Another week, another Pennsylvania countdown thread. I owe Andrew Bolt a link, so see here for a revealing view of the Gallup poll trend as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright affair fades from view.
Pennsylvania minus three weeks
Analysis and discussion of elections and opinion polls in Australia
Another week, another Pennsylvania countdown thread. I owe Andrew Bolt a link, so see here for a revealing view of the Gallup poll trend as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright affair fades from view.
#540 – [what indeed are you Hillary supporters then?] – i cannot speak for the other Hillary supporters on this blog. But i have been very consistent. i support Hillary because i think she is the best female candidate for the Dems at this junction of history, with her warts and all, the good, the bad and the ugly.
ps; and we dont hunt as a pack
Al thanks for your reply. Yes , I agree with your view that Obama has put the Pastor issue behind him for the present. Howver this relates to the present strong Democrat voters , who are voting in Democrat vs Democrat contest.
It is my view once it becomes a Repug vs Democrat contest , it will resurface and be a big part of the Repug campaign both overtly & covertly.
Turning Worm ,
thanks for the link & having to watch that Fox News Shaun guy.
Of course McCain is down playing Pastorgate for now. He wants the Democrats to keep fighting each other without his contribution. When the real fight begins Pastorgate may not come from MCain’s lips but there are spokesman , support Groups , pro right Media plus the professional swiftboats & McCain naturally playing the Statesman will be above all that.
How do you think the dirt on Hillary has come out…in party from Obama supporters/network and vice versa with the dirt on Obama
550 Pancho
Macca can’t lift his arms above his head due to torture received in Hanoi. He was probably subjected to “strappado” in which both hands are tied behind the back and the victim is hoisted by the hands into the air and then dropped.
I think Hillary has wedged Obama on the Olympics. He is siding with Bush and and avoiding the issue, probably because Chicago wants the Olympics in 2016. For someone with Samantha Powers on his team, it’s a pretty gutless response. Ironically, Powers has savaged Bill Clinton for his weakness in the past with genocide. She would be siding with Hillary against Obama on this one. I’d make a lot of noise about Obama making waffly feel-good statements but not being able to follow through when things get tough.
Finns –
I think Hillary is the best female candidate too, given that she is the only one.
But she’s not as good a candidate as Obama because she is a self-absorbed, lying, power-obsessed person with a proven record of being untrustworthy. Obama may be flawed (sigh… I’m sure I’ve said that before), but less so than Hillary.
And as for “hunting in packs” – we all post as individuals here. if there are more Obama supporters than Hillary it is perhaps a reflection of the demographic in the Real World: he has more supporters than she does. So when you, Ron, Growler and Adam post your pro-Hillary blogs, how are we different?
Is waiting for this primary season to be over defined as torture under the Geneva Conventions?
Must come bloody close! LOL
Diogs –
I sympahise with your position on Obama being completely pathetic over China, but how realisitic is that any POTUS would boycott the Opening Ceremony? I don’t believe Hillary would really do it if she was elected – it’s a stunt.
sympathiSe
Off topic, but isn’t it heartening to see PM Rudd in Beijing, telling the students that human rights in Tibet are problematic?
Those who thought he he’d squib it for the sake of the coal/iron ore were confused with the last bloke.
Onya Kev.
#559 – KR – it’s sensational. To think that a foreign leader has the gut to make a speech in Mandarin to a group university students at the Peking University. This is the elite of the elites here.
The Chinese also have stuffed up their handling of the Tibet sensationally as well. The Chinese have missed the point completely.
Finns – guess what?
We Agree!!!
Good for Kev. More guts than Obama on this one.
Let me see here.
Bush will not boycott the Chinese Olympics opening over Tibet. Obama agrees
Tibet is ‘bad’ and making a ‘powerful statement’ was the US World leadership example as a starter. BUT Tibet is obviously dispensible & expediency.
Darfur , Ruwanda etc are not just ‘bad’ , they are genocide , so those peoples can not expect much from Obama . Also the Chinese love that sudan oil.
I’m back to ‘ticker’ , when does he stand up his rhetoric conviction.
