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

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Hillary Clinton: the "Worst Abuser of Earmarks" in Congress

 
Twice in one year? Linking to the Huffington Post? No, I'm not feverish. John K. Wilson's "Clinton By Far Worst Abuser of Earmarks" is a must-read.

In the fiscal 2008 omnibus appropriations bill Hillary Clinton received 261 earmarks, more than five times the number of any other presidential candidate. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, Clinton obtained 360 earmarks worth $2.2 billion from 2002 to 2006. This record establishes her as by far the worst abuser of earmarks among all presidential candidates in both parties.

Clinton's earmarks are an important issue for Democrats who worry about the growing corporate control over their party. But the earmark issue may be even more important in the general election because it could become the swing issue this fall allowing the presidency to remain in Republican hands.

Hillary Clinton's $1 million earmark for a museum to celebrate the 1969 Woodstock music festival could become one of the biggest issues of the 2008 campaign... [that] earmark raises further questions about [a] corrupt system... On June 21, 2007, Clinton and Charles Schumer's $1 million earmark for the Woodstock museum was approved by a Senate committee. Nine days later, billionaire Republican Alan Gerry, the driving force behind the museum, donated (with his wife) the maximum of $9,200 to Clinton's presidential campaign. That same week, Gerry and his family gave $20,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee run by Schumer. Since 2005, the Gerrys have donated $18,600 to Clinton.

This wasn't the only Clinton earmark in 2007 to raise questions about timing. On June 27, 2007, Clinton and Schumer earmarked $900,000 for the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where James D. Watson was the chancellor until he resigned in October 2007 for making racist remarks. Watson has donated more than $70,000 to political candidates and PACs, and gave $3,000 to Clinton's presidential campaign on May 17 and June 25...

A quid pro quo? Donations for earmarks? And Hillary's behavior smells like rotten fish heads? Who'da thunk it?

Clinton and Obama accuse each other of voter suppression

 
The Journal's Jackie Calmes is covering a campaign tactic that can only be described as disgusting. And Clintonian. But I repeat myself.

Five months after all Democratic candidates agreed Florida and Michigan wouldn't get delegates to the August presidential convention, Hillary Clinton now says they should -- a reversal that would benefit her now that she has won both states, unchallenged, following Tuesday's Florida primary.

But that, some Democrats fear, could ignite a racially charged fight rivaling conventions of the 1960s, should her contest against Barack Obama remain close to the end.

[If the tactic as used] to defeat Illinois Sen. Obama, who is trying to become the first black president, "the most loyal constituency in the Democratic Party" -- African-Americans -- "will feel that they've been shut out of the party," he added. "And that will have huge repercussions -- not just at the presidential level, but in every race where African-American support can determine the outcome."

In September, the Democratic presidential candidates signed a pledge refusing to campaign in the states... Among the major Democratic candidates, only Sen. Clinton agreed to keep her name on Michigan's ballot. Supporters of Sen. Obama and former Sen. Edwards urged their voters to choose "uncommitted," in a bid to hold down her margin. The result was about 55% for Sen. Clinton and 40% uncommitted.

...Already the racial overtones are worrying party officials. The Clinton and Obama campaigns have traded charges of "voter suppression" in Nevada, South Carolina and Florida. Last week, before Saturday's South Carolina primary, Obama supporter Dick Harpootlian, a former state Democratic Party chairman, said he would be a poll watcher on primary day and "call the sheriff" if he saw Clinton supporters intimidating voters...

If nothing else, the story reminds me of a parable.

A young boy was trudging along a mountain path, trying to reach her grandmother's house. It was bitter cold, and the wind cut like a knife. When he was within sight of his destination, he heard a rustle at his feet.

Looking down, he saw a snake. Before he could move, the snake spoke. It said, "I am about to die. It is too cold for me up here, and I am freezing. There is no food in these mountains, and I am starving. Please put me under your coat and take me with you."

"No," replied the boy. "I know your kind. You are a rattlesnake. If I pick you up, you will bite me, and your bite is poisonous."

