The February Club meeting at Flavor of India Restaurant was the scene of a special presentation by Carrie Sheffield, founder of Bold TV and a forum of candidates for NYC Public Advocate. A special election will be held on February 26, 2019 to fill former Public Advocate Letitia James’ vacated seat. All Public Advocate candidates have been invited. The following four were represented in the video of the forum.
Carrie Sheffield, our special guest speaker discussed the topic: “How the GOP can improve its messaging with millennials, minorities and women.” Carrie is the founder of Bold, a digital news network committed to bipartisan dialogue & innovation for people, business & communities.
Special thanks goes to James Doukas, our videographer: jaydees2002@yahoo.com
There is probably not one elected official in Washington DC
more focused on the decision of Democrat Susan Rice to run or decline to run
for the Maine U.S. senate seat up for grabs in the 2020 election than Senator
Susan Collins, the state’s moderate Republican incumbent, who would have to
defend the seat she has held since 2009 against Rice.
Rice, who had served in several high level foreign affair
positions in both the former Presidents Clinton and Obama Administrations,
first spoke of her interest in taking on Collins early this past October, days
following the Republican Senator’s announcement that she planned to vote to
confirm Brett Kavanaugh (who shortly later was approved by a 52- 48 margin) as
an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. Speaking at a NYC
media event several days after Collins pledged to cast her vote for Kavanaugh,
Rice accused her potential senate opponent of “putting politics” over the
rights of victims of sexual assault.
There was one specific, now famous, victim Rice was
referring to: Christine Blasey Ford. As
reported in the media throughout the world last fall, Ford had come forward
during the senate confirmation hearings to accuse then nominee Brett Kavanaugh
of committing sexual assault against her while both were in high school in the
mid-1980’s. While Ford was unable to
remember the date or location of the alleged assault, was unable to identify
even one corroborating witness, and could not produce any evidence to support
her accusation, Susan Rice, just like the entire American left, found Kavanaugh
guilty of the charge, and denounced Collins, who had based her support of
Kavanaugh on “legal principles about due process, the presumption of innocence
and fairness”.
Such an argument by Collins, while seemingly reasonable,
might prove to be a problem in a race against Rice in a state whose registered
Independents, a crucial 34.9%, have been known to swing left on women’s
issues. Those independent voters combined
with the almost one third of registered Democrats (Republicans have just over
one third) would seem to present a difficult obstacle for Collins to overcome
to best Rice in 2020.
But if Collins finds herself able to overcome her penchant
for praising those who merit condemnation, she might find Rice to be an easy
candidate to defeat, for foremost of the underserving beneficiaries of the
Republican Senator’s over the top rhetorical kindness, was, ironically, Susan
Rice herself. That kindness goes back to January 2009, the early days of the
first Obama Administration. At that time
Rice was in the process of being confirmed by the senate in what turned out to
be a one hundred to zero vote in her favor for the post of U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations.
Following that rare bi-partisan, unanimous confirmation,
Rice received lavish praise from Republican and Democratic lawmakers
alike. But few were more effusive in
their praise than Susan Collins, who in a press release praised Rice as a
“remarkable woman”, whom she had met in the past at foreign policy
seminars. The senator then fulsomely
added that she had been “so impressed with her brilliance and nuanced insights
as we discussed foreign policy”.
To defeat Rice in 2020, and perhaps even to be able to fall
asleep at night, Collins must find a way to throw those words in the sewer.
Where else do words that praise an enabler of genocide belong?
In Rwanda over the span of 100 days, then 29 year- old Susan
Rice, who held the key position of Assistant Secretary of State for African
Affairs under then President Clinton, was – along with her boss Richard Clarke,
the special presidential assistant in global affairs in the National Security
Council (NSC), and, of course, President Clinton himself- nothing less than an enabler of the genocide
that ravaged that tragic African nation. That genocide, which took place from
April 6, 1994 through July, 16, 1994, ended with the slaughter of an estimated
800,000 Rwandan men, women and children from a population of 8 million. The victims were members of the Tutsi
community, a minority ethnic group living in that beleaguered nation. Their
murderers belonged to the extremist faction of the majority ethnic group, the
Hutus, who used the Tutsis as their scapegoats to blame for the country’s
increasing economic, social and political troubles.
