For Conservatives: List all Democrat Scandals here

[fossten]

Let's keep count.

1


Remember this one, guys? Guess it's relevant now, given the "Culture of Corruption" in the Democrat Congress.


The Legal Woes Of Rep. Jefferson
Probe of La. Democrat Provides Fodder for GOP

By Shailagh Murray and Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 16, 2006; A01



Around Washington, Rep. William J. Jefferson nurtured a reputation as a serious, even wonkish, lawmaker, a grade-school dropouts' son who graduated from Harvard Law School and was elected Louisiana's first black congressman since Reconstruction.

Then came the allegations last August that Jefferson had orchestrated a corruption scheme. Federal investigators are targeting the Democratic congressman, 58, for allegedly demanding cash and other favors for himself and relatives, in exchange for using his congressional clout to arrange African business deals. A former aide recently pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson and is cooperating with authorities, and sources familiar with the case say a plea agreement with the lawmaker is being explored.

Jefferson's world is toppling. Tall and lean, he at times has looked ashen as he walks the halls of the Capitol. Those who know him describe him as shellshocked by the turn of events. Depending on Jefferson's fate, his central New Orleans district -- badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina and in need of effective representation in Washington -- could face a rowdy special election. The political scene is so chaotic that Republicans believe they could win the gerrymandered Democratic seat.

"It's all clear as mud," said Edward F. Renwick, a Loyola University political scientist.

Jefferson's woes are unwelcome news for his party and have undercut the Democrats' election-year assertion that Republicans have created a "culture of corruption." If Jefferson is indicted and pleads guilty or is convicted, he will have to step down or face expulsion. But if he is indicted and decides to go to trial, he may remain in Congress and stand for reelection -- the course Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has followed since being charged last year with violating Texas campaign law.

Federal corruption investigations have produced guilty pleas from former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) and have forced Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) to relinquish his committee chairmanship. Investigations also won guilty pleas and the cooperation of former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose plea agreement cited only GOP aides and lawmakers.

The investigation of Jefferson and the recent guilty plea by a former aide give Republicans the chance to argue that corruption in Washington has a bipartisan tinge.

Republican groups frequently invoke the Jefferson case in defending their party from broad-brush charges of corruption. Even Public Citizen, a liberal consumer watchdog group, featured Jefferson on an "Ethics Hall of Shame" list recently.

Jefferson has said he did nothing improper. Spokeswoman Melanie Roussell said he is focused on hurricane recovery and has been traveling to his district for field hearings and other storm-related events. Jefferson has begun campaigning for election this fall to a ninth term and has scheduled a March 8 fundraiser. He attended Coretta Scott King's funeral in Atlanta last week.

In his only public statement on the case, Jefferson said he was "disappointed and in some ways perplexed" by former aide Brett Pfeffer's guilty plea on Jan. 11. Jefferson added that he has never "required, demanded or accepted . . . anything to perform a service for which I have been elected." Ron Machen, one of Jefferson's attorneys, declined to comment.

The investigation became public on Aug. 3 when FBI agents raided Jefferson's homes in New Orleans and Northeast Washington, where they found about $90,000 in cash in his freezer, law enforcement sources have said. They also raided five other locations, including the Kentucky and New Jersey offices of iGate Inc., a high-tech firm that has become central to the investigation, along with a house in Potomac owned by Atiku Abubakar, the vice president of Nigeria.

IGate has denied any wrongdoing, as has Abubakar. Pfeffer declined to comment.

Jefferson was raised in Lake Providence, La., one of 10 children. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1972 and served in the state Senate before he was elected to the House in 1990. He is married and is the father of five grown daughters.

As a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee and co-chairman of the Africa Trade and Investment Caucus and the congressional caucuses on Brazil and Nigeria, Jefferson has carved out a niche in Third World trade issues, and he has traveled extensively on privately and publicly funded trips.

"He's someone respected for doing his homework on issues," said Silas Lee, a New Orleans political analyst. "He's viewed as a very serious, very studious person."

Pfeffer, who faces as much as 20 years in prison, paints a different picture of Jefferson, for whom he worked as a legislative aide from 1995 to 1998.

According to court documents and law enforcement sources, Pfeffer, 37, became president of W2 Corp., an investment company that was owned by Lori Mody, a wealthy Vienna, Va., woman. Mody, 41, is the founder of Win-Win Strategies Foundation, whose mission includes helping needy children learn about the high-tech world.

