Showing posts with label Hillary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hillary. Show all posts

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Presidential candidates among "Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" of 2007

 
Judicial Watch announced its Top Ten List of "Most Wanted Corrupt Politicans for 2007" (hat tip: Powerline). Included among the ten: four presidential candidates. You'll never guess who hit the top of the chart.

8. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL): A “Dishonorable Mention” last year, Senator Obama moves onto the “ten most wanted” list in 2007. In 2006, it was discovered that Obama was involved in a suspicious real estate deal with an indicted political fundraiser, Antoin “Tony” Rezko. In 2007, more reports surfaced of deeper and suspicious business and political connections It was reported that just two months after he joined the Senate, Obama purchased $50,000 worth of stock in speculative companies whose major investors were his biggest campaign contributors. One of the companies was a biotech concern that benefited from legislation Obama pushed just two weeks after the senator purchased $5,000 of the company’s shares. Obama was also nabbed conducting campaign business in his Senate office, a violation of federal law.

6. Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR): Governor Huckabee enjoyed a meteoric rise in the polls in December 2007, which prompted a more thorough review of his ethics record. According to The Associated Press: “[Huckabee’s] career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.” And what was Governor Huckabee’s response to these ethics allegations? Rather than cooperating with investigators, Huckabee sued the state ethics commission twice and attempted to shut the ethics process down.

5. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY): Giuliani came under fire in late 2007 after it was discovered the former New York mayor’s office “billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons…” ABC News also reported that Giuliani provided Nathan with a police vehicle and a city driver at taxpayer expense. All of this news came on the heels of the federal indictment on corruption charges of Giuliani’s former Police Chief and business partner Bernard Kerik, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to accepting a $165,000 bribe in the form of renovations to his Bronx apartment from a construction company attempting to land city contracts.

1. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): In addition to her long and sordid ethics record, Senator Hillary Clinton took a lot of heat in 2007 – and rightly so – for blocking the release her official White House records. Many suspect these records contain a treasure trove of information related to her role in a number of serious Clinton-era scandals. Moreover, in March 2007, Judicial Watch filed an ethics complaint against Senator Clinton for filing false financial disclosure forms with the U.S. Senate (again). And Hillary’s top campaign contributor, Norman Hsu, was exposed as a felon and a fugitive from justice in 2007. Hsu pleaded guilt to one count of grand theft for defrauding investors as part of a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme.

As Powerline observes, the omission of John Murtha is a major blunder. For that matter, Allan Mollohan and William Jefferson also spring to mind as swamp-dwellers.

Hillary Clinton demands more bloodshed in Pakistan

 
James Lewis at the American Thinker observes that Hillary Clinton is doing her best to completely destabilize Pakistan.

While the world holds its breath to see if Pakistan will explode, Senator Hillary Clinton tossed a fragmentation grenade into the fireworks factory yesterday. It may be the most irresponsible and selfish act by a presidential candidate in history:

"I don't think the Pakistani government at this time under President Musharraf has any credibility at all. They have disbanded an independent judiciary. They have oppressed a free press," she said.

Naturally, she also said, "I don't think politics should be playing a role in how our country responds ... to the tragedy."

Well, she just did exactly that by denouncing President Musharraf, who has been targeted by four assassination attempts himself, and is desperately trying to keep Pakistan from falling apart. He's the one who controls those nukes that we don't want Al Qaida to get. You don't have to like him to realize that weakening his position right now is wildly irresponsible. It plays right into the hands of those who want civil war.

Some people say that Hillary Clinton is an irresponsible, power-hungry hack who would do or say anything to get elected. And in this case, some people appear to be right.

Hugh Hewitt reminds us of the gravity of this particular situation.

Governor Huckabee might want to read The Nuclear Jihadist by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins. This book will keep most thinking people awake at night, and it reminds all voters why the U.S. can't vote for the nice guy, but must vote for the candidate with the capacity to deal with the world as it is -- a very, very dangerous place. That means a vote for either Romney, Giuliani or Thompson. I will almost certainly vote for Mitt in the California primary, but I can enthusiastically support Rudy and get behind Fred with energy as well... I think Mike Huckabee is not ready for the presidency, and that John McCain is burdened with too much baggage to win, though I would vote for either of them over any of the Dems.

