Showing posts with label US Presidential Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Presidential Election. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

McCain Presumptious

Well Bomb, Bomb Iran McCain made it official last night he is the presumptive Republican candidate for President. And Mike Huckabee gave him his crown of thorns by bowing out. But wait there is still another candidate who has not dropped out of the Republican race and is the thorn in McCain's side; Ron Paul.

Despite calls from his supporters, Paul insists he will not run for president as an independent. But he has pledged to continue his Republican presidential bid, knowing full well that the odds — and delegate math — are now firmly against him.
And last night McCain flip flopped on the war in Iraq. No longer is it going to be a hundred years war, but one that is concluded soon, after victory is declared and then troops moved out to fight the real war on terror; in Afghanistan. That's a major policy change. He is sounding more like Barack Obama despite having attacked him for virtually the same policy.

We are in Iraq and our most vital security interests are clearly involved there. The next president must explain how he or she intends to bring that war to the swiftest possible conclusion without exacerbating a sectarian conflict that could quickly descend into genocide; destabilizing the entire Middle East; enabling our adversaries in the region to extend their influence and undermine our security there; and emboldening terrorists to attack us elsewhere with weapons we dare not allow them to possess.

The next president must encourage the greater participation and cooperation of our allies in the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan.


See:

Ron Paul Spoiler



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Come Back Kid Or Pyrrhic Victory

Repeating her husbands famous 'comeback kid' routine Hillary Clinton tried to make her win in Rhode Island and Ohio and tie in Texas the big come back. Well it was a Pyrrhic victory of sorts. She has no mo', Obama has mo', she has the fight of her life, still. She was the front runner, she is the front runner, she is the inevitable candidate. Except she lost eleven primaries in a row until last night. And she lost Vermont in a big way.

Despite the her landslides in Rhode Island, and Ohio it was a squeaker in Texas, it was a virtual tie.

In Texas, with 77 percent of precincts reporting primary results, Clinton had 51 percent of the vote and Obama had 47 percent. Obama led in caucuses held after the primary vote, with 56 percent to Clinton's 44 percent, with 5 percent of precincts reporting.


Unlike Ohio she did not win overwhelmingly in Texas as she needed to. So she remains behind in delegates. And that's what counts. Delegates.

The Associated Press reported that all told, Mr. Obama retains his lead in the delegate count, with 1,477 pledged delegates compared to Mrs. Clinton’s 1,391. The A.P. said that 170 delegates from Tuesday’s contests have yet to be assigned, many from the Texas caucuses.
This is not a comeback it is a momentary gasping for air as her campaign continues to shamble along trying to figure out how to counter the Obama momentum. Sure she can claim Ohio as a big win, but it ain't really because in order to really be the come back kid she need to win big in BOTH Ohio and Texas and she didn't.

No Knockout in Dem Contest


Her whole campaign has been focused on early overwhelming victories. And in this she has been defeated by Obama. By this time her campaign had figured she would have already been her party's nominee. And she ain't. It will be decided at the convention. Which is good for the Democrats and Obama and bad for Clinton.

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Friday, February 08, 2008

Mitt Quits To Win Bush's War

The American Right is obsessed with using the old Nazi "stab in the back" argument to justify being wrong about Iraq. As Mitt Romney did yesterday. Romney tried to cloak his ignoble defeat in the robe of Imperial triumph appearing as the retiring Ceaser not the vanquished Republican Presidential gladiator.

Explaining his decision, he said he believed it was in the best interest of the country's national security -- he told conservatives a Democratic victory would lead to the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, defeat in the war on terrorism and future domestic terror attacks.

"If I fight on, in my campaign ... I'd forestall the launch of a national campaign and, frankly, I'd make it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win," Mr. Romney said.

"Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."

The much vaunted Bush War On Terror was lost the day the U.S. left Afghanistan for Baghdad, and since then it has become the Politics of Fear, which Romney stooped to use as a parting shot in his wimp out speech.

No sir he was no quitter he was doing this for the good of the party and the good of the country and the good of the war, he was a good old boy. Seems though that it did little to quell the split in the party or on the right.

For one long, uncomfortable moment, John McCain was silenced by the boos at a meeting of the influential Conservative Political Action Committee.

They erupted from the back of the ballroom at the Omni hotel in Washington, a lusty chorus of catcalls from conservatives not ready to accept they were almost certainly listening to the next Republican presidential nominee.



And what does it say of Ron Paul the Republican Presidential candidate who also opposes the Bush War and who has not dropped out of the race. I guess he too is a defeatist prepared to surrender America to her terrorist enemies. Logic was never Romney's strong suit, opportunism was.

Ron Paul tapped in to a wide array of interests,
and his appeal went well beyond the simple "opposition to the war" explanation arrogant journalists favored. But let's just say he could have tapped in a lot deeper and with more lasting results. It's not like we don't need the help right about now. The country is seeing the beginnings of a real leftwing backlash and the Republicans are about to nominate a "national greatness" conservative who is in every respect the anti-Goldwater. (Good luck getting any libertarian leverage from those Paul delegates at the convention.)

After the smoke cleared at the Conservative Political Action Conference – the public withdrawal of Mitt Romney from the Republican presidential race, and the attempt of John McCain to make friends with the party’s staunchest conservatives – a conservative crowd-pleaser stepped forward .

Ron Paul, the Republican representative from Texas.

Paul was playing on the frustrations in this hall, with many voicing worries about McCain, the all-but annointed nominee.

Now the party has an apparent candidate who is a friend of Sen. Russ Feingold – on campaign finance reform – Paul said. And now the party has an apparent candidate who is a friend of Ted Kennedy – on immigration – Paul said.

