Tuesday, November 28, 2023

IN MEMORIAM: CELEBRITIES LOST 1330

 FREDERICK I (III), THE FAIR, DUKE OF AUSTRIA/GERMAN ANTI-KING

EDMUND OF WOODSTOCK, 1ST EARL OF KENT, SON OF EDWARD I

MICHAEL SHISHMAN OF BULGARIA (MICHAEL III), TSAR OF BULGARIA

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS, SCOTTISH SOLDIER

ROGER MORTIMER, 1ST EARL OF MARCH, DE FACTO RULER OF ENGLAND

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NOVEMBER 12, 2023

 


NEIL YOUNG, 78

MEGAN MULLALLY, 65

ASHLEY WILLIAMS, 45

RYAN GOSLING, 43

ANNE HATHAWAY, 41

BRIAN HYLAND, 80

WALLACE SHAWN, 80

BOOKER T. JONES, 79

BUCK DHARMA, 76

BARBARA FAIRCHILD, 73

VINCENT IRIZARRY, 64

DAVID ELLEFSON, 59

REBECCA WISOCKY, 52

RADHA MITCHELL, 50

TAMALA JONES, 49

ANGELA WATSON, 49

TEVIN CAMPBELL, 47

COTE DE PABLO, 44

CHRIS HUFFMAN, 43

KELLY KRUGER, 41

GRIFFIN GOLDSMITH, 33

NADIA COMANECI, 62

ELIZABETH STANTON (NOVEMBER 12, 1815-OCTOBER 26, 1902)

AUGUSTE RODIN (NOVEMBER 12, 1840-NOVEMBER 17, 1917)

GRACE KELLY (NOVEMBER 12, 1929-SEPTEMBER 12, 1982)

IN MEMORIAM: CELEBRITIES LOST 1331

 ODORIC OF PODENONE, ITALIAN FRANCISCAN FRIAR/EXPLORER

ABOE AL-FIDA (ABOELFEDA), ARABIC WRITER/SULTAN OF HAMA

STEFANUS VIII UROS III DECANSKI, KING OF SERBIA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NOVEMBER 11, 2023 (VETERAN'S DAY)

 


STANLEY TUCCI, 63

DEMI MOORE, 61

CALISTA FLOCKHART, 59

LEONARDO DICAPRIO, 49

NARVEL FELTS, 85

DENISE ALEXANDER, 81

VINCE MARTELL, 78

JIM PETRIK, 73

PAUL COWSILL, 72

MARSHALL CRENSHAW, 70

ANDY PARTRIDGE, 70

DAVE ALVIN, 68

CRAIG MARSH, 67

FRANK JOHN HUGHES, 56

CARSON KRESSLEY, 54

DAVID DELUISE, 52

SCOTT MCNAIRY, 46

DON BATISTE, 37

CHRISTA B. ALLEN, 32

TYE SHERIDAN, 27

PARACELSUS (C. 1493-SEPTEMBER 24, 1541)

FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY (NOVEMBER 11, 1821-FEBRUARY 9 1881)

GEORGE PATTON (NOVEMBER 11, 1885-DECEMBER 21, 1945)

KURT VONNEGUT, JR. (NOVEMBER 11, 1922-APRIL 11, 2007)

JONATHAN WINTERS (NOVEMBER 11, 1925-APRIL 11, 2013)

TYLER CHRISTOPHER (NOVEMBER 11, 1972-OCTOBER 31, 2023)

IN MEMORIAM: CELEBRITIES LOST 1332

 ANDRONICUS II PALEOLOGUS, BYZANTINE EMPEROR

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NOVEMBER 10, 2023

 


ROLAND EMMERICH, 68

SINBAD, 67

TRACY MORGAN, 55

ELLEN POMPEO, 54

MIRANDA LAMBERT, 40

KIERNAN SHIPKA, 24

MACKENZIE FOY, 23

BOBBY RUSH, 89

ALBERT HAL, 86

DONNA FARGO, 82

TIM RICE, 79

JACK SCALIA, 73

MACKENZIE PHILLIPS, 64

VANESSA ANGEL, 60

HUGH BONNEVILLE, 60

TOMMY DAVIDSON, 60

MICHAEL JAI WHITE, 59

CHRIS CAGLE, 55

ORNY ADAMS, 53

U-GOD, 53

WARREN G, 53

WALTER GOGGINS, 52

MATT HAHER, 49

JIM ADKINS, 48

EVE, 45

CHRIS JOANNOU, 44

HEATHER MATARAZZO, 41

JOSH PECK, 37

VINZ DERY, 33

GENEVIEVE BUECHNER, 32

ZOEY DEUTCH, 29

NEIL GAIMAN, 63

MARTIN LUTHER (NOVEMBER 10, 1483-FEBRUARY 18, 1546)

MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV (NOVEMBER 10, 1919-DECEMBER 23, 2013)

IN MEMORIAM: CELEBRITIES LOST 1333

 WLADYSLAW I LOKIETEK (LADISHAW THE SHORT), KING OF POLAND

PRINCE MORIKUNI, 9TH SHOGUN OF THE KAMIKUPA SHOGUNATE OF JAPAN

NICOLAAS VI (PIETRO RAINALDUCCI), ITALIAN ANTI-POPE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NOVEMBER 9, 2023

 


