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| 2007/8/8-13 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:47559 Activity:moderate |
8/7 Am I the only one who thinks Biden makes a lot more sense than
either Hilary or Obama?
\_ I don't know much about Biden, but I'm not much for either Hillary
or Obama, so, sell him to me.
\_ Have you checked out Edwards? He has by far the most comprehensive
ideas so far. But yeah, if I was not backing Edwards, I would
be checking out Biden. He has impressed me at the debates, too.
\_ Maybe I should get over my gut-level aversion to Edwards. He
reminds me of Dan Quayle for some reason.
\_
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/04/debate.analysis/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/questionnaires_joebiden.cfm#15
\_ Have you checked out Edwards? He has by far the most
comprehensive ideas so far. But yeah, if I was not
backing Edwards, I would be checking out Biden. He
has impressed me at the debates, too.
\_ Maybe I should get over my gut-level aversion to Edwards.
He reminds me of Dan Quayle for some reason.
\_ http://preview.tinyurl.com/2zgnqh (cnn.com)
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yw935k (aflcio.com)
\_ Joe "the plagiarist" Biden?
\_ I'd rather have a plagarist president who takes the best
ideas and implements them, though fails to cite properly,
than some idiot who sticks to his own ideas no matter how
stupid.
\_ Biden's a shill. Anyone who voted for the bankruptcy
changes should be made to explain, in depth, why.
\_ Why can't we have someone who is actually quality? Why is
"He's better than BUSH!!!" a reason to like someone?
\_ I actually like Romney, I think he's really solid on the
things I care about. He has a solid track record on
balancing budgets, technology issues, and health care.
\_ Oh and we think similarly because we have similar
backgrounds (e.g. core Mormon values) -pp
\_ We will have a gay president before we have a
Mormon president.
\_ You forgot Abe.
\_ So you think more voters are religious bigots than
sexual preference bigots? Or is this just your
personal expression of greater dislike of mormons
than gays?
\_ The former.
\_ Which is he is now disavowing in a rapid rush to the
right in order to get the nomination... You don't
find his blatant pandering in the least disgusting? |
| 4/4 |
|
| www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/04/debate.analysis/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular Most Popular | Analysts: Biden's performance strongest Story Highlights Delaware Sen. Biden was "on fire" Democratic strategist Donna Brazile says Performance wasn't strong enough for Biden to gain on front-runners, analyst says Several observers say as front-runner, Clinton played it safe One analyst says some of Richardson's answers were confusing Adjust font size: Decrease font Decrease font Enlarge font Enlarge font MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Although there was no consensus on the winner of Sunday night's Democratic presidential debate, CNN analysts were largely impressed with Sen. Democratic and Republican strategists analyzed the the New Hampshire debate along with CNN's own political team. Biden was "on fire," Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Donna Brazile said. Brazile said Biden's answers set him apart from the other seven. CNN analyst JC Watts, a former Republican congressman, also thought the Delaware senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, performed best. "I don't think there was anyone who broke out, with the possible exception of Joe Biden," Watts said. Explaining his vote for a bill funding the war in Iraq that didn't contain a timetable for withdrawal, Biden stressed that Democrats did not have the necessary 67 votes to override a presidential veto of a bill with timetables. "Look, the Republicans and this president have not told us the truth about this war from the beginning. The last thing we Democrats should do is not be telling the truth," he said. "As long as there is a single troop in Iraq that I know if I take action by funding them, I increase the prospect they will live or not be injured. Biden was especially forceful in his answers on troop funding and on the conflict in Sudan's Darfur province. He was the only candidate in Sunday's debate who said he supported military intervention in Darfur. He advocated imposing a no-fly zone over the region and sending in 2,500 NATO peacekeepers to stop the killings. They're going to have thousands and thousands and thousands of people die. We've got to stop talking and act," Biden said of the conflict. The Bush administration has declared the conflict "genocide." But not all observers thought Biden gained enough ground to challenge front-runners Sen. "You can see a glimpse what made him such a star 20 years ago when he was the fresh new face in the Democratic Party, before he got in trouble," said Mike Murphy, a former adviser to Republican Sen. Biden was running for the 1988 presidential nomination when he dropped out amid allegations he plagiarized part of his stump speech from a British politician. Despite his years of experience since then, Murphy said, Biden is still not a first-tier candidate for the 2008 election. Several observers characterized Clinton's performance as effective, yet safe. "She came clearly determined not to let her position on Iraq and the objection of the others get in her way," said Arianna Huffington, the editor of the Huffington Post, a liberal-leaning political blog. "I thought it was her best performance, and if Obama and Edwards really want to take her on Iraq, they have to be much more aggressive and much more clear." Watts said Clinton did nothing to hurt her front-runner status, but others disagreed. She has got to learn to control that to be more effective on television," Murphy said of the former first lady. Debate watchers largely dismissed Richardson's performance as weak. Richardson would remind us he was a governor, and actually walk us through his resume," Huffington said. "He had to actually be able to stand up for what he was doing right there on the stage rather than constantly presenting us with his resume." CNN analyst Bill Schneider noted that some of Richardson's answers, particularly on immigration, were confusing. Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer whether the new immigration bill would give amnesty to illegal immigrants, the self-described "border governor" gave a long answer that apparently didn't answer the question to the Blitzer's satisfaction. "It isn't an amnesty," Richardson said of the bill, which would give legal status to about 12 million people who entered the United States illegally. "What this bill does is it sets standards, the standards that I mentioned -- learning English, passing background checks. After the debate, Richardson himself expressed some doubt about his performance, and gave it a mixed review. I was a little concerned I didn't get the main difference between me and the other candidates. That is, I take all the troops out (of Iraq) by the end of this calendar year, leaving no residual forces," he said. Richardson, who was UN ambassador during the Clinton administration, said he believes he has the most experience on issues of immigration, health care, foreign policy, and the conflict in Darfur. Anselm College was the first time the Democratic contenders have shared a stage in the Granite State, home of the nation's first presidential primary. The debate was staged by CNN, WMUR and the New Hampshire Union Leader. New Hampshire voters go to the polls on January 22, 2008. Powerful quake hits Indonesia A powerful earthquake shook buildings and caused panic on the densely-populated Indonesian island of Java, but there have been no reports of injuries and no ... |
| www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/questionnaires_joebiden.cfm#15 George Bush and Dick Cheney have dug this country into a very deep hole abroad and at here at home. The next President has no margin for error--no time for on-the-job training. It is time for honest leadership--a President who is willing to be straight with the people. We need a president who will keep his promise to this generation and the next: the promise to end this war in Iraq, the promise for a vibrant middle class with good jobs, health care and a secure retirement and the promise of a secure place for America in the world. I will end the war in Iraq and leave stability instead of chaos behind. I will invest in health care, retirement security and education. Then we can keep the most important promise: to pass on to our children a world and a community better than our own. To create good American jobs in a global economy we have to address the cost of health care, insist on labor and environmental standards in trade agreements, invest in education (pre-school through higher education), and invest in innovation and support bringing new technologies to market. By the end of this decade the average Fortune 500 company will spend as much on health care as it makes in profit. We cannot compete in a global economy with other countries that do not pass on these enormous health care costs. As a start, we should assist companies with catastrophic health insurance costs. Beyond that we need to invest in universal health care and take a serious look at the competitive impact that legacy costs are having on manufacturers in particular. Realistically, though, the US not a low-cost country--and that should not be our goal. That means we have to invest in education and innovation in order to keep good production jobs here. In high-cost countries like the United States, companies purchase the labor they cannot get more cheaply elsewhere. We must constantly come up with new technologies BEFORE someone else figures out how to do it more cheaply. Our economic growth depends on advances in technology and advances in knowledge. Our education system and our ability to develop cutting edge technology is our ace in the hole. But we cannot be beaten to the punch by foreign competitors. For example, the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans invest heavily in the development of next generation batters--lithium ion batteries--that power plug-in hybrid vehicles. Our domestic manufacturers who need this technology for vehicles and other efficiency technology should not have to buy it from other countries. That is why I am proposing to double our investment in bringing this technology to market in the next five years. We can keep production here and help our domestic manufacturers but we have to invest at least as much as our competitors. Finally, we need a new drive, at all levels of government, to improve the basic infrastructure our economy runs on. That means everything from our roads and bridges to our water and sewer systems, all the way to telecommunications, like broadband. We have to have the best workforce with the best technology to compete. Everyone--adults and children--should have access to health care in this country. We are 9 million children and 37 million adults short of that goal. Seventy percent of those people are in families with one or more full time worker. I will be announcing a detailed a more detailed health care plan in coming months. It will meet the following goals: insuring every child, assisting families and companies with the burdens of catastrophic cases; The path toward universal coverage starts with the most vulnerable in our society. I would make sure that every child has health insurance--one way we can do this is by expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)--and I would relieve families and companies of the burden of catastrophic cases. Beyond that, we should evaluate the best way to provide coverage for the remaining uninsured. Let me be clear--to me it is not a question of if we're going to provide universal health care--but how we're going to do it. I would support experimentation on the state level (like in Massachusetts and California) to determine how employer mandates and individual mandates work best. And