June 03, 2005
Recent Poll Numbers on Hillary Clinton
The recent numbers on Hillary Clinton at CNN are interesting
More than half of those responding to a new poll said they would be at least somewhat likely to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton if she runs for president in 2008.But those saying they are virtually certain to vote against her topped those virtually certain to support her by 10 percentage points in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.
The poll found 29 percent were very likely to cast a vote for Hillary Clinton for president and 24 percent said they were somewhat likely.
Seven percent were not very likely and 39 percent said they were not at all likely. The margin of error was plus or minus 5 percentage points
Some note that
Clinton commands as much strong support as George W. Bush did in a Newsweek poll in November 1998, two years before the 2000 election, though also more strong opposition.
The amount of strong opposition is going to be a big obstacle for a presidential run. I think the Democrats would be foolish to immediately nominate her without considering that factor.
CNN also notes that there is “overwhelming support” (67%) among her New York constituents. However…
Among Democrats [] 65 percent surveyed want her to pledge to serve out a full term if she runs, negating a 2008 White House bid.
Given that, this next piece of news is interesting.
Senator Clinton is believed to be ready to drop a pledge to serve a full six-year term when she seeks re-election as senator for New York next year.This will be the clearest sign of her intention to run for the White House, since she pointedly told New York voters in 2000 that she would not curtail her term in order to try for the presidency.
The official line from her advisers is Senator Clinton is keeping options open. But The Washington Post reported: "In 2000, she repeatedly pledged that she would finish her term without seeking the presidency. Aides say she will not issue such a pledge this time."
So it isn’t confirmed yet, but then again if she were going to issue the pledge you’d think they’d just say that she was.
It still amazes me that so many of our politicians, on all sides, are spending the majority of their time campaigning for other offices rather than doing their jobs. If anyone else spent 4 hours at work every day working on hig resume and reading the classifieds, he'd get fired for sure. But I suppose that’s just the way it is.
While New York Democrats want her to pledge to serve a full term, I doubt that her not doing so will prevent her from winning the 2006 senate run. I often read stories about so-and-so considering running against her, but no good candidates are coming to the forefront. I am sure she will win re-election. The White House is not at all a certainty though.
Back at the CNN article, I enjoyed this quote from her
"My view is that life unfolds in its own rhythm. I've never lived a life that I thought I could plan out."
Yeah, that’s believable. Hillary Clinton reads like she has a detailed 500 page manuscript of her future, including sketches of the clothes she plans to wear to each inauguration, as well as her carefully considered last words.
In other news, Newsday manages to print the stupidest opening line to a story that I’ve ever heard.
Conservatives may strive to portray New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as a polarizing figure, but she unified Hollywood Democratic political donors at a series of fundraisers that netted an estimated $1 million in a single evening, hosts estimated Thursday.
Imagine that! A politician unifying political donors at her fundraiser? That'll show those conservatives.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Posted by illuminaria at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2005
How Big Is The Wage Gap Really?
I got another email from Friends of Hillary today.
In honor of Equal Pay Day on April 19, Hillary and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT) announced that they were introducing the Paycheck Fairness Act to strengthen equal pay laws and address the pay gap between men and women. "Equality works for all us. Now is the time to make sure that we all work for equality," Hillary said.
The act, which can be found here, extends the Fair Labor Standards Act to apply to applicants rather than just employees. It better defines the allowable factors to validate wage differentials. It extends the non-retaliation provision to say that employers may not retaliate against workers who discuss/disclose their wages or the wages of others. It enhances the penalties. It says that employers may not reduce wages to achieve compliance.
I don’t really have a problem with any of those things, except for the last one. If an employer has a certain budget to pay workers, then it may be impossible to meet that budget and equalize pay without reducing the wages of some people.
It also has a few other interesting sections. For instance, section 5 lays out the ability for the Secretary of Labor to make grants to organizations to teach salary negotiation skill training. I suppose this isn’t bad in theory, but in practice I’m sure it will be taxpayer money being thrown down the hole.
Section 7 says
The Secretary of Labor shall develop guidelines to enable employers to evaluate job categories based on objective criteria such as educational requirements, skill requirements, independence, working conditions, and responsibility, including decision-making responsibility and de facto supervisory responsibility.
This is sort of interesting. Following the guidelines will be voluntary, but still, I doubt that general guidelines of this sort prepared by the government will be all that useful to specific employers with different needs.
Section 8 establishes the “Secretary of Labor's National Award for Pay Equity in the Workplace.” Who wouldn’t love to have that award. It even comes with a medal.
Overall it’s not a bad bill, but I question the need for it. Typically in discussions of this sort, you hear that women make between .62-.76 cents on the dollar in comparison to men. Just on the top of my head, I can think of about a dozen reasons for that number to exist other than employer discrimination. First of all, those numbers compare every single woman to every single man. Since you tend to find more women in certain jobs that tend to be lower paying than similar jobs, this does not necessarily reflect discrimination. For instance, there are more female nurses and more male physicians.
Other reasons include education level, marital status, children and choices about maternity leave, experience, willingness to work more hours, etc. etc. Some of these reasons might be due to discrimination in general, although not all I think, but none of these are factors that employers have much control over. (See my discussion on being a woman in graduate engineering.)
