Quills, Iowa, believer in Truth in the media and informational sources – sent this bit of information (she received via cyberspace) to remind those who may be considering Hillary Clinton
in the primary elections about the real truth – but is it? …
… If you happen to see the Bill Clinton five-minute TV ad for Hillary in which he introduced the commercial by saying that he wants to share some things we may not know about Hillary’s background … beware. As I was there for most of their presidency and know them better than just about anyone, I offer a few corrections:
Bill says: “In law school Hillary worked on legal services for the poor.”
The facts are: Hillary’s main extra-curricular activity in law school was helping the Black Panthers
, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a federal agent … She went to court every day as part of a law student monitoring committee trying to spot civil rights violations and develop grounds for appeal.
Bill says: “Hillary spent a year after graduation working on a children’s rights project for poor kids.”
The facts are: Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party. She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take internship with him.
Bill says: “Hillary could have written her own job ticket, but she turned down all the lucrative job offers.”
The facts are: She flunked the DC bar exam, yes, flunked, it is a matter of record, and only passed the Arkansas bar. She had no job offers in Arkansas, none, and only got hired by the University of Arkansas Law School at Fayetteville because Bill was already teaching there. She did not join the prestigious Rose Law Firmuntil Bill became Arkansas Attorney General and was made a partner only after he was elected Arkansas Governor.
Bill says: “President Carter appointed Hillary to the Legal Services Board of Directors and she became its chairman.”
The facts are: The appointment was in exchange for Bill’s support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy. Hillary then became chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter’s choice to be chairman.
Bill says: “She served on the board of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital.”
The facts are: Yes she did. But her main board activity, not mentioned by Bill, was to sit on the Wal-Mart board of directors, for a substantial fee. She was silent about their labor and health care practices.
Bill says: “Hillary didn’t succeed at getting health care for all Americans in 1994, but she kept working at it and helped to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provides five million children with health insurance.”
The facts are: Hillary had nothing to do with creating CHIP. It was included in the budget deal between Clinton and Republican Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott. I know, I helped to negotiate the deal. The money came half from the budget deal and half from the Attorney Generals’ tobacco settlement. Hillary had nothing to do with either source of funds.
Bill says: “Hillary was the face of America all over the world.”
The facts are: Her visits were part of a program to get her out of town so that Bill would not appear weak by feeding stories that Hillary was running the White House. Her visits abroad were entirely touristic and symbolic and there was no substantive diplomacy on any of them.
Bill says: “Hillary was an excellent Senator who kept fighting for children’s and women’s issues.”
The facts are: Other than totally meaningless legislation like changing the names on courthouses and post offices, she has passed only four substantive pieces of legislation. One set up a national part in Puerto Rico. A second provided respite care for family members helping their relatives through Alzheimer’s or other conditions. And two were routine bills to aid 9/11 victims and responders which were sponsored by the entire NY delegation. Presently she is trying to have the US memorialize the Woodstock fiasco of 40 years ago.
Here is what bothers me more than anything else about Hillary Clinton. She has done everything possible to weaken the President and our country (that’s you and me!) when it comes to the war on terror.
1. She wants to close GITMO and move the combatants to the USA where they would have access to our legal system.
2. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of suspected Al Qaeda [Qaida] phone calls to/from the USA.
3. She wants to grant constitutional rights to enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.
4. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of money transfers between suspected Al Qaeda cells and supporters in the USA.
5. She wants to eliminate the type of interrogation tactics used by the military and CIA where coercion might be used when questioning known terrorists even though such tactics might save American lives.
One cannot think of a single bill Hillary has introduced or a single comment she has made that would tend to strengthen our country in the War on Terror. But, one can think of a lot of comments she has made that weaken our country and makes it a more dangerous situation for all of us.
Bottom line: She goes hand-in-hand with the ACLUon far too many issues where common sense is abandoned.
… No matter how much Hillary tries to separate herself from Bill, they are a team. … The Clinton’s don’t care about the people they ask to elect them … they only care about power, be it gaining it or retaining it.
, who knows the Clintons intimately, a reformed former follower, you might say – should be listened to. In his December 27th, 2007 article he writes: … At first, his appearances were novel and politically helpful. But then they came to underscore her weakness. … Increasingly, he seems like former Gov. George Wallace – who put his wife Lurleen into the Alabama State House after he was forced from office by term limits. …
According to former Watergate scandal journalist Carl Bernstein, Hillary also displayed persistent signs of melancholy as a student.
, starring Al Pucino. When a major presidential candidate refuses to reveal the specifics of her campaign program, taking the position that she “won’t answer hypothetical questions,” how are we to gauge her candidacy and intentions? There’s only one way: We must become detectives, reading her statements – particularly between the lines – to figure out her ideas and likely governing philosophy. … She’ll never tell us. … So it is definitely appropriate to read the tea leaves and project what President Hillary would do if elected. …
That highly Democratic Congress and President Hillary would likely combine to enact legislation so far reaching and ideologically polarizing as to be a rare turning point in American history. … It’s a frightening thought. Start with her tax policies.
Hillary makes no secret of her intentions to roll back Bush’s tax cuts on the ‘wealthy.’ But her definition of ‘rich’ is sufficiently inclusive so as to encompass everyone with a family or household income over $200,000 a year. Clearly she would include the following in the tax cuts she will repeal (or allow to sunset):
She’d raise the top bracket of the federal income tax, restoring it to 39.6% from its current 35% level.
