President Bill Clinton posed with members of the Gianelli Sausage and Dinosaur Bar-B-Que concession stand during a visit with his wife Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the New York State Fair on Friday September 2, 2005. L-R: Molly Scullin and her sister Katie-Sue Scullin of Liverpool, NY, Evan Wojtaszek also of Liverpool, NY, (Clinton), Nicole Cilani of Solvay, NY and Amy Marascalchi of Syracuse, NY.

The Washington Post has Oil Firms Turn Katrina Into Profits, Clinton Says, N.Y. Senator Criticizes Lack of National Leadership, Freedom From Imports.

Pressed by constituents alarmed by skyrocketing gasoline prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) accused oil companies of manipulating energy markets to enhance profits and decried a lack of national leadership for a plan to free the country from dependence on foreign oil.

“I want to go after the oil companies and the oil speculators and the manipulators of the money, because they’re the ones who I think are really behind this,” Clinton told an audience in Elmira Heights on Thursday. “You have a hurricane, and all of a sudden you see prices going up like that. That has . . . everything to do with people trying to make money off the backs of this tragedy.”

Clinton repeatedly took aim at record profits rolled up by energy giants during the last quarter as crude oil prices have continued to rise. Her rhetoric was at times angry, exasperated, frustrated and passionate. “You just cannot convince me that they are not manipulating this market,” she told another audience near Newark, N.Y.

But, Senator, what about lowering federal and state taxes to bring gasoline to more affordable levels?

Clinton sparred with one constituent who called for a rollback of state and federal gasoline taxes to ease the pain of increases that have pushed prices well above $3 a gallon in many places since the hurricane hit Monday morning. Clinton said that will not solve the problem.

“We can get some temporary relief, but that’s not the answer, and we don’t have the leadership we need to stand up and fight for what should be the answer and the sacrifices people should be willing to make,” she said.

So…. what, Senator pray tell do you propose?

More domestic oil production in Alaska?

More refineries?

More nuclear power facilities?

Senator, where have you been and where was President Clinton during his 8 years in office?

Clinton criticized the new energy bill, which she opposed, as inadequate to solve the country’s long-term energy problem. She said the United States has regressed over the past three decades, since the first oil shocks of the early 1970s. “We’ve had 30 years to do some things we haven’t done,” she said. “In fact we’ve gotten, we’ve gone backwards in many respects.

“I am tired of being at the mercy of people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and I’m tired frankly of being at the mercy of these large oil companies,” Clinton said.

All whine and no beef.

Propose some solutions or just be quiet.

H/T Powerline

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton

Poll Results are out for August, The Big One: Results & Analysis.

As of 7 a.m. EDT on August 26, with a whopping 16,437 votes cast, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani wins the Big One with 30.0%. Virginia Senator George Allen places second with 20.1%, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a strong third at 14.3%, and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney finishes fourth with 9.1%. On the fantasy ballot, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice laps the field with 37.7%, with Vice President Dick Cheney at 14.0%, Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 9.2%, and former Senator Fred Thompson at 8.1%. All four fantasy candidates finished above the main ballot candidates when voters were asked if they would switch their votes – among other things, a possible ballot design issue.

Changes from Last Month: George Allen won last month’s five way match-up over Giuliani by 37.2% to 30.7%. The two polls are not an apples-to-apples comparison since the field was opened up to more candidates. However, the July poll was (and is) still active on the sidebar; 764 votes were received on the five-way poll during the August voting, with the results as follows: Allen 36.1%, Giuliani 30.4%, Romney 11.1%, McCain 9.8%, and Frist 8.6%. So, little change in underlying opinion since July. What’s noteworthy here is that Giuliani effectively keeps all of his support when the field is opened up, but Allen loses about 16 points of his, suggesting that conservatives are still shopping around for a candidate. Mitt Romney keeps all but two points of his support – Giuliani and Romney may be gaining positive support from voters who like them and are not just voting against the field.

Guiliani will be a formidable candidate.

Now comes the really fun part – the state by state. Overall, Rudy wins in 39 states and the District of Columbia, Allen takes 8, favorite sons Brownback and Huckabee take their home states, and Romney crushes the field in Utah. I’ll take these by candidate, highlighting their strongholds. You can crunch the real time data on this page.

Flap does not foresee any conservative candidate or John McCain overtaking him.

A Guiliani – Rice ticket in November 2008 would be hard for Clinton – Richardson to beat.

Patrick Ruffini has his 2008 Presidential Straw Poll up here.

This one should be fun. It’s pretty much all the likely candidates as they stand today in a main ballot, and a bonus ballot with the opportunity to vote for four of your favorite fantasy contenders. Once you get to the results page, you’ll see exactly which likely candidates the fantasy candidates take the most from.

Here’s another reason why this one’s the Big One. On your ballot, you’ll have the opportunity to mark your state. If this poll is as big as the last one (@13,000 responses), we’ll have a statistically valid sample of online activists not just nationally, but in most of the fifty states. On the results page, you can filter the results by state, by region, or by Red vs. Blue states.

Flap votes for Rudy Giuliani and Flap’s fantasy candidate is Dick Cheney, although Jeb Bush looks good.

So, get over there and vote.

Flap knows you will be glad you did!

Christopher Walken, actor extraordinary, has delared his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.

