Subject: Correct The Record Saturday August 9, 2014 Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 12:50:01 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

**

*Correct The Record Saturday August 9, 2014 Roundup:*

*Headlines:*

*Arizona Capitol Times opinion: Surprise Mayor Sharon Wolcott: “GPEC
pursuing creative solutions to regional challenges”
<http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2014/08/08/gpec-pursuing-creative-solutions-to-regional-challenges/>*

“Hillary Clinton dedicates a chapter of her newly released book, ‘Hard
Choices,’ to her role as an advocate for American businesses while she
served as secretary of state, writing, ‘I was determined to do everything I
could to help American businesses and workers seize more of the legitimate
opportunities already available.’”

*CNN: “Hillary Clinton's unpaid warriors”
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/politics/clintons-unpaid-warriors/>*

“Magruder is an unsalaried Clinton warrior. And he isn't alone.”

*Capital New York: “The (Hillary) Beat goes on”
<http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/08/8549573/hillary-beat-goes>*

“Former Secretary of State, Senator and First Lady Hillary Clinton has not
declared any sort of candidacy for 2016, but the group of reporters
dedicated full-time by news outlets to follow her and report on her keeps
growing every month.”

*Newsmax: “Clintons Support Brooklyn as Host of '16 Democratic Convention”
<http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/DNC-Democratic-Convention-2016-Brooklyn/2014/08/08/id/587789/>*

“New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has picked up some heavy-hitter support
in his drive to grab the 2016 Democratic National Convention for Brooklyn —
former President Bill Clinton and current Democratic front-runner Hillary
Clinton.”

*New York Magazine blog: Daily Intelligencer: “The Clintons Are Down to
Party in Brooklyn for 2016”
<http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/clintons-down-to-party-in-brooklyn-for-2016.html>*

“Madison Square Garden hosted Bill Clinton's nomination in 1992, and one
could get the sense that Hillary feels — what's the word? — inevitable.”

*New York Times: “Fear of ‘Another Benghazi’ Drove White House to
Airstrikes in Iraq”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/world/middleeast/fear-of-another-benghazi-drove-white-house-to-airstrikes-in-iraq.html?_r=0>*

“‘The situation near Erbil was becoming more dire than anyone expected,’
said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of
anonymity to describe the White House’s internal deliberations. ‘We didn’t
want another Benghazi.’”

*State House News Service (M.A.): “Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she supports
President Obama's decision to authorize airstrikes in Iraq”
<http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/08/sen_elizabeth_warren_warns_abo.html>*

“Warning against a new U.S. war in Iraq, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on
Friday stood by President Barack Obama’s decision to authorize targeted
airstrikes to help defend Americans in Erbil, Iraq, and provide aid to a
religious minority taking refuge in the Sinjar mountains.”

*Sioux City Journal (I.A.): “Iowa trip: Huckabee thinking about 2016
campaign”
<http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/iowa-trip-huckabee-thinking-about-campaign/article_fc1a9e13-70e8-54cc-88ae-592a74736c4a.html>*

“Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Friday said he is actively
considering a 2016 presidential campaign. He's scheduled to appear in Ames,
Iowa, on Saturday. “

*Articles:*

*Arizona Capitol Times opinion: Surprise Mayor Sharon Wolcott: “GPEC
pursuing creative solutions to regional challenges”
<http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2014/08/08/gpec-pursuing-creative-solutions-to-regional-challenges/>*

By Sharon Wolcott, mayor of Surprise, Arizona

August 8, 2014, 9:06 a.m. EDT

While a lot of things have changed since I entered public service 20 years
ago, the American people still elect representatives for the same reason.
Just like the first office I was ever elected to — and every office I’ve
held in between — the people of Surprise elected me to help improve their
lives. My job, pure and simple, is to make this community a better place to
live and work, by making it easier for the people of Surprise to support
their families, put a roof over their heads, educate and care for their
children, and access health care.

In a perfect world, this would be an easy task. Well-paying jobs would be
widely available, high-quality housing would be affordable to all, public
schools would be adequately funded and provide a top-notch education for
every student, and proper health care would be accessible to anyone who
needs it.

Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in. The reality is that people
are having a hard time finding good jobs, making ends meet, and paying for
the basic necessities like housing, education and health care. And while I
work day in and day out to fix these problems for the people of Surprise,
they are too complex to be solved by the government alone.

Addressing these tricky issues requires an “all hands on deck” approach. To
really make a difference, we have to put our heads together with members of
the community, business leaders and the government to come up with
creative, multi-faceted solutions.

