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Bill Clinton Rips ‘Awful Legacy Of The Last 8 Years,’ Later Says He Wasn’t Referring To Obama
The Huffington Post's Huffpost Politics ^ | March 21, 2016 | Ed Mazza

Posted on 03/22/2016 3:50:38 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The former president was speaking on behalf of his wife, Hillary Clinton, at a campaign event.

Bill Clinton slammed the "awful legacy of the last eight years" on Monday, which Republicans quickly claimed was an attack on President Barack Obama. However, the former president was really talking about Republican obstructionism.

Clinton was speaking in Spokane, Washington on behalf of his wife, former secretary of state and Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton, calling her a "change-maker" who can "make democracy work the way the framers intended for it to work."

He added:

"Now, if you don't believe we can all grow together again, if you don't believe we're ever going to grow again, if you believe it's more important to re-litigate the past, there may be many reasons that you don't want to support her.

But if you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we've finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that -- when we were practicing trickle-down economics and no regulation in Washington which is what caused the crash -- then you should vote for her because she's the only person who basically has good ideas, will tell you how she's going to pay for them, can be commander-in-chief and is a proven change-maker with Republicans and Democrats and independents alike."(continued)

(Excerpt) Read more at huffingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: New York; Washington; Campaign News; Issues; Parties
KEYWORDS: 2016election; billclinton; billclintonspeech; blunders; clinton; demagogicparty; democrats; edmazza; election2016; hillary; hillary2016; huffingtonpost; huffpo; memebuilding; newyork; obama; obamalegacy; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; puffho; puffingtonhost; spokane; trump; washington; x42
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To: lee martell

Yes you can see the weakness in his eyes. He has the eyes of someone with early onset dementia, that weak, slightly lost look. Plus the video of him in Arizona, when Giffords husband was talking, you could see him lose focus and drift off, with his mouth hanging open.

As a nurse who worked in hospice for years and someone who has seen family suffer with dementia as well, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I wouldn’t wish it on old Bill, either.


21 posted on 03/22/2016 4:11:15 PM PDT by Lil Flower (American by birth. Southern by the Grace of God. ROLL TIDE!!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
For those who may have forgotten what kind of a President Bill Clinton was:

1) Clinton’s own words show his often expressed innate hostility to, and utter contempt for, the core principles of the American founding:

``If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government’s ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees.’’ -- President Bill Clinton, August 12, 1993

``The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people’’ –- Bill Clinton during an interview on MTV in 1993

``We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…that we forget about reality.’’ -- President Bill Clinton, quoted in USA Today, March 11, 1993, Page 2A, ``NRA change: `Omnipotent to powerful’’’ by Debbie Howlett

“When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly… that they would work for the common good, as well as for the individual welfare… However, now there’s a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there’s too much freedom. When personal freedom’s being abused, you have to move to limit it.” – Bill Clinton, April 19, 1995

2) Clinton inevitably pursued his own political advantage at the expense of American interests and national security. Here is just one of many possible examples:

It is well documented that Clinton and the Democrats took illegal campaign money from groups and individuals tied directly to the Chinese People’s Republican Army. It is therefore not surprising that In January 1998 Clinton went against the advice of then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Pentagon experts by lifting long-standing restrictions against the export of American satellites to China for launch on Chinese rockets. Not only did he move control over such decisions from the more security-focused State Department to the Commerce Department, but he intervened in a Justice Department investigation of Loral Space & Communications, retroactively enabling Loral to sell critical missile technology to the Chinese. Interestingly enough, Clinton’s decision was made at the request of Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz, whose earlier $1.3 million campaign donation made him the single biggest contributor to the Democratic election effort.

The result, as stated eloquently by syndicated columnist Linda Bowles, was that “the Democrats got money from satellite companies and from Chinese communists; China got supercomputors, advanced production equipment and missile technology; Loral got its satellites launched at bargain basement prices . . . and the transfer of sensitive missile technology gave China [for the first time] the capability of depositing bombs on American cities.” Incidentally, Loral ultimately failed to benefit from this permanent injury to America’s security interests: in July 2003, the company filed for bankruptcy protection, and in order to raise cash was forced to sell its most profitable business – a fleet of communications satellites orbiting over North America.

