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Clinton Dramas: Here We Go Again

Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

By Maggie Haberman.

Tabloid headlines. Personal dramas. Organizational disarray. Score-settling between rival factions documented in news accounts like a soap opera.

Does this have a familiar ring?

No one — or mostly no one — truly believes the swirl of headlines surrounding Bill and Hillary Clinton in the summer of 2013 should lead to a grand conclusion about whether another iteration of a Clinton campaign can be run effectively, free of the internecine warfare and incessant drama that marked her 2008 bid.

But if Clinton and her supporters were hoping to allay those doubts well ahead of a possible 2016 run, the past few months have not been helpful.

Clinton supporters would point out, fairly, that much of what has happened to them this summer — the steady stream of unseemly stories about Anthony Weiner’s continued virtual liaisons, his wife and Clinton confidante Huma Abedin’s very public decision to stand by him, and reports of mismanagement at the Clinton Foundation — has been beyond their control.

Read more from this story HERE.

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David Brock accuses N.Y. Times of anti-Clinton bias

By Dylan Byers.

David Brock, the chairman of both Media Matters for America and American Bridge super PAC, has written an open letter to The New York TImes expressing his “concern about a recent string of reports and columns … that have done nothing but use false pretenses to cast a shadow on Bill and Hillary Clinton.”

Brock highlights the Times’ Aug. 13 report on “unease” over finances and management at the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation (“an exercise in evidence-free speculation,” according to Brock) and two recent columns from Maureen Dowd that Brock says “reinforce her long pattern of using hollow caricatures to attack the Clintons (and the former first family in general).”

Brock then calls on the Times to: “Correct the record regarding errors of fact and context in the Foundation news story … Refrain from negatively pre-judging the Clintons in the manner of your political editor … Correct the anti-Clinton animus consistently exhibited by one of your columnists; and … Resist the temptation to create purely speculative news in your new Clinton ‘beat.'”

Read more from this story HERE.

Hillary Throws out the Tattered Race Card to Scare Up Support for her Tattered Record

Photo Credit: Irish Central

Photo Credit: Irish Central

With no real accomplishments as Secretary of State and much to defend while she occupied that position, Hillary Clinton signaled her upcoming presidential campaign strategy in a grand opening speech in San Francisco last week.

She threw down the dog eared and quite worn out Democrat hole card of racist scare tactics…..again.

If Hillary actually had something to offer besides being a woman with a burning ambition to be president, she would have featured it in her first unofficial campaign speech….

I asked Richard Grenell, Fox News foreign policy expert, for a professional opinion on Hilary Clintons’ four year tenure as Secretary of State:

“As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton avoided dealing with all of the primary U.S. national security issues. Her four year tenure was unimpressive and disappointing. She failed to lead the U.S. in confronting the Syria crisis, the Iranian nuclear issue, the North Korean nuclear advancements and every other difficult foreign policy issue the U.S. was dealing with. It was as if Hillary calculated that doing nothing as Secretary of State would allow her to build her resume and avoid controversy. It was a selfish political move designed for personal gain.”

As it turned out, Hillary’s first speech was designed to inflame paranoia in the black community by criticizing the recent Supreme Court decision that struck down key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As if somehow, this decision would open the door for states to take the right to vote away from black voters…As if it is something these states have been licking their chops to do.

But of course Hillary knows this decision has nothing to do with taking voting rights away from black voters, but has everything to do with ensuring there is integrity at the American ballot box, by requiring valid identification when voting or registering to vote.

But when did Hillary ever let truth get in the way of her agenda?

Black voter participation has risen dramatically since 1996, in spite of increasing amount of states tightening up their voter ID laws and there is NO evidence of black voter suppression….. If there was it would have been front page news.

No one is trying to suppress the black vote, the pure reason behind requiring voter ID that every civilized democratic nation in the world has, is to ensure the integrity of the system.

If the past is any predictor of future events, look for Hillary’s campaign to be negative and divisive, it’s not pretty and it is not good for the country, but it is effective. If your record is one of disastrous foreign policy, full of scandal and obfuscation, then you take the focus off of you and throw out the red herrings.

Look for Hillary to exploit the race card and create fear in her base of special interests. We will even watch her slowly morph into different dialects as she exploits old fears. See Hillarys Selma speech

But Hillary’s going to have a slugfest ahead as old scandals erupt and new ones emerge. You can say a lot about the Clintons, but they have always been scandal plagued. Where there’s smoke there is going to be fire.

Even left leaning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a scathing article on the unfettered greed exposed by the revelations in the Clinton Foundation. See article.

This just might signal the first crack in the coronation plan Hillary/Bill have on the White House.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Hillary Spokesman Caught Lying About Hillary’s Benghazi Terrorism Denial (+video)

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

I know. I know. What difference does it make?

