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Old 02-07-2008, 10:34 AM
 
13,053 posts, read 12,901,356 times
Reputation: 2618

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Quote:
Originally Posted by clepperv View Post
They hate her because she is proven strong. She's exactly what this country needs to keep our strength - not dying men in Iraq!
YomamaV
What exactly makes her strong?

Do you know her voting record?

Do you know anything about her policies both past and present?

What bills has she authored or co-authored?

Do you even know anything about the past, present, and future of the candidate you support or do you simply follow with the rest of the fad crowd letting it decide your position? Did I make a mistake in assuming that? Show me that I am wrong and outline with quantitative aspects as to why she is good for president.
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Old 02-09-2008, 07:55 PM
 
Location: Woodbridge, VA, USA
3 posts, read 12,522 times
Reputation: 11
Oh, I don't have enough fingers to count the reasons on ... Whitewater, FBI papers, the criminal pardons, the list goes on. THey're lawyers, and duplicitous ones at that. I wouldn't trust them to deliver lollipops to a Children's Convention. They're fake, and while the media fawns over them, they're not worth the film it's shot on except to their duped followers. You can have her, her no-good husband, and all their baggage. All those women came forward to say that Bill abused his power and took advantage of them in a work situation, and did Hillary even step up to say she was sorry? She's a WOMAN, and these women were TAKEN advantage of, and you'd rather believe BILL than THEM?! None of those women came from broken/suspect backgrounds, they were all normal middle-class citizens. What POSSIBLE excuse can you make for his behavior, and Hillary's, after all that? He's a sleaze-bag, and she's married to him, and will stay with him to use his charms <sic> to try to get her own Presidency...No, sorry, she's not my type, and I will hate the way she is using him to try to get into power. End of story.
J.C.
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Old 02-09-2008, 08:41 PM
 
Location: Albuquerque
2,296 posts, read 6,263,393 times
Reputation: 1108
I'll say what's been said: Hillary seems like a colossal fake. Her TV persona is contrived. Everything she's ever said or done has been coached and spun out her entire career. She and Bill are NWO lackeys, neofascist ultra left wing scumbags who act like they know what's best for the country. What is most irksome is that she acts like this should not be a problem.
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Old 02-09-2008, 08:48 PM
 
21,026 posts, read 22,064,612 times
Reputation: 5941
Quote:
Originally Posted by GremlinGTs View Post
Oh, I don't have enough fingers to count the reasons on ... Whitewater, FBI papers, the criminal pardons, the list goes on. THey're lawyers, and duplicitous ones at that. I wouldn't trust them to deliver lollipops to a Children's Convention. They're fake, and while the media fawns over them, they're not worth the film it's shot on except to their duped followers. You can have her, her no-good husband, and all their baggage. All those women came forward to say that Bill abused his power and took advantage of them in a work situation, and did Hillary even step up to say she was sorry? She's a WOMAN, and these women were TAKEN advantage of, and you'd rather believe BILL than THEM?! None of those women came from broken/suspect backgrounds, they were all normal middle-class citizens. What POSSIBLE excuse can you make for his behavior, and Hillary's, after all that? He's a sleaze-bag, and she's married to him, and will stay with him to use his charms <sic> to try to get her own Presidency...No, sorry, she's not my type, and I will hate the way she is using him to try to get into power. End of story.
J.C.
"""All those women came forward to say that Bill abused his power and took advantage of them in a work situation, and did Hillary even step up to say she was sorry?""


Whyinell should HILLARY apologize for Bill??? She is married to him , she is NOT him.

