Is Hillary stealing the GOP's thunder?

Not sure about this but it's a theory

The person who is elected president will need concrete proposals, but the G.O.P. contenders scarcely have them. Mike Huckabee has some sketchy plans. John McCain answered one element of middle-class anxiety yesterday with his new health care plan. Others seem to have decided concrete proposals are for geeks. In this way, the Republican Party has abandoned the Hamiltonian ground. It has lost intimate contact with the working-class dreamer who longs to make good.

Instead this ground is being seized by a Democrat. Over the past few months, Hillary Clinton has issued a string of specific policy programs aimed directly at members of the aspiring middle class. Yesterday, it was a tax credit for college. Earlier in the week, Clinton offered a plan to give families down the income scale access to 401(k)-style plans. Right now, 75 million workers have no employee-sponsored pension accounts. The way our tax code is structured, people up the income ladder get big tax incentives to save, while working people, who have the most trouble saving, get the smallest incentives.

Under the Clinton plan, if a family making up to $60,000 a year put $1,000 into a new 401(k) account, they would get a $1,000 matching tax credit. The plan would create millions of new investors. Struggling families could choose mutual fund options and participate in the capital markets. They'd be encouraged to move away from a month-to-month mentality to a saving-for-the-future mentality.

Clinton's plan poaches on economic values that used to be associated with the Republican Party. Moreover, it undermines the populist worldview that is building on the left of her party. Instead of railing against globalization and the economic royalists, Clinton gives working people access to Wall Street and a way to profit from the global economy.

No Republican would design asset-building plans the way Clinton does. No Republican would pay for them the way she does. But at least she has a middle-class agenda. Right now, the general election campaign looks like it's going to be a replay of the S-chip debate. The Democrats propose something, and the Republicans have no alternative.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

Fascist airports in America: "I do a tremendous amount of flying commercially, most of it internationally, and there is almost nothing about air travel that promises the convenience and relaxation it had many years ago. But, beyond all of this unpleasantness it is today painfully obvious that an air passenger--once inside the confines of an airport in any part of the world--has no rights whatsoever. This includes not even the right to be protected from security and law enforcement personnel who do not seem to understand any force other than deadly force. Security, police, and passenger screening personnel in any airport have near-dictatorial powers and almost limitless discretion to decide who needs to be put into a chokehold and thrown into a windowless room until someone can decided what set of ridiculously overblown charges need to be leveled against them".

Iran's War on Women: "When the women of Iran risk their own lives and that of their children and husbands to commit an illegal act of assembly for a peaceful demonstration against the unjust laws of the Islamist regime, they hope that the world is listening and supports them in their struggle for freedom and emancipation. But the world seems to be turning a blind eye to their pleas and when they get beaten, arrested and thrown in prisons, not a single government or NGO make an attempt to speak out in defense of their human rights."

Circumventing regulatory corruption in Chattanooga: "The Driver chuckled at the question. He liked chatting with new people. He enjoyed being on the move. He wanted to start a business where he could be self-sufficient, set his own hours, and build towards something a little bit bigger than he started with. "I used to drive a regular cab and wanted to keep doing it, but the hoops they make you jump through to get certified are crazy and way out of my budget," he said. The more he tried to play by the rules, though, he said, the more the city regulators seemed to enjoy shutting him out. The board that grants licenses in Chattanooga is partially run by local cab company owners -- would-be competitors, in other words. It's a process that, if not actually corrupt, at least gives the impression corruption is a distinct possibility, as even local press and politicians have begun to note. So he bought a limousine instead. The regulations are much less onerous, and he now happily ferries gobsmacked travelers in absurd luxury for the same rate as a cab.

Condy gets it: "Rice, on her way to Moscow, accused Iran of "lying" about the aim of its nuclear program and deceiving the U.N.'s atomic watchdog about its intentions. "There is an Iranian history of obfuscation and, indeed, lying to the IAEA," Rice said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. U.S. officials long have accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons behind the facade of a civil atomic energy program, charges Tehran denies. The Bush administration is pushing for new sanctions to punish Iran, but has yet to gather enough backing at the U.N. for such a move."

Democrat elite show their opinion of the workers: "They are worlds apart: the brash, gun-loving, God-fearing, Southern fans of Nascar racing, and the button-downed, suit-wearing political elite in Washington. But the loathing of the Nascar crowd for the inhabitants of Capitol Hill has reached new heights after the decision by Washington political aides to get inoculated before attending a race this weekend. To compound the error, the aides in question are Democrats, a party that has been so keen to regain the votes of white Southern males that it has even given them their own demographic term: "Nascar Dads". The decision to get immunisations, against hepatitis, tetanus and diphtheria, is as much a political blunder as a cultural clash."

Some cojones in Germany after all: "Ashkan Dejagah, the Iranian-born German soccer player who sparked an international controversy for his refusal to play in Israel, has been permanently suspended from the German Under-21 team, Theo Zwanziger, the president of the German Football Association (DFB) announced on Thursday. In his meeting with Israel Football Association chairman Avi Luzon, Zwanziger seemingly backtracked from a statement he made earlier in the week in which he supported the Dejagah's right to refuse to play, saying instead that the DBA "will not let this slide; he will be taken care of and suspended." The decision comes one day after a spokesperson for the German government condemned Delagah's position."

No cojones in Britain. They aim to desecrate Christian graves on behalf of Muslims: "A third of a million bodies could be dug up from a historic east London cemetery to make way for a new Muslim burial site. Tower Hamlets council is considering reopening its Cemetery Park in Mile End in response to a long-running campaign for a Muslim graveyard in the area. The park, off Bow Common Lane, was deconsecrated as a Church of England cemetery by Parliament in 1966, after being deemed full with about 350,000 bodies buried there...."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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