Investigation? Is this the same Hillary who last week said “We came, we saw, he died”?

From The Hill:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that she supports an investigation by the United Nations of the circumstances surrounding Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s death.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Clinton said such an investigation would help establish democracy in the North African country. Video released last week shows that Gadhafi was alive when captured by Libyan rebels.

An autopsy confirmed Gaddafi died from a gunshot to the head. If the U.N. gets involved they’ll find a way to connect it to climate change.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

I wonder if Mickey Mouse signed the petitions too.

From Politico:

An Indiana Democratic county chairman accused of submitting petitions with hundreds of faked signatures for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary resigned Monday, according to reports.

St. Joseph County Democratic Party Chair Butch Morgan stepped down from his position in light of the scandal, but insisted he had “done nothing wrong,” the South Bend Tribune reported late Monday night. Morgan also resigned as Democratic chair for Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District.

He faces allegations he submitted hundreds of forged signatures – including that of a former governor – on petitions to get Clinton and Obama on the 2008 Indiana primary ballot.

A little more background from the South Bend Tribune:

Candidates for president, governor and U.S. senator in Indiana must gather at least 500 signatures from registered voters in each of the state’s nine congressional districts to be on the statewide ballot. County voter registration offices are responsible for verifying that those who sign the petitions are registered voters in that county.

The certified petition pages must be signed by both the Democratic and Republican members of the voter registration board. The Tribune reported last week that Linda Silcott, the Republican board member in St. Joseph County, was out on bereavement leave when the suspicious pages passed through the office in early 2008. The pages in question bear a stamp of Silcott’s signature.

Without the suspected fake signatures, it’s likely Obama and possibly Clinton would not have had enough signatures to be on the state primary ballot.

As we always do under these circumstances, cue Drebin:

**Written by Doug Powers

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While you were being encouraged to trade in your gas guzzler and buy an expensive electric golf cart, the size of the government’s limo fleet was almost doubling:

The number of limousines owned by the U.S. government increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, according to a new report by iWatch news.

An analysis of General Services Administration data reveals the federal fleet has increased from 238 limos in 2008—the last year of the Bush Administration— to 412 limos in 2010. Much of the increase was recorded in the State Department under Hillary Clinton.

For its part, the Obama administration said the increased number of limousines in the federal fleet reflects “an enhanced effort to protect diplomats and other government officials in a dangerous world.”

Is each re-set button getting its own limo now? And not to nitpick, but wasn’t the world supposed to be markedly less dangerous as of January 20, 2009?

The “limo” data is difficult to track with any degree of certainty, because, well, the government doesn’t quite know how to define what a limo is:

The GSA (General Services Administration) said its limousine numbers are not reliable, even though the federal fleet numbers are officially recorded every year. In a statement, GSA spokeswoman Sara Merriam said, “The categories in the Fleet Report are overly broad, and the term ‘limousine’ is not defined,” adding that “vehicles represented as limousines can range from protective duty vehicles to sedans.” Asked whether the GSA actually knows how many limos it has in its fleet, Merriam responded that GSA “cannot say that its report accurately reflects the number of limousines.”

Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, was outraged that the GSA’s numbers may not be accurate. “They can’t figure out a way to define a limo? How hard can it be? If the government can’t track limos, I’m not sure we should trust the numbers they put out there on anything,” she said.

If they can’t define “green job” it’s no surprise “limo” throws them for a classification loop.

In fairness to the current administration, the report offers a slight “blame Bush” window of opportunity. Additionally, at last word there were several dozen limos stuck on bumps in roads all around the world that have to be continually replaced:

**Written by Doug Powers

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From the “things you don’t read about every day” file we find this…

You’ve seen the picture taken in the White House Situation Room the night Osama bin Laden’s fate was SEALed that shows President Obama’s national security team intently watching video of… well, something. The photo is now a famous one, but the complete picture was too much for one local paper’s standards:

That would be the Ultra-Orthodox Hasidic broadsheet Der Tzitung, published in Brooklyn. The paper photoshopped Clinton, as well at the only other woman who could be seen in the room–Audrey Tomason, the national director of counterterrorism–out of the frame.

“Apparently the presence of a woman, any woman, being all womanly and sexy all over the United States’ counterterrorism efforts was too much for the editors of Der Tzitung to handle,” noted the prominent women’s blog Jezebel.

Indeed, “The Hasidic newspaper will not intentionally include any images of women in the paper because it could be considered sexually suggestive,” Rabbi Jason Miller explains in The Jewish Week. Though he notes that the publication’s “fauxtograpphing” may in fact be a graver act against their religious tenets: “To my mind, this act of censorship is actually a violation of the Jewish legal principle of g’neivat da’at (deceit).”