In The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets...And How We Could Have Stopped Him, Frantz and Collins deliver a brusque reminder: It wasn't just Iran that the naif Carter lost, but Pakistan as well. The coup that took down Benazir Bhutto's father -- with all his nuclear ambitions -- occured on July 5, 1977. A. Q. Khan's network, already established, flourished under Jimmy Carter, another former governor of a small southern state, and metastasized under Bill Clinton, another former governor of a small southern state. Reagan and Bush, the book makes clear, are not blameless in this slowly exploding crisis, but Carter and Clinton [were] completely clueless and erratic throughout their presidencies...

The world is in danger of attacks that could send it spinning out of any ordinary cycle. The West needs a leader that has the character and capacity to absorb and act on the many information flows that inform the Oval Office. He (or she) will have to be able to project sunny optimism about the decade ahead while practising a steely resolve to survive...

And reading polls on an hourly basis doesn't count as a critical information flow, which should disqualify Ms. Clinton from consideration.

Friday, December 28, 2007

The pundits on the political fallout of the Bhutto assassination

 
A quick survey of the punditsphere concerning the effects of Pakistani unrest on the primaries...

Don Surber recalls the foreign affairs experience of several candidates:

Actually, Hillary is rather weak on foreign affairs, naively holding the hand of Mrs. Arafat as she delivered an anti-Israeli rant — in Arabic.

Hillary’s husband was weak as well. On his watch, two embassies were destroyed without much of a retaliation and his response to the USS Cole was to ignore it and hope it went away.

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., has better foreign policy credentials and even he is weak on that score.

But I will grant Hillary this: unlike Barack Obama, she never called for the bombing of Pakistan.

* * *

Gateway Pundit notes that Hillary Clinton didn't appear to know Bhutto quite as well as she claimed.

Benazir Bhutto's father was hanged... not assassinated... Benazir Bhutto had three children... not two.

Hey, I don't see the problem. What's an extra kid or two?

* * *

Mark Steyn, interviewed by Hugh Hewitt:

MS: ...I would like to think that it renders certain candidacies, for example... the happy face Obama candidacy, or the Mike Huckabee thing... when he apologized for the assassination of Bhutto today. But in a sane world, it would render these men utterly implausible as presidential contenders...

HH: ...I have been making the argument... that this also undermines Fred Thompson and John McCain, because Senators don’t run anything... except their mouths and committees badly, that it’s not about visiting a country, it’s about managing a war... Giuliani and Romney have executive experience... and Hillary can actually be understood to have some executive experience, or at least being close to it for a while. What do you make of the idea that foreign crisis elevates John McCain’s rather sad record of legislative screw-ups because he’s traveled the globe?

MS: ...Well, I would generally agree with you that Senators make bad, not just bad presidents, actually, but bad everything... John Kerry couldn’t even run that donut stand in Boston, which is his only experience in the private sector... they think it’s about flying across the world and meeting other A-list names... I think that is exactly what is not needed at this time... [A]n executive ability, combined... with a grasp of the underlying demographic reality, you know, Pakistan is a young country, it has one of the highest birth rates in the world... it’s only 60 years old... [it exports] all those young men, 18, 19, 20... what Pakistan was like in 1947 is utterly foreign and utterly irrelevant to them. And so the sort of, these kind of people who think it’s just about getting on the phone and speaking to some other A-list name in the rolodex on the other side of the world, I think that’s about the least helpful way to approach this thing.

* * *

Prairie Pundit notes Obama's staff struggling with the basic facts of the assassination:

NY Times: "[Obama] strategist, David Axelrod, said voters should take into consideration that the Iraq war led to the rise of terrorist activity and political instability in Pakistan. Mr. Axelrod said that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton backed the Iraq war in 2002, while Mr. Obama did not..."

This is idiocy on stilts. This is coming from the let's invade Pakistan instead camp. Is he suggesting that if we went into Pakistan instead of Iraq, there would be no human bomb attacks in Pakistan and no political upheavals there? Axelrod and his candidate need to get a clue about this war. Everything that happens is not President Bush's fault or those who voted to liberate Iraq...

* * *

As for the radio and television pundits...

Michael Savage:

This evening, Michael Savage specifically complimented one candidate's reaction to the assassination: that of Mitt Romney who, in no uncertain terms, laid the blame on radical Jihadists behind this and countless other bloody attacks on civilization.

Mort Kondracke:

Spent plenty of time tonight hammering Romney, which is a great sign for Mitt. Obama and Hillary are attacking each other based upon experience.

Fred Barnes:

It's a GOP toss-up between Romney and Huckabee in Iowa.

Charles Krauthammer:

Each of the candidates is pretending they're the "nice" ones. Obama and Edwards are hammering each other and Clinton is lying low. Edwards is on the rise and Obama is obviously worried about it.

