podesta-emails
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----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=5a6T
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
*H4A Press Clips*
*May 19, 2015*
SUMMARY OF TODAY’S NEWS
Yesterday Hillary Clinton spoke in Iowa at the home of Dean Genth and Gary
Swenson about the economy, small businesses and drug abuse and mental
health.
The New York Times did a piece on Hillary Clinton’s first impression on
voters saying that only 1% of voters do now know who Hillary Clinton is.
Also saying that during she has used the smaller sessions to share
lesser-known vignettes from her past: her mother’s impoverished upbringing;
her middle-class childhood in Chicago; her work in the 1970s as an advocate
for children; her juggling work and child rearing as a young lawyer in
Arkansas.
The Clinton Foundation will disclose this week a list of nearly 100 paid
speeches given by Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton dating to 2002. On
Friday, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign released her personal financial disclosure
form for 2014 through the present, which reported that she and her husband
had earned $25 million delivering paid speeches.
The State Department is proposing a deadline of January 2016 to complete
its review and public release of 55,000 pages of emails former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton exchanged on a private server and turned over to her
former agency last December.
LAST NIGHTS EVENING NEWS
There was no 2016 coverage on last night’s major outlets except for to
highlight President Clinton’s tweet to President Obama about his new
twitter handle. Instead they covered the biker gang shooting in Waco, Texas
where 9 died and 170 were arrested, coverage of the progress being made by
Amtrak to recover the affected tracks. Also featured on ABC World News
Tonight was a special segment on Elian Gonzalez and immigration.
SUMMARY OF TODAY’S
NEWS................................................................. 1
LAST NIGHTS EVENING
NEWS................................................................. 1
TODAY’S KEY
STORIES............................................................................
4
*In Iowa for second visit, Clinton keeps to her low-key, tilt-left strategy*
// WaPo // Robert Costa - May 18, 2015 4
*Why Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Isn’t the Most Liberal Ever* // TIME //
Haley Sweetland Edwards - May 18, 2015 6
*Hillary Clinton May Not Need a Second Chance to Make a First Impression*
// NYT // Amy Chozick – May 19, 2015 7
*State Department won't release Hillary Clinton's emails until January 2016*
// Politico // Josh Gerstein - May 18, 2015 10
*More Clinton Fees to Be Disclosed* // WSJ // Rebecca Ballhaus and Peter
Nicholas - May 18, 2015 12
SOCIAL
MEDIA........................................................................................
13
*Bill Clinton (5/18/15, 12:57 PM)* Welcome to @Twitter, @POTUS! One
question: Does that username stay with the office?
#askingforafriend 13
*President Obama (5/18/15, 2:07 PM)* Good question, @billclinton. The
handle comes with the house. Know anyone interested in
@FLOTUS? 13
*Matthew Boyle (5/18/15, 8:21 AM)* @RandPaul to @HillaryClinton : "your
husband passed the laws that put a generation of black men in jail" 14
*Katie Zezima (5/18/15, 8:22 AM)* Paul: If I'm the Republican nominee I'll
be competitive in Philly: "I'll ask Hillary Clinton: 'what have you done
for criminal
justice?'"..................................................................................................................
14
*Josh McElveen (5/18/15, 9:04 AM)* BREAKING @KellyAyotte says
@RepFrankGuinta should resign his seat in wake of FEC deal. #nhpolitics
#wmur................................................................................................................................................
14
HRC NATIONAL
COVERAGE...................................................................
14
*Clinton's super PAC fundraising irks progressives* // CNN // MJ Lee - May
18, 2015........... 14
*Back in Iowa, Hillary Goes Big on Small Business* // Real Clear Politics
// Alexis Simendinger - May 18, 2015 16
*Clinton talks economy, campaign finance on return to Iowa* // Des Moines
Register // Tony Leys - May 18, 2015 18
*Hillary Clinton Campaign Begins Drafting Policy Solutions To Heroin
Epidemic* // Huffington Post // Marina Fang – May 18, 2015 20
*Clinton Returns to Iowa to Help Rally Caucus Volunteers* // ABC News //
Julie Pace - May 18, 2015 21
*Hillary Clinton's second wave of Iowa courtship arrives in Mason City* //
CNN // Dan Merica - May 18, 2015 22
*10 questions for Hillary Clinton* // CBS News // Rebecca Kaplan – May 19,
2015................. 24
*Hillary Clinton Backs Obama Plan To Reverse Police Militarization* //
Huffington Post // Ryan Grim and Ryan J. Reilly - May 18, 2015 28
*Hillary Clinton: "Grateful" For Obama's Work on Economy, But "Deck Is
Still Stacked In Favor Of Those At The Top"* // Real Clear Politics // Ian
Schwartz - May 18,
2015.........................................................................................................
29
*US Reps. Jim McGovern, Joe Kennedy campaign for Hillary Clinton* // Mass
Live // Shira Schoeberg - May 18, 2015 29
*Clinton Sets Citizens United as Supreme Court Litmus Test* // ABC News //
Julie Pace, Associated Press - May 18, 2015 30
*Gowdy: Benghazi report may leave questions unresolved* // Greenville
Online // Mary Troyan - May 18, 2015 31
*Clinton Friend’s Libya Role Blurs Lines of Politics and Business* // NYT
// Nicholas Confessor and Michael S. Schmidt – May 18, 2015 33
*The long and winding road ahead for Hillary Clinton’s e-mails* //
Washington Post // Fred Barbash – May 19, 2015 37
*What Sidney Blumenthal’s Memos to Hillary Clinton Said, and How They Were
Handled* // NYT // Michael S. Schmidt - May 18, 2015 38
*Hillary Clinton’s army of trolls* // Politico // Annie Karni – May 19,
2015.......................... 40
*Hillary Clinton was paid millions by tech industry for speeches* // WaPo
// Matea Gold, Rosalind S. Helderman, and Anu Narayanswamy - May 18,
2015........................................................................................................................................
43
*Clinton Criticism of Wealth Leaves Us 1% Convinced* // Bloomberg // C.
Thompson and Lauren Arnold - ay 18, 2015 47
*CNN commentator: Hillary Clinton’s ‘strong point’ is her last name,
husband* // WaPo // Erik Wemple – May 18, 2015 48
*Politics More: 2016 Elections Hillary Clinton Media* // Business Insider
// Colin Campbell – May 18, 2015 49
*Hillary Clinton Paid by Jeb Bush’s Education Company* // First Look // Lee
Fang – May 18, 2015 50
*Rand Paul: Bill Clinton put ‘generation’ of black men in prison* // The
Hill // Alexander Bolton – May 18, 2015 50
*Bill Clinton signals he can be Hillary’s second fiddle* // The Hill //
Niaill Stanage – May 19, 2015 51
*Bill Clinton's Hud Secretary: Julian Castro Team Hillary's Top VP Choice*
// Breitbart News // May 18, 2015 54
*House liberals play hard-to-get with Hillary Clinton* // Politico //
Lauren French – May 19, 2015 54
*5 Things You Might Not Know About Hillary Clinton* // NYT // Amy Chozick –
May 19, 2015 57
*What Young Feminists Think of Hillary Clinton* // National Journal //
Molly Mirhashem - May 16, 2015 58
OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE....................................... 64
*Why Not Martin O’Malley?* // Harvard Political Review // Quinn Mulholland
- May 18, 2015 64
*Bernie Sanders Wants to Be President, but He’s Already Facebook Royalty*
// NYT // Nick Corasaniti - May 18, 2015 66
*Sanders: Make Wall St. pay college tuition* // Burlington Free Press //
April Burbank – May 18, 2015 68
*Elizabeth Warren Details Obama's Broken Trade Promises* // Huffington Post
// Zack Carter - May 18, 2015 69
*Snoop Dogg: I'll be voting for Hillary Clinton* // The Hill // Judy Kurtz
- May 18, 2015........ 70
GOP..........................................................................................................
71
*In Philadelphia, Rand Paul Talks Privatized Amtrak and Criminal Justice*
// Bloomberg // David Weigel - May 18, 2015 71
*Rand Paul Vows to Filibuster to Block Patriot Act* // ABC News // Steve
Peoples, Associated Press - May 18, 2015 72
*Rand Paul Cites Questionable Benghazi Reporting In Forthcoming Book* //
Buzzfeed News // Molly Ward – May 18, 2015 73
*Why We Must Reform the VA* // Medium // Jeb Bush – May 18,
2015................................... 75
*Jeb Bush’s GOP Rivals Keep Him Front and Center* // WSJ // Reid J. Epstein
- May 17, 2015 76
*Jeb Bush stands by opposition to same-sex marriage* // CNN // Alexandra
Jaffe - May 18, 2015 78
*Jeb Bush Says Christian Business Owners Can Refuse To Serve Gay Weddings*
// Huffington Post // Marina Fang - May 17, 2015 79
*Bush insists he's not writing off Iowa* // Politico // Eli Stokols - May
18, 2015..................... 80
*Team Jeb: He's held to 'different standard' than Hillary* // Washington
Examiner // Byron York - May 18, 2015 82
*Why Marco Rubio could beat Jeb Bush* // CNN // Julian Zelizer - May 18,
2015................... 83
*Marco Rubio has listed himself as 'white' instead of 'Hispanic.' News
flash: He's both.* // Miami Herald // Patricia Mazzei - May 18, 2015 86
*Supreme Court Won’t Block Probe of Scott Walker’s Recall Campaign*’ //
Bloomberg // Greg Stohr - May 18 2015 87
*Scott Walker’s Long History of Dirty Tricks* // The Daily Beast // David
Freedlander – May 18, 2015 88
*Records indicate Scott Walker was copied on letter promising loan to donor
// Journal Sentinel* // Jason Stein and Patrick Marley – May 18,
2015................................................................................................................................................
93
*Scott Walker touts charters, vouchers in charter-heavy New Orleans Monday*
// NOLA // Jessica Williams - May 18, 2015 96
*Chris Christie Now Opposes Creating a Pathway to Citizenship for
Undocumented Workers* // Bloomberg // Terrence Dopp – May 18,
2015 97
*Gov. Christie: American exceptionalism isn’t a punchline** —** it’s a set
of principles.* // Medium // Chris Christie – May 18, 2015 98
*Christie to Call for Larger Military, More US Intervention* // ABC News //
Jim Colvin, Associated Press - May 18, 2015 113
*Chris Christie, Rand Paul Bring Patriot Act Debate to Campaign Trail* //
WSJ // Heather Haddon and Janet Hook - May 18, 2015 114
*Chris Christie Now Opposes Creating a Pathway to Citizenship for
Undocumented Workers* // Bloomberg // Terrence Dopp - May 18, 2015 116
*Christie cites experience running against female opponent* // Philly //
The Associated Press - May 18, 2015 117
*Chris Christie will be in New Hampshire when Obama visits NJ: Chris
Christie in the news* // Cleveland // Sabrina Eaton - May 18,
2015 118
*Sen. Lindsey Graham on White House bid: 'I'm running'* // Politico //
Katie Glueck - May 18, 2015 118
*Sen. Lindsey Graham Is 'Having A Blast' As He Preps Presidential Run* //
NPR // Jessica Taylor and Don Gonyea - May 18, 2015 119
*Bobby Jindal forming exploratory committee for White House run* //
Politico // Jonathan Topaz - May 18, 2015 121
*Connecting the Dots Behind the 2016 Candidates* // NYT // Gregor Aisch and
Karen Yourish - May 17, 2015 122
TOP
NEWS.............................................................................................
123
DOMESTIC..........................................................................................
123
*Obama to Limit Military-Style Equipment for Police Forces* // NYT // Julie
Hirschfeld Davis - May 18, 2015 123
*Obama foundation brings in $5.4 million* // Politico // Josh Gerstein -
May 18, 2015....... 125
*Feds Project Lake Mead Below Drought Trigger Point in 2017* // ABC News //
Ken Ritter, Associated Press - May 18, 2015 127
INTERNATIONAL...............................................................................
129
*Kerry, in Seoul, slams North Korea* // WaPo // Carol Morello - May 18,
2015...................... 129
*Bombing and clashes resume as Yemen heads for ‘catastrophe’* // WaPo //
Ali al-Mujahed and Erin Cunningham - May 18, 2015 130
OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS...........................................................
132
*Christine Quinn on Hillary Clinton & Marriage Equality* // Out //
Christine Quinn - May 18, 2015 132
*Why is Hillary Clinton Tacking Left?* // National Journal // Ron Fournier
- May 18, 2015 133
*You won’t believe Hillary Clinton’s spin on avoiding the press* // WaPo //
Chris Cillizza – May 18, 2015 135
TODAY’S KEY STORIES
In Iowa for second visit, Clinton keeps to her low-key, tilt-left strategy
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-iowa-for-second-visit-clinton-keeps-to-her-low-key-tilt-left-strategy/2015/05/18/7b27aa00-fd6a-11e4-833c-a2de05b6b2a4_story.html>
// WaPo // Robert Costa - May 18, 2015
MASON CITY, Iowa — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s appearance here Monday at the
home of Dean Genth and Gary Swenson — one of the first gay couples to marry
in Iowa — spoke volumes about the political pitch and style of her nascent
presidential campaign.
Even as a global celebrity and the overwhelming Democratic front-runner,
Clinton is doggedly focused at this early stage on highlighting her
progressive values and on what she called “people-to-people connections” —
aggressive organizing in the state where she placed a disappointing third
in the 2008 caucuses.
The event — the first of Clinton’s two-day visit — was tailored to fit that
low-key, tilt-left strategy, which her campaign hopes will signal that she
is taking little for granted in the primary race. She arrived quietly in a
minivan trailed by Secret Service agents and ducked inside to greet a crowd
of volunteers, who were given “commit to caucus” cards to share with
friends. The tightly controlled setting also allowed her to continue to
steer clear of the press pack following her.
Holding court in the living room, Clinton embraced her ties to President
Obama and cast herself as his tested and natural heir. It was an
acknowledgment that Obama’s leftover network remains a coveted coalition in
Iowa and an assertion that her time on the world stage is an asset, rather
than a liability, as Republicans have challenged.
“I’m going into this race with my eyes wide open about how hard it is to be
president of the United States,” Clinton told approximately 50 Democrats
gathered. “I do have that experience to know what is possible and how best
to proceed.”
On economics, her message was populist. Facing vocal competition from
bank-bashing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other likely rivals for the
Democratic nomination, Clinton said she is as frustrated as anyone with the
gap between the rich and the poor.
“The deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top,” Clinton said. She
attacked “hedge-fund managers” and other financiers for exploiting
loopholes in the U.S. tax code.
“Warren Buffett has said it, but so have a lot of other people. There’s
something wrong when the average American CEO makes 300 times more than the
typical American worker,” she said.
But Clinton continued her stretch of declining to take questions from
reporters — ignoring the media contingent outside the house and bypassing
controversial topics, such as the debate over U.S. trade policy that has
roiled Congress for weeks. Reporters were ushered out of the home after she
delivered her remarks, unable to record her exchanges with attendees.
Clinton’s talk also came days after reports that she and husband, former
president Bill Clinton, have earned more than $25 million since early last
year in speaking fees — a development she did not mention during her
comments about the unsettling power of wealthy Americans.
Republicans seized on her event’s closed nature and her refusal to take
questions from reporters. On Twitter, the Republican National Committee
promoted its “#AskHillary” hashtag campaign in an attempt to pressure
Clinton to engage with the media.
As Clinton left the house Monday, reporters shouted questions that went
unanswered, including this from Fox News’s Ed Henry: “Why won’t you answer
any questions?”
Clinton is scheduled to appear Tuesday in nearby Cedar Falls for a
roundtable with small-business leaders. The stop, like Monday’s, will be
open only to invited guests.
Many people in the house were excited about getting a chance to hear her up
close, but some onlookers were less than enthused.
Doug Bell, 59, a farmer from Thornton, Iowa, waited outside for an hour to
catch a glimpse of Clinton but left without getting a chance to speak with
her.
“I caucused for her in 2008, but the world has changed, and I’d like to get
her update about what’s been happening with us, the backbone of America,”
he said.
Clinton said she understood the concerns of everyday Iowans and would guard
the landmark policies of the Obama years, particularly the president’s
health-care law, to “reignite” the national economy and give a lift to
those struggling.
“We aren’t running yet, but we are on our feet,” Clinton said.
Turning to the issue of drug abuse and mental health, Clinton sounded
compassionate and solemn. “It is below the surface people are talking about
it,” she said. “It is something hard to deal with.”
“I did not believe I would be standing in your living room talking about
the drug abuse problem, the suicide problem and the mental health problem,”
she said. “Now I am convinced I have to talk about it.”
The visit was also a nod to solidarity with the gay rights movement,
including her own shift toward supporting same-sex marriage as a
constitutional right. Genth, one of her hosts, is a board member of One
Iowa, the largest gay rights organization in the state, and was a prominent
backer of Obama in 2008. He and Swenson were married in 2009, soon after
the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex unions.
Across Iowa, Clinton’s campaign already has 21 organizers and six regional
directors building her ground game — far more than other Democratic
contenders and part of her plan to cultivate skeptical liberals who may be
tempted to back a lesser-known candidate.
For Clinton, that means going small, rather than big. Cookies, grapes and
bottles of water were offered at the home, and no signs were displayed on
the lawn. If it wasn’t for the row of satellite trucks outside, there would
have been little evidence in the neighborhood that a presidential candidate
was mixing and mingling just up the block.
“It is the best way to make those connections,” Clinton said of her
approach.
Why Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Isn’t the Most Liberal Ever
<http://time.com/3882496/hillary-clinton-liberal-issues-mainstream-polling/>
// TIME // Haley Sweetland Edwards - May 18, 2015
A number of Beltway pundits have recently decided that Hillary Clinton is
not just running a liberal campaign, but perhaps the most liberal campaign
in decades. But that’s not entirely accurate.
Just as you can’t step into the same river twice, no presidential campaign
ever faces the same electorate. And on a range of issues, America has
become more liberal since the last time Clinton ran.
Without exception, the positions that have been cited as “boldly liberal”
are entirely in line with mainstream public opinion.
Take gay marriage, which Clinton endorsed in 2013. As of last year, 6 in 10
Americans—and a whopping 74% of Democrats—were in favor of it too,
according to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.
Or immigration. Last week, Clinton was congratulated by many liberals for
backing a broad path to citizenship for roughly 11 million undocumented
people. But in an NBC/WSJ poll last fall, 60% of Americans were in favor of
a “path to citizenship” and nearly 75% were even more in favor of it if the
plan involved asking immigrants to jump through certain hoops, such as
paying back taxes.
Or criminal justice reform. Last week, Clinton called for reforming
sentencing laws and reducing how much military-grade equipment is funneled
off to police departments. But as of last year, that’s pretty much exactly
where most Americans were, too: 63% were against mandatory minimum
sentences for non-violent crimes, according to Pew Research, and nearly 60%
thought militarization of police had gone too far.
The same is true on other socially liberal issues that Clinton has backed
lately, much to the delight of the liberal base, including better gun
control measures, a minimum wage increase, and paid family leave. As of
2013, 91% of Americans supported mandating criminal background checks
before someone is allowed to purchase a weapon, and 60% supported
reinstating a ban on assault weapons, according to Gallup. Roughly
two-thirds of Americans are now in favor of raising the minimum wage and
60% believe that employers ought to give paid time-off to employees when
they’re sick, according to a February AP-GfK poll.
In early May, liberal activist groups claimed victory after Clinton’s
campaign manager, Robby Mook, hinted that the Democratic front-runner would
soon announce a comprehensive plan to make college more affordable. But
again, she’s right in line with most Americans. According to the Harvard
Institute of Politics, 79% of Americans described student debt as “a
problem” that needs to be addressed.
At the same time, Clinton has kept mum on some liberal ideas that are more
divisive. She’s avoided taking a stance on President Obama’s big new free
trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which many liberals have
criticized. While she’s made some populist remarks about reining in Wall
Street, she’s stopped short of getting specific on liberal ideas like
capping CEO pay or breaking up the big banks. And she’s not taken a
definitive stance on the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline,
which has become a signature issue for environmentalists hoping to address
climate change.
It’s possible, then, to imagine a more liberal campaign than the one
Clinton is running. And if seems like she has the most liberal campaign in
history, that’s partly because she’s facing an America that is more liberal
on those issues.
Hillary Clinton May Not Need a Second Chance to Make a First Impression
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/20/us/politics/hillary-clinton-may-not-need-a-second-chance-to-make-a-first-impression.html?_r=0>
// NYT // Amy Chozick – May 19, 2015
Jeb Bush has his famous last name as a calling card, for better or worse.
But Scott Walker’s name does not ring many bells outside Wisconsin.
Ted Cruz is not even well known in Texas.
Republican presidential hopefuls will spend millions of dollars trying to
get voters to remember their names and something that sets them apart. But
the one White House contender who needs no introduction faces a different
sort of problem:
Everybody knows Hillary Rodham Clinton.
She did not just co-star in a national soap opera during her husband’s
eight-year presidency: She reinvented herself as a senator from the
nation’s biggest media market, New York; reintroduced herself again, this
time to the nation, as a presidential candidate in 2008 and then remade
herself into the country’s chief diplomat.
She never left the stage.
Not since Richard M. Nixon mounted a comeback in 1968, historians and
pollsters say, has a candidate entered a presidential contest with so low a
bar for name recognition or so high a bar for changing voters’ opinions.
The campaign playbooks of Nixon and Mrs. Clinton seem to share some pages.
Nixon strove to show a more casual side by bypassing journalists and
staging town-hall-style events — orchestrated by his media consultant,
Roger Ailes — at theaters across the country packed with friendly
audiences. Taking softball questions, he kept to his talking points and
struck television viewers as more relaxed than the sweaty man they
remembered from his debates against John F. Kennedy in 1960.
“A lot of people who thought they’d made up their minds about him saw a
different version,” said Kenneth L. Khachigian, a speechwriter for Nixon
and later for Ronald Reagan. “That’s a prime example of someone who had a
lot of perceived political baggage and who remade himself.”
Mrs. Clinton, too, has been ducking reporters and instead holding
round-table discussions with carefully chosen voters in early voting
states. (Aides say the questions those voters ask are not screened.) She
has used the sessions to share lesser-known vignettes from her past: her
mother’s impoverished upbringing; her middle-class childhood in Chicago;
her work in the 1970s as an advocate for children; her juggling work and
child rearing as a young lawyer in Arkansas.
On Tuesday, she will talk to small-business owners in Cedar Falls, Iowa,
part of her second swing through the state.
At one event in Las Vegas, she sat with high school students whose parents
are undocumented immigrants. It was a canny move: Young people and Latinos
are two demographic groups whose opinions Mrs. Clinton may still be able to
shape, Democratic pollsters say.
There are not many others.
Only 1 percent of voters have never heard of Mrs. Clinton, a CNN poll found
in March (suggesting the network’s pollsters managed to reach a few people
living in caves).
A larger number, but still just 11 percent of all voters, said they did not
know enough about her to form an opinion, according to a New York Times-CBS
poll published this month. By contrast, 43 percent said they did not know
enough about Mr. Bush, the best-known Republican contender.
On the bright side for Mrs. Clinton, she enters the race with a devoted
base of supporters, mostly women, who appear solidly in her corner. Women
in big states like Ohio and Pennsylvania heavily favored Mrs. Clinton in
the 2008 Democratic primaries, driving her defeat of Barack Obama in those
states.
Mrs. Clinton remains highly popular with African-Americans,
college-educated women and single women, said Celinda Lake, a Democratic
pollster.
Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, said
Mrs. Clinton’s profile in the polls was like that of an incumbent facing
re-election.
“We know from political science that a significant majority of the
electorate, upward of 90 percent, know how they’ll vote,” he said. “You’re
talking about 10 to 15 percent of the electorate who are in play, and then
you have to factor in enthusiasm and turnout.”
The slivers of swing voters Mrs. Clinton’s campaign hopes she can sway
include married women in the suburbs. “They love her experience,” Ms. Lake
said, “and they like the idea of having a woman president.”
The unknown“wild card” is whether Mrs. Clinton’s chance to make history as
the first female president will motivate voters who may be less inclined to
support her, Mr. Keeter said.
Similarly, voters under 30 years old were far more likely to be undecided
or to say they did not have an opinion of Mrs. Clinton, according to the
Times-CBS poll.
“Even though she’s so well known, there’s an aspect of a slate that can be
written upon,” said Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan who
is co-chairwoman of Priorities USA Action, a pro-Clinton “super PAC.”
“Young people may need to be reminded about her.”
This year’s cozy round-table discussions are not the first time Mrs.
Clinton has tried to show voters a softer side. In her 2008 campaign,
though, she waited until her favorability ratings had fallen during her
heated primary battle with Mr. Obama.
The effort then included warm video testimonials about “the Hillary I know”
from her oldest friends and people she had met as a senator. “I thought she
was a bit remote,” Shannon Mallozzi, a Long Island mother said in one
video. “She sat with me, and she was just phenomenal. That day, it was two
moms sitting in a car.”
But the effort seemed to some to be a calculated attempt by a candidate who
was behind.
Trying too hard to change voters’ minds about a candidate’s character or
life story can be a trap, as Mitt Romney discovered in 2012.
Stung by attacks portraying him as a ruthless corporate titan, his aides
tried to change public opinion about Mr. Romney’s years at Bain Capital.
Kevin Madden, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, said it was a mistake
not to keep focused on communicating the candidate’s forward-looking ideas.
“Instead of reintroducing his businessman profile, it should have been,
‘How are we going to tackle the big economic challenges?’” he said.
The 2016 campaign is still in its early days, making this the prime time
for the candidates to try to shape what the voters think of them. The later
it gets, the harder that can be.
In 2004, the Democratic nominee, John Kerry, who battled an image of being
effete, took a well-publicized hunting trip dressed in camouflage, hoping
to show he could relate to voters who drive pickup trucks with gun racks.
“That was authentic, but perceived as inauthentic,” said Mark Mellman, a
pollster who advised Mr. Kerry. “The truth is, he did actually bag a lot of
birds on that trip.”
“Changing people’s deeply held views,” he added, “is the hardest thing to
do in politics and in life.”
State Department won't release Hillary Clinton's emails until January 2016
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/state-department-wont-release-hillary-clintons-emails-until-january-2016-118078.html>
// Politico // Josh Gerstein - May 18, 2015
The State Department is proposing a deadline of January 2016 to complete
its review and public release of 55,000 pages of emails former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton exchanged on a private server and turned over to her
former agency last December.
The proposal came Monday night in a document related to a Freedom of
Information Act lawsuit Vice News filed in January seeking all of Clinton’s
emails.
“The Department’s plan … would result in its review being completed by the
end of the year. To factor in the holidays, however, the Department would
ask the Court to adopt a proposed completion date of January 15, 2016,”
State’s acting director of Information Programs and Services John Hackett
said in a declaration filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.
“The Department understands the considerable public’s [sic] interest in
these records and is endeavoring to complete the review and production of
them as expeditiously as possible. The collection is, however, voluminous
and, due to the breadth of topics, the nature of the communications, and
the interests of several agencies, presents several challenges,” Hackett
added.
The controversy over Clinton’s private email account led to a turbulent
start for her presidential campaign, which she announced last month. She
has said she wants the emails public and is eager for State to release them
as quickly as possible.
The State Department’s proposal, however, could mean a delay of almost 13
months between the time Clinton turned over her records and the bulk of
them being made public.
Soon after the New York Times revealed in March that Clinton had
exclusively used a private email account as secretary of state, State
Department spokespeople repeatedly said that they expected the review of
the Clinton records to take “several months.” They did not immediately
respond to messages Monday night seeking an explanation of why that
estimate was so off base.
Hackett said 12 State staffers have been assigned full-time to reviewing
the Clinton emails and that it took until sometime this month to scan in
the records, which were provided on paper by Clinton in 12 “banker’s boxes”
in December. He said the scanning process took five weeks and was
“complicated” by some of the printouts of Clinton emails being double-sided.
State Department officials did say they planned an earlier disclosure of a
batch of the emails provided to a House committee investigating the
Benghazi attacks. However, the department’s spokespeople have said only
that the initial release will come “soon,” declining to be more specific
about the timing of that first release.
Asked by POLITICO Friday when that Libya-related batch of records should
emerge, State spokesman Jeff Rathke was vague. “I don’t have an update to
share. But yes, we’re aware that there’s interest out there, certainly,” he
said at a daily briefing for reporters.
State Department lawyers have complained in court of a “crushing burden” of
FOIA requests as well as at least 79 FOIA lawsuits pending against the
department. They have also cited the need to prioritize the Clinton email
project as a reason for delays in other FOIA cases.
The Iowa caucuses are due to be held Feb. 1, 2016 — just two weeks after
the proposed release of Clinton’s emails.
More Clinton Fees to Be Disclosed
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/more-clinton-fees-to-be-disclosed-1431993044>
// WSJ // Rebecca Ballhaus and Peter Nicholas - May 18, 2015
WASHINGTON—The Clinton Foundation will disclose this week a list of nearly
100 paid speeches given by Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton dating to 2002
for which the foundation accepted the fees, officials at the charity said
Monday, providing a window into another source of revenue for a family
philanthropy whose fundraising practices have cast a shadow over Mrs.
Clinton’s young presidential campaign.
On Friday, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign released her personal financial
disclosure form for 2014 through the present, which reported that she and
her husband had earned $25 million delivering paid speeches. Not included
on that disclosure were payments for at least five speeches that Mrs.
Clinton directed to her family’s foundation.
The Clinton campaign and a spokesman for Bill Clinton said that by law, the
speeches didn’t need to be disclosed because the speaking fees were donated
to charity. Separately, a foundation official said the decision to post the
list was made in prior weeks, before Mrs. Clinton’s personal financial
disclosure form was filed, a requirement that federal law makes of
presidential candidates.
The foundation will report the fees associated with each speech in ranges,
officials said. Some of these fees are already known.
Federal law leaves room for interpretation on whether candidates are
required to include speeches on that form if the funds go to charity.
Guidelines posted on the website of the Office of Government Ethics, which
oversees personal financial disclosures, say payments of any kind—including
those given to a charity—must be reported “as usual.”
But Vince Salamone, a spokesman for the office that oversees the ethics
program for the executive branch said there are scenarios in which a
candidate wouldn’t be required to disclose speaking fees. If a person was
in the role as an “agent” for the charity and the money was paid directly
to the charity, disclosure wouldn’t be required, the office said.
Mr. Salamone said in a statement that “disclosure of speaking fees is not
required when a public filer or the filer’s spouse is acting as an agent of
an organization and payment is made directly to that organization.”
He added: “The rule is different when the speaking is done in a personal
capacity and the fees are directed or donated to charity, in which case
disclosure would be required.”
The spokesman for the Clintons said they had complied with all disclosure
requirements. “Speaking engagements for which fees are designated for the
foundation do not fall within those personal income reporting
requirements,” the spokesman said. “The payment generated from that service
is listed as revenue to the foundation on its tax documents.”
Since Mrs. Clinton launched her campaign last month, the foundation has
been taking steps to become more transparent. Starting in July, it will
begin releasing donor names quarterly. Previously, the names were released
annually.
Still, critics seized on the omission of those speeches from the campaign
filing to paint the former secretary of state as secretive. Her disclosure
came on the heels of recent revelations that some names of donors to
organizations affiliated with the Clinton Foundation remained undisclosed.
“This is just another example of Hillary Clinton trying to play by a
different set of rules,” said Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for the
Republican National Committee.
The new list will include speeches Mrs. Clinton made at colleges and
universities, which could revive criticism of the Clintons for accepting
payments—even on their foundation’s behalf—from schools that have been
hard-pressed to keep tuition costs down.
Last June, Mrs. Clinton faced a backlash when the Las Vegas Review-Journal
reported that the University of Nevada at Las Vegas was paying her $225,000
to deliver the keynote speech at a university fundraising event. Students
called for her to reject the fee. A spokesman declined to confirm the
amount of the payment at the time but said such fees are paid through
private donations and that no university funds are involved.
A review of Mrs. Clinton’s financial disclosures while she was secretary of
state shows she has long followed the practice of omitting speeches where
she or her husband directed the payment to the Clinton Foundation.
In May 2012, Mr. Clinton was paid $250,000 for speaking at the Luskin
Lecture for Thought Leadership at the University of California, Los
Angeles. The fee was donated to the Clinton Foundation, a spokesman for the
university said, and didn’t appear in Mrs. Clinton’s disclosure forms.
In the 11 years during which Mrs. Clinton filed financial disclosures as a
U.S. senator and as secretary of state, she reported that her husband made
$105 million in speaking fees. All told, since leaving the White House, the
Clintons have earned at least $130 million in speaking fees.
Mrs. Clinton also delivered several speeches at universities in 2013, when
she wasn’t required to disclose her income—including one at the University
of Buffalo for $275,000, which she donated to her foundation.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Bill Clinton (5/18/15, 12:57 PM)
<https://twitter.com/billclinton/status/600389785769881600> Welcome to
@Twitter, @POTUS! One question: Does that username stay with the office?
#askingforafriend
President Obama (5/18/15, 2:07 PM)
<https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/600407380279566336> Good question,
@billclinton. The handle comes with the house. Know anyone interested in
@FLOTUS?
Matthew Boyle (5/18/15, 8:21 AM)
<https://twitter.com/mboyle1/status/600320277000630272> @RandPaul to
@HillaryClinton : "your husband passed the laws that put a generation of
black men in jail"
Katie Zezima (5/18/15, 8:22 AM)
<https://twitter.com/katiezez/status/600320599735537665> Paul: If I'm the
Republican nominee I'll be competitive in Philly: "I'll ask Hillary
Clinton: 'what have you done for criminal justice?'"
Josh McElveen (5/18/15, 9:04 AM)
<https://twitter.com/JoshMcElveen/status/600331081456443392> BREAKING
@KellyAyotte says @RepFrankGuinta should resign his seat in wake of FEC
deal. #nhpolitics #wmur
HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE
Clinton's super PAC fundraising irks progressives
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/18/politics/hillary-clinton-super-pac-election-2016/>
// CNN // MJ Lee - May 18, 2015
(CNN)Hillary Clinton's decision to personally raise money for a super PAC
supporting her campaign is agitating her progressive critics, who see the
move as further proof that the Democratic presidential frontrunner doesn't
share some of their values.
There was never any expectation that Clinton would renounce super PAC money
this election cycle. But liberal activists determined to use the Democratic
primary to pressure Clinton to embrace a progressive agenda say the idea of
the former secretary of state personally wooing the wealthiest class of
donors runs counter to the populist rhetoric she's employed this year.
Within days of announcing her White House bid, Clinton had called out
wealthy investors for paying too little in taxes and pledged to get big
money out of politics. At the time, it was a welcome message for liberal
Democrats who are uncomfortable with Clinton's close ties to Wall Street
and find the prominent role of super PACs in elections utterly distasteful.
But the recent revelation that Clinton will personally fundraise for a
super PAC supporting her campaign -- a decision to play by the rules of a
system she has condemned as "dysfunctional" -- has invited fresh
eye-rolling. It has also exposed a core tension for Democrats, who have
increasingly embraced super PACs at the same time that they decry the
explosion of soft money in national politics.
Clinton's campaign is explaining the decision as a matter of political
necessity.
"With some Republican candidates reportedly setting up and outsourcing
their entire campaign to super PACs and the Koch Brothers pledging $1
billion alone for the 2016 campaign, Democrats have to have the resources
to fight back," a Clinton campaign official said in an email, who spoke
anonymously to discuss the sensitive topic of fundraising. "There is too
much at stake for our future for Democrats to unilaterally disarm."
Clinton's expected involvement with Priorities USA has highlighted the
contrast between her and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who is
Clinton's only declared rival to date for the Democratic presidential
nomination, as well as other potential challengers.
An independent from Vermont seeking the Democratic presidential nomination,
Sanders has aggressively opposed super PAC donations. A long-shot candidate
without a national fundraising operation, Sanders has no chance of matching
Clinton's fundraising haul and has little to lose by going after
millionaire and billionaire donors.
On Capitol Hill last week, Sanders told CNN that Clinton's decision to
personally court super PAC donors was "unfortunate."
"We're living in a world since Citizens United where multi-millionaires and
billionaires are playing a horrendous role in the political system,"
Sanders said, referring to the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling that paved the
way for super PACs to direct virtually uncapped amounts of money to aid
political candidates. "That's why I believe that we need to overturn
Citizens United and move to public funding of elections."
Phil Noble, a South Carolina Democratic activist and supporter of former
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a potential Democratic candidate for
president, said the development underscores what progressives view as a
"fundamental disconnect" between Clinton and middle class voters.
"It's not that she raises a bunch of money for a PAC that causes her
problems with middle class voters. That is a symptom as opposed to the
ailment," Noble said. "The larger illness is she is out of touch with
middle class voters -- she does have a lifestyle and a history that is
about as alien to middle class voters as corporate jets are to a Subaru."
And activists who are pushing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to
challenge Clinton see campaign finance reform as a major issue.
"Being a true champion for working families like Elizabeth Warren is about
clearly and unequivocally supporting such critical priorities as a
constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United," said Erica Sagrans,
campaign manager for Ready for Warren, a movement dedicated to drafting
Sen. Elizabeth Warren into the 2016 race.
Clinton's personal involvement with Priorities USA marks the latest chapter
in the Democratic Party's evolving relationship with super PACs.
Democrats initially fiercely opposed Citizens United. But for all of their
rhetoric against super PACs, and as much as the party continues to use the
Supreme Court decision as a political rallying cry, over the years
political interest has largely won out over progressive idealism.
In 2012, President Barack Obama reversed course, declaring after years of
keeping his distance from super PACs that his campaign would participate in
raising money for Priorities USA.