3) On two occasions, Clinton used military action for the specific purpose of distracting the American public from the fallout of the Lewinsky affair:

• On August 20, three days after Clinton finally admitted publicly to the Lewinsky affair, the news media was poised to focus on that day’s grand jury testimony by Monica Lewinsky. That same morning, Clinton personally went on national television to gravely announce his bombing of a Sudanese “chemical weapons factory,” and a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. It was the first time most Americans ever heard the name of Osama bin Laden. The factory bombing in Sudan killed an innocent night watchman, but accomplished little else. It later was proven that the plant was making badly needed pharmaceuticals for people in that poverty-stricken part of the world, but no chemical weapons.

Several months later, the U.S. Center for Nonproliferation Studies, part of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, stated: "...the evidence indicates that the facility had no role whatsoever in chemical weapons development." Kroll Associates, one of the world's most reputable investigative firms, also confirmed that there was no link in any way between the plant and any terrorist organization. As for the Afghanistan bombing, it failed to do any damage at all to bin Laden or his organization. Clinton’s action was accurately characterized by George W. Bush when he said right after 9-11: "When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt.

Clinton’s pointless and murderous military actions did not make Americans safer that day, although they did destroy an innocent life, and for all the good they did certainly could have been delayed in any case. But they did succeed in diverting media attention from Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony for a 24-hour news cycle, which was the main point. So I guess, they weren’t a total loss.

•On December 16, 1998, on the eve of the scheduled House vote on his impeachment, Bill Clinton launched a surprise bombing attack on Baghdad. As justification for this exploit, he cited the urgent threat that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction posed to America, and the need for immediate action. Almost immediately, the House Democrats held a caucus and emerged calling for a delay in the impeachment proceedings. House minority leader Dick Gephardt made a statement: "We obviously should pass a resolution by saying that we stand behind the troops. I would hope that we do not take up impeachment until the hostilities have completely ended."

Conveniently, a delay so near the end of the House term would have caused the vote to be taken up in the next session – when the newly elected House membership would be seated with more Democratic representation, thereby improving Clinton’s chances of dodging impeachment.

The Republicans did, in fact, agree to delay the hearings, but only for a day or two. Amazingly, Clinton ended the bombing raid after only 70 hours -- once it became clear that in spite of the brief delay, the vote would still be held in the current session.

Once the bombing stopped, Clinton touted the effectiveness and importance of the mission. As reported by ABC News : “We have inflicted significant damage on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs, on the command structures that direct and protect that capability, and on his military and security infrastructure,” he said. Defense secretary William Cohen echoed the point: “We estimate that Saddam's missile program has been set back by at least a year.”

Whether or not one buys Clinton’s assessment of that mission, it is difficult to believe that its timing was so critical that it required commencement virtually at the moment the House was scheduled to vote on the impeachment¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬. I think the most reasonable conclusion is that Clinton cynically deployed US military assets and placed military personnel in harm’s way for purely political reasons.

4) Clinton’s reckless sexual behavior was a threat to American national security:

Clinton and his supporters have been very effective in persuading large numbers of Americans that the Lewinsky scandal was “only about sex.” But I see a bigger issue here, because Clinton is on record as saying that he would have done anything to keep knowledge of the Lewinsky affair from becoming public.

To me, that statement raises a very serious question: What if, instead of sending her recorded Lewinsky conversations to Ken Starr, Linda Tripp had instead secretly offered them for sale, say, to the Chinese government? Or to the Russians? Or even to agents of Saddam?

What kind of blackmail leverage would those tapes have provided to a foreign government in dealing with America on sensitive trade, security or military issues? One of the few things Clinton ever said that I believe is that he would have done anything to keep the Lewinsky affair secret. Given his demonstrated track record of selling out American interests for personal or political gain (and there are more examples that I could have cited here), how far would he have gone in compromising America’s real interests in order to protect his own neck when threatened with blackmail?

Pretty far, I believe. Equally distressing is the prospect Clinton might, in fact, have succumbed to foreign black mail on other occasions in order to hide different sexual episodes that ultimately did not become public. There is no way to know, of course, but I prefer presidents for whom such a scenario is not a plausible possibility.

And don’t even get me started on the war crime in Kosovo.

