Bill and Vlad meeting in Davos!

Finally, there’s some HOPE in the World!- The Clintons go about building bridges with countries formerly insulted and snubbed by the Bush Administration!

It’s about damn time this country started making progress rather than the disfunctionality of a country caught in a turn of the century time warp.

Former president, Bill Clinton attending the World Economic Forum this week embraced the occasion for private talks with former president, Vladimir Putin. Apparently, President Clinton’s status works hand in glove in an atmosphere of friendship where he “will continue to be an active figure on the international stage.”

President Clinton’s arrival in Davos was well received by foreign leaders resulting in an intense late night discussion with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The two met at a Sheraton Hotel where Putin reciprocated holding a private party after an early evening reception at a local museum hosted by President Clinton.

After the two men met privately behind closed doors for 90 minutes, walking out together, they greeted party goers and stood for remembrances of their meeting. Clinton quipped at Putin’s remarks implying his supporting free markets. Joking, “I hope it works for him.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet with Secretary of State Clinton prior to the April G-20 Summit, when Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will have their own face-to-face.

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Hillary achieves success with ease!

Hillary breaks through the gridlock we’ve faced with Foreign Countries for 8 years with style, substance, charm and above all, a friendly invitation to all countries to resolve our differences and start building a united coalition for the benefit of mankind.

Just today, Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton met at the State Department with fourteen prominent Afghan women judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. These jurists were in Washington to participate in a training program arranged by the Department’s Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan. Secretary Clinton told them: “Your American friends greatly admire your bravery and courage. It is your work in the tough environment of Afghanistan for women lawyers that will bring real reform and the rule of law to the Afghan people. As President Obama made clear yesterday in his first foreign policy announcement, we are committed to supporting your efforts to bring security and stability to your country.”

Hillary has done more in her first week on the job than Condi Rice did in eight years.

“Special envoys have been named for South Asia, the Middle East, and climate change, and George Mitchell, the Middle East envoy, is already on a listening tour in the region. She’s put in calls to more than three dozen leaders as part of an effort to reassure the world that the U.S. is committed to repairing damaged relations.

She’s made impressive development announcements, with an initial State Department commitment of $125 million this year to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and a pledge on behalf of the administration to work with other countries to halve global hunger and poverty by 2015.

CHEERS AND LONG LIVE “HILLARY” !

Clinton names Climate Change envoy…

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday appointed a special envoy for climate change, vowing that the Obama administration would restore America’s credentials and leadership in shaping environmental policy.

Pledging that the United States would play a primary role in international efforts to stem global warming, Clinton named Todd Stern, a former White House assistant who was the chief U.S. negotiator at the Kyoto Protocol talks in her husband’s administration, to the post.

“American leadership is essential to meeting the challenges of the 21st century, and chief among those is the complex, urgent and global threat of climate change,” she said at a State Department ceremony held shortly after President Barack Obama announced new policies to allow states greater latitude in limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Sterns‘ appointment, she said, sends “an unequivocal message that the United States will be energetic, focused, strategic and serious about addressing global climate change and the corollary issue of clean energy.”

“The urgency of the global climate crisis must not be underestimated,” Clinton said. “Nor should the science behind it or the facts on the ground be ignored or dismissed. The time for realism and action is now.”

The Bush administration had come under fire for failing to act on climate change, walking away from the Kyoto Protocol on grounds it favored large developing nations like China and India, and refusing to allow states to bolster some environmental regulations.

“The time for denial, delay and dispute is over,” Stern said in accepting the job. “The time for the United States to take up its rightful place at the negotiating table is here.”

Stern will serve as the chief U.S. negotiator at United Nations talks on climate change including an upcoming session in Copenhagen as well as with individual nations and groups.

Prior to his appointment, Stern was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a partner in the WilmerHale law firm. He served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001, first at the White House, handling the Kyoto Protocol and follow-up talks in Buenos Aires and coordinating the president’s Initiative on Global Climate Change.

He later worked at Treasury, where he was a senior adviser to the secretary, and after his Clinton administration stint, Stern taught at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Link

Will Bower interviewed by Newsweek…

Focused and determined; Will rakes Obama flip-flops, Biden and Obamamaniacs and praises Hillary!

h/t Darragh: Newsweek article

PUMApac and P.U.M.A.08, Darragh and Will together were the heart and soul of the PUMA movement . As the original founders of each entity, together, both had a strong sense of what needed to be done to get Hillary elected. I loved hearing Will on Blog Talk Radio. His insight and focus was an invaluable rudder to maintaining the course of the good ship PUMA and together they presented a strong united front.. I’m posting the body of his interview and link to it here: Newsweek

Holding Out in Hillaryland

Will Bower, 36, walked around the Mall with millions of other Americans this morning. But unlike nearly everyone else in the crowd, Bower wasn’t cheering. He wore a Hillary Clinton T shirt (adorned with a HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT sticker) to show his support for the woman he feels the Democratic Party and a sexist media stole the election from. Bower recently left his job as an intellectual-property researcher at Thomson Reuters in order to work full time for the pro-Clinton group he cofounded, PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) ‘08. Bower, who is now living off of savings to work full time on what he calls his “labor of love,” has focused his efforts on reforming the primary system, which he says is undemocratic. NEWSWEEK’s Suzanne Smalley spoke with Bower by phone today.