And you think she's the first and only politician to use someone to get ahead?
MY! How naive!
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Old 02-10-2008, 10:37 AM
 
4,921 posts, read 7,655,372 times
Reputation: 5477
It has nothing to do with Hillary being Hillary. It is because she is a woman. Obama's support mostly comes from two groups, males and blacks. It is understandable why blacks are supporting him but I certainly don't understand the male opposition towards Hillary. Do men hate females that much?
The reasons I have seen listed to oppose Hillary at this website are; she's too hard, she's too soft, she has big thighs, etc. It is sad to see that as we have tried to teach equality in our schools we seem to have overlooked the fact that equality extends to all regardless of gender.
When I think back to my mother, I remember a person who was hard as nails and yet as gentle as an angel. She could balance a budget with a dime. She not only cooked, cleaned, raised a family, but also worked a full time job. Those are some of the qualities I would like to see in an elected official.
I support Hillary not because she is a women but because she is the one person to can get the job done.
Don
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Old 02-10-2008, 10:46 AM
 
1,831 posts, read 5,278,674 times
Reputation: 673
Quote:
Originally Posted by NYLATINQT View Post
All i know is that back when we had "the Clintons" in office, things were going quite well in this country.
I totally agree. I really miss the Clinton era.

I long for the days when sex scandals were all we had to worry about in the White House ...

Compared to what's happened since then, the Clinton controversies seem pretty silly now.

Give me a sex scandal over the Bush catastrophes any day of the week.

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Old 02-10-2008, 10:54 AM
 
Location: Arizona
5,408 posts, read 7,770,870 times
Reputation: 1198
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheri257 View Post
I totally agree. I really miss the Clinton era.

I long for the days when sex scandals were all we had to worry about in the White House ...

Compared to what's happened since then, the Clinton controversies seem pretty silly now.

Give me a sex scandal over these catatrosphies any day of the week.

I agree with all of that - except it was the 1990s "Bill Clinton Era". Not "the Bill and Hill Era." Hillary was just a family member. Don't start giving her kudos for how the 1990s were. Other than her failed health plan, I can't really think of anything she herself did or accomplished back then.

And what I also remember about those years was how all the far right freaks came out of the woodwork and drug us through an embarassing and expensive national charade because Bill had his Monica indiscretion.

Obama provides at least an opportunity to move beyond that. You know with Hillary we will be talking about the stain on the dress for 4 more years. Who needs that?
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Old 02-10-2008, 11:01 AM
 
21,026 posts, read 22,064,612 times
Reputation: 5941
Quote:
Originally Posted by By~Tor View Post
There is a huge amount of negative controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton that the press never mentions. A little research with an open mind will yield the truth.

Here's an article with some opinions and a lot of facts:

Hillary Clinton: Remarkably unqualified to be president
November 15, 2007

By Deroy Murdock

Don't make too much of Sen. Hillary Clinton's flip-flopping and inability to decide whether she's for or against issuing illegal aliens driver's licenses. That's the least of her problems. If you want an in depth look at her character read Bay Buchanan's book The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton. For some reason it is probably the least publicized of the recent books on Hillary, but in my view it is the best, the most revealing, the most powerful and the most important.

Whether or not you are a supporter of Hillary, I suspect after reading the book you will be convinced of the author's claims: Hillary is a phony, hypocritical, congenital liar who won't accept responsibility; she's so insecure she relies only on gurus, consultants and other advisers instead of thinking for herself, she's unprincipled; she's far-left liberal despite her pose for purposes of the election; and she's likely to be a big spender and big taxer (she admitted to having a million ideas, which we certainly can't afford).

Take the liar issue as one prime illustration of her character problem. I consider William Safire, a former presidential adviser and columnist for The New York Times, to be one of the soundest, more careful, most reliable and most brilliant thinkers of our time. Here's what he had to say about Hillary (when Bill Clinton was president): "Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady - a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation - is a congenital liar."

Ms. Buchanan makes the case that Hillary was and is "no respecter of the truth or the law." She writes: "No matter what the questions were about - Whitewater, Madison Guaranty, Jim McDougal, cattle futures, Red Bone, Castle Grande or Rose law firm records - Hillary never gave a straight answer. She bobbed and weaved her way through every inquiry, whether the questions came from the press or from the investigators, whether it was a casual conversation, or whether she was under oath. Her explanation of what occurred changed constantly to keep up with facts that slowly found their way into the public arena."

