Clinton Slams Trump During Speech at Children’s Health Fund

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton was honored by the Children’s Health Fund, and she addressed a gathering of the organization’s members and supporters. During her speech, Clinton criticized President Donald Trump for the budget his administration proposed this week. She said that “this administration and Republicans in Congress are mounting an onslaught against the needs of children and people with disabilities, women and seniors.” The Trump budget calls for cuts in a number of programs that benefit the poor and disabled including food stamps and Medicaid. Clinton urged everyone to stand up to the president and Congressional Republicans saying, “It hurts the well-being of children. It’s time to send a resounding message that we will not stand for this attack on the most vulnerable among us.” Watch a video of Clinton’s speech below.

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow the Clintons on Twitter @HillaryClinton, @billclinton, and @ChelseaClinton. You can also follow Hillary on Facebook and Instagram.

News Source: NBC 2

Bill Clinton Encourages Ohio Voters

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Bill Clinton campaigned on behalf of Hillary Clinton in Ohio today with his first event being in Cleveland. He spoke about a variety of Hillary’s platform plans including her proposals to boost manufacturing, invest in infrastructure improvements, and make college more affordable. Bill also contrasted the tone of Hillary’s campaign from that of Republican Donald Trump’s saying, “Her theme is ‘Stronger Together’ and her opponent’s theme is ‘No we’re not.'” He attacked Trump for his negative, “us vs. them” message adding, “I spent a lot of my childhood in an us-versus-them environment. It doesn’t work.” He concluded the event by urging Ohioans to get out and vote.

In Columbus, Bill spoke to a predominantly African American audience about the dangers of Trump and how is “Make American Great Again” theme is a reference to a different time in America. Bill said, “When our opponent says, ‘make America great again,’ hey, I’m a 70-year-old white southerner, I know what that means. Fifty years ago, it wasn’t so great for African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans or first-generation immigrants or women in the workplace. Children with disabilities couldn’t go to school. Nobody saw their abilities. Gay people were confined to a closet.” Bill spoke about Hillary’s plans to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity in America and urged everyone to take advantage of Ohio’s early voting.

Bill’s final event of the day was in Cincinnati where he continued to tout his wife’s plans to create jobs and build on the economic progress of the last eight years. He urged everyone to vote on election day or to take advantage of early voting. Bill also asked everyone to make sure their friends and family members vote saying, “I want to ask you to do two things: Vote today. Vote tomorrow. Vote every day if you haven’t voted. I don’t mean more than one time – don’t do that. Concentrate on getting people who are for Hillary to go vote. Then, if you run into people who are not for her, do not talk about them the way they talk about her.” Videos from today’s events will be added when/if available.

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on TwitterFacebookYouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

News Source: Cleveland.com, Canton Rep, Cincinnati.com

HFA Highlights Hillary Clinton’s 30 Year Career

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Donald Trump is eager to talk about the last 30 years and Hillary Clinton, too, is eager to discuss her three decades of experience and public service. Clinton has dedicated her life to serving others, while Trump has spent decades trying to get ahead at the expense of others. Today, Hillary for America is launch a new website offering a side-by-side comparison of what they were each doing at various times in their lives.  Their records show that there’s only one candidate in this race who truly puts the American people first: Hillary Clinton.

In the 1970s and 80s:

  • Clinton’s first job out of law school was with the Children’s Defense Fund, and one of her first tasks was going door to door to figure out why so many children were missing school. The evidence she helped gather was presented to Congress to build the case for the passage of the law that ensures all children with disabilities have access quality education. Later, while a law professor at the University of Arkansas, Clinton founded a legal aid clinic to help low-income children and families in need of legal representation. And as First Lady of Arkansas, she chaired the state’s Education Standards Committee, working to improve the quality of schools and give every child a chance to succeed.
  • Trump was President of his dad’s real estate company and the family business when it was sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent apartments to African Americans in New York City and Virginia. The lawsuit unearthed a disturbing pattern among employees of Trump’s real estate company, who appeared to systematically deny applications to aspiring black renters.  Trump borrowed at least $14 million from his father for his real estate empire.

