While I have admired Hilary Clinton for a number of years and for a myriad of reasons, this article really seems to sum it up well...

"One of her undeniable accomplishments, perhaps more important than anything else she did during that time, was the set of global journeys that she undertook on behalf of women's issues.

She surrounded herself with extremely well-informed advisers who specialised in such important issues as women's critical role in the developing world in raising educational levels, managing population growth, containing environmental degradation, and building up microcredit economies. She journeyed to Africa and to the Indian subcontinent, and spoke forcefully at the Beijing conference that brought women leaders together from around the world. The world's top development experts now agree that resolving many of today's cultural, environmental, resource-driven conflicts requires educating and investing in women, as she advocated.

But what distinguishes Hillary Clinton from Madeleine Albright or Condoleezza Rice is where she was willing to go for her education.

She did not stay in the air-conditioned hotels and the parliamentary chambers of the nations she visited; she went to tiny impoverished villages, to places where women walk four miles a day for water, to places where women were basing their families' prosperity on a $20 loan for a sewing machine. She sat on mud floors and sandy village commons to hear from these communities about their issues and priorities, and she took on controversial and culturally sensitive subjects, such as female genital mutilation and bride burning.

Yet the respect she showed for the various cultures and people whom she was engaging did a great deal to allow such challenges to move forward without bitterness, and in a spirit of real dialogue.

Hillary is adored by many women in the developing world for those journeys, and I am certain that they taught her crucial lessons about global policy -lessons that built up a worldview that Obama, a child of international experiences, also shares."

Full article...

"What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions. That's really so '90s, Newt. In this day and age, it's embarrassing to watch you talk like that. You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it."

"In other words, stop being a hater, big bro."

We couldn't have said it better. You go girrl! (and we mean that in the most respectful of ways)

Full story...

Never afraid to speak her mind, the smart and savvy Rachel Maddow is OpenCitizen's first hero. Whether she is promoting the liberal agenda, or pushing back against the right-wing blowhards, Rachel always has our back.

What other heroes are worthy of this honor?