Tag: Hillary Clinton

Talkin’ Toxic Trash: Hillary, Jackson Stephens & WTI

It only seems fair that if Hillary wants to dig through Obama’s trash that her early years should come under scrutiny as well.

It’s well know that she was involved with WalMart.  How many people know about the Clinton connections to another Arkansas corporatist that is far dirtier than WalMart?

Let’s take a look at Waste Technologies Incorporated (WTI), Jackson Stephens and Hillary/Bill Clinton.

Universal Health Care: HR 676 vs the Big Three! w/poll

The CBC/CNN debate in South Carolina is history.  One of the issues covered was that of Univeral Health Care.  The Big Three each have their plans, which are built upon some form of our current system of health insurance.  The other major plan is HR 676, The Conyers/Kucinich Plan for Medicare for All.

Rush Limbaugh possibly not supporting any Republican Presidential candidates.

Raw Story now reports on its front page that Rush Limbaugh may not support any of the Republican presidential candidates. It seems that the right-wing political movement is now in its last throes, seeing that there is no clear favorite in the race and none of the current candidates can unite them like Ronald Reagan did.

And Limbaugh is hardly the only gatekeeper who may sit out this race. The Republican Party is controlled by many gatekeepers, including Dobson, Norquist, and many others. Dobson, for instance, has refused to give his blessing to Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, or Fred Thompson. The fact of the matter is that the social conservatives who provide the boots on the ground only have one candidate — Ron Paul, who meets their purity tests on abortion, gays, gun control, immigration, and taxes. Paul does not have the blessing of one of the key wings of the Republican Party — the defense hawks and neocons, given his opposition to Iraq. However, the fact that he is the only antiwar voice in the GOP and 34% or so of Republicans do not approve of Bush’s handling of Iraq means that he is competitive.

Wavering over the kingmaking

I get the sense that a lot of people out there — not necessarily a plurality, but enough to justify having a public conversation with them — share roughly my preference order with respect to the remaining non-Gravel Democratic Presidential candidates.  In terms of what I’d like to see in a nominee, I’d give Edwards a 90, Obama an 84, Clinton a 72, and I’ll explain where Kucinich fits in later.  So here’s where I stand after today’s debate, and y’all can hash it out in comments if you want.  There’s no special reason that you should be that interested in what I think, so there’s no particular reason that you should be abusive in comments.  I’m mostly setting this down as my own diary for the record, so I can refer to it years down the line.  (Thanks again, buhdy, for providing this service.)

Rhetoric and Reality

Jeralyn links to this Las Vegas Sun analysis of the Nevada Caucuses. According to the Sun, it all boiled down to this:

And though it’s easy to slice and dice and analyze strategy, there’s this: Nevadan Democrats put their faith in Clinton and her experience.

At dozens of precinct locations voters interviewed by the Sun cited Clinton’s experience as the overriding factor in their decision.

Clinton’s “experience” over Obama’s call for “change.”

Jeralyn says this:

I continue to believe that when it comes time to vote, those adversely affected by our tumbling economy are going to be less concerned with aspirational change and more apt to ask which candidate has both a concrete economic program and a track record showing the ability to push it through.

I hope that’s true, but on an even broader scale. Because I don’t hear much about anyone’s economic programs. Even in the endlessly blithering blogosphere, the campaign themes are repetitively dumbed down to “experience” vs. “change.” And Jeralyn is spot on that people actually want to know about concrete policies. It would be nice if the campaigns and their supporters realized that.

If people really want real experience, they’d have supported Bill Richardson. If people really want real change, they’d be supporting Dennis Kucinich. The people who continually hype the illusion of Clinton’s “experience” or Obama’s “change” need to be a bit more honest with themselves, and figure out what it really is that makes them so adore their favorites. Maybe, then, they will do a better job of selling their candidates to we skeptics. Or maybe they won’t.  

Cry For NOLA And Mississippi, Hillary

Jesse Jackson, Jr., in stumping for Barack Obama, was correct in pointing out after the New Hampshire primary that Hillary Clinton did not cry for Katrina.