That is what we are doing at the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, where I
serve as a member of the board. We are a private-public partnership
representing 23 communities in the Maricopa County area and more than 160
private investors. Our purpose is to attract businesses to the area to grow
our economy, create jobs, and make Maricopa County a better place to live,
by working on behalf of businesses looking to relocate and expand.

And we are not in this alone. After the 2008 financial crisis, the Obama
administration made it a top priority to stimulate economic growth and
create jobs. The most influential leaders in America — from the White House
to the departments of State and Commerce — have become advocates on behalf
of U.S. companies to create jobs here at home.

Hillary Clinton dedicates a chapter of her newly released book, “Hard
Choices,” to her role as an advocate for American businesses while she
served as secretary of state, writing, “I was determined to do everything I
could to help American businesses and workers seize more of the legitimate
opportunities already available.” As she explains in the chapter, “During
my travels I often made a pitch for an American business or product, like
GE in Algeria. For example, in October 2009, I visited the Boeing Design
Center in Moscow because Boeing had been trying to secure a contract for
new planes with the Russians. I made the case that Boeing’s jets set the
global gold standard, and, after I left, our embassy kept at it. In 2010,
the Russians agreed to buy fifty 737s, for almost $4 billion, which
translated into thousands of American jobs. And our efforts weren’t just on
behalf of big companies like Boeing or GE — we also advocated for small and
medium-sized businesses across our country trying to go global.”

The International Trade Administration’s Advocacy Center, part of the
Department of Commerce, also serves as an advocate for American businesses.
Last August, the Advocacy Center helped Boeing win a $1.6 billion contract
with South Korea to sell them 36 Apache helicopters made right here in the
Phoenix area in nearby Mesa. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker recently
visited the Boeing facility in Mesa to see this success story for herself.

In the Phoenix area, these efforts have been vital to our economy, with
Boeing employing so many of our friends and neighbors. The Mesa facility
alone employs 4,700 people.

This type of collaboration between the government and the private sector
has paid off for the people of Arizona. Here in Surprise, we have become a
recognizable presence at the state Capitol and a voice on economic
development here at home, in the region and even in Washington D.C., thanks
in part to Secretary Clinton and Secretary Pritzker and the work they have
done on behalf of one of the area’s largest employers. Together, we are
helping improve the lives of the people of Surprise — just as I was elected
to do — as well as people across the state and this great nation.

*CNN: “Hillary Clinton's unpaid warriors”
<http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/politics/clintons-unpaid-warriors/>*

By Dan Merica

August 8, 2014, 2:25 p.m. EDT

Taj Magruder has never voted for Hillary Clinton. He has no connection to
her paid staff. And he is not collecting a paycheck from a cadre of groups
anticipating a Clinton presidential run in 2016.

All of this bothers him.

Magruder, a 23-year-old "Clinton-ologist" from Pennsylvania, devotes much
of his online life to supporting, defending and responding to her every
move.

In what he calls his "own little war room" -- his computer and Twitter
account -- the Pennsylvania state Senate employee has carved out a space as
one of Clinton's most ardent unpaid supporters.

"I have yet to vote for Hillary," said Magruder, who was too young to cast
a ballot the last time she was on one. "I am really looking forward to
fixing that in the coming years."

Magruder is an unsalaried Clinton warrior. And he isn't alone.

All over the Internet, bloggers and their circles of friends with no
backing from the Clinton orbit defend the former first lady from attacks.

While their defenses don't have the weight of a Clinton spokesperson or a
former top aide, they are influential in their small community of friends
and family. And they are standing up for the person they hope becomes the
next President.

"I am very, very passionate obviously about Hillary," Magruder said, if
that wasn't already clear. "I just want to make sure that Hillary has, if
she does run, a kind of presence on social media that she hasn't always
had."

Magruder is dogged and devout.

He regularly tussles with reporters.

"I don't know if Maggie Haberman still hates me or not," he said referring
to a Politico reporter he sparred with over a story.

[TAJ MAGRUDER TWEETS]

And he touts Clinton's many appearances.

"She was so good last night," he tweeted after Clinton's sit-down on the
Colbert Report.

Why does he do this?

"When I see a story that is like, 'yuck,' I feel like I should just stick
up for my girl," he said with a laugh.

Since May 2012, Magruder has tweeted nearly 30,000 times. Most of them --
especially recently -- have been about Clinton.

And while he only has 780 followers, many of those include reporters
following Clinton and representatives from the groups looking to help her
if she runs again.

Clinton's unpaid army does far more than tweet. Some, like Still 4 Hill,
have devoted years to blogging about her every move.

Since 2008, Still 4 Hill -- who keeps her identity private because of her
paid employment -- has kept detailed records of Clinton's comings and
goings, including nearly every speech she delivered as secretary of state.

