Whoa!!!

There was another Democrat debate on Wednesday night and some interesting things were said - or not said that are not getting a lot of attention.

Here's the question from Tim Russert and the answers from the top three candidates:

...will you pledge that by January 2013, the end of your first term, more than five years from now, that there will be no troops, US troops in Iraq?"

And their answers...

"I think it's hard to project four years from now," said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation's first primary state.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

"I cannot make that commitment," said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

I guess President Bush's advice on the war is having an impact on them.

This has got to be really irritating the anti-war Left! If I were them I would be concerned about their credibility and conviction.

Isn't Halloween a Month Away?

Bush Advising Hillary and other Top Dem Presidential Candidates

Isn't this interesting?

The Daily Kos Links to The Hammond Report

Daily Kos commenter xynz links to The Hammond Report post More Fund Raising Troubles for Clinton.

The Left is Really Upset with the Petraeus Amendment

The local Lefty Blogs, LITW, MNR, trying to maintain their "Kos Kred", are out there expressing their dismay about the Petraeus Amendment, which simply states...

To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.

This is in response to the Moveon.org campaign against General Petraeus last week and is simply an official expression of support of the General who is commanding our troops in Iraq. It is beyond me that there would even be Senators that would vote Nay on this, all of whom are Democrats.

It's very illuminating to see how influenced these Democrats are by the Moveon and "Kos Krowd" and cannot see how they look to the vast majority of the American population.

I give credit to Baucus and Tester for voting in support of General Patraeus. Clinton is clearly influenced by Moveon and the "Kos Krowd" and Obama is too big a weenie and coward to even vote.

This will come back to haunt both Clinton and Obama when the majority of the people start paying attention to the Presidential election.

More Fund Raising Troubles for Clinton

The WSJ reports more fund-raising shenanigans in the Clinton campaign. I kinda wish the press would not make that big a deal out of it because I don't want anything to derail Hillary's ability to win the Democratic nomination.

Anyway, it seems another fund-raising "bundler", William Danielczyk, founder of a Washington-area private-equity firm, reimbursed many of his family and employees for donations giving to the Clinton campaign. One woman, Pamala Layton, is on record having donated $4600, the maximum allowed.

But the 37-year-old Ms. Layton says she and her husband were reimbursed by her husband's boss for the donations. "It wasn't personal money. It was all corporate money," Mrs. Layton said outside her home here. "I don't even like Hillary. I'm a Republican."

Of course, Clinton's campaign is unaware and will return any money that wasn't given from any donor's own funds.

Asked about the donations bundled by Mr. Danielczyk, Mrs. Clinton's campaign said yesterday it would return the $9,200 donated by Mr. and Mrs. Layton.

Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said: "These allegations are troubling and we will again ask each of the individuals solicited by Mr. Danielczyk to affirm that their contributions were given with their own funds." Mr. Wolfson said the campaign will return any contributions that didn't come from the donor's own money.

Mr. Wolfson also said the campaign provides information to its donors that "clearly spell out that donations must be from personal funds."

I find it very hard to believe that the Clinton campaign is oblivious to the practice of these fund-raising "bundlers". They are either naive or are encouraging it, both of which are not good attributes in a Presidential candidate.

We are 15 months away from the election and these pesky fund-raising scandals are starting to pop up.

What's next??

A Tale of Two Scandals

Two scandals on two US Senators broke yesterday. One was on Republican Larry Craig which I'm sure everybody has heard about. The other was on Democrat and leading Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Senator Craig was busted and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in connection with soliciting gay sex in a airport restroom from an undercover cop. Craig is a Republican who has voted against "gay rights" including supporting his state's ban on gay marriage. It certainly smells of hypocracy and effectively "outs" the man as being gay. Liberals and the MSM are having a lot of fun with it and when you google Larry Craig as of this morning, there are over 1800 news stories about this scandal.

