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when I started to write Clinton, Inc: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, I knew the reaction to expect. I was well aware that the former (and perhaps future) first family and its massive retinue of loyalty enforcers, professional defamers and assorted gadflies would rue my intent to examine the real Clintons—especially in my search for the real Chelsea Clinton, who until now has been a media-protected nonperson despite her aggressive public activities on her family’s behalf and despite raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from her role as former first daughter. MSNBC’s David Shuster learned this the...

Halper believes that the Clintons’ effort to in effect keep their friends close while turning enemies into friends has been a masterful and hugely overlooked part of the rebuilding of their machine: "What has been little understood in the past decade, from 2001 to the present, is how successfully the Clintons undertook a systematic, comprehensive, and sustained effort to win over leaders in the GOP, especially figures who were once the biggest critics. In return, both Clintons were able to develop a bipartisan, statesmanlike image that had eluded them through eight years in the White House."

Bill Clinton doesn't want his wife to win the U.S. presidency, according to sources cited in an explosive new book about the $100 million conglomerate that the Clintons have become since they left the White House. The former president is 'deeply conflicted' about the idea, writes Daniel Halper in 'Clinton Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine,' a well-sourced and easy-reading book released Tuesday. A former senior adviser to President Clinton told Halper that if Mrs. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic favorite, should become president, 'Clinton's f***ed.'

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Former House Democrat Pat Schroeder predicts that Hillary Clinton would face "a lot of sexism" if she decides to run for president in 2016. Schroeder served in the House from 1973 to 1997 as the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado. Now 73, she appears in "Makers: Women in Politics," a film airing this fall on PBS. She was asked about Clinton on Tuesday at a summer TV critics' meeting. "She's still going to have a lot of sexism," Schroeder said. "I can't believe there's people saying can she still be a grandmother and...

It seems almost too obvious to mention, but presidential candidates need a clear idea of why they want to be president. In the past few days, Democrats have heard that their still-undeclared front runner, Hillary Clinton, needs time to think about the question. Meanwhile, another undeclared hopeful, Elizabeth Warren, is thrilling liberal audiences with a forceful, point-by-point declaration of the principles that would guide her as president. The contrast is striking. Clinton is offering Democrats her resume. Warren is offering them a plan.

Bill Clinton's mistress has been nicknamed 'Energizer' by his security staff, a new book alleges. Ronald Kessler's 'The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of Presidents,' excerpts of which were obtained by the New York Post's Richard Johnson, makes the claim. One excerpt includes a quote from a source that revealed 'Energizer' has no problem getting inside the Clintons' Chappaqua, New York home.

You can’t exactly accuse someone who just finished a book tour of hiding, but Hillary Clinton certainly is ducking a lot of questions. And that’s understandable, because she would have a lot of problems coming up with answers that wouldn’t hurt her prospects for the presidency. At the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin notes: Maggie Haberman of Politico confirms first that Hillary Clinton is entirely inaccessible to the media and second that none of those denied access thought it important to let the public know Clinton is hiding from questions. Haberman observed, “What has been really striking about Hillary Clinton’s book...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that the U.S. and Europe should work together to develop tougher sanctions on Russia while she backed President Barack Obama's calls for a thorough investigation into the passenger jet that was shot down last week over Ukraine. Clinton said in a Facebook chat from the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, that tougher sanctions would make clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin "that there is a price to pay for this kind of behavior." The former secretary of state said she agreed with Obama's comments earlier Monday urging "immediate and full access"...

The Washington Post's reporting brought down Richard Nixon. On Sunday, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wondered if it could do the same to President Barack Obama regarding his lawlessness on illegal immigration. Palin, who called for Obama to be impeached on the pages of Breitbart News, demanded in a Facebook post that Congress get answers to two questions: "What did the President know and when did he know it?" Palin mentioned that the Washington Post had a blockbuster piece on Saturday about how “top officials at the White House and the State Department had repeatedly been warned of the potential...

A majority of voters are unimpressed with Hillary Clinton’s performance as secretary of state, according to a new POLITICO poll. Just 14 percent described her time at State — she served four years ending in February 2013 — as “excellent,” while 28 percent defined it as “good.” Twenty-one percent called it “fair,” and 32 percent rated her performance “poor.” Six percent weren’t sure or declined to answer. The survey of likely voters in states and districts with the most competitive House and Senate races was conducted this month as Clinton traveled around the country to promote her new memoir, “Hard...

