Archive for February, 2015

Hillary Clinton plays the gender card (even when she doesnt)

There's a funny exchange in HBO's Veep when Selina Meyeraka Julia Louis-Dreyfus is trying to decide how to frame her position on abortion as she makes a White House run. A male aide suggests that she preface whatever position she has with the phrase "as a woman" in order to wrap her policy position in identity politics. "No, no, no, I can't identify as a woman! People can't know that," she says. "Men hate that. And women who hate women hate that, which, I believe, is most women."

This is the sitcom version of Hillary Clinton's dilemma as she readies her 2016 presidential bid. The difficulty of that balancing act was apparent Tuesday when Clinton spoke before a group of people who are very much her base: well-heeled, mostly white, women.

She came onstage and left as "I'm Every Woman," blasted from the speakers. She joked about her weight: "You can tell I am not doing Fitbit. Do I really want something telling me I should do what I know what I should do?" She cheered Patricia Arquette's Oscars equal-pay speech, and declared that it's time to "crack every glass ceiling." And she quoted Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright when she said that there is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.

There was also this:

It was all I-am-woman-hear-me-roar, a seeming foreshadow of her campaign themes -- and a striking contrast to the messaging of her last presidential campaign. Clinton, the conventional wisdom goes, is embracing the historic nature of her would-be run this time around, going where she didn't go in 2008 until the very end.

That approach -- or at least the belief that it will be her planned approach -- has drawn criticism from people like possible 2016 foil Carly Fiorina, who said she expects that Clinton will unfortunately play the gender card over and over again.

Yet, it's not clear, at least so far that Clinton actually plans to do that.

Sure, many of her speeches have been about women, but those speeches have come in front of audiences of all women. Blasting Chaka Khan's anthem and talking about Albright is a kind of situation-specific code switching that doesn't necessarily tell us if or how Clinton will "play the gender card."

A piece by Emily Schultheis at National Journal called "Clinton's 2016 Gender Play," lays out Clinton's strategy:

Already, recent words and actions hint at the ways she'll bring gender into the 2016 campaignby talking about issues like pay equity, affordable child care, and paid family leave, referencing her past work for women and children, and gushing about her new granddaughter.

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Hillary Clinton plays the gender card (even when she doesnt)

The Fix: Elizabeth Warrens answer on Hillary Clintons liberal credentials wasnt convincing at all

It's no secret that Hillary Clinton badly wants the approval of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (and the liberal wing of the party she represents) in advance of the former Secretary of State's near-certain 2016 bid. There was themeeting between the two at Clinton's DC house back in December and the various rhetorical bows Clinton has made to Warren's populist rhetoric over the past few months.

Given that recent history, what Warren had to say about Clinton during an appearance on Al Sharpton's MSNBC show Tuesday night has to be disappointing to Clintonworld. Here's the exchange:

Sharpton: A lot of progressives have questions about whether she'll [Hillary Clinton] be a progressive warrior. what would you say to them?

Warren: You know, I think that's what we gotta see. I want to hear what she wants to run on and what she says she wants to do. that's what campaigns are supposed to be about.

Um, ok. If you look up the definition of "lukewarm," you find Warren's statement. She could have very easily said: "Look, Hillary Clinton and I have had a lot of good conversations lately and I am convinced that she will fight for the progressive principles that we both hold dear." But, she didn't say that. And there's a reason why not: Because, at least at the moment, Warren doesn't believe it.

Of course, there's a difference in politics between not being all that convinced in private and making clear you are not all that convinced in public. Warren chose the latter approach, likely because she wants to make sure the Clinton people know that she won't be a pushover. Warren quite clearly wants to remain apart from the ardent Clinton supporters in order to ensure that some of her policy priorities -- particularly a tough and aggressive approach to Wall Street -- are reflected in Clinton's campaign.

That stance doesn't mean Warren is itching to run against Clinton. (I still don't think she is.) But, it does mean that Warren, at least in the near term, may be Republicans' best friend -- providing all sorts of fodder for the GOP as they try to make the case that Clinton isn't really what the Democratic party wants.

