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Rangel to Remain as Committee Chief By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ Representative Charles B. Rangel will not step down from the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee, despite pressure from Republicans and others who say his leadership is being undermined by his swirling ethical problems. Mr. Rangel’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, told reporters during a conference call on Tuesday that the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, supports his decision to remain in the chairmanship. The announcement came after Mr. Rangel, the 78-year-old Harlem Democrat, met behind closed doors on Monday with the speaker and other party leaders. Mr. Davis...

Rep. Charles Rangel won't step down from his chairmanship at the House's tax-writing committee, his lawyer said Tuesday. "Mr. Rangel has not considered, nor has it ever been on the table, that he would step aside from his current position as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee," said Lanny Davis, the attorney for Rep. Rangel, a New York Democrat. Mr. Davis said Rep. Rangel is going to hire a forensic accountant to examine the last 20 years of his financial records, which will be forwarded directly to the House Ethics Committee. Speculation has grown in recent days that...

Representative Charles B. Rangel has earned more than $75,000 in rental income from a villa he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal or state tax returns, according to a lawyer for the congressman and documents from the resort.

Clinton Supporter Angered By 'Other Women' Obama VP Talk July 31, 2008 9:52 AM ABC News' Jennifer Parker reports: A longtime friend of Sen. Hillary Clinton said it's "incomprehensible" that Sen. Barack Obama would choose another woman to be his vice-presidential candidate over Sen. Hillary Clinton.

I remember the exact moment I had my first serious doubts about whether I was 100 percent right that the U.S. pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and the take-out of Saddam Hussein was a serious mistake. I had been strongly opposed to the U.S. intervention from the start. I felt this way even though I believed (as did most everyone, including the intelligence community) that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and even though I thought that he was a murderous, genocidal thug and the world would be better off - and the U.S. safer - with him dead. However, I...

I remember the exact moment I had my first serious doubts about whether I was 100 percent right that the U.S. preemptive invasion of Iraq and the take-out of Saddam Hussein was a serious mistake. I had been strongly opposed to the U.S. intervention from the start. I felt this way even though I believed (as did most everyone, including the intelligence community) that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and even though I thought that Saddam was a murderous, genocidal thug and the world would be better off — and the U.S. safer — with him dead. However, I...

I remember the exact moment I had my first serious doubts about whether I was 100 percent right that the U.S. pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and the take-out of Saddam Hussein was a serious mistake. I saw on TV in early 2005, in their first preliminary democratic elections, long lines of Iraqis waiting to vote under the hot desert sun with bombs and shrapnel exploding around them. Waiting to vote! And then in early 2007 came the surge...

At the DNC's Rules And Bylaws Committee meeting in Washngton, DC, Hillary Clinton surrogate Lanny Davis is brushed off by a throng of reporters. Video

After the votes are in from Puerto Rico tomorrow and South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton will be able to make a facts-based case that they represent a significant majority of grass-roots Democrats. Chances are Sens. Obama and Clinton will virtually split the more than 4,400 delegates – including Florida and Michigan – elected by more than 34 million people over the past five months. Sen. Clinton has already won the most votes, but there is controversy over including the over 300,000 votes from Michigan, since Sen. Obama was not on the ballot (by...

Lanny Davis let one of the world's worst-kept secrets out of the bag this morning: Mika Brzezinski's a Barack backer. But the Morning Joe host [in Joe Scarborough's absence] insisted on issuing a non-denial denial, and yet again cited her family's political diversity as a would-be shield against Davis's assertion. Davis, former special counsel to Bill Clinton and die-hard defender of the Clinton clan, made his observation of the incontrovertible on Morning Joe at about 7:50 AM EDT today. It arose in the course of a discussion of Hillary's strategy for winning the nomination. View video here.

