Subject: Correct The Record Friday August 29, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 13:40:46 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

**

*Correct The Record Friday August 29, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: #ICYMI
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/ICYMI?src=hash> in @TPM
<https://twitter.com/TPM> "Hillary 2016 Group Talks Up Climate Change
Record Ahead Of Speech" via@dylanlscott <https://twitter.com/dylanlscott>
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/hillary-clinton-climate-change-correct-the-record
…
<http://t.co/FlH0F9ReuC> [8/29/14, 1:05 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/505400795248852992>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@adrienneelrod
<https://twitter.com/adrienneelrod> said Sec. Clinton "prioritized the
fight against climate change as a matter of foreign policy."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/hillary-clinton-climate-change-correct-the-record
…
<http://t.co/FlH0F9ReuC> [8/29/14, 10:49 a.m. EDT]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: WATCH: @HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> comments on #Ferguson
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ferguson?src=hash>:
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/08/28/nr-sot-hillary-clinton-comments-ferguson.cnn.html
…
<http://t.co/NgpWasraOW> [8/28/14, 7:16 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/505131734959005696>]

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: "...as a mother, as a human being, my
heart just broke for his family." @HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> on Michael Brown #Ferguson
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ferguson?src=hash>
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/08/28/nr-sot-hillary-clinton-comments-ferguson.cnn.html
…
<http://t.co/NgpWasraOW> [8/28/14, 6:08 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/505114611943624705>]

*Headlines:*

*Washington Post blog: She The People: “Nobody really noticed, but Hillary
Clinton has made the boldest comments on Ferguson and race”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/08/29/nobody-really-noticed-but-hillary-clinton-has-made-the-boldest-comments-on-ferguson-and-race/>*

“She finally addressed Ferguson on Thursday, during a prepared speech, and
it turns out that her comments were among the most substantive compared to
what other political leaders have said.”

*Talking Points Memo: “Hillary 2016 Group Talks Up Climate Change Record
Ahead Of Speech”
<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/hillary-clinton-climate-change-correct-the-record>*

“Correct the Record, the rapid response outfit in the proto-Hillary 2016
campaign infrastructure, shared with TPM new talking points detailing her
record on climate change at the State Department.”

*Slate: Jamelle Bouie: “Is Hillary Clinton Better at Talking About Racial
Injustice Than Obama?”
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/08/hillary_clinton_on_ferguson_protests_and_michael_brown_s_killing_the_former.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed>*

“Clinton’s statement is neither candid, personal, or especially
conciliatory. Instead, it’s a little blunt, and in a good way.”

*CNN: “Chelsea Clinton is leaving NBC”
<http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/29/chelsea-clinton-is-leaving-nbc/>*

“Chelsea Clinton, who joined NBC as a special correspondent in 2011, is
stepping down from the news network.”

*The Journal (Ireland): “Is Ireland Ready for Hillary? Her supporters are
hosting a ‘lavish event’ in Dublin tonight”
<http://www.thejournal.ie/hillary-clinton-dublin-1644669-Aug2014/>*

“The Ready for Hillary (RFH) Super PAC is the largest and most vocal of the
non-official fundraising groups for the former First Lady and comes to
Dublin after hitching the wagon in London and Paris.”

*CNN: “Former Presidents Clinton and Bush to launch new initiative”
<http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/29/former-presidents-clinton-and-bush-to-launch-new-initiative/>*

“Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are going to join forces
for a new initiative aimed at helping to give leaders better skills to
solve problems.”

*Articles:*

*Washington Post blog: She The People: “Nobody really noticed, but Hillary
Clinton has made the boldest comments on Ferguson and race”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/08/29/nobody-really-noticed-but-hillary-clinton-has-made-the-boldest-comments-on-ferguson-and-race/>*

By Nia-Malika Henderson

August 29, 2014, 11:59 a.m. EDT

Progressives really, really, really wanted to hear from Hillary Clinton on
the events in Ferguson, Mo., where an unarmed black teenager was shot and
killed by a white police officer on Aug. 9, sparking days of unrest in that
small city outside St. Louis and elsewhere.

