Hillary Clinton – Page 5 – RAnt(hony)-ings

Connect America = Control of the Internet

It’s not making much news, but Hillary Clinton has a proposal that should have all of us running away from her in abject terror.

No, it’s not the completely predictable proposal to force us all to pay for health insurance (that’s a yawner, from where I’m sitting) it’s the story being reported in this AP news story:

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday called for a national broadband Internet system and permanent research tax credits…
“The nation that invented the Internet is now ranked about 25th in access to it,” Clinton said in her latest speech directed at the middle class appeals.
Called “Connect America,” Clinton’s broadband network would give businesses incentives to go into underserved areas, support state- and local-based initiatives and change the Federal Communication Commission rules to more accurately measure Internet access.

Can we say FCC as a national internet service provider (ISP)? If a federal agency is given authority over the internet, can there be any doubt that they will become the ultimate ISP, and govern the internet as they govern television and radio broadcast. Even beyond that, rules changes allowing FCC regulation of the internet will give the FCC regulation of cable television as well.

Let’s imagine, shall we, that the self same government agency that has so famously declared certain words as unspeakable over the airwaves, and certain body parts as unviewable on television, can now determine what will or will not be acceptable on the internet.

Obviously there will be no more porn (and no more porn channels on pay-per-view, either) but that’s just the start. How about access to information on sex education? How about medical journals? And why stop there? How about an internet ‘fairness doctrine’. Political forums would be subject to requirements concerning equal times on the forum for dissenting views, or be faced with closure.

But that’s also only the surface. This is where the real money is. Access to all materials that have ‘cloudy’ licensing issues will be blocked. Peer to peer will be history. Torrents a thing of the past. If you want music or movies, software or whatever, you will have to go to the license holders and pay whatever price they ask. No more testing on the QT to make sure the product will work for you, not unless you can find someone with a duplicatible hard copy. No more catching that missed episode of you favorite TV show by accessing a torrent file.

“Follow the money” the saying goes, and I think I can spot where the money is coming from, and where it will be going, if Hillary gets her wish on this issue. Forget socialized medicine; we’re talking basic information access here.

But that’s also just the tip of the iceberg. Putting the gov’t in charge of internet access puts us in the same category as China; where anything the gov’t doesn’t approve of will be blocked. It opens up the door to a 1984 type scenario where information and history are completely malleable, where truth is whatever those in charge deem it to be at any given moment (we have always been at war with Eastasia…) because they can simply dictate that the records be changed, and there won’t even be the gaping holes in the photographs next to Stalin to point out that something is missing.

Is anyone still so naive as to think that once the camel’s nose is under the tent that the whole camel won’t shortly follow? That giving the gov’t the ability to provide access to the internet won’t eventually lead to active control of content? It’s happening now everywhere the gov’t is involved; the internet will be no different, and is already no different in places where internet access is provided at gov’t expense; the attempts to control content in libraries are a shining example of this.

We should run screaming from suggestions such as the one floated by Ms. Clinton. Better yet, we should vow never to listen to (much less elect) someone with such a shaky notion of what real freedom is.

Postscript

I left that screaming tirade just the way I wrote it. Get a load of that guy, would you? What I find amusing is the fact that no one coined the term Hillary Derangement Syndrome in her entire time in politics, but they sure are quick to jump to the defense of demonstrably insane conservatives by calling their opponents insane.

I have eaten a Big Bowl of Crow since publishing this and other thoughts on many subjects. Here is the text of the AP article I was winging on about. I can’t find it anywhere on the internet when I search it now but I saved a copy when I wrote this article.

The Associated Press Go to Google News
Clinton: Internet Access Key to Economy
By PHILIP ELLIOTT – Oct 10, 2007

MERRIMACK, N.H. (AP) — Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday called for a national broadband Internet system and permanent research tax credits, while also quoting comedian Stephen Colbert for the second time in a week in a swipe at the Bush administration.

The Democratic front-runner and New York senator said that if elected she would invest in high-tech fields in order to sustain the high-tech jobs that are critical to economic prosperity and strengthening the middle class.

