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Former president Bill Clinton planned a rare visit to the US Senate Tuesday to unite Democrats divided on President Barack Obama's push for a sweeping overhaul of US health care. Fifteen years after his own dramatic push to remake the US system went down in flames after a strong start, Clinton was to address Democrats behind closed doors at their weekly policy luncheon to give Obama's plans a shot in the arm. The former president "is going to help energize our caucus to accomplish the three goals" of bringing health care costs down and covering every American without breaking the...

When former President Bill Clinton officially endorses San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for governor today, the question on many people's minds will be: Is this about Newsom, or Jerry Brown? Clinton and Brown's decades-long feud is, after all, one of the Democratic Party's nastiest, starting when they both sought the party's presidential nomination in 1992. Seventeen years later, the former California governor has opened an exploratory committee for a possible gubernatorial run, and Clinton's endorsement has set off speculation about a redux of the fight. Newsom discounted such talk in an interview with The Bee conducted shortly after the endorsement...

Bill Clinton on Lewinsky Affair: "I Cracked"Posted by Brian Montopoli September 21, 2009 3:14 PM (CBS)During a series of secret interviews in the White House with author and historian Taylor Branch, then-President Bill Clinton said his affair with Monika Lewinsky began because he "cracked" as a result of personal and political pressure. "I cracked; I just cracked," Clinton said, according to Branch, USA Today reports. The former president reportedly blamed the death of his mother, combined with the Democrats' losses in the 1994 midterm elections and the Whitewater investigation, for putting him in a state of mind that left him...

B reaKinG N ews on Fox News Channel..

In his struggle to change the nation's health care system, Barack Obama again faces certain obstacles that almost stopped his amazing march to the presidency. Aside from the Washington chattering class and the right-wing media, which always oppose progressive reform, Mr. Obama is losing his grip on the middle class and working families in swing states. He is losing Democratic senators and members of Congress in places like Florida and Arkansas. He is losing the propaganda war with his professorial style of explanation. So perhaps he should stop trying to walk this treacherous path alone. Perhaps the time has come,...

I know I am new to FR and not entirely sure I am doing this correctly however having said that I know there was a lot of interest in Glenn Beck's show about the Bubba Effect and wanted to let y'all know the subject is being discussed right now on his show.

Clinton, insurers announce anti-obesity effortAssociated Press February 19, 2009 Former President Bill Clinton announced a new anti-obesity program for children on Thursday that will extend health care coverage for visits to dietitians to focus on healthy eating and lifestyle changes. The program is the latest initiative from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a partnership between the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association. Martin Yadrick, president of the American Dietitic Association, said dietitian visits have not usually been covered by insurers, except for specific conditions like diabetes or kidney disease. "This is really opening the door for...

Link only - Show of togetherness in the Oval Office

First, Obama's fellow Daley machine hack, Rod Blagojevich, tried to sell Obama's Senate seat. Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, discussed the future of the Senate seat with Blagojevich. Obama has since "cleared himself" of any wrongdoing. Then, Obama's advisor, Caroline Kennedy, tried to steal a Senate seat in New York, citing royal prerogative. Now, Obama's Commerce Secretary nominee, Bill Richardson, has withdrawn his nomination, amid speculation that he will be indicted for corruption. All this, and Obama hasn't even been sworn in!

<p>Bubba brought home a bundle of Benjamins from the beach.</p> <p>The foundation connected to Rep. Charles Rangel's tainted Caribbean getaway made a hefty contribution to former President Bill Clinton's charity, records show.</p> <p>For years, the Clintons vacationed practically gratis at the ultra-exclusive Punta Cana Resort in the Dominican Republic.</p>

Bill Clinton opened his Global Initiative’s annual meeting in New York on Thursday with high praise for Republican presidential nominee John McCain as well as his rival Barack Obama. Introducing McCain at the gathering, Clinton pointed out that his wife Hillary and McCain took a congressional delegation on a climate change fact-finding mission to Alaska. “I want to say one thing in particular about John McCain in bringing him out here,” Clinton said.

