The bad news though is that people are suggesting her as veep.  For cryin’ out loud — can’t she just slink away and rot?  We don’t need her and I’m sure that more than a few democrats feel as I do.  If HRC is anywhere on a ballot, I’ll vote anything else.  If she is Obama’s vice president, Obama loses my vote.  Period.  End of story.  No negotiation.

From the article referenced above:

“They’re running to the rock star, to the momentum, to the excitement,” said Ewing, a family law attorney who chairs the Dallas County Democratic Party. “And I am worried that if Hillary doesn’t get elected, I am never going to see a woman president in my lifetime. I do think her chances are slipping away, and it [ticks] me off.”

Excuses excuses. People are running from Hillary Clinton because of her horrid voting record — voting for war, privacy violations, for corporate interests, failing to vote against immunity for criminals, e.g., a “get out of jail free” card for phone companies who break the law at the government’s behest.

People are running from Clinton because she is a terrible choice for president. I get the impression however, that a lot of women would vote for a female candidate regardless of her past. She could be a serial killer, a child abuser, or an international terrorist — as long as her nether parts don’t hang down, she’d get their vote:

“I see my whole life going down the drain,” Roberts recounted [Billie Jean] King saying. “A cute young guy comes in and sweeps away all the hard work that the older woman has done.”

That’s such a pile of baloney, you could make lunch for every homeless person in LA with it, and have enough left over to serve most of San Bernadino as well. Fortunately, sexism is not the rule:

Katha Pollitt, an author and columnist for the Nation, is one of the signers [of a petition entitled New York Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama].

“I think Hillary has been the target of a great big set of double standards, and in the end, I do know people who are supporting her because of the misogynistic attacks against her,” Pollitt said.

But she took issue with Steinem’s comparison.

“Even if it were true that white women were more oppressed than black men” — as Steinem suggested — “that still doesn’t mean you should vote for Hillary Clinton,” Pollitt said. “It might mean you should fight for better enforcement of anti-sex-discrimination rules, but it doesn’t mean you should vote for the candidate most likely to wage a war. “

First, there are the empty promises regarding universal health care. Hey people — nothing is free! This is just a money grab by HMOs and the insurance industry — middlemen who will reap nothing but profit if every American is forced to pay up.

Secondly, there is a sort of latent sexism amongst boomer women. There are millions of women with excellent potential — why choose HRC?

Neither reason bodes well for the future course of our nation. A president should be chosen based on his or her honesty, sincerity, and capabilities. Clinton has been sandpapered so smooth, her positions streamlined to yield no resistance, that she will undoubtedly do very well in the polls. But the same process that has eliminated any rough edge has also sandblasted any sense of sincerity or honesty away. As for capabilities, one need look no further than her Iran and Iraq votes — she is either as much a liar as the current administration, or too gullible to see through its charade in the middle east.

I wish there was a chance for a good candidate to be on the ballot at least one time in my life. Sadly, it looks like yet again I will be voting against a candidate in the general election rather than for one. I do vow, no matter what, this Democrat will not be voting for Hillary Clinton. Even if I have to hold my nose and vote for someone like Romney or McCain.

If HRC is on the ballot, I hope other democrats consider the great likelihood that the next president will last but one term. The war and the economy will coalesce into a huge obstacle for reelection. Longterm thinking would suggest letting the republicans keep the white house and deal with their own mess. Then in 2012, put someone on the ballot who is a reasonable candidate. But right now, devotion to party is a disease that must be cured. If Clinton is on the ballot — it’s time to show the party we want a real voice, a real candidate, and we aren’t just going to sit back and let them shove whatever they want down our throat.

Of course, there’s always Ron Paul but 90% of Americans would need to put down the Repblocrat-Crack-Pipe they’ve been smoking for the past few decades before that happens. One can always dream though — I ache for a sincere candidate like Gravel, Kucinich, or Paul.

Where I’m from, there has been a peace protest staged in front of the Federal Building every Friday since just after the dawn of time. My office is nearby and I often have to walk through the protesters. Two Fridays ago, I saw a sign that said something like “Just Say NO to GOP” with the “O” in “NO” and “GOP” shared. That got me thinking — many of the peace protesters may not know that Ron Paul is a peace candidate. So a couple people from my Meetup group and I went down there to spread the word last Friday. We had a great time chatting with people and spreading the word.

