Subject: News Clips 5.6.15
From: Alexandria Phillips <[email-masked]>
To: Alexandria Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 May 2015 07:35:16 -0400
List-Id: <hrcrapid.googlegroups.com>

*H4A Press Clips*

*May 6, 2015*

SUMMARY OF TODAY’S NEWS

The NYT/CBS poll released yesterday found Americans now view Mrs. Clinton
more favorably and as a stronger leader than they did earlier in the year,
despite weeks of scrutiny about her ethics. The poll is being pointed to as
evidence that recent coverage on Clinton's email server and the fundraising
activities of the Clinton Foundation have not dented Clinton's standing.

Yesterday in Nevada, Hillary Clinton met with DREAMers and defined her
stance on how to fix the broken immigration system, saying that we need to
find a “full and equal path to citizenship”. This was described as bold and
giving the activist more than they asked for in articles and on social
media.

Yesterday Hillary for America released and launched a Briefing webpage with
a video debunking ‘Clinton Cash.' The page was generally well received by
media and praised for being aggressive not abrasive. The video was picked
up and used by several different TV news outlets throughout the day.

Coverage also noted the Clinton campaign's acceptance of the DNC proposal
to host six debates during the primary campaign. A spokeswoman for Governor
O'Malley, however, is quoted in most stories raising questions about the
DNC's exclusivity demand.

LAST NIGHTS EVENING NEWS

ABC had a short segment on Huckabee's announcement and included Hillary
Clinton’s upcoming immigration round table. CBS had a more in depth segment
about Huckabee, stating that he is touting taking on HRC in 2008. A CBS
poll found that Americans are split on HRC's trustworthiness. CBS and NBC
both discussed the campaign's pushback on Clinton Cash and included parts
of Brian Fallon's video and referred to The Briefing. NBC noted that
Huckabee took a swipe at HRC by saying that he does not have a global
foundation to live off of.

SUMMARY OF TODAY’S
NEWS................................................................. 1

LAST NIGHTS EVENING
NEWS................................................................. 1

TODAY’S KEY
STORIES............................................................................
4

*Under Fire, Clinton Camp Pushes Back, Amps Up* // Real Clear Politics //
Alexis Simendinger  - May 5, 2015               4

*Hillary Clinton Gains Favor, Times/CBS Poll Says* // NYT // Jonathan
Martin and Megan Thee Brenan - May 5, 2015              9

*Hillary Clinton Just Won Over Much Of The Skeptical Immigrant Activist
Movement* // Buzzfeed // Adrian Carrasquillo and Ruby Cramer             12

SOCIAL
MEDIA........................................................................................
15

*America's Voice retweeted Hillary Clinton (5/5/15 6:54pm) @americasvoice:*
This is HUGE. RT @HillaryClinton “We should put in place an accessible way
for parents of DREAMers & others to be eligible for the same deferred
action as their children.”           15

*Chris Moody (5/5/15 9:29am) @moodyHillary:* Clinton's campaign launched a
version of Obama's AttackWatch, but without sounding angry and
insane.....................................................................................................................................
15

*Dara Lind (5/5/15 7:29pm) @DLind:* I am stunned. Hillary actually did
_more_ than advocates were asking her for. *http://www.vox.com/2015/5/5/85572
<http://www.vox.com/2015/5/5/85572>*..................................................................................
16

HRC NATIONAL
COVERAGE...................................................................
16

*Hillary Clinton’s Appeal Survives Scrutiny, Poll Says* // NYT //  Jonathan
Martin and Megan Thee-Brenan – May 5, 2015                   16

*NH Dem Primary Poll* // WMUR Granite State Poll // Andrew E. Smith, Phd -
May 5, 2015 19

*For Hillary Clinton's Campaign Manager, It All Began in Vegas* //
Bloomberg // Jennifer Epstein – May 5, 2015       19

*Hillary Clinton Draws Distinction With GOP on Immigration* // TIME // Sam
Frizell - May 5, 2015    21

*Hillary Clinton To Unveil Path To Citizenship Immigration Plan* // NPR //
Tamara Keith - May 5, 2015         22

*Hillary Clinton’s Nevada play* // POLITICO // Gabriel Debendetti - May 5,
2015.................. 24

*Clinton Pledges to Take Immigration Actions 'Even Further'* // MSNBC //
Andrew Rafferty and Andrea Mitchell – May 5, 2015       26

*Clinton to reach out to Latinos in NH* // New Hampshire Union Leader //
Dan Tuohy - May 5, 2015     27

*The Note: High Bar For Hillary on Immigration* // ABC News // Jim Avila
and Serena Marshall - May 5, 2015             28

*Hillary Clinton revives hibernating '80s 'sleaze factor'* // USA Today //
James S. Robbins - May 5, 2015           28

*Clinton camp on defense about her trustworthiness* // CNN // Jeff Zeleny -
May 5, 2015.... 30

*Clinton 'War Room' Pushback And The 'Invent Your Own' Media Campaign* //
NPR // Jessica Taylor - May 5, 2015   32

*Clinton camp pushes back on book, Benghazi with new Web site* // WaPo //
Anne Gearan - May 5, 2015           34

*Here's Hillary Clinton's latest pushback against the 'dud' allegations in
'Clinton Cash'*// Business Insider // Colin Campbell - May 5,
2015                36

*Clinton Cash Author Peter Schweizer Admits He's Wrong On Bogus Clinton
"Veto Power" Claim* // Media Matters // Eric Hananoki - May 5, 2015  37

*‘Clinton Cash’ Flashback: The Clintons Pressured Kazakhs To OK Uranium
Deal* // Daily Caller // Chuck Ross - May 5, 2015                 39

*Clinton Cash author: I like Marco Rubio* // Politico // Nick Gass – May 5,
2015................... 41

*Will the Benghazi Committee Block Clinton From Testifying About…Benghazi?*
// Mother Jones // David Corn - May 15, 2015             43

*Warren and fellow ‘sheriffs of Wall Street’ waiting for more from Clinton*
// Boston Globe // Deirdre Fernandes - May 5, 2015              45

*Lawyer says Hillary willing to testify once to U.S. Benghazi panel*//
Reuters // Susan Cromwell - May 5, 2015             45

*Hoping to highlight good works, Clintons find controversy instead* // WaPo
// Philip Rucker, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger - May 5,
2015........................................................................................................................................
46

*Bill Clinton says nothing ‘sinister’ in foreign gifts to charity* //
Bloomberg // Justin Sink - May 4, 2015          50

*Chelsea Clinton pushes back on scrutiny of family foundation* // USA Today
// Catalina Camia - May 5, 2015               50

*Hillary Clinton's Campaign Declares War Against 'Clinton Cash'* //
National Journal // Emily Schultheis - May 5, 2015     51

*A Swing and a Miss* // Slate // Jamelle Bouie - May 5,
2015.................................................. 52

*What you don’t know about the “Clinton Cash” author* // American Bridge
21st Century // Brad Woodhouse - May 5, 2015    54

*Clinton, Democratic presidential opponents to debate six times* // CNN //
Mark Preston - May 5, 2015               57

*The Democratic presidential debates are great news for Hillary Clinton* //
Washington Post // Chris Cillizza – May 5, 2015                 58

*Hillary Clinton's rope-line antagonist* // POLITICO // Hadas Gold - May 5,
2015................. 59

OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE....................................... 62

*Asking Martin O'Malley To Explain Baltimore* // The Atlantic // James
Fallows – May 5, 2015              62

*Bernie Sanders' "socialism" may have mainstream appeal //* LA Times //
David Horsey – May 5, 2015              62

*Warren met privately with 'Draft Warren' supporters* // POLITICO // Annie
Karni - May 5, 2015           64

*Elizabeth Warren: Trade bill could “tear down” Wall Street oversight* //
POLITICO // Zachary Warmbrodt - May 5, 2015       66

*Democrats Take Fire for Exclusivity Clause in Official Debates* // TIME //
Zeke J Miller – May 5, 2015                67

GOP.........................................................................................................
68

*Huckabee Joins Race With Tacit Contrast to Clintons* // Real Clear
Politics // Rebecca Berg - May 5, 2015       68

*Huckabee, allies aim to raise $60 million* // CNN // Sara Murray - May 5,
2015................. 70

*Mike Huckabee and the Continuing Influence of Evangelicals* // NYT- The
Upshot // Nate Cohn – May 5,2015             72

*The populist 1 percenter* // Politico // James Hohmann – May 5,
2015................................. 73

*Rand Paul, Finally, To Open That Office in Silicon Valley* // National
Journal // Shane Goldmacher - May 5, 2015  77

*The power players behind Carly Fiorina's campaign* // POLITICO // Katie
Glueck - May 4, 2015              78

*Carly Fiorina Says She Would ‘Roll Back’ Net Neutrality Rules* // TIME //
Charlotte Alter – May 5, 2015         79

*Fiorina: Clinton "pandering" on immigration* // CNN // Theodore Schleifer
– May 5, 2015 80

*Marco Rubio to raise cash in Bellevue Thursday* // Seattle Times // Jim
Brunner – May 5, 2015            81

*Marco Rubio says the United States is not modernizing its nuclear weapons*
// Politifact // Amy Sherman – May 5, 2015    82

*Clinton Cash author: I like Marco Rubio* // POLITICO // Nick Gass - May 5,
2015................. 84

*Chris Christie's Other Problems* // National Journal // Charlie Cook - May
5, 2015............ 85

*College Course Marco Rubio Teaches Prominently Features Hillary Clinton’s
Foreign Policy Guru* // Daily Caller // Eric Owens - May 5, 2015          87

*Rand Paul’s Donations Show His Small-Town Appeal* // NYT – The Upshot //
Derek Willis – May 5, 2015       89

TOP
NEWS..............................................................................................
90

DOMESTIC...........................................................................................
90

*Passing budgets and modest bills, Congress slowly increases productivity*
// Washington Post // Paul Kane – May 6, 2015                  90

*California board approves emergency water rules* // USA Today // Ian James
- May 6, 2015 93

*E.P.A. Carbon Emissions Plan Could Save Thousands of Lives, Study Finds*
// NYT // May 5, 2015      94

*U.S. Trade Gap Widens on Surging Imports* // WSJ// Eric Morath – May 5,
2015................. 96

INTERNATIONAL.................................................................................
99

*Germany, Too, Is Accused of Spying on Friends* // NYT // Alison Smalemay –
May 5, 2015 99

*Obama Administration Approves First Ferry Service to Cuba* // The
Associated Press // May 5, 2015                  102

*40 Migrants Reported Dead After Dinghy Burst at Sea* // WSJ // Liam
Moloney - May 5, 2015 103

OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS...........................................................
105

*What the Clintons Can Learn From Ben Franklin's Foreign Money Scandal* //
Daily Beast // Zephyr Teachout - May 5, 2015                  105

*'House of Cards' star wants a Bill Clinton cameo* // The Hill //  Judy
Kurtz - May 5, 2015... 107

TODAY’S KEY STORIES

 Under Fire, Clinton Camp Pushes Back, Amps Up
<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/05/under_fire_clinton_camp_pushes_back_amps_up_126495.html>
// Real Clear Politics // Alexis Simendinger  - May 5, 2015

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is not yet a month old, and in the
space of a day, her team paired a new online war room with cheery social
media invitations to supporters to win a personal candidate phone call for
Mother’s Day.

In the Clinton world, the simultaneous melding of pushback politics (aimed
at opponents and the news media) and sunny outreach (to likely voters and
donors) is not unusual. Among 2016 campaign veterans who helped Bill
Clinton win the White House twice, and watched Hillary Clinton lose to
Barack Obama in 2008, the tools this time may be digitally fresh but the
tactics are old hat.

“Republicans seem to only want to distort Hillary Clinton’s record,” her
campaign chief said Monday. Referring to uncapped and undisclosed donations
from corporations, individuals and unions permitted by law, her campaign
complained, “It is clear they have a two-fisted strategy to try to
undermine her, using unlimited dark money on the one hand and taxpayer
funds on the other.”

On the eve of championing immigration reform in Nevada on Tuesday, and a
campaign fundraising blitz through California later this week, Clinton also
confirmed through her attorney that she’ll soon testify to a House
investigative committee about the 2012 Benghazi attacks and her missing
emails.

On the sidelines, her campaign team on Monday announced a new Web portal
they titled “The Briefing,” designed as a repository for counter-messaging
to rebut critics in real time. A new book titled “Clinton Cash” – in
bookstores Tuesday – inspired her campaign chairman, John Podesta (who
served as a chief of staff to President Clinton and White House counselor
to President Obama), to describe how the Web-based Hillary war room will
operate. In a Monday night post on Medium, a site barely three years old,
Podesta told readers “The Briefing” will serve the former first lady as a
place for “facts” about her record and her “positive policy agenda.”

“It will serve as a hub that allows Hillary for America to cut through the
partisan noise over the next 18 months and directly communicate with
voters,” he wrote. “While we will not be consumed by these kinds of
attacks, we will also not let them go unchallenged.”

The book Podesta assailed as “debunked” and full of errors, and which Bill
Clinton indirectly denounced during an NBC News interview broadcast Monday,
asserts that foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary
Clinton served as secretary of state point to conflicts of interest and
“questions of judgment.”

Written by Peter Schweizer, a Republican author, political consultant and
former speechwriter for George W. Bush, the book is billed by the publisher
as an “exposé” that describes a “pattern of behavior” that Schweizer
believes warrants additional independent investigation. The complete title:
“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and
Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.”

According to Podesta, “the book has zero evidence to back up its outlandish
claims.”

On Monday, President Clinton defended donations, including those from
foreign governments that have supported global projects to the Clinton
Foundation since he left the White House.

“There has been a very deliberate attempt to take the foundation down,” he
asserted while traveling in Africa.

The former commander-in-chief also defended lucrative earnings from
speeches and said he would continue getting paid to talk to groups while
his wife makes her White House bid. “I gotta pay our bills,” he said,
noting that he donates “a lot” of the family income each year to projects
supported by the foundation.

He said the nonprofit’s recent decision to limit donations from foreign
governments to a small roster of countries was not an acknowledgement of
mistakes.

“It’s an acknowledgement that we’re going to come as close as we can during
her presidential campaign to following the rules we followed when she
became secretary of state,” he explained. Among those commitments is public
disclosure of “all” foundation donors each quarter.

As with Hillary Clinton’s campaign team, the foundation has also used its
website to attempt to correct information it finds to be in error. In a
letter reprinted on the site last week, Clinton Foundation Board Chairman
Bruce Lindsey questioned news reporting and countered a quote used in a New
York Post article. “The fact is that no money raised for the Clinton
Foundation goes to the Clintons personally, ever,” he wrote. “The Clintons
draw no salary from the foundation and derive no financial benefit from the
foundation.”

Separate from foundation and paid-speaking controversies, Hillary Clinton
is expected to be back on Capitol Hill within weeks to testify to a
Republican-dominated panel about the Benghazi tragedy, her emails, and
other topics. In a letter Monday to House Select Committee on Benghazi
Chairman Trey Gowdy, David Kendall, attorney for  the Clintons, advised
lawmakers the former secretary of state will testify publicly one
additional time, and “stay as long as necessary to answer the committee’s
questions,” during the week of May 18 or at a later date.

Nearly a month into a primary season in which Hillary Clinton is the
Democratic favorite against socialist/independent/Democrat Sen. Bernie
Sanders of Vermont (the party’s second declared entrant in the race), she
remains the GOP’s top  political target, after Obama. A Wall Street
Journal/NBC News poll released Monday found that the controversies
surrounding her candidacy have not undermined her strength with her base.

“Support for her among Democrats remains strong and unshaken,” the Journal
reported, adding that negative evaluations nevertheless increased in recent
weeks. Compared with her 2008 campaign, Clinton in April was rated more
easygoing and likable in the poll – an achievement her campaign advisers
are working hard to maintain – but she is also perceived as less honest and
straightforward than the last time she presented herself to voters.

At Rancho High School in Las Vegas on Tuesday, the former New York senator
will reiterate her support for a pathway to citizenship and showcase the
potential benefits for migrant families and the economy. She’ll speak with
a select young audience from a student body that is 70 percent Hispanic.

Immigration is an issue that divides Republican presidential candidates,
offering Clinton the opening to spotlight contrasts with the large GOP
field. For example, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who helped draft a
comprehensive reform measure and then abandoned the effort, supports legal
status (but not citizenship) with restrictions, such as barring access to
health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

“She will say that the standard for a true solution is nothing less than a
full and equal path to citizenship,” said a Clinton campaign official on
background. “She will say that we cannot settle for proposals that provide
hard-working people with merely a `second-class’ status.”

Clinton has endorsed President Obama’s executive actions to defer
deportation for up to 4 million people who may qualify for Department of
Homeland Security enforcement waivers.

From Nevada, Clinton will head to San Francisco to raise money for her
campaign on May 6; to Los Angeles for a fundraiser May 7; and to Silicon
Valley May 8 to meet donors at the home of eBay CEO John Donahoe and wife
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, an intellectual property attorney who was
Obama’s first U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in
Geneva.

Later this month, Clinton will campaign in South Carolina, continuing her
campaign’s focus on early primary states and exchanges with potential
voters in smaller settings.

Her first large campaign rally is expected to take place sometime in May,
at an as-yet undisclosed location.

Clinton 'War Room' Pushback And The 'Invent Your Own' Media Campaign // NPR
// Jessica Taylor - May 5, 2015

The Hillary Clinton campaign went into overdrive Tuesday trying to minimize
the damage from a new book that delves into Clinton Foundation fundraising
— and they're not using the typical channels to do so.

On the same day that the controversial new book, "Clinton Cash" by Peter
Schweizer, was officially released, the Democrat's presidential campaign
largely went around the traditional media in favor of new media tools.

Though campaigns have been trying to bypass the media filter for years,
it's an advent of a new era in politics. The Clinton campaign is embracing
several new technologies and platforms to get their message out more
directly to voters, and it's a tactic her potential rivals are sure to
employ, too.

"It's almost media 3.0," said Tobe Berkovitz, a professor of political
communication at Boston University. "If 1.0 was dealing with the press and
2.0 was trying to circumvent the press and going to friendly sites, 3.0 is,
'Why even bother with that? Just invent your own.'"

Through a new section of its campaign website called, "The Briefing," and a
post on the platform-sharing site Medium, Clinton's campaign went on
offense against Schweizer and his suggestions that foreign donations to her
family's foundation influenced her time at the State Department — all
without the candidate addressing it head on.

A two-and-a-half-minute video posted on the new site from campaign
spokesman Brian Fallon derides Schweizer as a GOP operative, who was a
former adviser to 2008 vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and a close
friend of the Koch brothers. He also noted that research by ABC News and
even Fox News revealed there was no "smoking gun."

"The book is already being debunked far and wide," Fallon said."It's full
of sloppy research and attacks pulled out of thin air with no actual
evidence. And it's missing the most important thing of all: facts."

Campaign Chairman John Podesta also explained the campaign's strategy in a
memo posted to Medium:

"While we will not be consumed by these kinds of attacks, we will also not
let them go unchallenged. That's why we are building a new one-stop shop to
provide the facts about Hillary Clinton's positions and her record. We are
calling it 'The Briefing.' You will be able to find information and it will
serve as a hub that allows Hillary for America to cut through the partisan
noise over the next 18 months and directly communicate with voters. This
forum will provide the public with direct access to the facts on the
positive policy agenda that Hillary will unveil over the course of
campaign, as well as the facts needed to debunk false attacks."

This isn't the first time since she announced last month that Clinton's
team has utilized these new platforms, especially to target Schweizer.
Though his book was just released on Tuesday, details have been leaking out
for weeks and other media organizations like the New York Times have used
his research to further investigate specific claims.

Team Clinton has turned to Medium before, with Fallon releasing a statement
on the Times story that alleged donations to the Clinton foundation were
tied to the government's approval of uranium mining company to the Russian
government:

"Without presenting any direct evidence in support of the claim, the Times
story — like the book on which it is based — wrongly suggests that Hillary
Clinton's State Department pushed for the sale's approval to reward donors
who had a financial interest in the deal."

Last week, the Clinton campaign also released a Vine of comments Schweizer
had made at a 2014 Koch brothers summit, where he told fellow conservatives
"we cannot let up."

The use of new media in favor of more traditional media isn't a surprising
strategy from the Clinton campaign, given Clinton's decades-long distrust
of and tension with the media. It's also not a new tactic, with campaigns'
rapid-response teams trying to get their message out at any cost and
through any channel. And given the way more and more people, especially
younger voters, consume news, it might be the most efficient as well.

The embrace of these new platforms is one that both the Democratic and
Republican presidential candidates are likely to use even more this cycle.

Clinton's campaign insists it is not bypassing the media in the new
approach, but is instead using multiple platforms to get their message out.

"Our campaign will work with the oldest of media outlets and the newest of
technologies to reach voters," Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin told NPR in
emailed statement. "It would be a false choice to say it's one or the
other. There is so much misinformation flying around that, whether it's
through the press or on social media, it's important for voters to be able
to access the facts directly, so they can assess for themselves and help
beat back the partisan attacks."

It's also a way for the campaign to release a controlled, scripted
narrative instead of having Clinton herself answer questions about the
issue. National Journal noted last week she has only answered a total of
seven media questions since she became an official candidate. She twice
dismissed allegations in Schweizer's book as "distractions" but she did not
answer the charges directly.

The one unscripted response came from former President Bill Clinton in an
interview with NBC News Monday that the family foundation had "never done
anything knowingly inappropriate" in accepting money from foreign
governments for their charitable foundation.

The foundation has reinstated a ban on donations from all but six foreign
countries now, but the former president said that move was "absolutely not"
an acknowledgement that accepting previous donations was a mistake.

For the Clinton campaign, this approach is "much better than actually
trotting Hillary out somewhere and have her answer what might be tough or
aggressive questions," Berkowitz said. "Release the video, and then you
release the hounds."

Democratic strategist Jim Manley, a former top aide to Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it's the right approach for the Clintons.

"What I see happening is a classic Clinton-style war-room operation
utilizing all the new media that are out there," Manley said. "I think they
deserve a lot of credit for utilizing new things like Medium, but I also
respect that they're not going to leave any charge unanswered."

Clinton is far and away the Democratic frontrunner for president, and she
still beats most of her possible GOP rivals in hypothetical head-to-heads
too. But amid questions about the Clinton foundation and an earlier
controversy about her use of a private email server instead of a government
account while she was at the State Department, her polling numbers have
suffered.

Since March, Clinton's unfavorable rating has risen six percentage points
while those who said she was honest and straightforward has dropped 13
points in a year, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released
this week.

Clinton has been under sustained assault from Republicans on the campaign
trail and Capitol Hill. And she will continue to be with hearings and
testimony coming about the terrorist attack on the U.S. outpost in
Benghazi, Libya.

"I think every bit is going to help, but the Republicans have an amazing
ability to drudge up all sorts of crazy conspiracies about the Clintons,"
Manley said. "These kind of tools can only take you so far, but, at some
point, she's going to have to start addressing some of these things
herself."

Hillary Clinton Gains Favor, Times/CBS Poll Says
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-gains-favor-times-cbs-poll-says.html?_r=0>
// NYT // Jonathan Martin and Megan Thee Brenan - May 5, 2015

Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to have initially weathered a barrage of
news about her use of a private email account when she was secretary of
state and the practices of her family’s foundation, an indication that she
is starting her second presidential bid with an unusual durability among
Democratic voters.

Americans now view Mrs. Clinton more favorably and as a stronger leader
than they did earlier in the year, despite weeks of scrutiny about her
ethics, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found. And nearly nine in 10
Democrats say the nation is ready to elect a woman president.

Republican voters showed the most openness to considering SenatorMarco
Rubio of Florida and former Govs. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas andJeb Bush of
Florida among their party’s presidential contenders, the survey found.

Mrs. Clinton remains a polarizing figure — nearly the same percentage of
Americans view her positively as negatively — but her favorability rating
has improved by nine percentage points since the disclosure in late March
that she did not use a government email account as secretary of state.

And the number of Americans who think Mrs. Clinton has strong qualities of
leadership has risen by eight percentage points, to 65 percent from 57
percent, in that same period. Still, Mrs. Clinton begins this campaign with
fewer voters saying she possesses such qualities than did in July 2007,
near the outset of her first presidential bid.

Mrs. Clinton already has one primary opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont, and more Democrats are likely to enter the race, but her party
seems particularly unbothered by questions relating to the emails and to
the foundation that she, her husband and their daughter oversee.

While roughly 48 percent of Americans say Mrs. Clinton is honest and
trustworthy, about four of five Democrats think she has those traits — and
about the same numbers of Democrats say she shares the values most
Americans try to live by.

Fifty-two percent of Democrats said they knew nothing or very little about
the Clinton Foundation, and only 10 percent said foreign donations to the
foundation affected Mrs. Clinton’s decisions while she was the nation’s top
diplomat. Just 9 percent of Democratic voters said they would not consider
voting for Mrs. Clinton.

”I think the whole thing is political and it’s going to wash away
eventually,” Herbert Levengard, 83, a Democratic retiree from Maryland,
said in a follow-up interview. “There are always going to be people who
mess around and look for things to yell about, but I don’t care.”

Mrs. Clinton is also helped in her own party by the enduring popularity of
former President Bill Clinton: Seventy-six percent of Democrats have a
favorable view of him and only 4 percent view him unfavorably.

Democrats also assume that Mr. Clinton — who memorably said in his 1992
presidential bid that he and Mrs. Clinton represented “two for the price of
one” — would play a substantial role were Mrs. Clinton to win the White
House. Seven in 10 Democratic voters said he would have a great deal or
some influence on Mrs. Clinton if she became president.

If Democrats seem largely content with the prospect of another Clinton in
the White House, Republicans are not quite as certain about electing a
third member of the Bush family president.

Nearly three-quarters of Republican voters view George W. Bush favorably,
but almost 70 percent have not yet formed an opinion of his brother Jeb, a
likely presidential candidate.

The Republican primary is largely unformed, with many Republicans
indicating openness to a variety of candidates in a large and still growing
field.

There is positive news for Jeb Bush, though. Forty-nine percent of
conservative Republican voters think his stance on the issues is about
right.

While Mr. Bush has faced initial questions about whether he is sufficiently
conservative to win a Republican primary, only 22 percent of Republican
voters said his views were not conservative enough. Further, 60 percent of
Republican voters said having the right experience was more important in a
presidential candidate, while only 27 percent said they thought offering
fresh ideas was more valuable.

What could also help Mr. Bush — along with the other governors or former
governors seeking the GOP nomination — is that 73 percent of Republican
voters said they preferred candidates with experience outside Washington.

“I would really prefer a candidate who has been a governor,” said Vinton
Ernest, an 85-year-old Republican retiree in Las Vegas. “Running a state is
just as difficult as running a government. It’s just multiplied when you’re
running the country.”

Still, Mr. Rubio, 43, a first-term senator, seems to have more room to gain
in popularity than Mr. Huckabee or Mr. Bush: Only 17 percent of Republicans
said they would not consider supporting him, while 26 percent said they
would not back Mr. Huckabee, and 23 percent ruled out supporting Mr. Bush.

Republican voters were least resistant to Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin:
only 13 percent said they would not consider voting for him. At the
opposite extreme, 42 percent of Republicans said they would not consider
voting for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

Over all, Democrats enter the next presidential campaign with a better
image than Republicans. Forty-three percent of Americans said they had a
favorable opinion of the Democratic Party while only 29 percent said the
same of the Republican Party.

But as Democrats seek to retain the White House for a third consecutive
term, they do so as many Americans are dissatisfied with the country’s
direction. Sixty-three percent of Americans said the country had gotten off
track, and 66 percent said the economy was growing worse or staying the
same.

The candidates will make their case to an increasingly polarized
electorate: Two-thirds of Democrats support legalizing same-sex marriage,
while about the same percentage Republicans do not think same-sex marriages
should be legal.

In addition, 69 percent of Republicans say small-business owners who
provide wedding-related services should be able to refuse, on the basis of
their religious belief, such services to same-sex couples. But 58 percent
of Democrats think the businesses should be required to provide those
services.

On immigration, 46 percent of Republicans said illegal immigrants should be
required to leave the United States, while only 16 percent of Democrats
said the same. And while 71 percent of Democrats said illegal immigrants
should be able to stay in the country and apply for citizenship, just 38
percent of Republicans said they should be allowed to remain in America and
pursue citizenship.

The poll was conducted by telephone, on landlines and cellphones
nationwide, from April 30 to May 3 with 1,027 adults, of whom 868 were
registered to vote. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three
percentage points for all adults and registered voters.

Hillary Clinton Just Won Over Much Of The Skeptical Immigrant Activist
Movement
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/adriancarrasquillo/hillary-clinton-just-won-over-much-of-the-skeptical-immigran#.nhbO0nXjV3>
// Buzzfeed // Adrian Carrasquillo and Ruby Cramer

Activists challenged Hillary Clinton to go left on immigration — something
the Obama administration fought them on — and they didn’t expect much. But
at one small event in Nevada on Tuesday, Clinton surprised them all.

LAS VEGAS — Hillary Clinton tacked hard to the left on immigration at a
campaign event here in North Las Vegas, outlining an aggressive and
detailed policy agenda that called for a path to citizenship, protections
for parents of children brought to this country illegally, and full-scale
changes to the immigrant detention system.

Clinton’s proposals for the immigration system— and the government’s
approach to undocumented immigrants — would expand President Obama’s
efforts, and go even further.

It was a noticeably progressive vision from Clinton, who has been a target
of the activist community since leaving her post at the State Department.
Last year, when she refused for weeks to articulate her stance on Obama’s
executive actions, protestors trailed her events, staging a series of loud
and unannounced disruptions.

Her comments on Tuesday afternoon, made at a small “roundtable” discussion
with students in the library of Rancho High School, are among her most
thorough on domestic policy since the start of her presidential campaign
last month.

Six DREAMers — or undocumented youth brought to the country as children —
sat alongside Clinton at the Nevada event, her first in the key primary
state. Each was a student at Rancho High and a recipient of DACA, the
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that Obama launched through
executive action.

When she opened the discussion, Clinton told the students she would like to
“do more on behalf of parents of DREAMers who are not necessarily included”
in the current deferred action plan — to the consternation of activists who
pushed strongly for that measure to be included in Obama’s actions last
year.