For all of Hillary’s warts & lies , she does have ‘ticker’ & so does the World
correction
and the world needs a POTUS with ‘ticker’.
Personally Obama may be a ‘nice guy’ and certainly he is the most brilliant of orators , but his is not who we like & which tells lies or the most lies
Kirri at 556, share your pain. That’s why I take regular PFDs, (politics free days).
To be fully efficacious, should you choose to experience a PFD, the following parameters need to be adhered to, strictly:
1/ No Internet.
Best not to boot up, although access to email, non-political files and Word is permitted. Do you have the character for it, Kirri? For political junkies, booting up for “offline use only” is similar to circus performers attempting a flying triple-trapeze-sommersault, Without The Net. Tres dangereuse!
It’s a “known known” that there will always be bloggers and commenters who are “wrong” about something, in Bludgerdom specifically, and in the great blogosphere beyond. These swine will always be there tomorrow.
2/ No MSM.
This of course includes telly, radio, newspapers, sms etc. Trendoid coffee shops should be considered “occasions of sin” as they severely test a “removalist’s” resolve.
Attempted four consecutive PFDs over easter, but like the weak bastard that I am, it was the coffe shop broadsheets that brought me undone. There they were, alluringly unattended on the front-of-cafe table and I jumped those beautiful broadsheets like the Roberto Benigni cabbie in the Jimmy Jarmusch film jumped……….well, perhaps it’s best if you scroll down to “Rome” to get my drift.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_on_Earth_(film)
3/ Try it occasionally as a character-building excercise, not too often mind you, because we’d miss you and there’s no need to punish innocent blog-standers by your overly frequent absences, is there, Kirri?
My Minister for War was quite proud of my recent efforts and has promised to be supportive in any future attempts at PFDs. We talked heaps and LOLled lots last easter.
—————————————
Wed April 9: Very Roger Dean-ish this cartoon.
http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/tomtoles;_ylt=AiYxHvQwhnlyXdAov2IoYq9T_b4F
Dean did it.
I hope there is a call for the Olympics to be abandoned altogether. Apart from the issue of Tibet, there are the little matters of:
1.It is an obscene waste of money and national effort that could be better spent on world poverty.
2.It is often a grubby grab by iffy nations to gain some sort of prestige and legitimacy that many would not otherwise achieve.
3. The games themselves are not a celebration of participation and good sportsmanship, but are more and more about offensive displays of overt patriotism, an element I despise.
4. The Olympic Commmittee is driven by nothing but sponsorship and the individual interests of its members.
5. The Committee will not act seriously on all the drug cheats because they do not want to risk the loss of the huge sponsorship – hence drug use has run riot.
6.The main sports – particularly athletics, swimming and cycling – are a complete joke because of obvious rife drug-taking tacitly assented to by the Games Committee and the peak sports bodies.
So, who needs the farce? Boycott the whole show.
Jen – I hasten to add that synchronised swimming is an exception to all the above of course. That sport is a noble and uplifting spectacle, practised by supreme athletes who eschew enhancing drugs, and come together purely for joys of synchronicity, and to rejoice in being part of a celebratory aquatic display together (as exemplified in the ritual exchange of nose-clips at the end of competition).
jv 565
agree completely on all your points re Olympics.
The Olympics has lost its sheen. It no longer captures the imagination.
jv
One question: who’d then keep the steriods/human growth hormone industry going?
And what about those ‘academies’ of sport, and all that effort in getting another 100th of a second off some human trying to swim like a butterfly, and about as well?
Absolutey in complete accord on points 1-6, jv. Regarding point 3, I’d add, triumphalism, to your “offensive displays”.
However, the nose-clip thing is a bit of a worry olfactory fethish-wise!
But hey, these people are all adults above the age of consent and nobody gets hurt, so why not?!
KR @ 567 – [One question: who’d then keep the steriods/human growth hormone industry going?]
KR – Sylvester Stallone and his mates, I suppose, and the guys at City Gym.
EC -[ I’d add, triumphalism, to your “offensive displays”.]
Yes that’s right – it is triumphalism as well – it gets a good airing in the running and swim relays for example.
