Attention, Parents: Larry Craig is Seeking Interns
If you've ever wanted to be a fly on the wall in Sen. Larry Craig's office, now's your chance.
The Idaho Republican has just announced he's taking applications for summer internships in his Capitol Hill office, which has been the brunt of gossip and many a colorful "wide stance" joke ever since last summer, when Craig was busted in a Minneapolis-St. Paul airport men's room sex sting.
"Interns have the chance to be an essential part of a working congressional office," Craig said in a press release issued Tuesday. "They participate in the legislative process as well as ensure that constituent services run smoothly. For those interested in politics, it is an incredible opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at how our government functions while serving the people of Idaho."
Craig is giving preference to "Idaho applicants attending Idaho schools who are in their junior or senior years of college (including graduating seniors)."
The interns Craig seeks are "expected to fulfill some administrative duties such as answering phones, sorting mail and greeting constituents."
Better hurry, kids. This will likely be your last chance to be a summer intern in Senator Craig's office. Craig, who was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee this month for his bathroom conviction, says he's retiring next January when his term expires.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
William F. Buckley Jr. dies at 82
William F. Buckley Jr. dies at 82
NEW YORK (AP) — William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite Ivy Leaguer and conservative herald who showered huge and scornful words on liberalism as he observed, abetted and cheered on the right's post-World War II rise from the fringes to the White House, died Wednesday. He was 82.
His assistant Linda Bridges said Buckley was found dead by his cook at his home in Stamford, Conn. The cause of death was unknown, but he had been ill with emphysema, she said.
NEW YORK (AP) — William F. Buckley Jr., the erudite Ivy Leaguer and conservative herald who showered huge and scornful words on liberalism as he observed, abetted and cheered on the right's post-World War II rise from the fringes to the White House, died Wednesday. He was 82.
His assistant Linda Bridges said Buckley was found dead by his cook at his home in Stamford, Conn. The cause of death was unknown, but he had been ill with emphysema, she said.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Initiatives to Improve Border Security
Homeland Security and Justice Department Announce Initiatives to Improve Border Security
At a joint news conference on Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, announced the federal government is undertaking several new initiatives to improve border security. First, Secretary Chertoff announced that a twenty-eight mile virtual fence using radar and surveillance cameras has been approved for use along the border near Nogales, Arizona. The virtual fence employs 98-foot surveillance towers equipped with radar, sensors and cameras capable of discerning whether border crossers are persons or animals from a distance of 10 miles. (Washington Post, February 22, 2008) The virtual fence, built by Boeing as part of a $20 million project, was scheduled for completion in 2007, but ran into delays when some of the technology failed to operate as planned. Commenting on the deployment of the virtual fence, Chertoff stated, "I have personally witnessed the value of the system, and I have spoken directly to the Border Patrol agents . . . who have seen it produce actual results."
At a joint news conference on Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, announced the federal government is undertaking several new initiatives to improve border security. First, Secretary Chertoff announced that a twenty-eight mile virtual fence using radar and surveillance cameras has been approved for use along the border near Nogales, Arizona. The virtual fence employs 98-foot surveillance towers equipped with radar, sensors and cameras capable of discerning whether border crossers are persons or animals from a distance of 10 miles. (Washington Post, February 22, 2008) The virtual fence, built by Boeing as part of a $20 million project, was scheduled for completion in 2007, but ran into delays when some of the technology failed to operate as planned. Commenting on the deployment of the virtual fence, Chertoff stated, "I have personally witnessed the value of the system, and I have spoken directly to the Border Patrol agents . . . who have seen it produce actual results."
Pew Research Projects Population Will Reach 438 Million
Pew Research Projects Population Will Reach 438 Million in 2050; 82 Percent of Growth Attributable to Immigration
Last Monday, the Pew Research Center released a study which projects that U.S. population will grow by 48 percent between 2005 and 2050, and that 82 percent of this growth will come from immigration — both legal and illegal — to the United States. The report, authored by Jeffery S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn of the Pew Research Center, predicts that the population of the United States, which was 296 million in 2005, will be 438 million by 2050 if current trends continue. Of these 142 million additional people, 67 million will be immigrants and 50 million will represent the children or the grandchildren of these immigrants. (Pew Research Center, U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050, February 11, 2008) The findings of the Pew Research Study are similar to that of a 2006 FAIR study which found the U.S. population in 2050 would be a minimum of 445 million. (Projecting the U.S. Population to 2050: Four Scenarios)
The report also estimates that between 2005 and 2050, the foreign-born population will more than double from 36 million to 81 million. As a result, the foreign-born share of the population will rise from 12 percent of the population in 2005 to nearly 19 percent of the population in 2050. Pew Research also estimates that sometime between 2020 and 2025, the foreign-born percentage of the population will exceed its historic peak of 14.8 percent reached in 1890. Commenting on these findings, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies stated, "we need to ask ourselves if we want the 100 million more people immigration will bring. Do you want 80 million more cars on the road, or 40 million homes occupying what's now open space?" (Washington Post, February 12, 2008)
In announcing the report, co-author Jeffery Passel carefully pointed out that the projection is simply an extrapolation from current trends that could change through intervening events. For example, Passel pointed to its conclusions regarding the ethnic composition of the population in 2050, noting that it assumes the same definitions and categories used today will continue to be used in the next 50 years. Thus, predictions could change not only in the face of changed immigration policy, but due to shifting categories and perceptions about the population. (USAToday, February 11, 2008)
To read the Pew Research Center population in its entirety, click here.
Last Monday, the Pew Research Center released a study which projects that U.S. population will grow by 48 percent between 2005 and 2050, and that 82 percent of this growth will come from immigration — both legal and illegal — to the United States. The report, authored by Jeffery S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn of the Pew Research Center, predicts that the population of the United States, which was 296 million in 2005, will be 438 million by 2050 if current trends continue. Of these 142 million additional people, 67 million will be immigrants and 50 million will represent the children or the grandchildren of these immigrants. (Pew Research Center, U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050, February 11, 2008) The findings of the Pew Research Study are similar to that of a 2006 FAIR study which found the U.S. population in 2050 would be a minimum of 445 million. (Projecting the U.S. Population to 2050: Four Scenarios)
The report also estimates that between 2005 and 2050, the foreign-born population will more than double from 36 million to 81 million. As a result, the foreign-born share of the population will rise from 12 percent of the population in 2005 to nearly 19 percent of the population in 2050. Pew Research also estimates that sometime between 2020 and 2025, the foreign-born percentage of the population will exceed its historic peak of 14.8 percent reached in 1890. Commenting on these findings, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies stated, "we need to ask ourselves if we want the 100 million more people immigration will bring. Do you want 80 million more cars on the road, or 40 million homes occupying what's now open space?" (Washington Post, February 12, 2008)
In announcing the report, co-author Jeffery Passel carefully pointed out that the projection is simply an extrapolation from current trends that could change through intervening events. For example, Passel pointed to its conclusions regarding the ethnic composition of the population in 2050, noting that it assumes the same definitions and categories used today will continue to be used in the next 50 years. Thus, predictions could change not only in the face of changed immigration policy, but due to shifting categories and perceptions about the population. (USAToday, February 11, 2008)
To read the Pew Research Center population in its entirety, click here.
