Correct The Record Friday September 5, 2014 Afternoon Roundup
Correct The Record Friday September 5, 2014 Afternoon Roundup:
Tweets:
Pres. Bill Clinton @billclinton: Great visit to NYC's @HarborSchool, where the world (and the classroom) is your oyster. #BillionOysters #CGI2014 pic.twitter.com/oplfuFauH5[9/4/14, 5:09 p.m. EDT]
Correct The Record @CorrectRecord: Reviewing Kissinger's "World Order" HRC says, "Sometimes we’ll disagree. But that’s what democracy is all about" http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clinton-reviews-henry-kissingers-world-order/2014/09/04/b280c654-31ea-11e4-8f02-03c644b2d7d0_story.html … [9/5/14, 12:18 p.m. EDT]
Sec. Hillary Rodham Clinton @HillaryClinton: I’ve broken bread w/ all of my fellow #SecStates but we’ve never broken ground! Great visit to @StateDept yesterday.pic.twitter.com/I4VH9aSX7r [9/4/14, 9:53 a.m. EDT]
Headlines:
Politico: “Rand Paul hits Hillary Clinton climate comments”
“‘Isolationist Rand Paul is too busy slinging partisan mud for his own publicity to show any real interest in America’s future,’ said Adrienne Watson, ‘Correct the Record’s’ deputy communications director. ‘For Rand Paul to dismiss climate change as a national priority is shameful, and is in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton, whose leadership on so many issues, including climate change and fighting terrorism, is critical for our future.’”
Bloomberg: “Clinton to Decide After First of Year on Presidency Run”
“Hillary Clinton said she’ll decide ‘after the first of the year’ whether to run again for the presidency of the U.S.”
MSNBC: “Hillary Clinton to decide on presidential run in early January”
“Hillary Clinton added some clarity to the timeline of her potential presidential run Friday, saying she will make a decision after the new year.”
Politico: “Hillary Clinton robocalls for Andrew Cuomo”
“Hillary Clinton recorded a robocall urging New Yorkers to reelect Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his campaign announced Friday - a public display of support from one of the Democratic party’s biggest names as his running mate faces an unexpectedly strong challenge.”
Washington Post blog: In The Loop: “Clinton reviews Kissinger, makes up with Obama”
“Throughout the piece, Clinton presents herself and Obama as an ideological team on foreign policy.”
Bloomberg: “Different Party, Different Year, Same Hillary”
“They want to win, she’s the strongest candidate in an otherwise weak 2016 field, and she might prove better at advancing items on their agenda than Obama, who has struggled to push a legislative agenda since Democrats lost control of the U.S. House two years into his first term.”
...
"American Bridge, a Democratic super-PAC, houses the group Correct the Record, which was established and funded by Clinton supporters to defend her before and during a potential presidential bid."
National Journal: ‘Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul Just Kicked Off 2016's Climate Battle”
“Sen. Rand Paul is attacking Hillary Clinton's Thursday night comments on climate change in what may be a preview of battles during the 2016 presidential election cycle.”
Salon: “Hillary Clinton bashes climate change deniers”
“Hillary Clinton used strong words in her speech at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, but did little to illuminate what her energy policy platform might look like if she were to run for president.”
CNN: “Elizabeth Warren's unvarnished view of Hillary Clinton in 2004”
“Warren spoke about the meeting in a 2004 interview on Bill Moyers' ‘NOW on PBS’ show. Warren reflects glowingly of Clinton as first lady but also bluntly talks about how Clinton's election to the Senate in 2000 changed the former secretary of state.”
“Global leaders, including President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the British royal family, have mounted a vigorous, concerted effort to rally the international community to stem the poaching crisis.”
The Guardian: “Victoria Beckham: I used to feel famous, but now I feel successful”
“Her [Victoria Beckham’s] personal heroines are ‘Hillary Clinton for a start. I love her, don’t you?’”
Articles:
Politico: “Rand Paul hits Hillary Clinton climate comments”
By Kendall Breitman
September 5, 2014 12:28 p.m. EDT
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) put Hillary Clinton in the hot seat Friday, saying that her comments claiming that climate change is one of America’s biggest threats shows that she does not have the “wisdom” to be president.
“For her to be out there saying that the biggest threat to our safety and to our well-being is climate change, I think, goes to the heart of the matter or whether or not she has the wisdom to lead the country, which I think it’s obvious that she doesn’t,” Paul said on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
On Thursday, Clinton spoke at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas and said climate change presents “the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face.”
Paul has been one the front-runners among GOP politicians expected to run for presidential nomination in 2016, while Clinton has been long rumored to be planning a presidential run.