"No, no," said the snake. "If you help me, you will be my best friend. I will treat you differently."

The little boy sat down on a rock for a moment to rest and think things over. He looked at the beautiful markings on the snake and had to admit that it was the most beautiful snake she had ever seen.

Suddenly, he said, "I believe you. I will save you. All living things deserve to be treated with kindness."

The little boy reached over, put the snake gently under her coat and proceeded toward his grandmother's house. Within a moment, he felt a sharp pain in her side. The snake had bitten him.

"How could you do this to me?" he cried. "You promised that you would not bite me, and I trusted you!"

"You knew what I was when you picked me up," hissed the snake as it slithered away.

Obama, you knew what she was when you entered this race.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Hope Floats

 
Morris & McGann:

...Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, and the voters of South Carolina may have personally tolled the death knell for the Clintons’ reprehensible politics of personal destruction...

Remember how the Clintonites released Linda Tripp’s confidential employment files to Jane Mayer of The New Yorker after Clinton hit man Harold Ickes met with Tripp’s boss? Years later, the Department of Defense settled a lawsuit with Tripp for over $600,000 for invading her privacy. And then there were the stories branding Monica Lewinsky as a ‘stalker’ who was trying to hurt the president? Those were traced back to Sidney Blumenethal, a Clinton White House adviser, and the author of the right wing conspiracy theory that Hillary so loves. Of course, then it turned out that this ‘stalker’ had been called by the President from the White House hundreds of time and invited into the Oval Office for sex in the private kitchen. Then there was Gennifer Flowers –smeared by George Stephanopoulos and James Carville as a liar and opportunist. Eventually, Bill Clinton admitted under oath that he, in fact, had a sexual relationship with Flowers... And none of these folks have ever apologized for their as the brass knuckles enforcers of the Clintons.

Now the voters of South Carolina and the Kennedys have stepped forward and openly challenged the tawdry Clinton politics of personal destruction, their hit job on Obama, their use of the race card, their claims of dynastic privilege...

And Ted Kennedy, in his lofty endorsement of Obama, served notice on the Clintons that the days of their politics of personal destruction are over...

Apparently Senator Kennedy called the Clintons last week and demanded an immediate end to their transparent racial politics and attempts to destroy Obama. They ignored him. After the polls closed, Bill Clinton’s surly and irrelevant reference to Jesse Jackson’s showing in South Carolina twenty years ago was meant to diminish Obama’s victory. But the press and the public – and apparently Senator Kennedy – caught the unattractive performance on YouTube.

Hat tip: AdClassix. With apologies to the original National Lampoon.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Hillary Clinton by the Numbers

 
0: the number of questions that Hillary answers during a typical campaign appearance.

12: the number of publicized fibs, fabrications and fables that qualified for the "Top Twelve Hillary Clinton Fabrications List."

18: the number of months that Bill Clinton carried on an affair in the White House without Hillary's knowledge, despite the claim that she is "the smartest person" he knows.

30: the number of times Hillary Clinton's new HillaryCare plan refers to "Americans" as opposed to the number of times the plan references "citizens" (zero), even though approximately 10.2 million uninsured Americans are believed to be illegal aliens.

32: the number of times Hillary Clinton sponsored, cosponsored or voted for legislation providing amnesty or rewarding aliens for illegally entering the United States.

41: the number of Clinton friends, colleagues, business associates, and relatives convicted of crimes through January 2001.

100: the number of redacted pages in the Cox Report, which revealed a massive espionage campaign conducted by the Chinese government under the Clinton administration's watch. One major aspect of the operation related to the apparent swap of sensitive ballistic missile technology to China in exchange for campaign donations to the Democratic National Committee.

120: the number of redacted pages in the Barrett Report, which describes the "effort by Clinton administration officials to first block and then limit the probe as a way of taking pressure off an administration that was already beset by scandals" in the case of disgraced former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros.

250: the number of times Hillary said she didn't know, didn't remember, couldn't recall, etc. over the course of multiple investigations.

