Clipmarks | merrie's 'clinton' clips

Obama's "Carefully Nuanced Refinements"

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:08:28 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Obama could have picked Hillary Clinton, who received 18,000,000 votes. (He would have done so, by the way, without sacrificing his desire to have a Vice President with strong national security and foreign policy credentials on the ticket.)

That works out to 2,000 votes for Clinton for every one vote Senator Biden got.

Clip Source: www.humanevents.com

Last week former federal prosecutor and National Review Online Contributing Editor Andy McCarthy documented the degree to which Senator Obama has been dishonest about his record of opposing legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would have protected babies who survived a failed abortion. This is a position, by the way, which puts him in opposition to over 90 per cent of all Americans, including liberal Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) as well as 99 other members of the U.S. Senate, who voted in favor of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in 2002. Americans almost universally believe that live-born infants must be afforded full legal rights under law, regardless of their stage of development or whether their live births occurred during a failed abortion.

Now Senator Obama has nominated as his running mate a man who received 9,000 votes for president and withdrew.

Tags: obama, born alive legislation, clinton, biden

Paris To "White-Haired Dude" --- "What Ever"

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:41:51 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Most astonishing of all, Big Media (the broadcast and cable networks, The Associated Press and major newspapers) continue their near-total blackout of reporting on a story that broke in the National Enquirer on July 22, well before we went on vacation -- where the tabloid's reporters and a photographer staked out a Los Angeles hotel where former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards allegedly visited his rumored mistress.

You can read or hear all about it in the British press, online bloggers, Internet Web sites (including the Huffington Post and most exhaustively on Mickey Kaus' blog), the usual right-wing radio suspects.

Even late night comics like Jay Leno are starting to joke about it.

But don't expect a word of it to pass the lips of Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson or Katie Couric.

Elizabeth Edwards Speaks Out On Her Husband's Affair

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/08/elizabeth-edwar.html

Clip Source: www.gocomics.com

Clip Source: www.abqjournal.com

Who knew that Paris Hilton -- stung by allegations by Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's suggestion that she's just another celebrity like Britney Spears and Democratic hopeful Barack Obama -- would toss her skimpy bikini in the ring ... and with a surprisingly sensible energy policy?

Here's the story (as seen on Page A4 of today's Albuquerque Journal). And if you haven't seen Paris' campaign video a hundred times already, click here.

Then we hear that former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton hasn't entirely ruled out having her name placed on the ballot at the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month, according to the Boston Globe.

Tags: 2008 election, mccain, obama, clinton, national enquirer, rielle hunter, john edwards, elizabeth edwards

It's All About Obama

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:11:17 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Americans overwhelmingly find it a hopeful, optimistic sign that the country could elect an African-American president. But they rightly want to know what kind of leader he might be. They may well reject as cynical any maneuver to discourage close examination of him by suggesting any criticism is racially motivated.

The candidate's self-centeredness has been on display before. Having effectively sewed up the Democratic nomination, he could have agreed to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations (states Hillary Clinton had carried). While reducing his lead by 50 to 55 delegates, it would not have altered the outcome. But Mr. Obama supported cutting these battleground-state delegations in half. At a time when magnanimity was called for, the candidate decided he'd strut.

In a contest over who is willing to put principle above personal ambition and self-interest, John McCain, a war hero and a former POW, wins hands down.

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Last month he replied "anywhere, anytime" to John McCain's invitation to have joint town hall appearances. Last week he changed his mind. Fearing 10 impromptu town halls, Mr. Obama parried the invitation by offering two such events – one the night of July 4, when every ambulatory American is watching fireworks or munching hotdogs, and another in August. His spokesman then said, "Take it or leave it." So much for "anywhere, anytime."

My former White House colleague Yuval Levin pointed out that Mr. Obama, in his first national TV ad rolled out Friday, claims credit for having "extended health care for wounded troops," citing the 2008 defense authorization. That bill passed 91-3 – but Mr. Obama was one of only six senators who didn't show up to vote. This brazen claim underscores the candidate's thin résumé and, again, his chutzpah.

Mr. Obama has now also played the race card, twice suggesting in recent weeks that Republicans will draw attention to the fact that he's black

Tags: obama, clinton, mccain, wounded warriors health bill, race card, townhall debates

You Can't Fool All of the People All of the Time

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:32:11 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Instead of Drill! Drill! Drill!, their motto could be: Kill! Kill! Kill!

In response to skyrocketing gas prices, liberals say, practically in unison, "We can't drill our way out of this crisis."

