LIE OF THE WEEK: 08-31-2007

Senator Hillary Clinton on the crimes of one of her main fund-raisers:

...revelations of Mr. Hsu’s past criminal problems were “a big surprise to everybody. When you have as many contributors as I’m fortunate enough to have, we do the very best job we can based on the information available to us to make appropriate vetting decisions.”

THE TRUTH: Trying to play down his role as just another contributor will not save Senator Clinton from the fact that, just as during her husband's administration, she is being significantly influenced by money being brought in by people of questionable morality and ethics. The hundreds of thousands of dollars donated or "bundled" to her campaign by Mr. Hsu clearly has bought him the access he needed to influence her and other politicians and her continuous denials of the influence of money on her policy positions during debates is completely disingenuous and not believable. If Senator Clinton wants to win the trust of the American people to elect her president, she needs to break her old bad habits. Since that won't happen and she won't be elected president, we can only pray that the Republicans nominate someone decent to steer our country for the next four years.

COLUMN: 08-29-2007

When will public figures ever learn? Lying about your mistakes and crimes only serves to intensify media and public attention, which nearly always leads to exposure of the truth. From President Clinton's repeated denials of adultery nine years ago (leading directly to his impeachment) to the most recent examples of NFL star Michael Vick's denial of dog-fighting crimes and U.S. Senator Larry Craig's denial of wrongdoing after already pleading guilty to a crime, it seems that none of these very smart people who have worked very hard to succeed in extremely competitive fields will ever learn the lessons of historical cover-ups.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 08-24-2007

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani on his position on small government:

"I think I'd be a good fit for Idaho because I'm someone who has a very, very strong belief in a government that understands that most of the really good things and great things that we produce in this country come from the people, not from government, I'm someone who understands that you've got to devolve power and reduce the size of government."

THE TRUTH: Mr. Giuliani has shown his views on the size of government when he ran New York City. Just because he was to the right of the extreme liberal Democrats in the city does not mean that he is on the right side of this issue. He is a believer in big government and big government programs and that's the last thing we need in Washington right now, especially after the Bush administration's massive growth of the government despite many many promises to do the opposite.

COLUMN: 08-22-2007

Michelle Obama is right: Hillary Clinton could not take care of her own household and this should disqualify her from running the nation. It's clear that she stayed with her husband during infidelity after infidelity for her own personal gain as the wife of the Arkansas Attorney General, then first lady of Arkansas, and then first lady of the US. Forgiveness is admirable, but forgiveness requires repentance and repentance requires not committing the same mistake again (and especially not repeatedly). When someone has cheated on you time after time, there is only one solution for anyone with any small amount of dignity: leaving the cheater. Any other move proves that you value something else (in this case, power and influence) more than integrity.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 08-17-2007

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the conviction of Jose Padilla:

''The conviction of Jose Padilla -- an American who provided material support to terrorists and trained for violent jihad -- is a significant victory in our efforts to fight the threat posed by terrorists and their supporters"

THE TRUTH: This entire case has been botched from the beginning and the conviction is no different. Jose Padilla has been convicted of submitting an application to train at an Al-Qaeda camp and nothing more. Despite all of the rhetoric, the government's misbehavior will probably ultimately lead to more terrorism and the release of many of these would-be terrorists on technicalities. His illegal seizure on American soil, his illegal imprisonment as an enemy combatant for three and a half years in a military brig, his lack of an unbiased jury as the government spread his image as a radiation "dirty" bomber across the world without providing any evidence in either the public arena or in court, and his potential life sentence for submitting a piece of paper to a terrorist organization are among the very numerous areas that his defense team can exploit on appeal. Like so many other examples, this administration has shown their incompetent loyalists that are spread across the entire administration are incapable of doing a decent job in any area of governance. The sooner we are done with this administration, the better off America will be (even if it sadly results in a very liberal administration for a few years).