As president, Clinton said, she would do everything possible to “avoid
family breakup” — a “terrible experience” that isn’t “smart” or “right.”

Calling for full changes to the detention system, Clinton advocated broadly
for “more humane treatment” — and specifically for a “higher level of care”
for children, LGBT people, and others who could be considered more
vulnerable in large facilities.

Clinton also promised to support and expand Obama’s executive actions,
pushing to allow more undocumented immigrants the right to apply for work
permits and protections. She repeated her call to Congress for a
comprehensive bill and a “full and equal” path to citizenship.

But if Congress does not undertake legislative changes, Clinton said she
would pursue more executive actions herself. “I would do everything
possible under the law to go even further,” she said.

The appearance in Nevada instantly rippled through the community of
activists at the heart of the immigration debate — many of whom followed
the event by video and social media. They said on Tuesday afternoon that
Clinton showed she would draw sharp contrasts to Republicans who have been
more receptive to immigration changes, including former governor Jeb Bush
and Sen. Marco Rubio.

“This is big,” said Frank Sharry, an activist who leads America’s Voice and
worked closely with the Obama administration on their 2014 executive
actions.

“Obama’s executive actions cover some 5 million people, but leave out at
least as many,” he said. “She’s saying she’ll devise a process for them to
apply — DREAMers’ parents, LGBT families, and others with strong ties [to
the country] will be able to get relief” from deportation.

Erika Andiola — a DREAMer activist whose high-profile return from Congress,
where she was staffer, to Arizona to fight her mother’s deportation
garnered national headlines — said Clinton’s comments were an encouraging
sign.

If, as Clinton suggested, she would move to protect the parents of
DREAMers, Andiola’s mother could be protected from deportation, she said.

“This is a really great step recognizing what she could do,” Andiola said.
“I’m happy that this first step was greatly taken, now it’s about making
sure that accountability is there.”

Cristina Jiménez, with the group United We Dream, said that the 2016
election may stand out as the first time in history that the country will
be able to have a substantive debate on immigration policy and executive
actions. “Full and equal citizenship for our communities, the protection of
existing executive actions on immigration and a commitment to expand that
relief were good to hear,” she said.

Still, many activists mentioned Bush, the former Florida governor who
supports “earned legal status” — rather than Clinton’s endorsement of “full
and equal citizenship.”

Activists have said they will continue to pressure Bush on immigration — a
demand he may find difficult to entertain in the midst of a competitive
Republican primary.

Some, like Ali Noorani with the National Immigration Forum, who works with
evangelicals and law enforcement, attributed Clinton’s move to pressure not
just from the left, but also from the right.

“It’s great that Hillary is demarcating and differentiating herself between
Jeb and other Republicans,” he said. “But she’s moving because leading
Republicans are moving. She’s moving because there is real pressure, not
necessarily pressure from the left, but pressure from the right. That’s the
difference here.”

He dinged both parties, adding that in 2008, Democrats had no reason to
move to the left on immigration and Republicans have not been responding to
the nation’s interests at all, until recently.

Clinton’s mention of family detention issues, which Noorani previously
called a “scar” of the Obama administration, showed him she is responding
to is the fact that conservative faith leaders believe families should stay
together, even if they’re in deportation proceedings. “Somebody in her
world is giving her a sense of how to approach this,” he said.

That could be her political director, Amanda Renteria, who was working the
phones speaking to immigration leaders even before the campaign was
announced, to understand what community leaders wanted to see from Clinton.

That ask included many issues, like asking for an end to local police
working with immigration enforcement agents in their jails. But it also
called for Clinton to move away from her at times wooden, awkward tones on
immigration last year during her book tour to a place with a more
welcoming, inclusive tone focused on families, activists said.

Of course, cautious optimism from activists doesn’t mean they are hanging
it up and going home to put up Clinton 2016 lawn signs.

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network, or NDLON, hardly had a
positive word for Clinton, though they acknowledged her comments were
surprising.

“It is also an indication the Clinton campaign is concerned about the
prospect of a pro-reform candidate winning the GOP nomination,” Chris
Newman said.

He argued that by “moving so far to the left so quickly, she has
inadvertently increased pressure on the Obama administration to take
additional significant action on deportation and detention in his remaining
two years.”

Jiménez already had a new ask, as well, calling on Clinton, if elected, to
take immediate executive action.

“Saying that executive action will happen only if Congress fails to act
could set up a long blame game between the president and Congress which
we’ve seen before,” she said.

Clinton concluded the event with a vow to the DREAMers to her left and
right.

“I pledge to you that I will do everything I possibly can to make this an
issue in the campaign,” she said, “but more importantly, when I’m
president, to put it at the top of my priority list.”

It was a promise that Betsaida Frausto, one of the participants, said she
will take to heart. Frausto is a recipient of DACA. She has the highest
grade average of her peers — a 4.8 — and said she dreams of going to Yale
and becoming a doctor.

“Before, my future was unknown,” Frausto said after meeting Clinton. “Now I
feel more secure. At the bottom of my heart, I know that she gets it.”

“If there’s a person who can help, it’s her.”

SOCIAL MEDIA

Jorge Ramos (5/5/15 8:25pm) ‏@jorgeramosnews:
<https://twitter.com/jorgeramosnews/status/595746195500310529> Hillary just
took a stunningly aggressive stance on immigration reform
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/5/8557271/clinton-immigration-obama?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=article%3Atop&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

America's Voice retweeted Hillary Clinton (5/5/15 6:54pm) @americasvoice:
<https://twitter.com/americasvoice/status/595723239856467970> This is HUGE.
RT @HillaryClinton “We should put in place an accessible way for parents of
DREAMers & others to be eligible for the same deferred action as their
children.”

Chris Moody (5/5/15 9:29am) @moodyHillary:
<https://twitter.com/moody/status/595581136333594625> Clinton's campaign
launched a version of Obama's AttackWatch, but without sounding angry and
insane.

Carolyn Ryan ‏5/5/15 6:38pm @carolynryan:
<https://twitter.com/carolynryan/status/595719284019568640> Despite barrage
of tough stories, Hillary Clinton remains strong in polls.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-gains-favor-times-cbs-poll-says.html

Dara Lind (5/5/15 7:29pm) @DLind:
<https://twitter.com/DLind/status/595732021126762496> I am stunned. Hillary
actually did _more_ than advocates were asking her for.
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/5/85572

HRC NATIONAL COVERAGE

Hillary Clinton’s Appeal Survives Scrutiny, Poll Says
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-gains-favor-times-cbs-poll-says.html>
// NYT //  Jonathan Martin and Megan Thee-Brenan – May 5, 2015

Hillary Rodham Clinton at Columbia University in New York last week. Credit
Michael Appleton for The New York Times

Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to have initially weathered a barrage of
news about her use of a private email account when she was secretary of
state and the practices of her family’s foundation, an indication that she
is starting her second presidential bid with an unusual durability among
Democratic voters.

Americans now view Mrs. Clinton more favorably and more see her as a strong
leader than they did earlier in the year, despite weeks of scrutiny about
her ethics, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found. And nearly nine in 10
Democrats say the nation is ready to elect a woman president.

Republican voters showed the most openness to considering Senator Marco
Rubio of Florida and former Govs. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Jeb Bush of
Florida among their party’s presidential contenders, the survey found.

Mrs. Clinton remains a polarizing figure — nearly the same percentage of
Americans view her positively as negatively — but her favorability rating
has improved by nine percentage points since the disclosure in late March
that she did not use a government email account as secretary of state.

Americans’ Views on the 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Issues

See what Americans think about Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Republican
candidates and issues like the health care law and same-sex marriage.

And the number of Americans who think Mrs. Clinton has strong qualities of
leadership has risen by eight percentage points, to 65 percent from 57
percent, in that period. Still, Mrs. Clinton begins this campaign with
fewer voters saying she possesses such qualities than did in July 2007,
near the outset of her first presidential bid.

Mrs. Clinton has one primary opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont,
and more Democrats are likely to enter the race, but her party seems
particularly unbothered by questions relating to the emails and to the
foundation that she, her husband and their daughter oversee.

While roughly 48 percent of Americans say Mrs. Clinton is honest and
trustworthy, about four of five Democrats think she has those traits — and
about the same numbers of Democrats say she shares the values most
Americans try to live by.

Fifty-two percent of Democrats said they knew nothing or very little about
the Clinton Foundation, and only 10 percent said foreign donations to the
foundation affected Mrs. Clinton’s decisions while she was the nation’s top
diplomat. Just 9 percent of Democratic voters said they would not consider
voting for Mrs. Clinton.

”I think the whole thing is political and it’s going to wash away
eventually,” Herbert Levengard, 83, a Democratic retiree from Maryland,
said in a follow-up interview. “There are always going to be people who
mess around and look for things to yell about, but I don’t care.”

Mrs. Clinton is also helped in her own party by the enduring popularity of
former President Bill Clinton: Seventy-six percent of Democrats have a
favorable view of him, and only 4 percent view him unfavorably.

Democrats also assume that Mr. Clinton — who memorably said in his 1992
presidential bid that he and Mrs. Clinton represented “two for the price of
one” — would play a substantial role were Mrs. Clinton to win the White
House. Seven in 10 Democratic voters said he would have a great deal or
some influence on Mrs. Clinton if she became president.

Continue reading the main story

If Democrats seem largely content with the prospect of another Clinton in
the White House, Republicans do not seem quite as certain about electing a
third member of the Bush family president.

Nearly three-quarters of Republican voters view George W. Bush favorably,
but almost 70 percent have not yet formed an opinion of his brother Jeb, a
likely presidential candidate.

The Republican primary is largely unformed, with many Republicans
indicating openness to a variety of candidates in a large and still growing
field.

There is positive news for Jeb Bush, though. Forty-nine percent of
conservative Republican voters think his stance on the issues is about
right.

While Mr. Bush has faced questions about whether he is conservative enough
to win a Republican primary, only 22 percent of Republican voters said his
views were not conservative enough. Further, 60 percent of Republican
voters said having the right experience was more important in a
presidential candidate, while only 27 percent said they thought offering
fresh ideas was more valuable.

What could also help Mr. Bush — along with the other governors or former
governors seeking the G.O.P. nomination — is that 73 percent of Republican
voters said they preferred candidates with experience outside Washington.

“I would really prefer a candidate who has been a governor,” said Vinton
Ernest, an 85-year-old Republican retiree from Las Vegas. “Running a state
is just as difficult as running a government. It’s just multiplied when
you’re running the country.”

Still, Mr. Rubio, 43, a first-term senator, seems to have more room to gain
in popularity than Mr. Huckabee or Mr. Bush: Only 17 percent of Republicans
said they would not consider supporting him, while 26 percent said they
would not back Mr. Huckabee and 23 percent ruled out supporting Mr. Bush.

Republican voters were least resistant to Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin:
Only 13 percent said they would not consider voting for him. At the
opposite extreme, 42 percent of Republicans said they would not consider
voting for Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

Over all, Democrats enter the next presidential campaign with a better
image than Republicans. Forty-three percent of Americans said they had a
favorable opinion of the Democratic Party while only 29 percent said the
same of the Republican Party.

But as Democrats seek to retain the White House for a third consecutive
term, many Americans are dissatisfied with the country’s direction.
Sixty-three percent of Americans said the country had gotten off track, and
66 percent said the economy was growing worse or staying the same.

The candidates will make their case to an increasingly polarized
electorate: Two-thirds of Democrats support legalizing same-sex marriage,
while about the same percentage of Republicans do not think same-sex
marriages should be legal.

In addition, 69 percent of Republicans say small-business owners who
provide wedding-related services should be able to refuse, on the basis of
their religious belief, such services to same-sex couples. But 58 percent
of Democrats think the businesses should be required to provide those
services.

On immigration, 46 percent of Republicans said illegal immigrants should be
required to leave the United States, while only 16 percent of Democrats
said the same. And while 71 percent of Democrats said illegal immigrants
should be able to stay in the country and apply for citizenship, just 38
percent of Republicans said they should be allowed to remain in America and
pursue citizenship.

The poll was conducted by telephone, on landlines and cellphones
nationwide, from April 30 to May 3 with 1,027 adults, of whom 868 were
registered to vote. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three
percentage points for all adults and registered voters.

NH Dem Primary Poll
<http://cola.unh.edu/sites/cola.unh.edu/files/research_publications/gsp2015_spring_demprim050515.pdf>
// WMUR Granite State Poll // Andrew E. Smith, Phd - May 5, 2015

DURHAM, NH –Hillary Clinton remains the frontrunner in the 2016 New
Hampshire Primary although support for her has dipped somewhat in recent
months. Her favorability ratings among Democratic primary voters have
dropped significantly since February. These findings are based on the
latest WMUR Granite State Poll,  conducted by the University of New
Hampshire Survey Center. Seven hundred and six (706) randomly selected New
Hampshire adults were interviewed by landline and cellular telephone
between April 24 and May 3, 2015. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.7
percent. Included were two hundred twenty-nine (229) likely 2016 Democratic
Primary voters (MSE = +/-6.5), two hundred ninety-three (293) likely 2016
Republican Primary voters (MSE = +/-5.7), and six hundred and twenty-seven
(627) likely 2016 presidential election voters (MSE = +/- 3.9

For Hillary Clinton's Campaign Manager, It All Began in Vegas
<http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-05/for-hillary-clinton-s-campaign-manager-it-all-began-in-vegas>
// Bloomberg // Jennifer Epstein – May 5, 2015

A few days before that year's Nevada caucus, among the most rancorous of
primary battles of 2008, the head of Hillary Clinton’s state team went to
the emergency room.

Robby Mook wasn’t ill, but one of his field organizers—a junior staffer
he’d known for a few months—was. Though the campaign was at one of its
busiest moments, Mook was determined to show the woman that he was there to
support her.

When he got to the hospital, a recognizable face was already in the waiting
room: his counterpart on Barack Obama’s campaign, David Cohen, who’d been
friends with the woman for years.

“It was days before the caucus and there we were, sitting together waiting
and joking around about both being there,” said Cohen, who had met Mook
only once before that night. “I was struck—it was the height of the
campaign and he could’ve just stayed in the office or sent someone else.
But he was like, ‘Nope, I know where I’ve got to be.’”

That was just one hint of the kind of campaign leader Mook, who was 27
during most of his 11 months as Clinton's Nevada state director, had
already become. After helping Clinton to a split decision in Nevada—she won
the popular vote while Obama won the delegate count—he moved on to lead her
winning state operations in Ohio and Indiana.

He's since refined his skills, leading Jeanne Shaheen’s 2008 successful
Senate campaign in New Hampshire, Terry McAuliffe’s gubernatorial campaign
in Virginia, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee through
the 2012 cycle.

As Clinton makes her first trip of the campaign cycle to Nevada on Tuesday
for a roundtable on immigration reform and a fundraiser hosted by Las Vegas
Sun president and publisher Brian Greenspun, the memory of Mook's role in
her 2008 campaign remains fresh. And the way that Mook ran Nevada
operation—his first presidential-level leadership role—offers a clue toward
the way he’ll approach the next 18 months: focused on teamwork, discipline
and keeping costs low. He’s described by people who’ve worked for and
against him as someone who approaches the platonic ideal of the campaign
manager: a skilled strategist, talented field organizer and able manager.

But one person who won't be the source of a description of him is Mook
himself. As a general rule, he doesn't talk to reporters, let alone agree
to interviews for profiles of himself.

Eight years ago, as a young out-of-stater with two cycles of experience
under his belt, Mook could have rubbed Nevada’s Democrats the wrong way. He
didn’t.

“He wasn’t a snotty-nosed kid that didn’t know what he was doing,” said
Rory Reid, the well-connected lawyer and son of Senate Minority Leader
Harry Reid who was the Clinton campaign’s state chairman in 2008.

His work was “very methodical and effective” and his demeanor was
“gentlemanly,” Reid said. “Most political operatives are not frequently
described as likable. They tend to be bombastic and foul mouthed and
objectionable in many ways, and he’s not that. He’s very unassuming and
focused.”

The 2008 race was the first time Nevada held caucuses on such a large
scale, and organizing for them was a complex and challenging undertaking.
Mook was the “mastermind,” said Alisa Nave-Worth, the 2008 campaign’s
Southern Nevada political director. He directed the communications
strategy, created a how-to-caucus website that got out ahead of other
campaigns and helped build a vast network of endorsements.

Mook was also aggressive in pushing for what he needed from headquarters in
Virginia. “When he felt we needed something from the folks at national, he
got on the phone and was very clear,” said Pam duPré, the northern Nevada
political director. “He had reasons lined up—why we needed a surrogate,
more money, more people.”

The operation was thrifty, and that started from the top. Mook and his
field director Marlon Marshall would stay in duPré’s house when visiting
the Reno area, and out-of-state surrogates were put up in supporters’ homes
or inexpensive hotels. Now that he’s running the whole campaign, the rules
are even tighter: no business cards for staff, and they are urged to take
the bus when traveling between New York and Washington.

Mook is even-keeled, resisting the impulse to get too excited when
something goes well or to get discouraged by a setback.

Throughout 2007, the Clinton campaign pushed hard for the endorsement of
the Culinary Union’s Local 226, which represents workers on the Las Vegas
Strip. When the union chose to back Obama, the near-universal response
among Clinton supporters was “oh my gosh, we’re in trouble,” Reid said.
Bill Clinton lashed out at the “establishment organization” for siding with
Obama while the rank-and-file “insurgents” backed his wife.

Mook stayed calm. “He just looked at me and said, ‘let’s win those
caucuses,’” Reid recalled. Field workers buckled down, Bill and Chelsea
started reaching out to voters, and Clinton won 7 of the 9 caucus sites
along the Strip.

“I’ve never once seen him angry,” said Emmy Ruiz, the 2016 Nevada state
director, who worked with Mook throughout the 2008 Nevada campaign as a
field organizer.

Mook’s unruffled approach also translated into the way he managed his
staff, choosing to intervene and then move on when he saw conflict.

“Other campaign people can be like, ‘if it means I’m spending 60 fewer
seconds on voter contact, I’m ignoring the issue,’” duPre said. “Robby
wasn’t like that. He would simply shift his focus very briefly, take care
of whatever he had to take care of, and get back on track.”

Mook makes it clear to his teams that “you have to be personally invested
in the people around you,” Nave-Worth said. He’s also a proponent of
“mandatory fun”—meals, drinks and retreats—to help build those bonds.

In late 2007, aware that many staffers wouldn’t be able to get home to
their families for Christmas and wouldn’t be able to spend the day calling
voters, Mook engineered a party for 200. “All the senior staff basted
turkeys,” recalled Nave-Worth, whose mother hosted the group at her Las
Vegas home. “We went outside in the cold and cooked some on the grill.”

Ruiz, the first field organizer the Clinton campaign hired back in 2007, is
now doing Mook's old job as state director. “He invested in my development,
and I'm not the only one,” she said, pointing to Brynne Craig, a 2008
Nevada field organizer who is now deputy political director, as another
beneficiary of Mook’s mentoring.

Asked for a weakness, duPré said that Mook was “always walking around
talking on his phone,” a Samsung smartphone with a keyboard. “He didn’t sit
still very often and he had to sit still sometimes to plug in his phone.”

And, she added, “I hope he eats well and gets enough rest. I hope he’s
following his own advice.”

Hillary Clinton Draws Distinction With GOP on Immigration
<http://time.com/3847991/hillary-clinton-immigration/?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true>
// TIME // Sam Frizell - May 5, 2015

Republican policies would create a "second-class status" for immigrants,
she argued

Hillary Clinton drew a sharp distinction Tuesday between herself and the
2016 Republican hopefuls on immigration reform, and called for a full path
to citizenship for people who came to the U.S. illegall

“Today, not a single Republican candidate, announced or potential is
clearly consistent in supporting a path to citizenship,” the former
Secretary of State said in prepared remarks before a roundtable at a high
school in Nevada. “When they talk about ‘legal status,’ that is code for
second-class status.”

Calling immigration a family and an economic issue, Clinton said she
supported expanding programs for so-called Dreamers to help parents of
immigrant children stay in the United States.

Clinton raised eyebrows in June when she said that the unaccompanied minors
fleeing violence in Central America should not be allowed to stay in the
U.S. “to send a clear message.” Immigration activists expect Clinton to
firmly embrace comprehensive immigration reform as a central part of her
platform in 2016.

In response to a question from one of the roundtable participants, Clinton
said she would make immigration reform one of her first initiatives if
elected.

“We should put in place a simple, straightforward and accessible way for
parents of Dreamers and others with a history of service and contributions
to their community to make their case and to be eligible for the same
deferred action as their children,” she said.

Hillary Clinton To Unveil Path To Citizenship Immigration Plan
<http://www.npr.org/2015/05/05/404483267/hillary-clinton-to-unveil-path-to-citizenship-immigration-plan>
// NPR // Tamara Keith - May 5, 2015

Hillary Clinton is expected Tuesday to lay out her plan for a path to
citizenship for many who are presently in the United States illegally.
Meanwhile, her campaign is ramping up its efforts to get ahead of the
scandal stories involving a new book about the Clinton Foundation and the
upcoming Benghazi hearings.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Immigration is the key topic for Hillary Clinton today, and it's the
purpose for her visit to Las Vegas. She visited Rancho High School where 70
percent of the student body is Hispanic. She called for a path to
citizenship for the 12 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: It is at heart a family issue, and if we claim that
we are for families, we have to pull together and resolve the outstanding
issues around our broken immigration system.

BLOCK: Clinton made her pitch on the same day the book "Clinton Cash" hit
stores. It raises questions about foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation.
NPR's Tamara Keith is in Las Vegas, and she joins me now. And, Tamara,
what's the dynamic here for the Clinton campaign on the question of
immigration?

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: The Latino vote is critical to the Democratic
coalition, and in particular, in Nevada, an energized Hispanic electorate
can be the difference between winning and losing for Democrats. And
Clinton's team sees immigration as a wedge issue. Republicans are running
in primaries where they will likely take positions on immigration that many
Latino voters will disagree with. Think Mitt Romney's self-deportation
comments in 2012. And what Clinton is trying to do here is draw a contrast
between herself and Republican candidates, many of whom do not support a
path to citizenship. She's not going out on a limb in terms of Democratic
voters, but it also sends a signal to the Latino activists that she's on
their team on this one.

BLOCK: Now, I also mentioned the book that comes out today, "Clinton Cash."
It's been raising a lot of uncomfortable questions for both Hillary Clinton
and former President Clinton. How are they - how are they responding to
that?

KEITH: Bill Clinton did an interview from Africa where he was doing
foundation work with NBC, and he described the book as basically a
political hit job. He said that the foundation never did anything knowingly
inappropriate, and he touted the transparency of the foundation. But then
he also said that he feels like the Clintons are held to a different set of
rules - that are rules for the Clintons and there are rules for other
people, and that they are held to a higher standard. Now, lots of people
out there believe that the Clintons play by their own rules, so this was
seen as somewhat tone deaf. He also said that he wasn't planning to stop
giving these big speeches where he's paid hundreds of thousands of dollars
for a single speech because he, quote, "has to pay the bills."

BLOCK: So Bill Clinton pushing back about allegations about the foundation.
What about the Clinton campaign, Hillary Clinton's campaign?

KEITH: They've launched something called The Briefing, and they're
describing it as your go-to source for the facts you need to set the story
straight. They just announced it today. You know, in 1992, the Bill Clinton
campaign had a war room, and they really innovated this concept of
political rapid response. Now Hillary Clinton's campaign is doing something
very similar, though with all of the modern technology of Internet videos
and web posts and Twitter. Here's Brian Fallon, who's a press secretary for
the campaign, in a web video they put out today about that "Clinton Cash"
book.

BRIAN FALLON: It's full of sloppy research and attacks pulled out of thin
air with no actual evidence and it's missing the most important thing of
all - facts. Let's just take a look at a few of the craziest conspiracy
theories.

KEITH: And that term conspiracy theories, you know, that is sort of an echo
to Hillary Clinton's line about the vast right-wing conspiracy. And I think
that they are planning to try to downplay any criticism of Clinton or the
Clinton Foundation as part of conspiracy theories.

BLOCK: At the same time, Tamara, there's now word this week that Hillary
Clinton has agreed to testify before a House committee. She's going to be
testifying about the Benghazi attack when she was secretary of state, also
about her private email server. So questions about things other than the
campaign will continue to swirl around her.

KEITH: A good friend of hers recently told me that Hillary Clinton has a
remarkable ability to compartmentalize, and I think that that's exactly
what the campaign is trying to do here. They want to as much as possible
let the candidate be the candidate while at the same time, not letting any
attack go unanswered.

BLOCK: OK, NPR's Tamara Keith following the Clinton campaign in Nevada.
Tamara, thanks.

KEITH: You're welcome.

Hillary Clinton’s Nevada play
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/hillary-clintons-nevada-play-117644.html>
// POLITICO // Gabriel Debendetti - May 5, 2015

Hillary Clinton’s return to Nevada, the site of one of her toughest battles
with then-Sen. Barack Obama, is designed to project a sense that she’s
taking the Democratic nominating contest seriously, even in the absence of
stiff competition.

But Tuesday’s visit is also about November 2016, when her ties to Hispanic
voters and union members could prove pivotal for her presidential ambitions
— and to Democratic hopes of recapturing the Senate.

In what has become a familiar format for the former secretary of state’s
campaign stops, Clinton will convene a roundtable of locals at Rancho High
School here, where she will focus on immigration reform and call for a path
to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, according to a campaign
official.

It’s just a quick swing through the state — a trip that will take place
against the backdrop of the much anticipated release of “Clinton Cash: The
Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make
Bill and Hillary Rich,” by conservative author Peter Schweizer.

Nonetheless, Clinton’s team sees ample opportunity in the one-day visit:
the candidate can draw a contrast with Republicans on immigration reform
while personally laying the groundwork for a caucus organization that
Nevada Democrats hope translates into broader voter registration and
interest.

With a largely static Electoral College map and a limited number of states
truly in play in 2016 — not to mention an open Senate race to replace
retiring Minority Leader Harry Reid — few places are more important than
Nevada next year.

“What she’s able to do there is go to an early state which will clearly be
important to her in the presidential process even though she won’t have
much of a primary,” explained Democratic strategist Maria Cardona, a senior
advisor to Clinton in 2008 who worked on the campaign’s Hispanic outreach
effort. “It gives her the opportunity to say, ‘Look: I’m not taking this
for granted.’”

Eight years ago, Nevada hosted one of the most bruising fights of the
primary contest, featuring a split among the unions that are central to the
state’s organizing infrastructure and a resulting tussle over the shape of
the caucus itself. While Clinton walked away with more votes than Obama,
the president-to-be claimed more delegates to the convention.

But this time around Clinton’s likely primary opponents have little
presence here, and her own campaign is run by operatives who know Nevada
well: her 2008 state director Robby Mook now serves as her national
campaign manager, her top organizing official Marlon Marshall worked
alongside Mook here that year, and her highest-ranking staffer in Nevada is
Obama’s 2012 state director and Clinton 2008 field organizer Emmy Ruiz.

As in the other prominent caucus state of Iowa, Clinton’s team insists it
is best served by building a highly-structured field organization from the
start, which it has already begun to do.

“In order to win in Nevada, they’re going to have to do real, concerted
organizing,” said Yvanna Cancela, the political director of the Culinary
Union 226 Local — Nevada’s largest and most influential union, which
endorsed Obama over Clinton eight years ago. “2014 wasn’t necessarily a
Republican wave. It was a massive not-voting on behalf of the populations
they want to turn out. In order to change that behavior, they’re going to
have to invest and organize an infrastructure that moves those folks to the
polls.”

The campaign has started its union outreach in a state where organized
labor holds major sway, Marshall told POLITICO. That’s helped assuage
concerns of Democrats who recognize that the battle for Reid’s Senate seat
will be among the most expensive and closely-contested in the nation — and
who want the Clinton campaign to ramp up quickly.

“What I learned in the general election of 2008 was that having the
organizing from the primary helped,” Marshall explained. “Focusing on
building infrastructure really helps Democrats up and down the ballot.”

Still, GOP leaders, including the Republican National Committee’s new
political director, Nevada veteran Chris Carr, are also keeping an eye on
Clinton’s efforts in the state, aware that it represents not only an
important early-voting contest, but a useful six electoral votes come
November — votes that have gone Democratic in the last two presidential
elections.

Republicans have cause for optimism: After the 2014 elections, they control
the levers of state government, including the governorship and both state
legislative chambers.

Clinton will aim to rally a key part of the state’s Democratic base —
Hispanic voters — with her comments about immigration on Tuesday: she will
tell voters at the school, which has a roughly 70 percent Hispanic student
body, that the country “cannot settle for proposals that provide
hard-working people with merely a ‘second-class’ status,” according to a
campaign aide. The former senator and first lady was extremely popular
among Hispanics in 2008, garnering two times as many Latino votes as Obama
during their drawn-out primary contest, and is now seeking to rekindle that
relationship.

But the immigration landscape has changed since then, and Clinton has
occasionally faced tough questions about her precise immigration position
from DREAMers who were brought into the United States illegally when they
were children. Her remarks on Tuesday are intended to send a clear message
of support to them.

“The Hispanic voters are really looking to her to see what is going to be
her stance on immigration,” said Cardona. “They understand that she has
supported [comprehensive immigration reform] in the past, that she has
voiced support for President Obama’s executive action. But I think they
want to hear what she would do if she was elected.”

By staking out a liberal position on immigration early Clinton could avoid
criticism from possible primary challengers, but the real aim is to draw a
hard line between Democrats and Republicans who are opposed to broader
immigration reform and Obama’s 2014 executive action.

“From a political standpoint it is incredibly smart for her to be doing
this early and in such an intimate way, one-on-one with Latino voters,”
said Cardona. “I guarantee you the contrast with her Republican opposition
could not be starker.”

Clinton Pledges to Take Immigration Actions 'Even Further'
<http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton/clinton-willing-take-immigration-actions-even-further-n354281>
// MSNBC // Andrew Rafferty and Andrea Mitchell – May 5, 2015

Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton pledged Tuesday to
take further executive actions if Congress fails to pass comprehensive
immigration reform and accused Republicans of advocating to give
undocumented workers "second class status."

"If Congress refuses to act, as president, I would do everything possible
under the law to go even further," Clinton said during a campaign stop in
Las Vegas.

