#jeb friedman

[superman86to99]

Superman: The Man of Steel #37 (September 1994)

Zero Hour is here, and so is Batman! And Batman, and Batman, and Batman, and, yes, even Batman! Clark Kent and Lois Lane are strolling down beautiful, half-destroyed Metropolis when Clark sees a Morse code message coming from a rooftop. It turns out to be Batman, who's looking rather... Neal Adams-ish. Superman should have realized something was off when Batman called him "old friend," even though these two have only been able to stand each other for (in DCU time) about a year at most.

Not only does Batman not recognize Superman's post-resurrection mullet hippie hair, but he seems confused when Superman mentions that little incident where he had his back broken by a 'roided-out wrestler, which suggests that he hasn't experienced the '90s at all. If Superman was truly Batman's friend, he'd rush him to the nearest arcade to play Super Street Fighter II Turbo right away.

Anyway, Batman dropped by Metropolis to warn Superman that there's some sort of "time anomaly" going on that's making "people from the past" show up in the present. You don't say.

Meanwhile, the big "concert to rebuild Metropolis" that's been teased in recent issues is about to get started. The organizer, Lois Lane's douchey ponytail-wearing ex-boyfriend Jeb Friedman, is jumped by some guys who look a whole lot like the Mutant gang from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, who hate Jeb because they don't want Metropolis to be rebuilt (as opposed to any of the other 99,999 valid reasons for hating Jeb). Tragically, Jeb's life is saved by the grittiest, most violent Batman of all: yes, Ben Affleck.

(Just kidding. I know that's actually Adam West.)

After saving Jeb, this Batman runs into Superman and says he came to warn him about the time anomalies, but it's pretty obvious he already knew about them, considering he's hanging out with two separate Batmen and all. The Batmen barely have any time to get acquainted before a third Batman drops by, this one looking like he came straight from 1939's Detective Comics #27. Oh, and then the Neal Adams Batman suddenly turns into a different, much more pointy-eared Batman in the middle of a sentence.

(The DC wiki claims it's Kelley Jones Batman, but our resident art expert Don Sparrow says it could be Marshall Rogers Batman.)

Since Superman's all-purpose science guy isn't in his lab right now, he decides to bring the Batmen to the benefit concert in case the Mutants cause any more trouble -- especially since the music is so loud, it's "interfering with [Superman's] super-hearing." We just discovered another Superman vulnerability aside from Kryptonite and magic: '90s death metal.

As predicted, the Mutants do strike during the concert, and somehow even bring a whole tank into it (today, you can't even bring in a water bottle). Luckily, the music was so loud that most of the crowd didn't even notice it took one Superman, three Batmen, and some anti-tank explosives courtesy of DKR Batman to save them.

Superman finally finds Professor Hamilton, who was at the concert with some girlfriends, and asks him look into the mystery of the many Batmen. Hamilton employs his usual approach to scientific investigation: just put people inside a big glass ball (the isolation chamber first seen in Adventures #458).

Hamilton's instruments determine that "something very odd is happening to time," which Superman probably could have figured out without the need of a big glass ball -- especially since the Batmen are now rapidly turning into other Batmen and fading out of existence. Hamilton's conclusion is that Superman should probably look up the real Batman from this timeline. Just then, Superman hears a high-pitched noise: it's that precise Batman, who just arrived in Metropolis and used a gizmo to call his attention.

'90s Batman says the same thing as the others: weird time-related things are happening in Gotham... and Metropolis too, as is pretty clear by now. Just then, Metron of the New Gods shows up in his funky time-and-space-traveling chair to say that this isn't a mere "time anomaly" -- it's a CRISIS™!

TO BE CONTINUED IN ZERO HOUR!

Plotline-Watch:

That last scene is also seen in Batman #511 (in part) and Zero Hour #4 (in full). By the way, I'm pretty sure this is the first time Superman and Batman have met since the former came back to life and the latter got his back fixed. It's too bad they didn't update Batman's looks in some way when he returned, like maybe with a mullet showing through his cowl, Batgirl-style. In fact, they should give all DC heroes mullets when they come back from death/paralysis.

All through the issue, we see a Kryptonian ship (like Superman's birth matrix, but bigger) traveling through space, arriving on Earth, landing on Smallville, and, finally, its occupants getting off and going up to the Kent farm. They turn out to be Jor-El and Lara... and they think Pa Kent is their son. Maybe Superman's human parents aren't the only ones who need glasses.

The most dramatic part of the concert is when one of the Mutants shoots at the headlining artist, Jimmy Olsen's old friend Babe, and we see the bullet go through her chest. Then she dramatically turns into a giant bat and spooks her assailant while the audience cheers, convinced that these are just really good stage tricks. Later, Jimmy visits Babe backstage and congratulates her on the effects. She's like "yes... effects." (As a reminder, the last time we saw her, two years ago, she was bitten by a vampire.)

It's obscured by the big glass ball in the panel up there, but Professor Hamilton debuts his hydraulic robot arm in this issue, having lost his flesh and blood one in Adventures #514. Incidentally, the "girlfriends" of Hamilton's I mentioned before are Case, the white-haired girl he met in that Adventures issue, and her Riot Grrrl bandmates, who invite Ham to sit with them near the stage. I'm surprised he didn't lose his other arm in the mosh pits.

Keith the Unlucky Orphan attends the concert with his new friend Alice White and her husband, Perry, but Keith wanders off when he thinks he sees his long-gone mom in the crowd. That's the last we see of Keith in this issue, so it's easy to get the impression that he got ran over by the tank or something. (At least we learn that Lucan, that other kid from last issue, did find his mom.)

At the end of the issue, Jeb confirms his scumbag status by bragging to Lois that Clark has never done anything as "awesome" as organizing a concert with extremely lax security, and then trying to get Lois to come to Paris with him. Lois is surprisingly patient with him and even gives him a kiss on the cheek. He urges her to get married quick because "that's the only thing that will keep me from coming back," which is the best argument for the Clark/Lois marriage I've seen.

Regarding the scene above, notorious Jeb-hater Don Sparrow says: "Lois' dodge on what’s so great about Kent might read to us like she’s talking about him being Superman, but--forgive me--from Jeb’s point of view, it just sounds like she’s talking about his dick." Okay, so it wasn't just me.

Shout Outs-Watch:

Bat-shout outs to our Bat- I mean Super-supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! We're currently giving away some original Maxima art to one supporter and have another cool art poll/giveaway coming up! Join them (and get extra non-continuity articles, plus the giveaways) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!

The great Don Sparrow had a LOT to say about the art in this issue this issue, starting with trying to identify all the Batmen on the cover, so buckle up and keep reading:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s an instant classic, with Jon Bogdanove showing off by emulating the art styles of over a dozen Batman artists from comics history, while still maintaining his own personal style in the middle of all of it.  While I’m sure I’m wrong about a few, here’s as many as I could identify, starting counter-clockwise from top left:

1.    Moebius?  It kind of looks like the helmeted version of Batman from the final fight with Superman, but they already have a Frank Miller here. There’s definitely something European about this rendering, though, so I’m going with Moebius. [Max: This one looks elderly to me... is there an Elseworlds or something about a geriatric Batman?]

2.    Frank Miller

3.    Neal Adams

4.    Bruce Timm

5.    Dick Sprang

6.    Gil Kane (with the rendering looking like Murphy Anderson's gentle feathered inks)

7.    Kelley Jones

8.    Michael Kaluta? These backwards facing ones are tricky, because I’m not totally sure they’re supposed to be representative of any artist, but those distinct cape folds look like Kaluta to me.

9.    Michael Golden?  Again, not sure it’s supposed to be anyone in particular, but Golden was a giant for Batman covers at a certain point, and favoured the long eared look.

10.  Irv Novick

11.  Lewis Wilson (not an artist, but the actor from the low-rent serials of the 40s)

12.  Carmine Infantino—the lips are unmistakable, and again, the feathering looks like Murphy Anderson.

13.  Jim Aparo

14.  Bernie Wrightson—either that or Kelley Jones again, but the face looks a little more natural, which makes me think Wrightson.

15.  Jerry Robinson

16.  Walt Simonson?  Wasn’t sure about this one, but the cape folds looked like his geometric linework

17.  Bob Kane

What do you think?  Any mistakes I have here?  Please let me know!

Inside the story, we’re greeted almost immediately by the off-putting sight of Jeb Friedman, one of my least liked characters in all of Superman-dom.  Then again—we’re supposed to not like him, so the creative team is doing a bang-up job. I will say, Jeb’s noxiousness is cut in half when Clark also has a ponytail, which at one time I think was a design element intended to hint at a Steven Seagal-like irritating personality, before they had to add one to Clark to differentiate between he and Superman.  One odd detail—I haven’t seen many tour jackets where the band’s name is hyphenated.

On page three’s almost double page spread, we get our first Batman era, the Neal Adams version of the character, exemplified by the exaggerated hand gestures and warm rim lighting.  As the Riot Grrrls try to meet Babe Tanaka, they’re stopped by a very Chris Farley looking roadie/security guard, but the timeline doesn’t work.

Though “Big Dan” bears a striking resemblance to Farley’s security guard character from Black Sheep that movie wouldn’t come out for another two years or so, and the character design doesn’t look enough like Farley’s security character from Wayne’s World 2, so maybe it’s just a generic roadie character.  I do love Professor Hamilton’s awkward, hands-off reaction to Case laying a big old, 20-years-his-junior hug on him. 

A few pages later we get our first glimpse of both the timeline-lost Dark Knight Returns version of Batman, as well as his Mutant street gang.  I love how these pages employ Frank Miller’s caption boxes and tiny square panels.  It’s interesting to me that so many artists since DKR have depicted this version of Batman’s costume as brownish gray and black, when, to my eye, it’s a muted navy and gray in the original pages.  One of the animated adaptations of this story also went with the black and warm gray motif, which has always confused me—Lynn Varley is certainly a gifted enough painter to represent blacks and grays without the comic book trick of shading them with blue (like Superman’s hair, for instance) so that interpretations since have deviated from navy and gray perplexes me a little.  When you read DKR, what colour did you think his uniform was? [Max: I'm gonna go with grey. The brown-ish always baffled me.] At any rate, we lose Bogdanove’s style almost completely as the figures and even the scratchy finishes perfectly recall Miller and Klaus Janson.

Only a page or two later we get another Batman, this the slight, purple gloved version from 1939, and then on the next page, the Neal Adams Batman appears to give way to the Marshall Rogers version (or at least a different long-eared interpretation of the character).  On page 11, we have a stunning image of Superman overlooking three different Batmen on their personal gargoyles, and the one in the middle seems soooo familiar to me, but I can’t place it, perfectly. It could just be the Rogers Batman again, but the cape folds and body gesture looks like it could be referencing a pin-up from Michael Kaluta, Sandy Plunkett, or Michael Golden.  Any insights?  Certainly, as the story progresses, this version of Batman has the flowing geometric cape Rogers’ drew.  Babe Tanaka playing right through the assassination attempt is a great visual, though it’s jarring to see her Vampirella-meets-Cher stage costume in a code book. 

Throughout the whole issue there’s some really cool zip-a-tone effects, like when Superman descends to the first two Batmen, in a DKR cover callback.

Later as those same Batmen jump into action, the ben day dots lend a sense of depth, and finally the effect in the background during Babe’s supernatural transformation are very well used. 

Once the Batmen hit Professor Hamilton’s lab, the transformations come and go quickly, as the Bob Kane Batman gives way to what appears to be the Adam West version, then only a panel later the Marshall Rogers Batman switches to the “new look” Batman as imagined by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson.  Just as quickly, the grim n’ gritty DKR Batman is subbed out for the grinning n’ gleeful Dick Sprang version of the character. Finally, as the alternate timeline Batmen disappear, Superman makes his way to Gotham, and it’s very cool that even with Bogdanove’s distinct style, we know this is the modern Batman.  I love that during this era they went back to the Cord Batmobile in Batman comics, but it’s extra appropriate here, where there’s already a bunch of anachronisms running around.

As an art fan, this issue was a real treat, but in terms of plot, there wasn’t much—just a series of different Batman costumes running in and saying “something weird is happening!”.  It reminded me of the monologue when my fellow 5’4” heartthrob Michael J. Fox hosted SNL, and the different Michael J. Foxes kept running in to warn him that his monologue was about to bomb.  But, it does mean we’re in the era of Zero Hour, at last, which is one of my favourite crossovers of all time, in no small part because of the story’s deep connection to the Superman books, from the writer/art team, to the Linear Men’s important role.

SPEEDING BULLETS:

There’s perhaps something funny about the Neal Adams Batman accusing Superman of “going hippie” when the Neal Adams version of the character was most famously written by self-proclaimed hippie, Dennis O’Neil.

It does my heart good to see that Jimmy indeed also doesn’t care for Jeb Friedman.  But between my hatred for Jeb, and Max’s dislike of Jimmy, does the disdain cancel itself out?  I can’t figure the math on this. [Max: I also hate Jeb, so I think the hate is multiplied and becomes uber-hate.]

Jimmy also seems unafraid to “be that guy” wearing the shirt of the band to the concert of the band.  I actually think this is kind of a dumb rule, myself, so you go Jimmy.

Speaking of resentment, my main issue with Ron Troupe, apart from his fashion sense, is that he seems to be a replacement Jimmy, sidelining him in the cub reporter role (and eventually in the romance department as well, though we’re not there yet).  But it’s nice seeing them team-up.  Maybe they’re only competitors in my mind.

I like that the Dark Knight version of Batman also includes his wry commentary, about the sounds of violence drawing Superman, and the slight diss that the mullet has impaired Superman’s perfection. 

Little Keith having a nice picnic day with the Whites does my heart good, and I do like the foreshadowing with Keith feeling like spending time with them is “almost like having a family” again.

I do like that pretty much all the Batmen who show up are too square to enjoy Shredding Metal’s music.  It does make me curious what it sounds like.  I imagine her vocals sounding like Cassandra Wong from Wayne’s World, but the sound might be heavier and screechier than Crucial Taunt. [Max: For some reason, I imagine it as Yoko Ono singing System of Down.]

(Controversial opinion coming up!) I kinda like that Superman stops the DKR Batman from taking out the tank, a nice echo of the Dark Knight Returns storyline, where Superman was the real hero of the story (had he not stopped that nuke, it wouldn’t matter how many Mutant Leaders Batman beat at mud-wrestling).

So who did Babe feed on that Mutant quickly after she got off stage?  I’ll admit, I wouldn’t have minded if it was Rob, Don or one of the other mutants out to kill her.

I get that Jeb is supposed to be an Henri-from-Cheers “I’m going to steal your girlfriend” like foil for Clark, but his line-crossing pursuit of Lois isn’t cute—or a relationship that Lois should indulge, even as friends.

The Vampirella connection is made even more clear with the zoom-in on Babe’s eyes, with pupils bearing a bat that looks a whole heckuva lot like the logo on Vampirella’s costume (which you can google yourself, as I’m struggling to find even a single worksafe image of the lone daughter of Drakulon).  The idea that she’s bummed about being a vampire, as exemplified her her teary eyes, is a novel twist.

It’s amusing that Jor-El and Lara are so unfamiliar with their son that they mistake him for Kal-El’s septuagenarian adoptive father on that last page.

It’s fun to see all these different interpretations of Batman, but if this story were released today, there would be even MORE iconic incarnations that didn’t yet exist in 1994!  Batman as drawn by Jim Lee, Tim Sale, Frank Quitely, Alex Ross, Gary Frank, Francesco Francavilla, etc. were all still ahead of us! I was glad to see Jim Aparo referenced on the cover, but my other personal favourite Batman artist, Norm Breyfogle, was left off this issue, perhaps because he was too recent to be considered “classic” in 1994.

With all the Batman artists referenced in this issue, we ask you: which Batman artist era costume would you like to see me sketch?   Sound off in the comments, or vote in our poll… [Max: Poll coming soon, but Bat-suggestions are welcome!]

Missed an issue? Looking for an old storyline? Check out our new chronological issue index!

[godstaff]

Lois standing outside Clark & Diana’s house with a sign that says “Clark! Please take me back!”

Clark: This is just sad.

Diana: Hello police I’d to report a suspicious woman. I believe she’s an emotionally disturbed person.

Clark: I don't want to do this but...Lois! There's nothing for you here! Go back to Jeb Friedman!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Health industry lobbyists are posing as "ordinary citizens who don't want Medicare for All"

Here are some "ordinary citizens" who have recently been featured in the press as people who are completely OK with the state of American healthcare and totally opposed to Medicare for All or any other project to reform America's worst-in-the-world health care system: "Mustafa Tameez, businessman, Texas" (Tameez is managing director at Texas-based Outreach Strategists, a public affairs and lobbying firm that reps Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, University of Texas Physicians, and St. Luke’s Hospital).

Another health care status quo enthusiast is "Jim Corson, Montana" (Corson was a 14 year veteran of the staff of Sen Max Baucus, the former Senate Finance Committee who killed ACA's public option).