Ask Congress to fully fund new enforcement efforts
Ask Congress to fully fund new enforcement efforts
This new fax has been posted in your Action Buffet based on your answers to the Interest Survey.
You can find this fax by proceeding to
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=9614
Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and Attorney General Mukasey have announced three new penalties and requirements for companies that deliberately hire illegal aliens:
(1) For the first time since 1999, fines on employers (any employer) who knowingly hire illegal aliens will increase:
Previous minimum penalty: $275. New penalty: $375.
Previous maximum penalty for a first violation: $2,200. New penalty: $3,200.
Previous maximum civil penalty for multiple violations: $11,000. New penalty: $16,000.
(2) All federal contractors will be required to use the E-Verify system. Secretary Chertoff does not want federal contractors hiring illegal aliens to help build the fence along the southern border. He noted that 53,000 employers currently use the E-Verify system on a voluntary basis, and 1.7 million new hires were checked this fiscal year.
(3) All companies will be encouraged to follow up with workers if there are discrepancies with the Social Security numbers they use. Out of approximately 250 million wage reports the SSA receives each year, as many as four percent belong to employees whose names and corresponding Social Security numbers do not match SSA’s records.
Please send this fax to your Member of Congress and encourage them to fully fund these enforcement measures, and to bolster them by opposing any effort to reward illegal aliens with a 5-year work visa.
Do you want more or less information?
As a NumbersUSA subscriber, you will receive occasional emails about immigration-related opportunities. If you want to increase or reduce the frequency of these emails, click here and choose from Total Activism, Moderate Activism, or Limited Activism at the bottom of your registration form: http://www.numbersusa.com/user
NumbersUSA - relies upon individuals like you to reach its goal of an environmentally sustainable and economically just America.
This new fax has been posted in your Action Buffet based on your answers to the Interest Survey.
You can find this fax by proceeding to
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=9614
Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff and Attorney General Mukasey have announced three new penalties and requirements for companies that deliberately hire illegal aliens:
(1) For the first time since 1999, fines on employers (any employer) who knowingly hire illegal aliens will increase:
Previous minimum penalty: $275. New penalty: $375.
Previous maximum penalty for a first violation: $2,200. New penalty: $3,200.
Previous maximum civil penalty for multiple violations: $11,000. New penalty: $16,000.
(2) All federal contractors will be required to use the E-Verify system. Secretary Chertoff does not want federal contractors hiring illegal aliens to help build the fence along the southern border. He noted that 53,000 employers currently use the E-Verify system on a voluntary basis, and 1.7 million new hires were checked this fiscal year.
(3) All companies will be encouraged to follow up with workers if there are discrepancies with the Social Security numbers they use. Out of approximately 250 million wage reports the SSA receives each year, as many as four percent belong to employees whose names and corresponding Social Security numbers do not match SSA’s records.
Please send this fax to your Member of Congress and encourage them to fully fund these enforcement measures, and to bolster them by opposing any effort to reward illegal aliens with a 5-year work visa.
Do you want more or less information?
As a NumbersUSA subscriber, you will receive occasional emails about immigration-related opportunities. If you want to increase or reduce the frequency of these emails, click here and choose from Total Activism, Moderate Activism, or Limited Activism at the bottom of your registration form: http://www.numbersusa.com/user
NumbersUSA - relies upon individuals like you to reach its goal of an environmentally sustainable and economically just America.
OBAMA’S REAL EXPERIENCE: HIS CANDIDACY
OBAMA’S REAL EXPERIENCE: HIS CANDIDACY
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on February 25, 2008.
The best evidence of Obama’s readiness to lead the nation is the ability with which he has run for president. After all, what is more difficult, complicated, or challenging than getting elected president? What other life experience better illustrates one’s qualification to hold the office than a manifest skill in seeking it. For anyone who has ever been elected president, the race that sent them to the White House was the single most important event in their lives and dwarfs any other experience they might have had before running.
As we have watched Obama surmount the hurdles that lay in his path, we cannot help but be impressed with his judgment. Adam Wallinsky, who served on Bobby Kennedy’s staff, once singled out good judgment as JFK’s most salient characteristic. Obama has faced so many delicate questions and issues and seems always to have the right feel for how to handle them.
At the start of the contest, he chose to avoid running as a black candidate for president and ran, instead, as a candidate who happened to have black skin. He crafted a middle course between the determined rejection of his race and its grievances of a Clarence Thomas and its emphatic embrace by a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton. While Hillary invoked her gender at every turn, Obama decided to transcend his race rather than invoke it.
He began his candidacy eschewing donations from PACs and lobbyists, preserving his purity and giving him ground on which to stand in his claim to represent a new kind of politics, rejecting the special interests. When Hillary, whose campaign decisions have been as faulty as Obama’s have been flawless, wallowed in such donations, the Illinois Senator used the difference to paint her into the corner of the status quo candidate.
Beyond simply avoiding special interest money, Obama learned the lesson of Joe Trippi and the Howard Dean campaign of 2004 (even though Trippi was working for Edwards) and used his star power to develop a massive cyber-roots fund raising base which he mobilized again and again by the click of a mouse. He realized the potential of the Internet to democratize campaign funding in a way the other candidates in general, and Hillary in particular, did not. (Mrs. Clinton invested tens of millions in direct mail instead with all of its costs and limited returns).
When Hillary criticized him for lacking experience, he brilliantly seized the opening she provided by becoming the candidate of change. He realized, as Hillary and Bill did not, that America wanted a change beyond the Bush/Clinton oscillation and grasped the fact that Hillary’s emphasis on experience would play into his hands.
And when the Clintons tried to use race to derail Obama, he countered skillfully by making Super Tuesday a referendum on tolerance and inclusivity, overtly rejecting the racial polarization which seemed to have set in after South Carolina. Underscoring his message with victories in white states like Utah, Idaho, Colorado and North Dakota, he buried the race issue.
While the Clintons went for the knockout blows of winning New York and California, Obama created a fifty state organization to win each caucus state. As Hillary’s campaign wasted half a million dollars on flowers, Obama’s husbanded his resources to put teams on the ground in the small states where his organizing paid off and brought him sufficient victories to survive the loss of the two big Super Tuesday states.
And when the Clintons went to full time negatives, Obama carefully parsed the attacks he would answer from those he wouldn’t and disdained to engage in the tit-for-tat negative campaigning, realizing that the process turned voters off more than the negatives themselves ever did.
Will he be a good president? If he is half as skillful in serving as he has been in running, he can’t miss.
see more at mccain alert.com
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on February 25, 2008.
The best evidence of Obama’s readiness to lead the nation is the ability with which he has run for president. After all, what is more difficult, complicated, or challenging than getting elected president? What other life experience better illustrates one’s qualification to hold the office than a manifest skill in seeking it. For anyone who has ever been elected president, the race that sent them to the White House was the single most important event in their lives and dwarfs any other experience they might have had before running.
As we have watched Obama surmount the hurdles that lay in his path, we cannot help but be impressed with his judgment. Adam Wallinsky, who served on Bobby Kennedy’s staff, once singled out good judgment as JFK’s most salient characteristic. Obama has faced so many delicate questions and issues and seems always to have the right feel for how to handle them.
