Tag: Hillary Clinton

Via NPR.  The audio link’s on the page.

Subtitled: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod? By Stephen Fleischman via Counterpunch.com.

“Here we go again,” murmured the old guard Democrats when Ralph Nader officially announced his candidacy for president in 2008, on Tim Russert’s “Meet the Press” show, Sunday, Feb.24th.

Now that extremist pastor John Hagee has endorsed John McCain, Todd Beeton wants to know whether McCain will denounce Hagee. Of course, unlike with Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement of Barack Obama, McCain actually appeared with Hagee, and actually happily accepted his endorsement. The better question, then, is whether Tim Russert will harangue McCain about it the way he harangued Obama about Farrakhan. Given that McCain actually appeared with Hagee, and actually happily accepted his endorsement, you would think Russert would be at least similarly concerned.

Here’s a quick note to corporate media hacks: As a liberal purist, I was no fan of Bill Clinton’s presidency; but when you joined the Republicans in attempting to hound him from office over a personal matter, I warmed to him. Defending him from idiots and assholes helped me focus on and appreciate President Clinton’s many positives. I’ve also been no fan of Hillary Clinton, but defending her from idiots and assholes, both in the corporate media and the shrillosphere, has had the same effect. She’s far from perfect, but she would be a fine president. I’m also no fan of Barack Obama, but the corporate media are already making me warm to the idea of his possible nomination. He’s also not perfect, but he also would be a fine president.

That’s how it works. We liberal skeptics do come to the defense of our more moderate political allies, when they are under unfair attack from idiots and assholes.

This is going to be a long year.

Frankly, I am glad I am not Barack Obama. But if ever this country needed someone of his intellectual capacity, strategic brilliance, ability to bring people together, it will be the first day he steps into the Oval office And brothers and sisters I am here tell you, the deep shit hole Bush has left us in will require not just Obama but a team of equally brilliant people to begin to address how we, as Americans, are going to climb out this seeming insurmountable abyss and turn our country around. But there is Obama and for that reason I have hope.

Hillary seems to be heading off a cliff as far as her campagin goes, so she needs some help!

Cross-posted at dKos.

“We are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants,” Barack Obama has frequently said on the campaign trail and in debates. I could not agree more.  However, listening to the debate in Austin the other night through my ex-pat lenses, I found myself mildly frustrated with the discussion of the immigration issue. Solving the legal and security issues is important, but what about the larger issue of why the United States continues to have such a serious illegal immigration problem in the first place?

After 10 years of increases in border patrols, partial walls, higher budgets, and more advanced sensor technology, shouldn’t we have seen some better results? Maybe we would have, if the security measures were actually the answer to the root cause of immigration. But they aren’t.

Health care is a human right. In my own definition of the progressive movement, I count that as a basic progressive principle.

For various reasons, from my own personal perspective, it is simply unacceptable to settle for anything less than true universal health care. Some of those various reasons are my experiences with health care in the United States, as well as those of my friends and family, some of whom have serious or chronic conditions.

In tonight’s EENR for Progress, we look at why we need universal health care, proposals for universal health care, and what progressives can do to achieve it.

One of the least reported issues in the continuing war and occupation of Iraq is that of plans for permanent military bases and a long term occupation of Iraq by the US Military. John McCain has made the statement that the US should stay in Iraq for the next 100 years.

As per CNN last month, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, a crowd member asked McCain about a Bush statement that troops could stay in Iraq for 50 years. “Maybe 100,” McCain replied.

Let’s look at the responses from Hillary and Obama.

The two following quotes are from the CNN link noted above in the introduction.

“He said recently he could see having troops in Iraq for 100 years,” Clinton said at an Arlington, Virginia, rally last week in a line she’s repeated on the campaign trail. “Well, I want them home within 60 days of my becoming president of the United States.”

Obama took a similar tack.

“Sen. McCain said the other day that we might be mired for 100 years in Iraq — which is reason enough not to give him four years in the White House,” Obama has said on several occasions.

and the come-back from McCain…

My apologies to Kevin Sullivan.