"James Rang" is just an ordinary dude who wrote a letter to the editor opposing single-payer because it was bad for the "free market" (Rang is vice president in the employee benefits department at the Friedman Group -- that is, he's a health-insurance salesman).

Florida businessman "Carlos Carbonell" is one of the "influential leaders" cited in the Orlando Sentinel's piece on opposition to health-care reform (Carbonell is a Public Affairs Advisor” at Converge Strategies, a lobbyist that reps the health care industry).

"Jack A. Roy," a proud son of Massachussetts, and he "[does] understand how this could work" (Roy is the former head of the Haverhill City Republican Committee.).

In Des Moines, "Mark Havlicek" is a businessman who is adamant in his opposition to single-payer (Havlicek is a "political consultant" and "committed Republican activist" who was on Jeb Bush’s Iowa leadership team).

These examples were compiled by Splinter's Libby Watson, who learned about them through press-releases from the lobbying group Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (PAHCF), whose members include Pharma, the pharmaceutical industry lobby group.

https://boingboing.net/2019/03/20/just-a-normal-businessman.html

[emeraldnebula]

One more submission and response

So, I know you’re probably sick to death of comments/questions about Superman but man, I need to rant somewhere because having spent a few days on Superman-related comic boards, I completely understand what you mean about Superman “fans” being the reason for his downfall. Forget hardcore Post-Crisis fans, forget hardcore marriage fans, SJWs have made their way into the Superman fandom and they are even worse than I imagined. People unironically defending Superman being Batman’s, Lex Luthor’s, Lois Lane’s and many other people’s verbal and physical punching bag because being the “bigger man” and “martyring himself to make a point” are somehow noble but fighting back and kicking the shit out of arrogant twerps who parade around like they are untouchable is somehow “punching down”. Superman not actively fighting injustices but spending more time philosophizing about “how he is helping mankind or damaging them” instead of being a man of action is “deep and mature”. Superman doing something old-fashioned heroic like saving a girl from potential molesters is “problematic”. Writers trying to put Superman front-and-center again is “anti-progressivist macho fantasy”. Oh God, DC needs to collapse and fast so someone can save Clark Kent from this insanity.

I think the idea that Superman -- or the Rebirth Impostor, as we have now -- being a martyr wasn’t the original intent when he first became Batman and Luthor’s punching bag and Lois’ whipping boy. The original intent when it first started up was to elevate those characters, even if it meant tearing Superman down. Frank Miller certainly didn’t intend any martyrdom for Superman when he wrote Dark Knight Returns; all he wanted was to make his version of Batman the big kahuna. And when DC did the Superman/Lois/Jeb Friedman love triangle and made the Super-Marriage a train wreck in the first place, the original intent was to try and weasel out of the joint arrangement with Lois & Clark to marry them off simultaneously (and, over time, to make Lois the star of the franchise instead of Superman). I think all the talk of Superman trying to be “the bigger man” and “setting a moral example” are justifications made after the fact. You have both creators and what remains of the fandom weaned on the Post-Crisis stuff, and absolutely refusing to look at anything that preceded it. (Hell, Frank Miller blames Batman ‘66 for stuff Kane and Finger were doing in the comics 26 years prior.) They know it’s not popular, they know it’s not selling, but it’s what they want and that’s that. So they make excuses for it.

But if we’re being honest, the idea of Superman being a moral paragon by being everyone’s punching bag predates the SJW craze. Even in the early 2000s, writers were already heading in that direction, and what eventually became the fandom had gotten it wedged in their heads that it was more noble and heroic for Superman to let the bad guys win than to ever get his hands dirty for any reason. And certainly when Superman was put in a kill-or-watch-the-world-be-slaughtered position in Man of Steel, comic book fans and pros alike asserted that Superman should always take “a higher path”...and some argued that higher path was letting Zod win, lest Superman “betray his ideals.” Yes, I’m serious. A very vocal sect of the Superman fandom would rather he willingly let innocent people be killed in the name of self-perceived purity than to take whatever action is necessary to protect those people, and certainly many comic book writers share that sentiment. Before SJWs became the “in” thing, Superman being ineffectual was treated as moral purity not only for the character, but for the fans who espoused such beliefs. It was a way for the fans to put themselves up on a pedestal and shout down anyone who dared to point out how stupid their talking points were.

As far as “deep and mature” goes, that’s the same excuse the current Batman fandom makes for that character being reduced to a one-note, constantly scowling cipher of hate and arrogance instead of the fully rounded human he was before 1986. I wouldn’t take that line seriously at all. It clearly isn’t selling, it clearly isn’t appealing to anybody outside of the tiny clique DC’s catering to at all costs, and it only shows just how bankrupt TPTB really are. The SJW elements are really just natural outgrowths of what DC had already been doing to Superman, and those alone have proven fatal to the franchise. When you go out of your way to make your title character utterly useless, it’s not that much of a leap to the idea that for him to do anything assertive or heroic is wrong, or much of a leap to think that he has no right to the spotlight in the books bearing his name. It’s absolutely attracted the worst possible audience for the franchise and alienated everybody else...but it’s the audience DC wants because they themselves want the franchise this way. It’s a self-sustaining feedback loop of the worst kind.

[arcticdementor]

What has prompted our immigration crisis? Isn’t it the same sentiment that leads Democrats (and David French, but I repeat myself) to claim Ilhan Omar is a better American than anyone born here?

…

The problem, I think, is that French has been swept along by the same floodtide of degeneracy that produces mobs of enraged anarchists on the streets of Portland and makes college campuses unsafe even for well-meaning liberals like Bret Weinstein. The election of Trump, and the rising populist sentiment that elected him, caught our elite by surprise. They were shocked to discover that a powerful plurality of Americans — nearly 63 million voted for Trump — had never accepted the notions of “progress” that prevail among the university-educated elite and in the urban communities where the elite reside. Among the core tenets of this elite weltanschauung is a belief in the superiority of immigrants. You might notice the way they quote Emma Lazarus’s poetry as if it had more authority than the Constitution, a reverence for the “huddled masses” being essential to what amounts to a religious faith among our otherwise godless elite. When I visited the campus of Harvard with Pete Da Tech Guy in the fall of 2017, we were immediately confronted on our arrival with a protest on behalf of so-called “dreamers.” Harvard students are not nowadays notable for their dedication to moral virtue — they get drunk and screw around quite shamelessly — but they are adamantly certain that it is morally wrong to deport illegal aliens. Many years ago, Peter Brimelow pointed out that a major problem with U.S. immigration policy is that voters have seldom gotten a chance to express their preference at the ballot box. The elite of both parties seem generally agreed in preferring immigrants to native-born Americans, the Republicans beholden to corporate interests that want cheap labor and the Democrats seeing immigrants as future Democrat voters. Public opinion surveys indicate that most Americans see the issue of immigration as a matter of numbers. A majority would approve of accepting 250,000 new immigrants annually, and even if you bumped that number up to half a million, most people would be OK with it, but what we have had for the past 20 years is an unofficial policy of almost unlimited immigration. Our immigration laws are riddled with loopholes, and enforcement has been uneven and irregular, so that the combination of legal and illegal immigrants has amounted to more than 1 million every year since the mid-1990s. A majority of Americans oppose this, but prior to 2016, they never had a real chance to express their dissatisfaction at the ballot box. They had previously been offered no clear choice; choosing between open-borders Democrats and open-borders Republicans was no choice at all, as far as immigration policy was concerned, and some Republicans (including my late Cousin John) were worse than any Democrat on the issue. Trump’s blunt talk — “Build a wall!” — appealed to voters who had long been frustrated by the refusal of the political elite to address their concerns over our immigration policy (or non-policy, to be more accurate). The potency of that populist resentment startled not only the political class, but also the journalists and pundits who had acted as publicity agents for the elite’s open-borders consensus.

…

“Trump’s going to get re-elected, isn’t he?” people keep asking Thomas Friedman, and if his liberal friends are saying this to him, what does that suggest about the success of Trump’s methods?

That success only inspires the Trump-haters to louder shrieks of indignation, because to them it is wrong for him to keep winning this way. And yet it is not really the president they hate so much as the people who elected him. What David French and the other #NeverTrump Republicans don’t want to confront — what they cannot admit, not even to themselves — is that Trump’s success is a repudiation of their own weakness, a condemnation of their abject failure. The crowd of intellectuals at National Review and the now-defunct Weekly Standard considered themselves possessors of an authority that entitled them to prescribe policy and to anoint candidates for the Republican Party. Exercising this leadership prerogative, as an elite class as secure in its authority as any feudal aristocracy, our conservative intellectuals were always eager to claim credit when Republicans won elections, but when Republicans lost, they insisted that this was never their fault. Probably their zenith of prestige was in 2005, after Bush had been re-elected, which gave credence to Karl Rove’s talk of a “permanent Republican majority” based on a so-called “center-right” coalition. That hope quickly evaporated, with military disaster in Iraq followed by Democrats recapturing Congress in 2006 and then on to the economic catastrophe of 2008 followed by the election of Barack Hussein Obama.

…

Four years ago, Vox Day observed that French and the #NeverTrump conservatives “haven’t grasped the fact that the demographic changes to the United States have not only changed the way the political game is played, but have changed the game itself.” The country that elected and re-elected Ronald Reagan by landslide margins has ceased to exist, replaced by one in which Republicans can win the White House only by razor-thin margins, and the most important reason for this change is immigration. The demographic changes that have so transformed our politics did not “just happen.” It wasn’t some impersonal trend which caused this, but rather it was a matter of policy, and National Review was on the side of open borders, having purged Alien Nation author Peter Brimelow and sidelined John O’Sullivan. Not only did National Review purge those who dissented from their open-borders agenda, but also treated as persona non grata anyone who lamented this purge. They will call you a racist if you don’t support open-borders Republicans whose policies make it impossible for Republicans to win elections. Why do the editors of National Review think we should be grateful for their services in denouncing Republican voters as racist, as if there is a shortage of Democrats willing to perform this service?

Americans have grown tired of being lectured about how racist they are. The white people delivering these lectures — e.g., Joe Scarborough, Chris Cuomo, David Brooks — seem to believe that their moral superiority to the rest of us is so self-evident that we will enjoy and be grateful for the opportunity to be “enlightened” by them. Yet they are telling us nothing we haven’t already been told a million times, long before anyone imagined Donald Trump running for president.

…

The authors of our Constitution explained that their purpose was to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” If we are the posterity of our nation’s Founders — if we would deserve to be known as their heirs — then we have inherited an obligation to ensure that “the blessings of liberty” are preserved intact, that they may be enjoyed by future generations of Americans. So-called “Justice Democrats” like Ilhan Omar are a threat to that heritage of liberty, and yet David French, who wishes us to believe he is a conservative, seems to think that it is “racist” to oppose them. I do not exercise any control over what President Trump puts on his Twitter feed nor do Trump supporters seek my advice on what they should chant at rallies, but I know that Donald Trump prevented Hillary Clinton from becoming president, and that his willingness to call out Omar and her “Squad” (and to be smeared as a racist for doing so) indicates a keen understanding of what it will take to prevent Democrats from taking back the White House in 2020.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is something to be gained by playing “Nice Guy” with the Democrats, but if being nice were the criterion of political success, Jeb Bush might be president. And he’s not.

Get over it.

[billyagogo]

Hillary in Midair

New Post has been published on https://newsprofixpro.com/moxie/2021/02/11/hillary-in-midair/

Hillary in Midair

Photo: Douglas Friedman/Trunk Archive

For four years, Hillary Rodham Clinton flew around the world as President Barack Obama’s secretary of State, while her husband, the former president Bill Clinton, lived a parallel life of speeches and conferences in other hemispheres. They communicated almost entirely by phone. They were seldom on the same continent, let alone in the same house.

But this year, all that has changed: For the first time in decades, neither one is in elected office, or running for one. Both are working in the family business, in the newly renamed nonprofit that once bore only Bill’s name but is now called the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which will hold its annual conference in New York next week.

“We get to be at home together a lot more now than we used to in the last few years,” says Hillary Clinton. “We have a great time; we laugh at our dogs; we watch stupid movies; we take long walks; we go for a swim.

“You know,” she says, “just ordinary, everyday pleasures.”

In the world of the Clintons, of course, what constitutes ordinary and everyday has never been either. So the question was inevitable: Given who he is, and who she is, does Bill, among their guffaws over the dogs and stupid movies, harangue her daily about running for president?

To this, Hillary Rodham Clinton lets loose one of her loud, head-tilted-back laughs. “I don’t think even he is, you know, focused on that right now,” she says. “Right now, we’re trying to just have the best time we can have doin’ what we’re doin’. ”

There’s a weightlessness about Hillary Clinton these days. She’s in midair, launched from the State Department toward … what? For the first time since 1992, unencumbered by the demands of a national political campaign or public office, she is saddled only with expectations about what she’s going to do next. And she is clearly enjoying it.

“It feels great,” she says, “because I have been on this high wire for twenty years, and I was really yearning to just have more control over my time and my life, spend a lot of that time with my family and my friends, do things that I find relaxing and enjoyable, and return to the work that I had done for most of my life.”

Relaxing, for a Clinton, especially one who, should she decide to run, is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in 2016, does not seem exactly restful. The day before we speak, she was awarded the Liberty Medal by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia—presented by Jeb Bush, another politician weighted with dynastic expectations and family intrigue, who took the opportunity to jest that both he and Clinton cared deeply about Americans—especially those in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Afterward, Clinton stepped backstage, a red-white-and-blue ribbon around her neck pulled taut by a saucer-size gold medal. “It is really heavy,” she said, with that plain-home midwestern tone she deploys when she wants to not appear the heavy herself. In the room with her were some of her close advisers—Nick Merrill, a communications staffer and acolyte of Hillary’s suffering top aide, Huma Abedin; and Dan Schwerin, the 31-year-old speechwriter who wrote all the words she had spoken moments ago. Local policemen with whom Clinton had posed for photos milled about behind her.

Outside was the usual chorus accompanying a Clinton appearance, befitting her status as the most popular Democrat in America: news helicopters buzzing overhead and protesters amassed across the street who raised signs that read benghazi in bloodred paint and chanted antiwar slogans directly at her as she spoke at the outdoor lectern.

Though she was officially out of the government, it was not as if she could leave it, even if she wanted to. That week Clinton had met with Obama in the White House to discuss the ongoing Syria crisis, and now Obama was on TV that very evening announcing a diplomatic reprieve from a missile attack on Syria—a series of decisions that Clinton had lent her support to every step of the way. “I’ve been down this road with them,” she tells me the next day. “I know how challenging it is to ever get [the Russians] to a ‘yes’ that they actually execute on, but it can be done. I think we have to push hard.”

Clinton has taken a press hiatus since she left the State Department in January—“I’ve been successful at avoiding you ­people for many months now!” she says, laughing. She is tentative and careful, tiptoeing into every question, keenly aware that the lines she speaks will be read between. In our interview, she emphasizes her “personal friendship” with Obama, with whom she had developed a kind of bond of pragmatism and respect—one based on shared goals, both political and strategic. “I feel comfortable raising issues with him,” she says. “I had a very positive set of interactions, even when I disagreed, which obviously occurred, because obviously I have my own opinions, my own views.”

Hillary Clinton receiving the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia, September 10. Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine

The killing of bin Laden, she says, was a bonding experience. Obama’s Cabinet had been split on whether to attempt the mission, but Clinton backed it and sweated out the decision with the commander-in-chief. “I’ve seen the president in a lot of intense and difficult settings,” she says, “and I’ve watched him make hard decisions. Obviously, talking to you on September 11 as we are, the bin Laden decision-making process is certainly at the forefront of my mind.”

The statement cuts two ways—praise for her president and evidence of her deep experience in and around the Oval Office—including the most successful military endeavor of the Obama presidency. As a Cabinet member, she says, “I’ve had a unique, close, and personal front-row seat. And I think these last four years have certainly deepened and broadened my understanding of the challenges and the opportunities that we face in the world today.”

Political campaigns are built of personal narratives—and it works much better if the stories are true. The current arc of Hillary’s story is one of transformation. Being secretary of State was more than a job. Her closest aides describe the experience as a kind of cleansing event, drawing a sharp line between the present and her multiple pasts—as First Lady, later as the Democratic front-runner in 2008, derailed by the transformative campaign of Barack Obama but also by a dysfunctional staff, the campaign-trail intrusions of her husband, and the inherent weaknesses of the fractious, bickering American institution that has become known as Clintonworld.

At State, she was the head of a smoothly running 70,000-person institution, and fully her own woman, whose marriage to a former president was, when it was mentioned, purely an asset. And now that she’s left State, Clintonworld is being refashioned along new lines, rationalized and harmonized. The signal event of this is the refurbishing of the Clinton Foundation, formerly Bill’s province, to accommodate all three Clintons, with Chelsea, newly elevated, playing a leading role. The move has ruffled certain Clintonworld feathers—a front-page article in the New York Times about the financial travails of the foundation as managed by Bill Clinton brought sharp pushback—but most of those close to the Clintons acknowledge that to succeed in the coming years, Hillary will have to absorb the lessons of 2008. Currently, it’s a topline talking point among her closest aides.