In early 2004, Pfeffer told Jefferson about his new investment job, court records show. Jefferson told Pfeffer about a telecommunications opportunity in Nigeria and about iGate, which held the rights to a technology that enabled copper wires to transport high-speed Internet service to a wide array of consumers.

In mid-2004, Pfeffer brought Mody to Jefferson's office in Washington. There she was introduced to the founder of iGate, who has since been identified as Vernon Jackson. Not long after, Mody's company entered into a licensing and distribution agreement with iGate for the exclusive rights to market and distribute the company's technology in Nigeria.

Mody agreed to invest $45 million for the exclusive rights to iGate's technology and equipment for the Nigerian deal. She put up $3.5 million and agreed to finance the balance through the Export-Import Bank of the United States, a government-run agency that promotes U.S. business exports.

Afterward, Pfeffer told Mody that Jefferson would expect compensation for his "official assistance on the Nigerian deal," according to court documents.

In summer 2004, Pfeffer, Mody, Jefferson and others met in New Orleans at the law firm of one of Jefferson's daughters, who provided the legal work for the business deal. While in the lobby of the law firm, Jefferson approached Pfeffer in private and told him that he would require 5 to 7 percent of Mody's new Nigerian company, the court document said.

Later, in a phone conversation, Jefferson told Pfeffer that he wanted a family member to be put on the payroll of the Nigerian company and to receive about $2,500 to $5,000 in monthly payments, court documents said.

"Pfeffer understood that [Jefferson] was soliciting a bribe in exchange" for the congressman's assistance in "official acts," including influencing high-ranking officials in the Nigerian government via trips and correspondences, and meeting with officials of the Export-Import Bank to help secure financing, the court document said.

Mody, who had grown concerned about the propriety of the transactions, went to the FBI in March 2005. She agreed to record conversations in what became a sting, say law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the probe.

On March 31, she gave $2,100 to Jefferson's campaign. And in July, months after approaching the FBI, her Win-Win Strategies Foundation was listed in congressional travel documents as the sponsor of Jefferson's trip to Ghana to promote the broadband technology venture.

Jefferson was accompanied to Ghana by a relative, a staff member, Pfeffer and an iGate employee, according to documents. The trip disclosure form that Jefferson filed with the House lists the purpose of the trip as "education and business development" and lists no accompanying family member. Win-Win Strategies paid $9,248 for Jefferson's expenses, the form shows.

During the trip, Pfeffer was in contact with Mody in Virginia, reporting on Jefferson's "official acts" with high-ranking Ghanaian officials, court papers said. Pfeffer believed that Jefferson would get similar compensation for the Ghanaian project as in the Nigerian deal, the court document said. Jefferson also told Pfeffer that a member of his extended family had been designated as the secretary of the Ghanaian company and would serve in a marketing role, the document said.

Mody said late last week that authorities told her not to comment because of the probe.

Jefferson has attracted controversy over the years. Nicknamed "Dollar Bill" in New Orleans, he is known as a formidable fundraiser with designs on his own political empire. Daughter Jalila Jefferson-Bullock is a state legislator. In helping her get elected, Jefferson was heard on an FBI wiretap soliciting improper fundraising help from his brother-in-law, Jefferson Parish Judge Alan Green, who was sentenced last week to more than four years in federal prison in an unrelated bail-bond corruption case.

Jefferson said in a statement last May that he recalled the conversation with Green but added that his request for help was familial.

"To my knowledge, nothing resulted from the conversation -- the campaign did not receive any money from Judge Green or anyone who may have been prompted by him to contribute -- and there were no further conversations on the matter," Jefferson said.

Jefferson also generated controversy when, in the midst of post-Katrina rescue efforts, he used National Guard troops to help him get belongings from his house in New Orleans.

Jefferson's legal problems have received modest attention in New Orleans, where residents and officials are consumed with rebuilding the city and upcoming local elections. But names of potential challengers are starting to circulate, and political observers are handicapping their prospects.

With only about one-fifth of the district's 500,000 residents believed to be living in New Orleans, it is possible that a white Democrat or even a Republican could take the seat, which was drawn as a black district and which Jefferson had hoped to hand off eventually to his chosen successor. That now looks less likely.

"He's strong, but not that strong that he could withstand an indictment," said John Maginnis, publisher of a weekly Louisiana political newsletter.