If NewsBusters were ever to use in its promotional material a photo this unflattering of Hillary Clinton, we'd be accused of the worst kind of sexism, of unfairly attacking a candidate based on her looks rather than her views. Check out the image of Hillary that MSNBC used in its promo of tonight's Hardball with Chris Matthews that aired at 5:59 AM EDT today just before Morning Joe came on the air. Hillary in full wattle, lit like something in a horror flick about to emerge from a closet wielding an ax. If there's a less-becoming snap of Hillary in...

When you're a Clintonite, you're a Clintonite all the way. From your first Monicagate defense, To Hil's last primary day.—with apologies to Leonard Bernstein Look next to the definition of "Clinton loyalist" in the dictionary, and you're likely to find a photo of Lanny Davis. The man who would have put Baghdad Bob to shame for his unflinching flackery during Bill's Monica mess is back on the beat for Hillary. Yesterday, Davis wrote a HuffPo column purporting to set forth 10 Undisputed Facts showing Obama's weakness as a general election candidate against John Mccain. As Jake Tapper has observed, some...

On Fox News this morning Gretchen Carlson and her partners were having some fun describing Hillary’s retreat the claim that a woman was denied pregnancy care because she did not have insurance. The campaign must have prevailed on Fox to have Lanny Davis appear as a “fair and balanced” alternative. He was not fair, he was rude. He was not balanced, he was scornful and tried to silence Gretchen whenever he could. His position was that the deputy sheriff stood behind the story and the claim by the hospital that the woman actually had insurance was not true, or at...

MARKOVICI, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Protected by sharpshooters, Hillary Rodham Clinton swooped into a military zone by Black Hawk helicopter Monday to deliver a personal "thank you, thank you, thank you" to U.S. troops. "They're making a difference," the first lady said of the 18,500 Americans working as peacekeepers in Bosnia. Mrs. Clinton became the first presidential spouse since Eleanor Roosevelt to make such an extensive trip into what can be considered a hostile area, though others have visited hot spots. She was proud of the distinction: "To be here on the ground is something I wanted to do so that maybe...

Don't take NewsBusters's word for it. Listen to Lanny Davis: with one exception, MSNBC has donned flippers and goggles to go entirely in the tank for Barack Obama. Davis, who made his bones tirelessly defending Bill Clinton during the dark Lewinsky days, appeared on Tucker Carlson's show this evening. Tucker opened the conversation by asking whether Davis sensed Obama's momentum. But Lanny was more interested in getting his point on the record about MSNBC's pro-Obama bias.

The Hillary Clinton Accountability Project will shortly launch its fundraising drive to raise $500,000 to support the most important citizen’s legal initiative of 2008. The landmark civil fraud suit of Paul v Clinton et al which the California Supreme Court ordered to proceed against the Clintons, Grammys Producer Gary Smith and Clinton agent Jim Levin, will be set for trial and a discovery schedule at a special conference to be held in Los Angeles Superior Court on February 21, 2008. The first law suit in American history to bring a President and a Senator to court for defrauding the Senator’s...

Hillary Clinton has been playing a dangerous game with China. After over a decade of illegal contributions to the Democratic party and special favors by the Clintons, Hillary has turned on her old Chinese friends and sold them out in a desperate bid to win in 2008. The American dollar and economy have suffered collateral damage in this Clinton double cross with China. "Chinagate" was the name for numerous illegal campaign contributions from the PRC to the Democrats that helped them to win the 1996 elections. As you may remember back in 1996, the Clinton administration's apparently traded missile secrets...

Hillary Clinton's campaign, anticipating probable defeat here in New Hampshire on January 8, is gearing up for an extended trench-warfare battle against Barack Obama. The former First Lady is planning to fight Obama in South Carolina on January 26, and in the gargantuan nationwide primary on Tuesday, February 5 -- with contests in 19 states, including New York, California, New Jersey, Georgia, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Colorado. If she remains competitive, Clinton's plan is to continue to compete in Louisiana on February 9, in Virginia and Maryland on February 12, in Wisconsin on February 19, in Ohio on March 4 --...