The process, is admittedly, consuming.

"You have to find ways to squeeze it in," she said. "I cheat a little bit
(and blog) during a lunch hour or something like that. But most of the time
I do it at night."

Still 4 Hill started her blog after Clinton ended her presidential campaign
in 2008.

She began to write about Clinton's events at the State Department and once
Clinton stepped down as America's top diplomat in 2013, Still 4 Hill began
writing about Clinton on the paid speaking circuit.

"I see it as documentation," Still 4 Hill said about her blog. "I want to
be able to go back and look at this speech or look at that speech."

Amid all the glow for Clinton, there is also pushback against her critics.

When the Washington Post's conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin wrote a
lengthy critique of Clinton's time at State, Still 4 Hill responded to what
she called "repetitive and tiresome... empty bloviating" from Rubin.

There is more to the online response, though: People like Magruder and
Still 4 Hill have received a little notoriety for their persistence.

Ask people within the Clinton universe about Magruder and they laugh about
his exuberance.

Though he was never paid, Ready for Hillary sent the Clinton devotee to a
finance meeting earlier this year to act as an example of a "grassroots
supporter."

Still 4 Hill's blog receives upwards of 10,000 hits a week. As of late --
given Clinton's book tour and regular appearances -- the blog can gets as
many as of 2,500 clicks a day.

And when Still 4 Hill met Clinton at a New Jersey book singing this year,
she was sure to mention her blog.

According to blogger, Clinton responded, "Still 4 Hill! I love it. Yeah, I
love it."

There is a downside to all of this, too.

Both Magruder and Still 4 Hill are building a online record of their
thoughts and feelings about Clinton and that record -- at some point --
could come back to haunt them.

What's more, in the anything goes nature of a campaign, comments made by
Clinton followers and fans can blow up into bigger stories.

What happens when those fans have years of logs and comments that
opposition groups could cull?

"To the extent that the actors join Hillary's campaign or official groups
that support Hillary's campaign, their views and statements online become
relevant," Tim Miller, executive director of America Rising, an
anti-Clinton super PAC, told CNN.

Still 4 Hill's post-2008 actions seemed to recognize this.

Shortly after Clinton conceded defeat to Barack Obama after a bitter
primary battle, the blog took a negative, sometimes anti-Obama turn, Still
4 Hill told CNN.

After giving it some thought -- and after Clinton patched up her
relationship with him -- the blogger decided to delete some of those posts.

"I am reading her book now and when I read the first chapter it was like
tearing a scab off a wound of something," Still 4 Hill said, capturing how
she is still hurt over that campaign. "That primary season was so brutal.
... I removed a lot of the pages from June 2008 to the general election
campaign."

But Clinton's previous run might not be her last. So what if she runs
again, how much work are these devotees willing to commit? And is all of
their Internet devotion an audition for something bigger?

"I would love it if a role is available for me. If there is one, I would
love it," Magruder said. "But whether or not I get an official role won't
stop me from doing work on social media."

*Capital New York: “The (Hillary) Beat goes on”
<http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/08/8549573/hillary-beat-goes>*

By Jeremy Barr and Alex Weprin

August 8, 2014, 2:26 p.m. EDT

Former Secretary of State, Senator and First Lady Hillary Clinton has not
declared any sort of candidacy for 2016, but the group of reporters
dedicated full-time by news outlets to follow her and report on her keeps
growing every month.

The latest addition is Alex Seitz-Wald, who started at MSNBC digital this
past month to cover “Hillary Clinton and any Dems who may run against her,”
as he put it on Twitter.

Seitz-Wald, a former reporter for National Journal and Salon, joins a long
list of reporters on the beat, like Annie Karni at the New York Daily News,
Jonathan Allen at Bloomberg, Maggie Haberman at POLITICO, Ruby Cramer at
Buzzfeed, Amy Chozick at The New York Times, Maeve Reston at The Los
Angeles Times and Brianna Keilar at CNN, among others.

In late May The Washington Post announced that Anne Gearan would be joining
its politics desk to “renew her focus on covering Clinton and her seemingly
inevitable second try for the presidency.”

Language like “seemingly inevitable” seems to suggest that the decision to
devote a reporter full-time to Clinton is a calculation meant to put them
ahead of the curve when (or if) she declares her candidacy; and inevitably,
these announcements provoke “tsks” from politics-weary corners of the
Internet: Why are you covering a candidate that isn’t even running?

But the real reasons for the surge in the Hillary beat are more nuanced.
For one thing, publishers and broadcasters have long since learned to pay
attention to what the audience does—not what they say. And Clinton stories
are still great business, whether her run is inevitable or not.

