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Millennials Shunned Hillary in 2008. Her Shadow Campaign Won’t Let It Happen Again.

by AthenaRucker Posted on April 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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When Hillary Clinton narrowly lost the Democratic nomination in 2008, there was one key voting bloc that derailed her presidential bid: college students and young adults, who threw their support behind Barack Obama. Ready for Hillary, the primary super-PAC paving the way for a Clinton 2016 campaign, is already hard at work to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself should she decide to enter the race.

The group brought in former Obama campaign youth vote coordinator Rachel Schneider to oversee outreach to voters ages 16 to 30, with a particular focus on those still in school. Schneider has spent the last few months traveling around the country to set up satellite organizations on college campuses with the goal of attracting all of the best student organizers to Clinton’s side before any other Democrat launches a presidential campaign. Earlier this year, she swung through Missouri and South Carolina. Last week, Schneider toured New Hampshire’s main colleges, and she’s scheduled to visit Iowa next week, where she’ll meet with students from the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, Drake University, and the University of Northern Iowa.

There are now 33 Students for Hillary groups nationwide. So far they’re recruiting the most die-hard activists to prepare for next fall, when they’ll blitz new students during orientation to build Hillary’s army. “I’ve been focused on identifying students on campuses who are interested in being part of this movement from the ground floor,” Schneider says. For Democratic-leaning students interested in a career in politics it’s a no-brainer: leading a Students for Hillary group will position them as prime contenders for low-level jobs in Clinton’s actual campaign.

“It’s pretty neat to sort of rally around this person even without them having stated intentions to run,” says Monica Diaz, president of the Iowa State University College Democrats, who’s in discussions with Schneider about setting up a Students for Hillary group at her school. “I hope we can rally up enough people to push her to run, and by starting this early, I think we can.”

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Millennials Shunned Hillary in 2008. Her Shadow Campaign Won’t Let It Happen Again.

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How Two Hillary Clinton Superfans Became Super-PAC Power Players

by MarylouBozeman Posted on February 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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He’s a 28 year-old reserve police officer completing a bachelor’s degree in criminology at Virginia’s George Mason University. She’s a 62-year-old Eleanor Roosevelt scholar and history professor at George Washington University in DC. Adam Parkhomenko and Allida Black are unlikely friends; they are the even unlikelier masterminds of Ready for Hillary, a super-PAC that has risen from rag-tag origins to become a central component of Hillary Clinton’s shadow presidential campaign-in-waiting.

Parkhomenko and Black fall well outside the Clintons’ rarefied inner circle of advisers, consultants, fund-raisers, and confidantes. Both are Hillary super fans who until very recently were political neophytes. Yet since co-founding Ready for Hillary in January 2013, they’ve managed to raise $4 million, which they are channeling into building a massive database of supporters and volunteers that will become the foundation for Clinton’s presidential run if she jumps into the race. (Within the Ready-for-Hillary world, there’s little doubt that leap will come.) Parkhomenko and Black have also attracted key Clinton aides and allies to their super-PAC and have, thus, obtained the unofficial blessing of the Clintons themselves. These two groupies have worked their way backstage to hang out with the band.

Parkhomenko and Black first met in 2003 at a Halloween party hosted by Jim Turpin, then-chair of the Arlington County Democrats in Virginia. Parkhomenko was a 17-year-old community college student then, but he was already a Hillary Clinton crusader. That fall, he had created a website, VoteHillary.org, featuring a petition urging Clinton to enter the 2004 presidential campaign. It garnered over 100,000 signatures.

“I liked him,” Black recalls of that first encounter, “because he pushed back with confidence and not with arrogance, which for a 17-year-old is a stunning feat.” The two established a close rapport, even though Black found his notion of online organizing a tad naïve. “She’s been one of my best friends since I met her,” Parkhomenko says. “We clicked.”

Parkhomenko’s online campaign failed to sway Clinton, but the effort got him noticed. He earned a Washington Post Magazine profile from Mark Leibovich. A framed copy signed by Clinton (“Adam—Thanks for believing!”) now hangs in Parkhomenko’s Ready for Hillary office.

Parkohmenko’s pro-Hillary fervor also drew attention from HILLPAC, Clinton’s political action committee. In December 2003, the group reached out to ask if he wanted to volunteer for the PAC. He accepted the invitation, put his community college classes on hold—”Hillary would always ask about school, almost as much as my mom,” he says—and soon worked his way up to full-time staffer.

HILLPAC was a small operation, merely four or five employees, and Parkhomenko split his time between the PAC and Friends of Hillary, Clinton’s Senate reelection committee. He worked advance for Clinton events, wrote thank-you notes, and handled scheduling. He had been brought in by Patti Solis Doyle, a longtime Clinton hand—she worked as Hillary’s scheduler in 1992—who oversaw the PAC and the election committee. Solis Doyle referred to Parkhomenko as her “chief of stuff.”

When Clinton announced her bid for the presidency in 2007, Solis Doyle was tapped as her campaign manager. Parkhomenko became Solis Doyle’s assistant—the gatekeeper to the gatekeeper of the presidential candidate. Parkhomenko was known throughout the campaign as Solis Doyle’s right hand, which came back to bite him when Solis Doyle was fired in early 2008. Solis Doyle exited the campaign in February and Parkhomenko left soon thereafter. He was 22-years-old.