LOU FERRIGNO, 72

RYAN MURPHY, 58

ERIC DANE, 51

NICK LACHEY, 50

VANESSA LACHEY, 43

EMILY TYRA, 36

ROBERT DAVID HALL, 75

DONNIE MCCLURKIN, 63

PEPA, 59

ION OVERCOME, 54

SCARFACE, 53

SUSAN TEDESCHI, 53

JASON ANTOON, 53

BARRY KNOX, 46

SISQO (DRU HILL), 45

CHRIS LANE, 39

ROBERT SCOTT WILSON, 36

NIKKI BLONSKY, 35

HEDY LAMARR (NOVEMBER 9 1914-JANUARY 19, 2000)

SPIRO AGNEW, 39TH U.S. VICE-PRESIDENT (NOVEMBER 9, 1918-SEPTEMBER 17, 1996)

DOROTHY DANDRIDGE (NOVEMBER 9, 1922-SEPTEMBER 8 1965)

CARL SAGAN (NOVEMBER 9, 1934-DECEMBER 20, 1996

BOB GIBSON (NOVEMBER 9, 1935-OCTOBER 2, 2020)

TOM FOGERTY (NOVEMBER 9 1941-SEPTEMBER 6, 1990)

Monday, November 20, 2023

IN MEMORIAM: CELEBRITIES LOST 1334

 POPE JOHN XXII

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NOVEMBER 8, 2023

 


BONNIE RAITT, 74

ALFRE WOODWARD, 71

GORDON RAMSAY, 57

PARKER POSEY, 55

GRETCHEN MOL, 50

MATTHEW RHYS, 49

TARA REID, 49

BONNIE BRAMLETT, 79

MARY HART, 73

CHRISTIE HEFNER, 71

RICKIE LEE JONES, 69

PEARL THOMPSON, 66

LIEF GARRETT, 6

COURTNEY THORNE-SMITH, 56

KAMAR DE LOS REYES, 56

DANA KING, 53

SCOTT DEVENDORF, 51

BUCKY COVINGTON, 46

DANIA RAMIREZ, 44

JACK OSBOURNE, 38

JESSICA LOWNDES, 35

SZA, 34

RIKER LYNCH, 32

LAUREN ALAINA, 29

VAN CROSBY, 21

BRAM STOKER (NOVEMBER 8, 1847-APRIL 20, 1912)

DOROTHY DAY (NOVEMBER 8, 1897-NOVEMBER 29, 1980)

MARGARET MITCHELL (NOVEMBER 8, 1900-AUGUST 16, 1949)

IN MEMORIAM: CELEBRITIES LOST 1335

 DUKE HENRY OF CARINTHIA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NOVEMBER 7, 2023

 


JONI MITCHELL, 80

CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT, 66

TOMMY THAYER, 64

ADAM DEVINE, 40

LORDE, 27

DAKIN MATTHEWS, 83

JOHNNY RIVERS, 81

JULIE PINSON, 56

GREG TRIBBETTI, 55

MICHELLE CLUNIE, 54

MORGAN SPURLOCK, 53

JEREMY LONDON, 51

JASON LONDON, 51

YUNJIN KIM, 50

ZACH MYERS, 40

LUCAS NEFF, 38

TINIE TEMPAH, 35

AGRIPPINA THE YOUNGER (NOVEMBER 6, 15 A.D.-MARCH 23, 59 A.D.)

MARIE CURIE (NOVEMBER 7, 1867-JULY 4, 1934)

ALBERT CAMUS (NOVEMBER 7, 1913-JANUARY 4, 1960)

REV. BILLY GRAHAM (NOVEMBER 7, 1918-FEBRUARY 21, 2018)

DANA PLATO (NOVEMBER 7, 1964-MAY 8, 1999)

IN MEMORIAM: CELEBRITIES LOST 1336

 LOUIS III, LAST EARL OF LOON

ALFONSO IV, THE BENIENANT, KING OF ARAGON

EMPEROR GO-FUSHIMI, 93RD EMPEROR OF JAPAN

ELISABETH VAN PORTUGAL, QUEEN CONSORT OF PORTUGAL/CATHOLIC SAINT

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NOVEMBER 6, 2023

 


SALLY FIELD, 79

ETHAN HAWKE, 53

THANDIE NEWTON, 51

REBECCA ROMIJN, 51

EMMA STONE, 35

JUNE SQUIBB, 94

P. J. PROBY, 85

ARTURO SANDOVAL, 74

CATHERINE CRIER, 69

LORI SINGER, 66

LANCE KERWIN, 63

PAUL BRINDLEY, 60

COREY CLOVER, 59

PETER DELUISE, 57

KELLY RUTHERFORD, 53

MARCUS SAMUELSSON, 53

ZOE MCLELLAN, 49

NICOLE DUBUC, 45

TARYN MANNING, 45

PATINA MILLER, 39

BEN RECTOR, 37

PIERSON FODE, 32

MARIA SHRIVER, 68

SULEIMAN I, THE MAGNIFICENT (NOVEMBER 6, 1494-SEPTEMBER 16, 1566)