Risa Heller, who handled communications for New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and
former Gov. David Patterson, suggested that intense reader interest in
Hillary Clinton, and a buzzing from the political press, is nothing new. As
such, Heller said she’s not surprised that so many news organizations have
designated a reporter to cover her.

“I assume what these news organizations are saying is, ‘We’re going to be
at the front of this, and we’ll write a bunch of interesting stories that
people are going to read, and if she doesn’t run, then what do we have to
do lose?” Heller said.

“There seems to be a pretty large appetite for Clinton stuff.”

“Even if she decides not to run, Clinton is a great story on the merits,
and she’s at the nexus right now of the conversation about the future of
the Democratic Party,” Buzzfeed political editor Katherine Miller told
Capital. “Ruby’s telling that story, and will follow it wherever it goes.”

Most importantly, the possibility of a Clinton run in the minds of the
public make her a central figure in determining the future of a party that
will have just come off a challenging two-term presidency.

Washington Post senior politics editor Steven Ginsberg said it’s “silly” to
suggest that the paper’s Hillary coverage would be a wash if she decides
not to mount a campaign.

“No matter what she decides, she is without question the biggest factor in
the race right now, for both Democrats and Republicans,” he said. “She’s
also a major figure outside the presidential contest and of intense
interest to readers.”

Times reporter Amy Chozick has been covering Hillary Clinton and her famous
family for just over a year now, which makes her the veteran of the H.R.C.
beat team.

Times political editor and Washington bureau chief Carolyn Ryan told
Capital, it would be “derelict” not to assign someone to Clinton.

“She is a formidable force in American politics and a part of an
extraordinary political family,” Ryan said.

And yet not everyone who fits that description gets covered. Why Hillary?

Thomas Edsall, long-time Washington Post politics reporter who now teaches
at Columbia University, considered the question.

“I think, but am not 100 percent sure, that the early assignment to full
time coverage of H.R.C. before she has announced is unprecedented,” he said.

“If the gamble that she will be the nominee after facing little opposition
proves true, one plus is that she will get a fairly complete examination by
the press, a process that normally depends on opposition research by
competitors for the nomination. She is, of course, already getting a
thorough vetting by the R.N.C.”

But Edsall also saw two ways the strategy could, potentially, backfire on
these outlets.

“A reporter in this situation needs to balance the need for ongoing access
with the obligation to disclose negative findings,” he said. “This is true
of any assignment, but particularly true in the case of coverage of one
person and her entourage. Does this reporter pass on tips to colleagues or
does the reporter do a negative story him or herself?”

*Newsmax: “Clintons Support Brooklyn as Host of '16 Democratic Convention”
<http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/DNC-Democratic-Convention-2016-Brooklyn/2014/08/08/id/587789/>*

By John Blosser

August 8, 2014, 6:23 p.m. EDT

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has picked up some heavy-hitter support
in his drive to grab the 2016 Democratic National Convention for Brooklyn —
former President Bill Clinton and current Democratic front-runner Hillary
Clinton.

The New York Times reports that insiders say the Clintons approve of
Brooklyn for the major event. Onetime Clinton advisers, including Gabrielle
Fialkoff, finance director for Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign, and
other Clinton backers, like financier Alan Patricof, have gotten onboard
with de Blasio in an attempt to sway the DNC to bring the convention to New
York.

De Blasio termed it a "perfect scenario" for Brooklyn to host the
nominating event, given that the former first lady was once a senator from
New York, her husband accepted the Democratic nomination at Madison Square
Garden in 1992, and, should Clinton score the nomination as many expect
will happen, it would serve as a "homecoming," insiders told the Times.

Should Brooklyn win the convention, New York taxpayers would shell out $8.1
million and the city has plans to raise another $132 million in donations,
according to a 49-page proposal de Blasio presented to the DNC.

The convention would be held at the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn
Nets, and has won the support of another prominent New Yorker, Nets center
Jason Collins, the first openly gay player in the NBA. who told Politico at
an event Monday, "That'd be awesome," Collins told Politico at an event
Monday. "I think it'd be a lot of fun to see the DNC there."

Not so fast, New York.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter wants the convention too, and told the
Daily News, "There is only one city in this country where the Declaration
of Independence was created. There is only one Liberty Bell. It's in
Philadelphia. Those are just facts."

He's citing the ease of transportation and number of hotel rooms readily
close to the Wells Fargo Center, where the convention could be held. Even
de Blasio notes the difficulties of transporting delegates around New York,
since a dearth of hotel rooms in Brooklyn would mean that most delegates
would be housed in Manhattan and ferried to Barclay's.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell told the Times, "How would you like
to transport in the middle of rush hour thousands of delegates from midtown
to Brooklyn?"