WAR IN KOSOVO

During Bill Clinton’s 1999 NATO-led war in Kosovo – which according to some estimates cost as much as $75 billion – we bombed Belgrade for 78 days, killed almost 3,000 civilians, and shredded the civilian infrastructure (including every bridge across the Danube.)

We devastated the environment, bombed the Chinese embassy, came very close to engaging in armed combat against Russian forces, and in general, pursued a horrific and inhumane strategy to rain misery on the civilian population of Belgrade in order to pressure Milosevic into surrendering.

Why did we do all that? The US did not even have an arguable interest in the Balkans, and no one ever tried to claim that Serbia represented any kind of threat to our nation or our interests.

But for months the Clinton administration had told us that Milosevic was waging a vicious genocide against Albanian Muslims, and needed to be stopped. The New York Times called it a “humanitarian war.” In March 1999 – the same month that the bombing started – Clinton’s State Department publicly suggested that as many as 500,000 Albanian Kosovars had been murdered by Milosevic’s regime. In May of that year, as the bombing campaign was drawing to a close, Secretary of Defense William Cohen lowered that estimate 100,000.

Five years after the bombing, after all the forensic investigations had been completed, the prosecutors at Milosevic’s “War Crimes” trial in the Hague were barely been able to document a questionable figure of perhaps 5,000 “bodies and body parts.” During the war, the American people were told that Kosovo was full of mass graves filled with the bodies of murdered Albanian Muslims. But none were ever found.

BILL CLINTON ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE

During the election cycle of 1992, George H.W. Bush lost his job after Bill Clinton hammered him relentlessly for having caused the “worst economy of the last 50 years.”

In fact, as CNN’s Brooke Jackson has reported: “Three days before Christmas 1992, the National Bureau of Economic Research finally issued its official proclamation that the recession had ended 21 months earlier. What became the longest boom in U.S. history actually began nearly two years before Clinton took office.” See (See http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/31/jackson.recession.primer.otsc/).

By the same token, Clinton is generally perceived as having a stellar economic record during his own presidency, in spite of the fact that the economy was already starting to decline during the last year of his term after the stock market crashed in March 2000.

According to a report by MSNBC: “The longest economic expansion in U.S. history faltered so much in the summer of 2000 that business output actually contracted for one quarter, the government said Wednesday in releasing a comprehensive revision of the gross domestic product. Based on new data, the Commerce Department said that the GDP — the country’s total output of goods and services — shrank by 0.5 percent at an annual rate in the July-September quarter of 2000.” See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3676690/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/gdp-figures-revised-downward/.

22 posted on 03/22/2016 4:12:03 PM PDT by Maceman
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To: Hugin

He probably tried it once and got so repulsed that he never did it again, just thinking about those two in bed together makes me want to up chuck. I mean look at Clinton he looks like he has a foot and a half in the grave


23 posted on 03/22/2016 4:19:22 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Could be. Certainly loss of knowing what time it is. Maybe he is reliving his own campaign.


24 posted on 03/22/2016 4:22:41 PM PDT by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds)
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To: Sarah Barracuda

Crawling in with Huma for sure but not Hillary! (Bent Billy probably hasn’t bumped pee-pees with The Hildabeast since the Seventies...even a drunk boink!)


25 posted on 03/22/2016 4:25:58 PM PDT by bobby.223 (Retired up in the snowy mountains of the American Redoubt and it's a great life!)
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To: Lil Flower

You’re very perceptive. I’ll have to look for that video with Gabby and her husband. I heard about it, but presumed it was done a long time ago. I don’t hear much about Gabby these days, considering her present condition. I did hear that her brother-in-law returned from a year in space. That would certainly be the focus point at any garden party in my neighborhood.


26 posted on 03/22/2016 4:26:01 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: Lil Flower

I think of Parkinsons too. I have seen it in my family. Clinton has the hand tremors and the weak voice. The facial muscles around the mouth are another indicator. I think Bubba is in the early stages of Parkinsons disease. If he does have Parkinsons disease at his relatively young age, he will get much worse. Also, Clinton has denied that he has problems with the shakes.


27 posted on 03/22/2016 4:26:12 PM PDT by forgotten man
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Later Says He Wasn’t Referring To Obama

An open admission that 0bama is an empty suit just filling a seat?