Researchers Madonna Lebling and Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502752_pf.html

 

[fossten]

2


www.heritage.org
Conyers' Ethics Troubles Explode
by Michael Franc
March 7, 2006 |


The latest ethics flap in Washington exploded last week on the pages of the Capitol Hill publication The Hill. It involves veteran Michigan Democrat and would-be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers. Two former staffers allege a pattern of corruption by Conyers, self-proclaimed "Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus," including forcing them to work on several state and local political campaigns while on his congressional payroll and allowing a senior staff counsel to conduct her private law practice out of his office.

Also among the charges is that Conyers required his staff to care for his two young boys, including providing tutoring services to Conyers' elder son while he attended a posh private school in Bloomfield Hills. The school "Little John" Conyers attends is the Cranbrook School. According to its Web site, tuition at Cranbrook runs a cool $17,880 for grades 1-5, $19,280 for middle school, and $21,730 for high school. Parents who send their kids to board at Cranbrook must cough up more than $30,000.

Yet Conyers is a longstanding opponent of any form of school choice for low-income children. At a "Stand Up for Public Schools" rally a few years back, Conyers decried educational choice as a "scheme" which "will only harm our public schools" and pointed instead to the sort of "real" school reforms drawn from the educational unions' playbook – teacher training, reduced class size, and school construction. "It is vital," he said then, "for parents, educators, and community leaders to join together to strengthen Detroit’s public schools."

Unless, of course, you can afford to send your child to The Cranbrook School.

Polls Apart: The mood among Washington's Republicans these days is sour and grows worse with the release of each new national poll. A recent CBS poll pegged the president’s approval rating at an all-time low of 34%. For Republicans, however, that was the good news. The approval rating for Congress stood at an abysmal 28%.

Chief among the Republicans' concerns is the slow but steady rise in the level of frustration among their political base. The CBS survey, for example, found that, while Bush retains at least one pocket of relatively strong support (Republicans still approve of his performance by a margin of 72% to 22%), the Republican-controlled Congress seems to have alienated everyone. More Republicans (59%) actually give Congress a thumbs-down these days than do Democrats (55%), while disapproval among Independents has soared to 68%.

Bush's 72% level of support among Republicans is low by historical standards. Other polling organizations confirm this erosion of support. Gallup, for example, found that until March 2005 Republican support for President Bush routinely exceeded 90%. But then a trickle of Republicans began turning on the president, with the latest Gallup survey (conducted before the Dubai ports deal became news) placing Bush's support among Republicans at the all-time low of 79%.

Most Congressional Republicans would trade their favorite earmarks for an approval rating of 79%. Indeed, shedding a few thousand earmarks may be just what the doctor ordered. According to Gallup, the latest congressional approval rating, at 25%, is only two points higher than where it stood on the eve of the historic 1994 elections. "I'm tired," one conservative House member recently confided to his colleagues, "of being yelled at by the same folks who sent us here."

Congressional Republicans have, at best, four months to turn things around before the 2006 political season overwhelms all else. Low approval ratings shouldn't deter them from thinking bold thoughts and moving the sort of aggressive conservative legislation that will excite their political base.

After all, the approval rating for Congress was stuck around 30% throughout the last serious effort to reduce federal spending and lower taxes. Americans were downright hostile toward former Speaker Newt Gingrich and his determined band of GOP revolutionaries precisely while they were outmaneuvering Bill Clinton and winning approval of the historic 1997 budget agreement. That deal lowered the top capital gains rate to 20%, created the $500 tax credit for children and the Roth IRA, and reduced federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars. The economy flourished and we enjoyed an all-too-brief period of fiscal sanity, the loss of which appears to be a major explanation for the GOP's current woes.

Mike Franc, who has held a number of positions on Capitol Hill, is vice president of Government Relations at The Heritage Foundation.

 

[Joeychgo]

The next time someone talks about why the country is divided, Ill point to this thread.

Man, you are so ANTI Democratic and so PRO republican. You cant seem to grasp that both parties have their good and bad. Both parties have accomplisments and both have failures.

You need to look at people as people, as individuals, all Dems arent bad and all Repubs arent bad. I take people as people. I dont like Bush, but I liked Reagan. I liked Bill Clinton but cant stand Hillary. I like McCain and would vote for him, but I wouldnt vote for Dean.

Bryan will tell you - I characterized the last Presidential election as 'Choosing which bullet I was going to be shot with" - Ultimately I felt neither were good for the job, and wished there was a 'None of the Above" spot on the ballot.

Personally, I would like to see McCain and Biden as the candidates in the next election. I think both are smart, honest guys and I would like to learn more about both.

As long as you give automatic deference to one party or another, your asking to be fooled and lied to.