Along with Philadelphia, other cities in the running are Birmingham, Ala.,
and Columbus, Ohio. The Republicans have already chosen Cleveland as the
site of their 2016 convention.

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman raised issues he said work in favor of his
city.

"The Republican Party grabbing the convention in Cleveland has the
potential of leaving this state to the Republican side in 2016," Coleman
told Politico.

The Times says the decision on the Democratic convention will be announced
late this year or early next year.

*New York Magazine blog: Daily Intelligencer: “The Clintons Are Down to
Party in Brooklyn for 2016”
<http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/clintons-down-to-party-in-brooklyn-for-2016.html>*

By Joe Coscarelli

August 8, 2014, 4:12 p.m. EDT

Bill de Blasio's plan to bring the 2016 Democratic National Convention to
Barclays Center has some very influential — and potentially relevant —
backers. According to the New York Times, the mayor "made sure he had the
Clintons' blessing" before throwing Brooklyn into the running (with this
corny video). It's almost like they expect to be there or something.

Madison Square Garden hosted Bill Clinton's nomination in 1992, and one
could get the sense that Hillary feels — what's the word? — inevitable.
Both Clintons "are said to be encouraging Mayor Bill de Blasio's efforts to
bring the convention back to New York City, this time to Brooklyn, that
haven of liberal cool," the Times reports, with the caveat "that Brooklyn
could come across to a national audience as a progressive parody." Really?
Brooklyn?

De Blasio, a veteran of Hillary's campaign for Senate, has other Clinton
insiders working with him on the borough's pitch, and reportedly said it
would be a "perfect scenario" for Hillary to accept the nomination in New
York, referring to it as a "homecoming." One of Brooklyn's main rivals for
the convention? Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, the Times says,
another Clinton ally, of course.

“‘I don’t think Bill and Hillary Clinton could possibly be that politically
naïve,’ Mr. Rendell, who also served as Philadelphia’s mayor, said in an
interview. ‘New York is a solidly blue state that never votes Republican.
Pennsylvania is a swing state whose margins are closer and closer. Where
would you go?’”

Either way, the Clintons win ( ... they assume).

*New York Times: “Fear of ‘Another Benghazi’ Drove White House to
Airstrikes in Iraq”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/world/middleeast/fear-of-another-benghazi-drove-white-house-to-airstrikes-in-iraq.html?_r=0>*

By Mark Landler, Alissa J. Rubin, Mark Mazzetti, and  Helene Cooper

August 8, 2014

On Wednesday evening, moments after finishing a summit meeting with African
leaders at the State Department, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
delivered a stark message to President Obama as they rode back to the White
House in Mr. Obama’s limousine.

The Kurdish capital, Erbil, once an island of pro-American tranquillity,
was in the path of rampaging Sunni militants, the chairman, Gen. Martin E.
Dempsey, told the president. And to the west, the militants had trapped
thousands of members of Iraqi minority groups on a barren mountaintop, with
dwindling supplies, raising concerns about a potential genocide.

With American diplomats and business people in Erbil suddenly at risk, at
the American Consulate and elsewhere, Mr. Obama began a series of intensive
deliberations that resulted, only a day later, in his authorizing
airstrikes on the militants, as well as humanitarian airdrops of food and
water to the besieged Iraqis.

Looming over that discussion, and the decision to return the United States
to a war Mr. Obama had built his political career disparaging, was the
specter of an earlier tragedy: the September 2012 attack on the diplomatic
mission in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans, including
Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, and has become a potent symbol of
weakness for critics of the president.

As the tension mounted in Washington, a parallel drama was playing out in
Erbil. Kurdish forces who had been fighting the militants in three nearby
Christian villages abruptly fell back toward the gates of the city, fanning
fears that the city might soon fall. By Thursday morning, people were
thronging the airport, desperate for flights out of town.

“The situation near Erbil was becoming more dire than anyone expected,”
said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of
anonymity to describe the White House’s internal deliberations. “We didn’t
want another Benghazi.”

For weeks, intelligence officials had been watching the militant group, the
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, gain in strength, replenishing its
arsenals with weapons captured both in Syria and in Iraq. But interviews
with multiple officials at the White House, the Pentagon, the State
Department and other agencies paint a portrait of a president forced by the
unexpectedly rapid deterioration of security in Iraq to abandon his
longstanding reluctance to use military force.

Mr. Obama, in a speech late Thursday announcing his decision, insisted this
was not a return to war — that Iraq’s fate still ultimately rested in the
hands of its three main groups, the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. But he made
clear that he would take action to protect Americans in Erbil and Baghdad.

