Bill Richardson

On the Eve! Be sure to Vote Tomorrow for the Candidate of your choice!

theBlueHighwayman — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:12:19 -0500

Dispatch NYC 9:00P EST

The vaunted February 5th Primary is upon us! I’ve gotten to be in NYC to cast my vote in person and a good thing because I’m still undecided. Problem is the Democratic Congress has been so ineffective it becomes a tossup as to voting for either candidate. Hope and Change is a slogan leftover from the November 06 campaign. It’s looking mighty unappetizing to me!

I sat down and made a short list of each candidate strengths and weaknesses. As you can see it didn’t help much.

Barack- Young, Fresh, Optimistic, Gave great anti-war speech in 2002, Senate voting record supports all war funding, No desire to hold Bush and Cheney accountable, Inferior Health Plan, Inexperienced, who is in the cabinet, tends to ignore voting on issues he deems unimportant, Unknown Quantity

Hillary- Older, Pragmatic, Realistic, Bad judgment voting for war resolution in 2002, Senate voting record supports all war funding, No desire to hold Bush or Cheney accountable, Superior Health Plan, Experienced, good idea of who is in cabinet, votes on all issues, Known Quantity

I’ve gotten too cynical about all this and am trying to become more positive about the Democratic Party in general. Still there is the problem of who to vote for when I wake up tomorrow morning. I think on a coin toss it’ll be alright because these two are not so far apart. Then again Hillary with Bill as advisor and Obama as VP might be a great thing. I’m going with the coin toss tomorrow because I keep hearing change as a message to use the coin. At any rate at least we’ll have a President that can finally pronounce ‘nuclear’!

Vote for who you want tomorrow because that’s what makes this country strong! We will support strongly whoever wins the Democratic Nomination!

Kucinich, Richardson, and Paul Benefit Most from Bhutto Assassination

Bob Fertik — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:52:13 -0500

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is horrifying in terms of its violence against the people of Pakistan - and terrifying in terms of the possibility of Pakistan spinning into chaos with loose nukes and murderous fundamentalists.

Of course I can't add any insights into the who and why and the consequences for Pakistan and the world - nor can many Americans.

But let me add my $.02 on one topic in the news - which U.S. Presidential candidates will benefit the most.

Without a doubt, those candidates are Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson, and Ron Paul.

Why? Because they are the three candidates who want to get out of Iraq quickly and completely, and let the Iraqis solve their own problems, rather than continue the bloody, expensive, and self-defeating U.S. occupation.

We urgently need to get our troops out of Iraq so we can send the fresher ones to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban more effectively - before we lose the other half of Afghanistan to the people who harbored Al Qaeda before 9/11.

According to the Pentagon Post, more troops will be sent to Afghanistan soon - but there is absolutely no indication where those troops will come from.

Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and
clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning... Now, a new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources.

Bill Richardson Wants ALL Troops Out of Iraq

Bob Fertik — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:52:38 -0400

Here's a great 30 second ad from Bill Richardson aimed at Iowa primary voters:

Among the Democratic Presidential candidates, Richardson, Kucinich and Gravel are the only candidates who want to remove all of our troops.

Interestingly, Richardson just moved ahead of John Edwards to third place in New Hampshire, and he's gaining on Barack Obama towards third place in Iowa.

Congratulations to OpenLeft's Chris Bowers and MSNBC's Tom Curry for trying to extract concrete answers from the other Democratic candidates.

Richardson and Gravel Take on the Take Back America Conference

davidswanson — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:47:36 -0400

By David Swanson

Two presidential candidates, Bill Richardson and Mike Gravel, spoke Tuesday morning at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama and John Edwards were expected later in the day, and Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich on Wednesday.

Richardson got loud applause. He focused on climate change, Kyoto treaty, a plan to reduce pollution by 20%, lower demand for oil by 50%, and raise fuel efficiency standards to 50 mpg, and require that 50% of our electricity come from renewable sources, and reduce greenhouse admissions by 80 percent. The crowd loved it. "If we can wage wars over weapons of mass destruction, we can find the will to stop the mass destruction of our planet."
Topic number 2 was Iraq: How many troops would each of us (candidates) leave behind? Other than the customary Marine contingent at the embassy, I would leave zero troops behind. [big applause] And if our embassy personnel aren't safe, then they're coming home too. With all due respect to my colleagues Clinton, Obama, Dodd, Biden, they all voted for legislation with loopholes that would leave an unlimited number of troops behind indefinitely (for training Iraqi security forces, and to protect other US troops). Troops protecting troops training other troops doesn't sound any different to me. Senator Clinton has told her military advisor that there might still be troops in Iraq at the end of her second term. At the rate we are losing American lives, over 1000 American troops will die in Iraq in this year alone. Over 60 percent of Iraqis think it's OK to kill Americans. There is not a single sign that Iraq is improving, and a smaller force will do nothing to change that. How many more Americans must die before we leave an Iraq that will be no better off than it is today. WE NEED TO BRING THEM ALL HOME [huge applause.]