Now that tension is being brought to new heights as the party's next likely
presidential nominee personally plans to drum up support for a super PAC
backing her candidacy.
Clinton allies also see that her fundraising prowess and the depth of her
connections with the kinds of donors who can cut multi-million dollar
checks will likely make her a formidable competitor against any Republican
candidate she may face in the general election. Officials are careful to
emphasize, however, that Clinton and everyone else involved with her
campaign will strictly follow the law as they solicit funds for Priorities
USA.
The 2016 money race is well underway on the other side of the political
aisle.
Declared GOP candidates including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio
of Florida, as well as expected candidates like former Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush, are on a fundraising tear. And they've shown no signs of distancing
themselves from super PAC money. Cruz launched his campaign in March, and
the senator's allies declared that an affiliated network of pro-Cruz super
PACs had raised upwards of $30 million in just a matter of days.
The stiff competition against Republican money is a reality that some
progressive leaders say they cannot ignore.
Former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard
Dean said it would be unwise for Clinton to reject super PAC money.
"Unfortunately, if you don't play by the same rules everybody else does,
you end up losing elections," said Dean, founder of Democracy for America,
one of the groups behind the draft Warren movement. "The key is to change
the rules, and I think we have a much better chance of doing that with her
as president than we do with one of the Republicans."
Back in Iowa, Hillary Goes Big on Small Business
<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/18/back_in_iowa_hillary_goes_big_on_small_business.html>
// Real Clear Politics // Alexis Simendinger - May 18, 2015
The last time Hillary Clinton was publicly photographed riding a bicycle
may have been when she was secretary of state, accompanying her husband
along a beach.
The bike motif, without the sand, will serve as a campaign backdrop this
week in Iowa, when Clinton focuses on small business owners and their
employees, who say in national surveys they need customers, access to
capital, and less government red tape.
Clinton, who kicked off her campaign a month ago and then spent three days
in Iowa, is returning to hail her team’s grassroots organization in the
early caucus state, and to describe her vision for a U.S. economy that
relies on small entrepreneurs to create jobs.
On Monday, she’ll meet grassroots organizers at the home of a supporter in
Mason City, Iowa, and on Tuesday she’ll participate in a roundtable
discussion with community lenders and business representatives in Cedar
Falls. That discussion is to take place at Bike Tech, a bicycle and sports
shop that outgrew its location on Main Street this year and moved to larger
quarters in a vintage former post office a few streets away.
“I want to be the president for small business,” Clinton declared May 5
while speaking during a similar roundtable at a library in Nevada.
After launching her second bid for the White House in April and committing
to victory in Iowa next year, Clinton vowed to return to the state as often
as possible. Caucus-goers proved challenging for her in 2008, and for her
husband in 1992.
Iowans insist on taking the measure of presidential aspirants up-close, and
Clinton is determined to deliver the personal attention that requires shoe
leather, hand-shaking, careful listening, and selfies posed with strangers.
Younger voters -- who embraced Barack Obama in 2008 -- are among Clinton’s
targets in 2016. The popular bike shop in Cedar Falls where the candidate
will appear Tuesday is a setting meant to enlarge her narrative in a number
of ways.
She wants the attention of young voters, progressive voters, small shops
and family-run enterprises (which are America’s economic engine, and by the
way, are led by many swing voters). She wants her message to come across as
“Main Street v. Wall Street” (to blunt critics who say she’s too cozy with
big financial institutions and New York’s business elites). And Clinton
wants support from female voters (a quarter of Iowa’s businesses are
women-owned).
In 2008, Clinton lost Iowa in part because voters there said they had
trouble warming up to her.
“I know what people have been saying,`Well, you know, we’ve got to know
more about her, we want to know more about her personally,’” she said
before Obama’s victory. “And I totally get that. It’s a little hard for me.
It’s not easy for me to talk about myself.”
This time around, Clinton is campaigning as close as she can get to
“outside-the-bubble” just-folksiness, reminding her audiences that before
she was an attorney, first lady of Arkansas, wife of a president, senator
from New York, and secretary of state, she grew up with Midwestern values
as the daughter of a small businessman who ran a drapery business. She may
be a wealthy international icon at age 67, but Clinton’s message is that
she’s never relinquished her middle-class, middle-America sensibilities.
President Obama visited Cedar Falls in January, turning to the community as
a favored setting for a pre-State of the Union message, describing the
economic imperatives of universal broadband connectivity (Cedar Falls is an
“eCity” leader, according to Google).
During the first week of May to mark Small Business Week, the president
described his national agenda for small entrepreneurs, hitting everything
from regulations to lending. Clinton is expected to echo those themes as
she begins to describe how she would enlarge “the economy of the future,”
as she’s pledged to do if elected president.
Obama a few weeks ago said, “I have signed into law 18 different tax cuts
for small businesses, which are helping them thrive in the 21st-century
economy.”
“By investing in our infrastructure, expanding access to credit, and
assisting entrepreneurs as they start out and scale up, we are continuing
to bolster America's small business community,” he added.
The president talks about expanding export markets for U.S. small
businesses, a topic that in Iowa could encourage Clinton to touch on
international trade.
As Congress debates legislation to grant the president fast-track authority
to conclude a trade pact with 11 other nations, Clinton has been
conspicuously mute. Trade Promotion Authority, which would permit the
legislative branch to approve or disapprove a trade deal but not to amend
it, divides Democratic lawmakers and is vigorously opposed by organized
labor. But she promoted the merits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as
secretary of state.
As the U.S. economy has continued to recover, small business owners say
they’re more optimistic about the future. But that outlook dimmed a tad in
the first quarter compared with late 2014, even as it remained at the
highest level measured since January 2008, according to a quarterly survey
reported by the Gallup Organization. Small entrepreneurs are focused on
their prospects for revenues, and on the challenges of accessing capital
and credit.
Recently, Clinton said the expansion experienced by many small businesses
had “stalled out,” an assertion Obama disputed as a blip tied to slower
growth in Europe rather than a U.S. trend.
In the Hawkeye State this week, advised by many of the same economic
experts who served Presidents Clinton and Obama, Hillary is expected to
have her say.
Clinton talks economy, campaign finance on return to Iowa
<http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/05/18/hillary-clinton-second-trip-iowa/27551369/>
// Des Moines Register // Tony Leys - May 18, 2015
Mason City, Ia. – Hillary Clinton vowed Monday to fight for more fairness
for American workers as the economy continues to recover.
"We need to get back into the habit of actually rewarding workers with
increases in their paychecks for the increases in productivity and
profitability that they have helped" achieve, Clinton said to applause from
about 60 Democratic activists gathered at a house in Mason City.
The former senator, first lady and secretary of state, who is the heavy
favorite for the Democratic nomination for president, was beginning her
second trip to Iowa since announcing her candidacy last month.
She has been focusing on small events, such as the one held here Monday.
"Not only do I learn a lot, but I also feel like it's the best way to make
those connections," she told the activists. "… It will also give me the
kind of information I need to be a better president."
Among the things she said she's heard about on her travels is the
drug-abuse crisis, including methamphetamine in Iowa and heroin in New
Hampshire. She noted reports that more Americans are now dying from drug
overdoses than from car crashes. "This is tearing families apart, but it's
below the surface. People aren't talking about it," she said.
Clinton said she's committed to reforming the political process, including
by appointing Supreme Court justices who would rule against the kind of
untraceable money that has flowed into the system since the Citizens United
decision gave corporations more freedom to make donations. She said that if
it takes a Constitutional amendment to change the situation, "I will work
for that."
But Clinton, who is being supported by a so-called superPAC, said "we also
have to stand our ground, and we have to try to figure out how to get
people to work with us for the betterment of our country, the betterment of
people who need a good, positive support system."
Organizers said the crowd was made up of Democrats invited by the campaign,
the local party or the homeowners, Dean Genth and his husband, Gary Swenson.
Genth, who is vice chairman the Cerro Gordo County Democratic Party, said
in an interview that he supported Barack Obama over Clinton in the 2008
caucuses. Genth said he also liked Clinton then, but he went with the
challenger from Illinois.
Genth, 65, said he believes Clinton has grown since then, including from
her service as Obama's secretary of state. "There is not a living,
breathing human being on the face of the Earth with her resumé and
experience and background."
Clinton has come under fire from Republicans for taking few questions from
reporters during the early weeks of her candidacy. She took no questions
from reporters at Monday's event, and the press was ushered out of the
house as she began to greet voters after giving her 25-minute remarks.
State Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kauffman renewed the criticism Monday
with a statement emailed to reporters covering Clinton. "Hillary Clinton
still refuses to answer simple questions about her unseemly financial
dealings, secret email server, or disastrous foreign policy. Polls show
Iowans already find Clinton untrustworthy and her actions have confirmed
their suspicions."
Clinton spokeswoman Lily Adams issued a statement in response to the
criticism: "The focus of our ramp up period is to hear from voters about
the issues they care about. She's enjoyed engaging in hours of public
question and answer sessions and, as the campaign progresses, looks forward
to more engagement with voters and the press as well."
Clinton is scheduled to make a stop Tuesday morning at a bike shop in Cedar
Falls.
Hillary Clinton Campaign Begins Drafting Policy Solutions To Heroin Epidemic
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/18/hillary-clinton-heroin_n_7309930.html>
// Huffington Post // Marina Fang – May 18, 2015
WASHINGTON -- After hearing story after story from voters on the campaign
trail about heroin's toll, Hillary Clinton instructed her policy team to
draw up solutions to the burgeoning opiate epidemic.
A Clinton aide told The Huffington Post that the Democratic presidential
candidate decided to make mental health and drug addiction a major campaign
issue after stops in Iowa and New Hampshire, where she kept hearing from
people that the problem needs more attention. It's the type of issue that
may not get much attention inside the Beltway and on Sunday talk shows, but
opiate addiction has become a devastating problem.
Clinton brought it up on Monday during a stop in Iowa, telling supporters
that she wants to "end the stigma against talking about it."
“When I started running, when I started thinking about this campaign, 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," she
said at the home of one of the first gay couples in the state to wed. “But
I’m now convinced I have to talk about it. I have to do everything I can in
this campaign to raise it, to end the stigma against talking about it."
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of 28 states found that
heroin deaths doubled from 2010 to 2012. U.S. heroin-related overdose
deaths increased 39 percent in 2013 from the year before, hitting 8,257.
Vermont’s governor devoted his entire 2014 state of the state speech to
heroin. In New York City, there are more heroin deaths than homicides.
“This is tearing families apart, but it is below the surface," Clinton
said. "We aren’t talking about it because it is something that is hard to
deal with."
The heroin or opioid epidemic has exposed the U.S. drug treatment system as
inadequate, both in its capacity to treat those addicted and to do so using
evidence-based care. Although medically assisted treatments, such as
medications methadone and buprenorphine, are viewed by the medical
community as essential components of an opioid addict’s recovery, they are
inaccessible to the vast majority in need.
Some treatment centers and drug courts continue to insist that addicts
refuse these medically assisted treatments. Following a HuffPost
investigation into "abstinence-based" opiate treatment, the federal
government barred state drug programs from getting federal money if they
force addicts to wean off of medications.
Clinton has been holding a series of events to discuss substance abuse and
mental health. She laid the groundwork for these events at a roundtable in
New Hampshire last month, one of her first campaign events as an announced
presidential candidate.
When a voter mentioned that substance abuse was a major problem in the
community, Clinton called it a "quiet epidemic" and said it's "not just
something we can brush under the rug." She commended the Affordable Care
Act for placing more emphasis on requiring health insurers to cover
treatments for mental health and substance abuse, but said there needs to
be more policy reform, from local to national.
"There is a hidden epidemic. We know the drug use problem, whether it’s
pills or meth or heroin, is not as visible as 30 years ago when there were
all kinds of gangs and violence," Clinton said. "This is a quiet epidemic
and it is striking in small towns and rural areas as much as any big city.
I think a lot of people are thinking, well, that’s somebody else’s problem,
that’s not my problem. And indeed, it is all of our problem and we don’t
have enough resources, so that if somebody decides that they wanted to get
help, where do you send them to? What kind of opportunities do they have
for treatment? And I am convinced that the mental health issues -- because
I consider substance abuse part of mental health issues -- is going to be a
big part of my campaign, because increasingly it’s a big issue that people
raise with me."
Clinton also mentioned substance abuse and mental health in a major speech
on criminal justice reform that she made last month in the wake of the
riots in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of police.
She emphasized the links between problems in the criminal justice system
and problems in treating mental health and drug abuse.
“The promise of deinstitutionalizing those in mental health facilities was
supposed to be followed by the creation of community-based treatment
centers,” she said. “Our prisons and our jails are now our mental health
institutions.”
Clinton Returns to Iowa to Help Rally Caucus Volunteers
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/clinton-returns-iowa-rally-caucus-volunteers-31123588>
// ABC News // Julie Pace - May 18, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton returns to Iowa on Monday to help ramp up her
campaign's volunteer network in a state where she struggled to build an
effective ground game during her first run White House run in 2008.
Clinton will meet with volunteers and campaign organizers in the northern
Iowa town of Mason City. The event is being hosted by Dean Genth and Gary
Swenson, who were active supporters of President Barack Obama when he
defeated Clinton in the 2008 Iowa caucuses.
While Clinton's path to victory in Iowa so far seems easier this time
around, her campaign is eager to show she's not taking the state for
granted. The campaign has hired 21 caucus organizers and six regional field
directors who are seeking commitments from voters to caucus for Clinton
early next year.
The early organizing could also yield longer-term benefits for Clinton's
campaign, should she win her party's nomination. Iowa will be among the
competitive battleground states in the general election and her campaign
can draw on the voter contacts it makes now next year.
Clinton's two-day swing through Iowa marks her second trip to the state
since she formally launched her campaign last month. On Tuesday, she'll
head to Cedar Falls, where she'll begin outlining proposals for boosting
small businesses.
Clinton arrives in Iowa under pressure from Republicans who want her to
clarify her position on a massive Asia-Pacific trade deal being debated on
Capitol Hill. While Clinton was supportive of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
pact while serving as Obama's secretary of state, she has been largely
silent on the matter since announcing her campaign.
Obama's push for the trade deal has angered some liberal Democrats who fear
the agreement with Japan and several other nations would hurt U.S.
companies and workers.
Hillary Clinton's second wave of Iowa courtship arrives in Mason City
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/18/politics/hillary-clinton-2016-elections-iowa-trip/>
// CNN // Dan Merica - May 18, 2015
Mason City, Iowa (CNN)More than 70% of Iowa's Democratic caucus-goers chose
an alternative to Hillary Clinton in 2008, a fact her aides in the state
are actively looking to address early in her 2016 run.
Clinton will make her second visit to the state Monday when she headlines a
small "house party" in Mason City that campaign aides hope will showcase
their focus on moving Democrats who supported other candidates --
particularly then-Sens. Barack Obama and John Edwards - to Clinton's 2016
campaign.
Clinton's Iowa operation has a total of 27 field organizers on the ground
in Iowa, six regional organizing directors and 21 organizers who live in
cities and towns across the state. So far, according to campaign aides,
their focus has been on reconnecting with Clinton supporters from 2008,
winning over those who rejected her first presidential bid and connecting
with those young people and students who are new to the state.
Monday's event in Mason City, which will be hosted by Dean Genth and Gary
Swenson, is an example of Clinton's campaign looking to target former Obama
supporters.
Genth and Swenson were the first gay couple to receive a marriage license
at the Cerro Gordo County Courthouse when same-sex marriage was legalized
in the state in April 2009. During the 2008 caucus, both were outspoken and
early Obama supporters. They housed Obama campaign staff and volunteers in
their Mason City home and told Obama's campaign office in Chicago that they
would be willing to do whatever they could to get the senator elected.
"We were supportive of Clinton but we actually caucused for Obama," Genth
said Monday. "As the caucus campaigning went on we got really involved with
the Obama campaign. It was more a function that we were so early on with
Obama, we had already pitched out tent at that point."
A former business executive, Genth moved from Ohio to Iowa in 2003 after
meeting Swenson, a radiologist and breast cancer specialist, in 2002. Genth
said it was love at first sight. The two have long been activists for
same-sex marriage and Genth is a member of One Iowa, the state's leading
LGBT rights organization, that spearheaded efforts to legalize same-sex
marriage in the state.
Genth said that while Obama's position on same-sex marriage was "not a
determining factor" for their support in 2008, it did play a role.
"We definitely got signals from Obama where he stood on some of the basic
principles and basic rights," he said.
As a candidate in 2008, Clinton opposed same-sex marriage, supporting the
idea of civil unions instead. She did not proclaim her personal support for
same-sex marriage until 2013, after she left her diplomatic position as
secretary of state.
Shortly after her announcing her presidential bid, her campaign said that
Clinton now believes same-sex marriage is a "constitutional right," a
departure from her past statements.
The steady change in her position hasn't bothered Genth. "Some people seem
to never evolve," he said. "So somebody that does evolve is a great thing."
Genth is the vice chairman of the Cerro Gordo County Democratic Party and
has said he has "reached out to every Clinton campaign person that walks
into the area or has a phone number" about getting the candidate to North
Iowa as much as possible.
Clinton's campaign aides have regularly said the candidate will focus on
Iowa and come back regularly, but no future trips have been announced.
Clinton will overnight in Iowa on Monday and headline an event on small
business at a bike shop in Cedar Falls, Iowa on Tuesday.
The state of play in Iowa is also vastly different than it was in 2007 and
2008. Clinton leads every poll on the Democratic side and many activists in
the state, despite hungering for a competitive primary, acknowledge that
there isn't a Barack Obama-like candidate that could come from behind to
topple Clinton. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, is the only
other declared candidate for the Democratic nomination, although former
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to announce his run later this
month.
In an effort to showcase their grassroots organizing efforts, Sarah Marino,
the campaign's Mason City grassroots organizer, will introduce Clinton at
the event on Monday.
10 questions for Hillary Clinton
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/10-questions-for-hillary-clinton/> // CBS News
// Rebecca Kaplan – May 19, 2015
In the 36 days since Hillary Clinton announced she was running for
president, she has answered just 13 questions from reporters. The last time
she took a question was a month ago, Apr. 21, 2015, about the book,
"Clinton Cash," which took a critical look at her family's finances.
(Clinton's response was, "Those issues are in my view distractions from
what this campaign should be about, what I'm going to make this campaign
about.")
In the intervening month, there have been news developments that have
elicited reactions from other presidential candidates and potential
candidates. Clinton, however, has said little.
As she returns to the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire this week,
here are 10 questions CBS News might ask:
1. Do you support the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)?
The Democratic Party is divided on trade. Mr. Obama, Republicans and some
Democrats want legislation that would put the Asia-Pacific free trade
agreement on an expedited path through Congress. Other Democrats think the
agreement would hurt American workers and the environment. Which Democrats
would Clinton side with now?
She argued for TPP as secretary of state and in her 2014 memoir, "Hard
Choices" but has been noncommittal since. She has said on this issue only
that "any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase
prosperity and protect our security, and we have to do our part in making
sure we have the capabilities and the skills to be competitive."
And as CBS News Correspondent Julianna Goldman reported Monday, Clinton
earned more than $2.5 million giving speeches to organizations that have
lobbied in favor of the trade deal.
2. Should Congress have a say in whether the U.S. signs a nuclear agreement
with Iran?
Both the House and Senate have now passed bills that would allow Congress
to review the framework deal that rolls back Iran's nuclear program in
exchange for sanctions relief. The legislation would allow lawmakers to
block the president from exiting at least some sanctions if enough members
don't like the deal.
White House caves on Iran nuclear bill after veto threat
The White House had resisted congressional efforts to weigh in, arguing
this negotiation is the purview of the president, but given the substantial
Democratic support, the president is expected to sign the deal.
3. Does the president need a new Authorization for the Use of Military
Force (AUMF) to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)?
In mid February, the White House sent Congress legislation that would
formally authorize war against ISIS - six months after the air campaign
against the Islamic group actually began. The administration believes that
the 2001 authorization that gave the president the authority to deploy U.S.
troops to fight the instigators of the 9/11 attacks also enables him to
fight ISIS, so a new AUMF hasn't topped his agenda. Still, the fight
against ISIS will almost certainly bleed into 2016 and the campaign.
4. Why are Republican candidates struggling to give a straight answer on
whether they would have authorized the 2003 Iraq invasion?
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Bush was the first to stumble, saying he would
have authorized the war in Iraq. He then claimed he misinterpreted the
question posed by Fox News' Megyn Kelly, who initially asked whether he
would have authorized the invasion, "knowing what we know now." Eventually,
he said, "Knowing what we now know, I would not have engaged."
How the Iraq War question could shape 2016 campaign
And Florida Sen. Marco Rubio struggled to articulate his position after
"Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace played two video clips in which he
appeared to take different stances on the 2003 invasion.
This is an area where Clinton has been unequivocal. "I thought I had acted
in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I
had. And I wasn't alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong.
Plain and simple," she wrote in "Hard Choices."
What do independent voters think about foreign donations to the Clinton
Foundation?
5. What can you say to ensure voters that contributions to the Clinton
Foundation will not affect your decisions as president?
Clinton has been asked about foreign government donations to the Clinton
Foundation, related to her tenure as secretary of state, and especially on
whether foreign entities received special treatment in exchange for
contributions to the foundation. She said, "We're back into the political
season and therefore we will be subjected to all kinds of distraction and
attacks. And I'm ready for that. I know that that comes, unfortunately,
with the territory."
After she last interacted with the press, the Clinton Foundation admitted
it had erred in its public disclosure of donors.
6. What steps would you take to help same-sex couples get married if the
Supreme Court does rule it is a constitutional right?
Since former President Bill Clinton, signed the Defense of Marriage Act in
1996, Clinton has held just about every view on the spectrum of same-sex
marriage. In 2000, she said she believed marriage was for a man and a
woman. For awhile, she said it fell under the authority of states. In 2015,
the video she released to announce her presidential bidfeatured a gay
couple. Now, her campaign staff says she supports same-sex marriage and
wants the Supreme Court to rule that it is a constitutional right.
Supreme Court divided in historic gay marriage case
But what if they don't? After hearing arguments on the issue in late April,
the justices appeared sharply divided over whether gay and lesbian couples
should be allowed to marry. If the court rules in June that states have a
right to declare only men and women can enter into marriage, will Clinton
take action?
7. How would you go "even further" than President Obama on immigration and
stay within the limits of the law?
Clinton gave an immigration speech in Nevada earlier this month, and
pledged to go "even further" than President Obama did by allowing a larger
pool of people, such as the parents of children brought to the U.S.
illegally, to apply for a reprieve from deportation.
Clinton takes on Nevada as controversial book debuts
President Obama spent months publicly saying he didn't have the authority
to expand relief for undocumented immigrants before he used his executive
authority to protect millions from deportation. And he had his legal team
spend months making sure the case for that action was airtight and would
hold up against a potential court battle.
Congress, meanwhile, is far from acting on immigration and is even looking
for ways to roll back programs the president has put into place.
8. You left the White House "dead broke," in your words. You now command
upwards of $200,000 a speech. How much money do you think you and your
husband need to be comfortable?
Clinton later apologized for the "dead broke" comment, saying she could
have been more "artful."
She and husband Bill Clinton earned just over $25 million from a total of
about 100 paid speeches since January 2014 and $5 million from the proceeds
of "Hard Choices."
9. Is it hypocritical for you to accept super PAC support -- and to push
the boundaries of the law by coordinating with a super PAC -- while calling
for new rules to limit third-party campaign spending?
Like President Obama before her, Clinton is accepting campaign support from
super PACs -- independent groups that can accept unlimited campaign
donations from individuals or corporations -- while at the same time
condemning their influence on the political process.
"We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable
money out of it once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional
amendment," Clinton said last month in Iowa, calling campaign finance
reform one of the four key pillars of her campaign.
Even so, her campaign insists that as long as others in the race for the
White House are exploiting super PACs, her campaign will as well. The
Clinton campaign, however, is actually empowering super PACs even more by
coordinating with one specific group. Super PACs are barred from
coordinating with candidates, but this group says it has found a loophole
allowing it to work with the Clinton team.
10. Are you willing to tell Saudi Arabia that they must encourage equal
rights for women?
Women's rights was one of Clinton's chief causes as secretary of state -
and it's likely to become a point of contention during the 2016 campaign as
well given the lingering questions about the Clinton Foundation's
acceptance of donations from foreign governments. On the day she announced
her presidential bid, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky - himself a contender for
the White House - honed in on Clinton's relationship with the Saudis.
Rand Paul: Hard for Hillary Clinton to say she's for women's rights
"In Saudi Arabia, a woman was raped by seven men. The woman was then
publically whipped. And then she was arrested for being in a car with an
unmarried man. I think we should be boycotting that activity, not
encouraging it. And it looks really bad for the case of defending women's
rights, if you're accepting money," Paul said in an interview on CBS' "Face
the Nation" in April.
After Clinton announced, the foundation announced a new donor policy. Now,
the foundation will accept large donations from six foreign governments -
Australia, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.
Hillary Clinton Backs Obama Plan To Reverse Police Militarization
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/18/hillary-clinton-police-militarization_n_7309296.html?1431988769>
// Huffington Post // Ryan Grim and Ryan J. Reilly - May 18, 2015
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's executive order banning the federal
government from transferring certain types of military-style equipment to
police forces would remain in place if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency
in 2016.
Clinton is "supportive of the recommendations and of the need for reform,"
a spokesperson for the Democratic candidate said Monday after Obama
announced in Camden, New Jersey, that the transfer of certain military gear
to police would be sharply curtailed.
Clinton last month slammed police militarization in a major speech on
criminal justice issues. "We can start by making sure that federal funds
for state and local law enforcement are used to bolster best practices,
rather than to buy weapons of war that have no place on our streets," she
said in the speech, which followed the death of Baltimore's Freddie Gray at
the hands of police. "President Obama's task force on policing gives us a
good place to start. Its recommendations offer a roadmap for reform, from
training to technology, guided by more and better data."
Obama's announcement flowed from the task force recommendations that
Clinton cited. Under the president's plan, bayonets, camouflaged uniforms,
grenade launchers, certain types of armored vehicles, firearms of
.50-caliber or larger and weaponized vehicles would no longer be
transferred to law enforcement agencies. Other military equipment would be
on a controlled list that would require law enforcement organizations to
demonstrate need.
Clinton, in her speech, called for every police department to have body
cameras for officers, and highlighted the need for community policing. "We
should listen to law enforcement leaders who are calling for a renewed
focus on working with communities to prevent crime, rather than measuring
success just by the number of arrests or convictions," she said. "As your
senator from New York, I supported a greater emphasis on community
policing, along with putting more officers on the street to get to know
those communities."
Obama on Monday said militarized gear “can sometimes give people the
feeling like there's an occupying force as opposed to a force that's part
of the community."
The Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services is
preparing after-action report looking at mistakes by the St. Louis County
Police Department in handling protests in Ferguson, Missouri, related to
the police killing of teenager Michael Brown in August. Photos of the
police department's heavily armed officers and military-style gear made
world news.
Hillary Clinton: "Grateful" For Obama's Work on Economy, But "Deck Is Still
Stacked In Favor Of Those At The Top"
<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/05/18/hillary_clinton_grateful_for_obamas_work_on_economy_but_deck_is_still_stacked_in_favor_of_those_at_the_top.html>
// Real Clear Politics // Ian Schwartz - May 18, 2015
On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke to a
small group of Iowans at a "house party" event in Mason City. In this part
of her speech Clinton talked about domestic issues such as the economy and
the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The video is from a livestream captured by
Bloomberg's Jennifer Epstein on Periscope.
Clinton praised Obama for the "hard work" he's done on the economy, but
lamented the "deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top."
"We're not running yet but we are on our feet," Clinton said about the
economy.
"The deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top, we know that, and
so we have to be especially focused on how we're going to bring about the
changes that will ignite opportunity for everybody willing to work hard for
it," Clinton also said.
HILLARY CLINTON: I'm so relieved that as I travel around the country and
talk with people, there is a sense that we are on our feet. We're not
running yet but we are on our feet. We can see the changes that are
happening in people's life and can put them in a context as to where we go
from here now as a country. I am very grateful to President Obama for the
hard work [he's done on the economy]...
I know that although we have begun to move forward again, it is still hard
to imagine exactly how we're going to get to the point where people are not
just getting by but getting ahead again and staying ahead. Because, look,
the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top, we know that, and
so we have to be especially focused on how we're going to bring about the
changes that will ignite opportunity for everybody willing to work hard for
it.
US Reps. Jim McGovern, Joe Kennedy campaign for Hillary Clinton
<http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/05/us_reps_jim_mcgovern_joe_kenne.html>
// Mass Live // Shira Schoeberg - May 18, 2015
U.S. Reps. Joe Kennedy and Jim McGovern, both Massachusetts Democrats,
spent parts of their weekends campaigning for Democratic presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton.
McGovern attended a Worcester event on Saturday and Kennedy attended an
event Sunday in Newton. Both events were grassroots organizing meetings.
Early organizing meetings are a way for a campaign to energize the
so-called "grasstops," committed activists who are likely to volunteer for
campaigns, recruit other volunteers and donate money.
The public support for Clinton by liberal congressmen in Massachusetts
comes as liberal organizations nationally have organized a movement to
draft U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, to run for
president.
Warren has gained clout as a charismatic liberal leader in the Senate
focused on economic policy, but she has said repeatedly that she will not
run for president. The Clinton campaign is likely hoping that having
Kennedy and McGovern throw their support behind Clinton now could galvanize
other Massachusetts liberals to do the same and not to hold out hope for a
Warren candidacy.
In addition to Clinton, who is a former secretary of state, U.S. Senator
and first lady, Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is running for the
Democratic nomination for president and former Maryland governor Martin
O'Malley is seriously considering it.
More than a dozen Republicans are running or seriously considering it.
Clinton Sets Citizens United as Supreme Court Litmus Test
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/clinton-returns-iowa-rally-caucus-volunteers-31123588>
// ABC News // Julie Pace, Associated Press - May 18, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that if elected president, she would
make opposition to a Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for
unlimited political donations a litmus test for nominees to the high court.
"I will do everything I can do to appoint Supreme Court justices who will
protect the right to vote and not the right of billionaires to buy
elections," Clinton told about 50 supporters at a house party in Iowa.
While Clinton has previously said she would support a constitutional
amendment overturning the 2010 decision known as Citizens United, she has
not previously said publicly that she would use the ruling as a benchmark
for nominating justices.
She added Monday she is consulting with legal experts about other ways the
court's ruling in the case could be trumped.
Despite her staunch opposition to Citizens United, which helped usher into
politics groups known as super PACs that can raise unlimited amounts of
campaign cash, Clinton is directly courting donors for a super PAC backing
her candidacy.
Democrats were initially reluctant in the elections after the court ruled
in Citizens United to fully embrace such outside groups, while Republicans
did so with fewer reservations and are aggressively raising money for them
in the early days of the 2016 campaign.
Clinton's stop in the northern Iowa town of Mason City marked her second
trip to the state since she formally launched her campaign last month. She
spent more than an hour talking with local officials, campaign organizers
and volunteers — the type of small-scale campaigning some Iowa Democrats
say she didn't do enough of during her first bid for the Democratic
nomination in 2008.
Clinton placed third in the Iowa caucus that year, behind President Barack
Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
The hosts of Monday's event, Dean Genth and Gary Swenson, campaigned
actively for Obama in 2008. Genth said he didn't choose Obama over Clinton
for any ideological reasons, but more because he "captured everyone's
imaginations with his charismatic campaign and his ability to connect to
the grassroots."
While Clinton so far doesn't face as tough of a primary challenge as she
did in 2008, her campaign is eager to show she's learned lessons from her
past missteps. The campaign has hired 21 caucus organizers and six regional
field directors who are seeking commitments from voters to caucus for
Clinton early next year.
The early organizing could also yield longer-term benefits for Clinton's
campaign, should she win her party's nomination. Iowa will be among the
competitive battleground states in the general election and her campaign
can draw on the voter contacts it makes now next year.
Clinton arrived in Iowa under pressure from Republicans who want her to
clarify her position on a massive Asia-Pacific trade deal being debated on
Capitol Hill. While Clinton was supportive of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
pact while serving as Obama's secretary of state, she has been largely
silent on the matter since announcing her campaign.
Obama's push for the trade deal has angered some liberal Democrats who fear
the agreement with Japan and several other nations would hurt U.S.
companies and workers.
As she opened her remarks Monday, Clinton subtly defended her decision to
avoid wading into the trade debate or taking questions from reporters on a
range of other issues.
Though she never mentioned the Republican criticism directly, she said
small events that put her in direct contact with voters are providing her
with the foundation for her campaign, as well as "the kind of information I
need to be an even better president."
Gowdy: Benghazi report may leave questions unresolved
<http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/18/benghazi-report-congress-trey-gowdy/27490061/>
// Greenville Online // Mary Troyan - May 18, 2015
WASHINGTON — The final congressional report on the 2012 Benghazi terrorist
attacks may present conflicting information on issues without concluding
which version is true, according to Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of
the special House committee investigating the attacks.
Democrats on Gowdy’s committee, who have already declared the investigation
a waste of taxpayer money, were further irritated by the possibility that
the much-touted House investigation will leave some facts open to
interpretation.
Gowdy, R-S.C., said in a recent interview the investigation is a
fact-finding mission, but every factual dispute may not be settled.
“If you do a good enough job laying out the facts, the conclusions will
either speak for themselves or you’ll have competing factual narratives and
you can draw your own conclusions,” Gowdy said.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi was created a year ago to conduct a
comprehensive investigation into the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012,
terrorist attack on the U.S. facilities in Libya that killed four
Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Seven Republicans and five
Democrats serve on the panel.
At the time the committee was created, Republican leaders said previous
congressional investigations, which were limited to specific jurisdictions
such as the military or intelligence agencies, had left questions
unanswered, and a special committee with wider latitude was needed address
new revelations.
“I intend for this select committee to have robust authority, and I will
expect it to work quickly to get answers for the American people and the
families of the victims,” House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said last year
when he asked the House to create the panel.
Gowdy said the final report could be finished by the end of the year if the
Obama administration cooperates more quickly in producing documents.
But he also warned that issues may be left unresolved, especially if
witnesses or documents contradict each other.
“It’s not my job to tell people what to conclude,” Gowdy said. “If you have
two witnesses, (and) one says the light was red and one green, I don’t view
myself as being the arbiter of who is more credible.”
The committee is investigating security lapses related to the attack, the
military’s response to the incident, and whether the Obama administration,
for political reasons, intentionally downplayed the event as something
other than a coordinated terrorist attack.
Committee Democrats have grown increasingly critical of how Republicans are
proceeding.
Asked to comment on the possibility the committee won’t draw conclusions
about disputed facts, the panel’s top Democrat said the investigation is an
attempt to discredit Hillary Rodham Clinton, a presidential candidate who
was secretary of state at the time of the attacks in Benghazi.
“For the Committee’s report to be credible... we should draw bipartisan
conclusions based on the facts, state publicly when conspiracy theories are
debunked, and set forth concrete recommendations to implement reforms that
protect our diplomatic corps around the world,” Rep. Elijah Cummings,
D-Md., said in a statement.
During the committee’s most recent public hearing in January, Rep. Adam
Schiff, D-Calif., said the report needs bipartisan support to be considered
credible.
“Let’s make it bipartisan so that the country and the families will have
the confidence of knowing that this was an objective work product,” Schiff
said.
Gowdy said the panel has uncovered new evidence and has talked to witnesses
never before interviewed.
But most of those interviews have been conducted in private. Publicly,
committee members have focused mostly on improving security at diplomatic
outposts and on disputes with the State Department and Clinton over access
to emails, documents and witnesses.
Gowdy said he knows not everyone will be satisfied with the panel’s final
report, especially extreme partisans on either side.
“If you do a good enough job getting every bit of information the
fact-finder needs, they’ll be able to draw their own conclusions,” Gowdy
said. “People are going to draw different conclusions. That’s fine.”
GOP committee member Martha Roby of Alabama said she’s tried to manage her
constituents’ expectations about the results of the investigation.
“This is a fact-finding, truth-finding mission, and whatever that reveals
is what it reveals,” Roby said. “Truth is a stubborn thing.”
Clinton Friend’s Libya Role Blurs Lines of Politics and Business
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/politics/clinton-friends-libya-role-blurs-lines-of-politics-and-business.html>
// NYT // Nicholas Confessor and Michael S. Schmidt – May 18, 2015
When the Clintons last occupied the White House, Sidney Blumenthal cast
himself in varied roles: speechwriter, in-house intellectual and press
corps whisperer. Republicans added another, accusing Mr. Blumenthal of
spreading gossip to discredit Republican investigators and forced him to
testify during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
Now, as Hillary Rodham Clinton embarks on her second presidential bid, Mr.
Blumenthal’s service to the Clintons is once again under the spotlight.
Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a Republican who is leading
the congressional committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi,
Libya, plans to subpoena Mr. Blumenthal, 66, for a private transcribed
interview.
Mr. Gowdy’s chief interest, according to people briefed on the inquiry, is
a series of memos that Mr. Blumenthal — who was not an employee of the
State Department — wrote to Mrs. Clinton about events unfolding in Libya
before and after the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. According to emails
obtained by The New York Times, Mrs. Clinton, who was secretary of state at
the time, took Mr. Blumenthal’s advice seriously, forwarding his memos to
senior diplomatic officials in Libya and Washington and at times asking
them to respond. Mrs. Clinton continued to pass around his memos even after
other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal’s assessments were
often unreliable.
But an examination by The New York Times suggests that Mr. Blumenthal’s
involvement was more wide-ranging and more complicated than previously
known, embodying the blurry lines between business, politics and
philanthropy that have enriched and vexed the Clintons and their inner
circle for years.
