Will the Real Hillary Clinton Stand Up?

Last Sunday, the attractive and alluring Christina Fernández de Kirchner rode into the Argentinean presidency on the cusp of her husband and President, Néstor Kirchner. “Es la hora del pueblo”, It is the people’s time intones the Argentinean singer Teresa Parodi on Christina Kirchner’s official website. Christina won a clear mandate 44%, from the Argentinean electorate, 23% above her nearest rival. Her election cements the Kirchner dynasty in Argentinean politics, and it will allow her husband to be reelected after her term according to the Argentinean constitution. Christina, a Peronista, has been compared to the former vice president and first lady of Juan Perón, the still venerated Evita Perón. She has also been compared to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Christina is the first female Argentinean president to be elected to office, and she is currently riding a wave of popularity. This is definitely the era of the woman in global politics.

Uxorial politics, a tradition in Argentina, is coming to the United States. Like Christina, Hillary Clinton seems to be riding a wave of popularity among her constituency beating out both Edwards and Obama by a wide margin. She will almost certainly win the Democratic nomination, and probably the presidency. I do not understand it.

Saturday, I was listening to Bob Brinker’s money talk. I occasionally listen to his show because he does sometimes have good insight into the market. He correctly predicted the dot-com crash. However, Brinker also had some disastrous predictions, and had you followed him then, the effects to your portfolio could have been dire.

Brinker’s show is usually never political in nature, but I was amazed at the volume of callers who were concerned about what a Clinton presidency would do to investor’s portfolios. This does not bode well for consumer confidence. There is a lot of concern and trepidation among investors about the impact raising taxes will do to their investments, and Hillary has promised to raise taxes.

These are just some of the comments made by Brinker to caller’s responses

HILARY AND CAPITAL GAINS TAX: Brinker guessed that she would settle for 20%, but she might want more, “……..because she is a big believer in re-distributing the wealth. She really loves that notion of re-distributing, so she might want more.” On dividends, “She hasn’t made it clear." On income tax, “Over $200,000, you are getting a tax increase.”
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BOB BRINKER TAX WARNING: “So what does this mean? It means you have the balance of this year and all of next year to make money at today’s income tax rates – maximum federal 35, capital gains 15, dividends, qualified dividends, 15-Federal. You have until the end of 2008 because George W. Bush is not going to raise your taxes. "
(source: (http://honeysbobbrinkerbeehivebuzz.blogspot.com/2007/10/moneytalk-summary-october-28-2007.html) Honeybee’s summary of Bob Brinker’s Moneytalk radio show

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I have never seen an election since I have been voting where raising taxes, (a central platform of the Democrats), is a plus rather than a negative. Hillary doesn’t even lie about it. Hillary makes no qualms about raising taxes. She continuously touts new ideas such as $5,000 baby bonds, matching 401K contributions. Adding up all her programs could increase the average family’s taxes in real terms by more than 20%. These taxes would be enacted as the United States continues to reel from the subprime mortgage debacle, and as the dollar continues to fall against major currencies. This can only be a recipe for disaster.

When Bill Clinton left office, the country was on the verge of a recession due to the dot-com crash. A year and a half later, during the second Bush administration, the twin towers were hit. The impact of the dot-com crash was still being felt. The ephemeral patriotism of the country soon led to a decline in consumer confidence. Had Bush raised taxes, we would have gone into a recession, but he didn’t, he decreased taxes. This increased consumer confidence, and we averted the recession that pundits said we were going to have. Now we are facing another crisis. It will take years before the cost of this subprime debacle is fully realized, and Hillary plans to raise taxes. This will throw us into a recession. This doesn’t even count the cost of Hillary care, which will make the cost of Bush’s Medicare plan seem like petty cash.

Hillary believes that redistribution of wealth is good for America. She believes in big government. The government will take care of you. This is the opposite of laissez-faire capitalism, and it will impede economic growth.

The Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter coined a term which he described was the central dynamic of capitalism, “creative destruction.” Creative destruction is the process of destroying the old (the obsolete) while creating the new. Some examples that underwent the way of creative destruction are the telegraph, the selectric typewriter, the railroad, and the computer chip. Creative destruction is necessary for capitalism to work. Governmental interference impedes this process

As creative destruction takes place, employees are displaced. Employees must have to continuously acquire new skills and knowledge to advance or maintain their place in society. It has been proven time and time again that creative destruction makes a nation wealthier (including the poor.) Innovation and risk taking are the hallmarks of creative destruction. All socio-economic classes take part in this process.