While it might have initially appeared that the deputy counsel to the president of the United States was taking a nap in a park—lying neatly face-up on a steep embankment with his feet pointing down—Vincent W. Foster Jr. was not napping. He was dead. Dressed in expensive trousers and a white dress shirt, less than eight miles from the White House, he was lying dead. A single gun-shot wound to the head. Dead. Some of the blood on Foster’s face was still wet, but starting to dry. A trail of blood flowed upwards from his nose to above his ear.[1]...

Hillary Clinton thanked the Republican establishment and its big business allies for taking on the Tea Party and defeating conservative candidates like Chris McDaniel in Mississippi's June runoff.

A Chinese businessman paid $500,000 to have dinner with Bill and Hillary Clinton. But when he asked if his kids could join, the former first couple demanded another half-million, the New York Post reports. One witness said Holzman regaled guests with a tale that “lunch for two with Bill and Hillary went for $500,000 to benefit the Clinton Foundation.” And the winning bid came from “a Chinese business mogul who then asked if he could bring his two children along to the meeting.” But, our spy said, the high bidder was then told by the Clinton camp he could only...

CNN: the home for hate-filled rants against conservatives. On the July 16 edition of New Day, a panel reacted to Jake Tapper’s testy interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney. Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Paul Begala became unhinged, resorting to personal attacks on Cheney in response to his explanations of the Iraq war. Asked by host Kate Bolduan as to why Cheney is speaking out right now – as if the chaos in Iraq didn’t make that self-evident – Begala snapped: “Well, either he's a secret plant from my party, reminding people of an administration that they hated. When...

The contrast between the two women couldn't be sharper. Hillary is the ultimate political insider, taking $20 million from Wall Street, including $5 million from Goldman Sachs. In two recent speeches to Goldman -- at $200,000 a pop -- Hillary spoke about why big banks shouldn't be blamed for the financial crisis. "We're all in this together," she reportedly told them. Hillary's political campaigns have been financed by Wall Street. Her family foundation is underwritten by banks, corporations and foreign governments. Even as secretary of state, she aggressively lobbied for major U.S. corporations -- like Boeing -- to get lucrative...

The media talked endlessly about Citigroup’s $7 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice yesterday. A colleague at work complained “But it should have been double or triple that amount!” I asked if he had read the complaint. No, he said, he heard the news from his wife who watches MSNBC. First, here is DOJ’s announcement of the $7 billion settlement. Second, here is the complaint. Citi_Mortgage_Complaint-in-intervention Read it for yourself without editorial comments from people who just read the headline. Bear in mind that the complaint is just one side of the story (Justice’s). Of the $7 billion...

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) - The Pulaski County Sheriff's Water Patrol Unit, in addition to Little Rock and North Little Rock Fire Departments responded to the Arkansas River for reports of a body in the water. Authorities say the body is that of a Little Rock man who was reported missing on July 10.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) believes he can beat Hillary Clinton in the race for the 2016 presidency. "Multiple people can beat her. Hillary Clinton is not unbeatable," the GOP presidential hopeful told radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview Friday.

Following the stunning revelation last month that NBC News had paid special correspondent Chelsea Clinton a starting annual salary of $600,000, on Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the former first daughter was also getting paid $75,000 per appearance by the Clinton Foundation. Conflict of interest anyone? Clinton spokesman Kamyl Bazbaz assured the Times that "100 percent of the fees are remitted directly to the foundation." So the money goes back into the foundation run by her and her family. A calculation by Business Insider concluded that given Chelsea's limited air time on NBC, she made over $26,000 per...

More than half of the country has a message for former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin: enough. That's the result from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll in which 54 percent of voters say they've heard enough from Palin and would prefer that she be less outspoken in political debates. That includes nearly two-thirds of Democrats, a majority of independents, and even nearly four-in-10 Republicans. And the results come as Palin has called for President Barack Obama's impeachment. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)But Palin isn't the only former politician voters wish would stay away from politics. Fifty-one percent of voters say they've heard...

There is a new Clinton paid to deliver speeches — Chelsea, the former first daughter — and she is commanding as much as $75,000 per appearance. Aides stressed that while Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton often address trade groups and Wall Street bankers, Ms. Clinton, now 34, focuses on organizations whose goals are in line with the work of the family’s philanthropic organization, the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Organizers said her star power helped sell tickets and raise money.

