Yesterday, Hillary Clinton spoke with the New Hampshire Union Leader on a wide range of topics. When asked what her top two accomplishments were as Secretary of State, Clinton said, “putting together the coalition that imposed sanctions on Iran” and “continuing with a persistent effort to actually enforce those sanctions.”

Unfortunately for Clinton, these “accomplishments” are hollow. Let’s take a look at the facts:

CLAIM: Clinton said she put “together the coalition that imposed sanctions on Iran”

FACTS: Clinton made concessions, including lifting othersanctions against Russian companies, and altering U.S. missile defense plans in Eastern Europe, to build an international coalition on Iran sanctions. Clinton’s State Department tried to water down and “vigorously opposedalmost all” of Congress’ sanctions on Iran.

Further, once sanctions were in place, Clinton repeatedly exempted major countries, such as Russia and China, from punishments for violating those sanctions.

CLAIM: Clinton said she developed better communication with China, reached out to European allies who “felt neglected,” won and kept American jobs, and made progress on internet freedom.

FACTS: The Chinese used Clinton’s Strategic and Economic Dialogue to attack the U.S.’s China policy while the talks themselves produced “few, if any, tangible results.”

Despite Clinton’s claims about reaching out to European allies, the opinion of the U.S. in key European countriesactually went down while Clinton was Secretary of State.

Additionally, jobs continued to flow out of the U.S. between 2008 and 2010, while in 2010, large American companies invested more in jobs abroad than at home.

Finally, Clinton’s few successes on Internet freedom were undermined by the Snowden revelations, which made her push for Internet freedom seem “hypocritical.”

Originally posted by kripiii

This morning, the New York Times reported that Hillary Clinton is endorsing the “Fight For $15” movement in New York state for fast food workers.

This marks the third position Clinton has taken on the $15 minimum wage in recent weeks. To recap:

In June, Clinton stopped short of endorsing the $15 minimum wage that the “Fight For $15” movement is pushing.

Last week, when asked about the topic, Clinton waffled, saying “because there are different economic environments” across the country, there is debate over whether the $15 minimum wage would work.

And now this morning, the Times is reporting Clinton will come out in support of New York state—including smaller cities like Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester—raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour for fast food workers only.

Originally posted by the-reactiongifs

Not only is Clinton utterly unable to posit a clear-cut position on the $15 minimum wage, she’s late to her own Party. Bernie Sanders has announced his support for a national $15 minimum wage, as has Martin O’Malley.

Stay tuned, Clinton watchers. Who knows what position Clinton will take next week…

Last night, The New York Times reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether classified government information was mishandled because of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. The request comes after an assessment sent last month to the State Department and intelligence agencies that Clinton’s private email account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” More from the Times:

“It is not clear if any of the information in the emails was marked as classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton sent or received them. But since her use of a private email account for official State Department business was revealed in March, she has repeatedly said that she had no classified information on the account. The initial revelation has been an issue in the early stages of her presidential campaign. …

At issue are thousands of pages of State Department emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private account. Mrs. Clinton has said she used the account because it was more convenient, but it also shielded her correspondence from congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests. She faced sharp criticism after her use of the account became public, and subsequently said she would ask the State Department to release her emails.”

It’s now crystal clear that Clinton’s claims from months ago about emailing classified materials – claims which she and her campaign maintain to this day – were simply false.

Hillary Clinton and her team went to great lengths to tell reporters, donors, and voters that things would be different this time. Clinton’s big spending ways from 2007 and 2008 were long gone, replaced with an almost comically cheap campaign manager and spending strategy.

And then her first FEC filing was reported. Clinton spent an astonishing $18.7 million in less than three months.

Who donated? How was it spent? Those questions and more are answered below:

Clinton claimed her campaign was saving costs by sending her campaign chairman on a bus instead of riding the train between DC and New York. Well it turns out that was for show. Clinton spent about $8,700 on Amtrak and only $346 on Bolt Bus and $315 on Best Bus. Zero for all other major bus companies.

For a list of all the registered lobbyists bundling for Hillary Clinton, see here.

Hillary Clinton attacked HSBC for “criminal behavior.” By her own definition, criminals from HSBC donated $3,450 and HSBC Bank $583.

Well-known Florida jerk John Morgan and his law firm donated an astonishing $247,716 to Clinton.

Clinton has spent $900,000 on polling (a solid $300k per month average) and owes another $550,000 in additional polling debt.

Clinton spent more than $275,000 on David Brock’s “Correct The Record,” an organization designed to complain about unfavorable press coverage.

Remember the Scooby Van? Neither does Clinton. She spent $179,268 on private jets through Executive Fliteways.

Clinton donated $280,000 to her own campaign… or about one speech’s worth of cash.

A new nationwide poll released yesterday by USA Today & Suffolk University reveals Hillary Clinton’s support is continuing to sag.

Matched up against many Republicans, Clinton fails to reach 50% support:

Tuesday’s USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll shows a much closer race, with Clinton leading the former Florida governor by only 4 points, 46% to 42%. Clinton is struggling, and she is polling under 50% not only against Bush, but also against Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

David Paleologos, the director of Suffolk University’s Political Research Center in Boston, has a few theories on Clinton’s decline in the polls:

There may be good reasons for the Clinton campaign’s unwillingness to be more accessible to national interviews. Perhaps the lingering questions about/investigations of Benghazi, the deletion of emails, or the Clinton Foundation’s acceptance of funding from foreign governments while she was secretary of State would shift the conversation away from the voter engagement currently taking place. Or perhaps the campaign is saving its (and her) energy for the big show with the assumption that Clinton will sail through the Democratic primary process.

