Benjamin Watson, a NFL tight end now with the Baltimore Ravens, said in an interview with Turning Point that minorities are buying into the idea of abortion, “hook, line and sinker,” which is ironic, he said, because Planned Parenthood and founder Margaret Sanger’s plan “to exterminate blacks … [is] working.”
Watson discussed how minorities make up the majority of abortions, adding, “We sit here and talk about advancing the black agenda, whatever that means, we talk about our interests, and what’s important to us — like having political power and advancement and all those things — and then we are turning around and we are killing our children. And we are buying the lie that it’s our personal decision to make.”
Men should be a big part of raising their child, he said, because “as much as he has a role in making the baby in the first place, it needs to take both of them the whole way through. Any idea that a man doesn’t have a role in it is not true, and is simply more about politics and making a man’s life easier.”
Watson recalls how he gave advice in the locker room to a teammate who had just found out that his girlfriend was pregnant. “My whole speech to him was encouraging him about what an awesome opportunity it is to raise a child, to give the child a home, to love that child, and that God entrusted him with another life, and what a responsibility and the privilege that is. And then being real and saying, ‘Look, it’s not going to be easy. There are going to be some sacrifices that are going to come.’”
He admitted that it isn’t easy to be a good father and that he falls short all the time. But the man’s duty is to “be there for their child, and for the baby’s mother … we need to be the provider, be a priest, a protector for them, so that they get a little glimpse of the sacrificial love of the heavenly Father.”
“I tell them they’re never going to be a perfect dad because no one is,” Watson said. “But we have a perfect Father to model ourselves after … my job as a father is to be the best example of our heavenly Father as I earthly can.”
Watson’s new book, Under Our Skin, looks at race, bias and justice and “appeals to the power and possibility of faith as a step toward healing.” (For more from the author of “NFL Star: Margaret Sanger’s Plan to Exterminate Blacks Is Working — but Faith Is a Step Toward Healing” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Benjamin_Watson.jpg29763968Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-05 21:56:352016-08-05 21:56:35NFL Star: Margaret Sanger’s Plan to Exterminate Blacks Is Working — but Faith Is a Step Toward Healing
Once again the Rev. Franklin Graham issued a warning to the United States based on the word of God.
Graham’s warning comes in the wake of news that Vice President Joe Biden performed a same-sex marriage.
The marriage, between White House staff members Brian Mosteller and Joe Mahshie, took place Monday afternoon at the Naval Observatory in Washington.
On Wednesday, Graham posted a message on Facebook post that began, “Another first for America that we should not be proud of — the vice president of the United States presiding over a same-sex wedding.”
Graham continued, saying that America has gained the reputation for celebrating what God defines as sin. He also promised that “there will be a price to pay.”
He quotes the Bible, Isaiah 1:4: “Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers … given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him.”
“This is why I’m going to eight more state capitols this month to pray for our nation,” Graham said. He urged people to come to his prayer rallies or to pray for America wherever they are.
In order for the vice president to officiate at the wedding, it was necessary that he obtain a temporary license from the District of Columbia authorizing him to perform the ceremony.
Following the event, Biden posted the following on Twitter:
Proud to marry Brian and Joe at my house. Couldn't be happier, two longtime White House staffers, two great guys. pic.twitter.com/0om1PT7bKh
Biden has been a supporter of same-sex marriage since endorsing it in 2012.
This was; however, his first opportunity to perform a wedding. (For more from the author of “Franklin Graham Warns the Nation That a Price Will Be Paid for Celebrating Sin” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Franklin_Graham_2016.jpg14382157Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-05 02:07:532016-08-05 02:07:53Franklin Graham Warns the Nation That a Price Will Be Paid for Celebrating Sin
The U.S. Supreme Court signaled an interest in taking on the transgender bathroom debate on Wednesday, granting a Virginia school system temporary permission to keep its bathrooms separated by biological sex.
In a 5-3 vote, the justices issued a stay in the case involving a transgender student in Gloucester County who is suing his school board to gain access to the boys’ restrooms. The stay halts a lower court’s order that said the school board must allow the transgender teen, Gavin Grimm, into the bathroom that corresponds with the student’s gender identity.
Gavin, 17, was born female but now identifies as a male.
If the Gloucester County school board’s petition for the Supreme Court to hear the case is denied, the stay will terminate automatically, and Gavin will be allowed to use the boys’ bathroom. If the court decides to take the case, the stay will remain in effect until the justices reach a final decision.