“The nation that invented the Internet is now ranked about 25th in access to it,” Clinton said in her latest speech directed at the middle class appeals.

Called “Connect America,” Clinton’s broadband network would give businesses incentives to go into underserved areas, support state- and local-based initiatives and change the Federal Communication Commission rules to more accurately measure Internet access.

“I see this problem in New York. A lot of the utilities don’t want to connect up our isolated, rural areas. And they also don’t want particularly to go into our underserved, poor, urban areas because there’s so much money that can be made in Manhattan and our suburban areas,” Clinton said. “It was like when we had to electrify the country in the 1930s. Utilities didn’t electrify places because it wasn’t cost effective for them to do so. Well, we’ve got to play catch-up.”

Clinton said the Internet is the new necessity for economic development.

“In the 19th century, we invested in railroads. In the 20th century, we built the interstate highway system. In the 21st century information economy we need to invest in our information infrastructure.”

Clinton also advocated making permanent the research and experimentation tax credits, which more than 15,000 companies have used since they began 1981.

“We cannot rebuild a strong and prosperous middle class if we don’t have a new source of new jobs,” Clinton said. “Our country is a country of innovators. We’re not acting like it right now, but we have all the potential to get into gear quickly.”

Clinton also repeated a pledge made last week in a speech to the Carnegie Institution for Science to give researchers increased freedom and to end the politicization on science. She cited Colbert, the Comedy Central news anchor with a pseudo-conservative personality.

“To paraphrase Stephen Colbert, that great philosopher, this administration doesn’t make decisions based on facts, it makes facts based on decisions,” Clinton said to laughter. “By ignoring or manipulating science the Bush administration is letting our economic competitors get an edge in the global economy.”

Later Wednesday, Clinton lashed out at Republican activists for questioning the financial need of a 12-year-old who spoke up on behalf of Democrats who sought an extension of the State Child Health Insurance Program. Bush vetoed the bill that would have done so.

Some conservative bloggers suggested the family of Graeme Frost had granite counters in its Baltimore home and could afford health insurance. The family said its counters are made of concrete.

“I don’t mind them picking on me; they’ve done it for years,” Clinton said to laughter from the audience at Symphony Hall in Boston. “You know, I think I’ve proven I can take care of myself against all of them.

“But President Bush and the Republicans should lay off Graeme Frost and all the other children who are getting health care because we have decided to do the right thing in America,” Clinton said.

Associated Press writer Glen Johnson in Boston contributed to this report.

Hosted by Google
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Reading back through that press release, I can’t tell the difference between what I think the internet should be now, and what she was talking about then. Since the Orange Hate-Monkey has nixed the net neutrality rules that we fought so hard to see put in place, we are now dominated by corporate information providers who can shut any or all of us off for whatever reason they like even though the internet is the only way to get some forms of business transacted these days. If the FCC ran it, and that isn’t even what she was talking about but let’s go worst case, at least they would be required to provide me with internet access. Corporations do not have to suffer the indignities of serving the poor and undeserving, even when denying service is the same thing as signing a death warrant.

Hillary Declares her Intentions

Hillary Clinton has also decided to seek the presidency (I buried the story on Digg, myself) Like that’s a surprise. We’ve all been told she was going to run since the day her husband left the White House.

Personally, I think she’s a shoe-in to win the Democrat nomination, even though she’s not a Democrat (she’s a socialist, her attempt to socialize medicine during her husband’s tenure proves this) or even much of a woman, a parent, or a wife. She’s connected to Bill, and Bill still pulls a lot of strings in the Democrat party. That’s really all she needs to win at this point.

I’m just waiting to see who the Republicans field against her. I’m still betting on Condi; not because she’s got a chance of winning, but because polling has revealed that her group (black, female) is the only group less likely to win the presidency than a white female.

…and the Republicans are playing to loose this time around.

Whatever happens in the four to eight years following Bush’s time in office, it isn’t going to be good. The Republicans want to be able to capitalize on that by blaming it on the next occupant of the White House.