The Tyranny of Super-Delegates Barack Obama's stirring victory in Iowa was also a good night for our democracy. The turnout broke records and young people – who were mobilized and organized – participated in unprecedented numbers. And now that Iowans have spoken – the first citizens in the nation to do so – here's the Democratic delegate count for the top three candidates (2,025 delegates are needed to secure the nomination): Clinton – 169 Obama – 66 Edwards – 47 "Huh?" you say. "vanden Heuvel, you made a MAJOR typo." In fact, those numbers are correct: the third-place finishing Sen....

It is hard not to feel sorry for Hillary Clinton. She is, in so many ways, the perfect presidential candidate for the Democrats. She has the brains and the name, the money and the machine. (snip) And yet, when actual voters are given the chance to seal the deal, too many of them balk, as they did in Iowa this week. Coming third in Iowa, with more than two-thirds of the voters choosing other candidates, is a shocking blow to the Clinton campaign. Yet the pollsters have always known what her problem is. Her problem is that a lot of...

NASHUA, New Hampshire (Reuters) - New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, reeling from defeat in Iowa at the hands of Barack Obama, urged Democratic voters on Friday not to build up "false hopes" by choosing an inexperienced presidential candidate. In Iowa, which kicked off the process of choosing the next U.S. president with its caucuses on Thursday, the former first lady finished a disappointing third, nine percentage points behind Obama and narrowly behind former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards............" ........."We can't have false hopes. We've got to have a person who can walk into that Oval office on day one and...

As the presidential candidates engage in furious pre-caucus spin, one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's most prominent Iowa supporters said Wednesday that she's already accomplished what she needs to in Iowa, and can declare success even if she finishes in third place. Asked if the order of finish matters, Former governor Tom Vilsack, D-Iowa, deflected the question. "She absolutely had to be competitive and she's accomplished that," he said. "Obviously everybody's interested in winning, and I think we're going to do well. It's tight. There's no question about that." In May, Vilsack was quoted in the Washington Post, saying, "There's...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was praised in the wake of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for demonstrating her command of the players and the issues at stake in Pakistan, even as another candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was criticized for stumbling over details. But in two confident television appearances, on CNN and ABC, Clinton made an elementary error about Pakistani politics: She described President Pervez Musharraf as a "candidate" who would be "on the ballot." In fact, Musharraf was reelected to the presidency in October. The upcoming elections are for parliament, and while Musharraf's party...

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...

<p>Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has revised its list of Tennessee supporters on its statewide steering committee to remove the names of two convicted felons.</p> <p>The original list of more than 100 committee members had included former state House Majority Leader Tommy Burnett and West Tennessee Democratic Party activist Gladys Crain.</p>

WHAT SHE’S GOT Cash and Bonds: $30.1 million Life Insurance: $140,000 Retirement Funds: $33,000 Alternative Investments: $248,000 Houses: $5.9 million Mortgages: $1.5 million WORTH: $39.9 MILLION 2006 Income: $12.1 million WHERE SHE GOT IT When Bill Clinton first ran for President in 1992, Hillary provided most of the couple’s income working for the Rose law firm in Little Rock; he earned only $35,000 a year as governor of Arkansas. Although she takes in $165,200 a year as a senator, these days Bill is breadwinner-in-chief. His presidential pension is $201,000 a year, and he grabbed a $12 million advance for his...

Clinton tries to extend Big Mo/turn-the-page storyline with Monday TV appearances on all six morning shows from Iowa.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, speaking at a ski lodge in New Hampshire, told voters she learned how to ski in the Granite State. "I would just get to the top and I would just go straight down. I never took a lesson. I thought I was a great skier because I was just rolling down that hill,"

Clinton Booed at Heartland Forum December 01, 2007 6:04 PM ABC News' Eloise Harper reports: A day after dealing with a hostage crisis, Sen. Hillary Clinton faced a tough crowd in Iowa. Clinton did not receive the warmest of welcomes at the Heartland Form in Des Moines, IA, and although the hostage scare was mentioned, the announcer brushed it off quickly in order to get to questions. Clinton, who was forced to call in to speak to the crowd of thousands because of weather difficulties, took questions on topics from healthcare to illegal immigration. The senator was asked if she...