900: the number of secret FBI files illegally gathered by Bill and Hillary Clinton in an effort to discredit the women who had charged President Clinton with sexual misconduct. Courts found that the privacy of Linda Tripp and Kathleen Willey had been violated: "when faced with discovery, the Clinton-Gore White Housecompounded their legal troubles by launching a cover-up and failing to turn over documents as required by subpoena... Judicial Watch was able to link Mrs. Clinton directly to the center of the Filegate controversy."

100,000: the approximate amount Hillary Clinton made in cattle futures commodity trading in 1978, although her account was underfunded by $11,000 of the required $12,000 investment in what some believe was an exchange for favorable treatment of Tyson Foods by the Bill Clinton administration ("In return, as reported in The New York Times Magazine, [Tyson] expected the new governor to raise the legal truck-weight limit in Arkansas so that Tyson Foods could compete with out-of-state poultry truckers").

113,000: the number of donors to the $165 million Clinton Library, for which the Clintons have not released information. Investigations by the Washington Post and New York Times have revealed a substantial number of foreign donors (e.g., Saudi and Chinese) that also contributed to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

200,000: the amount of a falsified invoice that Hillary's 2000 Senate campaign presented to the Federal Election Commission, which led to her finance director's indictment. The rancor around the Peter Paul celebrity fundraising event is simply one small piece of what some have called "the largest election law fraud in history."

635,500: the amount in U.S. dollars given to Clinton-controlled Democratic Party Committees by Johnny Chung and Bernard Schwartz in an apparent quid pro quo for Chinese access to sensitive missile guidance technologies.

850,000: the amount given to Hillary Clinton and Democratic campaigns by jailed fugitive Norman Hsu.

1,450,000: the approximate amount given to the Clintons and/or Democratic causes by Denise Rich, wife of fugitive Marc Rich, in an apparent exchange for a Presidential pardon.

3,022,030: the number of HillaryCare documents from 1993-1995 that have not been released, despite repeated promises to do so.

7,000,000: the approximate annual budget of the White House travel office, which was replaced after decades of service by the Clinton administration: "First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton... came under scrutiny for allegedly having played a central role in the firings and making false statements about her role in it... In 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray [stated that] Hillary Clinton had made factually false statements but saying there was insufficient evidence to prosecute her."

50,000,000: the approximate high range of Hillary Clinton's net worth as of 2005, an increase from a high range of $3.8 million in 2003 (an approximate gain of 14,000% in two years).

Update: Linked by The Anchoress, Grouchy Old Cripple, The Jawa Report, Parkway Rest Stop, and Stop Her Now!. Thanks!

Someone pinch me, Frank Rich won my Line o' the Day award

 
Frank Rich, writing in the New York Times ("The Billary Road to Republican Victory"):

Asked by Tim Russert at a September debate whether the Clinton presidential library and foundation would disclose the identities of its donors during the campaign, Mrs. Clinton said it wasn’t up to her. “What’s your recommendation?” Mr. Russert countered. Mrs. Clinton replied: “Well, I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband, but I’m sure he’d be happy to consider that.”

Not so happy, as it turns out. The names still have not been made public.

Just before the holidays, investigative reporters at both The Washington Post and The New York Times tried to find out why, with no help from the Clintons. The Post uncovered a plethora of foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia. The Times found an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, some of whom might have an agenda with a new Clinton administration. (Much as one early library supporter, Marc Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had an agenda with the last one.) “The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat whose legislation to force disclosure passed overwhelmingly in the House but remains stalled in the Senate.

...When Mrs. Clinton was asked by Mr. Russert at an October debate if she would [allow the HillaryCare records to be relelased], she again escaped by passing the buck to her husband... The credibility of a major Clinton campaign plank, health care, depends on it. In that same debate, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Russert that “all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care” are “already available.” As Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reported weeks later, this is a bit off; he found that 3,022,030 health care documents were still held hostage...

Update: The runner-up for my Line o' the Day is from Small Dead Animals:

...the one question no interviewer has yet had the courage to ask of Hillary - What will you do, as President, if there is another bimbo eruption in the White House?