He raised cheers in the hall – perhaps the first genuine cheers of the day.

“If you think we can lead this country back to conservative principles… you have another thing coming, because it’s not going to happen,’’ Paul said.

“The answer is found in fiscal conservatism – live within our means,’’ he said to cheers in the hall.

“As long as a government can stir up fear, sometimes real and sometimes not real, the people are expected to do one thing, sacrifice their liberty,’’ he said to cheers.

And then there is the war in Iraq, with Paul the only one of several Republican candidates for president this year who took a stance against the war.
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“McCain says we should stay there for 100 years if necessary – I say there is no need,’’ Paul said to more cheers in the hall.

“We campaigned in 2000 for a humble foreign policy, no policing of the world – and now we are doing the very same thing,’’ Paul said.

But this is where he started to lose his audience: “Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.’’

The Paulites in the hall were happy, but the rest of the crowd was starting to part ways with a Republican who has sharply parted ways with most of the candidates.


Romney was never the real conservative contender against McCain, Mr. Slick was just another liberal in conservative clothing. The real conservative contender is still in the race; Mike Huckabee. Watch conservative voters swing to him not Ron Paul despite the illusions held by his followers.

However the party establishment and the Conservative Political Establishment won't, most rank and file Republicans will hold their noses and support McCain. While those who remain McCain's critics will remain ineffectual offering no alternative since they backed Romney. And that will put them between a rock and a hard place, as the impact of their denunciations will give the conservative base of the party no alternative but Huckabee.

While the pundits like Chris Matthews, see Romney's quitting as giving McCain his coronation as the Republican Presidential nominee, it ain't over yet. And the divisiveness on the right will not be quelled by Romney's absence. The right and the Republican party is irreparably split.

"I will not vote for John McCain and it is our belief that he will destroy the Republican party," Vincent Chiarello, a retired foreign service officer from Virginia, told Al Jazeera. "I'd rather vote Democrat."

At a Friday campaign stop in Denver, the Texas Republican Congressman spoke to a standing room only crowd of 2,000 supporters-nearly double the number that came out earlier in the day to cheer on ordained front-runner Mitt Romney.

Paul’s speech was greeted with the eagerness of a religious revival. One supporter broke down in tears at the microphone as she described Paul as her “hero.” Sitting next to me in the front row was a 61-year-old lifelong Republican. She said she had never missed an opportunity to vote in her four decades of eligibility. Without Dr. Paul (this is how the obstetrician’s supporters affectionately refer to him) she said she would have sat this election out. She says she is most motivated by his anti-war stance. When greeted by a 20-something activist, they both nod in unison about their frustration with the drug war.

The interaction is a familiar one. This is not your father’s Republican party.

Dred-locked hippies stand united with Christian homeschoolers. Democrats and independents also pepper the crowd, proclaiming our need for renewable energy initiated within the private sector. There are no staged applause lines. On multiple occasions, an impromptu chant begins, “Ron Paul Revolution! Give us back our Constitution!” On stage, Paul is greeted by a drum line dressed as Revolutionary War soldiers.



The Democrats will continue to have the advantage, because even if McCain is now the presumptive candidate, the media will focus increasingly on the horse race that is on between Clinton and Obama. This is an advantage not a disadvantage in particular for Obama who can now make the case that only he can defeat McCain as national polls have shown.






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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

What A Rush

Rush Limbaugh the self appointed voice of the Conservative right is a drug addled failure. His attacks on McCain and their failure to influence Republican voters shows that this pill popping loser has no credibility. He and other conservative mouthpieces like Ann Coulter and Foxy Sean Hannity have bewailed against McCain and Huckabee and even Ron Paul. For them it is the brylcreme slick huckster and flip flopper Mitt Romney that reflects their values. Luckily for the Republican party the base is divorcing itself from its self appointed 'values' based leadership.



But nailing the nomination is starting to look like the easy part of the task facing McCain over the next 10 months.

The closer he gets to securing the Republican candidacy, the louder the protests from the right of the party denouncing him as a traitor to the true cause of Ronald Reagan conservatism.

Rush Limbaugh, the radio talk show host who has emerged as McCain-basher in chief, was back on the offensive within hours of the polls closing on Super Tuesday. Through his website and his radio broadcasts to 612 stations across the US, he lambasted the senator for Arizona for his allegedly anti-conservative positions on a raft of issues from immigration to tax cuts, and hinted that he might consider voting for the Democratic candidate in November.

"I'll just tell you, there's far more apathy or anger out there than the Republican establishment knows. One question I asked myself: if, if, if, if down the road you think that the election of Obama, Hillary, or McCain is going to result in very bad things happening to the country, who would you rather get the blame for it?"

The conservative talk-radio assault on John McCain and Mike Huckabee has backfired in a big way.

Supporters of Huckabee are so angry that they have launched a “Send it Back” campaign, asking people who have copies of books by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to send them back to their authors. They’re angry that Limbaugh and Hannity were trashing Huckabee on the air. Limbaugh and Hannity were joined by Laura Ingraham in trying to rally their listeners around Mitt Romney. The ploy failed. Romney won in seven contests on Super Tuesday but failed to win either California, where he expected to win, or any Southern state.

The “Send it Back” campaign also applies to Ann Coulter, who attacked Huckabee as the “Republican Jimmy Carter.” Coulter, who has achieved notoriety for making personal attacks and writing books blasting Democrats, also said that McCain was so unacceptable that she would vote and campaign for Hillary Clinton if the Arizona senator was the Republican presidential nominee.


