HillaryHub Hub-Bub Bub-!

Hillary has decided to bypass the media and go straight out with her own brand of TRUTH and JUSTICE for all of America, especially her.... Too many threads, too many tales that cannot be managed..too much media bias (-?-).... She will preach to the choir from her own altar... She will set us straight on whatever we may have misunderstood.... As best her minders can manage...

All Hillary, all positive, all the time
By: Ben Smith
June 14, 2007 06:23 AM EST

Not long ago, a campaign had a couple of options for getting out word of a big endorsement: a press release to political reporters, or maybe a calculated leak to a big local paper.

But Wednesday morning, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign broke the news of Hollywood icon Steven Spielberg's endorsement on a new website the campaign runs, HillaryHub.com. The campaign later e-mailed reporters suggesting they check the site.

HillaryHub isn't a typical campaign site. With a simple, three-column look, occasionally edgy headlines and links to a blend of videos, reports from newspapers and blogs and campaign memos, it's a news aggregator on the model of the Drudge Report. The difference, of course, is that the stories are chosen to depict Clinton favorably and to tweak her critics.

... others cite professional sports sites as pioneers in this field. Major League Baseball's website, MLB.com, has all the features of a good sports news organization: news reports, statistics and video interviews with the players, all slickly produced and presented. And while you don't exactly get the latest on steroid use in sports from the site, its access to news makers is hard to match.

"The professional sports are using their ability to control information and put it out on their terms, and using that to transcend the traditional press that covers them. The campaigns are going to do that more and more," Lehane said.

There are practical advantages to breaking campaign news on candidates' websites: It draws voters to a site where they can learn more, contribute and volunteer. But it's the control of content that may be more important.

"The days of leaking strategically to The New York Times to get a story out are over," said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican consultant who has focused on the Internet. "When everyone from a reporter to a voter has access to a website like (HillaryHub) -- reporters are going to report it anyway, if it's newsworthy -- what they're doing, and it's smart, is to get it out on their own terms."

... ultimately, the political reporters who cover campaigns may find themselves competing with the campaigns themselves for the attention and interest of readers and viewers.

"Campaigns are realizing that they're competing in a cacophony of media," said Andrew Rasiej, a tech entrepreneur who founded the website TechPresident.com (and is a columnist for The Politico). "The only way for a campaign to compete in that environment is to become a fast-moving media operation."

All of this from the same people who brought us the "non-stop" campaign of William Jefferson Clinton... All Clinton-All Good-All of the Time... I wonder if the media will turn and bite those who have fed them for so long when they see their jobs and careers are threatened? What is the promotion path from News Reporter to Campaign hack to network star? How do they ever have credibility as an "objective and unbiased" reporter after working for a campaign?

There's Money Innit

They came to the White House poor as Church Mice. No home. No real estate. Little savings and only an Arkansas Pension to tide them through their waning years... Now we see that the "politics been berry berry good to me" Clintons are working their way up the prosperity ladder...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former President Clinton made more than $10 million in paid speeches last year, according to new filings that show he and his presidential- candidate wife have at least $10 million in the bank, and may have closer to $50 million.

According to financial disclosure forms made public Thursday, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton hold two accounts, each valued at somewhere between $5 and $25 million. One is an old-fashioned bank account; the other is a blind trust.

The reports indicate that when it comes to family wealth, Clinton is the wealthiest of the members of Congress running for president. Of all the presidential candidates, only Mitt Romney, whose assets are between $190 million and $250 million, may lay claim to being more affluent.

Former President Clinton upped his speechmaking money from the previous year, garnering some $10.2 million in payments, compared with about $7.5 million the year before.

The Clintons had a much more pedestrian income when he ran for president in 1992. If Sen. Clinton's 2008 presidential bid is successful, they will enter the White House a very rich couple.

Six years out of power, Bill Clinton can still raise huge sums with a personal appearance. He made a staggering $450,000 for a single September speech in London, at a Fortune Forum event, as well as $200,000 for an April appearance in the Bahamas to speak to IBM, and another $200,000 for a New York speech to General Motors.

The former president's earnings must be reported as the spouse of a senator. Disclosure rules do not require him to reveal everything. He received an advance from Random House for an unpublished manuscript, but is only required to say that it was greater than $1,000.

