#clinton administration

[dadsinsuits]

Kenneth M. Quinn

[classyclips]

“If tomorrow Russia goes into Crimea, no one will raise an eyebrow. Besides… promises, no one ever planned to give Ukraine any guarantees.” Leonid Kuchma

It is no accident that Kuchma mentioned the possible invasion of Crimea in 1994, not Donbas or any other region of Ukraine. Already in the spring of 1994, Russia seriously attempted to invade Crimea for the first time, just seven months before signing the Budapest Memorandum.

[deadpresidents]

Their paths into politics could hardly have been more different, and their first encounter was rough. In 1999, both George W. [Bush], as Governor of Texas, and Jeb [Bush], newly elected in Florida, visited the White House during a Governors' conference. [President] Clinton liked Jeb right away but found George W. downright surly. Still, when Clinton's aides noted that the Texan seemed particularly uncomfortable, Clinton came to his defense: "Look, the guy's just being honest. What's he supposed to do, like me? I defeated his father. He loves his father. It doesn't bother me -- this is a contact sport." During the 2000 campaign, Clinton watched George W. with growing respect -- "compassionate conservatism" is a "genius slogan," he warned Al Gore's team -- and when George W. paid a visit after he won, Clinton came away from their meeting and a long lunch in the White House residence saying, "It's a mistake to underestimate him."

-- Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, on the first impressions and interactions between then-President Bill Clinton and Texas Governor George W. Bush, TIME Magazine, August 3, 2015.

[tomorrowusa]

News you won't find on Fox News or other far right outlets.

Official crime statistics are only released after a substantial delay, so for nearly a decade I’ve collected and compiled big-city crime data as a way to assemble a more real-time picture of national murder trends. And this spring, I’ve found something that I’ve never seen before and that probably has not happened in decades: strong evidence of a sharp and broad decline in the nation’s murder rate. The United States may be experiencing one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded, according to my preliminary data. It is still early in the year and the trend could change over the second half of the year, but data from a sufficiently large sample of big cities have typically been a good predictor of the year-end national change in murder, even after only five months.

It's in the interests of extremist Republicans to get white people in particular to think that out of control minorities are out to murder them. So when crime goes down, the GOP ramps up other things like culture war issues.

Murder is down about 12 percent year-to-date in more than 90 cities that have released data for 2023, compared with data as of the same date in 2022. Big cities tend to slightly amplify the national trend—a 5 percent decline in murder rates in big cities would likely translate to a smaller decline nationally. But even so, the drop shown in the preliminary data is astonishing.

True, there is still the sensational murder here or there which will get a disproportionate amount of coverage. But murder rates across the board are down notably.

[T]he good news is, well, good. Murder is down 13 percent in New York City, and shootings are down 25 percent, relative to last year as of late May. Murder is down more than 20 percent in Los Angeles, Houston, and Philadelphia. And, most significantly, murder is down 30 percent—30 percent!—or more in Jackson, Mississippi; Atlanta, Georgia; Little Rock, Arkansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and others.

The last significant drop in crime took place in the 1990s during the Clinton administration.

The cause of the Great Crime Decline of the 1990s, when murder fell 37 percent over six years, is still not fully understood, so any explanations of the current trend must remain in the hypothesis phase for now.

I hate to rub it in, but there seems to be at least a modest correlation. In the 1970s and 1980s when 16 of those 20 years were under Republican administrations, the crime rate in the US soared. The crime decline of the 1990s and the current murder nosedive are under Democratic administrations.

The current dip is despite the number of police officers being the same or just slightly down.

Murder is down in Chicago, New Orleans, and New York, for example, but Chicago’s number of police officers is virtually unchanged from last summer, while New Orleans’s is down more than 8 percent and New York has roughly 2 percent fewer officers. The end of the emergency phase of the coronavirus pandemic may also be contributing to the decline in murder.

The murder rate went up during the COVID-19 emergency. Perhaps that's another result of Donald Trump's botched handling of the pandemic.

It's been finally dawning on people that Republicans aren't great for the economy. Eventually it may also become conventional wisdom that the GOP is bad for public safety.

When the de facto leader of the Republican Party is an indicted lying crook with the mindset of a petty mobster, that sends a message to American society that such behavior is acceptable. No wonder criminal behavior is down since Trump's departure from office.