Update: Vanderleun points us to an exceptional piece of analysis on the Pakistan situation from Unqualified Reservations. Whilst not political in nature (whilst?), it provides excellent clarity into the tactical situation in Pakistan.

Texas-sized tip o' the hat: Larwyn

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

A few corrections to Hillary's bio

 
Received this interesting article via email from my Uncle. Veteran Hillary adviser Dick Morris offers a few corrections to Hillary's biography provided by her campaign and marketed by husband Bill. Snopes has been investigating this one since September, so we'll assume for the sake of discussion that it's true.

Bill says: Hillary never wanted to run for public office, but she did want to work at public service.

The true facts are: When Clinton was considering not running for another term as Governor of Arkansas in 1990, Hillary said she would run if he didn't. She and Bill even had me take two surveys to assess her chances of winning. The conclusion was that she couldn't win because people would just see her as a seat warmer for when Bill came back licking his wounds after losing for president. So she didn't run. Bill did and won. But there is no question she had her eye on public office, as opposed to service, long ago.

Bill says: In law school Hillary worked on legal services for the poor.

The true facts are: Hillary's main extra-curricular activity in law school was helping the Black Panthers, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a federal agent. She went to court every day as part of a law student monitoring committee trying to spot civil rights violations and develop grounds for appeal.

Bill says: Hillary spent a year after graduation working on a children's rights project for poor kids.

The true facts are: Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party. She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take an internship with him.

Bill says: Hillary could have written her own job ticket, but she turned down all the lucrative job offers.

The true facts are: She flunked the DC bar exam and only passed the Arkansas bar. She had no job offers in Arkansas and only got hired by the University of Arkansas Law School at Fayetteville because Bill was already teaching there. She only joined the prestigious Rose Law Firm after Bill became Attorney General and made partner only after he was elected Governor.

Bill says: President Carter appointed Hillary to the Legal Services Board of Directors and she became its Chairman.

The true facts are: The appointment was in exchange for Bill's support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy. Hillary became chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter's choice to be chairman.

Bill says: She served on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital.

The true facts are: Yes she did. But her main board activity, not mentioned by Bill, was to sit on the Wal-Mart board of directors, for a substantial fee. She was silent about their labor and health care practices.

Bill says: Hillary didn't succeed at getting health care for all Americans in 1994 but she kept working at it and helped to create the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provides five million children with health insurance.

The true facts are: Hillary had nothing to do with creating CHIP. It was included in the budget deal between Bill Clinton and Republican Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott. I helped to negotiate the deal. The money came half from the budget deal and half from the Attorney General's' tobacco settlement. Hillary had nothing to do with either source of funds.

Bill says: Hillary was the face of America all over the world.

The true facts are: Her visits were part of a program to get her out of town so that Bill would not appear weak by feeding stories that Hillary was running the White House. Her visits abroad were entirely touristic and symbolic, and there was no substantive diplomacy on any of them.

Bill says: Hillary was an excellent Senator who kept fighting for children's and women's issues.

The true facts are: Other than totally meaningless legislation like changing the names on courthouses and post offices, she has passed only four substantive pieces of legislation. One set up a national park in Puerto Rico. A second provided respite care for family members helping their relatives through Alzheimer's or other conditions. And two were routine bills to aid 9-11 victims and responders which were sponsored by the entire NY delegation.

Here is what bothers me more than anything else about Hillary Clinton. She has done everything possible to weaken the President and our country when it comes to the war on terror:

1. She wants to close Gitmo & move the combatants to the USA where they would have access to our legal system.
2. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of suspected Al Qaeda phone calls to/from the USA.
3. She wants to grant constitutional rights to enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.
4. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of money transfers between suspected Al Qaeda cells & supporters in the USA.
5. She wants to eliminate the type of interrogation tactics used by the military & CIA where coercion might be used when questioning known terrorists even though such tactics might save American lives.

I can't think of a single bill Hillary has introduced or a single comment she has made that would tend to strengthen our country in the War on Terror. But, I can think of a lot of comments she has made that weakens our country and makes it a more dangerous situation for all of us... She goes hand in hand with the ACLU on far too many issues where common sense is abandoned. She is a disaster for all Americans.

Update: I found the original article by Dick Morris.

Update II: The New York Times: 'About those eight years as First Lady...'

Sunday, December 23, 2007

How gullible do the Clintons think voters are?

 
Powerline and Gateway Pundit both have the answer. It nets out to pretty freaking gullible.