Lost amid the wall-to-wall coverage of the collapse on Wall Street has been the re-emergence of former President Bill Clinton in the public eye.The former commander-in-chief has largely stayed out of the political arena following his wife's loss in the Democratic primary, emerging briefly to offer a classic stem winder in support of Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, but generally avoiding the limelight.But, the kickoff of his annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York City this week has sparked a series of high-profile television interviews for the former president -- including an extended chat with the King...

BLINK and you would have missed it. The expression of disgust on former US president Bill Clinton's face during his speech to the Democratic National Convention as he says "Obama" lasts for just a fraction of a second. But to Paul Ekman it was glaringly obvious. "Given that he probably feels jilted that his wife Hillary didn't get the nomination, I would have to say that the entire speech was actually given very gracefully," says Ekman, who has studied people's facial expressions and how they relate to what they are thinking for over 40 years. It seems that Clinton's micro-expression...

The Comeback Kid is having a convention comeuppance. Bill Clinton was supposed to beam at the side of his wife at the Democratic convention as she was crowned their party's presidential nominee. Instead, he will have reason to wince as their upstart rival, Barack Obama, is coronated. "Must be killing him," Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen told The Associated Press.

Clinton talks about saving the worldby Andrew Travers, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer Sunday, July 6, 2008 Bill Clinton has an idea about how to solve the world’s most pressing humanitarian problems: It’s the systems, stupid. Addressing a panoply of world issues from climate change and alternative energy to food security and AIDS yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the former president argued that creatively rethinking and reorganizing current global problem-solving methods would vastly improve civilization. Clinton’s sober hour-long conversation with Jane Wales, his former White House aide who is currently vice president of philanthropy and society at the Aspen...

A fascinating literary drama has provided a typical dramatic -- and bathetic -- backdrop for the end of the Missus Clinton campaign, one that concerns a depiction of the excess-to-grind of Mister Clinton.-SNIP- Todd S. Purdum, of New York Times note, husband of former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers, wrote a profile in Vanity Fair of the post-Presidency of Bill Clinton. ex-prez expressed sharp disapproval.-SNIP- It occurs to me that one more log should be added to this fire. Namely, that Clinton in his response noted that since his term in office he has saved the lives of 1,300,000...

....Bill Clinton told a Fort Thompson, SD audience, he'd "never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running." He picked apart the "frantic effort to push her out" of the race, saying no one asked Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson or Gary Hart to end their presidential campaigns early. He defended his wife in the dustup over her comments about Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. "That really made my blood boil," he said.

"A full-blooded American." That's how 24-year-old Josh Fry of West Virginia described his preference for John McCain over Barack Obama. His feelings aren't racist, he explained. He would just be more comfortable with "someone who is a full-blooded American as president." Whether Fry was referring to McCain's military service or Obama's Kenyan father isn't clear, but he may have hit upon something essential in this presidential race. Full-bloodedness is an old coin that's gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just...

This is why the Obamarama is so disheartening. When a Black REP comes down the pike he or she is demeaned by the very liberals who scream for equality and equal representation for all. Or worse, they are painted with the sell out or “Uncle Tom” (thanks Spike Lee) brush. I was still in college during the shameless Clarence Thomas hearings but even then (in my more liberal leaning days) I saw them for the “modern day lynching” that they were. People think it funny that Lt. Gov. Michael Steele has to dodge Oreo cookies hurled his way at debates....

(2008-03-27) — Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrat presidential front runner, today reiterated his intention to stand by his controversial pastor despite his presidential rival’s remarks that she would have left the church where the Rev. Jeremiah Wright preached racially-charged, anti-American messages. “I could no more disown my hateful, racist, self-aggrandizing, crazy uncle of a pastor,” said Sen. Obama, “than Hillary Clinton could quit her deceitful, adulterous, self-aggrandizing husband. But if a purging must happen to unite this divided party, I say to my esteemed opponent, ‘You first, Hillary. You first.’” Sen. Clinton said this week that she would have quit...

