American Crossroads
Mary Landrieu flubbed a line in a real Senate hearing, so her team tried to reenact a fake hearing in her new ad and it’s embarrassingly bad. The Weekly Standard has the details.
Good thing Sen. Landrieu will have plenty of time to hone her acting chops in 2015…
The other day Pew released their election performance rankings, and they were not good for West Virginia or Natalie Tennant. Today, there is a story from the Charleston Gazette about the new campaign finance website that has been introduced by the Secretary Of State’s office. Things aren’t going very smoothly:
From the comment itself to the fumbled apology, Braley’s farmer gaffe is nothing short of a “rookie mistake” according to Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson in an interview over the weekend on Iowa Press.
Summing up Braley’s clumsy apology, Henderson said:
“And the other thing was Braley didn’t make himself available in Chris Christie fashion, making himself available for an hour-long news conference and answer every question about it. He waited nine days before he talked to anyone about this on the record. And after nine days he still didn’t have a good explanation.”
It’s true. His explanation included an awkward comparison of lunching with his legal clients to a long day’s work on the farm.
Or As Henderson put it:
“I don’t know what adviser is telling him he should be bragging about being a trial lawyer, but it is one of his negatives, not one of his positives.”
The Washington Post reports on the seedy pay-to-play fundraising practices of Hillary Clinton’s State Department as she helped a company skirt ethics rules and donate to a pet project of her Department’s and her family foundation. Or as one former State Department official put it: “Things were done … that were not done in any other instance for fundraising purposes.”
Openly calling her efforts a “shameless pitch” for Boeing, Clinton secured a multi-billion dollar deal with a state-owned enterprise in Vladimir Putin’s Russia in exchange for a $2 million contribution to the U.S. Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, an event that had become of special interest to Clinton and that the company had previously been barred from donating to under conflicts of interest rules. Following the deal in 2010, Boeing made a $900,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation.
On a trip to Moscow early in her tenure as secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton played the role of international saleswoman, pressing Russian government officials to sign a multibillion-dollar deal to buy dozens of aircraft from Boeing.
A month later, Clinton was in China, where she jubilantly announced that the aerospace giant would be writing a generous check to help resuscitate floundering U.S. efforts to host a pavilion at the upcoming World’s Fair.
Boeing, she said, “has just agreed to double its contribution to $2 million.”
Clinton did not point out that, to secure the donation, the State Department had set aside ethics guidelines that first prohibited solicitations of Boeing and then later permitted only a $1 million gift from the company. Boeing had been included on a list of firms to be avoided because of its frequent reliance on the government for help negotiating overseas business and concern that a donation could be seen as an attempt to curry favor with U.S. officials. …
Boeing’s largesse on behalf of the U.S. pavilion at the Shanghai expo was helpful to Clinton at a critical moment as she made it her priority to woo support from corporations to revive the American presence at the event. …
In 2010, two months after Boeing won its $3.7 billion Russia deal, the company announced a $900,000 contribution to the William J. Clinton Foundation intended to rebuild schools in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. …
The company’s ties came into play again this month when its in-house lobbyist, former Bill Clinton aide Tim Keating, co-hosted a fundraiser for Ready for Hillary, the super PAC backing her potential presidential run. …
“This is a shameless pitch for Rosavia . . . to buy Boeing aircraft,” she said while touring a Boeing facility in Moscow. …
[USA Pavilion President Nick] Winslow said he initially submitted a list in 2008 of about 140 companies he hoped to approach for money, including Boeing.
But State Department officials ruled out soliciting Boeing and other large firms with significant business relationships with the government. …
Agency lawyers had nixed Boeing out of concern that the department’s work lobbying for the company’s interests overseas could present the appearance of a conflict of interest, said a former agency official familiar with the decision. …
An appeal from Winslow and others involved in the project resulted in a new ruling in Boeing’s case: Since there was no direct conflict of interest, the expo could accept a donation from the company, but only up to $1 million. The goal was to ensure that Boeing did not dominate the event, the former official said. …
The announcement that Boeing would give $2 million rather than the $1 million maximum that had been set was made by Clinton on Nov. 16, 2009, as she toured the pavilion site. Earlier the same day, she visited a Boeing hangar in Shanghai and addressed executives from Boeing and other companies to stress the importance of the project.
How the decision was made to raise the cap remains a mystery, at least in public.
Neither Winslow nor Lavin, nor a number of other officials whose involvement with the expo pre-dated Clinton’s involvement, recalled the decision.
Said one former official: “Things were done for the pavilion that were not done in any other instance for fundraising purposes.” …
Merrill, the Clinton spokesman, said support from Boeing and other corporations was sought only because it was important for the success of the event. “Suggesting otherwise would be like saying that encouraging Pizza Hut’s sponsorship was done in an effort to get free pizza,” he said.
This week, Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-FL) sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx urging the department to consider concerns about the All Aboard Florida rail project, saying it would have a “detrimental impact on existing business and the quality-of-life” for local residents. Harsh rhetoric coming from Murphy, who according to the TC Palm, signed onto a letter “singing the praises” of the rail project just six months ago. The letter stated that the rail project would have “a lasting impact on Florida’s economy and transportation system” and in the process “serve as a model” for others throughout the nation.
Leading Democrats were turning on some Boyz II Men this morning, because for them it’s oh so hard to say goodbye to their friend Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius might have been a disaster as Secretary, overseeing the embarrassing launch of the Obamacare website HealthCare.gov, but that didn’t stop the Democrat affection for her.
Every Democrat facing reelection this Fall supported her nomination. Here are our 3 favorite examples of their effusive praise of Sebelius’ Obamacare stewardship.
Jeanne Shaheen: “Governor Sebelius is a common sense leader who understands the complexities of our health care system. Through her experience as the Governor of Kansas, State Insurance Commissioner and President of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, she has a broad and deep understanding of health care and will be an outstanding leader as we work to fix our broken system.”
Mary Landrieu: “Thank you, Madam Secretary. And I want to commend you for tenacity and your focus on helping stand up a major reform.” (Subcommittee On Labor, HHS, And
Education – Committee On Appropriations, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 3/7/12)
Bruce Braley: “One of the things that keeps coming up in this hearing because you are from Kansas is references to ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ And people went to go see the wizard because of the wonderful things that he did. And the Affordable Care Act is doing a lot of great things in Iowa.”
We look forward to seeing you on the trail, Madam Secretary!
Hillary Clinton used some evasive maneuvers this week to dodge a shoe thrown at her, but she wasn’t so lucky at dodging attacks by Jimmy Carter. On Wednesday, Jimmy Carter discussed Clinton’s lack of accomplishments stating, “when Secretary Clinton was Secretary of State, she took very little action to bring about peace.” [Read more…]
With its funding from liberal VC backers and renown journalist/thinkfluencer Ashton Kutcher (of Dude Where’s My Car fame) on its Board Of Advisors, Vox.com launched their website this week touting “explanatory” journalism. [Read more…]
The Washington Examiner has a story this morning on the opposition research and tracking work we’re doing here at America Rising to hold Democrats accountable for their words and actions. Here are some highlights, check out the whole thing.
Here’s Democrat Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen tweeting in the 3rd person.
