A Time for the Clintons

“I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years,” Hillary says.

Let's not forget that you get two for one with Hillary:

"As Clinton was taking office in 1993, three important investigations were underway, all of which Clinton could have helped by ordering key documents declassified or giving other backing to the investigators.

"Special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh was still battling the cover-up that had surrounded the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s; Democratic congressmen were digging into the “Iraqgate“ scandal, the covert supplying of dangerous weapons to Iraq's Saddam Hussein in the 1980s; and a House task force was suddenly inundated with evidence pointing to Republican guilt in the “October Surprise“ case, alleged interference by the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 to undermine President Jimmy Carter's efforts to free 52 American hostages then held in Iran.

"Combined, those three investigations could have rewritten the history of the 1980s, exposing serious wrongdoing by Republicans who had held the White House for a dozen years. The full story also would likely have terminated the presidential ambitions of the powerful Bush family, since George H.W. Bush was implicated in all three scandals.

"However, Clinton and the leaders of the Democratic majorities in Congress didn't care enough about the truth to fight for it. Instead, they saw the truth as a bargaining chip that could be cheaply traded away.

"Clinton agreed to let George H.W. Bush retreat gracefully into retirement despite Bush's brazen attempt to destroy Walsh's criminal investigation by issuing six pardons to Iran-Contra defendants on Christmas Eve 1992."

Is Hillary or Obama More Vulnerable to Right-Wing Attacks?
By Robert Parry, Consortium News.

I have a lot of respect for Hillary. She has done much good, and has certainly had an interesting career, arriving into politics as a Goldwater Republican. (I was one, too, in 1964, as a high school student in a very conservative town, cheering Goldwater's famous rant, "Bomb Hanoi!", if you can believe it.)

But the above story of the 1992 Clinton pardons is just too much, too outrageous to ignore, worse than his year 2000 pardons. It's as damning of the Democratic Party as it is of Bill Clinton. Yet I was of his generation and outlook.

My basketball coach used to say, "Never give a sucker an even break." I guess that's true for Bill - Republicans hardly thanked him for this huge 1992 favor during impeachment. It's even more amazing the Dems didn't fight the 2000 Florida election disgrace with any real resolve, that on the heels of impeachment. One can only conclude the Republicans must be right. Democrats are truly spineless.

For more on Hillary's history, refer to Salon's, "How 1968 changed Hillary". It will take you back, as that was a pivotal year for us all.

More sentiment:

• Anti-Hillary Sentiment on the Rise Among Leading Feminists
  
• Clinton wins, will sanity be restored
• Women of My Generation Have Clearly Lost Their Minds
• Hillary or nothing?

I really believed the Clintons were going to change politics. (Take note, ye who are wooed by Obama.)

Do I want more of the Clintons?

Nope.

How McCain Lost, but the Sky Still Falls

"How McCain Lost in Pennsylvania" is the title of the best analysis yet of the McCain campaign and the Democratic primary stalemate. "Not so fast," is good advice to all in the corporate media who can't wait to beat up on a democratic process moving to a natural completion. Just as Antonin Scalia, a Reagan legacy and believer that the constitution is dead, said last week when responding to a challenge to the Florida 2000 election, "Just get over it!"; this is the media, impatient to bully the public with its own agenda of quick sound bites and simple answers. Remember, the media profit hugely from the long election processes yet they act like they cover elections as a free public service.

The Fall

“We were already in our twilight phase when Ronald Reagan, with all the insight of an ostrich, declared it to be ‘morning in America’; twenty-odd years later, under the ‘boy emperor’ George W. Bush (as Chalmers Johnson refers to him), we have entered the Dark Ages in earnest, pursuing a short-sighted path that can only accelerate our decline. For what we are now seeing are the obvious characteristics of the West after the fall of Rome: the triumph of religion over reason; the atrophy of education and critical thinking; the integration of religion, the state, and the apparatus of torture—a troika that was for Voltaire the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment world; as well as, today, the political and economic marginalization of our culture.... The British historian Charles Freeman published an extended discussion of the transition that took place during the late Roman empire, the title of which could serve as a capsule summary of our current rulers: ”The Closing of the Western Mind.”
”Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire” by Morris Berman, a professor of sociology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

The above excepted from Gore Vidal's, "President Jonah, Meet Oliver Cromwell!"

