Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Line o' the Day: The Bag Man

 
Chris Matthews on the Clintons:

Before this, we laughed at poor little countries that drug dealers and international crooks could buy. We mocked the Third World capitals where a little money on the fingers of a certain family member could open doors or close eyes.

Thanks to Bill and Hillary Clinton, we have now forfeited that small national vanity. The next movie about international drug-dealing… may well feature not a Mexican police chief but an American president as the bag man.

Someone pinch me: I just quoted Chris Matthews!

Monday, October 22, 2007

The Lemmocrats

 

"Follow me to freedom!"

Exclusive Photo: Dishwasher Parking in Chinatown

 
These dishwashers must make some good money!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

 
With the Los Angeles Times' revelations of non-existent Chinatown donors to Hillary's campaign, the obvious question relates to the Clintons' bizarre, decades-long links to China. Investors Business Daily fills in the gaps.

...The Los Angeles Times on Friday uncovered an amazingly generous spirit of giving from ...immigrant dishwashers and trinket sellers, hundreds of whom "spontaneously" coughed up $1,000 or $2,000 apiece for Clinton's presidential campaign. The $380,000 from their giving dwarfed the $24,000 that John Kerry raised there for his run for the White House in 2004.

Worse yet, when the Times checked the donors, more than a third couldn't be found and most weren't registered to vote. Some didn't even have green cards... This Times story follows an earlier bombshell about Norman Hsu, one of Clinton's most valued fundraisers, who brought in $850,000 before he was exposed as a swindler on the lam.

Hsu's "bundling" of contributions from immigrants and people of low means in his debt had all the signs of proxy giving from someone hidden and higher up. As media scrutiny intensified, much of the largesse was returned to keep the heat off and the law at bay.

Clinton's campaign is so full of questionable transactions that even the Nation, a left-wing magazine, has dug up a mysterious influence peddler named Alan Quasha who hires Clinton operatives and has links to top Clinton's top fundraisers.

Meanwhile, the online magazine Salon is wondering why the Clintons are not disclosing the identities of donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation as it increases its cash intake just as Hillary becomes the presidential front-runner. Bill Clinton refuses to release their names because he says they gave anonymously. Could they too be foreign and looking to buy influence? [Ed: answer - almost certainly, yes]

...Sen. Clinton knows that enforcing election laws is difficult. When she gets called out, she returns the cash, pleads ignorance, claims a vetting glitch and returns to normal... [but] the advent (NYSE:AGC) of FEC databases and political cash Web sites such as campaignmoney.com and opensecrets.com are providing transparency and easy access to financing information. They show who is buying whom in the electoral races, and bloggers and pundits are on it. If Hillary thinks this will dissipate like Whitewater, she is mistaken.

...What do these hidden interests want in exchange for marshaling the dishwashers of Chinatown to contribute to Clinton's campaign coffers? What has she promised them in exchange?

Knowing that the Chinese seek greater access to U.S. technology, how will this serve their national interests over our own? Will voters find themselves in the situation of watching a President Hillary Clinton sit on her hands after an American aircraft is shot down because of what someone in Beijing knows about cash she accepted?

For now, Sen. Clinton needs to start answering questions about the mysterious patterns in her campaign donations.

Poster Idea: Reliapundit

The Ultimate Hillary Gallery

 
The undead blogger -- Zombie -- has published the ultimate Hillary Gallery.

The mainstream media... tends to only publish their "best" photos of [Hillary] -- pictures that make her look good. As a result, awkward, funny, strange, and patently ridiculous candid photos of Hillary can be a little hard to come across.

Until now.

As a public service, zombietime has compiled this gallery of unflattering Hillary photos. And I will maintain it and continue to expand it at least until the 2008 presidential election. The photos on this page come from a wide variety of sources -- from personal snapshots, to historical archives, to standard mainstream news photos.

Enter at your own risk.

Know anyone living with a disability or functional limitation?

 
You may want to point them at an intriguing portal site called Disaboom.

Disaboom aims to build a community of like-minded individuals and family members who are affected by severe disabilities. Covering health issues, inspiring stories, careers, discussions, and everything in between, it looks like a great set of resources for those touched by a disability or functional limitation.

