Hillary Clinton’s illness will raise questions about 2016 run -- Age and health her two most vulnerable areas to attack

Hillary Clinton's age and health for the Presidential Race 2016 comes into question
(Photo:GlobalGrind)

Hillary Clinton’s illness will raise questions about the most vulnerable aspect of any 2016 presidential run for her – her age and health.

She will be 69 when, and if, she runs, and the health and age issue was bound to surface at some level as she went closer to deciding to run.

Considering that only Ronald Reagan has run at a similar age and he was suspected of suffering from early Alzheimer’s during his second term, it could become a major issue.

This latest illness, especially involving a potential blood clot, will raise such questions to a higher level. The White House is no place to be for a less than healthy occupant.

Clinton has looked exhausted in recent months, and it has been attributed to an incredibly taxing travel schedule but a campaign is also an exhausting marathon as Clinton herself can attest to after her 2008 experience.

Read more: Hillary Clinton taken to hospital with suspected blood clot

During her most recent trip Clinton spent two days in Ireland and it was obvious that not only she, but also her staff were at the limits of their endurance.

The Benghazi affair also added to the pressure and it was clear during her Dublin and Belfast leg that a new term for Obama and her replacement as Secretary of State was something she was greatly looking forward to.

She talked about reading books, relaxing, helping with the Clinton Foundation, but mostly just taking a long rest from the backbreaking schedule.

At a dinner at the Residence Restaurant in Dublin surrounded by close Irish friends, Clinton finally looked relaxed and sipped a beer as she went around the table, asking how everyone had been faring.

It was a brief glimpse of the old Hillary, the very warm private person who holds friendships dear.

But clearly something was amiss on that trip and soon after she came back she fainted and received a concussion and now comes news of the blood clot.

It is far too early to say if there will be any long-term impact on her health but with 2016 speculation already bubbling it will bound to be a matter of intense conversation over the coming days.

Irish donnybrook as Joe Biden versus Paul Ryan key for presidential debate -- Gift of the gab Biden versus ‘just the facts’ new politician Ryan

Irish American politicians Paul Ryan and Joe Biden gear up for their first major battle

Incredible, but the presidential race could come down to the debating skills of two Irish American politicians who were viewed as bit players just a few weeks ago.

Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan were supposed to be the afters, while the main course was Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

However, after Romney’s sensational knockout of Obama in the first presidential debate the Ryan/Biden stand-off in Kentucky suddenly looms large.

The polls are essentially tied which means that any major mistake or a similar poor showing by Biden could doom the Obama campaign suddenly on the back foot.

For Paul Ryan, a complete unknown to most Americans, it will be the first and only chance to introduce himself. Is he the cost cutter and right-wing ideologue that the Democrats paint him as or a visionary young politician who will loom as a giant some day as Republicans believe?

Biden, whose secret service code name is “Celtic” will be trying to stop the rot that suddenly pervades the Obama campaign after the president’s faux pas in the first debate.

Paul Ryan, descendant of Tipperary Famine era immigrants, will seek to continue the upward momentum and the suddenly kinder, gentler image of the Romney/Ryan campaign.

The two men could not be more different. Biden is the Irish politician of legend; warm, gregarious, and downright sentimental at times. Ryan is a more withdrawn number cruncher, bright as all hell, and someone who sees politics as a battle about ideas not sentiment.

But those stereotypes will only carry both men so far. This presidential election is a battle about core ideas and both men personify the difference even more than the presidential candidates.

It is the small government, cut and slash spending view as against the traditional model that we can solve issues through government and private partnership.

This is what will make this debate so fascinating. The American people are finally engaged after the first debate and it is game on with polls showing the race the closest since Kennedy/Nixon and Bush/Gore.

Ryan has the tougher task, introducing himself to the American people under the harsh spotlight of a desperately close presidential campaign.

He is not in Wisconsin anymore and there has to be a sense of nervousness and anxiety heading into his big night.

Biden on the other hand has been known for his verbal gaffes and has to watch that Irish gift of the gab which isn’t such a gift on occasions.

Biden was chosen in 2008 by Obama to reach that Catholic working class voter who is so crucial in swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Ryan was also picked in part because of that profile and both men will be aiming directly at the undecided vote, which contains so many Catholic working class voters.

They say Vice Presidential debates do not decide elections, but in one as close as this it could have a massive impact.

After Obama’s poor performance the pressure on Joe Biden is greater than he has ever experienced in a long political career.

