Saturday, February 6, 2016
With Russia's Help Syrian Army Will Soon Restore Sovereignty of the State
With the help of the Russian Air Force, the Syrian Army will be able to regain Syria's sovereignty, Ghassan Kadi, an expert in Mideast affairs told Sputnik, adding that the prospects of the Russo-Syrian military operation on the ground are good and looking good.
In an exclusive interview with Sputnik, Ghassan Kadi, a Syrian political analyst and expert in Mideast affairs, shared his views on the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement, and the role the Muslim Brotherhood is playing in the Syrian civil war, and the prospects of the Russo-Syrian military campaign
"I believe that with the help of Russia, the Syrian Army will be able to restore sovereignty throughout Syria," Kadi pointed out while answering the question on whether Bashar al-Assad has enough power and political tools to settle the conflict.
Erratic Erdogan
"Militarily speaking, the prospects on the ground are good and looking good. If [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan does not take another crazy gamble and does not widen the compass of this military conflict, then at least this phase of fighting Islamism militarily, and specifically in Syria, will probably come to an end soon," the expert told Sputnik.
Despite Washington's guarantees to Russia that the US-led coalition forces would follow the terms of Memorandum on Air Safety in Syria, inked on October 20, 2015, Turkey refused to confirm its commitment to the agreement, Russia's Deputy Minister of Defense Anatoly Antonov noted in an official statement.
Previously, the Turkish Ministry of Defense refused to allow Russian specialists to carry out an observation flight over the territory of Turkey in accordance with Treaty on Open Skies, apparently to conceal illegal military activity on the Turkish-Syrian border.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Saudi Arabia signaled its willingness to unleash a ground military operation in Syria, followed by statements from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates supporting the initiative.
In response, Damascus announced that any ground intervention in Syria without the official agreement of the Syrian legitimate democratically-elected government would be seen as an act of military aggression.
The 100th Anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement
US hawks are pressuring the Obama administration into launching an all-out military campaign in Syria and Iraq, and to open a "third" front in the war against Daesh (Islamic State/ISIL) in Libya.
"In a recent article I wrote which has not been published yet, I am predicting that the US will not help Erdogan if he decides to invade Syria and Iraq. If the US is indeed foolish enough to take this step with Russia on the scene, it would be risking a war between the superpowers, a war that will not only have effects on Baghdad and Damascus, but the entire world," Kadi told Sputnik.
"On the other hand, and going back to your first question here, if hopefully such a serious development does not eventuate and Syria and Iraq rise victorious, then it will be entirely up to them to decide their own destiny," the expert underscored.
Indeed, a hundred years ago the destiny of the Arab world was decided in London and Paris: under the notorious Sykes-Picot agreement the Middle Eastern borders were redefined by Europeans against Arabs' will.
Is it fair to say that it was the betrayal of the Arabs by Britain and France back in 1916 that resulted in the Syrian crisis? Or is the current Middle Eastern turmoil a result of a modern-day "conspiracy" aimed at redrawing the borders in favor of neo-colonialists?
"The simple answers to both of your questions are yes and yes, and I am not trying to evade answering your questions as asked, but Arabs must take responsibility for their actions and stop blaming their fate and misfortunes on 'external conspiracies'," Ghassan Kadi stresses.
It is time for the Syrians and the Iraqis to take their future in their own hands and protect their sovereignty, so that they cannot later blame the West or other external powers, the expert pointed out.
Daesh, Islamism and Sunni-Shiite Divide
There are lots of conflicts still simmering in the Muslim Arab world, including the Sunni-Shiite divide and violent Islamism. Some groups are fanning the flames to gain more power over their fellow believers.
One glaring example is the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Sunni Islamist organization.
According to a 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) document, the Muslim Brotherhood, along with al-Qaeda in Iraq and Salafists, instigated the Syrian crisis back in 2011 being one of the driving forces of the Syrian insurgency.
What role is the Muslim Brotherhood playing in the Syrian conflict and elsewhere?