JOHN PHILIP SOUSA (NOVEMBER 6, 1854-MARCH 6, 1932)

JAMES NAISMITH (NOVEMBER 6, 1861-NOVEMBER 28, 1939)

GLENN FREY (NOVEMBER 6, 1948-JANUARY 18, 2016)

IN MEMORIAM: CELEBRITIES LOST 1337

 GIOTTO DI BONDONE, ITALIAN PROTO-RENAISSANCE PAINTER/GOTHIC ARCHITECT

WILLIAM THE GOOD, COUNT OF HAINAUT/EARL OF HOLLAND/ZEALAND

ANGELUS CLARENUS/DA CINGOLI,ITALIAN LEADER

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NOVEMBER 5, 2023

 ROBERT PATRICK, 65

BRYAN ADAMS, 64

TILDA SWINTON, 63

FAMKE JANSSEN, 58

SAM ROCKWELL, 55

KEVIN JONAS, 36

HARRIS YULIN, 86

CHRIS ROBINSON, 85

ELKE SUMMER, 83

ART GARFUNKEL, 82

PETER NOONE, 76

KRIS JENNER, 68

NESTOR SERRANO 68

MO GAFFNEY, 61

ANDREA MCAROLE, 60

TATUM O'NEAL, 60

ANGELO MOORE, 58

JUDY REYES, 56

SETH GILLIAM, 55

MARK HUNTER, 55

JENNIFER KINLEY, 53

HEATHER KINLEY, 53

JONNY GREENWOOD, 52

CORIN NEMEC, 52

RYAN ADAMS, 49

SEBASTIEN ARCELUS, 47

LUKE HEMSWORTH, 43

ANNET MAHENDRU, 38

BILL WALTON, 71

ROY ROGERS (NOVEMBER 5, 1911-JULY 6, 1998)

VIVIEN LEIGH (NOVEMBER 5, 1913-JULY 8, 1967)

SAM SHEPARD (NOVEMBER 5, 1943-JULY 27, 2017)

Sunday, November 19, 2023

FLOTUS: Hillary Rodham Clinton Part III



Tenure

During her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton and President Obama forged a positive working relationship that lacked power struggles. Clinton was regarded to be a team player within the Obama administration. She was also considered a defender of the administration to the public. She was regarded to be cautious to prevent herself or her husband from upstaging the president. Obama and Clinton both approached foreign policy as a largely non-ideological, pragmatic exercise. Clinton met with Obama weekly, but did not have the close, daily relationship that some of her predecessors had had with their presidents. Nevertheless, Obama was trusting of Clinton's actions. Clinton also formed an alliance with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates with whom she shared similar strategic outlooks.

As secretary of state, Clinton sought to lead a rehabilitation of the United States' reputation on the world stage. After taking office, Clinton spent several days telephoning dozens of world leaders and indicating that U.S. foreign policy would change direction. Days into her tenure, she remarked, "We have a lot of damage to repair."

Clinton advocated an expanded role in global economic issues for the State Department, and cited the need for an increased U.S. diplomatic presence, especially in Iraq where the Defense Department had conducted diplomatic missions. Clinton announced the most ambitious of her departmental reforms, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which establishes specific objectives for the State Department's diplomatic missions abroad; it was modeled after a similar process in the Defense Department that she was familiar with from her time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The first such review was issued in late 2010 and called for the U.S. to lead through "civilian power" and prioritize the empowerment of women throughout the world. One cause that Clinton promoted throughout her tenure was the adoption of cookstoves in the developing world, to foster cleaner and more environmentally sound food preparation and reduce smoke dangers to women.

In a 2009 internal Obama administration debate regarding the War in Afghanistan, Clinton sided with the military's recommendations for a maximal "Afghanistan surge", recommending 40,000 troops and no public deadline for withdrawal. She prevailed over Vice President Joe Biden's opposition but eventually supported Obama's compromise plan to send an additional 30,000 troops and tie the surge to a timetable for eventual withdrawal.

In March 2009, Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a "reset button" symbolizing U.S. attempts to rebuild ties with that country under its new president, Dmitry Medvedev. The policy, which became known as the Russian reset, led to improved cooperation in several areas during Medvedev's presidency Relations between the United States and Russia, however, would decline considerably, after Medvedev's presidency ended in 2012 and Vladimir Putin's returned to the Russian presidency.

In October 2009, on a trip to Switzerland, Clinton's intervention overcame last-minute snafues and managed to secure the final signing of an historic Turkish–Armenian accord that established diplomatic relations and opened the border between the two long-hostile nations. Beginning in 2010, she helped organize a diplomatic isolation and international sanctions regime against Iran, in an effort to force curtailment of that country's nuclear program; this would eventually lead to the multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action being agreed to in 2015.

In a prepared speech in January 2010, Clinton drew analogies between the Iron Curtain and the free and unfree Internet, which marked the first time that a senior American government official had clearly defined the Internet as a key element of American foreign policy.

In July 2010, she visited South Korea, where she and Cheryl Mills successfully worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. This tied into the "build back better" program initiated by her husband after he was named the UN Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 following a tropical storm season that caused $1 billion in damages to Haiti.

