Murdoch Supports Clinton

It’s wonderful to see that Rupert Murdoch’s Foxnews is supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Presidency. They show an attractive picture of her on a Iowa campaign stop and report favorably on the interchange between Clinton and her audience.

Who would have thought that ultra-conservative Murdoch would be so in tune with Democrat Hillary Clinton?

BTW, last week I noted that both the NY Daily News and the NY Post (Murdoch) had full page flattering pictures on their covers of Hillary Clinton. With unanimous suport like that, how can she lose?

Great Column by Maureen Dowd

See "Daffy Does Doom" in today's NYTimes.

The opening salvo:

Dick Durbin went to the floor of the Senate on Thursday night to denounce the vice president as “delusional.”

It was shocking, and Senator Durbin should be ashamed of himself.

Delusional is far too mild a word to describe Dick Cheney. Delusional doesn’t begin to capture the profound, transcendental one-flew-over daftness of the man.

Has anyone in the history of the United States ever been so singularly wrong and misguided about such phenomenally important events and continued to insist he’s right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

It requires an exquisite kind of lunacy to spend hundreds of billions destroying America’s reputation in the world, exhausting the U.S. military, failing to catch Osama, enhancing Iran’s power in the Middle East and sending American kids to train and arm Iraqi forces so they can work against American interests.

Jimmy Carter Says that Palestinian Arabs Are Oppressed by Israelis

Carter is 50% right, Palestinian Arabs are oppressed. Carter is also 50% wrong because the Arabs are not oppressed by Israelis but by their corrupt and terrorist leaders, first Arafat and then the Hamas gang.

If the Palestinians had had good leadership, in the 58 years since partition, they could have progressed as far as the Israelis. They could also have had a vibrant democracy, a superb educational establishment, foreign investors and a standard of living comparable to that of Western Europe.

They could have set a shining example for other Arab nations. Instead, they are poor, mostly unemployed, killing each other as terrorist factions struggle for dominance and have open sewers running in their streets.

So, if Carter were honest, he would not be complaining about the Israelis, but about the corrupt terrorists bossing the Palestinian Arabs. I accuse Carter of being a lying hypocrite because he can’t be so stupid that he does not understand that the Arabs’ problem is their corrupt terrorist leadership.

After all, Carter is a Nobel laureate. So he can’t be stupid. Therefore he must be a liar.

Is Income Inequality Really a Problem?

Bruce Bartlett poses this question in the NYTimes.

His article and the discussion that follows refer to winners and losers and fairness.

It might be useful to look at this issue from a different viewpoint, namely the competitive position of the United States vs. China and what is best for the future of the United States.

The United States has demonstrated in the past that increasing the educational level of its people is the most effective way of increasing the wealth of the nation, even as some of our natural resources are being used up.

China has adopted the same strategy. It worked well in the U.S. and it’s working well in China.

China has four times as many people as the United States. If both nations pursue current educational practices in the future, China will overtake the United States and eventually surpass us.

What should we do?

It seems obvious that we should accelerate the development our intellectual capital, that is educate our young people to the level of their capacity to absorb knowledge and learn how to create more knowledge.

Then the question becomes, not one of "fairness" but: "What policies will lead to the greatest development of intellectual capital?"

The answer is obvious: the United States has to provide the best possible health care and educational opportunities to all its young people starting at the earliest possible age. The future of the nation depends on this.

Referring to the title of this piece, income disparities divert resources from where they will do the most good for the future of the country to increasing the wealth of the wealthiest. In conclusion, yes the income and net worth disparities matter, a lot.

What's the Difference between Clinton and Obama

It’s too soon to tell.

We have to wait for them to spell out for us what they propose to accomplish as President and how they propose to achieve their goals.

We will then be able to judge which candidate offers the better plan for restoring the greatness of our country.

As of this moment we know a lot more about what Clinton is likely to aim to accomplish. We know practically nothing about what Obama aims for except some gauzy generalities. We don’t even know whether he will actually be a candidate.

The polls and the betting at Intrade strongly favor Clinton. It’s up to Obama to convince us that he would do a better job.

Bush Has Given Up

See article entitled "Bush is a picture of defeat" by Andrew Greeley.

If this is so, let us urge Bush and Cheney to resign and if they refuse, let us urge Congress to throw them out of office.

The Real Objective of the Iraq War

Finally! The real reason for the Iraq war is out: to make big money for the oil companies. All the bulls--t about WMDs and democracy was just a smoke screen. It always was about money for the oil companies.

Four years, thousands of Americans killed and maimed, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and maimed, over a trillion dollars in past and future costs and all for what? To enrich big oil companies.

If this does not rate impeachment, removal from office and life in prison without parole for Bush and Cheney, what does?

An article in the Independent explains it all. The oil companies will invest in drilling and producing shipping the oil and keep most of the profits. And the profits are huge.

The irony is it would have been cheaper and required no killing, maiming and destruction if Bush and Cheney had simply stolen the money from the U.S. Treasury and given it to Exxon and the other oil giants.

By the way, I said all this in my November 26, 2005 post on this blog, entitled: "The Confession of George W. Bush."

