Suspend the Gas Tax? More Political Pandering from Hillary Clinton

As the price for a gallon of gas continues to climb, (around $3.90 in Los Angeles, and the national average $3.60) Hillary Clinton and John McCain have come up with revolutionary plans of suspending the gas tax. Basically every gallon of gas is taxed by the government (around 18%).

Both McCain and Clinton are celebrating the move to help "average" Americans this summer...But here is what the two politicians are NOT telling you.

1) That this suspended tax cut will save the "average" American somewhere between $25 and $60 as a result.
Wow, I don't know about you, but really as I've seen the cost to fill up my tank almost double the past two years...that $25 to $60 range will save me jack. Awesome, so glad that they are worried about helping me out so much.

2) In order to suspend the gas tax, they would have to pass the notion through Congress and get Presidential support.
So the summer seems like it's pretty fast approaching, and actually I don't see much sign of Bush support on the whole idea. Awesome.

DON'T WORRY THOUGH at least Hillary is pointing out Barack Obama's lack of compassion towards "average" Americans like you and I....She is (once again) proving her connection with small-town, every day people by working hard to ensure real change here in America.

Hillary actually released new ads this week blasting Obama for saying "No" to helping average Americans...(for good measure, her campaign threw in images of her with black factory workers, people she can obviously strongly connect with).

Obama dismisses the ad as a gimmick (why in the world would he think that? "Lets find some short term, quick fix, so that we can say we did something, even though we're not really doing anything..."

NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman called the Clinton/McCain plan, "Shameful pandering." While it would cut drivers a little break, Illinois recenly tried a gas tax and it saved everday citizens barely anything, with gas companies seeing an opportunity to fill the void with the potential of more profit.

Not to mention, this amazing plan would also "deprive the government of $10 billion of revenue used to maintain highways." Clinton said she would make up the money lost, by taxing the likes of Exxon Mobile and others.

Because of gridlock on Capitol Hill, Hillary Clinton is unlikely to be able to pass this idea anyway.

Awesome, I'm glad Hillary is using her platform to connect with real people and to help make real change.

Seems like politics as usual. A lot of smelly stuff, you don't want on your shoes.

Hey Bill, Give It A Rest

As you might have noticed, I've posted a few different Hillary Clinton claims and stories on this blog...mostly because I've found them to be fairly troubling. I want to say that when the Primaries began, I was pretty partial between Barack and Hillary. I thought Barack represented the politics of the future, a buzz and excitement about the opportunities, and that Hillary was "old school" politics, but I thought both would be good in office.

At this point, I've become extremely weary of the Hillary campaign. Divisive politics, a lot of media games, posturing....it's just tired. I actually still think Hillary would do a pretty decent job as President, but her style and approach has really turned me off to her as a person. (what's more, I actually think she's "better than that", much of her posturing due to the campaign's fear of coming off "weak" or "feminine" -- a sad reflection of our society because I agree that they need to be cautious with that.)

What's adding to this is the disappointing words from former Prez Bill Clinton. A man I have had great respect for (I would say admiration if it weren't for the extramarital affairs). One thing that typically stands out in my mind about past President's is their grace -- although I'm not sure this trend will continue with George W. Even with Bush Sr and Reagan, although I'm not crazy about some of their policies, there is an aura of respect and worth that stands out as they continue(d) to make a positive impact after their time in office.

That's where Bill gets me. He has come off these past six months as ANYTHING but gracious, adding only more bitter taste to the Clinton campaign. His comments in South Carolina have been debated on their intent and impact, but it was fairly clear to me, that his comments bore some aspect of race and ethnicity. (Bill does have a good record of working for rights for minorities, but he is still NOT a minority and is in no way excluded from the ability to make insensitive comments.) NOW, he's popping off again, with some very disturbing, "politics as usual" rhetoric...I think he could start to stain his legacy even more from this kind of graceless behavior (stain pun not intended).