But I have a funny feeling it will be the old dog for the hard road when the smoke clears.

Read more: New information on Vice President Joe Biden’s Irish roots uncovered

Read more: The Paul Ryan American dream -- fleeing famine in Ireland to Vice Presidential ticket

Mitt Romney wins the first debate against a listless Barack Obama -- A debate with a flood of facts and figures to befuddle everyone

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama at the Denver presidential debate

Mitt Romney won the first debate against Barack Obama just by showing up in a fighting mood against a lackluster incumbent.

In a debate weighed down by facts and figures and financial data, Romney was faster on his feet than Obama.

The aura of invincibility that descends on every White House occupant was scraped off by Romney’s combative performance.

It was Obama’s first debate in four years and it showed. He seemed disengaged, not the fiery candidate who took the stage by storm four years ago against John McCain.

Beforehand 72 percent of Americans thought Obama would win, the typical numbers for an incumbent. So Romney did far better coming from a lower expectation base.

But while Romney won on style, Obama landed some punches, especially when focused on Romney’s plan to cut $5 trillion in taxes.

“We have a horse race,” said David Gergen on CNN, the most seasoned of all political operatives who gave Romney the verdict on a night that may have changed the course of the race for the White House.

Even James Carville, the attack dog Democrat, had little good to say about Obama’s performance, saying he gave the impression he did not want to be there.

“The president did not bring his “A” game," said Carville

Obama was somehow subdued, his best moments were in his closing remarks when he finally felt and looked passionate when asking the American people for four more years.

At the same time, the two were reminiscent of two fighters clutching each other in the center of the ring without landing any punches for very long periods.

In the end, there was no knockdown, no moment like when Ronald Reagan floored Jimmy Carter, or Lloyd Bentsen when he decked Dan Quayle with his “You’re no Jack Kennedy” line.

All of which means that Romney will pick up some momentum making this a closer race than the pundits were predicting just a few weeks ago.

Read more: IrishCentral's up-to-date stories on the US presidential election 2012 here

Mitt Romney aides criticize Obama for not singing British imperialist song -- In interview they claim Romney the one of 'true Anglo Saxon heritage'

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama (CREDIT : Daily News)

Are these Romney folks for real?

Some anonymous advisors claimed their man a true blue Brit proud of his “Anglo Saxon heritage” in an interview with the London Daily Telegraph.

They sniffed that Obama would never sing “Land of Hope and Glory,” the ultimate British Empire glorification song, implying that Romney would.

Are they insane?

A foreign policy team member was quoted as saying, “We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he [Romney] feels that the special relationship is special. The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

It was clearly an ethnic slur aimed at Obama who does not have a drop of ethnic Anglo Saxon in him quite obviously. For “did not appreciate,” read, “Isn’t quite pro-Queen and Empire enough.” ABC news reported the comments as having “perceived racial undertones.”

The New York Times stated that it was an interview “in which an unnamed Romney adviser suggests that because Mr. Romney is white he has more in common with Britain than Mr. Obama does.”

It will also upset quite a few Irish Americans, especially in key states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, who will not be too pleased to see Mitt claim his British heritage quite so enthusiastically.

Rest assured that the Irish peace process would never have happened with Romney in the White House, he would have insisted as his advisors did that the “special relationship” with the British dominated all when that process began and American help was sought

If President Clinton had felt the same way and did not have the political courage to give Gerry Adams a visa back in 1994, they might still be fighting on the streets in Northern Ireland.

Romney’s advisors furiously backpedaled afterwards but it is too late. Vice President Joe Biden, a proud Irish American, was quick to the ramparts.

“Despite his promises that politics stops at the water’s edge, Governor Romney’s wheels hadn’t even touched down in London before his advisers were reportedly playing politics with international diplomacy, attempting to create daylight between the United States and the United Kingdom where none exists,” Biden said in a statement.

“The comments reported this morning are a disturbing start to a trip designed to demonstrate Governor Romney’s readiness to represent the United States on the world’s stage. Not surprisingly, this is just another feeble attempt by the Romney campaign to score political points at the expense of this critical partnership.  This assertion is beneath a presidential campaign,” he said.

Another adviser unbelievably told the paper, “Obama is a left-winger. He doesn’t value the NATO alliance as much. He’s very comfortable with American decline and the traditional alliances don’t mean as much to him. He wouldn’t like singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory.’”

For those of you unfamiliar, “Land of Hope and Glory” is a song about the magnificence of the British Empire. No self-respecting American president would be caught dead even humming it.