"This depends on what you mean by Muslim Brotherhood," Kadi noted.
"If you mean the organization that is rooted in Egypt, and which has later on established bases in the entire Levant including Syria and Lebanon, then one can say that the seemingly placid role that this organization has played created the foundation of indoctrination, which in itself was not violent, but one that lends itself to violence, needing only a tiny mutation," he elaborated.
"Without the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda and Daesh would not have come into existence. And whilst the organization named Muslim Brotherhood has always been at odds with its Wahhabi Salafist Saudi-based counterpart, they are all united by a Muslim Brotherhood, which inadvertently manifests itself by seeing members changing the organizations they belong to like changing socks. After all, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the current al-Qaeda leader, was once a prominent Muslim Brotherhood member," the Syrian expert pointed out.
Remarkably, the Brotherhood played a huge role in the Arab Spring and continues to affect Arab world affairs.
The Islamist group hijacked the revolutionary movement in Egypt in 2011 and temporarily took power in the country. The Brotherhood's traces could be also found in Libya's violent uprising that resulted in the murder of Muammar Gaddafi.
It was a Muslim Brotherhood-led coalition "Libya Dawn" that seized the capital city of Tripoli, Libya, after being defeated in the country's 2014 parliamentary elections, and dragged the country into a protracted political crisis.
Interestingly enough, Turkish President Recep Erdogan has been cooperating with the Brotherhood since he assumed the position of prime minister back in 2003. His Justice and Development Party (AKP) established close ties with Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parties in the Middle East, including Hamas, and the Brotherhood itself in Libya and Egypt.
Furthermore, the Brotherhood boasts a network of officially recognized organizations in Europe, including, for instance, Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) in Britain and Union des Organisations Islamiques (UOIF) in France, while the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe is considered to be a grouping of the most important European Brotherhood-led entities.
According to Kadi, the only proper remedy for Islamism and the dangerous divide within the Muslim world is a reform that only Muslims can do.
"There is a huge onus on Muslim clerics from both sides of the divide, to first and foremost reconcile, and secondly to renounce violence and present Islam as it really is, a religion that renounces coercion and violence," the expert told Sputnik.
Daesh's twisted ideology should be treated much in the same vein.
"The terrorist group can be eliminated only when the twisted ideology that feeds it becomes one that all Muslim clerics agree to be deemed as a perversion of Islam. Until this eventuates, if it does, Islamists will continue to embark on a holy transnational project of recruiting Muslim youth with the sole objective of coercing the entire world into either adopting Islam or submission," Kadi emphasized.
"The doctrine of violence cannot be crushed militarily. Nothing will prevent its recurrence or emergence in other parts of the globe other than reform and return to the real message of Islam," he concludes.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160206/1034340831/russian-syrian-army-will-soon-restore-sovereignty-throughout-syria.html#ixzz3zRAFQtCI
Russia: U.S. plan to deploy more NATO arms in Europe will stoke tensions
Russia blames the U.S. for taking what it says are destabilizing steps as Washington plans to quadruple spending on arms and hardware to be deployed in Europe in a new display of commitment to its NATO allies.
The Russian embassy in the U.S. has said the reported plan by the U.S. administration to quadruple funds for the deployment of military weapons and vehicles to its NATO allies in Europe in 2017 would have a destabilizing effect if implemented.
“This is obviously an attempt by the U.S. to escalate tensions without obvious reasons,” said the Russian embassy representative in comments emailed to RBTH. Sources in the U.S. administration have reportedly indicated that Russia is the country to be deterred by the potential buildup.
The White House plans to increase the deployment of heavy weapons, vehicles, and other military equipment to its NATO allies in Central and Eastern Europe in 2017, The New York Times reported on Feb. 2.
To provide for the deployment, the U.S. administration plans to increase the current level of relevant expenditures exponentially, from $789 million to $3.4 billion, according to several officials interviewed by the newspaper.