Victory becomes her

 
Hillary in New Hampshire, courtesy of the world's dominant undead blogger.





Victory becomes her.

I'm also trying to find pictures of her after the debacle in South Carolina on Saturday, but so far I'm drawing blanks. This would help me contrast the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat... the human drama of political competition!

But I don't think she likes to have her picture taken after brutal defeats.

The Co-Presidents' Sideline Business is Back!

 

Looks like Hillary is increasingly confident she can win. I'm seeing these pop-up ads everywhere!

The Saudi investments in Bill and Hillary Clinton

 
Democratic Underground certainly comes in handy from time to time. This post, which describes the Clintons' eight-figure ties to the Saudis, deserves investigation.

...when we learn that the Saudis were... 'donating' to the Clintons, we need to ask ourselves, how much... and what did they get in return?

Bill Clinton's presidential library raised more than 10 percent of the cost of its $165 million facility from foreign sources, with the most generous overseas donation coming from Saudi Arabia, according to interviews yesterday.

The royal family of Saudi Arabia gave the Clinton facility in Little Rock about $10 million... according to people directly familiar with the contributions...

...it is worth pointing out, as Craig Unger does in his book, that Saudi Arabia has not just contributed to the Bush family. According to Unger, Bill Clinton approached Prince Bandar in 1991 for $20 million to launch a Middle East studies program at the University of Arkansas and that Prince Bandar announced that the request was approved shortly before Bill Clinton won the presidential election...

...There may be some irony in that, by Unger's own account, Saudi Arabia has contributed eight times as much to Bill Clinton's charities than to George H.W. Bush's"... So what did the Saudis get in return ? ...Did the Clintons think that the money was 'no strings attached'? ...of course not... the favors would start to roll...

The Clinton administration shut down a 1995 investigation of Islamic charities, concerned that a public probe would expose Saudi Arabia's suspected ties to a global money-laundering operation that raised millions for anti-Israel terrorists, federal officials told The Washington Times... If federal agents had been allowed to conduct the investigation they wanted in 1995, they would have made the connection between the Saudi government and those charities," said Mr. Loftus, now a St. Petersburg, Fla., lawyer who filed a lawsuit last week accusing a Florida charity of fraud...

"Had the charities been shut down, they would have been unable to raise the millions that since have been used by terrorists in hundreds of suicide attacks," he said...

Following the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, Clinton hunted Osama with a passion -- but a passion circumscribed by the desire to protect the sheikdom sitting atop our oil lifeline. In 1994, a Saudi diplomat defected to the United States with 14,000 pages of documents from the kingdom's sealed file cabinets. This mother lode of intelligence included evidence of plans for the assassination of Saudi opponents living in the West and, tantalizingly, details of the $7 billion the Saudis gave to Saddam Hussein for his nuclear program -- the first attempt to build an Islamic Bomb...

The Saudi government, according to the defector, Mohammed Al Khilewi, slipped Saddam the nuclear loot [...thinking...] he would only use the bomb to vaporize Iranians... Clinton granted the Saudi defector asylum, but barred the FBI from looking at the documents.

Al Khilewi's New York lawyer, Michael Wildes, told me he was stunned. Wildes handles some of America's most security-sensitive asylum cases. "We said to the FBI, 'Here, take the documents! Go get some bad guys with them! We'll even pay for the photocopying!'" But the agents who came to his office had been ordered not to accept evidence of Saudi criminal activity, even on U.S. soil.

In 1997, the Canadians caught and extradited to America one of the Khobar Towers attackers. In 1999, Vernon Jordan's law firm stepped in and -- poof! -- the killer was shipped back to Saudi Arabia before he could reveal all he knew about al Qaeda (valuable) and the Saudis (embarrassing). I reviewed, but was not permitted to take notes on, the alleged terrorist's debriefing by the FBI. To my admittedly inexpert eyes, there was enough on al Qaeda to make him a source on terrorists worth holding on to. Not that he was set free -- he's in one of the kingdom's dungeons -- but his info is sealed up with him. The terrorist's extradition was "Clinton's." "Clinton's parting kiss to the Saudis," as one insider put it...