"Will Voter ID stop fraud or turn honest people away from polls?"

 
That was the headline for a syndicated Gannett column by Deborah Barfield Barry.

Choosing a 2008 presidential candidate might be confusing enough, but some voters will face an additional challenge next year — remembering to bring the right identification to the polls.

And it goes without saying that the Democrats and the ACLU -- but I repeat myself -- oppose laws that ensure the integrity of the polls.

Opponents of [voter ID] laws, including Democrats and the AARP, say the measures would suppress voter turnout among the elderly, poor and minorities who are less likely to have government-issued photo IDs... "It's another hurdle in the way of voters," said Neil Bradley of the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

It's also a hurdle in the way of vote fraud, which many Democrats appear to favor.


The accompanying illustration represents a 2006 Democratic brochure that encourages voting by immigrants of questionable legal status (I don't recognize the state in the picture. Is that Texico?).

Put simply, the only thing voter ID deters is fraud. Without identification, a person cannot apply for welfare, can't drive, can't fly, can't hold a job, can't have a bank account, can't apply for either social security, Medicare or Medicaid, and can't apply for food stamps or WIC.

So much for hurting the "elderly, poor and minorities."

To make their case, Gannett found a helpful person who claimed she'd been disenfranchised by the voter ID law in Indiana.

Kimyatta Tillman of Indianapolis said she didn't vote in elections in November because of Indiana's new ID law... Tillman, 32, doesn't have a driver's license and lost her birth certificate when she moved from Michigan to Kentucky and then to Indiana last year...

"I want to participate," Tillman said. "As a citizen of Indiana, I should have a voice too."

Interestingly, Google tells us that Tillman appears to be running a small business and therefore must have a bank account.

Last time I checked, a person must have some sort of valid, government-issued ID in order to open a bank account. Google, people, Google! Learn to use it, pro journalists!

Voter ID is a simple, pragmatic way to minimize fraudulent voting practices. And without it, the dead will walk again and vote Democratic, as they did recently in King County.

That Democrats oppose voter ID tells you all you need to know about their party.

Line o' the Day: the Non-Centrist

 
Describing a largely unpopular slate of candidates, a problem endemic to both parties according to Rasmussen, Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters notes:

[Hillary] has 30% of all voters definitely supporting her. However, she goes in the opposite direction from Romney with unaffiliated voters. Her numbers actually get worse when going to the center. Her rating among that group approaches the negative numbers Ron Paul receives from this group, -26% to -29% respectively...

Morrissey argues that McCain may benefit the most from low negatives.

Personally, I'm not convinced these esoteric polling questions are relevant. Especially, when only 75% of Americans know who's president.

Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Hillary: the gift that keeps on taking

 
Hot Air caught a startling ad from the gal who would be queen.

Hillary’s Christmas ad says nothing at all about Christmas. The gifts make the connection, of course, but check out what the gifts are: universal health care, bring the troops home, etc. All of the gifts are funded in one way or another with your money. ...she’s portraying herself as a thoughtful gift-giver by taking your money and giving it back to you in the form of expensive government programs, some or all of which you might not actually want or need.

Or even work, for that matter. I've captured the ad using super-slow-motion. The results were surprising. There appear to be subliminal messages inserted by, I'm guessing, the Clinton campaign. Let's watch.

I'm Hillary Clinton and I must say that I adore Christmas - it's my favorite time of year. Next year, I hope to give a lot of gifts that the current administration is too cheap to pay for.

We'll provide superb, free healthcare for everyone, just like in the U.K. and Canada!

We'll pay billions to invent amazing new sources of energy!

We'll increase taxes on the "rich" even more, redistributing wealth to primarily folks who don't want to work!

And we promise to create brand new federal bureaucracies for programs nobody's even asking for, like "Universal Pre-K"!

Since we can't compete with them in the marketplace of ideas, we'll silence conservative talk radio hosts using the "Fariness Doctrine."

We'll take care of our enemies, especially the domestic ones.

And, it goes without saying, we'll have thousands of secret earmarks for any special interest that can fill our campaign coffers! Remember: lobbyists are our friends!

I'm Hillary Clinton and I approved this message. Peasants.

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

The Genius embraces her Husband's 'Legacy'

 
The Washington Post is proclaiming a major shift in Hillary Clinton's campaign. In 'Hillary Clinton Embraces Her Husband's Legacy', the authors report that her handlers have decided to wed her "experience" to Bill's track record.