Some of these things, such as willingness to work more hours, have more of an effect in certain areas, such as the medical and legal fields. That is probably why there is more focus on the wage gap in these areas, as this fact sheet from the National Women’s Law Center shows by highlighting the fact that though the overall wage gap is .27 cents (women earn .73 cents for every dollar a man earns), the wage gap for physicians is .42 cents.
You never actually hear what the wage gap is when you control for all those factors, so I set out to find some numbers on it.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
I found a 1999 study, which was mentioned mentioned in a fact sheet from the National Women's Law Center, called New Evidence On Sex Segregation And Sex Differences In Wages From Matched Employee-Employer Data (which, incidentally, was done right here at MU.)
The study uses data from the 1990 census. (Seeing that the data is 15 years old, we can certainly take the results with a grain of salt.) They control for education, marital status, race, and location. They also attempt to control for experience and maternity choices, although they have to extrapolate a estimate of those effects based on the number of children and age since the census does not ask about those things specifically, so we can not be confident that those things are properly controlled for. Using these controls, they say
Overall, our estimates indicate that from about one-quarter to one-half of the sex wage gap takes the form of wage differences between men and women within narrowly-defined occupations within establishments.
Further, when they restricted their study to women under the median age of 40, they found that not only was there less of a wage gap (.26 versus .38), but that a smaller percentage of that wage gap was due to the individual’s sex (20 and 31%).
Since these are women under the age of 40, they presumably entered the workforce around 1968 and later. Since things that happen early in your career have lasting effects throughout your life, a lot of the women being studied in this case probably had more effects of discrimination and family choices than women entering the workforce today, so we should still take these numbers with a grain of salt.
The two different percentages are due to making comparisons using a different number of occupations. Using 13 occupations gives the 31% figure, whereas using 491 occupations gives the 20% figure. Since these occupations cover a wide range of industries, including manufacturing and non-manufacturing jobs, It would not be hard to understand that using more occupations would probably give a more accurate figure. Even within, for instance, a software company, there are many different delineations that would have an effect on salary.
If we go ahead and use these numbers anyway, despite the possible problems and the fact that they are 15 years old, we find that the amount of wage gap due to solely gender and not to education, experience, gaps in career etc., is about .05, meaning that women make 95 cents on the dollar compared to men. That’s a lot different from the numbers you usually hear. And, as the study says,
We do not attempt in this paper to determine the underlying forces that cause men and women to have different wages within narrowly-defined occupations in the same establishments. Our results simply suggest that there is still research to be done in order to identify these forces. In particular, our results leave open the possibility that within narrowly-defined occupations and establishments, men and women are performing essentially the same job but are not being paid equally–a violation of the Equal Pay Act. Further research into the sources of within-establishment, within-occupation sex wage differences is therefore much more important than previously thought.
Therefore, it’s impossible to tell how much of the estimated 5 cent wage gap is directly attributable to employer discrimination and how much is attributable to other factors, such as, for example, willingness to work overtime when needed. It doesn’t seem to me to be something to get in such a tizzy over that we need to pass a new bill when we already have one to address this problem.
Of course people that fought genuine discrimination tend to be unable to let it go once the problem has been mostly fixed, and politicians are always willing to use that, so I suppose this bill is not too much of a surprise. I don't think it would be too out of line to suggest that Hillary is using this bill to appeal to her base and make up for for things her base don't like, such as the religious discrimination act she has been working on with Kerry and her recent comments on abortion.
Update: This Town Hall column points out that women who have never married or had children make .17 cents more on the dollar than their male counterpoints. He also points out that "any half decent businessman would bend over backward to hire women if they were doing equal work so cheaply." I remain unenthused about the terrible wage gap problem.
Linked at Outside the Beltway
Posted by illuminaria at 07:25 PM | Comments (1)
April 27, 2005
Hillary Promoting Voting Bill
Hillary Clinton Coming To Town For Election Reform ForumFormer first lady Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is coming to [Cleveland] this week.
Clinton is set to host a [one-sided] forum on election reform this Saturday, along with Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones.
The forum will take place at Warrensville Heights High School.
In February, Sen. Clinton introduced the Count Every Vote act in the Senate. The forum's aim is to make sure every
American, [Democrat, felon, and illegal immigrant] is able to vote and that every vote is counted, [sometimes up to ten times].
They will be discussing irregularities in past elections [other than the 2004 Washington governor’s race,] and their plans toimprove the process[make sure that Democrats win] in the future.
(Note: This article humorously, but truthfully, modified.)
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Posted by illuminaria at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2005
Clinton to Recieve Honarary Degree From Catholic College
Marymount Manhattan College in New York City wants to give Hillary Clinton an honorary degree when she comes to give the commencement speech this May. However, this college was founded as a Catholic institution and has remained close to the Catholic church and other similar organizations over the years. Their decision to honor someone who has been ardently pro-abortion in the past is upsetting some Catholics.
Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, said it would be a "scandal" for Marymount Manhattan College in New York City to give Sen. Clinton a special degree on Friday, May 20, when she is also scheduled to deliver the school's commencement address.Reilly said his group, which is "dedicated to the renewal of Catholic identity at America's 220 Catholic colleges and universities," specifically objects to the school's plan because Clinton has supported legalized abortion, voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion, advocated expanding embryonic stem cell research and declared contraception "basic health care for women."
In addition, Reilly said the college's actions defy the "Catholics in Political Life" statement that was approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2004.
I'm sure people will whine about the Church poking their noses where they don't belong as they did when there was the debate about John Kerry being refused communion because of his pro-abortion stance, but any church has the right to ask that the people and organizations associated with it are consistent with the church's most basic tenets.
Some might see this as a sign that Clinton has been somewhat successful in convincing religious people that she's not so bad, but the article notes that this college has a habit of inviting pro-abortion speakers.
Reilly also noted that Marymount Manhattan's commencement speaker in 2004 was New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, whom he called "a fervent advocate for abortion rights."
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Update: Commenter Maureen points out this article about Marymount being declared to no longer be Catholic by the Archdiocese of New York. Apparently they had no objections to this.
Officials at Marymount Manhattan offered no objects to the archdiocesan statement. Like many similar institutions, the college had taken legal steps to distance itself from Church authority and from the religious order (the sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary) that founded the school.
Thanks Maureen.
Posted by illuminaria at 11:21 AM | Comments (4)
April 20, 2005
Missed Opportunity for Pope Clinton
Given the news media's focus on the Catholic church's "missed opportunity" for a progressive pope, which Wizbang sagely predicted yesterday, this story is quite funny.
While much of the world awaits smoke-signals from the Vatican cardinals selecting a new pope, New York Rep. Peter King joked Tuesday about a dark horse candidate for the vacant position: Hillary Rodham Clinton.King, a sometimes maverick within his own Republican Party, praised and poked fun at New York's junior senator when they both appeared at a breakfast of construction union officials.
"Maybe we can elect Hillary Clinton pope. God knows what she's running for," joked King, to roars from the crowd.
Hillary responded by denying that she was considering running for president and was instead focused on her upcoming 2006 Senate run, but if elected would be taking the name "Pope Progressivo." Meanwhile in a campaign email, she used the mention of the "right-wing Catholic attack-machine" to appeal for more funds.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Posted by illuminaria at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2005
Again With the Right-Wing Attack Machine
Seeing as how I'm now getting email from ‘Friends of Hillary,’ I can tell I’m going to be hearing way more about the right-wing attack machine over the next few years. Let me tell you, it gets really tiring. I’d imagine her supporters don’t object too much, though. See this recent email from Clinton:
With your support, we raised $3,958,924!So just as the right wing attack machines have started gearing up to defeat me in 2006, we're sending a strong signal that we will be ready to fight back.
Apparently one per email isn’t even enough.
They're going to spend millions of dollars on personally negative attacks, hoping to keep me from speaking out on issues important to all of us, like protecting Social Security, the need to count every vote, and the dangers of the "nuclear option" that would end our democratic system of checks and balances.Well, I have news for them: I am going to go right on, working hard and speaking out against the irresponsible, extreme policies of the Bush administration that I believe are leading America in the wrong direction.
And with your continued help, we are going to go on building the campaign we need for 2006. I promise you that we will fight back - immediately and effectively - against the right wing attack machine. We have a long way to go, but because of your help during this first quarter, we are off to a great start.
You go girl!
Meanwhile, a Village Voice article talks about a little-known Republican who wants to run against her for the senate.
Never mind the new Stop Her Now movement, here's the plain truth about mounting a challenge against Hillary Clinton: Even the most seasoned politician would face a hell of a time unseating New York's junior senator in 2006.So what does that mean for the first person willing—foolhardy?—enough to say he'll take her on, a self-styled Republican everyman named William Brenner?
Last month, the Sullivan County attorney announced he was up for the task. Brenner—most folks call him Bill—is a virtual unknown outside the hinterlands of Grahamsville, his adopted hometown. ... Brenner's political pedigree consists of three failed runs, twice for State Assembly, once for U.S. Congress.
Apparently he announced his candidacy a few weeks ago, although Republicans (unsuprisingly) are searching for a slightly more well known candidate. Still, I liked this quote.
Brenner believes he's the one. "I know I'm not the favorite," he cedes. At least one county chairman has already tried to dissuade him. "He said, 'You're crazy going up against Hillary Clinton's machine—she'll chew you up and spit you out.' "
Yes, it's the left-wing attack machine.
Back in Hillary land, a separate email from Ann Lewis details that besides obstructing the confirmation of the FDA head, Clinton has been up to other things as well.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Hillary joined her colleague Senator Chuck Schumer to ensure that the new fleet of presidential helicopters will be built in upstate New York. As the New York Times reported, after a last minute attempt to derail the project, the two New York Senators "...rushed to the Senate floor...and threatened to use procedural maneuvers" to tie up the bill unless the anti-Lockheed amendment was withdrawn. "This is a huge deal to our state," Hillary said. "We won this contract fair and square."Hillary also met with the President's nominee for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and called for revision - and strengthening - of the Administration's recent regulation on mercury emissions from power plants. She spoke out against the latest Bush proposal to cut millions of dollars in funds for public housing in New York: "Without these funds, it will be an uphill struggle to provide even basic services to the hundreds of thousands of people who live in public housing across this state." Hillary said "...this is part of a concerted effort on the part of the Bush administration to punish our low income families."