The lawsuit alleges that by prohibiting Gavin from using the boys’ restrooms, the school board’s policy violates Title IX, the federal statute that bans discrimination on the basis of sex.
The U.S. District Court in Eastern Virginia initially rejected that argument, and sided with the school board’s claim that Title IX does not protect against discrimination based on gender identity. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit disagreed, and issued an injunction that required the school to allow transgender students to use restrooms in accordance to their gender identity.
Some in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender movement downplayed Wednesday’s decision, calling it “just a temporary delay.”
“Across the country, courts and policymakers are recognizing that discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination,” Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in a prepared statement. “We are confident that if and when this issue reaches the Supreme Court, the court will affirm that recognition.”
Conservatives, however, call the decision a significant step in their direction.
“It’s significant that the Supreme Court said we’re going to put a hold on that—we’re going to preserve the status quo as it’s always been in society, as it’s always been in schools,” Jeremy Tedesco, a lawyer at the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal. “That boys use boys’ restrooms and girls use girls’ restrooms.”
The implications, Tedesco added, could reach far beyond Gavin and other students in Gloucester County.
In directing schools nationwide to open their showers, bathrooms, and locker rooms to students of the opposite biological sex, the Obama administration cited the Gloucester case.
The Department of Education wrote that its interpretation “is consistent with courts’ and other agencies’ interpretations of federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination,” and linked to the case.
A total of 24 states are now challenging the legality of the administration’s mandate, in addition to dozens of private legal battles playing out nationwide.
“The Department of Education—in all the litigation that’s going on across the country and in their major, chief mandate that they sent out nationally to all the schools saying that Title IX requires schools to allow students of one sex to enter locker rooms and bathrooms of students of the opposite sex—they’re all relying on the Gloucester decision from the 4th Circuit to say that’s required,” Tedesco said. “What the Supreme Court has done is thrown that decision into serious doubt.”
Tedesco, who is involved in several of these challenges, said the decision is “a really important outcome” for Alliance Defending Freedom’s case in Illinois.
In that case, 50 families in the Chicago area are suing the Department of Education and the Justice Department for threatening to take away federal funding if the school does not comply with the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX.
Lawyers for the Obama administration, Tedesco said, “have been citing the Gloucester decision over and over again for why they should win.”
Now, he said, “it’s going to be a lot more difficult for them to rely on that case, with the Supreme Court putting the entire decision on hold and calling it into question.”
Gloucester County, located about 140 miles south of Washington, D.C., and just north of Newport News, Virginia, has more than 5,000 students in its eight public schools.
The Gloucester County school board welcomed Wednesday’s decision, saying in a press release that it “continues to believe that its resolution of this complex matter fully considered the interests of all students and parents in the Gloucester County school system.”
Josh Block, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union representing Gavin, said he was disappointed by the decision because it will leave Gavin isolated from the rest of the student body.
In a blog post, Block wrote:
Gavin was preparing to begin his senior year with a fresh start. He would finally be able to use the restroom without being isolated. Even if the Supreme Court ultimately decides to let the lower court’s decision stand, Gavin will have had to spend most of his senior year forced to use a separate restroom from the rest of his classmates, simply because of who he is.
The high court’s four conservative-leaning justices all voted in favor of the stay. They were joined by Justice Stephen Breyer who wrote that he granted the stay “as a courtesy” in order to “preserve the status quo.”
Only four justices are needed for the Supreme Court to review a case, making it likely that the bathroom fight could be decided soon. (For more from the author of “What the Supreme Court’s Ruling Means for Transgender Bathrooms in Schools” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Gender_neutral_toilet_sign_gu.jpg7681024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-05 00:32:462016-08-05 00:32:46What the Supreme Court’s Ruling Means for Transgender Bathrooms in Schools
Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States, chastised Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for booting a wailing infant from a Virginia rally Tuesday. Trump, not one to suffer interruptions during his rallies, initially acknowledged the outburst with grace. “I love babies,” he said. “I hear that baby crying, I like it.”
“What a baby. What a beautiful baby, don’t worry,” he continued.
His patience was exhausted in short order.
