Early French immigrants to America were traders, missionaries, and explorers who staked out significant claims in the New World in the name of France. Jean Ribaut established two French colonies in Florida in the 1550s to compete with the Spanish for primacy in trading across the Caribbean. By the time the pilgrims arrived in New England in 1620, Samuel de Champlain had established a permanent French colony in Quebec, and French explorers had discovered three of the Great Lakes. After traveling down the length of the Mississippi river in 1682, Robert Cavelier de La Salle claimed the entire Mississippi river basin for France, and in 1717 Jean-Baptiste Bienville solidified French control of the region by founding a successful colony in New Orleans. British success in the French-Indian war ended France’s colonial ambitions in the US, and in 1803 Jefferson bought out France’s remaining American interests in the Louisiana Purchase.
Relations between the US and France are friendly. High-level officials visit frequently, and bilateral contact at the cabinet level is active. The two countries share common interests and values on most political, economic and security issues.
On average, more than $1 billion in commercial transactions take place between France and the US every day, with the US being France’s sixth-ranked supplier and its sixth-largest customer. France ranks as the United States’ eighth most important trading partner for total goods (imports and exports). There are approximately 2,300 French subsidiaries in the US that provide more than 485,200 jobs and that generate an estimated $196 billion in turnover. The US is the top destination for French investments worldwide. Concurrently, the US is the largest foreign investor in France, employing more than 619,000 French citizens with aggregate investment estimated at $65.9 billion in 2006.
US Moves to Extradite Noriega to France
In 2008, the State Department reported that France’s government generally respected the human rights of its citizens. Problems that were cited for 2007 included overcrowded and dilapidated prisons; lengthy pretrial detention; protracted investigation and trial proceedings; anti-Semitic incidents; discrimination against Muslims; societal hostility toward immigrants; societal violence against women; child abuse and child marriage; and trafficking in persons.
Benjamin Franklin
Appointment: Sep 14, 1778
On July 15, 2014, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing into the nomination of Jane D. Hartley to be the next U.S. ambassador to France. It would be the first ambassadorial posting for Hartley, who was a major contributor and bundler in Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns.
Hartley, 64, is from Waterbury, Connecticut, where her father, James, ran a construction company and her mother, Dorothy, was a real estate broker. She graduated from Newton College of the Sacred Heart in Massachusetts with a B.A. in political science and economics; the college merged with Boston College in 1974.
Hartley got an early start in politics. In 1974, she was executive director of the Democratic Mayors Conference for the Democratic National Committee. Then, in 1977, she went to work in the Carter Administration, first as director of Congressional relations for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and in 1978 as a senior assistant in the White House Office of Public Liaison.
After Jimmy Carter lost his re-election bid in 1980, Hartley moved into the private sector as vice president of corporate communications for Westinghouse Broadcasting and vice president for new markets development for Group W Cable.
In October 1983, Hartley married Ralph Schlosstein, another former Carter White House official who was associate director of the White House domestic policy staff. Schlosstein has since gone on to help found money management firm BlackRock (which is now the world’s largest asset manager) and currently is chief executive officer of investment banking firm Evercore.
Hartley was named vice president for marketing for MCA’s broadcasting unit in 1985. She became vice president and station manager for New York television station WWOR in 1987, working there until 1989. Under her watch, the station made a disruptive move in the television syndication market when it agreed to pay $40 million for rights to broadcast “The Cosby Show.” The deal pushed the price of the program higher in almost every market in the country.
In 1993, Hartley went to work for the G-7 Group, first as chief operating officer and in 1995 as chief executive officer. G-7 offered advice and analysis to G-7 countries on how government policies affect financial markets.
Since 2007, Hartley has been chief executive officer of the Observatory Group, a company which she co-founded that advises multinational corporations on how developments in government policy can affect their businesses.
Hartley and Schlosstein have been active in Democratic politics. In the 2012 campaign, Hartley is credited with bundling at least $500,000, and possibly up to $1.4 million, for Obama’s re-election effort. In 2011 she and Schlosstein hosted a $71,600-per-couple fundraiser for Obama. She has also contributed to the campaigns of numerous Democratic Congressional candidates.
The couple is also active in charity efforts, establishing a foundation to provide scholarships and giving to other causes.
Since 2012, Hartley has been a member of the board of directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In June 2012, she became vice chairman of The Economic Club of New York.