For example, Hillary told investigators that the Rose law firm records of work for Castle Grande had been shredded. Suddenly, they were found to have been in the White House and finally fell into the possession of her secretary. Ms. Buchanan writes, "The miraculously recovered records proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Hillary had lied about her involvement with both Madison Guaranty and the corrupt real estate deal, Castle Grande."

he yellow-billed oxpecker stands atop the mighty rhinoceros, gobbling ticks and chirping loudly when danger looms. This tiny bird would make a perfect mascot for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid. Akin to that creature, the New York Democrat leaves tiny footprints and has spent more than three decades riding aboard her outsized, accomplished husband, William Jefferson Clinton.

And, like the oxpecker, Hillary Clinton is remarkably unprepared for the presidency. Beyond helping to secure post-9/11 recovery funds for Gotham, her legislative achievements are rather slight. Lighter yet is her executive experience, which is measurable in grams.

While Clinton has been an outspoken liberal activist since the 1960s, she never has run a business, a city, a state or a Cabinet department. She was a partner at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm, but did not administer it. Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families aside, she headed none of the nonprofits whose boards her Web site says she joined.

While she conducted President Clinton's health-reform task force in 1993, the plan it concocted in secret collapsed in public. This 1,368-page prescription for government medicine quietly vanished, sparing a Democratic Congress the embarrassment of euthanizing it.

Since her 2000 election, Clinton never has chaired a Senate committee. However, she does lead the Senate Superfund and Environmental Health Subcommittee. As its Web site explains, the panel oversees "recycling, federal facilities and interstate waste."

Clinton has presided over something. She commanded the Wellesley College Republicans in 1965, and then became student-government president.

Despite repeated requests, Clinton's campaign did not identify the executive experiences that supposedly merit her presidency.

Conversely, Clinton's Democratic rivals display relevant resumes.

Bill Richardson was elected New Mexico's governor in 2002. He handles a $13.7 billion budget, guides 20,816 state workers and serves 1.9 million constituents. He was a U.S. House member between 1982 and 1996. He also gained valuable global expertise as U.N. ambassador from 1996 to 1998. Under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, Richardson has negotiated nuclear issues with North Korean generals and helped free Americans from Cuba, Iraq and Sudan. As energy secretary from 1998 to 2000, Richardson addressed Arab-oil dependency and nuclear nonproliferation, and maintained America's atomic arsenal.

First elected in 1972, Delaware's Joseph Biden chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and also directed it between 2001 and 2003.

Connecticut's Chris Dodd, elected U.S. representative in 1974 and senator in 1980, chairs the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

Even far-left eccentric Rep. Dennis Kucinich was Cleveland's one-term mayor, years before his 1996 House win.

Elected in 2004, former Harvard Law Review President Barack Obama's credentials are limited. Nonetheless, the Illinois senator is 2008's "fresh face" — a phrase rarely in the same sentence with Hillary Clinton.

Clinton's Republican competitors offer considerable executive dexterity:

Rudolph Giuliani was mayor of New York, America's largest city, with 8 million people. Between 1994 and 2002, he managed budgets as high as $40 billion and as many as 222,836 employees, a payroll surpassed only by Uncle Sam's and California's. As U.S. attorney, Giuliani supervised 130 prosecutors and some 200 support staffers between 1983 and 1989. In 2002, he launched Giuliani Partners, a security consultancy that reportedly earned tens of millions in revenues.

Mitt Romney founded Bain Capital, a prosperous enterprise, before becoming Massachusetts' one-term governor in 2002. His final, $36 billion budget funded 43,979 personnel who aided 6.4 million citizens.

Mike Huckabee was Arkansas governor between 1996 and 2006. His final, $15.6 billion budget financed 29,151 staffers who covered 2.8 million Arkansans.

Arizona Sen. John McCain was a decorated Navy pilot and Vietnam-era POW before his 1982 U.S. House victory. He was elected senator in 1986 and has chaired the committees on commerce and Indian affairs.

To Clinton's credit, she represented America as first lady in 82 countries, perhaps her most pertinent duty. This may qualify her for secretary of state, a position she could execute with energy and discipline.