Beyond that, Der Tzitung’s editors apparently missed or blatantly ignored the guidelines stipulated on the official White House Flickr page, where the photo was released for use by news organizations: “The photograph may not be manipulated in any way.”

The White House has not issued a response on the altered image.

If I worked for the White House, the response would be, “If you use this picture again can you please Photoshop the president in a tall chair so he doesn’t look like he’s at the kids card table on Thanksgiving?”

Here’s the amazingly vanishing Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason:

The newspaper subsequently apologized and is expected to send Hillary a re-set button and a more modest, less revealing pantsuit that might pass their photo editor’s muster next time.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton were guests on Meet the Press this morning, and host David Gregory gave Gates a 9 a.m. phone call that Hillary decided to barge in and answer herself after Gates, in the previous question, stated that Libya is not a vital interest for the United States.

Newsbusters:

It was a stunning power play. On Meet The Press this morning, after Defense Secretary Bob Gates conceded that Libya is not a “vital interest” of the United States–but before he could complete his comments–Hillary cut him off. She launched into a minute-and-forty-second monologue seeking to justify US military involvement in Libya.
[...]
Clearly Clinton didn’t trust Gates to make a sufficiently muscular defense of President Obama’s policy. Host David Gregory never gave Gates a chance to defend himself. When Hillary finished her monologue, Gregory moved on to another subject: inviting Hillary to comment on the death of Geraldine Ferraro.

Gates never got to say another word. It was a classic DC big-footing, and one the Defense Secretary would seem unlikely to forget anytime soon.

The look on Gates’ face at the end of this clip after Hillary took a handoff intended for him and ran away with with the ball speaks volumes:

Update: The duo had a very similar approach to the same line of questioning on ABC’s “This Week Without Christiane Amanpour.” Jake Tapper asked Gates if Libya posed a threat to the US, he answered no, and Hillary was there to clarify and reiterate. Was the “good cop, better cop” thing a planned routine for the day? If Gates actually blew it by admitting Libya wasn’t a threat to the US during their first appearance (I’m not aware which one was recorded first) resulting in Hillary taking over the interview, it’s unlikely he’d have said almost the exact same thing on a subsequent program.

**Written by Doug Powers

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Is this an honest change of heart from the President of the World, or do Bill and Hill have 2012 in their sights and are starting to do more cold and calculated angling than Babe Winkelman at the Tip-Up Town festival?

From Politico:

Former President Bill Clinton said Friday that delays in offshore oil and gas drilling permits are “ridiculous” at a time when the economy is still rebuilding, according to attendees at the IHS CERAWeek conference.

Clinton spoke on a panel with former President George W. Bush that was closed to the media. Video of their moderated talk with IHS CERA Chairman Daniel Yergin was also prohibited.

But according to multiple people in the room, Clinton, surprisingly, agreed with Bush on many oil and gas issues, including criticism of delays in permitting offshore since last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill.

Thirteen years ago, as president, Bill Clinton wasn’t exactly drill-happy in the crude oil extraction sense of the term.

Whatever Clinton’s motive for saying that delaying drilling permits is ridiculous, he might have just cost himself a chance to again serve as president-for-a-day in the current administration.

(h/t Free Republic and Ed Morrissey)

**Written by Doug Powers

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Gallup’s annual and usually very predictable “most admired” poll is out:

A note concerning the votes for Jimmy Carter as “most admired”: That particular result has a margin of error of plus or minus Hamas

Last year’s somewhat similar results are here.

(h/t Weasel Zippers)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

This morning, Bob Schieffer had Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Face the Nation to discuss invasive airport security screenings that are starting to turn off just about any air traveler who doesn’t show up to the airport wearing a leather hood and a ball gag.

When I heard Schieffer ask Hillary if she’d submit to a pat-down, I thought maybe Bob suspected her of smuggling cigarettes to the president, but Schieffer was instead referring to TSA searches:

Asked in the closing moments of an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” if she would submit to “one of these pat-downs” that has caused a national outcry among travelers, Clinton replied, “Not if I could avoid it.”

“No, I mean who would?,” she said with a chuckle.

Video courtesy of Right Scoop — cackle courtesy of Hades:

Who would willingly submit to a pat-down? Certainly not little kids, but we don’t always know what’s good for us. Because of new procedures Joe Biden says we should just put up with, the skies are now safer thanks to strip-searches like this one that would put a person on the sex offender registry if he or she wasn’t wearing rubber gloves and a TSA badge.

