At the Democratic convention four years ago, her spirited speech helped unite the party behind Barack Obama. And four years from now, many Democrats hope she’ll be the White House nominee delegates rally around.

But as for the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte – Hillary Clinton won’t be coming.

This year, she’s secretary of State. And as the country’s chief diplomat, she’s expected to stay above all things partisan.

Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, willbe at the DNC in Charlotte, his spokesman, Matt McKenna, confirmed Friday.

But various federal statutes and the State Department’s ethical guidelines will keep Secretary Clinton in Washington.

“Given her current position, she will not be attending, consistent with her not engaging in any political activity whatsoever,” Philippe Reines, spokesman for the Secretary of State, told the Observer in an email Friday.

It’ll be the first time in decades Clinton will miss a Democratic National Convention, Reines added – “possibly all the way back to ’68 in Chicago.”

US and France arm rebels with anti-aircraft missiles.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has admitted that Al-Qaeda and other groups on the State Department’s terror list are on the same side as the United States in Syria and that they are aiding opposition rebels.

In an interview with BBC News (watch video), Clinton states, “We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition [in Syria].”

Clinton’s admission that Al-Qaeda is supporting the armed insurrection in Syria dovetails with reports that the same Al-Qaeda terrorists who helped overthrow Colonel Gaddafi in Libya were airlifted into Syria by NATO forces.

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri’s has also publicly expressed support for Syrian rebel forces.

These terrorists have been blamed for bloody attacks that have killed both Syrian regime officials and innocent civilians, including a bombing earlier this month in Syria’s second city of Aleppo which killed 28 people.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Reminder: We mentioned this here at the Swash over a week ago. Read it here, the info is in the third to last paragraph.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been in discussions with the White House about leaving her job next year to become head of the World Bank, sources familiar with the discussions said on Thursday.

The former first lady and onetime political rival to President Barack Obama quickly became one of the most influential members of his Cabinet after she began her tenure at State in early 2009.

She has said publicly she did not plan to stay on at the State Department for more than four years. Associates say Clinton has expressed interest in having the World Bank job should the bank’s current president, Robert Zoellick, leave at the end of his term, in the middle of 2012.

“Hillary Clinton wants the job,” said one source who knows the secretary well.

A second source also said Clinton wants the position.

A third source said Obama had already expressed support for the change in her role. It is unclear whether Obama has formally agreed to nominate her for the post, which would require approval by the 187 member countries of the World Bank.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied the discussions. “It’s totally wrong,” he told Reuters.

A spokesman for Clinton, Philippe Reines, denied Clinton wanted the job, had conversations with the White House about it or would accept it.

People familiar with the situation, told of the denials from the White House and State Department, reaffirmed the accuracy of the report.

Revelations of the discussions could hurt Clinton’s efforts as America’s top diplomat if she is seen as a lame duck in the job at a time of great foreign policy challenges for the Obama administration.

Under normal circumstances, names of potential candidates for the World Bank would not surface more than a year before the post becomes vacant. But the timing of the discussions is not unusual this year given the sudden opening of the top job at the bank’s sister organization, the IMF, after Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s resignation following his arrest on charges of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York.

The World Bank provides billions of dollars in development funds to the poorest countries and is also at the center of issues such as climate change, rebuilding countries emerging from conflict and recently the transitions to democracy in Tunisia and Egypt.

WOMAN HAS NEVER HEADED WORLD BANK OR IMF

The head of the International Monetary Fund has always been a European and the World Bank presidency has always been held by an American.

That gentleman’s agreement between Europe and the United States is being aggressively challenged by fast-growing emerging market economies that have been shut out of the process.

The United States has not publicly supported the European candidate for the IMF, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, although Washington’s support is expected.

Neither institution has ever been headed by a woman.

If Clinton were to leave State, John Kerry, a close Obama ally who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is among those who could be considered as a possible replacement for her.

Clinton’s star power and work ethic were seen by Obama as crucial qualities for her role as the nation’s top diplomat, even though she did not arrive in the job with an extensive foreign policy background.

She has embraced the globe-trotting aspects of the job, logging many hours on plane trips to nurture alliances with countries like Japan and Britain and to visit hot spots like Afghanistan and countries in the Middle East.

She has long been vocal on global development issues, especially the need for economic empowerment of women and girls in developing countries. She has made that part of her focus at State. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has also been involved in those issues through his philanthropic work at the Clinton Global Initiative.

Source: Reuters.

Like President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she hasn’t been watching the Republican primary debates. But at least Clinton has an excuse for tuning out — she says she’s quitting government after the election no matter who wins.