Al Sharpton said he wanted to smoke Clinton out on Ferguson and suggested
that if she ran in 2016, he would be a thorn in her side on civil rights
issues.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes thought it was “bizarre” that Clinton hadn’t at
least weighed in with a statement on the incident, even though she hasn’t
made a habit of offering up opinions on much of anything outside of formal
interviews and speeches. (She didn’t release a statement on the beheading
of Jim Foley by ISIS, for instance)

Well, she finally addressed Ferguson on Thursday, during a prepared speech,
and it turns out that her comments were among the most substantive compared
to what other political leaders have said.

Whereas most Democrats and Republicans, and eventually President Obama,
addressed the militarization of the police, Clinton actually went there on
an issue that most avoided:  racism and the criminal justice system.

At her speech at the Nexenta OpenSDx Summit in San Francisco, she said “we
cannot ignore the inequities that persist in our justice system.”

And then she did what few of her prominent fellow white Democrats have done
in the context of Ferguson–she acknowledged the well-known statistics that
show that blacks get treated differently than whites when it comes to
everything from traffic stops to sentencing.

But rather than just listing the statistics, she got personal by asking
whites to put themselves in the shoes of black Americans:

“Imagine what we would feel and what we would do if white drivers were
three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as
black drivers instead of the other way around. If white offenders received
prison sentences ten percent longer than black offenders for the same
crimes. If a third of all white men – just look at this room and take
one-third – went to prison during their lifetime. Imagine that. That is the
reality in the lives of so many of our fellow Americans in so many of the
communities in which they live.”

Her statements in many ways echo those of Sen. Rand Paul’s who also
imagined himself as Michael Brown, mouthing off at a cop as a teen, but
with a very different outcome based on race.  Both Paul and Clinton went
further in their statements than Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Obama, who in
his third statement on Ferguson, touched on black crime rates, and only
allowed that there might be sentencing disparities and differential
treatment for blacks in the criminal justice system.

Paul and Clinton’s boldness on racism and the criminal justice system is a
risky and bold move, given the wide divide in how blacks and whites think
about and experience race.  Yes, it’s easier for whites to talk about
racism than it is for blacks (witness Obama), but in asking whites to
change their thinking about race and to essentially imagine themselves as
black, both Paul and Clinton are doing something that has rarely been done
in national politics in the last decade.

Progressives, fueled by buyer’s remorse over Obama, are set on portraying
Clinton as too moderate, ignoring, for instance, that she actually ran to
the left of Obama on health care, and has spoken out, in formal settings,
on voting rights as well.

Some progressives noticed her comments on Ferguson, but even as they
praised her, they questioned her motives:

*Marc Lamont Hill* @marclamonthill: In honesty, Hillary Clinton offered the
type of commentary that many of us were quixotically expecting from
President Obama. [8/28/14, 3:52 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/marclamonthill/statuses/505080526185979904>]

*Marc Lamont Hill* @marclamonthill: Hillary Clinton's statement reflects
careful triangulation and calculation driven by political interest rather
than genuine feeling. [8/28/14, 4:07 p.m. EDT
<https://twitter.com/marclamonthill/statuses/505084319787147265>]

*Talking Points Memo: “Hillary 2016 Group Talks Up Climate Change Record
Ahead Of Speech”
<http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/hillary-clinton-climate-change-correct-the-record>*

By Dylan Scott

August 29, 2014, 9:06 a.m. EDT

In anticipation of an upcoming Hillary Clinton speech on clean energy, one
of the groups laying the groundwork for her presumed 2016 presidential
campaign is talking up the former Secretary of State's record on climate
change.

Clinton is scheduled to give the keynote address at the National Clean
Energy Summit this Thursday in Las Vegas. Correct the Record, the rapid
response outfit in the proto-Hillary 2016 campaign infrastructure, shared
with TPM new talking points detailing her record on climate change at the
State Department.

The group has been regularly releasing reports outlining Clinton's record
on various issues, from LGBT rights to income equality, for months. They
are part of the group's overall mission of greasing the wheels for
Clinton's various public appearances and putting a positive spin on her
past work -- all in the context of an anticipated 2016 run.

“Hillary Clinton looked to the future, planning for our generation and the
next generation of Americans when she prioritized the fight against climate
change as a matter of foreign policy," Adrienne Elrod, communications
director at Correct the Record, told TPM in a statement. "Clinton led the
way through partnerships and developed incentives to encourage cooperation
and progress toward reducing our footprint on the environment.”