Clinton said it is time for "a path to full and equal citizenship" and
dismissed competing proposals that would give undocumented immigrants a
limited time-frame to remain in the country legally.

And Clinton said that if she is elected president she would expand DACA
provisions to include parents who had deep roots in the United States.

The former secretary of state made the remarks after meeting with youths at
Rancho High School in Las Vegas, which is 70 percent Hispanic. The
roundtable included one student from Rancho HS, Betsaida Frausto, a junior
who has a 4.8 grade point average, is taking three Advanced Placement
classes, and wants to go to Yale to become a doctor.

She also heard heartwarming stories from the students, including several
who come from "mixed" families — where one parent and/or a sibling are
legal and the rest of the family are not and are faced with deportation.
Clinton told them it is foolish to talk about deporting 11 million people,
saying we are a nation of immigrants and we have to solve this issue.

"I don't understand how anyone can look at these young people and think we
should break up more families or turn away more hard workers with talent to
help us build the kind of country we all want to see," Clinton said. "So I
will fight for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship
for you and for your families across our country."

President Barack Obama took executive actions last year that would give
temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. The orders, which
are currently being challenged in court, resulted in a political showdown
with Congressional Republicans who said the president had overstepped his
Constitutional authority.

While the orders led to contentious showdowns in Washington that threatened
to shut down the Department of Homeland Security and delayed the
confirmation of Obama's attorney general nominee this year, polling shows
the rest of the country largely approves the orders. An
MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist poll released last month found 57 percent of
Americans and 78 percent of Latinos approved what the president did.

How to deal with the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants
has already proved to be a key issue in the early stages of the 2016
campaign. Many in the Republican party have slammed a path to citizenship
for undocumented immigrants as "amnesty" that threatens American workers
and ignores the law.

"Today not a single Republican candidate either announced or potential is
clearly and consistently supporting a path to citizenship, not one,"
Clinton said at Rancho High School. "When they talk about legal status,
that is code for second class status."

Clinton to reach out to Latinos in NH
<http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150505/NEWS0605/150509656> // New
Hampshire Union Leader // Dan Tuohy - May 5, 2015

While Hillary Clinton focuses on immigration Tuesday in Nevada, her
campaign this week will be reaching out to the Latino community in New
Hampshire to talk about her reform ideas.

The Democratic presidential candidate, in Nevada, will talk about the need
to pass comprehensive immigration reform that provides “a path to
citizenship,” upholds the law and protects border and national security,
according to the Clinton campaign.

Clinton’s goal is to bring “millions of hard-working people out of the
shadows and into the formal economy so they can pay taxes and contribute to
our nation’s prosperity.”

Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign is in the process of organizing a “Latino
Americans for Hillary” house party in Manchester and reaching out to
Latino-owned businesses in Manchester and Nashua.

The campaign also plans to confer with immigration reform advocates and
Latino residents in New Hampshire.

The Note: High Bar For Hillary on Immigration
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/note-returning-place-called-hope/story?id=30810633>
// ABC News // Jim Avila and Serena Marshall - May 5, 2015

She is the presumed favorite of the Latino vote and today in Las Vegas
Hillary Clinton is expected to double down on this gateway issue for
Hispanic voters, ABC’s JIM AVILA and SERENA MARSHALL note. A Clinton
official telling ABC News she plans to focus on a path to citizenship as
part of comprehensive immigration reform. Latino leaders consulting her
campaign tell ABC News Clinton is looking for a way to clearly contrast
herself from republican candidates for president by embracing the full path
to citizenship rather than proposing a second class of Americans who can
work in the United States but not enjoy the protection of citizenship.
Clinton is also expected to promise to extend the dreamer program to
undocumented parents of children born in the United States  Latino groups
will be listening today for a timetable for implementation of these
changes. President Obama has been faulted with moving too slowly during his
first term when he had a democratic majority and failed to pass immigration
reform. Latino groups also say they will listen for consistency in Hillary
Clinton’s campaign, concerned that what happens in Vegas today on
immigration doesn't just stay in Vegas but is promised in Iowa and other
primary states

Hillary Clinton revives hibernating '80s 'sleaze factor'
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/05/05/sleaze-factor-2016-elections-hillary-clinton-column/26653627/>
// USA Today // James S. Robbins - May 5, 2015

In the wake of revelations regarding the questionable nexus between Hillary
and Bill Clinton's family foundation and those who benefitted from her
tenure as Secretary of State, their defenders say there is no proof of
misdeeds, no verifiable quid pro quo, not a shred of evidence against them.
True so far, at least none that weren't deleted.

However there is a pattern of dubious behavior, and certainly an appearance
of impropriety. The sheer scale of the money involved is daunting. Hundreds
of thousands of dollars in donations and speaker's fees on the one hand,
with contracts and agreements worth multi-millions of dollars being doled
out on the other. The fact that Mrs. Clinton has not already been written
off as politically dead says a lot about how perceptions of the role of
money in politics have changed.

The Clintons' troubles bring to mind "the sleaze factor," an expression
used by Walter Mondale early in the 1984 presidential campaign to describe
what he called "a tawdry record of unethical conduct" in the Reagan
administration. It was rooted in allegations of misconduct among several
members of Reagan's team. Mondale said that almost every week, "another
rotten apple falls out of the tree."

Mondale took aim specifically at then-Attorney General nominee Edwin Meese,
who was being investigated by the Justice Department for a potential
violation of the Ethics in Government Act. In particular, questions had
arisen over a $15,000 interest-free loan from his assistant Edwin Thomas to
Meese's wife, Ursula, that Meese had not reported on his financial
disclosure form. Thomas, his wife and son later went on to receive Federal
appointments.

One editorial from the time summarized the charges against Meese as
"suspicious-looking loans from people who later received White House favors
[and] financial dealings that were either unreported or misreported." That
could be used as boilerplate for an article about the Clintons today. Meese
was cleared of wrongdoing, only to fall afoul of the Wedtech scandal three
years later, an affair the New York Times called "too indecent and too
predictable." Again, useful boilerplate.

Reagan's National Security Advisor Richard Allen was also hit with the
sleaze charge. He was hounded from office principally because of an
envelope containing $1000 cash that was left behind in his safe when he
moved offices. The money was an honorarium that Allen's longtime friend
Tamotsu Takase, husband of Japanese journalist Chizuko Takase, had tried to
present to Nancy Reagan for an interview before the inauguration. Allen,
then a leader of the transition team, intercepted the envelope and gave it
to his secretary, who put it in the safe. He then forgot about it.

Allen was cleared of criminal wrongdoing for taking — that is, not
spending, not using, just storing, then abandoning — the cash. However he
was eventually hounded out of office for having accepted two Japanese
wristwatches from Takase, valued at $135 each, which were personal gifts
for him and his wife. Allen also admitted it may be been possible that
Takase "brought me a bottle of sake … he always brings me a bottle of
sake.'' This amounted to sleaze? It sounds positively quaint compared to
the relentless efforts of the Clinton money machine.

Liberal commentator Tom Braden thought the sleaze factor would be a major
campaign theme. He said the names of the Reagan officials under suspicion
such as Meese and Allen "do not conjure the image of openness, candor,
honesty and fair-mindedness that Americans respect." These are also words
one would not immediately associate with the name Clinton.

The sleaze charge did not change the outcome of the 1984 election, in which
Mondale was trounced. And Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis in his book Scandal
noted that "Democrats paid dearly in the Clinton years for this careless
use of the charge 'corruption.'" But not all charges are baseless. If Mrs.
Clinton wins the White House, it would be useful to swear in a special
prosecutor the day of the inauguration, just for the sake of convenience.
It will be one busy office.

Clinton camp on defense about her trustworthiness
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/politics/hillary-clinton-family-legacy/index.html'>
// CNN // Jeff Zeleny - May 5, 2015

Washington (CNN)A month after launching Hillary Clinton's presidential
candidacy, with every moment of her announcement video and reintroduction
tour to voters carefully crafted, her campaign team now finds itself
consumed by fending off a familiar, yet far more elusive, adversary: The
Clinton legacy.

As she visits Nevada on Tuesday and calls for a path to citizenship for
immigrants living in the country illegally, her advisers are trying to keep
old fires from becoming political obstacles with staying power. Questions
about donations to the family's foundation, along with Bill Clinton's
defiant comments this week, have alarmed Democrats who hoped she could
start her campaign on fresh footing.

Aides to Clinton still insist she will run the race on her own terms
without distraction from whirlwinds of controversy. Yet strategists
acknowledge sufficient concern by an erosion of trust and credibility that
they are forcefully fighting back. One way is through a new blog, "The
Briefing," which is notably not devoted to Clinton's platform for 2016, but
rather simply fact-checking attacks against her.

"While we will not be consumed by these kinds of attacks, we will also not
let them go unchallenged," John Podesta, the campaign chairman, said in a
message intended to allay any worry among supporters. "That's why we are
building a new one-stop shop to provide the facts about Hillary Clinton's
positions and her record."

It's a key challenge of her candidacy: Shoring up her perceptions of trust
and credibility.

The campaign, through its own surveys and focus groups with voters, is
closely studying a decline in her approval since she entered the race last
month. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday found only a
quarter of registered voters said they viewed her as honest and
straightforward, down 13 percentage points from last summer. But she still
fares stronger when facing a Republican rival.

But a central question facing Clinton in her second presidential bid is
whether she and her new team of advisers can answer questions and fight
allegations openly -- in a far different media climate -- without reverting
to a familiar Clinton defensive crouch that all criticism is automatically
partisan and no legitimate inquires could exist.

As Bill Clinton's first televised interview of the campaign still
reverberated Tuesday, several top Democrats told CNN they were taken aback
by his tone and they wondered anew whether his words could be a detriment
to his wife's campaign. Some Democrats said they cringed when he brushed
aside questions about collecting $500,000 for delivering a speech by
saying: "I've gotta pay our bills."

"There is no doubt in my mind that we have never done anything knowingly
inappropriate in terms of taking money to influence any kind of American
government policy," Bill Clinton told NBC News in Nairobi. He also
criticized what he characterized as "political" attacks on the foundation.

His comments raised more skepticism of the charges included in a book that
was released on Tuesday, "Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why
Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich."

Inside the Clinton campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, aides were widely
pleased with the disciplined rollout of her announcement tour and the
campaign's aggressive rebuttals to the book, written by conservative author
Peter Schweizer.

But now, advisers acknowledge they are bracing for an even more challenging
-- and uncertain -- second month of her campaign.

Clinton could be called as soon as May 18 to testify before the House
Select Committee on Benghazi in its investigation of the attacks that
killed four Americans on Sept. 11, 2012. She also will be questioned over
the use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state.

It will be an unusual scene for a presidential candidate: Raising her right
hand and swearing an oath to testify during a televised congressional
committee. The proceedings have already taken a partisan tone on both
sides. Podesta fueled Democratic suspicion in his message to supporters
this week, arguing the inquiry by Republicans is part of a "two-fisted
strategy to try to undermine her."

To be sure, Clinton's trust and credibility are at the forefront of the
Republican campaign against her. Republican presidential candidates are
spending less time trying to link Clinton to Obama these days than they do
raising questions about whether she's trustworthy.

"I think that Bill Clinton is saying what Hillary Clinton has said on many
occasions: 'Just trust us,'" Carly Fiorina said as she announced her
candidacy Monday. "Trust is earned through transparency."

Republicans are hoping to take a page from the winning Democratic playbook
of 2012: Define Clinton in a negative light early by chipping away at her
credibility. It's similar to how the Obama campaign rushed to define Mitt
Romney, which stuck with him for the duration of the race.

Clinton advisers downplayed that comparison. They said the trust question
was not simply about whether voters trusted Clinton, but whether they
trusted her to do the right things for them.

Democrats close to Clinton believe the best antidote to the Republican
attacks is to step up her own campaign and begin to aggressively outline
what she stands for and why she wants to be president. She has
intentionally downsized the early stage of her campaign, holding only a
handful of appearances.

The only stop on her public campaign schedule this week is in Nevada on
Tuesday, leaving her Republican critics to fill the vacuum of silence.

Clinton 'War Room' Pushback And The 'Invent Your Own' Media Campaign
<http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2015/05/05/404500775/clinton-war-room-pushback-and-the-invent-your-own-media-campaign?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=politics&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews>
// NPR // Jessica Taylor - May 5, 2015

The Hillary Clinton campaign went into overdrive Tuesday trying to minimize
the damage from a new book that delves into Clinton Foundation fundraising
— and they're not using the typical channels to do so.

On the same day that the controversial new book, "Clinton Cash" by Peter
Schweizer, was officially released, the Democrat's presidential campaign
largely went around the traditional media in favor of new media tools.

Though campaigns have been trying to bypass the media filter for years,
it's an advent of a new era in politics. The Clinton campaign is embracing
several new technologies and platforms to get their message out more
directly to voters, and it's a tactic her potential rivals are sure to
employ, too.

"It's almost media 3.0," said Tobe Berkovitz, a professor of political
communication at Boston University. "If 1.0 was dealing with the press and
2.0 was trying to circumvent the press and going to friendly sites, 3.0 is,
'Why even bother with that? Just invent your own.'"

Through a new section of its campaign website called, "The Briefing," and a
post on the platform-sharing site Medium, Clinton's campaign went on
offense against Schweizer and his suggestions that foreign donations to her
family's foundation influenced her time at the State Department — all
without the candidate addressing it head on.

A two-and-a-half-minute video posted on the new site from campaign
spokesman Brian Fallon derides Schweizer as a GOP operative, who was a
former adviser to 2008 vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and a close
friend of the Koch brothers. He also noted that research by ABC News and
even Fox News revealed there was no "smoking gun."

"The book is already being debunked far and wide," Fallon said."It's full
of sloppy research and attacks pulled out of thin air with no actual
evidence. And it's missing the most important thing of all: facts."

Campaign Chairman John Podesta also explained the campaign's strategy in a
memo posted to Medium:

"While we will not be consumed by these kinds of attacks, we will also not
let them go unchallenged. That's why we are building a new one-stop shop to
provide the facts about Hillary Clinton's positions and her record. We are
calling it 'The Briefing.' You will be able to find information and it will
serve as a hub that allows Hillary for America to cut through the partisan
noise over the next 18 months and directly communicate with voters. This
forum will provide the public with direct access to the facts on the
positive policy agenda that Hillary will unveil over the course of
campaign, as well as the facts needed to debunk false attacks."

This isn't the first time since she announced last month that Clinton's
team has utilized these new platforms, especially to target Schweizer.
Though his book was just released on Tuesday, details have been leaking out
for weeks and other media organizations like the New York Times have used
his research to further investigate specific claims.

Team Clinton has turned to Medium before, with Fallon releasing a statement
on the Times story that alleged donations to the Clinton foundation were
tied to the government's approval of uranium mining company to the Russian
government:

"Without presenting any direct evidence in support of the claim, the Times
story — like the book on which it is based — wrongly suggests that Hillary
Clinton's State Department pushed for the sale's approval to reward donors
who had a financial interest in the deal."

Last week, the Clinton campaign also released a Vine of comments Schweizer
had made at a 2014 Koch brothers summit, where he told fellow conservatives
"we cannot let up."

The use of new media in favor of more traditional media isn't a surprising
strategy from the Clinton campaign, given Clinton's decades-long distrust
of and tension with the media. It's also not a new tactic, with campaigns'
rapid-response teams trying to get their message out at any cost and
through any channel. And given the way more and more people, especially
younger voters, consume news, it might be the most efficient as well.

The embrace of these new platforms is one that both the Democratic and
Republican presidential candidates are likely to use even more this cycle.

Clinton's campaign insists it is not bypassing the media in the new
approach, but is instead using multiple platforms to get their message out.

"Our campaign will work with the oldest of media outlets and the newest of
technologies to reach voters," Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin told NPR in
emailed statement. "It would be a false choice to say it's one or the
other. There is so much misinformation flying around that, whether it's
through the press or on social media, it's important for voters to be able
to access the facts directly, so they can assess for themselves and help
beat back the partisan attacks."

It's also a way for the campaign to release a controlled, scripted
narrative instead of having Clinton herself answer questions about the
issue. National Journal noted last week she has only answered a total of
seven media questions since she became an official candidate. She twice
dismissed allegations in Schweizer's book as "distractions" but she did not
answer the charges directly.

The one unscripted response came from former President Bill Clinton in an
interview with NBC News Monday that the family foundation had "never done
anything knowingly inappropriate" in accepting money from foreign
governments for their charitable foundation.

The foundation has reinstated a ban on donations from all but six foreign
countries now, but the former president said that move was "absolutely not"
an acknowledgement that accepting previous donations was a mistake.

For the Clinton campaign, this approach is "much better than actually
trotting Hillary out somewhere and have her answer what might be tough or
aggressive questions," Berkowitz said. "Release the video, and then you
release the hounds."

Democratic strategist Jim Manley, a former top aide to Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it's the right approach for the Clintons.

"What I see happening is a classic Clinton-style war-room operation
utilizing all the new media that are out there," Manley said. "I think they
deserve a lot of credit for utilizing new things like Medium, but I also
respect that they're not going to leave any charge unanswered."

Clinton is far and away the Democratic frontrunner for president, and she
still beats most of her possible GOP rivals in hypothetical head-to-heads
too. But amid questions about the Clinton foundation and an earlier
controversy about her use of a private email server instead of a government
account while she was at the State Department, her polling numbers have
suffered.

Since March, Clinton's unfavorable rating has risen six percentage points
while those who said she was honest and straightforward has dropped 13
points in a year, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released
this week.

Clinton has been under sustained assault from Republicans on the campaign
trail and Capitol Hill. And she will continue to be with hearings and
testimony coming about the terrorist attack on the U.S. outpost in
Benghazi, Libya.

"I think every bit is going to help, but the Republicans have an amazing
ability to drudge up all sorts of crazy conspiracies about the Clintons,"
Manley said. "These kind of tools can only take you so far, but, at some
point, she's going to have to start addressing some of these things
herself."

Clinton camp pushes back on book, Benghazi with new Web site
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/05/05/clinton-camp-pushes-back-on-book-benghazi-with-new-web-site/>
// WaPo //  Anne Gearan - May 5, 2015

The Clinton campaign is expanding its defense of the candidate against
allegations of alleged influence-peddling and questionable financial
dealings at her family foundation, unveiling an online tutorial Tuesday to
counter what the campaign calls Republican smears.

Polls suggest that Hillary Rodham Clinton is being damaged, if only
slightly, by the continuing controversy surrounding a book released
Tuesday, “Clinton Cash,” outlining possible improprieties while she was
secretary of state.

On a new Clinton-backed Web site called “The Briefing,” campaign press
secretary Brian Fallon says the book by conservative author Peter Schweizer
is “full of sloppy research and attacks pulled out of thin air with no
evidence.”

A pro-Clinton group called Correct the Record is also slated to go live
later Tuesday with its own Web site, defending the candidate's record on
the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

The campaign has been pushing back hard against the reported contents of
the book called “Clinton Cash” ahead of its release and against related
news coverage of ties among the Clinton Foundation, donors and foreign
governments. Fallon calls the book’s charting of some of those ties “crazy
conspiracy theories,” and invites supporters to share the Web video and
sign up for updates.

The video follows a Monday memo from campaign chairman John Podesta that
previewed the online and social media campaign against the book’s charges
and wider criticism of former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton.
Podesta said critics of Hillary Clinton have a “two-fisted strategy” to
undermine her that includes a newly announced hearing into the deaths of
four Americans in Benghazi, while Clinton was secretary of state.

“While we will not be consumed by these kinds of attacks, we will also not
let them go unchallenged,” he said. The various claims “will not be the
last false set of allegations” Clinton faces over the 18 months to the
general election, Podesta wrote.

That assumes that Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, which she is the
heavy favorite to do.

The fact-checking site will give the campaign a way to address supporters
about things they may be hearing and seeing in the media without going
through the media itself. The campaign will collect e-mail addresses of
those who visit the site, which also includes a link to donate.

“You and I both know that Republicans will latch on to whatever far-flung
theories they can find in order to try and distract from Hillary's record
of fighting for everyday Americans,” campaign communications director
Jennifer Palmieri wrote in an e-mail to supporters Tuesday. “The Briefing
will be your regular download on what you can do to help fight back against
attacks like these.”

Also Tuesday, Correct The Record's new Web site will be devoted to
undercutting Republican claims about Benghazi and advancing the Democratic
argument that Clinton played no direct role.

Called “Benghazi By The Numbers,” the site includes facts and figures about
the multiple Republican-led investigations into Benghazi as well as the
independent State Department review that found bureaucratic errors but no
scandal.

“In interviews, testimony and in her book, Secretary Clinton has taken
responsibility repeatedly,” Correct The Record said. “Clinton fully and
publicly answered questions before Congress.”

Here is a sampling of the site’s compilations:

“10: Number of congressional committees that have participated in Benghazi
investigations.

32: Number of congressional hearings, public or private, held on the
Benghazi tragedy according to publicly available hearing transcripts,
congressional reports, and committee websites and fact sheets.

54: Approximate number of hours spent to date in publicly available
hearings about the tragedy in Benghazi.

2,780: Number of questions asked in public hearings held on the Benghazi
tragedy.”

The Web site also claims, "Past investigations of the tragedy have cost
taxpayers millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours. The newest
committee has already cost taxpayers more than $2.5 million to date, and
has been on course to cost more than $6 million."

Clinton is scheduled to testify as early as May 18 before a Republican-led
special committee looking into Benghazi and questions about the security
and propriety of Clinton’s e-mail system. The State Department plans to
soon release edited versions of some 300 Clinton e-mails turned over to the
committee.

Here's Hillary Clinton's latest pushback against the 'dud' allegations in
'Clinton Cash'
<http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clintons-latest-pushback-against-clinton-cash-2015-5>//
Business Insider // Colin Campbell - May 5, 2015

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's campaign released another video
on Monday blasting the book "Clinton Cash" for its unproven allegations
against her.

"'Clinton Cash' was billed as a bombshell before being exposed as a dud,"
Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin told Business Insider. "The media has
examined the conspiracy theories in the book and found it to be completely
lacking in evidence supporting its outrageous claims."

The book has been generating waves of headlines since April 23, when a
series of media outlets published critical investigations based on author
Peter Schweizer's work. Schweizer accuses Clinton of doling out State
Department favors to people who gave to her family foundation or paid
speaking fees to her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

However, Schweizer has admitted he has no "direct evidence" of corruption.
The new Clinton video — titled "No Evidence" — doubles down on that point.
It features a highlight reel of reporters noting the lack of indisputable
proof behind Schweizer's claims.

The video is part of a new Clinton rapid-response effort against the
"Clinton Cash" allegations and other, future attacks. Her team released
another video blasting the "debunked" book earlier on Monday and vowed to
aggressively respond to partisan hits against her candidacy.

"While 'Clinton Cash' has already been debunked, we are clear-eyed about
the fact that this will not be the last false set of allegations flung our
way," wrote John Podesta, the campaign's chairman. "We will stand ready to
fight for a better future for everyday Americans and to swat back these
unfair attacks from those invested in protecting a status quo that is
stacked in favor of those at the top."

Schweizer has not responded to Business Insider's requests for comment on
criticism against him, but he has repeatedly defended the seriousness of
the allegations in his book. Indeed, he has previously claimed his work
presents enough circumstantial evidence to warrant a criminal investigation
of Clinton's behavior at the State Department.

"The smoking gun is in the pattern of behavior," Schweizer said in a recent
ABC interview. "Here's the analogy I would give you. It's a little bit like
insider trading. ... They look at a pattern of stock trades. If the person
has access to that information and then they do a series of well-timed
trades. That warrants investigation. I think the same thing applies here."

Clinton Cash Author Peter Schweizer Admits He's Wrong On Bogus Clinton
"Veto Power" Claim
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/05/05/clinton-cash-author-peter-schweizer-admits-hes/203528'>
// Media Matters // Eric Hananoki - May 5, 2015

In an interview released on the day of his Clinton Cash book launch, Peter
Schweizer admitted he overreached in attacking Hillary Clinton's purported
role in approving a Russian uranium deal.

Schweizer is a Republican activist and consultant with a long history of
errors and retractions. His latest book, Clinton Cash, is being released
today and claims the Clintons helped foreign donors through State
Department decisions. The book features over 20 errors, fabrications, and
distortions.

During an April 26 appearance on Fox News Sunday promoting the book,
Schweizer falsely claimed that then-Secretary of State Clinton "had veto
power" to stop the Russian State Atomic Nuclear Agency from purchasing
Uranium One. Schweizer has suggested Clinton approved the deal as a favor
for Clinton Foundation donors.

Schweizer's "veto" claim is false. As Media Matters and others have noted,
the State Department was just one part of a nine-agency review panel that
oversees such decisions. And members can only make recommendations to the
president, not unilaterally "veto" deals. Furthermore, as TIME reported,
there's "no indication of Hillary Clinton's personal involvement in, or
even knowledge of, the deliberations." To the contrary, one official
involved in the process said Clinton "had nothing to do with the decision
in the Uranium One case."

During a May 5 Politico podcast interview, Schweizer admitted that "veto is
probably not the best word" and "what I meant by veto power was as we
explain the process, you know, if somebody objects it kicks in the special
investigation."

Despite his shoddy history and admission of getting a key detail of the
uranium decision wrong, Schweizer lashed out at Media Matters for "trying
to muddy the water and obscure the facts in a way that's not particularly
enlightening."

Schweizer also defended his 1998 book Disney: The Mouse Betrayed. Media
Matters noted that the book attacked The Walt Disney Company for what he
deemed its "endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle from a company that had
traditionally been family-oriented." Schweizer told Politico that "I'm very
proud of because one of the results of that book -- the book talked about
the fact that Disney did not do criminal background checks. They had a
problem with pedophiles. The book came out and Disney afterwards changed
their policy. And I was proud of the fact that we highlighted that."

From Politico's podcast interview with Schweizer:

GLENN THRUSH (Politico senior writer): I want to ask you about Media
Matters and sort of this, the barrage of attacks that you've gotten from
Clinton-aligned groups and the Clinton campaign itself.

SCHWEIZER: Sure.

THRUSH: As somebody who is taking money from groups with a political
interest, do you think Media Matters is legitimate to sort of scrutinize
you? Do you think anyone has gone over the line in terms of kind of the
public statements they've made about the book?

SCHWEIZER: I don't know -- statements about the book, no. I do think
there's some particularly strange and bizarre tweets that Paul Begala and
others have put out. Kind of reminds me of middle school, frankly. With,
you know, the level of commentary. But no, I don't think that --

THRUSH: Any particular one that Begala did?

SCHWEIZER: I'll just leave it at that.

THRUSH: No, come on. Come on, come on.

SCHWEIZER: People can go through --

THRUSH: I'm not letting you off the hook.

SCHWEIZER: Well, I had written a book on Disney back in 1998, which
actually I'm very proud of because one of the results of that book -- the
book talked about the fact that Disney did not do criminal background
checks. They had a problem with pedophiles. The book came out and Disney
afterwards changed their policy. And I was proud of the fact that we
highlighted that. But, you know, Begala was putting out tweets about, you
know, "Well I went to Disney when I was, you know, 13 years old and I'm
still straight." You know, it was the most ridiculous, boneheaded stuff and
you just have to kind of chuckle at it.

But you know, to get to your point, there's no problem with looking at the
work that I've done and the research that I've done and have a vigorous
conversation.

THRUSH: And they've come across a couple -- you've had to reel a few things
back. Less in the way of outright errors, than in sort of a couple of
overstatements like for instance on the Uranium One thing you've said that
Hillary had veto power on that -- you've modified that a touch.

SCHWEIZER: Yeah, what I meant by veto power was as we explain the process,
you know, if somebody objects it kicks in the special investigation -- but
veto is probably not the best word.

But no, I mean, my view is that, you know, what David Brock is doing though
is obscuring the facts, not really confronting and dealing with them. I
have no problem with somebody saying, you know, we disagree with him on the
way that CFIUS is characterized. What they are doing though is, I think,
trying to muddy the water and obscure the facts in a way that's not
particularly enlightening. And look, at the end of the day, you know, my
question would be does David Brock have anything negative to say about
Hillary Clinton and I think the answer is no because he is basically an
extension of the campaign, so, you know, we have to keep that in mind.

‘Clinton Cash’ Flashback: The Clintons Pressured Kazakhs To OK Uranium Deal
<http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/05/clinton-cash-flashback-the-clintons-pressured-kazakhs-to-ok-uranium-deal/>
// Daily Caller // Chuck Ross - May 5, 2015

In 2005, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton cancelled meetings with Kazakh officials
in an apparent attempt to force the country to approve a lucrative uranium
mining deal that would benefit a Clinton associate, a Kazakh energy
executive said in a 2009 interview.

Former Kazatoprom executive Mukhtar Dzhakishev’s videotaped interview has
been reported before — in 2010 by The Washington Post. But it flew under
the radar until author Peter Schweizer’s revisited it in his new book,
“Clinton Cash,” which was released Tuesday.

Dzhakishev said that in 2005, Clinton pressured Kazakhstan to approve a
deal being sought by UrAsia Energy, a Canadian company whose main investor
was mining magnate Frank Giustra.

Giustra is a close associate of Bill Clinton’s and a major donor to the
Clinton Foundation.

According to Schweizer’s translation of Dzhakishev’s interview, Kazakh
prime minister Karim Massimov “was in America and needed to meet with
Hillary Clinton, but this meeting was canceled.”

“And they said that those investors connected with the Clintons who were
working in Kazakhstan have problems. Until Kazakhstan solved those
problems, there would be no meeting, and all manner of measures would be
taken.”

Dzhakishev said he was then instructed by Massimov to fix the problem. He
also said that he was contacted by Tim Phillips, an adviser to Bill Clinton
at the time, who told him that there would be no meeting with Hillary
Clinton until the Kazakhs removed a major roadblock hindering the deal.

According to a Feb. 2010, Washington Post article, the hold-up centered on
a law that the Kazakh government had recently passed concerning deals
between private companies for natural resources.

According to The Post’s interpretation of Dzhakishev’s interview, he said
that “investors who currently work in Kazakhstan and have ties to Clinton
have problems and meetings will be resumed only after Kazakhstan resolves
the problems.”

He also said that he got an earful from Phillips.