However, the allocation is likely to be a one-time effort, not a long-term strategy. The funds are likely to be allocated from a supplemental warfare budget and won’t be included into the regular defense budget request, reported Foreign Policy magazine.
Unidentified Pentagon officials interviewed by The New York Times named Hungary, Romania, and the Baltic states as possible destinations for the U.S.-supplied equipment.
A step toward NATO harmony
If implemented, the deployment will be a sign of commitment of the U.S. administration to its NATO allies in Europe.
Quarrels about the alliance-related responsibilities of the individual member-states have strained relations between the U.S. and its European allies in the past. In 2011, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates criticizedthe U.S.’s NATO allies for their reluctance to share the burden with the U.S. in Libya and Afghanistan.
Deteriorating relations with Russia appear to have revitalized Washington’s zeal for NATO. Although it remains unclear whether the Congress approves the budget plan prepared by the administration, it serves as a strong indication of the White House’s commitment to the alliance.
Founding Act under pressure
The embassy representative told RBTH that the increase in funding, if approved by the U.S. Senate, would be in contradiction to the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. According to the document, both sides agree to cooperate on issues regarding the size of the conventional forces stationed on the territory of Russia and NATO member-states.
The reaction from the Russian embassy comes against the background of U.S. officials’ reported confidence that the buildup would not violate the Founding Act.
Russia and NATO’s commitments to the 1997 document have been tested repeatedly since 2014, when the Ukraine crisis heightened tensions between the two parties. Nevertheless, both sides appear to regard the treaty as still binding, invoking the document to criticize each other’s actions.
Relations between Russia and NATO began deteriorating in 2014 as a result of Russia’s takeover of Crimea and its subsequent backing of pro-autonomy rebels in eastern Ukraine. NATO suspended civilian and military cooperation with Russia in the framework of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) in April 2014.
Russian officials have repeatedly criticized NATO’s policy of eastward enlargement. A new National Security Strategy, approved by President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 31, 2015, listed the buildup of NATO’s power potential and further enlargement of the alliance towards Russian borders among the threats to national security.
How should Russia respond to creation of Trans-Pacific Partnership?
On Thursday, the members of the TPP have signed an agreement on establishing the new trade bloc. Trade ministers of 12 countries - Australia, Brunei, Vietnam, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, the United States, Singapore, Chile and Japan - signed the document. The agreement includes a slow (10 - 25 years) but rather vast reduction of duties for 18,000 goods, as well as removing non-tariff and technical constraints and expanding access to services markets. Now the countries accounting for at least 85% of the total TPP’s GDP - primarily, the United State and Japan - need to ratify the agreement for it to enter into force.
Moscow was reserved in its reaction to the creation of the TPP. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred to Vladimir Putin's Address to the United Nations Security Council in which the President expressed concern about the possibility of creating any sort of "narrow groups", which would subsequently become substitutes for the WTO and international trade rules.
Russian Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukayev was less diplomatic, "We believe it is fundamentally wrong to address the problem of the global trade by dividing it into such club deals".
The fact that two significant Pacific Rim economies - China and Russia - have not been invited to participate in the negotiations on the TPP, is often seen as the basis for blaming the project for secrecy and confrontation.
Head of the Russian Foreign Policy Department at the Russian Presidential Academy (RANEPA) Olga Abramova told TASS that creating the TPP and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a part of "containment policy of Russia, China and other BRICS countries in order to maintain the current world order with the United States as a leader."
"What reaction is possible to the challenges arising in connection with the creation of TPP?" Sergey Afontsev, Head of the Economic Theory Department of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, said in his article for the journal "Russia in Global Affairs." "For Russia, accession to this regional bloc in the coming years is not possible neither politically (in the context of a priority focus on the construction of a "multipolar world"), nor economically - taking into account strengthening of protectionist tendencies and import substitution strategy. It is important that the clauses of the TPP agreement apply only to economic relations between the countries that have signed it, but not to their relations with third states. This means that Russia will be able to continue to cooperate with the members of the TPP, based on the legal basis of bilateral relations formed earlier."