“She doesn’t repeat her mistakes,” says Melanne Verveer, an aide to the First Lady who then served in the State Department as Hillary’s ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues. “She really learns from her mistakes. It’s like, you want to grow a best practice and then always operate on that. She analyzes, ‘What went wrong here?’ ”

Of course, if Hillary’s future were to be an author, or a pundit, or a retiree, learning from mistakes wouldn’t be an issue. But other outcomes, where executive talents are prized, seem more likely. I ask Clinton the question that trails her like a thought bubble: Does she wrestle with running for president?

“I do,” she says, “but I’m both pragmatic and realistic. I think I have a pretty good idea of the political and governmental challenges that are facing our leaders, and I’ll do whatever I can from whatever position I find myself in to advocate for the values and the policies I think are right for the country. I will just continue to weigh what the factors are that would influence me making a decision one way or the other.”

Clintonworld, however, speaks with many voices­—albeit many of them not for attribution. Some of her close confidants, including many people with whom her own staff put me in touch, are far less circumspect than she is. “She’s running, but she doesn’t know it yet,” one such person put it to me. “It’s just like a force of history. It’s inexorable, it’s gravitational. I think she actually believes she has more say in it than she actually does.”

And a longtime friend concurs. “She’s doing a very Clintonian thing. In her mind, she’s running for it, and she’s also convinced herself she hasn’t made up her mind. She’s going to run for president. It’s a foregone conclusion.”

When president-elect Barack Obama asked Clinton to be secretary of State, they had a series of private conversations about her role for the next four years. What would the job entail? How much power would she have? How would it be managed?

Or to restate the questions as they were understood by everyone involved in the negotiation: What would Hillary Clinton get in return for supporting Obama after the brutal primary and helping him defeat John McCain?

Though she had ended her losing campaign on a triumphal note, gracefully accepting the role of secretary of State and agreeing to be a trouble-free team player in Obama’s Cabinet, the 2008 primary loss left deep wounds to her core staff—at least among those members who had not been excommunicated. They would discuss what happened during long trips to Asia and Europe, sounding like post-traumatic-stress victims. “The experience was very searing for them, and they would go through it with great detail,” says a former State Department colleague.

Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine

The problems of that campaign were crucial to how Clinton would decide to lead the State Department. In accepting the State job, Clinton insisted on hiring her own staff. In addition to her top aides, Huma Abedin and Philippe Reines, she enlisted stalwarts of campaigns and administrations past: Maggie Williams, Cheryl Mills, and Verveer, who have been with her since her days in Bill Clinton’s White House. Among Hillary’s inner circle, this is viewed as a returning lineup of all-stars who were iced out of her campaign by a five-person team led by Patti Solis-Doyle, a group who in their telling became the agents of the campaign’s troubles. “They’re the A-team,” says a top aide. “They weren’t the B-team that got elevated. They were the A-team that got deposed by [Solis-Doyle].”

The 2008 campaign was seen by many as an echo chamber, closed off from the best advice, and the lesson for Clinton was clear: “The takeaway is, ‘Don’t only listen to five people,’ ” says the aide.

When she arrived, Clinton did a kind of institutional listening tour at the State Department. “She felt like she was too closed off from what was happening across the expanse of the [2008] campaign,” says a close aide at the State Department, “and that became a hallmark with the leadership in the State Department, and it served her incredibly well.”

To keep things operating smoothly, she hired Tom Nides, the COO of Morgan Stanley, who’d contributed heavily to Clinton’s past campaigns. Even Nides was wary of the Clinton drama he might be stepping into. “I had heard all these stories about the Clinton world and what all that meant and ‘Did you really want to get wrapped up in that?’ ” he says. But he reports that “all of the stuff did not exist at the State Department for the last four years.

“The relationship between the State Department and the White House and the State Department and the Defense Department was probably the best it’s ever been in 50 years,” he adds. “That starts from the top. No drama. And that was started by her.”

Among Hillary Clinton’s greatest hits at State were the new focus on Asia, pushing for the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, and building a coalition for strong sanctions against Iran. But she also saw the job as a kind of reformatting of the State Department itself to prepare for the longer-run issues. “I’d been told that it was a choice that had to be made: You could either do what had to be done around the world, or you could organize and focus the work that was done inside State and the Agency for International Development, but I rejected that,” says Clinton. “I thought it was essential that as we restore America’s standing in the world and strengthen our global leadership again, we needed what I took to calling ‘smart power’ to elevate American diplomacy and development and reposition them for the 21st century … That meant that we had to take a hard look at how both State and A.I.D. operated. I did work to increase their funding after a very difficult period when they were political footballs to some extent and they didn’t have the resources to do what was demanded of them.”

Clinton’s State team argues that Clinton was a great stateswoman, her ambition to touch down in as many countries as possible a meter of how much repair work she did to the nation’s image abroad. Along the way, she embraced with good humor a parody Tumblr account, Texts From Hillary, that featured a picture of her in the iconic sunglasses looking cool and queenly. “She insisted on having a personality,” says Jake Sullivan, her former deputy chief of staff and now the national-security adviser to Vice-President Joe Biden. “And on stating her opinion.”

For foreign-policy critics, some of this could look like wheel spinning. The major critique was that she didn’t take on any big issues, like brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians, or negotiating the nuclear disarmament of North Korea. And the suspicion was that she didn’t want to be associated with any big failures as she prepared for 2016. She was, after all, under the tight grip of the Obama White House, which directed major foreign-policy decisions from the Oval Office.

“Whatever one says about how [Secretary of State] John Kerry is doing,” says the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, “he has nothing left to lose. You can see he takes risks. He’s plowing into the Middle East stuff when people are saying this isn’t going to get you anywhere. Hillary never would have done any of this stuff.”

Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine

Her former staffers argue that she managed a host of important, if underrecognized, global flare-ups along the way, from freeing a dissident in China to brokering the easing of sanctions against Burma. “She helped avert a second war in Gaza by going out and pulling off that cease-fire,” recalls Sullivan of the deal she hashed out between Israel and Hamas after a week of fighting, “which holds to this day. And you don’t get a lot of credit for preventing something. Those are things that you aren’t going to measure how successful they are for another ten or twenty years.”

At the same time, Hillary used her tenure at State for a more intimate purpose: to shift the balance of power in the most celebrated political marriage in American history. Bill Clinton was an overwhelming force in Hillary’s 2008 campaign, instrumental in vouching for Mark Penn, the strategist whose idea it was for Hillary to cling to her war vote on Iraq and to sell her as an iron-sided insider whose experience outweighed the need to project mere humanity. Bill also freelanced his own negative attacks, some of which backfired. Because his staff was not coordinating with Hillary’s, her staff came to regard him as a wild card who couldn’t be managed.

But not in the State Department. “Not a presence,” says a close State aide. “And I don’t mean that just literally. But not someone who was built into the system in any way. He had a very minimal presence in her time at the State Department.

“It’s kind of jarring when she says ‘Bill,’ ” this person adds, recalling meetings with Hillary Clinton. “Well, who’s Bill? And then you realize that she’s talking about her husband. It happened so infrequently that you were kind of like, Oh, the president.”

Part of it, of course, was logistical. Though they spoke frequently by phone, Bill and Hillary were rarely in the same country. By chance, their paths crossed in Bogotá, where they had dinner together—then, owing to their massive entourages, returned to their respective hotels. “Love conquers all except logistics,” says an aide.

“I could probably count on one hand the times she came to a meeting and either invoked his name or suggested something that Bill had said,” says Nides. “I probably did it more about my wife telling me what to do.”

Hillary might have left the State Department unsullied by controversy if not for the Benghazi episode, in which the ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other consulate staffers were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate. The NATO intervention in Libya was the most important foreign intervention of her tenure, and a seemingly successful one, but the lack of security in Benghazi and the confusion over how the incident occurred set off a heated Republican attack on Clinton’s handling of the disaster, and she was roasted on the cable-news spit for weeks. In January, she took responsibility for the deaths of the four Americans before Congress—while also questioning her inquisition, snapping at a Republican congressman, “What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.”

Benghazi will be the go-to bludgeon for Republicans if and when Clinton tries using her experience at State to run for president. It is a reminder that Clinton, despite the cool, centrist façade she has developed in the past four years, is only a misstep away from being a target of partisan rage once again.

Regardless of the facts, Republicans are liable to use Benghazi as a wedge to pry back her stately exterior, goading her into an outburst, once again revealing the polarizing figure who saw vast right-wing conspiracies and tried ginning up government health care against the political tides of Newt Gingrich.

When asked for her prescription for partisan gridlock, Clinton sees an opportunity not unlike what Obama saw in 2008. ­“People are stereotypes, they are caricaturized,” says Clinton. “It comes from both sides of the political aisle, it comes from the press. It’s all about conflict, it’s all about personality, and there are huge stakes in the policies that are being debated, and I think there’s a hunger amongst a very significant, maybe even a critical mass of Americans, clustered on the left, right, and center, to have an adult conversation about how we’re going to solve these problems … but it’s not for the fainthearted.” For now, Hillary’s strategy is to sail above these conflicts, mostly by saying nothing to inflame them. “I have a lot of reason to believe, as we saw in the 2012 election, most Americans don’t agree with the extremists on any side of an issue,” says Clinton, “but there needs to continue to be an effort to find common ground, or even take it to higher ground on behalf of the future.”

At the Sheraton Ballroom in Chicago last spring, Bill Clinton appeared before an eager crowd of Clinton groupies at the Clinton Global Initiative America, a special conference focused on domestic issues and set in Hillary’s hometown. Onstage, the former president looked older than in the past—thinner, stooped, more subdued, his hands trembling while he held his notes at the podium. Haloed in blue light, he spoke about the “still embattled American Dream” and then introduced his wife as his new partner in the foundation, the woman who “taught me everything I know about NGOs.”

Her appearance made for a stark contrast. When she emerged from behind the curtain, she appeared much more youthful—smiling, upright, beaming in a turquoise pantsuit; she received huge applause and a standing ovation that dwarfed the response to Bill.

On her first major public stage since leaving the State Department, Hillary told the crowd that the foundation will be a “full partnership between the three of us,” including her daughter, Chelsea. But this was clearly Hillary Clinton’s show. That week, she had launched her Twitter account, complete with a tongue-in-cheek description of her as a “glass ceiling cracker,” her future “TBD.” Clearly, her foundation work, as important as it is to her, wasn’t everything. And Chicago was a perfect site for the start of this new chapter. It was where she was from, the launchpad for her career in politics and early-childhood education and women’s empowerment, what she called the “great unfinished business of this century.” “When women participate in politics,” she said, “it ripples out to the entire society … Women are the world’s most underused resource.”

If you wanted to read her speech as an opening salvo for a 2016 run for the presidency, it wasn’t hard to do as she talked about all that she’d learned as she traveled the globe. Whatever country or situation they found themselves in, “what people wanted was a good job.”

The rechristening of the foundation marked the first time the Clintons had come under the same institutional roof since the nineties. For Hillary, it made sense, because she didn’t have to compete with her husband for donors at her own foundation. It would also allow her to warm up donors for future initiatives—like, just for instance, a 2016 campaign. Two days later, the family would appear together onstage, a picture-perfect photo op of what Bill Clinton called “our little family.”

The Clinton Global Initiative, in addition to its work combating poverty and aids, is a kind of unofficial Clinton-alumni reunion, with friends and donors dating back to the early years in Arkansas. Sprinkled around the ballroom in Chicago were the old hands, from Bruce Lindsey, the former deputy White House counsel and CEO of the foundation, to newer faces like J. B. Pritzker, the Chicago hotel scion who was national co-chair of Hillary’s 2008 campaign and was now raising $20 million for an early-childhood-education initiative.

The Clinton network has always been both an asset and a burden. Terry ­McAuliffe, the longtime Clinton ally now running for governor of Virginia, has raised millions for the Clintons at every juncture of their careers. Then again, he’s Terry McAuliffe, the guy who left his weeping wife and newborn child in the car while he collected $1 million at a fund-raiser, then wrote about it in a memoir. “You can’t change who these people are,” says one former Hillary adviser. “It’s like any other trade. You’ve got the good, and there’s a lot of good. And you’ve got the noise.”

To harness some of the noise—what some Clinton people called “the energy”—a faction has converged around the Ready for Hillary super-PAC started by a former 2008 campaign aide named Adam Parkhomenko. Launched early this year, it has appeared to many observers to be an informal satellite of Hillary’s larger designs for the White House, but her aides say it’s a rogue operation of questionable benefit. “There is nothing they are doing that couldn’t have waited a year,” says one. “Not a single fucking thing.”

Regardless, Clinton veterans like former campaign strategist James Carville have come out supporting the super-PAC, as has former White House political director Craig Smith, Bill’s old Arkansas pal. Supporters argue that the super-PAC has Hillary’s tacit approval, especially given the involvement of Susie Tompkins Buell, a prominent Democratic donor who is among her oldest and closest friends. “It offers supporters the all-important link to click on, plus places to convene in both the digital and physical worlds,” says Tracy Sefl, an adviser to the super-PAC. “And although some perhaps just can’t quite believe it, Ready for Hillary’s name really does convey the totality of its purpose.”

One supporter of the super-PAC, who didn’t want to be identified, acknowledges that “there’s a danger there of her again becoming the front-runner. And, too, the existence of it raises her profile and puts more pressure on her to make a decision earlier than she might otherwise want to make.”

On some level, the network is almost impossible to control—Clintonworld is bigger than just the Clintons. “People do things in their name, or say they just talked to Hillary or to Bill, and the next thing you know, they’re doing something stupid,” says a former aide of Hillary’s whose interview she sanctioned. “You take the good with the bad. Hopefully, the good outweighs the bad.”

The biggest question among Hillary’s circle concerns Huma Abedin, currently chief of Hillary’s “transition office” and formerly her deputy chief of staff in the State Department. Abedin began as an intern for the First Lady in 1996, when she was 20 years old, and is, of course, married to former congressman and mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, of sexting infamy.

In the midst of her husband’s scandal, Abedin stepped down from her full-time job for a consulting contract and moved back to New York to take work with Teneo Holdings, a consulting firm and investment bank run by Bill Clinton’s longtime consigliere, Doug Band. This gave Hillary cover while also keeping Abedin plugged in. “It’s business as usual,” says a Clinton insider. “Keep your circle of advisers small, and then you structure things in a way that makes it economically possible for your close advisers to sustain themselves.”

But business as usual can be a giant target for enemies: Abedin has since become the subject of an inquiry, by a Republican congressman, into her dual consulting roles, looking for potential conflicts of interest while she served in a sensitive role in the administration. Then came a second episode of Weiner’s sexting this summer, blindsiding the Clintons, obliterating Weiner’s mayoral ambitions, and greatly complicating Abedin’s future with the Clintons. With Weiner’s ignominious loss and parting bird-flip, “Huma has a choice to make,” says a close associate of hers. “Does she go with Anthony, or does she go with Hillary?”

Leaving the Clinton bubble is almost unimaginable for those who’ve grown up in it. According to a person familiar with the conversations, Abedin has struggled to reconcile her marriage to Weiner with her role as Clinton’s top aide, traumatized by the prospect of leaving her boss’s inner circle.

In a sense, the Weiner scandal is a ghost of Clintonworld past, summoning sordid images of unruly appetites and bimbo eruptions, exactly the sort of thing that needs to be walled off and excised in a 2016 campaign. Former advisers from State say any future campaign will take a page from Clinton’s relatively peaceful past four years. “In contrast with reports of disunity in the 2008 campaign,” says Kurt Campbell, “the State Department was operated with a high degree of harmony and collegiality.”

The secret to realigning Clintonworld has been there all along. Since she received her master’s from Oxford in 2003, Chelsea Clinton had tried out different career paths, first in business consulting at McKinsey & Co., then at a hedge fund run by donors to her parents, and finally as a correspondent on NBC, with a few university postings sprinkled in. Chelsea has grown up in the Clinton bubble, the princess of Clintonworld, and getting outside of it has sometimes been difficult. She tried her hand at developing her “brand” on TV, but then, two years ago, stepped in and took over her father’s foundation, a return to the fold that portended a lot of changes. She became vice-chairman of the board. The foundation hired white-shoe law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to perform an audit and review of the foundation’s finances and operations. And this summer, she installed a friend from McKinsey, Eric Braverman, as CEO.

Chelsea’s arrival was a clear if unspoken critique of Doug Band, who’d long been Bill Clinton’s gatekeeper in his post-presidential life. In Chelsea’s view, the foundation started by Band had become sprawling and inefficient, threatened by unchecked spending and conflicts of interest, an extension of her father’s woolly style. In 2012, a New York Post story suggested impropriety in Band’s dual role, forcing Clinton to put a bit of distance between himself and Teneo.

In a report this summer, the Times claimed the foundation operated at a deficit and was vulnerable to conflicts of interest related to Teneo Holdings—which telegraphed the message that there was a new sheriff. Chelsea, says a Hillary loyalist, “has taken a chain saw to that organization. She has not allowed these old bubbas to deal with this.”

