Tag: 2008 (page 26)

Everyone knows Cindy McCain, the heiress wife of John McCain, was addicted to pain pills. CNN's 360 tonight highlighted it in a profile of her tonight.

But Cindy McCain wasn't just addicted to pain pills. She was investigated federally for stealing pain pills from a medical charity she headed and for having prescriptions filled in the names of the charity's employees. She admitted it. One of the doctors who wrote the prescriptions for her lost his license.

Mrs. McCain, through her lawyers, was able to get federal prosecutors to let her enter a diversion program and avoid jail.

Diversion is common in state courts for first-time offenders. It isn't in federal courts.

Here are some articles from that time period:

• Opiate for the Mrs
• How Cindy McCain was outed for drug addiction

John McCain is a hawk in the war on drugs. One standard for his wife, another for everyone else.

His voting record on drugs, after his wife's problems:

More....

Hillary Clinton today released her specific plan for Afghanistan. Among the points: Redesign the counternarcotics plan:

She will target enforcement against drug lords, labs, and corrupt officials, not farmers. Using the inspirational agricultural programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal as a model, she will propose to the international community and the Congress a multi-year program to develop Afghanistan’s agricultural sector to provide alternative livelihoods. This is the best way to undermine the terrible nexus of drug lords, corrupt officials, and Taliban who are now strangling the legitimate side of Afghanistan’s economy. This would mean an integrated approach to agricultural development that employs all resources from seeds to fertilizer, irrigation to electrification to roads, and markets to education.

On building the country's security and police force, she will ask NATO to step up to the plate. Isn't that was Obama should have done when he chaired the Foreign Relations subcommittee that had oversight over NATO in Afghanistan?

Barack Obama's February fundraising numbers are out. He raised $55 million.

In other news...

With Hillary's wins Tuesday, more superdelegates supporting Obama are holding off saying she should withdraw. Other superdelegates are holding off on endorsing period.

Obama faces an uphill battle in Pennsylvania.

John McCain is stepping up the inexperienced argument against Obama:

When asked if he would meet with Raul Castro of Cuba, McCain turned his answer into a criticism of Obama. “I would not in any way, as Senator Obama wants to do, legitimize an individual who has been responsible for education, repression, political prisons and a gulag,” McCain said. "I don't know if [Obama] is naïve or not, I know he is inexperienced.”

36 hours, $4 million online raised by Hillary. Not bad.

She's now trying for $6 million in 48 hours.

A new poll by the Washington Post and ABC News finds 2/3 of Democrats believe Hillary Clinton should stay in the presidential race if she wins either Texas or Ohio. The poll results are here.

Larry King Live tonight did a few segments on Rock the Vote and the effort to get out the youth vote.

While it appears the young favor Obama so far in this election, it should be remembered that Rock the Vote and young voters were instrumental in electing Bill Clinton President. You can watch him here, crediting them.

This is from my personal collection of old VCR tapes -- I converted it and got it on You Tube last night. It's from a certain 1993 Inaugural Ball. Check out Hillary and Chelsea too.

TalkLeft, Taylor Marsh, No Quarter, Corrente Wire and Left Coaster are not the only progressive blogs where some of the authors and/or most of the commenters prefer Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama for President. Some blogs have explicitly endorsed her. At others, individual authors express their personal beliefs. Some even strive to provide fair coverage.

Here are some to check out:

• Confluence by River's Daughter
• Anglachel's Journal
• No More Apples
• Donna Darko
• Democratic Daily

Recommended post of the day: Factory Workers at Sunrise. (Hat tip to Katie Bird.)

Obama on the campaign trail today, explaining why he is experienced to be President:

"Look, I've lived overseas," said Obama. "I have family overseas. I have served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

I can't let that one pass. When did he live overseas? From the ages of 6 to 10 in Indonesia.

As to his service on the Foreign Relations Committee, do we need to mention again that the subcommittee on European Affairs that he chaired didn't hold a single hearing last year on NATO and Afghanistan, because he was too busy running for President?

It looks like Hillary Clinton will be on Saturday Night Live tonight. Check back later for the You Tubes.

Hillary Clinton may make an unexpected visit on Saturday Night Live. According to CNN, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton may make a surprise appearance on this week’s Saturday Night Live, right before Tuesday’s crucial primaries.

A Saturday Night Live spokesman would not comment on the situation and only said, "It's a live show; anything can happen."

However, Clinton did not arrive for her scheduled flight from Dallas, Texas to Columbus, Ohio on Saturday evening and campaign officials would not disclose the Senator’s location, according to CNN.

Sen. Hagel for Secretary of Defense? Sen. Luger for Secretary of State? Barack Obama believes that's one way to "neutralize John McCain."

A reporter from the Sunday Times (UK) traveled on Barack Obama's campaign plane last week. Both campaign advisors and Obama told him in interviews,

Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard Lugar, leader of the Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee.

Senior advisers confirmed that Hagel, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and one of McCain’s closest friends in the Senate, was considered an ideal candidate for defence secretary.

....Asked about his choice of cabinet last week, Obama told The Sunday Times: “Chuck Hagel is a great friend of mine and I respect him very much,” although he was wary of appearing as though he was already choosing the White House curtains.

Obama made similar comments in Dallas this week:

[More....]

I've been learning a lot from the commenters on this site the past few weeks. Yesterday I wrote up this this New Yorker interview with Barack Obama from November, 2006, before he decided to run for President. I missed this statement by Obama, noted by Facta in Verba in the comments:

“By the way,” just as an aside. You know, I’m not a historian, so— There’s a hotel, I think it’s the Capitol Hilton, in Washington; and downstairs, where there are a lot of banquet halls, there’s a whole row of all the presidents. You walk by the forty-three that have been there and you realize there are only about ten who you have any idea what they did.

That's pretty funny. Especially coming from someone who taught Constitutional Law and is running for the Presidency. I wonder which ten Presidents they are.

A new poll of likely Democratic voters from C-Span, Reuters and the Houston Chronicle, by Zogby shows a dead heat in Texas and Ohio with Hillary gaining and stemming Obama's recent lead there.

Democrat Hillary Clinton stemmed her losses and solidified her base in Texas, reversing a slide against rival Barack Obama in the race for their party’s presidential nomination, while Obama continued his thrust to catch her in Ohio as voters in these two big states prepare to vote on Tuesday, the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle two-day rolling telephone tracking polls show.

Hillary has closed the gap on the male vote, with Obama only leading in that category by 5%.

More good news for Hillary:

Clinton had a big day Friday in the Zogby call center, leading Obama by double-digits in the Texas survey. She retains a significant lead among Hispanic voters there, a key demographic in the Democratic primary.

In Ohio, the latest poll shows Hillary and Obama in a dead heat. [More...]