Ironically Limbaugh is using traditional right wing rhetoric to attack McCain, the old Nazi stabbed in the back accusation.

Suggesting he has come under intense pressure to get on board and back McCain, radio personality Rush Limbaugh held his ground Monday, saying on his program: "John McCain has stabbed his own party in the back I can't tell you how many times. He stabbed his own president in the back on legislation a number of times. He doesn't support his party or his president when the chips are down."

The stab in the back first gained currency in Germany, as a means of explaining the nation's stunning defeat in World War I. It was Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg himself, the leading German hero of the war, who told the National Assembly, "As an English general has very truly said, the German army was 'stabbed in the back.'"

Truly a drug addled brain at work here. Not unlike Goering, whom Rush bears a striking resemblance to ideologically as well as physically.

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Goering1932.jpg


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Hillary Gets The Womens Vote

A lot of noise has been made around how Billary is winning the womens vote, a feminist revival as she gets the votes of baby boomers. Including the bulimic bully of the right; Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter hates John McCain so much that she claims she'll "vote for" and "campaign for" Hillary Clinton if McCain wins the Republican nomination.

In response to Coulter's announcement on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes," Senator Clinton told "Inside Edition":

“Well, you see, I told you I could bring the country together.”

So I guess all that hate of the Clinton's that the social conservative right had hoped to mobilize is now being directed at McCain. It's joy to watch the Republican Right fall into an internecine feeding frenzy and we are only half way through the primaries. Wait for the real implosion to occur in Minneapolis.

The image “http://www.americanpolitics.com/coulterplagiarized55.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.


SEE:

Bill Clinton A Reagan Democrat

Keep Coulter I'll Take Paglia

Poster Girl for Anorexia

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Ron Paul Spoiler


There it was flashing on CNN and MSNBC, Ron Paul came in second in Montana, and as usual no comment from the pundits. And then he came in third in North Dakota. Silence. Ron Paul is still in the Republican race, a spoiler for a fight and spoiling to continue his fight against American Imperial aspirations. Go Paul Go. And notice even Coulter, Limbaugh and company don't dare take on Paul. Who is after all Mr. Conservative.



Paul did better in the Northern Midwest caucus states,
placing second in Montana, third in North Dakota and fourth, but with 15 percent of the vote in Minnesota. He also placed third with 17 percent at the Alaska Republican caucus and, despite a fourth place finish in initial voting, got 3 national convention votes in a backroom deal with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in West Virginia.

Missoula GOP chooses Paul
By CHELSI MOY of the Missoulian

Diane Rotering casts her ballot for a presidential candidate at the Missoula County Republican caucus Tuesday night. Rotering, a designated caucus voter, cast her ballot for Ron Paul, who won the county by only three votes over Mitt Romney. “It's just awesome,” says Rotering. “(The caucus is) sort of like the Super Bowl: well-played and a good clean win.”
LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian

Missoula County Republican caucus voters threw their support to maverick presidential candidate Ron Paul on Tuesday night, giving the Texas congressman a three-vote victory over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

An organized youth vote filled Missoula's empty precincts, helping Paul win 45 of the 97 votes cast at the caucus. Romney won 42 votes, while Sen. John McCain of Arizona had seven and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee had three.

About 300 people turned out at Missoula's DoubleTree Hotel for the historic event, many of them sporting red - the color of the Republican Party. The turnout far surpassed the expectations of Will Deschamps, chairman of the Missoula County Republican Central Committee.

The Ron Paul National Delegate Count is now 42 or more, and the campaign intends to press on to the Republican National Convention.


And here is some good advice; Paul supporters, if you learn anything from this election, it should be this: Stop wasting your damn time waving signs on street corners. Canvassing and phone-banking aren't fun, but they win elections.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

McCain Supports Canadian Style Medicare


For veterans. He was using this as part of his Florida stump speeches last week.


Allowing veterans to use whatever provider they want, wherever they want by giving them an electronic health care card or through another method.


It seems our American friends south of the border fear government single payer systems because of their anti-government ideology in some cases and because they don't understand Canada's Medicare system.

They would rather suffer under the current monopoly market controlled by insurance companies and HMO's (owned by corporations and sold on Wall Street) than have a single payer system like we have in Canada where you take your Medicare card to any doctor you want to go see. Just what McCain wants for veterans.

Of course one of the common attacks from the right on Canadian Medicare is that we apparently have line ups stretching for miles for folks waiting for operations. That image of course is courtesy the Fraser Institute.

The reality is that doctors in Canada run their own private practices and clinic businesses which are paid for by you and me through a single payer program run by the government. A fact that seems to be missed by our friends south of the border when they curse government run, socialist medicine.

And yes we still have unacceptable wait times for some surgeries, that has not changed after two years of the Conservatives being in power. So don't expect much from their counterparts south of the border when it comes to fixing their health care problems.


SEE


Proletarian Doctors



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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Bill Clinton A Reagan Democrat

Bill Clinton went all ballistic, again, over Barack Obama's comments that Ronald Regan was a 'transformational' president and that the Republicans were the party of 'ideas' through out the eighties and nineties. He of course became President in the nineties. And his was leadership was created by Reagan Democrats in the Democratic Leadership Council, who thought the be best way to beat the Republican Revolution of Newt Gingrich was to join it. Clinton is as hypocritical on this as he is on his purported opposition to the War in Iraq.

CNN.com - Clinton defends successor's push for war - Jun 19, 2004

Bill Clinton: I opposed war from start - Decision '08- msnbc.com

It was Clinton who fought for and signed into law one of key planks of the Reagan Neo Con Revolution; Welfare Reform which consisted of Work For Welfare.