“Actually, I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here,” he said moments later. “I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking,” he added.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/21639945109_5e8ed24c93_b-1.jpg6851024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-03 01:31:032016-08-03 01:31:03Say What? After Trump Has Crying Infant Removed, Planned Parenthood Says Babies Are Welcomed at His Rallies
Catholics cannot support politicians who support abortion, the head of the international Knights of Columbus told members and almost 100 Catholic bishops today. The group, known as “the Knights,” is the largest Catholic men’s service organization in the world, with almost 2 million members who in 2014 gave $175 million and 73 million volunteer hours to charity.
“It is time to stop creating excuses for voting for pro-abortion politicians,” said Supreme Knight Carl Anderson at the Knights’ 134th annual convention, according to a copy of his address given to The Stream. Abortion, he said, is not “just another political issue.” It is “a legal regime that resulted in more than 40 million deaths.”
Anderson’s comments echoed his 2008 open letter to Catholic Sen. Joseph Biden,Sen. Obama’s choice for vice president. Like Hillary Clinton’s choice Tim Kaine, also Catholic, Biden said he was personally opposed to abortion but supported it as public policy. Anderson explained how Biden had misrepresented the Catholic teaching and finished his letter by telling him: “You have a choice: you can listen to your conscience and work to secure the rights of the unborn to share in the fruits of our hard-won liberty, or you can choose to turn your back on them.”
The Knights recently commissioned a poll by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion that found most Americans oppose public funding of abortion and support raising standards on abortion clinics. However, most Americans also support legalized abortion in the first trimester, which is when the pro-abortion research group Guttmacher reports 88 percent of abortions take place.
On Tuesday, he asked: “What political issue could possibly outweigh this human devastation?” Abortion, he said, “is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale. We need to end the political manipulation of Catholic voters by abortion advocates. It is time to end the entanglement of Catholic people with abortion killing. It is time to stop creating excuses for voting for pro-abortion politicians. We will never succeed in building a culture of life if we continue to vote for politicians who support a culture of death.”
A spokesperson for the Knights did not respond to The Stream’s questions about what advice the Anderson would give to Catholic voters this fall, especially related to the support for abortion by both major party nominees and the nominees for the Green Party and Libertarian Party. The Knights also did not respond to whether pro-abortion Catholic politicians should be permitted to receive Communion.
The Knights’ Charity
In addition to tackling abortion and the controversial issue of religious liberty, Anderson’s speech noted charitable activities funded by the Knights, such as tens of thousands of donated wheelchairs and more than 300,000 new coats for children the group has given out in recent years. He also highlighted the plight of Christians in the Middle East, who have been targeted by Islamic extremists. (Anderson speaks about this more in this Crux interview.)
“Christians and other religious minorities are facing extinction,” said Anderson. “Many receive no support from their governments or from the United Nations. They have had to rely on their fellow Christians, and they have been able to rely on the Knights of Columbus.” The Knights have raised more than $11 million for Christian refugees in the last two years, and was a major player in the U.S. State Department’s decision to declare that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians. (For more from the author of “Top Catholic Warns Politicians Who Back Abortion, Oppose Religious Liberty” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Knoxville-march-for-life-2013-2-1-1.jpg21893471Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-03 01:25:482016-08-03 01:25:48Top Catholic Warns Politicians Who Back Abortion, Oppose Religious Liberty
It’s a hot summer night, and leaders of the Satanic Temple have gathered in the crimson-walled living room of a Victorian manse in this city renowned for its witch trials in the 17th century. They’re watching a sepia-toned video, in which children dance around a maypole, a spider crawls across a clown’s face and eerie, ambient chanting gives way to a backward, demonic voice-over. The group chuckles with approval.
They’re here plotting to bring their wisdom to the nation’s public elementary school children. They point out that Christian evangelical groups already have infiltrated the lives of America’s children through after-school religious programming in public schools, and they appear determined to give young students a choice: Jesus or Satan.
“It’s critical that children understand that there are multiple perspectives on all issues, and that they have a choice in how they think,” said Doug Mesner, the Satanic Temple’s co-founder.
On Monday, the group plans to introduce its After School Satan Club to public elementary schools, including one in Prince George’s County, petitioning school officials to allow them to open immediately as the academic year starts. Chapter heads from New York, Boston, Utah and Arizona were in Salem on July 10 talking strategy, with others from Minneapolis, Detroit, San Jose, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Florida participating online. The promotional video, which feels like a mash-up of a horror movie trailer and a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, will serve to promote the new club along with its website — Afterschoolsatan.com. (Read more from “An After School Satan Club Could Be Coming to Your Kid’s Elementary School” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/playground-439363_960_720.jpg638960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-02 02:29:432016-08-02 02:31:03An After School Satan Club Could Be Coming to Your Kid’s Elementary School
Hollywood actress and activist Susan Sarandon says former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be a more dangerous U.S. president than Donald Trump — provided she’s not indicted first.