Senator Clinton's presidential campaign was hit with accusations of breaking campaign finance laws by the Wall Street Journal. It was discovered that one of the biggest contributers to Hillary's campaign is by a family of very modest means living in San Fransisco. They have managed to donate a total of $200,000 to her campaign.

Interestingly, the Paw family donations seem to be closely tied to wealthy Clinton supporter and businessman Normon Hsu.

The Paws' political donations closely track donations made by Norman Hsu, a wealthy New York businessman in the apparel industry who once listed the Paw home as his address, according to public records. Mr. Hsu is one of the top fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. He has hosted or co-hosted some of her most prominent money-raising events.

In addition the Paw family seems to not be terribly interested in politics until recently.

William and Alice Paw are of Chinese descent. The entire family got their Social Security cards in California in 1982, according to state records. All but one of the Paws registered to vote as "nonpartisan." A San Mateo County elections official said that members of the Paw family vote "sporadically."

No one in the Paw family had ever given a campaign contribution before the 2004 presidential election, according to campaign-finance reports. Then, in July 2004, five members of the family contributed a total of $3,600 to the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat. Five of the checks were dated July 27, 2004. About the same time, Mr. Hsu made his first donations to a political candidate, contributing the maximum amount allowed by law to Mr. Kerry in two separate checks, on July 21, 2004, and on Aug. 6.

Even though it appears that campaign finance laws were clearly broken, the Clinton Campaign is planning on keeping the money. I am sure the MSM will support this while keeping up the aggressive reporting and distraction of Larry Craig's problems.

When you google Hillary Clinton Donor you get a total of 33 stories on the scandal.

Which is worse, a dirty old man trying to get a little in a restroom or a Presidential candidate breaking campaign finance laws to the tune of $200,000? According to the MSM, it's clearly the dirty old man.

The Problem With SCHIP

Proponents and supporters of the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) are leaving out some very important and crucial information about the program that most people would find alarming.

First of all, SCHIP was created in 1997 to cover the health insurance of children in families that were not eligible for Medicaid. The income threshold was 200% of the poverty line, $40,300 for a family of four.

Seven states set eligibility to be over 200% of the poverty line and fourteen states loosely defined child to include parents, pregnant women, and childless adults.

Senators Clinton and Dingle like what these states are doing and have proposed bills that would allow states to establish the income threshold to 400% of the poverty line, $82,600 for a family of four and allow children to be defined to age 25.

The cost of Clinton/Dingle would be $85 Billion over five years compared to $25 Billion if the program were left as is. To pay for it, expect our taxes to increase.

This is clearly the first attempt at socializing our health care.

Congratulations ExxonMobil

I am very excited that ExxonMobil reported the single biggest profit in US history yesterday. My kids' college funds and my 401k are invested in ExxonMobil stock.

So I am thrilled my kids' funds and my retirement fund did well. Those funds also have some ConocoPhillips and am looking forward to their report today.

Of course, Democrats are upset and Hillary wants to take those profits and put it in a strategic energy fund. I want her to keep her slimy hands off my kids' college money and my retirement.

More on Hillary Lying

There is more on Hillary lying this past weekend when she spoke in Iowa. In October 2002, she gave a speech on the Senate floor fully supporting President Bush and her vote authorizing him to use military force.

Here are a few highlights from that speech.

Now, I believe the facts that have brought us to this fateful vote are not in doubt. Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who has tortured and killed his own people, even his own family members, to maintain his iron grip on power. He used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds and on Iranians, killing over 20 thousand people.

In 1998, Saddam Hussein pressured the United Nations to lift the sanctions by threatening to stop all cooperation with the inspectors. In an attempt to resolve the situation, the UN, unwisely in my view, agreed to put limits on inspections of designated "sovereign sites" including the so-called presidential palaces, which in reality were huge compounds well suited to hold weapons labs, stocks, and records which Saddam Hussein was required by UN resolution to turn over. When Saddam blocked the inspection process, the inspectors left. As a result, President Clinton, with the British and others, ordered an intensive four-day air assault, Operation Desert Fox, on known and suspected weapons of mass destruction sites and other military targets.

