January 10, 2008
Many people who know the Clintons insist that the power couple truly wants what’s best for the American people. It’s just that too often their political needs or their personal foibles overwhelm their responsibility to the public interest.
But rarely could the Clintons’ determination to get their way be more detrimental to both the Democratic Party and the United States than if Hillary Clinton continues to play the "gender card" on behalf of her presidential campaign, especially in what is shaping up as a two-person race against an African-American.
10 comments:
Maybe the answer to why the polls were so different from the vote COUNT has to do with who counted them. The discrepancy has been explained as a secret racist sentiment or older women mobilized by Hilary's weepie moment. Give me a break! Do we really believe that New Hampshire voters are really more racist or more menopausal than Iowa voters?
Maybe the polls didn't match the count because the count was incorrect. Yet, funny, no one seems curious to check the vote tally even though the majority of the discrepancies seem to occur where the votes were optically scanned by Diebold machines, programmed by LHS Associates. (approximatelt a 7percent discrepancy - see the Brad Blog for details or visit the raw data on Ron Paul's web site.)
This magic combo was featured in HBO's documentary "Hacking Democracy".
Since the votes were hand counted in mostly small rural areas and machine counted by a private firm - not accountable public servants- in the more metropolitan areas, it is possible the democraphics reflect a more menopausal racist tilt. The only way to know the answer to that question is to hand count the paper ballots.
In the meantime, Americans can kiss this democracy goodbye if voters can't get to the polls, (see Ohio 2004) and survive (Florida and other states 2004) voter caging lists, and votes aren't hand counted by a multi-partisan or non-partisan groups.
HILLARY CLINTON - MENA & WHITEWATER
... Could you please remind your readers about the possible connection of the Clintons and the cocaine smuggling and murders related to Mena Arkansas? Barry Seal murder, Bill Tyson ... there are somber questions about then governor Clinton's own role vis-a-vis the crimes of Mena.
Drug king pin, Adler B. (Barry) Seal was a key player at Mena. Tyson may have transported cocaine through chicken shipments - even to McDonalds and fast food outlets ... Bill and Hillary Clinton reportedly were aware of this ... and please do not forget to inquire about how Hillary Clinton and other pols happened to get hooked up with Norman Hsu. Was it through Gavin Newsom or the other way around
snip
"Most of the drug money had to be laundered. There would be no better way to do it than at Mena's First National Bank. Realizing a small gold mine from the drug smuggling operations, Mochtar and James Riady purchased the bank in 1985. Now part of the Chinese Lippo Group, million of dollars could be washed without scrutiny. Mochtar had first hand experience at this, as he built his financial empire with gun and drug running in the East Indies before World War II.
It was during Clinton's first bid for office that we find Jerry Parks and Vince foster making numerous trips between Little Rock and the Mena airport. Parks, a Little Rock private investigator, was hired by Vince Foster to head up Clinton's security detail at the Clinton campaign headquarters. Foster himself, was a partner with Hillary in the Rose Law firm. Clinton's run for the presidency would require lots of cash that could be used for any number of payoffs to top officials and other illicit activity. Shortly after Jerry Park's murder, Parks wife related one instance to the London Telegraph....
"In 1991, Mrs. Parks discovered what must have been hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in the boot of her husband's Lincoln car after he had made a trip to Mena airport in western Arkansas with Foster."
"It was all in $100 bills wrapped in string, layer after layer," she said. "It was so full I had to sit on the trunk [boot] to get it shut again. I took the money and threw it in his lap, and said 'Are you running drugs?' Jerry said that Vince had paid him $1,000 cash for each trip; he didn't know what they were doing, and he didn't care to know; he told me to forget what I'd seen."
According to the Parks family, Jerry was keeping a file on all of this and other illicit activity. Shortly after he was murdered, gangland style, a team of police officers - including federal agents from the FBI, the Secret Service, the IRS and the CIA - searched Parks house, taking everything they could find. Parks's computer was purged by an expert, and 130 tapes of telephone conversations were confiscated.
On August 23,1987 two boys were found dead on a railroad tracks near Mena. The bodies were Kevin Ives, 17 years old and his friend, Don Henry, 16 years old. Their deaths at the time were ruled accidental by Clinton-appointed state medical examiner, Dr. Fahmy Malak. The presumption was, that the boys fell asleep on the tracks and the train ran over them.What initially appeared to be a grossly incompetent investigation was actually an orchestrated cover-up. Residents reported small, low-flying airplanes coming in at slow speeds over the tracks in the middle of the night with their lights off just prior to revving up and flying away. Linda Ives, Kevin's mother became suspicious of the boys deaths with all of these rumors. After fighting the Arkansas justice system for several years she won exhumation and re-autopsy. An out-of-state examiner said the cause of death was clear: murder by beating and stabbing before they were placed on the railroad tracks. Malak was exposed as an incompetent fool, yet Governor Bill Clinton supported him, in spite of his being a political liability.