What does it mean? Finding more oil isn't going to increase the supply of oil?

It is the typical Democratic strategy to babble meaningless slogans, as if they have a plan. Their plan is: the permanent twilight of the human race.

Liberals complain that -- as Obama put it -- there's "no way that allowing offshore drilling would lower gas prices right now. At best you are looking at five years or more down the road."This is as opposed to airplanes that run on woodchips, which should be up and running any moment now.

Clinton proposed a 26-cent tax on gas. John Kerry said it should be 50 cents. Gore endorsed the Malthusian proposal of Paul and Anne Ehrlich in "The Population Explosion"
[t]hat taxes gas gradually

Clip Source: www.humanevents.com

Say, you know what we need? We need a class of people paid to anticipate national crises and plan solutions in advance.

If only we had had such a group -- let's call them "elected representatives" -- they could have proposed drilling five years ago!

But of course we do pay people to anticipate national problems and propose solutions. Some of them -- we'll call them Republicans -- did anticipate high gas prices and propose solutions.

Six long years ago President Bush had the foresight to demand that Congress allow drilling in a minuscule portion of the Alaska's barren, uninhabitable Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In 2002, Bush, Tom DeLay and the entire Republican Party were screaming from the rooftops: Drill! Drill! Drill!

We'd be gushing oil now -- except the Democrats stopped us from drilling.

The other party -- plus John McCain -- ferociously opposed drilling in ANWR, drilling offshore or drilling anyplace else.

Tags: oil, domestic production, anwr, congress, exploration restrictions, obama, carter, clinton, al gore, paul ehrlich

Clinton Seeks To Go After Obama Superdelegates

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:26:53 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: to travel with her to South Dakota where she planned to campaign Monday. Rodriguez had initially supported Clinton, switched to Obama, and recently returned to her camp.

Clinton, meanwhile, said she was still contemplating whether to challenge the decision by the Democratic Party's rules committee to split the Michigan delegates 69-59 in her favor. Each delegate would have a half vote. The agreement granted Obama 55 uncommitted Michigan delegates and four who would have been assigned to Clinton based on the state's results.

McAuliffe Sunday night called the panel's judgment "outrageous."

"People are angry," he said. "This does not unify our party, this crazy, cockamamie thing they came up with in Michigan."

Here in South Dakota, Clinton pressed on against the odds.

In a campaign trail reunion usually reserved for election nights, she was to join former President Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, at her last Monday event in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Clip Source: breakingnews.nypost.com

The former first lady enters this week with an insurgent strategy not only to win over undecided superdelegates but to peel away Obama's support from those party leaders and elected officials who already have committed to back him for the nomination.

"Whatever differences Senator Clinton and I may have, those differences pale in comparison to the other side," he said.

But Clinton argues she now leads in the popular vote - a debatable point given that she relies on Michigan and Florida outcomes. None of the candidates campaigned in either state and Obama received no votes in Michigan because he removed his name from the ballot. Clinton also continues to present herself as better able to confront McCain in the fall.

She and her campaign's national chairman, Terry McAuliffe, both made it clear Sunday night that Obama's supporters were now fair to pluck with those arguments.

To drive the point home, Clinton invited Virgin Islands superdelegate Kevin Rodriguez, a recent convert,

Tags: clinton, obama, terry mcauliffe, undecided superdelegates, south dakota, montana

Hillary's Bitter Victory

Sat, 10 May 2008 07:19:30 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Is there any relief in sight? When will this thing end? The short answer to this question is no, there isn't.

Watching this scene, I was struck suddenly by the genius of the Clinton campaign — and also felt myself beginning to understand why this Obama-Clinton contest may yet prove to be one of those defining cultural clashes that come along once a generation or so, like Bryan-Darrow or Ali-Frazier.

what we have in Hillary Clinton: a once-in-a-generation political pugilist who, like her much smoother adversary, is amazingly capable of turning weakness into strength. Pitted against physical beauty and inspirational rhetoric, Hillary made herself the champion of everything stylistically ordinary, superficially unimpressive and ignored. And while her opponent won all the attention and admiration, all the teen-idol gushings of the beautiful people, she went for something deeper — resentment at the lack of those same things.

Clip Source: www.rollingstone.com

This contest no longer has anything to do with the electoral math. After the Pennsylvania contest, Obama holds some 1,724 delegates, which include 1,488 pledged delegates and 236 superdelegates. Hillary, by contrast, has 1,593 total delegates, broken down into 1,334 pledged and 259 superdelegates.

