Bill Clinton Rakes In Big Bucks

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According to those statements and interviews with speech organizers, it appears that Bill Clinton has been doing gangbusters with speeches in the past six years, raking in nearly $40 million during that time period, according to the Post, which notes that Clinton "came to the White House with modest means and left deeply in debt."

Last year was particularly lucrative, earning the former president $9 to $10 million for lectures, averaging almost a speech a day, "but only about 20 percent were for personal income."

Two speeches on the same day in Canada earned Clinton $475,000 – "more than double his annual salary as president."

While we're on the subject of Clintons, Hillary's dramatic, scandalous, remarkable feud with Barack Obama for some reason takes up space once again on the New York Times front page. In an interview with the Times, Obama "seemed to acknowledge that he may have been outmaneuvered."

U.S. Warns Iran. Again.

The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report yesterday that confirmed Iran continues to operate a uranium-enrichment program and is expanding efforts to build a facility large enough to potentially produce a nuclear bomb.

Iran's moves are "in open defiance" of the United Nations, writes the New York Times. That Iran was now "operating or about to switch on roughly 1,000 centrifuges, the high-speed devices that enrich uranium," at one facility came as "a mild surprise" to experts, the Times adds.

Iran, for its part, "says it has no intention of producing bomb-grade uranium and will use the facility to produce nuclear fuel for energy," says the Washington Post's front page.

Nonetheless, Iran's move "triggered a fresh U.S. push for further sanctions,""Enough Of 'Nonbinding'"Meanwhile, in real news, Senate Democrats (after a weeklong recess) will present a plan to repeal the 2002 Iraq war authorization "in favor of narrower authority that restricts the military's role and begins withdrawals of combat troops," writes the Post. Past suggestions of a plan to link war funding to "strict troop readiness standards" are coming under "withering fire" from Democratic moderates and Republicans.

Sen. John Kerry is supporting the proposal because he has "had enough of 'nonbinding,'" as he put it to the paper.

Another Political Reincarnation

Remember Ahmed Chalabi? He's baaaack. In what the Journal describes as a "remarkable political reincarnation," Chalabi has taken on a newly created post as an "intermediary between Baghdad residents and the Iraqi and U.S. security forces mounting an aggressive counterinsurgency campaign across the city."

He is answering directly to Prime Minister Maliki and the position is intended to generate support for the new troop surge among Iraqis. While the job is supposed to be restricted to security matters, Chalabi is "already speaking ambitiously" about taking on other economic, health and reconstruction roles in the government.

Hunting Al-Qaeda In Africa

The New York Times gets word from anonymous "American officials" that the U.S. military "quietly waged a campaign from Ethiopia last month to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa."

While it's been known that American Special Forces have operated inside Somalia, "the extent of American cooperation with the recent Ethiopian invasion into Somalia and the fact that the Pentagon secretly used an airstrip in Ethiopia to carry out attacks have not been previously reported," writes the Times.

The officials said the mission was a "qualified success" that disrupted some terrorist networks in Somalia and resulted in the death or capture of "several Islamic militants."

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