I would support states, like my home state of Delaware, that are making the transition to electronic medical record systems that allow doctors and patients real-time access to records and help prevent dangerous and costly mistakes. Focusing on universal access to health care isn't enough. Our national health care policy must also include a strategy to keep sky-rocketing costs in check. We can do that by modernizing the system, simplifying it and improving quality. We can modernize health care by using electronic records and providing doctors, nurses and pharmacists with vital histories and information in real time. We can simplify health care by moving to one, universal claims form--some states have already done this and are reducing administrative costs. We can improve health care by taking the best medical practices and applying them to disease management. We must do a better job of promoting prevention and wellness and making sure that people who suffer from common chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes have adequate access to care, can afford medication and are able to manage and treat their illness and avoid serious complications. Corporate America is stronger every day at the expense of working men and women. The President may claim this is a healthy economy, but that's only true if you don't ask middle-class Americans. They know that their wages aren't going up as fast as the cost of gas or a month's rent, and they know that their job isn't as safe as it once was. In 2006, we had the lowest share of our national income going to wages and salaries since 1929--not a good economic year itself. If you look at the "recovery" after our latest recession, you'll see that wages and salaries grew only 2 percent in five years, while corporate profits grew by 13 percent. This may be an economy that is good for corporate kingpins, but those numbers don't paint a pretty picture for a family of four that is trying to find a way to get their kids through college and maybe have a little left over at the end. This decade has seen attacks on organized labor, from workers at the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, private contracting of services, to changing definitions of supervisors. At the same time, globalization has doubled the global workforce. Hundreds of millions of workers in China and India are now competing for American jobs, and our country is all too content to let them go. What bothers me the most is that hard working people, America's middle class, are being left behind in pay and benefits--at a time when business is posting record profits. Business argues that wage increases have been slow because of retirement and health care costs--that's part of it but that's not the whole story here. When you have guys like the CEO of Home Depot, getting $210 million to take a hike you've got priorities that are just totally out of whack. The two most important things we can do to balance power is revitalize labor to give employees a collective voice and make sure that corporations are accountable to their shareholders. Shareholders should have a voice in setting executive compensation and keeping them honest. I support allowing shareholders to vote on issues like executive compensation. Shareholders have a critical role to play in corporate accountability. I would repeal the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which harmed investors' power to bring crooked executives to justice. I'm proud to have worked on the most comprehensive corporate reform legislation in decades--the Sarbanes Oxley Act. We've been hearing a lot of grumbling from CEOs and the Chamber of Commerce that it is too strict--but let's evaluate what's happened since the law was enacted in 2002. Investors have better information, dozens of companies have restated their earnings to remedy accounting errors and crooked executives have been sent to jail--at the same time the stock market closed out 2006... |
| preview.tinyurl.com/2zgnqh -> www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/04/debate.analysis/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular Most Popular | Analysts: Biden's performance strongest Story Highlights Delaware Sen. Biden was "on fire" Democratic strategist Donna Brazile says Performance wasn't strong enough for Biden to gain on front-runners, analyst says Several observers say as front-runner, Clinton played it safe One analyst says some of Richardson's answers were confusing Adjust font size: Decrease font Decrease font Enlarge font Enlarge font MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Although there was no consensus on the winner of Sunday night's Democratic presidential debate, CNN analysts were largely impressed with Sen. Democratic and Republican strategists analyzed the the New Hampshire debate along with CNN's own political team. Biden was "on fire," Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Donna Brazile said. Brazile said Biden's answers set him apart from the other seven. CNN analyst JC Watts, a former Republican congressman, also thought the Delaware senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, performed best. "I don't think there was anyone who broke out, with the possible exception of Joe Biden," Watts said. Explaining his vote for a bill funding the war in Iraq that didn't contain a timetable for withdrawal, Biden stressed that Democrats did not have the necessary 67 votes to override a presidential veto of a bill with timetables. "Look, the Republicans and this president have not told us the truth about this war from the beginning. The last thing we Democrats should do is not be telling the truth," he said. "As long as there is a single troop in Iraq that I know if I take action by funding them, I increase the prospect they will live or not be injured. Biden was especially forceful in his answers on troop funding and on the conflict in Sudan's Darfur province. He was the only candidate in Sunday's debate who said he supported military intervention in Darfur. He advocated imposing a no-fly