• • Nine women (and one firm) in politics to watch in 2014
• • Watergate-era Judiciary chief of staff: Hillary Clinton fired for lies, unethical behavior

Will 2014 be the Year of the Woman, Part 2? Several high profile Senate races feature credible women candidates, some with familiar names representing political powerhouses of the past. History will almost certainly be made in West Virginia, where two women are competing to be the first woman representing the state in the U.S. Senate, and in other high profile races women are poised to break barriers. These are just a few of the women worth watching in this important election year.

Hillary Clinton - Will she or won't she? That's the question that will continue to hang over the former Secretary of State/Senator/First Lady and the entire Democratic party next year. And apparently Clinton is ready to answer it this year. But maybe a better question for Clinton, and the party, is this: If she runs, how will she run? Will she lead with her gender, implicitly arguing that a woman president is the change that Washington needs? And would that even be enough? Another question: How does she benefit from the Obama brand but not get buried under what is sure to be Obama fatigue come 2016? Since 2008, Democrats have happily been on cruise control, betting that demographics is destiny. And they have been tripping all over themselves to endorse Hillary Clinton for 2016 (a low risk and utterly meaningless move), but who will want Hillary Clinton on the stump in 2014? Sen. Kay Hagan (N.C.), Mary Landreui (La.), Mark Pryor (Ark.)? That will be a good test as to whether Clinton can be the kind of blue-collar Democrat that her husband was, capturing not only working class whites, but the multiracial coalition of African-Americans and Latinos that twice powered Obama to the White House.

Chirlane McCray, sits next to her husband, Mayor Bill de Blasio, during his swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 1. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Chirlane McCray - Rarely do political wives - particularly wives of big city mayors - become power centers in their own right. New York's new first lady could change all that. McCray, wife of Bill de Blasio, is one half of a progressive political duo that has liberals swooning. Her husband's come-from-behind primary victory last fall was due in no small part to McCray's input and political know-how. She helped write speeches and, as reported in the New York Times, in the campaign headquarters for his mayoral run, the organizational flowchart listed "Bill/Chirlane" at the very top. The populist, tax-the-rich approach that de Blasio has taken is in no small part due to McCray's own sense of outsider status as a black woman. Now, she is the ultimate insider, the focus of a re-positioning by national Democrats in advance of 2016. Hillary Clinton is even on her coattails. The question is will she end up like Clinton, spurned by constituents not too keen on the two-for-one deal Bill Clinton's presidency promised. Or will she break the mold, operating behind the scenes and pushing for a progressive portfolio the likes of which New York has never seen.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito - Republicans hopes of capturing the Senate this year run through the south and women voters. West Virginia is positioned to be at the nexus of this trend, with a Senate matchup that will likely feature two women. The race will mark just the 13th time in American history where two women are on the ballot. West Virginia will make history this year by electing a woman to the upper chamber for the first time. So far, 24 states have elected women to the Senate. Capito, the likely winner, will likely face Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, in a state with a strong Democratic history, that is tilting red. The latest polls show Capito leading Tennant by double digits. Democrats have gained the edge on Republicans with the "war on women" campaign, but it isn't clear that will play well in conservative West Virginia, a state where the national Democratic brand embodied by President Obama has never played well.

Wendy Davis - An internet sensation known for an Iron Woman filibuster while wearing pink sneakers, Davis faces a very, very, very, very steep climb in her bid to win the Lone Star State's governor's race. It probably won't happen. Democratic leaning polls show her down double digits to likely Republican challenger Greg Abbott, the state's current attorney general. With nearly 160,000 Twitter followers, Davis has established herself as rising star in the national Democratic party. She has spent time outside the state filling her campaign coffers - she's predicted she will raise $40 million, but is currently lagging badly in the money game. Davis has proven to be a master at PR, dazzling liberals across the country, with her stance on abortion rights. Next year, expect her profile to rise as she likely partners with Texas State Senator (and Latina) Leticia R. Van de Putte, who will likely be on the ticket as lieutenant governor. It's a dream ticket for Democrats, with little chance of success, but with an eye toward turning Texas blue one of these days.

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I published these pieces back in 2008 for North Star Writers Group, the syndicate I ran at the time. This was the most widely read piece we ever had at NSWG, but because NSWG never gained the high-profile status of the major syndicates, this piece still didn't reach as many people as I thought it deserved to. Today, given the much broader reach of CainTV and yet another incidence of Hillary's arrogance in dealing with a congressional committee, I think it deserves another airing. For the purposes of simplicity, I've combined the two pieces into one very long one. If you're interested in understanding the true character of Hillary Clinton, it's worth your time to read it.