I made a sign specifically for that occasion — I wanted to use a phrase that would speak clearly to the old hippies and the younger folks, many of whom have adopted that Western blend of Eastern spirituality. At the same time, I didn’t want to be mean — just something clever that might get people thinking and researching. Hence: “Transcend Party Lines for Peace”

I found a nice lotus flower image on the wikicommons and after a little photo editing in the GIMP and some poster design in Inkscape (both free and open source — just download, install and create), this is what I came up with (suitable for printing up 2×3 ft):

Feel free to download, print, and use. Share it — make postcards — make posters — whatever floats your boat. Clicking the picture will launch the full size image which you can then save to your computer.

PS — wasn’t Teaparty great!!

What I really like about him are his views on privacy, the war, and civil liberties. Contrast that with the “top tier” of the Democratic ticket right now, and Ron Paul is clearly the ethically superior candidate. Kucinich and Gravel, as much as I may like them, don’t have a chance with the Democratic party. Ron Paul may also be a long shot on the Republican ticket, but he has really tapped into a groundswell of the intelligent ticked off center — those who feel that moderation has become a radical concept in both parties and want to see the US get back to being a respectable nation.

Anyway, in the past several weeks, something snapped in me. I’m not satisfied to vote for the “least worst” anymore. For once, I want to get a chance to vote for someone I feel I can trust, and with whom I have 70% agreement or more. Ron Paul fits that bill for me.

So for all you Ron Paul nuts and freaks, I’ve attached a poster. It is meant to be printed at 2×3 feet and it looks great at that size. Large office supply stores can print these up for about $30 — lamination is $2 per foot. If you look around on the net, you can find printing services which are less expensive — though the shipping might make it a wash. SirCooper charges about $15, so it might be a good way to go if you are ordering more than one (shipping on the sign I ordered was about $10). Note: I’m not affiliated w/ SirCooper, not shilling for them either. Do your own googling for the best prices you can find.

You can use the GIMP to edit photos, and Inkscape to make posters. Both are free and opensource software packages with Linux, Mac, and Windows versions. Download them and get to work.

Lastly, you can download a poster I made — the file size is large but it is absolutely crisp printed at 2×3 ft:

NOTE: This is a “png” file. You may need to convert it to a “jpg”. Usually you can do this by opening it in your photo viewer, choosing “save as”, and making sure you pick “jpg” as the file type.

ALSO:  if you have a poster you’d like included here, send me an email and I’ll post it.  Make sure you indicate the intended print size.

With Hillary Clinton, however, we have a unique opportunity to compare what she says with what she does. An interesting place to start is “Project Vote Smart“, a repository of many votes our representatives and senators cast. It’s easy to see what a “no” or a “yes” vote means, and certainly, Hillary’s votes will be explored. But just as revealing are the “not voted” entries for it is here that we can see where a candidate avoids taking a stand for fear of alienating one or another group that candidate is courting.

Sadly, candidates whose choices are guided by the calculus of which votes to avoid are all to common. It is a sign of low integrity, but of course, after eight years under Bush the public’s expectations have been set remarkably low.

Enough with the banter however, let’s compare some of Hillary’s “Not Votes”:

• 08-08-2007: Clinton Proposes $10 Billion Bridge Repair Plan.
• 09-10-2007: Hillary Clinton does not vote for bridge repair legislation she co-sponsored.

Certainly drivers everywhere feel all the more confident in our nation’s roads because of HRC’s comforting words — who needs concrete and steel when you can have compassion?

So what about simulated drowning? We’ve all heard the term waterboarding given recent Attorney General nominiee Michael Mukasey’s unwillingness to call it torture. How odd, considering the fact that the United States prosecuted a Japanese officer for waterboarding as a war crime after WWII:

[I]n 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

“Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. “We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II,” he said.

Washington Post, Oct 5, 2006.

Given Mukasey’s inconceivable inability to call waterboarding torture, it should have been an easy vote for any senator with a single humanitarian cell in her body to refuse to confirm Mukasey, but by failing to vote against confirmation, Hillary Clinton is complicit in the acceptance of torture (terror).

Perhaps it is only drowning that is of so little concern Hillary Clinton, but given her war votes on Iraq and Iran, all of the compassion and concern she may profess on the campaign trail holds little water.

