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I was beginning to miss Hillary Clinton now that Steve and Betsy, and the rest of the Republicans, have taken over the world.

Until yesterday, when she released a video her first post-inauguration appearance to promote this years MAKERS conference. MAKERS, if you havent heard of it (I hadnt), sounds a bit like the World Economic Forum, in that it involves lots of posh people talking about how hard life is. Only these posh people are women.

But back to the video. During it, Clinton stares lovingly into the camera, her cheekbones illuminated by heavenly lighting, and delivers a feminist message. Remember, you are the heroes and history makers, she says to the girls of tomorrow. The glass-ceiling breakers of the future.

The general purpose of the video is to inspire women to stand up for themselves, and to big, bad men. I suspect it will be hailed as an amazing rejection of Donald Trump and all things sexist. Even though its just a big fat clich and exactly the sort of thing that got him into power.

The fact is that huge swathes of the public are sick of hearing this phoney, simpering type of third wave feminism. I know I am. In particular, Ive had enough of glass ceilings. Where the hell are they all? Im ready to break one just to get a new metaphor.

Thats beside the point, though, because its gender politics that grate on me, and Clintons insistence on using them, even though she got into power without deploying the F word.

What she and many political pundits forget is that for every woman inspired by her go get em message, others feel really patronised. Clintons pep talk suggests that we are all sitting on our hands, in desperate need of reassurance. Perhaps without her strong words we might be crying into our dinners at night our biggest achievement!

But most of women dont think of themselves as victims, nor in need of mobilisation by Clinton. They have enough willpower and competitiveness to get things done themselves. Yet increasingly they are being asked to club together with the sisterhood, or whatever its called next. Far from empowering women, this reduces them into a category that changes how others interpret them. Thats what gender politics does; it fragments and divides people into minimal entities.

Hillary Clinton receives standing ovation on attending Broadway show

Indeed, over the last few months I have lost count of the numbers of gym classes, tech gatherings or worse I have been invited to in the promise that theyll be all female, as if this is a fantastic selling point. But I dont want to be some sort of millennial Amazonian. Are men so terrifying, that we now must have separate activities to them? No.

Gender politics is certainly not the antidote to Donald Trump, nor sexist sentiment generally. The Breitbart types find it pathetic when women have to be told by Clinton to stand up for ourselves. It emboldens their stereotype of us as weak.

What I found worst about Clintons video was its suggestion that girls are worried about what the future holds. I suspect this is far from the truth, as children are so clearly oblivious political events and sentiment.

But they are not immune to neuroses, which many adults are giving off at the moment. The worst thing we can do is suggest to girls that sexism will come to get them, as Clintons video covertly hints. Its not even the case! They must expect to be winners.

If you look at some of the most successful people, let alone in politics, many of them forgot that they were women. Not literally everyone has to go to the toilet but they wanted to climb out of the box, rather than put themselves into it. Now theres a better metaphor for you than this glass ceiling lark.

In truth, I am tired of Clinton and anyone else preaching naff, clichd words to women, in the name of feminism. A lot of it is loserism. Even the This Girl Can campaigns do my head in when Im out and about. I dont need an advert for validation. Of course this girl can! And will!

But this girl cannot stand being patronised, which is exactly what Clintons inspirational message did. She of all people should know that women dont need such blathering nonsense.

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Hillary Clinton's video is unbelievably patronising. The best thing women can do is ditch gender politics - The Independent

Hillary Clinton is supporting the 2017 MAKERS Conference in her first video statement since Donald Trump's presidential inauguration.

The former secretary of state, 69, spoke about women's rights and the Women's March on Washington in the clip, which was published by the Associated Press on Monday, February 5.

"Despite all the challenges we face, I remain convinced that yes, the future is female," she said. "Just look at the amazing energy we saw last month as women organized a march that galvanized millions of people all over our country and across the world."

She added: "And remember, you are the heroes and history-makers, the glass ceiling breakers of the future. As Ive said before, Ill say again never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world."

The gathering, which will shed a light on issues like violence against women, will host hundreds of innovative leaders. This year, the theme is Be Bold.