And I can’t abide, without vomit, the teary eyes of the drug-steeped winners on the podium looking up at the beloved f*cking flag while their ludicrous (they’re all ludicrous) ‘national anthem’ plays.
564
Enemy Combatant
Thanks for your kind concern Ecky, and yes, a few rostered days off a month would help with the sanity (what’s left of it!), but avoiding all human contact and chanting Ommmmm would be required not to notice the infernal white noise of political chattering that oozes through the ether.
There’s really no escape…we’re doomed, all doomed, now that everyone is assured their 15 seconds of mediocrity on YouTube. Let’s see, we’ve got 15 seconds times another 6.3543 billion people left to go………..aaaaargh, we’ll never catch up, there’s more than one being born every 15 seconds, we’re doomed…
You go girrrl…ah, Camille Pagila that is:
I agree that the male staff who Hillary attracts are slick, geeky weasels or rancid, asexual cream puffs. (One of the latter, the insufferable Mark Penn, just got the heave-ho after he played Hillary for a patsy with the Colombian government.) If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say Hillary is reconstituting the toxic hierarchy of her childhood household, with her on top instead of her drill-sergeant father. All those seething beta males (as you so aptly describe them) are versions of her sad-sack brothers, who got the short end of the Rodham DNA stick.
The compulsive war-room mentality of both Clintons is neurosis writ large. The White House should not be a banging, rocking washer perpetually stuck on spin cycle. Many Democrats, including myself, have come to doubt whether Hillary has any core values or even a stable sense of identity. With her outlandish fibbing and naive self-puffery, her erratic day-to-day changes of tone and message, her glassy, fixed smiles, and her leaden and embarrassingly unpresidential jokes about pop culture, she has started to seem like one of those manic, seductively vampiric patients in trashy old Hollywood hospital flicks like “The Snake Pit.” How anyone could confuse Hillary’s sourly cynical, male-bashing megalomania with authentic feminism is beyond me.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/04/09/girly_men/
While we’ve got people in opposing corners, how about Volcker’s spray at Greenspan’s legacy? It’s like the Incredible Hulk (Volcker’s a giant in his socks) versus Mr Magoo! LOL
Here’s a sample:
“The bright new financial system, with all its talented participants, with all its rich rewards, has failed the test of the marketplace”
…and guess who was the adoring champion of all this new-fangled whizzbangery? Yup, Mr Magoo, his very self!
That’s all it takes from someone like Volcker, and Greenspan’s been in a tizz ever since, denying it was him, never him, who unleashed this maelstrom in financial markets. But he protests too much; the world knows, and Mr Magoo will go down in history as the B!tch of Wall Street, bedazzled by the gadgetry and in awe of the Masters of the Universe in their glass towers.
But it’s all ended rather badly, a bit like a tacky Eliot Spitzer hotel room escapade, and Ali G is the perp, and must take a tearful walk for the cameras.
so now lets shoot the messenger
Obama cynically agrees with bush not to boycott the Olypic opening ,
criticise Obama , hell no !
instead ban the Olympics…that will down grade Obama’s sin.
You guys can dislike the Olympics , but during the 2 weeks of every Olympics we Australians watch it as the highest rating TV of the year for the whole 14 days (except a GF)
You guys represent a small minority of Australians indeed.
Obama’s view is inconsistent with his stated firm views on human rights abuses & that the US should be making a stand. Again Obama when he is required to stand up for his convictions , he does not. ‘ticker’ is a problem
and contrast that to Kevin07’s Chinese criticism . Our biggest export customer
But then Kevin07 does have a ‘ticker’
Ron
It’s pretty amazing that we are applauding Hillary and Rudd for showing some gumption and bucketing Obama over Chinese human rights (both correctly IMHO). Just shows politics isn’t always predictable and we are often wrong in our suppositions.
This link for anyone interested in the declining role of print newspapers in the US (and elsewhere) and the rising influence of internet based info in the US election and more generally. Discusses the creation and rise of the Huffingtom Post, Talking Points Memo, and others. I had no idea the Huff Post was up at ninth place behind eight newpaper sites in web news readership. It had more than 11 million individual hits in March.