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying.

The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary's history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther - and goes much deeper - than anyone realizes.

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy's chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation - one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman's 17-year career.

Why?

"Because she was a liar," Zeifman said in an interview last week. "She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality."

How could a 27-year-old House staff member do all that? She couldn't do it by herself, but Zeifman said she was one of several individuals - including Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum - who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigatio

Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach - including Kennedy's purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.

The actions of Hillary and her cohorts went directly against the judgment of top Democrats, up to and including then-House Majority Leader Tip O'Neill, that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel. Zeifman says that Hillary, along with Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar, was determined to gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon. And in order to pull this off, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception.

The brief involved precedent for representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. When Hillary endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding, Zeifman says, he told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970.

"As soon as the impeachment resolutions were introduced by (then-House Minority Leader Gerald) Ford, and they were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, the first thing Douglas did was hire himself a lawyer," Zeifman said.

The Judiciary Committee allowed Douglas to keep counsel, thus establishing the precedent. Zeifman says he told Hillary that all the documents establishing this fact were in the Judiciary Committee's public files. So what did Hillary do?

"Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public," Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding - as if the Douglas case had never occurred.

The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.

Zeifman says that if Hillary, Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar had succeeded, members of the House Judiciary Committee would have also been denied the right to cross-examine witnesses, and denied the opportunity to even participate in the drafting of articles of impeachment against Nixon.

Of course, Nixon's resignation rendered the entire issue moot, ending Hillary's career on the Judiciary Committee staff in a most undistinguished manner. Zeifman says he was urged by top committee members to keep a diary of everything that was happening. He did so, and still has the diary if anyone wants to check the veracity of his story. Certainly, he could not have known in 1974 that diary entries about a young lawyer named Hillary Rodham would be of interest to anyone 34 years later.

But they show that the pattern of lies, deceit, fabrications and unethical behavior was established long ago - long before the Bosnia lie, and indeed, even before cattle futures, Travelgate and Whitewater - for the woman who is still asking us to make her president of the United States.

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News release from Senate Republican Caucus:
NASHVILLE - State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) and State Senator Mike Bell (R-Riceville) today called on Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper to join his counterparts in eleven other states in asking Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to go through proper channels before changing rules for the federal health care plan commonly referred to as Obamacare.

Attorney Generals in West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia wrote Sebelius a letter last week expressing concern that HHS has proposed a rule which "both compounds illegal executive action and fails to protect the privacy of consumers using the health insurance exchanges."

Kelsey and Bell also urged Cooper to file a lawsuit with other attorney generals based on the problems enumerated by the letter, particularly as it concerns illegal rules that have not been authorized by congressional action. The lawmakers said this includes enforcement of some parts of the federal healthcare law, while delaying other provisions in violation of constitutional authority.

"Tennesseans are concerned with the illegal action being taken by the Obama administration without congressional approval," said Senator Kelsey. "The only way Tennessee can enter into a lawsuit is if the Attorney General decides to. That is why I am calling on General Cooper to fight Obamacare today by challenging these illegal decisions."

"The overstepping of authority in regards to Obamacare rules has been breathtaking," added Senator Bell. "Our citizens' privacy is greatly compromised as a result of these rules. The overreach of power will continue unless states challenge these actions through the courts."

The attorney generals objected to five major administrative directives:

· Although they support allowing citizens to keep their cancelled health insurance plan, the attorney generals wrote that they only way to legally fix the problem is through congressional action rather than administrative rule.

· They asked HHS to implement commonsense safeguards to protect the security of consumers' private information throughout the enrollment process on the healthcare exchanges.

· They called for rigorous training requirements and accountability for all programs using those governing state-licensed insurance agents and brokers as models to ensure a basic proficiency regarding consumers' health insurance options.

· They asked for explanation regarding help for defrauded consumers whose personal information was improperly shared, including clarification of liability when the information is wrongly disclosed.

· They asked HHS to work in partnership with state consumer protection efforts. In particular, they asked for clarification regarding federal requirements so they do not bar states from imposing certification and licensing requirements like surety bonds and acts-and-omissions insurance, on non-profit assistance groups who are not licensed agents or brokers.