“I don’t think we really want a commander-in-chief who’s battling climate change instead of terrorism,” Paul said.
“Correct the Record” a project launched by super PAC American Bridge as an effort to respond news stories on Clinton, fired back at Paul in a statement Friday.
“Isolationist Rand Paul is too busy slinging partisan mud for his own publicity to show any real interest in America’s future,” said Adrienne Watson, “Correct the Record’s” deputy communications director. “For Rand Paul to dismiss climate change as a national priority is shameful, and is in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton, whose leadership on so many issues, including climate change and fighting terrorism, is critical for our future.”
Bloomberg: “Clinton to Decide After First of Year on Presidency Run”
By Patricia Laya
September 5, 2014, 12:27 p.m. EDT
Hillary Clinton said she’ll decide “after the first of the year” whether to run again for the presidency of the U.S.
“I have a very clear vision with an agenda of what I think needs to be done,” Clinton, 66, said today at an event in Mexico City. “Obviously I’m thinking about it, but I have not made a decision yet.”
Clinton, who lost to eventual winner Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign and then served under him as secretary of State, is the favorite for the Democratic nomination for 2016.
In a June ABC News/Washington Post poll, 72 percent of self-described liberals said they would vote for her in a Democratic primary. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Vice President Joe Biden tied for second with 8 percent each.
The wife of former President Bill Clinton was speaking at an event for recipients of scholarships from a foundation run by billionaire Carlos Slim, the world’s second-richest person. Another potential presidential candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, visited Mexico City earlier this week.
A Slim-backed charity contributed at least $1 million to the Clinton Foundation’s drive to raise $250 million for its endowment. U.S. law bans foreigners such as Slim, who was born in Mexico and continues to live there, from giving to political campaigns, so a possible Clinton presidential run wouldn’t be competing for his dollars.
MSNBC: “Hillary Clinton to decide on presidential run in early January”
By Alex Seitz-Wald
September 5, 2014, 1:20 p.m. EDT
Hillary Clinton added some clarity to the timeline of her potential presidential run Friday, saying she will make a decision after the new year.
“I am going to be making a decision … probably after the first of the year about whether I’m going to run again or not,” the former secretary of state said in Mexico City at a forum hosted by the charitable foundation of Mexican telecom billionaire Carlos Slim.
During her last bid for the presidency in 2008, Clinton announced her candidacy on Jan. 20, 2007. Previously, Clinton has said she would decide by the end of 2014.
Slim, the second richest man in the world after Bill Gates, has contributed to the Clinton Foundation, which presented Slim with a philanthropic award in 2012. New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie, another likely 2016 presidential candidate, also attended the event.
Politico: “Hillary Clinton robocalls for Andrew Cuomo”
By Maggie Haberman
September 5, 2014, 12:59 p.m. EDT
Hillary Clinton recorded a robocall urging New Yorkers to reelect Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his campaign announced Friday - a public display of support from one of the Democratic party’s biggest names as his running mate faces an unexpectedly strong challenge.
The robocall from Clinton - whose husband appointed Cuomo as Housing and Urban Development Secretary in the 1990s - came as Cuomo and his running mate, former upstate Rep. Kathy Hochul, face challenges in the Democratic primary from upstart gubernatorial nominee Zephyr Teachout and her running mate, Tim Wu.
Cuomo’s team has gone to great lengths to shore up Hochul, who’s been criticized by some Democrats as too moderate, and to undercut Wu. That’s prompted speculation that Cuomo’s team fears a scenario in which Wu could win.
Indeed, in the call, Clinton talks up Hochul’s stands on women’s issues, a move aimed at turning out supporters heavily. She almost never mentions Cuomo in the call.
“Hi, this is Hillary Clinton, and I’m calling to urge you to vote for Andrew Cuomo for Governor and his running mate, Kathy Hochul, for Lieutenant Governor in Tuesday’s Democratic primary,” Clinton says in the robocall, according to the campaign.
“As a New Yorker, I’d be proud to have Kathy fighting for our state. When she was in Congress, Kathy showed she knows how to find common ground but also stand her ground for what’s right.”
“As our Lieutenant Governor, she’ll never, ever give up on New York’s families,” she says. “She’s fought for women’s rights to make their own health care decisions, for equal pay, for equal work, to protect Medicare, and to provide affordable health care for millions of American families. Kathy will work hard every day to make sure our economy delivers for all New Yorkers. That is why we need Kathy Hochul as Lieutenant Governor.”