 

[TheDude]

both parties have their good and bad. Both parties have accomplisments and both have failures.

As long as you give automatic deference to one party or another, your asking to be fooled and lied to.

True words of wisdom..............

 

[fossten]

The next time someone talks about why the country is divided, Ill point to this thread.

Man, you are so ANTI Democratic and so PRO republican. You cant seem to grasp that both parties have their good and bad. Both parties have accomplisments and both have failures.

You need to look at people as people, as individuals, all Dems arent bad and all Repubs arent bad. I take people as people. I dont like Bush, but I liked Reagan. I liked Bill Clinton but cant stand Hillary. I like McCain and would vote for him, but I wouldnt vote for Dean.

Bryan will tell you - I characterized the last Presidential election as 'Choosing which bullet I was going to be shot with" - Ultimately I felt neither were good for the job, and wished there was a 'None of the Above" spot on the ballot.

Personally, I would like to see McCain and Biden as the candidates in the next election. I think both are smart, honest guys and I would like to learn more about both.

As long as you give automatic deference to one party or another, your asking to be fooled and lied to.

Nice. You try to pigeonhole my beliefs into one sentence and then go on and on about yourself. Narcissistic much?

{Edit...treading on thin ice. I've tried to explain again and again that one can debate and still be civil and not personal}

http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?t=20708

I'm simply responding to people like Deville who make ad hominem claims about the Republicans having scandal after scandal, while ignoring the Democrats and their problems. I don't have to explain myself to you anyway, Mr. Fun Police. Apparently you are on some sort of crusade to persecute me for every post and every thread. If you have something personal against me, deal with it. I'm ready. But if you want to try to make claims about me, you'd BETTER GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT, or else I'm going to illustrate your idiocy.

 

[Joeychgo]

:yawn:

 

[fossten]

Yawn at this, Joey.


Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Thursday, April 13, 2006 10:53 p.m. EDT

Bill Clinton Aided Iran in Quest for Nukes

In a hairbrained scheme that was personally approved by then-President Clinton, the CIA deliberately gave Iranian physicists blueprints for part of a nuclear bomb that likely helped Tehran advance its nuclear weapons development program.

The allegation, detailed recently in the book "State of War," by New York Times reporter James Risen, comes as the Iranian nuclear crisis turns white hot, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasting ominously on Wednesday that his nation has joined the world's nuclear club.

Reports Risen: "It's not clear who originally came up with the idea [to give Tehran nuclear blueprints], but the plan was first approved by Clinton."

Beginning in February 2000, the CIA recruited a Russian scientist who had defected to the US years earlier. His mission: Take the nuclear blueprints to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives for the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Dubbed "Operation Merlin," the plan was supposed to steer Iranian physicists off track by incorporating design flaws in the blueprints that would render the information worthless.

But in what may turn out to be one of the greatest foreign policy blunders of all time, Operation Merlin backfired when the Russian scientist spotted the design flaws immediately - and even offered to help Iran fix the problems.

Risen said the Clinton-approved plan ended up handing Tehran "one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short."

He noted that thanks to the bizarre operation, Iran could now "leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon."

Ironically, Risen's New York Times has declined to cover Mr. Clinton's Iranian debacle - concentrating instead on his book's other revelation: President Bush's decision to authorize the NSA to monitor terrorist phone calls inside the U.S.

 

[MonsterMark]

Ironically, Risen's New York Times has declined to cover Mr. Clinton's Iranian debacle - concentrating instead on his book's other revelation: President Bush's decision to authorize the NSA to monitor terrorist phone calls inside the U.S.

Gee, like that would come as a surprise.

 

[mespock]

Joey,

You just don't get it!! In this forum They can't see anything but one side... and blind to their own faults...

It's a waist of time!!! If you don't like Bush you are a bad person with idiotic beliefs...

If you happen to be more liberal than conservative you are going to hell!!

If you like Bush you could rape your mother daughter and sister, piss on a a crucifix, worship Satan, and still be a Great Patriotic hero!!!!

It just doesn't matter.... Don't wast your time in here anymore... I find this forum to be a lame duck and happy to see that Bryan has posted a few time back in the real LvC forums... Hopefully he can come back from the Dark Side!!!! An rejoin the real LvC again...

 

[MonsterMark]

This forum is a direct representation of the United States at this juncture. We are split and divided here, just like we are in the United States as a whole. If the media was not so complicit in lying and spinning to the American people, there would not be such a divide.