Chris Cillizza writes The Fix, a politics blog for the Washington Post. He also covers the White House.

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The Fix: Elizabeth Warrens answer on Hillary Clintons liberal credentials wasnt convincing at all

Hillary Clinton previews 2016, says its time to crack every last glass ceiling

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during a keynote address at the Watermark Silicon Valley Conference for Women, Feb. 24, 2015, in Santa Clara, Calif.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. Declaring this the time to crack every last glass ceiling, Hillary Rodham Clinton advocated forcefully here Tuesday for greater economic mobility for women and said she hopes to lead a divided nation into a warm purple space of compromise.

Clintons appearance before 5,000 female leaders in the heart of Silicon Valleys technology industry left no doubt that she would run for president again. The overwhelming favorite for the 2016 Democratic nomination, Clinton said that she would announce her campaign in good time and that she was nearly finished checking off her pre-campaign to-do list.

She previewed themes of economic fairness and gender equality that are expected to form the heart of her pitch to voters, test-driving a stump speech in which she wove together economic statistics and personal anecdotes to call for a 21st-century economy for 21st-century families.

We have to restore economic growth with rising wages for the vast majority of Americans, and we have to restore trust and cooperation within our political system so that we can act like the great country we are, said Clinton, a former secretary of state.

Central to her message was pay equity for women. Clinton singled out Oscar-winning actress Patricia Arquette for her advocacy during the Academy Awards telecast Sunday night.

We all cheered at Patricia Arquettes speech at the Oscars because shes right, Clinton said. Its time to have wage equality once and for all.

Clinton lamented that too many Americans feel the ground shifting under their feet. Wages for middle-class workers have been stagnant, she said, while executive pay continues to rise.

In so many ways, our economy still seems to be operating like its 1955, Clinton said. She added, If we want to find our balance again, we have to figure out how to make this new economy work for everyone.

Clintons speech, followed by a question-and-answer session with tech columnist Kara Swisher, was a paid appearance at Lead On, Watermarks Silicon Valley Conference for Women, where tickets sold for $245. Organizers did not disclose her fee, but Clintons typical rate for West Coast speeches is $250,000 to $300,000.

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Hillary Clinton previews 2016, says its time to crack every last glass ceiling

Nita Farahany: In the future, could brain imaging be used as legal evidence?

(Jon Olav Eikenes via Flickr | http://bit.ly/1BOh016 Rights information: http://bit.ly/NL51dk)

Brain imaging can already pull bits of information from the minds of willing volunteers in laboratories. What happens when police or lawyers want to use it to pry a key fact from the mind of an unwilling person?

Will your brain be protected under the Fourth Amendment from unreasonable search and seizure?

Or will your brain have a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination?

These are issues the United States Supreme Court is going to have to resolve, said Nita Farahany, a professor of law and philosophy at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who specializes in bioethical issues.

Those legal choices are likely decades away, in part because the exacting, often finicky process of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) could be thwarted if a reluctant person so much as swallowed at the wrong time. Also, a brain exam couldnt be admitted in court unless it worked well enough to meet the legal standards for scientific evidence.

Still, the progress being made in brain decoding is so intriguing that legal scholars and neuroscientists couldnt resist speculating during a law and memory session earlier this month at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, California.

Our brains are constantly sorting, storing and responding to stimuli. As researchers figure out exactly where and how the brain encodes information, the fMRI also becomes a tool that can decode that information. The fMRI can identify the portions of the brain that are active, based on the increased quantity of freshly oxygenated blood they draw. Already, brain decoding can perform a version of that old magicians trick guess what card someone is looking at with better than 90 percent accuracy, University of California, Berkeley neuroscientist Jack Gallant told the group.

Farahany predicts that like most new science, brain decoding will break into the courtroom for the first time through a cooperative witness, someone who wants to use it to advance his or her case.

Stanford University law professor Henry Greely, who moderated the Feb. 13 law and memory session, suggested that a court might be especially open to novel techniques during the sentencing hearing in a death penalty case.

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Nita Farahany: In the future, could brain imaging be used as legal evidence?

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