Washington Post blog: In The Loop: “Clinton reviews Kissinger, makes up with Obama”
By Colby Itkowitz
September 5, 2014, 7:00 a.m. EDT
It’s clear that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have hugged it out.
In a review of Henry Kissinger’s new book, Clinton lauds her former boss, quoting his Nobel lecture in 2009 and describing her pride in helping Obama to “begin reimagining and reinforcing the global order to meet the demands of an increasingly interdependent age.”
Clinton penned the review of Kissinger’s “World Order” for The Washington Post, noting in her positive appraisal that he is a friend.
“It is vintage Kissinger, with his singular combination of breadth and acuity along with his knack for connecting headlines to trend lines — very long trend lines in this case,” she writes. (He is 91, after all.)
Throughout the piece, Clinton presents herself and Obama as an ideological team on foreign policy: “… what comes through clearly in this new book is a conviction that we, and President Obama, share: a belief in the indispensability of continued American leadership in service of a just and liberal order.”
This, of course, stands in stark contrast to critical comments she made in early August assessing Obama’s handling of burgeoning issues overseas. But the two former political foes have made up.
Notably, Clinton shows remarkable self-restraint in waiting 939 words before mentioning her own book, “Hard Choices.”
Bloomberg: “Different Party, Different Year, Same Hillary”
By Jonathan Allen
September 5, 2014, 12:00 a.m. EDT
The Democratic Party that rejected Hillary Clinton in 2008 is even more distant from her now. It’s more resistant to military entanglements, more leery of Wall Street and more firmly in favor of pot smoking.
And there’s Clinton, still stubbornly centrist to the core, straddling the fence on legalizing marijuana, staying close to her supporters in the world of finance, making clear she’d have armed Syrian moderates when President Barack Obama didn’t -- and all but certain to win the party’s nomination this time.
If this Clinton Paradox seems hard to explain, it’s not, some Democrats contend.
Rather than having fallen in love with Clinton, many of her would-be detractors are motivated by a trio of cold calculations: They want to win, she’s the strongest candidate in an otherwise weak 2016 field, and she might prove better at advancing items on their agenda than Obama, who has struggled to push a legislative agenda since Democrats lost control of the U.S. House two years into his first term.
Clinton could be forgiven for chuckling at the irony. Turns out for a lot of Democrats, Obama’s hope and change was a lot more hope than change -- which was her point all along in 2008.
“Regardless of your philosophical leanings within the Democratic Party, there’s overwhelming support” for Clinton, says Mitch Stewart, who embodies the changes of mind and money about Clinton that have made her the clear choice of a Democratic Party that sent her packing six years ago.
Pragmatic Choice
That may be fine with Clinton, who, according to two former aides, will try to position herself as a pragmatic choice with more knowledge and experience in Washington than many of her prospective Republican challengers.
Democratic criticism of Clinton -- and yearning for an alternative -- still aren’t hard to find. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the dream candidate for economic populists in the party, declined to answer when Yahoo’s Katie Couric asked earlier this week whether Clinton was too cozy with Wall Street.
Former Democratic Representative Tom Andrews, the head of the Win Without War coalition, said he and his allies are concerned about the prospect of a Clinton candidacy.
“There are many who are uncomfortable with the idea that the Republican standard bearer could be the antiwar candidate in a general election,” Andrews said, referring to Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has called for a more limited U.S. role internationally.
Keystone Stance
Like many Democrats, Clinton advocates for renewable energy. But she hasn’t abandoned fossil fuels or the controversial Keystone XL pipeline proposal that her friend and major donor Tom Steyer, a former money manager, is spending millions of dollars to defeat.
At Nevada Senator Harry Reid’s annual energy summit yesterday, Clinton talked about moving to a “clean energy future,” words she used in a 2007 policy speech at the National Press Club that touched on many of the same themes. While being interviewed by White House counselor John Podesta on stage, she also argued that domestic oil and gas production gives the U.S. leverage in foreign policy.
Podesta, an ally of environmentalists, didn’t ask her about Keystone. Politico reported yesterday that he attended a meeting in July of outside groups that are building the infrastructure to support a Clinton presidential bid.
Poll Leader
None of Clinton’s positions have cost her yet with the party’s liberal wing. In a June ABC News/Washington Post poll, 72 percent of self-described liberals said they would vote for Clinton in a Democratic primary. Warren and Vice President Joe Biden tied for second with 8 percent each.
In 2008, Stewart led Obama’s caucus operation in Iowa, persuading Democrats that Clinton’s support for the Iraq war and other positions didn’t align with their goals. Then he ran Obama’s grassroots group, Organizing for America, and eventually headed up battleground-state efforts in Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Now, he’s an adviser to the Clinton-friendly super-political action committee, Ready for Hillary, and Stewart says there’s no dilemma at all for Democratic voters.