The Clinton campaign has cited newspaper accounts, including one in The Washington Post, to bolster the senator's claim that her now-famous March 1996 trip to Bosnia was the first visit to a "war zone" by a first lady since World War II. She is overlooking a trip to Saigon by Pat Nixon at the height of the Vietnam War as well as a trip by Barbara Bush to Saudi Arabia two months before the Persian Gulf War began. THE FACTS Just because something has appeared in a newspaper does not mean that is entirely accurate. The Clinton camp has circulated...

Link only - Coverup Central

I just had this scary, but not illogical, thought. (Actually I had it in 1996, but dismissed it as pure fantasy.) If Hillary! wins the Presidential Election in November, and then manages to get Re-Elected in 2012 to another 4 year term, Chelsea, who is now 28, will be 36, and could run for the presidency for up to another 8 years of the KKKlintoons in the White House. Don't say, "It'll never happen!" Whith the KKKlintoons, "It could happen!"......NEVER underestimate the KKKLINTOONS...........

Has Hil chilled Bill? Has she muzzled the Big Dog? Has Bubba been banished? Yes, yes and yes. And the result was win, win, win. Add the case of the missing husband to the list of reasons why Hillary Clinton saved her political skin Tuesday. He was mostly off the radar for the past week and was nowhere to be seen during her pitch-perfect victory speech that celebrated triumphs in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Anyone who thinks all that wasn't planned doesn't follow the orchestrated stagecraft of the Clintons. The former President is a double-edged sword and the subject...

January 31, 2008 9:26 AM Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday. In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren." At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? "Slow down our economy"? I don't really think there's much debate...

Democrats inside and outside the Clinton campaign on Sunday debated and in some cases bemoaned the degree to which former President Bill Clinton’s criticism of Senator Barack Obama last week had inflicted lasting damage on his wife’s presidential candidacy. “I think his harsh style hurt Senator Clinton — it polarized the campaign and polarized the electorate, and it also made it harder for Senator Clinton’s positive message to break through,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist and pollster who is not affiliated with any of the candidates. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign team, seeking to readjust after her lopsided defeat...

January 26, 2008 8:18 PM Said Bill Clinton today in Columbia, SC: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here." This was in response to a question about Obama saying it "took two people to beat him." Jackson had not been mentioned. Boy, I can't understand why anyone would think the Clintons are running a race-baiting campaign to paint Obama as "the black candidate."

..........In 1980, having unwisely raised state motor vehicle taxes, the youngest-ever-elected governor of Arkansas lost to a happy-go-lucky creationist more in tune with local Southern sentiment. "When the news came in he was really very upset, in tears" recalled his friend Jim Blair. A babysitter coming to the mansion found him on the floor, kicking, screaming, and bawling like a baby.

"...Obama's campaign said it was unbecoming for a former commander-in-chief to be engaging in harsh attacks against a fellow Democrat and some party figures have advised Bill Clinton to tone down his words or risk tarnishing his presidential legacy. "I think it's not presidential, it's not in keeping with the image of a former president, and I'm frankly surprised that he is taking this approach," said former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who has endorsed Obama. "I think it is important for all of us to participate in a way that raises the level of debate and begins to focus...

Bill Clinton is not black. It seems odd that I would have to make that statement; I have nothing against Bill Clinton, but I do have something against those who, for whatever reason, have convinced themselves that Clinton is not only black, but was also, "The First Black President." Let's ponder this, shall we? Those people who publicly state that Bill Clinton was the first black president are saying that Bill Clinton has shared in the black experience. They are saying that members of Bill Clinton's family came over on slave ships with Kunta Kinte. Bill Clinton rode on the...

