Popular President Clinton On The Economy, Mid-Term Election, Wedding

America's most popular ex-President talks about how to get the economy jumpstarted and the serious erosion of the middle class if the election is turned over to the Republicans.

From Denny:  Former President Bill Clinton keeps rising in popularity as President Obama descends that ladder. America is restless. Since Obama was elected the middle class has grown increasingly disappointed we are left out in the cold - again - by the Democratic Party that used to support the middle class against Big Business eroding our wealth, our stability, our hopes for the future.  The people ARE the economy and when the people have lost confidence the economy slides down into despair.

Funny Video: Jon Stewart Says Republicans Want Clinton Blamed, Not Bush

*** Comic Jon Stewart documents the history of blaming previous administrations. Read that as the Republicans are whining their own political strategy is whipping them into weeping jello.




With Bush as President no one had to resort to Photoshop; it came naturally!


From Denny: We all know how intelligent comic Jon Stewart likes to employ actual news clips to bolster his comedy argument of how ridiculous politicians can be. He also enjoys lampooning Fox News folks for their outrageous lying statements.

Stewart's heart was greatly warmed when he found out that the show "Fox & Friends" watches Stewart's "The Daily Show." What a compliment they listen to him, Stewart thought. Stewart documents his own interview with David Axelrod, senior advisor to President Obama, that Fox complained about vehemently. Of course, does Fox News ever do anything less than high intensity venomous volume? Fox took issue with Axelrod whining that he was blaming poor little boy Bush for the lack of an oil spill solution out in the Gulf. Where do they get these bizarre thoughts? Will someone put those folks on some "reasonable thoughts" meds?

Now Stewart, though impressed Fox watches his show, went hard charging to point out that blaming a previous administration is truly nothing new under the political sun. He suggests there may be an informal statute of limitations as to how long into each presidency this blaming process can be utilized to maximum political potential.

The Big However is that the Bush administration continued to lay blame at the feet of predecessor President Clinton for the full eight years Bush was in office. To their hypocritical credit, today's outraged Republicans are incensed that President Obama and the Democrats would dare to continue to lay blame on Bush for this sorry economy and high unemployment only 18 months into a new term. It's so anti-American they say.

The GOP, Sen. McCain and Fox News snuggled up to create an acronym of B.I.O.B. - Blame it on Bush. That got Stewart's creative juices flowing and he fired back with his own acronym: "H.R.W.A.T.P.T.R.T.C.I.T.G -- He Really Was A Terrible President That Ran The Country Into The Ground." (And who could forget was CEO of eight companies he also ran into the ground. I see a pattern forming...)

Stewart plays a news clip from Fox, aired just two weeks ago, where they continue to blame Clinton policies for the oil spills, making that almost ten years of blaming Clinton. Stewart wonders out loud, "Do you guys at Fox realize that this sh-t is being broadcast?"

The whining Republicans want laying any righteous blame on Bush to now be off-limits. However, they believe that President Clinton is still fair game. Oh, "the tangled web we weave." :)

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Prez Clinton Versus Violent Wingnuts and Blowhard Limbaugh

From Denny: With the 15th year anniversary of McVeigh's heinous crime of domestic terrorism, killing 19 children along with another another 149 adults, President Clinton is speaking out. He gave a number of interviews and the video clips here are from ABC and CNN.

Former President Clinton acknowledges he made his mistakes in office like every new President - aside from his personal life mess. By his own estimation his biggest mistake was not to institute stronger financial regulation of Wall Street. All these years later he recognizes the lack of wisdom on that decision.

However, Clinton did not back up or back down from his stance on the dangers of overheated political rhetoric and its effect upon people who are easily influenced to do violent acts. He counters blowhard conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh's mangled accusation that it is Clinton who "set the stage for violence" with a recent speech on the subject "doesn't make any sense." As usual, it's Limbaugh who doesn't make any sense, running his usual mouth version of the shell game, always moving the truth around so much that people get so confused they can't find it. Read that statement as Limbaugh lies: all over the place and constantly.

Clinton reflected upon the recent health care reform bill passing, saying it made him "feel like Teddy Roosevelt to Obama's FDR." Clinton being Clinton, always thinking about the issues and ever ready to offer his thoughts, he considered the issues facing the current President: Supreme Court nomination to replace retiring 89 year old Justice Stevens, the Middle East peace process and the ever worrisome midterm elections because of a restless America watching their comfortable lifestyles plummet from the rocky economy.