Hillary Clinton's tour promoting her book Hard Choices may be having an effect—though perhaps not the one the 66-year-old former secretary of state might have wanted. A new poll of the potential 2016 presidential field from Quinnipiac, conducted at the end of June, found support for Clinton among Democratic primary voters at 58 percent. That's an 11-point drop from an ABC News/Washington Post poll of the potential Democratic field—conducted in late May, before Hard Choices was released

"I called it…John Brennan’s “iron claw”: he came down on Director Petraeus with an “iron claw” to prevent him from investigating what appears to have been John Brennan’s own arms trafficking. Look, when the president’s top advisor for counterterrorism engages in operational activity overseas — because that’s what this appears to be — that is a violation of the National Security Act of 1947. That’s exactly what they tried to convict Oliver North of doing during the Iran-Contra affair. The biggest difference of course between Iran-Contra and Benghazi is that nobody died during the Iran-Contra affair, and here there are...

Below is the academic proposition by some scholars in the US to the Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The letter was copied to Ambassador Johnnie Carson, then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Their argument, put forward in strong terms, is that the Jamaatu Ahlil Sunna Lidawati wal Jihad, otherwise known as Boko Haram, should not be slammed with the designation of a FOREIGN TERROR ORGANISATION, FTO. Dated Monday, May 21, 2012, the position of the scholars is frowned at by the leaders of Nigeria’s Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN. Yet, their forceful case against the designation appears...

Impressed by the ill-informed hysterical reaction that my “real me” Facebook friends had to the Hobby Lobby decision, I explained to them that the decision is very narrow and will not (a) ban contraceptives across America and (b) lead to anti-gay lynch mobs. Here’s a slightly revised version of my Facebook post, which still failed to satisfy their paranoia and inability to understand the law. I’ve also added a little hypothetical that might open their minds. (No, don’t say it. It’s improbable, but not impossible, that a DemProg mind can open). The Hobby Lobby decision addresses one thing only: whether...

So, the Won’s are stiffing Hillary, Bill and Joey in favor of a mini-me ideologue of dubious provenance. Who, other than see-all, know-it-all mirror, could have seen that one coming? And I don’t mind saying I told you so because it gives me an opportunity to do summer reruns from the vault.From June 15, 2012: Channeling our inner Cherokee: a social contract story “You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us...

ISIS marching through Iraq has smashed the media’s taboo against criticizing Obama’s foreign policy. Substantive discussions are taking place about why his foreign policy is such a miserable failure. And they mostly miss the point. Liberal journalists still proceed from the fallacy that there was a foreign policy debate between neo-conservative interventionists and liberal non-interventionists. These are a series of digested Bush era talking points that have no relationship to reality since Bush’s foreign policy on Iraq carried over from Bill Clinton. It’s why Hillary gets so uncomfortable when she has to discuss her vote on Iraq. The liberals weren’t...

Filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and Georgetown University professor of sociology Michael Eric Dyson argued Sunday over Hillary Clinton’s connection to Saul Alinsky, with D’Souza saying Clinton is steeped in Alinsky’s ideas and Dyson saying she barely retained any of the radical left-wing theorist’s ideas. “A lot of people think Hillary is like Bill; they go, ‘We kinda want Billary back in the White House,’” D’Souza said in an appearance on ABC’s This Week alongside Dyson, who appears in D’Souza’s new film, America: Imagine a World Without Her. But D’Souza pointed out that — in sharp contrast to Bill Clinton’s flexible and...

“All of the fees have been donated to the Clinton Foundation." Hillary Clinton told ABC News on Friday that all of the speaking fees she has amassed since being Secretary of State have been donated to her favorite nonprofit foundation… The Clinton Foundation, Christian Science Monitor reports. Clinton has taken a lot of heat over the past several weeks after declaring that her and her husband Bill were "dead broke" after leaving the White House as president and first lady. No one believed her statement while knowing that she receives hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak at colleges, universities,...

[...]If Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush were to become president of the United States it would mean the power and influence of the presidency remained in the hands of the Clinton family for possibly sixteen years, and that’s not even counting the princess in waiting, Chelsea; and in the case of the Bush family, possibly twenty years, and that’s not counting the heir apparent, George Prescott Bush. Have we devolved into a nation of bleating sheep, or screaming teenagers at an episode of American Idol? Can it be true that there are no other citizens in this great nation worthy of...

Hillary Clinton continued to justify her high-dollar speaking fees on Friday, telling ABC News' Ann Compton that all of the money she's made from colleges over the past year and a half has been donated to her family's foundation. "All of the fees have been donated to the Clinton Foundation for it to continue its life-changing and life-saving work. So it goes from a foundation at a university to another foundation," Clinton said when asked about the criticism she and her husband have faced recently for their wealth. Hillary Clinton reportedly makes roughly $200,000 for each speaking engagement. And recent...