She’d increase the capital gains tax, restoring it to 20% – or maybe even go higher. My bet is that she will increase it to 30% or even eliminate special treatment for capital gains altogether, taxing gains as ordinary income (at 40%).
Hillary will almost certainly roll back much – if not all – of the estate tax reductions of recent years, lowering dramatically the size of estates subject to the levy.
She’d restore the tax on dividends to 30% from its current 15%.
But her agenda will doubtless go further. She will be much more radical in raising taxes than Bush was in cutting them.
One of her most important steps will probably be to raise Social Security (FICA) taxes. She won’t raise the rate since that would impact her liberal base. Instead, she’ll raise the threshold of income that subject to taxation, now limited to the first $97,500 of income.
At a recent candidate forum in Iowa, Hillary played it cute. First, she told the audience that she had nothing ‘on the table’ about Social Security taxes. Then, after the meeting, she privately told Todd Bowman, a schoolteacher who was in the audience, that she would consider imposing FICA taxes on all those who earn more than $200,000. …
So, look forward to some big changes there.
Hillary will dress up these tax increases (the biggest in history) as tax relief for the middle class! …
First, she’ll take credit for renewing the Bush tax cuts in the middle and lower income tax brackets. … Since these cuts are slated to expire in the early years of the next president’s first term, their extension could be billed as a middle class tax cut.
…inflation and increased prosperity has now moved 23 million Americans into a position where the AMT [Alternative Minimum Tax] would apply to them. Hillary never mentions that it was her husband who vetoed the proposal of the AMT in 1999. No, it’s all the Bush administration’s fault. …
But it’s a game. Nobody expects the AMT to take full effect, ever. However, the amounts involved are so stupendous that Hillary can take credit for all of it, over ten years, as part of her “middle class tax cut.”
By cutting the two theoretical increases – renewing Bush’s middle income cuts and reforming the AMT – she can show the biggest net tax reduction in history at the same time that she is, in fact, legislating the largest net increase in history.
Having once been wounded and left for dead by her signature issue, she is very carefully deceiving us about what she would actually do as president in changing health care. She pretends that she would simply move to cover the 45-50 million uninsured and would leave everybody else’s health care insurance in tact.
But her pretensions are nonsense. … With a constant supply and a rapidly increasing demand, prices for health care will skyrocket. But with 16% of our GDP currently going to health care, how much more can we afford? No other country has more than 11% of its economy devoted to the medical sector. … that means … health care rationing by the government. Hillary will say that it is fairer to ration health care based on merit than on price as it is now done. But the fact remains that “no, you can’t” will be heard more and more by those seeking health care. …
In the area of prescription drug costs, which accounts for 10% of all health care spending, we can anticipate major efforts to reign in costs, requiring generic drugs on all Medicare and Medicaid prescriptions, cut backs on pharmaceutical advertising, and limits on drug company reps who push their medicines on doctors. The taxes Hillary will raise can always be repealed. But her health care changes are forever. [Good luck for those who require important surgery – you’ll have to wait in line.]
Education …subjective grading by the teachers themselves will be used to assess the success or failure of their teaching. …
Hillary is co-sponsor of two key bills: The SOLVE Act and the DREAM Act. These two acronyms describe legislation which would give every illegal immigrant, and their children, legal status if they have lived in the United States for five years. To earn this amnesty, they will not be required to learn English, have a job, arrest-free, pay taxes, or jump through any of the hoops set up by the Bush administration. They would simply have to live in the U.S. for five years without getting caught. These laws also guarantee in-state tuition for all children of illegal immigrants who have lived here for five years. And, since the illegal immigrants would not get legal status, they would be eligible for … free health insurance for all citizens and legal immigrant children. So, here’s the deal: Come here illegally. Dodge the cops for five years. Then you can get legal status, a path to citizenship, health insurance for your kids and in state tuition at their local state university.
… Hillary realizes, as Bill once told me, that any government entitlement for poor people can be easily repealed since they lack political power and practical voting strength. But middle class entitlements, once granted, last forever …
So Hillary will pioneer entitlements and grants for middle class families, making them at once dependent on government aid, winning their political gratitude, and giving them a stake in benefit programs that also help the poor. … She will bring us much closer to the Swedish, French, and German model where everybody gets a check from the government, regardless of their wealth or income, making it impossible to criticize the program. Already she has floated three ideas along these lines:
She proposed a $5,000 baby bond to each newborn in the U.S. … She suggested government grants to the states to fund seven paid days of sick leave for all employees, public or private. …
But these programs are but the tip of the iceberg. Her presidency would bring with it a major expansion of government benefits, particularly in those flowing to the middle class. … The potential of such legislation is to transform us into more of a European style nanny state social democracy and less of a free enterprise country based on self-reliance.
Look for her to curtail the wiretapping without warrants by the NSA and to weaken the Patriot Act in important respects. …
But don’t think Hillary would withdraw from Iraq! She won’t. …
…Hillary’s most pressing concern will be to show the world and her domestic audience that she is tough. …
It will be interesting to see how the Democratic liberal base takes to her Iraq policy. … We hope it won’t happen. But if she does win, this outline will likely prove prescient – and depressing.
Lighthouse Journal 