At the start of the contest, he chose to avoid running as a black candidate for president and ran, instead, as a candidate who happened to have black skin. He crafted a middle course between the determined rejection of his race and its grievances of a Clarence Thomas and its emphatic embrace by a Jesse Jackson or an Al Sharpton. While Hillary invoked her gender at every turn, Obama decided to transcend his race rather than invoke it.
He began his candidacy eschewing donations from PACs and lobbyists, preserving his purity and giving him ground on which to stand in his claim to represent a new kind of politics, rejecting the special interests. When Hillary, whose campaign decisions have been as faulty as Obama’s have been flawless, wallowed in such donations, the Illinois Senator used the difference to paint her into the corner of the status quo candidate.
Beyond simply avoiding special interest money, Obama learned the lesson of Joe Trippi and the Howard Dean campaign of 2004 (even though Trippi was working for Edwards) and used his star power to develop a massive cyber-roots fund raising base which he mobilized again and again by the click of a mouse. He realized the potential of the Internet to democratize campaign funding in a way the other candidates in general, and Hillary in particular, did not. (Mrs. Clinton invested tens of millions in direct mail instead with all of its costs and limited returns).
When Hillary criticized him for lacking experience, he brilliantly seized the opening she provided by becoming the candidate of change. He realized, as Hillary and Bill did not, that America wanted a change beyond the Bush/Clinton oscillation and grasped the fact that Hillary’s emphasis on experience would play into his hands.
And when the Clintons tried to use race to derail Obama, he countered skillfully by making Super Tuesday a referendum on tolerance and inclusivity, overtly rejecting the racial polarization which seemed to have set in after South Carolina. Underscoring his message with victories in white states like Utah, Idaho, Colorado and North Dakota, he buried the race issue.
While the Clintons went for the knockout blows of winning New York and California, Obama created a fifty state organization to win each caucus state. As Hillary’s campaign wasted half a million dollars on flowers, Obama’s husbanded his resources to put teams on the ground in the small states where his organizing paid off and brought him sufficient victories to survive the loss of the two big Super Tuesday states.
And when the Clintons went to full time negatives, Obama carefully parsed the attacks he would answer from those he wouldn’t and disdained to engage in the tit-for-tat negative campaigning, realizing that the process turned voters off more than the negatives themselves ever did.
Will he be a good president? If he is half as skillful in serving as he has been in running, he can’t miss.
see more at mccain alert.com
fighting illegal immigration
The leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives continues to believe that the American people are worn out fighting illegal immigration and will allow her to, at the least, gut new enforcement against illegal immigration and, at the worst, pass an amnesty this year.
Please check your Action Buffet corkboard to make sure you have sent all your latest faxes and made your phone calls to encourage more enforcement and to block all amnesties.
Today's editorial in the Washington Times (see below) describes our situation in the U.S. House well.
In a nutshell, your efforts to push the SAVE Act (H.R. 4088) of Rep. Shuler (D-N.C.) and Rep. Bilbray (R-Calif.) are increasingly successful. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fears that the current 136 co-sponsors will succeed in forcing a House floor vote on the bill to take jobs away from millions of illegal aliens. She desperately wants to keep the 12-20 million illegal aliens in this country. So, she is maneuvering to attach a 5-year amnesty proposal of the Hispanic Caucus. Her hope is that she will either win with the amnesty or just make the bill so bad that we will help her kill the enforcement.
LESS-EDUCATED AMERICAN WORKERS DISPLACED BY FOREIGNERS
Our researcher, Joe Jenkins, has just reconfirmed for me these horrifying figures:
2 million -- The increase in the number of Americans without a high school degree who became jobless between 2000 and 2005.
1.5 million -- The number of immigrants without a high school degree who were imported by Congress between 2000 and 2005 to take American jobs.
Not surprisingly during that same period, the wages for both these immigrants and native-born workers without a high school degree have plummeted. The cheap labor lobbies may want to do away with immigration law, but they can never rescind the law of supply and demand.
Later today, we will put on your Action Buffet corkboard a new fax concerning these figures for you to send to your Members of Congress.
ADMINISTRATION ROLLING OUT TOUGHER ENFORCEMENT
Even as we may be fighting to a stand-still in Congress over better enforcement laws, the battle to curb illegal immigration is actually turning in our favor because of efforts on the state and local level ...
Please check your Action Buffet corkboard to make sure you have sent all your latest faxes and made your phone calls to encourage more enforcement and to block all amnesties.
Today's editorial in the Washington Times (see below) describes our situation in the U.S. House well.
In a nutshell, your efforts to push the SAVE Act (H.R. 4088) of Rep. Shuler (D-N.C.) and Rep. Bilbray (R-Calif.) are increasingly successful. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fears that the current 136 co-sponsors will succeed in forcing a House floor vote on the bill to take jobs away from millions of illegal aliens. She desperately wants to keep the 12-20 million illegal aliens in this country. So, she is maneuvering to attach a 5-year amnesty proposal of the Hispanic Caucus. Her hope is that she will either win with the amnesty or just make the bill so bad that we will help her kill the enforcement.
LESS-EDUCATED AMERICAN WORKERS DISPLACED BY FOREIGNERS
Our researcher, Joe Jenkins, has just reconfirmed for me these horrifying figures:
2 million -- The increase in the number of Americans without a high school degree who became jobless between 2000 and 2005.
1.5 million -- The number of immigrants without a high school degree who were imported by Congress between 2000 and 2005 to take American jobs.
Not surprisingly during that same period, the wages for both these immigrants and native-born workers without a high school degree have plummeted. The cheap labor lobbies may want to do away with immigration law, but they can never rescind the law of supply and demand.
Later today, we will put on your Action Buffet corkboard a new fax concerning these figures for you to send to your Members of Congress.
ADMINISTRATION ROLLING OUT TOUGHER ENFORCEMENT
Even as we may be fighting to a stand-still in Congress over better enforcement laws, the battle to curb illegal immigration is actually turning in our favor because of efforts on the state and local level ...
Who Will Bell Hillary?
Who Will Bell Hillary?
Who Will Bell Hillary?
By Robert D. Novak
February 25, 2008
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Even before Sen. Barack Obama won his ninth-straight contest against Sen. Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin last Tuesday, wise old heads in the Democratic Party were asking this question: Who will tell her that it's over, that she cannot win the presidential nomination and the sooner she leaves the race the more it will improve chances of defeating Sen. John McCain in November?
In an ideal though unattainable world, Clinton would have dropped out when it became clear even before Wisconsin that she could not be nominated. The nightmare scenario was that she would win in Wisconsin, claiming a "comeback" that would propel her to narrow victories in Texas and Ohio March 4. That still would not cut her a path to the nomination. Telling her then to end her candidacy and avoid a bloody battle stretching to the party's Denver national convention might not be achievable.
The Democratic dilemma recalls the Republican problem, in a much different context, 34 years ago, when GOP graybeards asked: "Who will bell the cat?" -- go to Richard M. Nixon and inform him he had lost his support in the party and must resign the presidency. Sen. Barry Goldwater successfully performed that mission in 1974, but there is no Goldwater facsimile in today's Democratic Party (except for Sen. Ted Kennedy, who could not do it because he has endorsed Obama).