Apparently, based on what’s above the fold on her issues page, Clinton doesn’t seem to think that Katrina’s impact on the Gulf Region or the loss of 80% of New Orleans due to the failure of federally-maintained levees is that big a deal today–as if the fact that the continued suffering of many in the disaster zone close to 2 1/2 years after the flood doesn’t matter. And this is morally wrong.

It’s Amway vs. The Empire

Now that we Democrats have once again been consigned to the fringes and the Republicans are digging up a corpse to attempt to stanch the stench from the former leading confessed Republicans, barring an asteroid striking the earth the race is pretty much between The Empire and Amway.

I don’t know if anyone else here enjoys the titillation of getting political news from Marketwatch (hey, when you get too old for even Viagra).  Might tell you something about the primary places I haunt but even ghosts have perversions.

The Furniture Speaks

For the last two years, younger women listened to men explain how cold, calculating and manipulative Hillary Clinton actually is; older women made dinner for their families, sat with their knitting, or worked the late shift, and sometimes watched and listened, too.

Professional and working moms balancing infants on one knee and a bag of groceries on the other while watching Tweety and other six-figure earners explain to them how Hillary didn’t really deserve an equal place at the table. Men, as well, watched and listened to the spew.

And then, on January 8th, 2007, these women and men voted.

When the dust cleared the first woman in American history with a serious shot at winning the White House had won the nation’s first primary. Pundits reeled and moaned.

‘What about Hillary’s negatives?’, they asked. ‘Everybody hates Hillary’. Few even now have a clue what all this Hillary hate actually means, which is simply:

99% of the people around Hillary would happily take a bullet for her.

All that hate over the years has built up an enormous sense of loyalty, in many. And the reason the talking heads don’t understand that is simple: many of these fighters are women.

In Tweety’s world courage always wears a cod-piece and sounds like John McCain.

Susan B. Anthony would understand.

Chris Matthews, Andrew Sullivan and the like, dedicated only to their own careers, never will.

When the talking heads figure that out, the news may once again be worth watching.

Why Is This Edwards Surge Not A Headline Story?

A picture sometimes really is worth a thousand words

Rassmussen conducts a daily national tracking poll of all presidential candidates. The latest shows John Edwards picking up significantly more support, since the beginning of the year, than any candidate of either party.

The percent change for Republicans is: Huckabee 18.8% / Giuliani 13.3% / McCain 11.8% / Thompson 8.3% / Romney -6.3%.

So why isn’t this news?

Mike says: ” “It’s the War,” Says Iowa to Hillary “

And adds — And a “Happy Blue Year” To All!

Michael Moore has it partly right, a Big Part, for the Failed Foreign Policies, The War in Iraq and on Terrorism, of this Incompetant, Corrupt Administration will be defining what this Country faces for Decades!

We have Set In Stone, what many in the World, had already thought about Us. And in doing so have Created even More Hatreds, towards the Country, but even more Damaging, towards Us the Citizens Of!

Trees Quit – Sink Clinton, Edwards, and Obama CO2 Plans

More unfortunate climate change news for us and the candidates – this time from the boreal forests. The Guardian and others are reporting on a new study that finds trees are absorbing less CO2 as the world warms.

The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.

The finding published today is crucial, because it means that more of the CO2 we release will end up affecting the climate in the atmosphere rather than being safely locked away in trees or soil.

The results may partly explain recent studies suggesting that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected. If higher temperatures mean less carbon is soaked up by plants and microbes, global warming will accelerate.

Worldwide, only tropical rainforests are larger then boreal or northern forests. They cover Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia.  

Should Your President Be Self-Serving or Conscientious?

How do you  go about choosing a candidate to support? Is it an entirely rational process? Do you decide what the most important issues are for you and then compare each candidate’s proposed policies on them point by point to make your selection? Or do you go by your “feel” for the integrity and character qualities of the individual candidates? When the candidates are in broad agreement on the major issues (such as ending the Iraq occupation, providing healthcare for all Americans, restoring constitutional limits on executive power, etc.) and they only differ in some specifics of how they would get to those goals, questions of character begin to take on more weight, even among those who are most wonkishly informed and passionate on the issues.

Political psychologist Aubrey Immelman, research director and founder of the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics at Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict in Collegeville and St. Joseph, Minnesota, specializes in developing personality profiles of prominent political figures (as well as criminals – heh).

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