevens and communications specialist Sean Smith. A disorganized mob of looters then overran the facility. In testimony to two House panels earlier this year, the officers said that commanders didn't have the information they needed to understand the nature of the attack, that they were unaware of the extent of the U.S. presence in Benghazi at the time and they were convinced erroneously for a time that they were facing a hostage crisis without the ability to move military assets into place that would be of any use. The testimony reveals how little information the military had on which to base an urgent response. Two House panels — Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform — conducted interviews with the nine officers on separate days from January to April. Four Americans died in Benghazi, including Stevens. To this day, despite the investigations, it's not clear if the violence resulted from a well-planned, multiphase military-type assault or from a loosely connected, escalating chain of events. In their testimony, military officials expressed some uncertainty about the first attack, describing protests and looting in an assault that lasted about 45 minutes. The military attache to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli told Congress the first attack showed some advance planning. The Libyan police officer guarding the diplomatic compound fled as it began. The defense attache, whose name wasn't released, suggested the attackers "had something on the shelf" — an outline of a plan based on previously obtained information about the compound and its security measures, so they were ready to strike when the opportunity arose. "They came in, and they had a sense of purpose, and I think it sometimes gets confused because you had looters and everyone else coming in," he said. "It was less than kind of full, thought-out, methodical." Ham testified that the second attack, which killed security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty at the annex a mile from the diplomatic compound where the assault began the night before, showed clear military training. It was probably the work of a new team of militants, taking advantage after reports of violence at the first site and American vulnerability. "Given the precision of the attack, it was a well-trained mortar crew, and in my estimation they probably had a well-trained observer," said Ham, who headed the U.S. command in Africa. The second attack showed "a degree of sophistication and military training that is relatively unusual and certainly, I think, indicates that this was not a pickup team. This was not a couple of guys who just found a mortar someplace." Ham said the nearly eight-hour time lapse between the two attacks also seemed significant. "If the team (that launched the second attack) was already there, then why didn't they shoot sooner?" he asked. "I think it's reasonable that a team came from outside of Benghazi," he said of the second attack in testimony on April 9. Violent extremists saw an opportunity "and said, 'Let's get somebody there.'" He also acknowledged that the absence of American security personnel on the ground soon enough after the first attack "allowed sufficient time for the second attack to be organized and conducted," he said. Stevens had gone to Benghazi from the embassy in Tripoli to open a cultural center, State Department officials said. The attacks came as President Barack Obama was in a close re-election battle, campaigning in part on the contention that al-Qaida no longer posed a significant threat to the United States and that, blending the economy and the fight against terrorism, General Motors was alive but "Osama bin Laden is dead." A terror attack on American assets could have damaged that argument. Five days after the attack, after feverish email exchanges about her "talking points" among national security staff members and their spokesmen, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice linked the Benghazi attacks to protests in Tunisia and Cairo over an anti-Islam video. Weeks later, U.S. officials retracted that account but never fully articulated a new one. Republicans seized on the inaccuracies, contending that the Obama administration was covering up a terror attack for political gain. Several congressional and independent investigations have faulted the State Department for inadequate security, but they have not provided a full reading of who was involved in the violence, what the motives were and how they could pull off such a seemingly complicated, multipronged assault. People on both sides of the debate tend to link the two incidents as one attack. The congressional testimony that distinguishes the attacks came from military officials in Tripoli or, like Ham, coordinating the response in Washington. Most have never given a public account. But they agreed that confusion reigned from the outset. "We're under attack," was the first report the military received from Benghazi. That message came from Stevens' entourage to Tripoli in the late afternoon of Sept. 11. Word was relayed to the defense attache, who reported up the chain of command. That report gave no indication about the size or intensity of the attack. The defense attache testified that the assault on