NEWSWEEK: Is PUMA still active?

Bower: Yes. People feel like we don’t have a clear objective. The problem is we have many clear objectives. During the 2008 primaries, so many things went wrong and we were inspired by so many of them–primary reform, misogyny in media, media reform … There are many different PUMAs [dedicated to different issues].

What do you mean by many different PUMAs?

There are a lot of different PUMA Web sites and PUMA actions. There is still plenty of e-mailing and Web activity. We all have different Web sites and leaders. We all get along and agree on most things. My biggest thing is the need for primary reform…That’s probably not going to be a hot topic for a few years, but I’m working on it for down the road. I’m working on lobbying the Republican National Committee to work on primary reform there … I want them to learn from the mistakes the Democrats made in 2008. The primacy of Iowa and New Hampshire–why are we held hostage by these two small states? It’s insanity.

Are they not representative states?

No, they’re really not. Everyone thinks Iowa has this really engaged citizenry and they know what they’re doing. But fewer than 10 percent of Iowa voters participate … Since 1972 the caucuses have failed Democrats at every turn. [Some people will say] Obama won Iowa and went on to win. Well, we’ll see in four years whether Iowa has really served us. It’s basically about who has the best ground game.

Do you plan on working for PUMA indefinitely?

I intend on being critical of Barack Obama for the next four years. I do recognize him as president. I think he’s the rightful president, but I don’t think he’s the rightful leader of the Democratic Party. That sounds ironic, but I believe that Hillary Clinton … was the winner and represented the will of the people. She is my political leader … I wanted her to stay in the Senate, be the lion of the Senate, the next Ted Kennedy. I wanted her to be her own boss … and represent the 18 million who voted for her. Now that she’s in the executive branch I’m looking at her as our shadow president … A lot of us are taking comfort in the fact that she’ll be our shadow president and someone to look out for our interests abroad.

Did you go to the inauguration?

I wasn’t going to go out to the festivities, but I went out in my Hillary gear [a T shirt depicting Clinton as Rosie the Riveter] … There were two thumbs ups, a couple of scoffs, and a lot of stares.

Why did you go?

I was going to lock myself in and not watch TV and I got a few calls from friends saying, “Aren’t you going to participate?” … And then I said I might as well go outside and watch and then I thought I might as well be supportive of Hillary while I do it.

How does it make you feel seeing all of the exuberance over Obama and his inauguration?

I feel that this is supposed to be Hillary’s day, to be honest. I feel he’s unqualified … A lot of what scares me is Obama mania and all. I feel like I’m living in “American Idol,” a four-year episode of “American Idol” … It feels like mass hysteria–the pictures, the jargon … If this were all going on for Hillary I’d like to think I’d take a step back and say, “This is crazy.” It is a little unsettling, the fanaticism.

What is your reaction to what Jill Biden said on the Oprah Winfrey show yesterday [that her husband, Vice President Joe Biden, was given his choice of jobs–secretary of state or vice president]?

It seems like it’s a never-ending stream of minor insults. Every step of the way the Obama administration finds a way to insult Hillary. They’re finding a way to take another jab at Hillary–that she got sloppy seconds … The fact that Dr. Biden was so casual about something like that means a lot.

When you say it means a lot what do you mean?

I don’t think these are naive people. She’s a politician’s wife … It’s hard to believe someone would be that careless on Oprah. [woo-hoo, great insight Will. You bet that was deliberate not a slip-up!]

Tell me more about your focus on primary reform.

It took one state to determine who our candidate would be [in 2004]. I’m from Ohio and knew John Kerry would not win Ohio so I felt trapped by what Iowa had done to us … When I saw what happened in 2004 I wrote a proposal in December 2007 and that was published. Then Huffington Post picked it up. I want a truly mathematical, geometrical system … to order primaries based on margins of victory in the general election before … to focus on the Ohios, Pennsylvanias and Wisconsins and Floridas–the states right in the middle, the purple states. Parties go after those states anyway; we might as well tailor our primaries that way, to appeal to voters in those states instead of getting candidates who appeal to extremes, John Kerry on one side and George Bush on the other.

Were you one of the PUMAs supporting McCain?