She has a daughter, Kate, and a son, Jamie.
-Steve Straehley
To Learn More:
Testimony Before Foreign Affairs Committee (pdf)
moreCharles Rivkin, whose previous jobs spanned from being the man in charge of the Muppets to Ambassador to France and Monaco, was confirmed February 11, 2014 as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs. The Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs supports U.S. companies wishing to do business overseas, furthers U.S. trade policy objectives and promotes other U.S. economic interests abroad.
Rivkin, who will be 52 in April 2014, is the son of the late William R. Rivkin, a lawyer and Democratic insider who was appointed ambassador to Luxembourg by President John F. Kennedy and ambassador to Senegal and Gambia by President Lyndon Johnson. Rivkin was only a child when his father died in Dakar in 1967. His family established the William R. Rivkin Award in 1968, which is awarded each year by the American Foreign Service Association to a mid-career Foreign Service officer who best exemplifies “constructive dissent” in their duties.
After growing up with his mother and three siblings (Julia, Laura, and Robert), Rivkin went on to attend college at Yale, receiving a B.A. in political science and international relations in 1984. He later earned an MBA from Harvard University.
Rivkin worked as a corporate finance analyst at Salomon Brothers, before joining The Jim Henson Company in 1988 as director of strategic planning. Two years later, he was made vice president. In 1990, he married Susan Melissa Tolson, an analyst at Capital Research Company.
Rivkin continued to rise at the company famous for creating the Muppets, becoming senior vice president and chief operating officer in 1991, executive vice president and COO in 1994, and president and COO in 1995, making him the first chief executive who was not a member of the Henson family. In 2000, he was given the title of CEO, and engineered the sale of the company to the German-owned EM.TV for $1 billion.
By the following year, EM.TV’s legal and financial troubles led to rumors that The Henson Company might again be sold, but after two years of struggling to find a buyer, German executives agreed to sell the company back to the Henson family in 2003, which in turn sold the Muppets franchise to the Walt Disney Company. Rivkin then stepped aside to allow the family to once again run the company, while retaining a position on the board.
During the 2004 presidential campaign, Rivkin was an active supporter of Democratic nominee John Kerry, and served as an at-large California delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
In 2005, Rivkin became president and chief executive officer of Wild Brain, a San-Francisco-based entertainment and animation production company whose television series include Yo Gabba Gabba! and Higglytown Heroes. Rivkin was an executive producer of Yo Gabba Gabba!, which has aired on Nickelodeon and Noggin cable networks.
Outside of his business dealings, Rivkin is a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and the Pacific Council on International Policy.
When Obama shattered campaign fundraising records with a $150 million haul in September 2008, his bundlers in California played a key role in amassing so much cash. Rivkin was one of these major players, serving as Obama’s Southern California finance co-chair. According to OpenSecrets.org, he sent at least $500,000 toward Obama’s campaign committee as a bundler and another $300,000 toward his inaugural committee. Since the 1994 election cycle, Rivkin has personally contributed more than $97,500 to Democrats, including $6,600 to Obama.
Rivkin’s 2009 appointment as ambassador raised eyebrows, coming as it did in the wake of the large fundraising contribution he made to Team Obama. It showed that the newly inaugurated president was following in a long Washington tradition of rewarding donors with choice patronage jobs.
However, most observers agree that Rivkin worked out well as ambassador. He lived in France for a time as a student, giving him an excellent command of the language. One of his biggest challenges in Paris was to attempt to smooth over relations between the United States and France in the wake of reports released by Edward Snowden that the National Security Agency conducted surveillance of French citizens. On June 6, 2012, to commemorate the D-Day landings in Normandy, Rivkin parachuted into the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise with the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team.
Rivkin is not the only member of his family to receive an appointment from Obama. His brother, Robert, was selected to be general counsel for the Department of Transportation, and Robert’s wife, Cindy S. Moelis, a close friend of Michelle Obama, was chosen to direct the Commission on White House Fellows. Rivkin’s mother, who died in 2002, and stepfather founded the American Refugee Committee, which helps relocate international refugees.
