Tail To The Chief

Bewitching blonde casts spell on Bill

How dare those Brits call me a witch!

IT couldn’t happen again, could it? Not for the first time in American history, a president, a blonde and a birthday party are converging on New York for what may prove a politically explosive start to Senator Hillary Clinton’s long-awaited campaign for the White House.

When Bill Clinton, the former president, turns 60 in August, his friends are hoping to fete him with the most glamorous birthday bash of the year. Royalty and heads of state are expected to be among the guests at Madison Square Garden, the legendary New York venue where a flimsily dressed Marilyn Monroe crooned “Happy birthday, Mr President” at a 45th birthday party for John F Kennedy.

The Clinton party’s organisers include Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul, John Sykes, the head of MTV, and Jim Dolan, who owns Madison Square Garden. New York gossip columnists are already in a frenzy over who might or might not be invited, but for Democrats and Republicans watching from Washington, one question towers above all: will Belinda be there?

Belinda Stronach, a Canadian MP and heir to a billion-dollar business fortune, has emerged as Bill’s most bewitching blonde. Spokesmen for both sides have long tired of repeating that Clinton and Stronach are “just friends” who see each other only rarely. Yet Stronach’s name has a knack of popping up at awkward moments in discussions of the Clinton marriage.

With that marriage under increasing scrutiny as the New York senator edges closer to a potentially historic presidential campaign, the organisers of Bill’s party are facing an awkward dilemma.

If Stronach is invited and turns up, she will ignite a tabloid frenzy. If she decides to stay away she will invite equally lurid speculation that she did not want to embarrass Hillary, who is this year coasting through a Senate re-election race that is expected to provide a launchpad for her White House campaign.

Although Clinton’s birthday is on August 19, the party is being planned to coincide with the September gathering of the Clinton Global Initiative, the former president’s private policy fest.

Stronach, who was 40 this month, was also present. The twice-divorced daughter of a Canadian billionaire who made a fortune in car parts, she is a prominent Ottawa politician who made headlines last year when she crossed the floor of parliament, jilting not only her Conservative party for the Liberals, but also discarding her lover who was the deputy Conservative leader.

Clinton and Stronach met five years ago at a charity benefit in Toronto. They have since met often enough for the New York Daily News to have dubbed her “Bubba’s blonde pal”.

Old doubts about the state of the Clintons’ marriage were revived this week by a remarkable front-page New York Times article that researched their movements and found that they spent an average of 14 days a month together.

“When the subject of Bill and Hillary Clinton comes up for many prominent Democrats these days, Topic A is the state of their marriage — and how the most dissected relationship in American life might affect Mrs Clinton’s possible bid for the presidency in 2008,” the newspaper said.

If history repeats itself and another glamorous blonde sings “Happy birthday, Mr President” from the stage of Madison Square Garden, Democrats will be praying she is Hillary.

Reading a recipe off a teleprompter

I just love playing the role of Belinda Crocker, and baking some yummy economic pies! Check out some of totally cool speeches that I've read off my teleprompter!

"Either Paul Martin was part of this shameful mess, or he is incompetent. Either way, he is unfit to be Prime Minister of Canada."

Februrary 24, 2004:

"If I ran my company the way Paul Martin ran the finances of this country, I would have been fired.

You cannot run from your own track record.

Paul Martin wants us to believe that he was a stowaway on the good ship Chretien when he was the first mate."

October 8, 2004:

“Mr. Speaker, Canadian industries are suffering.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Were senior Liberal ministers and MPs, such as the Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Human Resources and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence thinking of the Canadian lumbermen and farmers when they picked a preferred winner in the U.S. election? What happens to those Canadian interests if they picked wrong in their recklessness?”

February 24, 2005:

“This is the most Liberal of budgets in structure and intent. It uses the language of tax cuts and reinvestment in the military to attempt to satisfy one group, and child care and the environment for another.

However, at its core, the budget is flawed and defective on two accounts.

First, it is built on an accounting shell game that seems out of step with the revolution in corporate good governance following scandals like Enron and WorldCom.

Second, it is focused on spending taxpayer money with very little attention to enhance economic growth, increase competitiveness and create national wealth necessary to sustain the spending. This is very Liberal and one of the essential points of differentiation between the government and the Conservative Party.

Let us have a peak at how the government constructs its numbers. It has for years been underestimating revenues and expenditures. Examples are personal income and GST revenues which are $17 billion higher each year than reported, that is $85 billion over five years, with social spending understated by $17 billion a year.

For this current budget the government freed up $6 billion in planning surplus room in the next five years by re-booking certain health care and equalization expenditures previously booked over the next five years in the current fiscal year.

There is another example. It re-spent $2.5 billion worth of environmental funds that were booked in previous years but never spent, without revising its accounts.

There is another example. The $12 billion to be saved from the expenditure program review will be diverted to other spending but treated as zero activity. In the real world, auditors would never allow this sleight of hand.

What the Prime Minister has not told us is that he has now spent the entire planning surplus in a budget that is back loaded heavily into the final year; the windfall surplus will not be used to pay down the crippling national debt. What will he do when the fiscal climate of the country changes and he has spent the entire planning surplus? The promisekeeper will be forced to break promises.”

March 7, 2005:

"...[T]he budget is flawed and defective on two accounts.

First, it is built on an accounting shell game that seems out of step with the revolution in corporate good governance following scandals like Enron and WorldCom.