Correct the Record credited Clinton with changing the way the United States
approached climate change, pointing to her establishment of a special envoy
for climate change within the State Department, which it called the Obama
administration's point person for climate negotiations, and to the creation
of a new Bureau of Energy Resources, which Clinton had said would be
devoted to tracking worldwide energy use.

Other points of emphasis for Correct the Record were an agreement with
Brazil to improve bilateral coordination on climate change and the Climate
and Clear Air Coalition, a group of 37 countries that is working to reduce
methane emissions, per the pro-Clinton outfit.

The group also singled out one of Clinton's favorite anecdotes on the
subject, which she included in her recent book, "Hard Choices": The time
that she and President Barack Obama forced their way into a 2009 meeting in
Copenhagan between leaders from China, India, Brazil and South Africa so
that they could talk about the Kyoto Protocol.

The meeting led to a non-binding agreement that all developed countries
would set 2020 goals for cutting their carbon emissions. The United Nations
later said that the goals set in the so-called Copenhagen Accord were
insufficient, though they were considered "an important step toward the
objective of limiting growth of emissions" in the words of an U.N. official.

The Thursday speech is one of the first forums for Clinton to talk
extensively about climate change as the 2016 speculation has kicked into
full gear. She has, however, continued to addressed it with regularity
during her frequent speaking engagements.

In March, according to the Associated Press, she said climate change was
"not just some ancillary issue," but one that required "mass movement."

"I’m hoping that there will be this mass movement that demands political
change," she said, "and it becomes just as powerful as some of the other
issues that effect the outcome of elections here and around the world.”

*Slate: Jamelle Bouie: “Is Hillary Clinton Better at Talking About Racial
Injustice Than Obama?”
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/08/hillary_clinton_on_ferguson_protests_and_michael_brown_s_killing_the_former.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed>*

By Jamelle Bouie

August 29, 2014, 10:36 a.m. EDT

[Subtitle:] It may take the next white president to talk to white Americans
about race.

After almost three weeks of silence, Hillary Clinton has finally spoken on
the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Toward the end of her paid remarks at a tech conference in San Francisco,
Clinton shifted gears to address the shooting and its related issues. “I
applaud President Obama for sending the attorney general to Ferguson, and
demanding a thorough and speedy investigation,” she said. “That’s both
thorough and necessary to find out what happened, to see that justice is
done, and to help this community begin healing itself.” On criminal justice
reform, she echoed President Obama’s comments from last week’s press
conference. “We cannot ignore the inequities that persist in our justice
system,” she said, “inequities that undermine our deepest values of
fairness and equality.” Clinton also condemned the draconian police
response to peaceful protesters. “Nobody wants to see our streets look like
a war zone,” she said. “Not in America, we are better than that.”

From there, Clinton addressed racial prejudice and inequality. But unlike
Obama—whose comments were limited to banalities and “both sides”
posturing—she had something smart to say.

“Imagine what we would feel and what we would do if white drivers were
three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as
black drivers, instead of the other way around,” she said, “if white
offenders received prison sentences 10 percent longer than black offenders
for the same crimes, if a third of all white men—just look at this room and
take one third—went to prison during their lifetime. Imagine that. That is
the reality in the lives of so many of our fellow Americans and so many of
the communities in which they live.”

The few times President Obama has made serious comments on race, he’s been
candid, personal, and conciliatory. He’s either tried to universalize his
experience—as he did in his 2008 Philadelphia speech—or contextualize the
particular experiences of black Americans, as he did in his 2013 remarks on
the George Zimmerman verdict. Put simply, being black lets Obama empathize
with black Americans in a way unique to his presidency. At the same time,
it acts as a limit on what he can say. Or, as I noted on Tuesday, Obama
can’t address racial issues without polarizing the public along racial
lines. He tip-toed around Ferguson, but given the rancor caused by his
comments on Henry Louis Gates’ arrest or Trayvon Martin’s killing, it was
the smart path to take.