The murder case was assigned to police investigator John Brown. From the get go, the case file was in shambles. Key crime scene photographs were missing. The entire list of any evidence was gone. It also appeared that no one from 1987 to 1993 had interviewed anyone of any significance in the case. John Brown's investigation was shut down and he resigned, but not before the following pieces could be put together.
Apparently, the boys were deer hunting that night. They had no idea that the tracks were used by Mena pilots as a site for dropping off drugs and money, and that a drop had gone missing three nights previously, causing panic at Mena. The concern was not the missing $400,000, but the missing transmitter that was in the case with the money. If someone found this, it would be traceable right back to Mena. In a classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Kevin and Don stumbled right into a police protected drug drop site, where Law enforcement officials and drug smugglers were waiting to see who might show up. The boys were chased down and taken to another location. At that point they were beaten and stabbed. Then there bodies were placed on the track in hopes that all evidence of the murder would be distorted by the train mangling the bodies.
A US Senate subcommittee in 1989 called the available evidence about Mena sufficient for an indictment on money laundering charges. But the feds scraped a five year probe of Mena and interfered in local investigations The state police were taken off the case. Clinton refused a request from one of his own prosecutors to pursue the matter any further.
In spite of the evidence, every investigator who has tried to expose the crimes of Mena has been professionally destroyed. "
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ARCHIVE/CRIMES_OF_MENA.html
Funny, I think she has been treated wretchedly on the basis of gender.
One, she DIDN'T cry. Weepy? That's total hype. Her voice cracked and she rallied very quickly as she spoke about caring for this country. That's what I mean by thinking she's not getting a fair deal.
Two, what if she does play the gender card? Why the hell shouldn't she? When the Democrats and Republicans discuss their strategy to reach southern white man, it's not a gender thing. How's that work? Somehow that's good strategy.
Three, did you notice, Mr. Perry, Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s race-baiting gender card? That was when he said that Clinton didn't cry over Katrina. See my post about this on my website. URL below. It's a very dangerous game for Democrats that could land us out of the White House and playing a back seat to America's racists and sexists.
Four, let's have some objective critical commentary about Obama's lame shots, and Giuliani's, and McCain's, and Romney's, and Edwards's. There was Jackson's on behalf of Obama, and there was the decision to play the other gender card--homophobia--by campaigning in SC with a Queer hater. I'm not seeing clear-eyed, across-the-board gender analysis here elsewhere in the media. The only time gender comes up is in relation to Hillary. I guess men dont have gender? Never play the gender card? Never pitch to men? Give me break.
I agree with Pico. She has been the target of subtle and now blatant sexism. It is disturbing that the Consortium, which has gotten so much right, is so wrong on this issue. This article could have been written by Chris Matthews, who has been after Hillary since the beginning (she just doesn't seem like a leader to him---hmmmm--could it be coded language for his sexist attitudes?)
Shame on you for broadcasting the echo chamber of 24/7 cable news pundits. Suggesting the notion of "playing the gender card" buys into the stereotype of a strong woman as a manipulative ice queen (Where have I heard that before--oh, yeah, Fox Noise). Please, get onto yourselves and don't stoop to such pre-fab, unreflexive "reporting".
Robert Parry's "Gender Card" could not be further out in left field!!!
Hard to believe...but I suppose no one can hit the provervial "nail on the head" every time.
Hillary Clinton is a strong, incredibly brilliant woman of her generation--and thank God for that!
She will go down in history as one of the best Presidents our country has ever had. The soft moment was genuine...and it was, a moment. Then this woman can shift gears and recover. Is there any reason that prevents Mr. Parry and all the pundits on television from seeing this simple, but powerful revelation from what it is? I think the conspiracy theorists have finally gotten to you guys. The point is that Hillary has what it takes...all of it.
Our Country has been in need of truly strong leadership for too long. Bill Clinton was a strong leader...with a very significant weakeness. Hillary is a woman of not only great intellect, but also of wisdom, personal strenght and character. Barack Obama is indeed an excellent candidate and I hope he will have a significant role in Hillary Clinton's administration. I think his day will come, but I believe the present is for Hillary to correct and set in the right direction. She has my vote and I dare say the vote of all us women like her. The time is right, the need is great. It has nothing to do with the ceiling.