Clinton's rationale for remaining a candidate is the Texas-Ohio parlay on March 4, with pre-Wisconsin polls giving her a comfortable lead in both states. But Texas has become a dead heat, and her Ohio margin is down to single digits. Gov. Ted Strickland, Clinton's leading endorser in Ohio, is reported following the Wisconsin returns to privately have expressed concern as to whether he could hold the state for her in the ensuing two weeks. If she ekes out a win in Ohio while losing Texas, who then will bell Hillary?
The inevitability of Clinton becoming the first female president was based on her dominance over weak fields in both parties. McCain was the one Republican who worried Democratic strategists, and he appeared dead three months ago. Mitt Romney, the then-likely Republican nominee, was viewed in Democratic circles as unelectable.
Obama's improbable candidacy always worried Clinton insiders, which explains the whispering campaign that the Illinois neophyte would prove vulnerable to Republican onslaught as the presidential nominee. That private assault continues to this day, with Obama described as a latter-day George McGovern whose career record of radical positions will prove easy prey for GOP attack dogs.
But Clinton could not go before Democratic primary voters and assail Obama for being too far to the left. Instead, she insinuated moral turpitude by asserting that Obama had not been "vetted." When that backfired, she claimed plagiarism by Obama in lifting a paragraph from a speech by his friend and supporter Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick -- an approach that yielded mainly derisive laughter among politicians.
I listened in on last Wednesday's news media conference calls by Clinton campaign managers Mark Penn and Harold Ickes in the wake of her Wisconsin drubbing. Incredibly, they were hawking the same plagiarism charge that had proved ineffective. Clinton herself raised the bogus issue again in Thursday night's debate from Austin and was rewarded with boos from the Democratic audience.
Clinton's burden is not only Obama's charisma but also McCain's resurrection. Some of the same Democrats who short months ago were heralding her as the "perfect" candidate now call her a sure loser against McCain, saying she would do the party a favor by just leaving.
Clinton's tipping point may have come when it was announced that her $5 million loan to her campaign came from a joint fund she shares evenly with Bill Clinton. That puts into play for the general election business deals by the former president that had transformed him from an indigent to a multimillionaire and excite interest in their income tax returns, which the Clintons refuse to reveal. The prospect impels many Democratic insiders to pray for clear Obama victories on March 4 that they hope will make it unnecessary for anybody to beg Hillary Clinton to end her failed campaign.
Who Will Bell Hillary?
By Robert D. Novak
February 25, 2008
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Even before Sen. Barack Obama won his ninth-straight contest against Sen. Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin last Tuesday, wise old heads in the Democratic Party were asking this question: Who will tell her that it's over, that she cannot win the presidential nomination and the sooner she leaves the race the more it will improve chances of defeating Sen. John McCain in November?
In an ideal though unattainable world, Clinton would have dropped out when it became clear even before Wisconsin that she could not be nominated. The nightmare scenario was that she would win in Wisconsin, claiming a "comeback" that would propel her to narrow victories in Texas and Ohio March 4. That still would not cut her a path to the nomination. Telling her then to end her candidacy and avoid a bloody battle stretching to the party's Denver national convention might not be achievable.
The Democratic dilemma recalls the Republican problem, in a much different context, 34 years ago, when GOP graybeards asked: "Who will bell the cat?" -- go to Richard M. Nixon and inform him he had lost his support in the party and must resign the presidency. Sen. Barry Goldwater successfully performed that mission in 1974, but there is no Goldwater facsimile in today's Democratic Party (except for Sen. Ted Kennedy, who could not do it because he has endorsed Obama).
Clinton's rationale for remaining a candidate is the Texas-Ohio parlay on March 4, with pre-Wisconsin polls giving her a comfortable lead in both states. But Texas has become a dead heat, and her Ohio margin is down to single digits. Gov. Ted Strickland, Clinton's leading endorser in Ohio, is reported following the Wisconsin returns to privately have expressed concern as to whether he could hold the state for her in the ensuing two weeks. If she ekes out a win in Ohio while losing Texas, who then will bell Hillary?
The inevitability of Clinton becoming the first female president was based on her dominance over weak fields in both parties. McCain was the one Republican who worried Democratic strategists, and he appeared dead three months ago. Mitt Romney, the then-likely Republican nominee, was viewed in Democratic circles as unelectable.
Obama's improbable candidacy always worried Clinton insiders, which explains the whispering campaign that the Illinois neophyte would prove vulnerable to Republican onslaught as the presidential nominee. That private assault continues to this day, with Obama described as a latter-day George McGovern whose career record of radical positions will prove easy prey for GOP attack dogs.
But Clinton could not go before Democratic primary voters and assail Obama for being too far to the left. Instead, she insinuated moral turpitude by asserting that Obama had not been "vetted." When that backfired, she claimed plagiarism by Obama in lifting a paragraph from a speech by his friend and supporter Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick -- an approach that yielded mainly derisive laughter among politicians.
I listened in on last Wednesday's news media conference calls by Clinton campaign managers Mark Penn and Harold Ickes in the wake of her Wisconsin drubbing. Incredibly, they were hawking the same plagiarism charge that had proved ineffective. Clinton herself raised the bogus issue again in Thursday night's debate from Austin and was rewarded with boos from the Democratic audience.
Clinton's burden is not only Obama's charisma but also McCain's resurrection. Some of the same Democrats who short months ago were heralding her as the "perfect" candidate now call her a sure loser against McCain, saying she would do the party a favor by just leaving.
Clinton's tipping point may have come when it was announced that her $5 million loan to her campaign came from a joint fund she shares evenly with Bill Clinton. That puts into play for the general election business deals by the former president that had transformed him from an indigent to a multimillionaire and excite interest in their income tax returns, which the Clintons refuse to reveal. The prospect impels many Democratic insiders to pray for clear Obama victories on March 4 that they hope will make it unnecessary for anybody to beg Hillary Clinton to end her failed campaign.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Does Senator John Mccain have a vested interested in Budweiser ?
Does Senator John Mccain have a vested interested in Budweiser ?
see the family owned Hensley and Co., a Budweiser liquor distributorship.
and his pesonal stock holdings.
see his personal worth filing document at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/congress/fin_dis/2006/m000303.pdf
Anheuser-Busch
www.mccainalert.com
see more news info on senator john mccain
see the family owned Hensley and Co., a Budweiser liquor distributorship.
and his pesonal stock holdings.
see his personal worth filing document at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/congress/fin_dis/2006/m000303.pdf
Anheuser-Busch
www.mccainalert.com
see more news info on senator john mccain
How many lobbyists work in John Mccain office? do they get federal paychecks too?
How many lobbyists work in John Mccain office? do they get federal paychecks too?
How many lobbyists work in John Mccain office?
who pays them ?
are they senate employees? federal paychecks?
is this a clever indirect way to skirt the lobbying issues?
www.mccainalert.com
How many lobbyists work in John Mccain office?
who pays them ?
are they senate employees? federal paychecks?
is this a clever indirect way to skirt the lobbying issues?
www.mccainalert.com
Thursday, February 21, 2008
whose private jet was Mccain on with that hot babe ?
whose private jet was Mccain on with that hot babe ?
and why was he given the use of the jet?
and why was he given the use of the jet?