While advising Mrs. Clinton on Libya, Mr. Blumenthal, who had been barred
from a State Department job by aides to President Obama, was also employed
by her family’s philanthropy, the Clinton Foundation, to help with
research, “message guidance” and planning of commemorative events,
according to foundation officials. During the same period, he also worked
on and off as a paid consultant to Media Matters and American Bridge,
organizations that helped lay the groundwork for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016
campaign.
Much of the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs.
Clinton 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 venture, which was ultimately unsuccessful, involved other
Clinton friends, a private military contractor and one former C.I.A. spy
seeking to get in on the ground floor of the new Libyan economy.
The projects — creating floating hospitals to treat Libya’s war wounded and
temporary housing for displaced people, and building schools — would have
required State Department permits, but floundered before the business
partners could seek official approval.
It is not clear whether Mrs. Clinton or the State Department knew of Mr.
Blumenthal’s interest in pursuing business in Libya; a State Department
spokesman declined to say. Many aspects of Mr. Blumenthal’s involvement in
the planned Libyan venture remain unclear. He declined repeated requests to
discuss it.
But interviews with his associates and a review of previously unreported
correspondence suggest that — once again — it may be difficult to determine
where one of Mr. Blumenthal’s jobs ended and another began.
Mr. Gowdy’s committee on the attacks in Benghazi hopes to ask Mr.
Blumenthal who, if anyone, was paying him to prepare the memos for Mrs.
Clinton and whether they were among his responsibilities at the Clinton
Foundation. The committee’s investigators are also interested in whether
the planned business venture in Libya posed any potential conflicts for Mr.
Blumenthal or Mrs. Clinton, whose aides the business partners sought
meetings with in early 2012.
The Libya venture came together in 2011, when David L. Grange, a retired
Army major general, joined with a newly formed New York firm,
Constellations Group, to pursue business leads in Libya. Constellations
Group, led by a professional fund-raiser and philanthropist named Bill
White, was to provide the leads. Mr. Grange’s company, Osprey Global
Solutions, based in North Carolina, would put “boots on the ground to see
if there was an opportunity to do business,” Mr. Grange said in an
interview.
The men had little experience in Libya. Exactly how Mr. White was to
procure leads in Libya is unclear. He spent much of his career as an
executive at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, and had raised money for
politicians, businesses and charities. His biography also describes Mr.
White as a consultant for Aquahydrate, a bottled-water company whose
backers include Ron Burkle, the billionaire investor who had been a close
friend of the Clintons.
“We were thinking, ‘O.K., Qaddafi is dead, or about to be, and there’s
opportunities,’ ” Mr. White said in a brief telephone interview, adding,
“We thought, ‘Let’s try to see who we know there.’ ”
Mr. White declined to answer follow-up questions about what role Mr.
Blumenthal was playing in the business venture. But Mr. Grange described
Mr. Blumenthal as an adviser to Mr. White’s company, along with two other
associates: Tyler Drumheller, a colorful former Central Intelligence Agency
official, and Cody Shearer, a longtime Clinton friend whose sister once
worked for Mrs. Clinton.
“I just know that he was working with the team to work on business
development,” Mr. Grange said of Mr. Blumenthal.
In the spring of 2011, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Drumheller and Mr. Shearer were
helping plan what was to be Mr. Grange’s first trip to Libya, according to
emails stolen by a Romanian hacker and published by Gawker and ProPublica
in March. Mr. Blumenthal said he had been advised not to comment on the
correspondence because the theft remained under investigation by the F.B.I.
In August, Mr. Grange signed a memorandum of understanding with two senior
officials in the Libyan transitional government to provide “humanitarian
assistance, medical services and disaster mitigation,” along with helping
to train a new national police force.
The agreement fell apart, Mr. Grange said, but the partners continued to
seek other projects in Libya, including a proposal to create the floating
hospitals to treat the country’s war wounded. But doing business there
proved difficult: Some Libyan leaders were wary about working with Western
companies, while the contractors could not figure out whom to make deals
with.
“It was just so factionalized over there,” Mr. Grange said. “You never knew
who to believe or trust, or know who was in charge of what.”
Even as their plans sputtered, Mr. Blumenthal continued to draw on the
business associates for information about Libya as he shaped his memos to
Mrs. Clinton. Sometimes the two realms became blurred.
In January 2012, for example, Mr. Blumenthal sent Mrs. Clinton a memo
describing efforts by the new Libyan prime minister to stabilize his
fragile government by bringing in advisers with experience dealing with
Western companies and governments.
Among “the most influential of this group,” Mr. Blumenthal wrote, was a man
named Najib Obeida, who worked at the fledgling Libyan stock exchange. Mrs.
Clinton had the memo forwarded to her senior State Department staff.
What Mr. Blumenthal did not mention was that Mr. Obeida was one of the
Libyan officials Mr. Grange and his partners hoped would finance the
humanitarian projects. The day before Mr. Blumenthal emailed Mrs. Clinton,
Mr. Grange wrote to a senior Clinton aide at the State Department to
introduce the venture with Mr. Obeida in Libya and seek an audience with
the United States’ ambassador there. Mr. Grange said he did not receive a
reply.
Mr. Blumenthal sent Mrs. Clinton at least 25 memos about Libya in 2011 and
2012, many describing elaborate intrigues among various foreign governments
and rebel factions.
Mrs. Clinton circulated them, frequently forwarding them to Jake Sullivan,
her well-regarded deputy chief of staff, and requesting that he distribute
them to other State Department officials. Mr. Sullivan often sent the memos
to senior officials in Libya, including the ambassador, J. Christopher
Stevens, who was killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi.
In many cases, Mr. Sullivan would paste the text from the memos into an
email and tell the other State Department officials that they had come from
an anonymous “contact” of Mrs. Clinton.
Some of Mr. Blumenthal’s memos urged Mrs. Clinton to consider rumors that
other American diplomats knew at the time to be false. Not infrequently,
Mrs. Clinton’s subordinates replied to the memos with polite skepticism.
In April 2012, Mr. Stevens took issue with a Blumenthal memo raising the
prospect that the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was poised to
make gains in the coming parliamentary elections. The Brotherhood fared
poorly in the voting.
Another American diplomat, after reading the same memo, noted that Mrs.
Clinton’s source appeared to have confused two Libyan politicians with the
same surname.
Mrs. Clinton herself sometimes seemed skeptical. After reading a March 2012
memo from Mr. Blumenthal, describing a plan by French and British
intelligence officials to encourage tribal leaders in eastern Libya to
declare a “semiautonomous” zone there, Mrs. Clinton wrote to Mr. Sullivan,
“This one strains credulity.”
Mr. Sullivan agreed, telling Mrs. Clinton, “It seems like a thin conspiracy
theory.”
But the skepticism did not seem to sour Mrs. Clinton on Mr. Blumenthal, who
continued to forward Mr. Blumenthal’s memos, often appending a note:
“Useful insight,” or “We should get this around asap.”
In an August 2012 memo, Mr. Blumenthal described the new president of
Libya, Mohammed Yussef el-Magariaf, as someone who would “seek a discrete
relationship with Israel” and had “many common friends and associates with
the leaders of Israel.”
“If true, this is encouraging,” Mrs. Clinton wrote to Mr. Sullivan. “Should
consider passing to Israelis.”
The emails suggest that Mr. Blumenthal’s direct line to Mrs. Clinton
circumvented the elaborate procedures established by the federal government
to ensure that high-level officials are provided with vetted assessments of
available intelligence.
Former intelligence officials said that it was not uncommon for top
officials, including secretaries of state, to look outside the intelligence
bureaucracy for information and advice. But Paul R. Pillar, a former C.I.A.
official who is now a researcher at the Center for Security Studies at
Georgetown University, said Mr. Blumenthal’s dispatches went beyond that
sort of informal channel, aping the style of official government
intelligence reports but without assessments of the motives of sources.
“The sourcing is pretty sloppy,” Mr. Pillar added, “in a way that would
never pass muster if it were the work of a reports officer at a U.S.
intelligence agency.”
The long and winding road ahead for Hillary Clinton’s e-mails
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/19/15-step-hillary-clinton-e-mail-review-process-could-be-done-by-january-2016/>
// Washington Post // Fred Barbash – May 19, 2015
The State Department said in a court filing late Monday that it will take
at least until January 2016 for it to review a cache of 30,000 e-mails
provided by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and decide which ones
can be made available to the public, and in what form.
Even then, it said, an “interagency review process could impact the
Department’s proposed” timeline for public release of redacted versions of
the e-mails.
And any other requests for Clinton e-mails, it warned, could make the
review even slower.
At best, according to the plan, some e-mails could land just at the
beginning of the Democratic presidential nominating process, which starts
in February with the Iowa caucuses.
The e-mails were turned over to the department at its request by the former
secretary of state in December following reports that she was keeping them
on a private server.
The court filing came in response to a Freedom of Information Act suit
filed by Vice News.
Why will it take so long?
The State Department filing explained that Clinton sent over the e-mails on
paper, rather than in some digital form. They consume a total of 55,000
pages in “twelve bankers boxes…that corresponded approximately to the time
frame of the documents within a given box.”
Now each page “must be individually hand–processed in order to ensure that
all information is being captured.” That alone is a five-step process that
is “time consuming and labor-intensive,” the filing to the U.S. District
Court in Washington said.
But that was just the beginning. The state department outlined a 15-step
process involving sign-offs by at least three different offices internally
and an unknown number of other agencies, each of which will undoubtedly
impose its own review procedure on the missives.
For example, if the Treasury Department had some role in a subject under
discussion in an email, its lawyers will be given the opportunity to review
it and perhaps to suggests at one extreme, reasons why it should not be
released or portions that should be redacted.
“The review of these materials will likely require consultation with a
broad range of subject matter experts within the Department and other
agencies, as well as potentially with foreign governments,” the filing
said, adding by way of warning that the department “operates in
approximately 285 locations around the globe.”
Nor did the filing suggest any firmness in the January, 2016 date. Indeed,
a footnote warned that additional requests for Clinton emails that are
subject-specific, as opposed to the Vice’s demand for everything, could
“slow down the Department’s processing of the collection.”
What Sidney Blumenthal’s Memos to Hillary Clinton Said, and How They Were
Handled
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/politics/what-sidney-blumenthals-memos-to-hillary-clinton-said-and-how-they-were-handled.html>
// NYT // Michael S. Schmidt - May 18, 2015
In 2011 and 2012, Hillary Rodham Clinton received at least 25 memos about
Libya from Sidney Blumenthal, a friend and confidant who at the time was
employed by the Clinton Foundation. The memos, written in the style of
intelligence cables, make up about a third of the almost 900 pages of
emails related to Libya that Mrs. Clinton said she kept on the personal
email account she used exclusively as secretary of state. Some of Mr.
Blumenthal’s memos appeared to be based on reports supplied by American
contractors he was advising as they sought to do business in Libya. Mr.
Blumenthal also appeared to be gathering information from anonymous Libyan
and Western officials and local news media reports. What follows are
descriptions of some of the memos and how they were handled by Mrs. Clinton
and her aides.
Clinton Says Idea on Rebels Should Be Considered
In April 2011, Mr. Blumenthal sent Mrs. Clinton a memo about the rebel
forces fighting the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. The rebels, Mr.
Blumenthal wrote, were considering hiring security contractors to train
their forces. Mrs. Clinton forwarded the memo to her aide, Jake Sullivan,
and said that the idea should be considered. (Pages 1-3)
In 2011 and 2012, Mrs. Clinton forwarded 18 memos to Mr. Sullivan, who in
turn circulated them to senior State Department officials, including
Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the 2012 attacks in
Benghazi, and Ambassador Gene A. Cretz, who preceded him.
An Alert to Possible Terrorist Attacks in Libya
In May 2011, Mr. Blumenthal sent Mrs. Clinton a memo reporting that
affiliates of Al Qaeda in Libya were plotting attacks in revenge for the
United States’ killing of Osama bin Laden. Mrs. Clinton forwarded the email
to Mr. Sullivan, saying that it was “disturbing, if true.” Mr. Sullivan
questioned its accuracy, but said he would share with others. (Pages 4-5)
Highlighting the Role of a Potential Business Partner
In January 2012, Mr. Blumenthal wrote to Mrs. Clinton about challenges
facing Libya’s new government. In the memo, Mr. Blumenthal said that
Libya’s prime minister was bringing in new economic advisers, and that a
businessman, Najib Obeida, was among “the most influential of this group.”
At the time, Mr. Obeida was a potential business partner for a group of
contractors whom Mr. Blumenthal was advising. Mrs. Clinton instructed Mr.
Sullivan to ask for a response from senior State Department officials
including Mr. Cretz, then the ambassador to Libya. (Pages 6-15)
A Memo Is Passed On, Despite Questions
In March 2012, Mrs. Clinton forwarded a memo by Mr. Blumenthal to Mr.
Sullivan, saying that she was dubious about its content. Mr. Sullivan
agreed, stating that Mr. Blumenthal’s report resembled “a conspiracy
theory” — but still asked State Department officials to review it. (Pages
16-17)
A Warning Is Forwarded to Incoming Ambassador
In April 2012, Mr. Blumenthal wrote to Mrs. Clinton warning about the
imminent rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya. Mrs. Clinton forwarded
the memo to Mr. Sullivan, who sent it to Mr. Stevens, the incoming United
States ambassador to Libya. Mr. Stevens’ response — that the Brotherhood in
fact had a relatively small following in Libya — was passed on to Mrs.
Clinton. (Pages 18-24)
Clinton Suggests Sharing Information With Israel
After receiving an August 2012 memo from Mr. Blumenthal about how the new
Libyan prime minister wanted to have a better relationship with Israel,
Mrs. Clinton suggested to Mr. Sullivan that they pass the intelligence
along to the Israelis. (Pages 25-27)
Hillary Clinton’s army of trolls
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/hillary-clintons-twitter-trolls-118079.html>
// Politico // Annie Karni – May 19, 2015
Hillary Clinton’s tweets aren’t particularly edgy or provocative. But no
matter what she says, they tend to generate a passionate response – much of
it negative.
No matter the message, whether it’s an opinion on a contentious issue or an
unremarkable snapshot from the campaign trail, the result tends to be the
same: an avalanche of cynicism, snark and some outright bile.
In part, it’s a function of the size of her account — with 3.5 million
followers, Clinton’s Twitter following dwarves every other contender in the
2016 hunt. And Twitter trolling, as all of the prospective candidates and
anyone in public life can attest, is the price of admission.
Still, when it comes to Clinton, the trolling is of a different scale and
measure, a clear reflection of the strong feelings she provokes among her
legion of detractors.
“How can you tell Hillary will fight every day for kids and families?
Because it’s what she’s always done,” @HillaryClinton tweeted May 12, with
a link to a Huffington Post story outlining her legacy as Arkansas’ first
lady.
That relatively mundane tweet provoked anger from both the right and the
left. “What about the ones she voted to send to war in Iraq,” replied Karen
Geier, whose Twitter bio identifies her as a digital and social media
strategist, a feminist and a proud progressive.
Ted Bingham, a self-described conservative Mormon from Sheboygan, WI,
replied: “After she’s done lying about the 30,000 emails, how she was
named, and her ‘immigrant grandparents. She’s a total waste!!!”
And Christopher Mahoney, who identified himself online as a retired vice
chairman at Moody’s, replied to Clinton by reaching back to the suicide of
a close Clinton confidante in the ‘90s: “Especially the family of Vince
Foster.”
Amid a long stream of detractors, one fan account, whose handle is @HRC,
tweeted encouragingly, like a small voice working up the nerve to express
an unpopular opinion: “Next Prez.”
Clinton’s online detractors most often paint her as untrustworthy, or raise
questions about the foreign money that has flowed to the Clinton Foundation
while she was secretary of state. Some call her names like “witch,”
dictator,” “monster,” and even “Hitlary,” all reminders of how polarizing
Clinton can be — a feminist hero and glass-ceiling cracker to supporters;
an untrustworthy, pandering operative to the haters. (Her most devoted
supporters sometimes break through the noise with supportive exclamations
of “Queen!”)
Her large Twitter following is, on the whole, an advantage for Clinton, who
can exert more control over her own message and image: a recent picture of
Clinton in Iowa was retweeted 251 times and favorited by 561 Twitter users.
In contrast, a recent picture of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie campaigning
in New Hampshire with his wife, Mary Pat, was retweeted once and favorited
three times.
With more followers than all the top-tier Republican candidates combined
(her closest GOP competitor is Sen. Marco Rubio, who has 736,000),
Clinton’s Twitter account is a powerful messaging tool for pushing out her
own snapshots from campaign stops, weighing in on national issues in 140
characters, and directing supporters to her fundraising and volunteer pages
online.
But that formidable footprint comes with a price: she also trumps her
opponents in terms of her legions of trolls, who sometimes overwhelm the
conversations she generates, picking at the scabs and scars Clinton has
accumulated over nearly four decades in public life.
When Clinton recently tweeted “Healthy women ? healthy communities. Sign up
if you agree with Hillary,” one quick response to that relatively anodyne
message was, ““On average how much does Bill spend on hookers each week?”
Clinton’s physical appearance is not considered out of bounds among her
Twitter tormenters. One response to photos of Clinton walking around
Brooklyn last week, dressed in a long green jacket, that were posted on
Twitter: “She’s a human pear.”
On May 14, Clinton’s tweet about “words that ring truer than ever today:
‘Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.’
#TBT” — along with a picture of Clinton from her famous 1995 speech on
human rights in Beijing — drew an especially pointed response. One Rachel
Cohen — a self-described protestant Christian, conservative libertarian gun
owner replied: “Oh for the days when you weren’t tired, fat, old and gray.”
The campaign doesn’t engage with its trolls — or even acknowledge them.
“Hillary Clinton listens to everyone’s voices whether they have substantive
feedback during the hours of roundtable discussions she’s had or 140
characters of feedback in response to a tweet,” said a Clinton campaign
aide.
A Democratic strategist who is not affiliated with the campaign explained
the Clinton approach this way: “Haters gonna hate.”
And they do.
“Hillary wants to call someone’s mom on Mother’s Day. It could be yours,”
Clinton tweeted — seemingly innocuously — on May 4, with a link to the
campaign contest fundraiser.
Not so innocuous, it turned out.
“I am so thank U R Not my mom or Grandma and U stay away from my MOM!
Dictator Hypocrite!” replied one woman whose Twitter handle is Judy Ameil.
“How about calling the moms of those killed at Benghazi? that’s a great
start. Instead, it’ll probably be rich donors. #Witch.” wrote Paul Hicks,
who tweets under the handle @PaulAniston and responds often to Clinton’s
tweets.
While the attacks seem to be personal and sometimes sexist, the attackers
claim they are not.
“Yep. I troll quite a bit I guess,” Hicks, who works as a quality control
engineer, explained in a direct message on Twitter. “I don’t dislike her
personally because I don’t know her personally. As with all politicians,
I’m sure she’s very likeable and says all the right things…. I’m as tired
of old white men leading this country as the next guy. We need someone
that’ll unite the country, protect it & stand up for its citizens.”
The constant stream of criticism “comes with the territory” of a
high-profile campaign, said Rebecca Heisler, former social media director
for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “The key is to create enough
quality content that you’re not just getting negative feedback, you’re also
getting supporters to actively engage and drown out the noise.”
Reading the individual comments is counter-productive, she said, but
getting a bigger picture of a candidate’s reception online can be helpful
to a campaign. “There are social listening tools where you can monitor more
broadly how people are engaging with your content,” Heisler said.
“There is a big difference between social noise and social action,” warned
Betsy Hoover, a partner at 270 Strategies, who was President Obama’s 2012
digital organizing director and worked with Ready for Hillary. “You have to
recognize that and know what you’re seeing and when. Engagement is high and
the focus is really high. With Clinton, you have a very focused place for
that energy to go in a way you don’t on the other side. It’s much easier to
be against something on Twitter than for something, but the people that are
pro-Hillary are donating money, sharing a video, or volunteering in their
communities.”
By now, the campaign has come to expect a stream of trolling — especially
when Clinton weighs in on divisive issues like abortion.
“When it comes to women’s health, there are two kinds of experts: women and
their doctors. True 40+ years ago, true today. - H” she tweeted last
Wednesday, weighing in on the debate surrounding a bill to ban 20 week
abortions (it passed in the House earlier that day).
The responses were as expected: “Why don’t you just come out and say you
have no problem with killing babies? We’re talking 20 weeks. you’re a
monster…” tweeted “Ryan,” a self-described “Christian. Texan.
Conservative,” who has over 6,000 followers.
Jeb Bush also weighed in on the bill on Twitter: “I urge Congress to
support the late-term abortion ban today. We need to stand up for life and
the most vulnerable among us. #HR36.” As with Clinton, some of his trolls
also started a conversation that seemed to be more about general attacks on
his candidacy than the 20-week abortion ban.
In the end, though, Clinton’s online presence trumped his, even if it came
with a stream of ugly comments from those that will never vote for her.
Bush’s comment was retweeted 265 times, compared to Clinton’s 2,345.
Hillary Clinton was paid millions by tech industry for speeches
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-was-paid-millions-by-tech-industry-for-speeches/2015/05/18/f149d598-fd86-11e4-805c-c3f407e5a9e9_story.html>
// WaPo // Matea Gold, Rosalind S. Helderman, and Anu Narayanswamy - May
18, 2015
In one of her last gigs on the paid lecture circuit, Hillary Rodham Clinton
addressed an eBay summit aimed at promoting women in the workplace,
delivering a 20-minute talk that garnered her a $315,000 payday from the
company.
Less than two months later, Clinton was feted at the San Francisco Bay-area
home of eBay chief executive John Donahoe and his wife, Eileen, for one of
the first fundraisers supporting Clinton’s newly announced presidential
campaign.
The two events spotlight the unusually close financial ties between Clinton
and a broad array of industries with issues before the government that paid
tens of millions of dollars to her and her husband, former president Bill
Clinton, in the months preceding the launch of her presidential campaign.
Disclosure documents filed by Hillary Clinton last week revealed that the
couple have earned about $25 million for delivering 104 paid speeches since
January 2014.
While Bill Clinton’s lucrative speaking career since leaving the White
House in 2001 has been well documented, the new disclosures offer the first
public accounting of Hillary Clinton’s paid addresses since she stepped
down as secretary of state. And they illustrate how the Clintons have
personally profited by drawing on the same network of supporters who have
backed their political campaigns and philanthropic efforts — while those
supporters have gained entree to a potential future president.
Silicon Valley is one place where those overlapping interests come
together, according to a Washington Post analysis of the new Clinton
disclosures.
Out of the $11.7 million that Hillary Clinton has made delivering 51
speeches since January 2014, $3.2 million came from the technology
industry, the analysis found. Several of the companies that paid Clinton to
address their employees also have senior leaders who have been early and
avid supporters of her presidential bid.
The tech sector was the largest single source of speaking fees for Clinton,
followed by health care and financial services, according to the Post
analysis. Bill Clinton also made substantial income speaking to tech groups
but focused more heavily on financial services, insurance and real estate
companies.
A Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman declined to comment.
While it is common for former presidents to receive top dollar as paid
speakers, Hillary Clinton is unique as a prospective candidate who received
large personal payouts from corporations, trade groups and other major
interests mere months before launchinga White House bid. In some cases,
those speeches gave Clinton a chance to begin sounding out themes of her
coming campaign and even discuss policy issues that a future Clinton
administration might face.
Companies that paid her to speak include industry giants such as Xerox,
Cisco Systems and Qualcomm, as well as start-ups and trade groups focused
on biotechnology and medical technology.
The blurred line between personal and political is apparent in the cases of
companies that hired Clinton to speak and are led by executives who are now
prominent backers of her campaign. Salesforce.com, for instance, paid
Clinton $451,000 to deliver two talks last year, and its CEO, Marc Benioff,
is a major donor to Ready for Hillary, a super PAC that laid the groundwork
for her presidential bid. Another major backer of the PAC is Irwin Jacobs,
he former chairman of Qualcomm, which shelled out $335,000 for Clinton to
speak in late October.
A spokeswoman for Salesforce declined to comment on how Clinton came to be
invited to speak. Qualcomm did not return requests for comment. A
spokeswoman for Jacobs said that he is retired from the company and does
not play a role in its decisions.
When Clinton arrived at eBay for her March 2014 women’s-leadership speech,
she had another connection to the company. Eileen Donohoe, wife of the CEO,
had worked for Clinton as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Abby Smith, spokeswoman for eBay, said that, “as one of the world’s most
admired women, Hillary Clinton was the perfect choice” for the event. Smith
declined to comment on the Donahoes’ fundraiser for the Clinton campaign.
The new disclosures showed Clinton’s vast earning power on the public
speaking circuit as a former secretary of state who many viewed as the
Democratic presidential nominee in waiting.
In some cases, organizations that had once paid Bill Clinton to speak now
paid even more to lure his wife.
The Biotechnology Industry Organization paid Bill Clinton $175,000 in 2010.
Four years later, the group paid $335,000 — nearly twice as much — to hear
from Hillary Clinton. Likewise, the Advanced Medical Technology Association
paid Bill Clinton $160,000 to speak in 2009 and paid Hillary Clinton
$265,000 to speak in 2014.
The warm reception for Hillary Clinton in Silicon Valley comes after she
watched a young upstart named Barack Obama lock up many of the industry’s
top money players during their fight for the 2008 Democratic presidential
nomination.
Since then, the region has experienced explosive growth, making it an even
bigger target for candidates hunting for political donors. Republicans such
as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and former Florida governor Jeb Bush are
making a play to win over the traditionally left-leaning enclave.
But Clinton is not giving them much of an opening, assiduously courting
tech leaders as she contemplated another White House run.
One day last July, she tweeted, “In #SiliconValley today visiting @Google,
@Facebook, & @Twitter. Looking forward to seeing everyone and answering
some questions.”
Clinton did not receive any speaking fees from those companies, which she
visited as part of a tour promoting her latest book, “Hard Choices.”
But about a month later, she scooped up $625,000 in one day from the tech
sector — first addressing a conference in San Francisco sponsored by
Nexenta Systems, a data storage start-up, and then as a surprise guest at
Cisco’s sales conference in Las Vegas, where she was interviewed by chief
executive John Chambers.
At the Nexenta conference, Clinton addressed several hot-button policy
issues in Silicon Valley that the next president will have to confront. She
spoke of the need to “rebalance” privacy and security when it comes to
government surveillance, an issue viewed as both a business and
philosophical matter among tech leaders. And she expressed interest in an
idea proposed by Chambers and other chief executives to allow companies to
bring profits invested overseas back to the United States at a reduced tax
rate.
“It doesn’t do our economy any good to have this money parked somewhere
else in the world,” Clinton said, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The event also provided Clinton, who was making few public appearances, a
platform to weigh in on an increasingly hot national issue. In her first
remarks about the unrest that followed the shooting death of Michael Brown
in Ferguson, Mo., she urged Americans not to ignore “inequities that
persist in our justice system.”
Allison Darin, director of communications for Nexenta, said that the topic
“has nothing to do with what we do.”
But, she added, “it was obviously compelling news which brought a lot of
attention to the event, which is exactly what we want.”
Tarkan Maner, the company’s chief executive, sits on the national finance
committee of the Ready for Hillary PAC and made a $5,000 donation to the
group in September, about a month after Clinton’s speech.
Darin said Maner’s support for Clinton had nothing to do with the company’s
invitation to have her speak. Rather, she said, company officials decided
Clinton would have broad appeal for the audience of 500 top executives who
attended the conference.
“It really wasn’t politically focused at that time,” she said. “It was just
good timing.”
Most of Clinton’s paid speeches were closed to the public and the press.
But in the few that were open, Clinton appeared to be road-testing themes
that would become a part of her upcoming campaign.
In an April 2014 speech at a technology conference sponsored by Marketo, a
software branding company, she discussed the growing gap between rich and
poor in the United States. According to news reports, she proposed changes
to taxation and corporate policies to address the issue.
“Inequality of the kind we are experiencing is bad for individuals, bad for
society, bad for democracy,” she said, according to the New York Times. “If
you look around the world, this is becoming a bigger issue everywhere.”
Clinton’s latest financial disclosures also highlight the extent of
personal support she and her husband have received from organizations and
individuals who have donated to their charity, the Bill, Hillary and
Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
At least 72 organizations that have paid the Clintons for speeches since
2001 have also donated to the Clinton Foundation.
For example, Cisco, which paid Hillary Clinton $325,000 for her August
appearance, has given the foundation between $1 million and $5 million. In
2011, the company paid Bill Clinton $210,000 to speak at an event on Kiawah
Island in South Carolina.
As for eBay, the company’s charitable foundation has given more than
$50,000 to the Clinton Foundation.
Clinton Criticism of Wealth Leaves Us 1% Convinced
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-18/clinton-criticism-of-wealth-leaves-us-1-convinced>
// Bloomberg // C. Thompson and Lauren Arnold - ay 18, 2015
“Hillary Clinton sold her soul when they accepted that money.”
The speaker here is a Sahrawi Arab from the disputed territory of Western
Sahara named Mohamed Lahwaimed, quoted in a Politico story from last
Friday. While he’s referring to the $1 million (or more) in donations to
the Clinton Foundation from a Moroccan mining company with ties to King
Mohammed VI, he could be speaking as well to a lot of voters in the U.S.
today.
Wonder if she’s listening.
“Let’s finally do something about the growing economic inequality that is
tearing our country apart,” she said in 2007 during her campaign for the
2008 election, according to the New York Times. “The top 1 percent of our
households held 22 percent of our nation’s wealth.” We’re not sure of the
time frame to which she’s referring, but it doesn’t matter. We get it
already.
How difficult will it be to run a campaign on a platform of tackling wealth
inequality, which she is reprising for this run (probably because she has
to), when we have all just learned that she and her husband can pretty much
just burp money?
A haul of $30 million or so from talking to Rotarians in the past 16
months, revealed in a financial disclosure filed to the Federal Elections
Commission on Friday, has got to be some weight around her neck now. As
Jennifer Epstein and Richard Rubin reported over the weekend, that’s not
even everything—notably, the almost $105 million Bill Clinton pulled down
from 2001 to 2013.
The once-and-perhaps-future first couple’s net worth, Epstein and Rubin
write, is somewhere between $11.3 million and $52.7 million (our range is
narrower), and this excludes homes in New York and Washington, retirement
savings accounts and other personal effects, as if those would tip the
scale even more—from, say, astounding to astonishing.
The Clintons may have been “dead broke” when they left the White House in
2001, but it doesn’t look like they stayed that way for very long.
So, what is it about her that is supposed to resonate with the middle-class
voters? This will be the talking point from the other party for some time
to come, one could reasonably assume, and of course it’s a layup for them.
But the Republicans might want to watch where they step because there are
still steaming piles of Romney and Bush and, hell, even McCain money out
there on the trail.
The bigger issue probably is that this information is going to be wielded
against her by her own party.
So, again, what is it? Where’s she coming from, when she’s taking in money
so fast and from so far afield, when she says she’s a champion of the poor?
Is it some kind of noblesse oblige thing? Does wealth not have its place?
At Forbes magazine, the argument goes that the inequality Clinton claims to
attack is, in fact, what’s made it possible for her to be in this position
in the first place.
“[T]he Clintons are rich for having been wise enough to make a profession
of politics in what is the richest, most innovative country on Earth,” John
Tamny writes.
They’re rich because people care about them, and people care about them
because they’re rich, he suggests:
“What’s most bothersome is that Hillary would bash the very inequality that
has made it possible for her and Bill to be prominent global figures, and
by extension wildly rich global figures. If not for the immense taxable
wealth in the U.S., and the Clintons’ ability to influence its direction
around the world, very few would give them the time of day.
‘‘In short, the Clintons are nothing without the wealth inequality they
claim to disdain. It’s the sole source of their power,” Tamny writes. “The
swagger of the world’s foremost political couple was taken from someone
else.”
Will it be taken from her?
CNN commentator: Hillary Clinton’s ‘strong point’ is her last name, husband
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/05/18/cnn-commentator-hillary-clintons-strong-point-is-her-last-name-husband/>
// WaPo // Erik Wemple – May 18, 2015
CNN commentator Tara Setmayer today identified what Hillary Clinton has
going for her. “Hillary Clinton — she’s her own worst enemy … she’s not her
husband, she’s not the consummate politician, campaigner … warm and fuzzy
person. … That is not her strong point,” said Setmayer, who is also a
contributor to The Blaze TV.
So what is her strong point? Setmayer: “Her strong point is that her last
name is Clinton and that she has a husband that people adore and that she’s
a woman.”
Fellow CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill had a problem with all that:
“That’s sexist, that’s absolutely sexist. … I reject completely the idea
that Hillary Clinton has nothing going for her but her last name and her
husband,” said Hill, in a segment moderated by CNN’s Carol Costello.
At which point, Setmayer pressed Hill on Clinton’s accomplishments as
secretary of state. Hill stumbled a bit on that one: “Opening up Myanmar,
resetting Russia, having some of the most important, I think, sanctions
intensified on Iran that we’ve seen in decades. I think all of those things
that this secretary of state has done that have been effective,” he
responded.
The discussion broke out into a very brisk, occasionally boisterous,
face-off over Clinton’s record. Charges of sexism went back and forth, but
get ready, viewers: The question of just what Clinton accomplished as
secretary of state will get a great deal of rotation on cable news in the
coming year and a half. Clinton defenders, prepare your lists!
<http://www.businessinsider.com/the-media-is-torching-hillary-clinton-2015-5>
Politics More: 2016 Elections Hillary Clinton Media
<http://www.businessinsider.com/the-media-is-torching-hillary-clinton-2015-5>
// Business Insider // Colin Campbell – May 18, 2015
Compared to her rivals, former Secretary of Hillary Clinton has barely
talked to the media since launching her presidential campaign on April 12.
And the media has responded by heavily criticizing Clinton's campaign for
ducking the issues of the day.
On Monday, The New York Times announced Clinton's upcoming tour of swing
states with the backhanded headline: "Hillary Clinton's Busy Week Presents
More Opportunities for No Questions."
The Times story noted that there are still a number of controversial topics
that Clinton has yet to personally address, including new questions about
her family's foundation and last Friday's disclosure from her campaign
indicating she and her husband made more than $25 million in paid speeches
alone since 2014.
Also last week, The Washington Post unveiled a new clock to track the
minutes — roughly 40,000, as of Monday — since Clinton last answered a
question from a reporter. That question came on April 21.
Meanwhile, a wide range of outlets have gone out of their way to document
every question Clinton has answered from the press since announcing her
campaign. That total reportedly stands at 13 questions, depending on who's
counting. The Daily News, National Journal, and Politico reported that she
has answered only eight inquiries from reporters.
One of President Barack Obama's closest former campaign advisers, media
consultant David Axelrod, said it would be a "terrible mistake" for Clinton
not to reverse course and open up to the media.
Axelrod, whose team beat Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, argued
that Clinton doesn't want "a major news event" every time she answers a
routine question.
"She has to answer questions, and she has to do it routinely, so it's not a
major news event when she takes a few questions from the news media,"
Axelrod said on NBC's "Meet the Press," according to a transcript. "It
would be a terrible mistake to not do that."
For her part, Clinton's campaign and supporters have dismissed the
criticism as media navel-gazing.
A campaign spokesman declined to comment to Business Insider for this
story, but another spokesman, Jesse Ferguson, reacted last week on Twitter
by pointing to Clinton taking questions at length during town hall events:
"Philosophical Q: If a candidate answers hours of questions from real
people on camera but they didn't come from press, did they happen?"
Perhaps seeking to counter potential criticism on the issue, the
pro-Clinton super PAC American Bridge on Monday released a lengthy list of
questions Clinton has both asked and taken from "everyday Americans while
on the campaign trail."
"While other candidates are using the media to further their own agendas
and attack each other, Hillary Clinton is displaying the qualities of a
true leader by meeting with the people she hopes to champion as the next
President of the United States," the PAC said in a statement to reporters.
Hillary Clinton Paid by Jeb Bush’s Education Company
<https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/18/hillary-clinton-paid-jeb-bushs-education-company/>
// First Look // Lee Fang – May 18, 2015
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received nearly a quarter
of a million dollars last year for a speaking engagement on behalf of
Academic Partnerships, a for-profit education company in which Jeb Bush
held an ownership stake and on whose board he served.
Clinton’s newly-filed personal financial disclosure shows that she was paid
$225,500 on March 24, 2014 by Academic Partnerships. At the invitation-only
event in Dallas, Texas, Clinton reportedly said, “today a student doesn’t
need to travel to Cambridge, Mass., or Cambridge, England, to get a
world-class education.”
Academic Partnerships assists universities in converting their academic
degree programs into online versions that can be taken by students around
the world.
In 2011, Bush joined Academic Partnerships as an investor and as a paid
advisor. He helped the company host multiple conferences and has appeared
in online videos encouraging others to consider the Academic Partnership
business model. Though he did not share the stage with Clinton, Bush spoke
at the same conference.
Preparing for an expected bid for the Republican nomination for president,
Bush resigned from Academic Partnerships in December.
Rand Paul: Bill Clinton put ‘generation’ of black men in prison
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/242382-rand-paul-bill-clinton-put-generation-of-black-men-in>
// The Hill // Alexander Bolton – May 18, 2015
PHILADELPHIA — Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul says he will
bash Hillary Clinton over her husband’s record of putting “a generation of
black men in prison” if he is the nominee.
Paul, a freshman senator from Kentucky, says he will compete with Clinton
in Philadelphia, where Democrats have a 7-to-1 registration advantage, and
other impoverished cities by highlighting his support for criminal justice
reform.