But a GOP Congressman did remind everyone that Hillary went nuclear at the suggestion that the attack on a US diplomatic compound was a terrorist attack, rather than a video review.

Kinzinger said in an interview on “Fox and Friends” that he and other members of Congress had a private meeting with Clinton about the Benghazi attack, and that the she became agitated when someone suggested it might have been a terrorist attack.

“Basically, in a very loud angry voice she says, ‘it’s irresponsible to even suggest this is a terrorist attack, this is a YouTube video, we know that there are protests all over and we need to be very careful about how we say this,’ and basically chided this member of Congress,” Kinzinger said.

“I actually sat there in that meeting and said, ‘well the secretary believes this is a YouTube video because of how passionately she’s arguing that,’” he continued. “But now we found out … that they knew this whole time that it was a terrorist attack, including when it was happening.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul: Hold Obama Accountable for Benghazi Cover-up

Photo Credit: NewsmaxDid Hillary Clinton tell the truth? She appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January and testified that she had no knowledge of a CIA gun-running operation in Benghazi.

Clinton’s exact words were, “You’ll have to direct that question to the agency that ran the annex,” and then she claimed that she did not know whether a gun-running operation was taking place.

In March, The New York Times reported that the CIA has been involved with secret shipments of weapons to Syria for over a year: “The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi, and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.”

CNN now reports that at least 35 American agents were in Benghazi and the CIA is doing everything possible to prevent them from testifying to Congress.

Did Clinton lie because the CIA program was classified? Is it OK to lie to Congress about classified programs?

Read more:from this story HERE.

RNC Threatens Boycott of CNN and NBC Over Hillary Clinton Shows

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThe Republican National Committee has threatened a boycott of CNN and NBC in the runup to the next presidential election unless the networks cancel films they have planned on Hillary Clinton.

Reince Priebus, chair of the RNC, wrote to the heads of CNN and NBC on Monday. He warned both networks that he would seek a binding committee vote next week to “neither partner with you in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor”, unless they cancel the Clinton shows.

Last week NBC announced plans for a four-hour mini-series on Clinton, with Diane Lane in the starring role. Two days later CNN revealed it had commissioned its films division to make a big-budget documentary on Clinton to air in 2014.

“I’m writing to express my deep disappointment in your company’s decision to air a miniseries promoting former Secretary Hillary Clinton ahead of her likely candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016,” Priebus wrote to NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt. The opening of his letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker substituted “miniseries” for “film” but was otherwise identical.

Priebus accused both networks of a “thinly-veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election”. The programming would be unfair to others who might compete for the Democratic nomination, he said, “and to the Republican nominee, should Clinton compete in the general election”.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democratic Sex Scandals May Affect Clinton’s Presidential Aspirations (+video)

Photo Credit: Fox NewsWherever Anthony Weiner goes on the streets of New York these days, he’s surrounded by reporters, microphones and cameras – a crush that would ordinarily signal intense interest in a surging campaign. For the beleaguered Weiner, it portends his likely demise.

But he presses on, despite the loss of his campaign manager, blunt face-to-face criticism from tough New Yorkers, and a new Quinnipiac University poll showing him in fourth place. “I’m taking a bet basically that people are more interested in hearing solutions to their problems than hearing about things in my background,” he told one reporter Monday. “And we’ll see if that’s the case.”

Even his wife, in her loyalty to her husband, is now being criticized for risking the presidential hopes of her mentor, Hillary Clinton.

In a “Today” appearance Monday morning, NBC Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell said, “This is getting to the point where it is really splashing up against the Clintons because it’s almost unavoidable that people are making comparisons.”

In a broader sense, the Weiner sex scandal, coupled with those of San Diego mayor Bob Filner and NY comptroller candidate, Eliot Spitzer, now compose a trio of targets for Democratic party elders. Last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, “The conduct of some of these people that we’re talking about here is reprehensible, is so disrespectful of women.”

Read more from this story HERE.

DHS Nominee Under Investigation for Allegedly Helping Hillary Clinton’s Brother

Photo Credit: APAuthorities are investigating the man President Obama tapped to take over the second highest spot at the Department of Homeland Security for allegedly using his position and power to unfairly obtain U.S. visas for foreign investors in a company run by Hillary Clinton’s brother, FoxNews.com has confirmed.

Alejandro Mayorkas, director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, was named by Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s Office as a target in an investigation involving the foreign investor program run by USCIS, according to an email sent to lawmakers late Monday.

The investigation was opened in September 2012 following a referral from an FBI counterintelligence analyst. The probe was first reported by The Associated Press.

The investigation into Mayorkas is based on allegations he helped secure U.S. visas for Chinese businessmen after they had been denied by his own agency’s officials. The visas had been sought by Gulf Coast Funds Management, a financing company headed by then-Secretary of State Clinton’s brother Anthony Rodham, according to an aide to GOP Sen. Charles Grassley, who had received internal USCIS emails about the matter from a department whistle blower.