The 2011 Egyptian protests posed the most challenging foreign policy crisis yet for the Obama administration. Clinton's public response quickly evolved from an early assessment that the government of Hosni Mubarak was "stable", to a stance that there needed to be an "orderly transition [to] a democratic participatory government", to a condemnation of violence against the protesters. Obama came to rely upon Clinton's advice, organization and personal connections in the behind-the-scenes response to developments. As Arab Spring protests spread throughout the region, Clinton was at the forefront of a U.S. response that she recognized was sometimes contradictory, backing some regimes while supporting protesters against others.

As the Libyan Civil War took place, Clinton's shift in favor of military intervention aligned her with Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and National Security Council figure Samantha Power. This was a key turning point in overcoming internal administration opposition from Defense Secretary Gates, security advisor Thomas E. Donilon and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan in gaining the backing for, and Arab and U.N. approval of, the 2011 military intervention in Libya. Secretary Clinton testified to Congress that the administration did not need congressional authorization for its military intervention in Libya, despite objections from some members of both parties that the administration was violating the War Powers Resolution. The State Department's legal advisor argued the same point when the Resolution's 60-day limit for unauthorized wars was passed (a view that prevailed in a legal debate within the Obama administration). Clinton later used U.S. allies and what she called "convening power" to promote unity among the Libyan rebels as they eventually overthrew the Gaddafi regime. The aftermath of the Libyan Civil War saw the country becoming a failed state. The wisdom of the intervention and interpretation of what happened afterward would become the subject of considerable debate.

During April 2011, internal deliberations of the president's innermost circle of advisors over whether to order U.S. special forces to conduct a raid into Pakistan against Osama bin Laden, Clinton was among those who argued in favor, saying the importance of getting bin Laden outweighed the risks to the U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Following the completion of the mission on May 2 resulting in bin Laden's death, Clinton played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead al-Qaeda leader. During internal discussions regarding Iraq in 2011, Clinton argued for keeping a residual force of up to 10,000–20,000 U.S. troops there. (All of them ended up being withdrawn after negotiations for a revised U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement failed.)

In a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council in December 2011, Clinton said that, "Gay rights are human rights", and that the U.S. would advocate for gay rights and legal protections of gay people abroad. The same period saw her overcome internal administration opposition with a direct appeal to Obama and stage the first visit to Burma by a U.S. secretary of state since 1955. She met with Burmese leaders as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sought to support the 2011 Burmese democratic reforms. She also said the 21st century would be "America's Pacific century", a declaration that was part of the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia".

During the Syrian Civil War, Clinton and the Obama administration initially sought to persuade Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to engage popular demonstrations with reform. As government violence allegedly rose in August 2011, they called for him to resign from the presidency. The administration joined several countries in delivering non-lethal assistance to so-called rebels opposed to the Assad government and humanitarian groups working in Syria. During mid-2012, Clinton formed a plan with CIA Director David Petraeus to further strengthen the opposition by arming and training vetted groups of Syrian rebels. The proposal was rejected by White House officials who were reluctant to become entangled in the conflict, fearing that extremists hidden among the rebels might turn the weapons against other targets.

In December 2012, Clinton was hospitalized for a few days for treatment of a blood clot in her right transverse venous sinus. Her doctors had discovered the clot during a follow-up examination for a concussion she had sustained when she fainted and fell nearly three weeks earlier, as a result of severe dehydration from a viral intestinal ailment acquired during a trip to Europe. The clot, which caused no immediate neurological injury, was treated with anti-coagulant medication, and her doctors have said she has made a full recovery.

Overall themes

Throughout her time in office (and mentioned in her final speech concluding it), Clinton viewed "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values. In a world of varied threats, weakened central governments and increasingly important nongovernmental entities, smart power combined military hard power with diplomacy and U.S. soft power capacities in global economics, development aid, technology, creativity and human rights advocacy. As such, she became the first secretary of state to methodically implement the smart power approach. In debates over use of military force, she was generally one of the more hawkish voices in the administration. In August 2011 she hailed the ongoing multinational military intervention in Libya and the initial U.S. response towards the Syrian Civil War as examples of smart power in action.

Clinton greatly expanded the State Department's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to get its message out and to help empower citizens of foreign countries vis-à-vis their governments. And in the Mideast turmoil, Clinton particularly saw an opportunity to advance one of the central themes of her tenure, the empowerment and welfare of women and girls worldwide. Moreover, in a formulation that became known as the "Hillary Doctrine", she viewed women's rights as critical for U.S. security interests, due to a link between the level of violence against women and gender inequality within a state, and the instability and challenge to international security of that state. In turn, there was a trend of women around the world finding more opportunities, and in some cases feeling safer, as the result of her actions and visibility.

Clinton visited 112 countries during her tenure, making her the most widely traveled secretary of state (Time magazine wrote that "Clinton's endurance is legendary".) The first secretary of state to visit countries like Togo and East Timor, she believed that in-person visits were more important than ever in the virtual age. As early as March 2011, she indicated she was not interested in serving a second term as secretary of state should Obama be re-elected in 2012; in December 2012, following that re-election, Obama nominated Senator John Kerry to be Clinton's successor. Her last day as secretary of state was February 1, 2013. Upon her departure, analysts commented that Clinton's tenure did not bring any signature diplomatic breakthroughs as some other secretaries of state had accomplished, and highlighted her focus on goals she thought were less tangible but would have more lasting effect. She has also been criticized for accepting millions in dollars in donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation during her tenure as Secretary of State.

