Showing posts with label bill clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bill clinton. Show all posts

Sunday, September 28, 2014

The Clintons Welcome First Grandchild

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Chelsea Clinton gave birth to her first child this weekend, so President Clinton and Hillary are now proud grandparents! And the baby's name is Charlotte - which happens to be my own daughter's name, and not that common. My girl was always the only Charlotte in her school, so they will enjoy that distinction too. Although this may start a new Age of Charlottes, which can only be good.

Congratulations to the Clintons and the Mezvinskys!






Sunday, January 5, 2014

Democratic Mayor Bill De Blasio Takes Office in New York City

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New York has an historic new mayor sworn in by President Bill Clinton.
















Friday, November 15, 2013

ACA for Idiots ~ Obama Explains it all Again to Bill and the Demo-Rats

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First the Republicans demonized Obamacare as "Death Panels" and "Socialism."

They even tried to shut down the government in order to "repeal it." Didn't work.

It's true there have been problems with the website, but what website in history didn't have glitches? The poutrage from all sides on social media is astonishing since Twitter and Facebook have their own share of problems from hackers and spammers to the KoobFace virus.

But Obamacare has to be held to a higher standard. Why? Because of Obama Derangement Syndrome. This is ridiculous. People on the Left - especially in the media - have whined because the website didn't have Muzak, and whined because the roll-out was a "dismal failure."

The New York Times even compared the bad rollout of the ACA website to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina which killed thousands and left thousands more stranded without food and water. Really, New York Times?

Obama even apologized on TV to Chuck Todd of MSNBC in a cringeworthy interview which never should have happened. There's no reason to apologize to media shills since Obamacare hasn't even taken effect yet, and people are still mostly shopping for plans. I have no doubt these kinks in the system will be worked out by January. Millions have already gotten new coverage under the program, including young adults who can now stay on their parents healthcare plans until age 26. Like my daughter for instance, who stayed on the family coverage while in Law School and who now has to buy her own plan as a practicing attorney. Her financial adviser just told her today her best bet for coverage in the coming year is . . . wait for it . . . Obamacare.

Apparently President Bill Clinton didn't get the memo. You remember Bill, the guy who wasn't able to pass his own healthcare initiative while in office, but has now decided to babble about Obama's failure to launch. This has been another moment of chagrin for most Democrats who want to keep our party together in 2014. The hotter heads among us are already saying they will not vote for Hillary in 2016 if Bill is going to attack Obama. That can't be good.

From The Week
President Obama can thank Bill Clinton for the psycho-drama.
Instead of putting some steel into the spines of wavering Democrats, Clinton this week took the opportunity to rebuke the White House for its broken promise that no one would lose their health insurance under ObamaCare. The comments unleashed a no-holds-barred Democratic freak-out, pushing Obama to announce on Thursday a plan to make good on that vow.
. . . As one of the Democratic Party's most respected figures, his word still carries weight among the party faithful, particularly in red states where Obama is kryptonite. So when Clinton publicly chided the administration, it gave congressional Democrats acres of cover to do the same.

Yesterday it all came to a head as there was a revolt among Blue Dog House Democrats like Mary Landrieu of Louisiana who are trying to assauge angry vociferous voters in their districts whose health plans have been cancelled. This has actually affected a small number of Americans but you would think it was happening to every single person from the way the media is covering the story. The Emoprog media, Clinton and these turncoat-Demo-Rats apparently don't even understand what the whiners are whining about, or how ACA Obamacare works.

Why were the plans cancelled by these companies? Because their plans were craptastic to begin with, with high deductibles and almost no hospital coverage. The insurance companies who did this to customers weren't in compliance with the new law, so therefore had to cancel these ridiculous plans. Shall I add that any of those plans could have been cancelled for ANY reason even without Obamacare. Now that we have a "marketplace" of plans, all those policy owners have to do is go search out a new plan instead of whining to Fox and to their local Congressman.

And Bill Clinton needs a course in "ACA for Idiots."
Here's one good explanation of the whole deal from New Republic.

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But of course President Obama, who is the nicest and most patient President this country has EVER had, at least in my lifetime, explained it all again in terms even an ex-President can understand. And he said if those silly people want an extension on their horrible coverage, they can have it. I'm not as nice as Barack Obama, so I say to them: Good luck with that. See you next year when you smack your head and sign up for Obamacare.

