Mrs. Clinton’s Old Playbook (Hillary)

The presidential candidate from the previous century dusts off an old tactic from said century, from John Podhoretz: New York Post:

The “vast right-wing conspiracy” is back.

That was the phrase Hillary Clinton herself used to describe the villainous puppet masters behind the Monica Lewinsky scandal back in 1998. And now, her camp has decided to reanimate this ludicrous bogeyman from the days when pets.com was the talk of Wall Street to combat new allegations of Clintonian malfeasance — allegations the substance of which she and we don’t even yet know.

The material dug up by the conservative writer Peter Schweizer for his new book, “Clinton Cash,” is credible enough to have led several news organizations not normally friendly to the right (The New York Times and The Washington Post) to strike deals with Schweizer and his publisher to share and independently substantiate some of its charges.

Problems; one, the Affair Lewinsky was not the product of some lurid right wing imagination. It as the product of B.J. Clinton’s lust. Two, the ilk of the organization carrying the load of manure on the Clinton Foundation can hardly be described as right-wing, from the New York Times, via Red State:

The headline in Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when the newspaper served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”

The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.

…Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

Read the whole article, there is too much awesomeness there to blockquote without running afoul of Fair Use. While the main point of the article is how an unending stream of Russian contributions to the Clinton Foundation coincided with the State Department’s decision to not block the acquisition, an action it had taken before:

When a company controlled by the Chinese government sought a 51 percent stake in a tiny Nevada gold mining operation in 2009, it set off a secretive review process in Washington, where officials raised concerns primarily about the mine’s proximity to a military installation, but also about the potential for minerals at the site, including uranium, to come under Chinese control. The officials killed the deal.

Such is the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The committee comprises some of the most powerful members of the cabinet, including the attorney general, the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, and the secretary of state. They are charged with reviewing any deal that could result in foreign control of an American business or asset deemed important to national security.

Will Mrs. Clinton’s antics land Hillary in the Oval Office or a federal prison?  Does Mrs. Clinton need a better campaign staff or a good criminal defense lawyer?

The Clinton administration boosted  about building a bridge to the Twenty First Century.   At the time, I was less than impressed.   What I missed, was the fact the B.J. Clinton’s bridge was not wide enough to accommodate Mrs Clinton’s extra wide butt.