"We need strong women to step up and speak out. We need you to dare greatly and lead boldly," Clinton said. "So please, set an example for every woman and girl out there whos worried about what the future holds, and wonders whether our rights, our opportunities and our values will endure."

The 2017 MAKERS Conference will take place February 6-8 at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. It will stream here.

Watch Clinton in the video above!

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Hillary Clinton Says the 'Future Is Female' in First Taped Message Since Donald Trump's Inauguration - Us Weekly

Hillary Clinton spoke about the historic Women's March on Washington and women's rights in a new video recorded for the 2017 Makers conference. The video marks the former presidential candidate's first video statement since Donald Trump's inauguration.

"Despite all the challenges we face, I remain convinced that yes, the future is female," Clinton said. "Just look at the amazing energy we saw last month as women organized a march that galvanized millions of people all over our country and across the world."

The theme of this year's Makers conference, which "shares women's stories and celebrate women's vital roles in the past, present and future of our country," Clinton said, is "Be Bold," and the former Secretary of State elaborated on that theme in her video statement.

"We need strong women to step up and speak out. We need you to dare greatly and lead boldly. So please, set an example for every women and girl out there who's worried about what the future holds and wonders whether our rights, opportunities and values will endure," Clinton said.

"And remember, you are the heroes and history makers, the glass ceiling breakers of the future. As I've said before, I'll say again, never doubt you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and every opportunity in the world."

Clinton announced in early February that her first post-election endeavor would be writing a book of personal essays and her favorite quotations.

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Hillary Clinton in New Video Statement: 'The Future Is Female' - RollingStone.com

Bob Woodwardburned the writer Barbara Feinman Todd, she writes in a new memoir about her career as a researcher and ghostwriter. Woodward, she writes, pressed her to reveal an anecdote about her time working on Hillary Clintons It Takes a Village, promised not to use it, then went ahead and reported it out for his book The Choice. The charge is contained in Feinman Todds new memoir,Pretend Im Not Here, which officially goes on sale Tuesday.

Washingtonian ran anexcerpt fromPretend Im Not Here in its February issue, but the Woodwardstory isnt inthe portion weran. I read afinishedcopy of the book.

Feinman Todd and Woodward have a long professional history. As a copy aide at the Washington Post the early 80s, she campaigned to join the investigative team the Watergate star reporterwas leading, which she did in fall 1983. He later hired her as the researcher for his bestsellerVeil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987.

Feinman Todd went on to a successful career as a researcher for Carl Bernstein, Bob Kerrey, and Ben Bradlee, and a ghostwriter for Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, fringe Republican presidential candidate Morry Taylor, and Clinton.

After she finished her work on Clintons book in late 1995, she writes, Woodward invited her to have coffee and catch up. They went for a walk, during which he bent down and tied her shoes. And then, she writes, he began working her. He was working on a book about the Clintons and said he wanted to understand Mrs. Clintons general state of mind. She recognized the technique: He was pressing me like a source. The invitation to catch up, I now realized, had been a ruse because Woodward knew I was leaving town for nearly a month, and he intended to empty my pockets while my memory was still fresh.

Feinman Todd says she folded and gave Woodward what she calls the pearl: She told Woodward about a meetingshe sat in on withHillary Clinton, Mary Catherine Bateson, and the New Age authorJean Houston in the White House Solarium, where Houston guided Clinton through an exercise of imagining she was talking to Eleanor Roosevelt, then inhabiting Roosevelts persona and reversing the conversation. Clinton also spoke to Mahatma Gandhi during the exercise.

Feinman Todd says she revealed this under the condition Woodward didnt use it, but after returning to the US after traveling in Europe, she found herself strangely frozen out by Hillary Clinton and uncredited in the book, a minor Clinton scandal that became known as Thankyougate.

Not long afterward, Feinman Todd writes, Woodward contacted her to say he needed to give her a heads-up about an excerpt of his new book that was to run in the Washington Post. In words I cant remember precisely because I went into a state of shock, he admitted that even though he promised not to, he had taken what I told him in confidence and gone to the other participants to confirm the story.

Reached by phone, Woodward saysFeinman Todds account is not correct at all.