I'll let the President have the last word - Listen, People!!!

“I’m accused of a lot of things, but I don’t think I’m stupid enough to go around saying, ‘This is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity’ a week before the Web site opens if I thought that it wasn’t going to work.”
. . . And you know, buying health insurance is never going to be like buying a song on iTunes. You know, it’s just a much more complicated transaction.”


Thursday, April 25, 2013

Dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas

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"There was a time when I wasn't likely to be found at a library, much less found one."
"You're good friends and I'm proud to have you here in the Promised Land."
~ President George W. Bush at his Presidential Library Dedication in Dallas
















Monday, October 15, 2012

Washington Insiders Say Obama Will Win


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And this article has the best graphics of the year!!! So enjoy!


New York Magazine
Over the past two weeks, we surveyed 74 Beltway insiders—37 Democrats, 37 Republicans—on the election, the state of politics, and what comes next. We wanted honesty, so we offered to keep their answers anonymous (in some cases, they allowed us to quote them).
. . . Participants include: Jack Abramoff, Bob Bennett, Matt Bennett, James Carter IV, Reid Cherlin, Dan Conston, Jon Cowan, Tom Daschle, Fred Davis, Brad Dayspring, Tad Devine, Byron Dorgan, Derek Dorn, Eric Fehrnstrom, Adam Frankel, Tony Fratto, Juleanna Glover, Paul Goodwin, Trey Grayson, Anthony Green, Bruce Haynes, Jim Jordan, Ted Kaufman, Jim Kessler, Chris LaCivita, Rick Lazio, Chris Lehane, Stu Loeser, Matt Mackowiak, Fred Malek, Jim Margolis, Joe Miller, Julian Mulvey, Billy Piper, Ari Rabin-Havt, Scott W. Reed, Jon Reinish, Ed Rendell, Andrew Roth, Mark Salter, Bob Shrum, Erik Smith, Roger Stone, Scott Talbot, Neera Tanden, Joe Trippi, Doug Thornell, John Weaver, Brian Wolff.

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Monday, September 10, 2012

ABC's This Week: Two Georges and Three Pauls

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On ABC's This Week, George Stephanopoulos - and his cohort George Will - juggled three "Pauls" ~ Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, and Paul Krugman. There's also a Cokie and a Cory, but they don't add much substance.

Video of Episode Here

Complete Transcript Here

Paul Ryan was almost impossible to pin down with specifics about what he and Romney would do if elected. Mainly he just repeated GOP talking points and lies about how various programs work.

Here's a good example: On Medicaid. Ryan dances around all the good that Medicaid does for children, seniors, and the disabled, and instead starts bashing Obamacare. He also ignores the basic fact that most governors know good and well that their constituents need Medicaid, and that states don't have the resources to make up the difference if those funds are cut. Ryan's version of "flexibility" for the states is code for "pay for it yourselves."

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Clinton also took aim at the savings you do propose in Medicaid -- $800 billion, the largest specific savings in your plan. That's about a 35 percent reduction over the next decade.

And the president argued that it's going to be devastating for seniors who rely on Medicaid for nursing home care, middle-class families challenged by disabilities, children with autism. How can you squeeze that much money of a program, $800 billion, without cutting benefits or restricting eligibility?

RYAN: Here's the secret on this one. Medicaid spending still goes up under what we're proposing. What we're saying is we want to repeal ObamaCare, because we think it's a terrible law. And so we're taking away the massive increases in ObamaCare that are attributable to Medicaid. About a third of the people that ObamaCare is supposed to serve, they're just pushing people on Medicaid.

Here's the problem, George. Medicaid is not working. More and more doctors are less likely to even take people with Medicaid. It's a system that needs reforming.

So we don't want to put more money and force more people on a program that's failing, that's not working. We want to reform Medicaid. And so what were saying is, don't expand this program as dramatically as ObamaCare does. Keep it like it is, increase its funding and send it to the states so the states can fix this problem. I think government closest to the people, especially in providing health care for the poor, works the best.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But The Urban Institute has estimated that between 14 million and 27 million people will -- fewer people will be covered under that plan. And won't the block grant, block-granting this program, sending it to the states, mean that low-income and disabled people will lose their guaranteed right to coverage?

