Twitter Exchange Of The Day

George Stephanopoulos Pulls Out Of GOP Debate Over Clinton Foundation Donations

Via Politico:

George Stephanopoulos says he should not have donated money to the Clinton Foundation and that he will not moderate the ABC News-sponsored Republican primary debate in February after failing to disclose those contributions. In an interview with the On Media blog on Thursday, Stephanopoulos said that while he made the donations "for the best reasons," he now realizes he should not have given. "In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have, even though I did it for the best reasons," he said. Stephanopoulos also said that he has given a total of $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation. That figure represents charitable contributions of $25,000 in 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively. ABC News initially said that Stephanopoulos had given a total of $50,000 to the foundation. The "Good Morning America" co-anchor and host of "This Week" said that he would not moderate ABC's GOP debate, which is scheduled to take place in February in New Hampshire. Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that Stephanopoulos should be prohibited from moderating any debates during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Stephanopoulos was the communications director for the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign, later taking the same role at the White House. This morning he issued an apology on the air:

I want to address some news you may have seen about me. Over the last several years I’ve made substantial donations to dozens of charities, including the Clinton Global Foundation. Those donations were a matter of public record but I should have made additional disclosures on-air hen we covered the Foundation. And I now believe that directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake. Even though I made them strictly support work done to stop the spread of AIDS, help the children, and protect the environment in poor countries, I should’ve gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict. I apologize to all of you for failing to do that.

Matt Drudge: Hillary Clinton Is Hiding Bill

Google data must also show that the public doesn't want to see Matt Drudge with another man.

Opening In NYC: Clinton, The Musical

Via press release:

If President William Jefferson Clinton behaved like two different people—one moment noble, the next naughty—that’s because he was! Clinton The Musical explores the two very different sides of the 42nd President of the United States: “WJ,” (Tom Galantich) the wholesome, intelligent one, and “Billy,” (Duke Lafoon) the randy, charming one. With Hillary (Rodham) Clinton (Kerry Butler) at their side, the two will handle issues from The White House to Whitewater, the sax to the sex, social security to social climbers, and in the process make history. Maybe. You cannot miss this “Hillary-ous” new musical and outrageous double Bill! The cast features Tony Award nominee Kerry Butler as Hillary (Rodham) Clinton, Tom Galantich (Tail! Spin!, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) as WJ Clinton and Duke Lafoon (MONICA! The Musical, A Wonderful Life) as Billy Clinton, Emmy Award winner Judy Gold as Eleanor Roosevelt, John Treacy Egan (Nice Work If You Can Get It, Sister Act) as Newt Gingrich, Veronica J. Kuehn (Mamma Mia!, Avenue Q) as Monica Lewinsky. 

Previews begin March 25th at New World Stages.

Drudge Celebrates Lewinsky Scandal

Closeted homosexual blogger Matt Drudge today posted the above tweet in celebration of this day 17 years ago when his blog first gained national attention due to his leaking word that Newsweek editors had killed a story which reported that Bill Clinton had had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Bill Clinton On Hillary 2016

Via the Washington Post:

Clinton called his wife “a doting, giddy” grandmother, and called watching 6-week old Charlotte, the couple’s first grandchild, the daughter of Chelsea Clinton and husband Marc Mezvinsky “a hoot.” Degeneres later tried to pry the will-she-or-won’t-she news out of Clinton by offering one of two baby onesies for him to pick for his granddaughter. One read “MY GRANDMA’S RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2016″ and the other, “MY GRANDMA’S A STAY-AT-HOME GRANNY.” “If I pick that one,” he said, pointing to the presidential announcement, “it would be best for the country.”

Bill Clinton Congratulates Tim Cook

VIDEO: Bill Clinton At HRC Gala

Bill Clinton Speaks At HRC Gala

Bill Clinton gave the keynote address at tonight's sold-out Human Rights Campaign National Dinner.  Via Politico:

The fired-up crowd attending the Human Rights Campaign’s national dinner at Washington D.C.’s cavernous convention center was particularly enthusiastic whenever he mentioned Hillary Clinton, a likely 2016 Democratic candidate. The former president noted her support for gay rights during her time at State, when she said that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” “I love the HRC. The initials are great,” Clinton said as the crowd embraced the dual reference to the rights organization and his wife’s middle name, Rodham. Early on, the former president also mentioned Guy Cecil, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, who is thought to be a candidate to run Hillary Clinton’s potential presidential campaign. Bill Clinton noted several times how much has changed on the gay rights front — including court-sanctioned gay marriage in many places — since he addressed the organization in 1997. “One thing we have learned is no human heart is immune to an honest outreach,” he said. “No one can forever ignore their personal experience. If you ask somebody who the most conservative member of the Bush administration was, most people say Dick Cheney. But Dick Cheney was for gay marriage [and] gay rights because of his daughter [one of whom is gay], because of his personal human experience.”

Multiple reporters tweeted that Clinton did not mention DOMA or DADT, both of which he signed into law. Photo source.