Clinton's' speech about the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing was heavily criticized by Limbaugh. It's no wonder Limbaugh attacked Clinton's admonitions because it is Limbaugh who is behaving anti-American. He is working feverishly to turn American against American. Just how patriotic is that?

What did Clinton advise in that speech that set off the Republican War of Words machine? Clinton warned that "the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike." So, the inciting, violent and unhinged started howling at the top of their lungs, screaming it wasn't fair to speak against them.

Clinton clarified his statements yet again to the reading and politically hearing challenged, "The only point I tried to make was that we ought to have a lot of political dissent -- a lot of political argument. Nobody is right all the time. But we also have to take responsibility for the possible consequences of what we say."

He is worried about the constantly increasing death threats against too many member of Congress and President Obama. Clinton is concerned "about more careless language ... some of which we've seen against the Republican governor in New Jersey, Gov. Christie." Talk about depraved and alarming, there is a teacher in New Jersey, writing in a memo, who thought it was funny to joke about Gov. Christie dying. These are the kind of no account jerks you want teaching your kids in public or private schools? It's no wonder we have such a toxic political atmosphere in America.

Clinton believes "we all have to be careful. We ought to remember that after Oklahoma City we learned something about the difference in disagreement and demonization."

Another revelation from Clinton about the financial sector is how badly he was advised by Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Clinton laments he ever listened to them. They actually told him to not regulate derivatives, basically a fast and loose gambler's market of supposedly complex financial instruments. Read that as Wall Street found an easy way to steal and do it legally, without accountability, regulation restraints or retribution.

"On derivatives, yeah, I think they were wrong and I think I was wrong to take [their advice]," Clinton said, "because the argument on derivatives was that these things are expensive and sophisticated and only a handful of investors will buy them, and they don't need any extra protection and any extra transparency. The money they're putting up guarantees them transparency.

"The flaw in that argument," Clinton added, "was that first of all sometimes people with a lot of money make stupid decisions and make it without transparency."

Clinton also acknowledges his thinking was wrong about how the economy would be affected if the derivative market collapsed.

"The most important flaw," he said, "was even if less than 1 percent of the total investment community is involved in derivative exchanges, so much money was involved that if they went bad, they could affect 100 percent of the investments, and indeed 100 percent of the citizens in countries, not investors. And I was wrong about that."

In retrospect, Clinton would have liked to at least try to regulate derivatives during his tenure. As to his success at taming the financial sector in this area, he doubts it would ever have become law since the Republicans had a stranglehold on Congress.

"Now, I think if I had tried to regulate them, because the Republicans were the majority in the Congress, they would have stopped it," he said. "But I wish I should have been caught trying. I mean, that was a mistake I made."













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Breaking News: Bill Clinton Retrieves 2 U.S. Jailed Journalists From North Korea

Just 15 minutes ago updated - Bill Clinton arrives on U.S. soil with jailed journalists



President Bill Clinton in official photo with North Korea's ailing leader

Over at Dennys Global Politics today and 3 Videos included -

Breaking News: Bill Clinton Retrieves 2 U.S. Jailed Journalists From North Korea

Cheeky Quote Day! 24 June 2009

The new President Obama and First Lady Image via Wikipedia

From Denny: Considering how much political heat President Obama is taking from the Republicans, one after another taking potshots and getting shouted down from the public, they have to go hide from view for a while. It’s as if there is this batting line-up like during baseball season. This political season with the first black President ever in the Oval Office the Republican line-up is the following: Cheney, Gingrich, Bush, Limbaugh, and Graham. Every one of these guys wants to be President so badly they can taste it; they do not want to give up the power they used to possess.

During the presidential campaign the Republican smear machine was quite busy making up more lies than the National Inquirer: his daddy wasn't his real daddy, he wasn't black enough or white enough, he had the name of a terrorist, he was a practicing Muslim, that he wasn't as experienced as McCain on the economy (McCain publicly admitted he didn't know or care anything about the economy during his entire time in Washington) and much more.

