Just POlitics

Hillary book buzz

There is growing buzz concerning upcoming attacks on Hillary Clinton. The NY Daily News has this titillating brief regarding Ed Klein’s yet to be published book titled, "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew it, and How Far She'll Go to Become President". The book is touted as being potentially as devastating as the Swift Boat veterans book on John Kerry, and thus could squash Hillary's presidential aspirations:

Klein yesterday wouldn't shed any light on Drudge's account and uttered a noncommittal "uh-huh" when I noted that some might consider the report a ploy by Sentinel to generate prepublication buzz.

Meanwhile, Clinton's press secretary, Philippe Reines, told me: "We don't comment on works of fiction."

But Sentinel associate publisher Will Weisser insisted: "We are very excited about publishing the Clinton book for September, but it's an embargoed book. I can't comment about any kind of internal discussions at Penguin."

On another front, Bill Clinton appeared in Harlem to announce a $10 million initiative aimed at eradicating HIV/AIDS among children in Africa. While there he took on Republican operative Arthur Finkelstein, who recently married his gay partner. Finkelstein recently announced the formation of a Stop Hillary Now campaign.

"I thought, one of two things. Either this guy believes his party is not serious, and is totally Machiavellian in his position, or there's some sort of self-loathing there. I was more sad for him," Bill Clinton said.

Soros vs. Bolton

The Washington Times "Inside the Beltway" reports George Soros is financing opposition to John Bolton’s nomination to U.N. Ambassador:

Mr. Bolton's Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearings, which started yesterday, are "the biggest battle over a nomination that we have seen in years," notes AIM editor Cliff Kincaid. "But the Big Media have refused to identify the role of George Soros in orchestrating the opposition to Bolton."

Soros spent $23 million trying to defeat President Bush for re-election.

Mr. Kincaid has identified the pro-world government World Federalist Association (WFA) as the group running TV ads and a Web site against Mr. Bolton. But the WFA, Mr. Kincaid says, now calls itself "Citizens for Global Solutions," a more innocuous-sounding name, one might argue.

He's also discovered that two other groups fighting Mr. Bolton's nomination are linked to Soros, a billionaire currency speculator whose conviction for insider trading was recently upheld in France.

Lutheran gays

The Associated Press is reporting that Lutherans are moving closer to allowing gay clergy:

Lutheran bishops could allow gay and lesbian clergy in committed relationships to become pastors of congregations under a proposal advanced Monday by a council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Church policy currently bans gay and lesbian clergy who are involved with partners but allows those who are celibate. The proposal - which would require that the bishop of a synod, or district, seek an exception to the ban for a particular candidate - will be voted on by the church's assembly at its annual meeting in August.

Negroponte disclosures

The Washington Post spends time reviewing released documents during John Negroponte’s tenure as Ambassador to Honduras. He was there during the Reagan administration’s efforts to support the Sandanistas overthrow of Nicaraguan Communists. Negroponte is President Bush's nominee to be the country's first national intelligence director. Here is an excerpt from the Post:

Overall, Negroponte comes across as an exceptionally energetic, action-oriented ambassador whose anti-communist convictions led him to play down human rights abuses in Honduras, the most reliable U.S. ally in the region. There is little in the documents the State Department has released so far to support his assertion that he used "quiet diplomacy" to persuade the Honduran authorities to investigate the most egregious violations, including the mysterious disappearance of dozens of government opponents.

NY Times bias exposed

The NY Times has become the nation’s most liberal socialist leaning newspaper among the mainstream newsprint. However, despite their scandalous outbreaks of not reporting the truth, the newspaper has still been able to remain at the pinnacle of American newspapers... probably from past reputation more than its current product.

Now, the Times is being reported in Robert Novak’s column for seeking to shop for outside opinion-editorials that fit their liberal bent.

Novak reports that former Rep. Bob Livingston -- who in 1998 was about to be elected speaker of the House until his admitted marital infidelity ruined those plans -- was contacted on March 24 through an email sent by New York Times editorial page staffer Tobin Harshaw.

Livingston aide Chris Terrell informed the Times that any op-ed Livington would write would be supportive of DeLay, prompting Harshaw to respond: "We are seeking those who would go on the record or state for the good of the party he [DeLay] should step aside," reports Novak in his April 11 column.

Jewish 2004 vote breakout

Ron Brownstein of the LA Times reports on the breakout of how the Jewish vote went in the 2004 presidential election. Generally, the Jewish community still continued to back the Democrats in similar percentages. However, if a Jewish voter regularly attended services they were far more likely to vote for Bush.

The Times reports that gender differences among Jewish voters is greater than the population at whole:

The study found that the gender gap among Jews was much wider than among the population overall. Bush carried just 16% of Jewish women, the study found, but 28% of men.

He ran especially well with Jewish men under 30, carrying 35% of them, compared with 60% for Kerry.

By comparison, young Jewish women preferred Kerry by a ratio of more than 7 to 1, the survey found. Kerry's best group was Jewish women over 60, who backed him over Bush 10 to 1, the study calculated.

