Archive for the ‘Hillary Clinton’ Category

Hillary Clinton supports Obama on Syria airstrikes

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Wednesday voiced support for President Obama's decision to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria and sought to downplay past differences with the president over strategy in the region.

Clinton made the comments during a discussion moderated by CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York.

"The situation now is demanding a response, and we are seeing a very robust response," Clinton said, according to CNN. "It is something that I think the president is right to bring the world attention to."

As secretary of state, Clinton encouraged Obama to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels, but he rejected her advice."No one likes to lose a debate, including me. But this was the President's call and I respected his deliberations and decision," Clinton wrote in her book, "Hard Choices."

With the threat from the Islamic State rising in Syria and across the border in Iraq, Obama has embraceda strategy of training and equipping moderate rebels, in addition to airstrikes.

In her remarks Wednesday, Clinton seemed to brush aside past policy disagreements with Obama.

"Whatever the debates might have been before, this is a threat to the region and beyond," she said, CNN reported. "I can't sit here today and tell you that if we had done what I had recommended we would be in a very different position. I just can't. You can't go and prove a negative."

As Clinton weighs a run for president in 2016, any comments on national security and foreign policy have been in the spotlight. She received widespread attention when she told the Atlantic in a summer interview that "Great nations need organizing principles -- and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle." At the time, the remark was seen as a dig at Obama, since that phrase had reportedly been used inside the White House as shorthand for the president's foreign policy doctrine.

Sean Sullivan has covered national politics for The Washington Post since 2012.

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Hillary Clinton supports Obama on Syria airstrikes

Hillary Clinton on How to Close the Business Gender Gap

Hillary Clinton says that the gender gap wont close unless we significantly change the culture that pervades the American workplace.

There are a lot of women who think they had to make a choice, Clinton said on Wednesday morning at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. For a lot of them its a choice that was in effect forced on them: I can either pursue my career in the time that itd be most likely I could have a child or not. Theres a growing awareness in our own society that we cant just give lip service to the idea that mothers are important. We have to provide the support systems that enable women to make the choices that are right for them.

The numbers around women in the workforce are disheartening at best. Theres the fact that for every dollar men earn, women earn 78 cents. Theres the fact that in the tech industry, working mothers make $11,247 less than women without children and men. And of course, there are all those hideously imbalanced diversity reports being released by companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple.

But while many of these companies and other organizations are trying to correct this imbalance by supporting coding courses and STEM education, former secretary of state Clinton believes we must do more than just fill the pipeline with talent. When she talks about providing support systems, she means benefits like affordable childcare, free preschool programs, and paid family and maternity leave. Those are not just nice luxuries for women, Clinton said. They would fundamentally free up women to be in the workforce if they had the skills and desire to do so.

As she explained, the absence of such programs, which are readily available in many other countries around the world, sends a strong signal to women that society and our economy dont value mothers.

Clintons stance on these benefits has drawn a fair bit of criticism lately by those who see this feminist approach as a presidential campaign strategy. And Clinton concedes that these programs are not wholesale solutions, just temporary fixes to a very complex and enduring problem. What we need just as urgently, she said, is more data on why, exactly, this gap exists, which is one reason why she has teamed up with her daughter Chelsea Clinton, as well as Melinda Gates, to launch No Ceilings, a massive data mining project aimed at understanding why women continue to be underpaid and underrepresented in the workplace.

Im not sure we have the best data we need in our own country. Whats really behind the stagnation in wages and in workforce participation? We have some very educated guesses, but Im not sure we really know, Clinton said. We need to do much more to understand. But we could, in the meantime, use some fixes that could give more people more opportunity.

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Hillary Clinton on How to Close the Business Gender Gap

Benghazi documents scrubbed to protect Hillary Clinton, ex-State Dept. official claims – Video


Benghazi documents scrubbed to protect Hillary Clinton, ex-State Dept. official claims
Benghazi documents scrubbed to protect Hillary Clinton, ex-State Dept. official claims http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/09/benghazi-documents-scrubbed-to-pr...

By: ABC7 WJLA

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Benghazi documents scrubbed to protect Hillary Clinton, ex-State Dept. official claims - Video

#PROGRESS FOR WOMEN? – Video


#PROGRESS FOR WOMEN?
Democrats Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Kirsten Gillibrand Patty Murray attended an economic conference last week, which was live tweeted on twitter with #progress4women. However, are Democrats...

By: juicysparkles

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#PROGRESS FOR WOMEN? - Video

Hillary Clinton returns to Iowa; so is this a fresh start or deja vu?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Indianola, Iowa (CNN) -- "It's been seven years, and a lot has changed," Hillary Clinton said Sunday in her first visit to Iowa since the state dealt her presidential campaign a devastating body blow.

But there was a moment in the afternoon when it seemed like not much had.

Roughly 200 credentialed media were gathered in a far corner of the Indianola Balloon Field, the grassy expanse where Sen. Tom Harkin was convening his 37th and final Steak Fry, an annual fundraiser that doubles as a point of entry for ambitious Democrats curious about the Iowa caucuses.

After a 90-minute wait, the press scrum -- scribblers and photographers alike -- were herded like cattle through a series of gates and escorted up to a hot smoking grill, waiting to capture the same image: a staged shot of Bill and Hillary Clinton, fresh out of their motorcade, ritualistically flipping steaks with Harkin.

Hillary Clinton stumps for Iowa Democrats, and herself

The Clintons ignored the half-hearted shouted questions from reporters -- "Mr. President, do you eat meat?" -- with practiced ease. They were two football fields away from the nearest voter. Mechanical, distant, heavy-handed: The afternoon spectacle felt a lot like Hillary's 2008 caucus campaign, a succession of errors that crumbled under the weight of a feuding top-heavy staff and the candidate's inability to connect with her party's grassroots.

And then the head fake -- and something different.

After a few minutes, the Clintons walked into a nearby barn, out of view. Most of the media swarm gave up and hustled back to the main event, where nearly 7,000 Democrats were eating red meat and waiting patiently in the sunshine to hear from two of the most famous people in the world.

A few dozen press were still milling about when the duo re-emerged. "There she is!" a television reporter screamed, clamoring for her cameraman.

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Hillary Clinton returns to Iowa; so is this a fresh start or deja vu?