Tragically, rather
than taking immediate military and diplomatic action to stop the massacre President Clinton, with Susan Rice and
Richard Clarke at his side, took the opposite path. During the first five days of the slaughter, he devoted all of our
nation’s efforts solely to the evacuation of the approximately 250 Americans
living there at the time. Completed
within five days, the evacuation would have been laudatory had Clinton not kept
silent and inert about the horrors that precipitated it.
Then in early May, Clinton, again with Rice and Clarke as
his major advisors on African affairs, went a step further to enable the
slaughter in Rwanda- by now 6 men, women and children murdered every minute of
every day: And their dirty deed was committed in the halls of the United
Nations. There American diplomats succeeded in pushing a resolution through the
security council reducing the then already understaffed 2,500 U.N. peace
keeping forces in Rwanda to a mere 270, even as humanitarian organizations,
such as the Human Rights Watch, had been warning that if the U.N. forces were
removed “Rwandans will quickly become victims of genocide”.
In fairness to Clinton, Clarke and Rice, it needs to be
remembered that during the time leading up to the Rwandan genocide, Congress
had been pressuring the Administration to cut the costs of U.N. peacekeeping
forces, which were largely paid for by America. In addition, the three had been
faced with an increasing isolationist mood in our nation, which had been
hardened after 18 U.S. Rangers had been killed while on a mission in civil war-
torn Somalia on October 3rd, 1993, only six short months before the
genocide in Rwanda was to tragically begin, and, significantly, only one short
year before the November 1994 United States Congressional elections were to be
held.
In fact, to the Human Rights Watch and other critics of the
Clinton Administration, its seeming indifference to the mass slaughter in
Rwanda was predicated on the political considerations attending to those 1994
Congressional elections. And it turned
out to be Susan Rice, above even Clarke, whom the Clinton Administration
selected to author the political talking points on its Rwanda policy. It was a job she performed with gusto.
On May 6, 1994- a
date that marked the first month anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda and
which pre-dated the crucial October Congressional elections by nearly a full 6 months-
Susan Rice composed a series of talking points on America’s position on Rwanda
for then Vice- President Al Gore.
First delivered by Gore to U.N. Secretary General Boutros
Boutros- Ghali, the initial talking point, generally interpreted as a
declaration of American policy in Rwanda read, “We have serious reservations
about proposals to establish a large peace enforcement mission, which would
operate throughout Rwanda with a mandate to end the fighting, restore order and
pacify the population”.
One week later, those American “reservations” about a U.N.
peacekeeping force were evidenced again in a handwritten note that Rice had
written during a White House meeting on Rwandan genocide: “I.O. (International
Organizations- the division in the state department and National Security
Council that effects American United Nations policies) is looking proactive
while vetoing this resolution {to maintain a U.N. peacekeeping force in
Rwanda}.”
The threat of America vetoing such a U.N. resolution proved
to be the excuse used by the world body’s aforementioned withdrawal of its
peacekeeping forces in Rwanda- a withdrawal that resulted in the last chance
the world possessed to end the mass murder of the people of that tragic nation.
The question of what could have been on Susan Rice’s mind
during this time appears to have been provided by Samantha Power, Rice’s
successor at the U.N. In a September 1, 2001 column she had written for the
magazine the “Atlantic”, Power quoted one of the several participants of a late
April, 1994 U.S. Government interagency teleconference, joined in by Rice, on Rwanda.
That particular participant, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Marley,
as Power wrote, revealed to her that during the teleconference Rice had
shocked the government officials on the line when discussing the mounting death
toll in Rwanda she asked, “If we use the word ‘ genocide’, what will the effect
be on the November { Congressional elections} ?” Here, to paraphrase the words that Rice
herself was to use nearly a quarter of a century later in her criticism of
Senator Collins’ support of Brett Kavanaugh, it might be stated, ‘Susan Rice
placed politics over the lives of the 800,000 children, women and men who were
slaughtered in Rwanda.’
Rice, of course, would never agree to such an assessment.
Rather over the years she has denied the major role she played in the
formulation of the Clinton Administration’s policy of inaction during
the Rwandan massacres. The standard
excuse she has repeated over the years has been that she was only a “low- level
official” during the genocide in Rwanda.
As if believing her
own lie, Rice, in a 2012 interview with the magazine the “New Republic”, seemed
to lack any feelings of guilt about her role as an enabler of the slaughter in
Rwanda. “To suggest that I’m repenting
for {Rwanda} or that I’m haunted by that or that I don’t sleep at night because
of that or that every policy I’ve implemented subsequently is driven by that is
garbage”, she told the magazine’s reporter.