But just like in the movie 'The Matrix', many of you either choose to live in the Matrix or simply don't know any better. There are those of us who have taken the blue pill and have seen the truth. We have chose to leave the matrix and are now fighting for truth and justice and many of us are willing to fight to the death (hyperbole?) against all of our enemies, both here in this country and abroad.

The Matrix is so close to real life here in the United States, it is not even funny.

Try taking the blue pill Rich. You might be surprised at what you really see. Or are you afraid to see the truth ?

And might I add, if you do come into this forum, criticizing how we go about things here doesn't help. Intelligent, fact-based commentary, whether Left or Right is what we seek. Arguing is just the way of politics. Bring your thick skin.

If you were on the Right and had to live with the lies and distortions propagated the MSM in this country on a daily basis, you'd have gone crazy by now. It is just so unfair to outright lie or distort, get the 5 second snippet out in front of the sheeple, and then retreat. Many conservatives in the media have it right. The MSM is best described as the 'Drive-By-Media', (which I will now call the DBM from now on) which is why there is such an explosion on the internet for people seeking the truth. Again, the Matrix gets it right.

 

[fossten]

I challenge all you liberals to go see Flight 93, the movie. (If you have the guts - yeah, Rich, I'm talking to you too.)

Then come back here and tell me that you don't think we have a real enemy.

 

[Joeychgo]

 

[mespock]

Bryan my eyes are wide open that's what's scary... and it's people with your beliefs that really scare me.

Bryan the pill that you have taken must be good! Think what you want say what you want. I guess you are the only one who sees the light (oh that's right so does Fossten) hmmmmm there are other's I'd rather have on my side.

I suppose Bryan you will now take shots at me like you have done to others (political partisanship is more important than friendships or brotherly membership). This is the one reason I only check this forum out occasionally instead of frequently. I pop in only to see if the junk in this forum has changed, not from one side to the other, but to a more civil and Logical debate. When I look at the threads I see it hasn't. This forum lacks true Logical justifications. Each side of any debate uses tainted information that supports their side.

Fossten I rest my case!

 

[Joeychgo]

Joey,

You just don't get it!! In this forum They can't see anything but one side... and blind to their own faults...

It's a waist of time!!! If you don't like Bush you are a bad person with idiotic beliefs...

I do get it Rich. And I agree with you. And it dismays me. People cant express theiir opinion withough being roasted for doing so. The issues dont seem to be debated on the merits as much as on the party. Most (not all) who post in this forum seem to be close minded and locked in their belief, regardless of the facts. It makes for a very boring situation and a waste of time in my opinion also.

Its unfortunate because we have some very intelligent people whos ideas just dont get heard because of the noise.

 

[mespock]

Thanks Joey!

 

[TheDude]

I challenge all you liberals to go see Flight 93, the movie. (If you have the guts - yeah, Rich, I'm talking to you too.)

Then come back here and tell me that you don't think we have a real enemy.

Why would that take guts, there's live footage of what happened on 9/11?

Anyhow, back to topic... I only see three scandals so far, surely you can dig more up. Because, if we're keeping score, Johnny is spanking you with his 590+

 

[fossten]

Why would that take guts, there's live footage of what happened on 9/11?

Anyhow, back to topic... I only see three scandals so far, surely you can dig more up. Because, if we're keeping score, Johnny is spanking you with his 590+

Gimme a break, the intent of these threads was to count current scandals, not go back to the 1850's. If you want to do what he's doing, I can pass him up just on Clinton scandals. That's bush league, and I have no interest in retreading old territory.

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Friday, April 14, 2006 11:42 p.m. EDT

Top 'Ethics' Democrat Under Fire for Finances

The House ethics committee's top Democrat, under fire from Republicans, said Friday he's unaware of any errors in his financial disclosures the past nine years.

Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., provided a detailed explanation of his investments a week after a conservative group questioned the accuracy of his annual financial reporting. Republican campaign officials called for his resignation from the ethics panel, but Mollohan refused to step down.

The allegations could have an impact on the ethics committee's ability to investigate wrongdoing and could be a factor in this year's congressional elections.

The committee has been unable to launch new investigations because its five Democrats and five Republicans have blocked each other from moving forward. The partisan split may become more bitter with GOP calls for Mollohan to leave the panel.

The allegations also allow Republicans to counter a major Democratic campaign theme: that majority Republicans have allowed a "culture of corruption" in the House and Senate.

Congressional Democrats want the ethics panel to investigate lawmakers who had ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, to determine whether the members broke the rules by providing legislative help in return for free trips, restaurant meals and seats in arena skyboxes.