“On a number of issues, she’s a progressive champion,” he said in a telephone interview, listing Clinton’s work at the Children’s Defense Fund in the late 1960s, her efforts to make health insurance more accessible to Americans and her recent remarks about rectifying income inequality as evidence of a “lifetime record of being a leader.”
Financial Incentive
Of course, there’s a financial incentive for the political class, too. Stewart’s firm, 270 Strategies, has been paid $216,702 by Ready for Hillary since the middle of 2013, according to federal campaign-finance records.
The biggest existing Democratic super-PACs -- which will provide funding for ad-makers, field organizers and other political operatives -- have moved in Clinton’s direction.
American Bridge, a Democratic super-PAC, houses the group Correct the Record, which was established and funded by Clinton supporters to defend her before and during a potential presidential bid.
Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager in 2012, has taken over as co-chairman of Priorities USA, the pro-Obama super-PAC that is now backing Clinton. Its board includes David Brock of American Bridge, Ready for Hillary co-founder Allida Black, 2008 Clinton campaign aides and advisers Harold Ickes, Maria Echaveste, and Marva Smalls, and Stephanie Schriock, the EMILY’s List president who is often mentioned as a possible Clinton campaign manager.
First Woman
Clinton hasn’t said yet whether she’ll conduct a second campaign for the presidency, and she has plenty of time to design and articulate a vision for the future before Iowans kick off the presidential season with their caucuses in early 2016.
If she runs again, advisers to Clinton have said, she’ll do more to appeal to voters who want to see the first woman president -- a tack she avoided in the early stages of the 2008 campaign but began to embrace at the end.
She has kept up relationships among various Democratic-leaning constituencies, including advocates for women and girls. Despite taking criticism from liberal pundits and some in the gay community for waiting until 2013 to endorse same-sex marriage, she reaped praise for expanding domestic-partner benefits at the State Department and equating gay rights to human rights during a 2011 speech in Geneva.
Ben LaBolt, who worked as a spokesman for Obama’s campaigns and in the White House, said Clinton won over adversaries among Democrats by proving her loyalty to her party and the president during her stint running Obama’s State Department.
‘Strong Base’
“Secretary Clinton started and finished the 2008 primaries with a strong base of followers, and she expanded that base to include many of President Obama’s followers when she joined the administration and worked side by side with him restoring alliances and stifling our adversaries,” LaBolt said. “While there are no doubt some policy debates within the Democratic Party that will play out over the next two years, we enter 2016 politically much more unified than the Republicans.”
Still, she remains at odds with much of the Democratic Party’s orthodoxy on the use of American military force and on the nexus of business and government.
When she has drawn contrasts with Obama, in her book and in public appearances, it has often been to underscore that she’s more comfortable using military force than the president. And she is proud of the relationships she has developed with U.S. business leaders, even though many in her party recoil at the idea that corporations and government should work hand-in-hand.
If Clinton avoids a primary, centrist positions on the roles of business and defense that frustrate the Democratic base could prove to be a source of strength in a general election.
Last week, Clinton showed up at Cisco Systems’ annual sales conference, where she was interviewed by Chief Executive Officer John Chambers, a Republican with whom she has forged a strong relationship over the years. Clinton gave Chambers a State Department Award for Corporate Excellence.
Tech Ties
As secretary of State, she put special emphasis on wooing tech companies -- promising to help them expand across the globe while asking that they assist in the execution of American foreign policy.
At a January 2010 dinner, Clinton told executives from Cisco, Google, Twitter and other companies to “use me like an app.”
Clinton’s closeness to Silicon Valley isn’t as troubling to Democrats as her ties to Wall Street.
Since leaving State in February 2013, she has given paid speeches to Wall Street banks, hedge funds and financial-services associations, including Goldman Sachs, Fidelity and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The Clinton Foundation, its Clinton Global Initiative spin-off and Clinton’s State Department raised money from 29 of the 30 companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial index, a Bloomberg analysis found.
Wall Street
Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, has said privately that there’s no way to sate the populist appetite for punishing financiers, according to a story that former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told the New York Times and recorded in his memoir.
“You could take Lloyd Blankfein into a dark alley,” Clinton said of the Goldman Sachs CEO, “and slit his throat, and it would satisfy them for about two days. Then the blood lust would rise again.”