I was … for a few reasons. I wanted McCain to win so I could go back to being a Democrat, so the behavior in the primaries would not be rewarded. I went on to genuinely like McCain. It gave me a chance to get outside of the Democrat bubble I’ve been living in. I’ve voted for 18 years and never voted for anything but Democrats. It started as a protest vote and I ended up liking and admiring John McCain. Now I call myself an independent Democrat kind of like Joe Lieberman.

Given all the problems facing us, are you rooting for Obama to succeed?

Yes. I don’t want him to fail; that would be bad for the country. I plan on being critical of him though. He’s already dropped the ball. He campaigned on the fact that he would lift the Bush ban [on stem cells and] now is saying, “Leave it to Congress” … The pledges [he made] were political in nature. There was very little conviction behind them and it surprises me how few Democrats see that. I’m going to do my best to get Democrats and liberals to hold him accountable. [and Pumas, I hope!]

First PUMA cartoon

Caroline, a Kennedy enigma.

What in the world would possess a woman of Caroline’s stature to make such a fool of herself? Is she standing on the precipice of a nervous breakdown?

Once the darling of Americans nationwide, it seems for reasons unknown (speculation doesn’t count) Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is having her druthers in which direction to turn. Had Jackie been alive, she would have told Caroline “STAY AWAY” from the sewer of Politics. That was Jackie’s mandate for John Jr. She built an insular bubble around her children with what else….MONEY! Is that a sin… No, I don’t think so. Is it a smart thing to do? You bet it is.

I remember reading Jackie’s biography where she was told by her attorney and confidante handing her financial affairs after she asked him, “How am I doing financially?”
He turned to her and said, “Jackie, you have ONE more shopping trip left, then you are BROKE!”

I can just see Jackie’s jaw dropping at the horror of it all thinking, how will I protect my children from the onslaught of access by the sharks and jackals just waiting to get at my children? She knew it was a sheer impossibility. The Kennedy Klan were not forthcoming with gobs of money keeping Jackie in the style she was accustomed-to. After all, Joe Kennedy Sr was still master at the helm. He never quite got over Jack’s death and was in a terrible state of depression unable to think about anything else except what might have been-

I doubt Caroline has ever given it a second thought how smart her mother was about the dirty game of Politics. Or how Jackie outwitted the political sewage at every turn because she cared so deeply for her children.

I’ve said this before in anther post. Caroline ought to read a few biographies written about her mother. Jackie wasn’t just a women who appreciated the nice things money could buy, the museum benefit socializing crowd, the poetry, editing books, updating the White House decor. Jackie was a woman of the World. She didn’t have it easy, coming from a broken home torn between her mother and father.

Learn from your mother Caroline, not from the political bent of man so out of step with morality he’s gone over the cliff. This is just the first time, you got to experience Uncle Teddy’s idea of a joy ride!

Caroline OUT! WOO-HOO!

Puma volunteers and concerned New Yorkers…. CONGRATULATIONS! You WERE MARVELOUS!

You NEVER GAVE UP! tpt/NY and madam… you girls were GREAT!

From Out of Nowhere, Caroline withdraws her name from consideration for Senate

Earlier posts from around the web:

01/21/2009

.Just Breaking; and seems to be complete surprise; Caroline withdraws her name from consideration for Senate bid, citing “personal reasons.

NY POST

Caro line Kennedy has told Gov. David Paterson that she is withdrawing her name from consideration to replace outgoing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the U.S. Senate, The Post has learned.

Kennedy cited “persoal reasons,” according to sources.

MORE: Caroline The ‘Certain’ Pick For Dave: Rivals

Her stunning move comes as sources revealed that Paterson had intended to appoint her to the now-vacant seat today.

The 51-year-old Camelot daughter’s decision removes the highest-profile name in the ring to step into Clinton’s seat, as she departs after getting confirmed as President Obama’s Secretary of State today.

The surprise decision leaves a crowded field of about 15 people, mostly elected officials, vying to replace Clinton – including Long Island Rep. Steve Israel, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, upstate Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

For the first time on Tuesday, shortly after Obama was inaugurated, Paterson acknowledged publicly that he is considering state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for the slot.

Senate confirms Hillary by overwhelming majority as secretary of state

Immediately after the vote, Clinton was to be sworn in during a private ceremony at the Capitol.

The Senate voted 94-2. The dissenting Republican Senators Bitter “Dave” Vitter of Louisiana and Jim “DeMented” DeMint from So. Carolina opposing.

Senator McCain came to the rescue and called off the deliberate attempt of those irksome partisan Republican dogs threatening to stall Hillary’s confirmation. Thank you, John McCain!

