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After the Hart affair, those of us who had not... |
31st July 2010, 09:11 |
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After the Hart affair, those of us who had not led perfect lives had no way of knowing what the presss standards of disclosure wereFinally I concluded that anyone who believed he had something to offer should just run, deal with whatever charges arose, and trust the American peopleWithout a high pain threshold, you cant be a successful President anyway
I set July 14 as a deadline for making a decisionSeveral of my old friends from past political battles came down to Little Rock, including Mickey Kantor, Carl Wagner, Steve Cohen, John Holum, and Sandy BergerThey all thought I should run; it seemed too good a chance to pass upStill, I was holding backI knew I was ready to be a good candidate, but I wasnt sure I had lived long enough to acquire the wisdom and judgment necessary to be a good PresidentIf elected, I would be forty-two, about the same age Theodore Roosevelt was when he was sworn in after President McKinleys assassination, and a year younger than John Kennedy when he was electedBut they had both come from wealthy, politically prominent families, and had grown up in a way that made them comfortable in the circles of louis vuitton neo powerMy two favorite Presidents, Lincoln and FDR, were fifty-one when they took office, fully mature and in command of themselves and their responsibilitiesTen years later, on my fifty-first birthday, Al Gore gave me an account of the Cherokee Indian Nations view of the aging processThe Cherokees believe a man does not reach full maturity until he is fifty-one
The second thing that bothered me was the difficulties a campaign would pose for my governorshipNineteen eighty-seven was the deadline for implementing the school standardsI had already called one special session to raise money for schools and overcrowded prisonsIt had been a knockdown fight that had strained my relations with several legislators, and it very nearly ended in failure before we scraped together enough votes at the last minute to do what had to be doneI knew that, in all probability, Id have to call another special session in early 1988I was determined to fully implement the school standards and build on them; it was the only chance most poor kids in my state had for a better futureChelseas elementary school was about 60 percent black, and more than half the kids tiffany co jewelry were from low-income familiesI remember how one little boy she invited to her birthday party at the mansion almost didnt come because he couldnt afford to buy her a presentI was determined to give that little boy a better chance than his parents had had
The Arkansas Gazette, which had supported me in every campaign, ran an editorial arguing that I shouldnt run for both of the reasons that concerned meWhile acknowledging my strong potential for national leadership, the Gazette said, Bill Clinton is not ready to be President and Governor Clinton is needed in Arkansas
Ambition is a powerful force, and the ambition to be President has led many a candidate to ignore both his own limitations and the responsibilities of the office he currently holdsI always thought I could rise to any occasion, stand the most withering fire, and do two or three jobs at onceIn 1987, I might have made a decision rooted in self-confidence and driven by ambition, but I didntWhat finally decided the question for me was the one part of my life politics couldnt reach: ChelseaCarl Wagner, who was also the father of an only daughter, told me Id have to reconcile chanel classic bags myself to being away from Chelsea for most of the next sixteen monthsMickey Kantor was talking me through it when Chelsea asked me where we were going for summer vacationWhen I said I might not be able to take one if I ran for President, Chelsea replied, Then Mom and I will go without you
I went into the dining room of the Governors Mansion, where my friends were eating lunch, told them I wasnt running, and apologized for bringing them all downThen I went to the Excelsior to make my announcement to a few hundred supportersI did my best to explain how I had come so close, yet backed away:
I need some family time; I need some personal timePoliticians are people tooI think sometimes we forget it, but they really areThe only thing I or any other candidate has to offer in running for President is whats insideThats what sets people on fire and gets their confidence and their votes, whether they live in Wisconsin or Montana or New YorkThat part of my life needs renewalThe other, even more important reason for my decision is the certain impact that this campaign would have had on our daughterThe only way I could have won, getting in chanel logo necklace this late, after others had been working up to two years, would be to go on the road full-time from now until the end, and to have Hillary do the sameIve seen a lot of kids grow up under these pressures and a long, long time ago I made a promise to myself that if I was ever lucky enough to have a child, she would never grow up wondering who her father was
Though she had said she would support me whichever way I went, Hillary was relievedShe thought I should finish the work I had started in Arkansas and keep building a national base of supportAnd she knew it was not a good time for me to be away from our familiesMother was having problems in her anesthesia work, Roger had been out of prison only a couple of years, and Hillarys parents were moving to Little RockIn January 1983, during my swearing-in speech to the legislature, Hugh Rodham had slumped in his chairHe had suffered a massive heart attack and was rushed to the University Medical Center for quadruple-bypass surgeryI was with him when he woke upAfter I realized he was lucid, I said, Hugh, the speech wasnt good enough to give anyone a heart attack! In 1987, he had a minor balenciaga first strok |
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In an eight-page statement, I said I liked and... |
30th July 2010, 16:02 |
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In an eight-page statement, I said I liked and respected Bork as a teacher and thought President Reagan should have considerable latitude in his appointments, but I still believed the nomination should be rejected by the SenateI argued that Borks own words demonstrated that he was a reactionary, not a mainstream conservativeHe had criticized almost every major Supreme Court decision expanding civil rights except Brown vIn fact, Bork had been one of two lawyers, along with William Rehnquist, to advise Barry Goldwater to vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964As a southerner, I knew how important it was not to reopen the wounds of race by disturbing those decisionsBork had the most restrictive view on what the Supreme Court can do to protect individual rights of anyone who had been nominated to the Supreme Court in decadesHe thought dozens of court decisions needed to be reversedFor example, he said a married couples right to use contraceptives was no more deserving of privacy protection from government action than a utilitys right to pollute the airIn fact, as his ruling against Arkansas in the Grand tiffany jewellery Gulf case showed, he thought utilities and other business interests were entitled to more protection than individual citizens from government actions he disagreed withHowever, when it came to protecting business interests, he threw judicial restraint out the window in favor of activismHe even said federal courts shouldnt enforce antitrust laws because they were based on a flawed economic theoryI asked the Senate not to take the risk that Judge Bork would act on his long-held convictions rather than on the more moderate assurances he was then giving in the confirmation process
