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Luis Palau
HRc Slips in the Polls Versus Republicans
I’m sorry, but I might have to change the blog title to “The Escapades of HRc.” Now the inevitable is starting to take shape. It has been discussed here at NSL before that HRc might be the preferred Democratic candidate if you are discussing Republican winning strategy. Now the latest Zogby poll shows just that. As a matter of fact that poll shows that she is 3 to 5 percentage points behind all the following candidates: Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mike Huckabee in head to head match ups. Ouch, that must sting a bit. The same poll has either Edwards or Obama with slight leads over this field.
I think Obama has caused a lot of damage in the Clinton camp of late. I think he is on to a pretty good thing with his latest quip that talking to your husband doesn’t qualify you for Presidency. I think that makes a pretty good point. This is about as worthless of a candidacy as Bob Dole’s was in 1996. But HRc like Bobdole before her thinks it is her turn. When you give someone the nomination based on their “turn” they’ll surely lose.
The Hill seems to be trying to rehabilitate her candidacy of late with today’s effort surrounding an interview by Katie Couric. The most interesting comment (to me) from that interview was Hillaries response to Katies question “It was announced Monday that Oprah Winfrey would be campaigning with Obama in three key states. How do you feel about that?” Get this answer: “I think it’s great … I’m proud to have a lot of very distinguished Americans [supporting me],” Clinton said. Woah……….what is she smoking? MORE
This & That…………
The Washington Times is reporting that the Democratic party, once the party of the “poor and middle class Americans” is now the party of the rich. The Times references a study by the Heritage Foundation that shows that the nation’s wealthiest Congressional Districts are now represented by the Democrats. ….and contrary to the way the Democrats have routinely defined the Republican’s as the party of the “rich” the same study shows that vast majority of conservative Congressional members come from middle-class districts. [Of course I have my own interpretation of these same facts which doesn’t necessarily follow the Times interpretation.]
It looks like the first major test of the newly elected and “reform” minded President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy has been an overwhelming smash hit. The collapse of the rail/subway strike has resonated a clear message throughout the country. Sarkozy realized that for his country to increase productivity and regain competetivity and increase employment that they would need to “reform” the strangle hold that labor unions have on the country. The rail union leaders have essentially issued their “mea culpa” as strikers have returned to work in droves following a nine day strike. [Oh by the way, Bush’s lack of support for his foreign policy on a so called unified front throughout the world seems to be eroding with Sarkozy being only one of the new adherents.]
Iraqi’s returning to Baghdad in “droves” are finding a transformed city. The Washington Post is reporting: “Many find a Baghdad they no longer recognize, a city altered by blast walls and sectarian rifts. Under the improved security, Iraqis are gingerly testing how far their new liberties allow them to go.” Estimates are that 45,000 Iraqi’s returned last month from Syria alone with flows still continuing at a rate over 1,000 per day. This has got to be bad new for Senator Reid who pronounced the surge “already a failure” weeks before it was launched.
The Gregorian Chant is back in and Winds of Worship is out, at least at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI has eliminated the rotating choirs and music performers at the Vatican and is opting for the more traditional tones of Gregorian Chant and Baroque Sacred music in St. Peter’s Basilica. His comments referenced the time of St. Gregory, the pope that gave rise to the Gregorian Chant by lending the use of his name. [So I guess this means that the likes of P.O.D., Skillet and Reliant K are out of the question.]
Well now you have it. Richard Roberts, son of ORU founder Oral Roberts, has resigned as President under a cloud of suspicion in squandering University Funds in a lavish (and I mean lavish) lifestyle for him and his family. There have also been some accusations of improprieties by both Roberts and his wife Lindsay with some of the hired help and underclasspersons. Roberts statement Friday, he said “that he loved the university.” He became president in 1993. “I love ORU with all my heart,” Roberts said in the statement. “I love the students, faculty, staff and administration and I want to see God’s best for all of them.” I suspect that this is an understatement once you realize the size of that expense account that comes with the job and how much he must have loved that and the private jet.
You have no doubt heard about the forthcoming “end of the stem cells wars” due to recent discovery of being able to get stem cells from skin cells. Don’t ask me how, but you can read it for yourself HERE. This debate has been sort of the opposite of what the Democrats have demanded on energy. They have fought the exploration and use of new reserves while advocating R&D to solve the energy crisis all while denying that approach to the “stem cell” debate. In this case it looks like Bush was right and they were wrong……..again.
And by-the-way, we’ll be headed north next week for the Christmas Holidays and hopefully final resolution to Gayle’s Law Firm. Also, at the moment I’m giving the Ohio State Buckeyes about a 65-70% chance of playing for the BCS National Championship. If either Oklahoma wins the Big 12 Championship next week (likely in my opinion) or Connecticut beats WVA today (not as likely but certainly possible) Michigan oops, I guess Illinois will be going to the Rose Bowl. Go Bucks!!! ………..steve
Hillary Takes the High Road
Isn’t this wonderful? We finally have a political contest where one of the candidates has finally decided to take the high road and avoid mudslinging even if it would serve their political ambitions. Wouldn’t you know it would take a woman to finally lift the bar. Here, according to Robert Novak [the journalist that first wrote of the Valarie Plame affair that the media tried to cause you to believe (and probably successfully) that Cheney had leaked when it was actually Richard Armitage], you have Clinton operatives conveniently letting it be know that they had uncovered a scandal involving Barak Obama but have decided to not release the information nor even release the nature of the alleged scandal.