Their infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad . . . Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected. There are no American infidels in Baghdad . . . There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad. -- Saddam's Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, AKA "Baghdad Bob." Not bad, Bob. But if you want to see how flackery is done at its supremely sycophantic best, you should have tuned into tonight's "Tucker" to catch Lanny Davis's act. View video here.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton trails five top Republican presidential contenders in general election match-ups, a drop in support from this summer, according to a poll released on Monday. Clinton's top Democratic rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, still lead Republicans in hypothetical match-ups ahead of the November 4, 2008, presidential election, the survey by Zogby Interactive showed. Clinton, a New York senator who has been at the top of the Democratic pack in national polls in the 2008 race, trails Republican candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mike Huckabee by three to five...

Is Sen. Hillary Clinton feeling any doubts about winning the Democratic nomination for president? Not at all. "It will be me," Clinton tells Katie Couric in an interview to air Monday on the "CBS Evening News With Katie Couric." The broadcast airs at 6:30 p.m. on WKMG-Channel 6. Couric also asked if Clinton is concerned that Oprah Winfrey could boost Sen. Barack Obama by campaigning for him in three key states. "No, at the end of the day," Clinton says. "I'm proud to have my husband support me ... with his knowledge, experience and incredible ability to vouch for me."

COURIC SCORES INTERVIEW WITH HILLARY FOR 'CBS EVENING NEWS'... DEVELOPING...

Get a free bumper sticker "Show your family, friends and neighbors you support my campaign for change by displaying a "Hillary for President" bumper sticker." Or use them to pick up stray cat hair or lint off your clothes. Or send them to friends as a joke. Required, a valid address, and e-mail. It's easy, and it's free for you but not for Hillary.

I've seen up close the two Clintons America knows. He's a big smile, hand locked on your arm and lots of charms. "Hey, come down and speak at my library. I'd like to talk some politics with you." And her? She tends to be, well, hard and brittle. I inherited her West Wing office. Shortly after the 2001 Inauguration, I made a little talk saying I appreciated having the office because it had the only full-length vanity mirror in the West Wing, which gave me a chance to improve my rumpled appearance. The senator from New York confronted me shortly...

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton stepped into the ring Thursday in this city known for prize fights, successfully beating back an onslaught of punches thrown from the left and right as her opponents sought to rattle the front-runner seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

The purpose of this post is to begin providing links, tools, and tactics which we can all use to educate the public, fellow citizens, and neighbors about Hillary Clinton.It is a work in progress- I have provided a starting point, but want others to chime in with more links, stories, and information.It is the product of conversations with a number of other members, from which several salient tactical points emerged:1- keep it as contemporary as possible- the old Whitewater and similar items are stale and dead to the public.2- keep it civil, please- within the board guidelines, or better. We...

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WASHINGTON — The pressure will be on Senator Clinton at the Democratic presidential debate tomorrow as she tries to bounce back from a weak performance last month that has cut into her lead in the polls. Her top rivals, Senator Obama and John Edwards, head into the Las Vegas forum confident that their increased criticism in recent weeks finally has begun to inflict damage on Mrs. Clinton's campaign, which had seemed unstoppable earlier in the fall. Messrs. Obama and Edwards have painted her as a creature of a corrupt corporate culture in Washington who is more concerned about her political...

An Iowa college student pulled back the curtain on Hillary Clinton's stage-managed campaign stops..... Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff said a Clinton staffer produced a binder with about eight questions. "The top one was planned specifically for a college student," she said. "It noted 'college student' in brackets and then the question." Clinton's staffer approached her..... Gallo-Chasanoff said she proposed a question about comparing Clinton's energy plan.... "I don't think that's a good idea," the staffer told her, "because I don't know how familiar she is with their plans." Gallo-Chasanoff says the Clinton camp tried to get her to keep quiet.......a staffer called...