I had to file the testimony rather than give it in person, because the hearings were delayed and I had to leave for a trade mission to EuropeIn late October, the Senate rejected the Bork nomination, 5842I doubt that my testimony influenced a single votePresident Reagan then nominated Judge Antonin Scalia, who was as conservative as Bork but hadnt said and written as much to prove itIn December 2000, in the case of Bush vGore, he wrote the Saturday opinion of the Supreme Court granting an unprecedented injunction to stop counting omega watches for sale votes in FloridaThree days later, by a 54 vote, the Supreme Court gave the election to George WBush, partly on the ground that the outstanding disputed ballots couldnt be counted by midnight of that day as Florida law requiredOf course not: the Supreme Court had stopped the counting of legal votes three days beforeIt was an act of judicial activism that might have made even Bob Bork blush
After the trade mission, Hillary and I joined John Sununu and Governor Ed DiPrete of Rhode Island for a meeting with our Italian counterparts in FlorenceIt was the first trip to Italy for Hillary and me, and we fell in love with Florence, Siena, Pisa, San Gimignano, and VeniceI was also fascinated by the economic success of northern Italy, which had a higher per capita income than GermanyOne of the reasons for the regions prosperity seemed to be the extraordinary cooperation of small-business people in sharing facilities and administrative and marketing costs, as northern Italian artisans had been doing for centuries, since the development of medieval guildsOnce more I had found an idea I thought might work in ArkansasWhen spy bag replica I got home, we helped a group of unemployed sheet-metal workers set up businesses and cooperate in cost-sharing and marketing as I had observed Italian leatherworkers and furniture makers doing
In October, Americas economy took a big jolt when the stock market fell more than 500 points in one day, the biggest one-day drop since 1929By coincidence, the richest man in America, Sam Walton, was sitting in my office when the market closedSam was the leader of the Arkansas Business Council, a group of prominent businesspeople euphemistically known as the Good Suit ClubThey were committed to improving education and the economy in ArkansasSam excused himself to see what had happened to Wal-Mart stockAll his wealth was tied up in the companyHed lived in the same house for decades and drove an old pickup truckWhen Sam came back, I asked him how much hed lostAbout a billion dollars, he saidIn 1987, that was still a lot of money, even to Sam WaltonWhen I asked him if he was worried, he said, Tomorrow Im going to fly to Tennessee to see the newest Wal-MartIf there are plenty of cars in the parking lot I wont be fendi spy bags worriedIm only in the stock market to raise money to open more stores and to give our employees a stake in the companyAlmost all of the people who worked for Wal-Mart owned some of its stockWalton was a stark contrast to the new breed of corporate executives who insisted on big pay increases even when their companies and workers werent doing well, and on golden parachutes when their companies failedWhen the collapse of many stocks in the first years of the new century exposed a new wave of corporate greed and corruption, I thought back to that day in 1987 when Sam Walton lost a billion dollars of his wealthI doubt he ever voted for meI didnt agree with everything Wal-Mart did back then and I dont agree with some of the companys practices that have become more common since he diedAs I said, Wal-Mart doesnt buy American as much as it used toIts been accused of using large numbers of illegal immigrantsAnd, of course, the company is anti-unionBut America would be better off if all our companies were run by people dedicated enough to see their own fortunes rise and fall with those of their employees and louis vuitton white speedy stockholde |
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All the spending cuts and taxes that raised real... |
29th July 2010, 10:32 |
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All the spending cuts and taxes that raised real money were controversialFor example, when I met with Senate and House leaders on the budget, Leon Panetta suggested that we have a one-time three-month delay in increasing the Social Security cost-of-living allowanceMost experts agreed that the COLA was too high, given the low rate of inflation, and the delay would save $15 billion over five yearsSenator Mitchell said that the suggested delay was regressive and unfair, and that he couldnt support itNeither would the other senatorsWed have to find that $15 billion elsewhere
Over the weekend of January 3031, I brought the cabinet and senior White House staff to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Marylands Catoctin MountainsCamp David is a beautiful wooded site, with comfortable cabins and recreational facilities, staffed by men and women from the navy and the Marine CorpsIt was the perfect setting for us to get to know one another better and talk about the year aheadI also invited Stan Greenberg, Paul Begala, and Mandy GrunwaldThey felt that they had been shut out of the transition, and that an obsession with the deficit had overtaken every other objective I had advanced in the campaignThey thought Al and I were courting disaster black chanel tote by disregarding the deeper concerns and interests of the people who had elected usI sympathized with themFor one thing, they hadnt been in on the hours of discussions that led most of us to the conclusion that if we didnt deal with the deficit, we couldnt achieve sustained strong growth and that my other campaign commitments, at least those that cost money, would die in the stagnant backwater of a sluggish economy
I let Mandy and Stan start the discussionMandy outlined the anxiety of the middle class about jobs, retirement, health care, and educationStan said that voters most important concerns were, in order, jobs, health-care reform, welfare reform, and then deficit reduction, and that if deficit reduction was going to require the middle class to pay more taxes, I had darn sure better do something else for themHillary then described how wed failed in Arkansas in my first term by doing too many things at once, without a clear story line and an effort to prepare people for a long, sustained struggleThen she told them about the success wed had the second time around, by focusing on one or two issues every two years, and laying out long-term goals, along with short-term benchmarks of progress against which we could be judgedThat kind of chanel wallet purse approach, she said, enabled me to develop a story line people could understand and supportIn response, someone pointed out that we couldnt develop a story line as long as we were awash in leaks, all of which concerned the most controversial proposalsAfter the weekend, the consultants tried to come up with a communications strategy that would take us beyond the daily leaks and controversies
