Posted on 06/20/2007 11:12:04 PM PDT by Politicalmom
Barring the calamitous, former United States senator from Tennessee Fred Thompson will be the next president of the United States.
Thompson's masterful use of the online interview – a vastly smarter and cheaper way of campaigning for those with something to say – has all but secured him the Republican nomination.
In the general election, in a fair fight, either Obama or Hillary – or Gore for that matter–will have a hard time winning any five states against Thompson.
But for Hillary at least, it is too late in the game to fight fair. Desperation will push her and her soulless minions to fight otherwise. No fool, Thompson knows what he is up against.
In 1997, then-Sen. Thompson chaired a committee that investigated what he rightly called "the most corrupt political campaign in modern history." Hillary's fingerprints were all over that campaign.
Beginning early in 1995, the Clintons launched an unprecedented series of expensive, untruthful, arguably illegal TV ads. For cover, they laundered the campaign through the Democratic National Committee.
According to Clinton adviser Dick Morris, Hillary signed off on everything. The media, true to form, chose not to notice the ads or their financing. Here, the Thompson Committee report proves instructive:
The president and his aides demeaned the offices of the president and vice president, took advantage of minority groups, pulled down all the barriers that would normally be in place to keep out illegal contributions, pressured policy-makers, and left themselves open to strong suspicion that they were selling not only access to high-ranking officials, but policy as well. Millions of dollars were raised in illegal contributions, much of it from foreign sources.
Johnny Chung, who admitted funneling $100,000 from the Chinese military to the DNC, would tell the Thompson Committee: "The White House is like a subway: You have to put in coins to open the gates."
No one understood this investment opportunity better than James and Moctar Riady, an ethnic Chinese father-and-son team who ran the powerful Indonesian firm the Lippo Group.
The Riadys had sensed Clinton's sleaze potential back in Arkansas and bailed out his 1992 primary campaign at it shakiest moment. As a quid pro quo, the Riadys sought a job for their "man in America," John Huang.
Aware of his many talents, the DNC put Huang on its "must consider" list. And what were Huang's talents? A letter sent by an Asian outreach advocate on the stationery of David Roberti, the president pro tem of the California state Senate, was frank to a fault.
"John is the Riady family's top priority for placement because he is like one of their own." The Riady family, in case anyone needed reminding, "invested heavily in the Clinton campaign."
Huang ended up in Ron Brown's Commerce Department as a deputy assistant secretary. Curiously, he got the job on the same day embattled Clinton aide Webster Hubbell got a $100,000 check from a Riady company, and Hubbell "rolled over" once more.
Brown confidante Nolanda Hill would tell ABC's "Prime Time Live," according to Brown, "the White House put [Huang] there," and in this instance, added Hill, "The White House meant Hillary Clinton."
Whoever was responsible, Huang went to Commerce not to advance America's interests but those of the Riadys and, by extension, those of China.
"Over the past five years," reads the Thompson report, "the Lippo Group has shifted its strategic center from Indonesia to the People's Republic of China." Those five years, by the way, backdated to 1992, the year of Clinton's election.
On one particularly revealing occasion, Huang left a CIA briefing at the Commerce Department and walked across the street where, according to the Thompson Committee, he had "a secret office."
This office was located within the larger offices of Stephens Inc., the Little Rock-based investment-banking firm with which the Riadys and the Clintons had a long relationship. There, in private, Huang proceeded to place a three-hour call to his former employer, the Lippo Group.
Lippo had a lot at stake. The CIA briefing concerned the development by an international consortium of a massive coal-fired power plant in Indonesia called the Paiton plant.
The Lippo Group just happened to control one of the only two commercially viable low-sulfur coal mines in the world, this one conveniently located near the Paiton plant.
At the Clintons' urging, Ron Brown helped put the Paiton deal together, and the various players thanked him profusely for his help. Among the players, as usual during these years, was the Enron Corporation.
What happens next on the American end of this saga raises a host of troubling questions. The CNN.com report on the day it happened, Sept. 18, 1996, well captures the general tenor of the reporting.
"Clinton Declares Utah Canyons A National Monument," reads the headline.
CNN's Wolf Blitzer reported that using the Grand Canyon as "his picture perfect backdrop," Clinton "unilaterally" declared a new 1.7 million-acre national monument 70 miles away in southern Utah.