"Democratic Presidential hopeful, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., gestures during an interview with The Associated Press, following a campaign stop at a United Auto Workers regional conference at the Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, Monday, Nov. 12, 2007."

Anybody watching OReily now? OReily says he'll point out and take to task any republicans going to right wing hate sites. Freerepublic was specifically mentioned.

Why Bush boggles the mind Posted: May 22, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern As if President Bush didn't have enough problems in his beleaguered Justice Department, a couple more key officials resigned last week. One of them was a real surprise to me. His name was Lanny Davis. Do you remember Lanny Davis from the Clinton years? He was the ultimate spinner – one of the very public faces of the scandal years, defending his boss come hell or Whitewater. So why was his resignation from the Bush administration a surprise to me? That wasn't the surprise at all. The surprise...

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage originally leaked Plame's identity. Armitage says the leak was inadvertent, and he is not being prosecuted.......Federal prosecutors are trying to show that Libby lied to investigators about conversations he had with reporters regarding Plame. Libby has denied lying and says he has a faulty memory........ Former Cheney Chief of Staff on Trial for Allegedly Lying to a Grand Jury, Not Outing CIA Agent: .Jan. 16, 2007 — Jury selection begins today in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby is charged with...

Imagine this scenario: The country is so deeply divided that the media have color-coded the map of the United States to indicate the partisan chasm -- one color covers the South and most of the border states, the other drenches the North. As the presidential election year nears, one candidate, a shoo-in for his party's nomination, has an obvious choice for running mate. Yet he also senses the uniqueness of the moment. So he makes a risky decision: He asks a leader of the opposition to run for vice president alongside him, forming the first bipartisan presidential ticket in U.S....

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine: Dems Advise Caution Some Democrats are urging caution in reaction to the Mark Foley e-mail scandal. Lanny Davis, former Clinton White House special counsel, who did damage control during the Monica Lewinsky story — says about the Foley affair: "It's all about a private behavior situation, and I think democrats have to be real careful not to try to turn this into a political partisan issue." Former Clinton senior adviser George Stephanopoulos agrees, saying, "Most voters who hear about this are just disgusted and they will be more disgusted if it is...

The Talk Shows Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.; Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and his Democratic challenger, state treasurer Robert Casey. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., and his primary challenger, Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey; actress and animal rights activist Bo Derek. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Rep. Christopher Shays,...

During my childhood in 1930s Boston, anti-Semitism was as common as baked beans. Since then, I've not been surprised at sudden eruptions of the hatred of Jews, whatever the context. During the Connecticut Democratic primary contest between Sen. Joseph Lieberman and contender Ned Lamont, I was not, therefore, shocked by the emergence of centuries-old standard anti-Semitism. As Lanny Davis, special counsel to President Clinton, and a Lieberman supporter, reminded us in the Aug. 8 Wall Street Journal, blogging anti-Semites had Lieberman in their sights back on the Daily Kos Web site on Dec. 7 from a contributor: "as everyone knows,...

There was an amazing editorial column in the Wall Street Journal on August 8th. The author was Lanny J. Davis who is a lifelong liberal and one of the chief apologists for Bill Clinton when the latter was suffering through all of his embarrassing and illegal escapades. Davis reveals that until recently he believed that the left was more tolerant and less hateful than the right. He says his dad instructed him that the scary hatred comes only from the right wing through tirades from the likes of Senator Joe McCarthy. But miracle of miracles, he now believes the left...

I have a request for people here more skilled than I. I read Lanny's piece in the WSJ concerning the remarks made against Joe Lieberman in Daily Kos. This particular statement "as everybody knows, jews ONLY care about the welfare of other jews" made by a Kos poster named TomJones, I have been unable to find in Daily Kos. Did they remove it or is this a fabrication of Davis? Please do not treat me as a troll. I want to use this in arguments and discussions, but if it never happened, I do not want to look foolish. I...