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It's official: Hillary is running for President and if the early polls are any indication, the Clintons have an excellent shot at returning to the White House. Of course, if that happens, there will be a couple "firsts" to ponder: the first female President of the United States and the first "First Gentleman," Bill Clinton! We at ClintonForFirstGentleman.org believe it's time to get the word out and help bring back a duo that proved themselves in the 1990's.

[snip] The former First lady broke previous first-quarter fundraising records set by Texas Republican Phil Gramm, who raised $8.7 million in 1995, and Al Gore who collected $8.9 million in 1999. Clinton’s main competitor for the Democratic nomination, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, has not disclosed his first quarter contributions and he has until the April 15 Federal Election Commission (FEC) deadline to do it.

THE first face-to-face confrontation of next year's presidential race is looming over a US Senate inquiry into health problems suffered by workers at New York's Ground Zero after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As the chairwoman of a Senate committee investigating complaints the workers were misled about air quality after the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, Hillary Clinton - the Democrat frontrunner for the presidential nomination - confirmed last week she was considering calling Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and the leading Republican contender in the campaign, to testify at...

SUNNI insurgent groups that were previously allied with al-Qa'ida in Iraq have turned against it, killing its leaders, attacking its supporters and vowing to drive it out of the country. At least two al-Qa'ida commanders have been killed by Iraqi insurgents in Baghdad. Others have been forced to flee after insurgents passed their details to US and Iraqi commanders. Fierce fighting has broken out between insurgent groups and al-Qa'ida in Anbar province, west of Baghdad. Until the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, in a US airstrike last year, the groups co-operated with it in...

EQUATORIAL lands that are home to hundreds of millions of people will become uninhabitable as food and water run out due to climate change, scientists will warn this week. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to be published on Friday, will warn that the temperature rises of 2-3C predicted by 2050 spell global disaster for both humanity and the environment. It will say that up to 40% of animal and plant species face extinction as rising temperatures destroy the ecosystems that support them. And it will point out that the 29 billion tons of carbon dioxide...

In an age when cohabitation and divorce are common, single parents concerned about the developmental health of their children may want to choose new partners slowly and deliberately, new research from The Johns Hopkins University suggests. The reason for taking your time? The more transitions children go through in their living situation, the more likely they are to act out, Johns Hopkins sociologists Paula Fomby and Andrew Cherlin report. They also found that the effect of family upheaval on children varies by race.

Three weeks ago, the Dixie Chicks were the toast of the Grammy Awards, winning five awards and gloating onstage. This week, however, the country music community weighed in to remind the Texas trio that they are still not welcome in their own genre, giving the Dixie Chicks no nominations for this year's annual Academy of Country Music Awards. [snip] "We don't play their music, and it's strictly based on our research with our listeners, not on our feelings," Shombly said. "After it all happened, we gave them a 'time out' and didn't play their music for about 30 days. Then...

The first deadline in the presidential money primary holds promise and pitfalls for Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Locked in a high-profile fight with charismatic rival Barack Obama, Clinton's initial fundraising report will be a test of her strength as the party's front-runner. Raise millions more than Obama and another chief rival, John Edwards, and the perception that she is the party's inevitable nominee will solidify. A less-than-decisive edge will lend credence to the view that the nomination is truly up for grabs. The Clinton, Obama and Edwards campaigns have been trying to outfox one another in the expectations game....

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - New York Senator and potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton was reportedly on tap to make a White House bid in 2004-as a vice presidential candidate. In an upcoming book by political strategist Bob Shrum, who worked on Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, Clinton was slated to join Kerry on the presidential ticket, but was ruled out because she "was too polarizing." The book, "No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner," which is set to be published June 5, includes a list of about 25 candidates which the Kerry campaign considered as legitimate vice presidential...

Al Gore could become the only man to win an Oscar, a Nobel Prize and his party's presidential nomination within a span of 12 months. He already has collected an Oscar for his global-warming documentary ``An Inconvenient Truth.'' (Actually, that's two Oscars, if you count best song.) He's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by an admiring Norwegian lawmaker. But to have a shot at the trifecta -- California's presidential primary will be 11 months from tomorrow -- Gore will have to declare himself a candidate for president. We hope he goes for it.

For those who wonder if anyone besides us guys reads the posts here, check out this msnbc article on MRS BILL CLINTON's thesis. Reading Hillary Rodham's Hidden Thesis

Why this election is like none that have gone before.

Hillary Clinton suffered an embarrassment in her campaign for the Democratic nomination yesterday after it was reported that she did not fully disclose her finances in her annual Senate ethics report.

A Hollywood-style brawl with the campaign of rival Barack Obama is the latest in a series of speed bumps tripping up Hillary Rodham Clinton's early presidential moves. From the Clinton team's decision to criticize and therefore publicize producer David Geffen's complaints about both Clintons to increasingly skeptical questions about Sen. Clinton's nuanced explanation of her 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war, it became apparent even a battle-tested front-runner can fall prey to missteps. On top of that, voters were reminded of the downside of the first Clinton presidency. "Her explanation for her Iraq vote sounds like the bad old days...

If you build it build it, they won't necessarily come, at least not right away. The gist of Toll Brothers (nyse: TOL - news - people )quarterly report Thursday was simple: there's almost no telling when the U.S. housing market will fully recover, and until then, investors should expect meager earnings from homebuilders. Some markets are better than others, but the bad news continues to mount. Luxury homebuilder Toll said Thursday its first-quarter profit dropped 66.9% due to hefty writedowns on property no longer worth what the company paid for it and other costs.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- HSBC Holdings, the world's third-largest bank and one of the most aggressive players in the U.S. market for low-quality mortgages, has sent a chill through the financial world with news that its bad-debt charges will be 20% higher than forecast. HSBC is the largest, but not the first, lender to warn that higher interest rates in the United States are starting to take a toll on borrowers -- especially those with poor credit -- who bought homes using mortgages with low introductory rates during the real-estate boom. That trend has spelled trouble for many homeowners who believed...

RICHMOND - During a recent House Education Committee meeting, Del. John Reid, R-Henrico County, rose with his cell phone, walked across the room and snapped a photograph of a man holding a video camera. "I just wanted to exchange images with you," said a smiling Reid. The cameraman smiled back. The smiles masked what Republicans are calling a new level of partisan antics by Democrats. The state Democratic Party is dispatching cameramen to film House of Delegates committee and subcommittee meetings. Clips are appearing on Democratic-leaning Internet blogs, such as http://assemblyaccess.wordpress.com/.

WASHINGTON -- The Iowa caucuses that kick off the presidential campaign are nearly a year away. For the most viable contenders, make that one year and $100 million away. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has that capacity, and other contenders believe they do as well. To wage a serious presidential campaign in 2008, the ante is $50 million raised by Dec. 31 of this year, said one adviser to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). And that is just to get a place at the table. Those are daunting figures. To make the $100 million mark in a year, a candidate must...

The ability of some political strategists to bounce back from monumental campaign debacles is simply amazing. A case in point: Over the weekend came the news that Rob Gray, the architect with Tim O’Brien of the disastrous Kerry Healey gubernatorial campaign last year, would be joining the presidential campaign of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain. Can Mr. McCain be serious? Whatever chance of victory the incumbent lieutenant governor had, based on her record and thoughtful agenda, was annihilated by the mudslinging Gray-O’Brien tactics. Will Mr. Gray perform similar wonders for Mr. McCain? Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is embracing ex-Democratic Party boss...

Source is blocked, but this is worth reading. For fun. McAuliffe Rips Kerry `Malpractice' in Memoir: Margaret Carlson.