- Bill Clinton also weighed in last week, saying, "This is contact sport if you don't want to play keep your uniform off." (from cnn.com)

Really Bill? Politics is a contact sport? I thought we were talking about impacting our nation and the people within it. Not pushing and shoving to get to a place where we "win". Keep your uniform off? So because Obama doesn't want to be in a "full contact sport" he shouldn't "play"? Wow...that's affirming.

- On the eve of Tuesday’s critical Pennsylvania primary, former President Bill Clinton accused Barack Obama’s campaign of playing the race card against him. After the phone interview with Delaware radio station WHYY Monday night, a stray comment of his on the issue was also recorded before he hung up: “I don’t think I should take any s*** from anybody on that, do you?” (from cnn.com)

Obama played the race card on you...so when you make comments that show relatively little class and Obama voices his belief on why YOUR comments were inappropriate, he is playing the "race card". Again, wow. Could it be Mr. President, that even you, the champion of all things colored, could possibly offend? No, and definitely, you shouldn't take that "s***" from anybody on that...you Mr. Millionaire are far, far above that. Give it a rest.

- Joining wife Hillary Clinton at a campaign rally on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, former President Bill Clinton argued that if Democratic candidates were awarded delegates the same way as Republicans, his wife would be beating Barack Obama in the race for the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination.
“If we were under the Republican system, which is more like the Electoral College, she'd have a 300 delegate lead here,” Clinton told the Washington Post. “I mean, Senator McCain is already the nominee because they chose a system to produce that result, and we don't have a nominee here, because the Democrats chose a system that prevents that result.” (from cnn.com)

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Bill run for office under these same standards for deciding a candidate? Why has he not mentioned the need to change this system before? Not to mention the fact that I think the Electoral College system is a joke. When a majority of people, in the country, put their voice behind one candidate, should that not be the candidate? I understand the reason and the history behind the Electoral College system, but it's also a model that I have been puzzled by...why not take the individual who is desired by more Americans?

Come on Bill, you're better than this. Pull it together. Try to act, more "Presidential". Rise above the politics of division and animosity. This country needs a change, and it needs its leaders. It's time to be one.

I promise, I am NOT trying to find these articles on Hillary...if similarly troubling articles on Obama were to cross my screen, they too would be questioned That being said...I'm really scared about the implications this article could have...

Hillary Clinton's Little-Noticed Israel Problem
Her position on Israel could mean a significant departure from longstanding U.S. policy. How come no one cares?

By Justin Elliott
April 3, 2008
MotherJones

Though Senator Barack Obama has never—neither in his Senate votes nor in his campaign literature—strayed from the conventional position of support for Israel, he has in this primary season been dogged by the issue. The flare-up last week surrounding Obama's allegedly "anti-Jewish" campaign cochairman, sparked by a piece in the conservative American Spectator magazine, was only the latest instance in which his foes have suggested that Obama has an "Israel problem." Yet even as Obama has been subjected to intense scrutiny, Senator Hillary Clinton has received virtually no attention for taking an unconventional position on Israel (albeit in a direction approved by pro-Israel hardliners). Her vow of support for Israel's claim on an "undivided Jerusalem," if enacted, would mark a major—and problematic—break with longstanding U.S. policy.

Under the heading "Standing with Israel against terrorism," Clinton's official policy paper, released last September and currently touted on her campaign website, states, "Hillary Clinton believes that Israel's right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, secure from violence and terrorism, must never be questioned." With the phrase "an undivided Jerusalem as its capital," Clinton seems to take a hardline position on a deeply contested facet of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a position like this should have garnered at least passing interest from the mainstream media. So how come nobody's paying attention?

The answer may lie within the long history of empty rhetoric on Jerusalem doled out by presidential candidates. Perhaps the lack of interest can be chalked up to uncertainty in how to interpret Clinton’s position. Or it may be that right-wing pronouncements that give short shrift to the Palestinian side are simply not seen as remarkable. (An exception to the media silence on Clinton’s position was the American Prospect's Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli.)