This so called first Black President of the US signed into law this regressive bill aimed specifically at African American Women. He was not only two faced, speaking as a Democrat and ruling as a Republican, he did it in Al Jolson Black face. A longstanding Southern Democrat as well as Vaudville tradition.

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That he should attack Barack Obama with such hypocritical indignation shows that he knows that this is exactly what Obama has pointed out about his six years in office. It was Democratic Black Face covering Republican White Majority Neo Conservative agenda.

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Welfare Reform: The Personal Responsibility Act

One of the key ingredients in the initial Contract With America has led to one of the most contentious debates in Washington: reforming the welfare state. The Personal Responsibility Act in the Contract included prohibiting welfare going to mothers under the age of 18, halting the increase of benefits for mothers each time they had additional illegitimate children, and cutting welfare spending. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson declared a so-called War on Poverty; but 30 years later, after spending an estimated $5.4 trillion on welfare programs, it seems that poverty is winning the war. Thirty years of central government welfare programs seem only to have worsened the situation. The key problem, as my colleague at The Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector, has pointed out, is that "the welfare programs present a 'moral hazard' -- a strong tendency to increase the behaviors which are rewarded by welfare benefits." Specifically, "when welfare benefits are tied, directly or indirectly, to such behaviors as low work effort, divorce, and illegitimacy, welfare strongly promotes an increase in those behaviors." This only creates an ever-escalating cycle of more spending.

The Personal Responsibility Act of the Contract sought to fundamentally revamp the role of the state in welfare policy by developing policies to reduce teenage pregnancies and illegitimate births by prohibiting aid to mothers under 18 who give birth out of wedlock and requiring them to name the fathers of their children, who would be held accountable for their actions. Such women would be required to live at home to receive any aid and would not get housing subsidies to set up their own apartments. The Act also required that aid be cut off if recipients did not work.

The federal government provides 72 percent ($234.3 billion) of all welfare benefits, compared to 28 percent ($90 billion) by the states. This has led the Congress to set certain general standards and criteria that recipients of aid must meet to receive benefits. But beyond some general restrictions, the key reform of welfare consists of attempting to decentralize the program to the 50 states and thereby stimulate numerous creative approaches to dealing with social problems.

This reflected the general conservative philosophical view in the Contract. As Speaker Gingrich writes in his book To Renew America: "We must replace our centralized, micro-managed, Washington-based bureaucracy with a dramatically decentralized system more appropriate to a continent-wide country... 'Closer is better' would be the rule of thumb for our decision making; less power in Washington and more back home, our consistent theme."


New York Times Op-Ed Contributor

How We Ended Welfare, Together


Published: August 22, 2006

Most Democrats and Republicans wanted to pass welfare legislation shifting the emphasis from dependence to empowerment. Because I had already given 45 states waivers to institute their own reform plans, we had a good idea of what would work. Still, there were philosophical gaps to bridge. The Republicans wanted to require able-bodied people to work, but were opposed to continuing the federal guarantees of food and medical care to their children and to spending enough on education, training, transportation and child care to enable people to go to work in lower-wage jobs without hurting their children.

On Aug. 22, 1996, after vetoing two earlier versions, I signed welfare reform into law. At the time, I was widely criticized by liberals who thought the work requirements too harsh and conservatives who thought the work incentives too generous. Three members of my administration ultimately resigned in protest. Thankfully, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans voted for the bill because they thought we shouldn't be satisfied with a system that had led to intergenerational dependency.


Welfare before welfare reform

The major welfare programs of the Great Depression in the United States for able-bodied workers involved the WPA and the CCC. They were abolished when full employment returned during World War II. The states, however, continued to provide welfare for people who were unable to work; disability insurance was provided by the federal Social Security System. After the War on Poverty in the 1960s, welfare rolls grew rapidly, angering conservatives. [Katz 1986] Before 1996, welfare payments were distributed through a program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). In the 1980s, the program drew heavy criticism. There were numerous stories of "welfare queens", women who cheated the welfare system, receiving multiple checks each month and growing wealthy while not working. Many critics claimed that welfare bred a poor work ethic and a self-perpetuation "culture of poverty" in which ambitions focused on staying on welfare and avoiding productive work. [Katz 1986]

The AFDC system was under constant attack in the 1980s; these continued in the 1990s, with Presidential candidate Bill Clinton vowing to "end welfare as we know it." Clinton, once elected, worked with a Democratic congress and met with considerable success in moving people from welfare to work through state waiver programs. These programs allowed states to experiment with various welfare reform measures. The system became a common target of Newt Gingrich and other Republican leaders, though changes had already been set in motion by Clinton and the Democrats. Toughening the criteria for receiving welfare was the third point (out of ten) in the Republicans' Contract with America. The tide of public opinion in favor of some change to the welfare system was considerable. The stage was already set by 1996. The welfare reform movement reached its apex on August 22, 1996, when President Clinton signed a welfare reform bill, officially titled the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The bill was hammered out in a compromise with the Republican-controlled Congress, and many Democrats were critical of Clinton's decision to sign the bill, saying it was much the same as the two previous welfare reform bills he had vetoed. In fact, it emerged as one of the most controversial issues for Clinton within his own party.[Haskins 2006]

One of the bill's provisions was a time limit. Under the law, no person could receive welfare payments for more than five years, consecutive or nonconsecutive. Another controversial change was transferring welfare to a block grant system, i.e. one in which the federal government gives states "blocks" of money, which the states then distribute under their own legislation and criteria. Some states simply kept the federal rules, but others used the money for non-welfare programs, such as subsidized childcare (to allow parents to work) or subsidized public transportation (to allow people to travel to work without owning cars).[Haskins 2006; Blank 2002].