Monica Lewinsky: I Was The First Person To Be Destroyed By The Internet

The Lewinsky scandal, not incidentally, was broken by closet case homocon Matt Drudge. It was that "scoop" that is widely credited as launching his site into the wingnut behemoth that it is today.

Monica Lewinsky Joins Twitter

Today's New York Post

Rupert Murdoch strikes again.

Chelsea Clinton Has A Daughter

Marc and I are full of love, awe and gratitude as we celebrate the birth of our daughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky.
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) September 27, 2014

Via the Los Angeles Times:

After much public anticipation, Bill and Hillary Clinton have finally become grandparents as their daughter, Chelsea, gave birth to a daughter Friday. The former president and the past--and perhaps future--presidential candidate delivered the news via Twitter, copying a post from their daughter referring to the birth. "Marc and I are full of love, awe and gratitude as we celebrate the birth of our daughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky," read the post on Chelsea Clinton's Twitter feed. No other details were made public. Coming as her mother makes plans for a second presidential campaign, the news that Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, were expecting their first child garnered tremendous attention in the political world — leading some to compare it to the frenzy that surrounded the arrival of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s son, George.

Bill Clinton To Keynote HRC Gala

Via press release:

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality, announced today that President Bill Clinton will deliver the keynote address at the 18th Annual HRC National Dinner to be held on Saturday, October 25, 2014, in Washington, DC. “President Bill Clinton is a transformational leader for our nation and the world,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “His ability to build partnerships around the globe and harness the power of human potential is truly remarkable, and we are thrilled he will be returning as our keynote speaker for our national dinner.”  After leaving the White House, President Clinton established the Clinton Foundation with the mission to improve global health, strengthen economies, promote health and wellness, and protect the environment. In addition to his Foundation work, President Clinton has served as the top United Nations envoy for the Indian Ocean tsunami recovery effort and as the UN Special Envoy to Haiti. Today, the Clinton Foundation is supporting economic growth, capacity building, and education in Haiti. President Clinton attended HRC's first national dinner in 1997.

The event is already sold out.

AUSTRALIA: Clinton Tells Conference That An AIDS-Free Generation Is Within Reach

COMPILATION: Gay News In The 1990s

JMG reader Dave Evans has compiled an hour of gay-related news reports that aired in the 1990s. Among the topics: ACT UP demonstrations, the Boy Scouts, gay pride marches, the election of Bill Clinton, the enactment of DADT, the enactment of DOMA, and the murder of Matthew Shepard.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Compilations of gay news in the 1970s, gay news in the 1980s, and the first ten years of HIV/AIDS.

Lewinsky: I Identifed With Tyler Clementi

In a piece for Vanity Fair, Monica Lewinsky declares that she "deeply regrets" her affair with former President Bill Clinton. Lewinsky adds that she was spurred to combat internet harassment by the suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi.

When Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old Rutgers freshman who was secretly streamed via Webcam kissing another man, committed suicide in September 2010, Lewinsky writes, she was brought to tears, but her mother was especially distraught: “She was reliving 1998, when she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She was replaying those weeks when she stayed by my bed, night after night, because I, too, was suicidal. The shame, the scorn, and the fear that had been thrown at her daughter left her afraid that I would take my own life—a fear that I would be literally humiliated to death.” Lewinsky clarifies that she has never actually attempted suicide, but had strong suicidal temptations several times during the investigations and during one or two periods after.

Lewinsky writes that following Clementi’s tragedy “my own suffering took on a different meaning. Perhaps by sharing my story, I reasoned, I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation. The question became: How do I find and give a purpose to my past?” She also says that, when news of her affair with Clinton broke in 1998, not only was she arguably the most humiliated person in the world, but, “thanks to the Drudge Report, I was also possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet.” Her current goal, she says, “is to get involved with efforts on behalf of victims of online humiliation and harassment and to start speaking on this topic in public forums.”

(Tipped by JMG reader Allen)

Happy Grandparents-To-Be

Chelsea Clinton Is Pregnant

Via ABC News:

She announced the news today during a speech in New York City with her mother, Hillary Clinton, at her side. Clinton said she and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, do not know if it’s a boy or a girl. The news shouldn’t come as a complete shock. In an interview with Glamour Magazine last year, Clinton said that she and her husband were considering 2014 “the Year of the Baby.” "We sat down and said, 'Here's what we want to do.' The first thing on the list was simple: We want, God willing, to start a family,” Clinton told the magazine. “So we decided we were going to make 2014 the Year of the Baby.”

In the above-linked article, ABC refers to Chelsea as "the former - and potentially future - First Daughter."

Romney Slams Bill Clinton

Mitt Romney was on Meet The Press today where he slammed Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal, which the right is resurrecting as Hillary's run for president grows more likely. Romney: "He embarrassed the nation. He breached his responsibility, I think, as an adult and as a leader in his relationship. and I think that’s very unfortunate.”