RYAN: No, not at all, of course not. Look, governors are asking us all the time for more flexibility on Medicaid. There are a lot of different ideas out there on how best to cover the low-income populations of various states. And look, every state has different issues and different problems. So we want to be able to give the states the tools they need, make sure that they spend this money on their Medicaid population, but give them the ability to fix the problems in their unique state --

STEPHANOPOULOS: But doesn't --

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: -- individuals will not have a federal guarantee under a block grant. That's correct, isn't it?

RYAN: Sure. No, with maintenance of that -- I won't get into the details, but with maintenance of effort requirements, which is what we've done in the past, they still have to serve this population. They just get more flexibility on how to serve this population, instead of all these rules and strings from Washington that make it really hard for them to make sure that they can meet the mandate and provide the best possible quality care to low-income populations.

Yep ~ that flexibility thing will solve everything. No details necessary - just vote him into office and he will "fix" the system. Oy Vey.

Then Rand Paul and Paul Krugman bickered over another talking point ~ whether government has "exploded" under Obama, which according to the GOP, it has. Rand Paul fervently believes it, anyway.

PAUL: ... understand is you are arguing that the government sector is struggling. Are you arguing that there are fewer government employees under Obama than they were under Bush?

KRUGMAN: That's a fact.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: No, the size of both -- of government is enormous under President Obama.

KRUGMAN: If government employment had grown as fast under Obama as it did under Bush, we would have a million-and-a-half more people employed right now, directly.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: Are there less people employed or more people employed now by government?

Then they got back to commenting on Paul Ryan - with a classic Paul Krugman smackdown of doofus and Democratic concern-troll Cory Booker:

Booker: . . . This is Paul Ryan who used to be a man of substance, who put up plans, I may disagree with some of them, but with great levels of specificity. Now they have said they're going to cut $5 trillion in taxes, increase spending in the military, and somehow not dig us into a deeper deficit budget...

. . . KRUGMAN: I'm going to disagree, respectfully, he was never a man of substance. This is who he always was. That was always an illusion.

Later, Krugman had a few choice words for the Republican Convention:

KRUGMAN: It's not a matter of individual speeches or strategic positioning. The Republican Party is where it is because that's where the base is. And you watched that whole primary process, Republican candidates had to appeal to their base, which is by and large elderly white people arguing with empty chairs. And they could not -- they could not reach out to the growing demographic--

Old Republican Geezer George Will thinks we should do away with political conventions entirely - I guess because he wanted to go bed early instead of watch them, plus he yearns for the day when Bill Clinton isn't making lengthy speeches (dream on, George). Paul Krugman points out the educational purpose of such a convention, bringing the whole thing back around to Paul Ryan, whose speech truly "defined" him at the RNC in Tampa.

WILL: We need a little data on who watches these conventions and what effect they have. Because, you know, conventions are a government program, and there is an enormous amount of tax dollars that goes into this. And like all government programs, they are immortal and they go on forever. Maybe we should terminate these.

KRUGMAN: I thought the two conventions were enormously informative. A lot of people who normally catch politics in snippets on the news, got to see extended laying out of positions on both sides. And a lot happened. Right? We saw -- we saw the implosion of Paul Ryan, you know, extraordinary dissent and reputation, because people got to see him speaking at length on national TV. We saw Bill Clinton laying out a case in more detail than most people would ever get to see. These were -- I'm not sure that conventions don't decide anything in terms of who gets nominated, but they turn out to be extremely effective educational programs.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Political Battle of the Bands 2012

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When Bill Clinton spoke at the Democratic National Convention this week, he ended his marathon speech with a familiar refrain - "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" by Fleetwood Mac, which the band played for him at his 1993 inaugural ball.

Via Time: A Brief History of Campaign Songs
Fleetwood Mac wasn't the hippest musical choice, though, and at the time, Clinton's aids tried to get their candidate to switch to something cooler. He wouldn't have it, and the song stuck. Don't Stop proved to be such a malleable theme song that Clinton still uses it regulary; he plays it at fundraisers and speeches, he name-checked it at the 2000 Democratic National Convention and . . . in Denver [2008], he walked on stage to it.

I guess you would call that the perfect melding of a candidate and a song, with the blessing of the band behind the music.