Benghazi attack and subsequent hearings

On September 11, 2012, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked, resulting in the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The attack, questions surrounding the security of the U.S. consulate, and the varying explanations given afterward by administration officials for what had happened became politically controversial in the U.S. On October 15, Clinton took responsibility for the question of security lapses saying the differing explanations were due to the inevitable fog of war confusion after such events.

On December 19, a panel led by Thomas R. Pickering and Michael Mullen issued its report on the matter. It was sharply critical of State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests for more guards and safety upgrades and for failing to adapt security procedures to a deteriorating security environment. It focused its criticism on the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; four State Department officials at the assistant secretary level and below were removed from their posts as a consequence. Clinton said she accepted the conclusions of the report and that changes were underway to implement its suggested recommendations.

Clinton gave testimony to two congressional foreign affairs committees on January 23, 2013, regarding the Benghazi attack. She defended her actions in response to the incident, and while still accepting formal responsibility, said she had had no direct role in specific discussions beforehand regarding consulate security. Congressional Republicans challenged her on several points, to which she responded. In particular, after persistent questioning about whether or not the administration had issued inaccurate "talking points" after the attack, Clinton responded with the much-quoted rejoinder, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd they go kill some Americans? 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." In November 2014, the House Intelligence Committee issued a report that concluded there had been no wrongdoing in the administration's response to the attack.

The Republican-led House Select Committee on Benghazi was created in May 2014 and conducted a two-year investigation related to the 2012 attack. The committee was criticized as partisan, including by one of its ex-staffers. Some Republicans admitted that the committee aimed to lower Clinton's poll numbers. On October 22, 2015, Clinton testified at an all-day and nighttime session before the committee. Clinton was widely seen as emerging largely unscathed from the hearing, because of what the media perceived as a calm and unfazed demeanor and a lengthy, meandering, repetitive line of questioning from the committee. The committee issued competing final reports in June 2016; the Republican report offered no evidence of culpability by Clinton.

Email controversy

During her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton conducted official business exclusively through her private email server, as opposed to her government email account. Some experts, officials, members of Congress and political opponents contended that her use of private messaging system software and a private server violated State Department protocols and procedures, and federal laws and regulations governing recordkeeping requirements. The controversy occurred against the backdrop of Clinton's 2016 presidential election campaign and hearings held by the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

In a joint statement released on July 15, 2015, the inspector general of the State Department and the inspector general of the intelligence community said their review of the emails found information that was classified when sent, remained so at the time of their inspection and "never should have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system". They also stated unequivocally this classified information should never have been stored outside of secure government computer systems. Clinton had said over a period of months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house. Government policy, reiterated in the nondisclosure agreement signed by Clinton as part of gaining her security clearance, is that sensitive information can be considered as classified even if not marked as such. After allegations were raised that some of the emails in question fell into the so-called "born classified" category, an FBI probe was initiated regarding how classified information was handled on the Clinton server. The New York Times reported in February 2016 that nearly 2,100 emails stored on Clinton's server were retroactively marked classified by the State Department. Additionally, the intelligence community's inspector general wrote Congress to say that some of the emails "contained classified State Department information when originated". In May 2016, the inspector general of the State Department criticized her use of a private email server while secretary of state, stating that she had not requested permission for this and would not have received it if she had asked.

Clinton maintained she did not send or receive any emails from her personal server that were confidential at the time they were sent. In a Democratic debate with Bernie Sanders on February 4, 2016, Clinton said, "I never sent or received any classified material—they are retroactively classifying it." On July 2, 2016, Clinton stated: "Let me repeat what I have repeated for many months now, I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified."

On July 5, 2016, the FBI concluded its investigation. In a statement, FBI director James Comey said:

110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were "up-classified" to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.

Out of 30,000, three emails were found to be marked as classified, although they lacked classified headers and were marked only with a small "c" in parentheses, described as "portion markings" by Comey. He also said it was possible Clinton was not "technically sophisticated" enough to understand what the three classified markings meant. The probe found Clinton used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, both sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Comey acknowledged that it was "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account". He added that "[although] we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information". Nevertheless, Comey asserted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring criminal charges in this case, despite the existence of "potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information". The FBI recommended that the Justice Department decline to prosecute. On July 6, 2016, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed that the probe into Clinton's use of private email servers would be closed without criminal charges.

Two weeks before the election, on October 28, 2016, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had begun looking into newly discovered Clinton emails. On November 6, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had not changed the conclusion it had reached in July. The notification was later cited by Clinton as a factor in her loss in the 2016 presidential election. The emails controversy received more media coverage than any other topic during the 2016 presidential election.

The State Department finished its internal review in September 2019. It found that Clinton's use of a personal email server increased the risk of information being compromised, but concluded there was no evidence of "systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information".