To Learn More:
All in the Family -- Husband, Wife, Brother all Make Obama's Team (by Carol Felsenthal, Huffington Post)
Officially In: Charles Rivkin to Paris (Diplopundit)
more
Early French immigrants to America were traders, missionaries, and explorers who staked out significant claims in the New World in the name of France. Jean Ribaut established two French colonies in Florida in the 1550s to compete with the Spanish for primacy in trading across the Caribbean. By the time the pilgrims arrived in New England in 1620, Samuel de Champlain had established a permanent French colony in Quebec, and French explorers had discovered three of the Great Lakes. After traveling down the length of the Mississippi river in 1682, Robert Cavelier de La Salle claimed the entire Mississippi river basin for France, and in 1717 Jean-Baptiste Bienville solidified French control of the region by founding a successful colony in New Orleans. British success in the French-Indian war ended France’s colonial ambitions in the US, and in 1803 Jefferson bought out France’s remaining American interests in the Louisiana Purchase.
Relations between the US and France are friendly. High-level officials visit frequently, and bilateral contact at the cabinet level is active. The two countries share common interests and values on most political, economic and security issues.
On average, more than $1 billion in commercial transactions take place between France and the US every day, with the US being France’s sixth-ranked supplier and its sixth-largest customer. France ranks as the United States’ eighth most important trading partner for total goods (imports and exports). There are approximately 2,300 French subsidiaries in the US that provide more than 485,200 jobs and that generate an estimated $196 billion in turnover. The US is the top destination for French investments worldwide. Concurrently, the US is the largest foreign investor in France, employing more than 619,000 French citizens with aggregate investment estimated at $65.9 billion in 2006.
US Moves to Extradite Noriega to France
In 2008, the State Department reported that France’s government generally respected the human rights of its citizens. Problems that were cited for 2007 included overcrowded and dilapidated prisons; lengthy pretrial detention; protracted investigation and trial proceedings; anti-Semitic incidents; discrimination against Muslims; societal hostility toward immigrants; societal violence against women; child abuse and child marriage; and trafficking in persons.
Benjamin Franklin
Appointment: Sep 14, 1778
On July 15, 2014, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing into the nomination of Jane D. Hartley to be the next U.S. ambassador to France. It would be the first ambassadorial posting for Hartley, who was a major contributor and bundler in Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns.
Hartley, 64, is from Waterbury, Connecticut, where her father, James, ran a construction company and her mother, Dorothy, was a real estate broker. She graduated from Newton College of the Sacred Heart in Massachusetts with a B.A. in political science and economics; the college merged with Boston College in 1974.
Hartley got an early start in politics. In 1974, she was executive director of the Democratic Mayors Conference for the Democratic National Committee. Then, in 1977, she went to work in the Carter Administration, first as director of Congressional relations for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and in 1978 as a senior assistant in the White House Office of Public Liaison.
After Jimmy Carter lost his re-election bid in 1980, Hartley moved into the private sector as vice president of corporate communications for Westinghouse Broadcasting and vice president for new markets development for Group W Cable.
In October 1983, Hartley married Ralph Schlosstein, another former Carter White House official who was associate director of the White House domestic policy staff. Schlosstein has since gone on to help found money management firm BlackRock (which is now the world’s largest asset manager) and currently is chief executive officer of investment banking firm Evercore.
Hartley was named vice president for marketing for MCA’s broadcasting unit in 1985. She became vice president and station manager for New York television station WWOR in 1987, working there until 1989. Under her watch, the station made a disruptive move in the television syndication market when it agreed to pay $40 million for rights to broadcast “The Cosby Show.” The deal pushed the price of the program higher in almost every market in the country.
In 1993, Hartley went to work for the G-7 Group, first as chief operating officer and in 1995 as chief executive officer. G-7 offered advice and analysis to G-7 countries on how government policies affect financial markets.
Since 2007, Hartley has been chief executive officer of the Observatory Group, a company which she co-founded that advises multinational corporations on how developments in government policy can affect their businesses.
Hartley and Schlosstein have been active in Democratic politics. In the 2012 campaign, Hartley is credited with bundling at least $500,000, and possibly up to $1.4 million, for Obama’s re-election effort. In 2011 she and Schlosstein hosted a $71,600-per-couple fundraiser for Obama. She has also contributed to the campaigns of numerous Democratic Congressional candidates.
The couple is also active in charity efforts, establishing a foundation to provide scholarships and giving to other causes.
Since 2012, Hartley has been a member of the board of directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In June 2012, she became vice chairman of The Economic Club of New York.