In the 1990s:

In the 2000s:

  • After 9/11, Clinton immediately got to work fighting for first responders and emergency workers. She introduced a bill to speed up the payment of benefits to families of public safety officers who died in the line of duty on 9/11 and it became law a few days later. In 2006, she introduced the Heroes at Home Act to aid veterans with post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injuries.
  • At the same time, Trump took $150,000 from a program designed to help small businesses in the aftermath of 9/11 and spent years lying about both his personal attachment to 9/11 and his commitment to helping New York recover. Trump also spent his time cheating more than 5,000 students at his scam Trump University and running a sham charitable foundation that spent money on non-charitable expenses like a portrait of himself and personal legal fees, and failed to properly register to raise money in the State of New York. It was reported that Trump repeatedly demeaned a crew member working on The Apprentice and used misogynistic language about female contestants.

In the 2010s:

The same night as Clinton advised President Obama on the Osama bin Laden raid, Trump was busy appearing on an episode of The Celebrity Apprentice. Trump has spent this decade peddling shameful lies about President Obama’s nationality as the leader of the birther movement; making a deal with Gaddafi to set up a tent on Trump’s property; filing for bankruptcy at Trump Plaza; fighting fraud suits over Trump University; and doling out illegal campaign donations from his sham charitable foundation.

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on TwitterFacebookYouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

Hillary Clinton Vows to Protect the Rights of People with Disabilities in Orlando Speech

os-pictures-hillary-clinton-rallies-in-orlando-013Yesterday, Hillary Clinton campaigned in Orlando, Florida. During her speech, Clinton praised Orlando for overcoming a number challenges it has faced this past year. “You showed the world what Orlando is made of: strength, love and kindness. This is something we could all use more of right now,” she said. Clinton then spoke about the primary focus of her speech which was her plan to expand job and educational opportunities for Americans with disabilities. Clinton said she has a full plan to ensure those with disabilities have equal opportunity because they “have so much to offer, but are given too few chances to prove it.” An outline of Clinton’s proposal is available on The Briefing, and a summary of what Clinton is proposing is below:

  • Work to fulfill the promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act
  • Expand support for Americans with disabilities to live in integrated community settings
  • Ensuring that every child, no matter his or her background, can get a high-quality education
  • Improve access to competitive integrated employment for people with disabilities
  • Break down barriers to voting
  • Expand Social Security by counting the hard work of family caregivers and giving them the benefits they deserve
  • Provide tax relief to family members who care for elderly relatives, including those with disabilities
  • Support children, youth, and adults living with autism, as well as their families
  • Expand access to mental health services and eliminate the stigma that is too often associated with seeking out care

Watch a video of Clinton’s full speech below.

Clinton was also interviewed by a local ABC station in Orlando. Watch the full interview below.

Meanwhile, Time Kaine attended a fundraiser on behalf of Hillary for America in San Francisco, California.

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

News Source: The Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel, The Briefing

Clinton Publishes Op-Ed About What She’s Learned from Millennials

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On Monday, Mic published an op-ed by Hillary Clinton titled “Here’s What Millennials Have Taught Me.” In the article, Clinton explains that the millennial generation is the most open and diverse generation of Americans, and she has learned a great deal by talking with millennial voters over the past year and a half. She then outlines three things she plans to do to help millennials: reduce college debt, create jobs, and cap the maximum out of pocket cost for childcare. Clinton asks for voters support at the conclusion of the op-ed saying, “So let’s stand together to show the world what our country, and your generation, really stands for. Let’s overwhelm division and intolerance with compassion, understanding and unity. Let’s make clear that Love Trumps Hate — not just this November, but always.” A copy of the op-ed is below and can be read HERE.

We hear a lot of things about the millennial generation. But too often, the people who are busy trying to define you are the ones who have spent the least time listening to you.

Here’s what I have learned: Your generation is the most open, diverse and entrepreneurial generation in our country’s history. And if we work together to take on the barriers that are holding you back and unleash your full potential, that won’t just improve your lives — it’ll make our entire country stronger.

From the first days of this campaign, you have shared the problems that keep you up at night and the hopes that get you up in the morning. You’ve reached for the opportunities that come with a college education at the highest rates of any generation in history — but faced ballooning tuition costs and crushing student debt like never before. Many of you entered the workforce during the worst recession since the Great Depression. And you’ve come of age during two deadly, costly wars in the Middle East.

And yet, despite all these challenges, you’ve never given up. Not even close.

Instead, you’re leading the way to a brighter future for all of us. You’ve fought for some of the most important accomplishments in our nation’s history, like the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality. You’ve come together to challenge our country to protect human rights and strengthen families by fixing a broken immigration system, reforming our criminal justice system and ending the era of mass incarceration. And you’ve demanded that people of color be able to live their lives without fear of being killed at a routine traffic stop.

