Call her Mrs. Santa Claus – or Ms. Santa Claus, perhaps. Just last week at a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, Hillary Clinton proposed that each baby born in the United States receive a $5,000 “baby bond” from the federal government.

Of course, the idea is designed to have a certain superficial appeal. The program would be for everyone, not just the needy, and it’s tempting for already overburdened taxpayers to decide that yes, indeed, they deserve a little of their own back. What could sound better than welcoming a new baby with a generous $5,000 shower gift, courtesy of the U.S. government?

But like all schemes that seem too good to be true, Hillary’s proposal is worth considerably less than meets the eye. It’s fair to ask: Why should a struggling, childless member of the middle class be forced to subsidize Bill Gates’ children, or Warren Buffett’s grandchildren? Why, for that matter, should someone as rich as Oprah – when Gates, Buffett (and most other Americans, for that matter) are perfectly capable of providing for their own offspring? How ironic that a liberal Democrat like Hillary Clinton, who has spent much of her career advocating “progressive” politics, would embrace a plan that in many cases would involve transfers of wealth up the economic ladder.

Despite that obvious inconsistency, there are solid reasons that Clinton has proposed a universal program. For starters, many voters wouldn’t embrace a policy that would provide an economic incentive for the poorest Americans to enlarge their families – after all, it’s just been a little over a decade since the abolition of a welfare system whose subsidies increased when unmarried mothers bore more children.

But there’s an even more compelling rationale from Clinton’s perspective for offering taxpayer money to childbearing Americans of all income levels. Such a program extends government’s hold over Americans’ lives, from cradle to grave, and provides yet another “benefit” that can be used to justify higher taxes and greater regulation. It would help condition otherwise self-sufficient voters to sup at the government trough – to expect government assistance even when it’s not necessary. For a liberal like Clinton, whose ideology calls for transferring control over Americans’ lives from private to government hands, even an economically regressive policy is palatable if it helps advance that agenda.

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Last Sunday, September 23, 2007, Hillary appeared on all five of the major morning talk shows. During each appearance she let loose a demented sounding cackle.

The New York Times’ Patrick Healy reports that Hillary’s cackle is a reaction to pressure:

And then, less often but more notably, she copes with the pressure by using The Cackle. At Wednesday’s Democratic debate, for instance, former Senator Mike Gravel complained about her vote on an Iran resolution and said he was “ashamed” of her. Asked to respond, Mrs. Clinton laughed before responding, as if to minimize the matter.

I disagree. I find the Clinton Cackle, like her feigned twang, to be just another one of her politically calculated staged behaviors.

Hearing the Clinton cackle, I can’t help thinking of Howard Dean’s yowl. That yowl forever pegged Dean as a raging lunatic.

Will Clinton’s calculated cackle have a similar result?

There are already at least six YouTube videos of Hillary’s cackle. The most viewed video highlights Hillary laughing off Senator Mike Gravel’s complaint.

Source: Red State

You may not have heard of Doug from Upland, but odds are you will in the months to come. Over at Free Republic, Doug describes his dogged pursuit of justice against Hillary Clinton’s financial skulduggery.

In addition to publicizing the well known Peter Paul civil case against the Clintons, Doug has been on the warpath as the case heats up.

This afternoon, I spoke with a field agent of the FBI in Los Angeles. In broad daylight, a major campaign finance fraud was committed, and no one seems to want to do anything about it. After hearing the story, I was invited to come in on Monday to speak to a field agent. I’ll be there…

The evidence to which Doug refers is the newly released "HIllary Clinton ’smoking-gun’ video." The preface to the tape states that it "shows Hillary Clinton in the process of committing at least four or five felonies under federal election law".

Read more at Doug Ross Journal

“the+greatest+campaign+finance+scandal+in+American+history&rdquo  ;

“the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history”

Now that this phrase has been published by a respected member of the MSM, and, as such, is now in the LexusNexis search database, it seems appropriate to associate that phrase with the person to whom it refers: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I received a ping from FReeper “Spirit of Allegiance” this morning which pointed to an article which featured our pal, “Dougfromupland.”

The article was in the San Francisco Chronicle’s on line edition. Here is the introductory paragraph of the article about “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history.”

In his other life, Douglas Cogan, 59, is a San Bernardino County commercial real estate broker. But for years, the conservative Republican has spent thousands of hours painstakingly researching what he calls “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history” by a woman he calls one of the most dangerous political figures the country has ever seen - Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Since it appears that Google has enabled “google-bombing” again, I thought it might be interesting to get the phrase, “the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history,” permanently associated with Hillary Rodham Clinton. That is the purpose of this post. And, if any of you bloggers out there want to join in, just copy+paste this post at your blog, or pass it along in the comments section of your favorite blogs. The more the merrier. I’m going to track-post it to Linkfests, and post it at FR. I’ll also activate every tag I have ever used to associate it with this post. Heh.