Human tendency, however, is to avoid change, and to want security. Change and insecurity are essential components of creative destruction. The creative destruction component of capitalism causes societies to gravitate towards socialist governments where the government takes care of you from cradle to grave. Third world nations are very susceptible to Socialist governments. The thinking goes something like this, “It’s my right, and I am entitled to it.”

As Alan Greenspan notes in "The Age of Turbulence, Adventures in a New World."

Capitalism creates a tug-of war within each of us. We are alternately the aggressive entrepreneur and the couch potato, who subliminially prefers the lessened competitive stress of an economy where all participants have equal incomes.

Socialism has proven to impede economic growth in every society that has tried it. The more socialist a government, the less efficient an economy will be. This doesn’t seem to matter to Hillary. She still seems to believe in a socialized, centrally planned government in spite of all the evidence that such governments hurt economies.

Once entrenched in socialist style governments, governments find it difficult to extricate their way out. Citizens become used to the social net that is provided. Margaret Thatcher was a proponent of capitalism, and she took on Britain’s socialist policies with an iron hand. The new intrepid French president Nicolas Sarkozy has offered hope against France’s socialist policies including its 35 hour mandatory work week. In Switzerland, the far-right Swiss party has been gaining popularity and according to the Economist, has offered expulsion of foreign criminals, no EU entry, tax cuts—the SVP captured seven more seats in the National Council. With 62 seats and 29% of the vote, against 26.7% in 2003, it recorded the best result of any party since.

What is happening in Europe? A recent poll according to Alan Greenspan shows that 71% of Americans agree that the free-market system is the best economic system available, but only 36% of the French agree. Three-fourths of the French also prefer to work in the government sector, because the government offers security. France has double digit unemployment, a mandatory six week vacation, a mandatory 35 hour work week, and socialized health care. Taxes are a heavy burden on French society. The French view capitalism as “The law of the jungle.” The dichotomy is that while polls suggest that the French still view capitalism as an “evil.”, France elected Sarkozy, a protectionist, but a firm believer in free-markets. An ally of the United States, Sarkozy has promised France sweeping change.

Socialized health care has also proved to be deleterious on governments that practice it.

West Germany was forced to absorb East Germany into its social net after the fall of the Berlin wall. This proved to be a heavy burden on West Germany, and resentment grew among West Germans. Think illegal immigration.

Bush has destroyed the GOP. He has alienated his base from Immigration, the Medicare drug plan boondoggle to the deficit. But Hillary is not the answer, and all the other Democratic nominees are to the left of Hillary (if you can believe that.)

After decades of failed policies, Europeans are beginning to realize that with such heavy burdens on society, it is hard to compete in the global marketplace. Hillary, a European socialist, plans to take us in the direction of those same failed European policies.

Rudy Guliani was prescient when he said, “American can’t afford you (Hillary).”

Who needs Usama Bin Laden to destroy our economy when we have Hillary? If Hillary is elected president, she will take us down a path of “no return.” It will be decades before we can unravel the mess that Hillary will cause.

By Mark Dias


"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

Hillary Clinton

Vicente Fox Veracruz, Mexico

What does this remind you of? Vicente Fox has his dissenters. Maybe they didn't read his book, "Revolution of Hope." Oh, that's right, he wrote it in English. Oh and it wasn't even written by him. He used a ghost writer. That is what Hillary Clinton did in her autobiography. How does one call it an autobiography when the book is not written by the individual claiming to have written it. That is called a biography.

I read about a book a week, but I have a policy of sorts, never read a book written by a ghost writer. If the so-called writer can't take the time to write the book him/herself, I can't take the time to read it.

Pete Stark Stark Raving Mad - or a Contiuation of the Bush Derangement Syndrome

This lunatic happens to represent my area. I have gone to one of his town hall meetings, and they are love fests with all the liberals in the area. Of course, What do you expect from a town that is 90% liberal.

Pete Stark needs to go, but he is entrenched as deep as Kennedy is in Massachussets.

This has always been Pete Stark's modus operandi.

Flood his switchboard with phone calls 510-494-1388 (fremont) 202-225-5065 (Washington)

Interesting tidbit - Stark voted against the original S-CHIP bill, before he voted for this current S-CHIP bill which Bush rightly vetoed which began Stark's tirade. Sound familiar - I voted against it before I voted for it. He isn't partisan on the issue is he?