Party Dinosaurs
That kind of attitude makes the Clintons the dinosaurs of the Democratic Party, as followers of Warren, a scourge of big banks, are blazing a new path, said Neil Sroka, the communications director for the liberal group Democracy for America.
“We see it as a battle between the Warren Wing and the Wall Street Wing of the party. The Warren wing is ascendant and the Wall Street Wing is dying,” Sroka said. “It is worrying that Secretary Clinton has, for example, been much more interested in meeting with Goldman Sachs and Wall Street groups than in meeting with the Netroots Nation groups in Detroit.”
Yet the acknowledgment of Clinton’s strength is evident in the tone of criticism from the “Warren Wing” of the Democratic Party. They’re making requests, not demands.
Sroka said Clinton’s foreign policy record and courtship of business are at odds with liberal values. But, he said, she could quickly ease concerns by calling for policies that would address income inequality, particularly an expansion of Social Security.
“The jury is still out on where Secretary Clinton is on some of these key issues,” he said. “She could be a fierce advocate for the Warren Wing.”
National Journal: ‘Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul Just Kicked Off 2016's Climate Battle”
By Ben Geman
September 5, 2014
Sen. Rand Paul is attacking Hillary Clinton's Thursday night comments on climate change in what may be a preview of battles during the 2016 presidential election cycle.
Paul on Friday bashed Clinton's claims about the gravity of the threat of climate change, arguing that she's giving too little weight to terrorism.
"I don't think we really want a commander-in-chief who's battling climate change instead of terrorism," said Paul, a Kentucky Republican weighing a White House bid, in a Fox News appearance.
Clinton, speaking a green energy conference in Nevada, said "Climate change is the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face."
Paul said the comment indicates that Clinton, who will be the heavy favorite for the Democratic nomination if she runs, isn't fit for the presidency.
"For her to be out there saying that the biggest threat to our safety and to our well-being is climate change, I think . . . goes to the heart of the matter or whether or not she has the wisdom to lead the country, which I think it's obvious that she doesn't," he said during a segment on battling the radical Islamist group ISIS.
Paul isn't the first Republican to argue that a Democrat's views on the threat of climate change are evidence that their priorities are off-base.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and GOP Sen. John McCain both lambasted Secretary of State John Kerry in February after Kerry called climate change "perhaps the world's most fearsome weapon of mass destruction" and a threat on par with terrorism, epidemics, and other problems.
Salon: “Hillary Clinton bashes climate change deniers”
By Joanna Rothkopf
September 5, 2014, 9:40 a.m. EDT
[Subtitle:] At the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Clinton did little else to clarify her potential energy policy
Hillary Clinton used strong words in her speech at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, but did little to illuminate what her energy policy platform might look like if she were to run for president.
“[These are] the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face,” Clinton said of climate change-related problems like extreme weather. “No matter what deniers say.”
She continued to dismiss climate deniers in the question and answer portion of the evening when she spoke of green tech: “Aside from the deniers and the special interests and all the other folks who want to pretend we don’t have a crisis is the fact that we are leaving money and jobs behind,” she said. “For those on the other side, they have to answer to the reality that they are denying peoples’ jobs and middle class incomes and upward mobility by their refusal to look to the future.”
Clinton will have to take a hardline stance on various policies sooner or later if she is going to pursue the Democratic nomination. MSNBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald reports:
“Clinton has several hard choices to make on what her energy policy will look like if she decides to run for president, but — not surprisingly — she left those decisions up in the air on Thursday.
“With regards to natural gas, which has boomed in recent years, the former secretary of state said new fracking technologies can be part of the solution, even though they present their own problems. ‘We have to face head-on the legitimate, pressing environmental concerns,’ she said.”
Indeed, Clinton does seem to support fracking as a “bridge to a clean energy economy,” except in the most risky situations:
“Now part of that bridge will certainly come from natural gas. There are challenges here to be sure, but the boom in domestic gas production is an example of American innovation changing the game, and if we do it right, it can be good for both the environment and our economy. With the right safeguards in place, gas is cleaner than coal. And expanding production iscreating tens of thousands of new jobs. And lower costs are helping give the United States a big competitive advantage in energy-intensive energies. …
“But to capitalize on this boom, we have to face head-on the legitimate, pressing environmental concerns about some new extraction practices and their impacts on local water, soil, and air supplies. Methane leaks in the production and transportation of natural gas are particularly troubling. So it’s crucial that we put in place smart regulations and enforce them, including deciding not to drill when the risks are too high.”
“Anybody who wants to be the Democratic nominee will have to strike a balance between the needs of the economy and concerns about the environmental impact of energy production,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute in an interview with MSNBC. “It’s a fault line, so you’ve got to walk a line.”