"We're saying, very simply, our parents and grandparents saved the Grand Canyon for us," Clinton told the cheering crowd. "Today, we will save the Grand Escalante Canyons and the Kaiparowitz Plateaus of Utah for our children."
To his credit, Blitzer did not shy from the implicit controversy. He reported the people of Utah were "furious." They claimed it was "a land grab" by the federal government "at the economic expense of the state."
The rationale for the move puzzled Blitzer as Clinton already had the environmental vote, and there were many safer gestures he could have made with less than two months left in the campaign.
Blitzer raised the issue of coal, perhaps $1 trillion worth of clean, low-sulfur coal that would never be mined. Just the year before Utah had approved an environmental-friendly mining contract on the Kaiparowitz Plateau with Dutch-owned Andalex Resources.
Said Clinton of this grand environmental gesture, "We can't have mines everywhere, and we shouldn't have mines that threaten our national treasures."
No, not everywhere, just in Indonesia. In a stroke of the pen, Clinton had handed the Riadys a monopoly on the world's supply of low-sulfur coal.
One does not need to be a conspiracy theorist to connect the dots between Utah and Indonesia. The FBI had made the connection as well. Consider the following field notes from an FBI interview with Huang:
Huang laughed in response to questions concerning j. riady's interest in Utah coal restrictions. j. riady's coal interests were minimal. Indonesia had significant infrastructure problems which prohibited the development of its coal resources.
Huang was lying. The Riadys had a powerful interest, and they would exploit it for all it was worth. In fact, at the Paiton plant, the price of the coal exceeded the price of the electricity produced.
In 1999, PLN, the state Indonesian power company, sued the Clinton administration. Its attorneys charged U.S. officials knew the Paiton power plant contract to be awash in "corruption, collusion and nepotism" from the beginning.
By this time, though, James Riady had fled the country, and Huang had pled the fifth.
Worse, Huang's immediate boss, Charles Meissner, and Meissner's boss, Ron Brown, had died in the "inexplicable" crash of an Air Force CT-43A on a Croatian hillside.
Yes, Fred, watch out for the calamitous.
I’m not completely sure that my dates are right, but I think he was elected to the Senate AFTER she got the raw FBI files. The Clintons have used them often to shut up the opposition. Bob Livingstone, Henry Hyde, Newt maybe. There is a good possibility she doesn’t yet have trash information on Fred, and maybe there isn’t anything there. Not everyone has skeletons in the closet.
Huh? Jimmy Carter was a one-term governor of a very (at that time) backward Georgia. Reagan had served two terms as governor of the largest state in the union... a state with an economy the size of Japan's at the time. Reagan's 8 years as Chief Executive of California was the best possible experience a political leader could have had -- and it served him very well in the presidency. Please: add a barf alert before you ever even suggest something positive about Jimmy "I'll Never Lie to Ya" Carter, even in jest or hyperbole.
No offense? I feel offended by posts like yours. It has already been talked about on this thread, perhaps you haven’t read the thread yet.
If you like Duncan Hunter, post a thread on Duncan Hunter and talk about all his good traits. I don’t like it when people come on a Fred thread to trash Fred, then say something about another candidate.
I like Duncan Hunter but I really don’t like some of the people who post about him. It turns me off and makes me less likely to vote for him. I won’t be able to get enthused enough to campaign for Hunter or contribute to his campaign if this stuff keeps up. You really did not need to say that.
I’m with Fred.
Utah still has the world’s largest deposit of clean burn coal. Maybe after the Clinton/Bush era, the Atzanlanders can burn it to keep warm under the former freeway bridges.
Oh, I truly do think that if the Repub. Congressional candidates hang on to Fred's coat-tails, they could re-gain majorities in both houses. The Party is going to have to be SMART though, and I hope Fred can kick some of that into them.
- Not support Amnesty
There will never be deportation en masse, so we need to assimilate millions of folks. Call it what you will.
- Pardon Libby
-That'll never happen, or should never happen. We need to stop "pardoning" anyone who is convicted of a crime. Libby lied. It will be of no
good to anyone to "pardon" him. It will be an embarassment to GW. We do not want that to happen. No pardon for Libby, and there will never
be one.