It certainly begs the question: Why have the Saudis invested in Bill and Hillary Clinton?


And why are the Clintons withholding their Library's list of donors?

Saturday, January 26, 2008

History's Most Disturbing Ads

 
Back when smoking was legal, I should have taken up feminine cigarillos. My social life would have rocked!

I'm not sure which is more disturbing. The painfully skewered wiener, the hair coated with shellac, or sweaters produced during the Great Drape Surplus of '64.

Wait a second... Mom???

In all seriousness, these things work like a charm. I'm wearing size 27 jeans. And they're loose!

Uhm... what the... ? My only thought doesn't concern Pears' Soap - it's finding the number of the social workers to get this poor kid out of a dysfunctional home.

There's no better way to sell beer than having a bald fat dude stand in front of a drawing showing more bald fat dudes talking... without a female in sight.

Hillary Clinton's very first "presidential" ad. It's one for the ages.

Major hat tips: AdClassix, Eatliver and Frozentoy's Disturbing Vintage Ads

Line o' the day: the 'complicated' marriage

 
On Gail Collins' assertion that "the Clintons have an extremely complicated marriage..."

It's not that complicated. It's a marriage of convenience.

And it's a fine example for their daughter.

                                                                                                            -- My wife. Just now.

Temper, temper: when Bill Clinton attacked Dick Morris

 
Dick Morris opines that as Bill Clinton's temper becomes more visible, it serves as an increasing liability for Hillary's campaign. He recalls a tantrum that was first publicized nearly two decades ago.

...in 1990... during his last gubernatorial race... he was falling behind in the polls... When he learned of his decline... he immediately blamed me, accusing me of spending too much time with other clients. Yelling and screaming, he escalated his charges, refusing to listen to me tell him that his latest ad had not been on television yet when the poll was completed. He kept ranting.

Finally, I had enough. I stood up and said I was leaving, quitting the campaign. I grabbed my coat and headed out of the mansion. As I crossed the foyer, I suddenly fell to the ground, tackled by Bill Clinton. I saw his large fist coming at me. Hillary was trying to get between us, yelling “Bill, Bill, stop it. Think about what you are doing. Bill, stop it!”

Bill got up and I walked out the door. Hillary ran after me. She tried to calm me and asked me to walk around the grounds of the Mansion with her. “He only does this to people he loves,” she told me...

Gateway Pundit has the ten-year anniversary clip celebrating another masterful trait of the ex-president.


Don Surber pops the cork on the champagne as well.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Books on my Amazon wish-list

 
I didn't get these for the holidays, so they are still on my wish list.


The protaganist of Harry Reid's novel is a Senator that receives a $1 million windfall in a land sale related to a controversial rezoning effort.


Rep. William Jefferson's complex, multi-faceted story is worthy of a John Grisham novel: a web of front companies, thousands of dollars stored in a freezer, and hundreds of thousands "sloshing through bank accounts."


Sandy Berger's exciting tale reads like a spy story: top-secret documents left at a "dead drop," a commission investigating a massive terrorist attack, and a coverup of extraordinary proportions.


Hillary Clinton's rags-to-riches story describes a working girl's savvy investment of $1,000; and how -- through determination and sheer grit -- she was able to turn that into nearly $100,000 in just a few months' time. It's inspirational material of the highest caliber!


Ted Kennedy's classic tale of a party, a girl, a bridge, and a soggy morning-after needs no introduction.

Not-so-instant classic post from December 2006

Thursday, January 24, 2008

"Hillary Clinton: She'll say anything and change nothing"

 
In the latest RCP poll, Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 39.3 to 28.3. Native South Carolinian John Edwards pulled down a pathetic 15.7% from the folks who presumably know him best.

Meanwhile, what the candidates are slinging looks less like mud and more like Mr. Hankie's family reunion.