“If I were the nominee, we will compete in Philadelphia,” he told CBS radio
talk show host Dom Giordano at the National Constitution Center.
“I’ll ask Hillary Clinton, what have you done for criminal justice. Your
husband passed all the laws that put a generation of black men in prison.
Her husband was responsible for that,” he said.
“She’s changing her tune now. She’s changing her tune because people like
me have been speaking out against these injustices,” he said.
As president, Clinton signed the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act, which gave
sentences fiscal incentives to enact tougher sentencing laws.
Paul noted that in some predominantly African-American communities such as
Ferguson, Missouri, there are substantially fewer black men than women
because so many black men are incarcerated.
He touted bills he has introduced with Democratic support that would give
judges more discretion in handing out sentencing and reduce penalties for
non-violent drug offenses.
Paul said he would also challenge Clinton about her vision for
reinvigorating blighted urban centers.
“I’ll also ask her what she’s going to do for poor people in Philadelphia.
I have a specific plan that would dramatically lower the taxes for people
who live in zip codes of poverty and high unemployment. I would leave
billions of dollars in Philadelphia over ten years. What’s Hillary Clinton
going to do?” he said.
Bill Clinton signals he can be Hillary’s second fiddle
<http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/242456-bill-clinton-signals-he-can-be-hillarys-second-fiddle>
// The Hill // Niaill Stanage – May 19, 2015
Bill Clinton is going out of his way to suggest he can play second fiddle
to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign.
The former president, considered one of his party’s greatest campaigners
and political minds, has implied he will play the wallflower when it comes
to his wife’s presidential bid.
Appearing on David Letterman’s “Late Show” last week, Bill Clinton jokingly
suggested that if his wife wins the presidency, he’d only move back to the
White House “if I’m asked.”
He’s happy to give Hillary Clinton advice “if his advice is asked for,” his
chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, told The Washington Post the same week.
Bill Clinton is “not directly engaged in the campaign,” Flournoy added.
But many political observers doubt that Bill Clinton can hang back. In
fact, some find the idea preposterous.
On Sunday, NBC’s “Meet the Press” host, Chuck Todd, declared that the
former president had become “the face of the Clinton campaign, in an odd
way,” because he had answered 39 on-camera questions since his wife
formally declared her candidacy, compared with nine answered by Hillary
Clinton.
On the same show, David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President
Obama, said that Hillary Clinton would be making “a terrible mistake” if
she did not quickly get into the rhythm of fielding media questions
herself.
Veterans of recent presidential campaigns, such as Axelrod, need no
reminding of the assets and liabilities Bill Clinton brings to the trail.
In 2012, Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention was
hailed as one of the most effective of the presidential campaign.
In 2008, by contrast, his appearances often backfired on his wife, most
notably when he compared Obama’s performance against her in the South
Carolina primary to that of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson in earlier
presidential races. The remark was widely seen as racially insensitive.
The issue faced by Hillary Clinton’s campaign is how to take advantage of
her husband’s prodigious skills while steering him around
potential pitfalls.
Strategists on both sides of the political divide agree that one vital
issue is the extent to which the former president can be kept focused.
“When I was at the White House, so long as there was a bull’s-eye, he would
invariably hit it,” said Chris Lehane, who worked in the Clinton
administration before going on to serve as press secretary for then-Vice
President Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. “If there isn’t a bull’s-eye,
then it’s harder to know where you’re supposed to be going.”
“Bill Clinton has tremendous speaking skills and the ability to motivate
voters,” Republican consultant Ron Bonjean acknowledged. “But he eventually
acts of his own accord, and there is a significant possibility that he can
take the campaign off message.”
The former president has already displayed that downside to some extent,
drawing unflattering headlines in recent months on donations to the Clinton
Foundation and on the massive fees he can command for speeches — around
$500,000 per appearance.
Bill Clinton’s response when asked by NBC News if he would continue making
such lavishly rewarded speeches — “Yeah, I gotta pay our bills” — only
deepened the worry on the part of some of his wife’s supporters that he
has, in political terms, lost a step.
“Bill Clinton could be well-used in 2016, but even if you are as good a
politician as he is, your skills atrophy, you get a little bit rusty,” said
Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist
University. “Bill in a set piece, like a speech to a convention, is always
masterful. But out on the stump, and particularly when he is ad-libbing, he
can get himself in a little bit of trouble.”
Still, it could be easier for the Hillary Clinton campaign to keep Bill
Clinton on message this time than it was in 2008.
While it has never been a secret that there are separate camps of advisers
and confidants around each of the Clintons, many of the former secretary of
State’s aides now are too young to bear the baggage accrued during Bill
Clinton’s White House years.
Her campaign manager,
Robby Mook, is 35 and a member of a different generation than 2008 campaign
aides such as Mark Penn or Bill Clinton loyalists such as James Carville.
“I think her campaign will be careful not to let him do whatever he wants,”
said Princeton University public affairs professor Julian Zelizer. “You
need to contain him, and I think no one knows that better than his wife.”
Bill Clinton is viewed positively by a majority of the public.
A Gallup poll released last week found that 59 percent of adults in the
U.S. viewed him favorably compared with 38 percent who viewed him
unfavorably. Opinions of his wife were more evenly split: 50 percent
favorable to 46 percent unfavorable.
Lehane argued that Bill Clinton is the Babe Ruth of politics, adding that
the 42nd president might be used sparingly until Hillary Clinton’s campaign
is well underway but that he could be vital in big moments.
“If you are the manager of a baseball team, you’re in the World Series and
you see on the bench Babe Ruth, to me you put Babe Ruth in the starting
lineup,” he said. “There is more of a question about whether you put Babe
Ruth in spring training.”
But the former president proved once again on Monday that he might get a
little restless as a benchwarmer. After President Obama debuted a new
Twitter account with the handle @Potus, Clinton responded.
“Welcome to @Twitter, @POTUS!” the tweet read. “One question: Does that
username stay with the office? #askingforafriend.”
Bill Clinton's Hud Secretary: Julian Castro Team Hillary's Top VP Choice
<http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/18/bill-clintons-hud-secretary-julian-castro-team-hillarys-top-vp-choice/>
// Breitbart News // May 18, 2015
Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Henry
Cisneros believes that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is intent on picking
current HUD secretary Julian Castro as her running mate.
“What I am hearing in Washington, including from people in Hillary
Clinton’s campaign, is that the first person on their lists is Julian
Castro,” Cisneros said in an Univision interview that aired on Sunday.
“That they don’t have a second option, because he is the superior candidate
considering his record, personality, demeanor and Latin heritage. I think
there is a very high possibility that Hillary Clinton may choose Julian
Castro.”
As The Hill noted, “Castro has followed a political path similar to the one
Cisneros traveled in the 1990s” when “Cisneros served as Mayor of San
Antonio and was then HUD secretary under President Bill Clinton.” But
Cisneros “ultimately left the Clinton administration in the shadow of a
scandal about payments he had made to a former mistress. He later pleaded
guilty to one count of lying to the FBI and was pardoned by Clinton.”
Castro, who appeared at a March Center for American Progress event with
Clinton, essentially ruled out running for Texas governor in 2018 in a
recent interview with MSNBC, saying that was not on his radar screen. When
host Jose Diaz-Balart asked him about the vice presidential rumors, Castro
said he had “no comment.”
Clinton is reportedly running as “the most liberal Democratic front-runner
in decades” because she is projecting that minorities will comprise 31% of
the 2016 electorate compared to 28% in 2012 and 26% in 2008.
House liberals play hard-to-get with Hillary Clinton
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/clinton-2016-house-liberals-endorsement-progressives-118076.html>
// Politico // Lauren French – May 19, 2015
More than 30 members of the House Progressive Caucus still aren’t ready to
back Hillary Clinton’s campaign, saying she has a ways to go to show she
would champion their agenda as president.
The resistance comes even as they acknowledge she’ll likely be the party’s
nominee, and her campaign has mounted an early, aggressive courtship of
lawmakers.
“Ultimately, she simply needs to … not [be] a Republican for me to endorse
her,” said Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), co-chairman of the 70-member House
Progressive Caucus. “I will support the Democratic nominee, there is no
question about that. The real question is: What is going to make me get
excited? I want to hear her talking about the most pressing issue in
America today, which is the concentration of wealth at the top.”
Ellison and other House liberals hope that by holding out on a formal
endorsement, they can nudge Clinton to the left, not only on income
inequality but poverty, trade, criminal justice and college affordability —
essentially, the Elizabeth Warren agenda. Progressive Caucus members have
asked to meet with Clinton aides soon to discuss their policies.
So far, there are close to three dozen House progressives who already have
endorsed Clinton. But most House liberals want to see a stronger commitment
to their platform.
“I want her to declare a war on poverty,” said Rep. G.K. Butterfield
(D-N.C.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. For Rep. Raúl
Grijalva (D-Ariz.), co-chairman of the Progressive Caucus, it’s climate
change and the role of government and trade. “Progressives are looking for
definitive positions on the issues,” he said.
Both have withheld their endorsements, at least for now.
The resistance to her among liberals isn’t a direct threat to her campaign
so much as another reminder of the wariness among the party base toward its
presumed nominee. The lawmakers aren’t so disillusioned that they would get
behind Martin O’Malley or Bernie Sanders. In the end, they’re all but sure
to come around to Clinton, but like other activists on the left, they want
her to earn it.
Still, their lack of enthusiasm for Clinton has practical implications. If
she fails to energize progressives, it could depress turnout and hurt
Democrats’ chances of eating into the GOP’s 245-seat House majority — a
major priority for the party in an election year that should favor
Democrats.
And as of now, progressives say they aren’t seeing enough from the Clinton
campaign.
The former secretary of state has, for example, refused to weigh in on the
controversial battle over “fast-track” authority for trade deals — raising
the suspicions of some progressives as Clinton was a key player in the
Trans-Pacific Partnership currently being negotiated by the Obama
administration.
The fast-track bill is the procedural first step Obama needs to complete
the largest trade agreement in American history and a large bloc of
Democrats in the House and Senate has been working for months to defeat it.
The Senate is set to vote on the bill this week, but the measure’s fate in
the House is still uncertain.
Clinton gave a tempered response on trade in April but has refused to
answer questions from the media about her concerns or thoughts on the issue
since.
That, Grijalva said, is not acceptable for a candidate seeking favor with
progressives.
“That is critical,” he said. “The campaign and the secretary have to … tell
us where they stand on it.”
A spokesman for Clinton’s campaign, Josh Schwerin, said Clinton appreciates
the support she’s seen from the left.
“Hillary Clinton appreciates the support of so many members of the
Progressive Caucus and looks forward to continuing to work with them
throughout the campaign,” Schwerin said. “She will build on the proposals
she’s laid out on issues like criminal justice reform, immigration and
helping everyday Americans get ahead and stay ahead.”
And the campaign has signaled in recent weeks that Clinton is eyeing the
populist base that helped elect President Barack Obama. Campaign manager
Robby Mook excited liberals when he said on CNBC that voters are seeking
out a candidate who is a “champion” for progressive issues like “debt-free
college.”
Clinton also gave a speech in April on the need to end “mass incarceration”
that many progressives lauded.
Still, there’s pressure on lawmakers’ in progressive districts to stay out
of the endorsement game until later in the election. Grijalva, who
represents the Tucson and Phoenix areas, said liberal voters in his state
would question his judgment if he got out early in favor of Clinton.
“I hear more about Sen. Warren than anybody else, people saying that she
should be an alternative … but if there is any person being talked about
Secretary Clinton sounding more like, it’s Elizabeth Warren,” he said.
“If I were to endorse Hillary Clinton, if someone like Elizabeth Warren was
in the race, there would be a lot of questions [from progressives.] A lot
of questions,” Grijalva added.
To be sure, many progressives have already endorsed Clinton. Rep. Karen
Bass (D-Calif.), a member of the Progressive Caucus, tweeted her
endorsement in the days after Clinton announced. And Rep. David Cicilline
(D-R.I.) said at the time of the announcement that he “can’t wait” to see
her elected to the White House.
But the majority of the Progressive Caucus isn’t ready to jump on board
yet. And congressional sources say that while endorsements are inevitable
for Clinton, progressives want to see her work to woo them first,
especially when one of their own, Sanders, has jumped into the race.
Even senior leaders in the Democratic Party haven’t given Clinton their
formal nod. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who helped recruit then-Sen.
Obama to challenge Clinton in 2008, was asked about the 2016 Democratic
field during an interview earlier this month on MSNBC.
“I have a few friends out there,” Reid said. But he didn’t offer an
endorsement of Clinton and touted the benefits of a competitive primary.
“Everybody — everybody knows I love the Clintons,” Reid said. “And I don’t
need to say more.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelsoi hasn’t formally endorsed Clinton,
either. She said in January that Clinton would likely win the general
election if nominated, even though the party isn’t “devoid of other voices.”
“Well, your question was, do I believe she’s the presumed nominee and will
she win if she runs,” Pelosi said at the time. “If the secretary runs, I
believe that she will win and she will be one of the best-prepared people
to enter the White House in a long time in terms of her experience and her
knowledge.”
5 Things You Might Not Know About Hillary Clinton
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/20/us/politics/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-hillary-clinton.html>
// NYT // Amy Chozick – May 19, 2015
She is not exactly an open book, though she has written six of them. Most
presidential candidates would count themselves lucky to finish their
campaigns as recognized as Hillary Rodham Clinton started this one
(excluding Chipotle restaurants near Toledo, at least). Here are some
things you may still not know about her.
A Formative Experience With Slime
Fresh out of Wellesley, she worked in a salmon cannery in Valdez, Alaska,
wearing hip boots and an apron. The fish would be slit open, and young
Hillary Rodham’s job was to “slime” them, or “to take a spoon and clean out
the insides,” she told David Letterman in 2007. “Best preparation for being
in Washington that you can possibly imagine.”
She’s Bounced Back Before
She failed the Washington, D.C., bar exam in 1973 — but passed the Arkansas
one.
‘Drink Your Wine With a Merry Heart’
She has been known to enjoy a drink or two — though she grew up in the
Methodist Church memorizing passages from the Bible and still calls it “the
biggest influence on my thinking.”
Comedy With an Edge
She may be stressing sunny earnestness in the early going of her
presidential campaign, but Mrs. Clinton has a funny and sarcastic side,
with a streak of biting wit. Ask Dick Armey. Or Barack Obama.
No, Ella No Puede
She will not win many votes with Latinos for her Spanish accent. (Then
again, Jeb Bush — who makes a habit of speaking Spanish — doesn’t have this
song.) “I’m barely monolingual,” she said last month, making light of her
language skills while recalling how Spanish-speaking parents worried about
being unable to talk to their children in English.
What Young Feminists Think of Hillary Clinton
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/2016-hillary-clinton-feminists-20150515>
// National Journal // Molly Mirhashem - May 16, 2015
Alexandra Svokos was six years old, growing up in Franklin Lakes, New
Jersey, when she became a Hillary Clinton fan. It was 1998, and Clinton had
published Dear Socks, Dear Buddy, a collection of children's letters
addressed to the first family's pets. Svokos became so obsessed with the
book, she recalls, that she wrote her own letter—not to Socks the cat or
Buddy the Labrador, but to Clinton herself. When she got a reply on
official White House stationery with the first lady's signature, Svokos was
thrilled.
Clinton was an early feminist icon for many women of Svokos's
generation—long before they even began to think of themselves as feminists.
Svokos, who's now 23 and a fellow at The Huffington Post, grew up with
parents who called themselves feminists and practiced gender equality in
the house, balancing household responsibilities and encouraging Svokos and
her two sisters to "fight for what we deserved." Mostly, she says, feminism
meant "girl power" to her—and that meant, in turn, rooting for Clinton when
she made her first run for the presidency in 2008. Svokos was in high
school then, and her ideas about feminism were still pretty simple; she
admired Clinton "because she was a woman, rather than knowing much about
what she stood for."
Eight years later, Svokos's notion of feminism has evolved—and the prospect
of Hillary Clinton becoming president no longer fills her with unbridled
excitement. Svokos says her ideas about feminism began to change when she
studied economics at Columbia University, beginning in 2010. As she learned
about economic inequality in the United States and around the world, she
says, she began to see how gender, race, and class were intertwined—how,
for instance, expanding access to birth control can stimulate an economy by
enabling women to pursue their own careers.
Feminism came to mean something very different from girl power. And Hillary
Clinton came to look like the symbol of an older generation of women more
concerned with female empowerment—in particular, with white, middle-class,
American female empowerment—than with broader issues of social and economic
justice. Svokos says she'll vote for Clinton in 2016, but she's not
expecting her to make social justice and inequality true priorities if she
makes it to the White House. "I find her lacking, in that I realize she's
not likely to push for the kind of change I'd like to see," Svokos says.
"At the same time, though, I believe she knows how to manage politics and
will be more than capable in the position."
Among feminists of her generation, Svokos is hardly alone in her lukewarm
feelings about Hillary Clinton's presidential bid. I recently interviewed
47 young women, most in their early to mid-20s, who call themselves
feminists; they talked about what feminism means to them and shared their
thoughts about Clinton's candidacy and public image. While the overwhelming
majority of these women said they would likely vote for her in 2016, only
about a quarter of them were enthusiastic or emphatic in their support.
Jennifer Schaffer, a 22-year-old weekend editor at Vice, summed up a common
sentiment among these women: "I'm glad we have a female presidential
candidate," she told me, "but it's incredibly difficult to get excited
about something that should have happened decades ago." A vote for Clinton,
many said, would be a vote by default, because no other viable progressive
alternatives—female or male—are in the offing.
While it's not exactly news that Clinton is a less-than-ideal candidate for
many on the Left, the critique of her from those on the vanguard of
contemporary feminism is more surprising—and potentially problematic for
her presidential effort. To win in 2016, Clinton doesn't just need
half-hearted support from young women; she needs them to be a base of her
grassroots efforts, as fired up as young people were for Barack Obama in
2008 and 2012. But even as more and more young women are embracing the
"feminist" label—with pop-culture icons like Beyoncé making it central to
their public personas—the feminism that Clinton represents seems
increasingly outmoded. While her campaign banks on young feminists like
Svokos and Schaffer being "Ready for Hillary," these women say they're
ready for more.
HILLARY CLINTON came of age during the peak years of second-wave feminism.
The first wave began in the mid-1800s, with women's suffrage as the goal;
the second stretched from the 1960s to the early 1980s, and focused on
reproductive and workplace rights. Writer and activist Betty Friedan is
usually credited with catalyzing the second wave with The Feminine
Mystique. Published in 1963, the landmark book called for women's
liberation from housework, with Friedan famously writing: "We can no longer
ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my
husband and my children and my house.' "
As the feminism of Friedan and second-wave stalwarts like Gloria Steinem
moved into the mainstream, some began to criticize it as a movement
tailored to white women of means. Who, they asked, would clean the homes
and care for the children of Friedan's liberated middle-class housewives?
Where was their liberation? Such questions fed into a larger critique of
second-wave feminism: that it saw white American women's concerns as
representing those of all women.
In 1989, a term emerged for a feminist philosophy that would include women
of color and other marginalized groups: "intersectionality." To the
uninitiated, the word might sound like unwieldy academic jargon. But
without my bringing it up, many of the women I spoke to said
intersectionality was the foundation of their feminism—and of their
skepticism about Clinton. First coined by legal scholar and professor
Kimberlé Crenshaw, the word refers to the connections (the "intersections")
between different systems of oppression—not just sexism, but also racism,
homophobia, transphobia, and classism. It's a recognition that a black
woman, for instance, is not affected independently by racism and
sexism—those forms of discrimination are inextricably linked, which makes
her experience sexism differently from a white woman and racism differently
from a black man.
The concept itself was far from new; it stretched as far back, at least, as
Sojourner Truth's famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech in 1851, in which she
highlighted the dramatic differences between the ways black and white women
experience sexism. "That man over there says that women need to be helped
into carriages and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place
everywhere," Truth said. "Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over
mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?"
Now the idea had a name. But in the 1990s, as intersectionality was gaining
popularity in academic circles, Hillary Clinton was bringing her own, more
traditional brand of feminism to her role as first lady. Her domestic
initiatives included adoption, foster care, and child care. In 1995,
Clinton gave her famous Beijing speech to the United Nations' Fourth World
Conference on Women, declaring that "women's rights are human rights." She
helped to form the Justice Department's Violence Against Women Office and
partnered with then–Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to found the
Vital Voices Democracy Initiative, a series of conferences devoted to
promoting female leaders and involving women around the globe in politics.
In the early and mid-2000s, after she left the White House and took up
residence in the U.S. Senate, Clinton largely shifted away from a
women-centered agenda as she worked to bolster her presidential résumé. At
the same time, young bloggers like Lauren Bruce (Feministe) and Jessica
Valenti (Feministing) were bringing feminist theory out of the Ivory Tower.
"Each month seemed to bring a new site with feminist content," Rebecca
Traister writes in her 2010 book, Big Girls Don't Cry. "At various points
there were about six sites calling themselves The F-Word."
Social media changed the landscape of feminism. Young women who might not
learn about feminism in their schools or communities could find primers on
Tumblr blogs with names like intersectional feminism 101. Their feminist
awakenings thus involved, from the start, debates about second-wave
feminism's perceived failures of inclusivity. "Anyone who entered the
feminist conversation in the Internet age has immediate access to not only
research about those failures, but also to a lot of the conversations about
them," says feminist organizer and writer Shelby Knox, who's 28. "The
barriers are a lot lower for participation in the movement."
Young women could now do more than read about feminist issues and discuss
them in class; they could find communities of women on Twitter or Tumblr
whose experiences they could relate to—or who could open up new vistas for
them on what other women's lives are like. They could participate in the
creation of a new feminism—one that would be a far cry from Friedan's. By
2011, the writer Flavia Dzodan was famously declaring on her blog: "My
feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit." Her words became a
rallying cry.
As young women's notions of feminism evolved and broadened, so did their
idea of what constitutes "women's issues" in the political arena. "If
you're taking intersectionality as the foundation of this kind of feminism,
you wouldn't just be concerned with how any particular policy issue is
affecting women," says Gwendolyn Beetham, director of the Global Village at
Douglass Residential College, the women's residential college affiliated
with Rutgers University. "But you would be asking, 'Which women, and how?'
And you would be asking this whether or not you are a member of one of
those groups."
To young women like Sylvie Edman, a 20-year-old student at the University
of Massachusetts, Amherst, Clinton embodies "corporate feminism," which
Edman defines concisely: "It's empowering women who are already powerful."
Clinton and Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook COO and author of Lean In, are
often name-dropped in this context; while they experience sexism, the
thinking goes, they've been able to dare greatly because of their race and
class—while being helped along the way by working-class women and women of
color who didn't have the same opportunities.
Some of the concerns raised by the women I spoke to about Clinton were
traditional "women's issues" like reproductive justice and equal pay. But
just as many brought up police brutality, criminal-justice reform, and
environmental issues as primary concerns—and as integral to what they mean
by "feminism." Some of the most commonly expressed critiques of Clinton
echoed those of many left-of-center Americans: She's "hawkish" on foreign
affairs, "part of a political dynasty," and simply "not very progressive."
Collier Meyerson, who writes for the website Fusion, told me that her ideal
candidate "wouldn't be part of a legacy, and wouldn't be a career
politician." A candidate more like Barack Obama—"somebody who is rooted
more in community-organizing"—would fit the bill better, Meyerson says.
Ayesha Siddiqi, the 24-year-old editor-in-chief of the online magazine The
New Inquiry, says that this range of concerns should be no surprise.
"Feminist issues," she says, "are no more complicated than the issues of
people's lives." But that philosophy makes young women's views of
Clinton—and her campaign's efforts to galvanize them behind her—very
complicated indeed.
AT THE ANNUAL Women in the World Summit in New York this April, Sam
Viqueira stuck out from the crowd. The summit, a high-powered gathering of
leaders and activists launched by former New Yorker and Daily Beast editor
Tina Brown in 2010, this year featured a keynote address by Hillary
Clinton. Most of the women in attendance looked like Clinton's crowd, her
generation: Dressed business casual, the mostly middle-aged women flocked
to the free coffee and Luna bars on offer, chatted in small groups, and
snapped selfies in front of a Dove-sponsored backdrop. The 17-year-old
Viqueira and her high school friend stood off to the side in a small
lounge, looking like they were dressed for a regular day of school. They'd
taken the train in from Maplewood, New Jersey. "To me, feminism isn't only
about wanting equality for all genders," Viqueira told me later, "but
wanting and advocating for the equality of all oppressed groups, which can
and do intersect."
In some respects, Viqueira exemplifies the rising generation of
feminists—and their conflicted feelings about Clinton. She grew up with
three sisters and parents who were big on women's empowerment, encouraging
the girls to play sports and study math and science. But she credits social
media with teaching her about the intersection of race and gender, and the
issues women face outside of the United States; she first read the term
"intersectionality" online when she was just 15 and now follows a lot of
young women on Twitter who help broaden her perspective.
This spring, she's taking the first gender-studies class ever offered at
her public high school. Next fall, Viqueira will be old enough to cast her
first vote. That has led her, like so many other young feminists, to think
long and hard about what Clinton would—and wouldn't—represent as the first
woman president. "It's nice to see a strong female candidate running for
president," Viqueira says, but she can't help wishing it were a woman with
a different track record. She's particularly troubled by Clinton's support
of the 1996 welfare-reform bill her husband signed and of the Clinton-era
crime-fighting legislation that, among other things, lengthened prison
sentences for drug offenses. At best, she says, Clinton has been
inconsistent on social-justice issues; at worst, she has been a hypocrite.
While Viqueira is hesitant to say she'll vote for Clinton, she acknowledges
that the limited options for progressive-minded voters will probably push
her in that direction. But it bothers her to see Clinton held up as a model
feminist: "I think it's problematic to assume that just because she's a
woman, she's the best spokesperson for all women."
Clinton's first presidential campaign relied heavily on that assumption. An
internal campaign memo from March 2007, written by the campaign's chief
strategist and pollster, Mark Penn, and published in The Atlantic the
following year, advised Clinton thusly:
1) Start with a base of women.
a. For these women, you represent a breaking of barriers.
b. The winnowing out of the most competent and qualified in an unfair,
male-dominated world.
c. The infusion of a woman and a mother's sensibilities into a world of war
and neglect.
2) Add on a base of lower- and middle-class voters.
a. You see them; you care about them.
b. You were one of them, it is your history.
c. You are all about their concerns (health care, education, energy, child
care, college, etc.).
For young feminists, Penn's memo, and Clinton's campaign, represented the
antithesis of intersectional thinking. The problem isn't merely the
assumption that women would be Clinton's primary base because of their
gender alone; it's also the fact that lower- and middle-class voters are
itemized as a separate group, with a different (and far more specific) set
of concerns from those of "women." "With strategies like this," Traister
writes, "it was not unjust to suggest that one serious problem with the
Clinton campaign leadership was that it did not think much of the women
with whom it was supposed to be making history." Traister notes that "Penn
assured Hillary that internal polling showed that 94% of young women would
automatically vote for the first female president. It was perhaps this
confidence that led him to shrug off concerns about reaching them." In the
end, according to a CBS News poll, Penn's initial estimates were way off:
53 percent of young women backed Obama over Clinton.
Far from a high-water mark for feminism, Siddiqi, The New Inquiry editor,
sees Clinton's presidential campaigns as "the nadir of the 'Lean In'
feminism moment. This is what you get when that's what your feminism looks
like," she says. "You don't get a victory that all women can celebrate."
OF COURSE, plenty of young women will be celebrating next November if
Hillary Clinton wins the presidency—including some who see themselves
rooted in "intersectionality." Gabriel Clarke, a 20-year-old musician and
student at Oakwood University in Alabama, says she had a wake-up moment
during protests over the shooting of Michael Brown last summer in Ferguson,
Missouri. "A young woman grabbed the microphone and said, 'I am a woman,
but before I am a woman, I am black.' And I was thinking, that's not how we
have to look at these things. That's not how we have to be. We have to
understand that we are both of those things simultaneously."
Women of color like herself have long been "on the back burner in the
movement," Clarke says. It's a welcome change that "people are starting to
see that you can't have a social movement about equality and leave out
everyone else who's not a white woman." But intersectional thinking hasn't
dimmed her passion for electing Clinton. The first time Clinton ran, Clarke
was just 13. She had a hard time taking the candidate seriously, she says,
because of the media's relentless focus on her hair, clothes, and manner of
speaking. But the summer before Clarke went off to college in 2013, her
impression was changed by watching the documentary Miss Representation,
which shines a critical light on the way women leaders are portrayed by the
media. "It really opened my eyes and made me see Hillary in a totally
different way," Clarke says. "They talked more about her pantsuits than her
policies!"
Like most of the one-quarter of these young women who told me they're gung
ho for Clinton, Clarke cites the candidate's extensive experience—the same
experience others use to knock her as a "career politician"—as a prime
factor in her support. Clinton, says Clarke, is obviously the
most-qualified candidate in the race. "But that's the story of being a
woman," she says. "You have to be ten times better than everyone else to
even get your foot in the door." Clarke realizes that many feminists of
color are "very skeptical" of Clinton, wondering "whether she will really
be a champion or a voice for them, or only for white women"—and she gets
the skepticism. But to her, there's something more fundamental at stake: "I
think that even her as a symbol for women, that a woman can be president,
is powerful enough."
This time around, the Clinton campaign isn't taking that kind of solidarity
for granted. Young feminists' social and economic views may have been
overlooked in 2008, but in the early stages of Clinton's second run,
they've been front and center. You could hear it in her keynote at the
Women in the World Summit, where Clinton talked about inequities in what
women are paid, taking care to note the "even wider gaps for women of
color." You could hear it in another speech she recently gave in New York
calling for police reform and in her frequent invocations of income
inequality. "Americans have fought their way back from tough economic
times," Clinton said in the April video announcing her campaign. "But the
deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top."
Such talk is welcomed by Clinton skeptics like Viqueira, the 17-year-old,
who sees the candidate "redefining her feminism to be all-inclusive."
Collier Meyerson says that Clinton's announcement video—which, as pundits
noted, took pains to feature just about every group of "marginalized"
people in America—was a clear attempt to reach people ignored during her
2008 campaign. "My hope is that she continues with this thread," Meyerson
says, "and goes on to pull in people from different socioeconomic classes,
backgrounds, and races."
By and large, these women say they'll need to see more evidence of
Clinton's new inclusiveness before their ambivalent support morphs into
enthusiasm. "So far, she's hit on a lot of the things I'm passionate
about," says Laura Brown, a 26-year-old fashion designer and seamstress in
Los Angeles. "I want to see her prove it. I want to know it's genuine and
not just part of the game."
OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE
Why Not Martin O’Malley?
<http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/martin-omalley/> // Harvard
Political Review // Quinn Mulholland - May 18, 2015
On April 10, Elizabeth Warren joined Jon Stewart on the Daily Show and
declared, “Powerful corporations [and] rich people have figured out that if
you can bend the government to help you just a little bit, it’s a
tremendous payoff, and if you can bend it to help you just a little bit
more and a little bit more, the playing field just gets more and more
tilted, and the rich and the powerful just do better and better.” A week
later, Martin O’Malley stood before a packed crowd at Harvard’s Institute
of Politics and proclaimed, “Concentrated wealth has accumulated
concentrated political power in the halls of our Congress, and also in
many, many, many of our state houses, making it harder than ever to get
things done.”
Both of these quotes are emblematic of a nascent populist movement in the
Democratic Party. Both reflect a deep concern that all Americans don’t have
an equal shot at prosperity. Both demonstrate a growing opposition to the
centrist Democratic policies of the Clinton era—the trade policies and the
welfare reform—that seemed to mostly benefit the wealthiest Americans.
Yet it is Martin O’Malley, not Elizabeth Warren, who has a proven record of
accomplishing real progress on these issues on a state level. It is Martin
O’Malley, not Elizabeth Warren, who became the first major Democratic
politician to endorse a national $15 minimum wage at the Institute of
Politics on Thursday. And it is Martin O’Malley, not Elizabeth Warren, who
is seriously considering challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic
nomination for president in 2016.
So why have political pundits come to the consensus that Elizabeth Warren
is the only one who could give Hillary a run for her money in the
Democratic primary? Perhaps it is O’Malley’s lack of name recognition. He
is currently polling at around 0.3 percent in the Iowa Democratic Caucus,
compared to Clinton’s 58 percent, and Warren’s 17 percent. But that number
is increasing, and O’Malley received a warm reception in recent trips to
New Hampshire and Iowa.
Perhaps it is because O’Malley is not a woman. While a first female
president would certainly be a symbolic victory for women, it is unclear
that a Clinton presidency would produce many tangible benefits for women.
In fact, in terms of policy, O’Malley seems to have proposed just as many,
if not more, policies to help women as Clinton has. At the Harvard
Institute of Politics, O’Malley declared, “We must recognize that policies
that are good for women and families, like paid leave and safe and
affordable child care, are also good for our national economy, and for
economic growth, because when women succeed, our American economy also
succeeds.”
O’Malley also proclaimed his support for a federal $15 minimum wage, which
would give a much-needed raise to the 3 million Americans who work at or
below minimum wage, 62 percent of whom are women. Clinton has voiced her
support for fast food workers striking for a higher wage, but she has yet
to establish how much of an increase in the minimum wage she would support.
Despite his gender, O’Malley could be the candidate that would make the
biggest difference for women.
O’Malley’s possible candidacy seems to already be pushing Clinton towards
the left. She recently declared her support for a Supreme Court decision
guaranteeing the right to gay marriage nationwide, which she previously
thought should be dealt with on a “state by state” basis, and she switched
her position on driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants. O’Malley
chided Clinton for these flip-flops, telling the HPR at a press conference,
“I’m glad Secretary Clinton has come around to the right position on these
issues … I believe that we are best as a party when we lead according to
our principles, and not according to the polls.”
Yet Clinton’s campaign has challenged the notion that she is a newcomer to
the populist themes her candidacy is centered around. Close friends and
advisers insist that she has championed populist causes long before
Elizabeth Warren or Martin O’Malley ascended to the national stage. Even
so, there is no denying her many ties to Wall Street, which make it hard
for statements like “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the
top” to ring genuine.
Clinton will be nowhere near as “inevitable” in the general presidential
election as she was in the Democratic primary, assuming—perhaps
prematurely—that she wins it. She will have to face voters on the left
concerned with her ties to Wall Street and her flip-flopping on gay
marriage and immigration, as well as voters on the right who will have been
inundated with anti-Hillary attacks for months. Perhaps America is ready
for a genuinely populist Martin O’Malley campaign. O’Malley certainly
appears to be ready.
Bernie Sanders Wants to Be President, but He’s Already Facebook Royalty
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/politics/bernie-sanders-wants-to-be-president-but-hes-already-facebook-royalty.html>
// NYT // Nick Corasaniti - May 18, 2015
WASHINGTON — The quotes he posts are rarely pithy, and often sayings he
thinks up in the shower. The photographs he puts up sometimes show him
frowning, while others show him gazing oddly into the horizon. And he does
not seem to care about the importance of videos.
But somehow, Bernie Sanders, the 73-year-old senator from Vermont, has
emerged as a king of social media early in the 2016 presidential campaign,
amid a field of tech-savvy contenders.
His Facebook posts attract tens of thousands of likes and shares, and
threads about him often break through to the home page of Reddit, where the
cluster of topics rarely focuses on presidential election politics.
“I’m a grumpy old guy,” Mr. Sanders joked when explaining his approach to
posting online. “I know that people talk about their cats and ‘I’m walking
to the grocery story and getting a can of chicken soup’ and ‘this is so
exciting.’ By and large, we have not done that.”
Mr. Sanders’s prominence online is all the more improbable given that he
does not do many things the way social media experts say they should be
done.
He has not shied away from posts of 300 words or more, with a “continue
reading here” link to his personal website.
Mr. Sanders, an independent who describes himself as a socialist, has stuck
to an idiosyncratic method: posting images that share a quote, which he has
either written himself or dug up from a historical figure and then burned
onto a photograph. (President Theodore Roosevelt and President Dwight D.
Eisenhower are among those he has recently cited.)
Social networking sites like Facebook recommend that when users post text,
they do so with searchable words that would be attractive to newsfeed
algorithms and search engines.
But Mr. Sanders’s team rarely uses buzzy introductory text when sharing his
posts, leaving the chances of their going viral to users who stumble upon
them. Fortunately for Mr. Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic
nomination, he has loyal followers who somehow always know how to find his
latest musing.
Take, for example, a block quote advocating making Election Day a national
holiday. The quote is posted atop a stock photo of ballot boxes. And it
contains no searchable text. Still, it received nearly 100,000 likes and
22,000 shares. By comparison, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s video announcing her
presidential candidacy received over 79,000 likes and 41,000 shares.
“He can post a quote graphic or a long text-only Facebook status, and it
doesn’t really matter what the algorithm favors,” said Laura Olin, who was
in charge of the much-praised social media strategy for President Obama’s
2012 campaign.
“If it sounds like him,” she said, “his people will find it and spread it.”
And the reason Bernie Sanders posts sounds like him is that, for the most
part, they are from Bernie Sanders. He often comes to his Senate office
with quotes at the ready.
“Usually, it’s in the shower where something pops into my head,” Mr.
Sanders said, adding, “I play a very, very active role in writing,
literally writing, what goes up there on Facebook.”
And unlike many candidates, he does not share warm details of his daily
life. “People don’t need to know what I buy in the grocery store or what
the name of my dog is — I don’t own a dog, by the way — but they do need to
know why billionaires are getting richer and the poor getting poorer.”
A former journalist who began sending newsletters to his constituents in
the early 1990s, Mr. Sanders relishes writing. He carries yellow legal pads
with him wherever he goes, “for a little jabbering,” and their contents are
often turned verbatim into a posting.