According to an email sent to lawmakers Monday, the IG’s office said, “At this point in our investigation, we do not have any findings of criminal misconduct.” The email did not specify any criminal allegations it might be investigating.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul: Hillary Probably Perjured Herself

Photo Credit: WNDSen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told a radio interviewer today he doubts former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s claims about not having knowledge of weapons transfers when asked about the matter during sworn testimony in a Senate hearing on Benghazi.

During the hearing in March, in response to a question from Paul, Clinton stated she did not know whether the U.S. mission in Libya was procuring or transferring weapons to Turkey and other Arab countries.

Those weapons transfers were allegedly intended to arm the rebels fighting in Syria.

Yet a New York Times report claimed that since early 2012, the CIA has been helping Arab governments and Turkey obtain and ship weapons to the Syrian rebels.

“I’m concerned about the veracity of how she responded,” Paul told “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Reveals its 2016 Strategy Against Hillary: She’s Too Old

Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Stuart Stevens, the top strategist for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, declared to an audience of reporters at a breakfast last month that electing Hillary Rodham Clinton would be like going back in time. “She’s been around since the ’70s,” he said.

At a conservative conference earlier in the year, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, ridiculed the 2016 Democratic field as “a rerun of ‘The Golden Girls,’ ” referring to Mrs. Clinton and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is 70.

And Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, seizing on the Fleetwood Mac song that became a Clinton family anthem, quipped to an audience in Washington, “If you want to keep thinking about tomorrow, maybe it’s time to put somebody new in.”

The 2016 election may be far off, but one theme is becoming clear: Republican strategists and presidential hopefuls, in ways subtle and overt, are eager to focus a spotlight on Mrs. Clinton’s age. The former secretary of state will be 69 by the next presidential election, a generation removed from most of the possible Republican candidates.

Despite her enduring popularity, a formidable fund-raising network and near unanimous support from her party, Mrs. Clinton, Republican leaders believe, is vulnerable to appearing a has-been.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hillary Clinton’s Legacy of Scandal (+video)

By Jeffrey T. Brown. In the midst of the eruption of near-daily scandals involving the Obama administration, let us not forget that until just a few months ago, Hillary Clinton was the most significant persona within that administration besides the president himself. Let us not also forget that notwithstanding the scandal-grenades going off all around us, Mrs. Clinton diligently plans her run for the presidency, even while several of those scandals are obviously and entirely her responsibility, exposing the State Department during her tenure as an utter sewer of corruption, cronyism, and fatal incompetence.

For as long as Hillary Clinton has been on the national scene, she has left a path of destruction and wreckage in her wake that is both impressive and terrible to behold. She is a testament to the extent of damage that can be done by one person determined to conquer everything before her in the quest for unlimited power and self-gratification. The only prize left to her in American politics is the presidency, which she has always felt is hers by right. Indeed, she would have attained it were it not for the upstart community organizer, a fellow admirer of Saul Alinsky, who spoke in volumes but said nothing.

While such determination comes at a staggering cost, we should remind ourselves that the bill is never paid by Mrs. Clinton or her equally arrogant husband. It is paid by the country. Before we ask yet again for the check, perhaps we should remind ourselves of exactly who this woman is who will soon attempt to seduce the country, and her history as the object of an absurd and undeserved degree of national affection.

Before accompanying her husband to the White House as our first co-president, Mrs. Clinton was working hard on becoming the person we now know her to be. As with her husband, the goal has always been the attainment of power masquerading as public service. Setting an example for the Obamas to emulate, the Clintons put self-absorption and personal victory before all else. The Clintons have always served themselves, and nothing else.

Do you recall the slime that was Whitewater, in which the Clintons dissembled and lied while their former business partners went to jail? Do you remember Mrs. Clinton earning $100,000 in profit in 1979 on a $1,000 investment over the course of only 9 months in volatile cattle futures, about which she knew nothing, thanks to help from a highly placed Tyson Foods connection? Tyson profited handsomely in Arkansas, with state loans and appointments. We are to believe that Clinton studied the Wall Street Journal to achieve a feat against which the odds were one in 250 million. Do you recall the Rose Law Firm billing records that magically appeared in Mrs. Clinton’s White House office, years after they had been subpoenaed? Or the death of Vince Foster under rather extraordinary and inexplicable circumstances, and the lies and cover-up that followed? Do you recall that while testifying before congressional investigators as first lady, she answered “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” 250 times? Read more from this story HERE.

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Chelsea Clinton endorses mom: We need a woman in the White House

By Paul Bedard. Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton says it’s time for a woman in the Oval Office, music to her mom Hillary Clinton’s ears.

In a wide-ranging interview on MSNBC’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” Clinton was asked about getting a woman elected president, as her mother tried to do in 2008 and is expected to in 2016.

Read more from this story HERE.