Woodward, she writes, likely began reporting it out the moment my plane took off for Italy. Woodwards reporting of theSolariumincidentresulted in huge headlines and publicity for his bookand, she says she realized,may have accounted for Clintons otherwise-inexplicable frostiness toward her. Woodward tells WashingtonianFeinman Toddwasnt named in the book, and that none of the people in the Solarium story contested his account.

Reached by phone, Feinman Todd, who is the founding Journalism Director at Georgetown University and teaches in the English department, says she and Woodward maintained a cordial relationship after the purportedly betrayed confidence. She has told the story to others in confidence over the years. While acknowledging the newsworthiness of this thread in the book, she emphasizes that For me, this is a book about me.

The incident, she says, has weighed on her for years. After this whole thing happened I really lost my confidence in my writing, and I think its part of the reason I kept ghostwriting and why I kind of hid in academia. Woodward is only one focus of her dismay: I did a bad thing, as you may have noticed, so its not just feeling betrayed but also feeling disappointed by myself, but certainly not intending for my mistake to go any further than it went.

Feinman Todd says she did not giveWoodwarda heads-upabout this book.

In 2011, a bizarre coda to the talefurther twisted her relationship with Woodward. After working with him on Veil, Feinman Todd helped legendary Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee with research thateventually became part of his memoir A Good Life. Part of Feinman Todds contribution was a series of interviews with Bradlee that she recorded and transcribed. In one of them that didnt make his memoir, he talked about some unease he had with Woodward and Bernsteins Watergate reporting, especially with regard to their source Deep Throat.

Bradlee told her he had a residual fear in my soul that that isnt quite straight. But he said, You cant argue with success. I mean, one way or another they were right. Whether theyve embellished that or not.

Bradlee biographer Jeff Himmelman read the transcript and included it in his book Yours in Truth. The release of the material predictably caused a sensation; Woodward strongly criticizedthe excerpt of the bookthat ran inNew York magazine, sayingBradlees words about Watergate were taken out of context and that the transcript Himmelman gave him showedBradlee hadsaid Woodward and Bernsteinhadnt embellished.

Woodwardmade a similar argumentto Himmelman before publication, Feinman Todd writes, setting in motion a phone call fromHimmelman to herto inquire about how certain she was about thetranscript. Feinman Todd suggested he check it againstthe tape, which should have beenpreserved with Bradlees archives in the Post building. Thats the weird thing, she writes that Himmelman told her. All the tapes of all your interviews are there, in a box. Except that one.

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New Book Says Bob Woodward Burned Hillary Clinton's Ghostwriter - Washingtonian.com

Daily Kos Elections recently completedcalculating the 2016 presidential election results by congressional district.With ticket-splitting rates at historic lows, and presidential resultshighly correlated with congressional results, these numbers serve as a strong predictor of future House election outcomes. Consequently, as Democrats look to gain the 24 seats necessary to obtain a House majority, the 23 Republican-held congressional districts that voted for Hillary Clinton are a logical place to start.

As shown on the map above (see here for a larger version), most of these districts are located in upscale suburbs, particularly inSun Belt states like California and Texas. Several of these seats have substantial Latino populations, while most also have many highly educated white voters who long leaned Republican before they revolted against Donald Trump. White voters have strongly polarized by education level in recent elections, with those holding a college degree increasingly voting Democratic at much higher rates than those who lack a four-year degree. If that trend persists, Trump could remain very unpopular in these suburban districts, giving Democrats an opening downballot.

But while this is a good initial target list, congressional Republicanssignificantly outran Trumps performance in these districts. Whats more, 15 of these 23 seats had previously voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, indicating that voters in many of them were comfortable with Republicans who were more mainstream than Trump. And just three of these Republicans won by less than 5 percent in 2016, while only another four prevailed by less than 10 percent. However, given the declining rate of split-ticket outcomes nationally, many of these incumbents could simply be on borrowed time.

You can find a chart of all 23 Clinton-Republican districts below. Be sure to check out our previous maps and analysis of the presidential and congressional results for all the districts, and also our Congress guide spreadsheet, which compiles those results along with demographics and member information for every seat.

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These 23 Republicans hold congressional districts that voted for Hillary Clinton - Daily Kos