I don't see that it ever actually went away, but oh well.

Clinton: Right-wing conspiracy is back
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
LINK (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_vast_conspiracy;_ylt=Asp6u2q.n0pFkg.TQl3cU F.yFz4D)

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday described past Republican political malfeasance in New Hampshire as evidence of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy." Clinton's barbed comments revived a term she coined for the partisan plotting during her husband's presidential tenure and echoed remarks she made last weekend in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary.

Her rhetorical red meat to a sympathetic audience of Democratic municipal officials comes as Clinton courts New Hampshire voters and squeezes donors for dollars ahead of a March 31 fundraising report deadline. She also continues to face criticism from the party's liberal base for her failure to repudiate her vote authorizing military force in Iraq.

Clinton asserted on Tuesday that the conspiracy is alive and well, and cited as proof the Election Day 2002 case of phone jamming in New Hampshire, a case in which two Republican operatives pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and a third was convicted.

"To the New Hampshire Democratic Party's credit, they sued and the trail led all the way to the Republican National Committee," Clinton said.

"So if anybody tells you there is no vast, right-wing conspiracy, tell them that New Hampshire has proven it in court," she said.

Former RNC operative James Tobin was convicted of telephone harassment and appealed his conviction. The investigation arose after Democratic organizers' phones were overwhelmed by annoying hang-up calls hindering their get-out-the-vote efforts.

Clinton accused the GOP of a number of other anti-voter actions, including intimidating phone calls during the 2006 congressional elections.

New Hampshire Democratic Party chairwoman Kathy Sullivan said she absolutely agreed with the New York senator's description of the case.

"People think we're paranoid when we talk about the vast, right-wing conspiracy, but there is a real connection of these groups — the same names keep popping up," Sullivan said. "They are the most disgusting group of political thugs that I have ever seen."

RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt responded that Democrats "might be disappointed to learn that almost a decade later, the senator's playbook consists of little more than a resurrection of Clinton-era talking points."

Clinton made her charge of conspiracy in response to a question about her proposed bill that would make Election Day a federal holiday, and make it a crime to send misleading or fraudulent information to voters.

She also said the government should do more to end unusually long lines at certain polling places.

"It just so happens that many of those places where people are waiting for hours are places where people of color are voting or young people are voting. That is un-American, and we're going to end it," Clinton said.

In January 1998, as the investigation into her husband's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky probe engulfed the White House, Clinton appeared on NBC's "Today" show and dismissed the allegations as part of a broader effort to smear her husband with groundless investigations.

"The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast, right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president," the first lady said at the time.

As evidence of the affair eventually came to light, the comment was ridiculed. But many Democrats have since insisted that Clinton was correct, pointing to the well-documented efforts by conservative financier Richard Mellon Scaife to fund a network of anti-Clinton investigations.

Clinton aides noted Tuesday that she also revisited the conspiracy comments back in 2003, when she said: "My only regret was using the word conspiracy, because there's absolutely nothing secret about it."

Now they need to go back and investigate Waco and Vince Fostor

Aaahhh, the vast right wing conspiracy.

The phrase invented by Hillary Clinton to explain the group making false allegations about her husband and Monica Lewinsky.

Aaahhh, the vast right wing conspiracy.

The phrase invented by Hillary Clinton to explain the group making false allegations about her husband and Monica Lewinsky.

Actually it was all the false accusations about "Whitewater".

Actually it was all the false accusations about "Whitewater".

Unprovable in court is not the same as "false."

Let me make everyone in on a little secret, there is not one conspiracy in America, there are at least two.

The right wing conspiracy is among conservatives, the left wing is among liberals. Conservatives talk to other conservatives other and read right wing publications; liberals talk to other liberals and read left wing publications. Thus there are two conspiracies.

Unprovable in court is not the same as "false.

It never got that far.

They couldn't find enough evidence of any wrongdoing to file any charges.

Actually it was all the false accusations about "Whitewater".
No.