Ms. Sarandon, a supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, told a liberal news outlets this week that Mrs. Clinton’s track record portends a much worse future than anything Mr. Trump might catalyze as commander in chief.
“I believe in a way she is more dangerous,” the actress told The Young Turks on Thursday. “They’re both talking to Henry Kissinger, apparently. … She did not learn from Iraq, and she is an interventionist, and she has done horrible things — and very callously. I don’t know if she is overcompensating or what her trip is. That scares me. I think we’ll be in Iran in two seconds.”
The former “Thelma and Louise” star said voters are being “fed” a message that Mr. Trump is “so dangerous” when his promises on illegal immigration amount to a wall being built.
“I don’t know what his policy is. I do know what her policies are, I do know who she is taking money from. I do know that she is not transparent, and I do know that nobody calls her on it,” the Oscar-winning actress continued. (Read more from “Actress Susan Sarandon: Hillary Clinton ‘More Dangerous’ Than Trump” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Susan_Sarandon_2016-02-23.png8531280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-02 01:26:132016-08-07 00:35:30Actress Susan Sarandon: Hillary Clinton ‘More Dangerous’ Than Trump
Facebook has temporarily blocked talk-radio host Michael Savage from posting stories to his page after he put up a link to a story about a Muslim migrant killing a pregnant woman in Germany.
A message from the social media giant on Savage’s page said: “You recently posted something that violates Facebook policies, so you’re temporarily blocked from using this feature.”
The message then refers the user to Facebook’s “Community Standards” and states the block will be active for 21 hours.
Facebook’s “Community Standards” page lists “hate speech” as one of its prohibitions, along with “violence and graphic content,” and nudity.
The article linked by Savage was about a pregnant woman in Reutlingen, Germany, who was hacked to death with a meat cleaver by a 21-year-old Syrian refugee. (Read more from “Facebook Blocks Michael Savage for Posting News on Islamic Crime” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/facebook-390860_960_720-1.jpg638960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-01 23:42:062016-08-01 23:42:31Facebook Blocks Michael Savage for Posting News on Islamic Crime
Earlier this month, the Republican Party approved what many are calling its most conservative platform ever – including top priorities of social conservatives. Despite a socially moderate presidential candidate in Donald Trump, the GOP platform explicitly calls for the unborn to be legally considered human, demands greater liberty for pastors, and continues to oppose redefining marriage.
This is in direct contrast to the 2016 Democratic platform. While God was put back in after removal in 2012, the platform explicitly calls for repealing laws that limit taxpayer involvement in abortion. Additionally, the LGBT agenda is fully embraced, even when it violates the rights of private business owners.
For conservative Christians, the platforms could not be more different. But according to Jason and David Benham, it’s going to take more than words on paper to move America in a direction where family, life, and liberty are respected.
Known colloquially as the Benham Brothers, Jason and David are real estate entrepreneurs and leaders in the evangelical Christian community. They held a prayer rally at the 2012 Democratic Convention, and have unreservedly spoken out to urge Americans to return to Christian values on sexuality, life, and other matters of spiritual and biblical importance.
Now, the Brothers have published their second book, Living Among Lions: How to Thrive Like Daniel in Today’s Babylon. Buttressing their 2015 book, Whatever the Cost, Living Among Lions examines the biblical Daniel, who along with his friends was pressured and persecuted – to the point of a death sentence – to give up his faith in God.
Famously, David survived his death sentence, with the lions who were supposed to feast upon him not harming a hair on his head. According to the Benhams, America is heading in the same direction, with government pressure being implemented against nuns, priests, bakers, pro-life advocates, and schools to implement the LGBT and abortion agendas.
In an e-mail interview, the brothers told me that the solution is to go back hundreds of years, to the Babylonian exile.
Dustin Siggins: Any comments on the RNC platform, which explicitly calls for defunding Planned Parenthood and protection of the unborn at the moment of conception?