This article leaves out the very convenient fact that it is much more difficult to play the "race" card since it is PC not to. However, the gender card is alive and well and in great use.
Hillary has been the target of this kind of "gender-based" attack crap since her husband took office in 1992. She was pilloried because she didn't "make tea and cookies". She has been criticized for being the ice queen - and then when she laughs - she "cackles". A McCain supporter calls her a "bitch" and that is okay - everyone laughs, including John McCain. Ice Queen again - so when she is passionate about something - she is too "pushy, arrogant and aggressive" when if a guy does the same thing we all go "wow, he's really passionate".
And then there's Tweety - his comments about her "crying" were only the latest in a very long line of misogynistic remarks he is constantly making about her. "The only reason she got to be the Senator from New York is because her husband messed around". Never mind she is one of the top legal minds in the country, and apparently the people in New York think she's doing a good enough job to have elected her a second time by an even bigger margin than the first time - and the Repubs didn't even run a first string candidate against her because they knew she would beat anyone they threw up.
Here is my disclaimer. I am a woman. My candidate of choice is NOT Hillary Clinton - it is Dennis Kucinich. I have a real problem with Hillary Clinton's POLICIES - not with her gender. I wish she was a woman I could vote for. If it comes down to her and some Republican, she'll get my vote. But I am not one of her supporters. I just get freakin' tired of all the crap she has to put up with "because she's a woman". Oh, and by the way - if she loses, I can see the headlines now - she lost not because of her war-mongering policies and her ties to lobbyists and PAC's and all, but "because she was a woman", which will be really sad day for all women in this country.
What I find amazing is all the women who say that now that Hillary has had the gender card played against her they are going to support her. She has been playing that gender card and the weepie moments stuff all along and now that someone is ready to call her on it the women all support her because someone mentions gender. Any bets on who paid those radio jocks to call for Iron my Shirts?
For the first time, Consortiumnews disappoints.
Please make yourselves aware that you are not damaging Hillary with these claims. You are most definitely demeaning the women who vote for her, though. Many liberal women view Hillary as smart and someone who can understand their concerns about child care, working mothers, health care that helps families, running a house that is increasingly costly on two incomes that decrease accordingly and whether their right to control of their bodies and to make childbearing decisions will continue to exist much longer.
And please, do inform us of the last time the male candidates were addressing these issues in policy discussions or even in just meaningful ways.
To have those concerns transformed into 'sympathy votes' or 'gender cards' is demeaning beyond words to the women that vote for her and obviously does not hurt Hillary.
And what's even more hilarious or stupid, take your choice, is the very same men that either purposefully or in a state of obliviousness do not counter these favorite memes, would like to have these same women vote for them because they'll be a great and responsible President.
By the way, I'm female and not voting for Hillary because of her policies, but not much wanting to vote for the men who don't get these crucial points, either.
I'm a long time fan of Robert Parry, but if he thinks that Obama has not used race to his advantage then I'd have to think Mr. Parry hasn't looked or listened very closely. Hillary has been vilified by the media, Fox and their collection of yellow journalists,not to mention Chris Matthews. Matthews has become unhinged when he talks about Hillary and that's almost non stop.
Obama has used race to his advantage easily as much as Hillary uses gender, probably more. I'll vote for the dem, but I think you're seeing the sin of her husband maybe in our future if Hillary gets in. She has a long memory and she's not about to let these people off the hook.
Bill
It is the MSM characterizing the race card and the emotions card as the reason for the discrepancy. They are trying to "explain" the disparity between the polls, (pre- and post) and the votes COUNTED by assuming that the polls were wrong, ...not the voting machines. The polls were fairly consistent. THE VOTES WERE NOT.
Everyone needs to look past whoever their favorite candidate is and realize, that if the votes are not counted correctly, none of this matters. It is not a democracy anymore.
Hillary should be the first to ask for a recount, because if it worked for her now, it could work against her later. Especially if it is a manipulated program. I can see it now...she wins the Democratic nomination, and despite the exit polls showing a clear lead for Senator Clinton she loses the general election because, "the (whoever) was mobilized at the last minute to come out and turned the election the other way."
Don't think it can't happen. It has and it will again; if we don't have PAPER BALLOTS, if the voting machine software is not transparent, if the voting machines are not kept in secure places-where voting machine company workers can't come in and switch out memory cards DURING the election, if the votes are not counted at the precinct, and if vote counts cannot be spot checked for accuracy or if recounts are made impossible.
None of the debates, none of the platforms or positions, none of this matters if the votes are not accurately counted. We should know if they are. It wouldn't hurt to check.
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