While she fights for her constituents in Washington, Hillary is working for them in New York. She traveled upstate while Congress was on recess, hosting an economic development forum, discussing farm and rural issues, announcing a new pilot initiative to bring broadband technology to North Creek, and joining the demonstration of a new fuel cell powered tank being developed in Honeoye Falls.
The Glen Falls Post-Star, reporting on her trip, told how one program Hillary initiated was already making a difference:
"In a meeting with U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton in early 2003, Karen St. Hilaire casually mentioned her interest in collectables and that she wished there was some way to use e-Bay to revitalize the upstate economy. Clinton, D-NY...arranged a meeting with e-Bay executives two weeks later which led to the development of a new e-commerce program sponsored by the St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce...The Northern Adirondack Trading Cooperative has been so successful...[it] will be spinning off a third program later this year...Just this week, for example, a local entrepreneur who makes fishing lures received a $165,000 order from a company in Vietnam"
(The Post-Star, March 31, 2005)
Posted by illuminaria at 12:22 PM | Comments (1)
April 16, 2005
Hillary Behind War Against DeLay?
Recent attention given to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, in the mainstream media is being orchestrated by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., as a means to be sure the House is in Democratic hands when she runs for president in 2008, a source in the GOP leadership says.Geopolitical analyst Jack Wheeler, publisher of intelligence website, To the Point, says one of DeLay's colleagues told him:
"Hillary's fingerprints are all over it. She has no intention of having to deal with an opposition party controlling the House as her husband did for six years and Ronald Reagan did for eight. She has a very clear plan for seizing control of the entire United States government, which includes orchestrating Democrat control of the House in 2006 so it is firmly in place when she is elected president in 2008."
Wheeler says such a scenario would ensure passage of the senator's so-called HillaryCare health-care legislation nationalizing medicine in the U.S.
"There was absolutely no doubt in [the source's] mind that Hillary is running – not will run, but already is running – for president in 2008," writes Wheeler in his column. "'This should be obvious to everyone,' he said, 'but what is not obvious is that's not all she's doing. Her focus and her goals go far beyond just the White House.'"
Continues Wheeler: "It is, then, at Hillary's direction that the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the entire Liberal Media apparatus are waging a relentless war upon House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The charges against him are either inconsequential or hypocritical – huge front page outrage stories, for example, about him going on a foreign 'junket' with no criticism of Democrats who were on the very same trip, such as Nancy Pelosi. Last week the WaPo ran this above-the-fold headline piece thousands of words long that was pure recycled froth with no substance whatever.
I'd be interested to know how "one of DeLay's colleagues" knows this. My guess is that it's just pure conjecture.
However, it is an interesting idea. If Hillary does have a part in this, she sure is being uncharacteristically subtle about it. Plus, I'm not really sure that she wields control over "the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the entire Liberal Media apparatus." She's not that powerful.
We'll see if anything else develops.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Posted by illuminaria at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2005
Hysterical Democrats Object to Big-Government
Let’s revisit the morning after pill debate I wrote about recently. Take a look at this column by Susan Paynter, if you can stomach it.
Senators Patty Murray and Hillary Clinton (both mothers of daughters) dug their heels in last week against the Food and Drug Administration's interminable foot-dragging on over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception. And when they did, they stood firm on an increasingly crowded line.
Apparently now to have an opinion on abortion and contraceptives, you not only have to be a woman but you have to be a mother of a daughter. Well shucks, I guess that puts me right out.
It's a line that growing numbers of Republicans and Democrats alike are drawing against governmental poking in our private lives.Poking not in order to protect us but to tell us how to behave.
Oh I love this one. See Democrats may poke into our lives, but it’s just to “protect us,” not to tell us how to behave.
Poking not based on compassion but on control.
Those evil Republicans, on the other hand, just want to tell us what to do so that they can feel the wonderful rush of power coursing through their veins. Every time they see a woman who is pregnant (because she couldn't get an abortion) and barefoot (because her welfare got cut) they say MUHAHAHAHA and jump into their pool filled with money.
Poking to prevent our access to a legal, safe, long-ago approved "morning after pill."
See, not allowing the morning after pill to be sold without a prescription equals preventing our access to it. That’s all doctors are there for, you know, to prevent our access to drugs. All that stuff about making sure it’s properly prescribed and the patient is monitored for ill effects is just a bunch of malarkey they made up to fool the dumb public. Amazing how well it has worked. Even I believe it.
Poking that allows disapproving pharmacists to override us and our doctors when it comes to the filling or refusing of ordinary, everyday birth control prescriptions.
My God, the humanity! Imagine the government poking into our private lives by allowing pharmacists and health care workers to act according to the dictates of their own conscience. Why they should be not poking into private lives by forcing them to do what the government deems right. Excuse me while I faint from horror…..
Poking into whether we can obtain a divorce while we're pregnant.
*sniff* Thank goodness for smelling salts. Anyway, I suppose I might just be misinformed here, but I don’t recall ever seeing anything about a law to prevent women from getting a divorce while pregnant. The conservative media probably covered it up.