Benham Brothers: It’s about time! Now, if we could elect leaders willing to stand on this platform, we’d see significant change in our nation. In the Evangelical community, there was a general fear the platform might capitulate in several key areas like life, marriage, and religious liberty. Thankfully, it was pushed through and now stands as one of the most conservative platforms in history.
DS: Conversely, the DNC platform draft indicates Democrats will call for elimination of federal measures that limit federal funding for abortion, including the Hyde Amendment. Any comment on this platform?
BB: It doesn’t surprise us. When the DNC held their conference in our hometown of Charlotte in 2012, they removed all references to “God” from their platform. After eight years of the most liberal president in American history, coupled with a rapidly declining moral culture, we’ll continue to see the Democratic platform be shaped by the sexual revolution.
DS: Across the country, pro-life groups and individuals are being targeted for their beliefs — whether pharmacy owners in Washington, nuns by the federal government, and pro-life pregnancy care centers in California. How would Daniel handle this kind of pressure?
BB: First, Daniel had conviction that transformed his heart. He knew God. His faith wasn’t a cultural trend to follow. Second, Daniel had commitment that transformed his lifestyle. He wasn’t a Sunday morning believer, but a committed man of faith all week that knew God’s word and submitted his life to it.
Third, Daniel had courage that transformed his world. Loaded with conviction and commitment, Daniel stood with courage when the cultural winds shifted and no longer favored his convictions. He didn’t just survive in the midst of this type of environment – he thrived! When a law was passed that targeted his faith he publicly targeted it back by praying with his windows open, in full defiance to the unjust law. We may find ourselves in a situation to do this very thing soon, so we must be people of conviction and commitment now – then, we’ll stand with courage.
DS: Democratic VP candidate Tim Kaine is a Catholic who says he personally opposes abortion, but he won’t tell women they cannot have abortions. Do you believe that one can be personally against, but publicly for, abortion, and be consistent with Christian ethics?
BB: This is a trap into which many Christians fall today. Unfortunately, we have many professing believers but functional atheists. In other words, they claim to have faith but refuse to make it a framework through which they live faithfully to God…in every area of life. We cannot divorce our faith from the decisions of life (marriage, finances, raising children, education, civic duty, etc.). In light of that, God’s word is clear that His people are to be a voice for the voiceless. So if Tim Kaine ignores this vital aspect of his faith, what other parts will he ignore as he seeks to lead this country?
DS: Any advice for pro-life groups and individuals inside the Democratic Party, like Democrats for Life, that really are Daniel surrounded by lions?
BB: Why are you a Democrat, with a platform clearly bent on killing babies? But if you’re gonna be one, then stand strong and speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves! Don’t fear. Don’t hold back. Don’t be silent. Be strong and speak – the babies deserve your voice.
DS: Finally: You organized prayer rallies and other events at the 2012 Democratic Convention. Any insights for pro-life groups like Created Equal that will aim to raise awareness about life at the 2016 Convention?
BB: Keep your message centered on the Gospel of life, not just the issue of abortion. In other words, it is God who created us equal, born and unborn. And it is He who will open the eyes of the most hardened sinner bent on ending the lives of unborn babies. The more you bring Him into the, the more power you have to see captives set free. Abortion is of Satan, and no amount of good strategy can replace the power of the Spirit.
(For more from the author of “Benham Bros, Fired by HGTV, Have a Message for Social Conservatives” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Benham_Brothers.jpg720960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-08-01 00:26:262016-08-01 00:26:26Benham Bros, Fired by HGTV, Have a Message for Social Conservatives
Speakers at the Democratic National Convention have spent the better part of the last week crowing about Hillary Clinton’s career in law, ostensibly the story of a journeyman advocate organizing for children.
“It was at the Children’s Defense Fund that I met Hillary,” said incoming Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile. “Steel in her spine, Hillary didn’t want to talk about anything other than how to make children’s lives better.”
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was similarly effusive in her praise of Clinton’s career at the bar in the service of the marginalized. “We have a responsibility to one another,” she said. “It’s about who we are as a nation. It’s why after law school, she could have gone to a fancy law firm, but she chose to work at the Children’s Defense Fund, where she advocated for children with disabilities.”
The reality of Mrs. Clinton’s law career is more complicated.
Before graduating from Yale Law School in 1973, Mrs. Clinton moved in various legal circles of the New Left, often donating spare time to radical causes. She spent the summer of 1971 in California as a summer associate at Treuhaft, Walker, and Bernstein, an Oakland based firm founded by members of the American Communist Party. The firm represented Vietnam protestors at the University of California at Berkley as well as the Black Panther Party, a black power militant group.