“I called them, and they came. I met them in Astana and then Clinton’s
aide, Tim Phillips, began to scream that this deal involves Democrats and
is financed by them, and that we were hampering the deal.”

Phillips did not respond to The Post at the time. Clinton and Giustra have
long denied that the Clintons used their power to influence the deal.

But the deal was secured in Sept. 2005 after Giustra and Clinton flew to
Kazakhstan on Giustra’s private jet. There, Clinton met with Kazakhstan’s
president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Clinton spoke glowingly in public about
the authoritarian Nazarbayev, and days later, the uranium deal was approved.

UrAsia and Giustra profited handsomely, and the company eventually merged
with Uranium One. Uranium One, in turn, was packed with Giustra associates
and was eventually taken over by Russia-controlled Rosatom. The takeover,
which was approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department and other federal
agencies, gave Russia control of 20 percent of uranium produced in the U.S.

In its 2010 article, The Post considers that Dzhakishev’s account is
questionable. Dzhakishev was accused of embezzling funds from Kazatoprom
and removed from the company in 2009. However, as Schweizer notes, leaked
diplomatic cables show that U.S. ambassador Richard Hoaglund believed that
Dzhakishev was receiving harsh treatment because he was allied with a
political foe of President Nazarbayev.

“In a portion of the video that could cast doubt on his account, Dzhakishev
misstated the size of Giustra’s donation, saying it was $300 million, and
voiced vague suspicions of a scheme to manipulate world uranium prices,”
The Post reported.

But according to Schweizer, who hired Dr. David Meyer to translate
Dzhakishev’s interview, the Kazakh said that Giustra made $300 million on
the UrAsia transaction.

Regardless, Dzhakishev has proven more truthful than Giustra and Clinton in
at least one regard.

Dzhakishev told The New York Times that in Feb. 2007 he met with Clinton
and Giustra at Clinton’s Chappaqua, N.Y. home. He said that Giustra
arranged the three-hour meeting to discuss Kazakhstan’s desire to purchase
a 10 percent stake in Westinghouse, a U.S. company which supplies nuclear
energy technology.

According to The Times, both Clinton and Giustra initially denied that such
a meeting occurred.

Giustra admitted to The Times after being asked about the discrepancy: “You
are correct that I asked the president to meet with the head of
Kazatomprom. Mr. Dzhakishev asked me in February 2007 to set up a meeting
with former President Clinton to discuss the future of the nuclear energy
industry.”

A Clinton spokesman told The Times: “Today, Mr. Giustra told our office
that in February 2007, he brought Mr. Dzhakishev from Kazatomprom to meet
with President Clinton to discuss the future of nuclear energy.”

Clinton Cash author: I like Marco Rubio
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/clinton-cash-author-i-like-marco-rubio-117630.html?hp=l2_4>
// Politico // Nick Gass – May 5, 2015

Enough with the doom-and-gloom candidates, says author Peter Schweizer.

Glenn Thrush sits down with Peter Schweizer, the conservative author at the
center of the Clinton Foundation firestorm.

There needs to be optimism in the race for the White House, the “Clinton
Cash” author told POLITICO’s Glenn Thrush in an hour-long interview ahead
of his May 5 book launch, noting that he always liked President Ronald
Reagan’s upbeat messaging.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would seem to fit the bill this time around, he
said.

Schweizer, who makes his home in Tallahassee, is also probing the finances
of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

“If your basic position is ‘everything’s going to heck in a handbasket, we
can’t do anything about it,’ that’s going to throw a lot of people off. So
I do think the optimism will be there,” Schweizer said. “The question is:
Is that optimism backed up by real boldness? Because if you aren’t an
optimist and you feel like we are struggling or facing challenges, it’s
bold change that’s going to be required.”

“You don’t want a grinder as president,” Schweizer said. “You don’t want
somebody who’s doom and gloom.”

Regarding the Clintons, Schweizer says he has been talking to congressional
investigators about his findings, both in the House and Senate, and
broached the possibility of more interactions with Republican staff.

“I think you need to have congressional committees with subpoena power, and
I think you need to have somebody with law-enforcement capability in power,
either by DOJ or a federal prosecutor somewhere,” he added.

He also revealed details about his process and cast himself as the head of
a sprawling Florida-based research team that he described as as an
eccentric group of diggers, “Columbo”-type investigators and 30-something
computer experts.

“I call them the Island of Misfit Toys, ‘cause we have all these different
personalities,” he said. “We’ve got some people who have a background in
hacking, they are not computer hackers now, but they can do research on the
so-called deep web and find information that has not been sort of charted.
It’s actually surprising how much information you can find, not going past
a firewall doing anything illegal [but finding information] not catalogued
by Google.”

The Clinton book was funded by specific conservative donors, but not the
Koch brothers, with whom he has had a long-term collaborative relationship.
“We have received funding from the Kochs in the past, not for this project,
but on a project-by-project basis,” he told Thrush. “We have other donors
that to varying degrees made this project possible.” He went on to talk
about his association with New York-based donor Rebekah Mercer.

Schweizer also described his work for Sarah Palin’s PAC, saying he was
drawn to her hawkish, assertive views on American foreign policy, but that
he turned down her offer to go grizzly bear hunting in Alaska.

Schweizer’s book, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign
Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” hits shelves
Tuesday.

Will the Benghazi Committee Block Clinton From Testifying About…Benghazi?
<http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/benghazi-committee-gowdy-clinton>
// Mother Jones // David Corn - May 15, 2015

Could the main obstacle to Hillary Clinton testifying about Benghazi be
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chair of the special House committee set up
to investigate the 2012 terrorist attack that killed US Ambassador Chris
Stevens and three other Americans?

Clinton and Gowdy have been in a tug-of-war for the past few weeks. At the
end of March—following the news that Clinton, the leading Democratic 2016
candidate, had used a private email account when she was secretary of state
and that her emails about Benghazi and all other official matters were not
originally kept by the State Department—Gowdy asked Clinton to come before
the committee for a private interview to discuss the emails she had
exchanged concerning Benghazi and Libya. After such a session, Gowdy noted,
the panel would schedule a time for her to testify publicly about the event
itself.

Last month, Clinton's lawyer, David Kendall, responded and said there was
"no reason to delay her appearance or to have her testify [about the
emails] in a private interview." It was a clear sign that the Clinton camp
would like to get her inevitable appearance before the GOP-created Benghazi
committee over and done with. This move came just as Gowdy's committee
signaled that it may not release its findings until soon before the 2016
election. Reacting to that news, John Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman,
huffed that the committee's admission "Is the most telling evidence yet
that their investigation is solely about playing politics in the 2016
presidential campaign."

Then, on April 23, Gowdy fired back with a letter to Kendall insisting that
Clinton submit to either a private "transcribed interview" or a public
hearing to discuss her emails and other documents (but not to talk about
the actual Benghazi attack). Only if that interview or hearing assured
Gowdy that "all documents needed to have a constructive conversation with
the Secretary are in the Committee"s possession" would he then hold a
hearing with Clinton to examine what happened in Benghazi. That is, no
public hearing on the substance of the matter until Clinton testified
(privately or publicly) about the emails and convinced Gowdy that the
committee now possessed all the related emails and documents.

And that's the rub. Can Clinton, whose official emails were first kept on a
private server and then vetted by her own aides before being turned over to
the State Department, say under oath that she knows beyond doubt that every
single Benghazi email she sent or received now resides within the
committee's files? And will Gowdy ever accept an assurance from her that
all her Benghazi emails made it to the State Department and were
subsequently shared with the committee?

This political dance played out at the end of last week. In an interview
with USA Today's Susan Page, Gowdy indicated that he might be willing to
accept Clinton's word if she said under other that all her emails have been
provided to his committee. "If she were, under some theory, able to say,
'yes, I can promise you under penalty of perjury you have every single
document you're entitled to,' that would probably shut off that line of
inquiry," Gowdy said. "If she can, then it will be a short conversation."

But Gowdy also left himself plenty of room to be unpersuaded by Clinton. He
noted, "If she testified under oath [that all emails and relevant documents
were turned over], I think my first question would be, 'Madame Secretary,
with all due respect, how do you know that? Because you're not the one who
went through the emails; your lawyer did."

It looks as if Gowdy might be setting a trap for Clinton. (At least one
conservative pundit sees it this way.) If Clinton cannot say with
100-percent certainty that Gowdy's committee has every digit of her data
related to Benghazi, then she cannot testify on what happened—and the
committee will drag out the proceedings further into the 2016 campaign
season.

Clinton is trying to avoid being so cornered. On Monday, Kendall sent a
letter to Gowdy, asserting there was no need for two rounds of testimony.
"Respectfully," he wrote, "there is no basis, logic, or precedent for such
an unusual request." Clinton, he added, was prepared to come before the
committee and stay as long as necessary to answer all queries about the
Benghazi attack and her emails. Kendall reminded Gowdy that Clinton has
already testified about Benghazi before other House and Senate committees
(which, by the way, have found no wrongdoing or conspiracies on her part).
In a not-so-veiled jibe at Gowdy, Kendall noted that Clinton "believes that
the Members of the Committee are able to decide how much they will focus on
the tragic deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, including what can be done
to keep those who serve our country safe—and how much they will focus on
how she e-mailed."

After all this parrying, the question is, does Gowdy want to have Clinton
testify about the what transpired in Benghazi (and Washington) and proceed
with the investigation—the House GOPers have already spent more time
investigating Benghazi than Congress devoted to the Iran-contra scandal—or
does he want to play cat and mouse with Clinton far into the election
cycle? By the standard Gowdy cited during his interview with Susan Page,
Clinton will not be able to satisfy him about the emails. After all, given
how she and her aides handled those records, there is no way for her to
provide an iron-clad guarantee. But will Gowdy exploit that to drag out his
inquiry and prevent Clinton from an appearance in which she presumably will
defend her actions and swat aside the various Benghazi conspiracies (as she
has previously done)?

At this stage, Clinton is eager to address the core issues and move on, and
Gowdy is focusing on the emails and establishing potential grounds to stop
her from testifying publicly about the attack itself. If no deal is sorted
out, the committee could end up blocking Clinton from testifying about the
main event. That could look odd to some. But any delay—as politically
brazen as it might appear—could well inconvenience Clinton more than the
committee.

Warren and fellow ‘sheriffs of Wall Street’ waiting for more from Clinton
<http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/05/04/female-sheriffs-wall-street-waiting-for-more-from-clinton/CtyqNylP9yKptUHQu9lBUI/story.html>
// Boston Globe // Deirdre Fernandes - May 5, 2015

The women dubbed the “New Sheriffs of Wall Street” aren’t prepared to
deputize presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, just yet.

Former top financial regulators Sheila Bair and Mary Schapiro, along with
Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, said Clinton just hasn’t
outlined clearly the financial regulatory policies she would pursue to
protect American consumers and the economy.

Bair, the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said she
fears that Clinton will rely on the same economic team as Obama, which
included many veterans of her husband’s President Bill Clinton’s
administration.

“I worry about it … . They’re very Wall Street friendly,” said the usually
blunt Bair, who headed the FDIC during the financial crisis.

The trio spoke at Harvard University Monday to celebrate the fifth
anniversary of their Time magazine cover heralding the women’s efforts to
police the financial sector.

Schapiro, who headed up the Securities and Exchange Commission, said she’ll
be watching how forceful Clinton is about protecting investors and the need
for greater transparency from companies.

Warren, who has been encouraged to run against Clinton for the Democratic
nomination, said most Americans believe the financial sector could use more
regulation. Clinton should ensure that the reforms put in place
post-financial crisis aren’t watered down.

“She has a real opportunity here,” Warren said. “The key is we’re moving
forward, we’re not going back.”

Lawyer says Hillary willing to testify once to U.S. Benghazi panel
<http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150504/NEWS0605/150509677&source=RSS>//
Reuters // Susan Cromwell - May 5, 2015

WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton is willing to testify once before a special
congressional panel investigating the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic
facilities in Benghazi, Libya, not twice as the panel's chairman has asked,
her lawyer said on Monday.

The attack has hounded former Secretary of State Clinton for years, and
Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives investigative panel
are digging deeper as she ramps up her bid for the 2016 Democratic
presidential nomination.

South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy, chairman of the committee, said last
month he wanted Clinton to answer questions at two public hearings about
Benghazi and her use of a private email server while Secretary of State
from 2009 to 2013.

Clinton's lawyer David Kendall said that there was "no basis, logic or
precedent for such an unusual request."

In a letter to Gowdy, Kendall said Clinton was fully prepared to stay as
long as necessary to answer all questions from the committee whenever she
appears, but that she would not testify on two separate occasions "when one
will suffice."

Four Americans including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens were killed when
militants stormed U.S. facilities in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on
the night of Sept. 11, 2012.

Gowdy's select committee was established last year to investigate the
attack, despite numerous other probes by congressional panels and the State
Department.

The earlier panels issued findings that generally criticized the State
Department for not having adequate security at the U.S. compound in
Benghazi, but concluded that the Obama administration's response to the
attack was proper.

Republicans say more inquiry is needed because Clinton's State Department
failed to protect diplomatic personnel.

Democrats say the panel is politically motivated and that Republicans are
dragging out proceedings to undercut Clinton's candidacy.

Kendall said Clinton has already testified for more than five hours before
other congressional committees on Benghazi.

Kendall's letter was released by the office of Representative Elijah
Cummings, the senior Democrat on the Benghazi committee.

A spokesman for Gowdy said the chairman would take Kendall's response into
consideration and issue a statement "regarding the path forward."

Hoping to highlight good works, Clintons find controversy instead
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hoping-to-highlight-good-works-clintons-find-controversy-instead/2015/05/05/5c0a7728-f32f-11e4-b2f3-af5479e6bbdd_story.html?postshare=3251430858301167>
// WaPo // Philip Rucker, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger - May 5,
2015

Bill and Chelsea Clinton are convening foreign leaders here at a lush golf
resort set in a palm grove this week to showcase their foundation’s
charitable work. But the conference also highlights new controversies
engulfing the Clinton family’s vast philanthropic enterprises as Hillary
Rodham Clinton begins her presidential campaign.

A liberal human rights organization and several Republican lawmakers, for
instance, are criticizing the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation
for accepting donations from a Moroccan government-owned mining company,
whose seven-figure sponsorship of this week’s gathering came amid growing
scrutiny of foreign-government donations.

Meanwhile, some blue-chip companies that have long provided large donations
to the Clinton Foundation are pulling back or reassessing their support.

An Exxon Mobil spokesman said this week that the company has decided not to
be involved in the Clinton Global Initiative this year. The oil company
said its decision was unrelated to recent scrutiny of the foundation, but
this is the first year it has not been a sponsor since 2009. Other
sponsors, including Monsanto, are reevaluating their partnerships.

This week’s flashy Morocco conference — a first-ever Africa and Middle East
spinoff of the flagship CGI held each September in New York — underscores
the foundation’s controversial fundraising practices, which have become a
potential anchor on Hillary Clinton’s nascent campaign.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Chelsea Clinton, the foundation’s
vice chair, defended its work and suggested that scrutiny was politically
motivated.

“My family is no stranger to scrutiny and neither is the foundation,” she
said. “It has been under intense scrutiny since inception. When you mix
together the higher level of scrutiny around the foundation and then the
political dimension, I’m not surprised.”

The Morocco conference offers the latest examples of the Clinton Foundation
accepting money from foreign entities. The event is sponsored by an array
of global corporations, including the state-owned Office Cherifien des
Phosphates, or OCP, which has given between $1 million and $5 million
overall to the foundation and whose sponsorship of the Morocco conference
was first reported by Politico.

Human rights advocates — including several members of Congress — have
criticized the company’s mining operations in the Western Sahara territory
because they claim that OCP does not have the consent of the indigenous
population there.

The Moroccan government has disputed such charges. Nonetheless, U.S. Reps.
Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) wrote the Clinton
Foundation last month urging it to refuse the Moroccan contribution, citing
human rights and fair-trade concerns.

“This donation is an example of a blatant conflict of interest” for the
Clintons, Pitts said in a statement. “Morocco would like nothing more than
having a possible future First Family condone its illegal exploitation of
natural resources.”

The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights has also expressed
concern about the company. “To us what is concerning is that the donation
may be . . . an attempt by Morocco to show that they can mine resources in
the Western Sahara and can do so publicly and with impunity,” said David
McKean, program officer with the group.

Craig Minassian, spokesman for the Clinton Foundation, referred questions
about the alleged violations to representatives of the company.

Talal Zouaoui, a company spokesman, said contrary to the complaints of
activists, the phosphate mining operation is closely connected to the local
community. All profits from that mine are reinvested in the plant and the
surrounding area, he said.

Other sponsors of the Morocco event mirror the kinds of companies that have
backed the Clinton Foundation for years — foreign companies with
significant holdings and powerful CEOs. They include two of Morocco’s
largest financial institutions, the Attijariwafa Bank and the BMCE Group,
which is led by Othman Benjelloun, who ranks as Morocco’s richest man.

Other money comes from AKWA Group, a Moroccan conglomerate that focuses on
oil and gas, and Channel IT, a telecom company founded in Nigeria that has
extended its reach to 19 countries in Africa and the Middle East. Channel
IT — which hosted a welcome reception for CGI attendees Tuesday in
Marrakesh — is led by wealthy entrepreneur Bassim Haidar, a regular at
Davos who has signed on with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and bills
himself “Lebanon’s First Astronaut.”

With Hillary Clinton running for the 2016 Democratic presidential
nomination, scrutiny of her family foundation’s finances has become
politicized. The Clinton campaign is aggressively attacking a new book,
“Clinton Cash,” released Tuesday by conservative writer Peter Schweizer,
which focuses on the nexus between the Clintons’ political lives and their
philanthropic enterprises.

Over the past week, Bill and Chelsea Clinton toured four African countries
with a delegation of billionaires, lobbyists and business executives who
have given generously to the Clinton Foundation and now are raising money
for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, blurring the line between politics and
philanthropy.

In the Post interview, Chelsea Clinton dismissed the suggestion that donors
gave to the foundation — and came along on the Africa trip — to curry favor
with her parents.

“What people who choose to partner with us, whether it’s in a financial
capacity or a programmatic capacity, expect to get is the work that we’ve
seen on this trip,” she said during the visit to Kenya. “They expect to
make a difference in stopping elephant poaching. They expect to make a
difference in expanding secondary education for girls.”

Chelsea Clinton added: “Whenever I have had a conversation with anyone,
it’s always about the work. I’ve never had anyone talk to me about my
parents in a political capacity for a foundation program.”

Bill Clinton was defensive to the point of seeming testy in an interview
with NBC News this week, saying the foundation had never done anything
“knowingly inappropriate” when accepting donations from foreign
governments, including Saudi Arabia.

For years, companies and wealthy individuals, as well as foreign
governments, have clamored to be associated with the high-powered CGI
conference in New York or its spinoff events.

But Monsanto, a multinational agricultural company, is weighing whether to
pull its sponsorship of CGI. “As with all of our strategic partnerships and
collaborations, we continually assess their value to ensure we are
investing in opportunities that will have the greatest positive benefits
for society,” Monsanto spokesman Tyson Pruitt said.

Spokesmen for two other previous CGI sponsors, Samsung and Deutsche Bank,
refused to say whether they would sponsor the conference again this fall.

Minassian said he was not aware of an exodus of sponsors. “We have not seen
that,” he said, and he called reports of budget troubles “not accurate.”

Chelsea Clinton said many employees have been confused by the scrutiny.

“When you look at the 2,200 people who work at the Clinton Foundation and
the Clinton Health Access Initiative, it would be disingenuous to say it
hasn’t affected people,” she said. “But it’s affected people insofar as
they don’t understand why the world isn’t more interested in the work that
they’re doing.”

Republicans have harshly criticized the foundation for accepting millions
in donations from foreign governments while Hillary Clinton was secretary
of state. In response, the Clinton Foundation recently announced it would
restrict donations from foreign governments except six Western nations.

The foundation also canceled a planned CGI conference this summer in
Athens, Greece, which was to focus on economic and social challenges in the
Mediterranean region.

Plans continue for CGI America, a domestic-themed conference that Bill and
Chelsea Clinton are hosting in Denver from June 8 to 10 that will feature
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Housing and Urban Development Secretary
Julián Castro and Detroit Mayor Michael Duggan (D).

After leaving the White House, Bill Clinton founded CGI, intending to
create a new model for philanthropy in which he would leverage connections
built in policies to play matchmaker between the public, private and
nonprofit sectors. At each conference, corporate leaders get to mingle with
world leaders, but they also make public commitments to fund targeted
charitable programs. Clinton Foundation officials then monitor their
progress in fulfilling the pledges.

Some CGI supporters said they are proudly standing by the annual gathering.
Richard Brown, the president of the Starkey Foundation, which helps provide
hearing aids to those who cannot afford them, including many people in
Africa, said: “We have witnessed CGI’s good work throughout the world and
have committed our support for 2015.”

Here in Marrakesh, CGI attendees checking in at the Palmeraie Palace, the
luxury resort hosting the three-day conference, said they hoped the
spotlight would shift to their charitable work,

“I feel that we are above politics,” said Patricia Wyatt, president of
Innovation:Africa, a U.S.-based group that tries to bring Israeli
technologies, such as solar and drip irrigation systems, to rural African
communities.

But other attendees see the Morocco conference as an opportunity to make
high-level connections. Faruk Taban, president of the Washington-based
Turkic American Alliance, said he flew to Marrakesh to meet African
business leaders and persuade them to become active in his group — and said
that Bill Clinton’s role as convener “obviously was a big motivation to
come.”

“This is a networking event,” Taban said. “We try to establish connections
and get the correct leverage to do our activities.”

Bill Clinton says nothing ‘sinister’ in foreign gifts to charity
<http://www.sentinelsource.com/news/mct/bill-clinton-says-nothing-sinister-in-foreign-gifts-to-charity/article_d0541535-90f2-5c32-b8b0-6ec2d88ea6d9.html>
// Bloomberg // Justin Sink - May 4, 2015

WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton said criticism over his family
foundation’s donations from foreign governments is politically motivated
and there is no evidence to support suggestions that the gifts influenced
Hillary Clinton’s behavior as secretary of State.

“I asked Hillary about this and she said, you know, no one has ever tried
to influence me by helping you,” the former president said in an interview
with NBC News broadcast today. “No one has even suggested they have a shred
of evidence to that effect.”

There has been a “deliberate attempt to take the foundation down,” Clinton
said. But he doesn’t believe there was “anything sinister in trying to get
wealthy people in countries that are seriously involved in development to
spend their money wisely in a way that helps poor people and lifts them up.”

Donations to the Clinton Foundation have come under new scrutiny since the
former first lady announced her decision to seek the Democratic
presidential nomination.

Chelsea Clinton pushes back on scrutiny of family foundation
<http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/05/05/chelsea-clinton-foundation-foreign-donations/>
// USA Today // Catalina Camia - May 5, 2015

Chelsea Clinton defended her family’s foundation amid questions about
donations from foreign governments, essentially agreeing with her father
that the Clintons are subjected to a double standard.

“My family is no stranger to scrutiny and neither is the foundation,”
Clinton told The Washington Post. “It has been under intense scrutiny since
inception. When you mix together the higher level of scrutiny around the
foundation and then the political dimension, I’m not surprised.”

The comments from Clinton, who serves as vice chairwoman of the global
philanthropy, follow those that Bill Clinton made in an NBC News interview
that aired Monday. The former president also defended the foundation’s
donation policies and said criticism is “political” and “part of a very
concerted effort to bring the foundation down.”

The twin interviews come as Hillary Clinton steps up her campaign for the
Democratic presidential nomination. Several news stories have raised
questions about foreign money donated to the Clinton Foundation while
Hillary Clinton was secretary of State.

In her Washington Post interview, conducted while Bill and Chelsea Clinton
toured African countries on foundation business, Chelsea Clinton said
foundation donors are interested in the charity’s good works and not
politics.

“Whenever I have had a conversation with anyone, it’s always about the
work. I’ve never had anyone talk to me about my parents in a political
capacity for a foundation program.”

Hillary Clinton's Campaign Declares War Against 'Clinton Cash'
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/hillary-clinton-s-campaign-declares-war-against-clinton-cash-20150505?ref=t.co&mrefid=walkingheader>
// National Journal // Emily Schultheis - May 5, 2015

"Clinton Cash" gets released Tuesday, and Hillary Clinton's campaign is
going on the offensive to undercut the book and discredit its author before
the message ever reaches readers' hands.

With everything from a YouTube video to emails for supporters to Medium
posts to a 42-page opposition research report from a Clinton-aligned group,
the Democrat's team is throwing everything is has at Clinton Cash.

The book, by conservative author Peter Schweizer, accuses Clinton of dirty
dealings during her time as Secretary of State, alleging that she traded
access and influence for foundation donations—including those from foreign
donors. The accusations have been a headache for Clinton since before she
announced her campaign, spawning headlines in major newspapers and shifting
the national conversation about Clinton far, far away from her campaign
message.

When the accusations first surfaced, Clinton herself was largely quiet on
the topic, dismissing it as an attempt to distract voters from more
substantial issues. Since then, they've slowly ramped up their defense
efforts: Clinton's campaign issued a lengthy condemnation of a New York
Times story regarding a Canadian Clinton Foundation donor getting State
Department approval to sell uranium holdings to a Russian company, and her
allies launched a fact-check of the Schweizer's allegations when excerpts
from the book were floated.

Now, with the book's full release, Clinton's team going all out, suggesting
they don't see the accusations as controversies that will burn themselves
out, but rather as a fire they need to actively extinguish.

For campaigns, pushing back on unflattering reports is pro-forma, but the
team's effort goes above and beyond the standard plan. On Tuesday morning,
Clinton's campaign launched what it's calling "The Briefing," a new section
of its website paired with videos and posts on other social media
platforms, that aims to combat what an email to supporters describes as
"whatever far-flung theories [Republicans] can find in order to try and
distract from Hillary's record of fighting for everyday Americans."

In the 2.5-minute introductory YouTube video, Clinton press secretary Brian
Fallon says the book is "full of sloppy research and attacks pulled out of
thin air with no actual evidence." Fallon goes through all the biggest
allegations from the book, cutting to footage from various TV networks, all
of which point out the lack of direct evidence or a "smoking gun." (The new
Clinton website also lists "10 Things You Should Know" about the book,
linking to media coverage of various sections of it.)

"The bottom line is this: as secretary of State, Hillary Clinton made
decisions based on her commitment to protecting America's national security
and standing up for freedom and dignity around the world, not the interests
of donors to the Clinton Foundation," Fallon says.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta posted to Medium about the new
effort, pointing to "Clinton Cash" and the Benghazi proceedings on the Hill
as proof that Republicans "seem to only want to distort Hillary Clinton's
record."

The new book is getting further pushback from the pro-Clinton group Correct
the Record, which served as an unofficial rapid-response operation before
her campaign was announced. In a 42-page report, Correct the Record goes
line-by-line through the various allegations in Schweizer's book, including
questions about the Foundation's involvement in the Russian uranium company
purchase, Bill Clinton's dealings in Kazakhstan and questions over
Clinton's support for a U.S.-India nuclear deal.

The response is far different from two months ago, when Clinton — who then
had not yet launched a full campaign and communications operation — waited
eight days to hold a press conference following the revelation that she'd
conducted State Department business on a private email server. With
"Clinton Cash" in the news these last few weeks, her team has been pushing
back pretty consistently, an approach that appears likely to be norm going
forward.

A Swing and a Miss
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/05/peter_schweizer_s_clinton_cash_fails_to_prove_anything_the_book_doesn_t.html'>
// Slate // Jamelle Bouie - May 5, 2015

here’s a certain rhythm to Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why
Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, the
most recent tome from conservative writer Peter Schweizer. Take his chapter
on the Clintons and India—titled “Indian Nukes: How to Win a Medal by
Changing Hillary’s Mind”—which makes the case that Hillary switched gears
on an India-U.S. nuclear deal after donations from various Indian elites.
After detailing the history of the bill, Clinton’s early skepticism, and
Bill’s relationship with prominent Indian donors and officials, Schweizer
makes a bold claim:

Hillary had not been a supporter of the bill, and her closest aides were
all opposed to it. But in September 2008, as the bill’s fate hung in the
balance, Amar Singh made a visit to New York to see Hillary. Joining him
for a private dinner with the senator was Sant Chatwal. Opposition to the
bill had come primarily from Democrats. Hillary had supported the “killer
amendment” two years earlier. According to Amar Singh, they had a two-hour
dinner. In the days following, he was confident the deal would go through,
based on what he heard. Having grown accustomed to the deal making and
influence buying ways of the Indian parliament, he was open with the Indian
media about what transpired in New York. (Hillary Clinton probably
considered herself fortunate that his comments were never reported in
American media.)

The structure is clear. Schweizer makes several statements of fact—either
through quotes or paraphrasing—but doesn’t ever build connective tissue
between them. Instead, he lets them stand, and lets the reader draw the
conclusion that Schweizer outlines in the very beginning: that Bill and
Hillary traded influence for cash and donations.

But for as much as he can make the Clintons look bad with lurid examples of
iffy transactions—Chatwal, for instance, arranged a $450,000 speaking gig
for Bill Clinton—Schweizer never gets around to giving definitive proof of
illegal deals or unethical behavior. Take the India affair: Not only does
Schweizer lack evidence of a tit-for-tat between Clinton and the Indian
donors, but he gets key details wrong. He writes that in 2006 she was a
“reluctant and questionable supporter of the bill,” but in June of that
year—notes Politico—she issued a press release announcing her plan to vote
for the legislation. Likewise, contra Schweizer, Clinton voted for two of
the three “killer amendments” that put safeguards for nonproliferation on
the agreement.

It’s this missing evidence that consistently hurts the case for wrongdoing
in Clinton Cash. You saw this in the follow-up from outlets like the New
York Times on the uranium deal between the United States and a Russian
state energy company. Both Schweizer and the New York Times detail
donations and associations without showing a causal relationship between
the Clintons and any particular deal. And Schweizer, in particular, ignores
crucial context. Yes, the Clinton Foundation received donations from the
same executives who would benefit from the sale. At the same time, Hillary
was just one of a group of officials who reviewed the deal, and she didn’t
have the power—as Schweizer claims—to “veto” the arrangement. That the
federal government approved the deal after the donations doesn’t mean the
donations had anything to do with the deal. To prove otherwise requires a
much more exhaustive look at the details of the deal and of the
relationships among all the characters.