zone over the region and sending in 2,500 NATO peacekeepers to stop the killings. They're going to have thousands and thousands and thousands of people die. We've got to stop talking and act," Biden said of the conflict. The Bush administration has declared the conflict "genocide." But not all observers thought Biden gained enough ground to challenge front-runners Sen. "You can see a glimpse what made him such a star 20 years ago when he was the fresh new face in the Democratic Party, before he got in trouble," said Mike Murphy, a former adviser to Republican Sen. Biden was running for the 1988 presidential nomination when he dropped out amid allegations he plagiarized part of his stump speech from a British politician. Despite his years of experience since then, Murphy said, Biden is still not a first-tier candidate for the 2008 election. Several observers characterized Clinton's performance as effective, yet safe. "She came clearly determined not to let her position on Iraq and the objection of the others get in her way," said Arianna Huffington, the editor of the Huffington Post, a liberal-leaning political blog. "I thought it was her best performance, and if Obama and Edwards really want to take her on Iraq, they have to be much more aggressive and much more clear." Watts said Clinton did nothing to hurt her front-runner status, but others disagreed. She has got to learn to control that to be more effective on television," Murphy said of the former first lady. Debate watchers largely dismissed Richardson's performance as weak. Richardson would remind us he was a governor, and actually walk us through his resume," Huffington said. "He had to actually be able to stand up for what he was doing right there on the stage rather than constantly presenting us with his resume." CNN analyst Bill Schneider noted that some of Richardson's answers, particularly on immigration, were confusing. Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer whether the new immigration bill would give amnesty to illegal immigrants, the self-described "border governor" gave a long answer that apparently didn't answer the question to the Blitzer's satisfaction. "It isn't an amnesty," Richardson said of the bill, which would give legal status to about 12 million people who entered the United States illegally. "What this bill does is it sets standards, the standards that I mentioned -- learning English, passing background checks. After the debate, Richardson himself expressed some doubt about his performance, and gave it a mixed review. I was a little concerned I didn't get the main difference between me and the other candidates. That is, I take all the troops out (of Iraq) by the end of this calendar year, leaving no residual forces," he said. Richardson, who was UN ambassador during the Clinton administration, said he believes he has the most experience on issues of immigration, health care, foreign policy, and the conflict in Darfur. Anselm College was the first time the Democratic contenders have shared a stage in the Granite State, home of the nation's first presidential primary. The debate was staged by CNN, WMUR and the New Hampshire Union Leader. New Hampshire voters go to the polls on January 22, 2008. Powerful quake hits Indonesia A powerful earthquake shook buildings and caused panic on the densely-populated Indonesian island of Java, but there have been no reports of injuries and no ... |
| preview.tinyurl.com/yw935k -> www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/questionnaires_joebiden.cfm#15 George Bush and Dick Cheney have dug this country into a very deep hole abroad and at here at home. The next President has no margin for error--no time for on-the-job training. It is time for honest leadership--a President who is willing to be straight with the people. We need a president who will keep his promise to this generation and the next: the promise to end this war in Iraq, the promise for a vibrant middle class with good jobs, health care and a secure retirement and the promise of a secure place for America in the world. I will end the war in Iraq and leave stability instead of chaos behind. I will invest in health care, retirement security and education. Then we can keep the most important promise: to pass on to our children a world and a community better than our own. To create good American jobs in a global economy we have to address the cost of health care, insist on labor and environmental standards in trade agreements, invest in education (pre-school through higher education), and invest in innovation and support bringing new technologies to market. By the end of this decade the average Fortune 500 company will spend as much on health care as it makes in profit. We cannot compete in a global economy with other countries that do not pass on these enormous health care costs. As a start, we should assist companies with catastrophic health insurance costs. Beyond that we need to invest in universal health care and take a serious look at the competitive impact that legacy costs are having on manufacturers in particular. Realistically, though, the US not a low-cost country--and that should not be our goal. That means we have to invest in education and innovation in order to keep good production jobs here. In high-cost countries like the United States, companies purchase the labor they cannot get more cheaply elsewhere. We must constantly come up with new technologies BEFORE someone else figures out how to do it more cheaply. Our economic growth depends on advances in technology and advances in knowledge. Our education system and our ability to develop cutting edge technology is our ace in the hole. But we cannot be beaten to the punch by foreign competitors. For example, the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans invest heavily in the development of next generation batters--lithium ion batteries--that power plug-in hybrid vehicles. Our domestic manufacturers who need this technology for vehicles and other efficiency technology should not have to buy it from other