The Politico notes that Bill Clinton has fallen back on Bubbalistic campaigning in Iowa. The homespun wisdom of the former Rhodes scholar comes along with his wife's various regional accents, but as Ben Smith notes, usually much farther away from the press: Before he was a silver-haired elder statesman, ex-president, and globe-trotting do-gooder, Bill Clinton was Bubba. And out in rural Western Iowa, Bubba is back. ... While his speech differed little from the one he gives in upscale audiences, his presence there indicates both the potential his wife’s campaign sees in the West and the fact that the former...

"COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN" (8:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M. ET) Host: Keith Olbermann Topics/Guests: ONE-ON-ONE WITH PRES. BILL CLINTON IRAQ: Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.); John Harwood, CNBC chief Washington correspondent; Wall Street Journal senior contributing writer NSA SPYING: Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor and constitutional law expert BILL O'REILLY'S CONTROVERSIAL REMARKS: Marvin Kitman, author of "The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly" Keith "Monkey Man" Olbermann launched into his usual lefty DailyKos inspired tirade. Democrats won't guarantee all troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the first term. Enter Sen. Jim Webb....

Pushing politics aside, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and former Democratic President Bill Clinton took the stage together to announce that Florida Power & Light will build a solar power plant in Florida as part of a $2.4 billion clean energy program."This is a huge deal for America and I think potentially a huge deal for people all around the world who want to do this," said Clinton, who introduced Crist and company Chief Executive Lew Hay at the beginning of the Clinton Global Initiative conference.The conference is focused on finding ways to solve some of the world's most pressing problems,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former President Bill Clinton today announced their partnership with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation — itself a partnership between the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation — to inspire America’s youth to develop lifelong healthy habits and avoid obesity. “Initiatives like the Alliance for a Healthier Generation are providing the framework for a healthier America. I am thrilled to join with President Clinton and the American Heart Association because in California we are already doing everything the Alliance supports,” said Gov. Schwarzenegger. “The foundation for a healthy lifetime is built in the...

Some 300 people gathered on Tuesday night at the Brentwood home of CAA's David O'Connor and his wife, Lona Williams, anxious to see the guest of honor, Bill Clinton. Then the power went out --- in the entire neighborhood --- putting this Hillary Clinton fund-raiser into near total darkness. The only light came from candles and some battery operated lanterns, which were shined on Clinton when he spoke in the backyard pool area. That helped, but it was still hard to see guests. And with no electricity, and therefore no microphone, it wasn't always easy to hear, according to a...

ONCE A CLINTON . . . September 15, 2007 -- For Hillary Clinton, it must seem like déjà vu all over again (as Yogi Berra might put it). But for voters, Camp Clinton's panicky move to refund $850,000 (temporarily, anyway) in donations linked to former fugitive con artist Norman Hsu hearkens back to hubby Bill's sordid fund-raising during his 1996 re-election campaign. And the funny money isn't the only ghost from the Clintons' past. Newsweek reports that the senator is relying for foreign-policy advice on a triumverate of her husband's top advisers - including Sandy "Sticky Fingers" Berger. **SNIP** Last...

One year after the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1994, Bill Clinton hushed up a federal report that warned of possible terrorist strikes, including how hijackers could use airliners to hit landmarks such as the Pentagon or White House. The Clinton administration never released "Terror 2000" to the public, purportedly because of concerns in the State Department it would cause panic. The Sept. 17, 2001 story by UPI Pentagon correspondent Pam Hess said the report, not only outlined the changing face of terrorism but also seemed to predict the scope and timing of the attacks carried out against the...

Chicago (AP) -- He's on the golf course. She's on the presidential campaign trail. If that wasn't hard enough, when Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton points out to her spouse that she's 15 years older than he was when he first ran for president, all she gets is tough love. "And I say, 'Well, nobody made you run, girl,'" former President Clinton joked during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show that aired Tuesday. Clinton also suggested tongue-in-cheek what his title might be if the former first lady wins the election and he moves back into the White House. "My...