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
NY Times to publish articles link Senator Mccain to lobbyist
NY Times to publish articles linking Senator Mccain
to lobbyists.
to lobbyists.
Monday, February 18, 2008
President George H. W. Bush Endorses John McCain
President George H. W. Bush Endorses John McCain
At a press conference in Houston today, former President George H.W. Bush endorsed John McCain for president. President Bush made the following statement on his endorsement:
"Today we are living in a time of war, a new and vastly more complex time of war. We also have more important challenges at home, chief among them, we clearly need to address those parts of our economy that demand attention. And at this critical time in history, the key point I want to make is the United States of America cannot be permitted to falter. Part of our Republican creed is a prevailing sense of duty. In the coming election, we do not have the luxury of taking a pass on our unique role and responsibilities in the world. And the indisputable fact that unites the greatest number of Republicans, most independents and many good Democrats is the fact that no one is better prepared to lead our nation at these trying times than Senator John McCain.
"As someone who also helped lead our great Party at the RNC and later as President, I believe now is the right time for me to help John in his effort to start building the broad-based coalition it will take for our conservative values to carry the White House this fall. His character was forged in the crucible of war. His commitment to America is beyond any doubt. But most importantly, he has the right values and experience to guide our nation forward at this historic moment. So I am very proud to endorse John McCain for the presidency for the United States of America. Few men walking among us have sacrificed so much in the cause of human freedom, and I am happy to help this remarkable patriot carry our Party's banner forward."
se more news and reports on senator John
Mccain
At a press conference in Houston today, former President George H.W. Bush endorsed John McCain for president. President Bush made the following statement on his endorsement:
"Today we are living in a time of war, a new and vastly more complex time of war. We also have more important challenges at home, chief among them, we clearly need to address those parts of our economy that demand attention. And at this critical time in history, the key point I want to make is the United States of America cannot be permitted to falter. Part of our Republican creed is a prevailing sense of duty. In the coming election, we do not have the luxury of taking a pass on our unique role and responsibilities in the world. And the indisputable fact that unites the greatest number of Republicans, most independents and many good Democrats is the fact that no one is better prepared to lead our nation at these trying times than Senator John McCain.
"As someone who also helped lead our great Party at the RNC and later as President, I believe now is the right time for me to help John in his effort to start building the broad-based coalition it will take for our conservative values to carry the White House this fall. His character was forged in the crucible of war. His commitment to America is beyond any doubt. But most importantly, he has the right values and experience to guide our nation forward at this historic moment. So I am very proud to endorse John McCain for the presidency for the United States of America. Few men walking among us have sacrificed so much in the cause of human freedom, and I am happy to help this remarkable patriot carry our Party's banner forward."
se more news and reports on senator John
Mccain
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Stop the increases in foreign workers / amnesty
Stop the increases in foreign workers / amnesty
Congress needs to hear from you this week --
Just when you think the Big Business Lobbyists can't be any more callous ...
At the same time as reports that we may be in an economic recession and that the job market is getting more and more difficult for Americans, the magazines, newspapers and airwaves are filled with op-eds, editorials and articles quoting the business leaders and lobbyists saying we must import more foreign workers!
Both the Democratic and Republican leadership of U.S. House and Senate are right now conspiring to bring legislation to the floor to greatly expand the pool of foreign labor in this country -- even as they talk about the need for taxpayers to provide more unemployment compensation for all the Americans who are losing their jobs.
This kind of insanity is nothing new.
And it will never slow down unless we as a Lobby of the People mobilize in massive fashion to put an end to it.
Please go to your NumbersUSA Action Buffet corkboard and make sure you have taken all the actions we have provided you to stand up against this latest effort of the Big Business Lobby to depress wages and foist major new subsidies upon the taxpayers.
I have been working full-time on these immigration issues since 1991. The Big Business Lobby and its well-compensated friends in Congress always use every upturn in the economy to cry for more foreign labor because of perceived shortages. But they never change their tune when the economy turns down.
In every period of rising unemployment, the Big Business Lobby
continues to cry about terrible worker shortages and always
brings in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers during recessions.
Your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team has talked to a number of
people who
have been in high level Hill meetings where leaders of both
Parties have expressed
a desire during this time of economic turmoil to sneak through
giant increases of H-1B visas for foreign tech workers,
H-2B visas for foreign laborers, greencards
for permanent foreign nurses and a five-year visa for
12-20 million illegal foreign workers and their dependents.
Friends, I know that all of this may seem too crazy to be true.
But please believe me that that the worse our country's economic
situation, the more your
congressional leaders see a chance to give their corporate sponsors
the huge foreign labor increases that the People's Lobby has been
blocking the last several years.
Send your faxes immediately. Remember that Monday is a federal holiday.
Wait to make your phone calls until Tuesday.
Congressional leaders hope you will be so busy worrying about
your own jobs that you won't notice them giving away millions
more through immigration increases.
Congress needs to hear from you this week --
Just when you think the Big Business Lobbyists can't be any more callous ...
At the same time as reports that we may be in an economic recession and that the job market is getting more and more difficult for Americans, the magazines, newspapers and airwaves are filled with op-eds, editorials and articles quoting the business leaders and lobbyists saying we must import more foreign workers!
Both the Democratic and Republican leadership of U.S. House and Senate are right now conspiring to bring legislation to the floor to greatly expand the pool of foreign labor in this country -- even as they talk about the need for taxpayers to provide more unemployment compensation for all the Americans who are losing their jobs.
This kind of insanity is nothing new.
And it will never slow down unless we as a Lobby of the People mobilize in massive fashion to put an end to it.
Please go to your NumbersUSA Action Buffet corkboard and make sure you have taken all the actions we have provided you to stand up against this latest effort of the Big Business Lobby to depress wages and foist major new subsidies upon the taxpayers.
I have been working full-time on these immigration issues since 1991. The Big Business Lobby and its well-compensated friends in Congress always use every upturn in the economy to cry for more foreign labor because of perceived shortages. But they never change their tune when the economy turns down.
In every period of rising unemployment, the Big Business Lobby
continues to cry about terrible worker shortages and always
brings in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers during recessions.
Your NumbersUSA Capitol Hill Team has talked to a number of
people who
have been in high level Hill meetings where leaders of both
Parties have expressed
a desire during this time of economic turmoil to sneak through
giant increases of H-1B visas for foreign tech workers,
H-2B visas for foreign laborers, greencards
for permanent foreign nurses and a five-year visa for
12-20 million illegal foreign workers and their dependents.
Friends, I know that all of this may seem too crazy to be true.
But please believe me that that the worse our country's economic
situation, the more your
congressional leaders see a chance to give their corporate sponsors
the huge foreign labor increases that the People's Lobby has been
blocking the last several years.
Send your faxes immediately. Remember that Monday is a federal holiday.
Wait to make your phone calls until Tuesday.
Congressional leaders hope you will be so busy worrying about
your own jobs that you won't notice them giving away millions
more through immigration increases.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
OBAMA, THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE? YES HE CAN!