“We have an embassy in Baghdad, we have a consulate in Erbil, and we have
to make sure that they are not threatened,” Mr. Obama said in an interview
on Friday with Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times. “Part of the
rationale for the announcement yesterday was an encroachment close enough
to Erbil that it would justify us taking shots.”

Still, his decision to order F-18 fighter jets from the aircraft carrier
George H. W. Bush to carry out bombing raids on militants dramatically
raises the risks for Mr. Obama. Unlike other times when he has made the
decision to commit American forces — the 2009 troop surge in Afghanistan,
for example — Mr. Obama acted within hours.

With nearly 50 African leaders converging on Washington, the president was
fully occupied with a week of diplomacy and salesmanship on behalf of
American companies — not to mention a White House dinner featuring
entertainment by Lionel Richie. On Saturday, he and his wife, Michelle,
were to leave town for two weeks of vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.

While Mr. Obama discussed security and governance with the leaders, his
national security aides were huddling in the Situation Room, getting
increasingly dire briefings from embassy officials in Baghdad and the
Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees Iraq.

“Things reached a tipping point on Wednesday,” said a senior official. “We
saw that on the mountain, the Iraqis were not able to resupply and provide
food and water.”

Back at the White House that evening, Mr. Obama and General Dempsey
continued talking in the Oval Office, joined by the chief of staff, Denis
McDonough; the national security adviser, Susan E. Rice; and other
officials. The discussion moved toward military action, one official said,
though Mr. Obama had not yet decided on anything, beyond airdrops.

About 8 p.m., the meeting broke up and Mr. Obama again left the White
House, an hour late, for a dinner date with his wife and a close
confidante, Valerie Jarrett, at an Italian restaurant in Georgetown.

Six thousand miles away, in Erbil, Thursday morning broke with news that
two towns just 27 miles west of the Kurdish capital, Mahmour and Gwer, had
fallen to the militants, and that Kurdish fighters, known as pesh merga,
had withdrawn. “That was a real problem,” said a former Kurdish official
who closely tracks security issues.

In villages and small towns outside the city, even places well north of
Erbil and farther from the militant forces, people were frantically piling
into cars to flee. The pesh merga were helping to evacuate hundreds of
people in large flatbed trucks. When people heard a gunshot, rumors would
spread of an ISIS advance.

Americans officials on the ground said they feared that if Erbil emptied,
the city would be vulnerable to a militant attack. And if it fell, they
feared, not only would Americans be at risk, but it would be a second
seismic event for the region — after the June 10 fall of Mosul, Iraq’s
second-largest city — with dangerous consequences for Turkey and a
potential for enormous loss of life in Kurdistan.

As if that were not enough, the militants had seized a critical dam in
Mosul, which controls water levels on the Tigris River as far south as
Baghdad. The capture of the dam shook Kurdish officials and fueled the
sense of crisis during Thursday’s meetings, with officials worried that the
militants could either blow it up or use it to cut off water supplies or as
a bargaining chip in negotiating anything they wanted.

“That was one of the trip wires we looked at,” said another senior
official. “We look at that dam as a potential threat to our embassy in
Baghdad.”

At a 90-minute meeting in the Situation Room on Thursday morning, Mr. Obama
was briefed again about the plight of the Iraqis stranded on Mount Sinjar.
Members of an ancient religious sect known as Yazidi, they were branded as
devil worshipers by the militants. The women were to be enslaved; the men
were to be slaughtered.

Officials told Mr. Obama there was a real danger of genocide, under the
legal definition of the term. “While we have faced difficult humanitarian
challenges, this was in a different category,” said an official. “That kind
of shakes you up, gets your attention.”

At 11:20 a.m., Mr. Obama left the meeting to travel to Fort Belvoir, Va.,
where he signed a bill expanding health care for veterans. He had all but
made up his mind to authorize airstrikes, officials said, and while he was
away, his team drafted specific military options.

When the president returned to the White House barely an hour later, he
went back into meetings with his staff. By then, there were news reports of
airdrops and possible strikes. But the White House “hunkered down,” an
official said, refusing to comment on the reports for fear of endangering a
nighttime airdrop over Mount Sinjar.

Mr. Obama did not announce the operations until dawn had broken in Iraq, a
delay of several hours that added to the panic in Erbil. Reports of
explosions near the city at dusk on Thursday night sowed confusion after
Kurdish officials said the United States had begun airstrikes on the
militants. The Pentagon flatly denied the reports.

