Archive for September, 2007:
Written on September 13th, 2007 by adminno shouts
You gotta love this.
A lawsuit accusing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's brother of failing to repay debts to a Tennessee carnival operator has been settled.
Tony Rodham was accused of failing to repay $107,000 plus interest to the bankrupt estate of Edgar Allen Gregory Jr. and his wife, Vonna Jo, both of whom received a presidential pardon in 2000.
The case was scheduled to go to trial on Thursday, but the parties reached a settlement agreement, said Rodham attorney Samuel Crocker. The terms were not disclosed.
Rodham had claimed in court documents the money he received from the Gregorys was for consulting services, but the trustee for the Gregory estate said it was a loan.
The Gregorys received pardons for a bank fraud conviction from President Clinton about two years after Rodham became a paid consultant to United Shows of America, a carnival business the couple owned.
Rodham has said he talked to his brother-in-law about the pardon, but he said President Clinton made the decision to grant clemency on the merits of their case.
The merits of their case? BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Here's the real deal.
After President Clinton left office, the Republican-controlled House Committee on Government Reform found that United Shows paid Rodham $240,000 for undocumented consulting services and that President Clinton was interested in the pardons solely because of his contacts with Rodham.
Yes, and her other brother Hugh, made out like a bandit selling pardons. He netted around $400,000 for his trouble.
I guess Hugh is the smarter of the two? :)
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Written on September 13th, 2007 by adminno shouts
Over at the American Thinker, Steven M. Warshawsky puts out a good piece on who Hillary Clinton is.
In the spring of 1993, shortly after her husband and political benefactor Bill Clinton took office as the nation's 42nd president, Hillary Clinton delivered the commencement address at the University of Texas. In her speech, Hillary reiterated the theme that has been at the heart of her political vision from the start:
"We are at a stage in history in which remolding society is one of the great challenges facing all of us in the West."
"Remolding society." This is the terminology of a utopian socialist, one who seeks to remake society according to a narrow and dogmatic ideology that claims to eliminate injustice, poverty, and unhappiness, once and for all. Hillary's ideology is an amalgam of New Left marxism and grievance feminism, the kind of unwholesome stew that is commonplace on elite college campuses.
Significantly, the term "remolding" -- unlike such terms as "reform" or "renew" -- reflects a sweeping rejection of society as it currently exists: family structure (too patriarchal), economic organization (favors the rich), social practices (discriminate against women and minorities), and so on. In other words, someone who believes that society needs to be "remolded" is someone who, at bottom, cannot see any good in the American way of life -- and someone who, if she could, would radically change that way of life. Who doubts that this describes Hillary Clinton?
Lest anyone think that a more mature and experienced Hillary Clinton has tempered her political objective, consider her recent speech in Concord, New Hampshire, at an event over Labor Day weekend that her campaign titled "Change We Need." In her speech, Hillary forthrightly declared: "I will bring my experience to the White House and begin to change our country starting on Day One." That's right: Change our country. As her official campaign website illustrates, Hillary means what she says.
Hillary is dangerous because she knows what she wants to do and how to go about doing it. She shares many of the beliefs that groups like MoveOn.org and Daily Kos do. But unlike them, she is smart enough to temper her message to hide her extremism.
Warshawsky goes on to highlight her effects on a few important issues. To read the rest of his article, click here.
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Written on September 12th, 2007 by adminno shouts
Betsy's Page blog reports that the Clinton campaign was warned about Norman Hsu awhile back, but did not heed those warnings.
The Los Angeles Times, that rightwing rag, revealed that the Clinton campaign had been warned that fundraiser Norman Hsu was involved in a suspicious ponzi scheme.
Before the announcement, new evidence surfaced that the Clinton camp had dismissed allegations about Hsu made by a Southern California businessman. In an e-mail obtained by The Times, a Clinton campaign staffer told a California Democratic Party official in June that the businessman's concerns were unwarranted.
"I can tell you with 100 certainty that Norman Hsu is NOT involved in a ponzi scheme," wrote Samantha Wolf, who was a campaign finance director for the Western states."He is COMPLETELY legit."
In fact, Hsu was a fugitive wanted on a 15-year-old bench warrant stemming from an early 1990s investment fraud case.
The businessman's query prompted Clinton staffers to review public records about Hsu, but no problems surfaced, the campaign source said. In part because of that incident, the campaign also announced Monday that it would institute more stringent procedures to vet major contributors, including running criminal background checks.
Whoops! Somebody goofed.
But wait, there's more...
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Written on September 12th, 2007 by adminno shouts
This story gets more interesting every day. Apparently, Norman Hsu reportedly ran off with a whole lot of money. Now what inquiring minds want to know is---where did it go?
Captain Ed over at Captain's Quarters takes a look see.
The following is an excerpt he took from the Wall Street Journal.
New documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal may help point to an answer: A company controlled by Mr. Hsu recently received $40 million from a Madison Avenue investment fund run by Joel Rosenman, who was one of the creators of the Woodstock rock festival in 1969. That money, Mr. Rosenman told investors this week, is missing.