Matt Lauer: "You have said, I understand, to some close friends, that this is the last great battle (Monica Lewinsky Scandal), and that one side or the other is going down here."
Hillary Clinton: "Well, I don't know if I've been that dramatic. That would sound like a good line from a movie. But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this—they have popped up in other settings. This is—the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vast_right-wing_conspiracy

They couldn't find enough evidence of any wrongdoing to file any charges.Why do you suppose that is?

Strange that a woman can sit and chat about her husbands affair in the context of a conspiracy, just to look good to the electorate.

Strange that a woman can sit and chat about her husbands affair in the context of a conspiracy, just to look good to the electorate.That's nothing for her.
My favorite story is that when she met Sir Edmund Hillary, she told him her mother named her after him.
Unfortunately, she was born in 1947 and he didn't climb Mount Everest until 1953.
When confronted with this, she said that her mother had read an article about him in 1947 and liked the way his name was spelled.
Of course in 1947 it wouldn't be very likely that an Illinois newspaper would run a story about an unknown New Zealand beekeeper........ but what a great story

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/hillary.asp

It never got that far.

They couldn't find enough evidence of any wrongdoing to file any charges.

That is a prosecutors job. That the prosecutor didn't bring charges had a lot to do with the fact that one better be damn sure before one brings charges against such a prominent person. My recollection is that at the time I thought she was guilty but it was better being allowed to drop, althogh I don't now remember the details.

I just object to your claiming she was innocent based on failure to prosecute.

Strange that a woman can sit and chat about her husbands affair in the context of a conspiracy, just to look good to the electorate.

Nixon looked at his political opponents the same way, and it justified lawbreaking to him. This is not a good sign.

I post this only as information, but one wonders what the wife of the governor of Arkansas is doing involved in such things (there is an obvious conflict of interest) with such people. The profit seems a marvelous gift, even though there were others who also made money, the account doesn't mention the fact that amateurs in the futures market inevitably lose, and while she was making such large profits most traders were losing money.

Hillary Clinton Futures Trading

By Charles R. Babcock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 27, 1994; Page A01

Hillary Rodham Clinton was allowed to order 10 cattle futures contracts, normally a $12,000 investment, in her first commodity trade in 1978 although she had only $1,000 in her account at the time, according to trade records the White House released yesterday.

The computerized records of her trades, which the White House obtained from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, show for the first time how she was able to turn her initial investment into $6,300 overnight. In about 10 months of trading, she made nearly $100,000, relying heavily on advice from her friend James B. Blair, an experienced futures trader.

The new records also raise the possibility that some of her profits -- as much as $40,000 – came from larger trades ordered by someone else and then shifted to her account, Leo Melamed, a former chairman of the Merc who reviewed the records for the White House, said in an interview. He said the discrepancies in Clinton's records also could have been caused by human error.

Even allocated trades would not necessarily have benefited Clinton, Melamed added. "I have no reason to change my original assessment. Mrs. Clinton violated no rules in the course of her transactions," he said.

Lisa Caputo, Clinton's spokeswoman, said the documents were released yesterday "to give as complete a picture as possible" of her trades. She said Clinton had never before seen them.

Blair, who urged Clinton to enter the high-risk futures market and ordered most of her trades, said in a recent interview that he "talked her into" her first futures trade in October 1978 before paperwork on her account was completed. It was liquidated quickly, he recalled, because "it was bigger than she wanted and required more money."

A close examination of her individual trades underscores Blair's pivotal role. It also shows that Robert L. "Red" Bone, who ran the Springdale, Ark., office of Ray E. Friedman and Co. (Refco), allowed Clinton to initiate and maintain many trading positions – besides the first – when she did not have enough money in her account to cover them.

Why would Bone do so? Bone could not be reached for comment, but Blair said he thought he knew why. "I was a very good customer," he said, noting he paid Bone $800,000 in commissions over the years. "They weren't going to hassle me. If I brought them somebody, they weren't going to hassle them."