Clinton Signs Welfare Reform Bill, Angers Liberals

Clinton

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Aug. 22) -- President Bill Clinton today signed a sweeping welfare reform bill that ends the open-ended guarantee of federal aid and shifts much of the responsibility for public assistance to the states. (288K WAV sound)

The measure, hammered out in Congress over the past several months, imposes a five-year limit on benefits, requires able-bodied recipients to go to work after two years, and gives states incentives to create jobs for people on welfare.

Clinton said it's far from perfect legislation, but will go a long way toward overcoming "the flaws of the welfare system for the people who are trapped in it."

The president told a White House gathering the legislation also should end the scapegoating and politicking that has surrounded the welfare debate for decades.

"When I sign it, we all have to start again," Clinton said. "And this becomes everybody's responsibility. After I sign my name to this bill, welfare will no longer be a political issue.

"The two parties cannot attack each other over it. Politicians cannot attack poor people over it. There are no encrusted habits, systems and failures that can be laid at the foot of someone else.

"This is not the end of welfare reform, this is the beginning, and we have to all assume responsibility," Clinton added.

In a talk that seemed aimed at liberals who have accused him of betraying poor children, the president said he and Congress can correct what's wrong with this bill, but they could not afford to miss the chance to fix a system that does not reinforce the values of work and family.

Clinton

He quoted Robert F. Kennedy, who said, "Work is the meaning of what this country is all about. We need it as individuals. We need to sense it in our fellow citizens, and we need it as a society and as a people."

Said Clinton: "Today, we are taking an historic chance to make welfare what it was meant to be, a second chance, not a way of life."

"If it doesn't work now, it's everybody's fault: mine, yours and everybody else," Clinton said. "There is no longer a system in the way."

The president vetoed two earlier bills which he said contained too little protection for poor children, but said this one contains $14 billion for child care -- $4 billion more than the present law.

"I signed this bill because this is an historic chance, where Republicans and Democrats got together and said we're going to take this historic chance to try to recreate the nation's social bargain with the poor," he said. "We can change what is wrong. We should not have passed this historic opportunity to do what is right."

Clinton uged businesses, non-profit agencies and individuals -- anyone who's ever made a disparaging comment about welfare recipients, he said -- to consider what they can do to help someone move from the welfare rolls to employment rolls.

gathering

Clinton was introduced by Lillie Harden, one of those "success stories" that politicians love to surround themselves with.

A resident of Little Rock, she first meet Clinton in 1984 when he was governor. After getting benefits for two years, she enrolled in an experimental program called "the Arkansas Work Program." In 1986, at the National Governors Convention, Clinton held her up as an example of how welfare reform can work. Today she works in the deli department of a supermarket and supports her four children.

Asked about opposition to the bill, even by groups normally allied with the president, such as the National Organization for Women, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said: "We acknowledge there are strong feelings against this bill amongst those who are traditionally supportive of the president and president's party. But the president is determined to make welfare reform work; he promised the American people that we would reform welfare as we know when he ran in 1992."

This was the week's third bill signing, part of the White House's effort to generate momentum going into the Democratic convention, which starts Monday in Chicago. Earlier, Clinton signed legislation boosting the minimum wage and guaranteeing the portability of health insurance, when workers change or lose jobs.

Welfare's Changing Face

By Dan Froomkin
Washingtonpost.com Staff
Updated July 23, 1998

Welfare as we knew it no longer exists.

The 61-year American tradition of guaranteeing cash assistance to the poor came to an end with the signing of legislation in August 1996.

Under the old system, founded during the Great Depression, the federal government provided fairly uniform benefits to the nation's poor – mostly mothers and children – without regard to the details of their personal circumstances, and with no time limit.

But over time, the system became increasingly unpopular. Political opinion turned against the idea of anyone getting rewarded for being idle. Social critics said welfare was responsible for a permanent underclass of people living off government checks because the incentives to go to work were so weak.

Now, a federal system that was once fairly consistent has been turned over to the states, where programs are diverging widely. And it is far from clear whether the poor will be better or worse off


  • The New System

    The welfare "reform" of the Clinton era consists of two major elements: a revolutionary change in the basic goals set by the federal government; and a dramatic "devolution" of responsibility – turning what used to be a federal, centralized system over to the states.

    Reflecting the new federal mission, welfare rules now:

    The devolution to the states is in some ways even more dramatic. Traditionally, the federal government set eligibility guidelines on a national basis, then parceled out money to the states to fund specific programs at certain levels. But now, the federal money allocated for public assistance is sent to the states in block grants. The federal role is limited to setting goals, financial penalties and rewards.

    States and even counties are designing their own programs for the poor, picking and choosing from approaches they hope will get results.

    Many of the new approaches require subjective judgements. A human being has to decide when individual recipients are, say, ready for work and should be cut off from assistance. By and large, those responsibilities are falling to welfare caseworkers – who in the past did little more than hand over checks.

    As a result, assistance to the poor, which used to be pretty recognizable anywhere you went in the United States, now differs dramatically from state to state, from county to county, and even from caseworker to caseworker.

    _
    Some Examples

    Some states and counties are adopting tactics that are much more assertive than the federal guidelines suggest.

    Wisconsin is widely considered on the cutting edge. The state is pursuing an aggressive course that combines strict work requirements with an unrivaled support system. For instance, welfare mothers considered able to work will soon lose their checks, regardless of whether they have a job. But at the same time, community service jobs are being enormously expanded, as is spending on child care.