When “Hard Choices,” Hillary Rodham Clinton’s memoir of her time at the State Department, came out in early June, the book — and subsequent book tour — were touted as the first steps in the inevitable 2016 presidential bid by the nation’s former top diplomat. If that’s what they are, Clinton may be in for some tough times. The past few days tell the story. Even as Clinton was prepping for the European leg of her book tour, she was dogged by two recurring and not-so-good headlines.

Hillary Clinton continued to justify her high-dollar speaking fees on Friday, telling ABC News’ Ann Compton that all of the money she’s made from colleges over the past year and a half has been donated to her family’s foundation. “All of the fees have been donated to the Clinton Foundation for it to continue its life-changing and life-saving work. So it goes from a foundation at a university to another foundation,” Clinton said when asked about the criticism she and her husband have faced recently for their wealth. Hillary Clinton reportedly makes roughly $200,000 for each speaking engagement. And recent...

Mrs Clinton confused names of political parties in interview with BBC. Said Tories and Conservatives were opponents in Houses of Parliament. Names actually refer to the same party, Labour being the other main party. Gaffe is particularly embarrassing given she was former Secretary of State . ... Clinton suggested that the Conservatives and Tories were opponents, when in fact the two names refer to the same party. The gaffe is particularly embarrassing for Clinton as she used to be Secretary of State, and so is expected to have extensive knowledge of foreign affairs. ... Sales of Mrs Clinton's book have...

Richard Mellon Scaife, the billionaire publisher and banking heir who financed conservative causes that included attempts to discredit Bill Clinton while he was president, has died. He was 82. Scaife's death on Friday followed his disclosure less than two months ago that he had terminal cancer, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, one of his newspapers. He was heir to the banking, oil and aluminum fortunes of the Mellon family and used his estimated $1.4 billion wealth to underwrite conservative crusades and groups that included the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.

Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh philanthropist and reclusive heir to the Mellon banking fortune, whose support for right-wing causes laid the foundations for America’s modern conservative movement and fueled the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, died on Friday. He was 82. Mr. Scaife’s death was reported by the The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a newspaper he owned. He had announced recently that he had cancer. Decades before David and Charles Koch bankrolled right-wing causes, Mr. Scaife and Joseph Coors, the beer magnate, were the leading financiers of the conservative crusade of the 1970s and ’80s, seeking to reverse the liberal traditions...

Vice President Biden is doing everything he can to make sure people don’t forget that it’s not just Hillary Clinton who has an interest in the White House in 2016. He does, too. After Clinton struggled to contain criticism of her lofty personal finances, there was Biden last week, highlighting his every-man status.

Hillary is a bald eagle. She’s an apple pie on a windowsill. She’s so American that she was named after both Washington and Lincoln.After all those criticisms about the formerly broke, currently “not truly well off� First Lady, Hillary Clinton got the chance to lay out her vision at the Aspen Festival of Ideas. “We have to do a better job of getting our economy growing again and producing results and renewing the American Dream so Americans feel they have a stake in the future and that the economy and political system is not stacked against them,’ Clinton said. What...

At least eight universities, including four public institutions, have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for Hillary Rodham Clinton to speak on their campuses over the past year, sparking a backlash from some student groups and teachers at a time of austerity in higher education. In one previously undisclosed transaction, the University of Connecticut — which just raised tuition by 6.5 percent — paid $251,250 for Clinton to speak on campus in April. Other examples include $300,000 to address UCLA in March and $225,000 for a speech scheduled to occur in October at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas....

Hillary Clinton is the clear frontrunner at this very early point in the 2016 presidential race and, after the midterm elections, the pro-life movement will undoubtedly bring up a laundry list of her pro-abortion actions and comments. Here is something that will undoubtedly be added to the list.The potential presidential candidate proves in her response to the Supreme Court’s decision protecting Hobby Lobby from the Obama HHS mandate that she really has no fundamental understanding of what the case was about.John McCormack of the Weekly Standard breaks it down: On Monday evening, Hillary Clinton said that she found the Supreme...

The Benghazi Brief – “Operation Zero Footprint” – What We Know About The Benghazi Mission, And Subsequent Attack… As with all complex stories the valuable discoveries come with time. We now have a pretty good understanding of who, what, where, and why surrounding the 9/11/12 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi Libya. We are also better positioned to understand why, or perhaps more importantly why not, certain actions were taken before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the attack itself. ***** Within months after delivering weapons to the Benghazi and Darnah rebels (May, June and July 2011) we...