Besides, he added, Bone would not worry if he agreed with his clients' bet on which way the price of a given contract would go.

Blair, who at the time was outside counsel to Tyson Foods Inc., Arkansas' largest employer, says he was advising Clinton out of friendship, not to seek political gain for his state-regulated client. At the time of many of the trades, Bill Clinton was governor.

Hillary Clinton has said she made all the trading decisions herself and has tried to play down Blair's role. But she acknowledged in April, three weeks after her trades were first disclosed, that Blair actually placed most of the trades.

Blair advised Clinton again on July 17, 1979. He recalled that she started that trading day by losing $26,460 on 10 cattle contracts she had held for more than a month, by far her worst loss as a futures player. On his recommendation, he said, she immediately went back into the market. She acquired 50 new cattle contracts – worth $1.4 million -- and when the price moved in her favor, unloaded them around noon for a quick gain of $10,550. This recouped part of her loss.

Blair said Clinton and other friends he suggested trades for had lost money that spring on feeder cattle. Those trades "caused everyone some grief," he said. "I'm sure I was pressing to get everyone back above water" in recommending the quick and bold day trade.

The White House defense of Hillary Clinton's preferential treatment was that other customers in the same office also were allowed to trade without having enough cash in their accounts.

While Clinton's account was wildly successful to an outsider, it was small compared to what others were making in the cattle futures market in the 1978-79 period. An investigation of the cattle futures market at that time by Rep. Neal Smith (D-Iowa) found that in one 16-month period 32 traders made more than $110 million in profits from large trades -- those of 50 contracts or more. Clinton traded positions of 50 or more contracts only three times.

The records the White House released yesterday were part of an investigative file from 1979, when the exchange charged Bone and Refco with violations of its record keeping and margin requirement rules. Bone was suspended for three years; Refco paid a $250,000 fine, then the largest in the exchange's history. Internal memos from that investigation cover transactions from the same period in June in which Clinton was trading, but not the same trades. In one instance, the Merc found Bone and a fellow broker were ordering 1,000 cattle contracts at a time – far over the limit allowed at the time – and then allocating them to other customers.

One internal Merc memo said "there is reason to believe" that a majority of Bone's accounts were traded without the clients' permission. Blair said that Bone at times traded his personal account without permission.

Blair said he doubted Bone traded Clinton's account without her permission.

Melamed said it was "impossible" to determine the exact cause for the discrepancies between the Merc computer record of Clinton's trades and the trading records she received from Refco, which the White House released earlier.

She said that for six trades, her initial trading position in the Refco records were not reflected in the Merc documents. On one other trade neither her purchase nor sale was included. On that trade she netted $12,150 on 15 cattle contracts she held for four days.

Clinton reported a loss of $2,480 on one of the trades in question, Melamed noted.

One was a "day trade" on hog contracts that netted $2,553. Melamed said "day trades" are the only way to assure profit even if favorable trading positions are allocated to a customer's account. Any position held overnight would be subject to the rise and fall in prices in the volatile futures market, he added.

Staff researcher Barbara J. Saffir contributed to this report.

In commodities futures trading, an account that falls below the "maintenance margin" typically triggers a "margin call," where the trader must put up sufficient cash to cover the contracts. Although Hillary Rodham Clinton's account was under-margined for nearly all of July 1979, no margin calls were made, no additional cash was put up, and she eventually reaped a $60,000 profit.

June 29 ......... $56,466 (Margin: Value account should have had to continue trading.)

July 12 ........ -$24,243

July 17 ......... $22,537 (Account value: Total cash on hand plus (or minus) paper value of contracts.)

July 20 ......... $61,537

July 23, 1979: She withdrew $60,000 and never traded again, closing the account in October.

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company

Actually it was all the false accusations about "Whitewater".

Nope. Wrong again:

"WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Jan. 27) -- First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday firmly denied allegations that her husband had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Mrs. Clinton blamed the sex allegations on a "a vast right-wing conspiracy" against President Bill Clinton. "

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/01/27/hillary.today/

No.