The best strategy for Russia in relation to the TPP, according to experts, is to monitor and assess the relevance of its experience in integration projects implemented with the participation of Russia. "After all, there is nothing bad about the fact that we were not invited to the negotiations on the agreement, which we were not ready to sign anyway. We are strangers to this feast of life - but nothing prevents us from watching fireworks and remembering the techniques that could be useful in organizing our own celebration."
"To some extent this agreement is a reaction to the strengthening of China's positions, but only in part," Higher School of Economics professor Vladimir Zuev told TASS. "What’s important is that the agreement is against the trade restrictions that have not been discussed before. This includes non-tariff barriers, protecting intellectual property rights. In this sense, the agreement is innovative," he added.
China and Russia could hypothetically join it in the future, but it is unlikely, the expert said. "Because there are clauses that both countries find inconvenient. For example - on state-controlled companies. No international agreement had tried to help private companies to compete with the state-owned enterprises before. In addition, the agreement includes the rules to facilitate access to government contracts, and we, even within the WTO, were not ready to sign the protocol on public procurement. Our public procurement market is strictly regulated, and Russia is not yet ready to be more open."
The agreement on the TPP is "not against us, but in favor of different international trade principles." "We are not going to join it yet, because so far it does not satisfy us," he concluded.
More:
http://tass.ru/en/politics/855069
Western nations see Russia as competitor, majority of Russians say in a poll
Over 40 percent of Russians think that Western nations perceive their motherland as a competitor, while 30 percent think Russia is viewed more as a foe by the West, according to a recent public opinion poll.
Thirty percent of Russians said that, in their view, Western countries treated Russia as an enemy, while 15 percent said that relations were an equal partnership. Five percent of participants in the poll answered that Westerners did not have any special approach to their country; four percent said that the West treats Russia as a friend.
The research was conducted by the independent polling service Levada-Center in January this year. It also showed that the number of Russians who consider their country to be one of the most influential states in the world has increased from 27 percent last year to 36 percent.
This year 25 percent of respondents said that the Russian economy was not developed enough for the country to be included in the list of leading nations. Four percent of respondents said that they blamed the resistance of Western states for Russia’s lagging behind, and three percent thought that the main reason was in the lack of democracy in the country or, on the contrary, the lack general stability in Russia’s political system. Twenty-six percent of those polled could not answer the question.
At the same time, 54 percent of respondents think that Russia should strengthen ties with Western nations, compared to 40 percent a year ago; 33 percent hold the opposite opinion, and believe it would do Russia good to further distance itself from the West.
Levada researcher Karina Pipiya said in comments with Izvestia daily that in 2007 and 2008 – when the Russian economy was booming – the number of citizens who thought that the West considered Russia mostly as a competitor also peaked. Over the past year, as the state of the Russian economy and the well-being of its citizens has decreased, the share of people with this view has also fallen.
Pipiya added that the growing share of those who support stronger cooperation between Russia and the West could be explained by the fact that the main causes of negativity – the conflict in Ukraine and the Western sanctions introduced in reply to Crimea’s accession into the Russian Federation – were no longer big news, and there was less anti-Western sentiment in the Russian mass media.
The researcher pointed out that the average Russian believes his country and the rest of the leading world nations now have a common enemy – the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, previously known as ISIS and ISIL).
With Love From China - American candidates should stick to home, not bash China
It's become routine in US elections to pounce on China. Constantly accusing China of various "wrongdoings" and blaming the incumbent president for his "soft stance" on China, the candidates often make exaggerated, irresponsible remarks or unrealistic promises about China to woo potential voters.
This has been typical among the GOP candidates. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the winner of Monday's Iowa Republican caucus, said the US should turn the heat up on China and "immediately approve the sale of F-16s to Taiwan." Real estate mogul Donald Trump has vowed to designate China as a "currency manipulator" and to bring back "millions of jobs from China" if elected. Florida Senator Mark Rubio and Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie have both denied China's territorial claims over several islets in the South China Sea, saying the US should "keep sending warships and planes" to the area.