Naturally, some of Bill Clinton’s staff at the foundation were unhappy with Chelsea’s arrival, especially the decision to include Hillary and Chelsea in the name of it. In a move that suggested intrafamily conflict, Bill Clinton stepped out to defend his comrades, insisting that Bruce Lindsey, the former CEO, who had suffered a stroke in 2011, would continue to be “intimately involved” in the foundation and that he couldn’t have accomplished “half of what I have in my post-presidency without Doug Band.”

Hillary Clinton says her daughter’s entrance into the foundation was an organic extension of everything the Clintons have ever done. “It sort of is in the DNA, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” she says. “She’s an incredibly able—obviously I’m biased—but extremely well-organized, results-oriented person, so rather than joining a lot of other groups, on which she could pursue her interests, she thought, I want to be part of continuing to build something I have worked on off and on over the years, and I really believe in it. I was thrilled to hear that.

“She comes by it naturally, don’t you think?” she adds cheerfully.

Chelsea is now the chief Bill Clinton gatekeeper. At HBO, where Martin Scorsese is making a documentary about him, Chelsea has been involved from the start and is weighing in on the production.

As the various staffs of the three Clintons come under one roof, in a headquarters in the Time-Life Building in midtown Manhattan, there are dangers of internecine conflict. “It’s all people jockeying for position,” says a person with close ties to the foundation. “This is an operation that runs on proximity to people. Now there are three people. How does all that work?”

For Bill Clinton to acknowledge flaws in his institute and relinquish control to his daughter and wife was a new twist in the family relationship. People in both Bill’s and Hillary’s camp are quick to emphasize that Bill Clinton is still the lifeblood of the foundation and its social mission. Chelsea’s arrival is ultimately about preserving the foundation for the long term as he gets older and winds down some of his activities. But the subtext of the cleanup operation is no mystery among Clinton people. Bill’s loosey-goosey world had to be straightened out if Hillary was going to run for president. “She doesn’t operate that way,” says one of her former State Department advisers. “I mean, she has all sorts of creative ideas, but that’s not how she operates. She is much more systematic.”

As part of the shifting landscape in Clintonworld, Bill Clinton got a new chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, one of the group of African-American women—including Maggie Williams and Donna Brazile—who have been close advisers to the Clintons over the years. A former policy aide at the American Federation of Teachers, Flournoy’s arrival last January was viewed by insiders as Hillary’s planting a sentinel at the office of her husband.

Bill Clinton is also a legendary politician, a brilliant tactician who won two presidential elections and reigned over the most prosperous years in America in recent memory. Some make the argument that he single-handedly won Obama reelection with his extraordinary takedown of Mitt Romney at the Democratic National Convention last year. The trick, say Clinton advocates, is to manage him effectively on behalf of his wife. “To the discredit of whoever is running a campaign, if that happens and they don’t use Bill Clinton—use his strategy, use his thoughts, take his dumb ideas and his great ideas and make sure they’re used effectively—they’re a moron,” says a person close to Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps this is where Chelsea comes in. After years of expectation, she has emerged from her chrysalis, a new power center, her father’s keeper and, maybe for Hillary … a shadow campaign manager.

In Clintonworld, wheels are turning, but no one wants them to turn too fast. Last spring, in a panel discussion at the Peterson Institute, Bill Clinton blew up, telling people to stop speculating on her presidential aspirations. It was too soon. Says Nides, “If you have every person you know say to you the following: ‘You should run for president, Madam Secretary, I love you, Madam Secretary, you’d be a great president, Madam Secretary,’ she nods. And she understands the context of that.”

Hillary is well aware of these dynamics. “I’m not in any hurry,” she tells me. “I think it’s a serious decision, not to be made lightly, but it’s also not one that has to be made soon.

“This election is more than three years away, and I just don’t think it’s good for the country,” she says. “It’s like when you meet somebody at a party and they look over your shoulder to see who else is there, and you want to talk to them about something that’s really important; in fact, maybe you came to the party to talk to that particular person, and they just want to know what’s next,” she says. “I feel like that’s our political process right now. I just don’t think it is good.”

So all the activity and planning and obsessive calculation that go into a presidential campaign take place behind a pleasant midwestern smile. Her time at State indeed transformed her—as did her 2008 campaign, and her time as a senator, and as First Lady, and on and on. Now she contains multitudes, a million contradictions. She’s a polarizing liberal with lots of Republican friends, the coolest of customers constantly at the center of swirling drama. She’s hung up on a decision over whether to run for an office she (not to mention her husband) has coveted for her entire adult life. She’s a Clinton. And what a candidate she’d make in 2016. But if that’s where she’s going, she’s not saying. “I’m somebody who gets up every day and says, ‘What am I going to do today, and how am I going to do it?’ ” she says. “I think it moves me toward some outcome I’m hoping for and also has some, you know, some joy attached to it. And I think it would be great if everybody else [took the same approach], for the foreseeable future.”

Of Hillary’s dreams, that one seems unlikely to come true.

Hillary in Midair

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New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/travel/7-underrated-ski-resorts/

7 underrated ski resorts

(CNN) — You’ve heard of Aspen, Jackson Hole and Whistler, but how about Copper Mountain, Grand Targhee and Revelstoke? These ski resorts may lack the buzz of their more glamorous neighbors, but they make up for it in snowfall, value and fewer crowds.

So hop on a lift and travel to these overlooked resorts before winter winds down:

Revelstoke Mountain Resort – British Columbia

Revelstoke Mountain Resort in British Columbia gets about 35 feet of annual snowfall each year and is known for its big mountain terrain and small town character.

Courtesy Joey Wallis

Opened in 2007, Revelstoke has remained largely off the radar thanks to its relative inaccessibility in British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountain range. It’s just under a five-hour drive from Calgary and two and a half hours from the nearest international airport, but it’s unlikely to stay that way for long. With some 35 feet of annual snowfall and 5,620 feet of list-accessed vertical, it’s the longest descent of any resort in North America. Revelstoke Mountain Resort is renowned for its legendary powder, big mountain terrain and small town vibes.

Copper Mountain – Colorado

Long a local favorite, Copper has lately been getting attention like its well-known neighbors, Breckenridge and Vail.

Courtesy of Tripp Fay Copper Mountain

Sandwiched between Breckenridge and Vail, Copper Mountain has long been a local favorite, but the recent high-speed quad-lift and ski-in, ski-out lodging put it on par with its big-name neighbors. Naturally divided terrain separates skiers and snowboarders by ability, which gives the entire resort more elbow room. Bonus: Guests get free snow cat access on Tucker Mountain. This season, Copper Mountain offers unlimited skiing and riding for Ikon Pass card holders.

Grand Targhee Resort – Wyoming

Wyoming’s other resort, Grand Targhee is beloved for its powder and incredible terrain.

BRONWYN ISHII

Perched on the western slope of the Tetons, Grand Targhee is perfectly positioned to reap the lion’s share of powder from eastern-moving storms. “There can be times when Jackson Hole can receive zero snow and Grand Targhee can get a foot,” says Dan Sherman, spokesman for ski.com. Plus, he adds, “The terrain is fantastic.” Kids 12 and under always stay and ski free when booking three or more nights. You’ll also find a great deal on vacation rentals — book three night and the fourth night is free. Slopeside rooms start at $160 per night.

Mount Bohemia – Michigan

Paradise by the back country light is how one might describe Michigan’s Mount Bohemia.

Courtesy of Joey Wallis

Yes, there is, in fact, skiing in Michigan. And this relatively small mountain offers 600 skiable acres and approximately 273 inches of lake-effect snow each year (more than any other Midwestern location). Its sister resort Voodoo Mountain offers the best — and only — cat skiing east of the Rockies.

And Lonie Glieberman, President of Mount Bohemia, calls the mountain “truly wild,” the “best tree skiing in North America.” Much of its 105 runs are in remote, backcountry areas. Though all of Bohemia’s runs are acccessed from just two chairlifts at the summit, skiers and riders who find themselves alone at the base can rest assured that shuttle buses will be by to scoop them up and take them back out for another downhill adventure.

Mad River Glen – Vermont

Home to only one of two one-person chair lifts in North America, Mad River Glen’s old-school vibes and solid annual snowfall make it a local favorite and an up-and-coming destination.

Courtesy Jeb Wallace Brodeur

Stowe or Killington may be Vermont’s most recognizable resorts, but Mad River Glen best reflects the Green Mountain state’s independent streak. The cooperative-owned ski area doesn’t groom its trails, keeps snowmaking to a minimum and asks that snowboarders hike up the mountain instead of riding the lift.

“We prefer it from the heavens not the hoses,” says resort spokesman Eric Friedman. Ski magazine has ranked its terrain as the most challenging on the East Coast. The resort’s biggest claim to fame is its single-chair lift, only one of two in North America (Alaska is home to the other). The mountain doesn’t own lodging, but there are plenty of classic ski lodges and cozy bed and breakfasts nearby, with rates from $85. Adult lift tickets start at $45.

Schweitzer Mountain Resort – Idaho

Short lift lines (it’s somewhat hard-to-get-to location mean it’s never too crowded) and 2,900 skiable acres make Schweitzer Mountain Resort an underrated attraction.

Courtesy Schweitzer Mountain Resort

High up in Idaho’s panhandle 12 miles outside of Sandpoint, Schweitzer isn’t as accessible as other West Coast resorts. As a result, it’s unlikely you’ll wait more than five minutes in the lift line. Then there’s the 2,900 skiable acres — more than Idaho’s more well-known resort, Sun Valley. While the mountain is known for its off-trail skiing among the trees, the terrain varies from the bunny hill to steep, double-black pitches. The 6,400-foot summit affords skiers panoramic views of Idaho, Montana, Washington and Canada, as well as Lake Pend Oreille. Slopeside digs start at $169; adult lift tickets at $81.

Valle Nevado, Chile

Wallet-friendly heli-skiing in Valle Nevado make it an enticing place to hit the slopes from way up high.

Courtesy Valle Nevado

Serious skiers know the season doesn’t end come summertime. It just shifts south of the equator. Come August, Valle Nevado Ski Resort, 35 miles northeast of Santiago, is blanketed in deep powder. Newer than the storied Chilean resort of Portillo, Valle Nevado has all the bells and whistles of most modern mountains, including an impressive gondola and an onsite heli-pad.

At roughly $275 for a half day and up to 6,000 feet of vertical in one run, heli-skiing is a relative bargain here.

Lodging ranges from the wallet-friendly Hotel Tres Puntas to the luxe Hotel Valle Nevado, said to be the resort’s most exclusive accommodation option.

Packages at the resort’s namesake hotel include a welcome drink on Saturdays, ski storage, day care, ski pass and nightly turndown service.

Stacey Lastoe contributed additional reporting to this story.

[frontmezzjunkies]

Jacqueline B. Arnold as La Chocolat, Robyn Hurder as Nini, Holly James as Arabia and Jeigh Madjus as Baby Doll from Moulin Rouge!. Photos: © Matthew Murphy, 2019

My Top Ten Theatrical Experiences of 2019

By Ross

So here goes. I’m not that good at making lists, especially in an order that defines saying one thing is slightly better or somewhat worse, because on any given day, the order and assigned number might shift around quite dramatically.  But on this cold NYC morning, this is what I was thinking. Of course, my special mentions are as long as this list of my top ten (by twice), but so be it.  I feel grateful every time I walk in the theatre, particularly since becoming an Outer Critics Circle voting member. There is just so much to love about New York City’s dynamic and eclectic theatre scene, and although I wanted to add a few from London, England, Washington, or Toronto, I tried my hardest to keep it tuned in to what is happening on Broadway and Off this calendar year. So disagree or agree. It’s all good, and let me know your thoughts. I always love hearing about someone’s passionate loves.

J.D. Mollison (center) and the cast of Octet. Photo by Joan Marcus.

10: Octet

“This one certainly got under my skin and had me thinking late into the night. It also forced me, quite intensely and wisely, to think twice before each and every impulse I had to look at my phone…It’s insanely beautiful and achingly real emotionality that forces itself on me even as I attempted to fall asleep after I got home from this enlightenment…The simpleness of this musical has one of the more important messages that the world seems to be desperate to hear and learn.” Full Review 

Danny Burstein. Photos: © Matthew Murphy, 2019.

9: Moulin Rouge!

“Truth. Beauty. Freedom. And above all things, Love. That’s what is splashed before our hungry eyes and ears at the Moulin Rouge! – The Musical decadently and gorgeously mashing together with high-wired spectacular spectacular-ness…Within this new musical, directed dynamically and deliciously…” Full Review

MaYaa Boateng and Roslyn Ruff. Photo by Henry Grossman.

8: Fairview

“Utterly fascinating and forceful play. Like a good food fight, it wildly throws out implied conventions and disturbing vantage points…It transitions dramatically into a heady examination of race, strongly held expectations, and white privilege. Layered on top is an upsettingly accurate internal dialogue…Directed with resolution and unabashed confidence…the piece pounds us forward dramatically, challenging us to overcome.” Full Review 

Heidi Schreck. What the Conststution Means to Me. Photo by Joan Marcus.

7: What the Constitution Means to Me

“As directed with a free-flowing and creative hand by Oliver Butler, it hits us deep and sharp, almost as complicated as the ripples of distrust and pain that strike through Schreck, shaking and overwhelming her composure that feels, most definitely, out of the box…It lightens my load, seeing the smart and funny ‘What the Constitution Means to Me,’ although my broken heart stays confused and perplexed in these trying times.” Full Review

James Jackson, Jr., John-Michael Lyles, Jason Veasey, Larry Owens (in red jacket and hat), Antwayn Hopper, John-Andrew Morrison, L Morgan Lee. Photo by Joan Marcus.

6: A Strange Loop

“Directed with crafty ingenuity…The thrills of that first number sent me into joyous giggles of delight and surprise. And it just kept getting deeper and smarter, wittier and wiser with each effervescent and boundary-free song. The show is like no other…There are times we don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or clap along to the sounds of this collision of hurt and humor, as the players all bring forth an authentic slap to each well crafted song.” Full Review 

Eva Noblezada, Andre De Shields, Reeve Carney. Photo credit: Matthew Murphy.

5: Hadestown

“The ‘Road to Hell’ has never been finer…With Mitchell’s spectacular retelling of the old Orpheus myth…It’s clear from the hot and fiery opening that…Chavkin has a pure vision of tense and muscular motion…The songs are beautiful…’Hadestown’ delivers a deeply resonant and defiantly hopeful theatrical experience, filled to overflowing with passion, artistry, and love, even as are hearts are crushed in the end by our human frailties.” Full Review 

Zawe Ashton, Charlie Cox, Tom Hiddleston in Pinter’s BETRAYAL at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre. Photo by Marc Brenner.

4: Betrayal

“A triangle built with a ballet-like precision within a circle against a long rectangular wall. This is the essence of this masterful revival. They are poised for interaction from that first visual, one by one, in pairs (for the most part), as directed with tight thoughtfulness by the gifted Jamie Lloyd.” Full Review

The full cast of SLAVE PLAY (On Ground L to R): Ato Blankson-Wood, James Cusati-Moyer, Sullivan Jones, Annie McNamara, Joaquina Kalukango, Paul Alexander Nolan. (In red boxes L to R): Irene Sofia Lucio and Chalia La Tour. (photo by Matthew Murphy)

3: Slave Play

“It’s provocative and uncomfortable, pushing boundaries and buttons that are hidden within every single soul in the theatre, daring us with staggering urgency to take notice and check our own prejudicial thoughts and politics…So sign up for this sexy and dynamic experiment and become engaged in a conversation that will likely continue long after the last group member leaves the stage.” Full Review

2: The Sound Inside

“The piece floats forward in segments, delicately ushering in the ideas of encapsulated loneliness and the acceptance of praise that resides within, ever so quietly…The two come together in a (Tony deserving) way that will haunt your imagination as you try to make sense of the imagined.” Full Review 

1: The Inheritance

“‘The Inheritance’ truly surprises us, moment to moment, with its tender power and strong parallel story-telling. It slides in almost unsuspecting, finding a way to deliver a heart breaking truth and an emotional reality that sends me, almost, over the edge. ” Full Review 

  Steven Skybell, Jennifer Babiak in Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

NYTW’s Sing Street, LCT’s Greater Clements, PH’s The Thin Place, Little Shop of Horrors, St. Ann’s Warehouse’s History of Violence, PH’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, ATC’s Blue Ridge, Public’s Sea Wall/A Life, ATC’s The Mother, St. Ann’s Oklahoma!, Gary: A Sequel…, Public’s White Noise, Rattlestick’s No One is Forgotten, LCT’s The Rolling Stone, Broadway Bounty Hunter, MCC’s The Wrong Man, 59E59’s Square Go, TNG’s one in two. I did not get a chance to see Fleabag or many others, as I only have me, and I do need to work occasionally and make some money to live and eat…And I have yet to see The Lehman Trilogy, but I will get my chance in the Spring. Along with the new West Side Story directed by Ivo van Hove and choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker that started previews early December. I’m guessing they might make my Best of 2020.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning Written by Will Arbery Directed by Danya Taymor FEATURING Jeb Kreager — Justin Julia McDermott — Emily Michele Pawk — Gina Zoë Winters — Teresa John Zdrojeski — Kevin Scenic Design: Laura Jellinek Costume Design: Sarafina Bush Lighting Design: Isabella Byrd Sound Design: Justin Ellington Fight Direction: J. David Brimmer Production Stage Manager: Jenny Kennedy Assistant Stage Manager: Madolyn Friedman

Greater Clements LCT 11-09 257 Greater Clements, written by Samuel D. Hunter and directed by Davis McCallum Lincoln Center Theater 11/13/19 Lighting Design: Yi Zhao Costume Design: Kaye Voice Scenic Design: Dane Laffrey Sound Design: Fitz Patton Photo Credit: T Charles Erickson © T Charles Erickson Photography tcepix@comcast.net

Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

White Noise By Suzan-Lori Parks Directed By Oskar Eustis David Diggs Sheria Irving Thomas Sadoski Zoe Winters

#frontmezzjunkies gifts u his #bestof2019 #OctetNYC @MoulinRougeBway #TFANAFairview @TheatreforaNewA @constitutionbwy #astrangeloop @phnyc @hadestown @betrayalbwy @SlavePlayBway @nytw79 @SoundInsideBwy @Inheritanceplay My Top Ten Theatrical Experiences of 2019 By Ross So here goes. I'm not that good at making lists, especially in an order that defines saying one thing is slightly better or somewhat worse, because on any given day, the order and assigned number might shift around quite dramatically.