Schweizer doesn’t just rely on classic logical fallacies. He gets facts
wrong as well. In the book’s chapter on Haiti—titled “Disaster Capitalism
Clinton-Style”—Schweizer notes that Bill was paid $600,000 for speeches by
a company trying to secure a mobile phone contract in the country. He then
notes that the company, Digicel, began receiving contracts from USAID, and
that Bill gave a speech just weeks before Digicel received its first grant.

But, as a Clinton spokesman told BuzzFeed, “neither the former president
nor the Clinton Foundation was paid for two of the three speeches Clinton
gave in Ireland, and that while the foundation did receive a donation
following his Sept. 29, 2010 speech, Clinton himself was not compensated.”
What’s more, the final speech was given a full year before the contract was
awarded, and the company itself had a prior relationship with USAID. None
of this looks good for the Clintons, and Schweizer might be right about
what it means. But he hasn’t done the work to show it.

Overall, Clinton Cash is best described as an exercise in question begging,
in which you assume your conclusion in the premise of your argument.
Schweizer believes that the Clintons are corrupt influence peddlers who
have enriched themselves at the expense of America’s interests, and he’s
written a book to justify himself. What hehasn’t done is written a book
that proves his claims. Instead, all he has is a compendium of bad
decisions and gross behavior that a more sober-minded writer could have
used to make a real hit on the Clintons. As it stands, they will brush this
off like they have most attacks from the right.

Indeed, there’s a sense in which Schweizer knows that he hasn’t done
anything to hurt his intended targets. “I realize how shocking these
allegations may appear,” he writes at the beginning of the book. “Are these
activities illegal? That’s not for me to say. I’m not a lawyer.”

What you don’t know about the “Clinton Cash” author
<https://americanbridgepac.org/what-you-dont-know-about-the-clinton-cash-author/>
// American Bridge 21st Century // Brad Woodhouse - May 5, 2015

The author of “Clinton Cash,” the latest conservative hatchet job against
Hillary Clinton, is a right-wing Republican operative who was an advisor to
Sarah Palin and a speechwriter for President George W. Bush. But what you
might not know about Peter Schweizer is that he has deep ties to the Koch
brothers and the right-wing billionaire bankrolling Sen. Ted Cruz’s nascent
campaign. He’s a current contributor to conservative blog Breitbart and is
thepresident of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), a right-wing
research group.

“Clinton Cash” has already been repeatedly debunked by reporters given
early access to the accusations, which is no surprise given Schweizer’s
history as a conservative researcher peddling misleading and false attacks
that have discredited his work. American Bridge today released a video of
FOX, ABC, NBC, and MSNBC anchors confronting Schweizer during his media
blitz with the pesky fact that he doesn’t have any evidence for his
theories.

Even Schweizer admits that he found “no direct evidence” of any wrongdoing
by Clinton. Schweizer’s publisher, HarperCollins, expressly discloses that
the book “does not allege illegal or unethical behavior.” When reading the
coverage swirling around “Clinton Cash” or the anti-Clinton book itself,
consider Schweizer’s past:

1.   Schweizer’s deep ties to Koch brothers

As with just about any dubious attack on Democrats, the Koch brothers are
inextricably connected to Schweizer. The Koch brothers might have funneled
$1.5 million to Schweizer through donations from Donors Trust, which a
former top IRS official has said the Kochs use as an anonymous pass through
for their donations.

In return, Schweizer has spoken to several Koch groups. In February 2014,
he gave a speech to the Charles Koch Institute. In March 2014,Schweizer
spoke to Regent University’s Koch Leadership Program for undergraduates.
And according to The Nation, Schweizer spoke to the Kochs’ annual summer
conference in June 2014.

2.   Billionaire bankrolling Cruz campaign also funds Schweizer

Robert Mercer is a key backer of Cruz’s campaign and is the primary donor
behind the network of four Cruz-allied Super PACs that raised $31 million
already. He’s also funneled at least $2.5 million to the Koch brothers’
Freedom Partners Action Fund and earned the title "ultimate
behind-the-scenes kingmaker" during the 2014 midterm elections.

The Mercer Family Foundation, which is headed by Mercer’s daughter, Rebekah
Mercer, donated $1 million to Schweizer’s GAI in 2013 alone. Rebekah Mercer
was also on the Board of Directors at GAI. And ever since Bob Mercer
funneled $2.5 million to the Koch’s Freedom Partners Action Fund, they’ve
been recruiting Rebekah Mercer to join their sprawling political network.

As MSNBC's Rachel Maddow explained, "When you take a closer look at Mr.
Schweizer's organization and who is backing him, it is a who's who of big
right-wing funders.”

3.   Schweizer attacked Clinton in 2008 book

Schweizer wrote a 2008 book called “Makers and Takers” that was filled with
personal attacks on Hillary and Bill Clinton, but is trying to sell
“Clinton Cash” as “bipartisan citizen action” in the intro to the book.

He said Hillary Clinton had an “impressive record of public whining.” He
argued that Clinton’s and other Democrats’ focus on income inequality meant
they were obsessed with money and “preoccupied with material things.” He
even attacked Clinton’s advice on raising children, saying “liberals who
express little interest in having children of their own want control over
how other people’s children are raised. As Hillary Clinton told Newsweek,
‘there is no such thing as other people’s children.’”

4.   Conservative Foundation funneled $1 million to Schweizer while head
was on GAI’s Board

Rebekah Mercer served on the Board of Directors at Schweizer’s GAI as
recently as 2013, when the Mercer Family Foundation she runs also donated
$1 million to GAI. She’ the daughter of conservative billionaire Bob
Mercer, who’s funneled millions to the Koch brothers and Ted Cruz, among
other right-wing Republican candidates.

Mercer even threw a cocktail party for Cruz at her New York City apartment
the same day he announced his presidential bid. Close friends become even
closer.

5.   Schweizer’s prior claims have been repeatedly debunked

Schweizer has had at least 10 serious issues where fact-checkers and media
outlets have found significant errors questionable sourcing, or have forced
retractions of his work. Among them:

·      “Bears a fatal shortcoming in Journalism 101” -- In 2013, Schweizer
falsely claimed that President Obama and then Secretary of Health and Human
Services, Kathleen Sebelius, held zero one-on-one meetings. The Washington
Post said Schweizer's story “bears a fatal shortcoming in Journalism 101.”

·      “Bogus” -- In 2012, The Washington Post fact-checker deemed
Schweizer's claim that President Obama skipped more than half of his
intelligence briefings “bogus.” Furthermore, he said, “we had nearly given
this data four pinocchios and in retrospect we were perhaps too generous
with three. It turns out, presidents receive intelligence briefings in
different formats that Schweizer did not consider. BySchweizer’s standards,
President Reagan would have missed 99 percent of his briefings.”

·      “Partisan Source” -- In 2012, Schweizer was exposed for his inflated
allegations that President Obama’s major donors received loan guarantees
from the Department of Energy. FactCheck.Org excoritated his data saying,
“We find that figure is both inflated and from a partisan source that
Crossroads obscures with deceptive attribution.”

·      “Incorrect” -- In 2011, Schweizer was forced to retract his insider
trading charge against Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. The Providence Journal
noted “numerous factual problems with Schweizer's allegations, including
that Whitehouse wasn't a member of the committee in question at the time.”

·      “Inaccurate”-- In 2010, USA Today was forced to issue a correction
on Schweizer’s op-ed. “Peter Schweizer inaccurately stated that former vice
president Al Gore receives royalties from a zinc mine on his property in
Tennessee despite his environmental advocacy. He no longer does, as the
mine was closed in 2003.”

·      “The facts don't fit Schweizer's claim” – In 2006, KGO TV in San
Francisco investigated Schweizer’s claim against Nancy Pelosi and found
“the facts don't fit Schweizer's claim.”

6.   Schweizer attacked Disney for supporting gay employees

Some of Schweizer’s most egregious attacks are in his 1998 book, “Disney:
The Mouse Betrayed: Greed, Corruption, And Children At Risk.” This book is
so incendiary that Schweizer has scrubbed it from his website, which claims
to list all of his writing under the section, “all books.”

He accuses Disney of pushing a homosexual agenda, specifically by giving
benefits to their gay employees, being too accepting of gay culture, and
making heroines too feminist.  Schweizer alleged that there was “collusion”
between Disney and the “outrageous” acts of the LGBT community. Wildly, he
suggested that Disney gave its gay employees unfair “special treatment” as
it was cutting benefits of straight employees.

7.   Schweizer co-authored book depicting theoretical U.S. wars

In 1998, Schweizer wrote about the theoretical wars the U.S. would be
fighting through the next decade in a book he co-authored, “The Next War.”
He believed the U.S. would begin wars with both Japan and Mexico, and that
Russians would successfully occupy most of Europe. (Map included!)

Clinton, Democratic presidential opponents to debate six times
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/politics/2016-democratic-debates-hillary-clinton/index.html>
// CNN // Mark Preston - May 5, 2015

Washington (CNN)Democrats will announce Tuesday six presidential primary
debates, giving long shots a potential opportunity to share the debate
stage with frontrunner Hillary Clinton, CNN has learned.

The Democratic National Committee has plans for debates to occur in the
early-contest states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The
two other locations will be decided at a later date.

The DNC will set the criteria for debate inclusion and any candidate who
participates in a separate debate outside of the sanctioning process will
be barred from future DNC debates, a Democratic official told CNN.

The official said that the DNC decided six debates was a reasonable number
and in line with what the national committee sanctioned in 2008. The debate
process won't begin until the fall, according to the official, because that
is "when voters are truly beginning to pay attention."

The Democratic debates will be sponsored by state Democratic parties, civic
groups, and national and local broadcast media. Details including specific
dates and broadcast networks for each debate will be announced at a later
date, the official said.

Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, are the two only
announced candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. Former
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and
former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb have all said they are seriously considering
running for the Democratic nomination.

Republicans have a much larger and more contested field of candidates. They
will sponsor between nine and 12 primary debates beginning in August.

The Democratic presidential debates are great news for Hillary Clinton
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/05/05/the-democratic-presidential-debates-are-great-news-for-hillary-clinton/>
// Washington Post // Chris Cillizza – May 5, 2015

 Democratic presidential hopeful and former secretary of state Hillary
Clinton speaks with students and faculty of New Hampshire Technical
Institute, Concord Community College, on April 21, 2015, in Concord, New
Hampshire. T(Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

Hillary Clinton got some much-needed good news on Tuesday when the
Democratic National Committee announced that it would hold six presidential
primary debates starting this fall.

What?! you say. How can it be a good thing for Clinton to be in a bunch of
debates (okay, six) with candidates who will see these skirmishes as their
best (and, really, only) chances of knocking her front-runner block off?

Sure, the debates will give every Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb and Martin
O'Malley an equal-ish platform to Clinton that they could never afford --
literally -- otherwise. But, viewed broadly, the debates are likely to do
Clinton more good than harm.

Remember that Clinton and her team want to make sure you and everyone else
knows that she is not taking this nomination for granted -- despite the
fact that the field running against her is not exactly the 1927 Yankees.

What better way to show that she is willing to fight for the every vote
than to stand on a debate stage six times with the other candidates? That
leveling process is a net good thing for Clinton in a way it wouldn't be
for virtually any other candidate. While this would be seen as "punching
down" for most well-known candidates, Clinton badly needs to avoid the
appearance of a coronation, and a bunch of debates is a very good way to do
that.

Then there is the fact that Clintonworld would like some positive media
coverage during the primary and some credit for winning it.

Clinton is, if the 2008 campaign is any evidence, a skilled and poised
debater who will likely perform well in the six showdowns to come. Her
debate performances will then provide a storyline that isn't about her
e-mail server, the Clinton Foundation or how much she or her husband were
paid to give speeches. Clinton and her top aides abhor process stories, but
a series of pieces about her ability and agility on the debate stage would
be the sort of process-y story they would welcome with open arms.

Clinton also doesn't want the prevailing sentiment of the coverage,
especially among Democratic voters, to be that she beat a bunch of nobodies
and proved nothing in the process. An ideal Clinton primary win would be
one in which she was challenged just enough to get credit for not just
winning but for answering some of her critics in the process but not one so
competitive that, well, she wasn't guaranteed victory. A series of debates
lends credibility to Clinton's challengers that they might not be able to
acquire otherwise.

Then there is the general election consideration. Clinton has not been an
active candidate for anything since mid-2008. She is rusty -- as any
candidate would be who hasn't run for anything in seven years. Carefully
stage-managed conversations with average people in early primary and caucus
states is not the same thing as a freewheeling debate when it comes to
getting your game legs under you for the general election. Clinton's people
might not ever admit it publicly, but she undoubtedly needs practice before
the three highly watched and highly meaningful general election debates
against the GOP nominee. These warm-up debates will give her just that.

Taken together, the debates are a very good thing for Clinton. They expose
her to risk, sure, but the rewards for her campaign are far greater.

Hillary Clinton's rope-line antagonist
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/hillary-clinton-2016-andrea-mitchell-117647.html>
// POLITICO // Hadas Gold - May 5, 2015

In the usual scrum of reporters crowded around Hillary Clinton, sticking
microphones, cameras and phones in the Democratic front-runner’s face on
her campaign trips to early states, one face and voice in particular stands
out.

Over and over again she calls out: “Mrs. Clinton!” “Hillary!” “Ma’am!”

It’s Andrea Mitchell, host of “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on MSNBC, a top
correspondent for NBC News, and a veteran of the Clinton beat who will
spearhead the network’s Clinton coverage for 2016 — years after driving
coverage on big stories like Whitewater, Bill’s impeachment, and Hillary’s
first forays as a candidate.

Mitchell, 68, is back on the trail, acting more like a cub reporter hungry
for her first scoop than a star television journalist with her own show or
a Washington insider married to former Fed chair Alan Greenspan. She’s one
of the most senior reporters covering the race, and one of the most
outwardly aggressive, calling Clinton out, chasing her down, asking her
questions — and occasionally getting a roundabout answer. Some sources
suggest she’s getting under the Clinton camp’s skin, a rope-line irritant
constantly shouting after the former secretary of state to answer
questions. For Mitchell, it’s second nature.

“Sometimes people use the term ‘aggressive’ pejoratively. It is not
anything to apologize for. I love to go after stories. I’m passionate about
whatever I’m covering. I’m competitive, and I think nothing could be more
important than getting under the surface of a political campaign,
especially one this important, this historic,” Mitchell said in an
interview.

As for constantly asking Clinton questions on the trail, even when she
knows the Democratic front-runner is unlikely to answer, she explains:
“It’s wanting to tell a story that’s more thorough and complex than a
stage-managed event that the candidate is giving you, whether it’s Ronald
Reagan, Hillary Clinton or George W. Bush.”

Mitchell followed Clinton’s campaign stops in Iowa and New Hampshire, and
was in Nevada with her this week.

“I think [reporting from the trail] is the only way to really understand
the dynamics of a candidate, what she’s saying, or he,” Mitchell said. “You
have to be able to hear the nuance, a change in what she says about trade,
a hint that she’s expressing a different view on a policy, the way she
interacts with voters. I wanted to see it.”

One reporter on the trail relayed tales of spotting Mitchell jostling with
other journalists waiting outside of an event, and making sure they were
sidled up next to her since she was likely to get a question in. Others
said she’s known to incessantly shout questions at Clinton and is often a
figure in campaign pool reports.

“Man, do I admire her,” New York Times reporter Amy Chozick said in an
email. “Way too often journalists get rich and famous and stop doing the
shoe-leather reporting that got them there in the first place, but Andrea
is a workhorse yelling questions on the campaign trail with the rest of us.”

Hillary Clinton reacts to applause from the crowd before speaking during
the sixth annual Women in the World Summit,

Getting Clinton to answer a question has been somewhat of a rare feat since
her campaign started several weeks ago. She has yet to sit down to a formal
interview since announcing her candidacy and according to National Journal,
has only answered seven questions from the media – many of them non-answer
answers.

In New Hampshire, Mitchell actually got something of an answer about what
Clinton thinks about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

“Do you have any concerns about the trade deals and whether that will hurt
— ” Mitchell asked.

Clinton initially ignored the question, raising her hand toward the press
pool as though to pause them and continuing to chat with school officials.
But a few moments later she responded, marking the first time she had
personally weighed in on a fraught piece of legislation pitting the
Elizabeth Warren-led left against President Barack Obama, centrist
Democrats, and most Republicans.

“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,” Clinton said. More
dodge than answer, it was nonetheless more than anyone else had gotten her
to say.

Mitchell, meanwhile, is emerging as an ombudsman of sorts for the Clinton
press pack. In Iowa, she spoke to fellow reporters about pushing for more
access and information about Clinton’s campaign and schedule and making
sure the pools included correspondents.

“We had some private conversations while we were waiting for another one of
these very controlled roundtables, because I think they thought that having
a photo spray inside a cafe without … identifying who the people were, or
where she was going or any chance for questions was going to be
satisfactory press coverage,” Mitchell said.

“I think they learned and to their credit they changed it by New Hampshire.”

And Mitchell makes no apologies for her complaints about the Clinton
campaign’s clenched-fist media management strategy. By her reckoning, the
Hillary Clinton of 2015 has been even less available to the press than
during her first run for president, in 2008, and much less accessible than
any of the Democratic candidates in previous election cycles.

“To think that a presidential candidate can be driving around a primary or
caucus state without anyone knowing where they’re going but have us waiting
for hours for a very controlled conversation with pre-selected voters, it’s
just inviting media criticism,” Mitchell groused

Mitchell has covered both Clintons for years, dating back to the early
1990s, when she covered former President Bill Clinton’s first run for
president. It was actually Mitchell who asked Hillary the question that led
to the infamous “tea and cookies” quote.

The question had nothing to do with food.

It was 1992, and Mitchell had staked out a good location at a diner hours
before Clinton would be stopping by for a campaign photo-op. Mitchell, by
then a seasoned political correspondent, surprised the future first lady
with a question about Hillary’s law firm and an obscure Arkansas land deal,
later known as “Whitewater.” Clinton responded acidly that she had chosen
to pursue her profession instead of staying home in order to have “baked
cookies and served teas,” a quote that opened Clinton up to criticism that
she didn’t appreciate the everyday American housewife.

“It was an example of how important it is to cover an event yourself, no
matter how routine, rather than relying on a producer or other surrogate,”
Mitchell wrote in her 2006 book “Talking Back.” “Unfortunately it gave me a
reputation for being very aggressive, for getting in people’s faces — not a
popular quality with candidates or their aides.”

Mitchell then covered the Clinton White House (where she was deemed the
“White House watchdog” and “pit bull” in a USA Today profile), Hillary’s
2000 run for Senate, and her 2008 run for president before breaking the
news that she would be appointed secretary of state.

“That’s some history,” Mitchell reflected. “I think in many ways that
experience makes me more empathetic to how she’s reacting to certain
situations.”

In one memo released by the Clinton library about the press that would be
traveling with Hillary to the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing,
Press Secretary Lisa Caputo outlined which reporters on the trip she
thought had given Clinton positive treatment and would be helpful for
Clinton to cozy up to, like Terry Hunt, Larry McQuillan, Claire Shipman and
Martha Teichner and Ann Compton, whom Caputo deemed a converted “Hillary
fan.”

Mitchell, Caputo wrote, wasn’t a “Hillary fan” but one to contend with:
“Andrea Mitchell, NBC – Former White House correspondent. She was replaced
by Brian Williams, whom NBC is grooming to take over for Tom Brokaw. Andrea
now covers the State Department. She is very aggressive and a very good
reporter.”

OTHER DEMOCRATS NATIONAL COVERAGE

Asking Martin O'Malley To Explain Baltimore
<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/asking-martin-omalley-to-explain-baltimore/392441/>
// The Atlantic // James Fallows – May 5, 2015

Just ten days ago, President Obama was one of several speakers at the White
House Correspondents Dinner to deliver a casual slight to Martin O'Malley's
not-yet-official 2016 presidential aspirations, based on the premise that
no one had ever heard of him. Obama's joke was that Hillary Clinton had
started off her campaign by going unrecognized at a Chipotle—and Martin
O'Malley had gone unrecognized at a Martin O'Malley campaign event. Hardee
har!

[The unmentioned "meta" aspect of the joke is that most presidential
candidates necessarily go through the humiliating "You're running for
what???" stage of campaigning, notably including the ultimately
nominated-and-elected Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.]

It's a joke no one would make about O'Malley now. Protests over Freddie
Gray's death were spreading in Baltimore even as the black-tie dinner took
place 40 miles away in northwest Washington. Martin O'Malley—for eight
years a Baltimore city council member, for seven years its mayor, for eight
years until this January the governor of Maryland—came back to his city
from an overseas trip, walked the streets, received both congratulations
and criticism, and generally found himself at the center of the
intersecting debates about inequality, opportunity, justice, and
accountability that will certainly play a large role in the American
politics of the next 18 months and the American realities of the era ahead.

Bernie Sanders' "socialism" may have mainstream appeal //
<http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-bernie-sanders-socialism-20150505-story.html>
LA Times // David Horsey – May 5, 2015

Finally, conservatives have a real socialist to go crazy about. Instead of
concocting dark fairytales about how Barack Obama, a very conventional
liberal Democrat, is a secret Marxist who wants to destroy the American way
of life, they can shriek about Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont
senator who has never shied away from the socialist label.

 Bernie Sanders version of socialism is not all that radical

Sanders is now the first person to challenge Hillary Clinton in the race to
win the 2016 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Clinton, though, is
not his real adversary, Sanders says. He refuses to make disparaging
comments about Clinton and insists he has never run an attack ad in any
campaign and will not do so against her. Sanders wants to take on the
billionaires, not Hillary.

Nobody gives the 73-year-old Sanders a chance of stopping the Clinton
political juggernaut, but some think he could make it veer to the left. If
the Vermonter gets traction in debates and primaries with his unabashed
progressive positions, Clinton might be forced to match at least some of
his rhetoric. Would that be a bad thing for Democrats? Not if enough
beleaguered middle class voters get a chance to consider what Sanders’
version of “socialism” entails and like what they see.

Let’s consider some of Sanders’ wild ideas:

Free college tuition. That is something that students can count on in many
European countries and once was not uncommon in the United States. In what
many consider the most golden era of the Golden State, California’s great
public university system was tuition-free. In many other states, students
paid only a few hundred dollars per year to go to top state colleges. Now,
of course, American students are graduating with crushing student loan
debts while many others cannot afford to pay in the first place. Sanders’
idea seems radical only in that it makes radically good sense.

A $1 trillion program to rebuild the nation’s roads and bridges. This would
not only create thousands of jobs, it would finally address the country’s
glaring infrastructure crisis that threatens freight mobility and
interstate commerce. This sounds pretty pro-business — in a good way.

Break up giant financial institutions. “If they are too big to fail, they
are too big to exist,” Sanders says. Unless you enjoyed the economic crash
of 2008, this probably sounds like a pretty reasonable idea.

Publicly funded elections. Instead of seeing the spectacle of candidates
for president and Congress taking turns begging for money at gatherings of
billionaires and corporate lobbyists, public funding for campaigns might
encourage politicians to pay attention to those of us who don’t have the
ability to buy influence in our government. This feels vaguely un-American
only because it has been so long since money did not rule American politics.

Higher taxes on the wealthy. Well, obviously, the schemes Sanders wants to
enact would not be free. The money has to come from somewhere. The United
States is a very rich country and should be able to do things like rebuild
bridges, fix highways and insure that the next generation gets an education
without being loaded with debt. The problem is that the vast majority of
that wealth is held by a tiny few and a huge share of the new dollars
coming into the economy are derived from the financial sector. Those
financiers are really bad at creating middle class jobs, but they are
experts at avoiding taxes. Getting more of the wealth spun from elaborate
financial trickery to spend on the common good rather than on more mansions
in the Hamptons may be a radical idea, but it’s not necessarily a bad idea.

Government-run healthcare. Yup, this one really is socialism. It’s what
they have in hellish commie wastelands like Germany, Denmark, Japan, Canada
and the rest of the industrialized world. It’s also what Americans over the
age of 64 have. We call it Medicare.

Sanders is never going to be president. Most voters are not ready to
approve his full program. Still, he will have done this country a great
service if, through his blunt talk and grandfatherly presence, he gets more
citizens to stop being distracted by scare stories and political labels and
to start considering ideas on their merits. A 40-hour work week, a minimum
wage and restrictions on child labor were once thought of as subversive,
socialist doctrines, but they have turned out to be pretty good ideas for
Americans — except maybe for the billionaires.

Warren met privately with 'Draft Warren' supporters
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/warren-met-privately-with-draft-warren-supporters-117671.html>
// POLITICO // Annie Karni - May 5, 2015

Elizabeth Warren says she has no intention of jumping into the 2016 race.
But she recently met behind closed doors with members of the “Draft Warren”
movement who are urging her to run for president.

The Massachusetts senator held a private April 22 meeting with a small
group of progressive leaders from across the country – including some vocal
“Draft Warren” supporters who continue to hold out hope that she’ll enter
the presidential race.

In an hour-long meeting with her staff and a 30-minute meeting with Warren,
the group of about a half-dozen top progressive activists — including three
who were active in the Draft Warren movement — did not discuss the draft
campaign. Instead, the conversation focused on issues of social and racial
justice. They highlighted specific issues the senator can use to influence
the presidential debate in 2016 and, they hope, push Hillary Clinton to the
left on issues including police brutality, immigration reform, the
privatization of prisons, and reducing naturalization fees to promote
naturalization, among other issues.

The meeting’s purpose was to see “how Elizabeth Warren, with her platform,
could work with us to move a progressive vision for the country and really
engage with communities of color,” said Jonathan Westin, director of New
York Communities for Change, who attended. “That goes hand in hand with
what she’s already doing. The language she is speaking is part and parcel
of what we believe is wrong with this country.”

An aide to Warren maintained that the senator did not know the group she
was meeting with had any connection to the “Draft Warren” campaign until
POLITICO informed her office. “The point of the meeting was to discuss
economic and social justice issues,” the aide said. “As Senator Warren has
said many times, she does not support the draft group’s efforts and is not
running for President.”

But Westin is a vocal supporter of the “Draft Warren” campaign who, as a
co-chair of New York’s Working Families Party, voted for the political
party to join the Draft Warren coalition last February. Just weeks before
the sit-down with Warren, he wrote a blog post for MoveOn.org calling for
her to run for president. His co-author on the piece, Katelyn Johnson,
executive director of Chicago’s Action Now Institute, also attended the
sit-down with Warren.

“Elizabeth Warren is not the only candidate who could ensure a robust
presidential primary, but she is the best,” they wrote. “[Warren] is the
one who can truly give Clinton a run for the money and yes, even has a shot
to win the nomination. We urge Warren to acknowledge the importance of this
political moment and enter the race.”

At the meeting with Warren, they were also joined by Daniel Altschuler,
managing director of the Make The Road Action Fund, which is also on the
advisory council of the Working Families Party and supports the “Draft
Warren” movement. But no effort was made during the meeting to urge the
senator to enter the race.

“This was about someone who we want to be sharing the issues that are
affecting communities of color and working class communities to make her
the strongest possible champion on those issues,” Altschuler said. “The
senator has been a tremendous champion on issues of the financial system
run amok and income inequality. We think that a lot of the issues affecting
our communities are tied to those big financial systems, we wanted to share
some of the issues we’re working on.”

Attendees said they did not discuss their presidential aspirations for
Warren, but some in the group – which included Shabnam Bashiri from Rise Up
Georgia; Bill Bartlett from Action United, a Pennsylvania group; and Brian
Kettenring, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy –
privately pointed out that November 2016 is a long time away and insisted
there is still plenty of time for her to get in if she decides to do so.

If Warren wanted the group to stand down, the meeting with some of its
diehard supporters did little to advance that goal.

“I would still love to see her run for president,” said Westin, speaking
after the meeting. “Connecting with the grassroots groups is a very big
piece of how we continue to amplify her message. People are getting away
with murder — literally and figuratively, on Wall Street.”

The “Run Warren Run” campaign was launched in December 2014, by Democracy
for America and MoveOn and coordinates with Ready for Warren, another group
urging the senator to run. In a letter to the FEC from her attorney last
August regarding the Ready for Warren PAC, Warren said she “does not,
explicitly or implicitly, authorize, endorse, or otherwise approve of the
organization’s formation or activities.”

But the shared position of many who met with her last month is that Clinton
needs a serious primary challenger.

“The Democratic party needs a contested primary,” said Jennifer
Epps-Addison, director of Wisconsin Jobs Now, who was also in the Warren
meeting. “Black folks in our communities have been systematically attacked.
It’s not simply about police brutality. Our goal in talking to Warren was
to make those connections the same way we did during the civil rights
movement.” She said her goal was to get Warren “to be talking about racial
justice as part of her progressive message.”

While she is not part of the “Draft Warren” movement, Epps-Addison added,
“We feel that many Democrats are not speaking truthfully to the values that
many of the base and voters are concerned about, including black folks.“

In the absence of a competitive Democratic primary, however, some
progressives are hoping they can at least push Warren to be the party’s
agenda-setter.

“For Sen. Warren, you’re seeing her evolve from a very effective advocate
on a set of issues into more of a movement leader and a party leadership
role,” said Kettenring. “We’re all evolving and she is, too. That’s part of
the dynamic at work here. Some of the people I know who were in the Draft
Warren movement are people we work with and know, because they’re part of
the broader progressive ecosystem. I’d say more of us are stepping up to
define the terms of the debate.”

Elizabeth Warren: Trade bill could “tear down” Wall Street oversight
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/warren-trade-bill-could-tear-down-wall-street-oversight-117670.html>
// POLITICO // Zachary Warmbrodt - May 5, 2015

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the next big threat to keeping Wall Street
risk-taking in check is an upcoming fast-track trade bill — a top priority
for President Barack Obama that has attracted liberal opposition.

The Massachusetts Democrat said late Tuesday that giving the president
greater leeway to negotiate trade deals for years to come is a dangerous
proposition because of the chance that a Republican who wants to roll back
Dodd-Frank, like Sen. Ted Cruz, could win the White House in 2016.