In the latest brouhaha, Hillary was forced to pull a controversial ad in South Carolina.

Under fire for airing misleading attacks on Sen. Barack Obama, the Clinton campaign has pulled a radio ad that quoted the Illinois senator calling Republicans "the party of ideas" and suggesting he thought those ideas superior to Democratic ones. But the Obama campaign has already counter-punched, launching a new radio spot saying Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will "say anything" to get elected.

The Clinton campaign did not immediately explain why it had pulled its radio spot, which had triggered a furious response from the Obama campaign and touched off a wave of criticism from Democrats who said the Clinton campaign has grown excessively aggressive in recent days. The Obama ad was no less fierce. It reminded voters that Clinton had voted to authorize the war in Iraq, saying she "voted for George Bush's war," and accused her of making "false attacks" on Obama.

"Hillary Clinton: She'll say anything and change nothing," the ad says.

That's a hell of a t-shirt slogan!

And would it be impolite to giggle at this point?

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The Clintons: "stealing from children to reward Indonesian billionaires"

 
Investors Business Daily has a startling story of Clinton shenanigans that are doubly outrageous. Not only did the Clintons facilitate the illicit contribution of over $1 million from an Indonesian coal syndicate, but -- in an apparent quid pro quo -- Bill Clinton locked the door to the the world's largest coal field, conveniently located in Utah. The field could have contributed greatly to American's energy independence.

Hillary Clinton called President Bush's talks with the Saudis about increasing oil output "pathetic." But it's not as pathetic as her co-president husband locking up billions of tons of clean coal in exchange for political contributions...

A large part of America's energy dependence on foreign sources can be traced to Sept. 18, 1996, when President Bill Clinton stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon on the Arizona side and signed an executive proclamation making 1.7 million acres of Utah a new national monument.

...In fact, the declaration of 1.7 million Utah acres as a national monument, [deprived] an energy-starved U.S. up to 62 billion tons of environmentally safe low-sulfur coal worth $1.2 trillion and minable with minimal surface impact, was a political payoff to the family of James Riady.

He's the son of Lippo Group owner Mochtar Riady. James was found guilty of — and paid a multimillion dollar fine for — funneling more than $1 million in illegal political contributions through Lippo Bank into various American political campaigns, including Bill Clinton's presidential run in 1992.

Clinton took off the world market the largest known deposit of clean-burning coal. And who owned and controlled the second-largest deposit in the world of this clean coal? The Indonesian Lippo Group of James Riady... The Utah reserve contains a kind of low-sulfur, low-ash and therefore low-polluting coal that can be found in only a couple of places in the world. It burns so cleanly that it meets the requirements of the Clean Air Act without additional technology.

...a large portion of the coal-rich Kaiparowits Plateau within the monument belonged to the children of Utah. When Utah became a state in 1896, ...a trust fund was created to collect and hold all the revenues directly for the benefit of schools. [Now], the schools stand to lose as much as $1 billion over the next 50 years. Phyllis Sorensen, head of the Utah chapter of the National Education Association, called Clinton's action a "felonious assault" and "stealing from the schoolchildren..."

Sarah Foster has additional info as does the Newsmax archives from 2001.

Update: Linked by Mitchell Langbert. Thanks!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Just how bad has the war of words between Hillary and Obama gotten?

 
The Department of Homeland Security has created this helpful real-time display to keep us apprised.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Barack Obama: an accused Anti-Clintite

 
I must admit that I take no small amount of glee at the escalating war of words between America's "first black president" and Barack Obama.

Anti-Clintite?

Okay, I'll admit it. I made that one up.

Update: Dammit! I did a search and discovered that the peerless Anchoress first used the term in November of '06. My guess is she used a time machine to beat me to the punch.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

I know what you did last summer, John McCain

 
Feel free to steal these particular DVDs from any store. John McCain doesn't seem too concerned with the enforcement of various laws.

By the way, how's that 700 miles of fence coming?