CNN: “Elizabeth Warren's unvarnished view of Hillary Clinton in 2004”
By Dan Merica
September 5, 2014, 12:05 p.m. EDT
In the context of 2016, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren are rivals for the Democrats' presidential nomination whose every word about each other is scrutinized and picked apart.
But Warren and Clinton have been on the national stage for years, and before they were ever considered rivals, they met each other in the late '90s.
Warren spoke about the meeting in a 2004 interview on Bill Moyers' "NOW on PBS" show. Warren reflects glowingly of Clinton as first lady but also bluntly talks about how Clinton's election to the Senate in 2000 changed the former secretary of state.
In 1998, Warren -- an expert and professor on bankruptcy law -- wrote an op-ed for The New York Times titled "Bankrupt? Pay Your Child Support First," about how the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000 would disproportionally hurt women and families trying to collect alimony checks from their ex-husbands.
The piece, Warren tells Moyers, was eventually read by then-first lady Clinton, whose office subsequently set up a meeting with the professor in Boston.
"After she's finished her speech, we're ushered into a tiny, little room somewhere in the bowels of this hotel, and just the two of us. They close the door. Mrs. Clinton sits down. We have hamburgers and french fries," Warren says.
Warren adds: "And she (Clinton) says, 'Tell me about bankruptcy.' And I got to tell you, I never had a smarter student. Quick, right to the heart of it. I go over the law. It's a complex law. Went over the economics. Showed her the graphs, showed her the charts. And she got it."
According to Warren, at the end of the briefing, Clinton stood up and said: "Professor Warren, we've got to stop that awful bill."
The first lady went back to Washington and became a strong proponent of killing the bill.
In "Living History," her memoir about her time as first lady, Clinton writes: "proposed bankruptcy reform moving through Congress threatened to undermine the spousal and child support many women depended on."
She writes, "Missing from this debate, I discovered, was any discussion of what happens to women and children who depend on legally required child and spousal support that is not being paid."
President Bill Clinton would go on to veto the measure, a win that Warren says Hillary Clinton "rightly should" take credit for.
But then Warren's interview with Moyers takes a turn as the professor reflects on how Clinton changed when she won a U.S. Senate seat in 2000 and voted in favor of a similar bankruptcy bill in 2001.
"As Senator Clinton, the pressures are very different," Warren says. "It's a well-financed industry. ... She has taken money from the groups, and more to the point, she worries about them as a constituency."
Clinton is not the only one who was changed by the U.S. Senate, however. Warren, who since 2004 has gone on to become a senator from Massachusetts, was far more candid about Clinton in her 2004 interview than she was in an interview with Yahoo's Katie Couric this week.
"You know, I worry a lot about the relationship between all of them: regulators, government and Wall Street," Warren said when asked if Clinton was "too cozy" with Wall Street.
Couric then pressed Warren: "But what about Hillary Clinton in particular?"
"Well," she responds. "I worry across the board."
By Iris Ho
September 5, 2014, 8:10 a.m. EDT
Even as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers protecting elephants by banning ivory sales, states deserve praise for passing laws now to ban in-state ivory sales. These complement the ongoing global and federal efforts to save elephants. ("States are eyeing stiffer ivory laws amid a surge in elephant poaching," Sept. 2)
Elephant poaching networks are, in many cases, well-organized terrorist bands pillaging Africa's remaining elephants for ivory to finance their attacks on civilians and even national governments. Global leaders, including President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the British royal family, have mounted a vigorous, concerted effort to rally the international community to stem the poaching crisis.
The U.S., as the second-largest market for ivory in the world after China, has a moral responsibility not only to do all we can to protect elephants but to dry up the profit-making enterprise for terrorists bent on destabilizing many African nations.
Iris Ho, Washington
The Guardian: “Victoria Beckham: I used to feel famous, but now I feel successful”
By Jess Cartner-Morley
September 5, 2014, 7:30 a.m. EDT
One midsummer evening not long ago, I rang the buzzer of a Holland Park mansion, wedding-cake white with black railings. The lady of the house, barefoot in a floral-print dress, opened the door and politely held out a hand for me to shake. (It was her left hand, but it’s the thought that counts.) “Hello! I had a party,” she said. “It was so good. It was my birthday. And now we’ve got goldfish. Have you got goldfish?” And with that Harper Beckham, three, hopped on to her lilac scooter and led the way into the sitting room.