[melindarowens]

NRSC stole donor data from House Republicans

With Zach Montellaro and Elena Schneider

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro’s Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races — and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day’s most important campaign news — sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

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DATA BREACH — “Senate GOP campaign arm stole donor data from House Republicans,” by POLITICO’s Kevin Robillard and Elena Schneider: “Staffers for Senate Republicans’ campaign arm seized information on more than 200,000 donors from the House GOP campaign committee over several months this year by breaking into its computer system, three sources with knowledge of the breach told POLITICO. … Multiple NRSC staffers, who previously worked for the NRCC, used old database login information to gain access to House Republicans’ donor lists this year.

“The donor list that was breached is among the NRCC’s most valuable assets, containing not only basic contact information like email addresses and phone numbers but personal information that could be used to entice donors to fork over cash — information on top issues and key states of interest to different people, the names of family members, and summaries of past donation history. The list has helped the NRCC raise over $77 million this year to defend the House in 2018.” Full story here.

PARTY’S OVER — “Paul Ryan Cancels Fund-Raiser for Lee Zeldin Over Tax Bill Vote,” The New York Times reports: “House Speaker Paul D. Ryan scratched plans for a fund-raiser on Wednesday that was to benefit the re-election campaign of Representative Lee M. Zeldin, after Mr. Zeldin, a Republican from Long Island, voted against the sweeping tax overhaul that cleared the House earlier this month. Several people familiar with the planning for the fund-raiser said the cancellation was designed to punish Mr. Zeldin, who not only voted against the bill but was outspoken about one aspect: the elimination of the federal deduction for state and local taxes, which particularly impacts high-tax states like New York. … The fund-raising lunch event still occurred on Wednesday, but the proceeds now went to Mr. Ryan’s political operation and the National Republican Congressional Committee, rather than Mr. Zeldin’s campaign.” Full story here.

PRIMARY ADDITION — Blankenship says he’s jumping into West Virginia Senate race: Former energy executive Don Blankenship, who served a one-year prison sentence for “conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards,” said he’s filing papers to run for Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s seat, reports WCHS. Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Rep. Evan Jenkins are already competing in the GOP primary.

Days until the 2018 election: 340

Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, krobillard@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com and mseverns@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.

FIRST IN SCORE — Diane Black digital ad highlights tax reform support: Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Rep. Diane Black is airing a new digital ad touting her support for Trump’s tax plan. The ad starts with a clip of Trump saying, “I called Diane Black and you came through, Diane.” The rest of the minute-long ad is a montage of Black praising the tax reform plan on television. Watch the ad here.

— Meanwhile in Nashville … Jeb Bush is headlining a fundraiser for Black opponent Randy Boyd today, per the Tennessean’s Joel Ebert.

MAYBE, MAYBE NOT — “Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner reconsiders: She may challenge John Katko for Congress,” by Syracuse.com’s Mark Weiner: “Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner says she’s reconsidering whether to run for Congress next year and challenge Rep. John Katko, a month after she had ruled out the possibility. Miner said she changed her mind after Katko voted for a Republican overhaul of the tax code that she fears will disproportionately harm working poor and middle-class residents of Syracuse and Central New York.” Full story.

GETTING THE NOD — NewDem PAC adds candidates to ‘watch list’: The NewDem PAC added 10 candidates to its ‘watch list’ on Thursday: Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-02), Greg Stanton (AZ-09), Jason Crow (CO-06), Lauren Baer (FL-18), Dean Phillips (MN-03), Susie Lee (NV-03), Max Rose (NY-11), Dan McCready (NC-09), Ben McAdams (UT-04) and Dan Kohl (WI-06).

TRUMP BUMP — “Trump appears to back Hawley in Missouri Senate race,” by Robillard: “President Donald Trump appeared to endorse Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley in the state’s GOP Senate primary. … ‘He’ll be a great senator,’ Trump said during a rally for tax reform in St. Charles, Mo., adding later: ‘You have my word that I’m going to come here and campaign for you.’” Full story here.

ICYMI — “Judge allows DNC to depose Spicer on election night activities,” by POLITICO New Jersey’s Matt Friedman: “A federal judge said Wednesday that he’ll allow the Democratic National Committee to depose Sean Spicer, the former Republican National Committee communications director and White House spokesman, on whether he violated a 35-year-old consent decree barring the RNC from engaging in ballot security or voter suppression efforts. But the judge, Michael Vazquez, denied a DNC request for an evidentiary hearing on whether the RNC violated the consent decree.

“Vazquez said that despite comments from high-ranking Trump campaign officials about poll watching efforts in the lead-up to the 2016 election, the DNC had presented no evidence that the RNC participated in them. ‘As far as what’s before this court, you’ve presented me with no evidence of actual voter suppression efforts on the day of the election, much less tying it to the RNC,’ Vazquez told DNC attorneys.” Full story here.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I think that her comments on Sunday set women back and — quite frankly, our party back — decades,” Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice said of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s response to the sexual assault allegations made earlier this week against Rep. John Conyers.

Source link

source https://capitalisthq.com/nrsc-stole-donor-data-from-house-republicans/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/11/nrsc-stole-donor-data-from-house.html

[superman86to99]

Superman: The Man of Steel #36 (August 1994)

"WORLDS COLLIDE" continues! Somewhat out of order, due to the way we're covering this crossover, but let's face it: if you were reading this in the '90s, you probably would have read the issues in some weird order, too (or, more likely, skipped some and been just as confused). So, in a way, we're being faithful to the original reading experience.

Previously in Worlds Collide #1: Rift, a god-like being who thinks the DC Universe and Milestone Media's Dakotaverse are parts of his imagination (meaning he's taking credit for the work of Siegel/Shuster/McDuffie/etc.), grabbed an island populated by thousands of people and just dropped it into the ocean, causing a tsunami that threatened Metropolis. The tsunami has been dealt with (spoilers for Superboy #7, which we haven't covered yet), but now Superman has to break it to his new allies at Milestone's Blood Syndicate that everyone they loved drowned pretty gruesomely. Luckily, Rift emerges from the ocean and saves Superman from that awkward conversation... while musing about destroying Metropolis, too. Well, destroying it even more.

Superman doesn't like that idea, obviously, so he tries to fight Rift, but Rift thinks that a fight scene between a god-like being and a mere superpowered mortal would be pretty boring. So, he summons Superman's closest analogue in the Dakotaverse, Icon, and tells him and Superman they have to fight each other if they don't want Metropolis to go down the toilet too. Rift even blows up the midtown part of Metropolis to prove he means business (but I'm not sure anyone there noticed, considering Metropolis' current state).

So, Superman and Icon start punching each other as hard as they can...

...while trying to direct the fight towards Rift without him realizing it. Meanwhile, Rift sees Lois Lane on a boat and grabs her to tell her he used to be her mailman, Fred Bentson, and compliment himself on doing such a great job creating her. Superman attacks Rift, causing him to drop Lois from a dangerous height (nothing she isn't used to by now, though). Lois is saved by Icon, but Rift realizes he was worried about her, which means she must be real.

Rift reasons that Superman has to be real too... but he doesn't give a crap about who's real or fake anymore. They're all his puppets anyway, and he announces he's gonna "up the ante" on their fight as he transports Superman and Icon to the latter's city, Dakota. TO BE CONTINUED! IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE!

Plotline-Watch:

This issue also features appearances by Superboy, Static, Rocket, Steel, and Hardware. We'll go into more detail on their storylines once we cover their issues, but I want you to know three important things: 1) turns out some scientific knowledge did rub off on Superboy while he was growing up (or being grown) at Cadmus...

...2) Static's full name is Virgil "Electromagnetic" Hawkins, and 3) Steel, like his main inspiration, is also a boxers man (you'll have to wait until another post to find out why he's in his boxers, sorry).

Rift forcing Superman and Icon to fight so their cities don't get destroyed is like a lower-stakes version of the main plot from the DC vs. Marvel crossover (though the stakes are about to get higher). More evidence that they should have included Rift in that crossover, as we were saying in another post's comments.

Jeb-Watch: Rift isn't the biggest villain in this issue, since it also features the return of Jeb Friedman, the ponytailed douchebag who kissed Lois when everyone thought Clark Kent was dead. Don Sparrow says: "God bless Jimmy for giving Jeb the side-eye all readers want to give that loathsome character."

Jeb says he's organizing a charity concert for the homeless people of Metropolis (so, pretty much everyone in Metropolis right now), featuring Jimmy's old would-be rocker friend Babe, whose band Shredding Metal apparently hit the big time. Last time we saw Babe, she had a centuries-old vampire living inside of her. That must have done wonders for her metal singing voice.

The Daily Planet's publisher, Franklin Stern, thinks they should suspend publication because of the "everyone's homeless" thing (plus, their building blew up and stuff), but Perry White refuses to stop putting out the dang paper. Don says: "I like seeing Perry’s commitment to informing the people of Metropolis, even at the risk of financial profit, but it might also explain why the Planet always seems to be on the brink of bankruptcy. Weird to see Lois swearing in that scene."

Whit cameo up there! Also: wonder if that's Alice the intern sleeping in the temporary office, for old time's sake.

Speaking of which, the other Alice in Perry's life (his wife) is volunteering at a medical center in Metropolis. There, she meets Superman's pal Keith the Unlucky (Probably) Orphan, who's trying to reunite another kid with his mom. Keith recently lost his second mother figure, Myra the Orphanage Lady, while Mrs. White lost her son Jerry Luth-- uhh, White some years ago. Hmmm...

The fact that Rift blows up part of Metropolis isn't really acknowledged by the other characters, probably because we all know that, like Paris Island's gruesome fate, it's gonna be undone by the end of the crossover. That makes me think they might as well have gone ahead and made Rift undo Luthor's damage on Metropolis, while at it -- it'd still be kind of a cop out, but I think it would have been a bit more organic than what we actually got.

Shout Outs-Watch:

Rift-sized shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Dave Shevlin, and welcome aboard Dave Blosser! Join them (and get extra articles; we have a Byrne Superman-related one coming next week) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!

Also, have you checked out our friends at @fortressofbaileytude recently? They haven't updated their Tumblr in a bit (9 years) but there's some seriously awesome stuff going on at their other sites, like a whole week of fascinating articles about Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey (including the action figures) and holy crap a podcast interview with Mike Carlin! Like us, they're also in BlueSky.

And now, more from the great @donsparrow.bsky.social...

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s a good one, another piece in the puzzle that makes up this crossover with the Milestone characters.  Our heroes are slightly crowded by all the trade dress graphics, but not excessively so, as the DC and Milestone heroes fly out of a rift.  I always love yellow rim lighting, so it’s a winner for me.

For the most part I’ve found this crossover a bit hard to follow, especially since it has, in certain chapters, barely touched on the already seismic events of the destruction of Metropolis, so it can be hard to know how much we’re supposed to care about it.  While the story has been something of a letdown for me, the art in this issue is not, as Bogdanove and Janke are bringing their best work to this chapter.  Right from the opening splash, with Superman running ahead of various Milestone heroes, we’re off to a dynamic start.

We are so used to seeing Superman flying, it’s a pleasing change to see him running, especially when he’s drawn so well, in all his Shuster/Fleischer studios looking glory.  Only a couple pages later, we get another poster-worthy image, also a full page splash, of Superman soaring through the clouds toward the reader.  I especially like the white halo effect around Superman’s edges, defining his torso in front of his cape.  It may not be realistic, but man, does it pop.  As Superman surveys the damage on Paris Island, there’s a treasure trove of Easter eggs, that are worth the research.  Under the water, Superman finds himself at the cross-streets of Vesey Avenue and Prosser Boulevard.  These are references to real-life former slaves Denmark Vesey, and Gabriel Prosser, who both separately raised insurrections against slavery with deadly consequences.  [Max: I did not know that! In my ignorance, I kinda wondered if they were the names for Milestone creators...]

There’s also a reference to “Big Otto’s”, a Polish soul food restaurant.  At first I thought this was a shout out to famed comic writer Otto Binder, but Wikipedia informs me Binder was of Austrian descent, not Polish.  So maybe it’s just a gag, as it’s hard to imagine the Polish form of Soul Food.

Our first look at Rift, the villain of the piece, is a real showcase for the colouring techniques of this age, with very little of his form defined by the black lines of the rest of these pages, giving a bright, glowing look to his shape.

With Icon’s flowing cape, Bogdanove seems born to draw the character, and it’s hard to think of a time the character looked better.  Hardware also looks great in these pages, but he’s overshadowed artwise by the great penumbra image of Steel on page 16, which is just a terrific drawing.

The image of Superman and Icon speeding toward Rift, who is menacing Lois Lane is a good one, and it’s fun to see her caught by someone other than Superman for a change as Icon is the one who makes the grab here.

SPEEDING BULLETS:

Nice to hear Babe Tanaka and Shredding Metal mentioned, if not shown here.

Speaking of “shown here” it’s odd that they have Ron Troupe in this scene without him speaking at any time. [Max: He hates Jeb so much that he can't even speak. I sympathize.]

Is Jimmy being sarcastic, or does he think that a concert is really a good idea?  I’m betting on the latter, but I’d say a concert would be pretty low on the priority list at that present moment.

Static and Superboy make a very dynamic teen team, and wouldn’t be out of place on a Saturday morning cartoon together.  [Max: Superboy and His Amazing Friends, co-starring Static and Rocket! I believe they did appear together in Young Justice, but that show doesn't sound very Saturday morning-ish...]

It’s interesting that Superman’s Milestone counterpart is named Icon, since, many years later, Ra’s Al Ghul adopts that nickname for Superman himself, the Man of Steel version of Ra’s’ insistence on calling Batman exclusively “Detective”.  “Icon” is an absolutely terrible fit to describe Superman, essentially meaningless, but that issue is beyond the '86 to '99 timeline, and handled by a writer whose work on Superman I hated, so the less said the better. 

Is the Alice who is washing dishes, and who meets Keith and Lucan the same Alice that works at the Planet?  It’s hard to tell without her glasses, but she has a similar body shape. [Max: C'mon, Don, that's Alice White! How could you forget such a memorable character... who, based on our tags, hasn't appeared since 1992?]

I can’t find much information on Lucan.  His name seems so unusual that I wondered if he’s a regular character or something from the Milestone stories, but I haven’t unearthed much.  His design looks similar to a character from the cartoon, Richie Foley, but under the name Lucan I can only find references to Shining Knight or a character in Image’s Invincible. [Max: The DC wiki doesn't even list him in this issue, so I'm gonna assume he was a one-time character and an excuse for Keith to talk to Alice... but then again, the wiki doesn't list Keith or Alice either.]

I still can’t believe the cosmic power behind this storyline is a nebbishy mailman.  

[godstaff]

LOIS LANE IS TOO GOOD FOR SUPERMAN!!!

True.

I don't know why she insists on pairing below her station.

She should've stayed with a worthy man like Jeb Friedman.

[everettwilkinson]

NRSC stole donor data from House Republicans

With Zach Montellaro and Elena Schneider

The following newsletter is an abridged version of Campaign Pro’s Morning Score. For an earlier morning read on exponentially more races — and for a more comprehensive aggregation of the day’s most important campaign news — sign up for Campaign Pro today. (http://www.politicopro.com/proinfo)

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DATA BREACH — “Senate GOP campaign arm stole donor data from House Republicans,” by POLITICO’s Kevin Robillard and Elena Schneider: “Staffers for Senate Republicans’ campaign arm seized information on more than 200,000 donors from the House GOP campaign committee over several months this year by breaking into its computer system, three sources with knowledge of the breach told POLITICO. … Multiple NRSC staffers, who previously worked for the NRCC, used old database login information to gain access to House Republicans’ donor lists this year.