A typical quote from him on his Facebook page, which often deals with
income inequality, says, “We must rebuild American manufacturing and
rewrite our trade agreements so that our largest export is not our jobs.”
“I think the people that have the most success on Facebook, they’re
developing an authentic method and sticking to it,” said Anton Vuljaj,
director of advertising at IMGE, a consulting firm. “He’s matching what
he’s saying online to what he’s doing offline.”
While Mr. Sanders’s popularity cuts across social media platforms, it
appears most pronounced on Facebook. He did not start his campaign with a
big announcement event, and he did not enjoy the explosion of interest that
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky experienced
when they declared that they were seeking the Republican nomination.
Mr. Sanders had 1.3 million Facebook interactions, compared with 5.6
million for Mr. Cruz and two million for Mr. Paul, according to data
provided by Facebook.
But since their announcements, the popularity of Mr. Cruz and Mr. Paul on
Facebook has tempered, while Mr. Sanders’s has risen. In a seven-day
stretch leading up to May 3, Mr. Sanders had 5.3 million interactions,
compared with 1.2 million for Mr. Paul and 1.7 million for Mr. Cruz.
On Reddit, he is similarly popular. The site’s home page, which is powered
by the so-called upvotes of users on a topic thread, is often filled with
viral news and esoteric, humorous discussions; politics is often found only
on a subreddit. But Mr. Sanders is one elected official who has on occasion
leapt over the barrier.
Among politicians, he is one of the most frequent posters to the site, and
nearly a quarter of the top most-voted politics posts of all time on Reddit
are about or by Mr. Sanders.
But Mr. Sanders has not eclipsed everyone else in the 2016 field on the
social media front. Mrs. Clinton’s videos are viewed by hundreds of
thousands, Mr. Paul and Mr. Cruz have large and dedicated armies of
supporters, and Jeb Bush has built a following by making most of his major
announcements online.
But for a candidate who performs poorly in the polls, Mr. Sanders appears
to be everywhere. And like many of his positions over the years, his social
media tactics are unlikely to change with the times.
“I’m not some kind of tech nerd, I really am not,” Mr. Sanders said. “But I
have always believed in communication, and not just photo ops and stuff,
but educating people, and communicating with people about the real work
that we’re doing.”
Sanders: Make Wall St. pay college tuition
<http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/18/sanders-make-wall-st-pay-college-tuition/27542443/>
// Burlington Free Press // April Burbank – May 18, 2015
Sen. Bernie Sanders says he's about to introduce a bill that would provide
free tuition at public colleges and universities by using Wall Street stock
transfer fees.
The independent senator from Vermont and aspiring Democratic presidential
candidate said Monday that unaffordable college education and high student
debt hinders the United States economy.
"What we're going to be introducing tomorrow is legislation which says two
things, that tuition in public colleges and universities will be free, and
that we're going to substantially lower interest rates on student debt,"
said Sanders, I-Vt., following an unrelated event at the University of
Vermont Medical Center.
Tuition-free public higher education would cost about $70 billion per year,
Sanders said.
"The program that we're offering will be a grant program by which the
federal government puts in $2 and the states put in $1," Sanders said.
"Now, $70 billion is a lot of money, but in a nation in which we lose $100
billion every year because corporations stash their money in tax havens
around the world, that's one way you can approach it.
"What we are going to be dealing with tomorrow is a transaction fee on
large stock transfers," Sanders continued. "So we're going to ask Wall
Street, whose greed and recklessness drove us into the recession that we're
climbing out of right now, to start helping us fund college education."
A spokesman for the Republican National Committee responded to the
potential cost of the proposal.
"We need to work to make college more affordable," said Republican
spokesman Raffi Williams, "but if Clinton and Sanders were truly interested
in helping students achieve the American Dream, they would fight to reduce
our $18 trillion national debt instead of adding to it."
Sanders expects to file the bill Tuesday with more details on the plan.
Elizabeth Warren Details Obama's Broken Trade Promises
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/18/elizabeth-warren-obama-broken-trade-promises_n_7302734.html>
// Huffington Post // Zack Carter - May 18, 2015
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) issued a report Monday
morning detailing decades of failed trade enforcement by American
presidents including Barack Obama, the latest salvo in an ongoing public
feud between Warren and Obama over the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Obama is currently negotiating the major trade pact with 11 other nations.
While the text of the TPP agreement remains classified information, it is
strongly supported by Republican leaders in Congress and corporate lobbying
groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The deal is opposed by most
congressional Democrats, along with labor unions, environmental groups and
advocates of Internet freedom.
Obama has repeatedly insisted the TPP will include robust labor
protections, and has dismissed Warren's criticisms as "dishonest," "bunk"
and "misinformation." On Monday, Warren fired back, showing that Obama
simply has not effectively enforced existing labor standards in prior trade
pacts. According to the report, a host of abuses, from child labor to the
outright murder of union organizers, have continued under Obama's watch
with minimal pushback from the administration.
"The United States does not enforce the labor protections in its trade
agreements," the report reads, citing analyses from the Government
Accountability Office, the State Department and the Department of Labor.
Of the 20 countries the U.S. currently has trade agreements with, 11 have
documented reliance on child labor, forced labor or other human rights
abuses related to labor, according to the report. The violations are not
confined to exploitation. Since Obama finalized a labor action plan with
the government of Colombia in 2011, 105 union activists have been murdered.
Obama called the Colombian deal "a win-win for workers" at the time.
Despite these trade violations, none of these countries have faced
significant consequences from the United States government.
Warren's report undercuts an Obama public relations offensive that has
repeatedly characterized TPP as "the most progressive trade deal in
history." The Senate is currently considering legislation that would grant
Obama "fast track" authority, barring Congress from amending any trade pact
he negotiates, including TPP. Liberals are concerned TPP will exacerbate
income inequality and undermine key regulations.
But while much of the TPP controversy has concerned the legal language
involved in the agreement itself, Warren's report highlights a broader
concern among progressives. Regardless of what the final TPP deal looks
like, presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama himself, have all
failed to effectively enforce promises to protect workers, even as rogue
regimes have continued to benefit from other provisions of the agreements.
"We have two decades of experience with free trade agreements under both
Democratic and Republican Presidents. Supporters of these agreements have
always promised that they contain tough standards to protect workers," the
report reads. "The rhetoric has not matched the reality."
The Obama administration has said it takes labor violations seriously and
has pushed countries to improve conditions.
“The Obama Administration is taking unprecedented actions to promote and
protect fundamental labor rights and ensure acceptable conditions of work,”
reads a joint report from the Department of Labor and the Office of the
U.S. Trade Representative from February. Those commitments include
“bringing the first-ever labor dispute under a free trade agreement"-- in
Guatemala.
But labor unions and other critics say these measures have been
ineffective. The AFL-CIO has been pressing for action on Guatemalan
violations for Obama’s entire term in office, and the dispute remains
unresolved. Meanwhile, as Warren's report documents, Guatemala remains one
of the most dangerous places in the world for union workers. In 2013 and
2014, according to the AFL-CIO, 17 labor activists were murdered in
Guatemala while the Obama administration pursued diplomatic action. Three
of the slain union workers were reportedly killed during a dispute with a
local government over unpaid back wages.
Much of Warren's trade critique has focused on the capacity for free trade
pacts to undermine financial regulations. Last week, Canadian Finance
Minister Joe Oliver gave a speech arguing that a key tenet of Obama's 2010
Wall Street reform law violates the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Snoop Dogg: I'll be voting for Hillary Clinton
<http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/242435-snoop-dogg-ill-be-voting-for-hillary-clinton>
// The Hill // Judy Kurtz - May 18, 2015
Snoop Dogg is high on Hillary Clinton.
The “Gin & Juice“ rapper said he’ll be supporting the former secretary of
State and Democratic candidate in her 2016 White House bid.
“You know I like to be politically correct, but sometimes I’m politically
incorrect,” Snoop Dogg said when asked about his political pick on Bravo’s
“Watch What Happens Live” on Sunday. “But I’ll say that I would love to see
a woman in office because I feel like we’re at that stage in life to where
we need a perspective other than the male’s train of thought.”
“And just to have a woman speaking from a global perspective as far as
representing America, I’d love to see that. So I’ll be voting Ms. Clinton,”
he added.
Snoop Dogg is the latest high-profile entertainer to throw his support
behind Clinton in the last few days. In similar remarks to ITK last week,
R&B star Ne-Yo called Clinton “a favorite of mine.”
GOP
In Philadelphia, Rand Paul Talks Privatized Amtrak and Criminal Justice
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-18/in-philadelphia-rand-paul-talks-privatized-amtrak-and-criminal-justice>
// Bloomberg // David Weigel - May 18, 2015
One day before Philadelphia's Democratic primary for mayor, an event
usually tantamount to election, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told an audience
at the city's National Constitution Center that his brand of Republicanism
could make urban politics competitive again.
"If I am the nominee, we will compete in Philadelphia," Paul told radio
host Dom Giordano. "I'll ask Hillary Clinton, what have you done for
criminal justice ... I'd ask her, what's your plan to help poor people in
Philadelphia?"
Philadelphia has not elected a Republican to the mayor's office since 1951;
no Republican candidate has come particularly close to the top job since
the near-miss 1999 run of businessman Sam Katz. The city's strong
Democratic vote has kept Pennsylvania in the Democrats' Electoral
College–in 2012, the Obama-Biden ticket's 492,339 margin out of the city
overwhelmed a Romney-Ryan edge from the rest of the state.
Paul, who spoke first in what the National Constitution Center hopes to be
a series of candidate events, tried to front the issues where he could run
to Hillary Clinton's left. (The crowd, which frequently interrupted Paul
with applause, included more than a dozen college-aged volunteers wearing
shorts and campaign T-shirts.) He retold the story of Christos Sourovelis,
a Philadelphian whose home was briefly seized in a drug raid that targeted
his son, and who subsequently found legal representation from the
libertarian Institute for Justice.
"A lot of us don't understand it, but a lot of people who are poor live on
the edge," said Paul, describing visits to urban centers that had been
"decimated" by over-incarceration. He walked through the scenario of a poor
man with $2,000 to his name being shaken down by police over contraband
they'd claimed to have found on him. "The government will sometimes say to
the people in the car, we'll let you keep a thousand," Paul said. "They
negotiate on the side of the road."
In a Q&A that included suggestions from the crowd, Paul tried to focus on
libertarian-liberal synergy more than traditional conservative politics. He
quickly dispatched a question about abortion rights, saying laws should be
left to the states, averring that he "didn't run for office because of this
issue." (One of Paul's first acts as a newly elected senator, in 2011, was
the introduction of an amendment that would have defined personhood as
starting at conception.) But he talked more about police militarization
that he had in some time.
"I see no reason to have a 20-ton, mine-resistant, ambush-protection
vehicle in the streets of any country," Paul said. "We've found that a
third of this military surplus is brand new... is this some kind of
churning? It's not a great idea to show up everywhere with a grand military
presence, like an army."
Paul also went long on fiscal policy, saying that Amtrak would be better
off in private hands. "You would think after having commercial railroads
for over 100 years, we could do a better job than that," he said, referring
to last week's derailment just miles north of Philadelphia.
"They've lost money every year they've been existent. I'm looking at the
easement and thinking, 'Man, we should sell that.' [Imagine] if we could
sell that and let a real company put up a fast train."
Rand Paul Vows to Filibuster to Block Patriot Act
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/rand-paul-threatens-filibuster-block-anti-terrorism-act-31126707>
// ABC News // Steve Peoples, Associated Press - May 18, 2015
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul vowed on Monday to "everything possible" to block
renewal of the terrorism-era Patriot Act, but the Republican presidential
hopeful conceded it may not be enough.
Speaking in front of Philadelphia's Independence Hall, Paul lashed out at
the National Security Agency's bulk collection of American citizens' phone
records, which many in his own party say are needed to prevent terrorism.
"We will do everything possible — including filibustering the Patriot Act
to stop them," Paul said, acknowledging that a filibuster likely wouldn't
be enough to block the program. "They have the votes inside the Beltway.
But we have the votes outside the Beltway, and we'll have that fight."
The Patriot Act, which authorizes the surveillance program, will expire on
June 1 unless Congress acts.
Government surveillance could play prominently in the GOP presidential
primary contest, which is heating up just as Congress debates surveillance
programs initiated by President George W. Bush's administration and
continued under President Barack Obama.
Supporters of the surveillance law, including presidential candidate Sen.
Marco Rubio, R-Fla., say it's critical to anti-terrorism efforts. Paul and
fellow Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, see the law as a privacy infringement.
Neither Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker nor former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has
yet to take a formal position on the program, although Bush recently
praised the Obama administration's use of big metadata programs that began
under Bush's older brother, former President George W. Bush.
Paul has promised to sign an executive order to end such government
surveillance programs on his first day in office, should he win the
presidency.
On Monday, Paul said he also opposes a House bill that would end the
government's bulk collection of phone records and replace it with a system
to search the data held by telephone companies on a case-by-case basis.
Paul said he feared the bill would transfer too much power to phone
companies and could jeopardize a related lawsuit.
Paul's comments on Monday also put him at odds with Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, who has introduced a separate version that would keep the
program as is.
"We do not have the votes to ultimately defeat the Patriot Act," he said.
"I can delay it. I can force them to debate it so the public at large can
know what they're doing."
R
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyward/rand-paul-cites-questionable-benghazi-reporting-in-forthcomi?utm_term=.qfEqY1mRY#.mr5QZ4DYx>and
Paul Cites Questionable Benghazi Reporting In Forthcoming Book
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyward/rand-paul-cites-questionable-benghazi-reporting-in-forthcomi?utm_term=.qfEqY1mRY#.mr5QZ4DYx>
// Buzzfeed News // Molly Ward – May 18, 2015
Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul cites information that has been
disputed or found to be baseless by the House Select Intelligence Committee
about the 2012 Benghazi attack in his new book Making a Stand: Moving
Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America.
In a chapter titled “Libya: A Jihadist Wonderland,” Paul writes at length
about the attack on the Benghazi compound and the ensuing political debate
over who is responsible for the tragic events.
“A story in Forbes magazine said that President Obama, Defense Secretary
Leon Panetta, and other high-ranking officials watched a live video feed of
the attack from a drone that hovered overhead, and did nothing,” Paul
writes. “The White House denied that gathering ever happened.”
The Forbes piece Paul cites, written by opinion contributor Larry Bell,
includes the same claim.
“Just one hour after the seven-hour-long terrorist attacks upon the U.S.
consulate in Benghazi began, our commander-in-chief, vice president,
secretary of defense and their national security team gathered together in
the Oval Office listening to phone calls from American defenders
desperately under siege and watching real-time video of developments from a
drone circling over the site,” Bell writes. “Yet they sent no military aid
that might have intervened in time to save lives.”
Reporting from CBS News cited by Bell states only that a real-time audio
feed of the attack was monitored by a diplomatic security official in
Washington at the time. While the attack was captured on security cameras
at the compound, the footage was only recovered 20 days later.
The Daily Beast reported that there was also footage of the attacks taken
by a U.S. surveillance drone, but there is no reporting to suggest that it
broadcast live.
Paul also writes, “Another report stated that the embassy made three urgent
requests for military back up during those hours and were denied. The
administration refuted that report also.”
That statement was also featured in an article by Bell another piece by
Bell, in which he cites reporting by Fox News that two Navy Seals “were
ordered to stand down three times following calls during the attack.”
The report on the Benghazi attack released by the Republican-led House
Select Intelligence Committee later found that there was no evidence “that
there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support.”
Paul cites an article by Seymour Hersh in the London Review of Books, in
which he reported that the CIA annex also attacked that night was part of
an operation to ship guns through Turkey into Syria to assist in arming the
Syrian rebels.
“It’s hard to imagine, should there be any legitimacy to the reports, that
the Secretary of State would be kept out of such a loop,” Paul writes. “If
the gunrunning operation in Benghazi existed, then Mrs. Clinton and the
very upper reaches of our government had to be aware and perhaps even
complicit.”
The House Select Intelligence report on the attack “found no evidence that
the CIA conducted unauthorized activities in Benghazi and no evidence that
the IC [Intelligence Community] shipped arms to Syria.”
An aide to Paul’s presidential campaign said the senator noted the two
allegations from Bell’s Forbes articles in an attempt to lay out the
narrative following the event.
In addition, the aide noted that reports on documents released on Monday by
the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch provide support for Hersh’s
gunrunning story ahead of the attack.
Why We Must Reform the VA
<https://medium.com/@JebBush/why-we-must-reform-the-va-8eb7e1dc2b3b> //
Medium // Jeb Bush – May 18, 2015
When veterans come home and leave active service, we have a duty to provide
care for them for the rest of their lives. This is an obligation we hold
dear, as President Lincoln made clear in his Second Inaugural: “With the
firmness in the right as God sees us to give to see the right,” he said
“let us… care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow,
and his orphan.”
Unfortunately, the recent scandals at the Department of Veterans Affairs
demonstrate that some in Washington do not take this responsibility
seriously. Americans are rightly upset.
A new report out last week showed that every year there was about $6
billion in waste, fraud, and abuse in our VA. This has been a systemic
problem. Last year, in Phoenix, a whistleblower came forward to show that
while the facility publicly reported on-time delivery of care, in
actuality, veterans were made to wait on a secret wait list to see doctors.
One such veteran was Thomas Breen, who had served in the United States
Navy. He was so proud of his service, he would only seek treatment at one
of the VA’s hospitals. After spotting blood in his urine in the fall of
2013, Thomas was seen by the Phoenix VA hospital and then released to be
seen at a later date. The wait list for an appointment was months long. As
his condition worsened, his family called and called again, insisting on an
appointment. In December, the VA hospital finally called to schedule an
appointment. There was no need. Thomas Breen had passed away a month
earlier, waiting for care that never came.
Soon after, the VA found that 120,000 veterans nationwide were either left
waiting for care or never received care. This came even after the VA’s
budget had been increased significantly for years. Where has the money gone?
This is a failure of the local VA hospital, but it is also an indictment of
the way Washington works. Too many Washington bureaucrats have treated our
veterans like they are just another line item in a budget, wedged between
the Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce.
We can do better.
It starts with accountability. As of February, only 8 employees out of 75
cited for disciplinary action in the wake of the VA scandal have been
fired. We can’t expect the culture of the VA to change until employees are
held responsible for failure to deliver what the taxpayers expect and
veterans deserve.
And it’s time we look at fresh approaches to providing health care to
veterans.
More vets should be able to take advantage of a Congressionally authorized
“choice” card, designed to give veterans a choice in where they receive
care. We can expand their access to neighborhood clinics, instead of making
them wait months to see a VA doctor or travel 200 miles to a VA hospital.
This would also ease the long queues of veterans waiting to see VA doctors.
The VA bureaucracy has been reluctant to change and slow to implement
reforms that passed in rare bipartisan fashion in 2014 that would bring
more veterans choice and increased accountability to the process.
We have to approach any reforms to the VA with humility before their
sacrifice, respect for their service, and reverence for the obligation we
owe them. When a service member concludes their active duty service, they
should know that we are ready to take on the responsibility of their care.
Jeb Bush’s GOP Rivals Keep Him Front and Center
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/jeb-bushs-gop-rivals-seize-on-his-iraq-missteps-1431890844>
// WSJ // Reid J. Epstein - May 17, 2015
DES MOINES, Iowa—Attacks on Jeb Bush are ramping up even before he enters
the 2016 presidential race, with fellow Republicans questioning everything
from his conservative bona fides to whether he is prepared for a long
campaign to become the party’s nominee.
Mr. Bush’s rivals, 10 of whom joined him for a Saturday night fundraising
dinner for the Iowa Republican Party, have latched onto the former Florida
governor’s shaky responses last week about the wisdom of his brother’s
entry into the Iraq war, ensuring the issue will dog him for the
foreseeable future.
It highlights the core challenge of Mr. Bush’s expected formal entry into
the campaign: a family name that has given him outsize attention and access
to an unparalleled fundraising network that at the same time could make it
difficult for him to forge a political independence.
It also shows that even though Mr. Bush’s political standing is weaker in
Iowa than elsewhere, he remains the focus of the race, with the other
presidential hopefuls implicitly defining themselves against him.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who has positioned himself as the only likely GOP
candidate not presenting an aggressive overseas military posture, suggested
to the audience of 1,300 Republicans at the state party’s Lincoln Day
dinner here that Mr. Bush would mount another unpopular war.
“The question was asked of one of our candidates this week, was the Iraq
war a mistake? Was it a good idea? Would you do it again?” Mr. Paul said.
“It’s a valid question, not because we’re just talking about history, but
we’re talking about the Middle East, where history repeats itself.”
The other White House contenders spent last week explaining that they
wouldn’t have started the Iraq war. By the time they arrived in Iowa, the
critique expanded to suggest that Mr. Bush, who is expected to raise far
more money than anyone else in the field, isn’t prepared to be the party’s
standard-bearer.
“Whoever we nominate as a Republican Party has got to be ready to answer
the tough questions,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is planning a June
presidential announcement, said in an interview.
In a hallway outside the state party dinner, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick
Santorum said the episode illustrates the need for the party to choose
someone who has been through the rigors of a national campaign.
“It just goes to show you, don’t try this at home, it’s hard,” said Mr.
Santorum, who placed second to Mitt Romney for the GOP presidential
nomination in 2012 and is planning to announce his intentions for a second
presidential campaign on May 27. “There’s a reason the Republican Party has
gone back to folks who have gone through it before, because they tend to be
a little better at doing it the next time around.”
Only hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) defended the Iraq war. But in
doing so, he made an implicit reminder of mistakes made by President George
W. Bush. “President Bush, W., had the same information everybody else in
the world did and made the best decision he could,” Mr. Graham said. “Bush
made mistakes, but he corrected his mistakes.”
The issue has proved to be tricky territory for other GOP contenders. In an
interview broadcast Sunday on Fox, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio struggled to
deliver a straight response to the question of whether the Iraq invasion
was worth it.
Mr. Bush’s new political problem began early last week when Fox News
broadcast an interview in which Mr. Bush said that, knowing what is known
now, he would have launched the Iraq war his brother began. During the
course of four days, his position evolved, beginning by saying he misheard
the question to making a categorical statement that he wouldn’t have
launched the Iraq war, given today’s information.
When he arrived in Iowa, Mr. Bush had no choice but to own the mistake. “I
answered the question wrong,” he told reporters in Iowa City. “We’re all
going to make mistakes.”
Robert Gates, who was defense secretary under both Mr. Bush’s brother and
President Barack Obama, said in a CBS interview broadcast Sunday that while
he wasn’t impressed by the foreign-policy experience of any of Mr. Bush’s
potential 2016 rivals, the former governor should have been ready for
questions about Iraq.
“It was an inevitable question that would be asked,” Mr. Gates said in the
interview. “And I think that the way to deal with it, frankly, is to say,
you don’t make policy by going back and reliving old decisions.”
Mr. Bush begins every campaign speech by noting his love for his father and
brother. He told a Republican National Committee gathering in Arizona last
week that he wouldn’t be “going out of my way” to criticize either previous
President Bush.
Tim Miller, a Jeb Bush spokesman, said he “was the most successful
conservative big state governor in the country and he is prepared for the
rigors of the campaign should he decide to run.”
Also weighing on Mr. Bush’s standing in Iowa is his plan, announced by
aides last week, to skip the August state straw poll, a major quadrennial
fundraiser for the state GOP.
State GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley on Saturday
night made explicit pitches to the other candidates to attend the straw
poll.
Now, even Iowa Republicans who figure to support Mr. Bush after he formally
declares himself a candidate said they were baffled by his Iraq stumbles.
“It’s been hard,” said Zach Nunn, an Iowa state representative who said he
is leaning toward backing Mr. Bush and with whom he had his third
one-on-one meeting of the year on Saturday. “It’s great to be popular. It’s
great to raise money. But for me what’s going to determine who’s the best
candidate is, do you have the leadership capability to run the country?”
Jeb Bush stands by opposition to same-sex marriage
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/18/politics/jeb-bush-gay-marriage-opposition/>
// CNN // Alexandra Jaffe - May 18, 2015
Washington (CNN)Jeb Bush stood by his opposition to same-sex marriage in a
new interview, saying he doesn't believe it's a constitutional right and
that traditional marriage is central to Catholicism.
"It's at the core of the Catholic faith, and to imagine how we are going to
succeed in our country unless we have committed family life, a
child-centered family system, is hard to imagine," he said on Christian
Broadcasting Network's "The Brody File."
"So, irrespective of the Supreme Court ruling — because they are going to
decide whatever they decide, and I don't know what they're going to do — we
need to be stalwart supporters of traditional marriage."
The Supreme Court is expected to rule next month on the constitutionality
of same-sex marriage, and many observers — even opponents of gay marriage —
believe the court will in some way expand marriage rights to gay men and
lesbians. Many in the GOP are split over how to tackle such a ruling, as
Evangelical Christians make up a significant subset of the GOP base and are
adamantly opposed to gay marriage.
Those Evangelical Christians remain some of Bush's biggest skeptics as he
moves towards a presidential run.
Bush didn't offer his own prescription for how to respond to the decision,
but he again reaffirmed that he doesn't believe same-sex marriage is a
constitutional right — "but I'm not a lawyer, and clearly this has been
accelerated at a warp pace."
The expected presidential contender then took aim at his likely Democratic
opponent in the race, Hillary Clinton, who surprised many in recently
calling for the Supreme Court to back gay marriage, a shift from just two
years prior when she said marriage was a matter best left to the states.
"What's interesting is that four years ago Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
had the same view that I just expressed to you. It's thousands of years of
culture and history is just being changed at warp speed. It's hard to
fathom why it is this way," Bush said.
Jeb Bush Says Christian Business Owners Can Refuse To Serve Gay Weddings
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/17/jeb-bush-gay-weddings_n_7301728.html?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000016>
// Huffington Post // Marina Fang - May 17, 2015
Likely Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said that Christian
business owners should not have to provide services for gay weddings if it
goes against their religious beliefs.
“Yes, absolutely, if it’s based on a religious belief,” he said when asked
by the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview Saturday if
businesses should be able to decline services to same-sex weddings.
The former Florida governor justified his position by claiming that not
providing a service does not count as discrimination if business owners
feel that it violates their religious rights.
“A big country, a tolerant country, ought to be able to figure out the
difference between discriminating someone because of their sexual
orientation and not forcing someone to participate in a wedding that they
find goes against their moral beliefs,” he said. “This should not be that
complicated. Gosh, it is right now.”
The blurry distinction has become a controversial topic, as many
wedding-related businesses around the country, like florists and bakeries,
have turned down gay customers, citing religious freedom. The issue became
politically charged in March, when Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law, which allows businesses to cite
religious rights as a reason for refusing service. Many in the GOP
presidential field, including Bush, defended the law. “Once the facts are
established, people aren’t going to see this as discriminatory at all,” he
said in March.
After widespread backlash, Pence was forced to sign a revised version of
the law, which delineated that businesses could not discriminate against
customers and clients on the basis of sexual orientation or identity. But
gay rights advocates argued that the revised law did little to amend the
original one, and that it still leaves much room for interpretation and
opens the door for discrimination.
In Saturday's interview, Bush also reiterated his opposition to marriage
equality, saying that gay marriage is not a constitutional right and that
"we need to be stalwart supporters of traditional marriage." He did say
last month that he would attend a gay wedding if asked.
Bush insists he's not writing off Iowa
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/bush-insists-hes-not-writing-off-iowa-118043.html?hp=rc1_4>
// Politico // Eli Stokols - May 18, 2015
DES MOINES, Iowa – His brother won the caucuses here in 2000. His likely
campaign manager is a veteran Iowa campaign strategist. And as he stumped
around the state this weekend, Jeb Bush repeatedly insisted he’s going to
compete hard in next year’s caucuses.
Even so, skepticism runs high about Bush’s intentions for next February’s
caucuses.
Between his low standing in state polls, the socially conservative bent of
the Iowa GOP base and his decision to skip the state’s straw poll in
August, Bush has lots of incentives to give up on Iowa next year.
Republicans here know it, which is why the former Florida governor spent
his weekend reassuring them he hasn’t already written off the state as a
lost cause.
“I’m going to be here. I’m here right now!” Bush told reporters Saturday
after appearing at a fundraiser in Iowa City for Sen. Chuck Grassley. “Why
would I be here if I wasn’t going to compete in Iowa?”
From Dubuque to Iowa City to the state GOP’s Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines
on Saturday night, Bush threw everything he had into the effort to convince
Iowans that he doesn’t plan to blow off the state. His intensely private
wife, Columba, and his son Jeb Jr., both accompanied him to Dubuque, where
he held an hourlong town hall. He took 11 questions from the crowd there,
and then a few dozen “selfies” with attendees before leaving. He met
privately with several top donors, county chairs and elected officials —
some of whom have been alarmed by Bush’s laissez-faire approach thus far to
Iowa — prior to his speech at the Republican Party dinner; when it was
over, he greeted a long receiving line of supporters in his hospitality
suite.
The decision to do a full day of in-state events — not just the dinner —
wasn’t lost on Republicans here. David Kochel, the top Iowa strategist now
working for Bush in Miami, was happy with Bush’s day introducing himself to
Iowa Republicans.
“They don’t know him yet, but there’s time for us to let people get to know
him,” he said. “When they get to know him, they’re going to like him.”
Bush has much more work to do to convince Iowans that he’s truly invested.
After being absent from the state since early March, he felt the lash of
state GOP chairman Jeff Kauffman on Twitter last week after reports first
surfaced that Bush was planning to bypass the Iowa straw poll in August and
attend another event outside the state.
“We hope Governor Bush rethinks his decision and realizes that grassroots
will only grow in Iowa if he waters them,” Kauffman wrote. “We don’t buy
this excuse and neither will Iowans.”
When reporters asked Bush on Saturday about his reasons for skipping the
Aug. 8 straw poll, he hinted at a broader strategy that doesn’t hinge on
the Hawkeye State.
“It’s not relevant,” Bush said of the straw poll. “What’s relevant is
running a campaign, creating a strategy, building a good team towards
success, which is in the primaries, and doing it in a way that makes it
possible to win the general, which is the whole point of this.”
According to a number of people close to the candidate, Bush’s strategy
rests on simply doing well enough in February’s earliest contests to come
out of South Carolina as one of the two or three leading candidates — in
other words, a first-place finish in Iowa isn’t essential.
When Bush met the traveling press in Iowa City on Saturday afternoon, the
second time he got a question about the straw poll and his seriousness
about the caucuses, he turned it back around at the reporter.
“Would you aspire to fourth place in anything? Or sixth place?” Bush asked.
His point: His own competitive nature wouldn’t allow him accept such a weak
performance. Besides, a win for Bush might be defined as a finish anywhere
in the top three.
As long as Bush doesn’t get embarrassed in Iowa and potentially can win in
New Hampshire, the campaign’s anticipated financial advantage could be the
difference-maker, especially in March, when crowded primary days take place
and only the best-funded campaigns will be able to compete across the map.
To get to March, Bush still must deliver a respectable performance in Iowa
in February, and that’ll mean investing the kind of resources here to
ensure a win, place or show finish.
“He’ll signal with his time how much of a priority Iowa is,” said Zach
Nunn, a Republican state legislator. “Any time he comes to Iowa is a
serious indicator that he sees Iowa as a place he needs to do well.”
The most recent polling shows Bush in seventh place among likely Republican
presidential hopefuls with just 5 percent support among Iowa primary voters
— a sign that Bush, who’d made just one trip here before last weekend, has
a lot of work to do here. Bush’s father and brother both had campaigned far
earlier and more frequently than Jeb Bush at this point in the election
cycle.
“Does he have a one- or two-state strategy like some other candidates? Of
course not,” said former Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn. “The challenge is
to make sure those activists who are predisposed to support Bush are seeing
him here. They want to see a candidate making a commitment to Iowa before
they make a commitment to Gov. Bush.”
In the end, the size of the GOP field could work to Bush’s advantage. With
as many as 19 potential candidates, it’s possible that evangelicals won’t
coalesce around one clear choice and the vote will be splintered — which
would open the door for a steady and solid establishment candidate like
Bush to finish near the top in Iowa.
“If the evangelical vote gets split up, it’s possible that someone can win
the Iowa caucuses with 20 percent of the vote,” Strawn said.
When he opened his town hall meeting Saturday morning at Loras College in
Dubuque, Bush spoke to those who doubt his prospects in Iowa — or the depth
of his commitment to playing here — by pointing to his father’s 1980
come-from-behind win in the Iowa caucuses.
“I’ll just remind everybody that’s interested in political history,” Bush
said. “He started here in Iowa as an asterisk, literally an asterisk, and
he won the Iowa caucuses.”
Team Jeb: He's held to 'different standard' than Hillary
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/team-jeb-hes-held-to-different-standard-than-hillary/article/2564650>
// Washington Examiner // Byron York - May 18, 2015
Jeb Bush first stumbled on the Iraq if-you-knew-then-what-you-know-now
question in an interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly. He stumbled again the
next day in a radio interview with Sean Hannity. He stumbled yet again in a
town hall taking questions from unscreened voters in Nevada, which was
followed by taking questions from the press. And, after four days of
trying, Bush finally answered the question in another session with voters
and the press in Arizona.
Notice anything about that? Of course Bush took plenty of deserved
criticism for the substance of his answers. But give him this: All of
Bush's missteps took place in open, unscripted exchanges with the press or
with voters in full view of the press. And when Bush messed up on a serious
question, he did not withdraw or limit access to his events. Some voters
who attended really let him have it, like Ivy Ziedrich, the Young Democrat
who told Bush, "Your brother created ISIS!" Still, Bush didn't subject
anyone to any sort of pre-questioning. He didn't cancel events. He was
available the whole time, even as he struggled to find an answer to a
question that clearly troubled him.
The contrast between Bush's openness and the airtight seal around Hillary
Clinton could not have been greater.
"Jeb doesn't fear taking risks or making mistakes," close Bush associate
Sally Bradshaw told me via email. "He's always believed public service is
about actually serving the public, and doing so on a very personal level
requires putting yourself in the arena." The result of that belief,
Bradshaw continued, is that "He engages. He doesn't back away. He doesn't
worry about the impact of having an honest conversation or thinking
something through and taking a thoughtful approach."
In the aftermath of the Iraq mistakes, Bush has taken to mentioning Clinton
at events. "I asked someone to kind of add up the questions that I've been
asked by people who can ask whatever they want, and of course the press
that follows me around from time to time," Bush said at a town hall in
Dubuque, Iowa over the weekend. "And we're probably around 800 to 900
questions asked and hopefully answered."
"Just as an aside," Bush added, "Hillary Clinton has been a presidential
candidate for a month maybe, and she's had 13 questions asked by the press."
As the Iraq controversy built, Bush aides increasingly focused on Clinton
and the contrast between her reclusiveness and Bush's openness. "It
continues to be interesting, the extent to which every single verb, noun,
adverb, and adjective that he utters is psychoanalyzed," one Bush aide said
of the former Florida governor. "There's clearly a different standard from
Hillary Clinton. It's remarkable how little she has engaged with the public
and the press since she became a candidate."
"Yes, he is held to a different standard," the aide continued. "And that's
okay. But it's stunning that she is allowed to evade the press and evade
the public in the way that she is being allowed."
One example. At the same time Bush was going through the Iraq questioning,
Annie Karni, a Politico reporter covering Hillary Clinton, tweeted a photo
of a man in a suit — apparently someone associated with Clinton — standing
in front of a drape concealing some sort of hallway. Karni's tweet said:
"My view of @HillaryClinton entering her finance meeting in Red Hook."
Clinton was behind that drape somewhere, but the press — much less the
public — could forget about having any sort of interaction with her.
It is literally impossible to imagine Clinton — besieged by questions about
the Clinton Foundation, her secret email system, trade, and other hot
issues — making herself available to voters and the press the way Bush has.
The 13 questions Clinton has taken over the course of more than a month —
one of which was "How are you liking Iowa?" — told the public nearly
nothing about her, her campaign, or any issue of the moment. Before that,
it has been more than two months since her brief "Guernica" news conference
in which she took a few questions about the email system. Clinton is under
increasing pressure from the press — journalists are suggesting questions
they would ask if they only had the chance and others are calculating the
time since Clinton last answered any question at all — but the fact is, she
is getting away with it.
So yes, Bush had difficulties answering a straightforward question about
Iraq. But voters, and journalists, too, should remember that it only
happened because he is out there, making himself available every day. When
is the Democratic frontrunner going to do the same?
Why Marco Rubio could beat Jeb Bush
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/18/opinions/zelizer-rubio-could-beat-bush/> //
CNN // Julian Zelizer - May 18, 2015
(CNN)Florida Sen. Marco Rubio poses a major threat to former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush in the 2016 Republican primaries. Rubio, the affable politician
who has been steadily and quietly rising in the polls, has been making an
impression these days as the parties are starting to sense that he could be
a very viable presidential candidate.
Rubio's emergence runs counter to the thinking of many observers that Jeb
Bush would command a decisive and virtually insurmountable advantage in
this campaign, as a result of his fundraising prowess and many endorsements
from members of the party elite.
In many respects, Rubio is the perfect candidate for the party at this
particular moment in history. Though the 43-year old has flaws, including
very limited experience, he brings to the table a number of assets that can
help him through the caucuses and primaries.
The most important of his strengths is that he contradicts the image that
many Americans now have of the Republican Party: a party of older white
males who are not happy about the direction of American society in the past
few decades.
In part, Americans formed this opinion based on the way that Republicans
have handled the issue of immigration. As the nation has become more
pluralistic and diverse, with growing public support for liberalizing
immigration policy, hardline conservatives in the GOP have stood in the way
of progress.