the diplomatic mission was followed by a mob that complicated and confused the situation. He said of the original attackers, "I don't think they were on the objective, so to speak, longer than 45 minutes. They kind of got on, did their business, and left." For hours after that, he said, there were looters and "people throwing stuff and you see the graffiti and things like that." Once the first attack ended around 10 p.m., the military moved to evacuate Americans from Benghazi, while preparing for what it erroneously believed might have been an emerging hostage situation involving Stevens. In fact, Stevens died of smoke inhalation after the diplomatic post was set on fire in the first attack. Seven-and-a-half hours later, at dawn, mortars crashed on a CIA compound that had been unknown to top military commanders. The military worked up a response on numerous fronts. At one point, fewer than 10 U.S. military personnel in Libya were grappling with the mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack on Americans who had taken cover at the CIA facility and, some 600 miles away, the evacuation of about three dozen people from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli by a convoy of armored vehicles. An unarmed Predator drone conducting an operation nearby in eastern Libya had been repositioned over Benghazi, yet offered limited assistance during the nighttime and with no intelligence to guide it. A standby force training in Croatia was ordered to Sicily, while another farther afield was mobilized. Neither was nearly ready in time to intervene during the first 45-minute attack and couldn't predict the quick mortar attack the next morning. An anti-terrorism support team in Spain was deployed, though it, too, was hours away. American reinforcements of a six-man security team, including two military personnel, were held up at the Benghazi airport for hours by Libyan authorities. Drone images and intelligence hadn't provided indications of a new attack, but word eventually came from two special forces troops who had made it to the annex and reported casualties from the dawn attack up the chain of command. In Tripoli, military and embassy officials were evacuating the embassy there and destroying computer hardware and sensitive information. The administration last month apprehended its first suspect, Ahmed Abu Khattala, and brought him to the United States to stand trial on terrorism charges. The Justice Department maintains in court documents that Abu Khattala was involved in both attacks, and it describes the first breach on the diplomatic post as equally sophisticated. The government said a group of about 20 men, armed with AK-47- rifles, handguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, stormed the diplomatic facility in the first attack. Abu Khattala supervised the looting after Americans fled, the government says, and then returned to the camp of the Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia, where the Justice Department says a large force began assembling for the second attack. The Justice Department provided no supporting documentation for those conclusions. They also reflect the divisions among current and former government officials about the two attacks. In her book "Hard Choices," former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote that there were scores of attackers with different motives. "It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions defy not only the evidence but logic as well." Abu Khattala's lawyer says the government has failed to show that he was connected to either attack. Ham, who happened to be in Washington that week, briefed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey. They informed the president. Many of the military officials said they didn't even know about the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, let alone the CIA's clandestine installation nearby. Few knew of Stevens visiting the city that day. Given all of the confusion, Ham said there was one thing he clearly would have done differently: "Advise the ambassador to not go to Benghazi." *New York Post: Page Six: “Sales figures for Hillary’s book continue to plunge” <http://pagesix.com/2014/07/09/sales-figures-for-hillarys-book-continue-to-plunge/>* By Ian Mohr July 9, 2014, 10:36 p.m. EDT Sales of Hillary Clinton’s “Hard Choices” continued to plunge as new figures were released Wednesday. According to Nielsen BookScan, Clinton’s book sold just 16,000 copies in its most recent week, down from 28,000 a week prior. The title has sold 177,000 in its first month. Simon & Schuster reportedly gave Clinton a $14 million advance after her last book for the publisher sold 438,000 in its first week. Clinton’s tome was toppled from the No. 1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list by Edward Klein’s Clinton “exposé,” “Blood Feud,” which sold 20,000 copies in the last week. However, BookScan measures only 85 percent of the market and not e-books. *U.S. News & World Report blog: The Run 2016: “Joe Biden Heading to Netroots Nation” <http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/07/09/joe-biden-heading-to-netroots-nation>* By David Catanese July 9, 2014, 5:50 p.m. EDT [Subtitle:] 2 of the 3 biggest stars in the Democratic Party are heading to the liberal gala. The announcement Wednesday that Vice President Joe Biden is heading to Netroots Nation means that two of the three biggest stars in the Democratic Party will attend the largest gala of progressives in the nation this year. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, will have a bus visiting in her absence. Biden will join Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., during the three-day conference in Detroit, Michigan. He’s scheduled to speak a week from Thursday; Warren is slated for a morning address the day after. That same weekend Clinton will be doing a book signing in St. Paul, Minnesota, about a 90-minute flight from Detroit. It will mark the first time Biden’s talking at the conference and will come at point when the Democratic Party is wrestling with how best to approach the issue of income inequality. “From his longtime support of labor unions to speaking out on important issues like LGBT equality, Vice President Biden has in many ways given heart and soul to this administration," said Raven Brooks, executive director of Netroots Nation, in a statement. Clinton, in the midst of a monthlong promotional tour of her book, declined an invite. In one sense, it makes sense for her to avoid the risk of a cool welcome by some of the nation’s most hardened liberals. But if The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber is right, she’s already made great inroads with the group who torpedoed her nomination six years ago. Now that two of the Democrat’s top three potential 2016 presidential candidates will be present, Clinton’s absence will only be amplified. But she’ll have a surrogate of sorts on her behalf. Ready For Hillary, a pro-Clinton group unaffiliated with the former Secretary of State, is sending its bus to the conference. Whether attendees are ready to hop on will be a fair measure of how far Clinton has come with the left. *Wall Street Journal: “Cuomo Weighs Making Trip to Israel” <http://online.wsj.com/articles/cuomo-weighs-making-trip-to-israel-1404964881>* By Erica Orden July 10, 2014, 12:01 a.m. EDT In his nearly four years in office, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has ventured beyond the borders of New York state only a handful of times. In coming months, that may change. According to people familiar with the plans, Mr. Cuomo's administration is weighing a travel schedule that would send the governor to locations including Israel and Puerto Rico, an itinerary that would mark the first time he has left the country since he took office in 2011. "There are always discussions about trade and economic-development missions," said Matt Wing, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo. "Nothing is planned." The governor's international travel, the people familiar with the matter said, would be conducted for the ostensible purpose of attracting business to an economic-development program, Global NY. Mr. Cuomo launched that initiative earlier this year to encourage export deals in foreign markets for startup companies in the state's new tax-free zones. It also opens the tax-free zones to foreign companies interested in establishing a branch of their business in New York. To that end, administration officials planning the trips in recent weeks include Special Counsel Linda Lacewell, Cuomo liaison for Jewish affairs David Lobl and officials from Empire State Development Corp., the state agency that runs the Global NY program. For Mr. Cuomo, who is said to have national political aspirations, such trips could boost his standing among other Democrats jockeying for the 2016 presidential nomination. While Mr. Cuomo is likely to sit the race out if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton runs, he would be considered a top contender if she decides against running. Current events could complicate or derail any potential ventures. In Israel, tensions have flared in the wake of the kidnapping and killing last month of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, and the subsequent killing of a Palestinian teenager. In the weeks since, Israeli security forces have mounted a crackdown on Hamas members, and Palestinian militants have stepped up rocket attacks against Israel. Thus far, Mr. Cuomo has made a point of sticking close to his home state. Since his gubernatorial inauguration, he has traveled once to Puerto Rico, for a political conference; twice to Washington, D.C.; twice to Los Angeles for fundraisers; and once to Charlotte, N.C., for the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Mr. Cuomo has toyed with international trips in prior years, according to people familiar with the matter. In late 2011, the administration considered sending the governor to destinations including China and Israel, and a similar plan resurfaced roughly two years ago. It isn't clear why those trips never materialized, but Mr. Cuomo has touted his infrequent travel outside the state as a measure of his commitment to the cause of New York. International travel is common for ambitious governors, particularly to Israel. In the spring of 2012, Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie embarked on a "Jersey to Jerusalem Trade Mission," where he visited the Western Wall