If the past is any indication of what the future might bring....just as Oprah is backing Obama....Striesand backed the Clintons! So there ya have it!!!! Let's not let history repeat itself. If Obama gets elected he my end up having a 'cigar thing' goin on with the 'Obama Girl' in the oval office.....!!!!! eeeeyukkkk
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Hunter on a mission to bolster defense IMPRESSIONS OF THE CANDIDATES
This is part of a series of essays based on meetings of presidential candidates with the Register’s editorial board. They are meant to provide an account of each meeting and give readers a sense of what it’s like to meet the candidates in person.
July 27, 2007 1 Comment
Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California is a Vietnam veteran who has spent his congressional career dedicated to oversight of the nation's armed forces. Now, he's on a new mission: to make a strong national defense and border enforcement the focus of a winning presidential campaign.
Literally at times, it's a one-man mission. Unlike more prominent candidates, who come to editorial-board interviews with three or four aides in tow, he showed up alone at the Register's offices earlier this week.
He doesn't have the cash for slick TV ads. His campaign is about his message, and he's spreading it on talk radio, in appearances at candidate forums and through brochures he distributes. (He pulled one out of his pocket to show a stretch of steel, double-walled border fence built as a result of legislation he wrote in the 1990s, "not these little scraggly fences on CNN with people hopping over them.")
Even when questioned about other topics, his responses, after a detour or two, invariably wound their way back to maintaining a strong defense.
"You asked an education question. I'm taking kind of the long way around," he said at one point.
The long road of his political career started in 1980, when he upset an 18-year incumbent in a Democratic-leaning district and sought a seat on the House Armed Services Committee. He's been on the committee ever since, serving as chairman for four years until the Democrats took over Congress this year.
He advocates rotating all Iraqi brigades into combat for three or four months, so they can learn to exercise chain of command and operate the logistics to support their troops in the field. That would allow withdrawal of U.S. troops to begin in six months, he said. Success will mean Iraq won't be a state sponsor of terrorism, and Iraqis will enjoy "a modicum" of freedom.
Longer term, he ticked off the need to develop undersea warfare capability; maintain the U.S. lead in space, saying that when China shot down its own satellite in a test in January, it heralded a new military competition; keep up U.S. antiballistic missile capability; replace the aging bomber force to maintain deep-strike capacity; and upgrade intelligence apparatus, pivoting from a focus on the Soviet Union to the Middle East.
He represents a border district, and his other main issue, immigration enforcement, is also a career-long focus. He spearheaded building the first sections of fence between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, to stop drug smuggling and gang crime.
The fence was built with steel mats that are pieced together to form landing strips, military surplus that his staff scoured up on bases from Guam to Guantanamo. "There's a lot of stuff you can find on military bases, if you look for it," he said with the grin of satisfaction and twinkle in his eyes that appeared when he told stories about making things happen.
He wrote provisions of the bill approved last fall to build hundreds of additional miles of fence.
That detour on the education question? He was discussing the need to inspire more young people to study science and engineering and veered into a call for reviving the nation's manufacturing sector. Too few American companies can make defense-system components these days, leaving America vulnerable, he said.
On the campaign trail, Hunter also touts a roster of conservative positions, working to outlaw abortion and supporting gun rights, school vouchers, a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman and the so-called Fair Tax, a national retail sales tax to replace the income tax.
For the most part, though, he soldiers on with his strong-defense message. One of his sons, Duncan Duane, is a Marine who has served two tours of duty in Iraq and is now in Afghanistan.
If more members of Congress were veterans or had family members serving in the military, he believes, they would have "more endurance" to fulfill U.S. diplomatic and military commitments around the world.
After detailed answers to each question, Hunter gave the shortest answer of any candidate to the final one: What's his vision for America? "I'd like to see a country where the day I walk out of the White House, after a couple of terms, the American people are more independent of government than the day that I walked in."
I'm not going to copy this entire thing here, as when I DID copy it over to a Word Document to check the length of it, it was 22 pages. So, read this and tell me how we could NOT be better having someone like Duncan Hunter as our President.
This is true. It can be found in the book "Hating Whitey" by David Horowitz. ----- THIS WILL OPEN YOUR EYES! By Paul Harvey
Conveniently Forgotten Facts.
Back in 1969 a group of Black Panthers decided that a fellow black panther named Alex Rackley needed to die.
Rackley was suspected of disloyalty. Rackley was first tied to a chair.