“I very much hope that a Democrat wins the White House in 2016 and again in
2020. But what happens if we have a Republican president in 2016 or 2020?
Ted Cruz has already said flatly, ‘We need to repeal Dodd-Frank,’” Warren
said in a speech prepared for a Washington dinner hosted by the Institute
for New Economic Thinking. “Republicans have been itching to tear down
Dodd-Frank from the moment it passed.”

Warren launched her latest salvo against the administration’s trade policy
as Obama attempts to convince Congress, in particular fellow Democrats, to
approve the trade bill to help him wrap up agreements he is negotiating
with countries in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.

Warren’s attempt to link the fast-track bill with Wall Street oversight,
specifically Democrats’ signature 2010 Dodd-Frank law that sought to
strengthen banking regulation after the 2008 crisis, will put some of her
more trade-friendly colleagues in an awkward spot.

“Let me put this as simply as I can: After fighting hard to protect
Dodd-Frank for years, Democrats in the next few weeks could give
Republicans the very tool they need to dismantle Dodd-Frank,” Warren said.
“Anyone who supports Dodd-Frank and who believes we need strong rules to
prevent the next financial crisis should be very worried.”

Wall Street banks have kept a close eye on recent trade negotiations,
particularly the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with
Europe, and have pushed for financial regulation to be part of the talks.
Last month, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a joint statement that it is “vital”
that the European trade agreement cover financial regulation.

Big banks on both sides of the Atlantic are gearing up to use the agreement
to “water down” regulations, Warren said.

“A six-year fast track bill is the missing link they need to make that
happen,” she said.

Democrats Take Fire for Exclusivity Clause in Official Debates
<http://time.com/3847335/democratic-presidential-debates-exclusive/> //
TIME // Zeke J Miller – May 5, 2015

Democratic presidential hopeful and former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton speaks during the David N. Dinkins Leadership and Public Policy
Forum at Columbia University on April 29, 2015 in New York City.

Kevin Hagen—Getty Images Democratic presidential hopeful and former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during the David N. Dinkins
Leadership and Public Policy Forum at Columbia University on April 29, 2015
in New York City.

The Democratic National Committee is coming under fire for its takeover of
the presidential primary debate process.

Just minutes after announcing that it will only sanction six contests and
that candidates who appear in any debate outside of those six will be
barred from attending a sanctioned debate, Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for
likely Democratic contender former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley criticized
the small number of debates and the exclusivity requirement.

“If Governor O’Malley decides to run, we will expect a full, robust, and
inclusive set of debates — both nationally and in early primary and caucus
states,” she said in a statement to reporters. ”This has been customary in
previous primary seasons. In a year as critical as 2016, exclusivity does
no one any favors.”

The DNC said the six debate number was the jumping off point in 2004 and
2008 but it was quickly overridden by candidates and news outlets wanting
more. In 2008, Democrats faced off more than 20 times before President
Obama won the nomination.

“The precedent that was set was six, but there was no mechanism controlling
that,” said DNC Communications Director Mo Elleithee. “We’ve always said
that we’d like to come up with a number and stick with it.”

“Every now and then Republicans have ideas that aren’t so terrible, and
this was one of them,” he added of the exclusivity clause.

But an aide to one Democratic 2016 aspirant said they were taken aback by
the exclusivity clause. “In the discussions that the DNC had with potential
2016 candidates, they explicitly said there would be no exclusivity clause
and it was a shock to see that they included one in their press release
today,” the aide said. “It was all an elaborate game where everything was
worked out in advance with the Clinton people,” the aide alleged.

Elleithee declined to detail the nature of internal conversations the DNC
conducted with candidates and campaigns, including whether the exclusivity
clause was a late addition to the parameters.

“I have been involved in debate negotiations for various campaigns for
nearly 20 years and they are almost always have some people who want more
and some people who want fewer,” Elleithee said.

Appearing on stage with Clinton would be a significant credibility boost to
the likely Democratic field, which includes lesser-known figures like
O’Malley, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb.
Clinton aides understandably want to limit her opposition’s potential for a
breakout moment on stage, while protecting a candidate who who occasionally
struggled during the 2008 primary debates. Minutes after the DNC announced
its debate plans, Clinton tweeted her support.

Elleithee added that campaigns were given a heads up about the press
release Tuesday morning before it was sent out. But a spokesman for likely
presidential aspirant Jim Webb said the former senator’s team had not
discussed the debates “internally or externally.”

–Additional reporting by Sam Frizell

GOP

Huckabee Joins Race With Tacit Contrast to Clintons
<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/05/huckabee_joins_race_with_tacit_contrast_to_clintons_126499.html>
// Real Clear Politics // Rebecca Berg - May 5, 2015

HOPE, Ark. — Mike Huckabee used his metaphor-rich hometown on Tuesday as a
backdrop to launch his second bid for president — the setting drawing
contrasts at once with former President Bill Clinton, who also hails from
Hope, and President Obama, who ran for office on a platform of “hope” and
“change”

“We were promised hope, but it was just talk,” said Huckabee, a former
Republican governor of Arkansas. “Now we need the kind of change that
really can bring America from Hope to higher ground.”

In a community college auditorium, Huckabee recalled his upbringing in the
town that’s now home to roughly 10,000 people, where he said he “was raised
to believe that where a person started didn’t mean that’s where he had to
stop,” and where he ran in his first race, for student council in junior
high school.

“So it seems fitting that it would be here that I announce I am a candidate
for president,” Huckabee said to cheers from an enthusiastic, conservative
crowd of roughly 2,500, including those in overflow areas. At intervals,
supporters chanted, “We like Mike” and waved signs supplied by the campaign.

Huckabee, who proved a surprisingly strong candidate when he ran for
president in 2008, still commands a substantial following among religious
and social conservatives, having since then cultivated a national audience
with a weekly show on Fox News and as a prolific author.

But Huckabee has expressed frustration at the idea that he only appealed in
2008 to evangelical voters — a “misconception,” he told reporters in
Washington last month. On Tuesday, he began in earnest to flirt with
working-class voters, using his personal story to shape a narrative of
social and economic mobility.

“I grew up blue collar, not blue blood,” Huckabee said.

Huckabee’s strategy has changed in other ways, too. Whereas he announced
his previous bid for president during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the
Press,” his campaign launch on Tuesday was decidedly less low-key,
mimicking the flow of a party convention with multiple introductory
speakers, including wife Janet Huckabee, and campaign videos. The program
kicked off with a musical performance by the candidate’s friend Tony
Orlando, the ’70s singer of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree”
fame.

Still, Huckabee is no frontrunner. He starts the race in sixth place among
Republicans, the RealClearPolitics national polling average shows. Huckabee
on Tuesday took pains to acknowledge, and even embrace, his standing as an
underdog.

“I never have been and never will be the favorite candidate of the
Washington-to-Wall Street corridor of power,” he said. He added, striking
an implicit contrast to the Bill and Hillary Clinton, that he does not have
a “global foundation” to advance his name or offer financial security.

Huckabee scarcely needed to allude to the Clintons — and not once did he
explicitly invoke Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee — because
the setting so obviously called the power couple to mind.

“I still believe in a place called Hope,” Bill Clinton famously said as he
accepted the Democratic nomination for president in 1992. Today, the town
is something of a shrine to its most famous son.

Huckabee’s own political arc has been inextricably linked to the Clintons.
An introduction video Tuesday noted that he took office in “Bill Clinton’s
Arkansas,” when Democrats controlled both chambers of the state legislature.

Today, both sons of Hope have cut their immediate ties to the Natural
State. The Clintons reside in New York; Huckabee’s primary residence is a
beachfront home in Florida.

Still, the hometown crowd came out strong for Huckabee on Tuesday,
including Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican who led the state
party in the 1990s when Huckabee first won statewide office as lieutenant
governor.

Huckabee “led our state with conviction. He led our state with conservative
values,” Hutchinson said in his remarks. “That is the type of leadership
that we need on the national stage.”

The surest early sign that Huckabee would run for president came in
January, when he abruptly quit his Fox News show — a move that he and aides
insisted he would not have made if he weren’t serious about waging another
campaign.

Since then, he has gradually laid the groundwork for a bid: publishing a
new memoir, traveling to key presidential primary states and, last month,
quietly forming an exploratory committee.

Huckabee will hope to build on his success in 2008, when he defeated Mitt
Romney to win the Iowa caucuses.

“I have no presumptions that I’m a lock to win [Iowa] or that I go into it
with this unbreakable position in favor,” Huckabee said last month. “But we
have a good structure, a good organization, good contacts, a good network
there, a good message there. And I do know how to win Iowa.”

Early polling shows him in a competitive position in some of the pivotal
states. The RCP average shows Huckabee in fourth among Republicans in Iowa
and in South Carolina, with a solid 9 percent in each key primary state.

Huckabee’s campaign team is also hopeful that he will perform well in the
so-called “SEC primary” of Southern states on March 1, which will include
Arkansas.

Huckabee, allies aim to raise $60 million
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/politics/mike-huckabee-campaign-fundraising-60-million/>
// CNN // Sara Murray - May 5, 2015

Hope, Arkansas (CNN)Mike Huckabee is eyeing a more favorable calendar and
stronger fundraising chops as the firewalls that will prevent his
presidential bid from fizzling out early.

After winning the GOP caucuses in Iowa in 2008 and hosting a Fox News
television show for years, Huckabee has become a nationally recognized
figure. Now the pressure is on for the Republican presidential candidate to
prove he can raise money and notch top tier finishes in the early
nominating contests.

Huckabee's advisers acknowledged he will need a strong finish in Iowa,
where Huckabee plans to spend much of this week campaigning. Then the race
moves on to New Hampshire, which is less friendly territory for Huckabee
and will largely be a fight among moderate Republicans such as New Jersey
Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

On Friday, Huckabee is scheduled to deliver an economic address in South
Carolina, another state that where Huckabee could be competitive. But the
field there is muddled by Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is weighing a potential
presidential run. Meanwhile, Florida's two favorite sons -- former Gov. Jeb
Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio -- will face off over the Sunshine State.

But Huckabee sees an opportunity in a handful of Southern states that are
looking to move their contests up to March 1. If the so-called "SEC
primary" pans out, it could include a handful of states that Huckabee won
in 2008.

"The key is what kind of resources do you have beyond Iowa," said Bob
Vander Plaats, chief executive of the social conservative organization The
Family Leader in Iowa. After years in the public eye as a former
presidential candidate and Fox News personality, "I don't think he can come
in with $500,000 and say, 'I'm a real candidate,'" Vander Plaats added.

Huckabee raised about $16 million in 2008, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics, before dropping out of the race in March. This time
around Huckabee expects to raise about $60 million between his campaign and
his super PAC in the early stages of his campaign, an adviser said.

A spokesman for Huckabee declined to name the donors who have pledged to
support Huckabee, but there are signs the team isn't bluffing about their
improved fundraising prowess. Ronnie Cameron, the chief executive of an
Arkansas-based poultry producer who has given millions to conservatives,
said he would back Huckabee.

Huckabee used his announcement speech Tuesday to make a plea for some cash,
too, saying he won't be relying on billionaires to back his campaign.

"I will be funded and fueled not by the billionaires, but by working people
across America," Huckabee said. But, "if you want to give a million
dollars, please do it."

That remark is already garnering negative press because, while outside
groups can accept unlimited donations, the most a presidential candidate
can accept from an individual is $5,400. Now that Huckabee is officially a
candidate, he and his super PAC are no longer allowed to coordinate.

Mike Huckabee and the Continuing Influence of Evangelicals
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/upshot/mike-huckabee-and-the-continuing-influence-of-evangelicals.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0>
// NYT- The Upshot // Nate Cohn – May 5,2015

The religious right remains the largest voting bloc in the Republican
Party, and that gives Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, the
potential to play a big role in the presidential nominating contest.

But Mr. Huckabee, who was set to announce his presidential bid Tuesday
morning, will have a harder time winning Iowa than he did in 2008, when
religious conservatives had serious reservations about the two main
candidates, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

This year’s conservative favorites do not have Mr. Romney’s vulnerabilities
among evangelicals, like Mormonism or past support for abortion rights.
Some candidates might be outright good fits, like Scott Walker, an
evangelical Christian and the son of a pastor.

Mr. Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who won the Iowa caucuses and
five state primaries in 2008, has retained at least some of his support
among evangelical Christians, averaging around 8 percent in the polls — as
much as fresh-faced candidates like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul.

Credit Illustration by Matt Dorfman and photo by Yana Paskova for The New
York Times

The similarity of Mr. Huckabee to Mr. Cruz or Mr. Paul extends far beyond
their polling numbers. Each has championed the cause of one of the party’s
large and distinctive factions — the religious right, the Tea Party and
libertarians. In doing so, all three became the favorite of a large bloc of
voters — and all but unacceptable to the rest of the party.

Mr. Huckabee has received less news media attention than Mr. Cruz or Mr.
Paul, but he has an equal chance to play a big role in the race. White
evangelical Christians are about 40 percent of Republican primary voters,
representing a majority of the vote in many of the party’s caucuses and in
the Southern primaries. That gives an evangelical favorite an easy road to
winning many contests.

Most important, evangelicals also represent nearly 60 percent of Iowa
caucus goers, which allowed cultural conservatives like Rick Santorum (in
2012) and Mr. Huckabee (in 2008) to carry the state.

So a conservative candidate who hopes to win Iowa, like Senator Cruz or
Governor Walker, needs to capture a significant slice of the evangelical
vote. Mr. Romney’s failed bid in 2008 is a cautionary tale. He sought to
become the main conservative candidate in the race, but ultimately failed
to take Iowa because he could not get the support of evangelical Christians.

Mr. Huckabee still has the potential to be a spoiler again. He could deny
another conservative a large enough share of evangelical voters. He could
even win himself. Mr. Huckabee remains a compelling retail politician with
strong ratings. He led an NBC/Marist survey of Iowa as recently as two
months ago. He has won Iowa before, after all.

Of course, Mr. Huckabee did not go on to win the nomination in 2008. And he
is unlikely to do so this time. He was pummeled outside the South.

Money and organization were part of Mr. Huckabee’s challenge in 2008 in
populous, expensive states like Illinois, Florida and California. My Upshot
colleague Derek Willis found that just 7 percent of the top 250 Republican
donors had contributed to one of Mr. Huckabee’s campaigns, a paltry figure
that reflects the secular inclinations of top Republican donors.

Continue reading the main story

But the limits of Mr. Huckabee’s appeal were ultimately about his message
and record. Fiscal conservatives were very skeptical of Mr. Huckabee, who
raised taxes and increased spending as a governor.

Pat Toomey, the former head of the Club for Growth and a current senator
from Pennsylvania, said, “Mike Huckabee is no conservative.”

Last month, Mr. Huckabee attacked conservative plans to reduce entitlement
spending and said he wouldn’t vote for the Paul Ryan budget plan. The Club
for Growth has already indicated its intention to oppose his bid again.

Mr. Huckabee has not done much to broaden his appeal over the last eight
years. He has, if anything, more fully embraced his populist brand of
religious conservatism.

He gave a recent interview with an Iowa talk-radio host in which he said
the military, under President Obama’s leadership, “punishes” Christians and
Orthodox Jews. He added that parents might want to ponder waiting until a
new president is in charge before supporting their children to enlist.

It was the kind of talk that could continue to make him a favorite of an
influential wing of the party — someone who can lead polls and even win
states, but who is opposed by much of the rest of the party and is
therefore highly unlikely to win the nomination.

Correction: May 5, 2015

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated
how Mitt Romney lost the 2008 Iowa caucuses. He was defeated by Mike
Huckabee. He did not lose a narrow decision to Rick Santorum (that was in
2012).

The populist 1 percenter
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/mike-huckabee-2016-wealth-117627.html>
// Politico // James Hohmann – May 5, 2015

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas—Mike Huckabee was not a millionaire when he ran for
president in 2008, and liked to let people know it during his underdog
campaign against wealthy rivals like John McCain and Mitt Romney.

“I may not be the expert that some people are on foreign policy, but I did
stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night,” he quipped.

Now, after hosting his own Fox News show and a syndicated radio program,
while authoring several books, the former governor is solidly – and, some
would say, ostentatiously — a part of the one percent.

There’s the 10,900-square-foot beachfront mansion he built on Florida’s
Panhandle, worth more than $3 million. There are regular trips on private
jets, often to elite events at which he has given countless paid speeches.

On Tuesday, as he formally kicked off his second campaign for the
presidency, Huckabee knows he must reassure his former supporters that he
has not changed even as his pockets grew much, much deeper. His
announcement, in the small town of Hope where he grew up poor, reflects a
broader effort by his campaign to show that he’s still folksy and
down-to-earth.

“I think I’m the same person that I was,” the 59-year-old told POLITICO
during an interview ahead of his announcement. “I haven’t, to my knowledge,
changed a single belief or conviction. I believe everything I believed in
2008.”

Last time, he won the Iowa caucuses and carried seven other states with a
populist message that the little guy was getting trampled by the special
interests.

“Where my strength really came from was blue-collar working class people,”
Huckabee recalled. “They didn’t have money but they had energy. They felt
like no one else was there to speak for them or even knew who they were. I
think they believed, and I think they still believe, that not only have I
come from them – that’s who I am – but that I’ve never lost touch with what
it’s like to be out there working harder and getting nowhere.”

More than anyone else in the 2016 field, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul,
the former Southern Baptist minister decries the influence of
“corporatists” and “globalists” over the GOP. Still, hints of his fabulous
new life bleed into his rhetoric. He raised eyebrows during a speech in New
Hampshire two weeks ago, for instance, when he recalled a recent
conversation with a Russian limo driver.

“A couple of weeks ago I was in Los Angeles, and I was going to be on The
Bill Maher Show,” he told hundreds of activists at the climax of a
half-hour speech. “The driver comes and picks me up at the hotel and is
taking me to the studio.”

In short, the driver fled the Soviet Union in 1988 with his infant daughter
and they’re now living the American Dream: the dad owns the car service
company, and his daughter became a nurse. “I said, ‘Dmitri, you make more
sense and talk better than 90 percent of the people we’ve elected to
Congress,’” Huckabee told the crowd. “He said, ‘Well I don’t think I’ll
ever have that platform.’ I told him, ‘Dmitri, you may not. Maybe you don’t
want it. But I hope I can tell your story!’”

Huckabee still tells his own up-from-the-bootstraps story, but it’s not
quite the same as in 2008 – when he’d only been out of the governorship for
a year and had a small bank account.

During that campaign, in the days before the crucial Wisconsin primary,
Huckabee was so strapped for cash that he went off the trail to deliver a
paid speech in the Cayman Islands. “You’ve got to work for a living and pay
your bills,” he said at the time. He attacked Romney that year for looking
like “the guy who laid you off.” He held events at Pizza Ranches because it
was free to rent space at the chain restaurant.

In the years since, Huckabee has aggressively filled his coffers.

A POLITICO report last July highlighted his penchant for using private
jets. He’s racked up more than a quarter-million dollars in private air
travel bills over the past few years and has routinely insisted that
candidates or local parties that he’s coming to support pay the expense.

The New York Times recently spotlighted dubious groups Huckabee has rented
his campaign email list out to – from survivalists warning of coming food
shortages to a group that says there’s a miracle cure for cancer hidden in
the Bible (which people can find out about with a $72 subscription to their
product). Huckabee recorded an infomercial for a sketchy diabetes treatment
that scientists say is bunk.

He enters the 2016 race with high expectations. Because he won Iowa last
time, many pundits say the caucuses will be do-or-die for him this time.
Not surprisingly, his first appearances after the Arkansas announcement are
there.

“A second or third place finish does not move him forward,” said Ed
Rollins, the national chairman of Huckabee’s 2008 campaign, who has not
endorsed him for 2016.

A broader — and probably more important — question is whether a retread can
stand out in a crowded field with fresher faces. Even his rollout has been
partly overshadowed by dark horse upstarts like former Hewlett Packard CEO
Carly Fiorina and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, both of whom announced
on Monday.

Leading social conservatives in Iowa say that Huckabee retains a big
reservoir of goodwill, but that he cannot count on retaining his supporters
from 2008. Many broke for Rick Santorum in 2012, who will run again. And
this time, candidates like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Wisconsin Gov. Scott
Walker have already been making an aggressive play for his base of support.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is traveling the early states making the case that
the party needs to nominate a young, fresh face to contrast with Hillary
Clinton. Huckabee notes that he was battling the Clintons for decades in
Arkansas before anyone else even heard of them.

Huckabee has acknowledged he probably needs to win Iowa again and should
perform stronger in New Hampshire than last time. South Carolina, the first
state in the South with a primary, could give him a boost if he gets
momentum and enough money from the first contests.

That makes March 1 central to his strategy. A handful of Southern states
Huckabee won in 2008, including Arkansas, have coordinated to schedule an
“SEC primary” that day.

Ironically, though he’s now rich himself, it’s an open question whether
Huckabee will be able to raise enough money to stay in the race through the
SEC primary and beyond. He’ll get a lot of small-dollar gifts, but he has
yet to demonstrate the ability to put together a high-dollar finance
operation. “That’s not been solved, to the best of my knowledge,” said
Rollins.

Iowa GOP operative Nick Ryan, who ran the pro-Rick Santorum super PAC in
2012, will run the pro-Huckabee super PAC this time. A handful of big
donors from the evangelical community could sustain the governor if they
chose to do so in this post-Citizens United world, another change since he
ran last time.

One thing money cannot easily buy is the name recognition that Huckabee
already has from his first run. He undeniably enters the race as a
well-defined figure, and especially in the case of Iowa Republicans,
remains well-liked, according to polls.

Huckabee says he has not changed, but he knows campaigns have. He
recognizes that he’s likely to be outspent but seems to have satisfied
himself that he can raise enough money to be viable. He made clear that his
campaign will more aggressively push back on attacks using social media and
other platforms.

“People asked me how to spell my name eight years ago,” Huckabee said.
“They didn’t know what state I had been governor of or for how long. I’ve
had a rather significant national platform … It’s not like I’ve been in
hibernation for eight years. I’ve been more visible than when I was a
candidate or an office holder.”

Huckabee has mellowed a bit. His fifth grandchild is on the way. He says he
learned a lot of lessons from the last campaign about “pace and rhythm” to
inform how he’d approach another one.

“You learn not to be overly alarmed at a single poll at any particular
point, particularly early,” he said. “You learn not to be overly excitable
about the flow of things because it changes so often and rapidly.”

Huckabee’s inner circle is packed with loyalists from his 2008 campaign.
His daughter, GOP operative Sarah Huckabee Sanders, will manage the 2016
campaign.

The governor stressed that he doesn’t want to hire anyone just because they
want to work on a presidential campaign. He needs them to believe in the
cause.

“You can’t win like that,” he said. “You’re better to have a very loyal
group of people that are really with you that may be smaller in number than
it is to have a huge crowd of people that you’re paying but who would leave
you tomorrow if somebody came along.”

If Huckabee gets traction, his record will get scrutinized. While still
well-regarded by Republicans in Arkansas, there are elements that could be
used to sow doubts on the right. Two years ago, he reportedly said the
Common Core standards were “near and dear to my heart.” Now he decries
them. In 2000, Huckabee commuted the sentence of Maurice Clemmons, who was
serving time for burglary charges. In 2009, the convict killed four police
officers in Washington State.

There are also thousands of hours of recordings from his Fox News show and
radio show for opposition researchers, including those in the GOP, to
scour. He was perhaps the most prominent national Republican figure to
rally to Todd Akin’s defense in 2012 after the national party abandoned him
over his comments about “legitimate rape.”

“He’s said a lot that hasn’t been scrutinized,” said Rollins, his former
adviser.

One of the things often missing in stories about Huckabee is how central
the economic populism is to his message. He’s best known for provocative
comments on gay marriage, abortion and social issues. But he’s trying to
broaden his base of support beyond born-again evangelicals.

“The narrative that I was almost like a monolithic candidate for the
evangelicals was never the accurate reality,” he said in the interview. “If
I had been, I probably would have been the nominee” in 2008.

Huckabee is critical of “trickle-down economics,” as he calls it, using the
parlance of the left. His willingness to raise taxes as governor has made
him an enemy of the Club for Growth and other conservative groups. He is
also against fast track and wants more safeguards in the Trans-Pacific
Partnership trade deal.

For his part, Huckabe e points out that he presciently warned about how
fundamentally unsound the economy was throughout the 2008 primaries. “The
Wall Street Journal ripped me a new one after the September 2007, Dearborn,
Michigan, debate,” he said. “A year later, I was absolutely vindicated in
what I said.”

Rand Paul, Finally, To Open That Office in Silicon Valley
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/rand-paul-finally-to-open-that-office-in-silicon-valley-20150504>
// National Journal // Shane Goldmacher - May 5, 2015

May 4, 2015 It was almost eight months ago, on a swing through California,
when Sen. Rand Paul declared he would open an office in Silicon Valley to
tap into the brains and big bucks of the tech industry.

"There's a lot of smart people in Silicon Valley," Paul told the San
Francisco Chronicle in September, "and we want to use their brains to
figure out how to win."

His proclamation spurred an avalanche of news stories, think pieces, and
analyses—about how Paul was a different kind of Republican, about how he
was appealing to the next generation, about the potential for a
libertarian-tech alliance.

The problem: For the past eight months, no such Rand Paul outpost actually
existed.

That's about to change. As Paul returns to the San Francisco Bay Area this
weekend for the first time in 2015, he plans to formally open an office
there, his spokesman Sergio Gor confirmed.

To be fair, Paul didn't promise when, exactly, the Silicon Valley office
would be opening last year. "We're in the process of it," he told the
Chronicle at the time. But since then, the Kentucky Republican has set up
an office in Austin, the Texas tech hub where his digital strategist
Vincent Harris is based, and launched his presidential bid.

Paul has one public event on his San Francisco schedule so far, appearing
at a "disrupting democracy" conversation with Lincoln Labs, a
Republican-leaning tech group. Paul also has fundraising meetings scheduled
in the donor-rich region.

The power players behind Carly Fiorina's campaign
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/carly-fiorina-2016-campaign-staff-power-players-117606.html>
// POLITICO // Katie Glueck - May 4, 2015

Carly Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, is the only female
Republican candidate in the 2016 presidential race.

Fiorina is running on a combination of her business background and a
disdain for “crony capitalism.” She’s also embracing her outsider status
and is playing up a reputation she has recently cultivated as the GOP
field’s most frequent and tough critic of Hillary Clinton.

Fiorina, who has never held elected office and struggles with name
identification, faces an uphill battle for the nomination. But she has
hired several well-respected operatives to help her political efforts. Her
super PAC, Carly for America, had a fairly full staff at the time of her
announcement, while her campaign staff is still expanding.

Here’s a look at key players so far in Fiorina’s orbit:

• Frank Sadler will be campaign manager. Sadler, who at one time worked at
Koch Industries, also recently worked at the public affairs firm Cove
Strategies, where American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp is a
principal.

• Sarah Isgur Flores will be deputy campaign manager. Flores is a
well-regarded GOP operative who most recently worked at the Republican
National Committee as deputy communications director.

• Anna Epstein will serve as a spokeswoman. Epstein also previously worked
at the RNC.

• Amy Noone Frederick is senior adviser for strategy and outreach.
Frederick, a GOP consultant, was most recently head of the 60 Plus
organization, a senior citizens-focused group.

• Lauren Carney, a longtime GOP consultant, is aiding Fiorina’s efforts in
the Granite State from the campaign side. She and her husband, GOP
strategist Dave Carney, are well-regarded in New Hampshire and have a
consulting firm together.

• Steve DeMaura is executive director of Carly for America, the super PAC
boosting Fiorina’s bid. DeMaura is president of Americans for Job Security,
a pro-business outside group.

• Tom Szold is political director of the super PAC and is expected to
remain there. He has New Hampshire knowledge after managing the
unsuccessful campaign of congressional candidate Marilinda Garcia, who has
endorsed Fiorina — and he also worked for the RNC in Iowa.

• Kerry Marsh is New Hampshire state director for the super PAC. She held
the same position for former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential
campaign, and is also the chairwoman of the Concord City Republican
Committee. Bettie Lamontagne, a conservative activist in the Granite State,
is also backing Fiorina (her husband, Ovide, was the 2012 GOP nominee for
governor. Both were influential hosts on the 2012 presidential circuit in
the Granite State) but isn’t expected to be on staff.

• Mary Earnhardt is Iowa state director for the super PAC. The GOP
consultant is a veteran of Iowa statehouse politics.

• Katie Hughes is communications director at Carly for America. She is a
senior account executive at CRC Public Relations, a conservative firm.
Leslie Shedd, who previously worked for the Georgia GOP and on Capitol
Hill, is press secretary.

• Greg Mueller is a senior communications adviser to the super PAC. He is
president of CRC Public Relations.

• Keith Appell, also of CRC and a longtime conservative operative, is also
senior communications adviser to the super PAC. He is a senior vice
president at the firm.

Carly Fiorina Says She Would ‘Roll Back’ Net Neutrality Rules
<http://time.com/3847646/carly-fiorina-fcc-regulations-net-neutrality/> //
TIME // Charlotte Alter – May 5, 2015

Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina speaks at TechCrunchÕs
Disrupt conference on May 5, 2015 in New York City.

Andrew Burton—Getty Images Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina
speaks at TechCrunchÕs Disrupt conference on May 5, 2015 in New York City.

And she wants the government to use technology to "re-engage" people

Carly Fiorina said Tuesday in her first public appearance since announcing
her candidacy for the GOP nomination that she would “roll back” the new
rules on net neutrality.

The former Hewlett-Packard CEO, arguably the presidential candidate with
the most experience in the tech industry, came out swinging against the
regulations in a talk at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in New York City. “You
don’t manage innovation, you let innovation flourish,” she said.
“Regulation over innovation is a really bad role for government.”

Other Republican hopefuls have also come out in recent months against net
neutrality—or the idea that all web content is treated equally—perhaps in
opposition to Obama or in order to protect campaign donations, despite the
fact that 85% of Republican voters say they oppose the creation of Internet
“fast lanes.”

At other points during the talk, Fiorina pointed to her experience in the
tech industry as a qualification for the Oval Office. “It is important to
have someone in the White House who has a fundamental understanding of
technology, and a fundamental vision of how technology could be used,” she
said, adding that she hopes to use technology to “re-engage” people in
politics.

