Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Receive Transparency International-USA’s Integrity Award

Notice to the Press
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
March 21, 2012

On March 22, Secretary Clinton will receive Transparency International-USA’s Integrity Award. Transparency International-USA (TI-USA) is an international leader in anti-corruption advocacy in government, business, and development assistance. TI-USA’s Integrity Award recognizes Secretary Clinton’s efforts to promote transparency and integrity around the world. The event will begin at approximately 7:30 p.m.

Secretary Clinton will be honored for her leadership in drawing action and attention to the damaging effects of corruption in developed and developing countries. During her tenure, Secretary Clinton has elevated corruption as a major focus of U.S. foreign policy. She also has promoted the importance of international anti-corruption agreements, including the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention and the U.N. Convention against Corruption, and has worked with the OECD, G8, G20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation to combat corruption and promote transparency and accountability.

The remarks will be open to the press.

Pre-set time for cameras: 6:00 p.m. from the Grand Ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel.

Final access time for journalists and still photographers 7:30 p.m. the Grand Ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel.

Media representatives may attend this event upon presentation of one of the following: (1) A U.S. Government-issued identification card (Department of State, White House, Congress, Department of Defense or Foreign Press Center), (2) a media-issued photo identification card, or (3) a letter from their employer on letterhead verifying their employment as a journalist, accompanied by an official photo identification card (driver’s license, passport).

For further information, please contact Laura Taylor at laura@gaiagroupdc.com or (202) 271 8216, or Office of Press Relations, U.S. Department of State, (202) 647-2492.

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Sons of Italy to Honor U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Tuesday, Mar. 20, 2012 – 2:25 pm

WASHINGTON, March 20, 2012 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the first woman to receive the Sons of Italy Foundation’s (SIF) Lifetime Achievement Award for Public Service, to be presented at the SIF’s 24th annual National Education & Leadership Awards (NELA) Gala on May 23, 2012, in Washington, D.C.

The award was established three years ago to recognize the extraordinary public and humanitarian service to America by people who are not of Italian heritage. Clinton follows previous honorees Vice President Joe Biden (2009), President Bill Clinton (2010), and U.S. Senator Jack Reed (2011).

“We are deeply honored and pleased that Secretary Clinton has agreed to accept this award, which recognizes her long record of outstanding service to her fellow Americans and people of other nations,” says SIF CEO Philip R. Piccigallo

The SIF and its parent organization, the Order Sons of Italy in America (OSIA) created this special award category to underscore OSIA’s efforts to improve human conditions globally, building upon the SIF’s long record of relief efforts in Italy, Europe, South America, Africa, Mexico, the Caribbean and Asia. To date, the SIF and OSIA have donated $119 million to these efforts.

“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tireless advocacy on behalf of women and girls both here and abroad as first lady; U.S. senator; and now, secretary of state, makes her richly deserving of such recognition,” Piccigallo says. Since Secretary Clinton will be traveling during the Gala, she will accept the award via video.  Other honorees at the 2012 NELA Gala will include:

• Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace (ret.)
• Secretary-Treasurer of the Laborers International Union of North America Armand Sabatoni, and
• CEO of Mediterranean Shipping Company Claudio Bozzo

Also to be honored at this year’s gala will be 10 to 12 of the brightest and most talented scholars of Italian descent, chosen from a highly selective national competition, who will accept  substantial awards ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 that will enable them to attend some of America’s top colleges and universities.

The NELA Gala is the hallmark of the SIF’s public affairs and fund-raising programs and highlights the foundation’s commitment to educational excellence, leadership and the betterment of society.

The Sons of Italy Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Order Sons of Italy in America, the oldest and largest organization for men and women of Italian heritage in the United States, founded with the purpose of preserving Italian American culture, encouraging educational excellence among Italian Americans and improving lives in other areas.

SOURCE Sons of Italy Foundation

Read more here: Article

Palin Backs Breitbart’s ‘The Vetting,’ DC Media Freaks Out

The mainstream media in Washington, DC is apoplectic after Gov. Sarah Palin backed Andrew Breitbart’s project, “The Vetting.”

In an exclusive article for Breitbart.com entitled “Breitbart Is Here,” Palin had endorsed Breitbart’s effort to vet Barack Obama, his Republican rivals–and the mainstream media itself:

Breitbart’s most immediate mission was the belated vetting of Barack Obama. This obviously is an issue very near and dear to my heart.

During the ’08 campaign, the same media that reported breathlessly about an old used tanning bed I purchased to get some sun during the dark Alaskan winter, couldn’t be bothered to investigate Barack Obama’s associations, statements or even his voting record as a state senator. Suntans and what I wore on the campaign trail were more important than Obama’s political background. Unbelievable.

Predictably, after Palin’s article was reported by Politico, the left began venting instead of vetting. Ed Kilgore, a Democrat strategist who also writes for the Washington Monthly, penned an angry, snark-filled response:

OMG. Andrew Breitbart is the Right’s very own Alinksky [sic]….A few days after suffering the terrible indignity of Game Change, Queen Esther of the Permafrost is clearly in a mood to share the pain.

The Vetting continues.

Article by Joel B. Pollak @ Breitbart

Hillary’s ‘Toughest Sanctions’ on Iran Won’t Work

Secretary Hillary Clinton took to the air yesterday to boast of the “toughest sanctions” yet imposed by the international community on Iran. Recall, this administration came to office three years ago offering olive branches to the mullahs who rule Iran. President Obama even sent Persian New Year greetings to the same men who held our hostages for 444 days in Tehran in 1979-81. Our American diplomats and Marines were subjected to daily beatings and threats of execution.

These clerics were the ones who invented suicide bombing, starting with the killing of 241 U.S. Marines and Navy corpsmen in Beirut in 1983. If we think they have somehow moderated, how can we explain their latest plot to bomb a Georgetown restaurant to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. With him, possibly, hundreds of Americans could have died.

Secretary Clinton wants to give diplomacy time to work. But three years have already been wasted in merry-go-round diplomacy. These are three years the locusts have eaten. All the while, the mullahs have been building, hiding, advancing their nuclear weapons program.

While some elements of their regime talk about possibly allowing UN inspectors back in, other parts of the same regime say Iran will never give up its nuclear research. Defiantly, they say that research is for peaceful purposes. This, from a regime whose mouthpiece, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, publicly calls Israel “a two-bomb country.” He openly says he can foresee a world without Israel—and without the U.S.

Winston Churchill was surely right that “jaw jaw is better than war war.” Nobody wants a war with Iran. But the Iranian leaders have been at war with us for thirty years. They arm jihadists who have killed American soldiers in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

This administration frittered away its best chance of avoiding war with Iran when it held back from giving support to the pro-democracy demonstrators. These unarmed protesters filled the streets of Tehran after the patently rigged June 2009 elections. Then, we might have seen real regime change in Iran and with it the best hope of a peaceful resolution of the nuclear standoff.

This administration, so closely tied to MoveOn.org, quickly moved on. The blood had hardly dried in the streets of Tehran when the Obama administration was at the UN pushing for another round of sanctions.

Russia and China are not cooperating. Neither is Venezuela. This is the key to the crisis.

authored by: Ken Blackwell and co written by Bob Morrison

http://townhall.com/columnists/kenblackwell/2012/03/10/hillarys_toughest_sanctions_on_iran_wont_work