California authorities have sought businessman Norman Hsu for 15 years. Since 2004, he has carved out a place of honor raising cash for such candidates as Hillary Rodham Clinton. For the last 15 years, California authorities have been trying to figure out what happened to a businessman named Norman Hsu, who pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish. "He is a fugitive," Ronald Smetana, who handled the case for the state attorney general, said in an interview. "Do you know where he is?" Hsu, it seems, has...

Her critics can finally pin her down. Hillary haters have something beside their votes to express displeasure with the New York senator and presidential wannabe - the Hillary Clinton voodoo doll, complete with a book of hexes, pins and a battle cry to "stick it to her, before she sticks it to you!" The voodoo doll spell book advises using black magic to inspire "Hillary's chubby hubby to take some embarrassing missteps" by shacking up with a woman who'll "go public when the dirty deed is done." You can also form her platform by having her promise "gay divorce" and...

Some pundits say former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton operate like a unified political animal. But a study of their TV and radio interviews reveals that gender separates the speech of the power couple, such that he "talks like a man" and she is "ladylike." Well-known interviewers also treated each of the Clintons differently, possibly due to gender stereotypes and expectations. Camelia Suleiman of Florida International University and Daniel C. O'Connell of Georgetown University recently examined three TV interviews and two radio interviews with the former president in June 2004 and three TV interviews and two radio interviews...

Cambridge, Mass. (AP) -- Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that disasters such as worldwide famine and an obesity epidemic could destroy the U.S. health care system unless politicians begin to look ahead and cooperate. Clinton, speaking at a forum sponsored by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said losses of natural resources such as oil and farmable soil, coupled with rising population and climate change is a "combustible mix." "This is coming," Clinton said. "And I know there is no great political constituency for these things, but we can avert these disasters for not very much money...

Many adults in the United States long for the mandate of a previous head of state, according to a poll by Opinion Research Corporation released by CNN. 53 per cent of respondents miss former U.S. president Bill Clinton now that he has left the White House. In the survey, 96 per cent of African-American respondents say they miss Clinton, while 50 per cent of White Americans say they are glad he has left. Clinton—a Democrat and former governor of Arkansas—won the 1992 U.S. presidential election. His campaign was largely based on a condemnation of the economic recession of the early...

Latest Headlines Full Story Photos RSS Clinton Says Husband Would Be Ambassador Saturday, April 21st, 2007 at 4:56pm EST AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that if she is elected president, she would make her husband a roaming ambassador to the world, using his skills to repair the nation's tattered image abroad. "I can't think of a better cheerleader for America than Bill Clinton, can you?" the Democratic senator from New York asked a crowd jammed into a junior high school gymnasium. "He has said he would do anything I asked him to do. I would...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The country's health care system is broken and in dire need of a fix, former president Bill Clinton told a receptive crowd today in San Francisco. "Our health care system is immoral

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton came in first -- barely -- in the 2007 first-quarter fundraising race on the Democratic side, but she's leaving nothing to chance in California: former President Bill Clinton -- hugely popular with Democrats -- will hit the state next week for what's being described as an exclusive campaign breakfast fundraiser for his wife, which will cost $1,000 a person for bacon and eggs April 15 at the San Francisco Fairmont Hotel.The letter that has gone out to deep-pocketed donors notes that, thanks to the competitive race and the early primaries -- sigh -- candidates must raise...

Don't feel too bad for Al Gore: He's leaving Washington with a congressional pension of $94,800 a year. The National Taxpayers Union estimates Gore's pension based on his 24 years in the House, Senate and vice presidency. Assuming he lives to 82, Gore's lifetime government retirement benefits, including a "spousal annuity" for Tipper Gore, could total nearly $6 million. Bill Clinton's presidential pension will start at $161,200 a year.