Fiorina also addressed the industry’s inequalities for women, noting that
they are “caricatured differently, criticized differently, scrutinized
differently, because we’re still different.” To that end, she noted that
she was pleased Hillary Clinton is also running for the Democratic
nomination. “Obviously I’m running to beat Hillary Clinton, but I think
It’s great there there are women on both sides of the aisle running for the
highest office in the land.”

When the interviewer, a female journalist, asked Fiorina if she would
consider a Vice Presidential slot, she bristled and replied: “Would you
ever ask a man that question?”

In the past, male presidential candidates like former North Carolina
Senator John Edwards and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson have
been asked whether they’re running for VP, and the idea has also been posed
for former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, a presumed Democratic
candidate. After the journalist responded that she would, the candidate
said, “I’m not running for something else, I’m running because I want this
job, and I think I can do this job.”

Fiorina: Clinton "pandering" on immigration
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/politics/carly-fiorina-hillary-clinton-immigration/>
// CNN // Theodore Schleifer – May 5, 2015

Washington (CNN)Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said on Tuesday that
Hillary Clinton was "pandering" in her plan to go further than President
Barack Obama on immigration policy.

Fiorina, a Republican businesswoman who has emerged as one of the harshest
critics of Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, said she first wants to
see a more secure border. Fiorina also said she would also support a "path
to legal status" for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in
the United States -- but only after the legal immigration system was fixed.

"The people who worked hard to earn citizenship the right way are totally
committed to this country," Fiorina told CNN's Erin Burnett immediately
after Clinton spoke extensively about her own immigration platform in Las
Vegas. "I think it isn't fair to say to people who've worked hard to earn
the privilege of citizenship that 'Never mind. Never mind that you played
by the rules. People who didn't get to have the same privileges that you
do'."

Fiorina, the only female candidate in the Republican field, also swatted
away the notion that her general election argument would center only on her
common gender with Clinton, though she acknowledged that would neutralize
one potential Clinton attack.

Carly Fiorina&#39;s political career

Carly Fiorina's political career 15 photos

Instead, she pointed to her tenure as chief executive at Hewlett-Packard,
saying that experience distinguished her from the "professional political
class."

But her record there is not all rosy. Fiorina was eventually forced out as
CEO, and she oversaw 30,000 job losses as head of the tech giant.

"The only way you succeed as a technology company is by leading, not by
lagging," Fiorina said, striking back at unflattering media coverage of her
ouster and pointing to less covered parts of her accomplishments. And, she
added, she took no pleasure in any of those firings.

"The worst thing a CEO can do is to have to say to someone, 'You don't have
a job,'" she said. "Everyone had to manage through tough times. And I think
that's honestly what distinguishes leadership."

She also weighed in on the attack in Garland, Texas, this week at an event
showcasing controversial cartoons of Mohammed.

"It clearly was provocative, just like white supremacists demonstrating is
provocative," Fiorina said.

She offered praise for how Obama characterized the gathering that provoked
the violence.

"I'm very pleased that the President came out and called this what it is,
which is an attempted act of terror," Fiorina said.

Marco Rubio to raise cash in Bellevue Thursday
<http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/marco-rubio-to-raise-cash-in-bellevue-thursday-politics-nw-now/>
// Seattle Times // Jim Brunner – May 5, 2015

Republican 2016 presidential candidate Marco Rubio will raise campaign cash
Thursday in Bellevue.

Rubio, a U.S. Senator from Florida, plans to attend a 3:30 p.m. round-table
discussion that will cost donors $2,700 per person or $5,400 per couple —
followed by a reception at $1,000 per person. The events are to be held at
Steelhead Partners, a Bellevue investment firm, according to a copy of the
invitation. Hosts include the firm’s co-founder, Brian Klein, former state
GOP chair Diane Tebelius, and local venture capitalist Matt McIlwain.

No public events have been announced and organizers did not immediately
respond to requests for more details.

Rubio’s visit follows a similar low-key, money-raising stopover by a man
who was his political mentor, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who also is
traveling the country to raise money for 2016 presidential run — even
though he has not declared as a candidate. Bush held a $12,500 per person
fundraiser for his Right to Rise super PAC in Seattle last month.

Rubio, 43, entered the 2016 race last month, repeatedly calling for “a New
American Century” in an effort to contrast himself with the dynasties
represented by 2016 rivals, including Bush and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Bush and Rubio topped a crowd of declared or likely GOP presidential
contenders in a recent NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll of Republican
primary voters.

While he’s not well known in Washington state, a Rubio presidency could
spell trouble for the state’s legalized marijuana system, if his recent
comments are any indication.

In an interview last month with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt,
Rubio was asked about Washington and Colorado’s legalized marijuana
systems. Hewitt asked whether Rubio would “enforce the federal drug laws
and shut down the marijuana trade?”

According to a transcript of the interview, Rubio responded: “Yes. Yes, I
think, well, I think we need to enforce our federal laws. Now do states
have a right to do what they want? They don’t agree with it, but they have
their rights. But they don’t have a right to write federal policy as well.
It is, I don’t believe we should be in the business of legalizing
additional intoxicants in this country for the primary reason that when you
legalize something, what you’re sending a message to young people is it
can’t be that bad, because if it was that bad, it wouldn’t be legal.”

Marco Rubio says the United States is not modernizing its nuclear weapons
<http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/may/05/marco-rubio/marco-rubio-says-united-states-not-modernizing-its/>
// Politifact // Amy Sherman – May 5, 2015

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., argues that the United States needs to do
more to beef up its military to face down evil.

Speaking at the Iowa Faith and Freedom summit on April 25, Rubio said that
threats worldwide "require strong American leadership, which we cannot
exert as long as we eviscerate military spending, which is what we are
doing now. We are placing our nation at a dangerous position."

Then he said this about the country’s nuclear stockpiles: "We are the only
nation that is not modernizing its nuclear weapons."

We wanted to know whether Rubio was correct that the United States isn’t
modernizing its nuclear weapons, so we consulted with experts on U.S.
nuclear policy. (We reached out to Rubio’s presidential campaign and Senate
office and did not get a response.)

Modernizing nuclear weapons

Multiple experts told us that Rubio’s claim about nuclear weapons is wrong
because ongoing and planned nuclear modernization efforts are extensive.
The United States has been spending billions modernizing nuclear equipment
-- and has plans to continue to do so.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s March 2015 report to
Congress details plans to modernize nuclear equipment including various
warheads over the coming years. A Congressional Research Service Report
issued the same month covered similar topics.

Modernization is  happening for many different types of nuclear programs,
said Matthew Bunn, an expert on nuclear proliferation and a professor
Harvard University. (During the 1990s, Bunn was adviser to the White
House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.)

"First, while we haven’t deployed major new strategic systems in some time,
we’ve been modernizing the ones we’ve got more or less continuously — new
rocket motors and guidance systems for the Minuteman missiles, lots of
rebuilt parts for the B-52s, etc., etc. We’re in the middle of a $10
billion modernization of the B-61 bomb," Bunn said.

These modernization plans are not cheap. The Congressional Budget Office
estimated in January that the administration’s plans for nuclear forces
would cost $348 billion over the next decade. During the next three
decades, the cost to maintain the nuclear arsenal and purchase replacement
systems could rise to more than $1 trillion, according to a 2014 report by
the The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

The size of the U.S. stockpile has been declining since the 1960s and will
decline further under the new START Treaty agreed to with Russia in 2011.
But nuclear weapons can "live" for a long time. Several nuclear weapons
introduced or upgraded in the 1990s or 2000s can be used for another 20 to
30 years, said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project
at the Federation of American Scientists. (Kristensen pointed to several
upgrades in recent decades.)

One analyst we spoke with had concerns that the upgrades aren’t happening
fast enough. Tom Donnelly, a defense policy analyst at the conservative
American Enterprise Institute, told PolitiFact that "we are not really
modernizing our nukes very seriously" and that some projects are years --
even decades -- away and could could fall prey to budget cuts.

But Benjamin Friedman, an expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, said
that even if some modernization plans were canceled, "we would still be
modernizing our nuclear arsenal or our nuclear weapons, just less of them.
So any normal definition of ‘modernize,’ describes what the United States
is doing with its nuclear weapons."

Rubio compared the United States to the rest of the world without naming
any other countries when he said "we are the only nation that is not
modernizing its nuclear weapons."

Rubio said that the United States was "the only nation" not modernizing its
weapons, but Bunn, the Harvard professor, said comparing the United States
on that basis with other countries is misleading. China, for example, is
modernizing its arsenal, but its arsenal is also far smaller. The United
States and Russia have over 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, he
said.

"So I would say: (a) not true that we haven’t been modernizing at all; (b)
IS (mostly) true that we haven’t bought any big new strategic delivery
systems lately; (c) highly misleading not to mention that all nuclear
powers other than ourselves and Russia have tiny nuclear arsenals compared
to ours," Bunn said.

Our ruling

Rubio said that the United States "is not modernizing its nuclear weapons."

Most of the experts we interviewed disputed Rubio’s statement. While the
United States has reduced the number of warheads, it has also been
modernizing nuclear equipment and has plans to continue to do so.

We rate this claim False.

Clinton Cash author: I like Marco Rubio
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/clinton-cash-author-i-like-marco-rubio-117630.html?hp=l2_4>
// POLITICO // Nick Gass - May 5, 2015

Enough with the doom-and-gloom candidates, says author Peter Schweizer.

There needs to be optimism in the race for the White House, the “Clinton
Cash” author told POLITICO’s Glenn Thrush in an hour-long interview ahead
of his May 5 book launch, noting that he always liked President Ronald
Reagan’s upbeat messaging.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would seem to fit the bill this time around, he
said.

Schweizer, who makes his home in Tallahassee, is also probing the finances
of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

“If your basic position is ‘everything’s going to heck in a handbasket, we
can’t do anything about it,’ that’s going to throw a lot of people off. So
I do think the optimism will be there,” Schweizer said. “The question is:
Is that optimism backed up by real boldness? Because if you aren’t an
optimist and you feel like we are struggling or facing challenges, it’s
bold change that’s going to be required.”

“You don’t want a grinder as president,” Schweizer said. “You don’t want
somebody who’s doom and gloom.”

Regarding the Clintons, Schweizer says he has been talking to congressional
investigators about his findings, both in the House and Senate, and
broached the possibility of more interactions with Republican staff.

“I think you need to have congressional committees with subpoena power, and
I think you need to have somebody with law-enforcement capability in power,
either by DOJ or a federal prosecutor somewhere,” he added.

He also revealed details about his process and cast himself as the head of
a sprawling Florida-based research team that he described as as an
eccentric group of diggers, “Columbo”-type investigators and 30-something
computer experts.

“I call them the Island of Misfit Toys, ‘cause we have all these different
personalities,” he said. “We’ve got some people who have a background in
hacking, they are not computer hackers now, but they can do research on the
so-called deep web and find information that has not been sort of charted.
It’s actually surprising how much information you can find, not going past
a firewall doing anything illegal [but finding information] not catalogued
by Google.”

The Clinton book was funded by specific conservative donors, but not the
Koch brothers, with whom he has had a long-term collaborative relationship.
“We have received funding from the Kochs in the past, not for this project,
but on a project-by-project basis,” he told Thrush. “We have other donors
that to varying degrees made this project possible.” He went on to talk
about his association with New York-based donor Rebekah Mercer.

Schweizer also described his work for Sarah Palin’s PAC, saying he was
drawn to her hawkish, assertive views on American foreign policy, but that
he turned down her offer to go grizzly bear hunting in Alaska.

Schweizer’s book, “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign
Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” hits shelves
Tuesday.

Chris Christie's Other Problems
<http://www.nationaljournal.com/off-to-the-races/chris-christie-s-other-problems-20150504>
// National Journal // Charlie Cook - May 5, 2015

There was a lot of talk last week about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's
presidential hopes suffering a mortal blow after two of his associates,
including a former deputy chief of staff, were indicted on charges related
to the "Bridgegate" matter, with a third pleading guilty. The only part I
would quibble with is whether his hopes were still alive before the
indictments or if they were, in fact, already dead for reasons mostly
unrelated to the George Washington Bridge controversy.

For the first 10 months or so of last year, there were a lot of heavyweight
Republicans, many of them big donors, urging Christie to run. They were
disproportionately corporate chieftains and Wall Street folks, mostly from
the greater New York City area, looking for an establishment-oriented
Republican, one more conservative than not, but clearly not from either the
tea party or the social, cultural, and evangelical wing of the GOP. The
first choice for most of these folks was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, but
up until around Thanksgiving, the betting was that the son of one president
and brother of another would pass up the race. The understanding was that
certain members of his family were unenthusiastic about such a bid. In
September and October, word from folks in Bush's orbit was that while it
was still more likely that he would not run, the chances of him getting in
were rising. Then around Thanksgiving that all changed, and it became
increasingly clear that Bush was going to make the leap. Must have been
something said over turkey and dressing.

(RELATED: Bridgegate Is Back to Haunt Chris Christie's Potential 2016 Run)

From the time a Bush candidacy started looking more likely, the wind came
out of Christie's presidential sails to the point when he was effectively
dead in the water. It was mostly because Bush filled a void that Christie
planned to fill in himself. The bridge mess was just icing on the cake.

Now things are rarely as simple as that. Christie's style was an acquired
taste; I personally find the muscular moderate approach as interesting as
it is rare. But it was never clear that the tough New Jersey-guy approach
could sell in Iowa and other environs among those who aren't that into
Philly cheesesteaks, Coney Island hot dogs, or more importantly, the
politics of those who do love them.

Also hurting Christie has been the successful campaign launch of Sen. Marco
Rubio, adding another attractive face to the center-right breed of
Republicans. Curiously, Rubio ran for the Senate against the establishment,
as a tea-party conservative. But since coming to the Senate, his approach
has been much more conventional, and more into the space that Bush and
Christie were occupying than the world of Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, or
Dr. Ben Carson, who entered the race this week. There is room for a
non-establishment candidate, someone who is conservative, but not overly
so—not of the tea-party or social conservative ilk.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker enjoyed a meteoric rise to co-frontrunner
status, but seems to have leveled off as Republicans wait to see if he can
play at this level, if he has the dexterity to deal with tough questions
from the media, opponents, and GOP primary voters, in some cases on
subjects that he is not particularly well-versed. A number of cringe-worthy
moments diminished some of the star power that Walker seemed to be
developing.

News that Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder are leaning
toward candidacies may further subdivide the non-tea party and social
conservative space. Both governors' names were mentioned a lot early on but
an—apparently erroneous—assumption built that if they weren't sending
signals that they were running by February or March, they probably weren't
going to run. If Walker were still going gangbusters, or Bush's nomination
afait accompli, neither would be seriously considering the race.

Snyder is very much a blank slate among Republican activists and political
reporters outside of Michigan; few seem to know what to make of him. The
political world and business leaders in Ohio are buzzing about a spot-on
article in the new issue of The Atlantic, "The Unpleasant Charisma of John
Kasich." Though my dealings with Kasich, when he was in the House of
Representatives and running for the GOP nomination briefly in 1999, were
entirely pleasant, he has a real reputation for having a short fuse, not
suffering fools gladly, and being unfocused and undisciplined. On paper,
Kasich's candidacy makes all the sense in the world, but the question is
whether those potential flaws get in the way.

The more conservative wing of the party certainly has its fights and
divisions, but it is the center-right, establishment wing of the party that
almost invariably wins the GOP nomination. Whoever emerges from the more
ideological half of the party will have to demonstrate an elasticity, a
potential for growth in support that has eluded all but Barry Goldwater in
1964.

But as far as Christie is concerned, he would be well advised to just say
that the Bridgegate matter has become an unnecessary distraction that has
made his candidacy untenable, even if the true reason is something else.

College Course Marco Rubio Teaches Prominently Features Hillary Clinton’s
Foreign Policy Guru
<http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/05/college-course-marco-rubio-teaches-prominently-features-hillary-clintons-foreign-policy-guru/>
// Daily Caller // Eric Owens - May 5, 2015

Florida senator, 2016 Republican presidential hopeful and all-around busy
man Marco Rubio has been moonlighting — at least until very recently — as
an adjunct professor on the Miami campus of Florida International
University.

A course syllabus obtained by The Daily Caller shows that one of the three
books Rubio assigned in his “Contemporary International Politics” class was
written by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., a former aide in the administrations of both
Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and the man who coined the term “smart
power,” which Hillary Clinton has made the centerpiece of her foreign
policy.

Nye’s 2011 book is entitled “The Future of Power.”

Rubio’s course description for “Contemporary International Politics,”
describes the class as an exploration of the “challenges and opportunities
that the United States faces” “in the post-Cold War world.” Is U.S. power
“in decline?” What are the contemporary issues that are shaping American
foreign policy?”

Clinton spoke about Nye’s theories of “smart power” during the 2009 Senate
confirmation hearing prior to her appointment as President Barack Obama’s
first secretary of state.

“I believe that American leadership has been wanting, but is still wanted,”
Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We must use what has
been called ‘smart power': the full range of tools at our disposal —
diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural — picking
the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation.”

“Smart power” means that military power must frequently take a backseat to
negotiation, the ambitious former first lady explained.

“With smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy,”
Clinton told her former fellow senators. “This is not a radical idea. The
ancient Roman poet Terence, who was born a slave and rose to become one of
the great voices of his time, declared that ‘in every endeavor, the seemly
course for wise men is to try persuasion first.’ The same truth binds wise
women as well.”

Nye explained in a 2009 essay in Foreign Affairs that he created the term
“smart power” to “counter the misperception that soft power alone can
produce effective foreign policy.” The phrase means a combination of “both
hard and soft power,” he wrote.

In her own book about herself, “Hard Choices,” Clinton elaborates on her
use of “smart power.”

“Beyond the traditional work of negotiating treaties and attending
diplomatic conferences, we had to — among other tasks — engage activists on
social media, help determine energy pipeline routes, limit carbon
emissions, encourage marginalized groups to participate in politics, stand
up for universal human rights, and defend common economic rules of the
road,” Clinton wrote. “This analysis led me to embrace a concept known as
smart power, which had been kicking around Washington for a few years.
Harvard’s Joseph Nye, Suzanne Nossel of Human Rights Watch, and a few
others had used the term, although we all had in mind slightly different
meanings.”

In 2011, Nye wrote a hagiographic paean about Clinton in Time magazine’s
list of “the most influential people in the world.” Nye called Clinton
“tough.” With an eerie, world-historical lack of foresight, he praised
Clinton’s action in Libya by saying: “[W]hen Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi
threatened to massacre civilians in Benghazi, she was key in building
support in the U.N. for the multilateral military action that is helping to
protect those civilians.”

A little over a year later, Islamic militants attacked a U.S. diplomatic
compound in Benghazi, slaughtering an American ambassador J. Christopher
Stevens and another American official.

Nye, the former dean of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of
Government, served in the Carter administration in two different foreign
policy roles. From 1993 to 1995, he served in the State Department under
Bill Clinton as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and in
another capacity as well.

The other two book Rubio assigns students in his FIU course are “The World
America Made” by liberal interventionist foreign policy historian Robert
Kagan and “No One’s World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global
Turn” by Georgetown University School of Foreign Service professor Charles
A. Kupchan.

Rand Paul’s Donations Show His Small-Town Appeal
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/upshot/rand-pauls-donations-show-his-small-town-appeal.html?abt=0002&abg=0>
// NYT – The Upshot // Derek Willis – May 5, 2015

Online fund-raising data from the first several weeks of Rand Paul’s
presidential campaign suggests that much of his initial small-dollar
support has come from smaller cities and towns.

After starting his campaign on April 7 with a “Stand With Rand” online
appeal, his campaign brought in its first $1 million in less than 30 hours,
from more than 15,500 donations, according to data published on
RandPaul.com and collected by The Upshot.

He has far to go to match the success of his father, Ron Paul, in
collecting money over the Internet. The initial flurry for Rand Paul faded
quickly. It took an additional 16 days for the figure to double.

Supporters of Ron Paul contributed $4 million in a single day in 2007, and
in 2011 the elder Mr. Paul did a one-day “money bomb” online fund-raising
effort that netted $1 million for his presidential campaign.

Although Rand Paul has received hundreds of contributions from donors in
cities such as Houston, New York, Los Angeles and Phoenix, a
disproportionate number have come from donors in smaller cities and towns.
More than a quarter of Rand Paul’s online donors list addresses in
communities with populations of less than 10,000. According to the 2010
Census, about 15 percent of Americans lived in incorporated areas with
populations of less than 10,000. That support reveals his appeal among
rural donors (like those in his home state of Kentucky).

At least 21 contributions have come from donors listing an address of
Cumming, Ga., which has a population of about 5,500, although places with a
Cumming mailing address, in the Atlanta metropolitan area, have a
population of around 100,000. At least 15 donations are from Magnolia,
Tex., one for every 105 residents in the Houston suburb.

The two Pauls do share some of the same donor base: At least 2,000 of the
donors to Rand Paul in April gave money to his father’s 2012 campaign, an
analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows; the number is very
likely higher because many small-dollar contributors do not appear on
F.E.C. filings.

The average donation recorded by the RandPaul.com site hovered around $60
during the first few weeks, although the site did not list the amount of
each contribution, just the total number of donors and the total amount.
That means that Rand Paul will be able to go back to many of these
supporters during the primary season. Indeed, some of them have already
given multiple times.

Beginning on April 7 and continuing through Sunday, The Upshot was able to
collect records of more than 28,000 online contributors to Rand Paul. That
data, which represents at least $2.6 million, doesn’t include all of the
contributions that the campaign has received (the campaign declined to
release a total). In particular, it doesn’t include high-dollar
fund-raising events where donors typically provide a check. The Upshot was
able to match more than 25,000 records with census data to obtain
population figures.

Rand Paul started his campaign on April 7 with a “Stand With Rand” online
appeal.

The data doesn’t include all of the money that Rand Paul has raised online.
The campaign briefly stopped showing donor information, and there were at
least two periods of several hours each when The Upshot was unable to
collect information.

Most of the individuals displayed on the site won’t have their names
recorded in F.E.C. filings, which require only disclosure of donors who
give $200 or more in aggregate (the next filing deadline for most
candidates is July 15).

Not all of the information displayed on RandPaul.com appears to reflect
actual donors, suggesting that, despite moderating donor names, the site is
showing the names of a few people who fill out donation forms even if they
don’t give money (or the transaction doesn’t go through). On the first day,
the site displayed the names of “Fake Fakerton of Fake Town, R.I.” and
“Hillary Clinton of Saint Clair Shores, Mich.,” among others.

TOP NEWS

DOMESTIC

Passing budgets and modest bills, Congress slowly increases productivity
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/passing-budgets-and-modest-bills-congress-slowly-increases-productivity/2015/05/05/3071fa9a-f29a-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html>
// Washington Post // Paul Kane – May 6, 2015

For just the first time in six years, Congress gave final approval to its
annual budget resolution Tuesday — the latest in a slow but steady churn of
progress that suggests maybe the new boss isn’t the same as the old boss.

Later this week the Senate likely could pass a bipartisan bill to set up a
congressional review of a potential nuclear deal with Iran, coming on the
heels of a large bipartisan vote in the House and Senate for a bill to
combat sex trafficking. A little over two weeks ago, the bipartisan
leadership held a back-slapping ceremony to celebrate a new law that
eliminated cuts to Medicare reimbursements for doctors.

“This Senate is dramatically different than the last one in severable
measurable ways,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in an
interview last week.

What Republicans tout as a sea change, however, Democrats view as a new
Congress merely passing the low-hanging fruit of legislation, and even that
can still look dysfunctional.

Two months ago there was a near-shutdown of the Department of Homeland
Security, and it took more than a month to approve the legislation creating
a fund for sex trafficking victims. Both of those largely bipartisan issues
got caught up in separate contentious issues that bogged down the Capitol
for weeks and weeks.

The process has left some rank-and-file lawmakers saying that they’ve seen
some substantial progress, only to see a return to old habits.

“I think the jury is out,” said Sen. Angus King (Maine), an independent who
caucuses with Democrats and has been trying to bridge the partisan divide.
“There are several other bills sort of waiting in line. We may end up being
pretty productive, but I think it’s a little early to say at this point.”

There’s no question that more is happening across the Capitol. House
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has adapted into a PowerPoint
presentation the work of undergraduate students from Harvard, showing that
more bills were introduced in the House during the first 100 days than in
the same time of 2011 and 2013.

Moreover, the House passed 62 bills in its first 100 days, more than the
combined total in the first 100 days of 2011 and 2013. “With your help,
things are different in Washington,” McCarthy wrote to his GOP colleagues
on Friday.

Of those 62 bills approved by the House, eight were signed into law. That’s
not much different than the seven signed into law in the first 100 days of
2011 when Democrats controlled the Senate and Republicans ran the House.

One of those laws, the Medicare reimbursement plan was significant because
it included some changes to the program as well as an extension of a
popular children insurance program. The rest were largely ceremonial or
extensions of existing laws.

McConnell acknowledged that he has dialed back his expectations for big
bipartisan accomplishments in the final two years of President Obama’s
administration. He has, for example, cast aside hope for a comprehensive
revision of the tax code.

“I can’t see it being done, which is a shame, because it would be a perfect
thing to tackle in the time of divided government,” McConnell said. “But
I’m very skeptical that we can go forward on that.”

Instead, the new focus is “emphasizing things worth doing that enjoy some
bipartisan support,” McConnell said. He is going through a series of
one-on-one meetings with Democrats to get to know them and their priorities
better. McConnell recently huddled with Sen. Timothy M. Kaine (D-Va.) and
has an upcoming sit-down with King.

Just a third of the way into this year, McConnell declined to give himself
a full grade until the two-year Congress is complete. “I think it’s too
early to make that evaluation but I think on the dysfunction issue, I think
it is not too early to make an evaluation of that,” he said.

Passing the budget is an example of easing the dysfunction. Not since 2009,
when Democrats controlled Congress, have the House and Senate approved
annual budgets and then reconciled the differences to pass a joint
resolution from which the two chambers could work the rest of the year.

A key example of dissipating gridlock came last week when Obama signed a
modest energy efficiency bill into law written by a bipartisan pair of
swing-state senators, Democrat Jean Shaheen (N.H.) and Republican Rob
Portman (Ohio).

In 2013 and 2014, facing a very difficult reelection, Shaheen wanted to
pass the legislation to demonstrate her effectiveness. The legislation made
it onto the Senate floor only to get bogged down by Republican demands for
amendments on other energy issues, including the controversial Keystone XL
pipeline.

Democrats, with many incumbents facing tough 2014 elections, shielded their
incumbents from taking tough votes, so the Shaheen-Portman bill died. After
Democrats lost the majority, the bill was approved unanimously at the tail
end of a marathon budget marathon at 4 a.m. March 27.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who spent the previous two years trying to
negotiate between McConnell and the Democratic leader, Sen. Harry M. Reid
(Nev.), said basic politics has forced each side to stand down on some
previously partisan stands.

“McConnell, as much or more than anyone, realized that we can’t go to the
voters in 2016 with a record along the lines of what just happened in the
last six years,” McCain said.

Some see the House as the continually unsteady pressure cooker of Congress.
Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a leading centrist, said he was losing faith in
the first two months of the year with the focus on social issues,
culminating in the near shutdown of DHS over immigration, but the next two
months were relatively stable.

On Thursday, however, the House voted largely on party lines to strike down
a District law that banned discrimination against residents who use
abortion services, a social issue that was reminiscent of the first few
weeks in January. “Here we go again,” Dent said.

Some lawmakers see success in tackling some big issues, such as the
legislation to have a review of the potential Iranian deal, while major
ones like drafting a new war resolution for Iraq have been avoided.

“As long as we’ve got a war going on — nine months into the war come May 8,
with no debate on the floor of either body — I’m not going to concede that
we are shouldering our responsibilities,” Kaine said. “I’m seeing some
positive signs, but we’ve got a war going on.”

California board approves emergency water rules
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/05/california-water-restrictions-missed-targets/26928275/>
// USA Today // Ian James - May 6, 2015

California's state water board on Tuesday approved emergency drought
regulations that aim to slash water use in urban areas by 25 percent.

The measures call for cities and water agencies to reduce water usage by
amounts ranging from 8 percent to 36 percent. The State Water Resources
Control Board drew up the rules to meet Gov. Jerry Brown's order for a
25-percent cut in urban water use statewide.

It's the first time that California has ever put in place mandatory
reductions in water use. The plan reflects just how bleak the state's water
picture has become. The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada has shrunk to a
record low. Groundwater levels have plummeted across much of California,
and in some areas of the Central Valley, the wells of hundreds of families
have run dry.

Felicia Marcus, chair of the water board, called the cutbacks "a collective
issue that we all need to rise to in this time of emergency."

According to the latest figures released by the board, Californians reduced
water use by just 3.6 percent in March as compared to the same month in
2013. That was a slight change from a 2.8 percent reduction in February,
and significantly less than a 22 percent drop in December and a 7.3 percent
reduction in January.

Max Gomberg, a senior environmental scientist with the state water board,
called the new mandatory measures a "desperate times approach."

epa04696368 A 'River Closed' sign is posted on theThe Truckee River is
closed after it dried up because there was no water from Lake Tahoe on
April 8 in the Sierra Nevada mountains near Lake, Calif. The level of the
lake is 6 feet below its minimal level of flowing into the Truckee River.

The state water board will have the authority to issue fines of up to
$10,000 against cities or water districts that don't reach their targets
and that violate state orders.

State officials, however, said they prefer to work with water districts to
help them achieve reductions in water use right away.

"We're going to be engaged with the suppliers from the beginning," Gomberg
said during the meeting in Sacramento.

Under the regulations approved by the board on Tuesday night, water
agencies will have discretion in determining how they achieve their overall
reduction targets. They will be able to choose, for instance, how much of
the cutbacks are borne by commercial and industrial customers as well as by
domestic customers.

The regulations exclude the vast majority of farms in California. They also
don't touch the use of recycled water. But properties such as golf courses
that rely on water pumped from private wells are to be required to use 25
percent less water or limit watering to two days a week.

Brown and other state officials have recommended that water districts meet
their targets using approaches such as changing prices and enforcing
restrictions on watering times.