The rest of the retreat was devoted to more informal, personal conversationsOn Saturday night there was a session, run by a facilitator who was a friend of Al Gores, in which we were supposed to bond by sitting in a group, taking turns telling something about ourselves the others didnt knowThough the exercise got mixed reviews, I actually enjoyed it, and managed to confess that, as a child, I was overweight and often ridiculedLloyd Bentsen thought the whole exercise was silly and went back to his cabin; if there was something about him the rest of us didnt know, it was intentionalBob Rubin stayed, but said he didnt have anything to sayapparently such group unburdening wasnt the key to his success at Goldman SachsWarren Christopher did participate, probably because he was the most disciplined man on the planet and thought this baby-boomer version classic chanel handbag of Chinese water torture would somehow strengthen his already considerable characterAll in all, the weekend was helpful, but the real bonding would come in the fires of the struggles, victories, and defeats that lay ahead
On Sunday night, we were back in the White House to host the annual National Governors Association dinnerIt was Hillarys first formal event as First Lady, and she was nervous, but it went wellThe governors were concerned about the economy, which diminished state revenues, forcing them to cut services, raise taxes, or bothThey understood the necessity of reducing the deficit, but didnt want it to come at their expense, in the form of responsibilities shifting from the federal government to the states without funds being provided to pay for them
On February 5, I signed my first bill into law, keeping another campaign commitmentWith the Family and Medical Leave Act, the United States at last joined more than 150 other countries in guaranteeing workers some time off when a baby is born or a family member is sickThe bills principal sponsor, my longtime friend Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, had worked for years to enact itPresident Bush had vetoed it twice, saying it would prove too burdensome for businessWhile the chanel watch j12 white legislation had some strong Republican supporters, most Republicans had voted against it for the same reasonI believed that family leave would be good for the economyWith most parents in the workforce, by choice or necessity, it is imperative that Americans be able to do well both on the job and at homePeople who are worried about their infants or their sick parents are less productive than those who go to work knowing theyve done right by their familiesDuring my time as President, more than thirty-five million people would take advantage of the Family and Medical Leave law
In the next eight years, and even after I left office, more people would mention it to me than any other bill I signedMany of their stories were powerfulEarly one Sunday morning, when I came in from my jog, I ran into a family touring the White HouseOne of the children, a teenage girl, was in a wheelchair and obviously very illI greeted them and said that if theyd wait for me to shower and get dressed for church, Id take them into the Oval Office for a pictureThey waited and we had a good visitI especially enjoyed my talk with the brave young girlAs I walked away, her father grabbed my arm and turned me around, saying, My little girl is probably not going to make chanel classic bags it |
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After all, we hadnt developed our proposal yet,... |
28th July 2010, 10:26 |
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After all, we hadnt developed our proposal yet, and the number was just a guessWe knew wed have to spend more on training, child care, and transportation to help poor people move from welfare to work, but if we moved enough people off the rolls, the net cost might go down, not upMoreover, I believed we could pass welfare reform separately with bipartisan support
Later, Lloyd Bentsen added a final piece to the plan, removing the $135,000 earnings cap on the 15 percent payroll tax that funded MedicareThis was necessary to make sure that our numbers on extending Medicares solvency added up, but it did ask for more from the wealthiest Americans, whose top rate we were already proposing to raise to 39 percent, and who would almost certainly never cost the Medicare program as much as they would now pay into itWhen I asked Bentsen about it, he just smiled and said he knew what he was doingHe was confident that he and other high-income Americans who would pay the extra tax would more than make it back in the stock market boom that our economic program would spark
On Monday, February 15, I gave my first televised address from the Oval Office, a ten-minute outline of the economic program I would unveil two days later to a joint session of CongressEven though the economy was in a statistical recovery, it was a jobless one, burdened by the quadrupling of the debt in the last twelve yearsSince all the deficits were the result of the tax cuts for the wealthy, soaring health costs, and increases in defense spending, we were investing less in the things that make us stronger and smarter, richer and safer, like education, children, transportation, and local law enforcementAt the rate chanel earrings we were going, our living standards, which usually doubled every twenty-five years, wouldnt do so again for another one hundred yearsReversing the trend would require a dramatic change in our national priorities, with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to reduce the deficit and invest more in our futureI said that I had hoped to pursue this course without asking more of middle-class Americans, because they had borne hardships and had been treated unfairly in the previous twelve years, but the deficit had grown far beyond the earlier estimates on which I had built my budget proposals in the campaignNow more Americans must contribute today so that all Americans can do better tomorrowHowever, unlike what had happened in the 1980s, most of the new taxes would be paid by wealthier Americans; for the first time in more than a decade, were all in this togetherIn addition to deficit reduction, my economic plan would provide incentives to businesses to create new jobs; a short-term stimulus to add 500,000 jobs right away; investments in education and training, with special programs to help displaced defense workers; welfare reform and the big increase in the EITC; Head Start opportunities and vaccinations for all children who need them; and the national service initiative to allow young people to earn money for college in return for serving in their communitiesI acknowledged that these proposals would not be easily or quickly implemented, but when they were, we could restore the vitality of the American dream
On Wednesday night, in the address to Congress, I explained the strategy behind the plan and outlined the specificsIts guiding principles were four: to shift gucci watch bands more public and private spending from consumption to investment in order to create more jobs; to honor work and family; to produce a budget with conservative estimates, not the unrealistic rosy scenario figures that had been used in the past; and to pay for the changes with real cuts in spending and fair taxes