Phewwww……….Just to think that this woman has uncovered some secret information about her opponent and voluntarily decided not to release this information publicly. I can only say that maybe she should release this information even if not to enhance her candidacy but because the electorate might have the right to know the “truth” about potential Presidential candidates before the election. I don’t think HRc should set herself up as the gatekeeper of essential electoral information, do you? Note the full article by Novak below.
The only thing that bothers me about this report is that if it were anyone but HRc I would wonder about the possibility of a campaign making up such a report out of thin air about anyone and then take the credit for taking the high road without ever having to prove or even assert the underlying facts while still causing the electorate to question the veracity of the candidate in question (in this case Barak). In almost any other circumstance it would be very easy to make this up and slander someone by innuendo and look good for not spelling out the details. But thankfully we know that this type of conduct is not something that anyone in the Clinton camp over the past 15 – 20 years would ever try to do.
Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party’s presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed. This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent. It comes during a dip for the front-running Clinton after she refused to take a stand on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s now discarded plan to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Experienced Democratic political operatives believe Clinton wants to avoid a repetition of 2004, when attacks on each other by presidential candidates Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt were mutually destructive and facilitated John Kerry’s nomination……Robert Novak
Hillary’s $100 Generosity (in theory)
Subtitle: “Let them eat cake.” Hillary and her entourage visited the Maid Rite Restaurant in Toledo, Iowa this past Thursday and ran up a $157 tab. This tab was settled by a credit card of the campaign and the campaign has provided a receipt of the card charge to prove it. What it doesn’t prove is that the $100 tip claimed by Clinton was ever made.
Anita Esterday a waitress at the restaurant that served Mrs. Clinton and her guest said she chatted and exchanged pleasantries with Mrs. Clinton and might even vote for her but that Mrs. Clinton failed to leave a tip. Hillary even used the encounter in a campaign speech. I suppose it was about the raw deal the working people are getting in this country with minimum wage or health care or something like that. The campaign went in defense mode and insisted that a tip was left on the table for $100. When Ms. Esterday said “why would I lie about not receiving a tip,” the campaign repeatedly said that “well we left the cash.”
This was somewhat of a change from their perspective that they understood the tip to have been added to the credit card. The manager says that their card processor doesn’t automatically add a tip to any charge. He also says that there was no cash tip left at the table at which Hillary was seated. The manager stated that all of their waitresses are long term waitresses (25-30 years) and that there isn’t one that would pocket someone else’s tip.
Later a campaign staffer apologized to Esterday and gave her a $20.00 bill and my question is where is that $100 that was avowed? So their tip generosity was $100 (64%) when they could simply assert it, but when it came to actually taking their own money and paying it, it is only $20.00 (12.7%) which is substandard. So this illustrates how HRc claims to be the champion of the “little people” but as it turns out she is the oppressor (I guess we can’t say she is the “man”).
Of course none of my conjecture is accurate, because what actually happened is Clinton stiffed the waitress and the rest is spin control amplified by increasing intensity of their lies which I believe is clear. MORE
The SuperModel Barometer
Lets just call this the SuperModel barometer. Actually it is sort of a contrarian thing. But here is how it goes. Due to the fact that the media and its’ compadres have berated America throughout the world, even SuperModel’s are flexing their economic muscle and requiring payment in foreign currency not US currency as previously had been the form of currency within the SuperModel industry.
Point in question is Gisele Bundchen, a Brazilian Citizen, who is considered to be the world’s riches SuperModel (I don’t know if that would include the proceeds from Christy Brinkley’s divorce or not) is now demanding to be paid in almost any currency besides the U.S. Dollar. I love it when people decide to make the switch on commodities “after” the revaluation has basically already occurred. The actual really smart people (i.e. savvy Europeans) are flocking to the U.S. right now (even as we talk) and looking to buy some really depressed U.S. Real Estate with some really cheap U.S. Dollars (that they can purchase at an impressive discount) thus giving them a strong potential for maybe an historically attractive “double play” in U.S. investments.
This is a more learned and quite a diametrically opposite view than that of Gisele’s, though maybe not as politically correct. And……..all of this because she and other celebrities have concluded that America, under George Bush (don’t you just love this predicate) is living beyond its means. And just think, this criticism comes from someone that has gotten rich promoting among other things “flip-flops” at $250 per pair. I guess this came to light last week at a time when the U.S. Dollar reached $1.4528 per Eurodollar, a record low.
So this may indeed signal market exhaustion (to coin some previous market terminology of my prior days) and could well signal the low or near low of the dollar. So I wouldn’t bet my last nickel that Gisele and some of the other “forward” looking celebrities are getting on the right horse at the right time. Time will only tell if she is a genius or an idiot. You know where my money is. FOOTNOTE: I wonder if in the fullness of time it is possible that we will learn that George Soros (that world renown currency speculator) is more behind the collapse of the US dollar than George Bush. MORE
Chuck Schumer Supports Torture (at least in 2004)
Chuck Schumer supported the use of Torture in interrogating terrorist prisoners in 2004. He went on to say that we should understand that the foxhole is a different thing and in some way Bush is in the foxhole everyday and that he SURELY can’t be blamed if he asks the White House Counsel to clarify the legality and applicability of using torture to protect America and Americans. He also gave a nod to the other side of the issue (what I would call the other side of the aisle) by saying it shouldn’t be used willy nilly. Check out this live audio (Part 1 & 2) from the Mark Levin Show HERE and hear Chuck with your own ears.
Look for the picture above of Schumer on this site to find the mp3 file.