Great idea Nuke!

Is Hillary Clinton the New Old Al Gore?

True to form, the Red Rag spends the opening few paragraphs tearing apart the Republican candidates, the bemoans the past mistakes of the Democrats.

But then the Mouthpiece of the Left tears into Hillary with all the viciousness usually reserved for anything Bush:

Mrs. Clinton wouldn’t repeat Mr. Gore’s foolhardy mistake of running away from her popular husband and his record, even if she could. But almost every answer she gave last Sunday was a rambling and often tedious Gore-like filibuster. Like the former vice president, she often came across as a pontificator and an automaton — in contrast to the personable and humorous person she is known to be off-camera. And she seemed especially evasive when dealing with questions requiring human reflection instead of wonkery. . . .

Now Mrs. Clinton is erupting in a laugh with all the spontaneity of an alarm clock buzzer. Mocking this tic last week, “The Daily Show” imagined a robotic voice inside the candidate’s head saying, “Humorous remark detected — prepare for laughter display.” However sincere, this humanizing touch seems as clumsily stage-managed as the Gores’ dramatic convention kiss.

Gotta love it when liberals resort to cannibalism.

Source: Alpha Patriot - read him daily!

In his other life, Douglas Cogan, 59, is a San Bernardino County commercial real estate broker. But for years, the conservative Republican has spent thousands of hours painstakingly researching what he calls "the greatest campaign finance scandal in American history" by a woman he calls one of the most dangerous political figures the country has ever seen - Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In her other life, Zehra Ahsan, 26, is a law student and an intern in the San Francisco district attorney’s office. But since earlier this year, she has spent upward of 100 hours a week, often beginning at dawn, talking to voters, driving hundreds of miles to events, handing out flyers at BART stations and networking for a woman she believes could change the course of American history - Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"It’s a passion, because I think it’s important," said Cogan, of Upland, who has worked with the Hillary Clinton Accountability Project, or HillCAP, and a group called the Equal Justice for America Foundation to showcase what he alleges has been Clinton’s wrongdoing.

"She thinks she is destined to be the most powerful in the world … and I think there is nothing she would not do to get power."

Ahsan’s view could not be more different.

"This is something that I not only have been waiting for all my life … womankind has been waiting for," Ahsan said of Clinton’s 2008 campaign for president. "We’re the biggest and most visible democracy in the world, and we haven’t given women equal footing in the political world. But Hillary Clinton will break every glass ceiling there is by making it to the presidency."

The two visions highlight how, after more than 15 years in the national public eye as first lady and a U.S. senator from New York, Clinton - more than any other political candidate on the American landscape today - inspires a depth of passion that is shocking in its intensity.

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 Maybe it’s fitting that a woman who first sashayed into the national consciousness with an equation — “two for the price of one” — may have her fate determined by the arithmetic of dynasty.

The town is divided into two camps: those who think that, after 16 years of Hillary pushing herself forward, the public will get worn out and reject her, and those who think that, after 16 years of Hillary pushing herself forward, the public will get worn down and give in to her.

In his new book, “The Evangelical President,” Bill Sammon interviewed President Bush and his senior aides about the ’08 election. Mr. Bush told the author that Hillary Clinton would beat Barack Obama, because she is “a formidable candidate” and better known — the better to raise money.

Despite all he has done to help Democrats, W. maintains that Republicans can hold the White House. But just in case the Clinton dynasty once more succeeds the Bush one, the Texas president has been sending the New York senator messages to “maintain some political wiggle room in your campaign rhetoric about Iraq,” as Mr. Sammon puts it.

Whoever gets the White House, W. contends, faced with the prospect of a vicious Middle East vacuum, will “begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy.”

(As Dana Perino noted on Friday, on a different topic, “The president does not have second thoughts.”)

Some of W.’s advisers were more cutting about Hillary in the Sammon book.

“This process is not going to serve her well,” one said, adding: “She’s going to be essentially saying, ‘Elect me president after I’ve spent the last 16 years in your face. And you didn’t like me much when I was there last. Give me eight more years so I can be a presence in your life for 24 years.’”

Others do not underestimate her relentlessness. As Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, once told me: “She’s never going to get out of our faces. … She’s like some hellish housewife who has seen something that she really, really wants and won’t stop nagging you about it until finally you say, fine, take it, be the damn president, just leave me alone.”

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Hillary Clinton’s White House bid re portedly is set today to receive the endorsement of the Democrats’ most radical ever presidential nominee: former Sen. George McGovern, who topped his party’s ticket in 1972.

Which could explain why Hillary seems to be feeling all ’70s nostalgic.

Back in 1972, recall, McGovern proposed that every single American be given a $1,000 check, no questions asked, regardless of financial need.