The pristine Arizona desert

 
An Arizona Search & Rescue team patrolling the border as part of the MCDC (Minuteman) effort happened
across one of the largest rest areas for human smuggling ever discovered.

The rest area (also called a 'layup') is in a desert wash area and is approximately one mile long.

The observers estimated that there were over 3,000 discarded back packs along with countless water containers, food wrappers, clothing and other trash.

The author wrote, "As I kept walking down the wash, I was sure it was going to end just ahead, but I kept walking and walking, and around every corner was more and more trash!"

The "illegal super-highway" trail heads directly to Tucson, Arizona. And, then, maybe to your town.

Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter notes that of the 854 miles of border barriers authorized by Congress in 2006, only five miles of double fencing and 70 miles of single fencing have been built.

Jindal takes Louisiana Governor's race against 11 opponents

 
TCV reports:

U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal became the nation's youngest governor and the first nonwhite to hold post in Louisiana since Reconstruction when he carried more than half the vote to defeat 11 opponents.


Jindal, the Republican 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of the vote tallied. It was more than enough to win Saturday's election outright and avoid a Nov. 17 runoff.

"My mom and dad came to this country in pursuit of the American dream. And guess what happened. They found the American Dream to be alive and well right here in Louisiana," he said to cheers and applause at his victory party.

His nearest competitors: Democrat Walter Boasso with 208,690 votes or 18 percent; Independent John Georges had 167,477 votes or 14 percent; Democrat Foster Campbell had 151,101 or 13 percent. Eight candidates divided the rest...

As for those liberals progressives who bray that the GOP will suffer at the polls this year and next: well, your prediction is about as valid as any other Democratic prediction.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Trashing the Lincoln Bedroom

 
The White House Lincoln Bedroom is a national treasure. In it, President Abraham Lincoln held cabinet meetings, planned campaigns with his generals, and signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln's handwritten copy of the Gettysburg Address is permanently stored in the Bedroom.


Over the course of Bill Clinton's administration, the Lincoln Bedroom was rented to 831 different people. That total does not include the Clintons' relatives or their guests (of which there were 35); nor does it include daughter Chelsea's guests (72).

Not only did Bill Clinton's heaviest donors rent the room, but CNN reported a little remembered controversy in September 2000: that Hillary Rodham Clinton was rewarding donors to her Senate campaign with stays in the Bedroom. While the Clintons insisted that there was no connection between Senate campaign donations and guest stays, they also could not dispute that about a quarter of those staying had contributed to Hillary's Senate coffers.


Two of the Lincoln Bedroom's renters -- Linda Thomason and actress Markie Post -- are pictured here trashing the bed by treating it like a trampoline. The bed itself is considered a national treasure. Expect more of the same should Hillary take the presidency.

An Inconvenient Judge

 
A British High Court judge determined that the film An Inconvenient Truth contains so many scientific errors that it could not be shown in schools. So if you edit out all of the errors and misstatements, how much "real science" remains?

Junk Science demands a refund.

Hat tip: LGF

Draining Hillary Clinton's Swamp: More Bogus Donors

 
After the revelation that the Paw family of San Francisco -- whose head of household earned $49,000 -- had donated around $200,000 to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, I created a satirical, illustrated piece called Hillary Clinton's A-List Donors.


It turns out I was prescient. To its credit, the left-leaning Los Angeles Times took a hard look at Hillary Clinton's Chinatown donors in a recent expose entitled "An unlikely treasure-trove of donors for Clinton". The money parapraphs:

The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records...

The tenement at 44 Henry St. was listed in Clinton's campaign reports as the home of Shu Fang Li, who reportedly gave $1,000... In a recent visit, a man, apparently drunk, was asleep near the entrance to the neighboring beauty parlor, the Nice Hair Salon... A tenant living in the apartment listed as Li's address said through a translator that she had not heard of him, although she had lived there for the last 10 years.

A man named Liang Zheng was listed as having contributed $1,000. The address given was a large apartment building on East 194th Street in the Bronx, but no one by that name could be located there...