As for the Democratic side, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has been relentless in bashing China on the issue of cyber security, accusing the Chinese government of "stealing commercial, military and personal information" through the Internet. And her major rival Bernie Sanders has taken a similar stance against China to Trump regarding the currency exchange rate and jobs.
Similar claims and vows have been heard before during election time, yet China and the US have forged an ever closer relationship in recent decades, with China becoming the biggest trade partner of the US and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries also expanding rapidly.
This new reality means that any chest-puffing during the election campaign won't translate into concrete action by whoever is sworn into office. The reason is simple: Pragmatism always prevails when it comes to running a country. Moreover, the world's top two economies are so closely intertwined that their relationship won't be easily undermined by some irresponsible campaign rhetoric.
But the candidates should exercise caution. Irrational claims could lead to misunderstanding and even misjudgment and could cause a setback in bilateral ties.
Since the establishment of bilateral ties in 1979, the China-US relationship has witnessed its ups and downs, and history has shown that strengthening of ties requires understanding and trust, not trouble-making.
More importantly, since the US presidential election is, after all, a political process for the American people to choose a competent leader, the candidates are better off focusing on domestic issues, which voters actually care about.
The "China card" is mere scapegoating, an indication of a candidate's lack of competence in tackling domestic problems. And it's likely to backfire as most Americans want to see some real change in Washington politics and real solutions to major concerns at home.
This is a commentary of the Xinhua News Agency. The article first appeared on Xinhua. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/967414.shtml
EDITORIAL - Trump -- The loser: Donald's decades of failure
Losing is what he does.
Trump promises that if he’s President, we would win so much, we’d get bored and ask him to lose. And Trump has been losing for decades.
After inheriting his father’s real estate empire, Trump has used crony capitalism and eminent domain to increase it. But Trump’s attempts to set up his own businesses have been striking failures.
Trump Steaks lacked sizzle.
Trump Ice bottled water dried up.
In 2006, Trump said, “I think it’s a great time to start a mortgage company.”
Trump Mortgage Company shut down in 2007.
GoTrump.com, a search engine for luxury travel deals, logged off after a year.
Trump Magazine stopped publishing after just two years.
Trump Airlines never turned a profit, and defaulted on its loans.
You can’t order a Trump and tonic because nobody makes Trump Vodka anymore.
Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for bankruptcy in 1999.
And 2004.
And 2009.
And 2014.
Trump University closed its doors in 2011, but is still facing lawsuits for ripping off students for packaging a trumped-up self-help seminar as an actual education.
Too bad Trump failed to get his New Jersey Generals into the NFL. He’d have made the Cleveland Browns look like winners. - See more at: http://www.unionleader.com/Trump-The-loser-Donalds-decades-of-failure#sthash.HX9buAtR.dpuf
Question: What’s Clinton’s message? Answer: All of the above.
By Karen Tumulty and Anne Gearan
The question at the most recent Democratic presidential debate was this: Which of your many policy proposals would be Job One if you were elected?
Hillary Clinton’s 293-word answer to that straightforward query was anything but. “I’m for a lot of things,” she told moderator Chuck Todd. “If I’m so fortunate to get the nomination, I will begin to work immediately on putting together an agenda, beginning to talk with members of Congress and others about how we can push forward.”
She proceeded to tick off a familiar litany of Democratic priorities: clean energy, universal health coverage, lower prescription drug costs, paid family leave, early childhood education, assistance for small business, immigration reform, revitalizing manufacturing, infrastructure spending.
Asked the same, her rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders zeroed in on a single priority: unrigging the system. “So long as big money interests control the United States Congress, it is gonna be very hard to do what has to be done for working families,” he said.