Has resonance for us here – look where we get our information from and where we discuss it. Anyway I found it thought-provoking read:
“Out of Print” –
“The death and life of the American newspaper” The New Yorker 31 March
I read it my (old technology) print copy which arrived in the post today, but the article is online:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman?currentPage=1
Ron – who said ‘ban the Olympics’ ?
[Obama’s view is inconsistent with his stated firm views on human rights abuses & that the US should be making a stand.]
Making a stand ??? A US boycott of the Olympics opening ceremony is ‘making a stand’? Hahahahaha.
The Chinese are killing and beating and generally oppressing Tibetan dissidents now and have been for some decades, but that revolutionary firebrand Hillary has the answer. In September 2008, our delegation to the Olympics won’t turn up for a couple of hours one evening at the games ceremony. Then of course, the next day the US athletes get on with winning everything. That should fix it. The Chinese will withdraw from Tibet immediately. How could they withstand that show of resolute conviction?
So, that is Hillary taking firm view on human rights abuses is it? I’ll have to do a KR I’m afraid Ron – LOL
I do something similar with weddings -I usually skip the church ceremony, but then have a wow of a time at the reception. No-one ever notices. See what I mean?
Rudd’s full speech to the Chinese students at Peking University delivered in Mandarin. Not included in this translation is a joke told by Rudd to the students that goes something like: “(I know you are) Not afraid of the heaven, not afraid of the earth, but afraid of an outsider speaking in Chinese language”. The rhymin’ is somehow lost in translation.
One thing you can’t accuse of our Dear Leader is that he is lacking gut. Not only delivering his speech in Mandarin, he again repeated his concern about Tibet. A real surprise was the mention of the so called May 4th Movement of 1919.
This was the first ever student led movement that was “anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement in early modern China. Beginning on May 4, 1919, it marked the upsurge of Chinese nationalism, and a re-evaluation of Chinese cultural institutions, such as Confucianism. The movement grew out of dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles settlement, termed the Shandong Problem. Coming out of the New Culture Movement, the end result was a drastic change in society that fueled the birth of the Communist Party of China (Wiki)”.
And some of the writers he mentioned were not exactly Communist writers, they were more of the progressive writers. Some of them were criticised during the cultural revolution for being too “burgeois”.
His reference to Tao – “Harmony in the Natural Environment. Our shared future is not only one about harmony between nations and peoples. It is also about harmony with nature — the “Unity of Man and Nature” — a concept with ancient roots in Chinese thought” is again reflected here, as there was an article about this just before the election in the SMH by Annabel Crabb.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=BKmXSYi49IU
Yes, our Dear Leader has got the TICKER and brain.
A conversation with China’s youth on the future (by Kevin Rudd)
9 April 2008, Peking University
I begin by congratulating Peking University which this year celebrates its 110th anniversary – making this university three years older than the Commonwealth of Australia.
Peking University is the most famous in China. And it has played an important part in modern Chinese history. In the early 20th century, when China was going through a period of rapid transformation, it was Peking University that led movements for a new
era in Chinese educational, cultural and political life. Peking University was at the centre of the May 4th Movement. The May 4th era — for I realise that it was a transformative decade from 1917 to 1927 — was one of crucial and lasting importance in the emergence of a modern China.
Many famous figures in this period were active at your university. One thinks, for example, of Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Li Dazhao and Lu Xun. This year, 2008, is the 90th anniversary of some key events of the May Fourth era: — through his essays
for the major magazine New Youth the writer and educator Hu Shi successfully advocated the use of modern vernacular Chinese in education and the media. This helped bring about a major change in the way that the young people of China expressed themselves to their compatriots.
Full speech here:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23511829-5006301,00.html
agree absolutely Diogenes.
Also , Kevin07 seems to able to mix ideals into outcomes benchmarks & solutions so seemlessly with a conviction he not only backs up , but you know he will back up despite the costs (which probably wrong footed Howard abit last year)
A decent man.
And the pity of Hillary is for example she has a traditional labor health policy
(far superior to Obama’s involving some private enterprise) and she has the ‘ticker’ to implement it & other core Democrat policys & would do so , but ruins it by being so flawed in other human traits like lying , zealous ambition & expediency to get to the top she turns alot off much as (but more than) Keating did
Ruddski has scored official protests from the Chinese at our embassy in China and in Australia. He really seems to have pis*ed them off, especially as he said it in Mandarin clearly demonstrating that he is not an ignorant capitalist shill. The Chinese are notoriously thin-skinned with zero tolerance for dissent.