In the busy heart of East Broadway, beneath the Manhattan Bridge, is a building that is listed as the home of Sang Cheung Lee, also reported to have given $1,000. Trash was piled in the dimly lighted entrance hall. Neighbors said they knew of no one with Lee's name there; they knocked on one another's doors in a futile effort to find him.

Salespeople at a store on Canal Street were similarly baffled when asked about Shih Kan Chang, listed as working there and having given $1,000. The store sells purses, jewelry and novelty Buddha statues. Employees said they had not heard of Chang...

After the costly Norman Hsu debacle, you'd have thought the Clinton Machine would attempt to cleanse the donor pool of obviously suspect contributions.

Instead, it's just another chapter in the same, monotonous story. More dirty money funneled to the Clintons, much of with it either direct or indirect ties to China. Just what is it with the Clintons and China? It may take a lot more digging to find out.

Friday, October 19, 2007

My Three Sons, starring Harry Reid

 
Harry Reid has "three sons and a son-in-law who are lobbyists in charge of lobbying him."

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."

Mark Twain

Am I allowed to call Maureen Dowd a 'cellulite-ridden traitor'?

 
Superb artwork by Xardoz of Attack Cartoons.

I'm not sure why I posted this...

 
...but it's just a cool photo. Here's a war hero, World War II Naval Aviator George H. W. Bush, with his son -- George W. Bush.

Let me guess: the lefty bloggers among us will claim that Bush the Younger didn't show up for his third-grade flu shot. So they've got that going for them.

The Ultimate Scent for Pro-Democracy Venezuelans

 
LGF: Venezuelan Monument to Che Guevara Destroyed

Hat tip: Hugo Chavez

Line o' the Day: LBJ's "Great Society"

 
What the Great Society in fact showed was that subsidizing single motherhood incentivized breakdown of the family, thereby causing increased poverty by income redistribution. The burden of the “Great Society” income redistribution was so crushing that marriage rates dropped a third, and this third was replaced by unwed mothers married to the government. Nor did it decrease crime, which rose as a result of family breakdown.

                                                      -- Lone Star Foundation

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Summer 2007: The Attack that Never Occurred

 
Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, writing at Stratfor, describe the ominous silence of the attack that never happened.

The summer of 2007 was marked by threats and warnings of an imminent terrorist attack against the United States. In addition to the well-publicized warnings from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and a National Intelligence Estimate that al Qaeda was gaining strength, a former Israeli counterterrorism official warned that al Qaeda was planning a simultaneous attack against five to seven American cities. Another warning of an impending dirty bomb attack prompted the New York Police Department to set up vehicle checkpoints near the financial district in Lower Manhattan. In addition to these public warnings, U.S. government counterterrorism sources also told us privately that they were seriously concerned about the possibility of an attack.

All these warnings were followed by the Sept. 7 release of a video message from Osama bin Laden, who had not been seen on video since October 2004 or heard on audio tape since July 2006. Some were convinced that his reappearance -- and his veiled threat -- was the sign of a looming attack against the United States, or perhaps a signal for an attack to commence.

In spite of all these warnings and bin Laden's reappearance -- not the mention the relative ease with which an attack can be conducted -- no attack occurred... Although our assessment is that the al Qaeda core has been damaged to the point that it no longer poses a strategic threat to the U.S. homeland, tactical attacks against soft targets remain simple to conduct and certainly are within the reach of jihadist operatives -- regardless of whether they are linked to the al Qaeda core.

...we must note that the lack of an attack against the U.S. homeland since 9/11 has not been the result of a calculated decision by bin Laden and the core al Qaeda leadership. Far too many plots have been disrupted for that to be the case. Many of those foiled and failed attacks, such as the 2006 foiled plot to destroy airliners flying from London to the United States, the Library Tower Plot, Richard Reid's failed attempt to take down American Airlines flight 63 in December 2001 and Jose Padilla's activities -- bear connection to the core al Qaeda leadership.