Clinton’s statement is neither candid, personal, or especially
conciliatory. Instead, it’s a little blunt, and in a good way. She asks for
understanding and doesn’t give her listeners a rhetorical escape. “Imagine
that,” she says, pushing her audience to conjure a world where white men
were targets for law enforcement, and where their lives were routinely
derailed for trivial offenses.

There’s also the optics of the audience. When most white politicians talk
on race or racial subjects, they go to a black audience. Hence Ken
Mehlman’s 2005 apology to the NAACP for the GOP’s “Southern Strategy,” or
more recently Reince Preibus’ comments on Republican outreach at this
year’s convention of the National Association of Black Journalists.

I’m sure there were black people in the audience in San Francisco, but this
was Silicon Valley. Clinton was talking to white people. And she was asking
them, as white people, to show empathy and concern for the conditions of
their black fellow citizens. I wouldn’t say this is unprecedented, but it
is rare. Especially since there’s no attempt to deflect or blame black
Americans for their own problems. Clinton doesn’t mention “black-on-black
crime” or give a brief respectability lecture. She simply says, Look at how
we treat them, and imagine if it were you.

In 2012, political scientist Daniel Gillion found that in his first two
years in office President Obama spoke less on race than any Democratic
president since 1961. And judging from his relative silence since then, I
expect that when Obama leaves office, he will have said less on racial
questions than most recent presidents, period.

For Americans who wanted Obama’s voice on race, this is disappointing. At
the same time, there’s a decent chance we’ll get Hillary Clinton’s voice on
race, and while the modern presidency brings political limits on what any
president can say, that might be the better alternative.

In the same way that only a hardline anti-communist could go to China and
only an arch-conservative could raise taxes, it might be that it takes a
white person in the White House to have real candor with white people on
race.

*CNN: “Chelsea Clinton is leaving NBC”
<http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/29/chelsea-clinton-is-leaving-nbc/>*

By Dan Merica

August 29, 2014, 12:05 p.m. EDT

Chelsea Clinton, who joined NBC as a special correspondent in 2011, is
stepping down from the news network.

Bill and Hillary Clinton's daughter announced her departure in a Facebook
post, hanging the decision on her desire to continue working for the
Clinton Foundation and the fact that she and her husband Marc Mezvinsky
will be welcoming their first child this fall.

"I am profoundly grateful to NBC viewers who responded to the stories I
shared, providing funds to help expand the reach of those programs and who
encouraged their schools’ principals, their mayors and local activists to
think about how to build similarly transformative programs in their own
communities," Clinton wrote. "It’s been a privilege to be part of the NBC
Family."

While at NBC, Clinton worked on stories for "Rock Center with Brian
Williams," which was canceled in 2013, and “NBC Nightly News.”

Her stories were largely service-focused, including features on a boxing
gym that offers tutoring in Detroit; a diner in Albuquerque, New Mexico
that helps kids with homework and feeds them; and an education program in
Pine Bluff, Arkansas that deals with hunger and education in the region.

Clinton's role with NBC was reportedly lucrative. Politico reported earlier
this year that the former first daughter was paid $600,000 for the first
few years of her contract with the network.

To much ballyhoo, Chelsea Clinton announced she was pregnant in April. With
her mother, Hillary Clinton, considering a run at the presidency in 2016, a
considerable amount of attention has focused on Chelsea Clinton's pregnancy.

On Thursday in San Francisco, Hillary Clinton was asked whether the baby
would be a boy or a girl.

"I don't know because my daughter and her husband don't want to know,"
Clinton said. "So they have tried very hard not to find out. When they do
the ultra sound I think they have their hands over their ears and their
eyes.”

Clinton added: "We are going to be surprised like the old days and meet
this new arrival and welcome him or her into the world."

*The Journal (Ireland): “Is Ireland Ready for Hillary? Her supporters are
hosting a ‘lavish event’ in Dublin tonight”
<http://www.thejournal.ie/hillary-clinton-dublin-1644669-Aug2014/>*

By Ronan Duffy

August 29, 2014

The Ready for Hillary Super PAC is hosting a “lavish event” at a private
home in Dublin this evening, but all you Clinton-ites relax, you can only
donate if you’re a US citizen or have a Green Card.

The Ready for Hillary (RFH) Super PAC is the largest and most vocal of the
non-official fundraising groups for the former First Lady and comes to
Dublin after hitching the wagon in London and Paris.