    In New York City, some welfare recipients are working off their monthly checks by sweeping streets, cleaning parks and doing other municipal chores.

    Twenty-five states are instituting "diversion" programs, one-time payments meant to keep families from ever coming onto the welfare rolls. In some states, including Virginia, families who accept a lump sum for staying off the rolls are barred from receiving welfare for a certain period of time.

    Numerous states are requiring individualized "personal responsibility" contracts, spelling out when adults must go to work and the length and type of training they will receive.

    _
    The Concerns

    The old system was often criticized for granting benefits to people who didn't deserve them – and should instead have been working. But the new system creates the distinct possibility that people who do deserve assistance will be denied it. And because most public assistance goes to families, many of the victims would inevitably be children.

    Standardization, for all its drawbacks, also ensured a certain kind of blind fairness. In the new system, there is so much discretion involved that civil-rights activists wonder whether minorities and people with drug problems will be dealt with fairly, and whether people with legitimate reasons for not being able to work will nevertheless be cut off from assistance.

    All the variation in public assistance could lead to migrations of welfare recipients to places where benefits are more generous.

    And some worry that the result could be a "race to the bottom" as local governments reduce benefits in an attempt to avoid attracting more poor people – or even drive them out entirely.

    _
    The Politics

    Politically, welfare reform is perhaps the most conspicuous example of how President Clinton adopted – some say co-opted – parts of the Republican agenda. Historically, Democrats had defended the old welfare system against GOP attacks.

    Clinton defined himself as a centrist Democrat in his 1992 campaign in part by promising to "end welfare as we know it." After the Republican takeover of Congress, he fended off certain GOP welfare provisions but ultimately signed a bill that liberal members of Congress considered much too cruel to the poor.

    In another notable reversal, it is generally liberals who champion social engineering – and conservatives who scoff at the idea that government should try to change individual behavior. Now it is conservatives who most strongly support certain welfare rules, including the family cap and a requirement that most teenage parents live with their own parents in order to receive benefits.

    When Clinton signed the welfare legislation, critics from the left berated him in particular for the provision that stripped disability and health benefits from legal immigrants. Clinton vowed to "change what is wrong" about the bill and, defying the skeptics, ultimately got Congress to restore those benefits during the balanced-budget negotiations in July 1997.

    _
    Where It Stands

    Supporters of the recent changes in welfare maintain that they will be good for the poor, bringing many of them out of subsidized poverty and into the world of work. Clinton has stumped hard for programs that would help welfare recipients get jobs, training, child care and medical care. He has also encouraged both the private and public sectors to go out of their way to offer jobs to welfare recipients.

    But the evidence suggests that getting the vast majority of welfare recipients into jobs will be difficult. While two thirds of welfare recipients are either on assistance only for a short time, or on-and-off, the remaining third have proven impervious to prior attempts to find them lasting work. For some, the problems are concrete and potentially addressable: lack of child care or transportation. For others, notably those who have never held a job, the problems are harder to tackle: poor health or lack of skills, desire or confidence.

    Will the new welfare system help or punish the poor? Even the results so far are in dispute. On the one hand, public assistance rolls continue to decline sharply – 12 percent in the year after the reform legislation was passed. That decline prompted Clinton to declare that "We now know that welfare reform works."

    But critics attribute much of the drop to a robust economy. They worry about what will happen during the next recession, when jobs become scarce and local governments are looking for ways to cut their budgets.

    And they wonder whether some of the decline in the rolls consists of a new underclass, this one composed of people so disenfranchised and destitute that the government no longer even knows they exist.

    © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company


  • Bill Clinton on Welfare & Poverty

    President of the U.S., 1993-2001; Former Democratic Governor (AR)


    Biblically-inspired social justice, especially serving poor

    Clinton holds to an evangelical theology, affirms the doctrines of the Apostles' Creed, and "believes the Bible to be an infallible message from God." Clinton's commitment then and today is to biblically inspired social justice. "He is especially committed to living out the 2,000 verses of Scripture which call upon us to respond to the needs of the poor," says a pastor. "Both in the presidency and since leaving the presidency, the verses concerning serving the poor have guided his life."
    Source: God and Hillary Clinton, by Paul Kengor, p.173 Jul 18, 2007

    Reform attacked by Christian left; but genuine middle ground

    The historic 1995 welfare reform initiative between Bill Clinton and the new Republican Congress sought to decentralize the way that welfare was delivered. To this day, this remains the most genuine overture by Bill or Hillary toward a truly middle groun initiative.

    Marian Wright Edelman wrote to Bill: "Do you think the Old Testament prophets Isiah, Micah, & Amos--or Jesus Christ--would support such policies?" It was a display of moral arrogance by Edelman. Sure, Jesus wanted Christians to help the poor, as Christian Republicans and Democrats knew, but nowhere in the Gospel did the Messiah weigh in on whether he preferred centralizing or decentralizing Medicaid.

    Bill Clinton signed the bill. In response, Edelman's husband, Peter, resigned his post in the Department of Health and Human Services saying this was "the worst thing Bill Clinton had done." Contrary to Edelman's predictions, welfare-reform proved an enormous success, maybe the greatest domestic achievement of Clinton's presidency.