COLUMN: 08-15-2007

The announcement that Karl Rove is leaving the White House requires a look back at his legacy. Far from being the genius indicated by his Republican supporters (or the evil genius indicated by his Democratic opponents), he is purely the lowest form of political exploiter: a demagogue. He used President Bush's faith to gain the support of America's faithful. Similarly, he played up the American people's fear of terrorism to re-elect President Bush in 2004. In both cases, the administration did little to actually support the positions of the groups they were appealing to: the religious groups' agenda was sidetracked behind that of the business interests and the security situation has been made immeasurably worse by the Iraq War (a war of choice inflicted upon America and the world by this administration). For all the talk of compassionate conservatism and the president being a uniter and not a divider, Karl Rove has shaped the politics of this administration that values personal loyalty above all else, including truth, integrity, or any of the other moral values that Republicans are supposed to espouse and derive from their position as the party of religious conservatives. He (and the rest of the Bush administration) will surely be remembered as among the worst leadership in the history of our nation.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 08-10-2007

Senator Hillary Clinton on her "opposition" to NAFTA:

"This deal was negotiated by Washington insiders," he said. "It's cost us a million jobs." Clinton said the way NAFTA has been implemented "has hurt a lot of American workers" and called for a "trade prosecutor" to enforce such agreements. "For 15 years, I have stood up against the right-wing machine," Clinton said. "So if you want a winner who knows how to take them on, I'm your girl."

THE TRUTH: Senator Clinton's main supporters are the business interests who paid (with campaign contributions to her husband) for the creation of NAFTA during the Clinton Administration and continue to pay (with campaign contributions to her) to keep it going. She has absolutely been on the wrong side of this issue in every single vote on every single bill. This issue is one of the few where unions are actually on the right side of an issue. Free trade is a good thing only when trading with countries that have decent worker protections so that we are not trading our support of human rights and decent jobs in America in exchange for lower cost goods and higher corporate profits. This hypocritical pandering is not going to convince anyone and will surely contribute to Senator Clinton's rightful defeat in the election.

COLUMN: 08-08-2007

The pandering going on in the various presidential debates is absolutely sickening. As each party's group of candidates have appeared in various locations in front of specific audiences, they have twisted their positions to suit the politics of the local population or the group they are appearing in front of. This was especially true in the two recent Democrat debates in front of the NAACP and the AFL-CIO. In both cases, the candidates bent over backwards in support of the most extreme positions of these groups, despite the fact that nearly all of these same candidates have always voted more in favor of lobbyist positions on legislation regarding the same issues. This electioneering hypocrisy needs to be exposed so that lobbyist money can finally be excluded from the process and the will of the American people can truly be represented in our state and federal legislatures.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 08-03-2007

Senator Hillary Clinton on Senator Obama ruling out the use of nuclear weapons:

"Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons," Clinton said. "Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace. And I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons."

THE TRUTH: This statement shows that Senator Clinton has not analyzed the situation at hand and is instead just taking the politically expedient path by following the precedent of the current and previous presidents in her statements. Our enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq are not countries and there is no way a tactical nuclear device can even be considered in these situations where our enemies hide among civilian populations. Therefore, no useful deterrence can be achieved in this regard (not to mention the fact that our enemies have not hesitated to take innocent civilian lives where it suited their goals and we need to significantly differentiate ourselves in this regard by showing that we value all life and are not willing to cause significant "collateral" damage for short-sighted goals.) The fact that Bush administration has proposed using "bunker-buster" nuclear weapons against deep caves in Afghanistan where terrorists are believed to be hiding is another example which has had a severe negative effect on our anti-nuclear proliferation efforts around the world. If we truly want to prevent nuclear proliferation and ultimately use of nuclear weapons, we need to lead by example and minimize our use of threats to use nuclear weapons, not just minimize actual usage.

COLUMN: 08-01-2007

Vice President Cheney has finally allowed a minor crack to form in his insane wall of stubbornness. He finally admitted this week that he was wrong about the insurgency being in it's "last throes" back in 2005 when it was in fact getting much stronger by the day. However, he tempered this admission by claiming that the administration was very comfortable with all its decisions and would repeat all of them, even if it knew then what it now knows about the lack of WMD, the lack of terrorist ties to the Baath Party, and the amount of chaos caused by the invasion. While this stubborn attitude may serve the Vice President insofar as his political goal of showing loyalty to his decisions and showing no weakness to his political rivals, it is so far removed from the reality of the situation that he has lost all credibility with the American people and will surely be remembered by history as the most powerful and most foolish Vice President to serve this nation.