Kerry’s discourteous attack

The Boston Herald reports on Sen. John Kerry has broken the collegial rules of the senate and advanced an Internet ad against fellow Foreign Relations Committee member Lincoln Chafee. There seems to be no depth to which the self-serving Senator from Massachusetts will go:

Democratic Sen. John Kerry has launched an Internet advertising campaign urging his Republican Senate colleague, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, to vote against the nomination of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

The unusual strike against a fellow member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came as the two men - along with other panel members - were questioning Bolton during a Monday hearing on the nomination.

"Rhode Island needs a senator who will always vote with the people of Rhode Island's interests in mind - even when that means standing tall in the face of withering pressure from the right-wing Republican establishment,'' Kerry, of neighboring Massachusetts, said in the ad. ``Call on Senator Chafee to take a stand on principle.''

Kerry spokeswoman Katharine Lister said this is the first time the senator has gone after an individual colleague in ads. She said Kerry chose to target Chafee because he is considered a key swing vote on the committee.

Soak the rich

Editorial by Roger Wm. Hughes

E. J. Dionne’s column shows that the socialist wing of the Democrat party is still alive and kicking with his latest urging that America soak the rich. His argument is that (if) the death tax were eliminated it would be robbing Social Security of its financial footings.

First of all, Social Security is and was to be funded by payroll taxes. So far, this Rooseveltian concept has held. Dionne and other socialist proposals would have us take money from the general fund to support Social Security. They would most especially steal money disproportionately from America’s wealthy.

Dionne’s proposal would tax all estates above $3.5 million. Today, most small businesses that provide a strong employment opportunity in small communities are valued at or above that value. To tax at 45 percent, as Dionne urges, would mean the selling off of that business and the destruction of jobs, wealth and opportunity.

Still, the socialists, like E. J. Dionne, want to rob America of its future growth and opportunities. The only engine that could possibly create opportunities that would be able to pay for greater funding of social programs.

Most recognize that the Social Security program is short at least $11 trillion. Dionne points out that the taxes paid in under his soak-the-rich plan would generate $1 trillion between 2012 and 2021. Dionne cites others who make the projections that using the funds that were never intended for use in funding Social Security as being a near panacea.

This is not the point of Dionne. The point of Dionne is to soak the rich, as his column indicates:

Yet, because the wealthy have gotten wealthier over the past three decades or so, the estate tax produces a lot of money. Counting both revenue losses and added interest costs, complete repeal of the estate tax would cost the government close to $1 trillion between 2012 and 2021, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

And that is where Social Security comes in. You can reject outlandish claims that Social Security faces some sort of "crisis" and still acknowledge that it faces a gap in funding for the long haul. The estate tax should be part of the solution.

The gap in Social Security funding comes from the fact that it was set up upon a stupid assumption. That assumption is the same assumption that every agrarian society is based upon -- the assumption that if you have a lot of children, your old age will be taken care of.

The economist Joseph Schumpter pointed out early in the industrial age that children would be devalued under the new industrial economy, meaning that families would have fewer and fewer children. The Knowledge Revolution economy has only made that fact worse.

The gap in funding Social Security is population. It is not that we are not soaking the rich. It is not even that more and more Americans are becoming wealthier.

We need even more wealth to pioneer and become dominant in the new driver of the Knowledge Revolution economy: bio-technology. We need to encourage wealth in the same way we rewarded the early pioneers of the industrial age who created rail roads, lumber, milling and packing industries. Unlike that previous period, we already have anti-trust legislation. If you doubt that fact, just ask Bill Gates.

As long as the failed policies of socialism are advanced and believed to be the solution to America’s future, we will continue to be in danger of becoming like the failed economies of Western Europe. Let us hope for more realistic assumptions to take sway concerning the question of Social Security and our other social programs.

Dean claims doing it different

Howard Dean sent a mailing out to the Democrat faithful that he is doing things differently. Here is part of his e-mail:

Every four years, a few months before the presidential election, the Democratic Party puts staff and resources on the ground in a few battleground states ... and then they're gone. After November the whole operation disappears.

Then, four years later, we do the same thing all over again.

That hasn't worked. And I ran for chairman on a promise to do it another way.

So a few days ago I met with the state party chairs, and we made a decision together. For the first time ever we're going to build for the future by putting staff and resources on the ground early -- starting in 2005, not 2008. The first four states: North Dakota, Missouri, North Carolina and West Virginia.

How soon the next 46 states get moving depends on you -- can you make a contribution now?

http://www.democrats.org/50states

Medicaid accounting fraud

The NY Times reports on a brewing difficulty over Medicaid accounting for 15 states: Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Virginia, and Tennessee.

The allegation has, they said, difficulties. Some states argue that the practices they used were pre-approved by the federal government.

Gingrich early state visits

The Hill reports that Newt Gingrich is visiting the early states of New Hampshire and Iowa:

Gingrich will also travel to Iowa on May 12 and 13 for visits to Sioux City, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City and will likely participate in events for the local Republican Party and attend one or two book signings, Tyler said. The Iowa caucuses are the first election of the presidential nominating process, followed by the New Hampshire primary a few days later.