“Our great country is in a terrible downward spiral. We’re outsourcing jobs, bankrupting social security, and losing lives at war. We need to focus on what’s important– paying attention to our children, our citizens, our future. We need to think about improving our failing educational system, making better use of our resources, and helping to promote a stable, safe, and tolerant global society. It’s time to be smart about our politics. It’s time to get America back on track.”

An academy award winning actor, Mr. Walken has little experience in either government or politics.

Flap has always enjoyed his films.

After reading his website it appears to be the same liberal Hollywood tripe.

Chris, we have enough of those politicans, including Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

Make Flap happy and forget the politics and make a few more films.

Technorati Tags: Christopher Walken

Hugh Hewitt has Patrick Ruffini is running a straw poll for 2008. It is early, but many bloggers are participating so it will be an interesting test of cyber-savvy activists. Patrick will also be breaking down the results by referrer, which should make for some interesting comparisons among blog audiences.

The Kos Kids get to have their own straw poll, so why can’t we? At least ours are relevant!

The last time we went through this exercise, we attracted nearly half the votes as a site powered by half a million daily uniques. Not bad.

In February, it was a free-for-all with most potential candidates (“too hot”); last time it was a series of coldly calculating two-way matchups (“too cold”). For this one, I’m simulating a five-way between George Allen, Bill Frist, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney (“just right”).

Enjoy — and if you’re interested in surveying your blog’s readers on this question, feel free to link away. I’m sorting the results by referring blog.

2008 Presidential Preference:

George Allen
Bill Frist
Rudy Giuliani
John McCain
Mitt Romney

Results

……..and for whom did Flap vote:

Rudy Giuliani

George Allen or Bill Frist would make an excellent vice-president candidate.

A group of House and Senate Democrats today have introduced legislation significantly increasing the size of the U.S. Army.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services (SASC) airland subcommittee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), a SASC member, and Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), both members of the House Armed Services committee, are pressing for the passage of the United States Army Relief Act.

The legislation seeks to raise the cap of the Army’s end strength, said an aide to Tauscher.

The Army already is working on increasing its troop levels by 30,000. Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, has said on numerous occasions that it costs about $1.2 billion a year for every 10,000 people added to the Army.

Both the House and the Senate have called for an increase in troop levels in their 2006 defense authorization bill and it is likely that troop levels will be increased when the conferees meet.

Flap supposes it is only RIGHT for Hillary to get on the RIGHT side of the military.

Wonder if she talks about this bill when she addresses the Moveon.org folks?

Flap can’t wait for Hillary in 2008.

This is great….. FUNNNNNNNNY!

Click HERE.

You will be glad you did!

HT: HH

Plagiarising Joe Biden is running for President and has formed a political action committee entitled “Unite Our States”.

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), who is rarely thought of as a centrist, plans to take his presidential campaign to red states and rural voters in a bid to show that he has the quality that many party strategists say is key to winning the 2008 presidential primary: electability.

Biden yesterday announced the formation of a leadership political action committee, Unite Our States, with the purpose of electing a candidate “committed to addressing the challenges facing our country by beginning to unite ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states, big cities and small towns, and Americans of all walks of life.”

By stressing the importance of unifying Americans, Biden is marching on to territory already being surveyed by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who is also laying the groundwork for a 2008 presidential run.

Looks like a race for Vice-President to Flap.

However, neither of these candidates will help Hillary Clinton in red states or ethnic voters.

Look for Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico to be Hllary’s running mate.

Howard Dean addressed the National Association of Latino Officials yesterday in Puerto Rico and told both appointed and elected officials that the Democratic Party is losing more and more Hispanic voters to the Republicans and must cultivate them if it is to win the 2008 presidential victory.

More than 7 million Latinos — of Central and South American, Mexican, and Puerto Rican descent — voted in the 2004 presidential race.

But with each successive race, a higher percentage of the growing number of eligible Hispanics has voted for the Republican Party candidate. In 1996, there was a 51 percent gap between Sen. Robert Dole and President
Bill Clinton, who won 72 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2004, there gap narrowed to 20 percent between
President George W. Bush and Sen.
John Kerry, who won nearly 60 percent of Hispanic votes.

To win Latinos back, “We need a 50-state strategy,” Dean told several hundred elected and appointed Hispanic officials belonging to the National Association of Latino Officials.

Now, how does this pandering for voters help Hillary Clinton’s strategy for fueling border state discontent over illegal immigration?

Does this show a sign that the Democrats will be supporting some amnesty plan for Hispanic illegal aliens?

Democrats lost Hispanic votes in the last election because the Republican Party presented itself as the party of “moral values,” said Dean, 56.

But “this (Democratic) party stands for social and economic justice,” he said, criticizing the Bush administration’s health, education, and social security policies.

“We are Democrats because of our moral values,” he said.

A majority of Hispanics are Catholics and the values of Democrats and the Roman Catholic Church coincide for the most part, he added

But, how does this moral values strategy square with the Democrat’s platform and Hillary’s stand on abortion? Tthe Democrats do NOT line up and share the same moral values with the Roman Catholic Church on abortion! Or with Gay Marriage for that matter!

The lefties have a long way to go to attract Hispanic voters who are social conservatives and naturally attracted to conservative and Republican candidates.