To create more jobs, I proposed a permanent investment tax credit for small businesses, which employed 40 percent of the workforce but were creating most of our new jobs, and the establishment of community development banks and empowerment zones, two of my campaign commitments, which were designed to bring new loans and investments into poor areasI also asked for more money for roads, bridges, mass transit, high-tech information systems, and environmental cleanups to increase productivity and employment
On education, I recommended increased investments in and higher standards for public schools, and incentives to encourage more students to go to college, including my national service initiativeI complimented Congress on passing the family leave law, and asked them to follow up with tougher child-support enforcementOn crime, I asked for passage of the Brady bill, military-style boot camps for first-time nonviolent offenders, and my proposal to put 100,000 new police on the streets
I then asked Congress to help me change the way government worked, by enacting campaign finance reform and registration requirements for lobbyists, and eliminating the tax deduction for lobbyists expensesI committed to reduce the size of the federal workforce by 100,000, and to cut administrative expenses, saving $9 billionI asked Congress to help me slow spiraling health-care costs, and chanel classic bag said that we could continue modest defense downsizing but that our responsibilities as the worlds only superpower required us to spend enough to keep our military the best trained and equipped in the world
I saved taxes for last, recommending that we increase the top income tax rate from 31 to 36 percent on incomes over $180,000, with a 10 percent surcharge on incomes over $250,000; raise the corporate income tax rate from 34 to 36 percent on incomes over $10 million; end the tax subsidy that made it more profitable for a company to shut down its American operations and move overseas than to reinvest at home; subject more of the income of the best-off Social Security recipients to taxation; and enact the BTU taxThe income tax rates would increase on only the top 1 percent of earners; the Social Security increase would apply to 13 percent of recipients; and the energy tax would cost about $17 per month for people with incomes of $40,000 or more a yearFor families with incomes of $30,000 or less, the EITC would more than offset the cost of the BTU taxThe taxes and budget would enable us to reduce the deficit by about $500 billion over five years at present economic estimates
At the end of the speech, I did my best to bring home the magnitude of the deficit problem, pointing out that if present trends continued, within a decade the annual deficit would increase to at least $635 billion a year from this years $290 billion, and that interest payments on our accumulated debt would become Americas largest budget item, taking more than twenty cents of every tax dollarTo show I was serious about deficit reduction, I invited Alan Greenspan to sit with Hillary in the First Ladys louis vuitton scarf box in the House galleryTo show he was serious about it, Greenspan came, overcoming his understandable reluctance to make what could be seen as a political appearance
After the speech, which was generally well received, all the commentators noted that I had abandoned the middle-class tax cutSo I had, but a lot of my other promises were fulfilled in the economic planOver the next few days, Al Gore, the cabinet members, and I fanned out across the country to sell itAlan Greenspan praised itSo did Paul Tsongas, who said the Clinton who spoke to Congress was not the Clinton he ran against, which, of course, is what my political advisors and some congressional Democrats were worried about
There were enough important and controversial proposals in the speech to keep Congress busy for the rest of the year, not to mention the other legislation that already was, or soon would be, on their calendarI knew that there would be a lot of ups and downs before the economic program passed, and that I wouldnt be able to spend all of my time pushing itForeign problems and domestic developments wouldnt permit it
On the home front, February ended in violenceOn the twenty-sixth, a bomb exploded at Manhattans World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than one thousandThe investigation quickly revealed it to be the work of terrorists from the Middle East, who hadnt covered their tracks very wellThe first arrests were made March 4; eventually, six of the conspirators were convicted in federal court in New York and each sentenced to 240 years in prisonI was pleased with the effectiveness of our law-enforcement work, but troubled by the evident vulnerability of our open society to gucci book bags te |
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Branscum, Hill, and Lindsey simply had no motive... |
27th July 2010, 09:08 |
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Branscum, Hill, and Lindsey simply had no motive to hide from the government a legal cash withdrawal that would be a matter of public record in less than a month
That didnt stop Hickman Ewing, Starrs deputy in Arkansas, who was just as obsessed as Starr with going after us and not nearly as good at disguising itHe threatened to send Neal Ainley, who ran the bank for Branscum and Hill and who had been responsible for filing the reports, to prison unless he testified that Branscum, Hill, and Lindsey had ordered him not to file it, even though Ainley had earlier denied any wrongdoing by themThe poor man was a little fish caught in a powerful net; he changed his storyInitially charged with five felonies, Ainley was now allowed to plead to two misdemeanors
As in the earlier trial of the McDougals and Tucker, I testified on videotape at the request of the defendantsThough I had not been involved in the withdrawals, I was able to say I had not appointed Branscum and Hill to the two state boards on which they served in return for their contributions to my campaign
After a vigorous defense, Branscum and Hill were acquitted on the reporting charges, and the jury deadlocked on the question of whether they had falsely reported the purposes for which they had withdrawn funds from their own bankI was relieved that Herby, Rob, and Bruce Lindsey were cleared, but sickened by the abuse of prosecutorial power, the enormous legal costs my friends had been forced to bear, and the staggering costs to the taxpayers of a prosecution over the $13,000 of reimbursements the defendants got rolex vintage women's watch from their own bank and the failure to file federal reports on two legal and publicly reported withdrawals of campaign funds
There were noneconomic costs as well: FBI agents working for Starr went to Rob Hills teenage sons school and dragged him out of class for questioningThey could have talked to him after school or during lunch or on the weekendInstead, they humiliated the young man in hopes of pressuring his father into telling them something that would damage me, whether it was true or not