“If Irish people could contribute we’d get about $100 million,” Brian
O’Dwyer of RFH’s national fundraising committee tells TheJournal.ie with
his tongue-in-cheek.

“We’re constrained by American Law in that we can only take money from
American citizens or Green Card holders…Irish citizens can’t (donate) it’s
as simple as that and American laws are quite clear on that.”

“If they do want to contribute, we’d encourage those with American
relations to convince them to donate.”

The restrictions won’t stop tonight’s event which is being held at the home
of Linda O’Shea Farren and Brian Farren on Dublin’s Raglan Road and will
see guests contributing up to $5,000 to the cause.

It’s being held on the same weekend as tomorrow’s Croke Park Classic
between Penn State and the University of Central Florida which is expected
to attract up to 17,000 visitors from the US.

The Farren’s also hosted a similar event for Bill Clinton in 2007 and
O’Dwyer says that event is more about explaining to people where their
donations will go as opposed to preaching to people who are already
committed to the Clintons.

The former Secretary of State has of course not formally announced her
candidacy but RFH is fundraising so it is prepared for when the expected
announcement comes.

O’Dwyer says that they want to have a campaign ready that’s way ahead of
2008 when Clinton lost out to the current president who in may ways
revolutionised grassroots fundraising.

“I think that’s what we’re trying to address,” O’Dwyer explains. “It’s a
whole new way of campaigning. We’ve already got about 800,000 people signed
up to our digital lists and we have about 2.5 million people visiting our
website. It’s something we didn’t pay much attention to last time.”

The Super PAC system is not to everybody’s liking in the US with many
arguing that it massively inflates election spending and leads to more
negative campaigning from non-official sources.

O’Dwyer is not opposed to this view: “I’m not sure I’d be in favour of it
if I was asked but that’s the system we find ourselves in at the moment.”

On the election itself, O’Dwyer says that he feels Clinton is performing
well in the phoney campaign after she’s hit headlines with her opinions on
Israel, a tiff with President Obama and yesterday’s comments on Ferguson:

I think particularly since she left as Secretary of State she’s spoken out
more. Americans are looking for strong decisive leadership that’s not
ideological. Particularly among women who feel that it’s long overdue that
we have a female president.

As for Ireland Dwyer, who’s a New York lawyer and prominent within the
Irish-American community, says that “the Irish are like any other people,
they appreciate when people pay attention to them and take their issues
seriously”.

He says that Irish-America has always had great affection for both Clintons
with Irish people were only behind African-Americans in the loyalty they
showed to the former President Clinton.

As for whether Hillary Clinton will make a trip to Ireland before 2016,
O’Dwyer says he will be lobbying for this but is confident that “some
member of the Clinton family” will make it here in the next 18 months.

*CNN: “Former Presidents Clinton and Bush to launch new initiative”
<http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/29/former-presidents-clinton-and-bush-to-launch-new-initiative/>*

By Kevin Bohn

August 29th, 2014 10:01 a.m. EDT

Washington (CNN) – Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are
going to join forces for a new initiative aimed at helping to give leaders
better skills to solve problems.

The presidents will appear together at an event in Washington on Sept. 8th to
launch the Presidential Scholars Program.

Organizers are billing this as a first of its kind partnership because not
only will this involve the foundations run by Clinton and Bush but also
will include the George Herbert Walker Bush and Lyndon Baines Johnson
presidential centers.

The program's aim is to bring "motivated leaders across all sectors an
opportunity to study presidential leadership and decision making and learn
from key administration officials, practitioners, and leading academics,"
according to a release announcing the initiative.

"The program's purpose is to help participants foster the skills they'll
need to address both the challenges and opportunities presented in the 21st
century. The program will study varied approaches to leadership so
participants are able to gain a better understanding of different
leadership philosophies, styles, and practices. Participants will use the
tools developed throughout their course of study and apply them to an issue
or challenge of particular relevance to his/her professional and civic
pursuits," organizers added.

This is not the first time a Clinton has teamed up with a Bush. Bill
Clinton and George Herbert Walker Bush joined forces to lead humanitarian
aid efforts following the Asian Tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina the
following year. Clinton and Bush 43 helped with the recovery following the
2010 Haitian earthquake.