28 posted on 03/22/2016 4:27:06 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason and rule of law. Prepare!)
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To: RS_Rider

Might get her a few hundred


29 posted on 03/22/2016 4:27:40 PM PDT by Doogle (( USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..nevere store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: smokingfrog

What Republican obstruction is he talking about? I haven’t seen it.


30 posted on 03/22/2016 4:33:11 PM PDT by dandiegirl (BO)
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To: Lil Flower

Feel sorry for this despicable, vile criminal? HELL NO, not for one second. He deserves every single bit of misery that can be heaped upon him.

His wife is in the same bucket, she is just as evil if not more so.

I never feel sorry for evil people when bad things happen to them. When each of them croaks, they can roast in the deepest level of hell for what they’ve perpetrated in this country for almost 25 years. Couldn’t happen to more deserving ‘people’ than the Clintons if you ask me.

I’m just hopeful Billy Boy doesn’t croak before the election, because the sympathy vote would likely assure that the evil beast-woman is elected president—rather than getting her elected to prison where she truly belongs.


31 posted on 03/22/2016 4:33:42 PM PDT by Husker8877
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To: lee martell

https://youtu.be/UVwKwzcaJVE

Here’s the link to the video from Arizona. You only need to watch a few minutes of it to see what I am talking about. Based on his voice and his sunken eyes I would also say he’s dehydrated, which is common with someone suffering from dementia, whether it’s related to Parkinson’s or otherwise. That would also relate to the wrinkles around the mouth as someone else pointed out.


32 posted on 03/22/2016 4:38:27 PM PDT by Lil Flower (American by birth. Southern by the Grace of God. ROLL TIDE!!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
 photo Oh Oh_zpsilgbvnnl.jpg

Along with his dementia and failing health, he's got other things on his mind.

33 posted on 03/22/2016 4:41:43 PM PDT by RetSignman (Obama is the walking, talking middle finger in the face of America)
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To: Husker8877

Well I was diagnosed last year at 43 with ARVD and my sister died from it the previous year on Christmas Eve at 47.

Even before that as a hospice nurse, I’ve taken care of enough dying people I don’t wish illness on anyone, because anyone can get ill, even good people. I’ve taken care of some wonderful souls who were very ill.


34 posted on 03/22/2016 4:44:47 PM PDT by Lil Flower (American by birth. Southern by the Grace of God. ROLL TIDE!!)
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To: Sarah Barracuda
Poor Bill, I actually feel sort of sorry for him I mean look at him, look what he has to crawl into bed every night with, no wonder he cheats, I probably would too, or drink, and heavily

Well dry your eyes, because the last time Bill and Hillary slept together was 1972.

35 posted on 03/22/2016 4:46:48 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: Lil Flower

Thanks for the video.


36 posted on 03/22/2016 4:54:12 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Nope, not a chance.
Clinton called for putting "the awful legacy of the last 8 years behind us and the 7 years before that where we were practicing trickle down economics."
He was either referring to the eight years of Bush preceded by seven years of Bill Clinton's Trickle Down Economics, or he was referring to 8 years of Obama (only seven so far) and 7 years (actually 8) of GWB. IOW, he, and the Puffington Ho, are full of ****.


37 posted on 03/22/2016 5:06:43 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
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To: Lil Flower

The Clintons are not wonderful souls, they are evil. I wouldn’t ‘wish’ it on them either, I said I’d have NO SYMPATHY for them were they to suffer from it. NONE!

My father suffered from dementia for many years before passing away in 2012, so don’t you dare assume that I haven’t seen that sort of suffering in a person who was the greatest husband to my mom, and greatest father to us 9 kids through his whole life (and he did NOT ever deserve such a terrible illness!)

Puh-lease!


38 posted on 03/22/2016 5:09:11 PM PDT by Husker8877
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To: Talisker

GMTA Tal! (See post #25.)


39 posted on 03/22/2016 5:11:50 PM PDT by bobby.223 (Retired up in the snowy mountains of the American Redoubt and it's a great life!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Bill Clinton didn’t used to “misspeak” like this. I don’t think it’s his mind. I think it was a slip.


40 posted on 03/22/2016 5:15:35 PM PDT by VerySadAmerican (Cruz voters: Wake up! Trump is our only chance of stopping the gopE. If not now, never!)
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