Putting forth a candidate who comes from a family of immigrants will have
tremendous appeal to many in the GOP, including conservatives, who want to
show that their party is different than the image many have of it. This can
have immense power at this crossroads moment when Republicans do have a
chance to capture the White House after eight years of a Democrat in
control.
Rubio's rags- to-riches story is the kind that campaign staffers love to
tell.
Even one of Rubio's greatest failures, his effort to push a comprehensive
immigration bill, can be interpreted as a virtue. Rubio backed a bill in
the Senate that would have resolved the ongoing standoff on immigration.
But he vastly underestimated the level of opposition among his House
counterparts.
While the failure of the bill deprived him of a major victory, he can use
his action as evidence of his commitment to resolving this key issue and
his desire to govern, not just grandstand. In an era of gridlock and
polarization, this will hold appeal, assuming he can get past opponents of
immigration reform among GOP primary voters.
Rubio's effort to move forward on immigration can help him sell his
candidacy to more moderate elements in the party at the same time that he
can easily stress his credentials as a true conservative.
There is a reason that the Tea Party loved him in 2010. His opposition to
Common Core standards, his deregulatory zeal, and his tough positions on
Iran will allow primary voters in states like South Carolina to see that
they would not be electing a moderate. He might be one of the few
candidates who can sell himself in both ways, as a conservative, but also a
leader who could govern.
Rubio also can project a hawkish vision of foreign policy, which still
resonates in the Republican electorate, without being susceptible to the
unfavorable connection people make between Jeb Bush and the controversial
legacy of his brother, former President George W. Bush.
Balancing inexperience and energy
In recent weeks, the former Florida governor stumbled in response to
questions about whether he would have invaded Iraq. Saying that he would
have invaded, just like his brother, was definitely the wrong answer, and
even Bush acknowledged as much in follow-up comments.
Bush's family connections assure that the Iraq War will continue to plague
him as he contends with the more isolationist Rand Paul wing of the GOP on
foreign policy.
In contrast, Rubio can more comfortably advance the three pillars of his
foreign policy vision -- strong defense spending, moral clarity, and the
protection of the world economy. He can do so because he doesn't stand in
the shadow of the former Republican president.
Rubio is young. Born in 1971, Rubio would bring Generation X into the White
House as a 45-year-old president -- younger than Obama was when he took
office -- and this would be significant for both parties. The fact is that
the leadership of the Republicans and Democrats is graying.
There is a need to infuse younger voices and the ideas of those born after
the turbulent divisions of the 1960s into the political arena. Until now,
Democrats have done a better job engaging younger voters than Republicans.
Nominating Rubio would send a strong message that the party is moving in a
new direction. The senator could speak to generational questions in way
that his competitors could not.
The flip side of youth, is that opponents could tag Rubio as inexperienced,
suggesting he would make some of the kinds of mistakes that people have
argued took place with Obama. Yet in caucuses and primaries, as Obama
learned, the energy of youth can go a long way in campaigns.
This a nation that thirsts for what is around the corner, not always what's
been around for a long time. In a general campaign, Democrats would be
hesitant to go too far in making an issue of Rubio's age given the age of
our most recent president when he was elected.
A maverick, but not an outsider
Besides being young, the fact that Rubio did slip in recent years outside
of the "frontrunner" status for the party will end up generating even more
excitement about him. Even though he is in Congress, the bastion of
establishment politics, he can present himself as something of an upstart
and a maverick. The media loves a come-from-behind story, and so do voters.
While he can present himself in certain respects as anti-establishment, he
is not. And this matters, too. Rubio has demonstrated that he can attract
serious money from Super Pacs which are the new power brokers of American
politics.
While he has not reached the point of Bush in terms of a network of donors
he has demonstrated some pretty serious legs when it comes to campaign
finance. This will be essential in the contest against the war chest that
Bush is amassing. Ironically, the very positive words and support that Jeb
Bush has given Rubio in the past will be extraordinarily helpful in his
credibility with donors.
None of this is to diminish the weaknesses that Rubio has, including the
lack of experience, or to overstate the chances that he would have of
defeating Hillary Clinton. His friendship with former Rep. David Rivera,
who has been under investigation, could be an issue on the campaign trail.
The fact that he and Bush are both from Florida might divide the primary
electorate and open the door for another Republican to win.
But in many respects, for Jeb Bush, and for the Democrats, Rubio is the
most dangerous man in the room.
Marco Rubio has listed himself as 'white' instead of 'Hispanic.' News
flash: He's both.
<http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2015/05/marco-rubio-once-listed-himself-as-white-instead-of-hispanic-news-flash-hes-both.html>
// Miami Herald // Patricia Mazzei - May 18, 2015
Marco Rubio has listed himself as "white" instead of "Hispanic" in
applications to renew his Florida driver's license, according to records
obtained by the Miami Herald.
That might sound a little like Rubio made a mistake akin to when Jeb Bush
incorrectly checked off "Hispanic" in his Miami-Dade County voter
registration. But it's not.
Here's why: Rubio is white. He's also Hispanic. And being forced to pick
between the two is a false choice.
"White" refers to Rubio's race. "Hispanic" refers to his ethnicity. There
are, for example, white Hispanics, black Hispanics, Asian Hispanics and
Hispanics of indigenous descent. Rubio is a white Hispanic.
Most government forms, however, are not enlightened enough to discern
between a person's race and their ethnicity. When the Florida Highway
Safety and Motor Vehicles Department asks license applicants to fill out an
optional race field, the choices are Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native
American, Other and White -- as if a person couldn't be more than one of
those things at the same time.
The information isn't mandatory -- it doesn't appear on a driver's license
card -- and some of Rubio's transactions with the HSMV over the years don't
list any race. His 1998 and 2004 renewal applications list "white," as
shown in the partial 1998 application above (the Miami Herald redacted
Rubio's license number as a courtesy; other information was redacted by the
HSMV). His latest renewal, from 2014, shows a blank space under "race."
Of course, there's no confusion as to Rubio's lineage. His name gives away
his Hispanic roots, and he has made it part of his political narrative to
tell the story of how his parents left Cuba seeking a better life for their
children.
A Rubio spokesman said the Florida senator "doesn't recall" how he renewed
his license.
"But this looks like a glitch since he considers himself an American of
Hispanic descent," Alex Conant said in an email. "The fact that he is of
Hispanic descent has been hard to miss since his first campaign given the
fact that he's made his family's story a centerpiece of his public life."
The race-versus-ethnicity question is far from unusual in Rubio's diverse
hometown of Miami. Some Hispanics have a personal policy of listing their
race rather than their ethnicity, since that's really what is being asked.
Others choose without giving it much thought, depending on the form and
their mood on any given day. Since the options show a lack of understanding
about what makes a person Hispanic, why bother taking it too seriously?
The U.S. Census has separated race and ethnicity, specifically over the
question of Hispanic origin, since 1997. Perhaps it's time for all
government agencies to do the same.
Supreme Court Won’t Block Probe of Scott Walker’s Recall Campaign
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-18/u-s-high-court-won-t-block-probe-of-walker-s-recall-campaign>’
// Bloomberg // Greg Stohr - May 18 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to end a state investigation into Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker’s 2012 recall campaign, rejecting an appeal from a
conservative group that says its constitutional rights are being violated.
The rebuff leaves the future of the investigation in the hands of the
Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is considering a separate bid to stop the
probe. The criminal investigation, on hold during the court fight, might
complicate Walker’s potential campaign for the Republican presidential
nomination.
A court-appointed special prosecutor, Francis Schmitz, is tasked with
investigating whether Walker and his operatives violated state
campaign-finance laws by coordinating their efforts with Club for Growth,
an advocacy group.
The Wisconsin chapter of Club for Growth and its director, Eric O’Keefe,
are fighting subpoenas they received from Schmitz seeking financial
records. The group and O’Keefe sued in federal court to block the probe,
and a federal trial judge said the First Amendment bars the state from
trying to learn whether the organization coordinated with the Walker
campaign.
A U.S. appeals court overturned that ruling, saying federal judges
shouldn’t entangle themselves in state criminal proceedings.
Walker survived the recall vote, which was sparked by his efforts to curb
the power of public employee unions, and then won re-election last year.
Walker and his campaign aren’t directly involved in the Club for Growth
case.
The case is O’Keefe v. Chisholm, 14-872.
Scott Walker’s Long History of Dirty Tricks
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/18/scott-walker-s-long-history-of-dirty-tricks.html>
// The Daily Beast // David Freedlander – May 18, 2015
It has been more than a decade, but when David Riemer talks about Scott
Walker, his voice still shakes with anger and exasperation.
“He thinks that God is on his side and so that gives him the right to lie,
to dodge, to make promises and not keep them,” said Riemer, now a senior
fellow a the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute, a think tank
dedicated to reducing poverty in Wisconsin.
Back in 2004, Riemer ran against Walker, then a first-term county executive
of Milwaukee who had ridden into office on the back of a pension scandal,
pledging that any of his office’s hires would sign a waiver forgoing
recently enacted lavish benefits and sweeteners.
Riemer, an adviser to two Wisconsin governors and a former budget director
of the city of Milwaukee, filed an open records request in an effort find
out if that promise had been kept. Turns out, it hadn’t; in response to the
open records request, a handful of top staffers hastily added their name to
a list stating that they had signed the waiver. The list didn’t have a date
on it, though, and wasn’t an official waiver anyway, merely a piece of
paper indicating that signatories had signed a wavier previously.
In a letter to the attorney general’s office after the election, and after
Walker’s office had eventually complied with the open records request,
Riemer wrote that Walker’s intention had been “to fool me, as Mr. Walker’s
primary opponent in the political campaign for County Executive; to fool
the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel; and to fool the voters and the public. The
deception worked. We were all fooled.”
The attorney general declined to prosecute but accused Walker of
“chicanery.”
And that was not all.
In the course of the campaign, Walker’s team ran a radio ad accusing Riemer
of engineering a pension settlement to a series of lawsuits that cost the
county millions of dollars. In fact, the lawsuits predated Riemer’s tenure
with the county, and his reforms helped save the city up to $25 million a
year. When pressed, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Walker
conceded that “the ad’s assertion is not correct as stated,” but he refused
to stop running it.
“I have never in my life seen anything like it,” Riemer, who ended up
losing the election by nearly 15 percentage points, said. “What kind of
person admits that what they are doing is wrong but won’t change it? There
is a fundamental character flaw here.”
“I couldn’t believe what a jerk he was. I was new to politics. I didn’t
think it was fair game for them to say anything about you whether it was
provable or not.”
Walker is now on the cusp of announcing a run for president, and early
polls show him as a front-runner to become the Republican nominee. And part
of his appeal to the Republican faithful is his record of success in
political campaigns and in public office. This is someone, after all, won
four consecutive terms in the state legislature before winning three county
executive races in the Democratic-leaning Milwaukee County and three races
for governor in blue-hued Wisconsin. He also became the first governor in
American history to survive a recall. And unlike some Republicans in
Democratic territory who hew to the center after Election Day, Walker
tacked sharply to the right while in office, winning him plaudits from
conservative leaders as a true believer.
But longtime Walker-watchers in Wisconsin say that behind Walker’s success
is a long record of bending campaign laws just to their breaking point.
“Scott Walker is politics incarnate, with an unslakable thirst for
political power and an eye on the next election,” said Mike Browne, the
deputy director of One Wisconsin Now, a liberal advocacy group. “Throughout
his nearly quarter-century career running for office, he’s shown he’ll do
whatever he thinks he needs to do to win, letter or spirit of the laws be
damned.”
Most notably, Walker has been ensnared in a pair of so-called John Doe
investigations. In the first, while looking into missing funds from a
veterans’ charity run out of Walker’s county executive office,
investigators discovered that his staff had set up a secretive Internet
system in his government office to allow them to do political work on the
taxpayer’s dime. Investigators also found that a railroad executive with
business before the state had set up a straw donor scheme enabling his
employees to donate to the future governor.
The investigation didn’t touch Walker, but a deputy chief of staff was
sentenced to six months in jail. Another was convicted of embezzlement
after it was discovered that he used funds stolen from the veterans’
charity to set up Walker for Governor campaign websites. Another top
staffer received one year of probation and a $1,000 fine after cooperating
with investigators.
The second John Doe investigation is ongoing and focuses on whether
Walker’s campaign illegally coordinated with the Club for Growth during his
2012 recall campaign. According to heavily redacted documents released this
week, Walker’s defense argues that such coordination was not illegal
because Walker was not an official candidate until April of that year—a
mere two months before voters went to the polls and while Walker was
raising and spending millions of dollars to ward off his Democratic
opponent.
Walker’s trouble with campaign rules began even before he embarked on a
political career in earnest. As a sophomore at Marquette University in
Milwaukee, he lost a bid for student body president in a race that was
marred by allegations that Walker improperly campaigned before officially
registering his campaign, that he failed to properly register his campaign
workers, and that he went door-to-door to hand out fliers in violation of
campus policy. More seriously, after the school paper endorsed Walker’s
opponent, stacks of newspapers went missing, and the Walker operation was
accused of engineering the theft.
Walker dropped out of Marquette just before he was set to graduate and
promptly mounted a campaign against Gwen Moore, a one-term state
assemblywoman. In an interview, Moore, now a member of Congress, said her
Republican colleagues at the time told her that the reason Walker was
running was that even though the district was majority Democratic, “the
majority voting-age population was white.
“He would say his hero was Ronald Reagan. Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan, that
was the regime he looked up to, and he ran a perfect racial dog whistle
campaign,” Moore said.
The campaign literature, she recalled, featured “guns, gangs, drugs, and
urban unrest.”
“I cried,” she said. “I thought I was being associated with the worst
elements of the community. I couldn’t believe what a jerk he was. I was new
to politics. I didn’t think it was fair game for them to say anything about
you whether it was provable or not.”
Walker lost decisively, moved to a new district, and served nearly a decade
in the legislature before running for county executive. While in office, he
was repeatedly dogged by failures to properly file campaign finance
reports, including leaving off the occupation of more than 50 donors who
gave more than $100 in violation of state laws.
Failure to list a donor’s occupation is a problem that Walker’s numerous
campaigns have encountered frequently. When he first explored a run for
governor in 2006, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog
group that pushes for clean elections, found that 114 donations totaling
more than $75,000 failed to list the occupation or employer. In 2008,
Walker’s office stopped filing its campaign finance reports electronically,
which made life harder for watchdogs, but still in 2009, One Wisconsin Now
found that $170,000 worth of contributions were not listed properly,
including two contributions of $10,000, the maximum amount allowed by law.
The next year, the group found that more than $500,000 in contributions was
improperly reported.
In 2005, two Democratic county supervisors filed an ethics complaint with
the elections board against Walker for using his campaign arm, Friends of
Scott Walker, to robo-call against them on behalf of his budget without
disclosing who was beyond the calls.
The elections board ended up fining Walker $5,000, then the second largest
such fine in state history.
But it was not the first time Walker’s name would appear before the state
elections board. Since 2010, when he first began exploring a gubernatorial
run in earnest, the state Democratic Party has filed seven ethics
complaints against him.
The earliest cites a series of motorcycle rides Walker would take around
the state while county executive, ostensibly to promote tourism to
Milwaukee but which critics said was little more than a way for Walker to
introduce himself to voters around the state (or beyond—Walker twice
traveled to Minnesota on his annual Harley ride and once to the early
caucus state of Iowa).
Twice the ride was sponsored by AirTran Airways, a low-cost air carrier
that at the time had a request pending before the county commission for
concourse space at the Milwaukee airport. The sponsorship led critics to
accuse the candidate of extracting an in-kind donation from a corporation.
According to the complaint, “It was not Milwaukee County logos…that
lavished and marked everyone of the three dozen stops on the tour. It was
signs, flags and standards of Air Tran that dominated every single venue on
Walker’s tour.”
The claim that the trip was just for Walker to promote Walker and not
Milwaukee County was given credence, the complaint alleges, when in 2010 it
was rescheduled to coincide with the date and location of the state
Republican convention, allowing Walker to roar in to the convention on the
back of his Harley. Plus, the complaint notes that Walker was accompanied
by Tim Russell, a longtime Walker insider—and the one who ended up going to
prison for stealing from the veterans’ charity—who frequently moved between
campaign and governmental positions. At the time of the 2010 ride, Russell
was the administrator of the county’s housing department.
“Any reasonable person would conclude that Housing has nothing to do with
tourism—Russell’s presence indicates that the ride was in fact illegal
campaign activity,” the complaint states.
Another complaint alleges that right-wing outside groups like the Koch
brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity were illegally coordinating with
Walker’s recall campaign. The CEO of one such group, the Bradley
Foundation, was Walker’s campaign chairman, and the chairman of the board
of the MacIver Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank, had
given $16,500 to Walker’s various campaigns.
A third complaint asks the Government Accountability Board to look into
Walker’s legal defense fund, one that he has poured $60,000 of his campaign
money into, though state law says such funds can be used only for a
candidate or public official who is being investigated or who has an agent
who is being investigated. Walker has denied repeatedly that he is a target
of the John Doe investigation.
A fourth complaint alleges that in the spring of his recall campaign, in
the wake of a federal Bureau of Labor Statistics release that showed that
Wisconsin was the only state to post “statistically significant” job losses
in the previous 12 months, the Walker administration expedited the release
of its own jobs figures, which used a different metric from the widely used
BLS metric. Walker’s numbers showed that the state added jobs, and moments
after releasing the numbers, his recall campaign launched a blitz of
television and radio ads touting them—proof, the complaint alleges, of
coordination between the government and political side of Walker’s office.
A fifth complaint, filed just this year, accuses Walker of dissembling
when he claimed that his recent trip to the United Kingdom was for official
business and used public funds to promote trade between Wisconsin and the
U.K. The visit was widely seen as a chance for Walker to bolster his
foreign policy credentials, and Walker refused to answer media questions
while in the United Kingdom.
According to a Democratic Party official, five of the complaints are still
pending. Two more were dismissed. One alleged that Walker brought
Republican super pollster Frank Luntz into the state capitol during the
protests against the governor’s efforts to end collective bargaining for
public employees in the state. Another alleged that Walker tried to
coordinate with the Koch brothers directly by discussing by phone how he
was handling the protesters, including planting “troublemakers” within
their midst. (That call turned out to be a prank.)
“The blatant disregard for campaign finance and ethics laws we’ve seen from
Scott Walker over the entirety of his career in elected office is
unprecedented in Wisconsin politics,” said Melissa Baldauff, communications
director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “Never before has a Wisconsin
governor required a criminal defense fund, the donors to which still
haven’t been disclosed, or been alleged by prosecutors to be at the center
of a nationwide ‘criminal scheme.’"
In a statement, Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for the governor, said,
“Governor Walker has championed big, bold reforms that the left clearly
doesn’t like, but he’s won three times in four years because of his results
for the people of Wisconsin.”
Few in Wisconsin think Walker will somehow be brought down by any of the
complaints. To the exasperation of state Democrats, none of these
allegations seem to have much slowed his steady ascent through the
political ranks. Now that he is running for president, Walker finds himself
facing a new set of campaign finance regulations.
In a presidential campaign, many would-be candidates who are exploring a
run take great pains not to admit that they are candidates for office. To
do so would mean that they could run afoul of fundraising laws that forbid
coordination between candidates and the outside groups supporting them. Jeb
Bush, for example, has dismissed questions about what he would do as
president by noting that he is not yet a candidate and wouldn’t want to
suddenly trigger a campaign. When he did acknowledge that he was running,
Bush promptly backtracked.
Walker has no such apparent qualms, referring to himself several times as
“a candidate” and talking about how his sons may take time off from college
to campaign with him, even though no such campaign officially exists.
Democrats have filed complaints to the Federal Election Commission. They
are unlikely to go anywhere.
Records indicate Scott Walker was copied on letter promising loan to donor
// Journal Sentinel
<http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/scott-walker-seeks-to-downplay-questions-over-job-agency-b99502337z1-304123551.html>
// Jason Stein and Patrick Marley – May 18, 2015
State records say that Gov. Scott Walker received a copy of a 2011 letter
pledging a $500,000 taxpayer loan to a now-defunct Milwaukee construction
company headed by a Walker donor, seemingly contradicting statements by the
governor and his aides that he was not aware of the award.
A spokeswoman for Walker said that, in spite of the records, a copy of the
letter from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. was never delivered to
the governor's office.
The Sept. 9, 2011, letter from Paul Jadin, WEDC's chief executive officer
at the time, was sent to William Minahan, owner of Building Committee Inc.,
a company that is now being sued by WEDC for defaulting on the unsecured
loan without delivering the promised project and the jobs it was supposed
to create.
Jadin said in his letter of intent that he was writing "on behalf of
Governor Scott Walker" and noted "cc: Scott Walker, Governor" at the bottom.
Walker's top cabinet appointee, then Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch,
urged WEDC officials to provide the loan, and Walker's then-chief of staff
Keith Gilkes attended an initial meeting on it, according to records
provided to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by the Walker administration.
"In closing Governor Walker and I are firmly committed to doing everything
possible to expedite the processing and awarding of this incentive award,"
Jadin wrote in the letter.
Walker, who with lawmakers created WEDC in July 2011, serves as the
chairman of the agency's board.
While in New Orleans Monday to speak to a school voucher lobbying group,
Walker said he played no direct role in the loan to foster energy
efficiency projects for bank and credit union buildings and that Democrats
are on a "partisan witch hunt."
Spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said the GOP governor and likely 2016 White
House candidate didn't know about the loan and that Walker did not receive
a copy of Jadin's letter even though it stated that he did.
"As we said, Governor Walker was not involved in or aware of any part of
the loan process concerning The Building Committee Inc.," Patrick said.
"That was template language WEDC used initially for award letters. A review
of our files from that time indicates that we were not receiving copies of
those letters."
Patrick said Walker would hold an "open, thorough, and transparent
discussion" of the loan at WEDC's next board meeting.
Democrats seek probe
Also Monday, two Democratic lawmakers on the WEDC board called for a
federal criminal investigation of WEDC and the loan to the Building
Committee, which is headed by a donor who made the maximum $10,000
donations to the campaigns of both Walker and former Democratic Gov. Jim
Doyle. There is no evidence so far that the loan led to the promised
construction projects or jobs.
It's the latest in a string of troubles facing the state's main jobs
agency, which earlier this month faced a tough audit saying it had failed
to follow state law and its own procedures in its work.
"The problems at Gov. Walker's WEDC appear to go beyond simple
mismanagement," said Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha), who
appeared alongside a fellow WEDC board member, Sen. Julie Lassa (D-Steven
Point). "As board members we are deeply concerned and call for immediate
action."
The offices of John Vaudreuil, the U.S. attorney in Madison, and James
Santelle, the U.S. attorney in Milwaukee, had no comment.
Patrick responded that an October 2014 report to the WEDC board, which
includes Barca, Lassa and Walker, included the Building Committee in a list
of past due loans. She said the Democratic lawmakers should have asked for
more details on the bad loan at the time, while Barca said it was never
specifically flagged to board members in their meetings.
Walker asked lawmakers on Friday to scrap WEDC's loan programs, which in
2014 ended up deferring payments on 42 out of 220 active loans — or nearly
one in five.
Barca said he was skeptical of a statement by Patrick that the governor
didn't know about the last-minute $10,000 donation that Building Committee
owner Minahan made to Walker's 2010 gubernatorial campaign on election day.
The 2011 loan, which was first reported on by the Wisconsin State Journal,
was among several WEDC loans noted by state auditors in their recent report
on the agency.
The documents provided to the Journal Sentinel show that in June 2011,
Minahan and Eric Petersen, a lobbyist who represented the business, met to
discuss the loan with Gilkes and Huebsch. At the time, Huebsch also served
on the WEDC board.
Jadin did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.
Patrick said the project was presented to Huebsch by Building Committee as
a way to create 150 jobs, draw in larger private investment and help many
businesses in the state save money on energy.
In a statement made through Administration spokesman Cullen Werwie, Huebsch
said he was approached for help on the project because of several energy
programs run out of the Department of Administration, but none of them
could help Building Committee. Huebsch, who has since been appointed to a
$129,000-a-year job at the Public Service Commission, then looked to WEDC
as another way to help the construction firm, he said in a statement.
"As the secretary of DOA, I often worked to connect small businesses with
resources that could lead to job creation," Huebsch said.
WEDC awarded the unsecured loan only after Huebsch and other agency
officials were unable to find funding from state or federal energy
programs, the records show.
El Sellers, who worked as a salesman for Building Committee in the
Southwest, said years before the company faced its financial problems, it
was having difficulty getting a building permit in a suburb of Phoenix.
He said Monday that company official David Jaeckels told him to make a
political donation to a local elected official and then have the company
reimburse him for it on his expense report.
Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan, a
Republican, said that under Arizona law individuals cannot make political
donations in the name of another person and that corporations cannot make
political contributions. Violating these laws can constitute a felony,
according to lawscited by Roberts.
Sellers said the donation was $600 to $800, but he could not remember who
received it.
"I didn't think about it twice. I'm not a child. It's money that makes the
world go round," Sellers said, adding the company got its building permit
soon afterward.
Jaeckels categorically denied the allegation and called Sellers a
"disgruntled employee."
"I knew we were involved in talking to a variety of people, but I don't
know anything about anything like that," he said of having the company
reimburse Sellers for a donation. "That's ludicrous."
Scott Walker touts charters, vouchers in charter-heavy New Orleans Monday
<http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2015/05/scott_walker_touts_charters_vo.html>
// NOLA // Jessica Williams - May 18, 2015
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's two sons attend public and private
universities. Matt Walker is a rising senior at the Roman Catholic, Jesuit
Marquette University. And Alex Walker is a rising junior the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
The young men made different decisions, based on what best suited their
needs. That's typical for many high school graduates heading to college.
But introduce choice in public and secondary schools, and you start to
shock people, the Republican governor told a room of school choice
advocates Monday (May 18) in New Orleans.
Walker, a likely 2016 presidential candidate, has been championing choice
and his other Wisconsin initiatives a lot lately. He's spoken at dinners,
conferences and summits all across the nation in recent months, and the
American Federation for Children's Policy Summit in New Orleans Monday was
no exception. In his 20-minute keynote speech at the Hyatt Regency New
Orleans, Walker praised charters, vouchers and Wisconsin's efforts to
promote the same. The federation is a strong supporter of both, and -- like
Walker -- has been no friend to labor unions.
"School choice" typically encompasses a liberation from public school
attendance zones. Advocates tend to argue that public money should finance
additional options, both public and private. It was perhaps fitting, then,
for the federation's gathering be in New Orleans, where the vast majority
of public schools are boundary-free charters, and where still other
students attend private voucher schools.
Choice is controversial: critics say it affords private entities autonomy
with little accountability and can lead to the demise of traditional public
education systems, while advocates say innovators need room to do what must
be done and public education needs a facelift, anyway.
For Walker, however, choice is both a moral and economic imperative. Moral,
he said, because every child deserves a great education. Economic, because
on one Wisconsin public agency's website alone, there are more than 84,000
job openings, he noted.
"That means we can't afford to have anybody on the sidelines," he said.
"That means we need to have people, young people, with access to a great
education, in a traditional public school, charter school, choice school
with a voucher, private school with a tax benefit, in a virtual school, or
even a home school."
Importantly, advocates should remember that strong traditional public
schools are important, Walker continued. If those systems aren't given the
proper tools -- which he deems are freedom from "big government labor union
bosses" -- then you risk cases such as Wisconsin teacher Megan Sampson, who
was received an outstanding first year teaching award from the Wisconsin
Council of Teachers of English, but who was laid off because of budget cuts
and the union contract's "last-in, first-out" policy.
He's frequently touted the Sampson story in speeches around the country.
She's been the face of his signature bill, Act 10, that restricted
collective bargaining for most Wisconsin labor unions. "You open the door
to say... seniority and tenure is gone," he said, to applause from the
crowd. "Schools can hire and fire based on merit."
Walker also has pushed to lift the enrollment cap for vouchers while
keeping budgets flat for public schools, moves that have sparked ire in his
home state. Still, choice supporters tout his work.
While Walker was the first governor and possible GOP candidate to address
the crowd Monday, he wasn't the only one. In what appeared to be a late
addition to the agenda, Gov. Bobby Jindal also was slated to give remarks
at 5 p.m. Jindal is eyeing the presidency, and announced the creation of an
exploratory campaign committee Monday.
Chris Christie Now Opposes Creating a Pathway to Citizenship for
Undocumented Workers
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-18/chris-christie-says-he-now-opposes-creating-a-pathway-to-citizenship-for-undocumented-workers>
// Bloomberg // Terrence Dopp – May 18, 2015
The New Jersey governor says he has changed his mind on the question.
By his own admission, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has changed his
tune.
On Monday, Christie said that he now opposes providing a pathway to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants, something he supported as recently
as 2010.
"I think that’s an extreme way to go," Christie said in an interview on FOX
News Channel's The Kelly File scheduled to air Monday night. "And I think
that, quite frankly, what Hillary Clinton’s doing right now is pandering.
That’s pandering. We need to have an intelligent conversation about this
and bring the American people along to where we can find consensus."
“Well, I think I’ve learned over time about this issue and done a lot more
work on it.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
Christie, who opted not to run four years ago, is traveling as honorary
chairman of his political action committee, Leadership Matters for America,
even though he's said he won't make a formal announcement on a White House
run until later this month or in June.
He had a packed day in New Hampshire, starting with a noon speech on
foreign policy in the waterfront Prescott Park, where John McCain announced
in 2008. He next held his fifth town hall meeting in three weeks at a VFW
hall in Hudson.
The former federal prosecutor conceded during the interview that the stance
on a pathway to citizenship is a shift from his previous position on the
matter. In recent weeks, he has stated that immigrants won't "self-deport,"
adding that there aren't enough law enforcement resources to force an
estimated 11 million people here to leave.
During the interview Christie also knocked President Barack Obama for his
executive action on immigration and said his own shift on the question of
providing a pathway to citizenship is an evolution.
“Well, I think I’ve learned over time about this issue and done a lot more
work on it," he said. "And I think everyone has to do what you need to be
able to get educated on these issues and learn, and back in 2010 I was in
my first couple of months as Governor, I’ve now learned some of the
ramifications of some of these things and what I am saying now is we’ve got
to come up with a solution for it. ”
Gov. Christie: American exceptionalism isn’t a punchline — it’s a set of
principles.
<https://medium.com/@ChrisChristie/gov-christie-american-exceptionalism-isn-t-a-punchline-it-s-a-set-of-principles-c2e34107eda5>
// Medium // Chris Christie – May 18, 2015
Thanks Renee and thanks Paul for that kind introduction. It’s great to be
here.
Today I’m going to talk about America’s place in the world and how we can
create a new American century — and I couldn’t think of a better place for
us to have that conversation. Right across this park is the house of John
Paul Jones, a proud Irishman and father of the US Navy. And across the
water, and over the decades, so many ships have sailed from the great
Portsmouth Naval Yard in the service of freedom — and continue to do so.
This is a place of history and one that has shaped history at so many
pivotal moments.
With that, I want to tell you about another story from history — a story
about a proud son of New Hampshire with a New Jersey connection.
John Winant was a Republican governor of this great state back in the
1930s. His New Jersey connection? He attended one of New Jersey’s great
schools, Princeton University. He was the first man to serve more than one
term as Governor here. And since he was tough enough to survive the
politics of Concord, in 1941 the President asked him to take on another
difficult job — US ambassador to Great Britain.
As Ambassador Winant, he arrived in London at Britain’s darkest moment.
London was being pounded round the clock by Hitler’s Luftwaffe. German
U-boats were strangling the country’s food supply. Many people thought that
a German invasion was weeks away.
Faced with those circumstances, a lesser man might have asked for another
assignment. Talk about a bad promotion, right? In fact, there were plenty
of people who thought this was a fool’s errand. The outgoing ambassador,
Joseph Kennedy — — thought Britain’s days were numbered and flew home as
soon as he could. He declared that appeasement was the right course of
action for America. A lot of opinion polls agreed with him.
Well the new ambassador took a different approach.
He flew to England. And the first thing he said when he got off that plane
was “I’m very glad to be here. There’s no place I’d rather be at this time.”
And he meant it. He rallied the morale of the British people, and promised
them that America would stand by them. He went out on the streets of London
and asked people what he could do to help. He counseled President Roosevelt
not to give in to appeasement, but to prepare to confront the German menace.
So why am I telling you this story? For two reasons.
First, this is a story of New Hampshire’s impact on the course of history,
at the moments when our country faced choices that would determine the
course of our future. In this election season, as our country faces new
choices and new challenges, you’re going to be asked to play that role
again.
But the other reason? For me, this is a story that embodies the qualities
that make our country exceptional.
Now, American exceptionalism is something that politicians love to talk
about. It’s a punch line in a speech that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.
But American exceptionalism isn’t a punch line — it’s a set of principles.
When the world faces its darkest moments, we use our strength and resolve
to light a fire.
When our allies stand up to fight the darkness, we find a way to stand with
them.
When a threat appears from over the horizon, our country gets ready — not
when that threat arrives on our doorstep or when it’s popular.
America has never been a member of the league of ordinary nations. We have
never ignored the crises in the world around us. Because throughout
history, leaders in both parties have based our foreign policy on these
principles — strength, leadership and partnership with the people and
nations who share our values. And it’s served the world and us pretty well.
That’s what saved the world 70 years ago. That’s what defeated Soviet
tyranny. That’s what kept the peace.
Now, fast forward to today.
For the first time since World War Two, Russian troops march across the
lands of a sovereign European state.
In the streets of Baghdad and Damascus, Aden and Tripoli, terror has become
a permanent way of life — and the sinister black flag of ISIS looms larger
every day.
In the South China Sea, Chinese vessels raise islands and military bases
from the sea, in disputed waters where they have no right to do so —
seizing strategic footholds across the region.
And in the holy land, Israeli citizens live their lives in the shadow of
the Iranian menace — while our diplomats toast the promises of the
ayatollahs.
So how did this happen? How did it come to this?
All these things are happening because American power is in retreat — and
we’ve backed away from the principles that made us a source of strength and
stability.
No one understands any longer whom America stands with or against.
No one understands exactly what we stand for and what we are willing to
sacrifice to stand up for it.
No one understands if we’re prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow —
while we lurch from crisis to crisis today.
Instead of consistent, principled policies that made our country respected
by our allies and feared by our adversaries, we have an intellectual and
strategic mess. Once, America sought to lead the world. Now, our President
leads from behind.
Well if we want to lead from behind, we’re going to be left behind.
We give up our claim to be the leader of the free world. We give up the
partnerships for peace that defined the American century. And we give up
the chance of another American century. The world will be more dangerous
and less prosperous.
For six years, a lot of people in our country have been worried about the
path we’re on. And I don’t want to feel like that anymore, and I bet you
don’t either.
So I think we ought to take a different approach.
We need to change course as a country and embrace a foreign policy based on
the timeless principles that helped America to lead the world.
Let’s talk about what a policy agenda looks like for a truly exceptional
nation, at a time of extraordinary global challenges — and how we get the
strength, tools and partnerships to lead the world
Stronger defense
Under our Constitution, the first and most important job of our government
is to protect every American and our way of life. That means keeping our
military strong must be at the heart of any global agenda.
A strong military doesn’t just help us to deal with the threats we face. It
helps eliminate them before we even see them.
Over the last 70 years, our world has entered an unprecedented era of peace
and prosperity. Nations have risen from the ashes of war; new industries
have reshaped the world. Europe became free and united, and democracies
multiplied across Latin America, Asia and Africa. And all of this took
place only because a strong America served as the anchor and organizer of
global stability. We didn’t have to be a global policeman who solved every
problem, but it was enough for our allies to know we had their back — to
give them a zone for peace in which to choose a future for themselves.
Now, our country reaped the rewards of this strategy for decades because we
had responsible leaders in both parties who ensured that the military never
become a partisan plaything. Partisanship is a fact of life in our
political system, and a price worth paying to keep our democracy
accountable, strong and vibrant. But our armed services were beyond this —
because keeping our country safe should never be up for debate.
But lately, things have changed.
Over the last few years, Washington has grown more and more dysfunctional.
And instead of reaching sensible compromises over spending, the President
and Congress have made decisions that have compromised our military.
Last year, the National Defense Panel, a bipartisan commission chartered by
Congress, concluded that cuts in defense spending imposed by sequestration
have been a “serious strategic misstep.” By forcing deep, across-the-board
cuts in military spending since 2011, Congress and the President have tied
the hands of our commanders and created a readiness crisis in our armed
services. Now we have fighter pilots who can’t get enough hours in the
skies to train, ships that can’t patrol the routes we need to, and only a
handful of Army brigades ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.
If we want to effectively deliver on our entire national defense strategy,
then we need to fix this.
We need ground forces that can respond to crises on multiple fronts,
without compromising our capacity for deterrence. The Army and Marines
should not be reduced below their pre-9/11 strength, and our active duty
forces should be at 500,000 Army soldiers and 185,000 Marines.
Our Navy should have more ships. In this century, to secure our global
interests our Navy will be called upon to assume even greater challenges
and responsibilities. But even as our maritime needs grow, we’re cutting
back and right now are on a budgetary path to 260 ships or less. That’s
just wrong. Our Navy bears the greatest burden of our forward-presence
missions, and shouldn’t be equipped to do the bare minimum. We should have
at least 350 ships — and our Navy should be an armada without equal.