    Source: God and Hillary Clinton, by Paul Kengor, p.141-142 Jul 18, 2007

    Help Low-income Fathers Support their Children

    The Administration’s budget proposes $255 million for the first year of a new “Fathers Work/Families Win” initiative to promote responsible fatherhood and support working families, critical next steps in reforming welfare and reducing child poverty. These new competitive grants will be awarded to business-led local and state workforce investment boards who work in partnership with community and faith-based organizations, and agencies administering child support, TANF, food stamps, and Medicaid, thereby connecting low-income fathers and working families to the life-long learning and employment services created under the Workforce Investment Act and delivered through one-stop career centers.

    $125 million for new “Fathers Work” grants will help approximately 40,000 low-income non-custodial parents (mainly fathers) work, pay child support, and reconnect with their children.

    Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site Sep 6, 2000

    End welfare as we know it

    On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, fulfilling his longtime commitment to ‘end welfare as we know it.’ As the President said upon signing, “... this legislation provides an historic opportunity to end welfare as we know it and transform our broken welfare system by promoting the fundamental values of work, responsibility, and family.”

    The law contains strong work requirements, performance bonuses to reward states for moving welfare recipients into jobs and reducing illegitimacy, state maintenance of effort requirements, comprehensive child support enforcement, and supports for families moving from welfare to work -- including increased funding for child care. In May 1999, the Department of Health and Human Services released guidance on how states and local governments can use welfare block grant funds to help families move from welfare to work.

    Source: WhiteHouse.gov web site Sep 6, 2000

    Address Homelessness via federal, state, & county govt

    President Clinton and Vice President Gore have been committed to helping homeless Americans become more self-sufficient. HUD alone has invested nearly $5 billion in programs to help homeless people since 1993 -- more than three times the investment of the previous Administration. The Continuum of Care approach has helped more than 300,000 homeless people get housing and jobs to become self-sufficient. The Continuum of Care made clear that homelessness was more than simply a housing problem, and focused attention on long-term solutions which included housing as well as job training, drug treatment, mental health services, and domestic violence counseling. The Administration is also proposing to expand access to mainstream health, social services, and employment programs for which the homeless may be eligible through a new $10 million program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, States, and large counties.
    Source: HUD Statement before House Veteran’s Affairs Subcommittee Jun 24, 1999

    Welfare-to-work, instead of welfare as a way of life

    For 15 years, going back to my service as governor of Arkansas, I have worked to reform welfare, to make it a second chance and not a way of life. As a result, Arkansas became a national leader in reforming a wide range of family and welfare programs. I helped write the 1988 federal welfare reform bill.

    [As president], we cut welfare red-tape and approved welfare-to-work programs for 40 states. And it has worked. There are 1.3 million fewer people on welfare today than there were when I took office. Food stamp rolls are down by more than 2 million.

      In 1991, I said we needed to end welfare as we know it. Now, with the passage of new welfare reform legislation, we have an opportunity to establish a new system based on the following principles:
    1. It should be about moving people from welfare to work.
    2. It should impose time limits of welfare benefits.
    3. It should give people the child care and health care assistance they need to move from welfare to work without hurting their children.
    Source: Between Hope and History, by Bill Clinton, p. 66-68 Jan 1, 1996

    Welfare reform includes states, communities, & businesses

    [My proposed welfare reform law] gives states and communities the chance to move people from dependence to independence and greater dignity. But the real work is still to be done. States and communities have to make sure that jobs and child care are there. They can use money that used to go to welfare checks to pay for community service jobs or to give employers wage supplements for several months to encourage them to hire welfare recipients. They should also provide education and training when appropriate and must take care of those who, through no fault of their own, cannot find or do work. These are important new responsibilities not just for welfare recipients, but for states, communities, and businesses. But is welfare reform is to work, all must shoulder their responsibilities.

    This reform is just a beginning. We must implement this legislation in a way that truly moves people from welfare to work, and that is good for children. We will be refining this reform for some time to come.

    Source: Between Hope and History, by Bill Clinton, p. 69-70 Jan 1, 1996





    SEE

    Fire Democrats?


    Obamaphenom



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    Sunday, January 20, 2008

    Fire Democrats?


    If they had done this; Fire employees that can't speak English? there would have been far fewer Democratic voters in the Nevada primary yesterday.

    The Democratic Caucuses held in Casino hotels had to scramble to provide translators yesterday for the predominately Spanish speaking hotel workers members of the Culinary Workers Union.

    The candidates have competed hard for Hispanic voters,
    who make up 40% of Culinary members and 11% of registered voters in the state. This week, Clinton and Obama unveiled dueling Spanish-language TV ads and dueling endorsements: Richard Chavez, brother of the late labor leader Cesar Chavez, for her, and Maria Elena Durazo — a top Los Angeles labor official — for him.


    That is the reality of immigrant labour in America. It is predominately Latino's and not all of them are illegal. But the reality is that English is not their first language either. The nativist anti-immigrant movement of the Republican Right and Lou Dobbs and Company lump all Latino workers together, whether they are American citizens, guest workers or 'illegals'.


    SEE:

    Horse and Carriage


    West Side Story

    Sub Prime Exploitation

    Farmer John's Robot



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    Saturday, January 19, 2008

    Nevada A Tie


    For second place getween Ron Paul and John McCain. It's a statistical tie, yet one announcer on MSNBC announced earlier that when McCain had a few votes ahead of Paul, that it was a 'lead' for McCain. Now CNN predicts a tie. Yet Paul has beaten McCain, by the numbers. Paul is in the lead. He places second. But as usual this will get no press.

    Its a conspiracy of silence, the media isn't talking to or about Paul. Despite his beating front runners McCain and Huckabee, and wannabes Thompson and Giuliani.He has consistently scored above Giuliani the Great White Hope from New York yet nary a comment from the pundits about him.