Poster idea: Reliapundit

Judicial Watch: the personal destruction of HillaryCare v1.0

 
Judicial Watch pried a small number of 1993 documents from the Clinton Library related to the first version of HillaryCare. The revelations are astounding -- and are now rippling through the blogosphere at the speed of light.

Furthermore, the Clintons are blocking the release of the motherlode:

The National Archives admits there may be an additional 3,022,030 textual records, 2,884 pages of electronic records, 1,021 photographs, 3 videotapes and 3 audiotapes related to the Task Force that are being withheld indefinitely from the public. On November 2, 2007 Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the National Archives to force the release of all the Task Force records.

What's contained within the tiny number of documents that have been released?

Selective Spying


Michelle Malkin:

Spying on jihad suspects? Bad.

Spying on health care opponents? Good.

• A June 18, 1993 internal Memorandum entitled, “A Critique of Our Plan,” authored by someone with the initials “P.S.,” makes the startling admission that critics of Hillary’s health care reform plan were correct: “I can think of parallels in wartime, but I have trouble coming up with a precedent in our peacetime history for such broad and centralized control over a sector of the economy… none of us knows whether we can make it work well or at all…”

• A “Confidential” May 26, 1993 Memorandum from Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) to Hillary Clinton entitled, “Health Care Reform Communications,” which criticizes the Task Force as a “secret cabal of Washington policy ‘wonks’” that has engaged in “choking off information” from the public regarding health care reform. The memorandum suggests that Hillary Clinton “use classic opposition research” to attack those who were excluded by the Clinton Administration from Task Force deliberations and to “expose lifestyles, tactics and motives of lobbyists” in order to deflect criticism. Senator Rockefeller also suggested news organizations “are anxious and willing to receive guidance [from the Clinton Administration] on how to time and shape their [news] coverage.”

• A February 5, 1993 Draft Memorandum from Alexis Herman and Mike Lux detailing the Office of Public Liaison’s plan for the health care reform campaign. The memorandum notes the development of an “interest group data base” detailing whether or not organizations “support(ed) us in the election.” The database would also track personal information about interest group leaders, such as their home phone numbers, addresses, “biographies, analysis of credibility in the media, and known relationships with Congresspeople...”

Featuring "real" people with "real" stories


Jammie Wearing Fool:

Judicial Watch ... managed to wrangle [a few documents] from the Clinton Library on the topic of Hillarycare circa 1993. Specifically, some of the documents detail ... how to deal with the First Lady's detractors. And the tactics discussed (including ... "expose lifestyles, tactics and motives of lobbyists") are of a flavor that can best be described as Clintonian.

Impeach the credibility of opponents:

* Avoid partisan targeting. Demonstrate that opponents are advocates of delay or inaction, regardless of party affiliation. Moderate Republicans must be broken from conservative ranks.
* Expose opponents as "professional lobbyists" with values and interests divorced from average Americans (document salaries, perks, ideological extremism, and provide all to the media.
* Use classic opposition research to expose their selfish and short-sighted motivations, and obstructionist tactics (collect mailings, track ad campaigns, investigate expenditures, and provide to the media)...

Apply pressure on undecided Congressional votes with intensive message delivery through their home state or home district media outlets.

...[Adviser Paul Starr's] punctuation here is comically revealing:

Result: Three-four days of saturation local coverage in all targeted states and/or districts, tied to national events with network coverage - all featuring "real" people with "real" stories.

...If the modern day Clinton machine is aptly characterized as one of meticulous scripting, triangulation, and... lets face it, ham-fisted sock puppetry, Senator Rockefeller may deserve some credit for showing them the ropes.

Non-partisan: The National Health Policy Council is the most obvious existing organization to be expanded for this purpose...

Advantages:

* ... A high-profile announcement of the decision to take this "aggressively non-partisan approach" would be extremely helpful in building public confidence and support...
* General public would recognize this as a clear attempt to break through partisan politics and gridlock.

NOTE: Just so you understand, I have been involved with NHPC, as honorary chair, for nearly two years. I can attest to their effectiveness and their breadth both geographically and politically. I have considered other existing organizations, but I believe NHPC would serve you needs best, in part because I know that the people involved are prepared to do anything you would ask of them.