By the time the primary season officially ends on June 3rd with Montana and South Dakota, Obama will almost certainly be leading in delegates and the popular vote — but there almost certainly will be no nominee, either.

In the meantime, one thing about this contest can be said with absolute surety: Everyone involved has lost their minds. For Clinton supporters, the race has taken on a meaning that transcends politics.

Somewhere in there is where you can find the emotional imperative underneath this campaign, and the reason why all the electoral math in the world doesn't mean shit to these people. Hillary calls them the "invisible Americans." There are a hell of a lot of them

Tags: clinton, obama, delegates, superdelegates, popular vote, florida, michigan

Straight Talk About Universal Healthcare

Sun, 11 May 2008 05:35:01 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: I'm all about personal freedom and the rights of individuals. Universal healthcare is not only impractical, but costly - and not just for your pocketbook. It's handing over yet another right to the government, and allowing the government to decide and rule your fate.

I'm not compassionless-I'm just sensible. And universal healthcare as it's being proposed by both Clinton and Obama still doesn't make much sense to me.

The disaster of the Massachusetts universal healthcare system should give you a preview of what life under a universal healthcare scheme could be like.

Even more shocking is the manner in which Massachusetts state officials have decided to deal with the out-of-control costs of their broken system: they've ordered the insurance companies to cut payments to doctors and hospitals, reduce choices for payments, and possibly increase how much patients will have to pay.

Clip Source: www.douglassreport.com

A better way to describe the program would be to call it "universal heath insurance." The idea is that by compelling everyone in the nation to participate in the insurance market, you'd cut down on what's known as the "free rider" syndrome. As the term suggests, this would be people getting a "free ride" from the healthcare system by deciding not to get their own health insurance because they've been assured that in the case of an emergency or personal health catastrophe, inexpensive care will be guaranteed to them by the government. The theory is that mandated participation would help to drive down insurance costs.

But any mandate requires an enforcement component. My fear is that a government branch with the kind of power to actually identify and penalize those seeking to avoid the insurance mandates of universal healthcare would be vast and all-powerful. The new healthcare arm of the government would likely have the same kind of power (and loathsome reputation) as the IRS.

Tags: clinton, obama, government, healthcare, mandate

"Victory, At Long Last"

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:52:30 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: >>>>>>>>>>POLITICAL CARTOON<<<<<<<<<<<

Clip Source: www.townhall.com

Michael Ramirez

Tags: mccain, clinton, obama, 2008

DNC Chairman Joe Andrew Is Urging Clinton Supporters To Switch

Fri, 02 May 2008 08:32:10 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: May 1, 20

Dear Friends:

I have been inspired.

Today I am announcing my support for Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States of America. I am changing my support from Senator Clinton to Senator Obama, and calling for my fellow Democrats across my home State of Indiana, and my fellow super delegates across the nation, to heal the rift in our Party and unite behind Barack Obama.

The hardest decisions in life are not between good and bad or right and wrong, but between two goods or two rights. That is the decision Democrats face today. We have an embarrassment of riches, but as much as we may love our candidates and revel in the political process that has brought Presidential politics to places that have not seen it in a generation, we cannot let our family affair hurt America by helping John McCain.

Clip Source: briefingroom.thehill.com

In a letter to other superdelegates, former DNC Chairman Joe Andrew is urging Clinton supporters to switch to Obama - just as he did earlier today.

To end the infighting between Clinton and Obama, Andrew suggested superdelegates all “come together right now” behind Obama, who Andrew called “inspiring.”

Recognizing that such a switch may spurn Clinton supporters and divide Democrats, Andrew wrote: “It is therefore incumbent on all of us who once supported Senator Clinton to welcome the thousands who should now switch their support to Senator Obama.”

Tags: joe andrew, superdelegates, letter, obama, clinton

National Polls: Obama's Lead Vanishes

Fri, 02 May 2008 10:11:40 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Overall, Clinton leads McCain by 3.1% in the RCP General Election Average, while Obama leads McCain by 0.9%.

Clip Source: time-blog.com

Two more new national polls confirming the rather dramatic tightening we've seen recently. First, Pew Research (April 23-27) shows Clinton gaining ground and Obama dropping a bit, turning a ten-point lead in March to just a two-point lead this month:

Obama 47 (-2 vs. last poll March 19-22)
Clinton 45 (+6)

CNN's new national survey (April 28-30) shows a different dynamic producing a similar result: Clinton hasn't gained at all, but Obama has lost a significant chunk of ground.

