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This excellent video lays out both Hillary's attacks on John Edwards and the truth about his stance in favor of Health Care reform now, and in 2004. Pointing out policy differences is not an attack, misrepresenting an opponent's positions is.
My comments are not showing up...and if they do I cannot see responses.
Anyone else want to chime in ?
I use the latest Firefox, with a backup version of latest IE...windows pc with Norton protection also updated...HELP please
I got a chance to say hello to some fellow bloggers today. I told them I want an end to the War. Can Clinton support a time-out for the War ? Not the Trade war, which she has all of a sudden begun to get behind in Iowa...not the brush war with Obama...just a real honest to goodness cease fire, a cooling off period or whatever you want to call it. Dean Barker said in response that since the British have demobilized from Basra the violence is way down. What would it hurt ? We've learned from Palestinian Israeli conflict that until someone backs off the others won't.
Oh yeah and while we're at it a Bush time out too...from now till Jan.9th 2009, don't vote for any bill Bush would sign. On principle..on faith, if he's for it I am against it. Nothing he believes in is worth spit.
Give it a try. Why not ? It's like the old Jewish joke about giving chicken soup to a dead man, it couldn't hoit.
I owned and operated a woven label factory that temployed 60 people in 1996. It was then 68 years in continuous operation. The employees had health, dental, and retirement plans in effect. We had New Hampshire competitors(the founders came here mainly from Germany and some were related)in Claremont, West Swanzey, Barnstead and Pittsfield. There were also large factories in the South, Midwest, and California. They were all domestically owned and operated. Being a mature industry after 5,000 years, textiles tended to be an indigenous business. Food, clothing, and shelter being generally in use where civilization had taken hold, there were also woven label factories in every country in the world. Today there is one domestically owned plant left in this country. It is in Pittsfield and they are operating under bankruptcy protection. (cont. below as comment)
This says it all. You get what you deserve in life, if you sit back and buy the Party line, straight from the coffers of the Big Interests and the Trusts.
I don't wanna work, I wanna play on the drums all day...
If you didn't see him live, you've never lived.
From Top of the Pops...I saw him do this thing in Bridgeport in the Fall of 1968...he's still living in England and doing this ! Before Alice Cooper or Kiss or any oh=f the followers....
Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous research papers on economic policy. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.
http://www.alternet....
Memo to Obama: No Rush to "Fix" Social Security
By Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. Posted November 14, 2007.
The right has created powerful and lasting myths about the state of the program's finances. Despite the defeat of President Bush's attempt to partially privatize Social Security, the mass misunderstanding of America's largest and most successful anti-poverty program persists. This was evident on Sunday's Meet the Press with Tim Russert, which was devoted to an interview with Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Obama is no enemy of Social Security. But like most of the country, he is misinformed on this issue. So he is going after his opponent, Hillary Clinton, for saying "if we just get our fiscal house in order that we can solve the problem of Social Security."
Obama told Russert: "Now, we've got 78 million baby boomers that are going to be retiring, and every expert that looks at this problem says 'There's going to be a gap, and we're going to have more money going out than we have coming in unless we make some adjustments now.'"
We remember how little traction Bush got claiming that Social Security was in a 'crisis'. Nobody believed him and the move to privatize it died.
In fact, there is not the least bit of urgency regarding Social Security, and it would be best to take the issue off the table entirely until we have at least a few years of public education. Some of that public education took place during the grass-roots campaign that defeated President Bush's attempt to partially privatize the program in 2005. The President was forced within weeks to stop using the word "crisis" to describe Social Security's finances. But it was not nearly enough. Many journalists and editors remain confused, and therefore so is the citizenry.
In fact, the first cohort of baby boomers (those born in 1946) will begin retiring in just a couple of months, since many people take their Social Security at age 62 (with a correspondingly reduced benefit). Our Y2K moment is upon us, and nothing will happen - because the baby boomers' retirement has already been financed.
whew I was really worried there for a moment
Of course, there are some who maintain that the surplus "has been spent," that the Social Security Trust Fund "doesn't exist," and so on. These stories should be given all the credibility of reports about "Bat Boy" sightings in the Weekly World News. But unfortunately they are often taken seriously in the major media.
To say that Social Security's surplus "has been spent," is like saying that when you buy a U.S. government bond, your money "has been spent." Whatever has been done with the money, you are still holding a bond, and you will get your interest and principal so long as there is a US government. If there is no US government when you retire, well then you will have other things to worry about than Social Security, including your private savings.
Even accepting that there could be a shortfall after 2046, it is not much to lose sleep about. The projected shortfall over Social Security's whole 75-year planning period is less than what we fixed in each of the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
In conclusion Weisbrot credits the Right Wing fear mongering machine for creating an environment for the spreading of this heated and incorrect argument.