Clinton is toying with one of the few most important final-status issues that will have to be resolved as part of any two-state solution. Israel captured the eastern half of Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. While Israel has declared the whole of an expanded Jerusalem its capital, the international community views east Jerusalem as occupied territory and the potential capital of any future Palestinian state. In recognition of the contested status of Jerusalem, the United States and other countries maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv.

"Jerusalem is not only of political, religious, and emotional significance to Palestinians. It's the cultural and economic capital of any future state of Palestine. To carve out east Jerusalem from the rest of Palestine would be to deprive of it the geographic area which traditionally has been the heart of the Palestinian economy," said Philip Wilcox, a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer who served as consul general and chief of mission in Jerusalem and is now president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a D.C. nonprofit. "It's an absolute deal –breaker, and there will be no peace if there isn't an agreed political division of Jerusalem."

If opposing a compromise on Jerusalem is a deal breaker, one would think there would be more importance attached to Clinton's words—especially appearing in the unequivocal construction of Israel's "right to exist" that "must never be questioned." If Clinton did, as president, endorse Israel's annexation of all of Jerusalem, it could mean nothing less than a repudiation of the concept of a two-state solution. And while her position mirrors that of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), it actually puts her at odds with some prominent Israeli officials, notably Vice Premier Haim Ramon, who have publicly spoken about the need to cede the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. One explanation for this incongruity, offered by all of the half-dozen experts I spoke to on the subject, is that Clinton’s statement is nothing more than election-year rhetoric. That is, her stand may tell us more about the fraught politics of Israel/Palestine in the United States than it does about how a Hillary Clinton administration would approach the conflict.

"I think it is said in the knowledge that this is a rhetorical commitment only. And that all past presidents once coming to office have recognized that the problem of Jerusalem is one that has to be resolved through negotiations," Wilcox said. That interpretation would be in keeping with an old tradition of presidential candidates making empty promises on Jerusalem. A favorite, going back to Ronald Reagan, is to pledge to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush made and then broke that promise and, in so doing, had to repeatedly waive the requirements of a 1995 law—of which John McCain was one of 76 Senate cosponsors—demanding the embassy be moved.

This campaign season, none of the remaining candidates seem to have made that pledge, at least publicly. Earlier this month, however, Haaretz reported that a Clinton surrogate told a Cleveland audience that Hillary Clinton would move the embassy to Jerusalem. John McCain, for his part, was quoted on his Mideast trip last week as saying that he supported Jerusalem "as the capital of Israel"—a weaker formulation than Clinton's. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

So is there an electoral gain, at least perceived by the candidates and their advisers, to making these types of promises? While it's impossible to know how many American Jews would vote on the basis of Jerusalem, the most recent American Jewish Committee poll found 58 percent opposed to compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a "united city" under Israel's jurisdiction, putting them in line with Clinton. But the number of American Jewish voters is not that high. M.J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum, a dovish advocacy group in Washington, believes that voters simply aren't part of Clinton's calculus. Her Jerusalem position," he said, is "designed to appeal to money people. The single-issue donors in the Jewish community tend to be far to the right. It's throwing red meat out to some people who desperately want to eat some red meat. It's not a serious commitment."

But to discern whether Clinton is serious about moving the embassy or supporting an "undivided Jerusalem" as Israel's capital, one has to look at the history of her position and undertake the not-so-simple task of interpreting it.