However, facing a $2.9 trillion federal budget and 5,120,688 civilian and military employees, Clinton is ill-equipped to become president of the United States, commander in chief of the armed forces and leader of the free world. Her executive experience is lighter than a fistful of feathers.



The Clintons, to adapt a line from Dr. Johnson, were not only corrupt, they were the cause of corruption in others. Yet seldom in America have so many come to excuse so much mendacity and malfeasance as during the Clinton years. Here are some of the facts that have been buried.

RECORDS SET

- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates*
- Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment.
- First president accused of rape.
- First first lady to come under criminal investigation
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
- First president to establish a legal defense fund.
- First president to be held in contempt of court
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad
- First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a state court

* According to our best information, 40 government officials were indicted or convicted in the wake of Watergate. A reader computes that there was a total of 31 Reagan era convictions, including 14 because of Iran-Contra and 16 in the Department of Housing & Urban Development scandal. 47 individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were imprisoned. A key difference between the Clinton story and earlier ones was the number of criminals with whom he was associated before entering the White House.

Using a far looser standard that included resignations, David R. Simon and D. Stanley Eitzen in Elite Deviance, say that 138 appointees of the Reagan administration either resigned under an ethical cloud or were criminally indicted. Curiously Haynes Johnson uses the same figure but with a different standard in "Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years: "By the end of his term, 138 administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."

STARR-RAY INVESTIGATION

- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty pleas (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 14
- Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3

CRIME STATS

- Number of individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 47
- Number of these convictions during Clinton's presidency: 33
- Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
- Number of congressional witnesses who have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 122

SMALTZ INVESTIGATION

- Guilty pleas and convictions obtained by Donald Smaltz in cases involving charges of bribery and fraud against former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy and associated individuals and businesses: 15
- Acquitted or overturned cases (including Espy): 6
- Fines and penalties assessed: $11.5 million
- Amount Tyson Food paid in fines and court costs: $6 million

CAMPAIGN FINANCE INVESTIGATION

- As of June 2000, the Justice Department listed 25 people indicted and 19 convicted because of the 1996 Clinton-Gore fundraising scandals.
- According to the House Committee on Government Reform in September 2000, 79 House and Senate witnesses asserted the Fifth Amendment in the course of investigations into Gore's last fundraising campaign.
-James Riady entered a plea agreement to pay an $8.5 million fine for campaign finance crimes. This was a record under campaign finance laws.

CLINTON MACHINE CRIMES FOR WHICH CONVICTIONS WERE OBTAINED

Drug trafficking (3), racketeering, extortion, bribery (4), tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2), fraud (12), conspiracy (5), fraudulent loans, illegal gifts (1), illegal campaign contributions (5), money laundering (6), perjury, obstruction of justice.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

- Number of independent counsel inquiries since the 1978 law was passed: 19
- Number that have produced indictments: 7
- Number that produced more convictions than the Starr investigation: 1
- Median length of investigations that led to convictions: 44 months
- Length of Starr-Ray investigation: 69 months.
- Total cost of the Starr investigation (3/00) $52 million
- Total cost of the Iran-Contra investigation: $48.5 million
- Total cost to taxpayers of the Madison Guarantee failure: $73 million

OTHER MATTERS INVESTIGATED BY SPECIAL PROSECUTORS AND CONGRESS, OR REPORTED IN THE MEDIA

Bank and mail fraud, violations of campaign finance laws, illegal foreign campaign funding, improper exports of sensitive technology, physical violence and threats of violence, solicitation of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, bribery of witnesses, attempted intimidation of prosecutors, perjury before congressional committees, lying in statements to federal investigators and regulatory officials, flight of witnesses, obstruction of justice, bribery of cabinet members, real estate fraud, tax fraud, drug trafficking, failure to investigate drug trafficking, bribery of state officials, use of state police for personal purposes, exchange of promotions or benefits for sexual favors, using state police to provide false court testimony, laundering of drug money through a state agency, false reports by medical examiners and others investigating suspicious deaths, the firing of the RTC and FBI director when these agencies were investigating Clinton and his associates, failure to conduct autopsies in suspicious deaths, providing jobs in return for silence by witnesses, drug abuse, improper acquisition and use of 900 FBI files, improper futures trading, murder, sexual abuse of employees, false testimony before a federal judge, shredding of documents, withholding and concealment of subpoenaed documents, fabricated charges against (and improper firing of) White House employees, inviting drug traffickers, foreign agents and participants in organized crime to the White House.