God help us all. This is what we have to expect if the liberals retake power.

The libs and Bush derangement syndrome

In my post "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I wrote,

The Democrats carp about our civil liberties, they carp about the patriot act, they carp about wiretapping and they carp about anything that will help against the war with Radical Islam. I would rather have my civil liberties a bit curtailed for a little bit of safety. Of course, No liberal can ever point to anything different that has prevented them from doing what they did before 9/11. In other words, big brother is not watching anymore now than it was then. Google keeps records of anyone who enters anything into its search engine with the corresponding ISP address. You visit porn sites, Google will know about it. You visit hate sites, Google will know about it, Google knows what you look at and its advertisement is target specific. By knowing the sites you visit, Google can target its advertising to specific markets. The majority of sites you visit will generate small software programs in your computer called cookies. Most are innocuous, but some track sites you visits. In effect anyone who uses the Internet is being monitored by third party entities more than any government entity, but liberals continue to use the Internet, and you never hear them carp about their civil liberties being abused by Google or any other third party.

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Well, in today's news we find this about Yahoo.

Callahan testified that in the case of Chinese dissident Shi Tao, Yahoo did not know who the e-mail address belonged to or why the Chinese police were seeking the information.

The information Yahoo gave the government - including an IP address, log-on history and contents of e-mails - helped the Chinese track down and arrest Shi, a dissident who used a pseudonym to post information about a government crackdown on Chinese media. Shi posted the information on an overseas Web site, Democracy Forum.

At the time Callahan testified about the case in February 2006, Chinese police had written Yahoo that they sought evidence about Shi in a case in which he was suspected of "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities," according to documents released in July by the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based human rights group.

Yahoo officials said that Callahan did not try to mislead the committee, and that he did not know that a Chinese lawyer working for a Yahoo subsidiary had been notified of the police's "state secrets" complaint against Shi.

"This issue revolves around a genuine disagreement with the committee over the information provided," Tracy Schmaler, Yahoo's spokeswoman in Washington, said. "We had hoped that we could work with the committee to have an open and constructive dialogue about the complicated nature of doing business in China."

Yahoo and other Internet companies have said that when police in China or other countries seek information on users, it's difficult to distinguish between legitimate law enforcement requests and cases of political persecution.

Shi is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for "divulging state secrets abroad," which human rights groups say means he was criticizing the government. Shi has appealed the verdict and is also seeking damages in a U.S. court against Yahoo and its Hong Kong-based subsidiary

I have yet to hear the libs complain about invasion of privacy with Yahoo, but yet libs will continue to click away at their keyboards knowing full well they are being watched, and Yahoo or Google will know every click heretofore.

There could be only one answer to this folly, and that is "Bush Derangement Syndrome."

Make sure to get innoculated so you are not infected.

A GOP Debate Starring the Geriatric Fred Thompson

click image to enlarge

Yes, once again I sat through the two hour debate the other day, so I thought I would post my observations. I missed a little of it, because I was trying to help my daughter for an English exam, and that of course, was infinitely more important than watching nine buffoons vying for attention to see who can get in the most memorable sound bite. Helping my daughter with her homework also prevented me from falling asleep.

Statistics were thrown around by the candidates and moderators alike. I wonder how many of these statistics are actually true. I would venture a guess that probably a good portion of the statistics is just wrong, but who would know? There should be a fact check site where we could check the accuracy of these statistics.

So on to the candidates ---

Ron Paul,

If anything, you have to admit Ron Paul is entertaining. One wonders how this dolt ever made it to public office. He actually said something with which I agreed. When other candidates were saying the government should continue paying for farming subsidies including ethanol, Ron Paul was against it. I guess he does understand the concept of a free market.

In one part of the debate, Ron Paul started flailing his arms about yelling that the United States needed congressional approval before launching an attack against Iran. He then said, In 220 years Americas has never been under imminent attack. Guliani chimed in and retorted that there were 23 plots against the United States since 9/11. I am betting that 23 figure is correct since Guliani was probably just waiting to use it. There was no response from the other candidates. Somewhat puzzling.

Okay – I am going to give all the candidates help with this one – Pearl Harbor!!!! Can you believe it? Not one of the candidates mentioned it. They should have watched the recently aired PBS special The War by Ken Burns.