Clinton Foundation, Hard Choices, and speeches

When Clinton left the State Department, she returned to private life for the first time in thirty years. She and her daughter joined her husband as named members of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2013. There she focused on early childhood development efforts, including an initiative called Too Small to Fail and a $600 million initiative to encourage the enrollment of girls in secondary schools worldwide, led by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

In 2014, Clinton published a second memoir, Hard Choices, which focused on her time as secretary of state. As of July 2015, the book has sold about 280,000 copies.

Clinton also led the No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project, a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to gather and study data on the progress of women and girls around the world since the Beijing conference in 1995; its March 2015 report said that while "There has never been a better time in history to be born a woman ... this data shows just how far we still have to go." The foundation began accepting new donations from foreign governments, which it had stopped doing while she was secretary of state. However, even though the Clinton Foundation had stopped taking donations from foreign governments, they continued to take large donations from foreign citizens who were sometimes linked to their governments.

She began work on another volume of memoirs and made appearances on the paid speaking circuit. There she received $200,000–225,000 per engagement, often appearing before Wall Street firms or at business conventions. She also made some unpaid speeches on behalf of the foundation. For the fifteen months ending in March 2015, Clinton earned over $11 million from her speeches. For the overall period 2007–14, the Clintons earned almost $141 million, paid some $56 million in federal and state taxes and donated about $15 million to charity. As of 2015, she was estimated to be worth over $30 million on her own, or $45–53 million with her husband.

Clinton resigned from the board of the Clinton Foundation in April 2015, when she began her presidential campaign. The foundation said it would accept new foreign governmental donations from six Western nations only.

2016 presidential campaign

On April 12, 2015, Clinton formally announced her candidacy for the presidency in the 2016 election. She had a campaign-in-waiting already in place, including a large donor network, experienced operatives and the Ready for Hillary and Priorities USA Action political action committees and other infrastructure. Prior to her campaign, Clinton had claimed in an interview on NDTV in May 2012 that she would not seek the presidency again, but later wrote in her 2014 autobiography Hard Choices that she had not decided. The campaign's headquarters were established in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Her campaign focused on: raising middle class incomes, establishing universal preschool, making college more affordable and improving the Affordable Care Act. Initially considered a prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. His longtime stance against the influence of corporations and the wealthy in American politics resonated with a dissatisfied citizenry troubled by the effects of income inequality in the U.S. and contrasted with Clinton's Wall Street ties.

In the initial contest of the primaries season, Clinton only very narrowly won the Iowa Democratic caucuses, held February 1, over increasingly popular Sanders — the first woman to win them. In the first primary, held in New Hampshire on February 9, she lost to Sanders by a wide margin. Sanders was an increasing threat in the next contest, the Nevada caucuses on February 20, but Clinton managed a five-percentage-point win, aided by final-days campaigning among casino workers. Clinton followed that with a lopsided victory in the South Carolina primary on February 27. These two victories stabilized her campaign and showed an avoidance of the management turmoil that harmed her 2008 effort.

On March 1 Super Tuesday, Clinton won seven of eleven contests, including a string of dominating victories across the South buoyed, as in South Carolina, by African-American voters. She opened up a significant lead in pledged delegates over Sanders. She maintained this delegate lead across subsequent contests during the primary season, with a consistent pattern throughout. Sanders did better among younger, whiter, more rural and more liberal voters and states that held caucuses or where eligibility was open to independents. Clinton did better among older, black and Hispanic voter populations, and in states that held primaries or where eligibility was restricted to registered Democrats.

By June 5, 2016, she had earned enough pledged delegates and supportive superdelegates for the media to consider her the presumptive nominee. On June 7, after winning most of the states in the final major round of primaries, Clinton held a victory rally in Brooklyn becoming the first woman to claim the status of presumptive nominee for a major American political party. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 2,219 pledged delegates to Sanders' 1,832; with an estimated 594 superdelegates compared to Sanders' 47. She received almost 17 million votes during the nominating process, as opposed to Sanders' 13 million.

Clinton was formally nominated at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 26, 2016, becoming the first woman to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. Her choice of vice presidential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, was nominated by the convention the following day. Her opponents in the general election included Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party. Around the time of the convention, WikiLeaks released emails that suggested the DNC and the Clinton campaign tilted the primary in Clinton's favor.

Clinton held a significant lead in national polls over Trump throughout most of 2016. In early July, Trump and Clinton were tied in major polls following the FBI's conclusion of its investigation into her emails. FBI Director James Comey concluded Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her handling of classified government material. In late July, Trump gained his first lead over Clinton in major polls following a three to four percentage point convention bounce at the Republican National Convention. This was in line with the average bounce in conventions since 2004, although it was toward the low side by historical standards. Following Clinton's seven percentage point convention bounce at the Democratic National Convention, she regained a significant lead in national polls at the start of August. In fall 2016, Clinton and Tim Kaine published Stronger Together, which outlined their vision for the United States.

Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump in the November 8, 2016, presidential election. By the early morning hours of November 9, Trump had received 279 projected Electoral College votes, with 270 needed to win; media sources proclaimed him the winner. Clinton then phoned Trump to concede and to congratulate him on his victory, whereupon Trump gave his victory speech. The next morning Clinton made a public concession speech in which she acknowledged the pain of her loss, but called on her supporters to accept Trump as their next president, saying: "We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead." Though Clinton lost the election by capturing only 232 electoral votes to Trump's 306, she won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, or 2.1% of the voter base. She is the fifth presidential candidate in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose the election. She won the most votes of any candidate who did not take office and the third-most votes of any candidate in history, though she did not have the greatest percentage win of a losing candidate. (Andrew Jackson won the popular vote by 10.4% but lost to John Quincy Adams).