She has a daughter, Kate, and a son, Jamie.
-Steve Straehley
To Learn More:
Testimony Before Foreign Affairs Committee (pdf)
moreCharles Rivkin, whose previous jobs spanned from being the man in charge of the Muppets to Ambassador to France and Monaco, was confirmed February 11, 2014 as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs. The Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs supports U.S. companies wishing to do business overseas, furthers U.S. trade policy objectives and promotes other U.S. economic interests abroad.
Rivkin, who will be 52 in April 2014, is the son of the late William R. Rivkin, a lawyer and Democratic insider who was appointed ambassador to Luxembourg by President John F. Kennedy and ambassador to Senegal and Gambia by President Lyndon Johnson. Rivkin was only a child when his father died in Dakar in 1967. His family established the William R. Rivkin Award in 1968, which is awarded each year by the American Foreign Service Association to a mid-career Foreign Service officer who best exemplifies “constructive dissent” in their duties.
After growing up with his mother and three siblings (Julia, Laura, and Robert), Rivkin went on to attend college at Yale, receiving a B.A. in political science and international relations in 1984. He later earned an MBA from Harvard University.
Rivkin worked as a corporate finance analyst at Salomon Brothers, before joining The Jim Henson Company in 1988 as director of strategic planning. Two years later, he was made vice president. In 1990, he married Susan Melissa Tolson, an analyst at Capital Research Company.
Rivkin continued to rise at the company famous for creating the Muppets, becoming senior vice president and chief operating officer in 1991, executive vice president and COO in 1994, and president and COO in 1995, making him the first chief executive who was not a member of the Henson family. In 2000, he was given the title of CEO, and engineered the sale of the company to the German-owned EM.TV for $1 billion.
By the following year, EM.TV’s legal and financial troubles led to rumors that The Henson Company might again be sold, but after two years of struggling to find a buyer, German executives agreed to sell the company back to the Henson family in 2003, which in turn sold the Muppets franchise to the Walt Disney Company. Rivkin then stepped aside to allow the family to once again run the company, while retaining a position on the board.
During the 2004 presidential campaign, Rivkin was an active supporter of Democratic nominee John Kerry, and served as an at-large California delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
In 2005, Rivkin became president and chief executive officer of Wild Brain, a San-Francisco-based entertainment and animation production company whose television series include Yo Gabba Gabba! and Higglytown Heroes. Rivkin was an executive producer of Yo Gabba Gabba!, which has aired on Nickelodeon and Noggin cable networks.
Outside of his business dealings, Rivkin is a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and the Pacific Council on International Policy.
When Obama shattered campaign fundraising records with a $150 million haul in September 2008, his bundlers in California played a key role in amassing so much cash. Rivkin was one of these major players, serving as Obama’s Southern California finance co-chair. According to OpenSecrets.org, he sent at least $500,000 toward Obama’s campaign committee as a bundler and another $300,000 toward his inaugural committee. Since the 1994 election cycle, Rivkin has personally contributed more than $97,500 to Democrats, including $6,600 to Obama.
Rivkin’s 2009 appointment as ambassador raised eyebrows, coming as it did in the wake of the large fundraising contribution he made to Team Obama. It showed that the newly inaugurated president was following in a long Washington tradition of rewarding donors with choice patronage jobs.
However, most observers agree that Rivkin worked out well as ambassador. He lived in France for a time as a student, giving him an excellent command of the language. One of his biggest challenges in Paris was to attempt to smooth over relations between the United States and France in the wake of reports released by Edward Snowden that the National Security Agency conducted surveillance of French citizens. On June 6, 2012, to commemorate the D-Day landings in Normandy, Rivkin parachuted into the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise with the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team.
Rivkin is not the only member of his family to receive an appointment from Obama. His brother, Robert, was selected to be general counsel for the Department of Transportation, and Robert’s wife, Cindy S. Moelis, a close friend of Michelle Obama, was chosen to direct the Commission on White House Fellows. Rivkin’s mother, who died in 2002, and stepfather founded the American Refugee Committee, which helps relocate international refugees.
To Learn More:
All in the Family -- Husband, Wife, Brother all Make Obama's Team (by Carol Felsenthal, Huffington Post)
Officially In: Charles Rivkin to Paris (Diplopundit)
more
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