Obama 46 (-6 vs. last poll March 14-16)
Clinton 45 (nc)

Overall, after reaching a high point of 10.4% on the day of the Pennsylvania primary nine days ago, Obama's lead over Clinton in the RCP National Average has plummeted to just 1.6%.

Here's a look at the RCP Average from April 1 through today:

In the general election match ups, Clinton and Obama both beat McCain by similar margins in both polls:

CNN: Obama 49 - McCain 45
Pew: Obama 50 - McCain 44

CNN: Clinton 49 - McCain 44
Pew: Clinton 49 - McCain 45

Tags: pew research, cnn national survey, rcp national average, clinton, obama, mccain, general election

Barack Obama's Worst Nightmare On Media Tour

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:45:16 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The poll shows Clinton beating Republican candidate John McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, in a potential matchup, while Obama would be tied with McCain, leading 46 percent to 44 percent.

Among the white voters polled, Clinton received 43 percent to McCain's 48 percent, while Obama landed only 38 percent to McCain's 51 percent.

David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, appeared clearly worried about Wright's affect on his candidate's campaign.

"We don't have any control over Reverend Wright," Axelrod told The Times of London. "There's not a thing we can do about it.

"Obviously, I don't think we would have encouraged him to go on a media tour."

Clip Source: www.nypost.com

April 29, 2008 -- WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's worst nightmare, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, yesterday delivered his most brutal wallop to his pal's campaign as he hailed hatemonger Louis Farrakhan and accused the United States of committing terrorism.

Wright, in a bombastic, nationally televised speech to the National Press Club, ripped the United States as a ruthless, modern-day Roman Empire trying to rule the world - and said it brought 9/11 on itself.

He griped that the government has never "confessed" to nor officially apologized for slavery - and he refused to back off his assertion that America invented the AIDS virus to kill black people.

Clip Source: www.nypost.com

Wright's latest comments, on the heels of a whirlwind media tour, come at an exceptionally bad time for Obama, who is courting white working-class voters in Indiana to turn back an re-energized Clinton.

But a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll suggests that Obama is losing ground among whites in the wake of Wright's public comments.

Tags: jeremiah wright, media tour, louis farrakhan, national press club, barack obama, clinton, mccain

Barack Obama Displayed His Bizarre Views On Foreign And Domestic Policy

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:48:24 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: First, Obama showed ignorance of what led to the crisis in Kosovo, where a U.S.-Russian confrontation is now playing out, and he seemed to advocate some kind of U.S. military response through NATO. If a President Obama carried through on such a threat, it would be a foreign policy mistake of monumental proportions. It could lead to a war with Russia in the current circumstances.

Second, Obama didn't seem to understand that in the case of the disabled woman, Terri Schiavo, the issue was giving her the same kind of due process rights that are guaranteed to death row killers. We now know where Obama really stands, and it is not a pretty picture.

Tim Russert had some good questions:
One was when he asked Obama what he would do if Russia helped Serbia militarily take control of Kosovo, which is under United Nations and NATO occupation and recently declared its independence.

Clip Source: www.aim.org

Under media pressure, John McCain has apologized because radio talk-show host Bill Cunningham opened a McCain rally by noting that Barack Obama's full name is Barack Hussein Obama. The media were upset not only because he went after Obama, but because Cunningham's hilarious remarks on liberal media bias were so on target.

But speaking of names, will anyone in the major media talk about the mysterious "Frank." He's Obama's childhood mentor in his book, Dreams From My Father.We discovered he's Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party member and anti-American revolutionary. Isn't this as newsworthy as the African garb Obama wore on a foreign trip? Isn't what's in Obama's head as important as the clothes he wears?

The American people have been terribly served by the media during this campaign, and the latest bad performance was turned in by those commenting on Tuesday night's debate on MSNBC. They failed to note that Obama made two serious gaffes.

Tags: democratic debate, tim russert, obama, clinton, serbia, kosovo, russia, un, nato, u.s. military

Democratic Candidates Long To Renegotiate NAFTA

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:27:58 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: U.S. manufacturing is not in decline. Quite the opposite is true. Output, revenues and profits in the sector all achieved records in 2006, and preliminary government data indicates that new records were set in 2007. American factories remain the world's most prolific, producing 2.5 times the value of Chinese output. ... Between 2000 and 2003 there was a pronounced manufacturing recession, during which 2.8 million jobs in the sector were eliminated. The two candidates extrapolate from that statistic to assert that 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000 on account of bad trade deals, like NAFTA, as though the trend were continuing. That's wrong. ... If trade had something to do with the loss of those 2.8 million jobs between 2000 and 2003, imports weren't the culprit. Manufactured imports did not increase at all during those three years. U.S. exports, however, dropped off by 11 percent during that precise period.