No honest person can call the GOP the party of "law and order" any more.

[petsincollections]

Photograph of Socks the Cat Peeking into his Christmas Stocking, 12/21/1993

Series: Photographs Relating to the Clinton Administration

Collection WJC-WHPO: Photographs of the White House Photograph Office (Clinton Administration)

National Archives Catalog

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

It’s not Hunter Biden’s scalp they want. Rather, the House GOP caucus is poised to launch a two-year crusade to tarnish President Joe Biden’s character—and lower his poll numbers—just like they did with Hillary Clinton and the Benghazi hearings prior to her 2016 candidacy.

But things are different this time around—Democrats aren’t going to assume that voters can see through the partisan bluster, and are mounting a war room operation outside the White House. The Congressional Integrity Project (a pointed moniker, to be sure) will try to fend off the Republican barrage, and go on the offensive in the information war.

The existence of the newly revamped group, first reported by Politico, is an effort to mount a 21st-century war room with a response team that can “expose the political intentions behind the investigations targeting the White House,” says Leslie Dach, a senior adviser to the CIP, who is working with founder Kyle Herrig and longtime political activist Brad Woodhouse. All three have deep Democratic Party ties.

“This is a battle over narratives, and we believe we can win that war,” says Dach. “They’re (the GOP) saying it in plain English, they’re trying to hurt Joe Biden. It’s the Trump playbook of personal attacks.”

The group is funded by independent donors and foundations, and as a C-4 designated group, it does not disclose its donors. While independent of the White House, it is in close touch with Biden aides.

Kentucky Republican Jim Comer, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, didn’t waste any time saying the quiet part out loud. Once the razor-thin GOP majority was confirmed, he said at a press conference, “I want to be clear, this is an investigation of Joe Biden, that is where the committee will focus in this next Congress.”

Hunter Biden provides the cover for an investigation into “whether the president is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars,” said Comer.

That kind of admission cost Kevin McCarthy the speakership in 2015 when he told Fox News that the House Select Committee on Benghazi was created to lower Hillary Clinton’s polls. His forthrightness was widely seen as a gaffe. Until McCarthy let the truth slip, Republicans insisted the long-running investigation had nothing to do with politics. Rep. Jim Jordan (one of the most bombastic GOP members) had his moment more recently when he said Trump would be the candidate again, “and we need to make sure that he wins.”

“I think the American people see the hypocrisy, but we’ll be showing it to them,” says Dach, who oversaw the Democrats’ successful messaging on health care that is credited with winning the House in 2018 and 2020. “There’s a simple story to tell, and you have to tell it every day.”

The updated war room harks back to the self-described “Masters of Disaster,” referring to two Clinton administration aides (Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani) who successfully steered the White House response to GOP attacks during the 1990s, in part by selective leaking to the media and generally outsmarting the other team.

Counterattacking became the hallmark of the Clinton White House—and it worked. Democrats gained seats in the House in the 1998 midterms despite investigations into Whitewater (an Arkansas land deal that became shorthand for various scandals) and the Republican House voting to impeach Clinton. “Investigate the investigators,” is central to the CIC’s mission, and it is reminiscent of the negative coverage the Clinton team directed at investigator Kenneth Starr during the Monica Lewinsky investigation.

Massive overreach almost always backfires, yet no one escapes unscathed. Sling enough mud and some is bound to stick.

Only three House Republicans in the upcoming 117th Congress were serving during the Clinton presidency. “The vast majority doesn’t have firsthand knowledge of how GOP investigations backfired,” says Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont-McKenna College whose views were informed by working as a political operative on Capitol Hill before going into academia. “Unless they come up with some dramatic new information that directly involves President Biden, this tactic is unlikely to succeed and may well backfire.”

“The Democrats know what’s coming,” he adds. “It’s the A team versus the gang that can’t shoot straight.”

McCarthy—the presumptive next House Speaker—has to stick with the Trump playbook if he wants to lead his caucus. “I don’t think he’ll go down in history as a political mastermind, but this is something that the base wants, even though he may have some inkling it won’t succeed with the general electorate,” says Pitney. One bright spot: “It gives them something to talk about instead of delivering some real answers on inflation,” which is what Republicans campaigned on solving and will soon realize, if they haven’t already, that there’s not much they can do about it.