Clinton's rhetoric dates back to when her husband was attempting to broker a compromise on the holy city. She first took the position in 1999, prior to announcing her candidacy for the U.S. Senate in New York. (It was later in the same campaign that Clinton was slammed for hugging and kissing Suha Arafat, the wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, at a ceremony on the West Bank, where Suha, speaking in Arabic, accused the Israeli government of using poison gas against Palestinian women and children. Hours after the event, Clinton condemned her.) "I personally consider Jerusalem the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel," she wrote in a letter to the president of Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, echoing the exact language favored by some Israeli politicians. That stand was interpreted in the media as an obvious pander, a play for support among the hardline segment of New York's sizable Jewish community. "Israel's new friend Hillary Clinton, born-again Zionist" read the headline in her hometown paper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. As Michael Tomasky later wrote in Hillary's Turn, his book about the 2000 campaign, "The Jerusalem question is always an issue in New York campaigns, and anyone running for dogcatcher in New York signs on to the position Hillary took."

Her position might have been New York politics as usual, but it had serious implications for her husband's administration. A spokesman for Bill Clinton's State Department immediately distanced the administration from her comments, saying that the "first lady was expressing her personal views" and that the U.S. position on Jerusalem—that it was a matter to be negotiated between the parties themselves—had "not changed."

And, yet, despite Hillary Clinton's strong words in '99 and today, there is still linguistic wiggle room that allows her to support the idea of a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem. "Well, [Clinton's statement] is strong, but if people are determined to be a little bit creative in the way they interpret these things, ‘undivided' sometimes literally means 'don't put the barbwire back up,'" said William Quandt, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia and a longtime observer of America's role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. "In 1967 there was a divided Jerusalem," he added, referring to the period before the 1967 war when Jerusalem was physically divided, a state of affairs to which no one wants to return. Clinton's campaign did not respond to a request for clarification of her position.

Then there's the ambiguity embedded in the very term "Jerusalem." James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, notes that it can be construed several ways. "Is it Jerusalem as defined by its municipal boundaries in 1967? Is it what Israel unilaterally and illegally annexed that was recognized by no one, including the United States government? Is it the expanded greater Jerusalem that now includes the settlement belt?"

But no matter how Clinton defines the borders of Jerusalem or whether the policy paper is intended as empty rhetoric, her position is emblematic of her record on Israel. As others have pointed out, her campaign position paper on Israel doesn't even mention a two-state solution. She virtually never utters the word "Palestinians." Her Senate website describes her as "a leader in supporting Israel's right to build the fence"—what others call the wall—that juts deeply into the West Bank and has been widely criticized for violating the human rights of Palestinians. She personally toured the barrier in late 2005. All this, and yet somehow Barack Obama is the only candidate whose position on Israel has drawn fire.

Hillary's "Instrumental" Role In Northern Ireland

Recently, Hillary Clinton has been flaunting her foreign policy experience in the bid for the Democratic nomination. Among recent claims of a life and death, sniper fire situation in Bosnia, Clinton claimed to have had an "instrumental role" in the Good Friday Agreement which brokered peace between the IRA, Sinn Fein and the British government in 1998.

Paul Bew had this to say about such ideas, "Calling her instrumental is silly....I can't think of anything to be said for the case that she had a major role." I wasn't necessarily ready to take his word as fatal until I came across Bew's credentials. "[Bew] is a prominent--perhaps the most prominent--historian of Northern Ireland. A professor at Queen's University Belfast, he last year published Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006, a much-acclaimed work, which is part of the Oxford University Press's Modern Europe series. Bew was once an adviser to David Trimble (the former First Minister of the Northern Ireland) and he was appointed to the House of Lords in 2007, in recognition of his own contributions to the Good Friday Agreement.

Hm.

Ugh, Another Hillary Mishap

Clinton drops hospital story from stump speech
Posted: 02:11 PM ET

Clinton campaigned in Montana Saturday.

(CNN) — Hillary Clinton’s campaign says the candidate will stop telling the story of an uninsured pregnant woman who lost the baby and died after being denied medical care, following a hospital raising questions over its accuracy.

Clinton has frequently told the emotional story of the woman from rural Ohio since late February. In the speech, Clinton said the woman made minimum wage working at a local pizza restaurant, without insurance, when she became pregnant. Clinton said the woman ran into trouble and went to a hospital in a nearby county but was denied treatment because she couldn’t afford a $100 payment.