Federal prosecutors are conducting criminal investigations into the same conduct.

Besides the allegations against Mollohan, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee - John Conyers of Michigan - stands accused by former staff members of misusing his office by turning them into baby sitters for his children.

His office said in a statement that the baby sitting allegations refer to events nearly a decade ago, even though they were only recently raised in public. The statement said Conyers cooperated with the committee when it raised questions about the allegations two years ago, but never heard back from the panel.

The National Legal and Policy Center - a conservative nonprofit organization that promotes ethics in government through research, education and legal action - said last week it had filed a complaint in February with federal prosecutors, alleging Mollohan consistently undervalued and omitted assets in his annual reporting. The U.S. attorney's office in Washington refused to confirm whether it is investigating Mollohan.

Mollohan said the value of his property investments - owned by him and his wife - increased sharply because of rising values in Washington, D.C., and the North Carolina shore since 2000. The lawmaker said the value was offset by large mortgages, and the couple borrowed against their existing holdings to acquire new property.

In 2001, Mollohan added, the couple increased their holdings after the lawmaker inherited a share of his father's real estate holdings in West Virginia.

Mollohan said the Legal and Policy Center appeared to assert that he should have valued his holdings without regard to his liabilities.

The lawmaker said he can't address allegations that he made 250 errors in his reporting since 1996, because the center has not provided him with details.

He added, "Any claim whatsoever that these investments are in any way related to my actions as a member of Congress is categorically false."

Mollohan said his financial reports are prepared by a respected accounting firm.

"I would never be so bold as to say that there are no errors whatsoever in the 24 annual financial disclosure statements I have filed as a member of Congress. "What I will say, however, is that if there are any errors in those forms, they were inadvertent, and I am convinced that they are not material - that is, those forms provide an accurate picture of the investments, income and liabilities of my wife and me...."

Mollohan's 2000 report indicated he had assets worth between $170,012 to $562,000 and liabilities between $170,000 and $465,000. The disclosure reports let congressmen report their finances within broad ranges.

His 2004 report indicated he had assets of $6.3 million to $24.9 million and liabilities of $3.66 million to $13.5 million.

 

[barry2952]

Gimme a break, the intent of these threads was to count current scandals, not go back to the 1850's. If you want to do what he's doing, I can pass him up just on Clinton scandals. That's bush league, and I have no interest in retreading old territory.

Coward.

 

[MonsterMark]

Coward.

Gee Barry. Sounds like a personal attack to me.


To Rich: I don't take anything personal. Unfortunately, we try to get people to debate, but open and honest discussions are tough. It is far easier to poke and dodge. I do it, everyone does it at some point.

From my perspective, the media slants WAY FAR to the Left. Period. Therein lies the problem. IF the media has the nads to argue the issues based on the merits, they know which side would lose.

The way that the war has been portrayed, the economy, immigration, social security, you name it, it is no surprise to me that the country struggles with our success.

It reminds me of a boss I had in college selling cars. Every single morning it was a negative, brow-beating experience. By the time you walked out of the meeting, you wanted to kick the first dog you saw. That how it is in America right now. Bush did this, Bush did that. Pin the tail, pin the tail. Blah, blah, blah.

No one in the DBM (Drive By Media) will speak the truth. Therefore, guys like me have to go out of the way to be heard and to get the truth out.

All MOST people hear is a 5 second negative tidbit on the TV or they read the latest skewed newspaper headline. Take an objective look at the media and you will eventually realize the agenda they have to distort any news to further their political agenda.

Maybe some day I'll be in a position to buy a newspaper and make it a point-counterpoint on the news of the day. Every article would represent views from 2, 3, even 4 sides or more. People would be allowed to read arguments for and against without a hdden agenda. May the best idea win. That is the way it should be in politics but we all know that won't happen. So here we sit.

 

[MonsterMark]

This is just Clinton's accomplishments. Forget about the rest of the Democratic Party.