“What could we do to persuade you to run for vice president?” a staffer asked at a State Department town hall meeting Thursday, referring to cyclical rumors and the wishful thinking of some supporters. “Oh, my goodness,” Clinton replied.

“I will certainly stay on until the president nominates someone and that transition can occur,” said Clinton, who has insisted repeatedly that she will be a one-term secretary. “But I think, after 20 years …of being on the high wire of American politics, and all of the challenges that come with that, it would probably be a good idea to just find out how tired I am.”

The famously workaholic secretary said she has “no idea” what she will do in the future, and doesn’t want to think about it because it might divert attention from today’s diplomatic tasks. The election, she said, is going to “suck up a lot of the attention from following areas that we think are so important,” including “trying to resolve frozen conflicts” and “trying to build up America’s reputation” in the world.

But that might be good thing, she said, because “maybe we can even get more done” if the rest of the country is fixated on the polls.

“It’s a little odd for me to be totally out of an election season,” Clinton said. “But, you know, I didn’t watch any of those debates.”

And what about that vice president question? Although friends and colleagues say neither she nor the White House is interested, Clinton took a pass.

“I am happy to work with Vice President Biden, who does an excellent job and is a huge advocate and support for this department,” she said.

Source: The Washington Post.

*Taken from Infowars. Written by Kurt Nimmo.

Establishment Republican presidential contender Herman Cain asked Rockefeller globalist Henry Kissinger to join his administration, but the aging former Secretary of State turned down the former Kansas City Federal Reserve director.

“Dr. Kissinger turned down my offer to be secretary of state,” Cain told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview. “He said he’s perfectly happy doing what he’s doing.”

Sensing that many voters might not like the idea of Kissinger serving in a Cain administration, his spokesman later said Cain didn’t actually ask Kissinger, reports Yahoo News. J.D. Gordon said his boss was sleep deprived during the interview with the Milwaukee newspaper.

CONTINUED..

My Two Cents: Are you really going to vote for this Federal Reserve insider/defender who also wanted to have Kissinger in his cabinet?! Could you imagine if this guy won and had Kissinger and Greenspan (his fav Fed chairman) on his team? End Two Cents.

*Taken from the Huffington Post. Video at link.

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain asked 88-year-old Henry Kissinger to serve in his hypothetical administration as secretary of state, he told reporters in a recent interview. Kissinger said thanks, but no thanks.

In an editorial interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that has provided potentially damaging highlights in the form of Cain’s controversial support for public workers’ collective bargaining rights and his extensive bumbling on a question about U.S. foreign policy in Libya, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO also answered questions about how he’d fill his administration if he were to win the presidency.

“Dr. Kissinger turned my offer down to be secretary of state. He said he’s perfectly happy doing what he’s doing,” Cain said, before rattling off some other names that he’d been mulling as potential cabinet picks. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) were among the names he listed, though he wouldn’t clarify which posts he’d like them to fill.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from National Journal.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton once again quashed rumors that she’s still interested in running for president, this time in an interview with NBC’s Today on Monday.

“I’m really old-fashioned. I feel I have made my contribution,” Clinton said. “I’m very grateful I’ve had a chance to serve, but I think it’s time for others to step up.” Writing, teaching, and working on issues that affect women and girls will be in her future, Clinton assured NBC’s Savannah Guthrie; that and relaxing at home.

Clinton shrugged off speculation that she should run against President Obama in 2012—or that she should have been elected instead of him in 2008. “It feels irrelevant to me,” Clinton said. She praised Obama for doing “an excellent job under the most difficult circumstances.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the Daily Caller.

The presidential election season has just recently gotten under way and only the insane would speculate about whom a Republican president might nominate to be secretary of state if the GOP were to take back the White House in 2012. But we are just a wee bit bonkers here at The Daily Caller.

Obviously, much depends on which Republican would be elected. But there are some candidates that would be at the top of any Republican president’s list.

While there are sitting senators who would make compelling choices, it is unlikely and potentially politically unwise for a Republican president to nominate a sitting senator of his own party in what may well be a Republican Senate majority.

In picking a nominee, “they are not going to potentially lose the majority,” Robert Kagan, senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The Daily Caller.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from Yahoo Finance.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, opening high-level talks Monday, said the United States does not see China’s growth as a threat and sought greater trust to work together on global problems.

“Some in our country see China’s progress as a threat to the United States; some in China worry that America seeks to constrain China’s growth. We reject both those views,” Clinton said.