We need to bring all our troops home in 6 months. Only then can dimplomacy begin. Leave troops in Kuwait. Hand security in Iraq over to an all-Muslim force. Organize a regional conference including Syria and Iran to help stabilize Iraq. Al Qaeda is tolerated in Iraq because they oppose Americans. Once Americans are gone, Iraqis will nto tolerate Al Qaeda.

Talking to your enemies can bring results. We need to bring back diplomacy. You don't make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies. This president broke Iraq. The next president needs to know how to use diplomacy to fix it.

STANDING OVATION.

Music: loud rock, no lyrics.

Gravel got a luke warm response after Ralph Nader received the same introducing him.

Gravel's music was "Power to the People." The loudest applause Gravel received came when he said that his proposed bill to make it a felony to continue the war would mean 5 years in prison for the President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defense. Gravel admitted that such a bill would be vetoed, but he urged endless cloture votes to pass it and endless votes to override the veto. Gravel urged action now, and suggested that the Democrats will lose in 18 months if they do no more in the meantime than they've done in the past 6. He said her wanted ALL troops home for Xmas. That got applause.

Moderator Hurls Mostly SPIT Balls In First Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate

thepen — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:13:32 -0400

After listening to the questions asked by Brian Williams in South Carolina at the first debate of announced Democratic presidential contenders, one has to wonder how much worse the moderation would have been if it had been on the Fox Network.

There was hardly an inane smear, knock, superficial or unfair attack made against any of these candidates that Williams did not go OUT of his way to highlight or demand that they defend themselves against. We had the price of haircuts, misquotes about positions on Palestine, ties to Walmart, not to mention an entire segment on Giuliani's despicable "die under Democrats" rhetoric from yesterday, instantly elevated to the status of accepted mainstream gospel and framed as such. If most of the questions had been prefaced with the words "Karl Rove says" their slant could not have been more obvious. Even the questions selected from viewer emails seemed to be selected with that criteria in mind.

When Williams was not doing that he left no stone unturned trying to dredge up a virtual laundry list of every possible divisive wedge issue he could work in, positions on abortion, guns, illegal immigration, and even the confederate flag. The few other actual issues touched on were exploited as an opportunity to hurl other accusations, for example on the health care issue one of stealth tax raising intentions. The energy issue he tried to turn into an Al Gore, how dare you own a light bulb witch hunt, and so on.

And in his grandstand play of the night Williams painted a grim scenario of two American cities wiped out by Al Qaeda and demanded to know how each of these candidates would retaliate. The question itself was custom designed to drive fear into the heart of what deserved to be a thoughtful debate on the issues, and to substitute blind ignorant rage for sound policy. It had to be TWO cities of course because we've ALREADY lost one and a half cities under George Bush. The question begged the answer of what kind of revenge would you take, as if revenge were a policy goal. How fitting from the mouthpiece of a company in the nuclear weapons business.

To their credit each of the candidates demonstrated in turn that they are infinitely more qualified to be president of the United States than Bush ever was, and managed for most part to say what they wanted to say, as opposed to what Williams was trying to bait them into saying. We only wish one of them had called him out directly on the slant of the questions, especially the Giuliani smear.

Williams made one huge mistake, trying to embarrass Kucinich about his Cheney impeachment stance, and Kucinich hit it out of the park with some of the best passion we've heard from him yet. Likewise with Gravel, where Williams practically chortled at the chance to pick a fight on stage between the candidates, but instead gave Gravel his own moment to shine as an uncompromising antiwar choice.

What we NEED to do is take the debates out of the hands of right wing spin kings and get some moderators who aren't so bent on warping the whole affair. It's hard to imagine as long as self-interested corporations are the sponsors. But at least tonight our candidates were able to hold their own.

Why can't Wild Horses drag New Mexico's Cowboy Governor . . .

helist — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 01:17:34 -0400

Only a very few wild horses still exist in the US, and New Mexico, where in 1974 there were 6000 wild horses , now has less than 400.

Yet Bill Richardson, ubiquitously saddled-up marketer of the Land of Enchantment, seems to be waffling on signing a Wild Horse Protection Bill - after it passed unanimously in the House, and with one opposing vote in the Senate!

SB655 is the bill - that finally creates a legal definition for the wild horse in NM, and establishes protections conserving the Spanish Colonial Horse, already extinct in Spain.

The wild horse is an enchanting national treasure and an American icon, worth preserving for its own sake, but even viewed from a purely utilitarian perspective, the beautiful creatures could add economic value throughout the west through Equine Eco-Tourism, providing much- needed, clean, economic development in rural communities.

So, why don't he sign?

If Bill Richardson can't protect the Hispanic and wild horses in his own state, with the overwhelming support of the legislature, then how in the world could he, as president, be trusted to protect the rest of our country's or or the planet's precious, deteriorating, natural resources?

Good question! Ask Governor Richardson!