“The administration also planned to name former Senate Democratic leader George J. Mitchell as Clinton’s special envoy for the Middle East. Dennis Ross, a longtime U.S. negotiator, was also expected to advise Clinton on Mideast policy, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the move. “

So, what is happening here? George Mitchell? Was he a last minute appointment. Who did he replace? Very interesting- the plot thickens.

For the most important pressing question of the day.

WHERE ARE PICTURES OF HILLARY IN HER INAUGURAL BALL GOWN?

It seems there has been a total BLACKOUT of pictures of Hillary and Bill at the Inaugural Ball!

Salute to Greatness…for Hillary at King Center..

Hillary Clinton Honored In Atlanta By King Center

Sunday, January 18, 2009

ATLANTA — Mere days before Barack Obama is set to make history as the nation’s first black president, the woman who battled him for the Democratic nomination was honored by a leading civil rights organization. Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. senator from New York and secretary of state designee, received the “Salute to Greatness” award at a fundraiser Saturday night for the King Center in Atlanta.

The event came just before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday on Monday, marking what would have been the slain civil right’s leader’s 80th birthday.Clinton echoed King’s theme of service and called on Americans to rally behind Obama, the man who defeated her for the Democratic nomination for the White House. “This is an all hands on deck moment for America,” Clinton said.

She praised Obama as “a young man of such enormous promise” and said his election brought King’s dream within reach. “The election of Barack Obama is a big step closer to the realization of that dream but that doesn’t let us off the hook does it?”

Clinton said.She said the nation still faces challenges in providing health care and economic opportunity to all. And she recalled being transfixed when at age 13 she heard King speak on a chilly January evening in Chicago. Clinton was introduced Saturday night by former Atlanta mayor and United Nations ambassador Andrew Young.

Link

Why Caroline?

Does anyone have any idea why we need Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg as an inexperienced Senator to represent New Yorkers? Suggestions requested!

It seems to me Caroline benefits from the percs of being a Senator more than New Yorkers benefit from her taking up a seat she is unqualified to act upon.

Isn’t what she is doing in direct contradiction to what her father said at his Inauguration Speech?

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask, what YOU can do for your country!”

Caroline has never done a ding, dang thing, except telemarket for donations before she hired someone to do that for her.   And is it really in the best interest of the People of New York for a Senator and her entire family to have such close ties to a president that they may have to say “NO” to when legislative issues come about that are NOT in the best interests of the People?

How do we know she has the capability to “Just Say No, Obama?”   I believe that is a salient point that just doesn’t compute and New Yorkers need to respond in kind with their fears especially to the Governor, who  under pressure from the TOP,   is scheduled to appoint her!

THUMBS DOWN for Caroline’s appointment to NY senate Seat..

Heres hoping Governor Paterson isn’t foolish enough to risk the anger and revenge of New Yorkers IF he appoints Caroline to Hillary’s seat!

It’s not like Caroline, if she intends to involve herself in politics, would snub an offer of an Ambassadorship to England, would she? There would be a certain historical symmetry to Kennedy becoming Ambassador to the Court of St James’s (the official title of the US ambassador to the UK). Her grandfather Joe was ambassador from 1938 to 1940, though he hardly covered himself with glory.

A successful stint in London by Caroline – and she seems admirably well-equipped for the job – would help remove the tarnish from that part of the Kennedy legacy. (Some insist Joe Kennedy was a Nazi sympathizer. I am not supporting the claim. Just stating it exists.) Plus Caroline is living with the fact, it’s not just herspotty voting record. I have read that she has been very parsimonious in giving financial backing or any kind of public support to fellow NY democrats running for office over the years.

For one who has shunned the public eye and shunned politics, who has no experience of actually running for office in any capacity, and who has done nothing for the State of New York (this is a Statewide office, not a New York City position) to presume that the job should be handed to her on a platter because she was born a Kennedy is not only ludicrous but insulting to those NY politicians who have labored for years for the party and the State.

Let her go to London. At least she can do no harm. I am sure that she is qualified to host dinners and order flower arrangements and preside over affairs of state and lost X-Pats Passports without much trouble. Caroline can make a run at the NY Seat next year, that is if she’s really interested in representing the state’s electorate.

I have to add, don’t you just love the fact that she has now dropped her married name? I guess Schlossburg doesn’t quite have the same cachet. If London isn’t quite good enough for Caroline, she should consult Joe (the former plumber) the War correspondent. He seems to have found the formula for winning over people simply because he can speak Truth to Power and really mean it.

Marist College released a poll showing 40 percent of voters back Cuomo to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton. Kennedy was favored by 25 percent; Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, 6 percent, and Reps. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) and Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan), each 5 percent.

Cuomo’s support has surged since a Marist poll last month showing Kennedy and him tied. In the new poll, 62 percent said Cuomo would do an excellent or good job as senator, while only 41 percent said the same of Kennedy.
Poll Link