So, if the core al Qaeda has desired, and even attempted, to strike the United States, why has it failed? Perhaps the greatest single factor is attitude -- among law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the public at large, the Muslim community and even the jihadists themselves.


....Prior to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the FBI denied the existence of an international terrorism threat to the U.S. homeland, a stance reflected in the bureau's "Terrorism in the United States" publications in the late 1980s and early 1990s... Yet, even after that bombing and the disruption of other plots -- the July 1997 plot to bomb the New York subway system and the December 1999 Millennium Bomb Plot -- the apathy toward counterterrorism programs remained. This was most evident in the low levels of funding and manpower devoted to counterterrorism programs prior to 9/11...

...the follow-on plot to that attack, the 1993 New York bomb plot -- for which Abdul-Rahman and some of his followers were accused of planning strikes against the Lincoln Tunnel and other New York City landmarks -- was thwarted. This led many to believe that the government had a handle on terrorism and that the United States was protected from such attacks. The second plot was thwarted before it could be executed, and most Americans never saw the gigantic crater (nearly 100 feet across) that the February 1993 truck bomb created through several floors of Building One's reinforced concrete parking garage. Instead, they saw only a bit of smoke billowing from the damaged building. The 1993 cases lacked the stunning visual displays of the 9/11 attacks.

...[Since 9/11, there are] changed attitudes of law enforcement officials, who not only have issued appeals in the press but also have made community outreach visits to nearly every flight school, truck driving school, chemical supply company, fertilizer dealer and storage rental company in the United States. Through media reports of terrorist plots and attacks, the public also has become much more aware of the precursor chemicals for improvised explosive mixtures and applies far more scrutiny to anyone attempting to procure them in bulk.

...This change in attitude is particularly significant in the Muslim community itself. Contrary to the hopes of bin Laden -- and the fears of the U.S. government -- the theology of jihadism has not taken root in the United States. Certainly there are individuals who have come to embrace this ideology, as the arrests of some grassroots activists demonstrate, but such people are very much the exception. In spite of some problems, the law enforcement community has forged some strong links to the Muslim community, and in several cases Muslims have even reported potential jihadists to law enforcement.

...The U.S. security environment has indeed improved dramatically since 1993, largely as a result of the sweeping changes in attitude, though also to some extent due to the magnet effect of the war in Iraq. Success can engender complacency, however, and the lack of attacks could allow attitudes -- and thus counterterrorism resources -- to swing back toward the other end of the spectrum.

Hillary Uncensored trailer: #1 on Google Video... again!

 
Doug from Upland writes to alert us to a viral success story: the shocking trailer for Hillary Uncensored received nearly 110,000 page views on Tuesday.

If you haven't taken the time to view the controversial trailer, you'll want to see it. The full documentary will be screened in the following locations -- if you're in the neighborhood, stop by to watch the power, the magic, and the glory that is Hillary Clinton.

      Dartmouth College - Sat. Oct. 27, 2pm
      Saint Anselm College - Sun. Oct. 28, 1pm
      Metropolitan Republican Club of NY - Tues. Oct. 30, 7pm

A special guest at the Dartmouth and Saint Anselm screenings will be Katherine Prudhomme O'Brien. Katherine because famous for confronting Al Gore at a town hall meeting in late 1999 over Juanita Broaddrick's rape charge against Bill Clinton. A few months ago, she personally confronted Hillary. Hillary pretended to be unaware of someone named Juanita Broaddrick. It wasn't a convincing performance.

Unintended Consequences -- the Commercial

 
The editor at 24th State took Glenn Reynolds' suggestion and made a commercial out of my post Unintended Consequences.


All I can say is: wow. Oops -- and thanks!

CNet's ad engine calls out Steve Ballmer

 
Contextual ad serving technologies get better every day. In fact, they may be getting so sophisticated that they're taking on a life of their own (remember the HAL 9000)?

CNet's ad serving algorithm is certainly acting a tad mischievous. Witness the ads served on this story, titled "Ballmer talks acquisition strategy".

Well, in its defense, the algorithm got the M&A stuff right. Hope CNet wasn't counting on Microsoft's ad dollars in their 2008 budget planning!