Even his fellow Democrats ridiculed the idea - especially when McGovern admitted that he had no idea how much it would cost and how it would be paid for.

Now comes Clinton with her own 21st-century version of McGovernomics.

Yesterday, she told the Congressional Black Caucus’ annual legislative conference that she thinks every baby born in America should be given not $1,000 but $5,000 - inflation, don’t you know? - in the form of a "baby bond."

"I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so when that young person turns 18, if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college," she said.

Like McGovern, Hillary didn’t offer any ideas on how much it would cost or how Uncle Sam would foot the bill.

So let’s do some math here.

In 2004 (the latest year for which official figures are available), there were 4.116 million live births in America. At five grand apiece, that works out to nearly $21 billion - each and every year, which only gets bigger and bigger.

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Hillary Clinton unveiled her health care plan under the banner of American Health Choices Plan. It should be called the "Everything But the Kitchen Sink" plan.

Clinton’s plan would increase taxes, create new government-provided insurance, bolster federal regulation, mandate that individuals purchase approved insurance policies, and mandate that large employers pay for such policies. The only thing it doesn’t promise is a single-payer health care system. That will, however, be the result.

Clinton talks of choices, but her plan is about limiting them, not expanding them.

Our current system actually offers many choices, with more coming on line each day. People can purchase individual insurance; work for an employer who provides insurance; elect and pay more for generous first-dollar coverage; save taxes; and accumulate funds for the future with a health savings account.

The insurance industry, where allowed by regulators, is targeting young adults with specially tailored plans. Health clinics are popping up in local malls. Some doctors are again making house calls. Others are setting up concierge practices.

And yes, some Americans choose not to be insured. They may pay cash for services rendered. They may be taken care of by a safety net that includes taxpayer-funded neighborhood clinics, charity care at physicians’ offices, or free care at hospitals.

With Clinton, the only choice will be to whom to pay the taxes — to the private, but government-blessed plan, or to the government-run plan. Health plan design will be nationalized, as a national mandate requires a national standard plan to meet the mandates’ requirement.

When the new bureaucracy in Massachusetts set standards for its mandate, it excluded the current plans of thousands of state residents. They will have to get new plans or face fines.

The individual mandate will lead to new bureaucracy to enforce it, even as it fails to achieve universal care. Car insurance is mandatory, after all, even if driving isn’t. Yet, nearly 15 percent of drivers go bare.

New government plans will become the norm, as private insurers are forced to charge full prices while the government will hide costs in subsidies. Seniors, after all, think Medicare is a bargain largely because it is funded by current employee payroll taxes and general revenues, that is, income taxes.

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Last week, two of the leading conservatives in the media, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, were dishonestly and unprofessionally attacked by press outlets that cherry-picked out of context remarks from lengthy radio broadcasts in order to vilify outspoken personalities whose opinions they don’t agree with.

Unfortunately, as folks around the country saw this play out on their television sets and newspapers, few were at all familiar with the organization behind the smear campaigns, or that this same group started the firestorm which ended with radio host Don Imus being terminated by NBC and CBS in April.

Maybe more importantly, even fewer citizens are aware that this organization is linked directly to Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as billionaire leftist George Soros.

For some background, John Perazzo wrote a column for FrontPage Magazine in July entitled “Media Matters: Hillary’s Lap Dogs,” that should be must-reading for all citizens interested in who’s targeting America’s leading conservative personalities.

Established in May 2004, Media Matters identifies itself as “a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media”—particularly information “that forwards the conservative agenda.” The organization was founded by the conservative-turned-leftist journalist David Brock, who says he created Media Matters “to combat” what he characterizes as the largely successful effort of “the right wing in this country” to “mov[e] the media itself to the right” and to “mov[e] American politics to the right.”

After explaining why the Clintons hate Don Imus, and how Media Matters has been collecting information on the controversial radio host for years just waiting for an opportunity to take him down, Perazzo addressed the unmistakable connection between this leftwing organization and the junior senator from New York:

Media Matters’ links to Hillary are at once intimate and multitudinous, and the organization’s devotion to her is nothing short of profound. In 1996 (eight years before Media Matters’ creation), the then-conservative David Brock was commissioned (with a $1 million advance) by the Simon & Schuster subsidiary Free Press to write a hard-hitting expose of Hillary. But the book, completed in 1997, turned out to be nothing more than a tepid, distinctly sympathetic account of the former First Lady’s life. That same year (1997), Brock publicly announced his political epiphany, unequivocally recanting his previous negative writings about the Clintons and embracing the liberal/Left cause. During this period, Brock developed a close relationship with Neel Lattimore, Senator Clinton’s openly gay press secretary and close confidante. Brock would eventually hire Lattimore as a director of “special projects” for Media Matters.

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