And it’s nothing short of inspiring.

Around the time I graduated from college, our country was in its own moment of soul-searching. We were mired in a war in Vietnam, and reeling from the shooting of peaceful protesters at Kent State and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. At the same time, we were making progress on important fronts. The Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, and the Voting Rights Act broke down barriers that prevented too many people of color from casting their ballot. Women were entering the workforce like never before, challenging attitudes and expectations. It felt like all of America was struggling to decide who we were going to be.

Today, many of you have told me you feel the same way. We’ve seen the rise of a presidential candidate who pits Americans against each other and traffics in prejudice and paranoia. I’ve heard how uneasy this race has made many of you feel — how chilling it is to see protesters beaten at political rallies while the candidate eggs them on. When he talks about making America great again, it’s code for taking America back to a time when many of us — women, people of color, immigrants, LGBT Americans, people with disabilities — were marginalized, ostracized and treated as less-than.

But that’s not what our country is made of. And it’s not what I see when I look to your generation. In large part because of all of you, I am convinced that America’s best days are ahead of us.

There’s a lot that needs fixing — and we’re going to fix it together.

To make it happen, we need to change both hearts and laws. Starting with my first job at the Children’s Defense Fund, I’ve learned that if you want to help the greatest number of people in our democracy, you have to push for reform from both the outside in and the inside out. So we need activists and advocates, entrepreneurs and innovators, teachers and mentors, and everyone who changes lives every day in a million quiet ways. But we also need to do the slow, hard business of governing. We need to win elections, write laws, allocate resources and find common ground. Doing both is the secret to making change.

Let me tell you about a few things I want to work with you to change as your president.

First, everyone who wants to go to college should be able to without drowning in debt. That’s why I worked with Sen. Bernie Sanders to design a plan that will let everyone attend college debt-free. If you already have loans, we’ll let you refinance them, defer them to start a business or forgive them if you spend 10 years in public service. You can even see how much you and your family could save under our plan by looking at the “college calculator” on our website. And we’ll make sure a four-year degree isn’t the only path to a good-paying job by supporting apprenticeships and other high-quality training programs.

Second, everyone should be able to get a job that pays the bills and can support a family. And not only that, you should be able to do work you love and find meaningful. So we’ll create more good-paying jobs, raise the minimum wage and guarantee equal pay. This will help a lot of Americans, especially young people struggling to find footing in a difficult economy.

Third, no new parent should have to face the impossible choice between caring for a child or family member and losing a paycheck or even a job. It’s outrageous that in 2016, the United States is the only developed country in the world without paid family leave of any kind. So we’ll make high-quality child care and preschool available to every family in every community.  I’ve spent my career fighting to make a difference for children and families, and I can’t wait to do even more as president.

Of course, to do any of these things, we can’t have secret unaccountable money poisoning our politics. So I’ll appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Citizens United and even propose a constitutional amendment to do the same. And by doing that, we’ll make sure that no special interests can get in the way of protecting and expanding civil rights, LGBT rights and all human rights.

Many of you have shared with me that it feels like you’re out there on your own — like no one has your back. It shouldn’t be that way. If I’m fortunate enough to be elected, you will always have a champion in the White House. But I can’t do it on my own. I need you to work with me, keep fighting for what you believe, hold me accountable. I can’t promise we’ll win every fight on our first try. But I can promise you this: I’ll never stop fighting for you.

So let’s stand together to show the world what our country, and your generation, really stands for. Let’s overwhelm division and intolerance with compassion, understanding and unity. Let’s make clear that Love Trumps Hate — not just this November, but always.

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

News Source: Mic

John Podesta Statement on Donald Trump’s Campaign

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Today, Hillary for America Chair John Podesta released the following statement regarding Donald Trump’s campaign:

“It’s no surprise that Donald Trump is defending his most offensive views and extremist allies. This is the man who has spent 15 months insulting nearly every group in America — African Americans, Muslims, Latinos, Native Americans, immigrants, women, veterans, people with disabilities, and the list goes on. This is the man who hired Steve Bannon, a promoter of the racist ‘alt-right’ movement, to be his campaign CEO, and has inspired white supremacists and conspiracy theorists like David Duke and Alex Jones. So it’s no wonder Trump is standing up for them yet again. This is without a doubt deplorable — but this is who he is. This is what his campaign has always been about. And this is a fight we’re eager to have. As Hillary said today, we won’t back down. We will never stop calling out Trump’s bigotry and racist rhetoric, because we know our country is better than this. America is better than Donald Trump.”