That exchange summed up why so many Clinton supporters are publicly and privately urging her to sharpen her message in the face of a growing challenge from Sanders. So far, she has no 21st-century version of the “it’s the economy, stupid” mantra that famously drove her husband Bill Clinton’s 1992 bid.
“When the atmosphere changes from hope and change to rage and revolt, you need to powerfully, succinctly articulate what you want to do,” said former Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), a Clinton supporter.
Meanwhile, voters say they have no doubt what Sanders’s candidacy is all about.
“He’s narrow in a way that I like,” said Nick Pangaro, 64, a management consultant. He is leaning toward Sanders but still interested enough in Clinton to attend her appearance at a Boys and Girls Club in Derry, which was her first stop in New Hampshire after the Iowa caucuses.
“I like the millionaires and billionaires message,” Pangaro said. “I like the fact that he’s talking about what I regard as a true problem in this country, which is the wealth disparity and the fact that so few people are controlling so much wealth.”
After battling her to a virtual tie in Iowa, Sanders is heavily favored to win Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, and has significantly reduced the gap with her in national polls.
Clinton’s decision to take a campaign trail detour to Flint, Mich., on Sunday was welcomed by her allies as a bold move — putting a focus on her values perhaps more than a mountain of policy papers could.
Clinton takes credit for goading Michigan’s Republican governor into accepting federal help to remedy the crisis in the city, where a cost-cutting decision led to poisonous levels of lead in the water in the poor, heavily African-American city.
“She cares about this, and she’s meeting people there to try to get more done,” her pollster Joel Benenson said.In addition, Clinton’s campaign argues that her emphasis on a range of issues is a strength, not a weakness.
Sanders “has a direct message because he’s a single-issue candidate. Our point is that details matter and you need to be able to do all parts of the job,” said her spokesman Brian Fallon. More importantly, her advisers say, her approach is a reflection of who she is and how she would approach the often-prosaic business of governing. Most of her positions represent incremental steps on the achievements of President Obama’s two terms, or a promise to protect what he has done.
MSNBC host Mika Brzyznski invited Clinton to give a simple rationale for her candidacy last month. She got a two-and-a-half-minute speech that began with Clinton saying she wanted to build on President Obama’s successes and wandered through biography, policy and partisanship.
“I don’t offer easy answers,” Clinton said on the Jan. 15 broadcast. She meant that as a none-too-subtle dig at Sanders, but it also summed up the frustration that some of her own supporters are feeling.
Clinton needs something “edgier and interesting and more of a value statement than a plan,” said one adviser who has been consulted by the campaign on policy, and who did not want to be quoted publicly disparaging its message.
On health care, for instance, Sanders proposes a single-payer, government-centered program that would put the private medical insurance system out of business. Such a system is a long-held dream of liberals, but it is hard to see how it could be achieved with Republicans holding control of one and possibly both houses of Congress, as is expected after the 2016 election.
In her stump speech, Clinton takes voters through a long and sometimes discursive list of her plans to fix the Affordable Care Act rather than scrap it.
However, some of Clinton’s proposals also appear politically unrealistic. For instance, she pledges to lower prescription drug prices by allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug makers en masse, President Obama also sought that power but conceded it in the negotiations to pass the health care law.
At Thursday’s debate in Durham, Sanders had short, punchy answers for why he’s running and what he wants to do. He called for a “political revolution” and said of big banks, “break them up!”
Clinton rebuked Sanders for an “artful smear” on her character by suggesting she is beholden to big financial interests, but the meat of her argument was example after example of what she called a practical to-do list.
“I won’t make promises I can’t keep,” Clinton said at a campaign stop Friday. “What I will tell you is what I know we can do.”
She is also striving to bring more focus to an area where her fluency is greater than Sanders’: international affairs.
“I know that sometimes foreign policy might seem a little remote,” Clinton said Friday night at a Democratic dinner Manchester. “Russia, Iran, ISIS, these are not issues we can put off to the side. They cannot be an afterthought.”