“The donor list that was breached is among the NRCC’s most valuable assets, containing not only basic contact information like email addresses and phone numbers but personal information that could be used to entice donors to fork over cash — information on top issues and key states of interest to different people, the names of family members, and summaries of past donation history. The list has helped the NRCC raise over $77 million this year to defend the House in 2018.” Full story here.

PARTY’S OVER — “Paul Ryan Cancels Fund-Raiser for Lee Zeldin Over Tax Bill Vote,” The New York Times reports: “House Speaker Paul D. Ryan scratched plans for a fund-raiser on Wednesday that was to benefit the re-election campaign of Representative Lee M. Zeldin, after Mr. Zeldin, a Republican from Long Island, voted against the sweeping tax overhaul that cleared the House earlier this month. Several people familiar with the planning for the fund-raiser said the cancellation was designed to punish Mr. Zeldin, who not only voted against the bill but was outspoken about one aspect: the elimination of the federal deduction for state and local taxes, which particularly impacts high-tax states like New York. … The fund-raising lunch event still occurred on Wednesday, but the proceeds now went to Mr. Ryan’s political operation and the National Republican Congressional Committee, rather than Mr. Zeldin’s campaign.” Full story here.

PRIMARY ADDITION — Blankenship says he’s jumping into West Virginia Senate race: Former energy executive Don Blankenship, who served a one-year prison sentence for “conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards,” said he’s filing papers to run for Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s seat, reports WCHS. Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Rep. Evan Jenkins are already competing in the GOP primary.

Days until the 2018 election: 340

Thanks for joining us! You can email tips to the Campaign Pro team at sbland@politico.com, eschneider@politico.com, krobillard@politico.com, dstrauss@politico.com and mseverns@politico.com.

You can also follow us on Twitter: @politicoscott, @ec_schneider, @politicokevin, @danielstrauss4 and @maggieseverns.

FIRST IN SCORE — Diane Black digital ad highlights tax reform support: Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Rep. Diane Black is airing a new digital ad touting her support for Trump’s tax plan. The ad starts with a clip of Trump saying, “I called Diane Black and you came through, Diane.” The rest of the minute-long ad is a montage of Black praising the tax reform plan on television. Watch the ad here.

— Meanwhile in Nashville … Jeb Bush is headlining a fundraiser for Black opponent Randy Boyd today, per the Tennessean’s Joel Ebert.

MAYBE, MAYBE NOT — “Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner reconsiders: She may challenge John Katko for Congress,” by Syracuse.com’s Mark Weiner: “Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner says she’s reconsidering whether to run for Congress next year and challenge Rep. John Katko, a month after she had ruled out the possibility. Miner said she changed her mind after Katko voted for a Republican overhaul of the tax code that she fears will disproportionately harm working poor and middle-class residents of Syracuse and Central New York.” Full story.

GETTING THE NOD — NewDem PAC adds candidates to ‘watch list’: The NewDem PAC added 10 candidates to its ‘watch list’ on Thursday: Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-02), Greg Stanton (AZ-09), Jason Crow (CO-06), Lauren Baer (FL-18), Dean Phillips (MN-03), Susie Lee (NV-03), Max Rose (NY-11), Dan McCready (NC-09), Ben McAdams (UT-04) and Dan Kohl (WI-06).

TRUMP BUMP — “Trump appears to back Hawley in Missouri Senate race,” by Robillard: “President Donald Trump appeared to endorse Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley in the state’s GOP Senate primary. … ‘He’ll be a great senator,’ Trump said during a rally for tax reform in St. Charles, Mo., adding later: ‘You have my word that I’m going to come here and campaign for you.’” Full story here.

ICYMI — “Judge allows DNC to depose Spicer on election night activities,” by POLITICO New Jersey’s Matt Friedman: “A federal judge said Wednesday that he’ll allow the Democratic National Committee to depose Sean Spicer, the former Republican National Committee communications director and White House spokesman, on whether he violated a 35-year-old consent decree barring the RNC from engaging in ballot security or voter suppression efforts. But the judge, Michael Vazquez, denied a DNC request for an evidentiary hearing on whether the RNC violated the consent decree.

“Vazquez said that despite comments from high-ranking Trump campaign officials about poll watching efforts in the lead-up to the 2016 election, the DNC had presented no evidence that the RNC participated in them. ‘As far as what’s before this court, you’ve presented me with no evidence of actual voter suppression efforts on the day of the election, much less tying it to the RNC,’ Vazquez told DNC attorneys.” Full story here.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I think that her comments on Sunday set women back and — quite frankly, our party back — decades,” Democratic Rep. Kathleen Rice said of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s response to the sexual assault allegations made earlier this week against Rep. John Conyers.

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from CapitalistHQ.com https://capitalisthq.com/nrsc-stole-donor-data-from-house-republicans/

[emeraldnebula]

Once more my art collection revisits a familiar face: Prince Adam, the He-Man, as drawn by Marvel and DC regular Ron Frenz. Best known for his runs on Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, and Thunderstrike, Frenz also spent 1995-1998 on one of the many terrible post-1986 runs of Superman...and said years later that he and several other creators at DC unsuccessfully protested the direction of the franchise. (He was absolutely venomous in his disdain for the Superman/Lois Lane/Jeb Friedman love triangle, as well as Lois’ abusive behavior toward Supes.) Nevertheless, Frenz remains a very talented artist, and his style is a perfect match for Eternia’s answer to the Man of Steel.

By the by, Frenz is represented by Catskill Comics, should anyone be interested in seeing or buying some samples of his work. See if the rest of his wares tickle your fancy.

[almomentoveracruz-blog]

Las acciones y las inacciones del poder público por una clase tecnócrata entregada a los intereses del poder económico del modelo neoliberal implantado desde la década de los 80s con la mujer de Hierro Margaret tacher y en estados Unidos con Rolan Riegan, las acciones de poder y permiso con anuencia de la mafia tecnócrata-burócrata para designar a los ejecutivos de México, el antecedente de Vicente fox y Felipe calderón, ex director de Pemex, expresidente del pan a nivel nacional. Lo ideal de la nación mexicana secuestrada: “la nueva visión de gobierno, solidarios muy distante con su pueblo, en la actividad política la sensibilidad no se da en maceta, es un proceso humano de ideas, visiones, proyectos, valores, si la expresión de la locura en la búsqueda del poder, es entonces   estar car entente de valores, sentimientos y sentimentalismo es del ser humano, y no de un robot. Los poderes como medio de contrapeso enquistados por intereses cupulares, partidarios, donde el país vive en un estado de inseguridad e incertidumbre política, económica, social. “ECC. SER LIBRE ANTE UNA DEMOCRACIA DE PODER https://youtu.be/qmmJva1NJ7k vía @YouTube La imagen del funcionario en el discurso y la realidad es otra, dónde la población vive en la incertidumbre   economica, de seguridad, de falta de empleo, problemas graves de salud” obesidad, diabetes, cáncer”, nuestras instituciones inmersas a presupuesto, sin inventiva. EEUU, al igual que México, tiene una posición geopolítica privilegiada, con acceso a los dos grandes océanos del globo: el pacífico y el atlántico. Sobre China Friedman sostiene que es un país físicamente aislado, un tigre de papel. Con Siberia al norte, el Himalaya y grandes selvas al sur, y la mayor parte de la población china en la región oriental del país, los chinos no podrán expandirse con facilidad. Los grupos duros de extrema derecha, especialmente texanos, se proyecten sobre México, para tratar de balcanizarlo, creando tres Méxicos, uno norteño fragmentado en México y California (anexándose a la Baja California y a Sonora), uno centralizado en la gran ciudad de México.  “yacimientos petroleros transfronterizos localizados en los Hoyos de la Dona Occidentales y la influencia del Cartel del Golfo, cercano a los intereses texanos de los Bush (Obama ha puesto en la cárcel a dos de sus operadores más destacados, Allen Stamford y el Tom De Lay, apodado el martillo),la colonización mexicana en el  gigantesco Valle de Texas, los continuos asesinatos masivos en esa zona de migrantes mexicanos y centroamericanos ”El mundo del poder económico.-- “No puedo ser negativo en un mundo tan negativo, me gusta ir a contra corriente. Sé muy poco del pasado, no sé nada del presente, no lo entiendo, pero aun así tengo la desfachatez de atreverme a hacer una profecía sobre el futuro. Es el colmo del descaro y todo por querer venir a San Antonio a hacer amigos, creo que después de estas locuras nunca me volverán a invitar.   De la relación E.U. - México diré que somos vecinos sin remedio, ahora cercanos por las drogas, las armas y los muertos, antes distantes, parece que ya nos acostumbramos a vivir y dormir todas las noches con un elefante guerrero que lleva una doble vida, que le encanta acercar zanahorias, pero también asustar con el garrote y su arsenal de armas y fronteras reales e imaginarias. Es fiel y es infiel, su pueblo es ejemplar y admirable, y sus gobernantes son políticos enfermos de poder, mentirosos y de poco fiar. De México diré que estamos en un largo bache, con un pueblo anestesiado y apático y un presidente como Calderón que no se deja ayudar --es bastante limitado y no tiene carisma--, pero aun así resultó el menos malo de los que suspiraron por el puesto de gerente general de esta por ahora abollada empresa llamada México que combina una buena macroeconomía y reservas record de dólares con la tristeza en las calles” -----la lupa de González Iñigo 649 .Hoy straussianos,  en ese marco, México se integra de facto al Comando del Norte en sus tres frentes; los arquitectos de la política energética y de seguridad estadounidense saben que asegurar su acceso a algunas fuentes petrolíferas sería imposible sin el uso de la fuerza militar. Operador directo de Felipe Calderón, y cuya sobrina es Columba Garnica Gallo, esposa de Jeb Bush, el tutor de Juan Camilo Mouriño-el posiblemente asesinado Secretario de Gobernación de Felipe Calderón y su posible sucesor presidencial, esa nota muestra que el “lavado de dinero” (Como el banco Wachovia-paraestatal de EU- se dedicaba a lavar miles de millones de dólares del narco de México). Para resguardar la frontera entre el norte desarrollado y México subdesarrollado, existen los acuerdos de Fronteras Inteligentes, el Plan de Acción de la Alianza Fronteriza y la Iniciativa de Comercio Libre y Seguro. Las masacres continuas que llegan ya a 40,000 muerto a le urge ampliarse al Noreste de México, huérfanos, familias destrozadas, desempleados, 20,000 desaparecidos luego encontrados muchos de ellos en fosas comunes, lo extraño, en la zona aledaña a Matamoros, que al igual que Ciudad Juárez, parecen ser los puntos álgidos de los extremos de la frontera con Texas, pensando conspirativamente, y el centro neurálgico del su imperio sureño, narcotráfico, tráfico de armas, de especies, etc. Los grupos duros de extrema derecha, especialmente texanos, se lancen sobre México, para tratar de balcanizarlo, establecido tres Méxicos, uno norteño fragmentado en México y California (anexándose a la Baja California y a Sonora), uno centralizado en la gran ciudad de México. En México hay hogares, apellidos, muros, guaruras, pobres ricos acaudalados y miedos, y una religión que fomenta la sumisión como una forma de alcanzar el reino de los cielos. En México la calle es la guerra.  Los excedentes petroleros de nuestra industria paraestatal PEMEX, cautivos a una burocracia oligárquica aristócratas, donde han sido generadores de más pobreza y desigualdades sociales en México un país, rico de recursos naturales entregados a la iniciativa privada y a nuestros socios comerciales del TLC. La explotación de la mano de obra en comparación con la mexicana, que han dejado grandes fortunas al poder económico y pobreza a la nación mexicana. El dinero es fuente de poder y de terror. Mientras en el Siglo XX EEUU afianzó su liderazgo tras las dos grandes guerras, México vio interrumpido su proceso de formación de capital –una vez más-- por una revolución que nunca tuvo metas claras. El pasado siglo fue un huracán, como describe George Friedman en su libro Te Next 100 Years (Doubleday, 2010). Juegos de poder y sus debilidades ante el poder mismo. “el aeropuerto de Ciudad del Carmen Campeche, nuestra isla petrolera, ahora controlada por los panistas straussianos, especialmente visible Carlos Medina Plasencia, ex gobernador de Guanajuato. Operador directo de Felipe Calderón, y cuya sobrina es Columba Garnica Gallo, esposa de Jeb Bush, el tutor de Juan Camilo Mouriño-el posiblemente asesinado” hipótesis. Del grupo petrolero de Texas “, y Secretario de Gobernación de Felipe Calderón”. 5 10 16 Los problemas nacionales y el Derecho II: Pobreza y desigualdad https://youtu.be/whE3hf9qSb0 vía @YouTube  

[billyagogo]

Hillary in Midair

New Post has been published on https://newsprofixpro.com/moxie/2021/01/26/hillary-in-midair/

Hillary in Midair

Photo: Douglas Friedman/Trunk Archive

For four years, Hillary Rodham Clinton flew around the world as President Barack Obama’s secretary of State, while her husband, the former president Bill Clinton, lived a parallel life of speeches and conferences in other hemispheres. They communicated almost entirely by phone. They were seldom on the same continent, let alone in the same house.

But this year, all that has changed: For the first time in decades, neither one is in elected office, or running for one. Both are working in the family business, in the newly renamed nonprofit that once bore only Bill’s name but is now called the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which will hold its annual conference in New York next week.

“We get to be at home together a lot more now than we used to in the last few years,” says Hillary Clinton. “We have a great time; we laugh at our dogs; we watch stupid movies; we take long walks; we go for a swim.

“You know,” she says, “just ordinary, everyday pleasures.”

In the world of the Clintons, of course, what constitutes ordinary and everyday has never been either. So the question was inevitable: Given who he is, and who she is, does Bill, among their guffaws over the dogs and stupid movies, harangue her daily about running for president?

To this, Hillary Rodham Clinton lets loose one of her loud, head-tilted-back laughs. “I don’t think even he is, you know, focused on that right now,” she says. “Right now, we’re trying to just have the best time we can have doin’ what we’re doin’. ”

There’s a weightlessness about Hillary Clinton these days. She’s in midair, launched from the State Department toward … what? For the first time since 1992, unencumbered by the demands of a national political campaign or public office, she is saddled only with expectations about what she’s going to do next. And she is clearly enjoying it.

“It feels great,” she says, “because I have been on this high wire for twenty years, and I was really yearning to just have more control over my time and my life, spend a lot of that time with my family and my friends, do things that I find relaxing and enjoyable, and return to the work that I had done for most of my life.”

Relaxing, for a Clinton, especially one who, should she decide to run, is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in 2016, does not seem exactly restful. The day before we speak, she was awarded the Liberty Medal by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia—presented by Jeb Bush, another politician weighted with dynastic expectations and family intrigue, who took the opportunity to jest that both he and Clinton cared deeply about Americans—especially those in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Afterward, Clinton stepped backstage, a red-white-and-blue ribbon around her neck pulled taut by a saucer-size gold medal. “It is really heavy,” she said, with that plain-home midwestern tone she deploys when she wants to not appear the heavy herself. In the room with her were some of her close advisers—Nick Merrill, a communications staffer and acolyte of Hillary’s suffering top aide, Huma Abedin; and Dan Schwerin, the 31-year-old speechwriter who wrote all the words she had spoken moments ago. Local policemen with whom Clinton had posed for photos milled about behind her.

Outside was the usual chorus accompanying a Clinton appearance, befitting her status as the most popular Democrat in America: news helicopters buzzing overhead and protesters amassed across the street who raised signs that read benghazi in bloodred paint and chanted antiwar slogans directly at her as she spoke at the outdoor lectern.

Though she was officially out of the government, it was not as if she could leave it, even if she wanted to. That week Clinton had met with Obama in the White House to discuss the ongoing Syria crisis, and now Obama was on TV that very evening announcing a diplomatic reprieve from a missile attack on Syria—a series of decisions that Clinton had lent her support to every step of the way. “I’ve been down this road with them,” she tells me the next day. “I know how challenging it is to ever get [the Russians] to a ‘yes’ that they actually execute on, but it can be done. I think we have to push hard.”

Clinton has taken a press hiatus since she left the State Department in January—“I’ve been successful at avoiding you ­people for many months now!” she says, laughing. She is tentative and careful, tiptoeing into every question, keenly aware that the lines she speaks will be read between. In our interview, she emphasizes her “personal friendship” with Obama, with whom she had developed a kind of bond of pragmatism and respect—one based on shared goals, both political and strategic. “I feel comfortable raising issues with him,” she says. “I had a very positive set of interactions, even when I disagreed, which obviously occurred, because obviously I have my own opinions, my own views.”

