Posted on 08/04/2005 5:59:22 AM PDT by madprof98
Health care main focus of remarks
With his recent heart surgery as a reference point, former President Bill Clinton spent most of a session with black journalists Wednesday talking about health care issues. But first, he had some choice words about Georgia's new voter ID law.
"All over America there are efforts to restrict access to the vote under the guise of preventing voter fraud. And I say guise --- look at this Georgia bill, all the ID you've got to produce to register to vote," Clinton said at the opening session of the National Association of Black Journalists convention at the downtown Hyatt Regency hotel.
Clinton called on Congress and the Bush administration to support extension of the portions of the Voting Rights Act that would otherwise expire in 2007, and he said he thought voting rights should be extended to those who have been convicted of a crime and served their sentence.
Clinton also dealt with a question about the presidential ambitions of his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). She would be "the best there ever was" if she became president, but he didn't know if his wife would run, Clinton said.
But for most of a brief speech and question-and-answer session, Clinton focused on a range of health care questions, from childhood obesity in the United States to AIDS in Africa.
Clinton, who had quadruple heart bypass surgery last year, said he was feeling better than he had in years, but said the experience left him more determined to do something about the nation's health care problems, which are "horrible for this country and the future of our economy."
Clinton said the nation doesn't pay enough attention to preventive medicine, while it spends more on average than any other country on the last two months of life.
"We may be the most religious country in the world, but we're also the most reluctant to go to heaven," the former president said.
Clinton said he had become involved in a project with the American Heart Association on childhood obesity, which he said threatened to make America's children "the first generation to have a life expectancy lower than their parents," due to heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses.
He cited an Emory University study that he said showed that 27 percent of the growth in health care spending can be related to rising obesity levels.
The former president said the William J. Clinton Foundation had made progress in bringing down the cost of treatment and testing for AIDS to $160 per person a year in six African countries, India, China and other AIDS hot spots around the world. For $500 million a year, he noted, treatment could be provided to every AIDS sufferer in the world.
Yet only 25,000 of the 500,000 children with AIDS worldwide are receiving care, he said.
"This is literally an organizational and money problem," Clinton said.
This was Clinton's third appearance at an NABJ convention. He attended the 1992 convention in Detroit as a candidate for president, then returned as president to the 1997 convention in Chicago.
Seems I recall a big cash advance for a book Mr. Clinton. I am sure they would accept your personal check.
My family members fought and died to preserve that right.
My cousin's son, a Navy Seal, died on November 9, 2004.
There should be a strict requirement and positive proof ID before anyone is allowed in that booth!!
Making it easier to vote is wrong.
If you don't want to get out of the house and go vote....well that's your problem.
These state voter ID laws around the country are among the most important gains the GOP has ever made. For the first time I can remember, we are rolling back the Democrat fraud machine.
Any dim, black, white, green, red or yellow that desires to participate in the electoral process will obtain a picture ID and will still be able to vote.
Producing a picture ID is not an attempt to suppress Democrat votes - it's an attempt to conduct an HONEST vote.
And that's want angers them.
Bill does NOT like the idea of stopping voter fraud. If it were to happen, the democrats could never win an election. Voter fraud is their bread and butter.
If the GOP would ever get serious about combating vote fraud, the democrats would never win another election. Until then, your civil rights are being violated every election.
It's a behavioral problem. Change the behavior that spreads AIDS, and the problem is solved - and it's FREE!!!!
Don't even try to get a red cent from me. I'm not spreading it.
"We may be the most religious country in the world, but we're also the most reluctant to go to heaven," the former president said.
You're certainly proof of that, Slick!
Cannot let him anywhere near POWER again if we hope to preserve our nation.
Or buy a six-pack of beer until you start getting a few gray hairs. On the older side I expect that older people need photo ID to pick up prescriptions. I expect that the number of people who don't have a driver's license or a state ID and who really want to vote legally can be counted on your fingers.
Clinton was also heard to say 'this gravely reduces Democrat ability to cheat their ass off at elections; it's an outrage'.
And Clinton's giving another speech to the National Ass. of BJ's.
Seems appropriate.
Will someone explain to me why showing an ID is intimidation unless you are not who you are claiming to be? More of the crap from the Clintons -- using blacks once again and the worst part is that some people swallow this Bravo Sierra!
Hillary and Schumer want illegals to have voting rights now too. These folks are so extreme that my head hurts trying to regain balance from the shock of their outrageous positions.
Who are they pandering to when they take positions like that? It. Is. Just. Insane!
And the world produces double the food needed to feed every inhabitant.
So it's not food that's the problem why millions of people starve.
It's Jimmy Carter's buddies, those communist dictators, who control the distribution and use food as a weapon.
The Russians did the same thing to their own after WW1....same with the Chinese and every other communist regime on record.
Kill the tyrants and bring down the regimes......then send the food.
Sending food without controlling the means of distribution is a waste of time, money and effort.
It might temporarily relieve some guilt complex, but in the end it only prolongs a nation's suffering.
Spend money for bullets and bombs and put them to work first!
Yep. Here in Wisconsin, "Governor" Doyle is threatening to veto the voting ID act for the third time. All the usual lies have been repeated - poor people can't afford it, it's racist, etc. These people are like the prehistoric mammals thrashing in the tar pits.
Hey Bubba, stay the heck out of Georgia, and for that matter the heck out of the U.S.A.
Take a loooooong fact-finding mission into the third world, say a decade.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.