But Rice might well have lost sleep over another lie she
delivered that same year, this time at the behest of then President Obama. Appearing on five separate political talk
shows on Sunday September 16, 2012 to be questioned on the then recent murders of
four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, in the
city of Benghazi, Rice, at the time the American Ambassador to the U.N., contended
that the murders had been the result of a spontaneous response by a group of ordinary
Libyan citizens consumed by anger over an anti- Muslim video posted over the
internet from American airwaves.
As Republicans were to later discover, however, Rice had
lied that day: Within two days after the attack, the Obama Administration,
including Rice herself, had learned that the slaughter, rather
than being a spontaneous assault spawned by a video, had been planned long in
advance by a group of Islamic terrorists intent on killing Americans. It was a lie that Republicans were to soon
later use to stop Rice’s promotion from UN Ambassador to Secretary of State.
It was also a lie that up to this day has made the name ‘Susan
Rice’ and the 8 tragic words, ‘The murder of four Americans in Benghazi’ inseparable.
Also inseparable should be the name ‘Susan Rice’ and the
words, ‘one of the callous and
calculating enablers of the murder of an estimated 800,000 innocent
human beings in the nation of Rwanda.’
Robert Golomb is a
nationally and internationally published columnist. Mail him at MrBob347@aol.com and follow him on
Twitter@RobertGolomb
It is the responsibility of Republicans to stop this. The time for grumbling, finger-pointing and waiting for some other leader or institution to step into the breach are over. The cavalry isn’t coming. Either we lick our wounds, begin to turn back the tide immediately or we all eventually get driven out of the state we love by the policies we hate.
Meeting at new venue: Flavor of India Restaurant 259-17 Hillside Ave. Floral Park, NY
NYC PUBLIC ADVOCATE CANDIDATES NIGHT
Meet the candidates for Public Advocate. A special election will be held on February 26, 2019 to fill former Public Advocate Letitia James’ vacated seat. All Public Advocate candidates have been invited. The following are confirmed so far:
Michael Zumbluskas: Over the past 25 years Mike has led voter registration and party enrollment drives throughout New York, and worked as a campaign advisor for numerous Independent, Republican and Democratic candidates, and as a consultant on numerous campaigns from local city council races to presidential campaigns and served as the New York County Chairman of the Independence Party. He has appeared on many television programs as a studio panelist on electoral reform and grassroots activism. Mike currently works as a resource management analyst for the New York City Department of Transportation. Visit website.
Daniel Christmann: AM620 Radio Show Host. “Humanity for ALL of the World starts and ends in NYC! As Public Advocate I will not stand for these thieving politicians, or these inhumane bureaucracies. The Environment. Housing, and our Transportation systems are under duress! The government, bankers, and corporations have exploited our poor and middle-class. They are starting to ramp things up in ways we can barely even imagine! Our Transportation Systems are collapsing, many road closures coming.” Visit website for more.
Manny Alicandro: Financial law expert and attorney from Brooklyn, a 2018 Republican candidate who ran for New York State Attorney General. He is running for NYC Public Advocate to clean up City Hall. “As I pass by the many homeless people in the freezing cold weather, I realize that the ban on styrofoam goes into effect today. This is one of the many reasons why I am running for PA – to stop the madness” @Manny_Alicandro
Tony Herbert: A Community Leader who has a broad range of corporate, political, community and business leadership experience. Tony is a community activist and media personality who is best known for providing a voice to those who have been disenfranchised. He currently serves as the President/CEO and Chairman of the Multi-Cultural Restaurant & Night Life Chamber of Commerce, as the Founder and President of the Advocates Without Borders Network, executive committee member of the NAACP-NYCHA Branch Chapter. Visit website for more.
Also guest speaker:
Carrie Sheffield: founder of Bold, a digital news network committed to bipartisan dialogue & innovation for people, business & communities, will discuss: “How the GOP can improve its messaging with Millennials, minorities and women”
As a Goldman Sachs analyst, Carrie managed municipal credit risk, and at Moody’s Investors Service, she rated healthcare bonds. In foreign affairs, Carrie reported on the 25th anniversary of perestroika in Moscow, North-South Korean relations from Seoul, the Beijing Olympics in China, and Egyptian political reforms in Cairo. She wrote on geopolitical positioning and freedom of speech in Qatar and covered the Israeli parliament for The Jerusalem Post. Carrie covered Congress for The Hill newspaper and served as a founding reporter at POLITICO. See full bio below.
Additional Public Advocate candidates
to be announced.