Look to see them attempt to scuttle any other viable candidates (including Dr. Paul, the only Republican that I would vote for) in the coming years, leaving only Condi to run against Hillary.

Chinese Test Anti-Satellite Weapon

As reported in Aviation Week, the Chinese gov’t:

performed a successful anti-satellite (asat) weapons test at more than 500 mi. altitude Jan. 11 destroying an aging Chinese weather satellite target with a kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile.

Let’s hope no one remembers that Bill Clinton is responsible for approving the sale of technology to China that made this sort of development possible. It might hurt Hillary’s chances of becoming the next president.

What a shame that would be.

Of course, not nearly as devastating as the now very real threat to the rest of the world, if you believe the US government propaganda on this issue, that is posed by China having the capability of creating long range Weapons of Mass Destruction.

As usual, we have the best enemies money can buy. I just keep wondering why we pay for them.

Gingrich Wasting His Time

Keith Olbermann has done it again, this time lambasting Newt Gingrich for trashing the first amendment in a bid to become the Republican’s next presidential nominee.

“I am not ‘running’ for president,” you told a reporter from Fortune Magazine. “I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.”

Newt Gingrich sees in terrorism, not something to be exterminated, but something to be exploited.
MSNBC (via the Wayback Machine)

I hate to break it to this aptly named lizard of a man, but he’s wasting his time. In more ways than one.

He’s wasting his time because the average American, who acts like a bull in the china shop when it comes to demanding government programs, which trash the Constitution, on the one hand; will overwhelmingly reject any proposal that appears to limit their ability to obtain instant gratification, especially one that trashes the parts of the Constitution they want to keep. He might as well have cut his own throat, literally.

Talk about cluelessness when it comes to reading what’s in the wind.

He’s also wasting his time is because the most likely Republican Presidential nominee is someone from the President’s administration. Newt is so far out of favor with the President that I can’t even begin to imagine what sequence of events might end in his being nominated by his party; let alone elected to the presidency.

No, the most likely Republican nominee is still the youngest, highest ranking member of W’s cabinet. And that person is still Condoleeza Rice. Which makes it Rice Vs. Clinton in ’08.

You heard it here first.

Editor’s note, 2019. Hindsight. Hindsight makes so many things clearer. I remember wondering, as we moved in on the 2008 election, before the crash of 2008 which clinched the election for the Democrats, why Dr. Rice didn’t even try for the nomination. She was single-handedly the brightest light in the Bush II presidency. Why wasn’t she even considered as a candidate?

From the perspective of the 2016 election, it all becomes clear. Ah, she was black and she was a woman. In 2006 I hadn’t even heard of the Southern strategy. I didn’t know of Nixon’s betrayal of the historic stances of the GOP and his embracing of white nationalism as a winning strategy. It was the GOP reaction to Barack Obama’s (no-drama Obama) presidency that made me realize just how racist the average Republican really is.

The GOP would never nominate anyone from either of those categories, much less a member of both of them. At least, not before the majority of racist white nationalists that make up the current GOP are smashed in a few elections and they realize that their racism and misogyny really has become a liability that they can no longer afford.

That day cannot come soon enough for me.

The Vote

I took the time to go out and vote today, just like I always do. I generally ignore the comments from some of my Anarcho-Capitalists friends, the types of comments that amount to “Voting is two wolves and a sheep deciding on what’s for dinner.” Not that I disagree with the sentiment concerning voting. It’s just that I’m a realist (unlike most of them) and I play the hand that has been dealt to me. Part of playing that hand is participation in the process. If you don’t participate, you really don’t have any room to bitch about the outcome.

Case in point: These Anarcho-Capitalists who don’t vote, who go to great pains to not vote, who spend a lot of energy convincing others of the futility of voting; these self same Anarcho-Capitalists will proceed to laugh at the sorry returns for Libertarian candidates (or mainstream candidates and issues that they might be in agreement with) and say, “see how pointless it all is.” It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

I’m sorry, but that minuscule return is there to ridicule because people like me haul our sorry butts out on election day and cast ballots for the candidates and issues that conscience dictates we support. If we relied on your holier-than-thou selves, there wouldn’t be any candidates, or any numbers to ridicule, at all. The truism “All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing” can’t be shown any clearer.