This is not how interviews with fashion designers usually begin. But Victoria Beckham has built a label which last year took £30 million in sales by doing things her own way. She is the ex-Spice Girl who took on the fashion industry and won them over; the Wag who became a player. Let other designers play the eccentric artist; Beckham is the multitasking modern woman, seating her children next to Anna Wintour at her last fashion show.
Which is how I come to be in the Beckhams’ sitting room holding a glass of white wine while Harper helps herself to the olives and crackers and pours us doll-sized cups of water as tea. “She usually goes to bed at seven,” says Victoria, scooping her daughter up for a cuddle, “but I’ve been at work all day, so I have hardly seen her.”
The Victoria Beckham story is a post-modern fairytale. First, she was famous for being famous; then, she became – against all expectations – famous for actually being good at something. There is, of course, a prince in this story (more of him later) but the glass-slipper moment in the fable of Victoria Beckham is not her Vera Wang-clad wedding 15 years ago, but the morning nine years later when she presented her first collection to fashion editors and buyers in a New York hotel suite to rave reviews.
What makes the Victoria Beckham story so compelling to the women who buy her dresses is that Victoria Beckham is living, breathing proof of the transformative powers of fashion. We buy clothes because we believe they will help us become who we want to be. It is the dresses with her name on the label – yours for around £1,500 a pop – which made Victoria Beckham who she is today. That is one very powerful sales pitch.
The sitting room where Victoria, Harper, Natalie the PR and I sit on a trio of neutral-toned sofas, runs the full width of the house, opening on to the garden. Victoria is a great deal more beautiful in person than she looks in paparazzi shots. You expect the glossy mane, the perfect nails, the caramel skin; it’s the almond-shaped, dark-chocolate eyes which take you by suprise. She usually keeps them hidden behind enormous sunglasses.
Her decor is a cheerful mix of grown-up taste and family life: one table holds a vast white orchid and tomes of fashion photography; another bears half of a Frozen-themed cake, leftover from Harper’s party. Ana and Elsa – the goldfish – are on the dining room table. (“They’re supposed to be in Harper’s room, but the bowl is too heavy for me to carry upstairs so it will have to wait till David gets home.”) David and the boys – Brooklyn (15), Romeo (12) and Cruz (nine) – have left to spend the holidays in LA. Victoria has more work to do on the collection to be shown in New York on 7 September before she and Harper fly out to join them.
Being Victoria Beckham is a number of overlapping full-time jobs: mother, designer, brand ambassador, businesswoman. I met Victoria a few times over the summer in an attempt to get a 360-degree picture of the woman behind the brand. It became clear that she makes her schedule work by doing several things at once. We talked about the future of her company sitting on her sofa while she cuddled Harper. On a site visit to her London store, she took calls from Brooklyn – the first time he had forgotten his lunch money, the second he just called to check in. One afternoon at her Battersea headquarters, she showed me around her two ateliers and stopped to point out, hanging on a rail outside her office, the dress she had picked to wear to the Wimbledon men’s final: a priceless piece of publicity for her label, which saw that dress on TV screens and websites globally.
At home on her sofa, she reflects that “I know that I’m lucky to be in a position to plan my diary around the kids’ assemblies and sports days. I never miss those. But on the other hand, I don’t ever watch TV. After dinner I’ll catch up with emails. And when I’m lying in bed I think about the next collection. That makes me sound insane, doesn’t it? That I’m getting into bed with David Beckham and thinking about clothes.”
The best new year resolution Victoria ever made was “to start going to the gym. That was nearly four years ago, when we were in LA and I was pregnant with Harper, and I’ve never stopped. Once I get into something, I do it properly.” Her daily routine begins – six days a week, at 6am on weekdays – with a 90-minute workout with a trainer. (Harper shows us a set of professional-looking bicep curls with a set of pretend dumbbells she has made from twists of craft paper: clearly, she has observed a few.) Victoria runs (eight miles around Richmond Park with Tana Ramsay the other day) and in LA attends the ferocious SoulCycle classes. She eats lots of fruit (“the most popular thing I make in my kitchen is a mango carved into a hedgehog. I do that and the kids tell everyone I’m an amazing cook”), fish and vegetables.
On a school day, after training she will “get the kids up, do breakfast, check if there are any spelling tests or maths tests, if they need football boots. It’s complicated because two of the boys go to the same school, Brooklyn goes to a different school, Harper goes to another school, so usually David and I each do a school run.” These days, the paparazzi mostly leave them in peace. “I can walk to Marks & Spencer or to the park with the kids and I probably won’t be photographed.”