On December 19, 2016, when electors formally voted, Clinton lost five of her initial 232 votes due to faithless electors, with three of her Washington votes being cast instead for Colin Powell, one being cast for Faith Spotted Eagle, and one in Hawaii being cast for Bernie Sanders.

Post-2016 election activities

Clinton attended the inauguration of Donald Trump, writing on her Twitter account, "I'm here today to honor our democracy & its enduring values, I will never stop believing in our country & its future."

Clinton delivered a St. Patrick's Day speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on March 17, 2017. In it, alluding to reports that she had been seen taking walks in the woods around Chappaqua following her loss in the presidential election, Clinton indicated her readiness to emerge from "the woods" and become politically active again. However, the following month she confirmed she would not seek public office again. She reiterated her comments in March 2019 and stated she would not run for president in 2020.

In May 2017, Clinton announced the formation of Onward Together, a new political action committee that she wrote is "dedicated to advancing the progressive vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election". Clinton has also made occasional comments on political issues in the time since losing her presidential campaign, and a "shameful failure of policy & morality by GOP", even authoring several op-eds.

On April 28, 2020, Clinton endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, for president in the 2020 election and she addressed the 2020 Democratic National Convention in August.

Clinton has authored several books since her 2016 defeat. In September 2017, Clinton's third memoir, What Happened, was published the same day, a picture book adaption of her 1996 book It Takes a Village was also published. Marla Frazee was the illustrator. Clinton had worked on it with Frazee during her 2016 presidential election campaign. Clinton and her daughter Chelsea co-authored the 2019 book The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience. Clinton co-wrote her first fiction book with Louise Penny. The book, a political mystery thriller, is titled State of Terror and was released in October 2021.

Clinton has also been involved in a number of media ventures. Clinton collaborated with director Nanette Burstein on the documentary film Hillary, which was released on Hulu in March 2020. On September 29, 2020, Clinton launched an interview podcast in collaboration with iHeartRadio titled You and Me Both. She has also produced television series, so far being a producer on the Apple TV+ series Gutsy and the upcoming The CW adaption of The Woman's Hour.

On January 2, 2020, it was announced that Clinton would take up the position of Chancellor at Queen's University Belfast. Clinton became the 11th and first female chancellor of the university, filling the position that had been vacant since 2018 after the death of her predecessor, Thomas J. Moran.

In January 2023, Columbia University announced that Clinton would join the university as professor of practice at the School of International and Public Affairs and as a presidential fellow at Columbia World Projects.

Political positions

Using her Senate votes, several organizations have attempted to measure Clinton's place on the political spectrum scientifically. National Journal's 2004 study of roll-call votes assigned Clinton a rating of 30 on the political spectrum, relative to the Senate at the time, with a rating of 1 being most liberal and 100 being most conservative. National Journal's subsequent rankings placed her as the 32nd-most liberal senator in 2006 and 16th-most liberal senator in 2007. A 2004 analysis by political scientists Joshua D. Clinton of Princeton University and Simon Jackman and Doug Rivers of Stanford University found her likely to be the sixth-to-eighth-most liberal senator. The Almanac of American Politics, edited by Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, rated her votes from 2003 through 2006 as liberal on economics, social issues, and foreign policy. According to FiveThirtyEight's measure of political ideology, "Clinton was one of the most liberal members during her time in the Senate."

Organizations have also attempted to provide more recent assessments of Clinton after she reentered elective politics in 2015. Based on her stated positions from the 1990s to the present, On the Issues places her in the "Left Liberal" region on their two-dimensional grid of social and economic ideologies, with a social score of 80 on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances, with an economic score of ten on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances. Crowdpac, which does a data aggregation of campaign contributions, votes and speeches, gives her a 6.5L rating on a one-dimensional left-right scale from 10L (most liberal) to 10C (most conservative).

Economics

In March 2016, Clinton laid out a detailed economic plan, which The New York Times called "optimistic" and "wide-ranging". Basing her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism, Clinton proposed a "clawback" that would rescind tax relief and other benefits for companies that move jobs overseas; providing incentives for companies that share profits with employees, communities and the environment, rather than focusing on short-term profits to increase stock value and rewarding shareholders; increasing collective bargaining rights; and placing an "exit tax" on companies that move their headquarters out of America to pay a lower tax rate overseas.

Domestic policy

Clinton accepts the scientific consensus on climate change and supports cap-and-trade, and opposed the Keystone XL pipeline. She supported "equal pay for equal work", to address current shortfalls in how much women are paid to do the same jobs men do. Clinton has explicitly focused on family issues and supports universal preschool. These programs would be funded by proposing tax increases on the wealthy, including a "fair share surcharge". Clinton supported the Affordable Care Act and would have added a "public option" that competed with private insurers and enabled people "50 or 55 and up" to buy into Medicare.