Not that I want to force them to vote. I just wish they’d think before spouting off about how pointless it all is. It’s real easy to sit on your hands and moan about how helpless you are; it’s another thing to expend your best effort in defiance of the naysayers, committing yourself to an effort that you essentially know is hopeless, but you would kick yourself if you didn’t at least try.

My hat goes off to all the Libertarian Party (and other third party) candidates and their staff tonight, for putting themselves through hell, and then some, for nothing more than the simple need to see something better than “politics as usual” on the ballot. For supporting people that they believed in, no matter what the odds were.

And the odds were pretty insurmountable. I can say, in Texas, that we didn’t win any major victories, although it looks like we may have squeaked out the percentage needed to stay on the ballot for another 4 years. That, in itself, is quite a victory. Getting back on the ballot is an expensive process that should be avoided if possible.

Someone noted, during the last election, that the Libertarian candidates in most races had vote totals larger than the number of votes separating the winner and the looser of that race; the observation still seems to be true. More than that can be said, though. The Republicans lost the house and Senate because they betrayed the small government conservatives who make up a good portion of the libertarians out there. And many of the small government social liberals consciously shifted their votes to Democratic candidates (there was a lot of talk about this on the CATO unbound and CATO podcast recently, as well as on Daily Kos) as the founding of Democratic Freedom Caucus (the Democratic version of the Republican Liberty Caucus) should have signaled to anyone who was paying attention. (For more on this, check out the Op. Ed. Examining the Libertarian Vote in Depth by David Boaz and David Kirby -ed.) So there were a few beacons of hope out there, if you were looking.

However, property owners in Austin (the sheep in the scenario above) once again were shafted on all 7 propositions put before voters this year; all of which passed, and all of which will raise property taxes.

Those of us who were cheering for a return to divided government have reason to celebrate. The two parties will at least have to pretend to hate each other’s ideas for the next two years. It should slow down the juggernaut that the federal deficit has become. I doubt that anything is going to save the economy, though. And if the economy goes South, there’s only one possible outcome. Hillary in 2008. Now that’s a nightmare.

That nightmare is two years away. Now is the time to get back to building the Libertarian party, fixing the defaced platform and the hundred other thankless tasks that need to be done behind the scenes; just so that our erstwhile brothers in the libertarian movement can cast aspersions on our (in their very vocal opinion) hopeless efforts. Here’s to making them eat their words next time around.

Postscript

I have eaten a Big Bowl of Crow since publishing this and other thoughts on many subjects. The wife of the blowjob president (That would be Hillary) was the nominee for the Democratic party in 2016 and I even voted for her. Donald Trump held the office of president for four years. Too many Americans wanted to live a different kind of nightmare than those of us who realized that Hillary wasn’t that bad in comparison to Donald Trump. I referred to him as His Electoral Highness, The Orange Hate-Monkey for the entire four years he was in office. He lost because he made sure government couldn’t work while he was in office, stole everything he could get his hands on while there, plunged the world into a pandemic the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the 1918 flu pandemic, and is supposedly going to be running for the Presidency again in 2024 against Barack Obama’s former Vice President, Joe Biden. Barack Obama, the first black President of the United States, who I was quite proud to vote for in the general in 2012. I wish I had done it in 2008 too. It is a weird world we live in. I still have libertarian delusions but I have medications that keep those in check.

I have become a supporter of mandatory voting and mandatory service. I blame the people who delude themselves into thinking they are sovereign and don’t need other people to survive for the mess we are in today. Sociopathy appears to be running rampant on the internet.

For some reason (and by some method I can’t even begin to fathom) this post was flagged by Blogger in the purely ritualistic (currently, but occasionally necessary) archive that I maintain at my old address on Blogspot. I have no idea why this innocuous set of observations about the general election for the 2006 midterms was deemed in violation of Blogger’s (clearly arbitrarily enforced) codes. Nor do I care. I simply deleted the original post in the interface and then duplicated it for the archive, giving it my now ubiquitous timestamp of 4:04 in the process. Time not found when it comes to dealing with persnickety algorithms with their panties constantly in a wad. The delete button is mine to arbitrarily wield and retract. Beware the delete button lest it come for you, algorithm!