After the trial, several jurors burned the independent counsels office with comments like Its a waste of moneyI would hate to see the government waste more money on Whitewater; If theyre going to spend my tax dollars, they need stronger evidence; If anyone is untouchable it is OIC [Office of Independent Counsel]One juror who identified himself as an anti-Clinton person said, I would have loved for them to have a little more evidence, but they didntEven conservative Republicans who lived in the real world, as opposed to Whitewater World, knew the independent counsel had gone too far
As bad as Starrs treatment of Branscum and Hill was, it was a tea party compared with what he was about to do to Susan McDougalOn August 20, Susan was sentenced to two years in prisonStarrs people had offered to keep her out of jail if she gave them information implicating Hillary or me in some illegal activityOn the day she was sentenced, when Susan repeated what she had said from the beginningthat she knew of nothing either of us had done wrongshe was served with a subpoena to appear before the tiffany and co necklace grand juryShe appeared, but refused to answer the prosecutors questions, fearing that they would charge her with perjury because she wouldnt lie and tell them what they wanted to hearJudge Susan Webber Wright found her in contempt of court and sent her to jail for an indefinite period until she agreed to cooperate with the special prosecutorShe would remain confined for eighteen months, often under miserable conditions
September opened with the campaign on a rollOur convention had been a success, and Dole was tarred by his association with Gingrich and the government shutdownEven more important, the country was in good shape, and the voters no longer saw issues like crime, welfare, fiscal responsibility, foreign policy, and defense as the exclusive province of the Republican PartyPolls showed that my job and personal approval ratings were around 60 percent, with the same percentage of people saying they felt comfortable with me in the White House
On the other hand, I expected to be weaker in some parts of Amer-ica because of my positions on the cultural issuesguns, gays, and abortionand, at least in North Carolina and Kentucky, on tobaccoAlso, it seemed certain that Ross Perot would receive far fewer votes than he had in 1992, making it harder for me to carry a couple of states where he had taken more votes from President Bush than from meStill, on balance, I was in much better shape this time aroundAll through September the campaign drew large, enthusiastic crowds, or October crowds, as I called them, beginning with nearly thirty thousand people at a Labor Day vintage omega watches picnic in De Pere, Wisconsin, near Green Bay
Since presidential elections are decided by electoral votes, I wanted to use our momentum to bring a couple of new states into our column and to force Senator Dole to spend time and money in states a Republican could normally take for grantedDole wanted to do the same thing to me by contesting California, where I was opposing a popular ballot initiative to end affirmative action in college admissions and where he had helped himself by holding the GOP convention in San Diego
My main target was FloridaIf I could win there and hold most of the states I had won in 92, the election was overI had worked hard in Florida for four years: helping the state recover from Hurricane Andrew; holding the Summit of the Americas there; announcing the relocation of the Umilitarys Southern Command from Panama to Miami; working to restore the Everglades; and even making inroads into the Cuban-American community, which normally had given Republicans more than 80 percent of its votes in presidential elections ever since the Bay of PigsI was also blessed with a good organization in Florida and the strong support of Governor Lawton Chiles, who had great rapport with voters in the more conservative areas of central and northern FloridaThose people liked Lawton in part because he hit back when attackedAs he said, No redneck wants a dog that wont biteIn early September, Lawton went with me to north Florida to campaign and to honor retiring Congressman Pete Peterson, who had spent six and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and whom I had recently chanel shopping bag nominated to be our first ambassador there since the end of the war
I spent most of the rest of the month in states Id won in 92On a western swing, I also campaigned in Arizona, a state that hadnt voted for a Democrat for President since 1948, but that I thought I could carry because of its growing Hispanic population and the discomfort of many of the states moderate and traditional conservative voters with the more extreme politics of the Republican Congress
On the sixteenth, I received the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of PoliceThe FOP usually endorsed Republicans for President, but our White House had worked with them for four years to put more police on the streets, take guns out of the hands of criminals, and ban cop-killer bullets; they wanted four more years of that kind of cooperation
Two days later, I announced one of the most important environmental accomplishments of my entire eight years in office, the establishment of the 1 millionacre Grand StaircaseEscalante National Monument in the remote and beautiful red rock area of southern Utah, which contains fossils of dinosaurs and the remains of the ancient Anasazi Indian civilizationI had the authority to do so under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows the President to protect federal lands of extraordinary cultural, historic, and scientific valueI made the announcement with Al Gore on the edge of the Grand Canyon, which Theodore Roosevelt had first protected under the Antiquities ActMy action was necessary to stop a large coal mine that would have fundamentally changed the character of the chanel earrings area |
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attorney in Arkansas, Charles Banks, told them... |
26th July 2010, 16:22 |
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attorney in Arkansas, Charles Banks, told them that there was no case against us, that it was an attempt to influence the election, and that to launch an investigation at that time would amount to prosecutorial misconduct
Nevertheless, Leach referred to Lewis as a heroic public servant whose investigation had been thwarted after my electionBefore the hearings began, documents were released that supported our position, including Bankss letter refusing to pursue Lewiss allegations because of lack of evidence, and internal FBI cables and Justice Department evaluations saying that no facts can be identified to support the designation of Hillary and me as material witnessesAlthough there was almost no press coverage of the documents refuting Lewis, the hearings fizzled
By the time of the August hearings and Starrs latest round of indictments, I had settled into a routine of handling press questions about Whitewater with as little public comment as possibleI had learned from the press coverage over the gays-in-the-military issue that if I gave a meaty answer to a question on whatever the press was obsessing about, it would be on the evening news, blocking out whatever else I was doing in the public interest that day, and the American people would think I was spending all my time defending myself instead of working for them, when in fact Whitewater took up very little of my own timeOn a scale of 1 to 10, a 7 answer on the economy was better than a 10 answer on WhitewaterSo, with the help of constant reminders from my balenciaga bag staff, I held my tongue on most days, but it was hardI had always hated abuse of power, and as false charges flew, evidence of our innocence was ignored, and more blameless people were hounded by Starr, I was seething insideNo one can be as angry as I was without doing himself harmIt took me too long to figure that out