Even poking into when and if we can pull the plug on our own suffering and hopelessly ill loved ones.
That’s right! The government is blocking us from pulling the plug on our own suffering. Oh, and I believe I recall that there’s also something about not letting us kill loved ones without their consent…but really, I’m more concerned with my suffering.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Murray and Clinton are not trying to solve all of the above. Their target is a limited one. As long as Bush FDA nominee Dr. Les Crawford keeps bottling up a decision (one way or the other) on the sale of Plan B emergency contraceptives, they will bottle up his confirmation. There it will sit, stoppered on the top shelf of the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee.And the move has been met with whoops by many who've grown sick of a patriarchal, supposedly "anti-big government" administration that may have shrunken federal intrusion. But, now that it's the size of a suppository, it apparently fits snugly into our hospital rooms and bedrooms, doctor's offices and drugstores.
*snort* Interesting anal-ogy there.
Still, when Murray pressed him, Crawford couldn't say when the FDA may act on Plan B. "Are we talking two weeks? Two years? Twenty years?" she asked him.Initially, she was told there were "issues" the FDA couldn't discuss in public.
Then, in private, Murray says she was told that it wasn't the science the agency was still struggling with. It was the "behavior."
In other words, an agency whose role is to protect the public with science is using ideology instead. That would be the same agency that's under fire for putting questionable drugs back on the market under the rationale that the public has a right to make its own health decisions. (Unless, apparently, that public is female.)
Perhaps “behavior” refers to the problem of people abusing over the counter drugs without consulting a doctor, perhaps it refers to the problem of teenagers taking these drugs when their parents wouldn’t approve, or would at least like to know about it, perhaps…. Nah, that’s ridiculous. It’s obviously all about ideology and Republicans wanting to stomp on women.
Crawford could not give Murray a date for an up or down vote on over-the-counter sale of the morning after pill. Certainly it wouldn't happen before today -- the magical April 13 date originally set for his confirmation. So Murray told him, in that case, she couldn't give a date for his confirmation either.
Ah yes, these wonderful senator moms (of daughters) aren’t at all abusing their power. Not at all, that’s something only evil Republicans do.
Apparently Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, also a member of the Health, Education and Labor Committee, is content to wait, saying he trusts that the "FDA will do the right thing," eventually. But thankfully, the senator moms are not.
Perhaps Kennedy understands that the approval process at the FDA takes a while and that they need to consider a lot of factors, one of them not being the ideology of hysterical abortion rights activists.
And apparently, increasing numbers of red and blue voters now are suffering symptoms of discomfort as well. "What's next, (refusal to sell) condoms?" columnist Ellen Goodman wondered recently in print while "Real Time" comic host Bill Maher sarcastically suggested druggists stop selling makeup since "only sluts paint their faces."
Condoms and makeup equals a pill whose long term effects haven’t been studied. Uh-hu.
I'm not talking about notes, calls and e-mail from readers in liberal Seattle, either. Recently I got a card bearing the American flag and the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner," mailed from Sultan.
Ha! Look, a tacit admission that liberals are less likely to be patriotic.
Inside was an article titled "Access Denied" about doctors and pharmacists refusing to write or fill birth control prescriptions. "As to women's options," the writer said, "we surely need less intervention from such as the so-called 'moral majority.' "
Again, pharmacists and health care workers acting on their conscience equals governmental intervention from the “so-called” moral majority. Is anyone not getting the contradiction here?
Like me, the writer must have been proud last week, when Sen. Murray drew the line.
Yes, I’m sure you were both proud of Murray’s tantrum.
Posted by illuminaria at 02:27 PM | Comments (2)
April 12, 2005
Clinton Not Subtle, But Not Inept
Via Michelle Malkin, read this article at Red State about Hillary Clinton and her political ineptitude
Hillary’s movement is a big deal first and foremost because everybody notices her movement. Frist and others do not get noticed because, while one can identify their political movements (only through systematic evaluation of their voting records), their positioning is more subtle. But not Hillary’s. There is nothing subtle about her strategic positioning. Not a thing. Everybody talks about Hillary’s political calculations not because they are brilliant but because they are obvious, because everything about Hillary screams political calculation. There is nothing organic to her politics, it all seems artificial.This is the sign of a bad politician. All politicians do the same things. They all change their views. They all move with the political currents. They are all flexible and pragmatic. What differentiates the good politician from the bad one is that you never notice that the good one is pragmatic. A good politician is as smooth as a well-aged, single malt scotch. Hillary is a bad politician. She is like that bottom shelf blended garbage the ABC sells for $12/handle.
Basically the idea is that Clinton is so unsubtle about her moderate moves, people to see her as a political opportunist rather than a trusted champion and this makes her a bad politician.
It’s an interesting point and one I’m glad has been pointed out. It’s quite true that most people who are involved in politics and news aren’t really unsure of her motivations, and I’m certainly one of them.
However, I hope that no one dismisses her as easily beaten because of it. To me, her actions seem similar to that of a good con artist – rather than sneak around hoping no one sees you, go about your task boldly and openly, hoping that everyone assumes that since you look like you’re supposed to be there, you are. This road she’s taking seems like it could succeed for three reasons.