    REPUBLICAN CAUCUSES January 19, 2008

    Race
    Status
    Candidate
    State Del.*
    %
    Del*
    Precincts
    Nevada
    Updated 1 minute ago



    21,537
    52%
    18
    95%
    reporting

    5,345
    13%
    4

    5,244
    13%
    4

    3,266
    8%
    2

    3,203
    8%
    2

    1,777
    4%
    1

    811
    2%
    0

    0
    0%
    0


    Nary a word about Paul not on Fox or MSNBC or CNN or heck even CNBC. Even though he has come in second twice now, first in Wyoming and now in Nevada. And he came in fourth behind Huckabee in Michigan.

    Considering this deliberate media campaign of silence over Paul's candidacy and his campaign he still is getting support from the libertarians in the Republican base and independents.


    While the media focuses on Evangelicals they overlook the importance of the libertarians and Barry Goldwater Republicans that have converged around Paul.

    And he is getting their cash
    Ron Paul MLK "Money Bomb" is Coming Up Monday, January 21

    And he still has more delegates than Republican establishment wannabe Giuliani.

    While some pundits see Huckabee as the anti-establishment candidate the Republican leadership fears. Paul is the disestablishmentarian candidate that the whole neo-con establishment fears.

    SEE:

    Who's the Loser?

    New Hampshire Polling Puts Paul Fourth


    The Secret Of Ron Paul's Success

    Fox Vs. Paul

    Huckabee: Paul is Dead.


    Gravel and Paul on PBS

    Republican Presidential Paul-itics

    Libertarians for U.S. President

    Ron Paul



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    Friday, January 11, 2008

    Smearing Paul

    I came across this article on Ron Paul being associated with the American Nazi party, posted on Indymedia. It is innuendo and a drive by smear.

    Like this one or this one. We can expect to see more of them in the coming days resurfacing as Paul's campaign gains momentum and becomes more visible in the MSM.

    Now the smear campaign makes it into the main stream press. It began last fall and gained more attention during the New Hampshire primary .The smear campaign comes from the left and the right.

    First, the New York Times claims that Ron Paul is in cahoots with KKK racists. Then they retract the story because the paper failed to properly investigate its own story. Jamie Kirchick of the pro-war publication "New Republic", owned in part by Roger Hertog (a neoconservative), went on Tucker Carlson's show tonight to supposedly prove that Ron Paul is a racist, that he called Martin Luther King horrible things and is a secessionist (i.e. he probably supports slavery as well).

    On the Tucker Carlson Show, The New Republic’s Jamie Kirchick accused Ron Paul of engaging in a massive conspiracy to propagate a racist agenda by speaking to white supremacists in code. He explained that when regular viewers and Paul supporters think they are hearing a typical stump speech or a press interview, they are actually the witless pawns of Paul and his real, intended audience. Sure, it sounds like Paul is spreading a message of freedom and liberty, but Kirchick insists that Paul has woven an encoded message of hate into his live-and-let-live platform. Kirchick did not explain how he managed to crack the code. Nor did he explain why Paul chooses to spread his message this way rather than, you know…using telephones.

    Alyssa Lopez | January 8, 2008, 1:40am |
    #James Kirchick is a Giuliani supporter



    Of course American politics is the politics of conspiracy and conspiracy theories, has been since the founding of the republic. You can't have a revolution after all without a conspiracy of equals.

    And of course Paul like other fringe political candidates has support amongst well the fringe, where conspiracy theories abound like jelly beans. And some of these folks are racist, antisemitic, red necks. But that doesn't mean Paul is.
    After all he is a genuine libertarian not a poser like Ted Morton.

    But to smear his libertarian politics as racist or Nazi is to misunderstand American libertarianism. It is a desperate attempt to equate libertarianism with secessionist white nationalism, etc. deliberately divorcing it from its roots in the traditions of Lysander Spooner, Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker,Lucy Parsons, Voltairine de Cleyre , Emma Goldman, etc.

    And later in the Sixties with the New Left Alliance of Murray Rothbard and Sam Konkin with the likes of Carl Davidson and Carl Oglesby of the SDS. This is tradition that Paul comes from, not the Ayn Rand Objectivism of the right wing conservative establishment as exemplified by Allan Greenspan.

    It is the same smear that has been used against other anarchists be it Proudhon, who was accused of antisemitism and mysogny, or Bakunin, again antisemitism. Or Aleister Crowley, who deliberately and with calculated glee made outrageous sexist and racist statements to upset the staid Edwardian bourgeois. Rather than argue their ideas, one focuses on their political foibles. In Bakunin's case his fatal alliance with Nechayev. Antisemitism is also a smear that has been used against Marx to devalue his theories. It is the oldest canard and apparently still a useful one.

    This smear campaign against Paul can be seen in the same light. On the right it is the desperation of the War Mongering Imperialist establishment. On the left it is fear of his growing popularity amongst the anti-war left, progressives and liberals.

    Ron Paul Statement on The New Republic Article Regarding Old Newsletters

    Tue Jan 8, 2008 4:26pm EST
    ARLINGTON, Va.--(Business Wire)--
    In response to an article published by The New Republic,
    Ron Paul issued the following statement:

    "The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do
    not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never
    uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.

    "In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that
    we should only be concerned with the content of a person's character,
    not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S.
    House on April 20, 1999: 'I rise in great respect for the courage and
    high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of
    individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.'

    "This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade.
    It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the
    day of the New Hampshire primary.

    "When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a
    newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several
    writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have
    publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention
    to what went out under my name."




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