Mr. Hsu told Mr. Rosenman the money would be used to manufacture apparel in China for Gucci, Prada and other private labels, yielding a 40% profit on each deal, according to a business plan obtained by the Journal. Now the investment fund, Source Financing Investors, says Mr. Hsu's company owes it the $40 million, which represents 37 separate deals with Mr. Hsu's company. When Source Financing recently attempted to cash checks from the company, Components Ltd., the investors say they were told the account held insufficient funds.
Source Financing's arrangement with Mr. Hsu's company, according to court documents and investor accounts, echoes an older matter that came to light in recent weeks. In 1991, California officials charged Mr. Hsu with grand theft for failing to repay investors for money he raised to import latex gloves from China.
Wow, what a crook! What the heck did Hsu do with that $40 million? Can you believe that a person like Hsu could be affiliated with Hillary and the Democratic party? ha ha... ;)
Here's more from Captain Ed..
The Hillary Clinton campaign can stop the cash from going back to the bundled contributors. If Hsu stole $40 million, it explains how all of these families of modest means could afford to contribute eye-popping sums to her campaign and others. It also means that the FBI and Rosenman will want the money back.
This puts a brand new spin on the story, and a very bad development for the people through whom Hsu pushed these contributions. At a minimum, the donors who bundled Hsu's money face potential election-finance violations. The feds could add money laundering to the list of charges -- and since the money got sent around via wire transfers, wire fraud will likely get included. Finally, if the wire transfers show complicity to deceive, all of the contributors who participated may find themselves in the middle of a RICO prosecution, which could mean lengthy stretches in federal prison for everyone.
Furthermore, that would put the Democratic candidates and the organizations in a very uncomfortable position. The FBI would want to know just what involvement they had in Hsu's theft and subsequent manipulations of cash. While it would be unlikely that Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Eliot Spitzer, the DSCC, and a host of other candidates and organizations would have knowingly approved embezzlement, some of their staff members could potentially have participated in the illegal activities that assisted it. In any case, it hardly paints the Democrats in a good light to have to answer depositions in a fraud involving the theft of $40 million, dragged out over the next several months.
Damn. Who's got the culture of corruption going now? This could potentially be the story that takes the Democrats "culture of corruption" line right out of their campaign vocabulary.
Also, if some on the left were afraid before that Hillary could cause them harm in a general election, you wonder what they must be thinking now?
This one's gonna hurt...
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Written on September 12th, 2007 by adminno shouts
Abc News reported yesterday that an upcoming Hillary Fundraiser is causing some controversy.
Just days after the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Hillary Clinton and several Democratic lawmakers will be getting uncomfortably cozy with moneyed interests who have stood to reap billions in post-9/11 homeland security spending, watchdog groups say.
On the sixth anniversary of the attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people, Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is slated to attend a sober memorial service near Manhattan's Ground Zero.
One week later, the junior New York senator is scheduled to speak at a homeland security-themed, $1,000-a-plate fundraiser for her campaign in the downtown Washington, D.C. offices of a powerful legal firm.
"Being a week after 9/11, it appears unseemly and politically opportunistic," said Steve Ellis, a former Coast Guard officer who is now vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington, D.C. good government group.
Clinton's fundraising audience is expected to include many of the government contractors and lobbyists whose fortunes have soared in the years since the attacks, which triggered a massive government reorganization and billions in new government spending.
But that's not the only objectionable feature of the event, critics say.
For the price of a ticket -- from a $1,000 personal donation to a $25,000 bundle –- attendees will get a special treat after the luncheon: an opportunity to participate in small, hour-long "breakout sessions" hosted by key Democratic lawmakers, many of whom chair important subcommittees on the Homeland Security committee.
Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.
"It's an outrage," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Washington, D.C. good-government group Project on Government Oversight.
"You never want to see lawmakers trading on their national security credentials...to people making large donations," Ellis concurred.
The break-out sessions include:
First Responders, with Reps. Henry Cuellar, Texas (chair, Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response Subcommittee of Homeland Security Committee) and Nita Lowey, N.Y. (Appropriations, Homeland Security Committee)
Intelligence and Information Sharing, with Reps. Jane Harman, Calif. (chair, Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment Subcommittee of Homeland Security Committee) and C. A. "Dutch" Ruppersburger, Md. (chair, Technical and Tactical Intelligence Subcommittee of intelligence committee)
Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism, with Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas (chair, Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee of Homeland Security Committee) and Jerrold Nadler, N.Y. (Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; Judiciary Committee)
Science and Technology, with Reps. Jim Langevin, R.I. (chair, Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, Science and Technology Subcommittee of Homeland Security Committee; intelligence committee) and Ellen Tauscher, Calif. (chair, Strategic Forces Subcommittee of Armed Services Committee)
National Security, with Reps. Kendrick Meek, Fla. (Armed Services Committee) and Joseph Sestak, Pa. (Armed Services Committee)
"Political fundraising should have no relationship to policy recommendations," said Brian, a former policy analyst for Congress. "Most of these [participants] are seasoned policymakers. How can they not see this as wrong?" It only made things worse, she said, that the event was centered around so sensitive and vital a topic as homeland security.
Some sites on the left, like this one for Barack N0-Bama, are taking Hillary to task.
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