ARKANSAS ALTZHEIMER'S

Number of times that Clinton figures who testified in court or before Congress said that they didn't remember, didn't know, or something similar.

Bill Kennedy 116
Harold Ickes 148
Ricki Seidman 160
Bruce Lindsey 161
Bill Burton 191
Mark Gearan 221
Mack McLarty 233
Neil Egglseston 250
Hillary Clinton 250
John Podesta 264
Jennifer O'Connor 343
Dwight Holton 348
Patsy Thomasson 420
Jeff Eller 697

FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES: In the portions of President Clinton's Jan. 17 deposition that have been made public in the Paula Jones case, his memory failed him 267 times. This is a list of his answers and how many times he gave each one.

I don't remember - 71
I don't know - 62
I'm not sure - 17
I have no idea - 10
I don't believe so - 9
I don't recall - 8
I don't think so - 8
I don't have any specific recollection - 6
I have no recollection - 4
Not to my knowledge - 4
I just don't remember - 4
I don't believe - 4
I have no specific recollection - 3
I might have - 3
I don't have any recollection of that - 2 I don't have a specific memory - 2
I don't have any memory of that - 2
I just can't say - 2
I have no direct knowledge of that - 2
I don't have any idea - 2
Not that I recall - 2
I don't believe I did - 2
I can't remember - 2
I can't say - 2
I do not remember doing so - 2
Not that I remember - 2
I'm not aware - 1
I honestly don't know - 1
I don't believe that I did - 1
I'm fairly sure - 1
I have no other recollection - 1
I'm not positive - 1
I certainly don't think so - 1
I don't really remember - 1
I would have no way of remembering that - 1
That's what I believe happened - 1
To my knowledge, no - 1
To the best of my knowledge - 1
To the best of my memory - 1
I honestly don't recall - 1
I honestly don't remember - 1
That's all I know - 1
I don't have an independent recollection of that - 1
I don't actually have an independent memory of that - 1
As far as I know - 1
I don't believe I ever did that - 1
That's all I know about that - 1
I'm just not sure - 1
Nothing that I remember - 1
I simply don't know - 1
I would have no idea - 1
I don't know anything about that - 1
I don't have any direct knowledge of that - 1
I just don't know - 1
I really don't know - 1
I can't deny that, I just -- I have no memory of that at all - 1

ARKANSAS SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME

- Number of persons in the Clinton machine orbit who are alleged to have committed suicide: 9
- Number known to have been murdered: 12
- Number who died in plane crashes: 6
- Number who died in single car automobile accidents: 3
- Number of one-person sking fatalities: 1
- Number of key witnesses who have died of heart attacks while in federal custody under questionable circumstances: 1
- Number of unexplained deaths: 4
- Total suspicious deaths: 46
- Number of northern Mafia killings during peak years of 1968-78: 30
- Number of Dixie Mafia killings during same period: 156

It is important in considering these fatal incidents to bear in mind the following:

The fact that anomalies need to be investigated further carries no presumption of how a death actually occurred, only that there remain serious questions that require answers.

The possibility of foul play must be taken seriously in a major criminal conspiracy in which over two score individuals and firms have been convicted and over 100 witnesses have pled the Fifth Amendment or fled the country.