However, we do have to apologise to the world for that bottom-feeder Gosper who should do us all a favour and not return from China. If they give the Olympics to the bidding country with the worst human rights record, they are going to get to helpful feedback on their choice.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/rudd-heads-into-storm-over-tibet/2008/04/08/1207420390673.html?s_cid=rss_national
Finns – Rudd has done more for Tibet’s cause in the past few days than the US has done in the past 10 years, or is likely to do in the next 10 – whoever is POTUS.
Given the prevailing western attitudes on Tibet, I am not quite sure who can be considered to be taking the courageous stand and who can’t be.
The west seems happy enough to spend it’s money on the cheap goods produced by these oppressive regimes with their working conditions which would make WorkChoices look like nirvana. Yet we can absolve all that guilt by taking a courageous stand on the opening ceremony of the Olympics?
Interesting that Rudd’s comments come after his visit to the US and Britain. Maybe there was a green light from our allies to criticise the Chinese on human rights in Tibet. Perhaps the Chinese might accept impertinent criticisms from Australia but not the other super powers.
Also, interesting that Hillary had a response different to Obama. Was she given a heads up in their discussions?
Rudd’s comments could not have occurred in a vaccuum. Diplomacy is a very opaque art and there are always shades of grey and very little black and white. However, it is fun trying to join the dots.
If Rudd is backing Hillary, then it is time to get on the Clinton Express to POTUS.
Chairman Rudd might get a bollocking from our p!ssy media over a little hand gesture to the Idiot Son of Bush, but when it comes to principle, and political cojones, he can’t be found wanting.
It’s one thing to save the whales from the Japanese from the comfort of Canberra, but entirely another to walk into Beijing University and mention the 800lb panda in the room, otherwise known as the Communist Party’s appalling record with people it doesn’t agree with.
Makes ya proud, our Kev, doesn’t he?
Compare with Rudd, in foreign affairs, Obama is a light weight, despite his supposed “multi-cultural” background. He is just another insular American, especially from the Chicago southside.
Rudd is doing himself a lot of good, artful campaigner that he is. He has a great talent for getting the visual and spoken messages to reinforce each other. He did this superbly last year during the campaign, and he’s now extending the technique to China. What a winner. If the Australian public remembers one thing about Rudd’s tour, it will be this address in Beijing, where he’s been able to combine charm, learning and candour in an elite forum. And he will be noticed in other quarters too – from Washington to London to Tokyo – and letting them know Australia should not be underestimated. The Chinese will be astonished, but impressed too. They admire strength of mind and character and will know their new friend is not to be taken lightly. What a total winner!
GG @ 583 – I think you might be reading too much into Rudd’s comments. I doubt they were part of a US/UK/deputy sheriff plan. He just said what he thought needed saying. Which is a huge advance on Howard’s meek ‘wack em on the wrist with a wet lettuce once a year’ charade.
586
blindoptimist
Consumate performance. I remember commenting on his election to the prime ministership that it would be a mere matter of weeks before he was on the international stage, declaring that Australia had returned from the dead, and he hasn’t disappointed.
GG , my thoughts are probably simplistic Kevin07 to your Diplomacy thread.
Gordon Brown , a kinred spirit may have winked ‘good on ya’ , do it if you think
George Bush , if sounded out & if he understood what Kevin07 was saying , has shown little interest in Tibet if he knows where it is, would not probably impressed Kevin07 with any response. But perhaps Bush was ‘advised’ it was going to happen
Hillary & Obama , he didn’t spend alot of time with either & assume he is clever enough not to appear to take Democrat sides if he has a private preference
So my thoughts are that Kevin07 has a demonstrated significant interest in China at many levels & a prior statement that human rights abuses under Labor policy should be made a stand of by our Country & he had the ‘ticker’ to say so
Glad he did.
which Obama again 9ticker0 shows he is lacking in
[And the pity of Hillary is for example she has a traditional labor health policy]
C’mon r/Ron/greig, get it right – that is simply not true, I’m afraid.