and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry has visited the country several times, most recently in the fall of 2013. In 1998, George W. Bush, then the governor of Texas, visited Israel with a group of other governors, two years before he ran for president. Mr. Cuomo, however, hasn't visited Israel since 2002, when he made two trips there during his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York. In an interview with the Jewish Week newspaper in September 2002, Mr. Cuomo spoke about his connection to the country. "I have a long relationship with Israel. I am a born-and-bred New Yorker. I was raised in a community in Queens with Jewish people," he said in the interview, which was published in 2010. "So I feel a connection, I feel a bond. It is something I would like to do personally," he said of traveling to Israel, "and something I feel professionally the governor could do and should do." *Washington Free Beacon: “What They’re Saying About the Hillary Tapes” <http://freebeacon.com/politics/what-theyre-saying-about-the-hillary-tapes/>* By David Rutz July 9, 2014, 3:05 p.m. EDT Mainstream media members have listened to the tapes uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon of Hillary Clinton laughingly discussing a child rapist she defended in the 1970s, and they’ve come away rather troubled about how they bode for her 2016 presidential prospects. Both Morning Joe‘s Joe Scarborough and Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein called her comments “disturbing,” with Scarborough’s liberal co-host Mika Brzezinski adding there was a “bigger problem” there for Clinton. The Washington Post‘s Karen Tumulty questioned the “swagger” and “dismissiveness” of Clinton regarding the emotionally sensitive issue on Andrea Mitchell Reports. On Hardball Tuesday, host Chris Matthews opened the segment about the case coming back to “haunt” Clinton and wondered why she would be laughing about it. Left-wing Salon‘s Joan Walsh even said she couldn’t “sugarcoat” the tape that she admitted was not “fun” to listen to, and fellow MSNBC guest Michelle Bernard said they could be “very problematic” for Clinton. CNN’s Brianna Keilar also stated Clinton’s attitude was “bad politics” and could serve to alienate young voters. Others have seized on her recent remarks on the case to Mumsnet, where she claimed to have been appointed by a local judge to the case and requested to be taken off it. However, in the Roy Reed interview uncovered by reporter Alana Goodman, Clinton said, “The prosecutor called me a few years ago, he said he had a guy who had been accused of rape, and the guy wanted a woman lawyer. Would I do it as a favor for him?”’ The Washington Free Beacon‘s Andrew Stiles noted the “entire American media establishment” could not be bothered with asking Clinton about the tapes for more than three weeks after they were first published, leaving it to Mumsnet, a British parenting website. “What she said last week does not appear to be truthful, does it?” Scarborough asked on Morning Joe Tuesday. “It doesn’t serve her well,” reporter Mark Halperin replied. MSNBC’s PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton said the tapes would put a dent into Clinton’s image as an advocate for women. “It clearly is not the kind of situation that she wants to have to defend, when you hear in your own voice taking lightly something that speaks to one of your core issues, and that is the value of women,” he said. *Calendar:* *Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official schedule.* · July 19 – Madison, CT: Sec. Clinton makes “Hard Choices” book tour stop at R.J. Julia (Day of New London <http://www.theday.com/article/20140708/NWS01/140709708/1047>) · July 20 – St. Paul, MN: Sec. Clinton makes “Hard Choices” book tour stop at Common Good Books (AP <http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/07/08/hillary-clinton-plans-st-paul-stop-on-book-tour/> ) · August 9 – Water Mill, NY: Sec. Clinton fundraises for the Clinton Foundation at the home of George and Joan Hornig (WSJ <http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/06/17/for-50000-best-dinner-seats-with-the-clintons-in-the-hamptons/> ) · August 28 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes Nexenta’s OpenSDx Summit (BusinessWire <http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140702005709/en/Secretary-State-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-Deliver-Keynote#.U7QoafldV8E> ) · September 4 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton speaks at the National Clean Energy Summit (Solar Novis Today <http://www.solarnovus.com/hillary-rodham-clinto-to-deliver-keynote-at-national-clean-energy-summit-7-0_N7646.html> ) · October 2 – Miami Beach, FL: Sec. Clinton keynotes the CREW Network Convention & Marketplace (CREW Network <http://events.crewnetwork.org/2014convention/>) · October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton keynotes the UNLV Foundation Annual Dinner (UNLV <http://www.unlv.edu/event/unlv-foundation-annual-dinner?delta=0>) · ~ October 13-16 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes salesforce.com Dreamforce conference (salesforce.com <http://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF14/keynotes.jsp>)