OBAMA, THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE? YES HE CAN!
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on February 11, 2008.
I believe that Barack Obama will defeat Hillary and win the Democratic nomination. I think that this weekend's victories in states as diverse as Washington State, Louisiana, Nebraska, and Maine illustrates his national appeal and demonstrates Hillary's inability to win in states without large immigrant and Latino populations.
Hillary's results on Super Tuesday, which amounted to a draw with Obama, will be her high water mark and will represent the closest she will ever come to the party nomination.
Right now, CBS has Obama ahead in elected delegates with 1134, while Hillary has only 1131.By the time Virginia, Maryland, DC, Wisconsin, and Hawaii vote during the next week, Obama will have a lead over Clinton of about 100 delegates, even counting the super delegates who have thus far committed themselves.
March 4th will, at worst, be a wash for Obama with his probably wins in Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont offsetting his probable defeat in Texas. (Although in Texas' open primary, Republicans and Independents may flock to the Dem primary to beat Hillary).
And then come a list of states almost all of which should go for Obama, including likely victories in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Indiana. By the convention, he will have more than enough delegates to overcome the expected margins Hillary may rack up among super delegates.
And don't bet on all the super delegates staying hitched to Hillary. These folks are politicians, half of them public office holders who are really good at reading the handwriting on the wall and really bad at gratitude for past favors.
Since 2004, I have predicted that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee. But, given the consistently amazing performance of Obama, his superior organizational and fund-raising skills, his inspiration of young people, and the flat and completely uninspiring performance by Hillary, it looks to me like it will be Obama as the Democratic nominee.
FOLLOW HILLARY CLINTON'S MONEY!
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
By DICK MORRIS
Published on DickMorris.com on February 11, 2008.
I believe that Barack Obama will defeat Hillary and win the Democratic nomination. I think that this weekend's victories in states as diverse as Washington State, Louisiana, Nebraska, and Maine illustrates his national appeal and demonstrates Hillary's inability to win in states without large immigrant and Latino populations.
Hillary's results on Super Tuesday, which amounted to a draw with Obama, will be her high water mark and will represent the closest she will ever come to the party nomination.
Right now, CBS has Obama ahead in elected delegates with 1134, while Hillary has only 1131.By the time Virginia, Maryland, DC, Wisconsin, and Hawaii vote during the next week, Obama will have a lead over Clinton of about 100 delegates, even counting the super delegates who have thus far committed themselves.
March 4th will, at worst, be a wash for Obama with his probably wins in Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont offsetting his probable defeat in Texas. (Although in Texas' open primary, Republicans and Independents may flock to the Dem primary to beat Hillary).
And then come a list of states almost all of which should go for Obama, including likely victories in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Indiana. By the convention, he will have more than enough delegates to overcome the expected margins Hillary may rack up among super delegates.
And don't bet on all the super delegates staying hitched to Hillary. These folks are politicians, half of them public office holders who are really good at reading the handwriting on the wall and really bad at gratitude for past favors.
Since 2004, I have predicted that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee. But, given the consistently amazing performance of Obama, his superior organizational and fund-raising skills, his inspiration of young people, and the flat and completely uninspiring performance by Hillary, it looks to me like it will be Obama as the Democratic nominee.
FOLLOW HILLARY CLINTON'S MONEY!
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
WHY HILLARY WILL LOSE
WHY HILLARY WILL LOSE
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com
Hillary Clinton has blown an almost sure shot at the Democratic presidential nomination. Having surrendered the lead to Obama, she is not likely ever to regain it. It is a fantasy that the Ohio and Texas primaries will be a “firewall” to contain the flames of enthusiasm for Obama and reverse her defeats of February. Just as with Giuliani’s supposed Florida firewall, Hillary’s will crumble as Obama’s momentum carries him forward to the nomination.
Before Hillary lost her first primary or caucus, she lost the dialogue with the Obama campaign vis-à-vis the totally misguided decision to focus her message on experience, surrendering the ground of change to her opponent.
The more she tried to emphasize Obama’s inexperience, the more she seemed to fence herself into the status quo. That it was the status quo ante of the Clinton years, not the status quo of the Bush administration, made less and less difference as the campaign progressed.
She ran on a message perfect for a Republican primary — experience — and abandoned the key to winning a Democratic primary — the message of change — to Obama.
Her decision to rely on special interest political action committee and lobbyist contributions and to seed her war chest with the checks of maxed-out donors gave substance to Obama’s contrast of the status quo vs. change. With her chief strategist a lobbyist and her top campaign team all in the business, she was awash in associations that crippled her ability to fight for change.
Obama became the attraction in the race while Hillary recited her laundry list of proposals with a deadening monotony.
She could have waged a grassroots, small-donor, Internet campaign of change based on being the first woman running for president with a serious chance of victory. The charisma could have been hers, the excitement hers and the novelty hers. But by embracing experience and pretending to be safe and tested, she deadened the excitement her candidacy could have generated.
She got a reprieve by winning in New York/New Jersey and in California/ Arizona largely on the strength of Latino and immigrant voters. Their concentration in five key states (75 percent live in California, New York, Illinois, Florida and Texas) gave her a draw on Super Tuesday. But too many of her votes come from Hispanics who fear blacks and from older whites who harbor residual racial feelings. Her and Bill’s heavy-handed attempts to polarize the election racially died on Super Tuesday in an avalanche of votes from white states like Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas, North Dakota and the like.
As the election turned from Super Tuesday to the heartland, where there are few Hispanics or new immigrants, Hillary’s campaign has lost its momentum and its prospects of victory. Obama’s victories in Maine, Nebraska, Louisiana and Washington state, and his probable wins in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, show how complete is his mastery of states without immigrants blinded by the Clinton name to sustain it. Hillary’s hopes for victory in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina are a fantasy. The Latino population in those states is well below 10 percent and not enough to carry her to victory.
The super-delegates will not be enough to reverse Obama’s primary and caucus victories and they will run for cover and join the Obama bandwagon anyway.
Besides losing the rhetorical battle, Hillary will have nowhere near the money that Obama will have. Her preparations for a short war based on maxed-out donors and old politics were disastrously shortsighted, while Obama wisely cultivated online contributors who can regenerate with the click of a mouse.
When Barack Obama beat Al Gore to the punch and jumped into the presidential race while the former vice president was still deciding what to do, it seemed that Hillary had virtually wrapped up the nomination. While Gore could have beaten Mrs. Clinton, it seemed unlikely that a senator with two years’ service under his belt could do so.
But the mistakes and strategic errors of the Clinton campaign gave Obama an opening that he exploited masterfully. It is Obama’s charisma that is winning this election, but it was Clinton’s mistakes that opened the door.
By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com
Hillary Clinton has blown an almost sure shot at the Democratic presidential nomination. Having surrendered the lead to Obama, she is not likely ever to regain it. It is a fantasy that the Ohio and Texas primaries will be a “firewall” to contain the flames of enthusiasm for Obama and reverse her defeats of February. Just as with Giuliani’s supposed Florida firewall, Hillary’s will crumble as Obama’s momentum carries him forward to the nomination.