If foul play did occur in any of these cases, that fact by itself does not carry the presumption that the the Clinton machine was involved. Given the footprints of organized crime, drug trade, foreign espionage, and intelligence agencies on the trail of the Clinton story, such a assumption would not be warranted. It is also well to keep in mind the classic prohibition era movie in which the corrupt poitician's job was not to engage in illegal acts but to avoid noticing them.
ARKANSAS MONEY MANAGEMENT

- Amount of an alleged electronic transfer from the Arkansas Development Financial Authority to a bank in the Cayman Islands during 1980s: $50 million
- Grand Cayman's population: 18,000
- Number of commercial banks: 570
- Number of bank regulators: 1
- Amount Arkansas state pension fund invested in high-risk repos in the mid-80s in one purchase in April 1985: $52 million through the Worthen Bank.
- Number of days thereafter that the state's brokerage firm went belly up: 3
- Amount Arkansas pension fund dropped overnight as a result: 15%
- Percent of Worthen bank that Mochtar Riady bought over the next four months to bail out the bank and the then governor, Bill Clinton: 40%.
- Percent of purchasers from the Clintons and McDougals of resort lots who lost the land because of the sleazy financing provisions: over 50%

THE MEDIA

- Number of journalists covering Whitewater who have been fired, transferred off the beat, resigned or otherwise gotten into trouble because of their work on the scandals (Doug Frantz, Jim Wooten, Richard Behar, Christopher Ruddy, Michael Isikoff, David Eisenstadt, Yinh Chan, Jonathan Broder, James R. Norman, Zoh Hieronimus): 10

FRIENDS OF BILL

- Number of times John Huang took the 5th Amendment in answer to questions during a Judicial Watch deposition: 1,000
- Visits made to the White House by investigation subjects Johnny Chung, James Riady, John Huang, and Charlie Trie. 160
- Number of campaign contributors who got overnights at the White House in the two years before the 1996 election: 577
- Number of members of Thomas Boggs's law firm who have held top positions in the Clinton administration. 18
- Number of times John Huang was briefed by CIA: 37
- Number of calls Huang made from Commerce Department to Lippo banks: 261
- Number of intelligence reports Huang read while at Commerce Department: 500

UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA

- FBI files misappropriated by the White House: c. 900
- Estimated number of witnesses quoted in FBI files misappropriated by the White House: 18,000
- Number of witnesses who developed medical problems at critical points in Clinton scandals investigation (Tucker, Hale, both McDougals, Lindsey): 5
- Problem areas listed in a memo by Clinton's own lawyer in preparation for the president's defense: 40
- Number of witnesses and critics of Clinton subjected to IRS audit: 45
- Number of names placed in a White House secret database without the knowledge of those named: c. 200,000
- Number of women involved with Clinton who claim to have been physically threatened (Sally Perdue, Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, Elizabeth Ward Gracen, Juantia Broaddrick): 6
- Number of men involved in the Clinton scandals who have been beaten up or claimed to have been intimidated: 10

THE HIDDEN ELECTION

USA Today calls it "the hidden election," in which nearly 7,000 state legislative seats are decided with only minimal media and public attention. But there was an important national story here: evidence of the disaster that Bill Clinton was for the Democratic Party. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats held a 1,542 seat lead in the state bodies in 1990. As of 1998 that lead had shrunk to 288. That's a loss of over 1,200 state legislative seats, nearly all of them under Clinton. Across the US, the Democrats controled only 65 more state senate seats than the Republicans.

Further, in 1992, the Democrats controlled 17 more state legislatures than the Republicans. After 1998, the Republicans controlled one more than the Democrats. Not only was this a loss of 9 legislatures under Clinton, but it was the first time since 1954 that the GOP had controlled more state legislatures than the Democrats (they tied in 1968).

Here's what happened to the Democrats under Clinton, based on our latest figures:

- GOP seats gained in House since Clinton became president: 48
- GOP seats gained in Senate since Clinton became president: 8
- GOP governorships gained since Clinton became president: 11
- GOP state legislative seats gained since Clinton became president: 1,254
as of 1998
- State legislatures taken over by GOP since Clinton became president: 9
- Democrat officeholders who have become Republicans since Clinton became
president: 439 as of 1998
- Republican officeholders who have become Democrats since Clinton became president: 3

THE CLINTON LEGACY: LONELY VOICES

Here are some of the all too rare public officials, reporters, and others who spoke truth to the dismally corrupt power of Bill and Hill Clinton's political machine -- some at risk to their careers, others at risk to their lives. A few points to note:

- Those corporatist media reporters who attempted to report the story often found themselves muzzled; some even lost their jobs. The only major dailies that consistently handled the story well were the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times.