Albright: 'special place in hell' for women who don't support Clinton
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright introduced Hillary Clinton at an event in New Hampshire on Saturday, telling the crowd and voters in general: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!”
In polling, Clinton trails the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in New Hampshireby an average of around 17 points. She leads him nationally by 15 to 20 points. In this week’s Iowa caucus, which Clinton won narrowly, the former secretary of state led Sanders among women by 53% to 42% but lost out among younger voters.
Both campaigns were in New Hampshire on Saturday, ahead of Tuesday’s primary. Introducing Clinton in Concord, Albright said: “When she was secretary of state, she restored America’s reputation.
“Those other people before made huge mistakes. They really undermined our reputation and our position in the world, and Hillary Clinton brought us back, she restored our position in the world.
“People are talking about revolution. What kind of a revolution would it be to have the first woman president of the United States?”
That was met with a chant of “Madam President! Madam President!”
“Not only that,” said Albright. “But she’s just the best!”
Albright was the first woman to be secretary of state and served during the presidency of Clinton’s husband, Bill. She closed her New Hampshire speech with an allusion to the ongoing struggle with Republicans over abortion rights.
“Young women have to support Hillary Clinton. The story is not over!” she said. “They’re going to want to push us back. Appointments to the supreme court make all the difference. “It’s not done and you have to help. Hillary Clinton will always be there for you. And just remember, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” The crowd responded enthusiastically, and then welcomed Clinton on stage.
Man Caring For Mom With Alzheimer's Leaves Hillary Clinton Choked Up
By Sam-levine
Hillary Clinton was on the verge of tears when she met a man caring for his 84-year-old mother with Alzheimer's disease backstage at a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire.
A moment backstage in Manchester, New Hampshire: "I'm taking care of my mom, she has Alzheimer's...thank you for speaking up for that."
Posted by Hillary Clinton on Friday, February 5, 2016
"No, no I'm so glad you did, oh my gosh, thank you, thank you," the former Secretary of State said, her voice cracking. "Your story is so incredibly moving and it's also a story for so many people, that's why I keep fighting."
Clinton has released a plan seeking to cure Alzheimer's by 2025 and called for $2 billion per year to be dedicated to research into the most common cause of dementia. Clinton has also said she will push for expanded Medicare coverage for Alzheimer patients, which would provide some relief for families that have to care for loved ones with the disease.
"Families are trying, like you are, to do the best they can, but they've got to have more support, and they've got to have more quality respite care, day care that is affordable where they feel ok," she told the man in New Hampshire. "But I would also like to see you get more support through your employment."
Hillary Clinton visiting Flint on Sunday: report
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is visiting Flint, Mich., this weekend amid its ongoing water crisis.
Clinton will promote a stalled Congressional aid package for the troubled city during her visit, according to MSNBC.
The stop’s announcement comes only five days before New Hampshire’s primaries on Tuesday.
Clinton’s campaign said Thursday that it is holding at least one public event in the Granite State before ballots are cast there. Her bid faces an uphill battle against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in New Hampshire, where he leads by nearly 20 points.
Flint’s residents — most of whom are African American — are suffering from undrinkable tap water with dangerous amounts of lead. The city’s drinking supply turned unhealthy in April 2014 when it switched its water source.
Clinton has since repeatedly drawn attention to the issue during her quest for the Oval Office this year.
She focused her closing argument during last month’s fourth Democratic presidential debate on addressing the crisis. Clinton also helped secure Flint as the location of her party’s seventh debate, which is scheduled for March 6.
The Senate failed to pass a wide-ranging energy reform bill Thursday amid heated debate over aid for the city. Democrats — led by Democratic Michigan Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters — want $600 million for Flint, including $400 million that would match state funds for replacing its old pipes and researching lead poisoning.
The Clinton campaign’s decision may help it shore up the support of African-American supporters. The voting bloc is a crucial factor in the early-voting state of South Carolina, where Clinton currently leads Sanders by nearly 30 points.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/268332-report-clinton-visiting-flint-next-sunday