Not everybody is feeling powerless during the TSA screening process, because if you happen to be wearing a hijab, you may be allowed to request to pat down yourself. Gee, that will be effective.

Last night, the TSA got some notice on Saturday Night Live, but it’s hard to satirize something that has already self-inflicted its own satire:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

You know it’s been a long year and a half when you can sit back, watch a pitch for Hillary Clinton for president, and fool yourself into thinking that she (and her husband) looks like Reagan compared to Barack Obama.

From CNN:

We’ve still got two months left until the 2010 midterm elections, but we now have our first television commercial of the 2012 presidential campaign. And the ad advocates for a person who says she has no intention of running for the White House.
[...]
The commercial was paid for by a Chicago dentist named William DeJean.

When asked why he put the ad up, DeJean told CNN Thursday that “I’m a dentist and I don’t think this country is headed in the right direction.”
[...]
DeJean adds that he thinks people are having buyer’s remorse about President Barack Obama and says the current administration is ruining the Democratic Party. He says he spent $5,000 to create the commercial and tells CNN that besides New Orleans, the ad will run in Washington, New York and Los Angeles, and possible Houston. DeJean says he chose to first run the ad in New Orleans because he’s a native of the city and because the city’s in the news due to the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

DeJean sunk some money into Hillary’s efforts in the past, so what’s a little more root-canal cash spent trying to ensure that the 3 a.m. phone call isn’t answered with “we’re buying shrimp here guys, call back later”?

This has more overstatements than an ad for x-ray glasses in a comic book, but hey, it’s a start:

**Written by Doug Powers

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Linda McMahon stepped down as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment in September 2009 in order to run for the US Senate, and she has since become the Republican nominee from Connecticut.

Since then, the Democrat criticism of McMahon’s connection to the WWE has run rampant:

“Today the party of Bob Dole, Jack Kemp and Dick Lugar nominated a candidate who kicks men in the crotch, thinks of scenes of necrophilia as ‘entertainment,’ and runs an operation where women are forced to bark like dogs. This is what has become of the once grand old party,” Democratic National Committee National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan said.

“Connecticut Republicans today nominated a corporate CEO of WWE, who under her watch violence was peddled to kids, steroid abuse was rampant, yet she made her millions,” U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Commitee.

Democrats however didn’t seem to have as big a moral issue with the WWE a couple of years ago:

Democratic organizations took a hard line against the company Tuesday night after McMahon beat out former Congressman Rob Simmons in the state Republican primary, accusing her of many things, including profiting from peddling violence to children. But in April 2008, both Democratic presidential candidates joined Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain on “WWE RAW“, the company’s flagship program, to deliver short wrestling-themed campaign spots.

From a 2008 WWE program, here’s Hillary “Pantsuit Punisher” Clinton and Barack “The Vacationator” Obama, along with a cameo from John “Iron Amnesty” McCain:

Whatever your opinion of Linda McMahon, the current state of affairs in Washington is far more shameful than anything the WWE ever produced — with the possible exception of the above clip.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Hillary Clinton is in Pakistan, and, as you’ll soon learn from a CNN reporter, she may have discovered the secret to bringing down militants in the area: Mangos:

Hillary Clinton has lots to worry about in Pakistan, but she has found one thing she can wholeheartedly embrace: Pakistani mangos.

The U.S. Secretary of State was treated to a mango dessert during dinner with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and they clearly won a fan — Clinton repeatedly raved about the fruit.

“We’ll get a lot of people hooked on Pakistani mangos,” Clinton told a “townhall”-style meeting in Islamabad, where she was on an official visit.

Mangos came up again at a press conference with Pakistan’s foreign minister, and yet again at a roundtable with Pakistani journalists.
[...]
Clinton suggested mangos might be one place to start when discussing benefits of better trade cooperation, including Pakistani requests for improved market access.

CNN’s Pakistan-based international correspondent explains how Hillary’s “peace through mangoes” program will work:

SAYAH: “Well, I think the U.S., the Obama administration, is convinced that this is the right approach. In addition to the military approach, you have to have an economic approach. They say it’s an interesting project here. If Mrs. Clinton has her way in the months and years to come, Pakistan will export more of its delicious and very juicy mangoes. Americans will eat them. It will all be a part of the fight against militants.”

Why can’t Hillary just hand ‘em that stupid “re-set” button and make it all better just like she did with Russia?

Besides, I’m not sure if I can handle any more food — I’ve already been eating dried fruit and nuts by the bushel to help bring down the Taliban in Afghanistan and so far it’s not having much of an effect.