- Nobody on this list has gotten rich and many you may not have even heard of. Taking on the Clintons typically has not been a happy or rewarding experience. At least ten reporters were fired, transferred off their beats, resigned, or otherwise got into trouble because of their work on the scandals.

- Contrary to the popular impression, the politics of those listed ranges from the left to the right, and from the ideological to the independent.

PUBLIC OFFICIALS

MIGUEL RODRIGUEZ was a prosecutor on the staff of Kenneth Starr. His attempts to uncover the truth in the Vincent Foster death case were repeatedly foiled and he was the subject of planted stories undermining his credibility and implying that he was unstable. Rodriguez eventually resigned.

JEAN DUFFEY: Head of a joint federal-county drug task force in Arkansas. Her first instructions from her boss: "Jean, you are not to use the drug task force to investigate any public official." Duffey's work, however, led deep into the heart of the Dixie Mafia, including members of the Clinton machine and the investigation of the so-called "train deaths." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports that when she produced a star witness who could testify to Clinton's involvement with cocaine, the local prosecuting attorney, Dan Harmon issued a subpoena for all the task force records, including "the incriminating files on his own activities. If Duffey had complied it would have exposed 30 witnesses and her confidential informants to violent retributions. She refused." Harmon issued a warrant for her arrest and friendly cops told her that there was a $50,000 price on her head. She eventually fled to Texas. The once-untouchable Harmon was later convicted of racketeering, extortion and drug dealing.

BILL DUNCAN: An IRS investigator in Arkansas who drafted some 30 federal indictments of Arkansas figures on money laundering and other charges. Clinton biographer Roger Morris quotes a source who reviewed the evidence: "Those indictments were a real slam dunk if there ever was one." The cases were suppressed, many in the name of "national security." Duncan was never called to testify. Other IRS agents and state police disavowed Duncan and turned on him. Said one source, "Somebody outside ordered it shut down and the walls went up."

RUSSELL WELCH: An Arkansas state police detective working with Duncan. Welch developed a 35-volume, 3,000 page archive on drug and money laundering operations at Mena. His investigation was so compromised that a high state police official even let one of the targets of the probe look through the file. At one point, Welch was sprayed in the face with poison, later identified by the Center for Disease Control as anthrax. He would write in his diary, "I feel like I live in Russia, waiting for the secret police to pounce down. A government has gotten out of control. Men find themselves in positions of power and suddenly crimes become legal." Welch is no longer with the state police.

DAN SMALTZ: Smaltz did an outstanding job investigating and prosecuting charges involving illegal payoffs to Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, yet was treated with disparaging and highly inaccurate reporting by the likes of the David Broder and the NY Times. Espy was acquitted under a law that made it necessary to not only prove that he accepted gratuities but that he did something specific in return. On the other hand, Tyson Foods copped a plea in the same case, paying $6 million in fines and serving four years' probation. The charge: that Tyson had illegally offered Espy $12,000 in airplane rides, football tickets and other payoffs. In the Espy investigation, Smaltz obtained 15 convictions and collected over $11 million in fines and civil penalties. Offenses for which convictions were obtained included false statements, concealing money from prohibited sources, illegal gratuities, illegal contributions, falsifying records, interstate transportation of stolen property, money laundering, and illegal receipt of USDA subsidies. In addition, Janet Reno blocked Smaltz from pursuing leads aimed at allegations of major drug trafficking in Arkansas and payoffs to the then governor of the state, WJ Clinton. Espy had become Ag secretary only after being flown to Arkansas to get the approval of chicken king Don Tyson.