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

HFA’s Response to Trump’s Education Speech

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On Thursday, Donald Trump unveiled his education plan during a speech in Cleveland, Ohio. Hillary for America Senior Policy Advisor Maya Harris released the following statement in response.

“It’s no surprise that Donald Trump—whose only experience when it comes to education is his fraudulent ‘Trump University’—offered education policies that would prove disastrous for our public schools, our educators, and most importantly, our kids. Let’s be clear: Trump’s proposal to apparently gut nearly 30 percent of the federal education budget and turn it into private school vouchers would decimate public schools across America and deprive our most vulnerable students of the education they deserve.

Hillary Clinton believes that the public school system is one of the pillars of our democracy. As president she will fight to strengthen our public schools to ensure every student receives a world-class education, regardless of their ZIP code.”

Donald Trump’s proposal, explained:

TRUMP: “[U]se $20 billion of existing federal dollars to establish a block grant for the 11 million school age kids living in poverty.”

EXPLAINER: A more extreme version of past Republican proposals, Trump’s plan would apparently eliminate the targeting of federal dollars to schools and districts with the highest concentrations of low-income students. Instead, he would turn over all $15.4 billion in Title I funding to states, and allow money to follow students outside of the public school system to private or parochial schools.

  • Trump’s proposal could strip funding from up to 56,000 public schools serving more than 21 million children. By allowing funding to leave America’s 56,000 Title I schools, Trump’s proposal will put crucial funding at risk for nearly 21 million American students.
  • Trump’s proposal might only serve 1.4 million students, while stripping funding from the other 10.5 million low-income students in America. Trump’s proposal would serve no-where near 11 million students. The average cost of a K-12 private school is $13,640 per student, per year. Since the vast majority of states do not support private school vouchers, Trump’s proposal would have to carry the full cost of attendance. As a result, Trump’s proposal might only serve 1.4 million students, while taking away funding that serves America’s low-income schools.
  • Trump’s proposal could have a devastating impact on student achievement. Research shows that students who attend schools using vouchers often do worse than those who stayed in their neighborhood public schools.

To fund his $20 billion voucher program, Trump would have to cut all Title I funding and $5 billion dollars in additional federal education programs. Trump would need to “repurpose” roughly $5 billion in annual education funding which currently supports programming such as preschool, Pell grants, and crucial resources to help low income students, students with disabilities, and English-language learners.

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

News Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Clinton Unveils Comprehensive Agenda on Mental Health (Updated)

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Hillary Clinton announced her comprehensive plan to better treat people living with a mental illness. The current mental health treatment policies have been criticized for not properly treating patients. Highlights of Clinton’s plan include the expansion of early intervention programs, a national suicide prevention initiative, increased training for police in dealing with the mentally ill, providing mental health care for those who commit non-violent crimes, expanding employment opportunities, and increasing investments in research for the brain and behavioral research. An outline of the plan is below, and the full plan can be read on The Briefing.

  1. Early Diagnosis and Intervention
    • Increase public awareness and take action to address maternal depression, infant mental health, and trauma and stress in the lives of young children
    • Scale up efforts to help pediatric practices and schools support children facing behavioral problems
    • Help providers share information and best practices
    • Ensure that college students have access to mental health services
  2. Federal Support for Suicide Prevention
    • Create a national initiative around suicide prevention across the lifespan that is headed by the Surgeon General
    • Encourage evidence-based suicide prevention and mental health programs in high schools
    • Provide federal support for suicide prevention on college campuses
    • Partner with colleges and researchers to ensure that students of color and LGBT students are receiving adequate mental health coverage
  3. Integrate our Healthcare Systems and Expand Community-Based Treatment
    • Foster integration between the medical and behavioral health care systems (including mental health and addiction services), so that high-quality treatment for behavioral health is widely available in general health care settings
    • Expand reimbursement systems for collaborative care models in Medicare and Medicaid
    • Promote the use of health information technology to foster coordination of care
    • Promote the use of peer support specialists
    • Encourage states to allow same-day billing
    • Support the creation of high-quality, comprehensive community health centers in every state
    • Launch a nationwide strategy to address the shortage of mental health providers
  4. Improve Outcomes in the Criminal Justice System
    • Dedicate new resources to help train law enforcement officers in responding to encounters involving persons with mental illness, and increase support for law enforcement partnerships with mental health professionals
    • Prioritize treatment over punishment for low-level, non-violent offenders with mental illnesses
  5. Enforcing Mental Health Parity
    • Launch randomized audits to detect parity violations, and increase federal enforcement
    • Enforce disclosure requirements so that insurers cannot conceal their practices for denying mental health care
    • Strengthen federal monitoring of health insurer compliance with network adequacy requirements
    • Create a simple process for patients, families, and providers to report parity violations and improve federal-state coordination on parity enforcement
  6. Housing and Job Opportunities
    • Expand community-based housing opportunities for individuals with mental illness and other disabilities
    • Expand employment opportunities for people with mental illness
    • Expand protection and advocacy support for people with mental health conditions
  7. Brain and Behavioral Science Research
    • Significantly increase research into brain and behavioral science research
    • Develop new links with the private and non-profit sectors
    • Commit to brain and behavioral science research based on open data

