Accomplishments Of Hillary Clinton

OPINION: What really counts: Debt, women, our future

What do women really want from our president?

This is a question President Barack Obama should be asking if he wants to keep his job for another term — which hinges on the women's vote. The recent posting of his accomplishments mentions several positive appointments: two women to the Supreme Court, Elizabeth Warren to launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and other outstanding women to top Cabinet posts; such as Secretaries Hillary Rodham Clinton, Janet Napolitano, Kathleen Sebelius, and Hilda Solis.

But such accomplishments do not begin to go far enough. For one thing, by authorizing major cuts to traditionally women's jobs in education, health care, and family planning, the president allowed an assault on women's economic status and health-care access. Moreover, he allowed opponents to divert the conversation about economic recovery from the millions of unemployed and the massive increase in Americans in poverty to an obsessive focus on reducing the deficit through government program cuts. And because women comprise the vast majority of public-sector teachers, nurses, social workers, caregivers, and others being laid off, women are now bearing the brunt of job losses.

These shortsighted and cruel cuts are not only harming millions of people and their families; they will soon harm us all. With health, education, and poverty alleviation programs being scrapped, our nation is undermining the most important asset for our economic future: the "high-quality human capital" economists tell us is essential for success in our post-industrial knowledge/service economy. Yet instead of educating the public about this, the administration has itself started to talk about job creation exclusively in the private sector — with no mention of the havoc being created by gutting employment in the public sector, or of its dire future consequences.

Instead, the administration joined "the sky is falling" talk about the deficit, failing to point out that our federal debt (roughly equal to our annual GDP or about $14 trillion, a ratio of 1-to-1 according to the most alarmist calculations) is actually far lower than our debt to GDP ratio during World War II. It is also far lower than that of many other countries. Japan had a 2.25-to-1 debt to GDP even before the massive earthquake and tsunami disaster. Certainly we have to watch our national debt, especially because so much of it is owed to foreign nations. But it must not be used as the rationale for cutting essential services or for a wholesale firing of public employees, much less as an excuse for demonizing unions, without which we would not have had a middle class.

Israeli diplomacy wins one – “Thank you, Greece!” › 2.0: The ...

I am glad to see that one of  the benefits that came out of  the Erdogan inspired Turkish-Israel rift is the strengthening of  the relationship between Greece and Israel. Greece was one of the last nations in Europe to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel but we are now living in strange times and I am happy to see a much warmer relationship between the two nations Athens and Jerusalem are two of the three great pillars (the other being Rome) of Western civilization.

by Herb Keinon

The clearest indication that Israel under Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu scored a success Friday when the Greeks stopped the Gaza-bound flotilla from setting sail was to note the different ways the two largest circulation dailies in the country – Yisrael Hayom and Yediot Aharonot – played the story in Sunday’s editions. [.....]

But it is undoubtable, despite Yediot’s treatment of Friday’s flotilla story, that the fact that Greek commandos – rather than IDF soldiers – boarded the Gaza-bound American vessel pretentiously named Audacity of Hope and kept it from sailing toward Gaza is an Israeli diplomatic success.

Those images of Greek commandos stopping the boat, and reports of a Greek minister prohibiting vessels from setting sail from his country’s ports to Gaza, didn’t just happen.

This was all preceded by weeks, even months, of intensive diplomatic activity ranging from work done on the ground in Athens by Israel’s envoy there, Aryeh Mekel, to conversations last week between Netanyahu and his Greek counterpart – a man Netanyahu frequently characterizes publicly as “my friend” – George Papandreou.

And the diplomatic success wasn’t limited to Greece. The diplomatic accomplishments vis-à-vis this flotilla include prodding UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to come out against the flotilla, getting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to voice strong disapproval, having countries such as Britain, France and the Netherlands issue unequivocal travel advisories against taking part, making it difficult for the vessels to get insurance and ensuring that the Turks kept the Mavi Marmara from setting sail again and did not appear – as they did last time – to be giving their sponsorship to the entire farce.

As Defense Minister Ehud Barak aptly said in the cabinet meeting on Sunday, “We see positive developments in connection to the flotilla, as the Greek, Cypriot and Turkish governments are working to restrain it. That is the result of comprehensive efforts from the Foreign Ministry, the Prime Minister’s Office and us [the Defense Ministry].” But something went right this time around, and a good part of what went right had to do with the dramatically improved relations with Greece – relations that began their strong upward tick as a result of the steep slide in ties with Turkey: flesh and blood evidence of that old cliché that in the Middle East the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Living history

A woman in charge, the life of Hillary Rodham Clinton

The Case for Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton Nude, Naked Ambition, Hillary Clinton and America's Demise

Hillary Clinton, a biography