Having an outside group take on the rapid response of countering GOP attacks in real time will help insulate Biden personally and politically from the fight. “It will be emotionally tough on Biden to see his son tarnished day in and day out,” says Pitney. “I don’t think they’ll find anything that implicates him (President Biden) in improper activity, but it will still be tough on him as a loving father.”

Hunter Biden has been under investigation since late 2018 in Delaware for tax violations stemming from his lucrative role as a board member of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, and for his dealings with a Chinese energy company. After he learned he was under investigation, he took out a loan to pay $1 million in back taxes, but that doesn’t absolve him of other potentially damning charges.

So far, the judicial system is working. Former Attorney General Bill Barr resisted President Trump’s entreaties to name a special counsel. And after Biden was elected, Attorney General Merrick Garland kept the Trump-appointed U.S. District Attorney, David Weiss, in place in Delaware to complete the investigation, exempting him from the customary request for resignations when a new president takes office.

Hunter Biden’s laptop, which he left at a Delaware computer shop and never returned to retrieve, has become the centerpiece of conspiracy theories about how he was ripping off the taxpayers and trading on his father’s name. The details are murky but like Hillary and Benghazi, it is a scandal that keeps on giving. The difference is that this time around, Democrats won’t be on their heels playing defense. They’re preparing to punch back.

[thecapitolradar]

House Intelligence Committee chair warns of a serious national security threat

The gravity of this issue cannot be overstated. House Republicans need to quit playing around, and expose the national security threat posed by the addicts on Capitol Hill, who hostile foreign powers have been turning into assets in EVERY White House administration since the Clintons.

When addicts are chasing addictive supply (that'd be always), there are no political parties -- only politics without borders.

[betweenthetimeandsound]

I found this to be an interesting video! Especially seeing how perceptions change over time.

[historyhermann]

Climate Change and the Military: Examining the Pentagon’s Integration of National Security Interests and Environmental Goals under Clinton [Part 14]

Continued from Part 13

This post is reprinted from the National Security Archive website and my History Hermann WordPress blog. Archived here.

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Photos I wanted to add but were not added in the final post for some reason:

Supreme Allied Commander John J. Sheehan (left), U.S. Secretary of Defense William J. Perry (center), and Lt. Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm (right) at Camp Lejeune in August 1996. Perry, as Defense Secretary, was a big proponent of the Pentagon’s focus on environmental security as part of the military’s mission. (Photo credit: National Archives at College Park)

Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre answers a question at a July 8, 1999, Pentagon press briefing on U.S. participation in NATO Operation Allied Force. In September 1997, Hamre wrote a letter to Secretary of State Strobe Talbot calling for Kyoto Protocol provisions that “protect national security.” (Photo credit: Department of Defense)

Holly Kaufman shaking hands with Vice President Al Gore. She served as a Pentagon representative in Buenos Aires at the UN Climate Change Conference in 1998. (Photo credit: Environment & Enterprise Strategies)

Stuart Eizenstat appears before The Senate Judiciary Committee in October 1999. Eizenstat, the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs from 1997 to 1999, spoke to the fourth Conference of Parties in November 1998, noting that the Kyoto Protocol fulfills U.S. “national security goals.” (Photo credit: US Department of the Treasury. Also see here)

Bruce DeGrazia speaking on procurement and funding of homeland security programs in October 2002. In 1999 and 2000, he served as the Pentagon’s Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Environmental Quality and was one of the Pentagon representatives at global climate change conferences during those years. (Photo credit: C-Span: https://www.c-span.org/video/?173351-1/homeland-security-financing at 0:7.22)

Col. Darrell Jones, Ken Paton, Col. Thomas Koning, and Col. David “Dave” T. Peters, during the ceremony in 2003. Peters was a Pentagon representative at the global climate change conference in 2000, along with other military officials. (Photo credit: US Army Corps of Engineers New England District, “Yankee Engineer”: https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/AA/00/06/45/10/00036/03-2003.pdf (see page 11))

Secretary Clinton announces that Todd Stern is appointed as the Special Envoy on Climate Change in January 2009. Stern sent an email to Clinton’s advisors arguing that the “national security threat” posed by climate change could be used to argue for the Waxman-Markey Bill. (Photo credit: State Department photo by Michael Gross, also here)

[tenth-sentence]

The Clinton administration in the US, alerted to the fact that deranged gurus with enough techy followers can act like terrorists and pose a threat to governments and citizens – previously the domain of rogue nations with clear agendas – beefed up its defences against similar attacks and clamped down on access to hazardous germs via microbe banks.

