Jill Stein is afforded no Secret Service protection, leaving her extremely vulnerable. Not from a modern-day Booth or Oswald. Nor even from John Hinckley, as assassinating someone who is polling a distant fourth would impress no one.

But there is a slim chance Stein could become this year’s Ralph Nader, garnering enough far-left votes in a swing state to defeat the Democratic candidate. This year, that candidate is Hillary Clinton, who with her husband, controls the most efficient killing machines since Kevorkian. At least according to ever-growing number of Internet lists containing supposed enemies or inconveniences the Clintons have had taken care of.

Unlike most conspiracy theories of the Cyber Age, this one has a known starting point: The demented mind of Linda Thompson. In the course of investigating the ATF raid on the Branch Davidian compound, Thompson found 24 persons who she suspected Bill Clinton of having offed.

She wrote every member of Congress with her suspicions, and while none responded, she did gain an ally in former Rep. William Dannemeyer. With his influence, Thompson’s list went from obscurity to something that was at least indirectly endorsed by Jerry Falwell. The number of persons forwarding the list went from dozens to thousands. Dannemeyer called for Congressional hearings, which were not held, thereby providing theorists with more proof of a cover-up.

The list expanded to 34 victims before Thompson died of an overdose of prescription pills, which were presumably force fed to her by Janet Reno. Thompson left behind a list void of any sources or references and which periodically veered into rants about black helicopters and FEMA camps.

The most well-known name on the list is Vince Foster, whose death resulted in five independent investigations affirming it was a suicide. Among Thompson’s unsubstantiated assertions were that the Clintons ordered Foster’s death to be only investigated by park rangers and that the gun and suicide note were both planted on him after he died.

The other prominent figure included is Ron Brown, who died in a plane crash. In one way, Brown’s inclusion is inconsistent, as Clinton’s secretary of commerce dying would be of no benefit to him. At the same time, it is consistent with a list built on wild speculation and making no attempt to present any evidence. Believers assert the deaths benefited Clintons in some way and let it be assumed they ordered the hits.

The names on these various lists have ballooned to nearly 100, with very few of the deaths suspicious. They are heart attacks, suicides, airplane crashes, and automobile accidents. These persons allegedly were causing the Clintons varying levels of discomfort, which almost always turns out to be untrue. But even if true, it is a non sequitur to deduce that the Clintons had them killed. They could benefit from the deaths without being the cause of them.  

Percentagewise, the Clintons have had no more associates die than anyone else. Their rise to power necessitated that they have a much larger, ever changing circle of persons that came in and out of their lives. That leaves a very large pool of persons with potential to make it on the lists. And these lists include persons having only the most fleeting, irrelevant connection to the Clintons. In some cases, the lone tie is having worked for the government during Bill Clinton’s time as governor or president, or during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as senator or secretary of state.

Then there are the glaring omissions, in the form of a still-breathing Ken Starr, Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Rush Limbaugh.

There are many lists out there, but all have these distinctions:

1. They include deceased persons with even the most ridiculously tenuous connection to the villainous Clintons. Cause of death or relationship to the accused is irrelevant. The important factor is to get the list as long as possible, both so the presidential perpetrators will seem more sociopathic, and because few persons beyond the Snopes gang are going to investigate the whole thing.
2. They lean heavily on words like mysterious, suspicious, alleged, or unexplained. If an autopsy determines the cause of death to be a suicide, natural causes or an overdose, it is said to have been “ruled” that. This implies that a more sinister cause of death was dismissed by coroners on the Clinton payroll.
3. They gloss over 99 percent of the published reports in order to highlight strange details that would have no bearing on the person’s demise. Snopes put it thusly: “If an obvious suicide is discovered wearing only one shoe, ignore the physical evidence of self-inflicted death and dwell on the missing shoe. You don’t have to establish an alternate theory of the death; just keep harping that the missing shoe can’t be explained.”

By following these guidelines, any unexplained death (or even explained ones) can automatically be attributed to the former and possibly future Presidents Clinton.

A trio of quick examples. James McDougal, the Clintons’ Whitewater partner, died in prison from a heart attack. These lists never explain what the point is supposed to be. There was nothing suspicious, there was no gain for the Clintons, and no evidence they were responsible for it.

Also, former White House intern Mary Mahoney was one of three persons murdered in a Starbucks during a robbery gone wrong. The accompanying claim is that she was going to testify about Bill Clinton sexually harassing White House workers. In truth, she was not going to testify and she is one of hundreds of former Clinton White House interns, almost all of whom are still alive.

Paul Tully’s death is on the list and is labeled suspicious and without an autopsy. In fact, there was an autopsy and it concluded that the cause was the not-at-all suspicious heart attack.

The overriding claim is that these lists are full of victims killed for exposing or hindering the Clintons. That persons are alive to circulate these lists makes the claim self-defeating.