Hillary Clinton receiving the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia, September 10. Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine

The killing of bin Laden, she says, was a bonding experience. Obama’s Cabinet had been split on whether to attempt the mission, but Clinton backed it and sweated out the decision with the commander-in-chief. “I’ve seen the president in a lot of intense and difficult settings,” she says, “and I’ve watched him make hard decisions. Obviously, talking to you on September 11 as we are, the bin Laden decision-making process is certainly at the forefront of my mind.”

The statement cuts two ways—praise for her president and evidence of her deep experience in and around the Oval Office—including the most successful military endeavor of the Obama presidency. As a Cabinet member, she says, “I’ve had a unique, close, and personal front-row seat. And I think these last four years have certainly deepened and broadened my understanding of the challenges and the opportunities that we face in the world today.”

Political campaigns are built of personal narratives—and it works much better if the stories are true. The current arc of Hillary’s story is one of transformation. Being secretary of State was more than a job. Her closest aides describe the experience as a kind of cleansing event, drawing a sharp line between the present and her multiple pasts—as First Lady, later as the Democratic front-runner in 2008, derailed by the transformative campaign of Barack Obama but also by a dysfunctional staff, the campaign-trail intrusions of her husband, and the inherent weaknesses of the fractious, bickering American institution that has become known as Clintonworld.

At State, she was the head of a smoothly running 70,000-person institution, and fully her own woman, whose marriage to a former president was, when it was mentioned, purely an asset. And now that she’s left State, Clintonworld is being refashioned along new lines, rationalized and harmonized. The signal event of this is the refurbishing of the Clinton Foundation, formerly Bill’s province, to accommodate all three Clintons, with Chelsea, newly elevated, playing a leading role. The move has ruffled certain Clintonworld feathers—a front-page article in the New York Times about the financial travails of the foundation as managed by Bill Clinton brought sharp pushback—but most of those close to the Clintons acknowledge that to succeed in the coming years, Hillary will have to absorb the lessons of 2008. Currently, it’s a topline talking point among her closest aides.

“She doesn’t repeat her mistakes,” says Melanne Verveer, an aide to the First Lady who then served in the State Department as Hillary’s ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues. “She really learns from her mistakes. It’s like, you want to grow a best practice and then always operate on that. She analyzes, ‘What went wrong here?’ ”

Of course, if Hillary’s future were to be an author, or a pundit, or a retiree, learning from mistakes wouldn’t be an issue. But other outcomes, where executive talents are prized, seem more likely. I ask Clinton the question that trails her like a thought bubble: Does she wrestle with running for president?

“I do,” she says, “but I’m both pragmatic and realistic. I think I have a pretty good idea of the political and governmental challenges that are facing our leaders, and I’ll do whatever I can from whatever position I find myself in to advocate for the values and the policies I think are right for the country. I will just continue to weigh what the factors are that would influence me making a decision one way or the other.”

Clintonworld, however, speaks with many voices­—albeit many of them not for attribution. Some of her close confidants, including many people with whom her own staff put me in touch, are far less circumspect than she is. “She’s running, but she doesn’t know it yet,” one such person put it to me. “It’s just like a force of history. It’s inexorable, it’s gravitational. I think she actually believes she has more say in it than she actually does.”

And a longtime friend concurs. “She’s doing a very Clintonian thing. In her mind, she’s running for it, and she’s also convinced herself she hasn’t made up her mind. She’s going to run for president. It’s a foregone conclusion.”

When president-elect Barack Obama asked Clinton to be secretary of State, they had a series of private conversations about her role for the next four years. What would the job entail? How much power would she have? How would it be managed?

Or to restate the questions as they were understood by everyone involved in the negotiation: What would Hillary Clinton get in return for supporting Obama after the brutal primary and helping him defeat John McCain?

Though she had ended her losing campaign on a triumphal note, gracefully accepting the role of secretary of State and agreeing to be a trouble-free team player in Obama’s Cabinet, the 2008 primary loss left deep wounds to her core staff—at least among those members who had not been excommunicated. They would discuss what happened during long trips to Asia and Europe, sounding like post-traumatic-stress victims. “The experience was very searing for them, and they would go through it with great detail,” says a former State Department colleague.

Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine

The problems of that campaign were crucial to how Clinton would decide to lead the State Department. In accepting the State job, Clinton insisted on hiring her own staff. In addition to her top aides, Huma Abedin and Philippe Reines, she enlisted stalwarts of campaigns and administrations past: Maggie Williams, Cheryl Mills, and Verveer, who have been with her since her days in Bill Clinton’s White House. Among Hillary’s inner circle, this is viewed as a returning lineup of all-stars who were iced out of her campaign by a five-person team led by Patti Solis-Doyle, a group who in their telling became the agents of the campaign’s troubles. “They’re the A-team,” says a top aide. “They weren’t the B-team that got elevated. They were the A-team that got deposed by [Solis-Doyle].”

The 2008 campaign was seen by many as an echo chamber, closed off from the best advice, and the lesson for Clinton was clear: “The takeaway is, ‘Don’t only listen to five people,’ ” says the aide.

When she arrived, Clinton did a kind of institutional listening tour at the State Department. “She felt like she was too closed off from what was happening across the expanse of the [2008] campaign,” says a close aide at the State Department, “and that became a hallmark with the leadership in the State Department, and it served her incredibly well.”

To keep things operating smoothly, she hired Tom Nides, the COO of Morgan Stanley, who’d contributed heavily to Clinton’s past campaigns. Even Nides was wary of the Clinton drama he might be stepping into. “I had heard all these stories about the Clinton world and what all that meant and ‘Did you really want to get wrapped up in that?’ ” he says. But he reports that “all of the stuff did not exist at the State Department for the last four years.

“The relationship between the State Department and the White House and the State Department and the Defense Department was probably the best it’s ever been in 50 years,” he adds. “That starts from the top. No drama. And that was started by her.”

Among Hillary Clinton’s greatest hits at State were the new focus on Asia, pushing for the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, and building a coalition for strong sanctions against Iran. But she also saw the job as a kind of reformatting of the State Department itself to prepare for the longer-run issues. “I’d been told that it was a choice that had to be made: You could either do what had to be done around the world, or you could organize and focus the work that was done inside State and the Agency for International Development, but I rejected that,” says Clinton. “I thought it was essential that as we restore America’s standing in the world and strengthen our global leadership again, we needed what I took to calling ‘smart power’ to elevate American diplomacy and development and reposition them for the 21st century … That meant that we had to take a hard look at how both State and A.I.D. operated. I did work to increase their funding after a very difficult period when they were political footballs to some extent and they didn’t have the resources to do what was demanded of them.”

Clinton’s State team argues that Clinton was a great stateswoman, her ambition to touch down in as many countries as possible a meter of how much repair work she did to the nation’s image abroad. Along the way, she embraced with good humor a parody Tumblr account, Texts From Hillary, that featured a picture of her in the iconic sunglasses looking cool and queenly. “She insisted on having a personality,” says Jake Sullivan, her former deputy chief of staff and now the national-security adviser to Vice-President Joe Biden. “And on stating her opinion.”

For foreign-policy critics, some of this could look like wheel spinning. The major critique was that she didn’t take on any big issues, like brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians, or negotiating the nuclear disarmament of North Korea. And the suspicion was that she didn’t want to be associated with any big failures as she prepared for 2016. She was, after all, under the tight grip of the Obama White House, which directed major foreign-policy decisions from the Oval Office.

“Whatever one says about how [Secretary of State] John Kerry is doing,” says the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, “he has nothing left to lose. You can see he takes risks. He’s plowing into the Middle East stuff when people are saying this isn’t going to get you anywhere. Hillary never would have done any of this stuff.”

Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine

Her former staffers argue that she managed a host of important, if underrecognized, global flare-ups along the way, from freeing a dissident in China to brokering the easing of sanctions against Burma. “She helped avert a second war in Gaza by going out and pulling off that cease-fire,” recalls Sullivan of the deal she hashed out between Israel and Hamas after a week of fighting, “which holds to this day. And you don’t get a lot of credit for preventing something. Those are things that you aren’t going to measure how successful they are for another ten or twenty years.”

At the same time, Hillary used her tenure at State for a more intimate purpose: to shift the balance of power in the most celebrated political marriage in American history. Bill Clinton was an overwhelming force in Hillary’s 2008 campaign, instrumental in vouching for Mark Penn, the strategist whose idea it was for Hillary to cling to her war vote on Iraq and to sell her as an iron-sided insider whose experience outweighed the need to project mere humanity. Bill also freelanced his own negative attacks, some of which backfired. Because his staff was not coordinating with Hillary’s, her staff came to regard him as a wild card who couldn’t be managed.

But not in the State Department. “Not a presence,” says a close State aide. “And I don’t mean that just literally. But not someone who was built into the system in any way. He had a very minimal presence in her time at the State Department.

“It’s kind of jarring when she says ‘Bill,’ ” this person adds, recalling meetings with Hillary Clinton. “Well, who’s Bill? And then you realize that she’s talking about her husband. It happened so infrequently that you were kind of like, Oh, the president.”

Part of it, of course, was logistical. Though they spoke frequently by phone, Bill and Hillary were rarely in the same country. By chance, their paths crossed in Bogotá, where they had dinner together—then, owing to their massive entourages, returned to their respective hotels. “Love conquers all except logistics,” says an aide.

“I could probably count on one hand the times she came to a meeting and either invoked his name or suggested something that Bill had said,” says Nides. “I probably did it more about my wife telling me what to do.”

Hillary might have left the State Department unsullied by controversy if not for the Benghazi episode, in which the ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other consulate staffers were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate. The NATO intervention in Libya was the most important foreign intervention of her tenure, and a seemingly successful one, but the lack of security in Benghazi and the confusion over how the incident occurred set off a heated Republican attack on Clinton’s handling of the disaster, and she was roasted on the cable-news spit for weeks. In January, she took responsibility for the deaths of the four Americans before Congress—while also questioning her inquisition, snapping at a Republican congressman, “What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.”

Benghazi will be the go-to bludgeon for Republicans if and when Clinton tries using her experience at State to run for president. It is a reminder that Clinton, despite the cool, centrist façade she has developed in the past four years, is only a misstep away from being a target of partisan rage once again.

Regardless of the facts, Republicans are liable to use Benghazi as a wedge to pry back her stately exterior, goading her into an outburst, once again revealing the polarizing figure who saw vast right-wing conspiracies and tried ginning up government health care against the political tides of Newt Gingrich.

When asked for her prescription for partisan gridlock, Clinton sees an opportunity not unlike what Obama saw in 2008. ­“People are stereotypes, they are caricaturized,” says Clinton. “It comes from both sides of the political aisle, it comes from the press. It’s all about conflict, it’s all about personality, and there are huge stakes in the policies that are being debated, and I think there’s a hunger amongst a very significant, maybe even a critical mass of Americans, clustered on the left, right, and center, to have an adult conversation about how we’re going to solve these problems … but it’s not for the fainthearted.” For now, Hillary’s strategy is to sail above these conflicts, mostly by saying nothing to inflame them. “I have a lot of reason to believe, as we saw in the 2012 election, most Americans don’t agree with the extremists on any side of an issue,” says Clinton, “but there needs to continue to be an effort to find common ground, or even take it to higher ground on behalf of the future.”

At the Sheraton Ballroom in Chicago last spring, Bill Clinton appeared before an eager crowd of Clinton groupies at the Clinton Global Initiative America, a special conference focused on domestic issues and set in Hillary’s hometown. Onstage, the former president looked older than in the past—thinner, stooped, more subdued, his hands trembling while he held his notes at the podium. Haloed in blue light, he spoke about the “still embattled American Dream” and then introduced his wife as his new partner in the foundation, the woman who “taught me everything I know about NGOs.”

Her appearance made for a stark contrast. When she emerged from behind the curtain, she appeared much more youthful—smiling, upright, beaming in a turquoise pantsuit; she received huge applause and a standing ovation that dwarfed the response to Bill.

On her first major public stage since leaving the State Department, Hillary told the crowd that the foundation will be a “full partnership between the three of us,” including her daughter, Chelsea. But this was clearly Hillary Clinton’s show. That week, she had launched her Twitter account, complete with a tongue-in-cheek description of her as a “glass ceiling cracker,” her future “TBD.” Clearly, her foundation work, as important as it is to her, wasn’t everything. And Chicago was a perfect site for the start of this new chapter. It was where she was from, the launchpad for her career in politics and early-childhood education and women’s empowerment, what she called the “great unfinished business of this century.” “When women participate in politics,” she said, “it ripples out to the entire society … Women are the world’s most underused resource.”

If you wanted to read her speech as an opening salvo for a 2016 run for the presidency, it wasn’t hard to do as she talked about all that she’d learned as she traveled the globe. Whatever country or situation they found themselves in, “what people wanted was a good job.”

The rechristening of the foundation marked the first time the Clintons had come under the same institutional roof since the nineties. For Hillary, it made sense, because she didn’t have to compete with her husband for donors at her own foundation. It would also allow her to warm up donors for future initiatives—like, just for instance, a 2016 campaign. Two days later, the family would appear together onstage, a picture-perfect photo op of what Bill Clinton called “our little family.”

The Clinton Global Initiative, in addition to its work combating poverty and aids, is a kind of unofficial Clinton-alumni reunion, with friends and donors dating back to the early years in Arkansas. Sprinkled around the ballroom in Chicago were the old hands, from Bruce Lindsey, the former deputy White House counsel and CEO of the foundation, to newer faces like J. B. Pritzker, the Chicago hotel scion who was national co-chair of Hillary’s 2008 campaign and was now raising $20 million for an early-childhood-education initiative.

The Clinton network has always been both an asset and a burden. Terry ­McAuliffe, the longtime Clinton ally now running for governor of Virginia, has raised millions for the Clintons at every juncture of their careers. Then again, he’s Terry McAuliffe, the guy who left his weeping wife and newborn child in the car while he collected $1 million at a fund-raiser, then wrote about it in a memoir. “You can’t change who these people are,” says one former Hillary adviser. “It’s like any other trade. You’ve got the good, and there’s a lot of good. And you’ve got the noise.”

To harness some of the noise—what some Clinton people called “the energy”—a faction has converged around the Ready for Hillary super-PAC started by a former 2008 campaign aide named Adam Parkhomenko. Launched early this year, it has appeared to many observers to be an informal satellite of Hillary’s larger designs for the White House, but her aides say it’s a rogue operation of questionable benefit. “There is nothing they are doing that couldn’t have waited a year,” says one. “Not a single fucking thing.”

Regardless, Clinton veterans like former campaign strategist James Carville have come out supporting the super-PAC, as has former White House political director Craig Smith, Bill’s old Arkansas pal. Supporters argue that the super-PAC has Hillary’s tacit approval, especially given the involvement of Susie Tompkins Buell, a prominent Democratic donor who is among her oldest and closest friends. “It offers supporters the all-important link to click on, plus places to convene in both the digital and physical worlds,” says Tracy Sefl, an adviser to the super-PAC. “And although some perhaps just can’t quite believe it, Ready for Hillary’s name really does convey the totality of its purpose.”

One supporter of the super-PAC, who didn’t want to be identified, acknowledges that “there’s a danger there of her again becoming the front-runner. And, too, the existence of it raises her profile and puts more pressure on her to make a decision earlier than she might otherwise want to make.”

On some level, the network is almost impossible to control—Clintonworld is bigger than just the Clintons. “People do things in their name, or say they just talked to Hillary or to Bill, and the next thing you know, they’re doing something stupid,” says a former aide of Hillary’s whose interview she sanctioned. “You take the good with the bad. Hopefully, the good outweighs the bad.”

The biggest question among Hillary’s circle concerns Huma Abedin, currently chief of Hillary’s “transition office” and formerly her deputy chief of staff in the State Department. Abedin began as an intern for the First Lady in 1996, when she was 20 years old, and is, of course, married to former congressman and mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, of sexting infamy.

In the midst of her husband’s scandal, Abedin stepped down from her full-time job for a consulting contract and moved back to New York to take work with Teneo Holdings, a consulting firm and investment bank run by Bill Clinton’s longtime consigliere, Doug Band. This gave Hillary cover while also keeping Abedin plugged in. “It’s business as usual,” says a Clinton insider. “Keep your circle of advisers small, and then you structure things in a way that makes it economically possible for your close advisers to sustain themselves.”

But business as usual can be a giant target for enemies: Abedin has since become the subject of an inquiry, by a Republican congressman, into her dual consulting roles, looking for potential conflicts of interest while she served in a sensitive role in the administration. Then came a second episode of Weiner’s sexting this summer, blindsiding the Clintons, obliterating Weiner’s mayoral ambitions, and greatly complicating Abedin’s future with the Clintons. With Weiner’s ignominious loss and parting bird-flip, “Huma has a choice to make,” says a close associate of hers. “Does she go with Anthony, or does she go with Hillary?”

Leaving the Clinton bubble is almost unimaginable for those who’ve grown up in it. According to a person familiar with the conversations, Abedin has struggled to reconcile her marriage to Weiner with her role as Clinton’s top aide, traumatized by the prospect of leaving her boss’s inner circle.