Once safely immobilized, his friends tortured him for hours by, among other things, pouring boiling water on him
When they got tired of torturing Rackley, Black Panther member, Warren Kimbo took Rackley outside and put a bullet in his head.
Rackley's body was later found floating in a river about 25 miles north of New Haven , Connecticut.
Perhaps at this point you're curious as to what happened to these Black Panthers?
In 1977, that's only eight years later, only one of the killers was still in jail.
The shooter, Warren Kimbro, managed to get a scholarship to Harvard and became good friends with none other than Al Gore.
He later became an assistant dean at an Eastern Connecticut State College .
Isn't that something?
As a '60's radical you can pump a bullet into someone's head and a few years later, in the same state, you can become an assistant college dean!
Only in America !
Erica Huggins was the woman who served the Panthers by boiling the water for Mr. Rackley's torture.
Some years later Ms. Huggins was elected to a California School Board.
How in the world do you think these killers got off so easily?
Maybe it was in some part due to the efforts of two people who came to the defense of the Panthers.
These two people actually went so far as to shut down Yale University with demonstrations in defense of the accused Black Panthers during their trial.
One of these people was none other than Bill Lan Lee.
Mr. Lee, or Mr. Lan Lee, as the case may be,isn't a college dean.. He isn't a member of a California School Board.
He is now head of the United States Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, appointed by none other than Bill Clinton.
O. K., so who was the other Panther defender?
Is this other notable Panther defender now a school board member?
Is this other Panther apologist now an assistant college dean?
No, neither!
The other Panther defender was, like Lee, a radical law student at Yale University at the time.
She is now known as The "smartest woman in the world." She is none other than the Democratic senator from the State of New York----our former First Lady, the incredible Hillary Rodham Clinton.
And now, as Paul Harvey said; "You know the rest of the story".
Pass this on! This deserves the widest possible press.
Giuliani’s health may be issue due to 9/11 exposure WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani’s experience on Sept. 11 and at ground zero propelled him into presidential politics, yet by his own admission, it may also weaken his health — a key issue for any candidate seeking the White House. Just last week, Giuliani was criticized by some fi refighter unions for suggesting he was at ground zero as much, if not more, than many rescue workers and exposed to the same health risks. He quickly backed off that statement, saying he misspoke. “I empathize with them, because I feel like I have that same risk,” said Giuliani, who was at the World Trade Center almost immediately on Sept. 11, 2001, and was onsite many times a day after that. That assertion — made repeatedly by the former mayor over the years — could pose a difficult challenge in his quest for the White House, by suggesting he may not stay healthy through a presidential term that would begin in 2009.
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (born October 26, 1947) is the junior United States Senator from New York, and is a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election. She is married to Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, and was the First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001.
A native of Illinois, Hillary Rodham initially attracted national attention in 1969 when she became the first student to speak at commencement exercises for Wellesley College. She began her career as a lawyer in the 1970s after graduating from Yale Law School, moving to Arkansas and marrying Bill Clinton in 1975; she was named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm in 1979 and was named one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America in 1988 and 1991. She served as the First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992, and was active in a number of organizations concerned with the welfare of children.
As First Lady of the United States, she took a more prominent position in policy matters than many before her. Her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval by the U.S. Congress in 1994, but she was successful in other areas, such as establishing the Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997. In 1996 she became the first First Lady to be subpoenaed to testify before a Federal grand jury, as a consequence of the Whitewater scandal; however she was never charged with any wrongdoing in this or several other investigations during the Clinton administration. The state of her marriage to Bill Clinton was the subject of considerable public discussion following the events of the Lewinsky scandal in 1998.
Moving to New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to the United States Senate in 2000, becoming the first First Lady elected to public office and the first woman elected Senator from New York. She was re-elected by a wide margin in 2006. She has consistently been the front-runner in polls for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President.
