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Ruth King

MAUREEN DOWD ON THE CLINTONS “MONEY, MONEY, MONEY” (AUGUST 2013)

WASHINGTON — CLINTON nostalgia is being replaced by Clinton neuralgia.

Why is it that America’s roil family always seems better in abstract than in concrete? The closer it gets to running the world once more, the more you are reminded of all the things that bugged you the last time around.

The Clintons’ neediness, their sense of what they are owed in material terms for their public service, their assumption that they’re entitled to everyone’s money.

Are we about to put the “For Rent” sign back on the Lincoln Bedroom?

If Americans are worried about money in politics, there is no larger concern than the Clintons, who are cosseted in a world where rich people endlessly scratch the backs of rich people.

They have a Wile E. Coyote problem; something is always blowing up. Just when the Clintons are supposed to be floating above it all, on a dignified cloud of do-gooding leading into 2016, pop-pop-pop, little explosions go off everywhere, reminding us of the troubling connections and values they drag around.
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There’s the continuing grotesque spectacle of Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin. And there’s the sketchy involvement of the Clintons’ most prolific fund-raiser, Terry McAuliffe, and Hillary’s brother Tony Rodham in a venture, GreenTech Automotive; it’s under federal investigation and causing fireworks in Virginia, where McAuliffe is running for governor.

Many Israelis were disgusted to learn that Bill Clinton was originally scheduled to scarf up $500,000 to speak at the Israeli president Shimon Peres’s 90th birthday festivities in June. I guess being good friends with Peres and brokering the accord that won Peres the Nobel Peace Prize were not reasons enough for Bill to celebrate. The Israeli branch of the Jewish National Fund had agreed to donate half a mil to the Clinton foundation. Isn’t the J.N.F. “supposed to plant trees with donor cash?” Haaretz chided before the fund pulled back. “I guess money does grow on trees.”
I never thought I’d have to read the words Ira Magaziner again. But the man who helped Hillary torpedo her own health care plan is back.

In a Times article last week headlined “Unease at Clinton Foundation Over Finances and Ambitions,” Nicholas Confessore and Amy Chozick offered a compelling chronicle about an internal review of the rechristened Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation that illuminated the fungible finances and tensions between Clinton loyalists and the foundation architects Magaziner and Doug Band, former bag carrier for President Clinton.

Inside Look at Princeton’s Israel Divestment Failure: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Despite all the rhetorical flourishes, humanitarian concern about Palestinian Arabs is not the motivating factor behind divestment. At bottom, the measures are driven by hatred of Israel.

In a college-wide vote, Princeton university undergraduates voted against a resolution to divest funds from Israeli companies or certain companies that are used in Israel. The ballot closed on April 22, and the results were announced on Friday, April 26.

The proposal lost with 52.5 percent voting against it and 47.5 percent voting in favor.

Iran Legislative Compromises may Cause Nuclear Explosion in Washington By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

This week the U.S. Senate will meet to discuss what input Congress will have before sanctions imposed on Iran for violating a slew of U.N. Resolutions regarding its nuclear program can be lifted.

The offerings of amendments by various senators – whether for wholly ideological reasons, for presidential campaign purposes, or a combination and perhaps other factors – may result in a nuclear explosion of a whole other sort than the one the entire process was created to circumvent, and this one entirely within Washington, D.C.

The legislation formally known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, and informally as the Corker or the Corker-Menendez bill, was unanimously approved and voted out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month.

The INARA which came out of committee imposed a change on the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Until then, Congress played no role.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: THE WEST IS TOO COWED BY GUILT TO LOOK HONESTLY AT IMMIGRATION

The West is too cowed by guilt to look honestly at immigration.

Is immigrating from less-developed countries to the West a good or a bad thing, for host and guest? Is the immigrant angry at, or nostalgic for, the country he left? Is he thankful to or resentful of the country he has come to? Does the Westerner know why the other seeks him out or why he himself chooses not to emigrate to the non-West? These questions and dozens like them are not so much never answered as never even asked.
The result is chaos. Thousands of refugees from the mess in North and East Africa are hiring smugglers to ship them across the Mediterranean into the southern ports of Europe — often with tragic results, as boats sink and passengers drown. Any visitor to Athens quickly notices that tens of thousands of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Albanians have arrived illegally in Greece in hopes of reaching more prosperous Western European countries.

‘Space’ to Riot: Baltimore’s Mayor Writes a License for Lawlessness by Ian Tuttle

At his Friday press conference, Malik Z. Shabazz, itinerant inciter of outrage from the Washington, D.C.–based Black Lawyers for Justice, warned Baltimore that, to protest the mysterious death of Freddie Gray, “a wave will roll downtown to City Hall.”

He forgot to mention that it was a crime wave. In a 79-second clip filmed by a female Russia Today reporter, one young man (“Rest in peace to my man, Freddie G”) is joined by two other young men (“F*** the police”), who are joined by several other young men, each of whom, shouting, displays his middle finger to the camera. It takes just seconds for a dozen young men, likely more, to gather; they push against the camera, yell, and flash their own middle fingers.