Hillary Clinton Is the Next President

We may as well get used to this: Clinton is the next President.

Evidence: The international web-based betting service has her pegged as the favorite to win the nomination and the election. Her only contender is McCain and he is strangely absent from the news (is he having surgery on his face? is the news bad?).

She proposes a policy regarding Iraq in the morning and "empty-page" Obama parrots it in the afternoon.

Most telling, I think, is the picture in the NYTimes. She speaks and two other senators flank her respectfully. Are they hoping for the Vice-President slot?

Jimmy Carter's Book

Carter's book and all the accompanying hot air are not going to change anything because Arabs are a bunch of self-defeating losers.

Give the choice of building up their nation vs. crying victimhood they have always made the wrong decision.

Look where they are now. Massive unemployment, killing each other because the wall prevents them from killing Jews, open sewers in Gaza, yecch!

Their young men parade around in ski-masks, waving AK-47s instead of going to school and studying science, mathematics, engineering and business management.

In 1948, after the partition, Israel was forced to fight off their Arab enemies and that has been going on for 58 years. At the same time, the Israelis built up their nation to the point where their standard of living is comparable to that of Western Europe.

What have the Arabs accomplished?

Impeaching Bush and Cheney

Impeach Bush and Cheney, by all means. The Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives, so they could impeach them any time they decide.

It takes two thirds in the Senate to remove Bush and Cheney from office and the Democrats do not have that. They would need about one third of the Republicans to go along.

So, removing Bush and Cheney is a decision that the Senate Republicans will have to make. Oddly enough, it appears to be in the Republican Senators’ interest to remove Bush and Cheney. Do they understand that?

Obama's Candidacy

Obama is an empty page and individuals see whatever they want on that page. That is exactly what Obama wants because there is in fact nothing there.

A nothing President is certainly better than what is in the White House now, but we can surely aspire to have a real President with clear goals and plans for achieving them.

Or, as Walter Mondale famously quoted Clara Peller, "Where's the beef?"

McCain Has A Massive Growth on His Face

See photograph accompanying article in the Washington Post. Scroll down to the second photograph. Earlier photos show a smaller lump.

Comparing the Governor of California to the President of the United States

See Toles cartoon.

Who Has A Vested Interest in People's Good Health?

People themselves, their families and . . . their employers!

See an article about a new, effective and economical approach.

Another Jewish Joke

Two Texans are sitting on a plane from Dallas and an old Jewish Texan is stting between them.

The first Texan says, "My name is Roger. I own 250,000 acres. I have 1,000 head of cattle and they call my place The Jolly Roger."

The second Texan says, "My name is John. I own 350,000 acres. I have 5,000 head of cattle and they call my place Big John's."

They both look down at the Jewish man who says, "My name is Irving and I own only 300 acres."

Roger looks down at him and say, "300 Acres? What do you raise?"

"Nothing" Irving says.

"Well then, what do you call it?" Asked John.

"Downtown Dallas."

The Nardelli Business Model

See Danziger cartoon.

Note the cat on the shelf.

Why Bush Will Not Be Hanged and Who Is Being Punished Instead

See Ted Rall cartoon.

“I did what I felt was right.”

That's what Wesley Autrey said after he saved a stranger's life by jumping into the path of roaring subway train and pressing the man down into a one foot-high space below the rushing train. It was so close that grease was smudged on Autrey light blue hat.

See story and color photo.

Another Mouse and Elephant Story

(Read the post below this one, first)

In this one, the high cost and low quality of medical care in the U.S is caused by:
1. The elephant: the huge waste of money in the private health insurance industry.
2. The mouse: lack of widespread use of "nurse practitioners" as a lower cost alternative to doctor visits.

Two economists, Paul Krugman and Anna Bernasek see the elephant.

A Harvard Business School professor, Clayton Christensen sees the mouse.

Tells you something about the Harvard Business School, the institution that famously gave us our first MBA President.

The Mouse and the Elephant

Imagine this: A large room. In it are a mouse and an elephant. Jimmy Carter comes along and sees the mouse but is oblivious of the elephant.

He writes a book accusing Israel of apartheid because Israel built a wall that separates Israel from the Palestinian Arabs. Nowhere does he recognize that the Israelis built that 2 billion dollar wall to stop the insane Arabs from murdering Israelis with their suicide bombs. And that the wall worked!

See the Washington Post review published on the amazon.com website.

Gerald Ford Was A Lousy President

I remember the Gerald Ford presidency. It sucked . . . big time.

All this BS that was spewed during the last few days about how wonderful Ford was is just a lot of . . . BS.

For an excellent review of Ford's failures see ' Hitchens article on the Slate website.

The majority of the American voting public was thoroughly disgusted with Ford. How else can one explain why a total non-entity like Jimmy Carter (a failed peanut farmer saved by Arab money) beat Ford in the 1976 election. Of course, we went from bad to worse. That's another story.

So, why did George Bush lionize Gerald Ford by declaring a national day of mourning? Because Bush anticipates that he might be forced to resign and that he might face criminal prosecution and he's softening the country up for his eventual Presidential pardon.