First, while she may not be moderating herself early in her career, she’s doing it far enough ahead of time that while many of your typical partially informed to uninformed voters in 2008 may realize that she’s been gunning for the presidency for a long time, most of them are not really going to remember what her views were then. People are really good at forgetting things when they haven’t heard much about them lately.
Which brings us to the second point, the media is pretty favorable towards her and will probably continue to be in the future. With stories I’ve been reading recently, it’s easy to see that while reports of Hillary’s presidential run and moderation are wide-spread, there is not so much information about the huge disparity between her now and her 10 years ago. No one is writing stories calling her on political changes in opinion. Why would they even have to? The media sees it as so obvious that it would be like reporting that the sky is blue. Voters aren’t going to stay focused on her flip-flopping if the media isn’t.
Finally, Hillary is not going to have so much of a problem with losing far-left voters as other Democrats have. Not only are Democrats pretty desperate to get one of theirs into office, but the fact that Hillary is so obvious about her moderation means that few people in her own party are calling her on her political changes of opinion. Instead they are saying behind their hands, “Yeah, Hillary, go ahead and tell the people what they want to hear, but we know what you’ll REALLY do for us once you get in office.” Again, this prevents debate on her flip-flopping from getting into the media.
Conservatives aren’t afraid of her because she’s a good politician, they’re afraid of her because she could win.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
UNCoRRELATED has more.
Michael Williams thinks Clinton has no chance of winning.
Posted by illuminaria at 05:05 PM | Comments (3)
Clinton Taking a Different Course on Security Than Kerry
New York Daily News interviews Clinton.
Sen. Hillary Clinton lamented yesterday that Democrats booted security issues in last fall's election and urged her party to embrace the "different course" she's been pushing - or risk another four years of GOP rule.Meeting with Daily News editors and reporters, the New York Democrat said her party must "do a better job" of debunking Republican attacks that Democrats are soft on homeland security as well as national security issues like the Iraq war.
Without directly criticizing Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the 2004 presidential candidate, Clinton argued that more Americans agree with Democratic values than with what she called the GOP's "extremist agenda."
"If you can't persuade a majority of people that you're going to be strong and tough where we need to protect America and our [national] interests, you can't cross the [electoral] threshold," she added.
Yep, she's a whole lot smarter than John Kerry. (Not that that's hard)
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Posted by illuminaria at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2005
Clinton Doesn't Deny Running for President
Hillary Clinton (and Karl Rove) gave a speech in Minnesota this weekend. It’s looking more and more like she will be running for president in 2008, not that anyone on either side has ever really doubted it.
Clinton didn't say she was running for president. She didn't have to. Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) said it for her when he made an "unauthorized" introduction of the "next great president of the United States of America."After a standing ovation by 2,000 Dems who paid $100-a-head to see her speak, Clinton slammed Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress — and never contradicted her introduction.
Clinton's Republican shredding — calling GOP lawmakers "extras in the movie 'I, Robot' " and President Bush's push for an ownership society a "you're-on-your-own society" — was just what the party here wanted.
That’s some real good non-partisan rhetoric there.
Meanwhile on the other side of the aisle…
Claiming Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is running for the White House, New York's GOP chairman has kicked off a national "STOP HILLARY NOW!" fundraising effort to thwart her 2006 Senate re-election bid."Stopping Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most important thing you and I can do as Republicans in the next two years," says the fund-raising appeal sent out by Stephen Minarik. "You could say it's our duty as Republicans."
Minarik's fund-raising letter, dated Friday, promises a Republican "truth squad" that will "monitor Hillary's appearances and expose her lies."
I don’t want to see Hillary Clinton in the white house either, but entitling a fundraising campaign “STOP HILLARY NOW” seems like a pretty bad idea given both the way the press reports things like this and Clinton’s recent low-profile, middle-of-the-road image. I’m sure they will raise lots of money, but who knows what it will do to America’s image of the GOP.
Of course those of us who are paying attention know that Clinton is no better, but it’s not going to be as widely reported in the media. For instance, I saw about 40 stories on Yahoo News on the GOP fundraising effort, and about 5 last week on Clinton's fundraising letter to her supporters complaining about the "right wing attack machine."
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Update: President Clinton calls Republican consultant Arthur Finkelstein "sad."
Clinton called one of the leaders of the [Stop Hillary Now] movement, New York powerbroker Arthur Finkelstein "sad," after reports over the weekend that the Republican consultant married his gay lover."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," Clinton said. "I was more sad for him.
Could he be any more condecending? That seems to be a speciality of liberals when it comes to gays, and blacks and women for that matter. Excuse me while I begin my entry on how sad Christian Democrats are...
Michelle Malkin liked Clinton's remark too, as did Say Anything and Ace of Spades.
Posted by illuminaria at 03:45 PM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2005
Murray & Clinton Plan to Hold Up FDA Chief Confirmation
From Bloomberg news.