But a long-running theme with the right is that during every Presidential Election they try to use a song from a band whose liberal members would never vote for the Republican candidate.

Dee Snider of Twisted Sister threw a cease and desist at Paul Ryan for using "We're Not Gonna Take It."
Via Huff Post:
Ryan spokesman Brandon Buck wrote a pithy email in response: "We're Not Gonna Play It anymore."
Snider says in a statement that he does not support Ryan and denounced use of the song, an anthemic 1984 hit for the glam metal band.
It joins a long list of songs that musicians have asked politicians to stop using. Most recently, the rock band Silversun Pickups asked likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney to stop using the song "Panic Switch" last week. The campaign said the song's use was inadvertent.

Ryan also got lambasted by the frontman of Rage Against The Machine, Tom Morello, just for name-dropping that the band was on his iPod.
From Rolling Stone
Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn't understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn't understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.
. . .Don't mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta "rage" in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he's not raging against is the privileged elite he's groveling in front of for campaign contributions.
(More at Link)

Now R.E.M. is upset that Fox News used the famous "Losing My Religion" over video of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, this week.
A statement on the band's website says:
R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" was used in the Fox News coverage of the Democratic National Convention last night. R.E.M. today, through its music publisher, Warner-Tamerlane Music, demanded that Fox News cease and desist from continuing its unlicensed and unauthorized use of the song.
Michael Stipe said, "We have little or no respect for their puff adder brand of reportage. Our music does not belong there."

Huffington Post received a snarky and unrepentant reply from Fox:
"FOX News Channel’s use of an R.E.M. song during Thursday’s edition of 'Fox & Friends' was in full accordance with its license agreements with all appropriate parties. Nevertheless, we’re always flattered to have this much attention for a song selection and we hope R.E.M. was able to satisfy their publicity fix.”

Oh Fox . . .

Conversely, rocker Tom Petty was tickled to death to have Obama use one of his songs at the DNC, as he told Rolling Stone:
"I've been on the wrong side where I've had to tell some candidates to stop using my music," he told Rolling Stone on the MTV VMAs red carpet.

But Petty was pleasantly surprised on Wednesday night, when his song "I Won't Back Down" played as President Obama walked onstage at the Democratic National Convention, after former President Bill Clinton's speech. "I got chills," said Petty. "They knew it would be okay. I've had a chance to meet the President and talk to him about the music he listens to."

Ironically, Petty stopped George Bush from using the same song during the 2000 election.
Bush spokesperson Ray Sullivan says songs by other artists have been used on the campaign trail "from time to time," depending on "what CDs we brought with us that day."
This haphazard practice has been troubling a number of musicians besides Petty, including Sting and John Mellencamp, who found their songs "Brand New Day" and "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.," respectively, being used without permission. "I don't think that anybody that knows me would think I have the same position as [Bush]," Mellencamp told Rolling Stone in August.
And with artists like Petty making it into a legal matter, Bush's campaign is beginning to rethink its musical policies. "We're now entering into agreements with
BMI and ASCAP to work out arrangements to pay for use of songs on the road," Sullivan says.

Last year, Petty told crazy-eyed Michele Bachmann to stop using the song "American Girl" when she made her entrance on stage.

It's so much better when the artists themselves are willing to step onstage and play for the crowd at a convention. This year, the Democratic Convention featured many artists, including James Taylor, The Foo Fighters, and Mary J. Blige. Enjoy the videos!!!

The Foo Fighters


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James Taylor


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Mary J. Blige






Thursday, September 6, 2012

DNC Schedule for Thursday, September 6

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courtesy of CNN


Thursday, September 6
Starting at 4:30 p.m.

Sen. Kay Hagan (North Carolina)
Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton (North Caolina)
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (North Caolina)
Rep. David Price (North Caolina)
Rep. Mel L. Watt (North Caolina)
James Rogers, CEO Duke Energy
Call to Order: Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa
Carol Berman
Rep. Donna F. Edwards (Maryland)
Rep. Barney Frank (Massachusetts)
Harvey Gantt, former Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina

6 p.m.

Rep. John Lewis (Georgia)
Jason Crow
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Florida)
Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa (Los Angeles, California)
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin)
Mayor Michael Nutter (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Zach Wahls

7 p.m.