Humorous political quotes from the presidential campaign trail often take on an eerie quality once one of the combatants gets elected. It’s no different with President Obama’s quotes when he was battling McCain. It is McCain who is still battling Obama trying to wrestle power away from him with some of the most ridiculous and reckless accusations. Let’s take a trip down memory lane of the 2008 campaign trail to see how Obama responded to the world of the Republican ridiculous. McCain didn’t say anything substantive then just like now. It appears that Obama still has his sense of humor...

President Obama Quotes from the 2008 Campaign Trail

"Now, because he knows that his economic theories don't work, he's been spending these last few days calling me every name in the book. Lately he's called me a socialist for wanting to roll-back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class. I don't know what's next. By the end of the week he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich." – responding to John McCain's attacks, Raleigh, North Carolina, Oct. 29, 2008

On his image: "Who is Barack Obama? Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father Jor-El to save the Planet Earth. Many of you know that I got my name, Barack, from my father. What you may not know is Barack is actually Swahili for 'That One.' And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn't think I'd ever run for president. If I had to name my greatest strength, I guess it would be my humility. Greatest weakness, it's possible that I'm a little too awesome." - @ the Al Smith Dinner

"Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he's president that he'll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys network in Washington.' Now I'm not making this up. This is somebody who's been in Congress for twenty-six years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he's the one who's gonna' to take on the old boys network. The old boys network? In the McCain campaign that's called a staff meeting. Come, on!"

"Sen. McCain bragged about how as chairman of the Commerce Committee in the Senate, he had oversight of every part of the economy. Well, all I can say to Sen. McCain is, 'Nice job. Nice job.' Where is he getting these lines? The lobbyists running his campaign? ... I'm not making this up, you can't make this up. It's like a 'Saturday Night Live' routine."

"I mean, you know, as somebody who used to be on the cover of Time and Newsweek, you know. Those were the days." - musing with David Letterman about the Sarah Palin phenomenon.

"I've been called worse on the basketball court." - on attacks against him at the Republican Convention.

"That's what he talked about yesterday, 'I want to drill here. I want to drill now.' I don't know where he was standing. I think he was in a building somewhere." - on John McCain's energy plan.

"Now that's my phone buzzing there. I don't want you to think I'm getting fresh or anything." - posing for a picture with supporters in Indiana, when he apparently felt his phone start to vibrate in his pocket, against which one woman was closely pressed.

"They say I need to be seasoned; they say I need to be stewed. They say, 'We need to boil all the hope out of him -- like us -- and then he'll be ready.'" To watch the video, go here.

"But the truth is when you really get to know Rahm, he does have a softer side, Amy will attest to this; very few people know, I think, know prior to this evening that he studied Ballet for a few years. In fact, he was the first to adopt Machiavelli's the prince for dance. It was an intriguing piece, as you can imagine, there were a lot of kicks below the waist." -roasting his future chief of staff Rahm Emaneul in 2005. To watch the video, go here.

"Look, when I was a kid, I inhaled frequently. That was the point." To watch the video clip, go here.

"It is true, I worry about the hype. The only person more over-hyped than me is you." – to Jon Stewart.

"I don't want to be invited to the family hunting party." - on revelations that he and Dick Cheney are eighth cousins.

"Hillary is not the first politician in Washington to declare 'Mission Accomplished' a little too soon."

"I would have to...investigate more of Bill's dancing abilities, you know, and some of this other stuff before I accurately judge whether he was in fact a brother." - on whether Bill Clinton was "our first black president."

The following quotes are from Barack Obama's speech at the 2005 Gridiron dinner:

"It's like I was shot out of a cannon. I'm so overexposed that I make Paris Hilton look like a recluse."

On the controversial Ukraine election: "Well, President Bush said he wanted to export American-style democracy and, by God, I think its working."

"(The pundits) said you can't win in a year like this with a name like Obama. There was quite a bit of confusion at first, but it did get me free airtime on Al Jazeera."

"It's been a great ride. But I know how quickly these fads can pass. You all remember the pet rock, the mood ring, Howard Dean."

"I figure there's nowhere to go from here but down. So tonight, I'm announcing my retirement from the United States Senate."

Obama also held up a mock-up of a supermarket tabloid proclaiming, "Obama's Shocking Secret: He's Strom Thurmond's Love Child."

On excitement in his father's native Kenya that his election would mean the building of billions of dollars in new roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools in their country: "I've tried to explain how it works these days. First comes the invasion and then billions in aid."