Parkhomenko couldn’t quite shake the Hillary bug. He created another pro-Hillary website that spring, VoteBoth.com, to encourage Clinton supporters to goad Obama into picking Clinton as his running mate. After that failed, Parkhomenko took a break from politics. He reenrolled at Northern Virginia Community College in the fall of 2008 and became a reserve police officer in Washington, DC. But he quickly returned to the political fold. In 2009, he ran for an open House of Delegates seat in Arlington, ultimately finishing third in a five-way race. After that, he buckled down on completing his college degree, later transferring from community college to George Mason University.

Though he lost touch with his old Clinton coworkers, Black and Parkhomenko remained close. He had moved into her spare bedroom during the 2008 presidential campaign after Black insisted that he not waste money on rent while living on a campaign staffer’s salary.

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How Two Hillary Clinton Superfans Became Super-PAC Power Players

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Monsanto is currently testing GMO wheat in two states

by Emily Collins Posted on June 4, 2013

Monsanto is currently testing GMO wheat in two states

By John Upton

John Novotny

Last week, when the USDA announced that an unauthorized strain of GMO wheat was recently discovered on an Oregon farm, it was widely reported (by us, among others) that Monsanto had stopped field-testing its genetically modified wheat in 2005.

Now Bloomberg reports that the biotech giant actually resumed field tests of GMO wheat in 2011:

The world’s largest seed company planted 150 acres of wheat in Hawaii last year that was genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate weedkiller, which the company sells under the brand name Roundup, according to a Virginia Tech database administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Another 300 acres of wheat engineered with Roundup tolerance and other traits are being tested in North Dakota this year.

Were these recent field trials linked to the outbreak of unwanted GMO wheat in Oregon? We don’t know that yet. Monsanto, which you may or may not choose to trust, told Bloomberg in an email that the Roundup Ready wheat in the new trials is “an entirely different event” than the escaped crop discovered in Oregon.

It’s weird to describe wheat as an “event,” instead of, oh, I don’t know, a “crop.” Seems like somebody is playing with words.

The company didn’t say whether the GMO wheat that it’s now growing in field trials is the same strain as the GMO wheat that showed up in Oregon. “The Roundup Ready wheat project that is the subject of the USDA report was previously discontinued,” Monsanto cryptically told Bloomberg.

Monsanto abandoned its previous Roundup Ready wheat trials in 2005, without securing government approval for the crop, at least in part because U.S. wheat farmers feared that a GMO strain could hurt exports. They were right. Exports have been hurt, even though the GMO strain was never OK’d or sold. Just imagine how much damage Monsanto could do to exports if it ever actually brings GMO wheat to market.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Monsanto is currently testing GMO wheat in two states

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Illegal Monsanto GMO wheat found in Oregon

by Emil8up51 Posted on May 30, 2013

Illegal Monsanto GMO wheat found in Oregon

By John Upton

Shutterstock

A farmer in Oregon found a patch of wheat growing like a weed where it wasn’t expected, so the farmer sprayed it with the herbicide Roundup. Surprisingly, some of the wheat survived.

The startled farmer sent samples of the renegade wheat to a laboratory, which confirmed something that should have been impossible: The wheat was a genetically engineered variety that had never been approved to be grown in the U.S., nor anywhere else in the world.

From The New York Times:

The Agriculture Department said the wheat was of the type developed by Monsanto to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup, also known as glyphosate. Such wheat was field-tested in 16 states, including Oregon, from 1998 through 2005, but Monsanto dropped the project before the wheat was ever approved for commercial planting.

The department said it was not known yet whether any of the wheat got into the food supply or into grain shipments. Even if it did, officials said, it would pose no threat to health. The Food and Drug Administration reviewed the wheat and found no safety problems with it in 2004.

Still, the mere presence of the genetically modified plant could cause some countries to turn away exports of American wheat, especially if any traces of the unapproved grain were found in shipments. About $8.1 billion in American wheat was exported in 2012, representing nearly half the total $17.9 billion crop, according to U.S. Wheat Associates, which promotes American wheat abroad. About 90 percent of Oregon’s wheat crop is exported.

It’s not clear when the discovery was made. In a statement on its website, Monsanto said it was contacted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding its investigation “earlier this month.” The USDA announced the discovery on Wednesday and said nine investigators are trying to figure out how the freak wheat wound up growing on the unnamed farmer’s land. Reuters reports that there were eight field trials of Monsanto’s GMO wheat in Oregon from 1999 to 2001.

While the federal government and agriculture industry scramble to investigate and manage fallout from the escaped wheat strain, there is one company that doesn’t seem too concerned. You can guess who that might be. From a statement posted on Monsanto’s website:

Over the past decade, an annual average of 58 million acres of wheat have been planted in the United States. This is the first report of the Roundup Ready trait being found out of place since Monsanto’s commercial wheat development program was discontinued nine years ago. …

Accordingly, while USDA’s results are unexpected, there is considerable reason to believe that the presence of the Roundup Ready trait in wheat, if determined to be valid, is very limited.

Well, if it’s “very limited,” then, I suppose there’s no need for concern. Try telling that to America’s wheat trading partners.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who

tweets

, posts articles to

Facebook

, and

blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

johnupton@gmail.com

.

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Illegal Monsanto GMO wheat found in Oregon

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