Before Hillary lost her first primary or caucus, she lost the dialogue with the Obama campaign vis-à-vis the totally misguided decision to focus her message on experience, surrendering the ground of change to her opponent.
The more she tried to emphasize Obama’s inexperience, the more she seemed to fence herself into the status quo. That it was the status quo ante of the Clinton years, not the status quo of the Bush administration, made less and less difference as the campaign progressed.
She ran on a message perfect for a Republican primary — experience — and abandoned the key to winning a Democratic primary — the message of change — to Obama.
Her decision to rely on special interest political action committee and lobbyist contributions and to seed her war chest with the checks of maxed-out donors gave substance to Obama’s contrast of the status quo vs. change. With her chief strategist a lobbyist and her top campaign team all in the business, she was awash in associations that crippled her ability to fight for change.
Obama became the attraction in the race while Hillary recited her laundry list of proposals with a deadening monotony.
She could have waged a grassroots, small-donor, Internet campaign of change based on being the first woman running for president with a serious chance of victory. The charisma could have been hers, the excitement hers and the novelty hers. But by embracing experience and pretending to be safe and tested, she deadened the excitement her candidacy could have generated.
She got a reprieve by winning in New York/New Jersey and in California/ Arizona largely on the strength of Latino and immigrant voters. Their concentration in five key states (75 percent live in California, New York, Illinois, Florida and Texas) gave her a draw on Super Tuesday. But too many of her votes come from Hispanics who fear blacks and from older whites who harbor residual racial feelings. Her and Bill’s heavy-handed attempts to polarize the election racially died on Super Tuesday in an avalanche of votes from white states like Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas, North Dakota and the like.
As the election turned from Super Tuesday to the heartland, where there are few Hispanics or new immigrants, Hillary’s campaign has lost its momentum and its prospects of victory. Obama’s victories in Maine, Nebraska, Louisiana and Washington state, and his probable wins in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, show how complete is his mastery of states without immigrants blinded by the Clinton name to sustain it. Hillary’s hopes for victory in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina are a fantasy. The Latino population in those states is well below 10 percent and not enough to carry her to victory.
The super-delegates will not be enough to reverse Obama’s primary and caucus victories and they will run for cover and join the Obama bandwagon anyway.
Besides losing the rhetorical battle, Hillary will have nowhere near the money that Obama will have. Her preparations for a short war based on maxed-out donors and old politics were disastrously shortsighted, while Obama wisely cultivated online contributors who can regenerate with the click of a mouse.
When Barack Obama beat Al Gore to the punch and jumped into the presidential race while the former vice president was still deciding what to do, it seemed that Hillary had virtually wrapped up the nomination. While Gore could have beaten Mrs. Clinton, it seemed unlikely that a senator with two years’ service under his belt could do so.
But the mistakes and strategic errors of the Clinton campaign gave Obama an opening that he exploited masterfully. It is Obama’s charisma that is winning this election, but it was Clinton’s mistakes that opened the door.
HILLARY CLINTON GOOFS AGAIN!
HILLARY CLINTON GOOFS AGAIN!
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on FOXNews.com on February 15, 2008.
Who was it that defined neurosis as repeating the same mistake again and again, and expecting a better outcome each time? That’s really what the Clinton campaign is doing in its post-Chesapeake primary strategy. Now Hillary defines Obama as the candidate who makes speeches, while she is the one who provides “answers” and “solutions.”
Why is Hillary embracing this new line? It’s not that she has any great record of solutions or answers of which to boast, but rather that she wants to highlight Obama’s lack of a legislative record. Once again, she and her campaign geniuses are making the same mistake they made when they decided to use the experience as their defining difference with Obama. It’s not that she had much, but they sensed an opportunity to highlight that he had even less.
Of course experience not only didn’t work. It backfired massively. By co-opting the experience tag, Hillary bought into the status quo and left Obama to be the agent of change. A candidacy that could have excited tens of millions of women, the first serious prospect of a female president, became merely a boring part of the status quo, shorn of its novelty.
Hillary’s claim to be the solution-person won’t work either for the same simple reason: She hasn’t passed any. If she were McCain, she could tout a long history of legislative success on key issues and herald her ability to pass bills and engineer progress. But she hasn’t done that. She hasn’t walked the walk so now she cannot talk the talk.
As a first lady, Hillary’s sole important legislative involvement came during the first two years of her husband’s presidency when she sought to pass her ill-conceived health care reform, an effort that failed so miserably that it cost her party control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. Between 1995 to 1997, she was largely absent from the White House, traveling the world, promoting her best selling book and helping to raise funds. She never attended strategy meetings and her only intervention in the singular legislative achievements of Bill’s administration — welfare reform and the balanced budget deal — was privately to urge a veto of the former and to oppose the latter because it provided for a cut in the capital gains tax. Hillary returned to the White House in 1998 to oversee the defense to the Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment attempt, but the Clinton administration essentially folded its legislative efforts during those years and hung on for dear life. No portfolio of accomplishments there.
In the Senate, she has largely spent her time raising funds for herself and other Democrats (in hopes of attracting the votes of super delegates) and promoting her best selling memoir Living History. In part because of a lack of attention and also because of the Democrats’ minority status during much of her Senate tenure, she has passed very, very little of note.
Her legislative accomplishments in her first term in the Senate were almost entirely symbolic. She renamed a courthouse after Justice Thurgood Marshall. She passed a resolution honoring Alexander Hamilton and another celebrating the win of a Syracuse University lacrosse team. She renamed post offices, founded a national park in Puerto Rico and expressed the sense of the Senate that Harriet Tubman should have gotten a federal pension 150 years ago.
Her only actual legislation included one bill to increase nurse recruitment, another to aid respite time for Alzheimer’s care givers and another to expand veterans’ health benefits, a paltry output for six years’ service.
In her second term, she has spent full-time campaigning for president and has the worst attendance record of the three senators now still in the presidential race.
So who is she kidding? If she wants to hit Obama with a negative based on his inexperience and limited legislative record, she should go right ahead. But to pretend that she is the “solutions” and “answers” person while he gives speeches is absurd.
EVEN IN TEXAS: ADVANTAGE OBAMA
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on February 15, 2008.
While polls still show Hillary leading Obama in Texas and also in Ohio, her lead will likely fade and likely disappear by the time their primaries are held two weeks hence.
If Obama wins in Wisconsin, he’ll probably also carry Ohio, a state with very similar demographics. Neither state has much in the way of Hispanic voters (Only 2% of Ohio is Latino) or recent immigrants, the two key groups that gave Hillary the edge in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Go to DickMorris.com to read the rest of this blog!
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on FOXNews.com on February 15, 2008.
Who was it that defined neurosis as repeating the same mistake again and again, and expecting a better outcome each time? That’s really what the Clinton campaign is doing in its post-Chesapeake primary strategy. Now Hillary defines Obama as the candidate who makes speeches, while she is the one who provides “answers” and “solutions.”
Why is Hillary embracing this new line? It’s not that she has any great record of solutions or answers of which to boast, but rather that she wants to highlight Obama’s lack of a legislative record. Once again, she and her campaign geniuses are making the same mistake they made when they decided to use the experience as their defining difference with Obama. It’s not that she had much, but they sensed an opportunity to highlight that he had even less.