  Here’s the first stanza:
Dear Land of Hope, thy hope is crowned,
      God make thee mightier yet !
   On Sov'ran brows, beloved, renowned,
      Once more thy crown is set.
  Thine equal laws, by Freedom gained,
      Have ruled thee well and long ;
  By Freedom gained, by Truth maintained,
      Thine Empire shall be strong.

Jaysus, as Paddy might say. It looks like Romney’s foreign policy boys will be setting their clocks to Whitehall time and stepping back a century or two.

“Bow, bow to the Lord High Executioner” as the British composers Gilbert and Sullivan once wrote.

Someone needs to tell Romney we have our own country now and we ditched the Brits a few centuries ago and we don’t want to sing British imperialist songs either.

Irish journalist who heckled President Obama should be fired - Cheap-shot journalism should have no place at the White House

The Irish-born journalist Neil Munro who heckled President Obama yesterday in the Rose Garden displayed not only bad manners but also a lack of professionalism that should get him fired.

Munro’s Twitter feed says he was “Born Irish, then became a Cold War bridegroom” – whatever that means.

Journalists have a job to do and the rules are pretty much defined, the White House press corps rules even more so, given the importance of every speech and the need for ground rules.

President Obama was making a major speech on immigration policy. Munro, educated at University College Dublin, was there for the micro-site the Daily Caller run by failed right-wing talk show host Tucker Carlson.

The protocol could not be clearer, especially in the Rose Garden. The president speaks, the journalists listen and then there are usually a few questions.

Munro disdained all that protocol to put himself in the upper class twit category (Kings College old chap) by interrupting the president and heckling him on immigration.

Reading his resume with its right wing musings you know it was a very deliberate move by Munro who will enjoy a brief flicker of flame, especially on the far right with this move.

These are the same people who made a brief hero out of an obscure congressman who shouted ‘You lie’ at President Obama during the State of the Union address. The same people who no doubt educate their children to be respectful of adults and always remember to be polite — except when it comes to the president of the United States.

When it all dies away however, Munro will be back to well-deserved obscurity, and hopefully his editors, who are unlikely to fire him, will too.

If it were someone I employed I would certainly let him or her go or deliver a stern warning. There has to be a modicum of decency, a set of social rules that are followed in such circumstances, irrespective of who the president is, Republican or Democrat.

Munro didn’t know about them or decided to ignore them. His pathetic excuse that he was trying to be first to ask a question doesn’t wash – in fact it is an obvious lie.

President Obama’s finest day in the White House was today -- Showing true compassion for those brought to the US as children

US President Barack Obama

President Obama’s decision to legitimize up to 800,000 immigrants who came here with their parents and who will now be able to work legally is the greatest act of his presidency.

It shows a compassion and an understanding that is in the best interests of the people concerned and of the country they live in.

It reminds people why this country is so great, able to take bold steps, and react compassionately to what in the end of the day is a real crisis for millions of young immigrants.

These are people who have been brought here by their parents, crossing borders from Mexico to start a new life in America.

They are kids brought by parents from Ireland who will also fit into this category.

Most are too young to remember life anywhere else and the notion of returning them to the country of origin which they no longer know or recognize was always a completely cruel policy.

They are Americans in every meaningful sense of the word and have much to contribute to this country in the coming years. Now they will be able to, instead of living lives of real fear waiting for that midnight knock.

It is one thing to deport someone who came here willingly, knowing they were breaking the law to live illegally.

It is quite another to recognize that millions of children, who had no choice in the matter, are victims of an unfeeling and uncaring system.

The greatness of this country is not its military might or its over emphasis on its toughness in a fight.

It is the words on the Statue of Liberty written by Emma Lazarus that state:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

As an immigrant myself I have never been prouder of this country or this president than I am today. It is a huge achievement in the best and noblest traditions of America.

Notre Dame lawsuit on health law is a huge blow for President Obama -- Damages Obama with Catholic vote, the key one in 2012 election

Father John Jenkins and President Barack Obama

The lawsuit filed by Notre Dame yesterday against the Obama administration and their health care law is bad news indeed for President Obama.

The Fighting Irish are putting up the gloves -- and it is against the president who needs their support more than ever this November.

In an election where the Catholic vote is widely seen as the critical swing vote, the Notre Dame move places the most famous Catholic institution in the United States firmly in opposition to the president on his singular policy on health care.

That is big news given that Notre Dame was widely perceived as being in the president’s corner after they invited him to be their commencement speaker in 2009 over the strong objections of local bishops.