Democratic Senators Patty Murray and Hillary Clinton said they would block confirmation of Lester Crawford as Food and Drug Administration chief because of delays in approving over-the-counter sales of Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Plan B [emergency] contraceptive. Murray said Crawford, who has been acting commissioner since March 2004, wouldn't pick a date for issuing a decision. The senators will hold up confirmation until there is a ruling on the filing, she said. The FDA didn't provide any new information during the meeting and isn't requesting any new information from the manufacturer, Murray said.
Plan B is an emergency contraceptive. It works differently than RU-486, which is an abortifacient Plan B prevents ovulation, prevent sperm from reaching the egg, and prevent implantation just like birth control pills do. It has no effect on a fetus.
Proponents, such as NOW, wish Plan B to become over the counter because since it must be taken within a few days to be effective, it would be easier to get without needing a prescription. However, I note that the manufacture’s drug insert says that it is not necessary to get a physical examination before being prescribed the drug. What’s the big deal about calling your doctor, asking for it, waiting for a little bit, and then going to the pharmacy?
I’ll tell you what the big deal is, it’s teenagers. NOW wants them to be able to get whatever contraception they want whenever they want without having to ask their parents permission. (They want the same for abortions too, for that matter.) However, as with this issue in regards to abortion, there are moral and health issues here. Personally I’m against abortion and for contraception. However, there are certainly parents who are morally against contraception. Should their parental rights be ignored? Plan B, while not having a lot of serious risks, does have risks. Since it is similar to progestin-only contraceptives that increase the risk of ectopic pregnancies, (which can be life-threatening) it is hypothesized that Plan B could also have similar risks, though there haven’t been studies done to confirm or disprove this hypothesis. (Again, I am getting this from the manufacture’s drug insert.) If a kid can’t ask her parents to take her to a doctor for a contraceptive, how will she be able to ask them to take her to the doctor for an ectopic pregnancy?
The first proposal to make Plan B over the counter had no age limits at all. This time the limitation that the purchaser must be over the age of 15 has been added. Are 16 year olds really that medically and morally responsible?
I find it odd that the FDA would be considering approval of an emergency contraceptive being released without a prescription, without approving the same for regular contraceptives. I suppose the idea would be that since it is supposed to be a one time thing, the patient doesn’t need to be monitored for long-term effects. But what’s to stop someone from taking them long term? The manufacture says that Plan B is not recommended for long term use, is not as effective as the Pill for long term use, and they haven’t even done studies on long term effects. And they want to hand these out like aspirin? At least we know the long term effects of aspirin, and some kid isn’t going to be afraid to tell their parents that they’ve been taking aspirin for 12 months when they need to go to the doctor for a stomach ulcer.
Despite my reservations on the subject, there’s been no reason to suspect the FDA of bringing conservative politics into this, and Crawford has said recently that the drug will probably be approved.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
"The science part is generally done," Crawford told Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who had pressed him on the issue. "We're just now down to what the label will look (like). This is going to be a very unusual sort of approval."…
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., also questioned Crawford aggressively, asking whether a formal decision on Plan B would be announced before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions votes on his nomination, probably April 13. Crawford said he doubted a decision would be forthcoming by then because of the application's complexity.
Sounds like Murray and Clinton are the ones bringing politics into this, not the FDA. Don't you just love all these Democrats abusing their power?
Posted by illuminaria at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 06, 2005
Clinton and Kerry Have Got Religion
An article in the Village Voice last Friday talks about a bill co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry called the Workplace Religious Freedom Act.
The bill actually isn’t new; it was first introduced in 1996 by Kerry and Clinton has supported it for three sessions. Recently, though, support from Democrats has fallen off as groups like the ACLU and the National Women's Law Center have come out against it. What are they so upset about? Abortion of course. They say that it would allow pharmacists and other medical personnel to refuse to provide services relating to abortion and prescriptions for birth control and abortion products. Obviously the government and employers should be forcing people to go against their moral convictions so that no one is inconvenienced.
The interesting part of the article was describing the different ways that Kerry and Clinton are going about their continued support.
Kerry… has positively crowed about the bill, perhaps because he learned the value of the values vote when his own presidential bid sank last year. On March 17, he stood shoulder to shoulder with one of his most hard-right colleagues, Rick Santorum, to introduce the act, hailing it as a defense of religious liberty. "Our nation was founded on freedom of religion," Kerry said at a Capitol Hill press conference, "and it should be clear in our laws that no American should ever have to choose between keeping a job and keeping faith with their cherished religious beliefs." ... Clinton's office has been notably quiet about her involvement, perhaps indicating that any credit she hopes to get for pushing the bill would come not from the larger public, but from the kind of select religious interests she's been courting lately as she lays the groundwork for a possible White House run in 2008. Her office says the senator will work to fine-tune the bill as it moves to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, where she sits.
That just goes to show that Clinton is a better strategist than Kerry, which is why she is actually someone to look out for in 2008.
Hat-tip to Wallo World.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Posted by illuminaria at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2005
Hillary Clinton Still Fighting “Right-Wing Attack Machine”
Look at this article in the New York Times.
In a fund-raising e-mail message sent out on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton's campaign also said her critics were preparing an advertising campaign against her similar to the one orchestrated by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that attacked Senator John Kerry's Vietnam service during the presidential election."The right wing is already getting ready, naming Hillary as their 'No. 1 target' and boasting about their 'Swift Boat' style ads," said the e-mail message, which was sent by Ann F. Lewis, the director of communications for Mrs. Clinton's campaign committee, Friends of Hillary. "Help us show the right wing that we will be ready and able to fight back."