Of course experience not only didn’t work. It backfired massively. By co-opting the experience tag, Hillary bought into the status quo and left Obama to be the agent of change. A candidacy that could have excited tens of millions of women, the first serious prospect of a female president, became merely a boring part of the status quo, shorn of its novelty.
Hillary’s claim to be the solution-person won’t work either for the same simple reason: She hasn’t passed any. If she were McCain, she could tout a long history of legislative success on key issues and herald her ability to pass bills and engineer progress. But she hasn’t done that. She hasn’t walked the walk so now she cannot talk the talk.
As a first lady, Hillary’s sole important legislative involvement came during the first two years of her husband’s presidency when she sought to pass her ill-conceived health care reform, an effort that failed so miserably that it cost her party control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. Between 1995 to 1997, she was largely absent from the White House, traveling the world, promoting her best selling book and helping to raise funds. She never attended strategy meetings and her only intervention in the singular legislative achievements of Bill’s administration — welfare reform and the balanced budget deal — was privately to urge a veto of the former and to oppose the latter because it provided for a cut in the capital gains tax. Hillary returned to the White House in 1998 to oversee the defense to the Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment attempt, but the Clinton administration essentially folded its legislative efforts during those years and hung on for dear life. No portfolio of accomplishments there.
In the Senate, she has largely spent her time raising funds for herself and other Democrats (in hopes of attracting the votes of super delegates) and promoting her best selling memoir Living History. In part because of a lack of attention and also because of the Democrats’ minority status during much of her Senate tenure, she has passed very, very little of note.
Her legislative accomplishments in her first term in the Senate were almost entirely symbolic. She renamed a courthouse after Justice Thurgood Marshall. She passed a resolution honoring Alexander Hamilton and another celebrating the win of a Syracuse University lacrosse team. She renamed post offices, founded a national park in Puerto Rico and expressed the sense of the Senate that Harriet Tubman should have gotten a federal pension 150 years ago.
Her only actual legislation included one bill to increase nurse recruitment, another to aid respite time for Alzheimer’s care givers and another to expand veterans’ health benefits, a paltry output for six years’ service.
In her second term, she has spent full-time campaigning for president and has the worst attendance record of the three senators now still in the presidential race.
So who is she kidding? If she wants to hit Obama with a negative based on his inexperience and limited legislative record, she should go right ahead. But to pretend that she is the “solutions” and “answers” person while he gives speeches is absurd.
EVEN IN TEXAS: ADVANTAGE OBAMA
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on February 15, 2008.
While polls still show Hillary leading Obama in Texas and also in Ohio, her lead will likely fade and likely disappear by the time their primaries are held two weeks hence.
If Obama wins in Wisconsin, he’ll probably also carry Ohio, a state with very similar demographics. Neither state has much in the way of Hispanic voters (Only 2% of Ohio is Latino) or recent immigrants, the two key groups that gave Hillary the edge in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Go to DickMorris.com to read the rest of this blog!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Mccain at 72, looks like an old burnout standing next to Romney
"Crash" Mccain at 72, looks like an old burnout standing next to Romney.
"crash" was a name given to Mccain by his fellow naval pilots,
he ahas trashed a few jet planes.
do you really want Mccain in the presidential cockpit?
"crash" was a name given to Mccain by his fellow naval pilots,
he ahas trashed a few jet planes.
do you really want Mccain in the presidential cockpit?
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
From the Desk of: Steve Elliott
From the Desk of: Steve Elliott,
As you know, Congressman Duncan Hunter has been amongthe strong advocates for the border fence and stoppingillegal immigration. That is why I want share with you my interview withHunter regarding his recent endorsement of Mike Huckabee. Go here to listen: http://www.firesociety.com/blog/107/22149/?src=111 Before I continue, please understand that Grassfire.org doesnot endorse or oppose candidates. In addition, I personallyhave not endorsed any candidate for president. ed, many citizens concerned about illegal immigrationhave rightfully had serious reservations about Huckabee'spast actions and the veracity of his current positions onthese issues. That's precisely why I wanted to hear fromCongressman Hunter.
I too wanted to know how he reconciledHuckabee's questionable record as governor on immigration withHuck's very strong campaign platform. + + Immigration Issues Heating Up I also asked Rep. Hunter about his new bill that seeks tooverturn the Hutchison amendment which was snuck into theomnibus spending bill just before Christmas and guttedthe Secure Fence Act. I told Rep. Hunter that Grassfire will soon be launching amajor grassroots campaign to overturn the Hutchisonfence-gutting amendment. Be watching for that in the coming week.
Mexico's Calderon in the U.S. today All this is happening while Mexican president Felipe Calderonis visiting the U.S. Why would he come in the middle of a hotlycontested primary election? One analyst says the trip is "tomake sure he puts Mexico on the next president's desk and eventry to shape the bilateral agenda." Of course, the mainstream media is trying to say immigration isnot such a big deal to Americans anymore -- that last summer'suprising against the amnesty bill was just a bunch of hot air. I think it's time once again to make all these guys feel the heat! Thanks for the stand you are taking. Steve Elliott, PresidentGrassfire.org P.S. I would enjoy getting your feedback regarding my interviewwith Duncan Hunter, and what he had to say. Go here to listen to the interview:
http://www.firesociety.com
As you know, Congressman Duncan Hunter has been amongthe strong advocates for the border fence and stoppingillegal immigration. That is why I want share with you my interview withHunter regarding his recent endorsement of Mike Huckabee. Go here to listen: http://www.firesociety.com/blog/107/22149/?src=111 Before I continue, please understand that Grassfire.org doesnot endorse or oppose candidates. In addition, I personallyhave not endorsed any candidate for president. ed, many citizens concerned about illegal immigrationhave rightfully had serious reservations about Huckabee'spast actions and the veracity of his current positions onthese issues. That's precisely why I wanted to hear fromCongressman Hunter.
I too wanted to know how he reconciledHuckabee's questionable record as governor on immigration withHuck's very strong campaign platform. + + Immigration Issues Heating Up I also asked Rep. Hunter about his new bill that seeks tooverturn the Hutchison amendment which was snuck into theomnibus spending bill just before Christmas and guttedthe Secure Fence Act. I told Rep. Hunter that Grassfire will soon be launching amajor grassroots campaign to overturn the Hutchisonfence-gutting amendment. Be watching for that in the coming week.
Mexico's Calderon in the U.S. today All this is happening while Mexican president Felipe Calderonis visiting the U.S. Why would he come in the middle of a hotlycontested primary election? One analyst says the trip is "tomake sure he puts Mexico on the next president's desk and eventry to shape the bilateral agenda." Of course, the mainstream media is trying to say immigration isnot such a big deal to Americans anymore -- that last summer'suprising against the amnesty bill was just a bunch of hot air. I think it's time once again to make all these guys feel the heat! Thanks for the stand you are taking. Steve Elliott, PresidentGrassfire.org P.S. I would enjoy getting your feedback regarding my interviewwith Duncan Hunter, and what he had to say. Go here to listen to the interview:
http://www.firesociety.com
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