This is a very difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make -- any vote that may lead to war should be hard -- but I cast it with conviction.

And perhaps my decision is influenced by my eight years of experience on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House watching my husband deal with serious challenges to our nation. I want this President, or any future President, to be in the strongest possible position to lead our country in the United Nations or in war. Secondly, I want to insure that Saddam Hussein makes no mistake about our national unity and for our support for the President's efforts to wage America's war against terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. And thirdly, I want the men and women in our Armed Forces to know that if they should be called upon to act against Iraq, our country will stand resolutely behind them.

Hillary Lying About Her Vote to Authorize Military Force

Back in 2003, Senator Hillary Clinton said the following to Code Pink, an anti-war group:

There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm's way, that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm. And I have absolutely no belief that he will. I have to say that this is something I've followed for more than a decade. If he were serious about disarming, he would have been much more forthcoming. I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information, intelligence that I had available, talking with people whose opinions I trusted, tried to discount the political or other factors that I didn't believe should be in any way a part of this decision. I would love to agree with you, but I can't based on my own understanding and assessment of the situation.

With respect to whose responsibility it is to disarm Saddam Hussein, I just do not believe that, given the attitudes of many people in the world community today, that there would be a willingness to take on very difficult problems, were it not for the United States leadership, and I'm talking specifically about what had to be done in Bosnia and Kosovo where my husband could not get a Security Council resolution to save the Kosovar Albanians from ethnic cleansing. And we did it alone as the United States, and we had to do it alone. And so I see it somewhat differently. So forgive me for my experience and perspective.

Last Saturday, in Iowa, she said this about her vote to authorize military force:

I think it's the height of irresponsibility, and I really resent it. This was his decision to go to war. He went with an ill-conceived plan and an incompetently executed strategy, and we should expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office.

I said that we should not go to war unless we have allies, so he took the authority that I and others gave him, and he misused it. And I regret that deeply. And if we had known then what we know now, there never would have been a vote, and I never would have voted to give this president that authority. … There are no do-overs in life. I wish there were. You know, I acted on the best judgment that I had at the time, and at the time I said this was not a vote for preemptive war, and the president took my vote and other votes and basically misused the authority we gave him

Back in 2003 she was gung-ho about going to war against Iraq and seemed to be putting the anti-war group Code Pink in their place. Now she's claiming Bush lied and basically tricked her into voting for the authority.

She's either lying, not bright enough to remember what she said about something this important, or thinks the American people are too stupid to figure out what she's doing.

Andy Endorses Hillary for Democrat Presidential Candidate

I officially endorse Hillary Rodham-Clinton as the 2008 Democrat Candidate for President of the United States.

Why, you may ask. Well, I think she would be the best possible candidate for the Democrats to nominate. She served as C0-President from 1992-2000, the most prosperous and peaceful period in the history of the world. She is Pro-Choice except when it comes to education where she is full fledged supportive of the teacher's Unions who we all know do everything possible to better the education of our children. She wants Socialized Health Care just like Canada which ought to stop those pesky Canadians from coming into our country for their care.

Although she says she would oppose any tax increases on the middle class, we know it's just a rouse to have the middle class vote for her. Just like Bill did when he ran on no taxes on the middle class but had to raise them the first year he was in office. So we know Hillary, as Co-President then, will do the same. We will need to pay for that Socialized Health Care somehow.

She is also a brilliant business woman especially when you consider her Whitewater real estate deal and how she made $100,000 the first and only time in a cattle futures investment.

I am most impressed with what she has accomplished during her six years in the Senate.
Her Senate Record is so spectacular, I feel it necessary to list her accomplishments.