UPDATE (8/30/16): Hillary for America announced that Clinton and Tim Kaine spoke with the mental health policy community including patients, advocates, researchers, policy experts, physicians, counselors, and service providers. The conference call featured people from across the country and allowed Clinton to speak about her plan and hear feedback from experts.

Following the meeting, Clinton said, “I have heard heartbreaking stories for years about these incredible challenges, but during this campaign, it has seemed like a floodgate has opened from parents and students, from veterans, nurses, doctors, police officers. But I’ve also heard stories of hope and courage – people getting the help they needed, being able to lead happy, healthy, and thriving lives. And cities and states are deploying innovative programs, and that’s what we want to hear more of. We’ve got to break through and break down the stigma and shame. We’ve got to make clear that mental health is not a personal failing. Right now, it is our country which is failing people with mental health issues.”

Kaine said, “I am really happy that today when our campaign rolled out this proposal with respect to comprehensive mental health improvement, that we decided one group of people that we really want to talk to is college students. Most mental health challenges do first present themselves during adolescence or college. So, while even a mental health challenge of an adult later in life may become more manifest, there are early signs about it. One in four college students today do acknowledge that they are dealing with mental health challenges at some point along the way. And it is very important that we are aware of that and that we make clear that it’s normal, there is no stigma associated with it. And we want to make sure that there are appropriate resources, innovative resources, community-based resources so that people can access help, and that the response of society is treatment rather than judgment or pretending that it doesn’t exist.”

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Also, be sure to subscribe to the campaign’s official Podcast, With Her.

News Source: The Briefing, USA Today

Hillary Clinton Statement on the 51st Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act

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On Saturday, Hillary Clinton released a statement on the 51st Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965. The act guaranteed the right to vote to all American citizens regardless of race. However, in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the act saying that it is no longer necessary given the current climate. Many have disagreed with the Court’s decision including Clinton, and in her statement, Clinton said that as president she would continue to fight to ensure universal voting rights. A copy of her statement is below.

“Fifty-one years after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, Americans are now facing the most systematic effort to curtail those rights since the era of Jim Crow. Make no mistake, new voter restriction laws in seventeen states have replaced poll taxes and literacy tests as a thinly veiled attempt to achieve an old objective: disenfranchising African Americans, Latinos, low-income people, young people, and people with disabilities.

But we are fighting back. Last week, a court struck down North Carolina’s voter ID requirement, saying it was designed to ‘target African Americans with almost surgical precision.’ Similar restrictions have recently been overturned in Wisconsin, Texas, Michigan, North Dakota, and Kansas after courts found they were intended to discriminate as well.

This November, the notion that every American has a voice in shaping our future is at stake. Donald Trump supports discriminatory voting restrictions — and actually claims that without them in place, the results of American elections should be questioned. It’s a dangerous attempt to undermine the legitimacy of our democracy.

I have a very different view. I believe America is stronger when we expand access to the ballot box, not restrict it. That’s why I’ll fight to repair the Voting Rights Act, expand early voting, and introduce universal, automatic voter registration. 

Upon signing the Voting Rights Act in 1965, President Johnson said the right to vote ‘is one which no American, true to our principles, can deny.’

He was right.”

For all the latest, follow our Scheduled Events page and follow Clinton on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

News Source: The White House