PLEASE read it. Or listen to it, as read by the author. Pass it on.

Mr. Misogyny

Many of you may think I lost it on my previous post. Perhaps.

I was angry. McCain's misogyny reflects the nature of the paternalistic oligarchy we all live under. I was merely focusing on the essence of what he seemed to propose in his solution to appease critics of his stand against equal pay for women. As repulsive as it was to read, it was meant to be satirical. My apologies if it seemed mean-spirited.

Before you rap my knuckles, compare me to Nora Ephron, the screenwriter and satirist, writing about whether Pennsylvania White Men hate blacks more than women. So much for a respectful dialog this campaign season.

Can anyone be worse than Bush? I think McCain is. So help me. How are we going to break this insurgency?!

Point:


Don't you think the Yearning for Zion Ranch looks like a 19th century high security prison?

If you think the Yearning for Zion Ranch story is bizarre, think again. These fundamentalists are not small in numbers. Many voters like absolutes, they want someone to structure their time on this earth with clear cut "do's and do not's". Yet there are large entities that encourage these fundamentalist trends.

"Catholic charities do a lot of good, but the Vatican is a major obstacle to the advancement of women's human rights. In Nicaragua and El Salvador it recently won a total ban on abortion that has already led to dozens of deaths."

Katha Pollitt, writing for Alternet.org, thinks the two religions aren't as far apart as you might think.

Who can tell me when women got the right to own property? (Hint: the slaves were "freed" long before this event.) When did women get the right to vote? How long in the history of human relations did romance ever enter into the negotiations of a marriage? (Hint: a tiny fraction of the whole history.)

Shall I continue?

Women are Stoopid, but McCain Wants to Help You Gals!

There are still 269 insufferable days left for the Shrub to deliver the Rapture, but there is hope.

Compassionate Conservative John McCain is all about helping women to get paid as much as men. Let me see, the logic must go like this: "We all know girls are dumb, but Senator McCain believes through education and training, they can improve their lot." (Maybe he will hire a scientist to prove that.) Therefore: "John is as compassionate about every voting woman as he is for his apparently stoopid wife, who herself couldn't possibly have earned her $100 million net worth." Yes, she inherited her money.

Maybe McCain is appealing to the fossils who believe the right of women to own property is still a mistake needing correction? Will he then create legislation to help his dear wife's schooling while he manages her money? What, home schooling and obedience training? If she does well, I only hope he will increase her allowance. (The real story is, she probably gives HIM an allowance, as their finances are apparently separate.)

Patriot John helped scuttle the current subversive legislation in Congress that sought to equalize women's pay with men, to which his supporters must bless him.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Republican Sen. John McCain, campaigning through poverty-stricken cities and towns, said Wednesday he opposes a Senate bill that seeks equal pay for women because it would lead to more lawsuits.

Senate Republicans killed the bill Wednesday night on a 56-42 vote that denied the measure the 60 votes needed to advance it to full debate and a vote. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had delayed the vote to give McCain's Democratic rivals, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, time to return to Washington to support the measure, which would make it easier for women to sue their employers for pay discrimination.

McCain skipped the vote to campaign in New Orleans.

"I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what's being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems," the expected GOP presidential nominee told reporters. "This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system."

The bill sought to counteract a Supreme Court decision limiting how long workers can wait before suing for pay discrimination.

WTOPnews.com

John, thank you for your service to all "men-kind". My hat's off to you.

I hope everyone will sign the petition thanking Senator McCain for his good deeds on behalf of our benevolent corporate saviors. He's been on his knees before them for years without proper recognition.

John may have the distinction to be the only candidate who will take the "Lady" out of that French trojan horse, "Lady Liberty", and substitute his own beautiful likeness to carry the torch of freedom.

Gawd bless, John!