"Zealot: A Book About Cults" - Jo Thornely

[cyarskaren52]

I read that earlier, shook my head in disgust & scroll on by

The folk behind her look just as through

She’s evil for that!

[deadpresidents]

If I recall correctly, weren’t you a pretty big fan of Bill Clinton for some time? I recall a lot of posts from you about him that were fairly favorable. When did you finally accept that he was a creep? Do you think there’s finally a chance of accountability? I am truly asking from a place of empathy as I know what it’s like to have someone you looked up turn out to be not so great.

No, you're 100% correct. I was a fan of Bill Clinton for a long time. He was President from the time I was 13 until I was 21, and for a kid who was into Presidential history and Democratic politics, he was a major presence in my life. I still think that he is probably the most naturally-gifted politician of my lifetime. Nobody that I've watched has been able to explain public policy or instantly breeze through complicated press conference questions like Bill Clinton. For years after he left office, I said that he should just be the guy who explains how things work to America; he's remarkably smart.

One of the craziest examples of Clinton's intelligence is that he had to figure out ways to make it look like he doesn't have the answer to everything immediately. Clinton's political advisers thought he came across at times like a know-it-all and that it wasn't a good look on the campaign trail. You know how one of the famous mannerisms of Clinton is how he'll pause while he's speaking and bite his lip, like this?

Well, that was done on purpose. Clinton's advisers thought that his quick, completely formed answers to complicated questions was unnatural and that he needed to make himself seem more thoughtful, so he'd pause and bite his lip almost as an intellectual speed bump. Paul Begala, one of the most important architects of Clinton's 1992 campaign explained:

"He was so smart about so many things but also could connect. The whole thing about his biting his lip -- that was coached. Because he would answer so fast. We'd say, 'Take a beat. Pretend you're thinking about it. Pretend you haven't already got an answer.' It was a studied thing to give himself a second to force himself to slow down."

So, things like that were why I was always so impressed and appreciative of Clinton's skills and political gifts.

But, obviously, as I've gotten older and come to understand his personal actions a lot better, it's really hard not to consider him a creep. I mean, the Epstein thing is obviously impossible to reconcile. Even if it there hasn't been any suggestion of Clinton actually abusing any of the girls in the way that Epstein did, he spent a lot of time around Epstein and it's gross. I think one of Epstein's victims said that Clinton was a "total gentleman" and didn't do anything wrong to her, but that photo of a very young girl giving him a neck message in what looks like an airport terminal is a really bad look. That was clearly after he left office, so that was post-Monica Lewinsky and Clinton should have had the awareness to not even put himself near that type of situation with a girl that young (or any woman who was not his wife) -- even if it was just a neck massage that lasted a short amount of time. Even if the girl offered to do it willingly and had no issues with it, that's not a situation that Clinton -- who was impeached and could have been removed from office because he had an affair with a young woman -- should have have felt comfortable with.

But beyond that, as I've gotten older and as we've all gotten better about recognizing these things, his relationship with Monica Lewinsky is what bothers me because of the position that he put Monica in. She was in her early 20s -- barely older than Clinton's own daughter at the time -- and he was President of the United States. Listen, I don't have any room to criticize someone for dating younger women (seriously), but it's the power dynamic and the manner in which he treated Monica when things started to get difficult for him. That poor girl was in such an unimaginably nightmarish place because of what Clinton did and how he -- the incumbent President of the United States -- spoke about her publicly and treated her privately. When you think about it in terms of a relationship, it's just a crazy situation. And the poise that Monica Lewinsky had then and now speaks volumes about the person she is and has become, so it just makes Clinton look that much more terrible in comparison.

It is disappointing because I was a fan of President Clinton for most of my life. And, like Richard Nixon, he was so gifted when it came to his intellectual powers and, in Clinton's case, his political skills, that his flaws and his actions were overlooked for too long. I don't know what kind of accountability there might be for Clinton now that he's been out of office for nearly 25 years and is a few years away from his 80th birthday. But I can say that I feel like I know who he is now and "creep" seems like a pretty fitting description.

[kcyars520]

[cyarsk52-20]