Planting questions with audience members, while not unheard of in political campaigns, is generally avoided because of the embarrassing image it suggests when the tactic becomes public: that a candidate is uncomfortable facing tough questions or campaigning in unpredictable settings. NY Times.

While the qualifications to be a president are legion, a small set of overarching characteristics are essential. A president of the United States should be intelligent, a critical thinker, and have the ability to exercise control over a horde of advisors and staffers. A president should not be stupid, gullible, and oblivious to actions of those in his or her camp.

HRC is certainly intelligent. One does not make it through law school without a certain native intelligence. However, making it through law school does not necessarily mean that one is a critical thinker and it certainly does not have any bearing on whether a person is a capable manager.

Given her actions, Hillary Clinton is neither a critical thinker nor an effective manager. Taking critical thought first, as we all know and as Clinton has repeatedly stated, she was utterly duped by Bush into supporting the war in Iraq (note: I’m giving HRC the benefit of the doubt here, because if she was not duped, then she is simply as evil as Bush). Add to this her support for unconstitutional legislation such as the (un)PATRIOT Act, suspension of Habeas, or support for warrantless eavesdropping, and, as they in geekier circles — “Hillary, you fail it (’it’ is critical thinking).”

Secondly, a good president will foresee ways in which his or her staff might run amok. If the president cannot foresee such difficulties, the presidency will be fraught with scandal, devoid of credibility, and completely ineffective. Given the recent “softball questions” revelations, it’s fair to say on the management point, again, “Hillary, you fail it”. Granted, there are several possibilities regarding Clinton’s management, but none of them are positive:

1. It was intentional and is actually clever management of public image (until being found out and rightfully assigned an epithet of “spin queen”, not to mention taking a concomitant hit on critical thinking ability for failing to foresee the public displeasure); or
2. A cynical approach to management that condones with a wink and nod, those things which can’t be made official policy; or
3. Terrible management which allows staff to run rampant and which fails to foresee and forestall common problems.

I’ll give Hillary Clinton the benefit of the doubt because it appears there is no hard evidence for nos. 1 & 2, but plenty of evidence for a lack foresight:

A Clinton spokesman, Mo Elleithee, denied that Mrs. Clinton was aware of the planted question or that she was directed to call on Ms. Gallo-Chasanoff. But he confirmed that the campaign aide planted the question.

“It’s not something we do; it’s not an official campaign policy,” Mr. Elleithee said yesterday. “But it is now an official campaign policy that we will not do this moving forward.” NY Times.

We’re just now wrapping up eight years with the worst president ever. Let’s not follow it up by electing the next worst president ever.

Its premise, that the neo-conservatives and radical islamists hold a shared world viewpoint is compelling. Both believe that liberal society is decadent and decayed and that through the power of perceived enemies, society can unite in a productive manner. As a result, both sides have invented demonic visions of the other to sell in their respective communities.

The war in Iraq was a direct result of the actions of these groups and it is relished by them both for it allows them to hold on to power and exercise their distorted vision of what society ought to be like. The tools used by both are lies, myths, and violence.

In terms of HRC, whether she buys into such nonsense or is simply so gullible as to be swayed by it doesn’t really matter. The very fact that she is susceptible to these machinations make her terribly unqualified to be president.

Seriously, take some time and watch the documentary linked above, then watch this:

Playing politics with our soldiers’ lives is despicable.

I thought the meeting with Sen. Clinton went well. I thought she listened and heard what we had to say. I went with another Gold Star Mother, Lynn Braddach, and my sister, Dede Miller. … Lynn, Dede, and I don’t want our loved ones to be used as political pawns to justify the killing spree in Iraq. … How often do the lies have to be exposed before every American (elected official, media representative, average citizen) wakes up and says, “enough killing is enough!”

I thought Mrs. Clinton listened, but apparently she didn’t because immediately afterwards she said the following to Sarah Ferguson of the Village Voice:

“My bottom line is that I don’t want their sons to die in vain… I don’t believe it’s smart to set a date for withdrawal… I don’t think it’s the right time to withdraw.”

That quote sounds exactly like what the few Republicans I talked to that week said. Making sure that our children did not die in “vain” sounds exactly like something George Bush says. A “date” for withdrawal? That sounds like Rush Limbaugh to me. That doesn’t sound like an opposition party leader speaking to me. What Sen. Clinton said after our meeting sounds exactly like the Republican Party talking points I heard from Senators Dole and McCain.