LGBT rights

Clinton supports the right to same-sex marriage, a position that has developed throughout her political career. In 2000, she was against such marriages altogether. In 2006, she said only that she would support a state's decision to permit same-sex marriages, but opposed federally amending the Constitution to permit same-sex marriage. While running for president in 2007, she again reiterated her opposition to same-sex marriage, although expressed her support of civil unions. 2013 marked the first time that Clinton expressed support for a national right to same-sex marriage. In 2000, she was the first spouse of a U.S. president to march in an LGBT pride parade. In 2016, she was the first major-party presidential candidate ever to write an op-ed for an LGBT newspaper, the Philadelphia Gay News.

Immigration

Clinton held that allowing undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship "[i]s at its heart a family issue", and expressed support for Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, which would allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. However, in 2014, Clinton stated that unaccompanied children crossing the border "should be sent back." She opposed and criticized Trump's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Foreign policy

On foreign affairs, Clinton voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in October 2002, a vote she later "regretted". She favored arming Syria's rebel fighters in 2012 and has called for the removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. She supported the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the NATO-led military intervention in Libya to oust former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Clinton is in favor of maintaining American influence in the Middle East. She has told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, "America can't ever be neutral when it comes to Israel's security and survival." Clinton expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2006 Lebanon War and 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In a 2017 interview, after a poison gas attack in Syria, Clinton said that she had favored more aggressive action against Bashar al-Assad: "I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad. I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them."

Religious views

Clinton has been a lifelong Methodist, and has been part of United Methodist Church congregations throughout her life. She has publicly discussed her Christian faith on several occasions, although seldom while campaigning. Professor Paul Kengor, author of God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life, has suggested that Clinton's political positions are rooted in her faith. She often expresses a maxim often attributed to John Wesley: "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can."

Cultural and political image

Clinton worked at Rose Law Firm for fifteen years. Her professional career and political involvement set the stage for public reaction to her as the first lady.

Over a hundred books and scholarly works have been written about Clinton. A 2006 survey by the New York Observer found "a virtual cottage industry" of "anti-Clinton literature" put out by Regnery Publishing and other conservative imprints. Some titles include Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House and Can She Be Stopped?: Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless ... Books praising Clinton did not sell nearly as well (other than her memoirs and those of her husband). When she ran for Senate in 2000, several fundraising groups such as Save Our Senate and the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton sprang up to oppose her. Don Van Natta found that Republican and conservative groups viewed her as a reliable "bogeyman" to mention in fundraising letters, on a par with Ted Kennedy, and the equivalent of Democratic and liberal appeals mentioning Newt Gingrich.

Clinton has also been featured in the media and popular culture in a wide spectrum of perspectives. In 1995, writer Todd S. Purdum of The New York Times characterized Clinton as a Rorschach test, an assessment echoed at the time by feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan, who said, "Coverage of Hillary Clinton is a massive Rorschach test of the evolution of women in our society." She has been the subject of many satirical impressions on Saturday Night Live, beginning with her time as the first lady. She has made guest appearances on the show herself, in 2008 and in 2015, to face-off with her doppelgängers. Jonathan Mann wrote songs about her including "The Hillary Shimmy Song", which went viral.

She has often been described in the popular media as a polarizing figure, though some argue otherwise. In the early stages of her 2008 presidential campaign, a Time magazine cover showed a large picture of her with two checkboxes labeled "Love Her", "Hate Her". Mother Jones titled its profile of her "Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary". Following Clinton's "choked up moment" and related incidents in the run-up to the January 2008 New Hampshire primary, both The New York Times and Newsweek found that discussion of gender's role in the campaign had moved into the national political discourse. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham summed up the relationship between Clinton and the American public by saying the New Hampshire events, "brought an odd truth to light: though Hillary Rodham Clinton has been on the periphery or in the middle of national life for decades ... she is one of the most recognizable but least understood figures in American politics".

Once she became secretary of state, Clinton's image seemed to improve dramatically among the American public and become one of a respected world figure. Her favorability ratings dropped, however, after she left office and began to be viewed in the context of partisan politics once more. By September 2015, with her 2016 presidential campaign underway and beset by continued reports regarding her private email usage at the State Department, her ratings had slumped to some of her lowest levels ever. In March 2016, she acknowledged that: "I'm not a natural politician, in case you haven't noticed."

In September 2022, Clinton discussed the evolution of her trademark pantsuits. She noted that she began wearing them because of "suggestive" photos taken during a trip to Brazil in 1995 that showed her underwear when she was seated that ended up being used in an ad for lingerie company DuLoren. The ad was supposedly meant as a compliment but ended up being pulled once the American embassy complained.

Books and recordings

It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996). Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.

Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998)

An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000)

Living History (Simon & Schuster, 2003). The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages.

Hard Choices (2014). As of July 2015 The book has sold about 280,000 copies.

With Tim Kaine, Stronger Together (2016)

What Happened (Simon & Schuster, 2017, in print, e-book, and audio read by the author)

With Chelsea Clinton, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience (Simon & Schuster, 2019, in print, e-book, and audio)

With Louise Penny, State of Terror (Simon & Schuster & St. Martin's Press, 2021).