Contents [hide] 1 Early life and education 2 Marriage and family, law career and First Lady of Arkansas 3 First Lady of the United States 4 Senate election of 2000 5 United States Senator 5.1 First term 5.2 Reelection campaign of 2006 5.3 Second term 6 Presidential election of 2008 7 Political positions 8 Controversies 9 Writings and recordings 10 Awards and honors 11 Electoral history 12 Further reading 13 Notes and references 14 External links
Early life and education Hillary[1] Diane Rodham was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois,[2] and was raised in a United Methodist family[3] first in Chicago, and then, from when Hillary was three years of age, in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois.[4] Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was a son of Welsh and English immigrants[5] and operated a small but successful business in the textile industry.[6] Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham, of English, Scottish, French Canadian, Welsh, and possibly Native American descent,[7] was a homemaker.[4] She has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
As a child, Hillary Rodham was involved in many activities at church and at her public school in Park Ridge. She participated in a variety of sports and earned awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout.[8] She attended Maine East High School, where she had participated in student council, the debating team and the National Honor Society. For her senior year she was redistricted to Maine South High School,[9] where she was a National Merit Finalist.[9] Raised in a politically conservative family,[10] she volunteered for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the United States presidential election of 1964.[11] Her parents encouraged her to pursue the career of her choice.[12]
After graduating from high school in 1965, Rodham enrolled in Wellesley College where she majored in political science.[13] She became active in politics and served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans organization during her freshman year.[14][15] However, due to her evolving views regarding the American Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, she subsequently stepped down from that position.[14] In her junior year, Rodham was affected by the death of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom she had met in person in 1962,[8] and became a supporter of the anti-war presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy.[16] In that same year she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government.[17] She attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program at the urging of Professor Alan Schechter, for whom she would write a senior thesis about the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky (that, years later while she was First Lady, was suppressed at the request of the White House and became the subject of mystery[18]). In 1969, Rodham graduated with departmental honors in political science. Stemming from the demands of some students,[19] she became the first student in Wellesley College history to deliver their commencement address.[20] According to reports by the Associated Press, her speech received a standing ovation lasting seven minutes.[21] She was featured in an article published in Life magazine, due to the response to a part of her speech that criticized Senator Edward Brooke, who had spoken before her at the commencement.[8] That summer, she worked her way across Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing factory in Valdez (which shut down overnight when she complained about unhealthy conditions there).[22]
Rodham then entered Yale Law School, where she served on the Board of Editors of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action.[23] During her second year, she volunteered at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development. She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and worked at the city legal services to provide free advice for the poor. In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at the Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the late spring of 1971, she began dating Bill Clinton, who was also a law student at Yale. That summer, she traveled to Washington to work on Senator Walter Mondale's subcommittee on migrant workers, researching migrant problems in housing, sanitation, health and education. The following summer, Rodham campaigned in the western states for 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern[24] and interned on child custody cases at the Oakland law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein.[25] She received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973.[8] She began a year of post-graduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center.[26] Her first scholarly paper, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review in late 1973[27] and became frequently cited in the field.
Marriage and family, law career and First Lady of Arkansas During her post-graduate study, Rodham served as staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children.[28] During 1974 she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal,[29] which culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974. By now, Rodham was viewed as someone with a bright political future; Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright had moved from Texas to Washington the previous year to help guide her career;[30]
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Channel 10's news said that Rudy was up in Saratoga for a fund raiser...ran by Mary Lou Retton, I thought. Surprising. Whoever it was, I pegged them for a staunch Dem.
It was Mary Lou Whitney, the social status for the track. A very rich socialite. And if Rudy was there, I would think that good old Mary Lou is a rep as well.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Obama defends himself in Iowa debate Candidates spar on economy, matters of experience BY MIKE GLOVER The Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa — Democrat Barack Obama on Sunday tried to parlay his relative lack of national experience into a positive attribute, chiding his rivals for adhering to “conventional thinking” that led the country to war and that has divided the country. In their latest debate, the candidates also said they favored more federal action to address economic woes that have resulted from a housing slump and tighter credit. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said the current financial crisis was “the Katrina of the mortgage lending industry.” Prodded by moderator George Stephanopoulos at the outset of the debate, Obama’s rivals critiqued his recent comments on Pakistan and whether he would meet with foreign leaders — including North Korea’s head of state — without conditions. “To prepare for this debate I rode in the bumper cars at the state fair,” the first-term senator from Illinois said to laughter and applause from the audience at Drake University. The debate capped an intense week of politicking in Iowa, an early voting state in the process of picking a nominee. The Iowa State Fair is a magnet for White House hopefuls each presidential election. This year was no exception, especially for Democrats who swept into the state after a GOP straw poll last week. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., directly addressing a question about Obama’s relative inexperience, said: “You’re not going to have time in January of ’09 to get ready for this job.” Dodd has served in Congress for more than 30 years. Former Sen. John Edwards said Obama’s opinions “add something to this debate.” But Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee, said politicians who aspire to be president should not talk about hypothetical solutions to serious problems. “It effectively limits your options,” Edwards said, drawing agreement from Richardson. Obama said he could handle the rigors of international diplomacy and noted that many in the race, including Dodd, Edwards and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Biden, voted to authorize the Iraq war in 2002. “Nobody had more experience than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and many of the people on this stage that authorized this war,” Obama said. “And it indicates how we get into trouble when we engage in the sort of conventional thinking that has become the habit in Washington.” The debate, hosted and broadcast nationally by ABC, took place less than five months before Iowa caucus-goers begin the process of selecting the parties’ presidential nominees. Obama, who has criticized Hillary Clinton as a divisive figure, portrayed himself as the candidate who “can bring the country together around a common purpose and rally us around a common destiny.” Clinton, under attack from outgoing Bush counselor Karl Rove, said the president’s chief political strategist is “obsessed with me.” She presented a different view of politics than Obama did, arguing that negative campaigning is inevitable no matter who gets nominated. The New York senator and former first lady said no one will escape the “Republican attack machine.” She added, “I know how to beat them.” Several candidates urged the Federal Reserve Bank to lower more interest rates as a response to upheaval in the financial markets and the crisis with home mortgages. On Friday the Fed cut the interest rate on loans to banks, causing an upturn in the stock market. But many Wall Street analysts have been demanding more, including lower interest for consumers and businesses. “It can’t be just left to a bailout of the banks,” Clinton said. Edwards, criticized for investing in a hedge fund linked to lenders that have foreclosed on Hurricane Katrina victims, called for a “home rescue fund” to help homeowners who are at risk of defaulting on their mortgages. Biden blamed hedge funds and private equity firms, which have invested in many of the lenders. He wants them to have to disclose more of their transactions. “They are the ones that are causing this thing to go under,” he said. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, predicted the Fed would lower more interest rates in September. He also pressed the Bush administration to loosen credit limits for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored entities that buy mortgages. Obama used the crisis as an opportunity to assail lobbyists. Obama and Edwards, both of whom have declined lobbyists’ contributions in the presidential contest, are trying to gain the upper hand on government ethics in the campaign. “This is where special interests have been driving the agenda,” Obama said, regarding the need for more regulation.
Bill Clinton chats up donors, avoids press Ex-President at Colonie fundraiser for wife
By SCOTT WALDMAN, Staff writer Monday, August 27, 2007
COLONIE -- Former President Bill Clinton came to the state capital to help his wife's chance to become the next president, but he left town without talking to the public.
Supporters paid $50 for a ticket, or $1000 for a luncheon, to hear him privately explain at The Desmond on Monday why Hillary Rodham Clinton will best fill the Oval Office.
Political rock stars, it would seem, don't need the press as Clinton left through back doors without a word to reporters gathered at the hotel.
But all he had to do to put a huge grin across Walda Cobain's face was scrawl his name across a book.
Cobain was already convinced that she'll support Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. While she walked away from the autograph session clutching her copy of his 2004 biography, "My Life," to her chest, it was the moment that she put his hand on hers as he came into the room that had her so upbeat.
"I shook hands," she said, her voice rising excitedly on the last syllable.
Sen. Clinton was camping Monday and did not attend the event. Her office did not reveal how much money was raised at the event.
The talk was not open to the press, who scrambled to the building's exits before and after the event to glimpse the former president long enough to fire off a question. Clinton escaped without answering a single question.
Those streaming out after the 45-minute session, as Jesus Jones' 1991 hit "Right Here, Right Now" blasted over the loudspeakers, said Bill Clinton had laid out the reasons why his wife is the best candidate.
Some supporters leaving the hotel said they were unsure that the senator can prevail outside of New York, and one of her husband's objectives is to convince even loyal followers that she can carry red states.
But others loyalists at the noontime event, like Mayor Jerry Jennings, said they don't doubt her viability.
"I have all the confidence in the world," Jennings said. "She has the guts to be a good leader."
Libby Harrison said she was already planning to vote for Hillary Clinton for president and was impressed at the way Bill Clinton made his case.
"He talks to you," she said. "It's a conversation."
Reuters) - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is tipping Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up and win the U.S. presidential election.
Clinton leads Obama in the race to be the Democratic nominee for the November 2008 election, and Castro said they would make a winning combination.
"The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate," he wrote in an editorial column on U.S. presidents published on Tuesday by Cuba's Communist Party newspaper, Granma.