Fred Thompson,

Needless to say, I am not enamored of Fred Thompson like so many of my fellow conservatives seem to be. Here are a few adjectives that I would use to describe good ole Fred during the debate: laconic, lackluster, lethargic, uninspiring, humdrum, insipid, geriatric, and torpid. I think I have adequately described Fred – Reagan, he is not. I don’t think a moribund candidate who appears excessively tired can ever win the presidency especially against Hillary. Remember the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon Debate?

Chris Matthew did try to stump him with a gotcha question, “Who was the Prime Minister of Canada?" and Thompson retorted, “Harper.” – That was good. I actually forget what the original question was, since I was so impressed with him knowing who the Canadian Prime Minister was. He nailed it – so there Chris Matthew!!. Now Matthew should have asked the other candidates some additional “Are you smarter than a 5th grader questions.” Come on, let’s be fair.

Mitt Romney,

The poster boy for Mattel’s Ken (Barbie’s friend), in my opinion, was never electable anyway. For too many evangelicals, Mormonism is a cult, and without the evangelical vote, you can’t win the Republican nomination.

In any event, Mitt made his biggest guffaw when he said he would consult with his attorneys before he goes to war with Iran.

Tom Tancredo, Mike Huckabee

What’s the point of talking about them, they aren’t going to even be a blimp on the radar screen come election time, and they have no money anyway.

Rudy Guliani,

There is so much about Guliani I do not like, but I believe he is the only viable candidate who has a chance at beating Hillary, and Hillary must be beaten at all cost.

Guliani is fiscally conservative, and he will be a good warrior in the war against radical Islam.

There is a movement afoot led by Doctor James Dobson and other evangelical leaders to bring in a 3rd party candidate. If this happens, Hillary will win by a landslide as predicted by a recent Ramussen poll. This will be a huge mistake.

I agree with Dr Dobson on most everything, but I disagree with him on this. As a Christian and a conservative republican, I believe we can only further our cause if we can prevent the Democrats from regaining power. A vote for a third party candidate or a vote not cast at all is a vote for Hillary.

I understand the frustration with Guliani, but I am not willing to hand over the presidency to Hillary without a fight. Four years of Hillary can devastate this country and this economy.

Because of Guliani’s position on abortion, many pro-lifers will not vote for him. I look at this as an absurd position. Would it have been better for him to change positions as so many politicians do for political expediency, or is it better for him to maintain his honesty? He has said he will put strict constructionists on the bench, judges who interpret the constitution rather than legislate. If we had strict constructionists on the bench during Roe v. Wade, Roe v. Wade would never have become law, because there is nothing in the constitution that gives a woman a right to an abortion. If Roe v Wade is overturned, the issue of abortion will just revert back to the states anyway.

There was a point when I would never have voted for a pro-choice candidate, but after 9/11 that changed. We can choose to stay home and let Hillary win. We can choose to vote for a 3rd party and let Hillary win, or we can choose to be apathetic and let Hillary win. The war against radical Islam is now paramount in my mind.

There is no other Republican candidate that can beat Hillary!!! None!!

Judges under a Hillary presidency will be much worse than anyone Guliani would appoint to the bench.

We have people in Islamic countries actively pursuing our demise. The Democrats have attempted to dismantle every measure put forth to keep us safer. Most Democrats don’t even believe there are people trying to kill us. Democrats believe We can just talk to our malevolent dictators and hope they will listen (you know like Stalin and Chamberlain did during World War ll with Hitler) and then invite them to our universities. If there is a nuclear bomb dropped, it won’t matter whether or not we have choice on anything.

If Hillary is elected, she will dismantle much of what the Republicans have put in place to fight the war on terror. She will head towards a far-left socialist agenda leaning towards a more centrally planned economy. It will be easy to pass her leftist agenda since both houses will be controlled by the Democrats.

The Economy

I surmised early on in this morass of a debate that these candidates fail to understand the basics of economics. Two books I suggest they read are Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations published in the 1700s, the first written account in the defense of a free market system. The second book I recommend was just published by Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence.

Chris Matthew asked McCain if Bernanke (he should have first asked him if he knew who the Fed chairman was.) should have lowered interest rates, McCain actually said, “He didn’t know. He was not an expert.” At least it was refreshing to see an honest politician. But then McCain continued, “it would be nice if interest rates were zero.” Huh? He should have stopped at the point where he said he wasn’t an expert, because saying it would be nice if interest rates were zero not only showed he wasn’t an expert, but it just showed he was stupid.