During Tuesday's meeting, the state water board for the first time released
data on the actions that agencies have taken to enforce rules against
wasting water, including issuing fines. The board said 290 of the 411 water
suppliers provided data on their enforcement during March, and most of them
issued 20 or fewer notices for incidents of water waste.

Water agencies reported a total of 10,877 complaints of wasteful water use
or violations of drought rules, as well as 8,762 warnings issued and 682
penalties assessed.

Marcus and other state officials said they're focusing on ways to reduce
the amounts of water used for lawns and other "ornamental" landscaping
outdoors, which accounts for the biggest share of Californians' residential
water use. They also are trying to move quickly to put the rules in place
before the summer months, when the heaviest outdoor water use typically
occurs.

With the extreme drought now in a fourth year in California, Marcus said,
the latest measures aim to "ensure urban resilience" if the drought
persists for another year or beyond.

"It is better to prepare now than to face much more painful cuts should it
not rain in the fall," she said. "I do get all the fears and the concerns,
but I do think this is a moment to rise to an occasion and an
all-hands-on-deck kind of a moment."

E.P.A. Carbon Emissions Plan Could Save Thousands of Lives, Study Finds
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/health/epa-emissions-plan-will-save-thousands-of-lives-study-finds.html?referrer=&_r=1&gwh=180D4B8493B33CEF60B79866DE7D1764&gwt=pay>
// NYT // May 5, 2015

New carbon emissions standards that were proposed last year for coal-fired
power plants in the United States would substantially improve human health
and prevent more than 3,000 premature deaths per year, according to a new
study.

The study, led by researchers at Syracuse and Harvard Universities, used
modeling to predict the effect on human health of changes to national
carbon standards for power plants. The researchers calculated three
different outcomes using data from the Census Bureau and detailed maps of
the more than 2,400 fossil-fuel power plants across the country.

The model with the biggest health benefit was the one that most closely
resembled the changes that the Environmental Protection Agency proposed in
a rule in June. Under that plan, reductions in carbon emissions for the
plants would be set by states and would include improvements to the energy
efficiency of, for example, air-conditioners, refrigerators and power grids.

The health benefits of the rule would be indirect. While carbon emissions
trap heat in the atmosphere, which contributes to a warming planet, they
are not directly linked to health threats. Emissions from coal-fired power
plants, however, also include a number of other pollutants, such as soot
and ozone, that are directly linked to illnesses like asthma and lung
disease.

Researchers calculated that the changes in the E.P.A. rule could prevent
3,500 premature deaths a year and more than 1,000 heart attacks and
hospitalizations from air-pollution-related illness.

The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. The
largest declines in pollution — and consequent benefits to health — would
happen in states in the Ohio River Valley, including Pennsylvania and Ohio,
which have some of the highest levels of emissions, researchers said.

Charles T. Driscoll, a professor of environmental systems engineering at
Syracuse who was the lead author of the paper, said research began about a
year before the E.P.A. proposed the carbon reduction plan. It was a
coincidence that one of the researchers’ models so closely resembled the
federal proposal.

The model with the deepest cuts in emissions was based on the use of a
carbon tax, but because energy efficiency was not part of that version, it
prevented fewer premature deaths, researchers found. The third version,
which assumed that plants would be revamped and modernized, an effort that
some industry representatives favor, produced almost no change in air
quality or health benefits.

“The idea is to inform the federal and state governments that your state
and federal policy matters,” Dr. Driscoll said.

This summer, President Obama plans to unveil a final set of climate change
regulations to curb planet-warming emissions from power plants in the
United States. The climate rule, as proposed in draft form last year by the
E.P.A., would cut carbon emissions from power plants 30 percent from 2005
levels by 2030.

The rule will chiefly target coal-fired power plants, the nation’s largest
source of carbon emissions. They would require every state to submit a plan
to shift their energy systems from heavily carbon polluting sources of
power, such as coal plants, to cleaner power sources.

In making the case for the rule, the Obama administration has highlighted
its indirect health benefits. Mr. Obama’s political advisers have made the
bet that a policy presented as a move to reduce childhood asthma and other
diseases will gain more public traction than a complex new energy policy
designed to reduce global warming in the long term.

Critics say the rule would increase the cost of energy, an outcome that
would harm lower-income Americans.

Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, an
energy industry association, said it was an overstatement to claim that the
rule would prevent so many premature deaths, because the reductions would
bring emissions levels well below what the E.P.A. has previously said could
harm health. He said the administration had already claimed the same
benefits justify other rules, which amounted to double counting.

“It’s like Enron-style accounting,” he said, referring to the energy
company that collapsed after revelations about flawed accounting standards.

Dr. Leonard Bielory, a researcher at Rutgers University who was not
involved in the study, said that it did manage to show that the rule would
bring positive health effects, but that the extent was far from clear. “Are
these the real numbers you’ll save?” he said. “That’s really a gray zone.”

Dr. Driscoll acknowledged the hazards of precision in a modeling exercise,
but said the paper tried to quantify the uncertainty. For example, the
projection of 3,500 deaths prevented was an average of a much broader range
of 780 deaths to 6,100 deaths.

U.S. Trade Gap Widens on Surging Imports
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-trade-gap-widens-on-surging-imports-1430829294>
// WSJ// Eric Morath – May 5, 2015

WASHINGTON—A stronger dollar and an influx of pent-up imports into West
Coast ports are pointing the U.S. economy toward its third quarterly
contraction in its six-year-long expansion, reflecting choppy conditions
that appear set to restrain growth throughout the year.

The nation’s trade deficit expanded by 43.1% in March from February, the
largest monthly widening since 1996, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.
A record level of non-petroleum imports flowed into the U.S. after a labor
dispute at West Coast ports ended, causing the seasonally adjusted trade
gap to widen to $51.37 billion.

That was significantly larger than economists had forecast, even with
pressure from a strong dollar and weak global growth. As a result,
revisions could push the official reading for first-quarter gross domestic
product into negative territory from the paltry 0.2% annualized gain
initially reported last week.

“The underlying story remains the same: Growth faltered at the start of the
year with very few signs of momentum,” said Sterne Agee economist Lindsey
Piegza.

After the trade report, economists at J.P. Morgan Chase and Deutsche Bank
cut their first-quarter GDP growth estimates to show a 0.5% contraction.
Forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers lowered its reading by six-tenths
of a percent to a 0.4% contraction. All three had previously estimated a
tiny expansion for the quarter.

The figures represent a setback for the U.S. economy, but it overcame a
similar one that surfaced last year.

Following a contraction in the first quarter of 2014, the economy grew at
an almost 4% pace for the rest of the year. And employers added jobs last
year at the best rate since the mid-1990s, raising hopes that the
long-awaited breakout had arrived.

Instead, the U.S. appears to have again hit the brakes at the start of the
year. That exposes a host of concerns, including the drag on growth from a
stronger dollar, persistent weakness among key trading partners in China
and Europe and the reliance on U.S. consumers to drive the world’s economy.

“It’s really a global challenge right now,” said Marc Skalla, president of
Atlanta-based SASCO Chemical Group Inc., which makes chemicals for tires
and other industries. The firm expects sales to grow by 20% this year, but
the stronger dollar is squeezing export profits.

A stronger dollar has “taken contracts that we worked on last year and
completely changed them,” Mr. Skalla said. “We’ll feel it on the margins.”

From mid-2014 through the end of March, the dollar appreciated by more than
20% against a weighted index of major currencies tracked by the Federal
Reserve. The Fed index shows the dollar’s value has fallen somewhat since
early April, a move that could cushion exporters from some of the fallout.

The latest economic setback comes with plenty of caveats. Upcoming data on
inventories and services could again recast the view of the first quarter.
The domestic economy also appears to be relatively firm. Consumer
confidence is rising, household spending picked up since the winter and
lower oil prices are likely to boost many consumers and businesses this
year.

March’s trade gap was the largest of the expansion, driven by a rebound
after ports on the West Coast returned to normal following a monthslong
labor dispute. That helped imports post a record 7.7% improvement on the
month. Goods imports from China were up 32% compared with March 2014.
Meanwhile, exports only inched up 0.9%.

The trade gap in February, when the labor dispute ended, was the smallest
since late 2009. The three-month moving average for the trade gap, a
measure that evens out swings, shows it expanded modestly from a year
earlier.

Imports at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which together handle
around 40% of the U.S. imported container traffic, reached near-record
levels in March, which is typically one of the slowest months of the year
at the ports.

The Port of Los Angeles, the country’s busiest container port, said import
volume grew 70% in March from February. Export volume, which typically
makes up only about half the business at Los Angeles, wasn't as strong,
growing 10% month to month and falling 23% from a year earlier.

The Maritime Exchange of Southern California said the backlog of ships
anchored at sea waiting for a port berth reached a peak of 36 ships the
week of Feb. 26. The logjam had all but disappeared by late last week.

Norfolk Southern Corp. ’s business in the first quarter reflected unusual
activity related to the West Coast port issues, Chief Executive Charles
“Wick” Moorman said, adding that unusually cold weather and the strong
dollar are also factors in the import surge.

By mid-March, the railway operator’s business started to return to normal,
Mr. Moorman said. That repeats a pattern seen last year, when economic
output turned negative in the first quarter and then snapped back quickly.

“It feels a lot like it did last year,” he said.

JACO Machine Works LLC, a Santa Cruz, Calif., firm that produces parts for
medical equipment, scientific instruments and other applications saw a
slowdown in orders from a German customer.

“They tell me that European market is soft for them,” President Andy Smith
said. In contrast, JACO has seen increased demand from California firms
building medical devices and robots. “The first quarter wasn’t great, but I
still see a strong domestic economy.”

Despite the widening of the overall trade gap, the petroleum deficit
continued to narrow in the U.S. Over the past several years, the amount of
petroleum shipped to the U.S. declined while domestic production increased.

The trade deficit for petroleum products fell to $7.67 billion in March,
the lowest since June 2002. After climbing above $100 a barrel last June,
benchmark oil prices plunged through the second half of 2014 and have
stayed near $50 a barrel most of this year.

From a year earlier, U.S. imports are up 1% and exports are down 3%. The
more subtle change suggests the appreciation of the dollar hampers exports.
In addition, slowing economies in parts of Europe and Asia have reduced
demand for U.S. goods and services.

How a turbulent global economy will shape the U.S. expansion is high on the
minds of Federal Reserve officials. In a statement following last month’s
policy meeting, central bankers acknowledged that economic growth slowed in
the winter months.

If central bankers see global developments holding back U.S. growth, they
could wait longer to raise short-term interest rates from near zero.

—Jeffrey Sparshott and Paul Page contributed to this article.

INTERNATIONAL

Germany, Too, Is Accused of Spying on Friends
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/world/europe/scandal-over-spying-shakes-german-government.html?ref=world&_r=0>
// NYT // Alison Smalemay – May 5, 2015

BERLIN — About 18 months ago, Chancellor Angela Merkel was the wronged
American ally whose cellphone number was among data sucked up by American
intelligence as it kept watch on Europeans.

“Spying among friends — that is simply not done,” she said after the
discovery in autumn 2013, to a sympathetic domestic audience.

Within the past two weeks, the tide has turned. Ms. Merkel is back in the
spotlight over spying. This time it is Germany’s foreign intelligence
service, known here as the B.N.D., that is being accused of monitoring
European companies and perhaps individuals. Further, the reports said the
spying was done at the behest of the National Security Agency, the United
States intelligence organization.

Critics have seized on the spying allegations, sensing a whiff of hypocrisy
emanating from Berlin, given the German outrage over the American program.
On Tuesday, Austria was the offended party, filing a legal complaint
against the German and American intelligence agencies over suspicions that
it was being spied on, Reuters reported.

Ms. Merkel’s maxim about not spying on friends means “she must be measured
by it,” said Stefan Kornelius, author of a biography of the chancellor and
the foreign editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Government officials are also scrambling to head off accusations by some
German news outlets and opposition figures that Ms. Merkel’s government and
some of her allies failed their constitutional duty to supervise the
intelligence services and inform Parliament of the services’ activities.

Gregor Gysi, the vocal leader of the former Communists and other
far-leftists in the opposition Left party, accused Ms. Merkel of “treason.”

The accusation was angrily rebutted on Monday by Gerhard Schindler, head of
the B.N.D. He dismissed as “absolutely absurd” any suggestion that his
agency was “a compliant tool” of the Americans.

The details of what the German government did or did not do in collusion
with the American government remain murky, caught up in the secrecy
inherent in security matters. But the federal prosecutor is examining
whether to begin a formal investigation.

The regular parliamentary committee that oversees all intelligence services
and a special parliamentary inquiry into the National Security Agency are
also seeking more details and questioning key officials.

The matter raises anew the questions that flared in 2013 with the release
of American government documents by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A.
contractor, revealing the extent of American spying operations domestically
and abroad. In the United States, Congress is now poised to reel in some of
the surveillance measures that were adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks.

But Germans reacted with revulsion when the extent of American spying on
Europeans was revealed. Germany’s memory of the Nazi and Communist regimes
that spied on their citizens gave the revelations a special edge. Mr.
Snowden is more of a popular hero here than elsewhere in Europe, and
anti-N.S.A. sentiment remains high.

Continue reading the main story

At the same time, attacks by Islamist militants and the threat of homegrown
extremists have challenged the intelligence equation in Europe. The French
government is expanding its intelligence services’ powers to combat
terrorism.

Ms. Merkel, asked on Monday whether her maxim about spying among friends
still applied, said this was an “important” question and added, “I think
the answer should be that it should not occur.”

But she recalled that she had noted in 2013 that it was necessary to strike
a balance between liberty and security, and that this “will continue to be
my job.”

“There is an innate tension,” she added. “We must improve what needs to be
improved through reports to the parliamentary control bodies. But on the
other hand, even if it is not so popular right now, it is part of their job
for our intelligence services, especially the B.N.D., that they must and
will cooperate internationally to protect the bodies and lives of 80
million Germans as best they can.”

“First and foremost,” she said, that means cooperation with the National
Security Agency.

In 2013, Ms. Merkel — facing re-election, which she handily won for a third
term — succeeded in tamping down what is known here as the N.S.A. scandal.

But it never went away. Since starting work last year, the special
parliamentary inquiry into the N.S.A. affair has summoned witnesses,
including former United States intelligence officials, who painted what
many Germans see as a damning picture of American surveillance practices.

The current flare-up started on April 23 when Der Spiegel reported that
since at least 2008, a division of the B.N.D. had helped the National
Security Agency to spy on European and German interests, including the
French-German enterprise European Aeronautic Defense and Space, now known
as the Airbus Group.

Besides raising eyebrows about the scope of the spying operation, and the
targets, the report questioned whether the German intelligence service had
failed to fully inform the Chancellery or Parliament about it.

The government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, acknowledged, without providing
details, that the government had been working for weeks with the foreign
intelligence service to assure that the agency was in compliance with the
reporting rules.

“Technological and organizational deficiencies at the B.N.D.” were
identified, he said, and the government gave “immediate orders that they be
rectified.”

In a statement, he said the government would continue to keep parliamentary
committees informed about intelligence activities, including the accuracy
of the emerging allegations. The government will also examine whether
information given to Parliament in the past continues “to be accurate
beyond any reasonable doubt,” the statement said.

The statement said there was no sign of current or past “massive spying on
German and European citizens.” But it omitted any mention of businesses or
individuals, and whether they had been targeted.

The most concrete indication that espionage might have occurred has come
from Airbus, which filed a legal complaint last week against unnamed
persons on suspicion of economic espionage and asked the German government
for more information.

Continue reading the main story

Rainer Ohler, an Airbus Group spokesman, would confirm only that “we are in
contact” with Berlin. Members of the German Parliament have suggested that
Washington may influence how much the German government can reveal to
Airbus.

Thomas de Maizière, a close Merkel ally who ran her Chancellery from 2005
to 2009 and was thus responsible for the intelligence services, has
dismissed the spying allegations. Mr. de Maizière, now the interior
minister, said on Monday that he had been involved in decisions against
deepening certain ties with the National Security Agency in 2008, in order
to protect German interests.

Mr. de Maizière is to testify this week before the parliamentary inquiry.
Committee members have demanded that the government release a list of the
data the B.N.D. gave to the National Security Agency.

In the meantime, pressure mounts on Ms. Merkel. On Monday, her No. 2, Vice
Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the center-left Social Democrats who
govern with her conservatives in a coalition, took the unusual step of
describing two conversations with her to reporters. Mr. Gabriel had asked,
he said, whether there was anything to the swirling allegations, and
believed her when she said there was not.

But, he noted, “what we are witnessing now is an affair, a secret service
scandal, which could set off a very grave tremor.”

Obama Administration Approves First Ferry Service to Cuba
<http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/05/05/world/americas/ap-cb-cuba-ferries.html?ref=world>
// The Associated Press // May 5, 2015

HAVANA — The Obama administration approved the first ferry service in
decades between the United States and Cuba on Tuesday, potentially opening
a new path for the hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of millions
of dollars in goods that travel between Florida and Havana each year.

Baja Ferries, which operates passenger service in Mexico, said it received
a license from the U.S. Treasury Department. Robert Muse, a lawyer for Baja
Ferries, said he believed other ferry service petitions had also been
approved. The Treasury Department said it could not immediately confirm
that, but the Sun-Sentinel newspaper in Florida said approvals also were
received by Havana Ferry Partners of Fort Lauderdale, United Caribbean
Lines Florida in the Orlando area and Airline Brokers Co. of Miami.

Muse said Baja had yet to request approval from Cuba, but added that he was
optimistic the service would allow a significant increase in trade and
travel between the two countries.

The Cuban government made no immediate comment on the news and it is far
from clear that it is willing or able to allow a major new channel for the
movement of goods and people between the two countries.

"I think it's a further indication of the seriousness of the Obama
administration in normalizing relations with Cuba," said Muse, an expert on
U.S. law on Cuba. "We're now going from the theoretical to the very
specific."

Before Cuba's 1959 revolution, ferries ran daily between Florida and Cuba,
bringing American tourists to Havana's hotels and casinos and allowing
Cubans to take overnight shopping trips to the United States.

That ended with the revolution, and the more than 600,000 people who travel
between the U.S. and Cuba each year depend on expensive charter flights.
About 80 percent of U.S .travelers to Cuba are Cuban-Americans visiting
relatives, and a large number travel with huge amounts of consumer goods
unavailable in communist Cuba, from baby clothes to flat-screen TV sets.
That cargo has become increasingly expensive and difficult to bring in
recent years due to the high prices charged by charters and tightened Cuban
customs rules.

Muse said he believed ferries would allow lower-priced passenger and cargo
service and provide a potential conduit for new forms of trade allowed by
Obama when he announced a series of loopholes in the trade embargo on Cuba
late last year. Among other measures, Obama allowed the import of some
goods produced by Cuba's new private sector and allowed the virtually
unlimited export of products to entrepreneurs.

Ferries also provide a new route for U.S. travelers to Cuba, who also
depend on the charter services. Travel from the U.S. has been rising since
Obama's Dec. 17 announcement, and new pressure groups are pushing for
Congress to end all travel restrictions and allow pure tourism, currently
prohibited by law.

Andrea Rodriguez contributed to this report.

40 Migrants Reported Dead After Dinghy Burst at Sea
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/40-migrants-reported-dead-after-dinghy-burst-at-sea-1430828951>
// WSJ // Liam Moloney - May 5, 2015

ROME—About 40 migrants drowned during a sea crossing from Libya to southern
Italy over the weekend when one of the dinghies they were traveling in
exploded or burst from the heat of the sun, according to other migrants who
were traveling with them.

Rescued migrants—sub-Saharans from countries such as Mali, Senegal, Ghana
and Gambia—told the Save the Children aid group that they were making the
crossing in two rubber boats. One carried about 100 migrants, while the
other had around 137 on board.

“There is still a lot of confusion about what happened, and it all has to
be verified by the authorities but some migrants are telling us that around
40 drowned when one of the dinghies exploded or burst from the heat of the
sun,” Save the Children spokeswoman Giovanna di Benedetto said over the
phone from the Sicilian port of Catania.

Migrants wait to disembark from a Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station
in  Pozzallo, Italy, on Tuesday. A charity said that 40 migrants were
feared drowned after their dinghy sank.

Migrants wait to disembark from a Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station
in Pozzallo, Italy, on Tuesday. A charity said that 40 migrants were feared
drowned after their dinghy sank. Photo: Associated Press

At least 10 unaccompanied minors were among those rescued and put ashore in
Catania on Tuesday, Ms. Di Benedetto said. She didn’t say if any minors
were among those reported dead. The incident is believed to have taken
place on Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the Italian coast guard said that the authorities had no
knowledge of the drownings reported to Save the Children.

More than 8,000 migrants have been saved since Saturday and 10 have died,
according to officials. The coast guard said that five dead bodies were
found when rescuers on a merchant ship reached the rubber boats. Three
bodies were found on a vessel in a different rescue. Two migrants drowned
after going overboard in a third incident.

Italy’s interior ministry expects to see as many as 200,000 migrants reach
its shores this year, an increase from the more than 170,000 who came in
2014.

The migrants are heading to Europe to avoid conflicts in Africa and the
Middle East. Human traffickers use a lawless Libya as a base to send
overcrowded boats on perilous journeys.

More than 1,600 people are believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean
this year as they attempted to reach Europe, the majority of them in April,
according to Amnesty International. That’s a more than 50-fold annual
increase over the same period.

Calmer weather, typical in the Mediterranean in the spring and summer
months, usually signals a surge in departures of vessels packed with
migrants.

Children disembark from the Italian Navy vessel 'Bettica' in the harbor of
Salerno, Italy, on Tuesday. ENLARGE

Children disembark from the Italian Navy vessel 'Bettica' in the harbor of
Salerno, Italy, on Tuesday. Photo: Associated Press

Calmer weather, typical in the Mediterranean in the spring and summer
months, usually signals a surge in departures of vessels packed with
migrants.

The Italian Navy said on Monday that among the more than 2,000 migrants
that it rescued over the weekend was a pregnant woman who gave birth to a
girl on board its ship Bettica. The navy added that mother and daughter,
named Francesca Marina, were doing well. Marina is a common Italian first
name and it also means “navy.”

Rescued migrants are also being put ashore in the southern Italian regions
of Calabria and Campania to ease the pressure off Sicily which takes almost
all those arriving.

‘Some migrants are telling us that around 40 drowned when one of the
dinghies exploded or burst from the heat of the sun.’

—Save the Children spokeswoman Giovanna di Benedetto

About half of migrants reaching Italy end up in reception centers in the
poorer south of the peninsula—something that irks the central government as
it feels the affluent northern Italy isn’t doing its part in helping out.

After some 800 migrants died on a boat off Libya, European Union leaders
agreed last month on a more robust response to the migration problem,
including tripling the budget for EU patrols of Italy’s border.

Rome is pleased with the extra cash, but political leaders in Italy have
expressed disappointment over the modest help they are getting from other
EU countries with the migrants once they arrive on Italian soil, and an
unwillingness to distribute them among member states.

OPINIONS/EDITORIALS/BLOGS

What the Clintons Can Learn From Ben Franklin's Foreign Money Scandal
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/03/the-clintons-snuff-box-problem.html?via=mobile&source=twitter>
// Daily Beast // Zephyr Teachout - May 5, 2015

More than 200 years ago, we included in our Constitution a provision that
forbids federal officers from accepting a gift of any kind whatever from
foreign interests without first getting permission from Congress (Article
I, Section 9, the so-called Emoluments Clause). We borrowed the provision
from the Netherlands, where it was ridiculed for being overly fussy about
corruption. But we put it in both our Constitution and in that document’s
forerunner, the Articles of Confederation, as a defense against emulating
the corrupt culture of Europe.

The unlikely source of the provision was a snuff box. A few years before
the constitutional convention, the King of France gave Benjamin Franklin a
diamond encrusted snuff box after his diplomatic tour. Franklin did not
appear to offer anything in return, but the gift nonetheless led to
concerns that Franklin might be quietly corrupted by French
interests—perhaps even without his knowing it.

The Americans, rigidly rejecting European custom, believed that acceptance
of a luxurious gift by someone in power was itself a threat. Perhaps
Franklin would be more generous toward French commercial interests simply
by the operation of normal human sympathies, which to tend to be more
charitable toward those who give us gifts. The framers tried to put a check
on those sympathies, or at least put a block in the relationship, by
requiring that Congress approve any gifts to federal officials.

Ironically, at the constitutional convention, Franklin was among the most
outspoken in favor of anti-corruption provisions. His own lifelong
experience with governments around the world had made him wary of the many
ways in which officials could be tempted. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson,
George Mason, and Franklin weren’t wrong to be concerned about foreign
powers attempting to use money to buy influence and favorable treatment.

According to The New York Times, Bill Clinton received a $500,000 personal
payment from a Russian bank as payment for a speech in 2010. (In some
cases, Bill Clinton directs his speaking fees to the Clinton Foundation,
though there’s no evidence that happened in this case.) This payment
happened around the same time that Hillary Clinton’s State Department was
participating in the decision-making process on the legitimacy of Russian
takeover of American uranium interests (the decision was made by an
inter-agency body on which State was represented, but was chaired by
Treasury). Many people have raised concerns that this fee, like Benjamin
Franklin’s snuff box, might have swayed Bill Clinton’s—and
Hillary’s—general thinking toward Russian interests at the time.

In effect, the troubling morality ofCitizens Unitedhas become the official
morality of Clinton’s defenders.

Over the past several years, Bill Clinton has been given millions of
dollars for foreign and domestic speeches, with the greatest number of
sponsors coming from the financial industry. At the same time, he solicited
and received millions of dollars from foreign and domestic interests,
including. Many of the donors and sponsors had interests that were affected
by State Department policies, and all of the donors, past and current, have
interests that would be affected by a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Hillary Clinton has not addressed the issue publicly, but some of her
defenders have argued that without a smoking gun, or evidence of quid pro
quo, there’s nothing to be concerned about.

As the framers knew, we don’t need that in order to be concerned.

It’s not surprising that the Clintons do not want to answer questions about
foreign donations. So far, they have not addressed questions about the
apparent conflict of interest, leaving the Clinton Foundation to respond.
(They had company: Thomas Jefferson was so annoyed by the Emoluments Clause
that he hid his own later gift from the King of France, a diamond-encrusted
portrait; he had his aide take out the diamonds and sell them to pay down
his debt. He was not, he wrote, going to humiliate himself by going before
“the gridiron of Congress.”) But as citizens we must ask these questions.
Some Democrats want to ignore the issue, but love of party, as well as love
of country, requires us to demand more.

I am a Democrat. I will vote Democratic in the general election. But I
refuse to allow my party to be silent in the face of serious accusations of
conflict of interest. There are two reasons for this. I expect that the GOP
candidate will use this in 2016 to make explicit that Bill Clinton’s
$500,000 went into his personal account, the one he shares with Hillary
Clinton. Silence now doesn’t change the structure of the argument.

Second, I care deeply about my party, but I believe the health of a party
depends upon the openness of internal debate. I do not believe accusations
of outside influence are fatal, but I believe refusing to talk about them
might be.

We do not have a snuff box clause for the spouses of public officials—they
were not contemplated in the founding document. Instead, we have an
election—a “gridiron” of sorts. Hillary Clinton cannot undo the past, but
she can help explain it.

First, she can answer any questions about how she and her husband talk
about foreign policy and domestic policy in light of the need to protect
against donors using access to influence. They are not naive and must be
aware of the political motives of donors: how did they, and do they,
address these conflicts? Unlike campaign donations, which Hillary Clinton
has to pursue under our current system of privately financed campaigns,
these were avoidable situations. How did the Clintons think about, and
manage, the efforts of donors and sponsors to influence them?

Hillary Clinton has called for a constitutional amendment to overturn
Citizens United. But, ironically, her defenders are effectively using a
Citizens Uniteddefense—if there’s no quid pro quo, there’s no problem.
Access and influence are not corrupting. In effect, the troubling morality
of Citizens United has become the official morality of Clinton’s defenders.

She can also act now to limit the threat of future corruption. She has
indicated the Clinton Foundation will limit foreign donations. But to be
fair to her constituents, the Clintons should separate themselves entirely
from the Foundation, and immediately stop raising money. As a spouse and
daughter seeking major donations, former President Clinton and Chelsea
Clinton are rich targets for anyone seeking influence and access to Hillary
Clinton, whether the donor is foreign or domestic. Hillary Clinton should
also refuse to allow donations to her family members from people with
interests before her: not because all donations are corrupt, but because
the temptation is too great to use the channel for influence.

After the snuff box incident, Benjamin Franklin went on to become a leader
in framing key anti-corruption provisions in the Constitution, one of the
most radical of its time in demanding that we protect against appearances
of corruption, because appearances can too often lead to reality.

Hillary Clinton can do the same thing by coming forward with a full press
conference, severing all familial ties to the Clinton Foundation, and
proposing real, concrete solutions to the modern crisis of corruption. I’m
glad she is opposed to Citizens United, but a constitutional amendment
reversing that decision wouldn’t address the core problem of privately
financed campaigns, and the ongoing conflicts the private financing system
creates.

'House of Cards' star wants a Bill Clinton cameo
<http://thehill.com/video/in-the-news/241093-house-of-cards-star-wants-bill-clinton-to-make-cameo>
// The Hill //  Judy Kurtz - May 5, 2015

“House of Cards” star Michael Kelly has his pick for who he’d like to see
make a cameo on the Netflix hit.

“Probably Bill Clinton,” Kelly recently told ITK when asked who he’d love
to see appear on the political thriller.

So what role could the 42nd president — who has admitted he’s a major
“House of Cards” fan and counts the series’ fictional president, actor
Kevin Spacey, among his friends — possibly play?

“I think Bill Clinton’s probably a pretty good actor. I think he could
probably do anything,” Kelly said, before reconsidering. “I mean, it would
be kind of hard, the whole willing suspension of disbelief, to not see him
as Bill Clinton. But maybe he could come on and be Bill Clinton. That’d be
pretty cool.”

Kelly, who plays aide Doug Stamper on the show, also offered some other
options for real-life political co-stars: “Either the Clintons, either the
Obamas, I would love. I love [MSNBC 'Hardball’ host] Chris Matthews, but I
already did something with Chris Matthews on ‘The Good Wife.’”

But Kelly says of his top choices, “I would love the Obamas or the
Clintons, either one of those. I’d be thrilled.”

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