Whatever the reason, the general election race is getting dangerously close for her. And last week, the tweets and video from “Ropegate” didn’t help matters. During a July Fourth parade in New Hampshire, the Clinton campaign decided to use a rope to corral national reporters and photographers so that Clinton could engage with real voters.

The strategy backfired, however, when unflattering video and photos of national press being herded along the parade route exploded on social media. That one event ignited widespread reports reminding voters that she has not been willing to engage the national media with the same passion as she uses in courting voters.

It’s likely that these, among her other entanglements, are hurting Clinton among voters. The degree to which her numbers continue to fall will largely be based on if her team is able to come up with some justification for her involvement in these scandals.

Last August, Clinton called for restricting Iran’s breakout time, which is the time Iran needs to produce enough uranium for a nuclear bomb, to “more than a year.”

QUESTION: Would you be content with an Iran that is perpetually a year away from being able to reach nuclear-breakout capability?

CLINTON: I would like it to be more than a year. I think it should be more than a year. No enrichment at all would make everyone breathe easier.

Instead, the new agreement would restrict Iran’s breakout time to only one year for the next ten years, when Iran will be allowed to develop advanced centrifuges. The New York Times noted that after ten years “the breakout time diminishes to just a few months” as Iran’s nuclear program returns to where it is today.

Clinton’s support clearly fails to adhere to the standards she set for the deal many people agree she now owns.

The draft nuclear agreement between Iran and the United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, was announced today after many missed deadlines.

While Hillary Clinton has endorsed today’s deal, her official comments on the nascent deal lacked substance. However, in previous statements Clinton offered more explicit expectations for any deal with Iran.

Under today’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran is allowed uranium enrichment up to 3.67% for 15 years. Clinton, however, called for “so little enrichment or no enrichment … for a long period of time” because she believed “any enrichment will trigger an arms race in the Middle East.” Notably, Saudi Arabia and other Arab stateshave already said they will “match” Iran’s enrichment capabilities.

Another area of contention for Clinton is Iran’s breakout time. Clinton has called for a breakout time of over a year, but the “limits imposed by today’s agreement impose abreakout time of only one year.”

Evoking bipartisan concern in the United States is the ”contentious” arms embargo. According to The New York Times, restrictions on missiles would end in eight years and a “similar ban on the purchase and sale of conventional weapons would be removed in five years,” but, especially concerning, is that both could be lifted earlier. Democrats are said to be “worrying” over the arms embargo, and several in the Senate indicated they could withhold their support of a deal that lifted the embargo. Clinton has so far been silent on how the US should approach the arms embargo in the nuclear agreement.

Finally, Clinton called for a deal that “imposes an intrusive inspection program with no sites off limits.” Although Clintonclaimed that today’s deal included “the access for inspections and the transparency that was absolutely necessary,” The Wall Street Journal reports it is “unlikely” that the IAEA will “have access anytime and anywhere to Iran’s nuclear sites.” In addition, a New York Times
report notes it is also “unclear whether the inspectors would be able to interview the scientists and engineers” who were key to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ “effort … to design a weapon that Iran could manufacture in short order.”

But unfortunately for Clinton, despite whatever rhetoric she ultimately comes up with to justify her support for the agreement, her previous qualifications for an agreement with Iran were not fully met with today’s deal. Indeed, Clinton will “own the agreement” that is being frowned upon by many in her own party, as Clinton is said to have “worked in harmony” on Iran with Obama during her tenure as Secretary of State.

During a speech this morning on her so-called economic “vision” for America, Hillary Clinton criticized “individuals and institutions” she sees as bad actors in the financial world.

One of those she mentioned was HSBC. Clinton said, “There can be no justification or tolerance for this kind of criminal behavior.”

HSBC is the controversial British bank recently accused of helping “hide millions of dollars for drug traffickers, arms dealers and celebrities as it assisted wealthy people around the world dodge taxes.”

In 2011, Bill Clinton was paid $200,000 for a speech to HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. in Key Largo, FL.

In 2007, the Clintons sold between $15,001 and $50,000 in HSBC Holdings PLC.

And HSBC has donated between $500,000 and $1,000,000 to the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary Clinton and her campaign made a special point to attack startups like Uber and Airbnb over the weekend in a preview of Clinton’s sure-to-be stale economic speech this morning. Perhaps sensing some pushback from “everyday Americans” that use these services, the Clinton campaign tried to walk back her criticism in Playbook:

–CLARIFICATION from yesterday’s Playbook: Uber is an example of Clinton’s views on the sharing economy. Don’t look for her to mention the firm by name.

So if Clinton herself isn’t going to go after Uber, why were her campaign aides doing so with every outlet willing to write about her speech? See below:

CNN:

Clinton, aides said, will attack the “sharing economy” — represented by companies like the ride-sharing appUber — which create jobs but don’t offer benefits and protections.

Washington Post:

In her speech, aides said Clinton will argue that tectonic forces in the global economy are conspiring against middle-class families — such as automation and technology, which are eliminating middle-skill jobs that once provided solid incomes, as well as the new “sharing economy,” epitomized by Uber, which has created efficiency but also jobs lacking benefits and protections. But she will say that the government should enact policies to shape how these forces affect Americans.

Politico:

Clinton’s aide said she will discuss some of the structural forces conspiring against sustainable wage growth, such as globalization, automation, and even consumer-friendly “sharing economy” firms like Uber and Airbnb that are creating new relationships between management and labor (and which now employ many Obama administration alumni). But she will argue that policy choices have contributed to the problem, and that she can fix it.

Huffington Post:

Clinton’s speech will take on the shortcomings of automation and the sharing economy (think: Uber, Airbnb), making the case that these trends, while valuable, need to come with better policies for workers.

Good try Team Clinton, but it’s a lot harder to cozy up to a wildly popular service after you publicly trash it.