And we need a larger Air Force. Our Air Force now has the oldest and
smallest combat force in its history, and we’re on track to reduce our
inventory of bomber, fighter and surveillance forces by 50% over the next 4
years. Well, when it comes to maintaining our air supremacy, winging it
won’t do. We should modernize the Air Force and build up to 2,500 combat
coded aircraft as part of a total force of 6,000 aircraft capable of
carrying out all the missions we know our pilots will face in the years
ahead. Americans were the first to conquer the skies — let’s not concede
them.
So we need to give our men and women in uniform the resources they need to
get the job done — and we owe it to them. That’s why Congress and the
President should repeal the 2011 Budget Control Act as soon as humanly
possible, get back to regular order in budgeting and restore funding levels
to what Secretary Gates proposed in his fiscal 2012 budget — modest
increases in defense spending through the end of the decade that will make
a massive difference to our troops. It’s the right thing to do — and we
should do it now.
But that’s just the start. We also need to innovate to fight the battles of
the future.
For a long time our military has led the world not just through the skill
and the courage of our troops, but the ingenuity of our scientists and
engineers. Our forces are the envy of the world because they’re also the
best equipped in the world.
But the world is catching up — and our rivals are working hard to copy and
steal our best-kept secrets. Today, Russia has stealth fighters, a new
generation of battle tanks, and a growing military presence in the Arctic.
China has its first aircraft carrier, with more on the way, double digit
increases in military spending every year, and cutting-edge cyber warriors
always, seemingly, one step ahead of our own. And in just the last few
months, we’ve seen North Korean hackers targeting Hollywood and the
Russians reading President Obama’s email. That’s just embarrassing.
So we need to work harder to keep our edge. We need to invest in building
the military of the future. We need to build a new generation of weapon
systems to protect our interests on every front — on the ground, on the
seas, in the air or new frontiers even further out. We need to invest in
unmanned aviation, directed energy weapons and space. We should continue to
be leaders in undersea warfare, and that’s why we should speed up the build
rate of our Virginia-class attack submarines and support the replacement of
the Ohio class. And when it comes to cyber warfare, we need to be ready not
just to defend against threats to our vital national systems, we need the
offensive capabilities to deter our enemies — or strike back if they don’t
take the hint. To keep our country safe in this century, we need to
maintain the digital balance of power.
And if we want our armed forces to get the right tools at the right time,
in a way that doesn’t waste taxpayer money, we need to fundamentally reform
our entire DoD procurement process.
Between 2001 and 2011, the DoD spent around $44 billion dollars on weapon
programs that were eventually cancelled. Weapons that have overrun their
budgets by hundreds of billions of dollars and failed to live up to
expectations. And across the board, military officials spend millions of
dollars every year dealing with red tape and byzantine reporting
requirements just to get the weapons we need.
Clearly, something isn’t right here in our procurement process.
Business-as-usual bureaucrats in Washington aren’t taking care of business.
So we need to adopt real world, private sector practices across our
procurement system, and remove wasteful, overlapping functions. Bureaucracy
shouldn’t burden our troops, and we should attack it with the same energy
as any other threat to our defense.
Stronger intelligence
So a strong defense needs to be the first cornerstone of our foreign policy.
The second is strengthening our intelligence efforts.
This is something very close to my heart. Because I’ve seen up close just
how important our intelligence community is to defending our way of life.
On the morning of September 11, my wife Mary Pat was working just two
blocks from the World Trade Center. She got evacuated from Manhattan by
ferry, and I was so unbelievably grateful and relieved that she was all
right. But like many of you, there were other people in our lives —
friends, colleagues, loved ones — who didn’t make it. A friend from our
church. The brother of one of Andrew’s teachers. Parents of their
classmates. And for New Jersey as a whole, we lost so many people on that
terrible day — the second most deaths of any state other than the State of
New York.
Those weeks after the attacks were such a scary and unpredictable time for
everyone. But it was also in that time that President Bush nominated me to
be US Attorney for the District of New Jersey. I was informed by the White
House on September 10, 2001 that I would be nominated for US Attorney for
the District of New Jersey, and I was confirmed to that post on December
10, three months later. And by then it was clear what I was going to be
working on for the next few years.
In early 2002, John Ashcroft called all the US Attorneys into the Justice
Department. And he gave us a message from the President. What happened on
9/11 must never happen again — and it was up to all of us to prevent it. We
had a responsibility to go after the terrorists with every legal instrument
at our disposal.
Well I took that to heart. Because I remembered what it felt like to be
waiting for a phone call from Mary Pat, hoping and praying that she was
safe. I know what it feels like to lose people when they should be safe —
at work, on our streets. This is not theoretical to me. I lived it in my
home. Everything changed that morning in September.
So for the next seven years of my life, my office focused on fighting
terrorism every day.
We started by bringing the first post-9/11 terrorism case in the country.
This was a case against a man called Hemant Lekhani, an Indian-born British
citizen who tried to buy and sell shoulder-fired missiles on the black
market, that could take down a plane. He thought he was dealing with a
terror organization, but he was actually dealing with a joint operation
between the FBI and the Russians. We investigated that case using tools
including the Patriot Act — and we ended up getting him convicted and sent
to jail for the rest of his life.
Another case was the Fort Dix Six. These were six radical Islamists who
were conspiring to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tried to
buy weapons and explosives from an underground weapons dealer who was
actually an FBI informant — the result of a 16-month operation with the FBI
and Justice Department to infiltrate the group. It was incredible
coordination, and we got the entire group behind bars.
So I’ve used all the tools we had to go after terror. I’ve used the Patriot
Act myself and personally reviewed the applications. I’ve prosecuted
terrorists, and sent terrorists to jail. And I’ve seen what happens when
our intelligence community, legal system and law enforcement work together.
We can use information to save lives.
That’s why intelligence matters. At the simplest level, intelligence helps
us prevent the next attack. But at its best, intelligence is a force
multiplier for all our national capabilities. If we want to manage events —
and not have events manage us — then we need superior knowledge of the
world around us.
Strength and knowledge go hand in hand — and should always be at the core
of our strategy.
Now, we’ve seen some good successes over the last few years. The way Bin
Laden was caught shows exactly how our intelligence efforts should work.
That took ten years of investment in building our human intelligence
capabilities. It took an immense effort to track individual cell phones
across Pakistan and Afghanistan. And it was the payoff for years of
training and equipping our SEAL teams to get the job done. President Obama
and President Bush deserve credit for laying the foundations for that
operation, and most of all, the brave troops and operatives on the ground
who made this happen.
But we need more efforts like that. We need to be constantly building those
foundations for the threats over the horizon, and the next set of
challenges we need to solve.
Today, we’re not seeing that progress. Instead, Washington is debating the
wrong question entirely — which intelligence capabilities should we get rid
of?
Too often, the loudest voices in the debate about how to keep our country
safe are driven by some purist, theoretical vision of how we should manage
our intelligence efforts.
When Edward Snowden revealed our intelligence secrets to the world in 2013,
civil liberties extremists seized that moment to advance their own narrow
agenda. They want you to think that there’s a government spook listening in
every time you pick up the phone or Skype with your grandkids. They want
you to think of our intelligence community as the bad guys, straight out of
the Bourne Identity or a Hollywood thriller. And they want you to think
that if we weakened our capabilities, the rest of the world would love us
more.
Let me be clear — all these fears are exaggerated and ridiculous. When it
comes to fighting terrorism, our government is not the enemy. And we
shouldn’t listen to people like Edward Snowden, a criminal who hurt our
country and now enjoys the hospitality of President Putin — while sending
us messages about the dangers of authoritarian government. And, frankly, we
don’t need advice from Hollywood, the guys who made our intelligence
agencies the villains in practically every movie from the last twenty-five
years.
But instead of taking on the ideologues, the Obama administration and the
Democrats have taken the path of least resistance. They’ve apologized for
our intelligence collection, promised that we will collect it only in ways
that protect the privacy of foreign citizens, and cut back on vital funding
for our intelligence services.
They’ve politicized intelligence oversight and demoralized our intelligence
community. Last year, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee
released a one-sided and inaccurate attack on our intelligence services.
Democrats behind that report should be ashamed for putting partisanship
above genuine oversight in the way they released this. And it’s just
disgraceful the way there are folks on the Hill who want American
intelligence weaker and less informed just to drive their own personal
political agendas.
So instead of support, our intelligence services get condemnations. Instead
of resources, they get regulations. Instead of building a community that’s
trusted and equipped to go after the hard targets, we have a risk-averse
intelligence service. The watchword from this administration isn’t,
“Collect all the information you can about a dangerous world,” but “collect
only what you have to have.”
The next time there’s a phone call to a terrorist safe house in Yemen from
San Diego or New Jersey, would our agents dare to listen in?
Well, we’ve never had a risk-averse military. And I don’t think we want a
risk-averse intelligence service. So we need to fix this.
We need to treat intelligence as a practical issue, not a theoretical one.
We need to be practical about preventing real civil liberties abuses
wherever they occur. That’s what a vigilant, responsible Congress, not a
partisan one, would accomplish with vigorous oversight. That’s what a truly
apolitical Justice Department would do by pursuing real legal violations by
any member of our intelligence community who steps over the line.
Protecting our homeland must be an uncompromising priority.
The vast majority of Americans aren’t worried about the government
listening in on them, because it hasn’t happened. But they are worried
about what happens if we don’t catch the bad people who want to harm our
country.
Here’s how we catch them.
We need to toughen our anti-terror and surveillance laws to give our
intelligence services the legal mechanisms to do their job.
Over the last couple of years, most of our allies including the UK, France,
Canada and Australia, have announced plans to toughen their laws to better
detect and prevent terrorism and extremism. Now we’re the only major
country talking about going in the opposite direction.
We should begin by passing a clean extension of the Patriot Act. At the end
of May, vital pieces of that legislation are going to expire, including
Section 215 — essential for our intelligence agencies to access the data
they need to stop suspected terrorists. I used this tool extensively,
aggressively and legally as US Attorney and I can tell you this: it works.
This is a big debate in Congress right now, and different courts have
expressed their views on the program too. But right now, that debate is
dominated by the intellectual purists worried about theoretical abuses that
haven’t occurred — instead of the real threats that we’ve already seen from
Garland, Texas, to Ft. Dix, New Jersey.
If you’re an ordinary, law-abiding American, this legislation has
absolutely no effect on you — except it could prevent the next attack from
taking place in our country, killing our fellow citizens. Absolutely no one
has a single real example of our intelligence services misusing this
program for political or other nefarious purposes. And we have incredibly
stringent oversight of these provisions. I wish I could say the same about
the Internal Revenue Service in this administration. The critics have
chosen the wrong target. But if they had a leg to stand on, they would ask
for greater oversight of Section 215. But they don’t want to because that
would mean more responsibility and accountability for them. Simply put,
they’re on the wrong side of this debate.
So let’s move beyond this. Let’s give our people the tools they need to get
the job done.
Part of that also means properly funding our intelligence services and
allowing them to keep innovating and improving their capabilities. We need
to invest in new technologies and infrastructure to support our signals
intelligence, so that we can actually interpret all the data we’re
gathering. Today’s problem isn’t having too little information; it’s having
too much. So we need to invest in turning noise into understanding.
One of the ways we can do that is by building a stronger and more
productive relationship with Silicon Valley. Our entrepreneurs and
innovators are some of our strongest assets as a country, and the work
they’re doing to connect the world helps to improve all our lives. So we
should be clear that we have no interest in reading the Facebook messages
and tweets of ordinary Americans. We want a strong and secure internet. But
we need the tools to find the people who would hurt our country so that
people can carry on enjoying the benefits of Facebook and Twitter and
Google. Our government should treat our tech community as our partners, not
our enemies. And when foreign governments try to use the Snowden leaks to
justify protectionism and attacks on our companies, we need to fight for
them — and with something more than apologies.
At the same time, we need to strengthen our human intelligence capabilities
in the parts of the world where they’re weakest. Our country has reacted
too slowly to the return of Moscow’s aggression and the rise of ISIS partly
because of our lack of investment in human intelligence. America should
never be caught napping because we chose not to invest in dealing with the
hard targets — Russia, Iran, North Korea.
And closer to home, we can do more to strengthen our cooperation and
intelligence sharing with our neighbors, as well as our allies in Europe.
We face common challenges and enemies, so we ought to have common
solutions. With Canada and Mexico we should be sharing more information
about overseas travelers to both countries, and greater cooperation with
Mexico to police their side of the border. And with Europe, in particular
the countries in the visa waiver program, we should be doing more to
encourage the sharing of digital data and information about extremist
threats. Ensuring the collective security of our allies should be something
they welcome, and it’s the price for all our partnerships.
Stronger alliances
With that in mind, let’s talk about the final pillar of our stronger
foreign policy — building stronger alliances.
As Governor, I’ve had the chance to meet with a lot of foreign leaders and
partners from overseas. Over the last couple of years I’ve met with the
leaders of our closest allies, from Canada and Mexico, to Israel and Great
Britain.
Everywhere I go, I hear the same thing from our allies — we want America to
be a strong global leader. We want you to step up and lead.
Because that’s who we are. It’s not just our strength and intelligence that
defines us as a country; it’s our willingness to stand with those who share
our values and interests. We became the leader of the free world because we
also chose to become the arsenal of democracy. And when we make a
commitment to stand with our allies, our word is our bond. Or at least it
used to be.
Throughout history, our leaders and diplomats have lived their lives to
extend that bond. Our soldiers have died to defend it.
But right now, we have a government that doesn’t seem to care about all the
blood and sweat and treasure that it took to build those alliances. Because
we’ve broken our word.
In 2013, President Obama talked about defending a red line for our nation
if the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his
own people. Well, he used chemical weapons on his people. President Obama’s
response? Never mind. His unwillingness to stand behind his own words has
made America weaker and less reliable in the world. He damaged the
credibility of the Presidency.
And when the world saw that our word was not our bond, are we surprised at
what happened next?
Are we surprised that Vladimir Putin chose to annex Crimea and invade
eastern Ukraine?
Are we surprised that Iranian-backed militias are rampaging across Yemen?
Are we surprised that Bashar al-Assad continues to butcher thousands of
men, women, using barrel bombs and conventional munitions dropped out of
Russian helicopters? Or that with Iranian support, the moderate Syrian
opposition has been sidelined by extremists and ISIS?
So whoever is going to be our next Commander-in-Chief is going to make
restoring America’s word a priority. We need to make it clear to our
friends and allies that we stand with them in the cause of freedom, and
against all the gathering threats. We will stand together, because we
cannot stand alone. And we must return America to the leadership role the
world needs and expects.
In Europe, our first task is to defend the Western alliance against Russian
aggression.
We have spent 70 years of blood and treasure, first to defeat Nazism and
then to defeat Soviet totalitarianism to establish and maintain a free and
united Europe. Now President Obama and Secretary Clinton are giving this
sacred investment away for nothing with their inane reset button.
In March, the Polish government started offering military training to any
civilians between the ages of 18 and 50 who wanted it. On the very first
day they opened up that program, 1,000 people signed up. And then they kept
coming.
When Polish civilians are drilling to defend the streets of Warsaw once
again, you know our Europe policy is a scary failure to our allies. And we
need to have our allies’ backs. And we need to do it now.
We need to stand up to Russian aggression together, and make clear that our
commitment to our NATO allies in Eastern Europe is absolute. And if Putin’s
Russia wants to rejoin the community of civilized nations, then they’re
going to have to behave like one.
We need to bolster our allies by helping them get access to the weapons
systems and training they need to defend themselves. We should strengthen
NATO’s military presence in the Baltic states, and make clear to all our
Eastern European allies that we will not allow the freedoms they’ve won
since the Cold War to be reversed. We should give Ukraine the weapons it
needs to defend itself.
We should also put the pressure on all our NATO allies to invest more in
their own defense. After the Cold War, too many of our European allies
rushed to cut their military spending and enjoy the dividend of peace. Well
now they need to invest, and fulfill their NATO commitments to spend at
least 2% of GDP on defense annually. It’s not because we’re not going to
have their backs — Europe just needs to watch their front as well, and
close the big and increasing capabilities gap that we saw between our
forces and theirs at moments like Kosovo in 1999 and Libya in 2011. And
even as Europe increases spending, we should work with them to avoid
duplication in capabilities across the alliance. They don’t all need to
rush out and buy tanks, but they might benefit from investing more in cyber
warfare, missile defense, precision weapons and artillery — the things we
need more of.
And as for Russia — until Putin chooses the path of peace, we should keep
applying pressure.
Just a couple of months ago, the head of Russia’s FSB — the old KGB — was
invited to the White House for a summit on “countering extremism.” We
didn’t just invite the fox into the hen house, we let in the bear. That
just seems crazy to me. Instead, we should immediately put travel bans and
asset freezes on every member of the Russian parliament and Putin’s entire
circle — including Putin himself. We know who holds the leash on the dogs
of war. So let’s not mess around on this. And if that still isn’t enough,
we should look at tougher sanctions on Russia’s energy and financial
sectors — and hit them where it really hurts.
How we deal with Russia is a test for how we stand with all our allies
everywhere. We cannot back down, and we need a leader who won’t back down.
But there are other places we’re going to be tested too, and other allies
we need to defend.
At the top of the list is Israel. I’m going to be short and sweet here. Our
commitment to Israel must be absolute.
Israel is a beacon of freedom in a sea of autocracy, and our friendship
should be unshakable. Over the last few years, the Obama administration has
taken our Israeli partners for granted and it’s just shameful the way the
President has treated them. When the President is barely on speaking terms
with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and waited two days to call and congratulate
him after his election, that’s just immature. If we can’t be respectful to
our best friends in the world, then we’re not going to get very far with
anyone else — and it’s no surprise this administration has such an abysmal
record on diplomacy.
Finally, Israel and its people must be supported by the United States and
the American President. Its existence and security is non-negotiable. The
Iranians and others who think otherwise must be reminded of that simple
fact.
Also damaging to our partnership with Israel, is just the staggering
strategic incompetence and disinterest in countering the rising threats
across the Middle East and North Africa — threats that if left unchecked,
will compromise Israel’s security and future. If we truly care about
defending Israel, then we need to consider what the region will look like
tomorrow — and then take action today. President Obama seems unwilling to
stand up to anyone in the Middle East — except for Prime Minister
Netanyahu. It is embarrassing and dangerous.
We have a lot of work to do.
With Iran, the President’s eagerness for a deal on their nuclear program
has him ready to accept a bad deal. The framework we’ve negotiated here
seems pretty flimsy, and I have grave concerns over how we’re going to make
the Iranians live up to their end of the bargain and how we can ensure
proper, verifiable compliance. So until we get that, we should have the
strength to keep our guard up and keep our sanctions up. The deal as
structured will lead to a nuclear Iran and, then, a nuclearized Middle
East. That not only threatens Israel. It threatens the United States and
turns 70 years of nuclear policy on its head.
Iran has also been pretty busy across the region, and almost everywhere
Iran opposes US goals. In Yemen, they’ve launched a proxy war that has
devastated our ally and represents a clear and present danger to world. And
while Iran has supported Iraq in fighting back against ISIS, their motives
are hardly benign, and we know they have a long-term interest in building a
power base in Iraq.
Iran might not have the bomb right now — but their influence is absolutely
radioactive to the world. So we need to contain it with our moderate Sunni
Arab allies, while at the same time rolling back the shadow of ISIS. We
need to do more to organize our allies into a strong coalition on the
ground in Yemen, and to train and equip the moderate opposition to Assad in
Syria and the tribal elements in Iraq that are a threat to peace. We should
develop new tools to blunt Iran’s regional influence, including ways to
fight the flow of cash to their puppets: Hezbollah, the Houthis, Syria and
Iraqi militants. We should link our sanctions regime to the threat Iran
poses to the region, and treat all these threats as connected, which the
Obama Administration doesn’t — and come up with a real coherent strategy
with our Sunni partners.
The price of inaction is steadily rising. Just last week we saw the
embarrassment of almost all the Gulf leaders, including the Saudi King,
pulling out of President Obama’s summit at Camp David. Our allies want
policies, not photo ops, and we’re not listening to them. And as we fail to
confront Iran’s shadowy nuclear program and undisguised quest for regional
power, we raise the likelihood of states taking unilateral actions or
seeking extreme solutions. If we’re not going to stop Iran getting a
nuclear capability, then why would the Saudis or Egyptians or Emiratis
choose not to follow? If we don’t have a plan to stop Bashar al-Assad in
Syria, or Iraq in Yemen, what’s to stop governments lending support to
proxy forces like Al Qaeda and ISIS?
In August the President announced a campaign to degrade and destroy ISIS.
But right now they seem to be getting stronger every day, and we’ve just
witnessed ISIS taking full control of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s largest
province. So right now our piecemeal strategy to deal with ISIS doesn’t
inspire confidence.
When allies lose confidence in us, they take matters into their own hands.
I think it’s better for America to extend a helping hand — and help manage
events.
And that’s why we also need to strengthen our alliances across the
Asia-Pacific region.
This century, more than any other, will be defined by the Pacific. So I
think it’s important we work to build on our relationships with our core
allies in the region, Australia, Japan, the Philippines and Korea, as well
as newer partners, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma and Vietnam.
Now, the President has talked about leading a pivot to Asia in our foreign
and security policy. We’ve taken some of the right steps, like working to
strengthen our economic ties with our Asian partners through the
Trans-Pacific Partnership. But generally, we haven’t matched strategy with
capabilities, particularly in terms of our defensive deployments. 2,500
marines in Australia, a couple of Littoral Combat Ships in Singapore, and
exercises in Philippines are a start. But compare that to China’s double
digit growth in military spending every year, with thousands of missiles
pointed across the Taiwan Straits, next generation fighter jets and soon,
likely a full blue water capable fleet with aircraft carriers. And we still
face an unpredictable and dangerous regime in North Korea, and extremist
threats across the region.
If we don’t upgrade our presence in the region, then we won’t be able to
keep our commitments to our allies. The President’s pivot to Asia might
just be a pendulum to Asia. So I think we should match words with deeds,
and alliances with strength. We need to reposition more of our fleet and
our forces across the region, and give our allies the capabilities they
need to respond to the threats of the future. We don’t want to fuel a
regional arms race, but there’s no reason we can’t help our allies upgrade
their capabilities with stronger coastal defenses, submarines, maritime
reconnaissance equipment and other defensive equipment.
Nothing about these policies is about treating China like a foe. China is a
great nation, and we want them to be a partner. Our countries have so much
to learn and to offer one another, and if we can work together, we can
create a century of greater prosperity and security. But we must never shy
away from demanding that China live up to the rules of the global
community, and respect the human rights of its own people and the
sovereignty of our allies — and we should make clear that the United States
will always stand by its allies, no matter what.
Let me be clear. Strengthening America’s defenses and our intelligence
community, and sending clear and resolute signals to allies and adversaries
alike will not lead to war. It will build the foundations of peace. It will
lead to fair negotiations, not one-sided ones. It will lead us towards
stability and away from indecision and chaos. It will strengthen existing
alliances and build new ones. It will reestablish American credibility in
the world — with everyone.
America’s word will once again be our bond — as it always should have been.
A great generation
So that’s how I see an American foreign policy designed for the times we
live in — and for an exceptional country. We need a stronger defense,
stronger intelligence and stronger alliances. When we add strength to
knowledge, and work with partners who share our interests and values, we
can create a world that is safer, stronger and more prosperous.
But there’s one more thing we need to do. We need to banish cynicism.
Today there are plenty of voices that say that America’s time as a global
leader has passed. We can’t change the world. We shouldn’t change the
world. The challenges we face are too great — and our power too small.
That might be true of an ordinary nation. But that’s not us.
President Reagan once said that “above all, we must realize that no arsenal
or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and
moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in
today’s world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have.”
He was right. And that will and courage will lead us forward.
Today, we live in cynical times with cynical politics. If we’re going to
keep making progress as a country, we’re going to have to fix that and get
our domestic house in order. That’s a longer discussion — and one that I’m
looking forward to having with all of you in the weeks and months ahead.
But none of us should doubt our ability to lead in this new century. This
can be the second American century. It must be. We shouldn’t fear that
challenge.
Our forefathers’ generation was called “the greatest generation” because
they put their lives on the line to protect our way of life — and because
they overcame the greatest challenges. They didn’t achieve greatness
because the challenges were too few. It was because they faced many, and
they dared to confront them.
It’s only when we dare to face the big challenges that we can achieve
greatness. Courage is not the absence of fear — it is the presence of fear,
but with the will to go on fighting.
Well we have a chance today to face big challenges and to overcome them. We
have a chance to follow in the footsteps of giants like our grandparents’
generation, and leaders like New Hampshire’s John Winant. He went to London
in the service of his country. Now, we’ve been blessed with the strength
and resources to go out and defend our way of life once again. And if we
dare to do that, then we have a chance to be a great generation too.
It’s time for us to get to work, and to find our greatness again. Let’s go
do the big things that lead America to another century of exceptionalism,
and not a century of settling for second place. The world is waiting, and
together we can lead it forward. Thank you.
Christie to Call for Larger Military, More US Intervention
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/christie-call-larger-military-us-intervention-31118704>
// ABC News // Jim Colvin, Associated Press - May 18, 2015
Making the case for a more active U.S. presence overseas, New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie will call for a larger military and a boost in defense
spending while defending the government's intelligence-collection efforts,
in a speech Monday setting forth his foreign policy approach.
The likely Republican presidential contender will also use an appearance in
New Hampshire to criticize President Barack Obama's handling of the surging
Islamic State group and the emerging nuclear deal with Iran.
"Iran might not have the bomb right now — but their influence is absolutely
radioactive to the world," the New Jersey governor says in prepared remarks
released by his political action committee. "So we need to contain it with
our moderate Sunni Arab allies, while at the same time rolling back the
shadow of ISIS," he said, using another acronym for Islamic State.
Christie, who served as a U.S. attorney before he was elected governor,
will also seek to distance himself from the crowded Republican field by
offering an unapologetic defense of the U.S.'s intelligence-collection
efforts.
He will specifically take aim at former National Security Agency contractor
Edward Snowden, who in 2013 leaked thousands of documents to journalists.
Among Snowden's revelations: NSA had for years been secretly collecting
millions of Americans' phone records. Christie has previously said that
program should continue.
"When Edward Snowden revealed our intelligence secrets to the world in
2013, civil liberties extremists seized that moment to advance their own
narrow agenda," he will say, according to the excerpts. "They want you to
think that there's a government spook listening in every time you pick up
the phone or Skype with your grandkids. They want you to think of our
intelligence community as the bad guys, straight out of the Bourne Identity
or a Hollywood thriller. And they want you to think that if we weakened our
capabilities, the rest of the world would love us more."
"Let me be clear — all these fears are baloney," he said.
"When it comes to fighting terrorism, our government is not the enemy,"
Christie says in his prepared remarks.
The House voted last week to end the bulk phone records collection program
and replace it with a system to search the data held by telephone companies
on a case-by-case basis
The speech will be the third that Christie has delivered in recent weeks in
the early-voting state as he lays the groundwork for an expected campaign.
His previous speeches focused on overhauling Social Security and lowering
taxes on individuals and corporations.
Christie has been working to try to re-establish his place in the top tier
of likely candidates after the fallout from the George Washington Bridge
scandal.
Chris Christie, Rand Paul Bring Patriot Act Debate to Campaign Trail
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/chris-christie-rand-paul-bring-patriot-act-debate-to-campaign-trail-1431975852>
// WSJ // Heather Haddon and Janet Hook - May 18, 2015
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie faulted Washington lawmakers for debating
the merits of the Patriot Act and said there were no substantiated examples
that the post-Sept. 11 security law has abused the civil liberties of
American citizens.
In a foreign-policy speech delivered in New Hampshire Monday, the potential
2016 presidential candidate called for a reauthorization of the Patriot Act
as it currently stands and criticized any attempts to scale back the bulk
collection of American phone records by the National Security Agency.
“The next time there’s a phone call to a terrorist safe house in Yemen from
San Diego or New Jersey, would our agents dare to listen in?” said Mr.
Christie, during the 45-minute speech in Portsmouth, N.H. “I don’t think we
want a risk-averse intelligence service.”
Mr. Christie’s defense of the NSA phone-data collection program puts him
squarely at odds with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a presidential candidate who
Monday reiterated his threat to mount a Senate filibuster over the issue.
“We will do everything possible, including filibustering the Patriot Act,
to stop them,” Mr. Paul said, according to the Associated Press,
acknowledging that he might not have enough allies to succeed in blocking
the program. “They have the votes inside the Beltway. But we have the votes
outside the Beltway, and we’ll have that fight.”
Mr. Paul has made the issue a centerpiece of his campaign, where one of his
signature applause lines is to slam the NSA by telling audiences, “What you
do on your cellphone is none of their damn business.”
The issue is being joined on the presidential campaign trail just as
Congress is debating reauthorizing key provisions of the Patriot Act, with
sections of the far-reaching law set to expire at the end of May.
Lawmakers are considering scaling back the bulk collection of phone records
authorized under Section 215 of the act, with the House of Representatives
voting last week to allow monitoring on a case-by-case basis.
The prospects for action by the June 1 deadline are uncertain because of
differences between the House and Senate and the prospects of a filibuster.
Asked if the White House supported a two-month extension of the Patriot
Act, spokesman Eric Schultz said that Congress should act now.
“Our strategy on these important security matters is to not kick the can
down the road,” said Mr. Schultz before the president’s afternoon visit to
New Jersey on Monday. “Congress has known of this impending deadline for
months and months.”
Mr. Christie directed most of his fire at Washington Democrats, but also
said that there were leaders from parties “who want American intelligence
weaker and less informed just to drive their own personal political
agendas.” He called those criticisms “disgraceful.”
Other presidential candidates who have weighed in on the issue are Sen. Ted
Cruz, who has criticized the blanket metadata collection, while Sen. Marco
Rubio has defended it.
Mr. Paul said, speaking at a round table in Philadelphia Monday, that he
didn’t want to abolish the NSA or domestic surveillance entirely, but that
he wanted the government to seek individual warrants not just authorize
bulk phone monitoring.
He took a swipe at “some Republicans running for office,” who suggested not
seeking a warrant from a judge, but instead “just drone them.” That was an
apparent reference to Sen. Lindsey Graham, who at a candidate forum in Iowa
Saturday said if there was someone was thinking of joining al Qaeda or
Islamic State, “I’m not going to call a judge, I’m going to call a drone
and we will kill you.”
Mr. Christie, who is a former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, spoke Monday
about specific instances when he used Section 215, and his prosecutions of
suspected terrorists who attempted to buy weapons on the black market.
“I’ve prosecuted terrorists, and sent terrorists to jail,” said Mr.
Christie, who was appointed to the role by former President George W. Bush.
“I’ve seen what happens when our intelligence community, legal system and
law enforcement work together.”
He also criticized civil liberty advocates criticisms of the bulk phone
surveillance programs as “exaggerated and ridiculous.”
He said that the current debate over the act in Washington was “dominated
by the intellectual purists worried about theoretical abuses.”
“Absolutely no one has a single real example of our intelligence services
misusing this program for political or other nefarious purposes,” Mr.
Christie said.
In his first major foreign-policy address this year, Mr. Christie also
called for more investment in the U.S. military, including research to
prevent cyberattacks and funding for unmanned aircraft commonly known as
drones.
Mr. Christie said the Obama administration wasn’t fully supporting Israel
and America’s allies in the Middle East, and faulted the president for not
taking a firmer stance on Syria.
“He has damaged the credibility of the American presidency,” Mr. Christie
said.
Mr. Christie also said that the U.S. should ramp up pressure on Russia
until it stops acts of military aggression in the region, and called for an
asset ban on President Vladimir Putin, members of the country’s parliament
and the president’s inner circle of advisers.
Chris Christie Now Opposes Creating a Pathway to Citizenship for
Undocumented Workers
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-18/chris-christie-says-he-now-opposes-creating-a-pathway-to-citizenship-for-undocumented-workers>
// Bloomberg // Terrence Dopp - May 18, 2015
By his own admission, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has changed his
tune.
On Monday, Christie said that he now opposes providing a pathway to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants, something he supported as recently
as 2010.
"I think that’s an extreme way to go," Christie said in an interview on FOX
News Channel's The Kelly File scheduled to air Monday night. "And I think
that, quite frankly, what Hillary Clinton’s doing right now is pandering.
That’s pandering. We need to have an intelligent conversation about this
and bring the American people along to where we can find consensus."
Christie, who opted not to run four years ago, is traveling as honorary
chairman of his political action committee, Leadership Matters for America,
even though he's said he won't make a formal announcement on a White House
run until later this month or in June.
He had a packed day in New Hampshire, starting with a noon speech on
foreign policy in the waterfront Prescott Park, where John McCain announced
in 2008. He next held his fifth town hall meeting in three weeks at a VFW
hall in Hudson.
The former federal prosecutor conceded during the interview that the stance
on a pathway to citizenship is a shift from his previous position on the
matter. In recent weeks, he has stated that immigrants won't "self-deport,"
adding that there aren't enough law enforcement resources to force an
estimated 11 million people here to leave.
During the interview Christie also knocked President Barack Obama for his
executive action on immigration and said his own shift on the question of
providing a pathway to citizenship is an evolution.
“Well, I think I’ve learned over time about this issue and done a lot more
work on it," he said. "And I think everyone has to do what you need to be
able to get educated on these issues and learn, and back in 2010 I was in
my first couple of months as Governor, I’ve now learned some of the
ramifications of some of these things and what I am saying now is we’ve got
to come up with a solution for it. ”
Christie cites experience running against female opponent
<http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20150518_ap_a0423a667e1f4691a00b3eeff006cb5b.html>
// Philly // The Associated Press - May 18, 2015
HUDSON, N.H. (AP) - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says his 2013 race
against a female opponent has helped prepare him for a potential campaign
against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The likely Republican presidential contender was asked during a town hall
event in New Hampshire Monday evening why he believed he would be
well-suited to run against the favorite for the Democratic nomination if he
chooses to run and wins his party's nomination.
Among his reasons, Christie cited his commanding victory over Democrat
Barbara Buono during his re-election campaign.
"Everybody thought, 'Oh no, no ... look at this ... this is going to be
bad. Christie's gonna lose his cool. This woman's yelling at him all the
time. He's going to yell back at her. It's going to ugly really fast and
he's going to lose,'" Christie recalled.
"I think that experience of campaigning under that kind of stress, in that
atmosphere, against that type of opponent, prepares you extraordinarily
well to be able to run against Secretary Clinton, if that's what I chose to
do," he said.
Christie, who has been working to move past the George Washington Bridge
scandal, also suggested that he'd been held to a different standard that
Clinton, who has come under scrutiny for using a private email server when
she was secretary of state. He said that, as a Republican, he believes he
would have faced far greater scrutiny had he done the same thing.
Chris Christie will be in New Hampshire when Obama visits NJ: Chris
Christie in the news
<http://www.cleveland.com/rnc-2016/index.ssf/2015/05/chris_christie_will_be_in_nh_w.html>
// Cleveland // Sabrina Eaton - May 18, 2015
Today's Chris Christie news: When President Barack Obama visits Camden,
N.J,, today to applaud the city's police reforms, New Jersey GOP Gov.
Chris Christie will be out of state, campaigning to be Obama's successor.
Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno is scheduled to be in Camden to welcome the
president: Cherry Hill Courier Post
Christie will be in New Hampshire to deliver a major foreign policy speech
on "America's Role in the World" at noon at Prescott Park in Portsmouth. He
will also hold a town hall at 5 p.m. at the Hudson VFW: WMUR
On Friday, Christie appeared in Georgia along with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Christie told told about 350 people at a GOP
breakfast, "You'll be seeing a lot of people." He lingered afterward for
hugs and photos, including from delegates wearing stickers for other
candidates: Associated Press
At the Victory Breakfast for the Georgia Republican Party State Convention
in Athens, Christie talked himself up as someone who can work across
political lines. "In a state like mine, I don't have the luxury of having a
Republican legislature," he said. "You don't have the option to stand in
the corner ... You've got to make the world turn:" Athens Banner-Herald
He also told the Georgia event that entitlements — which, he said, now
consume 71 percent of federal spending, compared to 26 percent under JFK —
prevent the federal government from making other choices, from cutting
taxes to investing in infrastructure or defense: Atlanta Journal
Constitution
Sen. Lindsey Graham on White House bid: 'I'm running'
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/lindsey-graham-2016-presidential-announcement-june-1-118047.html>
// Politico // Katie Glueck - May 18, 2015
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday that he will announce his decision about
whether to run for president on June 1 in his hometown of Central, S.C.,
but left little doubt about his intentions by saying “I’m running.”
“I’m running because of what you see on television, I’m running because I
think the world is falling apart, I’ve been more right than wrong on
foreign policy,” he said on “CBS This Morning,” when asked if he was
running because he was unimpressed with the rest of the field (and
appearing to dispense with the pretense that he hasn’t decided whether to
jump in). “It’s not the fault of others, or their lack of this or that that
makes me want to run, it’s my ability in my own mind to be a good
commander-in-chief and to make Washington work.”
Graham, who is one of the Senate’s leading national security hawks, would
be a longshot in the crowded Republican presidential field but could be
influential in pressuring the other contenders on foreign policy issues. In
recent weeks, the chances of his running, according to Graham, have gone
from 91 percent to “98.6 percent” to 99.9 percent. He has also staffed up
his exploratory committee.
“You’re all invited to come, spend money when you do, and I will tell you
what I’m going to do about running for president,” he said about the June 1
event.
Graham was also asked whether he would have gone into Iraq if he had known
of the intelligence failures that are widely known now. It’s a question
that has tripped up several other 2016 contenders, including Jeb Bush and
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
“Going into Iraq, if I’d known…then what I know now, would I have launched
a ground invasion? Probably not,” he said, adding that if he knew the
“intelligence was faulty,” he would have “reconfigured” his approach to
taking on Saddam Hussein, who “needed to go.”