Hello? Is anyone listening?
--Yes. To what, that depends.
We who support Fred need to pray up a hedge about him, that God will not allow demons to reach him.
Decoder ring required ping
“But what happened to you two?”
I knew all the crappy parts, I just never realized it was quid pro quo Utah coal for Indonesian. That becomes truly criminal.
On September 12, 1996, the Senate passed the Lautenberg gun ban as an amendment to the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill (H.R. 3756). The Lautenberg Domestic Confiscation Gun Ban disarms gun owners for small (misdemeanor) offenses in the home — “offenses” as slight as spanking a child or grabbing a spouse. This lifetime ban, in certain cases, can even be imposed without a trial by jury. It is also retroactive, so it does not matter if the offense occurred 20 years ago. Thompson voted in favor of the amendment.
WTH??? I did not know this. Can someone please give me a logical explanation as to why he voted for this.
There is? Congress authorized the fence last year - a double fence. Only 2.8 miles of it are currently built. Now, Bush is talking about building more of that fence to divert all the flack he is taking. Is that the fence you mean, it doesn't exist yet because the government is not acting on existing law authored by Congressman Hunter - who by the way has spoken to President Bush specifically on this issue. During a radio broadcast on Sean Hannity, Congressman Hunter said Bush was surprised only 2.8 miles (of single fence, not double) had been constructed.
There will never be a 1650 mile fence. Far too expensive and a nightmare to maintain.
You could build the fence for the cost of one B-2 bomber. Moreover, your defeatist attitude towards the sovereignty and security of this nation is appalling. I am glad you weren't around telling everyone in 1941 the Pentagon could not be constructed in 18 months because it would be "far too expensive and a nightmare to maintain."
We just need more Border Agents. Fences don't arrest people or track them down.
You mean like the Border Agents who are languishing in jail (one of whom was beaten in prison) because they fired on a drug smuggler and didn't fill out the necessary report about a firearm being used? Those Border Agents? Where do I sign up with this kind of wonderful administration support and backing?
There will never be deportation en masse, so we need to assimilate millions of folks. Call it what you will.
When President Eisenhower got serious about ferreting out illegals, millions went home voluntarily. You just refuse to consider that option because you want to throw your hands in the air and give these lawbreakers (and their extended families that are SURE to follow) amnesty.
We need to stop "pardoning" anyone who is convicted of a crime.
Then tell me, why is there a Pardon at all? It is Constitutional and legal, correct? Lets just get rid of it then. No? The Pardon is in place for circumstances where an injustice has taken place.
will be of no good to anyone to "pardon" him. It will be an embarassment to GW. We do not want that to happen. No pardon for Libby, and there will never be one.
Good gracious! An embarrassment to GW!? Can't let that happen, so lets throw this man in prison for a few years and destroy his life. Have you read anything about the travesty of this case?
I am amazed at post like yours of FR. You make the administration sound selfish and self serving by that previous statement.
Perhaps you are finally right.
I think the House is a certainty with a strong, broadly-appealing candidate like Thompson leading the ticket. But I doubt even that would help the Senate race too much -- the seats up for election are overwhelmingly GOP; the GOP would need to hold them all and pick up a few seats in the precious few 'rat seats in play.
He didn't "let" them get away.....
I believe he saw the "writing on the wall"...and realized there was no way in heck the invertebrates in both houses were going to vote him out.
Fences don't arrest people or track them down.
- Not support Amnesty There will never be deportation en masse, so we need to assimilate millions of folks. Call it what you will.
It's called AMNESTY!! And I think a grand majority of Americans don't WANT IT!
Good fences make good neighbors...and it would be one heck of a lot CHEAPER to build a fence than assimilation.
Give me a break!
-That'll never happen, or should never happen. We need to stop "pardoning" anyone who is convicted of a crime. Libby lied. It will be of no good to anyone to "pardon" him. It will be an embarassment to GW. We do not want that to happen. No pardon for Libby, and there will never be one.
GW is already mired in the teens in poll after poll....The MSM/DBM hate him...and many GOP'ers aren't happy with him. How can he be more embarrassed?
Scooty Libby deserves a pardon...the sentence DOES NOT FIT THE CRIME....
Fair enough..........
Explain that crack, or bite me.
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