At 81, Castro has outlasted nine U.S. presidents since his 1959 revolution turned Cuba into a thorn in Washington's side by building a communist society about 90 miles offshore from the United States.
He said all U.S. presidential candidates seeking the "coveted" electoral college votes of Florida have had to demand a democratic government in Cuba to win the backing of the powerful Cuban exile community.
Clinton and Obama, both senators, called for democratic change in Cuba last week.
Castro has not appeared in public since intestinal illness forced him to hand over power to his brother Raul Castro in July last year.
He has turned to writing dozens of columns and essays, but rumors that his health is worsening or that he may even be dead have swirled through the Cuban exile community in Miami in the last two weeks.
Castro's only reference to U.S. President George W. Bush in his latest essay was to say that he "needed fraud" to win Florida's electoral college votes and the presidency in the fiercely contested election in 2000.
Castro said former President Bill Clinton was "really kind" when he bumped into him and the two men shook hands at a U.N. summit meeting in 2000. He also praised Clinton for sending elite police to "rescue" shipwrecked Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives in 2000 to end an international custody battle.
But even Clinton was forced to bow to Miami politics and tighten the U.S. embargo against Cuba in 1996, using as a "pretext" the shooting down of two small planes used by exile groups to overfly Havana, Castro wrote.
He said his favorite U.S. president since 1959 was Jimmy Carter, another Democrat, because he was not an "accomplice" to efforts to violently overthrow the Cuban government.
Sixteen years after Dwight Eisenhower broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba, Carter restored low-level relations in 1977 when interest sections were opened in each country's capital.
Castro made no mention of Republican Cold War victor Ronald Reagan, or of John F. Kennedy, whose Democratic administration launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA-trained Cuban exiles in 1961.
One of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War came a year later when Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev faced off for 13 days over Soviet missiles that Castro allowed Moscow to place in Cuba.
Look who's backing a Hillary and Obama ticket our little socialistic dictator from Cuba.
Watch out, Mrs. Clinton First published: Saturday, September 1, 2007
Hillary Rodham Clinton, of all people, should know better. The matter of whom to take contributions from, as she goes about running for president in what will far and away be the most expensive political campaign ever, should hit home like nothing else does. That was the real scandal of Bill Clinton's presidency, after all, not his sexual escapades. Asian moneymen, some of very questionable backgrounds, were steering and piling together huge contributions -- at least by the standards then -- into the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign of 1996.
Now here's Mrs. Clinton trying to get her fingerprints off of a $23,000 donation from a Democratic fundraiser named Norman Hsu by giving the money to charity instead. Her campaign will be reviewing thousands more that he raised.
Mr. Hsu, it turns out, had been a fugitive for the past 15 years, ever since he ducked his sentencing date for his conviction in California in a scheme to defraud investors of $1 million. The man who has been the source of funds for Democratic candidates -- including, from New York alone, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, and beyond it, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois -- pleaded no contest to a 1991 grand theft charge.
It wasn't until Friday, and all Mr. Hsu's newfound notoriety, that he turned himself in. He's now in jail in San Mateo County, held on $2 million bond.
Nothing so far proves there has been anything illegal about Mr. Hsu's fundraising. There are, though, questions about a fundraising technique known as bundling. That's when someone, in this case Mr. Hsu, solicits people to contribute to a particular candidate's campaign. It would be illegal for him, or anyone, to be the source of the funds contributed by other donors. Some of the members of an extended family in Daly City, Calif., who have given $213,000 to various Democratic candidates since 2004, don't appear to have much money of their own.
The lesson for Mrs. Clinton's campaign is about vetting the source of the vast sums it's raising. In the 1996 election and especially in the aftermath of it, a troubling pattern emerged. The defensive explanations of a decade ago still have an embarrassing ring to them.
Listen to what Mrs. Clinton had to say Thursday:
"When you have as many contributors as I'm fortunate enough to have, we do the very best job we can based on the information available to us to make appropriate vetting decisions."
That's not so reassuring, either.
There are aberrations, and then there are emerging scandals. Mrs. Clinton needs to see to it that Mr. Hsu and his money are the former. Such are the obstacles that can badly taint a political candidacy.
So goes a fair warning.
THE ISSUE: A presidential campaign unloads contributions it never should have accepted.
THE STAKES: A pattern of taking such money will make the scandals of the Clinton administration as relevant as ever.
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