ADMINISTRATION RECORDS SET
- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates
- Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment.
- First president accused of rape.
- First first lady to come under criminal investigation
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
- First president to establish a legal defense fund.
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
- Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
- Number of independent counsel inquiries since the 1978 law was passed: 19
- Number that have produced indictments: 7
- Number that produced more convictions than the Starr investigation: 1
- Median length of investigations that have led to convictions: 44 months
- Length of Starr-Ray investigation (7/00): 67 months.
- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions to date (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 15
- Median cost per Starr investigation conviction: $3.5 million as of 3/00
- Total cost of the Starr investigation (3/00) $52 million
- Total cost of the Iran-Contra investigation: $48.5 million
- Total cost to taxpayers of the Madison Guarantee failure: $73 million
- Number of Clinton cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3
CRIME STATS
- Number of individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 47
- Number of these convictions during Clinton's presidency: 33
- Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
- Number of imprisonments: 14
- Number of congressional witnesses who have pled the 5th Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 124
CAMPAIGN FINANCE INVESTIGATION
- As of June 2000, the Justice Department listed 25 people indicted and 19 convicted because of the 1996 Clinton-Gore fundraising scandals.
- According to the House Committee on Government Reform in September 2000, 79 House and Senate witnesses asserted the Fifth Amendment in the course of investigations into Gore's last fundraising campaign. [These figures are included in the larger figures elsewhere].
-James Riady entered a plea agreement to pay an $8.5 million fine for campaign finance crimes. This was a record under campaign finance laws.
STARR INVESTIGATION
- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty pleas to date (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 15
- Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5
- Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4
- Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3
SMALTZ INVESTIGATION
- Guilty pleas and convictions obtained by Donald Smaltz in cases involving charges of bribery and fraud against former Agriculture Secretary Espy and associated individuals and businesses: 15
- Acquitted or overturned cases (including Espy): 6
- Fines and penalties assessed: $11.5 million
- Cost of investigation: $22.2 million through 9/99
- Amount Tyson Food paid in fines and court costs: $6 million
- Amount Tyson Food still has in annual government contracts: $200 million
- Reasons individuals other than Espy were convicted or pled guilty: Concealing knowledge of gifts to Espy and his girlfriend (1), providing illegal gratuities to Espy(4), illegally supplementing the salary of a government official (2), concealing receipt of illegal funds on behalf of Espy (1) (Espy's chief of staff sentenced to prison in this case)
CRIMES FOR WHICH CONVICTIONS HAVE BEEN OBTAINED
Drug trafficking (3), racketeering, extortion, bribery(4), tax evasion, kickbacks, embezzlement (2), fraud (12), conspiracy (5), fraudulent loans, illegal gifts(1), illegal campaign contributions(5), money laundering (6)
POSSIBLE CRIMES AND SUSPICIOUS MATTERS INVESTIGATED BY SPECIAL PROSECUTORS, CONGRESS,
AND/OR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS
Bank and mail fraud, violations of campaign finance laws, illegal foreign campaign funding, improper exports of sensitive technology, physical violence and threats of violence, solicitation of perjury, intimidation of witnesses, bribery of witnesses, attempted intimidation of prosecutors, perjury before congressional committees, lying in statements to federal investigators and regulatory officials, flight of witnesses, obstruction of justice, bribery of cabinet members, real estate fraud, tax fraud, drug trafficking, failure to investigate drug trafficking, bribery of state officials, use of state police for personal purposes, exchange of promotions or benefits for sexual favors, using state police to provide false court testimony, laundering of drug money through a state agency, false reports by medical examiners and others investigating suspicious deaths, the firing of the RTC and FBI director when these agencies were investigating Clinton and his associates, failure to conduct autopsies in suspicious deaths, providing jobs in return for silence by witnesses, drug abuse, illegal acquisition and use of 900 FBI files, illegal futures trading, murder, sexual abuse of employees, false testimony before a federal judge, shredding of documents, withholding and concealment of subpoenaed documents, fabricated charges against (and improper firing of) White House employees, as well as providing access to the White House to drug traffickers, foreign agents and participants in organized crime.
UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENA
- FBI files misappropriated by the White House: c. 900
- Estimated number of witnesses quoted in FBI files misappropriated by the White House: 18,000
- Number of witnesses who developed medical problems at critical points in Clinton scandals investigation (Tucker, Hale, both McDougals, Lindsey): 5