Hillary’s plan is very short on detail and is to require everyone to take out health insurance cover and then she will somehow “ensure that health insurance is always affordable” . Obama’s is similar.
The plan, is in fact very similar in concept to that enacted by one Mitt Romney in Massachussets. Doesn’t sound too ‘traditional labor’ so far, does it? The average annual cost of family health cover in the US – already assisted by employers -is up to $12,000. How can that be made ‘affordable’ without a universal medicare style scheme? Beats me.
Obama’s scheme is no better than Hillary’s, and both have the same basic elements from Democratic Party policy, but he spells out amounts to be saved per family, and his proposal is not compulsory:
“When compared to Hillary Clinton, the biggest difference is that Obama does not mandate that all adults have health insurance and Clinton does. In my mind, there is actually little or no difference between the two candidates on this point because the real issue in getting everyone covered is to make health insurance affordable—not whether it is required or not. ”
http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2008/03/detailed-analysis-of-barack-obamas.html
Analysis of Hillary’s health policy (same site as for Obama’s ):
http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2007/10/analysis-of-senator-hillary-clintons.html
GG, I’m sure that Australia’s willingness to express views on Tibet – in the context of longstanding friendship and engagement with China – will pave the way for others. I’m sure this is how Rudd and Smith see Australia’s role: activist, visible, creative. What a change from the largely empty clattering nonsense of Howard and Downer.
Diplomacy, they say is war by other means.
1. George W said he admired a man who did what he said. I realise that the context was Iraq withdrawal of troops. However, I felt it was a strange thing to say. Maybe it was a gee up for this adventure in China. Perhaps the salute et al was subconcious acknowlegement that Ruddy was mission ready.
2. Rudd did not meet Obama but did speak with Clinton. Rememeber the words, “What can I do to help”?
3. Rudd being the only Mandarin speaking leader from the West is a useful conduit for both sides. I think the role he plays will be both ways influence.
Agree that this is all good for Rudd and Australia. Regardess of your political persuasion, this trip has been an absolute triumph.
Mind you the U.S. has a lot more to loose than us when it comes to China. The Americans are in hock up to their eyeballs and it’s mostly China’s money keeping them afloat.
OTOH, China needs our minerals just as much as we need them buying the stuff. If they got really upset they could gradually move their imports to our competitors, almost certainly at higher prices, but that would take years and in the meantime India’s increasing needs would likely take up the slack.
Back to US politics (if I may), and the hearing with Petraeus and Crocker, where that creepy Lieberman put his oar in and made a total ass of himself along the lines of: well, Maliki showed he wasn’t going to let Iran run it’s militias in Basra.
Ah…what in hell is that man doing? Does he really think everyone has been hypnotised so that any innane thing he says comes out sounding like the gospel truth?
For starters, Muqtada’s Mahdi Army is NOT pro-Iranian, but the largest government faction’s Badr Corp was mostly trained in Iran!
When senior US politicians are so enthralled with a Zionist_agenda that they start calling night day, we have entered the twilight zone. No wonder they’ve got no friggin’ idea what they are doing in Iraq, or even why they went there in the first place. Crocker, who knows the facts, didn’t bother to correct this flagrant bit of propaganda.
Lieberman’s a nasty bit of work.
583 GG
Your analysis is way ahead of mine and I’m sure you are right. Rudd is extremely diplomatic and disciplined and would not have weighed into the most topical international foreign policy issue without appropriate consultation. He is not a man to be left out in the cold like a stag on a rock.
Hillary and Rudd spent an awful long tome together, 50 minutes when 15 minutes was allocated, making her late for the rest of the day. They clearly got along famously. Tibet would have to have been discussed. Perhaps Ruddski has given her a leg-up…
j’v Disagree, Hillary is better than Obama on Healthcare:
Explaining complicated policy outcomes & their political interdependence on this blog just can not be realistically effected with opposing supporters.