Second, it is focused on spending taxpayer money with very little attention to enhance economic growth, increase competitiveness and create national wealth necessary to sustain the spending. This is very Liberal and one of the essential points of differentiation between the government and the Conservative Party.

Let us have a peak at how the government constructs its numbers. It has for years been underestimating revenues and expenditures. Examples are personal income and GST revenues which are $17 billion higher each year than reported, that is $85 billion over five years, with social spending understated by $17 billion a year.

For this current budget the government freed up $6 billion in planning surplus room in the next five years by re-booking certain health care and equalization expenditures previously booked over the next five years in the current fiscal year.

There is another example. It re-spent $2.5 billion worth of environmental funds that were booked in previous years but never spent, without revising its accounts.

There is another example. The $12 billion to be saved from the expenditure program review will be diverted to other spending but treated as zero activity. In the real world, auditors would never allow this sleight of hand.

What the Prime Minister has not told us is that he has now spent the entire planning surplus in a budget that is back loaded heavily into the final year; the windfall surplus will not be used to pay down the crippling national debt. What will he do when the fiscal climate of the country changes and he has spent the entire planning surplus? The promisekeeper will be forced to break promises.

With regard to the second flaw, the budget spends a lot on health care, for example, trying to reverse time to make up for the money the Prime Minister himself cut out of the same health care system when he was finance minister. With the exception of some relatively modest expenditures on workplace training, I see no strategic focus in the budget on making the country more competitive to keep jobs here in Canada and to create new ones. The key elements of an economic growth agenda are education and competitive corporate taxes.

In Ontario, for example, the provincial government allocates roughly 43% of its budget to health care but only 6% to universities and colleges. It is in large measure lack of federal leadership that has made post-secondary education the poor second cousin in public policy and the country will pay a price for that lack of vision. As a reflection of Liberal priorities, the budget abandons education.

The government remains fixated on lowering the marginal tax rate on profits as its approach to the corporate tax regime. However the key to competitiveness for advanced technology manufacturers is ongoing investment in continuous innovation. This is where much of the future success of Canada must lie. The government should be acting here to also make the effective tax rate on investment more competitive but the budget is silent on this critical part of the puzzle...

...I might add that I find it ludicrous that the government proceeded to assign budget allocations to the military, development assistance and the foreign service before having completed its long awaited international policy review. I can think of no better example of putting the cart before the horse. It is bad public policy to spend money in the absence of objectives and priorities.

The Minister of Finance had promised us accountability and transparency. We received neither in this budget. This is a classic Liberal election budget based on spending."

March 8, 2005:

“Mr. Speaker, on the weekend the New York Times reported that the marijuana grow op industry and criminal drug trafficking across the border were huge security concerns for the United States. In B.C. alone it is a $7 billion business.

However, the Prime Minister and that party continue to play fast and loose with the national interest by talking about decriminalizing and now even legalizing marijuana. Once again the Prime Minister is taking the country in the wrong direction.

Will the Prime Minister get focused, look at the cost to our economy and withdraw the bill to decriminalize marijuana?”

March 9, 2005:

“Mr. Speaker, the following are the recent ramblings of the parliamentary secretary for Canada-U.S. relations, 'let's embarrass the hell out of the Americans. They want to expand their markets and other countries are going to be leery'.

Could the Prime Minister explain how this will foster stronger Canada-U.S. relations to get the border open?”

May 6, 2005:

“Health care and transportation services have suffered as a result of funding cuts by the Liberal Prime Minister. People are wasting hundreds of hours a year in lost productivity sitting in their cars on clogged highways because the Liberal government has not kept its promise to transfer the gas tax to municipalities for essential transit services and roads.”

efrank

Check out my totally cool home movie with Bill Clinton at efrank.ca! Everyone knows, there's something about Belinda... tee hee!

Canadian Politician Denies Clinton Affair

Those nasty Republican reporters just won't leave me alone!

Billionaire Belinda Stronach insists there is nothing true about the rumors she and former President Clinton are having an affair, adding that it's all a Republican plot.

The ultra-wealthy member of Canada's parliament, who switched from the Conservative to the Liberal party, told the Montreal Gazette that the rumors upset her and she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry about the global hullabaloo over her alleged role as Cinton's latest squeeze.

Echoing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's famous allegation of a "vast right-wing conspiracy," Stronach told the Gazette she suspects the rumors have been spread by Republicans.

But it wasn't Republicans who reported last year that she was spotted all over New York with Clinton last year - it was the media.

New York Daily News columnist Ben Widdicombe told ExtraTV.com: "She's blonde, she's ambitious and she's in politics, but she's not Bill Clinton's wife. It's Belinda Stronach, his friend from Canada who's been visiting Bill in New York this week.

"She gives money to his pet projects and in return, he supports her projects, for instance, a children's hospital in Canada," Widdicombe revealed, adding that Stronach and her father donated money to Clinton's presidential library."

Wrote ExtraTV.com: "And Belinda is no stranger to the limelight either. She's divorced from Olympic champion speed skater Johan Olaf Lass and currently has romantic ties to another politician. Still, there have been rumors of a romance between Belinda and Bill since they met five years ago at a charity event."

Join. Recruit. Vote.

Oh. My. God.

Belinda. Is. Blogging.

Is. This. Haiku?