- Problem areas listed in a memo by Clinton's own lawyer in preparation for the president's defense: 40
- Number of witnesses and critics of Clinton subjected to IRS audit: 45
- Number of names placed in a White House secret database without the knowledge of those named: c. 200,000
- Number of persons involved with Clinton who have been beaten up: 2
- Number of women involved with Clinton who claim to have been physically threatened (Sally Perdue, Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, Elizabeth Ward Gracen): 5
- Number of men involved in the Clinton scandals who have been beaten up or claimed to have been intimidated: 10
ARKANSAS SUDDEN DEATH SYNDROME
- Number of persons in the Clinton machine orbit who are alleged to have committed suicide: 9
- Number known to have been murdered: 12
- Number who died in plane crashes: 6
- Number who died in single car automobile accidents: 3
- Number killed during Waco massacre: 4
- Number of one-person sking fatalities: 1
- Number of key witnesses who have died of heart attacks while in federal custody under questionable circumstances: 1
- Number of medications being taken by Jim McDougal at the time he was placed in solitary confinement shortly before his death: 12
- Number of unexplained deaths: 4
- Total suspicious deaths: 46
- Number of northern Mafia killings during peak years of 1968-78: 30
- Number of Dixie Mafia killings during same period: 156
ARKANSAS ALZHEIMER'S
- Number of times Hillary Clinton said "I don't recall" or its equivalent in a statement to a House investigating committee: 50
- Number of paragraphs in this statement: 42
- Number of times Bill Clinton said "I don't recall" or its equivalent in the released portions of the his testimony on Paula Jones: 271
- Total number of facts or events not recalled before official bodies by Bill Kennedy, Harold Ickes, Ricki Seidman, Bruce Lindsey, Bill Burton, Mark Gearan, Mack McLarty, Neil Eggleston, John Podesta, Jennifer O'Connor, Dwight Holton, Patsy Thomasson, Jeff Eller, Beth Nolan, Cliff Sloan, Bernard Nussbaum, George Stephanopoulous, Roy Neel, Rahm Emanuel, Maggie Williams, David Tarbell, Susan Thomases, Webster Hubbell, Roger Altman, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton: 6,125
- Average occurrence of memory lapse by top administration figures while before official bodies: 235
ARKANSAS MONEY MANAGEMENT
- Amount of an alleged electronic transfer from the Arkansas Development Financial Authority to a bank in the Cayman Islands during 1980s: $50 million
- Grand Cayman's population: 18,000
- Number of commercial banks: 570
- Number of bank regulators: 1
- Amount Arkansas state pension fund invested in high-risk repos in the mid-80s in one purchase in April 1985: $52 million through the Worthen Bank.
- Number of days thereafter that the state's brokerage firm went belly up: 3
- Amount Arkansas pension fund dropped overnight as a result: 15%
- Percent of Worthen bank that Mochtar Riady bought over the next four months to bail out the bank and the then governor, Bill Clinton: 40%.
- Percent of purchasers from the Clintons and McDougals of resort lots who lost the land because of the sleazy financing provisions: over 50%
THE MEDIA
- Number of journalists covering Whitewater who have been fired, transferred off the beat, resigned or otherwise gotten into trouble because of their work on the scandals (Doug Frantz, Jim Wooten, Richard Behar, Christopher Ruddy, Michael Isikoff, David Eisenstadt, Yinh Chan, Jonathan Broder, James R. Norman, Zoh Hieronimus): 10
FRIENDS OF BILL
- Number of times John Huang took the 5th Amendment in answer to questions during a Judicial Watch deposition: 1,000
- Visits made to the White House by investigation subjects Johnny Chung, James Riady, John Huang, and Charlie Trie. 160
- Number of campaign contributors who got overnights at the White House in the two years before the 1996 election: 577
- Number of members of Thomas Boggs's law firm who have held top positions in the Clinton administration. 18
- Number of times John Huang was briefed by CIA: 37
- Number of calls Huang made from Commerce Department to Lippo banks: 261
- Number of intelligence reports Huang read while at Commerce: 500
POLITICAL FALL-OUT
- According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats held a 1,542 seat lead in the state bodies in 1990. As of November 2000 that lead had shrunk to 288. That's a loss of over 1,200 state legislative seats, nearly all of them under Clinton. Across the US, the Democrats controlled only 65 more state senate seats than the Republicans.
Further, in 1992, the Democrats controlled 17 more state legislatures than the Republicans. After November, the Republicans control one more than the Democrats. Not only was this a loss of 9 legislatures under Clinton, but it was the first time since 1954 that the GOP had controlled more state legislatures than the Democrats (they tied in 1968).
Here's what happened to the Democrats under Clinton:
- GOP seats gained in House since Clinton became president: 48
- GOP seats gained in Senate since Clinton became president: 8
- GOP governorships gained since Clinton became president: 11
- GOP state legislative seats gained since Clinton became president: 1,254
as of 1998
- State legislatures taken over by GOP since Clinton became president: 9
- Democrat officeholders who have become Republicans since Clinton became
president: 439 as of 1998
- Republican officeholders who have become Democrats since Clinton became president: 3