Tag Archives: republican

My Anti-Clinton Bias

Posted on by
Reply

I voted Libertarian in 2000. I’ve never much liked the two party system that America has caught itself up into, but in 2004 I felt that Bush had so polarized the nation that voting for NotBush was an absolute necessity. When Conservatives started talking about Hilary running some a couple of years ago, I didn’t believe them. How could Democrats even think about running under the name Clinton after the absolute hell the media had put them through with his sex scandal? Clinton killed 16 civilians when he destroyed the headquarters of Radio Television Serbia in central Belgrade for distributing propaganda. He also killed 6 Iraqi civilians, including a famous artist, in a “retaliation” attack after the suppossed assassination attempt of Bush Sr. in Kuwait. He destroyed an important pharmaseutical plant in the Sudan that had meant the deaths of thousands of innocent people. He had been accussed by multiple women of being a rapist. Then there was the questionable last-minute pardon of Mark Rich and the disgraceful exit from the White House. Although none of these had any direct tie to Hillary, I always pictured them as a single political unit, and her re-entry into White House reflected a kind of tag-team mentality reminiscent of the Bush Dynasty. There are a lot of good, smart people out there who aren’t related to the former bad presidents we have had.

The YouTube debates were absolute crap and the snowman asking about global warming did not exactly help Conservatives take the issue more seriously. The AFL-CIO debate was a little better, but one person stood out as a question dodger and slogan beater and that was Hilary. And all the news comentators absolutely loved her for it. Chris Matthews referred to her “I’m your girl” comment as “post-feminist.” The other candidates made the usual number of bloopers and disputable claims. But by comparing the two using FactCheck.org, one can see that they rise the kind of lies and exaggerations normally found in a Republican debate.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/afl-cio_democratic_forum.html

http://www.factcheck.org/sunday_morning_missteps.html

I am just as determined to vote NotBush in 2008 as I was in 2004, but I’m not sure the complete catastrophe that was these last 7 years would make me want to vote for Clinton as the lesser of two evils.

Edwards, Obama, Richardson and Clinton on Energy

Posted on by
1

One thing I hate about campaign p is the complete lack of information about candidates, from television to newspapers to radio to campaign signs. Why does every sign say nothing other than “Vote ____ “, as if it’s a product to be purchased? Would it kill them to just add a quick fact below the name that actually articulates the reason for this subliminal command should be fulfilled? Every one of those signs implicitly says that they have more respect for the effects of commercialization on the subconcious than to reveal a position that might make people vote based on concious reason. Democrats just spend more time kissing each other’s asses than talking about what makes them distinct from the others, and the Republicans keep trying to out-Regean and out-Jack Bauer their own party affiliates.

So I was glad to see that the Daily Kos put up a graph comparing some of the Democrat nominees on their energy platforms. I’d like to see something similar only compare to other nominees, including Republican nominees.

Further down on the site you can find a video of O’Reilly red-faced, screaming about how much “hate” the Daily Kos has.

http://www.dailykos.com/

Energy policy area Edwards Obama Richardson Clinton
Plan detail level Medium Low High Low
CO2 reduction goal 15% by 2020, 80% by 2050 80% by 2050 20% by 2020, 80% by 2040, 90% by 2050 No policy
Post-Kyoto Yes: binding greenhouse reductions in trade agreements After we take first step; help developing countries with our technology Mandatory world-wide limits, help finance leapfrogging in developing countries No policy
CAFE 40 mpg by 2016 4% annual increase 35 mpg by 2016, 50 by 2020 No policy
Renewable electric standard 25% by 2025 No policy 30% by 2020, 50% by 2040 20% by 2020
Bio-fuels Goal of 65 billion gallons/year by 2025 (corn ethanol first, then cellulosic) National Low Carbon Fuel Standard: reduce fossil carbon in fuels by 5% in 2015, 10% in 2020; expand E85 and biodiesel life-cycle low carbon fuel standard – 30% lower by 2020 Part of Strategic Energy Fund
Carbon tax or cap and trade? Cap and trade Cap and trade Cap and trade Cap and trade
“Clean coal” freeze on new coal power until sequestration in place No freeze; use cap and trade market to decide by 2020 new plants have to emit 90% below today’s Fund R&D on “clean coal”
Energy R&D $13 billion/year New Energy Economy fund No policy Energy and Climate Investment Trust Fund – several billion dollars/year Part of Strategic Energy Fund
Solar/wind production tax credit make permanent No policy 10-year extension; add storage technology tax credit No policy
Oil company subsidies Repeal No subsidies that increase global warming Invite oil companies to become energy companies Eliminate tax breaks, create new “Strategic energy fund” – oil companies can invest in renewable energy themselves, or pay into the fund
Distributed generation $5000 tax credit, R&D, smart meters, smart grids No policy No policy No policy
Public transportation No policy No policy increase funding, tax incentives for passengers No policy
Buildings weatherizing and other efficiency No policy goal of 50% savings by 2030; incentives and regulations on retrofits and new buildings No policy
Improving Efficiency Goal-based; cut US govt energy use 20%, add R&D dollars Market-based; don’t prejudge what works Strong federal standards; efficiency resource program through utilities Market-based; invest in R&D
Other ideas GreenCorps – volunteers adding renewable/efficient infrastructure domestic auto makers get health care assistance for efficiency investments 100 mpg car, smart growth, bike and walking trails, more specifics “Apollo Project-like program” for energy independence