September began with a memorable trip to Hawaii to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II, followed by Hillarys trip to Beijing to address the United Nations Fourth World Conference on WomenHillary gave one of the most important speeches delivered by anyone in our administration during our entire eight years, asserting that human rights are womens rights and condemning their all-too-frequent violation by those who sold women into prostitution, burned them when their marriage dowries were deemed too small, raped them in wartime, beat them in their homes, or subjected them to genital mutilation, forced abortions, or sterilization on themHer speech got a standing ovation and struck a responsive chord with women all over the world, who knew now, beyond a doubt, that America was pulling for themOnce again, despite the abuse she had been taking on Whitewater, Hillary had come through for a cause she deeply believed in, and for our countryI was so proud of her; the unfair hard knocks she had endured had done nothing to dull the idealism that I had fallen in love with so long ago
By the middle of the month, -bleep- Holbrooke had persuaded the foreign ministers of Bosnia, Croatia, wholesale tiffany and Yugoslavia to agree on a set of basic principles as a framework to settle the Bosnian conflictMeanwhile, NATO air strikes and cruise missile attacks continued to pound Bosnian Serb positions, and Bosnian and Croatian military gains reduced the percentage of Bosnia controlled by the Serbs from 70 to 50 percent, close to what a negotiated settlement would likely require
September 28 capped off a good month in foreign policy, as Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat came to the White House for the next big step in the peace process, the signing of the West Bank accord, which turned over a substantial portion of land to Palestinian control
The most significant event occurred away from the camerasThe signing ceremony was scheduled to occur at noon, but first Rabin and Arafat met in the Cabinet Room to initial the annex to the agreement, three copies that included twenty-six different maps, each reflecting literally thousands of decisions the parties had reached on roads, crossings, settlements, and holy sitesI was also asked to initial the pages as the official witnessAbout midway through the process, when I had stepped outside to take a call, Rabin came out and said, We have a problemOn one of the maps, Arafat had spotted a stretch of road that was marked as under Israeli control but that he was convinced the parties had agreed to turn over to the PalestiniansRabin and Arafat wanted me to help resolve the disputeI took them into my private dining room and they began to talk, with Rabin saying he wanted to be a good chanel white purse neighbor and Arafat replying that, as descendants of Abraham, they were really more like cousinsThe interplay between the old adversaries was fascinatingWithout saying a word, I turned and walked out of the room, leaving them alone together for the first timeSooner or later, they had to develop a direct relationship, and today seemed the right moment to begin
Within twenty minutes they had reached an agreement that the disputed crossing should go to the PalestiniansBecause the world was waiting for the ceremony and we were already late, there was no time to change the mapInstead, Rabin and Arafat agreed to its modification with a handshake, then signed the maps before them, legally binding themselves to the incorrect designation of the disputed road
It was an act of personal trust that would have been unthinkable not long beforeAnd it was risky for RabinSeveral days later, with Israelis evenly divided on the West Bank accord, Rabin survived a no-confidence vote in the Knesset by only one voteWe were still walking a tightrope, but I was optimisticI knew the handover would proceed according to the handshake, and it didIt was the handshake even more than the official signing that convinced me that Rabin and Arafat would find a way to finish the job of making peace
The fiscal year ended on September 30, and we still didnt have a budgetWhen I wasnt working on Bosnia and the Middle East, I had spent the entire month traveling the country campaigning against the Republicans proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, food deville watch stamps, the direct student-loan program, AmeriCorps, environmental enforcement, and the initiative to put 100,000 new police officers on the streetThey were even proposing to cut back the Earned Income Tax Credit, thus raising taxes on lower-income working families at the same time they were trying to cut taxes for the wealthiest AmericansAt virtually every stop, I pointed out that our fight was not about whether to balance the budget and reduce the burden of unnecessary government, but how to do itThe big dispute involved what responsibilities the federal government should assume for the common good
In response to my attacks, Newt Gingrich threatened to refuse to raise the debt limit and thus put America in default if I vetoed their budget billsRaising the debt limit was merely a technical act that recognized the inevitable: as long as America continued to run deficits, the annual debt would increase, and the government would be required to sell more bonds to finance itIncreasing the debt limit simply gave the Treasury Department authority to do thatAs long as Democrats were in the majority, Republicans could cast symbolic votes against raising the debt limit and pretend that they hadnt contributed to the necessity to do itMany Republicans in the House had never voted to raise the debt limit and didnt relish doing so now, so I had to take Gingrichs threat seriously
If America defaulted on its debt, the consequences could be severeIn more than two hundred years, the United States had never failed to pay its ceramic chanel deb |
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Dole also took a swipe at Hillary for the theme... |
25th July 2010, 10:34 |
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Dole also took a swipe at Hillary for the theme of her book, that it takes a village to raise a child, saying that Republicans thought parents raised children while Democrats thought government should do the jobDoles attack wasnt too harsh, and in a couple of weeks Hillary and I would have our chances to answer him
While the Republicans were in San Diego, our family went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the second timeThis time I was finishing up a short book, Between Hope and History, which highlighted the policies of my first term through stories of individual Americans who had been positively affected by them, and articulated where I wanted to take our country in the next four years