American officials said the United States was closely coordinating with the
Iraqi Air Force, which has been carrying out its own strikes on the
militants, though officials did not confirm that the explosions reported on
Thursday evening were from Iraqi raids. On Friday, an administration
official said there had been no airstrikes the previous evening.

Struggling to stanch the fear, keep the fighters at their posts and slow
the exodus out of the city, Kurdish officials put out a series of
brave-sounding but misleading statements.

The Kurdish prime minister, Necherven Barrzani, sent a letter to Kurdish
citizens, posted on a government website, saying: “The pesh merga are going
ahead and terrorists are being beaten. Don’t be skeptical.”

Also writing a letter to the Kurdish people was Kosrat Rassoul, deputy to
President Massoud Barzani, who said: “There are rumors among the people,
which make citizens feel skeptical. Here I want to reassure everyone we in
Erbil are ready in the best way to defend the Kurdish territory.”

What they did not say was that the pesh merga were demoralized, uncertain,
underequipped and facing a formidable foe along several hundred miles of
border between the Kurdistan region and Iraq’s Nineveh and Kirkuk
Provinces, where the militants are now the dominant force.

Several fighters who had fought ISIS said they were daunted when they
discovered the militants were traveling in bulletproof vehicles that left
the pesh merga’s bullets doing little more than pockmarking the metal.

“It’s our business to see the faces of the soldiers and know how they
feel,” said Halgurd Hekmat, the head of media for the pesh merga fighters.
“I wouldn’t say they were afraid, but they were a bit nervous,” he
admitted. Since the fall of Mosul, the pesh merga leadership had warned the
Americans and the Iraqi government that they were ill equipped to hold the
militants at the border separating Nineveh Province from Kurdistan.

“We told them: ‘We cannot hold it for very long. We are not a country; we
don’t have an army; we don’t have aircraft,’ ” said Lt. Gen. Jaber Yawer
Manda, the secretary general of the pesh merga ministry. “I said: ‘We are
fighting in the front lines now. You have to help us.’ ”

On Thursday evening, after a long day in the West Wing, Mr. Obama had a
message for Iraqis: “Today, America is coming to help.”

*State House News Service (M.A.): “Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she supports
President Obama's decision to authorize airstrikes in Iraq”
<http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/08/sen_elizabeth_warren_warns_abo.html>*

By Andy Metzer

August 8, 2014, 3:41 p.m. EDT

Warning against a new U.S. war in Iraq, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on
Friday stood by President Barack Obama’s decision to authorize targeted
airstrikes to help defend Americans in Erbil, Iraq, and provide aid to a
religious minority taking refuge in the Sinjar mountains.

“It’s a complicated situation right now in Iraq and the president has taken
very targeted actions to provide humanitarian relief that the Iraqi
government requested, and to protect American citizens,” Warren told
reporters. “But like the president I believe that any solution in Iraq is
going to be a negotiated solution, not a military solution. We do not want
to be pulled into another war in Iraq.”

Renowned for its financing strategies and media savvy and feared for its
brutality, a group of Sunni sectarian extremists that now calls itself The
Islamic State has expanded out of war-torn Syria into Iraq, where it
imposes taxes and kills people of other religions, according to news
accounts.

On Thursday night, Obama announced he had authorized air strikes to protect
American diplomats, civilians and military personnel in Erbil, and
humanitarian air drops of food and water had already begun to assist
Yezidis, a religious minority, who fled to the Sinjar mountains.

An American-led invasion of Iraq was launched in March 2003, starting a war
that was divisive politically and costly. After Obama failed at reaching
accord on a new status of force agreement with the Iraqi government, the
U.S. stuck to an earlier timetable, withdrawing troops from the country by
Dec. 31, 2011.

Warren said the actions announced by Obama will change the dynamic in the
country, which has a Shi’ite led government and an independent Kurdish
region in the north.

“It’s a very complicated situation in Iraq. The president has now taken two
very targeted actions, and those two actions will change the mix of what’s
happening in Iraq, and we’ll have to just monitor it,” Warren said.

Warren was in the State House for a closed-door meeting between state and
federal officials and Jorge Carlos Fonseca, the president of Cape Verde.

Asked if she had a broader plan for dealing with the crisis in Iraq, Warren
said, “Certainly these airstrikes are going to change the mix of what’s
going on, so we’ll just have to monitor it literally day by day, hour by
hour.”

While calling for a negotiated solution, Warren said the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria is a terrorist organization and the U.S. does not negotiate
with terrorists, while leaving open the possibility the U.S. could assist
the Iraqi government negotiating with ISIS.