In the speech, Clinton said the woman later was taken to the hospital by ambulance and lost the baby. The young woman was then taken by helicopter to a Columbus hospital where she died of complications.

As recently as Friday night in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Clinton said, “As I was listening to this story being told, I was just aching inside. It is so wrong, in this good, great and rich country, that a young woman and her baby would die because she didn’t have health insurance or a hundred dollars to get examined.”

But an Athens, Ohio hospital is questioning the accuracy of the story. While Clinton never named the hospital in her speech, the woman she was referring to was treated at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens. The hospital said the woman did indeed have insurance, and at least at their hospital was never turned away.

Hospital chief executive officer Rick Castrop in a statement said, “we reviewed the medical and patient accounts of the patient” after she was named in a newspaper story about Clinton’s stump speech. “There is no indication that she was ever denied medical care at any time, for any reason. We clearly reject any perception that we ever denied any care to this woman.”

Oh Hillary

I don't even know what to say about this article....but it's pretty funny. She's trying anything huh?

Sniper Fire, and Holes In Clinton's Recollection
Saturday, March 22, 2008; Page A05
Washington Post

Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Bill Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about "landing under sniper fire" and running for safety with "our heads down."

There are numerous problems with Clinton's version of events.

THE FACTS

As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. air base, such as Tuzla. Contrary to the claims of Hillary Clinton and former Army secretary Togo West, Bosnia was not "too dangerous" a place for President Clinton to visit in early 1996. In fact, the first Clinton to visit the Tuzla Air Base was not Hillary, but Bill, on Jan. 13, 1996.

Had Hillary Clinton's plane come "under sniper fire" in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including The Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the first lady. "As a former AP wire-service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened," Pomfret said.

According to Pomfret, the Tuzla airport was "one of the safest places in Bosnia" in March 1996 and "firmly under the control" of the 1st Armored Division.

Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An 8-year-old Muslim girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, below, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in The Post the next day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."

The first lady's schedule, released on Wednesday by the National Archives, confirms that she arrived in Tuzla at 8:45 a.m. and was greeted by various dignitaries, including Emina (whose name has mysteriously been redacted from the document). Footage from CBS shows Clinton walking calmly out of the back of the C-17 military transport plane that brought her from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Among the U.S. officials on hand to greet Clinton at the airport was Maj. Gen. William Nash, the commander of U.S. troops in Bosnia. Nash told me he was unaware of any security threat to Clinton during her eight-hour stay in Tuzla. He said, however, that Clinton had a "busy schedule" and may have got the impression that she was being hurried.

Sinbad, who provided entertainment on the trip along with singer Sheryl Crow, said the "scariest" part was deciding where to eat. As he told Mary Ann Akers of washingtonpost.com, "I think the only 'red phone' moment was 'Do we eat here or at the next place?' " He questioned the premise behind the Clinton version of events. "What kind of president would say 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot, so I'm going to send my wife. Oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you'?"

Replying to Sinbad earlier this week, Clinton dismissed him as "a comedian." Her campaign referred me to Togo West, who was also on the trip and is a staunch Clinton supporter. West could not remember "sniper fire" himself but said there was no reason to doubt the first lady's version of events. "Everybody's perceptions are different," he told me.

Clinton made no mention of "sniper fire" in her autobiography "Living History," published in 2003, although she did say there were "reports of snipers" in the hills around the airport.

THE PINOCCHIO TEST

Clinton's tale of landing at the Tuzla airport "under sniper fire" and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.

ONE PINOCCHIO: Some shading of the facts. TWO PINOCCHIOS: Significant omissions or exaggerations. THREE PINOCCHIOS: Significant factual errors. FOUR PINOCCHIOS: Real whoppers. THE GEPPETTO CHECK MARK: Statements and claims contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.