Is “Swift Boat” style here supposed to mean “truthful” style?
In many respects, the fund-raising letter is a fairly standard piece of campaign literature, employing the kind of scare tactics that Republican and Democratic politicians routinely use to mobilize their supporters.That said, the fund-raising solicitation exposes a side of Mrs. Clinton - fiery partisan - that she has rarely displayed in the four years since she arrived in the Senate, where she has won over many Republican colleagues with a nonconfrontational and even cordial style.
Clinton a fiery partisan? Who woulda thunk it.
As a contrast, see these two articles.
First, this one from the AP is about how Clinton has been collaborating with GOP leaders.
[Kenneth Weinstein of the Hudson Institute] said Republicans' joining Clinton on issues or at events is relatively normal, especially as the former first lady has tried to move to the political center."She's not Ted Kennedy," he said, referring to the Massachusetts liberal Democrat.
Then see this one from the New York Post about Clinton’s silence on the Schiavo debate.
AS THE nation bitterly debates the Terri Schiavo case, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has tried to stay above the fray, refusing to take sides and staying as quiet as possible.Some strategists say that's smart as she revs up for a 2008 presidential race and helps her move to the center just like her very public push to reach out to right-to-lifers on abortion. Others say it's a big blunder.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Posted by illuminaria at 06:33 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2005
Hillary's Voting Bill
I saw on Fox News today that Hillary Clinton will be introducing a bill called "The Count Every Vote Act of 2005." The bill is co-sponsored by Barbara Boxer. The bill will
-[Create] a federal holiday for voting.— Require paper receipts for votes.
— Authorize $500 million to help states make the changes in voting systems and equipment.
— Allow ex-felons to vote. Currently an estimated 4.7 million Americans are barred from voting because of their criminal records.
— Require adoption of the changes in time for the 2006 election.
I really don't understand why making election day a federal holiday is something that we need to work towards. I guess it isn't a bad idea in theory, but I don't know that it would necessarily make it more possible for people to vote. Will this include closing of schools? Won't that mean that parents, especially mothers, will have a harder time voting?
In regards to the second point, I don't really understand what this means. Is it talking about printing a paper ballot for electronic voting? I think this should happen, but I don't know that this is what is meant. Is it meant to say that every voter should get a voting receipt that they can take home to say they voted? If so, will this receipt have their votes? If so, doesn't that make it more possible to find out who someone voted for, and isn't that supposed to be a bad thing? And how on earth does giving someone a voting receipt help with, well, anything? I suppose my first guess would be that it gives, for instance, someone in Florida who voted for Buchanan, but meant to vote for Gore some proof that they made a mistake and a way to try and fix that mistake. This, however, sounds like a terrible idea to me. If someone votes for a third party candidate because they were convinced that their "first party" candidate of choice would win, what's to prevent them from claiming that they made a mistake if they turned out to be wrong? Won't something like this INCREASE voter fraud?
In regards to the third point, this sort of thing was done already after the 2000 election.
And finally, the last point. Why on earth would we want to allow felons to vote? If someone could offer me some good reason beyond "well, it's not fair to take away their rights," then I would consider it. However, I don't really have a problem with not allowing felons to vote, along with illegal immigrants for that matter.
And I can only imagine what is hidden in the depths of the bill. For pete's sake, why would anyone send out a press release a week before actually releasing the text of the bill.
I really don't understand why Democrats are so concerned with making it easier to vote. I mean, I don't want voting to be harder than registering in the correct place, going to the correct polling place on voting day, standing in line for 20-30 minutes, casting your vote, double checking it, and turning it in to the correct place. Any problems with that scenario, such as overly long lines for instance, should be fixed. But if someone doesn't care enough to follow that procedure, then they probably don't care enough to find out whom they are voting for.
I also don't understand why they are so resistant to dealing with voter fraud. I really liked a lot of the techniques they used in the Iraq vote. Why can't we require a picture ID and stain people's fingers so that they can't vote twice?
I note that at Hillary's website you can sign up as a citizen co-sponsor WITHOUT EVEN READING THE BILL.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Update: I see on Hillary's website, she says the bill will "Provide a verified paper ballot for every vote cast in electronic voting machines." I don't see where the AP got "require paper receipts for votes" from that. That's a rather irresponsible summary if you ask me, assuming that they both refer to the same thing.
I will note that in 2001 as my senior project, I helped to design an electronic voting system with paper backups. All electronic and paper ballots were associated with a random number to enable double checking. I think that's a great idea. I don't understand why there are electronic voting systems without paper backups.
By the way, here is a website where you can compare types of legislation relating to voting. For instance The Voting Integrity and Verification Act of 2005 requires paper backups for electronic voting that can be verified by the voter before their electronic vote is submitted and required them to be preserved like paper ballots, and it doesn't throw in anything about felon voting. How about some support for this one?
GOP Bloggers also doesn't seem to like the idea of felons voting.
Posted by illuminaria at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)