“The point is there has to be a negotiated solution in Iraq, but we don’t
negotiate with terrorists,” Warren said. She said, “This is partially a
question of whether the U.S. government negotiates or whether we have the
Iraqi government doing these negotiations, and how we help support them as
they try to maintain an integrated country, and a country that better
represents all of the people who live there.”

A champion of those squeezed by big banks who toppled Scott Brown in a 2012
election for the seat, Warren is a favorite among liberals, and regularly
disavows any plans to seek the president.

Warren said her caution not to entangle the United States in another
military conflict in Iraq is a viewpoint shared across the country.

“I am concerned that none of us want to be pulled into a war in Iraq. I
think that’s clear across this country, and I feel very strongly about
that,” Warren said.

*Sioux City Journal (I.A.): “Iowa trip: Huckabee thinking about 2016
campaign”
<http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/iowa-trip-huckabee-thinking-about-campaign/article_fc1a9e13-70e8-54cc-88ae-592a74736c4a.html>*

By James Q. Lynch

August 8, 2014

CEDAR RAPIDS | Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Friday said he is
actively considering a 2016 presidential campaign. He's scheduled to appear
in Ames, Iowa, on Saturday.

“I would certainly start in a very different place if I were to run than I
did when I came here in 2007 and first launched the campaign and nobody
knew who I was and even fewer people cared,” Huckabee said during a
roundtable with reporters.

The winner of Iowa’s 2008 first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses shied away
from saying how certain he is that he’ll run. He’s maintaining a “delicate
balance" because his radio and TV contracts preclude him from being a
candidate, Huckabee said.

Those contracts don’t prevent him from thinking about it.

“This is not some real remote likelihood. This is something I’m very
seriously considering,” Huckabee said.

Polls show that he’s one of the top choices of Iowa Republicans for the
2016 campaign. He attributed his frontrunner status to Iowans’ “good taste
in politics.”

“If the polls are showing that I’m leading in Iowa it’s a clear indication
and an affirmation of just how intelligent and insightful the people of
Iowa really are,” he said.

He’ll see more Iowans Saturday when he addresses The Family Leadership
Summit in Ames. Huckabee said that event and the “Pastors & Pews” program
he was part of in Cedar Rapids are not part of a strategy to sew up support
among the conservative Christian bloc of the Iowa GOP.

“I think there’s great value in mobilizing people of faith who often sit at
home during the elections and don’t show up to vote,” he said. “I think
that’s unfortunate.”

He called reporting on his comments about impeachment unfortunate, too.
Although he believes President Barack Obama has committed impeachable
offenses, Huckabee said he’s never called for impeachment. Impeachment
“should be used in rare and most unusual circumstances,” he said, and talk
about impeaching Obama is a distraction.

*Calendar:*

*Sec. Clinton's upcoming appearances as reported online. Not an official
schedule.*

·  August 9 – Water Mill, NY: Sec. Clinton fundraises for the Clinton
Foundation at the home of George and Joan Hornig (WSJ
<http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/06/17/for-50000-best-dinner-seats-with-the-clintons-in-the-hamptons/>
)

·  August 13 – Martha’s Vinyard, MA: Sec. Clinton signs books at Bunch of
Grapes (HillaryClintonMemoir.com
<http://www.hillaryclintonmemoir.com/martha_s_vineyard_book_signing>)

·  August 16 – East Hampton, New York: Sec. Clinton signs books at
Bookhampton East Hampton (HillaryClintonMemoir.com
<http://www.hillaryclintonmemoir.com/long_island_book_signing2>)

·  August 28 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes Nexenta’s OpenSDx
Summit (BusinessWire
<http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140702005709/en/Secretary-State-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-Deliver-Keynote#.U7QoafldV8E>
)

·  September 4 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton speaks at the National Clean
Energy Summit (Solar Novis Today
<http://www.solarnovus.com/hillary-rodham-clinto-to-deliver-keynote-at-national-clean-energy-summit-7-0_N7646.html>
)

·  October 2 – Miami Beach, FL: Sec. Clinton keynotes the CREW Network
Convention & Marketplace (CREW Network
<http://events.crewnetwork.org/2014convention/>)

·  October 13 – Las Vegas, NV: Sec. Clinton keynotes the UNLV Foundation
Annual Dinner (UNLV
<http://www.unlv.edu/event/unlv-foundation-annual-dinner?delta=0>)

·  ~ October 13-16 – San Francisco, CA: Sec. Clinton keynotes
salesforce.com Dreamforce
conference (salesforce.com
<http://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF14/keynotes.jsp>)

 ·  December 4 – Boston, MA: Sec. Clinton speaks at the Massachusetts
Conference for Women (MCFW <http://www.maconferenceforwomen.org/speakers/>)