“But at the end of the day, he is gone,” Graham said. “And I’m worried
about an attack on our homeland.”
Graham, a media fixture, is well-known for his assertive national security
posture and for working with Democrats on issues like immigration reform.
But hosting the June 1 event in the town where he grew up allows Graham to
highlight his personal story, which isn’t widely known. He was raised in
the back of a pool hall and bar owned by his family, and when his parents
died young, he brought up his sister while in college and in the military
(Graham is trained as an Air Force lawyer). That tough background, his team
believes, better positions him to connect in a compassionate way with
voters.
The senator added that he was also weighing a run both because he wanted to
take on “radical Islam” and because he wanted to promote more
bipartisanship.
“In my view, Democrats and Republicans work together too little,” he said.
“And I would try to change that if I got to be president.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham Is 'Having A Blast' As He Preps Presidential Run
<http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/05/18/407662108/sen-lindsey-graham-is-having-a-blast-as-he-preps-presidential-run>
// NPR // Jessica Taylor and Don Gonyea - May 18, 2015
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is ready to join the crowded 2016 presidential
race — and he's having a blast in doing it.
The defense hawk and pragmatic Republican said Monday morning on CBS's This
Morning that he would make an announcement on June 1 about his plans, but
he went on to dispense with all pretense of what that decision would be.
"I'm running because I think the world is falling apart," Graham said.
His 10-minute address at the Iowa Republican Party's annual Lincoln Day
Dinner on Saturday was heavy on foreign policy, promising to be a tough
hand on national security if elected.
He took an implicit shot at libertarian-leaning Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, an
already-announced presidential candidate with whom he's often sparred. In
his speech, Paul decried the NSA wiretapping programs designed to stop
terrorist attacks.
But in his folksy manner, Graham took a firm shot while also mixing humor.
"If I'm president of the United States and you're thinking about joining
al-Qaida or ISIL — anybody thinking about that?" he asked to laughs. "I'm
not gonna call a judge. I'm gonna call a drone and we're gonna kill you."
It was Graham's largest appearance before Iowans so far, and he told NPR in
an interview ahead of his speech that he knows he'll have to work to
introduce himself to voters, despite his long tenure in politics. He was
elected to the House in the 1994 GOP revolution and succeeded GOP Sen.
Strom Thurmond to the Senate in 2002.
He also acknowledged that he'll have some work to do with some GOP voters,
who know him as an ally of 2008 Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John
McCain, R-Ariz., and one of the principal architects of the Senate's
bipartisan immigration reform bill.
"I've got people who are fans ... I've got people who are critics ... and
I've got people who say 'I think I know him but I really don't know him,' "
he told NPR.
Graham says he worries that the debate in the GOP primaries will pull the
party too far to the right. He says he wants a real debate on immigration,
saying reforms are necessary for the economy and for national security. He
added that GOP hard-liners on the issue hurt the party's chances of ever
winning Hispanic votes.
"I worry that we'll marginalize ourselves once again with the fastest
growing community in America, the Hispanic community," he said.
Graham also defended both former President George W. Bush and Jeb Bush — a
likely opponent of his in the 2016 GOP race. Last week the former Florida
governor gave a series of sometimes conflicting answers as to whether he
supported his brother's decision to launch the war.
"When it comes to blaming people about Iraq, the person I blame is Barack
Obama and not George W. Bush," Graham thundered.
The South Carolina senator is taking lessons from McCain, his closest
friend in the Senate, in his own all-but-certain bid, and he told NPR he
learned from McCain's primary victory eight years ago that anything can
happen in a White House race, particularly one that's shaping up to be as
large as this year's field.
"Because you're the front-runner doesn't mean you're gonna stay the
front-runner. Because you're fifth in a four-person race, doesn't mean
you're out of it," he said. "I've learned never give up. Have a message.
Stick to it, and be yourself."
Part of that authenticity is telling voters about the hard road that
brought him to the Senate. He touched on his back story in his Lincoln
dinner speech — how his mother died when he was 21 from Hodgkin's disease,
his father passed just months later, and he was left to care for his
younger sister.
"The bills wiped us out because we were underinsured. So I don't need a
lecture from Democrats about health care. Fifteen months later my dad died.
I'm 22, my sister is 14. My world came to an end upside down. If it wasn't
for family, friends and faith I wouldn't be standing here today," said
Graham.
Graham alternated between serious and humorous throughout his speech, which
was one of the best received of the evening. Barely a minute into it, he
told the crowd that he's an attorney — including for the military where he
still serves in the Air Force Reserve. Then he joked about his first client
as a young lawyer in a divorce case.
"He asked me a question I didn't know the answer to. He said, if we get
divorced are my wife and I still cousins," he said, laughing as the crowd
howled. "The answer is yes in South Carolina ... I don't know about Iowa."
The off-beat humor went over well with the crowd, though. His hospitality
suite after the event was one of the most-trafficked of the night, with
Iowans who knew little about Graham previously lining up to meet the
senator. He gladly stood by for photos and to chat, pushing cookies and
drinks on visitors.
Iowa Clinic CEO Ed Brown was one of the Republicans who knew only about
Graham from his frequent TV appearances, but walked away heavily impressed.
"He brought a little bit of levity at the right time, in the course of the
evening, and frankly he hit a lot of issues right on point," said Brown.
John Chesser, a lawyer in Des Moines, also said he was blown away, and
given Graham's experience in the Senate and the military, he would make a
good president.
"He seems like a real human being, He was very natural ,and he had a grasp
of issues. He went from being funny, but at the same time when it was time
to be serious, he was serious."
Graham is fine with being serious on the trail, but he's also going to
enjoy the ride.
"I'm having a blast," he said, laughing at the end of his interview with
NPR.
Bobby Jindal forming exploratory committee for White House run
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/bobby-jindal-2016-presidential-run-exploratory-committee-118051.html#ixzz3aVRHqOMk>
// Politico // Jonathan Topaz - May 18, 2015
Bobby Jindal announced Monday that he’s forming a presidential exploratory
committee for a potential run for the 2016 Republican nomination.
The Louisiana governor, a fierce social conservative who has been active in
the early nominating states, will make a decision after the state’s
legislative session ends on June 11.
“For some time now, my wife Supriya and I have been thinking and praying
about whether to run for the presidency of our great nation. We’ll make a
final decision in June,” Jindal said in a statement sent to reporters.
“While other Republican leaders are talking about change, I’ve published
detailed plans to repeal and replace Obamacare, rebuild America’s defenses,
make America energy independent, and reform education for our nation’s
children,” Jindal added, in a jab at his potential opponents in a crowded
GOP field.
Jindal was one of eleven candidates to visit Iowa this weekend for the
state Republican Party’s Lincoln dinner. The governor, dealing with low
approval numbers back home, would be a long shot to win the nomination, but
is popular among social conservatives and evangelical voters in Iowa.
Connecting the Dots Behind the 2016 Candidates
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/13/us/elections/2016-presidential-campaigns-staff-connections-clinton-bush-cruz-paul-rubio-walker.html?nytapp=true>
// NYT // Gregor Aisch and Karen Yourish - May 17, 2015
Presidential candidates change, but the people who run the campaigns often
remain the same. Here is how the teams behind some likely and announced
candidates are connected to previous campaigns, administrations and
organizations close to the possible nominees.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Mrs. Clinton is relying on a mix of Clinton loyalists, seasoned Obama
operatives and other key strategists to modernize and force discipline on
her campaign (in other words, to avoid many of the mistakes of her 2008
primary race). At the top are John D. Podesta, a Clintonite with strong
ties to President Obama; Robby Mook, known for his no-drama approach to
managing Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s 2013 campaign; and Huma Abedin,
Mrs. Clinton’s longtime aide. Campaign veterans loyal to Mr. Obama and Mrs.
Clinton are running Priorities USA Action, the super PAC supporting Mrs.
Clinton, which operates outside the official campaign.
Jeb Bush
The former Florida governor is building a sizable political operation in
anticipation of a likely campaign announcement. His team includes longtime
advisers, key operatives from Mitt Romney’s presidential races, and a few
veterans of George W. Bush’s campaigns. Sally Bradshaw and Mike Murphy form
the core of Jeb Bush’s inner circle. Ms. Bradshaw and David Kochel are
expected to head the campaign, and Mr. Murphy will oversee Right to Rise,
the pro-Bush super PAC.
Ted Cruz
The Texas freshman firebrand senator has recruited several operatives with
ties to conservative politicians and former presidential contenders, as
well as a handful of Senate aides. Jason Johnson, the architect of Mr.
Cruz’s 2012 Senate victory; Jeff Roe, a strategist known for his aggressive
tactics; and Chad Sweet, a former investment banker, are in charge of Mr.
Cruz’s campaign effort. Dathan Voelter, an Austin lawyer and friend of Mr.
Cruz, is treasurer of three of the four super PACs supporting the senator.
Rand Paul
The libertarian-leaning junior senator from Kentucky is trying to shape his
own political identity. Most of the influential members of his team have
little or no connection to his father, Ron Paul, a former Texas congressman
who twice sought the Republican presidential nomination. Doug Stafford is
the senator’s closest political adviser. The campaign manager, Chip
Englander, ran Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner’s 2014 campaign. Vincent Harris,
a GOP digital star, was poached from Ted Cruz’s camp. And strategists Mike
Biundo and John Yob learned the arcane world of delegate math while working
for Rick Santorum in 2012. Advisers with connections to both Pauls are
running America’s Liberty PAC, the super PAC supporting Rand’s campaign.
Marco Rubio
Mr. Rubio’s inner circle includes several strategists with strong ties to
early primary states and the Bush family. Terry Sullivan headed Mitt
Romney’s 2008 primary in South Carolina, and Heath Thompson and J. Warren
Tompkins helped George W. Bush win the state’s 2000 primary. Jim Merrill
directed both of Mr. Romney’s New Hampshire primaries. And Todd Harris, who
was the chief spokesman for the 2002 re-election campaign of Jeb Bush, is
familiar with Iowa after serving as a news media consultant for Joni Ernst,
the state’s newly elected senator.
Scott Walker
Mr. Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, who has not officially announced his
candidacy, is supported by people who helped him win three statewide
elections, as well as a crew of national strategists. His
campaign-in-waiting is housed in Our American Revival, a 527 group that can
accept unlimited donations. Rick Wiley, the executive director of the
group, is expected to be Mr. Walker’s campaign manager. Two advisers who
have been with the governor since his first gubernatorial bid are running
Unintimidated, the super PAC supporting Mr. Walker.
TOP NEWS
DOMESTIC
Obama to Limit Military-Style Equipment for Police Forces
<http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/politics/obama-to-limit-military-style-equipment-for-police-forces.html?_r=1>
// NYT // Julie Hirschfeld Davis - May 18, 2015
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday will ban the federal provision of
some types of military-style equipment to local police departments and
sharply restrict the availability of others, administration officials said.
The ban is part of Mr. Obama’s push to ease tensions between law
enforcement and minority communities in reaction to the crises in
Baltimore; Ferguson, Mo.; and other cities.
He is taking the action after a task force he created in January decided
that police departments should be barred from using federal funds to
acquire items that include tracked armored vehicles, the highest-caliber
firearms and ammunition, and camouflage uniforms. The ban is part of a
series of steps the president has made to try to build trust between law
enforcement organizations and the citizens they are charged with protecting.
Mr. Obama planned to promote the effort on Monday during a visit to Camden,
N.J. The city, racked by poverty and crime, has become a national model for
better relations between the police and citizens after replacing its
beleaguered police force with a county-run system that prioritizes
community ties.
Mr. Obama is expected to hold up Camden as a counterpoint to places like
Ferguson, where the killing of a young black man by a white police officer
last summer and the violent protests that followed exposed long-simmering
hostility between law enforcement agencies and minorities in cities around
the country.
The trip and the action on military-style equipment are to coincide with
the release on Monday of a report from a policing task force that Mr. Obama
formed late last year in response to the crisis in Ferguson. The 116-page
report calls for law enforcement agencies to “embrace a guardian — rather
than a warrior — mind-set to build trust and legitimacy both within
agencies and with the public.” It contains dozens of recommendations for
agencies throughout the country.
“We are, without a doubt, sitting at a defining moment in American
policing,” Ronald L. Davis, the director of the Office of Community
Oriented Policing Services at the Department of Justice, told reporters in
a conference call organized by the White House. “We have a unique
opportunity to redefine policing in our democracy, to ensure that public
safety becomes more than the absence of crime, but it must also include a
presence for justice.”
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the federal government
sharply expanded its efforts to provide police departments with automatic
weapons, armored vehicles and other military-style gear through grant
programs at the Homeland Security and Justice Departments and transfers
from the Defense Department. The programs have enjoyed widespread
popularity among lawmakers eager to take steps to protect their communities
and constantly in search of ways to steer federal money to their districts
and states.
The report from the task force on military equipment cited the police
response to the Ferguson unrest as an example of how the “militarization”
of police departments can lead to fear and mistrust. In addition to
prohibiting some equipment outright, officials said, Mr. Obama accepted the
group’s recommendation to impose new restrictions on other military-style
items, such as wheeled armored vehicles, pyrotechnics, battering rams and
riot gear, and more stringent requirements for training and information
collection for departments that acquire them.
“The idea is to make sure that we strike a balance in providing the
equipment, which is appropriate and useful and important for local law
enforcement agencies to keep the community safe, while at the same time
putting standards in place,” said Cecilia Muñoz, the director of Mr.
Obama’s Domestic Policy Council.
The report to be released on Monday represents a two-pronged response to a
problem that has emerged as a central predicament for Mr. Obama in recent
months. He has struggled to acknowledge the sense of fear, grievance and
victimization by the police that dominates many minority communities
without seeming to forgive violence or condemn law enforcement with a broad
brush.
In doing so, he is grappling with the limits of his power to force changes
in police departments around the country, where practices and procedures
are varied and the federal government’s ability to influence change can be
minimal. The equipment task force stems from an executive order, and its
conclusions affect only the material supplied by the federal government,
while the policing recommendations are merely a blueprint for what Mr.
Obama would like to see happen in jurisdictions throughout the country.
Mr. Obama on Monday will announce $163 million in grants to encourage
police departments to adopt the suggestions. The administration also will
launch a “tool kit” for the use of body-worn cameras; the Justice
Department created a grant program for law enforcement agencies to purchase
them.
Ms. Muñoz said the task force’s report was “not just a blueprint for us and
for local law enforcement agencies, but also for community leaders and
others and stakeholders,” giving them “some very specific things to be
asking for and, frankly, insisting on in order to improve policing
practices.”
That is why Mr. Obama made plans to visit Camden, where he wants to
highlight a policing model that emphasizes a collaborative approach. Camden
is also one of 20 cities participating in a new White House initiative to
enhance the use of police data, by releasing detailed information on such
things as traffic stops, officer-involved shootings and the use of force.
Obama foundation brings in $5.4 million
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/obama-foundation-5-million-118067.html>
// Politico // Josh Gerstein - May 18, 2015
The foundation set up to raise money for President Barack Obama’s
presidential library in Chicago brought in $5.4 million in donations and
pledges during its first year in operation, according to a tax form made
public Monday.
Obama’s foundation has not announced a specific fundraising goal, but it is
expected to seek to raise in excess of $500 million to build the library.
They money will funding an endowment to be turned over to the federal
government along with the facility, and money for the foundation’s
educational and charitable work.
The foundation’s largest donor in its first year was Chicago publisher Fred
Eychaner, who ponied up $1 million. The next largest was a $666,666
donation from Chicago hedge fund operator Michael Sacks and his wife Cari.
The Joyce Foundation was listed as contributing $1 million, but a detailed
accountant’s report and a statement from a foundation official said that
amount was a pledge disclosed for tax purposes and only one-third of the
money was actually transferred in 2014.
The exact donation amounts were reported in a portion of the tax form the
foundation is not required to make public, but posted on its website Monday
afternoon.
The foundation’s largest expenses in its first year in operation were lease
payments to Jones Lang Lasalle Midwest for $615,523 and veteran Obama
fundraiser Julianna Smoot’s firm Smoot Tewes Group for $476,551.
Documents obtained separately by POLITICO Monday show the foundation agreed
to pay Smoot’s firm an escalating monthly fee over the next six years —
ranging from $18,000 a month in the last half of 2014 to $30,000 a month in
2020.
The foundation also handed over to Smoot’s firm a “lump sum engagement
bonus” of $144,000 and agreed to consider bonuses of up to $100,000 last
year and this year, with a possibility of up to $250,000 a year by 2020,
the agreement shows.
The agreement doesn’t detail a fundraising target overall or year-by-year
but says the organization is seeking to raise $6 million per year from
sources in Illinois.
Last week, Obama and his wife library announced that the library will be
built in Chicago, although two separate sites on the Windy City’s south
side remain in play for the facility.
“All the strands of my life came together, and I really became a man, when
I moved to Chicago,” Barack Obama said in a web video. “We’ll be able to
now give something back and bring the world back home after this incredible
journey.”
The library will operate in cooperation with the University of Chicago and
the University of Illinois, foundation officials said.
The foundation turned down bids from Hawaii and New York City to build the
library, but announced plans for a presence in both places, including a
partnership with Columbia University — Obama’s undergraduate alma mater.
By comparison, the Clinton Foundation - the charity linked to former
president Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary - took in just over $3 million
in donations in 1998, its first year of operations. It also brought in $3.1
million the following year.
The Obama Foundation voluntarily discloses its donors each quarter,
providing broad ranges in which each donor contributed. As a result, it was
known in January that the foundation raised between about $3 million and
$6.2 million in 2014, although a precise total was not released at that
time.
Obama served on the board of the Joyce Foundation from the summer of 1994
through 2002, earning more than $70,000 in directors fees. He remained on
the board as he served in the Illinois State Senate, and at one point he
considered leaving politics to become the group’s full-time president, he
later acknowledged. Instead, he stepped down from the board as he was
gearing up for his 2004 U.S. Senate bid.
Feds Project Lake Mead Below Drought Trigger Point in 2017
<http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/feds-project-lake-mead-drought-trigger-point-2017-31135829>
// ABC News // Ken Ritter, Associated Press - May 18, 2015
Federal water managers released a report Monday projecting that Lake Mead's
water levels will fall below a point in January 2017 that would force
supply cuts to Arizona and Nevada.
The effects could be serious. Arizona's allocation of Colorado River water
could be cut 11.4 percent, or by an amount normally used by more than
600,000 homes. Nevada's share could be reduced 4.3 percent. Think 26,000
homes.
But officials heading water agencies in the two states and California took
a wait-and-see approach to the projections posted by the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation.
They pointed to fluctuations in precipitation levels just since January.
They added that more will be known in August when the bureau knows how much
runoff in the upper-basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming
reaches the Lake Powell reservoir.
That will determine how much water the agency controlling a Colorado River
water system crucial to about 40 million residents in seven Southwest U.S.
states will release from Lake Powell through the Grand Canyon to Lake Mead
near Las Vegas.
"A lot is going to depend on precipitation and flows from the tributaries,"
said David Modeer, general manager of the Central Arizona Project, the main
water agency in the lower-basin state that would be affected the most.
"We don't think it means a whole lot right now because we have another
couple of months to determine the release out of Lake Powell," he said.
The so-called interim guidelines issued Monday by the Bureau of Reclamation
predict water levels will be just 2 feet above a key trigger point next
January on Lake Mead, the reservoir behind Hoover Dam.
The lake was 37 percent full on Monday, said Dan Bunk, the Bureau of
Reclamation's water operations manager. Its water surface level of 1,077
above sea level was 2 feet above the crucial 1,075-foot line.
The so-called interim guidelines chart a wobbly series of historically low
water levels at Lake Mead — dropping to as much as 1,054 feet next summer
and 1,052 feet in April 2017. But it would be about 1,077 this coming
January, the point in time when a declaration of water shortage for 2016
would be made.
Lake Powell, behind the Glen Canyon Dam straddling the Utah-Arizona border,
was 45 percent full on Monday. Bunk said that if Powell remains above its
own trigger point, water releases to Lake Mead could remain robust and Lake
Mead could remain above 1,070 feet through 2016.
"We haven't made any shortage projection. That would be done in August
2016," Bunk said.
Lake Mead reached its high-water capacity in 1983 at 1,225 feet. It reaches
so-called "dead pool" at just under 900 feet, meaning nothing would flow
downstream from Hoover Dam.
Las Vegas and its 2 million residents and 40 million tourists a year get
almost all their drinking water from Lake Mead.
John Entsminger, general manager of the regional Southern Nevada Water
Authority, said he believed conservation efforts like those now being
adopted in California have put Las Vegas in a position to handle any
initial shortage reductions "without significant impact."
"There is no doubt that this drought is serious," he said, "and the
projections from the Bureau of Reclamation continue to reaffirm that
reality."
William Hasencamp, Colorado River resources chief for the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California, said he saw reason to prepare, not
panic.
Drought-stricken California will continue to be able to draw its 4.4
million acre-foot allocation of Colorado River water even if Arizona and
Nevada are affected.
"But we lose flexibility, which is a pretty big deal because we serve just
under 19 million people," Hasencamp said. "We know a shortage is coming at
some point."
INTERNATIONAL
Kerry, in Seoul, slams North Korea
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/kerry-in-seoul-slams-north-korea/2015/05/18/627f9b80-f986-11e4-a47c-e56f4db884ed_story.html>
// WaPo // Carol Morello - May 18, 2015
SEOUL — Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Monday accused North Korea’s
government of committing crimes worthy of referral to the International
Criminal Court and urged it to end its isolation by dismantling its arsenal
of nuclear weapons.
Using strong language, Kerry said during a stop in Seoul that the Pyongyang
government led by Kim Jong Un had shown a “flagrant disregard for
international law while denying its people fundamental freedom and rights.”
“The world is hearing increasingly more and more stories of grotesque,
grisly, horrendous public displays of executions on a whim and a fancy by
the leader against people who were close to him and sometimes for the most
flimsy of excuses,” he said, referring to a report from South Korea’s spy
agency that the North Korean defense minister was publicly executed with an
antiaircraft gun after he fell asleep during a meeting led by Kim.
Kerry vowed to speak out against “North Korea’s atrocities against its own
people” and warned that Kim’s mercurial behavior is likely to lead other
nations to press for charges against North Korea and its leader at the
International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Kerry’s visit, though planned weeks ago, comes in the wake of fresh concern
about Pyongyang’s behavior.
Earlier this month, North Korea fired what it claimed was a ballistic
missile from a submarine, though some analysts doubt that anything more
lethal than a balloon was shot into the air.
Kerry’s Seoul stop was designed to underline the United States’ “ironclad”
commitment to South Korea’s security and to ramp up pressure on Pyongyang
to return to denuclearization talks it abandoned three years ago.
Since then, Kerry said, North Korea had rebuffed overtures from the United
States, Russia, Japan and China to return to the negotiating table and
instead is showing greater belligerence.
“They have grown the threat of their program and have acted with a kind of
reckless abandon,” he said at a news conference alongside South Korean
Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se.
Kerry said he hoped the negotiations over curbing Iran’s nuclear program,
now entering their final stretch, could serve as a model for North Korea to
follow if the hermit kingdom wanted to end its isolation.
“We are more determined than ever to find ways to convince Kim Jong Un and
North Korea that all they are doing now is isolating themselves further and
creating greater risks to the region and to their own country,” he said.
He, however, added a caveat: “We have to have some indication from the
leader of North Korea that they’re serious about engaging on the subject of
their nuclear program.”
At the news conference, Kerry also expressed gratitude to South Korea for
the care and concern shown to U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert recently when he
was attacked in central Seoul by a suspected North Korea sympathizer and
required hospitalization. Lippert, with bandages still on his cheek and
left hand from injuries he suffered in the attack, has accompanied Kerry to
the meetings and joined him for lunch at a Seoul taco place run by Koreans
who had lived in the United States.
“I want to take the opportunity to thank all the people of South Korea for
the remarkable outpouring of concern about his health and their affection
for him and for our country,” Kerry said.
He also said that the Islamic State militant group’s capture of Ramadi in
Iraq, although a setback, would prove temporary.
“Notice what they’ve done,” he said. “Huge numbers of vehicle-born IEDs,
big trucks, massive explosions. They’ve destroyed the place. That’s hardly
a future. I’m convinced, as forces are redeployed and days flow in weeks
ahead, that’s going to change.”
Kerry blamed the end of a five-day cease-fire in Yemen, where Saudi-led
airstrikes resumed after the truce expired Sunday night, on Shiite Houthi
rebels. He said that they had taken advantage of the pause in fighting to
move missile launchers to the border with Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis
acted to take them out.
“Under the rules of engagement, it was always understood if there were
proactive moves by one side or another, it would be in violation of the
cease-fire agreement,” he said. “Saudi Arabia, under the rules of
engagement, took action to take out the missile launchers.”
In a speech later in the day at Korea University, an elite school with a
cyber law center, Kerry said everyone in the world should have the right to
Internet access. He condemned repressive governments that silence critics
by restricting Web access and singled out North Korea as the polar opposite
of South Korea, one of the most wired countries on the planet.
“It is no coincidence many governments that have a poor record on Internet
freedom also have a questionable commitment to human rights,” he said.
Bombing and clashes resume as Yemen heads for ‘catastrophe’
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/bombing-and-clashes-resume-as-yemen-heads-for-catastrophe/2015/05/18/e0ef06dc-fd81-11e4-8c77-bf274685e1df_story.html>
// WaPo // Ali al-Mujahed and Erin Cunningham - May 18, 2015
ANAA, Yemen — Warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition struck targets in Yemen
on Monday and ground clashes resumed, bringing a sharp end to a five-day
cease-fire in the conflict and raising fears that a humanitarian disaster
would deepen.
More than 1,600 people have been killed in the war between the Houthi
rebels and supporters of the country’s ousted president, who are backed by
the Saudi-led military alliance. The five-day “pause” was intended to allow
aid to reach Yemenis suffering from dangerous shortages of medicine, fuel
and food. But many Yemenis complained Monday that supplies had not reached
their areas.
“Now we are at the edge of a big catastrophe” in the humanitarian
situation, said Cédric Schweizer, who headed the International Committee of
the Red Cross delegation in Yemen until last week.
The temporary cease-fire was “a good first step, but it will not solve the
humanitarian crisis,” Schweizer said in an interview with Washington Post
reporters in Washington.
“All hospitals are lacking basic medicines now,” he added. Yemenis are
running out of money to buy ever-more-expensive food, he said.
U.N. and U.S. officials had hoped the cease-fire would be extended. But on
Monday, airstrikes hit several locations in the southern city of Aden, as
well as in the Houthi-dominated Saada province near the Saudi border, local
media reported. Houthis and their opponents clashed in the city of Taiz and
other areas.
Saudi Arabia launched the airstrikes in March in a bid to push Houthi
fighters, who are Shiite, from territory that they seized in recent months.
Saudi officials have said they want to restore to power Yemeni President
Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who has fled the country. They have accused Iran
of backing the Houthi militias.
Local media reported multiple raids Monday on the airport in Aden, which
would jeopardize plans to bring in aid on humanitarian flights to the city.
The Saudi-led coalition has imposed an air, land and sea blockade on Yemen,
according to aid groups. International aid agencies scrambled to move
assistance into Yemen during the five-day cease-fire that took hold May 12.
“Everything you can imagine is needed: drinking water, shelter, food,
medicine,” said Mohammed Abu Asaker, a communications officer with the U.N.
refugee agency who is based in the United Arab Emirates. “The situation
there is extremely dire.”
Purnima Kashyap, the World Food Program’s Yemen country director, said that
the agency’s first goal was to get fuel to trucks to transport aid to the
agency’s warehouses, scattered across the country and which would be hubs
of further distribution.
In Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, a small amount of gasoline became available, but
residents had to wait in lengthy lines to get it.
Ridwan Mohammed, a 40-year-old employee at a pharmaceutical company, said
he had waited in line for two days for gas.
“Now that the cease-fire is over, I feel more tense,” he said. “I am
worried that an airstrike could happen at any time. And I am out here
waiting.”
OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS
Christine Quinn on Hillary Clinton & Marriage Equality
<http://www.out.com/news-opinion/2015/5/18/christine-quinn-hillary-clinton>
// Out // Christine Quinn - May 18, 2015
Today, we have a woman running for President of the United States who fully
supports marriage equality. She is also likely to be the only nominee
running for president that does. That is something all Americans should be
thrilled about. Her position is clear and rock solid, and they way she came
to that conclusion is the same way most people do, including some of my own
family members. Like most Americans, her position is one that evolved and
developed from personal interactions with LGBT Americans and their
families, and through a long and deep soul searching. I know a little bit
about this process: It's how my father came to support my right to marry
and then eventually walk me down the aisle when I married my wife.
I first met Hillary when she was running for U.S. Senate. At that time,
same-sex marriage didn't have nearly the public support it has today. As a
community, we still had a great deal of work to do. Like it was yesterday,
I remember a small meeting of LGBT leaders in Jeff Soreff's apartment with
the then-First Lady. The goal of the meeting was for the leaders to better
understand her positions on LGBT issues and to push her to take up more pro
LGBT positions and champion more LGBT issues. The meeting was noteworthy
and remarkable for a number of reasons. It was not a large meeting. It was
intimate and informal and people were very frank in their dialogue — as was
Hillary. She spoke in a deeply personal way about a gay couple that
profoundly opened her eyes and her mind regarding LGBT families. There were
two men who moved into the house next to her parents' home in Arkansas and
became surrogate sons, helping care for her father when he was dying.
Of course, Hillary has written about this couple in her book. But to hear
it in her owns words so long ago and to see the look in her eyes as she
described her love and respect for this couple spoke volumes about what she
had learned — that families were defined by love and selflessness not
sexual orientation. As I have seen Hillary’s work with the LGBT community
grow, I have often seen her go back to what she learned from that couple as
a guide.
Much has been made of Hillary’s support of marriage with some claiming it
is a poll-driven position. The fact is she came to this position the same
way most Americans did, through conversations with those of us in the
community, by getting to know people who were deeply committed and in love
with one another, and by recognizing that every couple in American has just
as much right to happiness as the next person, regardless of sexual
orientation.
While the movement toward equality in the LGBT community has moved rapidly
over these last few years, we have never had a major party candidate on the
ballot for president of the United States who was willing to state so
unequivocally her support for marriage equality, long before any votes were
cast or elections were won. When Hillary Clinton receives the Democratic
nomination, she will not only be the first woman to receive a major party
nomination for president of the United States, she will be the first major
party nominee to publicly articulate that position before she assumes
office. And as a gay American, who has fought for women’s rights and LGBT
rights my entire life, I couldn’t be more proud.
Why is Hillary Clinton Tacking Left?
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/why-is-hillary-clinton-tacking-left-20150518>
// National Journal // Ron Fournier - May 18, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton 2.0 is far more liberal than the centrist who ran in
2008 because: a) her views have evolved with time; b) she's long been a
closet liberal and this is her authentic self; c) she's an opportunistic
phony.
As somebody who has known and observed this complex public figure for
nearly 30 years, I am open to being convinced that any one of those
rationales are true.
But not all three.
For some inexplicable reason, her advisers are talking openly with
reporters about the political rational behind her policy shift (aka:
flip-flops), giving credence to the most cynical interpretation of her
motives. "Advisers do not dispute that Clinton has a finger to the wind of
the national mood," writes my former colleague Anne Gearan in the
Washington Post, "but they insist her positions are not driven by polling."
Gearan could have put a period after "mood." The rest of the sentence is
patently false. How do I know? I read the rest of her story, which had the
full cooperation of Clinton's political network and included this
extraordinary paragraph:
Clinton's advisers want us to believe that her liberal shift is equally the
result of politics and principle – that deep inside their crosstabs
resides, conveniently, "the real Hillary."
"Her approach to this really is not trying to take a ruler out and measure
where she wants to be on some ideological scale," Clinton campaign chairman
John Podesta told Gearan. "It's to dive deeply into the problems facing the
American people and American families. She's a proud wonk, and she looks at
policy from that perspective."
I can attest to the fact that Clinton is a wonk. She loves the nitty-gritty
of policy, particularly those policies that influence the lives of women
and children.
I can also confirm that the former first lady is ideologically more liberal
than her husband. Bill Clinton's advisers in Arkansas and at the White
House constantly complained about the friction between his triangulation
and her absolutism.
And, like most voters, I'm willing to give any politician some leeway to
"evolve" on issues, particularly one like gay marriage that has rapidly
gained acceptance in the public square.
But is she really this progressive?
"Clinton's full embrace of same-sex marriage in the first days of her
campaign was followed by clear statements in favor of scrapping get-tough
immigration and incarceration policies — many of which took root during her
husband's administration," Gearan writes.
She has also weighed in with liberal takes on climate change, abortion
rights and disparities in income and opportunity between rich and poor.
All are issues that have been divisive in the past for both Democrats and
Republicans. But none are now judged to be radioactive for Democrats, which
gives Clinton more elbow room.
By taking such positions, aides and advisers hope Clinton will not only
inoculate herself against a serious challenge from the left in the
primaries, but that she also will be able to push on through the general
election. Her campaign believes American public opinion has moved left not
only since Bill Clinton won election in 1992 on a centrist platform, but
also since Barack Obama won on a more liberal one.
Indeed, polls show that while the United States remains a center-right
country, liberals are on the ascent. Whether or not Clinton strategists are
betting too heavily on this trend won't be known until November 2016.
Even after all these years, I don't know whether her full-throated
liberalism is a genuine reflection of her views or an echo of the polls. I
guess the answer could be "both," but I doubt it. That just seems to be too
neat of a coincidence.
I suspect she'll try to explain herself, but when? She's refuses to talk to
the media in any great detail.
I suppose voters could take her at her word, but why? Trust is an issue.
Legitimate questions about her government email and family foundation were
met with disingenuous responses.
I imagine she can get over the authenticity hurdle, but how?
If you don’t want to deal with reporters, don’t run for president.
You won’t believe Hillary Clinton’s spin on avoiding the press
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/05/18/you-wont-believe-hillary-clintons-spin-on-avoiding-the-press/>
// WaPo // Chris Cillizza – May 18, 2015
With Hillary Clinton rapidly approaching a month since she answered a
question from a reporter, her allies are working to push back on the idea
that she is ducking the press.
"PUTTING THE VOTERS FIRST, HILLARY ASKS THE QUESTIONS THAT REALLY MATTER,"
read the subject line of an e-mail -- ALL CAPS in the original! -- that
arrived in my inbox this morning courtesy of Correct The Record, a
pro-Clinton super PAC directly coordinating with the presidential campaign
on rapid response.
The missive lays out the facts aimed at putting lie to the "she won't
answer questions" narrative.
First, Correct The Record notes that Clinton has answered 20 questions from
"everyday Americans": seven during her first trip to Iowa (she's back in
the state today), five during her New Hampshire excursion and a whopping
eight when she visited Nevada.
Then the group notes that Clinton has ASKED 117 questions of "everyday
Americans." And, yes, it lists every one of those questions -- from "Give
me a sense of your experience with that?" (Iowa) to "Do you want to share
your story?" (Nevada).
I mean, where to start with this?
1. The vast majority of the people who have asked Clinton questions in
Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada were part of a pre-selected group who sat
with her around a roundtable. That's not exactly like hosting a town hall
event in which none of the questions are pre-screened. And if you look at
the questions "regular" people are asking Clinton, they are not exactly the
most probing of queries. A sampling: "I’m just wondering, what can you do
to bring that heart back to education in the United States?" (Iowa), "What
are your plans to help my community and help us not live in fear anymore?"
(Nevada) and "I would like you to elaborate on what you think you might do
for childcare in the future if you’re elected?" (New Hampshire) None of
those questions are bad, per se, but they also aren't pushing Clinton in
any way, shape or form on any issue.
2. It makes zero difference how many questions Clinton has asked average
Americans. Like, none. If those people were running for president, then I
would be super-interested to know how they responded to some (or maybe all)
of Clinton's 117 questions. But, they aren't. She is. Citing the number of
questions Clinton has asked of people to rebut the idea that she isn't
taking enough (or any) questions from reporters is sort of like saying you
aced a job interview because you answered every question asked of you with
another question. That wouldn't make sense, would it?
3. At issue here is that Clinton is avoiding taking questions from
reporters. And nowhere in the Correct The Record memo does it have anything
to dispute that fact. In total as a candidate, Clinton has answered 13
total questions from reporters. It's been 39,000 minutes since she last
answered a reporter's question. And, while I think it is absolutely of
value for Clinton to hear from regular folks about their concerns and
hopes, it's hard to argue from the list put together by Correct The Record
that the questions those people have asked Clinton are the same as the one
reporters would have if given the chance.
No, they're better, you say! They're about policy and not dumb reporters'
obsessions, you say!
To all of which, I respond: Do you not think it is of value to know how
Hillary Clinton spent her time since leaving the State Department? And how
the Clinton Foundation handled its business with various donors who would,
undoubtedly, still be in the picture if she was elected president? Or what
she thinks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the fight currently
happening in Congress? Or Iran? Or the Middle East?
You get the idea. The role of the media in this process is to show voters
who these people are, really, and to explain how these people would govern
the country if elected. Like the media or not, that's a very important role
-- and one that is essential to a functioning democracy.
So, no matter how many Iowans' questions Hillary answers or how many
questions she asks them, it doesn't justify her current unwillingness to
stand before reporters (or even a single reporter) and take their
questions. Not even a little.
--
*Alexandria Phillips*
*Communications | Press Assistant*
*Hillary for America *
https://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.
ℹ️ Document Details
SHA-256
b9666c78048d8f522241e4f55a0af651a578bce3e33d24b452910b1720169e19
Dataset
podesta-emails
Document Type
email
Comments 0