Jim Messina (Campaign Manager, Obama for America)
Kenyetta Jones, Ryan Case, Ed Meagher, Martha Figueroa, Lucas Beenken, Rob Hach
Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa
Beau Biden
Rep. James E. Clyburn (South Carolina)
Scarlett Johansson and Kerry Washington

8 p.m.

Caroline Kennedy
Rep. Xavier Becerra (California)
Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm (Michigan)
Eva Longoria
Gov. Brian Schweitzer (Montana)
Former Gov. Charlie Crist, Jr. (Florida)
Sen. John Kerry (Massachusetts)

9 p.m.

Admiral John B. Nathman, U.S. Navy, Retired
Angie Flores
Dr. Jill Biden
Vice President Joe Biden

10 p.m.

Sen. Dick Durbin (Illinois)
President Barack Obama

Bill Clinton Rocks the House


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Gifs via Atlantic

He was fabulous! The crowd was riveted on his every word, and good thing - his speech was much longer than expected because he ad-libbed part of it.

Some quotes:

"I want to nominate a man who's cool on the outside but who burns for America on the inside."

"Though I often disagree with Republicans, I actually never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate our president and a lot of other Democrats."

“When Congressman Ryan looked into that TV camera and attacked President Obama’s Medicare savings as quote ‘biggest coldest power play,’ I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because that 716 billion dollars is exactly, to the dollar, the same amount of Medicare savings that he has in his own budget. It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.”

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"President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. Listen to me now. No president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years."

The auto industry restructuring worked. It saved more than a million jobs, not just at GM, Chrysler and their dealerships, but in auto parts manufacturing all over the country. That’s why even auto-makers that weren’t part of the deal supported it. They needed to save the suppliers too. Like I said, we’re all in this together.
Now there are 250,000 more people working in the auto industry than the day the companies were restructured. Governor Romney opposed the plan to save GM and Chrysler. So here’s another jobs score: Obama 250,000, Romney, zero.”





Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

DNC Schedule for Wednesday, September 5

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courtesy of CNN

Wednesday, September 5

Starting at 5 p.m.
•Call to order: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
•Rep. Luis Gutierrez (Illinois)
•Rep. Diana DeGette (Colorado)
•John Perez, California State Assembly speaker
•Mayor Thomas Menino (Boston, Massachusetts)
•Rep. Judy Chu (California)
•Steve Westly, former California state controller
•Rep. John Larson (Connecticut)
•Ken Myers, deputy sheriff (Carroll County, Iowa)

6 p.m.
•Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president
•Rep. Steve Israel (New York)
•Sen. Patty Murray (Washington)
•Rep. Pedro Pierluisi (Puerto Rico)
•Tom Steyer, Advanced Energy Economy co-founder
•Sen. Charles Schumer (New York)
•Rep. Karen Bass (California)
•Rep. Al Green (Texas)
•Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (Missouri)
•Gov. Dannel Malloy (Connecticut)

7 p.m.
•Denise Juneau, Montana Office of Public Instruction superintendent
•Rep. Nancy Pelosi (California)
•Tom Vilsack
•Sen. Barbara Mikulski (Maryland)
•Arne Duncan
•Johanny Adames
•Jim Hunt, former North Carolina governor
•Harvey Gantt, former mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina

8 p.m.
•Elizabeth Ann "Libby" Bruce
•Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood Federation of America president
•Rep. Steny Hoyer (Maryland)
•Rep. Barney Frank (Massachusetts)
•Ed Meagher
•Gen. Eric Shinseki
•Mayor Michael Nutter (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
•Gov. John Hickenlooper (Colorado)
•Simone Campbell, NETWORK executive director
•Gov. Jack Markell (Delaware)

9 p.m.
•Karen Mills
•Bull Butcher
•Kamala Harris, California attorney general
•Benita Veliz
•Cristina Saralegui
•Sandra Fluke
•Austin Ligon, Co-founder and retired CEO of CarMax
•Karen Eusanio
•Bob King, UAW president
•Randy Johnson, Cindy Hewitt and David Foster
•Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Maryland)

10 p.m.
•Jim Senegal, Costco founder and former CEO
•Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senate candidate (Massachusetts)
•Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
•President Bill Clinton


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