It's a crisis. Costs are skyrocketing for this faster than anything else. Something has to be done. Health care? No. Education. Educational costs are rising faster than a Delta weather rocket. The ballooning costs of higher education dwarfs the increased costs of health care: We're being drained for educational expenditures- what do we get for it? Less and less. And yet, somehow the United States continues to lag the world in education. This is a lousy return on investment. Let's have a look as to why the costs of education are exploding. 1. Fauxchohontas Schools pay educators to teach one...

Chelsea Clinton, the former and potential future first daughter, has stiff competition for the title of Most Tactless Human. Greedy reality-TV creature Kim Kardashian is a contender. Chelsea’s mom, the once “dead broke” Hillary Rodham Clinton, might rank even higher on the scale of bad taste. Chelsea, 34, has jabbered like an overeducated trailer-park habitué about her family’s No. 1 obsession — money. The millionairess, pregnant with her and millionaire hedge-funder hubby Marc Mezvinsky’s first child, told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper this month that she’s made a strenuous effort to care about cash. But she just couldn’t bother with the green...

A Hillary Clinton speech in Las Vegas will cost the University of Nevada $225,000. That fee leaves Mitt Romney in the dust, and as voters shift their views of the presumed presidential candidate, it has focused more attention on her finances. There's nothing particularly unusual about Hillary Rodham Clinton's $225,000 fee for her upcoming speech at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. In March, the University of California at Los Angeles paid $300,000 for a similar event with Mrs. Clinton, ...

Former congressman and Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin on Wednesday called Hillary Clinton “hypocritical” for defending an accused child rapist in 1975. “It is incredibly hypocritical that Hillary Clinton would carry on about an imagined ‘Republican war on women’ when she once got a child rapist off the hook who she knew to be guilty, and laughed about how she did it when interviewed,” Akin told the Daily Mail in an interview published Wednesday. “In the process, she delegitimized the legitimate claims of the 12-year-old victim and then slandered the victim to justify her tactics.”

IN VINO VERITAS? A combination of booze and bad blood bubbled up into a boatload of bile when Hillary Clinton got asked her real feelings about Barack Obama, according to the new book that’s blowing the lid off the “Team of Rivals” image Obama and Clinton projected for four years.According to the New York Post, the gossipy tell-all “Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. The Obamas,” includes the story of the night Hillary spilled her guts during a wine-infused gathering at a café in Westchester, N.Y. in May 2013.“When her friends asked Hillary to tell them what she thought — really...

Hillary Clinton might be hoping no one buys “Nixon’s Secrets” — Roger Stone’s new book marking the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal. SNIP “Hillary’s lies and unethical behavior goes back farther — and goes much deeper — than anyone realizes,” Zeifman told Fox News in 2008. When asked why he fired Clinton, Zeifman responded, “Because she is a liar.”

Bill Maher took on Hillary Clinton‘s big book tour/2016 pre-campaign and amid the mockery of Clinton downplaying how well-off her family is (he sarcastically sympathized with someone emerging “from the financial rut that is the U.S. presidency”), Maher had some advice for the soon-to-be-official presidential candidate: go away. Contrary to people saying that doing the book tour now will inoculate her from criticism in 2016, Maher said Clinton being constantly on TV and in the news will give way to a different result; namely, “we’re sick of you.” And people will grow tired of her by 2016 anyway.

Hillary Clinton's new memoir "Hard Choices" has been denied translation and English-language distribution in China, her publisher, Simon & Schuster, told NBC News on Friday. A day after the book hit shelves in the U.S., Shanghai Book Traders, which supplies foreign books to Amazon China, told executives at Simon & Schuster that the title would not be approved for sale in the country, Buzzfeed first reported. Simon & Schuster president Jonathan Karp said he hopes Chinese publishers change their minds. “As Secretary Clinton writes in the book, some of the hardest choices facing China today regard protecting human rights and...

Over seven frenetic days, Bill Clinton addressed corporate executives....His pay: $1.4 million....Bill Clinton has been paid $104.9 million for 542 speeches around the world....the majority of his speaking income, $56.3 million, came from foreign speeches, many of them in China, Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom, the Post review found....The financial industry has been Clinton’s most frequent sponsor....Hillary Clinton has followed her husband and a roster of recent presidents and secretaries of state in this profitable line of work...executives familiar with the engagements said her standard fee is $200,000 and up, and that she has been in higher demand than...