DAVID SCHIPPERS was House impeachment counsel and a Chicago Democrat. He did a highly creditable job but since he didn't fit the right-wing conspiracy theory, the Clintonista media downplayed his work. Thus most Americans don't know that he told Newsmax, "Let me tell you, if we had a chance to put on a case, I would have put live witnesses before the committee. But the House leadership, and I'm not talking about Henry Hyde, they just killed us as far as time was concerned. I begged them to let me take it into this year. Then I screamed for witnesses before the Senate. But there was nothing anybody could do to get those Senators to show any courage. They told us essentially, you're not going to get 67 votes so why are you wasting our time." Schippers also said that while a number of representatives had looked at additional evidence kept under seal in a nearby House building, not a single senator did.

JOHN CLARKE: When Patrick Knowlton stopped to relieve himself in Ft. Marcy Park 70 minutes before the discovery of Vince Foster's body, he saw things that got him into deep trouble. His interview statements were falsified and prior to testifying he claims he was overtly harassed by more than a score of men in a classic witness intimidation technique. In some cases there were witnesses. John Clarke was his dogged lawyer in the witness intimidation case that was largely ignored by the media, even when the three-judge panel overseeing the Starr investigation permitted Knowlton to append a 20 page addendum to the Starr Report.

OTHER

THE ARKANSAS COMMITTEE: What would later be known as the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy actually began on the left - as a group of progressive students at the University of Arkansas had formed the Arkansas Committee to look into Mena, drugs, money laundering, and Arkansas politics. This committee was the source of some of the important early Clinton stories including those published in the Progressive Review.

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SCANDALS E-LIST: Moderated by Ray Heizer, this list was subject to all the idiosyncrasies of Internet bulletin boards, but nonetheless proved invaluable to researchers and journalists.

JOURNALISTS

JERRY SEPER of the Washington Times was far and away the best beat reporter of the story, handling it week after week in the best tradition of investigative journalism. If other reporters had followed Seper's lead, the history of the Clintons' machine might have been quite different.

AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD of the London Telegraph did a remarkable job of digging into some of the seamiest tales from Arkansas and the Clinton past. Other early arrivals on the scene were Alexander Cockburn and Jeff Gerth.

CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, among other fine reports on the Clinton scandals, did the best job laying out the facts in the Vince Foster death case.

ROGER MORRIS AND SALLY DENTON wrote a major expose of events at Mena, but at the last moment the Washington Post's brass ordered the story killed. It was published by Penthouse and later included in Morris' "Partners in Power," the best biography of the Clintons.

OTHERS who helped get parts of the story out included reporters Philip Weiss, Carl Limbacher, Wes Phelan, David Bresnahan, William Sammon, Liza Myers, Mara Leveritt, Matt Drudge, Jim Ridgeway, Nat Hentoff, Michael Isikoff, Christopher Hitchens and Michael Kelly. Also independent investigator Hugh Sprunt and former White House FBI agent Gary Aldrich.

SAM SMITH of the Progressive Review wrote the first book (Shadows of Hope, University of Indiana Press, 1994) deconstructing the Clinton myth. The Review provided extensive coverage of the topic.
Gee, that's just a very , really, lengthy, long, post ...
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Old 02-10-2008, 11:47 AM
 
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Originally Posted by Upton View Post
From Wikipedia

Clinton left office with a 65% approval rating, the highest end-of-presidency rating of any President who came into office after World War II.
It takes more then just a high approval rating to be a great president.
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Old 02-10-2008, 11:52 AM
 
69,368 posts, read 63,828,510 times
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Originally Posted by Nomander View Post
What exactly makes her strong?

Do you know her voting record?

Do you know anything about her policies both past and present?

What bills has she authored or co-authored?

Do you even know anything about the past, present, and future of the candidate you support or do you simply follow with the rest of the fad crowd letting it decide your position? Did I make a mistake in assuming that? Show me that I am wrong and outline with quantitative aspects as to why she is good for president.
Lets completely ignroe the sex issues, how about the numerous unprovoked military attacks against countries that never did anything to us. Yeah, to his credit he did not invade, but his attacks very easily could have been considered as an act of war against those that we bombed for no reason.
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