I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Friday, November 2, 2012

Where Are Your Former Presidents?

As we here in Jersey sit in the dark, waiting for our aging electrical grid to crackle back to life, let's play a game to pass the time: Where Are Your Former US Presidents Right Now?

Bill Clinton:
The Big Dog is suddenly Barack Obama’s Top Dog – and the candidate is delighted at being upstaged by Bill Clinton.
In the closing days of this epic campaign, the former President is dashing across the battleground states, trying to seal the deal for Obama with undecided voters and white, blue-collar Democrats.
“I may be the only person in America, but I am far more enthusiastic about President Obama this time than I was four years ago,” Clinton told a crowd in Lake Worth, Fla. – the first of an astounding five stops Friday in the Sunshine State.
After he joins Obama for a Virginia rally on Saturday and another in New Hampshire on Sunday, Clinton will have logged 16 campaign appearances in a single week – an extraordinary and possibly unprecedented display of electioneering by a former President.
George W. Bush:
GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands -- Organizers of an investment conference in the Cayman Islands have been forbidden from disclosing any details about a speech by former President George W. Bush in the offshore financial haven, an event spokesman said Thursday.
The keynote speech by the former president was "totally closed to all journalists," and conference organizers were banned from discussing any aspect of it even in general terms, spokesman Dan Kneipp said.
Sponsors of the conference include KPMG, a company that provides tax advisory services, and Deutsche Bank. It costs $4,000 to attend and other speakers include billionaire Richard Branson. 
"We've got a complete blackout on discussing the Bush details," Kneipp told The Associated Press.
[...]
Cayman Islands officials are proud of the British territory's role as an offshore finance center. But members of the U.S. Congress and advocates for changes in tax laws have accused corporations and wealthy individuals of using so-called financial havens to improperly avoid taxes.
Jimmy Carter:
Head of the constitution's Constituent Assembly (CA) Counsellor Hossam el-Ghiriany received on Tuesday 30/10/2012 visiting former US President Jimmy Carter, who is also the chairman of Carter Foundation for Peace.
Carter urged ending outlining the new constitution of Egypt.
He said that he met with several ambassadors here who asserted that completing writing the constitution is a cornerstone for the development process in Egypt and for attracting more investments and tourists.
In statements after the meeting, Secretary General of the CA Amr Darrag said that Carter was not satisfied with judicial supervision of Egyptian elections.
George H. W. Bush:
One-time world leaders George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev are renewing their friendship.
The former American president and his former Soviet counterpart had a private lunch Thursday in Houston. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former first lady Barbara Bush joined them, along with Gorbachev's daughter.
Gorbachev hugged Bush as he entered a Houston club and presented Bush and Baker with an autographed copy of a Russian-language book with Gorbachev's photo on the cover.
The then-presidents first met in 1989 in Malta, shortly after the Berlin Wall fell. They had four U.S.-Soviet summits during their time in office.
In 2001, Gorbachev received a public service award from the Bush Presidential Library Foundation at Texas A&M University.
Pretty much what you expected, wasn't it?

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