On August 12, we went back to Yellowstone National Park for the only public business of our vacation, as I signed an agreement that stopped a planned gold mine on property adjacent to the parkThe agreement was the welcome result of cooperative efforts by the mining company, citizens groups, and members of Congress and the White House environmental team, headed by Katie McGinty
On the eighteenth, Hillary, Chelsea, and I were in New York City for a big party celebrating my fiftieth birthday at Radio City Music HallAfterward, I was saddened to learn that the plane carrying the equipment back to Washington from our Wyoming stay had crashed, killing all nine people on board
The next day we joined Al and Tipper Gore in Tennessee, where we celebrated the birthday Tipper and I shared by helping to rebuild two rural churches, one white and one black, that had been burned in the recent rash of church burnings
In the last week of the month, the nations attention turned to the Democratic National Convention in ChicagoBy then our campaign, chaired by Peter Knight, was well organized, and it was working closely gucci men watches with the White House through Doug Sosnick and Harold Ickes, who had overseen our convention organizationI was excited about going to Chicago because it was Hillarys hometown, had played a pivotal role in my 1992 victory, and had made good use of many of my most important initiatives in education, economic development, and crime control
On August 25, in Huntington, West Virginia, Chelsea and I began a four-day train trip to ChicagoHillary had gone ahead of us to be there when the convention openedWe had leased a wonderful old train we dubbed the 21st Century Express for the trip through Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana to ChicagoWe made fifteen stops along the way and slowed down as we passed through small towns so that I could wave to the people who had gathered by the tracksI could feel from the excitement of the crowds that the train was connecting with the American people just as the bus tours had in 1992, and I could see from the expressions on peoples faces that they felt much better about the condition of the country and about their own livesWhen we stopped in Wyandotte, Michigan, for an education event, two children introduced me by reading The Little Engine That CouldThe book and their enthusiastic reading captured the return of Americas innate optimism and self-confidence
On many stops we picked up friends, supporters, and local officials who wanted to be aboard for the next leg of the tripI especially enjoyed sharing the leisurely travel with Chelsea, as we stood on the caboose, waved to the crowds, and talked about everything under the sunOur relationship was as close as ever, but she was changing, growing into a mature young woman with her own opinions and interestsMore and more, I found myself amazed at how she saw the world
Our convention opened on the chanel classic bag twenty-sixth, with appearances by Jim and Sarah Brady, who appreciated the support the Democrats had given to the Brady bill, and Christopher Reeve, the actor who, after being paralyzed in a fall from a horse, had inspired the nation with his courageous fight to recover and his advocacy for more research into spinal cord injuries
On the day of my speech, our campaign was rocked by press reports that -bleep- Morris had frequently been with a prostitute in his hotel room when he was in Washington working for meDick resigned from the campaign, and I put out a statement saying that he was my friend and a superb political strategist who had done invaluable work over the past two yearsI regretted his departure, but he was obviously under enormous stress and he needed time to work through his problemsI knew -bleep- was resilient and felt sure he would be back in the political arena before long
My acceptance speech was easy to give because of the record: the lowest combined rate of unemployment and inflation in twenty-eight years; 10 million new jobs; 10 million people getting the minimum wage increase; 25 million Americans benefiting from the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill; 15 million working Americans with a tax cut; 12 million taking advantage of the family leave law; 10 million students saving money through the Direct Student Loan Program; 40 million workers with more pension security
I stated that we were going in the right direction and, referring to Bob Doles speech in San Diego, said, with all respect, we do not need to build a bridge to the past; we need to build a bridge to the future let us resolve to build that bridge to the twenty-first centuryThe Bridge to the 21st Century became the theme of the campaign and the next four years
As good as the record was, I knew that all elections are about the gucci watch bands future, so I outlined my agenda: higher school standards and universal access to college; a balanced budget that protected health care, education, and the environment; targeted tax cuts to support home ownership, long-term care, college education, and child-rearing; more jobs for people on welfare and more investment in poor urban and rural areas; and some new initiatives to fight crime and drugs and clean the environment
I knew that if the American people saw the election as a choice between building a bridge to the past and building a bridge to the future, we would winBob Dole had unintentionally given me the central message of the 1996 campaignOn the day after the convention closed, Al, Tipper, Hillary, and I kicked off my last campaign with a bus tour, beginning in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, with Governor Mel Carnahan, who had been with me since early 1992, going through southern Illinois and western Kentucky, and winding up in Memphis, after several stops in Tennessee, with former governor Ned Ray McWherter, a huge bear of a man who was the only person I ever heard call the vice president AlbertNed Ray was worth so many votes that I didnt care what he called Al, or me for that matter
In August, Kenneth Starr lost his first big case, one that reflected just how desperate he and his staff were to pin something on meStarr had indicted the two owners of the Perry County Bank, lawyer Herby Branscum Jrand accountant Rob Hill, on charges arising out of my 1990 gubernatorial campaign
The indictment stated that Branscum and Hill had taken about $13,000 from their own bank for legal and accounting services they did not perform in order to reimburse themselves for political contributions they had made, and that they had instructed the man who ran the bank for them not to report two cash louis vuitton mahina withdrawals of more than $10,000 each from my campaign account to the Internal Revenue Service as required by federal law
The indictment also named Bruce Lindsey, who had served as my campaign treasurer, as an unindicted co-conspirator, alleging that when Bruce withdrew the money to pay for our election day get out the vote activities, he had urged the bankers not to file the required reportStarrs people had threatened Bruce with an indictment, but he called their bluff; there was nothing wrong with our contributions or the way they had been spent, and Bruce had no motive for asking the bank not to make the required filing on it: we would be making all the information public in three weeks as required by Arkansas state election lawSince the contributions and their expenditure were legal and our public report was accurate, Starrs people knew Bruce hadnt committed a crime, so they settled for smearing him as an unindicted co-conspirator