“We both have much more to gain from cooperation than from conflict,” she said.

*Taken from Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Despite the fact that the United States is embroiled in three major conflicts and can barely service its own gigantic debt, with Standard and Poor this week indicating the US will soon lose its triple-A credit rating, top globalist and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently told fellow elitists at three different globalist confabs that the US needs to launch a ground invasion of Libya and keep the war running for at least another year.

According to veteran Bilderberg journalist Jim Tucker, whose sources have proven routinely accurate in leaking discussion topics shared by globalists at their regular meetings, Kissinger gave almost the exact same speech at three different conferences over the past two weeks, firstly during an April 8-10 get-together at the George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs, then at an Aspen Institute session on “Values and Diplomacy” at the National Cathedral, and finally during the Bretton Woods II conference in New Hampshire.

“Kissinger, visibly depressed, gave a rationale for the war on Libya that the TC (Trilateral Commission) and its brother group, Bilderberg, want to keep rolling, according to an inside source who has proved reliable for years. Both groups want the war extended through 2012 to generate turmoil throughout the Middle East and pressure the United States into attacking Iran on behalf of Israel. Which would also produce huge war profits,” writes Tucker.

With President Obama keen to oversee more “mission creep” in Libya, by sending unmanned drones to intensify the air bombardment, Kissinger made it clear that the ultimate intention was to do what Obama specifically promised would never happen, a US ground invasion.

Entering the 10th year of the occupation of Afghanistan, and with US forces still tied down in Iraq, by April 4 American taxpayers had already shelled out an estimated $608 million dollars to pay for the intervention in Libya. The expenditure shows no signs of abating as the Obama administration signals its intent to deepen U.S. involvement even as ratings agency Standard & Poor announced Monday that the U.S. risks losing its AAA credit rating because of the government’s inability to reduce the budget deficit.

Kissinger’s call for a ground invasion is symptomatic of the way globalists use America’s military muscle to pursue madcap geopolitical objectives while the country itself withers and dies. State governments across the country are now saying they cannot afford to pay police and firefighters as local communities are shut down, so how on earth can the Obama administration justify spending what will eventually amount to billions of dollars to intervene in a civil war in North Africa?

“In all three speeches, Kissinger played the reluctant damsel who was firmly convinced that the United States must put boots on the ground in Libya—among all the wars that the U.S. is already involved in,” reports Tucker.

In addition, Kissinger was keen to voice his displeasure at the fact that certain media publications, which the globalists normally rely on to keep such information under wraps, hadleaked the news that Al-Qaeda terrorists were playing a key role in helping the Libyan rebels and NATO fight Gaddafi. This information “being forced into the national press makes it more difficult” to sell the invasion of Libya, Kissinger said, according to Tucker’s source.

The endgame of the war in Libya is to further isolate Iran in preparation for a US-led attack carried out in the name of protecting Israel. Kissinger was keen to make the connection between Libya and Iran in his speeches, claiming that Gaddafi’s conduct “may tempt the Iranian regime to speed its development of a nuclear weapon. Rogue states have to remain convinced of our determination to resist nuclear proliferation.”

In addition to developments in Libya, Jim Tucker appeared on The Alex Jones Show today to divulge the fact that Kissinger and his fellow elitists were determined to run the price of gas up at $7 dollars a gallon via a combination of soaring oil prices and a crumbling US dollar. To ensure Americans have their living standards lowered as part of Bilderberg’s planned “post-industrial revolution,” the middle east needs to be kept in a permanent state of flux, causing energy costs to remain unstable.

Expanding the conflict in Libya will undoubtedly be a central focus of the upcoming Bilderberg meeting which is set to take place in the resort city of St. Moritz, southeastern Switzerland, from June 9-12. Although the exact location of the conference has yet to be pinned down, it’s widely expected that the luxurious 5-star Grand Hotel Kempinski will be the site of what promises to be one of the most important Bilderberg meetings in recent years.

Indeed, when attempting to book a room for the period in question via the hotel website, a message pops up saying the hotel is closed, all but confirming it as the location for Bilderberg 2011. However, Bilderberg have been known to change their plans at the last minute in a bait and switch to throw journalists off the scent.

Tucker, who has been hunting Bilderberg for no less than 36 years, has released his Bilderberg itinerary for the 2011 meeting.

It is important to stress that Tucker’s Bilderberg sources have proven accurate in the past, particularly before the 2008 spike in oil prices, an event that was crafted by Bilderberg at their 2005, 2006 and 2007 conferences.