The fact that a major Democratic presidential candidate could attack the front-runner in 2007, for not proposing a solution to a problem that is so relatively small and uncertain and nearly four decades away, is testimony to the power and durability of well-financed right-wing propaganda -- especially when there is no matching effort on the other side. The right spent more than two decades, and millions of dollars, discrediting Social Security with nothing more than verbal and accounting tricks - they never even bothered to make their own projections to compete with Social Security's Trustees. Some of the money that altered public opinion came straight from Wall Street financial firms who stood to make a fortune from privatization.
These efforts should be regarded as one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in modern history. These people managed to convince tens of millions of Americans that they are never going to see their Social Security benefits, an event about as probable as the United States disappearing from the political map. This is especially impressive, given that Social Security is not like some country halfway around the world that most Americans could not find on a map. Social Security is an immensely popular program, and one that delivers a check each month to about one-sixth of the population.
Hopefully this non-issue will soon disappear from the presidential campaign. We can revisit it a few years from now, after everyone has had a chance to look at the numbers.
http://www.nytimes.c...
"Democrats Divided as House Passes Peru Trade Bill"
Hodes and Shea Porter buck the majority and vote no. Hillary says she'd vote yes, yet oppose future bills. This parallelogramulation is beyond me. Either you stand with Labor or you don't. Whether its here, in Peru or Korea.
http://feeds.reuters...
"I support the trade agreement with Peru. It has very strong labor and environmental protections. This agreement makes meaningful progress on advancing workers' rights, and also levels the playing field for American workers," Clinton said in a statement.
"However, I will oppose the pending trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama," she said.
"The South Korean agreement does not create a level playing field for American car makers. I am very concerned about the history of violence against trade unionists in Colombia. And as long as the head of Panama's National Assembly is a fugitive from justice in America, I cannot support that agreement."
http://commonsense.o...
By David Sirota on November 6, 2007 - 11:10am.
In a stunning new report on the eve of the congressional vote on the Peru Free Trade Agreement, a Columbia University legal expert shows the pact may weaken the United States' ability to enforce basic labor standards in trade agreements. The report by Columbia Law professor Mark Barenberg finds that the much-touted labor protections in the Peru deal are "even worse than existing law" and "in no respect do the Agreement's labor provisions mark a significant improvement."
The Columbia University report compares labor provisions in already-passed trade deals with the proposed provisions in the Peru deal, which congressional Democrats and the White House have sold to the public and rank-and-file lawmakers as a new and improved model. But the Columbia report shows how the Peru deal's model actually undermines existing trade laws, which he notes are already "weak, unreliable, and inadequate to the task."
"weak, unreliable, and inadequate to the task".
Well what do academics know anyway ? They've never run anything...
For example, the report points out that "if the U.S.-Peru Agreement becomes a model for future trade agreements, then those countries that have not adopted core labor rights in their domestic law will not be bound" by international labor standards. He also notes that under current law, a President of the United States has the unilateral authority to impose sanctions on a country that does not respect international labor standards. But under the Peru trade model "If the President decides that Peru is failing to comply with vague labor 'principles' or domestic labor law, he cannot impose sanctions - he can only file a complaint."
The report's findings likely explain why no major labor, human rights, environmental, religious, anti-poverty or consumer protection groups have endorsed the Peru Free Trade Agreement, while most of Washington's corporate lobbying sector has. It also explains why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has assured its members that "the labor provisions cannot be read to require compliance."
I oppose the signing of any new trade deal negotiated on George Bush's watch. That they're his and he wants to sign them is reason enough. STOP ENABLING BUSH !
Update: Mr. Edwards quickly issued a missive against Mrs. Clinton, tying her support for the Peru pact to another one of his major lines of attack against her - that she is too close to lobbyists:
I am terribly disappointed by Senator Clinton's support for the Peru trade deal. At a time when millions of Americans are concerned about losing their jobs and the economy, it is dismaying that Senator Clinton would side with corporations, their lobbyists, and the Bush Administration in support of a flawed trade deal that expands the NAFTA model.
http://thecaucus.blo...
Maybe he got a plea bargain, they always do on TV.
http://www.abcnews.g...
'Longtime Friend,' Thompson Adviser Has Rap Sheet
Records Show Philip J. Martin Sold Drugs, Took Bets and Stole Liquor Before Working on Pal Fred Thompson's Presidential Campaign
Thompson may not win, but if you have to work on a losing campaign, at least they'll have a hell of a good time !
Whatever was going on at Stonyfield the bemused Miss Laura stands by while men cavort. It appears that Pindell is getting a kiss from Halperin. Is he a made man ? Must he feed leads to get his star in front of the Palace Theater in Manchvegas ?
John Edwards came out prepared to make the case why he should be our nominee. Straightforward.Hard hitting. Ready to take on Hillary's triangulation or the Republicans.
Blue Hampshire RSS
(cont. below as comment)
Whatever was going on at Stonyfield the bemused Miss Laura stands by while men cavort. It appears that Pindell is getting a kiss from Halperin. Is he a made man ? Must he feed leads to get his star in front of the Palace Theater in Manchvegas ?