After months of discussion within her campaign over how heavily she should draw on her husband's legacy, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is closing out her Iowa and New Hampshire campaigns in a tight embrace of Bill Clinton's record, helping fuel a debate about the 1990s...

You mean the record-setting legacy of scandals, cheating, infidelity, convictions, fugitives, audits, FBI investigations, and accusations of physical threats, assaults and rapes? Is that the record she's drawing upon?


Both Clintons are making the case that theirs was a co-presidency -- an echo of Bill Clinton's controversial statement during the 1992 campaign that voters would get "two for the price of one" if they elected him. At times, the former president has seemed to cast the current race as a referendum on his administration.

If theirs truly was a co-presidency, I'm claiming she's subject to term limits and can't occupy the office again. Or, at the very least, she should be up for impeachment along with her co-president-slash-hubby.

...the Clintons regard any discussion of the Nineties to be good for them, evoking memories of a booming economy and a time when the United States enjoyed greater popularity around the world.

That makes alot of sense. Tim Berners-Lee invented the world-wide web in the early nineties, resulting in a record-setting economic boom. As for Bill Clinton's links to those events: there were none, save perhaps Al Gore's timely invention of the Internet and cable television.

And, sure, the U.S. was more popular. It was ignoring a series of devastating attacks and retreating from ill-equipped missions in places like Somalia, strengthening steadfast enemies like Usama Bin Laden and positioning the homeland for the worst attack in its history.


The Clintons de-emphasized and slashed the U.S. military, as well, which may have helped perceptions abroad. After all, isn't a weaker America better?

As for the claim that Hillary's a genius. My wife says it best: If she's such a genius she would have known he was cheating on her. And, in general, smart people don't get caught in the startling number of lies, fibs, half-truths, and utter fabrications that have plagued Hill.


Lest we forget, can you guess the number of times that Hillary-the-Genius testified in court or before Congress saying she didn't remember, didn't know, and so forth over the course of countless investigations? Try a neat 250 times. I thought geniuses had excellent memories. Or perhaps she was simply covering up criminal activities as, for example, the authors of the Barrett Report allege.


Regarding her brilliant campaign tactics, Don Surber wins a Quote o' the Day award:

She employed the same playbook that won in 1992 in 2007. That might work if there were no Fox News, no Internet, no 9/11 and no liver spots on Bill.

Don, if memory serves, this award means you'll receive a lifetime of complimentary super-sized Cokes from Jebediah's Gas-and-Go and Discount Fish Lure Shoppe, forty gallons of ethanol, and a certificate for a free car wash at Sparkly Clean in East Los Angeles.

If Hillary's a genius, I'm Don Pardo.

Update: Gateway Pundit has the essential roll-up of Clinton achievements.

Women: the "bedrock" of Hillary Support (just not my wife)

 
Politico:

The bedrock of the Clinton campaign remains women, especially older women... The Clinton campaign believes that women will solidly back Clinton while Barack Obama and John Edwards will split the male vote.

Fischer sees it somewhat differently. “Hillary’s ‘you-go-girl’ pitch is double-edged,” he says. “Some women are turned off by it, and she is still a polarizing figure among women as well as men.”

I read my wife this snippet and tried to capture her mile-a-minute rant reaction.

She's never kicked Bill out the door for all of the things he did to her. She made cheating look acceptable. I can't stand how she allowed him to get away with it and then stuck with him just for her own good.

You know what I would have done if I caught Monica servicing my husband? I would have kicked him out of the White House on his ass. I don't care what the Constitution says. He could go live with Al Gore. A cheater is always a cheater. She's saying it's okay for a man to cheat on you.

She allowed all of that to go on for so many years and she's still with him. If she's such a genius she would have known he was cheating.

I think it would have helped her if she would have knocked him out on his ass. Any woman can do anything, even if they're single. And she probably would have gotten a lot more votes.

And then, right after the affair, the press shows them on an island slow-dancing together? Give me a f*****g break. She's so fake. She makes me sick.

And this is why I'm a good boy.

Also see: WaPo: Hillary Clinton Embraces Her Husband's Legacy; Captain's Quarters: What Choice was there?; Blue Crab Boulevard: Forward into the Past.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Hillary launches new Obama attack sites!

 
The New York Times ('Obama's Vote in Illinois Was Often Just 'Present'') and ABCNews ('Clinton Launches Obama Attack Web Sites') report that Hillary's campaign has launched websites that pillory Barack Obama's voting record.

Breaking news! We've got exclusive first looks at Hillary's new attack sites:












Also see: Michelle Malkin, Gateway Pundit and Don Surber.