The charges against Branscum and Hill were absurdFirst, they wholly owned the bank; if they did not impair the banks liquidity, they could take money out of it as long as they paid income taxes on it, and there was no suggestion that they had not done so in this caseAs to the second charge, the law that requires a bank to report cash deposits or withdrawals of $10,000 or more is a good one; it permits the government to follow large amounts of dirty money from criminal enterprises like money laundering or drug dealingThe reports filed with the government are checked every three to six months but are not open to the publicAs of 1996, there had been two hundred prosecutions for failure to file the reports required by the act, but only twenty of them were for failures to report withdrawalsAll of those involved money that was tainted by an illegal tiffany and co jewelry enterpris |
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After a two-year hiatus, our family went back to... |
24th July 2010, 09:09 |
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After a two-year hiatus, our family went back to Marthas Vineyard for our August vacationWe stayed at the home of our friend -bleep- Friedman near Oyster PondI celebrated my birthday by going for a jog with Chelsea, and I persuaded Hillary to play her annual round of golf with me at the Mink Meadows public courseShe had never liked golf, but once a year she humored me by strolling around a few holesI also played a lot of golf with Vernon Jordan at the wonderful old Farm Neck courseHe liked the game a lot more than Hillary did
The month ended as it began, with both good and bad newsOn the twenty-ninth, Tony Blair invited Sinn Fein to join the Irish peace talks, giving the party formal standing for the first timeOn the thirty-first, Princess Diana was killed in an auto crash in ParisLess than a week later, Mother Teresa diedHillary was very saddened by their deathsShe had known and liked both of them very much, and she represented the United States at both funerals, flying first to London, then to Calcutta a few days later
During August, I also had to announce a major disappointment: the United States would not be able to sign the international treaty banning land minesThe circumstances leading to quilted chanel purse our exclusion were almost bizarreThe United States had spent $153 million on demining all over the world since 1993; we had recently lost a plane with nine people on board after depositing a demining team in southwest Africa; we had trained more than 25 percent of the worlds demining experts; and we had destroyed 1 million of our own mines, with another 1 million scheduled to be destroyed by 1999No other nation had done as much as America to rid the world of dangerous land mines
Near the end of negotiations on the treaty, I had asked for two amendments: an exception for the heavily marked UN-sanctioned minefield along the Korean border, which protected the people of South Korea and our troops there; and a rewording of the provision approving anti-tank missiles that covered those manufactured in Europe but not oursOurs were just as safe and worked better to protect our troopsBoth amendments were rejected, partly because the Landmine Conference was determined to pass the strongest possible treaty in the wake of the death of its most famous champion, Princess Diana, and partly because some people at the conference just wanted to embarrass the United States or bully us into signing the treaty as it wasI white chanel purse hated not to be part of the international agreement because it undermined our leverage in trying to stop the manufacture and use of more land mines, some of which could be bought for as little as three dollars each, but I couldnt put the safety of our troops or the people of South Korea at risk
On September 18, Hillary and I took Chelsea to StanfordWe wanted her new life to be as normal as possible and had worked with the Secret Service to make sure she would be assigned young agents who would dress informally and be as unobtrusive as they could beStanford had agreed to bar media access to her on campusWe enjoyed the welcoming ceremonies and visits with the other parents, after which we took Chelsea to her dorm room and helped her move inChelsea was happy and excited; Hillary and I were a little sad and anxiousHillary tried to deal with it by scurrying around and helping Chelsea organize things, even lining her drawers with Contac paperI had carried her luggage up the stairs to her room, then fixed her bunk bedAfter that, I just stared out the window, as her mother got on Chelseas nerves with all the fixing upWhen the student speaker at the convocation, Blake Harris, had said to all the parents that our gucci hobo children would miss us in about a month and for about fifteen minutes, we all laughedI hoped it was true, but we sure would miss herWhen it was time to go, Hillary had pulled herself together and was readyNot me; I wanted to stay for dinner
On the last day of September, I attended the retirement ceremony of General John Shalikashvili and gave him the Presidential Medal of FreedomHe had been a superb chairman of the Joint Chiefs, supporting the expansion of NATO, the creation of the Partnership for Peace, and the deployment of our troops in more than forty operations, including Bosnia, Haiti, Iraq, Rwanda, and the Taiwan StraitI had really enjoyed working with himHe was intelligent, straight-talking, and completely committed to the welfare of our men and women in uniformAs his replacement I named General Hugh Shelton, who had so impressed me with his handling of the Haiti operation
The early fall was largely devoted to foreign affairs, as I took my first trip to South AmericaI traveled to Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina to express the importance of Latin America to Americas future and to keep pushing the idea of a free trade area covering all the AmericasVenezuela was our number one oil supplier and gucci paolo watches had always made more petroleum available to the United States when we needed it, from World War II to the Gulf WarMy visit was brief and uncomplicated; its highlight was a speech to the people of Caracas at the tomb of Simn Bolvar
Brazil was a different storyThere had long been tensions between our two countries; many Brazilians had long resented the United StatesBrazil was the leader of the Mercosur trading bloc, which also included Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and which had a larger volume of trade with Europe than with the United StatesOn the other hand, the Brazilian president, Henrique Cardoso, was a modern, effective leader who wanted a good relationship with the United States and who understood that a stronger partnership with us would help him to modernize his countrys economy, reduce its chronic poverty, and increase its influence in the world
I had been fascinated by Brazil since the great jazz saxophonist Stan Getz popularized its music in America in the 1960s, and ever since then I had wanted to see its cities and beautiful landscapesI also respected and liked CardosoHe had already been to Washington on a state visit, and I thought he was one of the most impressive leaders I had louis vuitton china met |
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