What I will say about US healthcare as a fact is there are 45 million Americans with no health cover whatsoever & mainly due to ‘poverty’. The result is thousands die & millions , yes millions put up with exteme health suffering because of the US health system with too much influence on doctors of whether you are insured & if so how much and the influence of Drug companies as well as the Drug company’s incentives
The doctors in the US as here are magnificent but its out of their ‘control’
The Repugs have had 19 of the last 27 POTUS years to turn the system into a disgrace & have succeeded.
last time , Hillary tried to reform the healthcare system , but as a ‘first lady’ it really was impossible to do from that position given the Healtcare & Drug lobby.
In particular Bill did not want to waste political capital on Healthcare that he needed for the ‘Free trade Agreement’. Hillary wanted the political capital used in reverse (which incidently makes mockery of Obama’s claim Hillary was pro the Free trade agreemnt). Bill the POTUS won unfortunately
Just one example , Hillary’s plan is compulsory. All present 45 million not insured get insured plus the tens of millions under insured. Its a traditional Labor principle. Obama’s plan is not compulsory , the people having a “discretion” guarantees continued peoples not insured and under insured and this is not traditional labor principle or policy.
So Obama’s policy is fundamentally flawed vs. obvious outcomes.
Once one has the basic equity principle in place (Hillary’s plan) , the question then becomes cost & funding it especially given the US debt (the cost is much bigger than our GDP) you say “she will somehow ensure that health insurance is always affordable”. That is the second fundamental difference to obama’s plan because the political party becomes responsible & accountable to voters to do so. Stuff it up & the voters will KNOW who to vote against
The future Repugs become locked into both principles just like Hayden’s ‘medibank’ principle of univeral healthcare could never be abolished by the Libs despite disgraceful tampering.
Presently the US political process is NOT accountable which in part is why the US system is in such a mess.
These are the 2 essential principles underlying Hillary’s plan whereas Obama’s is flawed in.
How much US familys ultimately pay is a red herrring. Party’s will make sure the cost does not cost them their seats. The US defence budget is probably 5 times the size of the next biggest Country’s & cuts over time could help the financing
I am not suggesting all of Hi8llary’s policys are better than Obama’s within broad Democrat policy positions , but I am on this one
My mistake , I’d read Kevin07 was having a very brief chat with both candidates and assumed that is all that occurred. I missed that the Hillary visit ended up triple the time allotted.
however , even if Tibet was discussed , I’d would assume Kevin07 had his mind set on his Tibet comments already , and maybe kindred spirits Hillary and/or Gordon Brown gave him at the minimum comfort being the new guy & perhaps more , so GG your blog did introduce an insight I missed.
However , in any event , reckon Kein07 showed ‘ticker’ to do so & put himself out there as seems the consensus. Also I’d reaffirm Hillary did show ‘ticker’ supporting the opening boycott because the safe politcal course for her would have been the Obama & Bush line.
j/v & other guys
a boycott is a powerful message of public disapproval to the world. its a start
Quite right Ron, it’s a start. Let’s follow it up with a demand that all manufactured goods imported from China are produced by workers who enjoy the same working conditions that we expect Australians to work under. Ya know, human rights wise and all.
r/Ron – Will you acknowledge you were wrong at least? Neither policy is ‘traditional Labor’ as we know it. Compulsory health insurance cover to be taken out by individuals is not traditional Labor policy is it? Yes, or no?
You just plow on with complete disregard for any supported and linked comments made by others. You didn’t read the expert commentary on the policies I linked which sees the two policies as virtually the same in effect, or you have just ignored it. If you wish to behave like a dolt then I’m out. Anything further would just be repeating myself and linking the same expert commentary, for you to ignore again and repeat the same untidy ramble.
Anyway, health policy is a non-issue in the Dem primaries, so no point really in wasting energy.
j/v
As I expected you misunderstand the two fundamental equity & interdependent political principles I outlined and did not even try to address them.
Further , you failed to grasp what I would have thought was the obvious linking of those 2 principles to the reality what is the existing US health system & the consequential restriction therefore for the Government ever be able to be (as in Australia) the principal direct payment provider.
To the US that would be socialism , which the policy implicitly acknowledges an not be , but builds around. The concepts & their outcomes solutions are not in your orbit , and your last sentence revealed much more.