• Establish the Kate Mullany National Historic Site

• Support the goals and ideals of Better Hearing and Speech Month

• Recognize the Ellis Island Medal of Honor

• Name courthouse after Thurgood Marshall

• Name courthouse after James L. Watson

• Name post office after John A. O'Shea

• Designate August 7, 2003, as National Purple Heart Recognition Day

• Support the goals and ideals of National Purple Heart Recognition Day

• Honor the life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton on the bicentennial of his death

• Congratulate the Syracuse University Orange Men's Lacrosse Team on winning the championship.

• Congratulate the Le Moyne College Dolphins Men's Lacrosse Team on winning the championship

• Establish the 225th Anniversary of the American Revolution Commemorative Program

• Name post office after Sergeant Riayan A. Tejeda

• Honor Shirley Chisholm for her service to the nation and express condolences on her death

• Honor John J. Downing, Brian Fahey, and Harry Ford, firefighters who lost their lives on duty.

• Extend period of unemployment assistance to victims of 9/11

• Pay for city projects in response to 9/11

• Assist landmine victims in other countries

• Assist family caregivers in accessing affordable respite care

• Designate part of the National Forest System in Puerto Rico as protected in the Wilderness Preservation System

This is an impressive set of credentials for a Presidential Candidate.

I'm thinking any Republican candidate should wait until 2016 before even trying since there is no way that we can even win with the "smartest woman in the world" running.

What the Democrats Said About Iraq and WMDs

With the Democrats bashing Bush for wanting to win the war by increasing troop levels and renewing their claims that he lied about WMDs I feel it important to remind everybody what Democrats said about Iraq, Saddam, and WMDs when they had the White House and when the polls supported war soon after 9/11.

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998 | Source

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
- President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998 | Source

"We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."
- Madeline Albright, Feb 1, 1998 | Source

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998 | Source

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton.
- (D) Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, others, Oct. 9, 1998 | Source

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999 | Source

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002 | Source

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002 | Source

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002 | Source


- I got the quotes from the Glen Beck web site.

Andy's First Take on the Possible and Announced 2008 Democrat Presidential Candidates

Here is a quick and shallow analysis, in no particular order, of what I think about the more serious possible and announced 2008 Democrat Presidential Candidates:

Current or former Senators - None are likely to win the nomination or election as Americans don't like or elect senators to the White House.

1. Barack Hussein Obama - Do you really think Americans would elect somebody with a middle name of Hussein and a last name that gets confused with Osama (Ted Kennedy and CNN)?? He is very likable and charismatic but needs to toughen up if he is to be taken seriously. And I think his "unfortunate" name will hurt his chances.

2. John Edwards - I question the intelligence of a candidate who officially announces his candidacy at the worst time on the calendar - the week between Christmas and New Years - when nobody is paying any attention. Plus he's a proven loser as the VP candidate with John Kerry in 2004.

3. John Kerry - Do the Democrats really want a proven loser Presidential candidate who is 0-1? I don't think so. Plus he's just plain boring.

4. Al Gore - See #3 above. Plus he's a boring and loony environmentalist.

5. Hillary Rodham-Clinton - The carpetbagging senator from New York with a lot of Bill Clinton baggage. Do the American people want another Clinton? Plus she is just not likable.


Current or former Governors - Americans seem to prefer Governors so these candidates, in my opinion, would be much stronger candidates.

1. Bill Richardson (New Mexico) - He's popular and likable. He's cut taxes which is helping grow New Mexico's economy. He's also tough on crime, believes in charter schools, and supports free trade (NAFTA, GATT, and WTO) . All of which will hurt his chances with the Left.

2. Tom Vilsack (Iowa) - Who?? Actually, being a popular governor in in a key primary state will help boost his chances. He also seems to be fairly liberal on the issues which will win him support with the Left.

3. Howard Dean (Vermont) - Current chairman of the DNC. Failed in his 2004 nomination bid because he came across as a lunatic. The Left loves him because he is a true blue Liberal.

There are several more but these are the ones that seem to stand out the most right now.