He also did not have to say how much he earns as a partner with Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund, a Los Angeles-based investment firm.

UPDATE: On the fifth anniversary of 9/11 last September, Bill Clinton made $100,000 from a speech he made via satellite to a group of investors in Hong Kong...

...falling on the 5th anniversary of 9/11, former US President Bill Clinton opened Asia's biggest annual conference from his home in New York with a message of hope about conflict resolution which helped give investors a big picture view of opportunities and challenges ahead for the markets in which they invest.

Other speakers this week include:

• Former US Vice President Al Gore on climate change. CLSA was fortunate to time the HK premiere of "An Inconvenient Truth" to his visit for the CLSA Investors' Forum. Related sessions include a panel with Tim Flannery author of The Weather Makers and Christine Loh of Civic Exchange on HK air pollution

Isn't Ron Burkle, of the Yucaipa Companies, one of those bidding to buy the Dow-Jones/Wall Street Journal? How would he be a better owner than Murdock and News Corp? I guess the WSJ editorial page would look more like the NYTimes... Where advertising revenue are dropping... and revenue is also down from last year...

Wining by Victory and Loss

Eugene Volokh offers the following report on the 25th anniversary of the Falklands/Malvinas War. we seem to have forgotten that good things can come from wars... Sometimes they are necessary and important ways to change or maintain the national path... (HT Glenn Reynolds)

[Ilya Somin, June 14, 2007 at 11:54am] Trackbacks

Legacies of the Falkland Islands War:

Today is the 25th anniversary of the end of the Falkland Islands War. Since I am currently a visiting professor in Argentina, I thought it appropriate to mark the occasion, and consider the legacy of the War. Despite the tragic loss of almost 1000 lives, the impact of the war on both countries was probably positive.

The Impact on Britain

For Britain, the victory helped regain national self-confidence, and also ensured the continuation of Margaret Thatcher's free market reforms by giving her a big boost for the 1983 election. Back in 1982-83, the opposition Labor Party was not yet the Clintonized New Labor we came to know and love in the Tony Blair era. Instead, the party was led by hard-line old school socialist Michael Foot, who would surely have scrapped Thatcherism had he and his party returned to power in 1983. The War made what might have been a close election a slam dunk for the Conservatives.

Effects in Argentina

Argentina probably benefited from defeat even more than Britain did from victory. The war was initiated by the repressive Argentine military dictatorship in part to shore up flagging popular support for the military junta. In the short run, the gambit worked. Even most left-wing Argentines cheered when the junta's forces captured the islands on April 2, 1982. But, contrary to Argentine expectations, the British did not take the invasion lying down, but instead sent a task force that eventually recaptured the Islands. The defeat discredited the military government even among its supporters, and led to its collapse a year later. The restoration of civilian rule in 1983 ended one of the most repressive periods in Argentine history, and led to the trial and conviction of several of the junta's members for human rights violations.

Had Argentina won the war, the military government would have gotten a new lease on life. The resulting harm would surely have outweighed any meager benefit that ordinary Argentineans could have derived from possessing a few small islands with little economic value.

... polls show that only about 20 percent of Argentineans would support another armed attack to retake the Islands, and relations with Britain have gradually improved since the end of the War. This fact leads to another important less of the conflict: Because Britain's victory was so decisive and overwhelming, most Argentines have no desire to renew the fighting, even though they still believe in the justice of their cause, and the nationalist grievances behind that cause have not been satisfied. Indeed, Britain has taken a somewhat harder line on Falklands issues since the war than it before. Sometimes, the best way to achieve a lasting peace is to defeat an enemy so decisively that they desist from further fighting because they realize it to be hopeless. This approach is often much more effective than trying to address the "root causes" of the enemy's belligerency or trying to appease them.

It would be nice to have one of our national leaders say that...

Ego and Absolute Power

Nancy Pelosi continues to think and act like she is the PRIME MINISTER of the United States. She has more money that any king of olden times. Yet, Nancy-With-The-Sparkling-Eyes wants something even better than the price of a First Class ticket for the use of a private jet... She wants FREE travel for kiddies when on Congressional Junquettes... (It takes more than a million dollars to run for Congress. They make almost $200k... a First Class Ticket costs?)