Wrong.


Matt Lauer: "You have said, I understand, to some close friends, that this is the last great battle (Monica Lewinsky Scandal), and that one side or the other is going down here."
Hillary Clinton: "Well, I don't know if I've been that dramatic. That would sound like a good line from a movie. But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this—they have popped up in other settings. This is—the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vast_right-wing_conspiracy

The false accusations against the Clintons included the Whitewater investigations, which found no evidence of any wrongdoing.

On The Today Show Hillary Clinton said the attacks on her husband's presidency—specifically the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which had just surfaced, but also the campaign finance scandal, Travelgate and Whitewater scandals—were used for political gain by the Republican party.

Hillary Clinton made a thousand percent profit, couldn't find her Rose law firm records, blamed the vast right wing conspiracy for her husband's philandering and sexual abuse of a subordinate but some people just can't see her as anything but a modern day Joan of Arc. It is amazing how some people can simply discount anything they don't want to believe.

"used for political gain by the republican party?"

What do you think Hillary is doing by bringing up a "rightwing conspiracy" in a state that she wants to win?

Even if there were no such thing, she'd invent it to smear her opponent, whoever that may be.

I don't agree with Hillary on much, but it was pretty obvious throughout the 90s that the Republicans were on a witch hunt against the Clintons.

Everyone who paid attention knows she is right.

If anyone deserved to be run out of D.C. by either party during the 1990's, it was the klintons.

2008 will see the Bush's leave town, hopefully for good.

What the country does not need is another round of klintons.

What the country does not need is another round of klintons.

I disagree, the country was much better off under Bill Clinton than we are today.

What we really do not need is another round of Bush.

If anyone deserved to be run out of D.C. by either party during the 1990's, it was the klintons.
God man.. spell their names right. It's just annoying reading that over and over again.

I don't agree with Hillary on much, but it was pretty obvious throughout the 90s that the Republicans were on a witch hunt against the Clintons.

Everyone who paid attention knows she is right.

what a vague, arrogant, bigot-sounding post...

Oh yea.. we ALL know she is right.. or wait.. you must not have been paying attention.

LMAO

If you don't think dharmabum is a complete waste of oxygen, then you must not be well-informed... EVERYONE knows he is.:rolleyes:

Cry me a river Decka.

It is your own fault that you didn't pay any attention during the 90s. You were probably still in diapers anyway, judging from your behavior.

Cry me a river Decka.

It is your own fault that you didn't pay any attention during the 90s. You were probably still in diapers anyway, judging from your behavior.

I was in diapers in 1982 thanks...

as for your claim... many people "paid attention" during the 90's, but not all had your bias slant.

many people "paid attention" during the 90's,

Just not you, since you don't acknowledge the Rightwing witch hunt against the Clintons.

The republicans went after Clinton.. no doubt.. but it wasn't a "witch hunt", because what Clinton was guilty of, he confessed to. It turns out, oddly enough, that the republicans were "in the right".. because they called Clinton out on his lie, got the votes for impeachment, and thus he was impeached. You can't say its just them trying to smear Clinton.. Clinton did THAT to himself.

The republicans went after Clinton.. no doubt.. but it wasn't a "witch hunt",

Incorrect. In the years of investigations and millions of dollars spent the only thing they ever found on Clinton was a lie about a blowjob.

It was a classic witch hunt.

And for the record, Clinton was aquitted in the Senate.

Incorrect. In the years of investigations and millions of dollars spent the only thing they ever found on Clinton was a lie about a blowjob.

It was a classic witch hunt.


I guess we look through different colored glasses...

but you continue to back "your boy" slick willy...

No Decka I just inform you when you are incorrect.

calling something a "witch hunt' is an objective term.. its not like you are "correcting me" on factual information.. you are saying your point of view is "better" or "more important" than mine... which is why i pointed out that debating with you is like debating with a brick wall.. you can't separate healthy debate from ego, pride, and the need to be right.