Politicizing the White House


Ed Morrissey:

The Bush administration has taken plenty of heat over their alleged politicization of the White House, especially in the roles Karl Rove has played in the past two terms. The release of the memos from the 1993 Health Care Task Force might put that in some perspective. The HCTF anticipated a tough debate over its proposal to nationalize American health care, and it proposed some specific remedies -- including using the DNC to conduct intelligence operations... A February 1993 memo to Hillary Clinton from Alexis Herman and Mike Lux proposes that the HCTF -- a White House policy group -- enlist the DNC for several purposes, discussed on page 5:

C. The DNC Role

The DNC clearly has a critically important role to play in the campaign. I would suggest the following roles ...

3. The DNC can be instrumental for us in intelligence gathering and opposition research. Their staff will hear talk about things that may never reach us inside these walls...

...The HCTF foresaw using the DNC to "gather intelligence" on political opposition -- a way to gain information to intimidate or extort their critics. It's bad enough when electoral campaigns do this, but having the White House use the DNC for these purposes doesn't border on abuse of power but invades it with a vengeance.

And this memo came to Hillary Clinton a mere two weeks after her husband's inauguration...

Ed concludes with a call for Hillary to release all of the records. The tiny fraction that have come to light reveal a stunning disregard for the separation of Clintons' office from their political party. But I suppose we already knew that.

Influencing a gullible mainstream media


Jammie Wearing Fool:

For this option to work best, we would recommend the following:

1. The summit would be a two day event structured similarly to the economic summit except with Mrs. Clinton running it. The
President should come by to open or close the event, but should not be there most of the time.

2. It should be held outside of Washington, D.C.

3. This should be an event where the average people dealing with the health crisis get their chance to speak up. Although individual health care providers should be invited to speak, no one who is head of or lobbyist for a trade association or other
interest group should be asked to speak.

4. There should be at least two or three people with specific horror stories, but there should also be several middle class
people with decent benefits who are feeling squeezed and worried.

5. Small business people should be prominently featured. There should also be at least one Fortune 500

6. Senior citizens should be there, and should be encouraged to talk openly about their insecurities about potential changes in medicare and their choice of doctors.

If these fears are expressed, and we deal with them head on, we will gain immeasurably.

Hillary's contribution to the debate: the politics of personal destruction


Don Surber provides the executive summary.

I'd like to say in 15 years, Hillary has changed her tactics. But the same strategy of demonization and class warfare continues — against Obama now, against Republicans later. It's called the politics of personal destruction. In 35 years, that's the one change she's brought to the nation.


More: EIB, Michelle, Ed Morrissey, Don Surber, Hot Air, Jammie Wearing Fool and Suitably Flip have more.

Waiting for more Democrat voter shenanigans

 
Before the Nevada Caucuses




After the Nevada Caucuses




Hot Air:

I guess we’re just going to have to get used to this sort of after-the-fact crying foul in every single election involving a Democrat... It’s not just one diary on Kos. Here’s another. The Obama campaign itself has made the claim of “more than 200 voting irregularities” in Nevada... We never hear anything like this on the Republican side.

For those who think it's a foregone conclusion that Obama would accept an offer of the Veep slot from Hillary, here's some food for thought.

* Co-presidents: the role of VP in a Clinton co-presidency would be devastatingly slim. Consider Al Gore.

* Track record of Veeps: the track record of VPs moving on to the Presidency isn't a stellar one.

* Eight year wait: Obama's choice -- sit for as long as eight years as a third player in the White House... or secretly undermine Hillary in the '08 general election to ensure a GOP victory; and then come out swinging in 2012 (perhaps against a 75 year-old McCain).

If these thought processes are going through Obama's head, I think odds are better than 50-50 that we could see a Hillary-Edwards ticket. You heard it here first.

Update: Dan Riehl has more.

For those of you who saw the movie Waiting, yes, this post's headline is a secret reference!