On taking her J.D. in 1973, she sat for the D.C. and Arkansas bar exams, marking a fairly prosaic start to her career as a legal practitioner. Clinton failed the D.C. bar exam, an experience Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein characterized as a spectacular flameout in his 2007 biography of the Democratic presidential nominee.
“Of 817 applicants, 551 of her peers had passed, most from law schools less prestigious than Yale,” he said of the experience, noting that the D.C. bar was “hardly one of the toughest in the nation.”
She settled in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1974, becoming one of the first female members of the faculty at University of Arkansas Law School. She gave classes in criminal law and helped establish a legal aid clinic that would lead her to one of her most notorious clients. During the course of her time on the law faculty, Mrs. Clinton staged a successful defense of 41-year-old Thomas Alfred Taylor, an Arkansas man accused of the rape of a 12-year-old girl.
Mrs. Clinton later discussed the case candidly on an audio recording first uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman, telling a journalist named Roy Reed that she harbored little doubt as to his guilt. Still, she helped Taylor duck a harsh sentence.
“Oh he plea bargained,” she told Roy with a brief spout of laughter. “Got him off with time served in the county jail, he’d been in the county jail about two months.”
Simultaneous to Bill Clinton’s election as Arkansas Attorney General in 1977, Mrs. Clinton accepted an offer to join Rose Law Firm a white-shoe Little Rock practice with an august reputation throughout the south. Though she continued to publish about children’s issues in academic journals during this period, her legal work was dedicated almost exclusively to intellectual property and patent infringement law. She was the first woman who made full partner at the firm.
Rose Law grew in stature during Clinton’s tenure, taking on corporate clients and commercial interests with state business. The firm represented Walmart, whose corporate headquarters are in Bentonville, Ark., and TCBY, a major frozen yogurt franchise based in Little Rock.
Mrs. Clinton joined both corporate boards in the mid 1980s. With Mrs. Clinton on the firm masthead, Rose lawyers enjoyed unprecedented access to state legislators and regulators, a major selling point to out-of-state businesses attempting to navigate Arkansas’s regulatory regime. Firm partner William H. Kennedy III characterized Clinton as the firm’s “rainmaker,” in 1992.
The firm’s billable hours soared in the 1980s, due in no small measure to Clinton’s influence in her husband’s state house. Federal filings obtained by the New York Times indicate firm partners collected some of the highest billables in the state. Nor was her leverage exclusive to private practice — former Bill Clinton aides say Mrs. Clinton was regularly in the governor’s confidence when selecting appointees for the state bench.
Stature and scrutiny grew in equal measure for Mrs. Clinton, such that her time with the firm found itself on the business end of federal investigation during the 1992 presidential campaign, sprawling into a full-fledged congressional probe that engulfed her husband’s first term as president.
Though Mr. Clinton’s financial ties to the toxic Whitewater Development Corporation were themselves the subject of protracted inquiry, federal investigators determined that Rose Law’s role in brokering transactions were intended to deceive federal investigators.
Mrs. Clinton billed 60 hours over a year and a half on the case, which included at least a dozen meetings with one Seth Ward, an individual who federal regulators said facilitated illegal straw purchases. Missing records corroborating the billings and the meetings under subpoena for two years were later recovered in Mrs. Clinton’s book room in the White House residence.
Mrs. Clinton did in fact give time to pro bono representation at Rose Law. She was frequently granted leave from the firm to coordinate state initiatives, including a task force on rural poverty and the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, leading a lengthy but ultimately successful fight against state-mandated standards, testing and class sizes.
While in Arkansas she also cofounded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a Children’s Defense Fund aligned group, and served in the Carter administration as chair of the Legal Services Corporation, all accomplishments for which the future presidential nominee was rained with accolades.
Nevertheless, discussion of her decades old ties to the South’s most prestigious firms, her corporate clients and the blemishes on her pro bono record have been conspicuously absent in a year dominated by anti-establishment rage. (For more from the author of “Hillary Was a Corporate Lawyer. A Children’s Advocate? Yes, but…” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/24256666951_1df86eaf78_b.jpg504706Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-07-31 12:52:182016-08-07 00:49:25Hillary Was a Corporate Lawyer. A Children’s Advocate? Yes, but…