Zero Tolerance

Posted on by
3

When the government talks about “Zero Tolerance” in the War on Drugs, they are of course only talking about some drugs, and not only that, but some people who sell some drugs. For example, when Afghanistan was run by the Taliban, there were no drugs because the penalty for growing them was death. Now, 90% of the world’s heroin comes from Afghanistan, making it the number one export, but you won’t hear anything about it being a problem because that would endanger the lives of 3 million farmers. Of course the US could care less about that — they’ve destroyed the lives of plenty of cocoa growers in South America — but that would in turn bring public resentment against us, which undermines our war efforts there.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2007-05-20-edit_N.htm

During the Iran-Contra scandal, the CIA made an investigation of itself, and although it never admitted to selling cocaine to fund revolutionaries, they did admit to “getting in bed” with drug dealers in order to achieve their objectives.

The threat of drugs has also been used to further the immigration agenda of conservatives through the story of the cops who shot a Mexican drug carrier in the butt when he tried to evade them. The border agents, knowing what they did was wrong, picked up the shell casings and then filed a false report to cover up their actions, yet conservatives have tried to make these would-be murderers into heroes. Of course, if the man was white it would never have been a big story, but aside from the cover-up, it’s just what conservatives need to get the racist right wound up on their immigration policy, so the part about the coverup is routinely dropped. But ask those same conservatives if they would have appreciated it if their own son or daughter was shot while trying to flee the police in order to escape a drug conviction and that the cops then tried to cover the crime up and i’m sure you’d hear a different story.

http://www.cnsnews.com/Nation/Archive/200701/NAT20070126a.html

Immigration is of course a worthy topic of discussion, but rather than blaming liberals for convincing Bush (as if he would listen), conservatives should look at their own platform. Democrats may have a stronger Mexican vote, but its the business sector that has all the influence with the Republican Party and its in their best interests to keep illegals coming across the border because it means cheap labor for them. While conservatives are talking about constructing a giant wall and creating a mass transit system to move millions of illegals out of the country, they could have simply devised a system of making employers check their employees before they hire them. If illegals couldn’t get jobs here, they’d go back on their own, but that won’t happen because its not profitable for the Republicans who matter.

Meanwhile, the War on Drugs have gotten so out of hand that our Right to Free Speech has not become its newest casualty. Joseph Frederick, an 18-year-old adult, displayed a banner saying “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” in his car. The message is nonsensical and obviously made only for humor’s sake. The principal of his school took it down and suspended the student, despite the fact that the car was on a public sidewalk outside the jurisdiction of the school. But apparently jurisdiction and free speech are meaningless as long as there is a “reasonable” chance that a message implicitly promotes the illegal use of drugs, according to Bush’s Chief Justice appointee, John Roberts. As Justice John Paul Stevens said, “This case began with a silly nonsensical banner, (and) ends with the court inventing out of whole cloth a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs, so long as someone could perceive that speech to contain a latent pro-drug message.” The Bush Administration is, naturally, on the side of the principal, and its hard to doubt that John Roberts got the message before his own decision on the case.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/06/25/free.speech/index.html

But this opens up another case, while we’re sacrificing our civil liberties to the War of Drugs, the government is aiding and abedding the “enemy” for the sake of the War on Terror. Regardless of the circumstances, helping some drug deals while putting others away is nothing more than Protectionism, keeping prices high for one supplier by doing away with the competition. The gospels say, “you can not serve two masters,” and in the same way, you can’t fight two enemies with equal zeal. If the War on Terror really is the most pressing concern America has, then we shouldn’t have the time and money to be fighting this other unwinnable war. By legalizing or at least decriminalizing drugs, it would help bring down the black market and help put an end to all the violence associated with the drug trade. But that would be “declaring defeat.” Of course we haven’t even had a president who “just said no” in the past 15 years, but if its one thing conservatives are good at, its deluding themselves into believing in a an undefinable victory far, far into the future.