As I stood on the mountain, I shuddered. Off in the distance, I could see the Golden Pyramid. I was transfixed. I could here the Pyramid calling to me, willing me to come forth a climb its many steps.

On health care reform, the choice between the Democratic and Republican candidates is crystal clear.  The two leading Democratic candidates tell the American people the truth about the American health care system – it is too expensive, leaves out 50 million people, and burdens employers.  One can argue that the Clinton and Obama plans do not go far enough toward creating universal single-payer coverage that citizens of other developed countries take for granted, but at least the Democrats are talking about steps toward solution.  By contrast, McCain and the Republicans offer nothing but tired rhetoric and more tax breaks for people that do not need them.  If you cannot afford health insurance, then putting aside money into a medical savings account is a cynical, if not blatantly cruel “solution” to the problem.  

This recent editorial in USA Today highlights the uphill battle we face as the media seek to muddy the waters and muddle the public.

The editorial notes that health care costs per person in the United States are double the per-capita rates in other countries, including Canada and the members of the European Union.  It grudgingly admits that many Americans lack health insurance and therefore access to quality care.  However, the rest is nothing but disinformation.

The UK continues to pay for timorous Tony Blair’s white-livered decision to debase his nation as George II’s quivering lapdog.

One debt will be collected by Lofti Raissi, a British resident who last week won the right to seek monetary damages from the UK, as compensation for his groundless arrest and incarceration, on American orders, during the disgraceful Anglo-American overreaction to the attacks of September 11.

Three senior British judges held that the British government impermissibly used “unsubstantiated allegations” in a US extradition warrant “as a device to circumvent the rule of English law.”

Raissi, wholly innocent, was held in maximum-security confinement for six months, where he was twice stabbed by other inmates, while his name was foamingly bruited about in the shrieking British tabloids as a slavering 9/11 arch-fiend.

The court concluded that, to poodle up to the Americans, British police and prosecutors abused the legal process, filed false allegations, and concealed evidence, and thus Raissi may seek up to 2 million pounds in damages.

“I always say Britain is a civilised country with beautiful people,” Raissi said. “I really cherish the customs, the way of life here. But after 9/11, things changed.”

Raissi’s ordeal, below the divide.

Big Ten Democrat, whom I greatly like and respect, says Barack Obama should opt out of public financing, and that he should do it now, while it is still early. Strategically, Big Tent is absolutely right. As he says, should Obama opt out now, while his opponent is Hillary Clinton, the corporate media won’t question it. Should he win the nomination, and only opt out once his opponent is John McCain, the corporate media will eviscerate him. The free pass they give him against Hillary Clinton, whom they have always despised, and cherish the thought of defeating, if not destroying, will not transfer to a runoff against St. Maverick; and it won’t matter that the Saint is utterly and completely full of shit. But I strongly disagree with the fundamental premise of Big Tent’s argument:

Unlike most good government types, I believe that until there is full public financing of political campaigns, the Democratic Party should NEVER give away an advantage when it has one.

If John McCain accepts public financing for his general election campaign, and the Democratic nominee does not, the Democratic Party will lose the moral high ground, and much credibility, on campaign finance reform. That McCain is a liar and a hypocrite won’t matter. What will matter is that the Democratic nominee will be opting out, while the Republican nominee won’t be. Many are saying we should not cede the financial lead, now that the internet and a cratering Republican Party have handed it to us, but accepting that argument would only prove that campaign finance reform was always about the politics of being financially behind, rather than about the principle of creating a politics of people. Big Tent’s ideal of full public financing will never come to be because campaign finance reform will be, effectively, dead.

As I’ve previously pointed out, John Edwards had less than half as much campaign money as did Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama; and the rest of the candidates had much much less. Similarly, it’s no coincidence that Obama’s emergence as the clear Democratic frontrunner came as he vastly outspent Clinton, after Super Tuesday; and as they court the increasingly important Superdelegates, he has given more than three times as much money as has Clinton to those Superdelegates who are elected officials. Forget debates, speeches, policy statements, and stands on the issues, the Democratic nomination is being determined by nothing other than money.