In a sense, the Weiner scandal is a ghost of Clintonworld past, summoning sordid images of unruly appetites and bimbo eruptions, exactly the sort of thing that needs to be walled off and excised in a 2016 campaign. Former advisers from State say any future campaign will take a page from Clinton’s relatively peaceful past four years. “In contrast with reports of disunity in the 2008 campaign,” says Kurt Campbell, “the State Department was operated with a high degree of harmony and collegiality.”

The secret to realigning Clintonworld has been there all along. Since she received her master’s from Oxford in 2003, Chelsea Clinton had tried out different career paths, first in business consulting at McKinsey & Co., then at a hedge fund run by donors to her parents, and finally as a correspondent on NBC, with a few university postings sprinkled in. Chelsea has grown up in the Clinton bubble, the princess of Clintonworld, and getting outside of it has sometimes been difficult. She tried her hand at developing her “brand” on TV, but then, two years ago, stepped in and took over her father’s foundation, a return to the fold that portended a lot of changes. She became vice-chairman of the board. The foundation hired white-shoe law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to perform an audit and review of the foundation’s finances and operations. And this summer, she installed a friend from McKinsey, Eric Braverman, as CEO.

Chelsea’s arrival was a clear if unspoken critique of Doug Band, who’d long been Bill Clinton’s gatekeeper in his post-presidential life. In Chelsea’s view, the foundation started by Band had become sprawling and inefficient, threatened by unchecked spending and conflicts of interest, an extension of her father’s woolly style. In 2012, a New York Post story suggested impropriety in Band’s dual role, forcing Clinton to put a bit of distance between himself and Teneo.

In a report this summer, the Times claimed the foundation operated at a deficit and was vulnerable to conflicts of interest related to Teneo Holdings—which telegraphed the message that there was a new sheriff. Chelsea, says a Hillary loyalist, “has taken a chain saw to that organization. She has not allowed these old bubbas to deal with this.”

Naturally, some of Bill Clinton’s staff at the foundation were unhappy with Chelsea’s arrival, especially the decision to include Hillary and Chelsea in the name of it. In a move that suggested intrafamily conflict, Bill Clinton stepped out to defend his comrades, insisting that Bruce Lindsey, the former CEO, who had suffered a stroke in 2011, would continue to be “intimately involved” in the foundation and that he couldn’t have accomplished “half of what I have in my post-presidency without Doug Band.”

Hillary Clinton says her daughter’s entrance into the foundation was an organic extension of everything the Clintons have ever done. “It sort of is in the DNA, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” she says. “She’s an incredibly able—obviously I’m biased—but extremely well-organized, results-oriented person, so rather than joining a lot of other groups, on which she could pursue her interests, she thought, I want to be part of continuing to build something I have worked on off and on over the years, and I really believe in it. I was thrilled to hear that.

“She comes by it naturally, don’t you think?” she adds cheerfully.

Chelsea is now the chief Bill Clinton gatekeeper. At HBO, where Martin Scorsese is making a documentary about him, Chelsea has been involved from the start and is weighing in on the production.

As the various staffs of the three Clintons come under one roof, in a headquarters in the Time-Life Building in midtown Manhattan, there are dangers of internecine conflict. “It’s all people jockeying for position,” says a person with close ties to the foundation. “This is an operation that runs on proximity to people. Now there are three people. How does all that work?”

For Bill Clinton to acknowledge flaws in his institute and relinquish control to his daughter and wife was a new twist in the family relationship. People in both Bill’s and Hillary’s camp are quick to emphasize that Bill Clinton is still the lifeblood of the foundation and its social mission. Chelsea’s arrival is ultimately about preserving the foundation for the long term as he gets older and winds down some of his activities. But the subtext of the cleanup operation is no mystery among Clinton people. Bill’s loosey-goosey world had to be straightened out if Hillary was going to run for president. “She doesn’t operate that way,” says one of her former State Department advisers. “I mean, she has all sorts of creative ideas, but that’s not how she operates. She is much more systematic.”

As part of the shifting landscape in Clintonworld, Bill Clinton got a new chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, one of the group of African-American women—including Maggie Williams and Donna Brazile—who have been close advisers to the Clintons over the years. A former policy aide at the American Federation of Teachers, Flournoy’s arrival last January was viewed by insiders as Hillary’s planting a sentinel at the office of her husband.

Bill Clinton is also a legendary politician, a brilliant tactician who won two presidential elections and reigned over the most prosperous years in America in recent memory. Some make the argument that he single-handedly won Obama reelection with his extraordinary takedown of Mitt Romney at the Democratic National Convention last year. The trick, say Clinton advocates, is to manage him effectively on behalf of his wife. “To the discredit of whoever is running a campaign, if that happens and they don’t use Bill Clinton—use his strategy, use his thoughts, take his dumb ideas and his great ideas and make sure they’re used effectively—they’re a moron,” says a person close to Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps this is where Chelsea comes in. After years of expectation, she has emerged from her chrysalis, a new power center, her father’s keeper and, maybe for Hillary … a shadow campaign manager.

In Clintonworld, wheels are turning, but no one wants them to turn too fast. Last spring, in a panel discussion at the Peterson Institute, Bill Clinton blew up, telling people to stop speculating on her presidential aspirations. It was too soon. Says Nides, “If you have every person you know say to you the following: ‘You should run for president, Madam Secretary, I love you, Madam Secretary, you’d be a great president, Madam Secretary,’ she nods. And she understands the context of that.”

Hillary is well aware of these dynamics. “I’m not in any hurry,” she tells me. “I think it’s a serious decision, not to be made lightly, but it’s also not one that has to be made soon.

“This election is more than three years away, and I just don’t think it’s good for the country,” she says. “It’s like when you meet somebody at a party and they look over your shoulder to see who else is there, and you want to talk to them about something that’s really important; in fact, maybe you came to the party to talk to that particular person, and they just want to know what’s next,” she says. “I feel like that’s our political process right now. I just don’t think it is good.”

So all the activity and planning and obsessive calculation that go into a presidential campaign take place behind a pleasant midwestern smile. Her time at State indeed transformed her—as did her 2008 campaign, and her time as a senator, and as First Lady, and on and on. Now she contains multitudes, a million contradictions. She’s a polarizing liberal with lots of Republican friends, the coolest of customers constantly at the center of swirling drama. She’s hung up on a decision over whether to run for an office she (not to mention her husband) has coveted for her entire adult life. She’s a Clinton. And what a candidate she’d make in 2016. But if that’s where she’s going, she’s not saying. “I’m somebody who gets up every day and says, ‘What am I going to do today, and how am I going to do it?’ ” she says. “I think it moves me toward some outcome I’m hoping for and also has some, you know, some joy attached to it. And I think it would be great if everybody else [took the same approach], for the foreseeable future.”

Of Hillary’s dreams, that one seems unlikely to come true.

Hillary in Midair

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[superman86to99]

Adventures of Superman #515 (August 1994)

Massacre in Metropolis, Part 2: the ice cream heist turns fatal! As seen last week, Massacre and his wormy little sidekick, Skimmer, have come to Earth to steal ice cream for a space mobster, but Skimmer ends up doing all the work while Massacre goes straight to punching Superman. In fact, Massacre cares so little about completing the mission that he punches Superman right into the spaceship carrying all the ice cream, causing it to come crashing down and explode. Superman, Massacre, and Skimmer survive the explosion but the ice cream, sadly, does not.

Massacre gleefully pummels Superman, who's having trouble punching him back -- Massacre always seems to know exactly what his next move will be and act accordingly. After deducing that Massacre doesn't have psychic powers (otherwise he'd be taunting him with stuff like "I bet Lois is making out with Jeb Friedman right about now!"), Superman figures out that he's predicting his moves by "sensing nerve signals," whatever that means.

What's important is that Superman deliberately misses Massacre with his heat vision in order to drop a wall on him from behind by surprise, and then just starts beating the crap out of him while Massacre is too distracted to sense any nerves or whatever. The massacrer has become the massacred!

Meanwhile, Superman's own wormy little sidekick, Jimmy Olsen, is taking photos of the fight from a rather flimsy-looking half-destroyed bridge, as a worried Lois looks on. Skimmer, who is also worried about his guy losing (and ending up stranded on Earth), sneaks up on Lois and takes her hostage. Lois, however, is pretty used to being kidnapped by "meta-weirdos" by now, so she quickly frees herself...

...at which point the entire bridge starts collapsing due to a blast shot by Massacre. Superman is able to save Lois and Jimmy, but Skimmer is buried by the rubble and it looks like he's about to go the big Ben & Jerry's in the sky. Supes wants to take him to a hospital (it's Metropolis; they probably have a whole unit for aliens crushed by debris during fights), but a weirdly emotional Massacre says no. He says Skimmer may be a bug but he's his bug, so he wants to transport him to a "xeno-med" instantly, which is his only chance of surviving. Superman agrees, and as Massacre disappears with Skimmer, he says something about having "learned his lesson well."

On the final page, we see that, after leaving Skimmer at the space hospital, Massacre retired from punching and now works a normal office job at a space insurance comp-- wait, no. He actually just let Skimmer die while he sat on an asteroid, thinking about how he's glad his little pal is dead now, because that means his rivalry with Superman is now personal.

(No, he's not cheekily winking at the camera, he just got a swollen eye from the fight.)

Creator-Watch:

As with Massacre's first appearance, artist Barry Kitson is credited as plotter in this issue, with regular writer Karl Kesel handling dialogue. You can sort of tell they're working Marvel style (art goes first, then the writer figures out what the characters are saying) because the narrative style is WAY more action-driven than your average Kesel comic, and some of the dialogue has a distinct "OK, what do I make them say in this one?" vibe to it.

This might explain why parts of the fight feel repetitive, as Don Sparrow points out (but I'll let him talk about it in his section below!).

Plotline-Watch:

When he goes off to take photos of the fight, Jimmy leaves his clothes-scavenging partner Lucy Lane with the white-haired girl from Adventures #514, who turns out to 1) be named Case and 2) want to be a rock star. In fact, she and some friends are currently looking for instruments in the wreckage of a music shop so they can form a band called the Riot Grrrls and play at the upcoming Metropolis benefit concert. They're nice enough not to ditch her, but Lucy doesn't really fit in with the group; she's more of a Tiffany person, as we find out.

Lucy apparently doesn't realize that the "Babe" mentioned above is Jimmy's old friend Babe Tanaka, now a big death metal star (as mentioned in Man of Steel #36), whom she should probably remember from that time they were both turned into vampires and almost slayed by Robin. Or maybe Lucy does remember Babe but she's playing dumb because she's still jealous of that time two years ago when she saw her "kissing" Jimmy at the hospital...

The Massacre/Doomsday comparisons continue. Don Sparrow says: "Massacre gets more of a push, with still some more Doomsday invocations, as Lois' fretting establishes that Superman had an easier time fighting Doomsday than he did Massacre." Because, you know, he could actually lay a punch on Doomsday. Lois' concerns turn out to be misplaced (one distraction and Massacre turned into a punching bag) but I think we should cut the girl some slack; she did just watch her guy get beaten to death a few month's ago, in the comic's timeline.

After successfully ricocheting his heat vision to drop that wall on Massacre, Superman thinks: "And Ma said Pete and I were wasting our time in that pool hall!" Imagine young "aw shucks" Clark Kent and Pete Ross angering redneck hustlers by being inexplicably good at pool. Why wasn't that included in the World of Smallville miniseries?! Why wasn't the whole mini about that?!

Plug-Watch:

SPARROW ALERT! Don will be appearing at SaskAssemble AND Sask Expo Regina in September, so if you're from those parts, go there and confront him about his shameless Jimmy Olsen apologism.

If you're using League of Comic Geeks (sort of a Letterboxd for comics), I've started an account where I'm slowly posting blurbs from our older blog entries in the corresponding Superman '86 to '99 era issues, so feel free to follow along! I'll also be (briefly) commenting on the non-Superman comics I do read from time to time, including the '90s DC stuff I scour for Superman references for the Super Titles Round-Up posts. Be warned that you might suddenly see like 40 Zero Hour crossover issues show up in your feed...

Shout Outs-Watch:

Riot Grrrl-loud shout outs to our supporters, Aaron, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush, Raphael Fischer, Kit, Sam, Bol, Dave Shevlin, and Dave Blosser! Join them (and get extra non-continuity articles) via Patreon or our newsletter’s “pay what you want” mode!

Oh yeah, Don is also appearing RIGHT HERE AND NOW:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it’s a little bit of déjà vu, a conceptual mirror image to last week’s Superman #92, where Massacre was decking Superman.  On this week’s cover, Superman is striking back.  Apart from the reference to the previous cover, this one is fine, but maybe a little stiff and static.

Inside the book, we’re greeted almost immediately with a big old explosion as Superman, Massacre, and Skimmer’s ship crash back down to the rubble that is Metropolis, miraculously hurting no one important.

An odd thing in these fire-lit pages is that aside from slightly curlier hair, it’s hard to tell Lois Lane apart from “Dis”, one of the Riot Grrrls. The image on page 4, though, of Superman’s fighting stance in the flames against Massacre, is a good one.

The art team seems to thrive at drawing teeth, which are prominently featured in a sequence of panels on pages 11 and 12.  Say what you want about intergalactic villain Massacre—he takes care of his chompers.

The battle scenes here are well-drawn—generally Barry Kitson is a terrific and consistent penciller—but there is something repetitive about the fighting.  Apart from Superman’s heat vision bank-shot, it’s literally just a slugfest, with the fight choreography just being haymaker after haymaker. 

It’s not only visually a bit repetitive, but seems to forget that Superman learned to fight smarter (using his flight, heat vision and arctic breath more to his advantage) in his second fight with Doomsday. 

To this point, Skimmer seemed like a harmless hanger-on, so it’s a bummer to see him go full villain, threatening (and very nearly groping) Lois Lane.  Nice to see Lois do some hand to hand combat to free herself, and her dialogue about not being a damsel in distress is in-character.

The images of Massacre crying are unintentionally hilarious, as is Superman’s stern, vice principal like admonishing that so long as Massacre continues killing, they’ll remain enemies, BUT HE’S FREE TO GO. [Max: I always took the "crying" as a side effect of the beating, since it's only in one eye and it's the one that looks swollen on the final page. Maybe Massacre's blood is white? Or maybe Kitson intended it as blood but the editors toned it down to avoid implying Superman punched someone's eye off.]

I suppose Massacre staying would threaten Skimmer’s survival, since Massacre says he’s taking off to tend to his care, but still, this seems super weird and casual after they’ve built Massacre up as an unstoppable killing machine for three issues. 

SPEEDING BULLETS:

You might be sitting there thinking an excessive amount of time is being spent on the characters Azuki, Case, Dis, Margo and Sinda forming a band, a band called the Riot Grrrls.  If that’s what you’re thinking, you’d be right.  [Max: Maybe once Kitson learned he'd be plotting the issue he said "Awesome, I can turn it into a backdoor pilot for my Riot Grrrrls comic pitch!"] Aside from taking up a lot of panels and not really advancing the story, I also have to chuckle at the on-the-nose band name, which Is also the name of a Pacific Northwest punk movement or genre.  Calling your band Riot Grrrls would be as literal as naming your band “Seattle Sound” or “Grunge Music” in 1994.  On the plus side, Dis mentions Bessolo Boulevard, which we’ve established is a reference to the adopted name of tragic 50’s Superman, George Reeves.

I had thought that Case’s mention of “Shonen Knife” was some kind of in-universe slang (the Legion books were always establishing future slang terms, as were off-worlders like Lobo, whose expression “Feetal’s Gizz” became almost like a catch phrase, or in Batman Beyond, the young people called things “shui”, an apparent abbreviation of the principle of feng shui) but that’s just because I wasn’t sufficiently hip to know that Shonen Knife was an all-girl Japanese pop-punk band.  In our universe, even!  So Case was dismissing her lyrics as being too close to a Shonen Knife song.  Which one?  I have no idea.

A little later in the story, the Riot Grrrls take up two more full pages to scavenge the rubble of a music store, called Tom N’ Nancy’s Music Mart.  I believe this is a reference to frequent Karl Kesel collaborator Tom Grummett, and his wife, Nancy Grummett (a celebrated potter/artist in her own right, in these parts).  [Max: And the store seems to be located in Grummett Ave., too!]

There’s also pop culture references, one to Teen Talk Barbie, the controversial 1992 Barbie doll who famously said “Math class is tough” (among 270 other less offensive phrases, including “I’m studying to be a doctor”) earning the ire of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.  The doll is misquoted in this issue as having said “Math is hard.”  Lucy Lane also shows her pop culture illiteracy when Margo mentions lead singer/vampire harpy Babe Tanaka, and Lucy asks if she’s anything like Tiffany.  Pop singer Tiffany (nee Tiffany Darwish) was largely out of the public eye by the mid-90s, and a far cry from a Riot Grrrl.

Seriously, it’s just so weird to try to give Massacre a heart, like he’s a big softie at the end!  [Max: Whether he was crying or not, I still think he should join the Riot Grrrls and write a heartfelt song the sad passing of Skimmer.]