Father John Jenkins is widely regarded as the most articulate and skilful Catholic college president in America, so his stance against Obama on this will be widely discussed and analyzed.

The wording of the lawsuit reflects Jenkins mindset. It is a passionate and emotional statement about the right of religious institutions to safeguard their own beliefs when it comes to what they wish to cover when it comes to medical care.

It is not the usual dry legalese stuff of most lawsuits and bears the hallmarks of Jenkin’s style.

Jenkins is no creature of the Vatican right-wing orthodoxy like so many American bishops. Therefore his lawsuit is all the more potent among moderate American Catholics.

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The college writes, “ This lawsuit is about one of America's most cherished freedoms: the freedom to practice one's religion without government interference. It is not about whether people have a right to abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception…. But the right to such services does not authorize the Government to force the University of Notre Dame… to violate its own conscience by making it provide, pay for, and/or facilitate those services to others, contrary to its sincerely held religious beliefs.

“American history and tradition, embodied in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, protects religious entities from such overbearing and oppressive governmental action. Notre Dame therefore seeks relief in this Court to protect this most fundamental of American rights.

Jenkins makes clear that, "We do not seek to impose our religious beliefs on others; we simply ask that the Government not impose its values on the University when those values conflict with our religious teachings."

It is very hard to disagree with that statement which could have been made by any religious or political leader since independence.

Jenkins is no rabble rousing bishop out to get the Obama administration on religious grounds. His lawsuit is a passionate dissent from the notion that government can mandate what a Catholic college can and can’t do  when it comes to core beliefs.

As Jenkins concludes, "For if one Presidential Administration can override our religious purpose and use religious organizations to advance policies that undercut our values, then surely another Administration will do the same for another very different set of policies, each time invoking some concept of popular will or the public good, with the result these religious organizations become mere tools for the exercise of government power, morally subservient to the state, and not free from its infringement."

Suddenly the one major Catholic institution which had backed Obama now seems to be backing off on this one major issue.

That cannot be good news for the incumbent president. He needs Catholic votes in key states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and indeed Indiana, where Notre Dame is located. This Notre Dame uprising will come as a major blow.

Why is President Obama trying to damage the Irish peace process? Feds working with British agents win access to Boston College IRA tapes

Joe Biden, Gerry Adams and Barack Obama

President Obama's administration is damaging the still fragile Irish peace process.

Federal prosecutors acting for the British won a major victory on Friday when Judge William Young ordered Boston College to turn over the transcripts.

Strange as it may seem the tapes have the potential to damage the peace process.

The British security forces MI5 etc., are looking for any dirt they can find on Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams among others on those tapes.

Amazingly, when he was here recently, Northern Secretary Owen Paterson was clearly deeply embarrassed by what his security forces, likely without reference to him, had succeeded in doing.
_____________

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They have a long vendetta against Adams and will use whatever means necessary, including endangering the peace process to get him.

The Obama administration is cooperating openly with this travesty which is damaging for them among Irish Americans to say the least.

IRA veterans, believing the tapes were being kept private until a lengthy time had elapsed spoke freely about past incidents. Now their words may be use against them and others.

The British securocrats are only seeking the IRA tapes, none from the Loyalists who spoke to the oral history project – that in itself is all you need to know.

The Boston College administrators were journalist Ed Moloney and academic Anthony McIntyre. Both men are long time critics of Adams and the IRA personnel chosen to be interviewed reflect that.

BC has stated that turning over the materials will endanger the safety of people involved in the project.

Judge Young, who also presided over the Richard Reid shoe bomber case, set aside BC’s objections saying that the recordings could be relevant to murder and kidnapping investigations and that the US had an obligation under a treaty with Britain to hand over the materials

“These are serious allegations, and they weigh strongly in favor of disclosing the confidential information,’’ Young wrote.

Assistant US Attorney John McNeil, praised the judge. He said the ruling indicates that “the US government’s obligation [under the treaty with Britain and] the public interest in this criminal inquiry are compelling.’’

Which is load of nonsense. People have buried the past and got on with the future in Northern Ireland and created a model of conflict resolution that is the envy of the world.

The Obama administration and the British security hawks are doing their damndest to bring that down.

That’s what is at stake at Boston College.

What if John F.Kennedy had survived Dallas 1963?- New Stephen King time travel book poses question

JFK in Dallas 1963

What if John F.Kennedy had survived the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's bullets in Dallas on November 22 1963?