Interest rates control the liquidity in a free market. Rates are lowered if you need more liquidity in the market such as you needed in the subprime mortgage debacle. Rates are increased to decrease liquidity. You decrease liquidity if the economy is growing too fast, and you want to prevent inflation. It is a delicate balance.

I have a follow-up question for senator McCain, "If interest rates went to -0-, who would purchase our treasury bonds to finance our national debt?"

Continuing with the economy, Thompson adds that protectionism is a bad idea, but never expounds on why. Most of the electorate probably does not understand what these terms even mean, so the candidate needs to be able to explain why something is bad if he brings it up. Protectionism has always proven to be a failure. Protectionist policies or the idea of adding tariff barriers to prevent imports from entering into a country inhibits a free market and the free flow of capital. Countries were very protectionist before World War ll. These protectionist policies led to a decrease in international trade and eventually contributed to the collapse of world economic activity. Alan Greenspan writes is his book The Age of Turbulence, “The postwar liberalization of trade helped open up new low-cost sources of supply…it facilitated the foreword thrust toward global market capitalism even during the years of the cold war.” In essence, countries are wealthier because of non-protectionist policies.

I know the Democrats don’t understand the economy, but I thought the Republicans had a better grasp. I guess I was wrong. but how can you run for president if you do not understand how the economy works? Am I missing something?

Energy

I get so tired of hearing about ethanol. Ethanol won’t work, and all the candidates keep talking about it as the panacea to our energy crisis.

Guliani said France is using Nuclear Power – why aren’t we? Yeah!!! One of the first intelligent comments I have heard in the entire debate. But no one mentioned ANWAR.

This is what I think we should do to become energy independent. first, we should build nuclear power plants, second start drilling for oil. We have an abundant supply of oil, but we somehow would rather send our petrodollars to people who want to kill us, and third look for feasible alternative energy sources. But nuclear power and oil should be first on the agenda, because we already know they work, and then we can look for alternative energy sources. We should then do what Kennedy did when he made a vow to go to the moon in ten years. We need a vow to become energy independent within some time frame (what a concept!), but not by schemes like ethanol, but by using common sense and what we already know works first.

Instead of the global warming fraud, why don’t the candidates come out and say why global warming is pseudo science. There is sure plenty of evidence. But they not only jump on the band wagon, they want to subsidize alternative forms of energy. This is just plain not conservative, and it belongs on the Democratic aisle.

At the end of the debate, there was some repartee between Thompson and Romney. I guess Thomson still had some comebacks left over that he wanted to use. Needless to say, I didn’t think the exchange was funny. There was laughter, so others may have thought he was funny.

Democrats are winning because conservatives are forgetting why they are conservatives.

After this debate, I could only think to myself, we better start getting used to a Leftist, Socialist (Pinko-Commie) President Hillary and first man, Bill.

If Hillary is elected get used to hearing this:



A little bit of forced cackle

Gore and Thompson together

I think the truth about Gore's movie is finally coming out:

CNN Meteorologist Rob Marciano clapped his hands and exclaimed, "Finally," in response to a report that a British judge might ban the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" from UK schools because, according to "American Morning," "it is politically biased and contains scientific inaccuracies."

And Fred Thompson is not the white Knight we Republicans hoped for.

Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson acknowledged Wednesday that he's reversed his position on ethanol subsidies, saying his new stand is based on changes in energy prices and security issues.

Thompson spoke about the issue after touring an ethanol plant, one of dozens in Iowa, which leads the nation in ethanol production. The actor and former Tennessee senator was finishing a five-day trip to the state, where precinct caucuses begin the presidential nominating process

Fred needs only to tour an ethanol plant to reverse his position. Hmmm - not bad. It might help him if he did a little research on the subject. I wonder how Fred Thompson does when he needs to buy a new car? Does he actually believe what the salesmen tell him without checking out the car himself. Maybe he does. Corn ethanol is subsidized by the government, is corrosive, and economically not feasible. Remember the MTBE fiasco. Ethanol is not the answer.

Maybe, he only needs to visit planned parenthood to see a crying teenager to reverse his position on abortion.

I think Rudy Guliani is our last great hope - don't blow it