Clip Source: www.cato.org

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton promises to start renegotiating NAFTA in her first 100 days if elected president," reports The New York Times. "Senator Barack Obama would use the threat of opting out as a hammer to demand strong labor and environmental standards in Mexico. The two Democratic candidates have heaped blame on the 14-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement for the plight of unemployed workers in declining Rust Belt towns where jobs have been lost to global competition. But what they are truly talking about when they criticize the agreement, which lifted trade and investment barriers among Canada, the United States and Mexico, is trade with Mexico."

In "Democrats Would Rather Mislead Than Lead on Trade," Daniel J. Ikenson, associate director of Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies, writes:

"The candidates' anti-trade narratives rely on discredited assertions concocted to mislead and confuse. ...

Tags: nafta, clinton, obama, output, revenues, profits, opt-out, reform

How Obama Fell To Earth

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:02:13 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Obama's Capital Gains response last night still has to be one of the stupidest--and most revealing--answers ever given in a televised debate. Yes, he understands that Capital Gains reductions raises more revenue for the Government---but that's not the point; it is just so...."unfair" to have businesses making profits, even if it means the Government gets more money: more investments and profits means businesses can hire more workers and distribute dividends to our 401K's.

It is so utterly obvious that Obama does not care about how much revenue Government does or doesn't raise: the point is to punish business and the middle class, no matter what it does to revenue; revenue is just the convenient excuse.

The beauty of last night's debate is that the rest of the country knows this, and also knows that Obama has spent his entire adult life hanging out with known Communists, anarchists, terrorists, racists, and crooks.
Yet the media is not supposed to ask about these associations?

Clip Source: astuteblogger.blogspot.com

If Barack has this much trouble giving coherent answers to highly legitimate questions about his VERY checkered past, how in the world is Obama supposed to handle a nuclear crisis putting the US in imminent danger from the Oval Office? Good grief, Barack: grow a pair. Hillary's just an ambitious former First Lady and she has bigger cojones than you do. (which isn't saying a lot...)

The media has been in the tank for Obama since the very beginning and so suddenly he feels like that a (supposedly) "independent" media is actually asking him questions that people want answers to? My heart bleeds for him...

And by the way, the fact that Obama is complaining so loudly that a news organization would actually have the gall and the nerve to stop lobbing him softballs--as they have been for over a year now--is ironic to say the least.

This is the most unprepared, most ideologically dangerous candidate in US History, and we have had plenty of bad candidates.

Tags: abc democratic debate, obama, clinton, rezko, ayers, frank marshall davis

Bill To Open Refuge To Drilling If Crude Hits $125

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:04:22 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: "The goalposts of what's reasonable have moved quite a bit lately," Halff said. "One hundred and twenty-five dollars is just $15 away. It doesn't sound quite as farfetched as it did a few months ago."

But environmentalists say they're confident that Murkowski and Stevens simply don't have 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster that would allow the bill to be heard. It's equally unlikely that a Democratic-led House of Representatives would even consider hearing the legislation, said Myke Bybee, a spokesman for the Sierra Club.

"No amount of oil and no amount of money is worth despoiling the Arctic Refuge," Bybee said. "I don't think there's support for opening up a special place like the Arctic Refuge at any cost, at any amount of oil or at any cost of oil."

Clip Source: www.adn.com

WASHINGTON -- Hoping to capitalize on the concerns of ordinary consumers at the gas pump, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens introduced legislation Thursday that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if the price of oil hits $125 a barrel.

The senators hope that high oil prices, hovering at $110 a barrel Thursday morning, will change the minds of fellow senators who, until now, have been opposed to opening the wildlife refuge to drilling.

Drilling in ANWR would do more than any economic stimulus package, Stevens said. It also would trim the U.S. dependency on foreign sources of oil.

"The money we send overseas for oil could be spent in the United States, stimulate our economy," he said. "I think this country's going to need a real stimulus before this year's over."

Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, doesn't support drilling in ANWR, and neither do the two Democratic contenders: Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Tags: murkowski, stevens, arctic national wildlife refuge, mccain, clinton, obama, sierra club, environmentalists