It is a question that will haunt history forever but a fascinating new book by Stephen King takes a stab at what might have happened.

King's book 11/22/63 tells the story of a time traveller, Jake Epping, who is sent back in time to prevent the murder of Kennedy.

The theory is that Kennedy would have kept America out of Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved and the world would be a much better place.

No Kennedy assassination, no murder of RFK, no killing of Martin Luther King, no Black riots, etc,a kinder gentler America

It is fiction, of course,mixed with fact about the assassination and King portrays the world of Oswald, the communist sympathiser and of Dallas in 1963, with extraordinary insight .

It is 800 pages long but I found I could not put it down during the Thanksgiving weekend

Though Oswald was an avowed Cuban sympathiser he was also strangely mixed up with right wing groups, Russian expatriates and mafia types.

He was also just 22, a deeply weird guy who slept with his controlling mother until he was 11, lived in the Bronx for a time where he was diagnosed as having delusions of grandeur by a psychiatrist.

Most of the conspiracy theories arise because Oswald himself is such an insignificant figure who took down the most important man on earth. As King makes clear however, the evidence is overwhelming that he did just that acting on his own.

King does an amazing job pointing out just how much of a hothouse of hate on several different Dallas was on the eve of the Kennedy visit. There was deep racial tension, right wing and left wing feuding and a deep sense of America on the verge of a major breakdown.

All this is wonderfully drawn out and explained by King who also throws the reader a curve ball after (spoiler alert)..... the president's life is saved.

Instead of America the noble, it actually gets worse in a second Kennedy term, he is unable to drive through the civil rights legislation that Jonson was able to with his superior senate experience.

America collapses even worse than it actually did and saving Kennedy proves a disaster.

The book is a fascinating exercise in what might have been but will never be-- and more's the pity..

John F Kennedy shot 48 years ago today - a defining moment for a kid in Ireland - VIDEO

John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie O

I was 10 years old sitting in front of a television in my home town of Drogheda in Ireland. The program on RTE, the Irish national station was called 'Air Power' about America's military might and the importance of the latest kind of fighter planes.

It was November 22nd 1963, 48 years ago today.

A world away John F.Kennedy had already made that fatal turn past Dealey Plaza in Dallas to his appointment with death.

A few moments later the TV screen went blank and a long silence followed.

After about five minutes the scene switched to RTE's newsroom.

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A newsreader, Charles Mitchell, the Walter Cronkite of his day, came on. He was usually so unruffled and calm and yet ,on this occasion he looked agitated and ill at ease.

He read a brief statement from United Press International that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.

The screen went blank again

I fetched ny father and mother and soon my brothers and sisters joined us.

We sat looking at the screen, by now showing footage from President Kennedy's recent visit to Ireland, a week of incredible pride for my nation.

Then we switched to BBC and a teary eyed newsreader announced that Kennedy was dead.

To say we were stunned was an understatement.

How could that vibrant brilliant young shining star be quenched so suddenly?

In the long days that followed we felt our innocence had died along with John F.Kennedy.

His brief period in power seemed more like an Irish Aisling, the dream poems where lovers conjured up visions of those they lost and loved.

Even to this day he holds a place in our memories, he has influenced every leader since, he has become the political icon of our time.

Years later I visited Dealey Plaza and the book repository where he had been shot from. It seemed so banal, so small, so anonymous for what monstrous deed had been committed there.

But to a ten year old all those years ago, he represented the first intimation of mortality.

As Shakespeare wrote;

"In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire."

Here's some of the live feed of the news from November 22nd 1963:

Herman Cain is toast after sexual harrasment and payoff revealed

Herman Cain

Herman Cain is finding himself in the impossible situation of defending the indefensible.

His White House dreams are undoubtedly over.

It appears now that payment was made to at least one woman underling to settle a sexual harassment suit when he ran the National Restaurant Association.

America will forgive an affair but not a coercive relationship that ended in a pay off.
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It only takes an accusation and a pay off, regardless of the truth, for the matter to finish him.

It appears according to NBC that a pay off took place.

In which case Herman Cain is toast.

It always amazes me that politicians like Cain and John Edwards get into races knowing full well that there are such dark allegations in their past.

Surely they know that in the white heat of presidential contests it is almost certain such information will be ferreted out.

Next up, no doubt, will be the accuser who will paid handsomely to name times and places.

It is the oldest story in the book but candidates like Cain continue to fall for it.

Amazing isn't it.