The Victoria Beckham label has undergone an intriguing evolution in its six-year lifespan. Where the first collections of dresses were all about structure, using corsetry to sculpt a silhouette, within two years the aesthetic had loosened up to include draped parachute-silk. The business expanded with the more accessibly priced “Victoria Victoria Beckham” line, and flat shoes, trousers and oversized coats appeared alongside the hourglass numbers she calls her “signature dresses”. The new collection centres around lean but easy shapes: a high-neck sweater with a simple skirt, a silky tunic over slim trousers, a fluid sleeveless coat.
If you were to psychoanalyse the clothes, you could say that they have become less about a perfect body and more about personality. The Victoria Beckham woman has a shape to her as a person, which is no longer defined by her waist size. I put this to Victoria. She is sceptical – “there was more corsetry at the beginning because we were a small team, with a smaller skill-set, as the atelier expanded we’ve been able to try more things” – but agrees that the way she herself dresses has changed. “Because I’m coming to work every day, I tend to wear things that are a little looser; if I want to look dressy, I put on my sunglasses. I used to wear clothes which would make me stand out and now I don’t so much because I don’t feel I have anything to prove.” Her day look seldom swerves beyond navy, black, cream and grey; as well as her own label, she wears Céline, Saint Laurent, Comme des Garçons.
Her personal heroines are “Hillary Clinton for a start. I love her, don’t you? And Sheryl Sandberg. And Michelle Obama. Strong women, that’s who I really respect.” It is nearly two years since I last spent significant time talking to Victoria and she has changed a great deal. That was Victoria Beckham 2.0, transformed from pop star to promising designer. Victoria Beckham 3.0 is much more comfortable inhabiting the role of the boss and talking business, less inclined to crack jokes to lighten the mood.
Success this time around feels different from her pop star life, she says. “First time around I felt famous, but now I feel successful.” She wears her power lightly – she speaks softly, has flawless manners, and returns several times to the importance of being “respectful” (of her team’s talents, of other people’s time) – but “the final decision is always mine. It’s really important that every aspect of what we do – the clothes, the swing tags, the shelves, everything – represents my point of view, because that’s what the brand stands for.”
Two years ago, Victoria Beckham had one floor in the Battersea HQ; now her 100-plus team are sprawled over several floors, with two in-house ateliers. “I went to Net-a-Porter the other day,” she says, as we tour her scattered empire criss-crossing endless staircases and courtyards, “and their office is my dream. I called Zach [Duane, her CEO] and told him, ‘I want an office like that’! But basically, he said no. Not yet.”
In her office – grey sofas, white-shuttered windows and a huge black and white photograph of her children – she talked through her day’s schedule, which included a meeting about rebranding and castings for a fit model, and I asked if she thought she’d still be working this hard in 10 years time, when she turns 50. “Probably, yes, knowing me. Although my mum can’t understand why I’m working this hard now, to be honest.” There is no financial need for Victoria to work and, for this reason, critics have been inclined to call into question whether she “really does anything”. (One notices that this is a logic seldom applied to successful men.) “The thing is,” she says, “I’ve always worked. The Spice Girls had a crazy schedule. I can’t imagine what I’d do all day if I didn’t work. I’m lucky that I do something I love, and I am proud as I think it’s a positive message to give to young women: if you want to have a career, and be married with children, then you can. It’s full-on, but it’s doable.”
This autumn sees the opening of a 7,000 sq ft boutique on Dover Street in Mayfair. For a site meeting with Farshid Moussavi, the architect, Victoria arrives in skinny jeans, black flats, a black sweater and her own-label Liberty tote. She initially balks when handed a hard hat – “are you serious? I just had a blow dry” – but is soon posing in it, and posting the pictures on Instagram. The meeting covers rail fittings – should the clothes be held static (looks neat) or have flex to be rotated on the hanger (useful for customers)? Then it’s on to carpet for the fitting room – grey or green?
Victoria makes quick decisions, often pushing for the purist design option. She wants the store to be “sophisticated, a bit conceptual. It’s not just about selling. I want it to work for someone who isn’t necessarily going to buy anything, but who wants to experience the brand through my eyes.” She leaves for a meeting, dipping into her bag for powder and lipstick before walking out to find her driver while taking a call – David, presumably – who rings to suggest dinner. Love to, she says, do you want to pick me up after work?
“The part of the puzzle I find difficult,” Victoria told me, “is having a social life. Because I work and then go home to be with the children.” I sympathised, agreeing that with a career, kids and a marriage, something has to give. That’s just how it is, I shrugged. She gave me one of her delicate little frowns, and softly chided my defeatist point of view. “I don’t see why it has to be like that,” she said. “You know what I think, Jess? I think we need to try a little bit harder.