In any case, Bill Clinton stayed behind as Hillary flew overseas and is busy grabbing as many mangoes as possible to do his part for the war effort.

(CNN transcript via Weasel Zippers)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The big day is approaching! Hillary’s imparting important marital wisdom to her daughter (“if he cheats and you’ll lose power by leaving, stay”) and Bill’s auditioning bridesmaids as we speak. But there’s one thing that not many people know — when or where the wedding will be:

The wedding of former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky is this summer’s ultimate status invitation. There will be only 400 names on the guest list, a good size for a wedding by ordinary standards, but barely big enough to accommodate the people who slept in the Lincoln Bedroom during Bill Clinton’s presidency [most of them didn't want to come all the way from China anyway - DP]. So planning it has been a diplomatic problem of the highest order. “Donors are expecting to be invited,” says a major Clinton fund-raiser. Then there are the campaign, State Department, and Clinton Foundation staff, plus foreign dignitaries and both Clinton and Obama White House officials. These complexities, say bride-side sources, are one reason why Chelsea has instituted a strict no-strangers policy: She must personally know every invitee. (Of course, it’s also a way of giving her parents an out for donors who don’t make the cut.)

The secrecy has seemed more reminiscent of a giant military operation than a wedding. Early speculation was that it would be held on Martha’s Vineyard, but more recently sources have confirmed that the nuptials will be held on July 31 in a still-secret location within a three-hour drive of New York City. “The wedding planner will contact each guest directly a week in advance and let them know where it is,” says the fund-raiser, who speculated that the Hamptons are out because the L.I.E. can be a very long road. The smart money, then, is somewhere upstate, possibly in Westchester or Dutchess County—most likely on property owned by a Clinton supporter. “You really see who their closest friends are in this list,” says an insider. “It’s not a celebrity-driven wedding.”

I certainly do hope Chelsea Clinton’s wedding ends up somewhere off the Long Island Expressway — there’s something that would be apropos about invites sent out by Bill and Hillary having “L.I.E.” printed right on them.

Hillary said she was more likely to give up the nuclear launch codes than the date and location of Chelsea’s wedding, but since Obama’s probably already done that, Hil will have to find a more effective comparison.

And naturally, if you’re at a Clinton gathering, you won’t be able to swing a dead cattle future without hitting a crook:

If Ed Mezvinsky, the disgraced father of Chelsea Clinton’s newly-announced fiancé Marc Mezvinsky, attends his own son’s wedding, he might want to consider ducking out before the reception. Mezvinsky was convicted in 2002 of bilking his associates, friends and family members — even his own late mother-in-law — out of millions of dollars. Despite being released in April 2008 after serving five years in prison, Mezvinsky remains on federal probation and still owes almost $9.4 million in restitution to his victims.

Duck out before the reception? And miss a huge networking opportunity like that? Unlikely. They might as well skip Mezvinsky though when they pass the “help retire Hillary’s campaign debt” collection plate just before cutting the cake.

Do you think they’ll ask Bill to donate the “something blue” for the wedding?

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Former President Bill Clinton was rushed to the hospital for a heart condition and has reportedly received a stent.

ABC News has details:

Former President Bill Clinton was rushed to a Manhattan hospital late this afternoon, sources tell ABC News.
A look back at presidential history from 1960 to 2008.

Clinton, 63, was transported to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan for a condition related to his heart.

ABC News’ chief political correspondent [and former Clintonite, ABC News forgets to disclose] George Stephanopoulos reported that sources said he was taken to the hospital “likely for a stent procedure.”

ABC also tells us that Hillary Clinton was spotted leaving the Oval Office a short time ago and “did not seem ‘too concerned’ or ‘in a rush.’” For what it’s worth.

Update: Clinton received two stents.

The former president’s counselor Douglas Band released a statement saying that Clinton is in “good spirits.”

“Today President Bill Clinton was admitted to the Columbia Campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital after feeling discomfort in his chest,” said Band. “Following a visit to his cardiologist, he underwent a procedure to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries.”

A stent is a wire mesh tube used to prop open an artery.

Best wishes for the former president’s recovery.

Now, a timely reminder: Stents don’t grow on trees. They were not created, developed, marketed, or sold by government bureaucrats and lawmakers. One of the nation’s top stent manufacturers, Boston Scientific, has weighed in on the Democrats’ proposed massive taxes on medical device makers:

Boston Scientific Corp (BSX.N) warned on Tuesday that a proposed tax in the U.S. health care reform bill that cleared the Senate Finance Committee last week could have serious consequences for the company, including job losses.