Democratic Victory

Every conservative that I know makes a point of saying they are a fiscal conservative. They are, nearly to a man, worried most about the size and cost of government, and want to see it get smaller. Ask any American on the street prior to 9-11 what was most important for the government to focus on, and they would probably respond with some variation on reinstituting fiscal responsibility. Over the last 8 years, Bush and the Republican government he leads have passed one miniscule tax cut while jacking up the budget and the deficit to record levels.

At the pace that President Bush’s self-proclaimed progress is being made in the Middle East he will leave office with the U.S. still mired in Iraq, with the neighboring nations posturing militarily in an attempt to make us blink, putting us in the most volatile foreign policy situation since FDR died in the White House, leaving Truman to finish WWII.

…And Republicans across the nation are consumed with what? Passing Anti-abortion measures so that they can try to coerce the SCOTUS to overturn Roe V. Wade. This despite the fact that the average American, while perhaps not being favorable on abortion themselves, still favors a woman’s right to choose the procedure. I don’t know which political page they are working from, but this spells Democratic Victory in the next election in the book I’m reading from. I’m batting a thousand so far.

Which reminds me, I’m sticking to my previous assessment on the subject. The only thing I’m curious about is how the new members of SCOTUS will justify striking down the most recent ill-conceived fascist notions concerning abortion law. As if this hasn’t happened before.

So, in the end, the only thing Bush will have achieved in 8 years: handing Democrats control of the government for the first time since Reagan took office. Way to go, George.

Postscript

I wrote Democrats in the final paragraph, but I was thinking liberals at the time. Handing liberals the control of government. Otherwise what about Bill Clinton? He was a Democrat. Yes, but Bill Clinton was never a liberal. He advanced Reaganomics while he was president. He destroyed the welfare system and ramped up the incarceration machine while he was in office as well. A liberal would never have done these things. What would Hillary have been if she had been elected president? We’ll never know now.

A Woman President

I’ve been watching Commander in Chief on the tube lately. Friends of mine who have been trying to get me to watch West Wing for years ask me “why are you watching that show?” Getting beyond the obvious political leanings of the star of West Wing, I just have to answer “If I want to watch a man play at being POTUS, I just have to turn on any news channel.” Talk about a bad actor.

I’ve always had a weakness for Geena Davis, I can’t help it. Ever since Earth Girls are Easy, I jump at the chance to see her in just about any role. When I heard she was going to play the President, I just had to watch. She’s been quite convincing in the role (even if some of the story lines are a bit far fetched) Hard edged without being brutal, skating the thin line between a leader and a tyrant.

Yes I’ve heard the rumors concerning Commander in Chief’s creators. That’s why I’m not going to make an issue out of the obvious liberal (more aptly labeled socialist) leanings of those involved with West Wing. I would like to say one thing on the subject, though. If indeed they are trying to prep us for a woman president, I think they got the wrong actress to play the part. Perhaps Nichelle Nichols would be better suited to the role; I think that Condi has a much better chance of ever being president than Hillary does.

Prediction? Not really. Let’s call it an educated guess.

Postscript

I say liberal and socialist like it was a bad thing again and what is this thing I had for Condoleezza Rice back in 2006? What happened to her anyway? She disappeared without a trace after repeatedly lying for Bush the second. I must have been impressed with how she brazenly stuck to her guns on the subject of Bush’s blunders in Iraq. There is no other explanation for my obsession with her. Had the economy not crashed in 2008, things would have turned out much differently than they did for her and her Republican colleagues. I mean, Republicans don’t have a problem with liars, per se. Donald Trump proved that even if he didn’t achieve anything else. Republicans will happily support people who lie to them. They just won’t support women in leadership roles, apparently.

This article is proof positive that I was never a fan of Hillary Clinton. I was apparently a fan of Condi, though. Who knew?