countries. That is why I am proposing to double our investment in bringing this technology to market in the next five years. We can keep production here and help our domestic manufacturers but we have to invest at least as much as our competitors. Finally, we need a new drive, at all levels of government, to improve the basic infrastructure our economy runs on. That means everything from our roads and bridges to our water and sewer systems, all the way to telecommunications, like broadband. We have to have the best workforce with the best technology to compete. Everyone--adults and children--should have access to health care in this country. We are 9 million children and 37 million adults short of that goal. Seventy percent of those people are in families with one or more full time worker. I will be announcing a detailed a more detailed health care plan in coming months. It will meet the following goals: insuring every child, assisting families and companies with the burdens of catastrophic cases; The path toward universal coverage starts with the most vulnerable in our society. I would make sure that every child has health insurance--one way we can do this is by expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)--and I would relieve families and companies of the burden of catastrophic cases. Beyond that, we should evaluate the best way to provide coverage for the remaining uninsured. Let me be clear--to me it is not a question of if we're going to provide universal health care--but how we're going to do it. I would support experimentation on the state level (like in Massachusetts and California) to determine how employer mandates and individual mandates work best. And I would support states, like my home state of Delaware, that are making the transition to electronic medical record systems that allow doctors and patients real-time access to records and help prevent dangerous and costly mistakes. Focusing on universal access to health care isn't enough. Our national health care policy must also include a strategy to keep sky-rocketing costs in check. We can do that by modernizing the system, simplifying it and improving quality. We can modernize health care by using electronic records and providing doctors, nurses and pharmacists with vital histories and information in real time. We can simplify health care by moving to one, universal claims form--some states have already done this and are reducing administrative costs. We can improve health care by taking the best medical practices and applying them to disease management. We must do a better job of promoting prevention and wellness and making sure that people who suffer from common chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes have adequate access to care, can afford medication and are able to manage and treat their illness and avoid serious complications. Corporate America is stronger every day at the expense of working men and women. The President may claim this is a healthy economy, but that's only true if you don't ask middle-class Americans. They know that their wages aren't going up as fast as the cost of gas or a month's rent, and they know that their job isn't as safe as it once was. In 2006, we had the lowest share of our national income going to wages and salaries since 1929--not a good economic year itself. If you look at the "recovery" after our latest recession, you'll see that wages and salaries grew only 2 percent in five years, while corporate profits grew by 13 percent. This may be an economy that is good for corporate kingpins, but those numbers don't paint a pretty picture for a family of four that is trying to find a way to get their kids through college and maybe have a little left over at the end. This decade has seen attacks on organized labor, from workers at the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, private contracting of services, to changing definitions of supervisors. At the same time, globalization has doubled the global workforce. Hundreds of millions of workers in China and India are now competing for American jobs, and our country is all too content to let them go. What bothers me the most is that hard working people, America's middle class, are being left behind in pay and benefits--at a time when business is posting record profits. Business argues that wage increases have been slow because of retirement and health care costs--that's part of it but that's not the whole story here. When you have guys like the CEO of Home Depot, getting $210 million to take a hike you've got priorities that are just totally out of whack. The two most important things we can do to balance power is revitalize labor to give employees a collective voice and make sure that corporations are accountable to their shareholders. Shareholders should have a voice in setting executive compensation and keeping them honest. I support allowing shareholders to vote on issues like executive compensation. Shareholders have a critical role to play in corporate accountability. I would repeal the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which harmed investors' power to bring crooked executives to justice. I'm proud to have worked on the most comprehensive corporate reform legislation in decades--the Sarbanes Oxley Act. We've been hearing a lot of grumbling from CEOs and the Chamber of Commerce that it is too strict--but let's evaluate what's happened since the law was enacted in 2002. Investors have better information, dozens of companies have restated their earnings to remedy accounting errors and crooked executives have been sent to jail--at the same time the stock market closed out 2006... |
| cnn.com -> www.cnn.com/ About 250 prisoners freed from Abu Ghraib The United States today freed about 250 detainees from Abu Ghraib prison, site of alleged abuses that prompted global outrage and led to days of hearings on Capitol Hill. Today marks the first mass prisoner release since the abuse scandal broke several weeks ago. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had visited the prison Thursday. |