“The bill that came out of the committee last week makes absolutely no sense and would be very damaging to Boston Scientific, and the medical device industry as a whole,” Boston Scientific Chief Executive Ray Elliott said during a post-earnings conference call.

“In a nutshell, it would raise costs and lead to significant job losses. It does not address the quality of care but the political scorecard of savings.”

Elliott said that the company’s tax liability would be doubled, adding $150 million to $200 million a year, and it would be forced to make substantial cuts in research and development spending, which could result in 1,000 to 2,000 jobs being lost at Boston Scientific…

…In addition to direct fees on device makers, the industry faces a double tax because hospitals, which have agreed to accept $155 billion in cuts in government payments over 10 years, will pass on part of that burden to device makers, said Elliott.

A teachable moment: Taxing innovation in the name of “health care reform” has consequences.

***

Related flashback: NHS could ban life-saving heart device ‘because it’s too expensive’

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has no idea how Chinagate scandal figure and old family friend James Riady found his way back into the country this year.

No idea whatsoever, according to the Washington Post:

In March 2004, James Riady, an Indonesian tycoon and devout Christian, received an honorary doctorate from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas. The university — which has a scholarship program funded by the Indonesian — didn’t announce the honor. Nor did Riady pick up the diploma in person: He’d been barred from America after pleading guilty in 2001 to a “conspiracy to defraud the United States” through illegal contributions to the campaigns of Bill Clinton and other Democrats.

Last year, however, the Indonesian mogul finally made it to Arkansas. He traveled there during the first of two previously unreported trips he made in 2009 to the United States. He was allowed in only after receiving a waiver from a rule that forbids entry to foreigners guilty of “a crime involving moral turpitude,” a term that government lawyers generally interpret to include fraud.

Riady’s return to the United States poses a prickly question for Hillary Clinton’s State Department: How and why did a foreign billionaire stained by Clinton-era scandals get a U.S. visa after being kept out for so long under the Bush administration?

Oh, and that $20,000 Riady donated to Bill Clinton’s philanthropic foundation? Nah, no appearance of a quid pro quo there. None whatsoever:

Riady, 52, declined to be interviewed but, in an e-mailed response to written questions, he said the teachings of Christ “inform all that I do.” He said he hadn’t seen the Clintons during his 2009 trips to America but did pay $20,000 to become a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual gathering of prominent figures in politics, business and philanthropy sponsored by Bill Clinton.

A senior State Department official said Hillary Clinton had no knowledge of the decision to let Riady enter the United States. The tycoon’s visa, he said, was issued by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta after the Indonesian asked to travel to America so that he could attend family graduation ceremonies. Riady, added the official, was granted entry for a “very narrow purpose.”

I know, I know. It’s silly to even entertain the idea that something untoward went on here.

I mean, it’s not like Hillary’s ever intervened before on behalf of her hubby’s donors.

Oh, wait…oops…

Secretary of State appointee Hillary Rodham Clinton intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting companies and others that later contributed to her husband’s foundation, an Associated Press review of her official correspondence found.

The overlap of names on former President Bill Clinton’s foundation donor list and business interests whose issues she championed raises new questions about potential ethics conflicts between her official actions and her husband’s fundraising. The AP obtained three of the senator’s government letters under the Freedom of Information Act.

Much more documented in Culture of Corruption.

Fun fact: DHS signed off on Riady’s entry, too.

You know what that means: The system’s working!

The U.S. attorney in New York on Tuesday charged a New York investor and major Democratic fund-raiser with a $74 million scheme to defraud Citigroup Inc (C.N).

Hassan Nemazee, 59, was charged with one count of bank fraud, and faces up to 30 years in prison plus a fine. His lawyer Marc Mukasey, a former federal prosecutor, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Nemazee was a national finance chair of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and a supporter of John Kerry’s run for the White House in 2004.

He typically donates more than $100,000 annually to Democratic political candidates, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Charles Schumer, and sits on the board of the Iranian American Political Action Committee .

Bill Clinton, when he was president, nominated Nemazee to be U.S. ambassador to Argentina.

Prosecutors said Nemazee, the chairman and chief executive of Nemazee Capital Corp, sought to induce Citigroup’s banking unit to lend up to $74 million based on fraudulent and forged documents suggesting that he had hundreds of millions of dollars of accounts available as collateral.

They said Nemazee also provided Citigroup with fake references so that when the bank would try to confirm details about his accounts, it would actually be contacting him. The scheme lasted from December 2006 to this month, the prosecutors said.

Via Reuters.