Then, suddenly, the camera drops, the men scatter, and the RT camerawoman gives chase to a young man, shouting, frantically, “Give it back!” He has stolen her handbag. It’s harrowing footage. It’s also representative of this weekend in Baltimore, where hundreds of individuals honored the deceased Freddie Gray by throwing trashcans, smashing storefronts, blocking traffic, brawling in the streets, and perpetrating general mayhem. The only thing missing was a blazing Quiktrip.

DICK MORRIS: MYTHS AND FACTS ABOUT HILLARY (FROM MAY 2007)

Facts are always tougher and more revealing than rumors.

Bill Clinton’s loving wife… By Dick Morris former political adviser to President Bill Clinton.

If you happen to see the Bill Clinton 5-minute TV ad for Hillary in which he introduces the commercial by saying he wants to share some things we may not know about Hillary’s background, beware. As I was there for most of their presidency and know them better than just about anyone, I offer a few corrections.

Bill says: “In law school, Hillary worked on legal services for the poor.”

The facts are: Hillary’s main extra-curricular activity in law school was helping the Black Panthers, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a federal agent. She went to court every day as part of a law student monitoring committee trying to spot civil rights violations and develop grounds for appeal.

Bill says: “Hillary spent a year after graduation working on a children’s rights project for poor kids.”

The facts are: Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party. She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take an internship with him.

The Sunni Coalition By Herbert London

It was merely a question of time before Sunni brethren struck back. The recent attacks in Yemen by the Saudi airforce in conjunction with Egypt, Qatar, UAE, Bakrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey and Sudan were united in delivering message with devastating clarity to Iran. The presumptive target? Houthi militants that overran the government with the active involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. In forging this joint Sunni military force the Saudis were saying there will be systematic opposition to the Iranian plan for hegemonic status in the region. Yemen’s fall was the final straw.

The attack was also a repudiation of the U.S. rapproachment with Iran. In effect, the Sunni states were saying a Persian empire will not be tolerated even if it has American approval. The Obama administration decision to withdraw military presence from the Middle East has led to a vacuum filled until now by Iranian special forces. This Saudi-led strike in Yemen is a new chapter in this on-going saga. Sunni nations that may have had their differences in the past are now seemingly united for the security of the region and purposely poised to challenge Iranian imperial ambitions.

The Real Elephant in Hillary’s Scandal-Plagued Room By Joan Swirsky ****

It took the socialists and communists – today known as progressives – nearly one-hundred years to implant one of their own in the Oval Office. One could include their ideological soul mates, the jihadists among us, since the dream they all have in common is to transform and/or to destroy America.

The leftist precursors to Barack Obama, of course, were the Clintons (“two for the price of one,” as Bill promised in 1992). Yes, Bill was blindsided – no doubt Hillary thought hornswoggled – when then-Minority Whip Newt Gingrich and Congressman Richard Armey introduced sweeping reforms in their Contract with America, and converted the midterm elections of 1994 into a thunderous Republican victory.

Obama’s Dreams of Texas and Beyond: Edward Cline

In this exercise in satire, I reveal Barack Obama’s plans for Texas and the rest of the country.
Russian hackers who snuck into President Obama’s unclassified computer system at the White House inadvertently sent some of their booty to all sorts of people around the globe. Including to me. I don’t think they meant to, but some hacker’s fingers probably strayed and included me in the privileged few. And I don’t even speak Russian!

In her April 7th report, “Russian hackers got Obama’s schedule in White House cyberattack” in The Hill, Elise Viebeck wrote:

Russian hackers who hit the White House infiltrated an unclassified computer system and apparently accessed details about President Obama’s schedule.

While the White House previously sought to downplay the seriousness of the hack, which took place last year, the intruders were able to see information about the president that was not publicly available, CNN reported Tuesday.

Hillary, Iran, and The Clinton Foundation by Rachel Ehrenfeld

Until on November 20, 2008, then Senator Hillary Clinton ardently opposed direct talks with the terrorist Republic of Iran, favored increased sanctions and stated that any attempt of direct talks with Iran, is “irresponsible and frankly naïve.”

However, to become Obama’s Secretary of State she changed her tune and agreed to “low level talks” with Iran.

On January 1, 2009, Forbes was first to publish my Clinton’s Iranian Connection, reporting that on Dec. 19, 2008, at 2pm, the New York based Iranian government’s Alavi Foundation, which “reported directly” to the Supreme Leader, contributed between $25,000 and $50,000 to the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Earlier that very same day, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted the president of the Alavi Foundation, Farshid Jahedi, “on a charge of obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying documents required to be produced under a grand jury subpoena concerning the Alavi Foundation’s relationship with Bank Melli Iran and the ownership of a Manhattan office building.”