No shame? No sense of proportion? No sense of guilt?... Perhaps it is time for her to go somewhere else and annoy some other people...

The Hill reports:

The DoD braces for a fight with Pelosi

By Mike Soraghan

June 14, 2007

Pentagon officials are bracing for a fight with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over her desire to allow lawmakers’ adult children to tag along on taxpayer-funded travel for free. Pelosi wants them to be able to fill the role of lawmakers’ spouses when the latter are unable to make a trip because of health issues or work commitments. It has been longstanding policy that, in the absence of a congressional spouse, the adult child of a member of Congress may accompany the member on official U.S. government travel abroad for protocol reasons and without reimbursing the U.S. Treasury,” Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said. “Speaker Pelosi believes that a modern policy must reflect the professional responsibilities or health realities that might prevent a spouse from participating, and instead permit an adult child to fulfill the protocol needs of the official trip.” Pentagon officials say the policy is that the Treasury must be reimbursed at commercial rates for children who accompany members on such trips, often called codels. Pelosi’s office inquired about such travel on June 1, according to a Department of Defense memo obtained by The Hill. In a June 8 memo, the head of legislative affairs for the Pentagon, Robert L. Wilkie, told Defense Secretary Robert Gates that he sees Pelosi’s question as a first step toward challenging the policy. “We were told that the Speaker would expect that members’ children (of married and unmarried [members of Congress]) would not have to reimburse the Treasury,” Wilkie wrote. “We expect future challenges from the House leadership on this policy.”

Speaking of Egos and the Marketplace

Why does ANYONE even care?

After the disaster of Mr & Mrs Smith ... Horrible movie-made money... why would anyone spend the cash and the time to watch her walk through another cardboard movie? Paper dolls went out of fashion decades ago. Hollywood keeps peddling crap... When Hollywood attacks Fox, don't they realize they divide their audience?

Dividing a shrinking audience seems very dumb.... or else its one of those "so-dumb-it's-brilliant" kind of things... I'm just not that smart. Fewer eyeballs and buns-on-seats does not seem wise. I'm old fashioned enough to think that if I am losing customers i must be doing something wrong... Yet, another reason I am not a movie star...

Angelina Jolie's Freedom of Press, on Her Terms

Angelina Jolie's true colors came out Wednesday as she promoted a film about freedom of the press and then tried to censor all her interviews.

Jolie is touting press freedom these days, playing the widow of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in a new movie called "A Mighty Heart."

But Jolie turns out to be a mighty hypocrite when it comes to her own freedom of the press. Her lawyer required all journalists to sign a contract before talking to her, and Jolie instructed publicists at first to ban FOX News from the red carpet of her premiere.

Ironically, Wednesday night's premiere of the excellent Michael Winterbottom-directed film was meant to support an organization called Reporters Without Borders. Jolie, however, did everything she could to clamp down on the press and control it.

Reporters from most major media outlets balked Wednesday when they were presented with an agreement drawn up by Jolie's Hollywood lawyer Robert Offer. The contract closely dictated the terms of all interviews.

Reporters were asked to agree to "not ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships. In the event Interviewer does ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships, Ms. Jolie will have the right to immediately terminate the interview and leave."

The agreement also required that "the interview may only be used to promote the Picture. In no event may Interviewer or Media Outlet be entitled to run all or any portion of the interview in connection with any other story. ... The interview will not be used in a manner that is disparaging, demeaning, or derogatory to Ms. Jolie."

If that wasn't enough, Jolie also requires that if any of these things happen, "the tape of the interview will not be released to Interviewer." Such a violation, the signatory thus agrees, would "cause Jolie irreparable harm" and make it possible for her to sue the interviewer and seek a restraining order.

"Irreparable Harm" She's a public figure who has put herself out to be gawked at... What harm can the press do that she has not/does not do to herself-?

Terrorism.... That's what I call it when my kids pull this childish stuff... "Ask the wrong question or say the wrong thing and I'll hang up"... When a multi-millionaire pulls it by way of begging me to watch them pose... I have better things to do... I suggest you do as well...